“Assets Are Sexy” + The ONE Equation That Creates True Wealth | Sharon Lechter

Sharon Lechter: And my husband called me that day.

In fact, I share this from stage all the time. He says, "Sharon, I've met a man today

that has what you've been looking for." And I go. "Ladies, if your husband called you

because 'I met a guy that has what you've been looking for'".

I said, "Okay, sounds a little kinky.

Tell me more." He was right.

Intro Band: Lean in closer. This is your time.

Hit record on your crooked life.

What's your story? (Hey!) Say the words out loud.

Mike and Scott gonna crack that crowd.

What's your story? (Hey!) Turn it up.

Let's go! Every voice, every scar, every road.

What's your story? Mike and Scott.

Let's talk.

Scott Leese: What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the "What's Your Story" podcast.

I'm Scott Leese. This is my good friend and co-host Mike Lindstrom.

And we are here today with...

Mike Lindstrom: A legend.

Scott Leese: ...The most accomplished author that I've ever met.

Mike Lindstrom: And definitely on our podcast by a long shot.

Scott Leese: 29 books in 29 years.

Mike Lindstrom: And that's actually one a year, basically, if you count back to her first

book, that's one a year.

Scott Leese: The co-author of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad".

Yep. And co-author of this new book called "Old Wealth,

New Wealth, True Wealth. Beyond Dollars.

The New Currency of Legacy", co-authored with Nathan "Barcacci?"

"Barcacci?" I'll have Sharon Lechter, who is here.

She's the author and our special guest today.

She can correct me. I'm butchering Nathan's name,

but welcome to the show.

Sharon Lechter: Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be with you guys.

Scott Leese: I left out the part where you're also five-time New York Times best-selling author,

public speaker, entrepreneur, all these things.

So I don't know where...

Mike Lindstrom: You probably have so much going on in your life these days.

Scott Leese: ...you want to begin?

Sharon Lechter: But I've been around a long time.

Scott Leese: Well, we always want to hear from people. "How did you get going? What's your story?"

So we kind of turn it over to you.

Sharon Lechter: Thank you so much. I appreciate it, both of you.

My story is... It can be very long.

I'll try and make it very short. I was raised in a lower middle-class house,

living between my Mom's beauty shop and my Dad's used car lot.

My dad was a career Navy.

We were lower-middle class, and I always aspired to be like my friends

parents who were CEOs and military officers.

So I was the first generation in my family to go to college.

The only woman in my accounting classes, only woman,

one of the very first women who started in public accounting back in the mid 70s.

And a few years into that, I realized I wasn't in control of my life.

I'm kind of a control freak.

So it was like I didn't really like not being in control of my life,

and I was working incredibly long hours, successful,

but still frustrated. And I had a client offer me to leave public accounting with him

to start, so he was acquiring a company that was in bankruptcy to acquire the net

operating loss carry forward.

So I had a chance to own "a piece of the rock."

Mike Lindstrom: Nice.

Sharon Lechter: And that started my entrepreneurial journey.

But fast forward, as I had the opportunity to meet my husband,

we're in our 46th year together this year.

Scott Leese: Wow.

Sharon Lechter: Had kids, continued as an entrepreneur.

My oldest son went off to college here in 1992 and got into credit card debt,

and that was when I dedicated the rest of my life to financial literacy and financial

education. So I started working with the school systems.

My hair used to be red.

It's now white. And really everything I do is,

is to support people in finding what they need to do to create wealth.

Because I was given the gift of having parents who talked to me about money at the

dinner table. They talked about assets, they talked about cash flow. And I realized

when I got out into the real world, how few people understood money and were

taught to chase paychecks.

We're taught to exchange time for money and that is a huge mistake.

We need to spend our time buying, building and creating income-producing

assets. That is the destiny for wealth.

And so that's been my mantra since December of '92,

when my son came home from college.

And to today, I'm as passionate about it today.

Scott Leese: And you grew up where?

Sharon Lechter: In Orlando.

Scott Leese: In Orlando, Florida.

Sharon Lechter: Yeah, I graduated from high school the year Disney opened.

So, it was a different Orlando that I grew up in.

Scott Leese: One thing that is interesting when you were telling that story is you said you came up in

a low-middle class kind of environment.

I don't know that many people that grew up in that kind of environment,

that conversations about money and accruing assets and things like that were part of the

normal dialogue at the dinner table and whatnot.

That feels like a little bit of a unique thing.

Sharon Lechter: It was, and that's what I realized, how unique it was when I got out into the

real world. Because we were... my dad had real estate rental properties that I had to

go clean out bathrooms between tenants.

So I say, "I've been a real estate investor since I was ten." He had orange groves and

he'd say, "Sharon, the oranges give me cash flow every year,

but that land is going to appreciate." And that land is now SeaWorld in Orlando.

Mike Lindstrom: Oh my goodness. Wow.

Sharon Lechter: So those kind of lessons were just part of everyday conversation.

And if you wanted something, he figured out a way to create the income to

get what he wanted. And so the...

He never had a scarcity mindset, even though we didn't have a lot when I was

young. But he had a lot when he died because followed the principal.

He followed the principles that he taught me and everything was an asset.

Everything was income generating.

So...

Mike Lindstrom: So 29 years ago, you said, we're celebrating a 29-year anniversary of

the book. So "Rich Dad, Poor Dad." And I've read the book.

I know a little bit about the story. I'd love to hear what led up to that?

Like the 1 or 2 years before you come together and say,

we need to write this. Because there's two, two very powerful people coming together with

their own stories to write this book.

Tell us about the lead up to before the book became the book.

