0:08

Hey , leader , happy new year and welcome to another

0:10

episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast , where we

0:12

are obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum

0:14

potential and to maximize the impact of your

0:16

leadership . My name is Doug Smith and I am your

0:18

host , and today's episode is brought to you by my friends

0:20

and better tongue advisors . We also

0:22

recorded this live from the new Birgo Realty Studio

0:25

. If you're new to the podcast , welcome

0:27

. I'm so glad that you're here and I hope that you enjoy our

0:29

content and become a subscriber . Know that you

0:31

can also watch all of our episodes over on our YouTube

0:33

channel , so make sure you're subscribed there as well . And

0:36

, as always , if you've been listening to the podcast for a while

0:38

and it's impacted your life , it would mean the world to me if you'd

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leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

0:43

or whatever app you listen to podcast through . That really

0:45

does help us to grow our audience and reach more leaders

0:47

, so thank you in advance for that . Well

0:49

, leader , in today's episode you're going to hear my conversation

0:51

with Rob Luna . If you're unfamiliar

0:53

with Rob , let me just tell you a little bit about him . Rob

0:56

is confirmation that the American dream is alive

0:58

. He went from growing up hungry and battling

1:00

the tough streets of Los Angeles to becoming an Ivy

1:02

League Alarm and earning MBA degrees in two countries

1:04

. His 25 years of experience

1:07

includes consulting with companies such as Amazon

1:09

, google and Facebook , managing money for

1:11

some of the world's wealthiest individuals and building

1:13

a multi-million dollar business that was sold to

1:15

a publicly traded company . Today

1:17

, Rob oversees his group of companies focused

1:20

on helping people build , grow , protect and enjoy

1:22

their wealth , and in our conversation

1:24

you'll hear Rob talk about how you can close the wealth

1:26

gap , advise on money for different decades

1:28

of your life and we take them through the lighting round , and

1:30

so much more . You're going to love this interview , but

1:32

before we dive in , just a few announcements . This

1:35

episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored

1:37

by Beratung Advisors . The financial

1:39

advisors at Beratung Advisors help educate

1:41

and empower clients to make informed financial

1:43

decisions . You can find out how Beratung

1:46

Advisors can help you develop a customized financial

1:48

plan for your financial future by visiting

1:50

their website at wwwberatungadvisors . com

1:52

. Securities

1:58

and investment products and services offered through

2:00

LPL Financial . Member of FINRA and SIPC

2:02

. Beratung Advisors , lpl Financial

2:04

and L3 Leadership are separate entities

2:06

. I also want to thank our sponsor

2:09

, hennie Jewelers . They were jewelry earned by my friend and mentor

2:11

, john Hennie , and my wife Lara and I got our

2:13

engagement and wedding rings through Hennie Jewelers and had

2:15

an incredible experience . And

2:17

not only do they have great jewelry , but they also invest

2:19

in people . In fact , for every couple that comes in

2:21

engaged , they give them a book to help them prepare for

2:23

marriage , and we just love that . So if you're in need

2:25

of a good jeweler , check out HennieJewelerscom

2:28

. And with all that being said , let's dive right in

2:31

. Here's my conversation with Rob Luna . Rob

2:34

Luna , welcome to the L3 Leadership Podcast

2:36

and for those who may not be familiar with

2:38

you , can you just kind of give us an overview of

2:41

who you are and what you do , and then we'll dive into your story

2:43

.

2:43

Yeah , thanks for having me , Doug . Yeah

2:46

, my name is Rob Luna . I've

2:48

been in the wealth management space most of

2:50

my life , since I'm about 20 years of the

2:52

age . I started as an intern . I

2:55

sold that business a few years ago . So

2:57

what I and I was working primarily with ultra high net worth

2:59

people , entrepreneurs , c level

3:01

executives , professional athletes , sold

3:04

that business a few years ago , and what I've been

3:06

doing over the last year and a half is

3:09

really trying to create an ecosystem

3:11

for people who are looking to improve their

3:13

life through entrepreneurism and financial

3:16

literacy , which seems to be a lot of people

3:18

these days . So my mission is kind of to empower

3:20

people to go out there , create their own

3:22

business and do that in a way where they can

3:25

take some of that money , put it away and ultimately

3:27

not have to work for the rest of their life , and so that's

3:29

kind of what I'm doing today . Along the way , I

3:31

collected some college degrees . I'm

3:34

Fox business , usually every week on

3:36

a show called making money . But , yeah

3:38

, happy to be here and try to give

3:40

some information that people can use to , you know

3:42

, change their life .

3:43

Yeah , there's so much I want to dive into there . So

3:46

for context , my understanding , when you say ultra

3:48

high net worth clients , I think was

3:50

it a minimum of 25 million net worth you had

3:52

to have to work with you at one point before you sold that business

3:54

.

3:55

Yeah , so the firm I sold with , you

3:57

know I think our firm minimum was about three million

3:59

, but the group I was working with was mostly

4:01

multifamily office , wealthy

4:04

people 25 million and above . Our average prime

4:06

was about 40 million and investable assets .

4:08

Wow . Well , if you're familiar with Robert

4:10

I've researched him at all he's everywhere . And

4:13

, rob , what I would love for you to share is you know people

4:15

can look at your life and what you've done with your career

4:18

and think , wow , like you must have always had it made

4:20

. It must be nice . But I know

4:22

you know in researching you you have a pretty

4:24

humbling start . Can you just share a little bit about where

4:26

you came from , because I think it's so helpful to give people

4:28

context for what we're going to dive into ? Yeah

4:30

, sure .

4:31

Well , I grew up in Southern California . I'm pretty old

4:33

, I'm 49 years of age now . So I

4:36

grew up in Southern California during the 80s

4:38

, 90s , in a period of time

4:40

where I lived in a predominantly Hispanic

4:43

neighborhood and in a period of time

4:45

where there's a lot of gang violence , drive-by shootings

4:48

. You know friends of mine that have gotten

4:50

killed . I lost a brother to gang violence during

4:52

that period of time and so you know my family

4:54

not really educated , no one

4:56

went to college , no one ever owned a home

4:58

in our family or anything of that . So

5:00

through sports I was able to

5:02

get in college , get out of that environment

5:04

right at the right time , and through you know , kind of

5:07

the grace of God , got put into

5:09

this industry and I realized at a very

5:11

early age , coming where I came

5:13

from , this was my opportunity and so I

5:15

kind of went all in . And my

5:17

goal , as I always said from the beginning , I want to

5:20

be able to , within 10 years in this industry

5:22

, sit down in a room with Warren Buffett

5:24

, maybe have some differences in opinion , but able

5:26

to hold my own . So

5:28

I don't know a lot about a lot of things , but

5:30

I know a lot about , you know , making money

5:32

and keeping money . That's where I've focused most of my

5:34

education experience .

5:37

Yeah , I have a similar background , similar story

5:39

where my life got turned around , and anytime I

5:41

get to connect with someone who has a story like

5:43

that . You know you mentioned sports . Sports

5:45

was a way out , but I think it's just important . You know

5:47

you mentioned you lost a brother and

5:50

so many people who had similar circumstances

5:52

to you stay stuck in those situations or

5:54

, you know , unfortunately we lose them . I

5:56

had a sister die to a heroin overdose

5:59

. You know , same thing and it's just . You know

6:01

what do you think it was ? Was it a mentor that came

6:03

into your life through sports ? Was it just being competitive

6:05

and getting around the right people ? Like what would you accredit

6:07

that turn around to ?

