Clint Murphy  00:00

Hey, Steve, welcome to the growth guide podcast. And before we start, I want to share with the audience that this is for now, my last long form conversation as the growth guide takes a little bit of a pivot. The realization as I build the businesses that I’m building, as I take the next steps in my evolution, is putting a pause on long form conversations, and announcing as well something that you and I have been doing a little that we may be rebooting shortly in the future is the fired up conversations where we talk about financial independence, we talk about everything that we’re going to talk about today. And we have a very similar view on money, which is going to come across in the conversation. And there’s some areas that we look at differently. I go for fat, slash nuclear fire, you like the Lean slash barista fire. And so we’re going to talk about all of that. For our listeners and our viewers who don’t know you yet. Steve, can you tell them a little bit about yourself including getting rich in getting off the grid while living in an Airstream you know, over to you to give a brief bio about who you are my friend.

Steve Adcock  01:24

Perfect. Thanks, Clint. And thanks for having me on. And I’m honored to be your last long form guests. I am 42. But I retired and I use that term loosely, I achieved financial independence and quit my job at 35. I worked a 14 year career in information technology. And like many of you know out there who work in it, you get paid well, which is great. I love that part. But it also drains the life out of you did not especially like that part. So you have to really mesh the two and determine how much you were willing to take. And for me from the first week of setting foot in the office, like right out of college, making no money. Obviously, in college, I got my first job. I’m in this office, I look around a bunch of people just kind of sitting there in a cube farm. Just pedaling away with her keyboard doing stuff, whatever. And I thought to myself, This is it. This is what it means to be a professional. And I have another 4045 50 years of my life to do this. I don’t think so. Now at that point, I was only 24 Maybe 25. By all means I did not have anything figured out yet. All I knew was I did not want a long career of doing this stuff. So fast forward. I meet my wife about eight years later. I’m in my early 30s. She was a rock rocket scientist like an actual rocket scientist. She wrote code for rockets. Very numbers oriented, very math oriented. So that was like a perfect match for me because I am neither of those two, but she is combine those two salaries in 2014. We were making combined about $220,000 a year now. Making that now is good making that almost 10 year actually it is now 10 years ago, man, it’s 10 years ago, isn’t it? Yeah. So 10 years ago. I know I affect We’re celebrating our 10 year anniversary in October of this year. But that was really good money back then. So we had a decision to make. We were pulling in good money, we had good jobs. We were living in a low cost of living area, which was Tucson, Arizona at the time. So we could either live like rockstars expensive meals, vacation homes, whatever, the highlife as it were. Or we can save the vast majority of what we were making and quit our jobs. Both of us sell our homes and move into an Airstream RV and travel the country for a living for as long as we want. Ultimately, we chose the latter. So we saved and we’ll get into the details a little bit later if you want but we saved a lot of money. We retired well I quit my job at 35. She worked another year after that, because she felt guilty about leaving her job. And then we sold both of our homes 95% of our possessions hit the road in an Airstream. We did that for three years, finally settled down into an off grid home here in the Arizona desert. And quite frankly, we just could not be happier. 

Clint Murphy  04:43

So whenever our friends post, get rich and get off the grid on Twitter, you’re like a decade ago. Come on. Copy me. So what I thought we could do today is talk about what fire is the different types of Fire, you have your six step wealth, template or blueprint that will timeline that will take people through and then maybe talk about some of the habits that you talk about in the book. But I want to start with what I thought was one of the best openings in a book I’ve read in a while. So I’m gonna read your opening. And I’m gonna let you take it away from there, Steve, because it was a beauty. And it’s very Steve, as I’ve gotten to know you over the years, my friend, listen up, buttercup, I’m not here to tell you everything is going to be okay. And that if you believe in yourself and sing Kumbaya, everything around a campfire, great things will happen. That’s not how life works. Yes, believing in yourself is great. But putting action behind that belief is how we achieve amazing things, such as becoming a millionaire, a hope without action is nothing but a wish. Millionaires don’t get rich by wishing. Take us through that beauty of an opener.

Steve Adcock  06:06

Yeah, that was I almost didn’t include that. Because that’s kind of a harsh thing to say right off the bat. But then it’s like, if people know me, they know that I want to capture their attention right off the bat with a hard truth. And that’s, and that’s exactly what that was meant to do. It’s getting rich is not about hopes and dreams. It’s not about just thinking about it. Yes, mindset is important. You have to believe that it’s possible for you, that’s always going to be the very first step 100% of the time, if you don’t think it’s going to happen, it’s not. But if you think that it’s going to happen, and you take that next step, by getting off your butt, and actually doing the things to get you rich, to become a millionaire. That’s what’s going to make the difference, you have to put in the action. You can’t just want it. Everybody wants, everybody wishes, everybody dreams. Those are easy. We all do that. But putting the action behind what we want, that’s the hard part. And that’s what the rest of my book went into teaching you how to do go from that mindset point that wish like I want this, whatever it happens to be if it’s a millionaire or something different, whatever that is. Keep that in your mind. But then what do you have to do step by step to actually get to that point? And sometimes it’s helpful to work backwards. Sometimes it’s not just depends on on your goal. But yeah, that was my way of, I guess, setting the record straight from the very beginning. This is not a wishy washy, I hope I wish book, this is what I want. And this is exactly how I’m going to get there. That’s what makes the difference. I love it. 

