My journey is I grew up in a family that really emphasized the student and student athlete, but we were jocks. My family is actually basketball focused. I was kind of the black sheep that turned into football.

Where I got possibly one of my greatest skills in sports was my ability to lose. It’s because growing up, I’d play one on one basketball with my two older brothers every day. Out of hundreds of games, I remember vividly winning twice. That as an athlete is the strength in that kind of badge of honor. That kind of cloak you get to put around yourself and say, “I can lose without being defeated, I don’t see failure as final. I see it as feedback and as an opportunity to grow.”

As I looked at each and every one of the challenges I played with my brothers, I grew through each one of those and then translated that to all the way up until the National Football League. I got cut 12 times. Each time I got cut, I was able to turn around and focus on what , why and how I could grow from it. 

So as an athlete, man, I’ve always been one of those people who I was never the big recruit or the big name, but I was a guy who get on a field or court and figured it out. That’s kind of how I approach my life. But how I approach money, my wife, my family, my career is just continuing to find ways to add value.

Yeah, all those skills you just mentioned are translatable across all the different avenues that you’re working in finance, business, really whatever it is… Those are things that are translatable across sports, business, everything you’re really doing in life.

I love your recognition of that. I think life principles should absolutely be translatable. It should not be football specific or money specific. If you find a good concept and a principle that you are going to base your actions and behaviors around, it should translate and that’s actually we’re here to talk a little bit more about the financial side. 

But I have two sides of my world: the money side and the mindset side. The other side is called Rookie to Veteran and that’s where I talked to companies, corporations, high performing teams, NFL, MLB, around how to create principles of success and how to imitate behaviors of the best in the world. 

I stand in front of a room and people say oh the football guys here. I’ll be the first one to say yes. These are principles I may have seen and picked up in an NFL locker room, but they have nothing to do with the game of football or making a 53 man roster. 

These are concepts that will help you in every facet of your life. The feedback from men, women, young and old are the beauty, the simplicity and the actionable sequences you can take away.

Robert Leonard  5:10  

Yeah, just a few episodes ago, I actually had Lewis Howes on the show. He was a former professional athlete as well. He says the same thing. I mean, he talks about how much he learned from sports and how it’s translated to everything he’s doing. 

For me, I always noticed that athletes have always been some of the hardest workers. That doesn’t just go away when you get into business. It translates from the football field, the basketball court, the baseball, diamond, whatever it is to the corporate office. I found that those types of people to be hard workers and they bring all those principles that you’ve mentioned more to the corporate setting. I think it really helps. 

I know I find myself leaning on those things that I’ve learned throughout sports, still to this day. So I really love that. I love working with other athletes.

However, one of the things that you’ve done that isn’t normal, I would say for most professional athletes is taking an interest in your money and defined in your finances and really taking control of it. So what made you get interested in money and finance and why did you specifically want to go for the CFP designation?

Jedidiah Collins  6:04  

So I began my journey out of fear. Then out of anger, my financial education began… my rookie year in the NFL, I grew up in Orange County, California. I went to Washington State. I got a wonderful degree in business. I was actually an accounting major, but there was no class on the Johnsons making $75,000 and what income taxes they have to pay. 

When I got my first check in the NFL, I did what the vast majority of guys do, spent every dime of it. I get humble and kind of jokingly say it was a terrible decision, but a great investment. I bought an engagement ring. My wife and I are still married. 

But I’ll tell it to this day, that was a very poor financial decision. I woke up a night or two after we got the ring in sweats, in anxiety and stress knowing the damage football was going to do on my body and knowing I was a no name fullback. I got to survive in spine success longer than I was supposed to as an undrafted guy, but I was never going to really capture the NFL dream, if I didn’t start to treat my money differently. 

Even though I was, you know, in the locker room, probably one of the guys who should have known, I had no idea. And so, I went down to Barnes and Noble. I picked up “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” and millions of others to change my life and my philosophy. It really changed my perspective and my relationship with money. 

What I now get to look back on that book and critique it is it changed my philosophy, but it didn’t give me actionable takeaways. It didn’t tell me what to do. It was actually after I finished that book that I began to think of where my journey has taken me 12 years later. 

What I’m excited about today was writing a book that does tell you what to do and writing a workbook that builds out your personal financial plan. That’s what I’ve been able to do. 

But my journey began because I was mad. I had no idea what to do with my first paycheck. I was sad that it wasn’t just me. It wasn’t a big dumb jock problem. My brothers who are getting a master’s in engineering at Berkeley and a Harvard law degree also had no idea. It made me happy to start to empower myself and educate myself. 

When the CFP began to come into the picture I started to find a mentor, which I encourage everyone to do. It’s actually one of my 10 rookie to veteran principles. I call it finding a gray beard in the NFL, if you have gray in your beard, you’re an old hat.  

I found this guy. He was a former Washington State football player. He was 20 plus years in the financial industry. I started pinging him with questions. He didn’t ever ask me to invest my money or sell me anything so I trusted him. 

Eventually he said, “Listen, I can feed you fish all day long, but until you learn to fish yourself, you’re going to continually ask for more and more.” So that’s when every offseason I challenge myself, I’m going to take one aspect of the CFP exam. There’s six of them. I’m going to tackle it and be able to at least know what direction I want my career to head after I’m done playing football. It was then my objective to push that decision off as long as possible.

