This Is the Most Important Financial Advice You Need to Hear Right Now | Ramit Sethi

[Music] one common mistake that people make is they just try to cut a little bit of everything five percent here five percent there life sucks when you do that and the classic thing we've all heard is three dollar lattes blah blah blah saving three dollar lattes not going to change your life at all okay I've run the map you save it for sixty thousand years maybe you end up with some real material savings none of us are doing it you would be better off picking your two to three biggest expenses and going after everyone this episode is brought to you by our sponsor better help an online counseling company with the mission to make professional counseling accessible affordable and convenient I hope you enjoy everybody welcome to impact theory today's guest is Rumi safety he's a New York Times bestselling author who Fortune magazine called the new finance guru he's a leading voice in the world of personal finance and has been featured by a gaggle of the world's most prestigious media outlets including Forbes magazine alongside Warren Buffett I might add CNBC The Wall Street Journal CNN the New York Times and a bunch of others he's been going absolutely ham recently with nearly daily updates during this crisis and over 1 million people read his posts and watches content every single month to help them navigate this unprecedented time ramiz thank you for joining us man thanks for having me back dude I'm excited as soon as this hit and it became super apparent what was going to be happening in terms of the economic shakedown I was like we got to get REME back on the show you have such an individualized take like so many people are talking at a very high level about the economy and all that but I think it still leaves a lot of people paralyzed in terms of what should I be doing right now today so how do you think about this how does your normal advice compared to what you're advising people to do now in the midst of what's going on I have definitely made some changes in my financial advice one of the first things is that I'm now advising people to target a one-year emergency fund which sounds like a lot we can talk about how do you calculate that and how do you actually do that if you lost your job for example but that's one chain you know another thing that I've really been talking to people about is the psychological mindset of how to take action right now and you know there's a little framework that I've been sharing with people which is step one is you have to accept reality and that means that for example if you're a waiter your jobs not coming back for a long time and we have to just accept that that is the case that's really painful because culturally most of us are optimistic we want to go west we think that everything is going to work out all of our movies end with two people walking off in the sunset but sometimes reality is a little tougher than that the second thing that we have to do is make a plan it's one thing to be worried and anxious about money fine all of us are feeling that way but after we accept reality we have to decide hey what if things go great how am I going to come out of this but also what if things go poorly and then finally we have to move in normal times we are so we get paralyzed and if you think about if you're driving down the freeway and you see something in the middle of the road what's the first thing you do you slam on the brakes it makes sense but in a time like this in a crisis that's actually the last thing that you want to do you don't want to what do you mean when you say slam on the brakes in this you're saying just don't stop thinking don't stop processing opening bills moving forward making a plan correct because you see what happens is most of us freeze we don't know what's going to happen we wait for the government to tell us we wait for our boss to tell us we wait for everyone around us to tell us what's going to happen and we delegate our own authority now hopefully they know but I think reality has shown that they don't and so better that we move instead of staying stagnant and paralyzed and waiting and listened to this is even better if you move and you make a couple of mistakes as long as you are moving but so many of us are paralyzed to do anything and that is the last thing you want to do right now yeah I agree with that violently one thing that I'm always telling people and it's counterintuitive and I asked I often get a lot of pushback on this which is absurd to me but it's better to move a thousand miles an hour in the wrong direction than to stand still because standing still you're not learning anything you're not running any tests obviously I'm not saying knowingly run a thousand miles an hour in the wrong direction I'm saying you pick the direction it was your best bet in terms of what was going to work but no matter what happens down that path you're going to learn something if you're paying attention and so yeah I think that's super powerful I want to go back to what you're talking about with the emergency fund how the hell do people who are there living a life where they're just sort of making ends meet they're living paycheck to paycheck I think the stat is most people if they're hit with a surprise $500 bill they can't pay it so if they're in that zone now especially and I'd love you to answer this two ways how do they do it if they have their job and then how do they do it if they just lost their job okay great let's start with people who lost their job I want to talk to them first because it is urgent for them and other people who still have their job or have savings you have a little bit more leeway so for both groups the typical advice that you hear is to shrink and cut back on everything but as I've always said there's a limit to how much you can cut there's no limit to how much you can earn so they're really three ways that I talked about in terms of getting stable then it's the CEO strategy cut costs we all know the flavor but I'll give