6:09

Yeah , you know , I get asked that question

6:11

a lot and I wish I had this really poetic

6:15

answer to tell people like here's

6:17

what to do . And I have

6:19

to go back and I know not everybody you

6:21

know has faith and so I , you know , try to

6:23

show like this to keep some balance . But for me I

6:26

do . I can't look at anything else and say

6:28

it was anything other than God because you

6:30

know , I there's a lot of situations where

6:33

I should have been dead , I should have been prison

6:35

, a lot of different things to where something happened

6:37

to my brother . Here's what happened to me

6:39

. So you know , I believe that's what pulled

6:41

me out of it . But what I will also say is

6:44

just a recognition and whatever you believe

6:46

is I think the you know there's a lot of disadvantaged

6:48

people in this world . They're born with

6:51

handicaps , mental issues

6:54

, whatever the case is . But if you are somebody

6:56

in this country who was born with two arms and legs

6:58

and you have the ability to go out there

7:00

and do what you need to do to succeed

7:02

, there's really no excuses . So I

7:04

realized at an early age and

7:07

I got that opportunity and I just went

7:09

all in and I was very grateful for the

7:11

opportunity . I think there's a lot of people

7:13

that get opportunities in their life but

7:15

they don't want to put in the work

7:17

that they have to do to make the most of it . And

7:19

you know , unfortunately that's that result

7:22

by not doing that is what they wind

7:24

up getting . So I think you know it's just hard work , determination

7:26

, always looking at that North Star

7:28

and being all in on what I was involved

7:31

with .

7:32

Yeah , well , thanks for sharing that . And again , I don't have

7:34

time to share my story , but it was the exact same thing

7:36

Faith , god came into my life and was

7:38

absolutely critical and turning my life around . So

7:40

thank you for sharing that . So

7:42

we want to focus on money , right , and so you

7:45

know the famous exigler quote money

7:47

isn't everything , but it ranks right up there with oxygen

7:49

. I think anyone listening

7:51

to this would be lying to themselves if they weren't interested

7:53

in money and it wasn't a large part of their life

7:56

. And you mentioned you sold a

7:58

business with you know the ultra high net worth clients , and

8:00

now you're trying to help everybody . You recently

8:02

wrote a book called Close the Gap and

8:04

just focus on the book . You know why did you write

8:06

this and really , what is the message that you want

8:08

people to get through reading this

8:10

?

8:11

Yeah , thanks , and yeah , the books Closure Wealth

8:13

Gap it just came out about four

8:15

or five weeks ago , published by Wiley , and

8:18

so , you know , my goal

8:20

wasn't initially to write a book . Wiley

8:22

approached me about a year and a half ago , and

8:24

so we've heard you , you know , talking on on

8:26

Fox Business and CNBC and

8:29

seems like you have a message that resonates

8:31

with the average person , and so

8:33

we started talking about concepts , and the original

8:35

concept was you know , this wealth

8:37

gap in America , which I think is so widely

8:39

publicized . We're all aware that the

8:41

richer getting richer , the poorer getting poorer , and

8:44

so they initially wanted me to write about that . And

8:46

as I started to think about it , you know

8:48

that's , you know it's a great issue

8:50

and topic to try to solve . There's a lot

8:52

of politics that go beyond that

8:54

. In terms of my audience , which is

8:56

the average person , what I was more important

8:59

with is how does the individual close their

9:01

wealth gap , and so closing the entire wealth

9:03

gap is pretty difficult . So the book Closure

9:05

Wealth Gap was showing people

9:08

, individuals , how can you

9:10

put yourself in a position where you're not

9:12

a statistic ? You know , there was something

9:14

CNBC put out about three months ago and

9:16

they said that the average American

9:18

could not afford a $1,000

9:20

emergency from their savings

9:23

, and that's it . That's a huge issue , right and

9:25

so ? So what I wanted to do

9:27

was when I wrote the book , you know , over

9:30

my career being in the business that I am , a lot

9:32

of people have always asked me what's the one

9:34

book that I should go and read , and

9:36

you know the reality is I've read

9:38

hundreds of books and some of them , you

9:40

know , far too technical to recommend to somebody

9:43

. So what I wanted to do was really put

9:45

out my first book is a baseline

9:48

, or what are some of the most important things that you

9:50

need to start doing , being aware

9:52

of . And what I really wanted to do is someone who

9:54

got this book young would show

9:56

you how , by just putting a little bit of money away

9:58

, having a little bit of knowledge of some of the amounts

10:01

and opportunities that are out there , in

10:03

my view , per someone who's making

10:05

$50,000 , $60,000 a year

10:07

could be a millionaire in their fifties

10:09

. This key is getting that information and starting

10:12

at an age that's early enough , and that's really

10:14

what I wanted to do , you know , with this book .

10:16

Yeah , and I would love to dive into some of the concepts in the book

10:18

and you know you really kick off just talking about people's

10:21

relationship with money and that looks different

10:23

for everyone . Again , you mentioned your background . I'm sure it

10:25

looked way different than when you started learning some of these things

10:27

. How can people evaluate and

10:29

why is evaluating your relationship with money so important

10:31

?

10:32

Well , I think , look , you talked about a zig-zagler

10:35

code , which is pretty

10:37

funny , but the reality

10:39

is , whether you like it or not , money

10:41

is going to make this world go around . It

10:43

provides a higher level of everything for

10:45

you Education , healthcare

10:48

, experiences . The more money you have , unfortunately

10:50

, in this country , the better

10:53

off you're going to be . I

10:55

think that realization that is money

10:57

, everything , no , but choices everything

10:59

I've never met . I met

11:01

a lot of people that say I don't need money , I don't care

11:04

about money , I don't need any more money . Okay , do

11:06

you need choice ? Do you want more choice ? Do you want

11:08

more freedoms ? And I think everybody would

11:10

say yes , and I think money provides

11:12

that . When it comes down to just about

11:14

everything that I found , with the exception

11:17

of health , money will improve

11:19

that , and so I feel like trying

11:21

to get that understanding of how much is

11:23

important to you . What are you looking to do

11:26

? Take money aside . But

11:28

what I really teach all my clients and my

11:30

students to do is okay , take

11:32

a look at you know , put money aside . What

11:34

is the ideal lifestyle look like for you

11:37

? How often do you want to travel ? What

11:39

kind of car do you want to drive ? Where do you want to live

11:41

, how much do you want to give to your church , whatever those

11:43

things are , that's not important

11:45

as much as it is quantifying that . And

11:47

once you understand what it's going to take to get there

11:50

, that gives you a clear idea of how

11:52

important money is

11:54

going to be in your life . And then what I try

11:56

to teach people to do is , now that you've quantified

11:58

that , is put together an actionable strategy

12:01

of how do you get from point A to point B

12:03

in as soon as possible , and that's kind

12:05

of really about understanding your

12:07

relationship with money and what it means to you

12:09

.

12:10

Yeah , I'm curious . You

12:12

worked with ultra high net worth clients . You

12:14

know celebrities , athletes and

12:18

I think in our culture and again on the Instagram world

12:20

or tick tock , you know everyone is looking to

12:22

get rich quick . Yeah , every 20

12:24

, something , once a Ferrari now . And

12:27

you know , I think sometimes we we

12:29

do have these dreams and aspirations with there's which

12:31

, there's nothing wrong with that . But I am curious

12:33

, in your experience , what can

12:35

money do for you and what can it ? You mentioned some

12:37

of the freedoms , but I think so many times people

12:39

thought if I was just independently wealthy , then

12:42

you know I would have no stress . I

12:44

, you know , have no cares . What have you seen

12:46

in people's lives ? The money can , it can't do .

