Jaspreet Singh: Why your house is a liability, not wealth

1. 0:00 – 2:03

   Intro

   1. JSJaspreet Singh0:00

      We have to get over these money myths, that you can't build wealth if you rent where you live. You can't build wealth if you don't have access to millions of dollars. That's not true. And there's one key thing that's given much better returns than any real estate, than any stock, and even any cryptocurrencies. So let's talk about the real way to build true wealth. Jaspreet Singh is the no-nonsense financial guru.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:21

      Realtor and entrepreneur. Whose methods have helped millions of people solve their crippling money problems.

   3. JSJaspreet Singh0:26

      And unlock financial freedom. People don't like when I say this, but I don't say what I say to make friends. I say what I say to help people be better with money. There's a lot of people that are lacking financial education. And we're taught, study hard, get a good job, and if you continue working down that path, you're gonna become successful. Yet most people buy a house they can't afford, and statistically are living paycheck to paycheck. In fact, that's 78% of Americans. Because, ironically, the key thing that keeps so many people poor for the rest of their life is they're scared to look broke. So what do they do? They're driving around in nicer cars, going on better vacations, and to the nicer restaurants, but they no longer have money to save. They no longer have money to invest. And the problem is, we need about $1.8 million-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett1:06

      To retire com-

   5. JSJaspreet Singh1:07

      ... to retire comfortably.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:08

      Wow.

   7. JSJaspreet Singh1:08

      So if you are in the financial danger zone, which is you don't have $2,000 saved up for an emergency and you have credit card debt, you have to make drastic changes today.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:16

      So what do I do?

   9. JSJaspreet Singh1:17

      Well, the first thing you gotta understand is the 75/15/10 plan, which is... But now let's dig this a little bit deeper, and let's talk about making money. I put my money in five places that has been proven to win. Number one...

   10. SBSteven Bartlett1:31

       This has always blown my mind a little bit. 53% of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show. So could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like this show and you like what we do here and you wanna support us, the free, simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is, if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much. (instrumental music)

2. 2:03 – 3:10

   Who Should Care About Jaspreet's Message and Why?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:03

      Jaspreet, who should care about your message, and why should they care?

   2. JSJaspreet Singh2:09

      Anybody who uses money, which is everybody. The interesting thing about money is we use money every single day. It costs money to eat, and it costs money to feed other people. Yet most of us are never taught about money. So most people say, "Money doesn't matter. I shouldn't think about money. I shouldn't have to worry about money. Money's bad, money's evil." When in reality, it costs money to eat and it costs money to feed other people. And when you don't understand that, now you're the one that's gonna be paying the highest taxes. You're the one that's gonna be struggling to pay your bills. You're the one that's not gonna be able to go to Disney World. You're the one that can't pay for that amazing gift for your wife or your husband. And you're the one that can't pay for the healthcare for your parents. And you wonder why. And in this economic system that we all live in, money talks. And unless you understand that, you're never gonna be able to win in this system.

3. 3:10 – 8:00

   The Difference Between Those Who Build Wealth and Those Who Don’t

   1. JSJaspreet Singh3:10

   2. SBSteven Bartlett3:10

      What is the difference between people who figure out how to make themselves wealthy and those that don't? If we put all objective advantages aside, rich parents, inherited lots of money, all these kinds of things, what is, like, the fundamental difference that you've seen from the many, many hundreds of thousands of people that you've worked with and taught and that have consumed your content? What is the fundamental?

   3. JSJaspreet Singh3:32

      There's one difference, one key difference. People that become wealthy understand how money works, and everybody else does not. And I'll tell you where I came to this conclusion. I checked all the boxes. I studied hard in school. I went through high school. I went to college. I spent one year in graduate school. And then I went through law school. But I never once learned to think about money. I never once learned to think about building wealth. I never once learned to think about investing. I never once learned to think about passive income. But if you s- look at the wealthiest people in the world, they don't get there by working a job and getting a raise. They don't get there by working to climb the corporate ladder. They get there because they understand how money works, and they understand how to win in that economic system. And the crazy thing about that is we're all taught to trust the system. My parents are immigrants from a state in India called Punjab. And like many other traditional Indian immigrants, they wanted me to become successful. Now, in my house, that definition of success was very simple. They gave me two options.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett4:48

      I, I, I can guess. (laughs)

   5. JSJaspreet Singh4:50

      Well, option number one was, "Jaspreet, you can be a doctor."

   6. SBSteven Bartlett4:53

      Yeah. (laughs)

   7. JSJaspreet Singh4:53

      Option two was, "Jaspreet, you can be a failure."

   8. SBSteven Bartlett4:56

      (laughs) Okay.

   9. JSJaspreet Singh4:57

      And they say, "Now you get to pick which one."

   10. SBSteven Bartlett4:59

       (laughs)

   11. JSJaspreet Singh4:59

       And this is me when I'm, like, one year old, that since the day I could start talking, my parents told everybody, not just people around us, they called my family in India, my family all around the country, that, "Jaspreet is gonna grow up and become a doctor, because he's gonna become successful." Now, I had nothing against that, because I wanted to become successful too. I saw how hard my parents worked. My dad, if he got a Saturday and a Sunday off, it was considered a long weekend. I mean, my parents bust their butt. And I wanted to become successful so I could give back to them. And they told me that if I wanted to become successful, the way I do that is by becoming a doctor. Which makes sense, because when you're in school, you get those, like, pamphlets, those career pamphlets. And they show you the different career options you have, and any time you look at that, the top of the list is always doctor. And so they said, "Jaspreet, if you wanna become successful, you have to become a doctor, and because we came to this country, you have to become successful, so you have to become a doctor." Now, I didn't think anything wrong with it, because I liked the idea of becoming successful, so went down that path. Now, along the way, I realized I didn't wanna be a doctor.... I told my parents that I'm not gonna be a doctor. My mom almost had a heart attack. My dad couldn't believe it, and so my dad essentially told me that, "Jaspreet, if you want to keep any pride in the family, you have to at least become an attorney." So I said, "Okay." I went to law school part-time, worked on my business full-time. Now, today, I am a licensed attorney, but I've never worked a day as an attorney. And the reason why I've never worked as an attorney is because it's just not worth my time and it's not where my passion is. And along that way, that's when I learned that we're taught this is how you win. Go to school, study hard, get good grades, get a good job, and if you continue working down that path, you're gonna become successful. But if you look at the successful people, that's not the path that they followed. And if we take a look at the three things that have built more wealth than anything else over the last century, it's starting a business, investing in real estate, and investing in stocks. Yet along my entire educational path, I was never taught that. We're focused on how do you get a good job, but all wealthy people are focused on is how do I grow my assets? And that's the key difference here, is wealthy people are working to own the corporate ladder. Everybody else is working to climb the corporate ladder. And then the next thing, I'm gonna go back to what you said, assuming that you don't have rich parents, because most people assume that you have to be rich in order to do this. You need millions of dollars, you need access to all this money, but that's not true. You can start now with $100, $10, but you have to get started. The problem is most of us are never taught how to do this, but unless you start doing this, you're never gonna build wealth, and that's the way that you win in this economic system.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett7:59

       So I want to

4. 8:00 – 12:52

   When Did the Penny Drop for Jaspreet?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett8:00

      go through all of those three things you've just said. I want to talk about starting businesses, I want to talk about investing in stocks, and I also want to talk about real estate. But I'm curious in your own personal story there, when did the penny drop? Because it's so interesting, in my life, there's key moments where I got to see behind the curtain.

   2. JSJaspreet Singh8:15

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett8:15

      And when I say see behind the curtain, I- I- I'll refer to my friends when we're- we're speaking, uh, privately, I'll say- I'll refer to it as money games. Like, the day where I saw these billionaires playing money games that I was- I didn't know existed-

   4. JSJaspreet Singh8:27

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett8:28

      ... and I was there working my butt off, working in call centers or building whatever, and then I got to meet a billionaire, I got to spend time with them, got to see behind the curtain and I was like, "Oh, they just play these money games which nobody else has been told about."

   6. JSJaspreet Singh8:40

      Right.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett8:40

      Um, when was the penny drop moment for you? Y- you qualified as a lawyer. Why didn't you end up pursuing that? S- s- something happened.