you a specific example I had somebody I'll reach out to me and say we're meet my wedding isn't for like seven or eight months what do you think I should do and I said without missing a beat I said you got to cancel it and as someone who has planned a large wedding I know how painful that is to just think of all the money lost all the planning all the time but at a time like this money in your pocket is worth more than money in your pocket later so money in your pocket now is worth more than money in your pocket later that means if you have to cancel certain things that are going to incur fees later fine deal with the fees later but get the money in your pocket that's c/e earn more we can talk about earning more in a second but there's a whole opportunity there to start businesses and start or anymore o is really something that a lot of people haven't thought about right now so whether you have a job or not you can call up the companies that you owe money to or you transact with and you can get some soup rising Lee great results for example your student loan company if you guys go student debt if you owe credit card debt if you have a cable bill a cell phone bill or even a landlord you pick up the phone and this is what you say you say I've been a good customer for three years coded 19's making it difficult for me to be able to pay my bills like I usually do I'd like to know what options you have available for me and my readers have used this script a lot of them have gotten their payments paused with no finance or interest charges and some of them have even gotten rent waived so there's a lot of opportunity you're talking about possible hundreds or even a thousand plus dollars with one phone call that is how you start yeah I think that's really smart I remember when I was doing believe it or not I used to be a telemarketer and they would talk a lot about what are the magic words here is here they said everybody wants the magic words that you say and at one point I was also selling door-to-door and they're like you know knock knock buy this like what are the magic words to get people to do it I want people to understand what you just said is this is a script right those are the magic words so don't say words like that say those exact words I know that you also did a video on this I'm sure you've written this down as well people people need to understand that you're giving them the keys of the kingdom but the one thing that you can't do is pick up the phone for them and in sales again we used to joke for some people that phone is really heavy and it's like just you know picking it up and making the calls is where people are really going to struggle but man like here here's what's interesting about do-or-die time I don't wish them on anybody but it is really fascinating when you're backed into a corner the reserves emotionally that you find this is one of the things I find so interesting about your backgrounds that you studied psychology so what is it that makes people so reticent to pick up that phone and how do you help them over that hurdle because some people will hear the logic of hey $1,000 is a single phone call they're going to do it other people still want that phone still heavy do you how do you approach people that are hesitant I remember hearing a podcast interview with a former Navy SEAL and he said when other people do push-ups they get tired the more push-ups I do the stronger I get and I just thought it was such a beautiful refrain that when things get hard we can actually get stronger so you know so many of us wish for things to be easier and the first question they ask when they hear that script is can I text them or email them and that's the wrong question to be asking because what you're really saying is that phone scares me or calling up somebody and asking for what I want scares me so is there some shortcut I can take and I would challenge everyone here just like you said I wouldn't wish these times on anybody but in these times they give us the opportunity to really rise up and become bigger than who we previously were and so if the phone scares your past self maybe your current self looks around and says you know what it's time for me to find a way to overcome that fear so that is my hope for everyone here the phone call is actually the smallest part of how you can transform yourself right now in retrospect when you look back on this five years from now you're going to look back and say I can't believe that phone call or I can't believe starting a business and and posting something on Instagram selling something through 50 bucks scared me because look how far I've come but you have to pick up the phone or you have to post that first sale right now to know that you can actually be bigger than you thought you could yeah for sure so when I think about cost cutting the see in the CEO formula which I love by the way that one to me is there's a real opportunity for gamification if people are anything like me like I dude always as a kid I was like well I'm just going to get rich like that was always my solution why would I save for retirement I'm going to get rich like it was so self-evident to me that that was the goal and that I should spend my time focus there for anybody that knows my story long convoluted story I didn't end up making money until I stopped chasing it but like it that was just sort of the the self-evident thing when we started quest though I I had to cut everything then it was such a huge gamble my house was on the line we were personally guaranteeing all of our loans I had to cut my salary back to a third of what it was at the previous company and it was like okay buck and what I had to do to make that was to to get ultra-competitive one I'm going to cut my expenses down to nothing nobody's lived sort of as lean and mean as I'm prepared to live we got rid of a car I was having to bum rides off my employees I had between my wife and I we had one car with a leaky exhaust that would start shaking at about 55 miles an hour it's absolutely hilarious and