Robert Leonard  9:11  

It’s funny, you mentioned that about “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” because I felt the same way about the book. Actually, people always act like it’s the Holy Grail. It is a very good book. I mean, it’s one of the best selling personal finance books ever. People praise it in the real estate community all the time. I think that’s for a good cause but I read it and I left feeling the same way that you did. I really like tactical stuff. I like tactical books like What do I need to do? What are the steps that I take? How do I actually do this rather than conceptual stuff? So I felt the same way as you did. 

Then I actually had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Robert Kiyosaki for about an hour and it was awesome. I asked him about that and he said that “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” is high school and then “Cashflow Quadrant” is college and then his newest book is graduate school. So that’s kind of how he explained it. I love that you mentioned that that way because I felt the same way about it. 

Jedidiah Collins  9:58  

I love what he’s been able to do and it’s actually the best selling book in personal finance for a long, long time. I actually have framed out so I don’t like putting age demographics around where I was going with my curriculum, but I’ve a very similar methodology around level one, level two, level three. I’ve already created the workshops and the live engagements. I’ve been delivering those for two or three years. 

And so, the level two book is being written and going to be published in the next year or two, but what my most surreal moment was as we launched “Your Money Vehicle”  and I shot up and it became a bestseller in certain little side demographics, but then the personal finance one, it was “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” still number two. I took a snapshot of that. I was like, “Man, I have these books.” I like to put them up to look like my face. And so, it was just so cool to be amongst those people. 

Because I measured them in impact, Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” that mindset has impacted millions, but where I want to really have a shift is where we can change our behaviors. That’s what I really wanted to emphasize in “Your Money Vehicle.” This is yours. This is not jets, this is not my curriculum. This is nothing if you don’t put your name on it and sit in the driver’s seat

Robert Leonard  11:23  

In the NFL, specifically, what was the culture around money for the players? What do most players think about their money?

Jedidiah Collins  11:30  

Non-educated, not to their fault, but that’s just how we are prepared. You handle or hand any set of 22 year olds a million dollars, I would be curious at how many of them end up with anything to show for it. Not many, regardless of the group but are in relationship with it is a risky one. 

Why? Because we’ve defied odds. And so, if you look from an investment perspective, we are comfortable with high risk, high reward. That’s our careers. One of the challenges I give young professional athletes is your careers are possibly one of the riskiest investments you could have. Let’s not have your investments match that kind of profile. 

But it is really difficult because in a sense, you sit next to veterans, I as a rookie, making a good amount of money for a 22 year old sitting next to a 10 year pro making 10 times that, I try to, in my mind act like I belong in the same kind of world when I don’t. And so, there’s definitely the Joneses in the locker room that you need to fight on a daily basis. 

There’s also the societal pressure of dude, you can’t roll around in a $40,000 car, bro, like you’re a first round draft pick, go get it. Then there’s the culture of rookie dinners and things like that are kind of absurd. They’re a rite of passage to some degree, but it just sends the wrong message and the wrong tone. 

And so, what we really need to do with athletes, in particular, is begin with that education. I hate when the New York Times post this first round draft pick just signed a $45 million contract, because they didn’t. They signed a $22 million contract, which is still a ton of money. But if you’re spending on 45, you’re already not only broke, you’re in debt. 

Then you have to really capitalize on the time aspect where most people’s careers continue over time to grow. You have a long curve. Athletes have a short trajectory on their curve. Each year you’re in should really equate to about eight to 10 years of your financial life. And so, your relationship is not that kind. Your relationship is a spender because that’s the only relationship you’ve ever had and we have to begin to shift you to a “save or” and then “invest or” mindset.

Robert Leonard  13:48  

Are we seeing more athletes and celebrities starting to take ownership of their finances? I think back to some of my favorite shows and that’s Shark Tank. You see Mark Cuban, he’s not necessarily an athlete, but he owned the basketball team or world. He’s in the sports world. Alex Rodriguez is there.

There’s another show called The Venture Capitalists. They’re all athletes. They are snowboarders, football players, things like that. All these people I mean, we have tons of celebrities and athletes going into entrepreneurship starting their own brands. We have Rob Gronkowski who talked about how he never spent $1 of his NFL contract. He only lives off endorsements. So there’s a lot of different things that are coming out there. 

Do you think there’s a trend of people of that stature starting to focus on their money more or is there still far more players lacking the financial and business literacy, just the ones that do have it are getting more glamorized?

Jedidiah Collins  14:38  

So one I love the Rob Gronkowski and Marshawn Lynch, two guys who the common observer would not deem as financially literate were actually two dudes who handled their finances handled their money. 

I definitely see a modern day athlete forming where there is a new wave of identification and that is such an empowering movement because athletes want to be seen as more than. There’s actually a lot of hashtags going around like more than a game, more than a field, beyond the game. All these ideas that we both encompass that this career choice, this moment in our lives is paramount, is a platform, is a huge, huge opportunity. But it is really being seen today as a launching pad and not the end of the road. 

As you do see this, it is in education. And that’s where I get more and more excitement because NFL MLB professional sports teams, student athletes and high level colleges are starting to encounter or engage with me, because they’re curious and because they are interested. I see athletes as the next frontier of wealth. That is not rich. 

One consideration I really try to get across to young athletes and young professionals is riches in the moment, which is great. Rich is money today. Wealth is money for tomorrow. Wealth is how many days you don’t have to worry about money and that significant change, because I know rich doctors who make a half a million dollars, who have zero in their savings, who right now during quarantine during COVID-19 are panicked. They’re surgeons. When were they ever worried about their income? Well, they needed to start to have an investor mindset and start to understand what wealth truly is.

