The Top 10 “Money Stories” that Hold Entrepreneurs Back W/Mike Brown | Elite Performance Podcast #46

00:00:00:04 - 00:00:23:22
Itamar Marani
On today's episode, we have Mike Brown. He's a former F-18 pilot and also someone with an 8-figure exit under his belt. And now he's transformed all his knowledge and investment powers into creating an unbreakable wealth program. On this episode, there were some very, very interesting conversations that we talked about. First off, the ten money stories that all entrepreneurs have in some way or another that basically caused subconscious interference and stopped them from having the rich life they really want.

00:00:24:00 - 00:00:42:14
Itamar Marani
We talked about personal examples, what we both saw working with billionaires and interacting with billionaires, what we see in ourselves sometimes, what holds us back, and an exact framework on how you can make sure that you understand what's going on with you. With money stories possibly holding you back from your next level of success. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to today's podcast, everyone.

00:00:42:14 - 00:00:57:06
Itamar Marani
I'm here with Mike Brown. We had Mike on the alumni, he did a workshop, and people really, really liked it so I asked him, "Would you be willing to come on board to share this with everybody else?" And he graciously said yes. So, Mike, thank you for being here. I appreciate you coming on board.

00:00:57:07 - 00:01:04:03
Mike Brown
Well, I appreciate I had a blast in the group. And so looking forward to jammin a little more with you.

00:01:04:05 - 00:01:23:06
Itamar Marani
Cool man. So the thing that honestly, like, wanted me to have this podcast that caused me to want to have this podcast is a little thing you said in your presentation. One of the guys asked you a question. You were like, like really guys in general, there's about ten money stories that all entrepreneurs have. There's ten of them total, like you probably have one.

00:01:23:08 - 00:01:38:04
Itamar Marani
And that's really what I want to talk about today. The main thing like, what are those ten, ten main stories that you think entrepreneurs tell themselves that heard their ability to have a better financial life, acquire more wealth and growth? I'd love for you to share and break that down.

00:01:38:06 - 00:02:01:19
Mike Brown
Yeah, definitely. So the first thing I think I think we back up and talk about what a money story is or why I define it that way. So for me, a money story means a subconscious pattern or or subconscious programing that's running in the background that gives us the illusion of free will, but actually is directing the way we make decisions around money.

00:02:01:19 - 00:02:23:13
Mike Brown
So, you know, a lot of us think that we're making data driven decisions, but in fact, there's something that happened either in our past, in our childhood and or adolescence or even during our adulthood, an entrepreneurial journey. It's actually directing the show. And in it's critical to determine what that programing is and kind of separate fact from fiction when it comes to decision making.

00:02:23:17 - 00:02:42:18
Mike Brown
So at the core of this, really, we're trying to get better at decision making and make more objective decisions. And so when we identify these stories, that allows us to go, Oh yeah, this is that programing showing up again. Here's what the objective data is saying. And I'm not going to let this cloud my judgment. Does that make sense?

00:02:42:20 - 00:02:54:01
Itamar Marani
It does. So basically, you're saying these money stories are telling the block between an entrepreneur and knowing this is the right thing to do and then then being able to actually to do it?

00:02:54:03 - 00:03:18:21
Mike Brown
Yeah, exactly. And what happens a lot of times and so this is all very much kind of from my own journey, right? I didn't discover this by accident. I'm not a researcher. I'm in the trenches, as you mentioned, and really is born of my own experience. And so when I sold my company in 2019, I should have have enough money to never work again.

00:03:18:23 - 00:03:46:15
Mike Brown
And through some, you know, quick financial decisions, I was rapidly deploying my capital into START in the various investments I was building this house, cost overruns started stacking up. I acquired a distressed company and all of a sudden, two years after my exit, when I should have been completely set, I'm more stressed out. I'm I'm, you know, wondering how I'm even going to make it and how I got here.

00:03:46:20 - 00:04:07:10
Mike Brown
Right. Ultimately, after this life changing amount of money. And so I dug into my own subconscious and go, okay, how did I get here? And what are the stories that that caused me to push through here? So, you know, a lot of times we hear now people talk about trauma and money stories could be construed as money trauma.

00:04:07:10 - 00:04:33:09
Mike Brown
But I think that word doesn't get the reverence it deserves. Right. So trauma can be very specific, very bad things that happen to people, but all kinds of stuff happens to us that shapes the way that we relate to the world. Doesn't necessarily have to be a trauma, but it can still imprint a pattern. So when I think about money stories, I'm thinking about how did how did I grow up in relation to money in my town?

00:04:33:11 - 00:04:57:17
Mike Brown
You know, how did my parents relate to money? What did they demonstrate? What did I witness as a kid as it relates to money? And all of that shapes our money stories. And so now to get to your question, after doing this work for several years and talking to hundreds of entrepreneurs, it's it's basically there's only 8 to 10 flavors of the same story over and over.

00:04:57:19 - 00:05:15:14
Mike Brown
And and they kind of range from scarcity to run. And we hear a lot about scarcity in abundance. And if you just have a more abundant mindset, wealth is going to flow to you and money's going to head your way and you just get rid of your scarcity. You know, you're going to eliminate all these blockers and eliminating and limiting beliefs.

00:05:15:14 - 00:05:34:01
Mike Brown
But, you know, I think that those exist on a spectrum and the best place to be is actually neutral because I was incredibly abundant. In fact, I could have used a little scarcity because I was not being a good steward of my wealth. So, you know, when I think about these stories, they they all exist on a spectrum.

00:05:34:03 - 00:05:37:00
Mike Brown
But here's an example. So I think the most common.

00:05:37:00 - 00:05:40:19
Itamar Marani
Before we jump into it, can I just summarize what you said to make sure I'm understanding it correctly?

00:05:41:00 - 00:05:42:06
Mike Brown
Totally.

00:05:42:08 - 00:06:00:22
Itamar Marani
So first off, in regards to like money stories aren't necessarily traumatic, so you just seeing the example that your parents laid out is not traumatic. However, it is example, and that's what your patterning ends up being. Is that correct? That's kind of scary, Yeah. Yeah. And when you say scarcity and abundance are not good terms, but I do remember we said like is in the middle.

00:06:01:00 - 00:06:03:08
Mike Brown
Yes. Just finding neutrality between like neutrality.

00:06:03:08 - 00:06:03:18
Itamar Marani
Yes.

00:06:03:18 - 00:06:22:21
Mike Brown
Yeah. I mean, scarcity is not inherently bad. Abundance is not inherently good, right. We give we are meaning making machines. We give meaning to each of these things, but they just describe a way that we relate to money. And so one thing I hope people do is reframe scarcity as instead of being bad is just like, Hey, I'm a good steward of my wealth.

00:06:22:21 - 00:06:32:17
Mike Brown
I'm a protector of the wealth that I've created and I don't want to be frivolous with it. That's perfectly okay, as long as we're aware where that might show up as a limitation.

00:06:32:18 - 00:06:49:11
Itamar Marani
Question for you, do you think because my initial pang when I hear that stuff is that scarcity and abundance are more like emotional things. I want to be abundant. I want to like I feel scarce. They're not logical, rational, like neutral. I have no emotional attachment to this. This is just a correct action to take, so to speak, to more effect.

00:06:49:11 - 00:06:51:14
Itamar Marani
What exactly are you thinking?

00:06:51:16 - 00:07:11:06
Mike Brown
Yeah, it's it's eliminating the emotion or the or the subconscious interference from making better decision making. So, you know, I want to make objectively good decisions based on data. And our programing keeps us from being able to do that. That's what we're trying to unwind with something that's great.

00:07:11:06 - 00:07:19:03
Itamar Marani
I love that term, eliminating subconscious interference to the great side of it. So yeah, please like share the money story, how that all works on.

00:07:19:05 - 00:07:51:08
Mike Brown
Yeah. So here, here's an example. I think the most common money story that that you see is rich people are evil or money is the root of all evil or something along these lines, right? That having wealth makes you a bad person. And this is one of the oldest and greatest money stories ever told. Right. Think we see references in religious texts thousands and thousands of years ago about, you know, rich people being evil.

00:07:51:10 - 00:08:13:09
Mike Brown
So if we grow up with this idea that rich people are evil, that they must have exploited someone to get their money, that, you know, they don't care about the poor or that, you know, they're selfish, Like, all of these things are ingrained in our society. So what happens is as we grow up and then as we become more successful ourselves, we'll actually start to self-sabotage.

00:08:13:09 - 00:08:33:18
Mike Brown
Because if so, for example, if I grew up listening to my dad every night rail against rich people at the dinner table and how evil they were, if I, if I end up starting a company and start to accumulate wealth, my subconscious will actually do anything in order to avoid being labeled as evil by my dad. Like I am trying to escape judgment from my dad.

00:08:33:18 - 00:08:54:12
Mike Brown
Now, I don't know that I'm doing this on a conscious level, but you know, the way this manifests is like me, like emptying my bank account as soon as money would hit it, right? Because there's this subconscious idea that if I start to accumulate a great amount of wealth, my friends are going to judge me. My family's going to judge me like people around me are going to leave me.

00:08:54:12 - 00:09:08:22
Mike Brown
They're going to think I'm selfish. And so that results in self-sabotage judging behavior unless we can kind of identify where those things came from and reframe that to neutral as said, remove that emotion.

00:09:09:00 - 00:09:31:00
Itamar Marani
That's money store number one, that too much money is evil. And the way that kind of works is that we all have our preferences, our subconscious preferences, and most of us prefer to be loved by our tribe than make more money. So if we think we're at risk of being loved by our tribe because we're going to make a lot of money, we make ourselves paranoid in order to not lose ever that really?

00:09:31:01 - 00:09:50:07
Mike Brown
Yeah. And it may not. All of these exists on a spectrum, so it may not result in, you know, emptying our bank accounts and going back to poverty in this extreme example. But one way it definitely shows up is don't be too showy. If you're if you're showing off your money, you're rubbing more people space in it, you know, these kind of things.

00:09:50:07 - 00:10:11:22
Mike Brown
So there is this really strong drive by society to kind of stay within inside the lines and make sure that you're not going off into territory that's going to make others uncomfortable. And so that's where this rich people are evil comes from. It's like, hey, we want you to be successful but not too successful because that's going to start making other people uncomfortable.

00:10:12:00 - 00:10:30:23
Itamar Marani
Question for you, because what you're saying here's an example that for your example that you got really successful and they didn't feel comfortable with that level of success. What I've also seen with a lot of entrepreneurs is that they actually stop themselves from getting successful. Is that the same the same angle, so to speak? But people take it differently, so to speak.

00:10:31:00 - 00:10:39:21
Itamar Marani
Why do you think that is that you give yourself permission to find success but then weren't comfortable with it. And some people don't even give themselves version to find that success. What's the difference here?

00:10:39:21 - 00:11:06:09
Mike Brown
So it's a great question and I think one of the core drivers that we have to work through with entrepreneurs because we'll only ever allow ourselves to be as successful as we feel we deserve. And that might be different for everybody. And these different money stories contribute to how much success is enough, right? And so all of us at some point will typically bump up against that limitation.

00:11:06:11 - 00:11:23:22
Mike Brown
Somebody it might be $1 million for somebody else. It might be $100 million. But at some point, these are going to start wearing their ugly head. And again, based on how we were raised or, you know, what our parents were talking about and how they related to money, that's going to start manifesting. And they also fall in a different category.

00:11:23:22 - 00:12:02:08
Mike Brown
So so, you know, we talk about money is evil or rich people are evil. That's kind of a guilt or a deserving or worthiness type story. And another one is I don't deserve what I have. And this this really comes from people who grow up with wealth or inherit wealth relative to those around them. So what happens is, you know, imagine and you know, I spoke to a client recently who grew up in a relatively poor country and his parents were relatively well-off compared to those around them.

00:12:02:08 - 00:12:27:06
Mike Brown
So they had servants, they had a lot of help. And at six years old, he's looking around. He's seeing, you know, the kids of the servants versus his life. And he realizes there's this just distinct difference in how they're being treated and his child brain is going, well. I didn't do anything different than that. Right. Like at six years old, you don't understand what the difference is or where this came from.

00:12:27:08 - 00:12:51:14
Mike Brown
So that's the beginning of this guilt of I don't deserve this money. And so that's why we see a lot of self-sabotaging behavior come from like second or third generation wealth. If they feel that they didn't do anything to earn the money or, you know, another one, you know, work hard, you'll be successful. Like, you know, anything worth having is worth working hard for, right?

00:12:51:15 - 00:13:17:01
Mike Brown
Well, if they didn't work hard for their money now, we don't deserve that money right. And what's what's interesting is that some of these are true, right? Like, so you are going to feel judgment if you inherit a lot of money from society, like people. People don't like that. Like they they they're envious. Exactly. So so some of these are actually real.

00:13:17:01 - 00:13:23:12
Mike Brown
Some of them are manufactured by the subconscious, but some of these actually do exist. And we have to figure out how to navigate.

00:13:23:14 - 00:13:44:16
Itamar Marani
Yeah, this is really interesting because as you know, I used to work as head of security for a billionaire, so I spent a lot of time in Monaco and St Barts and all these really, really, really wealthy areas, the most wealthy areas in the world. And I would see so many of the kids there would just be trying to do anything to escape their lives, whether it's drugs, drinking or whatever it would be.

00:13:44:16 - 00:14:01:17
Itamar Marani
And I didn't understand that at the time because they didn't have that emotional lexicon, but they were just trying to find a way to blunt that feeling of guilt, like, how can I escape from this emotion? And it was so visible that like they don't like something feels off. So they have to posture. They're very like nobody there seemed relaxed.

00:14:01:17 - 00:14:08:13
Itamar Marani
They were very on edge and there was so much drugs and so much drinking because they just wanted to run away from how they felt about stuff.

00:14:08:15 - 00:14:30:05
Mike Brown
Yeah, and it makes sense, right? Like, you know, when I talk about this, a lot of times people are like, Oh, boo hoo, poor, rich kid. But like, that's a real problem. You're born into this thing that you didn't ask for and now, you know, everywhere you go. So here's a great example I was I was running one of my retreats and we're talking about money stories.

00:14:30:05 - 00:14:48:22
Mike Brown
And there's a girl who goes, Yeah, but what about Kylie Jenner? Like Kylie Jenner just burns me up, right? Like she's on the cover of all these magazines. As a self-made billionaire, there's nothing self-made about Kylie Jenner like everything she has because of her family. And that just pisses me off because I've had to work for everything that I am.

00:14:49:00 - 00:14:52:00
Mike Brown
I was like, Whoa. Okay, well, let me ask you a question.

00:14:52:00 - 00:14:53:17
Itamar Marani
Reactions.

00:14:53:18 - 00:15:18:09
Mike Brown
Oh, yeah, it's it's yeah, yeah. We have these intense reactions, so. Okay, what would she have had to do to deserve that money? And she thought about it for a little while. She said nothing. There's nothing that she could do to deserve. And then I asked her another question, which is, What would you have to do to deserve that amount of money?

00:15:18:11 - 00:15:48:15
Mike Brown
And there was just silence. And then I'm telling the story to another client a few weeks later, and I tell him I get to the part about Kylie Jenner and how there's nothing that she could do to deserve that money. And he says, I felt that every single day in my life, because this client was the son of a billionaire and he had taken what he inherited from his family and he had generated a massive amount of returns with that money.

00:15:48:15 - 00:16:14:09
Mike Brown
He he worked in private equity. He was on fund number for, you know, nine figures, ten figures of profits, return on assets, working 18 hour weeks for years on end. He was completely burnt out. And the reason he was doing all of that was because every day he could feel the judgment of every person around him, that there was nothing he could do to earn that money.

00:16:14:11 - 00:16:37:01
Mike Brown
And so, you know, I asked him if you couldn't do what you're doing now, what would you do? And he he had this whole life planned out. He was going to move to his ranch and ride horses with his kids to all of this stuff. He was only in this whole world of private equity in building these massive funds because he felt this this heavy weight since he was a kid and.

00:16:37:06 - 00:16:41:01
Itamar Marani
Needed to prove it in some way, basically themselves forever maybe.

00:16:41:03 - 00:16:56:22
Mike Brown
Right. And, you know, it's really difficult to to put ourselves in that position if we weren't raised in that position. But, you know, what I've really found is like, what a weight, what what a heaviness to be born worth is something that you didn't ask. Now.

00:16:57:00 - 00:17:13:06
Itamar Marani
So this really interesting, I want to ask a kind of a different question before I move on, because this word I don't deserve what I have are doing drinks. And those are the times I see entrepreneurs. I don't deserve to have that kind of connection to the rich people. You know, I don't want to be one of that and I don't deserve that.

00:17:13:08 - 00:17:29:23
Itamar Marani
So they keep themselves small. And a workaround that I found that's very interesting is that you take the whole deserve out of the equation. But just saying or is it somehow for some reason it's a more logical thing, like have you earned it? Yes or no? Can you build this company? Can you grow this company? Then you'll earn the cash returns from it.

00:17:29:23 - 00:17:47:06
Itamar Marani
That's it. And deserve. Like you said, it has a lot of religious connotation. They got a lot of more like deeper. What does that actually mean deserve? Nobody can quantify that and is wondering what are your thoughts on that use of or not deserve? Like is it harmful? What are your workarounds? I use earn a lot because I find that simplifies things.

00:17:47:08 - 00:17:52:06
Itamar Marani
People come back. Oh yeah. If I earn it, then yes, I can have that money. That's fine. But this is a bit weird.

00:17:52:08 - 00:18:23:06
Mike Brown
And this is this is when I. When I work with these specific clients. This, this word comes into a lot because, number one, again, there's nothing we can do to deserve to be born a billionaire. Right? Using that word. At the same time, we all inherently deserve to be wealthy and happy by nature of who we are. Think the gifts of the universe that are bestowed upon us like we all deserve all of the happiness and and wealth in the world.

00:18:23:08 - 00:18:43:04
Mike Brown
And so deserving like like you just pointed out, is a is a really loaded emotional word. And at the same time, you know, urn probably falls in there a little bit because it falls into this idea of like you have to work for what you have and it's only you only get it if you if it's attached to work.

00:18:43:06 - 00:19:04:08
Mike Brown
Right. But like as we and this is really interesting, like as we move forward as a society with the rise of machine learning and AI and robotics and like all of these things, like we might start seeing jobs disappear at the rapid rate where now all of a sudden nobody has to work. So nobody deserves money because we have basically automation taking care of all the internet.

00:19:04:08 - 00:19:25:04
Mike Brown
So so like we're going to have to answer this question is society that, hey, you only deserve what you have if you've worked hard. And this was one of my like, deep stories that, that I kind of had to unwind because, you know, when I started my first business, my investment firm, we were in a really good place at a really good time.

00:19:25:04 - 00:19:59:06
Mike Brown
We were we just got in right at the start of the boom in in oil and gas in the Permian Basin. And in many ways, you know, yes, we made good decisions with the information that we had. But rising tide lifts all boats and like we were very successful very quickly. And so years later, as I as I was diving in to why I was, you know, had this high risk, high reward mindset, I found that kind of at the core of it, I felt like I didn't deserve the money because I had made so much so quickly and didn't have to work hard in the traditional sense in order to get that money.

00:19:59:06 - 00:20:20:11
Mike Brown
You know, I worked smart. I took a lot of risk and made good decisions. But, you know, I wasn't I didn't put ten years of hundred hour weeks and to then finally find the success. And we love that entrepreneurial hero's journey, right? Like, oh, yeah, no, you know, he he started in a garage and had nothing. And he and he, you know, he goes on this hero's journey arc and like, okay, cool.

00:20:20:11 - 00:20:33:14
Mike Brown
Like, we're all fine with that. If that guy earns money or gets a massive amount of wealth, we're we're great, right? But like, what if the business takes off in the first year and all of a sudden it's an overnight success? Like we we're not quite as comfortable.

00:20:33:16 - 00:20:36:21
Itamar Marani
Why do you think that is? I have my theory right. What do you think that is?

00:20:36:23 - 00:20:59:01
Mike Brown
Yeah, I mean, I think number one, I love the four agreements. Like, don't take it personally. It's not about it's not about that person. It's about the inadequacies and the insecurities of the person, you know, doing the judging right? If we see someone with something that we don't have or that we possibly want, we make up a story as to why they're evil or why they didn't.

00:20:59:03 - 00:21:07:02
Mike Brown
They didn't work hard to get that. And and then it makes us feel better about our lack, essentially. Yep, yep.

00:21:07:04 - 00:21:30:05
Itamar Marani
Yep. I agree with that. But before we move on, I wanted to ask, I think this was very interesting that you said I didn't want to cut you off, though. You said that like we all deserve wealth because of the universe. I remember exactly the words and all that kind of dress, which is probably very, very different than how both you and I were taught in the military in the background, like I'm from the Navy, you don't deserve shit or my name was that was always something they would say You don't deserve anything.

00:21:30:09 - 00:21:49:03
Itamar Marani
You have to earn everything. That's how it works. And I'm curious because that must have been a shift somewhere along the way that you chose. I'm going to think this way. How did that happen? Why did that happen? Why do you feel like that's a better, more effective, let's call it money story than just saying like, we don't deserve anything.

00:21:49:03 - 00:21:53:01
Itamar Marani
You need to earn what you are. That's how the world works. No one's you're undeserving.

00:21:53:03 - 00:22:17:18
Mike Brown
And that's that's such a good question. And if you think about it, that's a really effective way for the military to manage people and to get performance out of TV up. Right. So military has one objective, right? And that is to kill people and break things and use you as a tool to do that. And so, you know, our military training is really effective for creating that result.

00:22:17:20 - 00:22:37:01
Mike Brown
But it's not necessarily effective for creating a great human on the back side. And that's why we see, you know, whether it's it's labeled as PTSD or that's why we see a lot of these things manifest later, is because we get really efficient with exactly what the military asked us to do. But then once we leave, there's no rehabilitation program.

00:22:37:01 - 00:22:42:19
Mike Brown
We go and, hey, all this stuff that you shut down here, it's got to go somewhere. And I know you're deeply familiar with.

00:22:42:19 - 00:22:59:09
Itamar Marani
That, right? Yeah. Like what I've noticed, it doesn't create a sense of agency in individuals how to live a better life. I think we, like you and I are probably like and I know a lot of people from the Special forces, from the agency. I also met a lot of British like S.d.s or Navy SEALs when I was working for the Billionaire.

00:22:59:11 - 00:23:11:15
Itamar Marani
We're probably two of the wealthiest financially, the most successful financial people that I know that come out of that. There's a reason for that. But yeah, I'd love for you to dig into the I think this is so interesting as you change your money story. This is very clear.

00:23:11:17 - 00:23:35:02
Mike Brown
Yes. So, you know, after I got out of the Navy, I went and, you know, work for a mentor in my hometown and then eventually started my own company. And I was forced to change because all of a sudden I was thrown into this world of wealth and success and, you know, even though I always dreamed of starting my own company and becoming rich and successful, like when it came, I had to go.

00:23:35:02 - 00:24:03:06
Mike Brown
I had to start unwinding some of this stuff. And and so, you know, essentially I had to uncouple the idea that money was tied to hard work because my money was tied to smart investment decisions. The smarter the the that I deployed, the smarter I was when I deployed my capital, the more money I would make. And sometimes those decisions only took 15 minutes.

00:24:03:08 - 00:24:19:05
Mike Brown
It might take six months of searching, like when I make a decision, Hey, you know, this is a 15 minute decision. My outcome is not tied to how hard, you know, if I if I work twice as hard looking at a deal, it doesn't really change the outcome. Right. It's is this a good deal or is it not?

00:24:19:07 - 00:24:47:22
Mike Brown
So, you know, I think the purest form of this would be like a Wall Street trader who, yeah, they can work hard doing research and all of that. But really they're making split decisions using the data and their return can be completely outsized the amount of work that they put in. So it really brought this kind of idea of like work hard, you'll be successful front and center for me because I was decoupled from that that that hard work like I was I was making smart decisions were bad decisions.

00:24:47:22 - 00:24:50:05
Mike Brown
Right. And losing a lot of money.

00:24:50:07 - 00:25:08:08
Itamar Marani
So going back, helping again, get to the point where, like, we all deserve to have financial success, because I like when you said that it was like something in me. It was like, I don't like that doesn't make sense to me. I don't align with that. And I'm curious because obviously I respect your opinion on this. I'm curious why you think that that's a more I view you let's put it this way.

00:25:08:08 - 00:25:25:14
Itamar Marani
I view you as a very rational individual, a very logical one, and you very results are usually when people say everyone deserves everything, it's a kind of fluffy, you know, like everyone deserves who they all sit in, like a circle by themselves and the flowers and have a good time, though I'd love to hear your perspective on this because it's not.

00:25:25:14 - 00:25:29:17
Itamar Marani
We usually hear from someone who's as pragmatic as you are.

00:25:29:19 - 00:26:00:14
Mike Brown
Yeah, this this is is a much deeper conversation, but kind of would play into, you know, going on this healing journey and diving into not only, you know, trauma work, the therapy and and psychedelics and PTSD and like learning about all of that, but also diving into meditation and Buddhism and the spiritual world and and kind of understanding that we all have a higher self and we are separated from that self by your nature of existing in this world.

00:26:00:18 - 00:26:33:04
Mike Brown
And like the, the only constant for humans is self, and that's suffering keeps us from being able to access our higher self. So everyone's highest self deserves wealth and freedom and abundance and joy, but our actions aren't necessarily aligned with our higher self. So to me, our mission here on Earth is to figure out how we can align our actions and how we can become the best version of ourselves in order to bring ourselves in alignment with that best version of ourselves that makes sense.

00:26:33:04 - 00:26:53:04
Mike Brown
So I'm not saying that people who are lazy or people who are, you know, immoral or any of that like deserve money in their current state, but their highest self, they're their best self does deserve wealth and freedom. And so it's up to them to go on the path of finding that version of the self. Does that make sense?

00:26:53:06 - 00:27:06:11
Itamar Marani
Let me try to articulate it in a different way and see if I'm understanding correctly. You're basically saying everyone is worthy of financial success if they do the right things to put themselves in alignment with the best version of himself, to make it.

00:27:06:13 - 00:27:30:12
Mike Brown
Yeah, we can either choose to stay in our pain and wallow in victimhood and misery, or we can choose to do the hard work and go on the path of personal development and introspection and, you know, making the hard moves that eventually result in, you know, becoming that best version of ourselves. Like, it's not easy. Yeah, it's not easy for me.

00:27:30:18 - 00:27:46:02
Itamar Marani
That makes it like I connect with that. Like if you're saying everyone can be worthy of it, if they decide to take the actions to make themselves to that level, to get to that level. But yes, absolutely. Yeah, I wanted to clarify that. That makes sense of what I'm saying, how you resonate with you.

00:27:46:04 - 00:28:10:22
Mike Brown
Yeah. And I'm I'm willing to have a difference of opinion on it. But, you know, I do think that there that that consciousness and our nature of existence is is a divine gift. And we all have the choice of what do we do with that. And it's it's unfortunate that so many people on this planet are stuck in suffering and wonder duty.

00:28:10:22 - 00:28:14:00
Mike Brown
That is just it's one life.

00:28:14:02 - 00:28:25:17
Itamar Marani
They're coming. Well said. All right. So we got number one. Rich people are able to. I don't deserve what I have around. Gilbert Yeah. What are the next ones?

00:28:25:19 - 00:28:44:13
Mike Brown
So we actually we have already uncovered one, which is money requires hard work. Right? This is this is kind of tied to that hustle, that grind and their shame if we if we don't have to work hard for money. And then another one, this goes back to what you said is like, hey, just this idea of self-sabotaging. We're all familiar with the fear of failure.

00:28:44:13 - 00:29:06:09
Mike Brown
Hey, I'm going to start this company. I'm going to work my ass off so that I don't fail publicly. Like, that's really scary. But fear of success is actually a little more insidious, Right? Which is I'll do just enough to get by or be just successful enough, but I'm not going to really swing for the fences because I'm afraid of that judgment of peers, of family, of people I grew up with.

00:29:06:09 - 00:29:34:03
Mike Brown
Like, you know, we are really tied to our tribe and we're terrified of being an outcast. And the more we separate ourselves from the people that we came up with, the more scary that feeling is and the more we have to face that fear of success. So, you know, that's a really prevalent one with with entrepreneurs. And like I mentioned earlier, it doesn't matter if that limit for you is a million or 100 million, everyone's going to bump up against that limit, that self-imposed limit.

00:29:34:05 - 00:29:55:13
Mike Brown
And it's really how do we transition to the other side of of that self-imposed upper limits problems there. Gay Hendricks had a great book about this called The Big Leap, which is yeah, exactly like how do we transition when we start to bump up against the limits of our success? How do we how do we take that that leap to use his language to the other side?

00:29:55:15 - 00:30:00:16
Mike Brown
And it really isn't identifying where that limit is coming from.

00:30:00:18 - 00:30:15:18
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I want to talk a little, but I think it's so interesting. So the fear of success, the fear of failure, I think it's easy for people to support you. Oh, you're not feeling good about yourself. Like, let's prop you up. Fear of success, like you're already doing better than us and you're, like, not comfortable doing even better.

00:30:15:18 - 00:30:33:13
Itamar Marani
It's like that, Does it? Like, I don't care. Go, go, go to hell. You know? I mean, it's like, so to speak, like. Yeah, exactly. Boo Better said, like, boo hoo. And I think that's challenging because it's hard for people to get support from their old circle. About your old circle will support you if fear of failure because you're in a weak position.

00:30:33:15 - 00:30:52:07
Itamar Marani
But when you're in a strong position and you say, I'm like, Oh, I'm not getting even three times stronger financially than you guys are, people will usually have that response to who. And I think that's why a lot of entrepreneurs like it's it's hard for them to deal with the fear of success because they can't really talk to it with anyone.

00:30:52:09 - 00:31:05:17
Itamar Marani
They can only talk about their fear of failure. They can talk about it with your mom, with your dad, with their siblings, with their friends. That's something other people can empathize, but it's hard for other people to empathize with the fact that you're already successful. You're afraid to be even more successful.

00:31:05:18 - 00:31:27:16
Mike Brown
Yeah, I would actually back it up one step further. Most entrepreneurs, when they first hear about your success, go, Oh, that's not me. That's not how I don't try to win on myself. That's that's definitely not me. Right? And it's only after you start really diving into conversation and winning some of these things out. There you go. Oh, the light bulb comes on and they go, Wow, I might have been limiting myself.

00:31:27:16 - 00:32:02:09
Mike Brown
And, you know, I think about this all the time, like, you know, especially for what's, let's say, like above average intelligence, because like, like school was always pretty easy for me. And so, you know, I was always afraid to play Fall Out. And Elliot Row actually has a great he talks about here is like if you talk if you were told your whole life that you can do anything you put your mind to because you're so smart, then you will make sure that's the case.

00:32:02:11 - 00:32:31:02
Mike Brown
You will also try to do things that you know you can succeed at, which is a very insidious form playing small. So like when I even when I think about my first company, like I made a lot of money, it felt really good. But there's a part of me that knows, like if I had had that governor, that fear of success off, like I could have made ten times what I made if I was really swinging for the fences and I was completely unafraid of what that would mean and what that and if I was completely unafraid of of failure.

00:32:31:02 - 00:32:39:18
Mike Brown
Right. So that's where the fear of success or failure kind of marry up is. We'll try things, but only things we really know we can be good at.

00:32:39:20 - 00:32:43:22
Itamar Marani
I have a question for you, if I may like some coaching out of you. Well.

00:32:44:00 - 00:32:44:12
Mike Brown
Yeah.

00:32:44:14 - 00:33:03:06
Itamar Marani
So my situation is this that I grew up in like the upper upper middle class and I was always comfortable with the idea with it's a Jewish mother that always tells you you can be whatever you want to be or whatever it may be that I'm going to be extremely successful. I always knew, like I always had that inherited belief in myself.

00:33:03:08 - 00:33:30:18
Itamar Marani
My wife, however, she grew up in a very different environment, like her parents, like they tried to grow their business. They owned a bunch of laundromats, they tried to grow it, and in 2008 they were at the wrong time. They overstretched and they got bankrupt because of it. They lost everything. And what I noticed a lot of times with her and she's very aware of it, is that as I've kind of ascended financially in this career of entrepreneurship, it feels unstable to her like this rise because she associates out with, okay, this is going to be that.

00:33:30:20 - 00:33:54:09
Itamar Marani
And she's a phenomenal individual on all levels. And she's aware that what's going on and she doesn't like when we're flying businesses that she has a little bit of like discomfort, almost like what was supposed to happen. And she definitely was extremely aware and extremely conscious that she doesn't try to bring that on to me. She knows she doesn't want to put that limitation on me to try to slow me down for her emotional core, but it's obviously still there.

00:33:54:11 - 00:34:02:01
Itamar Marani
What are your thoughts around that? How would a spouse because it's not just entrepreneur himself, but a spouse sometimes, how do you deal with those kind of dynamics?

00:34:02:03 - 00:34:25:22
Mike Brown
Yeah, So what I talk about is a personal development. And the first step you've already identified is awareness. She's she's aware that this pattern is coming up and, and it makes sense, right? Like our brains are pattern matching machines. So when she was growing up, she saw as her parents reached this height of success, it was all taken away.

00:34:26:00 - 00:34:42:10
Mike Brown
So what happens this idea gets imprinted on our brain. When we reach the height of success, it all gets taken away, right? So that's going to keep us from pushing, and it's designed to keep us safe. So way I like to think of it is like Marie Kondo, like, thank you for your service. You've kept me safe up until this point.

00:34:42:12 - 00:34:59:19
Mike Brown
But now I no longer need this pattern in place in order to keep you safe. I'm actually ready to move on to a new higher version of myself. Right. So the second step on the loop is insight. So, okay, now we know where this came from. We know that it came from this 28 crash, and we know that's the place we're actually going back to.

00:34:59:21 - 00:35:22:16
Mike Brown
Step three is action. Okay. So now when I when I'm aware of this pattern, I know where it's coming from. What is the action that I can take in the moment in order to re pattern this thing? And this can go from kind of emotional like identifying the feelings in your body and going, hey, you know, you know, how old is this is how is this how I felt during 2008 when I saw this crash?

00:35:22:22 - 00:35:43:10
Mike Brown
It can go all the way to like practical me may break out my personal network spreadsheet. I can go, okay, here's all the investments that I have that are keeping me safe in the case of Crash. Right? And maybe it's a combination of both. So there's all kinds of actions that we can take. And the more we do that, we begin to pattern our brain so that eventually we no longer have that feeling coming up.

00:35:43:11 - 00:36:02:23
Mike Brown
And that's that's integration. That's the kind of last step in the cycle. But then it's actually a loop because we always need to maintain that awareness even after we've integrated these actions enough times that it becomes second nature, that pattern can still come back and rears its ugly head. And we see this all the time is like, Oh man, I thought I was over that or I thought I healed that, or I thought I got rid of that.

00:36:03:01 - 00:36:09:10
Mike Brown
And the fact is like, we probably never really get rid of it. We just become faster at identifying it and snapping out of it.

00:36:09:12 - 00:36:27:01
Itamar Marani
Yeah, like we have expression here on that same lady, but in a different dress. It is going to keep following you for your life. Like to be aware of that, but indiscriminate. So to summarize to the way what I heard from you right now is that it's similar to how you graduated from one Montessori to the next. It's about graduating from money source.

00:36:27:03 - 00:36:49:08
Itamar Marani
That's a theme I recognize in how you speak. And it's like first being aware, like this is a money story I need to graduate from then thank you for how it's served you and understanding also where it can still serve you, perhaps with context. Now this is a black and white thing, which is really crucial. And then taking the action to repair, whether it's being aware of like, okay, what happens to my body that caused me to revert or just having a tactical awareness like how you set the spreadsheet?

00:36:49:12 - 00:36:59:14
Itamar Marani
This is actually just an imagination thing. This a subconscious interference, like you said, instead of a lack of logical response. And then the integration and the awareness. That's kind of the loop that.

00:36:59:14 - 00:37:07:22
Mike Brown
Correct? Yeah, you nailed it. I need you as my air and note taking device. You summarize things really go ahead.

00:37:07:22 - 00:37:15:06
Itamar Marani
Right. So we got four money stories so far. Rich people are evil. I don't deserve what I have because guilt money requires hard work and the fear of success.

00:37:15:07 - 00:37:43:12
Mike Brown
Yeah. All right. So another one is manifested in this idea of, like, risk and worthiness. So the money stories here are I'm irresponsible with money. I make bad decisions. I don't worry about money. And then, you know, my self-worth is my net worth. All of these things can result in like, compulsive spending, you know, materialism, self-sabotage, taking excessive risk.

00:37:43:14 - 00:38:07:09
Mike Brown
And all of this you know, so I can kind of give you my own journey of risk, which is basically I grew up squarely middle class, but there was five kids and there was certainly not enough money to go around. And you you know, I watched my parents fight every night of my life. And my parents only thought about one thing, money, money.

00:38:07:11 - 00:38:32:04
Mike Brown
Right. And so as a child, I'm watching this and I go, okay, I'm going to make so much money that I never have to worry about this. I don't want this for myself. So I'm going to make enough money where I don't have to fight with my spouse every night about money. And that really works, right? Like like if I'm going to choose a money story to have, like, that's that's one that really serves me and drives me to go to the Naval Academy.

00:38:32:06 - 00:38:55:04
Mike Brown
And, you know, start a business and all of the things that I eventually did. But at some point that becomes a limitation. So here's how it manifested for me as a limitation is I'm not going to worry about money means I'm not going to be responsible with money or I'm not going to respect me. Right. So so being responsible became equated with worrying about money in my brain.

00:38:55:06 - 00:39:10:07
Mike Brown
And so now I just had this easy come, easy go mentality of like, you know, the money rolls in, I can invest it or spend it just as quick as it comes in. And, you know, I'm always going to have more. And so that resulted in this really high risk, high reward self-sabotaging type behavior.

00:39:10:09 - 00:39:27:07
Itamar Marani
So if I may. So basically what you're saying is that you kind of like your coping mechanism, the money being like you equated money equals stress, worrying about money, thinking about money, stress, the coping mechanisms. Going to close my eyes, not look at it, and then everything won't be stressful, correct? Yeah, yeah.

00:39:27:09 - 00:39:48:03
Mike Brown
That's it. Like, hey, I'm I'm smart. I can just go make more. If I lose all this. That's okay. I'll just I'll just go make more. Again. Super beneficial for an entrepreneur to have until it becomes a limitation. Right. And that's and that's exactly what happened with all of these stories or all of these patterns is that they can really drive us to our success.

00:39:48:05 - 00:40:16:20
Mike Brown
So one of the things people ask me about when they step into this work is what if I lose my edge? And my answer is, if your edge is built around one of these stories or around one of these traumas, like you might lose your edge temporarily. But then what happens is we free up space to create a new act, to create a new way to use our gifts and talents that isn't driven by fear, but it's driven by a more abundant or more creative place.

00:40:16:20 - 00:40:23:08
Mike Brown
Because we've replaced old programing superior product, we've graduate, as you said it really like that.

00:40:23:10 - 00:40:43:12
Itamar Marani
Question for you, because when when you said about that, it's a really good trait for entrepreneurs to have that kind of like, let's go for it, just swing back, whatever may be the where I initially thought you were going to go with this is you weren't going to say, okay, let's let's temper that instead. Let's contextualize. Let's recognize this is a really good offensive trick.

00:40:43:14 - 00:40:59:17
Itamar Marani
This is not a good defensive trait. And you need to understand when you're on offense and when you're in defense. Because what was interesting to me when you did the workshop for the for our group, we talked a lot about risk. And like you said, okay, guys, you're the business is the thing that you actually know and gives you a lot of returns.

00:40:59:18 - 00:41:19:09
Itamar Marani
So when you're investing, you're other castle. Things are low risk and things that you don't have to go crazy about. And I would wonder, like your perspective on that and not necessarily taming something, but contextualizing and saying, okay, this is something going to use on the offense and this is a money story that I'm going to use on defense posture and being able to differentiate between having that awareness.

00:41:19:11 - 00:41:27:23
Mike Brown
I love that you're you're exactly right. Like, we have to shift our mentality at some point from being an accumulator of wealth to a defender of wealth because.

00:41:28:00 - 00:41:42:02
Itamar Marani
You think so. Just to dive in and I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I think it's really how do you feel like that's a binary we have to shift or is it a constant day to day, like when I'm in the office between 8 to 5 and then when I'm doing my wealth management in the afternoon, whatever, You.

00:41:42:04 - 00:42:06:18
Mike Brown
Know, I think it exists on a spectrum. So, you know, if we look at accumulated wealth over here in Defender over here, the more money we make, the more we start needing to shift along that spectrum. Like at some point, if you sit for hundreds of millions of dollars, like now, your primary concern is defense. But as you build maybe it's 70, 30, maybe at some point it becomes 5050, Right?

00:42:06:18 - 00:42:25:06
Mike Brown
So so it's a process, but it's just like, you know, when you when you look at being a startup CEO versus a scaling CEO, like a startup CEO, where's all the hats? They're scrappy. They they do whatever it takes, burn the boats. But at some point, if you're scaling a ten, 30, $50 Million company, like you can't wear all the hats anymore, that's going to break your company.

00:42:25:06 - 00:42:45:09
Mike Brown
Like you have to learn how to delegate and become a new version of that CEO. And the same thing goes with personal finance. Like like when I was just starting out, like with swing for the fences, like, let's go all in. There's, there's I have very little to lose so I can take massive risk because it's just going to, you know, I don't have anything to lose.

00:42:45:09 - 00:43:08:00
Mike Brown
But once I have something to lose, now I've got to think about how am I going to defend that. And and so for entrepreneurs, when I talk about this, this risk cycle is if you have a business that is that is growing or headed in a positive direction, you already have a vehicle and like you already have something that you can invest in that is going to grow faster than any other single investment.

00:43:08:00 - 00:43:34:01
Mike Brown
You can make something that you understand. It's a known quantity. So this is the best return that you can possibly get is investing in your business. But at some point it makes to start taking some money out of that business. So all of our eggs aren't concentrated in that one basket. But as we're taking money out of the business, our tendency is to do the exact same thing that we've been doing, which is risk at all, and go go all in on risky things.

00:43:34:02 - 00:43:59:22
Mike Brown
Right? But that money should actually be used to create safe, so kept in very liquid assets. Maybe it's a high yield savings account, which seemed to me five years ago. That seems super boring, but I could have a little a few boring investments, right? Because I was always swinging for the fences. And that's kind of how I wound up in that, in that stressful, cash strapped situation, because I didn't need any more home runs.

00:44:00:03 - 00:44:19:05
Mike Brown
I needed some singles. That's it. And so, you know, if we have a vehicle to beat the market, that's where our risk should all be concentrated. Everything else should be used to hedge risk and create safety in case all of a sudden this primary business faces headwinds, economic downturn. Like there are things that I do that are out of our control that can happen to our business.

00:44:19:06 - 00:44:24:23
Mike Brown
We want to be prepared in that case. And that's where this kind of idea of the safety net comes to me.

00:44:25:04 - 00:44:31:15
Itamar Marani
That's your barbell strategy for entrepreneurs. So people actually have something already inherently risky in their portfolio, which is their business.

00:44:31:17 - 00:44:32:21
Mike Brown
Exactly.

00:44:32:23 - 00:44:49:22
Itamar Marani
That makes a lot of sense. Cool. I mean, so we got one rich people are able to I don't deserve what I have. Money requires hard work. Three for fear of success. Five I'm irresponsible with money. Six My self-worth is my net worth. And seven I don't need to worry about money. Yep.

00:44:50:00 - 00:45:17:19
Mike Brown
That's that. So the the last ones is kind of rooted in safety. So, you know, there will never be enough. Right. And I've got an example. You know, at my at my first retreat, there was two guys there. One had just or one was making $60 million a year and spending 17 million. Right. He's on he's on the high risk, high reward.

00:45:17:21 - 00:45:37:20
Mike Brown
You know, I'm not going to worry about money. The other guy just sold his company for $60 million. It was all in a savings account. He hadn't made a single investment. He didn't buy himself a new pair of shoes, a new a new car. And he was still working 80 hours a week. And he told us that his greatest fear was that he couldn't send his kids to college.

00:45:37:22 - 00:46:04:05
Mike Brown
Right. And and literally, we all may laugh at that, but, you know, deeply ingrained is like there is not no amount of money will be enough to create safety. And so, you know, who knows where that where those stories come from. But, you know, again, if you if you saw your parents at the height of their success, lose everything overnight, you know that that's where a lot of these lack of safety type stories start to be down.

00:46:04:05 - 00:46:29:10
Mike Brown
So, you know, there will never be enough kind of results in frugality or there's another guy, you know, tens of millions of dollars in the bank like like very, very successful entrepreneurs. And we were we were getting ice cream one day and they and he asked for some toppings. I think he asked for chocolate chips. And a person goes, okay, well, that's going to be extra.

00:46:29:10 - 00:46:53:13
Mike Brown
And he was like, Oh, never mind that. Right? And he's like, it's like $0.75. And he's like, Yeah, you know, But we see this all the time. Like, like they're like, we don't allow ourselves to enjoy the wealth that we have because we're, we're caught up on this in this frugality or lack of safety. And it leads to this hoarding behavior and this can be passed down like generationally and.

00:46:53:13 - 00:47:18:08
Mike Brown
Right. Like, I mean, we see a lot of of people whose grandparents were in the Depression or in the Holocaust, like there is a lot of real trauma that is passed down generationally. It's like frugality is very, very important culturally. People that survived those events. So it may not even be something happened to us. It could have happened to our ancestors, and it's just been passed down.

00:47:18:08 - 00:47:19:17
Mike Brown
Generational.

00:47:19:19 - 00:47:40:11
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I think there's something here that's really interesting, and I can see somebody in the audience like listening to something that's more effective, that's a more effective way of getting more wealth and the reality is that might be true. But I think what you're talking about here that people really resonate with, it's not just about accumulating wealth. Wealth is a means to an end in itself.

00:47:40:13 - 00:47:47:16
Itamar Marani
And if you can't enjoy the chocolate chips on your ice cream because that's your goal, you're probably missing you know, you're missing the trees for the forest.

00:47:47:18 - 00:47:51:05
Mike Brown
It's a poverty mindset. Doesn't matter much money you have. Right?

00:47:51:07 - 00:47:53:00
Itamar Marani
Exactly. And I think that's a really poor thing.

00:47:53:01 - 00:48:04:23
Mike Brown
I recommend chocolate chips is a poverty mindset. And you could have hundreds of millions. You have billions in the bank if you can't allow yourself to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Like you're always going to be poor. Yeah.

00:48:05:01 - 00:48:24:22
Itamar Marani
You're going to lead a poor life. And I think that's what's really important. Like I want to hone this in for people that are listening and it's that you have to understand what the purpose of your money story serves is. It only to accumulate more wealth has actually enriched your life. And because that's what the whole purpose of this is, correct me if I'm wrong, but your approach to this is taking commit more dollars in the bank.

00:48:24:22 - 00:48:27:04
Itamar Marani
Come with actually, how can you live a richer life?

00:48:27:06 - 00:48:45:15
Mike Brown
So with people I always start by defining what wealth is. If we're going to sit here and talk about wealth, we need to understand what we're actually talking. And whenever we do like a group collective definition of wealth, we usually start off by talking about money. But the definition that we all agree on never ends up really about money.

00:48:45:15 - 00:49:12:02
Mike Brown
So I define wealth as for things freedom of time, freedom of mind, freedom of health and freedom of relationships, because all the money in the world doesn't matter if we don't have freedom in those areas. It's a wealth is really about freedom. It's a money is just a tool to create non traditional wealth, which is which is freedom in those in those four particular areas.

00:49:12:02 - 00:49:30:11
Mike Brown
So money is just a tool. And on the other side of things like earning money is just a reflection of creating value in the world. Solving a problem that needs solving like that is money is keeping score for those things. It can be then used to create freedom. Yeah.

00:49:30:12 - 00:49:37:05
Itamar Marani
Well, this is big, man. All right, so we're at number eight where the rest of them.

00:49:37:06 - 00:49:59:11
Mike Brown
All right, So another one that we see quite often, and this falls back into the kind of that guilt deserving worthiness category is money is not for me. So it's okay to spend on other people, but it's not okay to spend on myself. And, you know, we see this and I and I don't like being gender normative because this can manifest in anybody.

00:49:59:11 - 00:50:28:08
Mike Brown
But we see this a lot manifesting in women. Like it's okay to spend on my children, it's okay to spend on my husband, but like, I'm not going to buy a pair of shoes unless they're on sale. Right. And and unfortunately, this is a, again, societal I think has its roots in in kind of that that masculine society or or the patriarchal society where men control the purse strings and women are only allowed to spend what their husband says.

00:50:28:08 - 00:50:51:09
Mike Brown
You know, this kind of drawing back to, you know, the last few centuries. And that is really real for a lot of people. But again, especially women, is so money is not for them. And so I saw one business owner and this woman is always a powerhouse. She created a multi seven figure business and she was paying herself $35,000 a year.

00:50:51:11 - 00:51:20:08
Mike Brown
And no matter how much profits there were at the end of the year, she find a way to reinvest them, hire new employees, hire consultants, you know, spend it on coaching. She would do all of these things, but ultimately she would only take home 35 grand a year. Now. And when we started to dig into her money stories, we found out this is not the first time in her history like she's been doing this her whole life, starting in high school, she was earning money at a job and giving it all to her boyfriend who was less well-off to her.

00:51:20:10 - 00:51:41:18
Mike Brown
And she bought real estate in her twenties and she was not making her tenants pay rent because they needed the money more than she did. This was a deep pattern that had existed in all entire life. And you would like, you know, if I if I told you this person was like, this is a massively successful entrepreneur now who is is beholden to these stories.

00:51:41:18 - 00:52:07:08
Mike Brown
So, you know, these are incredibly insidious and it's amazing. Like once once we identified this idea that money is not for me, she immediately started paying herself $35,000 a month that day, made the decision, called the accountant and switched it around. Right. So so, you know, there's I think of limiting belief that this has to be hard. Like once we identified this, now it's going to be really hard to pattern myself.

00:52:07:08 - 00:52:15:03
Mike Brown
Like sometimes we get better information, like we can just update our programing and go, okay, that doesn't serve me anymore. I'm just going to switch this now.

00:52:15:05 - 00:52:35:01
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I think it's interesting when you said she's a very successful entrepreneur, I think there's a difference between being successful entrepreneur, unsuccessful, living a rich life and from what you're saying, all these money stories, they're that unconscious distraction or that barrier from actually living a rich life, being successful, living a great life.

00:52:35:03 - 00:52:59:09
Mike Brown
Yeah, that that is so. Well, that's exactly right. I mean, most people, when you know, they come due to me or your program, quite frankly, like most entrepreneurs got into business because they didn't want to have a boss. They needed the freedom, like there was all these ideas that they had and now their business owns down their slave to their business.

00:52:59:09 - 00:53:23:16
Mike Brown
They they're working 8000 hour weeks, they're super stressed out and they're like, What am I doing here anyway? I'm missing time with my kids. I'm building this thing and it's almost like this compulsion. And it really is all about like determining what are our values and then aligning our actions to our values. So to me, a saying I love is like, show me your bank account and show me your calendar and I'll show you what you value.

00:53:23:18 - 00:53:35:19
Mike Brown
Now I like to turn that on its head and go, Hey, let's, let's build a life of intention. Let's build our perfect calendar. Let's decide how we want to allocate our money that actually serves our values and make that a reflection of who.

00:53:35:21 - 00:53:56:15
Itamar Marani
Yeah, this is. I work in a very similar way, so when I try to take an entrepreneurial trip from six or 7 to 8 or nine or whatever it may at first say, okay, let's let's be intentional about it. How would somebody at the next level of your success need to operate and then say, okay, this is the kind of with values they would need to hold what their needs prioritize in life, then it is still into very clear action now.

00:53:56:15 - 00:54:11:17
Itamar Marani
And only now that we're clear what your next evolution is. Let's figure out what old stories or mental blocks, whatever, maybe are holding you back. And from what I'm hearing from you, that's how you utilize these money stories to say, okay, let's figure out how you should think about yourself if you want to have a really rich life.

00:54:11:19 - 00:54:20:14
Itamar Marani
Now, after we're clear on that, which one of these Ted Bundy stories do you think is interfering with that? Because that's the one we need to work, is that correct?

00:54:20:16 - 00:54:38:00
Mike Brown
Yeah, that's it. And I know also I want to be clear that most of us have three, four, five, six, seven of these all working in tandem, right? So it's rarely is cut and dried is like this is the one thing that was holding me back. Like usually there's layers of fear of success and rich people are evil and money is not for me.

00:54:38:06 - 00:55:06:01
Mike Brown
And they all kind of create this blend of of different limiting beliefs that are stuck. Yes. In in essence, what you're saying is it let's map out what a rich life were or what the life my ideal life actually looks like. Now let's just work backwards. Here's the amazing thing. Like 95, I'm making up a stat, let's call it like 95% of the people that I work with are actually already within striking distance of their ideal life because they don't need more money.

00:55:06:03 - 00:55:27:08
Mike Brown
They just need to they need to make some adjustments with how they're spending their time and how they're aligning their actions to their values. Because most entrepreneurs, if you're kind of in that successful, you know, bucket and you're looking for kind of, you know, more fulfillment probably already have enough money to live an epic life. Yeah.

00:55:27:10 - 00:55:29:12
Itamar Marani
So do we have one more left or did I.

00:55:29:12 - 00:56:03:16
Mike Brown
Mention you've been keeping track? I love this. So the last one is is rare, but it's definitely very pervasive and insidious in our society, which is money is a tool to exert power. And and so, you know, there are one example is, you know, I had a client talked about growing up. Her dad would work all day. He would come in and he would throw money on the floor and make her mom, like, run down and pick it up.

00:56:03:16 - 00:56:43:04
Mike Brown
All right. Like and so a lot of times we'll see money as a tool to control people around us or, you know, husbands who give their wife a strict budget or, you know, give them grocery money and and control the purse strings as a way of controlling their environment. And and, again, that manifests, you know, a lot of times we see people who are raised in that paradigm either, you know, continue that paradigm and use money as a tool to exert power or go full opposite and go, yeah, I don't I don't want any money, right.

00:56:43:04 - 00:56:58:12
Mike Brown
Like, I like that. I see that it's used to emotionally control people. And so I'm going to go live vanlife and have no possessions and be super happy. Like when we dig in to that kind of vanlife mentality, a lot of times we'll see this story at its root.

00:56:58:12 - 00:57:25:22
Itamar Marani
Some yeah, I can. I can see that in myself. And previously when I finished working at the Special Forces and then the agency which and then you say I made a relatively a lot of money for a very young kid and I didn't like construction there that like you don't have entrepreneurial freedom and I suppose to follow things because the any misstep you take can be extremely consequential.

00:57:26:04 - 00:57:51:00
Itamar Marani
So they don't really reward good like they don't reward creative decision making. They actually reward you're just not doing anything for them. And I didn't really like that. And I could sense that when I started doing afterwards jujitsu and traveling and all that kind of jazz, I kind of bought into that like, Oh, no one, like I can do whatever I want or whatever, but it was just because I didn't want to be controlled and I didn't want to earn that money, kind of That's how that's the only way I knew how to earn money at the time, an environment control.

00:57:51:02 - 00:57:56:21
Itamar Marani
And that's how I was trying to rebel subconsciously against it and pair that up until now. That's a really great point.

00:57:56:23 - 00:58:13:21
Mike Brown
Yeah, it's really it's really interesting. If money was used to control us and we want to reject that control, we essentially have to reject money like that. That's how we're going to we're going to get to that mechanism. And so it's doing the hard work of uncoupling that and realizing like, hey, money actually creates freedom.

00:58:13:23 - 00:58:34:13
Itamar Marani
You know? And it's been really great. One last question, because there's something that I was curious about that I haven't been able to fit into any of these. My stories. Talk to those guys that in 2019 we're going crazy about crypto and you can tell that it was nothing about them really understanding what's going on, but just a wish that something could save.

00:58:34:15 - 00:58:40:05
Itamar Marani
Where does that fall in? The people that go into these crazy investments is because they hope something will save them.

00:58:40:07 - 00:59:03:22
Mike Brown
Yeah, I mean, that's that's really interesting. You know, I'd have to think about where that falls kind of into this framework. But but I think it's going to fall in this risk bucket right. Of of is high risk irresponsible with money. I don't worry about money like I want something. I want it to be easy. I want it.

00:59:04:02 - 00:59:25:06
Mike Brown
I want it to come. And FOMO is real. And so I think there's probably a lot of ways to get to that place. Like we all kind of want the life raft, like the magic, the magic pill that we're going to wake up and all of a sudden be a Bitcoin millionaire, Right? That's that's the dream. I think that probably most of humanity lives with.

00:59:25:06 - 00:59:45:10
Mike Brown
And it probably doesn't really matter what your money story is like. There's some allure to that realness, right? And even as a as a savvy investor, like as Bitcoin is running up, I bought some right, like and I had already made some money with bitcoin. But like, as it's as it hits new highs, there is there's a fever pitch that starts to happen.

00:59:45:10 - 01:00:00:21
Mike Brown
It's like, oh my God, am I, am I missing out? Right? And so a lot of that is driven by it, by FOMO. And again, the idea of easy money. And so I think all of us probably all susceptible to that at some point.

01:00:00:23 - 01:00:16:09
Itamar Marani
Yeah, Yeah. Well, answer I want to say first, I thank you for your time. This was a really interesting conversation. I really love the framework that you have and how this all works. Can you please tell people how they can learn more about you and follow you? Having joined possibly one of your programs?

01:00:16:11 - 01:00:41:03
Mike Brown
Yeah, definitely. So you can follow me on Instagram at and Brown Echo. I give a free or I send a free weekly newsletter on finance. A lot of it is unwinding some of these money stories and that comes out on Fridays. You can go to Unbreakable Wealth. Dot and sign up there and then yeah, if you're interested in diving in the coaching programs, it is by application only.

01:00:41:03 - 01:00:55:03
Mike Brown
We want to make sure that people in the program are a fit, be able to take advantage of the strategies that we teach. But you can head over to Unbreakable Wealth dot com and apply and we'll have a conversation about about whether the programs assist you or not.

01:00:55:05 - 01:01:09:17
Itamar Marani
Yeah, and I want to say, first of all, we're going to have all these links in the show notes. You guys can find them there. That's number one, too. I'm actually subscribed to my son's letter. It's a really good newsletter, like highly recommend, not just bedroom access. You're really, really good stuff. Very interesting. We got some one and I got him.

01:01:09:17 - 01:01:30:13
Itamar Marani
I want to say thank you. So to kind of recap 1010 wealth stories that entrepreneurs carry, some makes them one rich people are able to I don't deserve what I have because of guilt. Money requires hard work and for fear of success. Five I'm irresponsible with money. Six My self-worth is my net worth. Seven I don't need to worry about money.

01:01:30:17 - 01:01:48:00
Itamar Marani
Eight There will never be enough nine money is it's not for me. And ten money is a tool to exert power. So if I don't want to be controlled, I need to avoid that. And these are really powerful things, guys. And I'll say Mike again, thank you for sharing these lessons with us. Any last thing you want to say before we get going for today?

01:01:48:02 - 01:02:08:06
Mike Brown
Yeah, I mean, I we already talked about it, but I want to just just reiterate that, like, all of these patterns evolve to keep us safe. So it's it isn't about getting rid of these things. It's about understanding and when and which context we want to use these because sometimes they still might keep us safe. So we don't want to eliminate these from our lives.

01:02:08:06 - 01:02:27:22
Mike Brown
They can become superpowers if we're aware when they become limitations. So I would say that. And then the second thing I would say is, you know, if there's a story, you feel like it doesn't fall into this certain category, recognize there's a lot of flavors. These these have kind of been distilled down from a lot of conversations. Everybody's got their own unique story.

01:02:27:22 - 01:02:39:02
Mike Brown
There's always nuance, and it's probably a combination of some of these. These are just the most common ones that I've seen. And people really do kind of align into these buckets the more and more I do this story.

01:02:39:04 - 01:02:46:07
Itamar Marani
Yeah. Awesome. All right. Thank you very much, Mike. Appreciate you being on the podcast. And we will see everybody next week. Bye, guys.