Home Service Finances: Why Working Hard Isn’t Making You Wealthy

0:00The reality is discipline equals freedom. Discipline equals freedom. And discipline isn't designed to restrict us. Discipline is designed to free us up. And financial discipline is the same way. Welcome to the Waste No Day podcast, a podcast specifically for in about the home services industry as it relates to plumbing, heating, air conditioning, and electrical. More than a podcast, Waste No Day is a credo, a determination, a mindset. It is a never-ending discipline. It is a refuse to lose pursuit. It is a wake up call every morning to waste no day. Now here's your host, Brian Burton, and Nate Minneck. Hey, welcome to another episode of the Waste No Day podcast.

1:00Your host, Nate, and Brian hang out with you again. This episode of course sponsored by Trenio. And we are looking forward to another great episode today, as we bring in a new guest, but an exciting one, Mr. J. W. Rayhott. He is going to be talking to us about how there is more to life than money. What? That's right. We said it. We said it. There's more to life than money. And specifically today, we're going to focus in on how everybody works so hard for their money, but is their money working hard for them? So it's a little bit of a teaser there. Nice. And we're going to get some personal finances as well in the meat of the show here. But of course, before we do, Brian, it's our privilege to always open it up with a quote. So who are we starting off with today? Mr. Benjamin Franklin. Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship. That's a very appropriate quote, I believe, for the episode, as kind of hinting at where so many of us struggle with our finances and not knowing where things go. And then looking at our bank account and saying,

2:02I'm pretty sure I got paid just a few days ago. Yeah, what happened here? Yeah, and it works the other way too with the opposite, I should say of that with the investing. It's the harder one to look at, because when you invest money or when you have money sitting in something stock, Bitcoin, like Mr. Minicare, what have you? All at the wrong price. Hey, it's like Bitcoin hit it all time. Hi, bye. Bye. Oh, gosh, crash. Sell it. It's junk. Yeah, when you do that, you have a tendency to linger on it, and watch it every day, and it just feels like nothing's really happening. And it's unfortunate that we're wired that way, right? But we don't watch the tiny little cuts that bleed us dry at all, naturally. So it's just like spend a little, spend a little, spend a little, whatever, spend a little, whatever.

3:02And I say, you know, someone brings your door dash bill from the last three months to your attention. And you want to puke up all of the crappy food you ate. And we don't watch that at all. But if we invest $10, you know, in a stock, we're like checking the stock seven times a day. Like, what's going on here? And it's not growing fast enough to screw this. But the investment account, we're having an investment account, works that same way, most of the time, right? Look at the S&P 500 or what have you over the course of a couple of decades. And chances are most of the people, if not everyone listening into the show, have a couple decades to spare, right? God willing. So if we're paying close attention to all those little places where we let money bleed out, paying really close attention to that. And then just taking that money and instead dropping it in some kind of investment or investment account or something like my friend, JW, offers, and we leave that alone and we forget that exists. We'll wake up every now and then with the same door dash bill and go holy crap.

4:07I got like this much money in there. Like I forgot all about that. It just comes out, you know, comes out, comes out, comes out and grows and does its thing. And every now and then things will happen where it'll skyrocket up or skyrocket down. And it'll recover both ways and get back to normal. But the longer you can just park it and leave it alone and forget it exists, the greater it will become in the good way, in the good way. And this is one of the concepts. I'm sure JW is going to touch on with us this evening. JW will talk about this too. I'm sure Dazzle does set boot camp in Atlantic City, put on a keynote that I was like, this is phenomenal. Don't tell him I said this, but we should have been paying him to be here, right? He was a sponsor. And I had seen him speak at the Clover Mastermind with Josh and Laura Kelly. Actually, I think both of the masterminds that I went to with Clover.

5:07And both times it was phenomenal and he's just such a great speaker. And he's got such a heart for people and helping people with their finances. I genuinely believe if he couldn't make money as an investment person, I don't know what you call it, would you call it? Personal financial advisor. Yeah, financial advisor. He would do it for free. I firmly believe he would do it for free because he loves to help people. He loves to see people get that little bit of straightening out that puts them on the right track. And then he loves to hear about the wins and their success is down the road, right? It's great. You'll see me. You're going to love him, buddy. I'm sure I will. I keep telling you that. You don't know yet, but you're going to have a great time with him. I unfortunately have a ton of work that I have to get done from, you know, I have an actual job. I have a ton of work on a project I need to get done by tomorrow. So I'm going to be hammering away at that, but I'll still be here in spirit. Oh, okay. So this is going to be the episode where you let me do the interview.

6:07Yeah, you're going to do the talking on the interview for the first time. All right. You're going to bring the questions. I hope you're ready for this. Thanks for that. I've been that I've prepared. I was just going to be fantastic, Brian. But before we do that, you know what else is fantastic here in about a review? The waste of time. Yes. Yes, that too as well. Of course. But it's time for us to spotlight somebody who's taking the time to tell us about their favorite episode, their favorite podcast or how it's applying to them in their life. We like doing that each and every week. So Brian, who are we putting in the spotlight today? So good. Fiesars. I run a small drywall company in Michigan and desire to get better. You guys feel relatable and cover great subjects. Thanks for being awesome. By TDR. I don't know. It could be the first time I've ever been told I'm relatable. I do appreciate that. You're talking to me there, buddy. No, he said you guys. I'm breaking up for the win.

7:08He was talking to you on the great subject part. Go Blue. I hope they're TDR. I'm going to guess that means that stands for total drywall rock star. See runs a small drywall operation. Actually, this was my mom's birthday June 24th of last year of 2025. So who knows? Maybe it's a medium sized drywall company in Michigan now. But go Blue, buddy. Hopefully he's a Wolverine, not one of these. One of these Spartan wackadus. Well, we do appreciate the review and you're you taking the time to do so. And if you haven't done so yet, we would appreciate if you would. It's as easy to do that. We do read the ones off of Apple. So if you want to hear your red live on the air or recorded as we do it, please leave us one there. And of course, if it's five stars, we'll get it on the air in the upcoming episode. Well, Brian, you know what else is fantastic? What? Pumpkin Spice Lotsets. I know that's your favorite drink at Starbucks. And I just pulled up the app and I saw here that because I was curious if there is a way to track purchases. And I did find it, but you have to go to a very tiny button and then look for transaction

8:12history and then you look at it. I'm like Apple Pay? No, no, within the Starbucks app itself. Oh, there's a Starbucks app. Oh, my gosh, bro. I tried. I tell people up is there really people you're a dude all the time, but then it's kind of thing happens. And I'm like, I can't keep I can't keep sticking up for you. Would it shock you to believe that I don't actually use the Starbucks app for myself? No, no, no, no, it would shock me if you did because the reason I think you're going to like JW so much is everything we just talked about about pinched pennies. That is your language. That is Nate to a tea. That's a he's a he's a frugal human being. Love it. And I'm like, I thought you were going to go down the road of like what a Starbucks cost and I'm like, you're talking to the wrong audience because our our our our our it's not just but they're not spending a lot of time in Starbucks line. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I know, but this is my point. The reason I was looking for is to see the coffee is an easy one to pick at, right?

9:14How much you spend on a monthly basis one coffee, whether it's at Starbucks for $7 or whether it's a wall wall or sheets or whatever your drug is. No, I don't know. It's those it's those minor purchases that can really add up and that's one thing I'm sure we'll cover about where's your money going and about making your money work for you. But before we get into that, it's time to introduce our guest. So today we are putting Mr. J. W. Ray Hans into your passenger seat. Finally, our guest today is J. W. Ray Hans. He's the president of Ray Hans Financial makes sense for more than two decades. J. W. has helped business owners, individuals and families pursue financial confidence through a people first education driven approach. He is a chartered retirement planning counselor, a galloped certified strengths coach, community leader, husband, father or four and a all around great guy. Welcome to the show. Hey Nate Brian, it's great to be with you guys. Really appreciate the invite. I'm looking forward to our conversation today because as you mentioned, I know that

10:15everybody in your audience works hard and we want to make sure that money's working harder. Most of them work hard. Right. There's some office guys. Nobody on this call obviously do like a little marketing. You make excluded. Yeah. Yeah. Like to say they work hard like they work hard. I can tell we're having fun already. It's great to have you on J. W. We try and make this happen for at least talking about it for a long time. It's been a while. Yeah. And J. W. came and did a talk at the Atlantic City boot camp. And it was a huge hit. Literally was like we had a keynote up there for 30 minutes that turned into 55. I think that sounds right. We're booking an hour next time just to be safe. It was outstanding. There was not a minute wasted. It was great. And I've been to your office a dozen times and had these conversations in person. And still was taking furious notes and texts in a million the whole time like you should be in here.