12:49

Yeah , I mean , there's always going to be stress , there's always going to

12:51

be problems , there's always going to be more challenges

12:53

. Life , unfortunately , you know , money's not

12:55

going to do that . I think you I mean you brought up a

12:57

great point , though I feel like today , you

13:00

know , we talk about behavior , of money and understanding

13:02

your relationship with it . You know

13:04

Instagram tick tock , all

13:07

these things are great because they give us real time

13:09

access to information , but I think

13:11

also , behaviorally , they cause us to want

13:13

to take shortcuts , they cause us to do

13:15

things that aren't necessarily in the best long

13:17

term of interest . You talk about Ferrari

13:20

. Funny enough , you know I always

13:22

wanted a Ferrari , kind of as a kid . That was

13:24

a dream of mine and

13:26

you know I made . You know I was fortunate in the industry

13:29

I was in from an income perspective , I

13:31

made my first million dollars around 2930

13:34

years of age , and so , if you look at just making

13:36

payments on something , could I have afforded

13:39

a Ferrari at that time ? Yeah

13:41

, probably I could have made the payments , but could I really

13:43

afford a Ferrari ? No , and I didn't

13:45

buy my first one until I

13:47

sold my business and was able to buy it for

13:49

cash , and then I realized , quite honestly , like

13:51

a lot of things after I had it and

13:53

I bought a second one is like , okay , I'm done

13:56

with this , things done . So I'm

13:58

trying to correlate those things to happiness

14:00

is not going to get their happiness to me

14:03

. And what money is done for me ? It's

14:05

by , it's bought freedom for me , it's bought

14:07

choice for me and I think if you have that as

14:09

your North Star , that's the most important

14:12

thing . But you know , you also said you

14:14

know that I worked with a lot of wealthy people and I have

14:16

and I've worked with people that are worth 100 and

14:19

something million liquid and

14:21

they're totally miserable . I work with people that

14:23

are 10 million . They're , I

14:25

think , what ? Again , going back to understanding

14:27

outside of money , what is important

14:30

to you in life , what is the ideal lifestyle

14:33

look like ? And then trying to understand

14:35

what is it going to take to get there I talk

14:37

about in the book ? Do I think

14:39

I could personally be a billionaire ? Yes

14:41

, I do . However

14:43

, I also am aware of the sacrifices

14:46

and commitment , of what I would need to do

14:48

in order to get there , and I'm not

14:50

willing to spend that little time with

14:52

my family , I'm not willing to put that type

14:54

of stress on my health , and so those

14:57

are some of the balances . Also , and I believe

14:59

everyone can , with the right roadmap , do

15:01

with what they want to do , but you really have

15:03

to identify in that path , in that journey

15:05

, what are the things that are important with you

15:07

because you could get there , whatever that number

15:09

is , but your family is gone

15:11

, your relationship with God is gone

15:14

, your health is shot , and I've seen that to

15:16

do . I've seen people do all those

15:18

things all their life save , work their ass

15:20

off 60 years of age because of the stress

15:22

that they put themselves on , have a massive

15:24

heart attack and they're dead and they never got to

15:26

enjoy the money , which I think is important also .

15:29

I did want to touch base with you on this . I

15:32

read a book last year was fascinating . I think

15:34

it's called die with zero , if I remember that correctly

15:36

. Have you read this ? The

15:39

whole concept is basically we . In

15:41

his opinion . Now , again , it requires a certain amount of wealth

15:43

, but he said at some point we overestimate

15:45

the amount of money that will need in retirement

15:48

because a we we don't

15:50

actually know how

15:52

much we'll actually be able to do like we think we're going to be able

15:55

to , you know , climb out Everest in our 70s , but the reality

15:57

is we probably won't have the desire or physical energy

15:59

to do that . And this whole thing is , you

16:01

know , put away for a time and all those things are great

16:03

, but also make sure that you're , you know , doing

16:05

all those things now , like go climb out Everest now

16:08

. What advice do you have to people when it comes

16:10

to enjoying money but still being wise enough to

16:12

make sure that their future is secure ?

16:15

Yeah , I mean , it's like anything it's . It's about

16:17

balance in life and I agree , I

16:19

think you know , especially sometimes

16:21

in the industry that I came out of and financial

16:23

services they're such a large emphasis

16:25

put on kind of live beneath your means , save

16:28

all this money to when you hit this retirement

16:30

age of 6065

16:32

years of age . You have this next nest egg and

16:34

then you go out and live your live your

16:36

life well . I mean , first of all , no

16:39

one's guaranteed tomorrow , let alone 65

16:41

or 66 . So if you've kind of deferred

16:43

all those experiences and happiness

16:45

for this moment that may never come , conceptually

16:48

that doesn't make sense either . You've

16:51

got you know some some pretty smart guys

16:53

out there . Like you know , people I think either

16:55

love or hate Dave Ramsey . You

16:57

know I'm kind of in the middle

16:59

because I understand what he's trying to do

17:01

and I think he gives some great

17:03

advice . However , I think what he also

17:05

does is he pushes people to kind

17:07

of live beneath their means and beneath their

17:10

potential and lower their quality and standard

17:12

of life that they're shooting for someone

17:14

who's kind of you know . In the middle

17:16

of all that Now , what I want to say is

17:18

like you can't put yourself into a position

17:21

where you have to die

17:23

at 59 or 60 . You're

17:25

going to be working as a Walmart greeter

17:27

at 85 or 90 years of age , but

17:29

I , you know , I would also say is

17:31

there is that balance to make sure that you're

17:33

doing things within your means during that time

17:36

. Don't put off , you know , like I said

17:38

, because you know when I talked about that , that person

17:40

at 60 to die of a heart attack , and

17:42

that's a true story . And I know a lot of other people

17:45

also that had all this money that were saved

17:47

up and never got to go out there

17:49

and enjoy it , and so it's from those experience that I

17:51

try to keep that perspective in my life . You

17:53

know , you see , somebody died in early age . We

17:55

all , for a minute , start

17:57

to put everything in perspective . Steve Jobs said

17:59

he would ask himself you know , when he's faced with pancreatic

18:01

cancer , you look at himself every morning

18:04

in the mirror and say this was the last day in my life

18:06

. But I do what I'm about to do today

18:08

, and I think for a lot of us that answer is no

18:10

. I

18:13

think it's that balance right of how do you , yeah , make sure that you're not

18:16

going to work to the age of 90 , but don't , you know , defer

18:18

all these periods of happiness with your

18:20

family , with your friends and the

18:22

things that you want to do , so it's finding their

18:24

right balance .

18:26

Yeah , and you mentioned Ramsey and

18:28

Ramsey as his baby steps on a practical level . You

18:30

know one thing I love in the book you know you break it down by basically

18:33

decades of life . You know , hey , when you're

18:35

zero to 18 , this is what you should be thinking of . Can

18:37

we kind of just because I love how practical this is

18:39

? And you know , regardless of where someone is

18:42

when they're listening , what age they're at , they can get

18:44

something out of this . So , you know , talk to us about zero

18:46

to 18 . And you know , what should

18:48

zero to 18 year olds be thinking ? And I

18:50

guess I would add to that I actually

18:52

don't know if you have children or not . I have four kids under seven

18:54

. I would love to hear your advice to

18:56

parents of , hey , I want to raise

18:58

great kids who are financially wise

19:01

, you know , hopefully do really well on their own

19:03

. I would love any advice you have for parents as well

19:05

.

19:05

Yeah , I do currently have a daughter who's about to

19:07

be 16 . So we're talking about cars right

19:10

now .

19:10

So that's a challenge . Are you

19:12

going to drive that Ferrari ?

19:14

Yeah , yeah , we're looking for a used

19:16

Volvo that she's been

19:19

at right now .

19:20

So that's kind of what we're personally doing .

