From Data to Dollars: Crafting Your Financial Future | OM021

Jim Padilla: 00:00:00

Hey Rockstar. So good to see you here back on another awesome episode of the opportunity makers podcast. I'm your hosting guide on this journey, Jim Padilla. And always concerned about you, and what you're doing with your time, effort and energy, and how is it helping you and the people that you love and the people that you serve, and the people you've been called to help and lead. And one of the areas that is just a forever conversation is finances, right as opportunity maker, you got to have a strong solid knowledge of your finances, you got to know where your money's coming from, you got to know where it's going. If you ever take your eyeballs off it, and we've been guilty of that. It always ends up in trouble. You can't you can't guess anytime, when we talk about money, or we talked about like Commission's conversion rates, things that are related to that. We talk to salespeople, given our business model, and many times what's your conversion rate? If the first words out of the mouth is it's around, or it's about, I immediately discount whatever they say next, because it doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. your conversion rate is not about it's not an estimate. It's 34.6%. It's 28.5%. It's 35%. On my 2000 other products, it's is 45% on my 18,000. But you need to know this stuff. Because if you don't know this stuff, then you can't have any predictable consistent measures of what your activity is going to lead to. Like if I do I need 10 sales conversations a week, based on what are you converting at 25%? And you need to sell two and a half of them a week? Do you need to sell seven of them week? And if so that means you need 30 appointments a week, but you need everything is about data and numbers. And your finances is no different. You need to know what your credit scores are. You need to know what's your leverage debt? How much money do you have on credit cards, how much have you earned this year, how much is your tax brackets, you know what's going to be expected to be paid in taxes. These are not things you want to be surprised with. These are things you want to understand. And having a strong financial wherewithal, awareness so that you so that you're making educated informed decisions, is going to be the name of the day that somebody is going to think of is going to save you. Right you want to be able to pay less legally in taxes, you want to be able to put the right amount of money put as much money as you can in savings, you want to be able to contribute to the causes that matter to you. You need to make sure you know how much money you have and how much how much money you need, and what things are happening. And my my guest today. I'm very, very, very passionate about this right now I can say is one of the best interviews that I've had, in terms of just the simple breakdown of the knowledge from somebody who is in the know, you need to listen to this. Please feel free listen while you're driving, listen on a treadmill. But I do share insight in the conversation. I challenge you, listener to watch her. Make an intention. As you are watching this. Find a time on your calendar for you, even if it's just you, but ideally you and your spouse and even your kids, put them put it on a calendar where you can sit down and spend an hour watching this and taking notes and putting this stuff into practice. And thank me later, as is the best gift that I'm giving you all year. I've given a lot of knowledge, a lot of information, a lot of insights, a lot of rants, a lot of riffs, and a lot of strategies. This is solid sound wisdom that will change the game for you if you let it the Rondi Lambeth who was I'm introducing you to guys he is an award winning TV and radio show host a best selling author has been seen and heard on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC. He has spoken in front of 10s of 1000s of people on stages all across the world including Harvard over a decade ago, Randy founded fortress credit pro America's first 100% paid on performance credit repair company meaning they give aid when you in right purchase has removed millions of late pays collections charge offs, repos short sales, foreclosures, tax liens, judgments and bankruptcies. From credit reports he has helped 10s of 1000s of non qualifying applicants become mortgage ready in as little as 90 days. Rondi is currently the host of the School of wealth and the best selling author, speaker, TV host and CEO and founder of fortress I'm introducing to you Rondi Lambeth, enjoy the episode make sure you rate review and subscribe. Check out the all the insights and the access is of the gifts and the things in the show notes and let's get you started. We'll see on the next one. Okay, so here we are people were rocking rock and roll got another great episode for you. And you just heard the formal introduction on who Rondi is But Rondi, why don't you tell people about you from your own lips.

