The Journey to Financial Epiphany | Scott Yamamura

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode, Christian Brim interviews Scott Yamamura, author of 'Financial Epiphany'. They discuss the importance of financial literacy, personal experiences with money, and the myths surrounding finance. Scott shares his journey towards understanding personal finance, the surprising truths he discovered, and the three financial epiphanies that can help individuals take control of their financial future. The conversation emphasizes the significance of teaching financial literacy to the next generation and the power of early investment.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Financial literacy is essential for everyone.
• Many people live paycheck to paycheck despite appearances.
• Talking about money should not be taboo.
• Investing early can significantly impact financial health.
• Understanding the time value of money is crucial.
• Financial myths can hinder personal finance management.
• Teaching kids about finance early is beneficial.
• Simplicity in financial management is key.
• You don't need to be an expert to start investing.
• The power of compounding can lead to significant wealth.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.348)
Welcome to another edition of the profitable creative the only place on the inner webs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host Christian Brim special shout out to our one listener in Mason, Ohio Never been to Ohio. So I don't know where Mason is my guest today is Scott Yamamura offer offer author of Financial Epiphany. Welcome to the show Scott

Scott Yamamura (00:27.768)
Thanks, Christian. Great to be here.

Christian Brim (00:29.788)
In the green room, we were discussing what this conversation is going to look like. And I really think that, you know, we're kind of kindred spirits and that we're sort of creative, sort of analytical emphasis on the financial. I'm, I don't have the benefit of reading your book and you don't have the benefit of reading mine. So I'm very curious to see where our ideas and beliefs intersect. So.

Scott, why don't you tell us, I guess I could start with the experience side, but I think what I'd like to know first is what led you to write the book.

Scott Yamamura (01:10.35)
Yeah, 10 years ago, I challenged myself. I said, okay, there's three big pieces of life and I should choose one to do something about. One, maintaining a house. Two, understanding how to fix a car. Three, learn personal finance. So I don't know much about taking care of a house or fixing a car. So I chose personal finance and I dove in 10 years ago to get over that big intimidating hurdle that most of us face.

Christian Brim (01:27.74)
Mm.

Scott Yamamura (01:39.246)
And I said, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna get to know this stuff. I'm have to know this for the rest of my life. Most people make about 1.5 transactions on average per day. That's over 22,000 or so transactions in a lifetime. And it's like, we better figure one of these out. So I was like, let me go after personal finance. So after studying it, diving into books, taking workshops, getting out there and talking about it, this thing that...

we're told not to talk about. In fact, when I was growing up, my mom used to say, talking about money is like talking about your underwear. And by that, she meant it was a private topic. And I trusted what she said and I stayed quiet about it. I didn't ask questions. But when we don't talk about money, we could be going about it all wrong, silently suffering. And in fact, the statistics do point that out. So when I was studying finance and I found out all these truths,

Christian Brim (02:17.221)
Private.

Scott Yamamura (02:34.274)
Wow, 78 % of people might be living paycheck to paycheck. It doesn't look like that with the cars we drive, the vacations we go on and the electronics we own. Wow, most of us are in debt, about 77%. I thought everybody owned everything and we were healthy with our finances. Not the case. Living on the edge, showing a different story than what's actually in the bank. And then the other thing is financial literacy. I thought everybody...

Christian Brim (02:37.861)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Yamamura (03:01.238)
had parents that showed a good example and they just followed that example. Also not true. Financial literacy, most have trouble passing a basic financial literacy test. And one of the biggest answers to, hey, what's going on with your 401k? How you doing this and that? Biggest answer is, I don't know. We don't have an understanding or confidence in this area. We're not taught it. It's not in all the schools. And so it's kind of...

sink or swim, go figure it out for yourself. So once I discovered that that is what is really happening, we look great out there in America, but the bank accounts say otherwise. I studied to become a financial coach, not exactly so I could run a coaching business one-on-one, but so I could get a message out. So I did spend three years writing a book called Financial Epiphany. It looks like this. And I really wanted it to be very,

Christian Brim (03:47.963)
Mmm.

Scott Yamamura (03:58.73)
Approachable that's why it's got a colorful cover Yeah, yeah, I think we're on the same page with a lot of this so And that was the idea is to make finance approachable to make Personal finance for you most of us think we're imposters. I myself thought I was an imposter I'm not supposed to know this, but I certainly could hire somebody Well, I think we all owe it to ourselves to learn about it. And so this whole journey over the past 10 years I

Christian Brim (04:00.061)
There are some similarities in our color schemes. I don't know if you picked that up on that, but yeah.

