[Ep. 412] Why You Need to Start Thinking Rich with Dr. Brad Klontz and Adrian Brambila

Hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast.

I’m your host, Jessica Moorhouse.

Welcome back to the show for a fresh new episode.

And this one is very special because I have not one, but two amazing guests on the show.

They have a new book that is coming out that they co-authored called Start Thinking Rich:, 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Rich:.

And I’ve got to say, and this is something we talk about in the episode, they are harsh.

They are quite harsh.

But the message behind them really does come from a place of caring and love.

And as you see, we’re going to talk about so many different things in this episode.

But ultimately, the goal really is to make you feel good about the chances of you actually one day becoming rich, wealthy, a millionaire, whatever you want to call it.

Because even though there are a lot of barriers and everyone has different circumstances, and we cannot ignore those.

We have to acknowledge them.

At the end of the day, and this is something that’s really interesting that one of the guests talks about, you know, there is always a path forward.

There is always a way to improve your financial situation and their circumstances.

And so ultimately, the book is really about hope.

And so who I have on the show, I’m very excited.

First, I’ve got Dr.

Brad Klontz.

I’ve been following him for a while.

Big fan of lots of his books.

He is a psychologist, a CFP, and of course, an expert when it comes to things like financial psychology, financial planning, and of course, behavioral finance.

He is also an associate professor of practice at Creighton University.

Honestly, I’ve been looking at that program for a while, so I may be taking it in the future.

And he’s also the co-founder of the Financial Psychology Institute.

Now, Brad, besides doing all that, which is pretty impressive, he also has a huge social media following of about 1.4 million followers.

And that’s really because over the past few years, he’s been using platforms like TikTok to really push the message of financial wellness, something that he’s been doing in lots of different things, like all of his various books and his teaching for a number of years.

And like I’ve mentioned, this is not his first rodeo.

He has a total of nine books he’s co-authored, including this one, really all on different aspects of psychology and money in my personal favor because I did some research on it and actually reference it in my upcoming book, Mind Over Money.

But all of his books are great.

Definitely make sure to check them out.

Now, joining Brad, we’ve got his co-author, Adrian Brambila, who you may have come across, likely, on TikTok because he’s got a really huge following as well.

He kind of rose to social media stardom by showing what real wealth actually can look like.

He was on his journey of growing his business and earning $1.7 million, all the while living a very minimalist lifestyle in a van.

And we talk about it in the episode.

It’s interesting how they kind of found each other online and then became friends and now co-authors because ultimately they have very similar kind of points of view on how to really make sure money is working for you and that you are doing everything you can do to change your situation and what’s in your control.

And of course, like I always do, I like to spread the love and I will be giving away a copy of their books.

So make sure to go to jessicamoorhouse.com/contest to enter to win.

So without further ado, let’s get to that episode.

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Welcome Brad and Adrian to the More Money Podcast.

So excited to have you both on the show.

Welcome.

Super pumped to be here.

Thank you for having us.

Happy to be here.

Amazing.

Love having two guests on it once.

And especially when they’re co-authors of a book, I really enjoyed how you really were able to have both voices in that book, but have that cohesive message.

Before we hit go, really dive into your book that is brand new, called Start Thinking Rich: 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Rich:.

Brad, let’s start with you.

I’m a bit more familiar with you.

I’ve read a few of your books, Mind Your Money, as one of those, and I’ve been following you for a little bit, especially with the whole financial therapy.

As a Canadian, we are desperate to see, we want to become financial therapists and there’s no access yet.

I have a lot of friends with financial space that are super interested in that space and have found you along the way.

So welcome.

Do you want to share a little bit about your background, and then ultimately, and then we’ll get to you Adrian, and then we can discuss how the heck you two connected, because it seems like you’re kind of from two very different worlds.

We are.

So we have, it’s a weird sort of story on how we got together.

I’m excited to talk about that.

My personal story, I grew up lower income.

My parents divorced when I was two, my mom was a single mom for a while, and I grew up not having much.

Chapter one of our book is Being Poor Sucks.

We actually talk about the data and the science around being poor, and the negative impacts on health and mental health and all sorts of things.

Then the real practical limitations.

I grew up with a lot of experiences of feeling less than others because of how I dressed.

I grew up with experiences of one thing that comes to mind.

I was really into martial arts movies, so Bruce Lee, even as a kid, he was my favorite actor.

I got the opportunity for my birthday to get karate lessons.

I remember being around nine or 10 years old.

This was the most exciting thing for me ever.

I got three months of karate lessons.

Then after month three, my mom’s like, well, sorry, that’s it.

Can’t afford any more karate lessons.

I’ll say this too, this was at the neighborhood rec center.

It wasn’t at some fancy, expensive dojo somewhere.

But I just remember just being so devastated.

It got me really curious because Adrian will tell some of his story, but some of my family has been in the United States since the Mayflower.

Oh, wow.

And yet both of my grandparents on both sides, both lived in trailer parks.

And it just, I was really curious from a young age, like why do all these hardworking, God-fearing, good people with good morals, why are we all broke?

Like for generations, what’s going on here?

And so even as a kid, I was really curious.

And I remember having dinner with one of my buddies who I thought they were super rich.

And in retrospect, they were middle class.

But I remember even as a kid in middle school, interviewing the parents, like what did you do?

Where did you go to school?

How are you making money?

And for me, Rich: was they had more than one bathroom.

And so that’s sort of the personal story.

And then fast forward, I became a psychologist.

And because of my own money mishaps, I got really interested in the psychology and mindsets around money, which is really the focus of this book.

Adrian, I want to bring it to you.

Again, you have a very different background, but a lot of similarities.

That’s probably how initially you kind of connected.

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

Most people that know me, it was from the pandemic.

I was living full time in a tiny home van, and I was documenting that.

I’ve been creating content for a long time, since 2010.

And I know you started your blog in 2011.

Those are the early days.

I had just stopped touring as a professional dancer for T-Pain.

And by stopped, I mean, I was let go, and that happens a lot as a dancer.

And so I was living in Dubuque, Iowa, where I went to school, and I didn’t want to move to LA to keep doing dance.

And so I took to YouTube to teach people how to dance the robot.

And my very first side hustle, which turned into my full time job, was creating the number one place people learn how to dance the robot online, which was cool.

Is it still online?

Can I still learn?

You can still learn.

I’m 35 now, you’re gonna be learning from like a 21 year old Adrian, 22 year old Adrian.

I need someone my age to teach me how to do the robot though.

You know, like, I don’t want a 21 year old.

I got bad knees.

For real, I got to, I tell you, but I got addicted to this game of making money online and trying all kinds of things.

I’ve tried pretty much every legit way of making money online, except for like anything NSFW or selling feet picks and never tried any of that stuff.

There’s still time.

All the cool stuff.

There’s still time.

Yeah.

And then, so creating content and the content has changed.

I’m not a pro dancer anymore, just a living room dancer now, but I’ve always documented.

And so living in the van, I already had a very successful business.

I was already a nomad in the year prior to that, lived in Europe for a year with my wife.

And so I was sharing, hey, I’m really transparent about money I make online.

I made $100,000 last month and I live in this van.

And that in shape or form is that was my true life.

