Kind: captions
Language: en
let's talk about the job stuff because i
routinely show people how to negotiate
10 25 000 raises all the time
and you're like that's crazy there's no
way et cetera et cetera excuse excuse
here's the different approach the first
way that most people think is like if
i'm going to negotiate for a raise which
like oh they might just like fire me
that's problem number one that's that's
the wrong way to look at it
if you go in and ask for a raise you're
not devaluing yourself you're actually
increasing your value because what type
of person would go in and ask for a
raise a top performer so the second
thing is they believe that they have to
kick down the door of their boss and say
like give me money well if you do that
of course they're going to kick you out
that's a very impolite way to do it a
third way
is much more effective so i'll just give
you like the quick lay of the land
if you want to get a raise for anybody
watching
this is how you do
[Music]
hey everybody welcome to impact theory
today's guest is a new york times
best-selling author whose theories
around personal finance have helped
countless people achieve financial
freedom as well as making him a very
wealthy man he's the founder of
growthlab.com and
iwillteachyoutuberich.com
and he has more than 20 000 documented
success stories so far he's a stanford
grad who studied both technology and
psychology and he takes a profoundly
humanistic approach to finance his views
are often counter-intuitive but they cut
through the typically trite confusing
and emotionally impossible guidance that
permeates the landscape of financial
advice his simple six-week method to
gaining financial control over your life
is both powerful and straightforward to
implement a voice that has withstood the
test of time 10 plus years after first
publishing his award-winning book i will
teach you to be rich he's been pictured
next to warren buffett in forbes
magazine had a six-page feature in
fortune and he's been covered by such
prominent institutions as cnbc the wall
street journal cnn pbs fox business and
the new york times over 1 million people
read his material every month and his
newsletter alone reaches hundreds of
thousands of people weekly so please
help me in welcoming the man who fortune
called the new finance guru the no bs
money man for the new generation ramit
sethi
tom thank you
welcome to the show thank you
exciting to have you thanks it's great
to be here yes man we know a lot of the
same people so researching it was a lot
of fun so i gotta got to hear some old
voices and people that have been on the
show before and there are a ton of
people who give just a lot of
credibility to you the way you think the
way you approach it
and where i wanted to start and this is
something i don't have the answer to so
i'm really curious to hear what you say
all right
right now the noise around being young
today is that the world financially has
basically come to an end everybody's
buried under so much debt there's no way
to get ahead they're stuck they're
trapped and i've heard that so many
times in the beginning i just sort of
blew it off and i'm like it's it's a
mindset problem
it's so pervasive
is it a mindset problem or is it really
something deeply problematic that's
happening
i think the answer is yes yes and yes
i think that there are definitely
um systemic problems when it comes to
things like inequality when i think it
comes to things like student loan debt
yes those are problems and there needs
to be a lot of work done on those and we
can simply look at history to see
how
crazy
tax rates are compared to where they've
been historically or how crazy student
loan debt is compared to where it was
historically but
whenever i hear someone who starts
complaining about
the large-scale societal problems i just
have one question i say do you invest in
your 401k and it's one thing to talk
about systemic problems and we should
talk about them and tackle them
but the best thing we can do for
ourselves is to focus on what we can
control and that's what i believe that's
why i'm here some people work on
systemic problems i'm here to help
people one-on-one with their money and
their psychology
yeah that that to me is a
very interesting and powerful approach i
come at it the same way i was giving a
talk at google and there was an
african-american gentleman in the front
row and basically the question was like
is it harder for me and my answer was
yes that seems pretty apparent but now
what
so you can go try to tackle that
systemic problem and i'm super glad that
there are people who are wired for that
yeah but for me i'm always like what can
i do right now today because when you're
dealing with huge systemic problems
you're basically
you're
doing something amazingly altruistic for
the next generation but the odds of you
being able to reap the benefits of that
are pretty slim yeah
yeah i agree and i think that when you
can start to take control and make
one step after another for example for
people who are in debt it's so
interesting
when people write me about how to get
out of debt over 90 percent of them
don't know how much they owe
so if you don't know how much you owe i
understand that why would you want to
open up the emails and the bills you
don't know what's inside but you know
it's bad but the first step to doing
that to paying it off is to open it up
confront reality get real and then make
a plan and all of those things can be
done
in and of yourself without regards to
what's going on outside your house or
outside your email inbox one thing that
i really like about your approach is the
way that you look at it from a
psychological standpoint you talk a lot
about programming the beliefs that
people have around money which i think
are really really important and as the
person who i believe it is my mission in
life is to help people construct a frame
of reference that sets them up to
what i'll call it's an empowering
mindset it sets them up to be able to
actually execute on their dreams yeah
what is the the frame of reference the
mindset the intentional programming that
you think especially young people who
are struggling right now um should have
well let's start with what they do have
so we grow up with these things i call
invisible scripts and these are the
scripts that are beliefs that are so
powerful
we don't even realize that they're
they're around us that's why they're
invisible so a classic one in america is
the american dream
is
buying a house
where did that come from and in fact
there's all these phrases that people
use like
you're throwing money away on rent they
don't make more land you know and on and
on
if you really deconstruct that and you
actually run the numbers you might
discover that actually buying a house is
often not the best investment and this
is super counter-intuitive people get
really mad because real estate is
religion in america but if you actually
die dive in deep you might discover wow
there's a lot of parties who want me to
spend a ton of money that's why for
example i could buy today but i rent and
when people hear that they're like wait
i thought i will teach you to be rich
guys rich so why is he renting they get
very confused because real estate is
religion you know another thing that is
um really common today for people is
there's no way to get ahead right
especially for young people social
security won't be around et cetera et
cetera
and i just don't believe in that i think
if you go onto reddit or you go on to
these places where it's a
it's a lot of people who are
disaffected young people they create an
echo chamber of other people who want to
victimize themselves
then you have a choice do you want to be
reading those threads or like i was
reading the comments on your youtube
videos i was like these are the best
youtube comments i've ever seen people
are positive constructive they're
pointing out things they saw in the 32nd
minute of the video meaning they
actually watched the whole thing
those are the kind of people that i want
people to be around so it's not
impossible to make money there's
actually a lot of people making money
it's not impossible to get ahead pay off
debt even invest and grow there's a lot
of people doing it but if you're
surrounded by people who constantly
complain about how difficult it is and
it's impossible guess what you're going
to absorb those invisible scripts dude
that [ __ ] really terrifies me and when i
think about so i'm a child of the 80s
and i was just talking to a good friend
of mine who i grew up with and he was
like oh i knew you'd be rich one day and
i grew up teetering white-collar
blue-collar so like i was definitely not
set up to be wealthy i didn't know
anybody who was wealthy didn't know
anybody who'd been successful
and he was like oh i knew you were going
to be rich and i was like why and he
said because you get what you believe in
and he said you believed money was like
a thing that it was super powerful he
said you used to talk about all the
[ __ ] time
and of course i anybody that knows my
story knows for decades i chased money
it was my stated goal i wasn't that
didn't feel weird to me i was just like
yeah i want to be rich and i was
pursuing that doggedly yeah and of
course only end up getting rich once i
let go of like understanding that that
wasn't going to make me happy so i set
that aside
but because i had all these positive
beliefs about that it was possible that
it could happen to anybody i never
thought to not chase it yeah and so the
company that my partners and i built
that ended up being the billion dollar
success and just like crazy
we started it in 2009 at like the height
of the recession and so it's like
it just never occurred to me to to think
that way and you said something one of
your talks in the book i can't remember
which place but was like
even in those moments
people can be successful but if you're
telling yourself that you're not going
to be successful then you don't take the
actions yeah walk me through like how do
you get through to people who have these
scripts they're shutting down they're
not taking those steps like do you have
sort of entry-level movements for them
for sure many of us if you take somebody
and you just talk i do this a lot
they'll be at one of my talks or they
are on my newsletter or following me on
instagram and uh i'll give you an
amazing example that just happened
recently i had a woman who wrote me and
she said ramit can you help me convince
my husband not to waste money
and i go okay what what's going on she
goes he spends so much money on iced tea
and i was like here we go
i go how much money and she goes he buys
iced tea 20 times a month like almost
every day i said how much is this iced
tea she said it's a dollar fifty each
time so in my head i'm like this is
insane like why are we even talking
about this but i knew there's something
here so i want to unpack it i said out
of curiosity what's your household
income
no response for 20 minutes okay and then
finally she comes back she goes i'm not
comfortable sharing that
i said just give me a range okay what do
you think her her and her husband's
household income is i know the story i
i would have guessed otherwise you would
80 000 100 000 like a nice
600 000.
and the this is a perfect example like
rationally and logically we should
literally not be talking about this
because it's a rounding error but
there's something going on in her belief
system
that made her
fixate on iced tea
and so for anybody whether it's iced tea
or whether it's you know lattes is a
classic example everybody tells you not
to spend money i'm like that's the worst
advice ever buy as many lattes as you
want or some people they just love
for example clothes right i like clothes
they love it
but everybody around them has told them
things like that's shallow that's a
waste of money you should invest in your
roth ira and so what do they do all of
us we're torn apart because we live in a
paradoxical society that is both
puritanical telling us we should retreat
into a cave and do nothing but then we
go on instagram and everyone's in bora
bora where it's ridiculous and so what
do we do
we just buy everything and then we feel
guilty it's the worst
possible response so what i do is first
i say
what do you love spending money on love
and nobody talks about this they always
say oh let me see your budget you're
overspending and everyone's just like ah
forget this i'll never come on here and
berate someone for their spending
because i've seen it all
when they talk about what they love then
i say what would it feel like to be able
to spend two times or four times as much
on that people have never thought like
that
then once we start from a place of
aspiration of what do we want
let's work through the mechanics of how
to get there dude i love that so much
and in in your book you talk about like
starting with what you want instead of
what you don't want you also talk about
like what's that money dial what's the
thing like for you that you really get
amped up about and i was like the funny
thing is i'm doing this research you
have to imagine this i'm doing this
research in a room that i like don't
usually let people go into
and it's known as the comic room okay
and if you go in the comic book room you
will see there it's just like stacked
like comics everywhere okay and that's
my my iced tea like if my wife were
going to complain about what does tom
spent his money on outside of the
