Episode 177- How to Live a Rich Life & Make Your Own Money Rules w/ Ramit Sethi

Jamila Souffrant 0:00

You're listening to the Journey to Launch Podcast, How to Live a Rich Life and Make Your Own Money Rules with Ramit Sethi.

Recording 0:11

Welcome to the Journey to Launch Podcast with your host Jamila Souffrant. As a money expert, she helps brave journeyers like you get out of debt, save, invest and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom.

Jamila Souffrant 0:38

Hey, hey, hey, Journeyers. Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast! I'm so excited as always to have you here with me. We are going to be launching as we always do to financial freedom and independence. So sit back, put on that seat belt because we are taking off. Okay, before we hop into this week's episode, and what we're going to talk about, I want to make sure that you're registered for the free class that I'm doing online next week. So if you're listening to this in real time, that means you still have time to register for the class on October 22, that I'll be doing about financial freedom and independence. I'm going to help you create a roadmap to reaching it and help you unlock how you can get freedom today while still traveling the journey. We're going to be talking about lots of things I'll talk about the things that are stopping you from getting to your goals. We're going to assess where you are on your journey, visualize your dream life. We're going to do all these things in this free class. And I'd love to see you there. So you can join us at JourneytoLaunch.com/freeclass to get your free seat on October 22. Once again that's JourneytoLaunch.com/freeclass.

Now let's talk about today's guest. I have on Ramit Sethi on the podcast. Now if you are in the personal finance space or have been following people for a while doing this, you may know him, maybe you don't. But I'm excited to talk to him because remede is a New York Times bestselling author and founder of IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com. Ramit has a very direct way of talking about money about goals. And I just I love his straightforwardness and he's built his brand and the way he speaks about money in a unique way. because quite honestly, I think we all need to be more honest about money, especially the people who, like me are in the sea of speaking about and have a platform.

So I love that he's a straight shooter when it comes to money. And he uses psychology and systems to talk about how to live a rich life. And it could mean automating your finances, making more money finding your dream job, whatever it is, we meet challenges you to live life on your own terms in a way that matters to you. And we have a lot of similarities in the way that we view personal finance, you know, like you choose what matters to you. You make conscious decisions, you spend the way that's aligned with your goals, and you don't really worry about what everyone else is doing. You focus on what works for you. So I'm excited to talk to Ramit.

If you want the episode Show Notes for this episode, you can click in the description of wherever you're listening to this and it should have the episode link. But you can also go to JourneytoLaunch.com/Episode 177. Now if you listen to the episode, all the way through towards the end, I talk about Ramit's book. I had a question for him about writing the book, and publishing a book that makes waves that changes the way people think about money because I have a book story of my own. So I'm not going to tell it now and bogged down the beginning of this episode. What I'm going to do is I'm going to share more behind the scenes about my book writing journey, which I don't think I've talked about on the podcast before, but I'm going to share that more at the end of the episode. So stay tuned for that. And I'll go into more detail about what's been going on with that. Now without further ado, let's hop into this episode with Ramit.

All right. Journeyers I have a special special treat for you I have on Ramit Sethi. How did I do with that last name?

Ramit Sethi 4:02

Perfect.

Jamila Souffrant 4:03

Okay, great. So I know for me, because I'm in the personal finance space. And I listened to tons of podcasts before I started my podcast. And I heard Ramit lots of times. He has a very popular book, New York Times bestseller, I Will Teach you to be Rich, and a just impactful business online and in person, right? Like this translates to everything that you do. But my audience may not know who you are, Ramit some of them. Some of them may not know. So I know you've told your origin story many times before. But I want to get into one how you teach people to be rich, because let's be clear, everyone who listens to this podcast, that's what that's what they really want to be rich and to have financial freedom.

Ramit Sethi 4:45

Well, I would start off by asking everybody what is rich mean to you? So Jamilla, let me just ask you right off the bat, what is rich to you?

Jamila Souffrant 4:56

Having freedom over my time.

Ramit Sethi 4:58

Okay, tell me more. What does that mean specifically?

Jamila Souffrant 5:01

Yes. So I, I do think there's a difference between rich and wealthy if we want to really get like down to the details. But if we're just looking at in one big lump sum, being rich/ wealthy means that I have freedom over my time, I have options. So I get to choose what I want to do, and that I can spend without guilt and on the things that I love.

Ramit Sethi 5:22

Okay. What do you want to spend money on?

Jamila Souffrant 5:25

Oh, that's a good question. I love to go out to eat. I live in New York City. So I know that you live here, I used to live here. But it's expensive sometimes, you know, some of the places that you go to when I like to go out and get drinks, you know, I have three kids. So I do like to spend on them with experiences, not necessarily things, but experiences. So I'd say like spending time with my husband, family and friends and with my kids are the things I love to spend money on.

Ramit Sethi 5:53

I didn't mean to flip this so it's like you are on my podcast and I am interviewing you.

Jamila Souffrant 5:57

I love it! It's good. It's good.

Ramit Sethi 5:59

I'm fascinated. And I love asking this question. I am going to show everybody listening today how I approach the I Will Teach you to be Rich lifestyle. But I want to share that when I ask people, what does rich mean to you? They almost always give one of three answers. And you basically did one of them. So the first one is they say I want to do what I want, when I want. And I go That sounds pretty good. Okay, so what do you want? And then they freeze, because they've never actually gotten really specific about what they want. They just want to have freedom. What are you going to do with it? And this is something that I think the FIRE community and others. That's the next chapter of the journey there, which is okay, you've put in place a system, you've automated it, you're earning more, you cut your costs. Okay, so what's next? That's a very challenging and interesting part of a rich life. That's the number one answer, I want to do what I want when I want. Number two, they say, I want a million dollars. And I say, Okay, that sounds pretty good. What are you gonna do with the million? Again, get very quiet and just stare at me and blink? Why? Because a million dollars arbitrary number, if you live in Manhattan, a million dollars is different than if you live in Peoria, Illinois. So it's also different if you're 25, or 55. So I think that's a number that we kind of pick up from magazines and books, and it used to be a million now maybe people say 2 million, etc. But that's another answer. And then the third and most haunting answer, when I asked him, What does rich mean to you, as many people say, I just want to pay my debt off. And it's no surprise to me that if your entire dream of a rich life is to get to zero, that you're not actually living a rich life. So what I try to do when I first start with people is I go through an exercise where we really talk about what we want to do with money. Nobody needs another person coming on here saying, oh, cut back on lattes, and you need to increase your savings rate from 36% to 38%. That's success! No. We want to talk about what does rich mean to you. And hopefully over the course of this conversation, I actually want to get a little bit more specific with you so that your listeners can hear what you love to spend on. Because once we get that out, once we discover what a rich life is, in very specific terms, it's usually not that hard to build it.