Clint Murphy  07:55

And we’re going to jump all over the place. That may be how I tend to do things in so it might not be chronologically from the book. So because what I want to do is I want to start with, what is fire in why do people want to achieve it? And what are the different types of fire, you know, pick, pick a few of the ones you want to talk about that that people can focus on? Because there are different ways to go about this journey. Sure. Because then what we’re doing is we’re setting the audience up with, oh, hey, yeah, I want that. And then we’ll get into well, here’s how you do it. 

Steve Adcock  08:29

FIRE is an acronym that stands for Financially Independent, Retire Early. Now, those are two very separate concepts. The financial independence part means you’ve accumulated enough wealth through savings and the stock market and real estate and whatever other investments that you have, where you never have to work a day in your life. Again, it covers your your living expenses, practically forever. So that’s one part. And that should always be your goal. Even if you love your job, you couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Your goal should still be financially to be financially independent, because that’s going to give you options. Then that second part is the RE part, the retire early part that’s taking that next step, really retirement definitely will not be for everybody, and I totally respect that. But that’s taking the next step after achieving financial independence. It’s like, okay, I’m done. I’m quitting my job, and I’m gonna do whatever I want for the rest of my life, whether I make money or not. So that’s the concept of fire, financially independent, retire early. There are so many different ways to do it. Like you alluded to Clint and you are more of a fat fire person fat fire means you want a more extravagant lifestyle. You want to be able to spend more money after quitting your job. Usually that means of spinning 100 120 $150,000 A year going forward. So that’s just me More money, which means you might have to work a little bit longer to have those investments in place to enable you to spend that much money. I retired with the Lean fire philosophy, which means I want out as soon as possible, I can’t stand another working day of my life, I want out of this crap. And I want out now, that was me, no doubt about it. Which means I can quit earlier like I did when I was 35. But that also means we’re only spending at the time 35 to $45,000 a year. That’s it. Now, when you’re in an Airstream or traveled the country for a living, you can pretty much live as cheap as you want. We didn’t stay in campgrounds, we boondock, which means we were out in the middle of nowhere, we had solar, we had water tanks, we had wastewater holding tanks. So every once in a while, we would pump in new water and dump out our waste. But then we would go right back out and live for free again, again, not gonna be for everybody, I get it. But that was the way that we did it. Lean fire means you’re not spending a lot of money. But you get to retire a little bit sooner than you would have. And there are a couple other variations like barista, fire, and Coast fire, where you’ve built up enough investments where you could just let those let those investments continue to build over time. But then you still continue to work a less stressful job, for instance, a barista in a coffee shop. And that’s what pays as your regular expenses. Yep, exactly.

Clint Murphy  11:32

One would argue, Steve, that may be in a year, look at your situation, you look at a lot of other financial bloggers or writers. And in some of them, a fair amount of what they’re living off of is from their blogging is from their writing is from their creation, not simply living off their investments. So it’s a bit more of a barista fire, if you will.

Steve Adcock  11:52

Very true. And we one thing that I’ve learned after the retire early part is how easy it is to make money out there. If you have marketable skills, somebody is going to want to pay you for those skills, it’s just a matter of time, matter of time. I mean, there’s, when you have a full time job, you don’t really respect those opportunities, because you already have that income, you don’t need to notice those things. But once you no longer do, oh my gosh, there’s so many ways to make money out there’s so many ways. And we’ve gotten involved in that now. So it’s hard for me to even say that I am retired now, because I’m a content creator, I do a lot of writing, I do podcasts. I mean, we make six figures, doing what we want to do now, whenever we want to do it. Because we have that freedom to make money, that’s probably the most magical part of the concept of fire means you can achieve it, then you can reevaluate your life, what you want to do where you want to go the things that you want to be doing every day. And if something comes around, where it’s like, oh, this sounds super cool, I can do this for six months, I can make 50 grand or 100, grand or whatever, screw it, I’m going to do it, I’m going to try it. And if it works out great. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter, because you didn’t need the money anyway.

Clint Murphy  13:13

And that’s a beautiful spot to be in. One of the takeaways as we work through some of the habits is what you realize is when you build that path to millionaire, you’ve got to grow your income, your income is based on you. Based on your skills, it’s based on your abilities, people are willing to pay you what you’re worth, and you develop that ability to increase your worth. So you develop the ability to learn how to be a copywriter to learn how to be a podcaster. To learn how to do X, Y, Zed, you just develop the ability to learn and so that you know, I’ve always seen that in you that that’s something I’ve built is one of my personal skill sets. And a lot of millionaires that’s what I see in them is that continuous continuous learning is where you also develop the habits and the disciplines to get there. And so if you want to become a writer, if you want to become a podcaster if you want to become a social media creator, then you have the habits and the discipline and the ability to learn to do it. So basically, any path becomes open to you. When you develop the habits that we’re going to talk about in your book, which makes barista or fat or whatever fire you want. Completely available to you. achievable. Yep. Okay, so we’ve laid out what fire is we’ve laid out well, we want it let’s talk a little bit nuts and bolts. You can get as deep as you want. You have the six step wealth building timeline. You want to take people through that at a high level let them know hey, here’s what you got to think about on your journey to become a millionaire. It’s not straight to zero to millionaire. There’s some steps along the way.

Steve Adcock  14:59

Yep, and The details, I’m a don’t sweat the details kind of guy. But there are a lot of details in this timeline that you really have to pay attention to. And if in your journey to a million dollars of accumulating a million dollars, or what $10 million, whatever, it all starts with income all the time, some income somehow, some way, whether you run your own business, or you work a nine to five, or you’re robbing banks, I mean, whatever, I probably wouldn’t suggest the latter. But it money in is the first step always. Then that second step is creating an emergency fund. So you don’t go into debt when something unexpected happens. And that unexpected thing might be losing a job, or your roof springs a leak, or you get into a car accident, or God forbid a medical something happens to you. And you spend a couple of nights in the hospital that’s 100 grand right there. Grant Garrett, we have insurance, exactly. You should have health insurance to cover that, but it may not cover all of it. So that having that money in place, not invested. In a separate savings account, we like to use ally, but any savings account will work to keep that E fund ever, at least three to six months, at least we had about when we retired, we had two years of cash, do not necessarily recommend that for everybody. That’s a lot of cash. But for us, it worked. But for at least three to six months of living expenses. So you don’t have to worry about anything with that cash set aside, that is crucial. Because that means you’re not going to go into credit card debt if something happens. And then you have your long term savings, your short term savings and your long term savings. So you want to take a vacation in 10 years, you’re funneling a little money in into that pot, you may not have those goals, and that’s fine. But if you do, it’s good to have those systems set up using automation. So your paycheck comes in, and you’re funding all these accounts automatically. You don’t have to lift a finger. After that we have investments, if you work a full time job and a 401k. If you live in the United States, if a 401 K is available to you definitely take advantage of that if a Roth IRA is available to you take advantage of those accounts as well, because that is your long term, your long term investment accounts. So you don’t want to touch those, there are loopholes. But I don’t recommend going through those loopholes. The idea is to let that money build, that money is there to sit. So when you do reach 62 You have this huge nest egg where it’s like man, I have all this money now, that’s just gonna funnel to me, I can either live like a rock star or your market for inheritance, whatever it’s the point is it’s your choice for those long term investments. Next short term investments, I like brokerage accounts, I have a Vanguard brokerage account, investing in index funds, and ETFs. Those just make it easy. I always recommend at least 90% of the money that you invest in the stock market, make them ETFs or index funds or a combination of both. 10% If you do like higher risk investments, like individual companies or cryptocurrencies, whatever, you can have fun with that 10% I have no problem with that Clint, no problem whatsoever. I know you are a bigger crypto guy than I am. And frankly, I’m not anti crypto by any means. But to be 100% in crypto, you got to be really freaking high risk, which is good, which is fine. And have that emergency fund in case it all hits the fan, which I know you do you you are a smart guy. But for the majority of people, you probably shouldn’t be 100% anywhere, regardless of where it is crypto, Amazon, Apple, you shouldn’t be 100% with any diversification is good. And then once all that’s in place, right? So you have your income, you have your emergency fund, you have your short term and long term savings, you have your long term investments, you have your short term investments with that brokerage account. That is the foundation of wealth building for 99.99% of people whether you’ve grown your own business or you’re working a nine to five, that is how it happens. Period. And then once once that’s in place, it’s just kind of a waiting game until you’ve decided, Okay, that’s it, I’m out or anything else that that you want to do with your life. After 510 15 years of letting this process run. You’re building up wealth, then it’s like okay, I get to choose when I retire early, I like my job now. But if if that company gets bought by another company, or a different boss comes in, and he or she is a total asshole, it’s like, I don’t have to deal with this. I’m out of here. That’s fu money. And that’s what you will have, once you go through this wealth building timeline, whether you want to retire early or not.

Clint Murphy  20:22

And let’s talk about the power of that. Because what I’ve always explained to people with fu money, it’s not about the fact that you’re going to say that or you’re going to do that. Yeah, my view has always been that as a professional, I am going to be much better at my job. If I have one. I’ve now retired as well. Well, we’ll go we’ll get into the details of that. But the idea is, if I am not dependent on the payment from someone, I’m more independent. And what that means is when I’m asked questions, when I’m pushed in a certain direction, and more comfortable pushing back, I’m more comfortable approaching it from a centered, valued based lifestyle, because I don’t need you to pay me. So when something I believe is wrong, I’m more willing to push back, I’m more willing to stand up and fight for my team fight for the company fight for the right thing to do, which ultimately I think makes organizations better and more willing to do those things. If I’m not worried about whether I get my paycheck next week or not. 

Steve Adcock  21:33

That is an incredible freedom to have. And that’s the most common criticism that FIREees get is well, what if I don’t want want to retire early, it just doesn’t. I don’t care. I don’t have to do these things, because I love what I do. But like you just said, Clint, it’s about options. It’s about having the option to quit, even if you don’t, because things my friends things change so fast. So rapidly, you might like your life. Now, you might like your job now. And that’s great. But the but if you don’t have that money set aside, if you’re not financially independent, then even if you like your job, guess what, you are dependent on that job. So if things go south, you are stuck unless you get another job somewhere else. So the more options you have, the more freedom that you have, the happier that you are going to be, you’re going to be able to say no to those things that that you don’t want to do, that you may have felt obligated to say yes to before, because you needed that income.

Clint Murphy  22:42

That’s even applicable for entrepreneurs, right. I’ve left the workforce, I’m consulting with them for another month and a half. And then I’m on my own. And I’m starting up businesses in the real estate world development, by rehab, hold indefinite timelines. And when you look at that, those people who are entrepreneurs, like let’s say, me, my goal is to run full out for another 10 to 15 years, or 15 to 20. And then be able to say, Okay, we’ve built this, we’ve scaled it, we’ve got a team, um, 6065, somewhere in that range, I’m gonna go to working, or four hours a day, two to four hours a day, like, what I’ve realized watching guys like Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, like you need something to keep that ticker going. So because that allows you to keep living in so going in and just hanging out hanging out with the people I work with, that I enjoy spending time with, and then pursuing whatever I want in life, taking more vacation, etc. But where I go with that entrepreneurship is people who feel like they’re they’ve got that independence. But then you look at that point where you say, Well, wait a second, can your business run without you being there? 30 to 40 hours a week, or 20 hours a week? Because if it can, you’re still technically like, not technically, but you’re, you’re basically an employee still. What do you think of that argument? 

Steve Adcock  24:13

Yeah, there’s this really gets my blood boiling, actually, and you hear this a lot on social media. These entrepreneur pimps, I guess, is what I like to call them, where it’s like, oh, I don’t work for somebody else. I work for me, I work for myself. I develop my own hours. It’s all about me. And okay, for some businesses, that might be true. But guess what, when you’re an entrepreneur, and there’s nothing wrong with being an being an entrepreneur by any means, but let’s set the record straight here. When you’re entrepreneur, you are still working for money, which means you still need customers. You still need clients, you are working for them. You are not working for you. Your boss might be different. Absolutely. But you are not working for you. If you need customers and clients to pay your bills, period, no doubt about it. I’m getting worked up, I’m getting fired, just right now because of this topic. But again, I cannot stress this enough. I am not anti entrepreneurship, I love entrepreneurship. But you’re also not just going to replace a nine to five, where you’re working 40 hours a week, to building your own company on the side and working five hours a day and making 120 grand a year. That’s not how it works. Over half of businesses fail in the first three years anyway, you’re gonna be working your ass, until you get to that point where I can start outsourcing this, I could hire a COO or a director or a president or whatever, to basically do the work. And then I sit back and do nothing and collect paychecks. That’s a great position to be in. But it’s after a number of years, usually decades in order to get to that point. So entrepreneurship is great, but don’t necessarily think it’s going to just automatically mean that you can set your own hours and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. If you still need the money. You’re good. You are you are always going to be working for somebody in some way. Yeah, absolutely.

Clint Murphy  26:23

And when I map out our situation, Steve, I look at it and say, it’ll be about four to five years, where I’m behind, having quit my job I was making. And when we’re on fired up all share actual numbers will be more open all have left my contracting role be more open. But the amount of money I was making, like it’s gonna take me a while to get there, then four to five years, I’ll probably be roughly at par between salary, dividends, net worth appreciation of the business, which is fine, because I don’t need all the cash because I wasn’t spending it all I was investing a large portion. So if I leave some behind in the company, I’m better off right. And then from there after it’s exponentially better. But that’s what you just said like that’s a decade. And I know that but people talk about like leaving your job as this like holy grail. And I’m like, Well, fuck, it’s gonna take me a decade, earn what I earn in my job, I could be very wealthy, just staying in this job for another 15 years, till I’m 60 and retire with over $10 million in the bank. So I’m throwing that away to pursue this. And the average person who hears these entrepreneur pimps, they don’t do the mental math of Well, shit. Like, there’s a big chance I may actually be better off just staying at my job. But let’s pivot. Let’s pivot because what I’m doing is, is I’m doing habit one. I’m saying yes. To a risk in why I like your habit. One is when ever any young person asked me how to get ahead in their career. My number one answer I always give is get yourself into as many sink or swim situations as you possibly can. And then swim, baby swim. And that’s Richard Branson always said, when someone asks you to do something, say yes. And then figure it out. And you did that early in your career. When someone said, Steve, we want you to be the new director. And you were like, Shit, I didn’t even think I was gonna be shift supervisor. Yeah, but let’s do it. So why don’t you talk about why saying yes, is so important early in our careers. Because one might argue as we get ahead in life, it’s starts to be more important to learn to say no. But early in our career, why is yes, so important in our vocabulary.

Steve Adcock  28:50

When we’re young, we have the energy to figure shit out. As we get older, we’re probably doing less of that anyway, because we’ve already figured it out because of the decisions that we made in our 20s. But your 20s is not the time to play it safe. Because you have so much time to recover, if things don’t go the way you want them to. But like you said, client, this is the time to get in a little over your head. I was this 33, 34 year old dude, software developer. I just wrote code for a living this Friday. My boss calls me and wants me to be the director of the entire IT department well of like 30, 35 people. And it’s like, I have had zero I had no leadership experience. I mean, bubkis Nothing. And now it’s like I’m going from a software developer to a director, not just a manager, not just leads a shift super a director. We’re gonna like dressing up going to directors meetings, managing multi million dollar budgets, zero experience, and I see It all wanted to say no. But I but I said fuck it, let’s say, I’m saying, Yes, I’m doing this. I’m learning as I go. But the important thing that happened? Because I said yes. Is it set my salary trajectory on a whole other level, software developers do make good money. There’s no doubt about that. But once you elevate up to management, where you’re any director role, you’re in a, you know, Senior Director, Vice President, President, those are the roles where salary and equity and stock options, those things just explode. So from that point on, my salary was on a much higher level. Because I said yes, to that opportunity, I did not feel ready for saying yes is always going to be your key when you’re young, say yes to everything, and then go back and say no to things that aren’t working out. It’s like this didn’t go, this isn’t working out quite the way I expect it to. I’m sorry, I have to, I have to step back. Sometimes that’s going to be hard. I totally get it. But the things that you said yes to that work, those are going to make you money, those are going to expand your professional network, those are going to make you smarter, and way more experienced than you ever were before. And that’s going to make you a way more lucrative career in whatever field you have to be at.

Clint Murphy  31:28

You know, for the listeners who are saying, well, that’s bullshit, and blah, blah, blah, what I can share, Steve is, is having grown to that CFO role in industry in managing teams of 30 plus people in taking people who were accountants, when they started with me, and now our senior vice presidents of finance, what always differentiated people for me was yes, people versus no people. Because the no people, you stopped giving things to the yes, people you always go to. And yes, that does mean that maybe they get a little overwhelmed. And then your job as the leader becomes to pull stuff off their plate and hand it to the know people and say, I don’t give a shit if you’re a no person, like you’re gonna do this. But those Yes, people because they’re always saying yes, they’re earning your trust, and they’re getting more experience. They’re getting more skills. They’re developing themselves, so that when that promotion becomes available, your first instinct is never to go to the no person. It’s always to go to the Yes, person. And that brings us to your number might not be number two, but that brings us to grow your income. Why is that so important in for you? What are the three top ways you would say to the person that’s listening? What are three ways they should have in their back pocket that they should always be thinking about? So that they can grow their income? Obviously, we’ve already said Say yes, say yes, a yes, is a clear path, what are two or three other things that will help someone grow their income? 

Steve Adcock  33:06

Yep. So as you learned from the wealth building timeline, everything starts from income, the more income you make, the richer that you stand to be. As long as you don’t just spend everything that you make, that is the best way that I have found throughout my entire career to keep my income going up is switching companies. Now, the question of whether you’re switching too often or not, that’s going to depend on your industry, it’s not all going to be the same. But for me, in the IT industry, turnover is kind of expected. So I switched every three to four years, I’d say, Max, that’s a long list, like four years, as long as that I’ve ever spent at any one company. And each time I switch companies, I got a 20 ish 20 ish percent raise every single time. So if you’re only relying on that 234 percent cost of living adjustments that you’ll get by staying with the same company, you were leaving money on the table, there’s there will be exceptions, there’ll be some of you out there going, Oh, I stayed with the same company for 25 years, and I make you know, $200 million a year, great. But most people don’t do that. That’s not the way it works. For the vast majority of the people, vast majority, you have to move around. Not only are you going to make more more money, but you’re going to get practice interviewing, talking to people, you’re going to become more confident, you’re gonna learn new ways of doing business, not just one way that that one company that you spent 20 years that did it and you have no idea about any other way of doing business. But that way, that’s not a good position to be in. And you’re going to you’re going to expand your network, you’re going to meet new people at all these different companies. And there’s no downside, no downside to switching companies regularly as long as you’re not switching too much. And that’s that that little gray area And I would say, always demand what you are worth. Don’t be afraid to ask for more money. It’s hard. It really is. It’s nerve racking. It’s like, what if they say no? What if they think I’m not a team player? Am I gonna ruin my promotion? Tez? Very, very rarely will we? Will you get into that situation? If you are objective, and you don’t go into this conversation in an emotional kind of stance, do your research, do your due diligence, know what other people are getting in similar roles at other companies, and to do that look at Job wrecks out there job openings for similar jobs. If they’re paying their people more, you probably have cause to maybe ask for a little bit more money at your current employer. Never be hesitant to do that. And pick your time wisely. Like if your company is going through layoffs or something, probably not the best time to ask for more for more money. Or if the shit just hit the fan, the project failed or, or you made a mistake on something, whatever, probably not the right time to ask. But if things are going well, you just created, you just finished a great project. You know, the company’s doing well. And you think you are underpaid? And you can prove that you’re underpaid? Ask for a meeting, get that conversation started? Because you’ll be surprised at how many times you eventually get to the answer. 

Clint Murphy  36:29

Let me emphasize something on this one, because it’s always an important one for me, because what you learn when you start to look at the science, I mean, we’re talking about the concept of no ask no get, right. That’s right. Don’t ask you’re not going to get it. And what you realize when you look at the science, you and me, science backs up, we’re more likely to ask for what we deserve. Partially because we’re middle aged, good looking white men through that good looking in for us see if they watch the YouTube, they might debate us if they just listen to our voices, they’ll they’ll probably believe us. But so we’re more likely to ask like, and if you’re a boss, you know, the white dudes on your team, they’re going to come ask for money. It’s just what happens, who less often asked for money are women and people of color. So a perfect example, I have a lot of Asian women on my team, super hardworking, very smart women less likely to ask for money. So when we talk about that, it’s very important that people who are listening, don’t just rely on your work, rely on your work combined with self advocacy. I’ve been pushing this with my boys, my boys are half Chinese. So they look more Chinese than they do white boys. And I’ve been pushing them to learn the importance of self advocacy. Because when they get into their career when they’re playing sports, Steve, if you don’t go to your coach and say, Coach, I want to move from the offensive side of the ball to the defensive side. He’s not going to make that change for you. Yep, you have to learn to go talk to your coach and ask for what you want. You have to learn to go talk to your boss and ask for what you want. And for a lot of young women, and a lot of people of color, or culturally, like Asian cultures tend to be more my work will speak for itself. No one fucking won’t. Like, unless you have a boss who’s watching out for you. I can tell you, the bosses are in rooms. And they’re saying, hey, if people don’t ask don’t bring it up. Yep, it is bullshit. So I want you who are listening to advocate for yourself. Sorry, Steve, that one really, that one really gets me what else is on the grow your income list.

Steve Adcock  38:41

For me, it also comes down to making yourself more educated, more knowledgeable. So that might mean going back to college or getting a degree if that makes sense in your career path, or going to conferences and learning about something new. Or heck, even starting a side hustle something on the side. So you have your full time job and you’re making good money, then you’re using some of those resources to start that side business on the side that is going to grow your income, especially if that side business does well. And if it does well enough, then guess what? That might become your new full time job, you quit your nine to five, and you now become an entrepreneur in your was a side hustle. Now it’s your business. Those things all add up to increasing that income, the higher you can get that number and then the smarter decisions you make with all that money. That’s just going to tick the years off of your working career from 65 to 60 to 50 to 40 whatever each smart decision that you make, every you know additional $1,000 you make. Think of that as cutting the required work. years from your career, that’s such an important thing, I think for people to, it’s an easy way for people to think about this, the more money you make, the less you’ll have to work. So in your 20s, while you’re young, if you can get that money up, you can get that income up that, you know, your your side hustle, your networks, your knowledge, your degrees, or your certifications, that’s just going to tick those years down, man. And once you’re at that point, and I think it’s going to come sooner, than you probably think you’re going to be like, Wow, look at all those zeros in my net worth. And we’re spending this much money. And I really don’t like what I’m doing. You know, my plan was to retire at 55. But I’m 52. Now I think I can make this work. Today. Just imagine being in that position, I think I can quit and do whatever I want to do. Today. It all comes from setting up that foundation, letting it work over time, I think getting to that point where you can finally pull the plug.

Clint Murphy  41:03

And then if you look at it, Steve, I would I would also throw in it to the list, become a content creator. And part of why I say that is if you are watching this on YouTube, or you’re listening to the podcast in your hearing Steve and I speak to each other. If you didn’t know that I was an accountant by trade. And Steve was an IT guy by trade, you wouldn’t guess that. We’ve worked hard to be able to be behind the camera and understand the angles and understand how we’re looking at each other and the equipment that we’re using, the way we enunciate our words. We also if you follow us on social media, you’ll see how Steve writes and how I write very similar styles, short, tight, punchy, but we’re able to communicate complicated topics, simply and why I bring that up, Steve is you talked earlier about getting into leadership. And if you’re an accountant like I was, or an IT guy like you were, but you’re a better public speaker than everybody around you, you’re a better writer, you’re a better communicator, who’s more likely to get that promotion, the accountant who’s good at the numbers, or the person who can actually talk to the President, the person who can have a conversation with the vice presidents, and can put things in writing and can communicate complex topics simply. So I think, young people, if they’re able to do what you and I did, with our social media, and with what we’re doing now, with podcasting, and writing and content creation, this wasn’t available when you were young. This wasn’t available when I was young. I mean, you’re younger than I am. So it was closer to available for you. But not really, it’s only been in the last decade. If this was available. 20 years ago, 25 years ago, I would have been on it right away. And I would have chronicled my entire journey. And I would have gone faster because of the skills that I built through doing this.

Steve Adcock  42:57

Yep, I was never the smartest person in the office ever. There’s always people more handsome than me. As hard as that is to believe smarter than me. harder working than me. They got to the office before, there was never that top guy ever in my entire career, any place I worked, but yet, I still continued to get promotions. I still continued to get raises. Why? It wasn’t because of my intellect. Yes, it wasn’t dumb. But it wasn’t because of my intellect. It was because of how I worked with people how I communicated with them, I was very easy to get along with. I never said no, I don’t really want to do that project. I always just took it and figured it out. We’ve already been over some of these concepts. But I think it’s important for people to understand that to get ahead in life, you do not have to be the smartest person you do not have to be the strongest person you do not have to be the best looking person. Nobody wants to work with jerks. People want to work with people who are positive, who smile, who are easy to work with who laugh who tell jokes. I mean, they still get their job done. But that’s not all of it. It’s how easy it is for you to get along with one another. And that’s the popular term is now EQ or emotional intelligence. That side of it, I think gets way less focus than I would like advancing the corporate ladder that gets less emphasis less focus then than I think it deserves. Because in my personal experience, and probably yours as well, Clint from what I’m hearing, that EQ or how you work with people, how you communicate with people was at least as important as what you knew. 

Clint Murphy  44:49

Yeah, that was fixing the EQ was the last decade of my career career maybe the last 12 years. And that’s when I went I’m making good money to Holy shit, someone’s paying me this, right. So like, starting at a number that people were happy would be like, Oh man, I never thought I’d make this much money to a number that was three times that three and a half times that it’s mind boggling and it was the EQ, because that’s going to take me from that director to the VP to the Chief Financial Officer, absolutely, you can’t get there. If you’re only IQ, you have to have the EQ because you have to be able to work with everybody in the organization from the accounts payable team, from the janitor, right to the President, you have to be able to have a relationship with everyone on that chain. And that’s all EQ. So now people have grown their income. They’ve implemented some of what we talked about, in the conversation, they’ve read the book, they’ve grown their income to a big number. But we both know those idiots who have huge income, and they’re still poor, because they just like, blow everything. Now, you look at the way, my wife and I lived our lifestyle, like my family would always be like, wow, like you spend so much money. And I’m always like, well, a, you don’t know how much I make it me you don’t know that I pay myself first. So like, I take a bunch of dough out. I invest it, it’s gone. It’s making money for me. It whatever. Whatever I have leftover, I do whatever I want with it. Because that’s that’s the game. So they didn’t know that because it might I’m not gonna tell you all these things. But that brings up the concept of pay yourself first. So how does pay yourself first work? And what do you recommend for target numbers because do chi fire some of us get to that 40 5060 70% savings rates. And you get to the it’s easier to get to the bigger savings rates when you grow the income, right? Like when you’re on your $50,000 entry level or what like maybe 40,000 entry level salary 50,000 is really hard to save 70% of your salary. Because like, is it before tax or after tax? Like, you get what I mean, right? But when you’re making $200,000 a year, and you didn’t inflate your lifestyle, and you’re paying yourself first, you can take a much bigger shovel clip of that money first. So do you want to want to take people through that and what the concept is, what you recommend and how that recommendation changes as you earn more income?

Steve Adcock  47:27

Absolutely. Pay yourself first means you don’t have to budget. A lot of people hate budgeting. I don’t like budgeting either, quite frankly. Pay yourself first flips the traditional method of money management completely on its head. The concept is you are paying your bills first. So you get your paycheck and from that paycheck, you immediately fund the things that need need to be funded, so your rent or mortgage, your cell phone bill, your food, what whatever, that money just comes out immediately, right. And that’s going to be spent, the things like like that. So you have your necessary has to be done, then you have the probably should be done. And then you have everything else. So the idea is the should be done. Shouldn’t be big, right? So you have your, your monthly bills, traditional monthly bills, mortgage, cell phones, that kind of thing. That’s all done. Good. You never have to worry about a bill for the rest of your life, then you have a little bit more on the things that you still need, but fluctuates. Like we never spend the exact same amount of money at the grocery store every single time we go. But if you track that, then you’ll be able to cut back on the things that you think you’re spending a little bit more money on, then then you probably should, then everything leftover is yours. It’s free money, you could spend that shit guilt free, you don’t have to worry about it. And the key is, the higher your salary is right? The and and the lower your lifestyle spending is your requirements, right your bills means the more you’re going to have left for you. So increase that income, decrease that spending and there you go, you have a lot of cash leftover every single month where you just don’t have to feel bad about spending it. That is the beauty of pay yourself first. Get the bills taken care of get your investments and your savings all all taken care of. I didn’t mention investments and savings before but that’s a critical element that kind of comes in between the monthly bills, and the guilt free spending monthly bills, investments, then your guilt free spending everything else is your money to spend however you like.

Clint Murphy  50:13

And automate it as much as possible, right? So you don’t even stop. So you don’t even realize I just put I got, I’m making 200 grand a year after tax, let’s make it after tax or 240. To make it simple. I’m getting 20 grand a month, and I just clipped 50% of that straight into my investment accounts never even see that it went there. So I’m still living, living off a really enjoyable 10 grand a month to pay all my bills. And meanwhile I just put $100,000 $120,000 into investments like that’s the way you’re gonna supercharge your ability to retire early.

Steve Adcock  50:47

Absolutely. There’s no question about it.

Clint Murphy  50:49

Okay, one last question, my friend, I know you’ve got a hard stop in seven minutes. So this one will chew on a little together and jump it up on is millionaires create their own luck. And new mantra, a lot of ways you list this is one of the ones you go deep. And it’s something you and I really believe in is that you get there on your own deletion. If you do these 10 to 20 things and you and I talk about them a lot together, I want you to pick a couple that you want to chew on and all throw at you work hard and build a network. So we get your wheels spinning on which ones you really want to dive into. And let’s also talk about work hard and build a network. And we’ll wrap up there, Steve? Absolutely.

Steve Adcock  51:34

Yeah, look, I do believe in luck. There is a component of luck in getting rich and being successful. I totally get that. However, that component is way, way, way less, I think than a lot of people think it is. A lot of people think that most millionaires just inherit their wealth, it is luck. It’s just the luck of where you were born, or the parents you were born to. The numbers cavalierly show, that is absolutely not the case. In the past, inheritance was a bigger component of building wealth. today. It’s not it’s just not it does happen. But the vast majority of millionaires got rich, because they worked for it, they provided value. One of the best keys, the biggest keys, that to become a millionaire that we’ve already talked about, is just say yes, and be a decent person, saying yes gives you opportunities, those opportunities are going to build your network, build your intelligence, build your experience. And, yes, build that wealth. And just being an easy person to get along with. I mean, that alone will make you you’re going to attract money. When you are the happiest person in the office. Yes, you can’t, you know, just be happy but not do your job or be happy to not come in. Obviously, you can’t do that you have to actually do your job, right. But with a smile on your face. Like you said before, Clint when promotion time comes around, who’s going to get those opportunities, who’s going to get that money, who’s going to get the chance to move up to the next step in their career, it’s not going to be the person that nobody wants to work with. It’s not going to be that asshole that says no to everything. It’s just not, it’s going to be that person, not necessarily the smartest person in the office. But the person who can get things done and work with people and make people want to work for them and do the best job that they possibly can. Finding great leaders is how businesses run. And being a great leader is how you are going to pad that income, the very first step of that wealth building equation. 

Clint Murphy  54:01

Well, that’s an important one, because a lot of people don’t realize that, you know, we talked about building your income, we talked about becoming a leader. And you just pointed out a good thing that the higher you can grow in leadership, the more income you’re gonna make. And the way you achieve those next levels of leadership is often not through yourself, but through the people below you, you know that concept of hiring your replacement, and then investing in those people to the level where they lift you up? Because they’re like, hey, I’ll go to hell for you. Like, I’ll go through a wall for you because you care about me. You invest in me personally, professionally, financially, and you’ve demonstrated that I want to work for you. And so when you build a team like that, you can’t help but climb the ladder and that means you make more money. Absolutely.

Steve Adcock  54:52

I’ve worked with leaders where I could have taken shortcuts I could have taken off early I could have said, Oh, this is good enough. But I respected that leader enough where I went the extra mile and did the I went from a 90% effort to a 100% effort. Because I liked the person I worked with. They were good leaders, they looked out for me. And therefore, I, as their underling was going to look out for them. I’ve also worked with guys who just weren’t great. They were there, because they were the smartest at what they did. They were there, I I’m going to repeat that they were there in that position, because they were the smartest, that was a bad promotion, because they could not work with people, they could not inspire people, I did not respect that person because of how that person treats their employees, their their subordinates. And I’m not going to go above and beyond for people like that, even if you are smart. That’s great. Love it. High IQ, wonderful. Good on you. But if you can’t inspire those under you, guess what, I’m not going to do my best work for you. I’m going to do my best work for somebody who I respect and knows, respects me. 

Clint Murphy  56:09

Love it. As Steve two minutes to go. Before we wrap this up, we went pretty wide, we went pretty deep, there’s so much more for people to get out of the book. Is there any last parting message you want to leave people with.

Steve Adcock  56:22

I will leave with something that I started with at the very beginning. Regardless of what your goal is, in this case, it was to become a millionaire. But regardless of what your goal is, you have to believe that it can be done, and you can’t forget about that goal. So what I would recommend you do is write on an index card with a big, fat black Sharpie, exactly what your goal is million bucks, or whatever it is make it short and sweet. And paste that sucker tape it up to your fridge, put it on your nightstand, whatever you have to do. So every day you are looking at that you are looking at that goal and say yes, that is why I got up this morning, I am going to do this, I’m going to accomplish this every single day, you keep that in the forefront of your mind. And that’s going to keep you determined that’s going to keep you motivated to continue pushing forward to continue doing your your best work to continue saying yes to some of these opportunities that you might not feel ready for. But you know what you’re doing it. You know, the reason you know the light at the end of the tunnel, if the end of the tunnel is black or dark, you’re not going to go very fast, you’re gonna have no motivation to continue forward. But when you see that little pinprick of light, and especially when it gets bigger, and bigger and bigger, that means you’re getting closer and closer and closer. And when that happens, your energy, your confidence, your motivation just explodes. And that all starts with knowing what your long term goal is, writing it down and keeping it right in front of your face every single day. So you never forget about it.

Clint Murphy  58:12

That was powerful. I love it. Where can people find you my friend,

Steve Adcock  58:16

I am on Twitter or x thanks Elon Musk a lot @Steveonspeed. The on speed part was because I drove a Corvette in a previous life has nothing to do with drugs. I should have changed that handle a long time ago. But I missed the boat on that one. And I have a newsletter called Millionaire Habits, millionaire habits.us is the website for that big big content system over there. So those are the two places that you can find me and I will be pretty active.

Clint Murphy  58:42

All right, my friend. That was a really fun time to talk to you as always, and go about your day and I look forward to catching up and reigniting fired up. Maybe we’ll get you as fired up on the show as we did when we talked about a couple of the topics today like I will remember the law intrapreneurial pimps fire up my friend. Thank you. 

Steve Adcock  59:05

I was ready. Yep, got it. Thank you for having me, Clint. It was an honor and onward and upward my friend. Beauty.