business of course it's that like now
why do you love those comic books well
that's that's a very involved story but
i will say that there's something unique
about comic books that give you um these
really big ideas very rapidly okay love
it and then let me let me share this
story that just happened a couple days
ago here in l.a um i was giving a talk
and i asked somebody what what they love
spending on and she said clothes she
said she loves buying clothes i said she
was so excited i love just whenever you
ask people their eyes light up
and i asked her what would it look like
uh if you quadrupled your spending and
she said i would have clothes everywhere
like all day long i'd be ordering online
i'd be sending half of them back
and i said where do you shop and she
said topshop and i said okay so you
quadrupled your spending where would you
shop she said topshop i just have a lot
more
and it was fascinating because when you
ask people what they love spending on
what if they could spend more what would
they do most people have never thought
about it she had limited herself into
the box of topshop now i don't know
topshop's perfectly fine that's fine but
i guarantee you if you quadrupled or
10xed your spending on the thing you
love your money dial
you might shop at a different brand you
might even fly to the
factory that makes them and get a
behind-the-scenes tour as i did when we
went on our honeymoon so
why i'm sharing this is that
so many of us operate in a linear way oh
if i have this thing i like i like
coffee i might get two coffees a day but
what if you actually truly love it you
might go to the coffee factory and bring
your family with you so there's this
whole idea of what you can do with a
rich life and it doesn't just mean more
stuff
it could be experiences it could be
security like buying a house in a place
that keeps you safe or staying at a
hotel where you're around things that
are comfortable for you there's so many
different ways to look at a rich life
and most people i want to challenge them
to really think what it would feel like
to spend more on the thing they love of
course if they cut costs mercilessly on
the things they don't
yeah really fast to find a rich life for
people because i think that's going to
be a key component to this whole
discussion well it's different for
everyone my rich life early on was to be
able to go to a restaurant and order
appetizers because i never did it when i
was a kid like ever we would go and we'd
eat out once every four to six weeks if
we had a coupon and we would like share
two cokes with the whole family and we
would never order appetizers so i was
like i'm gonna do it and then the next
dream for me was to be able to
hop in a taxi if i lived in new york
during the summer without having to take
the train and sweat before a meeting
now my dreams got bigger and there's a
variety of things that are my rich life
but everybody's is different so some
people i have people in my book they're
like i used your book my wife and i
retired at 35 and 36 we drive around in
an rv
i don't want to drive around in an rv
but he and his wife do and i love that
so a rich life is what you define and
when i ask people what's a rich life to
you they usually say two things freedom
which is a very nice word but it's kind
of generic and they say a number usually
a million bucks and i say like freedom
what is what is that to you and they're
like i want to do whatever i want when i
want and i'm like
get specific you want to order
appetizers do you want to do yoga at 3
pm
and that's where the conversation stops
so if you're watching i want everyone to
think what is your rich life and take it
from the clouds to the street i want to
buy three different lululemon tank tops
a month because i don't ever want to
have to wear an old one whatever
go as crazy as you want
i want to travel for a month and i want
to bring my family with me
great
a rich life is different for everyone
but is about your
definition yeah it's interesting and be
careful what you aim for so we just did
a piece of content not too long ago and
i was standing out in the backyard and
um the the guy that does my instagram
was like hey
talk to people about like what you used
to do when you were broke to like stay
motivated and i was like well we used to
drive around these really rich
neighborhoods beverly hills bel air all
of that and i said ironically i'm
recording this telling you this from one
of the houses that we used to drive by
and be careful what you aim for because
you really might get it and it's like
that whole top shop example that you
were talking about where the person who
put themselves in that box they had this
they had a lack of thought about
anything beyond it so it's that lack of
thought that can work for you or against
you and what i mean by that is i didn't
even think about oh uh an economic
downturn means that i can't do well i
was just sort of oblivious to that in
2009 we were starting quest and so i
just
marched ahead assuming that it could
happen
or you
you are thinking about it and you paint
a very clear vision and so you're
constantly asking yourself how i'm not
going to get there where i'm at now so
how do i cross this chasm
how do people cross that chasm like i
know right now the one thing that people
are thinking is [ __ ] these guys are just
like off in the clouds it's too rich
guys having a rich guy conversation it's
not real
but dude inside i'm thinking
[ __ ] i used to be so poor that i
couldn't pay my bills i used to sleep on
an air mattress with a [ __ ] leak in
it dude and so i would blow it up
sit on the floor every night sometimes
like 3 am i'm so [ __ ] exhausted
until and usually i would only do it
halfway since [ __ ] tired i put
clothes under my air mattress by the way
also sleeping halfway in a closet
because i had a roommate and so i
couldn't even like have my air mattress
in the normal part of the room i emptied
my closet i [ __ ] slid my bed half in
so when it deflated you know the rack
like the door slides across i would wake
up with that [ __ ] on my back i'm like
that's where i [ __ ] started this was
not like somebody handed me money
but in that place i had this
obsessive belief that i could make it
come true yeah that i could make it come
true where did that come from
honestly 80s movies john hughes like oh
really accidentally that i could be rich
he just like everybody had a nice house
in chicago and so i was like well that's
not what i have and i really want that
yeah but i never had darkness around it
i was just like [ __ ] that's what i want
let's do it and when you say darkness
those are those beliefs that you hear
people talking about sometimes right
like um you have to step on someone to
make money