And so I would document income, how I did it, fan life.

And that was a complete contradiction to what people think about wealth.

If you’re actually a millionaire, that I would get the comments like this, Adrian, like there’s no way you’re a millionaire because you wouldn’t be living in a van.

Like no true millionaire lives in a van.

And I would get this message a lot.

And it ended up being a very happy accident on my end because I had a personal brand of maybe like 100,000 followers, but it went to near 2,000,000 followers.

And it felt like overnight when this message of like me showing that I’m a minimalist millionaire living in a van and talking about wealth is not actually about objects.

It’s about freedom of time and choice.

And so that was the message I, that kind of catapulted my online brand.

And then it was through TikTok that I met Brad.

And so Brad and I were very different, you know?

I’m much better looking and younger than Brad.

That’s very odd.

No, but although our backgrounds on paper are completely different, my parents immigrated.

I’ll talk about my parents because they inspired me a lot.

My dad immigrated to Mexico, came here when he was 13.

Our messages were the same.

I imagine we have a lot of shared audiences.

People were pulling up TikTok.

They’d see a video about Brad that was talking about the worst degrees you should major, like you could major in, and the worst financial ones, which is a very, I would say, aggressive type of financial piece of content in our world today, which is really soft.

But there actually are terrible majors financially that you could study.

He would make that statement.

Then on my end, I would say something like, rich people, real rich people, they actually don’t care about designer brands.

It’s just that’s all status and fake.

I live in a van and I’m worth more than most people.

These things were like, they would see both of us and I would see his content, he would see mine.

Honestly, as you noticed before we hopped on this live, I was giving crap to Brad.

Our relationship started with just some friendly friends, smack talk because Brad’s not just a co-author, he’s one of my closest friends.

That’s nice.

How long did you know each other before you had a discussion, hey, we should collaborate on a book?

How crazy would that be?

That’s a good question.

How many years?

Five years, roughly.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, something like that.

We’ve been dating a while.

Exactly.

This is a project we’ve been talking about for several years and we just had so much fun putting it together.

We don’t do books for the money.

There’s no money in books.

Yeah.

Really, this is our shared passion on trying to change as many lives as we possibly can.

For me, I mentioned my background.

I wanted to write a manual that does two things.

Number one, what do I actually say to people when I shut the door and they’re in my office and I’m coaching them?

I spent a lot of years working with high school kids.

It’s like, shut the door, let’s have a real talk about the real deal.

This is how society actually works and this is how you can actually thrive and survive and become wealthy.

To try to reach as many people as we could with that message.

That’s been this passion project for me.

One thing that I thought was very interesting, again, Brad, I’ve read a couple of your books.

The one thing that, and again, I follow you on TikTok, I’m not on TikTok that often, but I do follow you on social media.

It was a very interesting, I felt, shift of tone that I was used to from some of your earlier books.

I’m like, oh, oh, wow, that’s, in your face, it felt very, I mean, it’s in the subtitle, these are harsh truths.

Why did you wanna write a book with that specific tone, which it was very, and you make it very clear in the intro, we’re gonna be blunt, we may say some things that you don’t like or agree with or make you uncomfortable.

Why did you wanna take that approach when delivering your message in this book?

Yeah, so it’s a fascinating question.

So first of all, I am a clinical psychologist, so I’m a warm, cuddly therapist.

And I care about your pain, I totally do.

And really with this book, I care so much that I’m willing to sort of shock you a little bit.

How do you get your message through the mess and all the noise when it comes to social media?

And really what I’ve had to learn over time is that if I wanted to create a video that actually had an impact, I have to say sort of like in your face things from the start, you know?

And so really this is literally, so Adrian and I, I think combined, have made about 10,000 videos over the last, you know, five to seven years.

And it’s, you know, on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube and all this.

And I’ve got videos that have, you know, I think my best video is like six million views.

I’ve got million, not all videos by the way, like it’s only a few that go viral, but you can’t really, to get people’s attention, you have to say something that really grabs them in the first five seconds.

And we were very, very, very honest about these titles, by the way.

So we 100% believe that these are true.

Let me get it straight there.

But we also decided just not to sugar coat it.

So that’s really what we’re trying to do here.

We want these chapters to be like, boom, sort of like light bulb moments for you.

And, you know, secondly, if you’re in my office and you’re bawling and crying, I’m probably not gonna read one of these titles out loud for you at that moment.

But I’m eventually gonna want to get around to you understanding this and grasping it.

So they really are truths.

They are harsh.

The chapter titles read sort of like a smack in the face.

And then the chapters themselves, though, really, that’s where you’re gonna feel the therapeutic warm hug, because this isn’t about shaming you.

This isn’t about telling you you did it wrong.

As a matter of fact, we talk a lot about our personal stories in there.

And I’m older than Adrian, so I have way more shameful stories of self-destruction around money than I’d share with people on there.

It’s about recognizing that, and really, this is a book about empowerment.

We’re not saying you can change your life financially to shame you.

It’s to actually empower you.

And so that’s really what it’s designed to do.

But, but we are catching some heat for some of the chapter titles, for sure.

Already?

I mean, as we’re recording this, it’s not out yet.

So some early view or readers?

Yes.

Yes.

Some early reviewers.

And even sort of the publisher at a time or two, like, you sure you really want to say that?

And, you know, so I want to, I want to give people an idea of just like what we’re talking about.

Again, when they grab a copy themselves, they’ll know.

But like you said, the first chapter is called Being Poor Sucks.

I mean, that’s not too harsh.

I think we could all agree.

No one, I don’t like being poor.

It’s not fun.

Only poor people think the system is rigged.

I feel like lots of people may have some feelings about that.

Your teachers can’t teach you how to get rich.

I also feel like that’s fairly accurate when we’re kind of getting into the nut.

I know where you’re kind of coming from.

You don’t deserve more.

You’re getting paid what you’re worth.

When I was reading, I’m like, wow, these are a bit of a smack in the face.

Is part of the approach also that do you feel like there is too much softness in the personal finance space?

I mean, I’ve been doing this for a while.

I’ve seen lots of shifts in tone over the years.

Some of the subtitles even reminded me of early days, 2010 and stuff like that of the, I’m not going to say any names, so it’s some of those really big voices that would say very kind of bam stuff.

But you’re saying you’re doing that to grab people’s attention, but your message is probably a bit different than maybe some of those people.

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We’re so grateful.

I’m grateful for people like you, Jessica, and everyone that creates content, decides to create content online because we could be, we probably are saying the exact same thing in terms of the tactics.

Okay, financial freedom, how to get there.

You got to save more, you got to like not spend, like live under your means.

You got to invest, right?

It’s the same thing.

So, the, why, if it’s so simple, why, at least in America, the average person doesn’t have anything for retirement.

They’re racked up in credit card debt and they’re one, you know, mishap hardship away from going bankrupt, right?

So, what is the messages that’s being portrayed?

And why, if it’s so simple, why aren’t more people do it?

It’s because it’s because of psychology.

And even though we know what to do, we don’t do it.

So, luckily, you know, I’m not, this approach of being a little more brash and being more tough love, I’m not saying it’s the right approach because I imagine you, Jessica, especially you’ve been creating content since 2011, you’ve probably changed a lot of lives with your approach.

