Who Actually Becomes a Millionaire? The Numbers Will Surprise You | Ed Mylett

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Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to Cardiff.co slash Ed. That's Cardiff.co slash Ed. Cardiff.co. For real growth, fast funding, Cardiff. Borrow better. This is the Ed Milet Show. Hey everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. So you want to be a millionaire, huh? Well, let's talk about that today. One of the most popular topics on our show and I only cover it three or four times a year is money. And so we're going to talk about being a millionaire today and even making a million dollars a year and what that really looks like. What's really going on in the world and in the United States specifically and whether or not it matters. And I know a lot of you, as we start the show today, say money isn't everything. Of course it's not, which is why I only cover it three or four times a year on the show. But we're going to cover it today and I want you to stay in there and I don't care whether you're a school teacher, a bus driver, a CEO, a professional athlete, a stay at home mom or dad, a wealth manager, stay in here with me today because we're going to talk about wealth. Specifically, we're going to talk about becoming a millionaire. But so many of you asked me to look at making a million dollars a year. And so we're going to talk about that today and hang in there even if you don't make a lot of money or you do make a lot of money. So let me give you some statistics first of all. Let's look at this millionaire thing, which isn't what it used to be. And if you're not on track to do that right now and you're in your 30s or 40s, you're more than likely going to retire broke. Actually, you're more than likely never going to stop working. You're never going to retire if you are not at least on pace to be a multimillionaire in your retirement years if you're 30 or 40 years old now. So there may be a necessity for you to begin to look at a second income or a way to make more money or certainly at the way you spend and earn money. So let me give you some stats. Over the last five years, the population of millionaires in the United States has grown 35%. That's nearly twice as fast as China's. The U.S. is now home to 30% of all of the world's millionaires, which is up from 35% back in 2018. The divergence though of top wealth in this country is getting wider and wider. The U.S., by the way, has about 10,9,850 centimillionaires. Those are people worth a hundred million or more, which I'm honored to be one of. There's only 9,850 of them in the United States. China, by the way, only has 2,352. So the U.S. has a giant chunk of the people in the world worth a hundred million dollars a year or more. Let me give you some stats here that are going to blow your mind. Just hang in there because it's fascinating. The top 5% of all earners in the United States make at least $290,000 a year. So if you make $290,000 a year, you out earn 95% of the people in the United States. Now, I know the vast majority. That means if people watching this today do not make $290,000 a year, it means probably 5% of you do. So in 2021, annual wages rose fastest. Guess for who? The top 1%. In 2021, the top 1% wages went up 9.4%. The top 0.1% went up 18.5%. So that means successful people are becoming more and more successful. They must know something. Some would say, well, the system is rigged in their favor, or they learned how to rig their own lives for success in this system. No matter how you see it, the bottom line is the top 1% income went up almost 10% last year, and the top 0.1% went up almost 20%. What's incredible by contrast though, well, those in the bottom 90%, they actually saw their real earnings fall by 0.2% in 2021. Let's just settle in on this. The top earners, top 1% are up 9%. Top 1% of 1%, 1 tenth of 1%, are up 20%. Everybody else, the bottom 90% saw their wages drop with inflation. Workers in the 90th to 99th percentile, so the bottom 10% earners, experienced real losses in 2021. Here's some stats. The top 1% earned 14% of all wages earned in 2021. That's twice as much as they did in 1979 when they were earning 7% of all the money. So of all the money earned in the economy in the United States, the top 1% earned 14% of it, double what it was in 1979. The bottom 90% earned just 58% of all wages. So there's a disparity here between those that are flourishing in the system and those that are not. The lowest share on record since 1979 for the bottom 90%. See, in 1979, to give you an example, the bottom 90% earned about 70% of the money, so it was within range. Now it's just a little more than half. So the bottom line is this, wages for the top 1% and the top 0.1% have skyrocketed 206% for the top 1%, 465% for the top 0.1%, while the wages of everybody else have grown just 28%. Throwing a lot of stats at you, let me just make it simple. The top 1% since 1979 are up 206%. The top 0.1% are up 465%. Everybody else, up just 28%. That means the income gap's growing. I think I've illustrated the point. On an annual basis, the bottom 90% wages have grown only 0.6% a year, which is not even close to inflation. So we're falling behind 90% of us are. There's no really such thing as the bottom 90%. It's just everybody. So here's what's really interesting. It's a great article in CNBC that I'll put up on the screen on YouTube, and it doesn't matter if you're on audio, I'll just tell you what the article says. It says the average American thinks they have to make a million dollars a year in order to be wealthy. They think they have to make $1 million a year. Well, that's interesting because less than 1% of all people make more than a million dollars a year. Now, and that'd be cool to do at once, wouldn't it? The odds are 99% you're not going to make a million dollars in a year. By the way, how many people do you believe make a million dollars five years in a row so it becomes their income? Do you know what percentage of people do that? 0.1%. 0.1% of all people, only 80,000 people in the United States have actually made a million dollars a year five years in a row. 80,000 people out of a country of 370 million. Now, of those that make the income five years in a row, you ready for this? If you take out hedge fund managers, fund managers, venture capitalists, you're now to less than a quarter of 1% of people. If you take out professional athletes, it's even lower. So now you're talking about 24,000 people, somewhere between 24 and 50,000 people under the age of 60 make a million dollars a year consistently in the United States. So you can't even fill up the average football stadium in the United States with people under 60 years old who aren't in those fields that make a million dollars a year. You're talking about 24,000 people. So now here's what's crazy. So that's probably not going to happen, although it should be your ambition. I've been privileged and honored that I have made over a million dollars a year in my life for the last 25 straight years, some years, you know, eight figures and above. And so I'm lucky, blessed, and I know some things that have put me in that group. Here's what's interesting about making that money. For people that make $500,000 a year and up, they're four times more likely to file bankruptcy than people that don't. For people that make a million dollars a year, they're eight times more likely to file bankruptcy than someone who does not make a million dollars a year. So I don't know that income is correlated to wealth. In fact, a lot of people, by the way, and I know that more people make this money than it shows up on tax return because people don't claim all their income. These are people with net incomes. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Today we're going to talk about money. So many have been emailing and DMing the show saying, would you please, Ed, discuss budgeting and finances a little bit more, saving, retirement, and debt. So that's what we're going to cover today. We're going to talk about savings, retirement, and debt. And it's something I'm very concerned about. It's very much on my heart. Before I get into some of the things I'm going to cover, let me just say, I'm not coming to you on some soapbox, some guru or expert on a high horse, thinking I have everything figured out or that I'm perfect. I'm actually today coming to you, you're listening to somebody who understands. I've had cars repossessed, unfortunately. I know what it's like to be behind on your credit cards and have them taken from you. I know what it's like to have a house foreclosed on. I know what it's like to really consider bankruptcy. I've had my power turned off. I've had my mobile phone turned off before. This is not stuff I'm proud of. I've had the water turned off. Man, you don't want that to happen. And most of that stuff was self-inflicted for mistakes that I made. And so I don't want you to make those mistakes. And I see so much terrible advice on podcasts from these gurus, social media, the different examples that are held out there about what wealth looks like and what being rich looks like and what the right things are to do financially. And so we're going to talk about some of those mistakes I've made and that I see being made in the world today. And it pains me. Let me give you some statistics first. If you make $80,000 a year, do you know about how much money you have to have saved in order to retire just at the same standard of living? And when I say same standard of living, I'm not talking about now you're retired, you get to take extravagant vacations or anything like that. I mean just to live the same as you live right now with your job. If you make $80,000 a year, how much money do you think you have to have saved? Well, the data tells us you need about $2 million saved after taxes. So what that means is a lot of you say, well, I've got money in my 401k. You do understand. You haven't paid your taxes yet when that money comes out of that 401k or that IRA. So after taxes, you need about $2 million saved if you make $80,000 a year to provide the same standard of living. How do we know that? Well, at a $2 million amount of money, 4% interest on that would spit off about $80,000 a year. You could live at about the same standard of living that you currently live at now. Are you on pace to do that? Because let me tell you what the average American, the median American, has saved in the median. $5,000. $5,000 is the median. There's a difference between the median and the average. The median is the person in the middle. The average is when you take all of the affluent people, wealthy people, and all the people that have nothing. The average savings is about $100,000 currently. The median is $5,000. That's a problem because when you look at debt, the average American has $114,000 of consumer debt. $114,000. That doesn't count their home loan. That's college loans, car loans, credit card debt. Average person carries about $10,000 on a credit card. Average interest rate about 15%. Can you see there's a problem? We're in a consumer culture. We're in a culture that tells us to spend, spend, spend to keep up with people. We've also got a lot of influencers out there telling you to get rid of all of your money. Every dollar you get, you should get rid of it. Spend it somehow or invest it and stay broke so you stay hungry. Let me say something to you about that first of all. That's terrible advice. This idea that the only way you can stay driven and hungry is to remain broke or to get rid of all of your money is insane. If your motivation level is so low that you need to deplete all of your cash in order to stay hungry and motivated, you don't need to check your bank account. You need to check your actual inspiration level. That's insane. The other thing that's in our culture today, and I'm going to give you some of the keys, is that we're trying to keep up with the Joneses. We're trying to impress people by buying really expensive things. Let me say something to you. I've been very fortunate. Like I said, you're listening to somebody who's had their car repossessed, home foreclosed on, power turned off, water turned off. None of those are things that I'm very proud of. But I've also been blessed to become very wealthy. I've driven every car you could possibly ever have. I've owned them all. Basically, most all of them. I've had six different jets, including a Global Express that I bought from Oracle. I own my own island. I've owned multiple oceanfront homes. My studio right now is in one of them. I've owned some of the homes in the nicest neighborhoods in the world. All the material things you could possibly want. Let me tell you something. They're really nice to have, but you can't enjoy them if you're broke. Living in a really nice house that you can't afford and that you're sweating the payment on all the time is no way to live. Trying to keep up with people, to impress people who don't care by buying stuff you don't need, is insane. I see it happening. Striving to impress people with material things, let me just say this to you up front, doesn't work. It doesn't impress them. However, the few that it does impress, those are the wrong types of people. You want people to be impressed with the content of your character, with the way you live your life, the way you treat your family and other people. If to get them to be impressed by you, you need a particular purse or a particular jacket or pair of shoes, those are people whose approval you don't want anyway. Yet we seek it, don't we? To keep up with people. We're in a consumer culture, which is why consumer debt is so high relative to savings. By the way, if you're a young person listening, you go, I don't care about retirement, that's 30-40 years away. First off, it's going to happen faster than you think. Let me ask you this, do you want to be in control of your life? Do you want to be able to call the shots and not have the world dictate shots to you? Do you want to be able to help your parents or your siblings or your friends at any time you want to? of opportunities when they come along and be able to write a check at any time you want to buy something on discount that's an asset as opposed to a liability. So at any age you should be saving money. I figured this out by the time I was about 23 I had made some money and like I said I had a house foreclosed, a car repoed and I started to change the way I viewed things. I found out most of these people I was impressing with these cars that I had they weren't around once I didn't have them. They weren't impressed with me, they were impressed with the car. And you know the other thing about nice stuff? It's out of style in like two or three years anyway. Right? Like the truth is even a nice house you have stylistically in 10 or 12 years it's dated. It just is. What I started to get addicted to was watching my savings account grow, watching my investments grow, watching my assets grow. I got more fired up every month saving money stack and paper than I did with what I was buying to impress people. And then I'm gonna give you the keys in a minute. I'm 52 years old, I'm worth hundreds