Why Hard Work Alone Won't Make You Rich and What Actually Builds Wealth

Today I think there's a culture of there's a hustle culture that happens about hard work will equal wealth and that is actually not true at all. And we have seen over time if hard work would equal wealth then the person who runs my laundromat would make just as much as Jeff Bezos. And we know you know there's an incredible video out there that it basically shows for the 60 seconds that Jeff Bezos is in the video how much money Jeff Bezos is making every single second as he walks around the factory. and it shows that he makes let's say I don't know x millions of dollars per second and so by the time my laundromat owner has picked up his coffee put it in his mouth Jeff Bezos has already lapped

him multiple times for the year now why Jeff doesn't work as hard as the guy who's laying actual bricks or actually cleaning the roof and so I think we have to ask ourselves if this idea of just work harder what's your work ethic that's not true anymore especially in the age of AI what allows an employee to be great and make more money as an employee. If you want to make more money as an employee, number one, you have to understand how much money you make the company today. If you don't understand what your value dollar amount is you bring into your business, you should probably go talk to your boss and say, "Hey, I'd like to understand how I make you money. If you had to quantify how I

make you money, could you help me understand that?" One, your boss is going to be like, "This is amazing. Nobody's ever asked me this before." And then two, once you understand that, you need to figure out how could I make more money for the company. Once you can understand how you can make more money, you can say, well, what do you think the profits of this business are? If we bring in a $100 sale, do we keep 20 bucks of it? And if I figure that out, then I can go, okay, I made you a hundred bucks, we kept 20 of it. If I do that, could I keep five of that 20 I brought you? And then you actually know how to negotiate for your salary. And a lot of times this isn't always possible

if you're in a big corporate job, but more often than not, there is money available for those who understand how to ask for it because they've earned it. I love that step by-step process is so brilliant because you're so right. If someone ever came up to me and said, "How do I make money and how do I make you more money?" Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's like the best thing ever because it's so often not thought about and you don't realize and like you said, there may be certain companies where you can't have that conversation, but today I feel like there's just so

many more spaces to actually have that connection that you can. Yeah. You know, and think about it from your boss's perspective. Like they hired you for a reason because they thought that you would make their life easier and that you would make the business better. And I think a lot of times you leave your job before you get all of the money out of your job you could have. And I did this so often in the beginning. I think you'd make way more money if you thought that you could have a conversation with your boss and say, "Man, this isn't exactly working how I thought it would be. I think I could be

of use over here as well. I'd love some additional responsibility here. Maybe less here. You know, could I make you more money over here if I prove myself here? Could we do less here?" You leave the devil that you know for the devil that you don't often. And when that happens, I think you actually lose more money than you anticipate. It used to be back in the day, you made about 20 to 25% more money every time you job hopped to the next job. These days, I actually think that there is a real value you can have to increase your salary or overall pay by more like 25 to 50% if you stay and you diagnose as opposed to you skip and then you guess. Yes.

And so I would highly recommend that you not do what I did in the beginning of my career, which was skip and never give the place a chance to pay me more. Yeah. Cuz they might want to. Absolutely. And what you miss when you skip is you actually miss the skills of negotiating, up managing, learning new skills and abilities at that place. You're so right. And it's so I mean you're you're so vulnerable for even saying that because you know you've you've done so phenomenally well but it's such a good lesson for people to understand because in the carrot of a couple of extra whatever it may be you're moving across but you're actually losing the

skills. I've been building this framework of how to talk to my team about what helps you grow at the company. Yeah. And I used a very simple analogy and metaphor of beginning at the brick layer. So the brick layer is usually at the level with which you come in. And the brick layer knows I have to lay this brick and I've got to lay it next to this one. And I know the pattern and I can lay a brick and maybe I can build a wall. Maybe the next level up is a builder. You actually know how to build a wall. You know how to paint the wall. You know how to put up scaffolding, you know how to connect walls, you can do a bit more and you're a builder. Above from that is something I call the

architect. Now, the architect is not just good at building a wall. They could actually go and build me and design me a new part of the business, an extension of something, a new idea. And that's how I want people to grow. And then the highest stage that I've come to is the city planner. This person's not just building me one home. They're planning the whole city of the ecosystem of how everything falls into place. And so I'm communicating this to my team now because I'm like, I want all of you to graduate from brick layers to builders to architects to city planners. And that is what's attached to more money. It's not more effort. It's not more work.