As a wealth manager, I was in charge of building out an investment portfolio, not based on your returns. But based on how many years I can tell you, you don’t need to worry about money. That is wealth, when I can tell you this downturn in the market doesn’t impact you for another eight years. That is power and that is freedom. 

So I definitely see a new athlete on the horizon. You look at the Warriors being in San Francisco and how many endeavors they’ve gotten into it is just a really neat time to be able to shift this but it has to come with education. I’m buddies with Marques Colston from the New Orleans Saints, who is a serial entrepreneur and is on a mission to make more athletes entrepreneurs in every facet of the word. He has built an actual curriculum. I think it’s Columbia that he’s partnered with, but that is the kind of guy we’re all trying to emulate and chase now.

Robert Leonard  17:27  

Yeah, it’s really interesting, I see it from two different ways. I think there’s two different trends that are leading towards athletes becoming business people or entrepreneurs in that they’re realizing how powerful their platform is. 

As a professional athlete, you have a brand already, I mean, that’s one of the biggest things you have to do is build your brand. Athletes already have that recognition, they already have that brand. So if they can leverage that in the business, they already have a huge head start. 

I think a lot of them are seeing that. Like you said, a lot of people in the past athletes specifically would think about getting to the league, whichever league that may be as the end point. Now people are seeing that it’s just the beginning. Now they’re leveraging they’re starting to build their brand and launch that into a business.

Jedidiah Collins  18:07  

That goes hand in hand with today’s day and age. Social media, the idea of any athlete can have a brand you know, as this likeness thing gets passed in college sports, they’re gonna have to start paying them. If we ever play sports again, that idea of the sixth man in basketball or the bench player in football, whatever it is, whoever even though you’re not the star, if you can develop a brand if you can develop an entry. I cannot wait for the kid who is on the Duke basketball team who has never seen a minute out of 100,000 followers because he developed a brand. 

Robert Leonard  18:48  

Yeah, I think Gary Vee talks about that where even if you’re a bench player on, you know, a Major D1 program, people still look up to you at those schools, if you answer all their tweets, all their Instagram, DMS, things like that you’re going to build your own brand before you even know it, even if you’re not a star. 

He got me to do that. Well, so that goes to like, the second trend that I was thinking was, entrepreneurship was never cool. Athletes almost looked at entrepreneurs, like you guys are kind of dweeby. You guys are like not really on the same level as us. But nowadays, entrepreneurship is cool. That’s like the pinnacle of cool these days. And so, that is playing into the aspect of athletes becoming entrepreneurs.

Jedidiah Collins  19:33  

Athletes want to be entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs want to be artists. It’s like, everybody wants the next thing.

Robert Leonard  19:38  

Yeah, the grass is always greener on the other side. 

Let’s dive into some of the personal finance topics I want to talk about throughout this book. One of the ideas that I let’s dive into some of the personal finance topics that I want to talk about throughout this podcast, one of them that I really like that I’ve learned from you is this idea of rather than playing checkers with your money, play chess. Talk to me a little bit about what that means.

Jedidiah Collins  20:02  

I love the game of chess, you started to see it be implemented into elementary schools as well as prisons. It’s a thought process. It’s a different strategy in life. You don’t need to be masters of either game. To understand checkers, you move piece by piece. Your objective is to just get to the other side.

Where with chess, you have to strategize moves in advance, and your objective is not just to get to the other side, but to formulate and define exactly what a checkmate looks like. 

In football, I really realized this in the different levels of high school, college and professional. High school, you focus so much on what we do. College, you say, alright, well, we got to worry about what those guys do. In the professional game, you not only worry about those two elements, but you worry about how we can manipulate and get them to go do what we want them to do. 

You have to build out a strategy, you run a play, because in two series, you’re going to run a very similar play that is going to manipulate the defense in the way you now know. 

Now you can attack and approach them. Money is no different. We enter into our lives as spenders. I made money, I spent money, I made money, I spent money, that is our relationship with it. 

I love asking people what type of “or” they are. We as people start to then develop that saver mindset. We begin to take at least a one year kind of perspective of money, where I want to save up for an engagement ring or car house or vacation or credit card debt, whatever it is. But it’s not until we become investors and we start to see money through a long term time horizon and start to see money as our employee, i.e. we actually make money go to work for us. 

That’s when we’ve had our chest strategy built out. If you look at financial planning, no longer are they being measured in can you beat the market, because it’s been proven time and time again that you can’t. 

I will battle people who want to talk about active investing. I love that you think you can still beat it, keep doing it, it’s doing nothing but making passive and evidence based people more money. 

But the idea that you now need to step back and say investments is not the only chess strategy, I can set up my insurance policies. I can set up my tax planning, my estate planning. Those are all moves in advance where I can build out efficiencies and actually capture a lot more of what I can control by building out a chess strategy. 

And so, that analogy is just simply introducing people to different ways to look at how they go through life, money business, the checkers versus chess analogy translates into all of those mediums. That is one that I love that you saw and you took a hold of because if you can start looking at money and planning moves in advance, we can build out a plan for you.

Robert Leonard  22:56  

Let’s talk about another rule. You talked about the golden rule of money. Tell us a bit more about this.

