Dr. Brad Klontz
Appearances
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
There was drama, there was trauma, and we didn't have any money. And I looked around and I saw a lot of hardworking, God-fearing, good people. And Adrian has a very different story, but some parts of my family have been around since the Mayflower period. And as a young kid, I'm like, why are both sets of grandparents, why are we in trailer parks? Like, what's going on here?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Yeah. So I've done research on thousands of multimillionaires and looking for these patterns. So giving them tests on locus of control, giving them tests on their specific beliefs around money. And so we've found very, very clear patterns here. And the first one that Adrian spoke about, which I think is so, so important, is that locus of control. So
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Taking personal responsibility for as much as you possibly can turns out to be the most effective mindset across the board when it comes to income, net worth, success in school, success in relationships across the board. That is the mindset you want to embody. So always be looking to take more responsibility in your life. Like if you walk in the door, your wife's grouchy at you.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
It's real easy to blame her, you know, because I'm great. I'm out here hustling. I love her. I take care of whatever. You know, why is she so irritated at me? Okay, that's great. You can blame her the rest of your life and be unhappy the rest of your life. Or you can say, well, okay, so what is it that I can do? You know, like think about it.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Have I been really expressing to her how much I appreciate her? Can I take some of that action? So by the way, that is the hack to so much happiness and joy and success in life. The other one we found are specific beliefs around money. And these are things like we found categories. So Adrian talked about this a little bit. He said, if you have a negative association with money.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Well, I grew up in a family where we did like we looked at rich people as being greedy, selfish. The the only way to get rich is you got to take advantage of other people like and we call that money avoidance in the research. And by the way, that belief set. It's subconscious for many of us. We inherit it.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And by the way, you can then find examples of greedy rich people who are horrible human beings. It's not like there's not a lack of examples of that. There absolutely are plenty. But it's only part of the story.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
There are also rich people, and I hope everyone listening to this becomes rich and does great things in the world, who cure diseases, who donate their fortunes to making the world a better place, who are actually really, really good people. These are most of the people I've met.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
By the way, most poor people I meet are really good people, and most rich people tend to be really good people, at least in my experience. That mindset, if you're not aware of it, it will knock you down. It will keep you down. You'll have a confirmation bias where you're screening out all information.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Like if I tell you, for example, that some billionaire is donating 97% of their wealth, that money avoidance mindset will say, yeah, yeah, but they're doing it for these nefarious reasons. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I just told you they're giving away 97% of their wealth. And so you got to be aware of that. You got to be aware.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Like, it doesn't make sense. The American dream has not worked for us along the way. And so as a kid, I just got really curious about that. I remember going to one of my friend's houses and having dinner with his family. And I just thought they were so rich. And I was so intrigued by this. And in retrospect, it was like a middle class home and it had two bathrooms.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so the other thing I'll say, and to wrap this up, is an open-mindedness. So one of the things that's really associated with success, a growth mindset, a rich mindset, is being open to new experiences and open to new information. And so always being curious. So Adrian likes to joke that I'm edumacated. I grew up lower incomes.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I always feel like I'm sort of faking in that environment, the educated environment. But one of the things I've learned along the way is the more that I have studied in psychology, so the more I realize how much I don't know.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
It's like, I feel like I don't, I was way more confident about what I knew before I got a doctorate. And I think that's sort of the mindset you need to have is don't be so cocky. Don't be so self-assured that you got it all figured out.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Because even for us, even for me, when it comes to psychology of money, I feel like I know about this much, you know, I know a little bit, I know a quarter's worth. When the world is just so expansive and there's so much more to learn. So always be curious because you're getting what you're getting in life right now because of what you know and probably what you don't know.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so that curiosity is so incredibly important if you want to level up.