It's not being more busy. It's not doing more stuff. These all come with a different type of vision. They come with a different strategic element. They come with more care. They come with a wider scope. It isn't just about, oh, but I worked more hours this year or I put in more time. Didn't you see how much effort I put in? And I think those things don't necessarily result in more success for a company. What's your thoughts on that? I think it's perfect. one, you know, we all want to feel like we can see a future at an organization and I think we all want to make money, but we also really want to know that we're getting better and we want to know that we're

going to get rewarded for all the hard work we're going to put in over the long term. And so, if you can show people a vision for the future, I think that's incredible. I totally agree. We also talk about it as um and this isn't quite the same because a brick layer is in many ways just as important as the city planner. And so one of the way we talk about it is called the NPC ladder. And we sort of talk about, you know, how there are video games, right? And in the video games, you have the NPCs, which are sort of these people that sort of stay in the same spot and repeat the same things, like, you know, find the dragon, find the dragon. And um some people choose to kind of stay in the same spot and to stay as an NPC for

much of their life and not to move to each level of the game where you become not the main character next. the supporting cast member, you know, and then you might be one of the main characters and then you might be the protagonist, etc. And so at the very top of my best performers where I say the people who will be paid the most maybe eventually get equity, well, they're they're the main characters and that means that they actually change the script. They move forward the company overall. And so I love that. And I think, you know, for most of us, there's a saying that you don't leave bad jobs, you leave bad leaders. And so I like to try to remember that often in my companies that when somebody leaves, that's a reflection on me and my team

that they didn't see a way for them to become a city planner and that they didn't see a way for them to come to the next level. You know, the more I think about AI as a total normie. I'm not a big tech person. I'm almost like boomer incapable in many ways with tech. But the more I think about it, the more I think it will enable all of us to have massive knowledge. And because we'll all have massive knowledge, we will actually have to perform better because everybody will be able to do a midlevel execution. Very few people will be able to stand out amongst the noise. And we're already seeing this 47% increase in creators just this year online. So why? Because it's so much easier now to go bang bam

boom, put it on the internet. So that's going to be everywhere. Which means that going forward, just doing a lot more, just working a lot harder won't be what changes it. what will taking a moment to look at what do I know different than anybody else how do I increase my knowledge stack and how do I get really creative in a world of lack of creativity but mass production and so I love invol Ravocant's line which was in this world today you don't want to work like a cow you don't want to work continuously sort of grazing non-stop like this you want to be the lion you want to have periods of sprint and rest and that will be what the top performers do if someone's living paycheck to paycheck. What's the very first step

they can take to break that cycle? Yeah. One of the most unfortunate things about money is we use money every single day. It costs money to eat. It costs money to feed other people. We go to work to earn money. Yet, most of us are never taught a thing about money. And there's three rules of money that I learned that you have to understand. Number one is that money flows to the investor. When I go to Chipotle and I buy a bowl of extra guac, who am I benefiting? Am I really supporting the employees? Yes, in a way, because I will be paying their salary, but the real profits are going to the owners of Chipotle.