And I’ve also changed my tone too, you know, and it’s evolved for sure.

But you’re saying maybe this tone or this, you know, kind of way of doing it will get those people’s attention that maybe other stuff just isn’t, it’s not hitting in the same way.

I would say that’s part of it.

But I also, I want to be very clear here that if I actually loved you, this is what I would say to you.

If I was worried about hurting your feelings, if I was worried about you judging me, if I was worried about all that, I wouldn’t be telling you this.

I mean, so quite literally, for me, it’s like this is literally the stuff that I tell my children, that I tell the people that I have report with, that are in my coaching, consulting conversations.

This is literally door shut.

I’m going to give it to you straight.

By the way, it’s not just to get attention.

This is actually all based on research.

The mindsets we’re talking about in here have been done.

I’ve done a lot of research on poor people, like their psychology, middle class, and ultra wealthy.

I did that just for the express purpose, by the way, of helping people like me go from the poor, which sucks, to being rich, which is awesome.

Quite literally, that has been what’s been driving my research.

This book is really hanging that information in various chapters and talking about these various concepts that literally, if you don’t change your belief around this, you will be poor forever.

And I love you way too much to not tell you.

That’s essentially where I’m coming from with this.

I love that.

So let’s kind of get to some of those messages.

I’m sure, you know, again, you come from kind of different backgrounds, different life experiences.

How did you hone in on these are the things that we need to say, because maybe someone’s never told this reader this before.

How we tested each chapter, because a finance book, like I have Money Master of the Game, Tony Robbins.

That book is huge.

It’s like 500 pages.

It’s a textbook, yeah.

I read it like two books a week.

And I think when we were coming up, it’s like, well, what do we want to talk about?

Because like we don’t, I know we didn’t want to write this huge 500 page book.

We wanted to make an impact.

We wanted to be effective.

And so we actually use social media and we have almost like 3 million followers each to like test on what matters to our, what matters most.

So like I would do, I would create a post on my Facebook and I would say something like, you don’t deserve to have a credit card if you can’t pay out the full statement balance in full every month.

And based off that reaction, controversy, and then also learning, like does everyone’s like, yeah, no, no crap, like obviously, but that’s true.

But that’s actually not the comments we were getting.

We were getting comments that said, that’s wrong.

That’s not how you build credit.

You have to leave a big like a balance.

In fact, people would say like the bigger balance you leave than the better your credit score gets.

Never do this.

This guy’s an idiot.

So to learning from that, I was like, whoa, this is actually not common sense on how to use a credit card effectively.

Credit score, like these are assumptions.

And I’ve learned so much from BAT of like, how does someone get to think this way?

Well, we don’t get usually a great example of how to operate around money and have build a great money script as Brad has pioneered these things that we inherit from our parents.

Typically, we don’t get the best example.

So instead of me judging that person like, no, you’re an idiot, it’s more of like, no, this is an opportunity.

And I don’t blame this person or anyone that doesn’t know how to use a credit card correctly, because if they would never shown the way, how are they supposed to learn?

And so this concept of like, using social media and testing engagement, and also where was the most, I guess, margin of error of like, what is the proper way?

What would most people say how to do this?

And then there’s also some, I would say, there’s some gray areas with finance, where it’s not, this is the step-by-step approach and it works for everyone.

It’s not a one size fits all.

And like one element that Brad and I would say like, I wouldn’t say, yeah, we had difference of opinions.

I like to say we bumped heads, but we really didn’t bump heads because we love each other.

It was more of like the home thing.

So I come from the fire movement.

I’m sure people in your pockets are funny.

So I was living the fire movement.

And so Brad is like, no homes, that’s where it’s at.

Like, and he would talk about like homes and why that’s a great investment.

And people in the fire movement are like, no, that’s not right.

So both of them work.

And we talked about both why the fire movement can be really good and also really bad.

And one of the chapters is retirement for dead people.

So a lot of people in the fire movement, they’re trying to retire as fast as possible.

And they’re sacrificing a lot of their, they can sacrifice a lot of the good part of living.

So then when they get to, and congratulations, you’re now retired at 40.

And then you’re bored out of your mind.

So what do you do?

You go back to work, right?

That’s a realistic scenario.

And then on the mortgage side, like I try to put data on why a more like renting can be better if you invest it.

But again, we’re emotional people.

How many people do that?

Difficult.

Basically no one.

So Brad, you know, countered his argument, saying, well, what a mortgage does, even though it may not be, according to math, the best investment, it’s for savings.

So that’s why on a psychological level, why mortgages end up being a great way why people become millionaires.

So again, some chapters, like when it comes to credit card, I mean, it’s pretty like, you got to do these things and this is like the right way to do it.

And then when it comes to other things, like there’s different perspectives and we share that because Brad and I are not the same person, but we do want to help you and we also want to paint that there are multiple ways to get to financial freedom.

Yeah.

I mean, that’s, I think, a big part of personal finance.

There’s a lot of nuance.

There’s a lot of times where it’s like both things can be true at the same time.

And there’s the cliche personal finances, personal at the end of the day.

You talk about a variety of topics, which I really appreciate and again, a lot of nuance, a lot of different stories and perspectives.

Ultimately, it seems like mindset is the key.

And you mentioned that in the intro, most people are millionaire or American specifically, the data you kind of showed, are employees.

But I also see, you probably see this content online as well.

A lot of the information that’s pushed about you want to be a millionaire, you got to start a business.

You got to start a side hustle.

You got to be an entrepreneur, which again, I have my own business.

I’m self-employed and it’s definitely helped me with my financial situation.

But not everyone can be a business owner because then we’re all just business owners, trying to get each other’s business.

What would you say to someone who’s like, I like my day job, but I see everyone saying that it’s not possible to become a millionaire.

Do you want to debunk that?

Because that’s not true.

Most millionaires are employees.

One of the mindsets of success and wealth is being flexible in your thinking.

In other words, open minded.

And so one of the things that’s been so fun about social media is I’ll put a post out there like, you know, the average college grad, you know, college is still worth it, like, you know, statistically.

And then people say, no, it’s not.

Everything’s changed.

And I’m like, oh, really?

Has everything changed?

By the way, I’m willing to totally change my mind instantly.

By the way, either one of you can absolutely convince me to change any belief I have right now, because I’m more interested in what’s effective and what’s true.

Right?

And so it’s about diving in and saying, well, is that actually true?

And so being open minded is so incredibly important in terms of your ability to become wealthy.

And so all these chapters are really designed to try to help you really examine your thinking and your beliefs, because really it does come down to mindset.

Like personal finance, there’s some important things you need to learn to do.

But this is where most people trip up.

They’re not saving enough for the future, and they’re spending more than they make.

And we have yet to run across somebody who already doesn’t know better, you know?

So what we’re really trying to do here is shift mindsets.

And so each one of these chapters is sort of a standalone essay that we really are, we’re really prepared to talk about the absolute worst of it.

And I always like to blame Adrian for the worst titles, even though it’s not true.

But really what we are trying to do, give it to you straight, and then we’re going to give you the data to back it up.