11:16For this. We should stop beating mom all the time and get in here. You know, appreciate that. So glad to have you on. It's about time. Look forward to it. I'm going to let you guys take the lead and determine what it is that we're going to do to help everybody. Like you said, not just work hard, but make sure that their money is working hard for them. And that they really are putting in a meaningful places. So J. W. We're just going to jump right into it because somebody listening to this episode says, Oh, great. They got a money guy. I only have enough money to pay my bills. What do I need a money guy for? So is this episode just going to be for the rich and successful like Brian or is the rest of us have a chance of cleaning something out of it? I appreciate you asking that. Actually, this is going to be for everybody. In fact, I'm sure most of the things that we talk about is going to meet everybody right where they are. Because the reality is there's, there's like a myth out there that either one, you got to have a certain amount of money before you, you know, visit with an advisor, need an advisor or I can't afford one. So why would I even talk to one?

12:18Those are myths. The thing about it is, is if you're working, if you're making money, then it's important that you have an idea of what to do with it. Because as we all know, I mean, any of us are probably making more now than we were three years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, at least that's the hope. But it doesn't always mean that you're doing better financially than you were. It just means you're making more than you were before. Yeah. And unfortunately, typically your expenses rise to your income as they say. And so if anybody has a pass that, that's great. There's a lot of it creates that. That's Parkinson's law. And it's a law for a reason. It's, you know, I would say it's the natural thing that happens, right? Unless it's a tide pushing us in that direction and something I've noticed over the last several years. And certainly you've helped me combat is unless we turn around, lock in, brace ourselves and start pushing against that tide.

13:23We're going to be naturally swept up in our expenses rising to meet income. And today, and I do mean today with Amazon and the million other ways that we can not leave our bed and spend our entire paycheck with our thumb. It's never been easier to go deeply in debt or the wrong way in terms of Parkinson's law or any other economic principle that says you're going to spend more than you make. Yep. Well, I mean, even if I mean, this is waste no day, right? And so we don't want to waste any of the resources, including money. And the reality is if we just have some real talk, some blue collar real talk, the reality is we've kind of been conditioned to use everything that we make to spend everything that we make. And Brian, some you've heard me say before is if you do not give your money direction, it will disappear.

14:23For some of the things that you just mentioned, it's easy to spend. It's easy to get on Amazon. It's easy to order online. You can have it delivered within a couple hours. And we can develop these patterns where it's like our money just disappears and all of a sudden, you know, we're going, where is it? We make it, but where is it? Yeah. Sounds like we're about to turn this show into waste no dollar. It's wasting no pay. It's got to rhyme, bro. Waste no pay. Go waste no pay. Okay, JW, let's get into it then. So before we jump into some of the discussion here, let's talk about where you're at, where you've come from and what all you do. So were you a guy who, you know, your parents gave you a dollar for your allowance and you split it up into an investment fund when you were seven years old or or did you learn the hard way like Ramsey and you lost, you know, two bankrupts, he's in then you finally figured it out. So which one of you? Yeah, appreciate that man. It probably goes back to upbringing. So essentially thinking of it this way, my dad raised my brothers and I and he was, he was a journeyman carpenter. So this was, this was back in the day when, you know, carpenter's didn't make a whole lot.

15:26So he gave us the best lifestyle he could with, with what he made at the time, which meant we moved around a lot, didn't always live in the greatest places. You know, it's kind of one of those where you, you learned how to work hard, but we didn't necessarily learn what to do with money. And so early on, I didn't really have a good idea on how to make money work, how to spend it wisely. You know, even early on, you know, when you think about it, most of us, if we, if we step foot on a college campus, there were probably at least a dozen different, you know, tables sitting out with credit card off applications back in the day when we had to fill them out in paper. And they pretty much give you any dollar amount, even though you weren't making any money. And then I was sudden you realized by spending money on that credit card, you got to figure out a way to pay it back. And so I'll be, I'll be just straight with everybody listening. A lot of what I had to learn, especially early on was trial and error and then learning from other people. And so I've had my fair share of financial challenges along the way too. And even as a business owner, you face financial challenge because there's not always the stability there to know what's coming in.

16:30And so that's kind of been the short of my story is, learn as you go, but learn from others and then learn from your mistakes too. And it's not fun to have to pay out a credit card debt. It's not fun to take on too big a mortgage and then figure out how you're going to make the payments, not even follow the path of like, we'll just foreclose and start over again, but go, no, I made it, I made a commitment. I made an obligation. Like we're going to figure out how to see this thing through, but then work towards even some personal financial success along the way, not just because of what we do with clients, but because of personally following some of these fundamental principles that work over and over. So it's been more of the lures you go, trial and error, learn from others and figure it out along the way. And you mentioned about learning from your mistakes, which for the record, this episode is not designed to shame anybody into, you know, feelings of like I totally screwed up my life, my money or whatever. There's a chance and opportunity to redeem things as of today.

17:32And I believe we'll hear that from JW as we step into it. But let's start there. So common mistakes, common, sort of like boneheaded moves, common like failure points or just misdirection, maybe even misunderstanding that you've seen as you've counseled people, coached people, worked people up and even just been around the industry for long enough time. What are some of the top reasons that you see people losing money or not saving money or using their money in a way that's not so wise. Yeah, I appreciate that question too, because we can learn from one another. And I'm going to start with it. And by the way, I've been accused of being a bit of a financial philosopher from time to time. So I may tell a few stories. I may go a little deeper than what the question's asking, but we're here for. I'm going to start is there are some basic things that we all know, but just because we know what to do doesn't mean we always do what we know we're supposed to do. And so even if we just start with, man, if you overspend what you make, it will catch up with you.

18:37And so when you hear these things, when we hear these things about, we'll just spend less than you earn. Conceptually, we get that right conceptually we go, yeah, that makes sense. Obviously, if I'm spending more than I'm making, that's not going to serve me well financially. But the question becomes, why do we do that? Why do we spend more than we make the same reason that I know if I eat less calories than I need to. I'll lose weight, but man, did those donuts taste good? Right. I had one right before the show. I'm doing high daily tap into my ring camera account, bro. Right. A lot of times we do what we feel, right? A lot of times we do what we feel rather than the do what we know to do. And let me, let me, let me make it even maybe deeper than that. The reality is, is a lot of times it might actually be because we're letting comparison to others take over our decision making. And when we start comparing ourselves to others, then we may start making decisions that just don't make sense.

19:41So if I take a look at, oh, if I'm, let's, and let's just use the example. Let's say you know, I'm an HVAC tech. I know what we're all kind of making. And even if I'm one of the more successful guys, there might be a certain sort of lifestyle that I think I need to live. There might be a certain kind of toys that I need to have because other people might think I'm not successful. If I don't have those things, that's a comparison game. And so it's important that we start to ask, why do we want the things that we want? Why do we want to go after the achievements that we want to go after? Why do I want to make the amount of money that I want to make? Let's get down to figuring out what are those reasons behind that. So to your question about mistakes, sometimes you have to figure out what's the root that's causing the mistake because conceptually, some of the financial fundamentals are pretty easy to follow. And so we talk about debt. There's good uses of debt and there's bad uses of debt. There's good uses of debt in terms of, well, is it going towards a business? Is it going towards a property? Is it going towards an investment? And have you run the analysis to see?

20:44Does this have a high probability of success? Or is it consumer debt? Where it's just like, well, I want this thing now and I don't want to wait for it. So I'm going to spend it on my credit card and I'll just pay it off over time. So there are common mistakes, but a lot of times I think it goes down to, is it a comparison issue? Is it because we think we want to have a certain lifestyle based on what we're making? And where did that reasoning come from? Yeah, I totally agree with you there. And I think it's important to point out here that the amount of money that you're making does not affect your ability to screw it up. I mean, MC Hammer, $30 million net worth to $10 million in debt, Mike Tyson, $400 million net worth, $23 million in debt, even Mark Twain lost a massive fortune in the 19th century due to poor investments. So if you feel like you've made some bad choices, I mean, losing $400 million probably isn't one of them. So as you think through people and this concept around, well, I don't even make enough

21:48money to worry about my money. And then you see like these stories and you'll see it in athletes too, right? I mean, a lot of times that's when you know, they come from a tougher background or something like that and like they start buying cheetahs and sports cars and like, you know, they're just spending the money. Like that seems so obvious. It seems so obvious. So, okay, well, they're making tons of money and they're spending it on these crazy things. Like I would never do that. But proportionately, Mike Tyson buy and pair cheetahs for $2 million or whatever to somebody who makes $50,000 is equivalent to them buying like a new pair of Nike errors for $200. You know, I didn't do the math there, but I remember back in the day with my an old boss of mine, we would do these calculations where like there was this old thing, if Bill Gates saw a $100 bill laying on the sidewalk and he bent over to pick it up, he would actually lose money because of how much money he made per minute per second, per whatever. And then also the flip side of that is like, you know, take Elon, you know, for him to

22:50be a trillionaire, him spending a billion dollars on a house is like the same as the average American spending like $5,000 on a house. And all these comparisons are crazy, but because they're big and they're as audacious and there's celebrity behind it and there's all these things, we kind of get lost in this mix that like, oh, okay, like, well, there's like rich people out there and sometimes they do crazy stuff and sometimes they do good stuff. But like, what about me? Like what, what am I supposed to be paying attention to? Mr. Blue collar over here, you know, I'm making 15 bucks an hour, 30 bucks an hour, maybe 50 bucks an hour, if I got it going good, or maybe I make maybe I make commissions in like a little bit higher than that. What am I really supposed to be focusing on is one of the medium incomes in America? Yeah, I appreciate you asking that as well because what you've identified is that the amount of money that someone makes is not the differentiator in how well they do financially. It's what they do with what they make that is the different share on how well they do financially. And the reality is when we take a look at whether it's

23:55blue collar, whether someone with high income, there's different pressures that come with different lifestyles. And so it might be a good opportunity for us to just, we can just go straight to like, what's the pattern that works? Regardless of the amount of money that you're making. So if we can, if we can agree that we've got plenty of stories to support the idea that just making more money is not going to determine that you do better financially, then it's like, okay, what's the pattern though that does help people do well financially? And that has research behind it. And so if we think of, if you start with income, then it's important that you have the right pattern of the priority that you put to the way you use that income that really makes a difference. So if we look at the average American, and let's go to, it doesn't even necessarily be somebody that has moderate income, this applies primarily to most Americans, whether they're making, you know, slightly above minimum wage or if they're making, you know, enough to have a little bit of, you know, things that they want, or if they're somebody that's making a couple hundred thousand or a couple

24:56million a year, there's some habits, some embedded habits of what the average American views and handles money. And essentially, if we really break it down, it goes, okay, well, when I start making money, I'm going to start determining what kind of cars can I buy, what kind of houses can I live in, and what's the neighborhood going to look like? Where am I going to go shopping? What kind of vacations can I go on? We start to, and I'm just going to sum that up to say we basically just started defining our lifestyle based on what we make. Well, if that's my starting point, now I've got some embedded pressure on what I make because that usually means for the average American, it usually means now you've got some fixed expenses to go along with that lifestyle, especially if you use, if you've used debt or some other things because as soon as you make it an expense fixed, there's not as much flexibility in it. And so as soon as you lose the flexibility, if your income goes up or down and let's realize there are a number of people listening to this that probably do earn on commission, or at least some portion of their compensation is on commission

25:56or sales or bonuses. Well, guess what? That fluctuates. So I need to have as much flexibility as possible, but the average American we define our lifestyle based on every dollar we make. So we're making a hundred thousand. We start with lifestyle and go, what can I afford with a hundred thousand? And then we go, oh, wait, there's this emergency fun thing. Like, what if something happens that I don't expect? I better set some money aside. And so kind of second priority, the lifestyle goes, well, maybe I better see a save sum. And it's kind of like, well, if I've got anything leftover after that or because you know, I got an auto pay 401k or whatever it might be, you know, an auto invest 401k or because I want to retire at some point or don't want to do this forever, maybe I'll invest some. And then if there's anything leftover after that, or it's the right time of year, or you know, my kids got a birthday party, they got to go to, then maybe I'll give a little bit out of what I made. And that's kind of like the average American. That's kind of how we view money, handle money is based on what we make. We define a lifestyle. There's anything left. We save some. If there's anything left, we invest some. If there's anything left, we give some. That pattern

27:01hasn't worked real well. I think that's a fascinating way of framing things, JW. So I want to get into this like practically when you say that an American defines how much they make in in application to like what their lifestyle is going to look like. Do you see that? What do you mean by that? Do you mean like, okay, I make $100,000 a year and people who make $100,000 a year, they drive Mercedes or people who make $100,000 a year, they buy Lulu Lemon or they go out to eat every Friday night or they spend $40 on friends like kids birthday parties instead of $20. Like what are some of the practical applications you're talking about here that define that lifestyle? Right. Yeah, we kind of have a standard that we put in our heads of, okay, well, if I'm making $100,000 a year, this is probably what my lifestyle should look like. And some of that we can blame that on marketing, we can blame it on advertising, we can blame it on whatever we want to blame it on. As soon as we accept some personal ownership and responsibility to say, no, I'm going to start to determine where I'm

28:03going to put my money. Then we realize the definition of what that lifestyle is supposed to look like changes. Again, and some of that goes back to that comparison, but from a practical standpoint, we do tend to look at almost as small of a circle as this sounds, what's around us? Now, I will add, there's an added component, especially with where technology and social media is now where algorithms come into the types of ads and personalized advertising that we see now, is there's even more of a likelihood for somebody to fall into spending their money in areas that they may or may not be able to forward just because of what's put in front of us on a more frequent basis. And so, again, it goes back to what is the purpose that you want your money to serve? Give your money a purpose. And this is where we have conversations with people to go, let's flip this a little bit. What if instead of me just sending my money to the different places

29:06that catch my attention at the time? What if instead I really start to think about what's important to me? What do I value? If I value time with my kids, if I value stability, if I value the ability to be able to provide and have less stress, if I value the fact that I want to go on a vacation per year, but it's because I want to create a certain experience for myself, for my family or my spouse, you start to determine what's important, what you value. If we can get there, then guess what? Now we can determine from your income, where do we put priority? Which for some people might mean they might spend more of that 100,000 that we're using as an example on their house. Because maybe they like to entertain, maybe they want their home to be the one that all their kids and friends love coming to, right? So if they put a priority on that, it's not to say, hey, I can look at that person and go, you're overspending on your house, you need to cut back on that. Well, maybe they then go, I don't care as much about what I drive because I care more about

30:09the house that I live in. And so maybe they spend less on a car. So I think it starts there. So name bright starts there of like, what is important? And then how do we manage your income? How do we send your income to the places that really matter to you? And then we get the pattern right. Because there is a different pattern that has been proven to work. And it's simply this. I'll run through it real quick, but then we can break it down if we want. If we look at the research of people who have done very well financially, and again, we go back to it. It doesn't matter. Like it's the differentiators, not how much they make. It comes into some habits and some mindsets. Because the reality is when you start becoming more successful in terms of the money you're making, it's just going to showcase your habits on a much larger scale. So if you're with a smaller amount, with 100,000, 200,000, 50,000, you're, you know, overspending going on vacations, you can't afford. Guess what? As you make more that habit's not going to change. It's not like making more is

31:13going to solve your habit problem. And so it's taking a look at, okay, if I reprioritize and I know what's important to me, then I can look at what works. Well, what works is to give, then save, then invest, and then essentially live on the rest, right? Brian likes rhymes. I had to figure out what can I do that I'll rhyme there. But essentially it's the lifestyle part. So it's like give and I'll share with you the giving portion. This isn't like a religious thing or a tax thing or anything like that. Think about it this way. If I'm making a certain income and I give away a portion of it first, then the message I'm sending to myself over and over and over every time I get paid, the message I'm sending is I don't have to have everything I'm making. I guess what that sounds like, financial freedom. It's a taste of financial freedom. I'm not

