Life Doesn’t Get Easier, You Get Better (SB1604)

Ever feel like life keeps throwing curveballs your way? The truth is, it doesn’t actually get easier—you just get better at hitting those pitches. This week, we’re tackling financial challenges head-on with financial behavior psychologist Dr. Brad Klontz and TikTok star Adrian Brambila. Together, they deliver some much-needed “virtual slaps” to help shift your financial mindset from poor to rich.

We’re diving into practical tips like automating your finances, avoiding debt traps, and embracing tough love to overcome obstacles. In our headline segment, we’re revealing the U.S. cities with the highest and lowest non-mortgage debt. More importantly, we’ll discuss how to manage your financial health no matter where you live. It’s all about learning to play the game the right way.

And, of course, stick around for Doug’s trivia, humor, and possibly a questionable bread recommendation.

Run of Show

• Monday Morning Toast Ritual
• Debate Over the Best Bread Choices
• Salute to the Troops
• Introduction to the Stacking Benjamins Show
• Meet the Monday Mentors: Brad Klontz and Adrian Brambila
• Brad and Adrian Share Harsh Truths About Wealth Building
• The Psychology of Wealth and Financial Mindset Shifts
• Automation: The Secret Hack to Building Wealth
• The Poor vs. Rich Mindset: How to Change the Way You Think
• Investing Wisely: The 4% Rule
• Book Promotions and Special Offers from the Guests
• Doug’s Trivia and Humor Break
• Coaching and Motivational Strategies to Stay on Track
• Headline Segment: Debt in American Cities (Highest and Lowest)
• Conclusion and Final Thoughts on Getting Better, Not Easier

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

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Our Headline

• The Most and Least Debt-Ridden US Metros (LendingTree)

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Doug’s Trivia

• While Huntley Brinkley first mentioned the Beatles, what show did they first appear on LIVE when they finally came to the USA?

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Join Us Wednesday!

Tune in on Wednesday when we dive into the question: what do YOU need to know about your mutual funds to avoid hot water later?

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Written by: Kevin Bailey

Miss our last show? Listen here: Seriously, How Many Laws of Personal Finance Do You Need? SB1603

Episode transcript

[00:00:00] Doug: Joe, are we doing our toast? Our Monday toast. Ooh toast. French toast. I love french toast. It’s so good. Especially on Monday morning. I mean, if we’re talking about toast. No, you gotta go with like the thick French bread where it’s like a three quarters of an inch thick and it’s still soft in the middle, but the outside is crispy and then the butter kind of melts in sourdough.

[00:00:20] Oh, keep going. Yeah. Yeah. Butter melting in and then you just put a light smear of raspberry jam over the surface. Shut off. You don’t wanna overwhelm it. It’s not a donut, it’s toast. Okay. Let healthy, let’s hit pause 

[00:00:32] Joe: and do this right now. Let’s do this like, right, right, right now, anytime I can have too much butter, but too much better, too much, too much butter, and just a little bit of jam.

[00:00:42] Mm. But you know what, Doug, whenever they give you that choice at restaurants, they’re like, would you like rye bread? I’m like, what am I? He then look at me. 

[00:00:50] Doug: No, I don’t want rye bread. Oh, that’s interesting. Because when I order a, I love breakfast sandwiches, so I’ll order the omelet and they say, what do you want as a side of toast?

[00:00:59] My side of toast is usually rye. ’cause I like the flavor. And then I take some of the omelet and I make that the innards of the sandwich. And then I’m eating a. Omelet sandwich with rye bread. COG. Like I said, 

[00:01:12] Joe: I’m not a heathen, but Doug is there. There we go. 

[00:01:16] Doug: I think 

[00:01:16] Joe: it is to, oh, by toast you meant to the 

[00:01:18] Doug: troops.

[00:01:19] I did. Is it not a toast when you’re using coffee? 

[00:01:22] Joe: Well, toast and coffee we could toast and coffee the troops. Let’s do that. So 

[00:01:26] OG: confused about what’s happening. 

[00:01:28] Joe: Raise your mug, not just your face, but your mug. On behalf of the Men and Women making podcast in Mom’s Basement, the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union, big shout out to our troops on a Monday.

[00:01:42] Let’s all go stack and Benjamins together now, shall we? Thanks everybody. Gurah. 

[00:01:47] bit: You’re going to end up eating a steady diet of government cheese, and living in a van down by the river.

[00:02:00] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[00:02:14] I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Duggan, you know what you need? You need a whack upside the head. That’s what Joe’s mom says. Anyway. I mean, right after you tell her you forgot to bring home dish soap from the store. But hey, I remembered the Kit Kats. Where was I? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It’s time for some tough love.

[00:02:32] That’s where I was on today’s show. Our Monday mentors are kicking your butt all the way to the bank. It’s behavioral psychologist Brad Klotz and TikTok Star, Adrian Bam, Bela Plus in our headline, some cities are full of more people with debt than others. What are the most and least debt ridden us metros?

[00:02:53] We’ll share, and don’t you worry yourself even a little bit, because I’ll be sure to share a dollop of my delicious trivia. And now two guys who are surprisingly spry this early on a Monday, it’s Joe and oh,

[00:03:22] Joe: you know, gee, how you can tell when Doug’s been hanging out with mom too much. He says, spry dollop. Welcome to the 1950s podcast. I am Joe Saul-Sehy, and across the cart table from me is the Spry guy himself. Waking up with the crows or whatever they, what’s another, what’s a good, how about roosters? That’s roosters.

[00:03:44] That’s the generally ster used bird in that sin. My goodness. I might have messed that up. What are we doing? It’s Mr. og. I don’t know. How are you? Man? You salty today. Yes, it’s Monday. 

[00:03:58] OG: It’s a good day to be salty. It’s a day that ends in YI was justing Say the same phrase. 

[00:04:04] Joe: We got Brad Klontz here and Brad Klotz is generally a nice guy.

[00:04:07] I think Brad’s a 

[00:04:07] OG: cool dude. 

[00:04:08] Joe: Cool. He is. He’s he’s a super guy. But today he’s salty. Oh. And it’s funny because I don’t even know. Did you like him? How do you know? 

[00:04:14] Doug: Oh, come on. 

[00:04:16] Joe: Do we? Oh, oh, where’s the, uh, Nope, not that one. Erase. Erase the race. Nope. Not that one. No. Nope. Not that one. I can’t find it. Yeah.

[00:04:27] There we go. Now we got it. Fifth button I press no. Uh, Brad and Adrian think you need some tough love. I’m like, oh my God. We already got one of those. Here. Do, do we actually need another one? Doug. Welcome to the Surly, the podcast today. Brad is always like an always telling 

[00:04:47] OG: the truth with no velvet on the hammer.

[00:04:50] Joe: Listen to the chapter headings of Brad and, and Adrian’s new book. Because their book is all about harsh truths in quotes. Okay? Chapter one, being poor sucks. I would agree. Chapter two, only poor people think the system is rigged. Number three, you don’t wanna become a millionaire, you just wanna spend a million dollars.

[00:05:11] OG: Also true. 

[00:05:11] Joe: Chapter four, your beliefs about money. You’re keeping you poor. Chapter five, your teachers can’t teach you how to get rich. Chapter six, it’s not your fault if you were born poor, but it is your fault if you die. Poor Chapter seven, you don’t deserve more. You’re getting paid what you’re worth. 

[00:05:28] Doug: I 

[00:05:28] Joe: like it.

[00:05:30] OG: Preach, bratty. 

[00:05:31] Doug: This was ghost written by og, wasn’t it? I 

[00:05:33] Joe: swear to God. All these things have come out of my cohosts mouth so many times. Chapter eight, only Liars say they love their jobs.

[00:05:45] Oh, we’re gonna have some fun with Brad and Adrian today. It’s gonna be great. And we’re gonna talk about og. What do you think the most debt ridden city? And the USA is, if you had to pick, what would, what would be it? 

[00:05:57] OG: Uh, I mean all in like, not bad debt, but just like what city has the most debt? Let’s just go And you’re gonna talk about municipality, you’re talking about people that live within the city.

[00:06:07] Yeah. I think we need to clarify. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. 

[00:06:09] Joe: Let’s go with non-mortgage 

[00:06:11] OG: debt, non-mortgage debt. Non-mortgage debt. Oh, shoot. I was gonna say mortgage debt would be, I’d have to be on the West Coast. Sure. Mortgage 

[00:06:17] Joe: debt. You’re going right to the 

[00:06:19] OG: Pacific Ocean? Yeah. Uh, shoot, I, I would have to say it’s where a bunch of young people are.

[00:06:27] Uh, Raleigh, North Carolina, 

[00:06:29] Doug: Raleigh North. Did Doug. What do you think? Interesting. Uh, non-mortgage debt. I’m still gonna say Austin. Texas. Austin, 

[00:06:39] Joe: Texas. And, uh, let’s go with least. What do you guys think is the least debt ridden USC Fargo. Fargo, North Dakota. Hmm. 

[00:06:48] OG: It’s gotta be per capita, right? Because otherwise you just find a city with four people in it.

