Manders Mindset
Are you feeling stuck or stagnant in your life? Do you envision yourself living differently but have no idea how to start? The answer might lie in a shift in your mindset.
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a Breathwork Detox Facilitator, Transformative Mindset Coach, and Divorce Paralegal.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda interviews guests from diverse backgrounds, including entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, and wellness experts, who share their incredible journeys of conquering fears and limiting beliefs to achieve remarkable success. Hear real people tell how shifting their mindsets—and often their words—has dramatically changed their lives.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
The Question Mark Guy: Matthew Lesko’s Journey from Failure to Financial Freedom | 130
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In this energizing and eye-opening episode of Manders Mindset, host Amanda sits down with the unforgettable Matthew Lesko bestselling author, TV personality, and passionate advocate for helping everyday people access government grants and funding they never knew existed.
Recognized instantly by his iconic question mark suit, Lesko brings more than just flair he brings decades of wisdom, humor, and hard-won experience. In this candid conversation, he shares how embracing failure, showing up authentically, and having fun became the foundation of his success. He also dives deep into the shocking truth about why most people never access the free help available to them —and how Google might be doing more harm than good.
From business flops to New York Times bestseller to building a thriving community that helps thousands, Lesko reveals how living for something bigger than himself changed everything. This episode is filled with practical advice, real talk, and the kind of inspiration that stays with you long after listening.
In this episode, listeners will learn:
💸 Why Google can actually hurt your chances of finding financial assistance
❓ The surprising origin of the question mark suit and what it really represents
📚 How Lesko turned government documents into a multimillion-dollar publishing empire
❤️ Why giving is the most fulfilling (and selfish!) act we can do
🔍 Where to find real, local help for rent, small business, education, and more
🧠 How mindset and authenticity fuel long-term success
👥 Why community based support is more effective than expert advice alone
🕒 Timeline Summary:
[2:10] Lesko on fear, identity, and why fun comes first
[10:34] Growing up in Pennsylvania and early struggles with school
[18:01] Military service, MBA life, and lessons from two failed businesses
[25:25] The story behind the question mark suit and how it nearly cost him everything.
[35:47] How Google makes it harder to access financial help and where to go instead.
[53:20] Post-COVID funding: how the pandemic reshaped public perception
[1:04:00] Practical advice for beginners navigating government resources
🌐 Join Matthew’s community: https://www.leskohelp.com
📍 Find local aid by ZIP code: https://www.findhelp.org
🚀 Free business startup help via the SBA: https://www.sba.gov/local-assistance
To Connect with Amanda:
🔗 linktree.com/thebreathinggoddess
📸 Instagram: @thebreathinggoddess
Follow & Support the Podcast:
📱 Instagram: @MandersMindset
👥 Join the Manders Mindset Facebook Community HERE
Enjoyed this episode? Don’t forget to rate, follow, and review Manders Mindset wherever you listen. Sharing the show helps others discover the power of one mindset shift at a time. 🌟
Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people when your host, amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Amanda's Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, Amanda, and today we have a one-of-a-kind guest.
Speaker 3:You might recognize him as the question mark guy from his unforgettable infomercials and TV appearances that showed millions of Americans how to unlock government grants and benefits. Today I am here with Matthew Lesko, and for over four decades he has spent uncovering ways for people to access funds they never knew were available, and I am so excited to delve in his journey. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 4:Well, my pleasure. You may be sorry, but it looks good so far.
Speaker 3:I will not be sorry. We've already had some laughs and I know know we're gonna learn a lot from you. So who would you say?
Speaker 4:matthew is at the core who am I at the core, scared as hell and don't know what I'm doing. And I think we all are, because nobody has the real answers and we're all guessing. And that's why I wear these suits, and to me they're to show people. This is me inside, and I wear a lot of cartoons too, and uh it's. I want people to know what's inside me, because after I tried to be like somebody else all the time, did what I was told to do and none of that was working, I said, fuck, I'm doing everything Somebody told me what to do and I'm not having fun, I'm not succeeding. So something's wrong with this equation. So, after a couple of failures of various businesses and things, I decided I'm going to have fun first and enjoy myself first, and that's what I got to the suits too. This is me inside. Now.
Speaker 4:I got lost a lot of money when I start wearing these. I was in, you know, on a successful stream, and then people, they show up like a clown one day and they didn't want me to do this. I was doing a lot of media, you know, you saw me in infomercials and stuff like that and they say, oh, we can't, you can't worry like that and talk seriously about money. That's crazy, but I find this is a filter. If you like this, I know I'm going to love you. If you don't like this, we're saving each other lots of time and we shouldn't do anything together. It really changed my life so much that way and the more I dig into me and what I am, I find I can do that better than anybody else, and that's what I think we're all here to do is give as much as possible before we die, whether it's personal or professional or professional.