It's going to the investors of Chipotle. Money rule number two is inflation benefits the investor. What does that mean? Over the last 5 years, we've seen the prices of things rise. This is because of inflation. Inflation didn't just start after the pandemic. It's been happening for a long time. And so you might have heard your grandparents or parents say, "When I was young, I used to go to the movie theater for a nickel, a dollar, whatever it might be. Now it's $25 to go to a movie." This is inflation. And then finally is our system is designed to benefit the investor. As a licensed attorney who's not your attorney, I can tell you that when you earn your money as an investor, you are going to pay a lower tax rate

than when you earn your money as an employee. Now, it's not bad to work a job. That's not what I'm saying. In fact, that's probably the best thing for most people. What I'm saying is you have to understand that when you go to work, you now have to take some of that money and become an investor. Now, when you do that, now you can start to get into the practical steps of what you do with your money. Yeah. Get out of the financial danger zone. Half of America today does not have $1,000 put aside to protect them against emergency. So, if your car breaks down, your kid gets sick, your window breaks, the average person has to go into debt to pay for that

expense. You have zero breathing room. If you want to go on vacation, you want to do anything, you have to go into debt to do that. So, we need to stop that. And the way you can do that is by spending less or working to earn more. And you have to make some extreme sacrifice if you don't have that. Do you know what people are wasting the most amount of money on right now in the United States? Is there any research on that? Oh, man. Well, if you are somebody who does not have $2,000 saved up, there's a lot of things you got to cut out. And this is going to sound mean, but I don't say what I say to make friends. I say what I say to help people be better with money.

You should not be eating at a restaurant. You should not be going on vacations. You should not be driving around in a fancy car. You shouldn't be living in a big fancy house. Right now, you got to make some extreme sacrifices if you don't have $2,000. So much so that what I tell people is you should not have a Netflix subscription. Not because it's going to save you $15 a month, but because the average American is watching somewhere between two to three hours of Netflix a day. If you don't have $2,000, how can you feel comfortable sitting there at nighttime watching whatever the heck is on Netflix? You have to have a little bit of urgency that, oh my god, I got to take care of my family. Let me

give you an example, Jay. If I gave you $6,500 today and you invested that money today, you never touched that money again, you never invested another penny again, and you could get a, let's say, 20% return a year on that money, in 40, 45 years, you're going to retire very wealthy. You're not going to have a million, $5 million, $10 million, $50 million. you're going to have closer to $60 million off of that one investment of the $6,400 $6,500 that I give you today. Now, you're going to say, "All right, sign me up. Just put give me that money and where do I invest it?" Well, here's the reality. Do you know who's getting those returns? Amex, Visa, Mastercard, Discover. And you know who's paying it? You. M

if you have credit card debt. And so instead of you having that wealth, you are the one that's paying for their private jets. You are the one that's paying for their big buildings. You are the one that's paying for their luxuries. Which is why I get so serious about this that if you want to become wealthy, you have to get out of this financial danger zone. Once you get there, now we can get to the next step. Step number four. This is where things not get fun because you finally have a little bit of a foundation. Now you can create a system for your money. The difference between wealthy people and everybody else is wealthy people know what they're going to do with their money before they earn it.

Everybody else gets the money and then they wonder, well, what should I do? How should I spend this money? And this is where it is very helpful to have a system for your money. One that I teach is a 751510 plan which says for every dollar that you earn from here on out.75 is the maximum that you can spend. 15 is the minimum that you invest. 10 cents is the minimum that you save. This way whether you're earning $30,000 a year, $300,000 a year, or $3 million a year, you're always going to have a rule of how much you can save, invest, and spend. and break that down for us again. 75 15 10. So the way I'd like you to do this is I want you to open three bank accounts and you're going to make money.

Money gets deposited into one bank account. Create an automatic withdrawal and deposit. That money gets pulled out of one bank account and 15% goes into your bank account holding your investment money. 10% goes into your bank account holding your savings money. The reason why you want to have three different bank accounts is because if you have $100 in one bank account and you think, "This is my investing money and my saving money. You go into the store and you see this nice sweater on sale. It's $90. I have $100 in my bank account. Well, I should be able to afford it, right?" Well, you forget that some of that money is supposed to be saved and invested. And then you pay

taxes on that sweater. And now you spent $989 on that sweater. And oops, I just spent my savings and my investment money. which is why you need the three different bank accounts. Your savings are not going to make you wealthy. This is a big lie that we've been sold. Your savings are there to protect you. Your investments are there to make you wealthy and that spending money is what you pay for your house, your groceries, your vacations, and everything else. Now, we move on to the next step is how do you spend your money smartly? And this is where things start to get a little bit painful, but this is where you can really accelerate your wealth.

