How to Level Up Your Personal Finance and Be the CEO of You with Scott Jarred

from the crossroads of America in the hoer state of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening right now in the Heartland I'm Matt hunkler CEO at powderkeg and I'll be one of your hosts for today's conversation I'm joined in Studio by co-host Nate spangle head of community at powderkeg and on the show today we are joined by Scott [Music] Jared if you're 25 years old right now and you save 15% and you can earn 7% on it in 30 years you'll have exactly that amount of money if it earns at 7% at 5% withdrawal rate will pay you your salary what that means is if you have $100,000 running a financial calculator $100,000 of income earn 7% on it for 30 years you'll have $2 million in that account $2 million at 5% will pay you 100 Scott Jared is the CEO of invest an independent registered advisory firm he's also the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of future hack an author of a new book called accelerate that you're going to get a sneak peek of today invest is not your run-of-the-mill uh financial adviser they are going to we're going to get into that today uh Scott and his team help their clients reach Financial Freedom and design the lives they want to live on the show today we're going to dive into powerful Frameworks to help you achieve your financial success the most important things to do at each stage of life to build true wealth what it means to have a personal CFO and how to be the CEO of you Scott welcome to get in thank you this is great awesome to have you here man absolutely you have such an incredible um story and and I'm curious just to hear kind of your perspective of how did you learn the importance of personal finance not having money is a good learn lesson learned yeah I can relate yeah so growing up we grew up in a very poor environment my mother and father separated at a young age my mom had me when she was 19 and we moved from we were living in Illinois danille Illinois and moved to uh Indianapolis and when they separated there was she had never really worked so it was we moved into Section 8 housing wow and it's where you could live and you know was basically food stamps and things of that nature and I had a younger brother and sister so it was always about scrimping and sacrificing to be able to even survive mhm and it was like even so fear mongle that like if we were trained like if even leave the house someone could take you like wow Social Services would come and they know that you're alone at home while my mom's out waiting tables trying to make money to bring it back so that fear was always there so you knew that so money was always a catalyst to getting what you want and we never had it so it was always like you can never do anything in that in that way so from a very young age it just was very in my mind just seeing that you're you're trading time for dollars and you're living in this like fear B based environment and we were so far from free like even like I remember I try to sneak out just to go get a Blockbuster Video we my my dad actually you know they were divorced but he brought us he got us a VCR I was like oh my gosh so you can actually get away for a minute and get so we'd sneak out and I would try to figure out money to go get even just to re rent a movie to watch and I just remember that being the the source of freedom in that point so it was always about money and sacrifice to get there so it was almost like it was a blessing to be able to get to the point where you know you're going to have to be really good to figure out this path in another way you mentioned fear just being a powerful kind of current through your childhood how do you see fear affecting people when it kind of comes to building personal wealth I think it's the biggest thing it's either you're living in fear or you're living free so all your decisions are made in certain ways um a lot of times like even in your space you work with tech entrepreneurs a lot of times that that Hurdle from leaving their job to create this thing that they have there's a lack there's a fear to that and it could be I don't have the time or I need to do the research for I can make that jump or I don't have the money or my family's not there so we make up all these excuses and things out of fear that could be real or not real to be able to make that jump because you know you have a bigger purpose of what you're trying to accomplish how did you kind of develop your relationship with fear and start to shift that dynamic in your childhood I think I've become I learned how to always see something out like so when you're stuck in this scarcity world and you want something else the best thing to do is just to think about what it would look like on the other side so at a young age you started to learn about what is it you want and then you started to vision for yourself what an ideal family would look like what a what having money would be like what would you do with it what would your impact be so you started thinking differently because you knew that the the current environment you in wasn't really a good one so you started to train your mind to think about what that could be and what you could accomplish so that was the skill set that was learned is that it was it wasn't the money it was actually your mindset over money and you start to be really comfortable being uncomfortable a lot right I like that well take us back right I know that you've been like I mean hard work is a is a testament that's like that's selling it short right yeah take us back I I think I in my research I learned about your paper route and how your singular paper route turned into managing some paper routes and just take us back to to that first job so you go back to like when you're stuck in it you're working and you're seeing you're scrimping sacrificing trying to get by and like how do you add value to the family well luckily back then they actually had paper out still there's something there but it was really the only thing that you could do in that neighborhood I thought could make money except for like selling drugs or doing other stuff was a out kid too so 12 to 18 yeah we were lucky so yeah so 12: 12 they'd let you do it yep so I just help the the guy running around I like hey I'll help you collect money I'll help you do certain things and then eventually the service was not there and then the guy who was in charge of the whole route said hey do you want to take this over I was like yeah heck yeah but that would hard work is you know when everyone else is asleep you're up at 4:00 in the morning you're getting the papers ready and you're delivering them before the people wake up and then you got to go to school and you got to do all the stuff that so you're doing things that don't people don't want to do at the end of the day you get you'd have extra papers what do you do do you throw them away or do you literally go down the street corner and try to sell them so you learn how to maximize every single thing that you do but if you deliver exceptional