Mathew is a personal finance coach who came to this county to live the American dream, but who found out that path to financial freedom was not obvious, especially when tragedy hits.
Staying in control of your finances is important, especially during times of crisis. Mathew Paul, Managing Partner and Financial Coach of Mayanah shows us how his life experiences and faith shaped his views about solving your money problems and using your success to help others who are struggling financially. Mathew and I talk about his experiences as an immigrant from India and how the loss of loved ones, unexpected expenses, and the '08 recession forced him to rethink the way he managed his finances.
05:00 The importance of setting aside fun/personal funds when budgeting.
09:03 How much money are you giving away for charity work?
17:11 Wanting to live the American dream leads to poor management of money.
18:21 Mathew talks about losing his loved ones, unexpected medical expenses, and how the economic recession of '08 worsened his financial woes.
28:53 How Mathew turned his life around and took control of his money.
29:58 Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University https://www.daveramsey.com/fpu
36:05 We are currently living in a reactive world instead of being proactive.
37:50 Little things add up to elephants in the room
47:19 There is no shame in reaching out and asking for help.
53:50 How do you find your very best experts?
55:50 Digital marketing learning the language of your best customer.
1:05:16 Financial health and how it helps you take control of your life.
GET IN TOUCH:
MARK LEARY:
www.linkedin.com/in/markhleary
www.leary.cc
MATHEW PAUL:
www.linkedin.com/in/mathewmpaul
www.themayanah.com/
Production credit:
Engineering / Post-Production: Leopold Medley
Art / Design: Immanuel Ahiable
Mark 00:00
So we're rolling, cool. We are live! This is "You're Doing It Wrong" with Mark Henderson Leary and my name is Mark and I have a passion that you should feel in control of your life. And so I want to help entrepreneurial leaders feel more in control of their business. I'm excited to be here with my friend and advisor, Matthew Paul has got a phenomenal story. He works with anybody who's trying to take control of their money, which I think is a really important part of what I just said, taking control of your life, taking control of your business, taking control of your money. So welcome, Matthew.
Matthew 00:32
Thank you, Mark. It's so good to be with you today.
Mark 00:35
How have you been?
Matthew 00:37
I'm good enough. It's raining outside. And I don't like when it rains too much because I don't like to drive on the rain. But yeah, it's good that you know, I'm here and I'm here to hang out with you.
Mark 00:50
So what have you been up to lately?
Matthew 00:53
Meeting with my clients because this is the first week of the month and this is the time when people come to us. They want to get their budgets down. So we spend a lot of time in the office the last week and the first week of the month. And I usually take some break time, or me time if you want to call during the second and the third week of the month. So that's how it is.
Mark 01:14
So interesting. Lots of things cross my mind, because I was actually looking at my budget this morning, behind schedule, and I realized that you and I have not met
Matthew 01:22
Yeah, we have to meet. So that so that's, that's an issue, I realized that and I'm working hard on it. I'm trying to reconcile last month's personal budget. And so for clarity, this is my personal spending budget, my business budget is in another set of buckets that has similar sets of disciplines, but this is how I spend my personal money. And, and I gotta say, I'm really pleased that I was - it seemed like a tragic month. And then when I did the math, it was like, I'm $36 off. And that's perfect, man. I mean, what most of the people think that they're either too much spending too much or they're not spending enough. But the very moment you start tracking and writing it down, you're amazed at you know where you are not that bad. You're up If you've made little bit more control you can be well, I guess. I mean, it's for me, I think it's a constant danger. Like I'm always trying to break open my own discipline like so I feel like you and I worked together for I guess six years, last six or seven months. And I feel pretty confident things are working well. I'm also equally confident that if I get comfortable, it's gonna decay. Because we all have a kid in our in our, in our heart, right? We always wants to have that child nature that tend to do things that tend to obey the break the laws or want to do things outside the normal, right? I mean, we all have some childishness in our hearts. And that's where it comes out. Right? And I value the childishness, right? So I love working with startup companies. I love that hopefulness. I love the optimism that comes with being able to change the world and so I liked that aspect. I like the innocence that goes with it. But there is a lack of discipline that goes with it. And so I fight that I both it's - I'm wrestling with myself constantly, like what is the right balance of discipline? And I get really fanatical about discipline, when and then I get fanatical about passion. Yeah. But that's that's a dangerous road, right mark. So if you we need to allow to make some mistakes in that whole spectrum, right? Because if your -
Mark 03:24
Mistakes, what? No, sorry, I don't do those.
Matthew 03:28
Come man.
Mark 03:28
Actually, I'm just kidding because I'm always I'm trying to get my team's comfortable with this idea that, you know, decisiveness and the good leadership is not about getting it right. It's about committing to it and learning from it. Absolutely. It's not, I mean, there's the least valuable part of making a decision and leadership is the rightness of it. It's more about the commitment and ownership of the outcome.
Matthew 03:45
You are way right
Mark 03:46
And so I can say that and I can teach people that and then in the moment, I'm just like, I am committed to this plan. There's nothing I can let go of related to this plan because departure from the plan is equal to failure.
Matthew 03:57
You know what, I'll give you an example what happened yesterday. I mean, if you know that this is the lent season. And if you look at me, you know that I have some prosperity across my waistline. I wanted to reduce that. So I decided to stay away from all the candies and the sweets and all those stuff. Yesterday night my six year old came back with a pack of m&ms. And after dinner here I am begging her, Can you give me some m&ms? And she's like, Daddy, I thought you're not eating it. I said, Yeah, but one time, you know. So now I decided to do that because in our defense suppress that one, then I'm pretty confident today I will go and eat the whole Snickers bar. So I would rather go and take two and three m&ms and suppress my near at that point and so that you know, I'm not craving for it today or tomorrow.
Mark 04:46
Does that work for you?
Matthew 04:48
To a certain extent, yes. Now, I have a little bit disciplined but if I can, if I suppress my cravings for too long a time, it will come out very fast, very bad. And I will cry. That's what When we create the budgets, you know, every time somebody come and sit with me, I always have a line item called fun money, or personal or something like that. And that is your free money that you can go and spend on whatever that you want to spend on. But if you don't have it, if you put it in too much restrictive, man, we are all humans, right? I mean, we we all like to do childish things and unwanted things. And we need to have that, that free space free, free money that we have to spend,
Mark 05:27
well, I have that budget in my budget line, and I leave it and I even set it to be bigger, like I haven't set it to a certain amount. I want it to be bigger. Every month, anything that goes in there is almost entirely accidental. It's like, you know, I rarely intentionally spend that money in many ways. It's sort of like my safety net. It's like, like, Where am I gonna find that? $36 like, what's - oh luckily I didn't spend anything on entertainment.