You know how to spend your money now. You have a good system. Now, when it comes to actually accelerating your wealth, you got to spend your money smartly. And what I mean by that is no more financing things that don't put money in your pocket. And then follow the rule of five when it comes to luxuries. If you can't buy five of them, you can't afford one of them. Especially for luxuries. That's a good rule. So, you want to buy a nice $1,000 watch, you better have $5,000. So, of disposable income, of extra money. Yeah. Now we can get into the next step which is how do you earn more money? This is step number six because now we know how to create a system with your money. You know that I'm going to do 75 15 10 I know how to spend my money. Now

let me earn more money. And this is the part that many people get flipped because they assume that I just got to make some more money. Well, if you make more money without knowing what to do with that money, you make more money then you make other people rich with it because you just go and spend it. This is where now it is important for you to figure out how can you earn more money. Maybe you ask for a raise at your job. Maybe you get a second job. Maybe you create your own business. Maybe you learn how to utilize artificial intelligence. You find ways to earn more money. But you keep following that system, the 75, 15, 10. And that's the

key is as you earn more money, you keep investing more money because that's what's going to make you wealthy. And then finally at the top, step number seven is you have to protect your assets. And there's two parts to this. Number one is you got to understand the legal side. That means understanding taxes because taxes can be one of the biggest expenses that you have to pay. You have to understand how do you pass this wealth down? How do you put shields around you? Because when people realize you have money, they're going to want some of it for themselves. And this also means how do you give back? How do you help others? How are you going to leave a legacy for yourself and your family? That's now wealth

planning. And so we talked about now kind of the whole progression of these seven steps, but it starts with that mental side of understanding the mindset. Then you got to understand the framework of the rules of money. Then we start with the basics of saving the 2,000, paying off the credit card debt. Then you build a system for your money. From there, once you have the system, you have to know how to spend your money the right way. Then you have to learn how to earn more money the right way. Then you learn how to manage your wealth, grow your wealth, and pass on your wealth. like where do people start to give them a 60-second masterass on investing? Where do people start? So, we believe that to start investing,

we need to pick individual stocks. We need to find the next Tesla, the next Nvidia, the next Amazon. But the truth is that could work, but it's very, very hard to do and it requires a lot of time and a lot of energy to do it even semi-safely and you could still get it wrong. Even experts get it wrong. So, the way that I recommend for people to start when it comes to investing is through index funds. Index funds is just instead of buying individual companies, you're buying tens if not thousands of companies all at once. So for instance, an S&P 500, it's 500 of the largest companies. You're buying a small slice of 500 of the largest companies, Coca-Cola, Amazon, Tesla, Johnson and Johnson, all in one go. And is the

safest and most reliable way to build long-term wealth. Even Buffett, he Warren Buffett, he's he's instructed for 90% of his wife's inheritance to go towards lowcost diversified funds. For the majority of people, that is the way to go. Once you have that foundation set up, once you've got that set up, then sure, you could have your fund money and play around with some stocks that you might think are high growth, but you can't do that without having a solid foundation in place. It's just not worth that level of risk that comes with individual stock picking. And is that money that you're planning on leaving there for like a decade, two decades?