value and you can create awareness like the paper is important and then you can spread it in a section eight so now you're trying to sell papers in a poor neighborhood and you got to go collect the money from people have no money it's like the most impossible job ever but if you do good enough and they'll say well you take on the neighborhood next door and take on this so it became a small little thing to a big thing and it was very beneficial because I knew I needed whatever dollars we can make would be able to be able to give you that freedom to take your brother and sister to get a frosty at Wendy's or go to um get a a movie or be able to have any type of life at all when you were kind of envisioning that future and and working towards it who are some of those people that were helping maybe show you some way points of like this there is this different life out there the hard thing is like when you grow up it's a lot of this social divide anyway is when you grow up in those environments everyone in the environment is trying to do the minimum that they possibly could to get by yeah so if you look at like if you're on food stamps today and you make so much money you get taken off every child you have actually produces more Revenue back because you get paid by the kids so think about that in the environment that you're living in it's all about minimal like being as minimal as possible don't try to expand out don't try to so in the entire Society it was like that like the whole area and the only ones that were doing well were doing stuff that it's like illegally shouldn't be doing and like well I don't really want to participate in that yeah but that's how it was like the largest people that were doing bad stuff were in those neighborhoods and I knew him so yeah but I'm like I don't really want to go down that path and one day a helicopter landed in our backyard and it was the owner of the entire all these Section 8 housing projects oh my gosh and I'm like man that dudee just landed a helicopter in our backyard in our car you can see the ground when you're driving through it like you keep your feet high so I started to wonder like what is that person doing that we're not doing MH what is the path there and every now and then you'd run into someone that actually had a really good job that actually drove in the city and had like a job and You' ask them like how do you what do you do like what's your thing but that was literally so foreign because most people were doing Blue Collar stuff and all that like you didn't know even what those possib were so when you find someone that was doing something different you I would be just curious like how do you do that like I I know that you know it was several years until you started what became invest but it seems to me like those early ingredients of curiosity and following that Curiosity to like really even being like imaginative and imagining a different future were probably some of those like early seeds that led to starting invest yeah can you maybe filling the Gap there between uh you know seeing that helicopter land and uh starting a company now that serves over 10,000 people and is eventually going to serve a million plus people that Journey for me we were just talking before the audience like we all three of Chip teeth like we've all lost our teeth so Matt lost it um flag football flag football I lost mine BMX bike racing or actually a skateboard but BMX bike racing again the third time yep and then they you lost I lost my wrestling right yeah we got chip deep that's it so in our neighborhood there we had this like field that was like just there so what else should you going to do so we' like literally converted it to a BMX bike track and what I was always looking for is something to change to get me out of something so like it just became my life like we fixed it up out of trash we put skids down and and next thing you know one day Matt Hoffman's in town and he comes and rides on our track and I'm like oh my gosh I want to be like Matt Hoffman this dude's like the and now if you know who Matt Hoffman is it's like back back then he was really coming up now he's like the man yeah he like the Tony Hawk of BMX basically exactly yeah so it's pretty sick so then I was like man he came to your track in Section 8 housing yeah that's sick and we put the mats down and he did a the first back flip on a halfpipe and he obviously bailed on the mats but I was like that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen so now you're like I want to be like him so then next thing you know we got Bob Evans that sponsor us and we got on the vmx circuit and we'd literally be in there like the movie rap which is my favorite movie oh yeah with with no just wearing like jeans and whatever and just smoking dudes on the thing with basically trash bikes and then one day the someone broke their arm on the track and they bulldozed it down oh wow and I think one of the stories that I had is I cried like crazy but then I was able to switch off I'm going somewhere else like I'm done so I literally just quit like overnight and then luckily my mom met um got met a guy and then was able to get enough money to move v m and then we moved to the suburbs and the I walked into the school for the first time and the coach came up to me and said hey you look like you could play a sport you want to play football I was like never played football before but sure and that was my next thing so I went from one to the next how old were you there I was uh eighth grade eth what what school I ended up going to Greenwood oh southsider yeah they first let me play basketball and I could only hit a granny shot I didn't even know what the sport was I didn't play anything with I was just a grinder and um then that then I saw the the the seniors come in and they were they were going or the Juniors and it was a really good class and they were there was a guy who was gonna go to Purdue he's a freak athlete and his roommate at Purdue is um Mike allot casual so you can imagine that for me going oh well now I want to be like those guys mhm so it was always there was some person in my life that I was always looking up to or striving to be but but maybe not in like a formal mentorship role like these are people that you see and they're doing their thing and you're engaging with them a little bit but they're not like hey they're taking you under their wing as like a formal Mentor yeah you're more like man you're you're looking what they're doing and you're more shadowing their success did you have any formal mentors growing up um I don't maybe I I don't I think I was too shy to like ask them for that I think it was more like I would follow and I would just be around okay I would I would attract it working with these successful people are there some consistent habits that you see successful people do more than others yeah so like in the BMX World there was certain things that I noticed they were doing and I just did it no matter what the bike was is how he performed how he got off the line how we did certain things when I got