gk transcripts funding the life you desire v100615€¦ · gary keller quantum leap transcript...

Gary Keller Quantum Leap Transcript Excerpts

Funding the Life You Desire

FOR INSTRUCTOR USE ONLY - DO NOT DISTRIBUTE

1

Contents How will you know when you have enough money? ................................................................................... 2

IT’S ALL ABOUT ABUNDANCE ........................................................................................................................ 5

STORY: Pursuing Money ............................................................................................................................ 5

WEALTH IS A STATE OF MIND ....................................................................................................................... 8

Wealth is a State of Mind.......................................................................................................................... 8

SUCCESSFUL PERSONAL MONEY MANAGEMENT ......................................................................................... 9

The 11 Key Money Mistakes Most People Make ...................................................................................... 9

REALITY CHECK ............................................................................................................................................ 15

Reality Check ........................................................................................................................................... 15

THE PATH OF MONEY .................................................................................................................................. 16

The Path of Money .................................................................................................................................. 16

AN INVESTMENT PATH................................................................................................................................ 21

$100 Invested Every Month .................................................................................................................... 21

The 8 Mythunderstanding Between You and Financial Wealth ............................................................. 24

THE TRUTH ABOUT MONEY ........................................................................................................................ 30

The Six Truths About Money ................................................................................................................... 30


2

How will you know when you have enough money?

Be real clear about this. The last hour of our time together we’re going to talk about

money. And in one hour I’m going to slay every myth you have about being rich, okay. Money is

simple. Here’s one of the things you need to understand. Your career is not your financial

wealth. Be real careful about that. Go look at the Forbes 1000 and show me any of them who

got rich with their job. Did Bill Gates become the richest man on the planet because of the job

or the fact that he owned the stock in Microsoft? Stock, right? Okay, there you go.

Warren Buffett, your second richest man. Sam Walton by the way, definitely the richest

family to ever walk the planet, right? Bill Gates has only been the richest man because Sam

Walton decided to divide his estate up from the very beginning among he, his wife and his four

kids. So if you looked at the Forbes rich, top ten for like 20 years, something like that,

somewhere in that category, it said Gates, Buffet, Michael Dell, Walton, Walton, Walton,

Walton, Walton, Walton, Walton. And when you added up all their wealth and then compared

that back to Gates, how did it compare? Oh Sam Walton without a doubt is the richest man on

the planet, by far. Why was he not ever recognized? Because he had the greatest transfer of

wealth without paying inheritance taxes ever seen. Because from the time that he started Wal-

Mart it was owned by six, he and his wife and his four kids. So the four Walton kids never had

to pay inheritance tax on their billions of dollars. There you go. That’s a good one, isn’t it? Okay.

What you’ll find out is not one of those people on the list of the top 1000 richest people

on the planet are rich because of their job. I don’t think you pursue a job because you want to

be rich, because you will not. And one of the reasons, and I don’t mean this as a criticism, this is

just an observation, that there are more than who would admit, who have chosen jobs in law,

in medicine, banking, accounting. Because when we look at careers who pay the highest job,

money, what would they be?

Average real estate agent makes $9000 a year? Yeah, I don’t think that’s very

impressive, right? You go to college. What are you majoring in? I’m going to be a real estate

person. Really, what do they make? Oh about nine grand. Right? The legal professional doesn’t

average nine grand. Okay. You with me? Yeah, the medical profession does not average nine


3

grand. Isn’t it odd though? What profession dies earlier than any other profession on the

planet? What’s the job that’s likely to kill you? Doctors. If that little fact doesn’t send a shiver

down your spine about the medical profession and the disconnect between saving people and

killing yourself, I don’t know what does. That’s just odd, isn’t it? Don’t you find that odd? Freaky

odd.

Do you know why? Because the medical profession is into curing, not prevention and

they create massive stress, right? When you hear about the hours they work and they’re always

on call and blah, blah, blah. You can’t live in that kind of stress pool. You cannot do it. Just

interesting. So your job is not your wealth.

If you want money, go get it. A lot of people go pursue a job, love it so much, have a

wonderful personal life. They never pursue money. Is that good or bad? It’s fine. It doesn’t

matter. I don’t think you should walk in this room and say that guy’s got a lot of money. Man,

wow. If you say that, you’re an idiot. I have a lot of money because I’m good at business and I

decided to play the game and I got better and better and better at it, right? It would be no

different than me mastering how to play backgammon and challenging you to backgammon

and kicking your butt every day so I can do that too by the way. You with me? Okay.

So let’s be real clear about that. Anyone who has a lot of money has it because they

decided they wanted it. We clear about that? Okay. And that will be a choice that you make.

My son, you know, he and I talk about this. We were on the top of a mountain having

dinner in a private club that only 400 people get into. And we’re looking out and he had this

epiphany in that moment. He’s a landscape architect major at University of Georgia. And he

says, how am I ever going to have enough money to live this lifestyle once I graduate? I thought

that was awesome you know, because that’s a fact. I mean that’s just the way that goes, right?

And I turned to him and said, “I love that question”. He’s looking at what landscape

architects make. And I’m saying, ignore that. That’s irrelevant. I mean that’s what you’re going

to do because you love it and you enjoy that. If you want money, I’ll show you how to do that.

That’s not complicated, right? I’ve made millions in the stock market. I’ve made millions buying

and selling real estate. I’ve made millions in my businesses. You with me? Do you want to make

money? Let’s go make money? You don’t want to make money, don’t worry about it. It’s not to


4

be respected or disrespected. We clear on that? And anybody who tells you otherwise is a fool.

Now remember, breathe. This is just my opinion, okay? This is my self-talk, okay?


5

IT’S ALL ABOUT ABUNDANCE

STORY: PURSUING MONEY

The richest people in my family were an aunt and uncle that I had who were barbers. I

don’t believe they finished high school. They did not go to college. They went to barber school.

They ran a barbershop in Houston, Texas. How did they get rich? Real easy. They never paid

insurance on anything. This was when you could get away with that by the way. And they self-

insured and they put all the money aside. And in the ‘80s they invested in real estate in Austin,

Texas. About seven or eight years later, they were rich and then they kept getting richer and

richer.

My dad went to the same meeting that my aunt and uncle did and my dad made more

money than them. We lived in a nicer home. He was a business administrator for a school

district. My dad was a great businessman. Money never mattered to my father. Making money

just didn’t. So whatever he made, he had. Then one day he woke up and he had to quit his job. I

won’t tell you the circumstances but he had to quit and he should have. And all of a sudden he

looked up and he didn’t have anything to do and his money wasn’t quite enough for what he

wanted. In that moment, he realized he’d made a mistake.