Jedidiah Collins  23:03  

A golden rule, and this is one if I could, there’s an index card financial plan, there’s a napkin financial plan. I can give you a one sentence financial plan, it’s very simple: Do not spend more than you make and focus on what you keep. 

And so, there are three elements to that. Do not spend more than you make focus on what you keep, where people typically break it down is not understanding exactly how much they make. That’s the difference between gross and net income. That’s the difference between not understanding exactly how they get paid, or what other elements that have already been taken out of that income. 

Looking at your spending, I can’t tell you how many 22, 42 and 62 year olds I’ve sat and talked to who have zero idea what they spent on a monthly basis. I have a money bucket system where I put five… every choice you have into five different buckets around your dollars, the past choices, anything due before the first of the month is what I declare as past choices. That’s your rent, that’s your bills, that’s your debt. That is a number you should absolutely know. 

I know May 1, I’m going to have $3,200 going out of my bank account. I know June 1, I’m going to have $3,200 going out of my bank account. And so, as you look at make spend… I need a ballpark on and then that key number.

That key number is so vitally important because everybody wants to talk about investing. Everybody wants to start with investing. You can’t invest anything until you spend less than you make. If you don’t have anything left over, if you’re not focused on that key pile, you’re out of luck. 

As I look at it, I call it burn rate. I tell people to imagine themselves out in a log cabin and winter is coming and you go out, you chop down wood. That chopped down wood is signifying you’re making money. You’re going to work and you’re bringing that wood back to your log cabin. You’re starting to throw wood on the pile. 

That wood you’re thrown on the pile is the burn rate is what you’re spending. Now, as you look at the wood supply, as it stacked up, you’re going to either look at winter and say, “Hey, we got enough wood to get through winter, or we’re running out of wood too quick and I’m worried.”

That is where we really need to start to build out a financial plan. Everybody has looked at that wood supply. It’s been called an emergency fund. I will forever consider it the Corona cushion and I think everybody will understand exactly what I’m talking about. 

But as you have that wood supply, you can survive these crises, you can not only do that, but with extra wood, you can start to build another house or build more on your house, or sell that extra wood. That is the key ingredient. So the Golden Rule, do not spend more than you make and focus on what you can keep.

Robert Leonard  25:49  

I love that you talked about having your essentially emergency fund or your just your budget in tech before you even worry about investing because I just did a solo episode the other day and a couple live streams where I talked about this in depth because I feel the exact same way. 

People always come to me and ask what I should invest in? What should I buy? I always tell them, do you have an emergency fund set? First, you need to have at least something because you can’t invest without a foundation. I always give the analogy of a house. You’re not going to build a house on a weak foundation, right? I mean, you need to have that foundation strong set ready to go before you start building the house. 

It’s the same for investing in that foundation: your personal finances, your budget and your emergency fund. Yhen everything else you build on top of the foundation as you’re investing and everything that comes along with that.

Jedidiah Collins  26:32  

This is semantics, but I love everything and agree with what you just say, I don’t use the word budget. I don’t like the word budget. I feel like budgeting is a limiting mindset because a lot of people I encounter say a budget controls me. That’s their constriction and conflict. 

With it, I use cash management. Why? Because I am in control of cash management, Cash management supports my lifestyle, and the budget dictates my lifestyle. And so, those are like some of the subtle little mindset things, mindset shifts. I don’t use the budget and I don’t use retirement because I think those are ideas of the past. To go forward, we’re going to have to adapt to a new world. Cash management is I control these choices and I look at my five buckets. Anytime I want to increase one bucket, I am consciously making the choice to decrease one of the other buckets.

Robert Leonard  27:26  

Yeah, I take an approach exactly like what you just said, but I do call it a budget yet I do it in a cash management style. I almost take a page out of *inaudible* book where he talks about how you can spend what you want to spend on just cutting in other places that you don’t really care about. And so, that’s how I build my budget. Although I call it a budget, I’m managing my cash that way, because I don’t really care about it. I’m the type of person who doesn’t really care about food. It’s just one of those things. For me, it’s just never really important to me.

I love riding dirt bikes and I love that type of stuff. So I’m going to spend a lot of money on riding my dirt bike, you know, buying dirt bikes, things like that, but I’m not going to go out to eat because I don’t really care about that. I’m going to go to the grocery store, prepare all my food and save as much money as I can there. But I consciously think of that when I’m building my budget.

Jedidiah Collins  28:08  

This is a perfect time to be conscious about that. You look at being quarantined. We have been forced to not spend money on certain activities, whether it’s getting more of something for your dirt bike or going out to dinner. I challenge people over the last month and say, look at your past choices. Look at your present choices, what have you missed most as you’ve been quarantined.

When the doors open back up, run out and spend more money on that thing. Very similar to “I will teach you to be rich” philosophy. 

In the same breath, look at those choices that you haven’t missed. Those should be easier emotional decisions to reduce. And so, I love that.It’s such a cool identification for yourself to say this I get joy in.

Again, that is why we call it “Your Money Vehicle.” Money is supposed to take you to a destination. For you, it’s happiness around dirt bikes. For some people, it’s happiness sitting around a dinner table and buying their friends wine and stuff. But if you look at money as the destination you’re missing the point. Money supports the vehicle, the verb, that is going to take you there. That is what you need to be focused on, not the money.

