Transcript of How To “KILL your Money Demons” To Unlock Wealth & Abundance | Mark Matson

The reality is that those are all flawed methodologies of investing because they're based on prediction of the future. Wow. And when you think about that, that's really insane, because, number one, no one can predict the future. The best investment you can make is in yourself, not your portfolio. And that's the way I see the american dream.

Mark is the founder and CEO of.

Matson Money and the author of this book, experiencing the American Dream.

Mark Matson, thank you so much, sir, for being here.

Money doesn't work like that. It's got tentacles, and it's like a thread that goes through the carpet of your life. It touches everything.

Wow. Powerful man.

These money demons, which we all have at various times in our life, they take us over.

What questions do you ask your partner before getting married to make sure that you're at least setting yourself up on the right track?

One of the things is.

Welcome back, everyone, to the school of greatness. Very excited about our guests. We have the inspiring Mark Matson in the house. Good to see you, sir.

Good to be with you, bro.

Another Ohio guy who is teaching people how to really understand the neuroscience behind investing and how to build wealth. So you have your own american dream. You've got a book called experiencing the American Dream, how to invest your time, energy, and money to create an extraordinary life. And there's a few things I want to talk about really quick. One is you shared a quote off camera that said, our brains are not wired for investing. Our brains are not wired for investing. That's one thing you said. That's right. And I saw a quote online, a statistic online that says, according to Lendingtree, 64% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Many people view money as a source of survival and struggle with a scarcity mindset. So what I'm curious about is you've done so much, three, four decades of research around the neuroscience of investing, but also the data and the facts of investing as well, and how not to use feelings when it comes to investing. But I'm curious, when people are living in a scarcity mindset, when they're in survival already, or 64% of Americans are paycheck to paycheck, and they can't think about the future beyond tomorrow, next week, this month, how can people start to shift out of a scarcity mindset into abundance thinking when they're just fight or flight survival mode daily?

This is a great question, and I'm so glad you asked it. Early on in our time together, I was very lucky to have a dad that believed in the american dream. And he built into me psychologically, the ideals of the american dream. He gave me think and grow rich when I was ten years old and said, read this at least one time every year of your life. But we came from the hills of West Virginia in the hollers, and my grandfather did not believe in the american dream. He worked in the coal mines, he worked in the factories and the chemical factories. He basically believed that money was a source of evil. He believed people that had it were greedy. He believed he was entitled to money that he didn't create. And he always viewed it as anybody that had money was a crook. And my dad rejected that. My dad, by the time he was ten years old, was an entrepreneur three times over. He sold newspapers. He sold cloverine salve to the miners where their hands were cracked, and he signed shoes. So he believed that if you created value for other people, that you would be rewarded with wealth and prosperity, and that people that had money weren't crooks, but they actually were really hard working and dedicated.

And he loved this country and the values that it stood for. So the minds, every summer we go back to West Virginia, and I'd see the people living in the poverty, and they didn't have physical shackles. It was a mindset, I call it a screen, by which they saw themselves as victims.

Screen?

A screen, a psychological screen made out of language, language that you're taught, and then there's the language or the screen of the american dream. And most people do look at money as a form of survival, and that is largely in our DNA, too. I mean, for thousands of years, people had a real hard time surviving. And so money was in property was a form of survival. But now we live in a relative world of abundance and creativity. And if you can get that screen of the american dream, you can start to escape that terrible bonds that really imprison you almost in a world of scarcity.

Two things here. One, can you explain what the screen is? Is it a framework of thinking and language around what money is?

Yes, it's language in some the way that people can think about it. Sometimes you create that language on purpose. Like, if I'm going to go be a doctor, I spend many, many years developing language around what a doctor is. So they see the human body as very different, as someone who doesn't have that language. Well, we have all kinds of conversations in our lives about money, about the world, about how money works, how money is created, our place in the world, and our relationship to money and money. Ironically, having a lot of money doesn't mean you're going to be happy. As a matter of fact, I've seen a lot of really, really wealthy people. Tens, 2030, millions of dollars. And history is rife with people like Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Howard Hughes, prince, people with a lot of money, power, fame. But it didn't do them any good. It actually helped seal their fate in the end and became very destructive.

And there's another thing that you mentioned just before this was, you know, there's kind of two different mindsets. Your grandfather, who worked in the coal mines, who worked really hard, it sounds like, on a daily basis, but didn't understand how to create more value, whether in his coal mine or somewhere else, and therefore was given what he received. Correct?

Yeah.

Versus your dad, where it sounds like, how did your dad break that mindset from his father, who he saw probably miserable or unhappy in the mines and dirty every night and sick and coughing. How did he say, I want to change this without a model of someone showing him abundance?

Well, that's great. And go back to my grandfather once. His screen was so strong, it was like they lived in two different worlds, the two different dimensions of reality. His screen was so strong, when he was offered an opportunity to grow at Union Carbide, he was offered to be a foreman and have a crew underneath him. He told them no.

Why?

Because he didn't want to be part of the machine.

But that's evil and bad.

He didn't want to be evil and bad in his eyes. So he proved it to himself that he was doomed to be our money. I call these money demons, these money demons, which we all have at various times in our life. They take us over and preclude us from doing things that could actually save us. So he never took that raise. He never took that opportunity to save his family, even when it was offered to him. And I've asked my dad, I said, what? How did you. I mean, this poverty, this abject poverty, Louis, they would cut the tops off of instant carnation milk cans and they would hammer it to the baseboards in their shack by the railroad so that the rats wouldn't come in their house in the wintertime. That's how much poverty my dad came from. He only had one pair of shoes a year, right before school started. And then they were barefoot all summer long. I mean, this was true abject poverty. He said, I saw a couple examples of people that did have a little bit of money, and they were nice and they helped me, and I went to work for them.

And I noticed that my dad was wrong, that people that had money weren't evil and they weren't bad, and they were actually willing to help. And I had a couple good teachers in school that taught me about that. But deep down, my dad had, and I don't know where he got it, he had a deep seated belief in capitalism and entrepreneurism.

Yeah. So you mentioned money demons. What are money demons, and do we all have them?

We all do to a greater or lesser extent.

What is a money demon?

So, I'll give you an example. So, when I started my company, I wanted to help a lot of people. You know, we managed $11 billion for people all over North America, 500 advisors. But when I started, I only had three employees, and I had a demon belief. It's a belief created in language that then we don't realize that it's only just a screen. We take it one as reality. And that reality was that employees suck and they're too expensive, and when you hire them, they don't do a good job. And the other money demon I had was that I'm not a good manager, and I don't know how to manage people, so I'll just do it myself. Now, money demons are so pervasive, because when we have them, we make their self fulfilling prophecies and we make them come true, and we don't look for opportunities that violate our screen. So I had to look at what I was getting out of it. What was I getting out of that screen? Well, I got to play small, didn't have to hire people. I got to be self righteous. I got to be condemning.

You were right all the time.

I'm right and righteous. I got to gossip about other people, character, assassinate. I got to be a victim. I mean, it was juicy psychological payoff.

Right, right.

But I also had to realize that if I was going to. If I couldn't change those screens about the world, that I was going to be doomed never to fulfill my mission, which was to help more people stop speculating with their money and fulfill their american dream. Wow. And then you have to do a cost benefit analysis and say, okay, am I going to keep that demon belief because there is payoff?

Yes.

I can live a normal, ordinary life, not full of greatness, thorough said of the best. Quiet desperation. Or am I going to break that belief? And I actually call it do violence to the belief.

Interesting.

I have to actually kill it. Yes, I have to kill that belief. But the thing about money demons is when you kill them and have more money, they don't disappear. They often morph.

How so?

Well, so after I became successful, and then I went through a divorce, and then I started eventually dating after some therapy and counseling, and I started dating, and I started getting one string of really painful relationships after another, and I developed a belief based on the divorce and dating that. What? That I'm not really that attractive. I'm not really that sexy. I got a lot of money, and that's what women really want from me. And so that I'll never really, you know, have someone I really, truly love and really, truly loves me. And then I had a, you know, string of dating examples that created that. And so I had to do violence to that belief.

So how does that look like in your mind? How do you kill off the old limiting belief or the demons that keep you small or hold your back so you get.

So you have to look at the bit. You have to look at the benefits you're getting out of it. The benefits. And I know it doesn't seem like there are benefits, but there are benefits to being right and playing small and not taking risk and being a victim, too. Being a victim of being the martyr, getting to sit in my own shit.