Matthew 05:54
That is that's not right, right. I mean, obviously, you know, creating a budget and sticking to it is now To a man, I mean, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon right now it takes some time to get there. There are bills that comes on a quarterly basis, there are bills that comes on a yearly basis, there are bills that comes every bi monthly basis, right? And so it will take some time to get all those accidents out of your way. But you need to have a line item called fund money or blow money or whatever you call for it. So that you can intentionally go and spend that money and maybe watching a movie or you know, go eat some snicker bars or whatever that gives you pleasure in life. So I agree, and this is really, almost all these podcasts are very, very thought provoking to me and to the point where like, I need to listen to them again, because I missed so much of what people say. But I do, I have started doing that in the business in the business side. I do take a tiny portion of the profit. And I'm using Mike Michalowicz' method to do that. And it's a tiny portion where I empower myself to take it. I don't really do it on the personal side yet which you know, emotionally for me it's very, very similar, but I guess there's consequences to other people, I've got to start thinking this through making sure we're rewarding, that kind of stuff. But we could talk more about where that's tricky. But at the business side, I do take a tiny portion, I do set a goal, I do think on a quarterly basis, there's something I'm going to get that I want. And I'm going to really really cherish it as a result of the profit of the reward the business. And it is, it's new for me, I've done it like two or three quarters. And it's like, it's crazy exciting. It's crazy exciting. And I getting I get like, a little piece of like, my coffee world, I'm very obsessed these days with espresso. So it's something about like two quarters ago. It was a coffee grinder, a really nice Burr grinder for my espresso setup. And, and I'm looking forward to some more really geeky espresso gear that's like really expensive relative to what people think you should spend on coffee. And so I am extremely excited and extremely motivated by it. So I'm doing that and I guess I'm thinking now as you're saying this, I probably need to bring that spirit to the personal budget, That is an even better way of doing that. In the business. So when you take a little bit of your profit, right, and there's nothing wrong and putting it on yourself, but imagine giving that small amount of profit to any nonprofit organizations, or anything, for example, there is this organization they they wanted football, because it's an after school program. Most of them have single mothers, and they work late night. And so the kids, they this particular place, I'm not going to disclose the place right now. But this particular place, they bring all the scripts over there in the evening. I mean, you're talking about 14 1516 year old boys, how do you put a 15 year old boy in a building for two hours? This ain't gonna happen? All they want is some football. And so take a little bit of a profit and buy 10 football for these guys. Every time you drive through in front of that place. You see this kids playing football and a sense of accomplishment comes to and says know what, man It's my profit that they're playing football with. So that's awesome. So this year when we started working together, you're like, how much money are you giving away? Yeah, I was like, you know, 50 bucks, you're like, dude, you suck. You didn't say that. You're like, Alright, well, this is not gonna work and, and I had, you know, that's not the only extent of giving I've given through the years but on a monthly basis for random giving, I didn't have a very big line item. It was sort of spots here and there when I could afford it. I had the money or I felt I could afford it. Because you know, you've made the case like, dude, you can afford it. But I felt like I could afford it at the time. But the regularity of it you got to give regularly and every month like, Man, you gotta make this number go up. So what I've been doing is been collecting money for with the intended contribution. I'm collecting it. It's off the radar. It's in my possession, but I don't, I don't feel like I have it. Because I want to make larger donations to financial aid program at the school where my daughter went. And so I'm struggling because I think it's the right way mechanically, because I want to give it all at once. I don't want to give it a little, you know, 500 or 800 chunks, I want to give like a major chunk. I think that makes sense to them. And it makes sense to me, but I haven't done it yet. So like, there's like I haven't given yet. So I'm collecting every month I'm taking you know, a certain amount of money and putting it over to the side, and I'm gonna get a big chunk. Just like taxes. Yeah. So So I don't know if I guess we'll see. Or do you have any obvious opinions? Like, dude, you're doing it wrong? Or should I continue this path? And then when I give the major chunk, you know, I'll be able to sort of feel it and either do more or make a change? No, see things like that. There is no recipe right? Like [inaudible]. There are a couple of rules, right? one you have to do what you are called to do or what you're led to do, and then you have to enjoy that. Right? And so if -
Mark 10:50
Because it's incredibly important to me, because I have to say like through through the decades, you know, like I can cash flow my, my daughter's college education. And that's great. But that was not always the case. And, and through the years through the decades, my daughter's in college. Now, there was financial aid for, for us to allow us to have private school education. And that became a personal goal of mine to pay all that back. And so that sounds easy. It's not turned out to be quite as easy as I have wanted to be. So I it's a bit of a it's a bit of a slog right now, like I'm doing all the things I'm trying to do, and I'm trying to pay that back. And it's a little bit of an extra burden, which is I don't mind the burden, but it hasn't paid back yet. So I guess that's I guess that's how I feel.
Matthew 11:36
Yeah, see if that is what you are led to do what you're called to do, and that you find some satisfaction that all by all means go for it. Right? The key is that you have to do what you are happy about and what you want to do. Now some people collect all this money and make big endowments to the universities. Great, go do it. Some people give it to churches if that is what it is. Go do it. I personally in my my business, I like to give it to organizations that is in and around Houston who are really struggling and that nobody pays attention to it like Elijah rising or, or places like that. And their, their needs are very small like, you know, you just give a copier to them, they are happy.
Mark 12:19
A copier?
Matthew 12:21
You may think that it is so simple. But you know what, when they do all this paperwork, they copy 100 100 sheets every day for the government. And so they need a very solid copier and their copier fail and they are looking for somebody to step in their copier. You are meeting immediate need at that point of time. And so that is what our business does. But you know, there is no rule you can do whatever. At the end of the day, always make sure that your business some of the profit is taken up to give to people and bless other people.
Mark 12:48
Well, I think it's a great pivot point because gratitude and giving is a common theme and it's I think it's maddeningly complex what that looks like I think people talk about generosity in a very broad way and figuring out what it is to give. What do you have to give? What can you give? And how can you feel good about we've given? Are you feeling inadequate by not giving enough? But But your, your whole path is mission driven, right?
Matthew 13:16
Absolutely.
Mark 13:18
And so I think that's a touch point, you're saying, Well, I'm looking into organizations that can support I can see it, that's a world that I'm tapped into, because I spent a lot of time around places and people that expose you to people in need. But how did you get there?
Matthew 13:35
Because I was the recipient of that. Because when I first came to this country, I've shared my story with you guys with you before.
Mark 13:43
people listening have not so let's go there.
Matthew 13:46
Okay, so let's go there. So I'm originally from India, and I came to this country with $5,000. And in 48 hours I landed here I ended up having $20 because I came to do my Master's in mechanical engineering, and I didn't know that I had to pay my tuition fees. I thought I was on scholarship. And there was miscommunication with the school. So in order to keep my visa status alive, I had to pay my tuition fees, and then initial expenses, and in 48 hours, I'm here with $20 and 50 cents. And it was very difficult. I saw poverty at his worst in this country.
Mark 14:16
So you say poverty is worse in this country? In what way?
Matthew 14:19
Because I have no money to make buy any food. And the first mattress I took was from a trash can. Because I have mattress cost money and I have no money. I have no family, no friends, no bank account, no debit card, no social security number, none of those things. I came alone into this country. And so when I was going through that poor situation, I mean, I, I got money later. But you know, going through the first few months was very difficult. And I started doing odd jobs inside the school because as a student with a student visa, you cannot work outside the school system. So I started working in library and teaching football - I mean, math to the football team, which is a challenge
Mark 14:58
it's much better than teaching football to the math team?
Matthew 15:02
Yeah, we - it was. So at that time I used to go to this church called Calgary Baptist Church and it's not the name or the denomination or anything that matters. They were a bunch of elderly people over there. They took me home. They didn't look at the color of the skin, they didn't look at who I am or my background or anything. This is where the love comes in. They took me home without expecting anything. They fed me. They - their kids played with me. I learned how to throw a football because they took me home and their kids threw it because back in India there is no football, there we have soccer. I learned the first time I saw some video games was through those houses and I learned about Superbowl I didn't know what the heck the Superbowl meant.