Robert Leonard  29:18  

You need to make sure like we’ve talked about it needs to align to what you actually want and what you actually believe in. You can’t take advice from me. You can’t take advice from you as to what those things should be. To talk about this sitting around the dinner table analogy is one of my best friends. We were actually supposed to leave to go to the Berkshire Hathaway meeting on Friday. The last time we went out… 

He’s a huge foodie. He loves food he’s not really into that’s like his thing. That’s what he likes to spend money on. And so, last time we went out, I didn’t want to go out to eat and he wanted to go out to all these nice steak houses. We kind of butt heads but he wanted to go do one thing and I didn’t because we just set our budgets differently. We want different things with our money. So it really makes sure you’re aligned with what you want and not what you think somebody else wants.

Jedidiah Collins  29:59  

I think that is such an important clarification. Again, I brought up the money vehicle, putting your name on it as an athlete, our name being on a play means we own. It means you have to take ownership in business. 

If your name is associated with something, you are part of it. I  then challenge people to put their name on the money vehicle. 

In chapter one, we go through some goal setting, and I love helping people with this part, I use the acronym RICH goals because they’re in the moment. “I” stands for individual. it can’t be your parents, teachers, or friends. These have to be your goals. This is the one time I will and most people will encourage you to be selfish. Anything to do with your money is going to be intimate and emotional. You definitely have to be the one that says I want this thing. I value this thing. I’m going to prioritize this. That is why it is not a sacrifice. 

When I say no to this other thing, standing in the line of the coffee shop. Everybody hates that analogy, but it’s simply saying this $5 I value the coffee or I value my freedom in my investment. It’s your choice. It’s just understanding that opportunity cost.

Robert Leonard  31:12  

To go along with those RICH goals, talk to us about why it’s so important to begin with the end in mind.

Jedidiah Collins  31:20  

The journey is the reward, but the destination is what is your driving factor. Beginning with the end in mind is the epitome of having the athletic mindset, having the successful mindset. You’re going to have 100 milestones along the way, but if you begin truly with your end in mind, all you’re doing in planning is reverse engineering how to get there. In chess, it’s checkmate. In football, it’s the Super Bowl and your money. It might be freedom, it might not be freedom. 

For most of us, our RICH goal should not be freedom. It should be more reachable, should be more obtainable, but you set this destination, because at the moment you are already built in to be lazy. I say lazy hesitantly, but historically, our emotional reaction to a lot of these events is to always choose what is the easiest resource available. That’s how we’ve survived as humans. 

So to be great, to be successful, and to achieve a goal is actually unnatural. It is choosing to go against your natural inclination. Why we really challenge people to visualize the end in mind is because that is the beginning of telling your subconscious that is what I want. That is what I’m willing to choose and prioritize. 

That visualization ends of itself is a practice that has no bounce. If you want to have a few takeaways of just ways to start your day you own the morning, you own the day, you start with a big glass of water, do about 10 air squats, and visualize one thing you want to accomplish that day that is going to bring you gratitude or bring you fulfillment. Gratitude or fulfillment, you will start your day in such a different mindset. So beginning with that end in mind allows you to not only accomplish goals, but build out the strategy and the plan to get there.

Robert Leonard  33:18  

When we talk about freedom as a goal, how do you define freedom?

Jedidiah Collins  33:23  

I realized I was a creative at the age of 30. In the NFL, I have about eight journals full of stories and things about my journey and my travels, but I never shared it with anybody. I didn’t want to be a geek or dork. Like my CFP books, I hid from everybody on trips and everything. 

Freedom to me is allowing myself to do what I want with my time. Everybody says I want to be an entrepreneur, because I want to own my calendar. I will be the first to tell you entrepreneurs rarely own their calendar. You have 1001 jobs every day, there is no weekend for a true entrepreneur. So I look at freedom and manage it and say, I no longer have to say yes to everyone. 

When we start our careers, whether it’s corporate or entrepreneurial, you say yes. You should say yes. Freedom to me is because I don’t want to stop working. I’m passionate. I am one of the few who is chasing a mission and a vision and a new sense of purpose. So I don’t think that’s going to stop with money. 

I have more money from football than… Obviously, I need to work as a fullback but I realized the guy sitting next to me with a $30 million contract was not as happy as me. I had a wife, I was fulfilled. I was enjoying my day. This dude was miserable. I was in 12 different locker rooms, that guy was in each and every one of them. 

So freedom to me is the ability to say no, and to not have to worry about the financial ramifications. I want to wake up, write all morning and say no to the call, the emails, the tasks, the whatever. That is financial freedom to me. It is also having a plan that allows me to say, “I know for the next 10 years, my cash needs, my burn rate we just talked about in the golden rule is protected. I know if the market tanks, I am still going to be okay because I have liquidity and accessible money for however many years I need.”

So those are the two elements, the ability to say no and the protection of my cash needs.

Robert Leonard  35:30  

I really liked that idea that you talked about, you’re working towards a bigger purpose than just the money. That really resonates with me, because as I get older, and my life changes, I’m recognizing the same thing for me. 

When I was younger, all I cared about was money. That’s all I wanted in life. I thought if I became a billionaire, that I would reach the pinnacle of happiness. That would be the best day of my life. To even drive this point home, in high school, my superlative… the award you get at the end of the year was I was voted most likely to be a billionaire. Everybody has known this. Yeah, it’s just been in me.

