Why Saving Alone Won’t Make You Rich... Do THIS Instead in 2026!

This is the Edmillet Show. Hey everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Edmillet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Here's our first guest. Hi everybody, welcome back to the show. So the gentleman that's on the show today, I've wanted to have him on for a long time. I've been a fan of his work. If you're old enough, you remember like the Doseki's guy? Like the most interesting man in the world. I kind of consider my guest today, that guy. Oh, God. Go on. It's true. Sharks have a week about me, Ed. I'm telling you, the reason is, is you can ask him about almost any topic, whether it be money or current issues, the economy, social stuff, emotions, you name it. He's just so well-spoken on so many different things. He's a contrarian thinker to some extent. He's also a very intense guy. And he speaks his mind. I don't agree with him on every single thing he says, but I find myself nodding and cheering for a lot of the things that he talks about. Been very successful in business, had some exits, had some stuff that hasn't worked out as well, but he's become a very, very wealthy man, young in his life as well. Teaches at NYU. He's a professor of marketing there, but this guy is the real deal. And his brand's exploded the last few years. So successful podcast as well. That's probably enough. Let's get into the conversation. So Professor G, Scott Galloway, welcome to the show. Thanks so much. And let me just say that I'm really enjoying this podcast so far. So far it's just working for me. And you're being, thanks for your generous comments. It's true though. I mean it. And that's why, you know, I do a lot of intros. They're not always that long or that complimentary. So you got a book out right now called The Algebra of Wealth. He's had a bunch of different books that have crushed, but I'm gonna ask you about wealth first, because I think you have a really interesting statement about what it is. What is wealth by definition for you? Like the definition of wealth is what? Having an absence of economic stress so you can focus on your relationships. Rich is the kind of the people see wealth is the things that people don't see. I love this quote from, it was called A Little Prince, this great little movie when I was a kid and said, the essential is invisible to the eye. Real wealth is invisible to the eye. And it means that you have enough economic security that you can focus on the other things that are really important in life. And you can achieve different, you can achieve wealth different ways. And that is the definition of wealth more specifically or more mathematically for me is passive income that's greater than your burn. So I have a close friend who's the head of M&A for a large bulge bracket investment bank, makes between $3 and $10 million a year. All current income lives in New Jersey, so he's taxed at 52% a year between his ex-wife, his alimony, his home in the Hamptons, his master, the universe lifestyle, trying to keep up with the Joneses. I'm pretty sure he spends most or not all of it. And I also know it's incredibly stressful for him because he wonders what happens if the music stops. And M&A has been down the last couple of years, so he hasn't made as much money as he was anticipating. And even though he still makes millions, he's built a lifestyle where he hasn't been able to aggregate the kind of wealth where if he were to retire, his passive income would not be greater than his burn. And I'll flip to my father who's 94, who between his pension from the Royal Navy and Social Security, and he owns a few washing machines in trailer parks, he makes $52,000 a year in passive income, and he spends 48. My dad really enjoys not spending money. He is wealthy. He never needs to work again. So having passive income that's greater than your burn, wealth is what you don't see. And the key, the means is making money, but the ends is having an absence of economic stress, which can really damage your relationship with your spouse, with your kids. But having that taken out of your life so you can focus on your relationships, I think that's the definition of wealth. Perfect answer. By the way, totally true. 99% of my friends are the former description. They make seven figures and they are not wealthy because their burn is so high. And it's like a never ending burn. The amount of money that they would need to accumulate and based on how long life expectancies are going now to exceed their burn rate, it's really stressful for so many people that a lot of you follow on social media that a lot of you think are very wealthy people. Scott is 1,000% right. By the way, today we're gonna skip around. Like social issues, we're gonna talk about young men, we're gonna talk about emotions, we're gonna talk about money because he is so skilled at these things. But that's the absolute definition of wealth. And in my own case, Scott, I'll tell you, I've been fortunate I've had a couple of exits and I've made a significant amount of money in my life. And as I got into my fifties, I realized it's time to get serious about really being wealthy, meaning by your definition. What is all this stuff gonna cost me the next 30 or 40 years if the music stops? And that if the music stops is what most people don't consider. So he's 100% right about that. I did something smart young and I wanna ask you about this. I did not follow my passions young. And you talk about this really eloquently. I chose a career that took advantage of some natural proclivities that I had. So give it a sip of mine. And when young people ask me all the time, should I follow my dreams? Should I follow my passion? I always say maybe, but I hedge on that because I don't think you can be successful in life unless you become great at something. And I think you can be great at something. You have to have some natural proclivity or talent at least trending in that direction. You talk about that a lot. So someone's young listening to this or even they're in their middle ages and they go, look, I wanna switch careers. What advice would you give them? So we have two types of speakers at NYU where I teach. The first is really accomplished impressive people and the second is billionaires. We've just decided that once your wealth has three commas you have insight into life. And they give, they always in their talks or almost always with what I think is some of the worst advice you can give a young person and it's the following, follow your passion. And the guy telling you to follow your passion made his money or his billions in iron ore smelting. Anyone who tells you to follow your passion is already rich. This is your job. Your job is to find something you're good at which isn't easy that you could potentially after you invest 10,000 hours and endure the bulls*** and demonstrate the grit and perseverance and overcome obstacles that you become great. Aim to be in the top 10 or 1% of something and say, where could I do that? And this is the key part in an industry that has a 90 plus percent employment rate which by the way is 90 plus percent of industries and be careful not to mistake your hobbies for your passion. I'm six two, I have a pretty good arm, a decent vision or a plane of vision. I would have liked, I'd really liked to be quarterback of the Jets. That's what I wanted when I was 16 or 17. I was blessed to go to UCLA where they had real athletes and quickly learned I was never gonna be in the 0.1% which you need to be in professional sports. So if you wanna be in acting, modeling, fashion, nylife, restaurants, you wanna be a DJ, I don't wanna crush your dreams but unless you get bright flashing green lights that you are in fact in the top 0.1% which you'll get that validation immediately. If you're messy, people will tell you that. If you don't think yourself, okay, what could I be, where could I be in the top 10%? We're making being in the top 10% provides a great living. There are 180,000 actors in the SAG After Union which by the way is not an easy union to get into. It means you've done real work. It means you're talented. And last year, 83% of those union members didn't qualify for health insurance because they made less than $23,000. So the romance industries attract too much human capital driving down the returns. So, and also people think, okay, but I will never be, I'm giving up, I'll never be passionate about tax law. Well, guess what? If you have the discipline to get into good undergrad, if you have the ability to get into a great law school, if you understand the intersection of law and economics and know how to handle clients and are good with numbers and you can bring that sort of skill, the best tax lawyers fly private and have a larger selection set of mates than they deserve. And all of those things and the other accoutrements are being great in the high paying industry, camaraderie, relevance, prestige will make you passionate about whatever it is. Passion comes from mastery. It comes from economic security. It comes from prestige, especially in a capitalist society. So your job is to find your talent, not your passion. And trust me on this, as you get older, and Ed, you know this, what do we become passionate about? We become passionate about taking care of our parents when they get older. We become passionate about giving our kids some of the opportunities we didn't have. We become passionate about taking our friends to Aspen and not worrying about money. That will, trust me on this, in a capitalist society, whatever affords you that economic security, you will become passionate about, find your talent. I so agree, everybody. That's what I tell my kids. I was golfing one time with Elway, and we were reminiscing on all the cool courses we had played in our life. You know? Hey, man, what's your favorite course? And I thought, is he going to say Augusta or Pebble Beach? And he goes, come on, man, you know this. It's wherever you play the best. That's your favorite. That's great. It applies to what you just said. If you get great at something, you'll find yourself become pretty passionate about it. And even if it's not, if you're passionate about fly fishing, you can get really wealthy so that you can go fly fish whenever the heck you want. This is absolutely cogent advice, everybody. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. All right, welcome back to Max Out, everybody. I'm Ed Milette. And before we get started, I just want to remind you of something, my friend. And that is this. You were born to do something great with your life. I just had that on my heart today before we get going. I just feel like maybe there's an awful lot of you during this time right now that wonder whether that's true. And maybe you need to be reminded of it. Maybe you're not even sure how you're going to do it again. And I'm here to help you with all of that. But I just want to begin by telling you, you're special. You were born to do something awesome with your life in big ways and in small ways. And that's the whole purpose of this show, is for me to help you max out your life. And so you're stuck with me this week. If you listen to the show or watch the show for a long time, kind of your old school, it used to be that every other week, I would do a lesson, teach on something like spirituality, fitness, life strategy, influence, relationships, whatever it might be. Then the next week, I have a guest on that's an expert that's maxed out a particular area of their life. Well, recently, the last eight months to a year, I've mainly done interviews with experts in different fields. But I hadn't experienced myself yesterday that I just felt compelled to share with all my brothers and sisters out there that I think might make a difference in your life, might change your life, might change mine. And so I'm so glad you decided to join me again this week. But I didn't want to start without telling you from my heart, I love you, I believe in you. And greatness is coming your way. I know that. And I do this show not just to inspire you and to motivate you, but as many of you know, to give you the tactics and the strategies and the tools to make that a reality in your life. And so today, I'm going to give you another one. And I want you to write this down if you can, if you're YouTube or you're not driving your car right now. And that is this. Today's theme is very simple. Diversity is the pathway to richness. Diversity is the pathway to richness. And I mean diversity in two forms, the people in your life and the experiences of your life. And without that diversity, I'm so concerned in our culture today that I see us become more and more tribal, less and less diverse, both in our friendships and our relationships. We don't talk to each other, we talk at each other. And more and more, we hang around people just like us, don't we? And they kind of reinforce our beliefs and our way of living. And we just kind of go in this circle. It feels good. It's like eating cake. And it feels really good, but it doesn't grow us. And then the second thing is the lack of diverse experiences that we're giving our self-access to. And so I looked up diversity, by the way, in the dictionary. And basically, it means variety. We've all heard the saying that variety is the spice of life. And I know during this time with COVID and the global pandemic and high unemployment and political polarization and all the things that are happening, most people say, hey, life ain't so spicy right now. And I want to bring some spice back to your life. And you can do it for free on no budget. That spice, that variety comes through diversity. So the experience that I had this week that I wanted to share with you, and I can only talk about it for a few minutes because every time I get going, I can't finish sentences. But I dropped my son off at college yesterday. And can't do it. Sorry. My boy left me yesterday. It hit me much harder than I thought it would. And it's hitting me even harder again today. And I think one of the reasons is that I liked our kind of lack of variety, our lack of diversity. I had him under my roof every single day. But what I keep reminding myself of is how amazing these next four years can be for my son. Why? Because he's about to have the most diverse experience of his lifetime, isn't he? He's already meeting people that he didn't grow up around, people from different backgrounds, different countries, different economics situations, different religions. He's going to introduce to different ways of thinking. He's going to have decisions and choices to make good and bad, isn't he, during these years? But any of you that went to college or have sent a child off to college, it's four of the best years of most people's lives. Why? It's the most diverse years of their life. So if that's true for Max, I've got to be excited for him, don't I, as emotional as I am for myself. But it's also true for you. It's true for me. There's a direct correlation and connection between the amount of diversity in our life, variety, and how happy we are, how much we're growing. By the way, how wealthy you'll get too. And so when I dropped Max off, I want to tell you first about making decisions. I said, Max, you're going to have a lot of decisions you're going to have to make in your life when you're here for the first time. And when I say diversity and variety and chase diversity, I don't mean things that you are knowingly aware of could be harmful to you. So when you're offered a drug or a particular drink or some situation or decision you got to make, Max, there's only two things you need to remember. So this is the next thing I'd have you all right now. I said, Max, you need to remember who you are as a man, your identity, and number two, what you stand for. And if every decision comes your way, you just remind yourself, who am I? And what do I stand for? And is this choice, this decision consistent with that? Then you'll make the right decision. And I know that for a fact. By the way, for you. Dell PCs with Intel inside are built for the moments that matter, for the moments you plan and the ones you don't. Built for the busy days that turn into all night study sessions. The moment you're working from a cafe and realize every outlet's taken. The times you're deep into your flow and the absolute last thing you need is an auto update throwing off your momentum. That's why Dell builds tech that adapts to the way you actually work. Built with long lasting batteries so you're not scrambling for the closest outlet and built in intelligence that makes updates around your schedule, not in the middle of it. They don't build tech for tech's sake, they build it for you. Find technology built for the way you work at dell.com slash XPS. Built for you. So you know what everybody? I really appreciate the comments about, I've gotten a lot leaner and built more muscle this year and it was really intentional. And I was thinking, how can I get ahead on my fitness? Cause I already pretty fit and worked out and it was how I'm eating. And that's where Factor came in. Factor doesn't ask you to meal prep or follow recipes. It just removes the entire problem. Two minutes, real food, bam, done. And so once I started eating healthier and using factor, not only did I get a lot leaner but I built more muscle. And the truth is guys, I had more energy. So one other thing I like is gotta tell you, you can rotate the meals every single week. There's like a hundred different meals. High protein, calorie smart, Mediterranean. It's awesome. You should be using factor just like I am. Head to factormeals.com slash my let 50 off and use code my let 50 off to get 50% off your first factor box plus free breakfast for a year. Offer only valid for new customers with code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with factor. You in your life, who are you and what do you stand for? And have you been living that way recently? Cause I think you love all people. I think you wanna chase experiences. I think you want memories and moments in your life and you wanna be happier. All of that is in this place that most of us avoid as we get older, which is new things, diverse things, different people, different ways of thinking. You're taught in the world right now, aren't you, man? These people are different. They're your enemy. Everybody in the world, both the left political party and the right political party, I'll tell you, your life's messed up because of these people. It's not your fault. It's their fault. Both parties do it, right? It's interesting. So many people say, you don't know what it's like to be me, but they seem to be an expert on what it's like to be you. Maybe those of you that think you're an expert on what it's like to be somebody else or you've got an opinion about somebody's life, ask yourself if you've walked in their shoes, ask yourself if you've had their experiences. And if you haven't, why don't you start to get to know people like that and maybe your opinion could evolve or change? Or at least you'd have an experience, wouldn't you? That's unique and different than the one you're having with the same three, four, five people you talk to that go to the same three, four, five places. And so you can have diversity right now on no budget. And I'm gonna talk about those things with you today. And I'm excited for my son that he's gonna have this diverse and amazing variety in his life going for different golf courses, different places he'll go, different things he's gonna have to learn, tools and skills that he didn't have to learn when his mom was caring for him. By the way, a lot of you say to me, you know, you talk about your family, but not all the time, not as often as some people might. That's because just to be candid with you, they deserve their privacy. They want their privacy. And you'd be surprised when you're a public person, some of the scary things that happen when you expose your family quite too much. But I felt compelled to share that experience with you because it was life changing for him and it's life changing for me. And the lesson there is it can be life changing for you as well. Diversity in all forms. Remember I said, diversity in people in your life. And I want you to really evaluate that. The last 90 days or so, how many diverse conversations you have with people that grew up completely differently than you? Different background, different race, different religion. Right? Different experience. And your business, how many people that are around you are very different than you? Right? They look different. They talk different. They come from somewhere different. They bring different experiences, perspectives, thoughts, opinions, nuances to the table that are beautiful. See, as a country, we are better together. We're not all the same. People say we're all the same. No, we're not all the same. And that's what makes it so beautiful. We're