Like this is money you're not touching. And how much do you need to get started? Yeah. So I recommend not investing anything that you're going to need in the next 5 years because historically the stock market has averaged 8 to 10% over the long run. That's the average annual return of the stock market. But that is over the long run. If you look at any given year the stock market could go up 30%, it could be down 40%. So, if you need that money in the next 5 years, say you're saving for a home, you're saving for a car payment, you're saving for your kids' education, if you need that in the next 5 years, you don't want to put it in the stock market because the last thing you want is to save money

and then need it in the next couple of years. And actually, at that time, the stock market is at a dip and you have to pull out at a loss. You want to avoid that. So, any money that you want to invest, you want to make sure you don't need that money in the next 5 years, and you want to keep it there for 10 years, 20 years. The longer you keep it, therefore, the closer you get to the average stock market returns. Yeah, great advice. You could start with a dollar. You can start with the price of a loaf of bread. The hurdles that we had to invest back in the day just don't exist anymore. You could do it within a second on your phone with as little as a dollar.

You just brought this up. Should people even plan on buying a home? You do not want to look at a home as an investment opportunity. There was a time when I thought buying a home was a really, really good decision. And when I bought my home, I thought that was a great financial decision and it gave me a lot of comfort and peace of mind knowing that no matter what happened, I will always have this roof over my head. That psychological comfort, it's hard to put a number on. Now I rent and that gives me a huge amount of psychological comfort because knowing that I could pick up and leave if an opportunity comes up, that I'm not tied to a certain place, that gives me a lot of freedom.

So there's two ways to look at the buyer rent situation. First is actually when it comes to your home, it is a psychological part of it that plays a big role. And then the second part then comes the numbers. You want to figure out okay does it make sense to be for me to be putting this money towards buying a home? Also taking into account the cost that most people forget which is stamp duty, buying all the furnishing, legal fees, surveyor fees, all of that comes into the maintenance. Yeah. Or does it make sense for me to rent and invest that difference? So those are the ways you want to look about the buy and the rent situation. It's not a what we used to think which was just buying is the way to go and if you're paying

someone if you're paying rent you're just paying someone else's mortgage. There's so much more that comes into the emotions and the psychology of making something like a house purchase which is one of the biggest purchases you're going to make in your entire life. A few decades ago it felt like that's what you had to do. Why has it suddenly become a debate over the last 5 to 10 years? Maybe a decade ago, even for our pre for our parents' generation, it was a lot easier to get onto the property ladder. And if you compare the way house prices have gone up since then, the way insane everything has gone up since then. And compare that to wages, it's not the same anymore. And for the majority of people,

it's not as easy to do as it was for previous generations. And actually with the way the stock market is going, it might make a lot more sense saving that money, but you have to be disciplined enough to save the money that you would have otherwise put in towards a mortgage or the difference between a rent and a mortgage and saving that money and then putting towards the stock market. So it's a very different economy that we're in. And whilst having or buying a home, if you if that's your goal, that's a great goal to have, but I don't think it's the be all and end all if you don't get onto the property ladder. other ways to make a lot of wealth that doesn't require you to buy a home.

If someone wants to completely transform their finances in the next 6 months, what's the plan? There's a specific order of steps that I'd recommend people take and especially the first bit. I think a lot of that fear comes from the first thing which is not having an emergency cushion in place. So, saving your expenses, the first one that I recommend or the first step that I recommend anyone saving is $2,000. And Vanguard research shows that just by saving that $2,000, that increases your financial well-being by up to 21%. Wow. From saving $2,000. And then if you up that amount to 3 to 6 months, that's a further 13% on financial wellbeing. We don't realize the extent of having that cushion has to not operate from a place

of scarcity. Just 2,000 to start. Yeah. After that, you want to make sure that your high interest debt has been paid off. And by high interest, I mean anything above 8%. This is credit card debt. This is consumer debt. And I say 8% because historically the average stock market return has been 8 to 10%. So if you have debt that is more than 8%, you're actually worse off financially by keeping that debt than by paying it off. So that's the first thing that you want to do. And then for interest or for debt that is less than 8%. Again, this is where the mathematically smart choice is to invest instead of paying off the debt below 8%. But again, we're not robots.

We're not AI. We're humans with emotions. And we look at finances in terms of optimizing revenue, expected value, expected rate of return. But peace of mind has value, too. Yeah. And if you've got debt that keeps you up at night and that stresses you out and that adds to the way you're feeling, then who's to say that you should be investing first? Absolutely. Yeah. You want to be doing the things and making sure that your finances set up in a way that helps you sleep at night. And then once you're comfortable on that debt position, then you want to start investing and going on towards your

long-term wealth journey. But that's what I recommend. What are the three things we should stop wasting money on that most of us don't even realize? The first thing people need to stop wasting money on is anything that they think increases their value by showcasing to others what they have. Oh, good answer. I mean, it's one of the quickest ways to save money by saying, "I'm not going to buy this thing to show other people that I've got it." And actually, with every purchase that you buy, ask yourself, am I buying this for me or am I buying it because I want other people to know that I have it? The second thing that people shouldn't waste their money on is upgrades. I actually believe that when

you buy something for the first time, your level of happiness increases massively. But then for every marginal upgrade that you have after that, there's this diminishing law of return where the amount that you spend in proportion just doesn't match up to the extra happiness that you get. So actually rather than spending that money on a new thing every single time, spending it on experiences or memories has a way bigger impact on your happiness and overall life satisfaction than buying spending it on the next big thing. Yeah. Absolutely. The new iPhone for example, like it's going to be the same for the next four years anyway. Yeah. And every time you bought the upgrade, it you really barely tell the difference between the first one.

Totally. I really appreciate that you're thinking about this advice because the quality of insight you're giving is allowing us all to reflect. It would be so easy for you to just say cancel your subscriptions, cut out the coffee. Like, and those are basic things that sure people can look at, but the questions you're making us ask are actually the drivers of how and why we spend money. And I feel like that's so much more at the root of it. And the third thing I would say is actually when you're buying something understand are you buying it for the name or are you buying it for the purpose that it holds the utility of it. So are you buying a designer purse because of the designer of it or is it

because you like the purse and it can actually help you carry your money around. Having that way of thinking actually can shave off a lot of the spending that you're unnecessarily doing in your dayto-day. One of the things I love you talk about in the book, The Algebra of Wealth, is you talk about the challenge we have with our goals. The first is we set unrealistic goals and then they're super long-term. So, we say things to ourselves like, "Well, in the next 12 months, I'm going to save $12,000 and it's like we've never even saved $500." And you talk about this need to set a goal of like this is how much I'm going to save this month. Like, this is where I'm going to start. And it's so interesting you talk about time and your

work with young men because I think time is so interesting because I think today most people would rather finish their workday and we'd love to just switch on a show or doom scroll on TikTok and so there is more time that could be engaged in creating other revenue streams etc. But what is really blocking us from doing that? I think everyone knows they have time. They know they want to make more money, but there's something there that's just blocking us from getting activated. What have you found that is? So, I can't speak for the whole population, but generally speaking, the lack of executive function is the part of the brain that controls that is the prefrontal cortex, the kind

of gas on, gas off. The part of the brain that says stop playing video games and start studying. That is maturing later and later in boys. It's somewhere between 12 and 18 months behind young women. So, in many ways, a senior in high school, a woman who's applying to college, and a young man who's applying to college, senior in high school, the woman is competing against a 16 1/2year-old. And as a result, fewer and fewer men are going to college. And we're in an economy where 40 years ago, one in three jobs needed a college degree. Now, it's two and three. Women are correctly and justifiably, especially young women, blowing by young men. Uh they have more discipline. They have higher EQ. who quite frankly

they're just more mature. I say this in my own company. I have a lot of young people, a disproportionate amount of young people working in my organization. There's some very talented young men, but I would describe them kind of as dopey, almost a little boyish. I have some young women in my firm who could be the junior senator from Pennsylvania. Women are just maturing [snorts] uh earlier. So, there's certain biological things that get in the way of men having executive function. I also think that there's so much temptation. I think there's a little bit of belief of kind of yolo, you know, this is it, live for today. I also think it's harder for them to save just because everything's so goddamn expensive. So, it's discouraging for them. It's like,

