Money Conversations with KJ
Money Conversations with KJ
099: Lessons From A Lifelong Seller Who Lost Millions And Rebuilt
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Welcome to Money Conversations with KJ. KJ is a lifelong entrepreneur who's made a lot of money, lost a lot of money, and found his way back again. If you're looking for a sterile how-to, you're in the wrong place. KJ and his guests will walk you through real life situations told by the people who live them, and they are as messy as they are inspiring. Each episode will offer lessons learned, advice on how to replicate successes and avoid pitfalls, and a new perspective to power your financial literacy. Far from a one-size fits all, this podcast can help you build a roadmap to your personal promised land. Milk and honey for some, whiskey and steak for others, and remind you that you're not alone on this journey.
SPEAKER_02:Well, hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back. Money Conversation with KJ. I'm your host, KJ. I've got a really um, you know, I always like to find a guest that I think will give great value to you guys and take away some lessons. And I I've met this gentleman, Mr. Richard Love, who's here today. Um he's 68 years old, so he's been around the block, as some may say. But from what I've talked to him already, I think it's gonna be really interesting. I think it's gonna be a heck of a ride as we go through this. And um, so Richard, why don't you tell the introduce the folks who you are and a little bit about yourself? Well, Kevin, first of all, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_03:I appreciate it. Oh, for sure. Thanks for coming out.
SPEAKER_04:Good, good, good. Where where would you like me to start? Long venture, long life. Where where where did you grow up? I grew up in Boulder, Colorado. Boulder, Colorado. What what ages? Uh I lived there until I was about 30 years old. Oh, so I was born and raised in Boulder.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:I did all the Colorado activities. Yeah, out so you're outdoorsy guy. Outdoors, skied, rock climbed.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Uh hunted, fished, everything that Colorado had.
SPEAKER_02:Did you grow up, you're there 30 years, you grew up there. Did you grow up there with uh the household with mom and dad? Yes, with mom and dad. You know, I asked that because as we know today, that's not always the case. No, it's not. You know, and and and when you have a one-parent household, things could get tough.
SPEAKER_04:I had uh very traditional upbringing. Very traditional grandparents, mother and father, right? Uh younger brother, younger sister. Okay. Uh not so much the cleavers, but it was it was a good upbringing. It's good, yeah. Uh great neighborhoods. Boulder at that time was a small town.
SPEAKER_03:It's still a fairly small town, but you know, my daughter wants to move there, and that is an expensive place to live right now.
SPEAKER_04:Now it's very expensive. It's extremely expensive. Uh I've been around the world or at least all all through Europe. It's probably one of the most beautiful cities in America.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, it's it's absolutely beautiful.
SPEAKER_02:I've been there once just for you know half a day. Um, but again, all of Colorado. When you're at the base of the Rockies, it's just right.
SPEAKER_04:It's where the planes run into the planes go for hundreds of miles and suddenly it shoots up to 15,000, 18,000. Right. So it's absolutely beautiful. Yeah. If anything, I mean John Denver. Yeah. Think of John Denver over the years, Rocky Mountain High. Yeah. It's just a beautiful, beautiful uh state.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I want to start the conversation like I do with every single one of my guests, right? Because this conversation, this conversation we're having is about money, right? Right. We want to hear your story so we can help the folks out there that are not understanding, have misunderstandings, not sure what to do. Um, you've been an entrepreneur most of your life also, like I have been. And not everybody goes down that path, but you know, for those of you who do, you know what it's about. Um so my first question always is how old were you when mom and dad taught you about money? When they sat you down. Hey, Richard, we got to talk to you about money.
SPEAKER_04:Well, my father was a um entrepreneur, many businesses, bars, restaurants, hotels, but he also had a day job. He um when he came out of Korea, he started uh he was with the public service that's an electric company in Colorado. But anyway, he got into the furniture business. And back in the 60s, uh late 60s, that's when the baby boom had happened. So everybody's folks were moving around the country, suburbia was being built, Levitown was built. Uh it was all about, you know, the growth of the suburbs. So anyway, he just happened to be at the right place at the right time. And um, very, very hard man, very tough man, very handsome man, a man's man. And you didn't he had fought in Korea, so he was he was a tough guy. And anyway, he got in the furniture business and it just happened to boom on him. So he started making a lot of money. He worked around the clock, but all the extra money he made, if he worked, if he left the house at seven in the morning, he didn't come home till midnight.
SPEAKER_02:Well, how old were you when he was doing all this?
SPEAKER_04:Um As long as I can remember. No, how old were you? What was your age while he was doing this? As long as I can remember, when I was when I was in first and second grade, he would always come home with a trunk load of fishing gadgets.
SPEAKER_02:Five or six years old.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah. All kinds of different gadgets. He always came home and then he finally found the right company to work with.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, back to at what age were you when, or did he ever, okay, actually sit you down and talked about money, how it worked, how I how he made it, how he spends it, how he saved it, how he invested it, any of those things. Did he have any of those conversations with you at any age? I would have to say no. No.
SPEAKER_04:I would have to say no. My mom was a big influence in my life. Money wise. Well, I was always I was never the smartest guy on the block, and I'm still not, but I'm very tenacious. When I was a child, uh YMCA thin mint candies came out where they were 50 cents a box and they're about 18 inches long and whatever diameter it was. If you sold enough, I found out if you sold enough YMCA candy, you could go to a free camp up in the mountains.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:So anyway, I got involved in that. How old were you then? How how old were you there? Uh when I first started that, I was probably six, seven years old.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so that's that and I'm gonna I want to really get down on this point because this is where I became an entrepreneur. Yeah, exactly. It's very important for people to understand that our money beliefs and how we handle it come from a very young age, right? I talk to people and they think, well, we don't start thinking about money until we're you know late teenagers or something, but this is not the truth. And so that's why I like to always narrow down how old were you? And so at that six years of age, you said, Hey, I can sell this to get that.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know if it was so much money with me, but I knew if I sold enough boxes of YMCA candy, I could get a free week up at the YMCA camp. Okay. So obviously there was a reward. It wasn't money, but it was still a reward. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Did your parents give you an allowance of any type?
SPEAKER_04:Uh never. Never. Never. So when you even when I grew up, we'll talk in a minute, I never had an allowance. I was in those days you were expected to work.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so when you needed or wanted something that cost money, you just asked mom or dad, hey, I need or I want whatever, fill in the blank.
SPEAKER_04:In those days, you've got to remember I was born in 1958. So in the early 60s, there were not a lot of needs and wants as a child. A, I lived at the base of the Rocky Mountains. I could go out of my house with my standard poodle that weighed about 125 pounds. I had rivers and trees and rocks and you did things that didn't cost money. Right. I mean, in those days we didn't. And I always say this: if I had a football, which I was I let's say I turned into golfer later, but if I had a golf ball, my buddy down the street had a frisbee, my other buddy had a sled, my other buddy had a basketball, basketball hoop, and we all shared and played in that. None of us had every one of those material items. And we had rocks.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right?
SPEAKER_04:No, fights.
SPEAKER_02:I mean listen, I grew up here in Vegas and we chased lizards, right? Right. We would we would go out there and find the cacti and make little mini spears. Right. Right? We'd find bam, there'd be bamboo out in the desert. Right. Because be there'd be a water spring somewhere, and we'd break off bamboo about th about three foot pieces of it, and we'd cut off little spears off the cacti, and we'd make spears and go sp we'd go hunting for lizards. We would spear them.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Exactly. Yeah, and that's just kids having fun. That don't cost no money. That's just getting out of the house. Right. Right. Well, we went out of the house first thing in the morning and didn't come home until it was dark. Right. I mean, that was our generation. Right. Today's kids, they don't, and I can't blame them not to. This is we live in a whole total different world here that in a lot of cases it's just not, depending on where you're at, not safe.