Jamila Souffrant 8:27

Yeah, I love that. And as you were talking, I started to get this visualization of using money as like the paintbrush, I still haven't figured out the paint or the paint brush, but whatever it is, we pick it up. We're able to paint a vivid life for ourselves and the quality of life that we are able to paint for ourselves, it's gonna differ, right, everyone's canvas. And paint brushes are different, it may look different, but I just love that. And when it comes to the money part, right, because being in the financial independence space, I always say I told the line between financial independence, retire early movement, and and just general personal finance, like I have my hand or my each foot in each door. But I definitely do think that a lot of it is focused on the numbers, which makes sense because you can measure it and you know, you can tell if you're reaching your goals or not. But a lot of it, to me is emotional, before we even get to earning more spending less. Like it all starts internally. Because unless you can keep up those habits and have a reason why you're doing that. And it feels aligned with yourself. You're not going to really succeed at any of those endeavors of the money part for long.

Ramit Sethi 9:33

Yeah, I completely agree. By the way, what a beautiful metaphor you have with the canvas and the paint. I really love that it's creating our life using the tools that we have. And if we want more tools, we can go out and get them. We can take classes, courses, coaches, but I really love that metaphor. I haven't heard that before and I'm so glad you shared that. I do agree that the fire community and the personal finance community in general loves to live In the spreadsheet, they love it, cell C3, C3, never talk back to me. C3,so logical, I just type in the numbers, and then I run an analysis. And it's so logical, I love it. Listen, a rich life is lived outside of the spreadsheet, you want to talk math, we can do the math, I can talk about compound interest, rule of 72, Roth IRA, we could talk about all that stuff. That's the easy stuff. And if it's challenging, if you don't know the difference between a Roth and a traditional IRA, that's okay. Nobody really teaches us. But there are good books, whether you use I Will Teach You to Be Rich, or many of the other great books or blogs, that stuff can be learned. The psychological and emotional components of money, I find way more interesting. These are the concepts where when I ask people, "what do you love to spend on?" And then "Okay, I want you to spend five times more on it. What are you going to do?" People get completely stuck, they have no idea. Why? Because they've lived a life of self imposed and society imposed restriction. So their entire life is geared around feeling proud and morally superior that they are spending less. "Whoa, you spent $200 on a dress. Oh, must be nice. I spent $30." There's nothing morally superior about having a higher savings rate than your neighbor. Nothing. In fact, I would like to see people spending extravagantly on the things they love, but cutting costs mercilessly on the things they don't. So a lot of this begins with digging into our childhood invisible scripts. What did we learn about money around the dinner table? What did we notice? And then how did we carry those messages, what I call invisible scripts with us for 20,30,40 years, and potentially into new relationships. That part is challenging, and interesting. The spreadsheet part, while necessary, is really not the conclusion that's really chapter one of our rich life journey. But once you have nailed cell C3, turn the page, get out of your chair, because a rich life is lived outside the spreadsheet.

Jamila Souffrant 12:06

And don't you find that you know, when you reach a certain level of income or success, and it's hard for people who don't have this yet, right? So the people listening who are still in debt, who still may be living paycheck to paycheck, when I say or someone says, you know, but honestly, like, you got to figure it out before you get the money like now's the time to figure it out. There's just like, easy for you to say because like you're able to like quit your job you like you're have a level of security. And I get that. I think beyond the basic needs of survival. Yes, money is very important at all levels. But that what most people miss while they're trying to achieve like paying off the debt and financial independence is that who you're becoming along the way matters the most like the life that you're creating for yourself. Because you can get to those things and get all the goals check all the marks off and be miserable, depressed and all these things that yes, we don't maybe understand from our if we're looking up like at the people who have it already. And we're like, we're like, why are you complaining you have it all. But it's really important that while you're on this path now in the middle of it, that you find the happiness the quality of life that you're looking for.

Ramit Sethi 13:11

I do agree I think of it like a hike, a hike up a mountain. Now first of all, let me say that I don't really hike. So if I stretch this metaphor for any hikers out there, please I apologize. I definitely don't have the right shoes or the right gear. But let's just imagine for a minute Ramit Sethi, professional hiker. You know, I'm I'm hiking up this mountain, and it's difficult. And sometimes it goes up sometimes it gets steady sometimes or switch backs. But after a while I stop and I pause and I take a break and I look back out over that vista. And I realize, "wow, when I started this mountain look impossibly large. But just taking this pause after climbing for two hours or two years. Wow, look how far I've come. Look at what I've accomplished. And yes, the mountain is still large. But now I realize I've put in consistent work. I've been climbing one foot in front of another for the last two hours or two years. And look at how far I've come." That's what I would love for the listeners today and for my I will teach you to be rich community is to know that there really aren't many gimmicks. There really aren't any secrets or tricks. You know, I started off son of immigrants. We grew up my dad went to work for kids at home my mom stayed home with us and you know learned a lot about an immigrant lifestyle in America which is you know, one income six people in the family and and how we made it happen and my parents did an amazing job with the tools they had. Paid my way through college with scholarships, and was very fortunate to be able to learn from what my parents had done and then also build on new layers. My dream is that you Just like I had the chance to stop at certain points and appreciate the vista, appreciate how far I'd come financially, also just psychologically, to not have to live in a world of only restriction. That's my dream. For people listening today that, of course, it's hard. Of course, the mountain looks large, that's the way it's supposed to be. But when you take one foot in front of another one step day after day, no gimmicks, no tricks, just consistent movement, that after a while, you will look out and be able to say to yourself, what have you.