Speaker 4:But you have to give you the best thing you have in. You is probably what's weird about you, because nobody else can do that. So we go out in school and jobs and everything. Nobody wants you to be different. Everybody wants you, and that's not our best.
Speaker 4:So we're not growing and I think, as an organic being or organic whatever in society, we have to keep growing as much as we can and you have to grow from the inside. To me, the outside is just learning where to fit in with what you have. Not try to change the outside, because you probably can't do that, and but it's how to find out what you're the best at, what happens, what you can do better than any else and find a place where that's needed. And that's what we have to do and I think it now it's easier than ever because of the internet and things like that, and it's cheaper than ever to start things than it was when I was growing up. I mean, I I'm 80 some years old, and so you just start a store, you know, back in the fifties or sixties and a couple hundred thousand dollars to get a story on now 20 bucks. You got a store on Etsy, yeah, so things have changed a lot. I forget what was the question again.
Speaker 3:You basically answered it Like who can you take us down memory lane a little bit? Tell us about your childhood? Let's go backwards.
Speaker 4:Oh shit, let me get some appropriate music. I'm a middle-class kid in Wilkesboro, pennsylvania. My grandparents were all immigrants, came over here to work in the coal mines. None of my parents went to college. Trying to figure out if you're going to make a living, the immigrant story, the. The parents work hard, get their kids educated and do better than they can do. Yeah, I don't know. I guess I had some kind of personality, but I wasn't a student, I wasn't an athlete, none of the stuff that you got praise for. Growing up in high school I knew I had to get out of town.
Speaker 3:Did you have any siblings?
Speaker 4:Yes, two, One older, one younger, both four years apart. My parents were Catholic and I think they were planning college.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, that's funny. And now so did you go to college.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I finished barely, I was on. Yeah, I finished barely, I was on a probation. I hate school. They're throwing out of so many high schools and stuff like that. But just for being an asshole, I mean, I just was so bored, you know, and I entertained myself Like you saw this before the show started. I'm entertaining me and maybe people will enjoy it and add something to their life. You send me to the chalkboard to do something. Man, I don't know how I was doing. I would get the whole boardroom laughing. And I went to Jesuit prep school. I was thrown out of and I would go to. They called it judge, judge, j-u-d. Justice under God. And you had to write Latin vocabulary for an hour and a half and I would get jugged every day and then I finally got out of.
Speaker 4:I tried to even quit college. My dad really laid into me on that. I snuck through just on a whatever the number was I needed to graduate. I got that a 2.0000, whatever the hell it was. They said you need above a 2.0. Okay, whatever it was to do that. Then I went three years, two months, nine days in the Navy Vietnam era. I didn't want to be drafted and live in the jungles. I'm not that kind of guy. I figured clean sheets in the Navy every night. That's a little better. So I got out of there and went back to college, got a GI bill, found somebody that let me in American University. I wasn't any smarter, but graduate school is easy for me. I don't know why. I was just ready to read.
Speaker 3:What'd you go to graduate school for? I?
Speaker 4:got an MBA and then it took me two failing businesses to unlearn everything they taught me in MBA school.
Speaker 3:What were the two failing businesses?
Speaker 4:I had a computer software company. My MBA was in computers. I was a computer programmer even back then in the 70s, when the computers were big as this room. I had a software company I started. That failed. I had another research outfit that failed and then I started becoming a consultant. See, when you fail a lot, you become a consultant.
Speaker 4:And I was in Washington and I'd go to big companies to get information they needed. I'd go to big companies to get information they needed and I didn't know really how to do research, but I wanted to get money to feed myself after two failures. So they'd tell me what they need information about and I'd go out and look for it. So I was in Washington DC and the libraries are greater here than anywhere else in the world and libraries are important. They're not as important anymore. So I'd just go to all these government agencies and find the studies they want to know about markets and getting new businesses and competitors, and I'd find all this stuff in government information. Everything in the government is not. Nothing in the government is copyrighted. So I would take all their stuff, put my name on it and sell it to my clients for thousands and thousands of dollars. They were making millions out of it, so they didn't care.
Speaker 4:And after doing that for a couple of years, that my first success. And I said, geez, why doesn't everybody know about this? People in Wilkes-Barre didn't know. I had no idea. I thought government was like the division of motor vehicles and the post office or something, and that was it.
