Becoming Multi-Millionaire At The Age Of 50 With Rennie Gabriel

I’m Igor Kheifets. And this is the list building lifestyle. The podcast for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my bestselling book, the list building lifestyle Confessions of an email millionaire at www.igorsbook.com. Get the free book plus $3,000 bonus package that includes my best capture page templates, email, swipe files, and traffic blueprints, visit www.igorsbook.com for details. And now it’s time to claim your list building lifestyle.

00:52

Welcome back to the list building lifestyle. I’m your host, Igor Kheifets. And today I’m hosting my good friend Reni. Reni is the author of wealth, money income, it’s a bestselling book about achieving financial freedom and becoming a multimillionaire getting out of debt. And doing it without the usual pains.

01:13

And in the aches of dealing with money. In fact, Randy’s got a TEDx talk, which you should check out on YouTube, where he talks about the mixed messages we get about money, philanthropy, and wealth. And I also recommend picking up a copy of his book of wealth, and then the income, which we’ll be discussing in this episode as well.

01:36

In one way or another, I wanted to bring in a reading to chat about wealth, as he has a really interesting insight into how we carry beliefs from our childhood about money that get passed through our parents and the society we grew up in. But also, he’s got an amazing story that he’s going to share with you, of course, how he became a multi-millionaire, after the age of 50, having gone through two divorces, and a business failure. So, this should be really interesting for you if you’re into money. And so, with that said, Ronnie, welcome to the list building lifestyle. Thank you, Igor. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate the opportunity. No, it’s so, it’s a great pleasure. I’ve been going through your book in recent days, and I appreciate you allowing me to do it.

02:28

And it’s been fascinating, I kind of started a new page in my diary, or whatever note taking thing on my computer, where I actually sit down, and I’m kind of looking at it now. And I started doing the exercise that you suggest, with regards to discovering money beliefs, which is where I want to start because you pose a few questions that you learn from your friend, another friend of yours, who wrote a book about money mindset, I don’t recall her name, but you do give her credit in the book. And you pose a series of questions with regards to, you know, money beliefs. So, without going into these questions, guys, I recommend you pick up the book wealth in any income to get a deeper insight into this, but how, what have you discovered about yourself when you were going through this exercise? I, one of the things that I discovered is it doesn’t really matter how much money I have; I still have certain insecurities. And the other book that you were referring to. I happen to have published through a public book publishing company I had years ago, called couples and money. By Victoria Felton Collins. Yes, that’s the one. And yeah, and I actually put some of the questions from that book in my book. So, you know, you can get my book and you got to for one actually got dozens of books from my book, because that’s how many I had to read to get my finances in order. 

04:09

And this is not an answer directly to your question, but I think it’s important to talk about the fact that we’re not taught how to handle money from our parents. I mean, I can’t blame them. They can’t teach what they don’t know. And the school system also doesn’t teach us anything about how to handle money. And you think, Okay, fine. I’ll ask my CPA, or I’ll go to a Certified Financial Planner, guess what? I was certified as a financial planner. It was not in my coursework, how to do the foundations of handling money, like a budget.

04:47

And it’s also not taught to CPAs so they could teach their clients. So literally the people we would turn to for help aren’t even educated in this. That’s why it took dozens of books for me to finally dig

05:00

got the information and saved myself. But now going back to the answer of, you know, what are the issues that I had little things show up, like, when I was younger, if I had, you know, $1,000 in my checking account, I’d feel secure. Now it takes hundreds of 1000s to feel secure.

05:30

And, you know, little things like that change. But the bottom line is the insecurities are still there. I mean, the cash flow is good. I gave my daughter money, so she could buy a house. And now then I started fretting about Gee, am I going to still be able to live the lifestyle that I want? And the reality is, yes, the cash flow doesn’t stop. But the old messages are still there. Yeah, so I can totally relate. I was actually just having a conversation with somebody the other day about, you know, them saying how they admire me, my drive, and you know, my relentlessness. Right. Even though I am making a lot of money, I still maintain this relentlessness. And I told him that look, it’s not something that I personally admire, because it’s something that was serving me early on. But once you’ve crossed the first million, the second million, at some point, you’re just operating in this? Well, I can only speak for myself, obviously. But I operate from this place of fear. Because one of the questions in the book is what was my mother’s role concerning finances, and how is my role like hers. 

06:45

And what I’ve discovered is, predominantly, I remember my mom worrying about the paycheck worrying about the next check and worrying about whether she’s going to have a job tomorrow, I remember, I would wake up, she would wake me up to get ready to go to the Academy, I was in the Israeli Air Force Academy. And as I was having breakfast, she was sitting across the table from me doing her makeup, before she would go to work. And she would always work, she would never leave the house without putting on makeup. That was her thing. And so, I remember her in front of this little mirror tiny little mirror that she places on the table. And she’s really stressed out sometimes with a cigarette, you know, like one hand and the brush and the other. And, I think one time I asked her about Mom, what’s wrong? And her answer was something like, what do you mean, what’s wrong, we got, we got cuts happening. So, I don’t know if I’m gonna get fired today. And that vibe really stuck with me, because that was the vibe she had, most of the time, she was either angry at my dad for spending money, or she was sort of fearful, but that would make her seem angry. So, she was fearful about losing her job. And so, what’s really interesting is that I was having conversation with my wife the other day, about specifically this question, and she asked me, what do you remember, you know, and how does it transfer and I was like, well, I worry about the next sale all the time, in spite of the sales coming in on, you know, regular basis, literally, like every hour, sometimes every few minutes.

08:26

Unless they see the next sale coming in. I don’t get the dopamine hit. And I started worrying about oh, did my ad stop working? There’s my funnel down. Is the offer not good? Are people you know, all of a sudden not going to be buying from me? And so, one of the greatest fears for me is for my income to suddenly stop. Although in the last 12 or 13 years, that never happened. But that’s the field like you said, the old programming is still there. And it doesn’t seem to be going away. Ya knows, believe me, I get it. You know, I look back at similar things. And one, one, I don’t know where this came from. I was fortunate that my mother, when I was probably about eight years old, gave me this message that if you buy rental real estate, the tenants are actually buying the real estate for you. And that was a message she told me back when I was eight years of age and she just purchased a little four-unit building.

09:32

And what ends up happening is that you look back on those things. And you figure well, I was in a sales job, my income would go up and down like a roller coaster and it was very uncomfortable for me. And my solution to that was to buy real estate. Now this didn’t happen till I was after 50 When I finally started putting my financial act together but that’s what saved me.

10:00

The income from the real estate, whether my sales were good or not good, the tenants had jobs. And every month they paid the rent. And so that income was steady. And that solved the roller coaster income that I had. And that’s what allowed me to choose to work or choose not to work. I can’t seem to choose not to work. But at least I know, I don’t have to. Interesting. So, tell me what it was. So first off you, I agree that it is amazing that your mom put forth that message. Because looking back on my parents, you know, we were middle class in Ukraine, and when we moved to Israel, we became really, really poor. And what’s interesting is that my parents never bought real estate of any kind, even though the people around them have the same sort of income levels, still managed to get mortgages and put together some, you know, money for a deposit. So, it took me like 10 or 11 years after I transitioned to be a full-time online entrepreneur, to actually buy a place. Until then I was just renting and renting, renting. And that’s, that’s a big, that’s a big deal, in my opinion. So, I think that’s amazing. And I will be a lot more conscious now of the messages I put out to my kids to teach them all the financial oldest sound financial principles. So that’s amazing. Besides this one principle, what other messages, whether direct messages, or indirect messages that you know, did you receive from your parents that you feel have contributed to you, you know, getting your act together? It was funny, my dad was an employee of his brother’s company. And rather than looking at my dad, as someone to emulate and, you know, get a good education, get a job, which he didn’t have a good education, but he did have a job, I instead look to my uncle, who was employing my dad, and said, that’s what I want, I want to own a business. And in my thinking, and I realized this later on, maybe in my 30s, or 40s, that I didn’t want to have a job, the one job that I did have, well, I had a job after college, I taught school for a year. And then I started doing things that had me be self-employed, I got another job in my 30s as the director of pensions for an insurance company. And that lasted all of three months, until they merged with another company. And I no longer had a job. And I went back to being self-employed.