of millions of dollars, I've made hundreds of millions of dollars and I've only bought two new cars in my entire life. Because buying a new car is one of the dumbest things you could do. You should be either leasing your cars or buying them used. Let someone else pay all that depreciation. You let that thing drive off the car lot, let them drive it for a year or two and then you buy that thing on a discount. It's still gonna drop after you buy it but not at the same rate as the dummy who buys the new car. So let's go through a few things here that can help you. Number one by the way that stat I gave you earlier, if you make $80,000 a year you need two million dollars. That's if you're retiring today. If you make $80,000 a year and you're retiring 30 years from now, if you factor in inflation you'll need five million dollars. So you have to start to ask yourself, are you on pace? Are you doing the things that will get you wealthy? And that's where I want to begin. The first thing you have to do when it comes to money is get some goals and some outcomes. And this is for everybody who makes minimum wage all the way up to those of you that are making six or seven and even eight figures. You need to have financial outcomes, a financial focus. If you don't invest or save money when you're making very little, you will not invest or save money when you're making a lot. That's one of the great fallacies and lies about money is that people think, well I'm on this limited amount of income so once I make more I'll save more. That's not what I see happen. I see someone making $40,000 a year living paycheck to paycheck and then when they're making $70,000 now instead of driving a Honda maybe they got a Lexus. Instead of having a so-so apartment they got a nice apartment. And then when they go from $70,000 to $100,000 then they upgrade from the Lexus to the Mercedes and they buy a house and they deplete their savings buying a house. And then when they go from $100,000 if they do to $150,000 they get rid of that house. They get a more expensive house and then they got a second car and a second house and they never get around to really accumulating any savings. In other words, they upgrade their lifestyle as they make more money. Smart people don't change their lifestyle for a long, long time when they begin to make more money and they begin to build the habits and disciplines of a wealthy person when they're a broke person. I was saving money. See here's how old I am. I was making minimum wage working McKinley home for boys working at an orphanage that I worked at and I was making minimum wage which back then was $8 an hour and I was still finding a way to save $50 a month in a savings in a forced savings because I wasn't going to Starbucks. I didn't have cable TV. I eliminated basic things because I wanted to build it and I started to get excited. Wow I got $300 saved. I've got $1,500 saved. I've got $6,000 saved as my friends were buying expensive cars. In fact there's a great story I tell often that even when I started to make money I wanted to buy a Mercedes I bought a fake one. I bought a kit car. I bought a Chrysler LeBaron with a Mercedes body on it because I wanted to look like I was driving a Mercedes but I want to spend the money. That's a true story by the way. I had a kit car. It was a LeBaron with a Mercedes body on it because I was so addicted to saving and accumulating money. So first things first let me give you some keys. Number one is you need to decide what your outcomes are what your goals are financially. Do you want to financial freedom and independence? That's one level of wealth. Or do you want to be like stone-ass wealthy? Those are two totally different things and for a lot of people the answer is I just like some financial peace and independence. I don't have to have Lamborghinis and jets and islands and all these other things but I sure would like to live financially peacefully. I'd like to someday not have to work. I'd like to pay off my house. I'd like to have a bunch of money saved. Whatever that is for you. I want some element. I don't want debt. The scriptures tell us oh no man nothing. I'd like some financial peace in my life and the truth is I think most people see the wealthy thing on Instagram all the time and think that's what they want but maybe it's not what you want. Maybe the truth is you just like more time. If you could just save enough money to pay all your bills and have your house taken care of and some basic stuff maybe you'd like to take more time off and if you're one of those people say money's not that big of a deal to me. I get that and the truth of the matter is that's how I started out. It was not that big of a deal to me but I knew the lack of money and I knew that was a real big deal. I didn't want to be broke. I don't want to be stressed. I did not want to be in a position my life where I couldn't help my family if I needed to and so my first goals were not to be super wealthy. They were to get financially independent and the first step in doing that is you need to know your financial independence number. Your FIN number. Your FIN number is the amount of money you need saved so that living off the interest on that money you no longer need to work anymore. The next thing is this. You got to stop going into debt. You got to stop spending money to impress people. You got to stop it. You got to stop buying meals on credit. Stay out of malls frankly. I've been to a mall maybe five times in 15 years. You know what? Monitor and really be smart about your Amazon account. Don't have people shipping you stuff you don't need to your house. Take a look at all your subscriptions. Do you need all of them? Do you need every single one of those subscriptions or could you eliminate some of those things if you're on a budget and start to put that money into savings? The next thing is to understand the distinction between three separate things. You need an emergency fund set up. An emergency fund is three to six months of your current expenses accessible at any given time. You need that money set aside. That's a case of a job loss, car breaks down, somebody needs some help, emergency. Quite frankly life's just going to happen. So the first things first is you need three to six months of money set aside in an emergency fund. You should start to make that your goal and your ambition and start chipping away at doing that. If you're someone making a lot of money right now, carve that amount out and put it to the side. The second thing that you need to do is you need to have savings. Savings is just money that you're accumulating that in case you need it it's there for a rainy day. You should have some savings. Anybody who tells you you shouldn't is wrong. You should have some measure of savings. And then the third thing is investing. That's money you're going to take that has some risk to it that you're going to try to get rates of return on. I'm not going to tell you where to put that money today, but I can tell you that you need an emergency fund, savings, and then investments. The only advice I'll give you on saving money because I'm licensed, I can't recommend particular investments. What I will say to you is this. If you can't explain it to me, you shouldn't be putting your money in it. If you can't understand it and explain it back to me, it's not the place for you to be putting your money yet. And if you don't have a financial professional in your life who can explain things to you in a basic way so that you can understand them, you have to ask yourself why they're confusing you. You have to ask yourself that. Sometimes people like to make things seem very sophisticated and complex so that you think you need them and that maybe potentially you make a bad decision. You ought to be able to explain to me why your money's in there and how it works and what it's doing and anybody can do it. Even somebody who doesn't want to know a lot about financial education doesn't matter. You should be able to do that. So that's number one. The next thing is as soon as you can afford it, make sure you have a competent tax person and CPA in your life. If you're someone making a lot of money, you really need a good tax person in your life. A professional, competent tax or CPA and you probably ought to be working with somebody who can help you with your money as well. Make sure you have a financial gain plan and direct it and make sure you're running a budget. Now in my budget recommendations, here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I'm going to ask you to take the first 30% of your money, if you can afford it, 30% of your money and give it to your tithing and to pay yourself first. If you can't do 30%, if it's down to even 10%, carve something out that you're going to give away and carve something out because of the law of reciprocity and carve something out that you pay yourself first every month. Take it off the top. Don't pay yourself last because you're never going to get paid. If you make $3,000 a month, take $50 and pay yourself first and now you make $29.50 a month. You say, Ed, that sounds good. You're a rich guy. Listen, I spend every single dollar I do every month. I understand it. I've lived on minimum wage and I'm telling you that even when I lived on minimum wage, I found a way to pay myself first. You need to get in control of your life and the way you get in control of your life is you first control your spending. You control your budgeting. You control your financial discipline. You begin to make this a massive priority in your life that you're going to become somebody who is financially in control because if you start the habits of being financially in control, eventually you will be in control and you will call the shots in your life. So please budget and begin to save your money and don't invest in something you can't. Get clear on what you want and if you're younger, start saving money now. You'll build the habits. Trust me, I'm 52 years old. I started doing this in my early 20s and I really believe that's why I'm wealthy. Stay with me on this. There's a bunch of people you see on social media that won't be rich someday that look rich right now. I have more friends in my life, listen to me, those of you that are making a little bit of money that used to be rich than that currently are. I've watched them go seasons of five or eight or ten years where they were balling. They were making real money. They were driving the nice car, the nice vacation. They bought this or that and then BAM! Things changed. They got caught with their pants down financially. They had no money saved, no cash, debt up to their eyeballs. You're not. I have more friends that used to be rich than currently are because they weren't in control of themselves. They didn't have delayed gratification. They had no financial discipline, no budget, no game plan, no goals, no outcome. Now when it comes to your investments, let me just say this to you. There's lots of places to save money. I can't recommend it. I know the kind of the cool thing right now and I've made a lot of money in real estate. That's a great place. Start flipping houses. That's one of the real vogue things. That's great and maybe that is what you should be doing but you're one bad flip away from being broke too which is why you still need cash saved. How about having a plan in your life where if it goes bad, you're still okay? I'm not talking about, I know maybe you listen to that and go, well Ed, that's just a luxury I don't have. Of course you do. You can save some money. There are ways to do it and if you're not making enough money, then you need to get a second job. Work a second job. I've had multiple jobs at any given time, many times. When I was an entrepreneur, many times I had to go back and get a night job to support my entrepreneurial hustle. Being an entrepreneur is not easy. Being an entrepreneur is difficult. You entrepreneurs listen to this and maybe you're going behind. Maybe you need to get a job two days a week or stocking shelves at night. I stocked shelves at a grocery store for two years while I was building my business because my business wasn't keeping my family afloat and I still had to save money. So some of you that are entrepreneurs, maybe it's getting a second job. Some of you that have a full-time job, maybe it's starting a second business. Maybe you need a second income stream. The truth is that in this day and age with how crazy things cost and how out of control taxes are, you may need secondary income. So if you have a job, maybe it's starting a side hustle on the side or a second job. If you're an entrepreneur, maybe it's having a second job on the side that's part-time to support your business. It's okay to work a lot. It's okay to have financial discipline. It's okay to go through a season of your life where you sacrifice lots of things including time in order to get wealthy. But the hardest thing that I see, the most heartbreaking thing are those people doing the grind, making the sacrifice, doing all the things to make money and then they have no game plan, no financial discipline and they watch all these idiots on Instagram or social media go, man I gotta have the car, I gotta have the house, I gotta have the nightclub, I gotta have the steak. Man, sometimes even me when I show the things I have, I've got you know, I'm lucky now. In this video, I got a stupid expensive watch on, right? I didn't start buying expensive watches or cars until I could write checks for them and not just write checks for them, not sweat the check where it didn't make a dent in my savings. Can you imagine saving up $200,000 and dropping a hundred and thirty thousand on a stupid watch? Now you got seventy grand. I didn't start writing checks for watches like that until I had millions of dollars saved and sometimes I think that's a bad example because the truth of the matter is this watch is great and you know what? I barely ever look at it. I got a couple other ones, they're stupid. I've had a lot of nice cars and you know what? The minute you drive by somebody, they're not impressed anymore and if I am impressing them, it's probably the wrong person. That's not to say part of getting wealthy isn't to have nice stuff. I get that. I like nice stuff. I've become accustomed to it but I didn't start partaking in it until I had earned it and I had earned it with the work I did and all of the savings and investing I had done and then if it's one percent of my money, okay, who cares? That's play money but if it's twenty, thirty, forty percent of your cash and you're spending it on stupid stuff like cars and clothes and steaks and wine, that's dumb, right? And trust me, I've had every car you could possibly almost think of. Lambos, Ferraris, Mercedes, Rolls-Royce, whatever. I've had six jets. Like I said, the last jet I bought from Oracle, a Global Express jet. I've had all those things. They're amazing. They're not amazing if you have debt on them. They're not. They're not amazing if you have to worry about paying for them. They're not amazing if they're a major chunk of your cash. They're not. Remember that the average American has a hundred thousand