But as I’ve gotten older, and we’re talking to millennials here, which is why I want to drill this point home, because some people are on that earlier side of the spectrum, and they’re younger. So they may not have recognized this yet. Then there are some people that are a little bit older and they’re probably like, Yeah, I know what these guys are talking about. 

The same thing has happened to me, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that there’s a lot of things that I care about more than the money. Through this podcast, I have people reach out to me all the time about how I’m impacting their lives. That’s so much different than just the dollar signs that I used to see. So I really think that that was a really good point that you brought up.

Jedidiah Collins  36:36  

That’s something you need to have. And so the rookie, the veteran principle I like to use is “most over now.” That’s that unnatural decision of what is your most and money should not be it. It is the world that money you think we’ll bring to you, but on that list of non-negotiables, of untouchables, of things you’re not willing to because if you as an entrepreneur, start out with money as your purpose, you’re going to lose everything else along the way. Trust me. I know enough people and I love talking to people, and they will be the first to tell you their demise story. 

However, if you create a list, here are three things. Here’s one thing I am not ever willing to sacrifice, then you will never lose that. I highly doubt many people would think my one thing is $5 million. Find what that thing is that is your most that you are not willing to sacrifice.

Robert Leonard  37:30  

Some people like I said, we’re on the younger side of the spectrum of the millennial generation. They’ll hear us talking about that and hear you just say what you said and they will be like no way. That’s not me. 

I know that that is what’s happening because that was me. I had guys like you telling me the exact same thing when I was younger. I said no, no, that can’t be me. What is most important to me is money. Like you said, I caution you guys to think about it. As you get a little bit older, it’s going to change. Just remember that as you go through things.

Jedidiah Collins  37:59  

The greatest example I can give again, I was the fullback. I was the redheaded stepchild of the team, but I got to sit down at tables. I love Saturday nights because I’d sit down with these guys. I was kind of conducting my own little podcasts if I could only have gone back and recorded them. I would have been a great brand builder. 

But I would talk to dudes who are in contract negotiations, and they were millions of dollars. My favorite question and I asked this 15 different ways and times based on the situation is what’s the difference between a $77 million contract and a $72 million contract? Like why are you arguing $72 million brother? Your grandkids don’t have to worry about money. Like what are we doing here? Their response was $5 million. That was their ego response. 

And so, if you think money is going to one of my favorites and this is a movie you guys all need to Netflix. It’s called Cool Runnings. John *inaudible* in it. It’s about a bobsled team going to the Olympics from Jamaica, check it out. But he says if you’re not enough without the medal, you will never be enough with the medal. He actually cheats to get his first gold and it’s a cool little story. But that is the reality. If you think about the Super Bowl, the million dollars, the diamond piece spouse, the job, whatever… If you think that’s going to fulfill you, you’re chasing a phantom dream.

Robert Leonard  39:26  

I haven’t heard of that movie, but I’ll definitely go check it out myself. I’ll be sure i’ll put a link to it in the show notes. 

It’s just one of those things we could talk about until we’re blue in the face and it’s not going to change for anybody listening to the show. They need to recognize it themselves. It’s just one of those things that you have to go through yourselves and as time goes on, you’ll recognize it. 

Jedidiah Collins  39:50  

Which is why we need to stop giving out so many darn trophies man, like you need to fail. Yeah, that’s one of those life lessons you’re going to need to discover on your own because you’re going to be handed the promotion and the contract you want at your job. You’re going to go out, you’re going to party it up. Then Monday comes and you’re going to realize that didn’t make me that happy.

Robert Leonard  40:12  

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Now, one of my favorite financial quotes is from Albert Einstein, where he says that compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. Talk to us a bit about what he means in that quote and why compound interest is considered the eighth wonder of the world.

Jedidiah Collins  40:27  

Chapter Two, brother, I love it. This is where I get to be unique. So I tie it to my football days. The difference between college football and professional football was shown to me by working out with a 15 year linebacker. We’d go out on the field. He’d run, we’d run 40 yards. He’d run 45. We’d run 50. He’d run 55. We go into the weight room. We do a set of 225, he would put on two and a half on each side and do a set of 230. 

Finally I asked him, I was like, what was the difference? I don’t get it. He said, “Everyone in this room is younger, faster, cheaper, healthier than me. The only reason I stick around, is because I come in every day and I steal an inch. Every day, I look at how I can steal inches, because an inch leads to a yard. A yard first down. A first down to a touchdown. A touchdown to a win and a win to an opportunity to go to the Super Bowl,” which everybody in that room there most was the Super Bowl. 

That mindset changed my life. It translates to this dynamic of compound interest being the eighth wonder of the world. Why? Because compound interest is the magnification of inches. You can find inches throughout your plan. You look at cash management, and print out your spend over the last month. I guarantee you will find one thing that you don’t need to spend on this month. That’s it, just do the one inch.

Then you look at investments, what is an investment edge? Maybe it’s your fees, you’re paying your expense ratio, maybe it’s your allocation, maybe it’s the taxes you’re paying, maybe you look at taxes. Well, what are my inches there? Should I itemize or should I use a tax deferred account? Or should I use a Roth account? That’s an inch, I look at my insurance policies. I look at all of these things. 

Now, where Albert Einstein really deemed it was this idea that over time, money that you put to work for you, money you make your employee, has this wonderful sequence where it then creates its own employees. So now it’s not just you going to work for money. Now money is going to work for you. 

