One of the best ways to be happy is to share your wealth with others. – AUDIO NSFW
Let’s get into it, guys. I have a ton of notes on this and I typed them out on my computer here to make sure that I give it to you guys in the best way that I possibly can. I want to talk to you guys about 7 money lessons, thoughts on money that you didn’t learn in school. I wanted to make sure that I chunked it up this way. Let’s just jump right into it, guys.
Money, money, money—it’s taken me this long to talk about money. It runs the world guys every single day as an adult you have to engage with this thing called money. Isn’t it fascinating? I find it fascinating. This is the very subject in which we as adults have to engage with everyday, this idea of money, but yet it’s the very subject that isn’t even remotely talked about or studied in school.
What am I talking about? Management of personal finances. Good financial responsibility. Good financial management. The right attitudes when it comes to saving money. The right attitudes and behaviors when it comes to investing money. The right attitudes and behaviors about spending money.
Let’s just talk about emotions. Why emotional spending is never a great idea. I can raise my hand right now. Golly, I’m going to tell you straight up. I went through a phase. I haven’t done it now because I’m married now. But I will tell you that I had a really interesting knee-jerk reaction whenever I broke up with a girlfriend. I just bought a new car. I only did this like three or four times. This could have easily become a pattern if I had never gotten married.
For me, there was just something about if you break up, you’re done, you just go buy a new car. It doesn’t matter if the car if just had a car and you just bought it nine months ago or six months ago. Not a good idea guys. It’s not a good idea to buy a car after you break up because my tastes interestingly enough continued to get more expensive.
This is what we need to talk about. These are the things that you don’t learn in school about how to manage money, the right behaviors, attitudes, how to control your emotions around this. Maybe it’s just because the teachers in schools these days don’t know financial responsibility yet either. Maybe that’s why maybe it never comes up. The teachers themselves aren’t actually good with money and maybe that’s why they’re there. Maybe that’s why they’re teachers because let’s be honest, certainly, ain’t nobody gettin rich being a teacher.
We all know why the teachers are there. The teachers are there because they have a higher calling in life. But we have to be intellectually honest on this podcast, being a teacher is not a great way, certainly not a great way to become extremely wealthy.
Guys, in today’s episode, I want to talk with you guys. I want to talk to you through some talking points and some ideas around money that I have found in life to be essentially true for me, okay? This is for me and these certainly were not taught, they were not taught to me in school.
Let’s go through 7 money lessons from your boy, Peter, right here guys. Let’s jump right in.
- Learn to manage your money.
Learn to manage your money. This is gonna be easy and quick. Detail out your spending. Go to an Excel or Google document or free cell-based system and detail out your spending. It is fascinating to me how many people in life do not understand what their accounts look like. Understand net versus gross income, okay? Understand net versus gross income. Understand entertainment costs versus living costs. Create a budget. Stick to it. When you’re blessed with more money, slam it into debt and don’t increase your lifestyle if you don’t need to. That’s pretty much it.
This is a short list here for number one. Learn to manage your money. I actually agonized over this because I was thinking about what are all the things that they don’t teach you in school about managing your money. I agonized over this for at least five to seven minutes, guys. I agonized over this and I came out with basically six bullet points under number one. Let me go through them quickly because it was that easy.
Detail out spending – Excel or Google Doc. Understand net versus gross income. Understand entertainment costs versus living costs. Create a budget. Stick to it. When blessed with more money, slam it into debt and don’t increase your lifestyle beyond what you need to. Learn to manage you freaking money. Learn to manage it.
- The pursuit of pleasure it leads to poverty in life in more than one way.
This is where we get into the deeper stuff. The pursuit of pleasure when it comes to money. The pursuit of pleasure costs money. The pursuit of pleasure it leads to poverty in life in more than one way. Guys, I have met individuals mostly men—I don’t hang out with many women—mostly men who have and live in a lifestyle of pursuing a pleasure and that leaves them broke in all ways. It leaves them broken always, both tangibly and emotionally and spiritually.
You see the pursuit of pleasure when it comes to money is that it is insatiable. Pleasure is insatiable. It is impossible to satisfy. Trust me I’ve tried it. I’ve tried it when it comes to cars. I’ve tried it when it comes to certain things in life. I’ve tried thing—not that much. I’ve tried stuff okay? The fact is that money will never help you satiate it. It’ll only be a cost accounting. It’ll only be a cost center in your life.
Living for the pursuit of pleasure will only cost you everything. It’ll leave you broke. Well maybe not broke if you have trillions of dollars or what-have-you, but it’s gonna leave you broke – emotionally spiritually. It’s gonna leave you empty because pleasure without purpose, don’t miss this guy’s, without greater purpose produces a very empty life. Pleasure without a greater purpose produces very empty life.
