Graham Cochrane (00:06.296)
Here's the truth, 99 % of college graduates walk across that stage with a diploma, but no real clue how to build financial freedom. And honestly, it's not their fault. This is the design of the school system. Nobody's teaching this stuff. So today, I'm breaking down the seven essential things you must learn if you want to escape the paycheck to paycheck grind, build real wealth, and live life.
on your terms. So stick around because if you don't know these seven things, financial freedom will always stay just out of reach.
Graham Cochrane (01:01.806)
Now, I don't know what you were taught growing up from your parents or your community or your family or at your school. And I don't know if you're a high school graduate or a college graduate or about to graduate. But what I know for sure is that in America and in most countries, people do not teach money. They might teach some things that are money topics, but they do not teach how to make, manage and multiply.
money and they certainly don't teach how to become incredibly wealthy so that you are not ever stressed about money. You can buy whatever you want, go wherever you want, do whatever you want, give to whatever cause you want in whatever amount you want where you're not dictated to buy your money, to live where you're supposed to live, drive where you're supposed to drive, do what you're supposed to do, where you actually have choice, which is real freedom. Usually we're limited by money.
oftentimes doing things we don't even like to do to make money and it's still not enough and we get stuck in this trap. So this is something that's literally not covered anywhere and I certainly wasn't taught this growing up. And so let me know if this sounds familiar to you. This is what I was taught growing up. Number one, get an education if you want to be successful in life. Now this is kind of half true. I think you want to be a learner and you want to be a lifelong learner.
I have read hundreds, if not thousands of books and I have consumed thousands of hours of video training and courses and just I am constantly learning and that's just with books and courses. I have spent over a million dollars on coaching and masterminds. I'm constantly learning because yes, education and learning is the key to all things. But this is a half truth because what they taught me was
go to college, get a degree, and then that will be the key that unlocks future doors. That was about all they said. So then the way they extrapolate that out was point two is the better the degree or even the more prestigious the school you got that degree from, the higher paying job you will get. So I literally went to college and friends of mine were looking at the different majors available to them and they picked the major based off of which
Graham Cochrane (03:28.095)
major led to the most high paying jobs, which is literally what we've been programmed to do. So it makes sense that there's not a whole lot of people wanting to get an education major and become a an elementary school teacher because they're like, well, I'm not going to make any money. So I guess I'll go be a software engineer.
Or I'll go, I'll get into med school, like, or I'll go to law school, like, kids that don't like any of those things and maybe aren't even gifted at any of those things just because they see a higher paycheck. Why are they doing that? Not because they're bad, it's because that's what they're programmed to do. Because they think that the better the degree, the higher paying job you'll get. Number three thing I learned was work for a company. Nobody told me to start a business. Work for a company and get a secure job with benefits.
Massive air quotes on the word secure. More on that in a minute. I didn't really even know what those benefits were. I started to hear letters like 401k and things about insurance. I had no idea what that meant, but that's what I was trained to do. And then when you do get a job, this is what I was taught to do. If you come in early, stay late, and work really, really hard, good things are gonna happen, AKA you'll get promoted and get a higher paying salary.
What they didn't tell you are two things. One, that's not a guarantee. Two, if you do do that and get promoted, you may not get as high of a salary as you wanted. Three, if you do get promoted and get a higher salary, you also get more responsibility, which means you have to work even harder, which is really tough because now you set a new floor. What was maybe your ceiling of output is now your floor of it. That's expected of you and they want you to put in more hours, work even harder and take on more responsibility.
which is an honor because they trust you, but now you're way down with more more and more and the pay is not commiserate with the amount of work you're putting into it.
Graham Cochrane (05:22.241)
I was taught to do that. And then finally, when it came to the money side of things, all I was really taught was save and invest your money. Because then one day when you're in your 60s or 70s, you will be able to retire and enjoy life.
And some people say, I don't want to wait till I'm 60 to retire and enjoy life. Actually, that never bothered me. Interestingly enough, it made sense to me and maybe I have some level of patience, but there was really no education on how to do that well or any guarantee. And then the more I got into working, the more I realized, this is a long way off. I think I'm on the track when I run the calculations on these calculators online.
But there was an uncertainty of what if I'm off track and what if I get to my 60s and I'm patient and I wait and what if I don't have enough even though I thought I was on track, then I'm really screwed. That was all I was taught by the school system, by the adults in my life. That's what I was taught. Get an education if you want to be successful. The better degree, the more higher paying job. Work for a company to get secure, have a secure job and get benefits.
come in early, stay late, work hard, you'll get promoted and save and invest your money one day when you're in 60s or 70s and retire and enjoy life. So the question I have is how's this working? I was looking at some recent studies and stats, here we go. 78 % of US workers live paycheck to paycheck. 78%, four out of five of us are just getting by financially. Meaning, if you lost your job or there was a government shutdown,
Like there's been in the past where literally high paying government employees in the six figures are having to like literally not go to the grocery store because they don't have any money. How does that happen? Because they literally were living off of every single paycheck the moment it came in. It doesn't matter if it's a little or a lot. 78 % of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That's stressful. 71 % of Americans cite money as a significant source of stress with 76 %...
Graham Cochrane (07:32.64)
of those households living paycheck to paycheck. Only 47 % of American workers feel financially well. Though this is actually an improvement. The previous year it was 42%. But less, just under half of Americans actually feel financially well. So we know that more of those people are living paycheck to paycheck, but they must have a big enough paycheck that they feel okay, but it's still half or less than half. And then this blew my mind.
Only 45 % of young adults are completely financially independent from their parents.
less than half of adults can live on their own. This is pathetic. Among those aged 25 to 29, this figure rises to 44 % and to 67 % for those in their early 30s.
So if you're in your 30s, two out of three are living on their own.
But if you're in your 20s, only 44 % are able to live on their own. This is absolutely bonkers. Okay, so not only are young adults not doing well financially, don't feel at peace financially, have stress and are living paycheck to paycheck, they're still living with their parents. They need their parents either to live in their home or have their parents pay for their insurance or pay for their car or pay for their phone or pay for whatever. They can't even support themselves.
