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Money Expert: How To Build Wealth WITHOUT Leaving Your Job! (3 Proven Methods!) | George Acheampong

Watch our episode with Carter Cofield on how to save your taxes. Timestamps About the video George is one of the top 100 ranked Wealth advisors in the country. He is a Forbes Finance Contributor and Founder of the Melanin Money Initiative.

George AcheampongguestCalum Johnsonhost

Jun 24, 20241h 41mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

110 min read · 21,660 words

0:00 – 3:47
Intro
1. GAGeorge Acheampong
  No one cares about the fact that you have $100,000 in your bank account. What you should care about is the lifestyle and the things that you want to do with those resources. A tumor was growing inside of my ninth vertebrae, and it was, like, days away from attaching to my spinal cord, and if, if it attached itself to my spinal cord, I would, would've probably been paralyzed from the waist down. So it forced me to look a little bit deeper around, like, what does it look like to truly build something that can run without you?
2. CJCalum Johnson
  78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
3. GAGeorge Acheampong
  If it's costing you $4,000 a month to maintain your existing lifestyle, and you're making that exact amount of money or less, and you're even having to subsidize with credit, like, that's a recipe for disaster.
4. CJCalum Johnson
  What is that process of, like, actually getting good with your money?
5. GAGeorge Acheampong
  The first one is-
6. CJCalum Johnson
  Okay, before we get into the episode, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. When you subscribe to the channel, it makes this show an even better experience. Here's how. It helps us scale our production, the guests, bring on the right partners. So if you enjoy this content, you enjoy the stories and the guests and everything that we do, then please subscribe to the channel. Thank you, and onto the show. You're a contributor on Forbes.
7. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
8. CJCalum Johnson
  And so I took this from Forbes. They say, "George is an award-winning wealth advisor who helps people build financial independence faster through an innovative approach to financial planning and wealth building." And so here's where I wanna begin because I think for the everyday person, we hear this term, like, wealth advisor.
9. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
10. CJCalum Johnson
  And so I wanna start here. What is a wealth advisor?
11. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
12. CJCalum Johnson
  And what is it that you do?
13. GAGeorge Acheampong
  For sure. Well, I'll start with this quote. Um, riches is measured in money. Wealth is measured in time. And for me, uh, what a wealth advisor is, is someone who is helping you align your, your money with your values so that you can ultimately live a l- the life that you want by leveraging investments, right, to be able to take care of your lifestyle, whether it's places you wanna travel, people you wanna help, things you wanna do. Whatever the case may be, you now, instead of having to trade your time and your active income for that, you now have a pool of resources from investments that can cover that lifestyle so that most of your time is spent doing the things that you wanna do.
14. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
15. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right? So I guess I kinda answered the question to a degree. Well, so what I do in that is I'm understanding what people really want at the end of the day. I think that's what a wealth advisor is, like, what do you really want out of life, and how can we use the tools, i.e. money, to help you do more of that? 'Cause oftentimes, you know, w- when we don't, we're not centered around what's important to us and what matters, we tend to just use money, you know, in haphazard ways, right? It's like, oh, we're, we're working a job that we don't necessarily enjoy, or our business is, you know, uh, got us exhausted and tired, so we're using money as an escape from, a temporary escape from the life that we have versus saying, "How can I use money as a tool to buy freedom and buy back my time to give me more of the life that I want?"
16. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm. You know what? It, it came to mind as I was listening to you. It's the difference between working for money versus making the money work for you.
17. GAGeorge Acheampong
  100%.
18. CJCalum Johnson
  Which is like, it's a difficult balance to achieve that-
19. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
20. CJCalum Johnson
  ... to get to that point.
21. GAGeorge Acheampong
  100%.
22. CJCalum Johnson
  Okay. Here's where I wanna go next. I wanna start with, like, the early context.
23. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Okay.
24. CJCalum Johnson
  I know from our conversations that we've had, even in, like, your family and all of that-
25. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
26. CJCalum Johnson
  ... you're, like, the money guy.
27. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
28. CJCalum Johnson
  And so I just wanna, I just wanna understand where that started. Like, what was your relationship with money-
29. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
30. CJCalum Johnson
  ... at an early age?
3:47 – 12:04
George’s first interaction with money.
1. GAGeorge Acheampong
  a little bit. But, uh, I asked my mom the beginning of the year. I was like, "Hey, Mom, I want the PlayStation. It's the only thing I really want for Christmas." And she never said no, right? She never said no. She's like, "Okay, son, we'll see what we can do." Um, so fast-forward to Christmas, I look under the tree, and there's a box. At least in my mind at that time, I was like, man, that's shape. That's gotta be a PlayStation, right? And I open the box on Christmas, um, and ultimately it's a box of tube socks, right? The one with the two little lines at the top of the sock. Right? I think they were red. Um, and I was, I was a little bit discouraged. I was a little bit defeated 'cause I really had my heart set on that PlayStation. So that at a early age, that might've been fifth grade or something. That sparked this idea that if you want something in this life, you have to, you have to go and get it, right? So started doing little odd jobs, um, you know, cutting grass, helping my uncle wash cars, and I just really, I never really spent the money. I became what I now know the term to be frugal. I just h- held onto the money from anything that I would do. And at a, at some point, it, like, it became known in my family, and they were just like... And they would ask me to borrow money.
2. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
3. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Um, and mind you, I'm in elementary school. I didn't know the term interest at the time, but just logically it was like, okay, if I'm gonna l- give you $70, I should probably get more back than 70 whenever you pay me back. And so I was like the, the, the loan shark in elementary school, if you will [laughs] -
4. CJCalum Johnson
  [laughs]
5. GAGeorge Acheampong
  ... uh, to my family members. But, but ultimately, again, that, that initial experience just sparked the fact that I felt like I, I was able to understand that not having money, uh, prevented you from doing things you wanted to do, right? So it made me a good steward of money, um, early on. Um, I did have some, some run-ins where I kind of like, all right, well, now I'm gonna spend the money how I wanna spend it, and some funny s- stories I could share. I'll share one of them. Um, I remember, like, it was my first, like, official job. I think I was 15 and a half. I was working at a furniture store. I don't think I've ever told this story publicly. Um, this furniture store called La-Z-Boy, and I remember it ever like it was yesterday. I got paid 162.50 every two weeks.
6. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
7. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Um, and with that amount, one week I could go buy some clothes, and the next week I could go buy some shoes. 'Cause I had been this frugal kid for so long, I was like, "Oh, I got a f- job now. I'm in high school. Now I'm gonna start treating myself." And, um, ev- ev- every week, every, like, clockwork, I would go buy, or every other week, I would buy clothes one week and the shoes to match it the next week. And then I think one time I came home and asked my mom for lunch money, and she was like You just get paid?" I was like, "Well, yeah, I mean, but lunch, that's kinda your job. Like, you, you give me the lunch money."
8. CJCalum Johnson
  [laughs]
9. GAGeorge Acheampong
  She's like, "No. Like, you just made money, and you mean to tell me you spent so much of it that you couldn't, you couldn't feed yourself? Like, that's just not a, that's not a smart thing to do." So she kinda reeled me back in and reminded me that you can spend, you can do the things you wanna do, but you still have to make sure that you can take care of your basic necessities. Um, but long story short, ultimately these experiences kinda just shaped the lens that I looked through the world when it came to money. My mom got remarried, and, uh, she knew I'd always been pretty good with money, and she asked me to help them put a cash flow plan together. I was able to put that together. I had a friend that was interning for a financial services firm, asked him w- uh, is what I put together pretty good, and he told me it actually was better than what they do, right?
10. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
11. GAGeorge Acheampong
  And so it, it, it's ... At that point it still didn't spark my interest to try to, uh, start a career path in the industry. I only ever wanted to learn about money so that I could help my family and of course help myself. But those are some of the early experiences that just made me understand the importance of money, wanted to make sure I had it as a resource so that nobody could tell me no.
12. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah. Okay, nice, nice. You spoke about, you know, wanting to help your family, like that was like-
13. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
14. CJCalum Johnson
  ... a core motivation.
15. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
16. CJCalum Johnson
  And it's interesting when we're kids, because I think as we're children we, like, slowly start to become aware of different things.
17. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
18. CJCalum Johnson
  So to begin with, you're not even fully cognizant of, like, money or if your family has more money than-
19. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right
20. CJCalum Johnson
  ... the people next door or, like, the other kid at school. But then slowly you start to pick up on these things.
21. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
22. CJCalum Johnson
  I remember going to school and it's like, um, when I was growing up it was, like, the Nintendo DS.
23. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah, yeah.
24. CJCalum Johnson
  And, like, certain kids, they coming back from Christmas holidays, they got, like, the latest one.
25. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
26. CJCalum Johnson
  And you're, like, a b- you're, like, a few models behind or you're using-
27. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
28. CJCalum Johnson
  ... like, I was using my older brother's, like, old Game Boy or something.
29. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yep.
30. CJCalum Johnson
  And so these little things start to kind of-
12:04 – 17:00
The money mindset that you should teach your kids.
1. CJCalum Johnson
  because it seemed at a pretty early point your mom was teaching you, like, money lessons almost.
2. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm. Yeah.
3. CJCalum Johnson
  And so I'm, I'm curious, what did you observe from her? Like, what was her relationship with money?
4. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
5. CJCalum Johnson
  Like, what, what was her kind of mindset to it?
6. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah. Yeah, it's like even though, like, you know, there were situations that arose or circumstances that came about throughout, you know, our childhood- I felt like she definitely did the best with what she could, what she had, right? Um, you know, she's a single mom for the most part. Um, my dad was, was back in Ghana, um, at the time. And what she taught me, uh, she taught, she taught me a lot about priorities, I would say, when it came to money. Um, because while she was saying no to certain things, right, it was not, it was ... I can never remember a situation where we didn't have a roof over our head or we didn't have a car. We didn't have the necessities. So she taught me a lot about while there might be some luxuries and extras that you sometimes have to say no to, right, the importance of prioritizing, uh, the fundamentals, right? So that you can always have a roof over your head, you can always have food on the table, and things of that nature. So she taught me to be a good steward over what you, regardless of how much it is, being a good steward over what you have. Um, that's definitely a lesson I got from her. Um, and what I also say, right, you know, at the end of the day, like sometimes you learn lessons from what you don't have, right? So I do remember when she got laid off from a job and we were living in a house, um, and that, we, we were all so proud of, and we ultimately had to move out of that house, right, and had to move in with a family friend, um, just a little bit before I went to college. And so those types of memories on the other side of it taught you, like, I don't wanna be in a situation where I don't have that emergency fund or have the resources that if life throws me a curve ball, that I'm unable to adapt and it just completely shakes up my entire lifestyle. Um, but ultimately, I, I think that she was a good steward over what she had. Um, if she had more, she would've, she would've been able to do more. Um, but she always took care of home and with what we had made sure that we felt provided for.
7. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah. I'm, I'm curious because it seems that, uh, you mentioned like being frugal. I know even when we've spoken, it seems that from like a money standpoint-
8. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
9. CJCalum Johnson
  ... you took the responsibility for that-
10. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
11. CJCalum Johnson
  ... at a pretty early stage.
12. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
13. CJCalum Johnson
  And I think that's interesting is the mindset of someone who, when they're pretty young, maybe they're 14, 15 years old-
14. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm
15. CJCalum Johnson
  ... they're already thinking like, "It's kind of my job-
16. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
17. CJCalum Johnson
  ... to elevate my family from this financial situation."
18. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
19. CJCalum Johnson
  Like, it's, it's unique, right?
20. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
21. CJCalum Johnson
  And so why do you think that is? Why is it that you felt like George has to do it, like it's on me to do it?
22. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
23. CJCalum Johnson
  Why did you feel that responsibility? Okay, so quick break. One of the things that I've learnt from doing this episode is the importance and the impact of your environment. Who are the people around you? Your network is your net worth. And so the sponsor of today's episode is gonna help you up level, uh, the network and the people around you. So the sponsor of today's episode is Wealth Weekend. This is a conference from July 26th to July 28th. It's being held in Atlanta, and it's actually the guest. So George Acheampong and his business partner, Carter Cofield, are putting on this event that features a number of seven-figure entrepreneurs explaining exactly how they built their business. And when I was talking to George about it, one of the things that he really pushed was the networking piece, the ability to not only listen to these people, but also get to meet them and get to meet other like-minded people that are trying to build successful businesses and overall successful lives from themselves. Even just looking at some of the expertise of the speakers, you have top content creators, you have personal finance experts, you have people that understand the stock market and investing, real estate. There's literally so many different fields. And so if you're looking to take your income, your network to a whole nother level, this is definitely something that you should check out. And it gets even better because I've hooked you guys up. When you use the link in the description and you use the code WEALTH, you will get 20% off your event ticket. So go to the link in the description, use that code WEALTH, and you'll get 20% off your ticket. Uh, thank me later. It's gonna be an incredible weekend in Atlanta. And let's get back to the show.
24. GAGeorge Acheampong
  I mean, even though I was young, uh, I was a young man, right? Um, and I, and I feel like, uh, uh, part of it felt innate, right? Like I'm the man of the house, um, at that time. And, you know, when you, when you start to see things and you observe things and, and gaps, uh, it's just like, just for me at least, it was innate to wanna
17:00 – 22:28
The money mindset you should develop.
1. GAGeorge Acheampong
  fill those gaps, right? It's like you have a mom, you love her. You know she's doing everything you can. You don't wanna see her struggle. You don't wanna see her stretch herself unnecessarily. And for whatever reason, um, instead of me taking whatever financial resources I was able to accumulate at a young age and wanting to buy Power Rangers and toys, I was just like, "Let me hold onto this because my family might need it. Let me hold onto it because I'm noticing things that we need," and she's not asking me to do it, but I had the desire to do it. Um, I wish I could tell you I knew where that came from. Maybe that's, I don't know, again, innate or just something God, uh, divinely downloaded in me. But for me, it just, it, it seemed very just fundamental. Like you're the young man of the house. Your mom needs help, whether she's saying it or not. What are you gonna do to help, right? 'Cause she definitely never asked, right? She definitely never said, "Hey, I know you just cut that person's lawn," or, "You just helped your uncle wash cars. Like, you know Mom needs some money." She never, she never asked. Um, I just saw opportunities to help, and it just felt innate to do so.
2. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah. I remember f- for me growing up, there were certain moments that I remember quite vividly.
3. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
4. CJCalum Johnson
  Um, 'cause the first 10 years of my life I lived with my mum and my older brother, and my mum used to basically work like round the clock, uh, to support us. And I remember certain moments vividly, seeing her in the kitchen, like different things or like just handling bills and-
5. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
6. CJCalum Johnson
  ... uh, being stressed about different things.
7. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
8. CJCalum Johnson
  Where I could see that she was struggling.
9. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
10. CJCalum Johnson
  I'm curious from your perspective- Is there a story, is there an experience where like-
11. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
12. CJCalum Johnson
  ... it just comes to mind?
13. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
14. CJCalum Johnson
  Of like you just saw that your mom was in a tough spot?
15. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah. Yeah, so I remember, um, I mentioned my mom had got laid off, right? And it's like, like Murphy's Law. If it can happen, it will happen. So she got laid off. Um, we were living in a, a pretty new house, um, that we had just moved into, it seemed like maybe a year ago. Had my own room. You know, that's the big thing when you're a kid. I got my own room and I can do what I wanna do with it. And she got laid off, right? So she was making things work, to your point, trying to move some things around. I could see that she was struggling with the bills, and it was already hard enough, um, losing your primary source of income. But you know, on top of that, the only car that we had, uh, blew a head gasket, right? Which was a pretty expensive thing to get fixed. And so now we, she goes from being laid off to now our, our car like not being functioning, and then I think my uncle at the time had like a really old car. You know the, the, the cars like where like the ceiling like is peeling down, like really old car, um, that he let us use. And I could just feel and see the, the frustration, um, that we were experiencing, right? And she was just fighting, right? She was trying to do everything she could to keep it together. You know, I think at this point my sister might have went to college already, so it's just me and her in the house. Um, but I just, I just remember it being a very, very tough season, and, uh, again, that ultimately leading us to having to move in with a family friend. Um, but yeah, I just remember that being really, really tough. Um, having to give up, you know, your own space, which you consider to be your safe space, your safe haven. And us not really talking about the nuance of why it was happening, but more so like this is what we gotta do. And I know she probably didn't wanna talk about it because it'd been even more painful to, you know, just re- recount the reality, right, in real time. It's just like and, and telling me like, "Hey, son, this is what's going on," and like she... It was just one of those things where, hey, you know, things are shifting and we gotta move, uh, in with a family friend. We didn't really have a discussion about it. Not that she owed me a discussion per se, but I think that was a time where I really felt like, and it was right before I went to college, I was like, "Okay. I don't want my mom to have to feel like this. I don't wanna feel like this. What can I do to m- put us in a situation where we never have to feel this way again?" And I think that was probably the final straw in me like just making a determining factor that I gotta figure this out for our family.
16. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah. You know, I, I resonate with that so much. It's like, um, and it's not even the material things-
17. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right
18. CJCalum Johnson
  ... that is the biggest pain point.
19. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right.
20. CJCalum Johnson
  It's the, to me it was always the loss of independence.
21. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yes.
22. CJCalum Johnson
  Like feeling like I need to rely on this person-
23. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm
24. CJCalum Johnson
  ... or this thing that's outside of my control.
25. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right.
26. CJCalum Johnson
  My life hinges on that. It's just like I don't, you just feel powerless.
27. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah. 100%.
28. CJCalum Johnson
  And it hurts. Like that's what hurts about it. Um, okay, that makes sense. So that was the fuel. Um, I guess coming out of that then-
29. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
30. CJCalum Johnson
  ... you start getting into your career. You start making money. It, it's, it's interesting the way the, the course that like life takes, right?
22:28 – 30:32
How your money beliefs MUST shift overtime
1. GAGeorge Acheampong
  $18,000. I, I mean, I'd take a check for $18,000 today too.
2. CJCalum Johnson
  [laughs]
3. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Um, but at the time, that was just like life-changing money. And I remember, for whatever reason, who they banked with, uh, we had to cash the ch- like we couldn't like, they couldn't direct deposit. I had to like go to the bank, cash the check, and then to deposit the money in my bank, and I, I ended up doing it like at the end of the day, so I didn't have enough time to get back to my bank. So I'm sitting here with this like wad of cash and all these $100 bills. I'm still, I'm young. I'm 23 years old and I'm just like, "Man, made it," right? Um, and I remember that, that being a moment where I felt like, man, like I think that I'm gonna be able to figure this thing out. And I remember making early personal, I didn't share this, share them out loud, but early personal commitments like one day I'm gonna retire my mom. She's n- I never told her, right? I was like, but she doesn't know yet. One day I'm gonna retire my mom. And a- and this is a- again, at this point probably a decade-ish before it happened, 'cause I did it in 2022. Yeah, um, is when I retired my mom. And God is funny because my mom, I, I, once it got closer, I was like I wanna retire her before like she, like traditional retirement age, which is 65. Or I was like, I was like, I don't know how soon. I was like, but I want it to be before. So she had her 60th birthday, and like a week later she got laid off from her job.
4. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
5. GAGeorge Acheampong
  And God was like, "What you gonna do? You said you wanted," she doesn't, she didn't know that she made this promise to herself, but like now's your chance. And so I had the opportunity to have a conversation with her and say, "I know you're kinda figuring out what your next steps are gonna be, if you're gonna go back to work or find something new, but I want you to know that you don't have to."
6. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
7. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Um, and that was probably one of my proudest moments of knowing that my mom can finally take it easy and be provided for.
8. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah. You remember her reaction?
9. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Um, just gratitude. Uh, I, I think my family dynamic is w- in a, in a spectrum of love language, we're very acts of service in a sense that we show our love by showing up and doing things. We, we, we, growing up it wasn't a lot of like, "Love you," and hugs and kisses and that kinda thing, which I'm unlearning 'cause my wife is the polar opposite, and she like is all about that. And then so we're balancing that with our two-year-old son. Um, but I say that to say What she didn't say with her words, she demonstrated with her actions of how much, how appreciative she was of me being able to do that. And so she was just very grateful, um, that I was in the position and had the, I guess, the financial wherewithal to even know that it was possible to make it happen for her. But def- definitely an immense amount of gratitude. She's so proud of, you know, the things I'm able to do. She's like all over my social media to the point where I'm like, "Mom, you gotta relax a little bit."
10. CJCalum Johnson
  [laughs]
11. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Like, like somebody's watching trying to troll me in the comments. She's like, "Oh." Like she, she's definitely on it, so but she shows up with her actions, but she's just really, really grateful, um-
12. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah
13. GAGeorge Acheampong
  ... that she, that she can, you know, take it easy and spend time with my son, uh, and be this super Gigi, as, as he calls her. But yeah, it's, it's a, it's a great feeling for sure.
14. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah. Just to have like the choices in your life, I think that's what we're all trying to get to where you have optionality. You're not doing things 'cause you have to do it.
15. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Exactly.
16. CJCalum Johnson
  It's actually a choice.
17. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
18. CJCalum Johnson
  Um, you know, I wanna rewind a little bit to, so you get this, this $18,000 check.
19. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
20. CJCalum Johnson
  I'm curious from a mindset level, right? Because I think especially when you come from an environment where money wasn't plentiful or abundant-
21. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm. Yeah
22. CJCalum Johnson
  ... and then suddenly you just, that person gets money, it's like were you ready for it?
23. GAGeorge Acheampong
  No. [laughs] No.
24. CJCalum Johnson
  Explain that.
25. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Uh, I was actually telling Carter about this story not so long ago. Um, so it's funny because like you're still, like even if you, you're a financial advisor or you come from an environment where you didn't have money, you wanna like be a good steward over it, you're still human at the end of the day and a young man at the end of the day. So I'm 23 years old. I get this $18,000 in cash at that, at the time when I had it, and I was not ready for it. I remember like I was only like a year removed or so removed from college. I still had some friends of mine that lived in the same town that I went to school, and I remember like going up there for like one of the parties and like just being reckless. Like, I was like giving out, I was like, "Hey, look, go buy yourself a bottle." Like-
26. CJCalum Johnson
  [laughs]
27. GAGeorge Acheampong
  ... you know, you look thir- like I was just reckless, buying shots for everybody. Um, definitely wasn't ready for it. Again, something else I don't share that, that publicly, but it actually led to me expediting getting that energy out of my system, uh, because I actually end up, I think it was maybe like six months after that first, 'cause the checks kept coming, but six months after that first time I actually end up getting a DUI. Um, just because I started to develop this like invincible armor. Like I'm making money now. Nobody can stop me. I can do what I wanna do, and it just one thing led to another and I end up like, uh, getting a DUI and it just really sat me down like, "George, wait. Like you're only doing this to change the trajectory of your family's dynamic, but the road that you're on right now, like you're actually going to go off course and make it worse." So I'm really glad that that happened actually because had I kept trending in the direction of just like feeling like I, I was on top of the world and I could do what I wanted to do, uh, I don't know where I would've, where I would've ended up. Um, so yeah, I was not ready to answer your question. I was not ready at all.
28. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm. I'm curious, when you, when you think about the position you're in now where like not only are you making money yourself, but you're advising people on how to manage their money.
29. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
30. CJCalum Johnson
  What is the biggest difference between the George at, what was that, 24?
30:32 – 45:27
How to WIN even in your weak moments.
1. CJCalum Johnson
  the same time." Can you kinda just give the context? Like what was that whole situation? What was happening?
2. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah. Yeah. So- Uh, I had just gotten married September 27th of 2015. Um, earlier that year I was ex- I was experiencing this excruciating back pain. Um, and I'm pretty active at the gym, and, and I was, you know, even younger than I am now then. So I thought maybe I tweaked something, I strained something, I pulled something. So I did the typical stuff, you know, went to get a massage, went to the chiropractor, you know, things of that nature, and even went to the doctor to figure out what was going on. Um, but ultimately didn't really get any meaningful diagnosis, and the pain just continued to persist. Um, so then after I get married, um, that y- later that year, uh, I remember, like, going on our honeymoon and just really feeling, like, out of it, like, in a lot of pain. And then shortly thereafter, like, it got to the point where, like, I couldn't even really leave the house. Like, that's how much pain I was in. Couldn't stand up straight, in excruciating pain. Um, ultimately, um, I finally got diagnosed properly, and the doctor told me that... Well, this is, this is how I found out. He a- she asked me, she was like, "Did you get e- ejected from a car? Were you in a bad car accident?" I said, "Well, I, I don't think that's something someone would forget or they would..." And I was like, "No, I didn't get ejected from a car." Um, she said, "Well, do you have any blunt trauma to your back recently?" I was like, "No." So then they did, like, another scan, and they were able to see that, uh, a tumor was growing inside of my ninth vertebrae, and it fractured my spine, and it was, like, days away from attaching to my spinal cord. And if, if it had attached itself to my spinal cord, I would, would've probably been paralyzed from the waist down, right? Um, so now mind you, I had been married all of 60 days at this point when I get, when I'm getting this news. And so, like, now my wife is having to live out, uh, the vows for sickness or- sickness and in health, like, very, very early on. Um, and to, without giving too much detail, um, you know, things that you would think you'd have to do at maybe, like, 65 or 70 as a married couple, things that we had to deal with within 60 days. First 60 days, right? Um, and it was just, it's just a very unique experience. Um, and through that journey, 'cause I was an entrepreneur at that time, um, it really helped me, like, just realize, like, man, like, anything can happen at any time. Like, this is so unexpected, right? Like, and I had to really think about, like, how can I build something that doesn't require me to run it, because what if I did get paralyzed from the waist down, right? Like, this business, this whole, all these dreams that I have for running and growing this business, it would look completely different. It's not to say that it, it w- it would be impossible, but it certainly would look different than I envisioned it. So it forced me to look a little bit deeper around, like, what does it look like to truly build something that can run without you? Um, or have other options inde- like, independent of that, so that if something does happen to your main business, that you're, you'll be okay. And it really helped me double down on the belief system of the importance of the work that I did, right? Uh, it really helped me understand that, uh, financial planning and, like, just building wealth is a lot like the human body, right? The place in which you experience pain is rarely ever the source of it, right? Like, going back to that financial trauma, right? It's like, like, you're spending money in this way. We can't just look at your bank account and say, "Oh, well, stop spending," right? That's, that's, that'll fix your problem. That is a derivative of something deeper, right?
3. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
4. GAGeorge Acheampong
  If you have a pain in your, in your knee, it might be because of a tight hamstring, right? And so it helped me realize that you can't really compartmentalize, uh, your financial situation. It's all connected, right? Um, and it really helped me just reimagine the way that I served my clients so that I could help them get the best results. And again, most importantly, it re- helped me reimagine how I needed to approach, uh, business and investing so that when, not if, something happens to you, uh, your family or your loved ones or your clients or employees aren't feeling the impact of you not being able to be the one that can run it.
5. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm. You know, I, I, I wanna, um, obviously that's, like, the business and the financial outcomes of it all. I'm curious to get into, like, how you were feeling at the time.
6. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
7. CJCalum Johnson
  And, and the reason why I say that is I feel like we've all had that experience where you, I don't know, you even have, like, some niggling injury or you wake up, you're like-
8. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
9. CJCalum Johnson
  ... "I know it's a bit stiff," or I d- you just-
10. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
11. CJCalum Johnson
  ... there's just something not right. And you kind of, I think for 99.999% of the time-
12. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
13. CJCalum Johnson
  ... it's nothing.
14. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
15. CJCalum Johnson
  You wake up the next day, it's fine.
16. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right.
17. CJCalum Johnson
  And so I just think about the experience of what you said. It kinda hit me of, like, in a few days that that tumor could've attached to your spine, and you could've been paralyzed. Like, just the small margins of that-
18. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right
19. CJCalum Johnson
  ... to come from such a, some, from such an event which just didn't seem like a big deal.
20. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
21. CJCalum Johnson
  It seemed so, um, minor.
22. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
23. CJCalum Johnson
  And so I'm curious, like, when you're sitting in, when you're sitting with the doctor, like, in that medical room and he says that, like, where is your mind even going?
24. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah. [laughs] Taking me back. Uh, where my mind is going is, I mean, initially, like, why me, right? Like, you, like, one of the, the most frustrating experiences through that process, even to this day, right, is, like, you almost look at people and you feel like, again, you don't know the context of the backstory, but you feel like they're squandering, uh, their health, right? It's like they're voluntarily eating unhealthy. They're voluntarily not going to the gym. And it's like I was trying to do all the right things and was dealt a hand that seemed so unfair, right? It's like I was trying to work out. I was trying to eat healthy, trying to do all the right things. Why is this happening to me? That's, like, the kind of the default initial thought. Um- Other than that, it was just like trying not to overthink or create scenarios of what this was going to mean for my life going forward, right? 'Cause I didn't know, quite frankly, right? I didn't know how I was gonna feel after I had this surgery, right? Like, 'cause the, the, here's the craziest thing. He told me, he was like, "Well, we got two choices, right? Well, if we don't perform the surgery that I'm gonna recommend, you, you, uh, I, you'll all but guaran- you're all but guaranteed to be paralyzed from the waist down, right? 'Cause this, the tumor's gonna attach itself to your spinal cord and blah, blah, blah, right? Or we can have the surgery, but based upon where we have to have the surgery, there is no guarantee that you won't be paralyzed, but it's the only option to not..." I mean, our, o- outside of, like, not doing the surgery. I was like, "Wait, so you mean to tell me, like, I gotta have this six-hour surgery where you're gonna split my back down the middle, you're gonna take out a part of my spine forever, you're gonna replace it with titanium metal rods and screws," that are still there to this day as we have this conversation, "and there's still no guarantee that, like, the tumor..." I mean, excuse me. "There's still no guarantee that I might not be paralyzed from the waist down, but that's my only option?" So it was just, I don't think I had a lot of space to even process, um, anything other than making that decision, right? Of like, well, sounds like my only choice is to have this surgery, and even though it's as scary as it sounds, like, I know for sure I don't wanna give myself the option to be guaranteed to be paralyzed. And so that really, that's all I could really think about at that time. Um, once I had the surgery, my thoughts shifted to just like, "Is my life ever going to be the same?" Right? I was for the longest time chasing the 2014 version of George, the George that he could run and there'd be, there'd be no pain, the George that could wake up and he feels, and he feels no pain. And it created a lot of frustration because I was chasing something that would never come, right? Like, that version of George is inherently gone because I ha- I had, I had the surgery, I had the metal rods and screws in my back, and I'll never, I'll never see him again, right? So what I had to do is reframe and create a new normal and say, okay, well, a medical dictionary is, I don't know how long this, this is, like, 10,000 pages or something like that, and there's probably two sentences of that 10,000-page book that reflect my current situation. But there's 9,999 other pages of things that I could be experiencing that I, that I'm not experiencing, right? So it was a reframing of a perspective of like, yes, this sucks, but ultimately I get to walk out of this hospital. And I remember it was, like, Christmas Eve or something like that when I got the, the original diagnosis, and the hospital was filled to the brim. Lev- seven floors, every room was, w- had, had a, had a, had somebody in it. And I had this realization like, wow, I'm walking out, but some people won't, right? Some people, this is the last place they'll be. And so I could focus on the circumstance and the unfortunate nature of, of what I was experiencing, or I could focus on all the things that I still got to do and the life that I still got to live despite it maybe not looking like I thought it was gonna look.
25. CJCalum Johnson
  Hmm. You know, our, our feelings, um, they oscillate. They, like, vary, you know? We go through, like, emotional ups and downs.
26. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
27. CJCalum Johnson
  Um, this is a lot more minor than what you just shared, but when I was 19 years old-
28. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
29. CJCalum Johnson
  ... I was in, uh, my second year of university, and I'd just gotten, I did a study abroad in Canada. It was almost my dream growing up to go to a, a North American university-
30. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
45:27 – 50:56
78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
1. GAGeorge Acheampong
  pull up your credit score, pull up all your debts and liabilities, and do a honest assessment on where you are, right? Because oftentimes people don't have that clarity, right? They're just kinda going through the motions, it's like, ooh, there's enough money to transfer to get the rent paid, and I'll worry about the next bill when the next bill comes, right? It's like, how much money's coming in, how much is going out, and what is that surplus or deficit, right? Because at that point, now you have to make some decisions. Because at the end of the day, like the biggest killer of your success in general, but we'll just keep it to financial success, is entitlement, right? It's that I deserve or I feel like I should be able to do this. What does the, what does your financial resources say that you can do, or that you should be doing, right? And if you don't have a surplus of money to allocate for just the basic emergencies or savings or whatever it is, that means that something has to change about your lifestyle and what you're spending, or about the amount of money that you're bringing in. But like, those are just the facts, right? Like, we can't debate that. If you, if it's costing you $3,000 a month, $4,000 a month to maintain your existing lifestyle, right, and you're making that exact amount of money or less, and you're even having to subsidize it with credit, like that's a recipe for disaster. So we have to become massively aware of what is actually happening so that we can make data-driven decisions about what must change.
2. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm-hmm.
3. GAGeorge Acheampong
  That's the first thing. And then from there, once we have that awareness, uh, we have to take immediate ana- and immediate action, right? It's like we can't like... It's not enough to know. To know and not to do is not to know, right? So it's like once we know, what are we going to do about it? Like everybody's first fundamental objective is if I'm at break even or if I'm in the red, I have to eliminate or change something, right? And once we do that, we gotta, we gotta start to take that action so that we can have resources to allocate towards the, the lifestyle that we want. 'Cause most people, they're so stuck in the life they have now, they're so stuck in the residual impact of bad decisions they made in the past, and they never spend any time on focusing on, well, what must I, what must be true today to build the life I wanna build tomorrow? 'Cause if you don't, if you don't focus any time on that, you're always gonna be dealing with the residual impact of your past decisions, and we don't wanna be stuck in that, right? So asking yourself the tough questions on like, if I wanna have extra money, if I wanna be able to travel, if I wanna be able to invest, what must be true about my actions today to make that my reality, right? So I look at money in three very simple buckets, right? There's a lot of micro things you have to do, but on a macro level, it's about what you make, how you manage it, and how you maximize it, right? And I remember in the early days of financial advising, sometimes I would go through people's budgets and they would say, "What do I need to cut? What do I need to cut?" And sometimes what I realized, I was like, you actually don't need to cut much, right? You need to turn up the lever of the money that you make, right? Like, that's your greatest lever, right? It's much easier to make 10,000, an extra $10,000 than it is to get your money to make you $10,000, right, or produce $10,000. Now, and when I say easier, I mean like you have more control in the short run to be able to make that happen, if that makes sense, right? So it's like am, are there opportunities for me to become of more value to the world and to the marketplace That can give me more resources to maximize. Because sometimes it's like it's not that you need to cut. Like, cutting expenses is a finite exercise, right? The l- the least amount of money you can spend is zero. Now, you might not be happy with that lifestyle. You might be living on your mom's couch, you might be bumming off other, other people, but the lowest you can go is zero. But making more money is an infinite opportunity, right? And so you have to ask yourself, like, "What can I do to make myself more valuable to the marketplace, um, so that I can have that disposable income to allocate towards investing, towards saving, et cetera?" And then from there, if I'm being a good steward over it and I'm managing it appropriately, that will give me the opportunity to maximize it. That'll give me the opportunity to put money into vehicles that can- where the money can do the working, so that at some point I don't have to do all the work, right? Um, but they have to just, they have to evaluate. Like, you cannot... We hear these cliches all the time of you can't, you don't n- you can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been or you don't know where you are. Like, you have to know. Like, you can't be afraid of the boogeyman. What's your credit score? Do you owe anybody? Are some things delinquent? Um, like, just do an evaluation, right? Look at what's happening so you can make some informed decisions about where you are and what must be true for you to change your situation.
4. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm. Okay. No, I really like that. I really like that framework.
5. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
6. CJCalum Johnson
  So, you know, let's go deeper.
7. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
8. CJCalum Johnson
  And I, I, I like what you mention about, like, first you need to kinda build the awareness piece-
9. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right
10. CJCalum Johnson
  ... of, like, where you're at. Um, and the solution, it might be to cut, like, to cut expenses-
11. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah. Mm-hmm
12. CJCalum Johnson
  ... or it might be that you actually just need to make more money.
13. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right.
14. CJCalum Johnson
  But you know what? Let, let, let's start right in the beginning, and I wanna give this stat. So in 2023, they found that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
15. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
16. CJCalum Johnson
  Right? So when you talk about, uh, having a surplus, most people, like, are, like, dead-
17. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right on the line.
18. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah.
19. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
20. CJCalum Johnson
  Right on the line. And so I wanna go, I wanna go deeper so this is really actionable for people. I open Excel
50:56 – 57:16
How to know if you are spending too much?
1. CJCalum Johnson
  or Google Sheets-
2. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm
3. CJCalum Johnson
  ... and I start, you know, almost, like, itemizing the list. Like, I start writing out the expenses-
4. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
5. CJCalum Johnson
  ... and what I'm bringing in. What... Even when you're working with clients, what is the next step after that? Like, how are you even figuring out, actually, like, your expenses are pretty good?
6. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
7. CJCalum Johnson
  Because I'm assuming there's people that have different sort of problems.
8. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
9. CJCalum Johnson
  So how, how do I know if I need to cut more or if it's actually just I'm not making enough money?
10. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah. It's really l- you're looking at, especially when you're trying to fix the problem, you gotta look at things on a granular, granular level and see how things are allocated, right? And if I'm looking at if you're making five grand a month, and you're spending, I don't know, $1,000 a month on between Uber Eats and groceries or whatever, right, you can start to just determine... Like, there's some kind of baseline percentages that, like... And it's not universally true, 'cause once you start making so much money, at some point you don't wanna go by percentages because now you're just allocating too much money towards certain buckets, right? But on a fundamental level, there's not many scenarios where a person's basic living expenses, like their fixed costs, right, their, their house, their phone bill, et cetera, should exceed 50, maybe 60% of their, of their total net income, right? And if we're seeing that you're above that, right, then it's like, okay, well, that's an indicator that we need to evaluate. But if we're seeing that you're above that but it's simply because, oh man, like, you're, you're only spending $200 a month on groceries, but, like, you, you make 4,000, right, now we're seeing that the issue is the income problem. So you can kinda, like, look at a balance of, well, how much money they're making relative to what's considered reasonable or normal, and how, how would, how is that allocated relative to the expenses that they have. And you're kinda able to back into is it a I'm overspending, right, or is it I'm not making enough, right? It's pretty, it's usually pretty glaringly evident. 'Cause most people when they see it, they're in shock. It's like, "Oh," like, "I didn't realize I was spending $700 a month on Amazon," right? That, like, some, the, the, the, the things tend to be kinda glaringly evident once you get clear. Um, and then sometimes it's like, well, what else can I do? It's like, I mean, I'm only spending $200 a month on groceries. Like, there's really nothing else that I can do to cut if I don't have a surplus, even though I'm s- only spending X amount of dollars. And that's where you can kinda see where the opportunities are.
11. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah. You know what? I just wanna make sure there's no gaps for people. Can you just explain the terms? So you mentioned, uh, fixed costs-
12. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
13. CJCalum Johnson
  ... and then your total net income.
14. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
15. CJCalum Johnson
  For people that don't know, like, what does that mean? Like, what's involved in those?
16. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yep. So your fixed cost, um... And I'll, I'll break it down even further. So you have, when you think about your cash flow management, you have your, like, your fixed costs, what I like to call your 30-day money, right? Those are things that you're already committed to. Those are past commitments. You're already committed to the lease on the, on the apartment. You're already committed to the car payment, right? These are things that they are gonna be what they are, so you probably wanna know where that money's coming from. Those are your past commitments. Those are your fixed costs. Then you have variable costs, right, which is, are your present choices, and that's the area where you have the most opportunity or the most opportunity for the wheels to come off, right? That's eating out, going out with friends, shopping, like, all those things that there's no set amount that you have to spend on it, and you kinda have control over it. But if you don't have control over it, right, that's where things can get messy, right? So you have your variable costs. I call it, like, your seven-day money and your present choices. Um, and then of course you have your future commitments, and those are the things where it's like, oh, okay, I know I wanna go on this trip this year. I know my MacBook is about to die. I've had it for seven years. I need to save some money for that. Like, those are the things where you know, you know what the, what you're planning for, and you wanna allocate money proactively towards those things, right? And essentially after taxes, right, that is the actual money that you have to play with to allocate across these various buckets, right? So your total net income is gonna be, well, I look at my paycheck. This is the gross amount. They, uh, I think they call it gross 'cause it's disgusting what it looks like after taxes come out, right?
17. CJCalum Johnson
  [laughs]
18. GAGeorge Acheampong
  But here's the gross amount. Let's say it's 6,500 a month, and then your net amount after taxes and whatever else you got coming out your check might be 4,300, right? That's the amount that you actually have to navigate and live your lifestyle on.
19. CJCalum Johnson
  Hmm.
20. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
21. CJCalum Johnson
  Okay. No, that makes sense. And so it sounds from the way that you described it, if someone actually, the solution is they need to cut expenses, it's really those variable costs that it sounds like-
22. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right
23. CJCalum Johnson
  ... is where those cuts need to be.
24. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah. For, for the most part, unless they are willing to go dramatic, right? Like, if they realize, like, "Oh, wow, I'm paying too much for my car payment, let me see if there's a way to get out of this lease," right? Or, you know, "My rent is really high. Do I have a two bedroom? Can I get a roommate? Should I be putting on Airbn-" Like, it really depends upon how extreme someone's willing to go. Obviously, certain things have contracts and terms, and you may not be able to just, like, snap your fingers and get out of it. But to your point, the variable expenses are the, the ones you have the most control over in the short run, right? 'Cause if you notice that you're spending $1,000 on food and U- Uber Eats, you can reel that in, you know, pretty quickly.
25. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah.
26. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
27. CJCalum Johnson
  You know, we were having a conversation, uh, with 19 Keys a couple of weeks ago. Something that he mentioned, which I thought was really relevant.
28. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
29. CJCalum Johnson
  And I haven't really heard, I haven't heard it before, or I haven't thought about it before.
30. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
57:16 – 1:08:17
How to overcome financial TRAUMA
1. GAGeorge Acheampong
  quantitative lens of personal finance, and that's like, you know, what's going in versus what's coming out, right? And then there's the qualitative lens, right? And the qualitative lens is where I feel like there's a lot of area of opportunity related to the behavior of why you do things, right? So what I mean by that is when you think about money, right, like, you can ask yourself a question to determine if your money is aligned with your values, right? Like, does my spending align with what I say I value? But the aha moment that should come from that is you have to understand what you value, right? And your values, a lot of times, sometimes are inherited, right, or passed down, or based upon what you see if you haven't really dug into what you value. Um, and so for me, I always take my clients through this exercise, this qualitative exercise of making sure that people are clear on what they say they value, right? Because I should be able to look at your bank account and see a reflection of what you say you value based upon the way you spend your money, and that in and of itself is going to potentially reveal some trauma. So for example, if we look in your bank account and we see a, a bunch of expenses on shopping or just, uh, these discretionary things that don't s- necessarily align with... You said that you cared about freedom, or you said you cared about travel, or cared about being able to help your loved ones. But when I look at your bank account, I see three trips to the mall, y- a, a, a trip to the Louis store. Help me, help me understand, right? So then you have to continue to unpack. Well, well, what is that? Well, do I need... Do I have a sense of, do I, do I feel like I need to be valid- I need external validation to feel my self-worth? Like, why am I spending money on things that don't align with what I think I told myself I value, right? So it forces you to dig deeper, because we can look on a transaction level and say, "You said that you don't have any money to save, or you don't have any extra money, but I just can identify areas in your spending that could've been allocated towards something that you said you cared about. So talk to me about why there's, there's not alignment between those things," right? And you just keep asking why, you keep going deeper, and what you'll find through that exercise is that, is that financial trauma, right? But you have to face it head-on and really make sure that it's like, okay, well, if I'm saying that I value this, but I can't see where that's reflected in my spending habits, there must be something more here, right? And I need to do the work to unpack that, right? It goes back to that self-sabotage. What I realized about self-sabotage is, like, it's kinda like this idea... Well, I'll, I'll even frame it this way. I call it the internal identity index, right? Your life can only elevate, right, relative to the level of alignment of your internal beliefs, right? Like, like, your e- your external output is never gonna exceed the level of your internal beliefs, and if we don't figure out what those are, you're always going to be limited on the output because there's no alignment there, right? So it's like I said I wanted to achieve this, I said I wanted to do this, I said I wanted to do that, right? That's what I said, but why is it that my actions and my output aren't reflective of that? It's because there's a gap in your beliefs, right? And as a result, it's not allowing you to produce the external outcome that you want. Anybody can say, "I wanna make a million dollars. I wanna have $100,000," say. Any- anybody can say that, but if there's not alignment between your actions, and your words, and your thoughts, it's never gonna happen.
2. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm-hmm.
3. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right? And so we gotta dig into, like, why is it that I'm saying these things that I believe that I want, but somehow my actions or my behaviors aren't aligning to that? Let me keep digging deeper. Let me ask myself that question. What did I see growing up, right? Like, maybe I had this mindset of, I believe... Here's w- here's a common one. I don't believe that this is gonna last, so YOLO. Right? Like, I might as well live it up 'cause some this is too good to be true, and at some point someone or something is coming to take it from me, but at least I can say that I enjoyed it while I had it. So there's no point to save it. There's no point to save it for a rainy day. Like, this isn't gonna last. Let me live it up while I have it. So you gotta unpack, well, why is that belief? Why, why do you have that belief? What did you see or what did you witness that leads you to believe that something is inherently going to disrupt this journey that you're on?
4. CJCalum Johnson
  Right.
5. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right? It's gonna be different for everybody, but that's kinda just an example of the, the journey that people have to go through to really ask themselves those questions of, like, why, well, why did I do that? Right?
6. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
7. GAGeorge Acheampong
  I knew that inherently that wasn't the best thing to do with my money, but I did it anyway. Why? And act- and ke- and keep asking yourself those questions until you get an answer.
8. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah. I think that's so good. Um, your external results can only rise to the level of your internal beliefs. And it's interesting because so much ... when we, when we don't have something, we're not making enough money, or our relationship isn't in the way we want it, or just my lifestyle isn't where I want it to be, we're always looking outward. Very rarely do we look inward.
9. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
10. CJCalum Johnson
  I'm, I'm curious for you to reflect even in your own journey.
11. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
12. CJCalum Johnson
  Your external results can only rise to the level of your internal beliefs. When I even say that, is there a point in your life when, I don't know, it kinda just hit you square in the face that-
13. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm
14. CJCalum Johnson
  ... the reason that you haven't ascended to this level that you wanna be at-
15. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
16. CJCalum Johnson
  ... is some sort of misalignment in the att- internal beliefs.
17. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right.
18. CJCalum Johnson
  Does something come to mind for you?
19. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I probably would have to say definitely entrepreneurial related. Like, I was seeing people, you know, make a lotta money in their business and I was still trying to figure it out. And I think I heard this, uh, 'cause I didn't, I w- I didn't have it as articulated as well as I do now then when I w- when I, when I got slapped in the face with it. But someone, someone had said, like, if someone was following you around with a camera 24/7 and you think about the projection, the way you project yourself to the world, what you post on social media, what you tell other people about you, would they ... would what they see behind the scenes be in alignment with what they would expect based upon the projection that you forecast? Right? And that really forced me to think about, like, how I spent my time, what I was doing with my time. Was I truly being as intentional as I could relative to what external outcome that I said I wanted. And I was like, man, like, uh, there's some moments where I, I, I wouldn't want the camera to see that I, I hit the snooze button. Or there would be some moments where I wouldn't want the camera to see that, like, I cheated myself on that rep in, in the gym, or there'd be some moments where it was the middle of the day and I probably could've been doing some money-making activities and I didn't wanna face whatever I really did so I, I created a distraction, um, to, to avoid the real work, right? And it just slapped me in the face. I was like, man, like, that means that I'm not in full alignment with who I, who I project, uh, to, to the world, right? And it's not, and it's not to say that you have to be, like, perfect. It's not about perfection. But it's having the awareness of, like ... so that you can course correct and you can self-correct in those moments. But that framework, so less of a, a s- specific situation, but that framework caused me to really evaluate everything that I was doing, right? Like, you're the only person who's heard, heard 100% of the lies that you told yourself. You're the only person, right? Like, when you said you're gonna work out at 6:00 AM and you didn't go, right? When you said that, "This week I'm not gonna eat the sweets," or, "This," or, "This month I'm not gonna spend..." Like, there's so many people that will never know that you committed to that and didn't fulfill it, right? But you know, and that has to be enough. Because at the end of the day you're the one that's gonna benefit most from the life that you're trying to curate, right? And so for me, like, being able to have that self-talk to remind myself, like, at the end of the day, yes, this a lot of work that I gotta put in to achieve the life that I want, but ultimately I get to benefit the most from that, right? And so I can't say that I want this thing or I want this life and I'm not willing to do the actions. Like, a tree grows in two directions at the same time. You have the, you have the fruit system and you have the root system, right? It's like we always focus on the fruit. We're always thinking about what ... if this happens, all of the fruit that it can bear, all of the apples that are gonna come from the tree. No one's thinking about, well, I gotta go against gravity. I gotta dig twice as deep to create this foundation that can even support the fruit that I'm trying to grow. That background work, that deep dark work that nobody else sees. We only tend to think about the external results.
20. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
21. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right? And so when you sit down and be like, man, like, do I really, do I really want this whole thing or do I j- or did I just want the fruit but I didn't realize, like, what it would take to bear the fruit, right? So asking it, so having a better understanding of, like, the external result that I say I want, well, what is the work required, right? What are the seeds that must be sown to produce it? And am I willing to do it? And it's, and it's okay to come to a realization of, like, oh, now that I understand this is what it takes, maybe I don't want as much of it as I thought. Like, some people, like, I think David Shands, he says, "I don't wanna become a billionaire," right? And he's like, and the reason why he says that is because when he weighs the pros and cons of the lifestyle balance and alignment that he wants with his family and what he believes it would take to achieve that, as he understands the root system, he understands there's certain things that he wouldn't be willing to do or want to do because of the sacrifice that it would take to get it. And I think sometimes we just don't know enough about the depth or the gravity of what it takes to achieve what we want, so we're not, like, maliciously or intentionally just pursuing the fruit, we just didn't know. We didn't sit down when we mapped out this vision to say, "All right, here's the things that I want," and we didn't think about the things that we had to do. Or maybe we didn't know all the things we have to do. And as a result, when life is revealing it to you- Are you leaning into it and embracing it, or are you like, "Oh, nah, I didn't sign up for that."
22. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
23. GAGeorge Acheampong
  "I don't wanna do that." Right? And that's that, you know, those quiet moments where you gotta sit with yourself and ask yourself like, "Do I want this as bad as I thought I did?"
24. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah. No, you have to do the, you have to do the work that's required. You know, on-
25. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
26. CJCalum Johnson
  ... on that line of thinking, I think about that stat I read earlier on. 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
27. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
28. CJCalum Johnson
  So if someone's listening, they're in that 78%, and they wanna get to the point, basically what you mentioned earlier, have optionality.
29. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
30. CJCalum Johnson
  They have like choices.
1:08:17 – 1:20:42
Step by step breakdown to go from poor to rich.
1. CJCalum Johnson
  feel like I need a bit of a break, like I'm burning out.
2. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
3. CJCalum Johnson
  They can make certain choices with even their work, their lifestyle-
4. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
5. CJCalum Johnson
  ... so they can take a break for a few months.
6. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
7. CJCalum Johnson
  They're not constantly against the clock. There's not someone always on them-
8. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
9. CJCalum Johnson
  ... like, "No, you have to get up and go again because-
10. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
11. CJCalum Johnson
  ... your situation-
12. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right
13. CJCalum Johnson
  ... determines that you have to do that."
14. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
15. CJCalum Johnson
  So when you say that you have to do the actions required to get to that stage, and you know, I love, I love asking someone like you this question because you see people that have gone from the point where they were like-
16. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm
17. CJCalum Johnson
  ... just making ends meet-
18. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
19. CJCalum Johnson
  ... to the reality where they have the optionality.
20. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm.
21. CJCalum Johnson
  So give it to me in more detail. What, what are the steps that are required?
22. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
23. CJCalum Johnson
  Like what is the work that people are not doing but it's pivotal so that they can get to that point?
24. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah. Yeah, so I'll, I'll dig deeper on those three levers, right? So the first one is like when I think about the, the resources that I have and where they're coming from, your job, your business, or whatever, like do an evaluation on am I in the right opportunity vehicle, right? Like, like am I making enough money from what I'm doing? Because if you're not, then everything else is gonna be harder, right? Like it doesn't matter how much you budget or how much you invest. If you invest $100 and you get 100% return on a consistent basis, which is not h-heard of, that's still only 200 bucks, right? Because and but why can you only invest 100? Because you're not making enough, right? Or maybe you're not managing it right. So the first thing is am I in the right opportunity vehicle with the way in which I'm making money, right? And evaluate is there ways to i- i- if not, like am I willing to develop new skills so that I can change it, right? 'Cause you gotta come face to, face to face with it. Like once you, again, to know is not enough. Like so if I'm not in the right opportunity vehicle, am I willing to acquire new skills to change that narrative? Or if I am, what can I do to maximize it, right? Like what is my career trajectory so that I can increase this lever to give myself more resources? In, in the process of figuring that out or striving for that, let me make sure that the filtration system where these new resources are gonna go, that I don't have a hole in my bucket, 'cause we've all seen, you know, people who've made all the money in the world, so we know that money-making in and of itself is not the answer, 'cause we've seen people who've made millions of dollars and they've gone bankrupt, right? So let me make sure that I have a bucket that doesn't have a hole in it, right? Let me evaluate my ca- let me come face to face to see if my, if my behaviors align with what I say I want, right? When I look at my transactions, am I seeing too many transactions for brunch or Uber Eats or sh- online shopping? Like is, is, is that disproportionately out of alignment relative to what I say I want, right? People will tell, I, I ask people about this question all the time. "How many trips do you have planned this year?" "Oh, I plan to go to here, here, there." "Oh, okay. Great. Um, how much time have you spent planning out your finances," right? People will spend more time planning out temporary escapes than they will planning out a permanent one, right? So we have money to travel, again, but it goes back to entitlement. It goes back to these thoughts of, "Oh, you only live once." Like I understand that. Like that can happen within reason, but we can't say that we don't have the money for it, 'cause you just told me that you got f- you got three international trips planned this year, and I know you're not spending no less than 3,000, 4,000 per trip, right? So it's not that you don't have it, it's that it doesn't seem like a big enough priority right now, or going back to the financial trauma, I have to do this to get this temporary escape from the life that I have right now. Well then let's back up. Well, why do you feel the need to escape from the life you have right now? Eh, what are you doing professionally that has you s- feeling so bad about it that we have to spend money that could be going towards a permanent escape, right, just to get the mental space and break to come up for air, to go back to your analogy about feeling like I'm underwater, um, to be able to keep going, right? It's like do you wanna spend your whole life being in the middle of the ocean doggy paddling, right? You're not going anywhere. You're not, you're not gonna make it to the shore, let's, and let's say the shore is retirement or freedom, but you're just in the middle of the ocean just like doggy paddling, right? Your head's above water. You're surviving. You're existing.
25. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
26. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right? But you're not really making progress, and that's what a lot of people do when they fund these temporary escapes or these temporary vices or these things that are gonna give them temporary relief to address the symptom versus addressing the actual problem. So we gotta look at, okay, cool, is my bucket, right, the, the, the, where the money is going once I make it, does it not have a hole in it? Do I, am I crystal clear on where every dollar is going, what it's doing, right? If you ask somebody right now how much money they make per month, most people can answer. Most people, "Oh, I make blah, blah, blah." Or maybe entrepreneurs can't 'cause sometimes it varies. But most people, they can answer you. How much do you spend every month to the dollar? Might even, almost nobody can answer that. Nobody knows. Why is that, right? So we have to, we, we have to get, get that answer because that is gonna give us an understanding, 'cause if we already know how much we make, if we know to the dollar how much we're spending, then we know how much we have available to purchase our freedom, right? And the last thing from there is then you'll be able to start maximizing your resources and investing in assets like the stock market, real estate, uh, businesses that you can have an ownership stake in but not have to run, that can then grow independently of your efforts of working for the money so that now the money can start working for you. But those are like the three ... macro steps that a person would have to take in order to-
27. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah
28. GAGeorge Acheampong
  ... get that, get that f- that freedom.
