Three Secrets of the Wealthy with Rennie Gabriel

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Hello. Hello. Welcome to Wednesday Wisdom. My name is Ali Taylor. I am the founder and consultant at Wisdom and Wave Finder. I offer Done-With-You, consulting to help solopreneurs and micro businesses with employees under ten, grow, scale and profit with the right system, strategies and relationships. And this Wednesday Wisdom series is, all about the fact that unless you plan to live forever, you don't have enough time to learn.

Everything there is about running, growing, and scaling a business on your own. And so each week I bring on an expert to share their wisdom, their insights, and their experiences about how to do just that. And today, I'm happy to have with me. Renee Gabriel from wealth on any income, after two divorces and a business failure, when we went from broke at age 50 to multimillionaire after learning the three secrets of the wealthy despite failing high school math.

Rennie is a Ted speaker, and he now donates 100% of the profits from his books and online programs to rescue dogs and soldiers. His award winning bestselling book, Wealth on Any Income, has been translated into, eight different languages, and I'm happy to have him here today. Welcome to the show, Rennie.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Thank you. Ali, it's a pleasure to be here with you.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. so just share, anything outside of the introduction, that I've given. What else would you like us to know about how you got started? what are you up to now?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

well, I'm at a phase of life now where I can do whatever I want. And as a matter of fact, I, I trademarked a term called complete financial choice.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yes.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

The whole point of that is I get to choose whatever I want to do. If I want to work, I work. If I want to donate my time to charity, I can do that. If I want to travel, I can do that. If I don't want to travel, I don't have to do that. So it's having complete financial choice. And that was what, was important to me. And fortunately, I made it.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. That's amazing. And I think that is that is for a lot of entrepreneurs. we want that freedom. That's where a lot of us are seeking. And so the fact that you've created that, not just in your business, but in all the different areas of your life, I think is absolutely amazing. so tell us how you went from you've, the two divorces in the business, failure to now you have this complete financial choice where you can get to live life, you know, however you want to.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Well, I think one of the most important things for any business owner. And when I look back on my business career, because I've had several, I've had art galleries for a, pension administration company, a book publishing company. I have had loads of businesses. One of the things that, I saw in all of them, was, you know what?

I'll give you a good example. a lot of your listeners have probably heard of Charlie Munger. you know who that is, Dolly.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

I don't.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Oh, okay. Oh. That's perfect. Them. Okay. Yeah. he passed away recently. you've heard of Warren Buffett, though, right?

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yes. Everybody's heard of Warren Buffett.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Exactly. Okay, well, guess what Charlie Munger was half of Berkshire Hathaway. He was.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Okay.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Warren Buffett's partner. And the key I'm getting is when I look back at my own businesses, when I was in it by myself, they were kind of struggling. You know, I made a living, wasn't that easy. But when I had partners, things grew very, very well. The pension company grew from what we started with, with 30 clients to where we could sell it to a public company.

the, the book publishing company I did on my own. And it was just so horrible. I gave it to one of my editors. And at age 50, and I'm starting all over from scratch, I'm using the concept. And this is really important for all business owners. I'm using a concept called Pay Yourself First. Are you familiar with that?

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

I'm familiar with Profit First by Mike Micklethwait. Sorry, I'm assuming it's the same principle.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah, it's the same principle. Only he's applying it a little bit differently. But the concept itself was written about well over 100 years ago, based on clay tablets that were discovered in the city of Babylon 5000 years earlier. Oh, wow. When they were written. And what it says is you need to treat yourself like you matter. And the way you do that is you pay yourself first before you pay for a rent, mortgage, employee, salaries, insurance doesn't matter what it is.

You set aside a certain percentage that you will keep for the rest of your life.

Now, I tried it a couple times before I was 50, and one thing or another came up and I had to use the money. But at age 50 I said I can't do anything different now in 15 years either I'm going to be eating tuna or cat food.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Right. So. Or cereal as Kellogg's would like us to do.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Oh yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But I'm not earning a lot of money. I'm earning $5,000 a month. Okay. I think a lot of your listeners ought to be earning well, more than that. But what I did is I made sure I set aside 10% of that every single month, which was $500. Okay, so here I am three years later.