Mark 15:45
Oh, man, that's foundational,
Matthew 15:47
Right? I mean, those are foundational things. So that church gave me everything I wanted. And that changed my trajectory. Today I'm impacting thousands of peoples of life and are started because few elderly people in the church Decided to help me and so if we can do to other people think about where the world is you might not see the results but you know for sure that if we can impact 10 kids in this city, they might want to achieve things that you can never comprehend in life.
Mark 16:18
So the genero - I mean, your gratitude for that opportunity is is evident and it's it's mind blowing to me just because the contrast right it's so it's so you know, you didn't come in the Indian community didn't welcome you and it was like the most opposite, seeming culturally incompatible
Matthew 16:39
There was no Indian community because I came to Alabama, Alabama hired - when we just came that they are like 30 Indians altogether, most of them are students. And so there is nothing that they could do at that point. So I just flew from, that's a cultural shock itself. I flew from India to Alabama.
Mark 16:56
I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine.
Matthew 16:58
So you know, But it was it was at church. I mean, everybody in the church, I still adore that church.
Mark 17:07
So where did it go from there?
Matthew 17:08
From there, I had finished my master's. And then I found a job with [inaudible] in Indiana moved to Indiana. And then money started flying for coming to our house. But that's when the problem was, right. I never knew how to manage money. I just wanted to become like any other American family. So I have two brand new car, a brand new house. And I figured out that in this country, you don't need money to live, all you can need is credit. And so we live paycheck to paycheck at that point of time, I went back to India married my sweetheart, she came here. We had a son and we were living paycheck to paycheck. But that's when disaster struck us. In the span of three years. I lost my father and I lost my son. And after the financial crisis, the value of our house came down drastically. Because we were in Indiana where the automotive industry collapsed. And so eventually we had to sell our house at a loss and that was all coming at the same time and that's when my wife and I decided that this is not the abundant life that God gave us. You know, there's no point in me fighting with you, and you fighting with me and we need to work together. And that's when we decided to budget and try to pay off our debt, which we paid off in three years. And then God gave us a desire to go and change other people's life, and everything changed from there.
Mark 18:20
So I want to slow that down. Because what you went through there in verbally was, how many of you said three years or
Matthew 18:27
Yeah, 2006. That's when I lost my father and 2008 is when I lost my son.
Mark 18:32
So that's the kind of thing that needs like, you know, I almost a - moments of silence just to digest, right? So you've lost your father, and you've lost your son. And so you're, how are you feeling at this point?
Matthew 18:47
You can never get over it right? Because now my father has been my hero, right? I mean, for many people, their parents or their father is a hero to their son. And so my father was my hero. He was a speaker. He was a preacher. He was everything to me. And I lost my dad early in life. He was only 60 years old. He actually he died two days after his 60th birthday. And so he was very young in life. He was diagnosed with cancer and cancer came pretty strong. And in three years of the front, the point he was identified as cancer patient, he only survived less than three years and so we lost him and so many trips to India to make sure that my mother is okay and everything. My brother is okay. And then happened, my son so you know, those you cannot forget that in life. There is no way you can get over it. It's something that you carry for the rest of your life.
Mark 19:39
So, you know, I I lost my father in in college, and it's hard to describe is and and the loss is always with you.
Matthew 19:50
Absolutely.
Mark 19:51
And I guess I just want to you know, pay honor to your loss, my loss and the loss of Anybody who's had tragedy, and I think that a lot of peopleI don't know, I people are working their way through life with wounds, you know, and it's not easy. And I don't I think a lot of people feel like their situation is either exceptional or that the other or other people are have a different life than them and everybody does have a different life than than everybody else it is clearly unique. But I think I think paying honor to the losses that we all have allowed - should allow us to have some compassion for ourselves and for other people and kind of connect as a community that you know, everybody around you look around everybody walking down the sidewalk it typical average hurried pace, you know, like they're perfect right there. You don't have those. We don't know, you don't know. And so, have some compassion for them and have some compassion for yourself and understand that if you're in one of those spots, that it's normal, okay, and tough and there is a future that you will work your way into. So you're at the bottom of that probably with the loss of your son. And I don't know, you want to talk about that at all? I mean, is that I feel like we're slipping over equally difficult thing, if you don't want to talk about it, we can keep moving through. But that has to have taken you to another level in and of itself.
Matthew 21:21
Yeah, but again, we didn't get too much time to mourn on that whole stuff. Obviously. We buried him on November 1 2008. But, you know, we have nobody in this country at that time, right? I mean, we are we make rent, so we have no, like father, mother, brothers, sisters, nobody. All we had was a small group from our church and that is awesome, because that was our support system. But then starting 2008, 2009 the financial crisis hit right? The great depression or whatever call and the automotive industry started coming down. So now I am working in the automotive industry and then there is this very heightened, scare about losing your job, right? And then I am firing people because I had people reporting to me and I'm forced to fire people. It is a complete mess or you know what it is like, the whole world is falling to a standstill because you lose a child. And then the very next month, you are forced to layoff people. And then the market is collapsing. And so you are scared of whether you will lose your job. And then obviously, all the spending on engineering is stopped. So we are supposed to take some other jobs and I'm traveling at that time because we had to go to all the suppliers and make sure that the cost is down. So everything that happened in that two to four month period from November to March of 2009. And at that same time when, you know what Mark, can you say that when when you go through a tragedy everybody has some sort of compassion towards you. This country is so good at that. I'm not trying to accuse anybody. I'm not trying to point fingers at anybody. In my opinion there is only one group of people who have zero compassion to your life and they are called hospitals. When you go to a hospital, I don't know whether to do that or you don't get one bill. You are getting a collection of bills. And so we started getting these bills starting February March of 2009. In the midst of all this mess we are going through and to a point I call them and asked whose bills are all these and as a result you are as I said, wherever all these people I didn't see any one of them in that room that day, or they're all behind the scenes. They were all radiologists and cardiologists, and and that is tough, you know? Medical bills. People don't realize the gravity of the problem we are facing. You know what if you cannot afford a car, now in Houston is difficult, but at least you can get rid of it and take some bus. But if you cannot go to a hospital to get the basic medical care you have a problem. And we went through that again. So we didn't get any time to sit back. And my wife took a little bit more hard because, you know, I was at least occupied with the job and she was sitting at home. And so she took a little bit more hard. But long story short, we went through a conundrum of problems in that three to four months.
Mark 24:17
So you're reeling from the impact of life, at its worst. What happens after that?
Matthew 24:26
Well, here's what it is. Now. And then, obviously, fast forward next following year. God gave us another child. Obviously, he had medical conditions, right? I mean, there were times when we spent a lot of money on his medical conditions. He had a case of eczema. And so we had to treat him, we had to give steroids, I mean, he will scratch the whole body. So between those episodes from 2008, where I lost my son to my Jonathan's medical issues in 2012, that four years was extremely tough, and that was very testing on our marriage. It was testing on our finances, it was testing on everything that you believe in at that point. But two things that went very strong in our life is both my wife and I, we have unwavering faith in God. And so faith became a big element in our life. And second, my wife and I, for any number of reasons I cannot explain, when all these things happen, instead of going apart, we decided to come closer, and we built on each other. And so I would say other than God, my wife is the biggest supporter that I have in life.
Mark 25:29
That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.