29. CJCalum Johnson
  So it seems like the, the order of op- operations is, like, kinda the step one is the, what you said is the evaluation.
30. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
1:20:42 – 1:25:09
Why you MUST set budgets.
1. GAGeorge Acheampong
  thing you want most, right? Most people focus on what they have to give up versus what they're gaining, so but it's not, it's not a organic thought process, right? So you have to intentionally insert that thought process when you're going through the budgeting process of like, "I'm doing this because," right? Man, by doing this I'm gonna be worry-free on that amazing international trip that I'm taking with my friends in a, in a few months because I didn't nickel di- nickel and dime myself locally, um, on things that, you know, I coulda, I could've controlled, right? You gotta talk to yourself until it becomes intuitive, right? Like, you gotta remind yourself, what am I gaining by doing this? Like, and for whatever reason it's not intuitive, but everyone focuses on what they're giving up, the restriction.
2. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
3. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right? 'Cause they feel like it's, oh man, this is too, too many guardrails, and they're not putting enough focus on what am I gaining. But I think that's also because, like, we're only really motivated by two things at the end of the day. We're motivated to avoid pleasure and to seek pain, right? And if the pain is future pain, right, i.e., oh shoot, if I don't invest money for the future I'm gonna have to work and hustle my whole life, when it seems far away it's hard to make present decisions to adjust it, right? So we gotta bring that future pain into the present, not to, like, motivate me to, oh my gosh, I need to have a scare tactic to be better with my money, but to, like, understand that if I don't do what I'm supposed to do, is that a life that I want five, 10 years from now, right? Do I, does George wanna be the dad that m- my son is like, "Man, well my dad, he's always working. He's never around," because I didn't do what I was supposed to do to give myself that optionality. If that's not something that I want for myself, what must be true about my actions today to pay it forward to my future self, right? But that's very hard for people to do. That's not a... We're worried about what's right in front of us, right? Um, but again, if you can just focus on what you're gaining from this budget, from this cash flow plan and let that be at the forefront, I think it makes it a lot more palatable. Um, one thing that comes to mind for me, um, I heard this analogy a long time ago when I was first getting in entrepreneurship. Um, a lady, uh, was at a conference and she said, uh, a billi- in 2011 one billion drill bits were sold. And for those of you who are not handy, a drill bit is a, the thing that you put inside of electric drill, right? And she said let's assume that those drill bits were used to hang artwork in, uh, office parks and residential homes all across the country. She said nobody cares about the drill bits, right? No one cares about the artwork. What they care about is the feeling that they get when they walk in the room where the artwork is hung, and that's the same thing with money. Like, no one cares about the fact that you have $100,000 in your bank account. No one cares about if it's in a, or like what financial vehicle it's in, whether it's a Roth IRA, whatever the case may be. What you should care about is the lifestyle and the things that you want to do with those resources. And when you can paint that picture, right, that's what creates the habits of like, well this is what I'm... I don't care about having the money. I don't care about the account that it's in, right? I'm not gonna just stare at my million dollars in my bank account. There's a life that I want, and this just happens to be the fuel that allows me to get there, right? Money is like gas on a road trip. We're not going on a tour of gas stations.
4. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
5. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right? We just need the fuel to get where we're going, right? So when you can understand clearly where it is you wanna go, what that looks like, that can help you make better decisions about what you do with the fuel 'cause like, well shoot, I'm not gonna have enough to get to this destination if I use it recklessly, right? So that's the frame that I try to help my clients understand.
6. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah. I remember we had a, we had a guest that came in. He said that people are motivated by two things fundamentally. It's either deep inspiration or it's deep pain. It's fear, and it's like it's either desperation or it's inspiration.
7. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
8. CJCalum Johnson
  It's like one of those two things when you really take the, the motivations down to its root.
9. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
10. CJCalum Johnson
  Um, no, I think that's such a good point. You speak about the, the topic of, like, making more money.
11. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm.
12. CJCalum Johnson
  So let, let's assume now that someone's got their... They're self-aware. They know where they're trying to go.
13. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
14. CJCalum Johnson
  Their budget is, like, in lockstep. Like they're-
15. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
16. CJCalum Johnson
  ... they're acting the right way according to this budget. But it's still just the case that they need to make more money.
17. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
18. CJCalum Johnson
  And I wanna talk about that part of it because
1:25:09 – 1:31:10
The advantage of a 9-5 over entrepreneurship.
1. CJCalum Johnson
  I, and I heard you say this. You said, um, I believe on Twitter, "There are several jobs that you can earn multiple six figures from and make more than most entrepreneurs with less stress. So unless you hate your job or it's impacting your mental health or you have the desire and grit to build something meaningful, leverage your job and build wealth." And so I'm curious to dig a bit deeper into that. For the person that's like... 'Cause I think we, we so often we hear these stories of like, "I just quit my job," and like the entrepreneur I think it's very romanticized-
2. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
3. CJCalum Johnson
  ... and eulogized.
4. GAGeorge Acheampong
  For sure. Yeah.
5. CJCalum Johnson
  But for most people the solution is like the job is actually kinda cool.
6. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
7. CJCalum Johnson
  I just need to get more from it.
8. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right.
9. CJCalum Johnson
  And so when you, when you're speaking with clients like that, like they already have a job and they're like-
10. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm
11. CJCalum Johnson
  ... they just wanna get more from it. They wanna leverage it-
12. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right
13. CJCalum Johnson
  ... in the way that you said. What does that look like?
14. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah. Um, so w- for me what that looks like is- When you look at the industry that you work in, um, there's going to be very small startups who are just getting off the ground, probably can afford to pay you more, might even pay, paying you less than you're making right now. You have really big behemoths that are really well established, um, and you're probably just a, a cog in a wheel in the grand scheme of things, right? They, but then you have kinda companies that are a sweet spot in the middle where they're big enough to hire pretty decent talent, but they know they're competing with the bigger companies for the top talent, so they have to incentivize people to work with them, right? That incentive may come in the form of equity compensation, right? I'm willing to give you a bigger piece of the pie, and as the company does well, as you come in and b- be a rock star and help us build this thing, you actually get to benefit from the upside. 'Cause in most cases you don't. You go to work, right? You get your job, maybe you get your 2% raise, um, the company reports these record earnings, and you're just like, "Well, that's cool for the company, but it didn't mean anything for me." But if you get a company that's like, "We're established, but we have so much room to grow, and we know we need top talent to grow, um, we're willing to benefit you. We're willing to give you equity," right, which will be mutually beneficial because as you grow, we grow. Uh, I think that is a cheat code, uh, to getting more out of your job, right? My sister, for example, uh, she worked for a tech company before she retired, um, last year at 40, and the reason why she was able to retire sooner, um, outside of having a brother that's a financial advisor, is that the company gave her a substantial amount of equity, right? Um, so she was able to cash out on that equity, um, to be able to live her life. So I think that's key is finding companies who are willing to give you more than just the base compensation, more than just a standard bonus, and willing to give you a piece of the pie. And it's a win-win for you and the company because now you're incentivized for the company to do well. You're not in a, a, a 9-5 environment where you're just like, "Let me just clock in. Let me just clock out. Let me just... I'm here so I don't get fined." Like, you're, you actually know and can tangibly feel the benefit of the company winning at scale. So I think that's something, uh, that people can take advantage of. You typically see that most commonly, um, with tech companies.
15. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
16. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right? And they don't have to all be big behemoths like Meta or things of that nature, but, um, there are comp- Just seeking out opportunities where the company's willing to give you equity I think is a cheat code to leveraging your job.
17. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah.
18. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
19. CJCalum Johnson
  And I guess it would be, [sighs] 'cause I'm assuming, I don't know this, but I'm assuming if you're working at, like, Google, they're probably not gonna give you... Actually, they do give, like, options and stuff, right?
20. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah. They, they, they give so- I mean, you just, you just gonna get more if the company is, like, on the brink. Like, when Google probably was like, you know, like 10, 15 years ago, right, they were like, "We gotta hire this top talent from Microsoft or whoever else." It's like, "We gotta incentivize these people to even trust that we're gonna be around. Like, they should leave this well-established company to come work for us," right? So yeah, these, the big companies, they still give some, but it's just not probably gonna be as substantial and meaningful as a company that's, like, on the come-up.
21. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
22. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
23. CJCalum Johnson
  And it makes sense because it's almost like pairing... I guess the, the thing with entrepreneurship is that you have the high upside, right?
24. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
25. CJCalum Johnson
  So it's like you have all of the risk, uh, but there's also this really high upside if it goes well-
26. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right
27. CJCalum Johnson
  ... that you'll benefit.
28. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right.
29. CJCalum Johnson
  I guess with a job it's like they kind of cap the downside.
30. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm-hmm.
1:31:10 – 1:38:00
How to make your money work for you.
