Thank you for listening to my segment on May 25th on the Follow Me Friday radio interview with my mom, Mary Jo Carmody.

Book Your Free Coaching Session

As promised, I’m offering the audience of the Follow Me Friday radio show a free 1-hour Breakthrough Coaching session with me. To reserve your spot, go to https://calendly.com/billcarmody and pick an hour that works best for your schedule.

That’s it! I will book these sessions starting in the month of May on a first come, first served basis, so don’t delay. This is a $850 value, it’s totally free and there’s nothing to buy in order to get the free coaching session (read: there’s no catch).

Why Am I Doing This?
I find coaching to be a very effective method of helping people make their lives better. I want you to experience what it’s like to tackle a problem that has been holding you back from living your most authentic version of yourself.

If you love the experience, I invite you to share this offer with those you love — especially anyone who may be struggling and needs some help.

In the online gambling industry, the application of blockchain’s technology assures players the protection of their money before a bet is placed and that the odds and subsequent results of their bet were generated fairly.

In 2018, the online gambling industry is expected to surpass $50 billion. A study by SuperData Research found that mobile gambling was up 75% year-over-year, and that it now accounted for over 25% of all gambling. And yet, there is a lack of transparency in knowing which sites are safe, honest and trustworthy. With an estimated 1.4 million fake websitesbeing created every month, any successful online gambling site is at risk of being spoofed by hackers looking to take advantage of unsuspecting players.

Though the majority of online gambling sites are reputable, the industry lacks an effective means for a player to verify the reliability of a site. The mark of a “good” gambling site tends to be a byproduct of their reputation. Players are inclined to gravitate towards these sites, not because of third party validation, but rather the reviews they receive. Players are trusting that the recommendations of strangers on a forum or subreddit channel.

Blockchain Brings Trust to Online Gambling Sites

Despite the incredibly hyped blockchain bubble, the underpinnings of the technology hold substantial promise for bringing the element of trust into online gambling. By integrating blockchain technology, all parties benefit from the permanent record of a verifiable, unchangeable transaction ledger. In other words, an online gambling platform using this technology provides transparency at the transaction level.

In 2018, many industries have started to investigate how blockchain technology could solve specific problems. What is clear is that the infrastructure underpinning Bitcoin and other cyrptocurrencies has applications that extend far beyond creating a digital currency. The unalterable open ledger that a blockchain provides, viewable to anyone, has captured the attention of programmers looking to create transparent platforms in every sector, from shipping to charity.

In the online gambling industry, the application of blockchain’s technology provides players with assurance of where their money is going and that their results were generated fairly.

Going Deeper with Smart Contracts                              

The Ethereum blockchain in particular has focused on the concept of a smart contract. This is a digital agreement between parties, whose terms could be enforced by computers and would add the element of transparency to any transaction. With an impartial network insuring the contract is adhered to, any potential obstacles to transparency have been eradicated with blockchain technology.

With an online gambling blockchain in place, there is no obfuscation of the rules, which are clearly legible to all parties, and an instant payout is guaranteed. There are no concerns about a site withholding winnings, because there is no site governing the game. The player’s funds go directly into the contract (and, if they win, back out again), without a middleman interfering.

Adding Regional Legislative Requirements to Blockchains for Online Gambling

Several projects have launched initial coin offerings (ICOs) to tackle some of the issues inherent to online gambling. Noteworthy examples include FirstBloodMonsterbyte and FunFair, significantly more complex than the early SatoshiDice. Many ventures appear to distribute tokens purely to profit from the influx of money into the cryptocurrency space, which seems a natural addition to gambling platforms; after all, casinos have been exchanging cash for tokens (in the form of chips) long before cryptocurrencies were around.

Regulatory compliance, on the other hand, is often difficult to carry out, which is where recently announced, JoyToken, looks to surpass the established ICOs. With regional variations in legislation, this approach lends further legitimacy to the ongline gambling industry by meeting diverse legislative requirements.

The project is launching a casino built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, designed to benefit both game creators and players with enhanced transparency and security. Game developers can integrate with JoyToken’s backend, which can then be played using the platform’s currency, the JoyToken, to place bets in a smart contract; thereby fostering a reliable ecosystem that benefits all parties.

