He Turned Down Under Armour's Founder, Then Lost Everything!

0:00Welcome back to the Be Wealthy Podcast with Brett Tanner, where we deep dive into the strategies, mindsets, and real world tactics that unlock financial abundance in your life. Today, I'm joined by my good friend Michael Bernoff, best-selling author of Average Sucks. He is the master of influence and a results coach that has helped everyone from athletes, entrepreneurs, executives to get more out of their lives. Today we jump into a lot of different topics. We talk about things we could do better with our kids, how you can get more influence, and just how you can develop more skills to live the life that you want. I don't want to wait any longer. Let's jump into my conversation with the one and only Michael Bernoff. Michael Bernoff, welcome to the podcast.
Hey Brent, I'm thrilled to be here and I'm excited to I'm excited to connect with you and share.
Well, you are uh someone what I when anytime I'm in a room with you, uh my notepad's full. Uh not only do I learn,

1:04I laugh, but I leave changed. And I think that's what you do is different than other people and that you actually get people to create change in their lives and it's so thanks first of all for all the work that you do for so many.
Thank you.
So I want to go back to the Michael though where did it all come from? Right. I want to go back to New Jersey.
Okay.
You know and I want to talk about what was money like right? Our show talks about you know the people that are crazy successful like you on the top of the mountain today. We want to go back to kind of those thoughts, you know, and we have this idea that how we grew up with money, how it was talked about maybe in our household, our experiences kind of frames our beliefs. So, you know, Michael in New Jersey, what was it like?
Well, I think money was respected when I was a kid. I'd say that that's an interesting word. I'd say respect. You got me back to Jersey. The grin went on my face. I'm like, I've been there since I was 17 years old, so I'm almost almost 50 in a couple years. I uh it was respected when I was a kid. It wasn't exactly talked about, but it was a lot of fear around it when I was a kid. It

2:06wasn't fear that it was going to go away, but it was fear. My parents, you got to be safe with it. You've got to, you know, uh don't overspend. Uh I would look at wealthy people. I grew up in this very middle class area of like northern New Jersey. You ever seen the Sopranos that that area? Like those are the wealthier people down the street and I lived a couple door I live a couple towns down and we we were middle class. And what was interesting about it is I remember like my closest memory I have as a kid as a kid is I would see nice things. I would call that wealth. I would see nicer things or people that would go stay in a better room when we went on trips and I'd ask my parents like how do they do that? And they'd always say those are business owners. They work hard and they're good people. They work hard and they do business, but they never elaborate anymore. They never explain anymore. And then they what got up, went back to work and did what they did. That was literally all of advice I got as a kid. You It was they do business. They do business. And it was always like they have connections, they

3:07do business. Like that guy in the PTO, I don't know if you if you remember this, you're a kid, if you played sports or your kids do, there's that. Well, maybe it's us now, but it's the people with the connections. They Oh. Oh, you need that? No problem. Uh, you need we're doing a car wash. No problem. I'll bring in uh some hoses. That was not my family. My family was we'd show up, we would do the right thing. So, it was never explained to me, but I wanted it. I liked it. I just had no idea how to do it. All right. So, so Michael, you you've got this experience you're hearing from people that do business. Then how do you go from that that environment where you've got great parents, but you know, money's not we're not you're not sitting behind uh the chalkboard learning about money and business. So, how do we go from there? What's the next part of that journey that leads you to be who you are today?
I got a I got an interesting story. So, I I'm an ADD kid. I'm I'm a I'm a '9s high school kid, uh Gen Xer, and didn't like paying attention to school. So they I had ADD and or at least they said I

4:10did back then cuz I didn't know what the hell to do with. So my parents, this is a great story, they hired a guidance counselor to figure out what school to go to. So I paid like 3,000 bucks cuz they're like, "We're going to find how you can learn better even though the teachers suck." Like
And how old are you? How old are you at this time?
I'm I'm 15 and they're putting me on meds and doing all the things. I'm not going to get into that. But I go to I'm 17 at this time and I'm and I'm they're looking for like a school to send me to where it's going to be easier or different. So they hire this teacher. They they find this guidance counselor. They're like, "Here's the perfect place to go because my parents are smart with money, but they weren't they didn't know how to accumulate. They My parents did very well. Like they saved they they've got a lot of money. Like they they did a lot of things correctly, right? But they had jobs and they did very good. So, long story short, they hired this guidance counselor and they realized New Jersey's got no instate tuition. We're going to send them to Arizona. So, they didn't realize they screwed up. After a couple years, I realized that instead of sending me UVA, which they were supposed to, they said ASU, like the biggest party school in the world, and with all this crazy attention issues, I fail out.

5:15Not fail out, but like I get invited to not come back cuz I didn't do well. But when I went to junior college, Mason Community College, check this out. There were professors that owned actual business. One of them was a realtor, one was owned uh three spaghetti type company uh restaurants. And I finally got around business owners. ASU would never let me in the business school, but Mesa Community College did. And I started studying like there was this book, How to Win Friends and Influence People That We could Read. And that book got me to realize if you want to be wealthy, you've got to learn people. And I got into direct sales and I found my first somebody talked about dream boards and they talked about life and you could be rich and I had a guy this hustling guy taught me like you could make money and he like sat me down. He goes who cares how you were raised? You can change that. So it was a guy named Maurice literally got me in a direct sales company and taught me it was okay to be wealthy and get the things that I wanted. He taught me I never do any of

6:16this stuff and it wasn't my parents. It was somebody else because I didn't do great in school. I wanted these things and I got into sales. No different than somebody getting into real estate.
How did you So, how did you find that direct sales company? Then I want you to tell me because I I actually believe that direct sales or network marketing training, right? I'm not saying all the great
the training is it's the greatest sales training that that exists. I've been to many of the different trainings. I'm like, "Guys, I don't know that I want to sell whatever they're doing, but I want to sit in all the rooms because the training it's world. It's it's it's the best. So, what was the product? And then give some of the lessons that you learned from that guy that goes and tells you, Michael, doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter where you're from. You could be anything. And you kind of have that light bulb moment like,
wait, I could really do anything.
Well, we're going to backtrack a couple years back, so I jumped ahead. So, Maurice is the guy that really helped me help me. But sometimes it's somebody put a thought in your head and then years later it took to percolate. So, I'm 17 years old, my first year of school. I I'm I'm from New Jersey. ASU I didn't

7:18realize is where they send wealthy kids that um wealthy wealthy like my college roommate's dad owns Super Eight hotels. Cavarichi pants when I was a kid, their kid went to my school. I don't know if you ever cavarichi's those pants. I went to school with that guy. The kids kid. Um I'm there with the guy's family to Rolex and So why why I'm saying this and it's so interesting is there's a guy named Ryan. I believe his I believe his name is Ryan. He was Jake Plamer's Jake Plameumber when it was one day ASU. There was Tilman and Plumber and all these guys. He came by my fraternity house at the time and he goes, "Who's the guy with the best personality here?" Whatever it is. And he came and found me and he goes, "Look, man. We've got these phone carts." And I said, "Phone cards?" He goes, "Hey, listen. If you do this for a hundred bucks, um, you can buy in and sell it to your friends for 100 bucks and you make 50 and you get discount phone cards, whatever, blah blah blah." So, I'm like, "This is the greatest thing in the world." Like, I did it. I made 500 bucks. That's about all that happened. And and then I kind of got out of the

8:20deal. This is what's crazy. Three years later, I get into this other direct sales company, Maurice, and I called that guy, Ryan, and he called me up. He goes, "Michael, I want to uh tell you I'm not interested in direct sales anymore. I've got a company out of Maryland that we're working on. I think you should pay attention to it. Um, it's going to go public soon. It's something I started with another couple of football players." I said, "Ah, you know, I'm in my thing. I'm not going to pay attention." That company is called Under Armour today. And uh yeah, so Ryan, the guy that got me into direct sales was one of the founders of Under Armour and his last name is Wood. And you can go look it up, everybody. Sold his house years ago for 10 million in 2012. Do you know what I'm saying? So why I'm saying this is I was right freaking there. The guy said to me, "You should check this thing out." But I was blinded. So I I one of the lessons I learned is you've got to think bigger than you currently think. And number two is wealth is a mindset. And that is the first thing I learned. I went to one meeting with that company and they said wealth is a mindset. It is not a set of hard work. It is a mindset to start with that you apply work to. That was a huge

9:23breakthrough. So that was one of the first ones.
Yeah. Well, I mean it it's so well said, right? It it actually how you think about it. You could have all the skills and tactical things, but if you have a negative attitude, you have a limiting beliefs, which we're going to get to, which is, you know, your your book that everyone needs to go read. We'll get to that here in a minute. Um, it is a mindset. So, you had that. Yes.
You really got that experience to walk. And how long did it take from when you got the chance to work there before you saw them go public and just all the, you know, the fire?
I didn't I didn't I didn't know that. So, I didn't work I didn't work with that company. I I I missed that whole thing.
Right. But, but you missed it. But I mean like how long before you saw him go
two three years later. Okay.
Two to three years later I'm sitting there. You know when it winds up at like it was Champs back what was it? Sport sports authority. You know when the clothes finally makes it to sports authority you missed it. Do you know what I'm saying? Oh yeah.
So I saw it there. I was about 22 23 years old. But then I'm like okay I missed that one. I'll just keep on going doing what I was doing. And then I realized I guess I just wasn't ready yet for that one. And when you can be there,

