Podcast appearances and mentions of susie orman

Dive into the captivating world of government waste, UFO disclosure, and political intrigue with the hosts of GIRTHY Podcast®. In this thought-provoking episode, Eric Readinger and Law Smith navigate the murky waters of classified programs, reverse-engineered technologies, and the challenges of maintaining a sense of humor amidst the chaos. Uncover the staggering statistics on government inefficiency, explore the latest developments in the UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) disclosure, and discover how to stay informed without losing your mind. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in uncovering the truth behind the curtain of bureaucracy and embracing a lighthearted approach to tackling the complexities of our political landscape.   Episode sponsored...

Remember Vote or Die? That did not age well. Time to get GIRTHY as hosts Eric Readinger and Law Smith tackle a wide range of topics, from leveraging AI for effortless SEO writing to navigating the complexities of political ads and voting amendments. Discover how to protect your online privacy and reputation, and learn the secrets to hosting the ultimate dinner party discussions that spark engaging conversations. Along the way, the hosts offer a unique perspective on the quirks of 5K races and dive into the world of conspiracy theories, providing insights that will leave you both entertained and informed. Whether you're a seasoned podcast listener or new to the GIRTHY experience, this episode is packed with actionable tips, thought-provoking discussions, and a healthy dose of humor. Don't miss out on the opportunity to optimize your content creation, safeguard your digital footprint, and master the art of hosting unforgettable social gatherings. Tune in to the GIRTHY Podcast® for a one-of-a-kind listening experience that will have you coming back for more. This was def typed up by a human.   Episode sponsored...

Law Smith is GIRTHY podcasting in Work Smarter Not Harder fashion on GIRTHYpod®. Learn how to work smarter, not harder, with AI-powered writing tools and data removal services that can save you time and hassle. Discover tips for upscaling old videos to 4K quality and streamlining your email marketing efforts with the simplicity of Flodesk. But that's not all - Law also shares his unfiltered thoughts on the dreaded 5K race and why he'd rather skip the "sport for joggers." Packed with practical advice, personal anecdotes, and a touch of humor, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to optimize their workflow, protect their digital footprint, and find fulfillment in their fitness journey.   holler if you hear me hook ups: https://topclassactions.com https://topazlabs.com https://www.watermarkremover.io     Episode sponsored...

Today I'm here to share a fantastic conversation with Hannah Kesler. Hannah is an Infinite Banking Concept (IBC) practitioner, and joined us to break down the essentials of the concept and share her insights on financial health. This episode is packed with valuable information that could help you take control of your finances, so let's dive right in! Infinite Banking Concept (IBC) Practitioner Hannah introduces herself as an IBC practitioner. She specializes in a unique financial strategy that leverages whole life insurance policies. These policies offer uninterrupted compound interest and tax-free growth. Though this might sound complicated, Hannah makes it simple for us to understand. She encourages anyone interested in finding a trustworthy practitioner to use the Nelson Nash Institute's practitioner finder. This tool can be found at infinitebanking.org. She mentions that while her focus is exclusively on IBC, she directs those with other insurance needs to the appropriate experts. Importance of Financial Health Hannah emphasizes the significance of taking financial health seriously. She compares it to the time we often spend on entertainment, urging us to allocate the same dedication to our financial well-being. This means making informed decisions and treating our financial goals as top priorities. Compound Interest Albert Einstein once called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world, and Hannah explains why. By keeping your money within a whole life policy, you allow it to grow consistently without interruption. This becomes especially advantageous when taking a policy loan, where the growth continues even as you use the money elsewhere. Policy Loan Details Hannah breaks down policy loans, describing them as collateralizing the death benefit while money continues to grow in the policy. Joe shares a personal regret of withdrawing from his IRA, highlighting the missed opportunity for compound growth – a mistake that the IBC strategy aims to avoid. Starting Point in IBC Regardless of age or financial situation, Hannah encourages everyone to consider implementing IBC. She quotes Rick Warren, emphasizing that how you finish the race of life matters just as much as how you start. Treat Yourself as Your Number One Asset Hannah advises paying yourself first by setting aside 10% of your income into savings before covering other expenses. She suggests using Rocket Money to manage your finances, which Joe also appreciates for its simplicity and effectiveness. Quarterly Check-ins and Resources Hannah's organization, The Money Multiplier, offers an implementation team that provides quarterly check-ins and additional resources to members at no extra cost. Whole Life Insurance Benefits Hannah addresses skepticism around whole life insurance, often fueled by figures like Dave Ramsey and Susie Orman. She points out that commercial banks are the largest purchasers of whole life insurance because of its benefits: Uninterrupted Compound Interest and Tax-Free Growth: Policies offer consistent growth without the taxes that usually come with other investments. Control Over Finances: Policyholders can withdraw money after funding for 30 days, using it for various investments. No Obligation to Repay Loans: Loans from the policy can remain unpaid, with the unpaid amount deducted from the death benefit. Overfunding and Policy Mechanics Starting young worked well for Hannah, who began saving $400 a month at 18. Overfunding the policy through Paid-Up Addition (PUA) riders accelerates cash value growth. For instance, in a $250 premium, 40% covers the base, while 60% goes into PUAs, acting like "booster rockets." Financial Habits and Family Influence Hannah learned from her father to keep money, not just make it. Growing up, her family did not teach her about money, leading to initial poor money management habits. She now stresses the importance of tracking income and expenses and saving at least 10% of her income. Skepticism and the Wealthy's Strategy Joe highlights that following financial practices used by the wealthy, such as whole life insurance for uninterrupted compound interest and asset protection, can be highly beneficial. Control Over Investments Hannah prefers managing her investments personally, without relying on traditional retirement accounts like self-directed IRAs, 401ks, or Roth IRAs. She values the control, freedom, and uninterrupted compound interest offered by IBC. Tax Strategy Hannah discusses her tax strategy, advocating for paying tax on money once, ideally at the lowest rate possible. She uses a system where post-tax money is placed into a policy, allowing for tax-free growth. Her approach involves potential tax deductions if funded by a business and a “1041 trust and tax structure,” similar to strategies used by wealthy individuals like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Trust Structure and Real Estate Money is moved from policies to a business trust, then to a family trust, and finally to a foundation, with a mandatory 5% donation from the foundation to cover tax liabilities. Real estate investments can also be integrated into this tax structure, providing additional charitable giving benefits and tax reductions. Resources and Contact Information Hannah encourages listeners to seek advice from tax professionals and offers to connect them with her contacts. She recommends the book "Mapping Out the Millionaire Mystery" and suggests reaching out to her via email at hannah@themoneymultiplier.com for further information. The Money Multiplier Website Nelson Nash Institute The Money Multiplier 90-Minute Presentation Rocket Money App Conclusion This conversation with Hannah Kesler was truly enlightening. We delved into the Infinite Banking Concept, discussed the importance of treating oneself as a primary asset, and explored practical strategies for financial health. The key takeaway? Take control of your financial future with the smart use of whole life insurance policies and strategic planning. As always, the Hustle and Flowchart community is here to support you on your journey to financial success. Stay tuned for more eye-opening episodes! Two Other Episodes You Should Check Out The Wealth Hacker: Unlocking Financial Freedom with Dave Wolcott Unlocking Passive Income Through Real Estate with Tom Burns Resources From Episode What if you could have a FREE personal mentor on-demand?! With Joe's Hustle & Flowchart AI clone, you can tap into the knowledge from over 600 episodes any time! Whether you need advice on scaling, marketing, or productivity, my AI clone is here to help. Accelerate growth with HubSpot's Sales Hub Check out other podcasts on the HubSpot Podcast Network Grab a 30-Day Trial of Kartra We want to hear from you. Send us the One Thing you want to hear on the show. Connect with Joe on LinkedIn and Instagram Subscribe to the YouTube Channel Contact Joe: joe@hustleandflowchart.com Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Hustle & Flowchart Podcast! If the information in these conversations and interviews have helped you in your business journey, please head over to iTunes (or wherever you listen), subscribe to the show, and leave me an honest review. Your reviews and feedback will not only help me continue to deliver great, helpful content, but it will also help me reach even more amazing entrepreneurs just like you!

Explore influential quotes and maxims from the investing and business world. This includes from: Warren Buffett, Mark Twain, Robert Kiyosaki, Albert Einstein, Dan Sullivan, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Suze Orman, and yours truly, Keith Weinhold. “Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is.” -Mark Twain “Given a 10% chance of a 100x payoff, you should take that bet every time.” -Jeff Bezos “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.” -Warren Buffett “Don't live below your means; expand your means.” -Rich Dad “The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.” -Andrew Carnegie “Savers are losers. Debtors are winners.” -Robert Kiyosaki Resources mentioned: For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREmarketplace.com/Coach Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Keith's personal Instagram: @keithweinhold   Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold (00:00:00) - Welcome to GRE. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. Real estate and other investing involves people from the disappointing to the mesmerizing. People have contributed countless quotes, maxims and aphorisms on investing today. All recite and then we'll discuss dozens of influential ones and what you could learn from this timeless wisdom today on get Rich education.   Robert Syslo (00:00:29) - Since 2014, the powerful get Rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate, investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show host Keith Reinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad Advisors and delivers a new show every week. Since 2014, there's been millions of listeners downloads and 188 world nations. He has A-list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get Rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus has had its own dedicated Apple and Android listener. Phone apps build wealth on the go with the get Rich education podcast.   Robert Syslo (00:01:06) - Sign up now for the get Rich education podcast or visit get Rich education.com.   Corey Coates (00:01:14) - You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold (00:01:30) - Welcome to diary from Ellis Island, New York, to Ellensburg, Washington, and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you're listening to get Rich education for the 508th consecutive week. Happy July. It's the first day of the quarter, and it's now the second half of the year. So late last year when you got takeaways from our goals episode here, I hope that you're still applying them today. We're doing something different on this show. For most episodes. I divulge a lot of my best guidance. Some even quote that material. But why don't I acknowledge others great quotes maxims in aphorisms along with some of my own? And then I'll tell you what you can learn from them. So yes, today it's about axioms, adages, mantras and quotes, maxims and aphorisms. Some of these you've heard, others you probably haven't.   Keith Weinhold (00:02:28) - The first one is the only place you get money is from other people. Yeah. Isn't that so solidly true? You've never received any money in your life from yourself, unless you try to counterfeit it and give it to yourself. It's always been from other people. When you realize that the only place that you do get money is from others, you realize the value of relationships and connectivity. The next one comes from the brilliant entrepreneurial coach Dan Sullivan. You are 100% disciplined to your set of habits. Gosh, this is a terrific reminder about the importance of how you have to often uncomfortably apply something new in order to up your skill set up your game. If you keep getting distracted, well, then that's a habit, and then you'll soon become disciplined to the habit of distraction. The next two go together, and they're about market investing. Nobody is more bearish than a sold out bull. And the other is bears make headlines. Bulls make money. Really the lesson there is that they're both reminders that it's better to stay invested rather than on the sidelines.   Keith Weinhold (00:03:53) - The next two are related to each other as well. Albert Einstein said, strive not to be a person of success, but rather to be a person of value. And then similarly, a more modern day spin on that. Tony Hsieh, the late CEO of Zappos. He said, Chase the vision, not the money and the money will end up following you. And the lesson here is, well, we'd all like more money, but if you focus on the money first, well then it doesn't want to follow you. You need to provide value and build the vision first, and then the money will follow and you know, to me, it's kind of like getting the girl if you act too interested in her and you get too aggressive, it's a turnoff. But if you quietly demonstrate that you're a person of value, or subtly suggest somehow in a way that their life could be improved by having a relationship with you or being around you, then they're more likely to follow. And yes, I'm fully aware that this is a heterosexual male analogy, and I use it because that is what I am.   Keith Weinhold (00:04:58) - So if you're something else, I'm sure you can follow along with that. The next quote is from Susie Kasam. Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. Gosh, isn't this so on point? It's about overcoming the fear in just trying. And then if you know that you've lived a life of trying, you're going to have fewer regrets. Thomas Edison yes, the light bulb guy in the co-founder of General Electric, he said the value of an idea lies in the using of it. Oh, yeah, that's a great reminder that knowledge isn't really power. It's knowledge plus action that creates power because an idea that remains idle doesn't do anyone any good. Hey, we're just getting started talking about investing in real estate quotes today here on episode 508 of get Rich education. And, you know, remarkably, these maxims and catchphrases, they're usually just 1 or 2 sentences, but yet they are so often packed with the wisdom such that these takeaways and lessons are like your three favorite ones today. They can change the trajectory of your entire life.   Keith Weinhold (00:06:20) - The next quote is one that I have said carefully bought real estate has the best risk adjusted return in. The world. And I don't need to explain that because we talk about that in some form or another on the show many weeks. Albert Schweitzer said success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you're doing, you will be successful. Yeah, I'd say that one is mostly true. Just mostly, though, there's no attribution here. On this next one, you might have heard the aphorism money is a terrible master, but an excellent servant. Yeah. Now, I've heard that one for a long time, and it took me a while to figure out what it really meant. And here's my take on that. If you make money, the master will. Then you'll, like, do almost anything. You'll trade your time for money. You'll sell your time for dollars instead. If you invest passively and it creates leveraged equity and income streams, oh, then money serves you.   Keith Weinhold (00:07:28) - It's no longer the master. That's what that means to me here in a real estate investor context. And, you know, it really underscores the importance of making money work for you. And is a follow up to last week's show. Whose money are we talking about here? Whose is it? It's focusing on getting other people's money to work for you, not just your own. Now, the next one is a quote that I've said on the show before, quite a while ago, though. And come on now, what would an episode about quotes, maxims and aphorisms be without some contribution from Mark Twain? Here Twain said, why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is. that's just so, so good in business and in so many facets of your life, constantly playing it safe is the riskiest thing that you can actually do. Because a risk averse investor places a ceiling on his or her potential in a risk averse person imposes an upper limit on their very legacy. In fact, episode 275 of the get Rich education podcast is named Go Out on Limb precisely because of this Twain quote.   Keith Weinhold (00:08:45) - So listen to that episode if you want to hear a whole lot more about that. It's actually one of Twain's lesser known quotes, but perhaps his best one. The next one comes from famous value investor Benjamin Graham. He said the individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator. Okay, so what's the difference there? A speculator takes big risks in hopes of making large quick gains. Conversely, an investor focuses on risk appropriate strategies to pursue longer term goals, which is really consistent with being a prudent, disciplined real estate investor. Presidential advisor Bernard Baruch contributed this to the investing world. Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars. yes. Tried to time the market. It might be tempting, but it rarely works because no one really knows when the market has reached its top or its bottom. All you can really hope to do is buy lower and sell higher. But you're never going to buy at the trough and sell at the peak.   Keith Weinhold (00:10:00) - And even buying lower and selling higher is harder to do than it sounds, even though everyone knows that's what they're supposed to do. Albert Einstein is back here, he said. Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it earns it. He who doesn't pays it. And as you've learned here on the show on previous episodes, compound interest. It does work arithmetically, but not in real life would apply to the stock market. Of course. My quote contribution to the investing world on this is compound interest is weak. Compound leverage is powerful. I broke that down just last week on the show, so I won't explain that again. Now, really, a central mantra in GR principle is don't live below your means, grow your means. But I must tell you, I can't really take credit for coining that particular one because from the rich dad world, the quote is don't live below your means, expand your means. But I did hear that from them first, and though it can't be certain, I think it was Sharon letter that coined that one.   Keith Weinhold (00:11:13) - A lot of people don't know this, but she was the original co-author of the book. Rich dad, Poor Dad with Robert Kiyosaki. And Sharon has been here on the show before, and if I have her back, I will ask her if she is the one that coined that. Don't live below your means. Expand. Your means. But yeah, I mean, what this quote really means is, in this one finite life that you have here on Earth, why in the world would you not only choose to live below your means, but actually take time and effort learning how to do a better job of living below your means when it just makes you miserable after a while, when instead you could use those same efforts to grow your means and you can only cut down so far. And there's an unlimited ceiling on the upside. And now there is one caveat here. I understand that if you're just getting on your feet, well, then living below your means might be a necessity for you in the short term.   Keith Weinhold (00:12:08) - And what's an example of living below your means? It's eating junk food because it's cheap and filling, expanding your means. That might be doing something like learning how to do a cost segregation to accelerate your depreciation. Write off on your 20 unit apartment building. But you know, even if you're in hardship, I still like live within your means more than the scarcity minded guidance of live below your means. Next is a terrific one, and it really reinforces the last quote a rich man digs for gold. A poor man is concerned with the cost of a shovel. Oh yeah, that's so good. And I don't know who to attribute that to. It's about growing your means and taking on and actually embracing calculated risks. Not every risk, calculated risk. And you can also live that regret free life this way. In fact, episode 91 of this show is called A Rich Man Digs for gold. So you can get more inspiration for that from that episode. Okay, this one comes from the commodities world where there are notoriously volatile prices.   Keith Weinhold (00:13:18) - How do you make a million? You start with 2 million. now, this next one is one that I don't really agree with that much. You really heard this a lot the last few years. It applies when you have a mortgage on a property, and that is the house is the liability and the debt is the asset. I know people are trying to be crafty. People kind of use this pithy quote when they're discussing how those that locked in at those artificially low mortgage rates years ago considered the debt so good that it's an asset. It's like, yeah, I know what you're saying. And I love good real estate debt and leverage and all that, of course. But really, for you, truly, then if the House is a liability and the debt is an asset like you're saying, then give away the house to someone else. If it's such a liability, and keep the debt to pay off yourself if it's really such an asset. A little humorous here. Next, Forbes magazine said, how do you make a million marry a millionaire? Or better yet, divorce one then more? Real estate ish is Jack Miller's quote how do you become a millionaire? Well, you borrow $1 million and you pay it off.   Keith Weinhold (00:14:31) - And I think we can all relate to that here at GRE. Better yet, borrow $1 million and don't pay it off yourself. Have tenants and inflation pay it down for you. And you know, inflation is getting to be a problem for any of these, like century old classic quotes that have the word millionaire in them. Because having a net worth of a million that actually used to mean you were wealthy, and now it just means you're not poor, but you might even be below middle class. Now, you probably heard of some of these next ones, but let's talk about what they mean. Warren Buffett said the stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient. And then Benjamin Franklin said an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. I mean, yeah, that's pretty on point stuff there when it comes to investing. Nothing will pay off more than educating yourself. So do some research before you jump in. And you've almost certainly heard this next one from Warren Buffett.   Speaker 4 (00:15:28) - You want to be greedy when others are fearful, and you want to be fearful when others are greedy.   Keith Weinhold (00:15:32) - That is, be prepared to invest in a down market and to get out in a soaring market. As per the philosophy of Warren Buffett, it's far too easy for investors to lose perspective when something big goes wrong. A lot of people panic and sell their investments. And looking at history. The markets recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. They recover from the dotcom crash. They even recover from the Great Depression, although it took a long time. So they're probably going to get through whatever comes next as well, if you really follow that through what Buffett said there. Well, then at a time like this now, I mean, you could be looking at shedding stocks as they continue to approach and break all time highs. Carlos Slim, hello said with a good perspective on history, we can have a better understanding of the past and present and thus a clear vision of the future. Sure. Okay, that quote like that probably didn't sound very snappy and it's really simple, but he's telling us that if you want to know the future, check on the past.   Keith Weinhold (00:16:39) - Not always, but often. It will tell you the future directory, or at least that trajectories range. And this is similar to how I often say take history over hunches, like when you're applying economics to real estate investing. Now this next guy has been a controversial figure, but George Soros said it's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong. Okay, I think that quote means that too many investors become almost obsessed with being right, even when the gains are small, winning big, and cutting your losses when you're wrong. They are more important than being right. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said given a 10% chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time. All right. Now, that's rather applicable to the high flying risk of, say, investing in startup companies. We'll see. Bezos himself, he took a lot of those bets, a 10% chance at a 100 X payoff. And that is exactly why he's one of the richest people in the world.   Keith Weinhold (00:17:49) - Now, if you haven't heard of John Bogle before, you should know who he is. He co-founded the Vanguard Group, and he's credited with popularizing the very concept of the index fund. I mean, Bogle transformed the entire investment management industry. John Bogle said, don't look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack. Okay? If it seems too hard to say, find the next Amazon. Well, John Bogle came up with the only sure way to get in on the action. By buying an index fund, investors can put a little bit of money into every stock, and that way they never miss out on the stock market's biggest winners. They're only going to have a small part. And what that means to a real estate investor is, say, rather than buying a single property in a really shabby neighborhood, that neighborhood will drag down your one property. So to apply boggles by the whole haystack quote. What you would do then is raise money to buy the entire block, or even the entire neighborhood and fix it up, therefore raising the values of all of the properties.   Keith Weinhold (00:18:55) - Back to Warren Buffett. He had this analogy about the high jump event from track and field. He said, I don't look to jump over seven foot bars. I look around for one foot bars that I can step over. Yeah. All right. I mean, investors often do make things too hard on themselves. The value stocks that Buffett prefers, they frequently outperform the market, making success easier. Supposedly sophisticated strategies like short selling. A lot of times they lose money in the long run. So profiting from those is more difficult. Now, you might have heard the quote, and it's from Philip Fisher. He said the stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything but the value of nothing. Yeah. I mean, that's really another testament to the fact that investing without an education and research that's ultimately going to lead to pretty regrettable investment decisions. Research is a lot more than just listening to the popular opinion out there, because people often just then invest on hype or momentum without understanding things like a company's fundamentals or what value they create for society, or being attentive to price to earnings ratios.   Keith Weinhold (00:20:08) - Even Robert Arnott said in investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable. You know, that's pretty on point at times. You have to step out of your comfort zone to realize any big gains. Know the boundaries of your comfort zone. Practice stepping out of it in small doses. As much as you need to know the market, you need to know yourself too. Can you handle staying in when everyone else is jumping out, or do you have the guts to get out during the biggest rally of the century? You've got to have the stomach to be contrarian and see it through. Robert Allen said. How many millionaires do you know who have become wealthy by investing in savings accounts? I rest my case. That's the end of what Robert G. Allen said. Yeah, though inflation could cut out the millionaires part. Yeah I mean point well taken. No one builds wealth through a savings account. Now a savings account might be the right place for your emergency fund. It has a role, but it's not a wealth builder.   Keith Weinhold (00:21:10) - I mean, since we left the gold standard back in 1971, so many dollars get printed most years that savers become losers. Which, hey, that does bring us to Robert Kiyosaki. He's been a guest on the show here with us for times now, one of our most frequent guests ever. Here he is. The risks at Port Arthur. And you probably know what I'm going to say. He is, he said. Savers or losers? Debtors or winners of something that your parents probably would never want to know that you subscribed to your grandparents, especially. Yes, he is one of the kings of iconoclastic finance quotes. And as you know, I've got some contributions to that realm myself. But what Kiyosaki is saying is if you save 100 K under a mattress and inflation is 5%, well, now after a year you've only got 95 K in purchasing power. So therefore get out of dollars and get them invested. Even better than if you can get debt tied to a cash flowing leveraged asset. In fact, episode 212 of this very show is named Savers are Losers.   Keith Weinhold (00:22:18) - Debtors are winners. So I go deep on that theme there. We've got more as we look at it and break down some of the great real estate investing quotes, maxims and aphorisms. They generally get more real estate ish as we go here, including ones that you haven't heard before and dropping, quote, bombs here that absolutely have to be enunciated and brought to light ahead. A group of Real Estate quotes episode. Hey, learn more about what we do here to get rich education comm get rich education.com. And do you have friends or family that are into investing or real estate? I love it when you hit the share button on your pod catching device or whatever platform you're listening on. Everything that we do here is free and the share button really helps the show. Be sure to follow or subscribe yourself if you haven't done that more. Straight ahead. I'm Keith Reinhold, you're listening to get Rich education. Your bank is getting rich off of you. The national average bank account pays less than 1% on your savings.   Keith Weinhold (00:23:27) - If your money isn't making 4%, you're losing your hard earned cash to inflation. Let the liquidity fund help you put your money to work with minimum risk. Your cash generates up to an 8% return with compound interest year in and year out. Instead of earning less than 1% sitting in your bank account, the minimum investment is just $25. You keep getting paid until you decide you want your money back there. Decade plus track record proves they've always paid their investors 100% in full and on time. And I would know, because I'm an investor, to earn 8%. Hundreds of others are text family 266866. Learn more about Freedom Family Investments Liquidity Fund on your journey to financial freedom through passive income. Text family to 66866. Role under this specific expert with income property, you need. Ridge lending Group Nmls 42056. In gray history from beginners to veterans, they provided our listeners with more mortgages than anyone. It's where I get my own loans for single family rentals up to four Plex's. Start your pre-qualification and chat with President Charlie Ridge personally.   Keith Weinhold (00:24:46) - They'll even customize a plan tailored to you for growing your portfolio. Start at Ridge Lending group.com Ridge lending group.com.   Speaker 5 (00:25:02) - This is Rich dad advisor Ken McElroy. Listen to get Rich education with Keith Reinhold and don't quit your daydream.   Keith Weinhold (00:25:20) - Welcome back to Get Your Education. I'm your host, Keith Weiner. We're having some fun today, looking at and breaking down some of the great investing quotes, maxims, and aphorisms. Andrew Carnegie said, the wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate. Another one for Mark Twain here by land. They're not making it any more. You probably heard one or both of those. And yeah, Twain's time predated that of those islands that are built in Dubai. But Twain's point is still well taken. There is an inherent scarcity in land. Louis Glickman drove the point home about real estate investing when he simply said, the best investment on Earth is Earth. A Hebrew proverb goes as far as saying he is not a fool man who does not own a piece of land.   Keith Weinhold (00:26:18) - Wow, that's pretty profound right there. And if you're a female listener, yes, many of these timeless quotes from yesteryear harken back to a period when all of the landowners were men. President Franklin D Roosevelt, he has a real estate quote that you probably heard, but let's see what I think about it. Let's talk about it. Here it is. Real estate cannot be lost or stolen, nor can it be carried away, purchased with common sense, paid for in full and managed with reasonable care. It is about the safest investment in the world. That's from FDR. That's pretty good. I just don't know about the paid in full part because you lost your leverage. FDR, Johnny Isakson, a US senator, said, in the real estate business, you learn more about people and you learn more about community issues. You learn more about life. You learn more about the impact of government, probably more than any other profession that I know of. And that's good, really on point stuff there.   Keith Weinhold (00:27:23) - If you're a direct real estate investor like we are here, you really learn those things. If you're in, say, a REIT, well, you're not going to be exposed to that type of knowledge in experiences. Hazrat Ali Khan is a spiritualist and he said, some people look for a beautiful place, others make a place beautiful. Yeah, that's some mystical motivation for the house flipper or the value add real estate syndicator right there, Political economist John Stuart Mill, he said something you've probably heard before. Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. Oh, yes, you can have a real estate quotes episode without that classic one. Although rather than landlords growing rich in their sleep, the phrase real estate investors is likely more accurate. Don't wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait. You've surely heard that one. You might not know that it was actor Will Rogers with that particular attribution, entrepreneur Marshall Field said buying real estate is not only the best way, the quickest way, the safest way, but the only way to become wealthy, billionaire John Paulson said.   Keith Weinhold (00:28:45) - I think buying a home is the best investment any individual can make. That's what Paulson said. let's give Paulson the benefit of the doubt here. Although Robert Kiyosaki famously said that a house is not an asset because an asset puts money in your pocket and your home takes money out of your pocket, well, a home is something that you get to live in, build family memories in, and you do get some leverage if you keep debt on your own home. So maybe that's more of what's behind John Paulson's maxim there. Notable entrepreneur Jesse Jones. He said I have always liked real estate, farmland, pasture land, timberland and city property. I have had experience with all of them. I guess I just naturally like the good Earth, which is the foundation of all our wealth. Business mogul Tamir Sapir said if you're not going to put your money in real estate, where else? Yeah, I guess that's a good question. Anthony hit real estate professional. He said to be successful in real estate, you must always inconsistently put your client's best interests first.   Keith Weinhold (00:30:00) - When you do, your personal needs will be realized beyond your greatest expectations. Yeah, I think he's talking about being a team player there. And if you're a real estate agent, it's about putting your client's needs over yours. If it's a landlord, perhaps then you're thinking about putting your tenants first and meeting their needs so that they stay in your property longer. Here's a quote that I've got to say I don't understand. It's from real estate mogul and shark tank shark Barbara Corcoran. She says a funny thing happens in real estate. When it comes back, it comes back like gangbusters. I don't really know what that means, and I don't know what a gangbuster is yet. I see that quote all over the place. I can't explain why that would be popular. I don't get it at all now, novelist Anthony Trollope said it is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can't fly away. Entrepreneur Armstrong Williams is here with this gem. Now one thing I tell everyone is to learn about real estate.   Keith Weinhold (00:31:12) - Repeat after me. Real estate provides the highest returns, the greatest values in the least risk. Yeah, that's a real motivator of a quote. As long as one knows what they're doing and buys, right? All of that could very well be true from Armstrong Williams. It was none other than John de Rockefeller that said the major fortunes in America have been made in land. Yeah, it's just really plain and simple there. John Jacob Astor, he got specific and more strategic here. This is Astor. He said, buy on the fringe and wait by land near a growing city. Buy real estate when other people want to sell and hold what you buy. I mean, yeah, that's pretty much an all timer right there from Astor. Winston Churchill said land monopoly is not only monopoly, it is by far the greatest of monopolies. It is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly. Yeah, interesting from Churchill. And there's a good chance that you haven't heard that one before.   Keith Weinhold (00:32:26) - Perhaps. So say, for example, if one owns real estate on all four corners of a busy street intersection, then that quote applies. It's like you've got a monopoly on a popular intersection. Russell Sage said. This real estate is an imperishable asset, ever increasing in value. It is the most solid security that human ingenuity has devised. It is the basis of all security and about the only indestructible security. That's from Russell Sage. And, you know, you know, something here is we've got lots of real estate specific quotes in this segment is that it is rare to nonexistent to see any negative quotes about real estate, about anyone saying anything bad about it. It's all positive stuff. Waxing eloquent about real estate. And there are a lot of reasons to do that. But not every real estate moment is great. Maybe this is all because nothing quotable is said when you find out that one of your tenants is a drug dealer. Well. Finance expert Susie Orman says this owning a home is a keystone of wealth, both financial affluence and emotional security.   Keith Weinhold (00:33:46) - Yeah, a lot like an earlier quote. A home is the only investment that you get the benefit of living in. Peter Lynch said. No, what you own and why you own it. I mean, that is short, sweet and it's just a really good reminder to you. Do you now own any properties that you would not buy again? And if you wouldn't buy it again, then should you consider selling it now? Not FDR, but Theodore Roosevelt. He said every person who invests. In well selected real estate in a growing section of a prosperous community, adopts the surest and safest method of becoming independent for real estate is the basis of wealth. That's Theodore Roosevelt. Yeah. He reiterates that you want to own most of your property in growing places, something that really hasn't changed over all this time. Coke Odyssey contributes to this. The house he looked at today and wanted to think about until tomorrow, maybe the same house someone looked at yesterday and will buy today. Oh, gosh, that's true.   Keith Weinhold (00:34:58) - I think that everyone has the story of the one that got away. Margaret Mitchell said the land is the only thing worth working for. Worth fighting for, worth dying for. Because it's the only thing that lasts. Yeah. Wow. Some real passion there from Margaret. Sir John Templeton said the four most dangerous words in investing are. It's different this time. Yeah. I think what Templeton is advising is to follow market trends in history. Don't speculate that this particular time will be any different. Warren Buffett said wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing. Yeah, that insight from Buffett. That's pretty applicable when you understand that you've got to get good in a niche and then get rich in that niche, meaning being narrow. Why diversification? That's likely better when you're just beginning and you don't know much, but then you want to get niche in your big earning years. And then perhaps when you're older, you get diversified once again because you're more interested in just protecting what you have.   Keith Weinhold (00:36:15) - Robert Kiyosaki said it's not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for. Now there's something with tax efficiencies and more in that Kiyosaki quote. My friend Dave Zook, billionaire dollar syndicator and frequent guest on this show, he said, you can be conventional or you can be wealthy. Pick one. Oh yeah, I love that from Dave. Because if you do what everyone else does, you'll only get what everyone else got. And I've contributed some material here over 508 episodes of this show. Although I won't claim the eminence of some of the other luminaries of the past few centuries discussed today. I've been known to say these. You do care about what others think. That's your reputation. I've been known to say the scarcity mentality is abundant and the abundance mentality is scarce. And some say that in real estate, I was the first one to point out back in 2015 that real estate pays five ways. Another that I have is a critique of delayed gratification.   Keith Weinhold (00:37:31) - Now, some delayed gratification is okay early on in your life, but I've said too much delayed gratification becomes denied gratification. Here on Earth, you live just one life. Hey. And the other day, an entrepreneurial friend. I don't know. He seemed to think that I have the right life balance. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but here's what I told him. And I think he said this because he often sees me out to exercising and things. I told him I give my best to exercise. Business only gets left over time. That's because exercise is hard and making money is easy. Yeah, there it is. That's my take on that. And that's it for today. I hope that you got some learning, some perspective, a few laughs and that some thought was spurred inside your mind in order to give you at least one big, rich novel takeaway here. And it's probably best for you to refer back to this episode of quotes, maxims, and aphorisms. At times when you're feeling shaky about your investment decision making, or just other times of uncertainty.   Keith Weinhold (00:38:49) - Until next week, I'm your host, Keith Reinhold, and there's something else that I've been known to say. Don't quit your day. Drink.   Speaker 6 (00:39:00) - Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get Rich education LLC exclusively.   Keith Weinhold (00:39:28) - The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building. Get rich education.com.