dollars in consumer debt and five thousand dollars of savings. The average American needs two million dollars to retire and they got five grand. Is that sad or what? And so we need to budget. We need to save money. Why is saving money matter, Ed? It gives you control and whether we like it or not in this lifetime, we need to be able to protect our families and protect ourselves and make decisions. As an entrepreneur, one of the reasons you need to have financial discipline is that lack of financial discipline will cause you to make bad decisions as a business person. You'll make decisions based on money or pressure because you haven't saved money. As a friend, let me say this to you. You just remember this, your lack of financial discipline as an entrepreneur will eventually affect your business. It'll eventually affect your business. What's the number one mistake I see entrepreneurs do? They don't pay their taxes. They get behind on taxes. They say, wow, I made $30,000 last month. No, you didn't. You made $30,000 if you're a 1099, you're self-employed, you're 1099, real estate agent, insurance agent, business owner. You made $30,000 last month before taxes. You probably made more like 18,000, but you're living like you made 30. Those of you that are employees that have a job, it's your lack of discipline saving money. It's your lack of having a game plan. It's running up debt that you don't need. And again, I'm not trying to be insensitive to anybody who doesn't have a lot of income coming in. I've lived that way. I lived in a single parent, I lived in a family where my mother stayed home and raised our family, the most important job on the planet, and we had one income, which was my dad's. And I know what that can look like. I remember one time when my dad lost his job and how absolutely destroyed our family was and worried about what was gonna come when my dad was unemployed for a while. And thank God my dad had an emergency fund and we had money to live off for those months where he was finding work. And so this stuff matters, it has ramifications. Begin to educate yourself. Evaluate what you drive if you're on a budget. Do you need to drive that car? Or could you get something less expensive, reduce the payment, or actually cash something out and do something with that savings? Evaluate what you subscribe to, your subscriptions. Get serious and get focused. And stop caring what people think about what your stuff is. I promise you, nobody cares that matters. Nobody does. And I wanna say this to you about real estate. A lot of you ask me about real estate. I think that's a great place. I do not believe it's the only place though. And so begin to educate yourself about the different places you could put money. But the most important thing is to begin to build the habits so that you become long-term financially independent and maybe stone-ass wealthy. And for those of you that are making money, please don't be one of these people that was rich just for a little while or successful just for a little while. That you had this tremendous blessing of making some money, maybe more than you've ever made for a little window of time, and you blew it on stuff and you didn't save and accumulate and invest. Don't go into debt that you don't need to. Some debt is good debt. We all know this. Debt on liabilities is terrible. Debt on cars, debt on clothes, debt on food, debt on stuff you don't need. That's terrible. Debt on assets, everyone says, well, that's great. Well, maybe. I mean, sometimes it's great. You still gotta buy the right property at the right price. It's still gotta be something you can afford and handle. Just because it's debt on an asset doesn't make it good debt. It just means it's definitely not stupid. I've had so many friends that were doing pretty well for a while and now they're not. And they're not because their lack of savings created pressure in the bad times. And when the bad times came because they were under pressure, unnecessarily, they should have had money saved and invested, but because they didn't, they made bad decisions under pressure. And ultimately, those decisions were made because of financial pressure, and that financial pressure ruined their businesses. Had they just saved money in the good times, they could have rode out the bad times. And so this is the same whether you have a business or a family. You've gotta plan for winter. Listen to me. Winter comes in everyone's life. There's four seasons for a reason. There's summer, spring, winter, and fall. And that metaphorically is true in our lives. You're gonna have a spring in your life, probably, at some point where you've got some financial opportunities and it's gonna be sunny out in the summer. And then there's gonna be a time where you start to have anxiety and things begin to change. The leaves of your life begin to change and you can feel it maybe not the way you want it to, which is fall. And ultimately, there's gonna be a winter. And all of our lives, there's a financial winter. There's a winter where we lose our job or our car breaks down, or there's a disaster or a family need, or our income in our business drops, or we just have massive expenses in a short window of time that we have to make. So that winter's going to come. Please prepare for winter. Whether you don't make a lot of money or you do make a lot of money, I can tell you this, if you begin to develop the habits of budgeting and having an emergency fund, and saving money, and staying out of stupid debt, and investing after your savings, wherever you believe that that's appropriate, when you have those habits and you make good choices and you begin to live in some financial harmony and peace consistent with your values, that when winter comes, you can ride it out. I've had probably four or five winters since my mid-20s and I've been able to ride them out. And if I can be really candid with you, because I had saved a lot of cash, I was able to make a lot of money during other people's winters when they had to sell their house, or their business, or their asset. I could buy them at a discount because I had cash or I had investments. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. One of the things on social media that drives me crazy is so many people think so many people make millions of dollars. So you hear, well, XYZ, guy made $3 million last year. She made $3 million. They haven't paid, you haven't taken account. That was their gross. You haven't taken account their rent, their employees, their insurance, their legal, all the overhead that comes with it, their inventory in some cases. Also this big thing on social media, so-and-so exited their company for 50 million or 500 million or a billion dollars. That doesn't tell you anything. You don't know, number one, what percentage of the company they owned. You don't know how much debt they had. You don't know how many people they had to pay off that are other shareholders or investors. You don't know what they paid in taxes. And so oftentimes I've had people that have been on my show to be the last person exited their company for 100 million. And I know this person doesn't even have $2 million in cash. So this whole money conversation online and anywhere right now is very bizarre and perverted and isn't always telling the truth. Turns out that most of the people don't make a million dollars a year, especially if they don't run a fedge fund or they're a fund manager or they can throw 25 touchdowns a year or dunk a basketball. So who are these people that make $200,000 a year and more? Like what do they do when you break down the tax returns? So some of them are very successful executives at companies or even high-end executive assistants. Here's what they all are at that level, really great at what their job is. If you're gonna take the corporate route, you have to be great, okay? You have to be great. Many of them are in sales. They're in persuasion. They help people make decisions by buying things, real estate, life insurance, automobiles, things of that nature, pharmaceutical sales. So many of them are in sales. I'm talking about now, by the way, minus athletes and fund managers. Several are attorneys and doctors. For most of us, we're not going to law school, we're not going back to medical school, but they're in the group as well. And then the vast majority of the remaining people are entrepreneurs. They have found a way to solve people's problems. They've started businesses. None of them were born entrepreneurs. Most of them had jobs before they started the business. Most of those people have failed in multiple businesses before they became successful in the one they're now pretty successful in. I can tell you this, all of them have faced adversity. All of them had fears. All of them had people in their family telling them they were crazy. All of them have had people tell them they're not gonna win. All of them have had people root against them. All of them have had somebody hurt them. Most of them have had somebody steal from them, lie to them, take from them, and use them. And they won anyway. See, there has to be a point in your life where you go, I'm not gonna be a statistic. My family is not gonna be a statistic. And if you really love what you do, what you want to provide for your family, then get a career that can provide and do what you love as your hobby or your pastime. Or go get enough money saved that you can dedicate all your time to doing this other thing. I am not suggesting in any way, shape, or form that what you're doing doesn't work. My middle sister is a Christian school teacher. I would be crushed if she ever did anything other than that for a living. I just would. But her husband, who has a nice corporate job, also has an entrepreneurial hustle as a podcast. Okay? And so somewhere in there, they've got a game plan. They also started saving money in their early 20s because they were clients of mine in the financial business. But they started a savings plan. They've got lots of equity in their home. They have found a way to live extremely below their means. And so there is a path for everybody. There's a path for working people. There's a path for entrepreneurs. There's a path for salespeople. There's a path. You have to find yours. You have to become committed to a plan. You have to get a strategy down. If you are gonna be in a career that does not pay you a lot of money, then you've gotta be great with your money. You're gonna have to be very disciplined. You're gonna have to save. You're gonna have to invest. You're gonna have to find a way to cut out excess and live below your means. Or you need to start a side hustle in addition to that career. Or your spouse does. Or maybe one of you works on the weekends and earns supplementary income. Unfortunately, the way the system works today is it's almost impossible for two people in a relationship that raise a family and have children with the way taxes work now, with the lack of wage growth that I've told you, to get ahead unless they are unbelievably diligent with their money. And so if you're going to have those careers that make a difference in other people's lives but won't make a financial difference in yours, I salute you. I admire you. This show is really for you today. If you're one of these people who wants to get financial increase, well, we've already talked about the different things you need to do and I will here as we go down the list in a minute. So I wanna honor those of you that do work every day that changes other people's lives and you don't get the appreciation verbally, emotionally that you deserve and you certainly don't get the financial renumeration and appreciation that you're worthy of. So it's gonna be incumbent upon you to even be more disciplined, more focused with your family. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. So what would you say about many different businesses? Because I told you I got a lot going on. You started many other businesses outside of insurance and a lot of people have told me, hey, focus on one thing. You should just be a real estate guy. Well, in general, my general belief, and I think you already did this, but my general belief is to make your first few million, you should probably do it in one business and get really good at it. And the reason I believe that is that you're competing against people in your industry who that is their only business. So if you're part-time at something and I'm full-time at something, I'm probably gonna kick your ass. So I do think to get a few million dollars under your belt, you should crush one business like I did in the insurance business. Once you're there, then you can choose. The truth is, had I never left the insurance business, I may actually be as wealthy as I am now because that business is scalable to massive wealth. But a lot of you are in businesses that aren't scalable past a certain threshold. And if that's true for you, then you do need to diversify your income into multiple streams. But this notion that millionaires have multiple streams of income is a fact that's not true. It's a fact that they have multiple streams of income, but it's not true that they became millionaires that way. Most millionaires made their first million in one business and then have multiple streams of income. And I think that's what you've done. You've already got your first million under your belt, millions, now you're diversifying. Yeah, and I just, to your point, I realized, okay, flipping houses may be my first few millions. And I'm like, this is it. It's not scalable to 300 million. What else can you do beyond this? Correct, and that's the thing you have to ask yourself, how scalable is your business? The one thing on insurance is you can scale that to hundreds of millions. What do you think about insurance with that you joined a company, right? And a lot of us, myself included, like when I was a realtor, people were like, join eXp, build a team, and all this stuff. And I'm like, I don't wanna build someone else's thing. I don't control that. Like, what if they take it away tomorrow? I don't own the business. Okay, so you have to join something where you do have some version of ownership. So in mine, I did own what they call our code number. So my actual business, I had control over. That's a really good point. I didn't join like a traditional agency where I was building someone else's agency. Although I was building their agency, I had my code number. And that's, by the way, why I've been able to have different exits and different things as well. So I do agree with what you just said. I think there has to be a version where you own at least what you're building. So I totally agree with that. I had that to the extent that I needed it. I don't think that you're gonna get very wealthy building another person's dream. Having said that, the reason I think getting involved in organizations that give you a hybrid, which is you have control of ownership over what you have, but you're also involved in something bigger, is really good. Because it gives you an environment to build in. It gives you mentors, it gives you direction, it gives you credibility, it gives you