Speaker 4:Man. There's so much money in it and I was getting tired of helping millionaires become billionaires. And rich people aren't fun to work with. All they want is money. They don't give a shit about anything else, so they're not human. In a way, you know, it takes away their humanity, I think, to be human to the rest of us and to enjoy daily life. So I wanted to help the average person and I couldn't do it by selling my services for thousands of dollars. So I started doing books. I wrote one book and it became a New York Times bestseller. And I didn't write a relic. So you remember I flunked English in college and everywhere else I took it. But see, I took a government publication I found in the government printing office, just copied it, copied the whole goddamn thing. See, nothing in the government is copyrighted. So you could take anything in the government and sell it, reprint it and sell it. That's what I did. Penguin Books did it and I did talk shows and I enjoy acting crazy and sold a million books.
Speaker 3:So what made you go back to school and get your MBA when you hated school?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I guess. Three years in the Navy and what I was going to do didn't have rich parents, I didn't have access to anything, but I didn't mind working. I worked more in college than I studied, just so I had money to play. And this was after the 60s. Stock market stuff was in the 60s, and so in the beginning of the 70s, when I came back that's when the war ended back, that's when the war ended A lot of the people that I knew, I admired, were involved in stock market stuff or whatever financial services, before it really came what it is now.
Speaker 4:And I didn't know Business was it was going to be what I was going to do. An MBA sounded yeah, but that's a good point. But it was easy. I started taking undergraduate courses. When I got out, because I couldn't get into school anywhere, they said, well, take some undergraduate course, see how you do, maybe we'll let you in. They were hard. I found a school that made me into graduate school.
Speaker 3:They were easy.
Speaker 4:I can't believe it?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, really. Now I got my bachelor's, my undergrad degree, but I never went to grad school. So that's interesting that you say undergrad was harder.
Speaker 4:Oh, definitely Way up there. And even after the Navy I came back to undergraduate. I couldn't do well either. Yeah, it's just more adult learning. I think of what it is. Undergraduate was more like harassment for a sorority or fraternity. You know they make you do all this bad shit. That really means nothing. And graduate school was so different I couldn't believe it. I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I got through and got through a couple of divorces, failing businesses in the meantime, but it's fun. Everything and the bad times are the only time you learn in life. You're not going to learn anything from success.
Speaker 3:The bad times are the only times you learn.
Speaker 4:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 3:You don't think you learn from success.
Speaker 4:No, there's nothing you learn. The only thing you have to know is get money and go to the bank. There's nothing you have to learn. Only thing you have to know is get money and go to the bank. There's nothing you have to learn. When you're failing, man, and you fail or something, man, then you have to stretch that brain. Man, what the hell? You thought those were going to be perfect. You thought those were going to be good. Man, you have to dig deeper in yourself and if you're going to do something new, you really have to plan on that, because it's like riding a bike or learning to walk. You're going to fall on your ass a lot of times and if you're not ready for that, you're going to quit. And if you quit, then fuck, you're not going to have a fun life.
Speaker 3:You know, speaking of a fun life, you mentioned on a different podcast that you started having more success when you started having more fun.
Speaker 4:Oh, absolutely. That's why I keep joking all the time.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 4:Yes, because if you're having fun, you're natural, right and so this is really you, so you're able to show something more authentic about you unless you have stupid jokes that somebody wrote for you and that means you're able to grow in that kind of environment. I think we're all like a plant. You know every plant has to be in a certain pot, so you have to be in a pot that's comfortable for you to grow in. You're not going to grow, you don't want to do anything, you start withering away. But if you have an environment where you can express everything you have, that's how you grow, that's how you could see what you are.
Speaker 4:And having fun, then it takes the boredom out of the day. Not like going at work, isn't like going to the dentist. That's what most people do, right? And why does it have to be? I mean, this is half of your life. If we have 24 hours, eight sleeps, eight is work and eight is other stuff, so why does half of your awake life have to be miserable?
Speaker 4:If it's fun, then you're going to work harder at it. You're going to have more fun. You're going to contribute more. You're going to have more fun. You're going to contribute more. You're going to give more, and I think that is the real thing in life. How much can you give before you die? It's not how much you get, because you can't take that shit with you and that's all these toys and stuff.
Speaker 4:But your heart is where the good stuff is, and as I get older I mean when I was younger I used to try to get stronger and faster and smarter and all those things macho shit that guys did back then and now none of that stuff is going to get better. No matter what I do, you know, I can't get smarter, I can't get faster, I can't get stronger. If I could stay, even is the best hope, and that's probably going to be hard, but I could love harder and that's what I think I could really do better and that's what all of us could do. And that's one muscle you could keep growing forever, no matter how old you are, no matter how rich, poor, whatever you are. That's one thing you could keep growing and I work on that a lot now you're going to keep growing and I work on that a lot now.