The data indicates the U.S. economy closed 2023 in a much healthier state than anticipated. So why do so many feel the opposite? Will this perception continue into 2024 and what can each of us do to remain resilient?   Reference links: Weekly Workforce Newsletter Kyla Scanlon Instagram   Transcript Michelle Kane (00:17): Thank you for joining us for That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters, my ever-steady co-host, Karen Swim with Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen, how are you today? Karen Swim, APR (00:32): Hello, Michelle. I'm so excited. We are now. When our listeners hear this podcast, it will be 2024. So excited for a brand new year. Michelle Kane (00:43): Yeah, for real. It's really 2024 this time. Listeners. I know the last one that dropped on New Year's Day. We kind of did that before the whole new year thing happened, but we're here, we made it. We made it to January, 2024. And I know we spent a little time looking back last episode, but of course we're going to do the looking forward thing and just kind of taking stock really of what's been happening, what people have said is happening and is going to happen, and maybe do a little reality check against some of those things. Karen Swim, APR (01:19): I love it. Michelle Kane (01:21): Which is a good start. I know you looked up some great data just talking about how we spent a year, again, doom scrolling, being told a recession was on the horizon and oh, the sky is falling and hey, given the past few years we're kind of like, yeah, probably. Okay, why not? But according to reports, it's not exactly, it's not exactly been the case numbers, year-end numbers were far more cheerful than, well, at least as we in the public have been told to anticipate, if that makes sense. I know there's an economist on Instagram that I follow that, forgive me, I cannot remember your handle, but she brought up this amazing point about the actual economy versus the vibe economy and how that kind of predicates where we are. Karen Swim, APR (02:18): I love that because you know what? It doesn't matter what the numbers say, it matters how you feel, period. And I think we saw that in 2023, economically, it doesn't matter. That actual statistics now show that in many cases headcounts remain the same. It matters how you felt when layoffs were happening and how companies felt. Did they pull back and stop hiring because of the layoff news looming so large? Did PR pros perceive that there was less opportunity because there were cutbacks? So I think that's great that this economist calls out what's being recorded and then what the reality is, but most importantly, how people feel because the economy can be good, but if people don't feel confident, they're not going to spend period data be darned. We had so many people last year saying, we're going to have a recession, we're going to have a recession, and then we did not have a recession during the holidays. People spent more spending was up. And it's weird that that happened, but people felt either they were doing a little retail therapy or they thought this trash year is almost over and I'm going to buy gifts for everybody and celebrate because I deserve this. I mean, I don't know. But again, feelings do play into what really happens in the economy. Michelle Kane (03:44): Yeah, that's very true. And let's not discount that corporate greed still reigns. So some of our grocery prices are still a little bit up there, and that puts some of your restaurant prices up. And I know it has been, I've seen, at least in my region, it's been a very tough year end for some of those smaller entities and I totally get it and empathize with them. So here's my little shout out. Go to a locally owned place this week, just buy the coffee. Don't do as Susie Orman says, buy the coffee. Karen Swim, APR (04:20): 100%. So one of the trends that we think that we're looking at for this year is that the economy, there's going to still be uncertainty, but for our PR pros, we say that uncertainty is where we thrive. I think that it's easy for us to allow this weight, and now experts are calling this in the workforce space. They're saying that we're now in the great gloom. People are just depressed about their jobs. I can confirm I was among those people last year as many of our audience members were too, where you just are like, Ugh, do I even want to do this or anything anymore? We were not very happy. However, I believe that all of this presents opportunities for us, but it's very important for us to first take care of our own mindset. We can't control everything that goes on in the environment and we never could, but we can impact the environment on behalf of clients. So it's important for us to remember our value. Write it down. Have your value points somewhere where you can look at them frequently as well so that you remind to tell people, clients, potential clients, what it is that you offer. Let's remember that no matter how the world wants to just shove us into that media only niche that we offer far more. What can you do with internal communications? What can you do with all the new global opportunities? One of the trends that's happening is that there is still some remote work while people are still being called to the office, but there's some remote work. So that has spurred a trend of more diverse workforces and that diversity extends to global diversity because if you don't have to be in the office every day, then you can actually tap into talent from all parts of the world. Well, many of our PR pros have global experience. Many of our PR pros have experience working with global teams and understand how to navigate things. That's a selling point for you. So I think look at the problems of the world and say, you know what? Problems really are an opportunity. Problems are how products get created. Products are how new innovations come about because somebody looks at that problem and goes, how can I solve that? And so I want our audience to do the same thing, look at these trends, look at the problems that we're having and say, how can I fix that? How can I be a small part of this solution? You don't have to fix the whole thing. We're not asking you to fix our US economy, although if you can please do, but there are parts of it that you truly can't impact. Michelle Kane (07:13): That's so true. A couple points that you said. I mean, it's never a problem, always an opportunity. And I first heard that take on it from the former manager of my favorite band in the world, Squeeze, when we had the good luck to be in their company and they were, I forget what the situation even was. And he said, oh, never a problem, always an opportunity. And that stuck with me. So I'd love that you bring that up. And really, what are PR pros other than problem solvers? That's what we are. Karen Swim, APR (07:44): We are, Michelle Kane (07:45): We're like a Sherpa. I mean, we've seen all kinds of businesses, we've seen so many different kinds of businesses. So we have all of that institutional knowledge as seasoned pros and we can offer counsel, no, are we attorneys slash MBA slash this, that, and the other one, not by degree, but by experience. You betcha. We bring a whole lot to the table as far as counsel. So I think it's so important. Like you say, oh my gosh, forget the vision boards. Remember your value and write it down and put it in front of you. I'd much rather stare at that than some picture of a beach somewhere that I maybe might forget to schedule. Karen Swim, APR (08:30): I feel like every PR pro should have that written and prominent and look at it daily because it's one of the things that I believe that we forget about ourselves and we take ourselves for granted. And if you're taking yourself for granted, it's going to impact who you target. It's going to impact your confidence going into sales meetings and it's going to affect your business. And so again, we're dealing with our own mind and how we think and how we show up in the world. And we've allowed other people in 2023, a lot of us to dim our light. Let's not do that in 2024. Let's go into the year. And when you look at these problems and you say, it's only a problem when I make it a problem, but you pick something that you're particularly passionate about, guess that's where your excitement comes back. And when you're excited about something, think about how different your attitude is and how you work differently. We deserve to love our jobs again in 2024. I don't care that everybody else is in the great gloom. I'm not going to be gloomy. I'm not going to hate my job. I'm going to get rid of the things that I do not care for. I'm going to get rid of the types of people that I don't care to work with. I'm just going to keep saying no to the wrong types of clients. I'm not going to be driven by my bank account because I'm not driven by that anyway. I know that if I choose the right clients that allow me to do my best work, everything is going to work out. And I feel like we all deserve that. We should work with the people that energize us, that give us joy, that give us the types of work that make us happy. There's always going to be problem clients. There's always going to be times that work feels like work, but it shouldn't be drudgery day in day out. We don't have time for that. Michelle Kane (10:22): No, no. And I think, look, we're all realistic. Just because the calendar page turned to a different number of a year doesn't mean that everything is magic. However, coming off the holiday time when things might've slowed down, ha did not. But it was still a bit of a mental pause in many ways. And I know for myself as I'm doing my own reentry, whereas the last month or two, I would just hit it hard in the morning, okay, what do I have? We have to prove and not stopping to think, okay, why are you alarming yourself, Michelle, address this email and then move on. And yes, even take 15 minutes to just kind of check in with yourself and go, okay, what are my priorities today? We can slow ourselves down because rare is the time when something is 10 seconds from going to press or it's not. And I'm so guilty of that because you just want to keep going, keep going, keep going. Oh yeah, yeah, I got to think about that. Alright, okay, well one of these days and you end up being in the middle of that avalanche snowball going down the hill. And we don't want that. I don't want that for myself. So I'm trying very hard and I may still be in that reentry disillusionment bubble that it's possible, but darn it, I'm going to try. Karen Swim, APR (11:50): Another thing that's really been coming up is obviously AI and its continued role, and I can't say this enough, watch those trends, but be quick about making your own pivots and deepening your knowledge about the use of AI and thinking about different problems that AI uses are bringing up. Because again, where the problems are, there's opportunities for us as PR people. We're seeing that journalists are concerned when we look back at the challenges that they faced last year, I think it was a cision study, a big study on the journalist. One of the things was misinformation, but also accuracy of content. And AI plays into that. We're also seeing media companies suing AI companies for training on their content. So there's going to be a lot of battling, a lot of backlash, a lot of competitors springing up. And as always, we PR pros need to remember that a tool is a tool, is a tool. Doesn't matter if it's the latest sexy technology. Where our value lies is in being strategic, understanding the appropriate use cases, watching out for ethical considerations, watching out for all of the nuances that AI models cannot handle, such as language around DEI and inclusivity. It's important. Those things are things that you as an expert in a professional can do. What about when you serve markets that are global, watching for those language nuances? AI can't necessarily do all of that. It can be a tool to help you with ideation and even with some content creation, but it still is going to require human oversight. There're more and more jobs calling for people in ai, AI script writers, people that are good at chat prompts. I find that with it being so new to the general public that many people are already stepping up and proclaiming themselves to be expert when it's very much an evolving field. But whatever I'm going to ask you. Michelle Kane (14:03): Yeah, right. We've seen it before. Social media gurus. Karen Swim, APR (14:07): Definitely. Definitely. So yeah. Michelle Kane (14:11): Yeah, I agree. I mean, we've long said it's a tool. It's here. There's no denying it. So rather than run away, it's best to be savvy about it, know about it, get good at it, get good at using it. You may just learn to like it a little bit, but just be aware of, yeah. I mean some of the shakeups it's going to be that are bound to happen. But I think most anything else, things do level off. It's just learning how to master yet another technology. And I think I found we tend, PR pros tend to be at the forefront of that. Honestly, we do. Because I've talked about it in some circles. I mean in some circles they think, oh, this will just do everything for me. I'm like, yeah, check the quality. I think you'll find that you'll be disappointed. And the others are like, what? Karen Swim, APR (15:00): Yeah. Well, in every profession there are those that will try to take the shortcut weight out. And those are not the true professionals and that's not our audience. I feel like our audience is the best of the best. The profession. Michelle Kane (15:14): You betcha. Karen Swim, APR (15:15): So one more stat that I want to say is I'm sure that you're all familiar with this longevity report. It's been 85 years studying this population of people. And one of the key predictors of long life and high quality of life are connections. And so personal plug, we know that these past few years have just been so different, but they're so much easier when you don't go it alone. So while you may be the founder, the CEO, the boss, while you might be a true solo or micro agency this year, please make this the year that you surround yourself with community because you do not have to do this journey on your own. It makes a huge difference when you can tap into your peer network with the highs, the lows, your questions, when you can be supportive to other people because that regenerates us as well. The doors of Solo PR Pro will be opening back up probably next week. I was supposed to do in December, but I did not. I encourage you to watch on social media. If you subscribe to our newsletters, please watch our newsletters because I'll make the announcement. But join this community of talented people so that you don't give in to the great gloom that's consuming other people because it is more depressing when you are on your own. And just because you're a solo doesn't mean that you can't have community network and a virtual office of colleagues that will be supportive to you. And yes, this is a personal plug, which we don't do very often in this way. And I'm offering it up because I don't know that I would've lasted in this profession without this community myself. My personal testimony, this community has been life, life-giving to me. And it continues to be a place unlike many other places on the internet. It's a place where there's trust, where there's genuine love for one another and care for one another. And I just don't find that same mix everywhere else. And so I think that we're pretty special and would like you to take advantage of that as well this year. Michelle Kane (17:46): I concur. I can vouch for that. Solo PR Pro was the first organization that I found when I was starting my business that led me to believe, oh, I can do this because look at all these other smart, successful people who have been doing it. And every word you say is true. It is a place of trust, compassion, care, smarts. I mean, I only almost feels like every time I go in the group, I feel like I might be. It's as if you're walking down the hall of the office and you stop in the doorway of a colleague and say, Hey, got a minute. I'm facing this thing and I really don't know what to do. And instead of just one person's feedback, you'll have dozens coming at you and saying like, oh, me too. Or, well, yeah, this happened to me once. Here's what I did. Or maybe try this. It's really an incredible place and I agree. I have not found or seen anything remotely similar to it. Not that other groups have their pros and cons. Of course they all do, but I've not seen something that even gets close to the value that it brings. So yeah, when the door's open, I can't say strongly enough to check it out. Well, on that note, we hope you've gotten something out of this today. We hope we've helped you to deserve, know that you deserve to have a year without gloom. We're going to kick out the gloom this year. Please share this episode around we would've really appreciate that. Shoot up some reviews about us. That would be kind of awesome. And until next time, yeah, and until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.    

In this Breakaway Wealth podcast episode, hosts Jim Oliver and Nick Kosko dive into the core principles of Infinite Banking Concept (IBC). They start by addressing common misconceptions about IBC, emphasizing the importance of simplicity in understanding financial concepts, and pepper the conversation with references to financial thought leaders and real-life examples. Three Key Takeaways: Misconceptions about Infinite Banking and Wealth Strategies: Jim and Nick examine the pitfalls of widely accepted advice from financial experts like Dave Ramsey and Susie Orman, underscoring the importance of understanding the true cost of cash and the impact of financial decisions on wealth accumulation. Control and Simplicity: Jim and Nick stress the significance of control in financial matters. They argue that individuals need to simplify financial strategies, combat misinformation, and regain control over their wealth. Understanding the Mechanics of Financial Systems: Jim and Nick discuss how the financial system operates, particularly the roles of depositor, borrower, and bank owner.  Remember, you can't win the financial Monopoly with your money sitting on the side of the board. It's about putting your money in motion, and with Infinite Banking, you become the conductor of your financial symphony. Until next time, keep building your wealth, one smart decision at a time. Question: What financial strategies or insights have resonated with you the most, and how do you plan to incorporate them into your wealth-building journey?  

Welcome to our enlightening discussion with student loan expert, Mark Kantrowitz. As a celebrated author, consultant, and a well-quoted resource for over 10,000 publications, Mark has carved a niche in the realm of student loans and college financial planning. From testifying before Congress to appearing on high-profile shows like Susie Orman, Mark's extensive industry knowledge has made him a beacon for students and parents navigating the often complex landscape of student loans and financial aid. In this episode, we traverse a range of topics, from sourcing scholarships and grants to understanding the nuances of 529 plans, tax implications, and much more. We also delve into Mark's predictions for the future of student loans and higher education. So, whether you're a student taking out your first loan, or a parent planning for your child's education, this episode promises to be an essential guide. Don't miss out on Mark's expert insights and make sure to stay tuned till the end as we uncover lesser-known loan forgiveness programs and discuss effective financial strategies. If you need help with your finances, be sure to check out https://www.fitbux.com.   