SPEAKER_04:But even where Boulder is today, when I grew up, it was a 30,000, 40,000 um person town. Yeah. That's a small town. And now it's, you know, everybody knows everybody there. Yeah, with the county, right. And my dad being a tough guy, everyone didn't want to deal with my dad when he came back from Korea and he was a little bit of a.
SPEAKER_02:Well, so if you can if you can remember, and again, I'm asking you to go way back, and you may not be able to, because sometimes I don't, but if you can think back as far as you as you can, at what point do you remember a dollar bill, a 10 or a 20, somehow you either earned it, or mom and dad gave it to you, and they said it do whatever you want with it, or I'm giving this to you because you wanted XYZ.
SPEAKER_04:I actually I actually have a picture of my phone, I'll show you later.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And I'm standing there with my brother and sister, and I was four years older, and I have a very close family. I'm standing there and I'm showing actually my first uh income was was losing my teeth.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay, right. Right, the tooth furry right. Let's put it under the pillow, and then we're gonna wake up and there's gonna be something there. I'll show you after the podcast.
SPEAKER_04:I I have a picture of myself standing holding my brother and sister's hands in a little red outfit. They got sailor suits on, right? And I got money clenched in my hand. Okay. You can actually see the money. Nice. And I I'm showing my lips off where you can see I'm missing a tooth. Oh, okay. So actually, my first form of income, if you think about it, was losing losing my teeth. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:You know, and and and again, I don't, you know, I don't know. I'm gonna have to ask my daughter if if they are still doing that tradition. Because that was a tradition. Right. In our era.
SPEAKER_04:Heck, I tried to pull teeth out that weren't ready to go. Right? Because you wanted some money, right? And again, and I remember in those days, you pull a tooth out, you'd bloody it, you'd you you know, hook it onto a doorknob, slam the door, however, you know, how however you did it, right? You know, and the next day you wake up, there's a quarter. There's 50 cents.
SPEAKER_03:But in those days, that's a lot of money. You could buy a lot of stuff with 50 cents.
SPEAKER_04:Well, back in those days, especially in 68, you could buy a gallon of gas for 18, 19 cents. So a quarter was a big hurrah. Go and you get five pieces of gum or whatever. Right, right. So actually, probably my first form of income was losing my teeth.
SPEAKER_02:Was losing the teeth, which is kind of interesting. So at no point in time, mom and dad talk to you about saving money.
SPEAKER_04:I don't think anyone ever did, though. Well, we all had piggy banks.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Think about that. We all had piggy banks. Even my mother I never had a piggy bank. Well, I never really did.
SPEAKER_03:I'm I didn't know.
SPEAKER_02:To my knowledge, I didn't. Um, yeah, no, and then and then I became a young adult. I wasn't a good saver. Uh and I'm a little bit older than you too.
SPEAKER_04:I remember going to my grandparents' house and they still had piggy banks from my my mom and her two sisters. Right. And that's why I can work a paperclip so well because I know how to get quarters out of an old piggy bank.
SPEAKER_02:You know, so pull someone of it out. But you know what? Money was never a big deal back then. So at what point, at what age do you think it became a big deal? When you got serious about like, okay, I'm actually gonna go trade time for money. You got some sort of a job, paper route, worked at the ice cream shop, whatever. What what what age what age was that? Because you and I were able to work at a very young age, versus in today's world, they're not allowed to.
SPEAKER_04:Um I never really, as my father was an entrepreneur, he always had work for me. So you'd go do work for him. Yeah, but I wouldn't get paid.
SPEAKER_03:As a child, I know, because in that era, dad figured, hey, you're that's your key. You're gonna do it. You're you're under my roof and I feed you. So probably my first big jobs was shoveling snow.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Yeah, you lived right there in Colorado.
SPEAKER_04:And I would find the biggest driveway. Young teenager? Right. Oh, no, I was even younger than that. I was eight, nine years old. Eight, nine years old. I'd find the biggest driveway you could find to shovel. And knock on the lady's door and charge her ten dollars.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And I'm telling you what, if my brother and sister were here, because I bring them along and my brother's five years younger.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_04:So if I'm eight or nine, they're four and five, we're out there with shovels.
SPEAKER_02:Shoveling snow.
SPEAKER_04:They're probably looking out the window going, look at that kid with the big head that's missing teeth because he sold it to the tooth ferry. Give let them do it. Right. And we shoveled snow and shoveled snow and shoveled.
SPEAKER_02:Did all of your buddies do it too? That's just the the way of making money? Um amongst you and all your friends.
SPEAKER_04:Yes and no. I had buddies, uh, my childhood friend always had a great paper out. I could never get the paper out for whatever reason. So he had a little paper out. And I remember in those days, he this is when we became sixth, seventh, eighth grade. That's when Al was making about I think it was about$19 a month delivering the the boulder.
SPEAKER_02:I want to get into the into the mindset of at that age for you of money and what you thought about it, what you thought you were gonna do with it. I mean when we first start making money at these young ages, we have grandiose aspirations and dreams, and eight dollars to at that era, eight dollars to an eight-year-old is a lot of money. It's like an eight-year-old today making a hundred bucks. You're like, dude, you're eight years old. What are you doing with a hundred dollars?
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Right? So can if you can remember, did you were you into sneakers, hot wheels, stuff that you wanted to buy, or were you a saver?
SPEAKER_04:I was I was no, I saved what I was into because we grew up, we were mountain people, if you really look at it. Right. And I'm still very proud of it today. I'm an Eagle Scout. I was born in Boulder, Colorado. I had the rocky Boulder, Colorado's rock climbing capital of the world, right? Or at least in the United States. I started rock climbing when I was 10, 11 years old. Um, people in my troop and also uh other climbers, we had Royal Robbins in town, we had Padament, we had great, great rock climbers. My mom, my dad was always working, so he never really kept that hard eye on me. And he always tried to stop me on anything I wanted to do. And a lot of that had to do with how he went through Korea and he fought on the front lines. He never wanted any, he came home on a stretcher, he never wanted anything to happen to anyone or his family.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:So when I step out and I'm 13, 12 years old, I want to go rock climbing. I mean, you think about it. If I had a child today and he was 25 years old, I would never let him do what I did. Right. And I tell people this, and I talk to other childhood buddies that still live in Boulder that are Eagle Scouts. I mean, we were raised by tough guys. We were raised by World War II guys, Korean guys, and we'd go deep into the hills of Colorado, even and we went deep. I in those days, no one was trying to touch me or fondly or any of that. Right. I mean, it was really tough military guys, rock, it was a tough deal. But I'll tell you one thing when old men are freezing to death, they don't care that you're 14 years old.
SPEAKER_02:And you're freezing.
SPEAKER_04:They're freezing.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So I I learned at an early age. So again, when I first started making money, it was more about I wanted to go buy a climbing rope, or I wanted to go buy some carabiners, or I wanted to go buy a room.
SPEAKER_02:You wanted to spend the money on the hobby that you were doing. But I did, exactly. And that's with every kid, whether it's your your case was rock climbing, other kids could be, hey, I I basketball, or hey, I'm playing baseball, I need new cliche, new glove, I need a bat, whatever, right? And so we're spending our money on those types of things. But even at that age, we're not you typically giving a lot of thought to the money. But you were definitely giving trading either time or value. Your dad had you do things, but he didn't pay you. So you had to go out there, you wanted rock climbing.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, he took care of me.
SPEAKER_02:They they were so they're if you if you could go ask dad, hey dad, I I want a rope or what new rope or whatever, he would take care of it. Now I'd go to my mother. Mom's always softer.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, well, he he didn't want me doing that anyway. Right. What he what he did, and and you and I both golf together, what my father did to me, I always wanted a dirt bike and a mini bike, and you go down to Sears or Penny or$79 or$109. And I always wanted that, and he just said, Man, you you're you're never gonna have it. You will never have a mini bike. My buddies had them. I had one down at my grandpa's house because my grandpa was a rancher and a farmer and a miner's he had fingers missing from blowing them off with dynamite and stuff. Well, so at his house I had that.