Graham Cochrane (09:03.179)
This is not an economy problem, by the way. This has nothing to do with the economy. If you, can we just stop for a second? And I know people are going through hard times and I'll share my story in one second. I've gone through hard times. I've gone through worse economies than this.
If you say that it's the economy's fault that you are stressed out financially, you will never get ahead financially. Why? Because you are playing the role of the victim and victims never win. Because by definition, they are the victim. You have created a narrative where it's not your fault that you're not financially well off. It's somebody else's fault. The government, your mom, your dad, your friends, the industry, AI, they outsource your job to another country, whatever it is. The economy.
When you choose to be the victim, that is what you are choosing to be. They are the facts of the situation. You may not be doing well financially, but if you then say that the reason why, or the meaning you interpret from those facts is that it is someone else's fault and you are the victim, guess what? Your subconscious will do everything in its power to make you right, because that's what we do. We make ourselves right. So whatever story we're telling ourselves, we make that become true. So if you're like, I'm a victim in this, then you will stay a victim.
It is only people that decide that they want something different in their lives and choose to view things through a different lens that actually get something different. And this is the story of my life. I followed the prescription that I was given to do well financially and be successful in life. And when I graduated from college, I had a bachelor's degree. I graduated from college from age 22 to 26. I looked for quote unquote good jobs, quote unquote secure jobs, jobs with benefits.
I worked in sales, I worked in retail, I worked at a software company, I had 401ks, I had health insurance, I bounced around, I hated all these jobs. There was high points and low points, but none of them were a good fit for me. But I tried to go in, do my nine to five, get my PTO, those three dreaded little letters, meaning that someone else determines your paid time off, if you don't know that is. Someone else gets to determine when you can go on a vacation. You have to actually ask permission, can I?
Graham Cochrane (11:18.103)
Can I go on a trip with my family? Like, I was controlled by the system and I played the game and I thought I was doing the good thing, the right thing. I was newly married, I was married young, so I wanted to provide for my new bride and so I did what I thought was best. And I'm not saying it was wrong, I'm just saying it didn't work. Because four years in, I moved to another state, pursued another job, and I lost two jobs in the span of 10 months. I had a quote-unquote secure four years.
We were fine, we weren't crushing it, but we were fine. But then I lost two jobs in a span of 10 months during a really tough economy. The great recession, the great financial collapse of the world in 2007, eight, nine. I lost two jobs during the 10 month span, right after we bought a house and had our first baby. And then I found myself applying for food stamps, they call it SNAP now in the US, for 18 months because I couldn't pay for my groceries.
So I've gone from having stable income to now being broke, being unemployed, can't even buy groceries with a wife, a baby, a mortgage. And I'm 26 years old. I'm a college graduate, very smart. I'm not the smartest person, but I'm a smart person. I'm a hardworking person. I've worked hard since age 14. My first job, I was cutting lawns in my neighborhood. I worked at a bagel joint. I worked in the mall. I've always had a job since age 14. And here I was.
12 years later at age 26 with a high school diploma, a college degree, and I'm broke.
What went wrong? Well, it turns out I knew nothing about what truly leads to financial freedom. I followed the system. The system led me to be reliant on a quote unquote secure job that is actually turns out not reliable. And I wasn't happy and I wasn't rolling in the money. We were very limited in what we could or could not do. We lived a simple life. So we were happy. We were fine. But it was going to stay that way primarily through the rest of my life. The only thing that would increase my income was probably cost of living adjustments, right? Cola.
Graham Cochrane (13:24.407)
So it's, but that doesn't make any difference because eggs get more expensive, gas gets more expensive, housing gets more expensive, everything gets more expensive. So of course your paycheck needs to rise just to keep up with the things with inflation. That's not wealth. That's staying the same.
Fast forward to today, I'm 42 years old, I'm a multimillionaire, I have millions of dollars a year cashflow coming in that takes me between two to five hours a week to create, no lie,
So I work extremely part time. I don't even have to work for the money to come in. If I stopped working forever, eventually some sources would dry up.
What changed? I have learned a lot. I've learned a lot in these last 16 years since I'm unemployed, broke at age 26, wondering what just happened. And what I want to do briefly in the next few minutes we have together is show you the seven things that have led to my financial freedom, that of my best clients, and they're going to work for you as well. And my friend, these seven things are a complete shift from what you've been taught.
And so I don't know which of these you've already wrestled with and said yes and amen. I believe that I'm implementing that if any. And I don't know which ones of these are going to offend you or challenge you. But can I just submit to you if I share something in the next few minutes that you disagree with but you are not wealthy and I am I'm pretty sure one of us is wrong and I don't think it's me. And I say that out of love. I'm not boasting. I'm not the greatest thing in the world. I have a lot to learn. Like I said I'm spending
Graham Cochrane (15:05.321)
hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to learn from smarter people than me so that I can grow. But my friend, I figured some things out and I'm here to serve you so that you can figure them out at whatever age and stage you are in and know that you can turn your financial life around like that. It's not too late. I don't care if you're in your 60s and you're like, this whole retirement thing didn't work for me. I don't care if you're in your 20s and you're like, I don't have any prospects or credibility or it doesn't matter where you are.
These things work because they're principles and they will work if you work them. Does this make sense? Okay, here we go. The seven things you need to learn for your financial freedom. Number one, and this is probably the most important, money isn't evil and it's actually okay to desire and have lots of it. Why do I start with that? Because
This is so confusing to me. We live in a culture that both elevates wealth and demonizes wealth at the same time. We're obsessed with wealth. We're obsessed with money. We all want to be rich. We all want more material things. Just look around. Everything is beckoning you to have more, be more. Everybody wants a nicer house or a nicer car, be able to take their family on nicer vacations or be able to take care of their aging parents or be able to
take their family on a cruise and pay for it or be able to donate more to their church or charity of choice. Everybody wants those things. We all want more money.
And in a weird way, we celebrate wealth. People have lots of wealth. We look at them as, they must be amazing. There's even weird phenomenons where people in a room, if you're at a meeting and there's someone that everyone knows is really wealthy, they will think his or her ideas are wiser, better ideas. I think they're smart just because they have a lot of money. Those things aren't always true. But we elevate wealth, yes. And at the same time, we demonize wealth. We say it's the...
Graham Cochrane (17:10.023)
Evil, you have a rich people are evil. If you're a wealthy person, if you're a billionaire, you probably did something to rip people off. Especially if you come from a faith background, if you come from a church background, there is a lot of toxic messages inside the church and around the church that wealth is evil, money is evil. There's a lot of, there's just a lot of people that don't know how to read their Bible. And so there's a lot of misquoting of scriptures like 1 Timothy 6 that they say that love of money is
root of all evil. They say money is the root of all evil, which is not at all what it says. It says the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Like just you have to read your Bible clearly. You have to look at the Greek and the Hebrew, the languages that it was originally written in. we don't understand. That whole chapter is literally written by a pastor to a younger pastor. He trained up telling him how to instruct the very wealthy people in his congregation because he's to have wealthy people in his congregation.
And he tells them, basically, don't boast in your wealth or put your trust in it because money is uncertain. Can I get an amen? Anybody had money, lost money? Money is uncertain. Anybody have stocks? They go up and down. Money is uncertain. So don't trust in it. It's a horrible thing to put your trust in. You should trust in the Lord, he says. And then he says, because God is the one who gives you all things richly to enjoy. What does the word all mean in that statement? It means all things.
So God gives you the wealth to enjoy. Money was actually put in the Garden of Eden before sin ever entered the world. Gold was in the land and the gold of that land was good. God blesses his people with wealth. He can't bless people with wealth and then say that you're evil if you have wealth. He would be calling himself a liar. So read your Bible. Wealth isn't evil. It's actually a sign of blessing. And wanting lots of money isn't evil.
because the more money good people have, the more good we can do with it. There are good people and there are evil people. This is a gross oversimplification because all of us are a mixture of both, so I understand that. But there are people who are walking towards goodness and those are people walking towards evil, and there's rich people and there are poor people. If you look at the Bible and if you look at around the world, you're going to see really good rich people.
Graham Cochrane (19:38.199)
You're also going to see really good poor people. You're going to see really evil rich people. You're also going to see really evil poor people. Those things are not always correlated. God blesses his people with wealth, but there's people that love God that don't have a lot of wealth.
I happen to support a lot of those people financially through incredible organizations. One of my favorites is Compassion International.
So God gives some of us the ability to create a lot of wealth. And so I love sharing that with other people who don't have that same ability or the same opportunities or the same opportunities yet. I was blessed to be born in a country that gives you infinite opportunities. America is incredible. It gives you infinite opportunities. It's not a perfect country, but tell me where else can you get the opportunities you get than in America, right? So I feel like I have an awesome privilege to be able to share.
what I make. So I want lots of money because money is a good thing. Money allows work to get done. Every good thing takes money. Money is good. Money isn't even neutral. It's better than neutral. It's good. I want all... There are evil people, yes, who have lots of money. I want to get the money out of their pockets and put it in my pocket or your pocket or someone else's doing good in the world's pocket. So if you inherently believe, even at a subconscious level, that money is evil,
And maybe that's not language you would use, but you would almost feel like, well, there's a certain amount of money that's okay. And then if you make more than that, that's more than you need. Where did you get that idea? And who gets to determine where that line is? What's the good amount of money that's good to have? And then when do you go past that? When is it now into evil territory? Is that $100,000 a year? Is that good? But if you get to 200, that's bad?
Graham Cochrane (21:37.686)
Or no, no, Graham, because now that USA Today article said that to live the good life, you need to make $242,000 or whatever it is. So now making up to $242,000 is okay, but if you make $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, that's evil. Or is it a million? Or is it not about income? Is it about just net worth? Is there an amount of net worth we should cut it off? Like, who's making this stuff up? And can we at admit it's all made up?
If you're afraid that if you make a certain amount of money, it will change you, then you have a really low view of your character. And maybe this is a character question, not a money question.
You are who you are. Money just gives you more options. So if giving you lots of money is going to turn you evil, it didn't turn you evil. That was who you were. And money just exposed that. It gave you the opportunity to live out the evil that's inside your heart. Does this make sense? If you, at a base level, believe that money is evil, because that's what you were taught, that's what you've seen, because
you don't know any good wealthy people or good rich people, then you are going to subconsciously limit yourself. You're going to put this false ceiling on
And it's gonna be called what, or it's gonna be like what Gay Hendrick calls the upper limit problem, which is there's an upper limit to the amount of wealth you feel worthy of or you feel is okay, and you may not have ever thought about it explicitly, but down in your heart and your soul and your subconscious, you believe that. So every time you get close to that, you'll do something to not allow yourself to go all the way up to it or above it. It's like a thermostat. If you set it at 70 degrees in your house and it...
Graham Cochrane (23:29.835)
and it gets warmer, it's like 72, the thermostat immediately blows cold air to bring it back down to 72. It's the ceiling that you're allowing yourself to stay at. So you're never gonna become financially free or wealthy if you believe that money is evil and there's a ceiling. You gotta remove, there's no ceiling. I wanna make as much money as absolutely possible. There is so much good I can do in the world, so much fun I can have. Why would I wanna limit my money? I wanna take off that ceiling.
So it's not evil and it's okay to desire lots of it. For some of you, that might be what you needed to hear today.
Number two, this one will change your life. Money doesn't come from work. It comes from creating value. I was taught that money comes from work. That's entirely incorrect. Money comes from creating value. Now, you can go to work and get paid because if the work you do creates value for someone, you'll get paid. Generally, an organization will pay you a salary or pay you a certain amount per hour
because the work you do for them that you've exchanged, you've agreed to exchange your work for that money, creates more value for their business than it costs them. You are just an investment and there's a rate of return on that investment. So if somebody is paying you $100,000 a year to work for them, it's not because they like you, it's because the work you're doing for them makes them at least $200,000 a year.