  When you're an voice actor, growing your business is not just about booking another job. It's a whole process of making your business work. That process is full of potential risks, big investments...and even bigger successes. In this episode, Anne & Lau discuss making money, investing money back in your business, and fears surrounding money. In today's world, it's not enough to just be a great voice over talent. You also need to be a savvy businessperson. And that means understanding the basics of finance, including how to invest in your own business & make sure you're doing it intelligently. Money can be a scary topic to think about, and even scarier to talk about. You're not alone if you feel scared. It means that you care!   Transcript    It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.   Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am here with the lovely and most wonderful VO BOSS co-host (laugh) Lau Lapides. Hey Lau.   Lau: Hey everyone. Hey Anne.   Anne: How are you this week?   Lau: Oh, fabulous.   Anne: Awesome.   Lau: As always. How are you? How are you?   Anne: I'm good, but you know what? I think it's time that we had a talk about money, and I know we spoke about raising rates before, but I think maybe it's because -- okay, so I admission, I downloaded Rocket Money for my iPhone, and I started to see like, where are my expenses going? What income's coming in? What am I paying on a monthly basis? And I'm just gonna start by saying that when you're trying to either cut your expenses -- and I wanted to start at least on that, if you find that you need to cut your expenses so that you can make a profit, right? Because, I mean, this is why we do VO, right? We are a business, we'd like to make a profit. It's good to find out the areas in which you're spending money. And it surprised me -- it, well, it didn't surprise me a whole lot because I've always said that a podcast is a labor of love. But I'm going to tell you that my discovery was that this podcast, with all the different things that I have going on and paying people to help me transcribe, edit, put out videos, do some social media stuff, cost me on average per year, just about $15,000 and that is not a small amount of money. (laugh) It's something, when you have a business, that's something you've gotta keep your eyes open and really look at and decide, is this worth my investment?   Lau: Yes. Absolutely. And that's, look, is that true of any business, not just our business? You really should be having some sort of a business model at the start, even if it's a skeletal one, having an idea of what's my growth? Where is my growth in the first three years, three to five years of my business? That's really the time, I mean, according to statistics, that most businesses do fail is within the first five years. So it is really important to say, okay, here's my basic model and here are the first year projects. Here are my second year projects. What do I think I'm going to gross? Like, where is my gross coming from? Where is my net? And just like basic financial language so that when you get to that powerhouse podcast, like what you have, you're not outta your mind going, what? How is that possible to invest that kind of money? Right?   Anne: Well, and I think it's something too though, and I spoke about this earlier this week on another webinar, how being an entrepreneur and having a, a voiceover business, it takes courage. It really does. It takes courage to get out there. And I know there's so many people that tend to get into this industry thinking, oh, I can work from home. All I have to do is go in my studio and record and I'll make my money. But nobody really thinks about the cycle of money. Right? Because there's an investment that has to happen. And I think our brains kind of shut that off when we first get started, because all we're thinking about is, oh, I just have to go in my studio and record, and I'll just make that money. But for every business to, I think, function successfully, there is money that you need to invest.   And it takes courage to invest money really takes courage to, especially if, let's say you're doing this full-time and you're just starting, and we're in that time period where maybe you're not comfortable yet or feel like you're making any kind of headway or profits (laugh) in the first few years. So Lau, I mean, you went even further than just a voice talent. I mean, you have a studio (laugh) like... and that is a considerable investment. And so what was it like when you were first investing in this like a physical studio, right? I mean, there's rent, there's (laugh), you know, there's equipment. What was it like for you when you first got involved in that in terms of was it scary?   Lau: Well, I'll be honest, as I try to be all the time, I was shitting bricks. I mean, it was terrifying. (laugh) I'm sorry, your engineer might have to take that one out, but listen, I think our audience can deal with that.   Anne: I think so too.   Lau: Yeah. I'll be honest with you, I was 40, I was not a young kid. I was already, you know, getting to middle-age, and I was offered a space -- this is how it happened for me. I was offered a space through my dad who was a big real estate owner, and he was an amazing entrepreneur unto himself in his own right. And he looked at me one day and he said, I have a space that's opening up, Lau. It's in a prime location. Location is everything, when you're looking at space, whether you're looking to live or own a business, I wanna give it to you, not give it to you, but I wanna offer it to you. And how do you feel about that?   And I remember exactly where I was. I was in a Dunkin Donuts, I know the exactly where it was, how I felt, and I could feel my heart, Anne, drop into my stomach as if you're on the edge of a cliff, like I could feel it like you're gonna jump out of a plane. And all I could say is in the most important times of my life with the biggest decisions, all I could say was yes. That doesn't mean I was like, knew what the hell I was doing. It just meant more of me wanted to do it than not wanna do it. And I knew, I knew in my heart it was now or never, that that was the window of time to do it. So taking on that level of financial investment, taking on prime territory space, all these things that we do need to think about is a leap of faith. A tremendous leap of faith.   Anne: Yes. I was just gonna say that, it's a tremendous leap of faith, and something that I think that -- you know, it's great to have a leap of faith and belief and a passion and a dream to follow it. But I think you also have to have the street smarts to do that in an intelligent way. Right? Because we're not gonna make investments if we don't have some money to back that up, of course. And before we can get to that place to where we might have money to invest, right, there might be places in our career where we can start to save a little money and put that away. And I've said this multiple times, that the most confident I was ever in my business was when I had a savings account, that I had enough money in there that I could make sure that I could pay the mortgage for the next three months, six months -- actually it was six months -- and I would feel okay if the work didn't come in, or if I needed to make an investment. That confidence led me to take the leap of faith and take the risks that was required for me to actually grow beyond where I was.   Because otherwise, I think we just sit here in our studio, and we sit there, and we try to get job after job and we audition, we audition, we audition. But where is the growth? I mean, you could audition your life away, right? But if you're not taking a leap of faith or a risk somewhere and making an investment -- and investment doesn't always have to be money. But I'm gonna say that for most of us, right, the money is like in your face, (laugh), you know what I mean? It's like, that's the kind of risky, scary stuff that it's like, oh no, I've gotta pay what? (laugh) And even if you're talking about a demo, right, or something, you're just getting started or a new microphone, it can be overwhelming, the investment, the money. And I think we're both here to say that, look, you're not alone if you're scared. Right? You're not-- or if you're nervous about that.   Lau: No, no. And you have to be, it's important to me because that level of fear, apprehension, that level of anxiety is also telling yourself that you care. You really care about what happens to you, what happens to the business, what happens to your money, what happens with safety and security. Like you're connected to that ,you care. You're not just saying, oh yeah, it'll be easy and fun. Let me just throw a hundred grand at it and let's see what happens. You're really connected to the outcomes in understanding that sacrifice is happening. You have to be ready to sacrifice to have a business, especially a brick and mortar business.   Anne: Oh gosh, yes.   Lau: Yeah. Like all of our wonderful restaurant friends during Covid really sacrificed and suffered. Well, so did we to some degree. Like we can have a home studio, which is amazing. But if you have any kind of brick and mortar, you have to be ready to sacrifice to keep that shingle up every single month. Every every month it has to be up. You can't just take six months off from it or a year off from paying your rent or your mortgage, or the heat, or I always say, you know, there's toilet paper, there's all sorts of ancillary services that you are providing if you have any kind of a brick and mortar that the public comes into. You have to have insurance. You have to make sure if God forbid, someone gets hurt, you're covered. You have to make sure that, you know, on and on it goes. Taxes are paid, property taxes, on and on it goes. So not to scare anyone, but to sort of keep it real, that even if you're in a home studio, someone is taking care of that home. Someone is paying that rental on that apartment. Someone is, and it's probably you. Right? So it is a level of sacrifice and understanding that I need to continue doing this in order to build this into a viable business, a real business that makes profit.   Anne: Yeah. And I think too, something that's very key is in terms of having the courage, right, to make investments, we're investing in a business that is very much a business about us. Right? It's very much a personal brand. This is about our voice. This is about us being able to perform a service with our voice, which is such a personal part of us. And if we see failure, I think it compounds it. It's not like, oh, I have a product here, a new formula. Right? But when it's our voice, and it's when it's all about us, and we're talking about making an investment in us and giving that money up to invest in us -- if it does not work, right, it affects us personally. And I think that is where a lot of the fear comes in for people coming into this industry.   And I'll tell you what, it doesn't go away. And I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but the bigger you get, right, the more you grow and the more you invest. And so I'm gonna say from the beginning it was just about, well, let me invest in my coaching, let me invest in my demos. Then it became, I've got to invest in, create an S Corp or an LLC or let me invest into a better studio now. And then also I have to invest in other things. Now I've gotten to the point where if I haven't grown every year, I'm looking at my growth. And if I'm not growing, I have to figure out, well what do I need to do to continue that growth? And we can talk about outsourcing, right? I pay people, gosh, for at least 10 years, I've been paying people to help me do things. And the team, I have a team and and that team again is another investment in my business and in my growth.   Lau: Yes. I mean, we can flower this out for hours, this program because we can't even get into the level of detail as you grow. Like we both have a business, roughly both of us are at like the 15 year mark. So can you stay static? Sure. Can you stay in a comfort zone? Absolutely. And I totally am okay with that and respect people who say, I'm capped, I'm at my ceiling, I'm happy with what I'm doing. I'm happy with my services, but I'm not. Like, I'm insatiable in the sense of wanting to provide more value, to educate more, to lift the level of income, to go from, as they say now in the ether, it's very big. Go from six figure to seven figure. How do you do that? Well, you do that through scaling. So everything that you're talking about, Anne, that we built our our businesses on, which is the person, the personality, the personalization, which is what we try to bring to our copy as talent. Right? How do we personalize a real person.   Also, there's a sacrifice in that too. And it's a very hard gray zone. How do I keep the personalization and keep the boutiqueness of my product and scale? Which is automization, which is about, you know, you're in the whole AI world. It's about like, how do I get into a place where things are being funneled and things are being structured in a system? It's no longer high touch. Like I don't have to be a part of every transaction. And then at the end of the day, it's not about me anymore; it's about the process or the product. And that's like to wrap your brain around that, when you start a business that's so personal and so high touch, is just a jump. It's a jump. It's a transition that a lot of us are working towards making. Keeping it personal. Keeping it real for us. Keeping it something we love and care about, but allowing our control to get out of the way so that other systems and controls can come in. And keep providing value at a much larger level.   Anne: Absolutely. And I think in terms of money, (laugh) I say money, and I don't want people to think --   Lau: I like how you said that.   Anne: -- that Anne, money, she's obsessed with money, that Anne. But here's the deal for me, like again, I always talk about wanting to grow my business. And so for me, it becomes a challenge. And I've always been a girl that takes on challenges. And so you have to feel comfortable with money, number one. And you have to feel comfortable investing money to make money. Right? And then to be accepting of that money. And again, that goes back to like, know you're worth, charge an appropriate fee so that you can make that money, so that you can reinvest in parts of your business to continue to grow, and take that opportunity to just embrace the thought of money (laugh) in abundance. Right? You're always talking about abundance, Lau. And again, I'm not gonna get too woo woo here, but I think manifesting that worth, you need to manifest that worth out to your potential clients so that they say, oh yeah, absolutely. My goodness, can I pay you more money to do what you're doing, (laugh)?   Lau: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.   Anne: That's what I want. And really that's how it comes. And I think that as entrepreneurs, you have to not just think of yourself as a voiceover artist. That's why I'm always saying, I'm not just a, a voiceover actor, a voiceover artist. I am an entrepreneur, and I am as much in tune with growing my business as I am with getting the next gig.   Lau: Yeah. No question about it. And you have to figure that out over time. You know, I became someone who became most comfortable -- here was talk about being in a discomfort zone. I was in a discomfort zone opening a business and putting everything on the line. But I figured out about myself, which ultimately became my brand, was I was much happier giving value to someone else and growing their career and seeing them flourish than for myself. And that's a pure irony 'cause I was an actor for many years. I was a voice talent for many years. But that was a level of sacrifice that I was willing to make because I had to really honestly identify what is your niche? What is your niche? What do you offer the best? What do you do the best? You can do 10 million things, but what do you do the best? And I figured out it was, I like leading I like creation. I'm the idea creator. And I like executing those more than I like doing the talent piece for myself. And that took me years to figure that out. That was a revelation. I almost felt guilty about that because I was in such an actor's mindset for so many years.   Anne: Very interesting.   Lau: And I thought, why would you give that up? Why would you stop doing that? I've had clients that say, why aren't you doing it? I'd say, okay. Because I was building a business that was giving this value to other people and that satisfied me. That satisfied me tremendously. And I figured out that that's okay. Like that's enough. And it, not only is it enough, but you've got a lot more to build.   Anne: That's like coaching and teaching for me. Right? I mean, again, it's something that -- and performing as well --but I think that inherent, I like to mentor, to inspire, to help people grow their businesses, to grow their skills. And that to me gives the joy a lot of the joy in my business. And yes, money. (laugh), again money. And I say that unabashedly and unashamedly because I need to pay the bills. I do, I need to pay the bills. But it's not the top game. It's, I've gotta have joy first and then that money will come. I believe that. Because if I'm following my business, if I'm following my gut and my intuition to how I wanna grow that business, I'm always chasing the joy and the passion. And if that happens to be in my business, then yes, I'm going to yield a profit.   Lau: Yeah. And I think it comes down to too is women in our industry and in the world at large, we're always figuring out, you know, what does value mean? What is our value in the world and in this industry? Value is many things. It's monetary, it's actual process related. It's sacrifice and charity. It's, it's a lot of things. But at the bottom line, we can't be afraid of the money, and contracts, and negotiation, and saying -- one of the more famous campaigns of L'Oreal that I always loved was get this, and I'm worth it. You know what I mean? That was a L'Oreal campaign, I thought as a kid, I was like, ooh, that makes me cringe. It's like so arrogant to say that, whatever. But as you get older and you've build your business, you have to say, here's what I provide. This is a value to you. And it's worth it. Right? There's a worth to it.   Anne: Absolutely. And it's also, there's purpose beyond profit. Right? And I think that if some people might take a look at things like with big businesses and today, the big companies out there and say that greed is at the base of all of it. But I'm going to say that for me, it's not greed, but I wanna say that as I prosper, right, again, I want to give back even more. It comes from a place of, well I personally like think that wealth is more than just money. It can be mindset, it can be time, it can be a lot of things. But as my business grows and my financial wealth grows, I am willing to donate. I'm willing to share that, be philanthropic. And so I think a lot of times when people criticize billionaires and millionaires and say it's an uneven system -- but I'll tell you, there's a lot of billionaires that do good as well as make a lot of money.   Lau: Sure. Absolutely. And I can tell you the stats now is that 99% of companies in our nation, all companies in our nation are considered small business. And I started to research what is small business? Small business is defined as 500 or less employees. So I felt so satisfied knowing I was a small business. But I was in the company of most businesses.   Anne: Yes, absolutely.   Lau: Most businesses are small. And so there's layers of this sacrifice that you're looking at to say, okay, well if I need to make money in order to survive, make it a viable business, in our industry would say tag, what's our tag -- one of the best financial advisors who I love so much, Susie Orman, used to say it's people first, then money, then things. And I love that. And I sort of live by that in my own right, because it's, for me, relationships. It's about value, it's about -- but right behind it is money because I can't keep doing that and sustaining that without financial benefit, nor can anyone. And when we go back to the origins of our businesses, Anne, and when we're starting our businesses, and you have --take your pot of gold, you take your savings.   I like you, was a really good saver. I'm very frugal. I'm not a super materialistic person. So I would tend to save the money. I would take that pot of gold, take that savings and say, I'm not spending anything. Even though it's scary, I'm not. I'm investing in something that I know is viable. And that to me is the first step of having a real business and saying, I have the belief system. I have the belief system based on research, homework, relationships, and knowledge of what my skillset is that this can work and this will work. And as they say, failure is not an option. It's not an option. Don't give yourself an out. Like keep yourself accountable. I oftentimes say I am the toughest, toughest BOSS I've ever worked for.   Anne: Oh my God. Me too. I'm a real witch.   Lau: Tough.   Anne: Yeah. (laugh). Yeah. I said, oh my God, that I do that. I'm a real -itch.   Lau: (laugh) that big. Right. What is she making me do today? Right. But that's that accountability, it's the internal accountability that I know creates sustainability. That's what it does.   Anne: And I think -- one thing I always like to bring up is I keep this in mind. Mind your own business, your own business. And that means don't let others influence you on what your business should look like, how much money you should be making, that kind of a thing. Because in reality it is your business. And honestly, nobody needs to know. And as a matter of fact, I'm always really quiet. Number one, I work a lot in the area of the market that has NDAs. And so I'm very low profile on any work that I'm doing or any gigs that I'm getting. And I don't even like to necessarily report.   Some people put money, oh, I made so much money this week and clients. And, and that for me is not the way to really talk about my business because I think in that way, some people think maybe it inspires some people, but I also think there's a lot of people who aren't talking about that, that it makes feel bad. They feel bad about that. And I don't want any of you BOSSes out there to feel bad about your business because it is your business. And that the same goes for, I'm gonna say this, whatever money you're making, I mean, yes, there are concerns I have with certain online casting sites, but I will never judge someone for running their business the way they see fit because it is your business.   Lau: Me too. And that's, of course, we all know that's the biggest, one of the bigger sources of conversation especially in the early to mid-range market of people who are in the market. It's like, should I do this? Should I be on a pay-to-play? Should I do that? And here's what I say, I simply say this as a coach, I'm putting my coaching hat on, saying Listen, you have a business that you are running, and you have to sit down with pen and paper, and you have to say, what am I reaching for this year? What are my goals and how am I going to get them? And you need to leave everyone out of that. The circle you've created are there for you to come back to, to connect to, to befriend, to help. But that's not the time. The time is your inner search. My inner search is, I want to do this. I need to do this. How am I going to do this? When you start listening to too many voices and too many points of view, you get really confused. And at the end of the day, you have to cook your dinner, you have to eat it, and you have to live with what it tasted like.   Anne: And there's nothing wrong with supplemental income while you're building your business. I mean, in any industry, we've all got our talents. And so especially for me coming from the corporate educational world into an entrepreneurship with my own business, that's night and day in terms of (laugh). Oh my gosh. Before I didn't have to worry about who's doing the accounting. I just show up, I show up to my job, but do my job. I get paid every two weeks. Now all of a sudden, that is so not what I'm doing with an entrepreneur business.   Lau: A lot of folks are coming in and they're under this delusion of like, how do I get what you have? How do I come in at the rate that you're at? I say, I said, okay, well you have to do like 30 years and you have to do this, this, and this. Like side hustle was my middle name when I -- before I opened. Before I opened my studio, I literally was what they call in in California, you know this term, a highway flyer. What I would do is I'd get in my car and I'd go to six different colleges. This was after graduate school. Six, count it, guys, six, 'cause I was adjunct. I was not a full-time. And I would teach two to three classes per college per semester. Count it. I was up to 15 classes one semester. Right?   Because I was adopting children. I had to have cash for that. I was starting a business. I had to have cash for that. And you have to have cash flow. It can't be tied up. You have to have flow ready to go. I like to say right now I loved it'cause I'm like a type A personality. So I loved all that stuff. But to the average person, that's crazy. They'd say, wait a second, how did you do all of that? And you were a performer and you were a director, and, and, and? I said, because I loved it and I had passion for it and I was working my way up the ladder.   Anne: Yep. Absolutely.   Lau: So to speak. Do I wanna do that now? No, I don't because I'm at a different place now. But I can't come in saying, oh, how do I walk into this, Lau, and how do I get all the clients I want and be at six figures? And I said, well you gotta pay some dues. You have to pay some dues and it's not bad either. I had fun doing that. I loved it. I had a ball. I was like always testing. How much can I do? Where can I go?   Anne: Yeah. I'm right there with you. And I'm gonna say the challenge to me --   Lau: I miss it. (laugh)   Anne: -- that floors me. I mean that just makes me so excited. The challenge. Right? Rising up to the challenge. But it's not that I didn't curl up in a fetal ball (laugh) every once in a while and cry, just saying, guys. There have been times when it's frustrating and it's hard, and there's nobody there. Sometimes I'm like, why? Why do I do this? I can't even talk to anybody about it. Like I could be running into these issues. And I'm like, I don't know what to do. I've never experienced this before. How do I do this? And then there's no answers. And I'm like, (laugh), why is it so hard? It's so hard. But guys, most days I like to say I rise to the challenge, but I'm also gonna completely admit to you that yeah, sometimes I'll curl up in the fetal position and cry, but it's worth it.   Lau: But you know what? You know how you get out of that position? You know how you get out? 'Cause we all do that. When you email me and you say, Lau, what we just did made a difference.   Anne: Yeah.   Lau: And then I keep that. I keep every single one of those. I put 'em in my little e folder, I'll print a few out. And just when I'm like sobbing my eyes out thinking none of this is worth it, I look at that and I go, oh my God. But for this person, it literally changed their life. It literally changed the trajectory of how they think. To me, there's no better work than that.   Anne: I agree.   Lau: And, and I get to make money. And I get to make my own hours and my own structure, and yes, it'll drive you crazy 'cause most of us need structure and usually expect it from someone else. But it's so wonderful to have that level of creative and artistic freedom.   Anne: Agreed. Totally agree.   Lau: I'd rather work my butt off for myself. (laugh).   Anne: I can't ever work for somebody again. Pretty much. That's the way it works.   Lau: I can't either.   Anne: Except for voiceover 'cause it's one. And you know, get in, get out real quick. I mean I have some great clients that I keep coming back to, but yeah, absolutely.   Lau: Of course, of course. That doesn't mean you can't job in for an agency or job in for this. But that's not the same as running your own biz. When you run your own shop, you don't mind working really, really, really hard. 'cause you know you're building something that's a legacy for you.   Anne: Absolutely. Woo, what a great conversation. I'll tell you. So BOSSes, money, money, money, (laugh). Don't be afraid of it. Use it wisely. Invest it wisely so that you can grow your business. Lau and I certainly have the faith, we have the faith in all of you out there that this can be done. You can be successful. So don't be afraid of money. And also I'm gonna say that when you, BOSSes, you are BOSSes out there. And if you have a little bit of extra money, maybe you have a local nonprofit that's close to your heart. If you know a nonprofit that you would like to do more to help them and to give back, you can visit 100voiceswhocare.org to find out more. And a big shout out to our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can network and connect like BOSSes, like Lau and myself. Find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing week and we'll see you next week.   Lau: See you next week, bye.   Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host Anne Ganguzza. And take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at voBOSS.com and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a BOSS. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via ipDTL.

