Real Estate Success One Flip at a Time with Barry Zeigler

It's time to level up a few thousand degrees. With a Lava Hot podcast and host Joseph Connell Jr, you'll hear from ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things, from tech startup CEOs and marketing professionals to authors, investors and sales trainers. This show will be packed with information to help you level up in life or business, taking you from on fire up to Lava Hot.

Hello and welcome to Lava Hot podcast. I'm your host, joseph Connell. Today we're going to be talking about debt and in most people's understanding of debt, it's a cuss word. It's a bad thing for you to take on. Certainly, there's different types of debt that I've come to learn that you have some good debt, there's some bad debt. But I wanted to bring on somebody who could really help us one differentiate the difference between good debt and bad debt. But then if you're in a bad debt situation and you're trying to navigate your way out of it, I definitely want to see if he can shed some light on how to navigate out of bad debt, how to maybe even use debt as a fuel with inside of your business as well. But real quick, let me give you some background about our guest that we have today. Brad Nelson is a financial coach and host of the Debt-Free Dad podcast. He's on a mission to help people achieve financial freedom through his platform, roots of personal finance, drawing inspiration from his own journey to overcome financial challenges. Brad, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, joseph, appreciate it. Yes, sir, yeah. So you know, this is a topic that I think is much needed right now, just, you know, in the state of the economy. I don't have the specific stats. I actually am kind of disappointed in myself that I don't have this, but I had read something recently that like the debt inside of a household is just like through the roof nationally and you know, I think just it's very well timed. I want to start with just getting an understanding of one, your platform. You know the roots of personal finance and you can shed a little bit of background about that and just a little bit of information about yourself.

Yeah, absolutely so. First thing just want to mention, joseph, is I'm just a normal everyday guy. You know, and I think I was struggling with a lot of the same types of personal finance challenges that many families are faced with. And you mentioned, you know, current statistics. Right now over 70% of people contribute their top source of stress in their life to their money challenges. Over 50% of people admit that the number one thing that's causing them mental health challenges is money problems. And you know, you look at the statistics on people who live paycheck to paycheck and the statistics of people who can't cover an emergency expense. And I do also want to be clear too that you know, with inflation and expenses on the rise, you know, obviously that is tightened to the grip. But I mean, I'll be honest with you, joseph, these statistics and these numbers haven't really changed too much in the eight years that I have been doing this, and even prior to COVID and all of that stuff, I mean the numbers were pretty much still the same. It's just that people are feeling even more of that tightening of that grip because of expenses going up. They're feeling like, okay, the house of cards that we were living in for all these years that we were able to get by with now is really kind of falling very quickly for us Because, you know, as things are getting more expensive, we're realizing, like man, we weren't really in that good of a spot that we thought we were in. And so, you know, many years ago I was kind of in that same spot and it was during the whole housing bust and debacle back in you know, 2010, 2011. My first marriage ended in divorce, sadly, and neither one of us could afford this big house payment that we had signed up for and a lot of the debt that we had had. And I was just stressed, you know, I was in my early 30s. At that time I was making some good money not tremendously great money, but still good money and I was just like I feel like I should be doing better, you know. And when I actually really started learning about money and personal finance, I kind of speak about it like I went on this personal finance crusade. Right, I wanted to learn about it, because no one ever really taught me about it. I was just kind of doing what everybody else was doing, which is why it was broke right. And so when I started learning what other people were doing, successful people were doing their money, and I just started applying some of those basic principles to my life. It actually really started to work and I started to really have some success. I finally was having some money in the bank, I was paying off my credit cards, getting out of like these crazy stupid vehicle loans, and just I started just being intentional with my money budgeting. You know, it's amazing how, how many hours we work for our money, but how little time we actually spend managing and what we're supposed to do with it. Right, and you know it's amazing how it's been. I spent a whole Sunday afternoon. I'm a big football fan. I spent a whole Sunday afternoon watching football, from noon all the way up until 1030 at night, and then on Monday I complained that I'm broke and it's like, well, did I do anything on Sunday to actually change that, you know? And so I just started reprioritizing my life and it started putting myself into the education that's out there, the information that's out there and, by the way, everyone it's. It's pretty much free, it's all on the internet. You know, it's not a big secret. Financial success isn't a big secret. It's just that most people aren't taking it upon themselves to educate themselves. Number one and number two they're not being intentional and putting into their life, and that's all I did, you know. And I think people might look at me and say like well, he just must understand this finance stuff, or he just must really love budgeting, or he must just get it, and it's like no, I actually hate all of this stuff just as much as everybody else does. I just decided to do it because I didn't want to be broke, my old style. I wanted to run my own business at some point, but I knew, just in the financial situation that I was in, I just knew there wasn't going to be an opportunity for that. I had a young son at the time when all this was going on who was to. His name is Noah. I've got two kids now, but I just wanted something different for him. I wanted to be able to show him how to do this stuff, because nobody showed me. So those were really kind of the driving points for me and after about four or five years of hard work, I got myself completely out of debt and I've been debt free now for 10 plus years, outside of my mortgage and including my business. I've grown my entire business over these last eight years with zero debt, and it's been a little bit of a different approach than, say, maybe some other business owners have taken. But I didn't want to have the stress of that debt hanging over me and me having to put in a ton of hours just to pay off all those bills again. I wanted to do it slow, I wanted to do it intentional, and that can be agonizing at times, right, but it's been worth it from a stress level standpoint. There's no question. Yeah.