32:15locked in to every dollar I'm making anymore because even the reality or the research shows the percentage or the number of dollars or where it goes actually doesn't necessarily matter a whole lot. It's just that you prioritize it first almost in a selfish way of giving yourself a taste of what a little bit of independence, a little bit of freedom looks like and feels like the safe part is also different because the safe part's more about opportunity than it is about emergency because people who do well financially they save because they've realized opportunities will come and I don't want to be forced to say no I just want the option to say yes. And then the investment part is honoring the fact that they probably worked hard to earn the income in the first place or earn the money in the first place and go look if I had to work for it to earn it then it better start of some portion of it better start working for me and that's what investing looks like is with the expectation that where you put it is going to earn something for you now and in the

33:19future. And then the lifestyle part is guess what now I can actually enjoy my lifestyle a whole lot more because I have all this margin that I've created. I've got money in savings. I've got money that's working on my behalf and investments. I've given some away and there's all sorts of other benefits that go along with that and now the lifestyle that I have I can actually enjoy it and guess what my following that pattern my lifestyle gets better my financial situation gets better my health tends to get better my relationships tend to get better because I don't have as much stress I'm not feeling as much pressure I don't have to live up to the income I'm making every single day or every single week. And so pours over into all these other areas of our life but it goes back to mindset and habits the mindsets and habits are different than the average American. Okay now JW some might say like okay I think I'm tracking with you unlike what you're I buy into all that but it sounds to me like you probably want me to cut up my credit cards live like a pulper sell my cars have no hobbies and basically just knows the grindstone you know I go out to eat like once a year

34:25on my wife's birthday the rest of the time it's ramen and maybe every once in a while it's very staked but you know that is that what you're telling me like that's what I have to do to really enjoy that this is my new lifestyle thanks to all these other things I have to do bro I'm live in paycheck to paycheck right now there is no extra yeah I'm so glad that you said it that way too because I'm sure some people are thinking that and here's another thing I'll share with you and this goes back to what we believe or what I believe is it's also important to enjoy life along the way and it goes back to then identifying what's important to you what do you really want to see happen in your life I'll share with you in fact I'll even frame it in the way we word it with a lot of people is I'll ask people I say what is something what's one or two things that you want to make sure happen in your life and that you also know is going to require money and planning in order to make it happen what's something that you want to make sure happens in your life but you know it's also going to require money and planning to make it happen and that way it gets people thinking in

35:25terms of what do I really want to see happen in my life what really is important to accomplish because it's important that as you pursue that you can enjoy life along the way because I know about you guys but I can share stories of friends that I've had pass away unexpectedly and I've had situations where people end up with a health thing that drastically changes the way that they enjoy life to this day um there's times where people go through losing a job and it's like man if I just gone on that vacation two years ago then I would at least have that experience you know so there is an important aspect of how do you live and enjoy life along the way at the same time that you responsibly make sure that you're ready for whatever comes in the future and quite honestly the pattern that I gave before is what allows people to do that because again if we start to think about and take control and give discipline to what we find important I'll let other people define

36:26what's important don't let other people are other advertising or whatever social media whatever determine what's important to you you define that or you and your spouse define that or you and your family define that and then pursue those things guess what you do get to enjoy it along the way um and for the person you mentioned the paycheck to paycheck I want to address that because even there we hear this concept all the time and I'm gonna I'm gonna take a little issue with it so we might lose some listeners at this point okay and I and by the way I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say coming from a compassionate heart if I can even use that sort of like emotional language with an audience like what we've probably got it does coming from a compassionate heart because I I know I know firsthand as a child I know firsthand as an adult what it feels like to quote live paycheck to paycheck paycheck to paycheck or living paycheck to paycheck is a choice in fact in some cases if it's all you've ever known you don't even realize you're living that

37:28way by choice but it's what you're comfortable with I'm gonna put it this way if you've never lived outside a chaos if your life is always included chaos guess what happens when things start to feel too comfortable most people will try to create some chaos because it's what they're used to financially sometimes we create chaos because we think we're living paycheck to paycheck and we've just always lived paycheck to paycheck you're living paycheck to paycheck by choice and if you believe that you can be empowered to not live paycheck to paycheck anymore okay what do you what do you mean by this what do you mean I'm what do you mean I'm choosing to live paycheck to paycheck I know my financials I know at the end of the week we know when when all's done said I paid the rent I paid the car I've fed the fed the kids you know bought them some new sneakers for school like I've done these things you know what do you like I got nothing left what do you mean I'm choosing to live this way I am absolutely not choosing to live this way yeah this is where you'd see Nate you're

38:32gonna pigeonhole me you're gonna put me in the corner of a boxing ring to really tick some people off it's okay though we can handle it because sometimes sometimes we do sometimes we just need some real talk is somebody just to speak into us when they care enough to speak into our life a little bit and that's what I'm hoping I can accomplish with you pushing on this point is if I can I'm gonna kind of just try to look directly into camera speak to that person and say how'd you get there how did you get into that spot where now your paycheck to paycheck or you feel stuck being paycheck to paycheck and if we can backtrack a little bit there's probably some things that have led up to being in that position and again I say that because I care and as long as we can get there to accept ownership of what's gotten me into this position then you can also have the ownership to get yourself out of that position and not have to live that way anymore but it's probably gonna take some work it might take some sacrifice it might cause you to or force you into

39:36making some tough decisions on things that you've gotten used to but for most people there's enough income there's enough resource there to reprioritize and move you away from that sort of situation I'm not gonna say it's gonna be easy but for most people there is a way away from that if I go back to the boxing analogy even when you're pinned in the corner and you feel like you're just getting punched you're getting uppercut getting hooked take one square in the nose there's a method to bob and weave and duck yourself right out of that and spin on the person that's your opponent and if this case it might be all those bills coming in that you feel as the opponent punching you in the face punching you in the gut hitting you in the chest and you got to duck and weave a little bit to get yourself out of that change what you're spending your money on and it might require some hard decisions yeah and this is really where the rubber meets the road right because these hard decisions often knoll at the things that we have established as our lifestyle right for sure yeah so the car

40:41that we're driving that's a pretty easy one to pick on and the $500 a month payment and you're like but I need a car yeah but do you need a $500 a month payment car right that's true right and so there's walk us through this a little bit because this is where I think some people get you know frustrated with the the financial gurus and they they have this adverse perspective of like okay all right the next thing this guy is going to tell me to do cut up the credit cards live create a budget live within my means like la la la la la right well you know what I don't want to be driving a 1985 Corolla to work that barely gets by like I don't that's not me like that's how I grew up and it was embarrassing and that's them who I want to be you know and I promised myself I'd never go back to that I was going to be something different and so that's why I'm driving my 2025 bends yeah we're lifted pickup right yeah so do we have to like do we just have to hum more

41:46ourselves is up what we have to do we have to hum ourselves and you know you know kind of admit a little bit of failure on the financial side of things just to recover like how do we get out of this because I do really feel like there's some some people are living yes paycheck to paycheck but because to your point if some previous decisions and how they have arrived here the bills are legitimate like these are things like there's not really a lot of room left to go spend on vacation that's right there's just legitimate bills coming in how do we get out of this yeah and so all process a couple different ways one is I mean there is there is a human psychology the way we're wired sort of a couple of motivators and I think I think Tony Robbins was probably one of the first people to kind of phrase it this way but a lot of times we're either motivated to take action by either pain or pleasure and sometimes there just has to be enough pain for us to go I am not gonna like I'm not gonna live this way anymore like this is this has gotten ridiculous it's too hard

42:53I don't even know where I'm gonna pay the next set of monthly bills from and we have to make some changes like sometimes the pain is just that bad and sometimes if I can use what is gonna sound like a dramatic example but even just today today I went to a tour over in downtown Phoenix at a homeless shelter and when you walk and you talk to people are homeless it's not always what we may think I there's some people you talk to and it was a medical situation that threw them into not being able to pay those medical bills and then didn't have a place and then it's spiraled to where they weren't able to get a place and now they're homeless like we don't want to put ourselves in a position where one thing one unexpected emergency if you will totally blows up your life right and I realize I'm using a bit of drama there but the reality is any of us especially