so I'm building this like what ends up being a billion dollar company but I'm dude I'm doing it from like we don't go out we like if we rent a movie like we're tracking the 299 like everything was so to the bone in terms of you know making sure that we only had one cars when they had insurance on one car but I saw other people at the same time that they couldn't do it they could make the same I remember this one story dude was buying truffle mushrooms he was in the same boat as me driving a Mercedes eating truffle mushrooms perfect the is happening what what what are you thinking and when I would like get this competitive spirit this aggression toward the savings so to put it in kovat terms to like dude if I were in a position where I had to save and I had lost my job it would be me versus kovat 19 yeah I love that you know it's so rare to hear someone going on offense with their money most often like 99% of the time people are playing life on defense especially with their money I guess I spent that much I don't nobody taught me about money oh there's no way to make money on on and on and even in the relatively simple area of cost-cutting for life no that I'm going after it I'm going to become an animal as you put it and so you don't have to have that aggression in every part of your life I think at a certain point it would become counterproductive maybe but just to pick that one zone and say I'm going to dominate this and whatever winning means to you so let me give a couple of suggestions for people for how you can start and then how you can take it to the to the next level if you want to first off with cutting one common mistake that people make is they just try to cut a little bit of everything 5% here 5% there life sucks when you do that and the classic thing we've all heard is $3 lattes blah blah blah saving $3 lattes not going to change your life at all okay I've run the map you save it for 60,000 years maybe you end up with some real material savings none of us are doing it you would be better off picking your two to three biggest expenses and going after going really hard okay you got a car payment let's look at that uh you know student loans have I called up my student loan company have I gone and typed in student loan debt payoff and calculated how I could shave four years off the payments no nobody has they spend their life complaining but they never read a single good book about personal finance for their entire life so pick two areas two to three target ten 15% savings if you can achieve those you don't have to worry about cutting back on $3 lattes those two to three big expenses can be amazing now if you want to go all the way like to what you did you can get aggressive and you can start cutting everything but I would recommend because money is also a psychology game is you want to get a couple of wins under your belt first so even something as simple as getting your credit card fee waived that's 35 bucks it's not that much in the grand scheme but you're going to be like wait a second tie myself on the back I actually did this and now you can start to get more aggressive yeah that getting wins I don't know if you've heard about those rat studies but if you put two rats in a tube by nature they will try to push each other out and what they found is whatever rat ended up pushing the other rat out in the next fight they were more likely to win if they won that one they were more likely to win the next one but they found the same was true even if they push the rat from behind and forced it to win that it would still be more likely to win the next time even if you did push it so there is something baked into our psychology where man if you can get those early wins and you can like you said pat yourself on the back and really feel like okay I've got some momentum you get that dopamine hit you're starting to feel good and you're ready to take things on so come back for me to somebody they just lost their job what are some insights right now the government seems to be trying to do a fair amount to help people stay solvent I went through a period where I was on unemployment I I hit the pause button I called out of panic I was in a position I literally couldn't pay all my bills at once I had to pick month by month like okay well pay this one to make sure that my electricity doesn't get shut off and then I'll pay this one to make sure that I have you know I forget now what are the government programs or things that people have available okay so I'm really glad that you you have shared that you were on unemployment I think anyone who has had a long career has had something bad happen to them I was laid off from my own company right so there are everyone who has any experience whether you're an employee or an entrepreneur has had something bad happen to them and I say that because I've had my own I will teach you to be rich readers who have come to me and some of them as recently as four weeks ago they were big ballers they had great jobs they were doing very well and suddenly they were laid off through no fault of their own and now it is humiliating for them to have to go to the unemployment website and my first response to them when they were DMing me was to say these services are here for you you should not feel embarrassed about taking advantage of it they are here for you so if it's a matter of pride or it's a matter of feeling bad put it aside write rewrite that narrative in your head that I'm a failure because you're not and go take advantage of every resource you have available unemployment is one you should do that first thing if you've been laid off you should also take a look at what you can control with your expenses so let's talk about that one-year emergency fund what is that a lot of people mistakenly think hey I make sixty K a year my emergency fund needs to be sixty K there's no way I can save 60 K that's crazy well you don't need 60 K in full for your emergency fund so let's break it down the way you do it is you imagine what is the minimum amount of money you need