Mike Seidl grew up with six kids, a single mom, and an empty fridge. So how did he go from clipping coupons to visiting 43 countries and walking away from millions in Wall Street investments? In this episode, he shares the single moment that rewired his entire relationship with money and why earning, not saving, is the only path to real financial freedom.
Episode 2: You Can’t Save Your Way to Wealth with Mike Seidl
What if we told you that saving harder is keeping you stuck in a puddle while other people are playing in the ocean? If you’ve ever felt stuck clipping coupons and “being good” with money but never getting ahead, this one’s for you.
In this episode of Save to Zero, Zach Richards sits down with Mike Seidl to discuss how he went from growing up with almost no money to building real wealth. Mike shares the moment he realised saving would only ever keep him in a puddle, not get him to the ocean.
You’ll hear Mike’s story of growing up with a single mom working 80-100 hours a week and how that shaped his scarcity mindset. He talks about the shift that happened when he moved to New York, started meeting wealthy people, and realized they weren’t any different from him; they’d just chosen a different path. We also get into the snow-shovel moment that made him know he could never spend his life working for someone else.
We dig into why “saving your way to wealth” doesn’t work, and why focusing on earning, investing, and relationships does. Mike breaks down his move from the stock market to private lending, what he’s learned about risk, and why he now aims to live on growth and never touch his principal.
We wrap up with what Save to Zero really means and who this show is really for.
What’s the worst money advice ever received? On Sunday morning, when the paper comes, you need to clip coupons.
What’s one book/podcast that changed how you think? Atomic Habits by James Clear
What’s your guilty pleasure purchase? I want to fly to Antarctica and spend the night at the South Pole. It’s not cheap.
What do you do with $100,000 in passive income? I book a vacation for Lois and me to any place she wants to go. We spend half the money on that, and I reinvest the other half
What’s one thing you wish you knew at 25? That you don’t have to be perfect out of the gate. You learn as you go along.
What does financial freedom mean to you? That I can do what I want, when I want, with who I want, and where I want. The four W’s are financial freedom to me.
“I stopped thinking about working for somebody else. I knew relatives who’d started businesses and been successful. … I knew from a young age that I wanted to start a business. When I started working for other people, I knew that I had to start a business.”
“Those guys are no different to me, and they have all this money. I’m doing something wrong.”
“They’re not different; they just went down a different path.”
For Investors & the Fund – Learn how the Fund works and book a call
For Borrowers & Deals – Get funding and support for your next investment
[00:00.1]
They're building relationship capital, and it's who you can trust and who you can rely on. And when you find somebody like that, you want them in your circle because, you know, I know there are people out there that are just trying to get. And they don't care what they have to do to get stuff.
[00:16.9]
And what I find is they never really get it. Whereas who? You know, when you build relationship capital, that is where the magic happens. People who have money are greedy. That is not the case. It's not what you know.
[00:32.8]
It's, who you know. No, that's a bad spin on it. The reality is it's your relationship capital, and that is very, very important. Most people think saving money is the answer, but the truth is, saving only gets you to zero.
[00:49.3]
Join Mike and Zach as they flip the script from saving to earning, from zero to unlimited potential. Welcome to Save to Zero. All right, welcome, everybody, to episode two of the Save to Zero podcast.
[01:05.2]
I'm, Zach Richards, here with my business partner, Mike Seidel. And in this episode, I'm going to interview Mike. You can learn a little bit more about his background and what got him into business, and then, ask him some questions about his attitude towards money and finance and.
[01:22.5]
And we'll go from there. Let's do it. All right. So, Mike, what kind of household did you grow up in when it came to money? Very simply, I grew up in a household that didn't have a lot of money. My dad left when I was five.
[01:38.2]
My mother ran a little hot dog hamburger stand. She had six kids. She had to feed us. And the household that I grew up in was not a lot of money at all. So what was that like? Did your mom. Was she just at work all the time and you guys were kind of on your own when it came to being home and with feeding you and taking care of yourselves, or how'd that work?