   8. JSJaspreet Singh8:47

      Yeah, so when I was in grade school, I began working at Indian weddings. I played a drum called the dhol. It's a Punjabi drum, that's where my family is from in India, and I used to play this drum at weddings. Now, my parents didn't like that I did this because anything that was not math or science was, like, you don't do this, so I had to play this drum, uh, in secret. But I would play it at weddings and I started to make a little bit of money, and by a little bit of money, I mean $50 per wedding when I was in middle school, then maybe $100, $200 in high school, and one of the DJs that I was working with said, "Jaspreet, you know a lot of kids in high school. Uh, how about we host a teen party for some of these kids in your school?" And I was like, "Okay, why not?" So, we hosted this teen party and it was a big success, and at the end of the night, uh, the DJ then starts paying out all the costs because we were gonna go in 50/50 on this business venture, and then we pay out the money for the security, for the venue, for the marketing, and then he says, "All right, let's count our profits," and he has four bills in his hand. One, two, three, four. There's four singles left. $2 for him, $2 for me. And I saw that we put in so much work into this business venture, into this idea, into this- this first party, and we made $4 of profit, which we split 50/50. And at that moment, he was really upset, but I was really not upset at all because I was like, "This was fun." (laughs) You know, it was-

   9. SBSteven Bartlett10:16

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JSJaspreet Singh10:16

       ... it was- it was a lot of fun putting this together, but in my mind, it was just one of those hobbies that I was doing because I needed to become a doctor. Well, I did a few of those teen parties when I was in high school, and now it was time for me to go to college. I was 17 years old, and I get there and I see everybody partying, drinking, blowing money they don't have, and I was shocked. I had no idea that people went to college to party, and I had no idea people got the money to spend money on all this alcohol. I don't drink. I'm not into partying, but now I needed something to do on Friday nights, and so now I'm thinking, "Well, what do I do? How about I take this teen party business concept that I had in high school and now do it in college?" So I was 17 and I started knocking on the doors of all the bars, venues, restaurants, trying to see if anybody would let me host a party there. And in the beginning, some said, "Sure, you can host a party here. We just need a $10,000 deposit." I don't have $10,000. I was 17 years old. So I kept going. Some said I needed a $20,000 deposit, but eventually I found this one club that said, "Yeah, you can host a party here. You don't gotta pay us anything. Just pay us half of the cover charge that you generate. Pay us 50% of whatever revenue you generate." Now I'm in business. I made the same arrangement with my DJ. I said, "Look, how about you DJ for me for free and I'll split whatever profits I make with you?" And that was the beginning of my first real business. It was this party promotion company which then became an event planning company, and it grew pretty big in college. I mean, I started off by hosting these one-off parties, then I was contracted by one of the largest clubs on campus to host their weekly college night, so I was hosting their parties every week. We were hosting official shows and after-parties and, uh, it grew pretty large. And...Now, as this business starts to make money, the first thing that I realized is I don't need a license or degree to make money. I thought that was something that I needed because I thought I needed these good grades to qualify for this thing to make money. So that was the first kind of shock and realization. The second realization that I had was I knew nothing about money. I was making a little bit of money and I was very fortunate that I started reading books about money and business. And I started reading these books,

5. 12:52 – 17:37

   Lessons From Starting Early in Business

   1. JSJaspreet Singh12:52

      and the first thing I learned was the difference between an asset and a liability, which were things I had never heard of before. An asset is something that puts money in your pocket. A liability is something that takes money out of your pocket. Wealthy people wanna own assets. I was buying a whole lot of liabilities because I was working in this party promotion business and I wanted to look the part. So I would make a little bit of money, buy a nice watch, make a little bit more money, put some new rims on my car, put a new sound system in my car, put a new, uh, subwoofer in my car. I mean, I was blowing money on all these dumb things to look like I was rich, when in reality I was just making a lot of other people rich. And then I learned about this thing called investing, which really started to upset me because I thought I was doing everything right. And I'm reading these books that are talking about how every wealthy person invests in real estate. I have no idea what that means. Nobody in my family is a real estate investor. I had never heard of this concept of real estate investing before. I don't know what it is, but if wealthy people are real estate investors and I wanna become wealthy, maybe I should invest in real estate. So when I was 19, I'm now studying to get into medical school, because I still think that I'm gonna become a doctor, and I was bored out of my mind because I would spend all day, 10 to 12 hours a day in the library studying, and this was around 2011. And the reason why I say the year is because if you remember, 2008 was the great financial crisis.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett14:30

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JSJaspreet Singh14:31

      That was when we had the real estate collapse in America. So real estate prices were decimated and it didn't hit rock bottom until 2012. That's why I'm saying this. So in 2011, I'm studying to take the Medical College Admission Test, the MCAT, and I'm reading these books talking about how wealthy people invest in real estate, and now I'm making a little bit of money from this party business and I have a little bit of cash in the bank. So during my breaks when I'm studying for the test, I start looking on the internet websites of finance and they all talk about how real estate prices have hit rock bottom, how real estate is being decimated in America. And so I was like, "Well, maybe I'll start looking to buy real estate." And so on August 22nd, I took the Medical College Admission Test, and then on August 23rd, I purchased my first real estate investment property. It was a small condo that I purchased out of foreclosure. A few years prior, it had sold for a little bit over $150,000 and then like many properties, it went through foreclosure, the banks couldn't sell it, and it was listed on sale for $8,400. That was the total price of the condo. So I came in with an offer of $4,000 because I don't know what, how this real estate investing stuff works. And we were back and forth with the bank. The bank said, "We'll sell it to you for $7,000." I tried to negotiate them even lower and then the bank said that they had another offer on the table, so now it's a bidding war and I had to pay, offer my highest and best price. So I said, "I'm willing to offer $8,000 to buy the condo. No more." And they accepted my bid. So I purchased this condo for $8,000. I put in a few thousand dollars' worth of work and then I rented it out for $600 a month, and now I start to question things. Why did nobody tell me about this? This condo is putting money into my pocket without me having to do something because I own this asset. We're all taught to trade our time for dollars. We're all taught to work to get paid, because that's what we're taught to do. But wealthy people are not working for a bigger salary, they're working for more assets because that can continue to pay you even when you're not working. And that's that shift, when I saw that, that really sparked a fire under me and really made me angry. And I don't know why I got so angry, but I got angry because I felt like I was checking all the boxes. I was doing good in school. I bust my butt in school. I was gonna do all the right things, become a doctor and do everything that I was told. But what I didn't realize is those boxes weren't my boxes. Who created these boxes? And why is there this whole world of financial education that we're never taught? Because if this is how wealthy people build and grow their wealth, why is everybody else not taught this?

6. 17:37 – 24:09

   Should I Buy a House?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett17:37

      So I wanna make a distinction here. Are you saying that in order to build wealth, people should buy a house?

   2. JSJaspreet Singh17:44

      No. If you wanna build wealth, you have to buy assets. When people say buy a house, what does that mean to most people's eyes? It means buy my home.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett17:53

      Yeah.

   4. JSJaspreet Singh17:54

      I wanna buy this nice place for me to live.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett17:56

      Which is what most people do when they get a bit of money. What they take their salary from work and then they go and buy a house to live in and then they pay into the mortgage, which means that they are now building an asset, right?

   6. JSJaspreet Singh18:08

      They're building what many people call generational wealth, which is one of the biggest lies when it comes to money. The reason why is because your house is actually a money pit.And that's why I want you to think of your house as a liability. But I want you to hear me clearly. I'm not saying you shouldn't buy a house. I'm not saying it's bad to buy a house. You have to treat your house like a liability. This suit that I'm wearing is a liability. This watch is a liability. My shoes are liabilities. Should I not buy them? No. I gotta make sure I can afford them. So when people think about buying a house, what do they think of? They think, "I'm gonna build generational wealth. I'm gonna build wealth, I'm gonna pay it off, and I'm gonna be able to have more freedom in my life because I can own this house." Let's go with the best case scenario. You buy a home for, let's call it $300,000. You pay it off, and throughout your lifetime, this $300,000 home grows in value to a million dollars, and now you're gonna say, "Jaspreet, I've showed you this is an asset. My house tripled in value, more than tripled in value, and now I'm gonna pass it down to my kids." So now, yeah, your kids got a million-dollar house, but unless they have the income to support paying for a million-dollar house, they might have to find some more cash. Now what do they do? Because you can't just pull cash out of this house, right? I mean, it's not an ATM, unless you go to the bank. The bank will give you the cash, because the bank says, "Oh, you have a million-dollar house, how about we loan you $800,000?" But that's not an ATM because you have to pay that money back, plus interest. And now unless your kids have the income to pay for the property tax, to pay for the insurance, to pay for the upgrades, to pay for the maintenance and the mortgage, they can't afford that house. So maybe now they have to sell. Okay, now you sell it. You got a million dollars. Great. We're not even gonna talk about taxes right now, but you got a million dollars. You're rich. But if they don't have any financial education and you have a million dollars, what's gonna happen? Well, let's think about this. If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it? If I went down the street and I asked the average person, "If I wrote you a check for a million dollars today, what would you do?" What are people gonna say? "I'm gonna go to the Bahamas. I'm gonna buy myself a nice house, I'm gonna buy myself a nice car, buy myself some nice clothes, go to the Gucci store, go to the Louis Vuitton store and buy myself the extra guac at Chipotle." (laughs) That's what the average person will do. Now, maybe you're a little bit more financially smart. You say, "I'm just gonna live off of $50,000 a year." But after 20 years, you have nothing left. Not to mention the fact that 10 years from now, that $50,000 a year lifestyle is gonna buy you half of what it can today. So now let's go back to that situation. You thought you built generational wealth. You did a good thing about paying off the mortgage because you don't have to pay that mortgage payment, but is that really the type of generational wealth that you want? And now to fully hammer this home, I'm not saying it's bad to own a house. It's actually very great. It's an amazing thing to own a house free and clear, because now you can rest assured, you don't have to worry about the mortgage payments. If you have the financial education, that's great. But let's talk about now the real way to do this and build true wealth. When I buy my real estate investment properties and my property values go up, the rental values also go up. The rent is what pays for the maintenance. The rent is what pays for the upgrades. The rent is what's paying for the property taxes and the insurance. The rent is putting money in my pocket, and this is cashflow that I can use. I can use this cashflow to buy a vacation. I can use this cashflow to buy food. I can use this cashflow to pay for my lifestyle. But your house doesn't do that. You have to pay to live in your house. And-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett22:05

      But people think, you know, they're getting their mortgage payments, they're spending whatever they are, you know, spending on their mortgage payments, they, they think they're... Well, we're kind of told that that mortgage payment is an investment into an asset.