10:27you can see it, but if you don't allow yourself to get out that butterfly net and be ready with it, you could have the butterfly net in the car, like to catch the butterfly, but if you don't have that thing ready, you missed it. So, I was still at the beginning of my personal development journey of like who I was, who I was becoming, and what it is I was doing. So, the biggest lesson that I got out of direct sales was I I met Jim Ran when I was 21. And that that right there is me as like a little boy right there with Jim up there. I don't know if you remember Jim R. Jim and I.
He was that's my mentor.
Oh. So he was my mentor. I never met him uh through all the books and I I had was getting ready to go and unfortunately we didn't I didn't make it before he passed away. But like I my favorite I got to tell I want to ask you your favorite Jim Ran um
Yep.
Uh tape or you know we're going to say tape because that's what they were back then. Uh
I have them still here.
Okay. My favorite one, which I've listened to. I could do the impressions. Uh, The Art of Exceptional Living is the greatest uh audio tape of our time. It's a three-hour drive to my cabin. The

11:29audio of The Art of Exceptional Living is 6 hours.
Yep.
I've listened because I there back.
I have it here somewhere.
You know, it I can um Oh, it it
I have talents to succeed here, but I I have art of accepting somewhere else. You know, I used to do I used to buy it for my team members and I said, "Before you start our company, you have to listen to the art of exceptional living. It it it's that it's that impactful.
It it's it's amazing." So, I remember being in Indianapolis. I had I was at this verge between I was figuring it out, you know, like where you're making you're getting by. You're getting by. It's like when agents like I'm doing a house every couple months, house every couple months, and eventually you start doing two a month. You're like, "Holy crap, I can make money with this." Right? Well, I'm I'm not in real estate at the time, but I'm at the point where like at five grand a month, five grand a month. I'm gonna get to 10. And I remember being in an elevator in Indianapolis, exactly where I was at this little Omni Hotel, and I remember the words uh from from Jim. He said, "Success is something you attract by the person you become." And I I literally have heard the art of exceptionalism living a thousand times. I mean, I got a buddy named Mark McKe, who is a big real

12:32estate guy. I don't know if you know Mark, but he's out of out of Vegas. Uh big investor, and he'll just text me. He's he's in his 60s. He'll just text me like a phrase and I'll say a picture's worth and he'll say a thousand words and we'll go back and forth. I was 25 years old and he'll go pennies in my pocket. He is wealthy this guy with planes and everything else like just wealthy wealthy wealthy. He still listens to this every single week like I do.
And is he say you know can we go out there in a crowd and find somebody who makes $4,000? You know we need the seed, the sunshine, the soil and the rain.
Yes. I mean, just his that whole surely we could find someone.
Of course. A chicken feed. Of course. Would you pay a man $4 million here? Of course. If you bring value to the company. And and it it's funny because a lot of people they get on podcast. I make one of the things I do to test a guy on my team right now is I'll give them a tape player. Old school. I have an old tape. It cost 100 bucks for a tape player now. I will give them the tape player with the tapes and go I want you to start where I started. And if in a week they had not digested all of that

13:35and came back to me and listened to it, we're not going to work and I don't care. And the reason I make them do it on the tape player is I want them to go through what I went through. So all the podcasts of like people digesting it, I would say the best people in the world, most of the shows I've been on, everybody has some lineage to some gym.
Oh, it uh he uh he was uh I think he's the he's the true godfather of self-development in my opin. I mean he is it's it's the so you go to direct sales though any other lessons you so you're there you meet Maurice
y
you're young impressionable
Yep. Yep.
Do what are those lessons you know that just from
he told Yes. He told me no one else could pay your bills. You've got to figure this out. This is your problem. He taught me about personal responsibility and ownership. That was a big thing. Uh which is which is huge. And remember I'm I'm like at young military man age. What I mean by that is I'm not in the military, but I'm at that young age where I'm impressionable where you you don't try to get somebody in the military at 85 years old. And at 18, I'm in that young man, woman like age, I'm there. And one of the things is he's like, you're going to have to learn

14:38people because the people have the economics and if you can offer value to them, they'll exchange their economics with you. So like through on the other where money comes from is people. You don't get money from money, you get money from people. And we've got to get good with people. They want to give you the money. They want to hand it to you. He explained this to me. And this is a guy with a 14-year-old high school education as far as he got. I still see him at Ocean Club every once in a while, this guy. And uh out and about. He's he's great guy and literally taught me a lot. And some of the other lessons it was he's like, "You got to educate yourself." Um taught me sales. He he was he taught me that. And then when it came to wealth, uh, he taught me a lot with the sales, the direct sales was a lot about leverage. Um, a lot about leverage is one big thing I've learned in direct sales. I didn't understand it right away, but he's like, you're not going to do this all yourself. And my parents were always like, figure it out yourself. And he said, Michael, you've got to get good, and I didn't learn this until maybe 10 years ago, you've got to

15:40get good at letting people do things for you because they want to. And a lot of people will do the work for their assistant, for their team. And you're never going to be wealthy if you're doing it all yourself. You've got to find a way to let people do things for you. That took 30 years almost to click in that lesson or 20 years. That was a huge lesson. Allow people to do things for you be if you compensate them and if it's worth it for them. Because a lot of people stop people, great people, for doing things for them and they never get wealthy. That's um God, I can't imagine getting to, you know, experience that level of training and knowledge and those lessons, you know, at 18, 19 years old. I see so many people that you're like, man, that you got, you got an NBA in business through a direct sales organization while you're actually making money.
Yes.
Yes. And I and I hustled and made money. And I'd say some of the biggest lessons were all of those cold calls I made for a year and a half with the holes in my shoes and figuring out with the title company coming to like repo my car like all the stuff I had to go through because this was a big lesson that I got

16:43but I I was middle class, right? So I didn't struggle a lot as a kid and I had enough to get by. Things were okay. That's why I wrote my book, Average Sucks, because I was average. I was right in that middle. So I didn't struggle a lot. So when I went into business, I didn't have a struggle. I don't say you need a struggle, but I'd never been through anything that difficult. So for whatever reason, we all attract our hard or difficult our Goliath, right? My Goliath was entrepreneurship. And I allowed two years of hard difficult pain. But man, it made me tough and hard and strong and and and and I like it made me determined. So, I will tell you there's a there's a period between a day, week, month, a year, or two years. Who knows how long God's going to give it to you, but there was about a two-year period I had where I wouldn't exchange it for anything in the world, but some people may get it as a loss of somebody. Somebody might get it from who knows where they're going to get it from, but I got it from that. So, so the biggest lesson is I I literally I grew up middle class. I

17:46mean, like right down the middle middle class. And what was interesting was that the natural tendency that I had was I I would look at these wealthy people what they did and I and I had no idea how how to achieve it. And I would say the the biggest thing that I learned from direct sales was you can you can get these things if you're willing to go through whatever whatever your difficulty your heart or your Goliath is. I don't think you have to stay there forever. So for me, my difficult was that my life was I don't want to say easy, but I didn't have like this major atrocity. Middle class, grew up right down the middle. Everything was good enough. It's one of the biggest reasons I wrote my book is because I I was safe and I was comfortable. I couldn't figure out how many people they they lived this way. So when I got into sales, I started doing cold calling. I bought those those leads that nobody should have in the middle that 90 other people had. And I'd call and I would do so for two
the Glengary leads. I didn't have the Glen Garrett. I had like the Joe Blow leads. Like I had like 30 35 other people were calling them. They had no

18:50interest in. But it made me strong. It made me like like like a hard like like I had the thick skin. And I would listen to like two to three hours of personal development every freaking day just to get through the calls. And I'd have Clifford the Big Red Dog on in the background. I didn't have it on, but like I look back and I have like cartoons on cuz I need something to smile at while I'm making these calls. And I had to learn how to survive. And I think once we get past survival as an entrepreneur, then we can thrive and we can be wealthy. I think we need to experience sometimes the alternative because I found out about myself. I'm not motivated by getting things. I'm motivated by worst case scenario. My brain is literally I can fight it. I can pretend it's oh I want to be rich. I'll be wealthy. That's not what motivates me. What motivates me is I know I have a cortisol brain. I have a I'm the guy no different than a lot of agents. It's 26 the month and they turn it on. I have to learn how to turn it on on the first. Okay. But for years I would be a survivor and a hero over myself. And once I learned that game I was playing

