Transcript of Money Habits, Not Money Problems | Kayla Bailey | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby Ep. 312

1, 2, 3! So nice to meet you!

So nice to meet you, Alyssa!

Nice to meet you, Alyssa.

Thank you for being here. I'm excited to hear all that you have to share with us today.

Thank you, thank you for having me. I'm excited.

You know, I have a question for you.

Yes.

So before World War III, I want to make the most money I could possibly make. What do you recommend? Gold, crypto, or rollercoaster?

All of the above. A little of each.

Okay.

And hopefully some more secured fixed assets that will actually create a guarantee for you.

I actually want to talk to you a lot more.

Yeah.

On the podcast.

I would love that.

Let's get, let's get to this contact. Yes. Let's do it. I would love that. Absolutely. Okay. What can I get you though for our podcast today?

Ooh, um, well, I see you have some beverages back there. I do.

I have matcha.

Oh yes, matcha.

Matcha, that's my drink. So perfect. I'm gonna get that for you. What kind of milk do you like?

Um, oat milk if you have that.

Perfect, I love that. Okay, I got you.

Do you guys have espresso also?

I do have espresso. I can get a shot in there for you.

That would be great. Okay, that's the magic recipe.

Let's get it for you. Now while I'm making that, I'm going to ask you to choose a beautiful chocolate from our assortment here.

Wow.

And please have a bite while I make that. Okay.

Oh my gosh, okay, what do we got here? Sea salt almonds.

You can wash it down with your matcha. I'm gonna take this for you and bring you over to Joe.

What's up everyone, welcome to another episode of Koffees. I'm your host Joe Shelby, and today we are joined by Kayla Bailey, serial entrepreneur, financial literacy wizard and a mentor to many, as well as someone who is changing the game with your finances. Please welcome the one, the only, Kayla Bailey.

Hi.

Hello, Kayla. Thank you so much for joining today's show.

Thank you for having me.

Kayla, I like this— I like to start on this. Did you meet our beautiful barista here?

I did. Thank you so much for the amazing matcha. Absolutely.

How's your water?

Your matcha's going Yes, exactly what I needed.

Perfect. Joe, your coffee's hot enough for you?

I think so. Yeah, perfect.

Perfect. Just let me know if you need any refills. I'm happy to grab it for you. Perfect.

Thanks, Alyssa.

No worries.

Kayla, I know you were a health coach at one point, so I know you probably got this dialed. What is your morning routine?

Oh yes, this I definitely have dialed. Well, first thing when I wake up in the morning, I tell myself that today is going to be a great day, and then I usually start my every morning when I have those deep sleep brainwaves still going on in a meditation. That's the first thing I do at the start of my day is set the pace for how I want the rest of my day to go. And right now I'm doing a lot of Joe Dispenza's work. So I've been doing a lot of his meditations, 23-minute morning meditation. And then I do a visualization for how I do want my day to go, like my most ideal, optimal, like literally visualizing every part of my day. And then I take my dog for a walk, and then I come back and I make a matcha oat milk latte, and then I start my day and I go into meetings. So that's pretty much every day unless I'm getting up and coming to a podcast, then it might be a little bit different.

But you do a lot of podcasting?

Um, yeah, you know, here and there, but there's always events and different things going on, so not every day looks the same. You know, some days I'm catching flights and I'm going overseas and traveling all over the country doing events and networking things and all different kinds of stuff. So not every day is the same, but on the days that they are, that's what it looks like every morning.

Now, you coined the term the 5 Fs: faith, family, fitness, finances, and food. Yeah, run me through that.

Um, I don't know if I coined that. I feel like that already existed, so I won't take credit for that. Um, but you know, being in the health and fitness industry for so long, And working with so many different people on their struggles, I think what I ultimately realized was that at the core of everything, and the reason why a lot of people don't get results in life is because they don't have balance. And so there's all— we have all these different categories in our lives, right? Like relationships and our faith and our spirituality and finances. And there's so many different areas. And usually we're only focused on one or two of them. And we constantly have this like incoherence, right? And I'm a true believer that when you're in alignment and when you have balance in your life, you're able to attract attract and manifest a lot more into your life. And so I focus on each one of these areas on my platform, with my team, with my people, on truly creating balance within your own life in all of these areas. It's not just about being really great at money. You might be really great at making it, but maybe you're neglecting your faith, and you're going to feel that in your body and in your mind.

And I think balance is what it really boils down to.

You know, faith to me is integral in every other one of those aspects, right? So it pours over into your finances, it pours over into your family. For me, you know, I got 4 kids. Faith is paramount to raising children.

Yes.

Especially in this society, this day and age. I want to talk about you coming to Canada on a dream. You know, you came to Canada— you coming to LA on a dream. You came from Canada and, you know, you just basically had a dream that you were gonna make it? Did you come to be an actress? Did you come to be, you know, a financial literacy expert?

It's funny because when I was a kid, like very young, I remember visiting Los Angeles with my parents. We would drive out here from Calgary, Canada, like a 24-hour drive. We did that like 3 times, and I remember being here with my mom when I was 14 and walking across Rodeo Drive with her and telling her, "Mom, I'm gonna live here one day." Like, this was my dream for as long as I can remember, just to be here. And I truly feel that your location, a lot of what happens in your life and a lot of what comes to fruition in your life is based on your location. Absolutely. Who you're surrounded by, the type of environments that you're able and the opportunities you're able to access. And so maybe I realized that really young as a kid that my heart was always here. But when I came here, I was actually hired by a tech company to help them develop a platform. I also came here for love. So I came initially for that. And I worked on that tech platform for about 2 years, but then realized that deep in my heart, I'm an entrepreneur.

And I don't want to build somebody else's dream. I want to build my own. And started talking to friends. And Marshall Falk was one of those friends who inevitably would have led me to where I'm at now in the financial space, which truthfully, I never saw myself doing, if I'm being totally frank. But after learning a lot more about it and seeing the kind of impact that our company makes and what we truly do for people to help them change their lives around financial literacy, that's what really mattered to me, was making an impact in people's lives. And in this industry, I've really been able to do that, not just in other people's lives, but in my own as well, and being able to shape my own leadership and development of people as well. So, like, everything that I've learned up to this point, I've been able to channel into this industry, and it's been, incredibly fulfilling.

So I love that. Uh, tell the audience what you do currently with your current business and how it's helping impact various entrepreneurs by integrating your current ecosystem into their, their existing models.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I mean, that's a broad question and it goes so deep, but we work with all different kinds of people. So we work with the everyday person that was never taught about money. Like, we were not taught in school. There was, there was never a course for most people. And I've talked to to thousands of people at this point, thousands, and individual conversations. And I always ask people the same question: Did you ever learn anything about personal finance in school? And 99.9% of people say no, unless they went to a private school and they happened to choose that as an elective. But for the most part, people don't learn that. And so our company works with everyday people, the other 97% of America that these big banks are not servicing, to help them learn how money works. And then we also to partner with individuals and with business owners like people in mortgage, in real estate, in tax, the tax world, in all these different worlds to kind of help create an all-encompassing picture and help them also drive more profits to their business. Estate planners, all these different things that the financial services industry really coincides or kind of parallels really nicely to.