   8. JSJaspreet Singh22:18

      Your mortgage payment is a payment to your bank. Banks are not stupid. In fact, they're very smart. Banks do something called front-loading your mortgage. What that means is if you go out and get a 30-year mortgage, which is what many people do in America, and you pay $3,000 a month on your mortgage, you're not paying $1,500 to your interest, your bank, and $1,500 to your principal, your equity. The way it works is banks front-load your mortgage, which means for the first almost 15 years, so about 14 years and eight months or so, but for almost 15 years of your mortgage, the first 15 years, the majority of your mortgage payment is going directly into your banker's pocket in the form of interest. Which means if you're paying $3,000 a month on your mortgage, for the first part of your mortgage, maybe $100 is going out of the $3,000 into your equity. The other $2,900 is going right into your banker's pocket with interest. And now, yeah, after 15 years, now half of your mortgage payment is going to your equity and half is going to interest. But if you refinance before that 15-year mark, that starts over. And so this is where banks understand the game. Again, I'm not against buying a house, but you gotta understand the mo- game of money. And most people don't understand that. And so the mistake that people make is they buy a house they can't afford, and now they're paying all this money into their mortgage thinking that "I'm building wealth," they no longer have money to save, they no longer have money to invest into other real assets. And their money is just going to pay down their mortgage thinking that "This is gonna build my wealth," but you've been sold a lie.

7. 24:09 – 26:16

   What Is Opportunity Cost?

   1. JSJaspreet Singh24:09

   2. SBSteven Bartlett24:09

      This term opportunity cost. Most people don't know what this term opportunity cost means, but it appears to be very pertinent to what you're saying, especially when you just said this is money that you can't then invest in assets. Can you explain what opportunity cost is and how it's impacted if you, if you buy a house?

   3. JSJaspreet Singh24:26

      Sure.If you have... Let's, let's just make the numbers very simple. You wanna buy a $100,000 home and let's say the banks require a 20% down payment, $20,000. You could do a few things. Number one, you could take that $20,000 and go out and buy this house, and now that's how that money has been used. But if you use the money to buy the house, you lose the opportunity to take that $20,000 and say, use it to buy a rental property. You lose the opportunity to use that $20,000 to invest in the stock market. You lose the opportunity to take that $20,000 and maybe build a business. Now, the question is, what is going to give you the best and most growth? Now, hopefully, this house that you buy will go up in value. It's not guaranteed. We know that houses don't always go up in value, no matter what your banker says, no matter what your real estate agent says, because we saw what happened after the 2008 crash where real estate prices were slashed in half. It was as much as 93% real estate values dropping in the state of Michigan, where I am. So we know real estate prices don't always go up. Stock prices don't always go up. Businesses don't always work. Everything has a risk. But now the question is, which risk do you wanna take, and which risk do you wanna take first? Are you in a situation now where you're ready to go out and buy a house, or do you wanna build your wealth first a little bit more? And that's the question that I want people to start thinking, is, am I ready to buy a house? And then people say, "Well, if I go out and invest my money, the problem is housing prices keep going up. I'm chasing this housing market that keeps getting more and more and more expensive." And you're 100% right. There's a risk. But there's also a risk the housing prices could

8. 26:16 – 28:01

   Is Renting Really Throwing Money Away?

   1. JSJaspreet Singh26:16

      fall.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett26:16

      I think one of the biases that makes people wanna buy a house is that they're currently renting and they see that as just giving money away. So they think, listen, I could spend this money on a mortgage and I'll own this thing one day, or I could spend this same $2,000, whatever it is, on rent and I'm never gonna own this thing.

   3. JSJaspreet Singh26:35

      Well, I'm here in Los Angeles right now. I had to stay in a hotel. That hotel payment is paying somebody's mortgage, it's paying somebody's college tuition, it's paying for somebody's stuff. When I go to a restaurant and I eat out, I'm paying for somebody's mortgage, I'm paying for somebody's college tuition, I'm paying for somebody's bills. Because when you go out and you rent, that's what everybody says, "I am making my landlord rich." Well, when you eat at a restaurant, you're making that restaurant owner rich. When you go to a hotel, you're making the hes- the hotel owner rich. When I go and buy a mug, I'm making the mug owner rich. And the reality is, yeah, it's good for you to own a house, but are you ready to own a house? Can you afford to own a house? And what do you wanna own first? I rent where I live right now. I am making my landlord rich today. I also rent from my offices. I am making my office landlord very rich because my office rent is very (laughs) expensive. Do you feel bad for me? I hope not. And this is where we have to get over these, these money myths that many people keep selling you, that you can't build wealth if you rent where you live, you can't build wealth if you don't get a good degree. That's not the way that the system works. See, there's the traditional rules and then there's the real financial education money rules. And again, I'm not saying it's bad to own a house, but it's bad to own a house you can't afford.

9. 28:01 – 30:48

   How to Know If You Can Afford a House

   1. JSJaspreet Singh28:01

   2. SBSteven Bartlett28:01

      How do you know if you can afford one?

   3. JSJaspreet Singh28:03

      Well, there's three parts to affording a house. You have to afford the down payment, you have to afford the monthly payment, and you have to afford the move-in costs. I'm gonna go start from the simplest one, which is the move-in costs, because many people don't factor this in. When you buy a house, you gotta move in, and I'm not talking about the, the closing costs. You might have to hire movers, which are expensive. You might have to upgrade your furniture, which is expensive. You might have to upgrade the house, which is expensive. Factor that in. Then I wanna talk about your down payment. People don't like when I say this, but I don't say what I say to make friends, I say what I say to help people be better with money. If you wanna afford the house, you have to have at least a 20% down payment. That way you actually have some equity, some skin in the game, that way you can actually afford the house. The third part is you have to afford the monthly payments. Now, every bank is gonna have a different rule for you, banks have like the 28% rule and these other rules. I have-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett29:04

      Sorry, just on that last point, why do people not like it when you say that?

   5. JSJaspreet Singh29:06

      Because it's very hard to pay a 20% down payment. Housing is expensive.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett29:11

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JSJaspreet Singh29:11

      You wanna buy a $500,000 house? You have to have $100,000 as a minimum for your down payment.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett29:16

      Okay. All right.

   9. JSJaspreet Singh29:17

      And that's extra cash.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett29:18

       Great.

   11. JSJaspreet Singh29:20

       Now, if we talk about the monthly costs. The simple way that I like to follow it is you have to have a system for yourself, you have to know how much money you are allowed to spend, how much money you need to be investing, and how much money you have to be saving every single month. Then just factor it in. So the way I like to look at it, a simple rule of thumb is something like a 75-15-10 plan, which says for every dollar that you earn from here on out, 75 cents is the maximum that you can spend, 15 cents is the minimum that you invest, 10 cents is the minimum that you save. Now, let's do the math. If you know that you make, let's call it $100,000 a year, that means the max you can spend out of the $100,000 is $75,000. So if out of that $75,000 you can afford your mortgage costs, you can afford your food, you can afford your vacations and lifestyle, then sure, you can afford it. But if you can't afford that, then you can't afford that mortgage. And the reason why I like to go by this rule is because some people are gonna say, "I can live in a small house, I just want an expensive car and some nice vacations."All the people are gonna say, "I want a beautiful home. I don't care about the car and vacations." So now you can factor it all in there, how much can you afford out of that 75% of what you make?

10. 30:48 – 32:40

    Do People Really Know What They’re Spending?

    1. JSJaspreet Singh30:48

    2. SBSteven Bartlett30:48

       Do you think people even know how much money they spend?