Matthew 25:30
Yeah, so those two happened. Those are the two good things that happened in my life, my, my relationship with my God and my relationship with my wife, then that gave us a compassion to deal with families who are having problems with children. And now when somebody comes to our office says that you know what, my son is going through this and my son is having sickness and we are somebody who came to our office with their daughter fighting leukemia. Man, our heart goes to them I know We would jump up and give them a big hug because we know what they're going through. Yeah. And that is what experience gives you. When you go through some problems in life, you're actually conditioning yourself to be the hand and feet to other person who are going through the same problem.
Mark 26:17
And there's always someplace to connect, right? I think that so often we get caught up in tactics and methods and best practices. And it's like, well, where's the human side of this? Like, everybody has an epic struggle, everybody's been through it, there is an emotional connection that's deep and powerful that we can all make and we're just moving too fast. Most of the time,
Matthew 26:35
We are more concerned about the process and I always tell people and Mark you know that when people come to our office in our maybe sometimes all they need is to sit with them and say, you're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. No, yeah, all these bills are coming. But you know what, if you do these things, you are going to be okay. And that's all what they want to hear and that maybe we are the last element of hope for them at that point. They may not be running a huge business, they may not be running anything, they might have lost the job. But just looking at their face and saying you know what you are going to be okay. That gives a sense of hope for them to move forward.
Mark 27:13
So powerful. So I want to take this to, you know, how this how this manifests in terms of taking control of money. And I think what I the mislead, the mislead of what you're supposed to be doing because I had a moment. That was several years ago, I had just read Total Money Makeover, Dave Ramsey, and it was a total light switch moment for me it was I had been searching for answers to why I did not feel in control of my money for a long time. And I read it and I thought, wow, where where was this all this time? I've been asking my friends and there was all these things about how to how to approach money that I just had never heard. And I was at a peer group meeting of business leaders and you know, one of the things we do an update to what's going on. And I was in, I was going to share this update and I had it in my notes and I just read Total Money Makeover and it really changed my thinking. And I was embarrassed. I didn't want to say it because I knew everybody else around the room didn't have these problems. And they were all everything was fine. But I shared it anyway. And at least two other people said, Oh, man, yeah, I read it oh, changed my world had a boat sold that thing. Awesome. So glad I did it. And I was just relieved and shocked and like and there's other people who didn't say anything, but the people who I thought were successful had this figured out, knew things, you know, from a much younger age, than I had a big No, no, no, they were learning it at the same pace I was and it was not obvious to people. And it was very validating. So talk a little bit about that and particularly how you came to lift the curtain fall on on what it was to be in control your money.
Matthew 28:51
Yeah. So when hospital bill started coming in 2009 right. And at that time, we had two car loans. One was about to get paid. But we still have two, we have a house with an adjustable rate mortgage. So the mortgage, who knows what the mortgage is gonna be. And then we had 401k loans because I was planning to go to I was going to India quite often. And so we had to borrow from 401k. And then all these hospital bills are coming in. And so that's when my wife and I, we started arguing at that point, and that was the beginning, right? And so every time she go to a store, I will take the receipt and go through line by line and make sure that you know what, she didn't spend anything more and she is like, so you don't trust me as I trust you. But you know, we have to pay these bills. And so that is when they -
Mark 29:35
That's it right there- the emotional, the emotional fight between the emotional spending money and the mathematical spending,
Matthew 29:40
Correct.
Mark 29:41
And like, it's like the worst enemy in the planet here. The mathematical person.
Matthew 29:45
I'm an engineer. So you know, I am a mathematical guy. And so what happened is, you know, we started arguing, I mean, it's not like, you know, we are going to file for divorce or anything. It's like any arguments that you have in any home. That's when I talk to my friend. I mean, again, we had a small group, I said, Sir, back in Indiana, and he said, Hey, have you heard of Dave Ramsey? I said, Who is that? He said that's a guy pretty good with money, you may want to go with him. And I actually shared this with Dave Ramsey later in this podcast. So I went to his Dave Ramsey thing. And he has this something called Financial Peace University that was $99 -
Mark 30:20
Financial Peace university
Matthew 30:21
Right, he has 99 that is $99, 13-week class. And I have $9 I have a paycheck coming later, but in that day, I have $9. And that dude doesn't take credit cards. I cannot buy his own stuff to get better. But I waited for the next paycheck to hit and we bought the Financial Peace University and it is a 13 week class. My wife and I finished that whole 13 week DVD. We used to have DVDs at that point now. It's all online and stuff like that. In four days. We binge watched him. And that -
Mark 30:54
Wait, what was the last thing you said?
Matthew 30:55
Dave Ramsey? And we binge wathced him.
Mark 30:57
Oh, you binge watched him. Okay, yeah.
Matthew 30:59
And we decided to change. It was like, you know what? This is it, we are going to change. And then we created the budget. And from there, things changed. And in three years, we became debt free. Paid off everything.
Mark 31:14
So before that, though, I mean, you had you the way you described it to me was, you know, I'm an engineer, I'm making appropriate money. I have the appropriate number of cars, I have the appropriate house in the appropriate neighborhood. And I look like the people who are like me, this is fine, right?
Matthew 31:29
Yeah. So what one thing is that, again, this is coming out of my Christian background, right? I go to church, I sit in the very front row. And everybody is good. I'm in a suit and everything is fine. And people ask you, Hey, how are you doing? I'm fine. I'm great. And I come home and then I fight with my wife. Right? And so what is the whole point of what is but that's not the abundant living, right? And so one day, I was in a in a Bible study type of setting. And this thought came to me that in about a mortality rate is hovering around 100% it does not come down all these years. And so if that is true statistics is true one day I will die. Yeah. And I believe, I'm a Christian. So I believe that I will meet with God. And so God tell me, you know what? I send my son to die on the cross for you. And then I will look at him and say, Thank you, God, I gave a fake life to you. And that bothered me. That really bothered me because what we are living is a fake life. We are trying to show other people that we are good, and we can cheat them because no, nobody's going to look at it. But you cannot cheat God. He sees my heart. And so who am I? Who am I? Who am I trying to impress? My kids will see me that I am fake. My wife will see me that I'm fake. My God will see me that I'm fake. So who am I trying to impress in life? And that is the point when I said I'd be happy to take control over it. We have to be as genuine as possible. And so Mark, I don't know whether I shared this with you, the most important thing happened is that we became very transparent with our story, right, even now we are talking about being transparent. One day we were speaking at a conference and it's like United Nations. You have Caucasians, you have African Americans, Hispanics, every cleared is there. And my wife and I've been extremely open with our story, and said, these are our struggles, and this is how we overcame and today we are debt free. And all this be proud of it's pin drop silence. There are I don't know how many people were there is like good 50-70 people there. There are pin drop silent and after, that several of them came to us and said, Matthew, we can relate with your story. I said, how come I thought you guys are all good. And they share that they are either going through on the verge of divorce or verge of bankruptcy and one guy said they are attempting, planning to attempt suicide because there's no way you hope for him. And that was a turn bulb type of moment.
Mark 33:56
light bulb turning point yeah, yeah.
Matthew 33:58
I said no, what is so we are not the only one who went through all these things, everybody's going through this. And that's what gave us the passion to leave everything and go help people. And that's the point and even from a different lens that I think is so powerful because you are you told a story of your faith in God brought that out, you're hanging on the church community, well, I didn't have that I don't have that I'm not churchgoing at all. And I have an interesting contrast because I have people on here who really like to express their faith and and and I love it when people do that. And that's not really my background. And so I like creating a format for that to be be safe and talk that through in terms of contrast, but so in my world, I'm comparing it on the package level, I'm heading spending time around my entrepreneurial friends and you know, I see how much money they spend how much money they earn over this over the last 30 years seeing people just live a life and kind of judging on the packaging and I'm like that. Why does it work for them and it doesn't work for me. Why do I always feel broke? Why do I always feel less in control of my life and less in control of my money? And it was, it didn't have that inner inner compass. I guess, that's what that's what I heard from you that you were like you there was something inside that said there's a deeper truth that needs to come out. And I guess I felt it as just confusion like I just I just don't get this, like there's something I'm missing and I had to keep looking to figure out what it was and it was definitely. And I guess we're talking around the thick of some sort of secret. So I guess it probably would be helpful to try to articulate in tangible terms what I found the secret was, and I think in the end for me, I just didn't, I just didn't have command of the math. I think as I say that I've never had to try. I've never tried to put it into words. Like what - is I think I was on the emotional side of spending my entire life. Never could stare into the math and the math isn't so straightforward, it is not just exactly about how much money is in the bank. It's how much money are you going to need to spend? Where does the money live in time, in the past in the future or in the present? And It's not that complex. It's not calculus, but it's like simple questions that you would ask me like, okay, Mark, what money are you need gonna need to spend in the next three months? Like, well, I never took a minute to ask that question. Because we are all reactive, right? I mean this, you know, everything. You look at anything in this world right now, just, I mean, just to divert from the topic, just look at Coronavirus or anything like that. The media is going so nuts with everything and it's all reactive and we live in a reactive world. And the very moment we can take a step backwards and try to think proactive, half of our problems will be solved. Half of our problems will be solved obviously in your business classes that you are doing. What are you trying to tell the companies and the business owners? I know what I think forward six months, what are the results that you want to attain? Yeah, right. So when we can sit and think forward on what do you want to attain is half the problems are solved instead of reacting to everything that you're hearing and reacting to your day to day life.
Mark 36:59
But I guess I want to even pause on that, because I have spent time thinking about why that's so hard. And I think that has a lot of I think a lot of people think they do that. I think I thought I did that. But then if you say, well, how much money do I need in December and I need $2,000 for something. That's one thing to earmark that it's another thing to actually save that money in 10 months, $200 a month in every single month and not do something that sounds kind of like Well, I've still got 10 months, I will kick that down the road or I'll just put that on the visa or something that seems so innocuous and it seems so easy, and really come to grips with the consequence of those seemingly harmless decisions. And that's the second part of that I guess the math is that well okay, I can do the math but but all of those little decisions, a little bit of debt here a little deferred this a little not saving there, but I didn't get the consequences, and I didn't get the power of owning that and really saying, okay, I, you know, $10 a month, every month solves a problem in the future. That doesn't that really actually matters?
Matthew 38:11
Absolutely. You're right now, because we can we can break everything into smaller chunks. And then we can do it. Other than looking at this big elephant that is coming to us at the end of the year.
Mark 38:23
Yeah, because I think in the end, we like we can remember, three elephants at a time, or something or one. There's like 300 there's, there's an elephant every month and and, or every, which would be 12, I guess. But there's some large number of elephants and into[inaudible] for me, I guess the journey has been to systematically tame each elephant of each size, month after month until suddenly, or not even suddenly, but eventually the clouds clear and suddenly there's no - I feel like oh my gosh, I'm prepared for that elephant like, oh my gosh, there's something Oh, well, the money's actually there for that. Whoa, that that doesn't - that didn't change anything like that didn't cause any sense of emergency. And that was that did not happen instantly. That was not a one decision that was a thousand decisions over the course of months and building habits and not letting anything or not gonna take a minimal number of decisions get by me and improving every single month. And so it was not easy. It's still not easy and I do not consider it safe at all. Like I do need to keep vigilant watch.
Matthew 39:24
Absolutely, I mean, you know know... that it's all - everything is just a matter of creating a habit, right? So some of the things you have to plan for it. It may not happen for example, starting July, August, we have the hurricane season right? We went through the downside of a massive hurricane few years back. And so I always tell people, are you expecting a hurricane to happen? No. But you need to have some cash in hand if it hits because you need to buy bread and milk and gas right? But there are certain things that you know for sure is going to happen holiday season is happening whether you want it or not. It is happening. And he doesn't understand. I mean very interesting when somebody said that oh, we are going to have a baby next month and so we have to buy all these things and we are going to put everything on the credit card. I said dude, you knew nine months back that the baby's coming he did not didn't happen overnight. I mean, you got nine months to plan for all those stuff. So those are the things certain things you know it's gonna happen, certain things you don't know but taking precaution will take you a long way.
Mark 40:27
Yeah, well, so we're talking about taking precaution. Let's be real for a minute. I guess this whole thing has been real, but you know, this right. I'm seeing lots of precautions being taken around Coronavirus COVID-19. I was I was and this is just speaking to my you know, not goodness of being prepared and proactive. I'm seeing emails, you must have two weeks of food and all these things. People are really getting serious about that that I was at Costco I was trying to buy paper towels for for the office. And they're out. Like, totally out. Everybody's buying paper goods and because I guess there's a fear that the paper goods will stop coming from China. So there's a lot of things to prepare for it and I think I'm doing a lot of things money-wise but you know, there's a lot of things to prepare for.
Matthew 41:12
See that is that is two things when it comes to things like virus or anything like that. And and there are two things. One, there is an element of danger. And second, you have an element of fear, right? Now, we have to do basic precautions and about anybody we lost, I think six lives already in US and we lost thousands of people around the world. Every single life is valuable and my heart goes to every single person who lost their life. Okay. Now, so we have to take precaution we have to wash our hands in a word we have to use soap and we say can't be you and I we shake hand -
Mark 41:49
I got the hand sanitizer from the desk -
Matthew 41:51
We shake hands all the time.
Mark 41:56
Hand sanitizer on the table.
Matthew 41:59
We shake hands with with people all the time, right? Do you do it in your business, I do it in my business. And so we have to sanitize our hands, all those precaution has to be done taken. But the very moment the fear comes into your life, you are going to behave in a way that you don't want to behave. You see the difference? Just look at the stock market, the stock market is going like nuts going 11 points one day down and then 700 points one day up, is going erratic at this point because people are driving based on fear. And fear is something that you shouldn't have. Now we have to take precautions that are dangerous to all those stuff. We had to take precautions there is absolutely no doubt. But you cannot operate your life on a fear based scenarios, symptom or something be fear based. You see what I'm talking about? Right?
Mark 42:47
Yeah, the - certainly the fear creates erratic behavior. And well, I'll say he'd taken a Tony Robbins study man, I think he believes that kind of everything that you're not doing anything that's holding you back is in some way tie back some sort of fear. So fear, a very broad term. At the same time fear is, I think is a basic emotion. And it's real that we need to honor and learn and I think part of the issue is in Civ- in modern day civilization, our emotional responses are disproportionately connected to our surroundings. Like you know, the most people will say like, you know, you're - our emotions and our behaviors are built for being afraid of lions and tigers and enemies in the night. And now we're in a civilized world where basically our doors are locked and you know, there's very few tigers in our neighborhoods and so our emotional responses are way out of whack relative to the threats. So I do think there has to be some sort of balance and understanding like are you are you reacting to the
Matthew 43:46
- too fast -
Mark 43:47
too fast or too strongly in - just inconsistent with the actual threat?
Matthew 43:54
The media is makes it very, very difficult because media will take anything and good or bad, it will disproportionately make it bigger. Right? And we follow that. And we we have the same, we fall into the same trap.
Mark 44:11
So do people feed - that just an interesting thought so - well, it was interesting to me. Let's see if anyone else thinks it's interesting. Do we not have enough? We have too much fear of spiders and politics. I think that's a pretty strong case, you know, didn't matter what politic political side you're on? It's hard to say that, you know, I think you look around there's a lot of very strong fear related to politics. Do we not have enough fear about how we spend and save our money? Is that is that disconnected?
Matthew 44:42
No, there is a lot of fear, right. So if you ask an average American today on the street, they have fear about their retirement. They have fear about they're sending their kids to college. They have fear about the insurmountable student loan debt. They have fear about all those things. Now, when you have fear like something like that, it will tend you to do one or two things either to take action, or you take put it under the rug. And most people decide to put it on the rug and then face - do not want to face it. And for those people who take it and take action and put some numbers and think sensibly and understand that, you know what, small actions will take you to bigger rewards, they will come out positive in their life, and the others will struggle.
Mark 45:31
So that's - okay. That's, that's very enlightening or illuminating to me, because one of the things that I- oh man, I'm tying to put this into words. So I know that when there's something I can't digest, it's big. And I don't know where to start. It sits there, like it doesn't move forward. And I I also advise my teams that you know, small wins are important, which involves oftentimes breaking big tasks into smaller and smaller tasks. So you can make some progress and those sometimes are theoretical. And sometimes it's easy to make happen. But I do see in my own world, things that are in focus and things that are out of focus. And it's hard to get started, which is exactly the moment that I reached out to you, which was, I had been pretty successful in managing all the money that it was in the various because I was relatively complex financial situation between the business and my personal life and rental properties and things called - it's complex. And I just realized that it was getting more than I could keep in my mind, like I didn't know how to sort it out. And I was trying to do too many things in my life. And I didn't want to couldn't, didn't feel the capacity to sort of like, make sense of all the moving pieces. And so I was like, I need somebody to help make sense of this. And so that's what happened. So with your advice, and with your coaching, I started to break it apart, you gave me little tips and tricks and now where I feel like I can, I can look at the numbers and digest and each of these pieces is in focus enough that I feel it's still complex, but I understand it. And it's simple enough that, that it's manageable. And anytime we have something in our world that we don't understand, which I think the dangerous part is, it's not that you don't understand it, it's that you think you do
Matthew 47:18
Mark, tell me one person who knows everything in life. Nobody, right? That's my, my philosophy is that nobody knows everything in life. I don't force a lot of things. I don't know a squat about anything. And that is where we reach out to people. And you know what? You talked about how you came to me for your financial stuff. And my relationship with you is mutual, right? You gave me the book, The Prosperous Coach, and that was one of the best blessings that I had in few months back. And so I started asking you about in our day, I have this problem in my business, how do I how do I go forward and you started giving me tips on that one. So the problem that we have is that we think or we are the only one who doesn't know all those things, and then we don't ask for help. I am going to be very open and tell you that half of the technology stuff, I don't know anything about it. And I keep asking my 14 and 15 year old, on - he was making a movie other day, he made a movie out of his iPod. And I asked him, How did you do this? And he showed me how he did it. And I say, now I may have to hire you to do a movie for my business because you know what? You can do a better job than I can do. There is no shame in asking my 14 year old how to teach me to do a movie on his iPhone. Well, so that adds to it right? So I think those there's probably even more things that contribute to the stuckness in the - I was saying that when you when you don't know how to do it, but don't know that because- and I get stuck there all the time, which is like, I'm just gonna start this thing tomorrow. And then I don't start it in three or four days, weeks, months go by and I'm like, why didn't I start it and what I realized later after the fact is I didn't actually know what the first step was, and I thought I did and so I was just kind of stuck mentally. And I see that in other people and we overcomplicate things. And a lot of excuses come from the fact that we just haven't paused long enough to say like, where do you start? Oh, I don't know, what if I found out what that first step was? Oh, that would be digestible. And it would only take me a minute. There's that then there is what you just said, which is I don't know what, but like I should, and I don't know who to ask. I don't feel okay asking. And even a lot of people do feel pretty comfortable delegating or giving their their children credit for understanding technology. But that's still not that easy to do. Like, you know, hey, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do this on Twitter. I'm not sure what Twitter is. And how do you get past that? I mean, that's it. That's very rhetorical question. I think that that is working against a lot of people the the inability to get started, because of the inability for any reason to to find out what the first step actually is. Yeah. So you said you know what I said we can divide people into Three or four different buckets, right? Some people think they know everything. Obviously that is a problem and they don't seek help. Second people, they know that they don't know everything, but they believe they are the only one who doesn't know everything. And so they don't ask for help. That is a problem. Third set of people, they know that they don't know everything and they don't know where to start. So they will go and seek help. And the fourth people, they're too prideful. They don't want to ask, in my opinion, always take few minutes out of your day and think, Okay, tell me things that I don't know. Tell me things that I know. And if you are good at it, go do it. If you don't know, take help move forward. In my business, I am not a big social media person. I don't know this hash tagging and all those stuff. Guess what? I hired a lady to do my social media. Yeah. And I pay her every month and she's doing the social media for me. That is the time and money that I will spend because can I figure it out? I have a couple of masters in my life. Can I figure out how to hashtag work? Absolutely. But it doesn't interest me and I don't know much about it and I'm the first to admitted it. So here it is, somebody else doing it great.
Mark 51:03
Yeah, that's the highest and best use. And that's an interesting subject in and of itself. Because that reminds me of like when I started recording this podcast, I have a musical background. I've recorded with sophisticated software, I know how to use Pro Tools. I've done lots of editing and recording and I did it well. And when it came time to do this, I found I had absolutely no patience for anything technical in the recording. And I had to create the simplest one button. And I had to ask friends, like I didn't have the patience to ask like I had asked friends who could point me to the right podcast for the right gear and get the right advice. Like I have my life's chemistry the recipe for my life is not what it was when it was like oh, I'm gonna spend all weekend learning the recording software. It's like no, that's not part of this. Like I - my energy is having great interviews with great people, like I can't spend, like if I was tweaking the recording here, like, and I like that it's the wrong use of my options. I have no patience for that. So my rig is entirely sit down, hit the record button, like that's the whole world. And that was really important. And I guess why I think that is important is I don't think that was obvious. I don't think the decisions that got there because like you said, you get a couple master's degrees, you can figure it out. Like I've, I'm a musician, like I love musical technology. And it should have made sense that I invest my time and money and a whole bunch of sophisticated recording equipment and the very best everything and it was like no, that's not the point. The point is that I've got a mission to do and I've got to get some help.
Matthew 52:40
Absolutely. Seek help. I mean, have you I always tell I or even tell my wife that if you if you need help, seek help. There is no shame there is not nothing in asking help. And I one thing I like about this country is that most of the people are good and they're willing to help. I mean, if you take whole population, the rotten people are a very, very, very, very small minority. Unfortunately, they are the people who get highlighted all the time. But massive number of people in this country are so good. They want to help others. And so if you ask for help, people will step in and help you.
Mark 53:19
Yeah, it's a very sophisticated world with lots of extremely high skill sets. And, like, micro defined skill sets, you know, like, so we have to get good at recognizing the details of what everybody's expertise and bring them into the mix. And -
Matthew 53:41
it's very easy to with the internet right, I mean, you can search anything and you can identify experts in that field pretty soon.