okay, I'm working my ass off and I can barely pay for my rent. So, just as a this is anecdotal evidence, but it largely represents the economy. When I got out of business school, the average salary was 100 grand. You know, I went to a quote unquote elite business school. I went to the high school. The average house in San Francisco costs $280,000. So 2.8 times the MBA salary. Now the kids at Haw still in elite business school, incredible compensation. Average 200 grand right out of business school. But the average home in San Francisco is 2.1 million. Why? Because as soon as you have a house, you become very concerned with traffic and you start showing up to local review meetings and making sure no

new housing is built, which is great if you already own a home. going back to the rejection of strategy, but it's almost impossible now. It's almost like saving for a home is out of my reach. The travel industry has boomed. And my thesis is that you have millions of young people who are going into their mating years and decided, let's save for a house. Then pre- pandemic, a house is 290K. Post pandemic, it's 420. Interest rates from 3% to 7%. Average mortgage went from,00 to 2,200. All of a sudden, the American dream has become a hallucination, a fantasy. it, I'm getting a backpack and I'm going to do an Airbnb in Bangkok. And travel stocks,

hotel stocks, airline stocks have all boom because I think young people have given up on the American dream of owning a home. But circling back to your question, it's I think recognizing you have agency, realizing that this is hard. It's hard work. You work in an economy. Build a kitchen cabinet of people who can advise you. It's very hard to read the label from inside of the bottle. Uh, you got to work hard. There's just no getting around it. I don't care how talented you are. Beyonce works their ass off. I mean, it just people who want to be successful and influential have to work really hard. And then what I would also say is that forgive yourself. My first

job out of college was investment banking. I hit the lottery. Everyone was super impressed. I hated it and I wasn't going any good at it. And within two and a half years, I was back living at home with my mother unemployed. That almost kind of devastated me. But I was my kind of success comes from my ability to endure rejection and move through it, to mourn and move on. So if you're in your 20s and you're thinking, I'm not making a lot of money. I'm having trouble like having a nice life. I'm I'm not entirely sure what I want to do. Then you are exactly where you should be. Your 20s are for workshopping. forgive yourself, but keep trying. Reach out to people for help.

Show up. Get the easy right. Show up early. Be courteous. Be kind. You know, think about how do I get more certification? And then the moment you lock in on something that you're good at and could become great at, go allin on it. And I come from the attitude, I'm assuming people want real economic security. Some people say, "Scott, I'm not like you. I don't want to live to work. I want to work to live." Fine. But have an honest conversation with yourself around what you need to make to have a reasonable life. If you want to live in LA and you want to have a nice lifestyle, you just have to make a ton of money. There's just that's just the reality. But if you say, "I'm not

all about work," then fine. Do you want to move to Santa Clarita? Do you want to move to the Inland Empire? Do you want to move to somewhere in Oregon? Fine. But have a sober conversation with yourself. What are your expectations? And realistically, what kind of commitment and tradeoff are you going to need to get there? What I tell young people is you can have it all. You just can't have it all at once. I have amazing balance right now. And looking around, I think you do. But that's because I had almost none in my 20s and 30s. And I don't you know, this whole life I don't know much about you, but the life I lead now when I'm in LA, I didn't even know it existed in my 20s.

Same because I'm like, I need to make money and I'm not exceptionally talented. So, the thing I can control is how hard I work. And there's no getting around it. It'll cost you some relationships. It cost me my hair. It cost me my first marriage. And this sounds crash, but it was worth it because now that I have kids, now that I'm older, I have a lot of balance. So, it's a sober conversation. It's a kitchen cabinet. It's forgiving yourself. It's trying to find something you're good at. It's a lot of things. But more than anything, more than anything, forgive yourself. If things aren't working out in your 20s, boss, that's where you should be. It very rarely do people come right out of college and go like this.