I'm 53. I've got a whopping $18,000. Okay.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

So you just have to set aside for for now.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah. Well, and now I'm on my third final best wife, and she has this realtor, and he says, Renee, you should buy this three unit property. And I'm saying, well, thanks, Robert. I only have $18,000. That's not going to buy anything. And he says, oh, well, I'll tell you what. If your wife contributes another 18, I'll do the other, 36.

And that'll be the down payment. It's such a good deal. I'll do I'll do it with you. So the three of us bought it, and in the next five years, because of a team, I went from that three unit purchase. We added 47 more units.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Wow. Okay.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

And so by 58, the income from the buildings was enough that I didn't have to worry about working anymore.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

So that's that's phenomenal man. Congratulations.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Thank you. So the key is in the pension company. I had a team in the book publishing company. I was on my own in the real estate investing. I had a team. if I go back to, the art galleries, I was by myself. That went broke in 1982.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Gotcha. So. So, yeah, it really is the relationships and the teams that you built in those areas that allowed you to succeed.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Absolutely. Right. it doesn't matter if it's growing a business. It doesn't matter if it's creating wealth. The reality is it's a team sport, not a solo sport.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, yeah. Now, interesting question that just came up for me was you said that you have your, your third best wife and she is part of your team in terms of building this, this sort of real estate empire that you have. Yeah. Did you not have that same sort of teammates, relationship with the first two?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

no, I didn't, yeah, as a matter of fact, in my first marriage, I have two wonderful kids from it, and they're, they're doing very, very well. And they often ask me, why did you ever marry mom?

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

right.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

It was a situation where, when I went broke in the art gallery business, and I turned to her that when she was my first wife, and I said, I need your help. Her comment to me was, you got us into this mess. You have to get us out of it.

That's not a team player.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

No, it's not, and I'm sure that must have been extremely hard to hear.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

It was very hard to hear, but it established who I was married to and were like, oh, 15 years into the marriage and a couple of years later, we were divorced. And I've, you know, it's been better since then.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Thank you for sharing. I, I, I so I've always I'm single myself right now and I have witnessed a lot of the, people in my life, you know, a lot of people who've been married and now they're getting divorced. And, I used to have one friend who would say, don't get married, don't have kids, right?

Like, I was like, almost there, for her, major to me, and so I've always been very cautious or sort of apprehensive about, man, if I'm going to partner up with someone and be in a romantic relationship with them, like they have to understand what it is that I'm doing. Right as an entrepreneur. Like, first of all, being an entrepreneur by itself is just challenging.

And then you bring a relationship into that with someone who doesn't understand the the peaks and valleys almost, you know, hourly that you can go through, as an entrepreneur, that makes that challenge even more difficult. so finding the right person, if really it really sounds like that was a key for you in terms of not just the right business partner.

Right? We always want to know, like, how do you find the right business partner, but ultimately it's the person that you're married to, the person that's your spouse that's going to have a bigger determination on how successful you are in those other areas too.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Absolutely right. And here's I'll give you two keys, to look for personally. Yeah. one of them is for me. I wanted someone with another entrepreneurial personality. And my wife had that. She was in real estate. She sold houses. She knew what it was like to go out and work and earn commissions. Okay. Yeah. And the second.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

That.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah. Yes. The second is I created a list. I had 20 items on the list of the personality characteristics, physical attributes, spiritual, whatever that I was looking for. And it turns out she also had a list. Only her list, 72 items. but, you know, so she met 18.5 of my list. I met about 50 of her 72.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Wow. Okay, there you go.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

So. Yeah. Yeah. So those are the two things. One, you want to create a list of exactly what you're looking for, have it written down. It's like they do in any goal setting seminar, seminar, workshop written goals make all the difference. They use. The Harvard study said a graduating class, I think it was from the 1950s, the the class, the people in the class who had written goals represented 3% of the graduating class.