1. GAGeorge Acheampong
  the first level is, man, I don't feel like I'm just keeping my head above water. The things that I wanna do in my, in my day-to-day life, like, I can, I can handle it. I'm enjoying my life even wh- even though I'm still working. I think a- in, in 365 days for the, for the, for the average person with commitment, they can start to turn that, turn that around in a year or two, right? Um, I think for the person who wants to be completely financially independent, I'd say give or take six to eight years, um, timeframe of like, man, I'm like legit, like my investments can completely cover my lifestyle and working is truly optional. I'd say give or take six to eight years. Obviously there's levers that can make it more or less, right, depending upon how much money you allocate to investing, how much money you, how much money you make, you know, and those, those things. But by and large, within a six to eight year window it's possible. And the reason why it's possible within that timeframe, which is a lot faster than most people would imagine, 'cause most people think about retirement and they're thinking, like, "Man, I gotta wait till I'm 65 years old." ... is the way in which we, we approach it, right? Like, most people approach retirement from the vantage point of accumulation, right? I need to have this large pool of money accumulated that I wanna look at one day, and say, "Ooh, man, that's so much money. I'm swimming in the money," right? But again, money's a tool, and it's not, it's not a pool, right? It's a tool. And so, like, the money needs to be used, it needs to be in motion. And so, the way we're able to accelerate our clients' financial independence timeline is that when they start investing, right, the first thing... So, let's say they start investing in the stock market, we're already looking at how we can leverage that money for another investment. So, most people, they're just investing one time and hoping that over the next 10, 15, 20 years it accumulates into that nest egg. What we're saying is, all right, let's invest the money in the stock market, right? That's a great bank account alternative, meaning that your bank s- is gonna pay you 1% to keep the money there, if that. The stock market on average, on a, on a very just average account, is gonna pay you 10%, right? Um, you're gonna earn 10%, uh, as your money appreciates. But how could we leverage that account to go buy other assets that maybe produce cash, that produce cash flow today? So, m- what most people don't realize is when you invest money into a brokerage account, um, most institutions will give you the ability to borrow against the value of the a- account. So, if you have a, an investment account that has $100,000, you probably could borrow up to $50,000 based upon the value of the account, right? So, what does that mean? That means that your $100,000 is still growing, right, while you've gotten access to a line of credit, um, based upon the collateral that you have for 50,000. Most people, when they get credit, just r- reg- regular credit, they, they take that money and they do what? They go buy stuff, liabilities, they travel, whatever. We take that line of credit and we then go buy other assets. Maybe now we're putting that as a down payment on a rental property, right? That's gonna produce cash flow. Now you have two investments off of the original investment, right? You take that cash flow and you reinvest that back into the portfolio, right? And now you continue to build up that nest egg to be able to continue to run that strategy for other investments. So now because of that, you're able to get two to three uses out of the same dollar, whereas the average person is only investing that money one time.
2. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
3. GAGeorge Acheampong
  So, when I say things like we're helping people achieve financial freedom three times faster, it's not 'cause it's like a, a catchy tagline. It's like, well, it just, the math, right, of we're leveraging $1 three ways, where while it's growing at the, in the investment account, we're borrowing against it to buy another property. Now that property's appreciating and producing cash flow, and then that cash flow goes back into the investment and is now getting the return of the original investment as well. So, that's how we're able to kinda condense and accelerate the timeline.
4. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah. 'Cause it's, it's compounding. It's like you're doubling down on your efforts.
5. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right.
6. CJCalum Johnson
  I think to what we were saying earlier, it's like, uh, the money is working for you. When you explain that process of like-
7. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
8. CJCalum Johnson
  ... you're borrowing against a investment account that you have to then get another asset, uh, that's making you money, that's cash flowing.
9. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right. Mm-hmm.
10. CJCalum Johnson
  It's like the money's working for you. I think it's such an important theme of the episode is, like... And I, and I love that you stress this, which is, first of all, like, having the vision of, like, what is your life gonna be-
11. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right
12. CJCalum Johnson
  ... and then planning against that, 'cause I think so often it's like people start with the advice of, "Oh, you need to cut expenses," and all this stuff.
13. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Mm.
14. CJCalum Johnson
  It's like, that's not actually what matters.
15. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right.
16. CJCalum Johnson
  It's in service of the vision of, like, where you're trying to go.
17. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right. Mm-hmm.
18. CJCalum Johnson
  And I think a lot of the times it's like we're missing step one. We don't even have the vision. We don't have the self-awareness-
19. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
20. CJCalum Johnson
  ... of where we're trying to go.
21. GAGeorge Acheampong
  That's the only thing that's gonna keep you going, right? Like, like, saving money and investing mon- like, that's the smart young adult or s- uh, uh, uh, thing to do. Like, we sh- we're supposed to be good stewards over our money. Like, that's only gonna get you so far. It's even, like, working out, it's like, "I wanna look good on the beach." Well, what happens in the wintertime, right? So, it's like there has to be a bigger why, a bigger reason, and that has to be at the forefront, because that's what's going to drive the tactics, right? Because again, the ta- it s- seems like the things that we want most in life, right, like, they're difficult, right? Like, there's difficulty to pursuit, and I think it's by design, but it's like, what's gonna keep you motivated to do 'em is not the fact that you're gonna enjoy the tactics. It's that you are so focused on the vision and the outcome, and these are just ingredients in the recipe. If I handed you a stick of butter and said, "Hey, take a bite out of this," you'd be like, first and foremost, "No." But, "That's disgusting." "Well, hey, take, here, here's a bag of flour. Take a s- a spoonful of that." No, that's... Why would I do that, right? Take some baking powder. Eat that independently. Like, the ingredients almost independently are never going to taste good. When you put them together, the total summation of your life and all the experiences, all the things you must do, eventually it comes out to be a cake with frosting and sprinkles, and that tastes good, right? So, that's what we wanna focus on. Wanna focus on: What is that outcome that I'm pursuing? I'm not looking at these isolated actions or circumstances or things that I have to do to make that happen. I just understand that these are what's required for the outcome. Because I think sometimes we focus on the micro details of, like, this isn't fun, this is not enjoyable, not realizing it's an in- uh, an ingredient in the bigger recipe of what we actually want most.
22. CJCalum Johnson
  Yeah, yeah. You know what, here's, here's where I wanna, here's where I wanna end. Um, we spoke about, like, your early context, spoke about the story of, like, you know, unwrapping what you thought was a PlayStation, it wasn't a PlayStation.
23. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
24. CJCalum Johnson
  Um, even, like, seeing your mum, like, unemployed or, like, having to move homes because of it, or use a car, like, just that, that whole frustration around, uh, a loss of independence,
1:38:00 – 1:41:59
Money over passion.
1. CJCalum Johnson
  not being able to control the outcomes in your own life. And it feels to me, you know, like, even when you walk into this room, um, and even Carter was here and whatever, just for people, like, behind the scenes- Your life's in a very different place now. [smacks lips] But I'm curious if the George that's here now had to speak with that younger version, maybe the one that was watching, like, his mom kind of struggle with stuff.
2. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah.
3. CJCalum Johnson
  And in those moments where you were, like, the most disillusioned, like, you were the most frustrated, you felt just unable to do what you wanted to do.
4. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Right.
5. CJCalum Johnson
  I'm curious, what would the George now, what advice would he give that-
6. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Yeah
7. CJCalum Johnson
  ... that version of George?
8. GAGeorge Acheampong
  [sighs] I would say that when money is not an option, people will typically choose art. Um, everybody's a artist until the rent's due, right? And what I mean by that is I think l- much of life is to pursue things that make your heart sing, right? Like, you're building an amazing podcast platform. We talked a little bit offline about your intention to just have the best guest and make it, make it amazing, right? Like, and I look at it as a form of art, right? Like, I don't, I don't necessarily look at it directly as... I know it is a business, but I look at it like you, you have that f- feeling because you're, there's a, there's a bigger why that's pulling you. Like, yes, it will yield a great financial outcome when it's all said and done, but that's not the core of, like, what you're building. There's an integrity associated with it. There's a vision that you have of what you're building, and that's what's driving you. At least I believe. That's my assumption, right? [smacks lips] And so what I would tell that younger George is, "Paint the picture for the life that you want, the man that you wanna become, and remember that any source of money that you run into should be in service of getting there." Anything that you do that's out of alignment is gonna slow your ability down to get there. Like, a lot of times when I give young professionals advice now, I'm like, [smacks lips] "Don't be s- in such a hurry to grow up and be, like, like, put your big boy pants on." What I mean by that is, like, you're in college, you're about to graduate, and you see someone with the high-rise apartment or the new car or the, the... Like, that's cool, but the challenge is the more of your financial resources you have to use to prop up the aesthetic external lifestyle that most likely you're doing for s- external validation, the less resources you're going to have and the less freedom that you're gonna have to become the version of you that you actually want to become. And so I would just encourage him to have that perspective, to not be influenced by the, the, the f- material possessions that people are buying to pacify the reality that they're actually not fuf- fulfilling the life that they wanna live, and stay steadfast to who you know you want to become. [smacks lips] And that will provide you way more joy, way more freedom, way more fulfillment, and it will yield the financial result that you're looking for. Because when you do something that you enjoy, you're inherently gonna do more of it. When you do more of it, you're just inherently gonna get better at it. When you get better at it, you'll become one of the best. And when you become one of the best, it's impossible to be ignored, and you will get paid.
9. CJCalum Johnson
  Mm.
10. GAGeorge Acheampong
  That's what I would tell young George.
11. CJCalum Johnson
  I love it. This was a beautiful conversation. Thank you so much, man.
12. GAGeorge Acheampong
  Thank you for having me, brother.
13. CJCalum Johnson
  It's a pleasure. Thank you so much for watching this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. It's really a dream for me that I get to do this. It's surreal that this is what I do full time and every week. So if you enjoy the content, if you enjoyed the conversation, the stories, please hit that Subscribe button. [mouse clicking] It helps us immeasurably with growing the channel, with getting guests, all of those things. So please hit that Subscribe button, and I'll see you next time.