Jamila Souffrant 15:33

Yeah, and one thing you said before was about the expenses side of things, right? Like, I think in the personal finance space, we talk about expenses first or other people talk about expenses first. Because typically, like that may be the easiest thing for someone to tackle is like, Alright, just like cut things out, stop spending on this. And sometimes it's like true, like, okay, maybe this person is just not consciously spending on things that maybe they just don't even care about. So just stop doing that if you're trying to get to a goal. But what I think is interesting, because I also have this battle, I feel like it's a battle of skill sets, right? On the income side, having an abundant mindset that I can earn, especially now being entrepreneur, like, wow, like, the sky's the limit on what I can create and provide to people, right. And then on the other side, when it comes to expense, especially when you don't have necessarily the income flowing in as yet, but you can see it coming, that you do have to be almost in a I don't want to say scarcity mindset, but that the pie isn't big enough to spend on every single thing like you had mentioned before, expend extravagantly on things that matter to you. And so I think bridging that line, sometimes I feel like, it's hard for people to switch back right between the Oh abundant, like, I can earn more, I can earn six figures and more, I can be a millionaire, I can spend money and invest in this thing. But then on the other side, it's like, wait, but should I spend $20 on this, you know, lunch with a friend because it can help me pay off this thing faster? So what are your thoughts on that, that that scarcity mindset that I think is taught within the expenses side of things, but then on the same respect, abundance mindset that I think we need to have if we're trying to create income?

Ramit Sethi 17:08

Most people, quite frankly, in America, are raised with a scarcity mentality. And it pervades everything we do. It is little phrases at the dinner table that parents might say, like, "we don't talk about money in this family", or we're not like those people. Okay, these are little phrases that accumulate with the weight of tons on our shoulders, and their generational grandmothers and grandfathers pass them down, which passes down and pass it down to you. For many of us raised with these kind of generational messages, it's impossibly difficult to even imagine earning more, we say to ourselves, "must be nice." I really hate that phrase must be nice. You know, it is nice, actually, it is nice to be able to break free and say, "Wow, I can look at the world through totally different lenses." So please stop saying must be nice. We tell ourselves, "I can't do that. Because insert reason, you know, I didn't go to the right college, etc." Now, I do want to say that when I talk about these generational messages, they have close echoes with these systemic issues that have been being raised. And I really want to take a second to acknowledge them. Because I think in the self development world, I typically find that people are very gung ho about personal responsibility. I love that. I really do love that I think we should take personal responsibility, we should work with the tools that we've been given, and then try to accumulate or build more tools. But I also think it's frankly, absurd not to acknowledge that there are systemic issues going on. And I think you can acknowledge both. Yes, there are systemic issues, there are race issues, there are gender issues, there are a lot of issues that are real, and you can't deny you simply look at the data and say this is real. But I also think we can say, "Okay, what can I do? My personal self, what can I do? What actions can I take?" And we all start at different bases. It's not fair. And we should work to fix those. I'm trying to do that myself with the money I have, in the time I have, in the audience I have. But I also know that day to day I need to focus on my own personal responsibility. So I just want to say that because I've just noticed it in self development it drives me a little bit crazy. People saying like, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It's like, we have a single parent here, who works 60 hours a week and you're talking about, you know, maxing out some backdoor IRA. It's like, come on, let's be real here. But let's also know that we have different goals. We have different levels we might be able to achieve. And we can do both. We can accept that. There are systemic changes. Let's try to change those. We can also say, "alright, I'm going to focus on what I can control in my own life. And I'm going to start there." So I just had to say that because it's been on my mind, especially in a time like this, and I want more people in the self development world to acknowledge that it's not just you pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, there are issues that are larger than us. And they're very real.

Jamila Souffrant 20:18

Yeah, it's complex. And I think, and I'm glad that you brought that up. And even it relates to the scarcity and abundance mindset. I think stuff like that also is generational, you can be raised within a generation and within a culture, where that is what's thought or expected of you. And a lot of times, especially if you don't want to breaking free from that may involve changing everything you once knew, or every everything you were once were taught. And that's hard for a lot of people. So I think exposing, right like, even that's why I love bringing on different types of people onto the show, even things that I'm scared to do, or I wouldn't necessarily do right now. I'm just like, I want to talk about it. I want to expose my audience to this, because sometimes all it takes is that seed.

Ramit Sethi 20:58

I'll share a couple examples from my own life, because I think we all decide a slightly different path for ourselves. And some of us decide small changes, some of us decide quite large changes. But it always starts with something small. So when I was a kid, I went to work at a pizza place, I was a soccer referee. These were kind of unusual decisions for an Indian kid who was groomed to be a spelling bee champion, okay? And then when I went to college, you know, technically I should have been majoring in computer science or I should have been pre-med. That's what everybody in my culture kind of did. I decided not to. I worked on my own major and cobbled it together, and then went with STS and all this stuff, again, should have gone and worked at Cisco or Google, those were good, safe choices, decided to start my own company with a couple of co founders. And even from a fitness perspective, we were not raised to work out go to the gym, it wasn't really part of my upbringing. And that, I think my it took me till my mid to late 20s, where I said, "You know what, I want to learn fitness, I want to look better." And it started out, purely vanity to be very candid, and then got help of trainers and teachers. And eventually, I fell in love with the craft. And then one last thing. I decided not to buy house for now. And this is a quite controversial thing, especially for Americans who are raised to believe that buying a house- the best investment of all, that's not true. There are lots of reasons why you can rent and rent by choice, you should never feel guilty about renting, you are not throwing money away. Listen, if anyone ever tells you you're throwing money away on rent, just turn around and say this, "Last week, when you ate out at that restaurant, did you throw money away?" And then they're gonna say, "Well, why would you pay your landlord's mortgage safe? How'd you feel paying that restaurant tours? Mortgage?" The analogy makes no sense. So we can get into real estate as well. Point is you can make different changes in your life, and eventually went on to run my own business and you know, help a lot of people. I think for each of us the first time we try something different, whether it's dressing a little differently, deciding to go to a different church or temple, or not go at all, deciding whether to have children or not have children where to live, what to do with our money. These are huge decisions in the scheme of a lifetime. They are minor. But at the moment when you make them, you're already feeling a little insecure. I don't know. Is this the right move? I'm not sure. And then somebody's gonna come knocking on your door, man. Maybe it's family, maybe it's friends? Why would you wear that? Oh, what kind of weird diet is this? And we have to build the skills of being able to say,"You know what, I don't know if I'm right. But I'm going to try. And I'm going to see how it goes." And I found that that is just an awesome part of living an experimental life.