not all the same. But together we're stronger. Some people ask me if I'm gonna run for office. I don't know, but I doubt it. But one of the only reasons I would is I would do it to bring people together. I'm so tired of these political parties, the media, everybody, social media, putting us against each other. And the other people, well, we're not the same. We're beautiful combined. Our combined experience, our combined skills, our combined thoughts, our combined lives, our combined souls are better together. Our better, I'm not saying everybody's good. I don't believe that. I don't believe everybody should be in your circle. But one of the things that's confusing to a lot of people is they say, well, wait a minute, I listen to you, I listen to social media, it says, hey, keep your circle small. Only have people there that support your way of thinking. You don't understand what that means. So let me clarify it for you. I mean people that support your dreams, that support you, that support who you are and what you stand for to go back to my conversation with Max. I don't want anybody in my life who doesn't support who I am and what I stand for, right? But I want them to express it. I want them to challenge me. I don't want everybody to think politically the same as me, I don't want everyone to have the same personality as me. If you're a really serious person, wouldn't it be more spicy, more diverse, to have some hilarious people around you? If you're a complete right winger, wouldn't it be just more diverse and interesting at lunch, at dinner with someone who's on the left or vice versa? Man, have some women friends, women, hey guys, how about have some conversations with some ladies that you're not just dating. Just get to know their experience, what they're thinking about, what they fear, what they worry, what they want, what they chase, what their anxieties are, what their dreams are, what their insecurities are and vice versa. That's how we get better. And so your life, right? I want to be happier. One of the ways is more diversity. And so if you haven't had a lot of that lately, chase it. There's someone at work that you could reach out to you don't know, so I want to get to know you better. Let's have a conversation, let's have a Zoom. If you can get together and have a cup of coffee, depending on where you live. Tell me about your life. I see it in the office when we were there, I don't know anything about you. One of the things that drives my friends crazy is that if they get in an Uber with me or a limo, they know I'm not talking to them, I'm talking to the driver. Anybody who drives me or anything like that. Because I believe human beings are gifts. And only is that revealed to you when you open them up. And so I know I interview kind of one of the things I do here is I interview, but I get to know people. I love people. It drives my friends crazy. Cause they know we get in a car, but it's an hour Eddie's talking to the driver the whole time. I want to know where are you from? What's your upbringing? Right? Because they're diverse. That's spice. I already know these other three. I could talk to them later. I want to talk to this person. I was driving last week example, a guy picked me up, it's from Lebanon. I said, Hey man, what's it like there? Take me through it. And I learned a lot. My life's better because I'm not from Lebanon. I've never been to Lebanon. But I had this picture of what it was like. And he's like, actually where I grew up man, gated community, middle class, Christians, Jews, Muslims, agnostic, all on my street. And we had street parties and we all got along. I said, you're kidding me. That wasn't kind of my image. He goes, well, there's places where it's not like that. But where I lived, just like where you would live here. I said, you're kidding me. No way. It went a great conversation. He's got three children. This guy's from Lebanon. One of his kids immigrated here. It's one of his kids is at Harvard. It's kicking butt man. He's driving Uber to help support tuition. My life was richer because of that experience. Didn't cost me any money. My life got better. So were yours if you chase diversity. By the way, so will your business. So I wanna talk to you entrepreneurs for a minute. Diversity is the key. I don't believe by the way, hiring on skin color. One way or the other. I don't go, well, your skin's darker. I'm hiring you or your skin's lighter. I'm hiring you. I hire on genitalia or gender either. I hire the person that's the best for the job. Like for the presidential race right now, I'm not gonna tell you who I'm voting for, but I can tell you this. Their gender has nothing to do with who I'm voting for, pro or con. Who's the best person for the job? Having said that, one of the mistakes entrepreneurs make and we make in our lives that I made when I was young is, I started to look at my business when I was younger. Everyone around me, my clients, the people that work with me were all just like me. You looked around my business when I was 25, 26 years old. They're all guys, all former athletes or military or police, all kind of the testosterone masculine crown. They loved my messages. They loved how I talk. The veins sticking out, getting all fired up, yelling and screaming. And I'd get this reinforcement. So I thought I was doing it right. One of the mistakes you entrepreneurs make is you keep getting reinforced your way of thinking. You do it in politics too, don't you? You'll watch on TV exactly what you already believe, right? Your phone's programmed now that what you've clicked on, they're gonna feed you more of what you like. And in work, we do it too. Why? Why is it that those guys all were like me? You know why? Because we like people that are like us. We just do. It's an unconscious bias. Everybody has a black people have it, white people have it, old people have it, young people have it. It's an unconscious bias. We like people like us. It's not horrible to have. It's horrible not to be aware of. And so you have unconscious bias in your friendships, in your politics, and in your hiring and training and work. And so I had all these guys, they love what I talked about. It was great. You're great, Ed, thank you. And we were all fired up all the time about how supposedly great our company was. But guess what? That's a limited segment of the world. So is people just like you. You have a limited slice of life if everyone around you looks like you. My white friends, how many conversations you had in the last 90 days with a really good friend of yours that's Latin or Chinese or black, my black friends. Last 10 phone calls you've had, last conversations. How many of them were with a white guy or a white girl? And I hate skin color. I hate judging that. I'm talking about diversity of experience. Unfortunately, we live in a world where this has become, you better pick a tribe. It's terrible. The truth is most of us are mixed with something. Drives me nuts that we even have to have this conversation. But the truth is we have become tribal. And the truth is you gotta get to know people that are different than you. And so I started to evaluate that. So stay with me on this. And I started to realize I needed to bring more people to the table that could express who I was and what I stood for in their unique way. I can express it my way. I need people's experiences, backgrounds, memories, nuances, personalities, ways of thinking that I don't have. And so let me give you a couple of examples of what my business life looks like. I've been named one of the 50th wealthiest men in the world under 50 years old. That's pretty cool. My podcast, am I show that you're watching if it's on YouTube, fastest growing show in the world. Couple of different magazines pick me, the Fast Going Businessman in the history of social media. That's pretty cool. In just three years, millions of people around the world listen to my content and my audience is unbelievably what? Diverse, 52% women, 48% men. 48% of my audience is under 35 years old, 52% of my audience is over. Global and in the United States. I have entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. I have Christians, Muslims, Jews, agnostics. I have people that are trying to win financially in life and people that wanna win spiritually in life. It's diverse. Why is that? Because obviously I'm that same guy that when I was 25, it's who I've surrounded myself with. So many of you may not know this, but I want you to think about something. I'd love to tell you that all that stuff's grown because I'm so incredible and so wonderful, but that's just not the case. The reason it's grown like it has is because of the diversity and the variety and the spice around me. Not only do I enjoy it, but it's tremendously changed my financial situation. By the way, I do all the social media stuff for free as you know, but it's grown my brand. So let me give you an example. This social media, YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, wherever you're listening to me, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all of that enterprise of mine, my public reputation and brand, the CEO and president of that company, the leader of that company is a woman. A young woman, a young black woman, and one of my dearest friends who I love named Trevi. So yeah, this entire thing you're consuming for me, turns out it's driven by someone different than me, someone better than me, someone who brings experiences and thoughts. So it's my message, it's my brand, it's what I stand for. I hire for people who understand who I am and what I stand for, but can help me express it differently. Maybe in your case, get to markets differently. And so everything I do, I've trusted my entire public reputation and content with Trevi. And I wouldn't have anybody else do it. I hope she stays forever, I love her. So that's who leads that part of my organization, the person who creates the content that you see on social media. Also a woman, Athena. The person who handles all my personal finances, my bookkeeping, my accounting, my taxes, everything. A woman, Sue. The person who runs my new financial venture that I have. A woman, she's Greek and Latin, her name's Nicole. She's awesome. Oh, the person who runs my entire enterprise for the last two decades, all of my companies, handles all my financial, my money, 25-something different corporations, runs my world, is a woman. She's also my sister, she's by my sister all her life, but