Speaker 1: Well, it's education really, so the school system or parents,
they don't teach about investing. They don't teach about saving.
And the wealthier families or the families who have children
who have training, they say, you set aside for yourself
first and you spend later. That's a cultural difference. Most Americans,
they spend all they have and they hope they get more.
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Speaker 3: Ever, and welcome. You are listening to and watching the
Financial Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Letz, and I'm
traveling a bit, so the studio that you see in
the background is not my usual studio, please forgive, and
don't have my usual mic and equipment. But my next
guest I felt was important enough that you would want
to hear what he had to say. His name is
Eric Weir, and of course Eric is in real estate
because everybody we have on this show is in real Estate.
He's also the author of an Amazon bestseller, a fellow
best selling author, Who's Eating Your Pie, and Essential financial
Advice that will Transform your life. Before we got on
the call, Eric was sharing some things about himself. He
told me when he was five, he was in a
car accident and when he emerged from the accident he
had a stutter and talk about taking a liability and
turning it into an asset. Eric, you seem to have
really mastered that, So just share that story with us
if you don't mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sure, yes, sure. So at age five, I'm
in a car wreck and I'm spun around in the
car and I look look look over and I see
a person that's being taken away on a stretcher, like wow,
And my mom says, stay in the car. My brother says,
you know, we got to stay here. The cops says
stay there. And at that time they had a show
called Bugs Bunny and the you know, the road Runner show.
But car's wrecked, they explode, so I thought it was
going to be blow up. So it was very traumatic
and I had a brand injury. I went to a
speech therapist maybe a week later. Since nineteen seventy two,
and the speech therapist said, Eric, odds, Are you're going
to be a failure. You're going to be reclusive, You're
going to avoid conversation, You're going to withdraw and insids
You'll be a failure. And she stopped and she goes,
Are you could reframe every obstacle, every person you talk
to and make it like a rocky climb to success
and you'll be unstoppable. But the choice is up to you.
You could be a failure or you could be a success.
I looked at my dad, thinking, Dad, tell me this
person is a quack, right, and he goes, Eric, well,
that's going to be hard, so let's get started. And
a good thing happened with that. Because I never thought
life would be easy. Are there anything would be given
to me? Or that the government would take care of me?
I love at age five, thinking I got to own
this and I've got to take charge. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So taught you a valuable lesson, and I'm sure you've
applied that lesson repeatedly throughout life.
Speaker 1: I mean it's over and over again, yes, almost daily.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So these are like not the best of economic times,
but in every economy there are winners and losers. How
do you become a winner in this economy?
Speaker 1: Eric, Well, it's education really, So the school system or parents,
they don't they don't teach about investing. They don't teach
about saving. And the wealthier families or the families who
have children who have training, they say, you set aside
for yourself first and you spend later. That's a cultural difference.
Most Americans, they spend all they have and they hope
they get more, and when they get more, they spend more.
They get more, they spend more, and they get a
credit card, they get a student loan, and they set
themselves up in debt. And the financial system is set
up in such a way that they don't teach them
and so people end up in debt and up in
despair and they spend the raise is to save the rays.
Speaker 3: Right, So you know that's a thing where people easy credit,
they get a windfall, the first thing they do is
go buy a flat screen, although now flat screens are
so cheap that but you know the point is they
don't invest. And in today's world, you have to be
looking forward to putting your money to work for you.
How do you plan for the future, for retirement. You
can't just live for today, right.
Speaker 1: You can't. I tell people retirement is not an age.
It's a math problem. It's a math problem that when
your investments are a business you've started or something, it
pays your bills and not your current income. So it's
not an age. It's a math problem. Right.
Speaker 3: So you know, people really maybe don't view it as such,
and they don't teach math very well in school these days.
But how have you made it different? How have you
taught your children so they don't fall into this trap?
Speaker 1: So what I did I made a box for them,
and I said, you know, you need to be charitable.
No matter what you give to you, you have to
give to something. So part of every of a bit
of money is giving back to somebody less fortunate than you.
