Rocky Lalvani On Setting Clear Goals In Leadership And Building Wealth To Drive Change

 

As early as now, you have to start reading everything about investing and making your money grow, so you’re taking the right actions to achieve financial independence. Rocky Lalvani was taught about money at such an early age by hearing American dreams of building wealth and success. He serves as Chief Profitability Advisor for business owners and teaches them how to ensure they get paid and make profit a priority! In this episode, he joins Rodney Flowers to discuss saving through multiple different streams of income and the basic fundamental practices in building wealth. In addition, Rocky shares his natural gift of understanding finances, numbers and learning to think long-term.

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Rocky Lalvani On Setting Clear Goals In Leadership And Building Wealth To Drive Change

As always, I am excited about this episode. We’re going to talk about some very interesting topics like how to overcome challenges, bounce back from adversity, become the best version of yourself. We will also talk about the financial element of that and how do you bounce back from adversity from a financial perspective. I know a lot of you are out there attempting to be the best version of yourself from a financial perspective, earn money so that you can live the life that you want to live, take care of your families and do all the things that money provides.

I have Rocky Lalvani with me. He has an interesting story. He started with nothing when his parents immigrated to the United States. He was only two years old when they moved here. His parents were around 40 and second-time starting over in life as they moved here to experience the American dream. In spite of a lot of struggles and his mom passing away when Rocky was seven, he has been able to achieve financial and life success. He loves to share his journey. He’s here to inspire us to achieve our dreams and do it as quickly as possible. Without further ado, let’s welcome Rocky Lalvani. Welcome to the show, Rocky.

Thank you so much for having me, Rodney. I’m excited to be here with you.

I’m excited to have this conversation with you. I appreciate the pre-discussion that we had. You have been able to come to America and do something that is very admirable. You can come from another country as an immigrant and find success. That is a challenge in and of itself to come to another country, learn the culture, be a part of everything that’s offered here, to finagle your way through it all and then find success. You would be a better storyteller of your story than I would. Why don’t you give us a little taste of your experience?

My parents immigrated here when I was two years old. Essentially at that time, when they left India, you were only allowed to convert so much currency. The rules have changed. The world has dramatically changed over the years. We have so much more freedom, accessibility and ability to do things. Back then, it was very different. I couldn’t imagine in my 40s starting all over and going to another place. There was no internet. A phone call probably was $0.50 a minute back then, which is like $10 a minute now. It was very expensive. People wrote letters.

My parents came here. They each had a family member here. My dad had his brother and my mom had her sister. At least they had some people on the ground to help them. Around the same time, a lot of their friends were also immigrating to the United States. What I noticed is they would all get together and talk about life. They would talk about money and share how they were building their American dream with each other.

As a kid, you’re stuck listening to this. It’s boring. You don’t want to, but looking back, I realized what a gift that was because I was taught money at an early age. I was shown how people were successful. The attitude of everyone who came was never one of being down on their luck or, “Poor me. We faced this challenge.” It was always the expectation that, “You have an incredible opportunity. What are you going to do with it?”

You will figure your way out, the finances, and be successful. All the people that I was around, within a short period of time, short being relative, little by little, moved up the economic ladder. I saw people moving out of one-bedroom apartments into bigger houses, eventually buying houses and then buying nice houses, but the attitude was always for success. I remember even when I graduated college, nobody said, “Congratulations.” The first question is, “What are you getting your Master’s?” I’m like, “I’m done. I don’t want more school.” I eventually did go back and get my Master’s.

Somewhere along the way, when I was a little kid, I saw that money created opportunity and money was possible. I was like, “I want to be a millionaire.” I started reading everything about how to invest and make your money grow. I didn’t understand the power of scaling that was out there with businesses because nobody talked about that. Think about it. There was no internet. Back then, information was gold. Now, information is abundant. You can get information on anything for free. The problem is knowing which is right and then taking action on it.

Through that, I started doing that and then as soon as I got out of college, I started saving because that’s what we were taught to do. We were taught to save our money and live frugally but nicely. They’re like, “Live like a king on a pauper’s budget.” We learned how to do that because in our home country and in most of the rest of the world, you negotiate. You figure out ways to get opportunities. You look for mismatches in the market and opportunities.

Today, information is abundant. You can get information for free. The problem is knowing which is right and then taking action on it. Click To Tweet

When I got out of college, I started saving through multiple different streams. I did the calculations of what the compounding would look like. I automated it. I didn’t have to think about it. No matter what was happening in life, this thing was running in the background. I didn’t realize the power of that until much later in life.

Let’s stop right here because you’ve said a very common statement when it comes to building wealth and that’s having multiple streams of income, but that’s a challenge for a lot of people. We say that so nonchalantly. “You need to have multiple streams of income.” It’s like, “How do I set that up?” A lot of people struggle setting up a 1st or a 2nd. The first one could be their job.

They’re trying to go and do a side hustle as an entrepreneur or something like that and find that’s a lot of struggles. They don’t get to the 3rd, 4th and 5th stream of income. I don’t know how many you had, but it sounds like you had multiple streams in college. Walk us through some of the fundamental elements that you learned about setting up these multiple streams of income and then give your advice on how to do that.

I didn’t create multiple streams of income until much later in life but what I had was multiple streams of saving. Before I even got my paycheck, they said, “Do you want to join the 401(k)?” I said, “Yes.” At 21, I’m joining the 401(k) because I’ve got this long-term vision of success. There was a credit union. “You want to join the credit union?” “Sure, I’ll join the credit union.” “We offer company stock. Do you want to buy some company stock?” “Sure, I’ll buy some company stock.”

When the money hit my bank account, my dad handed me a brokerage account. I didn’t have much money in it, but they also said, “Would you like to buy some mutual funds?” I said, “Sure, I’d like to buy some mutual funds.” They would take out money every month. Understand that sounds like a lot, but in the beginning, I started with a couple of percentages to each of these. It might have been a few percentages into the 401(k), $25 or $50 into the credit union or 1% to company stock. For the mutual funds, it was either like 5% at $25 or 5% at $50.

Every year, I would crank up those levers a little bit. You go from 4%, 5% to 6%. Over twenty years, you can go from 5% or 6% to 30% or 40% in baby steps and you never miss it. The key is your income increases when you do that. I did make some mistakes early on. I started spending a little too much. We all do that. “It’s only $25 or $50 a month.” Before I knew it, all those little things that I signed up for, I’m like, “I got no money left.”

At that point, it was like, “You have to watch out for automated spending.” Automated saving is good. Automated spending, meaning they’re hitting your account for $25 a month, is bad. In this world, everything is going to automated spending, your cable bill, phone bill, this Netflix service, that service, this software. It does not take long at $20, $30, $40, $50 a month times 20 to wonder, “Where did all my money go?”

You’re in college. You have multiple streams of savings. Take us from there.

I got out of college. I didn’t have the greatest grades. I was told, “You can go into sales.” I’m not a salesperson, but I’m like, “If that’s who’s going to hire me, I’ll go do it.” Starting out in sales, you don’t make a lot of money. I was making less than all my friends, but within two years, I was making more than all my friends. Sales gives you that opportunity.

I will tell you. Good is the enemy of great. In the back of my mind, I had this idea for a business. I didn’t know how to do it. In the back of my mind, I wanted to get into real estate. I had a realtor’s license when I was in college. I was selling real estate, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it in a way that made sense for me. The business idea was creating spreadsheets. I didn’t realize how big and powerful that was going to be over time.

 

Think about it. There’s no internet. How do you go to people and say, “I’ll create a spreadsheet for you?” They’re looking at you like, “What?” Here I was as a sixteen-year-old kid walking into Fortune 500 companies showing accountants how to go from paper ledgers to electronic. I didn’t understand how much value there was in that. That’s a big problem a lot of people have. People don’t know where to start.

If I look around people, I see diamonds. When I came here, we were told the streets were paved in gold. That was the thing, but we have blinders on. We can’t see our diamonds. We can’t always see our gold because to us, your natural gifts are so natural to you that you don’t think anything of them. You don’t even realize necessarily that you have them and the value that they might have in the world.

Expound on that.

What was one of my natural gifts? One of my natural gifts was understanding finances and numbers and learning to think long-term with them. Every day, people make financial decisions. They walk into Costco. It happens to me all the time. “Look at that 85-inch TV. Should I buy that and be happy or not?” That’s a very hard decision to make, but what if I told you the decision was to buy that TV and be happy or one day have enough money that you can tell the world to screw itself, have the time freedom to do whatever you want in life?

That is a gift that I had. When I look at someone’s tax return or an Excel sheet, I see a story, anomalies and problems. From that, I can help people. When I look at someone’s tax return, I’m like, “I don’t understand why these people are paying so much in interest. Why haven’t they refinanced their mortgage?” I look at their tax return and go, “This guy is not saving at all. We got a problem.” Your actions tell stories. If I look at your calendar, bank balance and credit statements, they tell me who you are. They tell me your values. I don’t need to talk to you. I can see that.

You’re getting down to basic fundamental practices. Let’s walk through that. We know savings and paying the bills on time. Is there something different? From your perspective, what do we need to do to get on that path of financial success?

Mind the gap between what comes in and what goes out. It’s the same problem with businesses and it’s the same problem with people because, at the end of the day, people run businesses. We all spend too much. That is a core gift. Spend less. Nobody’s going to tell you that because there is zero money to be made telling that story. Nobody wants to hear it and think in the long-term. Everybody wants to think in today. It’s instant gratification.

The diamonds, though, are your skills. What are the skills that you have that are valuable? The way to find that out is to ask 5 or 6 people around you. “What do you see that I’m good at or I’m talented in? Tell me what you see in me.” Nobody asks the question. Nobody shuts up and listens. Nobody even takes the information to say, “What is that turnable into?” It can turn into a business. If you’re a guy and you’re handy, the real estate business is for you. It’s easy. Everybody needs a house. You can buy a house. If you buy it appropriately and put some hard labor into it, you can sell it even if you’re doing this as a side hustle.

That’s the way people used to build wealth in the old days. They buy a wreck of a house, move into it, fix it up over three years, sell it for a lot more money, tax-free, and then buy the next fixer-upper. Next thing you know, you start with a $100,000 house, depending on where you live and then you’re in a $300,000 or a $500,000. You can build wealth through real estate. Do you have a voice for radio? I never realized how good a voice I had for radio until much later in life. People were like, “You belong on the radio.” I’m like, “How am I going to get on the radio?” There’s something new called podcast, so here I am. You’ve got a radio voice too.

I’ve been hearing that all my life, ever since I was in college. “You have a radio voice.” I started my podcast years ago, but I don’t know. I probably should have gotten into shooting all over myself, but I could have got into this a lot earlier. I was just pursuing something different, but I’ve always had this voice and I could have been monopolizing on that so much sooner in my life.

If you don't do the first 15, you don't get the joy of day 32. That's the bottom line. Click To Tweet

It doesn’t even have to be that you’re on the radio. You can do voiceovers. You can make money. There are so many ways. Once you know what your gifts are, then you got to figure out, “How can I get paid the most for this gift?”

Am I hearing that making money is a mindset? It’s not so much having a successful business. That’s part of it but you can have a successful business and still not have money because you might not have the mindset for that.

Along this journey, as I was much longer into it, 30s and 40s, I would look around. We all want to compare. I’m guilty of comparison. One of the things I would always look at is the number of millionaires in the United States. Every time I would look at that, I’d be like, “I don’t understand this. There are not that many millionaires.” It doesn’t make sense to me because there should be more. If you look at the incomes and wealth, there should be more people with a lot more money. Not looking like they have wealth but actual wealth, which are two different things.

As part of that, I started to learn about money mindset. It’s a blind spot to me, back to the story. I grew up in a family that everybody talked about money. Go ask your readers, “How many of you grew up in a family that talked and learned about money?” Most of them are going to say, “No.” They’re also going to say most of the stories they learned about money is money doesn’t grow on trees. Money is evil. Rich people are evil. Math is hard.

If all of that is true in your mind, then even if you’re a successful business owner, you’re going to struggle because math is hard and you didn’t look at your financials. You don’t want to be too successful because then you’re going to turn into the rich, evil guy. All these are created when we’re between the ages of 5 and 13. They get planted. Go back, examine your money scripts and what you believe that God will provide. We all hear these stories. God will provide, but you got to hold onto it.

If you look at this, it’s clear as day. If you look at people who win the lottery or get an inheritance, within no time, the money has gone because their money beliefs are not in line with that much money. They’ll give it away, blow it away and get scammed away because they don’t know how to handle it and don’t have the right money mindsets. No one is taught this in school. Unless you were lucky to have the right parents or the right mentor, you’re screwed.

There’s still hope. For those of us that didn’t grow up in a home where money was talked about and didn’t have that upbringing, what are your recommendations? Where do we go from here?

It comes back to examining yourself. What are your money mindsets? What are your money beliefs? If I asked you the question, “Money is,” what’s your answer?

It’s freedom and opportunity.

If I ask you, “What were the money stories you heard growing up? What did your parents or people tell you? What were the stories you heard?”

 

My mom told me that there’s not a money tree in the backyard. “What do you think? Does money grow on trees? We can’t have this and that.”

“I can’t have this or that.” That’s not an abundance mindset. First is knowing where you are, understanding that you have this programming running in the back of your head and then reprogram yourself. A, you can learn. There are plenty of books and information on money mindset. Figure out what type of money mindset you have.

Depending on who you read, there are X types of money mindsets, then start to examine and change them over time. Nothing changes overnight. Everything compounds and compounding is amazing. Compounding only works when you start and keep at it. If you have not gone through a compounding exercise, I’ve got a lovely story to tell you on compounding.

Here’s the deal. Genie came and granted your wish to all your readers. They are going to get an opportunity to make a lot of money over the next 32 days. We’re going to give them this new business but it’s only for 32 days. When they’re done, they’ll be a millionaire. Genie says, “I got two payment plans. Payment plan one is I’m going to give you $100,000 a day for 32 days. At the end of 32 days, you have $3.2 million.”

It’s simple math. Genie then says, “I’ve got this other payment plan. I’m going to pay you a penny today. Tomorrow, I’m going to double it and pay you two pennies. The next day, I’m going to double it and pay you 4 pennies, then 8 pennies, then 16 pennies. I’m going to keep doubling it up until day 32.” You tell me, Rodney. Which plan do you want?

I want the second plan.

How much do you think the second plan pays out?

I don’t know. I got to do the math on that but I think it’s more than what you’ll get in the first plan. I just have to go through that process.

Should we make it faster?

Yes, please.

Nobody wants to think in the long term. Everybody wants to think about today, and that’s instant gratification. Click To Tweet

The second plan pays out about $43 million, over 10X of the first plan. Here’s the problem and the story. If you look at the penny doubling plan, on day fifteen, you’ve only got $328. You’re looking across at the other guy who took the $100,000 a day and he’s got $1.5 million. You’re going, “I made a mistake.” It isn’t until day 28 that the two are equal. It’s in those last few days where the power of compounding blows out. If you’re looking at day 28, you had about $2.7 million, which goes to $5.4 million, $10.8 million, $21 million, $21.5 million to $43 million, but it’s all at the end of the hockey stick.

I like to tell a story. Most people had flown. You get on an airplane. The airplane is like your life. The pilot goes full steam ahead. You come out of college. You’re young. You’re full steam ahead. You’re full power running down the runway. You’re about halfway down the runway. You’re full steam ahead. You look out the window. You go, “I’m still on the ground.” Most people give up. Do you know what happens to that plane when you continue down the runway? It continues to build momentum and speed. Once it’s airborne, you’re soaring, but if you stop, give up and don’t do that, you’re never going to get there.

The second thing is, if you don’t start, you’re never going to get there. If you look at the first fifteen days, we talked about it. “$328, looks like we’ve done nothing for these fifteen days. Why should I even bother?” If you don’t do the first fifteen, you don’t get the joy of day 32. That’s the bottom line. I saw that picture as a 21-year-old kid. I knew that it was a twenty-plus-year journey. I kept running the numbers and kept going.

It sounds like going through this process in my mind that instant gratification is the enemy of success. You’re looking over there at the guy with $1 million or the $100,000 and it’s like, “I don’t have that, but that’s what I want.” You got to wait for it and continuously do without, but it pays off in the long run. The major issue for a lot of individuals is the waiting part.

We’ve never lived in a society that was so advertised to. You are advertised 24/7. You can’t go to the gas station without the stupid pump playing a commercial. You’re watching a movie and there are all these ad placements in the movie. All those companies paid a lot of money while you’re being entertained to show you that stuff. Everything is, “If you buy this, your problems will be solved.” I’ve met a lot of millionaires. The million dollars doesn’t make you happy. If you’re not happy on the journey, you’re not going to get happy when. That’s why you have all those miserable, rich people because money magnifies your problems.

I’m letting that land for people. That’s all because I think that’s good. Social media is depicting a picture of lavishness and success. I don’t know if all of those people on there are living what they’re projecting.

They rented it. You know that. There’s one that’s hilarious. There’s this one thing that shows you how to make a picture of you flying over an island sitting in the window. It’s like a toilet seat next to the guy’s head. It makes it look like the window on the airplane. There’s a picture of the sky behind it. It’s like, “I’m flying to Hawaii.” You’re not. You’re standing there with a toilet seat next to your head.

I feel that there’s a lot of pretending out there, pretending to have it all instead of going back to the fundamental efforts. It takes effort to bring that together. That is the time that you could be executing the fundamentals that you are talking about in order to do it. When you find the people that have it, they don’t seem to be flaunting. It’s a different mindset for them and a different way of living. They don’t have to show that they have. I’ve met so many millionaires that you wouldn’t even know that they’re millionaires. They don’t even look like them. They looked like they were broke. “I know you can afford this and that. Why you don’t have that?” For those that don’t have it, there’s this need to want to present themselves as having it.

It’s keeping up with the Joneses and the Joneses suck. You’re trying to impress people you don’t even like with stuff you don’t care about.

Other than what you’ve shared, what would you recommend to people reading here that maybe are 40 or 30 and missed some of those early opportunities in life to do the 401(k)s and all of those things but still have a dream, a goal and still want to get to that point. What do you recommend for them?

 

First of all, you need to define your end game. If I ask people if they have a plan for their life, 97% of people are saying, “No.” First and foremost, get a written plan for your life. Start with the end in mind and work backward. Figure out what you truly want in life. Not what you’re shown on TV or on social media. Figure out what’s important to you. Write it down. Figure out where you are, understand the gap, take one baby step towards it and keep showing up with one baby step. Baby steps compound.

Money compounds both ways. It compounds in debt and growth. Most people are on the debt compound side, which is a noose. This works in every area of your life. If you want to be thinner, figure out nutrition. I will tell you. When you look at what we eat, it is not food. The fuel you are putting in your body is horrible. The things you were told are healthy aren’t healthy. Go figure out real nutrition, what you want in life and take a baby step towards it.

No one’s telling you to radically change your life, but if you can eliminate one bad food this week, one bad food next week, use that money, save a little bit, get rid of one impulse purchase, cancel some of the things you don’t use anymore that you’re paying for every month, over time, this will all compound. You’re going to be at one point where you’re halfway down the runway with the engines roar in full bell and you’re going, “I’m not getting anywhere.” Remember, you got to keep going.

Information is saturated. You can find information anywhere. The key is to understand the right information to listen to. Where do you recommend people go that’s going to take your advice and start making those baby steps? Where do they go to find the information that they need?

If you want to write a life plan, there’s a great book out there called Living Forward by Michael Hyatt. They have taken thousands of people through this process. They share it in the book. There’s also a website that goes with the book where they’ll let you download the templates. It’s going to cost you less than $25 to write your life plan. There is a book out there called Deep Nutrition. I would read Deep Nutrition. Tim Ferriss does a lot on food and health. Listen to Tim Ferriss. When you listen to people like Tim Ferriss and they have guests on, you’re going to hear ten guests talk about food and they’re all going to tell you ten conflicting stories, but here’s the deal.

You and I are definite, Rodney. What works for your body may not work for my body. You’ve got to experiment, try things and figure out what works for your life and for your money. If you want to learn about what millionaires are like, get the book The Millionaire Next Door. They talk really simply on how to do that. You have to, unfortunately go through a lot of different books and things. Try and find the top people in the game. Understand that there is a lot of hype out there. If they’re hyping you to buy something, chances are it’s not real. The people who aren’t hyping are the ones who truly have the knowledge because they don’t care.

You feel that the majority of the world looks at the equation of profit differently. Perhaps, it’s all wrong. Could you walk us through your philosophy around the equation for profit?

There is a book out there called Profit First. It’s written by Mike Michalowicz. I was shocked to learn that most business owners didn’t look at their financials. When I thought about it, I was like, “Business owners are people. People are horrible with money. Just because they’re in business doesn’t mean they know the business of business.”

Everyone is told this equation, which is sales minus expenses equals profit, which means profit is a leftover. It is something that’s an afterthought. It’s the same principle I use to build my wealth. They changed the formula to sales minus profit equals expenses. It’s the same thing as automated savings. You’re automating your profit. You take it off the top in your business up front and you learn to live on what’s left. It’s the same way to live life. When you find these universal principles, they apply everywhere. You got to find them and listen for them. They’re hidden, but they’re out there.

You also talked about giving each dollar that you make a job. Let’s talk about that.

If you give up, you're never going to get to your destination. Click To Tweet

It goes back to my first story and this is how I still do it. When the money comes in, we have all these automated savings, some of them for long-term and some of them for short-term. Christmas comes every year and yet every year, nobody’s got money for Christmas to buy gifts. In the old days, people used to have a Christmas bank account. They put $5 in it every week. At Christmas, they had money to buy Christmas presents. Look at your spending and ask yourself, is your money flowing to where you want it to flow to?

Budgets are like diets. They suck but look at your money flow and say, “Is this going where I want it to go? This is how I would prefer to spend my money.” Start giving those dollars a job and send them to the areas that you want them to go on. You might splurge on something totally different than me. It doesn’t make it right or wrong. It makes it good for you as long as you’ve done it intentionally. When you start splurging on something you love on, stop spending on what you don’t love because it’s not making you happy and it’s wasted.

At the end of the month, we get our credit card statement. You look at it and go, “How did that happen?” You look at the transactions and say, “I don’t even know what that is.” It’s because you are just letting your money flow without thinking of it. You weren’t giving it a purpose and a place. You let it go for the sake of convenience. You didn’t plan ahead.

Rocky, I’ve been in this game for a little while. One thing that I’ve learned about habits, identity, processes and how those three things relate to each other is it’s an internal agreement among those three things. When you can align with your values and the things that you want in life, demonstrate that through your habits, what you do every day and the decisions that you make is an internal thing.

I’m sure you’ve seen this. You can give people plans. You can tell them to do all this stuff. They don’t take action on it, but they say they want to. There’s a part of them that wants to do this stuff, but then when the rubber meets the road, there’s always either an excuse or some reason why it doesn’t work out that way on a consistent basis. They start and stop. What is the switch in your mind that gets people in a place where they can discipline themselves? I’m waiting for you to say something I haven’t heard before. These are all basic fundamental practices, but yet we don’t practice them.

First of all, you have to define what you truly want and make sure that it’s truly what you want and not just something you saw. If you don’t want it, you’re not going to put the effort in. The second thing you do is you need to build the habits. People try to build habits too big. When I started my weight loss journey, I was in this accountability group. The group said, “In order to be in this group, you have to work out three times a week.” I said, “I can work out three times a week.”

I would always set my goals for what my workout would look like for those three times a week and then I had a stretch goal of two extra. I usually work out five times, but I knew I had to work out three. A lot of people in the group said, “I’m going to work out six days a week.” Monday and Tuesday came, they didn’t work out. “I didn’t make my goal, so I’m giving up.”

You got to change the words. Say, “On average, I’m going to work out X amount of time.” Set a minimum goal. Don’t try and do maximum goals. You’re never going to hit a maximum goal. Do a minimum goal. “On average, I’m going to work out three times this week. Even if it’s getting towards the end of the week and I haven’t even started, I can still go two more days because I’m working towards my long-term average.”

We’re not looking for perfection. We’re looking for it to show up. Tie your actions to existing habits and specific times. We’re supposed to all floss our teeth. Nobody likes to floss their teeth, but I brush my teeth every morning. If I want to start a flossing habit, my flossing habit is after I brush my teeth, I’m going to floss one tooth. That’s it, just one. Now it’s easy to do. The next thing you know, you’re doing 2 and then 3. Over time, you build up.

It’s the same thing. Do you want to go to the gym? Let’s start with, “On Monday, I’m going to go to the gym.” On Sunday night, put out your sneakers, clothes and water bottle, which means Sunday morning if you don’t have those things, go to the store and buy them. Put them out on Sunday night and have them ready that when you wake up Monday morning, you put them on and go to the gym. When you go to the gym, all I want you to do is walk around, get comfortable and then leave.

 

The next time you go to the gym, I want you to pick one piece of equipment and do one rep. I don’t care if there’s a single weight on it. Get yourself comfortable. I want you to build a habit. Little by little, you build that habit. The next thing you know, you’re pretty damn strong. You’re healthy. Your teeth are flossed. Your bank account is full. If you want to start a habit of saving, start with one bank account with 1% of your money. You will not miss $1 out of $100.

For every $100 you make, I want you to put $1 in that bank account. Let it go for three months. Don’t do anything else. Three months later, look at it and go, “That’s interesting. I wonder if I could do 2%.” If you do that once a quarter, in three years, you have a 12% savings rate. In ten years, you’d have a massive savings rate. Those are teeny steps. Everyone goes, “I’m going to go to the gym and start lifting heavy weights.” Seriously, a dumbbell is going to fall on your head. You’re going to get hurt and go, “I can’t go to the gym anymore because I got hurt.” It’s the smallest, tiniest, least amount of effort. Keep showing up and keep improving.

Rocky, how can people connect with you if they want to learn more about you?

Before we get to that, if you enjoy this show, if you enjoy what Rodney does for you, would you do him a favor? Would you go rate and review this show? It helps more people to find it. You can help Rodney and help more people. I would appreciate it if you do that if you liked what you’ve read. As for me, I have two podcasts and two places to find me. It depends on what you want.

If you want to know more about what we talked about on living the ultimate life, check out Richer Soul. It’s RicherSoul.com or on any podcast player. If you are a business owner and you’re struggling with your profit in your business, then it’s ProfitComesFirst.com and Profit Answer Man Podcast. Whichever one is good for you, go check it out and I’d appreciate it. Thank you so much, Rodney, for having me here.

Thank you for being here and for sharing. Also, thank you for the request to rate and review the show. I appreciate that. For those of you reading, go check these podcasts out, both of them. Listen and learn. This is someone who’s clearly has been successful. He’s walking the talk. He’s gone through the process of going down the runway all the way to the end, get in the wind underneath the wings, rising up and soaring.

This is someone you want to listen to. There’s a lot of information out there. The difficult part is determining what the right information is and we have it here. Go check it out. You can’t go wrong with increasing your financial situation. When the social unrest was happening and it’s still going on, one of the things that struck me as a Black individual as responsibility is economic strength. That’s an answer to me.

I know a lot of things out that are wrong as it relates to that situation but economic strength is something that we all want as human beings. It’s a primary element and responsibility to have economic strength. With economic strength, you need economic literacy, the need to know. We have to spend time not only taking care of the family, learning the job and doing all those things that we have to do. You have to take the time to learn financial literacy because it’s not something that’s taught in school and little things like Rocky gave away about profit first for a lot of people.

I know a lot of you reading that’s not how you’re running your business. Profit is leftover. You’re not paying yourself first. That’s maybe a little challenging for you mentally. “How I’m going to do that? I know what my expenses are. If I take my profit off what I want for profit, I’m going to be shut.” I don’t agree with that. I need you to read the show, understand what that means and how you can apply that to your life. With all that being said, Rocky, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate you.

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a blast to chat with you.

 Important Links:

• Rocky Lalvani
• Living Forward
• Deep Nutrition
• Tim Ferriss
• The Millionaire Next Door
• Profit First
• Profit Answer Man Podcast
• Rocky@ProfitComesFirst.com
• http://RodneyFlowers.com/get-up-book/
• http://RodneyFlowers.com/essential-assertions-book/
• https://RodneyFlowers.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=01f76a038256f77a6fbc93590&id=307d726734

About Rocky Lalvani

Rocky serves as Chief Profitability Advisor for business owners. He teaches them how to ensure they get paid and they make profit a priority! As a certified Profit First Professional, he implements Mike Michalowicz’s Profit First System. We change the accounting formula of Sales – Expenses = Profit to Sales – Profit = Expenses. This ensures Profit comes first! (PS. It’s not about money at all costs, people come before money!)

Rocky started with nothing when his parents immigrated to the United States when he was two years old, and his parents were in their 40’s. It was his parents’ second time starting over in life as they moved here to experience the American dream. In spite of a lot of struggles and his mom passing away when Rocky was 7, he has been able to achieve financial and life success. Rocky loves to share his journey and inspire others to achieve their dreams even faster.