momentum. You know, when I was 21 years old, if I walked in with Ed Milet Insurance, are you gonna buy life insurance for me? What's this kid know, right? I'm gonna buy insurance from a 21 year old. So the credibility of the overall organization matters. The mentorship and the environments that you find yourself in. But you better find something that also has an element of ownership as well, otherwise you're doing exactly what you described. So it's a misnomer that I joined something that I didn't have ownership in, I did. Yeah, I remember I was listening to Gary V say something where he was like, you know, in your 20s, you're just like trying things, trying to figure out who you are. Your 30s, you know, you kind of figured it out and now you're like building and grinding. And then your 40s are like where you really hit your prime and start making the real wealth. Would you agree? Yeah, I think that's pretty well said. I mean, I think it's okay if you're a decade behind. If people wanna take advantage of my mistakes and wisdom here, they could do it a decade earlier. I'd say that's about right. I'd say probably around 40. Guess my kids were hitting that age where they were, you know, grown little people. And I started to, yeah, just reflect a little bit on who am I, you know, and how do I wanna treat people? And, you know, listen, I think I treated people pretty well. But I was always intentioned to be good. But a little bit more patience, a little bit more discernment, a little less arrogance, a little more humility, you know? And then over time, think about it. and this is more me. I like this me better. I like it. It's hard to walk that road of being ultra confident that you're gonna go into something and crush it and be a killer, because that's how I, I've said it on stage before to our audience, I go, look, if you're not staying in shape and working out, you ain't beating me. You know, if you ain't putting in the work, you're not gonna win. If you're not improving and training daily, you just, you're not gonna win. And so like, I have that mindset of that, I wanna kill like a lot, and I wanna dominate, and I wanna be the best, and just, I want everyone to know it too. But then at the same time, you have to counteract that with humility. You seem to have that to me, brother. I mean, my favorite people toe that line. Super confident people with a dose of humility. And I'll tell you why. The people confident, that are confident with no humility, they usually end up burning out, making mistakes, flaming out, and there's a pain in the ass to be around. People with a ton of humility with no confidence, you're dragging them through life all the time and they drain your energy. They're soft. So I'm a little bit of the combination. I try to be a combination of the both. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. If you wanna hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. So is there room to do it? 1,000,000% yes. I talk about how to do that on the show all the time. I'm actually qualified to talk about it because I've been doing it for 25 years. I've made eight figures a year for the last 17 or 18 straight years. Not seven, eight figures a year. And so do I know about this stuff? Yes, I also know a bunch of people that make a lot of money that are broke. So what are the things that matter then about what I'm talking about today? These are the real stats. And don't buy into this someone so exited, they exited, they exited. That doesn't tell you anything. That's like preying on people's ignorance, going, oh my gosh, they sold their company for $100 million or 300. You don't know anything beyond that. You don't know if it was a staged buyout, how much of it was cash, how much of it was in stock, when they get it, how much went to shareholders, investors, debt. You don't know any of that stuff, right? And a lot of times not all that money's up front. Then there's taxes. So what am I saying? I'm saying, get clear on what you want. And I can tell you some of the fundamentals. You have to live extremely below your means if you can. So I think one of the reasons I've been able to generate a pretty good income in my life, and I don't say that to brag to you, I say that to say that I'm qualified. I say this to you because, listen, when I was making minimum wage working at an orphanage, I still opened up a forced savings account in a mutual fund for $25 a month. No matter what I've ever made, I have paid myself first. I have tithed and I've paid myself first, then I paid the other things. So if that meant I had to go without a cable TV back in the day, which would be equivalent to Netflix now, I went without it. If that meant I had to make my lunch to bring to work so I didn't blow 10 or $20 a day on lunch, I would do that and save that money. And because I started those habits young, or at some point I started them, as my income went up, I stayed the same way. One year I made multiple six figures and I was living in a $700 a month apartment, just saving the money. And so what I think most people underestimate is to the extent that you should live below your means. And I know it's very vogue on social media. Spend all your money, invest all your money. These are typically people that have never been wealthy or are wealthy temporarily. Like those people I just told you that are seven to 10 times more likely to file bankruptcy, even though they make a million dollars a year, even though they make a half a million dollars a year, because they have absolutely no money concepts. They do not understand the truth. So this idea of get all of your money out of the bank, invest all of it, go into debt, that works for a while until it doesn't. So should you invest your money? Yes, I think you should have some that you save, some that you invest. I think some of it should be very conservative. And I think for the vast majority of people, they're like, Ed, I'd just like to shave off two or 300 bucks a month if I could. And what I'm saying to you is, if you could shave off $50 a month now, if you're on minimum wage, or $25 a month, $10 a month, somehow start the habit of what a wealthy person does, that as your income grows and you keep that same habit, you can not be one of these statistics and you can actually get wealthy. Because the truth of the matter is, go around your town, okay? Go around town. There are people retiring with some dignity. There are people retiring comfortably. And I know one of your dreams of your life is to someday be able to travel, someday be able to give more to your church, someday start your foundation, someday be able to retire your parents. And by the way, many of you listening to this are at an age where someday, maybe now, but certainly in the future, you may be caring for your children and parents at the same time. And right now, you're having a hard time just caring for yourself. So it's important that you begin to develop these habits. Some of them is extremely living below your means. And as you make more money, do not change your lifestyle. Actually save some of your money in cash when you can. And if none of that's possible for you right now, then what are you going to do to start to generate new income? Are you gonna be an Uber driver? Are you gonna do DoorDash? Are you gonna start a second business? Are you gonna start a side hustle? Are you gonna get a second or third job? You know, when I was a little boy, my dad worked three jobs and we were on welfare for a while and we got off of it. And the way that we got off of it is my dad worked two and three jobs at a time. And I just see, if I can be really candid with you, I just see a lot of people who say they're broke but seem to have a lot of free time on the weekends. I don't understand that. Unless it's just like you're hoping something's going to change. And so there's a season of life where we've got to sacrifice for our future, sacrifice for our children, sacrifice for our parents. And I just believe in you so I'm talking to you like a friend today. This economy that we're in, I don't know if it's rigged or not, but I just gave you the stats, right? Could you get to another $20,000 a year part-time doing something? $50,000 a year part-time, right? Could you start something part-time that generates no income for three or four or five years that turns into a full-time beautiful career? If you're already an entrepreneur, maybe you should have a job to supplement your entrepreneurial journey. You know, it's not a secret that when I started out as an entrepreneur, I had so many ups and downs. I had to go back and get jobs at night. I stocked shelves in a grocery store, three years after starting my business because we went backwards and I was gonna go broke, but I wasn't gonna give the business up. So I'd work in the day in my business and then I would get dressed and I would go to work and stock shelves in a grocery store at night. Did I have less sleep? Yeah, it was a season of my life. I was laying the foundation so that someday I could get on a podcast and go, hey, I've made a million dollars since 25 years and eight figures since then. And so although that sounds a little, maybe I don't, I hope it doesn't, like I'm bragging, I also stocked shelves. I also had two and three jobs at a time. I've also had businesses fail. I've also lost a house. I've had a car repossessed before. So I know what that's, I've had my power turned off multiple times. I had my water turned off. Water. Imagine that, I had lost my house, moved into an apartment with my new bride, and then our water got turned off. We couldn't cook. We couldn't brush our teeth. We had to get up every morning to go down to the apartment complex shower, the outdoor pool shower. Every apartment complex usually has one, by the pool. And I would hold a towel up while she would take a shower and brush her teeth. And then she'd hold the towel up while I'd take a shower and brush my teeth. And then we would walk back to our apartment as everybody else was going out to their job. And everybody in our apartment complex knew I wasn't providing for my family. And actually during that time, she had two jobs to support me as an entrepreneur. These are the things we do in order to change our family's future, to have generational wealth, to never have the world have their thumb on your family again. So I just want to encourage you as a friend. Every week, I'm very uplifting and encouraging on the show, but every once in a while, three or four times a year, I like to do a show and go, here's where we're really at. Where are you really at? Right now, as you listen to today's show, how much money do you have saved? Could you go two or three years without working right now? If your parents needed you to float them 40 or $50,000 in an emergency right now, could you do it? What if you and your husband or your wife, both cars got broken down right now? Right? Is college money safe for your children? And if they're not going to college, you help them start a business? Are you on pace to have $3 million saved for retirement so you can retire at the same level of life that you are at now? Not traveling, not something beautiful, not owning a jet or a ship, just sustain your current lifestyle. Are you on pace for that? And if none of that's true, what are we going to do about it? Right? And let's just face it. And here's what I think. I think you know what you need to do about it. See, you're one decision away from completely changing your life. One decision. And I have an inclination, a hallucination, that you might know what it is. Maybe it's that you need to stop spending the money in the places you spend it. Maybe it's that you need a second job. Maybe you're an entrepreneur who needs to get a job. Maybe someone in your family needs to get a secondary income. Maybe you need to just start a hustle and start a business that provides a future for your family. One other thing too is there's this thing on social media about multiple streams of income. Here's what I believe about that. Most millionaires made their money in one lane first. And then when they became millionaires, they diversified their income. So it's one of those facts that's not true. Now, what I do believe in multiple streams is if you have a W-2 job, I believe in another stream of income that's 1099. Okay, so in that case, it's multiple streams. There's your job employee W-2 money. And I believe you should create another stream over here that's 1099 independent contractor type income. I do believe that. Or if your W-2 income is so low that you need to start driving Uber or doing something DoorDash or whatever it might be to supplement your income. What I don't believe in is entrepreneurs who are trying to generate four, five, six streams of income thinking that's the way to get wealthy. And here's why it doesn't work. Because to get wealthy, you're dealing with killers. You're dealing with the best of the best. If you're gonna get to these stats where you make a half a million dollars a year, or you make over $290,000 a year, or you wanna go make over a million or $10 million a year, you are competing against the best in the world at whatever you do. And if your income, your focus is diversified to three or four other things, and I'm full-time crushing my industry, I'm gonna beat your distracted focus, right? Imagine this. We're at the top level of professional baseball, right? You and I both are. But you also play the piano six nights a week in a bar, and you also deliver furniture. Who's gonna be the better baseball player? I am, because I'm full-time laser-focused on baseball. And so if you're gonna be an entrepreneur, you gotta get dialed in on that industry and dominate it, get to seven figures, and then diversify. But this idea that I got 200 coming from here, 300 coming from there, 50 from it, that's not how it works. I don't know anybody where that's ever happened before. So it's a fact that's not true. Because to make seven figures, you gotta be great. You gotta be obsessed. I don't care what the industry is. You gotta be so dialed in, laser-focused, outworking everybody in that business, out-innovating, out-thinking, out-strategizing, out-energizing, out-everything, that if you're doing three or four things, and I'm doing that one thing crushing, I'm gonna kick your butt. I'm gonna win at it. And so you have to get laser-focused as an entrepreneur. The only other income stream you should have, other than your main business, if you're not at a million dollars you're at, is some part-time job to supplement this business you're trying to get off the ground. I have done that before. But I can tell you straight up, if you think you're gonna do mortgage over here, own a donut shop over there, and a dentistry practice over there, someone who's in donuts full-time, someone who's in dentistry full-time, someone who's mortgage full-time is gonna take your candy. They're gonna win. Because they're laser-focused all the time, and your focus is diverted, watered down. Once you get to seven figures, that's when you diversify if you're an entrepreneur. And again, I know money isn't everything. I'm proof of that, guys. I will tell you though, the lack of being able