to the football field I was like watching what allot would do and Jamie and these guys and the way they would train and how they do that and what they did to get to college and I did the same thing and got to college nice so where did you end up going I ended up going to Ball State there we go all right so chirp chirp yes came came over from somewhere in Illinois and then now you just been a hooer there we go that's what I like to hear and it was cool cuz like no one they would even ask you like who wants to go to college in your in there and I didn't raise my hand because it was never really an option for me yeah I never thought that was I didn't know what that meant um but I knew I wanted to play football so my first year was University of Indianapolis and then I transferred so my senior year I end up breaking my leg and I thought I was I had a lot of opportunity I thought I was going to go to Ohio State or a big attend school and um ended up just getting a walk-on letter to those schools and I knew I needed a scholarship so I picked it wasn't the my first choice but that's what I did so then I learned that so once I got there I was like this wasn't for me this environment wasn't what I wanted and I was I remember sitting in a class and we had to interview other people my mom had actually got a good job at a local real estate development firm and I got to go Shadow for a day and I met the AutoCAD guy probably the lowest paid one besides my mom probably lowest paid people there and he's sh me AutoCast like man that's awesome I want to build stuff yeah well who has the best architecture school in in the state well it's Ball State we have that in common too I was a cat detailer in in Indiana it is didn't end up doing it but you know so I was always shadowing yeah that's cool someone to get to there I like I want to do that so I walk in architecture school I was like Hey I want to get in architecture what's your major today I was like well they told me if I did criminal justice I would be better served there like what's that mean man but well they'll help you get through school and all that and I go well I want to be an architect how do I get in they go we only take presidential Scholars like what's your GPA I was like it's a 27 and she's like have you ever built anything I was like yeah I built a bike track in my backyard and she's like okay I go well how do I get in he goes well you you have to apply I was like well who picks like these people I was like what's their phone number let me call them that's great and needless to say I ended up working my way in the hustle I like it and then got in and realized I couldn't draw a straight line architecture was not my right PA that's awesome so always um you're always seeing something that you're attracted to and what I learned quickly was that I can actually start to get what I want by training my brain to go get it no matter what it was yeah that that that's how you build habits right that was it but so it's ingraining me at a very young age and then the hard work pays off and EnV visioning what you want which becomes the framework for everything we do today I think some people like I agree I'm like one of those people too where it's like I can visualize it and speak it in like almost will it into manifest it some might call it yeah but for the people that get lost in the like Daydream to execution people like that can't seem to link those two together do you have any advice there the most the smart people the really really smart thinkers in the world live in this linear world where everything's in that so what happens is when there's a point to take Massive Action they spend so much time thinking about that and they can't move themselves to the next stage of exponentials so I I was fortunate to be not that smart because I was like I had no choice either like I there was no Comfort anywhere I was you had to always move out so the So to that question is is like so what is the next step so we want you to if you're going to fall down fall down but fall forward don't fall fall down fall forward so that's where when you're so and when you're so intelligent and you're and you're like a philosopher you're looking at what you're doing instead of making the step that I'm going to do this they don't take that first step and when they fall down they should fall forward and it's okay get back up I I like that term of fall forward right cuz a lot of times people are especially some of the smartest people that I know are so worried of failing or like what's going to happen if things go horribly horribly wrong and it's like even that it's like you're falling yes but if you have that mindset of falling forward I would just be curious to hear your your opinion on like the idea of failure and that like overthinking paralysis by analysis that sometimes can hinder some of the most intelligent people from taking that step exactly and that's my gift is I've learned how to fall and fail so many times I keep failing forward all along the way which makes me so much better at what I am right now because there's nothing no Financial thing nothing that that anyone that presents to me now that I haven't already overcome or been in that because I'm so far ahead already so when you go from the oh I was born this bad situation no it was it was a good situation oh they took my bike track away no that's actually a good thing oh like couldn't get the football scholarship that's cool I couldn't draw a straight line like so you start to figure out that all these failures are actually the raw material to finding Who I Really Am that mindset is one of your superpowers yeah seems like but every one of those weren't the right things yeah yeah exactly so invest seems like it's one of those right things yeah tell me about the SP the spark that led to what is now this incredible company so the story continues we I got out of the there's three disciplines in the architecture program architecture landscape architecture and Urban Development mhm didn't really think I could do landscape architecture wasn't really into that but the Urban Development sounded really cool building things cities and stuff like that so I got a master I got a degree in Urban Development and then I thought I could be a developer I had no money so the next step was in um I got a masters in tech technology information and communication because at the time that's where all the was like I could do that for a little bit so I kept making these these paths and what I found in school was that they're training you to get a job Y and they're they're teaching you how to be the best professional so in this program it was like teaching to do corporate Consulting go for the big you big five consulting firms go into that so it's like all right I'm going to be the best corporate guy that you could imagine so you go from this to this corporate guy right so now I'm trying to I'm put on these personas of what I'm going to be and so I get out and guess what it's Tech crisis where are the jobs there's literally no jobs it's like year 2000 yeah yeah big big.