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Yeah, so my conclusion is that we are absolutely wired to be totally self-destructive when it comes to money. And I've traced it all the way back to our prehistoric days of living in small little tribes of people. And if you want to understand why you've messed up around money, ask yourself what a cave person would do. Because that's how we've spent most of our time on Earth.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so, for example, crypto is hot, baby. It's back, okay? Now, I've been alive long enough to see people lose all their money like several times in crypto, but it's back and it's hot, okay? And what's going to happen if it hasn't happened already, there's going to be something in the back of your mind because you're seeing all these people making money on crypto.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And I'm not sure how many actually are, but they're all over social media, right? And so what that does to your brain, the tribal brain, it says... oh no, the tribe's running in this direction. I need to go with them. And it's that sense of fear. It's fear that I'm missing out. It's fear that I'm gonna get destroyed, whether it's people selling in the market or buying when it comes to investing.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And for me, I was like, that's incredible. Two bathrooms. To me, that's what I decided Rich was. But I remember sort of interviewing this guy. So I'm in sixth grade, and I'm interviewing this guy, my friend's dad. Like, what do you do for work? And I was just fascinated about how do I get into this world?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so if you feel like everyone around you is getting richer faster than you, if you see people running for a certain shiny new object, it is gonna be so difficult for you to not go with the herd because this is baked into your DNA. Your ancestors, imagine a tribe of 150 people back in Cave Mandate. They all get up and they all run north. you're sitting there.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Guess what happened to the people who just sat there? They got picked off by the saber tooth tiger because there's a reason everyone's running over there and it's life or death. That wiring is inside of us. And so when we see something, even though it's not life or death, it feels that way. We have an animal brain. And so it's really difficult for people to stick with a financial plan, for example.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
They have actually done studies and dead investors outperform living investors. Right. So wrap your head around that. Talk about lack of emotion. Well, if you're dead, you're not feeling any emotion and you're not making any trades in your account. You do better than people who are alive because people who are alive get sucked into, I need to get rich fast or social media, for example.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Seeing people with outward displays of wealth. So this is one of the things that we've actually found is that statistically speaking, most self-made billionaires describe themselves as frugal. They're not the ones that are flashing the brand new cars. They're not the ones in the middle class home with two brand new cars out front. Those people are always going to be middle class, by the way.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Studies show that the people who become wealthy are money vigilant. So we talked about those beliefs, right? They believe it's important to save for a rainy day. They're sort of nervous about the future. They're taking chips off the table. They have a vision of the future that they want to invest in. They're not doing what we're wired to do, which is consume everything right now.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
The whole concept of saving goes against our wiring, let alone saving. Not sharing it all with the tribe. This is another huge thing from my socioeconomic background. If anyone got any money, you better share it. Like what are, what's wrong with you? You know? Um, and so it, it kind of goes against that lower income tribe too, for you to even be setting money aside.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
It's like, you're saving 20% of your income. Don't you know, your sister's about to lose her house. It's like, what are you doing? And it's like, whoa, I love, I love my sister. But, um, by the way, it's just an example of my sister's doing okay. Yeah. But it's like I got plenty of cousins who aren't. And it's like there's tons of pressure there.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And then fast forward, I became a clinical psychologist, essentially to try to help people grow and heal childhood trauma and wounds, which I had a lot of. I mean, I had to get over myself. And then I got out of school. I owed $100,000 in student loan debt. And I had no idea how to get out of debt. And I saw a friend of mine make $100,000 in a year trading stocks.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
So the question you got to ask yourself is how can I save and invest for my future, which, by the way, is going to put you in a better position to help out the people you love, frankly, and not fall into that. So for me, so much of our struggles with money can directly be related to our emotional brain and that tribal sort of instinct that we have.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And this is just before the tech bubble. And I got really excited. I sold everything I had of value. I started to trade stocks. And then the tech bubble broke. And I watched all my money melt away. And that's when I became a financial psychologist. Because I'm like, why would a reasonably intelligent person be his own worst enemy? Obviously, I didn't know what was happening.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I didn't know how to do it, but I got sucked into sort of a get rich quick scheme that my friend was sucked into. And that really set me on the search to research the psychology of money, the psychology of wealth. So what are the psychological differences between ultra wealthy, middle class, low income?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Yeah, so I would say that a million dollars goes fast if you're spending it. And if you look at a million dollars, though, as an asset that's going to spin off cash for you, That's when it starts to look really good. And so we talk about in our book, the 4% rule, which is essentially how much money do I need to set aside to have freedom?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so one of the things that we define in the book is what is rich? It is owning your time. Yeah. Owning your time. And by the way, so as a psychologist, I've read all the studies on owning stuff and it turns out that the stuff doesn't really make you happier.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