And this again, this is my self-talk. But pursuing the maximum amount of money that

you can make is a good thing in life. However much you’ll make you’ll make. That’s your

journey. So be very careful. Don’t be pulling out bank accounts and measuring your self-worth

against somebody else’s based upon how much money they have or don’t have. You with me?

Now the good news about life is it’s not like football where at the end of the season we

say one team won and everybody else didn’t. Could you imagine your life being defined that

way? I mean, it’s got to be tough. It’s got to be tough, you know, to get up as a professional

athlete male or female and spend 20 years to be a gymnast only to have your leg break and

never win anything. How do you define winning in that moment?

So what’s interesting is that my dad had the same opportunity. He was at the same

meeting that my aunt and uncle were at. He walked away from that meeting and said I’m not

doing it. My aunt and uncle chose to bet everything. They took all their savings and they put it


6

on black 21 if you will. By the way, they happened to invest in what became the growth corridor

of Austin, Texas.

Here’s a fun story just to whet your appetite about our next session. The two guys that

came to Houston to make the presentation had worked for the phone company. They had a

job. Their job was to research where Austin was going to grow and then go back to the phone

company and tell them so the phone company could get ahead of the growth by putting in the

phone lines and all that. Yeah, you know where the story’s going. After they got all the research

and saw where the growth was going, they quit their jobs. And what did they do? They formed

a commercial investment real estate company and started going out raising capital. They

bought all the land along the growth corridor all the way out of Austin. All the way out. It was

those two guys that showed up at that church in Houston, Texas that night that my aunt and

uncle invested in. My dad actually invested in other stuff and lost all his money. Lost it all,

actually, and he had his teacher’s retirement.

I’ll make one other comment. This is my self-talk. Do not feel judgment when I say this.

But I do believe that you’re negotiating somewhat on faith that you don’t have a right to have

when you say I don’t need to pursue money. Remember money is simply good for the good it

can do and money is simply a bartering power.

So I’ll use my life as an example. In my family I’m the only individual who pursued

money. In other words, actively making my money make money. Does that make sense? In

other words, I’ve treated money as a commodity. I set aside a certain amount and I go and I

invest it and I’ve been doing that since my 20s, early 20s. I’m the only one in my family who

actively aggressively did that.

My dad passes away 11 years ago. He has teacher’s retirement. That’s good. My mom

gets it. She’s 85 years old by the way. My mom looks up. She’s in her 70s and that’s all she has

to live on. Well that’s fine, but the second she got sick, there wasn’t enough money. The best

my mom’s income could provide her was a 10 x 12 space in a nursing home, with a shared

bathroom. And it looks like the worse dorm room you’ve ever seen. Now that’s what my

mother’s income would provide her.


7

Oh by the way, my mom still lives in a home that I own that she pays almost nothing to

live in. And I own that with my little sister. We bought that. My mom has 24-hour care that lives

with her. My mother has the biggest big screen TV money can buy that has the NBA channel

and everything you ever wanted on it. She’s got her iPad; she’s got her cell phone; she’s got her

computer. She also has a personal trainer that comes three days a week. She has a masseuse

that comes every Wednesday. Do I need to go on?

My mom looks phenomenal. My mom was diagnosed with cancer a year ago. Today

she’s cancer free. And I’ll guarantee you one of the reasons is because she has a nutritionist. My

mother is living like the emperor. She is on a nutritional diet. We manage exactly what she eats.

She was in the hospital five times like in eight weeks. It is a disaster, and it all has to do with her

diabetes. But when we put in these people that live there 24 hours a day with my mother,

before she takes a bite they literally take the blood and they check and see what it is. My

mother hasn’t had an episode since. Do you get that?

Now my oldest sister who’s a phenomenal individual, and I say this lovingly, never

pursued money. She doesn’t have the money to contribute. She’s a high school administrator

just like my father and they do phenomenally well. There’s not one dime that they have

available to help my mother. I don’t say that with judgment by the way. I say that as a fact. I am

the person. Okay? And my mother spends over $100,000 a year more than she has. Do you

hear that? You’re going to get there. And if you don’t think you are, you’re a fool.

Now breathe. This is my self-talk. Just breathe. But you’re an idiot if you don’t think

you’ll get there. Now if you go, well that’s just so off in the future that doesn’t even exist, well,

the future comes faster than you think. One day I looked up and my hair was gray. I went how

did that happen? You will say the same thing. And if you’re smart, you’ll realize if you’re lucky

you will say it. You will live long enough to say that. You with me? Okay.

So listen to someone who’s lived before you about that. So I believe that pursing

money’s a good thing. However much you get is how much you get. We’re not going to judge

our self-worth based on net worth. At the same time we’re going to pursue it because we don’t

know when we’re going to need it.


8

WEALTH IS A STATE OF MIND

WEALTH IS A STATE OF MIND

Wealth is a state of mind. The most common mistake we make in life is looking outside

of ourselves for what we should find inside. Success is no exception. Just as the source of true

happiness lies within each of us, success also comes from within. Success is a result of a very

specific mental attitude. So call it what you like. The mentality of the rich and attitude of

success or the prosperity consciousness. Financial wealth is the outward manifestation of an

inner focus. It’s the result of steering your thoughts towards a specific financial target. In other

words, if you want money, then you have to think the way you have to think to get it. In other

words, it has a very specific thought. You want money? You can dream about it and that’s very

different than wanting it and going and getting it. Okay? Let’s be real clear about that.

So the bottom line is genuine wealth is above all a state of mind. A mental state that has

taken a physical form in the lives of the wealthy. You must begin by being rich and wealthy in

your mind before you’re going to do that in your life. And I’ve witnessed that over and over

again. It’s just an amazing truth.


9

SUCCESSFUL PERSONAL MONEY MANAGEMENT

THE 11 KEY MONEY MISTAKES MOST PEOPLE MAKE

So the 11 key money mistakes most people make. See the number one thing I need you

to hear is, you want money to finance your purpose. If you don’t have a purpose, you’ll never

have enough money. You just won’t. Okay? Number two, money has rules. Learn the rules.

Number three, be an all-day everyday investor. Walk out every day looking for opportunity. Just

look for it. Now some, you’ll make good decisions and bad decisions. It’s going to average out.

Let me tell you something. I never lost a dollar in any business or real estate I ever

bought. Now the reason why is because I’m selective. I don’t take risk. And I’m investor not a

speculator. So if I make a bad decision, I can wait until time fixes it. You hear that? In other

words, I don’t have to flip it tomorrow. I don’t need the money.