com bust boom yeah I get a job at Merchant wired which is a um a company it was a Simon thing where they're connecting connecting things together and um like all their all the retailers and I remember watching the the World Trade Center get hit with the the thing and we're sitting we got people in the thing I was like man so this whole like world's coming down like great I'm going be stuck doing temp work at 13 bucks an hour for the rest of my life spent all this time to get here mhm luckily there was a position in AT&T that opened up and it was a training program in Atlanta and it's like look if you come in we'll train you but if you don't hit your quote in the first six months you're fired so what I did high stakes holy smokes sounds good to me get me out of Indiana let's go yeah so we went and we destroyed that me and my buddies went down there we just done in a few months got in why do you think you outperformed it was oh the there's no choice there's no way we're not like if anyone can do it we're making this work it's gonna work and then the traditional model was look you work the phones leads come in on the phone and you call and you try to work in we were trained to take very Technical Solutions make them very easy to understand to get there yeah what I found is that connections were more important so I would go out on the street and I'd find um people that were working with the large companies so that were making that were had transitions so back then there was um there was like air TR Airways which was now was just part of Southwest and some of these so I would get in with them and go straight to their cios and tell them why AT&T would be the solution for them and this is why they need to hire them and So within months we were I was like blowing it out and like you can go wherever you want in the country this so you weren't even hitting the phones you just like hitting up people on the streets and being like who's your CIO did you say you were an introvert ear you said you were shy earlier I was shy yeah yeah what what was the big change that took you from shy to not shy I think I analyzed I'm I'm a quick start like if you look at Co I don't know if you guys use indexes so I'm a I'm a high quick start first so I'll jump into something quick and my second's a FactFinder so I spent a lot of times like so if we're in a social environment I'll sit back and I'll observe before I interject which is a it's a it's different it's different that way so I have that high fact find in me so that's where that EXT extra introvert comes in that makes sense so you're you're crushing at AT&T you're just ripping they say you can go anywhere where do you where do you go so we go Tampa by division of IBM in Tampa and which is awesome I going to Tampa so we brought a couple of my buddies down we got an apartment together we on the water finally made it I actually got a car actually had to have my girlfriend sign on the loan for me who's now my wife Nice which worked out because if my daughter did that I would want to have a conversation with her as as the finance guy resident Finance guys I don't know if that was the best move but it work out put my $700 car put my credit card actually got a car smov down there like life was good good and next thing you know we're firing the ibmers that have been there forever they're changing comp plans you have no control of your destiny and this whole thing is starting to happen so I went back to this like trapped stuck not able to move I knew I was put on this Earth to do something bigger and it was like very like it just hurt my soul and I just remember coming in every day with lack of purpose lack of things and my roommate at the time moved down and he was in the financial industry and he was working for a Farm Bureau Insurance so he's a financial expert he sold car insurance okay like he's a financial expert yes that's great and my wife a girlfriend at the time now wife she was working at pay check so she moved down there on a whim too so we all took a chance we all moved down he's like there's car insurance is more expensive in Florida it is than Indiana and then she is like well I can go get a job gets a recruiter and she starts selling 401ks so like Sports Marketing does I'm like what am I doing like I'm not making any and I'm actually doing better I'm making good money and we came in as was like let's do what we were trained to do let's do business Consulting for businesses and we'll give it away we'll just go to them we'll help them find lot money help them recapture and we'll sit down with the business owner to help them scale and grow I don't know anything about Finance by any means I don't know a 41k and an IRA and raw I didn't know all the specifics of that all I knew is when someone called me I felt very much just distrust in what they were doing I was like this has got to be a huge opportunity yeah and so we took my paycheck dropped it into the business account he quit his job first then we started what's now called invest but it was called Jared Bunch Consulting back then so we would go out to our friends and family and business owners that she was working with and go and say let me help you what are you going to charge absolutely nothing I'm going to find lost money I'm going to put it back to work I'm going to create $2 to5 million of additional wealth for you by being efficient and effective with everything that you are doing you just walk in there and you you tell them that that's it that's a good pitch so the it's like hey we're not going to take it you're going to pay us any money unless you make some money I got to add value if I'm in the value creation world we got to create value who's your first customer who's the first person that's said sure kid a group of three guys left AT&T to start a government contracting business Consulting business and they called me like hey we need group health insurance I was like great you need four employees for that you have three that's how it started this company is ginormous ended up becoming a very large Tech thing and we helped them so that was like my first one and the HR manager loved me at AT&T so every time someone was wanting to do stuff he' call me like hey Scott these people are trying to do this and then but that was I remember