Scott Yamamura (04:27.274)
I would say stumbled across three financial epiphanies that are taught about in the book. We're going to talk about them today too. I don't keep it a secret. I just want to help as many people as possible. But these simple rules of thumb, they teach the basic person because this is where we're at with finances. We're not savvy. We're not all well informed. Just to make that basic step, what do we need to know to step into healthy finances?

That's what I boiled the book down into. That's the message.

Christian Brim (04:59.739)
So to clarify, there wasn't some financial reckoning in your life like bankruptcy or something like that that precipitated this. It was just a desire to have some foundational knowledge that you thought you needed to have as a human.

Scott Yamamura (05:15.916)
You got it. And I do feel like use that word reckoning. I call it the day of reckoning. I feel like everybody is going to have that. I had a soft reckoning where I decided to do something early, but the day of reckoning can be a very hard hit the wall moment when retirement comes. Whoops. There's something called the retirement crisis where we realized we didn't save enough. We don't want to wait till retirement to find that out. So my reckoning was a personal choice and did it.

hopefully early enough to make a difference in my own life and help other people out.

Christian Brim (05:49.509)
So some personal questions, are you married?

Scott Yamamura (05:52.983)
absolutely. I'm a family man, married, and I have one son who's a teenager.

Christian Brim (05:57.68)
Nice. Okay. So you were telling me, and I just want this information out there as context. You said you have a full-time gig. Being an author is not your bread and butter.

Scott Yamamura (06:06.7)
You got it.

That's the passion project. That's right.

Christian Brim (06:12.027)
And your full-time gig is.

Scott Yamamura (06:14.71)
I work for Costco Wholesale, which is located in the Seattle area. So I'm outside of the Seattle area. I've been working there 25 years straight out of college and started as a web designer, went into multimedia and now head up the, thanks to COVID, which made video communications a very big thing since we couldn't gather in person. I do head up the video communications department globally for the company.

Christian Brim (06:40.045)
Okay, so clearly you have a creative bent to your profession.

Scott Yamamura (06:46.07)
You got it five days a week on it with Costco. And then there's the other two days a week in the evenings, which we can talk about as well.

Christian Brim (06:53.975)
Yeah, so so and I do want to mention that too because I found that interesting but okay so let's let's start with this. In your research, what did you find that was most surprising to you personally? Not like the population as a whole but like to you like wow okay I didn't know that that's going to make a difference.

Scott Yamamura (07:16.494)
Yeah, so the realization I had along this whole time, what motivated me, my main motivator, different things can motivate different people, Finance is incredibly personal. Some people, their big step is, I got out of debt. I was in this hole. It was for years. It was a chain around my ankles and I am released and I have freedom. That wasn't so much my story, although I did get out of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt.

Christian Brim (07:30.351)
Yes.

Scott Yamamura (07:45.902)
Other people might say, finances was a terrible argument every day with my spouse and we almost got divorced over it hanging on a string. you know, money problems are one of the biggest causes of divorce. If you have that friction and that abrasiveness on a daily basis. But for me, it actually was the biggest realization with finances was that we can multiply it.

Christian Brim (07:54.853)
Right.

Scott Yamamura (08:14.31)
And I had always been told there's the great advice out there. Albert Einstein is sometimes credited with saying compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. And you have people saying save early and you have others saying, say 15 % towards retirement or have 10 times your income saved by the time you retire. All this great advice that is about saving and investing many, many things from Warren Buffett that talk about these things as well. But

Christian Brim (08:24.047)
Yes.

Scott Yamamura (08:43.404)
I needed to make it personal. needed to make it hit. And I actually had this aha moment, this epiphany, where I realized, aha, this is how it works for me. I'm a creative. I needed to hear this in a creative and simplified way, because once again, creatives a lot of times think that we're imposters. We have imposter syndrome. We're not supposed to understand money or finances. That's someone to be hired. That's not for me.

Christian Brim (08:55.535)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Yamamura (09:10.688)
It became for me. realized how it could become for me. That's the message I'm now spreading is when I realized I understood how to multiply money that actually helped me with my debt because I didn't put money into things. I put it into multiplying and now life is healthy. Now the debts are behind me. I'm looking out for my son and helping him out early. We started teaching him in the single digits about finances and he has a creative bend as well.

And then now the future looks good as well, not only for our own family, but we can step in and help aging parents out and also just spread the word all over the place, creatives, coworkers, friends, family. That's the idea now is now that I got my financial life in places to help show others the way.

Christian Brim (09:46.981)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (10:00.473)
I love that. You talk about setting your son up. My poor children were subjected to lots of monopoly and cash flow from kids, the board game. So it is interesting to me some of the fundamentals that people assume that are wrong, right?

Scott Yamamura (10:13.538)
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Yamamura (10:28.674)
Yeah. yeah.

Christian Brim (10:30.171)
One of the things that really struck me, so I read Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dead Poor Dead right after graduating university. And I had graduated the degree in accounting. I was a financial professional, right? And I read his book and he said, your home is not an asset. It's a liability. And that idea where I'd heard it.

Scott Yamamura (10:39.362)
Same here.

Scott Yamamura (10:46.755)
Yeah.

Scott Yamamura (10:53.774)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (10:59.227)
I probably said it, your home is your largest asset, which, know, I don't want to get in the weeds on defining an asset or a liability or any of those things, but there are some fundamental beliefs that we believe about money that just simply aren't true. What would you say your top one or two are?

Scott Yamamura (11:18.83)
You got it.

Scott Yamamura (11:22.836)
yeah, such a great question because I got my number one, which is wait to save later. When you make more money, when you get promoted, when you're older and wiser, you're going to have time to become savvy. That's the time to invest. Just wait till you're middle age or so. That is the greatest myth because it's actually the opposite. It's age and it is time. So those who are younger, who choose to invest, they actually can do and perform better.

Christian Brim (11:31.172)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (11:43.205)
Guess.

Scott Yamamura (11:52.386)
then their savvy version of themselves who waits until later. You compare the two and those who start out early investing in very common things like index funds, mutual funds, target date mutual funds can actually outperform their older self because of this multiplying power that they have when they are young. So there's that great myth, wait till later. It's just crush that into smithereens, throw it on the floor, stomp on that thing because

It's all about starting early and you don't even need to be a financial expert or financially savvy. You just start in the most common things like a 401k plan, IRA, retirement plan, stocks and bonds, index funds, commonly available things. And thanks for that question because I love explaining that great myth.

Christian Brim (12:37.211)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (12:43.439)
Yes. And I think there's a lot of intentional confusion by the industry out there. And I'm not talking about the people that are trying to get you to rent to own your couch or your TV. I'm talking about the Wall Street financial professionals. We do wealth management at core and we have an internal phrase for it, which is financial porn.

And it is essentially all of the stuff that's designed to grab your attention. And and in a lot of ways cause fear and anxiety. Right. Because then you'll want to to find the expert and, you know, pay them essentially to help you. But that's not necessary. Right. Like you're you're living proof. You didn't have to go to school.

And you didn't even have to be particularly the good to start you you The basics of finance Are are very simple, right? You know like Einstein talking about the time value of money like if you understand the time value of money Which is a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow or a year or ten years from now Like if you understand that concept, would you explain it to people they're like, you know? No, I'd rather have a dollar day today than five years from now

the foundational things are not complicated, where you end up with, you know, complex financial derivatives based upon, you know, mortgage securities that you end up with financial collapse. Yeah, you can make it as complicated as you want. And it's usually somebody trying to game the system to make money. Right. Like, but that you don't you don't have to you don't have to know any of that.

Scott Yamamura (14:32.877)
yeah.

Hmm. No, no, you don't have to optimize. You don't have to be savvy. You don't have to be an expert. You can do simple things for a long time. And that's a great plan for most people, because if most people are in the retirement crisis, the student loan crisis or hit by the housing crisis, crisis, crisis, crisis, that's normalized for us. We're we're good at crisis. So just do the simple normal thing. Avoid crisis. Stay far away from it. The simple normal thing.

can get you to financial health. And you can always become savvy later.

Christian Brim (15:05.776)
Mm-hmm.

You will as you're around it and you experience it and but yeah, there's no reason to become an expert to start. No, absolutely no.

Scott Yamamura (15:14.966)
Not to start. No, no, no. It's more important to do the common available things. Get going and then later look back and say, hey, let's start tweaking and optimizing from here.

Christian Brim (15:18.245)
to start.