19:51myself. That's one of the biggest lessons Brett that I got in directly was learning how to manipulate myself to be a performer. And once I learned how to perform, that's when I started learning how to make money. So that's why I want to break people free of that as quick as possible cuz some people live there for 50 years.
You you just talked about something that I think is so interesting and you know people are motivated by pleasure or pain. Y
and you said you were motivated by by pain, right? Uh
yeah. By like by by by being my own hero and saving the day because I didn't feel great about myself. So I got to create pain become the hero of my own story. So I'd create my own problems in order to solve them. It's freaking it was not smart. So it it's it's funny but my wife and I were talking just recently. I was like I it was yesterday and we're talking about this painful moment. I was like do you remember that moment where we went to Under Armour which you're going to like bring your Under Armour story. We're like 18 19 years old and we went to Under Armour and we wanted to get like you know a couple things of Under Armour for each of us at that point in time. Uh each of us getting two or three items right sweatpants from Under Armour

20:53whatever it was. We really couldn't do it. I mean we could but that was like all the money we had. And I remember leaving there. That's literally the story we we just talked about. I said, "Babe, the amount of pain for me not being able to get some some damn sweatpants, I I realized that I never want to do that again." And so, you know, fast forward a couple year, we would I never forget I the day I went to Under Armour and blew $1,000 just because it was like I didn't need $1,000, but it was and we walked out of there. I was like, "No, your name didn't it was it was it was an irrelevant amount. I mean, you know, the $1,000 didn't move the needle. We'd have never missed it." Uh but I remembered that moment because for me the pain of not being able to do just little things, you know, having to say, well, you know, we can't do that or that it wasn't that like you said, I wasn't motivated by going and getting the Mercedes. I was motivated by not being able to do something this weekend with my friends or just the So I think that's such an important lesson that people need to realize. How are you motivated? And I love the word you use manipul. I think manipulated is I use in a way positive word

21:54
manipulate ourselves. We're being manipulated all the time by everything else. We might as well manipulate ourselves
to get the outcomes we want in our lives, right? It's a tool.
I I I It's funny. We all have this. It's so funny because if everybody listening to this, I have interviewed thousands of successful people in my life. I've been around some incredible human beings that have done great things. Brett, like you and so many people that you and I both know. We have very similar stories. Like six things all of us have done. And there's 9 million things that don't work and six things we've been through. Everybody's got that moment. Like mine was at the Apple store and I've always said like wealth to me was I can go to Whole Foods and not worry about the price. Like that was my big thing for me. Like I wanted to go to Whole Foods, spend a thousand bucks. Like that was a big thing. So it's interesting is I'm not going to get into that story because it's similar. Like I wanted to go buy the stuff for myself and do the thing. But every one of us finally get that breakthrough moment where we realize what is that first step that we need to make where we've proven a concept. We've got an experience. we've got proof of concept that it's working. So, a lot of

22:56us need to like I used to tell when I I trained years ago, our friend Kent Clothier, I trained his um Memphis Invest back in the day when his he and his dad working on the company 15 years ago. I did some training for them and I said, "All of you need to go down to local Whole Foods. Go buy a go buy a $15 coconut water. Go buy a $20 loaf of bread. Go feel what it feels like to go do that. Not like as a dream build because eventually you're going to have to do that. Do you know what I'm saying? to go feel what don't go you don't have to go buy a Ferrari right away but just go buy something uncomfortable and then eventually you want to get to where that point becomes comfortable so we need to build that that was part of the manipulation process I would do is I'd have one or two things that I would spend that were expensive and I wanted to start feeling that now and that's one of the other things my mentor taught me go buy something you can afford now that's small so you can feel what it feels like to see if you even want to do that down the road see if you even like that stuff and I love that stuff
that is Um, that's so good. So, you go, you got these lessons now from direct sales. You've learned these tools and skills. Y,
where do we go next? Where does it go from there?

23:57
So, I had a moment. A lot of people have this moment. I had a calling and I was in direct sales. I had a guy where I was I was I was really trying to figure it out. I was doing my presentations and I would go pitch my products and I'd moved on to another company selling these like health products. It was like insurance. It was like supplemental insurance. This is Liberty product. We were marketing and I did a great presentation. I thought it was awesome. And I was in Anaheim, California. I thought I was so great. Oh my god, it was great. And nobody bought anything that day. And and I had enough money to like get home like like that. Like I I went there to go sell something. And this guy Tom comes up to me in the back of the room and he's like, "You know who you remind me of?" I'm like, "You say it, I'll kill you." Cuz I'm a big guy. I've always got the Tony Robbins thing since I was a kid. And he goes and and for those that don't know, you are what are you 667? Six. Yeah. A little 67. Yeah. Yes.
So, yeah. So, you're I mean, you're very tall. Yeah.
Yeah. And I used to get the Tony thing. We It's funny. We I've worked with Roger Love with the voice coach and I've I've we both worked with Jim and I didn't even know who Tony was. Like, I'd never

24:58met him, never done anything at that point. So, he's like I used to work with Tony back in the day. He have you ever heard of He talked about neural linguistic programming. I'm like, well, you know, and I'm so broke and so like this trying to make money. I'm ignoring a guy. He's like, I worked with Tony in the 80s. I was there when the guys invented neurallinginguistic programming. I can help you. And he's like trying to shake me this. And I'm thinking, oh, what do you know, Mr. A pet safety guy? What do you know? And long story short, that guy sends me a email like two weeks later. He goes, "Hey, there's a free event in town. You should go check this thing out." And it was a speaker I don't I never heard of in my life. And I'm I'm there and I I finally go to this event. Like they say, God shows up in your life in interesting ways. Three people mentioned the same person that nobody ever heard of in their life. Like I've never heard of this guy. I'm not going to get into who it was because it's irrelevant. And I go to this event on Van Buren. Okay. Brett Van Buren and a
not the best part of town, you know, not the
but there's a hundred entrepreneurs there from different companies and this

26:00guy's amazing. And he pitched I had just lightly been in a personal development like I read books back then. This is the first time I got into tape. So this is pre- gym right around that phase. and he said right around I'm getting out of direct sales and he said listen guys I don't care what you learn here today
and he said I want you to make a decision while you're here so I made two big decisions that day I pointed at him because I watched the guy make 100,000 bucks in a matter of three hours I was so impressed and I go that's what I'm going to do the rest of my life I'm going to be a speaker and I didn't mean it I just said it and then number two I said um I convinced the lady uh my friend's mom Lisa to put the $800 worth of worth of tapes and CDs on her credit card for for me and some of them were Jim Ran before I met Jim. And that day I went home like a drug addict and I listened to these things for hours. Like I at first I had a little bit of my life. That's when things changed. And I I didn't mean it. And a couple a couple of months later I walked by I was I was cancelling a membership at a gym membership. Remember I'd done sales. I had gotten by. I I was getting by. I

27:03went to Pure Fitness on uh or or Mountainside Fitness on I believe it was on on Baseline Road and I wanted to cancel my membership and the guy asked what I did and out of my mouth I have no idea why I said it. I go I'm a speaker. He goes, "What do you what do you focus on?" He goes, "I teach sale." I had never done this in my life outside of my team. He goes, "If I cancel your membership, will you come back and train our people?" I said, "No problem." And I went to the car. I go, "How the heck am I going to do this?" A week later, I came back. I had my rent was due and everything. And the guy loved me. I spoke for free for an hour. He goes, I go, "If you like it, you can hire me." And he gave me 3,000 bucks to train them for the next month. And that was where my career began. I had the courage to say out loud, "I'm a speaker. I'll train your people." I knew how to sell. I'd been selling. I was doing surviving on it, but I trained his people to be better. And then I started doing all the gyms in town. That is, isn't it? Isn't it interesting that just by putting that out there and saying those words?
Yep.
I'm a speaker. And then you go to cancel

28:05your gym and he goes, "What do you do?" And you go, "Well, I'm a speaker." You can we can all manifest things in our life. Like I don't know how many like right now I'm in the middle of a deal. I'll give you a crazy example. You know, 1031 exchange, there's a rule to it. Sell a property. I could identify one of the rules I could identify three properties. Well, I only had one I wanted to buy, but I had this other one that I wanted to buy. I'm not under contract. we're we're we're 20 we're 10 to 20% off on price, but I can name this extra property. So, my team's filling out the form. This is recently. And I go, just name that other property. They're like, why would you do it? You're nowhere. I go, well, it doesn't hurt. It's kind of like you said, I'm a speaker yesterday. Literally yesterday. Y
the guy comes back and he goes, hey, uh because I was offering them a number that just they weren't willing to accept. He goes, I want to take your last offer. So, I've already identified it on these things and my team's like, "How did you do Go guys, you got to put the things out there that you want. It didn't cost me to do it, but putting putting out I'm a speaker and that goes and sends you on this journey of helping all these people and you've helped, you

29:06know, tens of thousands of people millions of it's so cool to see that that's where it started by going to an event saying, "I'm a speaker."
One phrase and if you go back, I don't care what where you study spirituality or faith or God, words are important. Um, I'm not going to get into that right now, but I'm pretty sure most religions, the word is everything. And the word is our connection. And our words are so powerful that we have to respect them. And if you put words out there and they feel right and they come from not the heart, but they come from who you are, cuz the heart can be confusing sometimes. A lot of people say, "Run your life by your heart." If we ran by our heart, there's some things I shouldn't be doing. You know what I'm saying? But if we run by who we are as a human, our soul of who we are, I literally felt like that's what I needed to say in that moment. Actually, I didn't feel anything. It literally came out and I let the words flow. And from that point, countless human beings lives have transformed from me helping people make money to getting thousands of people off of drugs to helping people

30:08with suicide to helping the kid. I had I had clients that after the second shooting in Coline, I've helped them with with uh reframing their thoughts in their head. Like that never would have occurred if I did not say that one day that is what I do. And I think a lot of people like things but they don't have faith. They talk about faith, but real faith is believing in where we're going and the possibility of it. And I think wealth comes is deserved by all people who believe in what where they are going and trusting in that they belong to have it.
You know, it it's funny you brought that up. A good friend of mine has this saying, his name's Kyle, and he said, you know, you can have fear, you just can't have any doubt. You can be a little afraid. I just know that I'm going to reach the destination. I might be a moment I'm afraid like I don't, you know, I'm a little But he goes, you can have a little bit of fear. you just gonna have zero doubt. I'm like, it's a good way to it's a good way to look at it.
I like that guy. That's gonna be a friend of mine. I like Kyle.
Yeah,

31:09
he's a he's a he's a he's a good guy. So, yeah. And then in our 80 version of the story, it's a lot of these moments that we've got to collect. And a lot of people, I've learned, will repeat the same moment over and over again. They do the same thing and they don't realize you need to create a new one. And life transforms the moment we transform our language and we literally decide, you know what, I'm going to be wealthy. That's what I love about your show here. It's like it's not think about wealthy. It's not want to be wealthy. It's be like be is what you think, what you say, what you do. You've decided, you've talked to your wife, you've talked to your husband, you told your kids, you've owned it. It's not like, well, it's that kind of wealthy. It's be it's own it 100%. Well, I want to go to your your book does so much to help people break through beliefs. Um, and it's about the limiting beliefs, redefining your personal standards. You know, let's imagine, let's do a scenario, you know, Michael, that there's somebody out there who um they're performing average, right? They want more, they aspire to more, but let's do a scenario that they

32:12grew up uh and they had a tougher childhood.
Um you know, their job isn't ideal. Um they're making it, but it's survivalish, right? Like I've I'm making it. Um, but I've got this three to five or however many limiting beliefs I've got. And how do you, you know, and how would you have them start thinking about busting through? I mean, your your book, everyone should go read the book. It's average sucks. Go grab the book. I mean, it it's it's incredible. It's right there. Um, what do you say to people though? Like what's that, you know, what's that spark for them?
So, this is the this is where like I am not your traditional coach or therapist or anything. I I'm I'm a Jersey guy. I'm always say like I'm personal development with Tony Soprano. I am literally straight at it. We're going to kill off those beliefs. So the first part I I I would really say to everybody is you're fine. You're okay. Like I would be really clear like if you want to reproduce the results you got, you were so good at it. If you want to be stressed three months on one month, close some deals one month get by be the

33:15hero. Like we've got to recognize we are totally fine doing what we're doing. We've got to accept that where life transforms. That's the hardest part. Most coaches like lie to people and they say, "Oh man, you could be more." Actually, you don't have to be. You can stay where you're at cuz you are a master of it and you don't have to do any more. And I guarantee in the next two or three years, you'll be about where you're at, give or take five or 10%. Every one of us just don't do anything. If you're willing to admit, this is the this is where life transforms that you're not where you want to be. That is where life transforms starts to to take place. And that is number one, I'm fine. So, I believe we got to give ourselves grace and credit right off the bat and just go like, I'm fine. Like, there's nothing wrong with what I'm doing. If I want to be a guy that makes $38,000 a year, struggle to get by, can lie to my family about vacation, rack up a bunch of credit card debt, I've mastered the game. So, if you want things to be different, you've got to decide you're not where you want to be. And then you've got to be willing to admit this. You actually don't know how to do it. And that's the part most people are like, "Whoa, but I do know

34:18what I'm doing and I know what I need to Stop it. Stop it. You don't. You actually don't. You've got concepts. You've got ideas. You've got thoughts. It's not all put together. So, this is contrary to most advice. Oh, I'd know how to go to the NBA if I wanted to. No, you don't. You actually don't. You've got a bunch of random ideas that if somebody organized and put them together, probably they're all there, but the way your focus is because if you did know, you'd actually be doing it. So, I believe the hardest part for a lot of us is we actually don't know what we're doing. And we have to be willing to let somebody help us get where we want to go. Whether it's a coach or a mentor, wealthy person. It could be as simple as you want to be in the restaurant business. I'm just gonna figure out what what Sam Fox did. The guy did really well. Sam Fox, let's just look at him. What did he do uh locally here in all of his restaurants internationally and everything he's doing now. So, that is a big phase that a lot of people that's not even in my book directly, but that's something I'm realizing recently is you've got to admit your life works perfectly for what it currently does. If you want it to work differently, you've got to do different things. And then you're like,

35:20practically, Michael, where do we begin? Well, we identify, it's how we control our identity of what we do. And I identified as a struggling hero that basically would struggle, solve my problems at the end of the month so I can go, "Yay, yay." Go drink back where I used to drink and go, "Oh my god, I did great." And throw a high five to my friends just to struggle again so I could feel the victory of struggle succeed. We're going to have to change some things. I mean, we're going to have to realize like, not that they're sacrifices. You're going to have to realize you've built an entire life of doing what you do, whether it happened to you, for you, through you, whatever. We're going to have to do some things differently, and you're going to have to be willing to adjust a few things. And the coolest part is within a minute to a week to a year, you'll radically transform your life if you start at those phases. So, I don't know if that's practical enough, but that is literally the emotional shift that will have to happen at least for the first second. I I love that you started with those two

36:22things. I think identity is important. I think you've got to who am I today? And get real clear and be, you know, one of the things I talk about is just the number one skill in life is being able to do an accurate self assessment.
Yep. Not the assessment of the way that I want the world to see me or I, you know, the the story I might tell myself, but just accurately raw because everything I know, everything I believe, everything I've ever done is leading to the results I'm getting right now.
Yes.
And if I want different results in the future, I'm going to have to have a change in my identity or I'm going to have to change my skills or I'm going to have to change my relationships or I'm going to have to find a mentor or coach or whatever. But if I don't change anything, nothing's going to change.
Nothing. Nothing. And there's four real things that control everything we do because this is this is like let's just really have a real conversation like do you remember when you decided to become an entrepreneur?
Uh I do uh I could tell you that I was at Insight you know the Fortune 500 company
uh in Ahwatukee or
Yeah. the one on the I10 and Elliot. Oh yeah. So I go in there I didn't graduate college. I walked but I was supposed to

37:24go back to you know you can actually graduate six credits short of a degree. Uh and I hated school. I did it in like three and a half year. I just want to be done because I I my parents are like, "You need to get a degree." Um like I don't think I'm I'm not smart, so I just don't know it's a good idea. Went to ASU. I I took the community college credits, went to ASU. I just want to get done as soon as possible. So I show up at Insight day one and they're basically the training is like this, like this is a phone, this is a computer. Find people's phone numbers on the computer, pick up the phone, call them, right? Sell them computer stuff. I'm like, "Okay." And you just, you know, you're you're cold calling. And so you would get really good at how do you get the decision maker and you'd call the wrong number and oh it was just but I remember sitting there going I can't do and so I'll tell you the experience I had. I'm sitting there and I started performing and I'm beating everyone like I'm the best sales rep in my little area and the manager didn't really notice it. Like it was like whatever. So then I was like all right for the next 90 days I'm going

38:26to do nothing. I'm gonna be the worst sales rep. Same outcome. And I was like, I can't be in an environment where we don't recognize a top performer from a bottom performer. And it was that day I went home, my girlfriend at the time, my wife today of of 20 years, and I said, I don't know what we're going to do, but I'm going to work for myself because these people can't understand the difference between great and terrible, and I can't be and if I I'll I'll dig ditches, but at least I'll know that I'm doing a great job. So, that was the moment I'm like six months in, I worked for and that's it. I've been an entrepreneur ever since. So like I will I may starve, but I I'll at least starve doing my own thing.
It's interesting you said that cuz we all we all have that story. So I've never met anyone that decided to be an entrepreneur going, "Oh my god, I just got a million dollar raise of work. I'm going to become an entrepreneur." And every one of us decided whether it was to lose weight or to make more money. We didn't like where we were at. So what happens is most people are running a 20 to 30 40 year old program. We don't realize it. So what happened is the reason we do what we did is because I didn't like where I was at. We build like this this this this like wall behind us like I'm never going back.