Rondi Lambeth: 00:04:51

All right. You know I grew up not too far from here. So a lot of people ask, you know, who are they what are they about? They generally will start telling you about their job. And I usually don't do that I start with, you know, my upbringing. I grew up extremely poor. I'm the oldest of 13 kids. When I say poor, tell us 15 I lived in either a tent or a shack, about an hour west of where I live now in Boise, Idaho. And this shack had no running water, no electricity, and we didn't have income. So we use the dumpsters to get our food most of the time, or whatever the government would give us. So tell us 15 years old, you know, we were abused every day if we weren't one of us. 13 kids was beaten every day from our mentally ill stepdad who had spent time in prison for killing someone. But he got away with it because he claimed he was mentally ill, which he was mentally ill. And 15 years old, I just got tired of it. Jam, I figured you know what, I could go out on the streets, I probably eat better, I'd sleep better, I get beaten less. So 15 years old, I left home, I left home, I was up in close to the Canada Idaho border. And what had happened is my brother who's 10 months younger than me, him and I had decided to make a pack that we were done being beaten. And the next time Paul jumped on one of us, the other one would start beating them in the head with the clubs that we are walking around with that. We had told Paul, they're big walking sticks, but really they were clubs. And so one day, he started on my brother and so I started in on him and he got away from us and gave my mom an ultimatum. And that was either you leave, or the boys leave. And so my mom gave me 20 bucks and food stamps, one sleeping bag and a bag of apples and said goodbye. And so my brother, 14 years old, I'm 15 years old, we hitchhiked from essentially Canada, to Boise, where we kind of bounced around in foster care for a little bit. And then I eventually ended up about two and a half, or 250 miles or three hours away from Boise and Oregon, and this little tiny town. And that's where I started learning about entrepreneurship. I got electricity. I turned 16 I bought a car, I got my first job. And then around 16 and a half, I got introduced to a man that was one of the wealthiest men in the county. There's my timer for our podcast interview, but I didn't want to miss. So I got introduced to this guy named Wally Williams.

Rondi Lambeth: 00:07:47

And I My job was to wash his cars. That was it, wash the cars, mow the lawn, take the I say this in quotes petty cash to his wife every Monday, or I'm sorry, every Friday, I would go to the bank and pull $500 of cash out of the bank account, the business bank account and I would take it to his wife. I'd fill up her car for the weekend and do any errands. So that was my job that I got hired for. And it was a good job. I got paid $2.35 an hour to do this. And then one day, Wally asked me if I want to make more money. And I said yes. And he goes well, it's going to require you to do some things that most people won't want to do won't be comfortable. And I said I don't care what it is. I'm gonna do it. He goes, what's gonna be you're gonna see some things that most people couldn't handle. And you can never talk about this with anybody. Like I look, I got iron clad lips. I won't say anything. And I've seen so much in my life in the 16 years of being there. 1515 years being beaten and all the other crazy stuff that we saw. I was like, I'll do it. So we walked down this long hallway at his office. He stops Jim turns around looks at me and says, Are you sure you can keep your mouth shut? And this is not going to impact you because once you go in this door, there is no getting now. Like I am sure I'm in and I was getting $1,000 A month is what he was paying me. Right? So in 1980 This would be 1987. I'm a sophomore in high school. I grew up where my parents were 13 kids probably didn't make 1000 bucks a month unless they got donations. So $1,000 a month I was rich. So I'm like I will do it. I don't care what it is. Just tell me where to dig the hole. So he opens the door. I walk in, and there's a man laying on a table completely naked with a bullet hole in his face and blood dripping out of it. And that was the day that I started being a funeral rechter in the city of John Day, Oregon, I got my funeral directors license my bomber license. And for the next four years, I did autopsies, I'm bomb people. And I ran funerals through high school, and then a little bit after high school. But that experience really helped me understand what it was like to be wealthy, not that 1000 bucks is making me wealthy, but while he was extremely wealthy person, and he used to teach me and he would say all the time, it's not how much money you make that matters. It's how much money you keep. And it's only your responsibility, and yours alone to reduce how much you pay in income tax. And it's your responsibility to manage the money that you do keep. And so from that point forward, he put me on this path of learning how to increase my credit score, learning how to reduce if not eliminate my credit, my income tax, and third, how to leverage credit to become wealthy, and have no personal debt. So that's just a little bit about me, I left him eventually I wouldn't become a fireman. And then I created this business started this nonprofit, credit education, financial education 2007, we've helped hundreds of 1000s of people increase their credit score, eliminate their taxes, eliminate their debt. And that's what I've been doing for the last 16 years.

Jim Padilla: 00:11:32

That's cool, man, I got so many similarities in my my upbringing story, you know, minus 13 kids, but, you know, is very, very much I'm an overcomer type, vibe. And, you know, more more stories that I'll share with you another day. But I love where that all goes. And, you know, being the very essence of an opportunity maker in, you know, the hundreds of 1000s of lives that you have touched and improved, and then through them indirectly, so many more lives because of what they've been able to do as a result of having new financial literacy and opportunities for them. So when do you ever think about that? Do you ever consider how many what you what your rent your track record is of helping people?