So I want to ask for the listeners if they are in a spot where they just they have this debt snowball that they're dealing with. You know, between you know, maybe credit cards, their car, their mortgage, all of this stuff really starts to stack up and pile on. You know, if somebody's kind of faced with this, you know we'll call it a mountain of debt where would you say they should start to really get back on track and get themselves into a position of being debt free?

Yeah, I think, before you even focus on the debt, I would focus on why is it there to begin with? You know, when it comes to personal finances, business is a little bit different. But when it comes to the personal side of things, a lot of what people's challenges are are behavior, habits and choices related. And I will say I've coached thousands of people over the years. I've helped thousands of people save and pay off tens of millions of dollars, and it almost always comes down to that. Now, have there been a few people that have had life happen to them where they got sick and had a bunch of medical bills come up and things like that? Yes, that stuff's going to happen, there's no question. Obviously, that's not that person's fault, right. But when it comes to the majority of us, it's the—I wasn't paying attention, it's the—I fell for the emotional spending, the social influence, the keeping up with the Jones's mentality, the herd mentality of how popular society says it's okay to live paycheck to paycheck. Everybody else is doing it and that's where—really, that's where a lot of it kind of comes from is just the behavior's, habits and choices. So the first thing I would say is let's check yourself, let's let—where are you spending your money. Where's your money going? One of the very first things I have my members do as they come through our membership is I want you to go back and print out the last three to six months if you want to be an overachiever. Go back and do the 12 months 12 months of all your statements your bank statements, your savings statements, your credit card statements, your PayPal Cash App, venmo I mean any place that you could be possibly spending money. If you're paying cash, start saving receipts, but start figuring out where your money's going. And for most people, in fact, I haven't had one person come back to me, joseph, and say you know, I went and did this work that you told me to Brad, and I wasn't shocked at all. I hadn't had one person say that. In fact, it's quite the opposite. They come back and they're like holy crap, like I can't believe I'm not broke. Actually I'm like I told you you weren't right. It's just—it's just—it's just. Life has this tidal wave effect on all of us and money just seems to fall by the wayside and we get ourselves in these patterns of behaviors and we spend, and we spend, and we spend and we're just not really quite paying attention to it anymore, and it's sad to say, but in this day and age, I mean, it's so easy to spend money and spend money that you don't even have by going into debt. They've made it so incredibly easy now, and so it's no wonder why a lot of people are struggling with this. I mean, look at the buy now, pay later industry. I mean that industry is exploding right now. It's unbelievable what it's doing and the growth that it's experiencing. Well, it's because, again, a lot of us aren't paying attention. We go for these low monthly payments thinking that's—that's going to be okay, we can afford it, and it's just adding on more and more of the stress. So, first thing is, is you got to check yourself, become aware of you, know what are your habits, what are your choices, what are your behaviors, what's getting you into trouble? And then we got to go about the business of okay, how do we start correcting some of those things? And that doesn't mean you got to cut everything out of your life, but we got to start readjusting.

Yeah, so I'd be curious, after working with thousands of individuals, what are some of the like common things that you see that they spend their money on?

Number one, that number one thing going out to eat.

I had a feeling that was going to be right at the top of the list.

Number one thing is going out to eat and because, again, it is, I think, like the food industry in the debt industry have, like this, so many similarities. Like food is everywhere, I mean it is literally everywhere. Everywhere you go there's food. So it's easy just to fall into this swiping the card and buying food and not being intentional with your food prep at home. And I've fallen for it too, even today, still being debt free, like I have to watch what I'm doing. But yeah, food going out to eat expenses we see anywhere people spending on the low end of a couple hundred bucks, which is pretty reasonable, but I've seen people spend upwards of $2,000 plus per month and these are just middle income earners. Right, these aren't like huge high six figure income earners. These are just normal everyday people and so I would double check what you're spending there. Big one also that we see is a lot of subscription type services because, again, they're low fee, they get on these automatic payments and most people aren't really paying too close of attention of their bank account. In fact, we just did a podcast episode about three or four months ago. There was an article that came out of a study on millennials that upwards of 50% of millennials have no idea what's in their bank account, and so like when you're starting signing up for all of these little services, especially if you're doing on like credit card or PayPal or things like that. They're just easy to forget or they're easy to see and it's like, well, it's only, you know, 10 bucks, you know, and there was that whole meme a couple of years ago that was going around. You know how do you waste $10,000 a year? It only takes about what 20, I think it's like $27 a day and some change. $27 and some change. That's how you waste $10,000 a year. So you know, all of these little things start to add up. So subscriptions another big area and it has been for some time and it continues to be and it will be is big car payments. You know, right now, the average car payment here in the United States, according to USA today, is right around 650 bucks. Obviously, interest rates are on the rise because of you know, everything that's going on in the world right now, and not only are these car payments obviously going up, and but so are the terms on the loans right when it used to be. You know, 48, 60 month loan was pretty average. Now we're starting to see six months, seven months, or, I'm sorry, six years, seven years, eight years, you know, starting to be kind of like a normal thing, and it's not uncommon for me now to see a car payment that's well over $1,000 a month. And so you know if you've got one of these big weights on your paycheck every single month, I mean a lot of people like what's causing the stress? It could literally be just be parked right out in your driveway, so you know, you got to check those things too. Obviously medical bills and just you know, normal household expenses. You know groceries is a big expense for a lot of people, especially with the way costs have gone up. Obviously, if you've got kids, daycare expenses can be big, but there are still a lot of areas that people are spending money that are controllable, that you can reduce that. And again, I'm not saying or suggesting that to the point of not having a life, but just to the point where you're not suffocating yourself and causing yourself a tremendous amount of financial stress. Get yourself out of debt and then you could bring some of that stuff back into your life and pay cash and life's pretty good then.

Right, yeah, you know, when me and my wife first got married, my uncle gave us this whole Dave Ramsey book set, which is where that debt snowball comment came in, where you know that was like our first initial. It was the first book I had actually read on debt. At the time I think I was like 24 or 25. It was cool because it got us to have the conversation about debt and our budget and you know all of that. And then you throw in that I've been following Grant Cardone as a sales trainer for about five to 10 years and he has this very strong opinion about Dave's slash debt, which is it is practical. I mean, it is his blueprint is. You know, if it can't be written off, like if you can't pay for it twice, don't do it, especially on those big purchases, and there's a couple of categories there. But you know, it's definitely interesting. I had a feeling that you were going to say some of the big ones were food related. I'm actually I'm very guilty of that.

We all are.

Yeah, being a father, being a husband, you know I run a marketing agency. The wife is also a part of the agency and oftentimes we'll just get you know kind of in a rhythm at work and then it's just hey, let's just go run and grab Chipotle, and that happens two, three times a week where it's just it seems like it's just a faster option just to get that done. But yeah, I mean it definitely. It definitely does add up. I'm willing to bet if I was to just look at how much we've invested in Chipotle in the last month we have sticker shock.

You might be on one right yeah yeah.

So I want to. I want to pivot into kind of the other side of debt in terms of, like good debt. So for me inside of my business, really the only reason where we use debt is in media buys. So if a client comes on and if we're running some sort of ads for them, it all has to be placed on a card. So we do it that way. But I'd be curious to hear, like you know, your thoughts on some areas within your business where you could leverage debt in order to grow the business. And obviously, maybe in a marketing guy I kind of think in that marketing mindset initially, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Yeah, I mean, I think from a business standpoint it's a little bit, it's a well, I should say it's a lot different. You know, I think you still have to be careful because obviously you can, you can get yourself over leveraged as well. But I think, anytime, like you know, like, for instance, I've got a buddy of mine who owns a plumbing company, does very well for himself and obviously he has, you know, debt that he carries, like on his equipment, on his vans, on things like that, and obviously he's leveraging debt there, because if he brings on some of that, that equipment, obviously he can send out another guy and that's going to make more revenue for that business. So I think, so I think in any way, that that that that money is coming in or, I'm sorry, that debt that you're using is going to eventually create income. I think in that case, I mean, I think debt can be used in a very positive and smart way. But I think the reality is is that you know, when it comes to the personal finance side, we're not looking at debt that way. You know, if in a personal finance side you could also look at it like I want to become like a real estate investor, I want to. I want to leverage debt by, say, owning rental properties. Right, I would say, if you're an individual who has that goal, I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with the approach of using debt as a leverage to to start getting into that Again, I think you have to do it with you know, some education. You got to know what you're doing, because you know, if you don't, you can again easily become over leveraged as well there. But I think you know again, if people were looking at it that way, I think it's okay because I would consider that, say, a good debt. But I also want to be. I also want to be clear too, joseph, that sometimes people look at it like mortgages, like your house is a good debt. Well, it's only good while you can pay it right. Because I have lost a house to foreclosure and it was no longer considered in my mind a good debt when you got people calling you left and right asking where the mortgage payment is right.

Then it doesn't feel good anymore.

But so I think I think, as long as you're going into it smart and you're going into with the with this, the mindset of this is going to generate more income or passive income for me. Whether it's a business that you're investing in, I think in that case, you know, debt could be considered a tool to help you grow that business. Me personally, in my business, I haven't done it, and I mean some people might look at that as a mistake, like, for instance, you know you mentioned your marketing agency. You know I could have say, maybe grown my business a little bit faster, in the sense of maybe buying more marketing and advertising and things like that, but at the same time I also wanted to grow my business slow, because I really wanted it to. I really wanted to make sure everything we were doing was done the right way. You know, and I think sometimes we're always so quick to be like I got to grow fast, I got to grow fast, I got to grow fast and, and it's like for me, I was like I just want to have a good enough income to be able to have some freedom in my life, be able to work as much as I want, be able to spend time with my kids and and live a pretty decent life. I don't personally me, and I think this is where everyone has to answer the question, because it's easy as an entrepreneur, especially following people like Grant Cardone and you know all these other people that are out there like hustle and grind, hustle and grind, hustle and grind Right, and it's like, well, I also want to live. You know, um, my wife passed away back in March. You know about eight, eight months ago.

Sorry, thanks.

And, and I look at that, you know she's, you know, 43 years old and we she was again. She was also an entrepreneur, ran her own business and you know, we, we hustled and grind to a point. But then there's also a point of okay, now we're going to live some life and have some fun too, because it's not just always about work. Um, I have a special needs daughter who's uh, five years old and, uh, being able to run this business debt free, having no payments, having no debt, having no stress, has really allowed me to really put a lot of time and work into her, going to all over therapy appointments, all over doctors appointments, being fully present in her life. And she's at a completely different place right now. And I think a lot of that I can contribute to is we were there for all of it. I didn't rely on other people to take care of it. Um, like the school or anything like that, it was me and her mom doing the therapy with her every day, especially while she was little. So I think again, you know, going back to this, you know, from a business standpoint, with debt, I think, I think it can be a good thing, but I think you also have to just be very careful, because I've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs who come to me for help with their finances and there's a whole lot of debt on the business side and there's a whole lot of debt on the personal finance side. So that's one thing I would recommend. If you're an entrepreneur is like if your personal finances are a mess, it's likely that the business side probably isn't too good either. You got to get those two shaking hands Like they've got to work together as a very well oiled machine, uh, and the sooner you can get it there, the more fun it gets to actually run your business. It's not so stressful anymore and the more fun you get to. You know, spend the money that you're making right, right, absolutely.

So I want to ask you know, for, for any individual that is, you know they're, they're sitting either in a bad debt situation, either personally or for a business what type of resources are out there and I'm willing to bet that roots of personal finance is probably one of them. Even right on down to your podcast, you know where where would you encourage them to start, maybe to wrap their head around the debt snowball that they have and, um, you know like, some resources they can start to look into, to start getting in the direction of you know that that debt freedom.

Yeah, I think, uh, number one is is really a lying. You're a lying yourself with someone that you can relate with. You know, like you, you brought up Dave Ramsey earlier and and, uh, there's a lot of people who have had a lot of success with Dave Ramsey. I've heard of Dave Ramsey. I've actually went down to his office in Tennessee, did some financial coaching training with him a long time ago. Um, you know good guys, but a lot of people can't relate to Dave because he's kind of a grumpy, old bully type of guy right now.

Right, a lot of people are just like so turned off by that.

Right. So I think you know you got to find someone that you can relate with, like here at Deffie dad. What we try to put out there is like hey, we're just normal everyday people. I live in a normal house. I drive normal cars probably less than normal cars than most. Um, you know, I've got a. I've got two crazy kids. We have a circus of a family. We're experiencing a lot of the same types of of life challenges that everybody else is. I'm not sitting in this ivory tower with a you know a half a billion dollar business and you know all of this real estate and property and all that stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that. That's just not who I am, you know. So, for us, what's turned us on, or what's turned a lot of people onto us, is that we, we are normal people. Uh, we on our podcast, we've got all normal people on our podcast. We've got a single girl, katie, who's paid off well over $120,000 on a single income. She started out making 13 bucks an hour, starting this whole process with us and she's crushing it now, right. Uh, I've got Chris, who's a retired school teacher. Taught personal finance for 13 years, did you know? Also was in debt, got himself out of debt, got himself corrected, retired pretty wealthy and opened up his own ice cream place, and that's what he's doing now for retirement. So he's like in a different spot than a lot of us are. I've got my brother who was the biggest doubter of all of this of getting out of debt and he eventually kind of wrote on my coat he tells a little bit, said hey, I want to do this too. Him and his family got completely out of debt after eight years. So I mean, I think we're just normal people and we're showing people, especially in this day and age, even when expenses and inflation are as high as they are, it's like, look, you don't have to do it the way everybody else is doing it Now. Are you going to have to make some different decisions and some different choices in order to get there? Yes, but I'm telling you how life can be a hell of a lot easier. You're going to have to be part of this 70% that says their number one source of stress is money. You could be in the minority, which is where you want to be when it comes to some of those numbers. Yeah. So I would suggest you know finding someone that you can align with. That's going to be the most important Someone that's going to motivate you, someone that's going to inspire you to make some changes in your life, because that's what it's going to take. So it's not just about the education, you know, because the education is free. You can go on Google and you'll probably find like about four billion results on how to get out of debt. It's all out there. So I would find someone, though, that's going to be there to motivate you, encourage you, support you, because that's really where the work comes in. It's. Getting out of debt is a pretty simple idea. It's like we need to cut our expenses, we need to create more income, and then we just need to be intentional and we're going to use the excess money to start paying down our debt. Whether you're using the debt avalanche method or the debt snowball, you know that's pretty easy, but the hard part about it is the consistency and discipline over time in order to keep going, and that's where most people, you know, mess up. It's the same thing with running your own business. Right. It's easy to get started. Everyone's great at getting started. It's that constant grind right Just to keep it going, even when things don't feel like they're going right. You just got to keep putting in the work and keep putting in the work, and that's where you need that support and accountability. You know, and I think that's probably why you guys have your podcasts and encouraging people, and you know, and I think that's what a lot of people need in their personal finance side too, and sadly, money is just a very taboo topic here in the United States and in a lot of places Canada and a lot of places that we serve and it's looked at this very shameful thing. If you have debt or if you've made bad choices, people don't talk about it. There's a lot of harsh feelings that are surrounded by it and we need to change that. We need to just recognize that, hey, there's a hell of a lot of people out there that are struggling, and it's okay if you are and there's help out there. There's resources. Obviously, we have our podcast, the Deffie Depp podcast, which is a great place to get started, but that's where I would start. If I was you, I wouldn't even go. Hey, I'm not going to tell you go, sign up for my membership. First thing, I want you to find people that you can align with, people that will motivate you and then start learning about it and get yourself around a winning environment, and that's just going to make a huge difference in your success and managing your money the right way.

Well, I appreciate that answer and I know that you just said maybe starting at your membership isn't the right start, but I would like for the listeners to at least have an opportunity to understand what it is that you do have to offer within roots of personal finance, If you don't mind just sharing a little bit, just so I have some context around. What is that you guys offer?

Yeah, so what I created was what I was missing in getting out of debt, which is support and accountability. I mentioned. The hardest part, I think, of doing anything like getting out of debt or starting a business is really the consistency and discipline to keep on going and getting yourself around like-minded people who are also recognizing like, hey, I got a problem, I got to fix this. And so what I wanted to do is also, number one give people the education that they needed, without the fluff, and just say, hey, look, there's all this information about money out there. We're going to cut all that out. We just need to focus on these small things to get you out of debt. And number two we're going to be right here with you holding your hand all the way through the process. We're going to let you come in here. We're going to do group coaching calls with you every week. I'm going to give you access to me. My members can set up calls with me to go over budgets or whatever it might be Like. We truly give them everything that they need in order to get out of debt, whereas opposed to like if you go out on the internet or if you read a book, like the Dave Ramsey book or any of these other books that are out there. It's all self-help, which is good for maybe about one to 3% of the population. The other, you know, 97% of us. We need some handholding, we need that encouragement, because there's so many people living paycheck to paycheck. Now it's easy to get sucked back into that mindset of paycheck to paycheck living, and even with the help of an accountability group like what we have, it is challenging because you're going against a system that is just this raging engine, right, and you know, you got friends and family that are living paycheck to paycheck. You got friends and family that are going on vacations that they can't afford. You got friends and family that are buying cars they can't afford and it's so easy to be like, well, if they can do it, I can do it right. But the reality is is those people are all broke right, they're probably all struggling and you don't want that kind of life anymore. So you need to put yourself in an environment that's causing you to take a different path and do some things different, and that's ultimately what we've created in our group and I would say, Joseph, I think the number one piece of feedback that we get. I would love to say it was me that was the biggest help, but it's not what they say. They actually say it is the community that we have created in this program that has been the biggest contributor for these people, saving and paying off tens of millions of dollars because they realized, like I'm not actually alone. There are other people out there who have struggled with this. They're giving me motivation because look at where they are at a year from when they started. Like I can do this too, and so it just makes. It makes a huge difference. So that's ultimately what we've created in our membership is just that that support, accountability and that ongoing community to help people through the process of finally getting themselves to the point where they can live the natural life that they want without stress.

