Eszylfie Taylor - Founder & President of Taylor Insurance Financial Services | Optimizing Mind, Body & Money

Welcome to success story, the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network, which has other amazing podcasts like Entrepreneurs on Fire hosted by John Lee Dumas. Entrepreneurs on Fire, Stokes Inspiration, and share strategies to fire up your entrepreneurial journey and create the life you've always dreamed of. Check out some of the recent episodes, eight tools of improv comedy that you can use in work and life, how to turn your Instagram into a money-making machine, how to build a seven-figure side hustle without quitting your full-time day job, and overcoming the beast of depression as an entrepreneurial leader. If these topics are interesting for you, you definitely have to check out Entrepreneurs on Fire wherever you download your podcast. Today, my guest is Yisalfi Taylor, the number one financial advisor in the entirety of California, who navigates the challenges of working with celebrities, sports legends, and Fortune 500 executives. He currently sits on the board of three nonprofit organizations dedicated to business empowerment, children's health, and social services. He mentors upcoming youth as the founder of the nonprofit Future Stars Camp for Kids, dedicated to providing basketball training and life coaching skills in his free time. Now, we spoke about the definition of success, financial literacy, finding balance, how to manage your money, how to invest, where the wealthiest spend their money, and how to become a millionaire with $100 a month. I think one of the things that I experienced as a child that really was the catalyst of shaping who I was, is on the fourth grade, I changed schools, my mom took a new job, and my brother and I got transferred to a new school that was closer to her job, and my brother and I literally desegregated the school. We were the first black kids in the school, and I'd grown up previously going to a school that was pretty eclectic. White kids, black kids, Mexican, Hispanic, or Asian rather, like everyone, right? This school is just like a bunch of white kids in my brother and I. I used to get picked on like, you're black. I'm like, yeah, I know, right? Like anybody's like, no, no, no. Tell me something new. You know, it was me, and poor, poor little Jimmy Beard was a nerdy little kid, and you used to get picked on before school, but I was fast, right? Something fast, but Jimmy Beard was not fast, and right, so he gave me it up, and I'll just run around. And, you know, coming from, I went to this progressive Montessori school where, you know, I wasn't playing. And also my father is from Ghana, West Africa, right? So my dad wasn't like, let's play football and basketball and baseball. He's like, how many PhDs are you going to get, right? And so I didn't know any of the games like, oh, you want to play four square handball? I'm like, man, I have no idea what these things are, right? And so it was a bit of an outcast. And because my mom worked at night or worked through the night, I had to go to daycare after school. And so I spent hours after school every day playing handball and four square and dag and learning the games and not only learning the games, like I became like the best one in the game. And as I went through school and now, like, starting to play sports and football and basketball and baseball and everything, and I became like the best athlete in the school. And, you know, now girls coming out, oh, my God, who's that? Is that yourself a Taylor mother? And now all the boys used to pick on me and try to fight me. Now, you're like, hey, can I do a sleepover at your house? And what that, what that period of my life taught me is that, so let me get this straight. Because I scored touchdowns or conchew threes and girls like me now, like, no, I'm the same kid that I was before. And so I literally became the bully of bullies, right? And they always wanted to stand up for the underdog at that point and not letting, you know, circumstance dictate your character, right? And not saying, oh, because I'm popular now, I'm going to shift and be, you know, mean to other people or nasty to other people or put other people down because I know what that felt like, you know, and that's probably the only period of my life for that was my reality, right? Ever since then being an athlete and, you know, doing well in school and going into business and all these things, I've been quote unquote, the guy, but that always stuck with me. So that's one thing that, you know, happened to me as a kid that I remember that stuck with me and shade two, I was. But you know, that's a really great lesson. So you realize, and actually you came out of it on the right side of it, but you realize that going into it, when you conform to all the things that people want you to be, all of a sudden life gets a little bit easier. But then I think it's going to dovetail into lessons that you teach over probably from what you've learned from being successful. It's like not always what you want either. It's not always who you are. Like you, for a moment, you started to become like what other people wanted you to be. And then you realize, hey, wait a second, like I got to come out of this in a good way. And that's when you, you know, you're the bully of bullies. You're like, okay, so I figured out the code to being successful in cool and school. I know how to play sports, I know how to get girls, but like ultimately you still want to be true to yourself. And I think that's something that you probably, like the way that I look at the stuff that you've done in your career, I even saw it's like little sizzle reel that you put on your website, how you made it and you, and you got the money, you got the house, you got the car and you're like, hold up, wait, like this isn't exactly what's making me happy. So maybe walk me through like the reality of a lot of people who conform to what people think they should be, but then end up maybe not in the right spot. Sure. I think what happens is obviously is natural is we'll put a lot of onus on possession and put onus on, you know, what kind of house you have, what kind of car you drive, what your job title or how much money you're making and, you know, and it's great, right? You know, we all want to have nice things and enjoy the fruits of our labor, but at the end of the day it's really about, like I say, connection, it's about fulfillment, it's about gratitude, health and wellness and that's really what matters, that's our riches. Unfortunately, most people never reach their quote unquote number. They never either make enough or possess enough to say, to say like, oh, I've made it. I feel the sense of accomplishment and those that have, right? And that's why you see the multi-millionaires of the business moguls of the athletes giving back so much, right, and creating nonprofits and being philanthropic or their rich, right? And they don't do those things and they're just miserable nasty people. They have all the money in the world. They can buy anything they want except for happiness. And again, unfortunately, most people never reach their number, whether that's a million or five million or ten million, whatever it is, they'll never get that house. But when you get it, right, any one of you who are listening to this and watching this right now, if you said, I'm not happy, selfie because I don't have money, no matter what your number is, a million, ten million, a hundred million, a billion, whatever your number is, if I wrote you a check for that number, you would be the same person the next day. If your miserable nasty person wrote, there would be a miserable nasty person with ten million dollars. Money doesn't change who we are, it just accentuates who we are and highlights who we are. And so that's my whole thing is how can I find balance? How can I find peace with nothing, nothing material? Because if I can do that, when I get the house, when I get the car, when I get the money, when I get the popularity, then I'm going to be able to affect change positively and help other people. Yeah, but it's hard to get that. So walk me through your career, because even when I watch that video, it seemed like you fell victim to that mindset for a period of your career. You hustled hard, you pushed, you wanted all the things, you had a number and you didn't have that number right away. So after you got it, you had a little bit again, it's funny. When you realize the success that you've achieved and whether or not it being popular in school or having the house and the family and the car and the toys that you want, I love that you are so self-aware that you recenter and you're like, shit, I need to figure out how to make a better life for my, you always feel like it's never like you double down and you just like go out on this toxic path, which a lot of people do. You were like, hey, I'm so self-aware, I got this, but I need to figure out how to be more whole in my life. Anyway, so walk me through your career and like how, you know, how you got to where you were and I got to that point. Certainly. I think they say, well, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result, right? So anytime I reach a particular level plateau in my life or pivotal moment, I go, wow, right? Is this the life I want to live, or is this what I wanted? And if I go, well, no, it's not, then immediately I look to shift. I look to change, I look to pivot because if you do what you've always done, you're going to get what you've always had, right? And so, so I look to shift. So story simple, like I didn't grow up in this like super impoverished area. I mean, I grew up in Southern California and went to private school my whole life. I had a roof over my head, food on the table, right? Didn't have a, a trust fund when I turned 18, but I had 20 bucks in my pocket, you know, go for movies and grab a burger on the weekends, right? I didn't have a BMW when I turned 16, but I had a Subaru station wagon, right? So I could, I could cart myself and my friends around. And so I didn't, I didn't go without a lot right going up, but I wanted more, right? And I wanted to provide more for my family when I had one and that was my thing, right? I'm 22 years old, graduate college. I start my career right out of school and finance, and I had one simple modest aspiration at that time. I was become a millionaire by the time I was 25, right? I figured three years, man, let's go, let's get it, right? And, and it, and it's it, right? I always say, right, if your dreams don't scare people, you're not dreaming big enough. You're not thinking big enough. I was swaying, swung big, took me a little longer than 25, but by 27, man, I did it. I'm a millionaire. I'm 27 years old, right? By 30, it was kind of like that, that, that moment you're talking about when I realized like, ah crap, right? Like I've made life about achieving all this stuff and I have all the, you can see my office behind me. I've got all the plaques and trophies in the world, right? I've been decorated in athletics and academics and business virtually my entire life. And when I realized like, all that doesn't matter if I'm empty inside, all that doesn't matter if I don't have true connection and love with people and, and a thing. So that's where that, that shift came and not that, you know, I'm not going to still try to grow business. I'm going to be a billionaire, right? That's where my head's at. The difference is, is I don't want to be a billionaire to consume for me, right? So I can get a nicer house or to drive a nicer car. My pursuit of being a billionaire one is I'm an athlete, so you got to keep score, right? Yeah, always. If you want to play one-on-one and not keep score, no, right? Like keep score, so that money is the barometer, right? But then for me, it's really just the, the ability to impact and touch people and share, right? I'm a billionaire. There aren't any homeless people here in LA, right? I don't know if people don't, kids going hungry, right? That's, that's, that's, I think we're here to, to not only, again, not to consume for ourselves or even provide for our family, but, but families and people at large. And then when you were, when you were on the comment, when you were making that million by 27, what, what do you think, what, what do you think was really missing in your life? Because now you, you have a TV show, mind, body, and money. So I'm assuming, you know, the money's there. What was missing? Was it the mind? Was it the body? And, and also, I don't know what, what else falls under, you know, the things that are missing, thinking of relationships, like all the different things that you have in your life? I think many of us are unequally yoked and, and the reason that mind, body, money is so important to me as I believe to become the best versions of ourself. We need to master those three areas of our life in that order, mind, body, money. In terms of mindset, I guess I was very determined, right? I was very determined. I think I was very stubborn, right? Today, I believe everything happens for a reason and it's perfect timing. And back when I was younger, I was very idealistic. This will happen. This will happen. This will happen. And, and anyone who can sense something to the contrary, like get out of my way, right? Like, that is what I thought. The body part, like being an athlete, like school, like I played basketball, college, and kept playing through leagues as an adult and always moving my body, but I was, I was putting crap in my body. We think of diet as what we eat. And it wasn't only that my diet was poor. Your diet isn't only what you eat. It's what you watch. It's what you listen to. It's who you hang around. And what I realized also, there was a lot of toxicity, right? So even though I'm quote unquote more successful and I know thousands, tens of thousands of people, my circle and the people that I'm close to and the people that I'm vulnerable to is continue to shrink, actually, over time. And then with the money, yes, I was making money, but I didn't realize it's not what you make. It's what you keep. Because when other part of that story is as a millionaire by 27 and by 30, I was broke, right? Because I bought all these pieces of property in a bad time of 506 or 7 when the market dropped, right? You don't get a gold medal in a trophy because you used to be a millionaire, right? You got to keep it. And so these are some of the lessons. And so I tell people all the time, like I'm a massive, massive failure. So when people look at me like, oh, no, not you, Sophie, I'm, you know, because people are judging me by my success as a Nelson Mandela quote, do not judge me for my success. Judge me for the number of times that I fell down and got back up, right? And that's, you know, quite simply the story of my life. So then how did you? Okay, so then fine. So you make your money, recession hits, you broke at that point, that's, that's, that's probably rock bottom in your life for, for, where, you know, for the success that you've had. So how do you turn your life around? You're building again, but you want to build a little bit differently, right? You want, you don't want to build the exact same way because you weren't happy then, any? Yeah. I think, and this is something that the people who are viewing might, you know, some of you might relate to, I think that really talented people have a challenge in creating scalable business. And people who create not riches, but wealth understand the value of scale, understand that a true business runs in spite of you, not because of you. And I have a particular talent, right, like, you know, I'm, I'm not shy if you can't tell, right? But I have a particular talent of being in front of people and moving people to action. But the challenge that occurs in that as me working with a client on a one-on-one basis is that I can only have so many meanings. I can only close so many deals, right? But if I manufactured cell phones, right, and sold a million cell phones every month, I'd be a billionaire, right? And no one even knows my name, right? Think about Jeff Bezos, right? You know, CEO or founder of Amazon. How many, when's the last time Jeff Bezos delivered a package, right? And so, so when I looked at it and that's, that's been the shift for me. And again, the journey I'm still in the midst of right now is how do I shift and restructure my enterprises, the various businesses that I run that, that they run again, in spite of me, not because of me. One of my biggest clients said it to me best and this really resonated with me. He said, he said, you have created the perfect business when you show up to work and have nothing to do. Matter of fact, when you try to do something, you mess it up. He's like, then that's it, right? And so that's been etched to my head like the last 10 years and so there. So even for me, it's like, man, I'm such an integral part of all the things I do and that's great and I love it and I'm a big part of it, but I have a scale issue. So things like, you know, things like my app, my body money app on the app store, things like my show, my body money, allow me to cast a wide knife in front of millions, tens of millions of people that and then hopefully some fraction of them act. And that is how I'm trying to gain scale in this next chapter of my life by, you know, taking, taking, taking my places of public figure, taking my place of celebrity and monetizing that. But in a manner that I think is positive, right, that if I get, if I get a million people to go, man, I love your vision, I love what you're doing. I love the impact you're trying to have on the world. And I could pay three bucks a month for all this content that's, that's actionable for me that to improve my life and help other people. Sure, I'll do that, right? When I get a million people to pay me three bucks a month, there you go. Yeah. No, I think that that's a huge issue people have, right, because they have this like super high valuable skill and they figured out how to kill it in their career, but that scalability. And now what you figured out, like actually by solving a very real business problem, now you can actually solve the rest of your life, which is how do you devote time to your, to your better half, to your spouse, to your kids, to your parents, like, to your community. Because you really can't do that if you're just great at working. Like it's, I was actually going to ask you this, like, how do you manage and balance all this stuff? I don't know if there's a secret to it. I think it's just you got to find a way to build a business that scales. Yeah. You know, I don't want to make light of what it took for me to get here. It's easy, you know, from some vantage point to say, look, it's easy. Like, you got that house now, you got that garden. Oh, now you want to balance now. And so I will say, like I had, and I still have to some degree that I call it the sickness, right? You must be obsessed with success. You must be obsessed. You're not like anyone great, like a Michael Jordan or Serena Williams or a Tiger Woods, or whatever. They're like, all sick. They're not like Rayleigh. They're not like, well, you know, I'll practice a couple of times a week and see what happens. Like, no, obsessed. I think that you have to have that to be great, academics, business, sports, music. You have to have that, right? So anyone who's listening who's not where they want their career, yep, you got to grind it out, right? No, make no mistake about it. What I would encourage people not to lose sight of even in the midst of that journey is trying to maintain some level of balance or reset. I'm wired different than other people, right? Like, I get energy from others, right? So I can work a hundred hours a week, two hundred fifty hours. But if I'm around people and getting energy and encouragement from other people, I'm good. And some people are like, listen, two days a week, I got a shut off, nose up, um, have her, like, and to each his own. I used to, I used to look at someone like that as I was going in my career. I would look at them as weak. I would look at them like, oh, you don't get it. And what I realized later on is like, you know, who didn't get it? I didn't get it. I was at this conference one time. I'm a new, like, up and coming kid, hot shot, right, running my mouth. I hadn't done anything yet. I was running my mouth, like, I'm going to watch what I need, right? And I'm telling people like, this is where I'm going, people like, man, this kid is something else, right? And this other lady sit next to me and she had a completely opposite. She'd been in the business like 30 years. She was like, ah, she was like, she was what I do. I work for three months. And then I take a month off. And I go to travel, to my family, and then I work for three months and I take a month off. And then she was talking to her story online, man, this lady is wrong with her. Do you realize if you didn't take a whole month off, how eat much better, you can even be doing it, right? And now I look at it like, wow, that's cool. If what gives her fulfillment is, hey, I'm going to grind it out, but then I'm going to take this time to reset with my kids and my grandkids, then cool. That is what success looks like to her. And so what I realize is that my definition of success, my definition of making it doesn't have to be yours or anyone else's. We're all on our own journey, but the key is you must identify what it is for you. If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it with amazing accuracy. So you can't, to your point early, you can't gauge yourself or say, hey, because Joe does this, this is what I got to do, because Mary does, this is what I got to do. You want to be the best version of yourself, whatever that is, whether it's making 100 grand a year, making 100 grand a day, whatever that is, right? And then once you define what does that success look like to you, what does fulfillment look like to you, then boom, do the work. So then it's okay. So that's, I love this, dude. I love this. Because when people listen to this, I don't want them to just look at people that operate at an exceptionally high level and be like, oh, I'm a failure if I don't get there. But I do want people to know that does take a lot of work to get there. And sometimes to be honest, like the people that make it to the top, like, there's, like, there's a little bit off, like they're not like 100%, they're not 100% normal. Like they have to put an insane amount of work to get there, which is cool. But like, I think the people at the top also have to realize that like, you can burn a lot of good parts of your life away if you just focus on that. And I think for the average person who wants to be truly happy, I think that just being the 0.01%, 24, 7, 365 from when you're born till you die is not going to make you quote unquote happy at all, actually. And I think that the people, you know, it's a cautionary tale. You look at the people that are the, you know, Deca millionaires and, and, and Eve up to the billionaires and, and the family is suffering and the multiple divorces. And like, there's things that fall away. So figure out what you want. I think that's super, super important. How do you, because how do you figure out what you want? We, we come into this world with nothing and we'll leave with nothing, right? 100% like what do we remember for in that, in that, in that window of time in the midst? You know, I, again, I'm not, I'm not a special person. I'm not better than anyone else and I'm just on my, on my grind. I think, I think if I had to, to say what am I, I'm a, I'm a grinder, I'm a hustler. I've, I've, I've fallen down and gotten up and fallen down, gotten up. And that's what I said. I don't believe in winning and losing. I believe in winning and learning and taking these lessons that I've learned, taking these challenges that I've experienced and then saying, okay, how can I come back better and stronger as a result, you know, of these things. And so there's just a great level of peace. There's a great level of, of, of serenity that I have in the unknown. And that is what used to freak me out. That's I think what used to, freaks a lot of people out is like, you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. And I know that if I crush today, if I do everything I can today, tomorrow bring enough challenges and problems of its own. Let me just focus on today, right? Tomorrow's, tomorrow's a mystery. Yesterday's history, right? But today is a gift. That's why they call it the present. So I'm going to unravel this present, this precious present every day, right, and cash it in. That's where I look at it. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot. So I was thinking about the shortest day of the year earlier. Well, technically, we have the same amount of time as every other day. The lack of daylight makes it feel so much shorter, which is kind of the same feeling as working with disconnected tools. Our work day is the same length as always, but before we know it, we spent three hours manually fixing something that is, quote, unquote, automated. 