Haven’t you heard the stories of celebrities who’ve pursued pleasure for so long and feeling empty inside? All the sex, drugs, rock n roll, I guess, is the devil’s promise – empty and impossible to fulfill. You end up being spent. You can’t have all the sex in the world. You can’t have all the drugs in the world. And you certainly can’t have all the proverbial rock n roll in the world. At the end of the day, even the biggest rock stars, even the biggest celebrities and those who you think have it all, end up often, unfortunately with a gun to their head or their mouth because they’re so depressed. They have been left empty in life. The pursuit of pleasure leads to poverty. More than just money, it leaves to poverty of soul. Guys, don’t get sucked in to the world of pleasure and money. It’s not a place that is worth a being.
- Being motivated by money makes you miserable.
I can raise my hand. I have gone through phases in life, my friends, in which I have been motivated by money. It makes you absolutely miserable. Why? Because the people who are motivated by money are never content. They’re never content you’re always frustrated about the money aspect of X, the money aspect of Y, the money aspect of Z. It ruins all your experiences.
I’m speaking from experience guys. Being money motivated ruins everything around you. It puts a gray cloud on everything that you do. I can tell you examples guys of when periods of my life, early in our marriage in which it’s just a phase of life that I had to go through. I was more money-focused than other times and certainly not now. It just sucks the life out of everything. I remember I couldn’t even go to the aquarium without complaining about the price of the aquarium, complaining about the price of the parking ticket, complaining about the price of the popcorn, complaining about the price of…
What’s wrong with me? I had plenty of money at that time. I wasn’t starving. We were going to the fucking aquarium. Why do I gotta be complaining about bullshit? You see people who are money-consumed, they’re motivated by money, they see everything through the lens of money and they’re calculating the costs all the time. It’s frustrating. It’s terrible to be around those people. I’m talking from experience guys. Increasing an insatiable desire for the next deal, the next opportunity to make more or to save.
One of the biggest problems with being motivated by money is it makes you compromise your values and your character and even common sense. It frustrates you constantly. It makes you compromise that which you hold to be valuable because the next deal, the opportunity to make just a little bit more money is far more important at that moment in time than your character and your personality and your integrity.
You know a couple of ironies that I wrote down here?
Irony #1: Your family suffers the most. I can speak from experience guys. Your family suffers the most. even though your desire is for them to enjoy the benefits that money may produce for them in their lives and the opportunities. You might say that’s crazy talk. Peter, it sounds like you can’t fucking win! Because yeah, you’re maybe motivated by money, call it a character flaw. Your family gets to reap all the rewards of all of your hard work. They get to drive nice cars, live in a nice place, go to nice schools, get nice things.
I’m here to tell you guys, hand raised, Boy Scout’s honor, scout’s honor guys, the irony of being money focused is that your family suffers the most. They’re the ones that can’t stand to be around you. They’re the ones who are always hearing you complain. They’re the ones who are always thinking that you’re gonna be nickel and dime and thinking about the cost. When you’re having fun and you want to have great experiences in life, the cost should not even come up within the calculus of those decisions.
Irony #2: Being money oriented actually constrains your ability to make even more money. Being money motivated actually constrains or limits your ability to make more money because spending time with money can never compare to spending time with people.
Another way of saying this. Agonizing over all the details of money in your life in every situation that comes by can never compare with spending time with people. Figuring out problems to solve is far more valuable to the world than trying to retrofit your product or service so you can squeeze more money out of your customer or squeeze more money out of this event or squeeze more money out of this particular circumstance.
Guys, you know what makes more money? Not squeezing people. Not bleeding whatever is left of what you got. Spending time with people is where real money is made is; where real problems can be solved; where real conversation can happen. This is how you make more money. So the irony is that being money-oriented, being money-motivated, being money-focused actually constrains or limits your ability to make more money.
Money motivation at the end of the day is the antithesis of mission motivation, mission motivation. Mission-motivation gives you the ability to say no when it comes to money because if you’re money-motivated, guess what, you never say no to more money. But the problem with never saying no and you guys know this is the problem with never saying no is you end up saying yes to everything. And in turn, overtime, you always end up compromising your values because you say yes to everything and then you try to figure out a way to get out of it.
A personal anecdote, I’ve never been motivated by money for extended periods of time. Usually, I have been motivated by money for short periods of time, usually during a growth phase of a company or have to be financially ridiculously accountable to my investors, these types of things. It puts me in this mood of just being super hyper, hyper money-focused but often in my life, I’ll tell you this that money has generally been an outcome, a by-product of my hard work.
One of the biggest problems with being motivated by money is that there’s this thing called death. Actually, that’s a good segue. That’s a good segue.
- You came with nothing. You will leave with nothing.