43:58the ones that are listening to this we don't want to put ourselves in that spot at least I don't think we do right and some of us have some high aspirations like it just visited with somebody the other day that he wants to be a multi-millionaire by the time he's 35 okay well guess what that's probably gonna take some discipline you're gonna have to earn a certain amount and you're gonna have to prioritize some things to get there but even with him I said why though why do you want to be a multi-millionaire about 35 and it went back to he had some childhood things that he just never wanted to ever experience again and so as we're thinking through like okay well what's this guy gonna tell me to do sometimes we need the right motivator we need the right inspiration to cause us to make some change and now I'm gonna use a phrase that was talked to me when I was a kid but now I've heard it on multiple different podcasts and different books and even Jaco you know I think has an entire book with this title but the reality is discipline equals freedom discipline equals freedom and discipline isn't designed to restrict us discipline is designed to free us up

45:05and financial discipline is the same way and so yeah when we're talking about hard decisions sometimes we have to figure out what's gonna motivate or inspire us my hope is it doesn't always have to be pain my hope is sometimes it can be the fact that there is a lifestyle ahead of you that you can enjoy that you can live but you can also afford it well within your range of the resources that you have no absolutely I mean JWA I think the one of if not the greatest enemy to financial freedom is the culture of instant gratification because what it does is it just promises you a level of happiness with no delay right I just I need that dopamine hit I need that thing from Amazon I need that brand new car I need that new haircut I need that new whatever trend like his own Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or whatever I need a brand new yard I need a new law Miller and the list goes on and it's it is like the keeping up to the Jones is you know is that old phrase or whatever used to look around the neighborhood and see what everybody else is doing oh you

46:08know the Jones has just got a brand new car and the the Miller's just are doing an addition out the back and all this stuff but you're right with social media it is now targeted down to your very you're very palm and like now keeping up with the Jones isn't limited to just your neighborhood anymore it's limited to your social sphere and then of course the algorithm feeds that and you talk about the concept of discipline I mean I'm grateful although I'm sure some of the employees where I work are not that where I work we pay every two weeks not every week right and there's there's a value to that because it forces you to have a level of discipline I mean I think if left to our own demise who we would pay every day right or maybe every like even at lunch break you'd be like okay here's here's the money for the first half of your day okay you want the second half go around these jobs right but like that would be so detrimental to us because it is just perpetuating this instant gratification it would actually be better if we were like contract workers and we had to work three months until we actually received the paycheck or something like that

47:11because it would force that discipline into us okay so a lot of people just you know timed out of the episode right there and said you're crazy but help help the audience understand management team trying to get people to get paid once a year you guys heard now you know what you know what it's like I remember I'm not that young we'll just say I was really young teenager definitely not late 30s and like my favorite my favorite thing that happened throughout the year financially was my tax return because the government made me save money for all you've heard us say it a hundred times on here this job is about discipline show up do it the right way every time but here's what every owner runs into you can hold that standard all day long yourself then you put five texts in five trucks and now it's five different versions of the right way pulling into your driveways getting

48:11out of your truck walking up to the door that's how you get the call back the bad review and when it goes sideways in somebody's home it's your name on the truck that takes the hit that's why home services operators are getting training all think of it as one place your whole playbook lives how you're on a call your checklist who does what right on your cruise phone out in the field handed new tech on the job and they actually know how you do it you see who's trained and who's not so every truck that pulls up delivers the same quality work done right the first time fewer callbacks no cutting corners make the standard stick on every job check out train you'll at trainiole.com slash waste no day that's tr ai and you al trainiole.com slash waste a day all one word yeah check it out it's also in the show notes i'll say for our team in particular we're super glad that trainiole is our first sponsor on the waste no day podcast because we actually use it every day in our

49:13ben franklin here in scott'sdale and i was talking at darrell and kyle two of our leadership team yesterday and they were just talking about what a great platform it is and where it's been all of lives and careers and how much easier it makes recording and documenting our processes right so onboarding and regular training has been super simplified and like funneled down into this platform and for guys like us who are running and gun and all day you know we're not in hr department or even necessarily like a training department it has made things much simpler and probably even kept us from having to hire someone else just for a role like this so if you're looking to simplify your team or you're looking for ways to help your leadership team simplify the business that you work in check it out trainiole.com slash waste no day so if we have this like tie us back into this

50:15concept of disciplining and brine's talking about tax returns we're talking jelly of the month club penny of the month club all that stuff right it's it's where you know we are forcing discipline upon us through these abstract or constructs or whatever like whether it's the government or your companies payroll or whatever okay that's sort of like somebody forcing me to run a mile every two weeks and saying well i got sick the last three times they made me do it so maybe i should train a little bit before i run the mile this time okay so that's me trying to avoid the pain but as you turn that into the financial side and you you speak to an audience that like it or not in many cases is declaring that they're living paycheck to paycheck that's very much in the moment type of things sorry not sorry not trying to fend but just you know the experience of things how can we begin the journey of instituting discipline into a world that feels chaotic by nature sometimes by choice and also has unfortunately a lot of things really feeding the fire of don't save don't wait

51:26spend now get now live now so how do we fight that tide and begin even the smallest amount of discipline being introduced into our lives yeah powerful question and so first thing i would say is yet to become counterculture in this in this respect because being counterculture in this respect is going to actually allow you to enjoy a whole lot more than you would ever imagine and the thing is look look for examples of that there are people in our circle i had a great mentor he became a became a dear friend of mine and one of the things i appreciated about what he would say is he would say he would say that abundance financial abundance and wealth is lurking in the shadows all around us just waiting to be invited in wealth and abundance is lurking in the shadows all around us just waiting to be invited in and so you know when you when you hear stuff like that it's like

52:33what does that really mean and the the reality is is we really do live in an abundant world especially here in the united states and so sometimes we have to be reminded of all that we have to be grateful for and all the resources that we have available to us especially here and sometimes when you can be rooted in gratitude when you can be rooted in thankfulness it can help you be countercultural to what we're talking about of not just buying into all the stuff and so again going back to then if we take a look at all right what what are what are the what are the habits what are the rewards that i want to anticipate because one thing that i will share with you guys and with the audiences i am all for trying to live the greatest life that you possibly can with the greatest level fulfillment joy and love that is available to us and sometimes we restrict ourselves by falling too much into the cultural norms to actually experience the greatest

53:37levels of abundance and joy and love that can we can see in our lives spot on and so that's that's i mean that's really the driving force behind why i guess so jazzed about helping people with the financial part of their life is because let's really break it down what what is money and finances it's a resource when you read that that's all it is it's a resource if we can determine what we want to use that resource for if we can control that resource and direct it the way we want it then guess what now that resource doesn't have control over us we have control over it and that's what that's what we want to lead people towards because right now be willing to bet there's a bunch of people listening to this that feel like basically feels like their money controls them because they've got to send it they've they're in situations where they've got to send in different places and they don't feel like they have any freedom over they don't feel like they have any control over it doesn't have to be like that it's a resource how do you want to direct that resource

54:40so that you get to enjoy life your best way possible now let's go back to some of the specifics the practical things right we'd also need to know ourselves you know where can i fall into comparison where do i fall into spending money that later on i'm like why did i do that shopping is a coping mechanism for a lot of people and so what is it about that what emotion does it give me what feeling does it give me what does it help me think i'm dealing with that i'm not really dealing with and so it's knowing yourself to say where can i put some things in place that almost protect me against me and so i'll use one example automatic investing out of your paycheck into a 401k okay there's a lot of people that the only reason they do that is because it comes automatically out of their pay before it ever hits their checking account now is what are you a fan of that that's okay it all depends on the person and and why i say that and why that's not dodging the question they're probably like oh there goes the financial guy getting to get a

55:43dodged question like an attorney would right it's really not the reality is is by knowing ourselves we can put methods in place that help us we can put automations in place that help us but there's some people we've actually encouraged them to have a set a savings account at a separate institution a separate banking institution then they're checking account so that it's not just the click of a button and the money is instantly right back in my checking account instead it's still the click of a button but it's going to take 24 to 48 hours for it to transfer from the other institution into my checking account to where i can use it so again you have to know yourself it's almost like it's almost like it and i and and i feel like i've done a fairly decent job of staying athletic staying in shape going to the gym on a regular basis but i tell you what occasionally i'm going to do some research or i'm going to hire a trainer to give me a new routine because i'm not 20 years old anymore i'm not 25 years old anymore my workouts need to change my what