I have to talk about entrepreneurship because I teach a lot of my audience is single moms, stay at home moms.

I’ve taught over 50,000 people how to start an online business.

And I am not one of the entrepreneurs that say college is bad or whack.

I don’t also say like you should, the only way to make it is to be an entrepreneur.

I try to make clear like I think starting a business has changed.

Like there’s a lot of things you can do.

I’ll be really specific instead of being high level.

On Amazon, in Canada, I have a lot of Canadian students and in the US, you can actually make a product review and not even show your face, point your phone, you can upload it.

And Amazon will pay you if people watch the video and then they buy.

And next time you’re on Amazon, I noticed that there’s actually little videos now from regular people like you and me.

And if you watch that, you buy, you make money.

And so this has been really popular with stay home moms.

Traditionally, starting a business meant taking on debt, going to the bank, presenting a business plan, and it had a really high risk.

Something like this, like the internet is constantly innovation, AIs is on top.

And this little business I’ve talked about, the right term is UGC, user generated content.

So is it a business?

No.

And I say this is just a little income opportunity.

In fact, I don’t call it business because Amazon controls the whole, like all of the data.

And like you could wake up to an email one day and Amazon says, hey, by the way, we canceled the program.

So that’s part of it.

But I do think that for those people that are interested, there are opportunities where you don’t have to take on debt or leverage, and it’s not as risky.

It’s still your time.

There’s never a guarantee that anything will work, but there’s all kinds of weird, unique ways where you can do something on the side.

We know what the chapter titles is about doing a side hustle.

People who binge Netflix will always be poor.

Instead of binging Netflix, you binge books.

One of my favorite things I did was I took an entire series like Game of Thrones and added up all the time, and I basically equated to like, this is enough time for you to learn how to actually create a business on Etsy.

So everyone has the time to do these things and learn, but it is really risky and Brad always mentioned this, and I mentioned it too now because of it, it’s like 95% of businesses fail.

And I don’t know what the status on all the people who try any type of way to make money, selling candles on Etsy or doing UGC, but the majority of people do not make money.

It’s just the truth.

Yeah, and again, too, like if the majority, like if you watch social media, you’re gonna think, oh, I’m never gonna be rich unless I’m an entrepreneur.

Now, granted, you’re talking like we’re all three entrepreneurs, right?

So I’m not against it.

But I’ve also, I became a millionaire while essentially, well, while absolutely working in a public school.

I got my first million dollars by working in a public school.

And it’s like, if you think that the only way you can become a millionaire is to own a business, it’s just a horrific mindset because, first of all, it’s not true, you know, first of all, so you got to sort of wrestle with that.

And also, if you don’t have the mindset of how to become a millionaire as an employee, you’ll never become a millionaire as an entrepreneur.

I mean, it’s the same mindset.

And the mindset is money’s coming in, and I’m going to be taking a portion of that, setting it aside for my financial freedom, and I’m not gonna mess with it.

I’m not gonna go take that and gamble on a business.

Most businesses fail.

I’ll be using other sources of income to start a business.

And one of the things that Adrian and I, we have different routes to becoming multimillionaires, but one of the things we shared is that we never did anything really dumb to start a business.

We talked about it.

Neither one of us, we both have multimillion dollar generating businesses.

We haven’t taken out loans to get those started.

We’re a bit risk averse.

We know the stats on those loans.

And I’ve seen so many people hurt by this.

They have this business they want to start.

They go take out a loan, and then they’re stuck with the loan.

By the way, when your business dissolves, the banks are really smart, and they’ve attached that loan to you as a person.

We know, they know you got an LLC.

They know you got all this.

Uh-uh, uh-uh.

They’re coming for you.

You know, you can’t hide.

And so this book, the thing I love about this book, it’s not just mindset, it’s not just about how she’d invest.

Adrian brings to the table all these years of mastery around how to make money, doing side hustles.

And right now the hugest opportunity is online.

I’ll tell you a little thing, because it was just this weekend.

So he mentioned the Amazon program.

Well, my son wants a job, and he’s 11.

And so literally, my son is going to make $5,000 this month, making Amazon review videos, and he’s 11, okay?

Better than a lemonade stand, that’s for sure.

Exactly.

He writes the scripts, he shoots the videos, he edits them in the software.

My philosophy is like, these are life skills he can have the rest of his life, even if we don’t make any money.

But quite literally, he’s 11 and he’s doing all the work.

I’m just there helping him.

We believe this is possible for everyone, everyone.

The book is about mindsets, but it’s also really practical ways to increase your income.

That’s what Adrian brings to the table in a real profound way.

Like you said, the mindset is the most important.

If you don’t see a way, a path of becoming a millionaire as an employee, it’s not going to work out if you’re a self-employed, that’s for sure because there’s so many other things you have to focus on when you’re self-employed as well.

But it is really just this idea that, do you feel like the biggest thing that is the barrier for people changing their mindset and actually doing what they know they should be doing all along is that they just don’t think that it’s possible for them?

They’re like, yeah, that’s possible for so and so and so and so, but not for me, not in my circumstance.

Is that like a big barrier, C?

Yeah, so we could go through several of the chapters where we hit on this.

Like you mentioned only poor people think the system is rigged.

And it’s like, is the system unfair?

A hundred percent, a thousand percent.

And based on your demographics, it might be way more unfair than it is for other people.

So first of all, let’s just get that out of the way.

Like it’s absolutely unfair for a lot of people, a hundred percent.

But the word rigged, the word rigged is a life constraining or changing word.

And so what we’ve done in that chapter is we have reframed it as, it’s a game, okay?

And so it’s a game.

And by the way, if you’re, if you don’t know the rules of the game, if you don’t know how to play the game, you’re gonna lose every single time.

And so we use the example of like, if you want to go play football and you walk in there with a pickleball paddle without a helmet, you’re gonna get destroyed.

And that’s what we’re doing.

When you grow up poor, you’re sort of stuck with a pickleball paddle.

By the way, we love pickleball.

The opposite works too.

Like if you show up with cleats on the pickleball court with a helmet with no paddle, you’re gonna lose.

But you gotta figure out what the game is, what you wanna do, and then you can win it.

And we truly believe that it’s available for anyone.

And I sort of challenge people, because we’ve gotten some blowback too.

People have disadvantages along the way, of course, of course.

But I’m challenging people that you give us the person who it’s impossible for based on any of those things.

We want a name, and we want a number, and we wanna make a bet with you that we can’t help them make money and transform their financial life, because we’re pretty sure we can do it.

And we’ve got to have somebody actually give us the name of the person who it’s impossible for.

And that’s really a big part of this this book’s message is we truly believe it’s possible for everyone if you have the right mindset and use the right strategies.

I just think of my parents.

My dad, when he came here to when he was 13, my grandma is really the person in the house.

So my dad’s dad was murdered when he was five.

And so my grandma had four kids to look after and she was commuting to Mexico or from Mexico to like Southern California back to try to save enough money to bring the whole family here.

Eventually she did.

And I was raised in the lens that we left the bad place.

This is the good place.

Now, the people that are born in the States and even people that immigrate here, it’s not perfect.

But I have this immigrant mindset even though I didn’t immigrate here.