Rondi Lambeth: 00:12:15

I know it's in the hundreds of 1000s. One of the things that we have right now, our mission for the next 10 years for fortress is to help 1 million people become financially free over the next 10 years. And this will be documented people that come in to fortress University over the next 10 years that we specifically help them or their family. Look, I ran a radio show on 40 Plus radio stations for 10 plus years. I've been and I don't say this to brag, but I don't know how many people we've helped. I've been on every single news network nationwide, I've done hundreds of TV interviews, 1000s of podcasts 1000s of radio shows over the last 17 years. It's in the hundreds of 1000s of people. I know personally, how many people have paid me over the last 17 years. But I don't know, I don't know what it is. But it's I do know that it does save lives. And even though when I was a fireman, I saved more lives every day now, helping people with their money, credit and taxes than I did as a firefighter on the busiest rescue in Denver Metro area. Because of leverage. And you know, we have 1000s of active students right now inside of fortress university that have family members, and we invite all their family members and their spouses to attend our weekly coaching calls. And we give all of that away for free to their family members. So I don't know what the number is, but it's a lot.

Jim Padilla: 00:13:50

Yeah, and I don't necessarily, you know, it's not a vanity metric. I just, I think too many times, especially as we start ascending to different levels of success. It's easy to forget all the lives that were actually touching, and the responsibility that we have that comes with that. And so as people are listening here right now, I mean, we you know, we're here to inspire hope and not just to give them well wishes, but give them some practical applications, either in mindset or skill sets that can help them embrace, stepping into opportunities instead of running in fear, and especially around money. I think right now money is probably the most sensitive issue out there. And the people that are no clue how to spend it, no clue how to acquire no clue how to keep it, or just doing their best to hang on. You know what words of encouragement and what and what words of wisdom you have for this piece? Well, I

Rondi Lambeth: 00:14:38

think most people know how to spend it. That's not the problem. It's knowing how to keep it and what to do with it to make it grow into something more. And that's really what we teach them at fortress University is is how to keep more of it and then how to invest it so you can make a difference. I personally I really believe that financial problems, which relate to credit problems are the number one cause for divorce. Because the average person that says they got divorces, it started with money issues. I think it's the number one cause of death in America through stress, which causes inflammation, which causes cancer, and causes heart disease. But if you took away all of the financial problems from people, they'd be less stressed out, they'd be less overweight, they'd be happier. And I think their relationships would last longer, they'd be happier at work, their children would be happier, it'd be a much better place. And that's really the I believe that is the way to true world peace is through financial education. Because if they're financially educated, and they apply what they learn, people say knowledge is power. That's not true. Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is not money. Because if it was, the richest people in the world would be our professors from universities, right? It's knowledge applied, and leveraged is the power in the money. So I think finances are the most important thing for people to understand and manage. Unfortunately, most people aren't that interested in they, they know the stats of Tom Brady and Mike Tyson. And, you know, Michael Jordan, they could tell you everything about sports. But if I asked him about tax codes that allow them to legally not pay income tax on their first 100 grand they earn every year. It's deer in the headlights, and then when I start telling them, they don't want to know. And so I've learned something over 17 years, Jim, and that is, I don't tell people things, unless they asked me how to do it. Because I just got tired of talking to myself, You know what I mean?

Jim Padilla: 00:17:00

I knew, man I do. You know, I talk about that a lot. I mean, you know, been blessed to run in some pretty affluent circles and work with a lot of the top, you know, one, one to 5% of people out there. And something that's so common is everybody that I know in the circle is extremely generous, give time, give information, give help. But if you do not apply, the resources that have been given and the knowledge has been shared, you won't get any more.

Rondi Lambeth: 00:17:26

Yeah, I have a I have a term for that. Yeah. And I call them ask holes. Because they ask and they never do anything with it. And I just I hate dealing with assholes. And I have a whole bunch of family members that qualify for that term. And I finally I just, I just tell them now, look, here's my login and password to fortress University. I'm done telling you things, you got to actually do something about it now.

Jim Padilla: 00:17:55

Well, let me ask on behalf of the listeners right now. What what things should they be looking for right now in an economy that's uncertain and inflationary, whatever we want to call this market that we're in? What's good wisdom to be navigating decisions by?

Rondi Lambeth: 00:18:12

Well, I don't know the answer to that, with the way you're asking it. If you're if you're asking me what people should be doing to prepare for the market that we're in? Is that what you're asking?

Jim Padilla: 00:18:26

I don't want you to have to give specific financial advice. I'm thinking more just like, what's the philosophy? What should they be? How should they be approaching the decisions that they're making, as they're moving through these here?

Rondi Lambeth: 00:18:35

Well, I mean, look, when there's blood in the street, there's a lot of money be made. And when people are greedy, you should be scared. And when people are scared, you should be greedy. And I think there's lots of opportunity out there right now. I think in the next 1218 months, if everything stays the way it's going right now. I think in next 1218 months, there's gonna be a tremendous amount of opportunity for people that have great credit and have cash or access to cash. And the reason for that is what I'm seeing is foreclosures are up to 11,000 foreclosures a day right now. repossessions on vehicles are up over 25% credit card charge offs are up over 20%. Banks are now suing if you do not pay them on the credit card work the last five years or so they weren't suing at all. And now they're suing as little as 300 bucks. And banks are already tightening up the credit for people that are not utilizing their credit the proper way banks are shutting down the credit card they're lowering the credit limits. So you want to continuously manage your credit cards as in use them every single month. You got to have something on every credit card every month on auto pay. Otherwise the credit card company will probably close it or lower the limits. And what I'll tell you what I'm doing, and what I'm telling my clients to do is get that credit score as high as possible. Get as many business credit cards as you can, as many business lines of credit, you can many loans you can get right now, money still relatively cheap, even though interest rates are higher, but it's still cheap. And stack and rack as much cash as you can possibly have as many loans and lines of credit and just wait for the opportunity. Because I think there's a lot of opportunities coming up. Yeah,

Jim Padilla: 00:20:39

I wholeheartedly agree. And that's, you know, that's the essence, the the the thesis of this whole podcast and its mission here is literally all the problems that are surrounding us are just a sea of opportunities waiting to be taken advantage of. And, you know, you you've got on both sides, right, you grew up having to overcome, and you've lived with plenty. What's, what's the mindset and perspective to being able to choose to live into these opportunities without fear? And without, you know, with managing risk? Like, how do you approach that mentality?

Rondi Lambeth: 00:21:11

You know, things have changed for me in the last couple of years, because I used to be the guy that would go out, and I would invest in lots of different things. And, you know, trying to make that 25% plus return. And now when I look at stuff, my number one thing I ask is, can I get my money back, you know, because I've lost so much money with with these deals. And they're exciting. And I have somebody that's asking me to invest right now and some commercial real estate overseas. And he's like, this is so exciting, do this. And I keep telling him like, I don't want exciting anymore. I'm 51 years old. So I'm a third of the way through my life. And I don't want to continue to work to make up for it. So I think when you're younger, you can look for deals where you can make homeruns and be okay with striking out a lot. As you get older, you should look for ways to just get your money back and make a decent return on it. And so that's kind of what I'm looking for. And as far as investments and how I manage it. And I can tell you this, this quote, I know I know it from Wolf of Wall Street. It was like I've been poor and I've been rich and I choose rich every time. I can tell you, you want to be rich, because you are happier, your life is better. And they say money doesn't buy happiness. Yes, it can. You can use money to buy happiness 100% of the time back they just did a study, longest study ever done 100 year study and it found that people with money, the more money they had, the happier they were, if they use the money to help other people. So you know, you know about the orphanage that we have in Dominican Republic through one of our masterminds, right. I give a lot of money to that orphanage, it pays for every single kid in that orphanage, all their food, all of their education, all of their clothing for an entire year. And I do it every single month. It's one of the things that I do I give back with lots of different charities. And in fact, I was getting coached last night by a gentleman named Ed my let an AED also has a little podcast called max out or that might lead show whatever it is, but it's it's a pretty popular podcast. And he was talking about meeting Wozniak because I'm gonna master not It's not mastered my I'm in a coaching group and entrepreneur group with Ed first Ed my lat and Andy for Sela. And they bring in once a once a year they bring in very successful people like Tom Brady's been there. Wozniak, the co founder of apple and many, many other people. But they were talking about Ed was talking about Wozniak yesterday and how he is the, in his book, The number one entrepreneur of all time. And even though he's not the wealthiest, and the reason he's not the wealthiest, I don't know if you know this or not. He gave away the majority of Apple stock to the Apple employees. Steve Jobs didn't even give his own daughter, hardly anything. Wozniak gave away almost everything. So and that's why he's worth a couple of 100 million dollars versus being the richest man in the world right now. Because he gave away all of his shares. And he gave away to the secretaries. He gave it away to the janitors. And he said his proudest moment in life was being in Palo Alto and looking up on the hill and seeing hundreds of $5 million homes all over the hills of California. And they were all Apple employees that he gave stocks to and shares to. Wow. So but what added said yesterday was he was the happiest person he's ever met in his entire life. And he's met hundreds of 1000s people. He coaches Tony Blair, right, he coaches Swartz negar. He's coached Bill Clinton, he's best friends with Tony Robbins. And so he's around people that are really happy. But he said Wozniak was the happiest person he's ever met, is because Wozniak just gives it all away. So I think this whole saying of money can't buy happiness. It's not true. Because if you give it away, I'm telling you, it can make you happy. If you're super depressed, and you go work in an orphanage, and you feed these kids for a couple of weeks and take care of them. You will be much happier when you leave than when you got there.