[00:06:53] Joe: Oh, no, no, no. It’s gotta be, it’s gotta be a major city. You’ve heard of like Fargo, the one that, 

[00:06:57] OG: yeah, like Fargo, they 

[00:06:58] Joe: make movies and TV shows about that place. It’s major least debt ridden 

[00:07:03] OG: city. 

[00:07:04] Joe: Uh, did you hear, hold on a second, og, did you hear, because I just heard this last week, Doug, why the Cohen brothers called that movie Fargo?

[00:07:12] No, I don’t think I know this movie yet. Most of the movie, as you know, takes place in Brainerd. Right. But they didn’t want to call it Brainerd. They thought that the word Fargo would look better actually is a title. That was a hundred percent the reason why. Just for it was a design element. Choice, yes.

[00:07:27] ’cause they didn’t want to call it Brainerd. Wow. Huh. How about that? Anyway, og, what city 

[00:07:33] OG: do you think? So least per capita has to be low cost of living with high income, high-ish income. Somewhere in the south. No taxes. Houston 

[00:07:45] Joe: Houston. Well, we’re about to find out. The bets are locked, everybody, and I’m sure you’ve got your stackers.

[00:07:51] We’re gonna get to that right after we say hello to our salty guest today. Adrian Mula. He rose to TikTok stardom by redefining real wealth. Here’s what he did. He earned $1.7 million while drum roll, please. Living in a van, maybe down by the river. Dr. Brad Klontz is a distinguished professor in the world’s leading authority in wealth psychology.

[00:08:17] Brad, of course, has been on the show a couple times, most notably just a year ago when we did our investing during an election year special episode. It’s amazing how much of that psychology played out during the years. We saw headline after headline of, you gotta panic. You must panic. Brad and Adrian got together.

[00:08:38] We’re gonna hear how to slap you upside the head as Doug and Mom both say. But before we get to them, our Monday mentors, we have a couple sponsors that make this show free so that we can keep on keeping on. We’re gonna hear from two of them and we’re gonna get this party started.

[00:09:07] Here they are having a seat at the table. Adrian, Dr. Brad are here. How are you guys? What’s up? So excited to be here. Thanks for having 

[00:09:14] Adrian: us, 

[00:09:15] Joe: Brad. Our audience knows you. In fact, we’ve been talking all year long about the awesome round table you were on helping people through election season this year and all the craziness of the last 12 months.

[00:09:26] But Adrian, this is like your coming out party. To the stackers. So, uh, do you still live in a van down by the river? 

[00:09:36] Adrian: I don’t. I moved three years ago in Austin. I lived in a van for a year during the pandemic. I have air conditioning now. It’s really great. I have a dishwasher. It’s awesome. But all jokes aside, uh, living in a van was quite a beautiful lifestyle actually.

[00:09:51] It was actually more stuff than what I was used to. ’cause the previous two years, my wife and I, we were nomads across Europe. Uh, we lived in Dublin, Ireland. And so the van was actually more stuffed than what we were used to. But now I’m not on the extreme side of fire movement, living in the van and saving 95% of my income.

[00:10:06] Now. I live in a awesome place in Austin, and actually I’m, I’m spending a lot of money right now. I just spent $40,000 on a pickleball court at my house. And, and I don’t know if you play, but come on over, let’s play. But it was a great lifestyle. I recommend it. You actually, you’re in the van to shower, to sleep, to cook, and then essentially everywhere you drive is, is your backyard.

[00:10:26] So it was, it was pretty cool. 

[00:10:27] Joe: It’s so funny ’cause I love following just on your TikTok channel, just all of your travels and stuff that you do, the recent Kyoto videos. That you’ve had are awesome. My daughter lived in Japan for a while. I lived in a three room apartment for a little while after living for a long time in a fairly large house.

[00:10:45] Uh, we sold our house much quicker than we thought that we would. We didn’t know if it would sell quickly. We couldn’t move for another seven months. So for seven months we lived in this three room apartment over a buddy of mine’s dad’s garage. And it was funny, Adrian, what it taught me, I mean, I gotta believe that living in a van and being a nomad taught you 

[00:11:05] Adrian: a ton about stuff.

[00:11:08] Yeah, I do have a house and cars and stuff, but I still feel like I’m, I’m now more of like an intentional versus just a blind consumer. And I do feel still that the more stuff you own, the more it owns you. I see people that have an entrepreneur crowd here in Austin that got really nice cars and stuff, and one guy in particular parked his car and then like did a walk around and then it did a few looks back to make sure, I don’t know if it didn’t go anywhere or someone was gonna just pop a tire.

[00:11:33] And to me, I, I think of that as example. It’s like, yes, you do have a beautiful car, but you think you own that car, that car owns you. If that is how much of attention. ’cause normal people, they just go, they park and they walk to their place. So I, I do still feel like I have that mindset. And also I think when we come from nothing, I came from nothing and from my family that immigrated here.

[00:11:51] It’s hard to then make this switch of like getting outta survival mode by living small like you did and living in the van. I think, what’s the worst case that happen? If I lost everything? If something did happen catastrophic outta my control and I actually had to go back in a van by choice. And now that I’ve lived it, I could say, you know what, that was actually kind of beautiful.

[00:12:09] I don’t know why I’m so fearful of, of not having stuff because actually when I did not have stuff I, I learned it was actually a beautiful life. 

[00:12:16] Joe: That’s awesome. It it reminds me of that, uh, Walt Disney story. Where they’re getting ready to open Disneyland. Have you guys heard the story? Brad? Have you heard the story?

[00:12:22] Mm-Hmm, no. So they’re getting ready to open Disneyland and he’s in a golf cart with the chief engineer, and Disney couldn’t afford to pay most of his people. He gets this deal with A, B, C, so they help fund it. He gets this deal with all these sponsors. They help fund it. He gets to deal with the engineering company and you know, everything’s behind schedule to open Disneyland.

[00:12:40] The engineer’s freaking out and the guy goes, this is, this is horrible. What if like, nobody comes, what if it sucks? What if it’s bad? Walt looks at him, Adrian, to your point and goes, what’s the worst that could happen? We’ll go bankrupt. I’ve been bankrupt. Four I I think he said four times he’d been bankrupt.

[00:12:55] He’s like, I’ve been bankrupt four times. It’s not that bad. We’re, we’re gonna be, we’re gonna be okay. 

[00:12:59] Adrian: It’s amazing, 

[00:13:00] Joe: you guys really with these harsh truths you’re talking about Brad, because really that is a harsh truth, right? We could go bankrupt, like things could go bad, but these harsh truths you had really, Brad, it’s not so much about, I don’t know.

[00:13:13] I guess it is so much about harsh truths and it really is embracing the reality that you own it. 

[00:13:18] Dr. Brad: Yeah, I’ve written other books that have more of a therapist sort of feel and tone, um, more of a loving, gentle, I care about your feelings and I do care about your feelings, Joe. So feel free to thank you.

[00:13:28] Call me and have a good cry or complain about things. But if you’re my client, eventually after we got some of that out, I might even perhaps shut the door to make sure nobody hears this. And I’d be like, Joe, what are you gonna do about it? And, and really it’s a message of empowerment. And so it can feel like a bit of a slap in the face.

[00:13:43] Like, if I was to call Adrian and complain about my wife for a little bit and he knows my wife, he’d be like, oh, Brad, that’s so sad. And then he’d, he’d listen for a few minutes, he’d go like, dude, so what you can do about it? Fix this. This is yours to fix. And that can be sort of like a shocking moment for people, but it’s so empowering.

[00:14:00] And so essentially these chapters are harsh truths. They can feel like a slap across the head, but the chapters are really meant to inspire and empower. By sharing all the research that we’ve found, and I’ve conducted on, on the psychology of wealth and the mindsets of success, and how can I teach my kids this stuff.

[00:14:16] I mean, this has been a lifelong journey for me, as you know, Joe, and it’s trying to learn what I can learn to climb the socioeconomic ladder. I didn’t come from anything at all generations of people who had nothing. So what, what can we glean from these self-made successful people so I can teach my kids this, so I can integrate it into myself and, and essentially with this project, we’re trying to teach as many people as possible.

[00:14:36] Adrian: What’s the difference between being poor and being broke? In our book, we, if you look at some of the titles, they sound really offensive. Like we say, if you want to get rich, you to get rid of them. Yeah. They’re all a slap in the face, Adrian, to Brad’s point. Yeah. So like, if you wanna get rich, you have to get rid of your poor friends.

[00:14:51] Like that’s when we got a lot of heat on. Did you just go with the ones that hated the most? The most? Yeah. We’re like, oh, a ton of people hate this one. 

[00:14:56] Joe: So that’s the chapter head. 

[00:14:58] Adrian: I mean, honestly engagement, it’s like how to create noise and, and shake things up. And so that was one. And of course at first takes like, wow, you guys are like, what kind of person would say that?

[00:15:08] But this is our definitions. Poor is a way of thinking. Rich is a way of thinking. Broke is literally having no money. We’ve all been broke. And then rich. Is a way of thinking, but I had a rich mindset when I was broke, and that’s why I wasn’t broke forever. That’s why I was able to go from broke to middle class to first class when I first started trying to ask questions like, how do rich people react around money?