    3. JSJaspreet Singh30:52

       No.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett30:53

       I was thinking, I wonder how many people listening right now know over the last six months the exact figure that they spent every single month.

    5. JSJaspreet Singh31:03

       Most people, statistically, are living paycheck to paycheck.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett31:07

       So they're basically spending everything.

    7. JSJaspreet Singh31:09

       Or more.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett31:10

       Okay.

    9. JSJaspreet Singh31:11

       78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, which means I make some money and I spend all of it or more. There's a- there's a joke that I like to make which is, in the traditional Indian culture people make a dollar to spend 20 cents. In the traditional American culture, people make a dollar to spend two dollars through the help of lines of credit, credit cards, and other forms of debt. And the reason why, I'm gonna take it a step back, I don't think you wanted me to go this way but I'm gonna go anywhere. Anyway, we live in what's called a credit-based economy, which means if you make $50,000 a year you don't live off of $50,000 a year, at least most Americans don't. We live in what's called a credit-based economy which means you have the ability spend the $50,000 you earned plus debt because as you make more money, as you have a good job, you become more creditworthy. And so as you show the bank, "Hey I made $50,000," they'll give you credit cards, they'll give you lines of credit, they'll give you whatever types of debt that they can that well now you can go out and spend 60,000, 70,000, $80,000 because that's what grows the economy. The more money you spend, the richer somebody else gets. And so now when you live in this credit-based economy with no financial education, people spend, spend, spend, the economy grows, grows, grows and most people have no idea what hit them.

11. 32:40 – 37:52

    Showing Wealth vs. Hiding Wealth

    1. JSJaspreet Singh32:41

    2. SBSteven Bartlett32:41

       Do you know what's really interesting is two days ago I was having a conversation with one of my friends, it was actually, I did a podcast about finance, um, recently and in there I mentioned some of my friends and then they messaged me on WhatsApp and we were having a chat in our group chat and I, for the first time ever, one of them asked me to guess, we're very close friends, we talk about money, we talk about how much money we have et cetera, they said, "Guess who has the most money in the group?" So I went through and I did, I think this is this person's net worth of my five best friends and I think this is how much cash they have. Now one of my friends who is very, what's the word? I guess frugal. Lives a very, very simple life. As I was going through I go, "Do you know what? This friend is this like high-flying guy, lives in this am- a- amazing apartment, this person has all these wonderful things, this person's been successful in business, this person's successful in crypto." But do you know what? I bet my mate, and I won't say his name, I bet he's richer than everyone else in that chat, um, all of my other friends in the chat. And so I did my little prediction and I said, "I bet you've got X figure." And he replied and go- and said, "This is my current cash position." He was richer than everyone in the chat in terms of cash combined. This guy, lives so fr- he lives in like a studio apartment, he never balls, he do- doesn't have like a fancy car, doesn't have fancy clothes, and he's richer than the entire lot of my friendship group and I thought, "God, there's something really important here in terms of..." And it's- it's so crazy if you- if you know the context of what I'm saying because I've got a friend in that chat who's built like a big business, I've got a friend... Like everyone in that chat runs businesses, is successful, but they're living in different ways and the one friend who runs the smallest business, who like probably has the least income is the richest. (laughs)

    3. JSJaspreet Singh34:32

       (laughs)

    4. SBSteven Bartlett34:32

       And over the last couple of days it's- it's so funny I was thinking about all the dinners I've bought this fucking guy and I'm like, "I didn't know you were a millionaire." (laughs)

    5. JSJaspreet Singh34:39

       (laughs)

    6. SBSteven Bartlett34:40

       I'm like I want that fucking-

    7. JSJaspreet Singh34:40

       The-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett34:40

       I would have been paying for everything. (laughs)

    9. JSJaspreet Singh34:41

       But this is really... I mean, uh, if we ignore your friends it's very easy to look fake rich.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett34:47

        Yeah.

    11. JSJaspreet Singh34:48

        Because everybody will give you a line of credit. If I want a Gucci purse and I can't afford the Gucci, guess what? I can buy now, pay later. I can open up a credit card and buy the Gucci and look like I'm rich-

    12. SBSteven Bartlett34:57

        Mm-hmm.

    13. JSJaspreet Singh34:58

        ... when in reality I'm just making Gucci rich. In fact, one of the richest people in the world, in 2023 he was the richest person in the world, is Bernard Arnault. He is the founder and CEO of LVM, or he's the founder and CEO of the company that owns Louis Vuitton. And why? Because millions of people pay him to look rich when in reality he's the one that's getting rich and we assume that when you make some more money you've got to start looking the part, and this is that mindset shift that we have to make. And, you know, a lot of people resonate who come from the Indian f- traditional families, they message me saying, "Jaspreet, I became a doctor," or, "My wife and I are doctors. We make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. We make a great income but we have no savings and no investments and I don't know what to do." And the reason why is we have a Range Rover and a Benz, we have a nice house, we go on the doctor vacations, we have to look the part. But we don't have any money left over at the end of our-

    14. SBSteven Bartlett36:03

        Mm-hmm.

    15. JSJaspreet Singh36:03

        ... paychecks. And it's a very easy thing to get caught up in because when you make more money, you become more creditworthy, banks will give you bigger loans. When you make more money, you want to spend more money and it's very easy.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett36:16

        Mm-hmm.

    17. JSJaspreet Singh36:17

        And you have to understand how do you control that spending? And that's why if you follow something like 75/15/10, one of the simplest things you can do to start is just always, no matter what, whether you're making $10,000 a year or $10 million a year you always put money aside to invest, you always put money aside to save and you spend whatever's left.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett36:37

        My friend doesn't invest. The friend I'm talking about doesn't actually invest. He just doesn't spend.... he, like, just doesn't spend money. And he's just stacked up, like, a million dollars in cash, w- whilst earning less than everyone else of my five friends in that chat. And it's, it didn't take a long time. Like, it took him four years or something, four or five years of just running this small business with a couple of people. When I say a small business, I mean a really s- like, a small business, like, a business of maybe four or five employees. And he's built up a million, million dollars in cash for himself because he just doesn't spend money, and he lives it ... He doesn't have, like, a, an ego, doesn't care if people, what people think of him. Yet my other friends who are earning maybe five times more a month have five times less cash than him.

    19. JSJaspreet Singh37:23

        (laughs)

    20. SBSteven Bartlett37:24

        It's, like, it- (laughs) and so it was so inspiring. It was honestly so inspiring because it, it says something about the importance of saving. But who the hell wants to save? If I titled this podcast today, The s- uh, Something About Saving, no one's gonna click.

    21. JSJaspreet Singh37:37

        It's not fun. Saving is an exciting. Who wants to go out and save $2,000? Who wants to spend less money? We wanna buy more nice things. But unless you can control the spending, unless you know how to save, you will never build

12. 37:52 – 44:08

    How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck

    1. JSJaspreet Singh37:52

       wealth.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett37:52

       Do you know for people that are in that paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, which I was in for many, many years of my life, where I'd get paid from my call center, I'd go and spend the money. I'd pretty much spent all the money within the first couple of days of getting the paycheck, and I was just waiting the next three weeks for the next paycheck. What advice would you give them about getting out of that cycle? 'Cause it, 'cause you almost feel imprisoned by that cycle if you're in it.

    3. JSJaspreet Singh38:14

       Absolutely. Well, before I give the advice, I wanna explain to that person what's happening, because you are the prime customer for our economic system. Banks love you because they can sell you payday loans, they can sell you credit cards, they can sell you lines of credit, and they can keep you in debt for the rest of your life, which means you keep making the bank rich. Corporations love you because you're not gonna think twice when we show you this nice bag, when we show you this nice vacation. You're gonna want the stuff, and so we love selling you the stuff. The government loves you because you're gonna pay the highest taxes. Employees pay the highest taxes. And so when you're in that situation, you are making everybody else rich at your expense. And so if you want to break out of this, the first thing is you gotta understand, you need to make yourself rich before you make everybody else rich, because when you're spending all their money, you are putting your money into their pockets, and you have to stop that. You got to keep that money for yourself. You're in a boat. Think of it this way. You're in a boat, and this boat has water just flowing in and you are sinking, and you got to start by sealing the holes. You got to stop the water leaving this ... You got to stop the water coming in. You got to stop the bleeding, and that means you got to stop the spending. So if you are in what I call the financial danger zone, which is you don't have $2,000 saved up for an emergency, and you have credit card debt, if you are in that situation, you are in the financial danger zone, and you have to make drastic changes. That means right now, no more eating at restaurants, no more vacations, no more doing anything that doesn't put money in your pockets, and no more Netflix.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett40:03

       No.