Jim Padilla: 00:26:00

Amen. What a great story. I'm a huge MMA fan myself, I listened to his podcast, to pretty much every episode and read his book. But that's a great story. And so, so real. It's so we'll I personally, I dare I would, I would challenge you, listener to put that to the test. Put that to test. And let us know if that if you find any try to be miserable, and stressed out and unhappy. While you're serving and giving to people who need it coming from the heart. It will change you. Sure. But yeah, thanks for sharing that. That's great. What? What about the people who aren't where you know, where you are financially, where I mean, I've been blessed to be around people who are maxed out credit cards maxed out limits right now. And they're heading into this environment where you're saying, hey, best thing you can do is have high credit score cash on hand, and they're the direct opposite of that right now.

Rondi Lambeth: 00:26:56

Well, so we'll go back to giving first, if you're not giving money now, and donating your time and your talents. Now, you're not going to do it when you're wealthy. This just, if you're not doing it, now, you're never going to do it. So don't lie to yourself and say, when I become rich, I'll do it. No, you won't. Because you're you're greedy enough now, living paycheck to patient check, hand to mouth, that you'll spend all your money when you become wealthy, and you probably will never become wealthy, because you're not giving it away fast enough. It's kind of like water. I have a five acre pond in my backyard. And it is fed from the Boise River, it comes into my pond and goes out of my pond. So it's constantly moving. If I plugged it off on either end and just made it still water, nothing moved, it would eventually turn to algae and kill everything inside of it because it's not moving. money needs to move. And if it does not move from your bank account to someone's else's bank account, you're never going to become wealthy. You can't save yourself to wealth, or save yourself, save money to riches, you have to move it. Now, what do you do right now if you have bad credit, you're paying way too much in income taxes, you have too much in debt. First of all, you need to sit down and get a piece of paper or a spreadsheet or however you want to do it. And you need to write down every single thing that you spend money on. your electric bill, your cell phone bill, your garbage bill, your groceries, your entertainment, your restaurants. And you also need to figure out how much you make. What is shocking to me is I've asked this question to literally 1000s of people. How much money do you make a year? And the most common answer is? I don't know. I think it's this. I remember just not too long ago asked the lady she's not very much. I'm like, Well, how much is not very much like 30 grand 40 grand, she's like, Yeah, about $40,000. She honestly thought that's what she made. When we pulled it all up. She was making $90,000 a year. She just didn't know. And she didn't know because how much was going out in taxes, how much is going into her 401k etc. She literally didn't know. So you need to know how much money you make. Because most people spend their money as if they're a politician. And what I mean by that is they're spending their money as if someone else is going to pay it back. The reason that our taxes are so high is because we don't hold the politicians accountable, and we pay more than we're legally required to pay in taxes. Forbes did a study recently said 96% of Americans pay more than they're legally required to 96% So number one, figure out how much money you make number two, figure out where you're spending it. Because I guarantee you, if you do not have 1000s of dollars in your bank account 10s of 1000s Soon retirement accounts, and you're in debt and you're paycheck, I guarantee you're spending more money than you think you are. Because if you started saving 10% a month and investing that you're gonna be way ahead. So figure out how much money you make how much you're spending, and start taking 10% off the table, put it aside for investing, figure out how to legally reduce your income taxes. And when you eliminate your income taxes, which if you make less than 100 grand you can pay legally paid zero income tax, regardless of what state you live in. Then you take that money been given to Uncle Sam to waste. And you take it and you pay off your debt. So that's our strategy is figure out what your money make. Figure out what you spend, eliminate your income tax, eliminate your debt, and start investing.

Jim Padilla: 00:31:11

And there you go, guys, that's a whole book right there. That's a quality quality lesson and a strategy. And so super simple, super easy to understand. And everybody here should be pausing and writing this down. If you're listening on the treadmill, or while you're driving in traffic, earmark this book market, come back and listen to this dilemma the soundest simplest wisdom that you can possibly get your hands on.

