Order of Man - RYAN D. LEE ｜ This is Why Most Men Stay Broke

00:00:00.280 Man, one of the greatest lies of our time is that if you just work hard enough that everything somehow will work itself out.

00:00:08.240 Yet there's a lot of guys out there who are grinding every single day and they still feel trapped by debt and fear and also the pressure of providing for their families and loved ones.

00:00:20.500 They're earning, but they're not really building.

00:00:22.860 They're surviving, but they're not creating true freedom in their lives.

00:00:27.800 Today i'm joined by ryan lee from cashflow tactics and we're talking about what it means to take command of your financial life as a man

00:00:36.680 And guys, this is way bigger than just money. It's about leadership and stewardship

00:00:41.660 And refusing to stay dependent on a system built to keep you as a man stuck

00:00:47.760 Today we break down the mindsets that sabotage wealth

00:00:50.960 And also the principles that actually create it

00:00:53.780 how to give every dollar that you make a job so you can build real assets and real cash flow

00:01:00.500 and real security for your family. If you've ever felt the weight of responsibility or

00:01:06.700 wondered whether you're truly leading well in this area of your life, this is a conversation

00:01:11.660 that I think will challenge you, but open your eyes as well, because this isn't about getting

00:01:16.240 rich. It's about becoming the kind of man who builds, who protects, and who leaves something

00:01:22.060 that lasts. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly

00:01:28.080 chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You

00:01:33.920 are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is

00:01:40.420 who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:01:45.720 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I am your host,

00:01:52.540 Ryan Mickler, and I'm very excited to bring a friend that I've known for a long time on the

00:01:58.380 show to talk about building wealth. I spent a lot of time doing financial planning in a previous life,

00:02:04.020 and I can tell you how important it is specifically in the realm of providing for our families and

00:02:10.100 our loved ones. And I know every man listening to this wants to be a solid provider. Guys,

00:02:14.780 before i get into that conversation with ryan real quick just want to mention my good friends

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00:03:03.920 montananifecompany.com use the code order of man all right let me introduce you to ryan he is a

00:03:10.720 financial strategist he's an entrepreneur he's a writer he's also the co-founder of cash flow

00:03:15.820 tactics where he has helped at this point thousands of men take control of their finances

00:03:21.320 build real cash flow create true financial freedom and after walking away from the traditional

00:03:27.400 corporate path ryan dedicated his life to teaching principles of wealth creation

00:03:32.280 that are founded on ownership real tangible assets and financial intelligence rather than

00:03:39.800 dependency on wall street or these conventional retirement models that just don't work.

00:03:44.820 He's known for his very direct principle driven approach. And he teaches people how to retire in

00:03:49.600 10 years or less through strategies, through business ownership, through real estate investing.

00:03:55.300 And his work challenges that conventional thinking around money and long-term wealth. And he empowers

00:04:00.820 men and families to live lives defined by freedom and legacy. He's also the author of retire in 10

00:04:09.440 years or less unlock your passive income machine enjoy this one gents ryan what's up man great to

00:04:17.860 have you on the podcast we've known each other for a very long time but this is a first this is a

00:04:23.340 first and man we were just talking this is like it's a little bit surreal for me ryan i've been

00:04:27.900 uh i've been listening to your podcast for at least seven years it might have been a decade

00:04:31.800 man but uh you've been a voice in my head for a long long time so to be here on your podcast is

00:04:36.580 an honor. Yeah. No, I'm excited to talk. Like I said, we've been friends and obviously we've had

00:04:42.200 other conversations outside of this. So don't let the camera and the microphone make it weird

00:04:46.820 or anything like that. But it's just two guys having a good conversation. I'm actually really

00:04:50.920 intrigued in talking with you because one of the core tenants of, well, frankly, masculinity is

00:04:57.040 the ability to be a provider. And it's not just about financial provision, but if anybody thinks

00:05:04.040 that isn't a crucial component of what it means to be a man, I think they're sadly mistaken.

00:05:09.180 I agree. I mean, I think every man has been in a moment of time where they question their

00:05:14.420 ability to provide for their spouse, for their kids. And that weight, it weighs so heavy,

00:05:19.840 it burdens a man. And, you know, whether it's spoken or unspoken, a man is predominantly looked

00:05:26.120 as at the primary provider in a home. And when there's financial trouble, a man feels that

00:05:31.580 acutely. I feel he feels it so, so to his soul. And so, you know, it's hard to be abundant in

00:05:37.460 other areas of your life, spiritually, physically, mentally, if you're not in a strong financial

00:05:42.720 position yourself. So I think that's really, for me, obviously, I look at the world through the

00:05:46.660 lens of finances. But when I'm financially strong, it gives me more permission to show up

00:05:51.440 mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally strong in other areas of my life.

00:05:56.120 Yeah, I remember I was just talking with a friend last night when this was right back

00:06:00.960 2006 when I got back from Iraq we had bought a new home my my then wife and I had bought a new home

00:06:09.140 and I didn't have any money coming in I was trying to actually build a financial planning

00:06:14.800 practice trying to figure out how to get clients and do all this and I would I would walk in the

00:06:19.960 backyard I'd pace in the backyard so much so that I wore a dirt track in the grass of of the backyard

00:06:26.480 because I was like how am I going to make the mortgage payment how am I going to put food on

00:06:29.860 the table and it was still so stressful and it led to other stressors in my life. So I definitely

00:06:35.720 attest to that for sure. You know, I'll never forget Ryan. Um, you know, when I was dating my

00:06:40.460 wife, um, you know, it was all fun and games. I was so excited. We had a great time dating and

00:06:45.560 then we got engaged and that entire night was magic. I was so excited, but I'll never forget

00:06:50.200 the next morning I woke up and I looked at myself in the mirror for the first time in my life. I

00:06:54.380 realized me, an irresponsible, young, you know, kind of an idiot. Now I'm responsible for this

00:07:01.080 woman here. And I looked at myself in the mirror and I knew I wanted to get married, but I felt

00:07:05.280 such a weight. And, you know, after about a year, I got comfortable to providing for her. And then,

00:07:10.800 you know, a year and a half after we were married, she came in and she's like, I'm pregnant. She was

00:07:14.840 waving the pregnancy test in front of me and she was all excited. Dude, I literally almost passed

00:07:19.760 out. I went into the bathroom and I fell down and I just prayed because I felt that weight,

00:07:26.620 that gravity that man, now I've got a kid coming into the world. How am I going to do this? And so

00:07:31.240 providing financially, you know, we can go back to the caveman times when, when a man provided,

00:07:36.920 you know, sustenance for their family. That's what we do today. When we go out and earn money,

00:07:41.340 that's the sustenance to sustain and to develop and to give our family shelter and provisions

00:07:46.860 that they need. And so it's, it's a, it's a real weight, no doubt. Do you, I had a very similar

00:07:52.600 experience. You know, I, I was really excited with her. She showed me and you know, my son,

00:07:56.680 who, you know, my oldest son just turned 18 yesterday. So for it to be 18 years in the

00:08:02.720 blink of an eye is wild, but yeah, I, I celebrated with her and I was excited. And then I don't know,

00:08:09.220 I went to work the next day or probably went for a drive and I just thought what in the world is

00:08:13.140 happening, you know, but I am very curious cause I want to get into the nitty gritty of some of

00:08:17.740 this stuff, because this is such an issue for a lot of guys. Do you feel like primarily and

00:08:21.740 predominantly that the biggest issues that we have with money is mindset related, or would you say

00:08:26.960 it's tactically related? Man, I think everything's always mindset related. 100%. I mean, we, we,

00:08:32.940 we see the world that we believe, right? We, our paradigm shapes our reality. And so if we have

00:08:38.760 a paradigm of scarcity, a paradigm of there's not enough, a paradigm of I can't make enough,

00:08:43.820 the world's not fair, fill in the blank, that really filters the world that we see.

00:08:49.080 And I think that's where it starts for a lot of people.

00:08:50.960 And I'll be honest, in my journey too, I struggled a lot financially in the beginning

00:08:55.500 because I grew up in a very poverty mindset that if you want something, you work hard.

00:09:02.080 And I found myself working myself to the bone.

00:09:05.280 And there was only so far I could go.

00:09:06.560 And every coach, every book, everyone I was looking for, I just wanted them to give me the quick fix, the tactic.

00:09:12.640 And even though those tactics, some of them work, you know, I would find myself constantly taking one step forward and two steps back because mentally I wasn't in a position where I could sustain success.

00:09:23.460 And so I had to go back and really work on myself mentally.

00:09:26.980 And I still do it today, man.

00:09:28.460 I mean, you know, in my phone, I've got – and I think I shared this with you at the last event we were at.

00:09:33.020 I've got what I call a major definite aim.

00:09:34.660 And I've turned it into a movie.

00:09:35.780 And I watch it on my phone every single day. And it, it's really just meant to psych myself up and give my subconscious mind a belief system that I'm worthy of abundance. I'm capable of receiving and producing abundance and I use it to do amazing things in my life. And so I've been, I've been working on my mental mind and my mental map around money for the better part of 15 years now.

00:09:57.720 yeah i didn't really realize uh i've called them money demons in the past where we have these toxic

00:10:06.120 traits you know um one of them that came to mind for me is money doesn't grow on trees or a penny

00:10:13.300 saved is a penny earned like is it though like say is saving earning no and it isn't until you

00:10:19.820 start to really analyze the scripts that you've embraced as absolute truth with a capital t that

00:10:24.920 you begin to unlock some, some sort of access to abundance and prosperity. So what do you think

00:10:34.760 then if it's mindset related, mostly, what do you think are the biggest money demons, or you said

00:10:40.900 poverty mindsets that guys have embraced that they need to rewrite? You know, I'll tell you what,

00:10:47.600 I think it's hard to recognize those things. It's hard. You have to have someone come in and kind

00:10:52.320 of point out your blind spots because your blind spots are your blind spots for a very reason. I

00:10:56.000 mean, case in point, I grew up with the same idea, right? Money doesn't grow on trees, but you know,

00:11:00.840 I don't know if you've turned on the news anytime recently, but the government's printing $40

00:11:04.360 billion a month. It seems to be growing on trees for those who understand how the game of money

00:11:08.520 works. So for me, here's, here's what I did. You know, I'll never forget. I read a couple books

00:11:13.940 and I'm sure we'll talk about those because those books guided me tactically, but I was still

00:11:19.020 struggling with money. And I picked up the book Think and Grow Rich, right? And I thought, okay,

00:11:22.620 cool, man, if this is the secret, I'll, you know, I'll find the secrets. And, you know, in the very

00:11:28.600 first page of Think and Grow Rich, written by Napoleon Hill, he says the word secret, like five

00:11:33.520 times, the secret is in this book, the secret, the secret, but he never clearly states what the

00:11:38.520 secret is. And I remember I put down the book after I read it, I'm like, this liar, where's

00:11:42.540 the secret, you know, but he had a concept in there. And this is where I got it from. It's a

00:11:47.200 major definite aim. And I'll be honest with you, Ryan, I don't think very few people actually give

00:11:54.720 themselves the permission, the gift, I would say, to sit down and define what they want in their

00:12:01.120 life. They live a life of default, they live a life of waiting for one day, they live a life of

00:12:06.320 knowing all the things they don't want the poverty mindsets. But until you sit down and give yourself

00:12:11.400 the teenage ability to dream again,

00:12:14.960 or maybe it's the adolescent pre-teenager's

00:12:17.100 ability to dream again,

00:12:19.000 money serves no purpose in your life, right?

00:12:21.920 And so it wasn't until I sat down

00:12:23.420 and actually got clear on a major definite aim.

00:12:25.300 If I woke up tomorrow and money wasn't the primary driver

00:12:28.340 of the decisions that I make,

00:12:29.540 the reasons why I do something

00:12:30.920 or the reasons why I don't do something,

00:12:33.240 up until that point, money had no purpose in my life.

00:12:36.380 It just came and it went as fast as it came

00:12:39.040 because I didn't know what to do with it.

00:12:41.200 I didn't know what I wanted. Without a target, then nothing matters. And so once I got clear on

00:12:45.440 a major definite aim of what I actually wanted, it gave me the ability to go back and filter my

00:12:49.240 decisions of what I was doing with money based on the things I actually wanted. And I'll tell

00:12:54.600 you what, man, that's been such a powerful framework for me. I still use it to this day

00:12:58.940 because I think it's gotten harder with money. Money has gotten digital almost completely now.

00:13:03.720 And because it's digital, we don't touch it anymore. And because we don't touch it anymore,

00:13:07.200 It comes in our bank account and it goes out of our bank account and we have no connection to it anymore.

00:13:14.580 But once I know what I want and why I want it, I can come back and I can look at every dollar and say, this dollar has a job.

00:13:21.040 And if that dollar didn't do the job that I want it to do, then I'm misusing my time because I had to trade my time to get that dollar.

00:13:27.860 And so that's really been the primary tool for me to get out of the scarcity mindset to address my blind spots with money is to get clear on exactly what I want.

00:13:36.660 because the only difference between the version of me who's living in this major definite aim

00:13:41.420 and the current version of me today is I have to become that person. I have to develop the

00:13:45.800 mindsets, the skill sets, the connections to use money more effectively to step into that future

00:13:50.500 version of myself. Yeah. Yeah. I think that makes sense. I love the concept of every dollar has a

00:13:56.020 job and the, and the idea of that major definite aim, even the problem with digital money. You

00:14:01.800 know, you, you, you see this in other aspects of life when it's not tangible. Hunting is a great

00:14:06.180 example of that. Like there's people have no connection with their food. And so they'll go

00:14:10.580 to McDonald's and they'll get themselves a Big Mac and they'll think they're actually eating meat.

00:14:15.860 And then you compare that to a guy who goes out and hunts and he secures his own food and he's got

00:14:21.080 axis deer and whitetail and moose and pig in his freezer. And he's eating that and feeding his

00:14:27.780 family that. And the person who's eating the slop from McDonald's can't figure out why they're fat

00:14:33.200 and sluggish and bloated and gross relative to the guy that actually has the real connection to

00:14:39.620 um to his his food and i don't think that everybody is required to necessarily be a hunter

00:14:47.660 but you ought to get at least somewhat familiar the rules of the game if you want to if you want

00:14:53.800 to get ahead like how could you ever get ahead if you don't understand the rules that are being

00:14:57.880 played. Dude, I think that is the key right there. Life is a game. Whether we want to admit it or

00:15:05.460 not, life is a game. And there are winners or losers in the game of life. And really what I

00:15:11.220 find is most people, and I do believe there's some nefarious intent behind this, we live in a system

00:15:17.540 of dependency. Our politicians do not want us independent. They want us dependent. And if you

00:15:24.120 can make a person a community a society dependent financially then it's really easy for you to stay

00:15:30.700 elected and empower and so there are rules of the game of money you'll never learn them in school

00:15:34.980 ever ever ever you never will and if you're not careful you'll you'll play your game of life which

00:15:42.600 is a game of time right you'll trade too much time for too little money and be left over living

00:15:48.500 dependent in the end and feel like a victim of the system and when you're a victim of the system you

00:15:53.260 can see our world today i mean we have just as many people voting for socialistic policies

00:15:58.080 as we do people voting for a level of independence and those are the victims of the system and i

00:16:04.760 don't think they're doing inherent anything inherently wrong but they're definitely not

00:16:08.060 being proactive in learning the rules of the game of money they're not hidden but you have to be

00:16:12.300 proactive no one's gonna say hey ryan here's how you become financially free because that liberates

00:16:16.620 you from the system so that that's that is the game today it is interesting though i mean to to

00:16:22.920 see how many people, I don't think it's as many as legacy media and the government and some of

00:16:28.900 these institutions would have you believe, but the fact that there's people who hate capitalism

00:16:32.300 are absolutely misguided and that's saying it politely, but capitalism is the greatest

00:16:39.840 economic engine the world has ever known. Now, I'm not saying that crony capitalism is the same

00:16:46.400 thing. I'm not saying that nepotism and some of these other things and corruption that take place

00:16:50.920 are part of the capitalistic ideal i'm talking about and sure there are problems but you can't

00:16:57.460 point to another system of voluntary exchange of goods and services better than capitalism i mean

00:17:03.540 it's lifted more people out of poverty it's created a better standard of living for more people

00:17:08.000 it's improved our health it's improved our ability to explore uninhabitable planets in the solar

00:17:16.640 system like it's absolutely incredible and then as we go explore those planets uh there's new

00:17:22.060 innovations like velcro and freeze-dried food that we as regular everyday consumers get to

00:17:29.420 participate in but i do want to get more tactical because we're talking at a 30 000 foot view right

00:17:34.520 now and i'm sure the guys are like okay well yeah i know there's rules what are they what so what

00:17:40.360 are some of the rules that we could get into to teach these guys how to create more financial

00:17:45.100 abundance in their lives? Yeah, man. Well, you know, Ryan, these are rules that I think

00:17:50.400 everyone needs to know about money. So, you know, I really believe step number one, and I like the

00:17:55.480 way you started with capitalism, because capitalism is a an opportunity for humans to express their

00:18:00.740 human life value in the world. And I really do believe that step number one of any form of

00:18:06.320 financial independence is taking control over your unique God given gifts, skills, talents,

00:18:12.440 and abilities, developing those and solving real problems in the world, making money.

00:18:17.840 I mean, that's all it is.

00:18:19.120 Dollars follow value.

00:18:20.380 If you don't have enough dollars, you've got to become a better producer of value,

00:18:24.500 solve bigger, better, more problems.

00:18:27.620 So that's step number one is all investing starts with investing in yourself, your mindset,

00:18:32.740 your skill set, your network to develop your unique skills and abilities and solve problems

00:18:37.480 in the world and make money.

00:18:39.220 But where most people fall.

00:18:40.380 Before we go any further on that, Ryan, like I definitely agree with you. And I've always said that money is just a metric of value. The more money you have outside of criminal or immoral or illegal activity, then it just is a greater determinant of the value that you've provided.

00:18:56.460 um but how does somebody begin to explore or unpack you said their human life value

00:19:05.260 you're you're taking their god-given gifts talents and abilities and the skill sets they've

00:19:10.600 developed over years of being on this planet and you're willing whittling it down to a monetary

00:19:15.240 value how do you how does a guy do that like oh i'm really good at this thing and so i should

00:19:20.360 focus on that and that will create financial prosperity for me yeah i tell you what this

00:19:24.920 kind of goes back to the idea of blind spots. Oftentimes we are, we are blind to our unique

00:19:29.380 abilities because they're unique to us. They just come naturally. And so one of the best ways to do

00:19:33.240 it is to get a spouse, right? Get a network of guys, a band of brothers. They're easily going

00:19:38.980 to tell you what you're good at. Think about the things that people naturally come and ask you for

00:19:43.040 help and advice about, right? Those are some of the things that you're naturally good at.

00:19:47.220 Think about things that you like doing, right? Whether, you know, you might not like doing it

00:19:51.460 in a corporate environment, but do you like, do you enjoy math? Do you enjoy engineering? Do you

00:19:56.380 enjoy working on your car on the weekend? Do you enjoy, you know, building things? What is it that

00:20:01.920 you like doing that naturally lights you up that sometimes you get lost in the moment of just doing

00:20:07.720 something that you're naturally good at and you enjoy doing? And if you can find those things

00:20:12.280 and develop them, whether you're going to be an entrepreneur and do it, you know, on your own,

00:20:17.200 But I think one of the best forms of making money today is being becoming an amazing entrepreneur, right? Get in someone else's business, solve massive amounts of problems. And I think the number one thing that you have to know in the game of making money is think about who your boss is. I have I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a business owner. But guess what? I have a boss. My boss are the customers that I want to bring a product and a service to. So think about you. Who is the one that's responsible for writing you a paycheck, whether that's your customers, whether that's your direct boss, whether that's the CEO.

00:20:47.200 and ask yourself this one question.

00:20:49.100 If you do not have a very clear and definitive answer to it,

00:20:51.860 this is step number one.

00:20:53.400 What is the most valuable thing you can do for that person?

00:20:57.100 I mean, think about that for just a moment.

00:20:58.540 If you don't know the answer to that,

00:21:00.480 how, like you can't just show up and say,

00:21:02.680 dollars follow value, pay me more money.

00:21:04.460 What is the most valuable thing you can do for your boss?

00:21:08.520 Then start doing that over and over and over again

00:21:12.500 and seek feedback.

00:21:13.820 so that that's that's kind of how i've developed it over time is man we do constant customer

00:21:19.060 surveys i want i want the good the bad and the ugly in fact i want the ugly if i know the ugly

00:21:23.200 then i know where i'm falling short and i know the fastest path to creating more value is fix

00:21:27.100 my deficiencies right and so that's i think that's step number one in making money what are your

00:21:31.360 thoughts on that yeah i mean i agree i i wish it's so it's it's simple and i think i think what

00:21:38.920 ends up happening when you when it's simple like that is a lot of guys are listening and probably

00:21:44.400 trying to make it more complex oh well you know if you knew my situation oh well you know my boss

00:21:49.260 or my client or my life or my wife or my whatever fill in the blank and I just want to slap people

00:21:55.120 sometimes you know like I saw a meme the other day and on the left hand side it was all these

00:22:01.300 sophisticated workouts and workout routines and crazy nutrition schedules and when you should be

00:22:07.600 cycling carbs and all this kind of stuff. And then on the other side, it said lifting more

00:22:14.120 weights than you did last week. Yeah. I mean, that's really it, but we, we sometimes take

00:22:22.360 those simple answers and we're like, no, no, it couldn't possibly be that simple. Not only because

00:22:27.140 have we been marketed to complex ideas, but because if it's simple, then we have no excuse

00:22:33.480 for underperformance. And that says something about us. I agree. And I think sometimes humans

00:22:39.240 want to deceive ourselves that we're making progress by learning more, right? If we go a

00:22:43.020 little bit deeper and learn this secret hacker trick, then we're learning more. And somehow

00:22:46.360 we're making progress, even though we're not doing anything in real life. Progress comes from,

00:22:50.420 it comes from actually taking action and taking simple knowledge and applying it in the real

00:22:55.420 world. That's, that's all progress right there. So I think that's really, do you feel like guys

00:23:01.660 have an issue? Like, so let's say a guy, I don't know, he's, he's working at a, you know, some sort

00:23:08.180 of manufacturing company and he's, he's in, in the executive team or something like that. Or maybe

00:23:13.500 he's a higher end, you know, foreman or floor supervisor, but he's got this, this idea where

00:23:19.440 he's like, you know, I want to do this thing on the side. I want to work with wood. I want to,

00:23:22.960 I want to build cabinets. I want to build websites. I want to consult on efficient systems. I mean,

00:23:29.580 name it. And he's got this idea. Do you feel a lot of people just don't take the first step?

00:23:35.520 And if that's the case, that might be rhetorical. I think that's true, but

00:23:40.080 why don't they take the first step? They're afraid of failure. They're afraid of rejection.

00:23:45.720 I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of scary when you do find your unique God-given ability,

00:23:49.700 your talent, and it's rejected. Like that's a direct blow to your psyche, to your confidence.

00:23:54.660 And I think that's really what holds a lot of people back is, and Ryan, you know, this

00:23:58.660 because you're an entrepreneur. The only way you're successful as an entrepreneur is how fast

00:24:03.940 you get up from your failures. I mean, the reason you're still on this podcast today,

00:24:07.720 the reason you're running order of man a decade plus later is you've simply failed a thousand

00:24:13.380 times and got back up. And that's hard, man. That's hard to say, look, I'm going to go out

00:24:18.360 there, put myself on the line and fail and I'm going to fail fast and I'm going to fail forward

00:24:22.540 because again, kind of going back to this idea of the dependency economy, we've been taught

00:24:27.240 in the dependency economy that failure is bad but failure is feedback failure is how you develop

00:24:33.740 refine and expand and i think that's one of the reasons why people don't start is especially when

00:24:38.700 they have something that's that's valuable to them they're afraid of rejection of failure

00:24:42.780 let me step away from the conversation briefly guys i'll get right back to it i promise

00:24:48.500 the truth is that most men are drifting financially but although also other aspects

00:24:53.320 of their lives. They're isolated. They're distracted. They're carrying more weight than

00:25:00.000 ever before with fewer men around them who are willing to tell them the truth. Most of the world

00:25:06.340 has convinced us to go at it alone, to suppress the fire that's with inside us and to settle for

00:25:13.140 comfort over a calling in our lives. But men were never meant to be built and defined by isolation.

00:25:20.860 we're built through adversity. We're sharpened through challenge and we're strengthened shoulder

00:25:26.620 to shoulder with other men who refuse to give in to that doctrine of popular culture. And that's

00:25:30.980 exactly what our event, the Men's Forge, is all about. This isn't another conference where you

00:25:36.160 just sit back and take notes. The Men's Forge is an immersive experience. It's all designed to

00:25:42.060 challenge you physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. It's where you come for three and a

00:25:48.040 half days to strip away weakness, to be called out, to be called up, to gain clarity, to step

00:25:53.980 fully into the man that you know you're capable of becoming. Father, leader, protector, provider,

00:25:59.540 presider. So if you feel like you're leaving room on the table, maybe you're drifting, maybe you're

00:26:05.160 playing small and you're really ready to be tested and refined, this is where that transformation

00:26:10.840 begins. It's held April 23rd through the 26th, just outside of St. Louis, Missouri. You can check

00:26:16.900 it out at the men's forge.com the men's forge.com get signed up right after the conversation for

00:26:23.840 now let's get back to with ryan yeah i mean i would agree i just think that too many men

00:26:29.920 put too much weight on things you know like if i have an idea i have this mentality i just call it

00:26:36.340 the let's find out mentality and so if i have an idea i'm gonna be if i share it i'm gonna be met

00:26:42.880 with a mix of positivity and encouragement and support and i'm going to be met with some

00:26:47.580 negativity and some pessimism and some questioning and some critique and and the critique side people

00:26:54.900 say well you know i don't think that's going to work or maybe what if it doesn't work or what if

00:26:58.560 it doesn't go according to plan i'm like yeah that's actually very likely it's a very real

00:27:03.760 possibility but i want to find out yeah and i wish more of us were a little bit more flippant

00:27:10.660 it's probably not the right word but just a little bit more casual with what we do like it's not the

00:27:17.480 end of the world it's not okay so you tried that thing it didn't work big deal who cares like you're

00:27:22.040 not doing brain surgery you're not trying to put a man on mars you're just trying to start a website

00:27:27.000 okay like there's no risk in that whatsoever but i think we just index we over index it and we

00:27:34.580 place too much priority on it when if we just allowed ourselves some grace and said i don't

00:27:39.640 know yeah it probably won't work maybe it won't work but damn if i don't try it it'll never work

00:27:44.720 yep that's the ultimate failure is most people die with their song still in them they die with

00:27:49.000 their talent their ability their their gift that they could have given to the world still

00:27:52.620 tucked inside of them safe and secure but talents underutilized are taken from us right it's the

00:27:58.380 parable of the of the talent your talents ryan were not given to you for you to have my talents

00:28:04.300 were not given to me for me to have my talents were given to me to develop them to use them in

00:28:09.460 the service of other people. And if I'm not going to use my talents, problems that only my talents

00:28:14.120 can solve go unsolved. And so that talent will be taken and given to someone who's willing to

00:28:18.840 move forward, to fail, to face rejection and to develop their talents and serve other people.

00:28:23.580 I just think it's a perfect, it's a perfect metaphor. The, the, you know, the, the idea of

00:28:28.700 capitalism, this idea that you have been given talents and dollars are your ability. It's your

00:28:34.700 receipt that people valued the service, the product, the offering, the whatever you brought

00:28:39.200 to the table. And if, if you got dollars from it, do more of it, right? Scale it, go deeper and get

00:28:44.160 better. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, identifying those God-given talents and abilities and the

00:28:50.440 skillsets. So that's, that's one of the rules. What else would you say? All right, man. So you've

00:28:55.480 worked with a lot of entrepreneurs, talked to a lot of entrepreneurs, whether the W2, whether

00:28:58.980 they own a business, it doesn't matter. Um, people can get pretty decent at making money,

00:29:03.820 But step number two is keep the money that you make.

00:29:06.840 And there used to be a word in our society that I think has been distorted today.

00:29:11.940 And it was this idea that you live on less than you make, right?

00:29:15.420 I think if I wanted to boil down financial planning into two fundamentally simple sentences,

00:29:20.840 it's make more than you spend and invest the difference wisely.

00:29:24.840 And so saving money, keeping a portion of your money, that's just as important as making money.

00:29:31.580 Because if you don't get comfortable with keeping money, you're constantly on this hamster wheel.

00:29:36.860 You make money, you spend it.

00:29:38.060 You make money, you give it away.

00:29:39.380 You make money, you lose it.

00:29:40.520 You make money, whatever.

00:29:42.260 And you're stuck in this grind of running harder, pushing harder, running faster.

00:29:46.840 You've got to keep a little bit of the money that you make.

00:29:48.560 You've got to build up a surplus of reserves, of plenty, of, you know, there's going to be feast in your life and there's going to be famine in your life.

00:29:55.880 And so it's keeping some of the money that you make.

00:29:58.260 And I think that's a fundamental thing.

00:30:00.260 And, you know, today people, they conflate the two words, saving and investing into one

00:30:06.280 thing.

00:30:06.540 Those are two fundamentally different things.

00:30:08.760 Savings is a component of liquidity, protection, reserves, sleep well at night account.

00:30:14.060 And so that's step number two is keep a portion of what you make.

00:30:17.400 More if your income is volatile, more if you're running a business, more if you're facing

00:30:22.120 a time of uncertainty in your life, keep a reservoir of capital, a liquid and available

00:30:26.200 to you.

00:30:26.620 That's step number two.

00:30:27.440 yeah i mean that's super simple advice very difficult to follow at times because you know

00:30:34.300 i was driving down the road state street here in in my small town in southern utah and i mean

00:30:40.180 there's billboards and there's things that tell you to come in and there's discounts for food and

00:30:45.920 then there's this and like everywhere you turn and this is probably part of the problem that

00:30:50.400 people have with with capitalism is it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep your money because

00:30:56.860 everybody else wants a piece of it and they're getting better at getting you to pull your wallet

00:31:02.880 out and give it to them. You know, I, I was, I was thinking about this the other day. I just did a

00:31:07.160 little audit, um, on my personal finances and I recovered just over $300 a month in recurring

00:31:17.280 subscriptions that I'm not using totally $300 a month. That's, that's almost $4,000 a year.

00:31:25.760 And then if you take that $4,000 and let's say somebody applied that towards debt or they decided, hey, I'm going to turn that $4,000 into $4,500 this year or $4,800 this year, you do that for 20 years, I mean, you're going to have millions or you can just keep spending it on Netflix and McDonald's and the grocery store runs.

00:31:47.400 Like I even looked at that when I, when I go to the convenience store, I'm close to

00:31:52.160 spending, I mean, if you spend $10 at the convenience store every day, and I think that's

00:31:57.300 probably low for most people, you know, you're at $300 a month in what soda.

00:32:04.860 That's crazy, but people aren't intentional and deliberate about it.

00:32:08.460 So I don't even know where their money's going.

00:32:10.360 So that goes back to this whole idea of you have to know what you want.

00:32:13.220 and one of my wife and I's favorite,

00:32:16.540 I mean, this is legit favorite thing to do

00:32:18.480 is we sit down on a monthly basis

00:32:21.400 and we review our goals and our values.

00:32:24.860 When we're clear on what we want,

00:32:26.240 then every dollar should have a job.

00:32:27.600 And when we sit down and look at where our money went

00:32:29.400 because it's all digital and it's oftentimes on autopilot,

00:32:32.840 it's really easy to become aware

00:32:34.960 of where your money's going.

00:32:36.160 And then you get to ask yourself a question.

00:32:37.460 Did this serve a need?

00:32:38.480 Did it serve a goal or did it serve a value?

00:32:40.720 And one of the best things you can do

00:32:41.900 as the CEO of your money is redirect your money

00:32:45.080 to the things that give you fulfillment in life,

00:32:47.740 value in life, that are pursuing a goal.

00:32:50.180 And I love to spend on things that do give me value,

00:32:53.620 but I definitely, it makes me so frustrated

00:32:56.400 when money subconsciously and almost, you know,

00:33:00.220 without a second thought to it

00:33:02.000 is frivolously going through my bank account

00:33:04.000 because the reality of it is we live in a consumer condition.

00:33:06.960 The most highly paid people today

00:33:09.080 are paid to separate you from your money.

00:33:12.960 And if we really go back to what money is,

00:33:14.800 yeah, it's a tool, but money's a symbol.

00:33:17.140 It's a measurement of time traded, right?

00:33:19.280 And when you lose $3,000, $4,000 a year

00:33:22.260 on subscriptions that you're no longer using,

00:33:25.300 think about how much time you traded for $4,000.

00:33:28.360 I mean, add that up for all the listeners right now.

00:33:30.320 Add that up in your life.

00:33:31.520 You're probably trading six weeks of the year

00:33:33.280 for something that serves zero value

00:33:35.720 if it's just a $4,000 expense.

00:33:38.380 So that's step number two is become hyper aware of where your money is going.

00:33:42.280 And then there's a book called The Richest Man in Babylon.

00:33:45.120 And the whole concept of The Richest Man in Babylon was 10% of all I make is mine to keep.

00:33:51.000 Yeah, and so that's really one of our favorite things to do is to realign the money that

00:33:57.580 comes into our life and the money that we spend on things that actually drive meaning

00:34:01.880 in our life, our values, our goals, our priorities.

00:34:04.740 We've made so many conscious decisions from the house we live in, the cars we drive, the trips we take, the clothes we wear, the schools that our kids are going to, whatever.

00:34:13.280 I mean we've made so many very, very intentional decisions because at the end of the day, that's really what money is.

00:34:18.900 Money is a symbol of time you've traded and when you misalign your money with things that don't bring you value, it's really wasting your life.

00:34:27.440 That's losing the game of money, which is losing the game of life.

00:34:30.540 yeah that's a good i don't think people look at it like that they don't look at it as time they

00:34:36.940 just look at it as just some resource that i don't know magically appears in your bank account or

00:34:41.100 something like a kid you know a child who's like oh you just tap that little piece of plastic and

00:34:44.840 you get to have whatever you want it's like no there's a little bit more to it than that and

00:34:49.120 you got to be uh you got to let them know obviously got to teach them but most adults don't even know

00:34:54.440 they're like oh yeah it's like a magic card you just put it on there and you can even pay for it

00:34:58.000 if you have to if you don't have the money at all it's wild but i was thinking about this the other

00:35:02.220 day i've got a pretty nice truck it's a 2015 three-quarter ton gmc you know it's got a few

00:35:10.080 little dents and dings i take good care of it i get the oil changed i get the tires rotated you

00:35:16.560 know it looks it looks fine it's a good truck it's over what is that over 10 years old now at

00:35:22.600 this point and so most people would have traded it in three separate times and i've been tempted

00:35:27.280 where I see, you know, the brand new one. And I'm like, that looks pretty good. I'm like,

00:35:32.120 wait a second, that thing costs 90 grand or more. And what could I do with that $90,000?

00:35:38.440 It's more aligned with my values and my goals and my dreams. And I can keep trying driving the

00:35:43.180 other truck. I'm just, I'm okay with that. A hundred percent, man. And this, this is where

00:35:46.880 the secret comes in. Okay. And I think this is where if anyone's getting ready to invest or is

00:35:52.060 already investing, you know, the average American today, and there's a lot of reasons behind this,

00:35:56.180 writes, but the average American today saves three to 5% of their total income. And with such a

00:36:01.780 small amount- That sounds high to me, actually. Yeah. I mean, it's been tracked for the better

00:36:06.320 part of 50 years. 3% is really the average today. That's the average savings rate.

00:36:12.320 Okay. And so, but when you're saving such a small amount, and now we get to talk about the

00:36:19.500 investing game. And the investing game, I think this is the most misunderstood game that there

00:36:23.220 possibly is. You know, what what we're told from the investing community is take a portion of what

00:36:31.140 you're going to make, set it aside, put it in some account and the money needs to grow. Now, I'm not

00:36:36.180 I'm not arguing with that fact. Money needs to grow for sure, because we live in an inflationary

00:36:40.640 world. But the one thing that people are never taught to think about or ask is how much income

00:36:47.180 do my investments produce? Right. They're just taught to focus on rates of return on net worth

00:36:52.820 And all of those things are positive indicators that you're moving in a positive direction, but they don't ever solve the number one fundamental question that has to be solved when you're investing.

00:37:03.180 Because every dollar that I don't spend today, I'm putting aside for one reason only, a future stream of income.

00:37:11.420 And when you can refilter your lens, your financial lens, based on cash flow, not based on net worth, the game of investing starts to take on a new meaning.

00:37:20.120 It starts to change.

00:37:20.920 And so this is really the framework that I spend most of my time in when I work with

00:37:25.460 people is helping them understand how assets, whatever fill in the blank, whatever assets

00:37:29.940 you have, how assets convert into income.

00:37:32.300 And then one step further, how long that income will last, how well it aligns with inflation.

00:37:38.880 Does it rise with inflation or is it stagnant with inflation?

00:37:41.480 What is your future tax liability on that income?

00:37:44.280 And, you know, once we can answer those questions, then the game of investing starts to take

00:37:48.160 on a whole different meaning in psychology.

00:37:50.920 Yeah, that makes that makes sense. I mean, you always hear cash is king. No, cash flow is king. Yeah. You know, if I if I have, let's say a million dollars in an investment count somewhere, not only did I have to spend five or 10 or 20 years getting it to that point.

00:38:08.420 so there's the lost opportunity potential lost opportunity cost of it um or i could take a

00:38:15.700 hundred thousand dollars put it into one or two rental properties for example that are cash flowing

00:38:20.740 me let's say 10 grand a year um net and all of a sudden you know that looks a lot more enticing

00:38:29.000 over a 20-year time frame than just having that million dollars that took you 20 years to build

00:38:33.320 sitting in some account earning 3%.

00:38:35.640 Totally.

00:38:36.600 This is my biggest gripe, honestly,

00:38:38.920 with the financial world that we live in.

00:38:41.560 And look, Ryan, I look at the world,

00:38:44.360 for me, it's just easier to look at it through binaries.

00:38:47.400 I know everything's not binary.

00:38:48.620 There's tons of gray in the middle.

00:38:50.380 But I truly believe that there's two economies in our worlds

00:38:53.300 and you get to choose which economy

00:38:55.720 you're going to live and operate in.

00:38:57.400 There's the dependency economy.

00:38:58.900 And this is the rules that we've been told to follow.

00:39:00.700 Go to school, get a job, start a business, some form of income, but because you're not

00:39:07.200 smart enough, capable enough, or good enough, hand your money off to someone else, right?

00:39:11.740 A financial advisor, an institution, a mutual fund, a Wall Street, whatever it is, measure

00:39:17.780 your success based off of your net worth, cross your fingers and hope for one day, and

00:39:22.420 in that situation, you're dependent on everything.

00:39:24.640 You're dependent on markets, you're dependent on taxes, you're dependent on inflation, you're

00:39:29.460 dependent on all of these things that you have no control over. And so in the dependency economy,

00:39:33.720 it's a game of hope. It's a game of time traded. And you hope after a long enough period of time,

00:39:37.520 you'll have enough money, but you're never told what enough money is. It's all meant to keep you

00:39:41.640 trapped and dependent. And so the antithesis to this, the opposite of this is the ownership

00:39:45.900 economy. And the ownership economy is owning your money, owning real assets that generate real

00:39:51.920 income, and then owning your results, good, bad, or ugly. It's financial IQ. It's raising your

00:39:56.500 financial intelligence and understanding how to invest for cashflow versus hope for net worth.

00:40:02.860 Does that idea resonate with you and your audience at all?

00:40:06.240 It does. I just fear that it may be so high level that guys are like, yeah, of course,

00:40:12.100 that makes sense. But like, what do I actually invest in? What do I actually do? Where do I

00:40:16.540 start? I mean, do you have some ideas for that? I do. I wrote a whole book on that.

00:40:20.140 Yeah. So I'll be honest with you, Ryan. My path to financial freedom, my path to investing,

00:40:27.240 it started off very typical, right? I went to college because that's what I was told to do.

00:40:31.680 I don't want to be in college, but I was told that's what a responsible man does. And so

00:40:34.940 I went to college, I got a job. And I'll never forget, I had to move to Tucson, Arizona for my

00:40:41.380 first job. And I didn't want to be in Tucson, right? But I landed in Tucson, Arizona. And my

00:40:48.060 boss Rob was a just, I mean, like if you've ever seen the movie office space, that was my boss.

00:40:53.460 He was such a prick. And I remember getting that job and I'm like thinking to myself, I don't want

00:40:58.040 to be here, but I got to do it. I'm married to Bethany. I got a kid on the way now. And I'll

00:41:02.460 never forget, you know, I made a commitment very early on in my career that I was going to make a

00:41:08.400 lot of money. I was going to save a lot of money and I was going to retire early. That was my goal.

00:41:12.500 And I started putting away every dollar that I could in 401ks, IRAs, brokerage accounts.

00:41:18.760 I even followed Jim Cramer and people, and I started trying to do option trading and all this stuff.

00:41:23.840 But I never felt like I had any control.

00:41:26.000 But I graduated in 2004.

00:41:27.720 So for 2004, 5, 6, 7, things were just climbing in the market.

00:41:32.080 And I'll never forget 2008.

00:41:33.960 2008, everyone has their own story.

00:41:36.240 But in 2008, my net worth had just crested $100,000.

00:41:40.500 I didn't know what that meant, but man, it felt like I was on track, right?

00:41:44.900 And in 2008, it dropped like a rock.

00:41:47.300 I went from $100,000 to $28,000 total net worth after about three months.

00:41:53.240 And I remember for the first time realizing I don't know what I'm doing.

00:41:57.780 I don't know why I lost money.

00:41:59.220 Everyone tells me, just wait, it all comes back.

00:42:01.000 But here was the biggest aha moment for me, Ryan, is I had been trading now my life.

00:42:06.640 I was working super hard to climb the corporate ladder to make more money so I could save more

00:42:10.980 money. I was making little trade-offs that in the beginning, I didn't really notice. But to get a

00:42:16.540 promotion, it was a bigger geography. To get another promotion, it was more stress, more time

00:42:20.520 away from family, more travel. And I was making these trade-offs thinking that if I make enough,

00:42:24.740 save enough, I'm going to retire early. I'll buy my life back. But in 2008, when everything fell

00:42:29.620 apart, I realized I didn't control what I was doing. So therefore, how could I ever make a

00:42:35.220 plan to retire early, but I had a window into the future. All of the people who I were kind of

00:42:39.600 modeling my life after their financial plans fell apart. And these are people 20 or 30 years ahead

00:42:44.760 of me. And I realized if it's like, that's me, that's a window into my, that's me 30 years from

00:42:50.140 now. And this is what opened me up to something new. So, you know, once, once my paradigm shifted,

00:42:55.700 I was willing to see the world a little bit differently. And I remember I picked up a book,

00:42:59.580 okay. And probably everyone on your podcast has heard this book. Um, but I picked up this book

00:43:03.980 and it was a confirmation of the biases

00:43:05.920 or a confirmation of the things

00:43:07.320 that I was now starting to disbelieve

00:43:09.420 about the traditional financial space.

00:43:10.860 It was rich dad, poor dad.

00:43:12.500 And in his book, he said,

00:43:13.740 cashflow is the measurement of success, not net worth.

00:43:16.620 He said, the rich don't work for money.

00:43:18.720 They work for assets.

00:43:19.500 He said all of these statements.

00:43:21.060 And I'm like, holy crap, this is it.

00:43:23.080 But I didn't know what to do.

00:43:24.000 I didn't know what to do.

00:43:25.480 And then I came across another book, okay?

00:43:27.720 Another book.

00:43:28.480 And this other book was written by Robert Allen.

00:43:31.700 And his book, it was the subtitle of his book

00:43:33.840 that caught my attention. It was follow Alan's seven principles, and you could retire in 10

00:43:38.220 years. And I thought to myself, I can do anything for 10 years. And so when I read his book, he said

00:43:42.680 buy two single family homes a year for 10 years. And in year 11, you'll have enough income to be

00:43:47.920 financially free. I was blind enough, naive enough, hopeful enough, desperate enough, whatever

00:43:54.360 you might want to call it, that I just started following that path. And man, I'll tell you what,

00:43:57.520 fast forward to today, you know, I own a lot of single family homes. But I was able to walk

00:44:03.740 away from my corporate salary of over six figures, completely financially free in four years,

00:44:08.720 because I stopped measuring net worth. I stopped waiting for one day. I stopped handing my money

00:44:13.720 off to someone else. And I started buying assets that deliver real income, real cashflow.

00:44:18.760 Yeah. Yeah. And look, I don't want to skip over that because that can be a real,

00:44:23.320 a real challenge too, for people, you know, it's kind of like there's, I've seen some accounts and

00:44:27.280 they're making fun of a lot of people who are like, oh yeah, you just buy a $2 million home

00:44:32.400 and then you borrow money from yourself and then you buy another one it's like whoa whoa whoa hold

00:44:36.300 on yeah like you've seen these accounts right they're just kind of making fun of it and poking

00:44:40.780 at it a little bit but like on a tactical level does that mean i mean you're gonna have to come

00:44:47.000 up with some money right so if you're looking at a i don't know three to five hundred thousand

00:44:51.300 dollar home you're gonna have to come up with with 60 grand right for something like that so

00:44:56.160 there's the other principles that come into play too and i don't want to skip over that

00:45:00.520 what are your thoughts on that? 100% man you've got we got to go right back to the beginning what

00:45:05.500 do I want what do I want because it's not going to be easy but retiring broke isn't going to be

00:45:10.760 easy too you get to choose your heart right and so yeah that's it now we I buy properties in the

00:45:16.500 beginning I was buying properties in my backyard but over time I've learned how to buy properties

00:45:19.940 in areas where the numbers make sense and Ryan there are pockets in in our country right now

00:45:24.620 where you can still buy a great B-neighborhood, B-class neighborhood property for $150,000,

00:45:30.920 which means you got to come up with 30 or 35 grand. And guess what? When I first started,

00:45:34.480 I didn't have the money. How did I start? Well, one of the greatest things about real estate is

00:45:37.900 leverage. And it's not just borrowing money from a bank. It's leverage through other people. I've

00:45:42.960 started in partnership. My brother had money. I had the hustle. I had the desire. I developed

00:45:47.420 the expertise and we partnered 50-50 on eight deals. And that's how I got going. He brought

00:45:52.140 the money. I brought the credits. I brought the deal. I brought the expertise. I brought the

00:45:55.780 management and we partnered and we, it got me going and it got him going because he was too

00:46:00.760 busy and he had money, but he didn't know what to do with it. And so, you know, when you know what

00:46:04.920 you want and why it matters, there is a way that the rich get rich. There is a way that wealth can

00:46:10.140 be accelerated. And the entire book that I wrote, it's the exact framework of how to literally

00:46:15.240 retire in 10 years or less with, this is the key, tax-free income for life. And I think when you

00:46:22.120 understand everything we've been talking about, I know we've stayed kind of surface level on this

00:46:25.540 podcast. But when you understand that real financial freedom is a function of cash flow,

00:46:29.740 the greatest detriment to your future income is taxes. And there are real ways to eliminate taxes

00:46:35.160 at the very at the very least, defer them indefinitely. But there's real ways to eliminate

00:46:40.740 taxes. And if you can focus on cash flow, tax elimination and assets that pay you without you

00:46:46.140 having to sell the asset, then the whole game of financial freedom changes. And the first house,

00:46:50.800 It was hard, man. It was hard, but it was the craziest part. You know, that very first house

00:46:54.960 that I bought, I'll never forget the feeling in my mind. It was a little teeny stream of income.

00:46:59.360 It was like 350 bucks, but I was like, that pays for my car payment. If that house pays for my car

00:47:05.380 payment, how many more houses do I need? That'll pay for my food, pay for my growth, you know,

00:47:09.840 my, my house, you know, those types of things. And I just started playing a game of if I know

00:47:15.020 my expenses and I know how much income my assets are delivering every step that I take, I can

00:47:19.480 measure my progress to financial freedom. Well, and not to mention you take an asset that let's

00:47:25.580 say a $200,000 home and somebody else is paying for your asset, for your appreciating asset.

00:47:32.220 Totally. Right. That's, that's what blew my mind when I started looking into things like this.

00:47:36.040 I'm like, wait a second. So I can buy this home and let's just say the mortgage payment on it is,

00:47:40.440 I don't know, $1,500 and I'm collecting $1,900 in rent. So there's a net of $400,

00:47:48.080 But it's not just that. It's also the fact that somebody is hammering down your mortgage payment for you and the fact that that more or that home that that property is is going to appreciate over time as well.

00:48:00.360 Like it's it's kind of like having your cake and eating it, too.

00:48:04.340 Let me give your audience one framework, OK? And this will be a framework that you can start measuring every investment that you've made today.

00:48:12.180 There are four wealth forces in our society right now. These wealth forces, they are the rules of the game of money.

00:48:18.080 And they're omnipresence.

00:48:19.620 It doesn't matter who you are, if you're Ryan Mickler, if you're the president of the United

00:48:23.180 States or someone working at McDonald's today, these four wealth forces exist based on our

00:48:27.820 economy.

00:48:28.780 You have to ask yourself when you part with your capital and you invest it, I'll put that

00:48:32.580 in quotation marks, are these, are these forces working for you?

00:48:36.800 Like, are they pushing you forward automatically?

00:48:38.700 Are they working against you?

00:48:40.660 Wealth force number one is inflation, right?

00:48:42.660 And I think people have become more acutely aware of inflation in the last five years

00:48:46.420 because of the massive appetite

00:48:47.900 that our government has for printing money right now.

00:48:50.260 And for most people, inflation is working against them.

00:48:52.760 They're putting their money in places

00:48:53.900 where inflation is making their dollars less valuable.

00:48:56.380 But Ryan, you hit the nail right on the head.

00:48:58.220 If I buy an asset, a single family home

00:49:00.020 that's always in demand,

00:49:01.320 simply because the government is printing more money,

00:49:03.780 the price of that asset is going to go up.

00:49:06.120 Not necessarily because it's more valuable,

00:49:08.080 just because there's more dollars to buy the same assets.

00:49:10.220 And so now, if I own an asset like real estate,

00:49:13.000 inflation is making me wealthy.

00:49:14.800 Interest rates.

00:49:15.880 Interest rates are the price of money.

00:49:17.300 If I can go borrow money from a bank

00:49:18.880 at a 6% fixed interest rate,

00:49:20.940 and then turn it around

00:49:22.320 and get a 25, 30% interest rate on real estate,

00:49:25.220 interest rates are working for me.

00:49:26.320 The bank is financing my financial freedom.

00:49:28.260 If I go put money on an 18% credit card

00:49:30.740 and earn 6% in the market,

00:49:32.740 interest rates are working against me.

00:49:34.300 Working against you.

00:49:35.340 Yeah, taxes.

00:49:36.720 If I'm shifting my biggest liability to the future

00:49:39.480 in a tax-deferred account,

00:49:40.580 unless you replan on retiring poorer than you are today,

00:49:44.220 taxes are likely working against you.

00:49:46.120 And we can have a whole conversation on that,

00:49:47.740 but taxes, inflation, interest rates,

00:49:49.840 and opportunity cost.

00:49:51.300 The biggest challenge with most people

00:49:52.740 when it comes to investing,

00:49:54.000 and we talk about real estate,

00:49:54.940 they're like, oh, all my money's locked up in some account.

00:49:57.260 You can't touch your own money

00:49:58.660 until you're 59 and a half in IRA accounts.

00:50:02.180 You have been told by default that you're too stupid,

00:50:05.700 too incapable of handling your own money.

00:50:08.100 And I just did a podcast with Tom Willwright the other day.

00:50:11.040 And Tom Willwright said,

00:50:12.040 that's a tax incentive for wall street wall street put that in the iras because they didn't

00:50:16.680 want you touching your money they want to keep your money take money off the top i'd never heard

00:50:21.060 of it that way but he said that's a tax incentive for wall street to have your money locked well

00:50:25.680 it's not enough it's that but it's not only that the government the federal government is it's

00:50:30.860 illegal for the federal government to invest in in the market yeah but they came up with a little

00:50:35.580 sneaky tactic here. They said, Hey, look here, you have a thousand dollars and you owe us $200

00:50:41.340 in taxes on that thousand. But I'll tell you what, if you take that money and you invest it in the

00:50:47.520 market, you don't have to give us $200 now, but when it grows to 10,000, you have to give us

00:50:52.540 2000 of it or whatever your tax rate is. So it's the backhanded under underhanded way of the federal

00:50:58.600 government to invest in the market, which is not necessarily a horrible thing, except for when

00:51:05.500 you start to get corruption involved and sweetheart deals and crony capitalism that it starts to

00:51:11.760 actually mess with the system but it's just the government's way of investing in the stock market

00:51:15.440 but look at how they're investing i mean you're taking all the risk you're putting in all the

00:51:19.920 money you're doing all the work and you don't have a guaranteed outcome they get to come back

00:51:24.040 when you're ready to retire and say hey sorry tax rates changed yeah yeah so it's it's great

00:51:30.400 about it. It's pretty wild. I like that. I like those frameworks, you know, inflation,

00:51:35.540 interest rate, taxes, and opportunity costs. Talk a little bit about opportunity costs.

00:51:39.020 Cause you kind of glossed over that one pretty quickly. Yeah. So going back to this idea of

00:51:42.940 saving money, you know, there are accounts that you can put your money into where you don't lock

00:51:47.100 your money up until 59 and a half. There are accounts that you can put your money into that

00:51:50.300 allow you to use leverage and lines of credit. You know, think about like, if you own a house

00:51:54.320 right now, you overcome opportunity costs in the sense that your house can go up in value.

00:51:59.080 You can live in the house, but you can also take a line of credit against your house to

00:52:03.220 go do other and accomplish other things.

00:52:05.100 So that's the advantage of leverage today.

00:52:07.820 The way that people win in today's world, and my book explains all of this, but the

00:52:12.700 way people win in today's world is they use leverage, not debt irresponsibly, but leverage.

00:52:18.580 Leverage is the key, and that's a dangerous word.

00:52:21.880 And this is why financial IQ matters in our world of money today, but money is debt.

00:52:26.020 That's all it is.

00:52:26.740 and the only way you're going to win in today's world, and this is a very loaded statement that

00:52:30.540 we just don't have time to give context to, you have to turn fake money because that's all our

00:52:35.380 money is today. It's a piece of paper. It's an IOU. It's not backed by anything. You have to

00:52:39.780 turn fake money into real assets. That's the entire game. And if you can play that game,

00:52:43.820 turning fake money into real assets, something that you can use leverage against that delivers

00:52:47.680 cash flow, it gives you tax advantages. You get wealthy by default. You get wealthy because those

00:52:52.940 wealth forces are working for you instead of against you. Yeah. It's powerful, man. It's

00:52:58.500 powerful. Well, tell us a little bit about the book, where to connect with you and learn more

00:53:01.560 about what you're up to. Cause these are strategies. You know, I see like guys like

00:53:05.020 Dave Ramsey and I actually talked with him years ago on the podcast. And I said, Hey, look, I know

00:53:10.260 you're telling people to save money, to put money in mutual funds, index funds, things like this,

00:53:14.840 but that's not how you built your wealth. Yeah. I said, you built this empire, this business

00:53:20.440 empire you have plenty of real estate when i went out there he was building this huge um auditorium

00:53:25.460 space for conferences and this conference center i'm like you're telling people to do this but

00:53:29.660 you're doing it different and to his credit he said you know what ryan you're right but i know

00:53:32.880 who my audience is totally and i and i thought to myself i thought you know you're right and i think

00:53:38.360 that's a fair statement but i don't want to be your audience i don't want to be the person who

00:53:43.780 lives paycheck to paycheck and is eating beans and rice and you know can't have a nice nice things

00:53:50.120 or can't go on a vacation and hopefully he has $500,000 in his bank account when he retires.

00:53:54.440 I don't want to be that. So at some point you have to start taking different advice

00:53:59.140 to produce different results. Dave Ramsey will get you free from debts. He's the best at that.

00:54:04.480 He'll get you out of it. And there's value in that. Totally. That's one form of freedom is

00:54:08.780 get out of the suppression, get out of the consumer condition. But if you want to be free,

00:54:13.040 the second step of that is developing income independent of your time. And so the book that

00:54:18.260 I wrote, it's called Retire in 10 Years or Less. And there's psychology behind this idea that

00:54:24.000 when we shrink the timeframes, we think differently, right? I mean, rather than

00:54:28.780 waiting with our fingers crossed until 65, if I tell you, you've got 10 years, you're going to

00:54:32.980 think about your actions, your investments, your steps very, very differently. And so in Retire

00:54:37.660 in 10 Years or Less, it's really the framework that I've developed for myself. I've now worked

00:54:41.720 with thousands of clients. It was co-authored with Robert Kiyosaki and Robert Allen, my very

00:54:46.280 first two mentors. And so it's a tactical, actionable framework to take control of your

00:54:52.960 money, join the ownership economy, build real cash flow and be financially free. And I don't

00:54:57.580 believe the I use the word retire because that I want to I wanted to meet people where they're at.

00:55:01.680 I don't believe in retirement. I believe money's greatest intrinsic value is to give you more

00:55:05.460 options, more choice, more freedom to pursue a life that matters. And going back to where we

00:55:10.280 started, for most people, a life that matters is using their human life value, their God given

00:55:14.800 talents in the service of other people. And so that's really my objective, Ryan, is to empower

00:55:19.480 people with money to buy their life's pack and to use money as a tool to build and live a life

00:55:23.320 that matters. So if anyone's interested, they can find the book on Amazon. I've got a ton of

00:55:28.560 free bonuses. If you just go to retire in 10 years.com, retire in 10, the number, I'll give

00:55:33.960 you a free copy of the audio book, 10 plus hours of a digital course with Robert Kiyosaki and

00:55:39.200 Robert Allen and myself explaining the rules of money. But the whole goal is just help you take

00:55:43.760 control of your money so you can take control of your life. Brother, we'll sync it all up. I know

00:55:48.620 we're a little short on time. I wish I could go longer today, but this is valuable. We'll have to

00:55:52.940 do a part two, but we're going to send these guys the links and get them all updated with this. And

00:55:57.460 again, I appreciate you, man. Thanks for joining me today. Thank you, Ryan.

00:56:02.060 All right, gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with the one and only Ryan Lee. I hope you enjoyed

00:56:06.220 that podcast and I hope it inspires you to pick up a copy of his book, retire in 10 years or less,

00:56:12.920 unlock your passive income machine. Man, this is important. You know, we talk about three realms

00:56:18.860 of masculinity, protector, provider, and presider. This one falls in the realm of provider. It is

00:56:26.360 crucial that we provide in a lot of ways, but financial provision is huge. And anybody who

00:56:32.500 says that money is not important or it's not the most important thing, while I might agree that

00:56:37.960 it's not the most important. It is a important factor of life. And I want to see you win

00:56:42.560 financially for yourself, for your wife, for your kids, for your neighbors and community members.

00:56:48.080 It's crucial. So make sure you check out a copy of this book. Also check out the men's forge at

00:56:53.260 themensforge.com. And then last thing, look at montananifecompany.com. Use the code

00:56:59.300 order of man at checkout. Men, we will be back tomorrow for our ask me anything until then go

00:57:06.260 out there, take action, and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the

00:57:11.280 Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you

00:57:15.960 were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - March 31, 2026

RYAN D. LEE ｜ This is Why Most Men Stay Broke

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