Dawn DeKeyser on IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0215245/Dawn's Website - https://www.dawndekeyser.comMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistTranscripts Are Auto-GeneratedMichael Jamin:I've made a number of posts about this that yeah, put yourself in a box. People are like, But I don't wanna be in a box. Put yourself in a box and you'll worry about getting outta the box later. But right now, you need to sell yourself as who? This is what you are. What do I do? That's right. That'sDawn DeKeyser:Right. And, and so many new writers are still struggling with that. And I said, People cannot help you if they don't know where to put you.Michael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jam. Hey everybody, this is Michael Jamin and you're listening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear this. Mike cohost Phil Hudson. He's got the day off again. He's doing some more work behind the scenes, but I'm here interviewing the amazingly talented Dawn de Kaiser. And, uh, Dawn, let me tell, tell everybody who you are. Let me also you, I need to remind you who you are.Dawn DeKeyser:Okay? Please doMichael Jamin:So. You got a long history of writing some pretty great shows. So first you started, I guess, on All American Girl. That was the Margaret Cho show you did Ink Ted Danson. Remember that one? I remember that one. News Radio you wrote a news radio you wrote on All right, already, which I did not know. I guess you wrote with Steven Engel on that one. I didn't know that. Conrad Bloom, you know, I went to, uh, I went to uh, college with him. We were friends in college, Mark Fostein. Um, but I haven't talked to him since. And then the Gina Davis show starring who, who started that? Uh, the Becker Becker again. Ted Danson. Let's listen to these credits you got there was amazing. Uh, just for kicks. Ugly Betty. We know Betty Lafa, Samantha, who if I were on that show, I would've been insufferable because someone would've said, Yeah, I I have an idea. What if Samantha goes on a date? And I would've been like, Samantha, who? That would've been my joke all every day. Sign sealed. Oh, I skip on the client list. Sign sealed, delivered, hit Streak. The Gourmet Detective Summer. Love the Good Witch. Thank you, John. Thank you so much. Look at me. Are you impressed with how much work?Dawn DeKeyser:I am so impressed at. Who knew? I had no idea.Michael Jamin:You've done a lot of you. So anyway, I thank you so much for joining because, uh, is, we've never worked together. I always, even though I've known you for years, I always figured we would work together at some point. We just never did. And I blame you for that.Dawn DeKeyser:I, uh, I, blame me, we were on the same studio a lot. We were like, Yeah. Next to we had bungalows next to each other. Mm-hmm. . So that counts completely is, Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah. You were always a familiar face.Dawn DeKeyser:But before we start, can I curse?Michael Jamin:I don't Sure. Why, why would you, Is there something you wanna get off your chest? ?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. No, just that in the course of talking, it's gonna play a part of describing my path in life and Oh yeah. I don't think I could do it without some gods and fucks. SoMichael Jamin:Do it. Do it up.Dawn DeKeyser:Okay.Michael Jamin:Cause I we're getting to the truth again. So let's begin. How did you become? Where did you start? How did you get into sit? Everyone wants to know how people get into sitcom writing or TV writing. So how did you get in?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, so, and we all come from different angles on different paths. And in order to get to my TV days, I'll just say a little bit about my background. I was raised in a military family and my dad was a fighter pilot. And I grew up in a very great Sani kind of house. Um, I, I say I was the best son my dad ever had because I was tough and competitive. And I weighed 92 pounds and I was pious.Michael Jamin:Wait, did, were you the only child?Dawn DeKeyser:No, I had two sisters. So my mom, who was lovely, she would dress my sisters and I all in matching dresses, hats, gloves and shoes. And we would march out onto the tarmac and salute the F four phantoms as they landed.Michael Jamin:Wow. And so, and so you moved around the country then? Probably?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, I was born in Japan and I lived in England.Michael Jamin:Oh my. And so your Okay. Military brat. And then when you say Great Santa, cuz your dad was strict. Oh, is Now, do you wanna start cursing now? What did you want to curse?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, well, let's see. He, we did have a flow chart of our chores on our bedrooms. And when we were, I think starting at three and four and our beds had to be made with hospital corners really. And we would have to stand in a line, add attention and get, you know, understand what our chores were gonna be for the day and for the week.Michael Jamin:Because you are so not that you're so, you know, kind of almost soft spoken, very gentle. You're very warm energy. You're not , you're not a, you know, uh,Dawn DeKeyser:It's taken a long time to get this outta my system. So when I was in junior high, we moved from England to Texas and I went from riding English, um, horseback to competing in rodeos. And I then started racing sailboats. And by college I was on the varsity team. And, um, by the way, I paid my way through college, working two or three jobs each semester. And I started working when I was 15. That's a little Rob Cohen of me. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Wait, where did you go to school?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, which time? Uh, I went to, so in college I went to the University of Texas and I studied international business, Uhhuh. And then I dropped out of UT and moved to Belgium where I worked at a division of NATO for, for,Michael Jamin:I feel like you might speak a lot of languages. Do you speak how many languages you speak?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, I used to speak French when I worked in the warehouse with the Belgians. Right. Um, and then, you know, when my other girlfriends were cheerleaders and all that, I was treasurer of the Latin Club. I don't mean to brag.Michael Jamin:Wow. So you speak Latin. I knew you spoke. What?Dawn DeKeyser:And, and so then I, after dropping out, I went back and I finished up my degree in, uh, appropriately named a BS in advertising. And that's, that's really when I started my writing career. And, um, let's see, what did I do? So I started,Michael Jamin:You worked in advertising.Dawn DeKeyser:So I got to work on tv, radio, and print. And in fact, my first assignment was writing, uh, dozens of scripts for David Brener for TacoMichael Jamin:Bell. That was your work. Now I, now I know your work. .Dawn DeKeyser:That's what I'm known for. Um, so getting closer to the TV part, I was living in Dallas. My boyfriend was discovered by a talent manager, and he immediately moved out to LA and became a successful actor.Michael Jamin:Do we know his name?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. I went, I'll I'll say it. I mean, it was a long time ago. So Tom Hayden Church.Michael Jamin:Oh, I did not know that. Okay.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. And so he, his confidence and his uniqueness was just like he broken right away. Mm-hmm. . And I went on to New York and in advertising, which I loved. And you know, after a while, after about two years, I thought maybe I could write something longer than 30 seconds. Mm-hmm. . So I took writing classes at night. I did improv, which I was terrible at because of that. Let's revisit the military background. I am not spontaneous.Michael Jamin:You're not supposed to go off script when you're in the military.Dawn DeKeyser:Oh. Oh, no. And I'm very methodical and you know, by this time I was like mid to late twenties and I guess I was having a quarter life crisis and thinking, what, what am I, what do I wanna do and what do I love doing? I loved writing and I loved sitcoms more than anything. Um, I didn't know how to do that. I called Tom, who was at the time on Wings, that was his first series. And I said, Could you send by now my ex-boyfriend? And I said, Could you send me the writer's draft through a producing draft? I wanna see the transition mm-hmm. of how this writing is done. And so then I started taping my favorite shows and then doing the stop and pause on the VHS tape.Michael Jamin:Like really studying how long a scene would be, how what the act breaks are everything. Huh.Dawn DeKeyser:All that. The dialogue, the, and I would map out the beats on a notepad, which by the way, I still write on old fashioned paper notepads for everything. And then I transfer it to the computer. Wow.Michael Jamin:That's old school.Dawn DeKeyser:That is old school. And it is all about the ritual. And like, I think there's something about the the brain to the heart to the hand that gets on paper that I, I don't get when I write.Michael Jamin:But you could, you must be able to read your handwriting. Cause I can't read my handwriting. I couldn't even try.Dawn DeKeyser:I no, I can't. I can get the gist of it.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? Okay.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Um, so Tom sent me a series of one of one script and, um, I was writing my own two spec scripts. And then I moved to LA with $3,000 in cash.Michael Jamin:And where, what I always, I I have to What part in LA did you live at first?Dawn DeKeyser:I lived Endless Field, which was being hailed as the New West Village of LA and it is not. And I was living right on Vermont Avenue and I slept on my bathrobe for the first two weeks until my stuff came from New York.Michael Jamin:But you had a place all by yourself or you have roommates?Dawn DeKeyser:Uh, no, I had a place to myself. I mean, it was $700 for one.Michael Jamin:Mm-hmm. . That sounds about right. That's a good deal actually. Uh, even then, that's a good deal. So, okay. And then, and then how did you find a, how did you finally get work?Dawn DeKeyser:So I was writing these spec scripts and I sent them them to Bill Diamond and Mike Sal. Mm-hmm. . And when I moved out to LA, they were my first meeting.Michael Jamin:But How did you know them?Dawn DeKeyser:Through Tom? Because they were baby writers on the show. Oh,Michael Jamin:Right. Yeah.Dawn DeKeyser:And they said, you know, we thought you were just gonna be some gal who want, who had this idea of writing for sick homes, but you know what you're doing. Right. And I was very happy about that. They didn't give me my first break,Michael Jamin:But they, but they weren't, they were just staff writers at the time.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, yeah. Which is fine. You know, I thought the first thing I needed to do was build a community. So I took a UCLA extension class at night and on the last day of the class, everyone was filing out. Someone turned around and said, you know, the deadline for the Disney Writer's Fellowship is tomorrow. You have to have your work postmarked by then. Okay. And I ran home and got my stuff in the mail the next morning. And, um, I sort of like that intro that I just talked about my life, I sort of put some of that in the essay that you write for what's your unique background. And, um, and then sent in a, uh, a Murphy Brown, maybe. Mm-hmm. , I'mMichael Jamin:Not sure you had a bunch of specsDawn DeKeyser:Probably. No, I had, because I'm very methodical, I would spend six months writing each of them. Okay. And that's night and day work shopping, doing writers groups, doing punch up mm-hmm. , um, until I felt like every page that your eyeballs land on made sense and was good and had a joke and you knew where the characters were going.Michael Jamin:Before we skip ahead, you said something I thought was really smart, you said you wanted to build your community. Right. Because a lot of people don't even think about that.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:So you knew you wanted by, you knew you wanted help or you wanted, like what, what were you looking for?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, I knew that I didn't know anyone here. Tom was off on his own, uh, fabulous life. I knew a girl from Dallas from years before, but, um, there was, there was no one that I could send my stuff to and I did cold calling to the agents and that didn't work. Doesn't do anything. Yeah. And so in the UCLA classes, I would usually, if you've got a group of 20 people, there's two that get it, let's say 10%, they'reMichael Jamin:Get what get you or what do you mean get it?Dawn DeKeyser:I mean, they get what the, they are really there to learn and to be in that field. Mm-hmm. some others, you know, just they, it's a fun class to take. Right. But you can tell the two or three people that are very, um, interested in moving their career forward. Right. So I ingratiated myself and said, Let's form a writer's group. And that was okay. You know, that was fine until you start meeting people through them, they bring in their set of information that you don't have access to mm-hmm. and then it just starts growing.Michael Jamin:Right? Yeah. You gotta be there. And you, you were there now, how were you making a living? You still working in advertising now?Dawn DeKeyser:So I was still in, I wasn't in doing advertising. I was temping and I had this job at, uh, Disney on the lot where I was answering phones for the head of marketing mm-hmm. . And I thought, I'm advertising and marketing. And because, um, at, on the second day, he came out of his office and he said, Who are you and why are you so bad at answering phones? Like you're dropping calls and you're, you're sending in the wrong people. And I was like, Yeah, cuz um, this is really what I do. I actually love the One Sheet movie posters that you guys are writing, so I'd like to write headlines for that. And I had secretly gone into the files to see what their freelancers were invoicing them.Michael Jamin:Interesting.Dawn DeKeyser:And he said, Yeah, I don't think you're right for that. So I brought in my portfolio the next day and he said, I think you're right for this. So I started picking up freelance for movie posters,Michael Jamin:But that was not, See some people think that that's how you break in, but I wouldn't think that that's how to break in. That's just how to make a book. Right.Dawn DeKeyser:What do you mean? Like,Michael Jamin:Well, like that wouldn't, working in that advertising side for Disney wouldn't get you, you know, you're on the Disney lot, but it wouldn't get you as a sick, you know, get you work as a sit home writer.Dawn DeKeyser:That's right. So that predated getting into, so I got in the Disney Writer's Fellowship, Right. Um, that was over the course of like a two, two month process of interviewing and meeting with their executives. And I went into that meeting thinking, this is what I moved out here for. And they said, So what is your plan if, if this doesn't work out? And I said, This is going to work out. I really can't imagine y y'all finding someone better or more dedicated to doing great work. I really wanna do this. I wanna work with my heroes. I wanna work with people that will make me a better writer.Michael Jamin:And who were your heroes then?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, weirdly enough, um, I had top a top five. One was Diane English, one was Chris Lloyd, the, the writer. HowMichael Jamin:Did you know Chris Lloyd? But yeah, I was so surprised you from, how would you know, how did you know Chris? Like how was he? He, Diane English? Yeah,Dawn DeKeyser:Diane English. Um, Chris was,Michael Jamin:Was he running, He wasn't running Fraser then?Dawn DeKeyser:He was like higher up on Fraser.Michael Jamin:Wow. Okay. Yeah. I'm surprised you even thought of him. But I mean Yeah, he's great. He's a he is a great writer forDawn DeKeyser:Sure. Yeah, he is. And I can't remember the other three, but within the first two years of breaking in, I worked with all five of them.Michael Jamin:Wow. Wow. Now, what was the fellowship like? Cuz we did the Warner Brothers Writer's Workshop.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:I'd rather you talk about it. What was the Disney one like? What was your experience there?Dawn DeKeyser:It was so great. They picked five people. I think they had in that year, um, 3000 applicants. They picked five of us and Wow. That's it. Pardon?Michael Jamin:That's it. That's, I can't, I I didn't, I didn't know it was that small.Dawn DeKeyser:Well, it's, I think it's bigger these days. I think they take on 10 or 20, which is good. And they have a, they had another five fellows that did only film. And our five, you know, I'm still in contact with today. We would meet, um, twice a week at each other's houses. And then usually once a week or every two weeks we'd go to Disney and we would pitch where we are with our specs script. So it was a small, like a small stipend that paid the rent. OhMichael Jamin:Wow. And those five, all five went on to work?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, not consistently. Not really. Okay. But that again, was just, I think it has everything to do with focus. Mm-hmm. . Um, and I'll talk about that a little more of like, if you, if you are not, if you don't pick a lane, I am a sitcom half hour multi-camera mm-hmm. writer. That's what I wanna do.Michael Jamin:That Right. I, I so intriguing. Cause I say that I've made a number of posts about this that Yeah, put yourself in a box. People like, but I don't wanna be in a box, Put yourself in a box and you worry about getting outta the box later. But right now you need to sell yourself as who this is what you are. Why do I do? That's right.Dawn DeKeyser:That's right. And, and so many new writers are still struggling with that. And I said, People cannot help you if they don't know where to put you. Yeah. And so if you say, Oh, I write drama and comedy and romance, it's like, that's great for you, but I only know comedy writers. Right. So I don't think I'm gonna even help you because I don't know if you're really connected with that or with drama orMichael Jamin:How serious you are about it. Yeah, exactly. Market yourself. Make it easy for people. Yeah. You know? Yeah. What, See, it's, so sometimes I, sometimes I wonder, am I just bullshitting? Am I making this up? You know, am I the only one who feels this way? No, I don't, I don't think, I think I'm saying stuff everyone else thinks, you know, agrees withDawn DeKeyser:You are not alone. And you're getting such great information out there to so many people. It's really spectacular.Michael Jamin:You're very kind.Dawn DeKeyser:You're fan Michael Jam. ButMichael Jamin:That's me. So then, okay, so then okay, then what you have. All right.Dawn DeKeyser:So then I was in the fellowship and they put, they don't promise, but they say, we may place you on one of our Disney shows. And that's where I went onto All American Girl. Mm-hmm. . AndMichael Jamin:It, Were they paying you? Cuz I'm Warner of Brothers. If they staffed you in one of their shows, you get, at least back then you would get, you work for like a third of scale. A third. But was that the case on Disney?Dawn DeKeyser:We didn't get paid, but we got paid for the scripts that we wrote because they were already paying. Like, more brothers doesn't pay youMichael Jamin:To pay. Right. No one of those you pay to get in.Dawn DeKeyser:Oh yeah.Michael Jamin:We paid. Yeah. We, we paid like, I think it was like $400 each or something. But I think it's way more than now. I think it's a lot more now.Dawn DeKeyser:Hmm. No, they, they would place you as free labor on their shows. And it was my first experience in the writer's room. It was hard. I had trouble being heard. And I did end up, we had an order for 13 episodes. I ended up writing three of them.Michael Jamin:What was your three? That's that's a lot actually for a staff writer. I wonder why weren't you, you must have been scared.Dawn DeKeyser:They liked my writing. They liked, like, I spent again, it was like, I really sweated it. This is another thing that I, that I stress to writers is sweated, you can't make a lot of money if you're not putting that amount into your writing and your own career. SoMichael Jamin:Yeah. So 13, that's a lot. And but what was it like? I mean, were you okay? I always think that when we first kinda just shoot me, I was like, I'm in over my head. I am in over my head. Yeah. How did you felt? The same wayDawn DeKeyser:I am in over my head. Um, I, yeah, I, it was terrifying. And I realized that I wasn't a match for people who had been in writing rooms that were louder funnier, more obnoxious, mostly just louder. Mm-hmm. . So I sat next to this one writer and I, I'd whisper things to him to see if he could pitch them for me.Michael Jamin:And did he? Yeah. And, and they went over and then did he give you, did you say as dope? OhDawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Yeah. He would gimme credit. But you know, I said I don't even wanna push that. I just wanna see.Michael Jamin:Right. IfDawn DeKeyser:You're on the right game. Well, I wanna be part of this game, but I don't know how to play.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right. Exactly. Right. And it takes several, How long did it take you before you felt like you knew how to play? How many years?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, well that's the interesting thing because my next job was on news radio. Right. And I, I have all, I had felt like an all American girl that I was getting my, you know, sort of getting my feet under me. But that was, they were kicked out from under me on this, on the next actual staff job that I have. Right. That I had. And it took me, um, quite a long time to feel okay in the room. And it really wasn't until many years later when I was in the ugly Betty Writers' room because the, you had drama writers there who were so great about staying on focus with the story and not performing and the performance of the comedy when you do a comedy pitch. I was scared ofMichael Jamin:Oh, interesting. So cuz they don't have, obviously when you're doing the drama you don't have to be funny. So they're basically just talking about the story points. Cause I haven't really worked on it and they're not, Yeah. They're not hoping the joke will land cuz there is no joke.Dawn DeKeyser:It was so weird to, um, go out on, on an act with no joke. It was like, what? Wait, we can just cliff hanger like that. .Michael Jamin:Do you feel like these drama rooms are more civilized because of that?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, definitely. They were also, they were just more writerly and, um, more mature. And I, you know, I say that sitcom riding was a full contact sport. Mm-hmm. . And I didn't realize that when I started I wanted to be around really funny people. And it was so much work for me. There was the whole other aspect of being a female writer and oftentimes the only woman in the room.Michael Jamin:Why? Talk about that experience a little. What's that like?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, it sucked .Michael Jamin:It, it sucked. It sucked.Dawn DeKeyser:It wasMichael Jamin:Sucked. But not all the time. Just sometimes or all the time?Dawn DeKeyser:Every timeMichael Jamin:On every show. Every show.Dawn DeKeyser:No. If there were other women in the writer's room, it was a little less terrible,Michael Jamin:But still terrible.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . It wasn't until I got into dramas and then dramas that I just felt like, okay, I can, I can do my work. I could be funny. I'm much funnier on the page and I would just think, Oh God, I gotta get out of the writer's room so I can be funny. Right. So that was not the best strategy.Michael Jamin:Right.Dawn DeKeyser:Um, and I was the only woman on news radio that year. Andy and Eileen were there and they left after a few episodes.Michael Jamin:Right. But Right. But you overlap with him. Right. Cause that's how I, that's how I met you through Eileen I think.Dawn DeKeyser:Oh, probably. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.Michael Jamin:And you know, they were both very, I remember I'd just shoot me, both of them. They'd pitch a line, like a story, uh, idea and then, you know, people Oh, that's good. And like, how do you know it's good? How do they, like how are they doing this? Like how do you know? You know, Anyway, but I thinkDawn DeKeyser:That's, I don't know. Would you say that it helps to have a partner? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.Michael Jamin:For sure. It helped a lot. I mean I, you know, the two of us were clinging to each other for, you know, for dear life. . Um, I think definitely it's that way more intimidating to do it all to it on yourself. But how do you, what do you like, what do you experience even now or like lately when you have a staff writer who feels the same way that you felt like what, you knowDawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:What goes on there?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, um, working on pilots, there was one young girl who came in and just to sort of observe mm-hmm. and I just took to her because she was so, um, she had a script in a big binder with all of it color coded with all of her nose. I was like, Oh my God, you're after my heart. Um, becauseMichael Jamin:She's so prepared. People, young writers come in prepared sometimes. I'm alwaysDawn DeKeyser:Yeah, they do. And I just said, You are after my heart. I will help you in any way that I can. And she was working for, for quite some time. I think she lives on the East coast now. Right. It's that, um, it's that showing up prepared and really earnest. Like, I love that. I kind of love when people try a little too hard and sometimes it can be cringy. I'm like, Yes, I get it. That's me.Michael Jamin:But do you have you also, cause I've experienced young writers who kind of don't under, they don't know what they don't know as well, you know, as well and they kind ofDawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Argue or overstep and, you know, have you experienced that?Dawn DeKeyser:Oh yeah. And the, one of the first things I say is, do not litigate. Do just, just take it in. And it's also the, um, once you learn how to take notes on your script and realize that it's not personal, get out of your own fucking way. Get outta your way. Because after like being in writer's groups, we had rules about how we gave notes to each other. And the person getting the notes has to shut up. You cannot explain why you put something in a script. It's like, I don't care why you put it in there. Here's me as a reader is not getting this part of it. Right. And there's been plenty of times I'd be giving people notes and just like in classes or writer's room. Um, Yeah. Classes a writer resume. And I could tell that they didn't want the note.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Oh well no one wants a note. . Yeah. I mean,Dawn DeKeyser:I mean just like basic stuff, especially in writers' groups where if, if they are arguing their stance and their reason for why they wrote something, it's like, Oh, I get it. Okay. You're good. You're good to go. All all's good.Michael Jamin:Right. Right. And so this, see, it's so funny how we have the same, like we've never worked in the same show. We've had so many the same exact experiences.Dawn DeKeyser:Yes. Although I would, I would, Oh you said venture to mention that. Um, you know, and some writers' rooms, it's like, I was not safe. I was commented, my body was commented on when I would walk into a room and when I would leave a room and I was told to suck it up by my agents because it was a really good show. OrMichael Jamin:Do you think they were trying to be funny or were they're being sexual harassing? Like, you know, what were they trying, what was the Oh,Dawn DeKeyser:Sometimes it was just trying to be funny. But, um, it was funny at my expense I say I was humiliated for sport on a particular show. Right. And they were cruel. And they were also like, my agents came in after one of our show tapings and they looked around the office and went, Oh, I see what you're talking about. It smells like rancid cheese in here. The guys were walking around in boxer shorts. They had brought futons to their offices cuz they were just staying there.Michael Jamin:So like, cuz the hours is terrible. Yeah,Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. And they also had jars of their pee in the offices because I thought that was hilarious.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Dawn DeKeyser:So that's, that's not just being like, IMichael Jamin:Dunno. And it's interesting that you, you were able to speak up about this because this was before people were really speaking up about this. You know what I'mDawn DeKeyser:Saying? I didn't, I didn't, I mean, I didn't until more recently. That's a really,Michael Jamin:To your agent at least you did. You know?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, I just said it's so hard. I mean it's so Yeah. And that my agents were womenMichael Jamin:And they still, And you're, they still,Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:I can't, I want, What do you think if that were today though? I can't imagineDawn DeKeyser:It wouldn't happen today.Michael Jamin:Yeah. You'd be taking a lot more seriously, you know. Yeah,Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. It, it, it, yeah. It wouldn't happen today. Um, that, that show ended up not hiring a woman writer for the rest of its run for like three or four more seasons.Michael Jamin:And, but from what I understand, well maybe, maybe I shouldn't say which show it was. Do we say which show it was? I know some,Dawn DeKeyser:It may have earlier, butMichael Jamin:I know some of the, like some of these shows that you were on the hours were absolutely terrible. Terrible. Like, what were those, what was that like?Dawn DeKeyser:That was like being held hostage by a crazy person. Right. And that sometimes the showrunner would be on medication and they would not be able to focus and they would just kind of keep us there. A lot of times you'd hear about showrunners who just didn't wanna go home to their wife and kids, which is terrible,Michael Jamin:Terrible, terrible. Right. Wow.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Wow. So that was, that was hard. I mean, driving home at four in the morning and then getting up at around 10, um, and then getting back to the office by 10 30 or 11,Michael Jamin:Was there a lot of sitting around and waiting? Or was it all work?Dawn DeKeyser:No, it was a lot of sitting around and waiting and storytelling galing each other. Mm-hmm. , you know. Geez. But, but things are not, they don't work that way anymore. Which is,Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't think so. You gotta, yeah. When you get, that's a bad situation. Uh, sometimes like we, you know, we did a couple bad hours like on just shoot me, but it was never, cuz we were dicking around, it was because like a story blew, blew up and we had to work till four in the morning. That was a couple of those. But it wasn't, cuz it wasn't ill behavior. It was just, that's just the, you know, sometimes that happens.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, for sure. And you know, people like Steve Levitan and some of the other guys you've worked with, they are not there to make a point or single someone out just for fun. Yeah. And you guys, you and Sea were as showrunners, you would never do that. You would never write that.Michael Jamin:No. Our goal was always to go home early. That was, how could we go home early today, , what could we do to get the work done, Have a, have a good hour. Um, but what about developing when you, you know, come up with your own ideas? What's that? How does that work?Dawn DeKeyser:That was, um, that was usually, uh, someone that I'd be in the writer's room with. They would come to me and say, I've got an idea. Do you like this? Or we would pair up just for the pitch.Michael Jamin:So most of your develop, Okay. So people ask me about that. Can you, can you work independently or can you work with team up with people? Cuz we, we, you know, that's what you did mostly.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. And when I was, um, like I'd say mid-level writer mm-hmm. , it would behoove me to go in with a showrunner or a co p Right. And, um, just so that I could to have those meetings and kind of get the lay of the land until later when I would writeMichael Jamin:Around.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:But in the beginning, were you, were you kind of working under them or were you literally together.Dawn DeKeyser:Together. Okay. Together.Michael Jamin:And, and then now, okay, now when you come up with an idea, how does that work alone? I mean,Dawn DeKeyser:Oh, it was, it was great. So we're, we've been talking mostly about the nineties and then after a few of the shows, like I, I went to work through the rest of the nineties, but I did definitely get the comedy knocked out of me. Um, I went on to do a series of shows and over that time there were less and less options because we had the game shows coming in and reality tv. And by 2000 I went to rehab and it was very helpful. I mean, you know, I got this shit kicked out of me and I was no match. I was not cravenly ambitious. I was just always grateful to be there, which doesn't give you any control. And with, with my, it was a short stint and I was able to piece things together. I also took jobs for shorter amounts of time. Like if they had a full year season, I'd say I'll work the first 13.Michael Jamin:What if they pick, what if they wanted you for the back nine or whatever.Dawn DeKeyser:Then I said, I'm not available. And I'd move to New York and just kind of in between each show I had to do a lot of repair. I just had to sleep.Michael Jamin:Interesting. I I, I didn't even know that was an option. Like that's kind of, I that's kind of unusual to kind of good for you. Like, you're calling the shots, you're saying this is what I'm willing to do. I don't know anybody who does that, who can do that, I guess.Dawn DeKeyser:Well I wasn't, um, I couldn't, I mean financially it was not the thing to do, but mentally I knew that I had to not put myself in harm's way. Right. And, um, I always, it also had advertising to go back to occasionally. Right. So, um, you know, by, I would say, so I continued to work. I'd pick up an episode here, um, less staff drops available, but I just kind of eked out a living. It wasn't the trajectory that I'd started on. Right. And I was okay with that.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not gonna spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michael jamin.com/watchlist.Michael Jamin:Basically this is the, the interesting part, which I don't really talk about a lot on anything is the economics of really being a writer. Because I don't know, we don't just talk about it, but cuz we were saying, you know, you kind of, you kind of, you were calling the shots. You're saying, this is what I'm willing to do. I don't want, I'll work this much, I don't wanna work that much because it's not , it's not good for me, my mental health. And I get that. Um, but so then to kind of to, you know, had to make, to make ends meet, you also have this other project that you've been working on and I wanna talk about that.Dawn DeKeyser:Yes. So I think we, uh, we were talking about 2000 rehab, excellent. Mm-hmm. very helpful. And so it was on the heels of that that I was starting to piece together what I wanted my life to look like, which was not working 18 hours a day with difficult people. Yeah. So I would, I would take my jobs for shorter amounts of time. Like if a, if a show had an order for 22, I said I'll work on the first 13. Right. And then I would generally go to Texas or New York and then just repair in between shows. And it, financially it was not a strong way to do it. But, um, I wanted to circle back a little bit on the, the rehab stuff. Um, you had asked at one point about did I, was I an AA and I wanna say that that never worked for me.Dawn DeKeyser:And there was this book a few years back called Quit Like A Woman. And it's about, it was by H Whitaker and it's about smart recovery. And one of the things that just made so much sense to me was that AA is a AAL system. And one of the first things that they ask you to do is give, give away your power. And the thing is, we women are rendered powerless in so many situations already. Why the fuck would I wanna go into a meeting and, and not have any agency over myself and my decisions? So that's a part of smart recovery and I love it. I think it's reallyMichael Jamin:Do do you meet as as often as, as somebody you know, in, in the group or, you know?Dawn DeKeyser:No, and the thing about it is, um, I'm sort of a social drinker. I don't have an issue with that anymore. And it's really about like, if you have a drink, you don't start at day one. You just, you figure out if you wanna manage your use of anything or, um, if you don't want to . Right. And, and it's just, um, it's just less, um, punishing Right. Say so. Um, and I know that, you know, we're writers, we're tender souls and we feel a lot. And I just wanted to get sort of, get that out there. That's something that's really helped and resonated withMichael Jamin:Viola Davis said something like that, you know, obviously not a writer but an actor, but she said, I guess I can't remember what it was about, but she's basically saying someone criticized her for having thin skin. And she goes, I'm supposed to have thin skin. That's, I'm an artist. Like I, you know, I'm not supposed to have thick skin . I'm supposed to feel things and express things. YouDawn DeKeyser:Know? That's right. That's right. I mean, that's what we do. We do. And um, we feel things and then we express them and we write them and we get it out there and people get it. They understand that. Um, you can't be general in really good writing. You gotta be specific.Michael Jamin:Right, Exactly. Specific. Yes. Yeah. Well tell but tell me about your summit.Dawn DeKeyser:Okay, so sumMichael Jamin:It up.Dawn DeKeyser:Sum it up. Um, one, sum it up. One of the things we don't talk about as writers is all that dead air, that space between gigs or the fact that the seasons are shorter now, and there's the writing staffs are smaller and the industry expands and contracts and the summit called writers making money. Lose the ego, tap into your talent and bring cash in during these weird ass apocalyptic times. I'm said that earlier. And, um, it's really about what are you doing for passive income investing? How are you keeping the lights on mm-hmm. and these, So I talk to money experts and mindset coaches and, um, we talk about things like cash machines, which is how do you bring in a little bit just in passive income? It's not hard. Um, if you have lazy assets, like my IRA's been sitting there doing nothing for a long time. And, um, we talked about what types of entities as a creative person you need to set up and forget it'll run on its own without you. But just getting all of that in place. And so, uh, in 2020 my life imploded mm-hmm. . And after that, and I'll just say a little bit like in 2020 my house flooded and I lost about 50 years worth of furniture, clothing, art, stuff like that. And then my husband, um, emailed me d divorce papers.Michael Jamin:Right. And then it gets worse,Dawn DeKeyser:And then it gets worse. And then covid hit. And then while the house was being torn apart with asbestos, tenting, my daughter and I moved into one corner of the house during, while she was in virtual school, I lost my dream job. I lost the house. And then we just decided to go and spend time in Woodstock, New York with friends, which was good. And then we came back in November and about that Thanksgiving, my husband passed away. Right. So that was very hard. And, um, I spent after, you know, we went through the grieving process and then after we , just after we got that done, after we were cured of that , I started into just figuring out again, what do I want my life to look like in my career? And I still wanna write. And so I started taking business classes, business coaching, leadership training, um, and talking to money experts and just like, what, how am I setting myself up for generational wealth? Which is something that I didn't look ahead, I didn't look to, excuse me. And then my daughter got into college, which was amazing, and she's in New York now. She's at the number one design school in the country, Parsons. And we said yes. And then I looked at the, how much it was gonna cost and out. Oh. And also in 2020, all my money kind of evaporated, unbeknownst to me. So I was really starting from scratch with no home address. Right. And, um,Michael Jamin:What do you mean your money evaporated? What hap what do you mean?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, um, my husband was, um, he was not, well, he was very troubled and very ill. And that kind of went with him. SoMichael Jamin:He, Okay. So he learned,Dawn DeKeyser:He found out that we were a few hundred thousand in debt. So again, all that doesn't matter, it's just money. So we find out that Ava's college is 80,000 Right. Thinking, you know what, we're gonna do this. We'll just figure out a way. So for the last 18 months, I have been figuring out ways to set our lives up and start bringing in money in a different way outside of tv, outside of just writing as a creative person. And it's working and I wanna, and I just want people to know that there's, IMichael Jamin:Share that that's important cuz you know, creative people, like, we don't go into this profession, at least I don't think, you know, we don't go into the special to become middle managers. We don't go to become to know about money because like, you know, I think that's part of, also, I'm not excusing any of the bad behavior in TV shows, but no one becomes a writer because they wanna manage people. They go because they just wanna goof off and be creative and do whatever and that. But the problem is that can, that can affect people, other people working underneath you, you know?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, for sure. You know that as a showrunner. Yeah. And you work up through the ranks because of your writing talent and then you're suddenly in an administrative position, Right. As a showrunner, right? Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah. It's like, I don't, I didn't want, I don't wanna be the boss, I just wanna be a writer. But, but this is how it is now. Now you have to manage people. So anyway, so, but, but so that's why I think what you're talking about in your summit is important. So Yeah. Tell us more about it. Yeah.Dawn DeKeyser:So I think it's really important because we are, this is gonna talk about, um, using your left brain in a right brain industry mm-hmm. . And it's not that hard. It's not that scary. I talked to this one woman who's known for her millionaire maker series, and I started working with her this summers. Like, what am I, I'm doing everything wrong. I know that, and I've made money and I've spent it, and I would kind of like to not do that anymore. And her team is, you know, they're talking about how to get me set up and any of their other clients and it's been just a complete game changer. Right. Like, it just, um, and she's very intense and very complex in all of the knowledge that she has. She's not a Susie Orman or Dave Ramsey where they talk about saving mm-hmm. and don't have that latte in the morning.Dawn DeKeyser:And she says, Oh, you know, fuck all that live. You're like, make money and do the right thing with it because we just aren't ever aware of what to do. Like lazy assets. My IRA sitting there, and now I'm going to instead take some of that out and put it into a, an investing group that will, will put money into apartment buildings and real estate. And y'all who have houses out here are, you know, that is great, but it's not a financial strategy. Mm-hmm. . And anyway, so I was excited about learning all of this, especially on the heels of having to reconfigure my whole life. And I just wanna get it out there.Michael Jamin:Yeah. You had, you did a giant reset. A giant reset. Yeah. Very overwhelming. I I'm getting nervous just thinking about what you did .Dawn DeKeyser:It was, um, it was weird. It was, yeah. It was really hard. And, um, yeah, I am grateful. Like I'm grateful for my life. There's one of two ways you can go when tragedy happens. And that is, you can stay in it and think of the all the other bad things that are right around the corner mm-hmm. or, um, you can pick yourself up and get going in a completely different way. That's the, that was the, the real impetus for me is like, I wanna do things differently and Oh, and there was something you said about h hustling. Yes. Yes. Um, so I'm, I'm now putting questions out there and answering them and not even giving you any air time . Like, we all hustle, we all get that, get the work done. One thing that I wanted to do in this new reset was to not hustle as much what I do. I'm working a lot, but at home on my own schedule. And if it feels like it's getting stressful or sense of urgency, I take a nap. Right. I just slow down and I wanna do it in a more peaceful way.Michael Jamin:Right. That's so interesting. And so people can learn more about your, the summit@dawntokaiser.comDawn DeKeyser:Slash writers making moneyMichael Jamin:Back slash writers making money. And so then when is the next one?Dawn DeKeyser:It's going to be October 17th through the 19th. So for three days we have, Oh, sorry. For three days we have nine speakers. Right. And each day we'll talk like one, I talk to an actress who is now writing this really fabulous, um, children's book series. She loves that. She's like, I still act, but here's something that fills my heart. Right. Um, talking to Laura Lang Meyer, who's intense, she's still intense. Um, and she is all, she's, she talks about money in a way of let's get everything. Let's not have your bookkeeper talk to your cpa, talk to your business manager. She's like, We just do everything and, and all in one place, which is what I,Michael Jamin:And we should mention, this is all free for people who want to join the summit. Right. It'sDawn DeKeyser:All free. It's free, free, free. So you just sign up, give me your email and your name, and you'll get access to all of that.Michael Jamin:Right. Right. Yeah. And then, but then you and you also have a consulting business, a script consultingDawn DeKeyser:Business. I do. So all that's gonna launch to, I am all about putting everything off to the last minute. So that launches next week, and that'll be on my dawn de kaiser.com website. I'll do, I'll be doing script consulting, um, coaching for creatives and the writer's room. We're going be, we'll meet once a once a weekMichael Jamin:About,Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. We'll do guest speakers and q and a and then writing sprints.Michael Jamin:Once a writing sprintDawn DeKeyser:That is kind of a Pomodoro style I put on a timer and heads, pencils up, heads down.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay. And then you give a little short assignment. PeopleDawn DeKeyser:Not even, you know, I'll say, set your intention at the very beginning of what you wanna accomplish in the next 25 minute sprint. Okay. And, um, and we just do check in. It helps to get online or, you know, to check in with other people. Your Facebook group is really going strong and people are finding each other there. Mm-hmm. . And that's been really helpful for them.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. You got a lot going on.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Um,Michael Jamin:Now I wanna talk about when you're, when you're on a a show, like what's, what's your experience like working with new young writers and and what do you see? Dos and don'ts?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. I see the ones that really, that just grab my heart are the ones who try really hard. Mm-hmm. , they are like, to a cringy point, like I love that. I was working on a pilot and this one young writer came in, she was gi given a shot and she had her script in a big binder, three reading binder with all of her color coordinated post-it notes. Mm-hmm. that. And, and I just thought, she's after my own heart. Like I, that's She was prepared. She was prepared. That's right.Michael Jamin:Because sometimes new young writers, they'll look at the boss and because the boss very often isn't really prepared because, you know, they got a million things going on. Or even some of the upper level writers are kind of play it loose. But, uh, and so some of 'em think, well, if the boss has got his feet up on the, or her feet up on the desk, so could so can I, I'll just do what the boss is doing. . But you're not the boss. YouDawn DeKeyser:Know, you have not earned the right to put your feet up on the table yet.Michael Jamin:Right. So you, But when you see people come in prepared, uh, you know, I like that. I like, sometimes they'll, like, they'll say, I have a pitch. I'm like, Oh good. I, they'll say like, I have five ideas. Well let's hear 'em. I don't have any ideas.Dawn DeKeyser:That's right. . That's right. Yeah. It's just, it's just sort of, um, you know, not taking it personally mm-hmm. . And uh, I see a lot of writers who litigate their script. Mm-hmm. ,Michael Jamin:They overstep. Right.Dawn DeKeyser:They do. And they just argue for the, they don't need to argue. Mm-hmm. , they, their work is on the page. It either is working or it's not. And you are in a room with professionals who will tell you mm-hmm. and you don't need to explain to them what you put in the script and why, because they don't care. It's not working. Right. Right. So yeah. It is that losing the ego part of it.Michael Jamin:Yeah. It's, it's hard for people to, it's hard for young writers to accept that. Um, and they don't see it yet. And then as you get older, and then sometimes I feel like, ah, I, I'm like, crouchy the old guy. Um, but I, I don't, I don't think so. I think like you just, you have the experience. It's like, I don't wanna argue with you. I, you know, I know from experience that this is how, this is how it's gotta go. This is what this is. What you presented is not gonna work. I just know. I just know that, youDawn DeKeyser:Know. Yeah. You've, you've done your time.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Um, and do you feel, But how do you, and I think I I I, we talked about this a little bit. How, how do you think people are breaking in today?Dawn DeKeyser:Oh, that's right. I said I do not know. I have no idea. Yeah. I have no idea. Um, what you and Rob Cohen talked about was just coming in from all different angles. Like mine was a winding road getting here. And um, some of it worked, some of it didn't. But, um, that, yeah. It's like no one is going to give you a career. They will give you a shot. Right. And that's why your work has to be outstanding. And I say, not good, not great. Outstanding. And you'll get work. You know, I, I just, um, and there are so many,Michael Jamin:Cause some people think, well, it's good enough or it's better than what the garbage that I see on tv. And they think, well, you know, Okay, okay. Maybe it is, but it's, you know, that's not good enoughDawn DeKeyser:That, But people have been saying that since I started in tv. It's like, Oh, it's better than what's on the air. No, it's not .Michael Jamin:No,Dawn DeKeyser:No. You, you are competing with a room of 12 professional writers who have each other to bounce it off of. And there's a reason that they write all of that. It may not end up great. That may be for all these reasons that you have no access to, which is network notes or, um,Michael Jamin:Acting notes. The actor you can get it from. Yeah. Um, there's a lot of reasons even, you know, I haven't really talked about this a lot, but even writing a bad television show is hard. Even writing bad TV is hard, You know,Dawn DeKeyser:, it's so hard. I worked on this one show that was a drama but just inadvertently a comedy. It was so terrible. And I think we got written up in the Hollywood Reporter for it just being so campy. We weren't going for campy, we were just trying , We're just, just trying to get the scripts to the actors.Michael Jamin:Right. How funny. Do and, and do you find, I think we, we've talked, I don't remember we mentioned this, but do you find working cuz you kind of transitioned to from comedy sitcom to DRM or, and even drama, like, um, and I think you were talking about even more chill. Like what? Cause I hadn't worked in drama, really. So what are the differences in the writing room, the writers' room forDawn DeKeyser:That? Yeah. It's a, it's a's a huge difference. So, um, 2017 Me Too movement mm-hmm. , um, that was a game changer for people like me who had been dragged around a few rough corners. And, um, it did change the, it changed the personality of a lot of writers' rooms. As, as you know, for me, um, comedy was always kind of a full contact sport. Mm-hmm. , you'd be in the room with comedians, performers, writers, and there would be jumping up and down and just, it was a lot of performance. And so Right.Michael Jamin:Because you gotta sell that joke.Dawn DeKeyser:You gotta sell it. Right. You gotta sell it. No one else is gonna sell it. Um, so I, my first job in drama was Ugly Betty, but they had, half of the staff was comedy writers, which hadn't been done a lot or before. Right. So what I noticed was that the drama writers were so writerly and they were so not worried about selling the act break and getting the big joke out on a beat or a scene. And it was, it was so great. It was so great to talk about the story and not about not worry about how you're gonna sell the joke for me. Right. I, I liked that part of it. And then I went on to be in other drama rooms that were just very respectful.Michael Jamin:And how did you make that transition? You had basic, cuz it's not like you could just jump from comedy writer to drama. You ba you're kind of starting overDawn DeKeyser:Kinda, you know, I didn't look at it that way. I will say that drama writers don't tend to become comedy writers.Michael Jamin:Right. Right. It's, it's a one, right? You, if you can write comedy, you could probably write drama, but not necessarily the other way around. Right.Dawn DeKeyser:Right. I mean, it's just a whole different muscle. Um, I don't know. I think I got this shit kicked out of me in comedy, so I thought, I wanna be . I'm now more serious.Michael Jamin:But now you started writing sample, you had to write samples. You gotta start as if you'd never done ob cause you'd never done it before. You had start writing drama samples.Dawn DeKeyser:That's right. And I found that the agents did not want to marketing me that way. You know, I've already established myself and, and they would then have to hand me over to a different set of agents.Michael Jamin:That's interesting. Right? Cause I talk about this. Well, so many people think that soon as I get an agent, how do I get an agent? They say this all the time. How do I get an agent as if that's gonna help at all? You know, that's not gonna change your life. Once you've, you know, once even when you become at your level, you know you're in charge,Dawn DeKeyser:Right? Yeah, absolutely. And I didn't get an agent until I was, I'd won some script writing contests. I was in the Disney Writer's Fellowship. I was writing all those scripts on one of their shows, and I still couldn't get an agent. StillMichael Jamin:Couldn't get an agent. Yeah.Dawn DeKeyser:And so I called, I contacted CAA and uta and they're like, Yeah, no, we're very interested. And no one would pull the trigger. So I called CAA back and said, Yeah, I'm going into UTA this afternoon. And that's when I got the offer. And then I called uta. I said, Yeah, I'm gonna go on, go ahead and go to CAA this afternoon.Michael Jamin:And Wow. So you were just bluffing? Yeah. Wow. Interesting. Yeah, we, for a while when we, um, God, where were we? I think we were at, uh, Endeavor. Mm-hmm. . And we weren't getting much. Um, we, I guess we weren't getting to kind of help the support we needed then as soon as, but as soon as we threatened to, to go to uta mm-hmm. , like everyone was called suddenly, suddenly they wanted to talk to us. .Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Yeah. That'll get them sitting up straight. Yeah.Michael Jamin: good for you. That's hard. That's, that's, uh, gutsy. But, okay. So then, um, but in terms of breaking stories, it, is it kind of the same on a, on a drama forDawn DeKeyser:Yeah. It's kind of the same. Instead of going out on a big blow, you go out on a big cliff hanger. Right. AndMichael Jamin:A pregnant moment.Dawn DeKeyser:What?Michael Jamin:That's, that's what I was told. It's called, It's, it's a pregnant, a pregnant moment. Like, OhDawn DeKeyser:Yes, that's right. Yes. What next? Yeah, and I, I just really liked it. I had this lovely experience working with Martha Williamson, who created Touch by an Angel. Mm-hmm. . And she's one of like the top Christian women in the country. And she was interviewed on 60 Minutes and she had quite a big career. And I had never been in a respectful writer's room before. And so I was like, Oh, we can't say fuck. And they, the two other guys, it was just like four of us. Mm-hmm. said, Oh, no, no, no. And so I thought, okay, no, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna give it a go , andMichael Jamin:I'm gonna hold my tongue when I don't have to say be crashed. Weird.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. I'm not gonna be disgusting. So, um, it was a really great experience. Right. That's interesting. And yeah. And the other, the dramas that I've done, and then, and then things sort of went, like I was able to write, um, episodes of Hallmark shows that's, I call that the women, the women writers ghetto. Um, cause we all, we all sort of end up there doing our cozy mysteries, which, um,Michael Jamin:It used to be, I guess children's shows, but I guess now you're saying for it's, it's home, It's, uh,Dawn DeKeyser:Hallmark has always been the family network. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Dawn DeKeyser:Family. Family.Michael Jamin:But when you develop, are you develop on your own? Are you, are you mostly doing comedy or drama?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, comedy, No, I would say both. And I'm not developing a lot. I have had this one idea that I love so much that I'm afraid to write it. I just, I just can't seem to do it.Michael Jamin:Why? Why?Dawn DeKeyser:Because I want it to be really good.Michael Jamin:Well, why don't you make, Write it as a book then?Dawn DeKeyser:No, it's a great series.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But if you sell it as a book, then, then you can turn it as a TV show. No.Dawn DeKeyser:Mm. Book writing. That's hard.Michael Jamin:Book writing. What would I know?Dawn DeKeyser:What writingMichael Jamin:? What do you mean book writing? ?Dawn DeKeyser:What is this book thing you talk about?Michael Jamin:Um, so interesting. But, okay, so I wanna make sure everyone knows more about, I guess I, when we talked about it, I wanna make sure before we sign off, but everyone knows more about how they can get in touch with you, how they can find you and learn more about your summit and your, your consulting services and all that.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. So that's all coming out next week and maybe by the time this runs, Yeah, probably it's, yeah, Hope. Um, Instagram @dawndekeyserwrites TikTok @dawndekeyserwrites website DawnDeKeyser.com. And I will tell you, you know, you use your name and all of your stuff. I would, I just was so uncomfortable doing that. I was calling it everything else, but what I am doing. So now it's just my name.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I know. I was, I was a little in the beginning. I was, uh, you know, it was uncomfortable cuz writers don't, we're not actors. We're behind the scene. It's, it's weird for us to, uh, promote ourselves this way. That's not what we do. We're not act, That's what the actors we write for somebody else put them in front. So that was a hurdle for me to, I had to get over, you know?Dawn DeKeyser:How did you get over it?Michael Jamin:Um, you know, I I I'm always reminded of the Oscar Wild. There's a wonderful qu I think he said, but I'm not sure cause I can find it again. But he said you'd worry, I think he said you'd worry less about what other people thought. Think about you if you realized how little they did. Which works on two levels, which means they already think you're garbage. So what are you worried about? Or they're just, they're just thinking about themselves. And so, yeah, I just, at some point I was like, I screw it. If people wanna judge me, let, let them, they're, they're gonna forget about me anyway. I'm not on anyone's, you know, why does no one's staying up late to think about me .Dawn DeKeyser:Right, right. That's good to know. I mean, that's, that is liberating.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I, I, I do actually, I've thought about it a lot and especially as a writer, cuz I started, you know, writing more like personal essays, more stuff about my life. And, um, and then I kind of realized that there's like a paradox about judge being about judgment and that, cause I, you know, I, I did this show and then I didn't want people to think like, my biggest fear would be to perform my work and have people think, Oh, this guy's not a good writer. You know? And to be a good writer, you have to expose yourself. Yeah. And that's the paradox. So if I don't want people to judge me, I have to put my, allow people to judge me. I have to make myself vulnerable so that they might judge me ironically. And if you do that, they ironically won't judge you. You know,Dawn DeKeyser:On your website you talk about vulnerable, being vulnerable. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Yeah,Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. It's hard. It's hard because that's exactly right. You put your yourself out there, your heart and it can hurt.Michael Jamin:But to me, the bigger pain is having someone say, Oh, you can't write . So like, that would hurt harder . So I'd rather just ex be vulnerable. And that people Wow. Cuz people walk away, they go, Wow, how'd you do that? That was pretty brave. I'm like, whew. No, it would've been brave if I gone up there with my less than adequate work then, you kno

DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:44):The 1 thing that prevents most solar salespeople from hitting their goals and closing deals. That's what we're going to be jamming on today. That and much more coming up on today's podcast. My name's Taylor Armstrong. I'm here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in this great solar industry. Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving, good time with your family. Hope you took the day off. That would be a good day to go and knock. Some doors hit up some people, but I hope that you can take Thanksgiving and Christmas off at least from knocking doors, but a great Turkey day. Great time with friends and family. Hopefully you enjoyed it today. We're going to be talking about something a little bit different, and I love this topic because it's something that I have a lot to learn on. So I love hearing from experts on the topic and that is the topic of finances.Speaker 2 (01:43):Then I'm going to tie that into what that has to do with closing deals and hitting your goals. But it's actually been a big piece. That's helped me out tremendously to close more deals is thinking more about the financial side of things. And the reason we're talking about this a little bit more right now is because if you miss the big announcement we brought on our first ever sponsors of the show, and that is our friends over at Pi Syndicate. If you hadn't noticed, we brought Jerry, if you sell him the show and he started this financial mastermind basically to help people get their mind, right? When it comes to the money piece of the puzzle. So big thank you to them. And if you want to get, you know, your finances, right, definitely hit them up. Tell them you heard about them from the podcast and they're going to hook you up.Speaker 2 (02:37):They're going to take care of you. So go over to Pius in the get.com. We'll post their a website in the show notes of this, go check them out, let them know you appreciate them sponsoring the show and next up. So we're gonna actually hear from their CFO, his name's Austin. And he's going to share a little bit more about their vision and goal is with Pi Syndicate. But anyways, back to the topic at hand of the show today, and so something that prevents people from closing deals more than you think is they have no financial plan in place. And I've talked about this book a lot recently, a lot of podcasts, but closer survival guide by Grant Cardone. He lists this matter of fact is one of the top 10 reasons that closers fail is they don't have a financial plan in place. And we're going to get into what exactly is a financial plan, because I didn't even know what this was when I first read it.Speaker 2 (03:40):It's like, what is he talking about? Financial planning. What was that to do with closing deals? So I didn't expect it. Maybe you don't expect that either, but before we talked about what is a financial plan first, I just want to mention that you need to get your head right around money. If you're like, I don't know if anyone's like me, but I had an enormous scarcity mindset around money. And most you've heard my story. I was in college at Southern Utah university. I was donating plasma to pay my rent. And basically my summers, a pest control. Didn't go as well as I hoped. So I didn't even have money to pay my rent at the time as donating plasma. And I was that kid on campus that was going to every single club event, every single thing to try and get just some free food.Speaker 2 (04:36):If you've been on campuses, you know, they do those events all the time where they're handing out free pizza, where there might need to come check out the clubs. I wasted so many hours go to these events, listening to pointless meetings, just because I knew there was going to be a slice of pizza at the end. That's how desperate I was. I literally did not want us want to spend a dime out of my pocket. If I knew I'd go get free food somewhere. And that was just the tip of iceberg. I was the guy that our school had this discount card it's called disturbing student heard where every single restaurant in town, then a deal for college students was mostly like, buy one, get one free burgers. Or I don't know if some sort of like bonus you got with your meal.Speaker 2 (05:24):Every single day I went on in college. I refuse to go to any place that was not listed on this card. So I'm like, I'm not paying a dime over what I should. I'm going to get some type of deal. I'm going to get some type of discount or else I'm not going there. So that was me pretty sad. Right. And I didn't have money. So I mean, it was driven by that. That's not like, you know, that was kind of the factors when you're broke, you do pretty crazy stuff. And the craziest thing I probably did was we even went on a, we went on a trip with some buddies freshman year at college, we decided, Hey, we're going to go out to California. We're going to go to six flags. Knott's Berry farm. I dunno, a few different places. And we went there.Speaker 2 (06:13):I was so broke. I was literally finding leftover concessions on people's tables at six flags. I was going around if I saw a piece of pizza or some fries that looked like they hadn't been touched, I was snagging people's foods off tables, pretty nasty. Right? So I did some extreme stuff. I was broke and this caused me just like some crazy distress. And my head caused some crazy thoughts about money that I was never going to have money. I was always going to be short on money. I was always going to be strapped for cash. So just causes an enormous scarcity mindset. And they've seen it in a few of my friends. I didn't grow up. My parents weren't broke or anything. My dad's a dentist. So, you know, upper middle class, we always have money. We always, you know, never went hungry, nothing crazy like that, but I just never really had jobs.Speaker 2 (07:12):I was a music major. So I was always practicing my drums, my percussion. I didn't have time to go work. So if you're like me, if you had these, if you had these types of thoughts in your head, they're likely still carried over to this day. And that's part of what I struggle with now is I still find myself having these thoughts where I don't have money. I'm not going to be able to provide for my family. I'm going to be short on cash. Okay. And it's not an issue now, but they still creep up just because it was so ingrained in my head, back in my college days and back growing up that I didn't have money to, you know, buy what I wanted. Guess this is the first step before you create a financial plan, do you get your mindset right around money?Speaker 2 (08:05):It's a work in progress for me, but think how can you get your mindset right around cash. Someone that I look up to a lot that talks about this topic all the time is river Skinner. He was a guest on the podcast, but he has his whole abundance kind of movement. He calls it. He's always preaching about being more abundant. He's always going to gas stations and like cheering that he's paying four or five bucks a gallon for gas. Cause he's abundant. So think how can you be more abundant? How can you get rid of those scarcity mindset, feelings around money? Because we don't do it. It's going to be holding you back in your financial goals. It's going to make it tougher to close deals. It's going to make it tougher to have success in the solar industry. So be abundance, something that helped me is just actually having physical cash, handling it these days.Speaker 2 (09:05):Most people don't carry on physical cash. Most people don't even look at their dollar bills, right? It's all in Venmo. It's own PayPal. It's all in cash app, whatever, but they're not seeing the physical cash. So if you can't see it, how are you going to know you have the money, right? You go look at the bank account, but something that actually helped me tremendously go, don't go get a withdrawal of actual physical cash. And I kept in an envelope for a months. I shouldn't do this again would probably help now. But something I did for months, I would get, I had a hundred dollar bill, $50 bill, $200 bill, $10 bill. I would take them out and I would physically handle them every day. And I would just envision myself having extra cash. I would envision myself never being short on that money.Speaker 2 (10:00):I was handling in my hand and I was doing affirmations around it. So try that, go print out some physical data. Can you print it out, but go withdraw some physical cash, have it in an envelope and maybe get your mind, get your mind wrapped around that you have an abundance of cash. Is that step number one, make sure you get your mind right around money. And then step number two is get that financial plan in place. Ok, game Grant Cardone talks about this as one of the reasons why closers still, they don't have the plan in place. So if you have the book, it's step number seven, it's on page 66. He talks about this and go read the whole thing if you want. He just has a couple pages on it, but just to summarize it, he talks at the end, say most people correctly estimate their financial needs or never created a financial plan at all.Speaker 2 (11:04):Get a financial plan today and make sure it is going to do more than pay the bills, but also create financial freedom for you in your household, you will start closing more deals and you'll quit underestimating the amount of effort, energy, and enthusiasm. It takes to get a deal closed. The bottom line is this. If you underestimate what it takes to create real financial freedom, then it only makes sense that you will underestimate what it takes to close a deal. Mike drop right there. Right? And I can personally test to this. One of the recent best months of sales that I had recently is we were investing in this rental property. Is some of you that follow me over on Instagram. I talked about how we're getting a rental property for an Airbnb over in Utah. And that month I just had this excitement like, man, I want to go out and create this money so I can put it towards that property.Speaker 2 (12:03):In that month I had, I think it was 14 deals closed 13, 14, where the previous months I always had, I was closing, I don't know, 6, 7, 8, but I had that extra level of excitement that I was putting my money towards something that I was excited about towards an investment for my future can that's part of having a financial plan in place is your planning for how you're going to create extra income in your planning. Then miss Mintz, you're going to make with that extra income, you're planning your future with it. You're not just paying the bills. And you think of these companies that just cut costs, cut costs, cut costs, just strict budget that you'll also follow these people like Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman, who followed me into Cornell. And he bashed on them all the time because what do they talk about? They talk about just living by a super strict budget, cutting costs, cutting, chopping up your credit cards, right?Speaker 2 (13:01):And just, you know, live in his slim as you can. But I think it's super powerful, especially in sales, go out and close more deals to create your financial freedom, right? I want to live like a king and have extra money from my investments. And obviously, you know, there's a balance from it. You know, I'm going to go bolt insane amounts of money. You shouldn't be dropping thousands of dollars at the club every weekend, right? So within reason, but think how can you create that extra income to live, how you want to live and then have that extra money for your investments. So I think the first step in creating that financial plan is yes, figure out how much money you need to live. It. You do want to figure out what is your budget? What exactly you're going to do? You know, how much money do you need to live, right?Speaker 2 (13:57):And how much money do you need to fund future retirement plans, vacations children's education, all that, stuff like that. And then second Grant Cardone talks about this. Figure out how much money you actually need to bring in monthly in order to create solvency and get all that you want accomplished, which solvent seat is the ability of an entity to pay its debts with available cash. So your financial plan should include clearly state and monetary goals. Exactly how you're going to create surpluses of money, what to do with the surpluses and investments. So this is very important. Go and write down, have your financial plan written down. How much do you need to live? Hey, you should be doing that. If you haven't done that, go track, you know, figure out all your exact expenses, figuring out how much you need to live to put a week each month, but then figure out what is your surplus.Speaker 2 (14:55):So how much surplus do you want to have each month? What are you going to do with that? Write down your investments in this goes into why I think joining something like Pi Syndicates is a great idea because if you don't know, if you're like me, you don't know what 10 miss your money in it all. I'll be honest. I am not a financial group. I'm not good with investments. And that's why I never invested really in the past. That's why it still can meet, taken me until now to get my first rental properties, because I just thought, oh, I don't know where to look. I don't know. I don't know how to tell if this is a good deal or if it's going to cash flow. But if you can be around a group of people who know what they're doing, a mastermind style, like Pi Syndicate guys that have, you know, multi-multi millionaires that you know, have tons of different investments that are super successful.Speaker 2 (15:55):iThat's going to jumpstart the process. So that's why I decided to have them as the sponsor for the show is because so many people in this industry, they can make money, but what are they doing with it? And are they paying all the uncle, Sam, if that's the other thing, that's super powerful joining pipes. And they get, you're going to learn how to actually take that money. You would be given to uncle Sam and investing it and avoiding what you would probably paying taxes otherwise. So that's the two big steps of the day. And this is why a lot of people felt you don't have a financial plan. So today, wherever you are after your workout, after your ride out to area, wherever you're listening to this, sometime today, take out your notes app, take out a pad of paper, write down what is your financial plan?Speaker 2 (16:48):How much do you need to have the live every month? And then how much surplus are you going to have every month? What are you going to do with that? Write it out, get it in front of you, slap it on the mirror, put it on a vision board. If you're into that stuff, I think is super cool to have maybe print out a picture to go with it. And then that's how you're going to create this excitement. I guarantee you, if you do this, it's going to motivate you to push harder and deals than you were before. And something that I feel like I became a better closer when I had a kid actually just had my second kid. Now, when I'm in deals, I know, okay. I want to feed my kids. I want to know on for my kids' future. So it allows me to push harder to hang in deals longer than I would otherwise it's.Speaker 2 (17:40):So what's that motivation that you have? What stage you're in, how are we going to create that extra motivation to push hard in those deals? Yeah. You're not going to be pulling people's teeth, but you're going to stick in that deal and this is the way to do it. So that's the topic of today. Make sure you get your mind right around your buddy. And then step two, have that financial plan in place. It's going to change your game in solar. I promise you. So let me know what you think of this topic. Let me know if you like these financial topics. Next episode, we're going to have Austin on the show. He's going to dive in a little more. He's the expert on this stuff. So you're gonna hear from him. So don't miss out and get your finances, right? Close. Some deals deals this week and we will see you on the next episode. Peace.Speaker 3 (18:32):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside. 

DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:44):The 1 thing that prevents most solar salespeople from hitting their goals and closing deals. That's what we're going to be jamming on today. That and much more coming up on today's podcast. My name's Taylor Armstrong. I'm here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in this great solar industry. Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving, good time with your family. Hope you took the day off. That would be a good day to go and knock. Some doors hit up some people, but I hope that you can take Thanksgiving and Christmas off at least from knocking doors, but a great Turkey day. Great time with friends and family. Hopefully you enjoyed it today. We're going to be talking about something a little bit different, and I love this topic because it's something that I have a lot to learn on. So I love hearing from experts on the topic and that is the topic of finances.Speaker 2 (01:43):Then I'm going to tie that into what that has to do with closing deals and hitting your goals. But it's actually been a big piece. That's helped me out tremendously to close more deals is thinking more about the financial side of things. And the reason we're talking about this a little bit more right now is because if you miss the big announcement we brought on our first ever sponsors of the show, and that is our friends over at Pi Syndicate. If you hadn't noticed, we brought Jerry, if you sell him the show and he started this financial mastermind basically to help people get their mind, right? When it comes to the money piece of the puzzle. So big thank you to them. And if you want to get, you know, your finances, right, definitely hit them up. Tell them you heard about them from the podcast and they're going to hook you up.Speaker 2 (02:37):They're going to take care of you. So go over to Pius in the get.com. We'll post their a website in the show notes of this, go check them out, let them know you appreciate them sponsoring the show and next up. So we're gonna actually hear from their CFO, his name's Austin. And he's going to share a little bit more about their vision and goal is with Pi Syndicate. But anyways, back to the topic at hand of the show today, and so something that prevents people from closing deals more than you think is they have no financial plan in place. And I've talked about this book a lot recently, a lot of podcasts, but closer survival guide by Grant Cardone. He lists this matter of fact is one of the top 10 reasons that closers fail is they don't have a financial plan in place. And we're going to get into what exactly is a financial plan, because I didn't even know what this was when I first read it.Speaker 2 (03:40):It's like, what is he talking about? Financial planning. What was that to do with closing deals? So I didn't expect it. Maybe you don't expect that either, but before we talked about what is a financial plan first, I just want to mention that you need to get your head right around money. If you're like, I don't know if anyone's like me, but I had an enormous scarcity mindset around money. And most you've heard my story. I was in college at Southern Utah university. I was donating plasma to pay my rent. And basically my summers, a pest control. Didn't go as well as I hoped. So I didn't even have money to pay my rent at the time as donating plasma. And I was that kid on campus that was going to every single club event, every single thing to try and get just some free food.Speaker 2 (04:36):If you've been on campuses, you know, they do those events all the time where they're handing out free pizza, where there might need to come check out the clubs. I wasted so many hours go to these events, listening to pointless meetings, just because I knew there was going to be a slice of pizza at the end. That's how desperate I was. I literally did not want us want to spend a dime out of my pocket. If I knew I'd go get free food somewhere. And that was just the tip of iceberg. I was the guy that our school had this discount card it's called disturbing student heard where every single restaurant in town, then a deal for college students was mostly like, buy one, get one free burgers. Or I don't know if some sort of like bonus you got with your meal.Speaker 2 (05:24):Every single day I went on in college. I refuse to go to any place that was not listed on this card. So I'm like, I'm not paying a dime over what I should. I'm going to get some type of deal. I'm going to get some type of discount or else I'm not going there. So that was me pretty sad. Right. And I didn't have money. So I mean, it was driven by that. That's not like, you know, that was kind of the factors when you're broke, you do pretty crazy stuff. And the craziest thing I probably did was we even went on a, we went on a trip with some buddies freshman year at college, we decided, Hey, we're going to go out to California. We're going to go to six flags. Knott's Berry farm. I dunno, a few different places. And we went there.Speaker 2 (06:13):I was so broke. I was literally finding leftover concessions on people's tables at six flags. I was going around if I saw a piece of pizza or some fries that looked like they hadn't been touched, I was snagging people's foods off tables, pretty nasty. Right? So I did some extreme stuff. I was broke and this caused me just like some crazy distress. And my head caused some crazy thoughts about money that I was never going to have money. I was always going to be short on money. I was always going to be strapped for cash. So just causes an enormous scarcity mindset. And they've seen it in a few of my friends. I didn't grow up. My parents weren't broke or anything. My dad's a dentist. So, you know, upper middle class, we always have money. We always, you know, never went hungry, nothing crazy like that, but I just never really had jobs.Speaker 2 (07:12):I was a music major. So I was always practicing my drums, my percussion. I didn't have time to go work. So if you're like me, if you had these, if you had these types of thoughts in your head, they're likely still carried over to this day. And that's part of what I struggle with now is I still find myself having these thoughts where I don't have money. I'm not going to be able to provide for my family. I'm going to be short on cash. Okay. And it's not an issue now, but they still creep up just because it was so ingrained in my head, back in my college days and back growing up that I didn't have money to, you know, buy what I wanted. Guess this is the first step before you create a financial plan, do you get your mindset right around money?Speaker 2 (08:05):It's a work in progress for me, but think how can you get your mindset right around cash. Someone that I look up to a lot that talks about this topic all the time is river Skinner. He was a guest on the podcast, but he has his whole abundance kind of movement. He calls it. He's always preaching about being more abundant. He's always going to gas stations and like cheering that he's paying four or five bucks a gallon for gas. Cause he's abundant. So think how can you be more abundant? How can you get rid of those scarcity mindset, feelings around money? Because we don't do it. It's going to be holding you back in your financial goals. It's going to make it tougher to close deals. It's going to make it tougher to have success in the solar industry. So be abundance, something that helped me is just actually having physical cash, handling it these days.Speaker 2 (09:05):Most people don't carry on physical cash. Most people don't even look at their dollar bills, right? It's all in Venmo. It's own PayPal. It's all in cash app, whatever, but they're not seeing the physical cash. So if you can't see it, how are you going to know you have the money, right? You go look at the bank account, but something that actually helped me tremendously go, don't go get a withdrawal of actual physical cash. And I kept in an envelope for a months. I shouldn't do this again would probably help now. But something I did for months, I would get, I had a hundred dollar bill, $50 bill, $200 bill, $10 bill. I would take them out and I would physically handle them every day. And I would just envision myself having extra cash. I would envision myself never being short on that money.Speaker 2 (10:00):I was handling in my hand and I was doing affirmations around it. So try that, go print out some physical data. Can you print it out, but go withdraw some physical cash, have it in an envelope and maybe get your mind, get your mind wrapped around that you have an abundance of cash. Is that step number one, make sure you get your mind right around money. And then step number two is get that financial plan in place. Ok, game Grant Cardone talks about this as one of the reasons why closers still, they don't have the plan in place. So if you have the book, it's step number seven, it's on page 66. He talks about this and go read the whole thing if you want. He just has a couple pages on it, but just to summarize it, he talks at the end, say most people correctly estimate their financial needs or never created a financial plan at all.Speaker 2 (11:04):Get a financial plan today and make sure it is going to do more than pay the bills, but also create financial freedom for you in your household, you will start closing more deals and you'll quit underestimating the amount of effort, energy, and enthusiasm. It takes to get a deal closed. The bottom line is this. If you underestimate what it takes to create real financial freedom, then it only makes sense that you will underestimate what it takes to close a deal. Mike drop right there. Right? And I can personally test to this. One of the recent best months of sales that I had recently is we were investing in this rental property. Is some of you that follow me over on Instagram. I talked about how we're getting a rental property for an Airbnb over in Utah. And that month I just had this excitement like, man, I want to go out and create this money so I can put it towards that property.Speaker 2 (12:03):In that month I had, I think it was 14 deals closed 13, 14, where the previous months I always had, I was closing, I don't know, 6, 7, 8, but I had that extra level of excitement that I was putting my money towards something that I was excited about towards an investment for my future can that's part of having a financial plan in place is your planning for how you're going to create extra income in your planning. Then miss Mintz, you're going to make with that extra income, you're planning your future with it. You're not just paying the bills. And you think of these companies that just cut costs, cut costs, cut costs, just strict budget that you'll also follow these people like Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman, who followed me into Cornell. And he bashed on them all the time because what do they talk about? They talk about just living by a super strict budget, cutting costs, cutting, chopping up your credit cards, right?Speaker 2 (13:01):And just, you know, live in his slim as you can. But I think it's super powerful, especially in sales, go out and close more deals to create your financial freedom, right? I want to live like a king and have extra money from my investments. And obviously, you know, there's a balance from it. You know, I'm going to go bolt insane amounts of money. You shouldn't be dropping thousands of dollars at the club every weekend, right? So within reason, but think how can you create that extra income to live, how you want to live and then have that extra money for your investments. So I think the first step in creating that financial plan is yes, figure out how much money you need to live. It. You do want to figure out what is your budget? What exactly you're going to do? You know, how much money do you need to live, right?Speaker 2 (13:57):And how much money do you need to fund future retirement plans, vacations children's education, all that, stuff like that. And then second Grant Cardone talks about this. Figure out how much money you actually need to bring in monthly in order to create solvency and get all that you want accomplished, which solvent seat is the ability of an entity to pay its debts with available cash. So your financial plan should include clearly state and monetary goals. Exactly how you're going to create surpluses of money, what to do with the surpluses and investments. So this is very important. Go and write down, have your financial plan written down. How much do you need to live? Hey, you should be doing that. If you haven't done that, go track, you know, figure out all your exact expenses, figuring out how much you need to live to put a week each month, but then figure out what is your surplus.Speaker 2 (14:55):So how much surplus do you want to have each month? What are you going to do with that? Write down your investments in this goes into why I think joining something like Pi Syndicates is a great idea because if you don't know, if you're like me, you don't know what 10 miss your money in it all. I'll be honest. I am not a financial group. I'm not good with investments. And that's why I never invested really in the past. That's why it still can meet, taken me until now to get my first rental properties, because I just thought, oh, I don't know where to look. I don't know. I don't know how to tell if this is a good deal or if it's going to cash flow. But if you can be around a group of people who know what they're doing, a mastermind style, like Pi Syndicate guys that have, you know, multi-multi millionaires that you know, have tons of different investments that are super successful.Speaker 2 (15:55):iThat's going to jumpstart the process. So that's why I decided to have them as the sponsor for the show is because so many people in this industry, they can make money, but what are they doing with it? And are they paying all the uncle, Sam, if that's the other thing, that's super powerful joining pipes. And they get, you're going to learn how to actually take that money. You would be given to uncle Sam and investing it and avoiding what you would probably paying taxes otherwise. So that's the two big steps of the day. And this is why a lot of people felt you don't have a financial plan. So today, wherever you are after your workout, after your ride out to area, wherever you're listening to this, sometime today, take out your notes app, take out a pad of paper, write down what is your financial plan?Speaker 2 (16:48):How much do you need to have the live every month? And then how much surplus are you going to have every month? What are you going to do with that? Write it out, get it in front of you, slap it on the mirror, put it on a vision board. If you're into that stuff, I think is super cool to have maybe print out a picture to go with it. And then that's how you're going to create this excitement. I guarantee you, if you do this, it's going to motivate you to push harder and deals than you were before. And something that I feel like I became a better closer when I had a kid actually just had my second kid. Now, when I'm in deals, I know, okay. I want to feed my kids. I want to know on for my kids' future. So it allows me to push harder to hang in deals longer than I would otherwise it's.Speaker 2 (17:40):So what's that motivation that you have? What stage you're in, how are we going to create that extra motivation to push hard in those deals? Yeah. You're not going to be pulling people's teeth, but you're going to stick in that deal and this is the way to do it. So that's the topic of today. Make sure you get your mind right around your buddy. And then step two, have that financial plan in place. It's going to change your game in solar. I promise you. So let me know what you think of this topic. Let me know if you like these financial topics. Next episode, we're going to have Austin on the show. He's going to dive in a little more. He's the expert on this stuff. So you're gonna hear from him. So don't miss out and get your finances, right? Close. Some deals deals this week and we will see you on the next episode. Peace.Speaker 3 (18:32):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.

Knowing what success on my terms looks like helped me ground and get clear before I huddled with JT and Katie, my good friends who are also in the business of helping me launch my book Heart Value. We spent two full days brainstorming, strategizing, and talking about all the opportunities before and after launch. Today, we are talking about challenges, and I encourage you to explore and appreciate challenges in whatever form they take for you. My friend Ryan participates in the #75Hard challenge, and if you remember, my good friend Leigh and I took part in the #the100dayproject. These programs and others have been created to encourage people to try new things and have fun doing something they love in community. So as we go on our Wise Walk, the questions on our minds are: Where in our lives are we selling ourselves short because we are doing challenges that are not branded? What's a challenge that interests you right now that you can take regardless if anyone else is doing it? Where in your life can you make up your own challenge or find one on the world wide web that supports you in going after something really important to you?  Another good friend, Joey, is committed to finishing his book, so he has challenged himself to write every single day at 10 a.m. Challenges can take a very broad form. Open up your mind to the possibilities and think about where you challenge yourself to see what's possible. If we would define challenges as something that makes us realize what we are capable of, we would all see that challenges happen as a part of our everyday life. Challenges in our lives can be health-related, financial, spiritual, or mental. It can be whatever your heart desires. How can we all think more expansively about how we step into our power, reclaim it, and encourage others to do these challenges. And if it's important to you, how can you share it?   In this episode: [00:23] Welcome to the show! [02:46] Today, we are talking about challenges.  [04:53] Where in our lives are we selling ourselves short because we are doing challenges, but they are not branded? [05:04] What's a challenge that interests you right now that you can take regardless of anyone else doing it? [05:16] Where in your life can you make up your own challenge or find one on the world wide web that supports you in going after something really important to you? [08:40] Another good friend Joey has challenged himself to write his book every day. [10:04] A book by Susie Orman, The Nine Steps to Financial Freedom, challenged me to write down every penny spent so I could see where my money was going. [11:11] Reading Mariel Hemingway's book, Healthy Living From the Inside Out, I learned the effects of caffeine on the body. [13:38] What is something you have already done that you can pat yourself on the back for? [14:20] What's a challenge that interests you right now? [15:57] When I say I'm going to give my body a break, it means being mindful, slowing down, and consuming things my body can break down and digest easily. [17:48] It's been over a year since I've been able to do yoga, so I am challenging myself to get back to yoga. [20:47] How can we all really think more expansively about how we step into our power and reclaim it? [21:34] Thank you for listening!   Memorable Quotes: “I have been doing challenges since a very young age.” “Open up your mind to the possibilities and think about where you challenge yourself, to see what's possible.” “This Striders community means so much to me.”  “There have been so many opportunities for me to see what's possible in my own life.”  “The word challenge or challenges can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.”  “We are doing challenges in our everyday life but we are not giving ourselves credit for it.”    Links and Resources: Mary Tess Rooney Email Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

Jay Kemmerer currently serve as the Chairman/CEO of Berkshire Advisors, Inc. - a PA based Registered Investment Advisor - www.BerkshireAdvisors.net Their firm is based upon following the "Fiduciary Standard." Always placing their clients goals and needs ahead of their own. His commitment and passion to educate his clients to making "Smart Money Decisions" spans more than 35 years. I currently hold a series 65 License ***Registered Investment Advisor . The 35 years of financial and investing experience has inspired Jay to author the book "Messages From the Money Masters" In this book he shares with you many of the best tips that he has found from 12 proven money experts like David Bach, Warren Buffett, Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman, Lori Greiner, Ronald Baron, Tony Robbins, Mike Michalowicz, Daymond John, Harry Dent, Robert Kiyosaki and Napoleon Hill. This book can be found on Amazon or by going to www.jaykemmerer.com

Matt Belanger in for Jason and Rob in for Dawn this morning. Even though the State Fair isn't happening, its traditions are carrying on. Princess Kay of the Milky Way will be crowned today. Susie Orman is auctioning off a couple of her leather jackets for charity. Alexis watched "Howard," a documentary on Disney Plus, recommended by Matt; she wasn't ready for all the feels.

New normal is a phrase being tossed around a lot lately.  I find it usually used to get the sheep in line.  When the market crashed in 08, dolts like Susie Orman used it to explain to you why you … Continue reading →

New normal is a phrase being tossed around a lot lately.  I find it usually used to get the sheep in line.  When the market crashed in 08, dolts like Susie Orman used it to explain to you why you … Continue reading →

Andy and his wife paid off $50,000 in debt THEN paid off their mortgage of $200,000 in 4 years! Andy shares his debt paying off tips as well tips on teaching your kids about money. Andy Hill is the award-winning blogger and podcaster behind Marriage, Kids and Money which is dedicated to helping young families build wealth and thrive. Andy's advice and personal finance experience have been featured in major media outlets like Business Insider, MarketWatch and NBC News. Trusted as a personal finance influencer by national financial brands like Quicken Loans, Andy's message of family financial empowerment has resonated with listeners, readers and viewers across the US. When he's not "talking money", Andy enjoys wrestling with his two kids and singing karaoke with his wife. Find out more about Andy on his podcast, Marriage, Kids, & Money podcast as well as his website, https://www.marriagekidsandmoney.com/ Resources mentioned in this episode: The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson (https://amzn.to/381p0yx) (affiliate link) The FREE Debt Snowball Starter Pack (https://www.budgetsmadeeasy.com/debt-bundle/) Full Transcript: Welcome to the money mindset podcast where you will find the inspiration and motivation you need to manage your money better so you can stress less and live the life you want. It's Ashley from budget's made easy. And the money mindset podcast, I'm so excited. Today we are talking to Andy Hill. He is an award winning blogger and podcaster behind marriage kids and money, which is dedicated to helping young families build wealth and thrive. And his advice and personal finance experience had been featured in major media outlets like business insider, MarketWatch and NBC news shares sued as a personal finance influencer by national financial brands like Quicken loans. Andy's message, a family financial empowerment has resonated with listeners, readers and viewers across the U S when he's not talking about money. And he enjoys wrestling with his two kids singing karaoke with his wife. So I am so excited to talk to Andy today about how they, he actually has a couple of topics today, so we're going to talk to him about paying off $50,000 in debt in just 12 months. And then they paid off their mortgage of $200,000 in just four years. And then I talked to them about getting your kid or teaching your kids about money and the different things he does with this kids, which he had some really great ideas that I'm going to actually implement with my children as well. So if you would like to get started on paying off your debt, just like Andy, you can go get my free debt, snowball starter pack, but a budgetsmadeeasy.com/debt-bundle and I will link to it in the show notes as well. So welcome Andy. Hi Andy. Thank you so much for being here today. I'm so excited to be here. Ashley, thank you for having me and I am so excited to talk to you about your debt payoff story. You know, I share a lot of those on my podcast and on my blog. I just love how inspirational, motivation, motivational they are to me and other people as well. Um, but before we dive into your, um, debt payoff strike, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started? Yeah, sure. So I host a podcast called marriage kids and money. It is a weekly show that allows me to talk with folks like yourself and learn from them on how they paid off their debt or how they became financially independent or how they paid off their mortgage, or I became a young millionaire and I take that information and I share it with the audience that listens to my show. And the reason I did that is that I wanted to learn and I wanted to help my young family thrive. And I thought that would be a really fun medium to do it. So I've been doing that for about three years and that is been keeping me busy in the personal finance world. Yeah, that's awesome. I love your podcasts. So, uh, if you're, if you're listening to this, go listen to his as well. But so how did you decide to start paying off debt and how much debt did you have? Like, what was your aha moment for change? Yeah, sure. So in 2010, my wife and I got married and at that point we were very happy and young and in love and I went to concerts and going to the bar and going to restaurants, just having fun, you to live in for today, enjoying ourselves, being young, being fun, you know. And uh, right around the time that we learned that we were going to be parents, I had sort of this click in my brain that happened that said, wow, aye bringing a human into the world. I need to take care of her. I need to give her the [inaudible] best life possible. And the first thing that came to my mind maybe cause I'm a money nerd, is I need to get my financial situation straight. I've always been like a saver, but I've been trying to kind of keep up with the lifestyle that I was used to before. I have, you know, when I was younger, but I didn't really have the income and the debt sort of piled up. And, uh, I had about $30,000 of student loans. I had a home equity loan that I was kind of using as sort of my ATM machine to kind of take extra money out. And um, my wife and I got together and just said, Hey, what can we do to pay off our debt? We had around $50,000 collective at the time. And we said, well what can I do to pay this off? And then we could start off our Parenthood as debt-free parents. Wouldn't that be cool? And it took a little bit of convincing cause I was mostly kicked about it and she was like, Oh, I'm having fun man. This is fun. Let's going to the restaurants, the bars and having fun and going to concerts. But over over time my conversation about the numbers transferred into a conversation with her about her desires and her emotions for her. She was working in a job that she wasn't really that excited about and she thought, Hey, it would be great if I could eventually stay at home with the kids. So my desire to become debt free was matched with her desire to eventually become a part time worker to a full time stay at home mom. And that kind of became our driving force that we worked on together to pay off our $50,000 of debt. And do you have any tips for getting your spouse on board? Like if, you know, somebody listening is like you and me kind of the money nerd but their spouse, you know, it's just kinda like, well you know, I don't know if I really want to do that. I'm having fun. Um, you know, cause my husband is kind of the same way. He went along with my crazy plans and everything, but you know, he wasn't like fully on board right away. Yeah. I can give you some anti tips in the beginning, which things that I did wrong but might help. So right away I read this book called the total money makeover by Dave Ramsey and I was watching a TV show, Susie Orman show, and it was just kind of getting really geeked about these, these shows and these books and things like that. So I would come up to my wife and say, all right, here's our plan. We're gonna sell your car and we're going to become debt free. Does that great. And it would be like after a busy day at work, she'd come home and look at me like with this death stare, like, what are you talking about? What is all this plan? So I guess my first anti tip is like, take it slow, don't get too excited, like come up with a plan and also speak in their language a little bit. That took me a little while to kind of figure out, she's not much into the numbers, she's more into what's the payoff? You know, what does becoming debt free? Get me. You know what I mean? Like for you and I, it sounds like we're kind of in the same boat, like being debt free. That's awesome. You just get a sense of freedom. It's awesome. But for her it's like, well what does that mean? What do I get? You know? Oh well you'll become a part time worker. That's kinda cool. And then stay at home mom, which you want. Oh, okay. I'm interested in that. That sounds good. Um, and so I guess some of the other tips that we eventually did at that point was we decided to get together for what I dubbed the budget party, which kind of was drawing my wife and being like, Hey, this is cool thing called a budget. And if I call it a budget party, then maybe you'll show up for a little meetings. I'll have wine and champagne and some pizza. We'll have fun with it. Uh, so that worked in the beginning. I mean she saw right through my tactics of calling a party. She's like, yeah, whatever. But um, so we met on a monthly basis to go over our budget. And what we did at the budget party was review our numbers from the previous month. How'd we do on our spending a review our plans for the next month, and then always look at our goals. So what are we, what are our goals right now? We want to pay off our debt, we want to move towards you being a part time worker. Then eventually a stay at home mom. And how are we tracking on those goals. So we would meet every month and have some fun together. Yeah. And review that budget and eventually over that next 12 months we were able to pay off our are $50,000 a debt. And essentially what we did is we looked at that budget and said, Hey, you know, we were both collectively living on each of our own incomes before we got together. What if we try to just kind of live on half and then pay off this debt and get through it. And since she was pregnant and we couldn't really go out as much anyway, she was kinda apt to, that's where a lot of our extra spending was entertainment going out and things like that. So we figured out a way to kind of live on half and then we paid off that debt and about 12 months. That's amazing. I mean $50,000 in 12 months is crazy fast. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. I'm going to say it was part collaboration, you know, part us working together and figuring out out. And it was also part increasing our income right around the time we were making to combine just a little over six figures, so maybe 110, 120 something like that. So it was a good healthy income for our family. And then as we continued, we got really kind of excited about, Hey, what can we do to grow our income, pay off this debt even further. And I had a sales commission job, so I said, well, what can I do to just kind of kill it at work during this time frame so we can pay off this debt as soon as possible. So I found different opportunities, different growth opportunities for my new job and if some commissions started to come in and instead of taking those commissions and you know, going on a vacation or doing something exciting, we would just take it all and throw it at the debt. Much to my wife's chagrin. Uh, but um, but it worked man. So we were able to pay off that 50,000 and about, uh, about 12 months. That's amazing. Did you guys, so you increased your income and then you did a budget, you know, followed your goals and stayed focused on like what your intent was, um, or did, did you do anything else like meal planning or you know, cutting expenses or was it primarily increasing your income and sane focused getting? It was more of those two, but we also looked at certain areas of our budget over the years following that, you know, reducing our grocery spending. We used to go to Kroger, uh, and then we switched to Aldi. That's simple change helped us to save about $300 per month. Uh, we cut the cord on cable. We weren't really watching cable that much. Netflix was, you know, fine for us and that little change made things completely fine. Uh, we were able to negotiate some of our insurance bills that hadn't been negotiated in a little while. You know, sometimes they're little, they're sitting there for a little while, they just keep raising the rate and you're saying, Oh, why am I paying $1,000 more than I was a couple of years ago because we're not negotiating. So it's a little things like that kind of helped, you know, nip at the old, uh, the debt. But, uh, overall it was just being intentional saying, Hey, here's what we're going to live on this month that'll help us to get to this goal of paying it off and then just increasing my income. Yeah, absolutely. That's amazing. So I also know that you paid off your mortgage. So tell me about paying off your debt and then moving into paying off your mortgage. Yeah. Yeah. So we kept sort of the same intensity after we paid off the debt. We said, well, wouldn't it be cool when I say we? I keep saying we, I said, wouldn't it be cool if we paid off our mortgage then we would never have a payment on our home in our, in our mid thirties. Wouldn't that be nuts? And she said, ah, okay. Yeah, I guess let's still had some fun. We just paid off our debt, so let's make sure that we're putting vacations in there and having fun and spending time with our daughter and you know, making some memories. And I said, of course, so that, that was the balance right there. And right around the same time my wife said, my wife said, well, I would also like to consider moving. We've been in your bachelor pad bungalow for a couple years and while it's nice, and I tried to fix it up a little bit, it's still a bachelor pad bungalow. So let's look at maybe a different neighborhood and a different community. And for me this was like [inaudible] no, no, that's gonna. That's not going to help us to pay off the mortgage. You get another bigger mortgage that's going to slow things down. And I'm not really, you know, I don't really want to feel like I got this gigantic mortgage on my back and I always have to make the income in order to pay it off. So what we decided was, okay, let's get the house that you want, but let's pay off the mortgage together in five years. So that became our commitment to each other. We said, okay, that's fine. You'll get the awesome house in the nice neighborhood and I'll get the mortgage free life cause that will just make me feel less stressed and you know, overall just enjoy things better. And that was our agreement. So that's what we decided to do at that point. And again, we kept that same intensity. We met every month for our budget party, reviewed the numbers, reviewed our goals, I continued to increase my income at this point. Nicole then went down to full time stay at home mom. So we had a loss of our income at that point. But I continued to do some great work at my office. I kinda got my, my income to around 150 to $200,000 Mark for the next three, four years. So that really helped us to put some major intensity on paying down the mortgage. So our mortgage that we got was around $200,000 and throughout the next four years, a little less than four years, we were able to pay it off completely. So that's about $50,000 extra at the mortgage each month in order for it to be completely gone. So that's what we did. That's amazing. I think that's awesome that you were able to increase your income that much with your wife staying at home. Like that's, that's amazing that you were able to not only pick up her income but also increase it altogether. Yeah, it helped a lot. I've had a really great employment opportunity over the past 15 years. I work in corporate event marketing and I'm in a sales role, so they need sales guys to bring in new business and then when it's there, you know, they are, there's a great opportunity to grow your, your salary and your commission depending on where you work. And that's, um, I had a commission job and my previous home and then when we moved to the new home, I had a full salary job and then that helped us to kind of have a more stable income. But, uh, the opportunity for commission kind of went away, but the salary was great and it helped us to have a good life together. That's awesome. So what are you doing now? Like, you know, you said that, um, this all started when you were going to be a father and that kinda changed your perspective on everything. So what are you doing now to kind of teach your kids about finances and managing their money? Oh, that's, that's a great question. That's my favorite question. Thank you. Um, so the whole time, since I get so geeked about this stuff, I have a lots of conversations with my kids about contributing and being rewarded for your contributions. Um, you know, I use the example of my, my job, I work really hard. I sell more stuff for my, for my company and number worded right. So I try to implement that for my kids as well. So we started a charter award program at our house on every Saturday morning my kids wake up and make a little breakfast and then they come down and they complete three chores, uh, very, you know, with kids size but very important chores around the house and they are paid a dollar equivalent to their age. So Zoe's seven right now and Calvin is five. So Zoe gets seven bucks, Calvin gets five bucks and this helps us to start a lot of about Hey, you're a part of this family. So contributing and being helpful is very important here and air go that helps you in your career down the road or your business that you're going to start down the road. And then what do you do with that money that we after you get it right? [inaudible] so we have a five jar system in our house. I got the three jar system originally from another Dave Ramsey book. But then I said, Hey, we can add two more jars cause they're really important. So the five jars that we have a spend, save, give, and then the other two that I've added are college. And invest because college costs are so crazy right now and they're only going to get even crazier by the time my daughter goes to school in 2030, um, and my son in 2032. So we're already having conversations about, Hey, the work that you're going to do here at the house and the money you received for gifts from birthday parties or Halloween money from grandma that's going to go in these different jars and they're going to help us to achieve the goals that you want in your life. And one of them is to go to college. And so it allows us to have important conversations about college very early. And then the invest jar is, gives us an opportunity to talk about compound interest and what that can do in their future. So with that money, we've been putting it into a UTMA brokerage account so that they can see how competent truss works. And I show them the balance and we have conversations about it. And yes, they are very young. But from what I've heard and the conversations I've had with individuals, a lot of kids, money habits are a lot of kids' money. I guess beliefs are set by the time they're seven. So having these conversations early [inaudible] they might not get it all, but at least they're understanding and seeing what you're modeling on a very early basis and it could really help them with the path they're on in their life. So that's something that we're doing to help our kids learn about money and, and kind of be money smart kids. Yeah. I think it's so important to talk to your kids about money in, you know, even if you don't, um, do the jars or anything like that, but just even talking about it, cause a lot of times, you know, previous generations, they don't talk about money. They don't talk about bills. Like it's taboo. Like, like you just don't bring it up. So I think it's great that, um, to start early and just at least start talking about it. Um, you know, with my kids, I, I'll tell them they only have so much money, um, just spend at Walmart like when they're looking at a toy, when they of course, I don't buy them any toys, but uh, you know when they do and they have to stick to the budget. So, um, you know, that's just kind of one way that we've kind of started with that. Now do you have a question about these jars for college and for investing? Like do they actually have a jar and then you wait till it's like so much money and then you take it to the bank or how do you work that? Yeah, so for, for all five jars we've got just clear plastic, clear glass jars. Like you've seen those Mason jars and so each week they'll fill it up in certain increment. So for spending we give that about 60% for saving, giving, invest. In college we do 10%. So you just sort of round up for the numbers based on there. But essentially little amounts of money is going to build up throughout the month. And at the end of the month we sort of do a little calculation. So for the saving we say, all right, you got a five bucks in here or six bucks in here. I take that and then I, I transfer it into their ally savings account. And then for the college we say, okay, there's an a minimum investment for our Michigan education savings of $25. So we wait for that to build up to be $25. And then for investing, we'd just do that on a once a month basis and we throw the money into their, uh, their accounts with your UTMA. So we just wait until the end of the month until it's calculated up. Then we have just a quick conversation about, Hey, here's what we're doing with the money and here's what it's going to do. So that allows us to have a chat once a month about compound interest about college, about saving up for the bike that she wants to buy and things like that. That's awesome. Now do they, um, are your kids good at staying focused on what they want to spend their money on? Like my kids go from one thing to another thing and it's like [inaudible] trying to get them to say for just one thing. Like do you have any uh, tips or advice on that? Like trying to keep them, keep them focused on saving for like the one toy or your kids kinda like mine all over the place. But one thing that we do do is in the beginning we did this program and our kids started to pile up a lot of money in their spend jar and that's nice cause we want them to have fun cause they worked hard for it, right? But then the requests for wanting to go to the store over and over and over again were just like a little overwhelming. Right? So what my wife decided, she goes, okay, I like this program. It's cool. But what we're going to do is just have one big shopping trip per month. We're going to say, Hey, save up your money and what's your November purchase? What's your December purchase? Then they can write it down and if they get excited through the month, just write it down. Say, Hey, this is something you're going to want. And this is actually a good lesson because sometimes Zoe will write it down and then a week later she'll be like, nah, I'm not into that anymore. Okay. That's one less plastic toy sitting around our house because we have so much stuff around here that we're also, my wife's big into like organization and minimalism. So for her to see all these toys everywhere just kind of makes sure go crazy. So it was sort of her idea saying, Hey, let's just do this. Once a month you will pull up whatever, 20 bucks or 30 bucks depending on how much you've gotten from, you know, birthday parties or grammar or your chores and then you'll have a good amount of money to buy something decent instead of, you know, the, the, the dollar store thing that breaks in five minutes. So, um, yeah. So that's what we've been doing. I really love that idea. I'm going to have to steal it cause my, yeah, my kids are, yeah. Is they're just like, Oh I want this, I want this. I don't want this. Oh wait, no, nevermind. I don't want that. That's all trial and error too. You know, like we, we've tried some things sometimes and we're like, well that was a big failure or we try this thing or we get suggestions from other people. It all depends on your kids and their, their, their styles. Like my, my daughter has become a lot more patient than my son because she's seven and he's five and she's a little more mature. But you know, over time things are gonna change and we'll have to modify things accordingly. But it's fun. It's really fun for me to do and, and have fun with. It's a fun tradition and it's so funny how different they are. Like my oldest child spends every penny she gets and then she tries to con her younger sister into spending her money as well, where the young, the middle child, she saves it all. And you know, she's so funny. She tells me all the time. She's like, when I'm rich, I'm going to buy us a new house. I'm going to buy us a swimming pool. I'm going to do all this stuff. She's like, when I'm rich, I'm going to, it's so funny how different conversations are happening. That's good. I know she thinks she's going to make a lot of money. Apparently someday. Hopefully she will and everybody's getting a swimming pool. She says it's a good world to live in. I'm like, sure, buy me some. Cool. Good. So do you have any last words of wisdom for, you know, paying off debt or budgeting and getting your kids to focus on saving or talking to your kids or anything like that? I would say that there's probably no right one way to do any of those things. I think a lot of it's just going to be some trial and error that you're going to have to discover because listening to a show like this, you might have, Hey, that's kind of a neat idea. Or you listen to Ashley on another show saying, Hey, that's a neat idea. If you try it and it works for you, that's great. And if it doesn't work, that's okay too. You're at least discovering what works best for you and your individual situation and just modify it accordingly and have fun with it. Yeah. And having fun is so important cause you don't want to just like dread, you know, doing this stuff. It's supposed to be fun so that you can live the life that you really want, you know, stay at home with your kids or whatever it is. Yeah. We read these books or listen to these shows sometimes and we're like, well that's what's, that's what the person said. So I have to do it exactly like that. No you don't. And I fall, I've fallen into that trap a lot where I'll come up to my wife and be like, well no, this financial experts says this is how we're supposed to do it. And she's like, I don't care man. This is how I know. This is how I feel and my feelings matter too. And I like, absolutely they do. And it's just taken me some trial and error to figure that out. Yeah, absolutely. Like I'm kind of the same way. Like I need to have like follow this plan, but you know, just take different things from other people and make your own plane, whatever's going to work for you. It's just important to actually do it and roll through with it. Exactly. Now I always like to ask people what their favorite nonfiction book is because as you probably know, you know, they say millionaires read like something like a book a month. Uh, and so I like to see what other people are reading. Like what's your favorite book? Yeah, I really like the slight edge by Jeff Olson. It is actually a very quick read, but the reason I like it is that his main point is that we make small incremental improvements on a daily basis that will get us to the big results in our lives. Sometimes we try to do the big thing and make it all happen right away. His whole point in the book is that if you make small incremental changes in your health, your, you know, your finances, your uh, your, your spiritual nature, things like that, things that you want to improve in your life, you make those small incremental changes that's going to have compound growth, compound impact over time. And I just really liked that concept because it helps me to realize that I don't have to do it all today. Right. You know, make the small improvement today because it's going to have a big impact on your future. So that's the slight edge by Jeff Olson. Yes. I love that. It's just small steps in the right direction and you will get there. Well, thank you so much for being here. Now, where can people find you? Well, if you are listening to this podcast, a great place to hang out with me is on another podcast called marriage, kids and money. So if you go into the podcast player you're listening to right now and just type in marriage, kids and money, that's the best place to find me. And if you're into reading, you can go to marriage. Kids and money.com where I have a blog as well. So would love to connect with any of you and your listeners and I really appreciate your having me on today actually on the opportunity to speak about all this crazy fund that my family has had together. Well, thank you so much for being here. It was a lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you so much to Andy for being with us today and giving us some great ideas on how to teach our children about money. Don't forget to go check out his podcast as well and get your free debt snowballs starter pack so you can start paying off your debt as well at budgetmadeeasy.com/debt-bundle and I will talk to you guys next week. Special Guest: Andy Hill.