    5. JSJaspreet Singh40:03

       And the reason why I say this isn't because you're gonna save $15 a month, it's so you can save two hours of your time a day. The average American is watching more than two hours of television a day. And if you don't have $2,000 saved up, if you have credit card debt, you cannot afford those two hours a day being wasted on TV. And that means right now, you have to go out and start using the time to learn, start using the time to work, and start using the time to make some extra dollars. So what do you do? Start selling stuff. Stop spending money.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett40:38

       Selling stuff you own?

    7. JSJaspreet Singh40:39

       Selling stuff you own. So if you have a TV that you're not using, sell it. You have a car that you can't afford, sell it. If you're living in a house that you can't afford, sell it. Downgrade. Move smaller. And then work to earn more money.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett40:54

       I've gotta say, the couple of things that I've came to mind as you were saying that, and funnily enough, I put myself in the shoes of 18-year-old Steven Bartlett when I was in that small apartment with three or four immigrants in, uh, Moss Side, Rusholme, and I was ... You know, my rent was nothing. My rent was, uh, one thous- no, 150 pounds a month, which I could not afford, and I could not pay. And I was w- intermittently working between call center jobs, and whatever money I got, I spent. And part of the reason I spent it, Jaspreet, is because like many people watching, especially men who sometimes feel the need because of the way society is, I was trying to get laid at the same time.

    9. JSJaspreet Singh41:36

       (laughs)

    10. SBSteven Bartlett41:36

        And it's hard-

    11. JSJaspreet Singh41:37

        Yeah.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett41:37

        ... when you're a young man, uh, and I say young men in particular because the stats do support the fact that there is an expectation that men pay. Um, when you're a young man, it's particularly difficult to do all of these things, to cut back and also get laid. And what am I gonna do? Defer getting laid for 10 years? When I say laid, I'm really saying meeting someone and falling in love and having a, having a life. So what do I ... If I, if I'm living in a shoebox, which I was, I can't bring anyone back there. I can't take anyone for dinner. I can't take anyone to the movies. So what do I do?

    13. JSJaspreet Singh42:04

        And this is why every Indian parents tell their kids to become a doctor, so their son can get married.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett42:10

        Mm-hmm.

    15. JSJaspreet Singh42:10

        It's the same concept. But here's the thing, you have to pick your hard. Either life's gonna be hard now or it's gonna be hard for the rest of your life, and you have to pick what's more important to you right now. And, you know, w- if we talk about balance, if you wanna have a balance of everything where you wanna find a girl and you wanna make money and you wanna stay healthy, you are dividing your attention everywhere. Not saying it's impossible, but very few people can actually do everything all at once. And if your number one goal is to become wealthy, if your number one goal is to turn your finances around, you have to get serious about it because-Where you put your attention is where you get the results. And so, if you want to be in a better financial situation, you are gonna have to make sacrifices. And it's difficult.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett42:58

        Yeah.

    17. JSJaspreet Singh42:58

        I can't come here and tell you it's gonna be easy-

    18. SBSteven Bartlett43:00

        Yeah.

    19. JSJaspreet Singh43:00

        ... because that's gonna be me lying to you.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett43:02

        I gotta be honest, I did make a sacrifice, and for me the sacrifice was I started a business and, frankly, that meant that I didn't have time to be going out, getting laid or meeting people or socializing. But it's- i- i- my story arc ends with it going well and then the romantic situation taking care of itself many years later- (laughs)

    21. JSJaspreet Singh43:24

        (laughs)

    22. SBSteven Bartlett43:24

        ... once it had gone well, because I was so focused on myself. And it's funny, there is a bit of a paradox to life that the more you actually focus inward, the more you become a magnet.

    23. JSJaspreet Singh43:33

        Yeah.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett43:33

        Um, and the more I focused outward, the more I pursued and chased and sort of neglected myself, the- the more harder it was to get people interested in me.

    25. JSJaspreet Singh43:41

        Yeah, and, you know, I- I also wanna say that when I talk about building wealth, I'm not talking about becoming a money-hungry, just money greedy, this is evil person that just cares about money. That's not what I'm talking about, because I want you to live a holistic life because money is just one part of your life. But the second part to that is I'm not telling you to never enjoy life. I'm telling you to make a sacrifice for a period of your life, that way you can enjoy the rest of your life and never have to worry about money again.

13. 44:08 – 47:01

    Why Is It So Hard to Sacrifice?

    1. JSJaspreet Singh44:08

    2. SBSteven Bartlett44:08

       It's hard for us to naturally see life as seasons, especially when we're looking forward. When we're looking back, it's very easy to say-

    3. JSJaspreet Singh44:14

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett44:14

       ... "Oh, that was that season." Like I can sit here now and say, oh, that 20 to 25 was that sacrifice everything in my life to make myself something season.

    5. JSJaspreet Singh44:22

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett44:22

       And then 25 to 30 was like building and learning. And then I- I now, you know, can- can think of it's easier actually now to think forward in seasons now that I've been through some seasons, but for someone that's- hasn't been through seasons in life, it's hard to think about life in those terms. I now think of my life in these five-year seasons.

    7. JSJaspreet Singh44:42

       Mm-hmm.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett44:42

       And that helps me to say to, you know, even have conversations with my partner where I go, "This is the season I'm in, um, and it'll last probably roughly this, this long, and I'm gonna sacrifice these things and prioritize these things in this season."

    9. JSJaspreet Singh44:55

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett44:56

        But, um, it's hard for people to understand this idea.

    11. JSJaspreet Singh45:00

        It's difficult, and that sacrifice is difficult, especially during a time where everybody's showing off everything on Instagram.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett45:08

        Yeah. Mm-hmm.

    13. JSJaspreet Singh45:09

        You look at your friends who have a crappy job, but they're driving around in nicer cars, going on better vacations, going to the nicer restaurants, and you're thinking, "What did I do wrong?"

    14. SBSteven Bartlett45:19

        Mm-hmm.

    15. JSJaspreet Singh45:19

        And then especially if you're a guy, you have a girlfriend, you have a wife, she's gonna say, "How come they keep get to go can- they keep getting to go to Cancun? They keep going to these nice restaurants. How come you can't take me to these nice places?" And now you feel like you're doing something wrong because w- where is this discrepancy? The reason why I call my show The Minority Mindset is because I'm a big advocate of not doing what the majority of people do. The first time I made a million dollars in a year, I was in my 20s. I was driving a car worth $500. It didn't have a bumper on it. It was not pretty. My wife sat in that car with me, and my employees drove better cars than I did. So, y- you know, uh, you gotta be confident.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett46:06

        Mm-hmm.

    17. JSJaspreet Singh46:07

        And you gotta work for something bigger, and you want a partner that's gonna understand that. That's my belief. Which is not the easy thing.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett46:19

        It's interesting, 'cause confidence is such a internal thing, and I just feel like I just probably just didn't have it then, 'cause I- I think I was scared for someone to know that I was broke. I was so scared to know- for someone to know that I was broke that I just didn't entertain romantic relationships.

    19. JSJaspreet Singh46:36

        And that is the reason why so many people will go into debt to buy vacations, to buy things, to buy stuff, to look rich, and ironically, that's the key thing that keeps so many people poor for the rest of their life is because they're scared to look broke. And now when you try to look rich, that's the thing that's actually keeping you broke.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett47:00

        There's another

14. 47:01 – 50:05

    How Life Struggles Lead to Reckless Financial Decisions

    1. SBSteven Bartlett47:01

       element to this, which is my life was pretty miserable. So when you have a pr- relatively miserable life, when you don't have many nice things 'cause you're working in a call center as I was until 11:00 at nighttime doing overtime, every overtime hour I could get, then because you're also lonely, you're going home alone, walking home 'cause you can't afford the bus, anything that gives you a little dopamine hit, gambling. This is why all the gambling shops are in the areas that struggle the- the worst financially, because those, I mean, a lot of people say because those people are looking for that, you know, that big payday, that dopamine hit from a payday.

    2. JSJaspreet Singh47:37

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett47:37

       Um, my TV in my tiny, tiny little bedsit room was like half the size of the wall. I was making reckless spending decisions because I think it gave me some kind of hit that I- I was missing in my life. It gave me like a dopamine rush that was... And there wasn't many things giving me a dopamine hit at that point in my life.

    4. JSJaspreet Singh47:56

       And, see, here's the thing, during that time you are making emotional decisions-

    5. SBSteven Bartlett48:01

       Yes.

    6. JSJaspreet Singh48:01

       ... as many people are. And it's very difficult to speak logic to emotion. But this is where now you have to be able to understand the difference, because if you're listening to this and you're in that situation, you have to understand if you wanna continue being able to live that lifestyle, you're gonna have to make some changes today. Otherwise, you're gonna be stuck in this lifestyle for the rest of your life. And it's only gonna get more difficult. And that's the thing is if you wanna become wealthy, the first part is just your own mindset. It's your own discipline. And until you can conquer that, I can tell you everything about investing, I can tell you different ETFs and index funds to invest in, I can tell you different investment institutions out there, I can tell you which stock brokerages to use, I can tell you just invest 15% of your income into this for the next 10, 20, 30 years and you're gonna become wealthy, but until you can get over that mindset, you're never gonna become wealthy. Because then what happens in that situation...... is when you're in that state of, "I just want to look rich, I just want to have the dopamine hit, I just want to have some nice things because I deserve it, I work hard," you know what happens next? You are the one that gets caught up in all the get-rich-quick schemes.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett49:11

       Mm-hmm.

    8. JSJaspreet Singh49:11

       Because someone's going to say, "Look, put $1,000 into this. You'll have $10,000 in the next three months." Or, "I'm going to show you how you can live the laptop lifestyle. You can work five hours a week, make $10,000 a month, $10,000 a week. You're never going to have to worry about money again. Just buy this program." And now you're a prime candidate because now you are driven by this emotion of, "I want that. I can't imagine if I had an extra $10,000 a month and I don't even have to work for it?" Because you can't see past it. You're- all you're doing is being sold by emotion. And so you- you're the one that's gonna get caught up in the get-rich-quick schemes. You're the one that's gonna make the bank rich because you're gonna ge- stay stuck in debt. Corporations are gonna love you because they can keep selling you the nicest and newest stuff because you want to look rich, want to show it off to your friends. You want to show it off to the girls, and you get stuck in that cycle.

15. 50:05 – 54:34

    Jaspreet’s Perspective on Cryptocurrency

    1. JSJaspreet Singh50:05

    2. SBSteven Bartlett50:05

       So I want to talk about what the money mindset is, but just on that thing you just said there, you said, "Get-rich-quick schemes." Crypto. What's your point of view on cryptocurrencies and investing in crypto?

    3. JSJaspreet Singh50:18

       So I'll tell you where I invest my money so you can understand. I put my money in five places. I put my money into my own business, I invest my money into real estate, I invest my money into stocks, I invest my money into speculative assets, which includes cryptocurrency, and then I own some physical gold. So starting with my own business, I run a company called Briefs Media. We're probably most known for our Market Briefs newsletter, where we break down what's happening in the financial markets. So that's Briefs Media. Number two is I invest in physical real estate. So I'm going out to buy rental properties that I can use to generate cashflow. Number three, I invest in stocks. This is in the form of investing in individual companies and investing in funds. Funds are ETFs, index funds, mutual funds, where you can get investment into a broad basket of companies. Number four is my speculative investments. Notice how I said, "Number four." This is one of the smallest pieces now, which are things that I believe can go up very quickly, but can also fall just as fast. So these speculative assets, which make up a small piece of my portfolio, include things like startups that I invest in. It also includes things like cryptocurrency. And then I own a little bit of physical gold. Physical gold makes up about 2% of my portfolio. But going back to cryptocurrency, because that's what you asked, I think it is a speculative investment. I have made a ton of money in cryptocurrency, uh, and I started buying cryptocurrency before it was as popular as it is today. I began buying it in, uh, 2016 or so when bitcoin was around 3,000 ... maybe 2016, 2017 when bitcoin was around $3,000 a coin. And I have sold some. And for me, I understand, it can go up very fast, but it can fall just as fast. And the issue that I have is when people now want to get into this idea of investing because now they're in this tough situation. "I'm living paycheck to paycheck and I hear about this financial education and investing. If I just dump my money into bitcoin or crypto, maybe it'll 10X and I'll have financial freedom." And that's where I have issue because you're taking your money and you're going for your long-term investments into a speculative asset that hasn't been proven. Maybe it will work and you'll become a multimillionaire. Maybe you'll lose everything. But I don't want to gamble with my wealth. I want to build my wealth with something established and then use a speculative assets as something that is speculative and treat it as such.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett52:53

       In terms of your net worth then, how is it broken down in terms of percentage between these five things?

    5. JSJaspreet Singh52:58

       So if you look at real estate, real estate is probably close to almost 50% of my investments.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett53:04

       Okay.

    7. JSJaspreet Singh53:05

       Stocks make up probably d- right around 30%. Speculative is about 18% of my portfolio.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett53:14

       Sorry, just i- the 30%, how much of that is into individual company stocks versus ETFs?

    9. JSJaspreet Singh53:19

       It's about half and half.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett53:20

        Okay, so 15% each. Okay, cool. And then speculatives?

    11. JSJaspreet Singh53:23

        About 18%.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett53:24

        And how much of that is, like, crypto versus startups?

    13. JSJaspreet Singh53:27

        It was a lot more crypto, now it's a lot more startups. I sold, uh, a chunk of bitcoin when it was breaking record highs, and, uh, I'm gonna be using that money to buy some more rental properties.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett53:37

        Okay. And gold?

    15. JSJaspreet Singh53:39

        About 2% of my portfolio.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett53:40

        Okay.

    17. JSJaspreet Singh53:42

        And the reason why I buy gold, I don't... uh, myself don't consider gold an investment. I look at gold as a way of saving hard money because my theory is if I take $10,000 of cash and I take $10,000 worth of physical gold, and I bury both of these things in my backyard today, in 10 years what's going to have more buying power? My theory is that the gold is gonna have more buying power, and so that's why I own some physical gold. For me, it's this way of saving hard cash. I look at it as a insurance against doomsday, against something really bad happening, against something bad happening to our currency, something bad happening to the economy. That's why I own a little bit of physical gold, but the problem with gold is when I own my physical gold, it just sits there in a vault. It doesn't produce cashflow, it doesn't create new

16. 54:34 – 59:34

    The Money Mindset Explained

    1. JSJaspreet Singh54:34

       value, it just sits there. When I invest in real estate, it produces cashflow. When I invest in stocks, the companies are working to produce a better product, to grow their profits. The gold doesn't do anything.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett54:47

       What about cash? Do you keep a lot of cash on hand? Or what percentage?

    3. JSJaspreet Singh54:49

       Uh, cash is definitely a position. I, I don't know about percentage, but I always keep cash and I'm gonna break this down a few ways because I have one...... let's call it bucket of cash, which is my emergency savings. This is cash that is there to protect me against an emergency, my personal life. I also have a separate bucket of cash which is my business emergency savings. Then I have a bucket of cash which is there to be invested money. This is money that's waiting to be invested in real estate. And then I have, a- and stocks. And then I also have another little piece of cash that's waiting to be invested more into speculative assets. So I have cash waiting to be invested in speculative assets, cash waiting to be invested in real estate, cash waiting to be invested in stocks, and then I have my emergency cash. So I like to separate it all out.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett55:39

       A second ago you said that unless you have a money mindset, you're never gonna be wealthy. What is the money mindset?

    5. JSJaspreet Singh55:47

       The mindset is, number one, you have to believe that you're gonna become wealthy. What I like to say is you have to say, "I will become wealthy."

    6. SBSteven Bartlett55:53

       Why?

    7. JSJaspreet Singh55:54

       Because if you don't believe you're gonna become wealthy, it is gonna be impossible for you.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett55:58

       Why?

    9. JSJaspreet Singh55:59

       I used to guest teach in Detroit public schools. So Detroit is a, um, it was a very rough, and it still is, rough area. Certain parts of it. Our office is in downtown Detroit, but there are parts of Detroit which are still very rough and I used to guest teach in some of the public schools there, and these are kids, good kids, who were not exposed to some of the best things. And what I mean by that is when I would go into these classrooms, you'd first have to go through multiple metal detectors, there'd be police there, you might have to be pat down. And when I get into the classroom, I'd ask the kids, "How many of you have two parents in the home?" Almost nobody would raise their hand. I would then ask, "How many of you work a job?" Almost everybody would raise their hand. And as I got to know the students better, I also started to realize that these kids, high school kids, some of them are already in gangs, some of them are already have been arrested by the police, some have already been involved in these, what we consider bad things, and they are bad things. But to the kids, that's just normal because when I talk to them about these gangs, what they'll tell me is, "I don't have parents at home. I don't have a dad. I don't know my dad. My mom is working. How am I gonna eat? My brothers, this gang, provide me some comfort because there's people that are around me, they give me food, they help give me money." I- it's not a bad thing in their eyes, and so when you grow up in that mindset, it's very hard for you to think bigger. And so when I would come into these classrooms, I would talk about life, motivation, money, all things. And, and so one of the things that I like to do, an exercise that I would do, is try to get you to think about successful things. What are things that kids want? A nice car. So I'd ask these kids, "What is your dream car?" And the responses that I would get were things like a Ford Mustang or a Dodge Challenger, and, you know, these, these nice cars, but I would follow up with, "Why not a Bugatti? Why not a Lamborghini? Why not a R- Rolls-Royce?" And they would say, "Somebody like me can never have something like that, so I can't even dream about having these nice things." And that was really shocking to me, I mean, that you are kind of suppressed to the point where not only do you not think that you can achieve it, but you can't even dream that you can achieve it. You can't even achieve it in your own dreams, and so when you don't believe that you're worthy of anything more than a Ford Mustang, how in the world are you gonna work for something nicer? And I'm not saying you have to work just for materialistic things, but this is that mindset shift that if you don't believe that you can do it, you are never gonna be able to do it. And so this is where the first thing is you have to say, "I will become wealthy." And sometimes you have to be able to find a taste of success and see what that looks like, and there are many ways to go about doing it. I mean, you can just go onto Instagram and see what success looks like to some people. But you start to define what is that success and tell yourself, "I will become wealthy. Not that I might, not that I can, but I will become wealthy." The second thing is money is a tool. And the reason why I say that is because we've been kind of hinting at this throughout this entire discussion, but the reason why many people are so scared to talk about money, the reason why money is such a taboo topic, is because we are insecure about our own money.

