How to feel wealthy- no matter what your net worth with Side Hustle School’s Chris Guillebeau, author of The Money Tree

Chris Guillebeau

Being wealthy is often a state of mind. Learn how to gain perspective and feel rich- no matter what your bank account says from Entrepreneur, New York Times best-selling author and Side Hustle School podcast host Chris Guillebeau. Plus a preview of his latest book: The Money Tree. 

Chris’ Money Story:

Chris Guillebeau:
Yes, a tour of the culinary landscape. Six year old Chris, when people would ask me, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" Other people were like, "I want to be the president. I want to be a basketball player," and at the age of six Burger King was my favorite restaurant. My parents were split up. My dad would pick me up on Wednesdays and go to Burger King. So I would say I want to work at Burger King, and I thought it would be like the greatest place in the world.

Chris Guillebeau:
So obviously I grew up, and I realized, "Okay, not the greatest place to work," but even as a teenager I kept eating there. Because that was the habit of the time. I thought, "One day if I have enough money to be able to go and eat at Burger King or whatever fast food place every day, then I will be rich. Then I'll be well off. I don't have to think about it. I can just go. If I want to get an extra apple pie," whatever it is.

Chris Guillebeau:
Then of course I kind of grow up and do other stuff. I was an aid worker for four years in West Africa. I'd always kind of worked for myself from the age of 19; I'd learned various little entrepreneurial projects selling things online and such. So I did the aid worker stuff, and then I had a project of going to every country in the world, started blogging about it. It turned into this whole unexpected author career and so on.

Chris Guillebeau:
At a certain point, I realized there was this moment when I was traveling in Hong Kong, which is one of my favorite places in the world, and I was at the W Hotel. Because of my hotel status, because I stay in hotels all the time, they give me free breakfast. It's a very elaborate breakfast, incredible buffet, and they also cook things to order and such. The price, if you have to pay for it, is like $35 or something.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's a lot for breakfast.

Chris Guillebeau:
It is a lot for breakfast, you know? I remember sitting there and thinking, "Okay [inaudible 00:05:17]. It's a lot for breakfast for sure. I'm glad I don't have to pay for it, but you know what? If I did have to pay for it, then I could." I could pay for it, and I would say, "Oh, you know what? That's an expensive breakfast," but I would still be able to pay for it. I thought, "This is how I know that I've made it," essentially. The fact that if I want to have a nice breakfast, I can do so.

Chris Guillebeau:
I thought about that a lot because if you understand for yourself what makes you feel well off, what makes you feel rich, maybe you realize that that thing is not as inaccessible as you thought. Especially if it is something that's somewhat obtainable. So it just helped me have some perspective as I've traveled and done different things throughout my life since.

Bobbi Rebell:
It sounds like throughout your life you have goals, but it's also okay for those goals and aspirations to adjust to where you are. They do change.

Chris Guillebeau:
Of course. Absolutely. I think people sometimes hold off on setting a big goal or making a commitment because of that fear of change. Because they think, "Well, what if I change my mind?" I always think, "Well, if you change your mind then you change your mind." You change your mind because you get experience, because you learn, you gain wisdom. And so maybe you realize the other thing that I wanted to do is a little bit different, or maybe that was the thing I wanted to do for a while, and that was fine. But now because of what I've learned and experienced, I want to do something different. But if you don't commit in the first place and pursue that goal, then you'll never get to that spot.

Bobbi Rebell:
It almost reminds me of when we all have sort of that number in our head that's sort of our safety number where I'll feel secure at this number. It's always changing.

Chris Guillebeau:
Right. That's like a whole different thing. Right? Because it always goes up. It never goes down, does it? You know what I mean?

Bobbi Rebell:
No, it never does go down.

Chris Guillebeau:
Right. So that's why it's like you have to really think about not just what is the number but, "What is the life that I want to have? How do I create that life?" Because ultimately, there's always somebody with more money or whatever the metric is.

Bobbi Rebell:
Exactly. The metrics change, basically. What you perceive as someone that's wealthy is going to change. But there's always going to be, in my mind, someone who is wealthier than you.

Chris Guillebeau:
Of course. Well, there always will be in reality. Not just in your mind. That leads to a whole other thing about, "What is happiness? What is purpose? Why are we doing all this stuff?" Of course we want to make more money, but it ultimately needs to be grounded to a greater purpose or else we won't actually be that happy.

“You have to really think about not just what is the number but what is the life that I want to have. How do I create that life? Because ultimately there is always somebody with more money or whatever the metric is.”

Chris’ Money Lesson:

Chris Guillebeau:
I think maybe it comes down to knowing yourself, knowing yourself and what are your goals. What are you working towards? What is important to you, and how are you going to make that happen? And how are you going to, as we said earlier, adjust as you go along and be willing to change your mind. I'm a work in progress like everybody, but I just keep doing stuff.

Bobbi Rebell:
Exactly. And it's okay to course correct. We're all human, we all change. Circumstances change, and it's okay for our goals and aspirations to change. But one thing that I think we will agree on is many people could always use an extra few bucks, and that's one of the things that you cover in The Money Tree, including a challenge. We're going to do a little bit of a spoiler. One of the characters is challenged by a mentor to make $1,000 in a week, which is extreme.

“The number one thing is not so much cutting back. It is increasing your income. ”

Chris’ Money Tip:

Chris Guillebeau:
My philosophy, and what I'm trying to teach with the book, is you can have a good job and still be under the water. You can still be struggling. Especially if you have debt. So many people have debt related to student loans, or credit cards, or all kinds of things. So you can be a hard worker, but you're not actually going to get ahead just through budget, or just through being frugal, or cutting back on your lattes or whatever.

Chris Guillebeau:
The number one thing I think most people need to do, especially young people coming into the job market for the first time but really anyone who's struggling, the number one thing is not so much cutting back, it's increasing your income. And so that's why in the book, the story of the guy Jake who is a hard worker, has a good job, but struggling with debt. It's affecting the whole rest of his life, his relationships, his job, and so on. So he gets this challenge, "Okay Jake, make $1,000 in the next week."

Chris Guillebeau:
At first he's like, "Well, if I knew how to do that I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in now." Essentially what he learns to do, at least at first, is the art of reselling, buying and reselling stuff. He begins with selling stuff that's just in his closet, basically his economics textbook from college. This is what I did 21 years ago, if I go back to the dark ages of my self employment history. I sold stuff on eBay. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have a degree in that. It's like I had a degree in sociology.

Chris Guillebeau:
Just selling things online, learning to buy stuff from a flea market, or a yard sale, or from another online source. Then selling it somewhere else like this arbitrage effect. It felt so, so empowering to me. I kind of recreated that in the story The Money Tree as like this guy has to buy and resell $1,000 worth of items over the next week, and then from there he learns and goes on to do other stuff.

Chris Guillebeau:
I think this is like ... It's not like everybody should go out and become a professional reseller. I'm not saying that, but if you're looking for something that's practical. If you're looking for like, "Oh, I need to actually make money next week. I need to actually do something in a very short period of time," then I think that's a good path to look at. Maybe from there, you'll get some confidence, you'll get some experience to go on to do something bigger and better from there.



Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

Bobbi Rebell:
adapting the definition of wealthy for yourself is part of becoming a financial grownup, and going through different life phases, and it's okay for your lifestyle to change as you go through those life stages. So for example, I remember my first full-time paycheck as a news associate at CNBC right out of college, first real full full-time job. I'd been making minimum wage, part-time jobs, and so on, but now I had a big paycheck, full-time. I felt so rich for about a minute. Just like Chris, as I moved up and got raises, my lifestyle changes, my expectations for what I wanted to buy changed, and so did my definition of feeling rich. That's perfectly normal.

Bobbi Rebell:
Look, there are a lot of people that will tell you, "Don't upgrade your lifestyle at all," but that's not always realistic. There's some happy medium there. At least, that's what I think. So it's also good to do what Chris does and remember how little it took to feel rich at one time in your life so that you can adapt. Also, you can appreciate your accomplishments.


Financial Grownup Tip #2:

Bobbi Rebell:
let's all get rid of stuff that we now realize we truly, and I mean truly, do not need. Look at what we're living with these days. So much less. While it's sad and frustrating that for many of us our world is smaller, and hopefully this is a temporary thing, a very temporary thing. The truth is, we're also learning in this temporary time, I'm going to go with that, what really matters.

Bobbi Rebell:
My family moved out of the city to self quarantine in a more rural area. We didn't have a lot of room. We each got to take just a little bit of stuff, and we're okay. We thought we'd go back and get more. I'm not sure we're going to be able to, but I'm not sure it really matters. We just don't need so much stuff.



Episode Links:


Follow Chris!

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Authors, Entrepreneurs, Financial GrownupBobbi Rebell KaufmanChris Guillebeau, The Money Tree, Side Hustle School