And I feel like I think one of the best ways to learn is to learn through other people’s experience.

I’ve actually interviewed my grandma.

I hired my videographer to interview and ask her all the questions of what it was like.

And I learned so much.

She’s faced every single adversity and the worst ones that you don’t even want to think about.

I gained so much gratitude for what she did and the struggles.

My dad actually went hungry and they struggled to eat.

Back in the day, my dad had to go steal food to eat.

That’s a pain that I’ll never have.

So I think of trying to learn from that.

And now when I got to my earning abilities of 18, 20, I had some bad things to carry with you like we all do.

Those are the good.

I still have this rosy, optimistic lens that this place and places that basically aren’t third world countries, you can elevate your class, you can work hard and create.

That’s a belief that I have.

I saw it.

Now, I know most people or not everyone gets that belief.

They actually get the opposite.

But you still have to work through that.

And this is why you listen to podcasts like this one and you try to meet people, you try to grow if you have that belief.

If you don’t have the belief that in some of these chapter titles, like if you believe everything is rigged, like you’re going to stay stuck.

So I think the idea to becoming rich, it starts with thinking rich.

It’s like the first idea is like, I can actually change my circumstance.

And that’s a belief that you have to first have.

Because if you think everything you’re doing and you don’t have that belief, what’s the point?

What’s the point?

You know, don’t save then.

Spend every dollar.

Rack up your credit card debt, right?

Like the, it’s that first idea.

But I think some of the bad things I learned was my parents, they worked so hard.

I saw them working so hard.

And not that they told me this, but I just saw it.

So I felt actually that in order for me to accumulate wealth, I have to like break my back.

I have to like sacrifice so much.

And every person that’s successful does sacrifice, but I’ll just share really quickly.

When I made my first thousand dollars online, took two and a half years.

It was when I created my very first product.

It was a 60-minute dance tutorial, cost 25 bucks.

And instead of feeling really excited for finally making thousand dollars, and by the way, at the time I was working at Prudential Retirement and Customer Service, I was making minimum wage, I felt guilty.

I felt guilty because making money from YouTube videos and dancing was not hard.

I actually enjoyed it very much.

It was very fun.

But because I didn’t really break my back to do this, it was actually thought it was fun.

And I felt guilty that I made so much money, more money than my nine to five job.

And that’s something I had to work through.

I had to readjust like what it means to be wealthy.

And now my definition is the more value I give, the more money I make.

So I need to help more people.

I need to teach, I need to make impact.

And then that is the reason why I make money, not necessarily I need to, it needs to be painful.

And the more pain I create, the more wealth I make.

And that’s kind of what I just saw my parents do.

So I had some of that thinking.

So again, I just wanted to share it.

I didn’t just get all this.

Sometimes even when you get a great example, it also comes with some other things.

And Brad actually is really great at talking about, like people assume a lot of things, especially right now in politics, they talk about privilege a lot.

People born in privilege actually don’t have it figured out.

And Brad has done a lot of studies, like we talk about, we’ve mentioned poor a lot.

Poor is not money, it’s related, it’s a way of thinking.

So you can have someone that’s born with privilege and say inherits a lot of money, or you can just look at lottery winners.

Why is it that 70% of them, after five years, they lose it all?

Because on paper, they’re rich, but they actually have a poor mindset because they think of, I got this money, now I get to spend it.

And that’s not what a rich person really thinks of.

That’s a poor mindset.

So mindset really comes down to the most critical thing.

Yeah, it sounds like what you’re saying is having a rich mindset, it’s not really about the amount of money you have in your bank account.

It’s really about believing that there’s hope, there’s opportunity, and there’s always a choice that you can change your circumstance.

And when you’re in that poor mindset, that’s really when you box yourself in a little bit and say, sorry, it’s hopeless.

No matter what you do, it’s never going to be good enough.

And like you said, once you’re, that’s just despair.

At that point, you’re just like, yeah, there’s nothing I can do.

And then, yeah, then what’s the point of this all, right?

And we don’t want to live in that space at all.

That’s not a healthy way to live.

Yeah, like in psychology, we have a term for it.

It’s called learned helplessness.

And it’s a terrible, terrible consequence that people get by growing up in environments where there’s abuse, there’s trauma.

Growing up poor is just one trauma after another.

I mean, this is why we want people to be wealthy.

I mean, it’s a terrible emotional experience.

And sometimes it’s downright dangerous.

And we talk about studies that were done.

And if you’re a dog lover, this is terrible.

But the Learn Helplessness studies really involved, essentially, I’ll describe it for you, because people get stuck in this.

So they would stick a dog in a cage, and they would shock it, right?

So there’d be electric shock on the bottom of the cage, and the dog would jump and try to escape and move all over.

By the way, terrible experiments.

And then what they did, though, is they then separated the cage in half with a little barrier.

And on one side was the shock, and on the other side was no shock.

So all the dog had to do was just, so jump over the barrier, boom, no shock.

And what they found is that dogs who weren’t first put in that condition of helplessness where no escape was possible, they would just jump over.

You know, they’re trying to find escape, boom, there it is.

The dogs who had been in that first condition where there was no escape, they didn’t even try.

They laid down and they just whimpered because they realized from earlier experiences escape is impossible no matter what I do, it’s not going to make a difference.

And so they never tried.

And so what we’re really trying to do here is help people and across the board, but especially the people who have had that helplessness feeling.

And that’s what we’re trying to shake up by telling you things like, you know, you’re not, you don’t deserve to get paid more, you’re getting paid what you’re worth.

Like that is a parenting message I give my children.

Like I talked about, I’m not being mean, but like when my kids are like, you know, when we first got to baseball and they’re like, oh, I don’t like baseball because I suck.

I’m like, well, of course you suck.

You’re terrible.

You’ve never played baseball before.

Like, what are you even thinking?

You know, of course we suck at everything until we learn it, you know?

And for me personally, I got a grad school with $100,000 in student loan debt.

I didn’t know how people got rich.

I made all sorts of mistakes, including day trading and losing all my money.

And it’s like, oh, you know, I felt such shame, I felt such embarrassment, but I had to take responsibility for it.

And that’s where the empowerment is.

And so I asked myself, why would a reasonably intelligent person do something so stupid with his money?

That was a question I asked myself.

And that’s the question I encourage people to ask themselves.

Because if you don’t blame yourself to a degree, and do it in a loving way, right?

A loving way.

Of course you messed up.

You didn’t know any better.

And welcome to the club, you know?

Here are these experts in money talking to you right now.

Jessica, I know you’ve made terrible mistakes around money.

I’ve made terrible mistakes around money.

We all have, right?

And so welcome to the club.

This isn’t about shame.

This is about empowerment because what we have found in the studies, it’s called locus of control in psychology.

You need to have an internal locus of control.

So when things are going wrong in your life, the best effective strategy for you, for your own success, and this isn’t about shame or blame, is to say, where did I go wrong on this?

What mistakes did I make?

This business failed.

What signs did I miss?

What do I need to know better the next time?

And if you don’t have that mindset, you’re just going to be stuck forever.

And we love you way too much to not give it to you straight.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess another kind of way to frame it is taking that personal responsibility, that accountability, and anything in life, that’s the only way you can move forward, is taking your own, okay, what was my part in it?