If you would, what is the biggest benefit? What would you say? What would you say is the biggest benefit of being a victim?

You don't have to take risk in life or responsibility. You don't have to be responsibility for your own results in life. You get to blame others. Well, it's not me. It's the government or, it's not me. It's these employees or it's not me that's this girl or this not me. It's somebody else. I'm just fine the way I am. I don't have to change. I don't have to grow. I don't have to do anything. So it just takes you off the hook and lets you complain about other people. Behind every complaint is a demon belief. And so I eventually, the way I did, and then the second part of doing battle with it is to realize it's not true. You just made it up. There's no tablet that said employee suck from the mount, right?

Right.

I just made it up. So if I made it up, I can make up something else, and I can start looking for evidence that it's not true. Look, there's companies with 10,000, 20,000 employees. So it can be that all employees are bad. Well, that's just silly. And I've known people about the money demon with the relationships. I knew people that had great relationships where it wasn't about money. So that couldn't be true either. I needed to slow down and actually take my time and, you know, find someone that's caring, loving and kind.

Right.

Which was funny. Cause then when I met Melissa, she had a money demon, which was, guys that had money are jerks. So.

So she saw that right away with you, and it's, like, repelling you, right?

Yeah. She almost didn't say yes to that day at Starbucks.

Cause she thought, oh, I must be a jerk.

I must be a jerk. Yeah, I must be a total jerk.

Interesting. So when you start to violently kill this psychological belief of the old self of, like, okay, this old self, maybe there was some benefit here. It got me to this level, but it's not gonna help me get to the next level in my life of freedom or, you know, peace or abundance. Right? That's right. It got me these results, but it's not gonna give me what I truly want next. That's a fulfilled purpose in my life. Did you have a hangover after that? For, like, months or years? Did it. Would you. When you actualize it and started to kill off the demon, was it, like, easy after that? How did you stay on track and not rebound?

It's just. Well, I did a lot of therapy. I did a lot of counseling. When I met Melissa, we did a lot of therapy, and we did a lot of counseling together. You know, we both had been in relationships that hadn't worked. And so we were wounded and spent a lot of time working on each other and working with each other and ourselves. But being on the lookout for the new demons as they pop up.

What's been a new demon for you as you let go of old.

Oh, my gosh.

As you train new levels of success, now there's new demons, right? Yeah. Yeah.

So we had a house in Montecito. It got broke into, and we had video of the people breaking into. And there were three of them, and they had hoodies in there. I'm thinking, my gosh, what if we were there and there's been a lot of break ins where we live in Paradise Valley. So the idea was we're going to buy a bigger house. And with the guard shack and the guards and full time security. Twenty four seven. And so we start looking, and then, Melissa, we find this house that was way more than I wanted to pay. So, long story short is I had had a couple of real estate deals that I didn't make money on houses. And so I made a money demon in my head that I'm bad at.

Real estate because these things didn't work out. It's not going to work out for me.

I bought a house for 6 million. I sold it for four and a half million. So I'm bad at real estate.

Right? That's things.

So obviously, if I buy this new house, I'm gonna be making another emotional mistake. So I was kind of being a jerk about it. The reality was, I did want the new house, but I just wanted to listen to all the work, and I just wanted to bitch and moan about it. Right? This is really, really nasty stuff.

Wow.

So I finally, when I was teaching a class from the book about money demons to my advisors, and in preparation for the class, I'm sitting in the parking lot thinking, I got to teach money demons today. And I'm like, right in the middle of one right now.

Wow.

And so I called Melissa on the phone. I was like, honey, I've been making you wrong. I've been a jerk about this whole thing. I haven't been helpful. I haven't been supportive. I know you've been doing a lot of work and on the house and, you know, with the. Even the financing and even the furniture and the decorating, and I'm just. I want to apologize. I've been a real jerk around this whole thing. And she goes, you're getting ready to teach a class, aren't you? Yeah. Yes.

You got to confront your demons when you're teaching others. You got to be the example. Right?

She said, you know what? I accept your politics. I'm glad you saw it.

She's like, you need to do more classes more frequently, teach more frequently.

That's right.

How do we start to. In the book, which I love you talking about this because you advise, how many different, I guess, advisors would you say?

Roughly 500.

500. And they're managing portfolios of what type of range?

Oh, gosh. We try not to have a minimum because we want to help everybody. But there's portfolios up to 70, 80 million.

Sure. Okay. But you have this part of the book, page 73, called the destructive cycle of wealth. And you say, yes, it's cliche that money can't make you happy. Songs have been written about it, but why can't money make you happy? Shouldn't it make you a little bit happier? If you suddenly stumble into, say, $100 million? You say, the answer is no. And it sounds counterintuitive, but I firmly believe that to be true. And if money isn't making us any happier, and most of us have much more than what we need. Why do we work so hard to make more of it? Why do we spend so much of our lives thinking about money without even realizing it? We are stuck in the destructive cycle of wealth. And learning about this cycle can help you better understand some of your decisions about money. And you say it has five phases, beginning with our most basic human needs. Can you talk about what this destructive cycle of wealth is?

Yeah.

Why it's important for us to understand it and what we can do to make sure we don't stay in it.

Yeah. So when I realized that I had clients with a lot of money that were very unhappy, that was my next question. My dad. One of the key strategies in the book is to ask a good question and don't try to rush to get the answer. Take your time and really let it work on you and your subconscious and really think about it. So it took me years to think about this and that. The reason it can't make you happy is because it doesn't fill anything in your spiritual nature that can bring happiness.

It fulfills the survival nature, right?

Yeah. So we all want things, and we want things for our survival. That's instincts, food, clothing, shelter, love, that kind of stuff. And then we go out and we obtain things and we obtain those things, most of us, but then we want more. Toyota even had that commercial. What a feeling when you get to Toyota. So you don't just want a new car, you want a really nice car. You don't want it in the house. You want a really nice house. And then when you do get something, whether it's the computer or golf clubs or a purse or whatever it is, you have it for a while. You obtained it, you felt good about it for a little while. Then you start comparing it to what everybody else has. I had a boat I bought in Florida when we had a house down there, and it was a 37 footer, 300 Yamaha Motors. I loved that boat. Had tons of fun on that boat. It was adventurous. Really great. And then one day there was a 180 foot yacht, and their dinghy was bigger than my boat. And I'm like, this ain't no boat. I gotta give me a bigger boat.

Really?

Yeah. Whether it's the size of your portfolio, the size of your house, you buy the perfect house, you think it's perfect. Then six months later, you're looking at the kitchen going, these cabinets really suck. We really need to rip these out. It's just human nature. And then. So then it brings us around to comparing it to other things. Sometimes in technologies this way, they always come out with bigger, better, faster, cooler technology we want, and then lead you back up to this top at wanting stuff so it doesn't fulfill at a deep, meaningful purpose. And that leads you back to what you mentioned earlier, which is survival. It's about survival.

So if I'm getting this right, we go through the cycle and, you know, a lot of people who are mega millionaires, maybe even billionaires, who are unhappy still. Yep. Would you say the majority of millionaires or billionaires are unhappy, the ones that you've been around or experienced?

I don't know about the majority, but I do know there is no correlation. And I know it from my personal life too.

Because happiness and having money.

Right. Because there's been times where I had a lot of money, was very unhappy, I had no money and was pretty happy.

You also had a lot of money and been happy too.

I would take the latter. The money and the happiness at the same time.

That would be very experienced that too.

And I have. Yeah, but if it's not the money, then what is it? And what I've found is it's having a purpose in life that's greater than money itself. And if you think throughout history, the people that have changed the world, whether it's Ronald Reagan or whether it's Martin Luther King, or whether it's JFK, or whether it's Walt Disney or the Wright brothers, or you think about these people that have changed the world. They've all had this deep sense of purpose and value in their life. So much so that they've even laid their life. Doctor Martin Luther King laid down his life for his purpose. And that's how strong purpose can be. And if you'll have a purpose first, then use it to create value for other people in align with their purpose. And then the more money you have. Great. Because then I can align how I use that money with my purpose in life and I can do great things with my money that brings me joy and happiness and freedom from and freedom and fulfillment with other people. But if I have the money without.

The purpose, it just becomes a burden, really becomes empty. It's so I need more money. More money. More money for what?

It's an addiction of itself.

So it sounds like the greater the purpose you have, the more fulfilled you'll be with or without money.

Absolutely. As a matter of fact, if you have a strong enough purpose, you don't even need money. You know, like Mother Teresa, saints, well.

Cause they feel taken care of by the community. Or they know they're gonna be provided for. They're happy with whatever they receive each day.

It's about their purpose in life. If I don't have. Look, you can live in America for. For very little money. Even if you only have 40 or $50,000 a year, you live better than the king of England did 500 years ago. You have chocolate, you have air conditioning, you have food, you have running water. You have running water, you have healthcare. I mean, it's a miracle. Everybody should wake up every morning in America going, it's a miracle. It's a miracle. I can't believe I live here. Of course they don't. But it's a miracle that what we have. And if you only have a little bit of money and you have a friend in the hospital, you can make a card with a crayon or a pin, you could go to the hospital, you could sit by there by them and hold their hand, you could express your love and affection, and that's going to be more fulfilling than a Ferrari. I'm not anti Ferrari. I got one, but it's party for an hour.

But it's not, you know, it's.

I call them cookies and toys. So you got these toys and they're fun. Okay, fine, great. I'm not saying that they're bad, but they won't make me happy. And then food. It's anything you ingest that try to change your mood about yourself and feel better temporarily. But they're not permanent, right?

This is powerful, man. I love this. And you mentioned early on that people have these screens. And just so I'm clear, is a screen kind of like a framework? It's kind of like a framework of thinking towards money or towards life? Is that your definition of a screen?

It is.

It is a model, a way of thinking about it.

It's a mental model that you have, that you. Here's the critical part that you don't know you have, because it just appears like the truth and not something that you just made up. A story. Yes, something happened. I lost money on a house. But I have a degree in finance and accounting. I'm bad at real estate, really. That's just being a wimp. So it's the story that I make up about whatever. And a lot of it's money, relationships with money. And it all comes down to when I run these exercises with people. First, you make a list of your complaints. What's all your complaints about money. And then, what demon belief or relationship do you have based on that complaint, and then where did it come from? What happened when you were eight years old, the first time you heard your mom and dad yelling about money that gave you that story that you have about what money is, because something did happen, but then what you made it mean is not what it is, just a story you made up. And you can start to do battle with those and start to untangle them over time, and then it's kind of like the demon and id.

It morphs into other things. It's not. It only dies for, like, hides for 17 years. Then it comes out as something else, and it changes, usually into what your greatest fear is.

So can you give me an example? If you were doing this exercise for yourself, admitting, you know, I'm assuming you've done this a bunch of times, or you have an example of something, a story that you had, a money story, or a moment or memory that caused a belief within your screen that I guess you made decisions based on for many years until you became aware of it and killed it off. Yeah. What would that look like for you? Give one example of your dad or grandpa or whatever that might be.

Yeah. So there's screensh. Money is. People like to try to compartmentalize things in their brain. Like, oh, this is money. This is my relationships. This is my life. This is my whatever. But money doesn't work like that. It's got tentacles, and it's like a thread goes through the carpet of your life, and it touches everything. So when I have a money demon, I also usually have a relationship demon. When I went through divorce, I thought, okay, you're gonna lose half of all your stuff now, including your company that you built. So that was less than ideal. That was a money demon. But I also had another money demon or relationship demon related to that, is that I had grown up most of my life as an atheist and took classes in college about how there's no God and all this garbage. And so then when I went through the divorce, I mean, I was. I was gutted. Obviously. It was the dark. I'm a bad father. I wasn't seeing my kids. I'm gonna lose my company. It's gonna be like, this is gonna be the worst thing ever in my life. I got depressed, and then I was talking to a buddy on the phone, so I lived in a world a screen is.

There is no God. And I'm talking to a buddy of mine, and he's probably crying. He's like, well, are you ready? I said, ready for what? He said, are you ready to admit there's a God and it's not you.

Wow.

And I'm like, yeah.

Or you could have said, see, there is no God because I'm divorced. Half my money's gone, my business is gone, my kids don't like me.

Right.

You could have also gone and stayed in that belief.

Yeah, I could have just stayed there. And if there was a God, why.

Would he let this happen to me? Yeah, right.

Well, I knew because I was a sinner and I didn't believe in God, but he. But you know what? All of the. And a screen sometimes can change slow or sometimes it can go fast. But I knew instantly I could not live in a world without a God anymore.

Wow.

I just. It was empty if it was devoid, and it was hopeless. And I didn't have any doubts or questions. All the intellectual gymnastics I had been doing my whole life went away. And he said, get on your knees and let's pray. And I was in that hotel room and started praying. And I went from a screen, a world of no God, to a world of goddess. And that's made all. It's made all the difference. Kind of like the master screen that fits into the other screens. Wow. But screens are powerful and people will literally die to keep their screens. Like my grandpa did. He died. He died. He came to visit us only one time at our house in Cincinnati. It was August. It was a cool for August. He walked in the front door. We had about maybe like an 1800 foot square house. It wasn't huge. He said, how many looked at my dad in front of his whole family? He said, how many people did you have to rip off to get this house?

Oh, my gosh. That was his first thing.

That was the first thing out of his mouth.

Jeez. His screen, his framework, his mindset. When he saw something, he said, you did something wrong to get this.

Yep.

There's no way you could have done something good to be able to afford something. That's right, man.

And I know my dad wanted me to be proud of him.

That's tough.

And right in front of his whole family. And he said, george, mary Lou and I were in our own business. We worked really hard. We tried to build a good family for a good house for our family and a nice home. And he said, well, you can tell yourself whatever you want that lets you sleep at night. Oh, my gosh. He said, but all I see is a big shot. You think you're better than me. And it got really heated after that. For about five minutes. He left. He never came back. And three months later, he was dead. And his little teeny Shaq you lived at in West Virginia, how old were.

You during that time?

About 13.

Wow. I mean, that's a memory that is still alive in you today. 47, 48 years ago. Right. That was a memory that your grandfather had with your father and your family. What psychological screen did you create in that moment that stuck with you, that benefited you and one that didn't benefit you?

Yeah, well.

Cause money, essentially, your dad tried to break a model of his father's to do something good, but it hurt the relationship with his father.

That's right.

It caused him. Maybe he could think it caused him to die, maybe not. But it could be like it was so bad that he died alone. Cause he had no family and he didn't want to be around me, whatever he made up in his mom. So what was the benefit from you in seeing that experience versus, you know, a negative benefit?

The benefit in that was that dad stood up for his family.

Wow, that's powerful.

And stood up to his values and what he believed about America and about freedom and about entrepreneurship and about helping other people, and never expecting anything from expecting anything free or that you didn't earn. And that always stuck with me. On the other hand, when I was a kid, I did go through some stuff. I had trouble studying in school and trouble reading, so I made up I'm stupid, and I'd ask a girl to the dance and she would say no. And I think, oh, I'm not handsome enough, or I didn't get to be the captain on the football team. And so I started like, I'm dumb, I'm not handsome, I'm not attractive, I'm not man enough. And that was early on. That was like, 8th grade, and I got bullied in school. And so I had all these in my strategy. I heard your podcast with pivot. My strategy was not unlike yours, which was to win at all cost. Whatever I was gonna do, if it's gonna be sports, if it's gonna be grades, if it's gonna be drama club, if it's gonna be whatever, I gotta have the lead in the lead role.

I gotta be the captain, I gotta win state championship and discus. I mean, I gotta do all this or I'm not worth anything. And it got me through a little bit in life, but it ultimately would be a failed strategy.

Right, exactly. And you mentioned beforehand that you were your first marriage. You were married for 16 years, roughly 16. And now you've been married in your second marriage. Hopefully your last for 16 years. What would you say are the lessons from your first marriage to your second marriage about yourself? What is different within you to make this more harmonious than the first marriage? Oh, my God. Not about the other person, about everything. You.

Right, right. Well, and parts.

And part two of that. What money lessons did you learn from that you would have applied to the first marriage before getting married? Yeah.

Well, I think. I think for me, early on in the first marriage was it just wasn't. It wasn't a loving, caring relationship. And that's on me. I picked out a relationship that wasn't loving and caring and healthy. And even from the very beginning, there were lots of. There were a lot of fighting and a lot of, you know, oddly enough, jealousy and a lot of difference in values in the world. And so it was, the whole thing was just. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did, actually. But the second time, I took the time after I went through the divorce and I went through the depression because of the kids and the business and all the other things I was going through, I took time to actually work on me to heal and heal instead of just trying to. Not that I didn't try to rush into relationships. I did, but that was failed, too. So finally, I was working with my therapist. I'm like, okay, what now? And she goes, so you'll get a kick out of this. So we created a project. It was called my therapist said, you're a genius in business, but you're like an idiot savant, because when it comes to relationships, you were so bad.

And so why don't you come back next week and come up with the strategy like you do in business? So I came back and I said, okay, ten friends project. She goes, what? What's ten friends? I said, well, what I do is I meet ten women and just be friends and nothing more than friends. And then after that, you know, I'll learn something about relationships and about friendships, and then we'll see what happens after that. So she said, I think that's a pretty good plan. So I'd go out and I tell. Tell the girl, you're gonna be friends. You're number one. This is gonna be platonic. We're gonna be friends, and that's it. And they go, oh, really? When are you going to get done with all ten? I'm like, I don't know. It was really. It was a weird situation.

How long did it take?

Probably three or four months.

I love that, though.

And then it was just friends. And then finally number seven, who owned a salon shop, said, I think she wanted to be number ten. She was number seven. She said, well, I'll introduce you to a bunch of other girls, and then we'll get you through, and then maybe you could come back to me. So she introduced me to my wife.

Really?

Yeah. Melissa was number ten.

Really?

She was?

Yeah. That's interesting. Ten different women, you just hung out with them as friends, went on casual dates?

Yep.

You know, as friend dates, I guess, yeah, activities or whatever. And you said, I'm not. There's not gonna be anything more than this. Yep. Until I meet ten different women and just have conversation and hang out. Interesting.

And in between, there a lot of child therapy, childhood therapy stuff healing along the way.

Wow. So what did you learn about money the second time you got married?

Oh, well, the second, because you had.

You had, you had made money on your own, then you got married, you made a ton of money, then you got divorced, lost money, made money, then you got married again. So what did you learn about your money wounds or money and being in a relationship on how to make it work?

Yeah, it was so counterintuitive to me because I thought that the money was the only thing that would make at work prior. And I actually wrote out a vision statement about the kind of woman that I wanted to meet, you know, funny, athletic, caring, kind, not driven by money. And I remember when I met Melissa, you know, we would go out and she goes, I almost didn't go out with you because you have a little bit of money. And, you know, I was really afraid of that. You know, anybody I went out with that money had this, and, you know, I want you to know that I don't need a lot of money, and I don't even want your money, and I don't want, you know, I'm taking care of my family and I'm taking care of my kids. And, you know, so it was really completely different than what I had, you know, experienced in the past. But she really, really didn't care about the money at all, and I. And that's the way she is today, too. And finding someone that once, when I found someone that really wanted to be in a relationship with me because of my life experiences and what I've been through, and then being able to share that and then go into therapy and counseling together and sharing all that together, that was really great.

It was really great. And, yeah, we still had conflict about money here and there, but it wasn't from. It wasn't from a place of. She was wanting just the money. She really, really loved the relationship.

That's beautiful. What would you say are some things people should talk about before getting married, about money? Conversations? What questions did you ask your partner before getting married to make sure that you're at least setting yourself up on the right track of a healthy, successful marriage?

One of the things is, I think both people would want to define what their purpose for money is and then make sure that those are synergistic and they work together.

So give me an example of what maybe yours was during that time.

Mine was love. To create love in the world. And hers? Washington family love. Close second. So they were very synergistic. They worked really well together. She had a belief that her value as a human being was determined on her working and that if she wasn't working, that she wouldn't have any value.

Interesting.

And that was something we had to work through, because I wanted to be able to travel. I wanted to be able to do things with the kids. I wanted to be able. But she.

Her job.

She was a physical therapist and went from home. Physical therapy. But she couldn't take time off without.

Thinking, she's not valuable anymore.

Well, she would lose her job. If she took as much time as I wanted to take off, she would lose her job.

And if she wasn't working, she was thinking, I'm not valuable.

I'm not valuable.

Interesting.

And so that was a money kind of a money demon we had to work through.

Now, I guess she might think I'm not valuable for myself, but also the fear could be. Well, if I'm not working. He met me when I was working and providing for myself and independent. That's what turned him on, potentially. So if I'm not doing that, will he still be turned on?

Yeah. And what if I turned out being like, her last husband and then left her, and then she'd given up her job. Right. And she has three kids to take care of.

And that fear.

So that fear of being left, being abandoned.

And then what?

Then what would she have?

I mean, it's a. It's a real fear, though, right? I mean, it's real fear. So she has to have a lot of trust in you that. Okay, I'm gonna leave my job, and you're not gonna leave me. Yeah. How does a woman trust a man in that position who's already been divorced and been wounded, who's already been abandoned, who wants to make sure that doesn't happen again? Who wants to provide for their family? How does a woman trust and have faith. What can she say to the man to feel safe?

I think it's a. Well, it was another interesting thing. So her ex husband had told her that, and this just gutted me when I heard it the first time, had told her that because she had three kids that no one would ever want her to talk about a gut punch. I mean, that was just. We had the first day we went to Starbucks and had our first date together. We talked for like 3 hours.

Just as friends.

Yeah, just as friends for the first year. And that made me so mad, and I don't know why because I never really thought about getting divorced. And maybe it was subconscious, but even from the time I was in college, I ever thought if I did ever marry somebody that had kids, I would love their kids the same way that I love them. And I would never let that be an obstacle to having a relationship.

Wow.

So when he was manipulating her like that and trying to control her and making her feel bad and really depressed about the whole thing, it really made me mad. But that was another one of her money demons, was that she had kids and no guy was going to want to take that on.

So how did she learn to let go of that and trust you and have faith?

I think it was just tons of time and therapy, counseling, and just lots of. Lots and lots of discussions about things.

And probably your actions. Matching your words consistently for her.

Right. Most of our therapy had to do around the kids. I'm sure this kid's doing this, that parents doing this, this kid needs that, and this kid needs that. And then working through all of those. Working through all of those. We had a therapist once time tell us, you know, three years to get it all really aligned up and make it feel like one's family all the way. Ten years, maybe.

Ten years? Yeah.

It takes a long time. We have that many players involved.

No, but also, when you got divorced, I'm assuming it affected your financial situation or your business. You had to either split or give up a large portion. Or I'm assuming, unless I'm wrong, let me know. But how did you manage that? Money, demon of man. I worked so hard for this, and now I've got to give up half or whenever it was. Yeah. How did you overcome that? And how did you, instead of being a victim to that situation, how did you start to shift and say and use it for good, that scream?

Well, once I kind of came out of the sadness of some of the grief part of it, I was like, okay, now what I'm going to do what am I going to do to make this mess into a message? And we had a negotiator that helped negotiate the divorce, a mediator. And part of the mediation was, look, this is my company. I built this company. The income you're getting, the benefits, the money, everything you're getting is because I'm keeping this company running. And without me, there is no company. So I'm not going to let you double dip. I'm not going to give you half of the company and half of all the other stuff in addition.

Right. If you just stop running the company.

I'll stop running the company, and I'll run it into a ditch.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then I'm not. I'm not very great at negotiating, but that was. I was firm on that. But you're getting a really great deal. You're gonna get going with your life. You're gonna. You got lots of great resources to go on and be happy, do your own deal, but I'm not giving you my company. And that was. And I kept the company intact. That was, in retrospect, that was really, really good.

But you gave up a lot of your other. Or you gave a lot of your other assets and cash and.

Yeah.

How did that make you feel, though, that screen? Did you say, you know what? This is creating freedom and peace for me, and I'm okay with this.

And I just felt like it was worth it.

Yeah.

I was like, whatever it's going to take to get our through this and move on with my life, it's just worth it.

Now, going through a divorce one time, did you have these conversations with your current wife before you got married about like, hey, you know, is there prenuptial agreement conversations? Is there. How do you navigate that when one person's been wounded from a previous relationship and been told you're never gonna meet anyone again and has to work full time now, and you got wounded by your own stuff. How did that money conversation happen beyond what sounds like a money values conversation, which you had, which is, what was your purpose for money in life? How did you get clear on that?

She made it real easy. She said, I don't want your money. She said, I just want you. That sounds great. But we put stuff in, like, there. Well, we would keep things separate for a little while, but then if we start putting real estate in her name, different assets in her name and different, you know, stuff like that. So it took a little bit, but now she's fully invested.

It's fully invested. There was no prenuptial agreement or anything.

Or there was initially, but then you're.

Once everything's sold.

Yeah, I was 17 years in, so.

Yeah, it doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, that's great. Interesting. What advice do you have for people who are in their early twenties who don't maybe have a ton of money yet, who are looking to get married when you become a completely different person in your thirties and forties, it sounds like, what conversation should they have around money before marriage in their early twenties?