if you hear that enough or like we don't
talk about money in this family if you
hear that enough you start to associate
making money with being bad and when
winning is actually losing most people
just choose not to play the game at all
so you had a aspiration it sounds like
funny enough you you got it from movies
but it almost seems like uh you went for
it maniacally and then once you got it
that's probably where chapter two
happened where it's like wait a minute
do i actually want some of this stuff
that i got like that happened to me i'm
curious is that what chapter two was for
you a little bit different but i think
people watching know my story well
enough let's i wanna hear your story so
my mine was i had some similarities with
you growing up middle class we didn't
have inheritance summer houses none of
that stuff and my mom stayed home with
kids my dad went to work
um my parents told me if you want to go
to college which of course you do
because you're indian what you got to
pay
you got to find some scholarships and i
love building systems i think people who
are kind of lazy uh
they like to do the minimum amount of
work but i like maximum results so i've
built this system of applying to
scholarships and i started getting them
and for some reason they wrote some of
those checks to me so i 1999 2000
took that money i was like i'm smart i'm
going to invest in the stock market and
then i lost half the money right away i
was like oh man not that smart so i
started learning about money and uh and
that was really valuable lesson to me
because
no matter what you will get the [ __ ]
kicked out of you at some point in life
and it you can take two routes you can
be like oh that sucks i'm never gonna do
that again or you can be like oh that
does suck what did i learn from that how
can i improve and i see this a lot with
uh entrepreneurs i know who are starting
to hire they're like oh how do i hire
like the project manager or whatever i'm
like your first five hires are going to
be horrible just acknowledge it it's
going to suck but you got to keep going
because you'll get better each time and
on your sixth you'll be great and it
could be the same for you know how do i
find it could anything that you're
looking for how do i find the right
recipe to start cooking well your first
time 20 times you make eggs you're gonna
suck you don't just give up you keep
going until 21. so i i started doing
this with money and i started learning
about money and psychology and i think
that
most of what you see with money
is just this
mathematical logical stuff and it sounds
good and everyone's like oh yeah
compound interest but then they go back
to their day-to-day life which is like i
want that sweater i know i should be
doing this how come i'm not doing that i
feel bad
close the book forget it
and i want to take a really different
approach a perfect example is if you
look at any money book anybody watching
go look at any money book look at
chapter one you know what they tell you
to do in chapter one of any book
[Music]
fine let's find out how much you spent
last month and people are like no thanks
see you later they don't know how much
they spent but they know it was bad and
so if you actually understand human
psychology
you know that
my goal is not to make you feel bad my
goal is actually to show you how money
can be positive how you can live a rich
life whatever you want so in chapter one
of my book i said look we all use credit
cards we all suck at using credit cards
and we all hate credit cards let me show
you how to beat them read these words
off the page this battle tested script
and you'll get your fees refunded and
you'll get all these perks you don't
even know about people did they're like
i don't know this indian guy is kind of
weird i'll try it
they pick up the phone even millennials
who are afraid of using the phone they
picked up the phone they did it and
they're like oh [ __ ] they're talking
they call the best they call them
yes
and
like that they get a 35 fee refunded or
they get some perk they never even knew
existed and suddenly
psychologically they go oh my god
i can take control of my money it's not
all these huge concepts of retirement
inheritance and all this stuff no
i called i got money back
now i can do it so it's so important to
be to be really incorporating your own
psychology when you think about money
and part of that is what do i want where
did i get these beliefs from whether
it's a movie or a family friend and then
what can i do today to start moving
along and developing my rich life
yeah that to me is super interesting
the maybe even more interesting part
that you detail pretty extensively in
your book are the excuses people give as
to why that doesn't apply to them and
i'm trying to really think about the
person watching right now who i want to
help them so badly i can't see straight
but i know what i'm fighting against is
their mindset and they're saying things
like i love your content around getting
your ideal job yeah like
get my ideal job like i can't afford to
either go in and ask for more money or
to even begin applying like there's so
much insecurity and just shutting down
what is your advice around getting that
ideal job first of all stop being a
special snowflake all these people who
write me they're like oh ramit
great to see these literally thousands
of testimonials of people but uh i'm
left-handed and i'm albino and i live
south of the equator will it work for me
no it won't work for you if your first
reason is all the 10 reasons it won't if
you believe that it won't work for you
then congratulations you are correct a
better approach what i see from the best
people who use my material is they say
you know what it worked for those other
people i can make it work for me
simple as that so let's talk about the
job stuff because i talk about jobs it's
a little unusual i think that it's
become very popular online to say like
screw jobs and like be an entrepreneur
and i think entrepreneurship is great
but i also think most people have a job
and you can create amazing value by
working with a team and i have employees
and they do an incredible job so and
i've had jobs so um i think that uh when
it comes to a job there is a totally
counter-intuitive way to approach it
uh i i routinely show people how to
negotiate 10 25 000 raises all the time
and you're like that's crazy there's no
way et cetera et cetera excuse excuse
here's the different approach the the
first way that most people think is like
if i'm gonna negotiate for a raise which
like oh they might just like fire me
that's problem number one that's that's
the wrong way to look at it
if you go in and ask for a raise you're
not devaluing yourself you're actually
increasing your value because what type