to live to cover your rent you know if you or your partner got laid off you would probably be cutting back quite a bit okay how much does that cost then you say alright I am going to take every thing that I can and put it in an emergency fund in cash just a simple high-yield savings account you don't need anything fancy now a lot of people already have some money in savings they've just never thought of it as part of an emergency fund other people have been following my book they've been automatically investing so for them I tell them put your investments on pause and redirect that money to your emergency fund now it's probably going to take people a while to save 12 months but guess what that's okay even if you get seven months of the way there that's better than nothing and once you have that money you have security you have safety you have the ability to breathe and think about a perspective for your job or your business that you want to start so that is what I would recommend take advantage of all the resources you've got redirect any money you can towards that emergency fund and remember it doesn't necessarily have to be your full salary it's probably a fraction of that mmm you talked about a high-yield savings account is that really a thing right now like our people giving interest rates well they're actually it's a good question because they're not really yielding high but they're called high-yield savings account truthfully people waste so much time chasing interest rates I'm going to give you an example people write me I get these emails every single day Oh rooo meet my ally account drop from one point five to one point three five percent or should I switch I'm like why you emailing me have you actually run the numbers on a ten thousand dollar balance we're talking about dollars per year it's nothing so the key thing everybody needs to learn right now is you don't make money on your savings account that's not where money is made it's just meant to be safe and stable the real place you make money from Chapter seven in my book is investing so that's a whole different thing we can talk about that for people who have money but right now they're paying zero percent they're paying point five percent it doesn't really matter it's just there so your money is liquid and available to you yeah let's talk about the market so how are you thinking about that now it scares me that I literally in this day and age strike me down if I am wrong but it it is crazy if you have money in the stock market they put it in there assuming that you're going to leave it there for decades that at this point in time people still pull their money out in a panic so I like legitimately do that I don't even check if I look at my numbers once every six months like and even then I'm like it up or down it doesn't matter it's all sort of phantom it's like that's a 20-year play like ya don't uh anyway I'm not the finance guy how are you thinking about the market alright so I want to tell you this story this I got this DM about two weeks ago someone d-ends me on instagram I'm a permit and she goes ramiz I loved your book thank you I read it I just finished it two weeks ago anyway I sold all my investments and the market went up like 12% so what do you think I should do and I was like oh I was like did you miss pages 0 through 300 so this is a it's a teachable moment because I want everyone to understand how to think about your investment and you're exactly right when you invest something you are not investing for money that you need in the next 1 2 3 4 5 years this is money that is long-term money and every study and you can see them cited in Chapter 6 of my book shows that long-term passive investing that is investment you're not checking every day you're not trading all that is money you automatically contribute once a month and it goes in there that's the money that makes you serious cash like real like multi millions of dollars most people do not understand why and again remember what I said earlier most people have never read a single book about personal finance so they have all kinds of kooky theories about money that they don't even know what they're saying do it for the tax deduction and all this crazy I'm like pick up a book that's what you really need to do and so when you learn this stuff you learn that your money is there for the long term you learn that costs really matter you probably shouldn't be checking your investments more than once every month once every six months is even better and you do not need to be selling it especially now unless you are truly truly out of money and for most I would say like 99% of people who write me asking if they should sell are not even close to an emergency situation they're just afraid fear is the last thing you want it will cost you dearly yeah do you think this is crazy so if somebody came to me and said hey I don't have an emergency fund but I'm thinking of investing in the stock market I'd be like yo rule number one and I always would have historically said six months but six months of cash on hand I always said that I wasn't smart enough to see a freezing of the economy like this but my thing was like so many people hate their jobs and part of the reason they don't quit is because they don't have the money like they can't afford to quit and that's such a shitty way to live now add on top of that we all realize just how fragile the economy really is and anybody's job so do you think people should be investing if they don't have the six or 12 months in savings no I don't now and I've advised people as I said a 12 month emergency fund so that actually means that I would recommend people pause their investments and redirect it to a 12-month emergency fund number one you're right we've seen how unstable our jobs can be with something like this and number two if you don't build a habit of saving right now you're never going to do it you didn't do when the economy was good you're not doing it when the economy's bad you're never going to do it so I want everyone listening to force themselves take advantage of the situation and really change your behaviors get that emergency fund in order yes it will cost you because you won't be investing right now and that sucks but if you don't have 12 months that is the price you pay for not having saved it and it's okay all of us are operating at different levels we all have different advantages in society it doesn't mean that you're being penalized or that you're morally wrong but I do believe you should focus on the emergency fund first invest second yeah so let's start with the person who lost their job so that person a lot of the sort of paths that I could go down in terms of asking you take me to you know people that have money and can operate from that position but I think it's far more useful if we start with the person is really in trouble so going back to the the CEO saying so we covered c-cut expenses we covered oh you're going to optimize the way that you're spending you're going to get in there you're going to get reductions and things talk to me about earning what can people do now they've lost their job it is panic mode my first advice was if you can get a roommate move in back in with your parents whatever like all the pride that might be you up literally let it all go I lived with in my mid-20s I lived with my mother-in-law so it's like a it just is what it is and I had zero embarrassment over that let's let's walk people through like what that would look like what's your advice for earning money in this difficult time for somebody yeah I'm going to talk about or anymore I'm going to give some real examples I just want to say I think it's really amazing that you really owned that intentional shrinking of your life and and it's really valuable for us to be able to hear the way you talk about it and for me to be able to see you because there's no shame in the way you're talking you're like look I had to live with my mother-in-law that's what I had to do and all of us you know I grew up with immigrant parents they came here they had to do a lot of that when I look at it I'm like I don't know if I could do that having been born and raised in America but I often think about what I have seen in immigrant families and the idea that we're going to do what it takes to survive and to eventually thrive and if we can't thrive at least our kids will no shame just doing what it takes and that is an attitude I think that has been lost a bit but I hope is rekindled now because it is very empowering to say I'm not going to feel humiliated about having to do what I need to do for myself or my family I'm gonna do it so anyway I appreciate you sharing that because it's it's rare that we get to hear those kind of stories now as for the earning more what do you do it's funny you know for the first thing that happened when coronavirus hit was people started emailing and DMing me and saying I I'll tell you about a real woman who DME and she said ramiz I've been following you for three years she said I'm a nurse and I was playing around with the idea of starting a business but seeing everything that's going on all this follow your passion build logos it all seems so ridiculous it seems so foolish and I said to her I said you know thanks for being in the healthcare field I appreciate that but if somebody needs a logo right now that's not foolish at all so we have to remember that even when the economy has crashed people are still willing to pay for the things that they want and things that they need and this has been true for thousands of years people have paid to adorn themselves with clothes they've paid for food they've paid for entertainment so right now what you see is really two different groups of people you see the people whose first reaction is to say why everything won't work Oh nobody would pay for anything there's no money around and then you see the entrepreneurs who say wait a minute it's going to be harder certain industries are not going to make any money right now fine let me accept reality but wow there's a lot of kids around sitting at home and their parents will pay anything so that they're learning something and leaving them alone so they can work Wow what are you doing on Friday night nothing like every other Friday night I will pay for something that my husband and I or my wife and I or my girlfriend boyfriend and I can do just for 20 bucks just to let us enjoy life for that two hours on a Friday night so there are massive opportunities I will tell you that we have seen our business continue to grow during this time and I have lots of examples of my own readers and students who have grown their businesses during this time - yeah that that is a really good point and my my obsession is getting people to understand something that you have said multiple times here and I've seen your content a million times and in my own words it's you're going to see what you look for so if you're looking for the problems you're going to see the problems and it's like dude it's so simple and it's so easy and I want it like literally throw my computer across the room because people just they don't I don't know if it is because it's so simple that they don't realize how you yourself up by what you look for and there's a great quote I forget who it's by but it doesn't matter what you look at it matters what you see and if you look at this legitimately like in 2009 when we started founding quest this was at the like height of the Great Recession and we just it did it wasn't even like a part of a conversation about whether we could launch a company at that time it was a question of is there a need that we can fill with this product can we add value to people's lives are we passionate are we interested and then of course it ends up being huge but it was like if people could have been there for the conversation and fene what we were looking for which is oh what what could we do that would really add value to people what do we care about what are we interested in like yo like let's do this like this will be fun this to be exciting and if you ask yourself a fundamentally different question in the question I highly encourage everyone ask is what would I love failing at and if you do that dude like then it all becomes fun I can't guarantee that you're going to win right so I always tell people the success is not guaranteed the struggle is okay well if the struggle is the thing that's guaranteed like what would you love going to bat for every day but the problem is like you said people are just listing off all the reasons why it's not going to work why they're backed into a corner all of that and I cannot say enough people are going to win in this time Romania is going to win they're going to be they're going to be people that come out of this with huge company that somebody laid out the number of tech companies that we think of today as being the behemoth uber get they listed like six or seven zoom that all came out during the Great Recession and now they are dominant for yeah but when they come out it was like what are you doing this is the worst time to start a business yeah I started I my book came out March 2009 and that was the absolute worst point of the Great Recession and I love what you said about the conversations you were having let me try the conversations I had so I had a book on money and investing I will teach you to be rich the first edition came out I went on tour to all these cities all these local news producers would into the green room before I went on air and they say what are you planning to talk about and I would say well I'm going to talk about how to negotiate your salary how to invest for the long-term and on and on and they looked at me like I was a Martian they're like are you aware there's 10 percent unemployment and I said yeah I get that I know what's going on if you want me to give you a couple of savings tips I'll give you those but are you also aware that there are literally tens of millions of people in this country who want to invest in themselves who understand that although this is a huge issue this is temporary and that we will go back to growth if they just looked at me like I was crazy luckily I don't have a boss I'm my own boss so I went out on air I said what I wanted to say and this is where as an entrepreneur you have to have some conviction you also have to borderline ignore lots of people who will tell you you're crazy because it's easy for people to give you drive-by advice look there they're just driving by all the economy sucks Oh that'll never work and they're basically saying screw you you should give up and and you know what it's easy to identify the drive by advisers much harder to identify your own mind playing tricks on you when you start to say things like this will never work because or who would ever buy this right now you are doing the same thing those drive by advisers are doing you're just driving by your own head you're saying that'll never work so my advice to you on that is don't try to deny it your mind will always play from a position of safety not excellence and so acknowledge it write it down and say okay this will never work this is horrible I suck I'm not good write it down but then open up another piece of paper and say okay I wrote down all the reasons that this might fail now let me write down all the reasons that this might succeed and then take those two piece of paper and look and you choose which one you want to follow dude you just said something that freaked me out cut all the way to my soul which is that your mind will operate from a place of safety not excellence that is so even you're saying it again it gives me the chills to see those as as sides of a coin or opposites maybe is a more interesting way to think of it and that brings me to something that I think is so so so important you give some of the world's best advice no on how to go in and negotiate a raise talk to me in terms of how can people get a job so if you just lost your job like how do you be the kind of person that's going to get hired because my thing is look you talk about accept reality here's reality boys and girls we've got what approaching 30 million people out of work this just became an employer's market you've just had what 10 15 years of being an employees market that is over now you're going to be going into a fiercely competitive environment and the question is how do you stand out yeah I love talking about this I really enjoyed last time we were at your place and talking about this salary negotiation that was a blast so I want to share what I have found in the last one month so I have access to a lot of hiring managers both my friends and in my I will teach you to be rich community and I reached out to them and I said hiring managers tell me what are you seeing and I also reached out to job applicants I said what you see so here's what I heard first off the job applicants one of them told me I had four interviews going three of them dropped off the face of the earth they just stopped responding okay that was a very common trend I've heard from job applicants that the the markets they were going after just completely dried up so very common interestingly on the hiring managers side there were some people who said their hiring freezes that were immediately instituted but I had some hiring managers who said we are hiring and we can't get enough applicants and I said why do you think that is they're like I think nobody thinks anyone's hiring so there's a whole game being played around us and of course it's true that right now it's an employers job market of course it's true that it's fiercely competitive but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still focus on landing a job and I want to tell you how I think about landing a job right now most people when they see an ambiguous situation they get scared and they freeze they wait for someone to tell them what to do that's because that's what we've been taught since we were kids I don't know what to do is the teacher going to tell me to go over here go over there and we've been indoctrinated ok