Christian Brim (15:24.633)
Yeah. And in addition to the financial porn that's out there, there is this fear because to your point and your parents, you don't talk about it. And, you know, it's funny. I've talked about it before. I grew up in an entrepreneur entrepreneurial family, and so I didn't I didn't grow up with a.

a scarcity mindset around money, which a lot of people do. A lot of people, they believe that there's a limited amount of money and managing your money is about cutting spending. Like that's the extent of it. Right. I didn't have that mindset, but frankly, the...

Scott Yamamura (15:59.128)
Yes.

Scott Yamamura (16:10.798)
Yeah, common.

Christian Brim (16:19.959)
abundance mindset can lead to problems too, because what happened in my case, I always thought, well, I can always make more money. So I was not as intentional with my money as I should have been. Right. And so there are a lot of there's a lot of baggage that comes with money. And to your point, like talking about marital strife,

Scott Yamamura (16:24.366)
Yeah.

Scott Yamamura (16:36.088)
Sure. Yeah.

Scott Yamamura (16:45.646)
You bet.

Christian Brim (16:50.651)
You know, money is extremely personal, right? Like what Scott likes is not what Christian likes and therefore what they spend their money on are not the same thing. And so when you have spouses that, you know, have fundamentally different values around money, you're going to have conflict, which for most people means, well, we're just going to avoid the topic.

Scott Yamamura (17:12.142)
yeah.

Christian Brim (17:17.603)
right? Because we don't want to fight, we're just going to not talk about it. So you had that upbringing where you weren't supposed to talk about your dirty laundry. How have you changed your mindset on that with your kids? Like what was that transition like?

Scott Yamamura (17:18.688)
yeah. All right.

Scott Yamamura (17:33.89)
yeah. I love that because starting at age seven is around the time that I started teaching my son about finance. And I thought to myself, everything that was kept a secret from me, I am going to teach my son early. So he never is intimidated by these things. He never thinks imposter syndrome. I was told and led to believe that investing was gambling. And so it took me a long, long time to get over.

being comfortable with the stock market. And then I realized on the other end, looking at it as actually like Warren Buffett explains, do you work at or do you trust and believe in the US economy and these 500 top businesses? Yeah, I work at one of them, Costco wholesale. Do I believe in Microsoft and Amazon and many.

Christian Brim (18:24.641)
No, I don't like Microsoft. But they make a lot of money.

Scott Yamamura (18:27.63)
Sorry, sorry, sorry I had to bring up Microsoft Christian. I know you got some personal feelings on that one. But do I believe that each of these companies is going to try their darndest to succeed and to innovate and to keep making a profit? yeah. Everybody's out there trying to do their best. We're services and products that we are making ourselves when we're selling them to each other. And that's what we're going to do for all time. Let's keep making products and services and selling them to each other. But you got to be smart enough to know when to...

your personal limit is. But looking at this understanding on personal finance, I had to get over that hurdle personally. No one was telling me stop thinking about money is like talking about your underwear. Start thinking about the investing as positively. I had to get over that hurdle myself. It was a personal choice. And when I taught my kid that, who's now 16 years old,

We started with two things that I wish I had had early. And I started a custodial account for him, and I started his 529 college savings plan. And the thing about the college savings plan is we saved, we started saving at age seven and we stopped at age nine. And my wife came to me and she said, why are we stopping? And these three epiphanies that I can get into explaining, but I'll tell you the example first, I understood how money was gonna grow. So we stopped.

And I said, it's gonna double before he gets into college. And it certainly has. He's 16 now and he's had enough money to go to a state college for a while now, because the money grew faster than tuition did. And so that's one thing that understanding these rules of thumb can do is help you plan and act early. I never would have saved money and stopped for his college if I didn't know it was gonna double.

Christian Brim (20:08.795)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Scott Yamamura (20:23.726)
So that was one thing his collar he's had enough money for college since you know age nine and then the other thing is this custodial account and what I wanted to do was with his birthday money with his Christmas money We'd say hey Logan You we want you to choose like one stock two stock just choose some like a company, know, and like like what do you think Disney? Okay, Netflix. Okay, Amazon. Okay, and then you know what happened during the pandemic We watched it and we said well which companies did good

Amazon goes up because everybody's ordering things from home. Netflix went up because everybody's streaming entertainment from home. And he started to see these things happen when he was young, very young. He's also seen his custodial count double in size. so teaching him early with money that's not his, you know, it's gift money and things like that, he's learning and he's not even in college yet.

But he's getting over all those things that people are commonly intimidated by or have an imposter syndrome at. And I highly recommend that parents do that for their kids. They get them in early and teach them so that they hit the ground running when it's time to start working.

