Becoming Wealthy

Leverage: Bringing Wealth To Your Personal Life, Investments And Business

TWS 55 | Leverage And Wealth

 

What is leverage and why is it the secret to becoming wealthy? We hear that word very often in business, especially when talking about credit, but what we may not realize is that leverage refers to far more than just that. Patrick Donohoe takes a closer look at what leverage means to your personal life, investments and business. Learn why leverage is important for you to succeed in all three areas, how it is differently applied in each and how it is essentially the same core principle as a whole. Whether you’re looking to increase your investment portfolio, scale your business or simply live a fulfilling life, there is so much you can take away from this episode.

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Leverage: Bringing Wealth To Your Personal Life, Investments And Business

Thank you for tuning in. I am going to be covering a topic that’s been on my mind quite a bit. It is the topic of leverage and how leverage is the secret to becoming wealthy. I’m going to cover three areas of leverage. Personal leverage, investment leverage, and business leverage. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for your support. I hope you are doing well, finding opportunities, finding areas of your life that you’re happy about, and given the circumstances, are doing awesome. I wish that upon you. I have this new shirt Be Infinite. It is by my friend, Ken McElroy. If you like the shirt and design, it’s a great conversation starter. You can go to his website at KenMcElroy.com. You can also get a link that is in the resources section of the website, TheWealthStandard.com, and pick up your shirt. First, I’m going to riff quite a bit here. I have a couple of bullet points, but that’s it.

As I’ve had a lot of time, I take a walk every day. Typically, around midday around the city because there’s nobody here. I walk with my wife at night. It’s allowed me to think differently and think about some things. I don’t know if I would have otherwise had them cross my mind. A lot of it is because of podcasts and books. There’s lots of stuff that I’m trying to consume that inspire me and help me make progress in my life. The thing is, I look at the life that most people live and then I compare it to the billionaires of the world, whether it’s Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett. Ninety-percent of the life they live in is the same life we live in. Let me explain that. They don’t get special movies, music, or average entertainment. They watch the same movies. They listen to the same music. They have the same web browser and relatively inexpensive software at their disposal.

Oftentimes, we put ourselves outside of the realm of that caliber of person and especially as it’s measured in dollars, wealth, financial and economic wealth. We think our lives are different and they’re not. I look at an example. I heard where a wealthy person could drive a Ferrari or a Bugatti, at the same time, it’s impractical transportation. All that it is, it’s a signal of a person’s or it’s a representation of a person’s wealth that they want to wear on their sleeve. I look at the average car, a Ford F-150, Toyota, or a Honda Pilot, and the actual technology, comfort, and the economy of it are superior if you think about it from a practical standpoint to someone who’s wealthy.

In the end, I often think about, “What do I want? What lifestyle do I want to live in? What would make me happy?” I connected from a financial standpoint, those that do not have wealth, those that do not have money, it’s difficult to find happiness, even though it’s not impossible. I believe financial wealth is a big piece of it. From there on, it’s how much and why? That’s where it comes down to a definition of what type of lifestyle you want to live. For me, I’ve recognized in my life and I’m no different than anybody else that what I want is I want to have a feeling of financial wealth to the point where I don’t worry about money. I also pursue having energy, being fit, and being able to not have to worry about my body or feel something that detracts from physical experience.

Also, relationships and family, my children, wife, brothers, parents, and friends. Those relationships bring me tremendous happiness and fulfillment. When I focus on it and have the distractions of money and the distractions of pain or the lack of energy, they’re gone. I got to that point. As I look at the audience and I’ve thought through, what would be most valuable to you? That’s where I broke down, how to obtain leverage in your life to achieve financial wealth and in hopes that you too start to have the distractions associated, what gives life meaning removed? Let me get into it.

Personal Leverage

Personal leverage, I brought up on the show before and he’s been a guest, Craig Ballantyne. He has one of the simplest things to follow when it comes to organization. One thing I see with working with clients and talking with people is there is a significant amount of disorganization, whether it’s financial things, budget, income, and expenses, but also how a person structures their day, week, month, year, and overall, their life. There’s a day by day mentality. I believe that there are some things in your life that you can systematize. What that does is it allows you to retain the energy and time to be spent in the areas that make the biggest difference.

A big piece of personal leverage is to have your life organized. What I mean by that is to streamline systematize what you repetitively do. Craig Ballantyne, as I mentioned, The Perfect Day Formula. You can check out his program, read his book. It’s insanely inexpensive, especially relative to what it gives you. Having a structure for your day where you understand the priority and what’s to be accomplished when that is done, you don’t have to spend energy anticipating or energy, trying to figure things out it’s done for you.

There are some things in your life that you can systematize so that you can spend more energy and time in the areas that make the biggest difference. Click To Tweet

You set up days in a certain way where you’re organized and that organization becomes a structure in order for you to become more creative. That’s a big piece of what I see as personal leverage is being able to be in a creative space. Craig calls it magic time but being able to be in the most creative space because that is where all the money, all the wealth is usually created. It’s not created in the monotony. Monotony is something that human nature tries to systematize through technology innovation. That’s what we see all around us as far as the life we get to partake in and what I explained in the beginning as our lives, not being much different than the life of a billionaire because of the technologies, we are all able to enjoy regardless of status.