Yeah, you know, and I think it. I think it's worth asking and maybe noting that I'm willing to bet that the individuals that you have coached and that you've worked with, the, they're not just maybe lower income earners. Oftentimes are they a higher income earner with a higher, you know, maybe potential net worth that get into that trap of the keeping up with the Jones's mentality, because I'd like for because we have, you know, a variety of different people that listen to the show. I don't want people to think that this is something that's only hitting people that maybe have a lower income or like even a minimum wage type of income. This is something that I think hits. You know your doctors and lawyers and marketing people and you know your business owners. It's a universal problem, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. We actually just recorded a podcast episode about this. As for higher income earners people making over six years and the percentage of those people now living paycheck to paycheck is growing steadily, and obviously inflation is playing a role of that. But yeah, I mean, higher income does not determine good financial health. It doesn't, you might? be, great at making money, but you may not you may be lousy at managing it and making good choices with that money I have. I've had one member, and I'll mention her name, shannon, because me and Shannon got a great relationship, but this is a perfect example, shannon, she is works in the finance department for a large company out on the East Coast, and she does multi-million dollar budgets for this company, manages a lot of their money and things like that, and so, when she originally joined, makes a really good income, and when she joined, she's like Brad. I was like I've been doing accounting and finance. I just want to be sure, is there anything that I'm going to learn from this? Because I just feel like I know what I'm supposed to do. I'm just not doing it, and I said well, shannon, that's your problem, you're just not doing it Right. So I said you need to come in here and I'll show you how to do it, we'll hold you accountable, we'll give you the support to do it. Her husband, within about two and a half years, saving and paid off nearly $400,000. And so, yeah, I mean higher income people. Yeah, they need to pay attention to some of this stuff too, and the reality is, though, is that that higher income can sometimes, you know, really hold people back in the sense that, well, I've got a higher income, I'm not doing bad. Well, again, just because you have a higher income does not mean you're just as broke as, say, someone making, you know, 20, 30 or $40,000. You might have a fancier wrapper, you might look good, right, but if you looked at each other's bank accounts, there's not much that's different, right? So you know it may not be. You know that you have a lot of net worth. It just might mean that you have a big income and you also have a big spending problem too.

Yeah, very true. Well, brad, as we get to the end of this episode, I always like to give each guest the opportunity to kind of share where people can go to connect with you. Definitely want to encourage everybody to go check out Brad's podcast, the Deferee podcast. But outside of that, I'd love to hear you know if they're looking for maybe some resources. If they're looking for, you know, potentially joining the membership, where would you encourage everybody to go to kind of follow, connect with you and potentially do some business with you? Yeah, absolutely.

So you can go check us out at Deferedadcom. You can also check us out on all the social media channels. Just search Brad Nelson Deferedad. We're on TikTok, youtube, instagram, facebook, so you can check out a lot of our content there. Obviously, the Deferedad podcast is available on all major podcast platforms. We are nearing just about to record Milestone for us episode 200 is going to be coming out, so a lot of great content out there, just for you know, if anything spiked your interest of things that we're talking about here on today's show. You know we have talked about so many different topics on that podcast. That's a great place to learn too. But as far as our membership free workshops, free tools and resources all of that can be found on our website at Deferedadcom.

Very cool. Well, brad, I want to thank you for coming on the show. For those listening, just know, if you go to thelavahoppodcastcom On there, if you search for Brad Nelson, we'll have a full profile laid out for him. You'll see this episode. You'll also see the video linked right there for YouTube. In addition to that, we will also provide his social media accounts so that you can go and follow him there, and then access to his website as well. But with that, Brad, I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to come on to the show. Drop some knowledge on us, and I appreciate it.

Thank you, sir. Thanks Joseph.

Appreciate it. You've been listening to the Lava Hut podcast with Joseph Connell Jr. Do you want to level up your business? Then visit us at golavahotcom for a free marketing analysis. You'll be back to show them.

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You are very kid, you're very brash and這 1 second talk about kannishing. You've been listening to the Lava Hut podcast with Joseph Connell Jr. Do you want to level up your business? Visit us at golabahutcom for a free marketing analysis.