to provide for your family can become debilitating, become a great worry. I have many friends that are my age and older that are now facing a time in their life where they're scared. And they're in their late 50s, mid-60s, and they're starting to get scared. Because their earning years are gonna run out at some point. And by the way, the cool thing about entrepreneurship is those earning years. Colonel Sanders didn't start his business till he was in his 70s. Ray Kroc didn't become really successful until his 60s. Really successful. Sam Walton. You know, there's all these new, young entrepreneurs, which is great. You can become a new and young entrepreneur. But you can also do it older. And there's lots of stories of that. So I just wanted to do a wake-up call today. The stats are the stats, right? The gap is getting bigger and bigger between the haves and the have-nots. And you could say, well, it's the system. It might be the system, but it is the system. So what are you going to do to win, right? What are you going to do to change this? And I would only give you all these stats and say all these things to you because I know you're capable. I know it's possible. I know you can do it. I think you know what the decision is. Maybe it's to stop spending so much damn money. Maybe it's to sell that car you've got and downsize a little bit. Maybe you don't need the house you're in. And maybe it'd be better to downsize a little bit. Maybe it's starting a business. Maybe it's getting a job. I don't know what it is for you. I don't know. Maybe it's just finally getting a budget, you know? And maybe if you're a really young person listening to this, it's like, wow, I'm 20 years old. I'm going to start saving $50 a month or $25 a month, even though that may not seem like a lot, even if it's $10 a month, okay? I'm going to start the habit of what a wealthy person does. I'm going to start the habit of what somebody provides for their family does. I'm going to do the right thing. Some of you, it's going to decide to live dramatically below your means. Some of you, it's going to be, you're going to start to buy your first real estate property outside of the one that you live in. and right now you're gonna work on that and get some sort of passive income or I don't know what it is for you. Some of you it's gonna go, I'm gonna pick up a book on money today and just start to learn about it. Some of you it's gonna go back and listen to the beginning of this podcast again and just really get focused. You can do this. We can do this together. I promise you three, four, five, six times a year I'm gonna do things on this show that's gonna help you with your money. I'll help you with your emotions, your body, your spirituality, your fitness, your personal development, your entrepreneurial journey, your persuasion skills, communication skills, you name it, mindset, we do all of that on this show. We're also gonna make sure that everybody okay, everyone here at least has information to be okay financially. And so I know you can make this happen. I know you can create a change. I know it's not too late. It's not, it's never too late. There's always a way out. There's always a solution. There's always an answer. And you can find that answer. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just wanna remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. I get a lot of this from you, like overcoming the fears, the insecurities, the dreaming. This stuff is what excites me. But a lot of people also wanna learn how to make a lot of money. Or they wanna learn how to build their business. Or they wanna learn how to accelerate the growth financially, right? They wanna get out of a scarcity mindset into an abundance mindset, financially. What would you say if you could only share three things that you could do? Or if you could take away everything else and you could only do three things to build a business or generate wealth? You had to strip away all the other skills or assets that you had. But these three things you could only do to get you as much as you possibly wanted. What would that be for you? Okay, the first thing is that you have to identify what you're great at doing. And stop trying to play life with the things that you're mediocre at doing. So, I know what I'm good at doing. And there's a very limited group, so it made it easy to pick from. It's not like I had 80 things. I'm good at like really two things. I've made hundreds of millions of dollars with these two things. And ironically, let me say this to you also, that thing you're great at may have been born out of your biggest pain. Absolutely. So, and this is a gift that you have as well, but one of my major gifts is my ability to read people and to be present with them. Why? I had an alcoholic dad. When he would come through that front door, I had three little sisters and a mom. And this five-year-old little boy would have to look up at his hero. Is he drunk or sober? Is he walking? Is he slurring? Is his tie tied correctly or is it loose? How's he moving? How's he talking? And if it was drunk dad, I need to get my sisters upstairs and mom should go take a shower. If it was sober dad, we're great. But I would have to read this man. And so, that allowed me to learn to be present. It's a terrible way to learn to do it, but I did. Then the second skill would kick in. I can talk. I would grab his hand and my sisters would go upstairs and say, daddy, I hit a home run in the baseball game today. I got a 90 on my spelling test. How was your day? What did you do? And I would talk and change his state. And as I grew up, those two gifts have made me a lot of money in business. My ability to be present and listen, my ability to talk. So what are your gifts? What are two or three? It could be your nurturing skills, your intellect, your problem solving, your intensity, your passion, your calmness, your peace, your humor, whatever it is. The second thing that I would say is that you have to get in the business of truly caring about people. I know that sounds real generic, but people matter, things don't. When I worked at the orphanage and I walked into the orphanage that changed my life, and I know you know that story. My little boys were eight to 10 years old. Here's what they wanted from me. I want everyone to hear this very carefully. Get nothing else out of the show than this if you only get one thing. These boys needed someone to love them, care about them. Here's a big one that almost no one does for another human being, believe in them. And then just show them how to do better. We say it again, love, care, believe, and show them how to do better. When I left the orphanage and went into business, I figured out they weren't unique. Every human, Ed, how do you coach the top politicians or CEOs? Love them, care about them, believe in them. And then show them how to do a little bit better at whatever it is. So that's number two. And then the third thing is you have to become obsessed. You have to become obsessed. This has to become an obsession of yours. Our obsessions become our possessions. And the truth of the matter is that most of you don't understand the effort, the time, the focus, the obsessiveness that's required to do something great with your life. You want to do something great, you better be great at it. Greatness rises. So if you can get really good at those three things, listen, why are you so good at this? Why is it best? You're great at this. The whole idea of greatness is the concept of the show. But you have to get great and you have to be intentional. You have to be obsessed. If people knew behind the scenes, this seems very easy, but I know your schedule. I know what you've put into this. I know what the time is. I know what the relentless pace is. I know what the focus is and how much you think about it. I know this has to be something that's just infectious. And when people get around you, it emanates and there's an energy and there's like this person's just gonna will this to happen. And when you have that, you have to be cognizant of your energy. You're always making people feel something. So take control of what they're feeling. And so I think just most people dramatically underestimate the amount of obsessive, crazy, relentless focus it takes to be great at something. And then they go, well, I don't wanna be that out of balance or control. Then you don't wanna be great because there's gonna be a period of your life, not out of balance, but where some things take priorities over others. That's not a lack of balance. Nothing's like this all of the time. And by the way, the hardest working you've ever been, the most crazy focus you've ever been was the happiest you've ever been in your life. You go back, well, when I was studying for my master's degree or whatever, you're like, weren't you crazy focused? You were busy all the time. If you're a mother and you're carrying this baby, this hardest thing you've ever do is carry this baby. Plus you had a job and you're bringing this person. It's the happiest times of your life or when you're the most, you feel out of control. You're the most obsessed is when you're the happiest. It's this just flawed belief that if I do nothing, if I just have, ah, I'm gonna be super happy. There's plenty of ahs. I meditate every morning. I pray every morning. It's what gives me the energy and clarity of mind to do something great. But this notion that that brings bliss, that nothingness, doing nothing, no expansion of your being, no contribution is gonna make you happy. This is a flawed belief. You're literally moving from the very things that will make you happy. This notion that you're not growing and expanding, you're not contributing, you're not evolving. Your spirit was born. All the cells in your body regenerate themselves. Your digestive tract is brand new every six months to a year. Your lung tissue regenerates it. Your skeletal system regenerates about every six to eight years. You're constantly being reborn all the time internally. So externally and in your heart and your soul and your spirit and your brain, you should be as well. These are the things that make us happy, not just doing nothing. Right, having a purpose, having a mission and intention. It's what gets you up. It's what you were born for. That mission, by the way, may be to serve other people and to bring peace to them. Great, but have something. That was a great conversation. And if you wanna hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. What's up, what's up, what's up? Chris Patterson with you again. I could not be more excited, guys. Check it out. So I am here in Laguna Beach, California with my friend Ed Milet. If you don't know who Ed is, you're about to. This is some good stuff, people. Ed is the agency chairman of a huge corporation called WFG. He speaks on the biggest stages with the biggest names, Cardone, Anthony Robbins, you name it, he's the man. He's a life strategist. He made, what, $200 million by the time he was 45 years old, net worth? And he coaches professional athletes, of course. So I couldn't be more excited. I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you so much for having me. My honor, brother. I'm looking forward to this. Me too. So tell me about those challenges. A lot of the audience out there, first-time entrepreneurs, salespeople, in the grind, in your 20s. Been there, done that, guys. You are not alone, trust me. So share with me kind of how you, because you didn't start out with 200 million net worth. No, my gosh, no, no. You know what? Being an entrepreneur, at least this is my experience, it's riddled with false starts too. So it's not all bad. You think you've made progress, right? All entrepreneurs, and then you take two back and then three steps the wrong way, right? Two steps forward, three steps back. So I had all kinds of false starts, big time when I started in business, and I just struggled and struggled. And it got to the point for me where I almost quit several times. I mean, to be honest with you. And someone asked me today, because we're here oceanfront, this guy's interviewing me for a book, and he goes, what are you the most grateful for at this house? And I said, probably the fact that my backyard's an ocean, right, like that is. But then I reflected on something, which was that we got so broke when I was an entrepreneur that I had a home foreclosed on. And then after that, I had a car repossessed. In fact, my wife's car was repossessed. And then we had our electricity turned off. And those are all bad things, but anybody that's ever had this happen, you know this is the worst? The worst thing that happened to me was the water got turned off at our apartment. So when you don't have water, you can't cook, and you can't shower. And so we would have to get up in the morning, and it's cold, and we'd have to get our stuff gathered up, our clothes and everything, and gather our stuff down and go down to the pool at our apartment complex, and we would have to shower every morning in that pool, at the shower at the pool. And I remember being ashamed of that because we were newlyweds. And I remember thinking if I could ever change this. And I remember having to fake it so badly, right? Because I'm that broke, and then I had to leave the shower pool and go out and pretend to be a successful entrepreneur. Pretend to lead people, pretend to influence people. And so I told him the other day with the book, I said, the most grateful thing I have is the ocean. But I said, I have this weird trigger, and I'm not kidding you, that goes off that many mornings, I'm grateful, I'm serious. When I pull the faucet, the water comes out of the shower and hits me in the face. And I'm grateful. It's like the smallest things. You never forget those times. And so, yeah, the ocean's amazing. Believe me, I pinch myself. But there's a lot of mornings where I go, psh, and I go, thank you, thank you. I'm so grateful. So I relate to those struggles that all entrepreneurs have. That's why I admire them. That's why when we meet each other like you and I do, we're kindred spirits immediately. There's a respect because I don't know all of your story, but I know to get where you've gotten, you've gone through multiple difficult times. And so all entrepreneurs sort of have that on the other side. And so I have that for you. I sense that you do with me too. So tell me about WFG. So when did that come into play? What is WFG? Tell me all about it. I got into WFG, I had a couple of blessings. So I'm out of college. I get released from playing baseball. And here's this success dude story, okay? I end up back at home, living at my mom and dad's house in the same bed, same teddy bear on the bed, same posters on the wall. And I'm unemployed, completely without work, watching Maury Povich every single day. My whole day was like, anyone seen Maury Povich? My whole day was like, is he the daddy? You know that little thing where he reveals- You are not the daddy. You are not the father. I waited all day for that. That was the highlight of my day. I'm serious too, which is pretty pathetic. And so my dad had recently gotten sober. My dad had a drinking problem. My dad's