SPEAKER_02:Well, okay, so I I'm a grandparent. You're you're not a grandparent. And in and grandparents spoil the grandkids, right? Right. And so did your grandfather or mother spoil you? Did they throw money at you?
SPEAKER_04:No, they were he worked me to death too. I was literally, that's why I've told you I love high-rise living because I don't want to rake, a shovel, a hammer. I was until I my family got into the retail furniture business, I was worked to death. Without pay. Without pay. I wasn't abused. You know, we we had Well, they provided food, shelter, clothing. Right. But in those days, you didn't put your hand out at your folks.
SPEAKER_02:You know, because again, if we that's a whole different era today, that eight, nine, ten, or twelve-year-old who's working for their parent doing whatever it is, they're demanding money. Right, exactly. Because they want, okay, there's a difference between needs and wants, right? Right, right. And they want whatever that, hey, I need a new iPad or dad, or I need a new whatever.
SPEAKER_04:What I find it's a difference in the generations. You gotta remember my folks were raised by the depression parents.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly, which is hang on to every penny that you can.
SPEAKER_04:So then when I was raised by at least my mom's grandfather being a rancher and a he had chickens and horses, and he became a general contractor, all I want to do was hang out with him. So I would go to work with him during summer break, but I was never I was never paid. I was never paid. The first paying job I ever got, I was 16 years old. I got a job at McDonald's.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. That was my job. Let's go down that road real quick. Okay, because one, why did you go get that job?
SPEAKER_04:You know, I can't uh honestly tell you. And I didn't I didn't really work it for a long time because to back up a little bit, and this is a a sport you and I love to death, I was I was about in eighth grade. So eighth, ninth grade is about when I said But anyway, I always wanted that what I was telling you many a mini-bike. Right. A mini-bike, mini-bike, mini-bike. So anyway, one day my dad came home and he was doing well. He did very well because he he was uh he worked he never had a pair of tennis shoes or or jeans in his life. Right. He worked seven days, he was a entrepreneur. Right, he's a businessman. Yeah, he was he always was rolling the dice to see what he could do. And he came home one day, he goes, I got something out in the garage with you for you. And I said, Oh really? So I go out in the garage. I'm thinking I'm expecting a mini-bike. Right. I go out in the garage, there's a set of golf clubs. Really? And I looked at those golf clubs and I said, This is what his father, his father, my parents were like uh I don't know, fire and ice. My my mom was hillbilly family, my dad was a business family.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And that they met at the University of Colorado. But anyway, my mom would always promote anything I wanted to do. My dad always tried to stop anything I wanted to do. And again, I think it was because his PSD or whatever he problem he had. I go out there, I'm thinking, oh God, you finally got me a minibike. I'd run out there to set a golf clubs. I'm like, this is what What is this? I don't golf. This is what Papa does. My my grandpa, my his father, polished man. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. So anyway, my mom being my mom, and she was most wonderful. Everyone's mom might be wonderful, but all my everyone in my town loved her, everything else, my way. She's one day put me in the car, University of Colorado. There's a big Frank Potts field, took me down. It was just a big field of weeds, and there was balls there. The guy'd come along, dump balls, and dump them in a field, give you the basket, you'd hit balls, and then you'd go shag them and put them back, and you'd run back and forth as a kid. Right. Well, about a year later, that I that was about the McDonald's time, but a year later, I started playing golf because once I learned how to hit some balls, you you get that urge to go play golf. So anyway, I ended up going out to uh it's Flat Irons Country Club, it's still there today in Boulder, Colorado. It was built with a war pack, it was a great course, it's still a great traditional course. I went out and I got a job there.
SPEAKER_02:At the golf course. At the golf course, yeah. Well, of course, because I don't know if your dad realized. So you wanted a mini bike that for a hundred bucks or whatever, and other than the gas, there's no more money to spend. You're just gonna be out buzzing around doing whatever, right? Um did he do you think he realized if I got my son a set of golf clubs, he has to pay to play every time he goes out. And even back then, it probably wasn't very much money for nine five bucks or whatever.
SPEAKER_04:No, nine holes was twenty-five cents.
SPEAKER_02:Nine holes were twenty.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, no, but it would still cost money. It was fifty cents to play, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, I don't think my dad was that concerned about that.
SPEAKER_02:He just paid for it? What? The golf? If you said, Dad, I'm going golf and I need some money to go golf.
SPEAKER_04:Well, it was a semi-private club. So they were members. It would probably cost seven dollars a month.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they uh so they just put it on his tab.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but I would still pay my, but once I worked there, I never had to pay. And it was a quarter and twenty-five cents. And those days I was making like I think about a dollar seventy-five an hour to pick up range balls, and I worked for the pro and I used to be daddy for the pro and all that.
SPEAKER_02:So again, the the problem in my generation when I was younger, and I believe in what you're saying about money, it was never I mean, it was it was so far, up until the age of let's call it fifteen or sixteen, money really wasn't on your radar, so to speak.
SPEAKER_04:By fifteen or sixteen, girls were on my radar.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, I mean, but look, mom and dad provided.
SPEAKER_04:I could borrow my mother's I could borrow my mother's car on a Friday night once I was in high school.
SPEAKER_02:Right. You know.
SPEAKER_04:Let's talk about our bikes from one end of town to the other.
SPEAKER_02:What a what age then did you start to take money seriously or even understand money? You probably won't believe it. I was probably 40 years old. Unbelievable, trust me. There's a reason why 62% of Americans today in 2025 live paycheck to paycheck, okay? So there's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just again, that's why my question first question always is how old were you when mom and dad sat you down and taught me about money. And and 99 out of a hundred people that I asked that question to are gonna tell me they never did. Well, what including myself.
SPEAKER_04:Well, what my dad provided me was after he was done being a wholesale furniture rep, he bought furniture stores. So now all I did was gravitate from taking care of the family yard and all this into a furniture store. So now But he paid you then. Not we lived, but then we it was through the 80s when business was bad. I mean, we never went without. I mean, we always I never really had a paycheck till I was 40 years old. If I needed rent money, we'd get it from my mom. We had enough, you know, wherever us kids were living, the three of us. Okay. So we lived there. We didn't go without a meal. So but I never ever until I was about I remember the very first time I finally got out of the family business and I went out on my own and I got my first paycheck and happened to be here in Las Vegas, and it was like for$5,000. And I was at that time, I was probably 34, 35. I I said 40 earlier, but I was probably about 35. I remember going home. AI got off at five o'clock. In a family business, I worked till nine. I'd worked from nine to nine, right? Uh five days a week, uh, nine to six on Saturday and 12 to 6 on Sunday. Anyway, I'll never forget my first paycheck of five grand. My buddies are having kids and getting married, and everyone's got money and everything's rosy. And I'm sitting in a rental house just sitting there counting my hundred dollar bills for the first time. About 35, I had been paid for what I was worth.
SPEAKER_02:How did that make you feel? And was that a scary feeling? Was that an inspirational feeling?
SPEAKER_04:No, no, no, what's the one thing that I got over all my years with my father? I have a hell of a work ethic. Okay. I'm tenacious. And through my life, from the day I started selling YMCA candy when I was a top salesman, I've earned two automobiles in my life in sales contests. I've helped when I tell this, I could never count, but I've I've helped probably a couple hundred thousand people in retail. I sometimes can be mundane. I'm kind of like Johnny Carson. I can be mundane behind the curtain. But when that show curtain opens up, I know how to sell. Right. I know how to be a chameleon. I know how to help people, I know how to fit into what the people are and and what what they want. Not not to buffalo them.
