WEALTH WITH A PURPOSE With Rennie Gabriel

Hello, it's Howard Brown. Welcome to the Shining

Brightly Show. I have an incredible story and incredible

guest today. And an incredible cause actually, it's a dual

cause. And we're going to hold that out. But it's a real

surprise for you. But it's awesome. Rennie, welcome. How

are you?

Oh, I'm terrific. Thank you, Howard,

thank you for the opportunity to be on the show.

I'm really glad to have you, I have to tell people

about you. Because the more I get to know you, I just love

what you do. And you lift up yourself and lift up others. And

that's my mantra. So we're so aligned there. Let me just tell

people about Rennie Gabriel. So Rennie, you are an author of the

best selling book called wealth on any income. And it's

translated into eight languages. That's incredible. You failed

math in high school. Oh, boy, one of those guys write you are

broke at the age of 50. And then after applying three fundamental

wealth principles, you became a multimillionaire. In only a few

years, while earning 5000 a month, you now donate 100% of

your programme, your book and your coaching profits to animal

and veterans charities that is noble, that is heroic. And I

love that. And so it's just an incredible, you know, what,

you've been able to transform yourself. So tell me, I tell me

how you shine brightly each day.

Actually, the day the way the day starts,

during the day, I actually have a prayer. And I'm not religious

at all. My wife doesn't even believe I have a religion, but I

am spiritual. And the prayer goes like this. God, I'm very

grateful. Thank you for my blessings, thank you for my

wealth, my prosperity, my relationships, and my health.

Please provide blessings to all those you deem worthy. And

please provide complete health for my wife. Amen.

Oh Wow, I just want to take that in for a

second. Because I do something similar. I look in the mirror,

everybody shaves or puts on makeup every day. And I tell

myself something that I am blessed. I am grateful. And I am

lucky. How can I help myself and help others every day? And I see

that both before and after? You know, before I go to bed as

well. So we do the same. This is incredible. Well, again, you

gotta tell the background. So you failed math. Right? And you

gotta give me the background.

Yeah, the reality is, I didn't actually

fail it. I got a D. Because the teacher saw I turned in all the

homework. I took all the tests. I was there. I tried my best. I

failed every single exam. But he gave me a D for the class.

All right, well, he's not it's passing but you

know, not not not a great thing. But you show it

Reality is I didn't pass one of the exams.

I got it. So I mean, it's absolutely incredible

that you can actually not be a great student but try hard but

also then, you know, lose a couple businesses right? go

bankrupt. Okay. Yeah. Now, I mean, you're you're I achieved

life underwriter, you're a Certified Financial Planner. So

take take me back to the hardship and the hard days.

Well, I guess one of the things is that

becoming a certified financial planner or chartered life,

underwriter does not teach the basics of how to handle money

effectively. It's all sorts of, you know, tax strategies and

investment strategies, nothing about the basis, I did not learn

how to do a budget from any of that professional education. You

want to know where I learned it. I do what you learn how to do a

budget, a programme called debtors anonymous. It's a 12

step programme built like Alcoholics Anonymous, only for

people who don't know how to handle money.

Right, And they really don't teach that. Well.

You know, and I come from the number one school for

entrepreneurship in the world at Babson College, and they teach

you the basics of a pro forma, but you really actually have to

put it in action for yourself and for your, for your business.

So I agree with that, you know, we got to learn those skills,

that basic skills. And it's funny, all these college kids,

at least the good athletic ones are getting name image and

likeness, like this money. And I'm not sure if they're able to,

you know, know how to actually manage it. It worries me

actually, with this type of money.

They do have no clue. Perfect examples. What

happened here in Los Angeles was Shohei Ohtani. Yes, multi multi

million dollar contract. But since he doesn't speak English,

he's got an interpreter. The interpreter is a gambler. And

when originally they thought he blew $4 million of shohei's

Money on his gambling debts. They in the the investigation,

they discovered it was $16 million.

That's incredible. And for those who don't know,

who show Hannah tiny is he's he's one of the most incredible

Japanese baseball players that pitches and hits. And he hits at

these all, you know, all start levels and it's incredible. But

yep, he he got taken advantage of the system as well there too.

So it can it happens. So, you know, tell me, you know, you

struggled early on, it wasn't until you were around 50 that

you kind of figured things out, right? No,

no, yeah, no, yeah, it was, I had the idea of

what needed to be done. And I'd actually put some practices into

place a couple of times. But one of the things, we're gonna get

to it at the end, one of my mottos, which is about team, but

one of the things is that the first time I treated myself like

I mattered, and paid myself first, this is one of the most

basic principles. I pay, I was making 3000 a month, I set aside

$300 a month. And 10 months later, I needed to file my

income taxes. And the IRS wanted $3,000 The whole thing went, and

I was so discouraged. And so upset that I just spent the last

10 months finally I had some savings. Now IRS took it all.

And had I been willing to talk to someone else, they might have

said, well Rennie at least you didn't have to borrow the money

and then pay interest. At least you had it. least you didn't

have to finance it. So just start over again. But I wasn't

talking to anybody else. I'm trying to do this by myself. And

therefore I didn't. It took me another eight years after I read

The Richest Man in Babylon a second time before I started it

again. But then I got divorced and the money disappeared again.

Unbelievable. And it's, you know what, I think

wasn't it that Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's really

didn't he met the McDonald's brothers at a standard like

Fresno, California, I think it was 57-58 years old. So I think

what your lesson is, it's never too late. That's right. It's

never too late to get your act together financially. And

it's one of those stories is Colonel Sanders

didn't get to start. How getting people to buy his chicken recipe

until it was over 65.

Exactly. So it's really interesting. And so, you

know, tell me, you know, business and life failures, it

taught you a lot of lessons.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. One of the most

important was the first time I went flat broke. I mean, so

broke, I had to collect soda bottles and cans, to get the

refund money to buy groceries, was that I can rebuild it. And I

had such a fear of going broke. Like if that ever happened, I'd

never recover. But I recovered not once, not twice, but three

times.

It that's really humbles you, if you're

collecting, you know, the bottle money to returns and you know to

buy. I don't think in California, you can get a $5 hot

and ready pizza.

In Michigan, you can, but it goes farther. If you

buy the groceries, you can make your own pizza from it. Right.

Right.

Exactly. So but boy that humbles you. And and so

what I say that's that's walking in darkness. And that's what I

refer to in my shining brightly book is that you walk in that

darkness. And you got to learn lessons there. But you don't

want to stay there too long. But you did you actually went back

to darkness a few times. Because you just didn't get it right.

And what was that that moment that you felt that you are

getting? More more stability and more security?

I was 53. Okay, and I'm married for the third

final last time to my best wife. And I had been saving 500 A

month because I was earning 5000 a month for the last three

years. And I had $18,000. And this realtor who my wife worked

with said, Rennie, you should buy this little three unit

property. And I said, Robert, I only have $18,000 That's not

gonna buy anything. He says, Well, this is such a good deal.

I'll come up with half the downpayment if your wife will

come up with another 18,000. So the three of us bought it

together. And the next five years I borrowed money to

another concept of wealthy people. You borrow money to make

money. And I borrowed money. We bought more apartment buildings

together in the next five years, we added 47 more units. Wow. So

from 53 to 58. I built this and by the time I'm 58 I didn't have

to work anymore if that's what I chose,

right? So you'd be basically became a landlord and

you had apartments, but you are investing them and getting and

living off of people paying rent, correct?

Yeah, they covered the mortgages covered my

standard of living covered the credit card payments covered

everything. Oh, which by the way, I had credit card debt, and

5052 53. And had I use that $18,000 to pay off the credit

card debt, I would have not had the money to buy that three unit

property with my wife and the realtor.

So that's, that's a lesson learned, although

people are mounting credit card debt is, is a problem. I will

tell you for our young people. There's this because I actually

work in higher education with Babson College, I see the amount

of debt for a four year education. Now, some some of

these students are walking out with 70 to 100 to 130, if you're

getting an advanced degree or a law degree, or you're getting

your doctoral hours and things like that, they started off

behind the gun with a lot of debt. So that's what we're doing

to our young people. No, no, no.

Yeah. And a lot of times, they could go into the

trade and start making more money than a college graduate

without having that level of burden.

Yeah, there's there's gonna be choices. I

think the higher education world is in for, you know, some rough

time. So there'll be some colleges that that can't make it

on fundraising and and on that, and they'll they'll close down?

Yeah, you know, it's going to be interesting, because I see my

own niece, who's an occupational therapist, just starting out her

career, and she's taking a good portion of her first salary. And

she's using it for debt payment every month. And that means she

can't go and buy a nicer car. And she's not living in the

nicest place possible. In fact, she actually moved home for the

first year, which was actually a safe place with mom and dad, you

don't have to pay that. Right? Always smart there. So you took

your learnings, right? And you actually wrote a book and some

develop some courses. Tell us about your book, tell us about

your courses.

The book is really the what I would call the

steps I took. Starting with the attitude, the first third of the

book is about the attitude we have, did we get it from our

parents? Did we get it from school? You know, what is it we

believe that we can or can't do? And what do you need to do to

overcome those limiting beliefs. So that's the first third of the

book and then the latter two thirds the basic principles that

lead to wealth, treating yourself like you matter, paying

yourself first, what to do about debt, how you get rid of it, how

you determine how you create a budget, so you know that you're

spending less than you're earning. And I've got simple

formulas, like, as long as you live on 80% of what you're

earning, set aside 10% for expenses, it'll show up later.

So you have the money to spend on that stuff that you weren't

planning on, and 10% to keep for the rest of your life. Simple at

1010 principle, and it works. It works so beautifully.

It does. And I think if you gotta follow the

steps, and you got to be disciplined, though, you might

have to change bad habits.

Yeah, right. That's true.

I have to tell you that one of my also my fears is

that a lot of my friends, okay, and I have friends of all ages,

because I play basketball with young folks and older folks. But

having your phone in your hand and being able to place a bet in

gamble on these gambling sites. You can rack up some debt you

get not everybody's picking a winner every single time for

sure. And it's it's a big business. You know, it's a

trillion dollar business and people it's very simple to click

on a button. And and watch, watch, watch your money go away.

And so I put out a warning to that, you know, out there for

some discipline, some mental toughness, some some some some

smarts, right, and things like that. But the interesting thing

that I've heard you speak about is that some of the super

wealthy have advantages over the rest of us talk about that.

Well,

the advantages are really something you're

touching on which is mental discipline, its attitudes, its

attitudes, like don't focus on paying off debt first, build

assets. It's the attitudes like make sure you're spending less

than you're earning. It's treating yourself like you

matter. It's Well, I'm gonna get to the one I'm going to plan to

share at the end of the show. Okay,

well, but at the same time, there's life changing

philanthropy that can be had. And I think that if you

accumulate enough wealth and even small bits of philanthropy

matter, right, so it's really funny. So we have, we had two

different piggy banks. It's from the first chapter of my book,

but for my daughter, okay, and she put her allowance and

pennies. And she actually had to split it up, we had two. In

Judaism, we call them sadaqa. box there, they're actually

little Jewish piggy banks. And we put money half in one and a

half in the other. And we call this Emily's dilemma. And we she

actually said, why I have to put half in the right one and a half

in the left one. And I was like, the one on the left is for

you're going to choose who gets this money, who's going to be

the beneficiary, and we're teaching at a very young age,

who can you help? It's a beautiful lesson, right? The

other is, you want to buy candy, you want to buy a book you want

to buy, hopefully, you'll buy a book is for you. And I have to

tell you that that's a really valuable lesson that we taught

my daughter that my grandparents and great grandparents taught us

and we've passed on as a family thing. And, and so the justice

of giving or sadaqa is a good thing. And so my daughter still

carries that forward. She has two piggy banks as an adult,

basically, two different chequebooks. Yeah, and

one of it's so funny too, because it doesn't

require money to do that. And I didn't even realise that till my

own children who have children of their own. She reminded me of

what I did when they were young. And I was struggling

financially. I would take I would gather a blankets, we

would gather up clothing that we were going to donate and we

would take it to homeless shelters, we would feed people

in soup kitchens, I forgot I had done that with them when they

were little. We didn't have the money to donate. We donated our

time or things that we no longer needed.

Bill donation, it's still that that is still

giving. And it's beautiful. That's very valuable. And you

don't have to be money, you can donate your time. I just

volunteered at something called bookstore here in Michigan. And

I was on my feet for three or four hours. And this little

young African American boy came in with his family goes, where's

the kids books? He must have been seven years old. And I

pointed the direction he said, and then he was walking away

with this film. He ran back to me said Mr. Is there Diary of a

Wimpy Kid. I said, I hope so. I hope so. But I said if there is

where you come back and show me well, his family actually came

back because I said that. And he was waving the book. And he was

hugging the book. And it actually gave me faith that a

young African American boy seven years old was so interested in

reading. He hugged the book it made my whole day. I didn't even

felt like I worked for hours there volunteering. It was a

beautiful thing. It gave me hope. And hope is that magical

four letter word that kept me going and it was made everything

worth it. And I was there to donate my time anyways, but just

that one story made it made my day it was a beautiful thing.

And

that story gave me chills. Sue Howard.

So you have some causes, because because really

what's amazing is you donate now, okay, the proceeds of your

book and your classes to two causes. Tell me about the

causes? Well,

one of them. They're all animal and veteran

charities. And one of them in particular, rescues dogs from

from environments where they could be euthanized. And if they

meet the right size and temperament, they are trained as

service animals, not pets, but service animals, for veterans

who've come back with PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, other

issues. And the suicide rate among returning soldiers is

almost one an hour, but not one, who's gotten their service dog

is committed suicide. So this, this charity saves two lives at

a time, the dog that would have been euthanized. The soldier

that might have otherwise committed suicide.

That that that's beautiful. That is absolutely

beautiful, that that's what you've dedicated yourself to. I

just want to applaud you. I hope my audience will applaud you

that that is a beautiful model. You you're a role model, and

it's a beautiful thing. And it's impressive, and it's just

amazing. Really it is so any other stories, you want to share

anything else? I mean, because I can't talk that

now it's just that it just, that's what's

really turned me on to donate 100% of the profits from the

work I do because I don't need the money. Where should I put

it? And it's causes like that, that fulfil me.

It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible and

will feature the link to for that and for your causes. All

through that so um I want you to put on your sunglasses right

now. Okay, you're gonna put out a sunglasses because it is the

shining, brightly spotlight, I want to shine the light on you.

Incredible story, incredible philanthropy, you've turned

yourself around. It's amazing. So tell people how they should

get in touch with you tell them the free gift you have for them,

and then share some inspiration with

us. Okay, so the easiest way to get a hold of me

and the free gift is from the website wealth on any income.com

forward slash TEDx. They'll be able to hear my TEDx talk and

request a free nine step roadmap to complete financial choice and

philanthropy. So it doesn't matter where they are, these are

the nine steps to get to wealth and philanthropy. And I send an

email once or twice a month, with tips and techniques as

well. So they get all that by going to wealth on any

income.com forward slash TEDx. Excellent. Okay, and share.

I always close the show with a little inspiration

which you got for me. One

of the things it's crucial, I didn't do this

by myself. I mentioned my wife and the realtor, we bought this

triplex. When I look back on the successful businesses that I've

had. They were based on a team, it wealth creation, business

growth, it's a team sport, not a solo sport.

That is amazing advice. And I actually say

fighting cancer is a team sport too, because you need yourself

your caregiver family, friends, your doctor. You know, your the

nurses, especially it is a team sport. That's just sage sage

advice. And I really appreciate that, as well. This has been

incredible show there's so much to take away here from this. And

for folks that are looking to get financially back on track,

get their life back on track. Talk to Ronnie that's, that's

simple. We're going to point him in your direction. So this is

the shining brightly show. Let me give some thanks. And

appreciation to folks that got me here. My publisher front edge

publishing, read the spirit.com is I blog and that goes out to

50,000 plus people every Monday and my podcast crew from amplify

you, they help me every day. And so if you come find me at

shining brightly.com, you'll find out about the book about

making your event shine and having me as a speaker, and also

this podcast. But more importantly, you'll learn about

my advocacy in the cancer world in the entrepreneurship and

mentorship world and also in the interfaith world. So that's

really what's more important to me. And if we all remember to

shine brightly, a little bit like we just did with Reni for

ourselves, lift up yourself for others, then lift up others in

our neighbourhoods in our communities, the world would

become a better place. Ronnie, it was awesome having you on

what a great show and thank you.

Thank you so much.