Bob Wheeler, a CFO, COO, and entrepreneur with a background in comedy and accounting, shares his unique journey in this captivating podcast episode. He initially pursued law but found his passion for accounting and comedy instead, eventually collaborating with the Comedy Store and establishing his own business practice. Through working with various clients, Bob realized the profound influence of emotions and narratives on our financial relationships, which motivated him to create the Money Nerve and host his own podcast.

The episode delves into the psychological aspects of personal finance, emphasizing the importance of understanding one's money mindset. Bob highlights the necessity of personal effort and accountability in making financial progress, as well as the significance of identifying and addressing self-sabotaging behaviors. He also stresses the value of finding a committed financial advisor for long-term success.

Fast Five Questions

1. If you woke up and your business was gone, you have $500, a laptop, a place to live, and food, what would you do first? “Decide what I wanted to do and then create a social media campaign to get people to assist me in my next venture .”
2. What is the biggest mistake that you have made in business? “Not staying on top of things and just assuming everybody had everything covered.”
3. What is a book that you would recommend? “The Power of Focus.”
4. What is a tool that you use everyday that you would recommend? “Excel.” 
5. What is your definition of freedom? “ I can do what I want when I want. I am not beholden to anybody.”

About Guest:

Bob Wheeler is a CPA with over thirty years of experience. His world travels led him to all points on the globe, especially those at high altitudes. He has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa and arrived at the Base Camp Everest in Nepal, as well as several smaller mountains in between. With warmth and humor, his experiences on the road, in the office, or in a Grecian marathon feed his wit as a standup comic.

Bob grew up in Clarksville, Tennessee, and graduated from Rhodes College. He now lives in Santa Monica, California, where he is the founding partner of Wheeler & Bi CPA, and serves as the CFO of The World Famous Comedy Store

Bob hosts Money You Should Ask Podcast, where he delves deep into the emotional financial journey of each of his guests. Bob can also be found facilitating workshops and giving presentations regarding the emotional aspects of money, our money blocks and how to best serve your money mindset.

https://themoneynerve.com/ 

About Jeff: 

Jeff spent the early part of his career working for others. Jeff had started 5 businesses that failed before he had his first success. Since that time he has learned the principles of a successful business and has been able to build and grow multiple seven-figure businesses. Jeff lives in the Austin area and is actively working in his community and supporting the growth of small businesses. He is a board member of the Incubator.Edu program at Vista Ridge High School and is on the board of directors of the Leander Educational Excellence Foundation

Connect with the Freedom Nation podcast at https://freedom-nation-podcast.captivate.fm/

Connect with Jeff:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freedomnationpodcast/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffKikel

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffkikel/

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Welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast with Jeff Kikel. On this show, Jeff shares his expertise in financial and retirement planning from a different perspective, planning for your Freedom Day, which is the first day that you wake up and have enough income or assets and do not have to go to work that day. Learn how to calculate what you need, how to generate income sources, and listen to interviews from others who've done it themselves, get ready to experience your own Freedom Day.

Hey, everybody, welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast. And it's another of our expert shows. Today, we're bringing on Bob Wheeler. I met Bob a few weeks ago, where he was introduced through a friend and we really hit it off. And our missions are somewhat aligned with Freedom Day and what Bob does. So we'll spend a little bit of time learning a little bit about his business and what he does, but we'll start off with his story. So Bob, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much, Jeff. Happy to be here.

Glad to have you on. I'm really excited. I love the fish in the background. That's a great, and it's an actual real background and not not the fake background with real fish, real actual fish. real fish? Well, Bob, let's kick it off. And why don't you tell us a little bit about your story? How did you get to where you are today?

Yeah. So, you know, I wanted to be a lawyer. Okay, in early age, so that was my goal. I went to college with the mission of law school. Constitutional Law, took accounting as to help my grade, my grade point average, because I had taken in high school, a friend had recommended it said you do well, and I did well. And so it's an easy a, so I'm not going to be an accountant.

That is not the usual thing. You usually don't usually don't take accounting to improve your GPA. But yeah,

right, exactly. So I'm one of those weirdos, right, and Latin. So I get it. And I realized, you know, I mean, some of these lawyers don't really like him all that much. And I realized, at the time, I wasn't that comfortable with getting up thinking I had to be in a courtroom and talking and stuff and I went, you know what? Accounting has been good to me. It's easy. I know, you're supposed to work hard, and it's gotta be painful. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna go down this route of accounting. Feels pretty, pretty solid. See, seems natural. To me. It seems natural. So I got into accounting. At the same time. I always was, you know, the class clown joked around. So I was into comedy. But I realized doing accounting, I probably wasn't going to get discovered doing comedy, in the back room with a calculator. So started getting out doing comedy,

there's the expression, if you want to look skinny, hang out with a bunch of fat people. So I mean, if you want to, if you want to be really funny, hang out with a bunch of accountants is what I'm saying. Exactly.

And they won't get any of your jokes. And so what happened was, I started doing comedy, and people knew that I was an accountant. So help me with your taxes. And I was like, no, no, I'm just, I'm doing comedy. What and what and what happened was, I was at the Comedy Store, I was running a show, they're doing comedy. The owner called me up Mitzi shore and saying, You got to help us out. We're in trouble. We haven't paid our taxes. And they had $100,000 with the debt, IRS was ready to close their doors. I got and I was like, Well, I gotta help the store. My friends are all comics. Eventually, I just want to be a comic. But I've got the CPA license, we'll use it. And so I started working with a comedy store, they didn't have a lot of money. I had my own business practice, I realized I needed to make sure it was super successful, so that I could help the Comedy Store. And I ended up picking up a lot of entertainment clients, because my friends were performers, directors and all that stuff. And so I got really into this niche of entrepreneurs, especially in entertainment. And it seems like a lot of spouses are married to therapists. So we got a lot of therapy. I'm sure there's some

relationships. So I'm not sure what the mix is. But yeah,

some going on. And so you know, between the Comedy Store, working with Mitzi, I've been the CFO, COO 25 years now. I've had a tax practice. I brought in a business partner about five years ago, because I realized I couldn't do what I was doing with the tax practice. And I started this other company, the money nerve, and the podcast because I really wanted to what I discovered along the way, was whether my tax clients, whether my entertainment clients, whether it's the Comedy Store, people and emotions around money, was was was the major factor if people were emotionally sabotaging, or didn't think they were capable, or whatever it might be if I didn't understand their story, and if I couldn't normalize these conversations, like people checked out pretty quick. And at the same time that I was helping other people. I wasn't taking care of my own finances. I wasn't walking the talk, right? Because I'm the exception to the rule. Yeah. And as we all are, and physician

heal thyself. Yeah, exactly.

I could tell you what to do. I knew what to do, right? Yeah. Don't eat the cookies. But yeah, but yeah,

I'll eat the cookies. Yeah, as you're chewing on a cookie, don't eat the cookies.

Don't eat those cookies. And so basically, you know, I had to get an integrity and an alignment with what I was telling other people, I needed to be walking the talk. And I had to do a deep dive into my own mental mindset around money, and deserving and self worth and all these things. And it really, as I was going through my process, and really starting to understand what was going on for my clients, because it had nothing to do with two plus two is four. It's how they felt about it. Yeah. Right, and their belief system around it. And so that became my mission is, how do we normalize these conversations, so many of us take ourselves out? Before we even get to the start. We get to that starting line. And we've already said, I'm going to lose I there's people faster, I shouldn't even bother. Yeah.

Nobody in my family has ever been good with money. So I can't be good with money. And yeah.

And there it is. And so what I've come to realize is, and I did not get this guidance, when I was younger, do it scared with your voice shaking? Just show up. Because most of the time, if you show up and stick it out, everybody else is going to drop out anyway. And you just win by pure perseverance.

Yeah. Yep. It's the same thing. I've told people about business all along, you know, people will ask, well, you know, what's your what's your secret to success in business? I was like, I just outlasted everybody else that that went into business when I did.

Exactly. And you you have to love what you do. Like, I think I love what I do. I love working with numbers. I love helping people. I've written a couple of books, I just wrote my first in a series of children's financial literacy books, because I want kids to learn to be able to say no, to change their mind, when I was a kid, whatever decision I made, I had to live with it. So I didn't want to make a decision. And it wasn't that my parents were bad or wrong. They didn't know better. And so I didn't get those fundamentals that some people got. And actually, I think a lot of us didn't get them. Well,

I think, you know, the problem is you're assuming your parents were, you know, geniuses with money too. And, you know, I know my parents weren't, and I mean, they, they're the first to admit it. Nothing wrong with that, because they weren't ever taught. I mean, we just don't have a good financial education in this, you know, in this world, basically. You know, or we have a we have an education system that was based on the industrialized world, which was we don't really want you to be smart with money. We want you to get up and go to work every day, and keep the rich people rich.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think for me, once I started to realize it was about mindset, and that it was about how do I view things? am I setting up goals? Am I sticking to what I say that I want? So, you know, I know. We, you talk about this, too, you got to know what the truth is. So yeah, talking about honest budgeting, right? What are you really spending if you've got an addiction? I'm not judging it. I just need to factor it into my major. No way.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that was the biggest thing, Bob, that that was my revelation, when I really started to go down the road to freedom day was, it was the one disservice that I did to my client. Well, it was disservice. And I think just clients in general, you know, you would ask, okay, well, what's, you know, what's your monthly budget? Oh, I spent about $4,000. And, you know, well, you make 150,000 a year you spend 48,000. Yet, you can only come up with like 100 or $200 to spend on savings per month. What's, where's the disconnect here? Yeah, you've got to be spending that money someplace. And, you know, I think the one financial planning software that I use, and still use to this day, it has two different ways of factoring your cash flow. One way is, it does what's called cash flow, which is it assumes you save everything that you don't tell it, what it's spending the other way is called modified, which is it assumes that you're spending all that and it's showing them the difference of okay, you told me you only spend 4000 A month you're saving $100 Okay, let's look at the plan. Oh, you know, explodes on him.

Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting. People want I was if I make $1,000 But my net Check is 800 Yeah, I'm saying I make 1000. So if you make 800 now make 100 And so, and then if I spend $11 on something I say it cost me 10 Right. And so we're we're around Counting down expenses and rounding up the income you're going to, it's not going to work.

Age and money are the only two things we round down on unless we're below age 18. Yeah,

exactly. And so, you know, I find when we start to get a little more honest and a little more conscious, and it's so easy, I was a friend, we were doing a podcast, and he came in with a, you know, with with a premium coffee from one of those companies, I won't name and I said, Okay, well, you just spent like, five, six bucks. No, it didn't. It's like 250. I said, Give me the receipt. Oh, my goodness, it was 495. I thought it was 250. When did it go up? Right? It's so automatic. Yep. And I think with the use of debit cards and Venmo, and we're not actually feeling the money, transferring unforeseen dollars and $5 feels exactly the same.

Well, you know, but I say that, and then we we in the industry have said that for your Oh, you're spending $4 on a cup of coffee. I'm not worried about the $4 cup of coffee, I'm worried about the $180 cellphone bill, that you're spending or the, you know, the, oh, I cut the cable cord. So I'm not spending $125 a month but now I have 75, you know, $4 channels that I'm being for dollar to death on and I don't watch half of them at that point. So and,

and the good and bad about automation, right? When we pay the bills? Yep. It's great if we're saving automations great saving. But if we're you know, I decided and I do this, every so often I look at my cable bill, I look at my my phone bill, I look at my credit cards, and I was paying for a free iPad. Yeah, it's $50 a month for a free iPad, and another phone line. And apparently I was paying for something to tune up my car to tell me I was like, I don't even have that. So all these free things that I was funding. And I know better.

Yeah. And they'll for dollar you to death. That's the problem. Yeah. Especially with phone apps and all that. I was reading a book the other day, and the author of the book was talking about the Pareto principle. And he's like, you know, it works in everything, you know, 20, you only use 20% of the apps on your phone. 80% of them don't do anything and half the time you've subscribed other services, and it's kind of hidden back in the, you know, Google Play or Apple Apple Pay or whatever, you know, side of it. You don't even see it. And you're just like I said, for dollar to death everywhere. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You get to enjoy the coffee.

Right? That's true, too. Yeah. And I agree. It's not about the coffee itself. It's really about you know, as a, as this friend of mine says unconsciously, comfortable in debt. Right? Yeah. Unconsciously comfortable not looking?

Absolutely.

I don't want to.

I'm not gonna get that or, yeah, I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon. I'll return it. Yeah. And it's still sitting on the counter, and you haven't returned it? Right. So talk a little bit about your process. So when when somebody works with you, or I'm assuming, you know, that you kind of observe or they they consume the podcast, and you know, your your website and stuff like that? What? How do you walk them down a process?

Well, so the first thing I do is when people come to me, and usually they've heard the podcast, they've seen the website, they did a workshop, or they've seen me talk. And they'll come in and say, look, I've got some anxiety around money, or I've got some money issues. The first thing I actually do is I ask people, are you willing to be uncomfortable? And are you willing to do the work? And believe it or not, I have people sometimes say, No, I'm not really going to do the work. Yeah. And I'm like, Well, we're done.

We don't need to work together, then. Yeah, don't waste your money to work. Yeah.

Cuz I'm not going to fix you. Yeah, I'm not gonna be able to do that. I can guide you, I can give you tools. I can give you feedback. I can't fix you, and I can't change your mindset. So that's the first thing I do is I ask them, Are you going to do it and because it is uncomfortable, when we have to start looking at our debt, and our prior choices, and our self sabotage, and and then have to internalize or bring to the surface? What we thought our parents thought of us? The the worry we had about our friends judging us, or if the church or the temple is judging us, right, all these things. And so what I start to do is we start to excavate we go through and what do you remember? What do you remember when you were four or five and six? I want to know, like, the juicy bits, the things that seem insignificant, but you remember, this vivid story, you really just start to figure out what was the story you were told? Because at some point, you took the story on and said, That's my truth. Even if it was based on fiction, right? And now we've said no, no, that's the truth. I was told that when I was five, okay, and So that's the first place because I got to figure out where we are, emotionally, and what stories we brought on before I can even get to the practical before I can talk to setting goals. Once we do that, I want to explore emotions, I want to explore fears of fear of success, fear of the IRS fear of getting caught fear of being judged, like we have so many, and most people couldn't give you a list pretty quick. And so, the other big thing I asked people, when I get started with them, I say, how are you going to self sabotage this?

You just get it out on the table right up front.

What are you gonna do? And here's the great thing people will tell you, Oh, I'm gonna do this. And I'll do this. And I'll, they gotta work because we've got our strategies. And so it's really important for me to get it up front. How am I going to sabotage? Because now that I've admitted it? How am I going to stop it? When I see it? rearing its ugly head? Right?

Yeah. And you know, I'm assuming you're trying to get them to recognize that themselves instead of you having to tell them all? That's right.

Yeah, absolutely. Because we've got to start to have that awareness. We have to name it, right. Sort of the name it claim it. If you don't actually take accountability, take responsibility for these things. It's really then hard to say like, if I don't claim the responsibility that I got myself in debt, yeah. Then it's difficult for me to move past that. Now. A lot of people say, Well, this happened. And that happened. Okay. Right. We all love a victim story. It's fun. Gets us some attention. But it gets old. Yeah. And so how do I want to be empowering? How do I want to step up, step forward, even if I'm doing it scared, even if I'm, whatever those things are, to just show up. And so we just go through all that stuff. And I tell people, you're gonna cry, you're gonna get angry, you're gonna laugh, all these things. It's uncomfortable. But you've got to go through, I truly believe you do have to go through the fire can't go around it. And, and so I really work with people to start to uncover their story. You know, I started have this belief that every story has a cost, right? There's an accountant, I'm doing a cost benefit. What's it costing you? What's it benefiting you? And we have to decide, am I willing to keep paying this cost? Or do I want a different story? Yeah. And then am I going to change the narrative?

Yeah. Because then how do I change my story? Yeah, you can change your story, you've got to be willing to do it. And, and you've got to be willing to recognize what's coming back to hurt you. So somebody gets through that process, that initial process? Are you working with them? Or do you kind of bring somebody else in later to kind of work with the money side of it or

so typically, what I've been doing is I work with people through either i, so some people, I send them through an online course. And maybe every three or four weeks, we do a little connecting touch base, and I do money groups on Facebook and different places where people can find support and talk to other people. And I'll yeah, I'll facilitate those. Typically, if somebody's wanting to, like, make changes around investing, and actually getting to that next level, oh, give them to a financial advisor. You know, I'm very selective about financial advisors. It's like anything CPAs financial advisors, car salesmen, there are some great ones, and not so great ones. And so I want to make sure that I'm setting up them, setting them up with somebody that can really take care of them. And that's, you know, in it in the long on the long haul with Sure.

Sure, absolutely. So, what do you see as the biggest challenges when you know, when you get somebody that, you know, basically lies to you and says, Yes, I'm willing to do the work. What do you see is the things that come back to bite them?

Well, I think the biggest I think the biggest resistance for a lot of people is the accountability. Okay. Like, I don't really want to own that I did that. Like it's really my parents fault. Really, I had a bad teacher. I didn't get the lucky break at college. And, and some of those things may be true, right? It may be that I didn't get to go to Harvard. It may be that I didn't grow up with super wealthy, you know, I didn't grow up at Buckingham Palace. Right. Um, but to be able to own it and go, Yeah, this is what I got. Yeah, that's hard for a lot of people to say, Oh, this is actually where I really am.

That's awesome. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's so true. And it's painful. It sucks. Yeah, I mean, it just it straight up sucks. And yeah, you have to come to the reality of, well, not everybody went to Harvard. And not just because you went to Harvard, are you going to be successful either. There's plenty of people who didn't go to college at all, who are massively successful or didn't complete college and are massively successful. You know, I look at it I went through college, but I didn't study any of the stuff that I ended up doing in life. All it taught me was I had a degree in psychology and a minor in English literature. So I understood how people are wired. And I know how to write well. That's about it. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, this will sound weird, probably. But I think one of the biggest emotions that we have to process when we're going through all this stuff to get to the other side is grief. Yeah, I think there's a lot of grief around choices that we made, or we didn't make, because we were afraid. And we held back. And so I find grief comes up a lot.

Yeah. Or are we just make idiotic stupid mistakes? And, you know, come to the realization Oh, I wish I hadn't made that mistake. Well, you should learn from it. If you did. I mean, I want to go through life not having to learn from mistakes. But the reality is that I'm still going to make mistakes whether I like it or not.

Absolutely, absolutely. What do you think? Yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead.

What's uh, I was just gonna ask you well, just finish your thought. Because I was. Next thing was going to be what? What's new in your world? So maybe you can weave it all together?

Yeah, sure. I well, you know, I think the other biggest The other big piece is being judged. Right? Either by ourselves or by our peers. Right? Oh, now you're successful. You got to pay for all the dinners. Oh, you drive a fancy car. Like I didn't want to have this is so funny now. But for the longest time, I didn't want to have a fancy car because I didn't want to have to give more money at the valet. Because I'm like, Man, I drove my Corolla. They were happy with a buck or two. I'm in a Lexus. They want to five that so? I'll just forego abundance. So

yeah, so I don't have to spend more money. Yeah.

It's crazy. Thank you. But I'm okay now with paying the $5. And I'm even willing to pay $15 for a coffee at the airport. Yep. So traumatizing. But I think for me, the newest thing though, for me is I've written I've written my first children's book, I'm getting ready to write a second one. And I'm partnering up with people from different communities so that it you know, it's not the white guy who's sharing everybody else's experience. Yes, I'm certainly aware of my, my whiteness. But I think the biggest thing is finally getting to a place where I'm okay. If I don't have money in the bank. Yeah, like having money in the bank. Having money in the bank, being able to say no to people, not worrying, they might think that they might Great. Have your thoughts, not none of my business. And so I'm at a place where I'm willing to try things do new things. Just started a clothing, line of clothing, clothes, I keep saying clothing line. Everybody's like, like in your backyard. Like,

that's a close of the line.

But I just, I'd like to keep busy. I love what I do. And, you know, I think that what's great about that is, you know, you talk about your financial freedom day, right? Yeah, Freedom Day. And I do all these things. Because I choose to, I could certainly just go lay on a beach and do that. Yeah, I don't want to, I want to have these conversations. I want to help other people. I want to be able to be that person that pays it forward. When somebody paid it forward. For me, I had so many people helping me out that believed in me when I certainly didn't believe in myself. And so for me, I'm just I want to keep showing up and have an impact. And so that's a great place to be knowing that I don't have to worry about how I'm going to oh, I have to do a $5,000 car repair. I got that. Yeah, I don't want to pay it. But

I'm right there with you. Yeah, I can if there are a cheaper way I can do this. Yes, I'm still it's funny. I'm, you know, in the same boat, it's like, okay, I really don't have to do anything. I don't want to I do this because I love it. And I love you know, the people that I get to interact with like yourself that just, you know, they're just fun people to be with and share stories and share expertise. And you know, but I also look at it I'm like, I still treat myself as if I don't have money. Because it keeps me hungry. Yeah, it still keeps me hungry. And it makes me be creative about it. You know, if I buy real estate, you know, people are like, Oh, I've got to save up all this money for a downpayment. No, you don't. You don't have to. There's there's tons of creative ways to do it. Where you don't even have to have a down payment. So yeah, be creative. Treat yourself as if you don't have money but don't treat yourself with abundance but treat yourself like you don't have money because it's easy when you have money to do things. It's harder and and I think requires more creativity when you don't have the money to do it.

For sure. I was definitely a lot more creative when money was tighter. Yes, I didn't. I got it. Just pay for it. Just do it. And I had to be like, Oh, let me figure this out. Yeah, but I also think, you know one of the things that I think too is there's this misconception that if I'm a millionaire, I have a million dollars at my fingertips every day. Right that I can just blow through a million dollars liquid cash. And that's not true at all right? I can have a net worth of three or 4 million bucks and only have 100,000, maybe only 50,000. Yeah, and maybe only 10,000 in the bank, because my assets are not, are not liquid cash their trade up. And so I think, you know, my dad, he's gotten older and he's, oh, you're rich. You're a millionaire. You're rich dad that I have some accumulate. I did well.

I may have a net worth of 3 million. But yeah, it's not. Yeah. And I just have it in my wallet. I don't bathe in dollar bills every night in my bathtub. But yeah.

Yeah. That I enjoy them. I enjoy the liquid cash, but, but I also want assets working for me. So I make sure that I'm comfortable. But yeah, I think there's this misconception that, oh, if you've got assets, you can just afford and four to four to four to four, anything and no, you still have to be mindful, you still have to be intentional. And you still have to pick and choose your priorities.

Yeah. Well, and I think you you have it, right. It's it's assets. I mean, that's one of the core principles of what we teach is, you know, you use, you use your active income to buy assets that create passive income, you know, and then you don't think about income items today. To this day, I didn't think about income, because I just know that there's money that comes into the account every month at the beginning of the month, it gets shifted around to different assets. So I buy more, and then we live on, you know, kind of whatever's left over. And that's it, and then treat myself as if I'm on a regular paycheck. And I don't even think about it anymore. So

yeah, it's you know, it's so funny. Obviously, I was I was we, my business partner, I would drive him for lunch the other day, and she said, Oh, you need to get a new car. So no, this off. It's working great. She's like, Yeah, but you know, I'm like,

no, no, I'm

good. Yeah. I can drive this for another 10 years. It still looks good. Yeah, it works.

It's Alexis. It'll last forever. It's like the cockroach of cars.

It will. They will last forever. Yeah. But there was a time where I wanted to have a new car every couple of years. They kept giving them to me. But I'm happy. I don't need to drive up in the newest, fanciest car and my phone doesn't need to be the newest and fancies. It's working. I hate that. We're such a throwaway society. You know, I've got this air pump. And I just need a hose on it. They're like, just get a new one.

Yeah, I just need a hose. Like, I throw this. It's like a $2 part. Please. Can you help me out here? Oh, we'll just spend another $30. Now I just want the $2 part.

We're so disposable, toss, toss, toss.

Even our technology. That's what makes me laugh. I mean, I sit back and think in my office, I probably got 12 laptops that you know, generate, and I just don't even know what to do with them. And you know, it's like, okay, nobody else can really use it. And what do I do with this now? And I've moved on to the next one.

Well, you know, it's funny that you, as you were just talking about the computer, and I realized that I have this fixation with sunk costs, right money I've already spent if I gotta make it last. So I when I bought my first computer 100 years ago, when I bought my first computer, it was like 5000 bucks. Oh, yeah. And I was like, this is better. And I I wanted that computer to last me for the next 25 years. Like I wanted to get every Yeah, every dollar out of it. And you know, now I have six, seven computers. Not one doesn't work. Get another one. Yeah. And they become so disposable.

When you realize you're $5,000 computer had less computing capacity than a flip phone ad. Right.

Exactly. It's like, alright, I can let it go. But that was so hard in the beginning. Yeah. But I think for a lot of us, we get stuck on this sunk cost I already put the money in. So I gotta stay the course. Even though it's not serving me instead of just knowing when to cut the line and let it go.

Absolutely. All right. Well, let's transition to the Fast Five questions now. All right. All right. You ready? Yeah. All right. First one, you wake up in the morning. You have your business totally gone. You have a laptop computer, 500 bucks in your pocket, a place to live and food. What are you going to do first?

I think the first thing I'm gonna do is take a deep breath.

And check it out. Yeah.

Okay. And then I'm going to decide what was the couple of top things that I wanted to do. If I didn't have my business what was something I wanted to do? And then I would figure out how to take that 500 bucks and either create a social media campaign or to create it pitch or something to go out and convince people to assist me in my my next venture.

I love it. Love it. What's the biggest business mistake you've ever made?

You know, I think when I had a clothing company years ago, and I trusted everybody else to do the work, like the lawyers and everything, and I didn't really like are you sure did this happen. And we were we had a trademark, and the attorney told me everything was a go, but it wasn't. And so I started doing all these things, and then found out the trademark hadn't perfected. And so somebody came in that had something similar, but different enough, but I knew they had a lot of money. And so they came in, and they're like, we're gonna sue you. And it was gonna cost me 100,000 bucks to fight the trademark. And I had to just let it go. And because at the time, it wasn't successful enough that it was worth going towards. But the trademark hadn't been done properly had I stayed on top of things, and actually stuck to the plan, and not really started my business until I knew I had everything secure. I think that was that was a really big. It's a big mistake, but I never forgot it.

Yep. No, never do that one again. Well, yeah. What's a good book that you'd recommend for our audience?

So my favorite book is the power of focus, okay. And it's a great book for people that like to get things done. And it just gives you some tools to really hone in on how to be efficient and effective. And actually, what do I want to do? And how do I want to show up? And then how do I execute? Because I think, and even in my own material, and I talk about this with goals and dreams, I know it's supposed to be Fast Five, sorry, but this this piece about getting my spending in alignment with what I say I want. And then actually, if I say I want to buy a car, then start putting the money in the bank account, to have the money to pay the cash, or I want to send somebody to college, start putting the money away instead of like, oh, yeah, one day, I want to know, actually, actual steps real time.

I love that. Absolutely. Power, focus, great power, focus. I love this. And I think it's the first time it's ever been recommended. So that's another great one new one to add to the best of list. What is a tool that you use in your business every day that you'd recommend?

So this, I guess this is old school, I love Excel. I love Excel, because I can make list of to dues, I can use it for calculations. I love to make listen and check everything off. And so I've got lots and I use Excel quite a bit whether I'm trying to explain stuff to a client, whether I'm just trying to track what movies I gotta watch, I just there. And the other reason, the reason I like Excel versus a lot of these new apps and things you have to type stuff in. And I still believe that you can talk it. But if you're typing, or writing, there's a connection between brain and finger pencil to mind that you don't get when you just verbally dictate or just have an app track things. Yeah, I like to actually get in and have real real time.

Love it. Love it. Final question, what is your definition of freedom?

Freedom. For me, it's being able to do what I want when I want. Meaning. I'm not beholden to anybody. Like, yeah, I gotta pay my mortgage or this or that. But I am in a place where I get to wake up and decide, is this what I want to do today? I'm in a position of saying that doesn't work for me. Especially with my with my tax practice, I'm in a great position to be able to turn down a lot of business. People always like, hey, we can help you get more business. Yeah, I'm turning it away.

Yeah. It's fine. I don't really need any more. Thank you.

I'm in a good space. So freedom to actually make those choices and do things that actually feel like they serve me.

Excellent. Well, Bob, thank you so much for being on if somebody wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way?

Best way is info at the money nerves.com info at the money nerves.com That's got my website, to the podcast, to the online course to the CPA practice. All those good things, the children's financial literacy book series. That's a great way there's free resources, but we you know, if people want to learn to normalize their, their relationship with money, check us out happy to one on one coach, or just simply listen, we'd love to hear from people

love it. Well, Bob, thank you so much. Just a wonderful interview. And I knew it was going to be when we met a few weeks ago. So thank you for coming on today, folks. Feel free reach out to Bob. He's a great guy and he's got a great process. So make sure that you're reaching out to him. Let him know came from the podcast and he'll take extra special care of you here.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Jeff. I so appreciate it.

Appreciate it. Keep an eye out for now, the new freedom nation YouTube page. We're actually taking some of our old interviews that we did last year, we're creating a best of series. And we're putting all the new shows up there as well. So make sure you go up there if you are somebody that likes to watch us on camera. I do have a face for radio. So bear with me when you watch on on YouTube. So we'll see you guys hear next time. Thanks a lot and have a wonderful day.