that was the first big thing we did and then we helped them and then and then my you know Lord sent me another client they were doing sat preps so think about that business today but that company we end up helping them a lot of ways and now those Founders have split off and done different things and you can see this like because you do a good job for one person they tell two more and then you start to spread by just being doing the right thing over and over and over again how did you eventually go from not knowing anything about 401ks not knowing anything about these different investment vehicles to taking control of your own personal finances to me the secret was reading the books MH and there's there's a lot to be told in stories and there's a lot to be told in other stuff so like I love the Rich Dad Poor Dad stuff like I would read those and like who took my money like and there's all these different things like cash flow quadrant and all that so I started just really digging into what successful people did not necessarily listening to what the industry was telling us to do yep I was very much a rogue thinker in the way that I would look at I would just follow the patterns again just like I followed the my trail all along I would say oh that guy is a stud like what's he doing that we're not what's the helicopter person doing that we're not and what would happen is I would get in those rooms and I would get invited to like it's a amazing now I work inside billion doll family offices and stuff like that there's things that they do differently that when I went and got my degree for instance like you had to get Securities license and be a professional but when I got my cfp designation which is a certified financial planner literally everything they taught you in there but the way wealth was created was the complete opposite so even today we get all our our advisers with them all get cfps and I'm like now I got to retrain you on how money actually works what what do you think is the biggest difference between those two like how to actually generate wealth versus what is trained to cfps cfps are very linear and thinking they root you in your past where you are they take the framework is about using Financial products to your financial success that you aren't your most important asset the products are the products are designed by the institutions anyway that that are designed to separate you from your money and there's the wealthy understand that the power of their wealth is exponential it's it's Quantum thinking it's it's a different different way of being elaborate a little bit on Quantum thinking for for the people at the table that might not know what you're talking about there yeah so if you think about linear like one plus one plus one it's it's linear approach like Warren Buffett's the greatest investor of all time so he would say well it's actually exponential growth so you're looking at the compound interest curve of things that are going so it's almost like going from like using um map quest to ways because like as he's going you can see oh here's all the landmines here's the police cars all that we're starting to go Quantum thinking is about being able to use to understand where you currently are and being aware of what's Happening like I'm aware that I am stuck in this like bad environment cool how do I adapt so every time I was always aware I'm self-aware I think right sucks a lot like it's not fun how do I adap to get myself out so when you start to change the way that Financial plans are built that hey put money max out your 401K do this for a long period of time and IBM's going to take care of you AT&T is going to take care of you these things are going to happen but the reality is life is not this perfect vehicle and even ways as you go you start to find these things so you're you're you're you're making adjustments and you're moving Quantum is you're looking at a compass like I'm looking so I'm so future YY that I can see so much further I'm headed this way that you are now adapting and being aware more effective and efficient so everything that we do is about controlling your controllables and being able to adapt and to your changing environment all along the way well you said you're you're futuristic right so futuristic that you wrote a Wall Street bestseller called future hack yes right and had 130 hacks about want to give us a little give us a little taste of of what's in that book and maybe a couple of the hacks that uh that resonated with your audience okay so we're talking about like Quantum thinking how do you get yourself in that mindset what would be the worst thing that could happen to you the worst thing the worst the worst thing the absolute worst thing like dying bingo so go there for a minute if it happened today so we're here like like literally you got to feel your soul at that point you're now in it what was your what would they say about you what would be on that on your epap so Matt's writing it out he's gonna tell your story what is there's a there's like a whole framework behind this about writing your your uh obituary right like I who there's a famous book and there's this whole framework right so there's one so if you think about it if you can get clear and where you are right now what would you want your life to be if I could extend your life longer yeah what if I give you the next 100 years I can't live 100 sure you can the there's longevity lifespan all this stuff is happening why why are we limiting our thinking so now if I can give you this gift for the rest of your life now let let me give you the pen and you design the life that you want that's a lot cooler than 401 Gaye right a a 401k is just separating you from your money you can't use it for anything it just buys allows other companies to get rich off of you okay do you have do you have another one another one uh like top one that readers usually resonate from your from your first book yeah so the most important thing is getting your why clear once you get your why clear and you know where you're headed now we can do the work y but it starts with you so you're the most important asset everything over that is is outside that the next one is a financial game board played chess before absolutely you chess player I am chess.