And also businesses and industries that you'd never expect, like Marshall coming from the sports world has really been able to tap into what do and help his audience with money and finances and basically creating another stream of income. And I believe that, you know, the wealthy, they understand that multiple streams of income are— is truly the way to build wealth.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You know, I'm on a quest now, even up until the moment you walked in, like helping my kids understand money. And I've been successful at doing that through like sports cards or trading cards, you know, Pokémon, like, because my kids are small, so that they're able to understand, you know, buying it low, selling it high, grading it. And so they've already have a solid gist. And now my older son, he's 11, he's like reading charts, but they're charts on cards, but they're the same charts as like stock charts. So, so it's a, it's a fun way for kids to understand financial literacy and for like parents to kind of be involved. In that process with them. And it's, it's an exciting time for kids to get involved and enjoy something that relates to money.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I have people ask me all the time, they're like, do you guys do anything for kids? And, and I truly believe that when you teach the parents, then they pass those habits, the, the understanding. I mean, money has rules, right? When you understand how it actually operates, when you understand those rules, then you can teach your kids that information. So it directly passes on to the next generation and then generations to come after that. But I would love to work more with kids and help them understand. But yeah, I love that you're doing that in like fun ways that they can relate to.

Yeah, yeah, I have— I get it. So I have, uh, 4 kids. I have a 12-year-old, 11-year-old, 5-year-old— a 6-year-old and a 5-year-old. And like, for my, my youngest daughter, we do Disney cards, but they have— they have like crazy value, like thousands of dollars. Oh my God, she's understanding like magnitude, you know, of money is exchanged. Yeah, so So it's, it's fun and it's exciting because, you know, we get to integrate Disney, which we get to go to Disney together and we get to like understand all the characters and why they're more expensive than, you know, whatever. So it is, it is fun, especially when I teach like the youngest ones. They're the most excited.

Yeah, especially when you're incorporating something they can relate to and something they enjoy.

Disney Princess Elsa, she's worth a lot of money. She's worth a lot of money.

That's an expensive one. Yeah, that's an expensive one. She has expensive taste.

Yeah, she's a princess.

Disney do this when they put a price on it. They're like, oh, this one's popular right now. We're gonna put a price on that one. Exactly. Maybe we'll make her watch some of the other ones a little bit more, like the Pocahontas. Maybe that one's a more affordable card.

You just put me on to Disney cards for my daughter.

Oh yeah, Disney Lorcana. It's no idea, it's crazy. Yeah, I'll turn you on. I have, you know, someone dropping some off today. I'm spending like 3 grand in like an hour.

Oh my gosh, that's too funny. That's cool though. Hopefully they're like, you know, I think when I was a kid I was I would collect those T.Y. Beanie Babies thinking they were gonna—

did you ever?

Yeah, those like Beanie Babies.

Those probably still have value. The collector economy has shifted so much.

Not like Pokémon cards though.

Yeah, no, no. Pokémon has like a $50 billion market cap.

Oh my God, it's insane. Yeah, it's crazy. Some of these collectibles and things, but—

It's a whole new wave of an economy that's just kind of hitting right now really, really hard. Yeah. And it's causing a big stir. Matter of fact, even for you financially with your kids, you mean? Yeah, for me, I'm like a big kid. Yeah, I'm like looking at this like I'm about to spend $3,000 on Disney cards in a little bit here. They're like 12 cards. But then if they all grade 10s, that's— I just converted that 3 grand into 20.

Yeah. So there's a real return on those. They have—

in addition to that, they're rising. So they're going up at like 6 to 10% a month.

Wow. Really? Yeah. Wow, I need to look into Disney cards. Disney, I never— I didn't know.

Over the last 3 months went up 180%, outperformed.

What? Yeah, that's like outperforming everything and everything else went up 40.

And the 4— Pokémon went up 40, unfortunately. S&P only went up 11. Yeah, in the last 3 months.

That's pretty standard. Over the last 100 years, it's at about 10%.

Kevin O'Leary has been a big advocate of sports cards buying, and he's been You know, kind of still like thing.

I feel like that's a very niche—

no, no, no, it's, it's pretty public. I mean, he's, he, he talks about it openly all the time.

Wow. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, there's a good return on it.

Yeah, he's like, but he buys like million-dollar cards and they go up, you know. He'll talk about certain cards that went up to $2 million, you know.

Wow.

Over 6 months. So he's—

I can't imagine the insurance he has on all of those.

Yeah, I don't even know where to keep a million-dollar card in a really secure safe somewhere that is not in your home. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm not there yet, nor my kids, but by the time they're 21, they'll have a pretty big nest egg.

That is so cool.

I love that. Just something to think about since you're in the money space.

And yeah, that's cool. Thank you for that. I'm going to look into this after.

It's a true asset class now. Now, what's— what do you think that the biggest lie is that people believe about about becoming wealthy?

That's a good question. That you don't have any problems. I think, um, it doesn't matter where or how much money you have, you're always going to have problems. And being someone that has come from having no money to having a lot of money and then back to having no money and having more money, it— wherever I'm at in different phases of my life, I still have problems. Yeah, you know, and just because you have a lot of money— having a lot of money will solve your survival issues and the survival stress that you have, but it doesn't mean you're not still going to have stress in your life. You just have a different kind of stress about different things.

I would argue more money is more stress sometimes.

It can be, yeah. I think it's— I think it's your, you know, your mindset where you choose to push— put your energy, and, um, it can definitely— it creates different kinds of problems. And depending on the industries that you're in, the type of businesses that you're in, then you might have like lawsuits and things like that. That's whole other layer of stress that people that don't have money, they don't even think about that. They don't think about employer lawsuits.

And yeah, we're dealing with that now. I mean, I'm a CEO of a big company, and you know, we're just a target for people because—

yes, because you have money. Yeah, yeah.

And it sucks, actually. It's annoying. But thank God I'm just the face of the company and my partner deals with all the drama.

Yeah, well, that's nice. So you don't have to worry about those stressors.

Yeah, meanwhile, I'm here right now and he's in an active trial. So listen, you chose right.

It's like marriage. Like, having a business partner is like a marriage.

Like, it truly is.

I know what I don't want to do in this relationship, and it's lawsuits. Like, I don't want to deal with that.

It sucks. Being a CEO of a big company sucks. It does. Yeah.

Like, but it's bittersweet, right? There's always pros and cons to everything. And I like to say it's choose your hard. Yeah. You know, choose your hard.

I take it with a grain of salt. I think it's easy for me. Like, I'm like, nothing can impact me, like, or my mood. I'm always chirpy. I'm always happy.

I'm like What do you do to maintain that?

Um, you know, I always look at like God has bestowed such a wonderful life upon me. Like, he's given me everything I ever wanted outside of getting divorced. I'm like, I got 4 beautiful children, I got a life I would have never dreamed of. I came from, you know, third world part of Africa. Here I am in America, in Newport Beach. So I'm from like the poor parts of the slums of Egypt, and now I'm living in like the nicest part of the country. Wow. So, you know, and I don't need much more, you know. I don't need a big fancy car. I don't fly private. I mean, like, so like I still maintain that same mindset that I had when I was poor. So like I have everything I want outside of really— I don't have a million-dollar sports card, you know.

Do you want that?

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm gonna— I'll get there.

You will.

I'll keep trading up, you know.

Like, there you go.