Sharon Lechter: Certainly. Appreciate the question.

Well, Robert Kiyosaki had an idea for a board game and he found out the best IP attorney,

the best licensing attorney in the world was named Michael Lechter.

So he went to meet my husband at his office on the top floor,

downtown Phoenix, in his flip flops and Bermuda shorts with his idea for board game

drawn out on a piece of paper.

And my husband called me that day.

In fact, I share this from stage all the time. He says, "Sharon, I've met a man today

that has what you've been looking for." And I go, "Ladies, if your husband called you

because 'I met a guy that has what you've been looking for,'" I said,

"Okay, sounds a little kinky.

Tell me more." And because I was already working with the school systems and already

teaching the importance of assets, he was right.

When I went to the beta test, I was the only one that got out of the Rat

Race. I don't know if you're familiar with the cash game, but I was the only one that

got out of it. But I loved it.

In fact, I got there and there were butcher block paper drawn with crayons,

and the playing pieces were different caliber bullets.

Great first impression, But I loved the concept.

I loved what the game was teaching.

And so I just volunteered, because before this,

I had just sold a company with the inventor of the talking children's book,

and we took that from 1987 to 1991 and made a global impact on distributing.

We were in 100 countries very quickly, and I learned the importance of publications,

of licensing, distribution.

And because it was at a time when kids had no electronics...

So hard to imagine in 1987, kids had no screens,

believe it or not, dinosaur days.

So we had this electronic product and we said,

how can we get parents to...

To trust us? And so we did deals with little companies like Disney,

Warner Brothers, Sesame Street, Marvel Comics,

and it allowed us to really explode the product around the globe because parents

trusted those brands and therefore they trusted us.

So it was very exciting to see kids excited to read again.

And so that was wonderful. And we sold that company.

I moved here in 1991. So fast forward when I met Robert '96,

I still had those contacts and those relationships.

So I said, "I'd like to help you commercialize the game." And during that

process, he told me he wanted to charge $200 for the game.

1996.

Mike Lindstrom: Wow.

Sharon Lechter: Pretty pricey for a board game.

Robert, I said, "Maybe you should write a brochure about your philosophy." And that's

when he asked me to be his partner.

We were equal partners, and we wrote the brochure for the board game,

and that brochure was "Rich Dad, Poor Dad." We never expected it to take on a

life of its own.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah,

Sharon Lechter: We never expected to write more than one book,

but in our ten-year partnership, we wrote 15 books together.

We ended up in 110 countries, 51 languages.

But yeah, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" was actually written to sell the board game.

The name of our company was Cash Flow Technologies.

We thought that was our brand. Yeah, the world said,

no, your brand is "Rich Dad." So...

Mike Lindstrom: I... At the time when I read it, which I loved at the time,

right when it came out, I read it. And Tony Robbins,

who was my mentor at the time, coming out of law school.

He would always tell us every year, you got to read this book, gotta read this

book. So that just became a staple when we talked about the Pillars of Life.

You have Finance is a Pillar, Health and Fitness.

So back then we had "Body for Life" by Bill Phillips.

That was the big one.

Sharon Lechter: Of course.

Mike Lindstrom: Think about.

Sharon Lechter: I remember it well.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah, this is the time frames. But "Rich Dad,

Poor Dad" was the Pillar of Finance.

So all of the coaches had to know this cold.

But when it took off SO quickly, I don't know if you ever envisioned that.

We're going to ask you that. What was it about it, though? Was it the name? The

content's amazing, but was it...

a book like that had never been put in such a simple term?

Like, why did you all think "what is going on here? Like, why is this book taking off?"

What was your thoughts?

Sharon Lechter: There are several factors.

First of all, yes, the title you immediately relate.

"My dad was a rich dad" or "my dad was a poor dad," so that certainly is very helpful.

At the time, we talked to major publishers and they said, "Sharon, it should be red,

green or black. That's what finance books do." And I go,

"That's why we want purple.

We want to stand out. We want to be different." And if you go into bookstores

today, the few that are still around, you're going to see a lot of purple books

because of the success of "Rich Dad".

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: But it also... We had an incredible gift called the Amway Organization that helped us

really explode very quickly because we're talking before Amazon.

Scott Leese: Yeah.

Before the internet.

Mike Lindstrom: Yes.

Sharon Lechter: And so it was the old radios, right?

You did a lot of radio promotion, a lot of television promotion.

And I found a way to get books into the stores,

which was very difficult at that time.

And so what we did was we continued on relentlessly doing radio interviews.

Scott Leese: Endless promotions.

Sharon Lechter: Endless promotion. But when we launched the game on April 8th,

1997, we had printed a thousand copies of "Rich Dad,

Poor Dad." We each put in $1,500 to print our thousand copies.

And so we gave out to all our family and friends who came to the launch for the game

and the book. And Robert had a friend in Austin that had a car wash,

and so he wouldn't buy books from us.

But he said, I'll put some out on consignment.

So we sent 10 to 12 books down to this car wash.

And so one guy, he picked it up and he read it.

He happened to be a Diamond in the Amway organization,

Bill Galvin. And he called me one day out of the blue and said,

"I just read this book. It's fantastic." And I'm going,

"You did?" And he says, "Yeah, how many do you have left?" I go,

"About 950," about 950 because we'd given away probably 50 copies.

Right. And he said, "I'll take them all."

Scott Leese: Wow.

Sharon Lechter: And he ended up getting the book into the hands of Dexter Yeager.

And Dexter Yeager was one of the icons of the Amway Organization.

And so as a result, it allowed us to really...

They took us on as kind of like the Amway Bible.

And then we became the Bible for network marketing.

Mike Lindstrom: 100%.

Sharon Lechter: Because I always kept them arm's length, because I didn't want to cut off all the

other network marketing organizations.

And it was interesting because that was never on our business plan,

but our philosophy and what we teach in "Rich Dad,

Poor Dad" validates their industry, building systems,

building passive income streams.

And so it was a huge gift to us and allowed us to impact a lot more people very quickly.

Scott Leese: Is your writing now...

Do you find the process easier?

Harder? The same? I was telling you briefly off camera,

I've written three. The first one I felt like just kind of flowed out of me.

And the second and third were much harder for me.

And I'm just like, I can't do this anymore. And I don't want to write anymore. But I'm

wondering, you've done this 29 times now.

Is every one a completely different journey?

Mike Lindstrom: Yes.

Sharon Lechter: Every book has been different.

Every... Of the ten books, 15 books Robert and I did together,

they were all different in how we wrote them.

And so.

Scott Leese: Some easier, some harder?

Sharon Lechter: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Some books I write...

Six weeks. Other times it's 18 months before I'm ready to let go of it.

So the philosophy is not what you want to write,

but what the reader needs to see.

What do they need to read?

And so when you write, as I say, "Don't think about it as writing.

Think about it as talking to the reader.

What's the message you want them to receive?" And so every book,

what I typically... I'm not one of those that writes an hour a day.

More power to you if you can.

I go to the beach, usually San Diego and I turn off everything and I just,

me and the water in my vision and my computer.

And I immerse myself in writing for anywhere from 3 to 7 days.

And then I walk away from it for a month or so,

and then I come back and do it again.

Scott Leese: Fresh set of eyes.

Sharon Lechter: Yeah. And I, I read it and I go, that's really good.

And then I'll read the next thing I go, what was I thinking?

So it allows me to come in with fresh eyes.

Scott Leese: Yeah. And work on it again until I get it to the point where I believe it's sharing what I

want to share. I find the creative journey and process that everybody has to be super

interesting because everybody's so different.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Scott Leese: With it, I also cannot write X amount every single day.

I can't,

Mike Lindstrom: I can't do it.

Scott Leese: It's just... If it's not...

Mike Lindstrom: If it's not flowing, it's not flowing.

Scott Leese: ...not flowing, then I can't.

Sharon Lechter: It's just so hard because you're constantly unplugging and replugging and yeah,

to me, for me personally, I...

It's not coherent for me to do that, so...

Scott Leese: Yeah.

Mike Lindstrom: Was there any one that, outside of the obvious,

is there any other books in there that you consider,

like, "this is another one that was really" even,

it may not be as famous or picked up as another book in there that you said.

"This is the one I felt really strong about" whether it did well or not.

Sharon Lechter: Yes, absolutely.

Mike Lindstrom: Give us a couple.

Sharon Lechter: "Outwitting the Devil" with the Napoleon Hill Foundation.

I don't know if you're familiar with it, but "Think and Grow Rich," of course, I know

you're familiar with it. Came out in 1937, and it was a 25-year initiative by Napoleon

Hill. And when he released it, he was frustrated because he said, "I'm

giving you the thesis of success."

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: "And people will not act on it because of fear." So he added that last chapter,

"the Six Ghosts of Fear" in "Think and Grow Rich," but he released it...

In '37. And in in the summer of '38, he sat down and he would have used the word

downloaded if it existed back then.

But in a few short months, he wrote this manuscript called "Outwitting

the Devil," and his wife who was working for the Presbyterian College,

and she was afraid she was going to get fired,

so she forbid it to be published.

And it was locked away for 73 years.

And she... He died in 1970.

She died in the '90s. Her sister had the manuscript,

and she died in 2012. And that's when it was given to the Foundation.

And so my first book with the Foundation was called "Three Feet from Gold," which is also

a great book.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: And the month were released that they called me and said, "we have this manuscript.

We don't know what to do with it." And I said,

"Okay." They sent it to me, and I was probably the fourth or fifth person

to see it. And it literally was typed on a typewriter.

Mike Lindstrom: Typewriter.

Sharon Lechter: And it had handwritten notes on the margin by Napoleon Hill.

So it was like I was having this conversation with him.

Mike Lindstrom: Oh my God, that's so cool.

Sharon Lechter: It was just... It gave me goosebumps, but I read it and within two hours of

reading, I said, this book has got to get out.

And I believe there was a higher per...

Person at work. But God said, "No, this isn't the right time for this book

because today is the right time." And it's life changing.

And it talks about so few of us are in control of our own thoughts.

We're so... We see what...

we look at ourselves through the lenses of other people.

We want to go with the flow.

We don't want to cause waves.

And then he talks about 98% of the population do not have control over their thoughts.

There's a 2% that do that will be able to stay away from the Devil.

Right? And the book is actually a interrogation of the Devil.

So it's quite life changing.

Mike Lindstrom: Is it still, can I go get it and buy it?

I haven't read it.

Sharon Lechter: Yes, definitely.

Mike Lindstrom: Ok.

Sharon Lechter: In fact, today...

Mike Lindstrom: It'll happen today.

Sharon Lechter: It's been hugely successful.

And I recommend young people read that first and then "Think Grow Rich" because it talks

about how fear holds us back.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: And then he goes through this process of understanding the ways you can get through

the fear, turn that fear into faith.

Definiteness of purpose is the first step.

Learning from adversity, right?

But two of the most important ones are control of your environment,

who you're hanging out with, what are you listening to? What are you

allowing in your brain and then control of your time.

Are you spending your time or are you investing your time?

And the audio book is amazing.

I... I went through 200 auditions for The Devil's voice and it really is like a radio

drama. You guys would love it.

Mike Lindstrom: So who is it? Who was it?

Sharon Lechter: Oh, I don't know his name. I'd have to look up his name,

but.

Mike Lindstrom: Oh, I'm on it.

Sharon Lechter: I have people call.... I had to pull off the side of the road here.

And I hear everybody that they love it because it's such a...

impactful. You can feel it in your bones.

Scott Leese: Nailed the casting of it.

Sharon Lechter: Yes. It was really crazy.

Mike Lindstrom: It's interesting. I forgot about the whole network marketing tie in. I do remember that

from when I was with Robbins, because... I remember we'd be guest speakers

at these network marketing events.

Sharon Lechter: Yes.

Mike Lindstrom: "Tony Robbins, top speaker coming in," we do our 45 minute spiel,

and we were trying to promote Tony's seminar, of course, right? Sales or fire walking or

whatever. It was the time. And I remember walking in that year and they had one of

their diamond guys there.

It's a big rah-rah. The whole network marketing world's like that.

Sharon Lechter: Sure.

Mike Lindstrom: And that's why they gravitate to the positiveness.

Sharon Lechter: High energy.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah. The guy was up there talking about he had a the question was "A car:

is that an asset or a liability?" And of course everyone says "Asset." "Wrong!

Let me tell you." And he's just giving- he's breaking down your book without even

talking about it, "Man, he's ripping off all 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad.'

Stop trying to act like he's the guy."

Sharon Lechter: We actually allowed them to do- use our "Cashflow Quadrant." "Cashflow

Quadrant" was the second book in the "Rich Dad" series, and I actually think it's more

revolutionary in thinking than "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" even,

because it talks about the ways we make money as an employee,

self-employed person on the left side of the quadrant,

which is what school teaches us

Mike Lindstrom: Of course.

Scott Leese: Yep.

Sharon Lechter: And on the right side is B is in business owner,

I as in investor. And bus- a true business owner can walk away from his

business and come back six months later and it's..

it's strong. So it's not dependent on you as an owner.

And your investments of course, are "is your money working for you?" And the

right side is not taught in school.

It's... I taught, that's what...

I help people move from the left side to the right side of the quadrant.

And you do that because of assets?

My favorite word on earth, guys: assets.

Scott Leese: Assets.

Sharon Lechter: And my tagline I'm known for around the world,

"assets are sexy" because they are.

And the older you get, the sexier they become.

Scott Leese: That's great. Tell us about the new book a little bit.

"Old Wealth, New Wealth, True Wealth."

Sharon Lechter: Certainly. Thank you very much.

Scott Leese: How did you meet and get connected to Nathan...

Sharon Lechter: Nathan Barkocy.

Scott Leese: Barkocy.

Sharon Lechter: Yes. He is 26 at 16...

January... 16 years ago, January 23rd.

He was a nationally ranked cyclist and he was on a road in New Mexico with his trainer,

his coach, and someone- a couple other people.

And he was hit by a car going 50, 60 miles an hour.

Pronounced dead on the scene.

He was in the hospital for several months in a coma, and then took him a long time to walk

again. And in that process, he had a decision to make.

I know many young people would just give up on life at that point because he was destined

for the Olympics, as that was his vision.

That was everything. It was going for the Olympics.

And he actually read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" in the hospital.

And he decided to take that drive, that energy,

and put it towards building a financial house of real estate.

And so at 25, he was multi-millionaire in real estate.

And when he achieved that, he wanted to become a speaker,

wanted to share it with his generation.

So he reached out to me not expecting to get me,

but he reached out to my office and we had a conversation.

Then he became a client, and I just wanted him...

I wanted to help him create the platform that he could share.

And so the book is "Old Wealth, New Wealth, True Wealth." And if you think

about "Old Wealth" is the slow and steady accumulation that we're basically taught.

"New Wealth" is the fast and easy overnight success,

all the trying, all the new gimmicks, right?

Which there's an element in both that work.

But "True Wealth" is not just about achieving financial wealth,

but it's who you become in the process.

And understanding that true wealth is a wealth of relationships,

wealth of health, as well as financial wealth.

And so it's just an incredible it's a parable about three brothers each represent one of

those types of wealth.

And it's just a lot of fun.

It's set at my ranch, which is here in Arizona and Young,

Arizona. I do business retreats there several times a year,

and he came to one of those retreats.

And so he wrote the book as a parable about the learning from the retreat,

and it's something that we've had such incredible feedback from people that have

read it. We've got some incredible testimonials on the book,

and it really opens people's eyes to, I really think of "Rich Dad,

Poor Dad" changes the way people think about money.

Scott Leese: Absolutely.

Sharon Lechter: "Old Wealth, New Wealth, True Wealth" changes the way people think

about wealth.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah. Got it. Did he pitch you on the book idea or did you just.

It just came together?

Sharon Lechter: In my mentoring with him, he was one of my high level mentoring

clients. And so we were saying "How can we get you to...

Let's establish that level of expertise.

Create your authority so you can use that to be able to start impacting your generation."

And he's the one that came to me and asked me,

"Would you co-author?" Which I've never really co-authored a book with a client

before. My legacy is creating other legacies.

I love lifting other people up and helping them create the plan for them and their own

legacies. And so, but because I was so passionate about what he'd done and the fact

that it's kind of kicked off with "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," I said,

"Okay, I'm going to do it" because he's a wonderful young man,

very, very strong Christian, very strong family man,

and very passionate about helping his generation succeed.

So I wanted to help him as much as I could.

Mike Lindstrom: I was going to say, "What would get Sharon Lechter's attention?" If I cold called you,

you didn't know me from anybody. And I'm 24, 25 years old...

So there's something there. Whether it was the story, obviously you're flattered by the

book, but there has to be something when you're in a mentor role or coach role that

says something about this one, like what...

Scott Leese: Was it about the story? The topic?

Or was it...

Mike Lindstrom: Cuz I'm sure you get called a lot with ideas!

Sharon Lechter: Lemme tell you another story because it's similar actually. A couple of them, but this

one, Tarek El Moussa, I'm sure you know who he is.

a flipper, he's part he's a business partner of mine.

And he was coming here to launch a fund with Chris Hansen.

And so we went to support it.

And I'm at this VIP reception before the actual event launch.

And Chris comes up and basically just stands in front of me and says,

"You don't remember me, Sharon.

But 20 years ago, you came to the University of Arizona and played 'Cashflow' with my

class." I only did that once.

Mike Lindstrom: Wow.

Sharon Lechter: And he says, "Because of that evening, I am now a multi-millionaire in real estate."

Mike Lindstrom: Wow.

Sharon Lechter: And so I decided to go full circle.

I invested in his fund.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: So we got to do this. We got to make this a story.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah. That's great.

Sharon Lechter: The power of the story.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah, well, that's the thing about "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," I think, is you told it. You could

have told that as just a straight finance book, but you told it through a story. We

grew up very middle class.

Modesto, California. My dad worked at Procter and Gamble at a factory. Never missed games,

but he always provided. But he didn't have like, maybe some other friends on the other

side of town had the nicer clothes, and I remember I never looked at my dad as

"poor dad", not even close, because I know he worked his butt off.

But there was definitely friendship groups where I would look. "Oh, that was so and so's

dad." "Oh, that's definitely so-and-so's dad." And it just made me go through the book

differently and almost on point.

I'm like, "Yep, his dad did that. Yep.

His dad did that. Yeah. My dad did a little bit more of that." So it's not necessarily

just the poor, it's the mindset.

It's the yin and the yang of mindset around asset versus liability. So the storytelling

still continues to work very obviously.

Sharon Lechter: Almost without exception we are raised with scarcity mindsets.

My dad was the exception.

And I think because we grew up, we hear things like,

"money doesn't grow on trees." "Pinch your pennies." "Save for a rainy day." "Oh,

I can't afford."

Scott Leese: I have PTSD from all of those phrases.

Sharon Lechter: "I can't afford it," can you- and all those things are negative statements.

It just shuts your brain down.

You want to turn off the lights and get under the covers. It's like it's done.

Scott Leese: "Save for a rainy day."

Sharon Lechter: Yeah. Negative. And so we grow up hearing the money negative.

No wonder we end up with a scarcity mindset!

And that's the first thing that needs to change. There's a lot of financial educators

out there that don't understand, it starts up here.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah,

Sharon Lechter: We're in control of three things. Our thoughts,

our words, our actions.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: And you can't change your actions if your thoughts don't change. So you have to work on

the mindset. So I tell people, instead of saying, "I can't afford it," say,

"how can I afford it?" You feel the difference?

When you say, "How can I afford it?" Your brain opens,

your subconscious goes to work.

It engages your entrepreneurial spirit, and your subconscious can get very creative.

And so it's a whole different environment.

So I teach people all the time the power of the question.

Allow yourself to engage yourself with questions.

"How can I do this?"

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah,

Scott Leese: I think I know the answer

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah

Scott Leese: But I would assume that you encourage parents to talk about finances and financial literacy

with their kids. Well, I don't know what at what age.

I've talked about money with my kids in ways that my parents never talked to me about,

and I would hope that they're more financially intelligent than I was at that

particular age. I know my youngest son.

He's very entrepreneurial already.

He's like buying golf clubs online and reselling them somewhere else and figuring

out all this. I'm like, "I didn't do any of that stuff back then."

Mike Lindstrom: No.

Scott Leese: So I, I'm thinking the first bit of responsibility then is potentially with the

parent to work on that mindset.

Sharon Lechter: Because we're not teaching it in school.

Scott Leese: Right.

Mike Lindstrom: Still! Which blows my mind.

Sharon Lechter: Kids learn money habits from their parents, hence the statement "the rich get richer,

the poor get poorer." Right?

If we want really want to level the playing field, we'll make sure we're teaching kids in

school. Yeah. I'm actually the chairman of the K-12 initiative for the Financial

Literacy Task Force in Arizona.

I work side by side with Treasurer Kimberly Yee.

And when we started this initiative, there were like two states in the country

that required personal finance for high school graduation.

Then there were eight. We're now up to 30.

All right. Not all of them have.

Probably only 18 of them have been implemented.

But we now have 30 that have committed to a personal finance semester for to be required

for high school graduation.

We still are working on Arizona.

I got the law changed in 2012 so that it required personal finance,

but it was embedded in an economics class and it's not enough.

So we've been back at the till every year trying to get this Arizona,

we must teach our kids...

Scott Leese: Why is there so much resistance?

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Scott Leese: Why do you think there's so much resistance?

Sharon Lechter: How political do you want to get?

Scott Leese: I want the truth.

Sharon Lechter: The truth is it's the teachers unions that don't...

Scott Leese: Preventing.

Sharon Lechter: It, preventing it. Yes.

They've got a lot of power and the money.

So they are the ones donating money to our legislators.

And I've had legislators tell me they would vote in favor.

And then in the day it came to it, they said,

"Sorry, Sharon, I can't because I'll lose my funding." Dang it.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: I wish I'd had a recorder.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: But it's the teachers want it, the students want it,

the parents want it. It's the administration that doesn't want it.

Mike Lindstrom: And you've seen this for decades. My first entry point to this was about five years ago.

I worked with Jerry Colangelo.

He's Ambassadors of Compassion Director for the state of Arizona with me and of course,

Jerry's 86 to my 53. And he's always kind of giving me the old "You'll figure it out.

You'll learn one day," right? So when I'm getting all gung-ho about our resiliency

program, this is for mental health, for kids that are at risk.

Duh. Who wouldn't want that?

And that's when he gives me the old shoulder, like, "You keep going down your path, you're

going to run into some resistance." And sure enough, you hear about teachers union funding

and all the things. I'm like, how do you not want to teach this? It's not

taught in your classroom. Resiliency, forgiveness, things that are that kids should

know, they should know, but they're not teaching.

Sharon Lechter: Arizona has 13 semesters of electives.

I go, "Just give me one."

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah,

Sharon Lechter: Just one. And once a child knows how to make money on their own,

there's no stopping them. Your son's on his way.

Scott Leese: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: You might want to check out. I have a board game that I created for teens called "Thrive

Time for Teens. It's exceptional.

Teaching them about understanding wealth versus exchanging time for money,

understanding real estate stocks, businesses,

passive versus active businesses.

It's won all kinds of awards.

It's called "Thrive Time for Teens" on my website.

Mike Lindstrom: Okay, so given where you're at in your life, you're still having to write. Where do you

see yourself in the next chapter, the next five years? You're just going to

keep writing every year? Is there another thing that you're working on? What's the next

chapter look like?

Sharon Lechter: I have, I know I have one book that's been in my computer for 5 or 6 years that I have to

finish, and it's much more...

It's a very personal book, but it's also very much about my philosophy

of "Why not?" Why not solve a problem, Serve a need?

Why not take the path less traveled...

And also "Living in Grace." I haven't figured out which title I'm going to use yet,

but under understanding that things happen to us,

things happen to... we can either allow it to keep us down or find a way to lift ourselves

up. And so it's not necessarily a financial message,

is it is definitely a mindset message.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah. Where in the world of professional development,

outside of what your parents taught you, you're saying a lot of the words that we know

about abundance, like where did that come from?

Sharon Lechter: In addition to learning from my parents.

Being in public accounting gave me the opportunity to see how businesses succeeded

from the inside. But probably more importantly,

it helped me see how businesses failed from the inside.

And it gave me this knowledge of understanding money that most people didn't

have. And I started writing when I was an accountant.

I was writing training manuals and American Cancer Society-

I was on the board, I was writing employee manuals,

that type of thing. So I've always had a passion for writing.

But I think that whole "Why Not?" philosophy is what triggers the abundance mindset and

seeing how negativity and money are so debilitating that we have to flip the switch.

We have to figure out first how to flip the mind switch again,

your thoughts, your words, your actions.

If you can't change your thoughts, even if you get successful,

people are always afraid they're not going to make enough money. And then when they make

it, they're afraid they're going to lose it because that fear is still there. So you have

to find a way to turn that fear into faith and understand that you have the ability not

let... When it comes to money, you either control your money or it controls

you. Nothing in between.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah, yeah.

Sharon Lechter: That's it. So ask yourself, am I in control of my money or is my money in

control of me?

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah. How often are you engaging these kind of one on one coaching?

If somebody said, I want to hire you, I want you to be my coach.

It doesn't matter if I'm a financial planner. I'm a budding business person or a CEO. Do

you take on clients in that regard or is it...

Sharon Lechter: I do, I do. I limit it because...

Scott Leese: You only have so much capacity, I'm sure.

Sharon Lechter: They're my highest priority because...

Because they're paying me big bucks to be one on one.

So I step into their world.

So there's a difference I always share.

There's a difference between a coach and a mentor, right? And we need both.

But a coach keeps you accountable to a predetermined plan.

They don't necessarily have to know everything about your industry,

but they're there to keep you accountable.

A mentor is someone who steps into your world and opens doors for you.

They see more for you than you see for yourself.

And that's a talent that I have.

I see opportunities, I see the power of association people that you need to connect

with. And typically my clients don't have the same vision for themselves that I have for

them. And so I keep about no more than 10-15 clients a year.

Mike Lindstrom: So did you ever meet Robert Alderman?

He passed away about five years ago. He was my mentor. After I left Robbins and Robert

used to talk about this. He's like Mike, and this is his model from way back. This is

1990. He goes, "I want to live in a van and be able to travel with my lovely wife and

want 20 clients, pay me $1,000 a month.

I want to work Tuesday through Friday and just sometimes get involved with my clients

and have fun. That's my model." And I'm like, "That's not too bad." Here I'm 26 years old

making $200 grand at a basis point.

You work three days a week, you only got 20 human beings you got to deal

with. But it was that latter part that always stuck with me is "every once in a while

you're going to come across people that you work with that you can go have some fun

with." A la writing a book, right?

And doing those things. So that always stuck with me when Robert taught me that. So it

sounds like you've had the good fortune of having many people come into your life that

you could partner with like that.

Sharon Lechter: Yes. And one of the main things I teach is the power of association.

So I'm delighted to to get to know both of you because I always challenge everyone I

speak to, whether it's a client or whether I'm speaking on an interview like this:

"When was the last time you did something for the first time?" Now I'm 72,

so I look and I don't have as much runway ahead of me as I have behind me.

But asking myself that question all the time,

I think helps keep me younger than I would be if I didn't.

Because you're always experiencing something new and your next opportunity is outside your

comfort zone, so you have to step outside your comfort zone.

You need to do something new. You need to meet new people.

You need to go new networking organizations...

Challenging yourself to do something that's maybe a little uncomfortable because

opportunities are where it's uncomfortable, right?

And so, so many people want a guarantee, yeah,

that probably won't work.

And I go, let's change that probable word.

What's possible? Not probable.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: That's what's possible.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: And so your next Success may be walking through that next door.

I often tell people, when I left "Rich Dad", I made that decision to leave not knowing

what was in front of me. I thought "Rich Dad" was my legacy and the guy upstairs decided,

"No Sharon, there's more for you to do." And a few months later,

I got the call from President Bush.

So I served President Bush and Obama on the Presidential Advisory Council for Financial

Literacy. What an incredible honor.

I wouldn't have had that call had I stayed at "Rich Dad." And then in March of oh eight,

we know what was happening to the economy. That's when I got the call from the Napoleon

Hill Foundation asking me to reinvigorate Napoleon Hill's teachings.

Now, I had just helped build the world's largest personal finance brand,

and now I'm asked to step into the world's largest personal development brand.

I mean, pinch myself! What an incredible opportunity.

I wouldn't certainly have not had that call had I been stayed at Rich Dad.

And so I always challenge everybody is there adorn your life.

You need to close for other doors of opportunity to open.

Scott Leese: I want to ask a question about that. And it's what I get all the time from people is,

"How do I know when is the right time to open that door,

or to walk away from this and to open that other door?" That's what people are asking me

all the time in my business.

They're kind of stuck.

They have reasons to stay.

They have reasons to go. They never really know when the right time is. How do you guide

people to know when is the right time to go take on that new thing and challenge?

Sharon Lechter: Are you taking Tums or Rolaids on a regular basis?

Are you.

Scott Leese: A Pepto prescription.

Sharon Lechter: Are you sleeping well?

Scott Leese: Yeah.

Do you feel proud of yourself?

So another lesson from that dad that I just told you about.

He asked me every night, Sharon, have you added value to somebody's

life today? He's been gone 20 years.

But I still ask myself that every night.

Have I added value to somebody's life?

And every time- I spoke at Cardone Ventures this weekend and people come up to me and go,

"Oh my gosh, I'm here because of you!" And what an incredible injection that is.

But I made the decision to leave because it was an uncomfortable environment for me.

It was not a good environment.

We both- we... "Rich Dad" wouldn't have happened if it weren't for both of us.

And 10 years into it, he wanted to go into franchising.

It was a great model for us, but I didn't...

It was a bad model for the franchisees.

And so I, in good integrity.

I said, "I can't do this." And it was a height of our success.

People thought I was crazy. I thought I was crazy once in a while too,

but...

Mike Lindstrom: It was newsworthy at the time. Yeah, I remember reading about it and I'm like,

without knowing, you guys have just seen from afar, what are they doing? Like, this is like

an amazing partnership.

But you never, as I'm a lawyer to by education that everything happens behind

closed doors are different. Yeah. It could be an agreement. It could be just people's

venture in life. So I never knew what the whole story was. But I do remember that time

frame when we were going through that in your life.

Sharon Lechter: One of the top ten stories of the decade, "business divorce." But what whatever.

I'm very proud of "Rich Dad" and I'm very proud of the role that I played.

But I'm also very happy that I left when I did because it was an unhealthy environment

for me. I, I was taking Tums and Rolaids a lot.

I wasn't sleeping well.

Scott Leese: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: I never knew where my partner would call me and say,

I love you... kiss the ground you walk on.

Or the other one.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Scott Leese: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: So...

Scott Leese: It was manifesting itself in physical ways as well.

I think a lot of people overlook that or just think,

"Oh, I have to power through."

Sharon Lechter: That's the importance of this book because we talk about,

I know I have a lot of friends who are billionaires,

and many of them lost their help along the way,

and they lost their families along the way.

Scott Leese: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: In that soul pursuit of money.

So they, they're sitting there with the money and they're all alone and in bad shape.

Scott Leese: And in bad shape.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah, that's a scary place.

Sharon Lechter: And that's my message.

And I come from a 46-year marriage, and every decision I make is not about money.

It's about quality of life.

And it's about "What do I want to bring into my life,

and what contribution can I make to support and help other people?"

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah. You know, what I love about what you're doing is you're bridging gaps of generations,

taking someone like me who read the book, people that are your contemporaries down to

like you're on stage with Grant Cardone and he's got opinions and he,

but he... whether you like that guy or not, he speaks his truth.

He's very authentic about it, and he's real.

He's...

Sharon Lechter: He doesn't mince his words.

Mike Lindstrom: He's not mince his words. He also built what he's built with a lot of the same principles.

Sharon Lechter: Yes,

Mike Lindstrom: You can hear it in his language when he gets on Instagram talking about his. He'll stand

in front of that house, his first real estate deal.

Sharon Lechter: He's a good friend.

Mike Lindstrom: But it's cool that you're influencing at that level.

Sharon Lechter: Yeah.

Mike Lindstrom: Because there's gonna be people in his audience that are 25 years old that don't

like "Sharon Lecter, who's Sharon Lecter?" Now they know who Sharon Lecter is.

Sharon Lechter: Yeah, that was this weekend. Brandon Dawson, who is his partner in Cardone Ventures.

I was his mentor when he was running the hearing aid company,

and he attributes me to- as one of his strongest mentors.

And so anytime I can show up, I do.

He just needs to ask, and I'll be there to support him.

Mike Lindstrom: That's great. So do you do a lot of these? Like, podcasts?

I mean,

Sharon Lechter: Uh huh.

Mike Lindstrom: You do a lot of podcasts?

Sharon Lechter: Yeah.

Mike Lindstrom: Are you doing a lot of traditional media where you go on like Fox and Friends, or...

Sharon Lechter: I do a lot of writing for national publications.

I've been on Fox and Friends.

I've been on all of them, but not recently. And I do-

I, I speak probably four times a month.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Sharon Lechter: So. And the next four weeks, I'm going to Puerto Rico and Nassau,

Barbados, Dominican Republic, all for speaking gigs.

Mike Lindstrom: You still got the hustle in you.

Scott Leese: Do you feel like the distribution channels that you have access to now make it just so

much easier to get the message out, or do you find the opposite?

Like everybody has these distribution channels now,

so it's even harder for my message to get out?

Sharon Lechter: That's a great question.

That's a great question because I was going down one train of thought until you asked the

second part of that question that you talk about national media,

it's not as effective as it used to be.

All right. We got to the New York Times Best Seller with "Rich Dad" because we did media.

Media is not as effective today as it was back then,

because of social media, because of the dissemination of information

through the internet. And so it's very important to be where the audience is.

So to be where your clients are.

And so that's why I do a lot of high level speaking.

I do a lot of podcasts because that's...

Like minded people are going to follow you.

You're going to have this mass of followers because they believe what you're saying.

They want to learn from you. They want to train you. That's the audience that I look

for. So that's why I do a lot of podcasts.

I do a lot of speaking because there's nothing more frustrating than having a room

full of people that you know NEED to hear what you have to say,

but they don't really want to hear it or they want to hear it, but they're not going to

take any action.

Scott Leese: Yeah.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah, that's the- timing is everything. How many times have I heard something, but I

didn't hear it?

Sharon Lechter: Yeah.

Mike Lindstrom: It was a different time in my life. It could have been a movie, it could be a book. But I

read.

Sharon Lechter: In a book. Every time you read the same book,

you see something different in it.

Scott Leese: Before we get out of here, tell everybody, what do you have coming up?

Is there an event that you have coming up you want to talk about?

Obviously, tell everybody where they can find the book.

Sharon Lechter: Absolutely. Thank you.

Yeah. Check out my website, https://SharonLechter.com.

S-H-A-R-O-N-L-E-C-H-T-E-R dot-com.

That's where all of my books and products are.

But it's also how you can reach out to me and talk about mentoring.

I have a business retreat coming up next week,

actually at our ranch.

Check out https://CherryCreekLodge.com.

It's a little piece of heaven here in young Arizona,

and we host retreats there for us.

We other people host retreats there, and it's also open for you to bring your

family and enjoy the Tonto National Forest.

Totally off the grid, all solar power.

And it's a little piece of heaven.

Mike Lindstrom: So good.

Sharon Lechter: Like- it's like it's we're in City Slickers meet Yellowstone.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah

Scott Leese: That's a GREAT description!

Mike Lindstrom: It's a good description.

Sharon Lechter: Yes, but so I'm always looking for audiences that I can share my knowledge with and

encourage and maybe kick them in the back side a little bit,

because sometimes people need that.

Mike Lindstrom: Oh yeah.

Sharon Lechter: Cardone ventures this weekend, they just 400 people excited,

jumping up and down. I, and I gave them my private email and I've had

20 emails and it's like crazy.

So take teaching people to take action

Scott Leese: Take action, yeah.

Sharon Lechter: In my book, Three Feet from Gold.

Before we go, I just would like to share this with your audience. I released a personal

success equation and it's your passion plus your talent or passion.

Love what you do, what you love. In my case, passion is what makes you angry. Every time I

get mad about something, I start another company.

But passion + talent and my talent was years as a CPA,

years in publishing, and most of us stopped there because we think we have to do

everything alone. Right?

But you take that formula and you put those together,

and then you say, "x A": Power of Association.

Who's on your team? Do you have people on your team who are strong where you are weak,

right? Who, who can open doors to other audiences for you?

Power of association is the key to success.

And then "x A": taking Action.

How many times do we know what we're supposed to do?

We just don't do it.

Mike Lindstrom: Yeah. Love that.

Sharon Lechter: And that's huge. Taking action.

But all of it is "+ F".

And that F is faith. Faith in yourself, faith in what you're doing,

faith that is needed and necessary, and faith that you will succeed.

And 98% of us that F is fear.

That fear holds us back, keeps us from taking the action,

keeps us from reaching out to new association,

keeps us from highlighting our passion and our skill and serving more people.

And so I teach people how to convert that fear into faith,

how to find the right associations.

And if you want more information about that, I have a gift at go to

//personalsuccessequation.com, and it's an entire workbook to help you walk through

your own personal success.

Mike Lindstrom: It's a great domain too, by the way.

Scott Leese: Yeah.

Mike Lindstrom: That's a great domain. This is an honor. Thank you so much.

Sharon Lechter: It's my honor.

Mike Lindstrom: We put this together in less than a month, thanks to mutual friend to the people you

hang around.

Scott Leese: Power of association.

Mike Lindstrom: Power of association. Yeah. Absolutely true. Thanks to Nick.

Scott Leese: All right. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Thank you to

Sharon Lechter. Check out "Old Wealth, New Wealth,

True Wealth." Maybe this will be bestseller number six.

Mike Lindstrom: I would bet on her.

Scott Leese: Thanks, everybody. I'm Scott Leese, this is Mike Lindstrom. We'll see you next

time on What's Your Story?

Mike Lindstrom: See ya.

Sharon Lechter: Thank you.