com uh I have yeah all right I'm gonna have to send you an invite chess. com all right I'm a little rusty me too perfect it was cool I remember I when I was in college they sent out this thing like any might want to travel the world I was like yeah so it was $99,000 to go which is crazy for this it was an architecture program and I maxed out all my student loans took everything out of my credit cards that I could to go nice I remember one day they had a big chess board out there and I was like what's this and I learned how to play incredible and that was how I learned and we'd sit there because you'd be hours with a bunch of architecture students who are weird anyway were you learn chess uh I think we're in Europe amazing so I think in Greece or something at the time it was on one of the ships that we were on and we just played and played and played but each piece has a different Power it has different things that it does in your financial life we've identified there's 20 different there's 20 different things we're analyzing that are always moving and adapting at the same time so if we're going to be adapting and awaring how do you put your financial life on a game board and then play the game of chess where each power each piece has different Power has different moves that it can do and then let's play Let's simulate that if we make this move what happens simulate this move what happens yeah to where you get to so once your Y is clear and then we build your game board out then we can start to move so a hack is literally once you're clear with what you want then we got to start with your present position and build that out we're not planning Y what we're looking at is where we how we optimize right now we're setting your compass out this is what life would look like CU it's foggy we know what it looks like and then we back into the specifics of how we get there that's the strategy that's it so uh pulling the thread on the uh chess metaphor uh let's let's talk opening moves for someone early in their career just starting to make money what's one of your top Financial TPS more pragmatic more practical obviously you got to get your mindset right you got to get a lot of those other things kind of in check from Habits and everything but from like a a personal finance perspective what kinds of things should they start doing now you know it's funny because everyone makes this game of Finance so complicated it's really not yeah you just really need to protect yourself you need to get organized and you need to pay yourself first that's it what do you mean by pay yourself for my boss pays me what do you mean by to pay myself so when you so when you get your paycheck who's the first person you pay F yes you pay the government first then what do you pay uh usually I feel everyone's everyone uh oh I mean all these all these gurus all these gurus tell me take your savings out first take your uh or like your all the other payments that you're making or whatever yeah because every dollar you set aside for you now is Multiplied exponentially in the future M paying yourself first is taking that money out the top so when I got my job at AT&T I would save 70% of my income because I was used to living on nothing yeah what am I what am I doing but that became a huge stair step for me to be able to grow what I did right now so those first dollars that I saved 20 years ago are worth so much more now than what you saved even two years ago even the rule of 72 $1 and 10 years is worth two right and then in 20 it's worth four yeah so $1 save that was 2003 so we're now in that so every dollar is worth four times that my grandpa once told me it's not about timing the market it's about time in the market that's right exactly I like it and you're right and you think about the market in those time periods we had 2008 crisis we had a 200 was it 13 or no 18 where the number one performing asset was Cash yep and then you had the not even Co it was it was like last year like 2022 so you had those three years were the bad years of the market but over those 20 years it was actually a pretty good run so pay yourself first that means you got to put some savings away that's the first thing a minimum 15% minimum 15% um protect yourself and then what was the third organize organize talk a little bit about how you should organize when you're early in your career so you would call invest we would we would organ we we connect well I don't think that's like a joke right because like at 20 23 25 26 you're like man I got 10 nickels you know like I'm not like I don't have like this complex strategy that needs all these things it's like why would I call someone I can just like like it's not worth their time like the average person doesn't want to talk to the 25-year-old exactly in our world you don't want to talk to anybody especially at that age I don't you know heck Mike son doesn't even want to talk to me half time I can only imagine and that's about that as you start to get to that generation what that is what we would do is organize your money the right way and we use a we use our wealth Builder to do that okay and you got to look at it four dimensionally your net worth statement no matter what it is how good how bad is what it is assets minus liabilities your net worth most people have no clue what that is when you connect all your accounts it pulls in that financial data so now we can see what your net worth is today and then more importantly we're optimizing your cash flow and we break it down in this the certain categories so your gross income how much you spend to protect how much you spend to pay for your liabilities and tax and what's left overs for lifestyle and we organize it very simply that way protection is only four things you protect yourself with it's protect your assets protect your income protect your life through legal documents like your legal side and then your life there's only four types of insurance once you get yourself organized now you can start to tackle the game of Finance like we'll have NFL players come in that have no money and we still do the same thing yeah and or college or residency students that's your opening you got to you got to get those things so to get organized you got to have a financial game board to be able to organize yourself the right way and I'm not talking about mint.

com or anything like that they don't have any rules they're just trying to sell you more product yeah but now once you know where you are and where you're headed and then you're paying yourself first you can't really do anything anyway until you get a year of liquidity that's what we got to do but we got to make sure we're protected and we're building that and you know if you're if you're 30 if you're 25 years old right now and you save 15% and you can earn 7% on it in 30 years you'll have exactly that amount of money if earns at 7% at 5% withdrawal rate will pay you your salary what that means is if you have $100,000 running a financial calculator $100,000 of income earn 7% on it for 30 years you'll have $2 million in that account $2 million at 5% will pay you 100 that that's quick math that's good public math too I'm impressed I'm impressed with that I've been doing a lot of financial planning or looking at Financial positioning and strategies for a long time now how to reach Financial Freedom faster because once you get to 100,000 what you really want instead of trading time for dollars you want to be where you're financially free your work optional so now you're going to work on your own terms does it need to take 30 years or can I shrink it to 10 years sooner how do I get multiple C curves of