Do you hate the thought of working past 55 or 60? Do you hate not being able to live the life you deserve today? Do you hate not knowing what your financial future looks like? It's time to stop doing what you hate, here's your host, Mr. Harold Green.
(00:20): Oh, hi everybody. This is Harold Green of tree financial group. And it's time to stop doing what you hate. I'm a thankful to be sitting here sharing today's show with everyone. We are heading into the holiday season, which is, you know, my favorite time of the year. Well, one of my favorite times of the year anyway, outside of spring. And the reason why is because during the holiday season, I really have time to sit back a little bit and reach out to the people. I love reach out to the people I care about. Tell them, thank you very much for allowing me and, and my team to be a part of their lives and to just show my appreciation and my gratitude for just for just their trust. And that's something that's very hard to earn. And today's world is is the, is the trust of others.
(01:16): And I've had a pretty decent week. It's been kind of busy off and on, but I had to take some time out and slow things down a little bit. And I want to talk to you folks about about what happened. And, but before I get into that, I want to tell you the title of today's show. That's learn more to earn more that's right. Learn more to earn more, and I'll share with you what that means, but I want to get into what happened over the past. I would say year and a half to two years, I've been extremely busy building the company, building the programs, hiring people, training people, onboarding new clients, and it's, it's been amazing. And it's also been hard at the same time. If you're a new client, welcome aboard Donna Lubbock, Lee Lubbock. Thank you so much for coming on board Jolynn, thank you for referring in Lee and Donna, so glad to have them on board.
(02:21): And so I'm just, I'm just really excited about that. But with all of that being said, I almost burnt myself out and I needed to, you know, take a break. I was talking to a couple of friends of mine and I said, bro, I need to slow down a little bit and I need to reset. I need to do a hard restart. And like what I said, yeah, I think I need to do a hard reset where you just turn everything off for a little bit, let it recycle and then power it back on. And one of the things that I did was I used to wake up early in the morning and go to Starbucks and get my coffee and then, you know, do my devotional. But I would, I drive over drive to Starbucks, get my coffee, do my devotionals. And I would drive to the gym and I would work out and I'd come back home and then I'd get ready for work.
(03:09): And, but something happened though. I decided that I wouldn't drive to Starbucks anymore, but I was still wake up early and instead I would walk. So I started walking into Starbucks and I got there. I did my devotional and then I started walking again. So now I walked from anywhere from like an hour in the morning to an hour and a half. And what that did for me was it allowed me to kind of put the distractions of driving around, running to the gym on the side. Now I still do go to the gym, but I just go at a different time, but, you know, make sure I get my walking in the morning first so that I can clear my head and just kinda think through my thoughts. And I was, I was doing that. Some books popped in my head. So I got on the audible downloaded one of the books that I found and I began listening to it as I walk and it began to stir up other things.
(04:00): And that began to stir up different things in me and to reignite my passion for certain things. So it's been a while since I've recorded a show and I got some, some pretty interesting things that I want to talk about, but again, the title is learn more to earn more. That's right. Learn more to earn more. So if you're ready, brace yourself 1, 2, 3, let's get it. Now. Learning is a, it's a very important thing. And as I was studying this thing now, and I've always heard this before, is that the pathway to learning is intentional and we must become lifelong learners and we must constantly learn new things and we must constantly learn new skills. And I think our country is suffering because so many of our leaders are just inept. They are incompetent and a lot of other things. And a lot of us, you know, we look at that stuff and a lot of these people came into power because of the sheer emotion of what's going on in the world.
(05:05): And a lot of people are thinking with their hearts and they're not thinking with their heads. And sometimes I'm guilty of that too. But, and that was one of the reasons why I had to do a hard reset because I was letting my emotions in certain areas, get the best of me instead of letting my mind take over and letting my goals continue to light my pathway. And so I got back on the pathway of learning. Now I want to sidetrack a little bit and talk about the purpose of my show. And I shared this before. The purpose of the show is to number one, eradicate bad financial planning and bad financial decisions. One client at a time, if I can help more at the same time, that's great. But my mission is to help eradicate bad planning and bad goal setting and bad. Decision-Making one client at a time, but I also want to encourage you in another area.
(06:06): And sometimes that may be spiritual. Sometimes that may be emotional. Sometimes that may be mental, but I want to encourage you. I want to encourage you to get better. And I want to encourage you to go to a different level. I want to encourage you to become the best version of yourself you can possibly be. And I want you to become all that you were born in intended to be. And so that's the second purpose of my show. And so today it's not a mix show. Today is more about an encouragement. And I want to encourage you folks to learn because there's a lot of people out there that once they graduate college, they simply stop learning. They go with the flow and it becomes status quo. And I'm going to tell you, as I've heard, it said, any dead fish can go with the flow of the stream, but you know, you watch salmon.
(06:58): Boy, they're swimming against the stream. They're headed upstream because they have a purpose. Now I want to start off with a proverb and, and it's Proverbs 1514. And it goes like this. The mind of him who has understanding seeks knowledge and inquires actor and craves it. But the mouth of the self-confident full feeds on folly. I did a show title. What are you feeding your mind, right? What are you feeding your mind? What are you putting in your brain? And you can go back and listen to that one. But I think it's very important. And so when I was working at a company many years ago, and again, this is more of an encouragement thing. I'll get into some of the number stuff a little bit later on, probably in my next show. We're going to be talking about inflation and how you can beat inflation and how inflation is nothing but a speed up on your way to success if you do it the right way.
(07:52): But I want to talk about my past and my pathway to learning and my pathway to getting here. And I'm going to tell you, the pathway to learning is on a winning trajectory, right? We want to win. You got to learn something new, you got to learn a new skill. You got gotta become a little bit more competent and a little bit more competent. And you've got to layer that on top of layers. And eventually you'll break through. You'll get to where you really want to be. But the pathway of learning or the, yeah, the pathway of learning is on a winning trajectory. You can never lose by learning. Okay. Learn more to earn more. So when I was working at this company called Pacific guardian life, many, many years ago, I started off in the client relations department. And some of you guys may have heard of the story, but in the client relations department, and I was one of the customer service reps and my goal was client retention.
(08:40): And basically I would have to call people all over the country and talk to them about their life insurance policies and how to keep the policies in place. And, you know, a lot of times the, these people were sold these policies and they were flat out, lied to and by the agent just to kind of get the commission. And so now they find out that the policy has been eating itself alive, and now they got to put more money into it. A lot of people were mad and they call me all kinds of names. And they said, oh, you know, I all kinds of swear words, but I became really good at that. And I got promoted to another position where I was now, the person who went out to the clients and I saw them in their homes. And then I had to face that persecution face to face and then explain to them what happened and then how we can make that situation better.
(09:24): And I remember one day I was sitting at my desk and I got the impression. I always say, God, you know, tells me stuff, but it's, it's more of like you know, an intuition or a thought that pops into your mind. And it, it comes at you like that. And it was learn everything you can about annuities. I'm like, we don't even sell annuities here at this company, but it's like learn everything you can about annuities. And I got on this mapping of learning everything I can about annuities. And I was studying this stuff on my own with no prodding from my boss or anything like that, man, the next thing you know, our company makes a partnership with this company and now we start selling annuities and it's like, oh my God, not only are we selling annuities, but then I had to service annuities.
(10:03): And then I had to help people, you know, roll in and out of annuities, different things like that. I became so successful at that. I became like the number two agent in the whole company in the entire world, just working from the office here in Honolulu, all because I learned everything I possibly could about annuities before we even started selling them. I didn't know we were going to start selling annuities. I had no idea that was going to happen, but I began to learn these things on my own. And then I just kind of maxed out and then someone said, Hey, there's this new life insurance thing going around title bank on herself, called bank on yourself, becoming your own banker. You might want to check it out. So a friend of mine gave me the tapes and I just immersed myself in his program called bank on yourself.
(10:45): I was learning, I was learning. I was, I was learning. And so I took the idea to the company I worked for. And I said, Hey, you know, what, if we just kind of tweak our policies, we could take advantage of this because basically this is going to be the wave of the future. More people are going to start using life insurance as their primary cash reserve buckets, because it's a safety mechanism against inflation and different things like that. And you know, the company for good reasons that, okay, we'll look into it, but actual Worley for that company, it did not make sense. And so I said, okay, I'll tell you what. I ended up quitting that job and starting my own company with a, with a friend of mine. And I became very successful with that program. And then I ended up, you know, next thing you know, I started doing different things and learning about college funding and then implementing the college funding program and learning about that and then going on to the mainland and studying that, and then just really making the sacrifice to the point where I ended up where I am right now.
(11:41): And because I decided to challenge the status quo, all right. I decided to, to challenge the status quo and challenging the status school was hard because when I gave my boss, my resignation was kind of like she said, straight up, she said, I wish I had the balls to do what you're doing because although I liked my job, I felt like there was more to life than this. And I said, yeah, boss, but you know, it's risky. You know, I'm giving my two weeks notice and I'm like, I'm going out on a wing and a prayer hoping that this thing work out and it didn't work out because that business failed. And I had to start another business and I practically, almost lost everything I had through different things and so on and so forth. But I was still learning. I was still learning. I was still learning.
(12:21): And I was still learning to the point where back in 20 16, 17, I ended up building the rapid retire program. And they're getting a trademark on that because as I was in my own firm, I was still learning. I was seeing clients, but I was still learning on the side and studying different things. It just never stopped. You can even ask my wife, I would come home. And then I would, I would be studying and learning stuff, which is very important. And the key is, is what are you doing with your downtime, right? What are you doing with your downtime? Are you using your downtime to learn a couple of different things about your profession or learning a couple of different things about your interest and then, and so on and so forth. And one of the things I'll share with people that I learned most recently was a lot of times you have no idea where to start.
(13:05): And I've heard it said recently that if you don't know where to start taking inventory of your skills and your, and your interest, or do like the Briggs Stratton or some sort of personality tests, which basically tells you what your strengths are. And then you have to figure out how to apply that to your current job, where the, you want to get a promotion, or whether you want to start your own business, and then going on like this mad torrent, you know, just Trek towards improving those skills. And once you improve those skills enough, you'll begin to figure out ways to monetize that. Right? I talked to you folks a little bit earlier about monetizing your gift because when you monetize your gift, a couple of different things happen. You begin to add tremendous value to the world, and then you begin to add tremendous value to your own bottom line.
(13:55): And so I started looking at the traditional ways that people go about this, and it's basically four year five year, six year, seven year, eight year colleges, universities, and different things like that. And then you get into the different occupations, which, you know, there's nothing wrong with this. This is where most people are. This is where most of the world is, right. They'll find a job. And I started looking up the, the pay for these jobs, the median pay for these jobs in 2020, and basically psychiatrist. It was kind of like up there, up there, the wages equal to a greater than 200, $8,000 a year. Now $208,000 a year. That's a, that's a pretty good salary. And it just kinda depends on where you are and then went into obstetricians and gynecologists surgeons, ophthalmologist, and so on and so forth. Then one of the things I've learned about these folks is some of them are happy working in different hospitals and stuff like that, but some want their own business.
(14:46): And the ones that I know that started their own business, they do 10 times greater, even 20 times greater than the average person who just kind of sticks with the career and follow the career path. Right. I got a chance to meet a eye specialist with my wife. And I said, you know, why aren't we being sent to you now? Because I thought we were working with a guy who specialized in this. And he said, well, the only difference between me and him is the fact that I have more schooling. I have more knowledge. I have more skill. And so you eventually got referred to me because basically it was kind of patting himself on the back saying, I'm the man. And I said, it's okay. I understand that. But again, you learn more, you earn more and that's in all different walks and all different areas.
(15:27): And so I want to talk to you a little bit about my present situation. And again, I talked about, there's a phrase titled it goes like this, what are you willing to give up to go up? What are you willing to give up to go up? What are you willing to give up to go up me sometimes I'm very impatient. So the driving thing just kind of like, Hey, just get there. And then you have more time to trade or you have more time to do what you want to do. Cause you're not walking, but I had a goal and I've already lost a lot of weight, but I feel like I have another 50 pounds I want to lose. And so I began a goal setting process of looking at my current goals and saying, all right, looking at my goals and like, okay, what have I not done yet?
(16:11): There's a couple of different things on my goals that I haven't done yet. And one of them is lose all the weight. I got like probably about 50, more pounds to go. I'll tell you if I lose 30 man, I'll be ecstatic. And I said, all right, what can I do to help with this? And so the walking thing came about, right? So the walking is a dual purpose thing. And the other thing about the walking is it gives me a chance to listen to the books, but it also gives me a chance to prepare for my future. Now, I don't know if you guys know this, but in Japan, there's a lot of walking and they walk everywhere. They catch the train. There's not a lot of sitting down in Japan. And that's why a lot of Japanese people aren't fat by the way.
(16:46): I mean, they eat a buttload of rice, but they burn it off because he walked everywhere. So in the morning when I was in Japan, I would wake up and the nearest Starbucks was about doggone mile away. I mean, they don't have a Starbucks on every corner, like here in Hawaii or say in wherever you are. I mean, Starbucks. I mean, they have good coffee. They had other places like say a seven 11, but I was just, just so used to drinking Starbucks that I would walk. I would wake up and walk to Starbucks. The problem was is they didn't open till like seven o'clock or something like that. Because in Japan, everything opens kind of late because they finished late. So I'd wake up. I walked down there, I would get my coffee. I would exercise in the park and then I will walk back.
(17:31): So it's about two and a half miles or whatever. And I realized that if I do end up being in Japan, part-time which someday I want to, there's going to be a lot of walking. And so I figured why don't you just get used to it now, get used to the walking and let that serve a purpose towards your future. And I call that having a growth mindset versus a non-growth mindset. And again, the pathway of learning is on a winning trajectory. Now I know this is not for a lot of people. You, a lot of people are happy with what they're doing right now. A lot of people have great jobs and I'm not rubbing against that. I'm only talking to the people who say, you know what, Harold, I know this is not it for me, but I just don't know how to take the next steps to get to another level or to stop doing the things I hate right now, and really start doing the things that I love.
(18:18): It's very important. And so I just kind of outlined some things that I'm working on. I don't want to share my story with you folks, to kind of help you get to, you know, where, where you want to be, but I'll tell you this, you still need a winning team is very important. I recently took on some clients that had been doing their own financial planning for many, many years, and they follow the rule of common sense. And the rule of common sense goes like this, make money, don't spend everything you make and save the difference or invest the difference. It's simple, right? Live below your means and invest everything else. And that's what they did. And he said, you're probably going to laugh at me. When, when I tell you how much we spend every month on food and groceries. I said, no. I said, everybody's very, very different.
(19:05): You just so happen to be more practical in certain areas. And other people might be, you don't have like five or six kids to put through college. And so you just got used to living this lifestyle. And so you've amassed this wealth. And so, but they're like, okay, but now we want to take this to a different level. We want to, we want somebody on our team to help us because we don't feel like we've hit our full potential yet. And I said, I understand that. And I'm glad to be a part of that team. It doesn't mean I'm going to take over everything. And sometimes there's clients who do different things on the side and I'm okay with that, but they still allow me to manage a portion of their assets. And then if I'm doing a good enough job or a great job, they tend to give me more because I'm earning them more money than they would normally make.
(19:50): And so what do I do in order to make that happen? Well, I learn things about the market and I look at different sectors and I researched certain things that are out there. And I just kind of like drill down into those things and, and pray about them and say, you know, God, where's the stuff gonna go in the future. Now we don't have a crystal ball or anything like that. And then all investments are speculative in nature, right? And they involve substantial, substantial risk of loss. And so I do encourage our investors to invest carefully. I also encourage investors to get personal advice from their own professional investment advisor and to make independent investigations before acting on information that we publish. And so you've got to do your due diligence, but at the same time, if you hire a great investment advisor and they're doing their due diligence for you, you're just kind of shipping the responsibility to somebody else.
(20:38): So you can go out there and you can live your life. And so if that's you, if you want somebody on your team and you want to create a winning team, you know, check me out, go to my website, retire now, retire wild.com or just go to bright F g.com and then check out those services. And you can click on my calendar and schedule a, a review, or just a session where we're talking about your situation. We're talking about your goals. And then we're going to look at your plan and then figure out whether or not I'm your guy. And I can be a part of your winning team. And in the next show, we're going to talk about inflation and how our planning and how our systems are designed to beat inflation. And I'm also going to talk about how my system was designed to beat different market crashes and different things like that, where you don't have to suffer through all the pain that everybody's suffering through.
(21:27): And so, but back to getting on the schedule, please do that. He wants a review and you want to take a look at what we have. You want to see if I'm your guy, you want to be a part of a winning team, check it out, get on the calendar. And I love to talk to you. And so again, thanks for tuning in. If you're a new client, welcome aboard. If you're an old client, thank you very much. I won't say an old line, but if you've been a client for some time, thank you very much for allowing me my team to be a part of life. And until next time everybody, 1, 2, 3, let's get it.
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