she's been my CEO for two decades. Erica, turns out I have a really diverse team. Mike, my videographer, he's been with me forever. He looks like me, but I'm also loyal. So I've got a very diverse team. These women, these people bring to bear all kinds, and that's just one example. My financial company has people from many different, East Indian, Muslim, Christian, Mormon. We have Chinese folks, Indian folks, black folks, white folks, Latino folks, old people, young people. All winning, variety is the spice of life. I'm a better businessman. I'm richer financially and richer emotionally and spiritually because of the diversity in my life. We can learn from everybody. So my challenge to you is take a look at your hiring. If you're running a company, maybe you need to get people together that are there that are very different. Why don't you encourage people that don't know each other to get on a Zoom or to have lunch this week, and just get to know one another, collaborate, connect, get to understand each other's backgrounds and nuances. I would challenge you to do that. I hope that's a breakthrough for you, by the way, on how to lead your company and in your life. Maybe reach out to somebody that's different than you this week, politically. Maybe for 20 minutes, listen to something that's not exactly what you already believe. By the way, well, hey, no, I am all Trump, 100%. I don't want to hear anything from these liberal wackos. Or you know what, Trump is a racist, crazy person. I'm not interested in talking to anybody who supports anything that guy stands for. Cool, so that's how you're gonna live your life. You're not gonna learn anything from their perspective. They're just evil if they disagree with you. Is that what you're saying? Or are you afraid that your beliefs are so weak that one conversation with them, you may get impacted and change? Which is it? Because if you believe it so strongly, they can't change your mind. Just have a conversation, have the experience and learn. You know what you might find out? There might be something they believe you ought to consider. Maybe one little part of it. And you know what the worst thing that would happen is? You go, you know what, I just, I listen to them, I totally disagree with them. I feel stronger about how I feel. Great, that's an experience. But I can guarantee if you had 10, 12, 20, 30 of these, your life would change. How about this? What could you do that's new for the first time? Think about your life. All the things that have been the greatest moments of your life were new in the first time and diverse. Weren't they? But maybe the last 90 days, because we've been locked in our houses or there's no financial means. So what could you do? Could there be a new hobby you could pick up? New music you listen to. Maybe you're a country music fan. Listen to something else for a while. I'm listening to Sinatra right now. There's no new music out. So I'm going back all the way to Sinatra just to get some variety, just to get some spice in my life. I'm tired of listening to the same songs over and over again. Same conversations, right? The second thing we teach in personal development is, man, you better have habits, rituals and routines. I teach this. People take that to an extreme. That's a foundational thing you should have that gives you the anchor so you can go have variety and diversity and keep your life under control. If everything in your life is routine, if you and your spouse watch the same shows together, go to the same restaurants, order the same food, have the same conversations every single day. That's a relationship that's dying, not growing. Why don't you do something new and innovative? Walk somewhere different, work out together, try a different restaurant, have a different conversation, watch a different movie. Heck, do something that's just diverse. Don't sleep in your bed tonight. Grab a couple sleeping bags and have a camp out in the living room in a picnic and do something romantic, something diverse, get creative. It's the spice of life. Your ability to create diverse and variety based experiences will be the juice of your life, your relationships and your business. But you can't go through the motions. You've got to force diversity, force yourself into variety. New conversations, new experiences, a new place you hike. I don't know, something new that's diverse and variety. We avoid it as adults and it kills me. You know, you can learn from everybody. Let me share this with you. You'd say, well, everybody? Yeah, you may not agree, but you can learn. You can learn. That grows you. So you know how when you're doing something that's good for you and then you stop doing it, all of a sudden you feel, what the heck changed? So here's what happened to me. I've been feeling great for like a year and a half. It's because I've been on IM8. Then we moved to our place in Maine and I didn't bring my supplement with me. 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You know, many of you know that my first job out of college, I worked at McKinley Home for Boys, which basically was an orphanage. My boys were all eight to 10 years old. My boys grew up in some ways like me in some ways different. And so it changed my life because I got so much diversity in my life. My boys were wards of the court. So my boys, most of them were either molested by their family, their parents were incarcerated or dead. And so, by the way, most of my boys were inner city boys and most of my boys were minority of some type, okay? They changed my life. You say, well, they must have learned a great deal from you, Ed. I mean, you're mentoring and your way of living. They did. And I learned a ton from them. So if I could learn from eight and nine year old inner city boys, don't you think you could learn from someone who thinks completely differently than you? Wouldn't that be interesting? By the way, it's one of the great experiences in my life. I still talk about it all the time. Well, what did I learn from those guys? Well, I'll tell you what I learned. I didn't grow up around guys. I grew up middle class. I say lower middle class. My mom and dad keep telling me we were middle class. So I'll default to we were middle class. But I didn't grow up around guys like them. But you know what I learned? I learned to be grateful for the most simple things in my life from them. I remember one day I would walk the boys to school every day and little Marcus every day would start skipping. We always walked in a line and he would start skipping. I say, Marcus, get back in line brother. Okay, Eddie. And he would do it every day. So finally one day he skipped again. I said, Marcus, you need to get back in line, man. I'm not gonna tell you three times. And he looks at me with this beautiful little face. Marcus was an African American little boy. And he goes, Eddie, okay. I said, what are you so damn excited about, man? He goes, no gunshots on this way to school. Every day there's no gunshots, Mr. Eddie. And I went, yeah, that is cool, Marcus. That is pretty awesome. And I thought something that simple he was grateful for. What a lesson for me. We're always grateful for the biggest things in our lives. The biggest things in our lives. What about the small things that we take for granted every single day that someone from a different background can teach us is so special. I remember one morning I came in to wake up Jose and little Jose woke up and I said, Jose, let's go brother. It's time to get up, man. And he gets out of bed and he says, Mr. Eddie, he gives me this big hug in the morning. His little eight year old at the time. And he goes, I love you. I love you. Thank you. I said, for what? He goes, forgetting me up every morning. I said, of course, brother, we gotta get to school. And I later found out that his parents never woke him up for school. He'd miss school all the time. He'd sleep until 10 or 11. No one would get him up. No one would make him breakfast. No one would talk to him about school. No one asked him about his report card. No one asked him about his grades. He just wanted somebody to care. And I thought these things that I took for granted with my mom growing up were so simple. See, when you begin to get diverse experiences, you begin to get insights into life changing, variety in your life. It's also the key to making a comeback. If you're gonna change things right now and make a comeback, you need to start to think different and act different and feel different about yourself. And that comes from all of these experiences. You know, I told Max, I said, Max, listen, there's gonna be choices for you at college, man, that are gonna be very difficult. This is not gonna be all sunsets and rainbows, right? I said, my freshman year at college, man, I had some decisions to make. I said, let me tell you about my freshman year. I went away to college, which is already scary. So I know you're a little bit scared. I said, I went away, I get there, and my girlfriend breaks up with me back home. That one hurt. Then my teammates didn't like me. I'm super introverted and shy. I was from California. Most of those guys weren't. They thought I was arrogant and cocky because I was quiet. So, but it wasn't, I was just super introverted. They actually nicknamed me Eddie myself instead of Eddie my let, because I was alone so often. And so my girlfriend breaks up with me. My teammates don't like me. Two months after I got there, the coach who recruited me quit and took a scouting job. So now the reason I went there is gone. And I said, Max, then the game started and I was overmatched. I wasn't good enough. I hit 220 my freshman year. I sucked. I played every game, because the guy behind me was even worse than me. And I said, we went 15 and 45 that year. 15 wins, 45 losses. And a bunch of other crap happened that wasn't good that year as well. I said, when it was over, I wanted to quit. And I called my dad, which is his grandfather. We call him Gump. I said, Gump came up and I said, dad, this didn't work out. Look, the guy who recruited me quit. The teammates don't like me. I'm not good enough to play here. You know, we're terrible. I just want to come home and I'll go to another school back home. And my dad said, well, you could do that. You got a decision to make. And guess what my dad said to me? He probably doesn't even remember this. He goes, is that consistent with who you are as a man? Is that what you stand for? Same two questions I