[02:02.8]
You are absolutely correct. My mother worked 80 to 100 hours a week for years. She had six kids she had to feed. I think my oldest brother was 13 or 14 when my dad left. So what would happen is we called it the store, the hot dog stand.
[02:21.1]
The store was, I don't know, maybe a mile from where we lived, give or take maybe a little more. And what we would do is we would shuttle back and forth between them. So if we didn't have food in the house, we would have to go eat something at the restaurant. Hot dogs, hamburgers, fish and chips, et cetera.
[02:38.9]
Because there were times we didn't have food in the refrigerator at home. So there was a lot where we were on our own and we were expected to be on our own. My older sister would do a lot of babysitting, my older brother, and there are times where they just weren't there because they were at the restaurant and they were working at the shop.
[02:57.0]
So, yeah, a lot of times alone and, a lot of times being concerned about money. So I'm assuming then, and correct me if I'm wrong, your attitude towards money when you were younger started off being more of a scarcity mindset, so to speak. Right.
[03:12.2]
And how did that change as you went through, you know, as you went through your childhood, adulthood, college, whatever, to where you are now? Well, definitely, had a scarcity mindset, had a survival mindset where I was always concerned as to, exactly where my money was.
[03:32.2]
I need to know where it was in the bank, if I had any in the bank. I, I had to always know how much was in my pocket. I had certain amount that I could spend. Very tight on budgeting. I tried very hard at it. I sucked at budgeting. But it was definitely a constant, scarcity mindset and a survival mode for sure.
[03:52.4]
So take us through how your mindset around money changed. Like you just said, you had a, scarcity mindset around money growing up. Now you don't. So what does that look like? So the scarcity mindset switched when I transferred from a community college in Massachusetts where I grew up, to going to nyu.
[04:15.8]
And I saw and became aware of so many people that I went to school with whose parents had all of this money. I was sharing an apartment with my brother on Staten Island. It took me an hour or more to get to school every day.
[04:32.7]
And we were in the same city. I had to walk down to the ferry. I had to get the ferry from Staten island to Manhattan and then take a train from, southern part of the island all the way to Greenwich, Village.
[04:50.4]
So I saw these people that had apartments and they were living in a one bedroom apartment by themselves that their parents were paying for. So that's when the shift from scarcity started to really hit me. That, man, there's a lot of money out there and there are so many different ways to make it.
[05:12.3]
So that's where it shifted was when I went from Massachusetts to New York to go to school and was surrounded by people that had no concept of scarcity. All they knew was they always had money available from their parents.
[05:28.1]
So how did that, did that make you want to Start a business, like, then and there, or did you have to, like, think about how that, like, kind of was going to change your attitude? I guess what I'm saying is, like, all right, your mindset around money is changing, and how did that, like, influence, you know, your college track or whatever into.
[05:47.6]
Into your life? Okay. The way it influenced me was I stopped thinking about working for somebody. El. I knew that there were relatives that had started businesses and been successful at them. There's one who I had had several conversations with, another one that I knew of, and that was it.
[06:10.3]
So I knew from a young age I wanted to start a business. And then when I started working for other people, I learned that I had to start a business because I wasn't a good employee in terms of following a rigid guideline.
[06:28.2]
I have my own ideas and my own visions. And to do somebody else's task list all day that they gave me to do was not going to work with the way my brain works and the way my mind works. That just wasn't going to happen. So I knew from a very young age that being an entrepreneur was going to have to be the thing that I did if I wanted to eat.
[06:49.7]
Was there a single moment that made that pivot in your mind that you had to work with somebody else or that you couldn't work for somebody else, that you had to be on your own? Yeah. That's funny. I haven't thought about this for years. I ran a group home for developmentally disabled men, and it was snowing.
[07:10.3]
And, my boss, who was a great guy, we played softball together, and we stayed in touch. Years after I stopped working for him, he handed me a shovel, and it was a group home, and I wasn't the manager. He handed me a shovel, and he said, here, you need to shovel outside.