Its payoff is that it creates more employees for you. There are 1000s of examples of how compound interest will impact you. I challenge you in the book and in my little 30-day financial literacy challenge, check it out, find a compound interest calculator, type in whatever amount of money you think you can save every month, whether that be $100, $1,000, or $5. Look at what that compound effect will take over your lifetime. Then tell me it is not the eighth wonder of the world. 

But what he else said was that those who understand it, get paid for it. Those who don’t, pay it. This is chapter five, Introduction to credit cards. If you think you are winning the credit card game, you don’t understand compound interest and you are losing inches every day.

Robert Leonard  43:25  

Let’s talk about that. What is the credit trap? How do we avoid it?

Jedidiah Collins  43:29  

So the credit trap is anytime your purchase ends up costing more than that number that was printed on the receipt. So I bought a $100 pair of shoes. It takes me three months to pay him off. That three months on a credit card is going to charge me on average about 20% in interest. 

So if I look at a year, and we get into specifics in the book, but an APR, annual percentage rate, on $100 shoes is 20%. That’s 20 extra dollars. 

One of the most misunderstood ideas around credit is if I’m paying the minimum amount, I’m not being charged interest because I’m doing what my credit company wants me to do.

Your credit company’s not your friend. They’re actually your foe. They are exploiting the fact you don’t understand compound interest. Minimum amount due should make you mad. It makes me mad that millions and millions of dollars each year are going to credit companies because people don’t understand if you have a balance on your credit card, you’re being charged upwards of 20-25% interest. 

How do you avoid that? Number one, quite simply no balance, no interest. Number two, you automate it. But number three, you follow the golden rule. Do not spend more than you make. The first way people break that rule is through credit cards because a credit card doesn’t take money out of your bank account. 

A credit card brings in a third company that is able to charge you interest because you’re taking a loan from them and they’re saying you’re going to pay for whatever you purchase in the future. So that is the idea. 

The credit trap is anytime something you buy ends up costing you more than you originally thought. I have some examples in the book. Actually, I have some videos on this where I take people on a game show and I’m trying to be entertaining and in the online course. 

But this idea, if you want to steal an inch, credit cards are an easy way to start to manage your inches. You look at what’s happened during quarantine during the lack of income because people didn’t have their Corona cushions. Millions, almost billions of dollars have gone onto credit cards because people see that as how they’re going to get through this environment. What they don’t realize is credit cards, this unsecured debt, is being charged exorbitant amounts of interest.

Robert Leonard  45:49  

Not only are you having the eighth wonder of the world work against you, but you also have, you’re also missing out on all the opportunity cost. This is an idea that I think about a lot. I talk about it a lot. I actually just recorded a video about it for our Facebook group. So let’s talk about that a bit. Talk to us about the cost of not choosing. 

Jedidiah Collins  46:09  

To just one tail on that you’re also impacting your credit score, which is your financial reputation, which is going to impact your future. The idea of opportunity cost is one of these items that again, I approached the book as what are 10 financial questions and concepts that are either frequently asked or frequently misunderstood. 

People measure opportunity cost a thousand different ways. What people need to realize is if I have A and B. I choose A. B is my opportunity cost, not A. A lot of people look at and say, “Well, my opportunity cost is what I chose and what I did with it.” 

No, no, no, no. Opportunity cost is what you actually gave up. Going back to most over now, your opportunity costs and every one of those decisions is whatever you gave up. If you gave up that decision you wanted to make right now, because you value your most you’re giving that opportunity. 

As you look at why people are able to charge you interest, or why when you borrow or loan money they charge interest is number one, because it’s a privilege to take their money and to use it. But number two, it’s because that individual can not use those dollars and whatever they are giving up is their opportunity costs. That comes with a fee. 

Robert Leonard  47:28  

We’ve been talking about our money vehicle. Vehicles all have a drivers’ manual. Tell us a bit about the drivers’ manual for our money vehicle.

Jedidiah Collins  47:37  

So that’s the Table of Contents brother. Each chapter signifies a different part of your vehicle investments, the sexy engine, cash management, the gas and the brakes. Insurance is that car alarm. We even throw taxes as you know. Somebody paving the roads or the police protecting you. 

What I loved was after Marshawn Lynch lost in Seattle this year, he came out and said guys don’t understand how to use money. They’ve never been given the manual. 

Coincidentally because I wrote this book a year or two ago, that is exactly what the mission I’ve been on. I want you to use money. Use, understand, strategize and be efficient with your money. Your money vehicle will allow you to use money but I want you to have that manual, that chess game, that strategy, the beginning of your plan. 

If you go through your money vehicle, each chapter not only has questions about the content, not only it has exercises, not only has action items to go take but it also has personal planning questions to begin your financial plan. Some people say I’m 25. I don’t need a financial plan. That’s fine. You’re going to wake up at 32 and realize you just wasted seven years.

But the idea of I am looking to begin my capitalistic journey, my financial journey, my freedom journey, I want to manual. I want somebody to walk me through the first 10 questions I should ask and answer. That’s exactly why we wrote “Your Money Vehicle.” 

We published it and the book is something I love but the book is not the end. We’re going to have an online course because I realize not everybody reads books and we are going to have a level two because I realized people need to move on. 

But if you can sit down in the driver’s seat realizing pensions, Social Security, retirement are gone. That dream your parents and grandparents had is no longer your dream. You have to sit down and drive your money vehicle because this is the first time in history you’re being required to do so.