39:28It's the feeling you get when your head's over a toilet bowl after eating oysters. I'm never going back, right? Or or or or drink too much or whatever it is. And in that moment, you didn't know what you wanted, but you just like I didn't want this. And that's when you started to develop your new identity. So you first identified as oh my parents, I got to go to school. I'll get a job. I'll figure it out and work for the crowns for a little while. That's what I want, right? The crowns, right? The um that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do this thing, right? And we lived in this middle. And that's when you start forming your identity. I want more and I don't want this. And that's what most people do. And then we start attracting people, Brett. Like you say to your wife, hey, we're going to find a way to survive together. You tell your friends, you quit. I'm going to figure this out. And we start building a life based on one decision we made one day. We're pissed off or mad and we decided to change. And a lot of us haven't re-updated. So when you talk about wealth, I will find people that stuck at a million dollars a year, stuck at 100 grand a year, stuck at 50 grand a year because they're running that same program that you did in your probably your your 20s, right, when you were there. And you're now not anymore. And

40:31you're like, "No, you're getting I'm going to get there one day." You're actually driven by trying to prove a point to two bosses that you don't even know anymore. And you're trying to produce not you, but like 200 100 grand a year cuz you say six figures, which now is a level of broke, right? and you're trying to approve that and you're convincing the people in your life. So, all of us have this identity. People are playing the show and most people have looked in the mirror recently. If you want to be wealthy and you haven't looked in the mirror and go, "Wait a second. I'm 50. I'm 42. I'm 39. I I got two kids. I I'm a mom. I've raised three kids. I've been through a divorce. I've been through some crap. I'm I'm Look at what I've done." And most people do not let their current version of themselves dictate. They're still letting a nine-year-old boy or a 15-year-old child make their financial decisions. And I would tell you, I did that, Brad, for years. I wanted to prove to people I could make money. So, I'd make it, lose it, make it, lose it, so I could be a hero. And I never really got ahead until I realized I was playing a game.
It It's so good. I mean, it's um we all have it, right? Every person, like you

41:35said, every successful person's been there and they found a way to change their identity to change to step into that new person they wanted to become. So
the way we the way we step into that, let me let me finish. If I come to you for a half a second, forgive me. Go.
You asked me a question. Let me solidify. I'm going to challenge everybody today. As silly as this sounds,
I'm going to ask who you are today to make the decisions of what you want. The last time you probably set goals is you were broker had a problem five years ago or you were trying to figure something out or you said something random. Am I going to do 20 closings or I'm going to do this? I want to ask yourself a question. Who are you now? What have you done good, bad, ugly in the last 10 or 15 years? And is that person running your life or is the is the goal you have five or seven years old? And I will tell you most people do not become wealthy because their goal is 5 or 10 years old. Based on where you are right now, who's making the decision? And so I would go like, what can a 48-year-old man that owns a bunch of investment properties, that own buildings, that that's got incredible network, a beautiful wife, great family, every reason to do well, got a great team of people, what can

42:37that guy do? That guy needs to decide my life, not a 20-year-old boy. So, I'm just telling all of you to really start there to look in the mirror today and go, what have I accumulated? What do I have or don't have? What have I been through? And what could this person do? And it is a whole lot more than you realize. That is um that's just so good. Everyone needs to go back and listen to that last 60 seconds again and again because I love the way you describe the program. People are running these old programs in their minds
spitting out the same results and expecting a different outcome and it's just that's not going to happen.
And I cut off your question so back to you.
No, no, no. It's well I was going you actually segueed perfectly. So, you know, if you look at Michael's money views then, right, the old Michael to today, how different is it? So, what are those, you know, how do you think about money today versus then? You know, today you're focused on long-term abundance and influence and you've got money and buildings and and and wealth is so much more than money. I mean, it's

43:40
um how have those, you know, how has your view of money evolved from then to now?
Yeah, I didn't understand it back then. It's funny because my I married the preachers kid. My wife just believes it's going to happen which is amazing. So I married like I will tell every one of you if you do if you are just hear this correctly. Have conversations with your significant other about money. This doesn't mean that go don't go end things based on this conversation. But if you're not in a relationship have a conversation about money upfront. If you're single and you're dating talk about that in the first couple dates. I'm just telling you it's important. We have alignment when it comes to money. We both believe it's okay to have a lot. Okay? And that's one thing I'm going to tell you. Um and
that's huge. But that's not normal. I mean, sometimes people don't, one spouse doesn't want a lot. They say like, "Oh, you know, my I don't need all that." Right?
You're gonna have to You're gonna have to figure that out. And I'm not telling you it's right or wrong. But this is where a little counseling up front will probably help you down the road. But if you're in the middle of it and one wants doesn't want, maybe this will find a way to use my sales techniques to pitch them and realize, okay, or ignore and go get a lot and you'll deal with your life

44:41because you'll never be satisfied unless you do. So wealth to me today is really I don't want to use the silly word freedom, but it's it's really it is it's the ability to t to not have to work for money and it's the ability to build like the our financial people years ago. I I I do real estate and I have financial stuff and I'm in all kinds of assets and different types of things. I look at it as a lady said to me years ago, "You got to build a money machine." And a money machine is is what I feed. And wealth is a state of mind. And she said to me, she said, "Michael, I love that you love your business, but you should stop trying to do it for money." He goes, "I want to help you build a money machine where one day that produces more than your business ever could. And that is when you're going to truly feel wealthy." And to wealth to me is being able to like I got a daughter that's a competitive figure skater, my little one, right? and she skates six hours a day. If you want to be wealthy, you'll have to get your kids into horses or figure skating because it's a

45:42fortune. Um, and I and I I being able to travel and go to those things, never missing a game ever for my kids. Uh, not having to um I say no to a lot of things because I don't think we have to give everything to everyone, but being able to like I think a big flex for me is like that like I'm able to support my child's habits. Does that mean things that they want? She doesn't have a phone and she's 13 and and and she loves she doesn't want one and she wants to go after this passion, her dream. Uh being able to support like my older one's got a vision for what she works with us, runs her social media, but she wants to also run her her business, helping support that. So my my beliefs today are beyond money. It's really a mindset that you're either going to have the money or it's going to show up or you're going to figure it out. But also, it's thinking different. Like I have a respect and a relationship that's different with money today. And I think a lot of people when you're in a bunch of debt and I I don't mean there's good debt and bad debt. When you're in the wrong debt cuz you're trying to keep up with the Joneses and

46:43there is bad debt. So I will tell Grant and everybody out there's a bad debt and you need to stop giving some advice. There's bad debt. Like 28% interest on your credit cards. Bad debt. Buying things you shouldn't buy. Ferraris you don't need. Bad debt. Stop watching the Kardashians. Bad debt. Um and then there's good debt. is real estate and everything else is where was I going with that is basically my view today is that you it is our it is our right as human beings it's something we should do is that you like sin comes from the old testament which means to miss the mark if you don't find a way to live a wealthy life like having the things you want and doing things you want you're not going to be fully fulfilled and I believe when you're fully fulfilled we're harmful to other people and which means we're envious, we're jealous, we're everything else. So, I'm just going to tell you, learning how to be wealthy, feel like I'm doing a sermon now, but learning how to be wealthy and learning how to be a wealthy person is the greatest indicator cuz we need to show the next generations how to do this

47:44as well. So, we're influencing people all the time. Are we influencing people to live incredibly well or to get by? And I think struggle and pain is one of the problems in society today. I don't think enough people have accepted this. So, I don't know if that answers the question or I'm just preaching, but it means a lot to me.
Oh, it um that's one of the best answers um in terms of hitting all areas of life of wealth I've heard. Right. It to me like I love that your version of wealth is I want to be at my kids games and help them live their passion and live their best life, whatever that is. Whether that's ice skating, figure skating, horse, you know, in the in horseback riding or um all areas of life, right? It's whatever you're helping other people live their best purpose. you live your best purpose. Uh I think that's a beautiful answer. So if someone's out there, uh Michael, and they want to level up financially, what are some from the psychology, you know, from all the things you train on, how can we start breaking through some of those barriers to make sure we're always level up leveling up? I mean, you've got this idea that in your book

48:46that we're all capable of more than we imagine.
Yep.
Um let's take that in a financial framework.
Yep.
How do we you know, we start with our identity. How do we how do we start leveling up?
Well, one thing is we need to accept that we're all investors. And I want to be very clear on let's just start right there. Every one of you are an investor. Listen to me very clearly. I'm going to say it again. You are an investor. You're probably investing in dumb things. Do you know what I'm saying? If you're not investing, so you're investing in Starbucks. You're investing in uh Crispy Cream. You're We're all investors and we're all we're all influential. So if you're 200 lb overweight and you're smoking a cigarette, you're teaching people how to start that. So the first thing we need to accept is we are all investors. every one of us investing our time, our energy, and our money in something every day of the week. So, first just accept that. So now once we've accepted, we we identify as an investor. Everyone's an a homeless man is investing in being homeless. I'm just telling you he's investing it. So once you accept you're an investor, you can go, "Ah, okay. I'm an investor." So then the next question is, "What are we investing in?" Well, Michael, I don't really have any money to invest. So there's two groups of

49:48people, and you can put whatever circle or dollar amount with this. This changed my life years ago. And this is silly and some be like, "Oh, this is like whatever, Michael. You sound like I'm not a Dave Ramsey fan." But I'm going to ask you to listen very carefully what I'm about to say. I decided to change my relationship with money 20 years ago. And I did something really simple. I realized how lazy I am. Meaning, I don't like to do things that are inconvenient. I'm a hard worker, but I'm also lazy. So, I went in my bank account and I transferred an auto transfer of $3 a week from one account to another. Now, that sounds really, really dumb. Like, what are you going to do with $3? Well, I'm going to put into a savings account, and I'm just going to be very, very clear about this. Then, what I started doing in my life is I every time I'd either cancel an NFL package or do something, I would transfer that as well. Then, what I started to do is I decided my little investment account, what could I turn this into? And I started looking for this. Well, what other accounts are there online that can produce a little more? And then I started transferring a