[07:29.3]
And I'm like, you shovel if you want it shoveled, is what I thought in my head. But I knew he was a great guy, and I knew he wasn't just flexing on me, although I think he was a little bit, because it's two guys together, you know, at the house.
[07:47.0]
But that was the thing that made the shift that I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna follow somebody else's rules. I'm making my own rules. So after you started your own businesses and things, like, with your mindset around, money, was there a moment that you realized that just saving your way to wealth wasn't gonna work? Absolutely.
[08:14.9]
When I was growing up, my mother was always cutting coupons and she would go to, I remember, multiple stores. She'd go to AP for certain things, and then she'd go to Almack's for something else and stop and shop for something else because she knew they were cheaper at each of those stores.
[08:33.2]
And we never got ahead. We always had money problems. And then when I started my first business, I actually, when we first started out, I would not buy bags for the vacuum cleaner.
[08:48.8]
It was cheaper to get a rubber glove and empty it out by hand once a week. And that is what I did because there was no need to throw that bag away. And one day I had an employee.
[09:03.9]
Now we had already started to grow and we were making money, and I had an employee and I said, okay, now you're going to handle cleaning, and here's the rubber glove you use, and I can buy your own if you want, but you need to empty this bag out once a week.
[09:19.9]
And he looked at me like I was a lunatic.
[09:25.5]
I remember thinking to myself, wait a minute, this is clever. I'm saving on this bag, which was probably 30 cents or a dollar, And I'm saving if we have to throw one a week away, and if they're a dollar, that's $52 a year, well, I can buy more paper clips, whatever.
[09:43.7]
So that was when it hit me that, wait a minute, maybe this saving money thing is not the way to go. That was the moment. The vacuum cleaner bag, that did it. So when you were in New York and going to nyu, I imagine you didn't have a lot of wealthy people around in your network.
[10:09.1]
What led you to find them and get your attitude about them and really think about what made a wealthy person different than you? What happened was a change for me was I met somebody in my first year at NYU in my economics class, and she invited me to hang, out at her house in New Jersey.
[10:32.2]
So I went and hung out in her house in New Jersey. So I knock on the door and who answers the door? But of course her dad. And he answers the door. He's got a cigar in one hand, a beer in the other hand.
[10:47.4]
He has a white T shirt on, a pair of faded jeans, and no socks or sneakers. Understand? This was a three story house. And this is the way he answered the door. I was like, whoa, okay.
[11:04.1]
I'm expecting something totally different to answer the door. Somebody totally different. So what he does is he says, hey, great to meet you. He puts down his beer and he says, my name is. And he introduces himself and I'm like, okay, what a Cool guy.
[11:19.4]
I'm gonna, I'm always, I do good with dads, but I'm gonna really hang out with this guy. And he said, she's upstairs getting dressed. I know you guys are going out. I've got some friends on the deck. Do you want to hang out with us? Because she could be a little while. She didn't go up too long ago. She's running a little behind.
[11:35.6]
Said, sure, let's go on the deck. So I go mount and there's these two other guys there and they introduce themselves and we start talking. And then of course, now it's four guys. Her dad was grilling up some filet mignon or something and they're smoking cigars.
[11:52.2]
We're having a conversation. And because I was an, economics major, one guy in particular, I remember he was sitting on my left, he was really giving me grief about. Economists don't know squat about the economy. And he has him at work and they can't tell him what's going to happen. And he thinks it's a totally useless degree to have and a totally useless education because they never know what's going on.
[12:13.9]
And then one of the other guys said, listen, he gives crap to everybody. He's just giving you crap. And then he started laughing and we were joking around and having a good time. So then she came down, we were ready to go, some other people came and we headed out for the night.
[12:31.2]
We're drinking, we start having conversations with, everybody that's around and she and I start talking. And this is the first time she'd ever actually opened up. And she said, and come to find out her dad was the vice president at ABC Television in charge of entertainment.