Companies shifted the liability of your future off of their balance sheets and onto your balance sheets. That is why 401 K’s IRAs brokerage accounts are becoming even more paramount because you have to make these decisions. Why has this never been a class? Because never in history have people been required to make these decisions, and that is why your money vehicles are so vital to have a manual to.

Robert Leonard  50:06  

Being a financial expert, what’s a piece of advice that you hear other financial experts give on the internet, whether it be on social media or news articles or things like that, that you think isn’t great advice? How would you turn that into good advice?

Jedidiah Collins  50:20  

One great question. It is extremely difficult and what every financial advisor, an expert and coach will tell you, when you ask them a situational question their response is going to be it depends. I hate that. I understand it from a compliance and a liability perspective. 

I look at a guy like Dave Ramsey, who has created a brand, has helped and impacted millions, and has done an amazing job. But what I look at from a planning perspective, during this time of COVID-19, the quarantine, the loss of income, the continual prioritization of paying off debt is for a lot of people a good step. But it is also not the most strategic or efficient way to handle your money. I don’t think so right now…

It is beneficial for people to have their mortgages paid off, if they could have had a couple more months on their Corona cushion or maybe a little more investable or liquid investments that they could get access to. It is just too much of a blanket: all debt is bad debt. 

My father actually, to this day, doesn’t care about money or edge money education, that was his advice to me was get a good job and avoid debt. I don’t see all debt as bad debt. There are many different forms of debt. If a debt is appreciating, if a debt is going to return you a greater investment, which is where a lot of home mortgages sit today. If it’s under 5%, that’s a debt I’m willing to use. That’s using money. That’s strategically and efficiently using money. 

But you got to first understand it. And so I look at that and say, “Hey, I’m paying 4% on my mortgage, I’m actually getting some tax benefits. So it goes down to three and a quarter, three and a half. Can I beat that in the market? Or can I beat that in a savings account online?”

This one has had a tremendous impact, but if I could help people develop a plan, I would say it depends. But also there are higher and better uses of your money than paying down all debt. Unless it is your absolute priority, you’re going to sleep at night better. This is your best way to get debt free, then by all means rich goal individual, you go achieve it. For the rest of us, let’s find some better strategies to use that expendable cash.

Robert Leonard  52:48  

Listening to the show and learning everything that we’ve talked about today is very helpful. But I consider it only half of the equation. Taking action is the other half of the equation. I’d argue it’s even more important. So when someone’s done listening to this episode, what is the first step they should take? What is the inch they should gain to get closer to their financial goals? 

Jedidiah Collins  53:09  

I love that. Actually, I came to a cold realization that financial education in and of itself would fail. That’s because there is no behavioral change and lasting impact, which is why I have shifted to being a facilitator of workshops, not a presenter. I’m on a mission to do financial empowerment.

First thing you should do is write down someone’s name and send them a text, call an email and say thank you. Why? Because gratitude is the secret of life. That is something that if anything, you take away and share some gratitude. 

Number two, I would connect with me on social media, I put out a ton of content both on money and mindset. Why I’m asking you to do that is because I want feedback. You are my target. You come to Robert, you come to this podcast to seek more information, more expertise, more knowledge. That’s something I want to share. That’s something I want to give. If you want to buy the book, more power to you. I’ve actually given away 1000s of ebooks of this during the quarantine to high schools. 

If you’re a high school student, you want a free ebook, shoot me a note. I’ll give it to you for free right now is the time to not to try to take advantage. But I really would challenge you to reach out and say I read chapter seven, and I got questions. That is how I get better. That’s how I grow. That’s what I would really love to see. 

If you were going to take one action, one action around your financial plan, I’m on a mission to open a million Roth IRA accounts. If you have a Roth 401k, if you have a traditional job and your company offers it, which more and more are because to young professionals, it is by far the greatest advantage of a vehicle you can invest in. If you want to know why, go read chapter 10

Robert Leonard  54:59  

I know we have a very interactive community here that listens to the show. I’ve heard from other guests that you guys send great questions to them, so be sure to take Jedediah up on his opportunity. There is his recommendation to reach out to him. Definitely, definitely do that. Where can they go to find you?

Jedidiah Collins  55:14  

I’m all social. I’m on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok. @JedCollins45 is my handle. On LinkedIn and YouTube, just Jedediah Collins, but we are producing more and more, finishing recording the 40 episodes with your money vehicle curriculum next week. I am not hard to find on social media. By all means, reach out because I will grow from it.

Robert Leonard  55:52  

If you guys have been listening to the show for any period of time, you guys all know that I’m big on social media myself. So be sure to go do the same and follow Jed. Connect with him there. Thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. 

Jedidiah Collins  56:05  

Brother, this is an opportunity I enjoy and it’s a community I want to help. So I love what you’re doing. The message you’re putting out in the growth you’re getting is because you’re impacting people. So congratulations and keep on.

Robert Leonard  56:18  

I hope that this week’s episode gives you an idea on how to build a strong financial base to grow off of, and even some interesting insights into the financial world of professional sports. As always, I’ve put links to different resources we talked about throughout the episode in the show notes. I’m a big reader, and I know many people in the audience are as well. So there are links to books that relate to these topics in the show notes. You can even get an audio book completely for free from Audible. 

The show notes can be found below in the podcast player you’re currently listening on or at theinvestorspodcast.com/millennial. Thanks so much for joining us on this week’s episode of millennial investing. I’ll see you again next week.

Outro  57:01  

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