Jamila Souffrant 23:59

Yeah, two things, question everything. And it's okay to change your mind. Don't be so committed to concept that you you fail to look at the other side. So I love all that. Now, one thing I love about, like what you do and how you talk, so you talked about real estate already. And we can like dive into that. Because I know there are a lot of people who think about real estate in a way where it can build wealth. And I agree for the simple fact that if even if you're buying your home, your home that you plan to live in a single family home at that you're looking at it still as an investment, right? Like you don't get trapped into the American dream that this will provide everything for you because some people go in with just that frame of reference that goal and then it's like really not. But I actually want to talk about how you present yourself online and in the world because I think that impacts people's money and how they earn money. I find that you are incredibly like real with the way you speak and you don't really have a problem with what you say doesn't agree with what someone else is thinking or saying, right? I don't want to say offensive, I don't think it's that I think it's more just like you're not afraid to be yourself. And I find that the more I am becoming myself, right, and I'm like, kind of like stopping to care what people think of me, the better I'm doing in earning money. And I think so many people listening are like, they're stuck into this, "I want people to like me," you know, it's community and they don't want to like break from the fold. Can you talk more about that, like stepping into your own and not being afraid to not be liked and how that impacts your money?

Ramit Sethi 25:28

I don't think of it as if I am more authentic, then more people won't like me that. Because if you create that equation in your head, then you will always lose. Okay, so that's not the equation. That's not the way I think of it. I think of what I'm doing as I love to find out how something really works. And I always feel like, like, ever since I was a kid, maybe I was absent on the day where they taught that I was absent on the day where they talk fitness. I certainly was not one of those 16 year old kids who was deadlifting. I didn't even know what deadlifting was. So you know, I see I'm just going on the fitness thing for a second. I didn't know that stuff. Nobody taught me. And so I became really, really interested in how does it actually work? What's the truth. And as I started to dig into it, I started realize there's a lot of lies in this industry a lot. And when I finally and I tested a lot of this stuff, I tried it, I went down dead ends. And I finally figured out how it actually works. How can you change your body? And that was awesome. It feels like you have this truth. These lenses you can put on that help you actually see through all the noise and get to the truth. Same with money. Wow, so many lies in the financial industry. Whoa, these annuities, you need to buy an annuity because it's good, it's safe, I will guarantee you a safe amount. Shut the hell up. You should not be selling these bull annuities to school teachers and telling them a whole guaranteed guaranteed 2% withdraw, really, what about the other 5 to 6%? Where's that going directly in your pocket? That took me a long time to figure out, it drives me insane that a school teacher like my mom would be taken advantage of by some salesperson with these nice looking brochures, who's really preying on a school teacher, school teachers no way you can expect him or her to be as financially sophisticated as somebody on wall street or as me. And so it infuriated me that the average person has to become an expert, just to do well at a few parts of life, money, business, fitness and nutrition. You know what a few of those important areas why I wish society it was just a little easier for us to succeed. So that is the way that I approach it. I don't sit here and say if somebody's gonna like me or somebody not. No. I say, "How can I find out the truth? And then how can I share that in a way that connects with other people?" So when I talk about buying a house, a lot of people get mad, because they have been fed propaganda for their entire lives, that the house is the American dream. You know who created that? The National Association of Realtors, okay. And that's a fairly recent phenomenon. I don't care if somebody gets mad. That's not my concern. I care that I'm showing people the truth of what I discovered. And if they don't agree, that's okay. I always say, "look, here's how you can decide for yourself, you should run the numbers, here are the numbers you should consider. " That might not make sense. For example, living in Manhattan is very different than living in Ohio, the numbers are going to be different, the considerations would be different. And honestly, there's some times where numbers aren't really that important. But I don't think you should. Or at least I'll say I don't approach it as "Should I be myself or should I tell? Should people like me?" That's not the equation. It's for me personally, I want to learn how this works. And then I want to share it with other people. And I think that people crave someone showing them what was really going on.

Jamila Souffrant 29:20

Yeah, and it's actually okay not to agree with something that someone else is thinking if this is your truth, what you've realized, and you have evidence to back it up, that's fine. Someone listening can say, "Well, I've done the math I've, I have my own like evidence that this works." And that's fine, too. I don't think that you necessarily have to just x everything else out that someone is saying but I think when it comes to earning money, I think showing up as yourself right and whatever truth that is accepting that you can say something today and not that it's not that it's being flaky if you change your mind, but also giving yourself the ability to change your mind if you get better data or different information or come to a different understanding. That's fine too. But I just find that, you know, when it comes to people and earning money, one of the biggest blocks is what the perception what people are going to think. Like so even for going in, asking for a raise, or selling things right? Now that I'm entrepreneur like, like trying to, you know, selling something online, right, you have to literally, like step out of what you think people are gonna think of you in order to succeed. And I think that goes across all spectrums.