There are financial things, but the difference between someone that makes $100,000 a year and someone that makes $100 million a year, that’s what I’m referring to is what we partake of maybe at a lower level, is oddly similar to what the billionaire is able to enjoy. They may be able to have maybe a nicer home. Some don’t. They have an average home. Warren Buffett an average home and average car. They may travel a little bit differently, but for the most part, 90% of what we have access to is the exact same thing they have access to. It’s interesting to think about it from that standpoint, but what I’m referring to is, as you start to remove the monotony and the systems from your life, it puts you in this creative zone.

I believe all people are unique. All people have unique gifts. They have something to bring to the world but most people never discover it. I look at the level to get to when it comes to having your life and some of your financial matters organized. To get to the next level is leveraging those systems, the monotony, and the repetitiveness of your life. Systematizing that so that you can have more time, energy, and focus on the creative areas of life. Those creative areas I’ll get to those when I get into the business side of how to have leveraged both as someone who runs a business, but also someone that is a part of a business.

Hopefully, that makes sense for you. I’ll put a few more things here in regards to the personal side of things. Being strategic and being intentional about what you’re using social media for. I specifically do not use social media for social things. I use social media as a massive brainstorming mastermind group. I use it to be inspired, get ideas, see what people are reading, what they’re listening to, and for business purposes as well. You can strategically design it for that purpose. However, the lack of strategy is monotony. It’s the chaos and it takes a lot of time and energy away from you. Structuring social media is huge.

I would also say, taking advantage of the different software and different apps that are out there. People are using apps more for entertainment, not for productivity. When I look at productivity, there are many different ways in which you can use technology to ensure that your day is structured and you are anticipating or prepared the day before so that you optimize every single day, which will stack and allow you way more to be creative. From that creativity, you’re going to discover opportunities. Let me get into maybe a couple more things. Personal leverage relates to the direction our society is going when it comes to work.

My team, other than me, I come into this massive 20,000-square foot office and nobody is here but one person. My lease ends next year and we’re changing. There has been so much efficiency created in being able to operate remotely. We had a lot of the systems already. It was slightly different at the same time we’ve been able to cut expenses. We have a lot more productivity and we have a lot more happiness from the team. Where I’m going is going to be different than what I had anticipated. I believe a lot of the world is going in that direction.

The Wall Street Journal, there was a headline that said Google is essentially having their team and employees work remotely until the summer of 2021. I know it’s working for a lot of people. It may not be working for the company or business that you’re a part of. What this does is it presents an opportunity. From a leverage standpoint, when you look at a profession and how you’re earning income, what you’re doing, what you’re training is, your specialties, skillset, degrees, your experience, there are remote jobs. There are remote positions that allow you to live in an area. I love Utah. I grew up on the East Coasts. I liked the East Coast. I’m missing it because it’s the summer on Cape Cod where my parents live. I know it’s amazingly beautiful there, but it’s amazingly beautiful in the mountains the hiking. I sat there on my porch and like, “This is such a beautiful place.”

TWS 55 | Leverage And Wealth

Leverage And Wealth: As you start to remove the monotony from your life, it puts you in a creative zone.

 

If you don’t live in a place that you think is beautiful, that’s one thing. Your environment has an oddly interesting influence on your level of happiness and fulfillment, which is what I’m pointing toward is how to get there quicker. It’s leveraging that skillset to be able to work in an area and environment that is conducive to what you want. If you’re working or you have that position, it doesn’t mean that you have to pick a place and risk it and move there. You can try places out. That’s leverage. Leveraging what’s going on in the environment as far as professions and the workplace is concerned and where businesses are going. Be able to operate your life, income, and profession from a place that you enjoy the most. That’s another huge opportunity.

In general, which I dedicated a whole season but it is the idea of doing something that you like doing. If you’re working to earn money and a paycheck, I believe that drains energy and the output that you’re getting, which is your paycheck, is there’s a significant amount of input that goes into that. I look at the output from something that you love doing and enjoy doing and know that you’re making a difference. The input is much less than if it’s something that you do not like doing. Pay attention to that input and output, and what is going in. Not time, but also energy, happiness, and fulfillment. What goes to your profession, and then what you get out of it?

Think about it, what are some of the crazy professions that exist? You can be a YouTuber or a social media influencer. Nobody thought that would be a business. You also have video game people. You have professional video game leagues where people are on salary. It’s looking at all the different professions, all the jobs that exist out there. I believe that there’s something that aligns with who you are and what you like doing, as well as allows you to operate remotely so that you can be and live in a location that is conducive to an ideal lifestyle.

Investment Leverage

Let’s get to investment leverage because this is big. I look at our world and for those of you who went in and deep dove into the Richard Duncan interviews and try to understand Ray Dalio’s How The Economic Machine Works is starting to see how important debt is to our society? The expansion of debt is how we grow. The contraction of debt is how we go into recession and how asset prices go down? We can argue the morality and the principles of what is and what should be? At the same time, what is the debt-based system, and how we purchase assets? How we use leverage to do that is vital. I’ll discuss both leverages from a financing standpoint and I’ll talk about leverage when it comes to employing other professionals with your money so that they all operate and you don’t have to do much for money to grow.