but in times of ambiguity I think we love it you and I we love we're like ambiguous great I'll create my own opportunity so imagine that you see a job that's in Washington DC and you live in Seattle and it says requires 8 years of experience and dc-based blah blah blah I would look at that and say great I only have 3 years of experience and I live in Seattle I'm going to write the most amazing cover letter and tell them why I deserve this job I'm going to point to the exact briefcase technique things that I've implemented you guys can Google briefcase technique and learn about that and I'm going to tell them look I work in Seattle we can discuss DC but nobody's working physically right now so we might as well just get this started so you'll have to wait for the right candidate I am the right candidate in other words take all the rules and put them aside it's a different time for most people they get scared by that ambiguity for you you're listening to this you're watching this you can create your own rules right now in the old days when people used to carry around a briefcase you go in for an interview and they say alright tell me you know tell me about yourself blah blah blah those are all rote questions and yes you should answer them but what really distinguishes a top performer in an interview is that they say let me tell you know I spoke to several people on your team I did a little research I studied the interviews you've given to the press recently and I put together a little 90 day plan for what I would do in my role let me show you boom you see a trapeze pull out your briefcase you give them a copy of your document and then you say let me walk you through this now as you do this the managers jaw drops you know she can't believe that somebody came in and did this level of preparation now let's just zoom out for a second there's two types of people listening to this right now the first type is saying call room eat how are you going to find out any of the information you're so presumptuous Oh who would ever think that you could go in and tell a company what to do those people will fail because you're looking for reasons for this exercise not to work so why don't you just give up right now and save the middleman you're always going to look for why something won't work the other people aka that thousands of people online who have publicly talked about using the briefcase technique they go in and they do their homework they use what we call natural networking from our career program they meet other people at the company they study what the company's strategies are they also accept that they probably can't get it all right from the outside they're doing the best they can 85% is better than nothing and they walk in with a proposal and although their proposal isn't going to be perfect because they're on the outside they did more than anyone else and they just decimate the competition and we see what you a hiring manager do when you see that your jaw drops and you can't help but hire that person dude that is that is the gospel truth one of the things that I always worry about with people in a time of crisis and this speaks to you saying people freeze is if you're in fight-or-flight mode quite literally the blood is leaving your prefrontal cortex your cortisol levels the stress hormone skyrockets you actually don't think well and so being able to find a way to send yourself to calm down to get focus so that you can execute on creating a plan you know just to keep it to the 90-day plan to create a plan that's actually useful you're not coming from a place of desperation you're not coming from a place of panic like you're really getting yourself to leverage the skills that you have and then if you don't have skills now is the time man like you got to be building that skillset man I'm so glad you're talking about this so I want to share how I implement some strategies for that so for people watching and listening you know our business we have about 20 or 25 different programs everything from arable start a business find your dream job learn how to find a job and actually interview and use the brief all that stuff but I don't allow people with credit card debt to join the flagship programs the really high end ones and that decision cost us millions of dollars every single year now why do I do that there's a couple of reasons number one I believe that if people had all the information and motivation in the world about credit card interest rates for example that they would pay off their credit card debt first before joining our fairly expensive $2,000 or more programs that's logical if you understood the math so and the second thing is just the right thing to do I don't want to take somebody's money when they can pay off their debt use Chapter one of my book and come back we'll be here we've been here 16 years we'll be here 16 more well but the third thing is people can't focus on long term work if they're worried about how they're gonna pay their rent and that's why for everybody listening if you're thinking about starting a business or finding a job etc first thing you got to do is take care of yourself and your loved ones and that means make sure you have a plan for your rent make sure that you know you know what what is your son or daughter going to be doing tomorrow when they're at home are they gonna be learning something I'll be watching TV whatever the case is you got to cover the basics first if you don't cover the basics and then you go try and look for a job of course you're not going to be competitive with someone else who's methodical calm cool and collected so I want everyone to really understand and internalize what you said it all comes in steps and if you're going out trying to compete with other top performers you need to be in fighting condition as well yeah man that's really an interesting approach and first of all 16 years I needed been in business for more than ten congratulations that's that's huge that is not easy to pull off especially given that this all you know what