of person would go in and ask for a
raise a top performer so the second
thing is they believe that they have to
kick down the door of their boss and say
like give me money well if you do that
of course they're going to kick you out
that's a very impolite way to do it a
third way
is much more effective so i'll just give
you like the quick lay of the land
if you want to get a raise for anybody
watching this is how you do it you send
an email to your boss you say you know
what i would love to meet with you and i
would love to discuss what it takes to
be an absolute top performer in this
role to make your life easier
could we set up some time in the next
week or two of course 100 of bosses are
going to say yes i'd love to see you so
you go in there and you say hey boss
really appreciate you taking the time
i've enjoyed my role
i just want to tell you that i don't
want to just do a fine job i want to be
a top performer here and i would love to
know exactly what it takes for me to be
a top performer okay so let me just
pause right here if i'm the employee and
you're the boss how do you feel right
now with me walking in and asking this
so [ __ ] good like this is the
greatest advice of all time okay
because we're creating value right and
i'm not coming in saying like give me
money i'm like please advise me you're
the boss i want to learn from you so the
boss is going to say they're going to
give you some generic answer because
they weren't prepared for this oh you
need to show up and blah blah blah blah
blah whatever you say i really
appreciate that i'd love to get really
specific in fact i did a little bit of
research before i came in here are three
things i think would be look at that
look at the face because bosses don't
hear this
most of their employees just show up do
what's expected and then they're like
how come i'm not getting a ten thousand
dollar raise like ramit said because you
don't deserve ten thousand dollars
unless you go above and beyond so you
know hey boss uh i know that i'm
currently working on this sales project
and we're slated to have a three percent
improvement
i really think we can do six would that
be part of top performing role here yes
what about this da da so you you have a
little discussion and you say okay am i
reading this right these three things
would help me really outperform at this
role yes
okay i'll tell you what i'd like to get
to work on this i'm gonna commit to
sending you an update every week or
every two weeks and at the end of six
months i'd like to come back and show
you what i accomplished if i do it
i'd like to discuss a salary adjustment
at that time but let's not even worry
about that right now let's have me focus
on this what do you say
[ __ ] yeah
yeah okay right so
so this is so this is the first
conversation now i go back to my desk i
send a written record every friday i'm
sending an update here's where we are
blah blah blah
now the time comes six months from now
and by the way this is true for
negotiating a raise it's true for dating
and relationships it's true for
entrepreneurship all the work is done
before you ever set foot in the room
ironically everyone fixates on going in
the room what are the fancy words it's
like yeah i'll show you the words but
all the work is done before that's what
every successful person knows so i send
another email now and i say you know
what uh as you know i've been updating
you every week for the last four and a
half months
i have some fantastic results you know
we hit this we hit that i'd love to come
in and present the whole thing to you
can we set up some time yes
so now i go in by the way i've done my
homework and i've done it in a couple of
ways that nobody else does number one
i've researched my compensation so let's
say i'm being paid 50k
but i research my salary on salary.com
pay scale and i discover you know my
range should actually be 56 to 62. okay
good i'm writing that down second i have
a couple of my co-workers and i go to
them and i say hey you know we've worked
together on this project i would really
appreciate it if you would send a an
email to the boss and just say you know
what ramit's been doing an incredible
job he really helped drive this process
through and get us that 6.2 conversion
increase
so now i walk in you've got those emails
you're like this is the greatest
employee on earth
i walk in i say you know what i'm so
proud we accomplished this we
accomplished that we discussed this six
months ago i wanted to be a top
performer here you go you theatrically
pull out your results out of your
briefcase
it matters to be theatric right and then
how's the boss feeling right now amazing
amazing everybody's happy you're winning
you're doing your boss's job for them
they're happy and then you say you know
there's one last thing i know we
discussed having a discussion about a
compensation uh adjustment i'd like to
talk about that right now
now you get to have the conversation
you've got all your data you've already
made the boss a ton of money and all the
words you can use are right there in the
book and on my courses that's how you
negotiate your salary so when people say
like oh there's no way i can negotiate
yeah there's no way if you just walk in
and say give me money but if you
actually become a top performer then it
makes perfect sense that you would get
top performer compensation
mic drop man dude that's one of those
things i really hope people listen to
that and this is the conversation that
i'm trying to have with my audience all
the time is like you actually have to be
that top performer you actually have to
walk in know what good is know what
excellent is and then actually go
[ __ ] deliver and if your attitude is
why am i not being paid more and you're
pissed about it first of all that
attitude comes across nobody wants to be
around that attitude second if you lay
it out and get them to agree and then
you execute against it you know
something about them if they balk at
paying at that point yeah if you
actually did it yes
and they're not willing to compensate
you bounce and here's what i always tell
people you've just put yourself in the
most powerful position ever because you
can deliver results once you're good
enough to actually deliver results you
go wherever the [ __ ] you want man i'm so
glad that's that's one of the reasons i
wanted to talk to you because it is so
rare to hear people
actually telling the truth and i think
people actually desperately crave the
truth they desperately crave it about
top performers about being successful
fitness like there's so much [ __ ]
out there and i'll give you an example
from my own just recently i did an
instagram story on what i eat and i've
gotten into fitness and i showed the
