I Don’t Want to Turn 3. Gramps Jeffrey

[00:00:00] Bob Wheeler: Welcome to another episode of money you should ask where everyone has something they can teach you. I’m your host, Bob Wheeler. In this episode, we are going to explore why we do what we do when it comes to money as a CPA for the past 30 years. Wait, let me say 25, because that makes me sound younger. I have seen it all when it comes to money and emotions.

And if you think I’m talking about my. I’m not, I’m talking about myself. My relationship with money has been, and sometimes still is an emotional rollercoaster. Maybe that’s something you’re also familiar with. Good news. You and I are not the only ones. Our next guest is going to share their money, beliefs, money blocks, and life challenges as well.

Buckle your seatbelt and enjoy the ride.

our next guest is grandpa Jeffrey coming from the baby boomer generation Gramps. Jeffrey now has four kids and six grandchildren. There is children’s book. I don’t want to turn. He explores what goes through a toddler’s mind? The parents are so desperate to understand it is based on the true experiences he has had with his grandchildren.

Born to his millennial daughters is also the author of the claim business book, the secrets of retailing, how to beat Walmart and a contributor to the Huffington post Gramps commentary is quite timely in the challenging world. We live in Gramps. I’m so excited to have you on the show.

[00:01:41] Gramps Jeffrey: I appreciate you inviting me.

Thanks so much.

[00:01:44] Bob Wheeler: So do any of us want to turn three? Like I know I want to go back and get an allowance, but what’s the resistance to

[00:01:51] Gramps Jeffrey: three. The book is about what age do you begin to take responsibility for your actions? Is it three years? Is it 13 years old is a 23 years old. You know, as you mentioned, I’m a baby boomer, I’ve got plenty of 60 three-year-olds I still don’t take responsibility for their actions.

[00:02:07] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. And what is that hesitation about taking responsibility? Because now we have to act,

[00:02:16] Gramps Jeffrey: I think that’s it. I guess the real reason is why do they even write this book? So I got to tell you the living this past year, because of the pandemic caused by a COVID-19. In isolation, except for being able to be with my family gave me time to kind of watch it interact with these grandkids.

And I got to tell you what a trip that was. So, you know, all six of these kids have completely different personalities, but the one thing they do have in common is a sense of curiosity, much like us. They all have a sense of curiosity and how excited they get when they do accomplish something new, you know, watching them grow year to year, how they interact with each other really is the basis for this book.

[00:02:53] Bob Wheeler: And what did you notice in that curiosity? And with all six?

[00:02:58] Gramps Jeffrey: Well, the one thing that they have a trouble understanding as a difference between me and us. When do they begin to share? When do they begin to understand that the world doesn’t revolve around them? They’ve got to get involved in with their parents, with their cousins.

So that was really, the challenge is the three years old is all about me, me, me, but Hey, I gotta tell ya. I think it’s all about me, me, me now. But back then, it’s about that. I asked her one, it’s all about me, me, me. So that really was a journey on how to get there. And you know, there’s a baby boomer, myself trying to understand the world has evolved since I was three years old.

It was also kind of part of this story. My parents, they didn’t have cell phones. They didn’t have the internet. They didn’t have cable TV. They didn’t have remotes. I was my dad’s remote. He’s a son. Go change the channel. Right. That’s the way that was. So my parents’ definition was quite different than the definition of parents of today.

Is this a better place for our kids to grow up in? I’ll let your listeners kinda figure out that answer, but how are we treating our kids today compared to how they, we did when we were growing.

[00:04:06] Bob Wheeler: Did your parents have conscious conversations with you around money or making choice or about this? Me versus we did any of that happen or did you just sort of have to fumble through it on your.

[00:04:19] Gramps Jeffrey: My parents are entrepreneurs. Okay. And entrepreneurs, they have great days. They have bad years, but they’re entrepreneurs. And, you know, they’ve been entrepreneurs all their lives. So when I went to college, they were going to pay for it. But, you know, they said, you’d do it. So that one guess was our first real conversation about money is okay.

