Ep. 565 Three Secrets of the Wealthy
Often in the media, Rennie supports individuals and business owners to create work as a choice, instead of a requirement, just as he did for himself. Complete Financial Choice As a highly rated instructor at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), Rennie uses his award-winning, #1 best-selling book, Wealth on Any Income, to teach the effective money skills from both the emotional and psychological aspects, as well as the practical components. His book has been translated into eight languages.
Stay tuned and listen to Rennie Gabriel and his knowledge of the secrets of being wealthy.
[0:00] – [06:53] Opening Segment
- Rennie Gabriel is the author of the best-selling book Wealth on any Income. It’s been translated into eight languages, just as a Fun Fact: He failed high school Math and was broke at age 50, and is now a multimillionaire
- He considers himself an execution master, and he works side by side with people he calls visionaries.
- Rennie realizes that most of his success happens when he does it with other people and failures come when does it alone.
[06:53] – [13:13] How to Handle Money Powerfully: The Foundations
- Doing an income and expense report: How Rennie was taught to help other people by maintaining or enhancing their wealth, but not how to do the day-to-day items regarding money.
- He discovered this and shared it in his book,
- He now has enough, Rennie says that if he can continue to donate to charity the happier he can become.
- Setting aside 10% of your income for Emergency. This is his challenge to most people.
[13:14] – [16:34] Closing Segment
- Reach out to Rennie
See links below - Final words
Tweetable Quotes
“If I look back at my situation where at one point I had to actually, collect soda bottles and cans to get the refund money, to buy food for my family. When I look at the tens of thousands of dollars a month of income now, and I’m living on maybe 40, 50% of that, I’ve got enough. If I can continue to donate to charity. The thousands of dollars that we donate. I mean, granted, it could be more, but it’s enough. “
– Rennie Gabriel
“The more money I can donate to charity. The happier I am”
– Rennie Gabriel
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Connect with Rennie Gabriel. Visit the following websites:
renniegabriel.com
Wealthonanyincome.com
Resources Mentioned:
Wealth on any Income
Connect with me:
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Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com
Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
[00:00:24] Sam Wilson: Rennie Gabriel is the author of the best-selling book wealth on any income. It’s been translated into eight languages, just as a fun fact, he failed high school. Math was broke at age 50 and is a multimillionaire by the age of 58 Rennie. I am looking forward to jumping into today’s episode and learning about you and your story.
[00:00:55] Sam Wilson: Welcome to the show.
[00:00:56] Rennie Gabriel: Thank you, Sam. My pleasure to
[00:00:58] Sam Wilson: be here. Pleasure’s mine. Three questions. I ask every guest who comes to the show in 90 seconds or less. Where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there.
[00:01:06] Rennie Gabriel: Where I started, I’ve always been an entrepreneur. And I guess I could say in terms of real estate started pretty much at 50, after two divorces and the business failure, that’s the reason I was broke.
[00:01:17] Rennie Gabriel: And where am I now? Don’t have to work for a living because of the rental income from the properties we have.
[00:01:23] Sam Wilson: That is fascinating. I’m looking forward. Looking forward to this always been an entrepreneur. You said two divorces and a business failure. Can you tell us what were some lessons you learned in that business failure?
[00:01:38] Rennie Gabriel: Biggest lesson is that when I have partners, I have success. And when I do things on my own it’s mediocre or a failure.
[00:01:47] Sam Wilson: Okay. Break that down for us. Cause one of the things even though we talked about here off air was that building wealth is a team sport. So can you talk to us about that?
[00:01:57] Rennie Gabriel: Absolutely. So I had a pension administration company in the 1980s.
[00:02:03] Rennie Gabriel: I had two partners. We sold it off to a public company. I had a lot of money at the time and that was the first time I could choose to work or choose not to work. Then I got divorced, so I kind of ate that up. I had an art gallery business that failed and I was the solo person involved in that art gallery business.
[00:02:24] Rennie Gabriel: In the real estate business. When I started at age 50, I had my wife as a partner and a realtor and the three of us, Worked together. And what I recognized, at age 50 and looking backwards, the successes who are when I had partners and didn’t do it alone. And the failures were when I tried to do things by myself.
[00:02:46] Rennie Gabriel: And then I decided to be an angel investor and really saw the value of partnership from this standpoint. Oh, Sam, you know who Warren buffet is, right? I’ve heard the name. Yeah. And probably also know who Charlie Munger is. Do you I’ve heard the name. Okay. But most people, when I ask that question, they don’t know who Charlie Munger is, but he’s half of Berkshire Hathaway.
[00:03:11] Rennie Gabriel: Right. And you go Steve jobs and Steve Wosniak you go to Elon Musk, Elon admits he knows nothing about building cars or rocket ships. But he has execution masters. Elon is a visionary Warren buffett’s a visionary. Steve jobs is a visionary and what they have in their business organizations are people who can execute on those visions.
[00:03:35] Rennie Gabriel: In the real estate business, we had a realtor who was a visionary. And I was the execution master. I had taken a class at UCLA on how to manage apartment buildings 14 years earlier. So I took care of the tenants. I, oh, I met the plumber at the job site, or I met the painter at the job site and he found the properties.
[00:03:56] Rennie Gabriel: We bought the properties by X, but I executed on keeping tenants, happy renting showing units.
[00:04:03] Sam Wilson: Now is that what you guys did? You went into the multifamily space and that was what really set you up to financial
[00:04:09] Rennie Gabriel: independence? Yes. As a matter of fact, when I met my wife she, and this realtor had three rental houses and I said, Well, I actually have a bias against rental houses.
[00:04:21] Rennie Gabriel: I think we should buy a multi-units and now again, I was broken 50, but what I did was I took a principal that’s 5,000 years old and I paid myself first and I was making 5,000 a month. I set aside $500 a month. And in three years I saved up a whopping $18,000. Right. And that’s what was used to be a partner in the first property we bought, which was a triplex.
[00:04:50] Sam Wilson: Got it. Oh, that’s wow. That’s a long, I mean, saving $500 a month for three years in order to accrue 18,000 in investible, capital is a, that’s a lot of plans.
[00:05:02] Rennie Gabriel: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was looking at the future from the standpoint of, oh my gosh, I’m flat broke. Like I said, two divorces in business failure at age 65, 15 years from then, am I going to be eating cat food or am I going to eating tuna?
[00:05:17] Rennie Gabriel: And it was out of that desperation I said. I’ve got to make this work. And this principle has worked for 5,000 years. It’s going to work when you and I are dust. I got to get serious.
[00:05:29] Sam Wilson: Right. No, I liked that, that they do put tuna and cat foods. So you could have it both ways if you go to the shop or pet shop.
[00:05:39] Rennie Gabriel: Yeah But I don’t know if it’s the quality tuna.
[00:05:42] Sam Wilson: Just want to throw that out there that may, maybe that you might have a dietary meet in the middle, if you really wanted to that. That’s really cool At what point in time did you really start to see success though? I mean, 18,000 bucks, three years in you get your first triplex
[00:05:56] Sam Wilson: when did you finally know man, we’re on the pay dirt and I got the traction going that I’ve, I’ve been working so hard for,
[00:06:02] Rennie Gabriel: I’d say in another couple of years, what I could see as this property was increasing in value because we were able to remodel it. Now I put physical labor into it.
[00:06:11] Rennie Gabriel: We’d re rented it. We increased the rents and with multiunit properties. The value is a multiplier of the gross rents. Right. Really simple. And so I could see my gosh, this is working. I borrowed money to make down payments with my wife and the realtor. And we went from that first three in a purchase within five years, we added another 47 units.
[00:06:36] Sam Wilson: Right. Yeah. And that was enough to really set you up for success. Is that what your book is about wealth on any income? Can you kinda give us kind of the backstory on the book and the principles that we may learn in that?
[00:06:48] Rennie Gabriel: The backstory on the book has nothing to do with how I made all this money in real estate.
[00:06:53] Rennie Gabriel: It’s the foundational concepts of handling money powerfully. The first third of the book deals with the emotional stuff. That’s in the way of people actually taking action. And okay. Sam, let me ask you a question. Let me put you on the spot here
[00:07:08] Sam Wilson: Sure.
[00:07:09] Rennie Gabriel: Do you know anyone who is obese? Yup. Okay. Let me ask you, do you know what the two primary things are for someone to lose weight?
[00:07:18] Sam Wilson: Well,
[00:07:19] Sam Wilson: 80% of his diet, 20% of its
[00:07:20] Sam Wilson: exercise. Okay, fine. So if they move and they change their eating, they can lose weight for sure. Do you think there’s an obese person who doesn’t know that.
[00:07:31] Sam Wilson: Nope. I think people maybe don’t I think it will get it. Flip-flop I think it’s 80% exercise, 20% diet.
[00:07:36] Sam Wilson: But outside of that, no,
[00:07:38] Rennie Gabriel: okay so I
[00:07:39] Sam Wilson: know the two ingredients, they just mailed the mixtures wrong.
[00:07:42] Rennie Gabriel: Yeah. So they know the two ingredients and the knowledge is the booby prize. Right because there’s emotional stuff. That’s in the way of them taking any action, whether it’s reducing what they eat or moving. Right.
[00:07:54] Rennie Gabriel: And so the first third of the book has to deal with getting that emotional stuff out of the way, dealing with the messages. Someone may have been taught as a child, determining what they want out of life and that they can have it. And then I can, the latter two thirds are the tips and techniques of handling money powerfully.
[00:08:11] Rennie Gabriel: we talked about my being broke. I was also certified as a financial planner. Okay, but did not know the basic foundations of handling money, how to do an income and expense report. What to look for in a balance sheet for personal wealth, I was taught how to help other people maintain or enhance their wealth.
[00:08:33] Rennie Gabriel: Right. But not how to create a personally, not how to do the day-to-day items regarding money. And that’s what I discovered. And that’s what I have in the book, because. You probably have people in your sphere that make a lot of money and burn right through it. Yep. And I was the same way. I thought if I just made more money, things would work out and up until 50, I would make more and more money and have nothing to show for.
[00:09:02] Rennie Gabriel: I lack the foundation. I mean, I literally went 6,500 a year as a school teacher to $102,000 in sales per year. And I went from a hundred dollars a month short as a school teacher to $2,000 a month, short earning over a hundred grand.
[00:09:23] Sam Wilson: Right. So you were, it doesn’t matter how much money you make.
[00:09:26] Sam Wilson: You were still losing money on a month, over
[00:09:28] Sam Wilson: month basis.
[00:09:29] Rennie Gabriel: Exactly. And so I had to turn that around again, that’s a part of the process at age 50, paying myself first, making sure that how much money came in, we were able to set aside reserves. I took care of the financials because I finally learned what to do.
[00:09:46] Rennie Gabriel: Right. And that’s why. Eight years later, I could choose to work or choose not to work.
[00:09:51] Sam Wilson: I love that wealth on any income is the name of the book. If we want to get in touch with you or not get in touch with you, but if we want to actually find that book, where can we buy that?
[00:09:59] Rennie Gabriel: The best place is my website wealth on any income.com, because that way I can donate a hundred percent of the price of the book to charity.
[00:10:10] Rennie Gabriel: If they get it from Amazon, I get like a buck big deal.
[00:10:13] Sam Wilson: Right, right. Yeah. And I think that’s a cool point to make is that because you don’t need the proceeds from these books, sales, you’re able to donate a hundred percent of that profit to animal. And what’d you say animals and veterans
[00:10:24] Rennie Gabriel: veteran charities correctly now.
[00:10:26] Sam Wilson: That’s really cool. That is really cool. What’s a challenge, I guess, since you’ve, you’ve been able to achieve financial independence, but what’s a challenge you find right now that you’re trying to overcome.
[00:10:37] Rennie Gabriel: being able to let go, my kids are talking about, Hey dad, when you pass away, we don’t want these properties.
[00:10:44] Rennie Gabriel: We’re not going to take care of these properties. And you ought to have a management company in place because you’re going to get old, you’re going to die and what’s going to happen. And so I started interviewing management companies and the difficulty is. I’ve run the properties I’ve met.
[00:11:00] Rennie Gabriel: It’s a property that was taken care of the tenants through this entire pandemic. 100% of my tenants have paid 100% of their rent and only one of them needed assistance from the government program. Wow. I don’t know of a management company. I don’t know of another landlord that can talk about
[00:11:21] Rennie Gabriel: that
[00:11:22] Rennie Gabriel: And when I started interviewing management companies, my assistant said, you know, Rennie, I’ve been looking for an apartment and one of the companies you interviewed had eight properties I had applied for or gone to see, and they don’t get back to.
[00:11:40] Rennie Gabriel: I mean, the person who showed me the property said, if I want to turn in an application, I got to call the management company. I call the management company it’s two days later before they even get back to me. Jeez. So guess what? They’re they, it all looked good when I interviewed them, but with the experience of my own assistant, I could see, they can’t do the kind of job I can do.
[00:12:05] Rennie Gabriel: So what’s going to happen is I’m going to tell the kids when I dropped dead, sell the properties, you’ve got to step up in basis. Have a good time,
[00:12:13] Sam Wilson: right? Yeah. Looks like you guys just to find a good realtor and call it a day. Yeah. Wow. That’s it. And so I guess out in the spirit of that question, are you still acquiring assets or is what you have right now?
[00:12:25] Sam Wilson: The bread basket. He said, Hey, this is what I’ve got for the duration. And I’m done. Where are you in your inbox?
[00:12:30] Sam Wilson: I’m done. I’ve got enough. We’ve got more money coming in. Then we need to live on. We’re able to set a lot of money aside anyway, so that, yeah, I’ve ha I have enough.
[00:12:42] Sam Wilson: I’m done.
[00:12:43] Sam Wilson: Talk to us about that. Cause for most people enough, there is never enough. How did you figure that out?
[00:12:50] Rennie Gabriel: Well, I talked about having been broke. If I look back at my situation where at one point I had to actually collect soda bottles and cans to get the refund money, to buy food for my family.
[00:13:02] Rennie Gabriel: When I look at the tens of thousands of dollars a month of income now, and I’m living on maybe 40, 50% of that, I’ve got enough. If I can continue to donate to charity. The thousands of dollars that we donate. I mean, granted, it could be more, but it’s enough.
[00:13:21] Sam Wilson: That’s awesome. So it sounds like you’ve achieved financial and time and independence.
[00:13:26] Sam Wilson: And your main motivation is that you want to devote or donate to charity and to put it where you want be.
[00:13:34] Rennie Gabriel: That’s it. It’s the more money I can donate to charity. The happier I am. You do
[00:13:38] Sam Wilson: talk to a lot of people, I’m sure, because of the book about finances, what are some of the, what are some of the repetitive conversations you feel like that you have that you just go, this is something I think everybody needs to hear.
[00:13:52] Sam Wilson: Maybe save you the time of having that conversation all over again
[00:13:55] Rennie Gabriel: it would be such a simple formula. if someone just lives on 80% of the money that’s coming in, they set 10% aside for when things go wrong, the car breaks down, they need registration expenses back to school, clothing for the kids, whatever I’ve found for hundreds and hundreds of people.
[00:14:13] Rennie Gabriel: It’s an average of 10%. Sometimes it’s 15 and the 10% they keep for the rest of their life. It comes from the book, the richest man in Babylon from a hundred years ago. Right. That formula 80 10, 10 will help anyone handle money powerfully.
[00:14:31] Sam Wilson: yeah. liked that book. That’s a good idea.
[00:14:34] Sam Wilson: Very wise and easy, certain read. Are there any other resources you would direct our listeners to? I mean, because this is a topic that people talk about a lot. They go, it’s at the front of most people’s minds. Are there other resources you direct people to, that you feel like would be a value.
[00:14:49] Sam Wilson:
[00:14:49] Sam Wilson: Yeah, actually they, I’ve got a nine step roadmap on my website and they can hear my Ted talk as well. and this nine step roadmap comes with 27 pages of explanation on how I went step-by-step from broke to philanthropic.
[00:15:07] Sam Wilson: That’s cool. Awesome. And we can find that there on your website wealth on any income.com,
[00:15:13] Sam Wilson: correct.
[00:15:13] Sam Wilson: And then just put forward slash TEDx. And they’ll see the roadmap and can hear the Ted talk, man.
[00:15:19] Sam Wilson: That’s fantastic. Rennie, are there any other closing thoughts you have here for our listeners today, as it pertains to how you’ve achieved financial independence investing in real estate, living on wealth on any income, anything else you’d like to share with the listeners before we close out?
[00:15:33] Rennie Gabriel: Just a reminder that wealth creation is a team sport, not a solo sport
[00:15:38] Sam Wilson: I love it. Rennie, thank you so much for your time today. Again, we can find you on wealth and income.com. Appreciate you coming on the show today and look we’re connecting
[00:15:46] Rennie Gabriel: soon. Thank you, Sam. My pleasure. Thank you so much.