Because even if there’s external factors that influenced it or what have you, we’re still, we made choices, you know?

And it’s okay to mess up, but we need to take responsibility and then move forward, because that’s the only way to do it, ultimately.

Absolutely.

You mentioned a little bit about your kind of own definitions of wealth and, you know, you use the term rich a lot.

Now, I think a lot of people get confused by wealth, rich, and what does that actually mean?

Because we see a visual of it a lot on TV shows and movies online.

But like you said, Adrian, you lived in a van and you were technically rich.

So, when you’re talking to people about that rich mindset or getting rich, what do you actually want them to understand about what that actually looks like?

So, they don’t make those mistakes to, you know, spend all this time building it and then losing it all.

I think rich and wealth, we use them interchangeably.

And I think, and this is what we lay out in the book, is that they are two different skill sets.

And also when you’re around people, rich is what you see.

So, you see someone in a nice car, that’s what you see.

But wealth is what you don’t see.

And this is why we have the façade of people that are fake rich.

So, and this is why we talk crap against people who wear designer brands.

And studies show, as Brad points out, he’s the data guy, like rich people actually don’t care about brands.

But we see brands and we think rich.

But would you say that everyone that owns a Louis Vuitton, do you think is a millionaire?

Probably not.

It’s actually the opposite.

And then in terms of skill sets, rich is your skill set, your ability to earn income.

And then wealth is your ability to save that income and also invest that income.

And these skill sets are not related at all, which is why 50% of people that make six figures, I would say anyone that makes 100,000 is really good, has a really good rich skill set, they actually live paycheck to paycheck.

So they don’t have that well skill set.

They’re living as high, they’re making six figures and they’re living a six figure lifestyle.

If anything, you always need to live a lifestyle that’s under what you make.

And then on the wealth side, it’s broken as two parts.

So your ability to save, are you saving more than you’re spending?

That’s awesome.

But you can’t save your way to financial freedom.

And then your ability to invest.

Let’s say you make six figures, you save money, and then when it comes to investing, you’re like, guys, I put all my money into the NFT, or just some weird crypto coin, right?

So you could still blow your chance at financial freedom with not getting the investing part back.

So some people choose to outsource this completely.

And I think that also could be scary.

How many terrible scenarios we have of celebrities who’ve hired a financial advisor or someone that they didn’t trust.

But I think it’s not about, trust is huge, but I also think it’s a level of competency to understand.

And anytime you outsource, I have 15 employees.

I know a little bit of how to do their work.

And that little bit protects me to know if that person is actually doing their job or not.

And that’s all you need to know.

You don’t need to know all, you know, you don’t need to read like a whole mutual fund, like every single thing about like each company or index fund ETF.

You don’t have to know all those things.

We have to just know a little if you’re going to outsource, so you know that they’re doing their job, right?

So rich skill set, your ability to earn, wealth skills, your ability to save and your ability to invest.

And to achieve financial freedom, this is the work that you have to do.

You cannot escape it.

You can’t just be good at one thing.

You have to do all three of them.

One of the things we’re super passionate about, and I feel like a troll sometimes when I’m doing this, but I’ve done studies on how rich people actually spend their money.

Now again, I’m very open minded.

And if the study showed that rich people preferred lavish displays of wealth, I would be telling you that right now.

I literally have no skin in the game.

I’m just very curious.

But actually what all the studies have found is that the majority are self-made by the way.

So that’s an interesting one that feels like a slap in the face.

To me, it’s super empowering.

The worst thing you could tell me is that, oh, you got to be born rich.

If that was the truth, I’d be devastated because I wasn’t born rich.

How terrible is that?

Most are self-made.

That’s great news, right?

It’s like seven or, no, it’s eight out of ten.

Self-made.

It’s incredible.

We have this huge opportunity.

Also, what we know about most wealthy people, they describe themselves as frugal.

Now, wrap your head around that.

So they describe themselves as frugal, and actually, they’re more likely to downplay how much money they have.

Now, in our studies on money scripts, we have found that people who have a lower socioeconomic childhood, like me, we have more of a tendency to have outward displays of wealth.

We want to show the world we made it.

When I got out of grad school, I had $100,000 in debt and I went and bought an Omega Speedmaster $2,000 watch.

I have an Apple watch here, but I wanted to show the world, look at me.

Look at me, I made it, I’m important.

So it’s a dead giveaway on social media that when you see people flashing brands and whatever, it’s a dead giveaway that they’re broke, honestly.

So I would love for every child to know this.

By the way, I teach my kids this because it gives you FOMO, right?

You’re looking at there, oh my God, I’m missing out on this, I’m missing out on that.

Chances are they’re broke, chances are they’re broke.

Most of them are trying to sell a Get Rich: Quick program for you, which is a sure sign that they’re broke.

Because they clearly don’t know how to get rich outside of trying to sell people some scammy product.

So we’re pretty passionate about sharing the data, and then I get really mad about things because I worked with teenagers for so long.

Anything that I feel like is exploitive, trying to take advantage of them, trying to sell them a lie, I get really pissed off about it.

And so that’s why I make all this trolly comment around.

And our chapter title is, Only Broke and Insecure People Flex Luxury Brands.

And invariably what we hear is like, yeah, what about the Kardashians?

And then I sort of have to laugh because the only labels that influencers and wealthy people display, like Adrian’s displaying a couple of labels right now, are the ones that they either own themselves or they’re getting paid to display.

And that’s why they’re doing it.

And much respect there.

By the way, I have a tiger’s hat on, and that’s just strictly because I want to throw the first pitch someday if anyone has any connections.

But, and I live in a very wealthy area right now.

And when you walk around town, you see zero labels.

It’s fascinating.

Where I grew up in a lower-income working class, there’s tons of labels all over the place.

Wake up, people.

Wake up.

That’s not how people get rich, and that’s not how rich people spend their money.

I guess the same could be said.

I know there’s data around this too about cars.

And in my neighborhood, we definitely have the crappiest car.

And I’m fine with that.

It has a crack in the windshield.

It’s a 15-year-old high on a hatchback, and it works just fine.

And we’re going to drive that into the grand because it’s been paid off for a while.

I don’t want to spend money that I don’t have to.

But everyone else has a really…

There’s a neighbor nearby who just moved into a home, and he has like a Lexus.

And I’m like, what do you do?

What do you do for a living?

Because we all kind of know each other’s home values and stuff, and I’m like, things are just not adding up, you know?

Yeah, and by the way, too, I’ll say this, and then Adrian, I want you to chime in because I know exactly what you’re going to say.

We are pro spending your money any way you want.

Sure, it’s your money.

To accentuate your life.

If you want a particular car, you want a particular this or that or the other, we want you to have it.

But what you’ll notice, and Adrian has some nice stuff, I got some nice stuff, right?

But I dare you to go on our social media and try to find us displaying these wealthy things.

You’re not going to find it because we know it’s not only the wrong message, but it’s sort of desperate.

I want you to like me or respect me more because I have this flashy thing.

It kind of works the opposite.

But there’s a way to get that stuff in a good way.

And Adrian’s about to share it with you.