So I had to take three jobs while I was going to college and the pay for my tuition and room and board and all that. And, you know, This generation, my parents’ generation was a very disciplined generation. They were the greatest generation this country has ever produced. I mean, if you think about it, I grew up in the fifties and sixties and my, my parents’ generation went through the depression.

They went to the major world war that saved democracy. So they were a very disciplined group as a whole. And part of this discipline was you go pay your own way through college. So I guess that was my first encounter with the responsibility of.

[00:05:15] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. Now, do you remember, as a kid, your parents saying things like money doesn’t grow on trees or did they have some kind of phrase you got to do it on your own as entrepreneurs?

They might’ve had a different take than a traditional nine to five, or, but are there any things you remember that they said, or didn’t say about.

[00:05:36] Gramps Jeffrey: They were very wanting me to make it on our own. And that’s why my brother and I did have a jobs in high school too, even though they have enough to pay for us and our house and all that, they really were trying to get that into our minds.

Do it on your own. Don’t count on anybody else. You can’t count on family. You can’t, you know, that’s the world today. If you’re an entrepreneur today, where are you going to get your money? How are you going to open up a bit? Can you count on your family? Can you not? You certainly can count on the banks.

The banks don’t want to lend money to entrepreneurs and startups. So you’ve always got to count on yourself. That’s what you want to think about is how can I build this up? And I think that’s one of the reasons. The entrepreneurs of today are starting a little later in life because they’ve got accumulate something before they just go out there.

And so it’s interesting. What’s happening to today’s world of entrepreneurs.

[00:06:31] Bob Wheeler: Now, when you’re a kid, did you want to be an entrepreneur? Your parents were entrepreneurs. Did you want to write, like, did you have a vision of what it looked like when you started college or even.

[00:06:43] Gramps Jeffrey: Yeah, I just wanted to go make money.

You know, what is the fastest way to make money? And on happens to be, I went to college in the early seventies and at that time, this one retail and department stores were the hottest thing going. And so that’s when I got involved in the retailing is I was recruited. I lived in a small town in Ohio, went to school in Miami.

It was one of those winters where there were like, I got five colds in a row and I said, I gotta get outta here. And luckily for me, a company in Florida was recruiting a department store company called paradines, which is part of federated, which is now Macy’s right. And so that gave me the opportunity to get out and do my own thing and start to make money.

So that was really driving me now, interestingly enough, talk about writing because I did, I’ve written a couple books and I’ve written over a hundred articles for the Huffington post. My feeling for writing started when I was a junior in college, my best friend. And I decided we were going to backpack through Europe for 11 weeks.

So, you know, we got our backpacks, we were riding the trains. We were hitchhiking. We were sleeping in youth hostels, but for some reason, I would decide to keep it dry. So for 11 weeks I kept this journal of everything we did and the people we met and, and all these things. And you know, that I put it away for a and my friend called me 10 years later, said, you gotta read this journal.

He says, you gotta become writer. This is really because it was the insight of people and what they did and so forth. So that’s how I started to become. But I didn’t do it for a while. So I guess that part of creativity I’ve always wanted to do, but my goal was to make money first. Yeah. Get in there. Let’s get some money.

And so I spent my first part of my career in corporate America, working for major retailers and wholesalers in the.

[00:08:29] Bob Wheeler: What would you say is the biggest difference that you’re aware of in working for corporate America and working for yourself? I mean, obviously there’s not as much security, but is there security anymore?

Like there used to be, I mean, what did you observe and what would you say to entrepreneurs, people out there that are thinking about taking that leap? The

[00:08:49] Gramps Jeffrey: biggest thing, the difference between working for a company and working for yourself is the sleepless nights that you have. Okay, as you stay up at night a lot, what happened was in my particular career, I worked many years for these corporate America.

And I said, I went back to my entrepreneurial roots and I decided I’m going to become an entrepreneur. So I opened up a couple of businesses. One of the businesses I opened up was a chain of hair salons. And you say hair salons, why don’t you open up a chain here? Well, when I was running the downtown Miami burdens department store up on our sixth floor was our hair salons.