[12:46.7]
And I'm like, wow, well, this explains the three story house. I get it now. And she said, and the thin tall guy is the president of ABC Television. So it's his boss, but they're friends. He lives a couple doors down.
[13:02.5]
Like, wow, well, that's cool. And the guy who was giving you crap is the executive vice president of Mobil Oil. And he lives this way, you know, so many blocks. I was like, damn. And that's when I had the epiphany when I was, taking the train back to New York, back to Manhattan.
[13:23.7]
I'm thinking to myself, wait a minute, those guys are no different than me. And they have all this money. I'm doing something wrong. Something is different. Something is wrong for me that they have all this money and I don't.
[13:44.1]
And they have all these power Positions. And it hit me that they're not different. They just went a different path. I went down the street and took a right. They went down the street and took a left. They ended up in a nicer park, a nicer neighborhood.
[14:00.5]
They just took a different path. They were no different than me. And that was a major epiphany in my life when it came to money. That, man, I just need to hang with different people. I have some stuff I need to learn that I don't know. So that was the boom moment for me.
[14:18.9]
So going along those lines, then, you kind of, your mind is opening up, I guess, to, the way these other people are thinking about money. Like, what was one thing about money that you had to unlearn and replace with something else you could save your way to wealth?
[14:36.8]
These people didn't focus on saving money at all. They just bought what they wanted. What they focused on was making money versus saving money. Think about it. If you have, one hour a week that you're spending on figuring out how to save money and you're able to save to the point where what you buy that you focused on, you were going to buy that week, you got it for free, you have a floor.
[15:14.6]
But so you do that 52 times a year. And, 52 times a year you get something free. And I'm not talking a free car, I'm talking you get a free bag of chips, you get free, you save a dollar here, 50 cents there. So the best you can do is save to zero.
[15:34.5]
But if I use that 52, and I, had used my time to do stuff like that, if you focus on making Money in those 52 hours where you could take away my free item, you couldn't take away my knowledge.
[15:54.1]
So I would always have that. And I was, have the ability to make money. So the change for me was focusing on making money and investing versus saving money and getting to zero.
[16:10.9]
Wow, that's. That makes a lot of sense. So how like, so kind of going along those lines, where did you used to think that rich people did differently than, your average person? I guess, so to speak.
[16:26.3]
And now what do you know to be the case? I used to think that rich people were cheap, they stole, they lied, and they didn't get it based on the skill set. It wasn't based on what you know, it's based on who you know.
[16:46.3]
And I find out that the spin on that is wrong. Everybody that I hang out with that has money is always looking for ways to lift people up.
[17:03.4]
So they're looking to give a hand up. Not a handout, but a hand up to help the person next in line on a consistent basis. They give away large amounts of their capital. So that was a major shift, is that they don't just make money to make money so they can have more.
[17:26.9]
They make money to see what they can do with it, to make a difference. Because everybody I know who has money wants to leave a legacy, and they all give it away. There's a group that I know of, a mastermind, where when he gets everybody together, they'll go to a nice restaurant and he'll have 15 or 20 people there.
[17:48.1]
And every person that shows up has to put $100 into the kitty so that they can give it to the server at the end of the night. And the servers will end up with 1500, 2000, 2,500 bucks. Because everybody who comes has to commit to bringing $100 with them so they can give it away.
[18:06.8]
And everybody knows. The second thing is that it's not what you know, it's who you know, it's what relationships you have. It isn't what they're doing is they're building relationship capital.
[18:24.3]
And it's who you can trust and who you can rely on. And when you find somebody like that, you want them in your circle. Because, you know, I know there are people out there that are just trying to get, and they don't care what they have to do to get stuff. And what I find is they never really get it.
[18:42.9]
They're always just trying to get, and what can they do next? And everything's transactional. Whereas who you know, when you build relationship capital, that is where the magic happens. So the two things that are, significant changes are that people who have money are greedy.
[19:04.9]
That is not the case. And that it's not what you know, it's who you know. No, that's a bad spin on it. The reality is it's your relationship capital, and that is very, very important. Tight circle, good people.
[19:20.8]
I really like that phrasing, that. Yeah, it's true that a lot of people say, oh, it's because of, who you know. Well, no, it's your network. There's a subtle difference there. There's a real difference between those two things. It's how you spin it. Yeah. And so walk us through your career journey a bit and where, like, investing kind of came in.
[19:41.4]
So I know you had two businesses and then started a third doing private lending, which is definitely a business, but it's More on the investing side, like, take us through that journey. A little bit of how that happened. In my first business, which was Medical Alert Systems, I was on the front end of that back in 87.
[20:01.3]
Push a button, get an ambulance. We started having. We started making very good money. And I had to do something with the extra money because I knew I wanted a future. So I started investing in different things.
[20:20.2]
So I would focus on buying, I remember Warren Buffett saying that you want to buy a good, franchise that isn't doing well. And I don't necessarily mean a franchise business, but a good business that isn't doing well. That is a fabric of the American society.
[20:42.7]
For example, I started investing in stocks because I was an economics major in college. Some of the people that went to school with me went right out of NYU down to Wall street to work. So I focused on stocks because for me, it meant that it was passive.
[21:02.0]
I put the money in and it'll go up or down. I know the market goes up and down all the time. If I leave it in over time, I'm not going to have to, focus on it. And I can still do my day job while still growing my money while I sleep. So that was my first foray. So I had the business.
[21:21.1]
It was throwing off a nice amount of cash, and I knew I wanted to save for my future. So I started investing in stocks and mutual funds. How did that. Now you've kind of, you know, you're obviously doing private lending now. Was there something about the stock market that didn't appeal to you or that made it lose its, its appeal?
[21:43.9]
It's interesting you should say that. You should ask that question. The stock market constantly has its ups and downs and its roller coasters. And it would stress me out when it was going down. And I was always happy and stuck my chest out a little bit more when it was going up, but I had no control over any of it.
[22:05.5]
There's nothing I could do about what was going on. And if you look at people like Ray Dalio, Warren Buffett, they have to ride the ups and downs, too. They ride them less because they have more knowledge, but they haven't figured it out either.
[22:22.8]
Nobody shoots 100%. And then I was at a mastermind, and they had a speaker come in. And I was in Park City, Utah, and he is somebody that worked on Wall street. And if memory serves, he was under 40 and had $1.4 billion under management.
[22:46.1]
He was under 40, don't quote me on that. But I Know, it was in the billions. And he started explaining what happens on Wall street and how they make all these fees that they don't have to disclose, and it cuts down your earnings.
[23:03.0]
And as a retail investor like me, I didn't get access to the IPOs and the stuff that could spike really fast, go down really fast. But I didn't get an opportunity for the upside. And I listened to what he had to say, and I thought he was totally full of it.
[23:22.3]
And I thought, there's no way. I was an economics major. Index funds, it's the way to go. Eugene, Fama, and Benjamin Graham. And I'm going to do index funds. And. Okay. And he said that I'm like, wait a minute.
[23:41.6]
And I started doing some research, and everything that I found reinforced what he said, and I still didn't want to believe him. So that would have been in November that we had the conversation.
[24:01.8]
I, want to say it was 2019, 2018 or 2019. And then the next September, October, I would research and I would speak with my financial advisor and stuff he would tell me would contradict what I had learned at the Mastermind.
[24:21.8]
But then my research would tell me that what I learned at the Mastermind was correct. And I finally said, the heck with it. I came into the office, called my financial advisor, and said, I want to sell. He tried very hard to talk me out of it. I can sometimes get frustrated quickly because I know what I want to do. Get out of my way.
[24:40.6]
I'm going to do it. So I just ended the call. I said, okay, I understand. And then I just called Schwab myself and sold millions of dollars of stock and decided I was done on the roller coaster and started investing and lending away from Wall street completely.