So if I buy it, I can sit here and wait. My first real estate investment, I paid $65,000 and I

watched it drop to $19,000. That was my first investment. Right? If you were giving me a test, I

would have failed, right? What a loser, right? But I didn’t need the money so I held it and

ultimately sold it for $94,000. I rented it in between, it never lost money. It made money all the

time.

I have a book called the Millionaire Real Estate Investor. Read the book. In that book, I

tell a story and here was the story that changed my life and I’ll tell it to you real quick. My wife

and I were down…every summer we went to South Padre for a week and so we were there and

we’d been going there for I don’t know how long. But we had been going there for long enough

that we understood value. Because when we were there, we’d go look at the other condos to

make sure we were staying in the coolest nicest one, right, for the money. So we knew value. I

knew the pricing. I’m in that business. So I knew the pricing just because I paid attention and I

knew value.

One day we got on the elevator going up to where we were and there was a lady who

had a Coldwell Banker badge on. And my wife who’s highly social goes hey, how’s the market?

The woman says great. She says, well do y’all have any good deals? I don’t even know why she

asked that question. The woman said, well yeah actually we just had a listing that’s not on the


10

market yet and it’s over here. It’s on the corner, it’s on the second floor and you know, it’s

owned by a couple that don’t live here and they hired a realtor that doesn’t work here and

they’ve underpriced it. And my wife goes, that’d be interesting. Let’s go look at it.

So we looked at it and then we went back and we talked about it. We drove home and

talked about it and then went, you know what? That’s a steal. We could sell it tomorrow and

make $100,000 to $150,000 minimum just by giving it away. And I said, I’m going to call that

woman.

I still remember sitting in this chair in my den with the phone calling this woman and

saying, hey, my wife and I talked about it and we’d like to buy it. And the woman laughed at

me. True story. She laughed. I mean she didn’t laugh ha, ha, ha. She went sir, we sold that the

next day. I felt like such an idiot.

I put the phone down, I went thank you, and I put the phone down and went well of

course they did. It was a steal. Any investor or anybody who understood value and was an

investor would have gotten out their checkbook and said I’m not leaving this spot. I’m buying

this before I leave this spot. And I went, man. Because I wasn’t an investor at that time in my

life, right? I mean I was a put a dollar, not a put a dollar. Put a dollar, right? I’ll bet on black one

time and then I’ll come back next year. And that cured me. I went holy cow, I’m not an investor.

I do it, I don’t do it. I do it, I don’t do it. I should have been prepared when I saw it to do it.

Yeah. I never missed out again from that moment on.

Not that I ran around rashly looking, but I’m just saying that when I saw value from that

moment on, like the guy calls me about the lot and says hey, I need to sell this lot. It was

actually a corner lot. There’s a bank on it now on BK Road further down and the guy calls me

and says look, I got a payment to he bank. I don’t have enough money so I have to sell a piece

of my development and the smallest piece I can sell for the most value is the corner lot here

and so here’s what I’m asking. And I went, I’ll buy it and I went over and gave him cash and

closed in two weeks and he paid it off and did the rest of his development.

I flipped that piece of real estate for $900,000 profit in about 18 months. All I did was

change the zoning and sold it to a bank. Okay? You get it. It wasn’t complicated and any one of

you could have done that deal. If you knew real estate and you put yourself in a position that


11

the world knew that you would buy and you were ready to take action when it showed up. Did

that make sense?

So here are the 11 key money mistakes. Number one, have a consumptive lifestyle with

little emphasis on investing. You hear that? In other words, you spend all your money. Stop

that. Don’t do that. Right now you probably are doing that. That’s okay. Stop that. Don’t do

that. If that means you have to move to a smaller house or to a smaller apartment so you have

spare money, do it. Just do it. Whatever it takes, live that way.

Number two, no financial goals.

Number three, no personal budget, no personal future budget. So you have no sense of

what you’re going to spend now or spend later. Right? I got that so I had my current budget and

then I have my future budget so I understood how much, when I was going to get money, I

knew how much cash flow I needed that I wanted to finance the lifestyle I wanted. Okay?

Number four, buying new cars and new houses too soon. What I mean by new cars and

new houses is I mean brand new. If you’re going to go buy a house, I want you to go buy the

dog. I want you to buy the cheapest dog in the neighborhood. And I immediately want you to

clean the yard up and I want you to plant as many trees as you can for a dollar a tree or

whatever. Do not want you buying new cars. Because when you get out in the parking lot,

what’s it worth? Exactly. Don’t buy a new car when it, only buy a new car when it doesn’t

matter. Anybody that tells you buying a new car is smart, is not. It just means you have the

money to lose. It’s what it means.

It’s like buying a new boat. Don’t buy a new boat unless you can afford to lose money

because you’ll pay $100,000 to $140,000. Exactly, and it’s going to be about $16,000 in about

three years. So be sure when you buy it you can afford to lose the money, otherwise don’t do

that. Buy a used boat. Okay. They’re cheap. Right?

Number five is not tithing. It’s a mistake. And let me be clear about tithing. Just from

again, this is a, you do what you want but I’m going to share my view of it. I don’t give much to

the church just so you know. Okay? I did that for years and I watched how they spent the

money. And I went, you know what? I can have more fun by giving my money away to exactly

who I want to have it instead of to their mission program. So I reduced how much I gave the


12

church for its mission program and I started my own mission programs. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So I tithed but I tithed directly. So if I see someone who needs help, I give them help.

Right?

My old college roommate from Baylor just had a stroke at 57 and can’t work for three

months and he’s had some financial difficulties and he doesn’t have the money. And I was on

the phone with him two weeks ago. I said well how much money do you need so you’re not

stressed out, so you can get your blood pressure down? He stated an amount of money and I

overnighted the money to him. Isn’t that tithing? Say yes. Thank you. It’s tithing.

And by the way, his blood pressure’s down. He’s doing great. So this is all good news.

And he said, well hey can I do something for the money? Yeah. If you want to do something, I’ll

come up with something. You do it, we’ll call that equal. I don’t care. It’s awesome. It’s great.

Number six, over focus on tax reduction is the reason for investing. Don’t do that. Make

the investment or the return it gives you, not the tax reduction it gives you. That is a mistake.

Why? The biggest reason is they can change the tax laws. So be real careful about that.

Number seven, saving is the same thing as investing. You ask people you invest? Yeah I

got $5,000 saved. No saving is saving. Investing is investing. Okay? Saving is for a rainy day.