Speaker 3:Is there something that helped you be able to have more fun?
Speaker 4:Probably listening to my heart. That's the most important thing. Your heart is smarter than your brain. You know, if you're using your brain for everything, then you're editing and you're using somebody, you're putting other people's values and things or whatever, because that's you'll be successful. But no, you have to find out what's good in you to be successful, not what's good in somebody else. That's guidelines, maybe, and it's not like stupid or wrong. But for you to really grow, it's finding inside of you to grow, not what's inside of anybody else.
Speaker 4:I mean, not that it's bad, I'd say, but the whole trick is bringing out what is and this is personal and professional. I think it's the same thing your personal relationships or your professional relationships. If you're an honest person personally, then you could give more, because it's natural to give and we want to give more because that's our nature. We want to love hard. I think we want to work hard and we want to love hard. That's the joy in life. Not working easy, not loving easy. That's like, well, I could play basketball against a five-year-old and I'd win all the time, but that's not fun, you're not growing, you're not doing anything for you.
Speaker 3:That makes a lot of sense. Now I want to transition to Chad. When did you start wearing the question mark suit? I'm just personally curious.
Speaker 4:Yeah, maybe about 20 years ago.
Speaker 3:And you mentioned it's because what you're feeling inside oh it was always in there.
Speaker 4:I was just having the courage to do it. And even when I first started doing it, boy, I remember walking through the airports. It was like every step was like walking on a crate of eggs I was going to break them all or something, what people would say and I was throwing off a TV shows all the time. I made tons of dough at home shopping. I'd go down there and sell 30,000 books in two days and they didn't want me in the question mark suit. I came down to question right now and I gave that up because this was me. This is something I have to do. You have to live for something bigger than you in a way, and then that's more important to make life a value for you. If you're living by everybody else's values, I think that's not going to make you satisfied. You have to figure out what your own values are and live by them so that you are your own hero, and that's how you become satisfied.
Speaker 3:Something bigger than you. You got to live for something bigger than you.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:And how did you develop living for something bigger than you?
Speaker 4:Oh, you have to listen to inside. You know, it's sort of like the suit. Maybe you're wearing the suit with something bigger than me and I gave up tons of dough. I could have changed the suit and stayed there and make all the money. No, this is bigger than that, yeah, bigger than money, bigger than my success. It was just something I'd have to do.
Speaker 4:Maybe people look at religion like that or some kind of philosophy or whatever, and maybe your meditation has something like that to find that. But when you stand for something like I was on a talk show, or actually it was a game show of some kind, and I had to give names of some people that I admired, I don't really have that who are my heroes. But when I thought hard of it, I came up with Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali, and both of those guys gave up their easy life and their success and everything to go to jail on an issue that was bigger than any of that. See, whether it's believing in desegregation or the Vietnam War, they gave up everything to make that statement. Now, that's the ultimate.
Speaker 3:I want to transition a tad when you get your MBA and post MBA. How did you get into infomercials, helping people with the grants, with this free money? How did this come about?
Speaker 4:I mentioned, I started working business to business. So I was in Washington, found out about the information and I was selling the information I found in Washington to businesses. And what happened then? I had no money, so the way I would advertise my business was try to get people to write me up, because I couldn't pay for ad in the Wall Street Journal, so maybe I get them to write me up. So I get business magazines to write me up, because I couldn't pay for ad in the Wall Street Journal, so maybe I get them to write me up. So I get business magazines to write me up to get customers. So that's a publicity thing that I saw hey, that's a lot cheaper than buying an advertisement and I can only pay for this much. They do a whole page on me. I get that for free. So that seemed. That seemed, hey, this is a good way to market.
Speaker 4:And then the books and back then to sell a book. You had to do talk shows. So and I was with big publishers in new york because my business the business was pretty good at then. That was my first successful business and so we had about 30 people running around town here doing stuff for rich people and so some agent found me to do a book for you know, just normal people, not business people. I said, yeah, I'd love to do that. So I did that and they sent me on a tour. Because that's what you did in a book. You went city to city to do a tour. I enjoy performing.
Speaker 4:I was a professor and to me, when I was a professor and I taught computer science at the universities here in Washington, I found out that the only way I could educate people is if I kept them awake, and that's what education is all about. So that's what I saw doing. Talk shows is keeping people awake. So educate them. If you're boring, nobody's going to pay attention and you can't educate them. They have to be awake first. So I saw that talk shows loved that because that's what they knew. They were just entertainment. They didn't care what I said, it was how I said it. So I was a regular on Letterman Larry King. I mean I must've been Larry King maybe a dozen times Letterman. I knew seven, eight times Oprah I did about three times or so.