The first thing is real estate. There is this belief out there that is perpetuated by some of the financial celebrities of getting out of debt. I believe that your lifestyle from a debt standpoint should not be leveraged. Lifestyle is something that doesn’t produce additional cashflow but there are assets that do. If there are assets that produce cashflow, this is when financial leverage helps to increase cashflow, but decreases your input specifically. What I mean by that is, you could buy an investment property, rental property. There are always times to do it. You have to be particular, choosy, but going in and buying a property in cash.

There isn’t a tremendous amount of leverage. There is no financial leverage there. When you provide financial leverage, let’s say it’s $100,000 property, and you have $100,000 in cash. Putting $100,000 and buying one property, and let’s say your net rental income is $500. Doing that, you essentially have a $6,000 net return every single year, a 6% return cashflow, or you can incorporate bank leverage. That’s what interesting is that banks don’t lend on many assets, but they do lend on real estate assets. If you bought a rental property for $100,000 and you have $100,000 in cash and you chose to get a $50,000 mortgage, maybe a couple $100 in payments, but you’re able to obtain two properties with $100,000 in cash that you have.

That’s the thing when you use that leverage, what you do is double the asset value. You also increase cashflow beyond what that $500 is. It may be more after you factor in the mortgage payments. What you also do is align your investment choice with where the economy is going and how monetary policy impacts the prices of assets. When you look at debt as the Federal Reserve Central Banks increase debt, increase the amount of leverage in society, it’s going to push all prices up, and that’s known as inflation. When you have a $50,000 mortgage, the value, the purchasing power of $50,000 is not going to be the same in the future, if that is the trend, as far as where the government is going. The $50,000 you’d pay that down in payments, but also the value of that $50,000 will be 2%, 3%, 4% less because of inflation.

Good business rhythm frees up energy and time for you and your team to operate in a zone of creativity. Click To Tweet

Additionally, the asset of a piece of real estate will go up in value. I did a little mini-course about real estate investment. What it does is it explains, and it shows the financial numbers and details of buying a house in cash and then buying a house with leverage. You can see the difference and see how it plays out over the course of time. That’s financial leverage. When it comes to investments, I’ve owned lots of rental properties for many years. I’ve been a landlord. I’ve had my wife be a landlord. We’ve had property management, which means you have to be the manager of the manager. There comes, I would say the ability to employ those that have syndication, those that are professionals have history and essentially, aggregate capital and go into much bigger deals.

Ken McElroy is someone that I’ve made quite a bit of investment in. He’s the one I mentioned on the show, as far as the shirt that I’m wearing. Kenny has a company called MC Companies and they have tens of thousands of units around the country. In order to get into those big apartment complexes, which are several tens of millions of dollars, they aggregate investor capital. By investing in those types of projects, I’m not a landlord. I don’t have to worry about property management. I don’t have to worry about the tenants. I am able to leverage the experience of someone that is way more knowledgeable of markets. Someone that’s more knowledgeable about values and that has played out well for me.

There are a lot of people that syndicate that raises money. They do not have a good reputation or experience. Sometimes it does go sideways. That’s where the importance of due diligence and understanding the person who is putting deals like that together is paramount. That’s a big responsibility on your part. At the same time, the effort that you put into that and as you start to understand the variables to make or break a business that will allow you to make one decision, and then you don’t have to essentially make decisions again, other than maybe do this deal or not do that deal. All of the backend work is taken care of. That’s another example of financial leverage. I’m going to summarize personal and financial leverage. The definition of leverage is doing more with the same or doing more with less. You’re able to have more progress and have a multidimensional aspect to the decisions that you make.

Business Leverage

The importance of doing that is you’re able to employ the minds, efforts, and experience of other people. As I talked about in the show about leadership, it gets into the business side of things, which is where we’re going. From a business standpoint, I’ve made a ton of errors in business more than I’ve ever admitted to the show. I’ve admitted a lot in the book that I wrote. Some of them are micro, tiny errors. I made some big errors, judgment in people, hiring the wrong people, holding onto people too long, as I said, tolerating behavior, and not wanting to confront difficult situations. It’s taught me some valuable lessons and there was a lot of pain. It was difficult at the moment at the same time it taught me that here’s what happened. Here’s why it was painful, and this is how to avoid that in the future and do something better.

I look at leadership principles, the creation of culture, being a part of a company or being a part of something that makes a difference, as well as its mission-driven, honesty, and integrity and the ethical factor is also vitally important. When you see that compromised, then that is something that you steer away from, whether that’s the head of a company or a boss. You want to pay attention to their principles. When you start to see unprincipled behavior in one aspect of their life, chances are it’s happening in the business, even though there may be some masking there. I look at the company and the business you choose to be a part of an understanding of their values and principles. If those align with your principles and values. That’s vital in order to have a healthy relationship.