Christian Brim (21:39.183)
So that is an example of what, which of your three epiphanies.

Scott Yamamura (21:44.335)
Okay, the first one. So the first epiphany is with the simplest, most common scenario, because you got to make money freeze. Money is intimidating. It's all over the place. It's like the stars in the sky. Where do we get started? So I freeze it. And freezing money can be done via these three things. First, what is the most common age to start a career at? Age 22. Could be 21. Could be 23. Let's freeze it at 22. What is the...

average duration of a career? 40 years, could be 39, could be 41, freeze it at 40. And third, what is the average rate of return for investments? Well, a good number to throw out there for stocks and bonds over the long term is 7.2%, that rate of return. And the reason why I and others love that rate of return is it leads to the easiest math possible. And that's what we need. Remember, we don't want to

inundate people with complexities, we are going after a simple approach for non savvy people, which is the largest population in the US is not savvy with finances. Okay, so 7.2 % money with those three things, money is doubling every 10 years. So you put $1,000 in say into a 401k plan, don't even touch it. Look 10 years later, $2,000. That's what is happening. That's a very common

scenario is when we invest that money can double every 10 years. That's the first rule of thumb. And when we don't have that framework, we have no idea what's happening. But when we have that, two of the simplest concepts ever, money doubling, well, doubling is simple. $1,000 turns into 2,000. And one of our favorite numbers of all time, 10. 10 years later, it's doubling. So that's the first epiphany. And with that, we're describing the inch mark on a ruler.

Christian Brim (23:19.045)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Yamamura (23:42.454)
something to start measuring by, but with that small calculation, you can figure out so much of finance for the rest of your life. And so I've enjoyed using that simple math in my financial life as well.

Christian Brim (23:50.789)
down.

Christian Brim (23:55.964)
Yeah, so let's take your continue example. start at 22 with a thousand at 32, you're at 2000. So at 42, you're at 4,000 at 52, you're at 8,000 and at 62 when you're contemplating retirement, you're you're at, I lost my number was eight or 16.

Scott Yamamura (24:06.702)
4,000.

Scott Yamamura (24:17.902)
Well, at that point, yeah, it's a multiple of one. And at that point, you are hopefully near retirement. It is average retirement age and you're enjoying the fruits of your labor. So it's no longer multiplying. You're starting to spend it. So you described the very thing that I usually have to explain, but you said it on your side. And those are the numbers, those numbers, one, two, four, eight, 16. Those are doubling numbers and that is exactly what can happen. So now we have our ruler.

Christian Brim (24:28.974)
Right.

Scott Yamamura (24:47.064)
We talked about the inch mark, that money can double every 10 years. Let's talk about the ruler, which measures your career. Now, because people usually work for, we said, the average of 40 years, now we know that if you put $1,000 in, at the end when you retire, it should be about $16,000. There's this multiple of 16, and that's what we want to look at, because when people start their careers, now they know what's happening.

Christian Brim (25:05.072)
Right?

Scott Yamamura (25:12.59)
when they put $1,000 in over the long term. Instead of, don't know, we say, oh, if every $1,000 I put in, that should turn into $16,000. Wow, I should act now. And that's the point is that when you talk about multiplying money, this thing, it can feel impersonal. But when you flip things around and you say, wait a second, you have this multiplying ability of 16. You have an ability. You're actually more like an athlete. NFL players,

Christian Brim (25:38.746)
Hmm

Scott Yamamura (25:40.416)
Olympic hockey, ice skaters, should say, and gymnast. Many sports athletes are at their prime in their 20s. And the same is true for money. It's when you start working and you have the ability to invest, that's your most critical time to act. That's when you have the most leverage. And I'm here to tell people and coach people into realizing their multiplying power is to put a number on it rather than nothing. As I say, you have the power of 16 when you start working.

Christian Brim (25:57.487)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Yamamura (26:09.846)
And 10 years later, it's gonna half into the power of eight. And 10 years later, it's gonna be four and two and one. So if you have the power of 16 when you start working, don't you want to act now? It creates a sense of urgency. And so I just blended financial epiphany two and three there. Financial epiphany two is you have the power of 16 when you start working. Financial epiphany three is that you're multiplying power halves every 10 years.