And it was the most profitable part of the business. Wow. And the reason it was so profitable, because you’d have to worry about inventory and your customers came in once a week or once every couple of weeks. So you have this repeat business and it wasn’t based on inventory was based on the service. You know, if you’re in the dress business, you sell one or two dresses.

This. But in the hair business, you sell your own every month. So that’s what I learned. And that’s why my first business was a chain of hair salons. I sold those to investors at the same time. This was when the internet was just beginning to come up. And I came up with the concept of the wholesale company that could sell to moms and pops who were survive and thrive against the chains.

And so that’s how my other business, which I took public and that particular business came about because. My experience of being in department stores and off-price retailing and in the wholesale business. And I saw there was a niche to go after. Yeah. Again, you can’t rely on somebody else giving you money to open this up.

So are you, you asked me the question is what’s the biggest thing is the amount of sleepless nights because were you an entrepreneur and you’re opening up a business? The thing that kept me up the most was how am I going to make payroll on Friday? Right? That was the number one thing that kept. The once you start to roll, you can start to make payroll.

Then it’s a whole different. Well, let me

[00:10:46] Bob Wheeler: ask you this. So I recently read a book called outliers and it talks about being in the right place at the right time, you know, bill gates, smart guy, right place, right time. And I’m wondering like for you, you took a company public, you sold off your first businesses to investors.

Were you in the right place at the right time? You’re a little smarter than everybody else. And so you’ve got the edge or what was the combination? Cause if I’m an entrepreneur G and I’m not that I’m good and I’ll work hard, but maybe I don’t have the smarts that somebody else does. Maybe it’s not for me.

[00:11:20] Gramps Jeffrey: I don’t know if you believe in fate, but over the years, I’m starting to believe in. I started off when I was young, I went to school in Ohio. I was expected to formula end up in Ohio, but I caught a break and got a job in Florida. They had got me into this. I mean, that wasn’t planned, right. It wasn’t when I was 13 years old, I said, okay, here’s what I’m going to do with my life.

And then the off-price business, the discount stores started to open up and I was recruited to go into a discounts. Again, that’s fate that wasn’t something I planned. So I guess the strings fate and luck, what’s really the difference. I ended up out here in Arizona. I mean, when I was 18 years old, I had no idea I would be in the up in Arizona.

So it really is. You just gotta take the chance and play the fate. Sometimes it doesn’t work. I’ve been fired from many jobs. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out, but you just got to believe in yourself. An entrepreneur really believes that the glass is half full, right. That you fail today, but tomorrow you’re going to.

If you go in with the idea that the glass is half empty, then you’re going to fail. You got to take a look at all the numbers for entrepreneurs, 20% fail in their first year. Right. Okay. Why do they fail? Well, there’s several reasons why they fail. One reason is the one we were talking about is that they just don’t have enough capital whenever you open a business or you’re thinking about business, you’re opening a business, make sure that you’ve got six months of capital that you can put in this business as if you had no.

That’s how you have to look at this because one of the 29% of why businesses fail in the first year is they didn’t put enough dollars aside. Because again, you’re not going to go to the bank. They’re not going to give you money. All of a sudden, another reason that businesses fail in the first year is there’s no market for their products.

You think you’ve got the greatest ideas, the sys bread? Well, there’s no market for it. Nobody’s buying it. That’s another reason why businesses fail. That’s like 42% of the reason why businesses fail. And the other thing, the quiet thing, most people don’t understand. And it’s like 23% of the reason why small businesses fail in their first year is you got to build a team around you to help build this business.

We all think that we know it all and that’s not. We all have plenty of blind spots. Take a look at the, my blind spots. I love marketing and sales, but I really don’t like accounting. If you stick me in a room for a week having to do accounting and spreadsheets, I will go absolutely nuts. Yeah. So you’ve got to find somebody who loves the county.

It loves to do that, to compliment what you do. The much as I, I been in here ended up is this, I should understand artwork. And so I understand it, but I can’t even draw a straight line. So you’re going to find people who are designed around you, who can help you with. And again, you ended that business.

You’re thinking, I don’t understand programming. I don’t know how to program. I’m going to find people that can do that. So one of the things, you know, that you got to realize, and this is one of the main reasons the businesses fail is you can’t do it all yourself. You’ve got to find the experts so that you can take the hours of your life and put them into the skills that you have that can help drive that business.