Gosh, that's such a hard one. I didn't have in my twenties. I didn't have any money. I mean, I think the conversation is, can we be happy without money? It's going to be hard. I think I only made like $20,000 my first year, and the first condo I bought was $40,000 and was 1000 square foot a condo.

I mean, it was the Cincinnati.

Yeah, I mean, I just didn't. I just didn't have much and expect things to take, I think so many, so many kids in their twenties today. I think not everybody, but they want to start at the top. They think they can get on instagram, being an influencer, get on TikTok, do this and that. You'll be making, you know, fat stacks and be worth a million bucks and very quick. But my experience in life isn't that. My experience is digging it out. Grunting, working 70 hours, work weeks, sometimes working on the weekends, even now to promote the book. I mean, I'm just all over the place working like crazy. It's never been easy. It's been fun, it's been challenging, it's been awesome. It's been fulfilling, but it's never been easy and it's never been fast. And I always tell my kids, look, you know, I'll give you a shot at working in the company, but you gotta be the best employee here, because if you're not, your name's on the building, you're gonna come kick you out of here.

Wow.

And I've done that.

Really had kids come work with you that just slacked off or felt entitled or didn't do the hard work. Yep.

Didn't. Just didn't work and had to part ways. And there's no regrets now when we know it all went the right way for everybody. But I would I tell my kids today, if I had to start over and I had no money, I'd go to work for somebody and I take the. If I had to, I'd take the lowest job in the company and I would work my rear end off, and I would prove my worth. And then the boss would see me in there before everybody. They'd see me leave after everybody. They'd see me take on responsibilities that people didn't tell me to take on. I would always be asking my boss about, what can I learn, what to expand myself? And I would outwork every single person at that company and take every advantage I could get and prove my worth. And if I had to start, there's a chapter, it's on whispers. It says, if you have nothing, great, start with nothing. But don't expect to get it overnight, because if you're expecting to get it overnight, you're going to be sadly disappointed. My dad told me a story. He said, look, you know, there's a king, and he sends all these wise men out to the world.

He says, bring me back all the wisdom. And he brings back a whole library, like the 4000 books. And he goes, too much. I can't read it. I'll cut it down. Then they come back ten years later with 500 books. He said, too much, cut it down. Comes back with one book. He says, too much, cut it down. They come back with one sentence. And the one sentence is, there ain't no free lunch, and you're not gonna get something for nothing. You're gonna have to pour your heart, your soul and your passion into something and prove that you're better than the next guy. And if you don't wanna work for somebody, then work for yourself and be an entrepreneur, which is, I think, the highest expression of being in the american dream. People misunderstand entrepreneurs. They think they do it because of greed. And even Adam Smith made that mistake in his writings. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs, and they don't do it because of the money. They do it because it's an expression of who they are. It's like an artist would create on a canvas. An entrepreneur creates their company through a self expression of creativity that serves others in the forms of products and services.

But the most successful ones are not the ones that are doing it for cash. They're doing it to make the world a better place and to express who they are as a human being.

They rather that, wow, what is the american dream in your mind?

The american dream is a way you see the world that you're willing to take a stand for and that you want to see for your family, and you want to build into your family. And it's investing your. That's why my publishers were like, well, this is an investing book. I'm like, no, it goes, well. It's a personal development book. I said, no. They said, well, what the heck is it? I said, it's a type of a memoir, so you could learn from the storyline. But it's a personal development, and it's an investing book. That's why it's investing your time and your energy and your money. And the best investment you can make is in yourself, not your portfolio, if you'll invest in yourself first. Yeah, there's a lot of science about investing. There's a lot of brain stuff you got to learn about investing. But you're the greatest investment you're going to make. And that's the way I see the american dream. Investing in yourself, challenging yourself, asking profound questions, focusing on your purpose. And when people say, well, how do I create my american dream? The easiest way for you to create your american dream is to help other people create theirs.

Was that Jim Rohn maybe said that, or something like that, or Zig. Ziglar said, if you want to achieve your goals, help everyone else achieve them. I'm sure I ripped it off from somebody. You've got a lot of references to think and grow rich in here. I do. Which I love that book. And just kind of the whole idea of really, really creating that mission and that purpose for yourself and seeing that and visualizing it over and over again, you know, after 61 years of life, a lot of ups and downs and a ton of financial success, and now family and relational success and health as well, what is the best investment that you have yet to make in yourself?

Have yet to make?

You've got a lot of things. You've got the family. You've got, you know, the book, you've got the things in motion. But at this season of life, how can you pour back into you to keep investing in you?

I think I should take some time off. I think I should take a little bit more time to rest and relax and meditate. I like to increase my spirituality and my faith. That's something I'm focusing more on now than I ever have before. But I think with so many kids and with so many things going on, I think more time with Melissa, just time together to share time. I think that's important. So some rest, some meditation, spirituality, a little bit more time with Melissa, because I'm hitting it on all cylinders on the most of the other stuff.

What will it take, you know, from you to take those actions and for the next six months, really invest in what you're saying?

I think I need to go home like right now on the plane and talk to Melissa and say, let's just look at the next six months and set this out. Cause I know she's a big fan of doing it too. So sitting down with her and making a full game plan out.

Yeah. I'm gonna text you to see how it goes this weekend. All right. See, by this weekend I wanna see the game plan you're on for six months.

I love it.

Of how you're gonna say no to more things so you can say yes to you in time with her.

That's what I want to do.

And rest and fitness and all these things. Because you had a heart surgery a year and a half ago.

I did.

And then you launched a book and you're launching all these other things and building the business, right?

Yeah.

You don't need more of these things. No.

And I was dead for 16 minutes. People ask me, did you see anything? I'm like, oh, I wish I did. That'd be a great book, wouldn't it? You know, nothing happened in 16 minutes. You know, nothing to report. Must not have been my time.

Nothing?

No, nope.

No visions. You can see yourself or anything, not.

In your body, but I'll take you on, I'll get your phone number, get your text message, I'll even come back on in six months and give you a full report.

There you go. That's interesting. Well, I think for me, I've had a lot of tons of billionaires on this show, mega millionaires and people with exited huge companies and top sports stars and all these different things for people, accomplished a lot, right? Created a lot of value in the world, achieved their dreams, been number one in what they do, top scientists, all these different things. But I think with someone who's created so much at this season of life, that's why I asked that question. You said the best investment is in yourself. So I wanted to throw it back at you and see how could this add value to you to reflect in the middle of it all book launch and all the things you're trying to create still? But how could you pour into you that you haven't done yet? And it seems like for the last 40 years you've been running on multiple cylinders of achievement, success, family, kids, blended family. Like it's just been nonstop. It has. And so I think that's a great time to invest in. Yeah. I'm not saying you have to stop everything, but more time, more scheduled time for you guys.

I think that is great. I know we just met each other, but it sounds like, great insight from a friend, for sure. Yeah, I really appreciate that.

Yeah, of course. Well, something I've taken away so far from you is whether you're just starting out at some company or you're in your twenties, or you're restarting in your thirties or forties or whatever it might be, and you have these limiting beliefs or these demon beliefs, whether it be around money or relationships or your health or whatever it might be, and you don't think you have value to add to anyone. What you can do is work really hard. You can also add a lot of value by listening to people. And when you listen to someone, I could have no other skills. I could have no platform or audience or money or nothing. But if I can listen to someone and pay attention to what they're saying and what they're not saying, if I can just be present to your energy and hear you, okay, the best thing you can do is invest more into you. And then I just reflect the question back to you. What do you need to invest in yourself? It's a great way to add value to anyone. Whether you think you have value or not, whether you're a billionaire or broke, if you can be present and listen to people and reflect back what they need and be of service with a question, you could change someone's life.

And I'm not saying this about me, I'm just saying this about this is something I like to do. It's brilliant and I think anyone can do it. It doesn't. I don't need to be an investment guru to do that. I don't need to be the world's number one athlete. I don't need to have a billion dollars to be present and listen and just see what I can reflect back for someone to be of service to them. And hopefully that adds value. We'll see the next six months. Yes, we will.

We're going to do that.

But I think a lot of people, like you said, doubt their abilities, doubt themselves. They have these demons that hold them back, that keep them playing small, whatever area of life they're in. But if you can be willing to do everything you said, like, I'm going to show up early, leave late to situations, I'm going to take on things that were not required of me, I'm going to have a positive attitude the whole time, you know, I'm going to do whatever it takes and I'm going to be a great listener. I think you can add a lot of value in the world. You don't need to be talented but you can do those things.