Investing is investing for a rate of return. They’re not the same thing. Savings you do not want

to lose the money, right? Savings is like putting it in a mattress. It better be there when I go get

it. Right? Whatever that is.

Number eight, asking should I invest versus where should I invest. Notice the language,

right? An investor would never ask should I, right? What would they ask? Where? Exactly.

They’re going to ask where.

Number nine, investing without understanding whether you were an accumulating or

preserving mode. When you’re young, you’re in what mode? You betcha, absolutely. You’re

going to cross a line in your life and it’s an invisible line where from that moment on, you might

want to make sure you preserve it. Interesting, there was a study done where I don’t remember

who did this study. I read it in the paper. In fact, it’s in my briefcase that it’s called the four

percent rule. That means that when you reach retirement age, there was a research project

done and the guy stress tested it and said if you want to have enough money to live, you can


13

only take four percent of the money out each year. And then they researched and they found

out that people take six to eight percent on average.

All he’s pointing out is if you have a fixed amount of capital that’s supposed to last you

the rest of your life, the four percent rule assumes that you’ve invested the money and it’s

going to make you above six percent, meaning you’ve got it in the stock market or mutual funds

and in any eight or nine year period, it will make that. You just can’t predict when, is the

problem. So it’s going to go up and down.

Over a 30 year period it’s going to average that and with inflation, the cost of living

going up but only taking four percent, you’re good for 30 years. Whatever money that gives

you, it’ll be there for 30 years on average. Okay? Takes six to eight percent. Not even going to

come close. You’re going to lose it so fast. It’s ridiculous. That’s what most people do.

Number ten, failure to follow the proper sequential investment strategy. Number one,

get out of debt. Okay? When you have debt, you do understand what that means is you can’t

afford your lifestyle. That’s what debt means. That means you borrowed money. You should

only borrow money for appreciating assets. You should never borrow money for depreciating

assets. Right? You with me on that? Now most people violate this and the first place they

violate it is in a car. Right? If you can’t pay, if you can’t pay cash for that new car, I’m going to

tell you don’t buy it. Buy the car you can pay cash for. And it’s going to suck. You know, but

here’s the cool thing. Go buy used luxury cars. They don’t hold their value. Right now, you can

go buy, with probably 10,000 miles on it, a classic Jaguar convertible for about $8000 to

$10,000. Dude, go buy that and look cool in the process. You see what I’m saying? You can go

buy an umpteen year old Mercedes that will last you another ten years for five grand. Drive an

old Mercedes instead of the new Hyundai. I’m just telling you. This is where people get all

messed up because they’re not investors. Right? They’re not investors. All right. Get out of

debt. Next, put emergency money aside. Save for major purchases. Invest for financial

independence.

Number 11, making mistakes involving debt. Debt is essentially overextending yourself

in order to satisfy a short term desire. When you commit to stay out of debt, you’re probably


14

committing to…listen to this…having less than what the world says you’re entitled to. You hear

that?

The world wants you to buy stuff, right? The government wants you to buy stuff. If

you’re buying stuff, they’re going to give you tax rebates. They’re going to do something to put

money in your pocket, right? Because they want you to spend.


15

REALITY CHECK

REALITY CHECK

Reality check. I want you to look at something. If your goal is $100,000 a year in passive

income, after taxes. Look at how it works. A million dollars at four percent tax free equals

$40,000 a year, right? Okay? So a million a year only gives you $40,000 after taxes. Two and a

half million at four percent tax free will give you $100,000. So if you had two and a half million

dollars…now today it’s only going to pay you about 2.1% so it wouldn’t get you there. But it’s

going to average above 3%. So just as an example, if you had two and a half million three years

ago in a tax free mutual fund municipal bond, you’d be making $100,000 a year. Okay. Tax free.

Now, I want you to understand, at $100,000 annual income, you pay $30,000 in taxes.

Let’s just guess. That equals $70,000. You invest $30,000 and only live on $40,000. Now how

many people do that? No they live on $70,000 and go whoo hoo. But let’s say you lived on

$40,000 and invested $30,000. $30,000 at ten years equals $300,000. You can’t save your way,

right?

Remember, how much money do we need? Exactly. Yeah. $30,000 at 20 years is

$600,000. $30,000 at 20 years is $600,000. $30,000 invested a year at 40 years $1.2 million.

Remember I need to get to what number? Minimum two and a half million. How long would it

take me? It would take 80 years if I set aside $30,000 a year at no rate of return to get to 2.4

million. You hear that? There’s the reality for you.

Now if I put $60,000 at 40 years it’s $2.4 million. What’s your ah ha? You better invest.

You cannot save your way there. You’re not going to get there by saving money. You cannot get

there. You can’t get to big money. You with me on that? It will never happen. And that’s okay.

I created this chart for myself years ago. It comes out of my book The Millionaire Real

Estate Investor. I put it in there. But this is my chart. This is the one chart I want you to

memorize about money. I want you to internalize this in a huge way, okay?

So there’s three sheets of paper. Everything I gave you before this, you can now ignore. I

don’t care. These next three sheet of paper, I want you to internalize. And they will change your

life if you internalize them.


16

THE PATH OF MONEY

THE PATH OF MONEY

So there’s three sheets of paper. Everything I gave you before this, you can now ignore. I

don’t care. These next three sheet of paper, I want you to internalize. And they will change your

life if you internalize them.

So here’s the first one. I call it the path of money. Path of money is real simple. You have

two kinds of capital on the planet. You have human capital, meaning you work for money; and

then you have capital assets, where your money works for you. Now either way, you work for

money or you have money that pays you money. You end up with what? Cash flow. You have

money. Okay?

Now when you have money, you have four things you can do with it broadly. You could

eat it, but I didn’t count that one, okay? You can spend it. You can donate it. You can hold it.

You can invest it.

So you can spend it, you can charity work, you can save it or you could invest it, right?

So you can pick your percentages. You could look at your life and say this is the way I’m going to

live my life. Most people investing is the last thing, right? They spend it first. They’ll give a little

to charity. They’ll save a little and there’s nothing left to invest. That’s what they do. Okay? Big

mistake. Do not do that.

So two basic investment choices. Now the other three, do what you want. But if you set

aside a dollar to invest, I want you to understand you have two basic choices. You only have

two. When you go to invest money, you can either lend it or own it. Did you hear that? You only

have two choices when you invest. You can either lend it or you can buy something with it.

Those are your only two choices. Not complicated, you guys.

Now if you lend it…and there’s always two basic positions with money. You can

passively lend and passively buy and you can actively lend and actively buy. Do you understand

that? There’s passive where you give someone else the money and they lend it or buy for you.