My cards keep going up and then you trade. It's a trading thing, you know. So yeah, my 11-year-old son will get us there, you know. He'll trade his way up to it.

The next generation.

Yeah, he'll get us there. Yeah, he's a hustler, you know. He knows how to grind his way up to the top. So you've taught him. Yeah, yeah. So, oh yeah, so I got these kids grinding and they'll figure it out. But I don't have— I don't need much, and I have a simple life. Yeah, I live in houses in Newport and stuff, but that, like, the, the reality is I'm so blessed beyond measure that I could never be sad, and nothing could really take that away from me. And if it— if something happened— and I, I had, uh, here, um, one of the Gracie members on my family, uh, one of the Gracie members, um, here on Gracie, on my podcast, and he said something that really was thought-provoking for me. He's like, everything's gonna be okay. Something jiu-jitsu taught. All the Gracies have this mindset, and they learn it through jiu-jitsu. And I kind of like really have manifested this in my life. It's like, it doesn't matter, everything's still gonna be okay.

Yeah.

So when you're in like a leg lock or you're, you know, whatever, it's like, you're still— you're not dead. You're not dead.

You're not—

your arm might be broken, but you're still gonna be all right.

But that's, I think, the mindset of being— honestly, and I think this has helped me a lot, um, being an immigrant. And coming from somewhere else and having limited—

But you're from Canada. It's kind of like the US.

Yes, but still, I think the, you know, the battle of moving to this country and not having anybody and having no credit score, being basically an infant in my 30s, right, to the financial system and not knowing anybody, having no plan B, having no one to lean on like you. And also like where I grew up in Canada, I think people have this perception of Canada like it's it's perfect and it's amazing and there's nothing wrong with it. It still has problems. And I—

like, the drug problem is real there. Lots and lots of drug usage.

Yeah, drugs, alcohol. There's a lot of substance abuse. And, um, we also have, like, um, you know, we have people that come from all over the world. Like, we are truly a melting pot everywhere in Canada. So it's, it's a huge melting pot. And you see a lot of people really struggling because they move from other countries and they come here and they, they're like— they were— maybe they were doctors in another country, But here they come to Canada and they have nothing. They have nothing. They lose their— then they're driving an Uber and they're trying to start from scratch. And you're really observing all these different people in their struggles. And there's— there really is a lot of poverty there and not a lot of opportunity. And so, um, I think ultimately America is— it's amazing. I love this country and I'm so grateful to be here. I'm so grateful to be able to make an impact in America and still do that in Canada as well. And, um, there's just so many opportunities here. And I think when you're not from come here, it allows you to actually see that and really experience it and be grateful for it.

Like, I had to fight to be here. I had to earn my way into this country, and most people are just born into it, and so they take everything for granted that was just handed to them. Yeah, you know, like a rich kid born into wealth and they end up doing nothing with their life. Like, that's the classic story of a trust fund kid, you know. I think it's the same thing with a lot of people born in America. They didn't fight to be here, they didn't ask to be here, um, and so they don't really have the gratitude and the appreciation for what they have, and they've also never experienced any other way of living. But when you come from, you know, Africa, or you come from somewhere else and you've truly experienced and witnessed struggle and poverty, you have a really different perspective and a deep-found gratitude for what you have here. And I, I definitely have that, and it's helped me a lot.

Yeah. And that's hard. I mean, it's not that it's hard to teach, it's, it's impossible to teach that. It— so I struggle with my kids teaching them that level of gratitude because they were born in Newport Beach, and they, they have a hard time leaving Newport Beach. Yeah, you know, like, they're like, oh, I don't even want to go to the neighboring city.

Oh wow.

So if I take them to Long Beach, they're like, what is this? Shocked, right? Um, yeah. So I, you know, instilling that, instilling that mindset, you know.

It's so true.

How about you? Your kids in Huntington?

Yeah, it's really funny. Yes, but we were born in the San Fernando Valley, so in the valley, that place is rough.

Yeah, that place is rough.

Actually quite a bit. We even lived on a sailboat for like 2 years, me and my daughter. Uh, yeah, single mom, so I, I can relate to the struggle. It's real.

Yeah, yeah.

But that was really funny. Yeah, I mean, it is kind of shocking though. It's gone down.

It's good for them to have those experiences though. And like, I would take them— if it was me as a parent, I would take them even further outside of their comfort zone. Like, more people in this country need to travel. Like, so many people that live here, they don't go anywhere to experience anything else to actually make you be truly grateful, profoundly grateful for what you have, but like, take them to frickin' Africa and show them what real poverty really is.

You know, I grew up, when I came to the US, we moved to the Valley, first place, so that was the first place we moved to, and then we, as we, you know, started to make more money, we ended up in Bellflower. Now Bellflower, Compton, Paramount, Downey, we moved to, no, we moved to Downey. I was like the only white guy in the whole city.

Wow.

So anyways, I grew up at a— in the Egyptian— Egyptian— in the Egyptian community. I was the only white guy in the entire community, so I got made fun of for being the white guy, even though like I'm Egyptian, but I just was born white, you know? Like, it's not my fault.

I swear I'm not actually white. It's not my fault.

That's how God made me. I'm a white dude. So when you move you moved from Canada to the, to the US, what did you leave behind in Canada, and what hurt the most to leave Canada?

You know, initially nothing hurt to leave because I wanted out of there so bad. And I know that might sound like shocking to hear that, but nothing really hurt to leave because I wanted to leave so badly.

I was always so blinded by love.

That was part of it. And I think initially I was just so hungry to grow And I felt like, you know, Calgary was this container. And God bless Calgary, I love going back there and I love visiting there now, and I love spending time with my family. But I'm in and I'm out, because when I was there, I felt very, um, just like I was bigger than the container could hold me. And there was only so much opportunity, and the mindset of the people was very narrow and small, small thinking, very little dreams. And for the most part, not everybody, but for the most part, it's very limited mindset thinking. And so when I left, and I've lived in a lot of other cities. LA was not the first city. I've lived in Miami for a bit.

You're in Sherman Oaks now.

I'm in Sherman Oaks now, but I lived in Miami for a bit. I lived in New York for a bit. I lived in Tulum during COVID I really follow where my heart calls me to be.

Your partners are here, right? David Meltzer's here.

David Meltzer and Hannah, and Marshall's actually in San Diego and Baton Rouge now that he's coaching out there.

He's coaching college football, right?

Yeah, university. Yeah, university.

I—

college, university, I don't know anything about sports. I'm not even gonna try to pretend like I do. Um, but yeah, he's coaching.

He's a great spot too.

La Jolla. Yeah, La Jolla is beautiful. I love it. Um, a little slow for me though, a little sleepy. Yeah, too slow. I need like the action. And I think being closer to like LA, we get all these random events. Like I, I got invited two nights ago, like spur of the moment, to go to this networking event. And I'm sitting at this dinner with all these wonderful business owners, and you You don't get opportunities like that in Calgary, spur of the moment, any day of the week. And I don't know if you do in Newport either. Like, I've never really experienced that.

We have all the same masterminds, but yeah, if you're gonna go to like a masterminds or an outing or a luncheon or something like that, you know, we have them in Newport, we have them in Irvine, we have them in— I go to LA for Meltzer stuff. I love networking, right? Because I got a podcast, I gotta meet all types of cool people.

I just love people.

Yeah.