I agree 100%.

Yeah. I have a couple final questions for you. This has been really fascinating. We haven't really talked about, like, investing at all, you know. Right. That's part of why that's a third of the way you do. You teach people how to make scientific investment decisions without emotion, essentially by using data, human behavior and science to win over the long term. How can people, I mean, you have a whole book about this, but if people aren't able to dive into it just yet, and you are saying, okay, here's my investing philosophy over the last 30 plus years, with all the research and the science that we've had and the Nobel Prize winners that have been researching this and all these different things, here is the investment philosophy in 2025 and beyond. What would you say that is for people?

So just like there's screens in money, in relationship, there's screens in investing. And most people operate out of a screen called investor prediction syndrome, where they feel like they need a prediction about the future to be successful. So that leads them to want to ask questions like, what are the best stocks and when do I get into them? What's the market going to do? What are the economic or political things that are going to happen, therefore dictating when I should get in and out of the market, or who were the greatest managers in the past, and I should give them my money and they'll continue to beat the market going forward. But the reality is that those are all flawed methodologies of investing because they're based on prediction of the future. And when you think about that, that's really insane, because, number one, no one can predict the future. And if they could tell you exactly what stocks were going to be the best stocks, they wouldn't tell you. They'd keep all that information for themselves. And all the knowable and predictable information about the future is already factored into the price today. Therefore, only unknowable and unpredictable information are going to change the prices going forward.

That means stock picking, market timing, and track record investing are all forms of gambling and speculating with your money. So number one is, don't speculate with your money. I'm not making a moral thing where if you get on draftkings and drop a $100 on the weekend, that's up to you. But I'm saying if you're trying to invest for your american dream and you're going to need $2 million for your future, then don't gamble and speculate it. The second thing is you want to use academic studies to then build your portfolio. And what academic studies tell us to do is to broadly diversify and over hundred countries and so that we're not all in one country countries or companies countries. Yeah.

Diversify your money in 100 countries?

Yeah, all over the world or in their, in their, in their markets.

Really?

Yep. In their markets, in their bonds and build a globally diversified portfolio. And then once you determine what your mix is, don't stock pick. So if I want to buy small us stocks, I buy a structured fund or an index fund that will buy just that segment of the market. And I'm not going to be churning and burning and trying to predict and forecast and then I'm going to rebalance. What that means is if I put half equities and half in fixed income and like in 19 98 20 08 20 09 rather the market crashed 50%. Well, now my stocks are way under allocated in my portfolio. I can tell you what most people do because I've been there. They don't call me up and say, hey, can you sell my fixed income and buy more stocks when they're on sale by 50%, that's when they shouldn't do that and that's what they should do. So they need to force themselves. You said the thing about emotions, the problem with emotions is they can't be controlled. They can be controlled for. And the way that they're controlled for is through a system, a control system, decision control system, usually by someone who's already demonstrated that they have that kind of discipline.

You know, these kind of things like AA or gamblers anonymous or that kind of stuff. Those are decision control systems that keep people from doing addictive behavior. Well, the same thing goes for investing. You can actually work on a system within, that's coaching and training you not to actually gamble with their money when you want to do it the worst. And then the other thing is no toxic investments. What does that mean? Toxic investments would be like bitcoin. There's no there to bitcoin. You're not investing in a company. You don't get stock, you don't get intellectual property, you don't get bonds, you don't get real estate. There's nothing, literally nothing. The right price for bitcoin is zero. There's no economic theory behind any value for bitcoin. It's all gambling and speculating. Things like hedge funds. Hedge funds are pure gamble and speculation. It costs you 2% of your money every year and then 20% of any of the gain. And the hedge fund managers open up 20 different hedge funds knowing darn well that they don't know which one's going to get lucky. But then the one that does get lucky, that's the one they tell you is the best one.

But it's just like flipping coins. They, they don't know which one's going to get lucky. That's why they need 20 of them. And if they actually knew how to make 40 or 50% a year, they wouldn't give it to you for two and 20. That's insane. Peer to peer lending, toxic investing, hedge funds, toxic investing, bitcoin, toxic commodities in general. Gold, terrible investment.

Why is gold, I mean, there's a lot of people out there who are saying, you know, crypto and bitcoin and decentralizing it. So it's not about the feds or the banks and no one's controlling it. You have more control and it's decentralized and blockchain, all that stuff. Gold is kind of the standard because when everything else goes down, gold is going up. There's all these different experts out there that talk about the benefits of these things. How is that not true?

So I give you the skinny old goal. I can do this r1 quick 5% rate of return with the same volatility as stocks. Stocks have a 10% rate of return, double rate return with no volatility. Plus gold is, they say it's a hedge against inflation. Well, inflation only moves up even in a bad period. Six, 7% a year. But gold has 1000 times the volatility of inflation. So how can I think that if I'm trying to hedge my inflation, it's going up by three or 4% a year, but I lose 40% in my gold, how can I possibly think that's a good hedge against inflation?

Why do people say gold is the way then?

I mean, hucksters really scammers.

What if it's like. But if it's a physical good though, it's an asset, right?

For jewelry, bad for your portfolio.

Okay, what do people say? Well, stocks are, you know, they're just pieces of paper, a digital paper. I really don't have any value in that. But gold, I can actually. It's like a real estate in a sense. It's a physical, tangible thing.

Well, it's a tangible thing, but it only has worth if other people are willing to pay for it. When I own a company, I don't just own paper, I own a piece of that company. So if my company that I bought makes new products, does new innovation, if I buy some. I buy an S and P 500 fund. I own a piece of 500 companies. Those companies have intellectual property. They have assets, they have factories, they have R and D. They have teams. They have teams. They have massive amounts of research and development behind them. You're buying a, something that grows gold, just sits there and you're safe and does nothing. And besides, if you buy a good diversified portfolio, we'll say of the s and p, you got gold anyway. You got mining companies, you got jewelry companies, you got distribution companies, you're going to have gold in there. You're just not going to double down and bet on it because it has a low return with massive volatility.

Anything else in this philosophy? I don't know if I cut you off at one point. No, no.

It's all great. It's great. It's great because I'm sure you've had many experts talk about how great hedge funds are and how great peer to peer lending. The idea is, the idea that they perpetuate is that if you want to be a billionaire, invest like a billionaire. But for every billionaire out there, there's thousands if not millions of people that tried to do the exact same thing they did and lost everything. And they never tell you about those people. If you want to invest for your american dream, you need to use science and math, not just speculating and gambling on what some billionaire says that they did.

So say I got anywhere between $50 to $100,000 right now, right? Someone watching say they have that where they got anywhere from ten to $100,000. Let's say that, yeah, you're starting out, you got $10,000 to $100,000. You have no idea where to put it. Do I trust a financial advisor or fiduciary? Do I do it myself? What do you do with that ten to $100,000 today? And then let's say you have $500 a month for the next 25, 30 years. To put it somewhere, what would you do? And you don't want to think about it. You don't want it to be stressful or overwhelming or daunting. And you say, how can I set myself up for success the next 20 to 30 years? I got ten to $100,000 now and 500 a month. What do I do? Yeah.

Well, at the risk of sounding self serving, buy the book. But basically what you do is the first thing you have to do is determine how much risk you're willing to take.

Say I'm willing to take a moderate.

Amount of risk moderate amount of risk.

Would be, I'm younger, I'm in my twenties and thirties.

If you're in your twenties, you probably, with the right education, could take an aggressive amount of risk, because stocks, large stocks that have averaged 10% have a volatility of about standard deviation of 18%. That means within one standard deviation you could be 28 or you could be negative eight. So it's volatile, but you're starting off with that 1st 50 or 100,000 and then you're putting in that 500 a month, that's dollar cost averaging. So if it does go down, then you're putting in more and you're buying more shares while it's down. So that gives you a lot of volatility, plus you got time, I mean a lot of ability to take advantage of the volatility, plus you got time to let it grow with compound interest. So I would build a diversified portfolio of equities using combination of index funds, structured asset categories. I would diversify globally, I would own emerging markets, I would own Asia, I would own Europe, I would own the United States, of course, but I would globally diversify that thing. And then I would rebalance on the, I would also own small stocks and value stocks, not just the s and p type stocks, large stocks.