You know, I mean, I think we're all here to like have a good experience in life, you know, to be around the ones we love, to have happiness, have joy, help other people have that experience and stuff just doesn't do it. And so if you're addicted to stuff, I worry about you because what I have found is that when young people come to me and say, Hey, Dr. Brad, you know, I want to become rich.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And I say, well, why? And it's like, well, I want to get a Lamborghini. I'm giving sort of the extreme example here. I want a Rolex. I want a Lamborghini. I want a mansion with a pool. I start to get a little bit concerned about that, to be honest. And I understand why we're attracted to that stuff. But unless that happens. young guy, young woman sort of shifts their mindset a little bit.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And then secondly, how can we use psychology to help people improve their relationship with money? Yeah.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I know what's going to happen because I see it happen all the time. They're going to get a six-figure job, incredible. And then they're going to go lease a Mercedes. And then they're going to go get the most expensive apartment they can get. They're going to get the best stuff they can get. They're going to get a new wardrobe.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And people can stay stuck in that cycle of not creating any wealth for a very long time because they got the wrong focus. And so we're trying to reorient people to owning your time. And so that's where a million dollars spinning off 40,000 a year for you. It's like, well, how much more of your time can you own by doing that? And I'll also say this. I believe that everyone can become a millionaire.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And by the way, without any fancy hacks, quite frankly. Like I'm in it for the hacks too, right? Like I wanna increase my income, et cetera. I'm a multimillionaire now because, I'm a multimillionaire now because of what I'm about to tell you. And I became a millionaire working in a public school, okay, as a psychologist in Hawaii. And I became a millionaire by doing this one thing.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
When a dollar comes into your life, you save and invest a percentage of that for your financial freedom. And so I've run the numbers on this too. $5 a day. invested at average market returns, so you don't even have to do anything crazy with investing, is a million dollars in just 42 years. And I say just 42 years, and I know you're saying, 42 years, that's forever.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so I always say, well, then invest $6 a day. Get there faster. And obviously you want to level up. But I truly believe that everyone could absolutely be a millionaire just by doing that. That's how the math works. But to your other point, let's say that you're making $100,000 and you really want to make a million a year, right? And so how do you do that?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Well, as Adrian said, are you playing the right game? Because you might not be playing the right game. And you might say, well, how do I play that new game? Well, this is where you have to look at almost going to another tribe. Okay, so now I'm back to my tribal metaphor here. So I grew up in a lower income tribe and we all did things a certain way. Nobody had a 401k. Nobody was doing that.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And you know, money comes into your life, you spend it. Not on lavish things, whatever, it's gone. That was my tribe. When I wanted to become a millionaire, I had to learn, it was almost like going to a new country. It's like, these people trust the stock market. Are you kidding me? Isn't that a bunch of greedy bankers taking all our money, keeping us poor people suppressed for my entire family?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I have to put my trust into them. Well, guess what? That's what rich people do. Rich people have financial advisors. They have CPAs. And you have to overcome all these mental blocks because it's like this tribe is doing things very, very differently. And so that's what I think you need to do is keep looking for, well, what is that tribe that's making a million a year? What are they doing?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Or making a million a month? What are they doing? And then what you've got to do is study them. Study their mindsets, their habits. What are they doing? How are they looking at the world? What sort of businesses are they in? Because what I have discovered is if you decide what it is you want, and you can find some models on people who've gotten it, it's a very simple path. You just replicate it.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