And I love like picking people's brains and getting to know them and asking them a million questions. And you know, like, what is life? Life. Like, we're supposed to connect with one another, and I love how many opportunities the city presents to do that in the most unique ways. And it's— yes, a constant experience of just meeting new people, and I love it. But I do like Newport. Um, the other place I've been considering is, um, Key West in Florida. There's so many people out there.

I'd love to visit that with my kids.

Yeah, it's— I mean, I've never actually been to Key West, but lately it seems like a lot of the referral partners specifically that I'm partnering with that have, you know, big businesses in real estate development or the tax business, um, like we were talking about Julio earlier, um, they have places there. They all have places there. And I'm like, wow, you know, like that says something. Like I've never experienced it. And the culture for me and the ethos of a place and the environment really matters.

Like, you know, you have to have beautiful scenery, beautiful weather, but also beautiful people with good intentions and good hearts and good intentions.

And I think here in LA I have a really good core and foundation of like friends that I align with so deeply on a deeper level, on like a spiritual level, on a heart-centered level, in a heart place level. And it's really hard to find people like that in especially money-motivated places. Um, and I feel like Newport's like, it's a little bit flashy, you know. And so people sometimes in those places, they have the wrong priorities where they're prioritizing things that are material and not necessarily impact. And I really just want to connect with a lot of people that really care about making an impact and doing something with the time that they have.

At what point did you realize you weren't just building a career, you were building something completely different, a completely new life?

I think when I stopped making it about money and shifted my focus to like, what do I actually want to do with the time that I have on this planet? And that, that probably wasn't that long ago, honestly, when I shifted out of money and it being about survival to being about what do I actually want my life to look like and how do I want to impact people and How do I want to design my life? And that was probably only a few years ago. And truthfully, like, the company that I'm working in now has really helped pull that out of me and like why I'm doing what I'm doing. Because underneath the money, money is just a tool to get to the outcome. It's not the goal. Um, but underneath of the money, there's always a why. And this company really helped pull that out of me and extract like my why, like my really deep meaningful reason why I'm even making all this money and why I want to make a lot of money. Um, so I would say not that long ago, probably like 3 years ago. Not that long ago.

Now you get to work with some of the smartest people. What have you noticed as a trend for intelligent people making stupid decisions? Why do they do it still, even though they know better?

I think it's just human impulse, honestly. Like, it's our flawed human design that We want quick hits of adrenaline, and we are still addicted to the same things, which are adrenaline and oxytocin and dopamine. And even when you have a lot of wealth, you still— like, you're still dealing with problems like we discussed earlier, and everyone has a different Band-Aid, immediate impulsive solution for that. And some people, they also just don't have the education. And just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you know what to do with it. And I meet a lot of very successful people that are are, you know, they've created successful careers and they make a lot of money, and they just downright make stupid decisions because they, they don't know any different. And no one's ever had the conversation with them, just like financial literacy, to help them understand, like, that you can do something different with this money and that you don't have to spend it on these useless things. But everyone's motivated by, by different things and, and wants slightly different things, you know, materialistically. They want slightly different things. Most of the time they're doing it for ego.

They want to flex, they want to look a certain way. They— and at the end of the day, at the root of all of that is truly just, you know, a want, a desire to be acknowledged and seen and loved truly. But they don't realize that. They don't know that. They're not doing the deep work and they're also not learning about money. They're just making it. It's coming in and they're just spending it all. They make all kinds of stupid decisions with money.

But Kayla, I have a question for you. What is the stupidest thing you think rich people buy?

Oh, honestly, I don't know if it's a buy, but I see a lot of rich people gambling, like gambling at the casino and literally just throwing away so much money on this, like, addiction. Like, I see a lot of that. Um, and honestly, it's all— it's truly, it's in the little things. Like, and I think we even do it. Like, doesn't matter how much money you have, it's all these things that you're not consciously aware of that are just running in the background. Like, subscriptions and your credit card on all these different platforms. And rich people do that too. They just do it on a way bigger scale of like Amazon, Amazon, Amazon, like packages at the door. I'm like, stop, like disconnect from Amazon. Like even when you're super wealthy, you're like carelessly throwing money away at nothing. Like you're never gonna remember all these stupid gadgets you bought. Like, yes, it's like the immediate hit of I need this right now and everything is just so quick and easy now.

That's why I pivoted to buying cards and Because they're harder. Is that you? Because I want— if I get the dopamine hit.

Yeah.

But I'm investing it, you know, and it's going up in value. It's kind of like buying Bitcoin, but it's way more fun, and I get to do it with my kids.

That's so fun though. I mean, I love that you're getting your kids into that. There's a— there's another, um, I don't know if they work. I know when some of the schools are doing this, they have like a, like a fake trading platform for kids where you can like become a like stock trader on it, but it's fake. You're trading like fake money. But that's a really cool thing to do with them as well, is like get them in the practice of like, you know, that things accumulate in value, that you are buying an asset, so grow money on that asset. Like, just that concept alone is—

it's a powerful thing. And, you know, I'm gonna again use the card. So the card trading platforms, they're like same StockCharts. My son went to our neighbor who's a financial planner. He's our financial planner. He goes to him, he's— and and my ex-wife was buying him stocks, and he tells my neighbor, he's like, "I wanna buy the cheapest stock right now that's gonna, what's the cheapest stock that has the most value?" He asked him like a really complex question. He's like, "Dude, that's the best question I've gotten all day from like adults." So he's like, "I wanna get the best value stock that has the best outcome." The cheapest cost right now.

I mean, that's really like what, that boils it down to exactly what you should look for as a smart kid, yeah.

And he wouldn't have thought like that other than knowing that, you know, if he's buying like, you know, a certain player in the offseason or there's a player that's hurt that he's betting on. So he was, you know, like he got that concept because he started to understand valuations and multiple multiples and indexes and all types of stuff because he's looking at charts now. So it all relates. So but, but for him to— he was able to take that knowledge and immediately implement it into the stock world. He's like, okay, I'm going to buy this stock because it's at a low valuation right now. But, you know, it's got a higher upside. And there's a lot of, you know, opportunity in this specific stock. So it does, it does convert.

Wow.

At what point did you realize that people don't have money problems, they have money habits?

I think pretty immediately, like pretty quickly I came to realize, because we go through a full financial plan with people, like that's part of the process. And in part of that process, we're coaching people around their expenses. And, you know, it's, it's not just about how much money you're making, but how much money you're spending. And at the end of the day, how much money you're keeping, right? Both on a tax perspective, but also from what you spend. And when you have more money left over, you can buy more assets, right? And when you have more assets, you have more financial freedom. And that's really the recipe, right? And so it didn't take me very long to figure out that it's truly people's— it's habits, period, with everything that we have in life. So like, you know, our— and I'm a big proponent of like controlling your own thoughts, right? And thoughts around money too. And we have these impulses around money that we just— right, we sign up for the subscription or we buy the thing on Amazon, and, and then suddenly you have no money left over. Right? And so we get into these habits, but it's like your thoughts are associated with your emotions and sometimes vice versa, and they trigger each other, and those create your habits, right?