Their net, excuse me, their net worth 20 years later was the equivalent of the other 97%.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Wow. That's crazy.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

So writing that goes down if you're looking for a partner, a romantic relationship, a business partner, having those the criteria written down is key.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, I have those. I wrote those down. and I have it in a document that I read every morning. So as I'm eating, it's like a way of sort of nourishing myself physically but also mentally, spiritually and emotionally. and I think the characteristics that I have written down are not just what I would want in a, well, definitely what I want in a romantic partner, but also just anybody in my life, whether it's as a friend, as a business partner, anybody that I associate with, you know, being able to have that level of accountability and integrity and honesty and, you know, kindness, like, those are some bedrocks of, you know, core values

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

that I'd like to have with everybody that's in my life. So. Yeah.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah, I mean, it makes life so much better. with I mean, you can rely on whoever it is. That's a friend, business associate, spouse, romantic relationship doesn't make any difference.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of core values, I know that one of your core values is that you create, philanthropists. You do a lot of that work, and you give 100% of those profits away to, to different organizations that matter to you.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yes. Why?

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Like, where did that come from? Was that is that a spirit that you've always had or was there an event that that caused, you to to want to do that?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

I guess you could say, regardless of the time in my life, I always felt fortunate in terms of what I had versus what other people had. And it was so funny. I thought this really came on later in life, but it was my children who told me, no, dad. I remember when I was little, you would take us to homeless shelters and give out blankets, or we would work in a food line and serve food to people.

And I forgot all about that because it was like 30 years earlier. 40 years earlier. but apparently I've always had that. And then when I started to accumulate wealth and I was creating more money than I needed to live on, there were organizations that mattered to me. my wife and I are pet lovers. We have three rescue dogs.

My stepdaughter had, two rescue dogs. you know, we're big into that. And my wife was also the head of Berkshire Hathaway's, Los Angeles Charitable Foundation.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Okay, so she's always been philanthropic. And someone came to her and said, I found this charity that I want the foundation to support. They rescue dogs from environments where they'd be euthanized, and they are trained as service animals for soldiers who've come back with PTSD, traumatic brain injuries or other issues. And they have a great track record.

Not one service member who's received their dog has committed suicide when the rate is almost one an hour for veterans.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, yeah, that's such a terrible statistic. And, I love that you're that you have a lot of friends who are in the military. have, you know, gone through some really hard times. And so, I there's one person in particular who told me about how his dog was like, the thing that, like, got him through some really dark times.

And so, I'll make sure that, it's, it's shelter to soldiers. The name of the particular charity.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

That the soldier.org.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. I'll make sure that that's linked up in the show notes, because I think that's such an incredible, mission one, just on the sense of, you know, being able to rescue, dogs. I mean, I'm allergic myself, but I will I will take all of the allergy medicine medication I need to when I have my own place to be able to rescue all of the dogs but also just being able to provide that support to our veterans and those who've served in the military, so that they get the services and help they need.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah. So, you know, at first I donated a few thousand dollars to them, and that felt good. And then I realized for $15,000, I could take care of the entire training of a dog. The veteran built veterinary bills, the housing, the veteran while he's being trained with the dog, the medical care, you name it. And so, you know, when I donated to to save the first dog and pay for the whole thing, I mean, it was just so such an old.

I felt so elated. You know, we did that over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. It's it's such, being able to give back in that way. they have the freedom in a resource to be able to get back in that way. I think it's another place where a lot of entrepreneurs want to get to, I'm sure they have a lot of causes that they want to get more to give to.