56:48i focus on in the gym needs to change in order for my body to continue to get stronger and healthier along the way and so every now and then we need to reevaluate what methods are we using to help us stick to the discipline if you will that we put in place or just simply stay on the path of really put our money to the use that we want really that's the question because is forced discipline the same as voluntary discipline and does it have the same merit does it have the same sticking power so in financial world okay let's say that let's say that i just took your your example and i'm like you know what i'm going to take this to the to the max all right so i'm going to you know 10 presents going to go into this checking account and then i'm going to put in 401k and then i'm going to put in like a house account and then a lawn care account and an auto payment account and like i'm going to have 17 different direct deposits and so i finally get what's left over and then that's all i'm going to live by and now i'm going to be really angry because it's a very small amount of money but that i know that i have to do this so that i'm basically creating artificial

57:49discipline would you be a fan of that or is that enabling the behavior without actually addressing the root cause mm-hmm yeah you're asking very well informed questions along the way and know what i love about this is it's i think it's because you know your audience right and in your helping guide us towards what does it need to be here here's here's where i go back to it might require that for some period of time now it doesn't mean it needs to be like that forever right um let's go back do either you guys remember the old envelope method oh yeah people used to have put money in different envelopes obviously we don't use cash a lot anymore and so now it's more conceptual than it is actual um but people used to stick cash they'd like get their paycheck deposit in their check account then they'd take would draw a cash would draws out and they'd stick in a different envelopes and leave it sitting around different places in the house or in the safe or whatever there was like once the cash is out man it's out there is no more cash available to spend now it's more conceptual and so there could be that level of like artificial discipline if you

58:52will put in place but hopefully it's only for the period of time it takes to create the new habit and what's the new habit is there and mentally now you're thinking of your money getting sliced and diced in different ways and there's a limit to each amount in each different account you probably don't have to do it forever but you may have to find some methods that shift your behavior for a long enough period of time that then you can change the method later on so each person can be each situation is going to be a little bit different of what it's going to take but you do have to evaluate your own again your own behavior patterns your own um methods that you're using now determined are they working you're they're not working and if they're working how do we maximize it if they're not working how do we change it you know many ago you mentioned about shopings the big motivator aka retail therapy right but I think there's a number of other things out there like addictions right how much money gets sucked into our addictions our vices how much of it just goes into spontaneous purchases right we're in in the moment you're like I mean this is what the whole

59:57checkout aisle is like at the grocery store right you know you're staring at a candy bar that's two dollars and you know that if you go back to the candy section there's a better deal for like a dollar but because you're in line and it's staring you in the face and you're pretty hungry you got the munchies you're going to go after the sponaneous spontaneous choices other things where money can quickly get sucked up is like the the interest payments or your credit card you consumer debt those types of things so as you think through these different areas where money is being consumed is this one of those things JW where there's value in us like reflecting upon our spending habits do we have to go back and track our expenses for 30 days or is there something like that you would recommend hey go here first to begin observing where the money is go follow the money and then you'll see the habit revealed yeah so let's let's first address that whole kind of emotional justification thank you talking about earlier right a lot of times we can emotionally justify the decisions that

1:00:58we're about to make or the ones that we just made and so that's one per one area to just evaluate and go okay I made these purchases why did I make them what was going on in that moment was I just tired and because I was scrolling and then also and I made the purchase because I was scrolling and I was tired and I wasn't in my best mental capacity to make that decision and also now I spent 75 bucks on you know a t-shirt that I'm not sure how what kind of quality it is but it showed up on my Instagram feed you know and so you what you identified there Nate is old school retrack where the money is going but here's the power in that it's awareness the power is awareness right if we're gonna make any sort of change this thing behavior change first you have to have awareness for some people getting in shape is because they've stepped on the scale too many damn times and they don't want to see that number on the scale anymore and that it was awareness right or sometimes they have a medical test that comes back and it's like dude you're gonna have a

1:02:02heart attack of five years to keep this up like do you want to be at your daughter's wedding or not you know and so awareness is a good start but we have to take action after the awareness it's like what do we do from there so here's one thing that will sometimes ask people to do and if we do feel like their money is just kind of going wherever it's going it actually is not my job as an advisor to tell somebody where they should spend their money at least that's my belief I don't believe my my responsibilities to tell them where to spend their money my job is to help them have enough empowering reasons to start to direct their money on their own where they feel is best fit and so if we take a look at a person that might be spending more one of the things I'm probably not gonna do is go guess what you need to cut your housing expenses you need to cut your car expenses you need to go out to eat less it's probably not what I'm gonna do instead what I'm gonna do is say let's look look look backwards over the last three months and this is an actual exercise that we've

1:03:03asked people to do let's look over the last three months the cool thing is now we've got some tools that make it not as difficult to do this and basically whether it's your credit cards whether it's your bank accounts whether it's your savings accounts whether it's money transfers you have different tools you can use even if you're gonna use an AI tool to do it but there's plenty of different money apps to do it too where you just upload all that stuff in there and it'll show you visibly what different areas your money's going into the exercise is powerful because now you have a visual representation to go holy crap like I didn't even realize we were spending that much money in an area I'm gonna give you one example this old story just came back to my attention as we're thinking about this so we were working with family they were making plenty of money and for confidentiality reasons you'll notice when I give stories they're more generalized stories in this case this particular couple they would make about 208 grand a year combined okay 280 grand paycheck to paycheck like we can't figure it out we have no idea like we're making plenty of money why does it not even

1:04:05feel like we're anywhere ahead of where we were before in fact they even made the comment they're like we actually feel like we were doing better financially when we were both broken in college than we are right now and so I asked them to do this one simple exercise a little look back over the three months and then let's see where some of the money's going you know what happened they have the two in this case it was two sons they had two sons that they had no idea those two boys were spending two grand a month in video game apps within the apps but it's because their accounts were linked to their apple pay the apple pay was on an auto payment that just got paid off each month so they weren't really seeing where the money was going it was just a connected account and they had no idea they're like that's got to be off there's no way our boys are spending two grand in video game apps guess what I mean I don't think those boys were probably overly thrilled

1:05:05with their parents coming to see us but it surely helped identify where some of that money is going and when you do that exercise of looking back sometimes you're surprised I'll give you another real quick one because this is a common one for a lot of people at a buddy of mine we played baseball together we were roommates for a while this dude was making good money it was a bartender when we were playing ball together and making money was not an issue for this guy first of all being a bartender second of all he's athletic he's handsome behind the bar he's making plenty of money and I couldn't tell you how many times he was like I was the one on the hook for the lease and the rent and he'd be coming to me going man I just need a few more days for the rent and I'm thinking why the heck do you need more days for the rent he he was already making three times what I was at the time guess what I said let's look back where's your money going he's like I don't know where it's going doesn't matter I'm like it does matter because I'm the one having to cover the rent and so

1:06:06turns out he was spending almost $2,800 a month on food wow on food he's like that's not possible and I won't say his name but I was like look at this like you go out to eat three times a day and you're eating five times a day well he didn't realize that much money was going out and so sometimes we just don't know whether it's subscriptions whether it's small dollar amounts whether it's 15 20 or 30 bucks here or there how much it adds up sometimes we just have to raise our awareness to see where the money is going to identify opportunities where your money could be better directed somewhere else okay so JW let's let's bring this home in a way that we're starting to make some gains here so I'm here what you saying I'm gonna do the thing I'm gonna either upload my docs into like by the way is there like an app you recommend any any good ones to try and expensive or break down for the purpose of the

1:07:11fact that I can't give recommendations because of my licenses and compliance I'll just say there's some great ones out there perfect but if it by the way if anybody wants to reach out they they can reach out we can have one-on-one conversation I could probably answer some more specifics but just for certain reason I have to handle it that way yeah don't don't hand over your license a lot of buddies and mind you's rocket money yeah there you go and you can you can not not or anything I think I'm just I'm gonna stay stoic okay so all right we use an app like that or you know I know my credit card will show me some extent or maybe your debit card does the same thing all right we start seeing it maybe maybe we get a little bit more wild we actually start like tracking receipts and we like you know we're not gonna make a lifestyle change right now we're just gonna track receipts okay so I've done that for a run a run rate is one month good so I look good two months I'd usually go minimum three months three months okay so do it for three months and then I bring everything back and I'm like okay this is gonna be like some eye opening stuff in fact probably along the way I'm gonna have my eyes open well we're not doing that anymore right okay so