Mark 53:49
Well, so how do you find your very best experts? Because the Internet could do that. I don't I don't know you say that. I'm like, I think instantly, like how many reviews of four and five stars and I'm like, Well, I don't trust that I need it. I still I still kind of go back to old school if I'm going to work with somebody, particularly when it matters, right? If it's a marketing expert or a therapist or somebody who is a close advisor in the business or a coach, it's like online reviews? No, no, I need personal old school I tell me
Matthew 54:16
Yeah, but online reviews is always a good starting point. But then you get personal references out of it right? So when you have hundred people, you just go to online and see their online presence and see what other people are saying. And once you identify three or four then you get personal reference and see whether, you know what eh? Have you ever worked with any one of them?
Mark 54:37
Okay, so actually i'm gonna i'm - let's go into your business is is on online.
Matthew 54:43
We are both online and in house. Yes.
Mark 54:46
Okay. So I guess what I mean is your most of your growth of the business comes through online, people find you online. 90% 99% 50%. Yeah, close to 90% of the people find us through online. Okay.How does that work for them? What's the journey? This is a total departure from what we were talking about. But I'm curious, because your businesses is advisory, people find you online. How do they learn about you?
Matthew 55:11
Okay, so most of the time, I asked, How did you find us and they will give you the answer. At two o'clock in the morning, I don't know how to pay this bill. So I go to Google and said, help me with budgeting, or help me pay this bill. And my website comes up. And they will send a message and say, I need help. And so we call them and we talk to them. And obviously, the very first time you come to our office, it there's no charge at all. It's completely free. And we will talk and try to help them and if they like us, they keep us if they don't like us. We'll shake hands and leave.
Mark 55:45
So let's go back to so there's many layers to what you just said. And there is like how you help people. How does the experience work? I'm taking this all the way back to the marketing side of this. I'm passionate about the marketing and is a very deceptively difficult part of that process, which is how does your, the person you can help most, how do they how, what is the language they're using? What is the behavior they exhibit in the moment when they're most ready to be helped? And every business needs to know that and it's harder for every business - for some businesses and others to know what that looks like. So you just described it very well. I think. There's somebody at two in the morning who's like, I'm stuck and I finally realized I need help. And so they're saying.. I guess what, are their words help paying bills?
Matthew 56:32
Yeah, I mean, most of the time, either they're fighting with their spouse and don't know how to move forward, or they have all these bills, and they're very worried about how to pay the bills. We had somebody who call other day and they're on the verge of getting evacuated from the house, right? Because evicted from the house because now they didn't pay their rent. And at wee hours, they are struggling. They're crying, and they go and Google and say, You know what? Apparently everybody thinks Google has all the answers right? So they go to Google and say, how can I pay this bill? Or
Mark 57:02
Are those really the words they put in? how to pay -
Matthew 57:04
How to pay these bills? or How can I budget? Or how do I consolidate my debt? Those are the words they use.
Mark 57:11
How did you discover those? Were those the Ramsey team kind of said -
Matthew 57:15
he has we have a SEO so our websites will come up with the top because of the SEO that we are using.
Mark 57:19
Okay, so how did you come to know that those are the right things to enter?
Matthew 57:24
Again, I know nothing about it. So I sent it to an expert. Okay. And an expert did it for me and so it's there. Okay. And because I guess what I'm trying to get at is it's not always easy to know 'cause most people out there who are experts in plumbing, for example, you know, they go like, well, do you need pipe? Does the buyer of pipe say I need pipe? Or why do they switch vendors? What's in the moment? Is it has anything to do with pipe is it has something to do with distribution or relationship or is it pricing is it quality is it and so from the supplier side, the expertise is really distracting. We start to think about the technical qualities nd whatever we think we're amazing at but it doesn't necessarily reflect in the mind of the person who's ready to find a new vendor or do something like that. So in your world you knew from the get go because your experience or - And we are happy to help them but that is not where our expertise. Our expertise is to be with the people who are really struggling and who are crying and be the source of hope for them and get them out of the mess they are in. And so the words we see is how to create a budget or - we do have a Dave Ramsey fan base. And obviously they always search for Ramsey coaches and we come up. But apart from that, how to pay these bills or how to consolidate the debt? Or what are the problems with judgments or things like that. And then our website comes up. No, I didn't know from the get go. We made - by the way, I have a PhD in stupidity, I have done enough stupid things in my life. So first we have we are no clue. But every month I get a report on what are the words people use to click on our or website. And so we can track that and over the last several months, even years, we can see that the most people who are driving into our I mean, for example, if somebody has couple of million dollars, we are not the first people that this search, right?
Mark 59:18
It took some - you get the report and what people are searching for. And so -
Matthew 59:21
Correct. I mean, it took years to get to here. It really didn't happen overnight. Yeah, so we have been this good in the last, I would say, two years or so. But in the beginning, we just put like financial coaches, and obviously we didn't get any hits because nobody's searching for a financial coach. See, they don't know that they need a financial coach. They know that they need to get out of debt. You see what I'm saying? I do. And so we happen to help them get their finances from where they are to where they want to go, but that they don't know that they know their problem. And we put our solution on the website and so they get it.
Mark 60:01
Well, okay, so that's interesting. So I know the word coach very well. I am a coach I have coaches is everything in my world is almost coaching is the sort of that that connects all the dots. So I was using the software for budgeting. And in there it popped up and said, did you want to talk to a financial coach? And I thought, that's a thing? I said yeah, I want that. I want to I want to raise my game. And so you know, I I'm definitely in between, you know, maybe I'm not your target market, but
Matthew 60:32
Correct, because you came through the Ramsey system, right. So, we do get people from Ramsey system because they are either following the Ramsey process, or there is a group of people who are diehard fans, and they will I mean, I had a guy who came to our office and he got a couple of almost a million and a half as part of his inheritance. And he has, he can do whatever he wants to do, but he wanted a Ramsey guy to tell what to do with it. I mean that those are hardcore Ramsay fans, and so That is a very small yeah, that's it minority.
Mark 60:32
Okay. Yeah, that'sa good point because Ramsey got a huge following. So I would think that if you attached your horse - no your wagon is attached to the horse that's Ramsey, you're going someplace and you're saying well, it's good but it does it you know, it's not though it's not the bulk of the need.
Matthew 61:18
No, I mean, I can tell you for all the client base that we have people coming through Ramsey's not the number one. It is the average Joe, it's the average Sally, it's the average Mike, who is struggling and who doesn't know how to pay the bills and searching and then finding us or, or now they are getting a lot of reference because the brother or sister has been debt free. And so they will tell their brother and sister that in our day, if you want to get debt free, go to this person. So we are getting a lot of referrals, which is good. We thank God for that.
Mark 61:49
Well, that's it because I've tried to make a couple referrals. And it's, it's in my world of all referrals, trying to connect people with solutions. And anybody who's ever tried to help somebody has experienced that like, they're not ready, and so that they have to be in the right spot. So it's like I could open the door here's somebody you can talk to in any aspect of particularly financial health throughout the business throughout the personal life like I know a person that can help you with that forecast. I know somebody can help you with financing. I know somebody who can help you with personal budget. And those people so often are like, I'm fine. Sure you are.
Matthew 62:25
You know, you know what Mark, one thing that is absolutely changing in the marketplace. Go back 25 years back. I'm sure you have heard about this phrase called take our kids to work. What do you call the other thing? A work life balance. Have you heard all those words?