They want to, you know, contribute to. What advice do you have for maybe a solopreneur who is kind of bootstrapping everything. Maybe they don't have that romantic partner that they can, you know, have that support where they don't have a business partner that they can have you know, that support with. What advice do you have for someone who one wants to get to that place where they can pay themselves first, but then two wants to be able to contribute in a way that is meaningful and impactful.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

I'm going to get back to one of the things we discussed earlier. even a solopreneur shouldn't be doing it by himself. It's not nice to shoot all over yourself, but the point is, when you're doing it by yourself, you've got thoughts spinning in your head. You're not having anyone else to bounce them off of. You have no idea if they're good thoughts, bad thoughts, appropriate directions for your business, inappropriate direction of ineffective, and you need to have someone to bounce it off of. Even if you hire a business coach.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

And so yeah, that's what I do.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

rather than starting philanthropy, hire a business coach. That'll get you there quicker.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah. I mean, like I said, when I was in business for myself, it wasn't very effective. When I had a team or I had a business coach, it was far better. And the business coach that I work with now, even though I'm by myself, we've been working together for 30 years.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah, we were in a program where we met and I was coaching entrepreneurs. He was in that same program, also content coaching entrepreneurs, and we decided, why don't we coach each other? And we've been doing that for 30 years now.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

that's fantastic. So yeah, it's that's like an accountability partner, a real lifelong friendship.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah, exactly. And yeah, I feel it makes all the difference in the world.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

All the difference in the world. it's so easy to. There's another program that I do, where we work with, with men who coach men on how to have translate the success that they do in their business in other areas of their lives to do it. also have that success in their relationships with women. And so the accountability we have a thing called the code, where it's all about the integrity and, and keeping your word to yourself and building that self trust, you know, layer by layer by layer on those little promises that you've made to yourself.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

but it's so easy to shame yourself, guilt yourself if you don't do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it, and then you just get trapped in this spiral. And so I think that's one of the really great things about having an accountability partner, somebody that you can be in partnership with, is to be able to pull you out of it and be like, okay, you didn't do what you said you were going to do.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Now what are you going to do next? Right. Let's get you back on track.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Ali, that is so perfect. And as you're saying that it reminded me of what happened the first time I started paying myself first. I was earning 3000 a month. I set aside $300 a month. You know, I'm instituting this, and then, it's April. I've got to file income taxes. And the IRS wanted $3,000. Yeah, which was everything I had saved up.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

And I was so demoralized by that because I wasn't talking to anybody else. I wasn't getting input from anyone else that I stopped doing it. The IRS just took everything I'd saved for the last ten months. I stopped doing it for another eight, ten years. Had I been willing to talk to someone, they could have said something like, well, yeah, Renee.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Okay, so they took it. Save more? Yeah. Or just start again. Or at least you didn't have to borrow the money and pay interest. But I've. Yeah, do it all by myself. I got no input and had I been open to it, I probably wouldn't have been in the desperate straits that I was in.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, yeah. Someone. Another perspective. Another voice would have made, like you said, it was 8 to 10 years that you just stopped.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I read the book again. Yeah. It was probably about eight years later. And then I started over again. Then I got divorced and the money landed again. Yeah. And at least I knew it worked.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, absolutely. So while walk me through the process of, like, writing this, this book, I know a lot of people. Yeah, there's a lot of marketers or PR people who say, like, oh, you need to write a book in order to establish your, your authority online and to, be seen as an expert. Is that the reason that you wrote the book or.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

I mean, I'm I'm suspecting that it's not, but, what was that process like? What was going through your head in terms of sharing, your experiences in writing this book?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

it again, it gets back to doing things by myself. Yeah. I had been doing workshops for about ten years teaching the material that's in the book, and the same questions would show up over and over and over again. And I said, you know what? I'm going to I don't want to do these workshops anymore. I'm going to put everything I know and answer all these questions in a book, and then people will leave me alone.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

that shows how little I knew. Okay.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

So when the book came out, then all sudden people want to work with me instead. And I'm thinking, wait a second, this this went all wrong. This wasn't my plan.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, I did this because I wanted to to to talk less. Now I got to talk more.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Exactly. But what I found is I enjoyed working on stages and I started doing workshops for large organizations, insurance companies, Toyota motors. And that's where I was having fun. yeah. You know, I did a seminar for like, 600 insurance agents in, Galveston, Texas, and I. And sold 5000 copies of the book, you know, things like that.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

were a lot more fun, but it showed up for the wrong reasons, because that wasn't the plan.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, yeah, I was like, the universe was saying, like, oh, you think you're going to get this? But we got so much more in store for you.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah, exactly. And so and I laugh about my naivete. Yeah. It's yeah, it's funny, but out of that is the reason I founded the book publishing company said, wow, this is a great marketing tool. And we published another 80 books for people who were subject matter experts.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