You came into this world with nothing. Guess what? You will leave with nothing. Money can only delay death. Money doesn’t avoid it. Money only delays death, but it doesn’t avoid it. At the end of the day, you came here with nothing and you’re gonna end in this place with nothing.
You need to see money for what it really is. Money is merely a tool. That’s all it is. It’s a tool within your tool belt. Tools don’t extend your life. But do you know what tools do? They make your life better. Tools don’t remove responsibility for you to do the right thing in life, but tools help you do the right thing and make it worth it. What I really mean to say here is that spend money on worthy causes, spend money on worthwhile experiences, spend more money on your family and your family’s experiences over others. That’s what I’m really saying. That money can only delay death. Let me put it that way. Money could only delay death. It doesn’t avoid death and money is merely another tool in your tool belt to further enjoy the experiences in life.
Put your money towards things that are worthwhile, not to the pursuit of your own pleasures. We’ve already experienced that. You already know what that looks like. You’ve seen the stories. You’ve seen the VH1 behind the scenes, the MTV reel or whatever. You already know what that looks like. Since money can’t avoid death, it only delays it, use money as merely a tool to make the experiences in life worth living.
Money, you can’t accumulate enough and even if you accumulate enough at the end of the day, it’s not gonna be yours. It’s gonna be someone else’s. That’s another thing like when it comes to money and wealth and things, they’re material goods. One thing that’s come to me in multiple rounds in my life, a stark realization that everything that I’ve built and everything that I’ve worked so hard for is actually going to end up being owned by someone else later down in life.
You know I could build this wonderful and beautiful home, but at the end of the day it’s not going to actually be mine. It’s going to be owned by someone else. Someone else is gonna take over and buy it. They’re gonna live in it. They’re gonna do things differently. They might extend it. They might remove certain parts of it. But at the end of the day, it’s not mine. I’m going to perish and I’m going to go away just like my daughter did as she walked in and walked out. I’m gonna go away and none of it really mattered. None of it really mattered.
- When it comes to money, learn to know a good deal.
Learn to know a good deal. Let me tell you the number one best kind of gut check when it comes to deals. It has to feel and sound like a good deal before it’s actually a good deal. This is generic, might not be helpful, but #5 is learn to know a good deal. Everything has a cost to it. Everything has a cost – physical, emotional, spiritual. Everything has a cost. Everything has a cost. Everything has a cost.
Learn to understand the long-term costs of decisions. The more that you get better at this, realizing that everything has a cost, you know what that beautiful girl that you worked so hard for and you saw that she was a little bit shallow this, this, this, and this in this way and you don’t like this, this, this thing that she does but you finally able to date her and she’s finally your girlfriend? Well guess what, you’re now living the costs of that decision.
Oh that car that you wanted to get? That 1982 piece of that you really wanted that you told your spouse that you’re just gonna fix up and it was gonna be easy? What’s the long-term costs? What’s the long-term cost, guys?
Learn to know a really good deal. It has to sound and feel good in all ways before it’s actually a good deal. You have to count the cost. Everything has a cost – physical, emotional, spiritual. Learn to understand the long-term costs of these decisions that you make. Cost is only an issue often in the absence of value. Learn to purchase goods and services that align with your goals and personal values. You’d be surprised how constraining this is in a good way. If you actually purchase things based on values, you purchase things that are aligned to your goals, then you actually don’t purchase that much.
A lot of the crap that we buy, a lot of the junk that we buy with money is for mere entertainment. It’s time bandits. It steals time from you. It takes away from your goals. If you were to only purchase stuff, let’s look at this in the positive, if you were only purchase stuff that are aligned to your goals, you wouldn’t have a lot. You wouldn’t own a lot.
I’ll give you my one of my best examples. When I was going through my master’s programs, my master’s degrees when I was younger, I lived in a single apartment. I rented out a room a 10×8 room essentially that was like $300. When I would sleep, guys, I could almost touch both sides of the room with my feet and have my arms stretched out, certainly, I could do that.
I live super cheap because there was no point in purchasing anything opposed to just making sure that I can bring money in that’ll be slammed towards the cost and the expense of these master’s degrees. Guys, I did that for three-and-a-half years. I grinded through that. I only spent money on things that were aligned with my personal values and my personal goals. You’ll find how much money you save when you align yourselves to your right goals into the right things in life.
- Money doesn’t buy happiness. Sharing your wealth is real happiness.
Now, I’m gonna go into this a little bit because I’ve heard plenty of people say that this is bullshit and I have heard plenty of jokes like “I’d rather be crying in my Bentley than in my Chevy”. Yeah, I get it. I get it. I get it. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but I’ll concede that there is actually some truth that money can buy happiness. It really can for a moment. It’s kind of like the pursuit of pleasure. It’s an insatiable idea of this happiness. Yeah it comes and it goes, but it’s fleeting and it’s for a moment in time.