And your habits create your personal reality, and your personal— your personal reality is your personality, right? And so a lot of people don't realize that, but going through that process with people— it is such an intimate process, by the way— um, but you're really able to see that the reason that you are at where you're at in life is literally because of your daily choices and the habits that you have, right? Your habits around money are a result of what you do or do not have because of that. So it, it really does— did not take very long to realize that. And same with everything else that we have in our lives, right? Like, we, you know, what we do on our day-to-day basis and, and the decisions that we make on a day-to-day basis— when a habit compounds over time, you, you create success or you create failure. And I think when you can get really intentional about about the choices that you're making and the habits that you have. But you can't do that until you have awareness of what your habits are. This is a great book called Atomic Habits. Love that book.

Great book. For anyone who hasn't read it, read it. It's great. For anyone that's not a reader, there's a great—

Audiobook.

Yeah, audiobook.

I listened to it.

Yeah, great book. But, you know, through that book and also some of Joe Dispenza's books like Becoming Supernatural, I think you're able to actually get into the practice of being the observer observer of your thoughts so that you can create different habits. And with money, it's the same thing. We have like certain comforts, immediate comforts around money, like buying your morning coffee every day. Like, how much money are you spending collectively? And what is the opportunity cost? Because even though it's— maybe it's only $3 or $6 for that coffee, compound that money over time, that could be millions of dollars. And so it's all these little daily habits that we just are conditioned to do, but becoming aware of them is, is the first step, and habits are everything.

What's the worst money habit you've seen?

Um, the worst money habit is just not investing and not saving anything. There's so many people that don't— they're so overwhelmed when it comes to, um, money. They're either really overwhelmed and they don't— they're not educated about it. So if they're not aware, then they don't know the right decisions to make. So they just don't have the information that they need to make the right decisions around money. And so many people are not saving in the places and they're not investing and they're also not diversified from within that and where they're investing that money. So that is probably the biggest place that people are falling short when it comes to money is just doing nothing, you know, and keeping their money in a, in a, sorry, in a bank account, which is the worst place that you can keep your money or as cash at home. Like any of these places, like you're literally losing money every single day that it sits in a bank account because of inflation. The cost of everything is going up every single day. It's something that people don't account for. And while your money is sitting in this bank account, you're, you're losing money every day that it's sitting there.

Just take that money and move it to another type of account where, you know, depending on your goals, right? Depending on what you want, what you want to accomplish. But you have to learn those things first. And that's what we do. That's what we're great at, teaching people the tools.

Well, what's the best money habit then?

The best money habit? Paying yourself first. Don't— we get in this habit of like, we need to fill up our car, we need to pay for our insurance, and we need to pay for our rent. We pay everyone else before we pay ourselves. Like, the first thing I do is, first of all, I have a plan. And I think that if you don't have a plan, you can't get to your destination. It's like getting in the car and having no idea what your destination is and having no GPS to get to that destination. Like, you need a plan to get there. You need a plan to get to your— where your financial goals are. Um, but the best money habit is paying yourself first, and that's part of the plan. You need to figure out what your budget is, how much you actually need to be spending on things. Maybe some of those things need to be cut way back back, like food. People overspend ridiculous amounts of money on food. Um, but cutting some of those things back, actually creating a plan for your money, and paying yourself first. And you're comfortable paying yourself first when you actually know how much money you need for the month.

But if you don't figure that out first, how can you pay yourself first? We, we get in this scarcity mindset where we're like, well, what if I need that money? What if I need it for something? But if you planned where your money is going to be going, you already know you don't need that money. You're paying yourself first every month and you're putting that money somewhere where it's actually growing. You're working smarter, not harder.

What's your favorite place to put your money right now?

Oh, I have a couple of places. Obviously, like I have a brokerage account. I love crypto. I love those places. But I would say probably my favorite place right now is in a product called an IUL. It's actually a type of life insurance product. And I love it because it creates the flexibility. I'm growing my money tax-free inside of it. I can overfund the policy and still have access to my money. Money. Um, it's a really incredibly powerful tool. And so when I get money out of the blue or unexpected, or I have more of it, I mean, I'm always funding it every single month, and I'm funding all these other things too, and also real estate. And so I'm going to be using my IUL to fund all my real estate projects.

Um, is an IUL liquid?

It is, yeah. So it's still liquid. You have access to up to 90% of your money. Um, the 90% and keeping the 10% in there is what keeps it tax-free growth. It's still growing in the markets. All these, you know, standard indexes like the S&P and the NASDAQ and all these great indexes, you have access to it anytime. So you can still, you know, they don't recommend it in the first 2 years, but after those first 2 years, it's your money. Like, you put it in, you could take it right back out. And the beauty of it is that for real estate investors especially, you can take that dollar and you can kind of have the same dollar growing in 2 places at at once. It's really powerful. It's super powerful tool that a lot of really wealthy people are using, and not wealthy people, honestly. Like, everyone's using it once they get educated about, about it. But you can borrow the money and you kind of become your own bank. Have you heard of this term, like, infinite banking? Yeah, that you can fund yourself, right? And so you're able to do that within IUL.

And kind of the reason they consider it like your own bank is because the bank, what do they do with money. When you put your money in a bank, what do they do with your money?

They, they invest it.

They invest it, right? They're going and they're making more money off of it, right? So when you put your money in, in this product, you can actually lend the money to yourself but make it look like the money never left that account. So imagine having a brokerage account that you have money in, and if you wanted to take money out of your brokerage to go fund a real estate project, it's not going to be in your brokerage anymore. So you're not growing anything inside of your brokerage anymore on the money that you now just put towards your real estate. So your money is only in one place, right, at once. This concept allows you to keep your money in the policy so it looks like it's still growing wealth on that money, but loan the money to yourself, and now you can also invest it over here. So you have the same dollar growing in two places at once. Um, and this is how we work smarter, not harder. Um, it's a great product. I love it. Um, I have multiple of them. Um, you know, as I go through different stages of my career and I grow more and more wealth, I get more and more policies.

Um, so that's one of my favorite places right now.

Nice. I just buy real estate.

I love real estate too. Nothing wrong with that. However, real estate is— it can crash, you know, 2008, it crashed. I like to have diversity in my portfolios, and I think it's also a protected asset, so you can't lose money in it. When the market goes down, it's— there's a floor, so you're protected.

So why do people usually know what they should do with money, but they still don't do it?

I think fear. Fear is at the basis of everything. And money is a fundamental tool for survival. And I think they just don't have enough confidence in— they don't have enough knowledge. When you have knowledge, then you can have belief in something. But even if you know what to do, right? Like, people know they should invest in the market. But they don't necessarily have trust in it because they understand that there's risk associated. And they don't understand enough about it to be trading their own money and putting their own money in the market, which is smart. And I agree with that. I don't think that you should if you don't know enough about the market, you can lose all of your money. And I think this is why everybody should be working with a financial professional, especially if, if you're making money. If you're not making money, you need to learn how to do more with the money that you have, whether you have a lot or very little. You need to learn how to do more and learn how money actually works so you can get over your fear that's stopping you from doing the things you know you need to do.

You know you need to save, but you won't spend the time sitting down with yourself to actually create a budget it. And I think it really always comes back to the root of everything, which is your why, right? And why am I doing this? Why am I saving money, right? What are you putting money towards? If you get really clear about what you want, um, like for me, I want to have a huge real estate portfolio and I want to own multiple properties and I want to do huge events. Like, I'm very clear about what I want in life. And so I have a purpose for the money that I'm making, and I know why I need to do and make the responsible decision to spend less because I'm going to get to my goals faster. But that's part of the process we go through as well, is like figuring out what do you want, what are your actual goals, and how do we help you get there? And then now what are the decisions that you need to make around money to help you get there? And it puts meaning behind savings, right? Like when you have a vacation or you have a wedding coming up, you have something really specific.

And it's amazing how much money you can save when you have a really specific goal, just like working out, right? When people have a wedding, they go, they lose weight, they have an exact a date, right? They're very specific. To be terrific, you have to be specific. And so they have a specific goal by a specific deadline. They know they have a SMART goal, right? It's measurable, it's specific, right? All of that. And now they have a plan, right? And then you can create a plan to get there. But without that, you, you, you know, you're not going to get anywhere with anything.

To be terrific, you have to be specific.

Yes, yes, exactly.

All right, we're going to take a quick coffee break and get our barista over here to fill us up and get us dialed in. You ran low on your matcha, Yes, it was so good.

Thank you so much. It's my boy right there. That's right, girl.

Right back.

Thank you.

I help people make the American dream come alive. I help them buy homes. You help people make good financial decisions. Decisions. Sometimes those pass a line, and sometimes they're totally blurred. Now, is buying a home always the right financial decision for somebody, or has the mindset shifted?

Um, I love real estate. I think it's an incredible industry. Um, do I think it's the right decision for everybody? No, I don't, honestly, because Because depending on the person and depending on their goals and also how you treat real estate, um, I probably have some controversial views on this because I view real estate as an investment. And so I'm a believer and a proponent of maybe like the more Grant Cardone, um, style mindset. Yeah, that like you shouldn't live in the house, in a house you own. And so, you know, while I own property, I actually live in a rented property and I treat my properties as, you know, business businesses and so that I can write everything off. And not everybody is moving into a house. And then what you see is people that are house broke, right? And every dollar they have— and my parents were like that. All of the value that my parents had was in the house that they owned. And they, you know, they're raising kids and they have all these expenses. And sure, they're paying a mortgage, which might be a little bit cheaper than rent, but then they have a leak in the house and now they have to go into debt and they have to take out a loan to be able to repair the ceiling and the bathroom or the furnace breaks and now you have to repair that and you can't write those things off.

Those are not write-offs. But when it's a business, you can write it off. Um, and now you have an income-generating asset. So, uh, I don't think that it's right for everybody. I, I love real estate as an investment. I don't necessarily think that everybody, depending on how you're treating it, should be buying a home, especially where you are. Also, location has a huge part of that too, because I mean, LA is crazy expensive. Expensive, some of these real estate properties. Like, you—

LA's dropped a lot in value, actually.

It has.

It's certainly a good time to buy in LA.

Yeah, I mean, it's gone down. It's, it's just challenging, right? And especially for this generation, like, we're— look at the balance of everything. We're making far less income to how much property value actually is. And, um, the obstacle to buying a home these days is so, so much higher. And I just think that it shouldn't be your first priority. I think that there's other things that you can do to build wealth. And if you treat it like a business, then yeah, but you have to be really educated on where to buy and make sure you're getting the ROI on the property and make sure that you're, you know, educated about that property before you invest in it because you could invest in something that's a total dud. So to answer your question, no, I truly don't think that it is for everybody, but for the people that it is for, I think it's amazing.

Yeah, yeah, I kind of disagree with that a little bit. I mean, I think, you know, buying gives you a different sense of responsibility when you own where you live, just because you have, you know, you have a box that's checked that puts you into a different mental state. Like, now you're a homeowner, it holds you to a different level of accountability. And me, I have a different reason why I like to own my real estate. I really like, like, a very custom house. Like, I I have like a smart home for every house I live in. So it's like everything's on an app, it's on a Savant app. So it's like I control everything, the lights, the sound. So you can't do that with a rental, right? This is like living in an apartment. I can't put up my artwork, I can't, you know, build out my man cave.

I mean, yes, you don't really want to invest into a rental property, and there is something to be said about that for the peace of mind that you get around living in a home you own and being able to design it the way that you want to design it and order the furniture that you truly want and fast and all of those things. And yeah, there is peace of mind, but I think that you can get peace of mind from so many things. And I also think that we've been programmed to feel the pressure of society, that that's just an expectation, that that's become an expectation. I want to get married, I want to buy a home, I want to— why? Have you ever actually like diagnosed why we're making these decisions and why we're doing these things?

Like, what program is the American dream supposedly? But the American dream I think has changed. What do you think the new American dream is?

Um, freedom. Like true freedom. Like financially, mentally, physically, emotionally. Like freedom.

What's the number to be financially free? What's your number?

It's different for everybody. Um, for me, $100 million. But for most people, I think, um, you need $100 million to be financially free to stop working. I mean, my FIRE number is a lot less than that, right? Like my actual financial freedom number is a lot less than that, but that's what I would need to stop like really pushing in work, like, I think personally. But my actual FIRE number is about $10 million, and that's all a calculation. Like, you can do a simple calculation to see, like, what's your cost of life, when do you actually want to stop working.

What do you define as $10 million? Is that your net worth?

It's not net worth. It's what I would need to stop working and never work another day again in my life.

So that's $10 million in the bank? Is that $10 million in paid-off real estate?

That's $10 million in the bank, not necessarily assets, unless those assets assets are income generating. But it, it's a— it's all a calculation on how much is— are your expenses, right? Um, and also factoring in inflation into the future, because right now you might be spending $100,000 a year to survive and to live and to buy your food or to travel or to do whatever you want, right? Like, everyone's lifestyle expectations are different, so everyone's financial freedom number is different, right? Like, someone Someone that's, you know, never travels, doesn't want to travel, doesn't have kids, like, you know, they just want to live in their house and they want to live a routine life. The amount of money that they need every year is very different than someone that wants to travel like on private jets and go to luxury vacations. And that's their norm. Like I would say, you know, there is a calculation that you do to figure out like what is your actual financial freedom number? Essentially how much is the amount of money that you need to retire and never work another day again in your life, work because you want to, not because you have to.

And the calculation is truly different for everyone. That's actually part of what we do in our financial planning is that calculation in exactly how much money you need to never work another day again in your life.

Yeah, I feel like that's a moving target too, though.

I agree, but because you're ambitious, right? And so like ambitious people, it is constantly a moving— it is for me too, by the way.

And I wouldn't even be able to retire even if I hit my whatever FIRE number it is. I'm like, I'm so ADD, I just got to be so busy all day long.

Well, you're ambitious and you're motivated and you're energetic and you have big goals and big dreams and big visions. And like for people like you and me, like, I never want to stop working. I don't see it as work though. Like, I don't see work as like a normal person, like, I get up at 9 and I go to work and I work in an office and I hate my boss. Like, those are the jobs you want to retire from. Those are the jobs people are like miserable doing. Like, I don't live my life that way. I live on my own watch. I create my own calendar. I decide when I work, where I work, from how hard I work, for how long I work. And so it— and I love what I do. Like, I'm so passionate about what I do.

You get to serve people.

I get to make an impact, and I know exactly why I'm doing it. And I, I just love it. I love people. I love working with people. I love helping people. Like, genuinely, in my core, that is all I want to do is help people. And the more people that I can impact, like, that makes my life purposeful.