17. 59:34 – 1:02:54

    How Negative Stereotypes Stop Us From Achieving Success

    1. JSJaspreet Singh59:34

    2. SBSteven Bartlett59:34

       I just want to pause there before we carry on, on the money as a tool point. Um, it's so interesting what you're saying about those kids, so interesting, because, uh, I was thinking as you were speaking about stereotype threats, and in my previous book I, I spent some time talking about self-belief and confidence and this idea of stereotype threats, and some of the studies I came across showed that if there's a stereotype that people like you, let's say Black people like me, are bad at a certain thing, let's say maths, before they do a math test, if they reminded a Black person that they were Black, just got them to tick a box saying that they were Black, their performance on that test would drop. And they did the same with women. So if there's a stereotype surrounding your ability in something, if they remind you of that part of you before you do a test, your performance drops. And really importantly, in the studies when they don't remind the Black person or the woman about that particular feature of themselves, their performance is the same as everybody else.

    3. JSJaspreet Singh1:00:32

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:33

       And it's, it's interesting that you say that when y- you're talking about money, that we have a stereotype threat there, where we exist in a world where we think people like us make a certain amount of money, and if the stereotype threat studies are true, that means that I'm gonna show up in the world in such a way-

    5. JSJaspreet Singh1:00:49

       Yes.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:49

       ... that's gonna bring that amount of money about. But it's not easy to genuinely believe outside of your stereotype.

    7. JSJaspreet Singh1:00:59

       100%.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:00

       Outside of the context in which you were raised. I, I went undercover in a school in a rough area in Liverpool that was doing very poorly, and I was undercover as a school teacher so I was getting to know the kids, and I met this one kid and I, I remember him saying to me, um, about his plans for the future. And I sat there and I said-... "Do you know any millionaires?" He was like, "No, there's no one, no millionaires around here." I was like, "Have you ever met one?" He goes, "I've never, ever met one." And- and- and in that moment, I'm, I'm, and his mum, it, which it's on video, it was a Channel 4 documentary I did, um, he then goes, "But I think I wanna be a millionaire," and his mum burst out laughing. She was on the sofa next to him, and she burst out laughing. And I remember asking her on, I remember asking her on camera saying, "Why are you laughing?" And she goes, "No, there's no ch- there's no chance." So it's like indoctrinated into your context, your family, your roots, your friendship networks that you can't make it. So it's hard.

    9. JSJaspreet Singh1:01:49

       It is 100% difficult. And it, it doesn't stop in any level. If, for example, when I told my parents that I didn't want to be a doctor, I was told by everybody I'm throwing my parents' sacrifice away, and that somebody like me could never make it in business, because I don't know anything about business. No one in my family is a businessperson. No one in my family is an investor. No one in my family does this. You've never learned this stuff before. You didn't get into business school. You... How are you gonna do this? And I'm not saying this to compare. I'm saying this to explain that there are so many levels to this mindset block that if you cannot break out of this invisible barrier, you will never become successful. When, when, uh, any employee joins my team, the first day, we make every employee, every single one regardless of their role, do this exercise. It's called the nine dots exercise. And you have these nine dots on the screen, and if you go to Google, you can see the nine dots exercise or nine dots trivia,

18. 1:02:54 – 1:08:39

    The 9 Dots Trivia

    1. JSJaspreet Singh1:02:54

       where it's nine dots.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:54

       We'll put it on the screen.

    3. JSJaspreet Singh1:02:55

       Yes. And I'm not gonna spoil it, but... Oh, I will, actually.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:00

       (laughs)

    5. JSJaspreet Singh1:03:00

       That's the only way I can get it across. But the way that this exercise works is you have to, in four lines, touch every dot on the screen without picking up your pen. You have to touch every dot, all of these nine dots, without picking up your pen. And so when you do that, you might say, "Well, uh, uh, there's, it's impossible. How do you do that?" And so this is where now-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:23

       Oh, okay, not going over a previous line.

    7. JSJaspreet Singh1:03:25

       Right, not g- Well, you can go over a previous line, but you cannot pick up your pen. So if there's nine dots, one, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:33

       Yeah.

    9. JSJaspreet Singh1:03:34

       ... you have to connect all four dots, or sorry, all nine dots with four lines. You can't curve the pen, and you can't pick up your pen. And people will say, "This is impossible." And the reason why you say it's impossible is because you have just created an invisible barrier, because now if you go outside of the box, if you extend the pen a little bit further, then you can start to connect all of these dots, and now you realize, oh, it is possible if I don't create these invisible walls around myself, if I don't put myself in this invisible box. And that's what we do. We're all conditioned to do this to some extent. If you grew up in poverty, it might be that you could never become any level of successful. If you grew up thinking that you want to big- b- be this thing, it might be that you can never start a business, you can never become an investor. If you have become an engineer, and now in your 30s, you wanna go out and do something different, it might be that somebody like you can never do something different. But these are all invisible boxes. You see it right there. And that is, that's why we make every team member, every employee do that on the first day, because what we say is, "Look, we've gotta come here and innovate, and if you wanna be able to innovate and do something big, you have to get out of your own mind, and you have to be able to break out of these invisible barriers." And so now when you go back to your question, it's very difficult. It is difficult. And so how do you do it? And so this goes into now your personal development. What I would recommend is go read five books on self-development, personal development, and s- r- really now try to implement these things into your life, because until you can start to think a little bit different, and you can start to see the world a little bit bigger, you're never gonna be able to achieve the maximum level of wealth that you deserve.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:14

        I've just, uh, gone on Google and found this nine dots thing which I've got here. This is the nine dots.

    11. JSJaspreet Singh1:05:19

        You got it.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:20

        So you're telling me I've gotta connect all of the dots-

    13. JSJaspreet Singh1:05:22

        Yeah.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:22

        ... without lifting up my pen.

    15. JSJaspreet Singh1:05:23

        Exactly.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:23

        Okay, let me try.

    17. JSJaspreet Singh1:05:25

        You have only four lines, and you can't curve.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:27

        I can, I can only do four lines?

    19. JSJaspreet Singh1:05:29

        Only four lines. Four straight lines. It's not as easy as it looks. Come on, Steven.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:37

        Show me how to do it. (laughs)

    21. JSJaspreet Singh1:05:38

        Come on. So what most people do is they start going like this, this, uh, then now we freeze up, because I don't know where I can go next. But the way that you do it is we're gonna break the invisible barrier. So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna start the same way I did before, but instead of creating the same cut that I did last time, I'm gonna break the invisible barrier, go a little bit further down, and now I'm gonna come up like this. Then I'm gonna go this way, and then I'm gonna finish it up like that. You break the invisible barrier. You go beyond what you think you can do, because you blew past your own expectations. We have this invisible box around ourselves, and this is what you wanna be able to break out of. This is that mindset shift that you have to be able to make, and that's the first part to becoming wealthy.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:32

        When you talked about invisible barriers, it reminded me of a video that actually changed my life, and it was a video of an ant. Some people have heard me talk about this video before. This is the video. It shows an ant, and they get a Sharpie pen and draw a circle around it. And the ant-

    23. JSJaspreet Singh1:06:50

        Huh.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:50

        ... now believes that it's trapped in this circle. No matter what it does, it goes around, and it checks all the sides of the circle. It thinks that it's, it's trapped. We can see that that circle is a figment of its imagination.

    25. JSJaspreet Singh1:07:01

        Right.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:01

        And when I see this, I think, "Oh, my God. We've all got this sort of imaginary circle drawn around us." And then I watched this video of a spider. So they can do the same thing with a spider. But the key moment in this video that really inspired me is the spider's currently trapped by this pen, right? But in this video, there's a moment where the spider accidentally steps over the pen. And when it steps over the pen, it can never, ever be trapped by the pen again. You'll see it in a second. It's running towards it. So this is like a, an imaginary, imaginary barrier-

    27. JSJaspreet Singh1:07:29

        Wow.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:29

        ... in its mind. Um, and then if I just bring it forward a little bit...This is the moment here where it gets...