That's the other mistake everybody makes. Then I would eliminate toxic assets from my portfolio, which are the crypto, the peer to peer lending, the commodities commodities have made, by the way, zero return over the last 15 years. And that's one of the things that Robinhood, look, most people have their cell phone, they got their Robinhood right next to their, their draftkings.

Just gambling.

Just gambling. There was a recent study that just said more people trust their, their gambling app on their sports than they do their stock picks. Really? Yeah. And that's what, and that you, because no one's taught them how to use academic science to do it. So obviously, most people have tried stock picking, most people have tried bitcoin, most people have tried these things, and a lot of people have had pretty massive losses along the way. And once you get burned, then you start saying, well, there's no prudent way to do this, but they just didn't take time to learn the science part of it.

Everything you just shared right now, picking all these different asset classes and Asia and us and this, for me, I'm like, I don't even know where to start with that if I'm not educated in investing. What you said to me sounds like japanese, I know, so you gotta. Is there a fun that does all of this is there s and p 500 that does most of it.

Like, I give this example, and I'm.

Glad you brought this up, or should you not try? Should you just not do it on your own?

Well, there, I got, I got this example for you. So, you know the movies where the pilot gets sick and somebody from the back of the plane that doesn't. Is not a pilot lands the plane, that never happens.

Yeah, but in the movies, yes, in.

Reality, it's never happened. And pilots will tell you there's zero chance of it ever happening of them. Right.

And some random person had a laugh from the.

Yeah, it's impossible. But if you interview men, what percentage of the men would you think, say they thought they think they could land the plane as long as they were talking to the tower? A lot of them, yeah, 50% say that they think they could land the plane. So the moral of the story is there really, there are some things you shouldn't probably do alone. Investing is probably one of them. But you can make the right decisions as long as you have a good coach to walk you through the process of how to make those decisions.

So should people. So people shouldn't be trying to invest on their own unless they've really studied and educated themselves. So where do they go? Because there are a lot of financial, I don't know, advisors out there that are not doing the right things. And is it a coach? Is it an advisor? Is it a fiduciary? Is it a. Where do you go to find the right team to support you?

Number one, you want to eliminate commissions. That's the first thing. Number two, you do want to look towards a fiduciary. But the problem is that the fiduciaries make, I've trained a lot of them, make the same mistakes that the investor makes, because how are they going to seduce you into buying their portfolio? They're going to seduce you with the things that have shot up over the last two or three years that look hot and sexy, and they're going to tell you, look, you can make 40%, you can make 80%, you can make whatever. And so even though they're fiduciaries, there's nothing to stop them from doing that kind of activity. What I think people should be looking for is, number one, a fiduciary. Number two, someone who actually understands the academic principles that have been taught largely at the University of Chicago and at some other places. And then they need a coach that has a proven track record and not panicking when things have been terrible. Like 2000 large us stocks lost 50%. They didn't make money for a whole decade. Large tech stocks, which is what everybody owns right now, in 2000, that period following 2000, lost 75% of all their value.

Wow.

And where's everybody investing all their money today? They're investing in large stocks. And tech stocks have no idea how much danger they really have in their portfolio. None whatsoever. So as markets do crash, and they will eventually, we just don't know when they can lose more money than they can possibly estimate because they're not globally diversified. And then you have to have someone that is willing. This is the hard part to lose you as a client. Let's say you cut, you have $2 million, and you come in, you're down, you're down a half a million. You're like, I went out, or I want this, or I want that. And the money manager knows that if he tells you the truth and says we're not going to do that, that you're going to move your money, and then they're going to be out of whatever fees they were charging, roughly 1%. So that'd be like $15,000 a year on that million and a half. So they're like, are they going to lose you and tell you the truth and refuse to facilitate a destructive strategy, even though that's how they're going to keep the money? Or are they going to be professional enough to say, you know what, that's destructive, you're going to hurt yourself.

And I can't be a party to that. If you can find that person, that's the person you should have. That you should have coach with you.

You know something I don't like about the financial advisory or money management world, and maybe it's just a money screen of mine. I don't like. I don't like. You tell me if it's a good one or a bad one. And maybe I just feel like the money industry is broken in some ways, but I don't like how a money manager or an advisor, whatever you want to call it, makes money, whether you go up or you go down. And they don't lose money with you. Yeah, I wish. Like, hey, if you're going down, I'm going down with I'm losing. I don't get any commission, but they keep getting paid. Why should they get 15 or 1%? 15 grand versus 20 grand at 2 million. Why should they say, you know what, I'm actually getting nothing for this year until you come back. Yeah, for me, the model is broken. Yeah, well, that's what I don't like.

Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe I'm wrong.

Well, you're definitely right on commissions. I mean, something, it's just totally insane to get commissions with the market goes up or down. But the manager, the manager has very little. Most of them will tell you they do have control. They'll tell you that, oh, we'll get you out of the market before it goes down.

You don't know. They don't know.

They have no idea.

No. Cool.

So you're actually. Sometimes you're harder to keep discipline after you lose 500,000. It's actually harder to coach you if you lost some money recently than it is when you've made a lot of money. If you just made 20%, when you're 2 million, you're up 400 grand, you're super easy to coach.

Yeah. Let's keep doing it.

Double down. We'll get riskier.

It's growing. I would rather find, you know, I get the. I get the industry doesn't work. Doesn't work like this, but I would rather say, hey, I'll pay someone, whatever, two grand a quarter to do a couple hours of coaching with me.

That's. That is this.

I'd rather do, like, a flat fee or a call, whatever it is. We do it once a quarter and say, all right, where do I need to go? And you just help me facilitate it. Or you make the facilitation based on what the plan is for each quarter, where the political space is at it, or. Or not. We just set it and forget it, kind of. And it has its own markers for the next 20 years, I guess. But then they just keep getting paid for doing nothing.

It's got to be Reba. The thing. The trick is it's got to be rebalanced.

Yeah.

The thing that you're paying, the thing that you. If they're good, the thing you're paying for is in your darkest moment, your emotions will take over.

Yes.

And your instincts will take over. So if you have part of your portfolio that's maybe made 5%, your fixed income, but your stocks are down 50%, your emotions are going to mess with you, but your instincts are, too, because your instincts are going to want to make you run from the thing that just hurt you, of course.

But that's when you need to go into it.

And that's why that's. And that's why it has to be discretionary, because you're not going to pull the trigger on your own. No, they're going to have to do it for you.

You're bleeding. You're like, ah, but aren't they, aren't the software, the tools so sophisticated now that they will recalibrate for you? You are different. This is great tools out there, and these companies that already recalibrate your portfolio for you, this is great. Triggers you. When this goes down, we calibrate and just boom.

So another way ask that question is, why don't we automate it? And an algorithm is great, and we use an algorithm, but the algorithm is only as good as the human behind the algorithm. So, like, that's why you can't go to, like, Vanguard online or Robin Hood online. You can go and build a model and you can hit a button that says rebalance. But when you look at your statement and something's down 50%, there's another button right next to it that says, don't rebalance, it's the sell, right? So the algorithms, there's nothing wrong with the algorithm per se, but the button next to the algorithm, that's the problem. And that's a human problem. That's why I don't think there's ever going to be a robot that coaches an NFL team to win a Super bowl. That's a purely human function.

Isn't that interesting? Because you need to make decisions based on science and data, not emotion. But people are moved emotionally to take action in sports or relationships or their health. Like, they're moved with emotion as well, to live their purpose.

Yeah. You gotta harness that emotion, not avoid. You can't be like spock, because you're never gonna be like Spock.

Yeah. Yeah.

You have to harness the emotion so that it's powerful and does the most for good. But you can't pretend that it's not there because it's gonna be there.

Yes. So if you're in my position, I'm 41, right? I'm not going to say everything I have, but let's say if you went back to 41 20 years ago, and it's 2024, going into 2025, and you want to set yourself up for the next 20 years, who would you hire? What would you do with your. Your current portfolio? Or who would be on your money team?

Well. Well, I. Another shameless plug. I would buy the book. We have a two day workshop that I largely wrote off the book. And we do it on. We do it on Zoom. We have one in October, and then we have one live in Scottsdale, which I teach personally and live in our facilities, and it takes some time learning because it's not a quick, it's just not a quick fix. There's some things in life I talk about in the book, that there's no hints and tips in the book because hints and tips don't work. And if it was that simple, everyone would have already figured it out. So a little, so some, some study the book. Two days. A two day workshop is like doing a twelve year thesis on PhD. But fun. I still having it fun. You get, you break the no talk rule. We didn't talk about that today, but there's a no talk rule about money. You get your purpose for money. You see the screens by which you see the world of money. You learn the academic investing principles. You learn, I only gave you a couple of the biases.