So, so would you put your money in an IUL, or would you put it in an investment property?

Both, if you're in a position to be able to do that. But if I was starting in order of priority, property, I would put my money in an IUL.

And if you don't have enough down payment for the— right, right.

So grow the down payment in something that you can later borrow the money from, tax-free growth, and keep the money growing over here while you invest it in a real estate property. And now you have two assets, and this asset paid for that asset, but you didn't have to move your money out of this. When you put your money in a home first, it's locked up in that home. You can borrow against the equity, um, and all of those things, but it costs you. There's cost to doing that. And, you know, you can invest in even more properties. And plenty of people, you know, Robert Kiyosaki and plenty of people have done it that way where they've worked in real estate first. But there's definitely way more of a barrier.

Robert Kiyosaki is brilliant. He says just borrow money all the time. He's like, yeah, he leverages that, leverages debt, real estate.

Yeah, leverages that.

His philosophy on real estate is brilliant. I mean, you can, you can get to the end goal goal. I don't have debt on my, my properties because I, I look at it as like part of my net worth. And it's silly because I'm— here I am, a mortgage professional, and I'm like, I got no mortgages, you know, not, not on any properties, uh, except my place in Utah, which is a rental. I mean, which is a—

I mean, but here's my, here's my thing with that, right? And I see a lot of people doing this, is that they are paying off their debt first, or they try to pay off debt first.

I like to be liquid. That, that's my concept.

I don't disagree with you, but in the same context, I think about it this way. I'm like, okay, I could pay off this home and now the money is locked up in this home, right? And, or I could have gotten— now mortgages are way higher, mind you, but like if I got a mortgage that was like 3, 4%, right? 6.5%, but it's 6.5% now, which is— that's a little painful. So maybe in that—

they've been that way for about 4 years.

It's wild. And I'm— one day it's going to go down.

One day it might go down to 5%.

Yeah. Yeah, it'll, it'll go down. Cross our fingers on that one. But it's the 7% rule, right? And so if your debt is below 7%, then the market typically performs at higher than 7%. Like even just the S&P 500 is on average 10% over the last 100 years, right? So it makes sense to, instead of paying off a debt that could cost you 2%, take the same money that you would stuff away in a house and lock up in a house, and instead take that money and put it towards something that can grow at 10%.

And you make the delta.

Yeah, and you make the delta, essentially. Yes. So that's my theory on it. And that actually keeps you even more liquid because in a house it's locked up. Maybe you can borrow against it, but in an IUL you can take the money out, still have it growing inside of it. You can kind of do that same principle with real estate a little bit, but you need to be in a really secure financial position to be able to get to that position. Most people aren't there. Most people are not even able to buy their first house. Like, how do they get to their first house? Like, that's the conversation we're having with a lot, a lot, a lot of people. And then that, that property also has— it's a liability. Like, it has— you need insurance and you need— you don't need to do that with your IUL. Like, you need insurance and you need you know, maybe you have renters in there that are disrespectful and they're ruining things, and like the headache or like to have to deal with that— like there's no management, no stress with an IUL. Like a property has stress associated with it, and that's the, you know, the cost that you can't really quantify is how much energy do you have to pour into this place to be able to make sense out of it, and, and how do you get yourself into a position to be to be able to buy the house.

And so we work with a lot of people, helping them get into a position to be able to buy a house. And it comes with the planning. Tons of people want to buy a house. I'm not like— nothing against that. I think it's amazing if that's what you want. It's truly by the individual. This is— I'm just speaking about me. I'm not giving advice to other people, you know. I'm not saying maybe that's not necessarily the right decision for everybody, but for me, that's how I operate.

Last question. Now, what's, what's one piece of financial advice that's become accepted as an actual fact, but you completely disagree with it with your own philosophy? Mm.

There's a few, but I think it comes back to the real estate thing. And maybe it's just because we're on the topic of that. That everyone should buy a home and that a home is the best thing you can invest in. I think it's very dependent on the person. What's another common belief?

I'm seeing a lot of that with Gen Zers, is like they'd rather buy Pokémon cards or they'd rather buy, you know, like rent their house, or they'd rather buy Bitcoin or whatever's hot at the time. Right now cards are hot, Bitcoin was hot last year. Or Ethereum or whatever, like whatever's trending right now, that's what they're into. Yeah, you know, whatever money concept is new, that's like, ah, I don't want to buy a house, I want to do this. Yeah, I'm seeing that now. And like, and it's hard to relay the message of maybe because they could just live with their parents for free.

Yeah, you know, and they get to just invest in things and they don't have the responsibility of a house.

Like a house, I think now house changes your mindset. So mindset has value, cuz, uh, how do you teach someone responsibility without a house? They're like They don't, they don't learn it, right?

Or without kids or a dog or something that you are financially responsible for.

So the house is your first step to adulthood, or adulting, as they like to call it.

That's the programming. That's what they've taught us. It doesn't necessarily have to be that way. I didn't own a house for like a long time, like, you know, and I still learned how to be an adult without owning a house.

And I think that's just, it just catapults you into adulthood, certainly gives you a lot more responsibility.

Like, now you have this obligation. Like, you have something that you can tangibly lose and lose a lot of money, and that's what's attached to it.

And you gotta deal with gardeners, you gotta deal with the pool guy, you got to deal with repairs, you got to deal with, you know, mistakes being made. You got to deal with— yeah, and if you have rentals, you got to deal with renters, you got to deal with issues that pop up, property insurance. So all of that feeds in not only into you being an adult, because at some point when you're an adult, you're have like kids' tuition, you're gonna have activities with the kids, you're gonna have just a ton of stuff you have to handle.

Yeah. So are your kids gonna— are you gonna make them all buy properties?

Oh yeah. I mean, one of the things I think about all the time is how are my kids gonna stay local to me in Newport?

You're gonna force them to buy houses?

Yeah, like, I don't want— I want them right next to me.

No, not in Long Beach.

Yeah, I mean, I'm like, I'm like, number one, This is gonna be called the Long Beach. Yeah, like, so they might have to live in Costa Mesa or Santa Ana if they want to, if they want. But you know, I would like them to— I talked to my oldest son all the time and he jokes, he's like, Dad, I'm gonna have millions of dollars in cards by then. I'll be able to buy a house. Don't worry about me, I'll be just fine.

Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.

Total confidence.

He's so confident.

He's like, I got— I'm not leaving.

You should get him diversified in some other other things though.

Yeah, yeah, he's got some stocks and he's, you know, yeah, and he's got land. I bought him land when he was like 4 and it's in his name.

Oh wow.

Yeah, so really, that's my idea for him initially when he turned 18, when I bought that land for him, was to just like I do with, with, with cards, is to go through the whole life cycle. Yeah, of the process from grading it, from restoring it to grading it to flip flipping it. The same thing with real estate. I bought him the land, so he's gonna— I wanted him to work with a contractor to build the property. I wanted him to get his real estate license. I wanted him to sell it. I mean, that's the goal. I don't know how we're going to do it. It's in Twentynine Palms, and, you know, so it might just end up being a manufactured home because I don't want to sit there for a year and build the house and deal with the permitting process. So we might just drop the—

yeah, one of those like pre-built homes.

Yeah, still, still sell after. But I want him to go through that whole process and go through the, you know, you know, the understanding of the real estate lifecycle.