[00:15:28] What do they do with money? How do they think? So these are ways of thinking. It’s has nothing to do with the quality of someone’s person, which is priceless. We’re, we’re not shaming, like human life is priceless. We’re talking about. The way you think and challenging the way you think. So what keeps people broke forever is a way of thinking, and that’s having a poor mindset.

[00:15:46] Joe: And I love that because Brad, you point out that being that it’s just a state today, poor is I’m poor forever. I feel poor, my life is poor. You guys point Brad to this study that we hear over and over and over, right? This deal of I get to $75,000, I’m good, and then there’s no more happiness after that.

[00:16:06] You call BS on that. 

[00:16:08] Dr. Brad: Yeah. And, and by the way, I taught on that for a long time. Like I, I’m really interested in the truth. I don’t really have an agenda related to this. As I said, sort of open mind, like, I don’t know. And, and in that chapter, actually, we have a photocopy of a journal entry that Adrian had when he was young.

[00:16:23] Oh, 

[00:16:23] Joe: can I, I made a note about this. Did you see that? You were, you were thinking big Adrian, you were thinking huge. 

[00:16:28] Dr. Brad: Well, he read that study and he is like, that’s my target. It’s 75,000 a year to be happy and blissful. That’s my target. And so it’s real interesting, I’m reading it, you know, intellectually and Adrian’s at a young age, catching that going, oh, that’s the target.

[00:16:41] Essentially all we did is we went back and reviewed the research and there’s been better research that’s been done that actually shows the line continues up and I think it sort of confirms what everybody already knows to be true. Inherently. Like the, the thing about that $75,000 mark is every, everybody read that and said, ah, that’s bs.

[00:16:57] You know, and that’s kind of what we’ve seen. I mean, it’s like more money can enhance your life, it can give you better experiences, it can lower your stress. And so that trend line continues, which is why we are strong proponents of becoming wealthy and encouraging people to become wealthy. 

[00:17:12] Joe: Well, it, to your point, I feel like ever since I, I moved over from the financial planning side a long time ago to financial media side.

[00:17:20] I spend a good amount of my time. Refuting BS articles on the internet. Here’s where you need to be. By the time you’re 30, here’s where you need to be when you’re 40. That is just garbage. And to your point, Brad, I mean Adrian, you’re, you’re looking at this study as just a normal dude going, oh, okay, well that’s happy.

[00:17:38] So here I am. So let me let, let’s take a second and read what Adrian wrote. This was, I couldn’t read the date, the date. Is it 2013? You wrote this at the end of 2013? 

[00:17:47] Adrian: Yeah. I’m sorry. My handwriting is so bad. It’s literally a real image, but yeah, it’s 2013. 

[00:17:52] Joe: So, uh, you wrote out your goal, and here’s, here’s what Adrian wrote, everybody.

[00:17:56] He wrote, by the end of 2015, I wanna make $60,000. You wanted your online revenue to grow to 15,000 by the year 2015. And here’s the big number. You want $400 in disposable income every month to live and travel and experience. And by the way, I’d been there and to me when I was broke. I mean, to me these are attainable, realistic goals.

[00:18:22] But you guys point out, you’re like, no, no, no. I should have been thinking bigger. Adrian. Do you think now looking back at past Adrian, you would’ve gotten to where you were faster if these numbers were bigger than what you 

[00:18:32] Adrian: wrote on that piece of paper? I do. If I would’ve added another zero to that, wow.

[00:18:37] It’s not, not saying that I would’ve hid it, but I would’ve thought bigger, thought better. And I feel like I was doing the right things as a, not a normal 20-year-old. I was spending my time reading all these financial books and all these financial books says 70 5K making that is peak happiness. And I was like, well, I don’t wanna make a hundred thousand, I don’t wanna be $25,000 less happy every year.

[00:18:58] So $75,000 is my goal. And, and so I think it literally brainwashed me to think small. When I started making more than that. There wasn’t like some moment of like guilt or shock. I actually didn’t even recognize it. I was still happy and I and I, as I continued to make more money, like. You do have to consciously practice lifestyle design.

[00:19:16] When you make more money, you have more options and choices. I think it also could create a softness or addiction because I, you always want to consume and get lost. Like in, in Austin, Texas, in the entrepreneur community, psychedelics and drugs are actually very prevalent here. I just went to an event last week.

[00:19:33] I walked into a room with very successful people. I, I stepped in the room and everyone’s talking about drugs. So like these people, like one guy sold a company for like a hundred million. Another person I know he does like 30 million a year. And the other person I, I don’t know, but I just know he is successful.

[00:19:45] They have so much money and now where can they get their abundance and joy from? They have to take drugs and like existential stuff. So it’s like, to me, these are signs of the problems of success. When you take on money, you start earning more. It’s not that it’s easier, you just have more options. It’s still up to you to decide how you wanna live your life.

[00:20:01] But now, now you can live in a world without money constraints. Now, I think that’s a blessing. I think we assume everyone wants to have financial freedom, but sometimes that freedom when you get there, you’re like, oh my gosh, I have all my time now to myself. Some people don’t know how to spend that time wisely.

[00:20:17] ’cause now you don’t have money problems. You have life problems. Yeah. How do I spend my life? What’s the purpose of my life? How should I spend my money? And you can find good ways and then you can find bad ways to do it. It’s almost 

[00:20:27] Joe: like when you look at longevity research, they say that, uh, like Alzheimer’s has always been there.

[00:20:33] It was just always covered up. ’cause we die of other crap first, right? Mm-Hmm. And now we’re living longer. And so now once you have money, now all these problems that you could have as a human being, you’re experiencing those. I remember Tony Robbins saying the phrase once, he’s like, it doesn’t make life easier except you can show up to your problems in a limo if you want.

[00:20:51] Like, that’s awesome. Your second harsh reality, you write, only poor people think the system is rigged. And even Brad, I look at that title and I’m like, well, as a guy that started off in Poor West Michigan, and you’re a poor michiganian. Mm-Hmm. Like I am Brad. Starting out, I’m like. Well, we, we, we, we kind of all have different starting lines.

[00:21:13] So you’re poking the bear there, Brad, 

[00:21:15] Dr. Brad: uh, poking the bear. And I like to blame all the most offensive titles on Adrian ’cause I would never say something like that, Joe. Nice lies. Who me? Of course not throw ’em under the bus with the microphones on. But I will say this, that was the mindset I had growing up.

[00:21:28] Lower income, broken family. I felt like everything was designed against me. And I know that I do have some privileges. I am Caucasian, I’m white, I’m able bodied, I’m, there’s all sorts of privileges I had. I didn’t feel like I had any of that ’cause I was born low income. And so I’m just gonna tell you, my mindset was these rich people are out to get us.

[00:21:46] They’ve designed this entire system so that we can never get ahead. Both my grandparents on both sides, living in trailer parks for generations, no money. I was convinced the entire system’s rigged. There’s no way for us to get ahead. All these people are keeping us down. And by the way, if, if that’s your belief, you’ll find evidence for that everywhere, right?

[00:22:03] It’s like, yes, this system is not fair. The mindset shift here we want people to make, because that’s a very external locus of control thing. We dive into the psychology around that. That just keeps you stuck believing that everyone else is controlling your life. The mindset we want people to have is it’s a game I.

[00:22:19] It’s a game. So wealthy people are playing a very different game when it comes to investing. The poor mindset game is like, I’m gonna take a thousand bucks, I’m gonna try to make it into 10,000. Then you lose all your money and you think the system is rigged. It’s terrible. That’s the wrong game. You’re not playing the right game.

[00:22:34] And so if you look at it as a game, it changes everything because you can learn the rules of the game, you should learn the rules of the game. And we use the example of showing up to play football and having your pickleball paddle with you, you know, and your tennis shoes and your short shorts, and then going out on the field and getting plowed over and not knowing what to do.

[00:22:55] And, and here comes the football, and you try to whack it with your paddle, and then somebody blows the whistle and you, and you lose. And it’s like, well, yes, you, you showed up to the game. You didn’t know the rules, you didn’t know the culture, you didn’t have the right equipment, and you had no idea what you’re doing.

[00:23:09] So of course, it feels like it’s rigged, the mindset that it’s a game. It changes everything in your life 

[00:23:15] Joe: because all you gotta do then is figure out really what the game is. And Adrian Brad earlier talked about lifestyle design, and so learning to play the game, I feel like might be the basis of where this lifestyle design starts.

[00:23:30] Where do you begin by playing the the rich person game? What’s a part of the rich person game that will flip some of our stackers from the poor person to the rich person game. 

[00:23:38] Adrian: This makes me think of like we poke fun a little bit at the fire movement people where they make such insane sacrifices that they forget to live.

[00:23:46] I just think of my parents specifically, but it’s not just them. It’s like when they actually do retire, it’s like they’re working almost full-time with the income that they’ve invested in and they did it right and now they struggle to spend money and they still, like my dad almost has a personality trait.

[00:24:00] Like when I try to take him to a really nice restaurant, if it’s over a hundred dollars, it’s like, how was the food? Expensive? Doesn’t matter. It’s just a trigger. Yeah. He’s still operating at a standpoint from 30 years ago and, and honestly if you have advice on this, I know probably a lot of people need to hear it.