What that does is it saves energy. It conserves energy allows energy to be focused in the best areas. If something’s going to happen to the company in the future, and you’ve spent all this time, all this effort there and eco sideways based off of something, that’s out of your control. You’ve got to go start over. It’s understanding that now so that you have a better perspective of how things are going to be in the future. Going back to the leadership idea, leadership is being able to operate as a team, a unit in order to achieve a certain end. Individual effort is one dimensional. There’s only one mind involved, but when you have two minds, you essentially have a third person or third entity if you will. You have 1, 2 people, and then the combination of two people into the collaboration exchange of ideas.

Being able to lead to operating in a team is something that we’re not taught? This is not something that schools teach. It’s something that I believe is necessary in the business world, whether you’re in management, you own, or you’re an entry-level employee. It is being able to hone in on the skills of what good leadership is and start to lead people, support, inspire, do good to them, and praise their work. There’s a number of ways to do it, but that’s a huge aspect of a business. I’ll go back to what I explained from a personal standpoint. In business, there are many things that are not systematized. They’re monotonous and repetitive, especially if you’re a business owner. If your employee time is spent there when either technology, a system or SOP, Standard Operating Procedures, what those do is it creates uniformity on the things that are mundane. It allows employees and people to operate in a more creative zone.

TWS 55 | Leverage And Wealth

Leverage And Wealth: We are a debt based system and how we purchase assets and how we use leverage to do that is vital.

 

It’s the establishment of systems and businesses that allow leverage. I would say technology and business are also paramount. I see far too often people operating their finances, operating their customers and leads on spreadsheets, and there are much waste and inefficiency with the energy that’s spent there. The reason why I’m explaining this as if you’re a business owner, establishing good business systems, business rhythm, and meeting rhythm. What that allows you to do is systematize the predictable. What that does is it frees up energy and time so that you can operate in a zone of creativity, which creates even more ideas. It aligns those ideas with what is even more valuable to customers and clients and provides them more value, which ultimately grows revenue, grows the business, etc.

Leveraging business too, I see as understanding individual strengths within a team, within a unit, and not having the same person in each of the roles on the team. It’s having different personalities, complementary roles based on whether it’s a personality, based on skillset, based on experience and natural abilities. That’s also vital. I look at a business owner and their responsibility to always obtain leverage, which is doing more with the same or less, but also, I would put the success of an employee and that might be you. You might be either role in the ability to identify points of leverage. When you’re able to identify ways in which something can be streamlined when you’re able to identify, how to do more with the same or do more with less, what that does is it starts to present opportunities.

You may be saying, “If I do that, they’re going to think I’m trying to take their job.” If those types of relationships or feelings exist in the business place, that’s a business that I would say does not align with the principles and values of a successful business. That puts that in question. Getting into bringing a good amount of energy, ideas, creativity to a business that’s where I’ll go back to the personal leverage. As you’re able to systematize your day, I look at people not being able to operate at full capacity for eight hours a day. I would estimate and I know there are studies that have been done here, where energy, focus, and commitment is maybe 4 or 5 hours a day at the most.

That’s where I look at being able to have personal leverage so that you have a structured and organized routine in your life so that you can have more energy and creativity zone. Being able to bring that to a business, allow you to make a difference. As you make a difference, you get more money both as a business owner and as a person that’s part of a business. The two are connected, the same principles of success apply. That comes to life in general. The opportunities for leverage are everywhere. If you can have that word at the top of your mind and have it as a lens that you slip over your eyes so that you can view your life, where you are, your business or the business that you operate in and find, leverage, find the ability to do more with the same or do more with less. I guarantee that those are the principles that are going to make you more money and put you in the position of achieving wealth and living an even more fulfilling life.

Thank you for tuning in. I hope you learned something, go out and create some value, go out and find some leverage. Head over to TheWealthStandard.com. There’s also our resources section that is stockfull of businesses, services, and programs that I’ve followed to create leverage in my life. I know that it would make a difference in yours. I hope you find those resources valuable. Thanks so much again. Thanks for the support. Head over to iTunes, if you feel compelled to provide a review that always helps. Thanks again. We’ll talk to you. See you.

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Facts And Fallacies On Becoming Wealthy with Dr. Greg S. Reid

TWS 5 | Fallacies On Becoming Wealthy

 

Dr. Greg S. Reid, the author of Wealth Made Easy, questions a lot of the ways in which he was taught about wealth and pursuing your purpose and dreams. Dr. Reid says that many of those are actually fallacies on becoming wealthy. He shares his understandings on wealth and success throughout the decade which he highlights in his book and reveals how he mastered his own business by seeing things from a different viewpoint. As he explains why he was not bought into network marketing, he stresses how people need to understand the value of things that are already considered invaluable and capitalize on them.