And so. If I have one advice for anybody wanting to start a business tomorrow is make sure you surround yourself with people that are smarter than you.

[00:14:50] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. And what about having a plan? In other words, like I know some people will say, well, I’m going to go out and I’m going to become a social media influencer.

I’m just going to do it. People are going to come to me and I’m going to make millions of dollars. That’s my business plan. Or I’m just going to start selling it. Don’t really know who my market is, but I’m just going to start doing it. How important is having some kind of business plan, even if it ultimately doesn’t go exactly to plan, which it never does.

[00:15:19] Gramps Jeffrey: Well, let me say that. I still think today, if you’re an entrepreneur or small business person, this is the best time in the history of this country to open up a business. And the reason being is, and we’ll take a look, you know, we’re talking about retailing on my side, but 20 years ago you had to go get a physical store.

You had to put money into the inventory. You had to hire people. There’s a lot of expenses. Yeah, but it’s today’s world with the beauty of the internet. And if you have lived in small town, America, your customer base was a hundred, 200,000 people. That was your customer base, right. What’s evolved with this internet and it gives a chance for anyone who has an idea.

Or a feeling to start to sell products without having to come up with the big dollars to open up a store and buy lots of inventory. I are lots of people. So if you’re an entrepreneur, this is the time to do it because now instead of having your small town or your big town as your only source, you now have thousands of other towns to sell into.

And if you’ve got the right niche, All you need is 10 people in a town to like it, it adds up very quickly. So if anyone’s thinking about opening a business, do it to make sure that there’s an internet part of that business as part of your plan. Yeah,

[00:16:36] Bob Wheeler: absolutely. Well, I’m curious. I want to go back to the second part about not having a market, not having somebody that wants to buy.

I knew these people that they were engineers. They discovered this salt business over in Hawaiian. They said, you know what, we’re going to turn this into a multimillion dollar business. We’re going to sell gourmet salt. We’re going to sell salt to spas and stuff. They were setting everything up and they had a million dollars.

They got these people to put in a million bucks and they had the most amazing accounting system. And they secured a deal with FedEx and they asked and I kept saying, Before you spend all this money, like get some sales because then we can go back and fix the accounting and then we can go back and do this stuff.

They’re like they were engineers and, uh, we have everything ready and then they got ready to launch. They didn’t have any sales, not a single person bought anything. And how do you test the market? Like how do you, Hey, does anybody want to buy salt? Like how do you get there without spending millions of dollars before you go all the way down the road?

[00:17:37] Gramps Jeffrey: Well, what you just mentioned is the prime example of what we were just talking about. You got to hire people around you that have the strengths that you don’t before they even started this business, knowing that they weren’t sales and marketing kind of guys, they should have found someone just to do that.

And that’s why that’s one of the reasons, again, that’s why so many of us fail is we don’t surround ourselves with those people. So that was their first one. Mistake is find someone who loves sales and marketing. Much like you have a passion for podcasting. You have to have a passion for what you do. You know, if you don’t have that passion and then you’re going to fail, and there’s not even a statistic for that statistic of passion versus that passion.

So you’ve got to find that person, then you’ve got to test it. You’re absolutely right. You always want to test before you roll out and spend the dollars and you can test, you can test it in one town. You can test of what state you can test on the internet. I mean, again, that’s what the internet is so great for this.

Group of people from entrepreneurs, you can test stuff on there. I mean, you can test it just by putting goods on Amazon or Etsy or any of the discount sites, you could test things. And so that’s what you’ve got to do. And that’s, you know, not that I want to keep going back to my children’s book, but this generation coming up, these kids that are one to 10 years old, they are going to be the best generation this country has ever produced because as soon as they come out of the womb, They’re exposed to the internet, right?

They’re exposed to I-phones, they’re exposed to all kinds of information. I wasn’t exposed to the internet. It’s 40 years old. These kids are growing up that way. It’s a whole different world and they can take what they’re learning though. You know, this is another reason why I wrote this book is because we as parents and we, as grandparents have got to balance what these kids are learning so quickly from the internet and from all these electronic things with real life.