1:08:17we get to the three months maybe we've already made some some decisions and now we have this data right and we have this data and we see okay well I'm spending an ex on clothing and I'm spending in why on car payment and z on utilities and all these other things is there like benchmarks for this stuff or how do I know like what am I am I good am I out of spec like I mean I can tell you what I feel you know I feel my grocery bills too high but I don't know that I can change that necessarily how do we even kind of put a barometer on this thing to know whether we're higher low yeah um that's where a good like financial game plan comes into play because and there are like there's tools out there you you can throw it into an AI tool you can say hey based upon my income how much that I'd be spending in these different areas here's what I'm gonna come back to here's where the real value is in that is yes that could be a good starting point to say okay I get it based on what I'm making here's how it should probably split up well I'm gonna go back to some I shared earlier though for those that we've seen truly get to a point where they really do enjoy

1:09:20their life and they really do feel like they've got some financial freedom they've got some financial stability that they really do feel like they kind of have this under control if you will the reality is because they've customized it in a way that matches what's important to them it matches what they value so let's say let's let's say this family is of great value creating experiences of great value it's it's taking the time to go okay based on the my amount of financial resource I have how am I going to prioritize those things therefore spend less on some of the other things but I am going to go back to something that I shared earlier in terms of it's not just about what happens in the moment it's also about what you're staying ahead of and preparing for the opportunities that will come in your life and so it does come back to okay I've got this awareness I see where the money's going I can see that I need to make some changes yeah there's some standards here that I probably you know should spend within a certain range of

1:10:24for my housing and for my cars and all that kind of stuff it's still important that again to give it enough reason to stick to it you have to base it and align it to what you feel is important in your life okay I hear you I want to ask your opinion on this at the top of the episode you talked about how your money has to have direction otherwise it will it will just like float into space and go down the drain right okay so if I identify I'm currently spending my money on food car payment and Amazon right just like miscellaneous stuff that I'm buying okay those are my three big spend categories and my priorities are I want to make sure that I'm giving I want to be generous I want to make sure that my kids are set up for their future like I want to make sure that they they're not wanting and also that when they graduate I want to give them something nice

1:11:26okay and three like family memories is a big deal to me so it's one nice vacation a year at least or two semi nice vacations a year right is it more important for me to have the perspective of I got to cut this stuff out or is it more important for me to have the perspective that I got to spend my money here and when I say spend that doesn't necessarily mean like in the moment it might be spending in terms of putting it in a bank account so that I can spend it when the bill comes so is it is it a mindset of like I love winning or I hate losing I want to cut or I want to spend just in a different direction what's your take yeah different people have different motivators here's what I can share with you clarity is powerful so going back to the examples you gave their native like what was important to creating family memories making sure your kids are prepared for their future giving generously create a clear plan for those and then allow the

1:12:28leftovers if you will for the other spontaneous things let's get clear a clear plan a clear direction where's the money going to go what types of accounts is it going to go in what types of investments is it going to go in to create what you've shared is important giving generously preparing your kids for the future and being able to get that one great family experience every single year I'm much do we need to put towards each one of those to fulfill that and then allow the rest to go maybe in a more spontaneous sort of way again going back to the pattern you want to make sure that you've got some money that is working for you investing along the way and again that takes a different form for a lot of different people depends on what you're comfortable with what you're able to do there is a value to consistency over time and so again it goes back to really prioritizing those things you've identified are most important to you and then allowing yourself to be a bit

1:13:30spontaneous but within reason okay so back to your funnel and I think this is an interesting way of framing things your perspective is spend first because you're forcing yourself into a position that not every dollar is for me nor does it have to be for me and in doing so first you're yes you're creating a level of freedom by saying that this is not all mine I'm choosing to have some of it go elsewhere like first and foremost okay next next step down or next step up depending was to begin saving yep yep in anticipation that there'll be opportunities that will show up right okay so I'm gonna make sure that I'm giving some to create myself the right mindset that it's not all for me nor does it have to be then I'm gonna start saving which is also a level of self-deprivation where it's it's not all about today right my kids are super into like football

1:14:31right and and the tops just released a brand new football card pack like this past week and they're all excited and my my son got some and I was just watching them open the packs right and they open the packs and as opposed to being like what you would think a kid would be which is just like quick rip it open and like you know sort through all the cards quickly no I actually saw them do the opposite thing where they open the pack they carefully remove it out because they don't want to see the entire thing and they go card by card knowing there's something at the back of this thing I could I saw a little glimmer I saw a little shine on that back card but they don't want to get to it right away and I'm like oh that's so good they're practicing that delayed gratification same thing for saving right you're saving in time you're saving in finances you're delaying the gratification great habit okay give some save some next invest invest all right now talk to me about bills I got bills I got debt I got consumer debt I got credit card debt I got car payments I wonder is this in the saving or in the invest bidders there's somewhere else that fits in

1:15:32yeah well and for debt you noticed there wasn't a category for debt that's why I'm asking yep so it would kind of be in that final lifestyle right okay and so that's that's part of the lifestyle area of if you've got debt in there you've let that creep up in your lifestyle you've actually let it um reduce some of that lifestyle because let's say it is credit card debt right there's there's stuff going towards interest you're paying interest on the lifestyle things you bought so that you could have them earlier on when you really couldn't afford them and so and and by the way I say that in a quick sort of way and there's also again if we go back to like justifications right we say oh well I used the credit card at first to get the points and then I used the points to go on the vacation um but what was the interest cost in doing that did you actually spend more on the interest than you would have if you just paid for the vacation up front in the first place so again even with the the idea of well I'm going to use my credit cards I'm going to pay them off every month it goes back to discipline um are you having the discipline to truly be able to pay

1:16:36them off every month therefore taking advantage of not paying interest but utilizing a point structure so that the debt if you will is still a lifestyle choice so it's not give, save or invest it's in that lifestyle area sometimes there's some work we got to do to dig ourselves away from that debt to truly enjoy the lifestyle too it's fullest capacity because I can assure you in seeing it live out or play out in enough people's lives if they're if they're essentially living their lifestyle using debt they're not actually enjoying that lifestyle as much as the person who's living that the same lifestyle but not having to use any debt whatsoever give save invest lifestyle and one of those things that I can't remember who told me this but something has stuck with me is you know we have a habit of saying like the kids are probably asking like hey you know like can you get me this do baseball bat or can you get me this new thing or whatever and what's our response we can't afford that right that's the wrong framing it's we choose not to afford that we choose not to

1:17:42spend the money in that place I think it's so powerful even though it's a simple one word exchange because when you say we can't afford that you're positioning yourself in a place where it's adversarial that's right right but if you say we choose not to afford that or we choose not to spend our money there that is financial freedom you are now having the freedom to say no or yes out of choice and not out of can't yeah well in this what you're touching on there now it goes to mindset right in it and here's where this can be powerful too is do you tend to view things through the lens of an abundance mindset or do you tend to view things through a scarcity mindset and that that differentiator will change the language you use so in the example you're using where you might say we can't afford that versus saying we choose not to afford that we choose not to buy that the choose is more of an abundance mindset the we can't afford it the word can't in

1:18:43by its nature is a scarcity mindset sort of word and so there could be even where people started going where do I catch myself in an abundance mindset where do I catch myself in a scarcity mindset where do I catch myself using language internally in my mind or externally what I say out loud that's more abundance related with versus when I catch myself saying things that are more scarcity related and even there it's it's powerful to understand the way we think and the way we talk in the way we act in how those are those those are driving a lot of our decisions whether we realize it or not and so again going back internal giving some depth to our conversation is evaluating what are my beliefs about what I get to experience now and in the future now what are my beliefs around my own self worth what are my beliefs around what I'm capable of and if we can train ourselves if