Christian Brim (26:12.559)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Yamamura (26:36.494)
Now that we know what's happening, we have a framework to act. And that's exactly why I saved for my son's college when he was seven years old. And that's exactly why I max out my 401k plan and have an IRA and invest in these other methods. I wouldn't have done that if I didn't know these three epiphanies. I would have acted timidly, which is what I did before. But I'm spreading the word so that others understand what's happening very simply.

Christian Brim (27:00.687)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Yamamura (27:05.666)
with a simple framework and can take action.

Christian Brim (27:08.955)
Well, yeah, and I love your analogy to an athlete and I realized at the time that when I said you asked where I was from and I said, Oklahoma City, home of the world champion, Oklahoma City Thunder. I didn't know you lived in Seattle and I did not mean to scrape that room wound. I apologize. We love the supersonics. Yeah. OK, so but but like an athlete, you degrade over time, right? And so.

Scott Yamamura (27:30.113)
Yeah, yeah, no offense taken. Yeah, yeah, I'm okay.

Scott Yamamura (27:36.802)
Yeah, he bet.

Christian Brim (27:38.242)
If you if you've got a 16 to one leverage or an even an eight to one leverage, you've got a lot of room to screw up and still be further ahead. Just like the athlete in his in his prime can get away with stuff that they probably couldn't later in their career. Like they got to be more conservative. They've got to they've got to like maybe not take that extra step or.

Scott Yamamura (27:58.946)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (28:03.779)
You know, etc. But it's a I love that analogy comparing it to an athlete because it's it's it's good.

Scott Yamamura (28:05.472)
Got it.

Yeah, yeah, I love it because what we want to do is explain using something people understand to parallel it to something people don't understand. People understand athlete. They don't understand finance. Another person I talked to, I love this analogy, it's a little bit more for women, she said that you've got your, this is like a biological clock. You've got this financial biological clock ticking. And I was like, that's perfect. That's a whole nother way, another parallel of explaining this.

And here's an example that I actually love that really gets you to feel what the power of 16 is like, because people say, oh, power 16. That sounds great. That's good. But here's the example. If you work a week of work and get paid for that week, that's what you signed up for. Now, let's say you work a week of work and your boss says, you know what? He did such a good job. I'm to pay you double. I'm going to pay two weeks worth of pay for that one week. You would be ecstatic. That's the power of two.

Christian Brim (29:04.132)
Right?

Scott Yamamura (29:08.942)
Everybody would sign up for that. Get paid double? Yeah, absolutely. Now, what's the power of 16 like? It's like working a week of work and getting paid for four months. That is ridiculous. That is off the charts. And until I explain it like that, most people don't realize what the power of 16 is like. And when you realize it's like working a week and getting paid for four months, and then the next week you work a week and get paid for another four months and you keep doing that.

Then that creates that urgency to act that, that's how good my multiplying power is right now. I should not sit idly by. I should start that investment account today and put in as much as possible. And once again, stay far away from debt, take that money I was gonna spend on the thing or the upgrade and put that into an investment vehicle.

Christian Brim (29:49.221)
Yes.

Christian Brim (30:01.391)
Yeah. And, and, and it, it, that's not to say that if you're already in your thirties or forties, that you still shouldn't act quickly because the clock is still ticking. You're, you're, you're losing your power.

Scott Yamamura (30:15.374)
Yeah, absolutely. And I like to say if you have that power of two or more, meaning in your 50s or more, I was like, you have got some off the charts ability. People think, oh, I have the power of two, not the power of 16. That's a small thing by comparison. There are parts of the world where money doesn't double. We live in a country that is affluent, that there is opportunity. And like I said, Warren Buffett says, you know, if you bet against America, you're betting against yourself. You you're in a place where he says,

We've won the Ovarian lottery. We've been born into opportunity. There's another way of saying it right there. so multiplying your money by two, by doing nothing, just putting it here rather than spending it, that's the thing of beauty. It's like putting something on a boat, sending it off, and 10 years later, there's twice as much and you didn't do anything. it's like, that doesn't happen everywhere. to have gratitude and thankfulness that we

Christian Brim (30:47.951)
Yes, Lucky Sperm Club.

Christian Brim (31:02.511)
Yes.

Scott Yamamura (31:15.256)
do live in a place where that does happen. That is our economy. That is the structure. It's a beautiful thing. So we should all take advantage of it.

Christian Brim (31:22.977)
Yes, 100%. And I couldn't agree with you more. mean, not that America doesn't have its problems. It has its problems. But if you don't wake up and thank God that you were born in this country with the opportunity, it doesn't mean equal results, but you have a better shot here than anywhere else. You're kind of missing a little bit of gratitude there because we are very fortunate.