50:50few things more. And then I started making a little more money. Then I added on a Tuesday night, I'd be out at dinner, I'd move $4 more. And eventually this account had about $27,000 in. Okay. And then I get this little check in the mail from Discover Card. And they go, "We'll give you 20 grand against your card." And I spent the 57,000. I got my first rental property, Brett, with a little bit of money back in the day with those. Now, that was back when you can get one 50 grand down. Do you know what I'm saying? What I'm getting at is I decided to change my perspective. If I'm never gonna have money, I put it there. So, the other thing is, are you actually practicing winning and losing and investing? I am telling you, we've got to practice winning and losing. You're going to lose some, and you've got to do some. So, I started building these accounts. Right now, I have 150 little $2, $3, and $80 transactions that go every month. And every month, the money moves from one account. I have so many of them, I'm so lazy to turn them off. So, what I'm getting at is if everyone you want to know how to get started today, transfer $87, some dumb weird number from one account to another each week. You're like, "Well, what's what's $87 going to do for you?" Nothing this week. And in a month, it's going to be

51:54$300. And in a year, it's going to be this. I take that money. I am so particular that money I get back from a credit card. I know I talked to you about this when we first met at an event years ago. I am so good with credit cards. I get an average of three to four percent back every month. I don't take the points. I parlay that into investment properties. So what I'm getting at is I am always finding a way to turn money into more money. So remember this, we you don't you cannot invest and be wealthy until you turn money into more money. And if you have none, create some. And all of us can create some right now. So that is the silliest little technique that I did. I have a limo guy that I work with in um in California and uh and he started doing this little technique. He's got $81,000 that he's got right now in investments that are earning him 7% uh through through all that time of the the for through that time where you were getting four or 5% on those CDs. He found a fund that he was getting 7% locked in on it. But if he didn't have the 50 grand away, he couldn't have done it. Guy told me the other day 10 years later he's got 81 grand getting 7% locked. So I'm saying you can't find it

52:57if you don't start freaking how to accumulate the money. So that's what I'd start with. Brent sounds silly. worked for me and everybody else had do it.
I I don't think it sounds silly at all. I think it's absolutely genius. I've never heard it said that way. I love the transfer an amount, right? Have these play these games and everyone is an investor, right? Um I've heard another way. There's no there's no costs in life. There's just good and bad investments, right? There's no costs. Everything you're doing is is that way. Um it's funny. You and I are both obsessed in the in the credit card game and not in the credit card going to debt. You know, we you and I are paying them off every month. We're never carrying a balance. Uh I'm obsessed with the optimization of everything in life, right? Bringing that last like in my business. I like I'll look at someone you if I take on a new coaching client, I'm like, "Well, how are you optimizing your corporate spend? Walk me through your strategies." And they go, "I have no idea what you're talking about." I'm like, "Okay, cool." Uh I took a year off in co my family traveled the world, literally the world. Every month I was out of the country at least uh at least two weeks a month, sometimes more. Uh in a lay flat plane, never paid for one

53:59plane ticket. Never. I mean, no. I then to your point, I actually use those now today to for more money. I mean, recently, I won't say the name of the credit card, they came out with a 4% cash back credit card. Okay. I'm like, I don't understand. Unlimited. So, what did I do? I went and paid my entire tax bill on my credit card. Well, they only charge you 1.878.
1.87. You cuz you and I know the number. And I'm like, wait a minute. I can make over 200 basis points profit paying. First of all, I could overpay my taxes. No one stops me from doing it. Then I can get I mean, you could actually monitor. I mean, we could take this transaction to a whole another level. But people aren't even asking the question, right? Like you just said, I make 3 to 4% back and then I route that into things that make more money. It's just people have got to get obsessed with that. They've got to get obsessed with ringing the last little bit in every area. You know, I I just told you a minute ago I I closed on this resort and um I'm having a blast, right? I'm just because I get to be an entrepreneur in all things. And so every day I get a report of all the bills that come in for this resort. Now, these are the prior

55:00owner's expenses. And this is a super dumb example. Day one, they're paying $800 a month for the waste management contract. Cool. Uh, I got in there, my team worked on it. I just wanted to do the last little bit of negotiation. I got it down to 200 bucks. $600 a month, though. It's not one month, right? It's it's forever. Now, imagine the person listens at home. Are you doing that on everything? Money. Wealth is made in the pennies. at home. Is your internet bill, is there a different provider that could lower your bill? Is your cell phone bill? Could you get a better service for less money? Your car insurance, are you shopping? Your tax returns are you send it to three different CPAs to lower your cost? Are you trying to optimize your life? Or are you sitting there wondering why you don't have any money? And I just love that you hit on it. The $86 you said, "Oh, it's nothing." It's actually everything. It's absolutely That was a It's It started with Yeah. What's going to happen this month? Like you said, nothing. What's going to happen in 10 years? Everything. It's so fascinating. So, this how my how my brain works is first off, if you don't know how to set up an auto transfer in your bank, it's so easy to

56:02do. And I'm telling if you don't if you just don't do this today, you don't want to be wealthy. I'm just going to tell you, you have no if you're oh, I'm going to go sell more. Actually, great. You've got to play games with yourself. So, what I'm immediately bred, I'm thinking in my company, my my my my and I pay a little extra my CPA to figure out all these transactions moving around. But as soon as I'd saved money, like we got rid of a um we we lowered our insurance premium, right? I found a new company. Incredible. I'll tell you this later. Absolutely incredible. I was overpaying by 800 bucks a month. So, you know what I did? 800 bucks a month to the family. 8 time 12. I immediately take the what is that? 7,200 bucks or whatever. 8 time 10 $9,200, right? Or whatever it is. 9,600. He doesn't do good with math. So that's almost 10,000 bucks a year. I immediately transfer that to my bank to a just a holding pattern into a 4.6% CV. Does that make sense right off the bat? Like immediately holding pattern. And so what I do is I anytime I save money, I immediately put it in that holding pattern and I'm looking and my brain is like find look. And then if something pops like the guy next door is like I

57:04want to get rid of the building. I'm like I could use that. I could rent it. I I see what it is. I'm ready. So, I'm just telling all of you, the soon as you get rid of something or optimize it, auto transfer. No time to think and put it somewhere, they're a pain in the ass to turn off. So, leave them there. That's that's like I'm telling you, start today. Right now, every one of you, $3 automatically, $7, $12, $18, $80, whatever you can afford to not care about. Transfer one and then tomorrow $2 more. You have so many of these, you'll be lazy to turn them off. That's all I got to say about that. That is um it's incred it's incredible. I want to switch gears entirely. Um I actually, as you know, we're friend and I had you come into my audience and talk to my group and you've presented several times.
A couple times. Yeah.
And and you did something about kids and it was about uh I don't want to ruin the stories. I just want to leave you there and it's about you know, you come in and they did their best and what most parents say is
you know where I'm going to go. talk to us about the psychology first and then how people cuz it I literally to this

58:08day I did this morning with my kids. I literally using your word it work it'll it'll change in time no different investing in your kids. So So here's the deal parents you got to back off a little what you think you should do and you got to realize what actually motivates and makes your kids do what they need to do. This is not the do all endall. So, I'm going to get to what you asked for in a second, but I'm going to I'm going to give you a story, two part two parts here. Inside of all human beings, there's there's two versions of us. There's a little inner child that wants to be feel good and told good job. And then there's like this inner killer, absolute future self, gogggins, living inside of us that knows they can accomplish anything. So, most people play to the little kid because unfortunately, we were kids. We want people to feel good and we want to do nice things and we want to and a lot of us we don't realize that we demean or diminish other people because we want to take all the credit. This is why Brett became an entrepreneur because his manager wanted his credit and he didn't give him any credit one way or another. So remember that. So I'm on a show. This

59:11is a really good story. I'm on a show with this guy Joe. He's got like 900 loan officers. I get to introduce you to this guy Brett. That that side note this guy Joe but you'll want to know him if you don't know him right in Irvine. and I'm on his show and I'm talking about motivating kids and he goes, "All right, Michael, stop the show." How do I motivate my kid? And I was going to answer the question and I was like, "Give him the answer." And he go, "Well, motivate him to do what?" He's like, "I want my kid to want to be better at basketball." I said, "Okay, here's what I want you to do tomorrow morning after lunch or whatever, breakfast, whenever whatever you he's calm, he's not hangry, I want you to look at him and go like this. Hey, listen, Joe Jr., if you ever want to get good at basketball, I might have an ideas, couple ideas. You come to me. I might have a couple ideas. Just come to me and then walk away. If they don't come back, nothing, no harm, no foul. But Joe calls me the next day, goes, "Michael, I don't know whether to kill you or I love you." I go, "What happened?" He goes, "Well, uh, I did what you told me to do. I walked over to my kid. I said, "If you want to get better, come to me." He came to me

1:00:12the next morning on his own accord. I go, "And now I got to get him a coach." Now, why I'm bringing this up is most of us when we communicate with people, we want them to feel good. We don't make them empowered. So, what I did was is we will tell a kid, I can help you get better. And I'm going to get to what you want, Brett, here in a second. But this is
Oh, no. This is Keep going. Keep going.
Folks, let me tell you, if you don't get your family straight, I'm going to be very clear. You will never be great at business. You will have ups and downs cuz when you come home, you will be miserable. So, if you do not want to learn how to work with your kids and your wife or your husband, you've got to get that figured out. That is my main thing I teach people. That is where wealth comes from. Side note. So, when you go to the kid and go, I can make you better. I have a way. You actually say, I'm great, you're not. And we destroy their confidence. So, what we do is this, and there's one thing we teach inside of our company is three things we do where we language things differently. into my family. If you've got a child that does something well and they score a goal,

1:01:15they get a touchdown, they get an A on a test, our natural tendency is say is great job. I'm proud of you. Which is the second most powerful chemical in the body is called serotonin. It is the chemical you get what Brett was looking for when I made sale. I made sale. I work insight. Look at me. He wanted to feel good about what he accomplished. And if I say to you, child, I am proud of you. They look at you with the big old eyes and they go, "Really? You're proud of me? So you're saying if I do that thing again, you'll like me?" Parents, you don't need your kids to like you. You need your kids to like themselves. I want you to listen. So what I do is with the kids, instead of saying, "Johnny, I'm proud of you." I say, "Johnny, you know that home run you got? You should be proud of yourself." Pause. Just let it sink in. You'll watch what I call the quarterback grin on that kid's face. And if you look at a quarterback, and ladies, if you're listening, you know the quarterback, he's got that look. He's confident. He and and gentlemen, you know, cuz every

1:02:17quarterback's got that Tom Brady look like, "I'm in control." Give your kid the power. So, if somebody on your team closes a deal, do not say, "Great job." So, like, I closed the deal. I got the Johnson house closed. Whatever. You say, "Of course you did." because that's why you're on this team. That's who you are. So when you tell them they should be proud of themselves, it gives them the power. Most of us are scared to let other people feel powerful because we then don't feel powerful. He or she who gives more power to others to feel great will be the most powerful one of all. I would love 90 people around me feeling powerful so they get a lot of things done. So the answer to your question is this. You should be proud of yourself. And Brett, you're using that all the time right now. What's the result you're getting?
Oh, it's it's mind. It's the Well, the thing I talk about my kids is right, there's two scorecards. I use Warren Buffett's thing. There's two scorecards in life, right? There's an internal one and there's an external scorecard. So, when I say I'm proud of you, I'm teaching you, and this is from you, by

1:03:19the way. I'm just taking it. I'm telling you what I've learned from what you taught me was that you're now making them go get the outside world to tell them they're great. So, they're playing for everyone else their whole lives. They're looking they're looking for that feeling like I need someone to tell me that I'm doing good like and so I'll go do these thing but that may not make them happy inside. Instead if they realize like I did this thing and I created it and I'm in the I'm the creator of my own destiny. I don't need the outside world to validate I know what I need and I have everything what I have inside already before I started. And like that's what's that's the impact on and it's it's what the other thing it's like when my kids walk out the door every day I go are you gonna have a good day today in the beginning they go well you know and the they go now my kids what they say every time well yes I go well how do you know they go cuz I'm going to make it that way I go boom make it happen right that's every day we say that you going to have a good day today in the beginning they go now they go of course I am why cuz I make it that way I'm like right it's just a different
isn't all the time it doesn't mean your kids are going to be perfect it doesn't

1:04:20mean they're not going to ups and downs. Doesn't mean they're not going to get bullied or picked on. We've got to give our kids a half a chance. And if you ever want them to move out and not be weak or losers in the world today, and I don't mean loser like not cool. I mean like not win, right? You've got to give them power. And we give them power by giving them the chemicals in their mind back. So if you say, "Great job, Johnny. You're amazing. You're great." You're hurting your child. You want to say to them that thing you did, no different than a real estate agent. Folks, listen how big a decision is to get a house buying, selling side. I sit down with agents and I tell them this all the time. The first words out of your mouth should be, "Hey, listen. Before we even look at the MLS, I just want to commend you for even having the courage to even look for the house that you want because most people stay in a house they don't want most of their lives. And here you are actually doing it." Be proud of yourself, my friend. This is very exciting. We're going to go through a process for the next 90 days finding it. We will. But I want to tell you, be proud. You have just given them what their mom and dad haven't their whole life. And they're going to love you. And then you don't even need I know you got to legally sign that paperwork now, but the point is that freaking paperwork, but you know what I'm saying? But the

1:05:23point is that is huge that all of us can do because remember your clients or your spouse is still a 5-year-old boy with big kick clothes on.
Really, Michael, you are such a master with words. And I before we wrap up here, I want you to do one more thing if you would. Um, and I'll go in in the business arena, but I think it applies to many things. I've used it. I've used it on my wife. My my, you know, my Has your wife ever told you this? She goes, "Are you coaching me right now?" And I'm like, "Of course not." Of of course I'm not. I'm absolutely coaching her. Right. Uh I'm absolutely taking her down a path that I want to go down. Um but you've got this idea if if three things are true, the next thing you say is true. I I just But I think it applies to of course it applies to sales. It's the greatest I think one of the greatest sales technique ever, but I think it applies personally in relationships. It's disarming. Kind of give that give that idea. Let's go through that and we can even if you want me to role play on the back side of it, I'm happy to do that.
Yeah, we'll we'll we'll role play. And here's the funny thing, folks. It works if you use it. Everyone's not going to

1:06:26be too good at things when they first do it. You're going to have to do three or four of these to to get good at it. On the other end of being bad at it, you're going to get good. So, our minds, let's just give you a quick backstory. The way the brain works, the brain is the organism and inside's the mind. And the mind is always looking for advantages in life. ways to like make your life better and avoid things that are uncomfortable. So, it's always like on defense. The reason we look at a car wreck or we watch the news or anything you shouldn't do is because we're memorizing negative things so they don't occur in our lives. So, we are on defense. You have to realize the nicest people in the world are on defense not to get hurt. Okay? So, we've got to take down our defenses so we can have a normal conversation with ourselves or with other people. So, all the mind needs, some of you are going to ask why. I have no idea why. I I wasn't there when when we were designed. I I didn't have a conversation with God like how we were built. But that's a Jim Ran quote. But the point is um the point is what I what I realized is this. When three things are true, the fourth is automatically true. So Brad, if I told you tomorrow, let let's actually speak this in

1:07:28existence. The Fed is going to cut the rate and we're going to be at 5.1. That would be wonderful, right? But um let's just say we did and tomorrow you woke up and it's 5.1. You'd be like, "Oh, okay. That's weird." But then I said, "Listen, man. Go invest in XYZ Corp because it's going to double." And you looked at XYZ Corp. It doubled. You'd be like, "Huh?" And then I said, "Brett, when you leave your house today, when you turn right, careful, there's going to be a car accident." If there was a car accident, you would be like, "Whoa, there was a car accident." And then what would happen is if I said to you, "Hey, listen, man. Um, this is the best coffee shop in the world." You'd be like, "Okay, probably should listen to him because free things were true." Now, I don't know why it is, but it is that way. So, there is my It's funny because my daughter, my oldest daughter brought this to my attention when you said how to use this on yourself the other day, and it's fascinating. So, what I would say is instead of using the old Tom Hopkins sales approach like, "So, Brett, so you're in real estate, right?" And you'd say,
"Yeah." Yeah.
Great. And you uh and you're and you um

1:08:31you're looking you like nice things, right?
Oh, I love nice things. Yeah.
And your name is Brett, right? And then yeah, and then you're going to be like, okay, like I've watched enough stuff. Stay away from me. You're you're kind of annoying. I saw Boiler Room, too. What I would point out is if I wanted to make a slight suggestion, here's how this works. A slight suggestion, cuz remember, folks, we can only suggest. We cannot convince. We can only suggest. And if I could say get good at one thing and suggest. So if I suggested the meeting's going to go well and we're going to find what you're looking for, is that a good suggestion? Of course. But if I walked in your office today, I say, "Brett, this meeting is going to go well. We'll find what you're looking for." You're going to be like, "Yeah, right." But this is how it works. Great. Watch my three three truths. I would say, "Brett, we've been on this show now for a little bit of time. You've talked, I've talked, and we've come up with some things that are useful for people."
Yeah, completely. I would agree with