exact macros and calories and this and
that and people were just like
what
and like because no one shows exact
numbers and when i see someone who's
successful i don't just want to know
some generic platitudes like oh try hard
i'm like show me what you eat what time
show me where you spend your money show
me why you spend it on that why do you
fly business class why i want to know or
why do you not have a tv tell me
people desperately crave the truth and
so the fact that you're telling people
no it's not enough to just like show up
and do your job you need to be [ __ ]
good
that's the truth that people need to
hear for sure yeah no question man i
want to go back to something you said it
revolves around the idea of
and you've talked about this in finance
that you want to surround yourself with
people that are thinking the way that
you think and and one thing that you
advise people to do which i think is
really smart and i'm going to
immediately start stealing is hey if you
can't find the people in your life that
you want go into my comment section i've
literally been attracting these people
tell them what you're looking for and
see who responds i think it's brilliant
you said something at the beginning of
this interview about you're talking
about reddit and you said there are
certain people that want to victimize
themselves
and that immediately rings true to me oh
yeah what do you mean in what way do
people victimize themselves and then how
do you surround yourself with a group of
people that don't well let's let's just
take uh
somebody watching this video right now
oh ramit must be nice to talk about
getting a ten thousand dollar raise i
can't even
make enough money to save
a hundred dollars and then the next
person is going save a hundred dollars a
month i can't even save 50 cents and
it's this it's this regression not only
to the mean but this just downward
spiral of competing to see how bad
you've got it and what what i've seen
now is that there are larger echo
chambers whether it be twitter youtube
comments not yours but most
reddit for sure and this idea that you
simply cannot get ahead so let's just
complain and i just i have no tolerance
for it i have no tolerance we all start
at different places in life right i was
born and bred to be a spelling bee champ
i knew i was gonna be a champ ever since
i was born and i was great but i did not
know my dad didn't sit around teaching
me how to deadlift indian dads are not
teaching their kids how to dead i had to
learn that on my own so we all start
from a different place in life some
people are they have two parents and
they're born in america
you hit the lottery already some people
did not some people went to a college
some people did not
look we all start from different places
in different parts of our life but
what we can focus on today is what can i
do to change that and to control what i
can control and if you're complaining
about money uh and you have not say
automated saving twenty dollars a month
then why are we even talking right you
can take control at the basic level i
had a woman who once wrote me she said
you know ramit i constantly tell myself
i want to go for a run three times a
week and i never do i said why don't you
just go once she goes once what would
that do
she would rather dream about running
three times a week than actually go once
and the many disaffected young people
who victimize themselves would rather
dream about being a millionaire than
actually save 50 a month
and i would challenge people when you
get that ball rolling of saving even 20
or 50 bucks a month
it really changes your view of
controlling your own life because after
two or three or four months you start to
say like oh my god that's adding up oh
my god now i actually added some
investments into there even a small
amount oh my god that's actually growing
wow i can do this that's the whole power
of using psychology against yourself i
love that against yourself but in a
super powerful way aimed at what you
want i know the clarity is a big thing
for you make sure you know what you want
what you're building towards i think
that's really important
i also think rules which you talk about
are important and what kind of rules
should people have
specifically around money okay i i love
meeting smart people who have thought
about any part of life like parenting
because i'm like hey i might not agree
with your rules but you clearly thought
about it and this is true for people
whether it's business fitness money so
recently i wrote down my 10 rules for
money you don't have to agree with all
of them some of them might not apply but
just to see that this is the way i think
about it so i have some basic rules of
thumb that help me make decisions and
one rule is i want to save 20 to 30
percent
consistently right if i'm doing that
then whether i'm spending three dollars
or five dollars on a coffee or
cheesecake or whatever is irrelevant
because i'm hitting my goals uh i want
anytime i'm flying over a certain amount
of time business class okay now i did i
wasn't able to do that for a long time
but now i am so i do it um another one
is
marry the right person
probably the most important
financial rule and yet we don't think
about it so like how do we integrate
relationships and then one of my
favorites before you move on to find
right person well that's that's for
everyone so i wanted to
meet and marry someone who
um had a really good work ethic who of
course i loved and would be a partner
like a team and i think that marriage is
um like my parents had an arranged
marriage okay so my dad flew back to uh
india after studying here he met my mom
seven days later they were married wow
yeah and um and they met they had the
chance to meet but basically the way it
worked especially back then was you meet
you get you get married and then you
fall in love so what this has done for
me is really you know i grew up in
america but i have a lot of indian
culture around me
it made me realize that so much of what
we assume is true in america is actually
not it's a cultural assumption so in
america the assumption is you meet
you fall in love and then you get
married but guess what there's other
cultures where it goes the opposite way
marry and then fall in love so
that taught me that
marriage is not just about the romance
that matters of course you want to be
attracted you want to feel you want to
feel
love towards your towards your partner
but if you talk to anyone who's married
uh let's say 10 years maybe they have
kids maybe not like look at their text
messages they're not like oh i love you
babe oh my god you look so sexy today
they're like did you pick up the milk
it's a partnership and so what we don't
talk about in america is that marriage
is not just romance it's also a team and
you're finding the ultimate teammate for
life someone who you can trust someone
who challenges you and so we need to
build that into our the way that we
evaluate our potential partners can i
trust this person right if they can't
reach me on the phone are they going to
do what needs to be done to keep things
running and are they going to push me to
be my best self that's the kind of
partner i wanted one thing that i loved
is talking about
the values around the money instead of
just what are you spending the money on
or how do you spend money but what are
your values and actually having that
real core conversation it's a really
tough one um and i have to admit that i
i violated my own rule with this with my
wife because she
she opened up her books to me like the
financial stuff and then i forgot
hey if she opens herself up financially
i should do the same and i didn't and so
i think a year went by and she finally
came to me she's like this isn't fair
like i've told you everything and i
don't know anything about your finances
so we had that conversation and then we
have spent so much time
talking about what money means to us so
i'll give you a couple of examples of um
of what it means to us and i have to say
like we think about money differently
for sure any partnership will we have
different earning we have different
histories with money different ways that
we were raised my wife
wan um she wants money to make her feel
safe
i don't the word safe to me is like
saying
like i want money to make me feel
applesauce like it's just it's not i
don't even connect the two like i feel
safe
i feel safe at a baseline and i know
that if everything went away i could
make money again
and i have my investments and all this
dive my emergency fund
but
what i needed to do
in married life was to realize like my
way is not the only way of looking at
money and in fact talking to my wife
i've learned that there are totally
different ways that are equally valid
but i had to kind of open my mind up to
that because i was like i know money and
i know all this psychology stuff
no i had to start from ground zero
the things we do agree on are we made a
list of our core values when we were
planning our wedding and at the top was
we want to make our friends and family
feel warm and welcome
and our families come from like middle
class backgrounds and we wanted them to
feel like um never feel put off so you
know for us the simplest things were the
most meaningful we found beautiful
photos that we'd all taken together and
we left it in their room with a
handwritten note
and like that's what they remember we
brought our parents on our honeymoon for
part of it and we just said like show up
at the airport and we will take care of
the rest and to create those memories of
like being in italy and doing a cooking
class together
like
that is like mine that's the kind of
stuff that to me when i think about a
rich life that's what i think about so
finding a partner who was aligned on
that was just like oh my god like it
just feels like it just fits
yeah that that kind of thing is really
really important yeah and initiating
those conversations i know that you have
some pretty cool tactics around i know
you guys schedule time to discuss yeah
every week touch base yeah walk us
through that that's unique and i think
super powerful um i think for anyone
who's at work if you are like really
good at your job or your or maybe you're
managing people you know what it takes
to drive a number uh you need to put
time on the calendar you need to have
one-on-ones you need to like manage a
metric
and so we kind of intuitively do that
and then we go home and we're like all
right like i'm just gonna sit back and
like turn on netflix and we'll eat
dinner and
i have to say my wife was the one who
suggested that we do these touch bases
and we get together we have a calendar
like a one hour block and we put stuff
on the agenda and it sounds like if
people are watching this they're like
this guy's a serial killer like but
remember your rich life is whatever you
create if you don't need to do it once a
week do it once every two weeks but i
think
the what we've discovered is creating
the space
for us to have these conversations about
what's going well what can we improve
you know what do we want to do for the
next three months um you know those kind
of conversations is awesome and on a
very tactical level we started off with
a few core questions each time we're
tweaking the questions to see what's
what's really good so one question is
what did you appreciate that i did last
week
start there start from a place of
appreciation
what's something i can do better
and it's like it's kind of opening
ourselves up uh so those are like little
things and it might be um like i don't
like the sound of you biting your nails
at home or like can you please load the
dishwasher differently it could be as
simple and practical as that it can also
be like i really like when we go
somewhere and you compliment me in front
of other people
and like if the people watching thinking
about it think about what it means to
you to have a space every week every two
weeks every month where you and your
partner get to have these conversations
i would say it doesn't matter if it
feels weird there's so many things that
people in this people here feel are
weird oh it's weird to have a
conversation like this well i think it's
weird to go 40 years and fight about
ice-t instead of having the conversation
yeah
aggressively agree with that you need to
know that when someone is is saying like
you spend too much on that it's not
about that it's one level up it's about
your values and how you were raised and
if you don't confront that you will
forever be playing whack-a-mole about a
three dollar expense when the real
questions are like how do i think about
money
so what rules do you have for
new couples getting together mix money
don't mix money savings account auto
saving and like the is it start with the
conversation is it actual write down our
rules and our values like
imagine two people they've been dating
for six months they decide to move in
together now what yeah well first of all
if you ask people what are your money
values they have no idea so i don't
start with that question because
everyone's values are like yeah i just
like to spend on things i like it's like
that's not a value okay let's get more
specific
for accounts
uh i believe
um
a joint account and then separate
individual accounts and the individual
accounts are like your money do whatever
you want with it no questions asked um
to get pro rated contributions yeah
based on based on your income you can um
contribute proportionally but i'll say
this once we got married like my fantasy
was to build this just like amazing
model that was like his money her money
our money just like all this flow and
automation and like cass was not having
it she was like not interested in i was
like the model it's like so cool and i
like again i did this prototypically
male thing i was like let's talk about
like cell c4 look at how it looks
it is amazing now it's amazing but i had
to i had to start and say like how do we
think about money where should we
prioritize where like what's important
to us and so that was the conversation
that i needed to like slow down and at
work i have this concept we use this
concept go slow to go fast a lot of
companies do this
i need to slow way down
we eventually got to the model but the
model and the math was the last step
once you get to the math just like in
negotiation once you get to the dollar
figure that's like the last part but the
85 percent of what does money mean to
you how did your mom and dad talk about
money you might discover you know many
couples
one partner earned all the money the
other did not and so guess what if you
are the child of that relationship you
might have that belief and you might be
resentful that you have to earn money or
you don't so that's a conversation to be
had and the way you can do that is you
can say you know if we close our eyes
and wave a magic wand and we didn't have
any dead and it was our rich life three
years from now what does that look like
that's a great place to start from a
place of imagination and now they have a
context for why they're even talking
about it so again rich life is all about
starting from what your rich life is and
hey maybe they can't go there this year
maybe it's going to take them two years
to save but at least they wake up and
they have a dream that's important
yeah i think that's wildly important
so talk to me about saving in debt how
should people think about saving first
debt first like yeah what does that look
like so there's there's a mathematical
answer and then in my belief there's
this psychological answer and i like
psychology because psychology trumps
math any day of the week
so if you have debt let's just say
you've got a student loan or maybe a
credit card
uh your interest rates maybe it's four
five six or even 15 percent technically
if it's if it's anything higher than
like eight percent you should be paying
that off as aggressively as possible so
if you've got credit card debt you
really want to prioritize that
but the psychological side is
i think it's really important to build
the habit of where you want to go so for
example you might let's just take the
fitness example if you don't have an
hour to train every day maybe you have
15 minutes i think it's still worth
doing it for 15 minutes because as your
time opens up you it's much easier to go
from 15 to 30 than 0 to 15.
so if you have debt
and you have you want to save i think
that's great you can do both what i
might do is i might look at my interest
rate on my debt and let's say that
you've got 300 bucks a month that you
can use
i would probably put most of it towards
the debt depending on the interest rate
but i would definitely save 20 50 100
automatically and i want to emphasize
one thing for people when a lot of
people think about money it's like oh my
god there's all these accounts and 401k
and annuity and all this stuff
i spend less than one hour per month on
my money
that's how it should be money should be
boring it should not be dramatic you
should not be looking at all these tv
shows and seeing snow it's boring
it's calm right i say from hot to cool
hot is like stuff on tv and oh my god i
feel stressed and embarrassed what i
want to do is take it from hot to cool
cool is
do i want to go on vacation this year or
is it worth it for me to buy this
handbag or this jacket
okay it is or it's not but i can make a
cool decision that's what i want people
to do so your money's automatically
saved it's also automatically paying off
debt it's automated to the point where
you actually know the exact month and
year your debt will be paid off and that
is such a relief
yeah that the whole fire lifestyle and
tracking that stuff i find really
interesting and i've heard you talk
about how fire can get a little um
[Music]
yeah the financial version of an eating
disorder where it's like you're a little
too hardcore about it um if you if you
live in the spreadsheet like okay this
is for this is a rarity most people
don't spend any money any time on their
money which they should but then you
have this very tiny percentage of people
who are
borderline obsessed with it and if you
find yourself like waking up in the
morning and logging into excel and
running another monte carlo simulation
you got a real problem so
really once you set things up
a rich life is lived outside the
spreadsheet like this is a rich life the
fact that we get to meet and we get to
talk and we get to help so many people
this is a rich life a rich life can be
going on vacation a rich life can be
eating at a restaurant or cooking at
home
that is a rich life and i can tell you
after you get your basics in order a
rich life is not on your computer screen
or in a spreadsheet or rich life is
lived outside the spreadsheet all right
where can people find you to get some
help
you can find me uh at
iwillteachyoutoberich.com get on my
newsletter we send a ton of awesome
stuff instagram and twitter i'm at ramit
and uh you can find me all over the web
and my book of course i will teach you
to be rich at any bookstore amazing man
yeah what is
driving you what's the impact that you
want to have on the world
i want to help people
really honestly create their rich life
and to be unapologetic about it and it
can be as
crazy absurd extravagant
philanthropic as you want but i want
every single person my dream is that the
people watching this they read my book
and my email address is all over the
book my dream is that they they come and
they say you know what
i used your book i applied it this is my
rich life and they just tell me that is
my dream i love that man thank you so
much for coming on the show
guys if you haven't already be sure to
subscribe you're gonna get amazing stuff
like this all the time and until next
time my friends be legendary take care
brother that was amazing oh man that was
awesome thank you so much for that thank
you someone said
um she only gets work because she's
pretty
my first thought was like what are they
talking about because that never
would occur to me and i i started to
realize i need to really share more of
my testimony because i don't think
people understand that what they may see
or perceive is something that i
literally battled for 25 years the first
25 years of my life