So build like a storage facility or that might be a profitable—

yeah, a storage. We'll see. It's not zoned for commercial, it's residential. It's got—

what about like an RV park or something like that?

Yeah, it's 8,000 square feet. So we'll see what we can build. An RV park would be cool.

Or, you know, make a lot of money on multiple types tiny houses. Yeah, the tiny houses. That's so cool.

I love that.

So your career has taken so many different turns over the course. Everything you've done has taught you something different. Now, what is working in health and fitness— what has working in health and fitness taught you that you still use to this very day in the business that you're in right now?

Um, I would say that that comes back to the first thing that we discussed on the show about Balance and the 5 Fs and the faith, family, finance, fitness, and food. That industry really taught me how to study people and how to observe people's habits and come up with a plan. Like, that literally is the fitness world. It's— you, you make a fitness plan for somebody for them to get an outcome in their life. You make a food and nutrition plan for them to have that outcome in their life, and finance is the same thing. And I think, but from working in that industry, I think, um, I realized that people's biggest downfall when it comes to accomplishing their health goals, it's so much deeper than just, I want to lose weight. Like, everyone knows they want to lose weight. Everyone knows they want to be healthier and they want to stop drinking alcohol, or they want to, they want to do something, but they don't do it. And I think That industry actually triggered my deeper curiosity for human minds and how people actually think and why we're programmed the way we're programmed. And it was the catalyst that helped me on my own self-development journey and on my own study of myself and how I actually operate and observing my own habits.

And thank God I got burnt out of that industry and started studying things on a way deeper level, 'cause I think when you really understand what people's motivators are and you really understand the human mind, you can, in your own human mind, you can accomplish anything. And it's because of that industry that it shaped me into who I am now.

Coming from health and fitness, and now you're in the financial literacy world, what do you think you're gonna do next? Like, you're gonna stay in the financial sector? You're gonna maybe integrate the two? Because there's a lot of parallels.

Yeah, you know, I think about this a lot, And I think I'll always be in the financial space to some degree. Um, I definitely have a goal with what I'm working on now and what I want to do with it. Um, but I would really like to grow my own personal brand a lot more.

And, um, what would you do if you built your personal brand?

I think I have a lot of value to offer people in terms of that balanced lifestyle and in terms of just your thought process and, um, kind of more on a coaching end, more on a self-development space, like doing events and bringing together great minds and great people and great leaders that can make change in people's lives and just really help shifting people's mindsets. Like, that's really what I want to do. I want to work with people on a way bigger scale, and I want to help make a bigger impact in that way, on that kind of spiritual, intellectual, mental level. That's, that's the impact I truly want to have. And this industry is helping me shape what that will become. But finance will always be a part of my life and, and what I do here. I'm in it for the long game. I love this industry so much, and it will always be a part of my life, but I will constantly be evolving. I don't know exactly what the future holds in that aspect, but I have a vision I have a vision of what I'm going to create, and it will be events, and it will be working with people on that deeper level.

I love that. Now let me ask you, money matters, but it's only one part of the life you're trying to build. Walk us through your 5 Fs, and which one is the hardest for you to protect?

Hmm, um, well, faith, um, that's mine Faith.

I mean, it's a struggle daily.

Yeah, because I don't know, have you ever read the book Outwitting the Devil?

I listened to some of it.

Listen to the whole book, it's so good. And actually, don't read it, listen to the book, the audio. The audio is amazing.

I have it in his voice.

Yes, the, the In the Devil's Voice. Um, it's such a great book. Um, but the devil lives in our own mind and our own bodies, and, um, and the temptations and the impulses and the negative thoughts that we have, that That to me is the devil. And that book kind of emphasizes that. And so the constant daily battle is yourself, my own thoughts, my own, like, controlling my own impulses and my own behaviors. And that truly is the biggest obstacle to all of those things. And faith is probably the one that I try to center most of my life around because it helps keep everything else calibrated. And when I'm in line with God and his calling for you, yeah, then everything just works so much more effortlessly. Everything comes so much more naturally. And when, when I'm doing the things that he tells me to do and I'm following his way, um, his way is the best way. And when I do that, everything else just falls in line. So that's probably the biggest struggle though, because we have, you know, our human thoughts and our intrusive thoughts and our, you know, negative thoughts and all these different things and the temptations you're faced with.

And you're in LA, there's—

and, you know, luckily I'm a homebody, so I don't have a problem avoiding all of it. But, uh, it takes a lot to get me to leave my, my sanctuary.

But yeah, let's talk about the next generation. If you had 1 hour with every graduating high school senior, what's the one lesson that you want them to take takeaway?

Really making a list of— and I do this with all of my agents, um, oh, and man, it's so exciting, get them right fired up— but making a list of your, your top 10 whys. Like, what do you want to do with your life? And more importantly, why do you want to do it? Like, what's the real why? Because when you ask on a surface level, like, what is your why, there's always so many layers underneath of it that's really driving living it. Um, and I think when you can get really clear on that, you'll have so much more passion and energy, and things will come so much more naturally. Um, and really getting heart-centered and heart-focused, like your heart and your mind. And some people think from the mind, you know, they think logically, they think analytically, they think about like the numbers and the ROI and all of that stuff. And other people think like very heart-focused, like follow your heart. I think when you can have coherence between these and understand what that actually means, you'll be aligned and things will happen a lot more effortlessly for you. And I think if I could spend an hour with them, I would spend all of the time driving home that principle.

That's beautiful. Now, 20 years from now, what do you want people to remember about Kayla Bailey?

Ooh, how I changed their life and how the information that I've, I've shared has truly created created a profound impact on their lives for generations, um, through the information, through the energy. Um, I want to change people's lives. I want to make that impact in their lives, and I want that to be the thing they remember me for— just, just me and the information and, um, and the energy that I've shared.

Now, Kayla, we'd like to end this show with a quick game, okay? This game is going be called smart money or bad money, and all you got to do is respond with one or the other. Okay, so buying a brand new car after your first big raise, smart money or bad money?

Bad money.

Carrying your credit card balance to build your credit, bad money. Renting instead of buying, good money. Buying real estate with friends, um, good money, depends. Financing luxury watches or handbags?

I think that's— it depends. That's a tough one. I'm on the fence on that one. Really? Yeah.

You finance a Rolex?

Oh, finance. Oh wait, I'm sorry, I heard the question wrong. Bad money.

Financing.

Bad money. Bad money. Bad money.

Cryptocurrency?

Uh, good money.

That also depends which crypto, right?

Yeah, very true. Which one are we talking about here?

Business coaching?

Good money. Great money. Best money.

Paying for AI subscriptions every month?

Bad money.

Paying extra for convenience?

Bad money.

Quitting your job before your side hustle makes you money?

Bad money.

Now, bonus question: if you could change one financial habit for every American overnight, what would it be and why?

Uh, the rule of Mm, that's hard because there's so many. Um, I would say the pay yourself first rule and making sure that you're actually budgeting to pay yourself first every single month and investing that money.

One last question: when you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?

That I served my purpose on this earth and he's proud of me.

God bless you, Kaylee. You've been a pleasure to have on the show. Thank you so much for coming down from LA and coming on today's show. You're a blessing. I hope you hit every single one of your goals and keep crushing it.

Thank you, Joe. Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thanks.