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Facts And Fallacies On Becoming Wealthy with Dr. Greg S. Reid

In this season where we are talking about entrepreneurship, I have no one better to talk about that subject than Dr. Greg S Reid. He is our guest. He is the author of the Think and Grow Rich series and the Founder of the Secret Knock event. He is the New York Times best-selling author of Three Feet from Gold, which he wrote with Sharon Lechter and also Thoughts Are Things, which he wrote with Bob Proctor and Stickability: The Power of Perseverance. His new book, Wealth Made Easy, is a big paradigm shift for Greg. I enjoyed the interview and you are going to as well. There are lots of counterintuitive ideas that we bring up in some of the discoveries that he made. He calls into question a lot of the ways in which he’s taught about wealth, pursuing your purpose and pursuing your dreams that may not be as true as you think. I’m going to provide some commentary, in addition to the interview itself, on some thoughts and things that I learned from the interviews. Make you head over to YouTube and search for The Wealth Standard Podcast. You should see our channel come up.

Greg, thank you for taking the time. You’ve got a lot of stuff going on. We’re blessed and grateful to have you on. I was thinking we start off with talking about your book but why don’t you to tell us about the movie you have coming out?

For people that don’t know me, I’ve been publishing about 78 books in 45 different languages. I did one a few years ago called Think and Grow Rich “Stickability”: The Power of Perseverance. I went to a café, I sat down and there was Frank Shankwitz. He started a nonprofit called Make-A-Wish. At the end of the interview, I go, “Frank, I got to know. What did you ask for?” He goes, “No one ever asked me.” I said, “I want to be the guy who grants your wish. What do you want?” He said, “I want my story to be told so my grandkids will know I did something.” It took several years and millions of dollars from a knucklehead that knows nothing about movies and we launch nationwide in theaters called Wish Man.

What’s the URL for that, so people can learn where it’s playing near them?

You can Google it anywhere. It’ll pop up. It’s WishManMovie.com.

My niece had cancer a few years ago. They did a whole thing. She went to Europe with my brother and his other kids because of Make-A-Wish. That’s an incredible foundation so to hear that story, that’s exciting. You being on the front lines to hear it all was a huge blessing.

It’s always the stories behind the story. You’re talking about the end result. People don’t know his story when he was twelve years old and abandoned and all the different stuff he has gone through his life. The whole moral of this movie is that everyone can be a hero. If a Florida cop with no money could do one act of kindness and have a ripple effect, we can give a homeless guy a pair of socks. We can do something to be a value to other people.

It’s interesting how life sometimes starts out with us being interested in ourselves. After self-interest and after what’s in it for us, it completely shifts to the true fulfillment and achievement comes from making the most difference in other people.

Where would we get a better kick from, getting a dollar an hour raise at work or watching your kid accomplish some great feat? We always get more energy and exhilaration from other people’s success. For some reason, we’re selfish animals. Some people get selfish behavior, like myself making this movie by granting other people’s wishes and doing stuff. It’s like a two-edged sword. I know we’re talking about one of my books, Wealth Made Easy.

TWS 5 | Fallacies On Becoming Wealthy

Wealth Made Easy: Millionaires and Billionaires Help You Crack the Code to Getting Rich

The most recent one and obviously, 78 is quite the feat. I had a question that may be transitioned from the movie to the book. I know the book is taking a different spin because the title is Wealth Made Easy. You can assume what it would be about. However, from what you discovered, there’s a lot of counter-intuitiveness to what wealthy is, what rich is and what those people think and do. That’s my first question is what is your understanding of wealth and success relative to what you’ve learned from this most recent project?

Out of all the books, I’ve written and every time I ever talked about wealth and money, 100% I was wrong. I’m going to be very clear. What this book did was it gave me a new paradigm where I saw things from a different perspective. What I did is I sat down with people who are $100 million to billions. I said, “How did you do it? I don’t care about what you’ve read or what you ate. What did you do?” I realized that I could sit with people for three hours and three days. At the end of it, I go, “What you’re saying is you did this.” I reduced it down to one page. They go back exactly it. I went, “Great.” I went to the next person and the next person. Everybody’s wealth path is one page long. If you want to know how oil works or the internet or something treasure to goldmine, this book delves into each category so the regular person would go, “That’s how it works,” and that’s what we did.

What’s the counter-intuitiveness of it? It sounds like everything’s changed for you. Your understanding of what success was and wealth was throughout a couple of decades now makes a massive shift in one book. How would you summarize that in a page?

I will do it in a little bit longer because you’re getting to the end of the story. If you’re watching a movie and you’ve got to sit for an hour and a half and you get to the end of it, that’s what we’re getting to right now. What’s interesting is I sat down with one multibillionaire. I asked him, “Why are you a billionaire and I’m not? I’m just as smart as you. I take as much action.” He looked at me and said, “That’s easy. The problem is that you believe all the lies that you spread to the world. You are the person who brings people down. You are the person who keeps everyone broke and we appreciate it. Would you do us a favor and continue that message? You’re the purveyor of the greatest lie that was ever told, ‘Go find your passion and the money will follow.’ Keep making more bumper stickers and t-shirts. We love when you tell people that.”