now been sober for years. My dad ended up getting sober. He came home from one of his meetings that they go to when they're in sobriety. And he goes, hey, I got you a job tomorrow morning. You got to go to McKinley Home for Boys in San Dimas. And I'm like, what is that? He goes, I don't know, but this guy at the meeting says he's got you a job at six bucks an hour. You get your butt over there tomorrow. Yes, sir. So the next morning I go to McKinley, which is in San Dimas down the road here. And I walk in and I said, yeah, I'm here for the job. And they're like, what job and who are you? I'm like, I don't know what the job is. And, but my name's Eddie Mylett. And they said, well, we don't know who you are. And there's no job. And they said, well, who's hiring you? And I said, I don't know. I don't know the guy's name. And they're like, so you're here for a job. You don't know what it is. And you don't know the dude's name. And I'm like, wait a minute. The dude's name's Tim. Tim, my dad said Tim. And they go, Tim who? And I said, I don't know, but he's an alcoholic. And they go, oh, yeah, that's Tim, right? So they bring me to this home. It changed my life, brother. I'm going to tell you this. That's how I ended up in the business. McKinley is a campus of group homes of boys, hundreds of them. And my boys were seven to 10 years old. They're wards of the court. They're either orphaned or most of my boys were molested by family and removed from their home. These little precious boys, right? And all they wanted to be was loved, cared for, believed in, helped, right? And so all of a sudden, I'm this young 21, 22-year-old guy and I'm thrown into this home and I basically live with these boys. Holidays, mornings, breakfast, school, when they get back from school, how was school? I became like a dad, a big brother to these little boys. And my life literally in that time transformed into I wasn't about me anymore. It wasn't just my ego or wanting to be rich or famous. All of a sudden it was like, man, I love serving people. I love helping people. I love making a difference. Like those eyes these boys had, these abused kids have these eyes that are different. So, you know, you're on your, we're all on our journey trying to kind of figure our lives out, figure out who we are, what our gifts are. Yes. Was that a moment for you where you went, my calling is to serve? It was my calling. And what's amazing about it is I thought I knew what my gifts were. Because everyone had always told me when I was little, what my initial gifts were. Everyone puts you in that story when you're little, right? Remember my parents had always introduced me as Eddie shy. He's shy. That's the worst thing you can say for kids. So guess what I was? I'm shy. I'm introverted, right? My gifts changed. And so what happened was right when I got to work there, I spent there a couple of years, the same time my best friend's dad called me and said, hey, I know you've got a stable job. You could start in this business part-time. It's a financial business. I'm like, I have no background in finance. I hate money. I don't know anything about it. I didn't take a math class in college. It's boring to me. My dad's a banker. No. But then they brought me down there and they were like, no, this is really about helping people. I went, okay, you got my buzzword. This is about contribution. I'm like, wait a minute. And you could kind of make the money you thought you were gonna make playing baseball. Right. And I said, here's the deal. I'm not leaving my boys. I won't leave these boys. They're like, you can start part-time. And so then I spent time in the business part-time, growing my practice, growing my business, except I came at it differently. Instead of approaching it just like a stud and an ego about making money, I approached it from the standpoint of serving people and making a difference. And my following exploded. And then it got to the point where it just financially, I had to leave the group home and spend my time in my full-time business. So that's how I got into the business. You just mentioned something that's so important to me and something that I'm constantly preaching. There's a quote by a guy named Zig Ziglar. You should look him up if you don't know who he is. He said, you can have everything you want in life if you'll just help enough other people get what they want. Ed is here. We're overlooking the most beautiful view I've seen. personally in my life in this magnificent home with his beautiful wife and you know he didn't get here by accident the switch I think is he decided to stop thinking and working for himself and start thinking and working for everybody else is that accurate it's accurate and there's multiple benefits to that because you know that's why I love your work that's why when you asked me to do this and I started looking what you talking like I'll do it right and the reason is because I love what you stand for because there's this is so important that people get one people matter things don't things will never like this views amazing but it's there every morning right so it does you know the Ferrari out front is awesome but it's not as awesome as it was the first day I drove it I'll be honest with you I like it and by the way it's better than a Camry it's better than a Hyundai I'm not saying that I hate when rich guys go material things don't matter I'm not saying they don't matter I'm saying they don't endure right serving people endures and so but the power of putting yourself where you're serving another person here's what it does it's beautiful takes the pressure off you yeah every sales call every encounter every conversation if it's about them and not you the pressures off you to say the perfect thing to get it exactly right as long as your intentions are good people sense intent long term people will sense your spirit they'll sense your intention they sense your energy influence and persuasion it's why I like you like a media I mean I know remember I told you if I known you before it's because people respond to what they feel which is energy way more than what they hear or see and they people can smell a phony a mile away they can smell it they can sense it but people can also sense for the most part sincerity generosity genuineness and I'm really am in a position where I want to give you something and serve you and make a difference and I care about you that's a powerful energy that's rare and if you're that way in business I don't care what your business is tech speaking computers dry cleaning sports if you're that type of person eventually your energy wins it's a strategic advantage very short intermission here folks I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify we have all the links in our show notes you'll never miss an episode that way now on with the show one of the questions I get asked the most often is about what skill do I think is the most important as an entrepreneur that's a really difficult question but if I could go back and you could only give me one skill to begin with and I had to build from all of it I can tell you for sure what it would be for me and that would be the ability to influence so it's the ability to persuade people without that skill set the vast majority of my wealth does not exist if you can't persuade people if you can't influence people to make decisions that are in their own best interest but that also grow your business your brand your company your net worth you can't ever become successful one thing that everybody I know that's a leader and everything they do can do is persuade people now I watch people do that in all different types of ways some do it through intimidation some through do it through force some do it through humor some do it through persuasive strategies transfer of energy you name it but all leaders can persuade all successful people can get people to make decisions in their own best interests that also get them to participate with their company it's the number one skill that I see most people not spending the most time on is their ability to communicate their ability to persuade people and because they're constantly trying to go to a different course or they think that somehow their product is good enough or they get the right sales pitch that somehow they're going to win but the fact of the matter is you've got to become a better persuader I'm constantly personally working on that skill and refining it my ability to persuade from the stage through the camera here to make to get you to make the decisions that are in your own best interest to persuade you that I can help you to persuade my children when I'm negotiating on buying a company or buying a car buying a jet is my ability to persuade people to make the decision that's in their own best interest to participate with me and so if I was a quarterback in football my ability to persuade the team to work the hardest to run the best routes to get open to give it all they've got head coaches in football school teachers their ability to persuade influence pastors you name it personal trainer they've got to persuade people to do the exercise of it they're the expert so it's our ability constantly to influence and persuade people that I think is the number one skill in life and so if that's the case what are some of the keys in doing that so number one thing is a business leader that you should be evaluating is are you constantly refining constantly getting better constantly making alterations constantly being aware of how you can improve in all of these areas the thing that happens when I say that the most people that are average let me tell you what their responses are to have that already got that down I'm already persuasive I already can do that and even as I say that to people I hear people all the time say oh I'm already good at that let me very very clear with you as a friend if you were really good at that you'd be more wealthy you'd be happier you'd have a bigger business you'd have a better family life than you have so it's your vast overestimation of your ability about that one skill set that is probably gonna hold you back more than anything as a friend let me tell you you're nowhere near as good as you think you are at that skill and the fact that you think you're great at it may be your greatest detriment to moving forward in your life because you don't think there's this gap between where you should be and where you are that'll cause you to do the work to get there and so I never overestimate my ability to persuade I always think I can get better I always think I can grow and I know there are multiple areas and sectors in which we persuade people so I might be really good speaking from the stage but the question is how am I in front of 30,000 people or 100 people how about one-on-one how about in my family how about to a group of three what about in a boardroom what about the white-collar people what about the blue-collar people what about in my personal life right what about getting people just to make their best effort what about in putting money somewhere and so there are thousands of areas in which we persuade people persuade people to like you persuade people to laugh at your joke right there's constantly when you buy something persuade them when you sell something persuade them persuade your children so it's your S it's your overestimation and thinking you're great at that that constantly holds you back you're nowhere near as good at that as you think you are and the fact that you think it is already an indication you're not very good at it so you might be great in one area but not great in the others and so please don't check the box and think you're outstanding at that because if someone who's spoken in front of millions of people on stages from 60 thousand people to six people who's made millions and hundreds of millions of dollars in business traveled the world and multiple different businesses in athletics I've coached athletes entertainers politicians business people one-on-one and I coach in large groups if I know I need to get better in those areas I would submit to you that you probably do as well because I'm not as good as I could be or as good as I should be in almost every area of persuasion having said that let's take the business context for a second one thing I want to challenge you to be as a leader of your business whether it's just you're a leader of one which is you as a salesperson or leader of ten as a team or a company of 25,000 employees is you must become evangelical about your cause and your mission the greatest business people have an evangelical property about them they're evangelizing all the time they're propagating the strengths the benefits of their business of their mission of their cause one of the great evangelists of all time is Steve Jobs is a great book written by a guy named Guy Kawasaki many years ago called selling the dream and in that book he talks about the way that Steve Jobs sold the dream of Apple and he literally called him an evangelist for the cause there's a great story in that book about Steve Jobs when he was recruiting he knew he needed to have a CEO of his company and he wanted to have the best and at that time there was a man named Scully who was the head of Pepsi and Jobs was this young kid in his 20s trying to recruit this executive who had made millions of dollars and he couldn't get him and he couldn't get him and he couldn't get him and finally he gets the voicemail back in those days the answering machine actually of Scully and he says listen listen man when you're tired of selling sugar water to kids over there at Pepsi and you want to come change the world frickin call me back and we'll do it together boom and he hangs up right he was evangelical the cause sugar water and Pepsi changed the world at Apple right and Scully who's making millions of dollars he's CEO of one of the most powerful companies in the world looks to his wife and she says I think he's right we aren't changing the world and it was that one cause-oriented evangelical phone call from Steve Jobs and it exuded out of his pores every stage speech he gave every one-on-one every board meeting when he'd meet with their software engineers when he'd meet with the programmers he was always evangelical internally and externally and built a culture of one of the greatest movements of all time in the history of business there's great lessons there about being evangelical the greatest presidential or political leaders have an evangelical property about them the greatest sales people do the greatest dads the greatest pastors they're evangelical aren't they so you've got to become more of an evangelist for your cause and your mission number one number two you have to sell a big enough dream to your team to your company to your clients to the people around you that the dreams of everybody associated with you can fit inside the one you're selling it's got to be big it's got to be bold it's got to be expanding number three it's got to be repetitious you can't get tired of saying the same things over and over and over again one of the deficiencies of leaders that are weak is they constantly think