Speaker 1People don't lack abundance, they lack awareness to the access they have to abundance. What does that mean? That means there's more than enough for everybody to have more than enough, and there'll still be more than enough left over. But most people are unaware that that's the actual case. It would be like walking through life and thinking there's a limited amount of air. And if there's a limited amount of air, then I don't want to breathe too much because there might not be enough left over for everybody else.
Speaker 2A business strategist, best-selling author, went from growing up in poverty to building a multi-million dollar business, helping thousands of people change the way they think about money, value, and purpose. Myron Golden in the house.
Speaker 1I think it's the most important skill any entrepreneur can accomplish. Like, they need to develop the skill of selling. I had it so programmed out of me because I thought it was yucky. You're programmed not to like to talk about money, certainly don't want to ask for money, you don't want to ask strangers for money. So we don't even realize we have all this subconsciousness, this subconscious program that's against selling.
Speaker 2When we hold on to a story of belief that things were against us, how do we shift it to believe they're actually for us? Well, first of all. One of the things I appreciate about you the most is your ability to speak about faith and financial abundance at the same time. If someone is financially broke right now, or if they're struggling with their finances, does this mean that they're also spiritually bankrupt?
Speaker 1I don't think it means that they're spiritually bankrupt, I think it means they're probably spiritually deceived. What does that mean? Well, what that means is most people believe that money is inherently evil. That's what most people believe, and they believe that in order for you to make a lot of money, I've got to do something evil. And if somebody has a lot of money, they've already done something evil. And even if they don't believe that consciously, they believe that subconsciously. And people who break through and start having some moderate business success, they believe that money is not inherently neutral, I mean, money is not inherently evil, but it's inherently neutral. I don't believe that wealth is inherently evil or inherently neutral, I believe it's inherently good, even though there are people who do bad things with it. Right. Right? And so I think that's what I mean when I say they're spiritually deceived, because I believe the Bible, Satan is a spiritual being, God is a spiritual being, but not a religious being. And so wealth is a spiritual concept, but so is poverty. And so, in fact, it's really interesting, as we study the Bible, we see that the very first temptation in the history of the world was the temptation to focus on lack. Because Adam and Eve had everything in the Garden of Eden for free, except one thing they didn't have. The enemy, Satan, got their attention on the thing they lacked, and they lost focus on all their abundance. That was the very first temptation in the history of the world. What do most people lack today? Awareness. Around what? Around almost everything. But I like to say that people don't lack abundance. They lack awareness to the access they have to abundance.
Speaker 2What does that mean?
Speaker 1If you're a good person, you might think that, right? And so there are opportunities everywhere. Somebody might say, "Well, Myron, I don't know how to do anything. I don't have any skills. I only know how to cook. You can't make any money cooking." Tell that to Rachel Ray. She's a millionaire with an M. Turned on a camera for cooking. "I'm just a housewife." Well, there's no such thing. I've never met a married house. But a homemaker says, "Oh, I'm just a homemaker. I don't know how to do anything but, like, turn my house into a home." Really? Martha Stewart's a billionaire with a B, and she created content around her experience of being a homemaker. It doesn't matter what skill set you have. There is a way. I shouldn't say it doesn't matter because it does matter to some degree. But if you're a functional adult, if you're a functional adult who has a family and you take care of yourself, or even if you don't have a family and you have the ability to take care of yourself, oh, there's enough abundance around you for you to be wealthy. You're just unaware of it.
Speaker 2So awareness is the first thing that people lack the most.
Speaker 1Yep. Because all transformation begins with awareness. Think about it. There was a time when the thing that you wanted the most was to be a football player. But when you broke your wrist or arm? Wrist. Wrist. When you broke your wrist and lost the opportunity to be a football player, and you kind of lost your way for a little bit, the reason you were lost is because you had no idea that you would become this Lewis Howes. You didn't have any idea that this Lewis Howes could exist. Right. But the capacity to become this Lewis Howes was always inside of you as long as you became aware of the opportunities as they showed themselves. And so your sister who helped you by saying, "Hey, you're either going to have to pay rent or you're going to have to move out." She helped you become aware of the fact that, "Okay, other people expect me to take care of myself, so maybe I can take care of myself." You see what I'm saying? So it's a lack of awareness of your ability and capacity to grow your ability, and it's a lack of awareness of all the options. All the opportunities that are around us all the time.
Speaker 2If someone feels like they're a good spiritual person, they have this perspective of themselves. Maybe they go to church a lot. Maybe they talk about their faith a lot. Maybe they feel like they're acting in accordance with their spiritual faith, but they really struggle financially. Right. Is the thing they lack the most awareness? Is it courage to act on making more money? Is it the belief that money can actually be good? What is the thing they lack the most?
Speaker 1There are people who are spiritual, and are still unaware of spiritual concepts. Right. And there are people who are religious who are unaware of spiritual concepts. And when I say religion, here's what I mean. Here's what I mean when I say religion, because I don't believe that God is a religious figure. I don't believe the Bible is a religious book, which is very different than what most people believe. The Bible is a governmental document. It is not a religious document. And what I mean by that is religion to me is a man or a group of men or women making a bunch of rules for themselves and other people to live by to appease God. Well, the Bible doesn't teach that at all. The Bible doesn't teach that you need to do something to appease God. And so, the Bible is a book about a king, a kingdom, a royal family, and the culturalization of a foreign land called Earth. Now, let me ask you a question. Is a kingdom a religion or a government?
Speaker 2I guess it depends on your interpretation of kingdom. If it's a spiritual kingdom versus a.
Speaker 1Well, the definition of a kingdom is the king's dominion. The dominion over which the king reigns. It's the realm over which the king reigns. So, it's a government, right? And so, most people, when they think of kingdoms, they think of a physical place. But a kingdom is a jurisdiction over which a king reigns. And that's why, like, if you even think about, like, America, or you think about Russia or China or any country, they have land, but they also control this thing called airspace above that land, right? And so, when I think about. When I think of a king, I think of a king that rules over a realm. And see, I believe that even if people are unaware of it, physicality is not reality. It is just one of the manifestations of reality. Spirituality is reality. Invisibility is reality. In fact, this table that's physical, sitting here in front of us, is made of invisible molecules that we can't see or touch. But we can touch the table. Why? Because it's a picture that. Just that whole concept of everything physical being made of, invisible molecules, is a testament that invisibility is the foundation of visibility, and physicality is a manifestation of spirituality.
Speaker 2There's a lot I want to ask you about wealth. Yes. But I feel like you have a unique background where you didn't have wealth growing up. Oh, I was poor. I was pitiful poor. That's when you're so poor, poor people feel sorry for you. You were poor, but also you, you know, you had. I think it was polio, is that correct? I had polio as an infant, yeah.
Speaker 1And you have a brace on your left leg. Brace on my left leg, metal brace from bottom of my foot all the way up to my hip.
Speaker 2And you just, you didn't start out, even in your career, you started out as a trash man or a garbage man.
Speaker 1Trash man. Driving a trash truck for $6.25 an hour. As a married man with a wife and a new baby. So you didn't have wealth. No. And you didn't have a wealth mindset, I'm assuming. I didn't have a wealth mindset, but I did have a wealth awareness, because I also, when I was a trash man, I got enrolled in a business selling insurance and investments on the side part-time. So I would wake up at 2:30 in the morning, get ready for work, go to work, get to work at 4:00, drive a truck for 8 hours, 10 hours, come home, take a nap, and then I would go out and on sales appointments to sell insurance and investments. So I learned principles in that company about the magic of compound interest, pay yourself first, all these financial principles. And I became aware of the fact that the reason I had to work so hard for money is because I had no money working for me. And so that's where that whole transformational journey started, where I realized, wait a minute, if this person is wealthy, they're not any more talented than me. If it can work for them, it can work for me. But the only difference is they were actually good at it, and I was terrible at sales.
Speaker 2So would you say sales was the best skill that helped you generate wealth?
Speaker 1I think it's the most important skill any entrepreneur or anybody who desires to succeed can accomplish. And people say, well, I'm just not a naturally born salesperson. Well, first of all, everybody's a natural born salesperson. And we have it programmed out of us by the cultural hypnotic societal mechanism. Really? Right. When you got two new babies, they're four months old, right? Have they ever woken you up in the middle of the night and persuaded you fully to come and take care of them? Of course, crying. Right, crying. Exactly. And then my granddaughter, she's six years old. And when she was three, she said, my pop, I want you to sit on. She calls me my pop. My pop, I want you to sit on the floor and play with me. But Ari, I can't sit on the floor and play with you right now because I've got to do X, Y, and Z. She said, but my pop, you have to. I was like, why didn't I think of that? Right, exactly. So I sat on the floor and played with her, right? And so we're all born to be salesperson, salespeople, and we're natural born salespeople. And we ask and ask and ask, and we hear no, and we ask again, and we hear no, and we ask again, can I have a cookie? No. Can I have a cookie? No. Can I have a cookie? Here, have the whole jar. Go play, right? Right, right. And so we have it programmed out of us. But I had it so programmed out of me because I thought it was yucky. I thought sales was yucky. I didn't want to be begging people for money. You're programmed not to like to talk about money. You certainly don't want to ask for money. You don't want to ask strangers for money. So we don't even realize we have all this subconscious program that's against selling. And even salespeople have subconscious programming against selling. They say, you've probably heard this phrase, people love to buy, but they hate to be sold. Well, I think that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's the dumbest. That doesn't make any sense. I believe people love to buy and they love to be sold, but they hate to be convinced. And convincing is what people in sales who are not good at sales resort to. Because they're so bad at sales.
Speaker 2What's the difference between convincing someone versus selling someone?
Speaker 1Great question. Selling is persuasion. Convincing is when I attempt to get you to do something I want you to do for my reasons. I call that having commission breath. Right. But persuasion is when I help you make a decision you already desire to make for your own reasons. Now, have you ever in your life, and maybe you don't now, but have you ever in your life had, when I get enough money, I'm going to get one of these lists? Uh-huh. Right? Pretty much everybody has a list like that, right? When I get enough money, I'm going to get one of these. I'm going to buy a car, a watch, or this. I'm going to buy a watch, a ring, a house, whatever, vacation, whatever. Right. So I realized one day that there are millions of people in the world, or at least thousands, tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands, but I believe millions, tens of millions of people in the world who would love to buy what I'd love to sell if they only knew I existed. Mm-hmm. And so what's. What most people in business do, and most people in sales do, is they go and look for people to sell stuff to. And people ask me that all the time. Myron, how do I find people to sell stuff to? You're asking the wrong question. How can you expect to get the right answer? A better question is, how can I make myself more findable for people who already want to buy what I already want to sell? The reality is, if you've ever bought anything, you bought it because it was sold to you. Mm-hmm. Now, the people who are best in the world at sales use a concept I call seamless selling. Which means, they will sell you something, and they will make you think it is your idea.
Speaker 2If you are down to your last dollar. Right. And, or in that space where you feel like, I'm really lacking. I'm in debt, a month to month, whatever it is, paycheck to paycheck. Right. And you have this thing that you're trying to sell. Right. How do you not feel so needy when you're like, I really need this commission right now. Right. Or I really need this person to buy because. That's a great question. I'm not going to survive. So how do I make it so convincing that they need this? Or persuasive that it's for them. Right. Rather than.
