Shadowing Practice: Your House Is NOT An Asset (Here's Why) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hate to break it to you, Lewis, but your house is not going to put food on the table.

Because it doesn't pay you an income.

It's an expense.

property tax fixing stuff all the expenses insurance everything man it's expensive And now they say, well, what if I pay off my house?

Okay, great.

You paid off the house, but now you still got the property taxes and the insurance.

And let's say, Louis, you bought your house in a great area.

Well, let's say you bought a half a million dollar house.

You bought it in a gray area, now it goes up to a million dollars.

You're going to say, just look at me.

I got a million dollar asset I'm sitting on.

Good, I'm happy for you.

Now you have to pay property taxes on a million dollar house.

Because if your house goes up in value, so do your property taxes every year.

You have to now insure a million dollar house.

Thank you.

And now what happens is maybe you have an income from your job to keep paying that.

But what if you stop working?

Maybe you retire.

Maybe you can't work.

You still have to pay these expenses.

Or maybe now you've built this house.

You paid it off.

You were able to support the cost.

And now you pass it down to your kids.

Well, now your kids have to pay to support this billion -dollar house.

And why do now so many of these kids have to liquidate the house and sell it?

Because they can't afford the cost of just keeping the house.

So now we think that buying this house is going to make us wealthy and when in reality, that's not always true.

Now, I'm not saying it's bad to own a house.

I'm not saying you shouldn't own a house.

In fact, it's a very good thing to own a house and pay it off.

But the mistake that many people make is they think, Jaspreet, I'm going to get a good job, invest in my 401k and buy a house and I'm going to be set.

When you have that sort of mindset, you're thinking like everybody else.

And right now, America is facing the largest retirement crisis of history because everybody thought if I got a good job,

I invested in my 401k and I owned a house, I'm going to be set.

Just do the math.

Those are the people now that are facing this retirement crisis.

What makes you think that it's going to be easier for you

when we have a more volatile stock market where inflation is a bigger problem now than it was for the previous generation?

What makes you think that all of a sudden it's going to be easier for you?

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Well, here you are.

And so when we think about the house, I'm gonna talk about one more thing about it, because then people will say, well Jaspreet, If I have to pay $3 ,000 a month,

isn't it better for me to build equity as opposed to making my landlord richer?

Yes.

But that's not always what's happening.

Because when you get a 30 -year mortgage...

and you're paying $3 ,000 a month, it's not $1 ,500 going to your bank and then $1 ,500 going to principal.

80 % is going towards interest.

In fact, more in the beginning.

And so it's not for the first 15 to 20 years of a 30 year mortgage. That.

more than half of your payment is going straight into your banker's pocket with interest.

And then the other small percentage is going to your principal

And now we have to assume that you don't do a refinance because if you refinance on year eight, Well, now you start the process all over again.

And so again, I'm not against the owning your house.

In fact, I would prefer you to own your house than rent it.

The mistake that people make is I buy my house thinking that it's going to make me rich.

So how about you buy a little bit bigger, a little bit nicer because it's the biggest investment of your life.

And when you think it like that, and I'm telling you, and I speak from experience because I worked as a realtor.

and in that sales training what did they teach you you were selling the best and biggest investment of somebody's life

easy to get you to buy bigger when I'm selling you an investment, right?

I'm not selling you an expense.

Hey, Lewis, here's the biggest expense of your life.

This is the biggest money pithole you're gonna have.

I'm not gonna sell.

I have to say, Lewis, this is the best investment.

This is an investment for your kids.

Yeah, your family's gonna have memories here for decades.

And And that's Thank you.

It makes sense.

But when you start to do the math, you realize that maybe, maybe owning the house isn't as good of an investment as you originally thought.

And so this is where now we start to realize maybe some of the things that I was taught was wrong.

If you really need to get over the hump, because sometimes we have that ego and I had that too.

But once you start to realize that, oh, crap, I need to do something different.

Now you realize what I realized was everything that I was told was a lie and I need to restart my learning.

Mm -hmm.

And now you're like, oh crap, I got to start over.

But you're not starting over.

What you're doing is now just shifting the direction.

And now you can start to accelerate the path towards wealth which will give you the true freedom.

One of the things that I've learned in life, is that oftentimes the things you don't pay attention to end up mattering the most.

And that's why I wanna talk to you about life insurance with our sponsor, Policy Genius.

Because if you don't have the assets to live off of yet, and something tragically happened to you,

The last thing you want is now your spouse and your family trying to struggle to survive financially, and that's where term life insurance can come into play.

Now, I'm talking about term life insurance here, not whole life insurance.

The whole idea with term life insurance is it's life insurance for a period of time, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years.

That way you can work to build your assets.

It is a lot cheaper than whole life insurance

because the whole idea is you're not here trying to get rich off your life insurance.

your assets.

This is one of those things where the earlier you start, the cheaper it is.

Because if you're a healthy 30 -year -old guy, you could potentially get a half a million dollar term life insurance policy for less than a dollar a day.

So if you have any questions, you want to learn more about term life insurance, or you want to see how much a term life insurance policy would actually cost you, I'll put a link to Policy Geniuses' form down in the description.

It only takes a few minutes to complete, and it'll give you an actual quote on how much term life insurance will actually cost you, and I have that link for you down in the description.

You know, if someone's watching or listening to this right now thinking their entire life has been lied to about money, finances, how to invest.

If I do these things, then I'll be safe in the future.

What would you say then are the three biggest money rules?

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that wealthy people do that most people aren't following.

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Well, I think you can break it down into three steps because there's three stages of wealth.

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And I'm going to break it down into...

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Phase 1: Getting the money.

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Yeah.

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Phase two.

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Growing the money.

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Phase three, protecting the money.

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Phase one.

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Getting the money.

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is all about now How are you going to just...

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Lay the foundation for your finances.

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How are you going to make money?

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And people say, well, what business should I start?

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What job should I get?

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I don't care.

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Do what you...

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believe is right for you.

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Sometimes it's what you like, sometimes it's not what you like, but you got to figure out how you're going to earn money.

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Figure out how you're going to earn more money and then create a system for your money.

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So, Here's a few basic rules.

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Number one, If you have credit card debt, If you don't have $2 ,000 saved up for an emergency, you are in what I call the financial danger zone.

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Now, I'm going to probably upset some of your listeners right now, Louis, but I'm going to do this because I want people to be better with money.

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I don't say this to make friends.

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If you have credit card debt or if you don't have $2 ,000 saved up...

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You should not go and see the inside of a restaurant.

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You should not go on another vacation, and you should not have a Netflix subscription.

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Or go to Starbucks or...

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Yeah, yeah.

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All of those with little expenses are destroying your finances.

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Now why am I saying no Netflix?

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It's not because of the $15 a month.

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It's because the average American is watching more than two hours, it's actually over three hours, but I like to say two hours, more than two hours of TV a day.

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And if you're broke with credit card debt, Without $2 ,000.

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You don't have the luxury to watch TV.

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You don't have the luxury to.

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Yeah.

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You need to use that time to earn money.

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or learn skills, develop those skills and money.

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Now, the reason why I'm so aggressive about this is because

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let's assume now you got a little bit of cash saved up.

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You got $8 ,000 saved up in the bank right now.

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If you took the $8 ,000 today, and you invested it, and you could get a, let's just say 20 % return on your money.

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for the next 40 years.

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You're not going to retire with half a million dollars.

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And I'm also going to assume that you never invest another penny in that.

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Only the $8 ,000 today.

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You're not going to retire with a half million dollars

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or a million dollars or $2 million or $5 million or $10 million.

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You're going to retire a deca millionaire with over $11 million.

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Now you're going to say, Jaspreet, that sounds pretty good.

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Sign me up.

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I got $8 ,000.

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Well, here's the reality: you're probably not going to get those returns.

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Do you want to know who is?

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Amex, Visa Discover, MasterCard, and you're the one that's paying that.

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Because the average American household with credit card debt has $8 ,000.

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Wow.

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The average APR on credit card debt That's 20%.

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So if you, instead of making them rich, took that money, and you could get those same returns, you would be incredibly wealthy.

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But that's why they're flying high in private jets with those big buildings.

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It's because you're working hard to make them rich.

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So when it comes to that getting money, you got to first lay that foundation, get out of the financial danger zone and create a system for your money.

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I like to teach 75, 15, 10, which is for every dollar that you earn from here on out.

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75 cents is the maximum that you can spend $0 .15 is the minimum that you invest.

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Ten cents.

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is the minimum that you save.

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This way, every time you get paid, You're always putting money aside to save and invest.

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before you spend all of your money because what?

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wealthy people do we talked about is their money is making them money how do they do

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that it's because they own the assets how do they get

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that because they take their money

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and they don't spend all of it they always have money to save

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and invest before they spend all of it

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so create three bank accounts don't do this out of one

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one for your spending money one for investment money one for

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your savings money yeah 75 15 10 75 of the every dollar the maximum

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You can spend a 75 % as what I'm hearing you say.

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Yep.

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The minimum is 15 % to invest.

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and the minimum is 10 % to save.