And that's another it Also it frees you of the
greed of money because you, at a young age you
learn it's not all about yourself. Then I say there's
some that you invest. I don't say save. I say
invest because save is like you're thinking I'll buy a
CD or thing.
Speaker 3: It's passive.
Speaker 1: You don't make mistakes, but you don't learn from mistakes,
and you never own Amazon for ten years. If you
just do that, the third thing I say is then
you live. You have an amount of money you live on,
and as you start to make money, don't let your
don't let your lifestyle grow as fast as your wages do.
And I say, if you're smart for ten years after
college or after high school, and you do that, the
rest of your life, you'll be set up. Two things
will happen. You'll build a discipline that you'll follow the
rest of your life, and two you will have a
nest egg that grows the rest of your life. And
I was talking to a twenty three year old yesterday
who inherited a couple hundred grant and the first thing
you want to do is spend eighty five thousand on
a car and shut the balance on a down payment
on the nicest condo he could afford. And I said,
you're putting money in an asset is going to go down,
and you're buying a house that best case keeps up
with inflation, and you have expenses and things you just
don't need. Get a roommate apartment and save all the money.
He goes, what do you mean. I said, let's just
say that you you average I picked a number twelve percent,
which is higher the most people have averaged in the markets.
But just to make a point, I said, if you
put that two hundred thousand today when you're sixty, will
be worth thirty times what it is today, thirty times.
And he's like, what, So it'll take you five years
of double the first time, then five years to double
the second time, but you're double in the double and
by the thirtieth year, your original investment is doubling it
every two months.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the power of as Einstein said, the greatest
mystery in the universe, the power of the compound interest.
Speaker 1: Right, one hundred percent. And he and he's a smart kid,
he's been through college. He's like, I've never heard that before,
no matter who I've heard save, I've heard don't spend money,
don't buy a card, stupid, but I've never heard the
logic behind it, just like, don't do it, but not
why not to do it?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, it's called the deferred consumption from an economic standpoint,
and basically it's not living for today. But there's a
balance there too.
Speaker 1: You can't hundred percent yeah, right, And what you find
is that discipline allows you to think differently. You think
about your education differently, but the jobs differently. You think
about deferred gratification. So, you know, if you find out
that you can solve problems for other people. If I
solve a problem by breaking your yard, that has a value, right.
But if I solve a problem that saves you one
hundred thousand dollars, that has a different value. If I
solve a problem saves you five million, that has a
different value. Still, So how do you solve bigger problems
for people? And it's just and you know, and problems
are opportunities. They're not people look at they don't want them,
and somebody else's problem is an opportunity, particularly if you
can help them solve it. You know, Leiah Coca, when
you was talking about the first turnaround of Chrysler, you know,
where the country, the company was really on the balls behind,
and he said, we had the luxury of adversity. And
that has always stuck in my mind, because you perform
best when you when the odds are against you, when
you have to really knuckle down and really really face
adversity and overcome it, you know, and that's and that's
what builds.
Speaker 3: True, true self esteem. It's not like you got an
A at a class, although if you really worked hard
and you were failing and you turned it around, that
could very well be a self esteem builder. But when
stuff comes easy and you know and there's basically no
challenge to it, like with the example you gave with
that young man inheriting two hundred thousand, it just came
out of the sky and you not talk to him.
So did he wind up not buying the car and
the condo?
Speaker 1: Too soon to tell? I don't know. It was this week,
so I don't know, And I'm just like, just just
keep your current car. You can have all the cars
you want later. And it's just it's just it's timing
and being thoughtful and how do you And I said,
your job, as I told him, your job is to
make enough money that you don't need to touch your
inheritance and let that work for you. And if you
do that, you'll probably probably the rest of your life
you'll be in good financial shape. But you've got to
protect your an estate. Does it act like you didn't
have it, You didn't have it a week ago. So
if you live like you didn't have it, then nothing
changed other than you've got a backstop that most people
your age don't have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, right, you know, Eric, I got one question
for you. Where were you when I needed you?
Speaker 1: I was flying a very well known I have an airplane,
and I donate my airplane for people to travel to
speak at events, to encourage the people. So it's a
little bit selfish because I picked the people up. I
spend time with them. They fly up front with me
and I talked to them. He said the same thing.