Ramit Sethi 30:23

Yeah, I think that's a good point. It's no surprise that we care what other people think, of course, we care, I care, you care, we all care. And we care in particular about what the people close to us care about our family, our friends, the people we really respect. But if you put yourself out there on social media, you know, you can say something and there can be an onslaught of people who are angry, offended, disagree. I'll tell you, when I first started, I sold a $4.95 cent ebook. This was the first time I ever sold anything. It was 2006. I had been writing my blog for over two years. And I just want to see if anybody would buy anything online. Does anybody pay on the internet? I don't know. So I decided to find out, I sold an E book. I had such low self confidence that I didn't even create a payment shopping cart thing. I literally said, here's a PayPal button, PayPal me the money. And then I will email you the PDF, because I thought maybe 50 people would buy it and I could just manually do it. I was cowardly and scared. You could see my old sales copy-it's still up. I was like, "Why should you pay for this? Well, I know you can get a lot of it for free, but..." I'm like trying to convince them I call it selling from your heels. It's just so gross. You if you ever see someone who's trying to sell you something like,"These shoes are really good. I know, you could go cobble the leather together and use your stapler to tie it. But I think um, yeah, it'd be nice if maybe you paid me like $7 for these shoes." And you're just like, "get out of here." So I did that. That's how I did it. I didn't know any better. I put online. And two things happen. Number one, I got a lot of angry comments. And they were like, "Oh, I will teach you to be rich, more like I will teach Ramit to be rich." And then you know all these people saying, "Well, maybe if it was 52 cents, I would consider it a $4 and 99. That's outrageous." And it really hurt. It really did. Because I had been writing for free almost every day for over two years. And I thought to myself, I don't care about $5. That's not changing my life. I just wanted to see if somebody would buy, I want to see if I could put this thing together and actually sell it. And it really hurt that people were kind of maligning my intentions like as if I had it was all a trick. And for two years, I wrote all this stuff just so I could make $5 per person, like, do you think on that cheap? Do you think $5 is really what I did? If so, I'm certainly not going to do that for $5. And now I've been around for over 16 years. I'm not going to do that at any price. But there was something else happening. Number two, while some of these whiners and freeloaders were leaving angry comments, there were also people quietly buying, and they bought a lot. I sold over 1000 copies of that ebook. And interestingly, I started to be able to track the math, the people who bought read more of my material, they opened my emails more. They were much better customers than the people who complained about $5. So that really launched me this curiosity into how come I have this loud minority of people complaining. But I have this other group who's quietly buying and then they're emailing me saying, "Hey, what's next? That was really good, you have something else?" So that really was the genesis for the next two to three years where I tried to figure out sales psychology, how does this work? And you know, I learned a lot of lessons from that. But one of them is to acknowledge yes, you will get people who are uncomfortable when you sell something. It's going to happen. So acknowledge it. And rather than hope it's not going to happen. I pray that you are strong enough and build the skills to be strong enough that you can withstand the kind of comments that now wouldn't faze me I get them a lot, but it's just a Tuesday. But back then it was truly devastating and really hard.

Jamila Souffrant 34:35

Yeah, I could totally relate to all that I'm now as I'm going through, you know, making a living and earning like this is no longer a side hustle, right? And and I always say I love you say you have this quote, "The shameful truth about money experts, they really don't know how to earn more." And one of the things that I thought about because I have a lot of personal finance friends in the space, we talk a lot and not like downing them or anything because I'm kind of in same boat, although I feel like I'm seeing the light more is that they actually have a really hard time selling anything, and asking people for money, but then in the same regard, like they tell their audience, you know, negotiate, you know, you know your worth, and I find that a lot of times, like, they're not honoring that within themselves. And I'm just and I don't want to be that. Like my worst fear is to like create this like massive brand and audience and helping people which when you know, I want to help people, but I, myself am like struggling and poor, because I'm not valuing my own time. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. But I thought I think it's interesting that whole dynamic.

Ramit Sethi 35:39

Well, first of all, I love what you said about my worst fear. I feel like that's an awesome question. Because asking someone their worst fear really shares a lot about them, like my worst fear is 20 years from now, and I'm talking about Roth IRAs again, no, I don't want to be on this planet if I have to talk about Roth IRAs. Here's my book here, have it read there. Okay. And so what you can tell from that answer is that I like exploring new ideas. I don't want to be sitting here 25 years from now talking about the same thing. That would be a failure for me. I think it's interesting. I do say indeed that why don't most financial experts talk about earning more? The answer is they don't know how. And you have to remember who are most of the financial experts? They're writing magazine articles, now blog articles, and they continue the old messages of cut back on lattes. If you save 386,000 lattes, maybe by the age of 90, you will have enough money to go on a three day cruise. Okay, so just just go ahead and live in a cave for the next 87 years. I don't like that. And that was not the kind of life I wanted to live, right? Starting from when I was in college, I was like, I want to go out with my friends, I want to have fun, I want to live in San Francisco or New York or LA. And I want to have these experiences where I take my family on vacations with me that kind of stuff. Again, that's not for everybody. If you're in $65,000 of debt, you probably do need to cut back on your spending quite dramatically. So there are very good people out there who focus specifically on debt. And I recommend them if you are in that situation, but that was not for me. And that's not for my readers. So as you're listening, you probably have a sense like, "Okay, do I need to cut back on to pay off my debt? Or am I ready to focus on automation, money, psychology, perhaps even earning more salary negotiation, business, all those things? "

I will say that on the financial expert side, I gave a talk many years ago at Fin Con, where I talked about how to earn more. And people were curious, but back then it was a bit early. This was years ago. And the only way that most people in the financial world were earning more was through affiliate revenue. I have to say that the industry has gotten much more sophisticated. There are so many cool things people are doing now there's subscription programs, there's ebooks, there's affiliate of the so many things. What I love is watching people turn the page to the new chapter of their lives. And I will say it's very difficult to take an audience that you may have told for years and years,"Cut back, cut back, cut back on everything. Oh, by the way, you got to buy my ebook for 9.95." They're not gonna buy your ebook, because you've cultivated an audience that is cheap. And you've taught them that being cheap is morally superior. I'm sorry to say it's gonna be really difficult for you. On the other hand, if you have said, "Hey, we do need to cut back there are some here's some big areas you can cut back, I call big wins. Do these, and then you don't have to think about it again. But now let's talk about other parts of personal finance." That becomes something that I think more sophisticated people are open to like your listeners. I hear you you're talking about cutting back and managing your spending. Okay, great. We know we need to do that. Okay, I agree we do. Even I manage my spending, right? Until very recently, I used an eight year old computer. I have a 15 year old car. It's fine. I don't care about that. It's works, it runs. But on the other hand, I also talk about spending extravagantly on the things I love and a lot because it's important to me. So I think people are ready for that message. And it's been very exciting to share it I Will Teach You to Be Rich.

Jamila Souffrant 39:37

Yeah. And I love that. That's why I really love your content in that regard. And also, if you want the financial independence space, what I am hoping to my message is that people who I've spoken to you know, I've reached a level of independence not completely yet, but I've gotten to a level of work where work is flexible in certain areas and When I first started, you know, I was more following or looking at people who were just talking about cutting back and not spending a lot of money. And I'm like, "I don't want to live that life actually, like I actually, I want to take luxury vacations one day, right now, we're not obviously, one of my dreams is to buy my husband a luxury car because that's his thing."