SPEAKER_02:Well, let me ask you this. So I I know through conversations, a lot of people's money habits are not, again, they parents didn't sit you down and teach you, but kids are very observant from the age of three, really, right? And so kids will emulate parents. Meaning, I have people on this podcast that I've I've talked about, and they'll say, Mom was a saver, dad was a spender. I'm saying, well, which way do you lean? And they're like, I kind of lean towards dad, or other people that said, Hey, I lean, I'm a saver, right? Because mom was a saver. In your case, this is this is a unique case because I think today, I I if I use the word full circle, right? Because all this stuff happened in the in the late 60s, early 70s, right? Right. And in today's world, with the tech technology that's out there today, and eight, nine, ten, twelve-year-old kids can go make money online. Right, right. And a lot of them make a lot of money online. My nephew does. Like six figures plus, right? Right. And so my question is as you were going through life, and and I'm trying to get to somewhere where there's I know there's at whatever age somebody out there thinking, wow, that's been my life. My family was a big entrepreneur life, and I've had to work for them, and I didn't never really get a paycheck. They took care of me. And then for you, it was age 35 until you got an actual paycheck, and now you have to decide how on your own. And now you're deciding what do I need to do with this money.
SPEAKER_04:But if I but if I look back, I went through the school of hard knocks because I was learning every day. I never went without a meal. I never went without a shirt.
SPEAKER_02:Well, again, it's I don't know.
SPEAKER_04:But I wasn't building wealth. Can we build wealth?
SPEAKER_02:When we say hard knocks, meaning um, you didn't have to worry. There would, you didn't have the stress, number one, of an 18, 19, 22-year-old of I have to make money to put gas in my car. I have to make money, well, I want to go buy, I need some new clothing.
SPEAKER_04:I had major stress because as my father went down the world and then we got into the retail furniture business. Suddenly, when you have a 50,000 square foot building that many years ago cost you$30,000 a month, and that's why so many little businesses don't make it because their overhead is so high.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And your mother comes to you on a Thursday going, we just dumped$30,000 worth of checks, we have zero in the account in the count. I hope you and Dave can pull it out by money. Not in a bad way. Right. So even though I if I stayed out until four o'clock on Saturday morning or Friday night, what I had to get up and I always had to perform. I've always been a dancing monkey. I always had to get up and have the grinder go. That's probably why today I still get up bright and early.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I definitely want to talk about that in a little bit. Um, because at our age, people are always assuming you're retired or you're getting ready to retire, but we'll go down that road in a minute. So I'm getting to the point of here of your life, right? Young entrepreneur working for the family, not really, it's not about you, it's about the whole family, the family business. Um, it was one big pot, everybody shared the money, so to speak. Family took care of everything. And it wasn't until mid-30s till you did what you did to make that first big check, nice check. And then what did you because at that point, that money only you 100% made a decision what you were going to do with it. At this point, it wasn't about, hey, I've got to give some to the business, the the family business or anything. That was your money. And so from that point forward, now you were making your own money. Right. Right. And so at at that point, how were you with money? Were you a saver? Were you an investor? Were you a spender? What were you?
SPEAKER_04:You know what I find, and I always tell people this when you don't have money, you spend like hell. Here in Vegas, when I didn't have money. And I had a lot of credit cards. I could go out and pull$2,000 off my credit card, not think anything about it. I could lose that$2,000 and I could wait till the casino at$1205 where I could go get money off my credit card again. Because money didn't mean anything to me. I mean it, I understood what it was. And I think it was really the first time I ever went to Y. Went to Hawaii and I stayed there for a week and it was like five grand. And I thought, my God, I've blown 10,000 in a night in a casino. What the hell is this? I had a whole week of enjoyment. There's no enjoyment sitting in a casino blowing 10 grand. You'd never see anyone in there laughing and having fun. I mean, a few drunks. So suddenly I realized what money was.
SPEAKER_02:And I realized the true value. And again, back to if we're going to learn some lessons here for the folks that are out there listening, is this is why it is so important to learn financial literacy at the youngest possible age that we can. Oh, I agree. It is okay to teach seven, eight, nine, ten-year-olds about money, the value of money, the fact that your dad worked, you know, uh there's 168 hours in the week. Your dad must have worked 150 of them. He barely slept, you know what I mean? So I want people to understand today that there are still people out there doing that that have that type of lifestyle, that they're working that much to make an income and taking care of their families. And there's probably somebody listening out there that says, that sounds like my family, right? But the detriment came later when you actually started to make money. You live in Vegas, and you were for the term, you're blowing the money. Right?
SPEAKER_04:However, you became a salesperson through I was bl I was blowing the money until I finally started making money.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And stopped there.
SPEAKER_02:Well, how long did how long? And a minute ago, I l I want to back up for a minute. Um, because it through the cut that your statements a minute ago, it went, it went real real quick, and some of these people might have caught it because I talk about this a lot. Credit cards. Right. How old were you when you got your first credit card? Did you get it on your own? Did mom and dad sign for you to get one? No, I didn't. How did you get the card?
SPEAKER_04:I'll never forget. And we didn't go over my college years. I got trained to be a pilot, and I went to Emory Riddle Aeronautical University, the most famous aviation school in this country. And to this day it still is. I was walking down a mall one time and they stopped me and said, Hey, you want two quarts of Coke? If you'll sign up for a credit card, I was like, two quarts of Coke. I remembered like with, and I I have a very good memory. I signed up for the two quarts of Coke. Next thing I had a credit card. I built that credit card off another credit card off another credit card. I probably, when I wasn't making money, I probably had 35 credit cards that had balances on every one of them.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, back up, back up, put it in park, put it in university. We got to back this up because today, today, this is 2025, this is the fall of 2025, guys. Today, outside of uh educational debt, credit card debt's the biggest debt.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Um, so you're just describing that you just racked up 30 credit cards over how what period of time, roughly?
SPEAKER_04:Well, you gotta remember, I I'm three years, five years, ten years? I was single. Well, that's fine, but but but I I rang up a lot of the credit card debt once I once I got out of college, it's a long story. What happened?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you had to have learned what I call the credit card game. I I I knew the game. Okay, borrowed this money and again. You got introduced to it walking through the mall. Right. The the catch was I'll give you a couple of bottles of Coke if you sign up. Because back then, that was the beginning of credit cards, and they wanted everybody to have one, right? And you didn't have to qualify to get one. Now, can you remember that first credit card or first two or three credit cards, what kind of limit did they give you?
SPEAKER_04:Probably 500, 250. But if you know how to work it.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so okay. Again, because this is a big, big problem.
SPEAKER_04:You can still work it today. If they give you 500,000, there's a big, big problem.
SPEAKER_02:Like if if we listen to Dave Ramsey, and everybody knows how I feel about Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey, if you are a 1099 employee employee, you're you trade time for money, you have a J-O-B. I want you to listen to Dave Ramsey and do exactly as he says. If you are like Richard and his family, which is an entrepreneur, then I want you to listen to Robert Kiyosaki. Right? Now, Dave and Robert are friends.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:They are polar opposites of what their beliefs in growing in making and growing money are. They're polar opposites. They're good friends. Uh, go watch them on YouTube, on videos, and you'll watch them battle it out. And they both just truly believe what they believe, right? Which is fine. And so that's why I always say it's not right, it's not wrong. It just depends. Everybody's different. But I I highly recommend if you're a 1099, you have a job, no matter what it is, or how much money you make, follow Dave Ramsey or myself, right? I have my book out, my trainings, and I'm getting ready to come out with an app that's gonna help people.
SPEAKER_04:Like, and by the way, I really enjoyed reading your book. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_02:So I think that we we have to understand these things. And for you to go down and make a fast statement, I had credit cards, blah, blah, blah and people are out there right now, struggle to get one credit card or they're in major credit card debt. Now what do I do to get out? So, at what point in time, if you can remember, you said you had roughly 30 credit cards. What was the most, the number, if you can remember, that you were ever in debt in credit cards? What was that number?