19:23

But no , look , yeah . So in

19:25

the book you know the way I

19:27

kind of do anything , doug is that I

19:29

don't want to do a podcast like this

19:31

. I don't want to write a book . I don't want to get on stage when

19:33

someone pays me to speak and

19:36

just kind of give hyperbole and philosophy

19:38

and not give actionable strategies . So

19:40

one of the parts in the book is I did break down

19:42

by age group . I even gave sample

19:45

portfolios for people who wanted to invest

19:47

, to go out there and actually take action

19:49

, without you know any excuses

19:51

, but I think you know , if you want to talk about zero

19:53

to 18 , probably one of the most important things

19:55

as a parent that you should be doing

19:58

is providing financial education

20:00

and literacy to your kids , because you

20:02

know , unfortunately the

20:04

school system is not structured to do it in

20:06

the right way . Teachers themselves haven't

20:08

been taught to do it . When you kind of look at the

20:11

politics around it and how tough it is to

20:13

change curriculum , I don't know that that's

20:15

going to happen anytime soon , and so , as

20:17

a parent , I think it's incumbent upon you

20:19

to do that . But what does that mean ? Is it's incumbent

20:21

upon you to also simultaneously be

20:23

educating yourself in order to share that with

20:25

your kids , and I think the vast majority

20:28

. I've got to undergrad in psychology A lot of that

20:30

. What that taught me is a lot of who I am

20:33

today are behaviors , events

20:35

, things that happened in my life from zero to

20:37

18 . I'm either trying to build

20:39

on those in my case , unlearn a lot of those

20:41

things that I want to do , but

20:44

so I think setting that foundation

20:47

as , first and foremost , the most important

20:49

thing . So things like allowance

20:51

right , you know , look in the real world

20:53

, making your bed is something you've got to do

20:55

. You

20:57

don't get compensated for that . But maybe , hey

21:00

, mowing the lawn , if you help dad

21:02

do that , he doesn't have to hire a

21:04

landscaper to do that . Other things

21:06

like that , teaching them the value and

21:09

again trying to correlate it to the real

21:11

world of how would you be compensated

21:13

. And then things like there's

21:15

a lot of things you could do . I talk about in the book as

21:17

a parent . A lot of people don't

21:19

know you could put your kid as an additional

21:22

card holder on one of

21:24

your credit card accounts . What that starts doing

21:26

is building a credit report for them

21:28

If you own your own business , and I

21:30

try to get everybody , even if they've got a full-time

21:32

W-2 job , to start their own

21:35

side hustle . You can hire your kids

21:37

and pay your kids and start

21:39

a Roth IRA for them . When they're as

21:41

young as five , six years of age

21:43

. Have them open up a

21:45

stock account with $100 or $200

21:47

they get from their birthday . Ask them what they like

21:49

. Maybe they like Roblox , disney , whatever

21:52

it is . Show them how to buy a share of

21:54

stock and track that . You have to start

21:56

teaching them those financial lessons

21:58

at a very early age . So there's

22:00

a lot of things financially you can do , like investing

22:03

, starting a Roth IRA , getting them going

22:05

. But I would say the single most important

22:07

thing is that financial education

22:09

and literacy , that you start showing

22:11

them the power of working , earning , saving a

22:13

dollar and then taking some percentage

22:15

of that . Not blowing that at the mall

22:17

, but putting that into some type of investment account

22:20

where they can watch and see that grow .

22:23

Yeah , that's so good . I love the intentionality . You

22:25

mentioned that you think everyone should have a small business

22:27

. I heard you talk about this on another

22:29

podcast . I think someone asked you if you can go back

22:31

30 years and start over , what

22:33

would you invest in ? I think your answer

22:35

was I would start a business . Can you talk to everyone ? Listen

22:38

to this . Why do you think everyone should have a business and how can

22:40

that benefit them financially ?

22:42

Yeah , well look , so I've

22:44

made a lot of investments in my life , just

22:46

about anything you name it . As long as it's legal

22:48

, I've invested in it . Some

22:51

of them have done really good Some early

22:53

real estate investments in Southern California

22:55

stock market investments . I bought Amazon

22:57

in 1999 . Those were all great

23:00

investments . When you look at the IRR

23:02

, I think anyone would take them . However

23:04

, like I said , I have sold my

23:06

own business , something I started at 27

23:08

years of age out of my bedroom . I

23:11

started with credit card debt , zero assets

23:13

under management . I built it up to over a billion dollars

23:15

and sold that for a number with

23:17

several zeros in it , and

23:19

by far that was something that was

23:21

just sweat equity . I didn't have any money or capital

23:24

. Credit card debt , that rate of

23:26

return , that absolute dollar

23:28

amount by far the largest amount of money that

23:30

I ever made . For me it was life

23:32

changing . But also , when I talk

23:34

about finances , I talk

23:36

from the benefit of yes , as an entrepreneur

23:38

and doing these things myself . Here's what

23:40

worked out . But I also had 25

23:43

years of experience with working with some of the world's

23:45

wealthiest people who made their money in

23:47

different ways , and watching what they

23:49

did over that period of time . And

23:51

so what I would say is and this is usually

23:54

who I try to speak to somebody

23:56

who isn't getting handed a million dollars , who isn't

23:58

kind of starting at the

24:00

top and you're coming from a position where you don't know

24:02

a lot of wealthy people . People aren't going to give you

24:04

money . You've got to go out there and do

24:06

this yourself . What I have found , doing

24:09

it myself , helping other people do it

24:11

if you can build a viable business

24:13

that generates a good rate of return

24:15

, first of all , private businesses . When

24:18

you look at well run private businesses , most of them

24:20

generate a better rate of return than a

24:22

lot of the publicly traded companies that you

24:24

can buy . And you've got , today

24:26

more than ever , private equity companies

24:28

, strategic buyers , all

24:31

these people that are looking for good

24:33

, even boring businesses

24:35

that are generating cash flow . And

24:37

so one of the things I try to show people is

24:39

not only how to start a small

24:41

business , to create your own job and your own

24:43

paycheck yeah , that's cool , but

24:45

when you can do that but also

24:47

turn that business into five , 10 , 15

24:50

years . A multimillion dollar

24:52

asset that you could sell at some period

24:54

of time is probably the single greatest

24:56

way I know how to make wealth , because you can't

24:58

start with 10 bucks in stocks . You

25:00

can't start with that in real estate . You need to start

25:03

with money to make money in real estate . Start

25:05

with money in stocks to make money . But

25:07

a small business if you have a skill set

25:09

. This goes back to the first investment is

25:11

investing in yourself to get that skill set . If

25:14

you have a skill set , you're willing to put in what it

25:16

learns to build what a small business

25:18

should look like to sell , and

25:20

you have that roadmap , you can start doing

25:22

that and building yourself an asset

25:24

and I think , giving yourself the highest potential

25:27

to create generational wealth

25:29

at least good lifetime wealth for yourself

25:33

, more than any other activity . I think that you

25:35

can do .

25:36

Yeah , I'm curious to mention that business

25:38

. You've spent time with so many people that have

25:41

amassed a lot of wealth . I think

25:43

the average person listening to this and I think there's a lot

25:45

of mindsets of , well , hey , I'm never going to play for

25:48

the NFL , I'm never going to be an actor , so

25:50

I can't realistically be a millionaire

25:52

, but I think statistically , that's actually a very

25:54

, very small percentage of millionaires . So what have

25:56

you seen ? How do people actually get to

25:58

a place where they're independently wealthy ? Is it through creating

26:01

their own business ? Primarily ? Is that what you see most often

26:03

? Are there other things like real estate or

26:05

other investments that they make that would get them there ? What's

26:08

been your opinion ?

