Adrian Brambila
Appearances
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Working with Dr. Brett Klontz, I learned so much about the psychology of wealth. I have an assumption that there's thousands and thousands of books on money. And I have an assumption that actually everyone knows what to do to get rich. They know, correct me if I'm wrong, if you have a different opinion, but I believe people know that they should save more than they should spend.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I also assume that people know they should invest in things like their 401k or anything that's for their future self and not just hoard it all in a bank account. Now. If that's the general assumption, I would call this common sense. Why is it that the average American has not even $10,000 saved for retirement and has racked up credit card debt and is living a lifestyle?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Why is it that 50% of people that make six figures live paycheck to paycheck? Why is it? if we know the tactics. So I truly believe, and this is just learning from someone that's like Dr. Brad Klontz who studies millionaires, is that's the psychology of how we think about money that really affects if we execute on the tactics.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
So the first thing is really just understanding that your beliefs about money
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
keep you poor also your beliefs about money are the same beliefs that can get you rich so your beliefs about how the world works how money works do you associate a negative connotation with it or positive is money just a medium is it a tool like thinking about how it's affected and then you know think about how we were raised around money which affects a lot of our life.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Yay, more things we can blame our parents for. But we have to work through the things. I actually just, in my opening story, I shared my parents, I thought I was learning a really good habit, work hard, sacrifice. But when you think in terms of having a mindset of having an abundance, then those things actually aren't in the formula because...
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Today, I don't know if I can say I'm working hard, yet I'm making more money in a month than I did used to working a whole year. I feel like I was working harder back then. I think really that first step is the psychology of understanding what your beliefs are and then realizing that most of us don't get good beliefs from our parents. We have to work through those.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And then also like the internal locus of control versus external locus of control. These are fancy words of saying like, how much of your life do you feel like is in your control? And how much do you feel like does life happen to you or does life happen because of you? Now, understanding that life 100% can't be in our control, but this is really just more of a mindset of how you look at things.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Because if you feel like there's always external things happening to you, you can't make more money because your boss is a jerk. We're about to change presidents here because of the new president. You feel like they're going to oppress you. or the current president that was, you feel like you couldn't be successful because of who was in office last four years.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Like all of these, like there's infinite amount of excuses. You can blame the external circumstance. And so this is typically a thing that we define. This is how poor people think. And again, poor people, I'm just talking about a way of thinking. It actually has nothing to do with money. It's just a thought process. And same thing with thinking.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
When I say a rich person, I'm actually not talking about their money. I'm talking about the way they think. So the way you think affects everything, what your beliefs are affects everything. Because I believe once you lock in, have awareness of what your beliefs are and you work on trying to change your habits and beliefs, the tactics become really easy.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Decision-making, I think, because we're emotional creatures when it comes to investing and money, I don't believe that anyone has the stomach to consciously invest and win. So the decision is almost one of the most difficult to say, because we can't see into the future 30 years. Trying to wrap our minds around time is always so tough to do. When we're having a great time, moments are fleeting.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
When we're bored, time seems long. And now we're trying to look, what does my life look like when I'm 65? or whatever age. And so to think, I need to put money in right now, money that is tangible that I could go spend, make that decision every day or every month consciously to then say, and I'm not going to touch this money and it's going to be there in 30 years.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I think that is so hard of a decision to make. And I think that's why you need to make the decision to invest one time versus consciously every day or every single month. And what I mean by one time, this is one decision you have to make and really not think about is you set up a decision to say, I'm going to invest a percentage or a dollar amount every single month.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And that's what we call in finance dollar cost averaging into the stock market, for example, into like a target date fund. And then that is automatic, it's passive. And then you don't think about the decision. Because I think the problem is when you think about the decision and you're looking at the stock market and it's high or low, our emotions come into play.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Well, if it's high, you might say, you know what, it's a little too expensive. I'm going to wait until it dips down. And then if it's crashing, you're like, you know what, how low is this thing going to go? I'm just going to hold back. And so you don't get into the game. So you just got to make that decision actually one time.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
If anything, I'm oversimplifying, but how easy, if you want to be a millionaire, And have money work for you. You just got to make the decision once you set up the account, you pick your number of how much you want a dollar cost average, and you set it and forget it. And that one decision could literally make you a millionaire, depending on that value and how long you're going to be investing for.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
If you try to make it an active decision, I think you lose.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Well, I'll share. This is my fifth year of making over a million dollars in a year. And I think that the things that changed from when I was making my first job paid $27,000 a year. And I worked on my stuff. Most of my money comes from the internet. All of my money comes from the internet. And I needed something that could scale without my time. And I really think...