that happening faster and I can shorten the the path where now you're making decisions on on your why now not necessarily on the job and the things that you think you need to have where you are financially free when you're in that kind of financial middle game if you will I'm still going on this chess analogy I would imagine the strategy is different for everybody it because people have different career paths they have uh different family lifestyle decisions but what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see people make in their midlife they don't protect themselves M I have had three four five five friends of mine become disabled over the years gosh I've had people die I've had I've had four or five friends commit suicide because of mental issues and it could be Health mental that kind of stuff yeah but a lot of people don't protect themselves yeah the ones that are doing well we had them protected and we're using they're getting income from these other areas and now they're able to live their full purpose my good friend Dave mccaulay he was we graduated together he had an accident in a pool became paralyzed he was working for bats trading we all went to Tech we went to got master's degrees together this company's going public it was a big deal they said look we'll pay you salary forever just stay on we don't care and you know what he said I don't want to be here I have a bigger purpose and he he went back and started an art gallery for perlys like himself awes to help them through ART now he's got the Impossible Dream he was actually doing that down in um St Pete Florida where we had the indie car and he literally had paric out there on a boat teaching them how to sail and they were on CBS News and all this stuff there possible dream so now he's living this dream he's got art galleries in New York and Miami and St Pete and we pull that those Life policies the disability claims and that money we use that as the Catalyst to be able to buy the real estate to do the stuff to allow them to do what he needs to do that's incredible but without that you don't have a permission slip you have to then live within the confines of what that is but a lot of people don't think of protection whatsoever and I remember being on the subway that day we were getting that stuff done when we're and I'm I'm heading out to the airport and literally I have all the stuff and the accident happened the next like that weekend yeah wow that's incredible I I I love success stories like that and I I bet you have so many just thinking about the number of people you serve um you know I while we have you here I would love to get some Insider info uh what is one personal finance tip or trick that most people don't think of that right now you see as a really powerful tool you have to be so int what you want like until you can get to really know what what you're striving for it's really impossible to come back and and put the money back into it so a lot of it's your mind over your money and the most important tip is that you are the most important asset hands down until you understand that and you believe it you're going to be in this due State and we want you to be so free in what you are what your be is like like you're in your moment like you know who you are and what you're doing the money then comes after that MH but if there's no there's no hack there's no trick really it's a combination of all these things working on you that's getting there but until you know what you're here to do where you're going if that's it like you are the most important asset it's nothing to do with the money I I think that's a great segue I was reading this about you and and something I think your grandpa told you about the three-legged stool of Life yes right and C can you dive into what that three-legged stool of life is and and how you focus on that so I my grandfathers both died at a very young age my parents obviously were split and there's we have a lot of dysfunction in our family and it's not fair that I didn't get to have that but I'm not going to sit there and dwell on that at all but I did notice that when I got when I met my wife her grandfather was always the most happy go-lucky fun guy you've ever met he was actually in our business he was a Lincoln General agent he was like one of the most well-known here in Indie at the time so he back then it was a lot of insurance and annuities and he'd walk around these little pennies little baby pennies and he'd always walk around and give people pennies and just make their day that's great so you want to talk about a guy that and he would like oh my wife's not cooking dinner so what You' do he just go down the street and find out what other people in the neighborhood were cooking and he just jump in their house and have dinner and it was like that that's what I should do yeah yeah there you go Nate even even when he had he had houses in Naples and all this stuff and he would go what are the widows doing today and go down there and play Bingo with them and stuff so he was like always in his b state is what I would call it yeah and so when I was getting married he had passed away right before and it was horrible timing and all that but I had asked him first if I could marry his granddaughter and he wrote this whole thing out for the grandkids and then the grandkids was like what life should be and I was like man what a great guy that he can actually think this thing through and put that on paper what's so interesting why does it have to take your entire life to put that on paper but he said life is like a three-legged stool and each of the each of the legs are equally important it resonated with me so much when I gave the best the speech I just quoted that yeah I love that but the three legs is physical right mental so if your physical body is not right yep and then if your mind mind's wrong right and the third's spiritual connected to a higher power and they're there and and it may not be in a god sense but it's like what are you spiritually doing like like he literally believed that every person he touched was an impact with those pennies and what he was doing people that weren't there obviously he believed in God and was you know always singing the loudest guy in church and was like this this this is unbelievable but that's where who he was so he was spiritually good his mind was like clear his physical body was good yeah and once you know that those are the three most important legs and you're focused on those areas most most everything else Works itself out what do you want to have on your obituary I've thought about that a lot matter of fact I go to strategic coach there's a lot of thinking tools you do and every every time you rewrite your what those are and to me it was at the end of the day it's like if you don't have a good family then what good are you m and I just love the fact that I'm glad my wife actually likes me it's important and your kids turn out well like and you build that Legacy so making sure those are the Frameworks of what that is I would love to change the industry I think the industry is broken I think there's a lot of misinformation out there and I think what we're doing could radically make it better and we want to transform it and we believe we're the right we have the right voice we have the right strategies we have the right approach that we can do that I see it happening and I really appreciate everything you're doing for our community um everyone that you're helping generate wealth and live the life of their dreams and think about that once you add when when people when everyone around you is Rich Define it however you