Or you’re active. You lend it or you buy. We clear on our choices? Okay.


17

So I’ve made a decision. I’m going to invest money. I realize I have two choices. I can

lend or own and I can recognize that I can either be passive or active. So look at the positions. If

I’m passive and I lend money, they call that money market, CDs, bonds and T-bills. Because

essentially….and this is why they pay less money. Why do they pay less money? What are they

going to do with your money? Relend it. Remember, when you lend them money like this, what

are they doing with your money? They’re going to put it back out there.

That’s why I’m not going to pay you much money. That’s why a bank doesn’t give you

much money. Why? Because you’re the source of their capital for them to go lend. Yeah. You’re

not the bank. Right? Yeah. If you want to passively own, that would be the stock market, real

estate investment trust, mutual funds. That’s it. Those are your big passive choices. If you want

to invest, own something. You’re going to own stock, you’re going to own real estate or you’re

going to own a portfolio of stock which is what a mutual fund is. Those are your choices. Those

are your big choices.

You cannot get rich on the passive side of the equation. Why? What’s the average rate

of return on those? They range from less than one percent to maybe three percent tops? Now,

the stock market however, in any seven to eight year period, averages about eight to nine

percent. Now we’ve had periods that have done better than that, so you’ll hear different

statistics that during this seven year period it was 15%, during this period it was 12%. But

during the great depression it’s below ten percent. Just so you’re aware of that, right? And that

would be the number I would kind of hold in my head. Actually I would think more like eight

percent just to be safe, and that’s what a financial planner would tell you, okay? So we just

can’t get rich there.

How do we know that? Okay? Turn the next page. You need to learn this page (An

Investment Path). This is the magic of compound interest. This is what people at Warren Buffet

mastered early in their life. The power of compounding.

Look back at your chart again. Look. Active. Lending doesn’t make you a lot of money

but you can do pretty well. I’ve done well on it because there’s some people that will pay you

15% to 20% interest, okay? Because they need money. And by the way, that makes them


18

money. You’re not cheating them. No one else will lend them money so you’re taking “risk” on

that. But I’ve never lost money lending to people. But the guy wants in. Here’s a good example.

First loan I ever did, young man comes in. He actually ran the snow cone stand in Zilker

Park and now works at Keller Williams, by the way. But I met him because we used to walk

through the park every day and he was a cool kid. Really liked him and one day we became

friends. We came to him and he said look Mr. Keller, I need to borrow money. It wasn’t a lot of

money. It was like $25,000. I need to borrow the money. I’m going to start my own glass cutting

company and I found a used machine. It’s $25,000. It’s used. New they go for $50,000 so it’s

agood value. I’ll put it up as collateral and I’ll make you payments and I’ll pay you 20% interest. I

went okay. He never missed a payment. Never missed a payment. I never had anyone not pay

me.

I ran into a guy in Wimberley, Texas years ago selling vintage guitars and he wanted to

build up his business and ultimately came to me and he said would you loan me the money? I

loaned him the money. Well he went out of business. He now lives in Chicago in the advertising

business. I had all the guitars as collateral so I can’t lose my money but he decided that he

would keep the guitars because they were worth more than what he owed me and he still

makes his payments. Kevin still pays me. Five years ago. He’s still paying me. I looked, he

doesn’t owe me about 70 grand. He’s only about two years away. And by the way, the guitars

will continue to sell and five years from that he’ll have all his money back. He will not have lost

any money. He’s not a stupid guy, he just made some decisions. But he’ll have all his money

back before it’s over. Okay?

So one of your options is when you go to work, pick a company that if you excel at it

they’re going to give you money. Get really good at it. You don’t have to be the key person in

the company, just be amazing at what you do. Maximize your earnings. Maximize it. You’re

going to a public company, then maybe you can get stock in that company, right?

FEMALE: So would that be a good starting point for anyone at our age, the passive side?


19

Well passive will never get you wealthy so we have no question about that. Tomorrow

morning you absolutely should go put your money in a mutual fund somewhere and have a nice

day. Because you don’t have to think about it, just go to a highly rated fund. Give them the

money. But remember, you can’t pull it out when you want it because the value will change,

right? I mean if you had needed your money in 2007, you were in big trouble. We watched

everyone’s retirement accounts, just go up in smoke, right? I mean I watched mine. Because I

have my 401 Ks and all that are in the stock market. That’s just where they put it. And I looked

at it and I went wow. If I needed that money today that would be a problem.

By the way it came back and then some. It just roared back over five years and it is more

than it ever was. But that’s the stock market. So you put it in there, just remember you can’t

get it out. But that’s true with almost any investing, right? I mean timing has to be there. You

can’t just flip a piece of real estate or sell a business. The timing will determine that. So yes,

tomorrow morning, I’d go get a job and if I could put another $100 a month and go put it into a

stock market fund, I’d do it just to begin the stock market process. And learn to live off of less.

This is the biggest challenge that people have. At this point in your life, it’s fun to lead the

bohemian lifestyle.

In 1983 I went to a garage sale and I bought a red couch and two red leather chairs. If

you go to my office today, you will see the red leather couch and two leather chairs. They still

sit there. Right? By the way, there’s a sidebar to this. They were worth a lot more. The sidebar

is the way that rich get richer is that they understand money and past consumables, almost

everything they buy, they buy it right. You with me? In other words, see my flip chart there.

That’s actually a 200 year old French easel that I just had a guy put a fit in, make me a little

cheap stand. But I can undo that and sell it tomorrow. Now, I could have bought a cheap stand

but I like that one. By the way, I’m making money on that. Do you get my point? And since I had

the money to buy the good one, I bought the good one. Do you hear the point? Yeah. You buy

right. You don’t buy the cheapest thing, you buy the thing that holds value or grows in value.

Does that make sense? And that’s how, unfortunately the rich get richer and the poor get

poorer because once people understand money and they understand how to buy things, what


20

they buy naturally holds value or makes them money because they don’t waste it. They

understand rates of return. They’re real clear.

The game is to beat ten or twelve percent. That’s the minimum game you want to play

as an investor. Can I beat it? To preserve it, you’re going to need six percent, eight percent to

preserve so that you’re not broke but you can’t get financially wealthy. Okay? Anything above

ten percent you’re good. Fourteen percent is very realistic. You can do that.

By the way, a business blows all that out doesn’t it? I mean if you bought a business for

$500,000 and it was only making $100,000 a year, I mean that alone is a good rate of return,

right?

If I gave you $500,000 and you got $100,000. Isn’t it like a 20% rate of return? Say yes.