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
A normal job usually doesn't offer that. You have to have some equity into something or you have to be in sales and you have to be crushing it. But the Internet is just a great avenue. There's so many opportunities where you can work on something once and it can scale. You can build leverage.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
So social media can, you know, leverage and having an email newsletter like I have 50,000 people on my email newsletter. And with a click of a button, 50,000 people can see my offer. And then that percentage of them buy and thousands of dollars can appear. I think that it's like understanding either leverage or things at scale that you can really make over seven figures.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I never thought I'd be in this position, especially when I was making minimum wage after graduating. And I think the, no matter what you're doing, momentum, I think carries forward. And so like it compounds in a way that's hard to fathom, but this is where I feel like working hard and sacrifice were things I did at the beginning. And now I just have this momentum that keeps carrying.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
But I think the Avenue platform, one of our chapters in our book is about how, how we make money and analyzing it. If you're in the right game, we use a metaphor that How you make money is a game. And it's kind of like, are you playing the right game? Do you know the rules? And do you know how long you need to play this game in order to get rich?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so when I was making $27,000 a year, there was only one person in the entire call center that I was working at that made six figures. It was a manager. And the manager had been there for 14 years. So that to me is like the rules of the game. If I want to make six figures at this call center, I probably need to work 10 years here and be on time and like slowly start increasing my income.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
So some people are in scenarios like this, but they never really like kind of map it out. And when I learned the answers of how the rules of the game of this call center is to make six figures, I was like, wow, I'm in the wrong game. I need to find a different game to play.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Some people have resistance to changing the game they're in, aka changing JAWS, because they have like, it's like lost opportunity cost of like, well, I went to college for this major, or I've already been with this company for six, seven years. Like what happens to all this time I put in?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
When reality is if you are unemotional, you just take a look at the rules like, you know what, if my goal is to have financial freedom or make more money, then I really need to change the game. And I think if your emotions are wrapped up in your identity of your job, this is what makes it really tough.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I feel like when I was a full-time minimalist, I got to really practice this idea of detaching my identity to consumerism or even my job and my income. And I think that's a great practice of like, that's really challenging for Americans because we're constantly marketed that the more stuff we have, the better it is. We needed the fanciest upgrade.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Like our identity is marketed that it's wrapped up into what we own or the car we drive in our house. And I think it's just like, I don't, I'm not telling everyone you need to live in a van like I did, but I do feel encourage you to explore what your identity could look like if it wasn't defined by your job or any of the stuff you own.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Because I think that's a great position that will allow you to make decisions for yourself that could be better for your life because you're not attaching it to something that really has nothing to be part of you.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Yeah, our book, Start Thinking Rich, is available everywhere you get books. But as a way we can say thank you for having us and to your audience, we do have a place that can get extra bonuses, resources, tools, and worksheets. Also, a really amazing community.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
We have a monthly mastermind that we just did where we kind of go over the same financial process my wife and I do that kind of help us keep our finances in touch, a pulse. We just do it once a month, and that's how we manage resources. all of our wealth. The funny thing is, I remember when I asked Brad this, I was like, do rich people budget?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And he's like, the truth is, rich people don't budget, but we do plan. And so it's kind of one of the things that we bake into our community. So that resources and more is at startthinkingrich.com slash unplugged. And that's a special link just for your audience here to get it. Otherwise, you can get the book everywhere. And I'm on social media. You can look me up at Adrian Brambila.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And then that Dr. Bad Clunts as well. We're on all the platforms.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Next time you're in Austin, let's break it down.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Well, I think the first thing I like to talk about is in college, my parents, they actually, I grew up in a Mexican household. They, to a deficit, saved so much money to make me the very first brambula to graduate college debt-free. So always will be indebted and grateful for them. And then my first semester in college, what did I do with that amazing gift?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I started partying and drinking and like doing what everyone else was doing. And then when I came back after first semester to my, my dad, he asked, are you working hard and studying? And I lied to him. I said, Yeah, of course I am. Like, of course. And then on my flight back to Dubuque, Iowa, I went to a really private, small school. I felt really guilty.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
So actually, cold turkey quit drinking and partying. And in Dubuque, Iowa, there's not much to do besides that, especially in the winters. So I went to YouTube and I started looking up like hobbies. I learned guitar. And then one of the things I picked up from YouTube was learning how to dance the robot.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
After a couple years of learning how to dance on the internet, T-Pain had an open call audition to submit a YouTube video. I did, not thinking anything would happen. I actually made it to the audition. Already, I felt like my life was changed. This was my sophomore year in college now. Then, I made it to basically be a professional full-time dancer backing up for T-Pain.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I feel like my life changed a lot in that experience. Dancing was always a hobby. I never wanted to be a pro dancer. I just felt really like it was God's miracle. And the most defining moment in that whole experience, which I think has really changed the way I look at success and redefining wealth. T-Pain launched a song in front of the dancers. I remember the first time he did this.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
He did this a couple times, but the first time was crazy because he's like, hey, you guys want to hear the new songs, the new music video before it rolls out? We're like, yeah, of course. So he plays it for us. It's called Reverse Cowgirl, by the way. It's not a very good song. Also not about a Western. Right. When he when he launched it, he played the music video, he launched it.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And this is like, I would say not in the prime of T-Pain, but just a little bit after. So he's still he's still on the radio and stuff like that. And back then, this is 2010 era. There's no Spotify. So every song is iTunes. You pay 99 cents to download iTunes. And he launched it within a couple of minutes.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
