What I Won't Say About Money on Camera

0:00Every guest gets to a point in my podcast where they won't tell the truth about something. There's a line they won't cross. Here's my version of it for you. >> Mhm. >> What's the one thing about money you believe that you've never said in a video? >> I'm I I very much struggle to answer that question because I feel like I've scrubbed every surface of money that I've [laughter] that I've that I've seen. You know what I mean? Like how to store it, how to make it, how to multiply it.

0:34How to get people to give it to you, how to give it to other people. You know, the the upsides of money, the downsides of money. Like in a lot of it is just cuz like money isn't even a thing. Like it's just it's just a a generalized means of exchange. Like that's really it. And so I don't think there's like some deep dark secret of money.

1:00Like it's just a unit of measurement for us to store, you know, to measure value. And that's why I fundamentally like you don't even make money, you earn money by exchanging, by giving value and getting it back and then getting money as a monetary exchange for you giving something and then them not giving you anything back so they have to give you money. Right? [laughter] If you do something for someone else and they provide value back, you don't need to exchange money cuz hopefully the value was equal. If the value was unequal, you have some value and the rest is made up with money. It's just the the way that we we we uh balance accounts more than anything. But many of the talking heads that I see on the internet talking about money will use vague terminology and try to anthropomorphize money in terms of trying to make it human or some sort of amorphous thing or they'll add mysticism to it or manifesting it or attracting it or there's energy, money has a frequency.

1:57They make up all this stuff. And I think it's because they cannot be clear with their language in observable terms, and it is easier to confuse people with rhetoric in terms of words that sound good when set together than the reality of what money really is. And so because they cannot be clear about giving instructions, because they are not good enough to do it. There's a quote that I was told a lot when I was younger, which is um I don't agree with it. But it was said by somebody that I don't I don't particularly enjoy.

2:28Um but the individual said, um if you cannot impress them with your intelligence, confuse them with your [ __ ] And um I would say that like I would say I live my life in the exact opposite of that. Of of uh Do not try to impress people with your intelligence, and also do not speak [ __ ] Just tell the truth. State the facts. Tell the truth. It's the number one thing that we say in this marketing department above all else. But the thing is is that it's the whole truth.

2:54That's the hard part. It's the It's all the way down. It's six layers down truth. How like how true can this be? Um I'll give you an I'll give you a story to to illustrate this example. There was a guy who had a um he had a company that taught people how to like trade stocks, which is like a little okay. Day trading is probably not the And he's teaching day trading. And so um he he asked to meet, and I was like I was very skeptical of this conversation to begin with. He said, "I want to grow this business." And I said "You have a big flashing Vegas lights above your head, which is if you're so good at trading, why should I listen to you?"

3:36And so he's like, "Well, I have $100 million in verified earnings from trading." And I was like, "Okay." This is by the way why I took why conversation. I was like, "Okay, that's fine." Then why are you selling courses on it instead of just like going making trades? He's like, "Well, I want to make I want to impact people blah blah blah. And I was like, "No, you don't, dude." No. You don't. What do you like Please tell me the truth cuz I won't be able to help you if you tell me the truth. And this went back and forth for a little bit until eventually he was like, "I I couldn't sleep. I lost weight. The amount of stress that trading it ruined my life. I couldn't find anyone to date because I had to trade 24 hours a day and it it just ruined my health and my dad died at 50 and I just saw myself going to the same path and he's like, "I've made enough and I don't want to keep doing this as my main thing." And I was like, "That's the truth." So, in your marketing, you need to tell the whole truth, which is you need to say that, which is trading ruined my life.

4:33It's also the only thing I'm good at. And so, if you want to make enough money to ruin your life, I can show you at least how I did it. I can't promise it's going to happen for you. Um and my hope is that you make enough that you stop doing this and you can do something else. That is a compelling marketing message. Is it believable? Much more. >> I would buy that cuz it sounds like he's being honest. >> it. Yeah, cuz you believe it, though. And so, that's the thing is it's like people look for these angles in marketing, but like the the rarest stuff out there is the whole truth.

5:02>> [laughter] >> Yeah, do you want to do something really hard and You tell the whole thing. You tell the whole thing. The whole truth. And that is what will make uh compelling advertising. So, to the the whole the whole truth of money is more so that people who lack skills around money make up words that sound good that mean nothing and confuse many people. And as a result, they take action on things that do not result in any money making and are confused as to why it doesn't work because their model of reality is flawed.

5:37And I would say that the vast majority of content I put out there, the reason I define terms so aggressively before I make statements or before I answer a question, it's like, "Well, are we agreeing on these terms? Is because unless we agree on terms, the reason every agreement that makes any sense, the first part of every legal agreement, which means that we have communication that has stakes, is a recital of [ __ ] definitions. What does territories mean? What does non-compete mean? What are Like, we have to define these terms. And so, it's it's funny because like I was uh at a podcast the other day and they were like, "Well, what do you mean by that?" And they like try to throw it at me. I was like, "I will define anything that I say because I stand by the words that I'm saying. I choose these words for a reason."

6:17When someone asks a question, and then I ask them, "What do you mean by that?" And then they get flustered. I'm like, "Well, then you're asking me to answer a question for a word that you cannot define. So, how am I supposed to get you what you want if you don't even know what you're asking?" I had an exchange recently with [laughter] um with uh um someone in this company um that uh not that recently, but uh that they made a request that I speak to them um more more politely or kinder.

6:51And I said, "I'm super happy to. What does that mean to you?" And so, it ended up being that they wanted me to put a prefix before I before I made statements. So, it's like, "Could you just ask these as questions rather than as statements?" And I said, "To be clear, if I do if I say it as a question instead of a statement, you will deem that kindness and and and politeness has been has been checked." They were like, "Yes." I was like, "Done." And literally, as soon as I started doing that, they were thrilled to tears. And I was thrilled to tears, too, cuz I want to communicate in the way that is your preference. If your preference doesn't cost me anything to do, then I'm happy to to oblige, right? But the thing is is that so many people use these words, and these words are used every day. Kindness, politeness, empathetic, energy, you know what I mean? Vibe.

7:34Until we define what they mean, we're just making noise at each other assuming the person knows when we don't even know. When someone says, "I I'll know when I see it," that just means that you haven't defined it yet. If you want to see it more, tell them what you want to see. >> [laughter] >> And that takes work because you have to think, "Oh man, Susan's so lazy." You're like, "What makes Why is she lazy? Like what did she do to cause you to say that?"

8:01And then eventually it gets really down to like she's pretty slow on Slack to respond to [ __ ] Okay. Well, if you want Susan to not be a lazy Susan, um >> [laughter] >> then we just need to say, "Hey Susan, just respond to Slack faster. People start to stop thinking you're lazy." That's it? Great. It's just like when you drill down, it's like you can become clear with your communication. And so I would say that the vast majority of communication around money, my attempt at all has been absolute truth and truth is that I define it as an observable reality. And I try to use only terms that I can say that I can see with my eyes so that other people can also see it with their eyes and do with their hands and feet.

8:36>> If you like this video and you're business owner who wants to break through your current revenue ceiling, I distilled every lesson from scaling 10 businesses past 10 million and three businesses past 100 million into a completely free scaling roadmap that I've used to go from zero to one, zero to 10, and zero to 100 plus. And so you can click here and you can check it out. Again, absolutely free and since you're business owner, I appreciate you and enjoy.