Yeah. So that’s a steal. Okay? What if I turned around five years later and it’s making a million

dollars a year and I paid $500,000. Now what’s my rate of return? Don’t need a calculator. We

don’t need the calculator. Do you see my point? Right. That’s why you’re in business school by

the way. And if you’re not, get in it. Because that’s where the money is.


21

AN INVESTMENT PATH

$100 INVESTED EVERY MONTH

You need to learn this page. This is the magic of compound interest. This is what people

at Warren Buffet mastered early in their life. The power of compounding.

So I want you to look at this. On the top are interest rates. From zero, two percent, four

percent, all the way to 20. What we’re investing on an annual basis is $1,200. We’re investing

$100 a month, okay? So if I invest in the first box. If I invest $100 a month for one year at zero

interest, how much do I have at the end of the year? Yeah, $1,200. I have the same amount.

But if I invest $1,200 a year for two percent, I have $1,213. So I made $13 on two

percent. So let’s go back and look at savings. Let’s go back and look at the bank. What are they

going to pay you? There you go. Exactly. Four percent, I have a whopping $26 at the end of the

year. Six percent I have $40, eight percent I have $53, ten percent $67, twelve percent $81, and

fourteen percent $95. Going out at 20% I’ve got $138 at the end of one year. So by the way, you

learned two things here. Number one, one year is spit no matter what the rate of return is. And

number two, there’s a huge difference between two percent and twenty percent.

Now look at the second year. Look what happens. It got a little interesting, didn’t it? I

put in $2400 and I have $2970 at 20%. But look again at two percent and four percent. Just run

it on down. Run it down for ten years. At zero, of course I got $12,000. That’s why I invested. At

four percent I’ve made $2,774. At twenty percent I’ve made $26,236.

So the difference between me getting twenty percent and me getting two percent or

four percent or six percent or eight percent. Look at the difference. And here’s the sweet spot,

guys. Where it gets really powerful is around 12% to 14%. Twenty percent is an outrageous rate

of return.

Warren Buffet has averaged over 20% his entire life. Compound. That’s why he’s the

richest investor to ever walk the planet. So when you go study investment books, who do you

want to study? Thank you. Master Buffet before you buy any other books. Just study him. At

first it’s going to be boring. You’re going to hate it, trust me. I hate it. It sucks. It does. It’s

boring. It’s boring. Really it is. Best thing to do is to get a book club and get a couple of friends,


22

read his books and then come and talk about it. It’s the only way you’re going to make it fun,

otherwise you’re just going to die a horrible death of boredom, okay? It’s just boring. It’s dry

and boring. Trust me, it is. It really is. I died 100 deaths reading it.

But look at the difference. You don’t have to be 20%, what you have to do is beat eight

percent. And a sweet spot would be anywhere around 10, 12, or 14. This is sweet. This is

unbelievable. You with me? Okay. You don’t have to be a genius. You have to get it above that.

Okay? 20 years. But look what happens at 20 years. Look at the difference between ten percent

at 10 and 20. At ten years it’s $20,655. At 20 years you’ve invested $24K and you have $76K. At

30 years you have $227K.

So here’s the ah ha for you. You better start now. If you just put $100 a month, even if it

gets you and put it in stock market. At eight percent you’re going to have $150,000. By the way

if you bought stock. You’re not going to beat that much, but real estate you could easily get to

12 to 14 if you buy right. And it’s why most small investors buy real estate over the stock

market. Does that make sense? That’s why they do it. They do it because you don’t have to be a

genius to get that 12% or 14%. Go study it.

I wrote a book called The Millionaire Real Estate Investor. Read the blessed book. It will

tell you what you need to know. I wrote it for my son in case I died young. Read it. Okay? But

look at the rates of return. Oh by the way, what if I got 20% just for the fun of it. So I invested

$36,000 and 30 years later I have $2.3 million. By the way, if I was only getting six percent I

have $100,000. Not $2.3 million. If I got eight percent, $150,000. You see why the stock market

is not going to make you rich? There you go. It’s not. It can’t do it. At best it will preserve your

income.

If you take 20% to 30% of your income right now and put it in the stock market, at the

time that you want to retire, you’ll retire off of what you currently make. Did you hear that

again? You’re making $40,000 a year and you take about 30% of that and you invest it at

average stock market rates, you’ll retire on $40,000 a year. That’s how much you’ll be able to

spend 40 years from now. You hear that? That’s why people ultimately have financial crisis.

They don’t understand it. They live way beyond their meals and then look up later and go holy

crap.


23

By the way, this is a good reason why you start a business. Why do you start a business?

Well you could have bought a Keller Williams franchise. We’d charge you $25,000 you own that

real estate business. If it took you five years and it was making you $200,000 to $250,000 a

year, you could take the difference and do what with it? And here’s the thing is, you only

invested maybe $150,000 to $175,000 to launch it.

So you took $100,000 to $175,000 and you invested it in a business and five years later

it’s making you….How much did we need in our little chart? How much did we need? You didn’t

have to have $2.5 million to make that money. I invested $1,000 in Keller Williams in 1983.

Okay? Just the two real estate offices I started make between $1.5 and two million dollars a

year. For a thousand bucks. I didn’t need $2.5 million. In other words, by being in the business

department or being in the entrepreneurial department, you are studying where the money is.

It’s where all the wealth exists.

You could go buy a juice franchise. Oh by the way, it’s going to cost you about 30 grand

to set up and if you run it well you can make $80,000 to $100,000. So go own three of those

and borrow money from these guys who are stupid and will charge you only four percent

interest because they don’t study money and they’ll be happy with their four percent and you

will have invested none of your money. You’ll pay them back in five years. They’ll think you’re a

genius and you’ll be making $180,000 a year to $200,000 a year from your three juice

franchises.

That’s why people do it. They do it because you cannot get financially wealthy by saving

yourself there. You can get there through real estate because you can buy it undervalued and

then time and growth, right? You can literally go into the growth corridor, figure it out. Yeah.

I have a property outside of Austin, about 2000 acres, and I thought I was in the boonies

when I bought it. I’m right there almost at the corner of 150 and 1826 where all the growth is

headed and now they want to put the highway through one side or the other, right? And I’m

fighting them because I don’t want them to do it. But on the flip side I can probably make $200

million dollars by letting them do it and turning that into highway frontage and subdivisions on

the main. I’m now sitting right on the main outer loop of Austin, Texas. In the next ten years,

where are they going to put it? I’d rather hunt my deer and chase rabbits. Or I can make a


24

couple hundred million dollars. I don’t need the money so I don’t care. I’m fine. I think it’s going

to work out. But at the end of the day. You get my point?

What I wanted you to walk away from is understand you cannot save your way to

financial success. You can’t do it. You cannot become financially wealthy saving money. Number

two, you cannot get financially wealthy in the stock market. You can preserve money, you can

retire. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if this class is on financial wealth, you can’t get

there form that.

But you could be a schoolteacher and you can buy real estate. You can be a

schoolteacher and you could buy a business and have someone else run it for you if you study

business. If you want to stay being a schoolteacher. See my argument is you don’t have to leave

your job whatever you love doing and be financially wealthy. Do you? Say no. You do not.

So if you don’t have the money it’s just because you don’t want it. The money’s there to

be had. You can have the money if you want the money. But you better study money and study

investing and study how businesses run because that’s the only place you can make the money

is you do your own real estate.

THE 8 MYTHUNDERSTANDING BETWEEN YOU AND FINANCIAL WEALTH

So the eight misunderstandings between you and financial wealth. First myth, I don’t

need to be an investor. My job will take care of my financial wealth. That’s not true. The truth is

you do need to be an investor. Your job is not financial wealth. Okay?

Myth number two is, I don’t want or need to be financially wealthy. I’m happy with what

I have. The truth is you need to open your eyes. You do need and want to be financially

wealthy. As wealthy as you can be. Why do I say that?

I’ll just use my life as an example. My dad did real well in terms of his job income and he

was in the school system so he has teachers’ retirement income which is really wealth, okay. So

my dad passes away and my mother has that. My mom is 85 and doing great, but if I wasn’t

supplementing my mother’s income by about $125,000 a year, my mother would be in a Rest

Home. She would be, she didn’t have a choice. There is enough for mom to live in a shared

room with someone else with a curtain between them and sharing a commode and eating at


25

the cafeteria. Nothing wrong with that. And her sister, she’s got two sisters and that’s where

they live.

My mom lives in the same home she’s been in. She has 24-hour care where all they do is

paint her nails and give her you know, give her perms. Unbelievable. My mom is having so

much fun she can’t stand it, right? She has a trainer that comes three days a week. She gets a

massage every Wednesday. She just got back from a road trip to Bronson, you know. She has

the time. My mother looks amazing. We had lunch yesterday. I said man, you look good, you

know. Yeah. You get it?

My other two sisters don’t have the financial resources. And if you ask them, did you

study money and invest, they would say no. They have great job income. Don’t get me wrong.

They’re actually fabulous professionals. They make great income. They don’t have enough

money for unexpected needs.

So don’t kid yourself. It’s not that you have to have it but there’s no good reason to not

study money. There’s just no good reason.

Number three, it doesn’t matter if I want or need it. I just can’t do it. You just can’t

predict it. You don’t know. You can’t blame me.

So the interesting myths around money. Number one, investing’s complicated. It’s not.

It’s so simple.

Number two, the best investments require knowledge most people don’t have. The best

investments will be in areas that you learn and understand or already know. You should never

invest in something you don’t understand. It’s not complicated.

Myth number three, investing is risky. I’ll lose money. No, by definition, Warren Buffet

will tell you, investing is not risky. If it’s risky, it’s not investing. It’s speculating. You should

never put your money at risk. You should never feel that it’s at risk. If it’s at risk, you’re not

investing. Do you hear that? You make your money going in. You don’t make it coming out. And

that’s how you get rid of risk.

Myth number four, successful investors are able to time the market. Actually, successful

investing, the timing finds you. In other words, here’s the trick to being a successful investor

and that is, you wake up every day and this is the way I think about it, okay? So wake up every


26

day and I have a dollar. Now the way a successful investor looks at this is they don’t have a

dollar. They have maybe 50 cents, maybe 20 cents to spend on themselves and they have at

least 50 cents or more to invest from the very first dollar they get. Does that make sense?

Now, what am I going to do with my 50 cents? An investor immediately puts them self

in a position of investing. So you’ve got a dollar in your pocket, I guarantee you, but you’re

thinking that’s living money. Investors don’t think that way. Investors live off of less.

I live off of… Do the math real quick. I live off of about four percent of my income. Okay?

Got it? What do I do with the rest of it? Invest or give it away. Yeah, exactly. When an investor

has money, they immediately realize that a portion of that is not theirs to spend. A portion of

that has to go to investing which immediately puts the pressure on them to do what? Go study.

Go study money.

I gave a young man, when he graduated, I gave him $5,000. He was really excited. He’s

like a second son to me and so anyway. I gave him the money. He immediately, he sets up an

appointment with me. He’s very kind. Writes me a nice note and all that. He says I want to

come talk to you Mr. Gary. That’s what he calls me. So he came over and we sat down and he

said now how do I invest this money. I went, oh my gosh, don’t invest it at all. Go put it in the

bank. You’re stupid. You don’t know anything about money. I guarantee you’re going to lose it.

Give it back, you know. Don’t do that, please. Don’t do that. He said, what do I do? I said read

this book. When you’re done with that, read this book. When you’re done with that, read this

book. When you’re done with that, read this book. I want you to spend the next couple years

just reading and studying and becoming financially literate. Then come back and let’s talk,

because right now, anything I tell you will make no sense to you because you’re just stupid. You

just don’t know anything. I mean it’s not that you’re a stupid person, you’re just stupid

financially and you need to admit that and understand that you don’t know anything about

money.

Who taught you about money? I mean let me ask you that question. I mean, how many

investing classes have you taken? How much time have you spent doing? Have you spent like a

semester, two semesters, five semesters, ten semesters, five years, ten years? How long have

you studied money? How long?


27

Was that like senior in high school they taught you money? Baylor, do they have

investing to get rich 101, 102, 103, or 104? The realities of money? No. They’ll teach you how to

raise venture capital. They’re not going to teach you how to make money. Colleges don’t do

that. They don’t have the curriculum. Yeah. All you need to do is invite someone rich to come in

and they’ll immediately blow your mind on how to make money.

The last one is timing. My point is that an investor’s always in the market to invest or

not invest. In other words, when I get in my car and drive out of here, one of the things I invest

in is real estate, the other thing I invest in is businesses, right? And I invest in people. So when I

walk out of here, and I get in my car, I’m looking for three things, right? I’m going to pay

attention to real estate. I bought a piece of real estate.