SPEAKER_04:No, probably back then, and Boulder was a smaller town back then. I probably got into about 15,000 in debt. And mainly that was partying debt.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:I was drinking it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, which is what college kids do today. I would buy the room of the bar with it. 19 to 25 year old, going to school, gets their credit cards, and you know, they're at the bar every night partying, having a good time.
SPEAKER_04:Back to my dad, you know, entrepreneur. He knew the when you had personal bankers. My mom called the personal banker. I went down and met with the personal banker. He gave me a loan to pay all my credit card debt off. In those days, your interest rate was eight or nine percent. Yeah, not like today, it's 27. Whatever it was. And so he gave me a three percent.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so you so let's back up. So you recognize you looked up one day, holy crap, I'm fifty thousand dollars in debt on credit cards. Maybe not credit cards, but maybe around. Yeah, maybe thirty. So you're like, holy crap, what do I do now? Right? Because that's like a giant mountain that you you've got to climb and it's not easy. And so you chose to go the route, hey mom, I got myself.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And she says, hey, let's go get a loan. It's cheaper to just get a loan, pay them off, and pay the loan off, which is always it is definitely the cheaper way to go. But in today's world, I know a lot of people that get in some serious credit card debt, and and the best way to get out of credit card debt is negotiating. Right. Nothing like so, you're a great salesman and you could have got on the phone, or some of you guys that are out there, if you have the great people skills and you're and you work a job where you're a salesperson and you know you're good, and you got credit card debt, get on the phone. It's time to negotiate.
SPEAKER_04:I didn't know that in those days, but when we had our business and we had credit card debt, yeah, we negotiated credit cards down from$80,000 down to$10. Right. Because they're scared to death that you're gonna bankrupt on them. Right. And then they get nothing. And you got you you gotta you gotta be a little savvy when you're talking to them.
SPEAKER_02:Well, again, I think the way you grew up, right? Um, I think you subconsciously became a salesperson.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, I did. I right?
SPEAKER_02:It wasn't intentional. It wasn't all like I'll give you an example. Uh, my youngest child who's 26, just turned 26, she's intentionally trained to be a high-ticket salesperson. Right, right because the art of sales is exactly that. It's an art. It's an art, yeah. Okay, it's not just because you can talk to anybody, you really gotta know the art, but that's a whole different conversation. But you learn that because your dad did retail, right? And anytime you sell in anything retail, in your case, it was your case, it was furniture. My father didn't like retail because he was a wholesale guy, but he was always buying bars and well, he had to go and sell himself to buy that stuff wholesale at the lowest possible price so he could turn around and sell it at the highest possible price.
SPEAKER_04:Where I did when I when I truly, and I I could never tell you the exact count, but when I did it for 27 years, and I helped on a Saturday, I'd helped 30, 40 people talk to him, nasty as they could be, or I'm nasty. Right. Not not verbally, but just you know, everyone's in a bad mood, whatever. No one likes a salesperson because nine out of ten salespeople, they're not salespeople.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:They don't even know how to so over the years, that's why I say the school of hard knocks. Once you help 100,000 people, you really, yeah. It's um and that's why ultimately, like I I've asked people before, have you ever earned an automobile? I earned a 1990 G Prangler and a company I work for, totally different company. I earned a 2001 Porsche Boxster. Right. I mean, do you know anyone else that ever earned a car? I've done two. So it's it's I know how to turn it on.
SPEAKER_02:So you have a skill set. Right. And and I and I've said it before, I believe it doesn't matter what you decide to do to make a living in life, if you can learn sales, the true art of sales, you will never go without work.
SPEAKER_04:But ever. I I I truly believe, I truly believe this. If I was gonna write my book, it'd be called The Last of the Great Door-to-door salesman. It's my first automobile I earned selling door-to-door. Where do young people learn to sell today?
SPEAKER_02:You want to hear that's that's a great thing. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I spent a lot of time on the internet and YouTube and stuff, and this will probably blow your mind when you say that, because a year and a half ago or so, I run into this young gal online. I'm looking for for uh sales type training for my daughter, right? And this young gal who is twenty three years old and she's selling a high-ticket sales position. She's that's what she developed, high-ticket sales positioning strictly for ladies, only ladies only, only women. She won't train males, only trains women. She's 23 years old, and she tells her backstory. She started selling door-to-door knocking at 18 years old. She did it for three years, 18 to 21, selling solar.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Right? Because that was the big door-to-door. You're either selling solar or you're selling um security systems, right? This young lady, what a hustler she is. She hustled enough that she made really good money for three years hustling door to door, knocking on doors, learning how to talk to people. Right.
SPEAKER_04:And then learning how to have a door slammed in your face.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Learning how to take a no.
SPEAKER_04:Right, right.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. You gotta, if it's a salesperson, you get 90 no's to 10 yeses. They're gonna sell something. Okay, so you can't get upset, someone told you no. So this gal, she tells her story. It's unbelievable. And today, I just watched another video of hers earlier today. She's now 25. She's a multimillionaire because you know what she did? And I don't know if you know about masterminds. You know what a mastermind group is? She joined a mastermind somewhere. She lives in Florida. And I can almost guarantee you that in this mastermind, some other very experienced entrepreneur that's in a mastermind said, Here's what you need to do. You have incredible sales skills. You're 23 years old. You can sell this to other 23-year-olds. Right, right. You know how to do this. I will show you how to put a program together and you can go out there and do it. And in the last two years, this girl has made herself multimillionaire. And the greatest thing that I really love about this young lady, guess what she's done with her money? She's made millions. She keeps buying houses. Right. She's not out blowing it. Nope. She does have her little pink Porsche. Right. Okay, I'll give her that. She lives in a high-rise downtown Miami. Right. Right. She's living the Miami lifestyle, but she's a hustler, and that girl is making tons of cash. And she's doing the right thing because she's she's putting her money into assets. Unlike there's YouTuber kids out there that are making millions of dollars, just blowing it. Right. One, they don't even know about taxes, asset protection, or anything else. Right. But we'll get back on point to where in your life, it's it it you were subconsciously groomed to be the salesperson you became.
SPEAKER_04:Correct.
SPEAKER_02:Subconsciously, because whether you realize it or not, you're watching dad.
SPEAKER_04:Well, you know what?
SPEAKER_02:You're watching dad.
SPEAKER_04:I always used to tell my father, I wish you were a race car driver. I wish you would have been a movie star. And he looks like a movie star. Right. I wish you would have been an astronaut. That's and you see how many children follow what in their father's footsteps. I just got sucked into it.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_04:I know, but look, you're 68. You you got regrets? Uh yeah, I do. I mean, the only regret I I've had a great life, I've had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs. The only regret I have is I never did what I wanted to do. Because I got pulled in the family business. Okay. And I love selling because it's the only thing I know.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:I love selling. And I made a lot of money in selling too. Just like that gal, once that young gal you just said, that's what I did. Once I started making money, I lived in two high rises, I drove a Porsche.
SPEAKER_02:Is it fair to say that up until you stopped working with dad, dad was your mentor? Or did you have a different mentor? Was it mom? Was it somebody else? You know what?
SPEAKER_04:What my dad did to me, he never patted me on my back. Huge. Ever. Huge. From the day when I mentioned Eagle Scout, my dad never patted me on the back. Just like in business. He wanted to know what I was going to do tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02:That's huge. I think we need to always in my program. I have a term in there that's called CAW, which stands for celebrate all wins. Right. No matter how small, you need to can you need to reward yourself or people need to clap. Hey, you did a great job, commend you, all of these things. We need to celebrate all these little milestones. And when I'm teaching financial literacy and get trying to get people back on track, and let's say, hey, your goal right now, it's all about goals. Your goal right now is to is to uh is to get your um your six months worth of of uh funds put away for an emergency fund, right? Oh, what's that gonna and everybody's number is different? And then let's just say for six months it's 30 grand and you start at zero, I don't have anything. All right, I'm telling you, when you reach the first thousand bucks, CAW, you gotta celebrate that. You're like, and I don't care if it took two weeks or two months or two years, celebrate the fact that, hey, I did the discipline on my way to 30K that I got to my first thousand.