Speaker 1Yep. I really need this. So, you have to work with human nature instead of working against it. And human nature works like this. If I chase, you run. If I run, you chase. If I lean in, you lean out. If I lean out, you lean in. And so, if you have. You have to first begin with an awareness. Mm-hmm. Okay, awareness of what? An awareness that I don't have to make this sale. I have to make a sale. Mm-hmm. But I don't have to make a sale. I don't have to make this sale. If I understand the principle, principles are like. They don't lie. They always tell the truth. And so, if I understand the principle of the law of averages, and I understand that everybody in sales has an average, including me. This is how I got good at sales, by the way. I knew I had an average. When you mean an average, you mean. If you talk to X number of people, X number of people are going to buy. A certain number are going to buy. Let's say your average is one out of 10. So, if your average is one out of 10, every 10 people you talk to, somebody's going to buy, on average. Right? So, if I know. I know I'm going to talk to 10 people today. I don't care which one buys. Interesting. Right? So, now I can emotionally lean out because I don't need to make this sale. And me being leaned out, if you desire the thing, makes you more inclined to desire it from me than somebody who's chasing you.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're more resistant to people chasing you.
Speaker 1Exactly. Mm-hmm. See, because if I'm selling, or if I'm selling, if a man is dating a woman, a woman's dating a man, it doesn't matter. Boy meets girl. It doesn't matter. If I am making you feel like I need you, you believe you don't need me. But if I can make you feel like I don't need you, then you believe you do need me. Now, in order for me to make you feel like I don't need you, I need to feel like I don't need you. How do you do that? By realizing I've got a lot of averages, and I have to make X number of sales, but you don't have to be one of them. And if I realize that, you know what? It's a privilege to work with me. I'm one of the few people in the world that have your best interest in mind, like who will sell you something and be happy as a lark in the park if you say no. Yeah. People say, well, that's easy for you to say because you have money. But no, I have money because that's easy for me to say. And it's easy for me to say because it's easy for me to feel. Because if I'm selling something to you and it's not in your best interest, when you say no, I'm glad for your sake and my sake you said no. I'm doing an event in. Orange County, right? This weekend, tomorrow and the next day. And I asked you, I said, why don't you come up and speak? You're like, where is it? I said, it's in Orange County. You're like, no, that's too far. And when you said, no, that's too far, like it made perfect sense to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? And I kind of picked and jigged at you a little bit. Of course. But it made perfect sense. I wouldn't want you to have to deal with like an hour and a half of traffic and come speak at my event and empower a bunch of people and then have to deal with an hour and a half of traffic coming back. And then you feel yucky about that experience. And now every time you think about me, you're thinking about that. I would rather you say no and think, man, when I have the opportunity to do something with him, I'm going to look forward to it. You see what I'm saying? So I really believe that the main ingredient, the most important ingredient that you have to have to be successful and like super successful in sales is to love the people you sell to so much that you would never sell them anything that would do them harm.
Speaker 2Now, I love this, but life for me is about enrollment. It is. And so when do you know? To stop, not trying, but stop enrolling or persuading someone in your vision, in your product, in your speaking thing.
Speaker 1Most people who watch this are not going to like my answer. I stop when they say no, because. The first time. Yeah. Well, it depends. Yeah. For the most part. Yeah, I do. Because I know they'll be back. Right. Okay. So for instance, if I'm doing an event, I don't hard close. I don't ever hard close. I don't ever, like I do a, I do a challenge once a month and at the end of the challenge, I say, well, this is the, this is the offer we've created for you. If it makes sense to you and if it's for you, you're smart enough to know it, take advantage of it. If it's not for you, you're smart enough to know that. But if you're waiting for me to sit on this zoom call and talk to you for 45 minutes about why you should take advantage of it, that's not going to happen because I've got a tee time. I'm going to the golf course. If you enroll, we'll see you in the program. If not, we'll see you somewhere else across the world. Have a great day. And I'm done. Yeah. I, there's zero pressure because I don't want you to buy because I talked you into it. Because if I got, if I've got to drag you in, I've got to drag you around and that's exhausting. That is exhausting. And people really respect you when
Speaker 2you really respect them. So how do you persuade people in the hour or two hour zoom call or whatever it might be throughout so that when you're making the offer, you're, you're backing it, you're leaning back versus saying, Hey, you really need to buy this or whatever, you know, how do you persuade throughout to add value?
Speaker 1Right. So first, the first, the first problem most people have in sales and in persuasion, what they think is persuasion, which is really just a really old school sales model. That's very, it's very horrid. It's so bad is they talk about the wrong things in their presentation. They do no positioning, and then they feel like they have to beg people to buy. The reason is because you haven't given the people any reason to buy. You you've given them your, what you value, but you haven't given them what they value. See, in order for somebody to buy from you, you have to uncover value to them. Well, if you have, if you're going to uncover value to them, you have to know what's the value to them. If you don't know what's valuable to them, you have no ability to uncover value. And I mean, doesn't that make sense? So you have to, how do you learn what's valuable to them? Well, first you have to understand where value, where value comes from. Right. So where does value come from? Right. So value comes from a couple of different places. Number one, value comes from past perceived voids. Things that were missing in the past are things that I value in the present. So when I was 17 years old, my friend, Stan, his brother Lonnie had a 68 Pontiac GTO. And I wanted to buy that car from him and he wouldn't sell it to me. So guess what I bought two years ago, a 1968 Pontiac GTO convertible. Brand new. That car was $3,300. I paid $40,000 for that car. Right. And just got it back from being restored. It's immaculate. Well, why would I do that? Why would I buy that car? Like I've got cars that are so comfortable that when you sit in them, they hug you and say, where do you want to go today, baby? Right. And I'm driving in this 68 Pontiac GTO and it's all bouncy. You know, and I'm like, why did I want this car so bad? Oh, why did I, what was so valuable? Oh, I wanted it in the past and I couldn't have it, but I can have it now. So I'm going to have it. So if you can understand what people have been missing out on in the past, you know what to talk to them about in the present. That's one. Number two, present. So past perceived voids, that's one place the value comes from. Number two, present perceived virtues. When somebody perceives something as good right now, they value it. And so most people, when they're selling, when they think they're selling, they're talking to the prospect about what's valuable about their offer to them instead of to the prospect. They have no idea what the prospect perceives as good because they do all the talking. They don't have a dialogue. They have a monologue and a presentation. A really great sales presentation is a dialogue where you don't do all the talking. Okay. So that's number two, present perceived voids. The last place that values come from is future perceived, perceived visions create present perceived values. So if my presentation can show people how they can have all the things they were missing in the past, all the things they think are wonderful in the present, and they can see themselves living a compelling future, oh, it's really hard for them to say no. Right. Right. And so that's the first thing. So that's the first thing that has to happen in a presentation. I have to have the basic big idea has to be surrounded by those things. Number two, I have to, I have to position my offer correctly because I would rather as a salesperson, I would rather have an average presentation with great positioning than a great presentation with average positioning. And so what do I mean when I say positioning? Well, I'm going to position my offer, the thing that I'm selling next to something they've already paid for. That's given them less value. That's one. I'm going to position my offer next to the, the, the price of my offer next to the cost of not getting the result they've been seeking and show them which one's more expensive. So I'm going to have a position, like the positioning is of the utmost importance. And then in addition to positioning the offer, when I do the presentation, as much as possible, I'm going to get, if I'm selling something to you, I'm going to get you to give yourself my presentation. And I'm going to do that by asking you questions. I'm going to do that by asking you what? Questions. Questions. So yeah, that's what I'm back. Exactly. I'm going to get them talking back to me. And so I really believe that for good salespeople, the prospect provides the content and we provide the context. And so I don't want to talk about the pieces of my offer. It's got 17 workbooks or it's got these components and these ingredients. No, I don't want to talk about the pieces. I don't want to talk about the process. And I sure don't want to show them the process because if I show them the process, it's going to do it. I don't want to distract them from the payoff. So I don't want to show them the pieces. I don't want to show them the process. I don't want to sell my person because I don't want to be married to you. Like, oh, you get so many hours of my time. No, I don't want to. No. When I'm selling you hours of my time, I am telling you that it's so hard. You can't do it without me. That's not the message I want to convey. Does that make sense? So the only thing that I emphasize when I'm selling, after I do the positioning, after I uncover the value, and then I present the value, the thing that I do is I show them the process. And that's what I do. And that's payoff. And I show them what it's going to feel like to have the payoff, what it's going to sound like, and how other people are going to look at that, and how they're going to feel, and what they'll be able to do then that they can't do now. And so when you emphasize the payoff, people have the ability to see themselves in their desirable future. And it makes it easier for them to say yes, because you're the first person who's ever talked to them about a bridge that gets them from where they are to where they'd like to be.
Speaker 2100%. I've heard you say, I quote, wealth is a spiritual outcome. It is. It is. And you talk often, again, about faith and finances. And people are conflicted by this a lot. They are. They're conflicted by faith and finances. Yes. But why do you believe faith and wealth actually belong together?
Speaker 1Well, because God is a God of abundance. In fact, God is so much a God of abundance that when he put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, even though there were only two people there, and they were married to each other, and all the food was free, and there were no stores, and there was nothing to buy, and there was nothing for sale, he put gold in the Garden of Eden. But he didn't just put gold in the Garden of Eden. He put gold in the Garden of Eden and told us that it was good. Why do I believe that wealth is good? Because God said so. Why do I believe that wealth, that abundance is spiritual? Because Jesus said, I am come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly, but the thief cometh not, but for to steal, to kill, and to destroy. Well, if you kill something, you have a lack of life. If you steal something, you have a lack of property. If you destroy something, you have a lack of property as well. So abundance and lack are both spiritual. Abundance is the result of understanding the spiritual principles that lead to wealth. And people think that God wants them to be poor. I find that fascinating. Because if God wants you to be poor, he also wants you to be a drunkard. He also wants you to be lazy. He also wants you to be a glutton. He wants you to be a fool. Why do I say that? Well, because from a biblical perspective, the Bible says that love not sleep lest thou come to poverty. So what does that mean? That means if you're lazy, you're going to be broke. So if God wants me to be broke, then he has to want me to be lazy since brokenness is spiritual. If I think poverty is piety, then if God says that laziness leads to being broke, then he must want me to be lazy if he wants me to be broke. But it says that if you have wisdom, it'll fill your house with great treasure. So if God doesn't want me to have great treasure, then he must want me to be a fool. The drunkard and the glutton shall lie down together and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags. So God must want me to be a drunken, gluttonous, lazy fool if he wants me to be broke. Because he promised to bless me with wealth if I have the opposite of those characteristics.
Speaker 2That's why. When was the moment you felt like you had true financial freedom in your life? Where you feel like, okay, I'm not living paycheck to paycheck. I've got financial abundance. I don't think I'm stressing for what's coming the next six months.
Speaker 1I can tell you the moment when I felt like that, even though I was still not wealthy. And this was, it was in April of 1999. And I remember it's very specifically. It's 27 years ago. Right. 27 years ago. I accidentally made $6,200 in one week.
Speaker 2Come on. In one week. You know, it's really, before you go on with that. Okay. This is weird. The synchronicity of this, because the moment I felt like I was the richest man in the world was when I made $6,200. Shut up. In one hour. Okay. So you did it in an hour.
Speaker 1I did it in a week.
Speaker 2Well, I was also- Young people these days. But the fact that it was 60, literally $6,200 was how much I made in one hour from a webinar presentation to someone else's audience is my first webinar made $6,200. And you were like- And I was like, I am the richest man in the world. Wow. There was more money than I ever made in maybe years. Right? Wow. Like it was, it unlocked like, is this even possible? Wait a minute. Possible? Like a whole nother-
Speaker 1So that was an, $6,200 was an unlock for you and it was an unlock for me. Wow. How crazy is that? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So watch this. So what happened? Tell me. So watch this. So, well, what happened was I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad in January 1999. And I realized the reason I was broke when I read that book, I realized I was broke because I didn't have any assets. So I said, okay, I'm going to start focusing on my assets. I did add some assets, but not, I had this little network marketing income from this little network marketing business I was doing. And then I was a traveling evangelist. So I had my income when church was open. So they'd give me an offering. And then I had my tape ministry where I'd have my sermons on recording and I would sell them for $5 at the end of the services. So, so, so what happened was I didn't have a goal. I just thought this church invited me to come speak and they wanted me to come speak for like from Sunday through Wednesday. And so I came and spoke Sunday through Wednesday. And when I got done, they gave me a $2,000 honorarium. That week I made $2,100 from my network marketing company and I sold 21. I sold $2,100 worth of tapes. Wow. But when I did that, you got to understand in 1998, I only made $48,000. So that's an average of 4,000 a month. And now I made $6,200 in one week simply because I shifted my focus to acquiring assets and building assets. Now here's what happened next. As soon as I made that 60, I said, I made $6,200 this week. First thing I said was, wow. And I said it backwards. I said, wow. You're like, now how do I do this again? Exactly. Well, before I even said how I do this again, I said, that was so easy. And then somehow or another, I had this idea, this thought, that must mean it's easier to make a lot of money in a short period of time than it is to make a little money over a long period of time. As soon as I said that, I said it out loud. I said, from now on for the rest of my life, I'm going to ignore all the hard ways to make a little bit of money. And I'm only going to focus on the easy ways to make a lot. That shift changed my life. By July of that same year, I made $8,000 in one day in the stock market. Wow. Just because I decided to believe that it's easier to make a lot of money in a short period of time than it is to make a little money over a long period of time. And so even though financially, since that time I've been broke, I was aware of the fact that it's easier to make a lot of money in a short period of time than it is to make
Speaker 2a little money over a long period of time. So after that moment, you had a new belief. You still became broke later is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 1Like, I made millions of dollars and became broke later. Really? Yeah, I had a whole series of situations that started 2007 my oldest son was in a car accident and he passed away four days later most devastating surreal painful unbelievable even to this day experience of my life how old was he he was 20 oh man yeah it was it was um yeah he passed away four days later the next year and and not to brush over that but that was that that'll let a whole lot of wind out of your sails your whole life right exactly even to this day the most difficult thing i've ever gone through in my life by far by leaps and bounds before you go on
Speaker 2what was the greatest lesson that taught you about life losing your son in that way what was the greatest lesson that that season taught you it showed me
Speaker 1how much god loves me really yeah how so as a as a man like a real man you want to protect your family you want to provide for your family and i had money i had lots of money my money couldn't help me and i'm sitting in the hospital room watching my son take his last breath oh my gosh and as hard as that was you know it was harder watching my wife and my other son and my daughter watch my wife's son and my other two children's brother watching them watch their brother die watching my wife watch her son die and there's nothing i could do about it and i would have done anything i would have done anything including trade places with him oh if i would have had the opportunity you say well how does that show you the love of god because god watched his son die for me and he could have done something about it but he didn't and that made me hyper aware of a kind of love and a level of love that i have no ability to understand but all the ability in the world to appreciate wow so that's the greatest lesson i learned when
Speaker 2did you learn to i guess appreciate or have awareness around the the loss to where you could actually feel love rather than anger upset or any other emotion because i don't know if that
Speaker 1happened right away for you i'm assuming no that was that's what i realized when i was sitting there in that hospital room watching experiencing this that was my that was what i was thinking about god loves you god loves me more than i can ever fathom how do you
Speaker 2even get to that i don't know if anyone could really think about that in that moment of like my son i couldn't think about anything else really i
Speaker 1couldn't think about anything else now you got to understand though i came to christ when i was 16 years old i started reading the bible when i was 16 the king came to christ when i was 16 i started reading the bible when i was 16 the king james version started reading bible when i was 16. started studying it when i was 20. and i had a very acute awareness already at that time that spirituality that the invisible realm is the real realm and that the physical realm is just a manifestation of that realm so i was like that part of that a level of awareness i already had and there are some things other things that and my study that god had been showing me years leading up to that that put me in a position where that was the conclusion that i came to in fact when my son died as hard as it was and it was like i can't it's i can't i can't describe how hard it was but i wanted to make sure that i preached my son's funeral because i didn't want somebody else to mess up what it meant because everybody in my family was going to have to live with this conclusion for the rest of our lives and i wanted to give them a god perspective so i see most people believe in god kind of as a genie maybe and you know i get him i'll pray and he'll do what i want him to do and i'll read the bible to appease him i don't believe god is my king he is sovereign if he does something it is the best thing that can be done even if it's not the best feeling thing that can be done if i can't trust him at that level he's not really god he he might be the god that i'm the god of but i don't want a god that i'm god of i mean how can
Speaker 2someone listening right now when they see that there's wars or injustice believe that if they're like okay all these people are dying around the world these wars these challenges how can i believe that this is the best thing from god i'm
Speaker 1going to give you two answers how can i believe that water's wet it doesn't matter if i believe it or not it's wet that's that's the first answer here's the second one is that god cannot lie and he is good and he says he's good if he if i really believe that he is the god he says he is then he's the one that's sovereign not me i can trust him even when i can't understand him and i think here's the difference between me and anybody else you're going to talk to probably about god and about their faith i'm not trying to get you to believe what i believe believe it or don't believe it but the belief that i have oh it's unshakable god is sovereign it's it's so fascinating i i i mean i could give you a really long drawn out theological answer to the question you just answered but the best answer is if god is really god like the supreme being and the creator of everything he can do pretty much whatever he wants to when i was a kid i used to build model cars i don't know if you have the internet okay but guess what else i would do i'd take him in the basement and blow him up with firecrackers right why well why would you do that you just spent all that time i don't know i wanted i wanted to see what's going to happen i'm not saying god wants to see what's going to happen i'm just saying but god is god if if he if he is really god and he really owns everything then when he wants me to know why it's working the way it's working when he knows when he believes it's time for me to find out then i'll find out
Speaker 2you'll find out there's something you've said the word you've said multiple times in the last few years okay um and your part of your team was asking me some questions before you got in here and we were chatting and one of the questions they said you know you've interviewed all these people all these experts over the years like what's the one thing maybe they don't say in the interviews that you've noticed that makes them you know accomplish and be great and achieve what they achieve and right away i just said belief you know 100 belief and this is something you've said over and over now is like this belief i believe it's possible to make more money with less work i believe in this i believe you can make more in less time once you shifted belief right then you had to see new how you could do it the opportunity and you can decide to believe
Speaker 1i decided to believe it's easier to make a lot of money in a
Speaker 2short period yeah yeah and so how did you get to a place of belief great question when you're working as a garbage man when you're struggling when you've got you know you got polio and you got yeah a leg that doesn't work when you've got all you i think you were born in a segregation hospital segregated hospital yeah like when all these things are against you but are they well when they perceive to be against there you go when you could tell a story to yourself that this was against me look how hard this is look at this challenge look at i'm only making 650 an hour i'm only 625 625 an hour it's going to be impossible but thanks for the race but when you when we when we hold on to a story right of belief that things were against us how do we shift it to believe they're actually for us right you can
Speaker 1decide to believe that everything that happens to you happens for you you can decide to believe that so whether it's true or not you can just decide you can decide to believe yeah it could because people believe things that aren't true that's right whether it's true or not i happen to know it's true yeah and i'll tell you why i know it's true so and i'll tell you how i developed the sense of certainty that i have over the 64 years of being on this planet so um one is i've been reading a lot of the bible and i believe that the bible is truth because when i started reading it i i thought i was going to find religion and i found principles and i found a lot of in the coding world we call if then go-to statements conditional promises if this happens then do this and i started testing those if then go-to statements when i was a kid when i was 16 years old i was testing them i remember the very first one i tested proverbs 15 1 a soft answer turneth and i remember doing something in particular to take off my brother mike he was he was hacked he was hot he came in guns blazing man i can't believe it i was like wow man you know what you're right i shouldn't have done that yeah you know what i'm not gonna let that happen again sorry i did that it's not gonna and he just kind of deflated and walked away i was like that was amazing it worked it worked it did exactly what the bible said it would do yeah but there are literally hundreds of biblical principles like that that i've tested since i was 16 years old i've never had one fail you say how do you believe that what happens to you is happens against you you it's it's interesting how if you read more and you write more it gives you the ability to think more clearly right and so there's a story in the bible about this man named joseph and joseph gets thrown into a pit and then he gets taken out of the pit by some slave traders he's sold into slavery in egypt his brothers threw him in the pit his 11 old his 10 older brothers threw him in the pit so now he's a slave for this man named potiphar potiphar's wife tries to seduce him this is like this is like a really tragic situation he's hundreds of miles away from home he's a slave in somebody's house the man's wife tries to seduce him he doesn't yield to her she grabs his shirt snatches off his back lies to her husband he gets thrown in prison his brothers go back and tell his father that um well we think joseph's dead because we found his coat they really took it they tore it in pieces put goat's blood on it she's blood on it took it back to i don't know if this is your son code or not but and then his father thought he had died right and so literally over a decade joseph is down in egypt in potiphar's house or in prison anyway long story short joseph ascends because his interpretation of a dream to become the prime minister of egypt joseph brings his family to egypt because there's a famine he introduces his father to pharaoh his father his pharaoh asked his father sir how old are you jacob because of all the things that happened to joseph he said few and evil have been the years of the days of the life of my pilgrimage i'm 138 years old few and evil you just got reunited with your son he's the prime minister of the country that saved you alive and all you can focus on is all the stuff the pain that you are in the past now joseph had the same pain that jacob had only worse it was his pain when he named his two sons you know what he named them ephraim and manasseh do you know what those names mean one of them means that god has made me to forget all of my trials and my labor in my father's house the other name means god has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction the very same thing that jacob perceived happening to him joseph perceived as happening for him and you always have a choice when you have an experience of life am i going to respond like jacob or am i going to respond like joseph wow like you you go to the gym you work out i can tell you have muscles right yeah you go to the gym why do you lift weights it's hard it is hard it keeps me healthy right so you lift weights it's hard it keeps you healthy why does it keep you healthy because it breaks your muscles down but that's bad it's breaking your muscles down right it breaks them down so they can build back up so can you tell me of anything in life that gets better because it's easy
Speaker 2i don't know i mean just maybe that if you're having an easy moment it feels good in that moment right it feels good
Speaker 1yeah yeah but it doesn't make the next moment easy no and so the fact that i was born in a segregated hospital because black people weren't allowed to be born in tampa general it's a painful thing for my parents difficult i contracted polio because the conditions at hospital were so bad i've been walking with this brace on my leg my whole life i had a leg stretch operation when i was 13 where they broke my tibia and my fibula and put these screws through my leg and put it on this rack and turn these knobs and stretch the bones and cut my achilles tendon and all that other stuff i've got a metal rod in my ankle right now when i played golf yesterday and walking up and down those hills when i got done yesterday it was like throbbing oh that's so terrible it's not terrible it's just painful it's just difficult like we there's not a human being who's ever lived who can tell whether something is good or not looking through the windshield good or bad we can only tell that looking through the rear view mirror i'm not smart enough to know what's good and i'm i'm smart enough to know what's good and i'm smart enough to know what's painful but i'm also smart enough to know that everything that's painful is not bad
Speaker 2what do you think this experience has provided you with throughout having had polio yes oh yeah and having your you know like broken and rods and all that stuff that experience and living with that do you think you'd be where you're at today there's not actually universe spiritually
Speaker 1no galaxy really
Speaker 2no where do you think you'd be if that
Speaker 1didn't happen it depends i'd probably be a professional athlete of some kind i was very athletic still i am very athletic um i would have been very distracted by sports and when i say distracted i would have been focused on it but all focus is the distraction and all distraction is focus right and so i would have been focused on a sport that would have maybe made me famous and maybe made me rich but maybe i would have lost it by now right like most professional athletes do and so i believe that god in his sovereign wisdom ordained before the foundation of the world that i would go through all of these experiences so my body would slow down so my mind could speed up oh my gosh
Speaker 2but that's the the the belief you've created with this experience exactly yeah well it's the belief
Speaker 1i don't know if i've created it or if i discovered it either one yeah yeah it's the belief you've decided i've definitely decided to believe that yes yeah yeah because i can see it like i can remember being a child because i wanted to run so bad i couldn't run because my leg wouldn't there's certain things it just doesn't do kind of most things that legs do and i couldn't run but i remember watching for hours watching other people run to see if i could figure out how to make something that could help me run right because i always wanted to run because i always tell people i couldn't run so i learned how to fight so i couldn't run but what it did is it caused me to be hyper observant yeah i know that feeling right yeah because
Speaker 2when you can't do you can observe you watch exactly yeah i was the same way in school i was i was in the bottom of my class pretty much all through school and i really lacked the skills to connect with people because i was just insecure that i'm not smart enough or funny enough and so i just didn't really speak much but i would just watch people speaking and observing them exactly and just watch their human dynamics their behavior and just be like huh why did that person laugh why did that person respond why that person exactly give that person a hug i would just watch people all day long and observe and i think that allowed me to have a different perspective of why people do certain things or why they say things or and so that insecurity i had in me or that lack that i was facing allowed me to be more observant to see okay how can i have a friend how can i connect with someone even though no one wants to connect with me so good and so it's a similar kind of dynamic 100 percent yeah i i mean i
Speaker 1i remember going all the way through the seventh grade and only having one friend the whole year so i can i remember what that feels like yeah yeah what
Speaker 2is the biggest lie that you think people of faith have been taught about making money and creating wealth the more
Speaker 1money you make it makes you more and more distant from god and if you make too much money you can't go to heaven really oh yeah why have people believed that why is that because because satan is a master deceiver right and the best lies are the ones that seem like they're true and so if you think about it um as as like when i read the bible i see that satan deceived eve by twisting god's words not by giving her his own original words the first temptation that satan tempted jesus with in the wilderness um was a twisting of god's word he quoted the cast yourself down because in their um his he shall give his angels charge concerning in their hands so he used the word of god to attempt to deceive jesus so he's going to use the word of god to attempt eve who's never sinned before she has no sin nature and she falls for it and he uses the word of god to tempt jesus he's not going to fall for it don't think he's not going to use the bible to deceive you so they believe that because of the fact that a lot of people who preach and teach the bible have never learned how to study it properly they've never learned how to study it properly they've never learned the law of first mention they've never learned the law of context they've never learned the law of definitions if you don't prep if you don't apply those two laws you're gonna whatever you read you're gonna come to an erroneous conclusion because you're not using the framework for understanding it that it was created for to be interpreted right if i use a whole bunch of words if i say well you know i'm going to promulgate my esoteric connotations and articulate my superficial sentimentalities with amicable and philosophical and psychological observations to be aware of platitudes and sponderosities if i said that to you you didn't know what those words mean right you're just like what right but that's how most people read the bible and so what they'll do is they'll take the surface inference and think that's an interpretation it's not so there is a passage that says for instance for instance this is one of the most misunderstood passages in the entire bible jesus said about this rich young ruler it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven now what does that mean what
Speaker 2does that mean and how should we
Speaker 1interpret that well what it actually means and you can't first of all i'm going to say this if you start the story with the rich young ruler you cannot come to a proper interpretation you need the whole context you need the whole context and the context is right before that happened jesus had got done speaking and people were bringing his bringing their children to him to have him bless them and the disciples said get those kids out of here jesus said allow the little children to come unto me and forbid them not and then he said this for of such is the kingdom of heaven so he said bring let those little children come to me so jesus is giving an illustration of how salvation biblical salvation works let the little children come into me so what does a child do to provide for itself yeah
Speaker 2i mean a child to provide it cries yes
Speaker 1sir but does it earn money it's a crime no to provide now it doesn't make any money you can't provide for it you can't provide housing food in order for a child to survive it has to be 100 dependent on someone other than itself for its survival unless
Speaker 2it's a child star in hollywood here and they're making money but yeah yeah but still they gotta they can't walk they can't feed themselves if it's a baby
Speaker 1yeah you see what i'm saying yeah so okay great so right after that happens he blesses the children it says and when it came to him this rich young ruler and he says to jesus he asked him this question good master what good thing shall i do that i may inherit eternal life he said good master what good thing shall i do and jesus said why are you calling me good jesus wasn't asking him why are you calling me good because he wasn't good he was asking me why are you calling me good because you're saying good master what good thing shall i do jesus was saying if you believe i'm good then you don't need to be good and if you believe you're good you don't need me because i am good so is it going to be you or is it going to be me and then he said but if you want to know which commandments which by the way jesus knew he couldn't keep the kid couldn't keep the commandments the young man couldn't keep the commandments he said but if you want to be if you want to be um enter into life uh keep the commandments he was giving the young man an opportunity to say i've tried to keep the commandments and i can't because that's the real answer for everybody who's ever lived the real answer is i've tried to keep the commandments but i can't but the young man doesn't do that he tries to play jesus and he says well which ones and jesus named a bunch of them that he knew the guy hadn't broken and then he named one that was evident to everybody around that the man was breaking all day long which were he said thou shalt not commit murder thou shalt not steal thou shalt not commit bear false witness thou shalt not commit adultery honor thy father and thy mother and then he says this love your neighbor as yourself the young man says all these i have kept from my youth up what lack i yet oh you've kept all of them have you really that's interesting you love your neighbor like you love yourself i can tell by the shoes you're wearing you love yourself i can tell by the robe you're wearing you love yourself i can tell by the chariot you rolled up in that you love yourself you love your neighbor as you love yourself okay if you're going to lie to me let's put it to the test go sell everything you have give it to the poor and come and follow me and the young man went away sorrowful because he had great possessions so he didn't love his neighbor as he loved himself because if he did he would have been willing to do that and then jesus said hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven now the word rich that jesus used there is the word pluseo in greek which means figuratively rich this man was rich in self-righteousness which means he was not willing to receive the righteousness of christ not it's and the reason i know this is true because i study the bible and i study all the i do word studies the only other place that word pluseo is used in the new testament is in second corinthians chapter 8 verse number 9 where it says and you know the grace of our lord jesus christ that though he was rich pluseos rich in righteousness yet for your sakes he became poor he became sin that you through his righteousness might be rich so it's the exact same context and the exact same definition and then when jesus said um in fact it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than is for a rich man to enter a kingdom kingdom of heaven his disciples were confused it literally says they were bewildered like and then they said well who then can be saved well why did they ask that question well because david was rich if he was talking about monetarily rich abraham is the first person the bible says was rich so abraham couldn't get into heaven david abraham isaac jacob joseph david solomon their parents them they were businessmen well who then can be saved and then jesus told them the answer with man it is impossible what's impossible salvation through self-righteousness is impossible but then it says but with god all things are possible so that's the interpretation of how the passage actually reads and
Speaker 2what it means if someone listening or watching was once poor maybe they didn't grow up with wealth their family didn't have it or maybe they're poor now maybe they're poor now but they all of a sudden start to apply the principles and generate wealth but they don't know how to hold the wealth they don't know how to manage the wealth they don't know how they've never experienced that level of wealth abundance and it's like it's so unfamiliar they want it but then oh now i've got 50 grand in my bank i've got 100 i've got a million right and they don't know how to manage it right navigate it they don't know how to perceive now everyone's saying oh i've got 50 grand in my bank i've got 100 i've got a million right and they don't know how to manage it right navigate it they don't know how to perceive now everyone's saying oh give me money right oh oh now you know how to make money or you need to give more of it and they have all these different things pulling at them their own insecurities they don't know how to hold it up they don't know how to manage how do i spend it do i blow it do i hoard it right that's a fear of a lot of people also that that when i make money i won't know what to do with it i want to know what to do with it people are going to steal from me and people are going to judge me yeah how do you navigate that part of abundance of life well
Speaker 1a couple of things you can't be free if you're worried about what people think about you like real freedom is when you have nothing to gain nothing to lose nothing to hide nothing to prove if you have if you have those four things you're free whether you have money or not you have nothing to hide so if you have nothing to gain if i have nothing to gain here's what i mean by nothing to gain when i am interacting with another person i am never trying to get anything from them that's nothing to gain i i didn't come on your show because i hope to gain access to your audience so i can sell more stuff no i like you and i like the books you've written and i like the podcast that you have and you seem like a genuinely cool person if something else happens for me that's great but that's like i want to do it because i want to do it i've got nothing to hide i've got nothing to prove i don't need somebody to believe something about me because the ultimate identity already believes something about me god believes that i'm worthy of life because i'm still here i'm worthy of his blessings because i'm blessed i have i have health i have a family i have people that love me i have people that i love and so i have nothing to i have nothing to gain i have nothing to prove i have nothing to hide i'm not doing some sneaky underhanded thing in the shadows and i hope nobody find out find out about it and i've got nothing to lose because i'm just a steward and it's not mine anyway so how does a person so that's you can't be free if you're worried about oh man but now i have this money what if i lose it well i can't really lose i mean i could have lost if i if something happened and i no longer had money that's okay why because knowledge is better than gold and you can take my money but you can't take my knowledge you can't take my skill set you can't take my mindset you can't take my tool set you can take my assets yeah but i can go build them again yeah and and so it's wise to have a level of caution walking into any new arena including wealth but what you want to do is you want to hire people who are smart where you're not where you're strong where you're weak i have a cpa i have a i have a tax strategist i have i have a attorney that set up all of my financial stuff like i i don't want to i don't even want to be good at those things yeah right so you you you you compensate for your weaknesses with automation
Speaker 2and delegation when you were working as a trash man for many years what was the inner dialogue that you were thinking while you were working because i think you were listening to personal development tapes you were so you were listening to things you were hearing different perspectives you were trying to develop your mind but what was the inner dialogue because i'm assuming being a trash man is not where you wanted to be in the future you're not thinking i hope i'm here forever
Speaker 1right in fact when i was working for the trash company my the general manager they would always see me on my break like it was break time or i was just getting there waiting for the mechanic to finish fixing my truck they'd see me reading books what are you reading i'm reading the greatest sales man in the world why are you reading that you're a trash man no trash i'm i'm a trash man but i'm not gonna be a trash man forever i'm learning how to like i have a business i'm learning how to do stuff and so my inner dialogue my inner dialogue has always been strong and i think that's the result of my parents because i had polio they really overcompensated with me telling me i can do anything i want to do and be anything i want to be really yeah um that's good yeah that's uh that's wealth that's wealth beyond measure right i've got six brothers one older brother five younger brothers and my parents were amazing because like all seven of us we're adults and we all get along we enjoy spending time with each other right because my parents wouldn't allow us in their presence to fight and argue with each other and one of the things that my parents taught us when you're out there in the streets if your brother's in a fight you better be in a fight with them wow so we learned team dynamic in our family right right it was like a sport it was you're a professional
Speaker 2athlete in your family in our family in our family
Speaker 1dynamics for sure looking
Speaker 2back then what was the the hardest part of growing up the hardest part of growing up there was there were a lot of hard
Speaker 1parts of growing up like lots and lots um i wasn't good in school in fact i did really well in school all the way through the third grade um it went downhill from there because they didn't like it it was boring in third grade i was like why are we still doing this and i became disinterested in the third grade um so that's one my dad who was a wonderful great man had an alcohol problem which created a lot of challenges for us. Um, but a lot of great, a lot of great opportunities in those challenges, like learning how to manage the delicate interaction of adults when you're a child to keep from doing something that like gets them angry, upsets the apple cart. Yeah. Okay. So you do that. So that's, that was difficult. Um, the fact that we moved around a lot, so you had to get used to a new school. I think I went to nine different schools growing up. So that was difficult, but all of those difficult things were such a, an absolute vital part of everything that I do now, like everything that I do and everything that I am such a vital part. Like if God gave me an opportunity to do a do-over without any of those challenges, I would say, nah, I mean, if you want to give me a do-over and I get to do the whole thing again and knowing what I know now, I'd love to do that. But even not knowing, I wouldn't like, I wouldn't want a different do-over. I wouldn't want to go and have a do-over and have a life of being Myron without polio. Really? No. Why is that? Because then I'd end up something other than what I am. And I love, I love who God has turned me into. I love being me. I love getting to be Myron Golden. It's, and that may sound arrogant. I don't mean it like that. Like, because I realize that anything good about me is not because of me. Because of me, it's a gift. Even, yeah. And people would say, yeah, it was, it's because of you because you worked hard. Yeah. But even the ability to work hard and the inclination to work hard is a gift. And so if I have, if, if, if I, I look at everything good about me as a gift, it gives me everything to be thankful for and nothing to be proud of. And now I can treat other people with respect and honor, even people who may not act out of respectability because maybe they didn't receive all the gifts I received. And if they had, maybe they would have done more with them than I have. You see, there's always a perspective that can help you become a better and more fulfilled person, I think.
Speaker 2When someone in life now crosses the boundary of yours or does something- It's really hard to do, but okay. Or someone that tries to lie to you or steal from you or hurt you in some ways, they want to inflict pain in some way, whether it be financially or whatever. How do you interpret that? How do you respond to that? It depends on who they
Speaker 1are and what my relationship is with them. If somebody does something dishonest and they work for me, if it's really dishonest, I'm probably going to fire them. But I'll still be friends with them. And by friends with them, if
Speaker 2they need help, I'd help them. Even if they intentionally tried to harm you or if they stole from you or they lied?
Speaker 1No. Okay. So now we're talking about a different aspect.
Speaker 2They stole money from you and then they lied.
Speaker 1I can think of somebody right now. So there are other influencers. We'll call them that for the lack of a better word. Sure. Who I've done business with, who've not done the right thing. And I don't put them on full blast. But if somebody asked me about them- You'll let them know. I'll let them know. Yeah, of course. But I would never say anything about that influencer behind their back that I wouldn't say to their face or that I haven't said to their face. Of course. Yeah. I've had, I remember one guy was like, you're a pathological liar, but you knew you were a pathological liar. And I know you're a pathological liar. You're telling people that I'm not honest. Well, I'm telling them you're not honest because you're not honest. I'm telling you to your face too. Yeah, I'm telling you to your face. I wouldn't say anything to them. I won't say to you. Yeah. Right. So I don't have any problems confronting people. I don't like to fight, but I don't mind. Right? Right. Like I would rather have a great and maintain a great relationship with them. And even if I have a friend who's doing something that is a little off for how I perceive them, I'd go to him and say, you know, I don't have any judgment for you, but I'm really, like dumbfounded. Yeah. Confused. Why are you doing it? Confused. Why are you, this is what you purport, but this is what you allow.
Speaker 2Why? It doesn't match. It's funny because I have, uh, you've been in this kind of online world for a long time. I've been since 2008, 2009 is when I kind of got into it. So 18 plus years. I've seen every, I've seen a lot of people. I've worked with a lot of people. I've been in masterminds. I've been on stages. I've interviewed a lot of people and you just, you know, I have, so I have other friends who are kind of like up and coming and they're like, Hey, this person reached out to me and I'm like, uh, just call me. And they're like, you know, they'll text me. What do you think about this person? I go, uh, call me. And they're like, okay, I'll know not to know not to work with. It's like, all right, there's something here. You know, I'm like, I'm not going to put this in text, but, um, you just want to make sure you're aligning yourself and you're going to make mistakes. You're going to try to trust people you think are good.
Speaker 1And anybody can be honest. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And if you tell somebody you're going to do something, even if it costs you time, effort, energy and money, do it, do it.
Speaker 2Or don't commit to it or don't commit to it. Just say no. Yeah. Yeah. No, as a complete as a complete sentence. I'm curious in your mind, how are people actually blocking abundance and staying broke without even realizing they're doing it a lot of ways, but probably the primary way is people,
Speaker 1people believe more in their lie identity than they do in their identity. Lie identity. What does that mean? What does a lie identity? A lie identity is all the things, all the people, all your life told you, you are not, you're not smart enough. You're not tall enough. You're not athletic enough. You're not handsome enough. Pretty enough. Don't dance well enough. You can't sing well enough. You're you, you don't talk good enough. So they are more in tune with who they aren't than they are with who they are. Right. That's the biggest one because everything in life pours out of identity. The very first success principle in the history of the world is this. It came straight from God. First thing God ever said to man, here's what he said, be fruitful. The word fruit fruit, a fruit is a living organism who's seated in itself. And God said, be fruitful. He's saying you produce on the outside of you based on what I plant, the creativity I plant on the inside of you. Be fruitful. They said multiply. Multiply is not a be, multiply is a do. Do multiply. What does multiply mean? It means increase. Do replenish. What's replenish mean? It means fill up the earth. Why? Because you're multiplying and then subdue it. Subdue is also a do. What subdue means? Subdue means a trample. It seems to not fit. But God is showing us that disruption always follows intention. When you decide to do something new, that's good. The first thing that shows up is something difficult and painful. You decide to start working out and you haven't worked out in a while, you don't feel stronger first, you feel weaker. It hurts. It doesn't feel good first, it feels bad first. So disruption always follows intention. It doesn't matter what the thing is. So that's the next thing. And then he said, and have dominion. Dominion means authority over. So here's the first success principle in the history of the world. You ready? Be, do, have. Wow. Can't be, can't do, can't do, can't have. Watch this. It gets better. Be a little, do a little, do a little, have a little. But everybody can get excited now. If you'll be a lot, you can do a lot. If you'll do a lot, you can have a lot. Wow. Because everything that you have is the result of what you have done. And everything that you will have is the result of what you will do. And everything you will do is the result of who you are becoming right now.
Speaker 2That's so powerful. That's so funny because- Kind of emotional intelligence 101 is be, do, have, not if I have something, then I'll be happy. And that's what most people believe.
Speaker 1They believe, well, if I had this thing, then I could do X, Y, and Z, and then I'd be, no, no, no. You got it exactly. Here's what's really interesting. Being speaks to my identity, right? Who I am. Doing speaks to my activity. All of our activity flows out of our identity. But having speaks to our property. Do you realize there is everybody who's alive and has ever been alive? There is a capacity to be. There's a capacity gap. There's a gap in their capacity between who they are and who they could be, between what they're doing and what they could be doing, and between what they have and what they could have. It doesn't matter how much you have and who you are and what you're doing. Elon Musk has a capacity gap in his be, do, have. So the question is, how can I fill up this capacity gap? So I fill up the capacity gap in my beingness. How do I become more-
Speaker 2More than I've been being. How do you do it? With where you're at in your life, you've got a lot of success, accomplishments, impact, service as well. But do I have as much as I could have?
Speaker 1Absolutely not. It's not even close. Do you need more? I don't need more, but do the people I serve need me to be more? That's a better question. Do they? Because God put me here by myself, but not for myself.
Speaker 2Interesting. But what's missing for you then? What's in the gap from-
Speaker 1Nothing's missing, but there's a gap. A gap doesn't mean something's missing. A gap doesn't mean. A gap just means there's room for more. That's what the gap means. And so how do I fill the gap? I fill the gap with intentionality. I believe that one of the number one common denominators in all successful people is they hyper-focus on intention and ignore distraction, like it's the plague. And by the way, by intention and distraction, I'm going to define both words. By intention, I mean anything that I focus on that moves the needle in my favor. By distraction, I mean anything I focus on that doesn't move the needle in my favor.
Speaker 2That's funny. Yeah. I was telling your team, not to cut you off, I was telling your team beforehand, I was saying the same thing because belief is one thing, but then you could also believe you can do anything. And the distraction of, I know you have lots of money-making opportunities just because I can start a toothbrush company- Doesn't mean I should. Doesn't mean I should. Just because I can create a nail salon and do well in probably. Is that really my purpose or what's meant for me? It's not just because there's money there, it doesn't mean I should spend time doing it. 1,000%. And it's going to pull me away from it. It's going to pull me away from the bigger intention, the bigger purpose, the bigger mission that I can uniquely serve. Exactly. It's your hyper-intentionality that makes you, that continues to fill that gap. Yes. What is the gap for you then from where you are to what is possible at the next level?
Speaker 1Yeah. I think it's always who and how many. And what I mean by that is who am I serving and how many of those people am I serving? That's really the question because fulfillment comes from three things. Fulfillment comes from creation. I have to create something. God planted a different aspect of his creativity inside of me. I have to create something inside of all of us. But if I create something and I don't have anybody to enjoy it with, then it feels empty. People who create something, that's why you have people who build multi-billion dollar companies and they're miserable because they alienated themselves from their families and they're disconnected from the people that were put in their life for connection. So you create, but then you connect because your connection gives you somebody to appreciate your creation with. And then the last one is contribution. I don't contribute to justify my creation or justify the wealth that comes from my creation. I contribute because I can and contributing makes me a better person. I contribute because I believe there is no lack and there is no limitation. I contribute because it doesn't cost me anything to contribute. Even though I'm spending money, I don't have an infinite amount of money, but I have an infinite amount of access to all the money I ever want to make. Like we ate breakfast a little while ago, right around the corner at this little place called Eat. I don't know if you've ever eaten there. Eat? No, I don't remember that. So good. Oh wait, no, I know which one it is.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. The food's great. The service is great. So anyway. I've been there.
Speaker 1Yep. Okay. So went around there. And so the bill was for me and my Some people on my team and my granddaughter was with us as well And so it was for there were four of us and it came to eighty nine dollars And so I could pull out my American specials and ask we don't take American Express So I took out some cash. Yeah, and so I gave her a hundred dollar bill. I said here, okay Well, let me give you some and you keep the change but here here's some more change and I gave her a twenty dollar bill She said you want me to keep the whole thing? well, yeah, I want you to keep the whole thing and That $30 tip on a $90 meal probably made her day I'll probably never think about it again in my life. I won't miss it at all right, and so so the contribution I think I think one of the Professor Arthur Brooks at Harvard University, you know it on the show. Yeah. Okay, great brilliant guy, bro I love that. I love that dude. Anyway, he talks about real friends and deal friends, huh? Right, right And so we all need more real friends, but we think we need more deal friends, right? And when you contribute to somebody that can't give you anything in return We all need those kinds of contributions. Yes, and so I talked about the capacity gap in our Identity, but I didn't talk about the capacity gap in our activity Like how do you fill the capacity gap in your activity? You only got 24 hours in the day. That's right. So what do you do? So, what do you do? You do it through ingenuity. What's ingenuity you find a more efficient approach? Mm-hmm We live in The most amazing time in human history exactly AI AI agents like what? We used to have to have automation as one thing and delegation is another thing now We have automation that can be delegation and they have both and the people that we delegate can have automation and delegate It's like we literally have the ability to compound our results at levels that right now we can't even imagine Right, so we find a new approach and then lastly we increase our property gap with intensity and What I mean by intensity focus is that increasing the velocity of our investing for me? The reason I hyper focus on investing is because one of my desires is to never ever ever ever ever again In my family's genealogy from me forward to ever have anybody who starts from scratch So I'm in I'm intentionally Investing the wealth for my granddaughter and her children and their children and their children Yeah, so when they start they start with a foundation and I know people believe that if you if you have money and you raise your Children in a wealthy abundant experience that'll ruin them. That's not what ruin them ruins them What ruins them is not teaching them? Mm-hmm while you're raising them and giving them money. Yes, right give them opportunities to learn earn money My daughter is a brilliant brilliant business person. My son's a brilliant brilliant business person. They're brilliant in their own, right? They're brilliant. They're both more brilliant than I am in so many ways. They can do stuff. I don't have any idea how to do But it's because when they were kids I Didn't give them money. I heard one of my kids say one time we're rich. I said y'all are you rich? I'm rich me and your mama rich y'all ain't rich y'all just are privileged to live with two rich people Yeah, right, but the fact that we I gave them opportunities and you know what, you know, I you haven't experienced this yet Cuz your children are still young But like from age 14 to about 28 you become an idiot Like you won't know anything they will think you are the biggest dodo head that they have the smartest
Speaker 2guy ever and then you're the biggest
Speaker 1Idiot, and then you become the biggest idiot and then when they turn 28, you're the smartest guy ever again You can become smarter than people who they used to use to make you feel like you're an idiot Right, and it's mind-blowing that my kids my son or my daughter neither one of them wanted to work with me for a while They wanted to go do their own thing. I'm like hey go do your own thing. Oh, yeah, and then they both came and started working with the business and the business started growing even more and now They're I mean they have their own stuff But they also work in the business and in our family business and it's just it's an amazing thing It's a family business is an amazing thing. That's cool Yeah, if you've taught them the right way if you taught them the right way if they're greedy and if they're this right Yeah, yeah, and my both my son and my daughter are very frugal and very smart very smart with their money.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah What is the specific identity that most people need to let go of or allow to die before they can step into true abundance or wealth?
Speaker 1Anything that takes God's name in vain. I bet you weren't expecting that answer were you know, what does that mean? So so what does vain mean? It means empty it means waste Moses asked God when he told God told him to go to Pharaoh and tell him I said let my people go He said who shall I say has sent me God said tell him that I am that I I am that I am has sent thee What does that mean? Okay Every time you say I am NOT I'm not smart I'm not rich I'm not good enough I'm not talented every time you emphasize your I am NOTS You're taking God's name in vain because you're taking because you're saying I am think about it think about I am I am Is that a past present or future statement? I am it's a now. That's a present. That's a now. Okay, cool Just want to make sure we're on the same page in this moment. It's in this moment. You're so here's what's here's it's exactly It's your being this so here's what's really fascinating. I was right experiencing this and I'm going to but that's not the same thing as I am It's your being this so here's what's really fascinating. I was right experiencing this. I'm and I'm going to but that's not the same thing as I am Okay, so watch this In the realm of time we don't really have the ability to experience the present Because as soon as I say now it becomes nice
Speaker 2Right, it becomes the past. Yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 1It becomes the past. That's what I mean As soon as I say now it becomes then so it doesn't matter how fast I say now it turns into then That's got right right soon as the double you gets out of my mouth. It becomes that okay, okay, but in eternity There's no such thing as the past or the future. There's only the present that's why God is the I am that I am not the I was that I was or the I will be that I will be because God is the forever. I am because he lives in the forever now, which is what eternity is so every time you say I am not you are taking your limitation of not and Infusing it with the power of eternity.
Speaker 2No wonder you're stuck Mmm So how does someone learn how to remove? The belief that I am not good at something or I am not beautiful. I'm not talented. I'm not smart How do they when all they see and feel and experience and know around them is that they are not? Like their environment their friends their situation is reminding them They are like if they're watching shift if they're
Speaker 1watching the show, they're already shifting Yeah, of course, right because they're becoming aware of the fact that there's more than they've been aware of in the past You have exposure like constant intense perpetual exposure to anything shapes you People who perpetually watch the news are negative because the news is perpetually negative. Yes. I don't watch the news. How are you there? I don't but I don't need to people say well, how will you know what's going on in the world? I want to know what's going on around the world. Well, you can be a better question. Then how will I know what's going on in? the world If I can't fix what's going on in my world, what am I gonna do about the problems? In the world, hey man, you're you're people are so focused on stuff that's going on around the world. You can't pay your light bill Like why would somebody listen to you about a world problem? Mm-hmm? So that's question number one, but then again, like you said Somebody's we're surrounded by negative people if something negative is going on in the world. We will find out about it we are surrounded by people who are who have a media Negative news umbilical cord and it doesn't matter whether it's consistent Negative news CNN or slides of Fox News or always been critical news ABC. Oh, they're all bad What why would I want to fill my mind with problems like the people don't even understand how much of an energy suck? That is if I fill my mind with problems, I can't solve. I don't have any energy left to solve the problems I can and so you don't realize and if all I do is watch other people All I do is watch other people win vicariously and like we didn't when I was broke We we didn't have a television. My daughter was 16. We got our first cable TV in our house Well as it why because I'm not gonna watch other people live their dreams while I'm living a nightmare Why would I want to watch somebody else win and I'm losing that doesn't make any sense I'm cheering for them. My team one your team does not know you exist Right. My favorite movies on it may be your favorite movie, but you're not their favorite person watching They don't even know you exist. Like it's a distraction. Most people anesthetize themselves from their Unwillingness to yield to becoming the person they can be by watching other people win. Mm-hmm It's not worth it.
Speaker 2Yeah for years. I didn't have a TV as well when I was like just getting into the business world and It's funny because my dad would never let us watch the news and he would always turn the commercials off or he would turn it On silence so we couldn't hear the programming of commercials that were around medical problems disease like and medication because most of the commercials probably I don't know 40 50 percent around Health care yet medications right sick care that they call health care exactly And so it's just always programming if you have this when you have this look out for this symptom And here's what this drug will do for you to help heal you and my dad always turned it off because he was like It's just programming you.
Speaker 1Well, that's why they're called television programs because they program you so it's called broadcasting They're broadly casting a spell on everybody.
Speaker 2Yeah And I think it's funny because I did an interview I don't know maybe eight years ago with a pretty big political figure and And I normally don't do political figures, but we weren't talking about politics was more of a life story Mm-hmm, and this person was actually running for president one day and And I was like, yeah, I don't watch the news. And they got kind of upset at me. They were like, you're doing a disservice by not being aware of what's happening and not watching the news. It was very like, I don't want to make wrong. And I was kind of like, I can still get informed of what's happening in the world without watching fear-based news or programming that is keeping me tied to the TV being worried about my life.
Speaker 1Right, exactly. It doesn't make any sense. You're like manufacturing anxiety, which is the anxieties of the thief of your dreams. Why would I want to manufacture anxiety when I can manufacture anticipation instead?
Speaker 2Exactly. You can't be creative when you're living in fear necessarily. You know, it's so much harder. So I got a couple of final questions for you. This has been awesome. Do your thing, bro. If money is a byproduct of value and offering value and providing value to someone, what do most entrepreneurs completely misunderstand about creating real value?
Speaker 1They create what's valuable to them instead of what's valuable to the marketplace. I would say if you're going to build a really successful business, it has to start out there. It can't start in here. You can't write the book you've always wanted to write. You have to write the book the marketplace has always wanted to read. You can't start the business and invent the product you've always wanted to invent. You have to invent the product the marketplace has always been screaming for. That people want. Want, exactly. The thing that people desire. The two things that will make our life complete, I believe, pleasing God, serving people. You cannot lose in those two arenas. Not serving God and pleasing people? No, definitely not. Why? Because I was created to please God because he created everything to please him. And God created me. He created me for the purpose of serving other human beings. In fact, Jesus said to those religious leaders, he said, here's what you did. I was sick. You didn't visit me. I was in prison. I was sick. You didn't minister unto me. I was hungry. You didn't feed me. I was thirsty. You didn't give me anything to drink. I was in prison. You didn't visit me. They said, when did we see all these things? He said, in as much as you've done unto the least of these, people have nothing to offer you. You've done it also unto me. How you treat other people is how you treat God. Not because those other people are God. But he put them here for you to serve. And it doesn't matter if it's a cashier at a grocery store who's having a, quote, bad day. Or if it's a client. Or if it's a family member. Or if it's some stranger on the street, a homeless person who comes up to your window when you're stopped at a red light. It doesn't matter. I was put here to serve people. And I need to discern how am I supposed to serve this person at the highest level while I'm in their presence so that they will know through me. That God loves them. It's interesting. The Queen of Sheba came to see Solomon. And she asked him a bunch of hard questions because Solomon was a consultant to his contemporaries. That's how he, his business model in the Bible was mind-blowing. And so she came to him. She paid him a whole lot of money. Like in today's dollars, it would be like $732 million. Yeah, it's crazy. She was just one of many monarchs that paid him. And so when he got done answering all her questions, here's what she said. She said, because the Lord loved Israel forever, therefore he made you to be king over Israel. Am I willing to live the kind of life that God can demonstrate his love to people through my existence? That's what I mean when I say serve people.
Speaker 2And it doesn't necessarily mean for those watching, like if there's a homeless person on drugs coming up to you asking for money. You don't have to give them money. You don't have to do that.
Speaker 1No, you don't have to do that.
Speaker 2You can give them something.
Speaker 1You can take them. I'll take you over there and buy you something. I'll take you over there and buy you something to eat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes if I'm in a hurry and I don't have time to take them to get something to eat, I'll give them money. Because I'm not, I don't know if they're on drugs or not. Maybe they're a disabled vet and they just not, they've not been able to get back on their feet. I don't know. Yeah. But if I feel like I'm, if I feel led, like I'm, if I feel impressed that I should give this person some money, I'm going to give them some money. Yeah. And then I'll let how they used it shake out with them and God later. Like, but I got to do the thing I was put here to do. And that is please God, serve people.
Speaker 2Wow. If you could only share three lessons on wealth, creation, and abundance. Yes. From all the lessons, you know, and all the wisdom and all the experience you have, three lessons on wealth, creation, and abundance. What would those lessons be?
Speaker 1I've already shared one. It's easier to make a lot of money in a short period of time than it is to make a little money over a long period of time. Like literally, I believe that deciding to believe that will, and then deciding to only look for and look at easier ways to make a lot will change your life. That's one. Two. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 38. 39. 39. 40. 41. 42. 42. 43. 44. 44. 44. 44. 44. 44. 45. 45. 46. 46. 47. 47. 46. 47. 48. 48. 49. 49. 50. 50. 50. 51. I wrote a book about my journey and how I went from being the trash man to now becoming the cash man. You know how long ago I wrote that book, Lewis? When? 20 years ago. Wow. You know what? You know how that book that I wrote, this is work I did 20 years ago. Yeah. Still makes you happy today. It made me, how much, you want to know how much money that book made me in the last year? $81,000 from work I did 20 years ago. Just on the book sales, not on. The potential other business. All the client stuff that's come from it. Okay. But I wrote another book five years ago in 2021 called Boss Moves. That book in the last year has made me $186,000. So I've made over $260,000 in the last year from work that's 20 and five years old. Why? Because I created an offer. See, here's what I mean. A wealthy person uses our, we use our creativity. We create an offer. Offer in that case was a book. The offer then pays for the thing. So if you're working, exchanging your time for money, you exchange the time, you get the money. You go buy the car. You don't have the time anymore. You don't have the money anymore. You only have the car. Eventually the car becomes worth nothing unless it's a classic, right? Okay. Watch this. I go into my creativity. I create an asset. I write a book. Do I still have the creativity after I write the book? Yes. I write the book. I sell a book. Do I still have books to sell after I sell the book? Yes. So I still have the creativity. I still have the book. I get the money. If I spend the money, I don't have the money anymore, but do I have another book to sell to replace the money? So the creativity never runs out. The asset never runs out and the money never runs out because if you create the right kind of offer, it's what I call an SRA, a self-replenishing asset. It's one of the greatest wealth lessons I've ever learned in my life. To me, it doesn't matter if I'm buying a pack of Tic Tacs, pack of gum or breakfast or flying across the world on a private jet. It all costs the same amount. How can I say it all costs the same amount? Because I pay for all of it the same way. I pay for it according to my creativity. Anything that I buy, I create an offer to pay for it. And so I literally turn every expense into a profit center. I just bought a house. The house was $2.4 million, which in California, it's a bungalow.
Speaker 2In Tampa, it's 70
Speaker 1some hundred square feet. That's nice. Cool. Yeah. And I like being at home. But guess what? I haven't started my golf YouTube channel yet, but I love golf. But I'm going to start a golf YouTube channel. That's cool. Some of it's going to be simulator golf. Some of it's going to be golf course golf. I believe that golf channel will pay for that house. That's cool. So when I create an asset, so when I moved out of my old house, I didn't sell it. Why didn't you sell it? Well, because we have family coming to town. We have a big family. I want to have some place for them to stay, but it still needs to pay for itself. So we're going to put a podcast studio in it. And my daughter and I are going to start a podcast. That's cool. So I'm using my creativity. So that's the second one. Here's the last one. Yeah. Here's the last principle. It's called Price's Law. Are you familiar with Price's Law? I heard Jordan Peterson talk about this. This blew my mind. Price's Law. Price's Law. Professor Richard Price discovered this principle that 50% of the production of any domain is produced by the square root of that domain, which sounds like a big scientific formula. Basically, what it means is if you have four tomato plants in a garden, two of the tomato plants will produce half the tomatoes. If you have four salespeople on a sales team, two of the salespeople will produce half of the sales. But if you increase the square root to three from two, because two is the square root of four, right? Two is the square root of four. But it's also half of four. But if you increase the square root to three, if you have nine, three times three is nine. If you have nine tomato plants, half of the tomatoes are produced by three of the plants. If you have nine people on a sales team, half the commission. Not half anymore. Not half anymore. If you have nine, half is created by three. Half of the commissions are generated by three of the salespeople. If you have, let's say that 10 is the square root. 10 times 10 is 100. If you have 100 salespeople on a sales team. 10 of those salespeople will make half the sales, half the commissions. Yes. Is this similar to 80-20? It's similar, but it's very different because it shows you, like 80-20 shows you that 80% of your results are produced by 20% of your efforts. This is showing you something totally different, but in a cool way. I shared this with Ben Hardy. Like we became friends immediately, right? So if you go up to 10,000, you got a big insurance company, for instance, like New York Life. 100 times. 10,000. That can't be right. 100 salespeople are producing half the sales. If Price's Law is true, that would have to be true. Okay, cool. I'm going to prove it's true for the country. Are you ready? Okay. There are 30 million businesses in the United States of America. The square root of 30 million is 5,477, which means 5,477 businesses are producing half of the gross domestic products in the United States of America.
Speaker 2Might be less. Who knows? You've got Apple and Google and, you know. You're picking up on that.
Speaker 1Exactly. So what does Price's Law show us? Here's what I believe it shows us. Two things. One, mediocrity scales exponentially. Excellence only scales incrementally. What does that mean? It means almost everybody is willing to do enough to be one of the mediocre many, but only a very small percentage of people are willing to do what it takes to be one of the fantastic few. Yeah. That's what it means. Mediocrity scales exponentially. Why? Maybe because only a handful of people are willing to pay the price of Price's Law to become one of the fantastic few. That's true. Isn't that mind-blowing?
Speaker 2That's true, man. That's interesting. I know. It blew my mind, too. Based on that law, then, what do you think separates people who make six figures and only stay at a six-figure level to those that break through that level, to seven figures consistently, or even eight and beyond?
Speaker 1Yeah. That's easy. I think that one of the things that keeps people from 100,000 a month is 100,000 a year. One thing that keeps people from 500,000 a month is 100,000 a month. What do I mean by that? You get to the place, you think, I'm there. I made it. But I've got news for everybody. This is a great financial principle. There is no there there. The journey is the there. That's the case. If I've become, let's say, a millionaire or a multimillionaire or a decamillionaire, if I've become that, am I there? I'm not there. Because the whole purpose of me being is for me to be becoming. And so it's not necessarily all about the money. Robert Allen did me a favor. You know who Robert G. Allen is? Author of Multiple Streams of Income, Creating Wealth. I was at one of his wealth retreats one time, and he asked for a testimonial. And I literally had one of his audio programs in my car for probably six years. It was called Infopreneuring. I had it in my car for six years, and I applied a lot of stuff, and it helped me make a lot of money. And he asked for a testimonial. And I'm like, yeah. I used to be a trash man. I came up on stage. There's 700 people there. I used to be a trash man making $6.25 an hour. Now I make $30,000 a month. I'm living like a king. He said to me, wow, you're doing really good. Here's what he said to me. He said, you're about to have a breakthrough to the really big money. And I thought, my first thought
Speaker 2was-- And it's not a lot of the money already?
Speaker 1Right. I thought, did this guy just diss my $30,000 a month in front of 700 people? That was my first thought.
Speaker 2From $6.25 an hour to $30,000 a month?
Speaker 1Right. And then I thought, wait, there's a level where $30,000 a month is not a lot of money? Well, now I have a business where if it does $30,000 a day, it's not a big deal. And I don't mean $30,000 in a day. I mean $30,000 a day, 365 days a year, that's not a big deal. But if Robert Allen wouldn't have said that to me, that would have been a big deal, because he would have landed my thinking in ways that inspiring me couldn't. Motivating me couldn't. He just said, yeah, you're about to have a breakthrough. Basically, he said, you think you're doing good. You don't even know what good looks like.
Speaker 2Yeah. It's interesting. I had Grant Cardone on the show a few times back in the day. And I think he was at like, I don't know, $300 million in assets or $500 million or something. And I go, what's holding you back from a billion? And he kind of got really frustrated. He's like, well, it's just not possible. Right now. And I was like, well, if it was possible, what would need to happen?
Speaker 1Come on now.
Speaker 2And he's like, he just kind of getting frustrated. He's like, well, I'd have to do this and this and this. And I have to all these things. And then a year later, he comes back and he crossed that billion mark. And I go, why don't you have $5 billion? Like, just not that you have to. Right. But why not? What would it take? What's the difference? He goes, it's just, well, now like a billion was, that was the number. Like five. It's like, come on. This is just too unrealistic now. It's like, it's not going to happen. I go, but if it had to happen, if what would need to happen in order for that to happen? And he got really frustrated this time. And then he said, you know what? Gosh, dang it, Lewis. You know, you always do this to me. And then a year later, he came back and he was at $5 billion. And I'm not saying I'm the one who did this, but I was just allowing someone to think differently. If you challenge somebody
Speaker 1who's a fighter, if you challenge somebody who's a fighter, they're going to go prove it. They're going to go figure it out.
Speaker 2Exactly. But it also, you know, and I think we all need someone to challenge us to just see a different possibility. Right. Like, cool, what you've done is great. To see past the horizons. Exactly.
Speaker 1And that means you have to
Speaker 2make 10 times more to live a good life. You're living a good life. Yeah. But if I could make 10 times more, why wouldn't I? Yeah. And what would need to happen? Right. Without you burning out. Right. Without you having more free time. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1And then the answer goes back to the same thing I said before, who and how many. The who I serve would have to be different. Yeah. And how many of those who would be different. Yeah. And most people think, I don't know. I'd need to serve more of a different people. It's actually that you need to serve fewer of a different kind of client. Give them greater value and charge them more. Or give more of the right ones of them greater value. Charge them less. But give them, see, most people, most people, people say under promise and over deliver. I hate that. I hate that phrase. Under promise and over deliver. Just deliver. Just, how about this? Promise big and deliver even bigger. Yeah. Yeah. How about that? And most people, when they think of over delivering, what they mean is cramming a bunch of junk in there that's useless. No. So you become overwhelmed. No. Get them more results. Right. Exactly. Make it easier. More is not better. Faster is better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2Exactly. Exactly. That's powerful, man. What's a question you wish more people would ask you that they don't ask?
Speaker 1You know what's really fascinating to me? Like I have a lot of friends, like friend friends, like people that I love that are friends of mine and probably as many family members. My mom had like 11 siblings in her family. My dad had six in his family. Like I've got a lot of cousins. I've got cousins I haven't even met. Like first cousins. No, not first cousins. Second cousins I haven't even met. Okay. So cool. I'm shocked that people don't say, hey, Myron, you know, I'd like to do better financially. What do I need to do? I'd happily tell them. I don't know that they'd happily do it, but I'd happily tell them. It blows my mind. Why do you think people don't ask you that? It goes back to the very first thing we were talking about. They don't believe it's possible for them. They believe more in their I am nots than their I ams. I'm not the kind of person who could become a millionaire. Really? What does that mean? If people would ask you, somebody like you to help them. Yeah. And you could. I'd do it. You'd do it. If somebody that I care about, especially would ask me to help them and I could, of course I would do it. Yeah. So, um, I, I, I, I don't know that I wish people, more people would ask me, but I'm fascinated that more people don't. Cause if I had known me when I was a trash man, I'd be asking yourself, bro, what about this? Because I was asking other wealthy friends of mine. I was asking David Mitchell. I was asking Ben Ginder. I was asking Tony Bowling. I was asking people that I got exposed to questions that it helped like break something free in my mind that would help me see myself in their, in their shoes.
Speaker 2And what's the thing you're most proud of that most people don't know about you? Maybe something you don't talk about or something that people aren't aware of.
Speaker 1It would be way easier for me to tell you something, the thing that I'm most thankful for than the thing I'm most proud of. Cause I don't think in those terms generally. What's that? I'm thankful that my children turned out to be really, really amazing. Amazing people. That's good. I'm thankful that my brothers and I, we all love each other, like not tolerate each other, like celebrate each other. I'm thankful that I finally started listening to my kids. My son told me about Bitcoin in 2012 and I discounted it. But eventually I finally listened and I don't mind Bitcoin. I don't trade Bitcoin. I don't even buy Bitcoin. But I did something in 2017 that made me a cryptocurrency millionaire. Since I think April of 2017, I've acquired over a hundred Bitcoin, hundreds of Ethereum. And I did it without buying it, trading it or mining it, which sounds like, well, what did you do? I just created some offers and I let people pay me in crypto. And there you go. There you go.
Speaker 2So that's fascinating. That's cool. Yeah, it is cool. I heard online, I can't remember who said this, but some wealthy, like, you know, older billionaire guy, when he was asked, what's the key to success or what is your definition of success? And he said, having my adult kids want to spend time with me, not because of my money. Oh yeah. But just because they want to hang out with me. Yeah. That was success.
Speaker 1There's nothing like it to have my son and my daughter live in the same city as me to have, we spend time together. Granddaughter four or five times a week. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2It's, it's, it's a joy beyond words. If you, you know, now that you know that I'm a father of two twins, two different, you know, twin girls, what are three pieces of advice that you would give me or any new parents on if they could apply these three principles or say these things or teach these things about abundance and wealth to their children, to my kids. On repeat daily, weekly, monthly throughout their childhood development. What three things should I be doing? to support their mindset around abundance? A couple of things.
Speaker 1Say yes when you can. Make yes your default answer for your children instead of no. Now, when I say yes, I don't mean, yes, dad, give me $100 million. No, that's not what I mean. I mean, hey, can we go do this? Yes, but you need to figure out how we're going to do X, Y, and Z. Like give them part of responsibility. So before I give you that, let me give you what I've discovered, the framework for parenting that I wish I had discovered when my children were young. Give it to me. Can I give you that? Yes. There are four levels of parenting. Four is an interesting number because four is the number of the earth. There are four directions on the earth, north, south, east, and west. There are four seasons, winter, spring, summer, and fall. Four elements, water, fire, earth, and wind. So four is an interesting number. There are four. Oftentimes when we find principles on the earth that rule the earth, they often show up in fours. There are four levels of value. There's four levels of teaching for four levels of learning, but there are four levels of parenting for four stages of child development. The first level is training. That's the first level of parenting. And that's when your children are between the ages of day one and four years old. You train them. And the purpose of training is to get them to respond appropriately to authority. Zero to four. It could save their lives. And here's the only response to authority when you're zero to four. Complete and immediate obedience. You do what I said exactly when I said it, not after I explained to you why, but simply because I said it, because you are not yet four years old. So that's the first stage of child development. So that's training for the purpose of getting them to respond properly to authority. Second stage is teaching. This is the hardest stage of parenting. This is age five, six, seven, and eight. This is where you start explaining the reasons behind the rules What's this phase called? Teaching. Teaching. Training and then teaching. Training is for response. But the purpose of teaching is so they can learn to reason properly, appropriately with truth. And so you teach them the reasons behind the rules so that they will keep the rules for the right reasons when you're not around. So you're teaching them. And then nine, 10, 11, and 12, that's transitioning them. What does that mean? That's where you. You are preparing them with life skills by them doing things with you to you doing that thing with them to you then watching them do the thing. So you ask them, what are we going to eat for dinner this week? What are we going to eat for breakfast? Okay. What are the ingredients we need to get? And they learn how to make a grocery list and they go to the grocery store and they learn how to find these things and then they come home and then they help you prepare the meal or, and if it's not you, whoever, whatever the things are that you're working on, that your children are working on with you, they are doing it with you. Get your children started working in your business as soon as they are able. Like if that's two, three years old and they're doing modeling or whatever, and they're holding your book and you're creating an whatever, get your children started in your business, pay them money for the work they do in your business. And you know, there are tax advantages and all of that and all that when they. From seven to 17, I think is the, it used to be the ages. I don't know what it is. Now my children are grown. That's the third phase of parenting. Transitioning. Transitioning. And then when Jewish children turn 13, actually when they turn 12, they get bar mitzvah. Do you know what the bar mitzvah means? No. Bar means son. Mitzvah means law. So bar mitzvah is you're a son of the law. You are now responsible to God for keeping the law for yourself. You're an adult. Wow. That's what bar mitzvah means. At 12? At 12. Yes. I was in, I was in Israel. I was visiting with my friend. I'm Reese. And we were out to dinner with her and her husband. And, and I said, well, what are your children doing? Oh, they're home with my oldest son. I forgot his name, but they're home with my oldest son. He's 13. He's a man now. That's what she said. And I was the, I was reckless at 13, you know? Right. Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you why that whole phenomenon exists in America. But anyway, so, so that's trusting your children because now is when you start trusting them as adults. That doesn't mean. Right, right. Right. You give them the keys to the car. Sure, sure. But it means they are thinking like an adult. Do you know that in America before the great depression, people would graduate from the eighth grade at 13 and then they would go get a job. I believe it. Right. And were, and they were more literate than a lot of high school graduates and some college graduates are now. So why, why are children in America programmed to remain children until they turn 36 because some of the business moguls. Of the past believed in a zero sum game. And so they set it up in such a way so that they would win at the expense of other people instead of at the empowerment and the embeddement of other people. And they realized that there are two classifications of people that you can count on for overconsumption of any product addicts and children. So if we can get people addicted, which is why the cigarette companies bought the food companies crazy. And if we can get people to remain children longer. Then we can perpetuate our sales to these people forever. Crazy. Yeah. What's
Speaker 2the fourth phase called? Trusting, trusting, you trust them as an adult, trusting, and that's 13 to from now on the forever. Yeah. This has been powerful. Myron. I appreciate, I appreciate everything you've been sharing. This has been a lot of fun. I've got two final questions for you before I ask them, I want people to follow you. They can go to Myron golden.com or Myron golden on Instagram. Social media, all these different places as well. You've got some great books. We'll make sure to link them up here as well. Thank you. Um, where is one place people should go to, to learn more about you or to get access to something.
Speaker 1If you want to learn more about my business teachings, just go to YouTube, look up Myron golden. Okay. One of my, one of my mottos for creating YouTube content is I never post anything on YouTube that I could not have put in a course and sold. Hmm. So if I can't sell it, if it's not worth selling, it's not worth posting on YouTube. That's great. Right. And why do I do that? I can't. I consider YouTube not to be my free content because it's not free. They have to pay with their attention. I consider it my community service content. This is how I serve people who don't have $375,000 to buy a VIP day from who don't have $55,000 to join St. King Solomon's court or $25,000 to buy a two day event where I train them on high ticket sales. So I have my YouTube channel as my community service content. Um, for those of people who want to learn more Bible from me, Bible study with Myron golden on YouTube. Those are my two channels that would help them get the most out of those two different aspects, which are really the same aspect, but different aspects of how I teach and what I teach.
Speaker 2Love it. Love it. I want to acknowledge you, Myron, for the content you continue to put out, which is the content I see is really around faith and financial freedom. Yeah. That's the stuff I liked seeing you talk about because most people only talk about one or the other, they don't blend both of them and make it part of their being. Right. I
Speaker 1think you've really
Speaker 2leaned into it and you've owned it a hundred percent, not been like, Oh, let me shy away from this a little bit, only talk a little bit about faith. It's like, here's the principle I've learned. That's helped me become wealthy. Let me just share it with you. Right. And blending them, I think is really cool. And there's not many people doing that. So I acknowledge you for, for using your talents and your gifts to serve people and please God. So I acknowledge you for, for showing up in the ways you do. Thank you. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end called the three truths. Okay. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as you want in this earth, but it's the last day in this physical realm. Sure. You get to accomplish and create everything you want. It all comes true. But for whatever reason, hypothetically, in the last day, you have to take all of your content, interviews, books, courses, everything's gone, hypothetical. Um, but on the last day you get to leave behind three lessons. And this is all we would have. This is all we would have of your content to remember you by in the world. So all your content is gone except for these three final truths that you would share about anything. What would these three truths be for you?
Speaker 1One is a video that I did on YouTube, um, about the 23rd Psalm called, you have to go through the valley to get to the vision. That'd be one because everybody's going to face difficulty in their lives. Two would probably be my boss. Moves. Blows. Waves. I don't know. book because it's the ultimate guide to scaling any business in four moves. We, we, we, we literally show our clients how to scale their business 1,280% in four moves. And so, um, I would leave that behind for the business owners. And I think because everybody's going to die and everybody's going to have a loved one who dies, I would probably leave the message that I preached at
Speaker 2my son's funeral. What was the main essence
Speaker 1of that message? But funerals remind us of three things, the brevity of life. Even if you did live to be 300 years old in the scheme, in the realm of time, it's like a fraction of a second, the brevity of life, the reality of eternity. When we die, we don't cease to exist. We just go to a different place. And most of the time, we don't cease to exist. Most people think the place they're going to go to is going to be determined by if their good works outweigh their bad works, they get to go to a good place. And if their bad works outweigh their good works, they get to go to a bad place. It's not true. how it works biblically which brings me to the third point everybody needs a savior that's the whole point it's really interesting that everything in the bible points to christ but everything in human history points to christ what year is it what year is this right now 2026. what does 2026 mean it means 2 2026 years after our lord that's what it means and odom and odomani after our lord our dates are based on the life of christ it's either before him or after him
Speaker 2why because everything points to him that's beautiful yeah the final question myron what's your definition of greatness oh that's easy serve
Speaker 1other people you want to be great serve the most people he will be greatest among you in fact i did a video on that too called how to be great even if you're not good how can i be great if i'm not good easy serve more people jesus said who will be greatest among you let me be serving a ball think about it who do you want to spend the most time with somebody who every time they're around you they're trying to get something from you or every time they're around you they're looking for ways to make your life better that's greatness is not what you think you are greatness is what other people see you being as you serve other people amen so my man thank you
Speaker 2appreciate it i hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links and if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel so you don't miss out on any of our upcoming episodes and don't forget to hit the bell so you don't miss out on any of our upcoming episodes and don't forget to hit the bell so you don't miss out on any of our upcoming episodes and don't forget to hit the bell so you don't miss out on any of our upcoming episodes and don't forget to hit the bell so you don't miss out on any of our upcoming episodes and leave us a review on apple podcasts as well let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review i really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward and i want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved you are worthy and you matter and now it's time to go out there and do something great I don't know.
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