Here’s a good example for you. I bought a piece of real estate. Four years ago I was

going to move my business at the time before we moved in this business we were in another

building and just so happens that one of the Trammell Crow partners, they had a development

going on and they had this little piece of real estate that didn’t make any sense and they

couldn’t get zoned properly. And so they were willing to sell it to me for $220,000. I was just

offered 1.9 million for that and I’ve owned it for four years. That’s obscene isn’t it? I mean

actually just admit it. It’s obscene. Okay? Well how many times do you have to do that?

We just bought a warehouse for 4.1 million. They just offered us 7.1 million to sell it to

them. We haven’t even owned it six months. I think I just. I think I did pretty good. That’s just

driving around. But driving around is what? An investor and I look at it different. I look at it

completely different than a person who is not an investor. Right? And I don’t invest in what I

don’t understand. Right?

Look at Warren Buffet. Warren Buffet doesn’t invest in the stock market because that’s

a joke anyway, right? Honestly. You don’t get rich in the stock market, right? Say yes. You

cannot get rich. You do understand that, right? You cannot get rich in the stock market. The

people that get rich in the stock market are people that start companies and start companies

and sell it to the stock market. Taking a company public makes you rich and if you’re the

business that takes it public, you get rich.


28

Now we have stories every now and then of people that bought Apple at ten dollars and

rode it to $500. We have those stories. But do you think they were geniuses or lucky? Thank

you. Did they know it would do that? If they did, do it again. Duplicate it again. Right? Anyone

who made money in the stock market and has that story of they invested $100 and made you

know, a million, great. Show me where you did it again. And what you’ll discover is they can’t

because they don’t know what they did. They can’t even do it.

Understand that Wall Street brokers made their money. Where did their riches come

from? Taking companies public and charging you a fee to make you eight percent. That’s how

they made money. So let’s be real careful about where rich comes from. Okay? All right. So

timing.

I want you to understand something. Timing finds you. You cannot be an occasional

investor. Does that make sense? You can’t say today I’m going to invest and tomorrow I’m not.

And the reason is because investment opportunities are like a merry-go-round, right?

So I want you to imagine that I’m standing here and the opportunity is here and it’s now

moving. You understand, I had to stay in the game because it’s going to pass me and it’s going

to be that moment in history where I get to go, I’ll buy that. If I happen to be at the bathroom

or I happen to reach down and look somewhere else and it goes by me, you get to buy it

instead of me. Does that make sense? So you have to be standing there at all times, walking

around with your dollar, saying I’m an investor, I’m willing to invest. Now you spend the rest of

your time studying what that opportunity can be.

But you got to realize something, investment income looks like this. Why? Because they

don’t exist on a regular basis. You cannot go out. You need to be very leery of the guy that is

always raising venture capital and always buying things. Because how could you. How could you

always be buying things at the right price? It’s difficult. It’s difficult.

What you notice is Warren Buffet made his money by buying companies. He doesn’t

invest in the stock market, he buys businesses and his great breakthrough was Geico. Because

what he discovered is insurance companies are like a bank. He didn’t know that. He didn’t

realize. He admits that he didn’t know it. So he invests in Geico and he immediately discovers

that what they do with the premiums is they try to outplay the mortality tables, right? In other


29

words, they have the money and they only have to pay out a certain amount. The rest of it they

get to invest and all they have to do is have enough for reserves and the rest of it is theirs. So

what he discovered is by owning an insurance company what he had was the perfect vehicle.

The first company he bought was Berkshire Hathaway. Where did the name Berkshire

Hathaway come from? Study history. Textile company. So he buys it, thought he made a good

deal, only to discover it had no future. So what did he do? He bought ten more companies and

then they had a ceremony, had a ceremony and they officially shut down the mill. They shut

down the company and that was it. But they owned ten more companies. Yeah.


30

THE TRUTH ABOUT MONEY

THE SIX TRUTHS ABOUT MONEY

So here are the six truths about money. Number one, the key to happiness is not more

money. Happiness is happiness. Money is money. We clear on that? Do not say if I have this

money I’ll be happy. It’s not true.

The conversation I have with my son all the time is look, the beach is free. The park is

free. Right? As you live your life and you think about the moments where you have the greatest

happiness, a lot of money was not usually attached to it to be honest. It was usually not what

you were doing but who you were doing it with that made the moment magical. It was the

relationships that you enjoyed with others. It was not how much money was being spent, right?

Truth number two, whatever your life is about, more money will amplify it. Money will

not change you, you guys. It will reveal you. It will reveal you. Elvis Presley had no taste. When

he got a lot of money, he built Graceland. Go look at it. It’s obscenely horrible. Because he had

no taste. Just go to the jungle room. Jeepers, man.

What you’ll discover is…because people who don’t understand money will go, man they

got money. It changed them. No, they were always like that. They just didn’t have the money to

display it. They said well money made them greedy. No, they were greedy. They were just

broke and greedy. The second they got money, they displayed it. They were miserly when they

got money. No, they were miserly before they had money. When they had enough money, then

you saw it. Real clear about that. Okay? Money and old age reveal you. You know. That’s just

the way it goes. Okay? It’s going to expose you.

Truth number three. Lifestyle is style over amount. Style is an art. Your personal art of

living. You can’t buy style with money, you guys. You can’t buy it. You can’t buy good taste or

good decisions with money. What you can guy with money is more of something. Bigger of

something. That’s what you can buy with money. It doesn’t take a whole lot of money to get a

cheap car. Now if you want at bigger car or more cars, yeah, you need more money. But you

can get the basics in life for a lot less money.


31

Truth number four, the life quest is to have the best life in the time available to us. It’s

not the amount. It’s the value. Money doesn’t buy value. It doesn’t buy value as it pertains to

the best life. Trust me. All right?

Truth number five, money will come to you when you do the right things. Okay, so

money has its own rules. That’s number six. And it has its own disciplines and habits. If you

don’t learn them, you’re basically financially illiterate. Do you hear that?

I watched my father lose all his money. The good news is he had teachers’ retirement.

So after he lost all his nest egg and everything and went broke investing. But the thing that I

find fascinating and I don’t say this with judgment. I say it only as illumination for you is, I never

saw my dad pick up one book and study money. I never once saw him study investing or go to

an investment class. I never saw him study any of it. My dad was really good at managing the

money he had so that it got him what he needed and the family got and he was amazing at

taking a loaf of bread and feeding thousands. I mean he was good at managing what he had and

we never wanted for anything. But he never studied the art of making money and having

money make money. So when he went out and started doing it after he retired, he said well I’m

going to invest. It didn’t take him long to lose everything he had. Didn’t take him long. Don’t be

that person. Money has its own rules. Okay? They’re not complicated by the way.


gk transcripts funding the life you desire v100615€¦ · gary keller quantum leap transcript...

Documents