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So, ultimately, all paths lead to not worrying about anything. I don't control with you or anyone else does. I only control me. So, here's the thing. Have I. Have you done everything required of you today to reach your goals, to be the best version of you? And if you can check that box, yes, I have, then I don't control the outcome. You don't control the outcome. But, ultimately, you have to be, and it's hard, you can look in the mirror and ask yourself, have I done this? Because you can't be upset about the results you didn't get from the work you didn't do. So, I have you done what's required of you. And if you have, then good. Does that mean you're going to get the promotion? Does that mean you're going to get the man or the woman of your dreams? Does that mean you're going to make the team? Does that mean maybe not? And that's life, man. I'm sorry. It's not fair. Right? But I believe it's perfect. Because maybe you weren't supposed to be the best version of it. And if you have, then good. Does that mean you're going to get the promotion? Maybe not. And that's life, man. I'm sorry. It's not fair. Right? But I believe it's perfect. Because maybe you weren't supposed to have that boyfriend. Maybe you weren't supposed to have that girlfriend. Maybe that promotion that passed you over was a good thing. Because you got another opportunity that was bigger. Each one of us has had an experience where there's something we really wanted. Something we really thought we deserved in life and it didn't come to us. And later, we got a bigger blessing. Right? And everyone can think back their own lives and think of, oh, yeah, that didn't. Right? I'm not making it up. It's not just me. No, it's not. Right? And so when you stop fighting, this is the way that it should be. And you're just in race. Right? And accept and breathe into it. Like, okay, this is it. Then it happens, you know, exactly as it should. So I want to talk about money. Because that's actually your job, your life. Everything that you do is about helping people with money. So you have a very, I think, a very healthy relationship with money. This is like after you kind of like your moment when you woke up after you hit rock bottom. And now you understand how to balance making money and you balance family and you balance happiness. And again, the mind-body money connection. But a lot of people have a lot of problems with money. So who do you work with? Who are the people that you actually work with on a day to day? Is this still something that like, of course, yeah, you have a TV show. I know you are, I think the face of LinkedIn. That was a crazy story. But this is like your nine to five. You're helping people with like the most valuable asset. Yeah, you know, I've, I've had the unique privilege of working with a lot of different people. Some class and make a hundred grand a year. Got some clients again, make a hundred grand a day. Right? And everything in between. There's two mindsets, typically that people have. They can have a scarcity mindset, right? Or an abundance mindset. I have an abundance mindset because I know how to make money. I know how to make money. Now, admittedly, sometimes that gets me in trouble because I'll swing away, right? Like you want to invest, you know, a hundred grand in this new startup. Yeah, let's go. Let's go. Because not that I want to lose it. But I'm like, my whole thing, my whole thing is, I'm going to die with memories, not dreams. Right? So I swing away. Because I have this abundance mindset. I think, well, if this doesn't work out or this doesn't pan out for me, I think I can come back from it. It's interesting because with my clients, I have an opposite objective. It's more of a conservative long term approach, right? I'm typically not, you know, swinging, swinging for the fences, right? Because I do believe in the end, a long, steady, you know, balanced approach is the key to success. But for me, it's not like, should I set myself up and can think about my long-term goals and objectives? Or should I swing for the fences? And I think we often time to find ourselves in these polar opposites, right? I'm one of the other. And for me, it's like, why not do both? Why not have? And that's kind of, I've designed my life with my businesses. I've got the things that all things being equal in the next 20 years. I'll be good. I'm fine. Just getting singles and doubles. And I got the things that you might call me next week and next year, who knows? And I'm like, yeah, that's all I got when you're for a hundred million dollars. I don't know. Right? But I know this. I know that I'm going to show up. I know that I'm going to show out. I know that I'm going to put forth the effort necessary to succeed. And ultimately beyond that, your guess is as good as mine. So my role as in finance and helping clients isn't, again, for me to dictate terms. And so this is what you should do. And this is where you should be as much as it's as my job to tell people how things work. I teach people how things work. This is how this works. And when you understand how things work, then do whatever you want. Right? But here's what you are today. Here's what you want to be. Here are the things you need to do to get to where you want to be. How do you want to proceed? And I have that conversation half a dozen times today with you. I was going to say the reason why you can be abundant. And I think this is something that we have to talk about and also teach over to people. The reason why you can have that abundance mindset, you're financially literate. You know how to make money. You have self-confidence. But the self-confidence is justified. So one of the topics that I think would be interesting is to speak about, maybe some of the highest earning, well not maybe the highest earning, but very high earning individuals' athletes. And maybe they have the confidence, but I mean, if they've finished their craft, and they don't have financial literacy, and they have no idea how to make more money, or they've never really done it themselves before, I'm sure you've seen this before. Like you can burn through that money super quick. So I want to talk about athletes in a second. First question, big question. It's not going to be easy to solve today, but we're going to try and solve it. How do we make people more financially literate? Is it universities? Like what's the thing that we're missing as a society? I think it starts, you know, it starts even before college. I think in elementary school, I was pleased, I ran an old elementary school teacher of mine, and they're teaching financial literacy in grade school. And I thought that was amazing financial literacy. And these are basic things, guys, like balancing a checkbook, budgeting. How does insurance work? How do investments work? What's in a state plan? Tell me about taxes. I graduated magna cum laude amongst top to top of my class with a degree in business. And I didn't know 99% of this stuff until I was in it and doing it. I'll share a quick story. I'm three months into business. I have my biggest month of my entire life at the time. I made $10,000. I've never seen $10,000 in my life. So I had $10,000 a check. I'm like, oh, this is great. So this is back in the day. No direct deposit. I got a mailbox with a physical check in it. So I go over my mailbox, grab the check, open the check, set $5,500. So I go to the operations manager, and I'm like, hey, today is payday. My check is $10,000, but this is $5,500. So what do you guys do? You break it up? You're like, can you have now? I'm like, I'll wait. And she's like, no, that's your check. I'm like, this is not my check. My check was $10,000. This is $5,500. And she said one word that just rang in my ears. And I said, what is it? She said taxes. And I said, taxes. Half like half. And she's like, yeah, like you made $10,000. It's paid period. I assume you made $10,000 every two weeks. And you're being taxed the highest level. So I was like, whoa. How does this not happen? That was my first entrain to tax planning. And I'm like, oh, God, how do we fix this? And so again, unfortunately, many of us are, I think, make just decisions in life and adulthood like this. Like, yeah, let's see what happens. Right? And from making our 401K elections to picking insurances to what mortgage should I get? Like, we don't know. And so at the end of the day, this stuff isn't really rocket science. It is not, however, intuitive. It's not like, oh, yeah, this all just kind of makes sense. It takes a professional. It takes someone. Because here's the challenge with the internet and self-study and my pain. When you go online, you're going to find exactly what you're looking for. If I Google, why is that a XYZ good? You'll find a slew of information. If I Google, why is that same thing? Why is XYZ bad? Of limited slew of information. And then the challenge is like, who's right? That's why for me, I don't say this is good. This is bad. I say this is how this works. And again, when you understand how it works, then do whatever you want. But I think it starts early on. Even with my daughters trying to teach them and impart these things to them early on. You want allowance? No problem. You can have allowance. But guess what? You're going to buy stocks with that money. And you could bet. Money. But I want them to understand it. Like, oh, I've got this real estate. This is my building that I own. I have a rental property. Let me teach you. You understand the difference between commercial real estate and residential real estate. What's the distinction? Oh, it's four units or less that. Oh, it's four units or more. Five units or more data. It's commercially. Ah, good. So they understand these things. And things that they're learning at 13, 14, 15 years old, that some of these things I learned when I was 30. You know what I'm saying? And to your point, some of the things I'm teaching them, most people don't know in 30, 40, 50 years old. And so you can't win a game if you don't know the rules of the game. Right? And so that's my thing. How could we be successful in finance and creating financial security for ourselves if we don't know how the game works? And I want to, so, you know, for fun, I want to dive into the world of athletes. But then I think for practicality, we should also just understand, like, best practices for everyone. But the reason why I love athletes is because they earn so much. And actually, I have a podcast coming up. I'm Canadian. I used to play hockey. So all my references, I reference universities, not colleges. Maybe you heard that. But I'm having a podcast with Chris Pronger, who was a big, big hockey player. And he wrote a thread on Twitter about finances and like all the escrow and the agent fees and all the stuff that gets pulled off their salaries. And I'm sure it's the exact same in the NBA and the NFL and the MLB. And I want to understand the conversations that you have with athletes early in their career, coming out of their career. What is the average athlete deal with? Do they go, what is the percentage of them that go bankrupt? All these crazy stats that you're dealing with right now because you operate at that level. Yeah, it's staggering. I think I think it's 60-some-odd percent of NFL players follow bankruptcy inside of three years over retirement. NFL actually stands for not not for long, right? I think it's somewhere 40-some-odd percent of NBA players after five years of ending their career file bankruptcy, which is actually not too dissimilar from a lot of winners. Same stats. I think it's something like 75% of lottery winners follow bankruptcy inside of three years. Here's the biggest challenge. You cannot and should not confuse someone making a lot of money with being a good planner. Those are two different things. If I grew up in a household without any financial literacy, without access to money, without resources to plan, and I was given a four-year 50-million-hour contract, why then would I all of a sudden be like, oh, now, let me tell you how to diversify your real estate portfolio, how my money should be invested, mitigate my tax liability, let me do some estate planning. How would you just know that? Again, when I'm 23 years old, and I just signed a four-year 50-million-hour contract, and because I'm young, it's always going to be like this. I'm always getting like this. I think when you live life, like I have now, I've been in business 23 years. I've now been in this industry longer than I haven't been in this industry. And I see what happens when people are good stewards of their money. I see what happens when people make prudent decisions. And I also see what people take massive risk and don't plan accordingly. Right off rip, you go, okay, how then, explain it to me, Sylvia, how could someone make $100 million and be broke? So right off the jump, as I alluded to earlier, you got your partner that you forgot about Uncle Sam. So depending on where you live, you don't have $100 million. You have 50 million. So right off rip, you didn't even see $100 million. It's gone. You have $50 million. And then you bought the house. And you bought the other house. And you bought the Lambo. Then you bought the Phantom. You had to buy your mama house. And then you're taking care of all your boys. Right? That came up with you into all these things. Your business manager wants 5%. Your agent wants 5%. Right? You know, little, little, little, little, little. So of that 50, you might have only seen 30. And then after buying and thinking about it, depending on where you live, you're here in LA. So you're dropping $45, $60 million on the house. Right? Cars, all these things, right? And now what? Oh, oh, I built a life that requires me to make and live on, you know, $34 million a year. Even if I finished my career and I still got $10 million, think about it. I got $10 million. That burns pretty quick. But I'm spending $3 million a year. You do the math. Yeah. Right? Inside of four years, you're broke. Right? Or you have to make some significant lifestyle changes. So my thing is start with the end in mind. When I'm talking to the young guys, you've never had this much money. So let's plan accordingly, right? I got a big client. Show me with him this afternoon. I'm setting up a plan with him with just what he makes this year. Just what he makes this year with proper planning, proper planning, and strategization. I'm going to set him up for the rest of his life. If he never had another check after this year, he's good. Right? And that's the type of things that I'm thinking about and planning for with my clients. So that's awesome. So let's take that. I was going to say, I want to take that lesson. It's the lesson that you're going to tell this athlete this afternoon. What's that lesson? Where would you recommend somebody to put their money? If you're going to take a smaller check? Yeah. It's all relative. People have to do things in accordance to the time horizon, risk tolerance, and objectives. But I'm a big believer in diversification. I wouldn't tell somebody to put all their money in the stock market. No sooner than I tell them to put it all in real estate, or a business, or any other one place. I think the key when you have a lot, and that's what's called the ultra-high net worth. Right? You actually don't have to be that aggressive. If you've got $30 million, and you're earning 5%, not a crazy rate of return, that's 1.5 million a year in interest. Right? Which most people can live a pretty good life on a million five every year. Right? Not invading principle. And so, a lot of ways. Once if I can get that happy, if I can get that entertainer bought into that idea, you can live a great life. And this kid will have the same standard of living at 23, as he will at 53 and 63 and so forth. Right? If he follows suit. The challenging part is the guys at the end of the career. The guys who made the $100 million, and they have the $10 million left, and they come to me and say, he's self-ending help. Something's got to give. What you've been doing? That's not going to work. We got to make some major shifts. And that's hard, you know, for people to go through. And I had a hard conversation. You know, long time NFL player, multiple Pro Bowl appearances, you know, who's living on about a million five a year. Had $5 million left. He's 32 years old. And I'm just like, you know, again, you have $5 million. Technically, if you drop that, if you drop that million five down, and you had $5 million to play with, obviously you're going to have a burn rate of a couple, you know, $100,000 a year, trying to keep it really low. You could even still do something with that. You could, but it's like people, you know, crash and burn, man. But so again, the sooner you identify, those frailties and plan, the better off you are, right? And that's what I tell people. So you're 21, 22, 23 years old. Man, please start, right? Now to your point, this 32 year old guy, could he write the ship? Right? But again, it's like, have a conversation. Well, what are this expense? Oh, I've got four houses. Well, you can't keep four houses, man. You can't live. How many of those four houses do you live in? One, one. Right. The only one. So we got to cut, right? So I think for me, the more prudent you are, the better decisions you make early on, then, right? Then you're not going to have to make such massive shifts, you know, down the road. And what about people that are looking at their portfolio of options? I mean, if you look at all your options, you have everything from crypto to real estate, to bonds, equities, stocks, and I mean, like, I'm in private equity. I'm like trying to buy businesses that are already cash flowing and profitably. There's just different options you can play around with. When somebody just wants to start and they're just like overwhelmed, what's the first step they should take? Yeah, the road to walk a mile begins with a single step. So don't worry about what the guy next to you, the guy next to you is doing, or all the money someone else has or doesn't has. You got to do what works for you. So the first thing I tell people is you got to create a budget. You have to understand what's coming in. What's your income? Then identify what I call your core expenses. Your core expenses are things like your mortgage, your rent, or car payments, utilities, things that you have to spend money on. The gap between your income and your core expenses is what I call your discretionary income, right? And with that discretionary income, I encourage people to pay themselves first. You ideally want to have a minimum of three to six months, typically not to exceed 12 months of expenses saved. That's your emergency fund. And then beyond that, then you're going to want to look, you're probably going to want to have some equity exposure, right? And then look at, like right now, like the inflation rates, you know, approaching 9 plus percent, right? So you can't put your money in the bank. You can't put your money in the CD. I call CD's certificates of depreciation, right? You're not getting a rate of return and a large enough to add to inflation. So you need some greater exposure to higher returns, right? So you have that. And I'm not one who's, you know, crazy taking a crazy amount of risk, or swimming for the defenses. I guess you could buy that one killer individual stock that hits, or you could just invest in the SAP 500, right? 500 basic funds and call it a day, right? Again, people have to do what's right for them. But, you know, again, for me, slow and steady, wins the race, right? Hey, look, you're paying rent. You know, I know the mortgage industry is going in flux with interest rates rising, but prices are starting to drop. And if you look at the affordability index in many parts of the country, you pay just as much to rent as you do to own. And like, that's what I did in my first house. My first house is a four bedroom house. And I rented three of those rooms to my friends. And they paid two thirds of the mortgage. That's right. And so now I was able to build, you know, build a build of equity paid for that mortgage, right? And have a home. And I was just paying a fraction of that, you know, of that cost, or to your point, like you're doing investing in companies, right? And hey, these companies are maybe they need some cash flow. Maybe you're not even actively involved in them, which is great. How can I put my money places and how my money working create yield for me, right? So again, I would tell the listeners to align themselves with the professional who can guide them, align them with the professional most important you want to educate them and do something, right? Do something, right? Yeah, no, I mean, that's, I think that's, that's a great, it's like such simple advice. But, you know, how many people go, years living paycheck to paycheck? Or I actually, you know, I was actually going to ask you this, but I have a thought and maybe tell me if it's right or not. I mean, you work with so many different clients. A lot of people maybe listen to this, and they're like, hey, I'm paycheck to paycheck. I have like zero dollars to invest. But how many times when a client comes to you and his paycheck to paycheck that you actually, like, go in and do a deep dive and just discover a massive amount of bullshit that they're spending their money on? Yeah, every time. I mean, I figured it's like, it's like people don't want to lose weight and then you like look at their pantry and garbage and you're like, okay, well, I know why. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think most people, if you were to look at your credit card or debit card statements, and you delineate what were your core expenses versus the fluff, you'd be surprised at how much money just goes to crap every month. And here's my thing. If I make a rent payment and I pay my car lease and I pay utilities and I pay my credit card and I pay my cell phone. And I don't put money away from me. My intention is, you just work for free. Because none of that money went to accumulate to create wealth for you, right? You're making everyone else rich. So that's again, why you got to pay yourself first. And again, yeah, maybe you don't have a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand a month to put away. You don't have a million bucks scrolled away. Maybe it's a hundred bucks. Maybe it's two hundred bucks. But the interesting thing is, even at that level, given enough time, right, you know that you could create a million dollar nest egg in retirement, investing a hundred bucks a month and you got a decent return on your money every month, right? Because it's just the power of longevity and compounding interest in time, right? And so, yeah, that's a key. Just do something. Awesome. Okay. I'm going to, I have one question that I always ask all guests to close it up. But before we pivot, what are some last thoughts? You know, floor is yours for people that are listening. Just mind, body, money, some last closing advice. And also, most importantly, where do people connect with you? Socials, website, all that. Yeah. Mind, body, money. As the name suggests, balance them. I have an app on the App Store. Mind, body, money that you can download videos and mindset, affirmations, body, health and wellness, fitness videos, as well as money, understanding real estate, understanding taxes, understanding finance, estate planning, all these things again, that we need to know. So I've got a variety of tremendous thought leaders that provide content there. The show, mind, body, money. You can find us on mindbodymoney.com to get details on where we air and upcoming videos and publications. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, at Esilfetailer. Think of a selfie like you're taking a photo, put an E in front. Esilfet. I'm easy to find. Just Google me. You'll find slew of videos, articles everywhere. I'm not shy. And I'm here. And I think the biggest thing is like it's authenticity. There's nothing that you're going to read about me. There's nothing you're going to see from me on television that isn't who I genuinely am and what I genuinely think and how I live my life. And so I'm here to be a blessing and inspiration to others and I hope people get that through my work. I love that, man. I feel that. Okay, last question I ask everyone. Obviously you've had a great career. After all the success in your life, what does success mean to you at this point? Success to me means options. Success to me means I have effectively built a life where I remove the half-tools from the equation, where I do things because I want to do them, not because I have to do them. And whether it be because of my self-proclaimed sickness, or just desire for more, I'm not there today, right? I can't, well, I could, but I couldn't live in Southern California, and live the life I do and do the things I want, and I'll go ahead and do that. I can probably do that a lot of other places in the world, but so I'm in this journey. So I'm no different than virtually anyone else probably listening to this piece. They're still wrong on our journey, right? And so again, that's what success looks like to me, and that's what I'm striving to achieve myself, and I'll help others do the same.