We’re the ones that have to give them the different skills that they have so they can become the greatest generation

[00:19:40] Bob Wheeler: ever. Yeah. That’s amazing. Well, I was just thinking, as you were talking, there’s a quote that I’ve heard and I don’t know how true this is for you, but the reason that grandkids and grandparents get along so well is they have a common enemy.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that.

[00:19:59] Gramps Jeffrey: That’s interesting. And the reason I think that’s so interesting. Is that 30% of the grandparents today. That’s almost one out of every three. Don’t want to get involved in raising their grandkids. Wow. And they have a special name for these grandparents. They’re called remotes.

And they may show up on a birthday or come through the holidays, but they really don’t want to get involved in it. And one of the reasons that they don’t is there is conflict between the parent and the brand. Um, that’s just one of those reasons, but when you think about it, think about the way that we can influence these kids.

Let’s just talk about. Getting these kids involved in reading. Okay. Think about it with these kids. There’s all kinds of benefits that, and again, I’m going to look at it from grandparents standpoint, I’m with my grandkids and getting them on my lap and I’m reading a book and they’re reading together. And the one thing that happens is reading together for 20 minutes creates by.

Right. Finding so important for these little kids. They have to have that relationship with the grandparent and the parent. So reading to kids, just the font of the things it does is it creates bonding. Another thing that it does, and this is very important. And it’s something that I encourage all your listeners to make sure they’re reading books to their kids every single night is that it supports listening skills.

Now you and I both know. That the most important skill that we have acquired is handle this. Right? I know you’re doing it here on your podcast. And you think about when you’re listening and business, be able to listen to sell things. You’ve gotta be able to listen, to communicate. If we can teach these kids through.

How to listen because they’re there, they’re listening to this book for 20 minutes. That could be one of the legacies that we can give to these kids. That’ll pay off for them when they hit our age. Another reason we should be reading books to all these kids is because of the cognitive and the language.

Then it creates, you know, these are little kids, there’s all kinds of words in these books that you should be able to explain to your children. Again, it’s a learning process. I mean, there’s words in these books. I don’t understand. So I’ve got to go look them up. So it’s another way for all of us to kind of create the cognitive and language development.

And another reason is just the attention span. It creates for 20 minutes, you know, little kids, 2, 3, 4, they bounce off the wall. It could have been your lab for 20 minutes and it helps with a key concentration and self-discipline, and those are the traits that they’re going to need to do as they grow up, whether they become entrepreneurs or just go to work for someone.

And you’ve got to have those traits. So I would just encourage. All of your listeners, make sure you’re reading books. There’s a hundred great books out there to read to your kids. Obviously, I’m going to read my book, but there’s a lot of other books too. And so just read your kids, it’ll pay off. That’ll help balance out all this great stuff they’re learning off of the internet and the right.

[00:22:51] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, the ability to read and the fact that just through reading, you can take incredible journeys. You can have incredible experiences. You can go to foreign countries, all these things that you wouldn’t get. If you didn’t have access to great books and a little bit of imagination,

[00:23:09] Gramps Jeffrey: one of the most important things they’re reading does it helps with us to begin questioning we as.

Keeping the mind it’s necessary for us to teach children how to think. Not. Okay. We need to teach them how to think. So again, going back to reading books for, you know, obviously I recommend having the child pick out the book because of become really involved with it. But once you have the book in there on your lap, the first thing you should ask the kid was, what do you think is going to happen in this book?

Let them start with that imagination, because again, we want to teach them how to think. And then once you’re reading in the book, who are the curators in the book, what are the settings of this book, as anything in this book, sound familiar to you keep. ’cause by questioning, you know, again, we’re going to teach them how to think.

And then at the end of the book, what should I do should be doing every night at dinner when you ask them how their day was, was, what was your favorite part of this book? Why was it your favorite part? Because again, the more we can sit down and teach our children have to think the better they’re going to be when they reach our.