want to Define it you define your own richness absolutely you end up being you end up giving back in a big way yeah so all the like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates they just gave all their money away yeah so there's a huge component of that we build this up family is this and then you build back and you get Society that's better overall I love it it goes It goes full circle it does and that's all about the whole accelerate it just keeps circling and building and generating more power yeah tell me a little bit about what's different about your new book accelerate this this book is I mean you see the arrow it's just going straight up like like you're killing it I love it the the problem you're trying to solve is everyone wants to be free people want to live in fear I I've lived then from everyone I've talked to and all that that's what they're searching for how do you define it for yourself and if you're going to build a financial strategy what are the principles of doing it so we created the Financial Freedom wheel and there's six core principles that will help you have peace of mind and Harmony and build long-term value and wealth I love it that looks like an approachable book too that's good hope so yeah absolutely man version one looks good I'm excited to read it we'll uh we'll have to link it in the show notes so people can go uh go get their copy and then show up at a pwder cick event then maybe they can get it signed there you go there we go I like it and then we can do a link we don't have to talk to anybody and get started there you go right come on I think I think it's about that time I think it's about that time all right do it this is I I hate to say because this whole conversation was great but this is my favorite part of the show great uh we're gonna dive into the lightning round I'm GNA ask you three questions all around Indiana about Indiana and just your lifestyle within Indiana and um and it's just quick no wrong answers top of your head what you're thinking got it got it outside of the amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem what is Indiana known for sports any sport in particular amateur sports the amateur sports Capital World basketball basketball let's go Hoops the one game I wasn't good at that's fair um the one that I was that I really like the one that I was good at you have the height for that yeah well if you ever need a fifth man you know let me know they don't let you foul as much as they did back when I flew yeah proba the best for our teeth no Scot what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana the Hidden Gem I think it's got to be the culture oh every time I've left when I went to Florida I knew nobody but for some reason when people came in there was an instant Trust that happen and I think it comes from our Indiana Roots where we are just genuinely like good wholesome people and when we start having children like where do you want to raise your kids in like we have values that are so strong and I think we take it for granted but go away for a little bit and come back and tell me where you want your kids raised now I'm trust me I'm in the beach and I was fighting my wife like this is the dumbest thing we spent my entire life trying to get out of Indiana and I'm right back here but our values and our culture and there's why there's reasons why players stay yeah there's people that come from other C other places you know and stay in Indiana yeah it's their home absolutely that's a great answer that's that's a really good one final question of the lightning round who is someone that we need to keep on our radar someone who is doing big things I think the biggest things that are happening right now is this whole AI transition I was L literally listening to it Peter diamantis an abundance 360 I cannot remember the guy's name but he's a Google person in there and he's talking about that AI in the next few years may not be able to actually replicate all of humankind but will be able to replicate a million humans in the next few years so what those AI people are doing and what's going to happen and the transformation that's happening very quickly is going to hit us before you know it and it's and it's it's so important because it doesn't just you think about in the technology sense it's not like madna vaccine was literally built on an AI algorithm that was able to find the pattern quickly to get that out to be able to solve Co yeah and then FIS and all them got and then rolled it out say what do you want about Co but they were able to get the vaccine quicker than anybody what happens when that's cancer what happens it's all Alzheimer's what happens is you live into 150 to be able to transform the way you go mhm so this is going to happen so fast like this whole book and all this stuff the reason why the principles are important is because it's going to be a framework that stays the course of time but the way we do personal finance today is going to go away everything's accelerating it's not like the way we do trades the we do stuff is all going to be different Quantum it's going to go from linear to exponential to Quantum thinking and this is what what's happening dude you know who you need to meet he needs to be to yeah I do you know to oh yeah oh you guys would be buddies I love just like the same I get the same energy the same Vibe that's it uh that's a good that's a good one and we'll looking through and and I'll put that in the show notes local AI guy who's doing some similar stuff there put on your radar Jake Miller with the team EIG he gave me a demo of what he was he was building maybe a month or two ago and it blew my mind that's awesome well that's why deep in you guys like deep in like he's in our he's our off a surfer invest like most companies don't have ai officers well what we're building is going to be different I love it and it's going to go things are speeding up faster you could ever imagine you got that compass and you're skating to where the puck is going it's the compass but we got the principles we got the framework and and now it's just putting in those this new technology is about to hit us yeah they took all my books and put it in you can start asking questions and Scott will answer the question yeah I love that I love that hope they come out good Scott thanks for being here man this is great absolutely congrats on everything all the momentum all the acceleration and we're excited about uh some of the things we're doing with invest here coming up all right absolutely check the show notes if you want links to we'll put both books in there this was an awesome combo appreciate absolutely thank you appreciate you guys yes Rock it's a wrap this has been get in a pow kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if you have suggestions for a guest or segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powder.

com newletter and to apply for membership to the powdercake executive Community Check out powder. com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listen to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at casted have you covered casted is the first and only podcast in video marketing platform made specifically for B2B Brands I love this about them the platform makes it possible to publish Syndicate amplify and measure the value of your podcast and video content in fact we use it for our podcast here at powderkeg and if you're a startup you should listen up because cassid for startups is definitely for you they are offering exclusive deep discounts of up to 82% off retail price for qualifying startups connect with casted at cd. us/ powderkeg