WEBVTT
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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
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make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or
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explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or
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it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be
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directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W
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FOURCY Radio.
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Welcome to to Ask Good Questions Podcasts, broadcasting live every Wednesday,
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six pm Eastern Time on W FOURCY Radio at W
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fourcy dot com. This week and every week, we will
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reach for a higher purpose in money and life, as
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well as a focus on health and wellness. Now, let's
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join your host, Anita bell Anderson as together we start
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with Asking Good Questions.
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Welcome, Welcome to the Ask Good Questions podcast. I am
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your host, Benita bell Anderson, and we've got a fabulous
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topic and a lot of things that are going on
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in the world today that are going to be interesting
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to you as in regards to finances and all things money.
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So with that I have a fantastic guest today who
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has been around, who knows his stuff. His name is
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Tony Bradshaw and with that I would like to invite
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him to the podcast stage.
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Hey, Benita, thanks for having me on.
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You Bet, thanks for coming. So everyone, if you're not
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familiar with Tony yet, then let me give you a
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little bit of an introduction about this guy. He's the
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author of several books including Millionaire Choice, Millionaire or Not
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You Can Choose. He's host of the Millionaire Choice show
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Make the Choice, Create Your Plan. He's the founder of
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Purpose of Wealth Live events series, and he's released thirty
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one Days to Get Money Smart and launch the Get
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Business Smart podcast. I don't think he has any time
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to do anything else. He's been in business leadership for
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over twenty five years in director, VP, CIO and COO
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level roles. He became enamored with digital technology, which I
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think you're going to have a wonderful time today hearing
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his thoughts about this and in nineteen ninety six as
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a mechanical engineer, this is you know, my thought every
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time I Tony just to tell you as whenever I
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would see you know, being a financial advisor, whenever I
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would see a mechanical engineer coming into the office, he
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was usually coming in with his spreadsheet.
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Right.
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Yes, Well, he switched careers in two thousand and one
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to focus full time on digital technology and business when
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he joined the Dave Ramsey Organization, which I know very
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very well. Most people recognize is the David Ramsey name,
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and he led the company's digital transformation. He's been instrumental
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in digital marketing, product technology, and strategic leadership for company
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growth from three million to one hundred and twenty five million. So, Tony,
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with that, do you have anything to add to that introduction?
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No, I think you were pretty thorough there, Benita.
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Matter of fact, I was listening to that thing and
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who is this guy?
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How incredible he really is?
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Yeah? And actually see I can tell being on Northwest
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Pacific Northwest Girl, he's from Nashville, And as you listen
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to him, you'll be able to there's a little bit
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of a twang that I pick up with my ears. Tony.
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Yeah, I've lost a lot of my accent.
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I went to school in Florida, and I think that's
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where I started losing it, and then just working with
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different people over the years and Nashville is a very
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national type city. There's a lot of people moving here.
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I just heard not too long ago, I think it
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was I live in Williamson County, which is just south
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of Nashville, and someone told me that the new car
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registrations in Williamson County, I think it was either forty
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or sixty percent of them were from California right now,
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So a huge influx of people coming in from different
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states and different places.
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Well, Tony, I mean, you started as a mechanical engineer.
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I was like teasing about mechanical engineers, but you made
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a hard pivot really into digital technology and business in
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two thousand and one. And what I mean that's walking
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away from one career to go into something totally different.
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What was that like?
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Yeah? It was. It was challenging. You know.
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I got out of school as an engineering so I
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started doing engineering professionally in nineteen ninety four. And my
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boss came to me while I got there because one
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of the first things I realized that I had to
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learn about technology because I was on the new computer system,
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which I'd never used, and so this would have been
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ninety four and I'm like, I better learn how to
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do this, so if I'm going to do this job right,
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So I did what I knew to do, which is
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go to the bookstore start learning about computer. So I
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got computer magazines. I probably had five different computer magazines
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coming to my house every month. I had books, I
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read all kinds of stuff. And so that eventually led
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me into web technology when I figured out you could
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write databases and do applications online, and that became fascinating.
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That was probably about nineteen ninety eight when I got
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into that I was.
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Creating a website. I was doing the same thing in
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ninety eight.
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Yeah, And so that led me to Dave Ramseys. And
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you know the thing was, I went to work for Dave,
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or applied for Dave. It was in a Christian classified's
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advertisement at our church and I saw that and I'm like, oh,
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I'm going to apply for this. So I did, and
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three weeks later I was working for the man. But
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I wasn't sure I could do what he wanted me
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to do. So it was risky because I'm like, I
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don't even know. I told my wife that I think
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the night before in the interviews, honey, I don't even
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know if I can do what they want me to
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do and so.
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Yeah, right, well.
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But but you know, now fast forward, you helped that
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organization grow from three million to one hundred and twenty
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five million. Wow.
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Yeah, it was a pretty amazing ride. We were doing
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some really cutting edge stuff in the early years. I mean,
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it was a very digital entrepreneurial friendly environment.
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You know, Dave wasn't digital.
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He didn't hire any digital people like it was really
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like me and one other person. And then we brought
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some other people in and we launched subscription based websites
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in two thousand and one. So that wasn't my idea.