[00:24:08] Bob Wheeler: That is so awesomely. True. I love that. I love that. There’s such an intentionality and consciousness to like reading the book and asking the questions it’s simple and straightforward and there’s a reason for it. It’s not just like, oh, what’d you think of the book? It’s actually creating a skill set for the kids as well as the bonding.

And I love that piece again. Curiosity is what helps us to think more. Oh, and then what might happen? And oh, and here’s why I liked it because there was a puppy or whatever it might be that we can then feel our excitement and ignite our passion in whatever that might be. So I really love that. Now I have to ask you, identify your daughters as your millennial daughters.

And when you wrote the book about not wanting to be three, what was the thing that you noticed with your millennial dog? That might’ve been a struggle or something that was a different struggle that you had when you were raising.

[00:25:09] Gramps Jeffrey: It goes back to we talking about discipline. Again, my parents were coming from a whole, very disciplined generation because they won the war and they’d put that on us.

And that’s one of the reasons they made sure I pay for my own education, all that very disciplined, but yeah. As far as discipline is, you know, my brother, Larry and I were messed up, my mother would say, where do your dad gets home? And then when he came home, he would grab his belt and he would chase us around the dining room table.

You know, that was their definition of discipline. Yeah. He had this fraternity paddle in one night when they were out of the house, my brother and I got the fraternity paddle. And again, we’re up in Ohio and it was the late fall and there’s a lot of leaves on the ground and we buried it underneath a pile of leaves and snow the next night.

And then we came back that spring and it was. To me, that was the greatest miracle ever. The paddle was God. So that’s how I was disciplined. I didn’t discipline my girls that way. My boy, I had four kids, I got three girls and a boy. And so we didn’t chase him around the kitchen table with belts, but we taught them a little differently with, you know, we talked to them the whole different time, but their discipline is even better than ours.

I mean, if you take a look at these millennials and how the discipline in their kids is, they stick them in the corner for time out. These little kids, they don’t want to be alone in the corner. All by themselves are away from all their friends. It works. The cutest kind of discipline I saw was I was in a daughter, my three-year-old granddaughter Grace’s birthday.

And we were in Austin, Texas. I live in Scottsdale, Arizona. So we flew out for the. And she, and a brother is four and a half years old. She’d gotten a bunch of trucks for a birthday and they were starting to fight over the trucks. She looks over to him and she says, I need my space. And she gets up and she walks over to one side of the sofa and a brother says, I need my space too.

And he walks and he goes the other side of the sofa. Now they didn’t learn that on the internet. I am sure that their mother got so frustrated with them one day and said, I need my space. And she walks away. But it works. It works for them. So they’re much smarter than I ever was.

[00:27:13] Bob Wheeler: That’s such a great story.

Well grabs we are at the fast five and the fast five is brought to you by Greenlight the debit card for kids managed by parents. For more information, you can click on the link in the show notes or grants like, ah, this is so fun because I love both of the areas of expertise that you have. I love this part about the entrepreneurs and all that stuff.

And I definitely love hearing. The kids and how we can work to mold kids to be the best versions of themselves. But we’re going to jump into the fast five right now. And if we can just have a little fun and get a little fast and furious, sort of see where it goes. Okay. Is there anything you wish you would’ve done differently in your twenties?

[00:27:54] Gramps Jeffrey: I was so focused on being successful in business that I didn’t spend enough time with my kids. And I think that’s maybe one of the reasons why a lot of those grandparents are making an effort, even the 70% that are not the ones that don’t care about the gifts, making an effort to be involved in the lives of their grandkids.

Because I miss it. I was traveling around the world for my business. I miss soccer games. I miss graduations. Right. So I guess if I knew what I know now, I would’ve made a different kind of effort because I was driven by money.

[00:28:26] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. What was the price of gas when you were a teen?

[00:28:32] Gramps Jeffrey: It was a dollar 27.

[00:28:34] Bob Wheeler: It is not a dollar 27. Now, do you recall an embarrassing money moment from your child?

[00:28:41] Gramps Jeffrey: Yeah. When I lent money to of what I thought were my good friends and I never got it back. So I learned from that.

[00:28:50] Bob Wheeler: Absolutely. So of all of your grandkids, which one’s your favorite?