[24:59.2]
Was there one moment, one fact that you finally realized was true about the stock market that changed your mind? Yeah. I don't think it was an epiphany of one fact. It was because I was so ingrained in wanting to be in the stock market that it took a way to chip away at that thought process.
[25:23.6]
So I didn't have an epiphany moment. It was chipping away and finding that what I had built was a house of cards, and it's not where I want it to be. So shifting away from the stock market into investing on your own and doing your own thing, how has that changed your perception or your attitude towards risk?
[25:49.8]
So my attitude towards risk has changed because I am in control, to a large degree, of the outcome. I do more research. I Just don't leave it to the smart guys and let them do their job, or the smart gals and let them do their job.
[26:10.1]
I do more research on my investments now and I don't have the roller coaster that the stock market has. One of the things that I think a lot of people miss and aren't aware of is you can lose money in the stock market and it will affect your returns once you're in retirement for the rest of your life.
[26:33.5]
And this is what I mean. And I know that was kind of generic, but this is what I mean. Let's say two years before retirement or a year before retirement, you suddenly have a thousand point drop in the stock market or a 2000 point drop, but you're right near retirement, all that money that you had, had budgeted and figured if you took out 4% a year, how much you could take, your whole calculation is blown up.
[26:59.4]
And it's blown up because of the sequence of returns, risk, where it happened at a time that was just before your retirement and you don't have time to make that up before you have to start taking money out.
[27:16.7]
So my knowledge about risk has increased exponentially and I'm much more conscious of things like that. I'm more knowledgeable about taking out 4% a year and getting to the end and not having any money left.
[27:35.1]
Well, wait a minute, I don't know when the end's going to be. So now I'm focused on investing where my principal continues to grow and I will just be able to pull out from the growth and not touch the principal in any given year.
[27:52.5]
So when I pass, I will still have millions of dollars to give away. I'm not going to go through it all. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So one of the things I wanted to ask you is like, how your personal investing strategy has changed over time and how it's evolved.
[28:08.4]
I mean, is that kind of your answer then too of, you know, being more aware of, you know, not touching the principle or is there more to it? No, I think it goes along. That is not touching the principle and not running out of money. So.
[28:24.6]
Because in these first couple episodes we're also trying to, you know, explain to people what they're, what they can expect from what we're going to be talking about here when I know you already, you already said some of, some of this. But like, what does the name like save to zero really mean to you?
[28:41.6]
It's a life changing moment because it was for me, because you can only save as I said earlier, you can only save to zero. You can't save anymore unless you.
[28:56.8]
Even if you steal it, it still didn't cost you anything. But if you earn and you invest and you grow, it's infinite. There is no top. So since there is a floor, there's only so much you can do.
[29:12.2]
I would rather be in a pool with a lot of water. I want to be in an ocean. I don't want to be in a puddle. And to me, saving to zero. You're in a puddle, earning, you're in the ocean.
[29:29.5]
It's just infinite. Money just changes hands. You can just keep going. And because there's so much, your probability of success is much greater because there's so much out there, you have to be able to grab some of it.
[29:46.2]
So it's a bigger pool, it's a bigger opportunity. I love that. So who then do you think this podcast is really for? Good question. This podcast is for people that want to get off the hamster wheel and want to learn ways to earn money, invest money, protect the money, and keep the money.
[30:13.9]
Because it's not just how much you earn, it's how much you keep and how much can you keep legally? Always legally. From the irs, it is my understanding, and I've never looked this up, that the Supreme Court has ruled that as Americans, you are not obligated to do everything you can to pay taxes.
[30:35.4]
You have every right to do everything you can to limit your taxes. So do I have a problem paying my fair share? Absolutely not. I want a strong military. I want good roads. I want educated, people around me, and I want schools that are good schools.