they have to say new things to old people creating new things to say to old people the best leaders say old things to new people they say the same things over and over again to more and more new people new teammates new employees new recruits new clients new speeches new groups right they say old things to new people they're repeating over and over the vision and the cause of their business of their movement these are great communicators the next thing all great communicators understand whether it's words physiology the look you give somebody or writing influence is energy it's the transfer of energy is getting you to feel about my company feel about my mission feel about my product feel about my cause what I feel they're conscious of transferring energy to people because that's what moves people that's what gets them to act it's not just the words it's not just your face it's not just how you're dressed it's an energy transfer there's a hook by the way you can't transfer to me that what you're not experiencing yourself you have to physically be experiencing it in the moment it can't just be the words you're reading from a sheet you have to really believe it one of the reasons a lot of sales people struggle or recruiters struggle is they just don't believe enough they don't spend enough time making the case like a lawyer litigating to themselves about how powerful what they do is and the more and more you really believe you're a true believer you can evangelize your product you can evangelize your message so invest more time in your own belief in your research in your knowledge finding third-party articles magazines blogs things that reinforce whatever it is you're doing that feeds your own belief that way you can give it to me you can't give it to me if you don't have it and so they don't spend enough time spend more time feeding your own belief and be conscious of the transfer of energy to another person there's a great study out right now that I was just reading about bees and them deciding which flower to pollinate is based on the energy the flower puts off they sense the energy from the flower and they move towards that one deciding to pollinate that one well if you want more people to pollinate your business pollinate your life if you want to track the right relationship the right amount of money the right clients the right employees the right recruits the right vendors the right support you'll be putting off that energy because people are going to pollinate it somewhere you want to pollinate it with you right and that's an energy feeling they get from people the bottom line is people got to be when they get around you they got to feel something special about you special about where you're going special about your cause special about your mission that something special is happening something historic something big a big old dream in fact one big enough that my dream can fit inside the one these people are selling me right and so this is the key of moving people the number one skill go all the way back to the beginning my number one skill that if I could keep only one would be this right here the ability to persuade people in multiple areas of my life how do I get better at it transfer energy number one feed your belief number two number three make sure that it's repetitious over and over again say old things to new people right and you got to be evangelical and sell a big old dream the bottom line is is that this is a process that never ends of growing us of growing our ability to persuade people one of the things about communicating as well is doing it with a lot of specificity great communicators great influencers great persuaders are very specific and very clear about what their messages and so even communicating yourself and leading yourself I grew up walking this beach right here this exact beach and I didn't live like this but I told my family someday told myself someday I'm gonna live on this beach I didn't know who these people were that owned all these beach houses I don't know exactly how you got one but I began to repetitiously transfer that energy to myself about my dream over and over again literally thousands if not millions of times and now someday it happened now that day is here and I live on this beach is one of four homes that I own and so that's how you communicate with yourself and others that transfer of energy I can tell you that in my own situation I'm always trying to how do I evolve it how do I modify how do I feed my own belief more how do I sell it bigger how do I back it up with more facts the best leaders sell a big old vision they tell a great story the best people I know are great storytellers remember this facts tell stories sell most people make decisions emotionally from the story they rationalize it logically with the facts so make sure you're selling a big dream a big story and then you give people the facts this is the way we begin to move people in our lives this is the skill of entrepreneurs this is the skill of building something big and building something small and building something permanent to is your ability to persuade focus on your energy focus on your belief level and focus on refining your message the last thing is this say it faster and say it quicker less is more you don't have to tell them everything you know leave a little bit to the imagination one thing that happens the longer and longer we're in business the longer and longer we're around the more and more we learn we feel compelled to tell someone everything we know about our product everything we know about the business and that's not how you energize people you give them just enough and then shut up my dad used to tell me when I was a kid when I'd be asking for money to take my girlfriend to the movies he'd say hey don't sell past the close right he had already agreed and I'd keep selling him I'd keep selling them and sometimes I'd lose them with this extra BS I'd be giving them. So I want to challenge you. Don't sell past the close. So of all things in business, right, time management, goal setting, vision, identity, all those things we're going to talk about on this channel are very important. But if you can't communicate, if you can't persuade, you are toast. The last thing I would say to you, how do I get better? There's lots of books, lots of tapes, but it's really for me, it's modeling. I learned to model certain people initially and then modify. Model and modify. So I would model people, not copy them, but I would model certain people's styles, one or two different people, and then I'd modify it to fit my own personality. Model and modify, right? Don't try to create everything on your own and don't try to copy somebody else that's different than you. You've got to be you. So model and modify. The last thing I would tell you is, to the extent that you can transfer this skill to other people, will be to the extent that you can scale your business. So it's one thing to be able to persuade yourself and transfer energy. It's an entirely other thing to equip other people around you to do likewise. The best leaders are not just evangelical about their cause. Can't just transfer energy. They have the ability to transfer that skill of transferring energy to other people. And then you begin to build your movement, whether that's one or two or ten or twenty five thousand or millions and millions of people. Sometimes your clients can be your top evangelizers for you when they use your product. So it's your ability to transfer that skill and you have to do that through repetition. The way to transfer the skill of energy to people is through repetition and role play. Repetition and role play. Far too many people just talk and teach their teams how to do things. They talk at them rather than work with them. The way you get me to do it is there's no substitute for experience. A hundred hours in the classroom is worth one hour in the field. A hundred hours of teaching is worth one hour of role play where we do it together. Getting them on the stage. When I started speaking, one of the great speakers, he was an older guy so this is going to date him, but when I first started speaking, I got on the stage and I would open up for this one speaker. And when I'd come off stage, he was a really older guy, but he'd say what was it like to play on stage with Elvis? Meaning he was the Elvis, right? But I got to know what it was like to be on the same stage with the Elvis of speaking at that time. And in business, too often we just talk at people and don't let them get on stage with you, Elvis. There's not enough role play. There's not enough engagement. And so it's repetition over and over. Repetition is the mother of learning. Repetition is the mother of skill. It's the mother of owning it over and over and over and over again until it becomes reflexive. Because when the words and the message and the energy becomes reflexive, then when you're under pressure, when you're stressed, when you're down, when the client's objecting, you reflexively respond with your habit. But if you don't have that habit, that reflex, you begin to respond and lose energy. And so the reason repetition matters is it allows your responses to be reflexive under pressure. And then the second thing is role play. There's no substitute for that experience of being on stage with Elvis. I say it, you say it. I say it, you say it. And it's not just the words, it's the feeling. It's the transfer of energy. The number one skill of entrepreneurs and leaders of entrepreneurs is the ability to persuade. And hopefully these were some of the tips that you should be conscious of becoming world-class at it. Knowing you'll never be world-class at it. Knowing we can always get better. We can always stretch. We can always grow and improve our skills in multiple areas. That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow The Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. All right, welcome back everybody. Gosh, I got to tell you something. I wish we had been recording our pre-show conversation here because it's been so good. And I kind of knew in having this woman on the show that today would be special. And I already have a sense that it's going to be based on our conversation before we started recording. I told her before we started, if she was a stock and I could buy her, I would be going all in. Because I just think she's remarkable. She's already done so much in such a young life, but she's on the rise. She's got something really great going in her life and she really changes people's lives. Her content is outstanding. I watch it. I listen to it. And I got a chance to read her book cover to cover. And last night I finished reading it. Her new book is called Be Seen. Find your voice. Build your brand. Live your dream. We're gonna have a remarkable conversation today with Jen Gottlieb. Jen, welcome to the show. Ed, I am so excited about this. I don't think you have any idea. No. I am as well. I gotta tell you something. You know that. And by the way, you know, behind-the-scenes stuff, Jen and her dude, Chris, help a lot of other people be seen. And she's been very good to me and so many other people in the industry. I just think she's awesome. So let's go. We're gonna talk about building a brand, I guess, where we should begin because you're so good at that and you've done it. A lot of people, though, when you cover that topic, they go, I don't need a brand. I got, you know, I'm in this type of a business or right now I'm a stay-at-home mom or I'm an employee somewhere. What's the point of me having a brand to which you would say what? You just said something really important. You said right now. I'm a stay-at-home mom right now. So it's really, really important to see where you want to be, who you want to be, where you want to go and understand that vision that you have for yourself or maybe even not knowing completely what that vision is but knowing how you want to feel. And building a brand, I've seen today, right now, is the greatest investment that anybody can make. Whether you're a stay-at-home mom or you're somebody building companies or you have a nine-to-five job or you want to be an entrepreneur and you want to be like the next Ed Milet, you need to build your brand because nowadays what's the first thing that somebody does, whether it's an employer looking to hire you or it's somebody that you just met at the PTA or it's somebody that you are looking to have as client, what's the first thing they're gonna do when they meet you? They're gonna go online and they're gonna look you up and they're gonna see, are they credible? Do they have influence? Do they have authority? Do they have some kind of presence online? The best thing that I like to think about when I think about branding is even in dating, like imagine if you meet somebody, if you meet somebody on a dating app and then you go look them up on Instagram and they've got no presence online at all. Yeah. I would be freaked out. I don't know, I wouldn't go on a date with that person. I think you're a hundred percent right. So. No, no, you're right and the other thing is, a brand is really like, tell me if you agree, it's like your reputation, it's almost like a digital imprint as you, it's almost like a hologram of you as a human being. So what blows my mind though is all the people in businesses that absolutely should be investing in it, that don't, like realtors that approach me to do deals, I'm like, you haven't posted anything in eight weeks on your deal, like what are you doing? Like get in the real world and even go to the, what you use, the stay-at-home mom example. You know someday you may want your kid to switch to a particular private school and when they go to that school, that school's gonna vet you and your family and there's nothing to vet on you. Or at one point you're gonna want them to go to college and there's an advantage to you having a brand for your child. There's all these reasons and it blows my mind that people are still living in like 1993 and don't realize like this is a reflection of you as a person. And to your point, when I meet people that don't have a public persona and don't have any type of credibility online, I don't do business with them anymore. Like they're just out. You're totally right about that. Even a doctor, if I'm looking to, I was just looking for a doctor the other day, like a dermatologist. I'm like, okay, well I got recommended to this one, this one, and this one. I'm gonna look up all three and I'm gonna see, honestly, this is just like a reaction. I'm not even consciously doing this. Whose social media following do I like better? Who has better content online? Whose vibe do I like better? It's almost like your online resume and I know a lot of people are like, oh but I don't want to play that game. A lot of people said when Facebook first came out or when the internet first came out, I don't want to play that game. But now everybody's on it and it's kind of just the thing you have to do. What about that though? I feel this way a little bit with Instagram. People are like, man, I put all my work into one platform and now that platform's dying. So let's be