120: Making Money Matter | Cole Hatter
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Summary
Cole Hatter is a speaker, author, entrepreneur, and entrepreneur. In this episode, he talks about the mindset and rules for more abundance in your life, and how to live life to the fullest. He also shares his personal story of how he overcame a near-death experience, and the lessons he learned along the way.
Transcript
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Money is villainized by much of the media and society today, and it's easy to see why
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only a select few have managed to build a sizable net worth, and the fact remains that
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the majority of the population are living a life of anything but wealth and abundance.
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In fact, much of what my guest Cole Hatter talks about today is the mindset and rules
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We talk about living a life of significance, what money truly is, the value of capitalism,
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and more importantly, how to make money matter in your life and the lives of those you care about.
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Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
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When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.
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At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast.
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I do not care whether you're listening for the first time or you've been with us for years.
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You are definitely in the right place if you are a man.
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We are interviewing the world's most successful men, athletes, warriors, entrepreneurs, scholars,
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We're extracting their wisdom, and then we're sharing that with you.
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If you're listening to this as it is being released, I want to wish you a happy 4th of July.
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This show is pretty fitting considering the day that we as Americans are celebrating.
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It's about the freedoms that come with the voluntary exchange of money and services that
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And more importantly, it's about our responsibilities, our responsibilities as men to use those freedoms
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that so many men and women have fought for to serve ourselves, our families, our loved
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But first, a couple of quick resources to know about.
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I've been talking with you about this for a while, and as much as I like communicating
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with you through the podcast and the blog and the website and everything that we're doing
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in the Facebook group, there's nothing that can replace the power that comes from meeting
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We are going to be hosting our very first regional Order of Man meetup.
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It's coming up August 12, 2017, and that's in Kansas City.
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So Stephen Mansfield, the author of Mansfield's book of Manly Men is going to be there.
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We've got a copy of his book, Building Your Band of Brothers, available for the first 50
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And I think we might only have a couple of those spots left.
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Register for the conversations that we're going to be having, the involvement, the opportunity
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to meet me, Stephen Mansfield, and so many other great men.
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And you can do that at orderaman.com slash event.
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And the other resource I wanted to share with you is our exclusive brotherhood.
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This is, again, about building your band of brothers.
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This is a digital band of brothers, but it's so much more than that.
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They're doing some incredible things in their relationships, in their finance, in their money,
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And if you want to learn more about what we are up to, you can do that at orderaman.com
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So with that said and out of the way, guys, I do want to introduce you to my guest, Cole
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I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with Cole and what he's been up to.
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But if you're not, you are going to be blown away, I'm telling you, with what he is up to
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He's a speaker, an entrepreneur, so many other things.
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But at the end of the day, he is striving to live life to the fullest.
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And that may have something to do with the fact that he has escaped death not once, but
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twice, at which point he lost everything and even the ability to walk temporarily.
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He's used them as a catalyst for growth, which all great men do when they're faced with adversity
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and trial in his life and the lives of tens of thousands of people across the planet.
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And today, he's here to talk with us about his unique perspective on money, where these
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ideas come from, and how to use the medium of money to make our lives actually matter.
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Man, it's been, and I told you this just briefly, it's been, gosh, three years since I was introduced
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to your work and honored to finally have the privilege to talk with you.
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Likewise, I've been admiring your beard from afar.
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Yeah, so it's kind of like I shave it clean and then don't touch it for a week.
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So depending on where you caught me, I could be clean shaven or a week worth of growth.
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But I don't know, maybe you can talk me through this and you can mentor me through.
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I can't get past like day 10 because it itches so bad.
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And quite honestly, you just got to bear down through it and get over it.
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And once I got past that, golden, man, everything's set from there.
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So I think the longest I've ever had facial hair without cutting it to death is like maybe
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I'm just not quite the man you are, but hopefully and aspiring to be someday.
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Next time you catch me with a long, sexy beard, you'll know that you were my inspiration.
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Well, I've heard from past guests that once the show's over, facial hair started sprouting
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If you could sprout some on the top of my head, I'd be stoked there.
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Well, hey, let's just jump into this conversation, man.
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We can talk about the logistics and the numbers and crunch numbers and do all that stuff when
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But the angle that I really want to talk with you about today, and I think it's going to
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be valuable for anybody who might be listening, is actually leading a life of significance
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and making money matter in your life and the lives of those you serve.
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Can you walk me through your philosophy about why it's so important to build wealth in your
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Everyone has a different relationship with money, and since you are a financial planner
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by trade, you have financial conversations with people, and I'm sure you see this firsthand.