SPEAKER_04:You know what? With all the employees I hired and worked with over the years, I'm a big proponent of that. I just happened to come from him.
SPEAKER_02:That generation, I get it.
SPEAKER_04:And again, he came home on a stretcher from Korea. Right. Don't tell me what you did for me today. Go, can you do it again tomorrow?
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And again, and again, that's why I said I've always been a dancing monkey. Can I dance next to look at I'm not comparing at all? Right. But look at Michael Jackson. No matter what he ever did, his dad just kept pushing him, pushing him, pushing him, pushing him, and pushing him. And that probably for me, and I'm not comparing myself at all with Michael Jackson, God bless the guy. For me, it was probably the greatest gift he ever gave me, other than my golf clubs. Exactly. Because I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's what got your work ethic.
SPEAKER_04:I don't need patted on the back every day. I get up for myself.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Some people need to be coddled, right? That might be the biggest problem with younger generations now.
SPEAKER_02:You gotta be coddled and always Okay, but later in life now, mid-30s, get your first check. Okay, what do I do? It probably didn't allow you, and I this is a huge component of my trainings. Um, once we get past the mindset of really understanding money, the next uh one is goals, right? Goal setting. Are you a big goal setter? Or have you been? Were you? Or you still, or do you now, or or not at all?
SPEAKER_04:You know what? I I really other than probably achieve an Eagle Scout, which is one of the highest civilian awards.
SPEAKER_02:There you go. Because well, how old were you when you started when you got the Boy Scouts?
SPEAKER_04:Um, 13 years old.
SPEAKER_02:And how how long did it take to get to be an Eagle Scout?
SPEAKER_04:I actually about 12 years old. I got Eagle Scout when I was 17.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, it took five years.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and the reason it was so great for me, I was at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Right. And it did everything I did.
SPEAKER_02:And but that that so again, when you you joined the organization, great organization, the Boy Scouts of America, and Eagle Scout is the pinnacle. And so that was a goal that you wanted to reach, and you reached it. That's great. What else did you think?
SPEAKER_04:I I I I think was I I didn't know what I want to do. I just pardon me, I'm not the smartest guy in town. I'm tenacious, I just keep moving forward. Okay. I mean, some of the greatest, some of the greatest running backs ever, they just keep going forward by three and four yards. Right. They don't run around, they're not famous. No, great lesson. Remember Joe Rogan? He just wasn't Joe Rogan with the uh Washington.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, Joe Thizman.
SPEAKER_04:Or even the running back, whatever. Remember, he just keeps every two yards, just pick up two. If you can pick up two yards a day, it's like what we do today if we're right in housing or whatever we do. If I could just make a goal every day. So I I never set a goal and said, you know, that star up there. I just kept pushing forward. And even like on both my automobiles, I just got up and went to work. Did you when you won those automobiles? Was that I didn't win them, I earned them.
SPEAKER_02:Or earned them. Yeah, but I just was that that's why you hurt hustled and worked so hard is because I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna earn, I'm gonna win that. You won it because of your sales. That was a gold. My or that was I'm going to work every day. That was just a byproduct of everything.
SPEAKER_04:I got here in Vegas and I did door to door, believe it or not. I saw some vacuum cleaners door to door. And the and we had a furniture store, and I always wanted to get away from the furniture store. And my family moved here. And long story, I showed up a little late. I was working up in San Francisco and I came back in to help the family, like I always did. And I came back to help the family. And when I got there, the store was closed. I'm looking for my brother and my dad. I went over to the bar where they'd go to, and they weren't there. And there was a bar guy there, and he goes, What are you doing? I said, Well, and I I didn't want to tell, especially when I was single. I'm selling vacuum cleaners, right? Because most people fail at that, too. Right. So anyway, at this bartender, I said, Hey, look at this. This long story, this guy wants me to go to work for him. And I I opened up the paper and I said, Top salesman will win a 1990 Jeep Angler. And I remember looking at him and going, I'm not a vacuum cleaner salesman. I'm a salesman. I said, If they're for real, that's mine.
SPEAKER_02:That's a true story. So I think that's a subconscious goal. I don't think that was a conscious goal.
SPEAKER_04:I think it's because my dad never patted me on the back. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I had to worry about tomorrow. Exactly. Exactly. And you know what? I think in life, right? Um and I'm gonna throw out the word and we'll get into it, success, right? And success is a word that means something different for every individual. But you probably, the day that you won that thing, the journey it took, however many sales it took to get there, and you're like, hey, Richard Love won this thing, right? Um, you felt very successful.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I can tell you one thing.
SPEAKER_02:Did you feel successful?
SPEAKER_04:Well, it was the first big hit I ever had in my life. Okay. Because I talked again, I unsold the company. Instead of giving me the 1990 G Prangler, I talked into cash. So they wrote me a check, which years later, my business. I gave a car away in my business. Right. You never give them cash, you give them the car so everyone can see the car. So anyway, I yeah, so it you know, it was a it was a great stride for me. And and for me, I learned one thing. It doesn't matter what you sell. It doesn't. I was selling vacuum cleaners. And I during that month, once I got into it, I was embarrassed to tell anyone what I was doing. I didn't like the furniture business, so I certainly didn't want to tell anyone I was selling vacuum cleaners. And suddenly I got commissioned plus that. I made like$20,000 my first month going door to door. And that's when I learned, you know what? If I was a number one clothes hanger salesman in this country or doorknob salesman, or Wrigley's gum, Wrigley lived next to Bob Hope in Palm Springs. Doesn't matter what you sell. It's selling yourself. If you have if if you believe in yourself and you'll put in the time on yourself and you're tenacious, you don't have to be the smartest guy. I've proven that.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You just gotta you gotta work hard.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you do, but it again, in order to reach in order, you know, I teach people, you know, people today at whatever age aspire to be like somebody, right? Whether it's an athlete, musician, somebody who has what it they believe in their eyes, success because it's money that's showing their success. Um, do what do what you love, and you obviously learned um how to talk to people and then sell people on whatever the product would be. It doesn't even matter. You could sell anything.
SPEAKER_03:Um but I always insist on selling a good product.
SPEAKER_02:You've got to admit, and I've been selling my whole life. Right. I true for me, it's just so much fun to sell. Because every time you sell whatever, if for you, if it was a vacuum, it's a win. Well, you know, it's like it's like Michael Jordan every time he made a basket.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I got another. That is, but you know what? I always insist on selling a good product. Even when I sold the vacuum, it could it could suck a picture off your wall. Right. And everyone talks about all that, but I I I'm insistent on selling a good product. A quality product. Right. Otherwise, what did you sell to win that Jeep? It was uh it was called uh Silver King. They were making Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was an old brand, very, very old brand. And I could go in and show a Kirby, Electrolux, whatever they all were. I mean, it was an unbelievable brand. Yeah, every mother after vacuum cleaner sales became very prominent after World War II because it, you know, they went doing that.
SPEAKER_02:Well, let's talk about let's turn the page here. You're 68. At what age do you start thinking bring that closer? Oh, we're gonna take a little quick break here and we'll be right back. Okay, we're back. Sometimes you sit here, you drink some beers, and Mother Nature calls. So I was getting ready to rolled into um obviously great sales, I think subliminal with with dad, how you got there. But at what age and you really started making some good money in your mid-30s, at what age did you start to think about retirement?
SPEAKER_03:Probably never. Okay. I don't think about it today. Fair. Fair.
SPEAKER_04:And I think because I think a better question, go back, because as a sales guy, if I get up and in a dancing monkey every day, I make money every day. If I work every day, I make money every day. So is your now now today? Now actually I'm 67, going on 68. Today I think more about retirement all the time. So mindset is okay.