26:08

Yes , I work with hundreds of people . We manage about a

26:10

billion dollars for them over my

26:13

career , and so

26:15

, if I break it down , it all came

26:17

from three different places . Number one

26:19

, I'll say the one that's probably least likely for most

26:21

people are professional athletes . Right

26:23

, and what I will tell you is all

26:26

professional athletes . When they leave , if

26:28

they make some money , they all want to become entrepreneurs

26:30

. Nobody wants to go back and work for someone

26:32

, so they transition into business . So either

26:35

professional athletes . The next

26:37

one would be high level

26:39

corporate executives . So I worked with a lot of

26:41

C-suite CFO CEOs of publicly

26:43

traded companies . How they got their

26:45

wealth wasn't from the salary . If you go

26:47

and look and this is all public information at the

26:50

salary of some of the top

26:52

people at Google or Microsoft

26:54

or Coca-Cola whatever , it

26:56

is a lot of them are making $350,000

26:59

. They don't make their money off salary . They

27:01

make it off of equity , which again

27:04

is having an ownership in a business

27:06

and then selling some of that equity in those

27:08

remote time millionaires . And then , finally , it

27:10

was those entrepreneurs . My single largest

27:12

client , when

27:15

he was 38 years of age , came to

27:17

me . He had about $100,000 in investable

27:19

assets in his 401k plan

27:21

, but he had a great business and the whole

27:23

idea and plan he was all in on this business

27:25

is how do we grow and scale that business

27:28

? He spent all his effort , energy

27:30

and resources on that business and when he was about 41

27:32

years of age he exited that business

27:34

for about $170 million

27:37

and so again , when it goes back

27:39

and he invested with us just over 100 million

27:42

in liquid cash . There's taxes and

27:44

things to pay , but there's a prime example

27:46

. This is a person who was

27:48

first generation in this country , came when he was seven

27:50

years of age , did have some traditional education

27:53

but believed in himself , took a concept

27:55

, started and scaled a business , and

27:57

so the most wealth I ever managed was

28:00

for entrepreneurs . The vast

28:02

majority of people did have real estate investments

28:04

. They did have stock investments . None

28:07

of them got the wealth . From

28:09

that perspective . I have a lot of friends today

28:11

, a lot of money in real estate . All

28:14

of them made it from buying and selling businesses

28:16

. So that's why I try to push

28:18

everybody in that route of either being an entrepreneur

28:21

, where you're gonna work inside of a business but get

28:23

equity , or start your

28:25

own business , where you're creating your own equity , because

28:27

that's the fastest path for wealth .

28:29

Yeah , and talk to the person who may never do

28:32

that . I'm thinking maybe someone feels like they're

28:34

calling us to be a teacher for the rest of their lives or an

28:36

accountant . I don't know if salary's affiliated to all those

28:38

, but is it possible for people

28:40

to come wealthy making

28:42

under $100,000 a year and

28:45

do well , and if so , what are some steps that they

28:47

can take if they're listening to this to get there

28:49

?

28:50

Yeah , so look again , definition

28:52

of wealth is gonna be how you define it , and

28:55

so I'd love to say , yeah , sure , you can make $60,000

28:58

a year and be worth 20 million . The reality is , mathematically

29:01

that's not gonna happen . Does that mean you can't

29:03

live a fulfilling and happy life ? Absolutely

29:05

not . But what you have to do is kind of understand

29:07

and adjust . What does that look like ? I believe

29:09

someone that's a teacher and I've seen it can

29:12

definitely be a millionaire , right

29:14

. So having a million , million and a half dollars . Two

29:16

million after your career . That is definitely

29:18

possible , I think . For them , though , what

29:20

becomes more important is really

29:22

the lessons on financial literacy . So

29:25

what are some of the things you can do ? Like

29:27

a Roth IRA that allows you to put small

29:30

amounts of financial literacy at an early age

29:32

. So , starting very young 18 , 19 , 20

29:35

, putting 50 bucks a week

29:37

in putting 200 bucks a week . One thing

29:39

I talk about in my book for teachers look

29:41

, you usually don't work 12

29:44

months out of the year . Usually at the end of the

29:46

day you might have an hour and I talk about anyone

29:48

who has an extra hour a day , especially

29:50

today with the internet . You should have some kind of side

29:52

hustle .

29:53

You know that's something that makes 150 , 200

29:55

bucks a week .

29:56

When you put that away in the right account , in

29:58

the right investments and you do that early

30:00

enough , that compounds to a

30:02

very large number . So if that is a path

30:05

that you're gonna go , what I would say is

30:07

you know , not to

30:09

sell , but read my book . I have some strategies

30:11

in there . Find other books . The key is

30:14

find out early though . What's discouraging

30:16

for those people that you're mentioning , like teachers

30:18

, is they find out too late

30:20

, and so when you find that out in your 40s or your

30:22

50 , the number that you

30:24

have to do to get to a million is just , it's

30:27

not achievable . But when you find out in

30:29

your early 20s that , hey , it's 50 , 75

30:31

, 100 bucks a week , and you do that

30:33

consistently and you don't think about

30:35

it , before you know it you're on autopilot

30:37

to becoming a millionaire . So for them

30:39

, I would say that financial literacy

30:42

, being a little bit more prudent , being a little bit more

30:44

cautious with your budget again , not

30:46

putting life on hold , but saving

30:48

and investing your way towards that million is probably

30:51

the path that they're gonna have to take .

30:53

Yeah , rob , I'd love to hear you talk about

30:55

mindsets . I'm curious

30:57

, as you've grown from you know your childhood

31:00

to where you are now , where there are different

31:02

levels of wealth that you hit , or

31:04

maybe growth in your business , where you

31:06

know your mindset was here of what got

31:08

you to that point , but then you kind of hit a wall and

31:10

you realized , man , to go to the next level I really need

31:12

a totally different mindset to break through

31:14

. Has that been the case over your career , maybe

31:17

? What are some of those mindset shifts that you've had to take

31:19

to go to the next level ?