[30:55.2]
But what I don't want to do is support wars in foreign countries. That's not what I want to do. So the podcast is for people that want to learn how to grow and have an abundance mindset versus a scarcity mindset, and want to learn different ways to grow their money, save their money, protect their money, and be able to hand it down to other generations and to take care of themselves until they no longer need it.
[31:30.4]
I love that. So what's a, myth about money that you're tired of hearing? Well, I think you probably guessed this, that you can save your way to retirement, you can save your way to wealth. That's a scarcity mindset.
[31:47.8]
I go on multiple vacations a year. I've been to 43 countries. I've been to four continents. My goal is 100 countries in all seven continents. Well, what am I going to do? Try and find the Cheapest flight everywhere I'm going to go, and the cheapest hotel in the seediest neighborhood to save $6 a night.
[32:11.0]
I'm not doing it. I'm just not doing it. So for me, the myth about money is that you can save for the things that you want. I disagree. Earn for the things that you want, invest for the things that you want.
[32:27.3]
The saving, it doesn't work. So why do you think most people feel stuck? Like, that's what they need to do? Okay, this might be the third rail. Because it's what we're taught.
[32:43.2]
We're taught it by our parents. And the reason we're taught it by our parents is because when Carnegie and Ford and, Rockefeller were building this country, they needed people to work for them.
[33:01.3]
So they set up the school system so that you could be smart enough, independent enough to work for them, but not to go off and do it on your own. The reason people have that mindset, it's because what we've taught you didn't know. Had I stayed in Massachusetts and gone from the community college to the state college, I would have been following everybody that I had known for years, and I'd be doing the same things.
[33:27.9]
I got out of that environment and saw something new. So what it is, is I'm no different than anybody. I just got to a different environment. People need to break away and get to a new environment and see what's possible.
[33:47.4]
And see, they don't need to be a puddle. They can be in the ocean. So going along those lines, if we want people to use this podcast as a way to be get out of the puddle and into the ocean, I mean, what are some topics that you want to see us cover that they're not going to hear from their accountant or their financial advisor?
[34:10.2]
Oh, man. There are so many topics I know that we've talked about back and forth and so many guests that we're getting lined up for this. I want to have people on that can explain that where they came from.
[34:26.1]
And they didn't come from money, but now they have millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, and maybe even billions of dollars. And there's one guy in particular I can think of out of Miami that I'm going to try and get on. We're going to have guests on that can get our listeners to see things differently.
[34:44.0]
And imagine, now, do I expect that somebody's going to have an epiphany and suddenly run out and make a major change in their life? No. Change is evolutionary. It's not revolutionary. And what I want to do is help people start to imagine, why not me?
[35:02.4]
They're not different than me because people are going to hear me on this podcast and they're going to say, his grammar's awful. He forgets in mid sentence, like I've done in this. So what was the question again? And he's not well spoken.
[35:19.3]
He's a little bit cranky, but he's done. Okay. Why? I want them to, understand that if I can, you can. I'm not better than anybody. I just simply went to a different place and got another thought in my head.
[35:36.0]
If you don't know that someone can go to the moon or that someone can create what Beethoven created, you may never think of it. It may never pop into your head. But if you see that people have gone to the moon and that Elon Musk is shooting rockets, you're like, wait a minute.
[35:56.2]
And you start thinking like that and you expand your mind. So my goal is to have people expand their mind. We're going to have guests on, like I said, Millionaires, deca, Millionaires Center, Millionaires, billionaires. I want to have people on here that are going to teach about guests, that are going to teach about, asset protection, legally saving, taxes, and different mindset people on, so that they can explain to people that it's not you, it's the way you were taught.
[36:27.6]
You need to learn something different. So I want to expand people's minds to go from the pool to the ocean. So, so then what can people expect not to get out of this podcast? They cannot expect to download a free app that will tell them where the cheapest gas is and that every 30 days they'll get $10 back on the gas that they bought.
[36:56.9]
They will not be taught where the best coupons are and where you can get double coupons on Monday and double coupons on Tuesday. That is not what they're going to learn on this podcast at all. If that's what you want, respect. You're going to be very frustrated listening to this podcast.