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That was another gentleman's idea to do that. But I
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was one of the ones that implemented it. So because
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that guy couldn't implement it, he couldn't implement, so we ended.
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Up putting that up.
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We ended up doing online ticketing systems for events. I
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built that system out in summer of two thousand and one.
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We launched podcasting, in two thousand and six, we launched
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subscription budgeting tools, and I think two thousand and five
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so we had our on online budgeting system. I think
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it was pre Mint. I'd have to go see when
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Mint was founded. But we were probably one of the
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earliest ones on there.
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So a lot of innovation.
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From two thousand and one to twenty ten, and then
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things changed.
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A little bit in the environment.
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I was actually running all of digital and technology, and
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then in two thousand and nine I hired a lady
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to come in and help take the digital marketing department
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to the next level. And then nine months later she
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got promoted to be a chief marketing officer, and so
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my marketing team was that I had built, which was
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about fifteen people, actually went with her into this new system.
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And I lost a lot of my influence.
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At that point because then I became a tech guy,
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not a digital business guy, and.
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Things shifted a lot for me. It wasn't as fun anymore.
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I've been there, done that. I have had times I
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realized long my journey that I was not I was
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never going to be a good employee for somebody else.
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I like being the one that was calling the shots.
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Oh yeah, I'm hearing you. Well, you've got a book
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called Millionaire Choice, and I love that idea because it's like,
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wealth is a decision and it's not luck. What was
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there a moment in your life where you kind of
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decided that.
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Yeah, you know, I was twenty Let's see, I guess
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twenty five years old when I got my first W
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two out of college, and I had made thirty nine
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thousand dollars. And when I saw that number, I was
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shocked because I'm sitting here living at home with my
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mom and dad, paying two hundred bucks a month in rent.
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I'm living in a studio bedroom apart which was actually
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our living room, so it was a big room.
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I had a couch, I had a desk, I had
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a bed.
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I mean, I had a lot of room, and I
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would just go in there and crash, you know, and
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do my thing. And when I saw that number thirty
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nine grand, I realized I had made thirty nine thousand,
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but I was also sixteen thousand dollars in dad. I
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had about thirteen thousand on a car note and about
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three thousand in credit cards.
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I had bought a computer. Suck.
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I needed a computer, so I bought one for about
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two grand. And I think I had a thousand of
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dollars in just miscellaneous expenses that I had racked.
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Up on the credit card.
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But when I saw that, I'm like, man, I just
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really messed up last year and so because of that,
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I did what I naturally do, which is if I
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don't understand something, I go read about it.
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I go learn about it.
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So I started picking up money magazines like clip Kiplinger's magazine,
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Smart Money Magazine a few of those, got a few
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books and started reading, and then I realized, you know,
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money's really not that complicated. It's it's really just a
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simple math problem, and once you understand the rules, then
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you can actually make a difference. And I had to
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laugh when you were talking about spreadsheets earlier, because that's
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exactly what I did.
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I took the things that I.
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Learned and I put it into a spreadsheet, and I
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had my spending money. I had well, I had my
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earnings first in there, and then I had my spending money,
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my debt money, and my investing money. There's really four
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categories of income. And I figured out what to do
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with it. And that's what showed me that I could
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be a millionaire by the time I was age forty.
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And so that's what I started working on. You know,
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it's very a plan. Just really just repositioned my cash
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flow to get my cash moving in the right direction
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instead of flowing away from me.
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It started flowing into assets.
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Yeah, I've always felt like everything, no matter if I'm
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talking about financial education topics or if I'm talking about
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health and wellness, everything we do is moment to moment
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decisions about how we're going to behave And I don't
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think this is any different. And so with that, I
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want to ask you about this one percent better every day? Yeah,
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what's it actually mean? Tony?
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Yeah, so the whole idea, if you think about compound interest,
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right in money, you put in money a little bit
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over time, it just keeps growing because it's compounding daily,
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it's compounding monthly, you know, over time. So that's really
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what the one percent better rule is. It's about investing
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in yourself and trying to make yourself just that little
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bit better every day, that one percent better so that
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you can rack up over time and you know, ended
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up in a pretty good place. So in my case,
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you know, it started when I was really young because
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my mom and dad. My mom ran convenience stores, so
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I would get stuck at the convenience store quite often,
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and I didn't have anything to do except read magazines
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off the magazine rack. So I started learning about cars
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and I would read car Craft magazine and Hot Router magazine,
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and that's where I learned how to rebuild engines. So
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I rebuilt my first car, bought my first car junk
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car when I was fourteen, and then rebuilt the engine.
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I think somewhere around fifteen or sixteen years old. But
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I did that all from car magazines. It was just
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reading and learning, and then Chiltern's Automotive Manual, which if
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you're familiar with those are like phone book level thick things,
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and my dad had one, so I used that on
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my car and I rebuilt my first engine doing that.
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So I also learned how to fish out of magazines
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as well, and then I started educating the neighborhood kids
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on how to bass fish. What kind of lures do
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you use, what colors do you use, how do you