We're looking at the dashboard as he looks over his marriage, like, Hey, yeah, launch it, launch it. And then you could see like a hundred thousand, 500,000 million downloads. And after like 10 minutes, it was like five over 5 million downloads. And I was trying to comprehend, like, I think, wait, Yeah, he just made millions of dollars in a minute.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And it was just so hard to comprehend because like, I think this is a good thing for when you're scrappy, when you have nothing, this mindset that like, I need to work hard to make a lot of money. I need to sacrifice a lot in order to become wealthy. And these are all things I used to consider true. But what I was watching was a total opposite.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Hey, thanks so much for having us.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Obviously, not to discredit where T-Pain came from, because he has a really harsh background as well. But just in this moment, I'm meeting T-Pain. He's only five years older than I am. And he just looks over his manager. They launch a song, something he loves to do for fun. And then it's around 10 a.m. After that, he just gets obliterated, like super drunk. And this is a regular thing.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so I'm watching like, wait a second, where's the sacrifice? Where's the working hard? I'm watching someone party like a rock star, make music for a living and have an abundance of wealth. So it really shattered a lot of the traditional beliefs I had of like what it means to make a lot of money.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Because although T-Pain definitely didn't have to sacrifice and work hard as any successful person did, that's I think one window of wealth and success is like there's actually other factors in the equation that I think are a lot more healthier.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Because one thing I had to work through when I started creating YouTube content after dancing on teaching people how to dance the robot, which was my first business, I actually started feeling guilty when I started making money because it didn't fit this script that I inherited that money had to be painful and I had to work hard for it.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I had to change it to actually, if I create value, the more value I create, the more money I make, which is the same script that I had to evolve. And I still have that today, which is pretty healthy. So from dancing, I basically grew the number one website online, teaching people how to dance the robot. And that led to a whole different world of like learning how to market yourself as a dancer.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And then I started experimenting with all the different ways you can make money online. And I've done them all except for anything like NSFW or selling feet pics. But, man, I've tried everything.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
You know, TikTok is such an incredible place. And this is why I encourage everyone, even if you don't consider yourself or identify as an influencer or a content creator, like I think everyone should be creating content just for the sake of, you never know who's going to come across your message, who's going to see it. Brad and I are completely opposite on paper. He's really edumacated.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Our book together is his ninth book. And our past would never come across each other, ever. We're just totally different circles. There's an obvious age gap. Sorry, just... That's just fucking funny. What? Dang, bro. Sorry. We actually, no joke, we started becoming friends on TikTok because we kept roasting each other.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I lived in a van and that's how I got really popular online during the pandemic. I would talk about how I have a super high income and I was really transparent back then. I would say, hey, I made $100,000 last month and I live in this van and I only work one day a week with Wi-Fi because I literally am in the mountains the rest of the time. And then Brad would make fun of me living in a van.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And then I would make fun of Brad pretending I was really smart. And so like we just started roasting each other and a friendship formed. And it's just so crazy. It goes to show like you should post content just for the sake of like relationships that you have no idea how they might impact you because it was such a privilege and honor to get to work with Brad and collaborate with him on a book.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Because I think if it wasn't for TikTok, I wouldn't have this amazing lifelong relationship.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
I think that actually says a lot about like money scripts. So I think getting paid to do chores. So you could say two different ways of looking at one, like that's a privilege that your parents could afford to pay you. But two, like you, you actually, in order to, they didn't just give you the money you had to work for it. So that actually is like a money script. Like I can, I have to earn money.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And so when you think of people that are born rich, where they don't have to work and they just are given the money and we, and people love to complain about rich people, like they have it all made and set. But the truth is those people, like it, once they, those people that are born rich and then they become adults, they actually have really terrible money habits.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And that's why short sleeves, short sleeves in three generations, because they're not taught how to earn, like the way of thinking, I need to earn, I need to be vigilant about my money. It doesn't just come, I have to work for it. I have to manage it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And this is what we talk about in our book of, we use some language that can be offensive because we talk about poor, we say poor people and we say rich people, but we're actually not talking about money at all. We're talking about a way of thinking. And so actually you can on paper be broke, but have a rich mindset. And it's only amount of time until you're not broke because you're
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
being good stewards of your money. You believe you have to work for your money. You have to earn it. You have to save it, live under your means. These are all things that this is a rich way of thinking of planning ahead and not just living in the moment. And then a poor way of thinking again, someone that is born rich and then
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
doesn't understand that they have to work for it because they just say, mom, dad, can I get some money? Yeah, here's some money. And this is the assumption that money just comes. They're not vigilant about their money. So then these people end up going broke. They have lots of money. This is why 70% of people that win the lottery in five years, poof, it's gone.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
It's gone because these people, they don't know how to think about money. They have a poor mindset with money. So it doesn't matter how much money they get. That's why it gets gone. And there's countless stories of celebrities and athletes. And again, it's really easy for us to shame them and judge them. It's like, they made how much money in their career?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
$100 million and they went for bankruptcy. But the truth is we shouldn't because the money that you make It only matters on how you think about it. And so do you have a rich mindset, a poor mindset? And just because someone has a high income earner doesn't mean that they have the wealth skill sets, which is that ability to save and that ability to invest it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Yes.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
