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The Real Cost of Your Dream Life with Rachel Rodgers

Hey every day, What's up? It's Chase Welcomes an episode of the chase Jarvis live show here on Creative Live. This is the show where I sit down with amazing humans that I unpacked their brains with the goal of helping you live your dreams. Today's guest is Rachel Rodgers, she's a Ceo an attorney and a black woman, working mothers, self made millionaire, uh absolute brilliant, helping people at brilliant at helping people uncover the thing that's going to make them money. And in this conversation we sort of peel apart some of the myths that, hey look, money is not everything, it's true. Money is not everything, but money can help you create the living and the life of your dreams and being real about money is one of the things that defines Rachel Rogers. She's got a new book out. We talk about a new book, which is called Everybody should be a millionaire, We should all be millionaires. Rather a woman's guide to earning more building wealth and gaining economic power. Uh in this we share ...

a handful of steps. It's very, very practical. That's one thing you're going to love about Rachel is its action oriented, a step by step and whether you pick up her book or you just learn from this episode, I promise this is going to deliver a bunch of keys to unlock your personal financial freedom. So I'm gonna go out of the way and introduce again Rachel Rogers to the show. Mhm, mhm Yeah, mm We love you, Rachel Rodgers, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk to you. It's been a bit right. You we uh we were just talking right before we recorded about you did a Creative Live class a couple years ago and um what a journey it's been. So I think the right place to start is often at the beginning. So for those folks who aren't aware of you or your work, um, maybe one or two sentences about how you describe yourself now. But then let's go back in the time capsule, too Rachel as a young person. So first orient us and then then go back to the way back machine. Yes. The way back machine is very important. I have a good girlfriend and she's always like, you should remind people where you came from. She's like, do people think this is more like this was always the way that it was like, let's let's let's get right. I just read an article for those who don't know about you making $1 million dollars a month and I want to make sure that we don't orient people that that's where you started. You came out of the womb, just clocking a million a million month. I was like the least likely person to make a million dollars in a month um, as a child and even young adults. So, but I, so the way I describe myself now is I'm the ceo of Hello seven, which is a company that is focused on helping women and marginalized folks build wealth and you know, create more economic well being. So my form of activism is money and teaching people how to make more of it so that we can do good things in the world with it and you know, we could have fun with it too, right? We don't have to just sacrifice, we can also enjoy it. So that's what I do now. And uh where I started was in flushing queens new york. I grew up in new york queens girl and um to a family that was, you know, probably lower middle class and lots of different types of struggles definitely related to employment, definitely related to finances. You know, we grew up in a, in a time where like there was a time where my parents had good jobs and they bought a condo, right? So there was like a couple of years where they did really well, they both have good jobs and then they got laid off and lost it all a condo too. And it was like sort of like this was, they were low income and young having babies and like, you know, climbing and then they hit a peak. They were there for maybe a couple of years and then dropped back down. So, and of course this was my childhood witnessing all of it and having, you know, the people come to the door to turn off the lights and my mom, you know, they used to back in the day, I don't know if you remember this, but they used to send like they would try to get you to like join a bank or something or get a credit card or whatever and they would send these like checks that like you could call and activate it and then you'd have this check or whatever this was before. I guess people were as worried about check fraud. But anyway, um this doesn't pay my mother in the best light but she would use those like she like the guy comes to the door and he's about to turn off our lights, like go downstairs in our apartment building and like turn off our electricity, she doesn't have the money. So she writes one of these checks and gives it to the guy knowing that it's going to buy her two or three days and then in two or three days she's going to get her paycheck and be able to catch up. And I just, I just saw that and I actually really admired that about her mother. She's a hustler, you know, and she knew how to make a dollar out of cents and that's what she taught me how to do. And so just witnessing this, all of this financial struggle, all of this distress, all of the like health issues that came out of it with my parents. I was very focused on making money, you know, and was like, I'm going to become a lawyer, I'm gonna make good money. I'm going to take care of my mom and my family and myself. So that's kind of where it started. And it turned out okay? Like it's working and now, you know, quit the gritty stuff and now just jump to the posh lifestyle you're there at the beach targeting me and we're wrapped. Okay, thanks for the conversation. Congrats on the book, by the way, No, no, let's let's unpack that a little bit, because even in in the story of your mom being a hustler, I think we grow up and so much of our childhood shapes who we are, uh including the stories that we tell ourselves so early question here, how do you how do you break out of the cycle of money is hard that you were raised with? How do you break that cycle? And say, you know, money comes freely to me because I have applied my intellect, my ambition, my heart and soul into X, Y Z. How do you, how do you shift your mindset? I don't. Did that just happen overnight? Was that some coaching or did you have to believe a myth? Like what, what, what was able to flip that switch for you? Um, I think it was definitely a process, right? Like there was no, there was no life coaching when I was a kid and even if there was, I wouldn't have been able to access it. Um, I didn't know about abundance mindset or even the word mindset. Like was that a word I knew growing up? I think the thing is my, my parents had lots of struggle, but they always constantly were big encourage ear's and always said to me that I could be anything that I wanted, you know, and I believe them, you know, they really reinforce that within me and my sister. And so you know, I believed that and then I would watch my mom watch like crime dramas and like courtroom dramas and I'd see the attorneys like standing up for the little guy against the big bad guy, right or whatever. And I was like, I want to be that person, I want to be that advocate. You know, I want to stand up for, for the little guy. Um, and so that's, that's basically what I did. You know, that's why I think I was drawn to the law and I think the other part of it is, and this has always been true in my childhood. And as an adult, it really wasn't optional, right? Like I didn't see it as optional. I didn't see like getting to a place of financial security as an optional thing. It was a must, it had to happen. I was going to do it one way or another. What's the best way to do it? How can I learn? And I did have examples, right? Like they were, first of all there were drug dealers like in my neighborhood, they had money, I saw their hustle and what they were doing to make money. Um I thought it was You know terrible and exactly, but also resourceful. Yes, exactly and I understood that. So that was an example. Um also I used to babysit a little girl named Lana when I was like probably 15, I would go pick her up from school, walk her home, she lived in Douglaston, which is this really nice part of queens. I would take the bus over there as all these tree lined streets, big mansions, like beautiful houses and you know her mother was so kind to me, these were the first like really nice rich people I have ever encountered because you know, pop culture tells you rich people are terrible people. So and I know I didn't know any rich people. So so like this was a way for me to like have I was in their household, right? I opened their pantry and just like see all the snacks, like all the pizza bagels and the cereals and the things that my mother wouldn't buy because we couldn't um and so just having conversations with her and and even her mother and seeing that her dad worked from home and I was just like, wow, I never even had seen like two living rooms like, oh you have more than one living room, oh you have like a formal dining room, like what is this room for? It's always empty, like deciding room table, but you don't need there though. I was like, I was encountering well and and learning about it and wondering like what do you all do for a living, right? Like because I maybe I need to study that right, when I get older. Um So yeah, just just being interested in money and wanting to understand it because I could see the results of not having it. You know, it's so easy for people I think in our culture to say money can't buy you X, Y. Z. Until you don't have it until you until you don't have it. How much of being raised without it or with it in limited supply. Do you feel like shaped you? Was it 100% 90% or did this, was this something that you feel like you came to later in life? Like I need to make money if I'm going to create leverage in my life, be able to impact some of the causes and beliefs and like where where in your psyche is this was the most important thing. Was it incidental, you've given us a story, but tell us overtly like was this thing's plates and I'm gonna be wealthy enough not to think about money for sure. I mean from childhood in high school, in middle school, like I was thinking about this. Um, and I don't know that I knew that other people weren't right. Like I probably thought everybody was thinking to save big, you know. Uh, but it was, it was just, it was a priority, right figuring out what is, what is going to be my path. How am I going to do it? I know I'm going to have to take action. I know there's going to be work involved, I'm down for the work and you know, I used to get really good grades in school. I, even in high school, I used to write reports for other people. So like I would do their book reports or do their essays and they would pay me. Um so I was entrepreneur Always right and so you know at 14 I had like a job at the grocery store and then I also had this little side hustle of writing essays for people and so like I just was I always, and and you know when I was an adolescent of course I wanted to go to the gap and buy clothes, I wanted to go buy pizza with like the cute boy, you know what I mean? Like I wanted some of those really basic things but I also, I wanted a future. So I think I was always future focused from a child and always thinking about what am I going to do in the future, always had really big vision, you know um I had no idea how I was going to get there, but always was dreaming big. Uh and I think maybe it came from reading a lot as a kid, I used to live at the library and like read row all dull and all these other books that were just whimsical and fantasy, and I think it allowed me to learn how to dream because I think that's really important to some of us don't even allow ourselves to imagine what we want, you know, to imagine. It requires so much faith. Um and I think that's hard for a lot of people. It's like if it's not there in front of me, if I can't see it, I can't believe it, and I'm like, well it was never in front of me, so I always have to be faith, you know? Uh let's unpack that first. I think there's a lot there that does have also something to do with you, going to the girl that you were babysitting, going to her family and actually seeing, well seeing to living. I'm seeing, you know, the phrase we talk about it, a lot of creative live, that you can't be what you can't see. And that's one of the reasons we try and put images of people who have discovered their passion, who are making the living and life for themselves, um that they that they want. And I'm wondering if this is me ascribing this to you, you can't be what you can't see, or if that was truly pivotal in in your in your transformation from someone who came from a lack or less than uh, financially stable to someone who now is teaching about it. Yeah, no, I think that was a key part of the journey and you know, remember I also saw it within my own family, right? Because while I don't think we were ever anywhere near wealthy, we were middle class enough to be able to buy property, which was very like, that was not as common as it is now, at least not where I'm from. Um it was, you know, no one I knew on their own, there's a lot of renting. Yes, exactly, exactly. I think I had, yeah, it is and I think I had one good friend who, her parents owned a condo and I was always like, wow and I used to go like a couple blocks away to her house and like take the fancy elevator up, she had a doorman, like it was like always really fancy going to her house. So that was another, so like there were lots of examples and for a short period of time, you know, we went on vacation and like this was like one of the few vacations that I ever went on as a child was during the short period. This condo that my parents bought, they were so proud. I remember inviting, like when I turned eight, I want to say I was like in second grade seven or eight and I had a birthday party and this was our first time, like inviting people over to this condo that my parents had bought And I just felt so proud. You know, I just remember feeling that way. I had like my little birthday crown on, you know, little paper crown, you make it school with all the sparkle glitter on the Burger King one. Yes, exactly, exactly. But this one was homemade and you know, all my friends came over because I think when I was in school too, I suspected that like most of my peers had more than me, you know, and that and that wasn't true. Like there were definitely people who probably were at our same level, but I suspected, you know, that they had more than my close friends and I could tell like their parents just, they just didn't seem to have the stress that we had. Um And I remember also to going to the grocery store, having to use food stamps and being really embarrassed about it and wanting to like, like walk, I would walk all around the grocery store to make sure like none of my friends were there before I checked out. And then, you know, there was those one or two times where like somebody gets online behind you and your life, damn it, you know? Um And so there was a lot of like, and this is why I want to talk about money with people with women with marginalized people. Especially because it's like we have so much shame if we don't have it and then we have a lot of shame if we have too much right? And it's like what is the perfect amount? And I think this is a this is a you know uh what's the word I'm looking for? Like this this edge that that women walk all the time of like, you know, you're you're too skinny, you're too fat, you're too you know rich, you're too poor. Your you know, everything is like so scrutinized that like where is the wind? Right? It's like it's too much or it's too little and it's never just enough, right? Um And so I'm just like reject this entire idea and and figure out what you want for yourself, and then trust that you can make that happen. Beautiful, jumping off point from your past to now, I want to start off by saying congrats on your new book, we Should All Be Millionaires. Same publishers, I've got they've done a great job with your book, huge congratulations, that's that's going straight to the top. Um but you just spoke of empowering women marginalized communities around the concept of being enough and dreaming, and I want to double down on the dreaming part right now, because if you can't be what you can't see, it's hard to find great examples in our culture, you managed to cultivate a few and now that you're trying to pass these attributes on this idea of being able to dream and then pursue those dreams, how do you know, they're right now, there's someone who's listening to the show, they're sitting on a park bench or walking or community commuting and they're like, damn, I'm stuck. Like I truly can't dream because I'm worried about, you know, my next house payment or not having a job or as we are trying to emerge from this economically devastating pandemic, like what what advice would you give for people who are limited in their beliefs about themselves, their relationship to money and what's possible for them? Yeah, well I say, I say, first of all, dreaming is available to all of us, it is it is free, you know? Um I think sometimes we fear that, but we have to be courageous I think were some of times were scared to like Neymar dream or really visualize it or write it down or say it out loud because it's just like we're scared of the great disappointment or even pain of not having those dreams realized. Um and that's what, you know, it does take some courage. It requires courage to really tap into your desires and be willing to commit to them and be willing to say like I'm going to try it even though it may end in great disappointment, like I think it's worth it, you know? Uh it's almost like love, right? It's like the same kind of thing where you enter into a relationship and you're like uh you know if I really let this person in right, like it may not work out and I'll be heartbroken and that's the same thing with with our other dreams as well. But I think we have to be willing to do it because you know that's where it begins and if you don't start that right, you definitely lose. You definitely don't get to make it happen and what if it could happen. I think the impossible is possible. So you got to just start with dreaming first, you have to have some prescription, keep going. This is great. It's your prescription. You mentioned writing them down, sharing them publicly. What are some other things, things that you've specifically done. If you've got any stories or anecdotes recommendations on how someone who I'll confess like I wrote a bestselling book and the first step is I it's a four step process. Imagine design execute amplify and imagining at different times in my life. I personally, white male born in America also lower middle class but had never wanted for food for example. And yet there have been times in my life, even in the not so distant past where imagining what's possible was difficult. It was it was so you know, just like trapped in my own head. And so if you know, you you want to speak and work with women and other marginalized communities who are disproportionately affected. How what are some tools, some tactics that you can share for starting to be able to dream even in tough times. Yeah. So as you would imagine, I start with calculating the dollars involved because because I like to make it practical. I think sometimes we think, oh, I have to be a pavilion air to ever like live the dream life that I want and maybe, but let's put some actual real numbers around it because I think it makes it real, it makes it practical and makes it actionable. Um so you know what I recommend that people do and this is outlined in the book, but you know, creating this million dollar vision, right? What I start with is and and how I came up with this action or this activity was I used to go for a run in my neighborhood. I lived in a tiny two bedroom house with my husband and my three Children. So like the three kids were in the master bedroom, we were in the guest bedroom and we were all sharing a bathroom and it was whatever it is, what it is, right? And I was like shoved in the corner like by the front door so people would interrupt me all day long. This was me practicing law, you know, as an attorney. In fact, that's exactly where I lived when I went to go to Creative live, right? So like to put some time lines around it, I was leaving my tiny little two bedroom in New Jersey to go to SAn Francisco and record it. Um so that's where I lived. And so as you can imagine, we're like bursting at the seams. And so I would, and there was 1100 square feet just to give you some like square footage to two floors. So like half of that square, not half but a good fortune. That square footage was used for the steps. So this is not a large house, I cottage, small cottages probably. How I would describe it. Uh You know, so anyway I used to go for a run or walk in the neighborhood just to get out of my crazy house with all of the crazy people, right and all the stuff. Um And so I would walk around the neighborhood and this was a nice affluent neighborhood. We just happen to have the tiniest house, you know, tiniest oldest house in the neighborhood. Um And so I would like run up and down the hill and there was like these neighborhoods that I really like to run or walk in and there was this piece of property that was you know being worked on, it was being built and I would see it every day and I was like wow, this house looks like it's really beautiful. And then they started to get close to finishing it and they put up a for sale sign and I was like I allowed myself to like imagine that I could purchase that house and so I was like I'm gonna run home and find out how much it is, you know, so I go to like whatever website, I think it was a realtor dot com but maybe it was something else and you know, you know, go look it up, look up the street, like figure out what the addresses or whatever and look it up and it was like Something like $3 million. I want to say like $2.7 million dollars I think it was. And I was just like want want you know that was only you know, I don't know, $2.4 million out of my budget. Um And so I was like down in the dumps and I was like I'm just gonna live in this tiny house forever, you know? And I'm just gonna work my little heart out and I'm just gonna have people ringing the bell all day while I'm trying to work and record and and you know create videos and draft contracts or whatever. Um And so I was I was bummed out and my husband, you know, he's he's always the one to come along and be like You know what are you going to wallow or you're gonna do something about it? You know? He's not, he he is compassionate but his compassion has like a timeline. He's like I got 24 hours of sympathy for you then I need you to get to work. So so you know then I then I decided you know what you're right like let me actually maybe I can't afford that house, but what house could I afford and how much would it actually cost? And what isn't even a mortgage on a property like that? And so I decided to say you know what I'm gonna write down and calculate what my dream life would cost. And so I looked up what what's the mortgage on? A million dollar house? Around five came up. Okay five K. A month. Uh What I want to put my kids in extracurricular activities that I can't afford right now. That's another $1000 a month. Right? I want to drive this kind of car I wanna travel, I want to be able to take care of my mom, I want to put this much in savings every month, right? And so I just calculated what is the monthly cost of the lifestyle that I actually want? And it came up to around $30, a month or $25,000 a month. So like $300,000 a year. And at the time I was probably making just under K. A year. Uh And I was the sole breadwinner, so K. For my whole family. Um And so you know I was like okay that's three X. What I'm making right now, like that's not that far away if I think about it, you know? Uh So I'm like okay let me start to imagine what could I do to make another, you know, 15 K. A month or 20 K. A month, like what could I do to make that additional money? And I start brainstorming coming up with ideas. Um and then, you know from those ideas, a lot of them were really terrible and I didn't do that, but there were other ones that were pretty good and I tried them and they were example, example, please example example for for example um doing a workshop, teaching like virtual workshop and saying I'm going to charge for it on legal stuff because that was my skill set and getting paid for it and that would bring in a certain amount of money. Okay, cool. That helped. Um and at the time I had just finished or was around the time that I had created small business bodyguard, which I kind of thought about when I was at Creative live. And so I was like, okay, well how can I make money from this product? Like I launched it and made good money, but now it's like crickets, right? So let me like try relaunching it. Let me do webinars, let me try Youtube channel. Like I would just try all these different marketing strategies to make to bring money in. Then I tried selling trademarks from a webinar, no lawyer was doing that. It was like, you know, the only thing they sold from webinars was like digital products or courses. And I was like, I'm going to try selling my trademark services and see if I can get like five people to sign up and that works, right? And so I just kept trying things to see what would work and see what would work consistently. And over time it probably took me another 23 years To get to $300,000 in salary, right? My business was doing okay. But I had so many expenses that what I took home was pretty minimal. And so I think just having that note in there and then when I finally did arrive at that number, it's almost like I had forgotten about the note. So I went back, it was literally an iphone note in my phone and I went back and I looked and I was like, wow, I did all of that, I've accomplished all of that. And so then I was like, okay, it's time to make a new note now, what do you want? And so I just did it again. And so that's kind of what I do, I just do it again. Once I accomplish the things on the list, it almost reminds me what's the, the girl from Game of Thrones? That's uh the, you know, the badass one with the dagger. I can't remember her day. Aria Stark, she had that list. So basically my list was like, you know, things I wanted to be able to achieve, you know, and her list was kind of like that too was kind of an achievement which it's all just a different kind of just a murder murderous list. No, I think that the practicality with which you approach that is both heartwarming and empowering because there's what I find with most people having had, you know, a lot of folks on the show and talked with through creative live and through speeches and books and that the distance between where people are and where they want to be is often a lot smaller. Then we think in our mind like exactly. I think just actually writing it down and even if it's 10,000 hours or $200,000 in your case, you're really only one decision away from trying from trying to close that gap. That decision to try the decision to try is such a powerful one. I agree. And even just researching, like even just, you know, daring to be like, okay, well, let me look, you know, what kind of house do I actually want and seeing? Okay, it's a million dollars. Let me do a mortgage calculator. How much does that? Because you're not paying a million dollars? You know, you don't have to come with a truckload of a million dollars in it, right? You only you need a 20% deposit, you need a monthly payment, right? So figuring that out, and I think when you start to make it, we don't even allow ourselves to explore that. We just take ourselves out of the race. Um, and I will say two for marginalized folks for folks who grew up low income, right? For folks who women, right? I think we just we have zero tolerance for the for the dreamy for the non practical because we're just like, listen, that's that sounds cute and all, but I need like real actual solutions, you know? And so and that's how I feel, right? I don't want to hear just like and trust me, there is a place for who there is a place for dreaming as we've talked about. But I also need practical tips because I'm not going to go to the bank and get a loan. They're not going to give me one, right. There is no access to capital. I could barely get a credit card. Um This is the struggle that I'm having. I can't seem to get a better job than what I've got going on right? I need real practical steps to go from zero because that's where I'm at. Or for me when I started I was like negative, my network was like Negative 100, because it has all these law school loans, you know? So it's like You start from that place, my credit score was like 450. You know when I graduated from law school, I was not in good shape financially. Um And but I think we get so beat down by that and it's like no no no there are practical steps you can take but it has to be practical, it has to be actionable. Otherwise it's just like it's like it feels like it's just for affluent people to talk to other affluent people and tell them how to feel good about themselves, you know? Um and it's not really helping somebody who doesn't have those resources, doesn't have a rich uncle, no one's gonna come save me. There is no knight in shining armor. Tell me how to save myself, right? And that's what I aim to do in all of my work, because if it's not practical and useful and if it's not making a real difference, tangibly and hopefully quickly, you know, like in the next 90 days, preferably, um it's it's not useful for them, you know? Yeah, I'm thinking back to that your description of living in that small 1100 square foot house were 250 that was stairs, but you were making such an impression. This is why, like, I think the decision to try is so important that you caught our attention at Creative Live, you had built up a practice and your classic creativelive around copyright trademark for entrepreneurs, intellectual property rights. Like this day, it's a popular class and that you were living in that situation and trying to escape For 30 minutes on a walk to walk past the house that you couldn't afford. But you wanted to dream like that. Hopefully, you know, that people can relate because all the people that you look up to on the Internet right now, they have gone through hard times. They've had to do these basics, these this concept of even dreaming, the concept of making a list of what would your dream like life look like? How much does it cost? And the fact that you were doing things and testing and experimenting, including coming on Creative Live like that is so encouraging. And I'm curious, you know, your mindset? I'm a huge advocate of mindset. I've got a little pyramid that I believe deeply in which is on the bottom of the pyramid. His mindset in the middle is habits and on the top of that pyramid is goals. And you can't get to either, you know, the second or the third step if you don't have some sort of a mindset of foundation to build all this stuff on. And you early on in my experience with your work, we're talking about mindset and specifically the mindset of money. And I wanted to uncover a couple of things in the book, which I want to just pause for a second and say, this is an extraordinary book, congratulations. We should all be millionaires. A woman's guide to earning more building wealth and gaining economic power, congrats by the way. But there's an idea in there that I love which is the juxtaposition between million dollar decisions and broke ass decisions. So, you know, and why people may not even realize that they are focused on making broke ass decisions and uh you have a formula for dealing with that, but I'm wondering if you can just share because it's so tactical and there's a little bit of both humour and real embedded in that. Yes. Yes. Um Yes, because I think I realized, you know, it was around that same time after I had seen that house created that sort of calculation um and that that that vision that I wanted, that I was not treating myself very well, I had just had two babies back to back um and you know, I was just kind of like still wearing old maternity clothes, hadn't had my hair cut in like two years, I was just in the grind of it, you know, and just like so determined and just working so hard and thinking, oh I just need to keep working right and really, you know, there's a certain point that you stop just throwing man hours at it, and you have to actually get more strategic um and I was still in that sort of space of trying to figure out the strategies um and and throwing so many hours at it, and and I got inspired by a friend of mine who incidentally is a life coach to go get a haircut, and I was like, you know, she had talked about how like taking your care of yourself actually helps you make more money, and I was like well this sounds like nonsense, but I could really use a haircut, so I'm gonna I'm gonna book it, like I'm gonna go do it, I'm going to find some place that I'm gonna go, so like I went from New Jersey to Harlem got my haircut, got my hair done, and I felt amazing, and it's like, just that, that was a million dollar decision, right? Just spending that money to get my hair done, which was expensive by the way, like, back in the day, like going to natural hair salons was like a new catching thing for black women, and it was insanely, so it's like $200 right for, which was crazy to me at the time, and so it's very expensive, it was an investment, and like, just getting that haircut made me want to do more Youtube videos and made me want to, you know, show up more places, and maybe it was the Youtube videos that might have helped get me on creative lives, which definitely helped me get in front of more people. I definitely want up getting clients from that, you know? Um, and so I feel like when we take care of ourselves, when we invest in ourselves, that's when we start putting ourselves out there and making more money. So million dollars decisions are really about moving towards abundance, right? What makes your life bigger? How does it give you more of what you want? How does it expand your life versus broadcast decisions, which are all about contracting, saving, being really tight, you know, being scared to invest. Um, and I think honestly that's how women are socialized around money. Men are told like, you know, uh take risks like go for it, like make it happen and women are told cut coupons, stop buying latte, stop being a shopaholic and we just get these messages that were bad with money, you know? Um, and so that's why, you know, I developed this language around it like million dollar decisions versus broadcast decisions and the example that I like to give so that it's real practical for people. And this is this is the gateway drug and I like start my clients with once I get them on this path and they're like, oh wait a minute, there's more things, there's more there's more with. Exactly. So the thing that I, especially for women, especially for mothers And I think the main thing that I tell them to start with in terms of making $1 million laundry. use a drop off service, spend the 70 bucks and your laundry away, don't spend your weekend doing laundry, rest, relax, take care of yourself and come back on monday ready to slay instead of you know, doing all the things yourself, right? All the personal finance people teach like do it yourself, save money, cut costs right? Save as much as possible. And the evidence shows that those who focus on saving to become millionaires, it takes on average 32 years versus those who, you know, start businesses. It takes seven years to build $12 million in net worth those savers for 32 years. They build about three million, I don't know about you, but I don't want to wait 30 years, like I want my millions now, you know? Um and so instead of just always saving and always thinking that that's the only solution, sometimes it really is an investment decision, you know? And so making that investment of outsourcing laundry when my clients start doing that and they get their like first batch of like folded laundry back and they're like, whoa, I didn't do that. And it just magically appeared and it's clean, it's like life changing. And then they're like, what else can I get off my plate? You know, what else could I stop doing? Where else can I bring my focus back to my earning potential instead of always doing everything for everybody, You know? Um, so that's really what million dollar decisions is about. And I do think that, you know, in order to become a millionaire, you have to be making million dollar decisions and that the road is paved with million dollar decisions. You can't make broadcast decisions every day and think that that's going to bring more money in the door. There are some questions in the book that you pose to for people to self evaluate, Are they in the mental money jail? I'm wondering if you can help some people who are because right now I promise you there's someone listening and they're like, damn, she got me like that's me. I'm trying to save my way into uh financial abundance and you're not the only person who who who shares this view that it's like, it's so much about mindset, but I love the I love the way that you you've given people a tool for understanding if they are in fact their worst enemy, talk to talk a little bit about, you know, some questions that whoever is listening right now and thinking that how damn they got me. They figured me out. Um Let's help those people self identified that they're they're in mental money jail. Uh and then that will convince them to shift gears. Yeah. So we have a framework called W. It's W. S. A. B. M. We should all be millionaires. And and that's what I recommend that folks used to evaluate. Am I making a million dollar decision here? Or am I making a broadcast decision here? And the W. Stands for what? Like what do you actually want? Tap into your desires and figure out what do you actually want in this situation? Sometimes it's just too much society. Talk too many too many cooks in the kitchen, right? When you're evaluating a decision and getting too many different perspectives and now you don't even know what you want anymore. So what you want is what we start with, What the hell do you want to be real about it? Right? Like if you want, if you want that, you know you want 20,000 more a month in income So that you can live your dream life. Then write down the damn 20K. Exactly and own it right? And don't be ashamed because you want nice things. Like it's not a bad thing to want more in your life, in whatever way that looks like. So what do you want? And then the ss should write, what are the sugars that are operating here? What does society say you should do as a woman, as a person of color, as a man, right? Like whoever you are, you know, there's usually, oh well this is what I want to do, but what I should do is this other thing. And so identifying that and recognizing that that's not coming from within is coming from outside, you know? Um so actions, what are the action steps you would take if you wanted to get to your wants, right? So whats just whats just the first action? Because I think sometimes too were like, well we're trying to imagine the entire pathway and create like this point plan. And I'm like, can we just take the first step? Can we just see what happens if we just do step one? We don't need step 72 yet. We don't even know what that is yet. Let's just do step one and see what happens and evaluate from there and trust that you got it right. Um And so that's A. And then B. Is body. I always like to check in because I feel like if we that's where the truth comes from, if we can really get centered and grounded and calm and check in with what our body is telling us, are we having heart palpitations and were terrified, you know, is there this impending sense of do right? Or is it something like you're so excited? Like your palms are sweaty because you're just so excited imagining this happening. So checking in with what your body is pointing you to. You know because I truly believe like your body compass doesn't point you wrong. And I actually learned that from Martha Beck. Um, and then um, and then the last one is for more like what does more look like for you, right? Let's let's lead towards more, whatever that is more of what you want and less of what you don't want. So that's that's the framework uh to help folks to start to get into this. And I think once you start making million dollar decisions, you you can't help but make them. And and it is still scary, like it's not like there's no fear there sometimes when you're making investments in yourself. Um it's very scary. You don't know how it's going to work out. It requires faith and there's no guarantee that it's going to work out. But I do think that those decisions and even the lessons that come from those those decisions really do take you where you want to go. So you mentioned your husband, you mentioned your parents, I'm curious about your your belief around who you surround yourself with. How important is that for getting out of the mental money jail, How to, how to make million dollar decisions, how to, how to live like the millionaire that you are suggesting we should live like how important is it people people apart. Yeah. So I was on a media show, I can't remember which one last year And the first thing that this is like a two minute segment. So I have exactly you know, 120 seconds to answer these questions. And its first question was tell us how we can all become millionaires and my answer was get a better squad, you know, start with that if there's one thing that you do, like upgrade your squad, you know, and that doesn't mean only hang out with rich people because first of all, a lot of us don't even know any rich people. I certainly didn't know what I was when I was starting out, but that's not what I mean. What I mean is like get around encourages, that's what my parents did for me. They had such enthusiasm for whatever crazy dream I was talking about as a kid. They were like, yeah, you could do that, let's talk about how you could do that right. Like they were just so into it, so encouraging, they don't have money, but they definitely had enthusiasm, you know, and so get yourself around folks like that who cheer for you, who you're quitting, Are you quitting friendships in order to get there and how are you making these new friendships? Give us the tactics on how to specifically what did you do to upgrade your squad? Well, I paid, I paid money so I joined a coaching community uh pam slim and charlie Milky. They were my first, My very first coaches and I discovered them from like some video and saw that they had a program. They, it was like $2500. I had $500. I was like, well I have the first payment. I'll figure out the rest later. I'm going to do it. And I joined and we call it the family because Pamela pimp flim is such a connector. You know, that's a sweetheart. I love that human, she's amazing. Oh, she is probably the best human on earth. So and so. Exactly. And so all of the connections that she sort of brings together. We called the family. And those folks that I met in that first coaching program have became come dear friends, uh, clients, right. Uh networking opportunities. My first paid speaking gig came from pam slim, right? Like you know, charlie taught me to sue my business partner who is taking advantage of me and I didn't even realize it. And he helped me to realize it and free myself of that. Right? So like those relationships that came out of there, not just with pam and charlie, but really everybody there uh lead to literally millions of dollars that I've made over the next decade. So you sometimes you got to pay to get into the right room because if you grow up in a low income area, if you don't go to a top school, if you don't work at a Fortune 500 company, your network is not likely to be strong according to statistics, which are like, hello, that's I to qualify for all three of those. So, so sometimes you have to pay to get in the room, you know, and to get around those right people. And in terms of, you know, like my childhood friends are incredibly encouraging. They're they're not wealthy people, They're not even trying to become wealthy, but they believe in me, right? And so it's really about getting the naysayers out of your ears. So if you're you know, cousin is always telling you like you need to get a job, what are you thinking? Like why are you making that decision? You're spending too much money. They're discouraging you get them out of your ear. That doesn't mean you have to cancel your cousin but maybe don't talk to them every day. Maybe don't be in the group chat with them every day, right? And and really spend the most time with the people who really support you and help you and prop you up and make you believe Reinforce that belief because there are actual stats behind this. So this this is not just like it would be nice to be surrounded by supporters know there are stats from, you know, Harvard professors that have studied this for decades that say that 95% of your success or failure is determined by who are you spending time with every day? So if you can spend time with people who encourage you every day, your success is 95% more likely to happen. And if you don't have access to that like this, let this podcast that we're doing right here be a part of it. Like that's So for so many people now, access is is we've got access that we didn't have just five years ago To people like yourself. And if that's where it needs to start, if you can't afford 2500, you don't have the initial 500 deposit too to join pam slim group. They start with what you know, you're you're feeding your mind this muscle between our ears and you know, this idea of who you spend time with and and positive folks right now there are some people in your life that you probably got to quit. You don't need to walk up and you know and just bail on them right to their face. But if it comes time to choose between, you know, listening to an empowering podcast or signing up for a networking group or Or hang around that old high school friend who is a downer like those are choices that actually matter and you just mentioned the science behind, right 70 or 95% of failure and success as you spend time with. Absolutely. So how does one you've clearly uh accelerated beyond that initial dream that you had of um You know, living the life that you called the life of your dreams and you needed $28,500 to do that. So are there, is this just a process of doing the same exercise, reevaluating what you want next? How do you, how do you continue to progress? Because, you know, if we don't set high enough goals for ourselves, then we're, you know, not reaching our potential and if we set goals that are too high for ourselves, then we're always left like just grasping at straws and not actually, So help us, help me, help me help people at home here. Let's let's moderate this for people so they can set goals that help them rather than do the opposite. Yeah, I actually think that, you know, wildly improbable goals are ideal, you know? Um and there's science behind this too. I'm I I like to research, I'm a lawyer, so I always look for evidence. I don't like to just uh talk about things or if I have a hunch about something, I want evidence, you know, I don't want to just, you know, because again, I wanted to be practical and I want to know it works, I want my best chance possible. And the science around goals does show that, you know, setting goals that are improbable but really exciting that that is more likely to happen than goals that are mediocre. Like if you're like, well, I'd like to increase my savings by 10% by the end of, you know, two years or whatever, It's like boring snoozefest, right? It doesn't, it doesn't get you jumping out of bed, it doesn't get your blood pumping. You know, like you want to set a goal that's like, can you imagine if you did that? You know, could you imagine if I accomplish that you want that feeling and when you get that feeling, that's gold, that's money, you know, because that's the kind of thing that gets you excited and gets you out of bed and gets you making calls and asking for the business and doing things you normally wouldn't do to make it happen. Um and so I think that that is really important that we dream a little bigger and be willing to have these wild, improbable goals and take people on the journey. I mean, we talked earlier about that million dollar month, this was the first month that I ever had a million dollars, which was june 2020 and I shared that goal, right? Like we were, we were at like $650, for the month. We had like a huge pouring into a new offer we had created, which was a membership community and I was like, we're so close to a million, like what if we went for a million? But I still was like, I was scared to, I was scared to say it to my team. And then I finally admitted it to my best friend, robert Hartwell, like literally two days before the month ended and was like, I kind of want to shoot for a million, but I'm afraid. And he, you know, gave me a little pep talk and he's like, let me ask you a question like, do you want to hit a million? And I'm like, yeah, he's like, well then go do it and stop talking to me about it, you know? And I'm like, okay, fine. So I sent an email to my community and said, hey, we're really close to hitting a million. This would be an epic milestone, Like this is a win for all of us, right? And so sharing it with them and saying like, here's two ways you can help us. You can either share it, spread the word about this new community that we built or, you know, join us if you can uh and if you can join us, join with the annual, because then that will help us get there further and just ask for for the help and the outpouring of support was insane. Like my community is why we hit a million, a million dollars month. We made $350, in 24 hours and hit one over a million that month. It was crazy. It was crazy. Um so, and it taught me like, oh people are rooting for you, people are here to support you. We just need to ask for help more. You know, we need to ask like, hey, can I be on your podcast? Hey, can you, you know, share this. Hey, would you, would you like to hire me, here's what I can do for you, right? We need to ask for what we want again. This is like dreaming, you know, asking like we have to be willing to put ourselves out there, risk something to make it happen and if you've got a big goal and it's exciting to you and especially if it's connected to something that's really important to you. I think those are the, those are the things that are going to make you go ask and and push you to do those things that are scary. Tell me just, uh, and I'm keeping you a little bit longer than I, I promised to, but there's good stuff flowing here. So I want to know a little bit more about Hello seven. Um, for folks who are listening and you know, I've already called out the book, I want to call it out one more time. Um, it's like, uh, it's, I think I'll call it critical reading again. We should all be millionaires. A woman's guide to earning more building wealth and gaining economic power. This is not just a book for women. Um, this idea of economic power. I think the lens that you put on it through for, through a women's lens, it was very powerful. I found it, I found it moving. Um, but let's understand a little bit more if we can about hello, seven and by seven you mean seven figures? Yes, correct. Because you know what, here's the thing. I was, you know, an entrepreneur running a law practice and you know, I got into like around 500,000 and then I started to kind of plateau. I was struggling to get it passed that I was like, what are the moves that I need to be making? What should I be doing? I don't even know. And there was nothing out there. There was like nothing teaching, you know, how to go from a couple 100,000 to a million. Everything was like get to six figures, get to six figures and I'm like, I'm not six figures and I can tell you like when I pay my team, they all expenses and pay my taxes. There's really not that much left over for me, you know, So I want to I want to do more. And so I would look to what were some examples of women who were making a million or even men, right, Who we're talking about it. Very few were, you know, talking about it. Probably not that many were doing it and really no one was teaching about it. And I do think there were like, there were masterminds that we're talking about this, but I didn't know about them or they were really geared towards men or geared towards text space, right? I couldn't find anyone teaching about how do I get to a million. And I found that incredibly frustrating. So I joined a bunch of masterminds that um I was like the only woman, I was definitely the only black person, you know, it was like not ideal. I definitely learned a lot in those spaces, but they were not the most inclusive and I definitely felt uh marginalized in some ways. They were sexist comments, racist comments. I mean straight up sexual harassment in some of those spaces, you know? Uh and I was like, okay, first of all, we we need to we as women need to learn know how to get to a million. Only 2% of women entrepreneurs ever built a seven figure business, right? 78% of women entrepreneurs never make more than 50K an annual revenue. And to me that is a travesty and we need to fix it. Uh and that's what Hello seven is out to do. Um and so that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach women how to make seven figures and I wanted to do it in an environment that was inclusive and acknowledge their experience as mothers acknowledge their reality as like not having as much access to capital, especially that included Queer women, black women, you know, disabled women, right? Like we have actual challenges yet we still want to do this yet. We're still ambitious. What who can speak to us directly? Um, and so that's what we do at Hello seven is we kind of speak to everybody who's who's not a white guy, but we do have some, we do have some really great white guys in the community. Well that's like I'm trying to share this to me. That's an opportunity to learn to grow and specifically like this idea of a rising tide floats all boats. If you want to put yourself, you want to give yourself the opportunity, you got to try and put yourself in in the ring, give yourself an opportunity to win. And I think you're a shining example of if you don't see it, you got to build it and you know, that is incredibly inspiring from whatever your background, you know, what's so funny, I this is the story of my life, like I didn't see it and it was frustrating me and I have been looking for years and even asked people create it, you should create this, I would buy it, you know, and they didn't. And so I was like, fine, I guess I'll have to do it. And it's same thing with this book, like, you know, looking for black women, Women of Color, Women of Color are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs. And yet there's no business books that are specifically geared towards them and I was like, this is ridiculous. And I'm like, fine, I guess I'll do it. You know, it's kind of like, that's what I'm always the reluctant, you know, shouldn't somebody be doing this? And then I just find that okay, the messages, I guess I'm going to have to fill those shoes and I think sometimes it's like that imposter syndrome, we don't feel adequate to like, can I really teach this? Can I really help this? And I think the answer is yes. For all of those listening and yeah, go create those things, go fill those gaps because there are so many so true and I want to I want to close with what I find to be a really important idea. We talked about it before we started recording, ah and you brought it up as an important area of focus and that is this idea that we want wealth and success overnight and that we want to go as big as possible. And yet if you deconstruct the success of the people that we look up to admire respect, appreciate and whoever, whatever community you're looking at, they didn't do it that way. And yet there's this belief, I don't know if it's the internet or God dang instagram or I don't know what it is, It is the internet, it's definitely the internet, but but and I also shared that, that was something that creative live, your experience teaching on the platform had helped helped shine a light on. And I'm wondering if you can articulate that, like where you start out and why is it sort of counterintuitive? How does it work? Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that I learned when I came to Creative Live is that, you know, you all started with photography that was that was a focus, you had a niche and then you expanded from there. And and I realized like when I started to look at what, who are the businesses that are wildly successful that I'm following, and when I look at them, they're selling one thing, are there focused on one market? You know? And I'm like, oh, I'm seeing a trend here, that they are really narrowly focused. And then that's what gets them to millions and multimillions, Cool, maybe I need to do that, right? Because what I was doing in my business was just launching something new every time I needed money, right? So like every couple weeks I was like coming up with something else to sell, not narrowing it down. So I was very busy, very tired talking to different types of audiences and wearing myself out and also unable to create like the process and systems that are so important for business so that you can be efficient um and make more money. Right? And also confusing messages for your audience. If you're talking about all these different things, they're like, okay, I don't even know what you can help me with, Right? And so that's one of that coming to creativelive, really planted that seed for me and that has become such an anchor piece of what I teach. You know, my my clients know, we have a program called we should all be millionaires, the club, it's the community and they know I am relentless about this and they're like, fine, fine, we'll listen to you, but I tell them you need to have a single flagship offer. You know, what is your one offer? What is your one ideal client? How can you really focus hit a million by focusing, you'll get there so much faster, you'll be able to create systems, you'll be able to create a streamlined marketing strategy to sell that one offer to that one type of client. And then, you know, once you had a million or multi millions, if you want to complicate things, do it right, like then you can sort of broaden out and and you're you have the team, you have the money, you can invest in making that happen right? And serving more than one audience, but when you are a scrappy solo preneurs, like why are you selling 12 things over complicating it and really watering down your genius, you know, so um I'm surprised more people don't teach this. It is is shocking to me that it's not more common, you know, I know we talk a lot about niche, but I think even within niche people still have seven different offers and it's like why can't we just, we can make a million with one, you know, focus is incredible, that the idea of mastering a thing and then it's in in mastering the thing, you learn so much about mastery in and of itself, that you start to understand what it looks like and feels like see it in other places and be able to leverage that into your next thing, and you're next thing. I think everybody wants to be, you know, get do the 80 20 rule and you know, get yourselves 80% of the way there, but then you miss that, that last step is where all the best shit is. Yes, and also to speaking of mastery right, if you say one thing and you're forced to show up every day, finding more ways to sell it, you get really good at selling that thing, you get really good at marketing, that thing, you get so much more confident around that. Um and you even get better at like delivering it at delivering that expertise are delivering that product. So I think it's a missed opportunity for so many, so I'm glad you brought that up so we could share it, Rachel Rodgers, thank you so much for being on the show for being a shining light to so many. Congratulations on the new book. And if you haven't written it down yet, if you're listening and and are watching, we should all be millionaires Woman's guide, earning more building wealth and gaining economic power out now. Uh thank you so much for being on the show. Where just before we go, is there anywhere that you would steer people in particular? Some coordinates on the internet where besides supporting you by by buying the book anywhere else you'd like to point our people? Yeah. Uh I hang out on instagram a lot, you know, shouting about money so you can uh you can follow me there at Rachel Rodgers sq and if you want to see my family's crazy antics with, we live on a ranch with horses and you know, my wild Children are running around the ranch all day, if you want to see those that's behind. Uh I mean like, gosh, look at that, so beautiful again, thank you so much for being on the show, I'm grateful for you and your work, and thank you for being such a beacon uh in the community. Uh and for everyone out there, please support Rachel, her new book, she's got an amazing class on creativelive about intellectual property, for entrepreneurs selling ideas, licensing very, very well reviewed 100% positive thumbs up there with thousands of students, So thank you so much for being on the show Rachel until next time everybody out there in the universe, I bid you all. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm