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Understanding Your Money Mindset: Scarcity, Spending, and Silence

21 July 2025 · 45 min

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Understanding Your Money Mindset: Scarcity, Spending and Silence

Your money mindset usually starts in childhood. Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino each own one of three common patterns: scarcity, spend-it-all, and "we don't talk about money."

Randy grew up hearing "that's expensive, we can't afford that," and he talks about how scarcity followed him through cycles of making money and losing it. Anthony describes the spend-it mindset, from a first paycheck ("What's FICA?") to never quite feeling satisfied. John grew up in a home where money wasn't discussed, and learned about it late.

They talk about how each mindset shapes a family, what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck, and how they came out the other side. After the break they get practical: how to talk about money in a relationship, a "recipe" for those conversations, and spending on what you value.

They close with how they saw wealthy people growing up, the belief that rich people are bad people, and why money education matters so much.

Scarcity vs Abundance: Money Mindset Types and How to Talk About Money

What you'll discover:

  • The three money mindsets: scarcity, spend-it-all and silence
  • How childhood money messages follow you into adulthood
  • Making money, losing it, and never feeling satisfied
  • How to talk about money with your spouse or partner
  • Spending on what you actually value
  • Where "rich people are bad people" comes from, and why money education matters

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Welcome: three common money mindsets
  • [01:46] Randy's scarcity mindset: "We can't afford that"
  • [03:29] Making money and losing it
  • [08:41] Early entrepreneurial exploits
  • [10:27] Growing up in the 1970s
  • [12:10] Learning about money late
  • [13:53] How your money mindset affects your family
  • [15:37] Anthony's spend-it mindset
  • [17:19] A first paycheck, and "What's FICA?"
  • [20:48] Never satisfied: the highs and the lows
  • [22:31] Coming out the other side
  • [24:14] Living paycheck to paycheck
  • [25:57] Talking about money in a relationship
  • [27:40] A recipe for money conversations
  • [31:04] Spending on what you value
  • [34:34] How we saw wealthy people growing up
  • [38:02] "Rich people are bad people"
  • [39:48] Why money education matters
  • [41:32] What keeps pulling us back, and wrap-up

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About the hosts

This is a hosts-only episode with no guest: Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino. (Host bios are on the host pages linked below.)

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Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:02] It's going to be talking about your relationship with money and specifically the three common mindsets: scarcity, spend it or blow it as soon as you get it, and we don't talk about money. And we'll be talking about the impacts and what to do about it in today's episode. So, I hope you enjoy. I'm uh Dr. John Oberg and uh with me is always Randy Laurenson. And then we've got off to my left Anthony Moreno. Today we're going to talk about uh money and people's relationship with money. We've talked about this a lot, the three of us. And I think in one of our previous episodes we talked about like, you know, gross domestic product versus gross happiness for nations and all that good stuff. But today, I think we'll jump into like the buckets of money that people grow up in and you've both heard me talk about this when I've, you know, taught classes on like, you know, most people grow up either with a scarcity mindset where it's like, you know, you pinch every penny when it comes in. And other people they they spend it as fast as they can get it because they never know what's coming again. And then families like mine I grew up where, you know, we didn't talk about money. And so and those have, you know, different um implications for people as you grow up and then it creates different relationships with money. And so, Randy, if you find it kind of start with you, like what what bucket did you grow up Definitely the scarcity mindset, right?

[01:17] And we've talked about this before. I have put quite a bit of work into that, you know, the joke that I've I think I've used on this podcast before, so I apologize for those that have listened, is my dad threw around nickels like they were manhole covers. He used to shear the buffalo on the nickel before he'd spend it so you could actually use the yeah. Pretty much, yeah. I mean, it was it was definitely a scarcity mindset. And look, some of it rightfully so. We didn't have a lot of money. And there wasn't a lot of excess, right? And but the answer in general was that's expensive, we can't afford that. Yeah, but it should be said that scarcity mindset doesn't you don't have a lot of it. I mean, I I guy who was worth millions who I watched him go to buy a cup of coffee and he squeezed the dollar bills before he let them go for somebody because he had such a hard time letting that go. And I you know So the scarcity mindset doesn't mean you don't have a lot of it. Yeah. That I mean that's definitely true. But even as I've had more money as I've grown that that it's taken me years to work on that and just recently have I started you know, there there were little things like when I was playing poker and you know, if you're if you bet thousands of dollars or especially if you bet thousands of dollars with nothing and you are starting to deal with bigger sums of money little pieces of that flaked off. But the core was still there and I think that it's really transformed a lot in the last even few months.

[02:41] Give away that can cause a tell for it you when you were playing? I don't think so, but I'm sure I had tells I was blissfully unaware of. Yeah. And so what were some of the belief systems that were you know, good and bad that came out of that? that I for me was I had a belief system that rich people were inherently bad. And that if people were rich that they had stepped on somebody else's neck to get there or it came at somebody else's expense. And that was not healthy because A, it's simply not true. And even as I grew and I'd meet rich people that were amazing people and they were giving and they were doing all these wonderful things that was ingrained in me in childhood. And the impact of that I made money and then I lost it and I made money and I lost it and I made like I I had you know, some chances to to have a lot more money than I have now. you know, we're not living paycheck to paycheck necessarily, but but I could a lot of opportunities slipped away and in in the back of my mind, I'm pretty sure that that belief system about scarcity and having money made you a bad person, that I was subconsciously somehow sabotaging Right? And I I can't necessarily point to a decision I made that was on it, but I I just kind of believe that the universe against me because I I wasn't yet ready to accept abundance in that area.

[04:24] Do you think there's some good things that came out of it? Like maybe you were better value shopping or Absolutely. There there's There is that, right? And and sometimes it was cheap, you know, lesson I One lesson I did learn a long time ago is I used to go to the store and you'd look at all the different brands, and I would inevitably I would choose the cheap one. And then I would freaking regret it because it'd be a piece of crap, and I would have to replace it eventually, and then I would buy a little better one. Now, I generally don't I don't want the I don't want the cheap one. I want the better one that I'm going to enjoy, it's going to last, and in the long run is going to be actually probably cheaper and a better value. But one of the big things it did Real real quick, when was the turning point for that? sooner. I mean, that's maybe years ago. I mean, that that that that isn't quite as recent, but I'd say one of the other big things is it gave me a very low time preference. And what that means is is a lot of people, I mean, when we get into the spend it, blow it, right? category, it's what can I get now, immediate gratification. I was very, very good at delaying gratification and pushing things into the future and saving and stacking and planning. Um and that's part of what helped me you know, build build wealth and sometimes accumulate treasure. But because I hadn't done the work to fix that basic scarcity mindset, then I would somehow, and again, maybe maybe it was market forces, right? When I worked for an internet company and the whole and we had the dot-com bust and all of a sudden millions of dollars disintegrated into thin air.

[06:14] Okay, I didn't control that, but I just kind of believe that that mindset put me in that place and that it was it was God, it was the universe. I hadn't learned that lesson yet. And ironically, I now have a lot of gratitude for that because I think there's some journeys and missions and we don't have to go deep on that now, but some some things that I'm working on that that has those hard lessons have made me more capable of telling that story and bringing abundance to the world in a different way now that I maybe wouldn't have been able to do had I not had to learn those lessons the hard way. One separate related, your ability to find gratitude in things is super cool. We should definitely hit on that if not today. That's that's worthy of a conversation for sure. Anthony, which bucket did you grow up in? I was blissfully unaware in my early childhood of what became apparent as I kind of got into late middle school and time they call it junior high and high school. We were living in a boom or bust cycle. You know, the the family was in a in the construction business and as a young young child, you know, probably until I was 10 or 11, I didn't that you know, one year we my father was quote unquote loaded in the sense of what you could be loaded on in the '60s.

[07:45] Um all broke, one or the other. It was either it was a either or and it could could be over a course of a year or every 6 months. What what covered it up, this this sham, was he was one of the most respected people in our town. And we were looked at as, you know, the top 1% because we lived on the at the beach. We had this big beautiful house that actually was given to us by my on the condition that we take care of his his my grandmother until she passed and so on and so forth, early you know, like ninth grade or whatever it was, I became aware, literally aware of we're broke, we're doing good, we're broke, we're doing good. Um you know, you guys know the story of, you know, my my involvement with the the gaming industry. We just call those our entrepreneurial exploits at an early age. Yeah, entrepreneurial exploits of being a bookie, making money and coming home and see my mother crying on the couch cuz she couldn't make the payment to get oil delivered to the house and so forth. So, you know, it was boom or bust and and it became a lot of bust, you know, in the in the '80s and excuse me, the late '70s and early '80s and so on. So, the what the the the impact of that you know, A, I had a false sense of security that I had to eliminate, right?

[09:20] Cuz I'm living in this world thinking everything's fine. But it it instilled tremendous fear. Tremendous fear in me and as I moved, you know, moved on with my life and out of the house, the only thing that I focused on was making money. Is it it it I'm and it caused me to make some horrible decisions. So your family was in in the get it spend it bucket. Did you land there or did you did that send you into the scarcity bucket or what did that do? It sent me into the No, not the not the get it spend it bucket, but what I I don't know what what you would call it. I wanted, you know, I wanted to it it I wanted to earn money consistently, never worry about it, and earn more every year, which caused me to make some decisions in my life that I would probably not make again. Did you save it or spend it as you got We we we saved it. You know, we we we I wanted a an environment where I had a floor. I always had a floor.

[10:27] but I also didn't want you could because that the period of the '70s was was brutal. I mean, it it was the you know, I had to pay for college and it was just a horrible horrible time. So I wanted a floor, but I also wanted my wife and my kids to have things consistently. They didn't have I didn't buy them, you know, the most expensive things in the world, but I always wanted them to know that everything was all right. That we never, you know, you don't don't worry, guys. We got this. So we always bought a nice house. We always had nice things. Not the best things, not the biggest house in the neighborhood, but nice things. And I didn't want them to feel feel the I didn't never want them to see my wife on the couch crying because we couldn't make a house payment. You know, I didn't that that instilled such fear in me. So guys talk about money as a family? Um No. No. Not Not Not with the kids. We And of course we talked about it in prior to me getting married and moving on because, hey, we got no money.

[11:32] What are you going to do? What's Dad doing? Dad doesn't have a job. Dad's not bringing it in. Okay, well, you know, here we go. You know, everyone pitched in. Everyone worked. Everyone, you know, knew what was wrong and did what they could to, you know, put a lid on it and, you know, tighten the belt, if you will. Yeah, I grew up in the in the in the we don't talk about money household. Like, I remember one day I I walked into the room where Mom and Dad were paying bills and I saw paperwork I'd never seen before. I was quickly ushered out of the room and the door was shut behind me. And it wasn't mean or bad or like scary. It was just like this you're just not a part of this conversation. And then when I finally was going to learn about money, it was my mom taking me to the bank, helping me open my first checking account for $25. I had a check register and a checkbook at that point. And then she helped me enroll in a class at our high school that taught me how to balance the checkbook, but she wasn't going to teach me that. That was going to be somebody else who taught me that. And it wasn't It wasn't talked about at all. And so I didn't learn about, you know, budgeting or you know, paying bills or what bills to worry about or it just wasn't This just wasn't a conversation that I had. And I don't I don't think it was like uh you know, like deliberate on their part to to hold something back. I just think that's the the world they grew up in and that was the world that they thought was right for the kids. And maybe they thought they they thought they were protecting me from something, but it it sure made it tough when I, you know, wasn't forced to balance a checkbook until after college. Like, that was a a rude awakening.

[13:05] Yeah, we we only talked about it in times of crisis. Like, the day I came home when there was a foreclosure notice on the on the front door. You know. Okay, time to talk about it. What are we going to do? And, you know, we're going to go to see this uncle or we're going to try to do a reverse mortgage. I think we were probably the first people in America that did a reverse mortgage. I'm not kidding. We were just like at the very beginning of that. So, um yeah, it was it it didn't steal a lot as I said, fear, angst, worry, you know, that type of stuff. It's not healthy at all and it's not good for What do you like So, you know, in term like I I've studied this a lot to understand the impact of what this does to someone's career both from a how does it impact me and then also how does it impact others cuz I coach this stuff. But have you given much thought to like how how your relationship with money has impacted your career or your family? my family more than career. Have you, Anthony? I haven't I haven't really thought about it in a career standpoint.

[14:11] Well, it it affected my career from the standpoint of if some if I thought an opportunity was going to allow me to make more money, I would seriously consider it and made make the irrespective of the collateral damage. We've spoken about this before that it has on the people around me. I mean, you I met my wife and I bought a our first house in in Georgia in 1980. No, October of 1980. in February of '81 No, I mean it was '82 to '83. house at 16% interest and using a credit How much? 16% interest. And using the credit card to put the last $2,000 down to pay for it. The following February, I met her on the front steps of that house, our little house in Georgia.

[15:18] I said, "Hey, I got promoted. We're going to Cincinnati." dumbass, right? So, yeah, it's Jan is saying Stop saying nice things about Jan. She's not going to appreciate this. Sorry, Jan. All right. Uh Anthony's answer gave me a a second to think about this and interestingly that scarcity mindset hasn't reared its head in business for me very much. I have always been willing to spend money to make money and to try and leverage it and use money in business. So, somehow while it affected me in my day-to-day spending and lifestyle not nearly as much in business. Now, there's probably times where I could have bought a better computer, a better desk, or a better something and saved time and energy or paid somebody to do things that I could you know, I I think there are times where I definitely did things myself that I would have been much better off giving to somebody else.

[16:31] But, as for running a business, investing in advertising, those types of things, even in my poker world, right? It was it was spending the money and getting comfortable with it. I do think there's times where I didn't take a leap or didn't pursue something or think about something because I had to pay the bills and and and getting tied into something and I think at times I maybe have pursued the wrong opportunity because of that scarcity mindset. Yeah, someone challenged me at one point, um a professional mentor to go ask somebody a whole bunch of questions about money and I I went and asked five different people, you know, and one of them was my financial advisor and one was a friend, and the scariest one was my um um at the time my father-in-law, ex-father-in-law now, and he was the scariest person cuz he had a lot of money, and you know, I did I wasn't comfortable talking about it at all, but I had these five questions I was going to ask each of them, and what it showed me is that I didn't have to be scared having a conversation if it if they were reasonable questions, reasonable conversation, and that that helped me a lot to get comfortable having conversations about a topic that can be uncomfortable for lots of people.

[17:45] I think that's a great strategy, right? There's something we're uncomfortable with, you lean in, and you Face the fear. You face it, yeah. Not not in an unsafe or unhealthy way. I'm not telling you to jump out of a plane without a parachute. That's not, you know. You know, this topic also makes me think and they don't teach anything about money, right? You talked about balancing a checkbook. I mean, I I'm a big believer this should be I've got a great story about this. But yeah, like people don't understand that they don't understand paying taxes. They, you know, I I remember Anthony, you maybe saw this, but there was a 30 for 30 called Broke. Did you You saw that? There was a TV show on ESPN. Yeah, so there's lots of things in there, but the thing I'm thinking about here, Andre Rison was a wide receiver for the Falcons. It's years since I've seen this, but as I recall, he went to the Falcons, he signed this big contract where he was supposed to make like a million dollars a game. He was very excited, got his first paycheck, was walking out of the building, opened the envelope, and it wasn't a million dollars.

[18:48] It was 600 or 650 or whatever it was after taxes. And he goes, "Oh, they made a mistake on my check." And he went back into the offices and told the people, "Hey, you guys made a mistake." And they're like, "No, that's taxes." And he's like, "Well, what the hell's FICA, and what the hell?" And he just literally had no idea. So, he had grown up, if I remember right, in might have been like inner city LA or some place like that and school never taught him. He didn't grow up around people that had that knowledge. He didn't learn it in college after I think four years of college. And literally had no idea that you had to pay taxes out of your check. I mean that that is that seems criminal to me that people get out into society and they're they have no idea about that. a real failure of the education system. There's a um did you guys ever read that book Rich Dad Poor Dad? A long time ago. He has a game called uh Cashflow. And this game Cashflow teaches about money management and it teaches about all these cool things. It has a has like a little a paper spreadsheet essentially that teaches you about how to manage your cash.

[19:58] And uh my daughter is now a young adult. We were going through managing her personal expenses and she said, "Dad, can you help me make can you help me make an online spreadsheet that does it like the game Cashflow?" Because we played so often with her as a kid that she understood how that game related to real work and we put together a personal budget for her using the same the same outline of the game Cashflow. It was amazing. It was cool. Like it was I really it I feel vindicated for actually inadvertently teaching my daughter how to manage cash flow. that if that that affected me in the way I behaved after I'm on my own and moving forward and things are going well and so on and so forth I never really was satisfied. You know, I thought the high I would say the highs were actually a medium high in my my mind, right? That Okay, I'm here.

[21:03] This is good, but I want to I want to be here. I was measuring myself on the bank account, on the you know, the paycheck along with things like, you know, the position and, you know, where I was in the organizational chart. So, I never really enjoyed it. You know, I never really It wasn't until way later in life that I started to enjoy the comfort, you know, being comfortable. And I've I'm really and I'm sad about that. I really am. I'm sad I'm sad and I'm sad about the infected head on people around me and they never It's kind of like the the I never compliment or you never compliment someone enough, right? Uh you're quick to criticize. Sa- Same kind of feeling that was I was self-critical for no good reason, you this this whole episode discussion has made me really go back and reflect. I might be in therapy Friday. to get through that. I'm going to have to have to break that down a little bit. Like what what do you think I mean, not that you have the therapy here on the air, but like it is having you reflect like Let's have the air therapy on the air.

[22:10] Let's do that. Yeah, why not? Yeah, so I mean, but if you're So, if you're reflecting on that, like what, you know, if if you could change something going forward, what would be the thing you'd want you wish to change? Well, first thing I want to I want to I want to get through it and forgive myself for the behavior, right? You know, it's it's it's no more self-flagellation over it, you know, so on and so forth. But going forward, it's it's um I've I've come off the other side of that, you know, I came off the other off the other side long before we sold the company and made a lot of money and all that, but um yeah, reflecting back on it, it was it what a waste. What a waste of emotional opportunity to really relish the and where you are. Yeah, Anthony's thing makes me think about adding to what we originally talked about scarcity, right? There's things that there's opportunities and trips and things to spend money on that would have been a really good use of money and we'll talk more about that next episode, but there is I missed out on because I was too much of a scarcity mindset and a saving mindset, right?

[23:20] and then times that I even spent the money and I went and did it, but in the back of my mind I was questioning instead of just going and being free and living in the moment I was thinking should I have spent the money on this or this is a waste of money or I could have I could have invested this money instead of spending it here. Mm. Yeah. Right? And I I definitely overcorrected saving and not living in the moment enough. This This is one of the things by the way, I have a couple of friends that I can think of that are in the spend it as fast as I get it. there's a part of me that looks at that and goes, "Oh my god, they could have so much more if they would just invest." And there's another part of me that's really envious. Because those crazy bastards go out and they just freaking enjoy it, right? And then they may not know how they're going to pay rent next month or they may not and they may not be able to leverage it and invest it and do the things use money as a tool but they do tend to really live in the moment and enjoy life.

[24:29] And that's not so bad either. I I think there's a real balance, you know, I I was um I was I was taking some notes here as we're talking and I think, you know, this will be one of our shorter episodes, but I you know, the thing that I'm really sensitive to is that there's so much data around us now that really understanding our relationship with money is going to be important for us as we have places like Amazon who use dynamic pricing to figure out how to have the maximum extraction from us. There's just an article in uh I can't remember which national newspaper where like museums and zoos are now considering having like, you know, burst pricing for like high traffic times you're going to pay more for the tickets and low traffic times you're going to pay less and well, it makes a lot of sense because they want to even out their traffic. There's like the hey, if you'll pay more we'll sell it for more type of thing. Like you know, airline tickets are like that already. I worry about how things come up on Amazon for me. Like am I paying more than somebody else for the same thing? You know, so I think I think us understanding what our relationship with money is and the impact it has on our other relationships personally and professionally is probably an important thing to be aware Let's take a break and we'll come back and talk about that when we get back.

[25:47] Listeners, welcome back. Tales of Still here with John and Anthony and we're talking about money and our relationship with it. Before break we were talking Not not romantic by the way. Just a regular old relationship with money. Okay, no dad No dad jokes. Oh, I was talking about the love of money actually. I was being tongue in cheek with a double entendre. I'm with Anthony on this one. No dad jokes. I can turn it into a dad joke. Let's move on. All right, moving on. So, dynamic pricing. We were talking about that a little bit before the break John and coming back. You want to you want to dig back into that? I just think there's some watch outs, right? I think you know, the relationship we have with money is going to impact us in different ways. This is one of the newer ways that I'm paying attention to only because I read a news article and I'm I'm you know, I'm I'm sensitive to like if you're buying airline tickets, we know there's dynamic pricing. If you use Uber, there's surge pricing. Like but now we're seeing it in like museums and zoos and you know, perhaps online buying platforms that watch your entire behavior history and so I just think people need to know like if they're if their relationship with money is healthy, I think it's going to be easier to identify places where they can protect themselves should they desire to. And if there's an unhealthy relationship with money, I think it's just easier to be manipulated by a situation. That's all.

[27:06] scarcity, spend it all, we don't talk about it. I don't know that And we're going to go into good ways to use money as a tool in the next episode after this. let's talk a little bit about the optimal. And realizing that's not going to be the same for everybody, right? And I think we all have some combination of the three. But what is optimal? What do you guys think is optimal? Anthony, what do you think? What's what's the optimal relationship with money with based on your experience? So, I think it's a if there was a way to treat this like a recipe and have a little bit of everything in it in the way we talk about money, to have some just enough honesty to not the family, if you will. I think that I would I wish I had thought about this before I had kids or as I was having kids, because I I have grown into the we don't talk about it.

[28:09] So, that I don't think that's healthy. Um So, they they should be they they should be some consciousness that scarcity is actually a good thing. Thinking twice before you do something. Um You don't have to talk about everything. And when the opportunity arises to splurge a little bit, you know, just don't splurge to zero. You know, it and and it's not necessarily spending. You mentioned investment. You know, there there there there can be a time where you know, you put some chips in the middle of the table and and go for it, you know, because it's a good opportunity. You feel confident about it and so forth. So, having a little bit of everything and teaching your your kids a little bit of everything, I think is if it it's a nuance. But I think, you know, if I could if I could do it over again, that's how I'd do it. How are you, Andy? What Well, I think it depends on the person, right? And I I think for everybody we got to ask what are their goals? What do they want?

[29:16] And the the right answer for the three of us is probably going to be different, let alone you know, everybody listening. My thought I I like Anthony's recipe thing that he mentioned. I think most people do need a framework and some kind of a plan, right? And you know, a common thing is you take 10% and investment invested or you know, I in a past life I heard somebody refer refer to it as you pay yourself first. If if we go back to whatever episode Jim Lynch was on, he was real adamant about this that you take you tithe 10%, you save 10 or 20% and for some people by the way it might be I've talked to people that make good money and they want to retire by the time they're 40 and they're like, I'm saving 50% so that I don't have to work for a long time and I can move to the mountains and live in the mountains of Colorado and they're willing to sacrifice that's okay if that's what they want. I think a lot of the younger generation it's more immediate experiences, it's travel and they're spending now and I think a lot of them are not well, there's older generations too, but I think it's more common in Millennials especially are are spending money when they're younger and not saving. So, I I think depending on the person and what their goals and their desires are, it's some combination whether it's tithing, saving, traveling today, if if they want to buy a house, and it's figuring out it but having a plan to know what that ratio is.

[30:51] And I certainly, like I said, erred too much on the saving and future part, I think, in earlier parts of life and not enough. And but to each to each their own. So, I I like Anthony's recipe, and I'm not even sure that's what he meant, but that's what I took it for. Yeah, I think I'm I'm a fan of people being deliberate in whatever way is good for their goals. I think I'm pretty well aligned with like everyone's goals, and then being deliberate towards those goals, as long as they don't take advantage of the system or the community. I think that's the part where I would have some kind of allergic reaction. It's like, if I go spend all my money on fun stuff, but I'm, you know, bilking the system, whether the system is my family or my community or whatever, like that's where I think I would have a little bit of like doesn't feel that great. I had to go learn this stuff on my own. So, the places that I really dove in to learn this was like I read Kiyosaki's books, Cash Flow Quadrant and Rich Dad Poor Dad, but the stuff I really enjoyed was like Thomas Stanley's books on how people built their own wealth. And then, um, that kind of framed me into the same kind of recipe. And then I went to therapy years later, and people are like, you know, that's a preference.

[31:56] And that's where I think I became the most healthy is recognizing, "Oh, okay." So, like what I learned was right for me, and that's my set of preferences. And if somebody else has a different set of preferences, like that's okay. You know, I you know, like Alan Graham, kind of, who's a local uh expert on homelessness, said, you know, there are some people that choose to be homeless living on the street, and that's their choice, and that might be hard to understand for some people, but if I can radically accept people for what they want, and understand that money is just an uh a tool, amoral, and inanimate, and I don't fall in love with the idea of money, I think that generally is the most healthy from my perspective. Yeah, I never had you know, I joke that when I played poker that was my backpacking Europe phase, but I was making good money. It really wasn't, right? And if I'm living at Caesar's Palace, you know, and having a maid clean I mean that's not really my backpacking Europe phase. I mean I think of that more as people living in a hostel and whatever, if somebody wants to do that hostel. I'm a little Yeah, I'm a little I'm a little envious of people that did that, right?

[33:01] Like there's a There's a part of me that wishes I would have just taken even if it was 6 months or a year and just went and and did something like that that I I do think can be very fulfilling and and add to somebody's life long term. I just met a couple I was traveling with my family overseas and I met a young couple with my wife and my youngest son and we were taking a a sushi making and they were on the last couple weeks of a 5-month vacation. And I had so many questions about like what what their vocation was that allowed them both to take a synchronized 5-month vacation. They weren't immediately after college. They were clearly had some professional experience and they were in a pretty nice part of town done some It was really You know, I think I think that's far more common in other countries than it is in the US and like you I had a little bit of like um jealousy around like wow, I wish I maybe thought a little bit differently about that part of that experience and But you could 5-month vacation.

[34:04] But you could do that now. I I You know, I I could, but I wouldn't because of the other goals that I have, right? Like that's and and I recognize that I'm making, yeah. Um but I might later. You know, a thought just came across this old man's head that um and it may have been the same for you, you know, I used to look up to people who were wealthy that had made it, you know, that became, you know, successful politicians or uh businessmen in the community and had the nice house and so forth. And as I think about the behavior in the society today, and uh particularly about people like that a certain political people in the in the news, if you will, vocal people, they show disdain for people that have become wealthy and successful and you know, the top 1% are these evil human beings. And I wonder what the impact of that's going to be long-term on, you know, uh Generation X, the millennials, Z, and so on and so forth, that as that mindset is imprinted on them, that it's almost as if they're saying, "No, the top 1%, the top 5%, you don't deserve that. You have to give that to us." To your point about taking advantage of the community. And it's it's it it just struck me here as we were talking, and I just really I I guess now I'm worried about what that I that impact is going to be.

[35:35] Yeah, Ray Dalio wrote a book about that recently. It was I didn't read the book. I read his article in Time magazine. It June of 2024. Ray Dalio wrote a really cool article about how we cycle through that as a society, and the answer is it's not good. It's Yeah, I mean, it's I mean, go lines with the Fourth Turning that we've talked about a couple times, but like I could rant about this like long time, so I'll I'll stop. us a short rant real quick? I mean, it's it's The answer to your question, Anthony, is it's not healthy. If we look at the fundamental, the core values that this country and beliefs this country was built upon, right? It's a land of opportunity. It's a land for people to go kick ass. And if you go back to when this country was really flourishing, and everybody was getting richer, not just the rich, but everybody was getting richer. The Industrial Revolution in the US did more to create wealth for everybody. Not just There's There's super super rich people, the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, etc. came out of that, but at no other time in world history has been better for poor people. And the number of people that came out of poverty into the middle class, that really is the origination worldwide of the middle class and where it originated, and everybody was the fact is for most of our history, the people that created these opportunities looked at as heroes because they did supply jobs, they did make the world better. If somebody, you know, if somebody created you know, Alexander Bell creates the telephone, that improved people's lives. And I think what's changed is instead of and putting our arms around progress and making the world better for other people and saying, "Good for that person to get rich, right?" And other people have made the world better and not done it, but that attitude, in a lot of ways that is America. That is why people from all over the world want to come here for that opportunity, for that American and we're on it now. In a lot of ways that are kind of Not everybody, but there's a lot of people that are making that that are making people feel guilty, and I got to believe that we are going to miss out on some amazing inventions, some amazing entrepreneurs, and people similar to my thoughts about scarcity growing up, right? I had an attitude about rich people that they were bad people. Yet, I look at the people that get You can't give away a billion dollars if you don't make a billion dollars.

[38:11] And even as much as people call them the robber barons and everything else, Carnegie and Rockefeller, they had a competition for who could do the most good and who could give the most away. And people can agree, disagree, whatever they want, but the fact is at the end of their life, they both did all of this good. that isn't that is not healthy and and a lot of it is going back to the schools, the schools are doing a disservice. People do not understand money and economics. And part of the problem is it bores the out of most people. They hear it, they tune out, they're busy with their kids, they're busy with their family, they have their job, their their their their father's sick, they're whatever. All this stuff's going on and they're like, "I don't have time for this." Yet we spend so much of our lives focused on money, even people that don't think they The house you live in or the apartment you rent or whatever it is. 8 hours a day you spend at work trying to earn it.

[39:13] Or more. Right? People move like I moved to Austin, Texas for a job to make more money and for more opportunity. You talked about Anthony moving around the world. John, we we have all moved multiple times for money. It impacts us. We make decisions what we're going to do. It's what kind of car we drive. It's what kind of trips we take. It's what kind of the quality of the food that we eat and how healthy we are. A lot of it comes down to money. People that are born and grow up in an inner city that is full of junk food, seed oils, don't have healthy food, are born at a huge disadvantage because of money. And yet most people have spent almost no time understanding money and figuring it out. And I think in today's world, people understand there's something wrong. Like money printing is it's pure evil. I mean, I I I again, I'll I won't go too far on my high horse here, but but money printing is is pure pure evil. It's one of the worst things in the world. If you if told people that you were going to cut their wages by 7% a year, there'd be riots in the streets, right?

[40:26] Like every year every year we're going to cut your wages by 7%. But when the government, which that's what they average, is increasing the money supply by about 7% it's exactly what they're doing. They're cutting everybody's wages by 7% a year. And that's why companies have to grow is just you can't stay flat because you can't keep up with money printing. So, I can talk about this all day. I'll I'll stop it there, but that lack of education, you know, I think it's worth people spending a little time to money, the impact it has on their lives, and think about it that if you're willing to move across the country for it, you might want to spend some basic time understanding it. And how to picture how it impacts your identity matters too, right? I think I think a healthy a healthy a healthy version of this would be from my viewpoint making sure that that your identity is not tied up in money, not tied up in your role with with money. And so if you that that to me because then you're disconnected and you can be objective about money as a tool. And so but but the society knows that the identity politics and emotional selling like and so it's going to constantly keep pushing us back there. So you have to have an active an active effort to kind of say, "Hey, my money is not who I am and vice versa." And I think I think one of the things I see in younger generations, my you know, my son's generation and daughter's generation, too, is that they're a little less likely to have their identity tied up with money, which that part I'd actually do find to be a little more healthy. And then, you know, in our house we were able to talk about it a little more now, um but it's not always comfortable.

[42:05] You know, getting back to your point about losing out on inventions and so on, you could juxtapose you know, Henry Ford back in the early was a hero because he created a product for the common man, right? You could have any car you want as long as it was He was revered. He might have been a flawed man in other ways, but um he was certainly revered and he goes down in history. And today we have a person who's the richest man in the world who has an awful miss out on half of the things he's he's kept Ukraine in a war because with his Starlink. He basically launched the electric vehicle revolution. He's digging holes under Las Vegas with a machine and not you know, not disrupting traffic. PayPal. Don't forget PayPal. He He was a founder of PayPal uh along with a few other guys. He's putting chips in brains and just today I saw he's convinced he can um put a Neuralink in someone and and repair you know, alleviate back pain or just an amazing thing. And he is by a I think a very small but loud group of of people. I don't think the general populace does that, but it's the you know, it's the large it's the the loudest among us that gets, you know, the thing. And you know what what is that doing to to other people, you know, that you know, at some point and I know this for a fact, he risked everything he had on that electric every single thing he had. If that had failed, he would have been he would have been the poorest man in the world because he would have been absolutely broke.

[43:51] So, yeah, yeah, I think we need to be worried about that. Fortunately, I don't think it's everybody. And sometimes the you get tired of hearing them. And hopefully these upcoming generations will will not um be Bernie Sanders out of the out of the um um No no one no one or any no no situation or person is ever good as bad or as bad as they seem, right? It's especially when you're talking about the media's perception or the media's portrayal. So, I think I mean we I know we've got another episode coming up in in a bit talking about kind of the way we use money. So, uh I think this is a good Let's listeners, we're going to wrap this one up. The next episode will be it's sort of a somewhat part two to this talking about how to use money for well, but as always subscribe, listen, tell your friends, give us feedback, uh go on go on social media. We'd love to hear. And by the way, if you have ideas for future episodes, things you would like to hear about, whether it's it's Twitter, it's Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, uh give us comments and let us know what you'd like to hear in the future. So, thank you for listening.

[45:00] Until next time. Thanks, Randy.