Rondi Lambeth: 00:31:34

Money's not money's not complicated. That's the thing is everybody wants to complicate it. You know, I own a blockchain company as well. And the unfortunate thing about blockchain is people want to make it so freakin complicated. It's not complicated. Blockchain is a secure internet platform. Essentially, it's the internet that's very secure, that lots of people can use. But they want to talk about nodes and cryptos, and gas fees and all of these other stuff. And I think it's so they can make it seem more important than it is. And that's what a lot of financial planners do. And money managers is they make it so complicated that people think it is and then they really rely on them to invest. I'll give you a good example, Jim. Most people do not know how much it costs to have a 401k. Because it does have a cost. And on average, it's one to 5% of how much money is in your 401 K. So if you have $100,000 in your 401 K at work, the money manager is taking one to 5% out of that 100 grand regardless if the market goes up and down. And by law, they don't have to tell you how much they take out. Legally, they do not have to tell you that they took 5% out and you went from 100 grand to $95,000. They don't have to tell you what I'm doing five grand. So they made it so complicated that people just their sheet, they just go along with it because well my coworker said open a 401k and he's got this mutual fund. So that's the mutual fund I'm in not knowing that that mutual fund is costing them 5% of the principal every single year, and that 5% goes to pay for private parties, private jets, caviar, and if you follow Jordan Belfort also pays for hookers, prostitutes, drugs and all kinds of craziness. And that's how most of those Wall Street guys aren't anyway, it wasn't like Jordan Belfort was like this freak of Wall Street. That's normal up there. So educate yourself. Yeah, it's just like, a little bit though.

Jim Padilla: 00:34:00

It's good stuff, man. Ronnie, you're on it, man. I love it. I totally appreciate it. And it's just like the phone bill, how many times we get the phone bill and look at it. And there's all these line items. We don't even know what they mean. Is what half a percent of this? It's 20 cents. There it is $3 there and we pay it without question.

Rondi Lambeth: 00:34:15

Yeah. There's a there's a scam that the state of California does. They'll tell you about the scam. So I have my own plane. And when I was living in San Diego, I was doing a radio show. They quadrupled my income tax. So I moved to Nevada. So I bought a place in Lake Tahoe on the Nevada side the money I saved in income tax. I bought a Ferrari and I bought an airplane and I paid off my house and five years on just the savings for the taxes. I don't say that to brag I just want to let you know by just simply moving how much money I saved in income tax. And then once a week I flew my airplane to San Diego and I would do my radio show Oh, I'd spend the weekend there, I'd fly home back to Tahoe and I do this, I did this for seven years. Every 90 days or so I get a bill from the state of California for sales tax on my airplane. Now, I did not buy the airplane in California, I didn't live in California, it never was hangared in California, I would fly it, park it, go to my condo, go to the radio station fly home, every 90 days or so I'd get a 20 to $35,000 bill. And every 90 days, I'd have to send a letter to the state of California stating in where I live, I'd have to get a copy of my insurance copy in my hangar in Nevada. And I asked my tax attorney like what is the deal with this? Why do I keep getting this bill, he goes because there's so many companies that fly into their corporate jets. And then the state of California sends them a bill in the bookkeeper just pays it, right? The money's not owed at all. So it goes back to the cell phone bill goes back to what I originally said, know where you're spending your money. Because there I guarantee there is leakage somewhere in your bank account, there is something that you're paying for that you thought you cancelled or you forgot you bought it three years ago, and you've been paying 20 bucks a month for last three years. I know this to be factual because I own a credit monitoring company, that's $25 a month, and I have 1000s of clients paying me 25 bucks a month that haven't logged in and years. Now they still get the protection. They're doing it for the identity theft, protection and other reasons. So they're getting a benefit, but they're not using it to its fullest extent, fullest extent. So I guarantee you there's something in your account that you're paying that you don't have to pay anymore.

Jim Padilla: 00:36:50

You know, this is I've got 200 episodes in the to my other podcast, this is where like six episodes and on this one. I have to say this is the most practical sound wisdom that I have ever heard anybody share in a simple conversation in 30 minutes, I'm gonna say this for the first time that I've ever said as well. Take this episode, bookmark it, go home, and grab your husband, or your wife and your kids. And watch this again, listen to this with notepads out taking notes, and have plans in place. Because this just this alone will change the game for you financially. And then I'm gonna say go into show notes and go to get take advantage of the opportunity to be able to get into the fortress for credit Pro. And if you want to tell us a little bit about what's in credit, pro what opportunities exist there.