So you did your own. You created your own publishing company instead of trying to shop for a book deal. Nice.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Exactly right. And yeah, I have got control issues, I'll admit it.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. And, well, I don't think there's an entrepreneur who doesn't. I mean, who decides to do this crazy thing called working for yourself, so you can do, you know, 120 hours a week so you can avoid working 40 for somebody else?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah, right. Exactly. It's the control issues. So, yeah, you know, they have served me in some ways and I laugh about them and others.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. Well, I love that you're that you're, you know, you're doing these seminars, you're doing these opportunities to, to help other people and to give back in such a way. I'm sure it's, you know, looking back from where you started to where you are now, like you said, I'm sure you're just laughing about your naivete and how you got to this place.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, one of the things that I like doing is working with people who are really struggling and, you know, because I can relate. There was a time when I was married to my first wife and the the art gallery business went broke. I ended up having to collect soda bottles and cans to get the refund money to buy groceries.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

you know, I know what it's like to have no money. And so to be at the position I'm in now, I don't forget what it was like to struggle, have no money, not be able to cover expenses, not be able to make the minimum payment on credit cards. I know what that's like.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. It is not a great place to be in. I've definitely been there myself many, many times. you know, over the years and taking on really crappy jobs just to be able to make ends meet. But, you know, when you, you know, I think this is true for every entrepreneur. It's like when you have that dream, when you have that drive, that goal, that vision that you can see you're willing to do whatever it takes to to have that vision come true, even if you gotta look a little crazy and be counted out or discounted or discard it for a little bit, you know, you know that it's the it's the fulfillment

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

of that vision that truly matters. And especially when you think of the other people, the people on the other side of that vision.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah. I mean, when we were building the, real estate business, I was working seven days a week straight for five years.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Wow.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

But at the end of that time, I could choose not to work another day in my life if I wanted.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. So, I know there's, like, a lot of the the mindsets is, is often one of the things that we have to deal with as an entrepreneur. One of the things that I've noticed about you, and everything you shared is that there's there's always been a thread of gratitude that has been there. yes.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Would you mind just sharing a little bit more about that?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

And I just, I believe it's how do I phrase it? Our beliefs run us, and I believe gratitude is important. my wife has the same feelings as I do. We're a wonderful match. we're very blessed.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Was that our both fearless?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yes, it actually was. You know, someone is grateful for whatever they had, and, you know, she had struggles, having been divorced and a single parent. And, you know, I had divorced, and I was a parent with two children. yeah. My first wife just decided to leave. You know, I'm very grateful for that.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, I'm sure you were in the moment.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

yeah, I was a little bit wondering in the moment, but after she was gone, I got to tell you, I was grateful because it was like, gee, now I only have two people to raise and not three.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. yeah.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Anyway, it, Yeah, gratitude is important. And one of the things I did, I wrote another book too, called attitudes of the wealthy, where I take, okay, dive into those attitudes. and it's things like, treat yourself like you matter and pay yourself first. It's, do you focus on paying off debt or do you focus on building wealth?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

you know, what about what? About donating to others? you know, you know, do you try and do this by yourself? What are you doing about helping other people? Are you trying to do things by yourself? I mean, literally, I got like 31 attitudes. I wrote about individual in this book and how they're important to wealth.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Now, granted, I probably only put into practice maybe 5 or 6 of them to create a moment in dollar net worth. If I could do all 31, I'd probably be a billionaire. But yeah yeah, yeah. No. But hey, half dozen is is good enough for me.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Now, were these, were these attitudes that you noticed in people who had built up their wealth or people who had maybe been born into it?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Oh, no.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

No, I just had like a larger.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Okay. No, this was about people who created it. The people who I noticed who had been born into it didn't have the appreciation, didn't have the gratitude, had feelings of entitlement. And instead their lives were a mess. And yeah, there's only one of them that I know who you might say might have been born into it, but he created his own wealth.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

And then when his parents passed away, he inherited a whole lot more. But the point is, prior to that, he went out on his own and built his own.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. So he he already developed the personality and the characteristics necessary to not only sustain that type of wealth, but then to build upon it.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Exactly. So when his parents died and he inherited a fortune, it didn't change his lifestyle. It all didn't change him at all. you know, it's just like, okay, I've got extra. So what?