That's insane. Actually, one of our chapter titles in our book is you don't want to be a millionaire. You just want to spend a million dollars. And this is what happens when someone wins a lottery or here's a test right now for all the listeners. If I was to give you a million dollars, what would you do with it? Feel free to pause this. Or if you know the answer, what would you do?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Generous things? Would you retire your parents? Would you start a business? There's only actually only one answer. If you have a rich mindset, you invest 100% of it. Nope. You don't even take a little bit out. You invest 100%.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And then what you would do is you, there's a concept in finance called the 4% rule, which is you take 4% of that a year from the earnings, just based on average stock market returns, which is say is $40,000 a year. And then with that 40,000, that's what you use to do. Invest that business that you always want to start with. Cause you know what?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
If you do start a business and I'm an entrepreneur, 95% fail. If you do want to invest and pay off and go on vacation. And by the way, if you want to invest in business, that's great. And if you lose because you're only taking 4% out, guess what? Next year, you'll have another $40,000 to try again and try again.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
But the people who win the lottery, and based on the limited amount that you just shared about that neighbor, I would imagine that they don't live there unless they invested 100% of it. And then everything you saw was just based off that passive income that the investments were making. But a lot of people don't do that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
I think only overnight thing I can say, and this is a true, I feel like overnight is when I went to college my freshman year, I did what most college kids do. We drink and party. But after, when I came back my freshman first semester and my parents asked me how I was doing. I lied to them and said I was working hard when I wasn't.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And the thing is, my parents, they sacrificed so much that they gave me the most generous gift I will always be indebted to them is that I was able to graduate debt-free because they saved, even to a deficit on what they should have put for themselves. They just truly believe that education for me, and I'm the first Brambila to graduate from university, was going to change everything.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And so here I was screwing off. When I got back then, my freshman semester, I felt so guilty on my flight home that I was like, I'm going to completely stop drinking. And that's what I did. And then what happens then? There's so much time that college kids spend drinking and partying. I had so much time. So then I went to YouTube.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And I started learning how to dance and here's where God's miracle happened. This is my only overnight thing I can ever say after, because I know dancers who dance for 20 years and they never get an opportunity. Like I got after two years of dancing from watching YouTube videos, T-Pain had an open call edition.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
I submitted it and I made it, but here's the truth as did I go to riches and fame after that? Absolutely not. I did not have a, an agent. And so I was like on my, by myself. And so when I was doing, I have so many cool stories when I was dancing, I got screwed over so much when it came to money, I did the amazing things never got paid. I was living off per diem was 35 bucks a day.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And when tour ended, I was broke. I had less money than before I started because I was having to pay with my own money to pay for this lifestyle and like traveling. And so, After that, this was like 2010. That's when I was like, I need to learn how to make money. And I was living in Dubuque, Iowa, not the best place to be a pro hip hop dancer.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
I had a job that paid $25 an hour as a go dancer at an 80s club for a casino. That's it. So when I got back, I was like, I need to learn how to make money. I went to YouTube. Very early on YouTube, I started posting videos. For two years, I posted and I only had like maybe... a hundred ish subscribers. And the only person that would comment on my videos was my mom. So here's a question.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Would you work two years for free? That's what I did. And then after two and a half years, it started to have traction. And then a subscriber of mine said, Adrian, I love all your tutorials, but if you were to, if you were to teach me In a more organized fashion, like a long tutorial, I'd pay you for it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And that was my first product online, which was a 60 minute tutorial on how to dance the robot. And then that month is the first month I made a thousand dollars, which was life-changing. Again, I was living in Dubuque, Iowa. I worked at a call center as my main nine to five, which paid $27,000 a year. And then my income start. So that's a two and a half years in after five years, I made enough.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
That's where like my income was now making in like the, before that, like high six figures that was ramping up. And then when I was in the van and the year before that's my, those are my first couple of years making over seven figures. So if you go back from the beginning to the end, that is 10 years, not overnight. It's 10 years of trying. And the first two years of making absolute nothing.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Yeah, I live in Austin, so he's like the most famous person in Austin, like the city of Austin loves him. But I think van life was, it was super, it is a beautiful lifestyle. And I, since I've been creating content for, since 2010, I feel like I'll always be creating content.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
So naturally I shared what it was like living in the van and that's how I, that's how my following went from maybe a hundred thousand to like almost 2 million. And it was, and this is where I started talking about money online because When I was living in the van, I had a super high income and I was sharing it online. Like I would say, hey, I made $100,000 online last month and I live in this van.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And people could not accept this as true because their perception of wealth is, wait a second, this guy's definitely a liar or a scammer because he lives in a van. No person rightfully in their mind that's sane would live in a van. If they're a millionaire, no person, if they make six figures in a month, let alone would live in a van. This guy's definitely a liar. It's a hoax.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
So it became an accident. I did not live in a van to go viral, but when I was living in the van and I would share. hey, I made $3,000 today. And by the way, I wasn't even by my laptop. I'm here out in the canyon or something. And yes, I had to poop outside and dig a hole. That's my life. It ended up being an accident, a viral recipe for for conflict of what people's perception of wealth was.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And then I really leaned into it. And that's when I actually met Dr. Brad Klontz, my co-author, because he was saying the same stuff that most millionaires actually consider themselves frugal. They're not big spenders. But he was sharing it from a data perspective. And here I was living this extreme lifestyle of minimalism. And then we became really close friends.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
That's crazy. One of our chapters in our book, and again, when I say poor and rich, this is about way of thinking. Poor people buy stuff, rich people buy time. And as a minimalist, I'm not a minimalist anymore. I have a house, I have air conditioning and a dishwasher. They're really nice, by the way. When I lived in a van, before I lived in a van, I lived in Europe.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And I rented and we were backpacks. We were nomads for three full years, pretty much. And this concept of stuff as a minimalist stuff is you're like allergic to it. Every people think they own stuff as a minimalist. No stuff owns you. And the more stuff you have, the more it owns you, the nicer it is, the more owns you. I share an example of like how the other day I went to a coffee shop.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