The protocol is available to developers and can be used to create games compatible with JoyToken’s backend. Content creators can avoid the headache of getting the correct licensing, as the process is handled by the JoyToken platform  itself; ensuring that online games will be legal and compliant wherever they appear.

3 things you need to understand in order to prepare for the transformative power of blockchain technology – despite the hype.

Given today’s blockchain bubble and stratospheric returns of many cyptocurrency ICOs, it is tempting to chase possible sky-high investments. Fear of missing out (FOMO) is real for most entrepreneurs. For many, it’s the late 1990s “dot com” boom all over again. There are scammers and charlatans all over the place during this Wild West phase and there is basically no regulation. Pump-and-dump schemes abound. In the crypto-markets, it is buyer beware.

But that is ok, because if you really want to profit from these technological innovations in the long run, your time may actually be better spent elsewhere. What is going on is the beginning of a critical change in how value is created and measured, made possible by the invention of blockchains, or perhaps more appropriately, distributed ledger technology (DLT).

I had an opportunity to speak with Jeremy Epstein, CEO of Never Stop Marketing and author of The CMO Primer for the Blockchain World. Some venture capital investors consider Epstein to be a “modern day unicorn” because of what he accomplished as the VP of Marketing during his time at Sprinklr. Specifically, during his tenure, the company grew from a Series A $23mm valuation with 30 employees to a Series E valuation of $1 Billion dollars with 700+ employees in 10 countries, serving 800+ enterprise brands.

Simply put, when a fellow marketer who helped grow a company to a valuation of over $1 Billion wants to talk about the future of technology, I listen … and I take really good notes.

A Quick Blockchain Primer

Epstein explained the core innovation of bitcoin, supported by the Bitcoin blockchain, is that it solves the “double spend” problem associated with digital technology.  When you get paid, you need to trust that the asset you are obtaining in return for your product or service will have value in the future. If the other person in the transaction can easily make a copy of the asset, then yours will not be unique. As such, its value will be less.

This is why it’s ok if we both have a picture of your dog or child, but it’s not ok if we both have the exact same $20 bill. So, by creating an immutable ledger, secured by a decentralized network, we all know who owns what at what time. This is what is called “consensus.”

In this world, when a transaction occurs and you send .002 Bitcoin or Ether or any crypto-token to another person, the entire network is made aware of the fact that an asset has changed hands, so it cannot be used or “spent” again.

There are some members of the network, called “miners,” who invest their time and money in the form of electricity and computing power, to verify that you have it in the first place and to ensure that, once you have signed the transaction with your private key, you no longer have it.

Once they have completed the process, there is a mathematically elegant way for them to secure the network and distribute the information to others.  For this work, they are rewarded with their own Bitcoins (or another token if they are using a different blockchain).

The key thing here is that each coin that is created (also called a “token”) is digitally unique, cannot be forged, and has a clear, indisputable owner.  If you have the private key, you own the coin.

Assets and Value, Secured by the Blockchain

The implication of all of this is that we now have a technology that can cost-effectively represent assets in a unique way. Since the assets are digital, they are fungible. You cannot own a fraction of a Picasso painting, but you can own .0000023 of the token that represents the Picasso painting.

When you “tokenize” an asset and its uniqueness is undeniable, the asset has value. It may be large or small, but it is the only one of its kind in the world and that is worth something. Think about how many assets you currently have that are under-leveraged because the costs involved in buying, selling, or trading them are too high.  This could include unused hard-disk space on your computer, bandwidth at your home that lays dormant during the day, or the family heirloom painting that you do not want to sell but could provide some liquidity.  It’s possible that every asset will be “tokenized.”

The second implication is that asset control will stay with the creator until she decides to part with it. In the future, companies will have to pay you for the data they get for free today such as name, email address, phone numbers, and social media profiles. If you are the company, the same will be true of those you serve. If you want control of an asset, whether it is for a marketing campaign or a data feed to improve your crops, you will have to buy or rent it from the owner.

Finally, because these assets are digital, it means that they can be programmed, like a computer. The business and legal rules that currently surround an asset in the form of documents and contracts can be applied to the asset itself to govern its use.

The three things you need to understand in order to prepare for the transformative power of Blockchains are:

  1. Asset Tokenization in ever smaller increments
  2. Asset Ownership that is clear and indisputable
  3. Asset Programmability that can reduce transaction times

Amidst all of the hype of crypto, these are the implications of blockchain’s arrival that are really going to change things up.

It Won’t Be Here Tomorrow, But It Is Coming

Blockchains are in their infancy and there are plenty of issues ranging from stability to security to interoperability, among others. The cryptocurrency craze is just a signal that the genie is officially out of the bottle. Whether you buy Bitcoin, Ether, Zcash, ARK or other tokens, is up to you. It may well be worth some of your time to understand them. The real value for you is to start looking at how your business might change if every asset is tokenized, owned by its creator, and digitally programmable. These impacts are especially important if you are just starting out in 2018.

For a limited time, I’m offering the audience of the What Women Want radio show a free Millionaire Wealth Coaching session. To reserve your spot, send an email to free@trepoint.com with the subject “Free Coaching Session” and answer the following 3 questions:

    • 1. What do you LOVE about your finances and the wealth side of your life right now?

 

    • 2. What aspect of your finances would you love to improve?

 

    3. Why is becoming a (Multi)Millionaire a MUST for you?

That’s it! I will book these sessions starting in the month of February on a first come, first served basis, so don’t delay. This is a $500 value, it’s totally free and there’s nothing to buy in order to get the free coaching session (read: there’s no catch).

Why Am I Doing This?
My goal is to help one million people become millionaires by 2022. I find coaching to be a very effective method of making this happen. I want you to experience what it’s like to tackle a problem that has been holding you back from being totally financially free.

If you love the experience, I invite you to share this offer with those you love — especially anyone who may be struggling financially and needs some help.

I’m also offering the audience of the Think Business a free chapter of my book, Millionaire. To receive your free chapter, send an email to free@trepoint.com with the subject “Free Chapter of Millionaire Book” and you’ll get it before the book is even published. Thank you for listening to this podcast episode. I hope you enjoyed it!

For a limited time, I’m offering the audience of the Think Business podcast a free Millionaire Wealth Coaching session. To reserve your spot, send an email to free@trepoint.com with the subject “Free Coaching Session” and answer the following 3 questions:

    • 1. What do you LOVE about your finances and the wealth side of your life right now?

 

    • 2. What aspect of your finances would you love to improve?

 

    3. Why is becoming a (Multi)Millionaire a MUST for you?

That’s it! I will book these sessions starting in the month of February on a first come, first served basis, so don’t delay. This is a $500 value, it’s totally free and there’s nothing to buy in order to get the free coaching session (read: there’s no catch).

Why Am I Doing This?
My goal is to help one million people become millionaires by 2022. I find coaching to be a very effective method of making this happen. I want you to experience what it’s like to tackle a problem that has been holding you back from being totally financially free.

If you love the experience, I invite you to share this offer with those you love — especially anyone who may be struggling financially and needs some help.

I’m also offering the audience of the Think Business a free chapter of my book, Millionaire. To receive your free chapter, send an email to free@trepoint.com with the subject “Free Chapter of Millionaire Book” and you’ll get it before the book is even published. Thank you for listening to this podcast episode. I hope you enjoyed it!

For a limited time, I’m offering the audience of Accelerate a free Successful Millionaire coaching session. To reserve your spot, send an email to free@trepoint.com with the subject “Free Coaching Session” and answer the following 3 questions:

    • 1. What do you LOVE about your finances and the wealth side of your life right now?

 

    • 2. What aspect of your finances would you love to improve?

 

    3. Why is becoming a (Multi)Millionaire a MUST for you?

That’s it! I will book these sessions starting in the month of February on a first come, first served basis, so don’t delay. This is a $500 value, it’s totally free and there’s nothing to buy in order to get the free coaching session (read: there’s no catch).

Why Am I Doing This?
My goal is to help one million people become millionaires by 2022. I find coaching to be a very effective method of making this happen. I want you to experience what it’s like to tackle a problem that has been holding you back from being totally financially free.

If you love the experience, I invite you to share this offer with those you love — especially anyone who may be struggling financially and needs some help.

I’m also offering the audience of the Accelerate a free chapter of my book, Millionaire. To receive your free chapter, send an email to free@trepoint.com with the subject “Free Chapter of Millionaire Book” and you’ll get it before the book is even published. Thank you for listening to this podcast episode. I hope you enjoyed it!

Thank you for listening to my interview on the Nice Guys on Business podcast.

For a limited time, I’m offering the audience of the Nice Guys on Business a free coaching session. To reserve your spot, send an email to free@trepoint.com with the subject “Free Coaching Session” and answer the following 3 questions:

    1. What do you LOVE about your life right now?
    2. What would you love to make even more Legendary?
    3. Why is an improvement in this area so important to you?

That’s it! I will book these sessions starting in the month of January on a first come, first served basis, so don’t delay. This is a $500 value, it’s totally free and there’s nothing to buy in order to get the free coaching session (read: there’s no catch).

Why Am I Doing This?
My goal is to help one million people become millionaires by 2022. I find coaching to be a very effective method of making this happen. I want you to experience what it’s like to tackle a problem that has been holding you back from being totally financially free.

If you love the experience, I invite you to share this offer with those you love — especially anyone who may be struggling financially and needs some help.

I’m also offering the audience of the Nice Guys on Business a free chapter of my book, Millionaire. To receive your free chapter, send an email to free@trepoint.com with the subject “Free Chapter of Millionaire Book” and you’ll get it before the book is even published. Thank you for listening to this podcast episode. I hope you enjoyed it!

Suddenly having millions would seem to solve all your problems, but it’s more important to understand the principles that attract wealth.

I’ve never played the lottery, but I certainly share many of the desires of those who do. People flock to play Powerball because suddenly having access to millions seems like it would solve all your problems. And yet, according to the National Endowment for Financial Education, “Seventy percent of people who receive a windfall of cash will lose it within a few years.”

So rather than seek a windfall of cash, understand the principles that attract wealth. Recently, I connected with LaShawne Holland, who is a wealth coach and nonprofit strategist who specializes in helping professional women be financially educated and empowered by teaching proven, wealth-mapping techniques.

Holland puts it this way, “To win in the game of money and create your own Powerball, you have to become a master of your money, and not just a manager of money.” She is a big believer that most people only manage their money, but the real financial winners learn how to multiply it. There are five principles we must understand to master money, she says, and manifest the financial outcomes we associate with winning the lottery.

Powerball Principle No. 1: Segment your money
Holland believes that most people operate from one bank account and live from paycheck to paycheck; that we spend nearly 100 percent of the income we make.

“To create your own wealth,” she says, “you have to segment your money. Wealthy people operate very differently. They understand the power of separating your money into at least six accounts with distinctive classifications of use. They further prioritize the use of each account. I call this the Millionaires Money Mastery Method, and it includes: (1) Retirement Account, (2) Fun Money Account, (3) Tithe Account or Charitable Contribution Account, (4) Life Expenses Account, (5) Planned Savings for Spending Account, and (6) Invest in Me/Education Account.”

The thought here is that by segmenting your money, you have a strategic plan to implement and create wealth. It takes discipline and determination to engage in this type of behavior. Without these segments, you lose the opportunity for compounding and the multiplication effect of your finances. To more strategically use what you earn requires living on less than what you make and being intentional with where your investments are placed.

Powerball Principle No. 2: Focus on the power of vision
You need a compelling future to change your current reality. Just getting by and surviving the day-to-day is not enough.

“When you focus on getting by, you see only the limits of why you can’t do something,” explains Holland. “When you focus and operate from a place of vision, you become resourceful, and you create ways to afford the things you really want. If you’re going to create money momentum in your life, you have to create a financial vision. Then you have to think and act from that vision. Most people don’t create a vision. They create financial goals or wishing boards. Having financial goals isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it only accomplishes one thing, and that is, “How much money do I want to make?”

Holland explains that there are going to be obstacles and blind spots, not to mention the blocks we have mentally where our money is concerned–but that’s all part of life. When we create a compelling future, the vision is bigger than we are today. The vision becomes superior to all of the obstacles, and this is a critical piece of the puzzle, because as she puts it, “If you don’t create a vision that is larger than you are currently living today, then you simply won’t grow.”

Financial mastery, therefore, comes at a cost. “Most people aren’t willing to pay the cost of being financially free,” Holland says. “Wealthy people go after freedom; poverty-minded people go after money. When you work from the vision, you operate as though you already have it. Provision follows vision, because wealth follows purpose. This positions you for a freedom-based lifestyle.”

Powerball Principle No. 3: Invest your time and resources in things that multiply
The next principle of wealth has to do with creating an environment for wealth to flow to you. “You have to invest in things that multiply and people that multiply,” says Holland. “The majority of the masses invest in things that depreciate and don’t cause their money, knowledge, or skill set to grow. If you want to create your own Powerball, you have to put your money and your time in assets that increase in value or increase your value through personal development and increased skill set.”

In other words, if your money is not going into things that multiply, then it’s really difficult to create wealth. The wealthy know the power of compounding, and they invest their time and resources into people that can help them grow. Likewise, expanding your own knowledge generates new options and further multiplies your resources.

Powerball Principle No. 4: Prepare and position yourself for cyclical economy
The economy flows in cycles, and you have to prepare and position for each new phase in the cycle. Wealthy people understand that the economy expands and shrinks in cycles, and they prepare for the upside and the downside of the market fluctuation. “Most people think and see the economy as being linear, and this is the deception of the poor,” says Holland. “How things moved in the past is not necessarily how they will continue to move and work. If you want to create your own Powerball, you have to learn how to adjust to the shifts in the economy and thrive in times of economic expansion, recession, or even an economic depression.”

To be prepared to multiply in any economy, wealthy people stay out of consumer debt and have a surplus of funds to be able to invest and multiply. Wealth moves from the indebted to the person who knows how to increase income regardless of market fluctuations and economic turbulence.

Powerball Principle No. 5: Leverage for generational wealth
To create your own Powerball and win in the game of money, you need to think beyond your needs and instead plan for generational wealth. The wealthy leave a significant legacy and substantial inheritance for at least two generations. “If you want to create wealth that lasts and become the master of your money, then you have to create new money habits,” explains Holland. “Loving your family means leaving them enough to not have your kids start from ground zero when you are dead and gone. I call this Love insurance, and it is a wealth strategy. Love insurance is loving your family enough so they are not left behind crying for two reasons: You’re gone, and you left them broke. Instead, you have to have a life insurance plan that lasts at least two generations to gain the advantages of the wealthy.”

These five principles may feel like a lot, but each starts with a very simple idea that can easily be built into your daily habits. Having a compelling vision of your future will inspire you to take the steps necessary to not only become wealthy, but also to stay wealthy. Then, and only then, will you be able to keep your windfall of cash and not be one of the 70 percent who lose it in a few years.

Unlike any other financial book you may have picked up and summarily stopped reading, Tony Robbins’ book is actually FUN to read. It’s not homework. It’s masterful storytelling with a directed purpose: Financial Freedom.

For anyone who not only bought but also made the long and difficult slog through Benjamin Graham’s book, The Intelligent Investor, congratulations, you’re one of the 10 percent who made it past the first chapter. For the other 90 percent, there is a much simpler, easy to understand book from Tony Robbins called Money, Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom.

Now, I fully appreciate that Cullen Roche and others in the financial community disagree with some of Tony Robbins’s conclusions and recommendations. This is especially true when Robbins takes the time to illustrate just how much a 1 percent or even 3.5 percent fee for actively managing your money can negatively impact your long-term financial results. And, as he points out, “An incredible 96 percent of actively managed mutual funds fail to beat the market over any sustained period of time!”

Financial advisers and actively managed mutual fund managers have a lot to lose and are being called to task in this book, so there’s no wonder why so many of them look to discredit Robbins’s five year plus project with over 600 pages of detailed insights.

Tony Robbins is a master at studying and then modeling successful behavior-be that personal, professional, or, in this case, money management and investing. This book is the outcome of an obsession to understand how the most brilliant financial minds of our day successfully navigate through every economic condition. It includes interviews with Paul Tudor Jones, Charles R. Schwab, Carl Icahn, T. Boone Pickens, Ray Dalio, John C. Bogle, David F. Swensen, Mary Callahan Erdoes, Kyle Bass, Marc Faber, Sir John Templeton, and Warren Buffett.

While I will summarize the seven simple steps, you really owe it to yourself to read this book. Nothing in a single article could do justice to the incredible research and thoughtful way that Tony Robbins approaches one of the most important topics that will affect the quality of your life-especially in your retirement years. And unlike any other financial book you may have picked up and summarily stopped reading, this book is actually FUN to read. It’s not homework, it’s masterful storytelling with a directed purpose. If the top billionaires of our day got together to help you with your finances, wouldn’t you take the time to listen to everything they had to tell you? Yeah, me too.

Step 1: Make the Most Important Financial Decision of Your Life. In essence, you must first decide to become an investor (not just a consumer). This means automating a specific percentage of your income that goes toward your “Freedom Fund” (i.e., your ideal retirement nest egg, which you calculate based on your desired financial outcome). If you can’t commit the amount you need, there are great strategies, including the “Save More Tomorrow” plan, that will help you ease into the number you need to be saving every month.

Step 2: Become the Insider: Know the Rules Before You Get in the Game. Here, you shake off the nine most common myths about fees, actively vs. passively managing funds, real costs of specific investments, brokers vs. fiduciaries, target date funds, 401(k) and Roth 401(k) plans, and asymmetric risk. By understanding these misconceptions, you can minimize your risk of losing money and over-paying fees, and create tax-advantaged investment strategies. This is the equivalent of “measure twice, cut once” in the business world. If you know the rules of the game, you’re less likely to lose when you play.

Step 3: Make the Game Winnable. This is when you calculate exactly the amount of money you will need for your financial freedom. Most people create an artificial number that feels impossible to achieve, so they delay starting their saving and investing. To make these calculations super simple, Robbins provides a companion mobile app. You also look at your spending habits and how you can speed up your plan to achieve financial freedom faster-from limiting your daily impulse purchases (i.e. coffee, alcohol, fast food, etc.) to reducing your taxes, earning more, relocating, and improving your lifestyle. There are lots of ideas here on how to achieve your desired financial outcomes faster.

Step 4: Make the Most Important Investment Decision of Your Life. This is about asset allocation, rebalancing, and dollar cost averaging. Before you begin investing, you need to determine your own risk tolerance, frequency of rebalancing to maintain this risk tolerance, and a monthly dollar cost averaging investment strategy. One interesting idea is to not just have two categories (i.e. “Risk/Growth” vs. “Security/Conservative”) but to also include a “Dream” bucket that is clearly not about investing, but rather putting money aside for the things in life that motivate you. This can help propel you, as you save and invest more for your future.

Step 5: Create a Lifetime Income Plan. This is about understanding the returns you are currently getting on your investments compared with other portfolios and recommended asset allocations. This includes establishing a guaranteed lifetime income plan through various forms of annuities and tax-efficient life insurance strategies. These are the secrets of the ultrawealthy, as these tools are not widely known by most people and yet allow the ultrawealthy to minimize their tax exposure and protect their assets for their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Step 6: Invest Like the .001 Percent. This is where you learn that the worst environment is your greatest opportunity: to buy when everyone else is selling in a panic, and to sell when the markets are going crazy in the positive direction. You don’t always have to be a contrarian, but pummeled markets create significant wealth, and fear and other emotions distort true values. Most wealthy investors have figured out how to make asymmetric returns (i.e., risk $1 to make $5), while the average person risks the bulk of their investments to make 4 to 8% returns.

Step 7: Just Do It, Enjoy It, and Share It! This is where Tony Robbins really shines, as these principles are core to his motivational speaking and inspirational life coaching. So much of investing is psychology. We can choose to see the world as scarce or abundant. We can see the world filled with problems or opportunities. Daily priming and the appreciation of what you already have will ensure you focus on the outcomes you truly want, as opposed to worrying about what you don’t have and not taking action because of fear and other negative emotions that are holding you back.

Perhaps the most powerful reminder is that “repetition is the mother of skill. Action is where all of your power is found…knowledge is not power, execution is. In other words, take massive action when you learn great insights. If you haven’t read this book, then your next action step is clear: Buy and read this book!

Peter Dunn (a.k.a. “Pete the Planner”) left his award-winning career as a comedian and today is considered one of the top five personal finance experts in the nation. Listen up because he’s on a mission to make you a millionaire.

When I first heard about Peter Dunn, I thought I was being punked. My wife is a life-long lover of comedy and so I’ve witnessed first hand the tortured souls of the men and women who choose comedy as their career path. Very few ever really break through with hugely successful careers, and those who do usually have dark pasts that they share on the stage as a kind of therapy.

So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered “Pete the Planner,” who made an intentional pivot away from a promising career in comedy to become a famous personal finance juggernaut. His background is impressive, having written 10 books and appearing regularly on CNN Headline News, Fox News, and Fox Business, as well as numerous nationally syndicated radio programs–for financial advice, not comedy. He is also a regular USA Today columnist.

I recently recorded a YouTube Video With Pete the Planner and spoke with him about his transition from comedy to financial expert and why he is on a mission to make you a millionaire.

Switching from comedy to personal finance.

“I never aspired to be a professional comedian,” says Peter Dunn. “I was either going to be an average comedian who knew a lot about money, or I was going to be a financial guy who’s funnier than everyone else.”

And when you stop and think about it, that’s a pretty appealing value proposition. Money is a serious subject matter to be sure, but if we can’t stop and laugh at the stupid things we do with our money, how will we ever change our behaviors and attitudes about money? Pete the Planner is onto something here.

Peter Dunn’s mission to make you a millionaire.

“Here’s the reality. Every financial statistic you look to from a personal finance standpoint, points to the idea that anyone in their 20s, 30s, or 40s, in order to have some semblance of a retirement, is going to need at least $1 million.

“What my industry has done is beat around the bush for a really long time. Rather than saying, ‘Hey Bill, you need to be resourceful’, I need to tell you, ‘Hey Bill you need at least a million bucks and this is how you do it.’ It’s just resourcefulness, but it’s the truth. You’ve got to get that you need at least seven figures to retire.

“The difference between a financial successful person and a financial unsuccessful person is not their understanding of math, Bill, but it’s their understanding of behavior.”

Understanding personal finance behavior through the lens of toilet paper.

“When you’re in a restroom and there’s a full roll of toilet paper, you’ll use as much as you want,” Peter Dunn explains. “You’ll go five-ply, six-ply, you’ll make necklaces, you’ll toss it around. You don’t care because there’s a full roll of TP and you cannot run out in that transaction. But when you look over and see cardboard, your behavior shifts.” It’s a funny way to get at your attitude toward money, but I would agree with the analogy.

“When faced with more resources,” Peter Dunn continues, “we can’t fall prey to what everyone does, which is to use more resources. You have to make the same decisions no matter how many resources you have and that’s the concept of resourcefulness. But people make their worst decisions on payday. And they make their best decisions the day before they get paid. So understanding that and taking advantage of how we think about money is what leads to success; not making more money.”

How many “broke” movie and rock stars can you recall? There were so many of them, VH1 started doing a series of “Where Are They Now” programs to track how far the mighty have fallen. Usually, the biggest celebrities just kept increasing their spending the more they made, until one day they realized they had run out of money despite having tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. From Mike Tyson to Michael Jackson to Donald Trump, all of these celebrities had the financial rugs pulled out from under them for the same reasons.

“I used to work with professional athletes and they would say, ‘I’m coming up on my next contract and it’s going to be huge.’ And I would tell them, ‘Well, actually you’re just going to spend more.’ We all do, right?”

Becoming a millionaire requires a change in attitude about money.

“Money magnifies who you are,” says Peter Dunn. “As we get raises, for example, our behaviors shift along side of that raise. So unless you can control it and even out your spending, you’ll never retire.”

That’s such as scary thought. A recent survey by the Associated Press, noted that two-thirds of Americans would have difficulty coming up with the money to cover a $1,000 emergency. And the same article referenced a similarly startling fact from a 2015 study by the Federal Reserve: “47 percent of respondents said they either could not cover a $400 emergency expense or would have to sell something or borrow money.”

These reports clearly show that the majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and that means they are ill-equipped to retire not only today, but if they don’t change their behavior, they will never be in a position to retire.

Thankfully, Pete the Planner is using his comedic skills to help broach a very painful reality in order to bring awareness to this very serious issue in America. Using his comedic skills, Pete the Planner is able to get the point across in a much more fun and entertaining way (like using a toilet paper analogy).

So if you know some friends and colleagues who are not saving for their future (and statistically that’s more than half your associates), encourage them to watch, listen, or read more from Pete the Planner. I enjoyed our YouTube interview and feel great knowing that this comedian turned personal finance expert is on a mission to forever change millions of Americans’ bad money habits so that they have a decent shot at retirement.