Every person getting a quote-unquote good job working for the man is working for a business owner and that business owner is trying to create wealth and so they are willing to spend some money. You are an expense to them and they're not dumb. They're willing to have an expense on their expenses on their P &L because they're banking on that expense creating more profit than it costs them. So they're willing to say, okay, I'll have this hundred thousand dollar expense to hire Graham because I believe the work he does, whether sales calls or
Graham Cochrane (25:33.814)
or marketing or customer fulfillment or whatever is going to create at least $200,000 worth of profit for us. So it'll pay for himself and put money in our pocket. So the problem is if you believe money comes from work, then what are your options to make more money? Work more hours, work harder to then be promoted or to take a job that pays more if the work is more dangerous or
more intense, like this is why people become lawyers and they work 80 hours a week. They make lots of money, but they've had to give up two weeks of their life every week for that money. And that's assuming that 40 hours a week is okay. I think 40 hours a week is highway robbery. Who wants to give up 40 hours every week of their life to make money when you don't have to? When you realize that
you can separate your income earning from your time spent, the game changes. Because money doesn't come from work, it actually comes from creating value. And there are infinite ways to create value for people.
Graham Cochrane (26:48.405)
Earlier I said I work two to five hours a week, depending on the week, to generate millions of dollars a year for cash flow. How is that possible? I'm literally working less than a high school kid after school. I'm working less than I did when I worked at GameStop, you know, as an 18 year old, a 17 year old, selling video games, right? How is that possible? It could be because the money I get paid comes from the value I put out in the world, the value I create. Creating YouTube content like this, creating
online courses that people can find out about, buy and go through and get value out of without me being involved in the equation. I built an asset that can then put money in my pocket. I own real estate that people rent and they pay me to stay in that real estate. I have coaching programs that people pay recurring every month to be a part of and they're scalable group coaching programs where I have to show up once every two weeks.
Whether there's 10 people or 10,000 people in it, it's the same amount of work, infinite scalable income. Do you see what I'm saying? Money doesn't come from work, it comes from creating value. So the question you need to ask yourself is, how could I create more value in the world? The people that make the most money are the ones that are creating the most value in the world. How is Elon Musk, whether you like him or not, and I don't, people hating on Elon Musk is ridiculous. Like everybody liked him until he got involved with Trump and then all of a sudden, so now you're questioning him.
You don't understand, the secret about Elon Musk is that this guy is the wealthiest person in the world. think last I read he's worth 280 something billion dollars. Wealthiest man on the planet. And this guy actually works a lot. I've literally heard him say he works all the time or he works 120 hours a week. I mean, I think he loves what he does. But even if you work 120 hours a week, there's no way you're gonna make billions of dollars by getting paid for the hours you put in. He works because he likes it. How does he get paid? How is he worth?
280 some odd billion dollars because he is solving massive problems. Energy through electric vehicles. He's building rockets to take people to the moon. One of his first companies he co-created was PayPal, which was it solved the problem. It added so much value to the marketplace by solving a problem. People were buying things on the internet and it was like, I got to pay you first and then you ship me the thing. How do I know you're going to ship me the thing on eBay especially? He created this intermediate like, hey, pay
Graham Cochrane (29:13.837)
put the money into this PayPal account, then that person who's selling knows, okay, that Graham's paid the money, now I feel comfortable sending him the thing, but once I've shipped it, then the money's released to me. It was this genius solution. That was one of his first companies, solved a massive problem and still is solving a massive problem today in the marketplace. And then he sold it for hundreds of millions of dollars. I think his cut was tens of, maybe made like 150 million off of that. And then he's thrown all that money into SpaceX and Tesla.
and Starlink and like he's creating satellite internet. He's got 8,000 satellites in the sky creating internet for people that can't get access to internet anywhere in the world. Like that's creating massive value. No, he should be compensated for that. He's solving massive problems. Are you creating internet for people that can't afford it and can't access it anywhere in the world? No. So he should be paid, not you, not me, right? So we are...
paid we earn in proportion to the amount of value we give to the world. Not how hard we work. Nobody teaches this in school. Your job is to find out a way to create value in the marketplace and the more value you make and the faster you create value for more people the more money you'll make. All right, let's keep flying. Number three, it is almost impossible to become financially free if you work for someone else. Almost impossible. It is possible.
because of what I'm gonna share in a minute on number five, but it's really, really hard to do. So I have no problem if you like working for somebody else, but I would highly encourage you to start a business, even if it's on the side. Find a way to create a new income stream because when you work for somebody else, there's a limit to how much you can make. When you work for yourself, or better than working for yourself, you create an asset.
that pays you, it could be a digital asset like a course or a membership or a community or a YouTube channel that gets YouTube income. It could be buying a piece of property and turning it into a rental property or short-term rental. So now you become a real estate investor that's going into business for yourself. It could be just being a coach or a consultant where you can charge based off of the results you give, not based off of a made up hourly rate that people say is the most you should charge, like it's ridiculous, right? So start a business.
Graham Cochrane (31:36.206)
It is the fastest way. The reason I was able to become financially free, I became a net worth millionaire at age 35. The reason I was able to do that was because I started a business. Age 26 when I was broke, I started a business. And then I became, I think, financially independent within two and a half years. We were making way more money per month than our expenses and it was 10, 20 hours a week. Like I was set, I thought. I became a net worth millionaire at age 35.
All while giving millions away to charity, by the way, which we'll get to in a second. And now I'm a multimillionaire and things are growing exponentially, right? Disproport, it's not linear. The growth isn't linear, it's exponential. So this happened not because I got paid a lot, had a high paying job, or because I struck it rich in some investment or I the lottery, it's because I started a business.
Business owners prosper. Think about it. Everyone who has a stable job is working for a business or the government.