Welcome to the Money Mindset Podcast where you will learn simple ways to improve your lfe and your finances. Resouces for you: Blog: Budgets Made Easy (www.budgetsmadeeasy.com) Beginners Guide to Budgeting (https://www.budgetsmadeeasy.com/budgeting-beginners-guide/) How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck Guide (https://www.budgetsmadeeasy.com/stop-living-paycheck-to-paycheck/) Full Transcript: Welcome to the money mindset podcast where you will find the inspiration and motivation you need to manage your money better than you can stress less as living the life you want. I'm Ashley Patrick, founder of the money mind mindset podcast in budgets made easy. This is your place to get the tools, knowledge, and inspiration to improve your finances and your life. My mission [00:00:30] is to inspire and motivate you to take the steps toward becoming debt free and building real wealth. That can seem overwhelming at first, but when you break it down into simple steps and focus on just one thing at a time, the possible the impossible becomes possible. The important thing is to take small steps in the right direction and you will get there, but it all starts with changing your [00:01:00] mindset around money. Believing that you can do something is half the battle. Once you believe that you can do it, then you can take the steps and make the plan to actually do it. If you don't truly believe that you can do something, then why would you even try? That's why I am focusing on changing your mindset so that you can change your life. It all starts there. No matter what your financial goals are, whether it says stop living paycheck [00:01:30] to paycheck, whether you want to save money, pay off debt, save for your kid's future, you have to believe that you can do it and that you, that it is really an option for you, which spoiler alert it is. So that's what I will be focusing on in this podcast along with tips on budgeting, saving money, and paying off debt so you can stress less and live the life you really want because that's what I really want for you. [00:02:00] And that's what my mission and my goal and my whole focus is for you, is to get you to change your mindset around money so that you can get past that first hurdle and make the changes and take the steps to really take control over your finances and your life so that you can do what you want to do. I mean, because that's what happened for me. So dinner news myself real quick. You know, a couple of years ago I was an extremely [00:02:30] stressful job. I was a police officer or detective for 10 years, you know, I wore child abuse cases in things that people don't want to, you know, even think that exists in this world is incredibly stressful to kids sitting in traffic just just to get to work and back home. Like traffic is ridiculous around here, you know, and I really wanted options and the only way to do that was to pay [00:03:00] off my debt. Once I was able to pay off my debt, which will be in more detail in the next episode, $45,000 in 17 months, I was able to have the freedom to make the choice to stay at home with my kids. Once I had my third child and if I still had debt, I wouldn't have even had that option. There's no way I would've been able to stay home. So being at free gives you options. It gives you freedom. You get to do what you want to do. If you want to be able to take [00:03:30] a different road in life, go try something new. Try a different job. It gives you the ability to do that. Um, it gives you the freedom to be able to make choices based on what you want instead of what you have to do to pay the bills. So that's a little bit about myself. Uh, my ma, my website and all my social handles, everything is budget's made easy. So it's budgets made easy.com. You can get all kinds of freebies. I've got a budget worksheets, I've got, um, you know, [00:04:00] how to stop living paycheck to paycheck guide, uh, debt, snowball worksheets, you know, everything is there. There's also the budget challenge, which is a seven day pay, what you want, budget challenge, which is actually pretty neat and I really love this idea. So the idea behind it is that you pay what you want, minimal of $5, because you do need to have some skin in the game and some motivation to actually follow through. And so that is why I did pay what you want because [00:04:30] you need to choose an amount that will motivate you and get you to actually do it and follow through with it. It's broken down into tiny little baby steps every single day, seven days. Like even the seven days is not even making your budget. Your budget is like three days worth. So you know, you can have your budget ready to go and just a couple of days without the stress and the overwhelm of knowing where to start. This is where [00:05:00] you start. So the biggest thing people tell me is, I'm overwhelmed. I don't know how or where to start. This is where you do it. Budgetsmadeeasy.com/budget-challenge and you can get started today, have your budget done in just a couple days. Get past that overwhelm, get past that mindset block and just get started. Just do it. Okay, so in the next episode and going forward, I will be talking about how we paid off the debt so that you can do it [00:05:30] to debt payoff, tete tips, tips on budgeting, saving money. I've got lots and lots of guests, uh, that we've already started recording interviews. So I'm so excited about that. You get to hear about how other people paid off debt and how they're managing their money in such a way that it works for their family and their life. And that's another thing before I get off here that I want to really stress to you, myself and Dave Ramsey and Susie Orman, everybody, [00:06:00] you know, they give you general advice, good budget tips, good money tips, but it's personal. It's why they call it personal finance. So what works for one person may not work for you. You need to do the research and, and you know, look at how different people do things and figuring out what's gonna work best for your family. Because you know, you may need to save more than a thousand dollars is your starter [00:06:30] emergency fund. You may need to pay off something that is in a different order than the debt snowball and that will go into what all that means in more episodes. But you just really have to focus on your situation, see what will work for you and what will motivate you to start and keep going and finish. Cause that's the most important thing. As long as you keep moving in the right direction, you will get there. You may not get there as fast as [00:07:00] me or somebody else, or maybe you will. Maybe you don't have as much debt as I had. You know, everybody's situation is a little bit different, so don't compare your journey to somebody else, but you just need to get started. Keep going, stay motivated. And that is what this podcast and what I'm all about. I am so excited to get started on this journey with you. Be sure to check out budgets made easy.com for all your helpful resources on getting started by [00:07:30] making your budget, working on your mindset, planning your goals, and everything in between. To get started on your budget, go to budgetsmadeeasy.com/budget-challenge and get started working on your budget and planning out your goals today. Be sure to check out the links in the show notes for all your helpful resources. And the next episode I will be talking about how we paid off $45,000 in debt in just 17 months. [00:08:00] I'll see you there.

Click Above To Listen In iTunes... So the big question is this, what would you do if money didn't matter? So you had millions in your bank account, what would you focus on? Would you spend more time with your family, with your wife, with your kids? Take family vacations. Would you pursue your gifts and talents and dreams? Serve your local community, teach others, serve your church. You see if what you would do if money didn't matter, it was pursuing your gifts and talents and dreams to serve others, and that is probably what you should be doing. The problem is most people are in the rat race, living five inches in front of their face with no time to pursue what they were born to do. That is the problem, and the solution is to develop enough passive income to replace your working income so you can quit your job and be free to live your life the way you were created to. That is a solution and this podcast will show you how... Ryan Enk:                          What's up everyone? Welcome to the latest episode of Cash Flow Dad Life. I'm stoked for this guest today. Please welcome. If you're just sitting there in your car, I guess just clap your hands or whatever, you know. Welcome Corey Durkin. Cory Durkin...he's got a new book out called, You Can't Get Rich If You Feel Poor. Ryan Enk:                          And I love this concept, but let me just give you a little bit of a background on Corey. Corey is a speaker, he's an author, he's a podcaster, he's an angel investor, he's a musician. He drinks a crap load of coffee and about 17 other things... Ryan Enk:                          One of the things that he believes is that when he's dead...though, he does use a therapeutic pillow when he actually does sleep, is that he will sleep when he's dead. Ryan Enk:                          My dad used to have this phrase when we went on vacation, "sleep is for wimps," and he still says that although he falls asleep watching a movie at 9:30 pm on a weekday. Ryan Enk:                          I love it. He's, he's a incredibly high on life and entrepreneur and one of the main reasons, although he does, he does a lot of stuff and especially he's dabbled in real estate more specifically the short term rentals... Ryan Enk:                          One of the reasons I really wanted him to come on the show is because of his new book that he has called You Can't Get Rich If You Feel Poor. Ryan Enk:                          It talks about a certain mindset. Ryan Enk:                          And what's so special about this concept is when I first got started in life after I got married is I listened to a lot of Susie Orman and Dave Ramsey and I know a lot of people are really big fans of theirs. And I'm actually, I love some of the concepts they teach as well.                                           But what they teach is this focus on your expenses and your debt...                                            And you know, when you're focusing on just, "Hey, I need to get out of debt. I need to get out of debt. I need to get out of debt," you're not focusing on living life abundantly.                                            So it was actually a real struggle for my marriage because, you know, I'm sitting there making, you know, I'm counting the number of sheets of toilet paper and my wife is, you know, she's having to cut coupons for the groceries and just wasn't a way to live. It wasn --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cashflow-dadlife/support