I looked at him and said, “What do you mean?” He pulled out a phone that had a meme on it. The one of mine says, “Follow your passion and not a paycheck.” He goes, “That’s why you’re broke. Here’s your problem. You’ll find a welder who works their whole life. They’re admirable. They retire with some money. They go to a Tony Robbins seminar. They get fired up and open a yogurt shop because it’s their passion. 95% of businesses that fail the first year isn’t because they’re not passionate or taking action. He’s a welder, not a yogurt guy. What’s cool? When they go under, it’s their baby. They’re passionate. They hold on so much, so long, they don’t let go. They pull their house, their car, and their boat. We come in and buy that for pennies on the dollar. God bless. Keep that momentum going.” I go, “What are you talking about?”

He goes, “We’re a game of Frogger. We ride a log. As soon as it dips, we jump to the next log. We can never go down with the ship. We don’t care. It’s business. We capitalize on all these opportunities and we get so much wealth, we use that money to finance our passion. You guys do it in reverse. We own the coliseums and the football teams that everyone following their passion have given their lives for a couple of million dollars out in the field. It’s such a different thing. The sheiks in the desert, the Getty’s, they have no passion for crude oil. Waste management has no passion for dirty diapers and rotten cheese. They aggregate dealers have no passion for building the freeways but they built every university, the ballet, the art and everything that you know and love. Stop your thinking and change the way you look at things.”

How have you identified their forte? Maybe you don’t call it passions, but strengths or their experiences because that makes sense.

The rabbit hole that you’re about to go down to is what I used to teach and that is incorrect. It is not that. Almost everyone fell into something, ask backward and they capitalize on it. What happens is this, “What if God in the universe was very generous? What if everything we ever asked for, everything we ever prayed for, was given to us but we didn’t like the packaging so we send it away?” The only thing billionaires do differently is they don’t mind the way it comes to them. Let me give an example. If I said to God, “I need $100, please. I’ll do anything for $100.” A pickup truck pulls up in front of my car and says, “I’m running late. Do me a favor. Get all these aluminum cans out off the back. You can take them and cash them in.” It’s worth $100. You go get those stinky things out. I prayed. I asked. It was delivered. I didn’t like the packaging. I send it on its way.

Successful people have reticular activator. They say, “Be careful what you ask for because you might get it.” They’re not so particular of how those are brought. How much passion did the guy who created the cardboard box or the trash bag have? All the things that the richest people in the world did, they didn’t have passion and talents but they saw an opportunity, a desire and a need that was gone unfulfilled. They stepped in and did something about it and they’re the people that we tell the stories about.

Start looking at what other people are doing and add your own spin to it rather than reinventing the wheel. Click To Tweet

Looking at their ability to see the world that way, wouldn’t you consider that a strength that is coming from the experience? It’s capitalizing on understanding what human behavior is. People are looking for solutions but also, people pursue their passions. They’re driven by their emotions. They don’t have those in check. Experiencing what made them successful, how have you taken that and started to master your own businesses?

My entire life has changed. It’s almost incomprehensible how much it has changed in that part. It’s interesting because I started seeing things from a different viewpoint. I’ve sat down with this other billionaire guy. I said the same thing, “Why are you building on that?” He goes, “It’s because you’ll see the same situation as we do, but you don’t have the wealth mindset.” I said, “Give me an example.” He says, “Here’s a guy that wants to buy a plane. There’s another that wants to sell a plane. If you’re such a nice guy, you’re going to put the two together.” I go, “Yeah.” H goes, “You’re an idiot. Here’s what we do. We are very clear in our intention. We go to the guy and say, ‘I understand you want to sell your plane. I don’t know anyone that wants to buy one but if I find someone, will you give me a 20% commission?’ He goes back, “Yeah. Get rid of this plane.” You go to the other person and say, “I don’t know anyone that wants to sell the plane but if I find you that, will you give me free airline tickets to Hawaii once a year?” He goes, “Yeah.” It’s the exact same action except one has a wealth mind and the other doesn’t.”

It’s like the broker of opportunity.

I can keep going back. 100% of every billionaire I met did not go into a passion-filled industry. They found an opportunity and they capitalize on it. The founder of Chick-fil-A, $1.4 billion, Truett Cathy. Before he died he goes, “I had those little tiny restaurant called The Dwarf. I had two seats on the thing. I have no idea of that making this chicken sandwich would go on.” It’s the same thing for the next person and the next person. No one sat there and said, “I’m the great mobile home park guru because I have so much passion for mobile homes.These are the people that are truly the wealthy people that have changed our environment and our surroundings. I say we put our guns down and start on what is possible around us. I’ll give you an example.

I have always turned down an industry called network marketing. I was probably the biggest anti-network marketing guy in my whole life. I was 54 and I was anti. I finally got a product. I started doing it. I crushed it. They send me whole barrels of money. I tell my friends. Now, I found a new organization and I became the president of it. I’m going to get behind it full force because I see an opportunity of something I was shooing away before. I also look back and go, “How many millions of dollars have I walked away from because I didn’t like the packaging in which it came?”

Why were you so afraid of that industry? What was the mental thing going on where you are not necessarily in or bought into network marketing?