So tell me about this third leg of Scott, which would be your, I forgot the name you told me, but it's the, yes, thank you.

Scott Yamamura (32:03.022)
Created to create? Yes, that is the passion project. So if one piece of the pie is my career, 40 hours a week, that's Costco wholesale doing video, then we've talked about financial epiphany, which is helping spread the word and helping people get healthy with their finances, simply. The third piece of the pie is created to create. And that's an organization that started 10 years ago to take my passion of video and put a purpose behind it.

And so that purpose is we create videos for nonprofit organizations and causes. We just went to Sierra Leone, Africa a few months ago, my son and wife and I, and we filmed a video for a ministry called the Bridge of Hope. And they create schools and churches and clinics. And we went with several nurses to film a video about what they do, help with malaria, malnutrition, snake bites, things of that nature.

And one of my favorite ministries here in the Seattle area is called dads and they help reconnect fathers that have been separated from their kids divorce abandonment incarceration working on a video for them right now and That's what we do and because there's financial wellness and other areas Created to create just takes care of itself. It doesn't need to fund my life or pay my rent It is a passion project. It's what I would do anyway

whether there was money involved or not. But we usually like to have our expenses covered so that it can sustain itself. And yeah.

Christian Brim (33:32.057)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (33:38.139)
So do you do do fundraising for that or do you like charge the nonprofit sometimes to create the video?

Scott Yamamura (33:44.812)
Yeah, the best scenario is if, get this. Okay. Here's a, here's a quick story. So the first time I went to Sierra Leone, five, six years ago, the trip was covered and the video was compensated for. So I went for less than a couple of weeks, came back. It was about a hundred hour project from shooting to editing. And so put this piece together and it showed at the fundraiser. I sat next to a tall man, elderly man with a cane.

His name was Ernie. And I thought, okay, this is a signed seating and I'm seated near the front of this room. That made me feel like they're a little special. And why was I here and what do we have in common? Who is Ernie? Turns out Ernie paid for me to go and compensated me for the video. He took care of it himself, he and his wife. He watched the video for the first time at that breakfast and he leaned over to me he said,

Christian Brim (34:32.658)
Scott Yamamura (34:43.948)
Hey Scott, that's the first time I've seen that video. And he said, my wife and I came here with a number in mind that we are going to donate. And he said, don't tell her, but I just doubled it. And so not only did he pay for my whole trip and expenses, travel expenses, which is not cheap, and the video, he just doubled his donation to the Bridge of Hope. That's only his wife, so hopefully she forgave him for that.

But here you've got this guy that offered to pay for things. So thanks for asking that question because sometimes a donor will come forth and say, I'll take care of that. I'll underwrite that. Don't worry about that ministry. We've got it covered. But always the ministry is having a donor cover the expenses in some way, or form. We, course, charge nonprofit prices and have ongoing relationships with the ministries we work with.

Christian Brim (35:40.932)
I love that. I met a videographer last year who that was his niche was working with nonprofits and he talked about how difficult it was. And we kind of talked about like the nonprofit mindset versus the for-profit mindset and like it is very different.

And I've worked with nonprofit organizations and been part of nonprofit organizations. And you know, the mindset's not the same as when you're sitting at the, in the boardroom at Costco, right? I mean, and it shouldn't be because they've got, they've got different purposes. But, but one of the things that I kept coming back to specifically around videography is like the power of story to influence donors, right?

Scott Yamamura (36:07.944)
yeah.

Christian Brim (36:35.931)
And, how many causes there are that are truly great causes that are just nobody knows about, right? And this isn't like about manipulating people's feelings. You know, we're not talking Susan Sarandon and, and, and the, you know, PETA commercials, get your $15 t-shirt donate. We're not, we're not talking about that stuff. I'm talking about like true, causes like the, one that you're, you're referencing in Sierra Leone where

Like if more people knew about it, they would absolutely contribute money to it. And just how powerful that story is in supporting their cause.

Scott Yamamura (37:11.502)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Yamamura (37:18.702)
Yeah, story. Yeah, we are the to talk about for profit organizations first. We are the most marketed advertised to society on earth. So we're number one in that. So I don't know if that's something to be proud of. Four hundred billion per year. That's more than a thousand dollars per person, even the babies. So congratulations. think China's runner runner up. But it's pretty nuts. And so.