asked you earlier. I said, what do you mean? He said, is that who you are? You a quitter? When it gets really difficult, you run? I said, dad, that's not what happened. The coach quit. He goes, oh, so what you stand for, as long as people around you quit and give up, make mistakes, that gives you permission to do it. That's what you're saying. And when it gets really difficult, you just run. And you really believe you're not any good. That's why you hit 220. And you can't help the team get any better. It's fine. You can leave. I just want to make sure that that's who you are and what you stand for. Ugh. You got me. And I thought about it really hard, Max. I thought, that's not who I am. I don't run when it gets tough. And you know what? Maybe I could outwork these guys this summer and get a little bit better. And maybe I won't hit 220 next year. Maybe we could win a few more games. And the fact that the coach quit, that doesn't give me permission to get weak and quit either. My dad was a diverse thinker. And I stayed. And you know what? Worked out pretty well. Next year I hit like 360. Was a defensive player of the year. We won some more games. My coach is a friend of mine to this day. So is my pitching coach. Both Quincy and Stan are both friends of mine. And I'm really glad that I made that decision, Max. You're going to be faced with those decisions as well. My thinking is maybe some of you listening to this day are being faced with those decisions, aren't you? Just remember, is it who you are? Is it consistent with who you are and what you stand for? And do you have enough diversity in your life? This is how we're going to make a comeback. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. Welcome back to the program, everybody. I'm so excited to have this man here today. I've wanted to do this with him for a long time. But it was the universe's timing, I think, that we did it now. He's incredible. He's constantly ranked as one of the top three, four, five leadership experts in the world. But when I watch him speak, I think he's one of the most gifted orators in the world today. He's an author of a whole bunch of different books. We're talking 20 million plus copies sold of his books. He's also a recovering lawyer, which I didn't know until I started to do my research on him. And you know what? There's a bunch of people that endorse his work. I mean, people like Nobel Prize winners, Desmond Tutu, John Bon Jovi, and me. I endorse his work. And so he's got a new book out called The Everyday Hero Manifesto, which is incredible. It's about 10 books in one book. So Robin Sharma, welcome to the show. Real blessing. Nice to finally meet you. Yeah, pleasure. It's mine. I got to tell you, I told you off camera, I'm just a big fan of the work you do and the way that you do it. So I love the depth to what you talk about. Being in your presence, it's obvious to me as well. You've also had the blessing of some heavyweight mentors. I think it's chapter eight, but it's kind of like the advice from heavyweight mentors, right? Give us a little bit of that juice there. Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple. Was on my stage when I used to do an event called the Titan Summit, Richard Branson was there, Shaquille O'Neal, many of the world's A players and history makers. He was a great mentor to me. I think he has such a great heart. Steve? Oh, purest heart. He's such a beautiful man. Showed up alone in a taxi. He's giving out guys in the crowd his phone number from the stage. He's just such a great guy. He was just so humble. And it was like, what was your dream? Oh, I just wanted to do the most amazing coding. I just wanted to do the most amazing coding that other engineers would look at and just go, this guy's incredible. I didn't care about money. And I don't, he was just, he's just a beauty. Can I say one thing about it? Just because I saw, by the way, I'd say very good impression of him is that he's one of these stories that most people don't really know. Steve should be one of the five, six wealthiest men in the world. But what he did to give away early on in Apple and even after Apple became a public company is one of the most amazing stories that most people don't know on the planet because he helps so many other people become wealthy at his own financial expense. He did. You know, it moves me to mention the words Cora Greenaway. Cora Greenaway was one of the greatest mentors of my life. She's my grade five history teacher. And there's a picture of her in the book when she was 101. And when I was growing up, I marched to a different drummer. I didn't really fit in with the stylish crowd. I trusted my own voice. I lived in my head in many ways. I loved to read. I was minimized, laughed at, put down, disbelieved. Teacher said, oh, he'll be a drifter. He'll be a vagrant. He won't amount to anything. And one thing I would say to all your many millions of viewers from around the world is, you know, you can listen to the opinions of your critics or you can change the world, but you don't get to do both. Wow. In the book there's J.K. Rowling. She actually had a, she had a pseudonym, Robert Galbraith. She wrote a book after like the Harry Potter success. She wrote a book under the pseudonym, Robert Galbraith. She sent it out to people in the publishing industry and they said, sent back letters that said, you know, you would do well to join a writing group and to take writing lessons to J.K. Rowling. So I was minimized and, but this teacher, you know, in grade five, Cora Greenway, she saw something in me that very few people saw in me. And she took it upon herself to save me in many ways and to build me up versus tear me down. And she said, Robin, there is something special in you and I see it. And I think the job of an everyday hero is to shine a light on people's talents and help them become bigger in your presence. I think that's what the world needs right now. Oh, Robin. I think that's what the great leaders do. They, their ego is so turned down and there are such servants that they, they make people feel bigger in their presence and they leave people better than they found them. And so Cora Greenway really saved me and inspired me and my life moved into an all new trajectory after that. I think that's the power of a mentor. A few years ago, I started searching for Cora Greenway and I didn't know this Ed, but I learned that when she was a young woman, she actually was a part of the Dutch resistance and she would go under enemy lines in Nazi territory and she would save children who were going to Nazi depth camps. This was my grade five history teacher. And then the third mentor, I've had so many, but would be my father. And you talked about your father and you talked about your sister. And my father is 84. He was 54 years, he was a family doctor. And he used to say things like this to me when I was growing up. You'd say, Robin, when you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. He said, live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice. Wow. He was a Rotarian. Your father said this to you. My father said it to me. My father was a Rotarian. He would quote Paul Harris, the founder, and he'd say, the one who serves the best profits the most. My dad has been just like a terrific philosopher to me. So those would be three of the big heroes in my life. Obviously my mom will say it. Like why didn't you mention me, but she's magnificent of course. I make that same mistake when I talk about my dad, by the way, I have to share something with you. I think this little exchange right here is gonna be the reason that your book is so profound. So I've had, you and I have been blessed to have access to about every brilliant mind or successful, whatever on the planet. They either want our advice or we get theirs, which is a pretty cool thing. I have to be careful that I can get through this sentence too. Yours is your fifth grade teacher. I have these little tiny moments, I'm gonna be emotional, but I have these little tiny moments in my life where people that don't think they're everyday heroes completely changed the complete direction of my life. And I had a fourth grade teacher. I was small, my dad was an alcoholic. I had just switched schools. I just thought I was nothing. I had no self-esteem. And I was struggling in school and it was obvious that the other kids didn't like me. And I had a Mrs. Smith, Susan Smith was my fourth grade teacher. And I remember, I used to tell this story even on my show five, six years ago that this is everyday heroes, guys. These are two of us sitting here. We end up doing a fourth and a fifth grade teacher, both of our dads and basically one other person, right? And so someone walked in the back of the room and said, Mrs. Smith, we need one of your smarts. You kinda whispered it, but we go, we need your smartest student because we're gonna take the state exams in the other room, right? And I watched Mrs. Smith, she was sitting at her desk, we were doing work and she goes, that would be little Eddie. I'm getting goosebumps right now. And she points at me and she thought I was the smart one. And I got up and I walked to the back and I went back and took this state test. It was the first person that ever told me I was smart. It was the first person that ever called me out in a room and said that I was special in my life in the fourth grade. And it stood out to me so much to the point that I talked about it on different shows I've been interviewed in. I sought her out about four years ago. She remembered me. Wow. She did that on purpose because she knew I was struggling. There was no test that I needed to take. She knew days before she was gonna do that, she asked somebody to come to the back of the room. She asked them to say that so that we could all hear it so that she could say my name so that I could stand up in front of the class and walk out. What a beautiful woman, what a heroic woman. And that difference, if that doesn't happen that day, I'm pretty sure you and I aren't sitting here right now, I have in this conversation. So if you're wondering in small ways whether what you do is heroic, what was your fifth grade teacher's name again? Cora Greenway. Cora Greenway and Susan Smith have changed the course of both of our lives. Is she still with us? She's not teaching anymore, but she's still with us. She did that on purpose. Is that not incredible? For a little boy in your class. You know, there's a model towards the