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If you go through the entire history of what money and currency really is, it's just for
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Back in the day when we all lived in caves, I would have to trade you my spear for your
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And then we started mining precious metals and jewels out of the earth, and then we started
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trading commodities like gold and silver pieces and rubies and diamonds for things,
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So we eventually created what we now have today is called fiat money, which is just paper.
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Actually, it's technically cotton, which has no actual monetary value.
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It's just a representation of something that was.
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But if you go through the whole history of our barter system, what we call today capitalism,
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And so I think so many people, where they get it wrong, is they get emotionally, like
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their identity is in their money or lack thereof, and they get emotionally attached to having
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And I think the first healthy thing to do is just step back and look at the history of
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You have a product, good, service, or experience that I want, and so I have to exchange X amount
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of dollars for that product, service, or experience.
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And as soon as there's no longer an emotional connection to money, it's just currency, which
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is all it really is, then I believe that people can start acting more emotionally intelligent
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So I think that's step one, and that's a conversation I like to have.
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Step two is, okay, now that we can acknowledge that all money is for is options, really.
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And again, you said, why is there so much value in creating wealth?
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So clearly, the more money you have, the more options you have, and that's the value.
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Your human worth has nothing to do with your net worth.
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Having more money or resources does not make you a better person.
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However, it gives you more options to do the good that you want to do in the world.
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And so since we all understand that, my approach or what I preach to the world is use your talents,
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your gifts, and your resources to get as much wealth as you possibly can to then have as
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many options to exchange that wealth for experiences with your family and friends all the way to
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what type of philanthropy you want to do in the world.
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Your time is your most valuable asset, and all of us have that.
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So volunteering places and doing things with your time is always, always the greatest gift
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However, if you have hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars of discretionary income
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on top of that, well, then instead of just volunteering at church, you can buy your
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Or instead of just volunteering on Saturday morning at the soup kitchen, you can do that.
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And start 30 locations in the most poverty-stricken areas of our country.
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And so it just gives you more options to do the good that you want to do.
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And so long answer to say, why is wealth so important?
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It gives you more options to live a better life if you choose to and to give back in bigger
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Yeah, because one of the things I hear a lot is money is bad or money is good.
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It's this piece of paper or cotton like you explained, which is really interesting because
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So it's really interesting to hear you talk about that.
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And what the way I've heard it explained and it makes sense to me is that money is simply
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So if you're a charitable person, if you're somebody who wants to give back or serve your
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community or serve your family, having those options like you're talking about allows you
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And likewise, if you're a total donkey, having more money just makes you suck more, right?
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So, and unfortunately the way while we're on the subject, because I hear that a lot,
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you know, people misquote the Bible and say that money is the root of all evil, which
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actually the love of money is the root of all evil.
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And then number two, what you were just saying of there's a lot of people that have this
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negative connotation because the news clearly has a narrative and an agenda that they're
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propagating, that rich people don't pay taxes and that we're the problem with this country,
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And so I do in my journeys of being on podcasts and hosting my own events, hear feedback from
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people that are like, man, this has been pretty liberating.
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I've always had an internal conflict of pursuing wealth because I've been taught through CNN or
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Fox or my grandparents my whole life that rich people are bad.
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And now all I'm seeing is that money gives me more options.
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And so, you know, I'd just like to touch on that, that if you want to go to just the
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metrics and the facts here in America, at least over 73% of all of the taxes last year collected
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by our IRS were from the top 3% of income earners in our country, right?
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We do create economic stimulus, but on the more romantic side, what we've been talking
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And so I would say for anyone who has that conflict of like, man, money is the root of
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evil or whatever, we'll go look at what it actually says and don't let it define
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And then what you were just talking about that money magnifies, it really does.
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And I don't know why, unfortunately, society likes to talk more about the bad than the
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You know, like I'll go there and talk about cops.
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Two cops are complete idiots, get caught on camera, which undoes the work of the hundreds
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of thousands of cops that were doing their jobs.
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So when you have a wealthy person that acts like a total idiot, well, now all wealthy people
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And I think that that's really dangerous because for anybody out there who has the capability
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of creating wealth and then doing the right things with it, we need more people like that
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We need more amazing stories of charity and giving back.
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And so I would say be careful who you listen to.
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You know, the news, I don't know why it has an agenda against wealthy people.
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And of course, there are the guys on Wall Street that are total donkeys and rightfully
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But there are 15,700,000 millionaires in the United States alone.
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And I know your audience is all over the world, but where you and I live here in America,
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15,700,000 millionaires, you only hear about maybe 100 or so a year that suck.
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So the point is, go out there, use your God-given gifts and talents to make as much money as
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you can and go do the meaningful work in the world that you've been called to do, period.
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Yeah, I really appreciate what you're talking about with it being propagated by the media.
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But I also think it goes deeper than that because I think about my childhood, for example, and
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I always heard things like money doesn't grow on trees and a penny saved is a penny earned.
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I always tell my clients, fill in the blank here, rich people are blank.
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And most of the answers that you would get to that have a negative connotation because
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we've been conditioned even as children, little children.
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And I'm sure I do it to my children to a degree to think that money isn't the most important
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And it certainly isn't, but it'll allow you to do big things in your life.
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Why do you feel like we get so emotionally charged with our financial decisions when everybody
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out there knows that it's probably the enemy to you being able to create wealth?
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And we're a society that glorifies wealth with that money power, all that.
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And so I think that people start to, like you said, get emotionally charged around the
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And then maybe there's a degree of, I don't want to say jealousy, but animosity for the
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haves and have-nots that the majority of our world are have-nots, right?
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The 80% of the world's wealth is controlled by like 10% of the world's population.
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So just by the numbers alone, this isn't meant to be discriminatory or mean towards anyone,
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but the facts are that very few control most of the world's wealth.
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And so maybe there's that feeling of haves versus have-nots, which creates a little bit
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of division, which adds to that social charge that you were talking about.
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I don't know how to undo what culture has done.
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And so what I would recommend for people over their money is create value systems.
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Your money is just a byproduct of your action or inaction, right?
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And so I think that people should, number one, create value systems.
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And when it comes to business and how I operate my money, there are 11 things that before I
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say yes to any opportunity or do anything, write any checks, it has to check off the list
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and all of these 11 absolute truths is what I call them.
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So my wife and I got very clear, actually on our honeymoon, on what our value systems would
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be as a married couple and as entrepreneurs and philanthropists in the world.
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It's just as long as the money we're earning falls in alignment with who we've decided we
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Is it that or is it to find a way to eliminate emotions or is it to find out, again, your
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And I'd like to go through a few of those if we can, but is that the very first thing that
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I mean, I guess for each person it's different, right?
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And again, I've had the privilege of being on stage for over 3,000 hours now.
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I do three-day events and I've had the opportunity to talk to over 100,000 people live.
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So where I've engaged with the most people is when I'm speaking on stage and I get off
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stage and I hear crazy stories of wealthy people like using like wealthy step-parents
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is kind of not to, you know, I love step-parents out there.
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But that seems to be the one where mom married a wealthy guy.
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Wealthy guy was kind of a dick and the kids were now kind of financially abused in the sense
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So if there's some emotional healing needs to happen, I guess that would be step-by-step.
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One of just saying, hey, listen, you know, what does everyone say?
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Sometimes people who make poor decisions have money.
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So depending on someone's history with how they feel, if they're kind of indifferent,
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then I would suggest, yeah, create value systems.
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But if they've been hurt by the concept or the thought around wealth, then I would say
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that maybe there's some healing needs to be done and some perspective.
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And some inward focus of, hey, you know, what do I need to get through?
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And by the way, I want to repeat what I said five minutes ago.
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So I'm not by all means saying if you don't go out there and pursue wealth that you've
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I will say that you've just wasted opportunity.
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As long as you're doing something that matters, I'm okay with it.
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But yeah, that's an interesting distinction for sure.
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How do you know if you have some emotional healing regarding money that needs to take
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Because sometimes we're just stuck in these boxes or we just believe what we believe
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I would say for the person listening to this that wants to do kind of an emotional reality
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check around money, do some of those fill in the blanks.
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And be honest with yourself and then look at your answers.
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And if they're towards the negative, money is evil.
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If the fill in the blank is money is options and wealthy people are influential.
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And if it's positive, then I'd say you're probably good.
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This is the first time I've ever gone this deep in this subject.
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But if someone's listening to this and kind of wondering if there are some emotional things
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to go through, I would say the easiest exercise is fill in the blanks around money, wealthy
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And if it seems to be negative, you've got some work to do.
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I mean, and start studying really wealthy people that are changing the world like Warren Buffett
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Bill Gates, who's given over $30 billion of his-
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And then go look at the work that's been done because of it, right?
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I mean, in Bill Gates' life, he wants to end malaria.
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And so what a cool thing it would be to completely wipe a disease off the face of the earth because
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So start studying wealthy people who are actually cool with their money.
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Go look at self-made millionaires and billionaires who weren't given anything.
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And then the difference in the world they were able to make, again, doesn't make them
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a better person, but at least they had the options.
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I, when I was a single guy, pre-marriage, made a ton of money and then lost it all.
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Not yet seven figures, but I would have occasional six-figure months.
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Investing, primarily in real estate, actually like 95% in real estate.
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So I became an entrepreneur in 2005, crushed it 2005, six, seven, in the beginning of eight.
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And then it was 2010 when I got engaged to my wife, 2011 when we got married.
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And so 2008, nine and 10, I was financially wiped out and I was literally just getting
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Instead of paycheck to paycheck, I was still an entrepreneur.
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It was deal to deal, barely, like literally, oh my gosh, escrow would close and I'd be
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So my wife and I were on our honeymoon and I knew I'd come back.
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I knew that I would be more successful than ever before.
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Because I think that's where a lot of people would get hung up.
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Just self-belief, self-awareness as Gary Vee would call it.
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I just, I knew why I lost my money and I knew what I would do differently.
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And so although I'd lost all my money, had to sell all my cars, I didn't go through the
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But I saw that my money was over and I fire sold off everything and had nothing left.
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And okay, if I had been not over leveraged and if I had multiple income streams.
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And so instead of looking at losing all my money as, oh my gosh, I'm a failure and I'm
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just going to go get a job and entrepreneurism doesn't work for me, I was very self-aware
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and honest with myself of saying, hey, here's where you screwed up, Cole.
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What I did with my money of where I invested and how I spent it needs to change.
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And so I got married in September of 2011, took a three-month honeymoon, basically got
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started again in January of 2012 and started making seven figures and have made seven figures
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So part of that shift allowed me to make more money than I ever had in my life as well.
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And so while my wife and I were deciding who we would be, our 11 truths or my absolute
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And one of the first tests I'll take any opportunity through is, will my daughters, I have two little
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girls, I have a one-year-old and a four-year-old, will my daughters and wife be proud
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I was pitched two or three years ago on an app on a phone.
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It's not Tinder, by the way, but on an app on a phone that uses GPS locating to find other
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members of the app exclusively for hooking up casually.
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But an app similar to Tinder, but the focus not being socially, it's, hey, let's just get
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And so, unfortunately, with the way our culture goes, that app went off to do pretty well.
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And I imagine I would have done well financially.
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But that is an app I would hope to God my daughters never found.
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I don't want my little girls to know where daddy's money came from, was funding an app
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And for anyone in here who is all about hooking up with random strangers, good for you.
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But for a married man with two little girls, it's not one of my priorities.
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And so, although there was a lot of absolute truth that it would have fallen into, like
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No matter what I do, I have to be able to do it from anywhere.
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I will never be geographically bound in any way I make money ever, period.
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If you asked me to move to Utah, work in your office, and you'd pay me $10 million a
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year, I would say no, because I wouldn't do it.
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And now, if it was like consulting, and I had to fly to your office on occasion, that's
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But if it was pick up, sell my house, move my family there, put them in school there, and
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And so, it fell in alignment with many of the truths, but several of them it did not.
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For instance, I would not – there's no way my little girls and wife could be proud
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of daddy for investing in an app that did that.
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So, that's an example of two of the absolute truths.
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I have to be able to make this money from anywhere, period, right?
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As you and your wife were going through this, was there some beliefs or truths about money
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And although Serbia isn't technically a third-world country, where she grew up in a little city
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So, my wife grew up on a farm in third-world conditions.
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So, her relationship with money is one of the healthiest I've ever seen.
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She literally lived off the land, like they had animals in a farm.
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And so, she has actually taught me a lot about money and becoming even more indifferent
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towards it, which is weird because I make a lot of it and I don't really feel anything
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And so, I would say that, if anything, she affirmed where I was already evolving to towards
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money and made me feel maybe even more strongly towards it.
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I mean, you talked about doing this on your honeymoon.
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But what does this look like communication-wise with your wife now moving forward on an ongoing
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We don't have like weekly check-ins or quarterly check-ins.
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I collect them and I have a handful of really great cars.
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Uh, probably my Audi R8, which is what I'm going to talk about right now.
00:23:23.680
The Audi R8, for those that don't know it, is this Audi supercar.
00:23:27.460
It's got a Lamborghini motor and transmission in it in a German-engineered car, Audi.
00:23:33.380
And I've been eyeballing those things for a while.
00:23:38.200
Just basically like a Lamborghini Gallardo would.
00:23:40.220
My wife and I decided whether I'm making $100,000 a month or $100 million a month, we would
00:23:48.940
I'm literally talking to you right now wearing board shorts, no shirt, and sandals that are
00:24:00.500
And by the way, most of my cars go up in value.
00:24:05.380
As, you know, talking to a financial planner, I'm getting double-digit returns on some of
00:24:19.820
I would like to own guns, but I live in California.
00:24:24.240
I can have like an unloaded gun basically ever.
00:24:27.920
Well, I can offer you a position for $10 million.
00:24:29.820
You can come work out here with me if you'd like.
00:24:40.760
My father taught me something when I became a millionaire.
00:24:47.640
I remember we were sitting on his porch watching our dogs play.
00:24:51.020
And I was talking about how I just bought this wakeboard boat.
00:24:53.400
And I was buying a new Escalade because the Escalade I already had was too old.
00:24:57.160
And he was like, hey man, just because you can doesn't mean you should.
00:24:59.720
And that struck me to my core in one of those father lessons.
00:25:02.600
So, bottom line is I'll never spend six figures on a car.
00:25:05.020
The Audi I've wanted that I've been able to afford for quite some time wouldn't come below $100,000.
00:25:10.820
And then finally, the exact year, exact make, exact model I wanted, I found it for sale for $99,500.
00:25:21.020
And so, I found it and I told my wife, oh my gosh, like it's finally here.
00:25:24.380
Like I've literally been waiting since 2008 when this car came out.
00:25:29.360
But still, I've been waiting forever for this car to come out.
00:25:32.000
And I could go in, you know, not to sound arrogant, I could go buy a brand new Audi 2018 that has zero miles on it.
00:25:40.040
So, then I finally was there and my wife and I did have a talk.
00:25:44.100
And I was like, okay, it's within the boundaries.
00:25:50.900
So, my wife actually with my cousin snuck out and bought it behind my back and drove it home the next day.
00:25:56.900
And she's like, she told me she had to go shopping.
00:25:58.940
And when she walked in the front door, she said, hey, she had our one-year-old with her.
00:26:04.080
Will you come grab her out of the car seat and carry her to nap?
00:26:07.120
I came outside and it was sitting on the driveway.
00:26:13.320
And the story behind it is probably why it's my favorite.
00:26:22.640
But finally, the day came where my dream car was within the threshold of what I would spend.
00:26:30.140
Then I kind of wussed out and I was like, nah, I feel guilty spending that type of money on myself.
00:26:34.260
So, then she being a sexy wife said, well, you've earned it.
00:26:40.420
Gentlemen, let me take a quick minute to tell you about our elite mastermind, The Iron Council.
00:26:45.060
We just wrapped up a discussion last month about being a better protector.
00:26:48.240
This month, we're actually going to be focusing on developing and building better relationships with our wives and our children.
00:26:57.120
You'll work on a 15-man team called The Battle Team.
00:26:59.860
You'll get monthly assignments, two weekly challenges, and I think the most important component of this, the accountability to take your life to the next level.
00:27:07.300
I've never been around, guys, a better group of men than the brothers that I know and have gotten to know inside The Iron Council.
00:27:14.680
They're serious about improving their lives and they're serious about helping you improve yours.
00:27:20.280
So, if you feel like you're ready for something more or maybe you've hit a plateau, I invite you to join us inside The Iron Council and you're going to gain access to all the tools and the resources and, again, most importantly, the accountability that you need to take your life up a notch.
00:27:34.420
You can join us at orderofman.com slash ironcouncil.
00:27:37.660
Again, that's orderofman.com slash ironcouncil.
00:27:40.480
Now, let's get back to the conversation with Cole.
00:27:42.440
So, what do you say to somebody who either is saying or thinking to themselves, everything that you're talking about, Cole, sounds really good, but it's easy for you to say because you have money?
00:27:52.040
Well, I didn't have money when I started as an entrepreneur at 21 and I lost it all at 25.
00:27:59.920
But in that transition of making money, losing it all, and then before I made it again, I actually completely turned my back to the business world, moved to Mexico and lived there, worked with a nonprofit full-time and started an orphanage.
00:28:11.940
And it was at that orphanage when I found out about making money matter, when I was feeding 21 children on like $400 to $500 a month, how amazing that made me feel, how I was literally like buying my happiness.
00:28:24.920
If people say you can't buy happiness, they're just shopping in the wrong stores.
00:28:28.240
Try feeding starving children and tell me that it doesn't feel good or make you happy, right?
00:28:32.560
And so it was in that season of having absolutely nothing that I connected my future actions to a greater purpose.
00:28:38.460
I said, hey, listen, I don't need to just make money for me anymore.
00:28:41.300
I now have an orphanage and there are these 21 kids that rely on me, but think about the needs in the world.
00:28:46.720
I'm going to go back to America and start for-purpose businesses, not nonprofits, not for-profits, for-purpose, a blend of both, like a Tom's Shoes where my company makes money but it makes a difference at the same time.
00:28:57.140
And I don't want to get abstract, but it was having a greater purpose behind my action that made me a millionaire.
00:29:05.840
So to the person that's like, hey, cool, I don't have any money.
00:29:09.040
Well, I have had no money when I started at 21 and then I lost it all at 24, 25.
00:29:13.740
I've now gotten it back because AI – I mean all the things I'm sure previous guests have talked about being successful.
00:29:20.660
I found someone who was where I wanted to be and I did exactly what they did to get similar results.
00:29:27.400
So all the traditional – it wasn't like I just flipped a switch and made money.
00:29:34.160
But what kept getting me out of bed in the morning is while living in Mexico, working with the most impoverished people in these little areas called colonias, which are kind of like the projects of Mexico.
00:29:45.140
I realized how such few American dollars could go so far in these Mexican – I guess you'd call it – well, colonias.
00:29:51.320
I mean little cities, little towns, little groupings of people that I became obsessed with wanting to make more money to make more difference.
00:29:57.740
And that obsession I think is what really fueled my comeback success.
00:30:01.680
And so I've started with nothing twice and I've made money twice.
00:30:11.240
So you have a one-year-old daughter and a four-year-old daughter.
00:30:14.740
And so what do you teach – I imagine you don't teach at this point your one-year-old – but what do you teach your four-year-old daughter about money if you've even got into some of these conversations or shown her or illustrated what money is?
00:30:24.640
She, at four years old, has a loose understanding of money, et cetera.
00:30:29.560
I should almost have her come up and guest star on the podcast.
00:30:35.520
She believes that this would be the question I would ask her.
00:30:38.920
I'm going to text my wife to bring her up here.
00:30:57.640
She's going to look at this and be totally confused because she's down there juggling two kids trying to keep it quiet.
00:31:04.100
So my four-year-old, she goes down to our orphanage.
00:31:08.220
I helped start that orphanage back in 2010 when I lived in Mexico.
00:31:16.380
And some of my daughter's best friends are our orphans.
00:31:19.300
And as best as a four-year-old can possibly understand, she knows that they don't have a mommy or daddy.
00:31:29.020
And she knows that her mommy and daddy get to fill that role.
00:31:34.960
But we were just down there in December for Christmas to give them Christmas presents.
00:31:37.940
And my four-year-old said, you know, daddy, they don't have mommies or daddies, so they can have you.
00:31:43.140
And I was just like, oh, my gosh, like I love you.
00:31:45.380
And so what I want to try to recreate, assuming my wife checks her text messages and brings my four-year-old up to my office, what I would ask her is, you know, what do entrepreneurs do?
00:31:55.120
And I just asked her this two weeks ago, so hopefully she'd have the same answer.
00:31:58.820
And she told me what entrepreneurs do is they work hard so they can go down to Mexico to give the kids cake and muffins.
00:32:07.960
Because when we were just in Mexico, it was my wife's birthday.
00:32:11.100
And instead of buying my wife a birthday present, she asked that we go to our orphanage and throw the kids a party instead.
00:32:16.520
And so my daughter's concept of what business owners do is they work to then go to Mexico to give kids cupcakes and muffins.
00:32:24.360
And so her understanding of what business owners and what money's for is to give to those who don't have.
00:32:32.720
And you've done a good job, it sounds like, in being able to have those conversations.
00:32:35.560
Because I think a lot of parents would just expect that their kids know or they can watch them and pick it up rather than spending some time, even with a four-year-old, having some conversations about what dad does, how money works, why you're going down there.
00:32:50.420
And, you know, I'm certainly not – this makes me sound like some super dad.
00:33:00.480
My mom was a social worker that would give girls group therapy and group homes.
00:33:04.840
And so I would imagine their combined income probably wasn't six figures for 90% of my childhood, right?
00:33:11.400
And so I grew up with old, beat-up construction trucks and huge, like, Dodge vans.
00:33:18.580
That was my upbringing, and I don't want to sound like I didn't – I mean I would never knew what hunger felt like.
00:33:23.800
My parents provided the most amazing childhood ever.
00:33:26.640
But I didn't grow up on private jets with millions of dollars in luxury cars.
00:33:33.060
And so I have done some of these conversations.
00:33:35.980
I would recommend this for all of your listeners, right, especially for men who are leading their families to have these conversations.
00:33:41.440
I mean I've talked to my pastor who is a good friend of mine who married my wife and I and baptized her about how to integrate my daughter into a lifestyle of affluence but still being grounded and rooted in what's really important.
00:33:52.040
And it's – my daughter – again, this is just one other example.
00:33:58.740
This is just for maybe some of your listeners who would be wondering how they would do the same thing.
00:34:04.620
She'll get little, like, care packages with, like, a few meals, some socks, some deodorant, some toothbrush, toothpaste, and put them in these bags.
00:34:12.100
And then we go to Laguna Beach, which is maybe 10 minutes from where I live, and we'll just give them to the homeless people.
00:34:19.400
So I'm just hoping that driving to the beach in a 7 Series BMW to then get out and give homeless people who have nothing food, that contrast of her having stuff by being a part of this family and then giving the stuff that we have to those who don't have, that that will be cemented in her mind that that's what wealthy people do.
00:34:38.940
That we don't feel guilty that we have nice cars, we don't feel guilty that we have a house, but because we have these things, we get to take care of people who don't.
00:34:47.940
Because you've got a conference and you've got some events and things that you're doing, which we'll talk about here in a second, but the event is called Thrive.
00:34:54.260
I'm really curious as to why you called it that and what that even means to you.
00:34:57.640
Well, to be honest, Thrive was going to be a one-off event.
00:35:02.100
Let's do it one more time, which was last year.
00:35:05.800
We're like, okay, we're going to make this an annual event.
00:35:07.320
So to be totally transparent, I almost am looking back now and saying I should have thought of a different name just for the branding standpoint.
00:35:14.600
Thrive is used in two trillion ways every single day.
00:35:18.200
So for branding guidelines as a one-time event, it made sense.
00:35:22.240
But for something to have legs and stay around, I probably would have called it something different just to be honest.
00:35:27.320
Where the word Thrive comes from for me is I have these four quadrants.
00:35:31.200
And this is kind of hard to explain, but people can imagine this.
00:35:34.580
Imagine a vertical axis and a horizontal axis running together so it looks like a big plus sign.
00:35:42.740
The horizontal axis is purpose, if that makes sense.
00:35:45.780
And so the higher up the vertical axis you go, the more money you're making.
00:35:49.320
The farther to the right on the horizontal axis you go, the more purpose you have or the more of a different social impact you're making.
00:35:56.920
And so as you go to the top left, that's high income, low purpose.
00:36:02.360
That's where the world tells you to go to make your money.
00:36:04.480
In the bottom left quadrant, that's low income, low purpose.
00:36:09.820
When you go to the bottom right, that's now low income but high profits or high purpose – sorry, high purpose or high significance.
00:36:19.980
Their whole life is about giving to others, but they make no money.
00:36:24.500
And then the top right quadrant, which is high profits, high purpose, it's a business that makes plenty of money and gives back.
00:36:34.920
And so when I was naming my event to teach people to do that, to start businesses that make money and make a difference, I was like, oh, duh.
00:36:41.920
We'll call it Thrive because my whole quadrant, which is part of my brand, is called the Thrive Quadrant.
00:36:47.300
So it only makes sense to call it the Thriving Quadrant.
00:36:50.400
And so anyway, that's why the event is called Thrive.
00:36:52.140
Your first question is, what does it mean to me?
00:36:54.200
It's at the intersection of making money and making it matter.
00:36:56.920
It's making as much money as you want guilt-free.
00:37:03.320
I paid cash for that because I'm giving 10 times that much away to charity.
00:37:07.240
And so it's about living your dream life guilt-free because you're making your money matter in other ways.
00:37:13.400
And at the end of the year, sure, I have a nice collection of cars and I live in my dream home.
00:37:16.700
But what my wife and I reflected back on New Year's Eve of the year that we're wrapping up is the meaningful impact we got to make in the lives of people that we could touch with the resources we had.
00:37:27.100
And so that's what I believe Thrive is, is to thrive in business and in life.
00:37:30.720
You're the highest version of yourself operating at your absolute maximum capacity for more than just being a capitalist consumer, but more of a philanthropic entrepreneur using your talents, gifts, and resources to make the world a better place.
00:37:42.620
You know, I know we didn't get into this much and we are winding down on time, but I know you had some experiences in your life where, quite honestly, near-death experiences from what I've seen and heard.
00:37:51.800
Is this where you started to shift your mindset?
00:37:55.360
Are those types of experiences where you began to change your thoughts about what's really important?
00:38:06.220
Hey, Brighton, can you talk in this microphone right here and say hello?
00:38:17.780
And when we make money and stuff, what do we do?
00:38:21.780
So mommy and daddy work real hard and then what happens?
00:38:32.940
So we make money and we give it to people who don't have any?
00:38:35.640
Yeah, and sometimes we make money to give us our house and to spend money for us to help people and keep the and to be in this house.
00:38:53.000
So we spend our money to be in this house and to help people?
00:39:12.840
Well, I'm going to let you go play with your sister.
00:39:39.660
That might be the first four-year-old you've had on the show right there.
00:39:43.500
Well, he's nine now, but he was seven at the time.
00:39:48.040
But, yeah, she is the youngest person to be on my show for sure.
00:39:52.900
I don't think we can end it any better, Colette.
00:39:55.100
That's just a perfect cap to what we talked about, man.
00:40:01.380
So that, again, is who I'm trying to create in the world.
00:40:04.860
I want my daughters to be money hungry because they think money helps people.
00:40:09.760
And so to make them want to pursue wealth with every bit of talent they've got because their
00:40:15.060
correlation – I mean, my one-year-old, like you said, she's just chilling.
00:40:20.700
But the four-year-old, like, you know, what is that going to look like in 10 years when
00:40:27.380
And so certainly not a perfect father, but I want to give her a good idea of what wealth
00:40:34.440
Well, I can tell you're living it and you're preaching it and you're sharing it with your
00:40:37.020
daughters and your family and the people that matter.
00:40:39.760
Hey, as we start to wind down on time, I want to ask you that question that I prepped you
00:40:43.400
for a little bit, which is what does it mean to be a man?
00:40:45.980
To me, being a man, at the end of the day, I'll use a business as an analogy, right?
00:40:52.400
If something happens, three departments below you, 30 bosses away from you, it comes to you.
00:40:58.420
And I always teach people that a good entrepreneur knows the difference between jobs and responsibilities.
00:41:02.140
It might not be your job, but it is your responsibility to make sure that it is done.
00:41:05.680
And so the way that that translates for me into being a man, at the end of the day, something
00:41:11.020
might not have been your job, but at the end of the day, it is our responsibility to lead
00:41:15.980
those we have influence over, whether you're married with a wife and $2 like me, or even
00:41:26.280
But when it comes to us as men, we are the leaders.
00:41:30.120
And I believe that we need to own that responsibility and lead by example.
00:41:36.100
And I think that being a man is showing up first, staying late, and encompassing what
00:41:41.680
it is that we would want the world to be, right?
00:41:44.540
Like I need to show up and act like my value system of what I preach.
00:41:51.900
And so I guess being a man is owning that, accepting that, and then living that.
00:41:59.340
How do we learn more about the Thrive event or anything that you have going on and learn
00:42:11.700
And for me, it's just Cole Hatter on all the social media.
00:42:19.040
We'll link that up so all the guys can find that.
00:42:21.960
Like I said, I had come across you and your work about three years ago and implemented what you've
00:42:29.240
I'm going to try to make it down there this year.
00:42:31.100
Hopefully, I'll see some guys that are listening right now and you and I will be able to connect
00:42:40.280
These are conversations that mean the most to me.
00:42:42.060
I'm normally talking about how to scale a business or how to outsource or whatever.
00:42:47.780
And hopefully, together, we maybe change some perspective on pursuing wealth.
00:42:56.400
Head to orderofman.com slash 120 as in episode 120 to get the details and links from this show,
00:43:03.580
as well as the link to register for Cole's event coming up in Las Vegas, Thrive, Make Money Matter.
00:43:08.360
As we wind things down today, I want to, again, make mention of our exclusive mastermind,
00:43:15.400
Surrounding yourself with good people, with the right people, with motivated men and ambitious
00:43:23.180
And you're going to find the right guys, the right brothers inside The Iron Council.
00:43:26.920
So if you want to learn more, head to orderofman.com slash Iron Council.
00:43:30.980
I will look forward to talking to you on Friday for our Friday Field Notes.
00:43:33.960
But until then, take action and become the man you are meant to be.
00:43:38.800
Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:43:41.800
If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be,
00:43:45.820
we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.