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And imagine if you could do the minimum to invest would be 40%.

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of every dollar that'd be incredible.

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if you're able to invest more than just 15 you may not be able to with expenses

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but imagine if you bump that number up every month You're powerful.

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And that now goes into the mindset of how do you build your wealth?

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Because The first, I'm going to take a step back here because anytime we talk about money,

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a common feeling that I think a lot of people feel.

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is I don't know Jaspreet, I don't feel right.

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I'm talking about money and I don't feel right saying I want to be wealthy.

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Why do people fear the idea of wanting to be rich

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or looking at people who have money as bad and wrong or judging them as negative?

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Well, I think there's a few reasons why.

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I'm going to start with our own money traumas.

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If you grow up and your parents tell you, we can't afford this.

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We don't have money for this.

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That's too much money.

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That's only rich people stuff.

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Now, all of a sudden, you grew up believing that...

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I...

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don't have the ability to have these things and the people that do are rich people Now,

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maybe you grew up hearing that rich people are great and they have the money to do that.

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But most people don't.

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There's a lot of vilification around this idea of they must have done something bad, slimy, sleazy, or...

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not nice to achieve that money. when Let's reframe this.

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What if you grew up being told, We can't afford it yet.

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we don't have the money yet.

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It's too much money today.

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But if we do this, this and this, we will be able to comfortably afford this now we start to reframe how we think

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And the problem is a lot of times we grew up with these traumas that money is bad, evil, and then we...

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comfort ourselves by saying the people that are affording it are bad.

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Because now we have these insecurities around money because why can somebody like me who works hard, got a good degree, checked all the boxes,

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how come I can't do it?

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but they can.

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This guy without a college degree has a lot of money.

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I And, uh...

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somebody who got a degree, good credibility, I got a good job.

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Why am I struggling with money?

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I hear this a lot because I hear, Jaspreet, my wife and I are doctors.

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We make $500 ,000 a year.

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We have zero assets.

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What is going on?

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And then I start looking at, their numbers and I see, okay, you got a Benz, you got a Range Rover.

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You guys are traveling on these nice vacations, first class, multiple times a year.

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You're staying at the nice hotels.

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You're always buying the organic blueberries.

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It's like there's a lot of different things and you realize, oh, it's not just how much money you make, it's what you do with that money.

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and Now when you start to just...

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create that tension, you start to realize, oh my God, I can't ever have these nice things.

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Money is bad, it's evil.

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Well, now let's reframe that and understand how money plays a part in your life.

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Because the reality is it costs money to eat and it costs money to feed other people.

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Money is a part of life.

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You want to pay your bills?

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You got to have money.

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If you don't believe me, call up your bank and say, hey, I don't got money.

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Can I give you a hug this month?

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They're not going to like that very much.

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No. But once you understand that money is a part of life, You can then realize it's not the only part of life.

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Because.. and you and I have talked about this before that If you really want to live a happy and fulfilled life, you need to be physically fit.

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You need to be mentally fit.

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You need to be spiritually fit, but also financially fit. Because...

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if you are not financially fit.

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If you're always stressing about money, what happens next?

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Well, now your relationship suffers.

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because you and your wife are now going to be arguing because you're stressed about bills, because you want to go on a vacation,

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you want to buy your wife that nice purse, or you want to buy your husband a nice watch.

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but you don't have the money, you want to buy college for your kids, It's stressful.

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Money problems are one of the leading causes of divorce and also suicide.

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It's a real thing.

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But yet we're scared to talk about the topic of money.

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And when you realize the hate, I need to be physically healthy.

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I need to be mentally healthy.

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I need to be spiritually healthy.

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And I need to be financially healthy.

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And there are four independent parts of my life.

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Now you can understand, okay, it's not bad for me to want to learn money.

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It's in fact important because we live in a society that He uses money, but If I have more money, I can also do more good.

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I can also help other people.

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I can also feed other hungry people And when you have that sort of idea...

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Now you don't have to...

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go in and think, oh my God, yeah, maybe it's not a bad thing to be rich.

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Maybe it's just Freedom.

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Yeah.

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And maybe if I become rich, I can be an example of what it means to be a good person who is rich.

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That's why I always say we need more good people with money.

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And now we start to reframe that.

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But it means you have to rewire the way you look at money.

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Yes.

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Because most people look at money in a way that does not serve them.

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They look at it where it causes stress, anxiety, fear, uncertainty.

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If you don't have money, you're at the mercy of people that have money.

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You become desperate.

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because now I have to go to work.

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I have to do these things.

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And desperate people don't make good financial decisions.

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And it's really unfortunate.

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But now when you're desperate, what happens?