end of the everyday here manifesto called the Eight Forms of Wealth. And I think what we're sharing really speaks to it. Our society has brainwashed us and heart washed us into believing that the ultimate metric of success is money, position, what I call FFA, fame, fortune and applause, versus the truth, JPF, joy, peace and freedom. And I think, you know, there are eight forms of wealth. Money is only one of them. Now, for all of the business builders who follow you and who follow me, is money important? Absolutely, it gives you freedom, philanthropy, magical times, you can help. It's just, it helps tremendously. You gotta go through your life with it or without it, take it with it. No question, I'd rather stay in a nice hotel room than in, you know, flea bag, et cetera. I'd like great food versus, having said that, there are seven other forms of wealth. And we can go through them and I still haven't answered your question about the tactics for heart set healing. We can talk about the aphrodial that's in the book. Let's do both. And, you know, my experience is with healers and acupuncture and all that kind of thing. But I think it's really central for us to appreciate, I believe that there are seven other forms of wealth. And one of those is family. I've mentored so many billionaires and they've got the jets and they've got the yachts and they've got massive fortunes and they are heartbroken because they have lost the connection especially with their children. With children you have a little window of opportunity and once it closes, it's really, really, really hard to open it up again. Another form of wealth that is incredibly important is, and I know it's so essential to you, is health. I mean, right? Someone once said to me, health is the crown on the well person's head that only the ill person can see. Right? So it's like, you have all the money in the world. I've had clients, they have all the money in the world and they've lost their health in the process. One had an autoimmune disorder and he showed up at my office and he looked very ill and he'd lost a lot of weight and I said, what happened to you? And he said, well, as I built my business, I lost my health. Now I've turned the business over to my executive, my leadership team and my wife and I travel the world, look for healers to try to get me back to health. Another form of wealth is self mastery. I mean, I think the ultimate mission of life is self knowledge. If you go to the temple of Delphi over the archway, it's know by self. All the great saints, sages and seers say the ultimate goal of life is to make the journey, to understand your gifts and your talents, to build your character, to build intimacy and fluency with your bravery, creativity and productivity. That's why I love work. It makes me a stronger, better person. So that is a form of wealth. If you have work you are loving, if you are reading books, if you are listening to Ed Mylet, if you are going to the courses, if you are doing the healing, that is a form of wealth to cherish and celebrate and honor. The last form of wealth is, I used to call it legacy, I don't believe in legacy anymore like I mentioned, but it's helpfulness, it's usefulness, it's impact. And if you get to help one person in one day, I would invite all your millions of listeners from around the world. If you get to do one thing in a day, or we all can, that upgrades someone's life, that puts a smile on their face, that has been a very, very special day. Pau Gasol, the center of the LA Lakers, came to one of my events, we had dinner afterwards, I dropped him off the airport, everyone was looking at him, he signed every single autograph, took every single photograph, as I left him at the gate, I said, Pau, you know, you stopped for everyone. And he said something to me, I've never forgotten, and it's so valuable, he said, Robin, it takes so little to make someone happy. Great form of wealth. Such a great conversation we're having. Right, thank you. I was just sitting here thinking, I'm so blessed to be sitting here talking about this with you. I knew it'd be great, but I'm really blessed, I'm really grateful that we're doing this. And by the way, he's legendary for that, in this area in Los Angeles, he's being kind, and he was Kobe's favorite guy. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, Kobe's favorite guy. And all the guys I played with, I don't know that I should say that, but you know, what I do know, and I do know that was Kobe's dude. So we were gonna make sure we went back, and just so that we've covered it, because this has been so good, but you wanted to touch on this health set idea, too, a little bit. So I'm gonna let you go on that, I wanna hear about it. Sure, so that's the Trinity of Radiant Vitality. I talk about epigenetics, I talk about the psych, the pharmacy of mastery that gets set up through morning exercise, talk about supplementation, I talk about sleep, sleep is not a luxury, it's a necessity, and the new mechanism that's being discovered, where the brain is washed while you sleep, I talk about the importance of massage, I call it the two massage protocol, I don't know if you get two massages every week, but that changed my life. I don't, okay. Oh, massage has been an absolute game changer for me. Go to the sleep wash thing, too, for me, massage, sleep wash, it's in the book, but I don't recall that part of it. When you're sleeping, if you get proper amounts of sleep, the brain washes itself, so that's important. I talk about fasting, which is one of my secret weapons, and that throws the body into autophagy, which is like a cleaning mechanism that cleans out the cells. And I also, and in terms of tactics, because we were talking about tactics, I believe very much in meditation. I don't think I've ever done this before, but last night I did a five-hour meditation. Five hours. Yeah, I started at seven and I ended at midnight, so I think that's five hours. And I just opened the door of my hotel room, and I just laid on the bed, and I felt the sensations, and I just went into this really deep place, but meditation has been incredibly valuable to me, journaling. I've worked with spiritual healers for 21 years, because when you put a voice to your shadow side, it sees the light of day, and so to heal a wound, you need to feel a wound. And then there's a tool in the book called the AFRA tool, which has been incredibly powerful to move that hidden suppressed shame, anger, fear, guilt, disappointment that we all pick up and move it out so that you become much more intimate with your highest and best self. Wow, you guys need to get the everyday hero manifesto. You need to get this book. I've read it, now I'm gonna read it again. I'm actually picking up things as we're talking now that I didn't even get when I was reading it. So let's have a look for a few minutes here. There's all these things we can be doing to get to that everyday hero. First off, it's just embracing that you are one. I think it's fundamental to the whole philosophy of the book. Then there's some things though, that are obstructions or obstacles to doing it, right? They can be tools or they can be obstacles. This may seem like a small thing to everybody, but the more I'm even reflecting last night, I wasn't doing a five hour meditation. I was with my family, but I have to tell you I was on my phone too much last night, and it's sort of one of these things that I've really improved out in my life. But to the point of being transparent that my wife said, put your phone down. Your daughter just said something to you. My daughter actually came in and said something to me. I heard none of it and walked out of the room. And then there was a few minutes went by and she said, do you realize what I, so there's these things, even where you and I are, where we give away this, we've got this advice and we've made these breakthroughs. There's parts of us that we can go back to old patterns again. And last night I fell back into one of those patterns. So there are these obstacles to our peace. There's these obstructions almost. They can be tools, they can be obstructions. You do talk a lot about the phone thing. Yes. You do. And you've talked about it in the past, you talk about it here. So what about, what do you know about the most blissful and successful people as it relates to these, these obstacles, these smartphones or anything else like that? Well, I mean, you're so honest to share what you share. And I would say the same thing. I make mistakes constantly. That's good to know. I'm sure that. I think it was. Don't you ever do an interview where you're like, man, I made it sound like I'm a lot better at this than I am. I know, I walk away quick. I think it was Nelson Mandela said, if a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying, I guess I'm okay. That's awesome. I thought that was awesome. That was Nelson Mandela here. You know, there's still hope for us. It gives us hope, exactly. There's still hope for us. I would say an addiction to distraction is the death of your creative production. When it comes to productivity, in the everyday hair manifesto, there is a revolutionary rule called the five grade hours rule. So you don't need to work for seven hours a day. I do not subscribe to hustle and grind. I don't work for more than a few hours a day. I work four hours every week. I take four months plus off every single year. How I do it is in the book, including the weekly design system. When I work, I'm away from distraction. There's a difference between real work and fake. There's a difference between real work and fake work. May I let us not confuse busy with productivity. Let us not confuse movement with impact. So I think that's really important. And we can get into the Menlo Park and the tight ball of total focus structures. But you talked about family yet. And I believe the greatest gift we can give another human being is the gift of our presence. And if you look at the greatest heroes and the greatest leaders, they had an ability to be there. And the very fact you said it means you do practice it. And I can tell everyone watching right now, you have so much presence. And I'm not talking about charisma, which you have. I'm talking about you are here in a world where a lot of people are cyber zombies and just not present. So I think you can change the world and live a world-class life. Or you can play with your phone all day, you can't do both. And we could get into the science of emotional residue every single time you check a notification. Every single time you like something. Let's do both of those for a minute. Because by the way, I only have four or five. I think everybody's got four or five significant gifts. Ironically, I consider one of my ability to be present. And so when I almost violate that treaty with myself, that agreement with myself, it deeply hurts me when I do it. Because I don't do it very often, but when I do do it, it's pretty obvious, I think, because the contrast of the two. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, please. Sure. How about this? What if you don't, what if you build as part of your family culture, no devices at the dinner table? Yes, great point. What if you have certain rooms like the family room, which is really a family room? Now that's good. Now that's unique. That one I've not heard. So what I do, what I, it was so bad, that what I did start doing is I left my phone in the car the first hour before I came home. So I was at least engaged in presence immediately. But this idea that there are rooms where there are no smartphones is one of the most brilliant things anyone's ever said on the show. I mean, seriously, I'm gonna do that. One thing I am, when I get a great idea, I'm very coachable. And I'll implement it like a right, immediate. Like I tell you that this evening when I get back, I'm like, this space right here, there's no phones in here. Here's another idea. That's where we gather. Another idea, zero device day, once a week. Do you do that? I do. I do a number of days. And how do you do it? Your schedule. Your schedule doesn't lie. You can, people can say this is important, that's important. You look at someone's schedule, that shows their truest priorities. So when you schedule it, you make what habit researchers call a pre-commitment strategy. And by scheduling what I call a blueprint for a beautiful week, you can actually schedule. Saturday is my zero device day. You can do it two days a week. I would also, what I do when I mentor, CEOs and the titans of industries and the celebrity billionaires, I encourage them every two months to take a complete week off. I say, go ghost, go dark. So do I. If you look at the greatest Winston Churchill, how did he survive the pressures of World War II? He had checkers and chartwell. He had a retreat. I think we must leave our usual place and get away from the world. Andrew Wyatt, the great American artist. He had Chad's Ford, a farm in Pennsylvania, and he had Cushing, Maine, a little retreat where he would go to to get away from the noise of the world. If you look at J.D. Salinger, one of my favorite books, Catcher and the Rye. After he was 37, checked out from the world, he worked in a little cottage every day in Cornish, New Hampshire. I think we must find time on a daily, if not weekly basis to get away from the noise so we can begin to hear the signal again. The signal. I love this. I have to tell you that, I think one of the things that surprised me most when I started to coach some of the more successful people, myself, was the time they take away. The ones that had the right amount of bliss. It's where their creativity comes from. It's where they, what you're calling here, the signal. When they're reconnecting with themselves or they're reconnecting with their spiritual lives. And I just bought an island in Maine. And people go, why the heck did you buy an island in Maine? It wasn't that expensive. But the one of the reasons I did it is that's almost like a territory of disconnection for me. And it's one of the reasons I did. There's not great cell reception there even if I wanted it. And it's an isolated place. And it's where I go to hear the signal, the way that you phrase it. This emotional residue thing, I'll just touch on that really quickly because I've not heard this before. I feel like we all have these friends who aren't on social media. Or we even have some older friends of ours who aren't even in the text game at all. There is a joy and a bliss that reminds you of a prior time in our culture that they have when I'm around them. I've seen a couple of my really, really great friends. There's a joy about them. I'm not suggesting that they shouldn't be on social media or shouldn't have a phone. In fact, I'm suggesting you do both of those things. Having said that, there is some emotional deterioration, so to speak, that I agree with you on that happens when you're too engaged in them. So what were you gonna say about that? That sounded like such an interesting point. Well, I'd say a few things. I think we're happiest when we're in flow state. And as you know so well, that is a term coined by Mihai Chixent Mihai of the University of Chicago. And it's based on a neurobiological mechanism called transient hypofrontality. The prefrontal cortex, this is the seat of our reasoning. It's also the seat of the monkey mind. It's the seat of our inner critic. It's when we start to slow down or close off the prefrontal cortex, transient, temporary, prefrontal hypofrontality, transient hypofrontality. Our prefrontal cortex begins to slow down and our brain waves can go from beta to alpha, maybe even down to theta and delta. And when we get away from our phones, when we practice what I call the 3S's stillness, silence and solitude, our brain drops into flow. We not only feel bliss, there's not only a pharmacy of mastery that makes us feel good, but Ed, we begin to inhabit the secret universe known to the saints, seers, greatest artists of all time. What I'm suggesting to you is Hedy Lamar, Albert Einstein, Shakespeare, JD Salinger, the great business builders, not all of them, but many of them have one thing in common. They spent long periods of time alone, in quiet, often taking nature walks, working on their biggest problem, on finding the solutions to their biggest problems. So I think you can play with your phone all day or you can change the world, you can't get to do both. So transient hypofrontality gets you in a flow state. Doesn't happen if you're checking your phone 50 times a day. So those people you talk about, they are present because they're away from the distractions. I'd say the second thing, emotional residue, it's simply the phenomenon that every time you check your phone, you take some of your focus and you drop it on the notification you just looked at. And that's why at the end of the day, a lot of people can't focus. It's because they have dropped their focus on their phone, they've dropped their focus on the TV in the background, they've dropped their focus on chasing these shiny toys and these trivialities at the end of the quarter, the end of the year, the end of the career, the end of the lifetime, amounted to nothing. And then the third thing to think about is cognitive bandwidth. Every morning you wake up with a full well of cognition. So I think it's really important where you give your attention to. Cognitive bandwidth is almost how I would describe you. You have a tremendous amount of it. I wanna ask you about that. We're having too much more time though. I'm just really fascinated with you. So all of our friends sort of told us both, we should get together and do this today. And now that I'm with you, I wanna do this again. I'm in the middle of going, I want like three or four hours of you and I just talking because I just think it's great for both of us and everyone gets to listen to it, right? I feel the same way too. I feel it's real. It is real. But this cognitive bandwidth idea, I wanna understand you a little bit. Let's just talk about you for a second. You're fascinating to me. Because you were an attorney. And don't be humble when you answer this question, please. You have a high IQ. Dad's a doctor, there's some good DNA in there for sure. But you have this amazing ability, Robin, for recall of quotes, of information, of facts, and a very diverse set of skills. That's what I love about the book, by the way. I wanna say this about the book again too. I don't wanna say kitchen sink because that almost makes it seem unorganized. That's not what I mean, but there's a lot in here that is not just what you would think about, oh, be a hero. There's a ton in here. From even all the cognitive stuff, the neuroplasticity stuff, the stuff on how the mind works, it's so, so good. But having said that, what about you? Have you always been this way? Or is it because you are practicing in so many of these strategies that you're sharing that you've increased your capacity for recall, for memorization of even information, and actually owning it? This isn't just stuff you're quoting, you own this stuff. So I wanna hear about you. And I'm fascinated about you. Well, when you have your show, I'll come on. I told you that before. But tell us about you, no humility, I wanna know. Well, I would say... Don't filter it. I would say, honestly, I would say I'm a very simple person. I come from a town of about 2000 people on the East Coast of Canada. I didn't have a silver spoon in my mouth. And I don't think I have any real natural gifts at. I've been at this field for 26 years. I live a very minimalist life. I sense that. I have very few friends. I do very few things. I am not a maximalist. I don't chase every shiny toy that comes my way. We get major opportunities every day, 99% of which I say no to. Because I'm monomaniacally focused on the few things I wanna build the rest of my life around. And I think if you build your life around just a few things, I think it was Confucius who said, a person who chases two rabbits catches neither. And Peter Drucker said it really well. He said there's nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. And so I'm just, if there's one talent I have, it's I'm really clear on what I want my life to stand for. But I don't think I have any special gifts, but I call them the SOPs of AWC, the standard operating procedures of absolute world class. And I share them in the book. The book is really a love letter to people's highest mastery and promise. And these rituals like the five amp club in the 2020, 24 hour, the two massage protocol, the second wind workout, the weekly design system, and how I visualize, how I meditate, how I lean into fear each day, all of those things, they really do work. And so over the years, I used to be terrifically scared of public speaking, like terrifically scared of public speaking. Incredible. Well, thank you, but we have neuroplasticity. You know, our human gift is the gift of growth. And the whole idea of heroism is ordinary people thrust into difficult circumstances and using the difficulty to triumph over tragedy. That's what makes us human. That's why I wrote the book. There are so many people saying, well, I can't have more money, I can't have more love, I can't have more health, I can't change the world. And here's the litany of reasons why. Well, if you recite your excuses long enough, you actually hypnotize yourself to believing them to be true. It's a fact. And then you reinforce it with the way that the world is revealing itself to you. Which is so true. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Edmile Let's show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm fired up about today, because we're gonna talk about money. And you having more, accumulating more, making more. And why it matters. It's not a topic that's discussed enough in polite society, and it should be. And my guest today is immensely qualified to discuss this topic. I love her work. As an influencer, you know her as your rich BFF, but I know her as Vivian too. And Vivian is a multifaceted financial expert. She's an entrepreneur. And she used to be a Wall Street trader. So she's got a background in doing this, but she takes complicated stuff financial and breaks it down simply so that people like you and I can understand it. She's got a crazy good book out called Rich AF, the winning money mindset that will change your life. And I cannot wait to jump into all this stuff with her. So Vivian, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, you are awesome. So, and this topic, like almost no one talks about, I said it in the intro. So I want to go all over the place. We're going to go from like general concepts to some specific stuff too, but I decided when we booked you that no pun intended, but I wanted to max out this time for everybody. And the other reason I love your work too, I should just say is whether you're a very young person who's in like your late teens even, early 20s, her content applies to you. And if you're in your 50s and 60s and nearing retirement, it does as well. So we're going to go all over the place here today guys. So let me ask you this first. Someone's listening to this, they go, I want to be the first millionaire in my family. Let's just start there. I want to be the first millionaire in my family. What would you say to that person who says I want that badly? You need to strip. And then they're like, ooh, I didn't realize this was that kind of a guest. No, so strip is an acronym that I've put together that I find to be really helpful in remembering the steps you need to take. So first and foremost, S stands for savings. You've got to have that emergency fund. And I say that as someone who needed mine. I was 25 and I was making a sandwich, cutting a piece of baguette. The bread knife slipped, hit my finger, and I saw a piece of my hand fall onto the counter, had to go to the ER, and the bill was $16,000. And even after insurance, and I had really good insurance, I still owed $1,300, which was a lot of money for a young person. And so I always say, make sure you have three to six months of living expenses set aside in a high-yield savings account, because that is going to let your emergency fund, essentially, roughly keep up with inflation so that it's not being eaten away at, but you have your little nest egg in case something happens. Then we move on to T, which stands for total debt. I am an Aries, so I'm very, very impatient, and I like to do things fast, and I like to do things very efficiently. So when it comes to total debt, I rank all of my debt from highest to lowest interest rate. You make the minimum payment across everything, but then any additional money you have for debt paydown, you're going to put towards the debt with the highest interest rate, and then you'll pay it down in that order. This essentially just lets you pay the least amount in interest and get your debt slashed in the fastest timeframe possible. Next up are retirement. I am a little bit further from retirement than I'm sure Ed might be, but listen, I think we should all be thinking about it because I want to one day be able to kick back my feet and just chill, and I think many of us want that. And some of the easiest things we can do to take advantage of tax benefits is to contribute to our employer-sponsored retirement accounts as well as our individual retirement accounts. So at work, that's going to be something like a 401k, a 403b, 457, TSP. It's typically got some weirdo name that doesn't make any sense, but leverage that. Oftentimes employers will match your contribution, so you do get some free money. And then with an IRA or a Roth IRA, that is your individual retirement account, but contribute to both of these because it is going to give you tax benefits and help you save and invest for the future. And we move into I investing. The mistake that a lot of people make at step R is that they open these accounts, they put cash in and they're like, all righty, I'm set, I'm good, I'm invested. No, you are not. When it comes to investing, I always compare it to the grocery store. Would you ever have $50 in your pocket, go to the grocery store, do a whole lap around, and then leave, and then go home and open the fridge and be like, why don't I have any food? It's like, well, you didn't buy anything. That is how investing is too. You can't just open the account, you can't just put the cash in, you have to buy stuff. And when it comes to buying stuff, I recommend target date retirement funds. Potentially if you're younger, just ETFs that track broader indices. And if you are getting a headache with me saying some of these words, just consider finding a robo-advisor. You take a quick quiz about your money goals, what you have, what you earn, how old you are, what type of family environment you wanna have, where you wanna live, everything about your personality and your money habits, and then they'll spit out a diversified portfolio that you can use. So it takes all the guesswork out of that investing. And then we move into P, which is plan, because you do not get to have a happily ever after or right off into the sunset without having a plan and backing into how to get there. And what I encourage people to do is actually calculate their FU number. This is a plan where you envision your perfect year. Where do you live? What does your family look like? Are you working? What kind of clothes do you wear? How many times do you go on vacation? Do you have pets? What have you? And then you think about what that would cost for one calendar year. And then you take that number and divide it by 0.04 because that 0.04 represents a very conservative 4% investment return. So once you have this bigger number that you'll get after you do that calculation, invested earning you 4%, you will be able to essentially throw off enough in gains that you can fund your entire lifestyle while you just chill. I love strip. By the way, everybody, we're gonna dive into some of the things she just said there. I wanna say to some of you, some of this stuff already is a little bit more technical than you're used to. We are gonna get above at about 30,000 feet in a minute as well. And some of you are very young listening to this. I just want you to know how cogent that advice was. I started planning for retirement. This is no joke. When I was 21 years old, I started thinking about it. I built an emergency fund. First thing I did, three to six months set aside. I started to educate myself about money, which we're gonna talk about a little bit later, just knowing basic things. So we'll get above this stuff here in a minute, but before we go, I wanna challenge you on one of the things in strip. And I just wanna hear your response. I'm not gonna tell you that I have an opinion one way or the other. But the notion of retirement plans, 401K IRA, that's a very commonly recommended piece of advice. Yet more and more, I know you know this, but more and more, there's a contrarian viewpoint about that, which says that you're deferring those taxes probably into a higher tax bracket. That the theory is that, what you're doing by putting money in, forget the matching piece for a second, but if there was no matching. But I'm putting money into a 401K. I'm deferring the taxes now while I'm earning them because theoretically when I retire, I'll be in a lower tax bracket. But the truth of the matter is a lot of people believe taxes are probably going up, not down. So am I deferring some of that money to more taxes? And then the idea that I'll need less money in retirement than I do when I'm employed, for most people that's probably not true. So I'm just wondering that one piece of all of it, I've not seen you've been asked this on any shows and I wanted to ask you, do you debate that in your own mind as well about the deferral issue where you may be sticking those, those eggs aside for a smaller harvest someday because taxes could be higher? Yeah, definitely. And I think that's why a lot of folks are now, and I say folks, a lot of corporations are also offering things like a Roth 401K and more and more employees are taking advantage because essentially, Ed knows this, but I hope everybody listening can learn this, traditional investment accounts, typically that are for retirement, allow you to have a tax benefit today and you pay taxes in the future. And to Ed's point, taxes could potentially be much, much higher and we don't know that. However, the Roth variety is you typically do not get a tax benefit today. You pay taxes, you contribute post tax dollars today, but that money is free and clear yours in the future. It is why I'm such a huge fan of the backdoor Roth IRA for folks who earn more than the typical income limit for contributions. I think the Roth variety makes a lot of sense if that is your viewpoint. Ultimately for me, I am encouraging people to just get started. I don't want them to debate traditional versus Roth. I don't want them to like belabor the decision. Just pick one. At the end of the day, sure, will one option certainly be better for you than the other? Yes, but not contributing at all or waiting too long is gonna be way worse than picking the wrong variety. So you wanna start a business? You might think you need a team of people and fancy tech skills, but you don't. You just need go daddy arrow. 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