It's like, nobody's out here doing magic. Maybe there's a couple of people who are, but most of it, you can replicate it. When I decided to be a psychologist, it's like, oh, how do people do it? Oh, well, they do this and this and this. Okay. And the first time I tried to get into graduate school, I wasn't accepted. And I'm like, okay, well, what do I got to do the next time to get accepted?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
It's like, If you decide you want it and you're willing to put in the effort, you can absolutely have it. But understand this, other people have achieved these things. You just need to figure out the formula and replicate it.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
I used to go to the club. They were playing house music back when I went, but I used to go to the same club that they filmed.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
You know, I feel like the biggest thing is to just realize that you can have everything you want to have. And if they can do it, you can do it. And so if you can just flip that switch, you can have anything you want in life. I'm convinced and I believe it.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Yeah, and I think it's like, I think one of the biggest psychological barriers for people around success is the belief that if they can do it, I can do it. Yeah. And that is the thing that if I could sell anything to your audience, it would be the belief that if they can do it, I can do it. And so I think what you have to have too, quite frankly, is a role model that you can connect with.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so Adrian has a whole story. He has a different background than I do. You do too. Yeah. And I think it's like whatever it takes to get over the hurdle, like, well, if they can do it, I can do it. And so that's really what we're trying to do.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so that's why I actually like to talk about my journey of growing up lower income and coming from a pretty tumultuous history with some trauma in it and all that, because I think a lot of people can relate to that. And it's like, whoa, if he could do it, maybe I could do it. And I think to me, that's the biggest barrier.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Yeah. So as I mentioned, I've done a lot of research on rich mindsets. And quite frankly, when I got on TikTok, I did it out of anger because my nephews were showing me TikTok videos and they're great and they're so funny and you get sucked in. And then all of a sudden I saw videos pop up about day trading, you know, and people telling you what stocks to buy. And I made this much yesterday.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And I got so upset because I remember I lost all my money day trading in early 2000s. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's back. And I got really worried because my nephews and kids his age are seeing this misinformation around money. And so I started to create like
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
anger content, essentially going against sort of these get rich quick schemes and trying to educate people on how people actually get rich because I've done the research and went along that path myself. And then I saw videos of Adrian popping up and he was giving really solid, good information on entrepreneurship and on money and managing money.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so I could tell that this guy had a rich mindset. And so I started commenting on his videos and then we became friends. And then we started roasting each other after we were friends. But it really did develop a relationship there. And so I had to develop a rich mindset the hard way. His parents actually instilled much of that in him. And it's an incredible story. I've met his parents.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And we often talk about, or at least I've noticed, that it's really tough to compete with an immigrant mindset. Like if you're ever in a competition with somebody who's an immigrant, it's like, good luck. Okay, so... There's a good chance they're going to work way harder than you. And they're just hungry for it. But yeah, I saw that manifest in him.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And it was, of course, we were friends for several years. And then we both had, I think, an inspiration to try to help out our audience. And so that's where this book came is sort of the manual that I wish I had growing up around the psychology of wealth and how do they think and what is their mindsets and what does the research say about how we get wealthy and then weaving in
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And Adrian's incredible inspirational stories from his childhood and his family stories, family history, as well as how to make more money too. That's part of it. Like part of it is investing and how do you invest and what's the mindset and how do you save more? And then another component is how do you make more money?
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Because that's actually more fun than budgeting and cutting out all the things you love in your life to try to reach a financial goal. So the combo I think is, first of all, you know, you only get one life. And I want to spend that life with people I love and my friends. And Adrian is one of my dear friends.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
Yeah. So first of all, you know, Adrian and I are here together because we have a recent national bestselling book, Start Thinking Rich. And that's really what we've been focused on lately. And the passion there has been essentially what can we teach people who want to level up their finances, their relationship with money? And so for me, I grew up in a lower income, broken family.
Mick Unplugged
Financial Freedom in 30 Days with Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz!
And so it just made this project so much more fun and so much more valuable collaborating with him.