Ramit Sethi 40:18

Wait wait wait which car tell me!

Jamila Souffrant 40:19

I don't know, I have to talk to this friend to see what's I don't know, I have no clue. What's it? I have no idea.

Ramit Sethi 40:24

Okay, I just I love I love seeing you light up. When you talk about buying your husband, this car. I just love it. And that's kind of what I was getting at earlier, we talked about a rich life. Like, it's so fascinating that for you, part of a rich life is spending money on your husband, I think that's awesome. And I love that you got as specific as the car. And you know, when the time is right, you'll know the exact car model and all that. That is cool. That is something that drives you I can tell. And that is I want all of us to have that level of specificity. Freedom is just a word, freedom doesn't mean anything. But saying I'm gonna buy my husband, a Tesla, or a Volvo, or we're saying whatever. That is a specific goal. And I love hearing that.

Jamila Souffrant 41:14

And see, that's the thing where, you know, I realized that there has to be a balance on achieving this goal of financial independence. And I will give up the timeframe like if it takes me a longer time, because I'm enjoying it more. And because I'm spending consciously on things that matter to me, like, I actually find myself spending more money on things now being home because of quality of life improving that for myself. And so and that's what I want my audience to figure out. But I also feel like, let's be real income is a big part of that, like most people who reach financial independence we're doing these things are, are doing it because of their income. Like, yes, they're being conscious of what they spend, but it's the earning more that helps, helps out the mass amounts that they're able to save. So when it comes to people earning more, what are some ways in which listeners journeyers right now we're thinking "Okay, I need to focus on earning,"what can they start to do to, to change that for themselves?

Ramit Sethi 42:12

Okay, so I want to teach a simple model that we use, which can help you with your finances, it's called the CEO model. The C is for cut costs, all of us are familiar with this, my suggestion to people when it comes to cutting costs is that most of us, we focus, trying to cut 3% here, 5% there, 6% there, and then our life is just miserable.It's like, if you want the coffee, get the coffee, that's not going to make a big change in your life. In the grand scheme. What I would recommend instead is pick the two areas where you spend the most discretionary money on, typically that is eating out. And for my younger readers, at least it used to be drinking. So I was like, "Guys, come on." And what I recommend is over the course of six months, you target cutting that by 15 to 20%. That's nice and gradual, it's good, it's not gonna affect your quality of life much. But you can do that. And when you do that, that's actually a lot of money just on two things, focus on the big wins done. E earning more as part of the CEO strategy. So many things you can do here. So starting a business, that's amazing. I teach a lot of this, I have a program called earnable, iwt.com/earn, I want to give you a couple of examples of students who have done awesome stuff. Remember those wine and paint classes that people used to go to create, especially with your canvas example. It's perfect. Now, one of my students does it on zoom. So there you are on a Friday night, you got nothing else to do, hey, let's take a painting class hundred bucks. Awesome. One of my students set that up. And you can do it through zoom. I love that. I took a I think it was a margarita making class through zoom. If you have a skill, whether it's English, you can teach that and be paid walking dogs, Excel, there's so many different things you can teach online. And you can generate serious scalable revenue. So that's earnable iwt.com/earn. There's also negotiating your salary. I teach a lot of this on youtube for free. You can see the videos where I actually do these these role plays, and I show people okay, this what you say they're going to say this now how are you going to respond? We talked about body language, I show you the exact answers. A lot of people petrified to negotiate, "Oh, my boss will just recognize me, right?" Wrong. You need to advocate for yourself. And so I show you how to do that I even have a program on how to do that on our products page. So those are a few ways you can earn more. And like I say there's a limit to how much you can cut but no limit to how much you can earn. And then final thing I just want to talk about the CEO strategy O for optimize your spending. These are five phone calls you can make right now where you can potentially save over $1,000 here's what you call you call your cable company, you call your cell phone company, you call your student loan company, credit card company. And if and even call your landlord, if you are renting, here's what you say "COVID-19 is making it difficult for me to be able to pay, what options do you have for somebody like me?" Now, of course, this needs to be true. If you're making $600,000, don't make this phone call. Okay, just fast forward for now. But if it's true, there are a lot of people who, for whom it's difficult to make these payments, guess what, my students have used this script, which is directly from my book just modified for COVID. Their cable company says, "oh, no problem, we'll give you a different program." They save 600 bucks right off that phone call. Another credit card company will lower their APR, depending on their balance, they can save thousands, same for student loans. And you can negotiate your rent in certain situations. And NYC is a perfect example. So I want people to use the CEO strategy. And hopefully from listening to that. It's such a different approach. From this sort of, Eyeore "Oh there's nothing you can do life is horrible. Just retreat into your cave." No, wake up, let's take control. Let's focus CEO, let's do it. Yeah, let's create our rich life. All of those things are covered in much more detail in my material, my book, my programs, but I wanted to share that with you right now. So you know, today, by the end of today, you can have $1,000 more by making some of these phone calls and making some of the moves we just covered.

Jamila Souffrant 46:28

All right, I love that lots of actionable tips, I will get all these links in the show notes for people to get from you. And I do want to end it on this note. It's this is more of like, hopefully this will help people listening. But this is really a question for me. So you, you know, you wrote a wonderful personal finance book. And it sold a lot of copies. Not just that, but it also impacted lives. It was like different from what the time it came out. I am now you know, starting my book writing journey. I've had agents write out contact me It's funny, because depending on when this episode airs, I may have some news about that. I may not we'll see. But now my question to you is because I don't want to just write another here you go book that like, doesn't make a mark on the world. Like if I'm writing a book, I'm going to spend the time and to do that. I want it to be remarkable. So What tips do you have, right? Because there's so much that can be said that can be googled in personal finance. What tips would you give for someone like myself who wants to write something who wants to, to give something to the world that's different that will help kind of in the way that you've done and to be able to like execute on that in the right way?

Ramit Sethi 47:34

The rarest thing in the world is a point of view. When I was young in my early 20s, I lived in Silicon Valley, and I would attend a lot of talks, technology talks. And at one point I spoke on a panel. And another speaker was a very famous guy named Guy Kawasaki. After we finished our panel, I tapped him on the shoulder and I asked if I could ask him something. He said, "Sure." I said, "I want to speak more. Like you, how can I do it?" And he looked at me. And he said, "focus on building something valuable first, then you can talk about it." And as an early 20, something guy that was a bit humiliating, and humbling to hear, you know, you have this famous legendary guy who's just like, just like do something first. But over time, I came to realize he was exactly right. And speaking is not really the point. Having something to say is the point. With personal finance, when I started off, I had some traditional views I in fact, I still have some traditional views. But back then I would talk about budgeting. I hate budgeting now. I don't talk about budgeting. In fact, I have a totally different approach called conscious spending chapter four. I would talk about why it was a waste. To spend money on one hour film developing, I still remember writing that post. First of all, we don't really develop film anymore. But second, now I can see lots of reasons why you would pay more for a premium service. The best advice I can give is to develop a point of view first. The book is just like speaking that's not the point. The reason I Will Teach you to Be Rich has been so successful, reprinted and changed after 10 years is that it's totally different from every other personal finance book out there. It has a system. It has money psychology built in. It includes tactics that nobody else to this day has included including the words to use in chapter one that you can call your credit card and get fees refunded right, they're all that came from my blog, my emails, building a relationship with people and creating a point of view. Now I love that you have gotten to the point where agents are approaching you. That's awesome. That's amazing. That's so rare. The best thing you can do is be judicious about whether it is the right time or not. The more successful you get in life, the more people are going to knock on your door and offer you things. But the most successful people know when to say yes. And they also know when to say no. So the best advice I can give you is to develop a point of view. By the time you write your book, whether it's now or years from now, you will already know beforehand. If it has a good chance of being impactful and a best seller and changing lives, you will know that because you will be hearing from your readers every single day with what they are taking away from you. So it's not the book. It's not the speaking engagements, it's having a point of view, that is the most rare thing on earth.

Jamila Souffrant 50:55

I love that. Thank you so much for me. So this was amazing. Please tell my journeyers where they can follow up with you and see what you got going on.

Ramit Sethi 51:04

You can find me at iwt.com-that's my homepage. If you're interested in earning more, Iwt.com/earn, you can get on a waitlist there and we have some amazing material to share with you. I'm on Instagram @Ramit. I'm on Twitter @Ramit. And that, that's pretty I don't know where else I am up somewhere else. But there you go.

I'll link all that in the episode shownotes thank you so much again for coming on and having this amazing conversation. Thank you.

Jamila Souffrant 51:39

Okay, journeyers I really hope you enjoyed that conversation with Ramit, I know I did. And if you want the episode shownotes you can go to JourneytoLaunch.com/Episode 177. I also want to remind you that you can still sign up for the free class I'm doing on October 22, where I'll be talking about financial freedom and independence and how you can create your roadmap, go to JourneytoLaunch.com/freeclass to get your seat and join me.

