Episode 40: How do I become rich?

GRANT: Hey Mak.

MAK: What’s up G?

GRANT: Do you know what happens when you start early?

MAK: I do G. You go wealthy.

BOTH: It’s time or money with Mak & G. Finance for you and your family.

GRANT: Season Eight is here. And that’s another milestone. And with all these stones, we’re building up a great foundation. I love it. And we’re back.

MAK: It feels pretty awesome. And we’re also in our new digs. A great podcast studio and this house is great. Have you seen my view from my bedroom?

GRANT: Yeah, it’s awesome. You get to see the waterphone all day and night, so it’s soothing.

MAK: You get to be closer to the bathroom in order to give you more time to fix your beautiful hair sculpture.

GRANT: Hey, art takes time. Even DaVinci took over 14 years to paint the Mona Lisa.

MAK: You got me on that one. I guess it took a long time to draw a woman that you’re not sure it’s happy or sad.

GRANT: It’s still hard, just like my hair.

MAK: Okay, point made. We got a good thing going though, even with all the ups and downs. And we’ve had options because mom and Dad worked hard, saved and invested.

GRANT: Yep, I know that there are people who have it better and those who have it worse for sure. But I think before we have. Do you know that we’ve never known mom or Dad before they had money? They didn’t even have much growing up.

MAK: Yeah. How would you like to share one bathroom in the morning between five brothers and a sister, get your body out of the shower or talk about being forced to learn how to share and agree that you didn’t have a lot of hot water for showers.

GRANT: Uncle Brian said you had to be up early because the early bird gets the worm.

MAK: Too funny. Then both mom and Dad lived with their parents for years after college because they couldn’t afford an apartment. Did you know that?

GRANT: I didn’t I guess I need to go on more walks with you guys. How do you think they got from not having much to having options and Money?

MAK: Do you think the parents taught them what they needed to know and do in order to keep and grow money?

GRANT: You know, I don’t think we’ve ever asked.

MAK: I know what’s next.

BOTH: Hey, Dad, how did you learn to be wealthy?

GRANT: Dad, where do you want to ask you a question? Who who?

MAK: I think he’s heading in the basement again. That’s his new sanctuary.

GRANT: I think it might be my new sanctuary too. Ah, what’s the sanctuary?

MAK: Grant, it’s a place where you feel safe and secure and makes you feel really comfortable.

GRANT: That works for me, because it’s really comfy down here. There’s going to be a lot of historic video game playing done right here in my sanctuary chair.

MAK: Feel your big brother. That table over there is perfect for doing my crafts. I won’t even have to clean it every day. Like when I used to live in our kitchen apartment.

GRANT: Hey, Dad, you down here. Oh, there you are. What are you doing?

MAK: Yeah, it’s too quiet for me down here. And you’re just sitting there in the dark? Are you reading something?

DAD: I am. A little reading about money always puts me in a good mood. I love it. And it’s one of my favorite books.

GRANT: Which one is it? Is it bond derivatives and inverted interest rate curve environment?

DAD: If I could understand the bond derivatives? No, but that one is really good, too. This book has lessons that I love to revisit, and they can be passed down to your kids, which is you guys.

MAK: No way. We were going to ask how you learned about money? Not the fancy stuff. But the normal stuff.

GRANT: Was it through books, or was it from your Dad?

DAD: Actually, some were from books. And it was from my mom. But you have to understand my grandfather’s.

GRANT: Those are your mom’s Dad in your Dad’s Dad. Right?

DAD: That’s exactly what I mean. We all learn a lot from our parents, whether we are trying to or not. But my Dad’s Dad came off a farm and my mom’s Dad focused on money and accounting.

GRANT: That sounds like it might explain some things. We did learn about the outhouse and using the Sears catalog last season. Now that’s something I could have lived my entire life without learning.

DAD: Agreed. Now, one grandfather worked with his hands and the other with his mind. One ended up with some land and the other invested in many things, including stocks, bonds, companies and more.

GRANT: So mom passed down some good advice from our father.

DAD: Absolutely. He was a pretty humble smart guy who was really focused on education. Children, it’s time to learn multiplication. So he forced us to learn from others because he knew that others knew more about making money.

MAK: Is that why you like to read so much and require us to read every day?

DAD: You betcha. I know you’ve learned a lot from reading. The authors have new ideas, insights on how things are done, and so much more to open your mind.

GRANT: I’ve definitely learned about new ideas, seeing the world through someone else’s eyes, learning how things are done, and more.

DAD: I am Christopher Columbus, and the world is not flat.

MAK: It is some insightful stuff. I can always find something new and creative, as well as current events and fantastic stories.

DAD: It really does help you to know what’s going on in the world, especially with investing. Here’s a question, do you want to be a passive or active investor?

GRANT: Hold on, did we talk about this before both those words and an IV E with pass and act at the front of them.

DAD: So if you’re talking about investing, you can act more, or pass more?

MAK: Is that like playing soccer, you can keep the ball and actively run down the field. He’s passive and takes a little rest.

DAD: Wow Mak, that’s a great way to look at it. You can be actively looking at stocks and the world or you can pick one stock, buy it and then do nothing. That’s passive. They both have their pros and cons.

GRANT: So you like to read to be informed and make adjustments to your investments?

DAD: I sure do. From last season, we had some great examples to show us why being informed and making adjustments can be crazy beneficial.

MAK: Absolutely. Stocks are totally affected by Corona. And if you keep informed and make some adjustments for the stocks that were affected.

GRANT: You could have made a crapload of money. Or you could have gotten crushed.

DAD: G, I love your excitement. But we probably need to watch our language.