31:20

Yeah , well , I mean , I think , you know , one

31:23

of the things that keeps people broke

31:26

is their mindset . They have a broke mentality

31:28

and they've kind of carved this things out

31:30

. I saw this in my family where , okay

31:33

, this is for these people and this is for

31:35

us , right , and so they've kind of settled for some

31:37

second class version of what they could

31:39

be in their life . And so I think the first thing that

31:42

you have to do is remove any

31:44

barriers , and there's a story

31:46

after story of people that have made way

31:48

more money than they've been way more successful

31:50

or similar to me , that

31:52

came from nothing and did it , and so

31:55

the fact that you're using any of these excuses

31:57

of why you can't do it is just that it's

31:59

an excuse , so you have to remove that

32:01

. So one thing I would say is my

32:04

mindset and my

32:06

willingness to do whatever it takes

32:08

to achieve the wealth , to think that

32:11

anything out there is achievable

32:13

, attainable , as long as I go for it . I've always had

32:15

that , and so when you talk about zero to

32:17

18 , I think , outside of financial

32:20

literacy , mindset , not

32:22

putting limiting beliefs on your children is

32:24

one of the most important things , as bad as my

32:26

childhood was , as bad as the

32:28

advice was that I got from my

32:30

family , no one ever told me I couldn't

32:32

do anything . So , in my mind

32:35

was okay , I can go out there and do

32:37

whatever I'm willing to do . Now I'll

32:39

tell you . It really comes down

32:41

to two things , though Number

32:43

one , willingness and number two

32:45

, ability . So you could have

32:48

the willingness , meaning the mindset of , yes

32:50

, I wanna go out there and do that , but

32:52

then the idea becomes is okay

32:54

, what is my clear , actionable path

32:56

? Cause you can't just be super optimistic , willing

32:58

to do whatever it takes , but you don't know where

33:01

to go , how to get there and , more importantly

33:03

, you don't have the skill set to get there . So

33:06

I even talk to people again with your

33:08

kids , get them to figure out

33:10

what type of lifestyle they want and when

33:12

you help them quantify that when they're going

33:14

into college , is education

33:16

gonna get you there ? And this everyone

33:18

talks about following your path . But what I

33:20

show people and I work with wealthy families

33:23

and educating their kids , showing

33:25

them the career choices , the majors that they go

33:27

into , maybe that won't get you there , but then

33:29

we show you like , hey , if you need to make $250,000

33:33

a year and this is a true story maybe

33:35

medical school might make sense . And so

33:37

, going through those things , and then they understand and

33:39

identify that how to get there . So what

33:42

I was saying in my own career is I always wanted

33:44

to do that . I had a certain amount of

33:46

wealth and , like I said , by 2930

33:48

, I was very fortunate . I got referrals

33:50

from existing clients . I was making about a

33:52

million dollars a year , but

33:54

I wasn't like headed towards where I thought

33:57

when I looked around me the people at Goldman Sachs

33:59

or Ray Dalio and I was like , wow , these are

34:01

billionaires and what are they doing ? Like I

34:03

know I'm doing okay , but there's no way

34:06

that I'm a path to do there . And I realized

34:08

, okay , the business I built , yes

34:10

, it was good , but it was more of buying myself

34:12

a high-paying job . And so I started

34:15

understanding and identifying what

34:17

is a business that's sellable look

34:19

like versus what I'm doing . So

34:21

part of that was going back to school

34:23

. I went and got my MBA in my late 30s

34:25

with the idea of , okay , I need

34:27

to understand what really is scalability

34:29

, what are private equity companies ? What are

34:31

people looking at ? I went there . This

34:34

was a while ago . I'm 49 now . A

34:36

lot of that information is available online now

34:38

. But I went and got that knowledge . I educated

34:41

myself , I came out of school

34:43

, I put that into my business and three years

34:45

later I was able to sell it . And

34:47

so again , mindset but also

34:49

skill set . You can't get to where

34:51

you wanna go without both . So make

34:54

sure you have a mindset , make sure you understand

34:56

what you need , and then go out and identify

34:58

and practice that skill set to help get yourself

35:00

there .

35:01

Yeah , I'd love to talk to you a little bit about the platform

35:03

you've built and business . So

35:05

as we transition from the book and again it's called Close

35:07

the Gap , we'll include a link to it in the show notes . Everyone

35:09

should go buy a copy . Buy a copy for people you know , any

35:12

other money hacks or things that you

35:14

wanna leave leaders with .

35:15

Before we dive into another subject , yeah

35:19

, no , I'm not a big believer in hacks , I'm a big

35:21

believer in things . Find out what

35:23

you wanna do , and I always tell people

35:25

work backwards , figure out where you're trying to do

35:27

. So if you wanna look like Bill Gates

35:29

or if you wanna whatever it is , find that

35:31

. But then have super clarity

35:34

Okay , what exactly do I need to do to get

35:36

there , see where you're at today and then put

35:38

a roadmap to put yourself on the path to do

35:40

that . I think too many people spend their time

35:42

going from this to that , and then I

35:44

guess I would say the other hack is the understanding

35:46

that expertise , the experience , takes

35:49

time . My first 10 years in the business

35:51

I didn't really make any money . People

35:53

came in with me and I'll just say just a brief

35:55

story in the same class

35:57

that I went to at Waterhouse when they hired

36:00

stockbroker trainees at that time and

36:02

they left the industry after two to three years . I

36:04

have a friend that went to four , five , six different

36:06

careers and when I sold my business

36:08

, a lot of it was in the news . He

36:10

said , wow , man , I should have just stuck with what

36:12

I was doing . I was always , and for

36:15

a few years he made more money than me . He was laughing

36:17

at me but by sticking with the discipline

36:19

, getting better , continuing to invest in it

36:21

, ultimately that came the right choice . So

36:23

I think , look , a lot of people are out there upset

36:26

at the wealthy . You're like , hey , these guys are

36:28

rich , let's tax them , whatever it is . And they're 23

36:30

, 24 years old . Look at 23 , 24

36:32

, you don't deserve anything , right ? You're

36:34

the nerd people that's gonna

36:36

come later . you gotta work for it I always

36:39

tell people I don't really know anything and Todd was in the

36:41

business about 10 years , so keep in mind

36:43

it takes time .

36:45

Yeah , that's so good . You mentioned

36:47

you went back to school in your late 30s . I love this . You

36:49

know , obviously to do what you did also

36:51

required leadership . This is a leadership podcast , so I am

36:53

curious you know , what have you had to learn and how

36:55

have you had to grow as a leader to be able

36:57

to do what you did and selling the business

37:00

and even what you're doing today ?

37:01

Yeah , well , I mean first of all . I mean , if you're

37:03

going to lead , build a business , you

37:06

have to have the right roadmap and , like I said

37:08

, starting with , what does this business look like

37:11

in five or 10 years ? And really understand

37:13

that . So the idea of you don't have

37:15

to understand basic economics and business structure Maybe

37:18

you don't personally have to know that but you have to

37:20

build a team that understands what you're trying to do

37:23

that and I would say one of the other important

37:25

things for me personally was understanding

37:28

that the biggest challenge , obstacle

37:30

, hurdle , opportunity for

37:33

people building businesses is people you

37:36

. Your success or failure is

37:38

going to depend on your ability to recruit

37:40

, grow , retain

37:42

top talent . And how do you do that

37:44

? You really have to tell , be able to tell a powerful

37:46

story . So I'll tell you , there's

37:49

so many times in my MBA where I heard

37:51

, like the different classes , economics

37:54

, marketing , the power of telling a story

37:56

and being able to lead people

37:58

and get them motivated and excited . Nobody

38:00

likes a business that's growing to 3%

38:02

a year . Happiness is growth . So

38:04

they've got to see the business growing , they've

38:06

got to see their trajectory , their roadmap for growth

38:08

going and you've got to come in there every

38:10

single day as the optimist , the cheerleader

38:13

, no matter what the situation is .

38:15

I was running , running that firm that I sold 0809

38:18

where I didn't know if the bank was going to have

38:20

enough money to get out of the ATM during that period

38:22

of time , but I never let my clients see that I

38:24

never let my employees see that you find a

38:26

way to navigate that and show leadership

38:28

.

38:28

and where that's most important is during the dark

38:31

times . We're in a challenging environment . Now We've

38:33

been in 0809 , will be in 567

38:35

more in the future , but again having

38:37

that clear roadmap , leading people

38:40

, being able to tell a story and you are responsible

38:42

for people's success . Success and that's the one thing

38:44

I always looked at with employees

38:47

. First of all , I am responsible

38:49

, but also I'm at a point in my career where

38:51

my employees wins quite honestly

38:53

, excite and motivate me more

38:55

than they do myself when I see them by their first

38:58

house or whatever it is . That's what inspires

39:00

me today .

39:02

I love that . Just speaking of

39:04

growing as a leader , you've developed quite

39:06

a platform . You know , I love that you mentioned earlier

39:08

that you weren't planning on writing the book . A company

39:10

actually saw you and your platform reached out to

39:12

you . I guess

39:14

I'll leave this open ended one . Do you believe every

39:17

business leader , or anyone listening this , needs

39:19

to develop their platform , and what have you learned about

39:21

voting yours over time , because clearly you've

39:23

done a phenomenal job ?