12:56

And what I realized is, I would rather be self-employed, and rely on getting clients and having the income from several people than the insecurity of a job where you know, like, your mom was always afraid she was going to get fired. And what I realized is, if I have let’s say, 10 clients, 100 clients don’t make any difference. And one of them doesn’t like me, or dies or moves away, or just decides not to hire me anymore, or work with me anymore. You know, I’ve lost a percentage of my income. But if I have a job, and they merge with another company, or I get fired, or whatever the situation might occur, I lose 100% of my income. But I still have 100% of my bills, I’d rather lose a percentage of my income and have most of my bills covered than to lose a job and lose 100% of my income. So, the bottom line is, I recognize I’m too insecure to be an employee. That is an amazing way of putting I think, I think you’re a master at mental Aikido, you know, kind of reframing things from an old way that the general public was taught to think about things into So, a new way that serves you better because you’re absolutely right.

14:19

Having a job is the risky proposition considering that someone can just come in and flip the switch, right? As opposed to having a main like to basically trade a boss to many bosses, right? You can have as many clients as you want, or as many as you can handle, I guess. And what’s really cool is that these bosses, they’re replaceable, even if you know clients leave you, I actually had it happened to me where an employee of mine decided to main start a competing business and went ahead, I still have my high paying clients that were paying me about $500 a month, and yet that hurt that sucked. But I’ve brought my income back to the same level within about eight weeks. So, you’re going to show that, you know, they’re replaceable, right? It’s So, replenishable. 

15:15

So, I think that’s what I think the biggest issue is that most people who think that they need to

most people who are afraid to go and become self-employed, I think they’re just afraid of the risk, right? They, the self-employed, have it framed as the risky thing. And I absolutely love your framing on this, where the job is being framed as the risky thing. That’s just, that’s just amazing. Do you think? Yeah, do you think that somebody in their say 30s, or 40s is capable of being mentally flexible to take on this new point of view? Yes. And even a little bit later, it’s an example my son worked for Wells Fargo Bank for well over a decade. He’s a chartered financial analyst, he managed their investment portfolios in the trust department. And he was paid very well. But he didn’t like being there. He didn’t like what Wells Fargo was doing.

16:12

There were things in the Division of Wells Fargo Bank that were not right. And they got in trouble for it. And they got bad press, he was in a different division. It had nothing to do with that. But still people would label him as being with Wells Fargo Bank, and you know, what a bad place.

16:32

Bad business it was. And he wanted out.

16:37

And he finally at around age 48, decided he was going to open up his own shop, which is what he did.

16:47

So, you know, he’s now 51. So, it was about three years ago. But the point being, you know, that was late in life, just like I started over at age 50, he in essence, started his entrepreneurial journey at age 48.

17:03

So, it’s really never too late.

17:06

Most of the people that I’ve worked with are self-employed, they have some level of control over their income, whether they have a business or you know, it’s just them. And one of my close friends got divorced at 65, I think it was, and ended up $250,000, less than zero, he had a negative net worth. But we’ve coached each other. And so out of my coaching, he’s now having a net worth of a couple million dollars instead. And he’s owned multiple pieces of real estate for the first time in his life. And he has the level of security that he never had before. And that started at age 65. So, one of the things people sometimes ask me to say is, well, you know, I’m 5055 60, it’s too late for me. No, it’s never too late. One of my clients was 75, and finally putting her life together in a way where she could move out of her children’s house and live on her own, which is what she always wanted audits. That’s really interesting.