Okay, now as I promised, I'm going to share more about book writing. So at the end of the conversation with Ramit, I asked him a question about his just book writing process and how he developed and created his book in terms of how do you create something that stands out? And the reason why I asked that was because I'm in my own book writing journey. And I figured that, you know, let me share some behind the scenes because oftentimes we wait. And you know, I don't think I'm the only one who does this. But we wait to share the results when we know what's happening. And I kind of want to share with you guys what's happening in real time, because perhaps it'll be helpful. And what's crazy is this, I'm recording this part of the episode a few weeks before it's released. So who knows what can change between the time I record this and the time it's released. But as it stands now, this is what's going on. So I've always wanted to write a book, I remember when I was like a little girl I was I was like I wrote a lot, I had a lot of stories in my head. So I always thought maybe I'd be a writer one day, but then you know, life happens and you grew up. And so it's not something that was like, big on my list of things to do. Then I started Journey to Launch and started sharing more as a podcaster. And then I realized, like, "wow, actually, I could write a book. And maybe it will be about personal finance, you know, my financial independence journey."A way basically to take what I do on this podcast, and my philosophies and put it in a book, because not everyone listens to podcasts, right? Like books, I believe reach actually more people, and are super affordable to write and you can take with you it's a just a different type of medium. So in my head, I thought okay, writing a book is something that's definitely on my list of things I want to do one day. And the thing about it is I was approached a couple years ago, to write a book by, you know, it wasn't it was like by one of those companies that they just wanted me to almost write a checklist of a book, they were looking just for an author to write a book about financial independence. And it wasn't the kind of deal I wanted. So you know, in publishing, and I'll probably do a whole separate episode, once I understand what's really happening with this journey of my book. But in publishing, you can either go the self publishing route, or you can go with a big publisher. And for me, I've just always had dreams of going with a big publisher to get that just backing of, "hey, you have an official book" and the press around it. And just the support, right? I don't envision me wanting to do this on my own. So when the company approached me a couple years ago, it was more of like a small company that just wanted to write like a checklist or a manual about financial independence. It didn't really matter who wrote it, they just wanted someone to write a book on it. And so I just didn't envision that being the kind of book I wanted to write and spend my time doing. So I was like, "You know what, I'm just gonna wait." And it's crazy because I have so many friends in the personal finance space that have amazing In books like Grant Sebata, with financial freedom and Christine Price, about Quit like a Millionaire, and Tanya, who will wrote Work Optional and Clever Girl Finance Bola and her books that are coming out. So it's like I know a lot of people who have amazing books. So I know it's possible, right? But I'm just like, "you know what, when the time is right, you will figure it out, you know, you need to book agent, you need to do all these things." And I gotta be honest, I'm kind of lazy, which is hard to believe, right? I'm not like lazy, I guess that's the wrong way to say it. I like things being easy. So I don't want to chase down and make my life more complicated and busy than needs to. So in terms of like trying to get an agent. So typically, you need an agent first. So you need to sign with an agent, a book agent who will help you then develop your pitch, then and help you now pitch to publishers, the big publishers, right. And so the book process is a long process, it can take years to you know, really land up the proper agent, and then to land with a proper publisher. So the first step is just to get an agent. And I was like, "Oh, well, I know, I can probably get introduced to an agent through one of my finance friends that have books. But if I do that, you know, I have to really, really clear about my proposal and what this book is going to be about. And I was like, you know, I really don't know what I want this book to be about. I have so many ideas. So it's like maybe I need to wait until I know, there's a book in me that can't be held back." And I got an email a few months ago, from a literary agent. So the person reached out to me and it was like, "This is exactly the kind of thing I want to happen. I want someone to like just see me, like almost like a, like, just save me save me see what I do and be like, you know what, I got you, girl, I'll be your agent. You don't have to search for me. I'll be it." So this person emailed me a lady and she was like, "I love what you do with Journey to Launch. I get it, I get you. And I think we have a book here." So I was really excited. I was like, "Yes, this is exactly what I've been waiting for." So I had the conversation with that literary agent, and it went well. And I was like, "Okay, this is possible. This may happen, that I got an agent in 2020." And so I was excited about that. And it started to get me thinking, so I had that meeting with the agent, it went well. But I also knew from talking and so after I had the meeting with the agent, I spoke to a bunch of people who have booked deals, and who went through this process already. And they were like, that's great. You know, make sure you ask her these questions, it doesn't hurt to look around, because you never know. Because you really do need the right agent to help you land at the right place and get you the right deal with the right publisher. So I just started to look around. I'm one of those people, when I get interested in something then I just like search all around about it. You know, I read blogs about it. I listened to podcasts about it. So I started to anything that had anything to do with publishing, publishing on podcast, I would listen to it. So I started to listen to a podcast and they had a literary agent on it. And I really liked this literary agents like hold approach and style. And then I went to her site. And I realized that she did a lot of nonfiction books like in the way that I would want a Journey to Launch book be. So I was like, "You know what? Let me shoot my shot and email her, especially since I already had like a literary agent reach out to me, I was like, You know what, let me reach out to this other one, just to see what happens. And to compare notes." So that way, I'm not even if this first literary agent, because what happened with that was, it was like, "Okay, let's pause and let's think about concepts." So it wasn't really, you know, anything signed, it was more like, let's think about it some more. So in the meantime, I was like, let me explore my options. So I find this other agent where I think she would be perfect to be my agent based on the work she's done. And just her whole agency and how they work. I email her tell her about myself about you know, I have this idea of writing a book, here's my podcast and my brand. And she emails me back, which you know, sometimes like these agents get probably tons of emails. So the fact that she emailed me back was very promising. And we got on a phone call. And the phone call was very promising. She was very nice. And she said, "Okay, send me some ideas, send me some sample chapters and things you may want to write about." So I sent her that list about like a week later. And I'm thinking, "Okay, this is happening." Maybe this is the agent for me, who knows, right? Like, let's see what she says like when I sent her my ideas. And then about like, a week after that, she emailed me back, and she was like, she was so nice. And I was so appreciative of her honesty. And she was like,"Look, you obviously have a strong brand and voice. And there's a book in you, but I know I don't know that I'm the right agent for you for this." And she mentioned she didn't feel like she had the right connections at the right publishing houses where this could land and be what it should be. And, you know, I was like, wow, like, you know, of course I was a little disappointed because in my head I'm thinking maybe this is the agent because just to backtrack, that first agent that reached out to me she she had a baby in the process of all This. So she's like,"Okay, we're going to take a pause, and we'll revisit working with you maybe in the future when the time is right." So I was tota- Hello, I have three kids, I get it and life. So I was like, "Okay, no problem." So with this new agent, I said to myself, "Well, maybe this is it, right? Maybe there's a reason why this is all happening." So when she emailed me and said, "You know, I don't know that I'm the right one for you. And I, you know, I only basically, I only want to take this on if I can make it work". So I really appreciated that honesty, because it showed me that one, she's really good at what she does, because she's not taking on things that she can't make sure that in her heart, and in her mind, like really works. And then also, for me, after the disappointment subsided, you know, I started to think maybe this isn't it, right like, not that I'm not going to write a book. But maybe right now is not the time, I am so busy journeyers, as you can imagine, with the kids, and Journey to Launch and you know, I'm redoing the website. So that's something I haven't talked about here, but JourneytoLaunch.com is getting a whole new look. And so I've been working on that working on so many, like amazing projects behind the scenes. And I know writing a book is like a whole nother level. Like you literally have to dedicate hours and hours like to get a book done. And it's not something you can do in a month. So I know if I were to even write a proposal right now and get it out and then get a book deal, it would be a lot. So as I always think I'm looking at what's the opportunity in this situation. And for me, it's, this may not be the right time, maybe it's not now because something better is upon the horizon. And that's how my life has always been, you know, every disappointment or everything that's been a no, has always lead to something that I couldn't even have imagined. That's even been better. And so I wanted to share that with you. Because typically, like, if I were to get like signed by agent and then get a book deal, I talked about that, right, you'll see the highlight reel of the good and the Yes, and then you say"Wow, like Jamila, it's like all happening all the time for her." And while I feel like it is because even when things aren't happening, or if I get to know it's still, for my benefit, I want to show like in the middle of the journey, not understanding or knowing how this will play out. So as of now I don't have a literary agent, and I don't have a book deal. Well, that would come after the agent anyway. And I got turned down right by agent that I really thought would maybe work and all this to say that I truly believe when the time is right, it will all happen. So maybe it's not in 2020 will happen. Maybe it's 2021, maybe it's 2025 I'm walking with the faith, that whenever it happens, it's gonna happen. It's not that it's not gonna happen. It's just like when it happens. And when it happens, all the pieces will be aligned to serve and to help this be an epic, monumental piece of work. You know, I don't want to create just a book for the sake of it either. I don't want to just like another personal finance book. I want this to make waves, I want this to maybe change the way people think about money. And I don't want to base it on like how many sales it is I want to base it on its impact the way I base this podcast. And so until I have like all the stars aligned to make that happen, I'm okay with it not happening. And I'm just following, following the journey, just one foot in front of the other. So I wanted to share that share that with you. Maybe right now you got declined about something, maybe you got disappointed in something that you think is supposed to be and it hasn't happened yet. I just want to encourage you that that'll happen to everyone. You know, regardless of if people are sharing it or not, well, we are all getting no's sometimes like it's okay, but that it will happen for you when it's the right time. Right just like it will for me just like a will for you. So, once to share my little book, journey with you. Maybe you know, I'll have a whole new episode next year about signing a book deal. Who knows, but I'm gonna leave you with that. All right.

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai