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.