you would have been going through 16 years ago in terms of the ups and downs of the economy super impressive so dude I think you have some of the best actionable advice for like people at a personal level where can people connect with you where can they get that daily or weekly dose of advice as they navigate through this so you can find me at I will teach you to be rich calm the newsletter is the primary place we send a lot of our best up there if you want to know I'm on Instagram akram eek I'm on YouTube a tree meets a tea and I'm on Twitter a true meet overall I just want people to remember that there are some different ways of thinking about money business and careers then you have been taught from the general mass media and if they're listening and watching right here they know they're getting a different perspective so I want people to know you don't have to only cut back you can earn more that even in times like this of crisis you don't have to play defense you can actually go on offense and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel whether you are a beginning entrepreneur or you work a nine-to-five there is an approach you can take that's going to set you up for success so that's what I hope people find in my material no question man so last question I have for you if people are going to make one change that would have the biggest impact on them weathering the storm what change would you have them make take your calendar blank it out right now just wipe everything off and start planning your week for how you want your day to go and do it just for five days honor the calendar you set pick your time and make it valuable for the things you care about if it's your relationships put the time on the calendar if it's finding a job do that if it's optimizing your personal finances do that but start by taking control of your time your process and the results will follow I love that for me dude thank you so much for coming on man I really hope people will follow up and stay engaged with what you're doing I've watched a ton of your content the stuff that you were doing nightly the fireside chats and stuff it's powerful dude and if people actually take the advice I'm telling you guys this is a weather a bull storm but you actually have to put into action the things that he's talking about if you just listen and you don't actually do it this really will be just an excruciatingly ly brutal time but I promise there is a port in every storm and I think his advice is exactly that speaking of important storm if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary take care everybody it's time to talk about all of our favorite subjects mental health is there something holding you back or preventing you from achieving your goals or even just in hearing with your happiness do any of you suffer from depression or anxiety as a lot of you guys know I've suffered from anxiety for years and trying to tackle something like that on your own is not always the optimal strategy but a lot of people are super nervous to try out therapy or they don't really know where to start or they're just plain embarrassed but now there's a service called better help that makes therapy more accessible and affordable better help is professional counselling done securely online using your computer tablet or mobile phone through video calls phone calls or text messaging with licensed therapists who are certified by their state's board to provide therapy and counseling it is not self-help and it's not a crisis line it's an online service available worldwide and it has a massive network of counselors who have a broad and diverse range of specialties so you can get a counselor with the sort of expertise that might not even be available in your local area better help assesses your needs and matches you with a licensed professional therapist within 24 hours you can log into your account anytime to message your counselor and better help also has group in our sessions every week where members can learn in groups directly from licensed counselors on multiple topics like relationships and ways to overcome anxiety especially if the thought of seeking help makes you nervous or embarrassed be sure to check out the over 60,000 positive reviews posted on the better help site and that's better help heelp better help is committed to making it easy for you to access a therapeutic help you need even if you have never gone to counseling before it's free to switch therapists it's more affordable than local therapy and they even have financial aid available if you need it better help wants you to start living a happier life two-day visit better help.com / impact and again that spelled better h e LP and join over 500,000 people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced profession better help cost just $65 per week and financial aid is available for those who qualify during the signup process as an impact Theory reviewer you can get 10% off your first month so visit better help.com slash impact and get the help you need today alright guys if you need this one please give it a shot take care and be legendary the first way that most people think is like if I'm going to negotiate for a raise which like well they might just like fire me that's problem number one that's that's the wrong way to look at it if you go in and ask for a raise you're not devaluing yourself you're actually increasing your value

Channel: Tom Bilyeu

Views: 224,384

Rating: 4.8796554 out of 5

Keywords: Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory, ImpactTheory, TomBilyeu, Inside Quest, InsideQuest, Tom Bilyou, Theory Impact, motivation, inspiration, talk show, interview, motivational speech, Ramit Sethi, IT, rich, I will teach you to be rich, teach me to be rich, lattes, expenses, rich life, emergency fund, financial stability, investing, stock market, job interview, unemployed, get hired, savings, interest rates, cost cutting, student loans, credit card debt

Id: mokyNBWZ8wg

Length: 47min 27sec (2847 seconds)

Published: Tue May 12 2020