You learn more. The biases are how they affect you, and it's really a journey into self. The coolest thing about investing is not the portfolio piece. The coolest thing about investing is what it ultimately tells you about yourself and what you can discover about how you're wired and put together and what's really, truly important to you. And I'd love to. Love you to be my personal guest.

Yeah, I'd love to try to come sometime. I'll see you about January, if I can. But let's say we do go through the workshop and someone watching or listening, they go through the workshop and they get educated. Do they still hire a coach, a fiduciary, a money manager? Like who would be on their team once they're educated, do you think, well, they want to do it all on their own.

They want someone, you want someone to run you through the process. And once you understand the academics, there's like eight different academic principles we go through. Okay, okay. And I give you the evidence and you say, okay, I believe you don't trust anybody.

Trust the evidence.

Yeah, trust the evidence.

Trust the science.

Trust the science and look at the science and say, does that make sense to me? Okay, this step, this step. Okay, I got that. Okay, I get the science part of it. Then you want to analyze your existing portfolio. Once you say, okay, this is the science. Now I want to look at what I got and see how it stands up to the science that I believe, and it would tell you how much volatility you have, how much risk. So if I asked you, for example, in your model, what's the worst three year period you could go through historically? How much money could you lose? You don't know?

I'm not sure.

Nobody knows because it's never been analyzed. What's your worst two year period? How many times over the last 30 years could you have lost 40% of your money or more over our two to three year period? And as a couple, you talked about things you talk about as a couple together in our portfolio. How would we feel, honey, if we're looking at this thing and we got our million and now it's down 40%, and now we got 600, is that going to meet our sleep factor? And if it doesn't, then I have to. You, working with your coach, redesign the portfolio so that it doesn't have that kind of risk exposure. But it shouldn't be a mystery. You should know exactly what the volatility could be based on how you structured your portfolio. And so you want to analyze it scientifically to see what's really going on under, you know, underneath the hood, what's really in there, because your investments have all these names, growth fund, value fund international. But that doesn't mean that's exactly what's inside of them. That has to be analyzed like an MRI to actually see what's going on inside of those funds.

I spent $5 million creating a piece of software that actually analyzes what's going on inside of the portfolio. And then you have enough knowledge to go, okay, now I understand it. Now then you can make the decision, well, do I want to try to do this myself? Do I want to do this with somebody else? Do I want the added discipline? But the first knowledge is power, and if you start with the knowledge piece first, then those type of decisions will get clearer for you.

Are there, like, Matson approved coaches that you have, too?

Yeah, we have 500 of them all.

Over the country that have gone through.

Your system, gone through our training. I've had some of them that have been with us for 30 years.

Gotcha. So, those are people that are probably on your website that people can look at and reference, call, and ask questions to and see what's right for them or whatever as well. Interesting. That's cool. This is really exciting stuff. I'm sure there's a lot more we could go into, but I think this is a great first conversation. I've got a couple final questions for you, but I want people to get the book. It's called experiencing the american dream, how to invest your time, energy, and money to create an extraordinary life. But really, it's kind of like a psychology to your beliefs around money, your relationship with money, and how to break free of those things that hold your back in life, which is interesting because I just finished a book I turned in a few months ago that is called make money easy, and it's all about healing your relationship with money.

Oh, my gosh.

I kind of wish, I wish I before, because a lot of this stuff in here has some similar tones to what I've talked about. It's not an investing book. It is a relationship to money and healing book. Because I'm not the expert on investing and I've had the experience you do. But I interviewed a lot of money experts and a lot of therapists and relationship experts, and I blended the three on how to have a deeper, intimate relationship with your money and relationships with others around money. So you're not avoidant, you're not, you know, too attached. You're in a secure relationship with money for yourself and with others. Because I think money is a big driver for people, but it also hurts a lot of people and their relationships.

Agreed.

And if we can heal our relationship to money, have new, you know, mend those money wounds from our past. That wound of your grandfather speaking to your father and I him die a few months later. Like, we can mend those wounds. You talk about Viktor Frankl in your book a lot. And we create meaning from those memories, reconfigure and integrate those lessons and start to heal as an adult from the past. Then we can have a new relationship to money and we can master it, as opposed to it being a master of us. Love it. And that's something I'm excited to bring out, too. But it sounds like you teach a lot of this stuff as well for people in your workshop, which I'm excited about. Get the book experiencing the american dream. You can check out your website also, which is just essentially your name. That's in money.com, which has a lot of other content and resources I saw on there as well. Talking about the science of investing. Check out your workshops, which sounds like you do a couple a year, but also over Zoom. People can take it or virtually as well.

We do it six times a year, three times live in Scottsdale, which is my favorite.

That's great.

I really went all out. I talk about the space in the book. I have a Berlin wall, a piece of Berlin Wall exhibit. I have science exhibits about the scientific theory and how it applies. I have inspiration out in Scottsdale. In Scottsdale. Really? Yeah. I got a facility.

That's cool. How big is the facility?

50,000?

Yeah. Holy cow. So it's like an exhibit. It's not just an office where.

Oh, no, it's a full experience.

Really? Yeah. I gotta check this out. In Scottsdale or Paradise Valley?

In Scottsdale? Yep. Really?

Okay. Next time I'm there, I'm checking it out. I'm calling you up. This is a question I asked everyone towards the end of our conversations. It's called the three truths. So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario. Mark, it's your. You get to live as long as you want, but it's your last day on earth if you're as old as you want to be. But eventually, it's the last day, and you get to accomplish everything you want from this moment until then. These three dreams that you talked about all come true. You see your kids and grandkids, and it all happens for you, but on the last day, you have to take everything with you. So no one has access to this conversation. This book is gone. Your dream center, like, everything, is gone. Hypothetical, no content on social media website. Any information about you is gone. But on the last day, you get to leave three things behind. Three lessons. I call it the three truths. And this is all we would have access of your information, your content. Are these three truths behind. What would be those three truths for you?

Manhattan? For me, God is real. That love is the thing that really bonds families together and makes life worth living. And it's probably not going to be the biggest. The big things that you said, you know, all the books or the dream center or any of that stuff that's going to matter, it's going to be the relationships in love and intimacy with people. And I guess if I had a fourth, it would be the vision of freedom as a universal principle that creates better lives for people all over the planet.

That's beautiful, man. Before I ask the final question, Mark, I want to acknowledge you for your vision and bringing this message to people all over the world. I think this type of content is what we need most. And so when I saw this book, I literally had already finished my book a few months earlier. I turned it in, and we're going through the edits right now. But I was like, this is exactly the stuff that. It's exciting to me because I feel like families get broken apart because of money, marriages get broken apart because of money. Kids abandon their parents. It's just nasty. Stuff can happen with money in relationships. But I also think dreams and missions and purpose can come fulfilled as well with the right use of money under the right screen or mental model that we have, and when we can change our screen or our mental model around using money for good, creating value to generate money, being of service, helping others accomplish their goals, their dreams. That's the most rewarding thing that we can do. It's the most fulfilling thing. It's the most selfish thing in a sense, is helping others.

Because you get more from it than just someone helping you by yourself. And the money or whatever resources you need will come from that. Whether it's millions of dollars or just at abundance of peace, you will live a rich life. And so I'm grateful for you. I acknowledge you for really mastering this the last 30 plus years, 40 years of your life. Diving into this, diving into the academics and the science of this. Not going off of emotion yourself, but going into these other areas that have been researched to create a more understandable lens around money and the american dream. So I acknowledge you for what you've created with this. And I acknowledge you for taking this weekend to reflect on how you to take time for the next six months for yourself. You got it. And then give back to you and invest in you. I love it. My final question mark is what is your definition of greatness?

Oh, wow. In our core value documents, we actually have a statement in there about greatness inspiring others to greatness. And we had a long debate. There were 50 of us in the room and we wanted to hash out every single word and agree on every single word.

Like the Declaration of Independence.

Like the declaration of Independence. That's what we did. And two or three people in the company were like, no, we can't put that in there because we can't inspire people to greatness. And that's too big of a thing to take on. Greatness is, to me, is living an extraordinary life where you've made a difference for other people and you've left the world a better place. And if I can leave the world a better place, and then I came into it, I'll consider that a win.

There you go. Experiencing the american dream. Mark, thanks so much for being. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it, man.

Thank you.

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