He goes, I want to cy Young Award. I've won
all these golden gloves. I've made you know over you know,
seventy five eighty million as a pitcher. And I didn't
save much money, And he said, wherever you And it's like,
because when I signed my first contract, I spent it all.
And literally, there are businesses that prey on athletes that
will factor their bonuses up front and they'll give them
eighty percent of it. So when they get the check,
the company gets the money and they give the advance
the athlete money and they don't give them the cars.
And it's just it's a it's an industry of consumption
and if you if you spend it now, you spend
less if you spend a letter, you spend more actually
deferred gratification. You can have everything you want and even
more than he ever drained if you if you reframe
it and can just deffer some gratification, I mean, do
some nice things. I'm not saying nothing, but just be thoughtful.
You can spend. I have another person that brought me
in the kid to consult and they said, help me
save money. And I observed him and I saved them
a crazy amount of money, and I said, what are
you doing now? I said, well, I'm one own person.
I have a big contract, and I've got a fly
from Atlanta to la and I could take an airline,
but instead he charted a golf stream and he shook
all his friends with him, and he had the limo
service and he had to get security and all this stuff.
I got two hundred and fifty thousand dollars trip, and
he could have done it for ten thousand in an
amazing way and save two hundred and forty. But that
money's gone forever now.
Speaker 3: Or he could have flown steerage and done it for
five hundred bucks exactly. It's yeah, it's shocking, but I've
been guilty in my own respect. But the one thing
I did was I had a different kind of force savings.
I put it into gold and silver and I managed
to hold on to all of it for the past
fifteen years. But I you know, because life happens like
That's the other thing when you save the money. When
when you get a divorce, so you get a bill
from the irs, or one of your kids or both
of them are going to get married, you know, you
go to your stash wherever it is, and you have
the money to do it. So that's that's why you save.
Also not just for the future, but for future challenges
of life.
Speaker 1: Oh one hundred percent, elder care, medical needs. You just
never know what comes up. You know. There's also opportunities
when there's a recession or a difficult time. I've been
able to buy properties or buy assets. You know, I
always say there's no distressed real estate. They're distressed owners.
So Eric carrs or anything else, right, opportunistic things, and
it's just just being ready and and and when things
go in cycles, the trees don't grow the sky, and
whatever is in vogue today, in five years, it won't
be in vogue.
Speaker 3: And there'll be opportunities. So you mentioned children. Your children
appreciate your attitude now or do you ever get some
resentment for it.
Speaker 1: I think it's mixed. I think I think the I
think they have an appre The older they are, the
more they appreciate it. The younger they are, the less
they appreciate it. But they're all entrepreneurial, they're all problem solvers.
And with any key kids you have, they're all over
the one's better one thing than the other. But I
think I think it's a mindset that they learned at
a young age that's helpful and and at the end
of the day, I think it'll it'll pay them, you know,
it'll pay them a lot of dividends over time. And
already one of my children I'm talking to is he's saving,
you know, a percent of what he makes. He's in
a four to one Cavelan Max and that out He's looking,
can I buy a rental property? And I'm like, well,
maybe a VRBL. Maybe there's something you can do where
it's it's a higher return, it's more active, it's not
as passive, but you have a little more return. You
have time, or you have money, and you can train
you don't have as much money, but you have more
time than use your time to make money. I love
it later life, use your money to make time.
Speaker 3: Uh, that's it's such a simple thing, and yet uh
it's so hard for most of you out there to grasp.
So everybody go over to Ericweir dot com. That's e
R I k W E I R dot com and
you can get the book Who's Eating Your Pie? Highly recommended.
Achieve every goal you set for yourself for the rest
of your life. Not too big a promise, but it
sounds like Eric is the person who can deliver. And
if you got any questions for Eric or myself, shoot
me an email kl at Carrie LUTs dot com. Eric,
thanks for being on.
Speaker 1: It's my pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, thanks for listening to carry lets
this Financial Survival Network your solution to today's trying times.
For the latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial
Survival Network now more than ever,