1:09:32that wholeheartedly. Now, if I just said to you, we've come up with some useful things for people, you would think about it and analyze it. But as soon as I said three things, you know, Brett, we've we've been on uh we've been on this podcast and we've known each other a while and you've been in real estate for a bit and I do what I do and that's why this is going to work well.
And your mind is going, okay, it's going to work well. I don't know where that's going to go, but what happens is if I just said this is going to work well, it's got a defense mechanism. So, how it works is if let's just like where do realtors and real where do realtors and investors meet for business outside their office? Where do they meet?
Yeah. Starbucks is a common place, right? I mean, that's going to be the go-to.
So, most people pull up and go, "Hey, uh, hey, great. Uh, you got here. Uh, let me grab a coffee and um and we'll sit and talk." That's how it usually starts, right?
Exactly right.
But what if we did it a little different? If we cared so much about the relationship and that person, you've got to care about relationships. And imagine you walked in and said, "Let's say I just showed up a minute behind you." And

1:10:33I said, "All right, Brett. Oh, you already got your coffee. You got here before me. I'm going to go get mine and we'll find a way to make this work." And you're going to go like this. All I did is pointed out, "You're here. You have a coffee. I'm going to go get mine." And then you just subtly said, "And we'll find a way to make this work." You didn't say and you're going to buy everything from me and sign a piece of paper and be your lifetime agent. That wouldn't do anything. And then when you come back, say, "Got it. Um, let me let let's uh let's talk a little bit and I'll cover some ideas and I've got my laptop here and I bet we could find a few things that you would make this easier." And they go,
"Yeah."
And if you just pad this with yourself like, "I'm up early. I've already been to the gym. I'm about to make calls and that's why I'm going to find somebody good to talk to today. And it changes your awareness. As silly as it is, it's mind control 101 over your mind. You have to learn how to use

1:11:38your mind. And very few people care about using their mind. They want to study the internet. They want to learn about pixels. They want to find out what the Kardashians are doing. They want to find out about what job agent is doing. They want to get motivated buyers. And very few people want to understand how the mind works. It's 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals four. When three things are true, the fourth is automatically true. Did that articulate it enough
that was it's it I just you have so many I mean it's endless, right? And I could do I could spend another five hours doing this because it it's
I don't know why I don't know why it works to your point. I don't know like when the first time you said it I'm like I don't know it doesn't make any sense to me just because three then I started doing with people right and it works it I don't know why it works but it does if three thing I think it's just our mind is like in this programming that it doesn't want to create friction so it's like well I'm going to say yes and I'm going to say yes and I'm going to say and I said yes three times I just I just got to say yes again. Um it's just amazing. I I love I just I love so much about what you do.

1:12:41
Let let me show you how simple this is. We've all seen it. I don't I stay away from the news, but I imagine you watch how simple this is. Hello, Arizona. Welcome to Fox or CNN News or whatever it is, right? My name is Joe Anker. Good morning. Today, we're going to show you this. And now we're going to watch for 30 minutes because they just did it to you. There's not a show you turn on. They'd say, "Hello, hello Detroit. Welcome to Fox News. Right.
My name is Joe the anchor and we've got stories you have to see. We have stories you have to see. And by the time we're back from the commercial, you'll know how to do it. If they would have just said, "We got stories for you," you'd say, "Whatever." But they do it every single day since 1950s.
It um it's just so good. Um I want to All right. As we wrap up here, Michael, uh, I want to I ask every guest the same

1:13:44three questions. Uh, other than your book, which again, I everyone should go get, what are the three books that impacted your life the most?
Well, I think I have it here somewhere.
As a visual, as a man thinkketh, which I read all the time. Um, it is one of my favorite uh books. I I beaten this thing up to death. Um, this is a bridge. This is powerful. Um, you will absolutely love it. Um, I will tell you, uh, oh, um, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman and The Journey of Socrates. Both of those books, um, you should read. It really is about how to actually lie indirectly. I tell everyone it's how to actually let somebody mentor you. I've read this some of the only books I've read two or three times all the way through. Another book which you will not be able to find very easily is called Transformations. uh the original one uh I think I paid $140 for the first time by Richard Bandler. Uh it will make no sense to anybody here. I don't even recommend you read it. It worked for me. It's an NLP

1:14:46book. But I would say uh as a man thinkketh huge um and uh the way of the peaceful warrior way of the peaceful warrior was enormous and um the and transformations was really big for me at a at a spot in my life where it activated something with me with the neuropathways in the mind and I've got thousands of books in my life. Uh how to win friends and influence people opened up the door for me for sales and influence. So I'd say there would be my third one.
I I I love those. Okay. Uh, best purchase under 200 bucks in the last 12 months that most improved your life.
Best purchase.
Best purchase under $200 that improved my life. It's funny cuz my wife and I do this every single year. Um, under $200. Go to the third question. I'll come back to that one.
I'll give you I will give you mine and then maybe it's trigger. Uh, I I went on this journey to test every pillow on the market. And I don't know why. I just wanted to find the best pillow. And the

1:15:49eight sleep either like the spelled eight like ei ght. Uh, sleep their pillow carbon fiber pillow is a game changer. It's a $150 pillow and I think that's expensive. Um, but I'm going tell you it's an absolute game. It's the greatest pillow ever. That's my uh that's my So, while you're thinking of that, we'll come back to yours. Uh, unless you've got any cuz you got me you stopped me with the under $200 and I'm working it out of my head. I'm I'm going to come up with it. I get it.
All right. You're going to All right. You're going to go. So, I want you to talk to 21-year-old Michael knowing everything you know today and you're going to give them 60 seconds of advice. What do you say to your 21-year-old self?
I would say you have it inside of you. Um those feelings and thoughts that you have, they're real. There's multiple. They're both real. And I'd say it really depends which ones that you want to take care of. I'm also going to tell you that you are different. You are special and um fitting in and trying to be like anybody

1:16:51else is guaranteed failure in whatever it is you do. And your goal is to really show the world what you are capable of, not to be liked. And I'm going to tell you, the sooner you learn how to be likable and discern in versus being liked, you're going to be a happy person. So you need to learn how to care about yourself and be a likable person. But if you need to be liked, you will always be miserable. So build a life that is very likable, care about people, but don't really care if you're liked because that'll be their choice whether they like you or not. It'll save you a lot of headaches. And get to the point where you don't care. And if you care so much that you don't care at all, you're going to be a really loving, great person. And I'm going to tell you, these people you have in your life today, you've attracted by who you were. And the people you are going to spend your time in life with, you haven't even met yet. Because um you've you're going to get a chance to change that. So that's that's what I would say cuz I I've really instilled in my kids at a very young age that the sooner you work on being likable and not being liked and care

1:17:55about being liked, you'll be a happier person. Wow. That's so that is um I love that you said it. The sure way to fail is just to try to fit in and and be everyone else. I think that's horrible. It's really really sad. And we have a whole world today where it's everybody's trying to be like everybody else versus being themselves. And I'll tell you a a good a good purchase that I I found. I'm looking at my hydrogen water bottle. I didn't want to push medical or health things on people, but I love my hydrogen bottle. Um, this reminds me not only drink water, but I do this every day. It's like under 100 bucks. I think it's $150. Uh, it's called Evolve. And I do that um every day. And for whatever reason, I don't know why it works, but I love it. Makes me feel good, but also triggers me to be healthy. It takes two seconds. I turn it on, thing turns blue, and I drink it. So, you do your own medical advice if you think it works. But I love mine.
H I have a red light. Oh, one more. One more red light laser. I have a little red light laser that I use um because we all work out, we're healthy. It's a little thing that I've got and it literally uses red light thing on me and it's really good for just keeping me

1:18:57going. I love it.
Uh that's that's an awesome answer. All right, Michael, we're wrapping up here. If people want more of you, they want to learn about what you do after they buy your book and read it, where should they go to learn more?
Yeah, definitely get my book. You can find that anywhere. Barnes & Noble's uh whatever it is. Just go get it. Average sucks.com. You can go get it. Find the book on there. Uh super great. Go to You can find me online like Instagram. We got a ton of videos and stuff that we go up. And then I wanted to just throw this out like if you're like I like this guy and you're like either way want me to share with your people or you got train or you're like into growing. I'm going to make this easy. I'm just going to like just tell you two things. One is send me a text. This will like this is a this is not an autoresponder. This like a real number 48008051. I set this up earlier. text the word influence to that and then let's just chat and just only do that if you're like I want either to show you with my team or show you with myself. Text the

1:19:58word influence or find a way to DM me or reach out online. You're you guys are smart people. So 48800 8051. That is if you're like I want to learn from you, Michael, or I want to share you, right? But if not, go uh go stalk me. Go. There's a reason I have 5.5 million views in the last 3 weeks organically on Instagram because with only 30,000 people so far, I'm adding about 5,000 people a week to our channel because we are talking and when this comes out, I'll have 50 to 70,000. We're doing it organically. We are having real conversations about real things in life, which is communication, relationships, and getting what they want. So, go find me online. We're having a real talk on there. I got we'll include everything in the show notes, all of your social media channels, your website, place for the book. Michael, you're a true treasure. Thanks for being here and sharing and all you do for so many. Thanks, brother. I appreciate you.
Thank you, Brett. I really appreciate it. It's an honor and you're an incredible host. I mean, this is like you this is I could do this for days. You're so good at what you do and and just a privilege to be part of it. And

1:21:00folks, keep on listening to this and definitely find the other shows as well. Take care.