Please help the show by leaving a review: http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1118795347Download the FREE 2018 Rental Property Analyzer for free: https://simplepassivecashflow.activehosted.com/f/14Pardon the grammar - I'm an Engeneer, Enginere, Engenere... I'm good with math! Here are the Show Notes: I started to a hobby to make Mead or fermented honey wine. It’s pretty healthy because of the good bacteria cultures. I started it because I needed to diversify from my Kombucha hobby because moving to Hawaii I was worried that there was going to be a fruit fly infestation that would wipe me out. Got to be diversified with multiple streams of income!Notebuyerbootcamp.com – Coupon Code “simplepassive”It’s been a busy month after wrapping up the closing on these two latest deals. If you are interested in the deal flow, make sure you are a part of our Hui Deal Pipeline Club.I recently met George Ross who came to speak to my Syndication Mastermind for a private dinner. If you have need the movie “The Founder” you know the lawyer had a very big impact to Ray Kroch. George was the legal counsel to Donald Trump during his rise and “retired” once he hard Trump was running for presidency. George He held court to the remaining 15 of us for 3 hours after dinner until midnight telling stories for the past. Very insightful to know that this man shaped the Trumps business sense.He is known as a master negotiator and he gave us the following relationship advice:“In marriage, I tell my wife that I make all the Major decisions and she can have the Minor decisions… In all my years of marriage, we have not had one Major decision come up.”The recently launched YouTube Channel just clocked in at 17,577 minutes or 293 hours or 36 working days. So there much be one person watching my content around the clock which on the clock. I need a little bit of a break and took the time to reflect back on how far I have come from 2009 and buying that first rental property. By the way remember to incorporate “play” into your day.The first twenty tips came from myself but after sharing the list and finding the other ex-cheapskates out there we have been slowly syndicating more and more bad ideas. Note: they are not in any particular order.Our parents will be so proud of us!If you want to add more, please email me and I will keep growing the list. And if you like I can add you initials at the end to cement your legacy.If you call me collect, I will not pick up!Money saving ideas for the shameless...Stack Mr. Rebates shopping portal and Groupon discount codes with gift cards purchased from eBay or Safeway with more gift cards and Mr Rebates shopping portal. To sign up go here: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=413597Take a shower at work to save on utilities, water, and electricity – as a side benefit you go to the gym more often (do your 3S’s there, shit, shower, shave)If you work in a startup company that caters food, it’s a no brainer--- eat at work and bring food home. Maybe you can even befriend someone that works there and join them for lunch from time to time. For extra credit consider a life of “intermittent fasting” and totally binge at these free meals.Wash your car in the rain. No mineral deposits left while it dries. Video of me demonstrating this: https://youtu.be/kZkYnkXOI7QCostco leasing to own programBuy an Anker powerbank and charge it at work.Always take a pee before leaving for the day.Try to poop at the same time every day while at work… get paid to poop. Time is money and flushes cost 10 cents.There are soft drinks available at restaurants?Why are you eating at a sit down restaurant, you have to pay tip?If you must, order food to go and eat on the premises. Best of both worlds!Wear clothes with the tag on it and return it.Buy a snorkel from Costco to go to Hanama bay while visiting Hawaii to return it. Another Hui member caucions that on many electronics there is a 90 day return policy.Use an app like GasBuddy to find the cheapest gasoline station, better yet, double stack your Costco credit card (4% cash back on gasoline) and buy Costco gas.Cash flow, cash flow, cash flow. Also, see uncle Kohlers team for tax optimization (easily the single largest expense in your life) http://keystonecpa.com/~keystone/images/5_Cash_Flow_Strategies_for_RE_Investors_eBook.pdf This one is a bit morbid, but an important one. Set up a revocable living trust with your lawyer to avoid probate expenses following the death of your family membersSusie Orman’s advice - make coffee at home and save yourself the $5 Starbucks Vente frappucinoFAST (intermittently, not forever)! Skip breakfast daily (work yourself up gradually) and when you’re ready to get to the big leagues, attempt to fast for an entire day (no breakfast, lunch or dinner)Solar panels (maybe?)Free (coffee) money, this one’s really easy ($25/quarter or $100/yr) w/ BofA and Amazon http://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/consumer-watchdog/better-balance-rewards-cardMaximize and optimize what you’ve got BankPurely has a 1.30% APY since April (not sure if promo rate?) but most banks have 1.0+% (which is 10x the 0.1% APY rate given by most conventional brick and mortar banks like BofA, Chase, WellsFargo)https://www.depositaccounts.com/savings/Become an Uber driver or deliver post maters? (not a big fan)If you have a spare room not in use, AirBnB it from time to timeCheck out EventBrite or other social event platforms for free lunch/dinner/drinksInvestinAHP.com or email me for a few Burnzone book with your mailing addressBuy Mod Pizza’s mega salad for $11.27. Dinner for days!Paid online surveys (not a good use of time)Coupons (think http://www.freestufffinder.com/)Use www.bensbargains.com or slickdeals.net before buying anything onlineUse Honey or Ebates or other discount portals for Amazon/eBay or other internet purchases to save a few %Certain credit cards provide 5x bonuses (Chase Freedom has rotating categories) and Chase Business cards are good for auto-pay things like internet with extra bonus categoriesMake a Ghetto Latte at Starbucks and other funGrowing up in Hawaii where a gallon of milk is $8, I was taught to save money in strange ways. (I don’t drink milk)Some of those were pretty bad which develop into unhealthy money mindsets.Some downright unethical but hey if you are a cheapskate, own it!I don’t condone any of these tactics but look, it is no coincidence why you folks continuously have so much money to invest and pay your bills on time unlike 4 out 5 of my Birmingham rentals every month.Join the Hui Deal Pipeline Club! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today’s episode is on retirement income solutions. Tom Henga is a retirement income specialist. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: “Where The Insurance Pros Meet” is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you’re going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Announcer 1 Where the Insurance Pros Meet, Episode 2. Announcer 2 If you really want to get good, I mean, you want to be the best in the business, you've got to train a little bit every single day just like the pro football players do. Announcer 1 Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together: managers, coaches, and producers. The very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now, here's Mark Miletello, a top one percent producer, manager, and your host of "Where the Insurance Pros Meet". Mark Miletello Today we're going to discuss retirement income solutions. We have on the show with us the retirement income specialist himself. He's the author of four best sellers, "Paychecks and PlayChecks", "Retirement Income Masters", "Paycheck and Playchecks for Canadians", and most recently, "Don't Worry Be Happy: Seven Steps to Retirement Security, which has played on public television to over 72 million homes in the US and Canada. Our guest specializes in creating, what I love, is simple and powerful retirement solutions based on math and science and not opinions. I've seen him speak myself. He's exciting. You should look him up. He speaks to businesses, government organizations, professional associations, financial professionals, and more importantly, clients across the globe. The road warrior himself, Tom Hegna. Welcome to the show, Tom. Tom Hegna Thank you, Mark. Thanks for having me. Mark Miletello Well, Tom, NFL season is here. I'm excited. The pros are practiced, rehearsed, the butterflies are gone. It's game time. Tom, congratulations, and thanks for being a leader, a voice, and a consummate professional in the insurance industry; and is, really, the leading speaker and coach in the financial services industry. So, thanks for coming to the show. Can you give us a kickoff of this show with a professional tip or advice just to start us off and get this game going? Tom Hegna Sure. I mean, since you're talking about pro football, let me ask you a question. How often do they train do you think? Do they train once a quarter? Once every six months? A couple of times a year? They train every single day. Sometimes they do doubles. Sometimes they do triples. What people don't understand is that the top producers in any business, but let's just say pro football, they're constantly training. You know what else, they've got a coach. Why would they need a coach? They're the best players in the world. Because the coach sees things they don't. The coach can come up with a game plan. And I think what both you and I do is we focus on training and coaching. Why do people in our industry think that they don't need to train every single day? And, you know, if you or I were training or coaching them, even for 10 or 15 minutes every day, imagine how much better they would be in three months, six months, nine months. And so, I guess that would be my opening pitch, is that if you really want to get good, I mean, you want to be the best in the business, you've got to train a little bit every single day just like the pro football players do. Mark Miletello You know, I'm even more excited now because you're spot on. As a producer, as an agent, sometimes we're out there by ourselves; and here I am, 27 years into my career, and I still have a coach. I still have a mentor. I still look for more knowledge. So, you're exactly right, and that's the type of stuff I knew we were going to get right off the bat from you. Right now, let's break for industry news. There's no secret, the Department of Labor rulings are dominating the news in the insurance and financial services stadium. Tom, help us out. How do you think the industry will or will not change with these Department of Labor rulings? Tom Hegna Well, you know, it's kind of interesting, I was just on a nationwide debate last week with Knute Rothstead. He's the co-founder of the fiduciary standard, and he debated for the ruling. I debated against it. And I'd encourage your listeners to listen to it. It's free. They can go to apviewpoint.com and register for free and it's in there, or just look up any of my social media. I've got the recordings posted, but I encourage them to listen to it. But to your question, I would say this. I think some good things will come out of it. We all know there were some bad products out there. We all know there were some bad people out there. But what I tried to say in the debate is, you know, Bernie Madoff was a fiduciary, but I don't go around saying all the fiduciaries are Bernie Madoff, and I don't have anything wrong with fiduciaries. But my point in the debate is, right now, it's legal in all 50 states to do business with a fiduciary. So, if you really want a fiduciary, guess what? You can do business with one, but not everybody's choosing that. I said this, "If fiduciaries were so good at what they did, if they were so good, guess what, they'd put everybody else out of business." How could State Farm do what they do? How could New York Life do what they do? How could American National do what they do? If fiduciaries are so good, everybody would have to become a fiduciary, or they'd go out of business. But here's the truth, the truth is they aren't always that great. There are fiduciaries who are not taking longevity risk off the table. There are fiduciaries who are not taking long-term care risk off the table. There are fiduciaries who aren't using life insurance to leverage wealth transfer to children and grandchildren. So, my question to them is how can you be doing what's in the best interest of your clients if you're not using annuities, life insurance, and long-term care? So, that is on their side. But on our side, I would say this, I think we are going to see products, maybe a little more leveling of the commission, which I don't think is bad. I don't think there should be necessarily you make more commission on that versus this, and then you're tilted to recommend that over that. I think that's one of the good things that will come out of this rule is that companies are going to really must look at what is in the best interests of their clients? Now I don't agree that just a fiduciary puts their best interests. I see insurance professionals or financial professionals all over the country, every day, who are putting their client's best interests first; but I think there will be some good things that will come out of it as well. Mark Miletello Well, the Department of Labor ruling, I mean, I agree. I think that protecting clients ultimately is the goal, and that's more important than anything, but there is a balance, and I think that's the issue that you're talking about. We must find the balance, right? Tom Hegna Right. And what I proposed, at the end, instead of just beating up on my opponent or just trying to trash the DOL rule, what I tried to propose was a fiduciary process. You see I think the argument about fees versus commission, that's ridiculous. I can show you plenty of places where a commission is better for a client, and they can show you plenty of places where a fee is better. So, let's just agree that the fee commission argument just depends on the client. That's a ridiculous rule. But, let's also agree that nobody knows what's going to be the best. Here's the problem with the fiduciaries. It's the best interest. Did you know that if you go to five different fiduciaries, give them your exact same set of circumstances, you will get five different courses of actions proposed? Speaker 5 Exactly. Tom Hegna All in your best interests? I mean, that doesn't even make sense. How could five different people give five different solutions if this is in my best interest? So, what I say is let's agree that nobody knows what's going to be the best, all right? And what math and science do is when you get into a situation where you don't know what's going to be the best, there are so many variables, what math and science look for is the optimal way to do it. And all optimal means is this will be the best more often than anything else will be the best and it'll never be the worst. So, what I propose and what I talk about all the time, I don't talk about the best way to retire, because nobody knows what's the best way to retire. I talk about the optimal way. And so what I proposed at the end of the debate is something that I think both sides could agree on. What if we had a fiduciary process that said step number one you got to have a plan, and it's got to be in writing, and you need to work with a financial professional, and it needs to be reviewed regularly. That'd be step one. Step two, why don't we insist that they cover their basic living expenses with guaranteed lifetime income. That's what all the PhDs who study retirement say you should do. And then what if we said for the rest of the portfolio you optimize that to protect yourself against inflation. Or, if you weren't in the securities business, you could ladder their income products, so they could have one that starts at age 60, one that starts at age 65, one that starts at age 70; but the key is to give them increasing income for the rest of their life. What if we taught our clients how to maximize their social security benefits? See social security's the largest retirement asset most people have. What if we said that no retirement plan is complete without a plan for long-term care and that we were required to discuss a long-term care plan with the people. And then what if we used life insurance as the most efficient way to pass wealth. That if they have a life insurance policy for the kids, they could spend more of their money in retirement. I said now that is a process that would be based in math and science that, whether you are a fiduciary or non-fiduciary, whether you sell annuities or manage money, or you pay fees or commissions couldn't we agree that that would be a powerful process that would be in the client's best interest, and then we can just disagree. To me, that's the solution. Mark Miletello Wow. And thanks for being a voice for our industry. We need a voice right now more than ever, and really, you're a voice for the client as well. As I've read and studied and followed you, the sound advice you give is on behalf of the client and, like you said, the little things, how commissions are paid, that's the little things. Now giving more than 5,000 speeches and seminars and really influencing hundreds of thousands of advisors out there, let's talk about you. Let's talk about Tom Hegna himself. Can you tell us in your own words how you arrived at the point where you are today? Tom Hegna Well, look, I'm driven right now by one thing. There are 78 million baby boomers out there who are retiring. They're either in retirement or close to retirement. And tens of millions of them are going to run out of money if we don't get to them first. And so, I'm really driven by the fact that I can't get in front of 78 million people, but you know what? You can get in front of a 1,000. They can get in front of a 1,000. They can get in front of a 1,000. They can get in front of a 1,000. So, if I can get in front of 300, 500 thousand advisors, a million advisors, through the leverage of their work, we can get in front of most of these 78 million. Look, most people won't do everything they're supposed to, but we can fix a lot of them. I've been in the business for over 30 years. I've learned a lot in that time. When I was at New York Life, I was kind of in charge of their retirement income push, and so I found out things I never knew. Mortality credits. Longevity credits. I learned things about longevity risk. I learned things about why guaranteed income is so important. And happiness in retirement. See, I talk to people all the time. You know, it's one thing to retire optimal or not optimal, but don't you want to be happy in retirement; because I can show people how they can be happy in retirement. And happiness in retirement is tied almost 100% to guaranteed lifetime income, and so I can demonstrate that to them. I can show them all the research and all the articles that have studied it. And so that's kind of what gets me up in the morning is I'm trying to help 78 million baby boomers. I can't get to all of them, but I can get a bunch of advisors and try to help them help their clients. Mark Miletello Well, perfectly said. I'm looking at the parallels in our history. First, thank you for your service in the army, six years’ service. I had six years’ service in the army, as well, before I started my career, during my career. But I was an agent, I was a producer, and nine years ago I went into management. I had won a lot of the awards that I set out to and had the success that I wanted to have as a producer. I think at a point I wanted to touch more people, as well. I found that my passion and heart is helping clients with what you call miracles, selling life insurance, which I totally agree with that in your book. But what I wanted to do was touch more lives, just like you said. And going into management, I felt like building 20, 30, 40 agents, we could touch more lives and get the message out there. I love the fact that you've taken it even additional, and that's, of course, the reason for this podcast, having a place where we can touch more people, help more people through the things that you talk about and teach in securing and doing the right things. I told you right before we started to show that I read your book a third time Monday on a plane. I couldn't put it down until I got to St. Louis and I must tell you, it just meant something totally different to me at this point in my career. So, we talked about the industry, the news, we talked a little bit about you, and congratulations on all the accomplishments you've had, and the best sellers that you've had. Let's talk a little bit about clients. What is the number one piece of advice, Tom, that you would give to retirees today? Tom Hegna Well, that they've got to have a plan to retire. See, most people don't have a plan. And again, that plan should include some very simple things. They should make sure that their basic living expenses are covered with guaranteed lifetime income so that no matter what happens to the market or no matter what happens to interest rates, they will at least have their basic living expenses covered. Then they got to have a plan for inflation because guaranteed lifetime income, if you just buy one, unless you buy inflation protection on it, it's going to stay the same, and over time prices go up. So, you've got to have a plan for inflation and I leave that up to the advisor. They can recommend a market-based solution of stocks or mutual funds, commodities, real estate, that's fine, or you can ladder your guaranteed products. That's what I've done. I've got eleven of them and I've got them starting at different ages, and so I will have increasing income for the rest of my life. You've got to have a plan to protect yourself against inflation, and then you've got to have a plan to protect yourself against the risk of long-term care. That's probably, after longevity risk, that's the other biggest risk. Seventy-two percent of all people will need to have a plan for long-term care. They should maximize their social security benefits. That's the largest retirement asset that most of them have and, in general, just very simple, the breadwinner should delay. So, if you've got a husband or wife, and the husband made more money than the wife, the wife can take her benefits early if she wants to, but the husband should wait until 70 because his check covers both lives. That's why the breadwinner should delay. And then use your home equity wisely. There are all kinds of new things like reverse mortgage market. You can sell your home and capture capital gains tax breaks, and so use your home equity wisely. Then I always say leave life insurance to your kids for pennies on the dollar, and then just go out and spend your money and have fun in retirement. So, I talk a lot about how to have fun in retirement, how to never run out of money in retirement, and how to not have to go to a nursing home so you get to stay in your house for the rest of your life because you have a plan. And so, those are the concepts that I talk with retirees. Mark Miletello Well, I've been training based on a lot of what you've said, and I've also been following and mentoring with Van Mueller who, by the way, speaks very highly of you. Tom Hegna Dan's a great guy. We go way back. Mark Miletello Absolutely. And so, I've been rolling out to the agents that I'm mentoring and acronym, TVFIL, taxes, volatility, fees, inflation, and longevity. In your book, Paychecks, and Playchecks, you say the greatest threat to retirees is longevity. It's a multiplier of the rest. Can you expound on that? Tom Hegna Yeah, because the longer you live, the more likely the market will crash. The longer you live, the more likely you'll take out too much money. The longer you'll live the more likely inflation will decimate your purchasing power. The longer you live the more likely you're going to need long-term care. What I tell the people is this. Look, if you retire when you're 65, and you drop dead when your 68, it doesn't matter if the market crashes 10,000 points. It doesn't matter if inflation was 15%. It doesn't matter if you were drawing 12% a year. It doesn't matter if you forgot to buy long-term care insurance. You didn't a life long enough. But if you live to be 75, 80, 85, 90, it's all those other risks that will wipe you out. So, of all the research, I can find from the smartest PhDs in the world who study retirement said this: "To retire successfully you must take longevity risk off the table." Well, guess what, stocks can't do that. Bonds can't do that. Mutual funds can't do that. Real estate can't do that. Only some form of an annuity can do it. A lifetime income annuity, you might call it an SPIA, a deferred income annuity, you might call it a DIA, or an income or withdrawal benefit rider from a fixed index variable annuity, that is it. Those are the only things that can take longevity risk off the table. So, you've got to put an annuity in that portfolio. And then people don't understand that the reason is that you put it in the portfolio is to take longevity risk off the table. Why? Because only a life insurance company can issue an annuity. Why? Because only a life insurance company sells life insurance to be on the other side of that risk. See because an insurance company is on both the life insurance and annuity side, that if people die too soon or live too long, they can neutralize themselves. Because if this person lives to be 115, that's okay, that person over there died when they were 60, so they're protected against both longevity and mortality risk because they're on both sides of the risk. Your banker can't do it. Your broker can't do it. Only the life insurance industry can protect people from dying too soon or living too long. That is a mathematical, scientific, and economic fact. Mark Miletello I'm so pumped up right now. I read your book on a plane. I got off to give a speech. I believe it was the most powerful speech of my career. And in the speech, I held up your book and ... it was a study group of the top leaders in my company. I held up your book, and I said, "You have to find your voice right now." One of the things that you said in your book, Paychecks, and Playchecks, you said, "We are at different times." And I think one big message that you give is to wake up. Wake up and look around. And I think that's the hardest thing for me, was for me, is to find that voice like you have found, like Van's found, like others succeeding and ... Let me go back to one little point. You had mentioned annuities that pay for life, and you know what, I get caught up or have been caught up, with clients talking about rates of return. You get completely away from that, and you focus on the longevity. The income stream for life and the value and importance of that, and I really had some of my first discussions where I said that the interest rate doesn't matter. Can you dive a little deeper into how reps should consider ...? Because I've got to be honest, I've sold tons of annuities, tons of life insurance, I've helped protect families and clients; but I've never really until, I think this week, saw the value and importance of what you say and how you use these products to protect people in these uncertain times. Tom Hegna I often talk about the payout rates of annuities. And if you look at SPIA OR a DIA, the guaranteed payout rates for those things are very high. They're 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 percent guaranteed for the rest of the client's life. And I always tell advisors, I say someday if you talk about payout rates the client's going to ask you, "Okay, but what is my interest rate?"  I got two ways to answer that. Number one, "What would you like it to be?" Because the insurance company does not set the interest rate on an income annuity. They set the payout rate. It never sets the interest rate the client by how long they live. So, I say, "If you want a higher interest rate, just live longer. If you want a higher interest rate than that, live longer than that." That's what I love about these products. You get to set your own interest rate. I hope you set it very high. But the second way I handle it is this. It doesn't matter. Just like you said, it doesn't matter what the interest rate is. When somebody asks you "what is the interest rate", in their mind they think this is an investment that they want to compare to their Merrill Lynch or their Schwab or their Edward Jones investment. And what I would say that an income annuity is not an investment. It is a guaranteed paycheck for the rest of your life. So, if I went on an appointment with that advisor, these are the exact words that would come out of my mouth. "I'd say Mr. and Mrs. Client, congratulations, you're now retired. In retirement, you're going to need a paycheck. Now at our company, you can have your paycheck guaranteed or non-guaranteed, which do you prefer?" Most people say guaranteed. "We can guarantee it for your life or for both of your lives, which would you prefer?" Most of them say for both of our lives. So, I repeat it back. "What I just heard you say is you would like a guaranteed paycheck for the rest of both of your lives." Yes. That's what this does. And there's no other product in the world you can buy that will give you a higher guaranteed paycheck for the rest of both of your lives. So, it doesn't matter what the interest rate is. You want a paycheck. You want it guaranteed. You want it guaranteed for the rest of both of your lives. That's what this does. Merrill Lynch, Schwab, E-trade, they can't do that. Mark Miletello So, I've got my checkbook out. I feel like I need to pay you for that. Tom Hegna I mean, let's keep it simple, and let's have fun in the appointments too. I have fun when I'm in front of people. I get in front of more people probably than almost all your listeners combined. So, I'm in front of people every day and I have fun with it. [crosstalk 00:21:36 Mark Miletello Absolutely, and I'm glad I asked that question because I needed the answer to that, and I would imagine a lot of my agents and my listeners as well needed the answer to that. And so, that'll help us find our voice in competing again what interest rate is at, and just spot on. I obviously brought up "Paychecks and Playchecks" several times. That book is just filled with so many nuggets. I've highlighted the entire book, and it's going to be part of my process going forward and training, and teaching, and reading, and learning myself. I'm excited to hear a little bit more about, "Don't Worry Retire", but before that, what inspired you to write "Paychecks and Playchecks"? Tom Hegna Here's kind of what happened. I was still at New York Life at the time when I was asked to speak at the top of the table for MDRT, which is a huge honor. This is a top of the table event of MDRTs, the top of the top of the top, but I didn't know that MDRTs, that to test their speakers because it's a smaller group. It's the highest group, but there are only about 500 people. If you do good there, then they'll ask you to domain platform at MDRT, the general session, where there's six, seven thousand. But anyway, I had a presentation and they said you got have a name for this thing, you got to have a name for this. And we talked about it and said what about Paychecks and Playchecks. I said, "Oh, that's a great name." So, we titled my talk "Paychecks and Playchecks". Well, it was a huge hit, and then I did MBRT the next year in Vancouver. It was a huge hit. I didn't have a book. And that's killer. You're on the main platform at this big thing. I didn't have a book. Everybody said, "You've got to have a book." So, I sat down and I wrote the book and then what we did is we took my "Paychecks and Playchecks" talk from MDRT and we broke it out into chapters, and then we built up the chapters. I put in all the knowledge that I'd learned over the years and that was "Paychecks and Playchecks". And it was a foundational book. It sold over two million dollars. I mean less than one percent of books ever sell a million dollars. That sold over two million and "Don't Worry, Retire Happy" has now sold over a million. So, it's kind of cool. I got two books in the top one percent of all books ever written, but it was I wrote it out of my heart, you know. It was really all the knowledge and all the words and language. Because I tell people this, people think this is a knowledge business. I've got news for them. This is not a knowledge business anymore. You give me an iPad and the internet for 15 minutes, I can figure out anything I need to figure out. This is not a words business. This is a language business. This is a questions business, and this is a stories business. And my books are full of words, language, questions, and stories that are powerful. I always tell people if you don't have your ... People say all the time you got the words, you got the questions, you got the stories. You can borrow the stories, borrow the words, borrow the ... that's what I did when I was brand new. I listened to audiobooks every single day. I watched tapes of the Kinder Brothers so I could close business the way the Kinder Brothers taught me how to close business. I can handle objections the way they taught me to handle rejections. And what I did was learn the words, language, questions, and stories of the top producers in this industry 30 years ago and those words, language, questions, and stories made me millions of dollars. And now I've got the words, language, questions, and stories for this retirement income market and people can make millions of dollars off of that, but they're worried about spending 35 bucks on an audiobook or something. It's crazy. You've got to invest ... and I'll tell you this. The best investment you'll ever make is not in stocks or bonds or bitcoin, the best investment you'll ever make is an investment in yourself. That will make you the most millions. Mark Miletello It's perfectly said. I believe that what you've said it's not that ... you look at my upbringing and my challenges and I had Richard Weylman on the show last week and the struggles that he came through. It's about finding your voice and telling a story. And like I said in a speech, I used several things that you've said from "If a dollar was a second, what would a trillion dollars mean?" And things like that. It's just stories and I held up the book and I said, "You have to learn these stories because you don't have to make them up." They've already ... someone's already paved that way and you learn from the Kinder Brothers. We all have learned and quoted from someone that has inspired us, so thank you for putting that together. You know, I've got some self-published books and maybe that's what I need to do, record myself speaking and quit trying to sit down and write everything out. That's some good advice. But you know what? I work with a young team, but even us veterans we've, keeping with the theme of football, we've all had fumbles; and so, looking back, do you ever think about some mistakes that you could avoid, or you would have avoided for these new agents that are. Tom Hegna Well, kind of my best advice for new people is activity. I say an app a day keeps depression away. Look, this is a business is where you go way up, and you go way down emotionally. You go out and you close a million-dollar sale and you're on top of the world, "Oh, man I just sold the biggest case I ever did." And then two days later you get a call, and he says "Well, I talked to my brother-in-law. He says it's stupid. Please cancel that." Or, the guy got declined, or he changed his mind, or whatever. And now you're down and the depths of depression, and then you write another case and you go up here and then something bad happens, and you go down here. So, what got me through the storms, because I went up and down terribly. My first, in my first year, was very hard, but what I found is the more activity I had, then I could weather it. See if I got 12 applications in, and I lose one no big deal. If I got one application in, and I lose one, that's a life-threatening event. So, I started trying to see three people a day and then once I started doing that I saw five people a day. And then I would see seven people every day, and if you're seeing five to seven people every day, I promise you, you'll get through it. An app away keeps depression away. I tried to write at least one app a day, and my record I think was 13 apps in one day and I routinely get five or six in a day, that was not uncommon at all. I never had a blank week my entire time as a producer. I'm kind of proud about that because it was drilled into me activity, activity, activity. And so, there are only three ways to increase your production. See the people. See the people. See the people. So, I would encourage new advisors, see people face to face every single day. Mark Miletello Well, we can dive more into that. That could be its own separate show, but the good news on this show is you get the repeat of a first down. You get a do-over, so you're starting over, Tom, you know how tough today is, you're starting over right now, how do you grow a successful practice? I think you've given us a lot of these nuggets already, but I'm just going to point blank ask you because this is what a new agent wants to hear. What do you hear today? Tom Hegna I think you've got to build your frontal as full as you can, and what I mean is that you've got to be on social media. You've got to be on Facebook. You've got to be on Twitter. You've got to be on LinkedIn. I guess Instagram for millennials and all these guys. But you've got to be on social media. You've got to network and get as many people into your funnel. I don't care how well you know them. Go to Chamber of Commerce, get everybody's business card, put them in your funnel, connect with everybody you can. Because what you want to do it early in your business now you want to get thousands of people in your funnel of social media and then you want to watch your social media because you can learn a lot about people. Oh, we got engaged. That'd be a perfect person to call. Oh, we just got married. Oh, my dad died. My mom died. We had a baby. All that's on social media. Well, those are all life events that people need to buy more life insurance and they need to roll their 401K or they need to do something, right? So now today we can know when all these things are happening. When I was an agent, we didn't know. We had to buy a baby list from the paper or something and we'd get it like six weeks later or something, or the obituary list and you got go through there and figure whose parents they are. I mean, really, seriously? Now you've got all these tools and then there are marketing people that I'm not the marketing guy, but there are marketing people that can help you do campaigns and do things to get more leads. And then I would encourage people to do seminar selling. It does work. It's not dead. People think it's dead. It's not dead. I do seminars every single day almost. And they fill the place with three, four, five hundred people. If you're giving great content, great content, people will come. The number one producer I work with is a guy down and Florida. He does about a million a month in commission, a million a month, okay? And he runs educational seminars, no food; he brings them in two or three a day, does two or three days a month, he brings in top speakers, he said all the money I used to spend on restaurants now I put into my speakers. And he just is known as the educational place for all these retirees and they bring their friends, their neighbors, their brothers, their sisters. There's no selling done at these seminars. They are just educational workshops. He brings me in. He brings in Mary Beth Franklin, and he brings Moshe Maleski in, and he just educates people in the community. And guess what, they do a lot of business on him. Mark Miletello I bet. Well, activity is the key, we all know that, and you're right. There are almost so many places to go to create an activity that one doesn't know where to go. I think sometimes they're just looking around at all the different places and they don't know which one to choose. But you said get out there, get involved, and everyone watches it, make contacts because one thing you and I know that it's about timing more important than anything. You can call me today and discuss an annuity and a year and a half from now might be the right time to discuss that annuity. So, in this industry what I've found is when I was born there wasn't a big sign at the hospital that said Welcome into the world, Mark Miletello, natural born insurance salesman or financial services agent. No one's born, you know, you practice, rehearse, study, and so whether you find yourself successful or not, I believe activity is the key and timing, as well, is the key and with social media, we can hit that timing a lot better than we did just culling obituaries. Tom Hegna It's a numbers game, right? So, you want to have lots of numbers in your circle. As many as you can, even if you don't know them well. Then it's a timing thing, and then you've got to have the skills. So, it's really three things. It's numbers, it's timing, and it's skilled. And so, if you have the skills if you have the words, the language, the questions, and the stories and you know somebody who's right for talking to and you have enough of those people every day you've got people to go see every day. Just stop by. Hey, I saw you had a baby. We have a bib in our office, and it's just, you know, give them something. We used to hand out road atlases. I don't know what you hand out anymore, but just something you could give them, or bring them a little present, bring them some chocolates. I don't know what but get in front of people who it's the right time to talk about things and build a relationship with them and then help them. Do what's in their best interest, and they'll refer people to you. Mark Miletello Wonderful. Well, Tom, it's the future. It's the year 2027. This is maybe one of the toughest questions I'm going to ask you because this is on the minds of all of us with everything going on around, but also technology the future. What will the industry look like in ten years and how do we fit in, how do we stay relevant? Tom Hegna Well, there's all kinds of people worried about that, and I know on the P&C side they're worried that amazon.com is going to have a little thing you just plug into the USB port and you drive from here to the store and it just charges 12 cents to your prime account for insurance. And then you drive across to California and it's $2.42 for insurance. That your insurance will charge you by the number of miles that you drive, and it will be automatic, and you won't have to worry about it. That's was the P&C people are worried about. I think for life insurance, annuities, and long-term care investments you know these robot advisors, yeah, that's fine, let's see how that all works when that market crashes 50 percent. At the end of the day, people need help from people. People trust people. And I think they're going to need a financial person to walk them through this. The average person doesn't spend enough time learning about this stuff and what they hear, they hear from Ken Fisher or Susie Orman or Dave Ramsey. People are giving them opinions, not facts. And that's why I say stick with Tommy. Tommy's got the facts, and the facts beat opinions 100 percent of the time. And so, if we can just present them mathematical, scientific, and economic facts these are irrefutable. These are not opinions. I can win every argument with Ken Fisher because he's dead wrong. You know when he says, "Oh, anything you can do with an annuity, you can do better elsewhere." That's a lie. You know what I'm going to do? This week, I'm going to write an open letter to the SEC, because what I think he is doing is almost criminal and he's leading people astray and for the SEC and [Senator 00:34:37 to allow that kind of stuff to happen ... I'm just going to write an open letter and I'm going to clearly expose him for what he's doing. He's not doing good things. So, I got math and science behind me. He's got his opinion. Let's see how that works for him when that market crashes 50 percent. Mark Miletello Well, what you're saying is, we can't predict what the next 10 years are going to be, but we can sure be prepared. We can be an advocate for our clients. So, thank you for protecting us, and doing those things. You're right. Some of it is ... I don't even know what to say about some of the things that I hear, but one thing that I keep going back to that's one of the most powerful things that I've read in your book, and that's, "I talk about facts." I'm going to use that if you don't mind. I'm going to steal that when I'm talking to clients is that you know let's not look at all the opinions out there, let's talk facts. Tom Hegna Facts win, every time. Mark Miletello That's right. So, look, I would like to keep you for hours on end. I know your time's valuable, and thank you for sharing with us. We've gotten so much already. I'd like to ask you a hundred more questions, but give us your professional recommendations. How do we get started following you? What steps do we take to find, maybe this is a two-pronged question, but how do we get started to find a voice like you have found? Is part of that following you? What can we do? Tom Hegna Well, look, I know you got some great training, and you said Van was one of your mentors. Van and I are good friends. We've done a lot of work together. Joe Jordan was one of my mentors, as were the Kinder Brothers, as were some of the top producers back in the day, the Ben. And now Mark Feldman has a great book, "Man on a Mission", all about life insurance. Great life insurance questions. But if people want to follow me, I'm at tomhegna.com. I'm easy to find. If you google my name a million things will pop up. I got free videos on YouTube they can sure watch. I've got a subscription service called Tom Hegna on Demand where I literally put my entire brain online, sorted by video clips, three to eight minutes. over ten hours sorted by life insurance, annuities, long-term care, questions, sales ideas, handling objections, social security, all that stuff. So, my entire brain is there available 24 hours day, seven days a week. And I say what if you spent 10 minutes a day there, 15 minutes a day, or what. How good would you be in three months or six months or nine months? There's also a coaching site where, let's say, they get to the appointment at ten minutes early. They get on the iPhone. They go to the coaching site, and a video of me pops up. I say, tell me about this appointment. Is your client single or married? They put single. How old is this person? She's 70. Once you hit those two buttons, a video of me pops up. Okay, so you're going to an appointment with a 70-year-old widow. Here's going to be her key questions. Here's how I would answer those. Here's going to be her objections. Here's how I would answer those. Here's the product you're going to want to use. Here are the questions you want to ask her. And I coach you for 5, 10 minutes before you go on your appointment. The next day you're going on an appointment with a 45-year-old couple. You hit married, 45, and I coach you totally different than I did for the 70-year-old widow. Now that's all available online. We've got package deals on our podcast. So just go to tomhegna.com. I'm easy to find. Mark Miletello Well, the financial investment is ridiculous. That's a no-brainer. What we must do, and what I've tried to teach and install in the ones that I mentor is the time investment. And it's not that much. It could be 5, 10 minutes. It could be a ride on an airplane. But we must take what you're handing us, and we got to pass it down to the next generation. We got to build upon that, so that's what this podcast is for, is to reach out. With all the noise out there, it's getting hard to find who's the real deal. And you are the real deal, and I'm going to continue to follow you. I appreciate the advice on man on a mission. I didn't know that one. I'll look that one up. I hope that everyone out there listening to this will immediately go to your website. You are one of the top one or two that I recommend following, as well as you mentioned, Gary Kinder, the Kinder Brothers, and Van Mueller as well. So, thank you for being a guest on the show, and thank you for all you do. Tom Hegna Thank you, Mark. Great being with you. Mark Miletello Absolutely, and you can follow me on markmiletello.com. If you like what you hear on the show, go to iTunes and rate and review, and you'll help others find us.    

Join Scott Cluthe onFACEBOOK HERE  Join Scott Cluthe's Newsletter HERE Scott Cluthe interviews DrJamie Koufman about her new book, The Chronic Cough Enigma. Suzie Orman wrote the Forward.  The Chronic Cough Enigma-How to recognize, diagnose and treat neurogenic and reflux related cough. If you have confusing and unexplained breathing problems or your asthma has not responded to treatment, this book is for you. The Chronic Cough Enigma is written for people who have been coughing for months or years and cannot get useful answers from their doctors. More than 20 million Americans suffer from what is known as enigmatic chronic cough. This book provides insights from Dr. Jamie Koufman’s almost forty years of successfully managing thousands of long-suffering cough patients. Indeed, the typical chronic cough patient who comes to her office has been coughing for more than a decade. This book provides the many who suffer from chronic cough new and potentially life-changing information and the potential to be cured.