There's actually a last month. I shared this on another podcast and this guy pulled out and he had the new Corvette. It's very nice car. When he parked the car, he walked around it twice. There's no other cars in sight, by the way. Walked around it twice. And then as he's walking to the coffee shop, he does like a triple take, like making sure the car is still there.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And to me, it was like a great example of, okay, does he own the car or does the car own him? Because when I go and I park it and then I walk in the store or whatever I need to do. So as a minimalist, we take it a really extreme side on it. But again, I'm not a minimalist anymore. I feel like now I try to be an intentionalist, which means I'm not a blind consumer. I'm buying stuff.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Here's the thing I'd like to say to all those people who don't like that statistic. Can you imagine if it was reversed? Can you imagine if the real data said only 10% of millionaires are self-made? Gosh, that would suck. Then I also would feel, wow, so my chances are not looking pretty good to do this thing and become a millionaire.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
But 90% of millionaires are self-made, and by that definition means they did not inherit wealth. their wealth that they had to build from scratch. Do you also know that 70% of millionaires work a nine to five job? You don't have to be an entrepreneur and create the next Facebook.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
These are all things that when you hear these stats, and especially if you're not a millionaire, you should be like, Ooh, okay, this is good. I, that means I can make it happen. And in psychology, this is the mindset shift that needs to happen is this question. Do you have an internal locus of control or an external locus of control when it comes to your life?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And those are fancy words for just saying like, how much of your life do you feel is in your control? And typically, especially when it comes to money, and these are the people that don't like the stat that 90% of millions are self-made, and they'll say, that can't be true. What about racism? What about systemic problems? There's no way. I can't believe that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And it's probably because these people have an external locus of control. They're constantly focused on external reasons why they're not at the level that they're at. My boss is bad. The economy is bad. The president – and by the way, whenever you're listening to this, whoever's president, it's always the same thing. The president. It doesn't matter who they are.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Those people that are born rich and then they become adults, they actually have really terrible money habits. And that's why short sleeves are short sleeves in three generations, because they're not taught how to earn, like the way of thinking, I need to earn, I need to be... vigilant about my money. It doesn't just come, I have to work for it. I have to manage it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And this is what we talk about in our book of, you know, we use some language that can be offensive because we talk about poor, we say poor people and we say rich people, but we're actually not talking about money at all. We're talking about a way of thinking.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
The president is the reason why I can't do – I can't live my life. I can't save money. There's always external blame. But wealthy people, rich people, they have an internal locus of control, and this is where the accountability comes in. I'm actually getting paid what I'm worth. And by the way, when I say that, I don't mean human life, which is priceless. I mean economic worth.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
I'm getting paid what I'm worth. If I want to become a millionaire, it's in my power. I have to make decisions to get there. And I can. I do have control. I need to start learning what a budget is. I need to learn about credit cards. I need to learn about what a 401k is, what a Roth IRA is and why I should invest it and why I should make it automatic.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And so these are all things that the tactics of it, but if you are, it's constantly focused on the external world on that's preventing you, that's the first thing that needs to change is that mindset shift. Like actually most of your life is in your control. Where you're at right now is in your control to change.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Some of the chapter titles we call these harsh truths for a reason. And because that is not a thing you'd want to say to a friend is, you know what? You're actually getting paid what you're worth. I'll just use my personal example. I worked at a call center at Prudential Retirement. I made $27,000 a year. Of course, I wanted to get paid more, but that is not a six-figure job.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
You're at a call center helping people with customer service on their 401ks. And so the lens that you need to put on how do you view working and making money is, and this is going to be really hard, especially in your position of struggle right now, but it is very helpful. is to think of it like a game.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And so here's, when you think of it like a game, you have to think of, okay, when you play a new game, like a new board game, the first thing is like, what are the rules? What are the rules to this game? When you play a new sport, what are the rules? I remember when I first played pickleball and I knew it looked different. I had to learn about the kitchen.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And it's different from tennis and I want to be good at the game. So I need to learn what the rules are. And so when I went in my customer service job and I, and like most people, they're like, I want to make six figures one day. And so I thought that through and I, and then I tried to research who makes six figures at this call center. And it was the manager of the call center.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And so when I looked at the manager, the manager had been there for 13 years and And maybe it was like a 10 year pass. So those are the rules. If I want to make six figures at this call center, I need to work here for 10 years, probably always show up on time, probably over deliver. And then in about 10 years, I can make six figures. That's the rules.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Most people never take the time to this planning of recognizing it's a game and you have to understand what the rules are. Now, after you've done that and you see what the realistic path is, then you have to ask a tough question. is this a game you want to or should be playing? When I did the trajectory, I was like, oh my God, I do not want to wait 10 years to make six figures.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
I need to figure out a new game. And that's actually where I went to YouTube to start making videos. But you don't have to go the entrepreneur route. If you're in a sales position and you look at the, let's say if you sell cars, there's probably someone at the dealership that sells more cars than anyone. And so they're playing a game at a different level.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
The rules are the same, but what are they doing? Are they like the LeBron James of car sales? So they're probably training harder. They have longevity. They build rapport. So there's people that are in the same game of you that probably make more money. Again, trying to pay attention, like how are they playing this game? It's probably different how I'm playing it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
But yeah, this first step is awareness to know you're actually are getting paid what you're worth. understand what the game are, what the rules are, and then make the decision, the tough decision to say, if this is a game I should not be playing, I need to change. And I'll say one specific career path, nursing, nurses, man, that is a tough job. And the pandemic...