39:25

Yeah , so look , I mean we . The power

39:27

of personal branding is super important , Right

39:30

, and so I learned that at a very early

39:32

of age . So I've been in traditional media CMBC

39:34

, fox , bloomberg for about 14 or 15

39:37

years now , and so you

39:39

know , investing in that , doing that over

39:41

a period of time , getting people to know who you

39:43

are super important . The most important

39:46

thing , though , is to be able to develop

39:48

trust through honesty and integrity . The way that

39:50

you're working with people because trust is

39:52

your most important currency and the way

39:54

you're able to establish trust is , first

39:56

of all , to establish credibility for yourself , because

39:59

if you haven't done that , you're never going to get the

40:01

opportunity to be able to do that . And then it comes

40:03

down to doing what you say you're going

40:05

to do , and doing that repetitiously over

40:07

a period of time . So , I would

40:09

say is another motto I have is

40:11

you know , under promise over

40:13

deliver . I think we see too much of

40:15

the opposite these days . So I would

40:18

say is also figure out what

40:20

it is you want to be excellent in . Don't

40:22

do 22 different things . Focus on that

40:24

100% . It has to be a problem

40:26

large enough to solve and the goal

40:28

all in on being the recognized expert on

40:30

that , like it or not , Dave Ramsey

40:33

. Everybody knows who he is . Dave Ramsey

40:35

is a billionaire Tony Robbins . Everybody

40:37

knows who he is . And so look , when you

40:39

go one path and you take one side of

40:41

something that you believe in , they're going to people

40:43

, people that love you and hate you you got to be

40:45

able to close your ears , eyes and ears to that

40:48

, and so one thing you know I'll talk

40:50

about today also is prior

40:52

to selling my business three years ago , I

40:54

was not on Instagram . I had a Twitter

40:57

account , but I wasn't really doing any social

40:59

media because , going back to who

41:01

my customer was , they would watch

41:03

financial news , so they saw me there . A

41:05

lot of the referrals came from sports agents

41:07

, cpas , in the industry

41:10

. Social media at the time was very taboo . Big

41:12

firms didn't want you on their compliance

41:14

was kind of weird about that , so I didn't do

41:17

that . So I built that through networking

41:19

the old way . I built that through traditional media

41:21

being on television once twice , three times

41:23

, four times a month , and that's pretty

41:25

challenging to do that . What I'll say today

41:27

, though , is three years ago , when

41:29

I decided I want to go and reach the average

41:32

person . The average person

41:34

, quite honestly , is on social media . They're not watching

41:36

network . They're not watching Fox , business or

41:38

CNBC . Especially older people are Bloomberg these

41:41

days . That's an older , dying audience

41:43

. I think traditional media realizes

41:45

that , but the great thing today is you

41:47

can do what I did in traditional media on

41:49

social media just by grabbing your iPhone

41:52

and getting out there . However

41:54

, you can't get lost in the sea of the same , and that comes down to expertise

41:57

, knowledge and , most importantly

41:59

, I've done pretty well in social media

42:01

good engagement . I've converted a lot of business from

42:03

social media and that's done

42:05

on the work that I've been over the last 20 years , though

42:07

it's not what I've done in just three years . So , again

42:10

, to get on there and be a business expert and you've

42:12

only been in business six months or any

42:14

of those things the one thing about social

42:16

media that I'll but also say that that

42:18

sells and works better than anything

42:21

else is authenticity , and authenticity

42:23

comes from experience and education . Today

42:25

more than ever . I've got four college degrees

42:27

. People don't care really about that stuff anymore

42:30

. They care about execution . What

42:32

have you done and how was

42:34

your integrity ? Honesty , what do people have

42:36

to say ? Yell , all those things . What are people

42:38

saying about you , of what you did and how

42:40

you treated your second people on the

42:42

path to getting there ?

42:44

You made a small statement I've never heard before but

42:46

I love . You said don't get stuck in the sea of the same

42:49

sea of same .

42:50

Is that a ?

42:50

thing for you . Can you say more about that ? I

42:52

like that .

42:53

Yeah , I think . Look , I'll give you an example

42:55

, just in my own profession , in the last last business

42:58

that I built , everyone's a financial

43:00

advisor like there's millions of financial advisors

43:02

out there . Everybody wants to talk to you about

43:04

this 100 years stock chart investing . They

43:06

want to talk about I raise

43:08

and it's like , okay , well , there's guys

43:10

that are 50 years old and have Ivy League degrees

43:13

that are doing this and whatever the case may be

43:15

is like , how am I I was thinking myself

43:17

in my 20 is going to be able to compete with

43:19

that . And so , you know , I realized

43:21

first of all I needed to grab a platform , and so I did everything

43:23

I can to work myself in the traditional media

43:25

. So that's one differentiator . But

43:28

that's not enough , just having good

43:30

. So you know , everyone , everyone today is telling you have

43:32

these great reels on Instagram and all that

43:34

stuff . And I'll tell you a little secret about that

43:36

the more polished some of your stuff is

43:38

, the left off , authentic , it is just get

43:40

an iPhone . When I do things like that mom

43:42

driving my car , better response

43:45

, better engagement that I have with some of the other stuff

43:47

. So put that , you know , out

43:49

the window . But really , what changed

43:51

for me is . I started thinking again is what

43:53

is the problem I'm trying to solve ? And

43:55

so thinking , really understanding who is

43:58

my customer , having a myopic focus

44:00

on what that person is and what they're trying to do

44:02

, and then just figuring out what could

44:04

I do different than the rest of people ? How can

44:06

I get myself out of the sea the same

44:08

? And so everyone was focused on touting

44:10

their returns and how good their investment philosophy

44:13

. My thing was how

44:15

do I help you build what's probably your biggest asset

44:18

? What keeps you up at night ? What excites

44:20

you as your business ? So the vast majority

44:22

of my time was focusing on understanding

44:24

their small business and

44:26

so thinking about some of your liabilities . How do we help you hire people

44:28

? How do we grow and scale your business ? How do we

44:30

look for motion , more efficient technology

44:33

? How do we help you exit that business ? And , like

44:35

I said , my wealthiest client didn't

44:37

have millions of dollars to invest , but

44:39

he had a business with a lot of potential and

44:42

helping him develop , grow and build that

44:44

and then exit . Ultimately , he became my

44:47

biggest client , and that's a different conversation

44:49

that I was having wherever I was going

44:51

in networking with people and entrepreneurs

44:53

in particular , versus the rest of the

44:55

people . So I looked sounded a lot different

44:57

than my competitors did .

44:59

Yeah , you mentioned that you do every . You

45:01

did everything possible to get on TV and

45:04

obviously now you're on weekly , you're all over the place

45:06

. I'm sure a lot of people would say I would love to do what

45:08

Rob's doing Now your speakers

45:10

. Well , you're an author , you know

45:12

how much do you go out and seek

45:15

that versus letting it come

45:17

to you ?

45:18

Yeah , I let . It's probably not

45:20

the right answer , but I kind of let all of it come

45:22

to me now Just because you

45:24

know I'm in a position where I've been doing it for a long time . So

45:27

I got just by knocking on doors 13

45:30

years ago I got my 14 years ago

45:32

my first spot on Fox business and

45:34

I went in there , did a great job and I started networking

45:36

with a lot of the producers . The

45:39

good thing about financial TV is they need new

45:41

content every day and

45:43

so I was able to kind of

45:45

to build through there . But you

45:47

know , I think really what's

45:50

led to my success more than anything

45:52

is just execution . The more I focused

45:54

on executing for clients , delivering , helping

45:57

them exit their business . Then you

45:59

know again , it's authenticity

46:01

. So I could talk about helping other people build

46:03

, scale and exit their businesses

46:05

, but when I was able to , take my own business that I

46:07

was 100% owner of . I started

46:09

with credit card debt and then sell

46:12

that to a publicly traded company . And when you

46:14

sell to a publicly traded company , it's KPMG

46:16

, it's other auditors that are coming in like

46:18

these are big dollar amounts , these are big people

46:20

. So that was kind of that third party

46:22

validation that I got to where . Then it's

46:24

like , okay , this guy has helped other people , he's

46:27

done what he said it's going to do in my business

46:29

Super transparency . If someone

46:31

complained about me on anything right or

46:33

wrong , it has to be documented . So over

46:36

20 something years never had one complaint .

46:39

Yeah , again it came back to .

46:40

Quite honestly , why was that even the case ? When you look

46:42

at Wells Fargo , morgan Stanley , they get complaints

46:45

every day it came . It comes back

46:47

to under promising and over

46:49

delivering . If I thought that I can get back to somebody

46:51

in three days , I would tell them it was going to be four days

46:53

. If I thought the average rate of return was

46:55

going to be 7% , I was going to

46:57

tell them was going to be 5% . So he's kind of

46:59

giving myself an opportunity . I

47:02

guess sandbags some of the results and that

47:04

worked out pretty well for me .

47:06

Yeah , well , with the time we have left that , I'd love to

47:08

transition into the lighting round . Just a bunch of fun questions

47:10

I always ask in every interview . The first

47:12

one is what is the best advice you've ever received and who

47:15

gave it to you ?

47:16

Well , the best revised advice I ever

47:18

received . Well

47:21

, it's a framework and it was from Dan Kennedy

47:23

and he's kind of an old school marketing guy

47:25

and he's the one who kind of led to my a lot of my philosophy . He

47:28

has something called the A strategy , authority

47:31

, celebrity and exclusivity , and so those

47:33

of you guys are trying to build a plan . First , he said , you have to become

47:35

an authority . That becomes

47:37

things like college degrees , execution

47:39

, experience . Then , once you have

47:41

all that knowledge and you're good at what you do , it doesn't

47:43

matter unless somebody you know . People know who you are

47:45

. So then you need to become that celebrity

47:47

. So you can do that through television , you can

47:49

do that through social media today , and

47:51

then , once you do that , it leads to your last question it

47:54

becomes exclusivity . People want what

47:56

they can't have . They want people with $25

47:59

million minimums . And so then I really

48:01

started upping my exclusivity of who I

48:03

worked with , and that's where you go from chasing

48:05

money to have money come to you whatever industry

48:08

you're in . So authority , celebrity exclusivity

48:10

. I've shared it with Dan Kennedy . That's

48:12

what helped me get to where I'm at today .

48:14

That's so good , and just for wanting to take a deeper dive

48:16

into that . Is that in a book form or

48:19

is that like ? Is he ? I'm not familiar with Dan , is that I

48:21

know it's also ?

48:22

about Dan Kennedy . I think a lot of people have

48:24

rewrapped his stuff and made it made it their

48:26

own , but he's one of the yeah if you just look

48:28

Dan Kennedy , he's got that in there . But it's really

48:31

pretty simple strategy . It's the A

48:33

strategy . But if you Google it , I know he has

48:35

tons of books . He's got a lot of books out there .

48:38

If you could put a quote on a billboard for everyone to read , what

48:40

would it say ?

48:45

That's a great one . It would

48:48

say anything's possible .

48:50

What is one book that you've read , either in the last year

48:52

or all time , that significantly impacted your

48:55

life ?

48:58

Yeah , I'm going to give you actually where is it ? I'm

49:00

going to give you a book that I'm

49:03

reading because I'm trying to understand social media

49:05

. Not that he needs any more publicity

49:07

, but Alex Hermosi $100

49:09

million offers . It's a great book

49:11

. So I'm somebody who's trying to navigate

49:14

the world of digital marketing . I'm not that great

49:16

at it . So , alex , what I like kind of like myself

49:18

very actionable steps . You're trying to

49:20

grow a business online . He's got a few

49:22

different books , but Alex Hermosi's got some great

49:24

books out there .

49:26

When you get to spend time with someone that you look up to

49:28

and admire . Do you have a go to question that you always

49:30

ask ?

49:32

Yeah , what can I improve on ?

49:35

That's good , biggest leadership pet

49:37

peeve .

49:39

Biggest leadership pet peeve

49:41

is not taking your people with you . So

49:43

CEOs that make tons of money and they still

49:45

have their people making $40 , $45,000

49:47

a year .

49:49

I don't know if you have an actual bucket list or not , but what's

49:51

something you've done in your life that you feel like everyone should

49:53

experience before they die ?

49:56

That's a great question

50:02

. You're kind of stumping me

50:05

. I've had the privilege of doing a lot of great things

50:07

. I mean everything just comes back to me . It

50:10

is getting a period of time that

50:13

you can spend with your family , away

50:15

from everything , away from the phones

50:18

, away from distractions . It doesn't

50:20

really you know where I'm

50:22

at , how expensive the hotel is . It's

50:25

just getting away for 10

50:27

, 15 days , real period of time

50:29

and getting to know , understand

50:31

, reconnect the people that are most important with you

50:33

. It sounds simple , but a lot of people never

50:35

get the opportunity to do that .

50:37

So good If you could go back with yourself

50:40

and have coffee with yourself at any

50:42

age and you'd actually listen to yourself

50:44

. What age would that be and what would you

50:46

tell that version of Rob ?

50:48

Yeah , I mean I think you heard on another podcast I

50:50

talked about start your business sooner

50:52

. I would also say , hire

50:56

the right people sooner . So always

50:58

like , if you're starting a business which I try to encourage

51:01

everybody to do if you think you could hire

51:03

three cheap employees , hire one really

51:05

good employee . Pay that person something . Well

51:07

, again , there's

51:10

a lot of money out there , guys . I know you can't

51:12

believe it . Now I've got more money that'll go into

51:14

good businesses . That then then then's

51:16

out there the challenges . Finding the

51:18

people to execute on that it's the most

51:20

difficult thing . So treat people well .

51:23

At the end of your life , what do you want your legacy to be and

51:25

what do you want to be remembered for ?

51:28

Yeah , I just want to be a good Christian

51:30

, a good father and a good husband and a

51:32

good friend . That's that's . I don't

51:34

want anyone to say anything bad of me , so that's

51:36

why I kind of aspire for every day is

51:39

those things in balance , you know , god

51:41

first , then a husband , then

51:44

a father , then a friend . That's , that's my order

51:46

. For different reasons , but that's

51:48

, that's what I'm shooting for .

51:50

Anything else you want to talk about or leave leaders with today

51:52

.

51:54

No man . I would just say look , believe

51:56

in yourself . And for those of you

51:58

who are discouraged , those of you have started

52:01

the business and failed and thinking I

52:03

can't do this the vast majority

52:05

of people , myself included , their success

52:08

from business didn't come from the first failure , the

52:10

second failure , even the third failure . But

52:12

believe in yourself . As I said , mindset is

52:14

super important , but remember skill set and

52:17

understanding and identifying . Is there a gap

52:19

between where you're trying to go , where your current

52:21

skill set is , and then today , with YouTube

52:23

, everything helps out . There . There's so much information

52:26

to put yourself in it , to contain that skill set

52:28

, and I promise you , if you put that to work

52:30

, you're going to achieve a lot of the things you never even thought possible

52:33

.

52:34

Well , rob , thank you so much for the conversation . Thanks for having

52:36

value to me and everyone will listen to this again . Links

52:38

to everything that Rob discussed will be in the

52:40

show notes , and make sure you go out and get a copy of his book

52:42

as well , and hopefully we'll get to do this again sometime .

52:45

Appreciate it , man . Thanks , doug .

52:47

Well , leader , thank you so much for listening to my conversation

52:50

with Rob . I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did . You

52:52

can find ways to connect with him and links to everything

52:54

that we discussed in the show notes at l3leadershiporg

52:56

. And

52:58

, as always , I like to end every episode with a quote , and today

53:01

I will quote John Maxwell , who said this . He

53:03

said although you cannot go back and have a brand new start , my friend

53:06

, anyone can start now and have

53:08

a brand new end , and I think that's a great quote

53:10

for kicking off 2024 . I hope this will be your

53:12

best year yet . I know that my wife Laura

53:14

, and I love you . We believe in you and I say it every episode

53:16

but don't quit , keep leading . The world

53:19

desperately needs your leadership .