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, yeah, one of my favorite, thoughts or maxims is that, you know, wealth, things like wealth, marriage, love, all those things doesn't change who you are. Just reveals more of who you already are or who you already believe you are.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Warren Buffett had the most beautiful expression to match what you just said, he said of the billionaires. I have known. they oh gosh, knowing I know the quotes escaping me. oh, of the billionaires I've known, if they were jerks before they had money, they were simply jerks with $1 billion.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. So yeah, that's so true.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah, yeah, it who you are doesn't change. It just reveals more accurately who you are.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. And I think, you know, I, I was having this conversation with someone who works with, a lot of ultra high net worth individuals, and we're talking about how, you know, those who don't have wealth will often, you know, bite their thumb or thumb their noses at those who do have wealth, you know, and they'll they'll categorize people as, you know, jerks.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

They're rude. They're mean, like, just say all types of, like, mean and nasty things. But I think that's their that's their internal belief about maybe what they would do if they had that kind of money. right. Like they don't.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah. It's more like Aesop's fable where the, the Fox, I think it was the fox is jumping up, trying to grab some grapes or apples on from some tree, can't reach it and therefore says, the food is probably rotten anyway.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yes.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

It's yeah. They don't have the ability to create it. Therefore they denigrate the people who have the ability to create it.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. That's such a that's a good point. Yeah. And I think that's to mask maybe the, the heartache or the disappointment, or the shame in themselves for not being able to attain that.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah, I would agree with you on that. And there's a terrific book I read by, housel. Martin, House of shoot. I'm so bad at my age, just things don't work as well as I use my brain. but it was called the Psychology of money, and he points out so many interesting things in it. As an example, let's say that you see some person driving a Bugatti or a Rolls Royce or, you know, whatever, and you look at them and you say, boy, I'd like to have a car like that.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

The person driving the car might think, look at me, people are staring at me, envious of me. They want to be me. No, they just want your car.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Right?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

They don't want to be you. They don't care anything about you. They're just seeing the car.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, and you know what? That brings up another point that I, in that conversation I was having around sometimes people with a lot of money, they're seen as a, as a checkbook long before they're seen as a person.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Oh, yes. Absolutely. Right. I remember early on when I started being more philanthropic, people would crawl out of the woodwork saying, you know, I got, you know, will you donate to this? Will you donate to that? Will you know, all the rest of that stuff? There were causes I couldn't care anything about. You know, let's say it was a political person.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

I thought it was disgusting. And they want to know if I'm going to raise money for them. Yeah, right. I don't even believe in anything you're saying. Yeah, yeah. No, I created a list of, What are the kinds of organizations that I want to support. And then I would actually create, I created a little form and whenever anyone asked for, donations, I would send them the form.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

And I never even saw it come back.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

that was it. Couldn't even take the time to fill out the form.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Exactly. Wouldn't you take the time to fill out the form? Made it easy to just say, you know. No, if you can't even do that, you know we're done.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Which is also a great way of finding your business coach. A great way of finding your employees. I remember when I was looking for an editor for the book publishing company. I created a sheet of a one page that had various errors in it that an editor would need to find incorrect.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

So I placed the ad. I got about 70 or 80 responses. I sent this out saying please correct it, please make the corrections on this page. And then I got about ten of them back that already eliminated 70 of the 80 responses. I only had to look at ten. And of the ten, some of them were pretty poor.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

there were three of them that were really good. And I hired one of those people.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. That is that's a that's a great tool to filter out, you know, people who are just in it for, you know, the money for what they can get out of the relationship with you, versus those who actually want to be your partner and, and have that similar vision.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah, exactly. And do the work. And so I really set up processes for screening people, whether it's for donations, whether it was for my wife, whether it's for an employee. So having conditions of satisfaction is a great way to find who you need. My current assistant has been with me for I think we're going on nine years now.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Previous wow assistant was with me for ten years and what I had my previous assistant do was take a personality test before she left. And then when I was looking to replace her because she was leaving, she interviewed the people and I had them take the same personality test to see how well it matched hers.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

And the person who matched it, the closest is the one I hired, and she trained who's been with me for the last nine years.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

that's a fantastic process. Especially because you already know that that, like, the personality style that works best with you, which, you know, I think that's another aspect of it, is that you have to know yourself really well. So did you did you take that personality test for yourself or do you do any, any of those things?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Okay. Yeah, I also took the personality test as well. And one of the key things for growing any business is you want to have divergent personalities, not matching personalities. Yes, yes. Like if you're a salesperson, you don't partner with another person who has the salesperson personality.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

If you're you encounter, you don't hire another bean counter.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah. I was, I was talking to someone last night at a networking event, and, you know, he's, like, digital marketing person, and he was telling me about, oh, he needs to, hire somebody so that he can get away from doing all this other stuff. And I was like, yeah, you should probably get yourself a project manager.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

He's like, no, no, I need to hire another. Basically another version of him. and I've made that mistake before where when I was doing marketing and graphic design and branding, I'm. I hired another graphic designer when I should have just hired a project manager, someone who could rein me in and help me create those process and the things that I was already doing so that I could step away versus like, oh, well, I can just give them the stuff that I don't want to do or give them stuff to that's similar to what I've already doing and then try to figure out, okay, let me go figure out sales.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Let me go figure out business development and all these other things while I'm doing that. And it was a total yeah, it wasn't a total disaster, but it didn't go the way that I wanted it. And, you know, I had to take accountability and responsibility for for the way that business went at the time. But he, you know, was also saying like, yeah, I need to hire somebody else.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

It's like, no, like you said, hire a divergent, complementary person, not a matching person.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Exactly. And so and it's so perfect too, because the person you were speaking to the other evening bounced his idea off of you. And he got better input as opposed to trying to figure it out on his own. Which all gets back to wealth creation business growth. It's a team sport.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

I like that I like that it's a team sport. Especially since all the money that you want and in a world is in other people's pockets anyway. So you got to develop those relationships.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Yeah, exactly. And you know, the more you give people what they want, the more you'll have for yourself.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yes, I love that. I love that. All right, well, we're getting ready to wrap up, coming up towards the end of our time here. And I always like to ask everyone to share, what is one piece of wisdom that doesn't have to be related to business, but just one piece of wisdom that you would like to leave, the audience with?

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

it would have to be what we have been talking about. you know what? Let me add a little summary. I know, and I can do it quickly. You mentioned I discovered the three secrets of the wealthy. let me tell you what those three secrets are. Number one is attitude. Number two is forms. They use forms to track how much money is coming in where they're spending it, so they know what's being effective.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

And the third for wealthy people is investments. They're not limited to stocks, bonds and mutual funds. So those happen to be the three secrets of the wealthy. Let me leave the audience with that.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, I love that. All right. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate everything you shared. So much wisdom, so much value. in your experience. And I am going to, link both of your books into the show notes. but also link out to the shelter to soldier, nonprofit, so that we can continue to help for that mission and, help those people as well.

Speaker 2 - Rennie Gabriel

Thank you so much, Ali. It's been a pleasure to be with you today. And, I look forward to connecting to you, connecting with you, and having you on my podcast.

Speaker 1 - Ali J. Taylor

Yeah, I look forward to that as well. Yeah. All right. Well, take care everyone. I will see you next week. this will be launching, post it up on YouTube by Friday. and also on Apple and Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcasts. All right. Take care.