SPEAKER_02:It's a fair answer because um people who trade time for money, um, I have a friend of mine who worked for UPS for 33 years and then retired, right? And I get it, he punched a clock 33 years for somebody and then retired at age 55. Um great episode for you guys who want to be out there, listen to that one. It's actually episode one of my podcast. Anyway, for guys like you and me, everybody out there who's a true entrepreneur, meaning you don't have a boss, you don't want a boss, or you've never had one, retirement is a whole different meaning. Right. You know what I mean? To me, you know I think part of that is because it well, it's a stigma that the government has put on people.
SPEAKER_04:Well, my belief. Okay, my better half right now. She works five days a week, Monday through Friday. Yep. Unbelievable job. People have that mindset of Monday through Friday. I've never had that mindset. I don't know what day of the week it is. And especially when I was younger and I moved here to Vegas, I don't know what day of the week it is.
SPEAKER_02:So I And it not only do you not know, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. The sun rises and drops every day. It doesn't really matter.
SPEAKER_04:You know, quick story. When I earned the the my first automobile, Jeep Wrangler, yeah, the guy that owned the company, I he happened to be at our furniture store, and I'm sent out back with my dad and he goes, Richard, his name's Ed Berglin. Ed, if you ever listen to this, hey, he was from downside. Richard, you know what? We got some leads on Easter. And I looked at him, I said, Easter? Who's gonna do anything on Easter? I'm not no, I'm not doing it. I was mindset. Right. 100% mindset because I I said, Easter, what are you doing? My my old man's sitting there sucking out a cigarette, and he goes, Yeah, he'll take the three leads. I'm like, can I ever have a life? You know what? They're gonna let you in your house on Easter. Every one of them bought. Yes. My dad told me, he goes, We'll celebrate Easter on Monday. You just hit a home run today. And that was part that month when I earned the Jeep.
SPEAKER_02:He goes, You can celebrate. I said, I I I want people to truly understand what he just said. Okay. I think, I believe, my belief, and again, we all have different beliefs, but I believe that little that that was a little micro gem of a lesson that you just shared with people. My father shared it. Opportunity, opportunity, and I tell people all the time. I said, listen, I believe that opportunity happens to all of us every single day. The difference is you didn't recognize it when it first got thrown out at you, but who did?
SPEAKER_03:Your dad. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Your dad recognized it. So, guys, when you're out there, I it I promise you, every single day, if you're really listening, an opportunity will arise for you at some level. And some opportunities are bigger than others, that's fine. But my point is there's an opportunity in life all of the time. Because you know how many people complain, oh, I can't get a job, I can't do this, I can't do that. I'm like, no, no, no, no. My dad said we'll eat a ham on Monday. Yeah, like what's wrong with that? It's fine. We'll make it that day. Let's not worry about it. Now, now, listen, if you had a massive family gathering on Easter Sunday and you missed it, hey, I missed, I'm 67 years old. I missed one Easter, but I made three big sales and it helped my bottom line that's and I earned the Jeep because of that deal. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And people aren't gonna let you in your house on Easter unless they're lonely. Yes. Unless they want to buy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, I remember as a kid, I'd be in my dad's, and again, he was really into wholesale. He actually worked for the original JC Penny, the original man. So he had grown up, and all he ever wanted, he did what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a sales guy and did very well at it. I remember we'd leave the furniture store when I was 15 years old, 16, I happened to be in the car with him. Yep. And we're leaving the parking lot. My dad was a frumpy guy. He was not, he was pretty cool and tough. We're we're driving up driving a big link and we're pulling out the parking lot, and there's two people staring in the window of our front store. We're closed. He'd pull over.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:He'd pull back. Hey, what are you doing? Oh, we're like, yeah, well, you know what? Get out. I'm like, Dad, I gotta go home. I got a date. It's Friday night. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. He'd open the door another hour. Two hours later, he writes a$15,000 deal. Right. When when opportunity knocks, it's there. That's saying, you know, another thing I thought of when you were talking about jobs. It just kills me today when I go into a business, everyone's dying to get a job. You get a job, and then employees look at their watch all day long. Oh, can I leave early? Can I get out here early? Can I get we're barely getting 40 hours a week anyway. Right. You want to go early.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I want to stay late.
SPEAKER_02:So again, you and I are the same in that aspect. People, you know, I'll be 64 in a couple of months, and for the last couple of years, they're asking, and be ready for guys, if whoever's if you're listening to this and you're 50 something years old, 56, 58, getting ready to hit 60, they're all going to start asking you. And it maybe you're on track because you work for whatever company and you do have a retirement date set, and that's fine. Uh, but for a lot of you who don't, they're gonna start asking you, when are you gonna retire? But my answer is if you're an entrepreneur, is like Richard, I make a living talking to people. And so I tell people now, I don't punch a clock, I haven't traded time for money in 45 years. So if I make a living talking to people and I don't plan on stopping to talk to people, retirement is not the word for me. And so I try to teach people this is not what we should all strive for, re the word retirement. What I try to teach people to strive for is financial independence, which means when you make enough money that your money can pay your lifestyle, whatever that lifestyle is, and this is this is your answer, and it's and it's there's no right or wrong answer because there are people out there, and I've said this before many times, that are completely content at a later age in life to live on roughly two to three thousand dollars a month. And they're happy, they're good, good to go. I've talked to people that go, there's no way I can stop hustling and making money until I am making minimum 20K a month. That's a lot of money. That's a heck of a lifestyle, right? And if that's what you want, go after it. Go get it. It's doable. You know what I mean? So let's not strive for retirement. Let's strive for financial independence. Get to the point where your money makes enough money to support your lifestyle. Then what happens then? You know what happens then, Richard? You do not stress about money whatsoever.
SPEAKER_04:No.
SPEAKER_02:Money is not a concern. Just like it wasn't a concern for you for the first quarter of your life, the first 25 years of your life, it sounds to me like that wasn't it wasn't about money. You were learning on the job, hustling, subconsciously, in my opinion, watching dad, he's a hustler. I became a great sales guy, and you became the great salesperson that you became, and your life is how it is.
SPEAKER_04:So But I will say if someone taught me about finances, about a checkbook, about a credit card, about how to put$100,$500 in a savings account a year, 50 years later, can you imagine what that'd be worth?
SPEAKER_02:That's called compounding. And I'd love to teach that one. One of my lessons in my book is called The Rule of 72. What is it? It's the rule of 72, the banker's rule, compounding, right? This is your biggest friend. And when you truly understand how compounding works, you will treat your money very, very differently. Okay.
SPEAKER_04:If my father would have taught you that, he probably didn't know But even if my father would put a thousand dollars into a checking account or a savings account for me when I was born, it'd be worth a couple million dollars today.
SPEAKER_02:It'd be way it'd be worth uh probably ten million dollars today. Right.
SPEAKER_04:A thousand dollars. Yeah, yeah. So so again, I was never taught about money, and again, money was different then. Right.
SPEAKER_02:But well, no, money wasn't different. No, it wasn't different. It's always been how people have treated money. There's always been the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor. There always has been that, and there likely always will be. And it's due to lack of, and Warren Buffett talks about this, it's all due to the lack of financial literacy. This is what attracted me so much 10 years ago about this and why I uh have a passion of teaching it. Um, because I have kids and I watch them go work and I have friends, I watch them work real hard, and then years later, you yeah, you bought a couple of items, you got a couple of things in a house, whatever, but you don't have any money working for you. One of the biggest things that I'll remember in the last 10 years, someone asking me was, so how many streams of income do you have?
SPEAKER_04:That's important.
SPEAKER_02:Think about that. How many streams of income do you have? If you have the mindset of, I'm going to go get a J O B, you have one stream of income, right? There is not a person on this planet who has become, I would say, very successful. And if you want to put a dollar amount on it, I'll say over 10 million bucks. You are never going to get over 10 million dollars having one stream of income, which means we all have to do what? It's not that you're gonna have six or eight jobs, that's silly. No, you have to learn how to make your money make money, and that's what I love to teach. Stop busting your ass, sweating, doing whatever you got to do, talk to 100 people a week so you can make a sale. Stop doing that. You need to do that to a certain point. And every time you make money, your job now is, and my one of my guests loves this saying, he goes, I consider my I personally consider every dollar I have a soldier. And I have to put my soldiers to work to go recruit and make more soldiers. Not me. I don't want to recruit them. I don't want to trade time for money. My job is to go make my money work, period. Because money works 24-7, 365. You and I don't, nor do we want to. We want to go enjoy the whatever that your hobbies are the things you'll have to do in life. So, so you now at 67, almost 68, retirement is not a word for you. You're still gonna hustle.
SPEAKER_04:Well, you know what? And and and not to go into it all, but the second part of my life. At 35, I got my first paycheck. By my early 40s, I was worth several million dollars. By 50, when the housing crisis hit, I was worth zero. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But but that that's that that story's told thousands of times, right? That happened to me. And so in my dad, the phrase I use is don't cry over spilled milk. My dad used to taught me that. So, like, I you gotta understand. I hope you understand the way I understand it is look, that was not of our own fault when that whole debacle happened.
SPEAKER_04:But but my point on it, what saved me was what I had learned, even all those years working for my family's business. Yes. I knew how to open and close a business. I knew I had to get up every day and work. I knew I had to tie all I did was turn it back on.
SPEAKER_02:This is what Warren Buffett says. Warren Buffett says, you could take all of my money away, every dime. Guess what you guess what you can't take away? My tenacity, my heart. I know, my knowledge.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:My knowledge. You can't take and so Warren Buffett says, you could if you took me down to zero today, I promise you I'm a millionaire in 12 months. Right. Because I know how to I know how to do it. Right. So you could you could take it however you that would happen, but you can't take my knowledge. But some of us aren't as smart as Warren Buffett.
SPEAKER_04:So it still takes fine. It still takes nasty and hard work.
SPEAKER_03:You still have learned a lot of life lessons at this age in life.
SPEAKER_04:That's probably one of the things I'm most proud about.
SPEAKER_02:How I rec how I recovered. This is how this is going to be the last question here, right? And I asked this question. I always have my first question and my last question. My last question is what would you tell your 21-year-old self about money? If you you know how it it's it's been done in movies, right? You you could travel back in time and you could talk to yourself when you were 21 years old after all everything that's happened in your life, and what you know, what would you tell your 21-year-old self?
SPEAKER_04:Learn to save, learn to invest, learn to be frugal. Frugal doesn't mean cheap, I mean spend your money wisely.
SPEAKER_02:That all three of those answers are 90% of the answers I get from everybody who is above 60 years of age that's been on this podcast. So I think if you were 20, 30, 40 years, 50 years old listening to this, if there's one thing that uh an older wise guy can teach, because that's what he would tell his 21-year-old self, what do you think you guys that those younger ages should be doing? Saving, investing, frugal, don't waste money. Be smart with the money. The money is always gonna come. The money will always grow if you learn how to do it. This is what I teach. Go to moneymasteryinstitute.com. I got my program there, my book is in there. Guys, you need to get out there and learn. I call it the money game, right? You gotta learn how to play the game because we are all thrusted into the game at an early age. The minute we start handling money, you're in the game. And then the mut the minute you start earning money, which is typically today's world, 16, 18, 20 years old, you're in the game, you're playing the game. And I like to teach people about sports is huge, right? Right now, it's it's it's football just started, you know, the sports are there, and I say, and I tell people, I says, this hit really big about a podcast two months ago. I says, I want you to think about this. Think about this, Richard. Whatever sport you love to watch, I don't care. Basketball, football, hockey, it doesn't matter. What is what do they all have in common? What they have in common is a scoreboard. Picture and imagine watching a basketball game, a hockey game, whatever, and you didn't know the score, would that game be as enjoyable to watch? No, because you're just watching guys going up and down the court, up and down the field, up and down the ice, doesn't matter who's winning. I don't know. There's no scoreboard here. Your life, your money, you need to know the score of your game. I told this to a guy a couple of few months back. He goes, You just blew my mind. I don't even know the score of my game. Right.
SPEAKER_04:I look back on my life. Where am I in? Am I up?
SPEAKER_02:Am I down?
SPEAKER_04:My first quarter of my life, I financially never scored. Didn't score. They ended my second quarter of my life. I ran the ball in at the 30-second clock. Third quarter of my life, I scored. I was I was beating the game. You had a good third quarter. Right. Fourth quarter of my game now. I need to I need to I need to kick a field goal to win.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. But you know what? Here's the here's the great part about this. The game doesn't end. Never ends. You know when it ends? When we put you six feet under. When we put you six feet under. And the game will go on with the. This is why. Think about this. Warren Buffett is 91, 92.
SPEAKER_04:He's older than that.
SPEAKER_02:He's 90 something. Yeah. This guy goes to work every day. He's been a millionaire since before he was 50 years old. Does he need to go to work? No. Does he have to? No. He's got everything fine-tuned. He's got everybody hired in the right positions. But it's what he knows is what he loves to do. Not many people want to get at whatever age in life, if it's 62, 65, like the government wants you to do, and go home and watch TV all day and just be a vegetable and not do anything play in the garden.
SPEAKER_04:One time I had a little lady helping me. I was garage sale. I was selling a house and garage sale, and she came over. She was a neighbor. She started helping me. I said, no, don't do that. Don't do this. Don't do that. She goes, she looked at me and she goes, let me do whatever I want to do. And I said, Well, yeah, no, I'll give you some money. She goes, It's not for money. And I said, What's it for? She goes, let me tell you a story. I sat in a hospital bed for a year. I couldn't wait to talk to other people. I couldn't wait to visit with people. And that's what life's about. Exactly. If you want to go home and you want to sit in your room, you don't want to get up, you don't want to work hard, you don't want to be tenacious, you don't want to put a smile on your face, then you know what? You'll lose the game.
SPEAKER_02:You'll lose the game. But we're all different. There is definitely, in my opinion, there's there isn't and there should never be a one size fits all. Let's go through this life, you know, the the term the pursuit of happiness, and that term is a million, millions of different ways of how you can define the meaning of happiness for you, the meaning of happiness for me, two different meanings. We're all different individuals. At the end of the day, my grandfather, before he passed, about six months or so before he passed, and I'm I'm hustling hard, I'm making money, raising my family, and he's told me, he says, Kev, I love you're a hustler. There's one thing I want you to make in life, and only one thing only. I said, What's that, Pop? Memories.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:There is nothing more important than making as many memories as you can because when you're my age, he died at 92. He goes, I'm sitting here, all I can do is think about memories. And so if you don't go out there and make some really great, amazing memories, and hopefully the good ones, because uh you'll remember more good ones than you will the bad ones. And there will be bad hard times in life, and you will have bad memories, but you are definitely going to remember those really good ones. So that's what I want you to do. Make your money, make memories. So that is my what I want to give to people by teaching them how to handle their money, play the game correctly, know your scoreboard, win the game, and go make as many memories. And when your days are done, and people are at your funeral, they're like, that guy had that guy led a hell of a life. He should have no complaints and no and no regrets. So be good to one another. 100%. I think that goes without saying if the the more that you are nice to people, it comes back to you. Typically tenfold all the time. So be good to be people out there. It's an unbelievable world right now we're living in, especially here in the U.S. Little mess out there. I appreciate it. But let's go out there. Thanks for coming out, Richard, sharing your story. Um, again, guys, not everybody's a W 2 earner having a job. Pretty much, Richard has been an entrepreneur his whole life, and you just heard his story. So we'll catch you guys on the next one. Take care and God bless.