I kept seeing the same result. People would start something and build it. The companies would have a sketch and they would shift it out. People have to go back and start over. I saw the way that the industry was run. It’s interesting, even in the movie industry. When I went into it, I go look, “I cannot change Hollywood. I know nothing about Hollywood nor can I change it, but I can change the distribution.” It’s the most powerful part, but no one’s even paying attention to it. My movie is the first one in the history of the world that I know of that closed the distribution that no one ever did. When we did books, it’s the same thing. Sharon Lechter and I took Three Feet from Gold. We did a joint venture deal with a company called Barnes & Noble bookstores where they published our book, the first one in history. We did a JV deal with them. Who’s got a bigger email list, Barnes & Noble or me? I realized that by using these leverage points, amazing things and opportunities would start coming our way.

What are some other actual things that readers would gain by understanding your new perspective or paradigm?

I’ll give an example. It’s the power of dirt. It’s interesting talking to Steiner, the guy who started Steiner Sports, all those sports memorabilia. They were selling shoes like Derek Jeter for $300 because everyone wanted an autograph. They realized when there was dirt on them and they were game-used, they could see it for $3,000. When they started tearing down the stadium, he would go and buy the dirt and all of a sudden, package it with pens and keychains and made I can’t even tell you how much money. While everyone else was throwing away and taking to the dump, one other person saw millions of dollars.

TWS 5 | Fallacies On Becoming Wealthy

Fallacies On Becoming Wealthy: Using accessible leverage points brings in more amazing opportunities.

 

That billionaire I interviewed, I said, “How did you make your billion dollars in the dirt?” He says, “Time plus land is money.” I go, “What do you mean?” All I do is look for a town that’s growing 25% a year. Go on Google maps. You can find it anywhere. I look for Broadway, Main Street. I draw a line out eight miles and I buy the dirt. I rent that dirt to farmers who pay the lease, so it’s free. I get vegetables. As the town continues to grow, it ends up on my plot. If I’m on Main Street, that’s what I sold to the big-box stores for 800 times what I paid the billion dollars.” Every one of these wealth hacks, you read and go like, “That’s how it works.”

Seeing the future, it is a skill set that has made a lot of people a lot of money. Where does that start?

You cannot see in the future, “I’m not going to buy into that. I’m sorry.” That’s for some of these people. Other people see an opportunity and they go for it. They have no idea. If this was true, it means my space should be the greatest success story of all time. That’s not true. What we do differently from visionaries is we’re like a quarterback. We never throw the football where the wide receiver is standing. We throw it downfield and let the wide receiver run to it. We call it being kind to your future self. What we do is an actionable step now that, down the road will have the success blueprint. If you go on my stuff, I would like the most popular kid in town and that’s awesome but people don’t see that a few years ago, I started winding up and throwing the football and now it’s all coming to me. The whole idea is that I’ve been throwing a football in the field for years. Coincidentally, they’re all coming down at the same time. It looks cool, but the real realities are there was a lot of preparation behind it.

Are you saying that a visionary is important? There are those that have those type of ideas that can see things that others don’t. Yet, if it was only them executing those ideas, you’d ultimately have different results than if you had others that were part of the team helping to execute.

Being first to market is an old brand type concept from the horse and buggy days. It’s not true. Right now, no one wants to be the first to market. That’s the kiss of death. If you look at even Amazon, how great it turned out when Alibaba came, it instantly is a success. They, being second to market, put all the working things that worked for them and put right to the jump to the front of the line. When you start seeing this being first to market, if you’re smart, you should start looking at what other people are doing in having some success or failure and adding your own spin to it, rather than reinvent the wheel.

Talk about your role with the movie. I’m assuming you haven’t made a movie before, but yet you had the idea. How did you pull that off?

I didn’t have an idea. Frank, the Founder of Make-A-Wish had the idea. That’s his dream. I sat there and said, “I will grant your wish.” That’s it.

Is it safe to say that you extracted the idea from him?

It was his idea. I asked him what his wish was. His wish was to have his story to be told into a movie. I granted that wish. What I did was I said, “Sign over your life rights. The only challenge is I have never made a movie, but I will make it happen.” I had no idea what I was doing. I got on the internet. I Googled people that won Oscars and people that make movies. I went and met with everyone. I ask, “How does the game work?” I duplicated those actions and here we are. Everyone lives in this. This is my one thing. When I want to be a best-selling author, I didn’t go to people who wrote great books. I don’t want to be a great writing author. I went to Barnes & Noble. I bought every best-selling book. I called those people and said, “How did you do that?” That’s who I sought counsel from.

The only thing billionaires do differently is they don't mind the way things they ask for comes to them. Click To Tweet

When I went to Africa and climbed the summit, Mount Kilimanjaro, I did not ask a dope-smoking surfer down here to take me up to the mountain. I found a surfer that had climbed it 900 times. Wherever they put their blueprint, I put my blueprint. I follow their successful actions. Compared to these guys, I’m insignificant. In my world, I had gone and 10X it in this last year by simply taking these same actions that they’ve taught me, but doing something crazy and applying it.

Let’s add in a couple of things. I know you have a ton going on. I appreciate your valuable time. What would you say regarding the idea that very wealthy and successful people are book readers? That they are always reading and always trying to get an idea. Is there any truth to that?