Here’s what I really think this thing, this ideas should be when it comes to money doesn’t buy happiness. How about this? The best way of saying this would be to say that one of the best ways to be happy is to share your wealth with others. Let me say that again. One of the best ways to be happy is to share your wealth with others.
Or said differently, money can buy happiness temporarily as everything tends to grow dull over time. Does it not? Doesn’t everything tend to grow dull? Even the Lambos, guys! Even the Lambos tend to grow dull over time. Even if you put flamethrowers on there and strike pipe that thing and it’s the loudest thing that you can hear for two miles away. It still gets dull. Even the race cars get dull. Even that pretty little thing gets dull.
This is the nature of the world, guys. Familiarity breeds contempt over time, does it not? Familiarity breeds contempt. It’s too easy. You don’t appreciate it like you used to, guys. I’m going way into this. But let me get back to it. Money can buy happiness temporarily as everything tends to grow dull over time, but sharing your wealth with others consistently allows for richer and fuller experiences in life. That’s what I wrote down. I love sharing my wealth with others.
Yeah, money can buy temporary happiness. I’ll concede to that. So when people say money can’t buy happiness, I tend to chuckle and say well, it can buy temporary happiness, but sharing your wealth with others, that brings in my mind eternal, eternal contentedness, eternal well-being, eternal feel good, good juju, when others can benefit from the wealth that you’ve accumulated, the money that you have.
I would even go as far as to say that there was once a famous prophet back in the day who talked about money not pretty often of sorts in the old books of sorts. He generally, when it came to money, his ideas of money were to use money to influence others, to use money to help others, to use money to take care of others, and so there you too shall gain in those rewards. You too shall gain in that contentedness. You too shall gain in the value of giving life to others through your wealth. I like this idea from this old prophet of sorts back in the day. I think he knew what was up.
- Being all you can be in this world is possible for everyone.
Being all you can be in this world is possible for everyone. Let me say that again. If you’ve missed it, blanked out, you’ve been chilling in the shack or maybe you’ve been listening too long and you started to tune out a little bit, let me go over this again. Being all you can be is possible for everyone, but being rich, being rich with material wealth is not for everyone. Sorry guys. I think that’s just something that people need to wake up to.
Being all you can be is possible for everyone. Yeah! You could be everything that you can be. You can be the best version of you. You can be the most contented and successful and grateful individual of the life that you’ve been given by the good Lord above. You can be all that you can be, but being rich with material wealth is not for everyone. Sorry not sorry.
Having lots of money doesn’t mean that you’re successful or even happy or content or even that you’re a good person. I think we could probably think of a plenty of examples of where people have lots of money, but they’re not good people. Having lots of money just means that you have lots of money. That’s it. Having lots of money just means you have lots of money.
Go back to my podcast on that if you want information of around who your identity, where your identity really should be. But who you are and having your identity inside is where your real wealth is. How do I know this? I’ll give you my best example. How do I know that who you are and your identity being inside here is where your real treasure lies or your real wealth lies. It’s all in here guys. How do I know this to be true? How do I know this to be true? I’ll tell you my best example.
How I know this to be true that my true wealth, my true riches are inside and not my money is because my kids don’t care about my money. They only care that I’m here, that I’m there, that I’m with them. You said, well, Peter, that’s not a good example. Yeah it is because it’s based on my example of my life going back.
That was all that I frankly cared about. I didn’t care if my dad had money. Actually, he had no money, but I didn’t care about my dad’s financial position. I just cared that he was there. I just cared that my mom was there. I just cared that my brothers and sisters were there during that sporting event, during that spelling bee, during that competition, during that moment when I really needed them. That’s what I cared about. Nothing else mattered.
If I looked back into my old life, my younger life, my formulative years, my elementary, my middle school, even my high school—I never cared about what money my parents had. Frankly, it wasn’t even within the need the calculus of my decisions back then anyway. I tell you, even if it were one of the options, it would be probably one of the last options.
The first option, the thing that I cared most about is that they were there. That’s why I know that this inside being present having experiences using a money for experiences, using money to help others, using money to further others only brings back good treasure in life to you, good blessings, good juju to you.
Nobody cares about the money you have. They care about what’s inside. If you are one of those individuals who are greatly blessed with lots of wealth, people will bless you even more if you use your wealth for them. If you use your wealth to create awesome experiences to help people, to put them to the worthy causes in life. That’s where real riches are. That’s where real wealth is. That’s what they don’t teach you in school. They don’t teach you none of this in school.
Let me know in the comments below. Did I miss anything? What are other money things that you didn’t learn in school? Thanks for joining me in this episode of Things You Can Learn In School. We are getting close to the end here guys.