Rondi Lambeth: 00:37:45

Yeah, so if you go to Rondilambert.com, that's my main page is Rondilambert.com, you're gonna get access to my financial education. For folks that are just really struggling financially, we actually have a free credit repair program where we will fix your credit absolutely free, you just have to provide us with a credit report. And I remember once while someone will be like, well, it's not free, then if I gotta buy a credit report, look, you don't own your credit report. So if you can figure out a way to get it for free from the credit bureaus, then we'll we don't need to pay for the credit report, but you're just not going to find it because you don't own it. So you got to pay for it. And so money's really tight, you pay 3995 a month for the monitoring service. And then I'll fix your credit absolutely free. And then you get access to the financial education that we now sell to universities nationwide, including forbes.com pays for my education for their students in their MBA program. So if you just go to Rondilambert.com, you can sign up for the free. We have a yearly, I text you every single week, every Monday morning on how what you can do that week to increase your credit score. I teach you how to reduce your taxes, I text you on how to reduce your debt, your debt. So you just have to opt in. And then every every week, you'll get a quick little two minute videos shows up in your phone, you watch it, and then you learn about money. At the end of that year, you will know more money you'll know more about money credit taxes than 99% of people in America. So that's one way that you can get involved with this and if you aren't struggling as much financially, then you can simply buy one of our packages and depending on which one you want, depending if you're a business owner, not a business owner, maybe your W two employee that wants to become a real estate investor. We have specific courses for that as well. So Rondilambert.com is a great place to start. And then you can also find me anywhere on social media everywhere at Rondi Lambert, but I'm very very easy to find online. It's I can't hide anymore.

Jim Padilla: 00:39:55

Well yeah, we'll have those all those links in the show notes as well as to Rondilambeth.com and And to Fortress University where we want you to get to get the support and the guidance that you need. And I'll be honest, I, you know, I've gotten to know, Ronnie over the last year in a mastermind that we're a part of. And, you know, we've shared some knowledge and some content with each other. I didn't realize to what depth and what level that into simplicity, it's not just about, I think the excellence is in being able to share things that are complicated or make can be complicated in a simple way, easy to understand. And that's why I really, I can't endorse this. Enough, you guys, please take advantage of these opportunities, start getting yourself educated. If you haven't, up to this point, it doesn't matter. Like you know, 20 years ago was the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago was best time to start figuring out how to master your credit and your financial education and literacy. The next best time is today, no matter what, how old you are, get this thing started.

Rondi Lambeth: 00:40:52

And here's the thing with credit, if you got bad credit, it's not a life sentence. And the reason I do what I do today is, as I said, I was a firefighter for Littleton fire. You can see my helmet here, when I retired, I got to keep my helmet. I was the first person of the Columbine High School shooting, I was shot at, I'm the one my partner Patrick and I were the ones that found that 13 Kids and drugged them out. And I've always had this this desire to help people. And that's why I got in the fire department. In 2006, my little brother, who was the youngest of the 13 kids, was also a firefighter. And unbeknownst to me, because I was, you know, I had three kids, I had a career, I lived in Denver, he was an Oregon I wasn't, you know, it's never really close, because I left when I was 15 years old, and he was like three, four years old. And one day, I got off of a 24 hour shift fire department and turned on my phone. And I had just dozens of voicemails from a mom, telling me that my brother had been in an accident. So when I called her i figures work accident, found out he shot and killed himself. And he did it. Because he had a few $100 of collections, and other medical bills and some credit card debt. He broke up with his girlfriend, she made some comment that he was a loser. And he always be a loser because he couldn't pay his bills. So he shot himself over and over, you know, probably less than what my Apple Watch cost. And this is not an expensive watch, it's definitely less than my iPhone costs. And that really hit me hard. And that was part of the reason I left the fire department was I wanted to make a bigger difference than just the fire department. So my point of saying that is if you feel like you're at the end, and you just can't handle it anymore, it's not a death sentence, you don't have to wait seven to 10 years to have good credit. You might have to wait seven to 10 months, sometimes seven to 10 weeks, sometimes seven to 10 days. We had a client on Monday hired us on Monday. And on Thursday, we deleted every single thing from his credit report everything and now he's in the eight hundreds as of today. So literally in four days, he went from the four hundreds to the eight hundreds. Now that's that's not normal. By the way, it's using six to 12 months to get everything cleaned up. So it's not the end of the world, it's not 10 years out, it's not a life sentence, you just got to make it six to 12 months for us to get it all cleaned up and give you a second chance to move on. Because once you learn how to manage money, it doesn't paralyze you anymore. It doesn't control you, you control the money yourself. And when you don't have to pay income tax anymore, and you get a 25 to 30% increase in your pay, which is what you'll get. When is the last time Jim, you've heard of someone getting a 30% raise at work

Jim Padilla: 00:44:15

unless you're a salesperson in conditions that don't have exactly.