18:23

What would be your advice to people who have a lot of debt? Because it seems like everyone these days just either starts out in life with debt, like student loan debt and stuff like that. I got a buddy who was an environmental lawyer, who started out like 150 or 200,000, in debt, you know, student loans. And that seems to be a very, very common thing. What would you like, I know you have strategies for that, then, of course, they’re discussed in the book, wealth, money income. But I mean, just maybe a mindset, trick tip, or what’s the first thing to do if you’re, if you’re in debt? I’m so glad you asked that, because it’s one of my biggest pet peeves where the CPA who doesn’t who isn’t wealthy, tells us clients focus on paying off your debt first, or some financial planner, who also isn’t wealthy, says, oh, you should pay off your credit card debt first. It doesn’t matter if it’s credit card debt or student loans or whatever. No, don’t focus on paying off debt first. That is the worst trap that people can fall into. And, you know, I have to say I was guilty of it too, because the idea of carrying debt was very uncomfortable for me, because there was a point in time where I was so broke, I couldn’t make the minimum payments on my credit cards. So, you know, I know what that feeling is like, but you have to overcome it. And the reason for that is I’ll use myself as an example.

19:53

No, I’ll talk about other people first, and then I’ll use myself as an example. What I’ve seen other people do

20:00

As they focus on paying off the debt because some guru said that and, and they pay off their debt and then something goes wrong, the car breaks down, a water heater bursts and they don’t have the money. So that goes back on a credit card. And they go through this roller coaster through their whole life of paying off debt, and it comes back and paying off debt and it comes back and then they get to age 65 or 60 or 70. And, okay, I’m gonna put you on the spot. Igor, can I do this? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I know. You’re gonna have me. It’s my podcast. I can cut it out. If I don’t Yeah.

20:35

Okay, all right. Yeah, you’re good. You’re in control? Yes. No, right. Okay.

20:41

Yeah, let’s say that you had no debt. You had no mortgage; you had no car loans. You had no credit card debt. You had no tax debts; you had no debt whatsoever. I’m not saying you have anything else. I’m just saying you have no debt? Would you be able to stop working for a living? I would still have bills. Yes. You still want to pay the utility bill, maybe you want to buy food? What does that require? ongoing cash flow. Exactly. So, either you’re working to create that cash flow, or you have assets working, right. Just because you’re debt free does not mean you build up assets. So, I’ll go with my example. Now.

21:29

When I was 50, I had been divorced for the second time, I’d already had a business failure. I’m starting over from ground zero at age 50. And I’ve also got about $15,000 of credit card debt.

21:44

I, I started paying myself first you and I, before this interview talked about the book, The Richest Man in Babylon. Yep. 100 years published over 100 years ago, based on clay tablets that were found 5000 years ago, on how to handle money effectively. So, I started treating myself like I deserve to own some of the money I’m earning. And I’m only earning 5000 a month, I’m 50 years of age, earning 5000 a month, I set aside 10% 500 a month. In three years, I saved up $18,000. I could have used that 18,000 to pay off my 15,000 credit card debt.

22:29

But instead, I just made the minimum payments on the credit cards. And then my wife had a realtor who came and said to Rennie you should buy this low three-unit property. Now I’m in Los Angeles, I gotta tell you $18,000 doesn’t buy anything.

22:48

But the realtor said, this is such a good deal. I’ll come up with half the down payment. Well, now we had 75%, my wife said, well, if he said it’s such a good deal, and he’s putting up half the down payment, I’ll match your 18,000, Randy will, the three of us will do this together.

23:06

That building within five years was worth a half a million dollars more. So, my 18,000 was now worth 125 or 120. Whatever the math is, I failed high school math. So, pardon me if I’m not completely accurate here.

23:25

And so, I created an expression that says, wealth creation is a team sport, not a solo sport.

23:32

We bought this three-unit property together. And within the next five years by borrowing money, we went from or I went from how you want to phrase it, that three in that we added 47 more units in the next five years.

23:52

And that’s by borrowing money. Obviously, the cash flow from these buildings was able to pay off my credit card debt. I saw the tenants that we had paid off my credit card debt.

24:04

And we had a level of cat class flow, where if I chose to work, or chose not to work, that’s the situation that arose. That’s within five years, because I took that 18,000 and invested with two other people instead of paying off my credit card debt. That’s really cool. I know some people who do that as well, especially here in Toronto, where 18,000 won’t buy anything, either. I mean, in some neighborhoods, it’s just you won’t even get like you won’t even cover what’s called the land transfer tax. It’s quite ridiculous. Yeah.

24:41

This is fascinating. I want to focus on the concept of setting money aside, and because I know for a fact, because I tried to get people to do it, that people struggle with it, especially if they think they’ve got a low income. They really don’t allow themselves to put away at least 10% of the money they earn into either a savings account or in a cardboard box, like I actually used to nice to make about $1,000 a month, I put away 100 bucks into $100 into box from land Nokia phone, I could just take 100 bucks and literally put it in the box. Right. And it’s funny that on such a low income, I was still able to save a lot more money than my brother who had two incomes of his own in his wife’s income, making about seven or $8,000 back in Israel, and they were constantly in debt all the time. And I was like, Dude, you don’t understand you need to put away 10% of what you make, like No, how can I get this dead? This and I got, you know, kids need new clothes and whatever. And III just I couldn’t get through to him, you know, like, what would you? How would you reframe this for people?

25:57

That’s one of the things that I talk about. And when someone has that feeling, it’s their mind playing games with them. And it’s not true. But they do think that way. And I don’t know if I discovered it or created it. But there’s a rule of thumb that works beautifully for everyone. I don’t care if they have children. I don’t care what their situation is. If they set aside 10% It’s not going to change their life. I had a bit of a business building contractor who said I can’t even put I can’t put away anything. And I said, are you trying to tell me if you put away 1% of the gross revenue that comes into your business? You couldn’t do that? They said, well, 1% I mean, it’s next to nothing. It’s like if he gets a $10,000 check for his work, he puts away 100 bucks.

26:55

Okay. I said, you’re not going to miss that. 1% Believe me? So, he said, okay, fine, I’ll try it. Well, he realized it was pain free. And 1% became 2% and 3%. And kept growing. Within six months, he had $50,000 He saved from the revenue that came in.

27:18

So, the example I use for people is think of it this way. You’ve got all these bills that come in, you’re paying your bills, let’s say the phone bill comes in one month, and it’s 100 bucks, you pay it in full. If the phone bill comes in the next month, and it’s $150. You don’t call the phone company to say excuse me, but last month, it was 100. This month, it’s 150. Please just forgive the $50 I can’t pay. No, you find some way to pay the whole $150. It comes from somewhere you don’t know where it comes from, but you make it happen. You pay all your bills in full.

27:58

What’s missing is having you first treating yourself like you matter. Like you deserve to own some of the money you’re earning.

28:09

And that’s all, just put yourself first in line, take some percentage, I don’t care where you start. When I ran marathons, I didn’t start by running 26 miles. My training started by running a mile.

28:21

You just have to get started with the habit.

28:25

And I had, I had an attorney who gave me the same conversation. And he said, you know my bills come in, it’s $6,500. But my revenue was only 6000. I can’t save any money. I said, “Here’s how it will work. If you treat yourself like you deserve to own some of this. Let’s say you put away $200 . You’re now short 700 What difference does it make? Except that now you have $200. It’s yours.

28:59

When he started doing that his income rose. Because he saw he could have something from his work, not just cover the bills.

29:14

So psychologically, this is the situation where you take the action first. And then the results you need show up and the mindset changes. You can’t have a change in attitude first. Until you take action , isn’t that in reverse to how most people treat everything? Oh, it’s absolutely in reverse. All three started doing X when I’ll start doing exercise, when I’ll start saving, when I’ll start making more money, when I started my side hustle when, right? It’s always like a conditional. And what you’re saying is that action is what creates the mindset. Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m saying.

30:00

It’s like looking at a bunch of logs in the fireplace and saying, tell you what gives me heat and a light a match.

30:08

No, it doesn’t work that way. And what ends up happening is, when they’ve taken the action, then the mindset gets to shift. I had this false belief that the more money I made with salt, the fact that I was short every month. I mean, when I started out as a school teacher, it was the 1970s. I made $6,500 a year.

30:32

And I was short, like 100 bucks a month. So I went into sales, and I doubled my income. And now a short $200 a month. So, I figured, if I just increase my income, you know, I’ll solve this. Well, after I passed the 100,000 a year in income, and I’m sure 2000 a month, I realized making more money was not working.

30:59

And the funniest thing is that, you know, this is a confession, I found a program called debtors anonymous, the 12-step program for people who couldn’t handle money. And that’s where I learned how to budget. It wasn’t from being a Certified Financial Planner, it was going into a 12-step program for debtors. 

31:27

It’s like spending money on addiction. And you have to Yeah, or under earning or whatever. Yeah. So, I treated it that way. And that did solve the problem. It’s very interesting, because the first person I heard to talk about this particular concept was Robert Kiyosaki. He always spoke about how, you know, the more your income rises, the more your expenses will rise with it. 

31:54

And I didn’t truly understand it until I saw my brother go from, you know, earning X to So, actually doubling that. And still, a couple years later, he was still in debt. And nothing was changing. And when I started making more money, I was already aware of that. And I tried to be very careful about how much I spent and I, but I think I took it the other way.

32:19

You know, where, you know, we spoke about before this enemy, we spoke about our book Profit First, and how that book was eye opening to me, where, you know, basically started putting away like, 40% of what I make into a savings account. And, and I kind of took that to the extreme and a nom, I’m just being very vigilant about anything. That’s not a necessity. But I’ve been getting criticism from my friends with regards to this, this being like destructive to well, have they accomplished as much as you have, yeah, they’re very accomplished, very smart, wealthy, they, they know money, they understand money, and they themselves also know what a budget is, and they got money tucked away. And I think the reason we were having the conversation is because they feel similarly where they don’t go around splashing money. But, you know, I look at my expense sheet and just the amount of money I spend on my kids alone adds, you know, a six figure a year expense to my, to my balance sheet. And I don’t think I don’t think that people in my circle, especially the ones without kids understand that, like I spend a lot of money, you know, and this is these goes back to the mindset discussion, because I will have tremendous issues, buying a pair like a pair of shoes for $1,000 or some kind of, you know, some kind of thing like that where people would consider like a watch. I don’t know, like, I really don’t, I can spend money on this. But if there’s something for my kids and it costs three and a half grand, even if you know it’s arguable you can argue whether it’s worth it or not, I’ll spend it if I need to buy a new camera so it can take pictures of my kids or a new lens like I got this lens I’ll show you this was a really stupid purchase. I think well this lens is over two grand Okay.

34:30

Basically, it’s not a National Geographic sort of Discovery Channel level where you can zoom in on a lion and you can see the spots or whatever but it is pretty good. It’s pretty good and basically, I bought it specifically because of my daughter. She participates in different plays. And so, I want to be able to be in the audience and take pictures of you know, with basically focus on quality.

34:54

But I only use it maybe, you know, once or twice a year whenever she’s got a big Les coming up most of the time, I’ll use my phone. So, this wasn’t a practical purchase, but I still don’t regret it. Because you could probably resell it. If you change your mind for what you paid for it. That’s true, I can probably resell it for the exact same price too. But my point being is that I had no problem. Absolutely no problem. No hiccups, no second thoughts, no buyer’s remorse with regards to spending this money because I could connect it to me to my kids, like I’m investing for my kids. So, I learned about myself getting prep, you know, prepping for this interview that, you know, I can spend an infinite amount of money on my children, and have no second thoughts of buyer’s remorse. But I’ll spend, you know, $1,000 Extra on something else that isn’t related to my kids, and I’ll be fretting about whether I will actually be regretting it and thinking, oh, that was a stupid purchase, a wasted money. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, but oh there’s something very important here. And I’m glad you explained it, because when you talked about, you know, spending the money on your kids, I’m hearing like, if your daughter wanted a $2,000 lens for a camera, you would spend it, no, you’re spending that for you to participate differently with your daughter. Not that she’s going out and buying a pair of jeans for $400. It’s that you’re buying things that enhance your relationship with your children. Yeah, that’s true. And it’s a very subtle distinction too. Because for all the stuff that she wants to buy for herself, that includes like Roblox credits, like a video game she plays that includes any sort of skincare thingy that that she wants, or new clothes or jewelry or whatever, she actually earns money on her own for that, like I set up a point system where she’s, you know, doing her homework or taking on a new skill or practicing an existing skill or taking initiative, solving a problem all, all that stuff gives her points. And there’s a point system where she, where every point is worth five cents. So, every now and again, she gets to cash it out. And unlike a savings account that only opens up on certain dates, you can take the money out. So, you know, once she hits a certain threshold, she’s allowed to cash out and you can take that money and spend it on whatever she wants. Like, and I don’t get to say what, like, I don’t get to tell her it’s like I don’t think it should be buying this like ship if she wants to buy it. That’s her right. And I told her that she’s responsible. So, in that way, you’re absolutely right. I won’t go in. I won’t buy her a $50 plush toy. Because she already has like five. But if she wants to buy it herself with her money, I can stop her.

37:49

Yeah, no, that’s beautiful. And that is such a great structure that you created for your children. And here’s one thing that you may want to adjust to, in that when she cashes it out and has some money, she also sets a certain percentage aside to keep for the future. Yeah, absolutely. I’ve given it a shot a couple of times. And I proposed to her. I said, Let’s do it this way, instead of cashing out today. Can you give me this money to invest? And within a week, I’ll pay you back that amount plus 10%? Hmm, yeah, I made this offer to her three times. 

38:33

And she denied me twice. And one time she agreed. So, I’m basically looking for ways now to instill this philosophy. But what you’re suggesting is different. And I think I should try to create an air point system to create a saving, like a point saving or a cash saving component. I think that’s really cool. Because yeah, now how old is your daughter ? She is 10. Okay, so yeah, she’s a great age to learn these lessons. So that’s terrific, eager. Yeah. Thank you. We ‘ll definitely be implementing that tonight.

39:12

With regards to you mentioned budgeting. Yeah. Well, you know, getting back to that, because you were talking about, I think it was your brother and sister-in-law, and they’re both earning a great income. 

39:27

And there, you know, they got kids and I had tenants. At one time very similar to that it was a husband and wife. They were both attorneys earning a good living. And every month they couldn’t come up with the rent.

39:40

It was always a delay. There were little pieces here and there. I mean, by the end of the month, they’d covered it all. But here are two attorneys earning an excellent living because they had no idea how to handle money. I went through my book wealth on any income with them, teaching them these cons

naps. And not only did they start being able to pay their rent regularly, and setting aside money for themselves, they ended up buying a house and moving out. Wow. All from the same concept. So, in essence, what I do now is every time a new tenant moves into the building, I give them a copy of my book. Interesting. In a way, though, you’re, you’re a bit kind of hurting yourself now. Like your kind of setting them up to So, leave. Oh, well, no, because in Los Angeles, we had rent control buildings, where we’re only allowed to charge a certain amount each year as an increase. But if they move out, you could bring the apartment up to market value. That’s right. That’s right. That’s so I’ve had several tenants buy houses. And when they moved out, their rent went up the market value for the new person who moved in. That is tremendous. I absolutely love this. You’re bestselling thinking you’re, you’re so agile in your thinking that’s, that’s really, I admire that a lot. So okay, so getting back to budgeting, what were you going to ask? Yeah, so I was never good at it.

41:11

Whether you’re, before I started making any big money, or after, the closest I came to budgeting was to sit down with my wife, and write down our monthly expenses. So, we know approximately where we’re supposed to be spending. I’m going to reframe for you right now. Okay.

41:33

What are the first three letters of the word diet? Die? Yeah, that’s not very enrolling. To change how you eat? Let’s die.

41:46

And you think about dying instead? Well, guess what budgets create that same mental idea of lack and sacrifice and deprivation.

41:59

So, let’s not talk about a budget. Let’s instead talk about creating a spending plan you like; do you like to spend money sometimes? sometime? Yeah. So, let’s talk about spending money in alignment with the goals that you want to achieve.

42:19

Forget about the budget, you want to spend money here, you want to spend money here, you ask yourself questions. When I spent this money, did I get the level of satisfaction I paid for? Would I rather spend less money here or more money here? And having a spending plan allowed me to make changes, like what I discovered is I want to spend more money eating out and less money going to the grocery store.

42:47

I don’t like going to the grocery store. I don’t like cooking meals at home. My wife and I both say we don’t like cooking. But when we go out to eat, it’s a much better experience, we get what we want. The server brings us our food. If we drop a fork, if we need more salt, if we need more iced tea or water, we can sit there and have a conversation, which doesn’t happen when we’re at home. And we’re cooking. And we’re getting up and down to get a napkin or whatever.

43:19

We want to spend more money eating out less money at the grocery store. That’s because we have a spending plan. And we ask ourselves, did we spend money that provided us the level of satisfaction for how much we spent? Interesting. So, spending?

43:39

A spending plan instead of a budget? That’s what you’re saying? Yes. Interesting. Again, another reframe which just means, I like the idea of having a spending plan, where that implies that I can get what I want. As long as I stick to my plan.

43:56

It doesn’t feel like it doesn’t feel constraining, I don’t know, like, there’s a different way I perceive it. Exactly. Because now you’re spending money in alignment with what brings you satisfaction, what’s in alignment with your goals, what you’re trying to accomplish, how it enhances your family. You’re spending money to produce results. And those reframes are really cool. 

44:23

I had no idea there’s so many different tricks and techniques to operate. Yeah, to operate within your income because just like many other people, I always thought that debt is bad. I always thought that to get rich, you need to make a lot more money.

44:46

But I guess I guess these were just wrong ideas because even after moving to Canada from Israel, we’re in Israel by the way the vast majority of the country lives in debt. There you’re in constant overdraft, just like my family was.

45:04

Here in Canada, I’m surrounded primarily by middle class families. But those middle-class families still spend so much and most of them live paycheck to paycheck. Like, if they miss a paycheck, I’m pretty sure they’re going to start, you know, sink, sinking deeper into debt.

45:21

So, it’s really interesting to see all the different ways you can approach wealth building without actually having to make a lot more money. So, what I would want to do is, I want to encourage you guys to get a copy of wealth on any income, you can probably get on Amazon, where you can go to wealth and income health calmly. Here, I’m going to make an offer for people sure, because 100% of the profit from my business, I donate to charity. So, you know, people say, well, you know, he’s got so much money, why is he doing this? Why, so that more money can go to charity. So rather than just 100% of the profit from my book, going to charity, if they go to my website, and they donate to one of the charities that has a link at the top of my homepage, I will email to them a copy of the book for free if they make a $25 donation. Awesome. So, guys, head over to wealthonanyincome.com Pick a charity of your choice, donate 25 bucks and get a free copy of the ratings book. And trust me, it’s worth well over 25 bucks. Can it truly change your life? Rennie, it’s been a pleasure having this chat with you. Any, any parting So, words or any message for our listeners? Yeah, the important one is what I learned when we bought that first piece of real estate. And that its wealth creation is a team sport, not a solo sport. And I’m here to support other people. Awesome. So, there you go. Again, the website is wealthonanyincome.com and I hope you guys get the book because I found it tremendously valuable, and I’m sure you will, too. So, Bernie, thank you so much for spending this time with me. And until next time we chat.

47:20

Thank you for listening to the list building lifestyle. Get access to the previous episode’s transcripts of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also remember to claim your free copy of my bestselling book at www.igorsbook.com. It explains how I made millions with list building starting from scratch. Plus, I’ll give you $3,000 worth of free bonuses, including my best landing page templates, email, swipe files, and traffic blueprints. Go to www.igorsbook.com now to claim your free package