[37:15.3]
It's kind of like you want to listen to rock music and we're paying classical music. You need to change the station. We're not for you. So, if we're 10 episodes into this and we've had some good interviews that we've released, what kind of mindset shift do you hope that our listeners start to have that they can, too?
[37:39.8]
It doesn't have to open up your mind completely. It can open it up just a tiny bit. The width of A top of a, of a pin. And that's okay because it takes time to change. It takes time to realize that, wait a minute.
[37:58.5]
All the things that I was taught, they're not better than me, they're not smarter than me, they're not X than me, they're not Y than me. I'm them. Why can't I buy a brand new Tesla?
[38:18.0]
And I don't have a Tesla, but why can't I fly first class? Why can't I be able to send my kid to college? Why can't I pay cash for a house? Because they're going to see people just like them that are actually doing those things.
[38:35.8]
So if they can, you can. I just want to open it up just a little bit. Just a little bit. And then grow from there. Because the thoughts will compound and suddenly one day I want them to say, I can. They're like me. I can.
[38:54.0]
And I want them to. That will charge me up. Awesome. All right, so going back to your attitude about money a little bit is what. What's one controversial money opinion that you think you have? Well, a controversial money opinion that I have, if you can't tell already, is that you can save your way to retirement or save your way to wealth.
[39:20.9]
I think you invest your way to retirement, you invest your way to wealth. And I mean generational wealth. I don't mean having $100,000 or a million dollars when you die and you give that away to your kids. I want something that's going to help people for generations down the road and change their mindset, change the whole trajectory of their life.
[39:43.2]
I want them to be the one, the one that changed their trajectory. I love that. So what's one episode then you're dying to record? If we can have a guest on, who would that be? Or what topic would you want to cover?
[39:59.8]
I would really love to record Alex Hormozi. I would like to do business with Alex Hormozi and would love to have him on the podcast and interview him. I'll fly anywhere in the world, he'll let me do the podcast with him.
[40:15.6]
And if he wants to do it virtually, then let's do it virtually. Awesome. So if anybody out there knows Alex, hook me up. All right, so we're almost at time here, so let's do the rapid fire questions here. So here you go, One at a time, and let's hear your answers.
[40:34.3]
So what's the worst money advice you've ever received? The worst money advice that I ever received is that on Sunday morning when the paper comes, you need to clip coupons. It's absolutely awful advice. Love that one book or podcast that's changed how you think atomic habits in terms of helping me to make changes so that I can get better and better at everything that I need to do.
[41:00.8]
It's not that I need to have major change. They just need to be at a basic atomic level and build on them and compound. What's your guilty pleasure? Purchase. Oh, I want to fly to Antarctica and I want to spend overnight at the South Pole.
[41:24.4]
And it's not cheap. That's my guilty pleasure. That is on my list. I want to do that so bad. That would be cool. And I will. You just got $100,000 in passive income. What do you do with it? I book a vacation for Lois and I for any place she wants to go.
[41:44.0]
I let her pick it. We spend half the money on that and I reinvest the other half. What's one thing you wish you knew at 25? That you don't have to be perfect out of the gate.
[42:00.3]
That you learn as you go along? I think that's one of the things that has stunted my growth in my businesses is. Is that I want it to be perfect out of the gate. And Silicon Valley has figured it out. They put out. And I'm sure some of the listeners will be aware of this mvp, minimally viable product.
[42:20.0]
You can only do so much testing in a lab. Putting it on the street in real world, things are gonna happen that no one ever thought of in the lab. So I wish I knew you didn't have to be perfect on day one out of the gate.
[42:36.9]
All right, and last question. So in one sentence only, what does financial freedom mean to you? That I can do what I want, when I want, with who I want and where I want the four W's.
[42:53.1]
That is financial freedom to me. That's awesome. All right, thanks, Mike.
[43:01.6]
Sat.