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
the nurses were like the modern day superheroes. I bring up nurses because in one of my programs, I teach people how to basically make money online through like really risk-free stuff, like making product reviews and things like that, or how to write and get paid as a blogger. And my actually... number one job category of people is actually nurses.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And you think why it's because at the beginning nurses, I remember when I was in college, it was like a field that really needed people. And so it was marketed as like, Hey, you'll definitely get paid. You're going to make good money, but it's really hard. And it's sometimes it's like, it's recognized. Yes, you did go to college. You do have a degree.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
You've been doing this career for years with all those things said again, understanding the game. Is this something you want to keep doing for another 10 years? And you can etch out the math and making the touches. Like I do, I think it's time for me to switch. And that is okay.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Even if you went to school for that same degree to change, because I think your happiness and your fulfillment is more important than anything. paper degree that you've ever received.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Okay. I'm going to give really tactical advice. It's something you could do. And actually my coauthor, Dr. Brad Klontz has done a study that basically teaches this, which is increased people's savings rate by 70% in just one hour. I'm only going to give five minutes. So my stats aren't going to be that good, but. Okay, here's the truth.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And by the way, throughout this conversation, everyone here is probably thinking I'm still a minimalist. I lived in a van. I do want to say I have really nice stuff. And you guys, this might offend people because it sounds like I'm like this really extreme minimalist. I just spent $40,000 on a pickleball court at my house, right? So I did spend that. I have a sauna. I have a cold plunge.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
I have really nice stuff now. So I want to make that clear. So what's the difference? Am I a hypocrite? I have nice stuff. Here's the difference. Rich people, truly rich people, they never trade their time for an object. And when you're not rich, when you're struggling, when you don't make a good income, everything is expensive. You know why it's expensive?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
It's because you have to trade your time for it. So if you want to buy a PS5 or go on a $600 vacation and you make $60 an hour, this is how you have to think. Okay, I make 60 bucks an hour. It costs $600. I have to work 10 hours and then I can save enough to go on this trip. Rich people don't think like that. They're not trading their time to buy whatever they want, to do whatever they want.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
They have an investment, and they're like, so if I want to go on a $600 vacation every month, a rich person would say, okay, what investment do I need to participate in or put money in that's going to pay me $600 a month so I can go on that vacation every single month? Totally different way of thinking. They're not thinking, how much do I make per hour I need to save and then do the vacation?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And that's why everything seems really expensive at first. So here's the tactics. First of all, your time is the most valuable thing you have. You have to first believe this. And so you want to invest. This is why you want to invest so that one day you own your time.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
That is the best definition of financial freedom to not be having to make decisions on the constraints of money and having the choice. If you believe that, then this next tactic is going to help for you. This sounds so simple and silly, but so powerful, and here's why. Let's say you have bank accounts, and right now you have a checking and a savings.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Maybe you have others, but you probably haven't named them. And what I mean by naming them is like actually given a specific vision or a name. So let's say you want to go something serious, important for you. Let's say you want to go to Europe trip. So instead of just putting that money into checking, you actually create a new savings account and you label it as Europe trip.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Or if it's more specific, say Italy, the more specific, the better Italy trip, Italy, once in a lifetime, Italy trip. That's the name. And then as you start allocating money into there, here's what it does on a psychology deep level is let's say you – some shiny object appears, which there's always shiny objects. It's something you can buy. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, there's a bunch of deals.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And then you're like, ooh, should I get this thing? You'll open up your bank account, and when you see that Italy once-in-a-lifetime trip – You're not going to pull from it. You know why? Because now you're taking away from your vision. And if it lets some people, if you're saving for your kid's college, it's man, how bad of a person are you to have to take away from your kid's college?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Cause you want to go buy a TV, right? So this is why naming it and, and, and adding a vision, the more specific you can on your vision and late and labeling those accounts will allow you to start saving for those things. And I hope everyone here has a vision one day that when they wake up, that their entire schedule and time is up to them. And that is financial freedom. That's the gift.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
That's why I wrote this book is because I want people to operate in a world where they don't have money problems, but it goes against our instinctual habits because it's about saving and in thinking long-term. And that's really tough for us to do.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
This is a really interesting question because you mentioned at the early beginning of this podcast of, I believe it was your grandparents that they struggled to spend their money. Is that right? Was it your grandparents?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Yes. My parents right now are living this. So my parents, even though they're both 62, they're making money from now social security. And then I hired them part-time many years ago, but they invested enough that they're good, they're good. And you know what the big problem is now is that they can't spend their money.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
It's because they never, they're still operating from a standpoint of 30, 40 years ago when they had nothing, were super broke and came from worse poverty. So now when you get to this retirement age, here's the problem of waiting till the end. You can't make a switch. In fact, I'm saying crazy things to my parents.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And by the way, this is a joke, but I say this to my parents, say, hey, mom and dad, if you leave me, any money for, in fact, at this rate, it's going to be a lot of money and you leave as inheritance, you know what I'm going to do? Day one, I'm going to donate it to the opposing political party of your choice. I'm saying these crazy things because I want them to spend their money.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And so you do need to live today. You do need to find ways to enjoy and live your rich life. And if you're struggling right now, if you do have high interest credit card debt, It doesn't mean, okay, well, Adrian said I need to live my life. I am going to book that trip, even though financially it doesn't make sense.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
No, get glimpses of it until you can get full moments of it, until you can get full days of it, until you can get full weeks of it. Because this is the smart way to do about it. It's true. At the beginning... I quit drinking alcohol. I didn't go out to eat. I didn't buy new clothes. I can list all the sacrifices I did in my early 20s to get ahead. Yeah, it wasn't fun.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
I wish I could have gone to those things, but I was saving and investing and trying to put as much money as I could so that one day sooner than later, I would be able to live the life of financial freedom. But I also even back then would do things that I loved. One space and spending money. Coffee is often...
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
a i feel like the go-to attack on fi of like finance books well if you give up your coffee and that five dollars that you get saved can compound in a rough ira one day that would be millions and i think to me i love coffee one of my favorite things i lived in europe i love going to coffee shops
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And so I think if you are someone that's an intentionalist and that cup of coffee is your moment to like enjoy your rich life because this is something you're going to do even once you have financial freedom. It's like enjoying a cup of coffee. For me, it's if I can have a cup of coffee outside somewhere in a city on a patio, it's like that is a rich.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
I'm going to do that no matter how much money I have. I'm always going to do that. So living it now allows me to make it easier in the future. And I don't think about, oh, my God, I just spent $8 on this oat milk cappuccino. Because I'm like, this $8 is practicing me living my rich life today. And so you do need aspects of that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
But when I was in my 20s, I was like, all right, I'm going to spend $10,000 in Europe because I want to go there. No, I wouldn't be in the position I am today if I made those financial mistakes. So it's about finding moments versus just being all about sacrifice and grind and hustle culture.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Thanks so much for having me.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Wait, did I say that? Just kidding. I know I said that. This is a chapter title that brought the most heat. A lot of our chapter titles we tested online. Brad and I combined have over 3 million followers. And when we posted this, it sounds really bad. If you want to get rich, you have to get rid of your poor friends. Ouch. But again, just want to emphasize poor has nothing to do with money.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Rich doesn't either. It has to do with the way of thinking. And the mosquito concept is exactly the same thing. There's people in your life. that maybe make the same amount of money as you, but they're not thinking long-term at all. In fact, these are signals that you have, again, poor friends in terms of the way they think about money. They look forward to their paycheck. Hey, Friday's coming up.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Yo, what are we going to do? What are we going to do on Friday? Dude, let's go out. Let's go out. Because those are all signs. I remember in all my paydays, even though I was broke, I never looked forward to it because I was always living underneath my means. But people that live in pages of paycheck, as soon as that money comes, they're thinking of ways of spending it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
They're not thinking about the long term. They're not saving. They're racking up their credit card debt. But actually, and the funny thing is it's not, I'm not, let's talk about, let's talk about people who have a high income. I'm going to say six figures. Do you know that 50% of six figure earners live paycheck to paycheck? And this is a, another funny concept.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Like for those, I don't golf, but a lot of my golf friends and Dr. Brad Klontz who golf, he talks about in golf, there's a concept like you out with all your quote unquote, successful high income earners. And on the first hole and the third hole, they're like, Oh, life's great. Business is great. Oh, my sales are up this year. It's doing great.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And then by the time you get to the 10th, 12th hole, they're like, man, yeah, I'm in credit card debt up to my knees. And like, oh yeah, we might have to foreclose on the house. Yeah, actually. And you can tell, it's like at the beginning, as you dive deeper across, you get to the whole 12 holes. The truth is that they're actually not doing good at all. And so you need to find rich friends.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And rich friends, they sound like this. Hey- Let's save. Let's invest. They talk about their investments. And poor friends, they sound like this, like excuses. They blame. They complain, especially when it comes about money. So it's just like the law of averages, the five people you associate around, that affects you. And it affects you with money as well.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
If you hang out with a bunch of spenders, guess what? You're probably going to be a spender. If you hang out with a bunch of savers or they spend their money on experience versus objects, you're probably going to do... spend your money on experiences. If you hang out with a bunch of people who like making an impact, like donating to good causes, guess what?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
I'm super excited. As we talked before we hit live, you're also an author and we were just sharing how the days leading up to the launch, how it feels like you're just going all out doing podcasts and press and traveling. And it feels like a grind. And you said something that is such a refreshing reminder is that actually when the book launches, it's just the beginning, not the end.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
You're probably going to start doing that too. So your circle influences you heavily, especially with money. And if you have a family member who's, who is not the best with money, I'm not saying, Hey, sorry. I need to find rich friends, not you. All you have to do is love them from afar when it comes to money. Not everyone should have access to your ideology and what you're doing with money.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Money is one of those things when you bring up, everyone has an opinion and you got to be careful who you get that opinion from.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
The whole idea of start thinking rich first starts with the belief that you actually can become rich through actions of your own. This whole entire concept is based off creating an internal locus of control and understanding that yes, sometimes life throws you a curve ball. We did not all start at the same standpoint. Some of us have adversities that we have faced or will face. That's not fair.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
That's the reality. Life is not fair. But despite those things, the majority of our life and our financial outcomes are up to us and we have the power to change. And once you have that first belief, the tactics become easy. The tactics become doable because finance, financial books could all be summed up by this one sentence. We actually don't need finance books at all.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
There shouldn't be a mystery on how to become rich. It's make money and try to keep making more, live under your means and try to save it, and then invest. And actually, I should clarify invest because I've learned many times that when I say the word invest, it's usually not what the other person on the receiving end says invest.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
So I'm just going to keep it simple and say invest boringly and automatically invest. stock market, 401k, diversified portfolio of ETS and index funds that meets your goal or target date funds. And so that's it. Boom. We don't need financial books. If it's that simple, how come we don't do it? It's because of the psychology of how we think.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
So if you can first have that belief set that you actually are in control, you can make it happen. The tactics and the strategies become easier and you'll be able to see progress. And that's the best thing we can know is that every day we wake up, And we know we're heading towards the right direction of financial freedom.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Awesome. Thanks for having me, John. Okay. So you could for sure get the book where all books are available at Start Thinking Rich, or it's a special place. It's just for everyone here. And this is a way that we can say thanks. If you go to startthinkingrich.com slash John, that's going to have extra bonuses and resources.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
That's just for a way that we can say thanks for all your listeners here and having me on. And it has a link to the book, but again, it's include some like sheets and tools and calculators that you can't get anywhere else. Again, just want to say thank you so much for having me.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