Rondi Lambeth: 00:44:19

But because if you're on a 30% tax bracket with your state and your federal, which most people are that's a 30% Raise. And that's how you can massively make a difference. And the other thing is this. Not only can we fix your credit quickly, but we can rebuild it faster. And so we teach you how to do that to where in a year you can go from a 400 credit score to an 800 credit score in just a year. So if you're struggling right now, it's going to be okay you can fix it very quickly. You just need to reach out and ask for some help.

Jim Padilla: 00:44:58

Amen and then we know that's a challenge. As guys, I've been in the sales game. And you know, we've been helping people make money for about 30 years now. And the two areas that never seem to change where people just don't want to talk publicly about the failings are financially in intimacy. Nobody wants to talk about their failings in the bedroom, and nobody wants to talk about their failings in the wallet. And you just gotta, you gotta overcome it, the ego isn't gonna help you, you just got to let put it aside and say, I need help reach out and ask. And there's a great opportunity right here to take advantage of that.

Rondi Lambeth: 00:45:32

Yeah, and even if you call our office, we give free consultations, you don't have to hire us for anything. Generally, you got to pay at least $1, though, for the credit report, so we can look to see what is on your credit, because otherwise, it's a bunch of what ifs and what may be. So as long as you can invest at least $1 to see the credit report, then we're gonna be able to help you with it. And the reason is dollars, because that's what the credit bureaus chart actually cost me $25 pulled a credit report is just, I pay for the $25 report, and we charge $1 for it. So but you know, we're here to help you. So just reach out if you need some help with your finances, your credit or your debt.

Jim Padilla: 00:46:14

So let's let's end this on. We're getting serious here. Let's end this on a good high note, then what do you see as the greatest opportunities for people out there right now for the in the coming season? Like what are the things to be looking for?

Rondi Lambeth: 00:46:27

I think things to be looking for would be busy businesses for sale, real estate for sale. The reason I love real estate so much as you can use the bank's money, you don't have to have credit. You don't have to have money to buy real estate, you just have to have the courage to go out and learn how to do it and have the courage to cold call and talk to people. Because like my first apartment complex I bought, I didn't buy it with my money. And I didn't buy it with my credit. I went and found it. And then I found somebody who bought apartments. And I got an ownership piece because I found it and I brought it to him. So they call it bird dogging or wholesaling. So I did start learning about real estate as fast as possible. And I love real estate. But if you don't like real estate, there's opportunities in lots of good things, guns, I like to buy a lot of guns, I like to buy a lot of cars. I was buying airplanes for a while. So I've been noticing about two years ago, I wanted to buy a player's razor and they were about $48,000. If I could find one. Now I'm seeing them in the 20s and low 30 1000s. So not that that would be something you would buy as a consumer. But if you wanted to start a business with a side by side, you lived in an area where you can do tours, I have a client that's she's up to 12, Polaris borador side by sides now and she runs them in Vegas. And she's making a killing, where two years ago, she had no money. She wasn't even a US US citizen. She had no money, no credit was homeless living in apartments. And now she's going to do about $2 million this year from running and operating a tour a touring thing in Las Vegas on side by sides that she bought with someone else's money and credit. So there's lots of opportunities, Jim, I would just keep your mind open and figure out what it is you want to do and then just start looking for it.

Jim Padilla: 00:48:33

Hey, man, so many wide open perspectives, things to think about guys. We're always talking about things to do in the business space. But there's so much more out there besides just entrepreneurship in the business line. There's a lot of ways to make money, a lot of ways to be smart and minimize your risk. That's for sure. All right. So I think this is a good spot to end this on, guys will definitely want to have you back and continue the conversation and talk about some more sophisticated ways to take some bigger financial opportunities on. But right now I think this is just a huge amount of value. I totally appreciate what you're sharing. And guys, as always, thanks for trusting us to be part of your success team. You know that you could be anyplace else and you chose to be here and we don't take that for granted. Make sure that you go in rate review and subscribe. Let us know what's going on. Go find around Randy and let them know that we sent you came from the opportunity makers podcast and and let us know what you taken advantage of and what changes are happening in your life. So thanks for being here. Go out and create opportunities, make some money and change some lives. We'll see you on the next one.