    29. JSJaspreet Singh1:07:40

        Wow, it's like a real wall.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:42

        It thinks it's a real wall-
19. 1:08:39 – 1:11:03

    Overcoming Barriers in Life and Finances

    1. JSJaspreet Singh1:08:39

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:39

       That first point, though, of awareness, just knowing the fact that you're trapped by something. And it's, it's not to say that I've broken out of all of my psychological barriers now. I'm just in a new one. I'm just in a new set of barriers.

    3. JSJaspreet Singh1:08:51

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:51

       I think that I can be... I can have nine figures. I don't, I probably don't think I could be a, a billionaire or whatever at this moment, and w- all of us, no matter how successful we think we are, are in some kinda circle.

    5. JSJaspreet Singh1:09:03

       Always. At every stage of your life, you're in some sort of barrier. And, you know, everything that you do now has to be constantly working to shock yourself. When I started my YouTube channel, it's kind of funny, uh, I, I didn't start my YouTube channel thinking that it was gonna be big. And the funny thing was I always thought that I thought big. "I think big. I'm gonna start a business. I, I'm gonna prove everybody wrong." I didn't start my YouTube channel to make money. This was kind of a hobby for me. But I remember, and I laugh at this now, I told my brother when I started my YouTube channel, "If I hit 100,000 subscribers, I don't know what I'm gonna do, but if I hit 1,000,000 subscribers, I'm gonna shut my channel down, because there's no way, it's impossible that my channel is gonna hit 1,000,000 subscribers. Like, there's not 1,000,000 weirdos in the world that are gonna wanna watch this random guy on YouTube talk about guacamole and money, right?" And the funny thing is I started making these videos. I started enjoying making these videos, because I started talking about the things that I wish somebody would have told me before, and people started to watch. And people started to actually enjoy it and share it with their friends. And then we hit 100,000 subscribers, and I couldn't believe it. We hit 500,000 subscribers, and I couldn't believe it. And then one day, we hit 1,000,000 subscribers, and I was like, "Oh, crap, I hope my brother doesn't remember this promise, because I don't want to shut this down." But then we continued growing. And here I was, this guy who had been successful. I'm already investing in real estate. I've had some business success. I broke out of this idea of becoming a doctor and started a business, and I'm still putting these limitations on myself that I can't start a YouTube channel.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:55

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JSJaspreet Singh1:10:56

       Why did I do that? Because I had never done that before. I had never seen this happen for somebody like me before.

20. 1:11:03 – 1:13:25

    How to Escape Financial Barriers

    1. JSJaspreet Singh1:11:03

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:03

       So, is there anything practical that someone who's currently trapped in some kind of psychological barriers can do practically to help them be more expansive with how they think about their life?

    3. JSJaspreet Singh1:11:16

       What I do, and I don't know if I recommend this to anybody else, is... I'm a little stubborn. I'm gonna kind of preface it with that, is I do things to stick out and be different. So what I mean by this, I'm gonna go back to what I said before. The first time I made $1,000,000 in a year, I thought originally that I would be flying in private jets and balling out and doing all this stuff, but I knew that I wanted something different. I w- I wanted to build this wealth, but I didn't want to now start living like everybody else. I wanted to do something different, so I continued living small. That's why I continued driving around in this car, because everybody questioned what the heck I was doing. People were wondering, "Is Jaspreet actually successful, or is this guy a hoax? Is Jaspreet broke? Can he not afford a nicer car?" And so I kind of put myself in this position of, like, hearing this stuff and wanted to really... You talked about confidence. I wanted to really build my confidence to be that person that did something different, and I, I don't know, I get joy out... I'm a weirdo. I get joy out of that. When I graduated law school, I told my dad before I graduated law school, even before, that, "I'm only doing this for you." And so when, when it was my graduation day, everybody, you know, you wear a nice suit and tie, and you kinda get all dressed up to go. I told my dad, "Look, I told you I'm gonna get you the diploma, but I'm gonna do it on my terms." So I decided not to wear a suit. I decided to wear a very traditional Punjabi outfit called a kurta pajama, which is a, a long shirt and pants, and I wore traditional... it's called a Punjabi jutti, meaning Indian shoes. And, ah, for me, I just wanted to do that because it gave me this confidence. And yeah, I mean, people will say, "What the heck are you wearing?" But for me, I needed that burst of confidence that I'm doing this for me, and I, I get fueled by people questioning me. And you have to find what fuels you.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:24

       On that

21. 1:13:25 – 1:16:23

    Why We Need to Remind Ourselves of Our Mantra

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:25

       first point of, "It's my duty to become wealthy," is that just something you say out loud? Is there a way you can remind yourself of this?

    2. JSJaspreet Singh1:13:34

       Uh, so I- I'm not a big fan of, you know, meditating on this idea of, "You'll become wealthy." I'm not a big fan of this woo-woo idea of, "I'm gonna become wealthy, I'm gonna become wealthy." Uh, that's not how it works.... but what I do believe is you have to keep reminding yourself and giving yourself the motivation and discipline in the beginning as to why you started, some fuel as to why you started. So one of the things I like to talk about is, what is your why? Who are you doing this for? And so in our office, everybody has next to their desk this, this tack board where you can put pictures or whatever it might be to remind you of why you're working hard. And in the beginning for me, it was I was pissed off. I wanted to prove people wrong and I was angry. And I don't try to cuss on camera that often but here we go. Uh, I was angry and the reason why I was angry is because when I made that decision to not become a doctor, the thing that I was told was I'm throwing away the sacrifice that my parents made. And I started a business at the time, I was working in the e-commerce world and I started a sock company. And so then the comments that we'd get was, "So, Jaspreet, you were gonna become a doctor, now you're selling socks?" And it was this very just reoccurring just like, "Ah, you gave up your dreams, you gave up all the sacrifices that your family did, you don't even appreciate the things, the sacrifices, and now you're just gonna sell socks on the internet." And that was my fuel, because I knew, I don't know how, but I knew I was gonna prove you wrong.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:17

       Toxic fuel.

    4. JSJaspreet Singh1:15:18

       It wa- 100%. (laughs)

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:20

       (laughs)

    6. JSJaspreet Singh1:15:21

       It was just anger, it was just pure just anger, "Aah, I'm gonna prove you wrong." And, uh, slowly the business started to grow, I started to be seen on TV and all these things started to happen and, and so I was fortunate that my business also flipped, that now I'm not selling socks, I'm, you know, building this financial media company, Briefs Media. And now for me it's, there is a purpose for what I do. There's a lot of people that are lacking financial education. There's a lot of people that are working really hard that have no idea why they can't build any wealth, that keep hearing about how people are becoming so wealthy, investment levels are skyrocketing, billionaires are becoming even richer, and they don't understand and people just get angry. When in reality, you can participate in that same game and win in this game because our economic system is designed to benefit investors. And if you don't understand that, you will never be able to win in the system.

22. 1:16:23 – 1:20:26

    What Does It Mean to Say Money Is a Tool?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:23

       Point number two in your money mindset is that money is a tool. What do you mean by money is a tool, and how is that different from how everyone else thinks about money?

    2. JSJaspreet Singh1:16:34

       You have to understand how money plays a part in your life. When I say money is a tool, what I mean by that is money doesn't make you a good person, money doesn't make you a bad person, it amplifies who you are. And what I like to say is that there are four fitnesses in your life if you want to live a happy and fulfilled life. You have to be physically fit, mentally fit, spiritually fit, and financially fit. If you're physically fit and you're on your deathbed, you're morbidly obese, having $10 million is not gonna make you happy. All you want to do is be healthy again. Mentally fit is about being happy. If you're surrounded by toxic people, if you're unhappy, if you're depressed, if you're anxious, if you're just miserable, you're never gonna be able to really enjoy life. Having more money is not gonna fulfill that hole. Spiritually fit does not mean religious, it means having a purpose. What is the reason for getting out of bed every day? What is the reason for wanting to go out and achieve and do something? Because if you have $10 million, what's your reason for wanting to get up and conquer? At the very top is financial fitness. And once you have the bottom three, having financial fitness gives you the most power and ability to live the best life possible, because this is all about now being able to solve your financial problems, being able to not worry about paying your bills, being able to have the nicer stuff when you want and not have to worry about the price. And the thing about this that I want to really hammer home is, if you don't have this financial fitness, now your physical fitness can get hurt because you can't afford the nice gym membership, you can't afford the healthy food, you can't afford to take care of your body. If you don't have the financial fitness, your mental fitness can get hurt. Financial problems are one of the leading causes of suicide and divorce. Financial problems can really stress you out and they can cause a whole lot of anxiety and depression. Financial problems can also ruin your spiritual fitness because if you can't pay your bills, you can easily lose your sense of purpose. So yes, being financially fit is its own part but it all comes together in your life.

Episode duration: 2:28:46