So I'm in that phase right now, but thanks for having me.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
This is very clear to me. I used to be a pro dancer for T-Pain and at the time I was a living room dancer and just a few weeks into being a pro dancer with T-Pain, which I really shouldn't have been there, but he launched a song right in front of us. The song was called reverse cowgirl. Actually, it's a pretty terrible song. I wouldn't recommend listening to it, but one thing that changed.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Everything for me was. Before the song launched, he showed it to us. We heard it. And then he launched the song in front of the dancers. And this is around like 10 a.m. in the morning. And back then, this is like 2012-ish, every song that's downloaded costs 99 cents on iTunes. And after the first few minutes, I saw it rise from 100, 500,000.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
million two million after 10 minutes i it was like over 5 million downloads and i was trying to comprehend what was happening and i watched someone basically look over this manager say hey you ready yes we're ready cool let's do it launched it and then they made millions of dollars in minutes which is i was super broke at the time and then the thing that he painted afterwards was even better because what i learned about working hard and being successful before that was like
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
You got to sacrifice. You have to work really hard. To make money has to be very painful. And then after T-Pain made millions of dollars in minutes, you know what he did? He got drunk at 10 a.m. So my whole world was being shattered on what it means to be successful, to make money. And in some ways, T-Pain was like not the best role model.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
But what he did was unlock that there's actually many ways to become successful and that sometimes all the things we're taught that they're not really true. They're not the only way.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Well, I just went to Taylor Swift yesterday in new Orleans. And what I definitely can say is that those dancers had to work way harder than I did. So here's the truth. T-Pain is a pretty big guy. He's out of shape. And so any one of you listening, even if you're someone that thinks they can't dance, you could have been a backup dancer for T-Pain.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
You would have had to raise your right hand, bounce it up and down, do a two step, snap your fingers. And so it just goes to show it depends who you're dancing for. For me, I was dancing for someone that like he partied a lot and was really out of shape and didn't really like dance. So I had a couple little segments of freestyling. I was a robot dancer.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
But when I remember I was talking to my wife because at the Taylor Swift concert, I kept saying, man, these dancers have the toughest dance job in the world dancing for Taylor Swift. Because that to me, I don't know how they did a three hour performance. I could never have done that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And my grandma, she's a reason that Brambilla family came from Mexico to the US. She is someone that has faced unspeakable adversities and tragedies. My dad was around 13 when he came to the States. My dad's dad was murdered when he was five years old. I actually interviewed my grandma. If you have never interviewed
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
someone you love, like a grandparent or a parent, I recommend doing it because it's actually a video I look back to. And this is not something I have this posted online, the full interview, but I wanted to ask her all these questions. So they're really sharp in my mind because I love talking about my grandma. She's my superhero.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
But there was a period of about half a year where she was commuting from Mexico to the USA to save enough money to bring four kids across to the U S and just the amount of work. She's always had a job actually today. She still has a job. She like babysits on the side and she's in her late seventies. So she's always working.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
But when I got educated on, and I feel like I was raised with this kind of immigrant mindset that we left the bad place where we were like, we My dad actually went to bed hungry and they had to steal food. And we came to the good place, which is the US. And so I have this lens of how I view the US. This is a land of opportunity. This is why we came here.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And for sure, it can seem maybe narrow-minded that I ignore some of what the media says on challenges, but I believe this is the place to make it happen. That's why we came here. But my grandma... And because of my dad and what they went through, it created when somebody say legacy, this is how I feel. It created pressure. I, they did so much. They sacrificed so much.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
They went through every adversity to give me a platform. that they only dreamed of having. So what does that do for me? It creates an immense amount of pressure to do well, to not be an idiot, to not be a failure.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And so that's how I see the legacy of like, it would be the most disrespectful thing I could do to be a failure because it would discredit all the people that came before me to give me this place to where I started from.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
This is huge, but actually my coauthor, and feel free to Google him, his name is Dr. Brad Klontz. He's actually in pretty much every modern day finance book because he is, when people say things like 80% of millionaires are self-made and all ranges of studies, where do they get these studies from? They actually get it from people like Dr. Brad Klontz.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
But one thing he pioneered was this concept called money scripts. And this is how you inherit your beliefs around money. And guess who you inherit that from? Your parents, that means the good ones, the bad ones. And so part of your personal financial development journey is to first become aware of what are the money scripts that you inherited.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
The funny thing about Americans is that we are actually all immigrants. So Dr. Brad Klontz is white, but he traced his family all the way back to the Mayflower. Now, Dr. Brad Klontz grew up in trailer parks and comes from a family of trailer parks, like in generations. And so when he started thinking about that and he learned that he came from the Mayflower, he would say things like,
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
How come we don't own any land around here? We came here on the Mayflower. We could have just walked over and be like, okay, this is mine. But these money scripts on how you handle money, how you think about money, and poverty of living in trailer parks is also being passed. And that's why the first step is understanding what money script did you inherit?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
When you were raised, do your parents think that all rich people are evil? Because on a subconscious level, even if you don't think that, if you haven't worked through that, you probably are sabotaging your own success. Because again, to make a lot of money means you have to do bad things, means you have to take advantage of people. Do you think money is abundance? Do you think it's scarce?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
Do you think that if you make a lot of money, that means it takes from someone else? And so there's a whole realm of different ways that we think about money. And really it comes from our parents and guess who they got it from? Their parents.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Adrian Brambila on 21 Brutal Money Lessons You Need Now | EP 536
And so you can see how families kind of stay in stuck in lower class or poverty, or this idea of a poor way of thinking when, especially when it comes around money. What do you think for you, John? Like if you were to think what's a money script that you inherited from your parents?