Speaker 4:I'd give him a show, but I had a message and I knew what I was going to say that I thought would get people to look at this book more than anything. I'd write a book for a year. Then I'd sit down for a month and figure out okay, what's the best thing for me to say for a one-minute interview, what's the best thing for me to say for a three-minute interview? And that was more important, because that's somebody giving you an airtime. It's somebody. Okay, here you have an ad for a minute. Do what you want. I'm going to think hard because that's what you're giving me, you know, is a minute or two minutes on the Today Show, and I'm going to, no matter what you ask me. I'm going to give the stuff I think is the best for my book.
Speaker 3:How did you start helping people with financial funding?
Speaker 4:From day one I was doing that with Fortune 500 companies.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4:And that was a consulting business. I was showing them where money was to do whatever they want, and then, when I started doing the books, was that for the consumer. You know there's money and there's more for the consumer than anything and that's why you see, now in Washington, all the billionaires are here because they know there's more money in Washington anywhere else in the world and that's why they're all here, because they got a guy in the office who thinks like them and they could get more of this stuff. The millionaires know all this and they use the hell out of it and the rest of the country really needs it.
Speaker 4:We live in a country now is the richest in the world, has more millionaires per capita anybody else and also more poor people than any other developed country. So we're number one in raising poor people and that's the developed. There's about 30 countries that are called developed countries. They're not the poor countries and that's the developed. There's about 30 countries that are called developed countries and not the poor countries, and we're number one with 17.2% of our population that lives in poverty. The average for all the countries is about 10% 11%, but we're number one, baby. We're number one in millionaires and poverty.
Speaker 3:What inspired you to start helping people with governmental grants and benefits like this?
Speaker 4:Greed. Yeah, I wanted to make a living and I think to make a living the ideal thing to make a living at is number one you have to feed yourself. And number two if you could do that and help other people, that's great. Then if you could do that and help other people, that's great. Then if you could do that and have fun and help other people, that's a trifecta and it was all for you, that was for you yeah, well, that's it.
Speaker 4:That still is at 81. I get more energy from this than anything else I could think of. I grew up pennsylvania in the 50s 60s. It was retirement. I was going to Florida and playing golf for 20, 30 years, which sounds like being in the grave. Why the hell do you want to go and do something you're shitty at? Have a skill that helps people and do something that you can help other people and feel appreciated in life, not just with a 16 or 22 handicap.
Speaker 3:Now, why do you think so many people miss out on funding from the government that they can get?
Speaker 4:Fear. The biggest thing is Google.
Speaker 3:So you think Google prevents?
Speaker 4:people. Oh yes, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Why.
Speaker 4:Let's say you go to, you need to pay rent. Can you go online now? We do a little exercise, or not?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Okay, you go online now and go to Google and put in rent grants. Oh, you can't pay rent. Let's say Amanda, oh shit, she got fired. You can't pay rent. Okay, so what are you going to do? Okay, go to Google.
Speaker 3:There's something called RAFT Residential Assistant for Families in Transition that comes up.
Speaker 4:Okay, but how many things come up there, can you tell? There's a little tab on the right. You see tools T-O-O-L-S on top up by the search bar.
Speaker 3:Yep, I see tools here. Oh, 152 million was off.
Speaker 4:So you have 152 million. If you have a few hours you can maybe Shit. It's going to take the rest of your fucking life to figure out what's for you, right? Okay, let's go to another place. Okay, this time let's go to findhelporg. Yeah, you there.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 4:Okay, put in your zip code. I'm going to put in mine so you don't have to say yours. Okay, how many programs do you have there?
Speaker 3:2,624.
Speaker 4:Okay, in your zip code there are 2,624 programs that give out free money and help for you to live better. 2,600 programs Now for just rent. You went to Google and you found you know 150 million. So here's 2,600. Now, if you put in rent up on the left-hand side up there, do you see that little place to put it? Yeah, and what do you get there?
Speaker 3:66.
Speaker 4:Okay, so now you have 66 nonprofit organizations and government offices in your zip code that help people with rent. Every one of them give you money. Now there's 150 million websites in Google. Those 66 may be in there, but you'll never find them. And the other problem is the 156 million minus 56, or whatever the heck you had. All want to get money from you. That's why Google, to me, is the biggest handicap we have in life. That stops people from getting this help. It's all right here and people will go to Google and they'll look and they'll call a few people and nobody's going to give them money and they say, shit, I tried and they give up. Well, here you have 60, 70 places that really give them money. And they said, shit, I tried and they give up. Well, here you have 60, 70 places that really give out money. That's all they do, and you have to go through the list to find one for you. That's what keeps you going. Does that surprise you at all?