This is the rich mindset on getting nice things.

Go ahead, Adrian.

Yeah, so the wealthy people, and I think there is, if you want nice things, that is okay.

And even though the minimalist of me would say objects own you, you don’t own objects, you can still have nice things or spend money, experiences.

You can still be lavish.

And there’s a lot of things I’m lavish.

I’m very lavish on experiences.

I fly my parents’ first class.

We go out to dinner.

I’ve spent $1,000 on meals before.

I love gifting experiences too.

And gifting, like very generous, right?

But I don’t trade my time for it.

So I do have a nice car.

I got the Cybertruck.

No, you didn’t.

I did.

I’ll only be mad when he’s leaning up against it on Instagram, you know, otherwise.

My only issue is it looks way too sharp.

Those corners look way too sharp.

You be careful, okay?

I have cut myself already.

No, I’m just kidding.

But I appreciate you being real with me, Jessica, and give me that reaction.

But here’s the thing.

So if you were looking at wanting to get a cyber truck, if you’re thinking, okay, I make X amount of dollars at my job, and if I break down my hourly, so that means I need to work for at least a year, eight months or six months.

I need to work 100 hours or 50 hours, a thousand hours to get here.

That’s not how wealthy people think about buying objects.

That’s what I would say a poor mindset in terms of buying stuff.

If you think of like you want to get the next PS5, okay, I got to work 10 hours more and then I can afford that.

That is literally trading your time for an object and that is always a losing trade.

You should never trade your time because that’s our most valuable asset.

What wealthy people do is they say, oh, I want to buy this Cybertruck.

I want to buy this PS5.

I’m going to invest and when my investment pays an income, I’m going to take that income and now I make that per month, every month.

Now I can afford that.

So I’m actually not trading my time.

I’m actually buying the object or I’m living my whole cost.

Like for example, like specifically for me, my entire cost of living is paid for from investments.

And when I was living in the van, 95% of every dollar I made went to investments.

So like that investment income pays for my cost of living.

So I could live a lot more lavish.

I still live way underneath my.

I’m Debbie Travis and I’m excited to announce that I have a new book.

It’s called Laugh More Stories from an Unexpected Life.

I mean, aren’t we all in desperate need of a good laugh?

Laugh More is about a wild and crazy year in Tuscany where I live at Villa Reniella, where I run an olive oil farm and hold retreats for women.

Oh, and classic car rallies.

I’ll tell you, life is never boring here.

So I began to write down the day-to-day commotions.

And you know, when you tell a story, it triggers memories.

So I delve into my past, growing up headstrong in the north of England in a large family with a young and beautiful widowed mother.

And mad tales of me traveling the world as a model and starting the first decorating show in North America.

And since memories are often ignited by great food, I’ve added some of my favorite Tuscan recipes.

Laugh More is available for pre-order now and from the 22nd of October at all your favorite bookstores.

Online at debbietravis.com and there’s an audio book read of course by me.

So curl up with a cuppa or a glass of wine and let’s have a good laugh.

Means, but because I’ve been investing for so long now, that momentum and that passive income keeps getting higher.

And to me, that to me is my fun money.

That is to me my money where I spend.

And my parents, they just started collecting Social Security.

They also work part time for me as their little side hustle.

My mom’s customer service.

My dad helps with like affiliate management.

And if you do not spend money through your investments, you’re going to be just like my parents.

And please, if you have advice, I would love to hear it.

My parents, I think they’re at like, actually, they never gave me permission to say, so I won’t say that.

But basically, they’re making so much money, it’s almost like they’re working full time again, like one and a half times their income.

And my dad is the kind of person still, despite that, if I, and I’m almost starting to not to like, take my dad out to a nice dinner, because even if he has the best steak of his life, all he says like, that’s expensive.

Like, that’s almost become a personality trait of him to say that’s expensive.

And now my parents are not spending money.

They can’t spend money.

And they still look at the price tag when, like I told them, like, if you continue to live like you were like 30 years ago to get here, like what kind of quality of life is that?

Like, they’ve almost gotten so used to like, you know, looking at discounts and like now it’s like you need to spend money and like experience.

And now I feel like I have to try to fight them for them to spend money and live a live life.

And that to me is like, it makes me sad a bit because this is the one thing I’ve tried to do.

I said, mom and dad, like, they’re the first millionaires in the Brambila family tree.

And where they came from, it’s just incredible, so inspiring.

But I don’t want to be when they pass away.

I don’t want their money.

I don’t want them to leave me their money.

To me, I’m going to be frustrated.

So what I tell them is like, if you leave me enough money for a Lamborghini, I’m going to spend on a Lamborghini.

If you leave me enough money for 10, I’m going to do that.

I’m going to go 10.

And then we actually got this idea from another podcast.

What I need to try, I’m going to try this next time.

Wherever much money you leave me, I’m going to take it, I’m going to donate it to the opposite political party that you guys like.

But all these are like these threats of like saying, like don’t leave me this money, like please live your best life.

And that’s what I think any son or daughter should want for their parents for their parents live their best life.

But if you don’t, if you’re like totally in that fire movement lifestyle, we’re just sacrificing everything you’re not living.

When you get to the point of financial freedom, you’re not going to know how to live.

Yeah.

You need to have, yeah, the knowledge of how to actually spend.

And that’s the other kind of, I guess, component when you do come from this background of poverty or scarcity and you, you know, do all the right things, read your book, do all those action steps and you reach millionaire status, it’s very difficult to then let go because it is kind of part of your identity being frugal and doing that.

Brad, I’m sure you can talk a little bit about why do people do that?

And is there a way to overcome that?

Because I think that is a very difficult thing for people who were in debt or were just like budgeting all the time and just really living on less.

And then they see the momentum and they’re growing.

It’s hard to let go of that way of life.

Yeah, I feel like we get very unbalanced when it comes to money.

I mean, there’s a reason why you have your podcast and why it’s so necessary, right?

And it’s because I think ultimately it’s about balance.

So, for example, one of the things we found is that people who are in a committed relationship.

So we asked people their marital status.

So essentially what we found is people who are married tend to have healthier money beliefs.

And why is that the case?

Well, it’s because you got someone else who’s sort of saying, hey, what’s up with this?

You know, and then you have to go, oh, okay, yeah, that’s a good question, you know.

So you have someone else who’s sort of giving you feedback about your spending habits.

And so one of the things, one of the gifts my wife gave to me was a couch.

Okay, because I was so extreme around my fear of being poor because that was my lived experience.

I’m making six figures and I have lawn chairs for furniture.

I have a mattress on the floor.

I got a ping pong table in the living room because it’s all about experiences.

I paid for a ping pong table, but I wasn’t going to buy a couch.

And part of my evolution, so the first thing that I’m really blessed with was this concept that I need to save and invest to change my family fortune and my family tree.

And I’m super glad I got that.

But I had to learn that money is also there to enhance your life.

Because you don’t win any prize for having 10 million in the bank and then dying living in poverty.

And actually, the first book I wrote was around Ebenezer Scrooge as sort of like this iconic figure of somebody who had an absolute poverty mindset, but had all this money eating gruel, not heating his house.

And so we are all about being frugal to reach that goal.

Like Adrian mentioned, he’s 95 percent of his income.

Actually, the billionaires that I know, like who started from scratch, that’s kind of their mindset.

That was my mindset.

I shot for at least 30 percent.

Every dollar I make goes to investing.

Every dollar.

Some years higher, some years less, but that was my goal.

And but also what’s the point, you know?

And I have back here, you can see experiences greater than stuff.

That is sort of my philosophy.

And I know Adrian shares this.

It’s like, you know, you can’t take stuff with you, but you can take memories.

And so I truly believe that money should be saved and invested and it all should be should be spent to enhance your life and not to wait all the way until the finish line until you’re 70 before you would have any enjoyment in life because it’s not going to work.

You’re never going to be able to shift gears.

And so we’re not trying to take in, you know, for this entire book, we’re trying to tell you the truth, right?

The truth.

We’re not trying to lie to you.

We’re not trying to pretend.

So is it true that most multi-millionaires are self-made and frugal?

Absolutely.

Is it also true that we hope that you take money that you have, that you got from passive investments, that sort of thing?

Because what we don’t ever want to do is trade time.

You know, time is our most valuable asset.

So one of our chapters is, you know, poor people buy stuff, rich people own time.

And so the more of your time you can own and the more that you can use whatever money comes to enhance your life, we are all for it.

We want you to have that experience of abundance and all of that.

But one of our chapters too is, you don’t want to become a millionaire, you just want to spend a million dollars.

And that’s really the problem most people have.

Most people have, they, you know, if Adrian and I, we start that chapter with a test, if we gave you a million dollars, what would you do with it?

And by the way, when I teach to kids, like high school kids, I’ll ask that question.

Because there’s a poor mindset and there’s a rich mindset.

And the poor mindset, you can see it right away.

And it’s almost like they take a calculator out and they like, let me just run this down to zero.

Let me see how fast I could not be a millionaire.

I’m gonna buy this, I’m gonna buy that, I’m gonna quit my job.

And all that money just disappears.

And that’s what all the studies show.

People who don’t have a rich mindset, all the money’s gone.

That’s why we make a distinction between broken and poor.

Meanwhile, the rich mindset, and this is what Adrian has, and this is what I have, and this is what we’re trying to promote.

A rich mindset takes that million dollars, invests it, and using the 4% rule, they have an income of $40,000 a year for the rest of their life, you know?

They’re not going to take half a million to start a business.

Adrian and I wouldn’t do that.

Odds are you’re going to lose it.

But we might take that $40,000 out and start a business, and then we can have one fail every year, and we’re still fine, because the next year we’re getting another $40,000.

We want to buy a house.

We’re not going to take $750,000 and go buy a house.

We’re going to use $40,000 a year to save up for a down payment, to eventually buy that house.

That is the rich mindset.

You have your investments, you grow them, the income comes and you spend that money any way you want.

Now, honestly, when I looked at that exercise, that was my immediate, whenever I play that game with people, which is fun to do on vacation when you’ve had a few cocktails, like, what would you do if you won the lottery?

Mine is always just like, I’d maybe play with some of it, but most of it I would just be boring and invested.

But before I let you guys go, you mentioned something really important that you do describe in your book, the difference between poor and broke.

Do you want to describe why there is a difference between the two?

Broke is something I’ve been, I’m sure we’ve all been, that’s not having money.

Broke can be, and usually I actually think it’s supposed to be a temporary state.

The only thing that makes it non-temporary is actually being poor, which is the mindset.

So poor is that mindset.

And to talk about someone that, like the lottery winners, they’re losing their money.

These are people that despite inheriting a lot of money, they didn’t change their mindset.

They still have a poor mindset.

So then that money is just a matter of time before it’s all gone.

So I think this is why it is important to learn before you earn.

In my internet world of entrepreneurship, I have met really, really young, like it makes me even just an ounce like jealous, like 18-year-olds who have made millions online, and they’re YouTubers, and like I meet these kids.

But because I’ve been in the game so long, I learned that later they get a job, even despite making so much money.

I was like, bro, what happened?

Even though I can make the assumptions.

Sometimes making that much money so soon before you’ve learned, you don’t carry these great habits and thinking rich, right?

You still have kind of a poor mindset.

So this is a problem you see in celebrities and athletes that make so much money and we wonder what the heck, how could they do that?

What idiots?

But the truth is, although it’s fun to judge, it could happen to any one of us if we’re not prepared, we don’t have the right mindset of how to use that money.

So poor is the thing that you have to change.

Broke is the thing that will change if you just start thinking rich.

So you can be broke with a rich mindset.

And I think especially for anyone starting their careers or their lives, especially in your 20s or even if you’re in your 30s and 40s and made some mistakes, it’s okay to be broke right now because that is changeable as long as you have that important, rich and wealthy mindset, which is all about hope and opportunity.

You guys, it was such a pleasure having you both on Adrian and Brad.

Adrian, I’ll start with you.

Where can people find more information about you and follow you online?

We’re super grateful for having us.

This is my first time ever getting to talk with you.

I enjoyed learning your story.

It’s super great that you’ve been doing this for so long.

Massive respect.

We wanted to create something as thanks for you and your audience, just for Start Thinking Rich:.

People go to startthinkingrich.com/jessica.

Then it’s going to have extra bonuses.

It’s more than just a book.

You’re going to actually get part of a community and some extra bonuses, but that’s only people that come through slash Jessica, startthinkingrich.com/jessica.

Thank you so much.

Brad, where can people find you?

You have a whole slew of other books too that they can check out as well.

Yeah.

For both of us, you could on social media, just at Dr.

Brad Klontz, at Adrian Brambila, check us out there.

We create content every day to try to help shift mindsets.

Really this book, we hope it can transform lives.

I know a lot of your listeners are pretty financially healthy, so consider giving it as a Christmas gift to somebody that you really want to start thinking rich.

Yeah.

Someone needs to hear the message from somebody.

That’s not you, because I think we’ve all been in that situation where it’s like, you’ll tell someone some good advice, and they’re like, I heard some great advice from this third party.

You’re like, I told you that already.

So sometimes coming from someone else, that’s kind of the ticket.

Well, thank you so much for coming on the More Money Podcast.

It was so fun having you on and best of luck with the book.

And I’ll keep on taking a look at what you’re doing online and what kind of controversies you drum up.

Thank you, thank you.

And that was my episode with Brad and Adrian.

Make sure to grab a copy of their book, Start Thinking Rich:.

Also make sure if you want to check out that special link that has all these extras, go to startthinkingrich.com/jessica.

Check that out.

See what they’re offering.

Why not?

Who doesn’t like some extra freebies?

If you want to check both of them out on social media, their websites, their other books, make sure to just check out the show notes for this episode.

If you’re ever looking for that, just look for the number of this episode and go jessicamoorhouse.com/whatever the number of that episode is.

Or honestly, you could just find it really quickly.

It’s always linked in the description of the episode, so make sure to check that out.

And like I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, I will be giving away a copy of their book, Start Thinking Rich:, so make sure to go to jessicamoorhouse.com/contest to enter to win.

Well, that is it for me.

Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you next Wednesday for a fresh new episode of the More Money Podcast.