It’s an absolute and utter lie. If you’re back in the horse and buggy days and you lit your house with candles, it was probably true. You see all these lying memes too. These lying memes say, “Wealthy people have big libraries and poor people have big TVs.” It’s all lies. The whole thing it comes down to is people that consume information, there are the people that are the trendsetters and the successful people. For example, I’ve written more books than I’ve probably read. I read the information every day on my phone. I get news updates. I’m pretty knowledgeable and hanging out with scientists and all these amazing people. I realize that it’s the consumers of information that are successful. It doesn’t make a difference with the modality or the medium in which you get them.

What are you looking for in that information?

One of the people I interviewed was the Founder of Priceline. We do something called info-sponging. He was reading an article one time. It’s arbitrary information. He was talking about how fruits and vegetables go bad. Once they’re done, it’s a useless product. He was reading another one about the way of travel. When the airline closes the doors, you can’t fill that seat anymore. He says, “I got something here.” He put those two together. He took two completely different things, info-sponge and put them together. That’s what we do. We’re all buying Ebony magazine. Over here, I’ll buy a Latina Light. Over here, I’ll buy Science Today and over here is Discovery Magazine. I put all this information to my head, especially stuff I’m not knowledgeable about because now I have a little bit of it and maybe I can start seeing things a little bit different. All we know is all we know. If all we do is put the same content and information, then that’s all we’ll have access to.

What are you up to next? You have your movie. You said you had a few more books that were coming.

I did a book release. It’s called The Tokens, an international bestseller. The Wealth Made Easy is crushing it. Wealth Made Easy is my favorite book. If I could recommend one book, it would be that. After that, it’s Three Feet From Gold.

You told us that all the other books were lies. This one was the one that had your paradigm shift.

It’s when it comes to wealth. The other parts were talking about passion, success and a little bit of purposeful life. That part of it is true. What I thought it was important to make money is you follow your passion to a paycheck. That’s what I wrote. It’s not true. The passion part is still there. The purpose part is still there. The wealth part isn’t there. You might get rich but you won’t be wealthy. It’s two different things. I’ve got a book coming out with Sharon Lechter. She and I wrote a book called Three Feet from Gold. We got our follow up. It’s called Success and Something Greater.

TWS 5 | Fallacies On Becoming Wealthy

Fallacies On Becoming Wealthy: The medium of how information is acquired does not make any difference in attaining success. What matters are the consumers of information.

 

Napoleon Hill, right before he died, was going to write a book called Success and Something Greater and never got it done. He passed away. The foundation and the family gave Karen and me that title. We have Think and Grow Rich Success and Something Greater coming out, where we sat down with amazing humans. They would give their secret sauce towards a life of sustained abundance. That comes out on September 14th in Vegas for the event. On the 15th, I get a star on the Walk of Fame in Las Vegas in front of the Paris Hotel on the sidewalk. We got a book called The Mastermind Association and it’s at MastermindAssociation.com, where we’ll teach you how to run a Mastermind group. If I went down the list, it would be too much. Google Greg Reid, you’ll love it. You’ll laugh and you’ll cry. You’ll tell your friends.

Thank you again for all of your time. Hopefully, it’s intrigued and piqued the interest of our readers. Are there any final words?

You didn’t see this coming, did you?

I always look at life as a paradox. There are so many paradoxes in life where we think a certain way but it turned out to be the opposite.

That seems to be life’s journey right now is to keep going on this thing. I want to unlearn because there’s this thing called facts of fiction. We’re taught so many things as truth, but there’s no such thing as truth. This is what we believe to be true at the given time. At one time, the world was flat. That was a truth and a fact. There was a time when you can’t catch AIDS from a toilet seat and people believe that. There was a time that Pluto was a planet. It’s the stuff that we’ve been taught over the years. Just because it’s put into our head doesn’t mean it’s true. What I like to do is unlearn and learn from myself from truth and reality.

It sounds like there was a lot of unlearning in writing this book. It will be cool to see how that influences the other stuff that you’re doing.

Thanks for having me on.

Thanks, Greg.

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About Dr. Greg Reid

TWS 5 | Fallacies On Becoming WealthyDr. Greg Reid is a nationally renowned wealth and business expert, CEO and author of Wealth Made Easy. Dr. Reid is a world-renowned speaker, filmmaker, and entrepreneur known for his giving spirit and knack for translating complicated situations into simple, digestible concepts. He has published, coauthored, and been featured in more than 50 books, 28 bestsellers in 45 countries, five motion pictures, and featured in countless magazines. Dr. Reid demonstrates that the most valuable lessons we learn are also the easiest ones to apply. He is the Founder and CEO of the – Secret Knock, an exclusive event and professional collaboration community focused on partnership, networking, and business development. Secret Knock is strictly invite-only and includes well-known executives, entrepreneurs, artists, and professional athletes. It was named a “Can’t-Miss Conference for Entrepreneurs” by Forbes and Inc. Recently, Reid was hand-selected by The Napoleon Hill Foundation to help carry on the teaching found in the bible of personal achievement: Think and Grow Rich.

 

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