Speaker 3:A little bit. Why does that keep you going?
Speaker 4:Oh, because I know it helps people. I mean, hey, I couldn't pay my rent and I found this. Thank you, I didn't create the program, the program's there. I had nothing to do with it. There's nobody telling people you want to start a business, you want to do anything, you want to get rid of that job you have and get another degree or something? Just show your money for that, you don't have to pay for it. You want to buy a house? Okay, it's all there, but it's not where you think it is. And Google makes it worse.
Speaker 3:That really surprises me that Google makes it worse. I understand with all the options, but I would think it would be the opposite. You know that it would help Because, like, I'm at the age where I'm pretty young but I've lived in a time before Google was really active, before people were really using it. So I remember the pre-internet, the post-internet, like I'm that last generation, basically you know, but wow.
Speaker 4:No, it is great, but it's.
Speaker 3:No, I get it is, but it's almost like this web of too much.
Speaker 4:Most of the time it's good if you have money. See, my problem is I mean, if you have money, everybody there will help you get money or help you with rent, if you have money. But if you don't have money, then you can't play that game. It's the same with buying a house. It's the same with buying a house. It's the same with getting a career, with anything. So what happens to the people? If 50% of the people in this country don't have an extra $500 to pay a bill? Almost 20% are living in poverty how are they going to use Google? They're the people that need the help.
Speaker 3:Google will help you if you're rich Now do you have any tips for beginners on trying to navigate government resources?
Speaker 4:Yes, it is. There's nothing but trial and error. In other words, you have to try and not stop, you know, because what you think is there and how to do it is probably wrong. But you have to go through and sort of like you know you're going out looking for a date and you ask 10 people to date and they say no. Well then you revalue what I do wrong kind of thing and that's how you learn. If you only go once or twice and they all say no and you give up, well, nobody wants to date me at now and that's why. So how do we encourage? That's why now what I have is what's called a. I call a community.
Speaker 4:So instead of me helping people one-on-one to find this, we have a community of 15 000 people now that help each other find these programs. Because I thought I was wondering how am I going to make money? Nobody bought reference books anymore, so I was out of business. I knew the information was still good, but how do you get it to people? Now I get it to them better than ever before Because they learn from other people who just use it and, like right now, every day we have three, four hours of members that are helping other members live on Zoom calls, showing them, answering their questions about how to get all this stuff, so it doesn't even need me, and that's why I was able to do it for $20. I used to charge $2,000 for the same thing, and so that's very gratifying to me that I could do that in a community that helps other people and it's all with love.
Speaker 4:I call it a loving community, trying to help each other, because that's the joy in life. See, I think giving is selfish. Giving is the most selfish thing we have to do in life because it feels so good. Yeah, we want to love hard, don't we? We want to pick up a little baby and pour our heart out, or a puppy or a loved one, and just love hard, and that's why I think work should be the same way. We want to work hard, but it has to be the stuff that you are born to give, what is inside you to give, that makes you feel you're giving your most. Most people act as just AI. That's why AI could do a lot of stuff, because the people were acting like that too. So how do you know the difference? Somebody looking at a place? You say this, I say B, you say that, okay, I say A, and so we got AI to do that. And your soul's not in it, your heart's not in it and you're just going through the going to the dentist.
Speaker 3:So what would you say has been one of your most memorable experiences? Helping someone get some type of financial funding or assistance?
Speaker 4:Well, I had so much. My most memorable experiences really is having my first kid, second kid. Children were just the most. I never thought I'd have kids. Children were just well. I never thought I'd have kids Once. I had two marriages before and when I had kids I found out. God, it's the only thing I found in life that's better than I thought. It would be Like me fucking Neal having a New York Times bestseller man, I thought, boy, that is, that's incredible, you know. But you get on the phone and brag to all your friends and then you have to go to work the next day. So it's not accomplishments, it's what you're doing every day. And then I say, oh shit, I call everybody now and now I got to go to work. Yeah, work should not be work.
Speaker 3:What should it be?
Speaker 4:Just something you feel you have to do. I mean, do you tell Picasso, ah, you shouldn't paint, you're too old to paint? Yeah, whatever your talent is, you have to do it, yeah, and you have to give, and then you get that positive feedback. It makes you want to give more, you want to be loved back, and that's why giving is, to me, so selfish, because that's how you're giving more and then people realize that and they want to return that kind of feeling and that's the best feeling in the world, that kind of feeling.
Speaker 3:And that's the best feeling in the world, do you?
Speaker 4:think there's a way to give without it being selfish. Well, people pretend to do that means they don't have a heart to me. They're doing it transactionally, you know, hey, I'm going to do this for you because you're going to give me more money, whatever. Yeah, and that's the way capitalism works. Yeah, but we're humans, we're not pieces of money. We're humans, and that's what's important, all right.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's the best part we have as a human is our heart, and we try to use the rest of us to make money and be transactional and not use our heart has anything helped you be able to show up and use your heart more, opening my own heart.
Speaker 4:You have to open yours to get anywhere, to start a circle. A circle starts with you. If you don't open it your own heart to that and be hurt or whatever it's going to probably take as you go through it, it's not going to work all the time you have to get up again and open your heart again until you do it like anything, anything you do.
Speaker 4:New in life is you just have to plan for failure, not success, Because failure is going to happen a lot more than success will. But you'll go pay some expert. You know the seven steps to success and you'll probably get through one or two before you start failing and then you'll quit because I knew I shouldn't have paid that guy the money. He didn't know shit. And you have to go through that. That's why, to me, loving somebody is helping them do whatever they want to do. You can't tell somebody else what to do in life.
Speaker 4:We're all struggling our own battle on what to do in life, and nobody could tell you that yours is bad or not. And so if you love somebody, you just tell me what do you want to do in life, so I can help you do that.
Speaker 3:I love that. What do you want to do in life so I can help you do that?
Speaker 4:That's what love is.
Speaker 3:It took me a couple marriages and a long time to figure that out.
Speaker 4:Maybe we'll catch you earlier.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, Do you think the multiple marriages helped you? You know we talked off air like I've never been married, but I work with a lot of people going through divorce and, like in the brunt of it, it's not fun, but post it, you learn stuff everything.
Speaker 4:All that is you're following your heart to get out of it. You know you're a dumbass get in it. But then you have to be a dumbass to get get out of it too. And that's the way you grow, unless you want to be miserable forever so you were married three times.
Speaker 3:Are you still married?
Speaker 4:uh, yes, this has been about 40-some years now, 45, close.
Speaker 3:Why did you? Hesitate. What yeah?
Speaker 4:I was thinking of a joke, I couldn't come up with one. It's better than I ever have At 81. The sex is better. Everything is better at 81. My wife is across the room now giggling. I guess she doesn't think so.
Speaker 3:But no, that's beautiful.
Speaker 4:That's wonderful. Now I have a charmed life. I can't believe it's me living this thing. A schmuck from Wilkes-Barre, pennsylvania, couldn't get a date.
Speaker 3:So I've got a different type of question. What would you say you've learned from the first two marriages?
Speaker 4:That relationships take as much work as a business.
Speaker 3:I've never heard that voice before, really.
Speaker 4:It does, because I was interested in starting businesses, ways to support myself, so that was my main. To me, at least in my generation, marriage was sort of like just a little thing, like getting a date or something I don't know. But I didn't realize how much work it really takes if you want to do this.
Speaker 3:I get that. I think some people don't realize that with different things like the effort or the work that it's going to take.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 3:So I want to transition a tad Laz. I'm sure it has. But how has financial assistance transitioned post-COVID?
Speaker 4:COVID helped me a lot because before then it was sort of, you know, trying to tell people the government gives out a lot of money. It was hard to explain. Government only knew about the post office and whatever. So to get people to learn that no, the government gives out a lot of money was hard a hurdle to get over. But when COVID came and everybody got Hurdle to get over. But when COVID came and everybody got checks for $1,500 in the mail, holy shit. So it really did a lot of marketing for me and educated people about the power of the government and what it has. Rich people knew this all the time. That's why I learned this from them. I was helping them get money and it's in the government. So that's why it helped a lot of people, at least for me. I thought after COVID my business would really fall down, but no, it's better than ever.
Speaker 3:Have the funding or the finances from the government.
Speaker 4:It changes. It goes up every year, no matter who's the president. Absolutely. Goes up every year, no matter who's the president, absolutely. We give an average now doing Biden's last year was $17,000 per person every year and Trump's year, first year, is going to be $18,000.
Speaker 3:And it'll keep going up, wow. So do you have a piece of advice you could give someone looking to seek financial assistance for the first time?
Speaker 4:Yes, I would. Don't go to Google, go and talk on the phone, call people and ask people. See, the government is full of people that help you solve a problem, whether it's a money problem for rent or whatever. So you talk to those people, helping people solve your kind of problem that are all free. So they know a lot more than just their program and they're the people you want to talk to, because they see people like you every day. You know it's sort of like a plumber for your toilet. You don't want to be a teenager to try to figure it out. You know you call a plumber who fixed 100 of these things. They could fix it before your bathroom floods. So that's what Find the People.
Speaker 4:First place to go is findhelporg. Go there, put in your subject area and then start calling people. Don't look for applications to fill out. Look for people to talk to. That's the key. You got to talk to people and they'll help you find the right place for you, because there's thousands and hundreds of thousands of programs all over, so you have to cut through that and you do that with people. So that's it. If you want to start something in America, you go to a website that the SBA has of all the free consultants that'll help you start or grow any kind of business. So you go to sbagov and then slash local hyphen assistance and you put in your zip code there and like findhelporg. You see all the programs there. You see all the local programs that will help you start your business and they're all free. But I would do this for my Fortune 500 clients. I'd go to these programs, get all this stuff and then sell it to my lazy clients.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. So do you have any suggestions for people on how they can shift their mindset around governmental assistance?
Speaker 4:It's hard. You have to practice, like anything else. You have people in your area that are helping people. Go to that, find help and just call in the agencies. You need something, you need to fix up your house. Go there and you'll find 150 people that give out money to do that. Call one of them and see what it's like. They're an asshole, they don't want to help you and you're wrong. Then ask them where else to go and then you keep going. It's sort of like dating or anything like that. You just got to stay in the game.
Speaker 3:Stay in the game. I love that. Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty?
Speaker 4:How do you spell that last name?
Speaker 3:S-H-E-T-T-Y.
Speaker 4:S-H-E-T-T-Y. Probably not, no sorry.
Speaker 3:No, you're fine. So he hosts a podcast, he's an author, motivational speaker, and he ends his podcast with two segments, and I've incorporated them in mine as well. Give him a little bit of credit, because these are not mine.
Speaker 4:I steal from everyone too.
Speaker 3:First segment is called the many sides to us and there's five questions and they need to be answered in one word each.
Speaker 4:What is it?
Speaker 3:What is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as?
Speaker 4:Weird.
Speaker 3:What is one word that someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as Weird? What is one word that someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as?
Speaker 4:Kind.
Speaker 3:What is one word you'd use to describe yourself?
Speaker 4:Scared.
Speaker 3:What is one word that if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset would use to describe you as?
Speaker 4:Stupid Pleasant.
Speaker 3:I'm very impressed you answered these in one word. I did not think you were going to to be honest.
Speaker 4:Well, you asked me to.
Speaker 3:A lot of people have not listened, oh.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:Second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in a sentence what is the best advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 4:Your heart's smarter than your brain.
Speaker 3:Why is that the best?
Speaker 4:Why is that the best? Because it's the truth for me, and I didn't know about that, I used to. You know, got an MBA and you're taught to think and to make decisions and get a spreadsheet and ask experts and fuck. No, this good stuff comes from here, your heart.
Speaker 3:What is the worst advice?
Speaker 4:you've heard or received.
Speaker 3:Invest in crypto why is that the worst advice? Because it's stupid why is that stupid?
Speaker 4:well, I don't know, for some reason they're making money, but that's gambling you have no control over. You want to do something you have some control over, so you worry about your effort into doing it. That's why I like making money with my talent. I have some control over that. I don't have control over the universe and what it's going to do or whatever, but in these gambling things that's Vegas.
Speaker 3:But in these gambling things. That's Vegas. What is something that you used to value that you no longer value Dark hair Because you don't have dark hair?
Speaker 4:If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say? I don't really care. To tell you the truth, I'm not going to be here. Why would I care? You know I'm here and that's why I have time to be here. I have time yet to contribute. That's what I want to do and I don't want anybody else interprets that. It's what I interpret what I'm doing is important, so you don't care what they say after.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm not here, it's not going to do me any good. I have never gotten that answer or even a similar answer. I got to say I respect that though. I respect that, though you know tiny tangent, but you mentioned on a different podcast I can't remember whose podcast it was but I really like this. And you stopped caring what people think, because nobody's noticing your failures. You know like they're not thinking about you, you know. It just made me think of that. If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.
Speaker 4:Be nice. I think that's the key. I think it's all this stuff. We have so much meanness in our society and it's so easy to stop all that by just being nice. It costs nothing and it feels good. Why is it so hard for everybody to be nice?
Speaker 3:That is so true. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. I mean, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4:And now you're a sweet woman and I appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 3:Oh, of course I appreciate your time. Now I do like to leave it back to the guest. Do you have any final words of wisdom you want to share with the listeners?
Speaker 4:Yeah, if you really want to do something important, you go to lessgohelpcom. That's my community there. Lessgohelpcom that's my community there. Let's go helpcom.
Speaker 3:I will link that in the show notes. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me.
Speaker 4:Pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:And thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode of Mando's Mindset.
Speaker 5:In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm booting for you and you got this as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks guys, until next time.