Mark 62:43
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Matthew 62:44
See that was a thing. 2025 years back because what happened is the man used to go and work like crazy hours and then kids don't know where their fathers are. And so the corporations they try to integrate their families into what the people are working And then came this big internet era where people can work from anywhere. And so this work life balance came down, and then the flexible hours came up. So the biggest attraction for somebody to be hired is flexible hours. And then it came down. And in the beginning of the 21st century, it was the health issues. Everybody is obese. And so the businesses said in our day, everybody has flexible life, work hours, let's bring all these initiatives into the businesses to help them get track of their health. So they gave free gym membership, they gave - what do you call that - Weight Watchers and all those stuff. Now it has come down because millennials are pretty good in the health situation compared to the generation of at least my generation. And so now the corporations are saying if you want to retain millennials in this in this workforce, they need to help them pay off their debt, because most of the millennials have a massive amount of student loan debt
Mark 63:55
Is that millennial? I thought for a second you said millionaires.
Matthew 63:59
No, millennials.
Mark 63:59
The millennials. Yeah, gotcha.
Matthew 64:01
And so now they are offering financial workshops. They are using financial coaches. And so the world is changing. And so the corporations are now figuring out that if they don't help their employees get out of debt, somebody will go from - if somebody can offer you $10 more, they will jump and go there because there's no loyalty today. And they'll go to the next company because they think they can make more money and pay off the debt. So the corporations are now taking active role to a point where Midwest actually have a scheme where they will pay off Midwest bank, they will pay off people's student loan if they stick with them for so long and follow the process. There are so many companies that is offering right now. I just had breakfast with the CEO this morning. And they're offering it in there. They're going to offer it in their offices right now.
Mark 64:49
To pay off student loans?
Matthew 64:50
No do offer financial coaching for the employees so that employees can be debt free. So this is this is if you're a business owner, you need to - the number one goal of a business owner is to take care of all the customers and their people. If you don't have customers and if you don't have people you don't, there is no you, right? And so we pretty much ignore our employees. And this is one way to take care of their employees to help them.
Mark 65:13
So I'm super curious to see where this goes, because I feel like historically, financial health is anathema to human culture. That's just not what we've done in the capitalist credit driven economy. And I don't really, I don't know, banking is a very big industry, right? So and that's, that's all credit really is, is a consumer facing aspect of making money on other people's money banking. So that's not going away, I don't think and I'm thinking out loud here. So what I'm about to say may contradict itself. But I think at the same time, the spirit of what makes this country great, in my opinion, is the entrepreneurial spirit. The willingness to take risks, the willingness to take control of our own destiny at even very, very high costs, and which a lot of people describe is that the passion for freedom, which I like, I like the entrepreneurial language, it speaks to me. So what you're saying, I think we're moving toward a very entrepreneurial economy, which is the gig economy. It's individuals who have access to lots of different tools and ways to become smarter, better, more valuable and to get access to the life they want. And I think the data is coming in on millennials, that they're not selfish, they just have high standards and they want clarity and they want to be useful and they're not going to settle for not being useful and, and they've got the ability to be useful and valued, at least maybe even artificially secure in doing so now, because the times aren't so hard, and that could change. But I think that ends up just being more and more entrepreneurial, because people are feeling more and more access to living their best lives and being more in control and where this very long rant is going - I think that ties back into financial health is a way to feel in control your life. And so I think that's something that that very likely could be seen as a right of the future generations to feel in control of your money. And so I see it potentially creating, hopefully a good revolution where people say like, no I, I am going to be in control of my money and that is part of this - the birthright of being an American of being feeling in control of the most important things to me, which maybe in this in future generations will come down to the financial aspect which then goes back to banks, like what do we do with banks bank banks are giving this new message credit cards are giving this new very frighteningly - it's a frightening message to me. Because they say, you know, pay off your debt, take control, you know, reduce your debt, here's how you do it. And it's all built inside a credit mechanism. It's a credit card and I'm like, I - wow, it's like it's like here, I'm your cocaine supplier and let me coach you how to manage your cocaine habit. I'm like, I don't think you're the right people to be doing that.
Matthew 68:07
Well, it's a very complex world, right? I know, if we know how to handle credit, there's nothing wrong with credit, right? I'll give you -
Mark 68:17
Just like alcohol and cocaine?
Matthew 68:18
No, it's not alcohol or cocaine, right? I mean, let's, let's take the if - example, you have a daughter. Assume that the daughter was two years old, okay?And you went -
Mark 68:30
Well, my son is two years old.
Matthew 68:31
Okay, so there you go. You went to take a shower, you came back and you saw your son standing with the big steak knife. What do you do? You go and grab that knife from the son because son may hurt himself. Now fast forward 20 years down the line your son is watching a football game, we have some guests coming and you have to cut some steak You will hand over that knife to the son and say, hey buddy come and help me out and cut some steak. The son is same, the father is same, the kitchen is same, the steak is same and the knife is same. What changed? The maturity of the kid, right? And so if you are mature enough to handle credit and if you know how to handle credit and if you have complete control over the same financial stuff that you're talking about, there is nothing wrong with credit.
Mark 69:11
So it's totally fair. There's complexity that goes with that, though. So the complexity is - now we got to wrap up - so your time is flying by but this point is important and I think... so debt financing, a rental property financing something that makes money that steak knife in a steak, I mean, if you know if you know the, the outcomes and the math and the risk and - amazing, very good things can happen.
Matthew 69:37
Absolutely. If the property is cashflow positive, go for it. But then you have to have it in a very controlled way. You have to have an emergency fund so that if the renter doesn't pay you for three months, you still have to you're not going insolvent.
Mark 69:49
So that's on the demand side so you as a as an entrepreneur, a business, a human being who can look at the tools out there, you can take advantage of that clearly. You know, a knife can be a murder weapon or it can be a, you know, a way to carve a turkey. And so you got it. So that's that. The flip side is the capitalist economy, which I love. I'm a big believer in meritocracy. And I think there's a lot of - I mean, I don't think we're motivated to do the things we do in our society without the the big rewards, the big outsize rewards that really push us to push ourselves way beyond our limits. I'm a big fan of that. At the same time, more is still more. And if you're a money lender, your marketing and your messaging is really still about more as more and more knives, I can get out there for any reason that people will buy knives that makes us more. And so that nuance of ethics and right tool, right job is lost in a high pressure capitalist situation.
Matthew 70:44
Absolutely. Yep, I agree with that. And you know how to handle your finances and you're correct and all those stuff.
Mark 70:50
So I realized that there's absolutely no way we can answer that question. So I love the idea that we just planted a question to ponder for future conversations and for our listeners to think about and in comment feedback, give us some feedback on. So Matthew, I know we need to we need to wrap up our time is, is just about up. How do people find you?
Matthew 71:10
The best way to find us is to go to internet and search for themayanah.com. Or you can give us a call at 281-435-1888. Going to web and finding us as the easiest way, themayanah.com.
Mark 71:30
Well Matthew it's been a pleasure. I knew it'd be a good conversation - all our conversations are meaningful and real. And so thank you so much for the time.
Matthew 71:38
You're very welcome, Mark. You know, I I didn't realize that we spoke for one and a half hours or so.
Mark 71:44
Yeah, yeah.
Matthew 71:45
I always enjoy talking to you and we we have a lot of things to discuss all the time we meet and I cherish every single moment that I'm with you.
Mark 71:52
Thank you so much.