1:19:45it takes that but lean into in as many ways as possible an abundance mindset not in an irresponsible way where it's like oh well I can just spend whatever I want because there's always going to be more coming in no it's an abundance mindset in terms of those resources there but I still have to have the discipline to utilize those resources in a great way I'll give you another quick run this is something that we developed a while ago when we're people would ask us like what what is a wealthy life look like well wealth by nature is not just financial wealth is actually much broader bigger than just financial financial is a small piece of whether someone's wealthy or not and so we have all sorts of different kinds of wealth we can have knowledge wealth we can have relationship wealth we can have financial wealth we can have social wealth and so there's many many different forms of wealth it was a wealthy life was it take to to live a wealthy life or experience a wealthy life it's because beyond financial but we think about another run if you will where we talk about okay for

1:20:50from a financial standpoint if I could get in the habit of whatever I make then I give save invest and live on the rest lifestyle okay a wealthy life if I want to pursue a wealthy life basically a life that I can enjoy and feel like I've lived it to its fullest there are some key things that kind of have a progression also which is okay do I have a healthy level of humility humility not meaning like sacrificing things out of my life I mean humility in terms of always having like a learner's approach am I always willing to learn do I ever feel like I've arrived or do I feel like there's always more to learn more to pursue ways to get better that's a humility and if I if I have humility humility allows me to have an abundance mindset an abundance mindset allows me to experience more joy more joy allows me to experience more love more love allows me to experience a wealthy life and at the foundation of that if we go back to what allows me to have humility at the very foundation

1:21:52of that is gratitude and so Brian's heard me say this before but but my belief in one of the things that we teach is your level of wealth will never exceed your level of gratitude so the more you can increase your level of gratitude the more wealth you'll experience because gratitude is at the foundation of then the way we end up making decisions so good JW okay let's bring this in for a landing here we've had great content a lot of it has been focused on like rescuing or or bringing people out of some probably negative habits certainly we all have some some are a little bit more financially destructive than others but we all have our habits we all have better ways that we know we could be should be using our money making it work for us and we all work really hard I mean the blue color trade is typically not the one that gets accused of being lazy or slackers these are hardworking people listening to this so as we shift into the end of this episode and we start thinking about more of the what's next okay I'm trying to get out of the rat race I'm trying to

1:22:54get out of the paycheck to paycheck I'm trying to get all these things yeah do I have to have my life to clean up clean up first before I go seeking financial advice is there something that Ray Hans financial has like in place that you know filters out problems like me who have more debt than I know what to do with or is there a time in a place where anybody can come to somebody like your services and say like I don't even know where to start I just need help or is there like a seven figure quota that I have to have in a bank account somewhere before we can talk yeah I love this question I'm going to use it in a way to relate it back to our underlying if if anyone wonders like why'd you become a financial advisor in the first place why'd you start Ray Hans financial when you were 20 years old why why'd you do that why's this been your professional pursuit it goes back to the underlying belief that there's more to life than money money's a resource there is so much more to life than money that's far more important and so if everybody could just imagine for a moment

1:23:56right like just take a moment to just just imagine for a moment that you've lived your life in a way that it was so far beyond any of your needs that your impact is felt whether it's just within your family or your community but way beyond yourself let's just imagine for a moment you've lived your life in that sort of way that's that's a fulfilled life that's an enjoyable life right that you got to live not only in the way that you wanted to but you got to live in a way that had a positive impact in lots of other people's lives and it wasn't just financial but financially you were able to go way beyond your own needs okay let's just imagine that for a moment okay now ask yourself how much more would I wake up energized for every day despite the challenges that I'm going to show

1:24:56up how much more would I wake up ready to go ready for the day ready to take it on ready to see the people that I'm going to get to see for that day what kind of person would you show up as in any given day if your focus was so far beyond your own needs that's an entirely different approach than basically what we've talked about up to this point yeah and if I was looking to carry on that conversation with UJW on a personal level where would I start yeah I'd say well I mean one of the easy things and this is just depending on your comfort level obviously anybody's welcome to reach out to us directly but if your comfort level is man I just want to kind of like feel this out a little bit just go to our website just go to rayhornsfinancial.com I mean even on there we have a we have a page dedicated to all the podcast episodes that we've done with real people who've lived real life that have been through real challenges that have come from all sorts of different backgrounds that have all done

1:26:00very very well in their lifetimes but they will share with you what it took to actually get there they will share with you where did they face where they come from what they overcome how they get there how they capture opportunities how they put themselves in a good spot so that could even be a good starters point just listen to some of those episodes be inspired by them because I assure you anyone that's listening to this they're gonna find a conversation in one of those episodes that they're gonna relate to and go man that person is just like me and so that could be a good starting point we do we we actually have a training that people can do it's called our wealth and abundant study they can do it as a self study if they want and that might be a good starting point for someone for someone else they're like look man I need somebody that's gonna hold me accountable they encourage me they're gonna give me direction they're gonna tell me exactly what to do and guess what they're gonna check in with me on a regular basis too okay that might require a little more personal conversation with one-on-one with you know one of our advisors and myself and they can connect with us through the website on that too this has been great content today JW and I think it's been really

1:27:07instructive for our audience you know and I think it's good to listen to these podcasts sometimes on our own in isolation in a car while we're driving and we don't have to have anybody around looking at us and we're worried about like oh yeah this is kind of hitting me between the eyes on some of these points here and yet you coming at some from such like a very basic very level application I really appreciate the tone I appreciate the ideas and I think you know these are working things this isn't born out of theory you know you said that you're kind of a financial philosopher but these are these are not born out of theory these are born out of not all your own lessons but unfortunately many hard lessons from other people that have sought counsel and have seen their way through the other side so I think the encouragement here is we wrap up is that there's no time too late to begin changing the direction on how you view money how you use money and how it's using you unfortunately in some cases so who really appreciate you taking the time man this has been great if people are interested in learning more about what you got going on there it's

1:28:09Ray Hans with an S financial that's R.A.Y.H.O. and S financial.com you can check him out there and I'm sure him and his team will be more than happy to follow up I want to say thank you the way that you've navigated this conversation the questions that you've asked I really do believe that's what's helped make this impactful so I appreciate the way that you framed a lot of that and as you mentioned the financial area of anyone's life can be a very private sort of aspect of their life and the other thing that I would share is if anyone does reach out we keep all of that confidential and it does it does allow there to be an openness there where they can just kind of come in and go hey here's where I'm at and we will help you you still doing the podcast J.D. yeah so the Mordelife the Money Podcast it releases every other Tuesday there's a new episode that comes out more to life than money on Apple yeah and Spotify yeah I think it's Apple Spotify YouTube it might even be on iHeartRadio or a couple others but yeah it's just Mordelife

1:29:15the Money Podcast well you heard it here we do appreciate the time J.W take us out on this on this thought as we as we close out the episode what is to be the best perspective on money as we head into our future the best perspective on money I'll leave you with this and it's something that I've shared throughout the time that we've had together shared in a couple of different ways it's be grateful it is absolutely be grateful for whatever level of financial resources you have and other resources that you have is be grateful let that drive your decision making in your action and that will allow you to experience a wealthy life in many different ways sound advice we appreciate it J.W make sure that you check him out at rayhandsfinancial.com a lot of great stuff there plus the more the more to life than money podcasts which sounds like a great listen if you're interested more what he's talking about there if you love this episode we'd love to hear from you and I'm sure J.W would as well let him know share it around share it to all the

1:30:19people that you think need financial advice and then share it to yourself too because we'd be one of those listening but we hope that you did enjoy it and of course let us know what was the most feedback for you or sorry most impactful for you we'd love to hear your feedback go ahead Brian and join J.W and Dylan Moe and myself at the Dallas Boob camp almost positive now it's November 6th and 7th in Dallas go to way so day.com for more thanks gentlemen this has been fun I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you share a few things that hopefully will be impactful inspiring to every person that listens yeah I apologize for my lack of a teniveness on this one I apologize Brian it was fun yeah Nate missed me I know he was texting me the whole time but I'm hard at work on something I have to literally have to get done tonight but I knew Nate and J.W were gonna have a phenomenal conversation and this was awesome for me because it felt like I was listening to the Nate and J.W podcast this was a good time for me so

1:31:21thank you guys for carrying the load for once Nate Mnick all right with that in mind we're gonna leave you with our weekly challenge we're gonna change it up a little bit to choose to wake up each and every morning and waste no pay all right yes