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Well, the first thing is if I'm just in a really crappy place, maybe I start to soothe myself by buying a nice car that I can't afford, buying a nice watch that I can't afford,

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buying some nice clothes that I can't afford or whatever indulging in drugs

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or alcohol or other things like that lottery tickets maybe now I try to soothe myself doing other things.

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Maybe now, I say, I want to get rich.

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And this guy on the internet says, if I pay him $995, he's going to give me a six -step system to making six figures in six months, working only two hours a week.

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That sounds great.

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Or maybe if I just throw my money into this cryptocurrency, into this hot stock that everyone's talking about, I'm going to be able to double my money in 12 months.

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And now we get caught up in this idea of, fast money because I'm desperate, I'm in pain.

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Well, Unfortunately, That's not how building wealth works.

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And when that's what you want, you get caught up in all the crap out there.

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And there's no shortage of people selling that crap.

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because it is very attractive to sell you this idea of get rich fast.

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Investments that go up by these crazy percentages.

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It's very attractive and you want to get in on the next one.

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I mean, could you imagine if you could double your money every six months?

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I mean, you would be the richest person in the history of time.

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In our economic system, you can't become wealthy by working a job.

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Doesn't matter if you were a teacher, a truck driver, a doctor or an executive.

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The way you become wealthy is by owning the right assets.

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That way now you can get paid even if you stop working, because if you stop working at your job, the money stops coming in.

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But you still got bills to pay.

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205 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Your House Is NOT An Asset”. This video has 298 sentences and 3461 words to shadow. The speech runs for 18:28. The speaker talks fast, about 187 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
reframe verb		To mount in a frame again.
financially adverb		In terms of finance or money.
retire verb	/ɹəˈtaɪɹ/	To stop working on a permanent basis, usually because of old age or illness.
refinance verb		To renew the terms of a loan.
soothe verb	/suːð/	To restore to ease, comfort, or tranquility; relieve; calm; quiet; refresh.
spiritually adverb		In a manner affecting, relating or pertaining to the spirit or the soul.
mindset noun	/ˈmaɪn(d)ˌsɛt/	A way of thinking; an attitude or opinion, especially a habitual one.
trauma noun	/ˈtɹɔm.ə/	Any injury to the body of a living thing.
mathematics noun	/mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/	An abstract representational system studying numbers, shapes, structures, quantitative change and relationships between them.
mentally adverb	/ˈmɛntəli/	In a mental manner; an idea thought out in one's mind, as opposed to an idea spoken orally.
blueberry noun	/ˈbluˌbɛ.ɹi/	An edible round berry, belonging to the cowberry group (Vaccinium sect. Cyanococcus), with flared crowns at the end, that turns blue on ripening.
cryptocurrency noun	/ˈkɹɪp.toʊˌkɝ.ən.si/	A digital currency based on a cryptographic system, usually having no central issuing or regulating authority.
decathlon noun	/diːˈkæθlɒn/	An athletic contest consisting of ten events which includes sprinting, hurdling, jumping, and throwing over a span of two days.
insure verb	/ɪnˈʃʊɚ/	To provide for compensation if some specified risk occurs. Often agreed by policy (contract) to offer financial compensation in case of an accident, theft or…
liquidate verb	/ˈlɪkwəˌdeɪt/	To make (a sound) less harsh.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
grow up verb	To mature and become an adult.
figure out verb	To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
pay off verb	To bribe, especially to deter oversight.
save up verb	To accumulate money, especially for a specific, planned expenditure.
start over verb	to begin again; to return to the beginning
call up verb	To retrieve from personal or computer memory.
end up verb	To bring to a conclusion.
get in on verb	To gain participation in an activity, especially an attractive one.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

How are you going to make money?
What job should I get?
Do you want to know who is?
Why am I struggling with money?
If you're always stressing about money, what happens next?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	If I do these things, then I'll be
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	wealth which will · people who have · people that do
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	be set · was taught · was told
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've built · I've learned · has been lied

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 109 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: soothe /suːð/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, decathlon /diːˈkæθlɒn/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: insure /ɪnˈʃʊɚ/, shortage /ˈʃɔː(ɹ)tɪd͡ʒ/, subscription /səbˈskɹɪpʃən/, inflation /ɪnˈfleɪ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, cryptocurrency /ˈkɹɪp.toʊˌkɝ.ən.si/, accelerate /ɪkˈsɛl.əˌɹeɪt/, insanity /ɪnˈsænɪti/, millionaire /ˌmɪl.i.əˈnɛə(ɹ)/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like reframe, financially, retire.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Your House Is NOT An Asset (Here's Why) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?