[00:24:16] For those that are at retirement age, one thing I’ve learned from them is I need to do things today that make me happy and spend money as well. I did all the right things. I don’t have any debt and, and I’m investing and I allocate average or doing all the things right, all the tactics. But another tactic is what makes me happy when I spend money and typically those things are impact.

[00:24:37] Giving back and experiences. And that’s why, like you mentioned Kyoto, we were in Japan for a few months this year, and we travel and play pickleball. It’s like, these things make me happy. I’m, I’m trying to spend my money. ’cause now my parents like, at this point, they’re gonna leave way too much money. At first, I was saying, if you leave me enough money to buy 10 Lamborghinis, I’m gonna just blow it all on Lamborghinis.

[00:24:55] And they still didn’t change. So then I was like, okay, here’s what I’m gonna do. How much money leave me? I’m gonna donate to the opposing political party that you guys don’t like. As a, as a funny joke, right? And I’m just trying to say like, do not leave me money. Like, spend your money. You worked for it, you earned for it.

[00:25:12] I don’t want it. So I’m trying, you know, filled full of fear. But yeah, we, we have to live, we have to 

[00:25:17] Joe: spend money also. But I think what you’re saying though, Adrian, is that I think for most people, right, we blindly spend money. Like we just go and we spend money and we don’t even really think about it.

[00:25:26] You’re saying with start with what lights me up? Then spend money on that stuff. Like you have a TikTok video about making a list, make a list of the stuff that lights you up. Right. Start there and then give yourself permission to spend money on 

[00:25:41] Adrian: those 

[00:25:42] Joe: things. 

[00:25:43] Adrian: I think that’s great. When I was living in Dublin, Ireland, I knew I wasn’t gonna live there forever.

[00:25:47] I loved walking to different cafes. I, I spent a thousand bucks a month on coffee. That’s the most I’ve ever spent on coffee. But I was like, I am here living in Ireland. I’m not gonna miss out on this opportunity. And I was happy to spend that money, and I’m glad I did. It wasn’t sustainable. It’s not my normal coffee budget.

[00:26:02] It’s ridiculous. But it made me happy. So like, that’s an example of like, you should find something that makes you happy. And if it costs money, spend it. You know? 

[00:26:09] Joe: Yeah. But if you’re just blindly spending money on coffee and you really don’t care, then it’s just a waste. Brad, I wanna ask you about two things here.

[00:26:17] You guys really, not just with this point about learning the rules of the rich game, but I think all the way through the book, you, you really make a point to talk a lot about automation. I feel like automation, Brad is a huge part of the rich person game. 

[00:26:31] Dr. Brad: Yeah, it is a huge hack and I’ve included it in many studies we’ve done to get people to save more and invest more and grow your net worth.

[00:26:39] And so the concept of spending to enjoy today, like, first of all, most Americans should stop doing that. So, um, because they’re doing that and they’re not doing what they need to do before they do that. This is how I try to live my life too. So you identify your top financial goals. And by the way, when we had people do this in a study, they increased their savings by 73% by going through this process.

[00:26:59] Wow. Includes 

[00:27:00] Joe: 73%, 

[00:27:01] Dr. Brad: 73% after one hour, Joe, uh, of doing this. So this, this is the essential process. We had people identify their financial goals, and so by that, not just say retirement, it’s like, no, where are you? We had ’em close their eyes. Who are you with? What are you doing each day? How does it feel? Are you on the beach?

[00:27:17] Where are you, you know? What type of house do you want? Draw a picture of it. Like get really, really visual because that is how we make our decisions around money, and that’s why we consume right now. It’s like everything smells so good, tastes so good. This is the way we’re wired as human beings. And so you need to get really excited and a clear vision of why you’re gonna make, be making these sacrifices to begin with.

[00:27:36] And then another really important step is to name accounts after those specific goals. And this helps connect, oh, I love this. The money. Yeah. It connects the money and the emotion to the account because if you have a quote savings account or a quote checking account, you’re doomed. Um, because what’s gonna happen to you psychologically?

[00:27:53] It happens to me all the time. I’ll look in my checking account, I’m like, oh, we have $20,000 in there. And immediate subconsciously, I now feel rich and it’s like, oh, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna overspend and, and I’m a psychologist and I study this stuff for a living. I’m just absolutely gonna overspend. So what you need to do is identify those accounts and then, and here’s the key, by the way, your gym membership does this to you and everyone can relate.

[00:28:16] Like you’re, you get all excited about this vision of your body. You wanna, you know, get into the gym and workout. So they, they’re smart. They automate your movement from your checking account into their checking account. And what happens is the status quo bias kicks in and you’re, you’re like, first of all, it takes effort to go change it and you’re probably not gonna do it.

[00:28:32] And then you also have to cancel this vision of your longevity and health and that beautiful muscular body that I see you have Joe, right now that I’m aspiring to get. You have to say, yeah. Suns 

[00:28:41] Joe: out, guns out. 

[00:28:42] Dr. Brad: Right. Exactly. You have to like say, I don’t care about that anymore. It’s like, whoa, we don’t wanna do that.

[00:28:47] So we, we stick with that gym membership more. This is taking that status quo bias and applying it to your own life. My son’s name is Ethan. It’s Ethan’s college fund, and I’m automating every month money that goes from our checking account into that account. And I gotta tell you, Joe, when I look at it, I’m always shocked.

[00:29:01] I’m like, I can’t believe how much money’s in there because we’ve been having it going for years. I will never, ever go into his account and take money out for anything else. I’ve already identified that as one of my top goals. I’m not gonna go spend that on a car. Are you kidding me? Or a vacation? It did not.

[00:29:16] It doesn’t even come into my consciousness. That is the hack that wealthy people use. You pay yourself first. We live in a time now where you can automate it. You don’t have to sit down and write a check each month because that you will not do that. You’re gonna blow that up. Clear, exciting goals of the future, name your accounts after those goals, and automate money movement.

[00:29:34] Moving to that and then, then the big part of my life growing up, lower income and being anxious about money has been the lifestyle design. So now you have this bucket of money, whatever it is now your job. Is to try to enjoy your life with what’s left over. Um, and that’s an exercise for some of us who in the fire movement, some of us who grew up poor, we have a scarcity mindset.

[00:29:54] We’re afraid it’s really good because you’ll have a higher net worth because of it. But also it’s a terrible kind of way to go through life, isn’t it? Go out to eat. You have some money there ’cause you’re taking care of what matters first and you’ve automated it. 

[00:30:05] Joe: Let’s keep this on the fire movement for a second.

[00:30:07] ’cause another thing that I read in fire movement forums all the time is fire the experts. They’re costing you money. You’re smart enough to do this yourself, which I think, Brad, and you’re shaking your hand, which is why you and I have such a loving relationship. I just wanna hug you right now. ’cause man, when I was a financial planner, and it’s not just hiring a financial planner, I’m not even worried about that.

[00:30:28] All the smart people that hired me surrounded themself with smart people. Like when I see smart people, they surround themselves with a. Smart people. It just seems Brad like such an idiot. Uh, it isn’t about being smart enough. Of course, you’re smart enough to do your financial plan, but it’s almost like the millionaire next door in the habits.

[00:30:47] Like I look at the habits of really great people. They surround themselves with great people. 

[00:30:52] Dr. Brad: It’s such a big problem, Joe, that we named an entire chapter after it. And the way that we titled it was, only poor people are afraid to ask for help. And we’re trying to do an intervention on you. And, and part of this comes from the studies that I’ve done.

[00:31:05] Like we find that ultra high net worth, significantly more likely to humble themselves and saying like, look, I don’t, I’m not a financial advising expert. I’m not a, I’m not an attorney. I’m not a CPA. It’s like, of course, I don’t know any of that stuff. I spend all my time executing on crushing my candy, eating during Halloween, which is your expertise I see on your handle there right now, Joe.

[00:31:27] That’s what I spend my life doing, making these widgets, making money. That’s what I do. And so they outsource, I call it do it yourself itis, which is a low income, middle class mindset. And by the way, it’s essential. You gotta do it. You know, your car breaks down, you fix it. I mean, it’s a farmer’s mindset.

[00:31:42] This is where my, my dad came from. My aunt did everyone’s taxes, you know, and the entire family. ’cause she had a semester of college. You gotta get outta this mindset because it creates a ceiling for you. You just don’t have the expertise. And so the first time I actually paid for a CPA to do my taxes, it cost me a few hundred.

[00:31:58] It saved me thousands of dollars. It was the most amazing thing. And so people keep themselves stuck and screw themselves over. Because they’re either too prideful to admit they don’t know what they’re doing, or they have this misperception that it’s gonna cost a bunch of money. It’s really not gonna cost that much money.

[00:32:12] You don’t have to have these people as staff. You can just actually pay for an hour of their time until you can hire them in a more formal way later. But ask for help. That’s what wealthy people do, and it’ll help you get there a lot faster. 

[00:32:23] Adrian: I think, Joe, you said that we are smart enough, but I know I’m not smart enough.

[00:32:29] I, and I think actually the problem is most people think they’re smart enough to do it all on their own. We’re overconfident. Yes, they’re overconfident. And I do wanna point out the positive to the fire movement in this and challenging the status. ’cause we could say not all financial advisors are created equal.

[00:32:44] Good point. And you know, Google searching what is a fiduciary and like what’s an actual just salesman selling you proprietary funds that have high end, like those things do exist, but it’s a level of getting diligent enough to know like who you’re working with and trusting them that they’re actually doing a good job.

[00:32:58] You don’t just wanna blindly outsource as well. And I think that’s the positive thing. But then also the fire movement tends to take everything to the extreme. So like, don’t ever ask for help. Do it all your own. You don’t need anyone. And that’s terrible advice. 

[00:33:09] Joe: Yeah. I’m glad that you said that because I think that second smart people in my phrasing is super important.

[00:33:15] And I never really thought about that Adrian until you said that. I said smart people surround themselves with smart people. And if you just go hire some person and you don’t do any true due diligence, I. You, you can tell when somebody’s BSing you, like your BS meter is strong. Like not all the time. I mean, Bernie Madoff got away with it for a reason.

[00:33:35] Mm-Hmm. But still, I think that using referrals and the power of the internet and knowing people’s background and where they’re, um, from, who they surround themselves with, the licenses that they have, like you can figure out who the smart people are in your community. I remember reading Dr. Thomas Stanley’s book second time I brought it up.

[00:33:56] Now, you know, the Millionaire Next Door. There were a couple books that came along with that, that are far less popular, called Marketing to the Affluent and Networking with the Affluent. And one interesting thing about millionaires, and Brad, I’m sure you probably have studied this before too already, is that millionaires work on the referral system.

[00:34:14] They don’t have time not to. And smart people know smart people. So I feel like if somebody’s really rocking, starting off asking them, who do, who do you use? Mm-Hmm. It might be a way to get rid of some of the shysters that, that I feel like are in the game. You guys begin the third truth, and I, and, and I wanna end with this activity ’cause I love this activity and stackers.

[00:34:34] I’d love for you guys to do this with Adrian and Brad and I, you ask us to take three minutes. So we’re gonna have you pause the podcast here, take three minutes and write down everything you would do if Adrian and Brad gave you a million dollars right now. So pause the podcast, take three minutes, and at least think to yourself for a few minutes, what would I do if Adrian and Brad handed you a million dollars right now?

[00:35:00] All right. All right. Now I’m gonna assume that you did that, Brad, what are we hoping the stackers did? I. Because most of ’em probably did the same thing. That, this is funny ’cause I did it. Most of ’em did the same thing that I did when you handed me a million bucks. 

[00:35:19] Dr. Brad: Yeah. So we take a real hard line on this because we’re really want to anchor in the rich mindset, the poor mindset.

[00:35:28] So first of all, we just made you a millionaire. Okay. And, and so what the poor mindset does is it immediately starts to unwind your millionaire status. 

[00:35:36] Joe: That’s exactly what I did, right? I immediately started unwinding this thing. 

[00:35:40] Dr. Brad: And so the poor mindset is, which by the way, is most Americans were consumer focused.

[00:35:44] It’s like, oh, I’m gonna buy a car. I’m gonna buy a house. I’m, and you’re not selfish. You know you’re gonna buy a house for your mom. You’re gonna upgrade your mom’s basement, Joe. Duh. We could do some work around here, if you don’t mind me saying, um, I’m going to go on vacation with my family. I’m gonna have these great experiences, and then boop, boop, boop.

[00:35:59] And in my mind, I’m, I’m pulling out a calculator. I’m like, boom, boom, boom. Okay, now you have a hundred thousand dollars. So, so now you’re not a million anymore. I hope you didn’t swear to your boss on the way out. ’cause now you’re gonna have to go back in and beg for your job back ’cause it’s all gone.

[00:36:11] We are just proposing that that is a poor mindset, and here is a rich mindset. Oh, by the way, another one we hear all the time is, I’m gonna invest in a business, you know? And Oh, that sounds so great. Oh yes, you’re gonna go take this money and invest in a business. Hey, most businesses fail, you know? Right.

[00:36:24] And since you haven’t had a successful, specifically a 

[00:36:26] Joe: restaurant, Brad, I’m gonna open a restaurant. 

[00:36:28] Dr. Brad: I’m gonna open a restaurant. Yeah. Nothing’s gonna go wrong with that. Wrong. And by the way, to the confidence thing, people dramatically overestimate how their restaurant’s gonna do. They’ll tell you that the industry is, oh, they’re only 30% survive, but me, oh, I have an 80% chance.

[00:36:40] By the way, there’s been studies that have been done on that. We have this overconfidence bias, but essentially you’re gonna be broke. And so here’s the rich mindset. The rich mindset does one and only one thing. It takes that million dollars, it invests that million dollars. And then using the 4% rule as an example, they take out $40,000 a year for the rest of their life.

[00:36:58] And with that $40,000 a year. Go have a business that fails, go put it all into your, um, soon to be failed business and maybe do that seven years in a row until you have a successful business. Go on a vacation, save up several years of that $40,000, put a down payment on a house. Use that to enhance your life.

[00:37:13] Like the ultra rich mindset’s, like, no, I’m gonna let it ride. And then, you know, in 10 years now you’ve got several million, you’ve got 7 million, et cetera, and you can just grow it exponentially. That’s the mindset we’re trying to instill in people because we automatically go to this default of how we’re gonna spend it.

[00:37:28] And that leads to you having no net worth essentially. I. 

[00:37:32] Joe: It 

[00:37:32] Dr. Brad: was funny. 

[00:37:33] Joe: I know what I’m doing and you slapped me across the face, which is, this book is 21 Slaps in the Face. It’s like hammer with velvet on it. Yep. The uh, the book is called Start Thinking Rich. 21 Harsh Truths To Take You From Broke to Financial Freedom.

[00:37:49] And it’s 

[00:37:49] Adrian: available everywhere, right? It is. I do wanna mention one last thing. Yeah. So you can get, you can get the book anywhere, but we did actually have a special link. This is a way we can say thank you for us being on here and to your audience. So after you get the book, wherever you’d like to get books, you go to start thinking rich.com/joe.

[00:38:06] And then that has like a lot of extra bonuses and resources that are completely free. Uh, so you can start thinking Rich as fast as possible. 

[00:38:12] Joe: Sweet. You know what we’ll do if you’re out walking the dog away from your computer, I will, uh, just link to that on the show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com.

[00:38:20] Adrian, great to meet you finally, man, I’ve been following you for a while and so great to meet Brad. Great to see you again. Thanks for. Being mentors to our stackers today. I super appreciate you both. Super awesome to be here. 

[00:38:31] Dr. Brad: Thanks for having us.

[00:38:37] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And how about those guys? Huh? Adrian actually makes living in a van down by the river. Sound exciting. Speaking of exciting, another famous duo, the Beatles were first mentioned duo on US Television duo. Huh? 

[00:38:55] Joe: Do you just call the Beatles a duo? Well, yeah. Oh, there’s, there’s four of ’em.

[00:38:59] I mean, it’s a plural. 

[00:39:00] Doug: Well, hold on, plural. Wait, Beatles, there’s only two. Look. Don’t fact check me in the middle of all of this. We agreed that wasn’t gonna happen. I looked it up. It’s just Paul McCartney and Ringo Star. Okay. You are, 

[00:39:11] Joe: you, you, you keep going and then maybe look it up again during the break.

[00:39:15] Fine, 

[00:39:16] Doug: continue. I’m sorry, this is art. I’m creating art here. As I was saying. The Beatles were first mentioned on the Huntley Brinkley report, a new show, and very soon they were all over American radio stations dominating the landscape and bathing in Benjamin’s, or in their case, quids. I guess here’s the question.

[00:39:36] While they were first mentioned by Huntley Brinkley, what show did they first appear on live when they finally came to the USA? I’ll be back with the answer right after I explained to Gertrude that when I said yesterday, I wanna hold your hand. I was telling her my favorite Beatles songs not giving her a pickup line.

[00:39:55] I have so much better pickup lines than that. That purse to the head really hurt, though. Go true unnecessary.

[00:40:10] Hey there stackers. I’m the guy neighbors call. Hey dude, and who’s wondering how much Lucy’s diamonds are actually worth? Joe’s mom’s neighbor died. Now, this is actually a little bit awkward and I don’t want to disturb anyone, but it does turn out that The Beatles were quartet with these two other guys besides Paul McCartney and Ringo Star.

[00:40:33] Their names were apparently John Lenon and George Harrison. It turns out, man, this is awkward and I hope everybody’s sitting down. But they know Doug, they, they already know. And you’re You’re telling me they already know that. They know. 

[00:40:49] Joe: They know. 

[00:40:50] Doug: Oh, okay. Uh, well then onto the trivia, I guess, what TV show were The Beatles on when they first appeared live on American television?

[00:41:02] Well, in a quest to get all of the Benjamins in their pockets, the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, and now because we are moving on, it’s back to Joe and og. Oh boy. 

[00:41:16] Joe: Oh man. I love how trivia time is Doug’s history lesson. It’s a good, good, good history lesson. If only the Beatles would’ve been more popular.

[00:41:26] Doug, you might have, might have known. I actually, they could have been Oasis. Maybe, maybe they could have gotten, gotten as famous as Oasis. I feel like somebody said that at one point. Big thanks to Brad and Adrian. And you know what, og very seriously. I mean, you know, for me having a guy like, uh, you know, a Gordon Ramsey type character in my corner where they know, like on that show, what I always like about Gordon Ramsey’s old kitchen shows is that, you know, that he wants a restaurant to succeed.

[00:41:56] You know, his goal is that the customers get a better experience and that the owner makes more money. So when he fights with them. It’s, it’s, I mean, it’s a good fight. It’s a, he’s 

[00:42:07] OG: swearing at them from a position of love. 

[00:42:09] Joe: He totally is. Yes, absolutely. And frankly, you’re french onion soup. It sucks. You gotta get it through their head sometimes.

[00:42:20] And you know what, I’m a guy that responds very well to that type of coaching over the years. Really? I’ve had good to know coaches just 

[00:42:27] OG: jot that down for future 

[00:42:28] Joe: push. I shouldn’t have told them that. Doug, let’s walk that back. How do we walk that back? But it is true. You don’t want your coaches to sugarcoat it.

[00:42:36] I mean, to some degree they gotta have some velvet on their hammer, og. But they do have to tell you, and you’ve said this before, hey, the math ain’t math. And 

[00:42:43] OG: I think part of behavioral coaching, whether it’s for finance or high school football players, is to understand the audience. And there’s a time and a place.

[00:42:55] And you can think back, obviously Joe, you were an athlete, Doug, you were an athlete in high school. And it’s like there’s different times where you can probably remember where the coach missed the mark, right? Where it’s like, wow kind of exploded outta nowhere for that. You know, that didn’t really check with where we were in the season or in the game or in practice or what, like that was odd.

[00:43:16] But then there’s a time where like snapping the clipboard and throwing the headset that like checks with the, the energy that the team needs, right then to go get your heads out of your behinds and tackle somebody, you know what I mean? Like, or whatever. Like there’s a time and a place for throwing your headset and snapping the clipboard and then there’s a time to say, I know you’re trying, I need you to, you know what I mean?

[00:43:38] Like to kind of dial it back and be a little bit different. And the mark of a good coach is knowing when to have those different uses or when to pull those different arrows maybe and, and say, you know, this is the time to have a little bit more of a tough love conversation. And not a everything’s fine conversation.

[00:43:56] And especially with money, it’s, I think one of our obligations that we have to clients is to, is to really not sugarcoat it, but also give them the confidence that they can achieve whatever it is that they’re trying to achieve. Maybe with some slight modifications, because at the end of the day, would you rather be mad at me or would you rather run outta money at 82?

[00:44:16] And it’s like, if I see that that’s the path that you’re on, I owe it to you to say, I just don’t think this is gonna work. And I’m concerned about it. And maybe I have to say that a little bit more forcefully or snap more clipboards. Or maybe it’s a little bit more like you said, velvet, but at the end of the day, the message has to come through of, this ain’t working, but it’s fixable.

[00:44:36] We have to do something about it. This isn’t just like, well, we try, we gave it the old college, try. Best wishes, guys, good luck. We have this information, it’s not going great. Here’s what we can do to remedy that. And that’s, I think maybe what Brad’s going after here. 

[00:44:50] Joe: Even if you’re not a. Sports fan, I think you’d look at some of the great coaches, but just because they’re in the spotlight and you see them all the time that uh, actually looking at some of these good coaches, you can see what a skill set it is, OG to kind of thread that needle, right?

[00:45:06] I don’t wanna push people so far that they give up. They don’t have any hope. But I also need to push ’em enough to realize that what it takes to succeed is inside of you. And that is such a tightrope. Let’s hear a master of this, one of the winningest coaches ever in, uh, in football, uh, little guy by the name of Nick Saban.

[00:45:28] bit: Everybody would like to be successful. Everybody’s not willing to do the things you need to do to be successful. You know, we had one speaker come here and showed the biggest tiger, biggest tiger I’ve ever seen took up the whole screen. And he said, everybody wants to be the beast, but everybody don’t want to do what the beast do.

[00:45:48] So you wanna be the beast. You gotta do what the beast do. Alright, thanks. I

[00:45:58] Doug: Saban Sa. I, 

[00:46:01] Joe: if you wanna be the beast, you gotta do what 

[00:46:04] Doug: the beast do. 

[00:46:05] Joe: Yeah. I think that’s an important lesson. 

[00:46:07] Doug: Oh gee. You said something about snapping clipboards and it just reminded me a time I was coaching baseball and watched the coach across the way and the dugout was really ticked about something and he tried to snap his clipboard and he forgot he was an old school guy.

[00:46:19] It was a plastic clipboard. Oh. And it didn’t work. And then he was like, I am snapping this clipboard. And he just tried like four times to get this thing and then finally just threw it to the end of the dugout. He was a guy who was not adapting to modern coaching. 

[00:46:34] OG: Well, and again, there’s a lot of risks with that, right?

[00:46:37] And using the sports analogy of going too far with it, right. You turn into like the petulant child, you know, and then everybody’s rolling their eyes. I mean this, it’s, to your point, Joe, it is a very fine, fine line to go, here’s the energy I need to put on this to motivate you. I think the best word that I’ve ever heard of this is called productive tension.

[00:46:57] You know, if your tension is really low with something, you’re not likely to do anything about it. If your tension is really high with something, you’re likely to do something, but it’s probably not gonna be the right thing. It’s just gonna be a thing to get your tension back down again, and, and to kind of manage through other people their productive tension, to get to the point where it’s like, I need to make a decision and I need to make sure it’s a good decision and I need to follow through with my decision, and I need to have a lot of energy and output relative to this decision.

[00:47:26] That’s like this part of the whole curve. Everything else around it is. I’m in apathy and I don’t feel like doing anything or I’m so stressed about it, I’m just gonna do anything and that’s not gonna be good either. 

[00:47:38] Doug: I love that phrase, productive tension. Oh, thank you. I dunno if you just made that up or not, but that’s perfect.

[00:47:43] And it reminds me of a, of a Harvard art, a Harvard Business Review article I read a long time ago, like maybe 20 years ago, if I’m not mistaken. I think the title of it was, happy Cows Don’t Make More Milk. And they actually did some studies to look at comparing like free range cows to the ones are in the big, happy cows do make more 

[00:48:00] OG: milk.

[00:48:02] Doug: Their findings were that they do not produced more milk just because there’s no stress or less stress and that they’re just out roaming around the pretty green pasture. They don’t necessarily make any more milk than the ones that are in the higher production facilities. And that some, in fact, they, the higher production facility, cows who have some stress make more milk.

[00:48:20] So there is some value to that stress. 

[00:48:23] Joe: To your point, Doug, this is another coach. This is uh, duke University’s women’s basketball coach. Kara Lawson making, I believe a, a very similar point. 

[00:48:36] bit: It will never get easier. What happens is you handle hard, better. That’s what happens. Most people think that it, it’s going to get easier.

[00:48:47] Life is gonna get easier, basketball’s gonna get easier. School’s gonna get easier. It never gets easier. What happens is you become someone that handles hard stuff better. So that’s a mental shift that has to occur in each of your brains. It has to, because if you go around waiting for stuff to get easier in life, it’s never gonna happen.

[00:49:07] And then what happens? Oh, it’s so hard. Oh, I can’t do it. Oh this, I dunno. When, when is it gonna be easy 

[00:49:13] Joe: for me? I can’t take the music in the background. I’m sorry. Just the music. Absolutely killing me. But I think they make a good point, og, which is, I mean, think about it from a strategic perspective. If I focus on the fact that life’s never gonna get easier, when it does get easier.

[00:49:31] Which it does from time to time. It’s like this huge blessing where if you sit around waiting for it to get easier and it gets hard, you, you’re never gonna accomplish anything. I mean, it’s very congruent with what Brad and Adrian were talking about. You’re born poor. Okay? That’s your starting point. John.

[00:49:45] Hope Bryant, it said the same thing when he was on the show. You, you’re born poor. Yeah. The, the starting line is not the same. You die poor. 

[00:49:52] OG: That’s on you. Here’s a great one from a Georgia Tech strength coach. If we’re doing like little videos of motivation, yeah, motivation Monday. 

[00:50:00] bit: But here’s what you should know about winning before you chase it.

[00:50:04] Winning’s not loyal to you. It doesn’t care about you. Winning doesn’t care how sore you are when he doesn’t care how much sleep you get when he doesn’t care how hard you work at times. And sometimes a guy doesn’t outwork you and he still wins. It isn’t fair, man. Sometimes there is no justice. Winning requires all of you and then more, and it promises you nothing.

[00:50:25] It’s a mastermind of creating fear and doubt in your mind. It causes setback after setback. So the question is about winning. Are you willing to sprint when the distance is unknown? And why chase this thing called winning? Because the only thing that’s guaranteed in life if you don’t chase it, is losing.

[00:50:45] Joe: You know, it is interesting though, what I like about what he’s saying there, OG is Chase and appreciate the input, right? What you put in the output isn’t guaranteed. You don’t know that you’re gonna win. Life can still conspire against you. That’s fine. You see these people that get all focused on the outcome, and when you focus on the outcome, you’re gonna lose.

[00:51:05] Yeah. 

[00:51:05] OG: It’s not, you just will. It’s not outcome driven. The seminal book on this is George Leonard’s book on Mastery, and the whole idea is that growth comes in like really short periods of time and everything else is a plateau. And you just have to enjoy living on the plateau. You know, because, and every single solitary thing, whether it’s money, whether it’s.

[00:51:27] Relationships, whether it’s health and fitness, everything is just basically seemingly a straight line. And then all of a sudden, all the effort produces a result. Like years worth of working out. All of a sudden the body change happens. Or years and years and years of saving through the two thousands, right?

[00:51:45] Think about the investor that started, started their graduated college, this guy in 2000, right? Like living the dream, all investing through 2000, 2010, just a plateau of nothing. And then when did all the growth happen? 2010 to 2020, bam. You know? And all the results happened in that 10 years from the 10 years of plateau.

[00:52:04] Joe: I think the biggest lesson though, if you want to be the beast, you gotta do what the beast do. Gotta do what the beast do. I think I, I think that’s it. Let’s go to our headline. 

[00:52:13] headlines: Hello Darlings. And now it’s time for your favor, part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin’s headlines. 

[00:52:19] Joe: Our headline today comes to us from Lending Tree.

[00:52:22] Well, of course, not only does Lending Tree loan people, uh, lots of money hook up people with loans for lots of money, they also track a lot of that data. Jamie Katch wrote this piece, and by the way, thanks to stacker Scott, our friend Scott Carson for pointing this out. Jamie writes, debt can unlock dreams like becoming a homeowner or funding a world class college education, but it can also drag Americans down according to the latest lending tree study, examining non-mortgage debt across the 50 largest US metros.

[00:52:52] It is. You guys picked your, your number one debt ridden city og. You thought it was? 

[00:53:00] OG: I said Raleigh only because of young people and medium cost of living. Doug. You said Austin, Texas. 

[00:53:08] Doug: I did. How come? Just so many people moving there who have to sort of, I don’t wanna say start over, but when you’ve got a big influx of people into a place, they’re probably, there’s a lot of purchasing going on things for the inside of their home that they gotta put on credit cards to furnish these homes.

[00:53:25] They might be getting new vehicles. So I just saw a lot of that migration inspired debt. 

[00:53:32] Joe: All right. Drum roll guys. The most debt ridden city, not counting mortgage debt is Austin, Texas. Bam, number one. Doug nails it. It cheated. Do you think the people can hear me gloating? Average resident Doug, to your point, nearly $46,000.

[00:53:53] It’s a lot. This is troubling to me, OG because we’re going into holiday season. These are the months, November, December. These are the months when people accumulate credit card and non-mortgage debt. This is the dangerous time. Austin, Texas. You are already number one, by the way, number two and number three, cities.

[00:54:12] Also in Texas, San Antonio, trying hard to keep up at 44 8. 44,800. Houston, Texas is third at 44,000, so Houston isn’t on the other side. 

[00:54:24] OG: Okay, got it. 

[00:54:25] Doug: You’ve got, what’s that? 

[00:54:26] OG: I said so Houston isn’t on the other side of Yeah, so he already 

[00:54:28] Doug: knows. He lost the other half. I lost that one too. Yeah. Houston not the least.

[00:54:33] And isn’t San Antonio and Austin like just one big Megaplex? Mega burb. It’s like one giant city. Are they almost connected now? Very soon. 

[00:54:41] OG: For people that don’t live in Texas. Sure. 

[00:54:44] Doug: No, but I think there’s talk about that, like they’re both growing so fast that, and they’re just going out that I realize they’re hours and hours apart, but it’s like there’s less and less just Texas wasteland between them.

[00:54:57] Like there used to be Wasteland. 

[00:55:01] OG: It’s called Hill Country. Dude, settle down. It’s actually quite nice in Austin and San Antonio. A flatlander like me up here in Dallas. When you go down you go, wow. There’s like deposit. It’s so pretty. There’s, there’s hills, my goodness. Hiking. What is that? Reservoirs or Wasteland we could call, I’m sure that’s 

[00:55:17] Doug: where they filmed.

[00:55:18] Uh, mad Max, that area between Austin, Austin and New Braunfels. 

[00:55:24] OG: You throwing shade on the caves in New Braunfels though, that’s, it’s a cave situation down there is pretty cool. 

[00:55:30] Joe: Doug thinks it’s the American Outback. See? 

[00:55:33] OG: Pretty much. 

[00:55:33] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Well that’s a knife. All right. Least debt ridden city. Oh my goodness.

[00:55:38] Did you just make 

[00:55:39] Doug: a reference from 1984? Yeah. You said outback and there’s only two things you think of when you say, well, three things. Bloom and onions, bloom and onion, shrimp on the body. And now that’s a knife. Fosters, that’s not a knife. 

[00:55:52] Joe: No, this is a knife. Crocodile Dundee reference. Wow. I like it.

[00:55:55] Yeah, OGs even young enough, he has no idea what hell you’re talking about. 

[00:55:58] OG: Oh, I know who Crocodile Dundee is. Of course I do. 

[00:56:00] Joe: Alright guys. Uh, least obviously OG had it wrong. Get this guys. If you thought of the state least likely to have the least debt, it would be California, California, number one city in California with the least amount of debt.

[00:56:16] San Jose, California, 26702nd. Much more what we would think of. Hold on Louisville. 

[00:56:24] OG: Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on. Did you say the least amount of debt is $27,000? Non-mortgage debt per person, per capita. So basically even the best city is really bad. 

[00:56:38] Joe: That’s right. That is, that is true. Like 

[00:56:40] OG: there’s not a big difference.

[00:56:42] I gotta be honest, between having been in credit card debt before, there’s not a big difference between being 27,000 in debt and 44,000 in debt. I don’t, oh 

[00:56:49] Joe: geez. Like if you’re 27, why not go to 40? Let’s go to Austin. 

[00:56:52] OG: I mean, let’s just, let’s be, I wouldn’t be celebrating if I were you in San Jose. Ha ha. We only have 27,000.

[00:56:59] Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. 

[00:57:00] Joe: And San Jose, the average auto loans about 9,500 student loan, $5,000 credit card debt, 8,200. And then personal loans about 3000. 

[00:57:11] OG: I mean, the thing that San Jose has, obviously it’s the, it’s the economy, right? A lot of, a lot of tech jobs there and. Big money, but, Hmm. Well and 

[00:57:20] Joe: get this, this is funny, og.

[00:57:22] That is actually the big difference here. You know where I said that San Jose has 9,500 for their car. Austin, Texas 17 one. 

[00:57:31] Doug: Yeah. 

[00:57:32] Joe: Keeping up with the people at work. They’re all driving F three fifties that are lifted in Austin. Either that or, or you work for a tech company and you’re driving the the BMW to work, uh, student loan debt, 11 one versus only 5,000.

[00:57:47] But the credit card debt, $9,000 a credit card debt in Austin and 8,000 in San Jose. It is, yeah. Kind the same. Your car and your college. Hmm. But I wonder what the income difference is between the two cities. 

[00:58:03] OG: Oh yeah. ’cause they’re both heavily teched, insanely different. Probably. 

[00:58:06] Joe: So what’s the difference?

[00:58:07] You’ve got Silicon Valley, the old Silicon Valley and San Jose og. Mm-Hmm. And then you’ve got new Silicon Valley. Well, 

[00:58:13] OG: apparently the difference is car payments. 

[00:58:15] Joe: Car payments at student 

[00:58:16] Doug: loans. Mm-Hmm. I actually believe that Austin is more diverse in its economy than just tech. It absolutely has become a new tech destination.

[00:58:28] Uh, I don’t mean new tech, but you know, companies have moved there or New Tech has spawned there. But I think that place is so huge that that economy is far more diverse. And so I think that probably is driving it. It’s not just super rich tech bros. 

[00:58:43] Joe: The least non-mortgage debt, San Jose’s number one.

[00:58:46] Louisville makes more sense to me as number two. Milwaukee. Number three, smaller cities a little bit. Mm-Hmm. I, I would think more reasonable. Cost of living overall. Keep going. ’cause Fargo’s on that list somewhere. San Jose. I don’t get. Let’s go to, let’s go to the list. Uh, the top 10. Austin’s number one, San Antonio.

[00:59:05] Number two. Houston. Number three, Miami. Number four, Atlanta. Number five, Dallas. Number six, man. We get all the Texas cities in the top six. Woo 

[00:59:11] OG: hoo. 

[00:59:12] Joe: We’re number one. We’re number one. Orlando is number seven. DC number eight, Riverside, California, number nine, and Tampa Number 10. We go to the bottom. San Jose, number 50.

[00:59:27] These are the top 50 cities in the United States. 49. Louisville, 48, Milwaukee 47. San Francisco, 46, Seattle 45. Providence, the income. 44. Kansas City, 43 Detroit, Michigan, 42, New York, 41 Salt Lake City. Hmm. 

[00:59:47] OG: Well, either way, all these people are making a crap load of money or not making a crap load of money.

[00:59:52] And at the end of the day, everybody got the same amount of debt problems. It just goes to show you can’t out earn sh shoddy. Oh God. I almost said it, uh, habits, right? I mean, at the, it’s like, well, if I just, if I could just make a a hundred thousand dollars more, then my life would be great. No, we have all the evidence to suggest there’s a bunch of people doing that.

[01:00:12] There’s a bunch of people in San Jose that make a hundred thousand dollars more than the fine folks in Milwaukee. And guess what? They have the same credit card debt. 

[01:00:21] Doug: I’m, I’m gonna anticipate some stackers out there thinking, hold on, because I just got done listening to you guys a couple of Fridays ago, talk about how there’s only so much you can save and adjust your spending.

[01:00:33] It’s time to think about increasing your earning. 

[01:00:35] OG: Yeah. You definitely have to increase your earnings, but you have to have a system behind it. You can’t just keep on earning money without any good behavior. It’s like charitable giving. If you don’t give 5% of your income, when you make 10 grand, you’re not gonna give 5% of your income.

[01:00:48] When you make a hundred or 5% when you make 500, like nobody does that same thing of savings. If you don’t have the system, you’re screwed. 

[01:00:54] Joe: og. I think what you’re trying to say is making more money only makes a difference if you’re widening that gap between what you make and what you spend. 

[01:01:01] OG: If you have the same behavior and you keep on adding more fuel to the fire, you’re just gonna have a bigger fire.

[01:01:07] It’s like there’s not, you have to have a system around your saving and spending. If you’re just thinking, if I just made a little bit more money, life would be great. We have all the evidence to suggest that, you know, the fine folks in Milwaukee probably make 50 or a hundred thousand dollars less on average then the fine folks in San Jose and they have the same amount of debt.

[01:01:23] So you still have to have a good system, otherwise you’re screwed. 

[01:01:28] Joe: I love that making more money is just gasoline on the debt fire if you don’t know how to, how to control it. Which is why I’ve never 

[01:01:35] Doug: strived to make more 

[01:01:36] Joe: money. Never. That’s, that’s a reason to not even 

[01:01:38] Doug: try. Like what? It’s really self-preservation.

[01:01:41] Joe: Oh, this sounds horrible. 

[01:01:42] OG: A hard pass. I mean, it’s fun. It’s a bell of a bonfire. I mean, have you been to a bonfire where they start like going, yeah, we should put a car in there. Let’s see what happens, bro. 

[01:01:51] Joe: Well, I went to, I went to Michigan State. We’re good at that. Yeah, 

[01:01:54] OG: we won a basketball game. Light it on fire.

[01:01:57] We lost a basketball game. Light it on fire. 

[01:02:00] Joe: Light it on fire. We will dive more into this in our newsletter, the 2 0 1 tomorrow, where we dive into all the great topics that we talk about here on the show on a deeper level. Uh, the 2 0 1 is chockfull of links and resources for you to get ahead financially.

[01:02:15] It’s the natural one two punch behind the show. Stacky Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1 gets you there. Always free and, uh, always pretty brilliant. Kevin Bailey does a fantastic job of that. We’re so proud that he does such great work. Hey, uh, let’s transition over to the back porch, guys, because our HR guide is live Doug.

[01:02:35] It’s live. It’s live 

[01:02:39] Doug: like a Frankenstein thing. That’s right. Yes. Put some jumper cables on each side of the PDF document. 

[01:02:46] Joe: That is about what it took. ’cause I think we said it was gonna come out about a month before it actually came. We finally were like, oh, nobody got out the jumper cables to get this thing going.

[01:02:54] The average person changes jobs every 4.2 years. The government changes the game on you as well. I mean, when I started, uh, there was no HSA, there was no FSA, there was no Roth 401k. And if the government decides to leave it alone and you stay with the same company, you know who’s gonna mess with it? Your HR manager’s gonna mess with it.

[01:03:13] Oh, I think we can find something cheaper. Or maybe something quote better, whatever it is. We’ve got your back with the Stacking Benjamins. Read this before choosing your benefits guide, Stacking Benjamins dot com slash benefits. Check it out. I’m super, super excited about it and I know that you will be too when you, when you see what we’ve got for you.

[01:03:33] But if you’re not here for better benefits, you’re not here for, to find out that, uh, people in Austin, Texas have more debt than people in San Jose, you’re here because you need your plan to dovetail better than it has. OG and his team are taking clients so. Head to stacky Benjamins dot com slash OG to schedule a meeting now into 2025.

[01:03:56] Be one of the first to get on the calendar in 2025. You wanna make sure you do that now, stacky Benjamins dot com slash og. All right, that I think gentlemen is going to do it, man. Certainly episode today. Not just OG Saltiness, but Brad and Adrian. Adrian wasn’t that salty, but Brad can be a little salty.

[01:04:17] Choose your hard Doug if you wanna be the beast, you gotta do what the beast do. Do do the beast. Is that our big takeaway? No you don’t. Did I get that right? 

[01:04:29] Doug: Do it like the beast. Maybe. Awkward Doug. 

[01:04:33] Joe: Get us outta here quick. 

[01:04:35] Doug: So what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today? First, take some advice from Brad and Adrian.

[01:04:41] Maybe the best advice is a virtual slap in the head from someone you know who’s got your back. If you think you could be doing better, find that coach. Second. While geo arbitrage can help you control costs, so can just focusing on those things you value and only spending money on them, do both and your ahead even quicker.

[01:05:04] Let the big lesson. Don’t ask Joe’s mom about the Beatles. She says there were actually five different Beatles. Some guy named Pete to go along with the, uh, four Beatles. I think she said too many of her brownies. You know what I mean? Thanks to Brad Klontz and Adrie ELA for joining us today. You’ll find their books Start Thinking Rich.

[01:05:28] 21 Harsh Truths to Take You From Broke to Financial Freedom. Wherever books are sold. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. This show is the Property of SB podcasts LLC, copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Saul Sea High. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends.

[01:05:48] You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spot. Come say hello. Oh yeah. And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know.

[01:06:07] This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[01:07:10] Joe: Oh gee. Did you see the movie Brooklyn? Nope. No. Sleep down Brooklyn. Could you imagine? Doug? You saw Brooklyn, right? No. You never saw Brooklyn. Oh, what is it? Fantastic film about an Irish woman played by, I can never, uh, pronounce her name. Oh, Rama. Rama. The number of ways, well, let’s pull back there curtain for a second.

[01:07:36] The number of ways Doug figured out how to pronounce Adrian’s last name is Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. But remarkable. Her name was, uh, uh, she’s the Irish actress, Shiva show. Soy Ronan. Soy Ronan, yeah. Yes. Uh, she’s the main character in Oh, Brooklyn. This is 

[01:07:56] Doug: set in the fifties. She comes over on a, on a boat.

[01:07:59] Joe: Yes, I did see that movie. Yep. New movie by the same people that made that the same director, same group. We live in time. It has been a horrible year at the box office. Just not, not even a bad year. I mean, just horrible. I still feel like movie theaters are still reeling from, from Covid because Holy cow, had the movie been bad, like, 

[01:08:23] OG: seems like they just put all the energy into direct to consumer.

[01:08:27] Totally. You know, like if there’s gonna be a movie, it’s like, well, why, why try to tell this story in two hours? I can tell it in eight hours and I can get people to subscribe to Apple TV for two months to watch it. Yeah. Or 

[01:08:40] Joe: whatever. A hundred percent we can get them to get a pers prescription. A subscription.

[01:08:45] Get a, yeah. Uh, sir, I’m gonna diagnose you, uh, you need to binge everything on Netflix. In this movie, Andrew Garfield plays a guy who’s just coming out of a divorce. Florence Pugh. By the way, both of these actors were are Academy Award nominees, so you might know Andrew Garfield from He was one of the Spiderman.

[01:09:06] Spiderman, yeah. Florence Pugh. I had never seen in anything. She was in little women. Cheryl really liked that. She runs over Andrew with her car just after he signed his divorce papers. And it is the story of, uh, their life. You find out very early in the movie that she has cancer and so this is not like a happy Skip movie.

[01:09:28] It actually is happy in a lot of places. This is a story about these two people. It keeps going forward in time, back in time to show their relationship developing. Guys, this has been a bad year at the theater, but this was the movie I needed character driven. Fantastic story about the two of these people, them being in love them fighting.

[01:09:50] It’s a movie, much like Brooklyn Doug. You laugh, you cry. You’re like very, very tight film. Oh, it was great to finally go to the theater and see a good movie. We live in Time, Doug. I think you’d like it. Oh gee. I think you’d like it too. I think you’ll never see it. He’s like, oh, relationships, hard path.

[01:10:09] Disgruntled wife runs over husband with a car. I, he’s like too close to reality. No, no, no, no. That part he’s likes. But then he heard that they actually are in love and he’s like, oh, pass. Oh, wait a minute. Is there a bomb in the movie? No, no. I still wanna go see, I really wanna see what’s the one about them choosing the Pope.

[01:10:30] Doug: Oh, right. 

[01:10:32] Joe: It’s 

[01:10:32] Doug: not clerics. 

[01:10:33] Joe: It’s, I think it starts with a C Conclave and the Rotten Tomato score on that movie is off the charts. Of course, this is a problem with living in Texarkana. I gotta drive to Shreveport to see it. ’cause for some reason we decided you get to drive to Sh Shreveport to see it decided.

[01:10:48] I get to drive. Thank you. I gotta be more positive. I get the opportunity to drive ’cause cinema is stupid. Drive through 

[01:10:54] Doug: the wasteland from Texarkana. Sh.