a little granular with branding too. Would you say someone should focus in on a platform, all platforms? Should they have a, they go, I'm a blogger, I'm not a video person. What would your recommendation be for someone to create a brand that does reflect them? Well we want to make sure that you know what the goal is first. So there's a lot of nuance here because there's a lot of different types of people listening to this podcast. So if your goal is to build a brand like Ed Milet, right, like you and you want to have a podcast and you want to be an influencer and you want to impact a ton of people, then I would highly recommend that you need to start creating content for all of the different platforms and more importantly getting those people that follow you on the platforms onto your email list so then you can then own those connections. Because we don't know what's gonna happen to Instagram, to TikTok, to Facebook. We're renting that real estate, right? We're renting it. We own our email list. We own our text list. We also own like your podcast basically. Like that's yours, right? And that's the way that you connect with people. We don't know one day Instagram could go away. So you want to make sure that you are connecting with your community in other ways but at the same time of course you want to be on all platforms so everybody can see you. Okay, everybody what she just said is gold. And first two things I want to say. Number one, I said across from a lot of people, I know when their energy is like big-time influential energy, you have it. Like the way you talk, the way you come across, the thing you feel when you're speaking, you have it. It is like 5% of the people that sit across from me. So you have that. That's number one. I just want you to know that. Right away. Right away you have it. Two, she's completely right with what she just said about your email list and your text links. Dum-dum right here who you listen to every single week, me. I spent all my time like gaining traction, getting followers, getting subscribers, doing all these other things and guess who owns that relationship? Not me. And my peers were out building email lists, real data that they owned, real connections, real text list. Dum-dum Eddie Mylett started doing that about two years ago and I've been public person now for about a decade. So she's a zillion trillion billion percent right about what she just said about the platform but you getting ways that you own the data and that person is a actual digital property that you can participate with long-term. Major truth right there. Major, major truth. Yeah but you started it. Here's the thing. It doesn't matter. I think a lot of people are also listening to this right now and they're like, oh well I'm too late then. I didn't start my email list. I didn't start my platform. Everybody's got a podcast now. Everybody's got all this now. It's too late for me and I want everyone that's thinking that. I'm talking to you right now and listening. Please listen. It is not too late. You started your email list two years ago. Yeah. When did you start this podcast? Probably eight years ago. Eight years ago. So here's another thing. I think a lot of people are sitting around comparing their chapter one to somebody else's chapter 20. Comparing their first step, their beginner step, their very first episode of their podcast or their very first post on Instagram, their very first Instagram live or their very first YouTube video to somebody who they admire like you who's been doing it forever but people don't see all the years that you put in, all the mess-ups, all the bad episodes, right? All of the ones where you're like, man I shouldn't have done that. Like for me there was so much leading up to that and I've spent a lot of time thinking like, oh I shouldn't start because this person has already done it. Yeah. Right? And my therapist actually said to me the other day because I've got this new book coming out. First book ever. Never written a book. It'll be huge. And I'm having imposter syndrome. All the things I talk about in the book. This is so ironic, Ed. I'm literally reading my own book and I'm like learning my own steps in the book because I'm having all the symptoms of fear because I'm being seen on a whole new level than I've ever been seen before, right? And I'm doing this and I'm like, man, I'm talking to my therapist. I'm like, I'm putting this book out. I'm so scared. Like is anyone gonna like it? Is anyone gonna buy it? She's like, Jen, have you ever written a book before? And I'm like, no, but, but, but. She's like, what is your relationship with being a beginner? And I was like, whoa, this is my first book. So if this is your first time putting something out on the internet or building your brand or doing your side hustle or starting your podcast, stay in your lane. Let it be your first time. Let it be messy. Let it suck a little bit and use that as the stepping stones to get to the next and the next and the next. And people love to follow a beginner. You're so right. They love that. They want to root for you. Yes. Yeah. It's, you're not a beginner, but when I met you, you were at an earlier stage and I immediately knew you were special and I immediately liked Chris. I immediately liked you and I found myself the last couple of years like really following you more. I wanted to check in. How's she doing? Is she growing? What's she got going on? She's a world-class speaker already. She, she, her goal is to be the number one in the world. She's well on her way to doing that, but I even told her when we weren't on, I'm like, well, you've got more presence now when you speak that you didn't have when you started. She's obviously a very gifted communicator, but there's this presence thing you've got. When I started the show, when I started, I thought I was late. Gary Vee had 3 million followers already. Andy Frisella, my, my, my brother, Grant Cardone, Tom Bilieu, Lewis Howes, Mel Robbins, there were all these people that they already had millions of people. I'm like, who's going to listen to me? You know, my first video I posted got four views, one like, and my mom was one of the views and didn't like it. Right? My own mom didn't like it. You know, like, so I relate to that very much. I thought I was late. Turns out that I wasn't. There was already like 6 million podcasts. Now there's like 60 million and you're not late. If you're good, I always tell my kids this. If you're good, the cream rises to the top. Somebody's going to find you. If you're a young athlete listening to this and you're at a small school and you're not getting scouted, if you're that good, someone's going to find you eventually. And that's what's going on with you. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. So I've tried to lay this foundation of all the contributions you could make. I'm not delusional enough not to know that many of you who follow me, you want to be wealthy. You want to be a multimillionaire. You want to be able to travel and do the things you want to do in your life. And the material things and, and getting wealthy is important to you. I want to challenge you to go get stone ass wealthy because let me say something to you about that. I know what it's like to do it. And if you have first laid the foundation that you know, that's not going to make you happy. You've laid a foundation, which is why I've taken the entire beginning of the video in middle about the foundation. Once you've laid a foundation that my bliss, my fulfillment is going to come through my crusade, my mission, my calling, the difference I want to make in other people's lives, the contribution I want to make once that's the foundation and you understand this first, for those of you in your heart, you get a burning desire to go get wealthy. Once you've laid that foundation, you need to go do it because those of us that have that foundation first only through getting wealthy, can you make that big difference? Or do you want to know the greatest thing about being wealthy? I don't ever have to be anywhere. I don't want to be. Think about that for a second. What if you could live a life where you don't ever have to go anywhere. You don't want to go. You don't have to be around people. You don't want to be around. You have to go to places. You don't want to be. and neither does anybody that you love and care about. That type of total freedom of time is why I'm so excited about being wealthy above everything else, because now I'm totally free to choose what I do with my life. I decided once I got wealthy because I had laid this foundation. As I worked at a group home with orphaned boys, my home was making a difference in these precious little boys' lives. They needed someone to believe in them and love them and give them tools to live their lives better. And I found that there, and I invested my entire heart. Right there I knew this is where I belong. And it was from that path, that was the first path. That's why I talk about chasing things. That was the first place I started serving people. And then it led to business. And then it led to other places. Once I got free of my time, I found fulfillment because what I'm doing with you right now is my home. It's my calling. You are just an extension of my first eight boys at McKinley Home for Boys. I started with eight to 10-year-old boys, eight of them. And now I end up reaching millions of people multiple decades later. But it's the same path. My calling is to contribute. It's to use the life skills I've developed. It's to use the fact that I was an insecure and shy person and I needed to learn how to build self-confidence. I needed to have the brain work, how to think better, how to perform at my peak. I needed to learn how to really truly become happy because I wasn't. I needed to learn what's my pathway to fulfillment. I used some of the gifts I listed earlier with those boys and I'm using them with you now. That's my home. But the best part of being wealthy is my time is mine. I get to spend about every minute of most every single day doing my calling. It's no longer a side hustle. It's a full-time crusade. It's a full-time mission in my life. And I think that's why I feel so fulfilled most of the time in my life. Doesn't mean I don't have bad days. Doesn't mean I'm not down. But I'm most alive when I'm doing this with you right here. It's the greatest honor of my life is contributing to other people, starting with my own family. But for me, that pathway had to come through wealth to free up the time. I didn't want to spend an hour or two a day. I didn't want to reach just eight or 10 or 20 people. I want to reach millions of people and eventually billions of people through my message, through my trainings, through the tactics and strategies I teach, through the way of thinking that I teach people. And so now the platforms have allowed me to do it as well. But it started out with finding my home. It started out with thinking about the people I admired and what were their gifts and traits? Why'd I admire that in them? Because I had some of those same gifts in my own unique way. Now, Dr. Martin Luther King was one of my great heroes. He had this amazing ability to speak and to inspire. He talked about dreams all the time. And I started to think, I'm a dreamer. I can speak. I can contribute. I can inspire. I love people. I believe in people. I'm nonjudgmental of people. And I found my way of taking those gifts I saw in him. Mine weren't anywhere near on the scale his were. And neither do yours need to be about your heroes. I'm not deluded into thinking I'm as good a speaker or as good a man as he was. But I saw things in him. I knew his intentions were good. I knew mine were. And I started to do that same stuff with eight and 10-year-old boys in the group home. And then it magnified and the pathway led. That's how it's gonna happen for you. This is truly how we find our calling in our life. And it's truly how we find fulfillment. And so for those of you that wanna be wealthy, let's go get it. I want that. There's a whole segment of people that need to go get wealthy to fulfill their mission. Not everybody, though. Some people, their mission is to teach school or to be a pastor or to be a nurse or to be a mother. And that's what's gonna fulfill them. And I'm not confused to think that the mothers listening to this that are making a difference in the precious children's lives they touch or the school teachers that I know or the people that work in special needs or for the Special Olympics or spend their time in charities. I'm not deluded to think I'm more fulfilled than them. That's not true at all. My fulfillment came through this path. Their fulfillment came through that path. What we all have in common is we're using our gifts that we were given towards the service and contribution of other people. That's the calling. And we've all found our version of home. And you can as well. So finally, ask yourself this question. What would you do if you had all the time in the world to do whatever you wanted to do? What would be the things you'd be doing? I know you'd say, I'd be sitting on that beach out there, Ed. And you would for a while, trust me. And maybe you should try it once you get wealthy. But you can only play so many golf courses. You can only sit on so many beaches. And guess what? Sitting on that beach is gonna make you very happy. Playing a great golf course is gonna make you very happy. Going to an incredible restaurant is gonna make you very happy. But there'll be a point where it's just not enough just being happy. You're gonna wanna be fulfilled. And so get a level past that. If your time was all yours, how would you spend it? Who would you be helping? What would the difference be that you're making? What are some of those gifts you've got that are unique to you? And stop beating yourself up. What are some of those gifts? Is it your intentions? Is it your heart? Is it your faith? Is it your voice? Is it your beauty? Is it your humor? Your articulation? Your critical thinking skills? What is your gift? There's two or three of them. And when you uncover them, and you point them in a direction, that path eventually will lead to somewhere that is total fulfillment for you. And so today, I hope this helps you just start to think a little bit more deeply about what would make me fulfilled. Is it really money? Or is it finding my purpose? Is it finding my passion? Is it finding my cause, my crusade, my mission? For some of you, that doesn't require money at all. And for many of you, it does. And I wanna help both of you get there, and I want you to both be acknowledged for the incredible difference you make in your life. My prayer for you is that you find happiness. But what I really wish for you, what I really pray for you, is that you find your version of fulfillment, your version of heaven while you're living here on Earth. And I can promise you, it's by finding your calling, using your gifts and contributing to other people. And it's just a matter of starting to try different things. Think about who you admire. Ask yourself what some of those gifts are, and eventually you're gonna find your home.