And where does the government get their money? By taxing business owners. So who's creating the wealth in the world? Business owners, entrepreneurs, that's where the wealth is created. It's the only place it's created because the business owners, the entrepreneurs are solving problems in the marketplace, AKA adding value and getting paid for it. So you want to become one of them. Don't work for somebody else. Create your own business so you create value, you get paid. Number four thing I learned that leads to being financially free.
infinite money to be found, but only if you're looking for it.
Graham Cochrane (33:15.853)
We are being taught implicitly that there's this fixed pie economy. You ever heard of that phrase? It's like there's like a pie or a pizza and that's all the money in the world. And so if I take a really big slice out of that, that means there's less money in the economy. That's literally not how the economy works, right? Money is constantly being created all the time. It's being created because the government's printing it. It's being created through fractional lending. When banks loan you $100,000, they only have to have
$10,000 or so in their accounts to lend $100,000. So they're literally creating money by issuing a loan. That's a large reason why money is printed and created in the marketplace. But also think about this. I love this analogy and I remember reading this for the first time in the book, The Richest Man in Babylon, which is a tiny little book. George Klassen in the 1920s I think wrote it.
Building a house.
When I built my house, three years ago, four years ago, we built a beautiful house here in Tampa on the water. When we built our house, we took money and we paid stonemasons, electricians, plumbers, tile guys, stucco guys, landscape, we paid all these people, whatever the house was. Let's just make a number. Let's just say it was a million dollar house. Let's just say a million dollar house.
We paid a million of our dollars that I create. I got a million dollars by creating value in the marketplace through my business. So people gave me a million dollars. I had it. And then I gave it to all these contractors and subcontractors to build our house. Right? So now that money is gone. Right? No, it's actually not gone. Because what's the value of my house the day that I built it? Well, if I paid a million dollars for it, it's a million dollar house. I could turn around and sell it for a million dollars. So
Graham Cochrane (35:11.977)
Even though the money is gone and it's inside the plumber's pocket, the electrician's pocket, the architect's pocket, the pool guy's pocket, even though the million dollars is now in their pockets, it's also inside the house.
It's in the walls of the house because the house still has value. I could go sell it to somebody else and make a million dollars. So now the million that was turned into two. Wait, how did that happen? Because this is how money works. Money is infinite. It's not this limited resource that we're going to run out of or if Elon has a whole bunch of it, the rest of us have a team. That's not how it works. That's how the media and the government wants you to think.
to divide our country and our divide our world so that people that don't have what they want can get angry at the rich people because everybody needs an enemy, right? Those evil rich people taking all their money. That's literally not how wealth is created, how money works.
It's infinite. But you will only find more money if you're looking for it. What did Jesus teach us in Matthew chapter 7?
Seek and what you shall find.
Graham Cochrane (36:28.397)
those who seek, find. And what do you find? You find what you're seeking for. This is the way our brains are wired, right? Have you ever heard of the reticular activation system? Right, it's this part of your brain, the base of your brain stem, right, that basically it's a filter for all the information coming into your brain. You're getting way too much information at any given point in your day. Sounds, sights, thoughts, people that...
you would literally lose your mind and like freeze up if you paid attention to all of it at once. So your brain has to filter it and block what I think studies have read say up to 97 % of the information that's coming into your head at any given moment so that you can be a functioning human being. So what does that tell us? It tells us that we're only focusing on 3 % of the information in front of us at any given point. Meaning we don't see or notice
or observe or aware of 97 % of what's going on. So it's that example of, let's say you bought a, I remember this happened literally for us years ago, we bought a white Lexus and I think it was a Lexus RX. And the moment we bought it, we started driving around, Shay and I started noticing white Lexus RXs everywhere on the street. I was like, did everybody decide to get the same white Lexus RX? Like where did these cars come from? Right? And yet,
The reality is that we both know that nothing changed. All those people were driving around in white Lexus RXs long before we got one. It's just now that we are focused on and noticing our own white Lexus RX, now our reticular activation system is allowing us to notice white Lexus RXs that were always there in the first place, but now we see them because we've been seeing them in ourselves and we see them everywhere else. It's like when you first heard about someone
like a speaker or a YouTuber or an author, you're like, I never heard of that person. But then you sort of see their name everywhere, you see their stuff everywhere. It's because now you're noticing it for the first time, something that your eyes are opened to seeing that that person's been everywhere, that person's book has been in front of you the whole time, you just never noticed it. This is what Jesus is saying. You will find the things you seek for. He's showing us the pattern. So if you are seeking to be
Graham Cochrane (38:48.781)
comfortable lower middle class and limited on your income the rest of your life because Money is evil and there's a limited amount like well, then that's what you're gonna find But if you're seeking to make ten times what you made last year and work One-tenth the amount of hours you worked last year. Guess what's gonna happen You are gonna find a way to make that a reality like there's no magic to this There's no the people that are really wealthy and financially stable. They're not smarter than you
They're not more talented than you. They're not more better looking than you. They just have decided to seek different results and they're finding them. Your brain is a problem solving machine. When people say, can't afford this, you tell your brain, that's it. That's the end of the conversation. But if you put a how in front of it and make it a question, how can I afford this?
Graham Cochrane (39:44.358)
then people all of a sudden are like, oh my gosh, how could I afford this? Like for example, my VIP day, I charge people $250,000 for a VIP day with me. Now I don't know that sounds crazy to you or not, but it's not crazy because I can get people, I can help people generate millions of dollars. I can help people generate an extra million dollars a year. So that's a great return on investment, right? That's 400 % return on your investment. But if somebody saw my VIP day and they say,
I can't afford that. Conversation ends. But if they were to say, how could I afford that? Well, now you open your brain up to, you may not know exactly yet, but you'll find a way. Because let me ask you a question. Have you ever bought something you can't afford? Have you ever bought something that you couldn't afford?
Probably your car or your house. If you saw a house and it was $500,000 and you didn't have $500,000, did you go, oh, I can't afford that, I don't have $500,000? No, because you want to find a way. You're like, how could I afford that? Well, I could borrow the money. That's one way could do it. Or I could create an offer in my business to generate $500,000 and then I could buy like, this is how...
I've spent millions of dollars on coaching. I don't go, my gosh, that's so expensive. I remember the first $50,000 mastermind I joined. I didn't say, I can't afford that. Even when money was tight, I how could I afford that? Well, I could launch an offer to my people that could pay for, I could make this and then I could pay for that. That's how a lot of clients afford my stuff. They say, I really wanna work with you. I can't afford that. How could you afford it? There's a lot of ways.
They come, if they really want to work with me, if they really want the result, they come back within a week, I found the money, magically. If your kid had cancer, God forbid, and then somebody said, we found a brand new cure, it works 10 out of 10 times, it's $250,000. Would you say, I can't afford that? You would say, how could I afford that? You would find a way because you want the result. It's meaningful to you, you want to save your child's life.
Graham Cochrane (42:10.829)
So you'll find a way. That just proves how creative and powerful you are. When you seek an answer, you'll find an answer. But if you shut off that answer, that possibility by saying, it's not possible, or I don't know how that's possible, it's not gonna work for me, that works for people like Graham or for her, not me, then that's what you're gonna get. You find what you seek. And you don't find what you don't seek. There's infinite money to be found, but only if you're looking for it. So can you start looking for money, please? Can I beg you, start looking for opportunities. They're everywhere, I promise you, they're everywhere.
If you look for them, you will find them. All right, principle number five. Spenders go broke, savers tread water, but investors become wealthy. Friend, if you spend everything you make, you're never gonna become wealthy. I think you understand that, but this is what most Americans are doing. What did I say earlier? 76 % of Americans are literally spending everything they make. That's what living paycheck to paycheck means. You spend everything you make.
That's not an income level problem, that's not an economy problem, that's across all income levels, across all socioeconomic groups. This is a decision problem. You just have to decide I'm not gonna be a spender, AKA I'm not gonna be someone who spends all things. The proverb says, the foolish man devours everything he has. But choice, oils, and wealth are in the house of the wise, right? So it's wise,
to not spend everything. It's foolish to devour or spend everything you make. So I'm not gonna spend any time there, but if you spend everything you make, you're never gonna become financially free. But this is where most people then stop. They're like, okay, I'm gonna become a saver. If you're a saver, that's a good baby step. Okay, I don't spend everything, I'm setting some money aside, but saving only makes you tread water. Why? Because when you set money aside and you save it, you have some cash, but now you're literally losing 3 % a year due to inflation.
Money gets your money. If you said if you saved up $500 and put it in the bank next year, it's worth. Let's just do a simple math. You save up $1,000, right? Next year, that $1,000 will not buy you $1,000 worth of goods.
Graham Cochrane (44:22.125)
Right? It'll buy you $970 worth of goods. It's worth 3 % less every year. And then the next year, worth 3 % less. And the next year, worth 3 % less. So if you just save cash, you're literally, it's like putting it into investment where you lose 3 % every year. I would not want to be putting tons of money into an investment that lost me 3 % every year. And yet that's what you're doing. So you'll barely tread water because you'll always just have a little bit of extra set aside, but you wonder why you can't get ahead. And even if you put it in the bank and you earn 3 % on your money,
Right? The market, like the money market accounts or high yield savings accounts are basically going to, that's better than nothing, but it's basically going to pay you what inflation is pretty much running. That's going to allow you to keep your purchasing power. That's better than losing 3 % a year. So you're making 3 % but then things get 3 % more expensive. So you're keeping up with inflation on that money. That's definitely a step in the right direction. You're still treading water because you're never going to be able to get ahead where you're financially free. Where you really want to get to
is when your money makes you money. And this is why you have to become an investor. And people don't like investing because they've been programmed to be afraid of risk, which is absolutely bonkers. This is how the system keeps you poor. If you're afraid of risk, then you're never gonna make money. It's amazing, the riskiest thing you and I do every day is leave our house. If you get in a car every day,
you're taking on way more risk than if you put your money in an investment. But you don't think of it as a risk. But it's literally, people die every day horrible deaths because of car accidents. But you've just decided it's a risk worth taking because you got to get to work or you got to get your kids to school or you got to go to the grocery store. So the thing you desire is worth more than the fear of loss. So you do what you got to do and you put on a seatbelt and you drive a safe car and you try to drive.
you know, at the speed limit and you do what you can to minimize the risk, but you're still taking a risk. This is all we're doing in investing, is we're always taking a risk when we invest. Like when people say, but I could lose my money. Yeah, welcome to investing. If it were a guarantee, if you could never lose your money, like everybody would do it. There's always a risk, but you have to just weigh the risk. It's all about calculated risks. And really it's like compared to what other risk, if you don't invest your money, you are risking being poor.
Graham Cochrane (46:48.727)
the rest of your life. And the probability of that happening is way higher than the probability of you losing money in an investment. Does this make sense? So you have to become an investor if you wanna become wealthy. You have to take the money that you earn from your business or your work and you have to buy income producing assets. This could be a stock. This could be a piece of real estate. This could be an investment.
excuse me, another company, which is what a stock is. It's like a, it's a share of ownership in another company, but you could buy it through the stock exchange. You could buy it through by literally investing in another company. You can invest in your own company, hire somebody that can make you money in your business. You can invest in a coach, right? Like hire me. If you gave me $250,000, that's an investment, but then I give you the proven blueprint to be able to create an extra million dollars or more a year in your business. Well, now,
You've taken 250 and in the first year turn it into a million, but then now you get that every single year, plus you've got the path to turn that into tens of millions. That sounds worth it. So everything is a risk, investments are the way you get ahead. These are the way you leapfrog, is you invest. So I've been building wealth in my business and then I take it out of my business and invest it in all these other things. I buy stocks, I buy real estate.
I invest in other people's companies. I've done hard money lending. I invest in coaching to help me make more money. All kinds of investments. That's how you get wealthy. Two more to go. Number six. You want to focus to create wealth, but diversify to multiply wealth. Focus to create wealth, diversify to multiply wealth. So there's two different
phases of wealth creation. One is creating the wealth, bringing the money in. The other is multiplying that wealth. The best way to create wealth is to do one thing and one thing only really, really well for a long period of time. So for me, that is coaching entrepreneurs. I help coaches, consultants, authors, speakers, high level entrepreneurs create millions, million plus dollars a year in their business. Like that's what I do.
Graham Cochrane (49:14.689)
and I'm really good at it, I'm really good at helping people get results, and by working 20 hours a week or less. I'm really good at that part. Like let's make you a million dollars a year or more in your business, or an extra million dollars a year or more in your business, and let's cut your work hours in half. I'm world class at that. So I'm not gonna do a bunch of different things. I'm not gonna also be a real estate investor that like is trying to flip houses and spend my time doing that. I'm not gonna also be a fitness instructor. I'm not gonna also be like a
marriage coach, I'm going to, although I could turn any of those into a business, I am going to do the one thing I do really well, because that's gonna help me through that focus create a ton of income. But then once I get that income, going back to the last point about becoming an investor, I'm gonna make sure that I'm not investing into one thing. Lord knows I'm not gonna bank on one stock or one house or one company or one.
Like I'm gonna I'm gonna multiply I'm gonna diversify so I can multiply right so we take our money and we buy not only Stocks we buy every single US stock in this time I buy through an index fund so I literally own every single company in the United States that's on the stock exchange Talk talk about diversity. I ain't baking on one company or one sector or one industry. I want them all baby I want to own every single horse in the race so that I always win number two We don't just own our house, which is a great asset. I don't want to bank on one house
We own multiple properties and not only multiple properties, multiple kinds of properties at different classifications in different locations, right? Diversify there. I own companies that are privately held companies through private equity funds, right? That aren't on the stock market, but I can get really high returns in a really concentrated area through private equity. Hard money lending. I lend money to companies to go do things and I get my money plus interest in the next 12 to 18 months.
I invest in myself through coaching and consultants and masterminds and events and even books, right? They're little $20 investments, but I've made some of my biggest money off of $20 books. So I diversify so that my money can be multiplied. So you don't want to diversify to make money. You want to focus to make money, diversify to multiply money.
Graham Cochrane (51:37.196)
And number seven, the last thing you need to learn for financial freedom and the one that most people never learn, but this is literally the thing that will set you free, is that giving leads to prosperity, hoarding leads to poverty. Proverbs 11, 24 and 25. One gives freely yet grows all the richer, and he who withholds what he should give only suffers want.
book of 2 Corinthians chapter 8 9 is all about financial generosity. And Paul writes that letter and he uses the analogy of sowing and reaping. He says in chapter 9 near the very beginning, the point of the matter is this. If you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly. But if you sow bountifully, like a lot, you will reap bountifully. And he's talking about financial generosity. If you give a little,
you'll reap a little. If you give a lot, you'll reap a lot. This is not some prosperity gospel thing, although if somebody's saying, if you give to me specifically, you'll get a blessing, that's totally different. That's like buying blessings. That's not how it works. What God is teaching us through Solomon and Proverbs and Paul and the New Testament and 2 Corinthians is the principle God wove into the fabric of the universe is that giving is like planting a seed. You go, my gosh, that money's gone now.
But it's not really gone, it's just down in the dirt, multiplying and turning into a tree. If I plant an apple seed, I don't just get my apple back or a couple of apples, I get a whole tree of tons of apples that have tons of apple seeds inside of them. It's just like investing. Giving is a form of investing. The money is gone short term in one sense, but it's never really gone, it's actually put to use so it can multiply. And now I have more
Like Paul says, God is able to supply bread for the farmer and seed for the sower. Like, you will have plenty to consume and plenty to plant. Again, so you have more to consume and plant, consume and plant. This is how things grow exponentially. It's just the fabric of the universe. It's the way it's made. Whereas if you hoard all your seeds, you'll never have an abundant harvest. You'll never have, like, you won't have anything. The seeds will just go bad. You have to plant some of the seeds.
Graham Cochrane (54:01.527)
turn some into food, and some goes into the ground to plant.
Right? The principles in Scripture are that God gives us things to enjoy for ourselves, take care of our families, but not just for ourselves, to refresh others, to take care of others. And if you don't believe in God, this principle still works for you because God still believes in you and principles are principles and they work. So just look for the people who are the most wealthy are generally the most generous. So follow the patterns, right? Some of the wealthiest sort of
Financial patriarchs in America were some of the most generous people in the world. But if you're a believer, here's the way it works, right? God is looking, we see this in Matthew chapter 25 in the Parable of the Talents, and we see this all throughout Scripture. God is looking for people he can trust. So if he gives you money through your business, through your work, whatever, he wants to see two things. One,
Do you take care of your family with it? Or do you just waste it? Make sure you're taking care of your family. And that doesn't mean just like the bare minimum. Make sure they're thriving. What do they need to thrive? Take care of your family. But then he also wants to see, do you trust God to then take some of that money and take care of those who are less fortunate? Give to those who need it. You see these principles laid out in the Old Testament of farmers and landowners who have crops they're supposed to leave. When they harvest all their crops, they're supposed to leave.
outer edges of their fields unharvested for the poor in the area to be able to come and take some food, right? It's like, hey, you don't need all of it. So you grow a big harvest, you deserve the majority of it, but you don't need all of it. There's a principle of tithing all throughout scripture, right? So God wants to see, you take care of your family with it? And then are you generous with it to other people? If he sees that you are, then he goes, okay, I can trust Graham or I can trust her.
Graham Cochrane (56:01.003)
or I can trust him, so then what is he gonna do? If I'm a business owner and I have three employees and I give them resources to grow my business and employee one uses up all the resources on himself, employee two doesn't do anything with those resources, just they sit there, but employee three uses some of the resources for himself and takes some of those resources and then invests them to grow the company,
and bring a return to my company, who am I going to give more resources to the next time? Number three, because she actually invested back into the... She took the money and did with it what I wanted her to do with it. I gave her an assignment and she did with it what I wanted her to do with it. So I can trust her, I'm going to give her more. So if you're generous, you're following God's design, He's going to give you more. More opportunity, more responsibility.
the ability to create more wisdom so you can create more value for more people, which is gonna create more wealth. Shay and I have been givers since day one, and I talked about this in my TED talk, why givers are happier and have less money stress, and that's just like the science of how when you become a giver, you actually are happier. We didn't even get into givers are richer and wealthier, but it's true. When we were broke, we continued to give 10 % of our income, which was minuscule. We continued to give 10 % of our income away.
And I believe that is a huge reason why God blessed me with a business success early on that he blessed me with and why he's blessing me now and why he continues to open doors and give me favor because he knows that we are generous and he can trust me.
Givers are prosperous. And the opposite is true, hoarders become broke. Because what happens is, it's like I've heard John Maxwell say a million times, you want to be a river, not a reservoir. The water is freshest in a river because the water is flowing. The water is most disgusting and dead and stale in a reservoir because the water piles up and it can't go anywhere and it just stays there and it it sours.
Graham Cochrane (58:12.277)
If you want fresh, beautiful, clean water, then open up your hand and as freely as it comes in, let some of it go out. As freely as it comes in, let some of go out. Trust that there's an infinite supply of money. There's an infinite God who loves you and is looking for people he can trust. And if you are receiving, give freely. Bless people. If you receive knowledge, give knowledge. If you receive wisdom, give wisdom. If you receive opportunity, give opportunity. If you receive money, give money. Whatever you receive,
give some of it away and make that your posture where it flows through you. I love the phrase, if he can get it through you, he can get it to you. He's looking for people that are a river, not a reservoir, let it flow through you. And it's risky because you're like, I have to let go of that money. But it's the same as being an investor. It's risky when you buy your first stock or your first house. You're like, well, the money's gone. But then you realize as time goes on, that's actually, it was actually riskier if I didn't invest. Because now I've built more wealth. I have more because I gave.
because I was willing to let go. And what's amazing about this, my friend, is when you become a giver, you do become happier. It's just science that proves that. You can watch my 12-minute TED Talk on this if you want the quick synopsis of it, some of the best research on it. So not only will you be happier and you have less stress, but when you are happier and have less stress, you're more creative and your eyes are more open. You can start to...
ask better questions, you start to seek new things because you're coming from a place of creativity and lightness. And so when you're stress free, you start to then see more gold than most people. When you're stressed out of your mind, your view gets really contracted and small and you only see what's right in front of you. You don't see all the opportunities all around you. So by becoming a giver has all these beautiful side effects and ripple effects of being more relaxed. And when you're relaxed, you perform better.
You see more clearly, you see the abundance all around you, and then you get creative. And then you can start this beautiful cycle all over again. You can serve more people, add more value, make more money, invest that money, grow that money. Friend, it's never ending. It's never ending. So, 99 % of graduates never learn this stuff. I wish somebody taught this to me. But you know it now. You stayed with me to the end.
Graham Cochrane (01:00:36.045)
So the question you need to ask yourself is, if you're not as wealthy or as financially free as you'd like to be,
Do you like your way of not being financially free? Or would you prefer my way of being financially free? Maybe there's something about one of the things I shared today that is exactly what you came here for, that you needed to hear today. Maybe all seven feel overwhelming. Fine. What is the one principle that is the domino for you that will knock down all the other ones? That if I just...
just started to wrap my head around this and actually take a risk and get curious. Right, my friend Michael Jr. says, don't get furious, get curious. Get curious about maybe Graham's onto something. Maybe there's something there. Maybe my life would be different if I thought different thoughts. This is something I taught in my book, Rebel, and I learned this from a brilliant coach, Julia Woods.
But here's how life change happens. Belief, thoughts, feelings, actions. You change your beliefs. What you're getting today is based off of what you believe.
You gotta change what you believe. Because when you change what you fundamentally believe, and I just shared seven beliefs here for you, if you change what you fundamentally believe, it's gonna change what you think about all day long.
Graham Cochrane (01:02:07.053)
When you change what you think about all day long, you start to feel different feelings than you felt before.
And when you feel different feelings, you end up doing different things. Because we don't do what we think about, we don't do what we're told we're doing. We do what we feel like doing. Does this make sense? Nobody does what they're told, they do what they feel like doing. You're doing what you feel like doing right now. If you don't work out, it's you don't feel like working out. If you don't invest money, it's because you don't feel like investing money. If you don't ask, if you don't raise your prices, it's because you don't feel like raising your prices.
We do what we feel like doing. So to change what we're doing, to get different results, we have to change what we're feeling. Well, how do you change what you're feeling? You gotta change what you think about all day. Well, what's gonna change what you think about all day? If you change your core fundamental beliefs about things. So maybe if you don't like your financial situation, you need to change your fundamental beliefs about money and wealth creation and business and the economy and wealth. Because if you do, you're gonna be like on the toilet or you're gonna be
on your Peloton or you're gonna be in the car line or you're gonna be at the checkout of the grocery store and you'll be thinking about, Graham said there's infinite money to be found, but only if you're looking for it. You're gonna be thinking about these things. Graham said money doesn't come from work, it comes from creating value. You'll be thinking about these things and then you start to feel different things. And when you feel different things, you do different things and you get different results. And this is the process, all of us.
have to go through. believe, feel, believe, think, feel, do, excuse me, believe, think, feel, do, and in that order. And that's how you're have life change. So friend, if you're watching on YouTube, comment below, let me know which one of these principles resonated with you the loudest. And you're like, this is the one I have to press into this week. And then I'm gonna ask you a simple question. What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do with what you just learned today? What's your next best step? Leave a comment below.
Graham Cochrane (01:04:13.133)
if you're watching on YouTube. And if you're listening to this on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you consume the podcast, message me on Instagram. Let me know which one resonated with you and what you're gonna do this week to move into and step into that new belief and adopt it as your own. I hope this blessed you. I hope you have an amazing rest of your week. I'll see you on another episode real soon.