GRANT: Sorry, Dad, I just saw some of those numbers in my mind again, it makes me super excited about how much money we could have made.

DAD: I completely understand the feeling, buddy.

MAK: So Dad, are you telling us to read to stay on top of things affecting your investments, but also for other reasons?

DAD: I am you can always count on one thing in life. And what’s that kids?

BOTH: Change?

DAD: Awesome. You were born one year after the first iPhone was released in 2007. Life before smartphones was very different. Now everyone has one and they’ve sold 2.2 billion since then.

GRANT: Didn’t I read that almost 80% of teens in the US own an iPhone and that over 90% of the smartphone profits go to Apple?

MAK: That is insane. That Steve Jobs guy was a visionary for sure. Now, it’s the largest company worth over $2 trillion.

DAD: That’s huge. He was a visionary. Now, as you read about the world changing new technology or other changes, you’ll see trends like the smartphone and how that affects our lives and which businesses will benefit.

GRANT: I’m starting to really see it. Dad, if we go back to our question. Both you and mom didn’t have much growing up or after you graduated from college, right?

DAD: Yep, that’s true. I was lucky to get a job. But I had maybe $300 in my bank accounts, and I didn’t even own a car.

MAK: Wait, so how did you get to work if you didn’t have a car?

DAD: I had to borrow money. I didn’t have money for suits either. Which was a requirement for my job at the time. If that wasn’t bad enough, I needed some nice shoes too.

GRANT: Dad. I also heard stories from grandma that you had holes in your underwear after college since you had so little money.

DAD: Definitely not my finest hour. But when you have to make choices, I guess underwear wasn’t a top priority. Plus, it was like natural air conditioning.

MAK: Dad. I just have to say it. It sounds like you dug yourself into a hole. You owed a lot of people money for your car, clothes and other stuff.

DAD: Yep. I couldn’t afford an apartment. So I lived with my mom and Dad. Yo man, you’re broke. It wasn’t a lot of Fun. I thought I had a big job because I was a CPA and didn’t have anything. Mom didn’t have much either.

MAK: Why wasn’t it fun?

DAD: Well, I had to follow my parents’ rules. And in college, I got to make my own rules. So coming back home was a little strange.

GRANT: And how old were you? Anyways,

DAD: I was young, around 22. All my friends had apartments and went to the bars and restaurants. But I wasn’t as lucky. I had to be home early and make sure my parents knew where I was all the time.

MAK: Sounds like us right now. So when you were younger, your parents didn’t have money. Since there were six kids.

DAD: That’s true. Didn’t I show you the video on how much kids cost? It’s a lot, then multiply that by six. It’s actually millions of dollars.

MAK: That’s a ton. But we are so cute and lovable.

DAD: Very true. But my Dad worked his entire life. He was able to make ends meet. But he didn’t have a clear idea of how to make money work for him. And he didn’t take any calculated risks.

GRANT: So how did you make it all work? Did you have a budget and figured out how much you made? What you could afford? Well, are we saving some?

DAD: That’s exactly what happened G.

MAK: So the budget helped you get out of your money hole.

DAD: Absolutely. I got some help from my parents by not paying rent, then I lived by one idea early on, spending less than I earn.

MAK: That seems really simple. But that doesn’t exactly make you rich.

DAD: You’re right. But it’s the absolute first step you can learn. Next, I started to read and understand what my parents didn’t learn about having money that I needed to learn.

GRANT: Is that when you studied investing, and learned how to think more like a rich person.

DAD: That’s a perfect way to put it gee, you have to truly get in a mental mindset that you can be wealthy too. With reading a bit more confidence and seeing some success. Things got better and better.

MAK: That makes a lot of sense. It sounds like you are having to use your head and make good decisions. But reading gives you the ideas that you are missing.

DAD: That is very true Mak.

GRANT: So can you pass some of these ideas to us?

DAD: Absolutely. In our podcast, we spoke about money basics, starting a business, taxes and investing. These are great pieces to the puzzle. Now let’s pull some of these ideas together.

MAK: That would be great. Because I think having money is much better than not having any.

GRANT: I agree.

DAD: Now, at times in my life, I have gotten off track and made terrible financial decisions, you have to forgive yourself but you also have to be disciplined to get back on track.

MAK: Sounds like you’ve read a lot of different books. Maybe we can go through a couple of your favorites and learn some lessons.

DAD: That’s an excellent idea. School started this month for you too. So let’s hit the books too. And start our money school. Mak, are you good with that? I think you’ll learn a couple interesting things as we go along.

MAK: Absolutely, Dad.

DAD: Okay. Let me go through my library and figure out our next podcast. Are you ready to put this one to rest?

BOTH: Goodbye. See you next time on money with Mak & G.

DAD: Starting early as a great help to becoming wealthy tearing down the mystery and having regular conversations builds confidence. Many gurus will give their guidance or secret sauce. But the lessons are very similar. I wasn’t born into a wealthy family like many we had obstacles to overcome. Learning from others who have done it and seen success in small steps is very powerful. And it leads to bigger successes. Having the mental mindset is like having fertile soil to plant the seeds of becoming wealthy, believing you can do it and taking the first couple of steps is going to be empowering. Coming from a family where both parents were from small towns but neither had money or knew how to really get it, keep it and make it grow can be tough. However, many have overcome odds significantly more challenging than mine. So let’s get back to school with the kids, hit the books and jump into some of the words of wisdom of books whose lessons have transcended time. Sometimes it seems incredibly simple that you may not believe it yourself. Let’s open your mind. Get you focused on money how it’s done, so you and your children have a significantly better chance at success. Bye!