Christian Brim (37:38.459)
That is nuts.

Scott Yamamura (37:44.845)
But when you come to, and obviously there's gonna be, when you spend those advertising dollars, the money comes back through your revenue. But nonprofits aren't able to advertise like that. And so they certainly, I call it going from products and prices to people of purpose. When you're doing products and prices, there's this flow of money. When it's people on purpose, that's...

Christian Brim (37:51.749)
Sure.

Christian Brim (38:02.011)
Mmm.

Scott Yamamura (38:08.268)
That's a little bit harder because you are inviting people to a fundraiser and hopefully they show up and have that heart to donate. They are choosing what they are giving for maybe that free meal on the table they're getting that night. Whereas in the for-profit world, you're purchasing something and getting this product of a certain value in return. so totally different worlds, totally different animals, like you say, but the nonprofit world, it's something we almost have to go to.

coming to us. It's not in our email accounts or on the billboards or before the movie starts.

Christian Brim (38:39.543)
No, no, yeah, no, and yeah, and to your point, like, you it's like you, you explained this, this ministry to me verbally, right? And, you know, it may resonate with me, right? And I might say, you know, that's something that I might follow up with Scott and see if I could support, right? However, if you showed me a video with the people that

you change through that ministry and hear their stories, right? You talk about multipliers, that's a multiplier off the chart, right? Like it's totally different level of engagement.

Scott Yamamura (39:16.536)
Yeah, that's right.

That's right. Yeah, I think to maybe draw a little comparison. I went to the Coke Museum in Atlanta a few weeks ago, and they had this beautiful piece that played about everybody being happy and families coming together and just having the best time of their lives. And then they were drinking and sharing a bottle of Coke. And I was like, that's amazing. There you go. Hey, we're in it together. We're in it together. But when you talk about what you just said, which is

Christian Brim (39:38.875)
and getting diabetes together. It was beautiful. I'm sorry.

Scott Yamamura (39:48.302)
Here are the lives that are being helped. In Sierra Leone, the child's able to go to school that wasn't able to go to school at all. This family is getting fed and otherwise they would have maybe one meal a day where the child is actually getting it at school and it's rice mixed with sauce. That sort of thing, if I were to go buy a bottle of Coke and someone wanted a tip for it, I'll give them that 20 % tip.

Christian Brim (39:55.461)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (40:05.775)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Yamamura (40:17.294)
on the receipt when I leave that restaurant. But if I go watch a story where a life is being transformed and changed and a community is in Sierra Leone, I'm going to get more than a 20 % tip. Some people are donating just tens of thousands of dollars to something like this because there's this life-changing value. And a human life is infinitely valued. You can't put a price on it. And so you could give forever to something like that and not lose out.

Whereas if you overpay for a product, we feel like we're being taken advantage of. And I do feel like that with the way inflation has been going.

Christian Brim (40:47.299)
No.

Christian Brim (40:52.003)
Yes. Yes. And if you drink too much Coke, you're going to get sick. It's going to affect your health. Right. Right. There's no there's no negative in helping other people. Like there's no there's no downside. Scott, how do people find out more? Well, first of all, how do we purchase your book? What's the what's the.

Scott Yamamura (40:59.318)
There you go.

Scott Yamamura (41:05.847)
That's right.

Scott Yamamura (41:12.878)
The book is on Amazon available for purchase, Financial Epiphany. And the easiest way to get connected with me or find out more is financialepiphany.com. You can also get to the book through that way. can view, I'll post a link to this podcast once it's available on there. And there's a free download for those who want to learn how to make their first investment starting a Roth IRA or

get out of debt, it talks about something called the debt snowball, the process to get out of debt, and also find out how much to save for retirement. What is your retirement number? So, yeah. thank you.

Christian Brim (41:52.609)
Love it. I love your website, by the way. I'm in the process of redesigning mine and I sent mine, I sent yours to the designer and I said, I like this one,

Scott Yamamura (42:02.518)
All right, glad to hear it. that's kudos to the web designer that did it for me, Shane. So thank you.

Christian Brim (42:10.011)
Thanks. Shout out to Shane listeners will have that link in the show notes. If you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. And if by some strange reason you do not like Scott, you can send us a message and let us know what you want to hear and we'll replace him until then. Ta ta for now.

Scott Yamamura (42:11.886)
Yeah.

Scott Yamamura (42:30.848)
Yes, Thanks, Christian.