[00:28:55] Gramps Jeffrey: I don’t have a favorite. That’s one of the, we were talking about what causes riffs between parents and grandparents.

You know, for grandparent Tennessee to play favorites and manipulate the siblings that will get you thrown out of the house faster than anything else. So I can tell you, I have no favorites.

[00:29:15] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. That is a true diplomat of a grandparent. So I figured that was the answer. But I had to ask, I had to ask, is there anything besides taxes that you really don’t like to spend money on?

[00:29:29] Gramps Jeffrey: Oh, you know, interesting that we are all now approaching, worrying about death taxes and death. They go hand in hand. When you think about that, 16% of the population is over 65 years old, but 75% of the COVID deaths came from that same 65 years and older. We are dropping fast. I heard that the lifespan now is two years less than it was before the pandemic, because of this added deaths.

We’re getting. We start to have the thinking about death. And interestingly enough, my wife was saying we got to get some plots. Isn’t that? We’re too young for that. So that’s my next thing about

[00:30:08] Bob Wheeler: money. All right. Looking for the next neighborhood, a quiet neighborhood with a good view. Absolutely. Well where at our M and M moment, our sweet spot money and motivation.

Do you have a practical tip or a piece of wealth wisdom you could share with our listeners, something that worked for.

[00:30:27] Gramps Jeffrey: As soon as you’re able to put money into your 401k, do it no matter what else, what other pressures you have, make sure you start contributing to your 401k when you’re younger, it’s very painful.

But as you were with a company that matches, you’ve got to do this. Give up an extra night out with your friends at the dinner. Give that up, start with your 401k. As soon as you are.

[00:30:55] Bob Wheeler: I think that is such a great piece of advice. And if you’re younger and you’re making a little bit of a wage in high school, put some money in an IRA get started and it doesn’t have to be a million bucks thousand bucks, 2000 bucks.

Just get the ball rolling. I couldn’t agree more well, Gramps, listen, this has been such a fun conversation for me. I really appreciate. The information you brought in about entrepreneurs. What I really took away though, from this all was this piece about curiosity, all of us getting a little bit more curious.

And the intentionality of connecting with your grandkids with this intention of teaching them skills, how to listen, how to bond, we all could be better listeners. That’s probably one of the most important skills out there is the ability to listen actively, listen, instead of jumping over everybody else to tell our story or to one up somebody, but to actually take in what people are saying.

And I love that your parents, even though it probably, wasn’t always fun. We’re like, figure it out on your own. Don’t rely on all these potential possible. Maybe safety nets, like figure it out and you’ll end up landing on your feet. And I think that entrepreneurial spirit is probably what helped you to take chances to go to Florida, to go to Arizona and to take things that you might not have because they wouldn’t have worked out or they were beyond your comfort zone.

Yeah, you bring

[00:32:18] Gramps Jeffrey: up. If there’s one thing that we can think through for this conversation is creating a curiosity that builds imaginations. Yeah. Is the one thing we as adults have got to do with these

[00:32:29] Bob Wheeler: young kids. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I so appreciate that you are out there actively working to. Better the minds of young kids, because that is the future.

And the more that they can come into their own with all the tools and support the better the whole world will be. So I so appreciate what you’re doing. Where can people find you on social media and on.

[00:32:50] Gramps Jeffrey: Oh, they can buy the book, both books, amazon.com or Barnes and noble, but a hundred other sites on the internet.

Or they can come to my site, which is Gramps, jeffries.com. Or if any of your listeners want to continue this conversation, please reach out to me. My email is grandpa jeffrey@gmail.com and we can

[00:33:08] Bob Wheeler: keep talking. Awesome. Well, we will definitely put that out there and invite everybody to check you out and check out your book.

Thanks again for coming on the show. It was just such a pleasure. Thank

[00:33:18] Gramps Jeffrey: you. I appreciate.

[00:33:26] Bob Wheeler: we hope you enjoyed this episode. Did you learn something new about your relationship to money today? Maybe you have a friend who has some financial blocks or beliefs that are holding them back. Please share this podcast. So they too can get off the roller coaster ride of financial fears and journey towards financial freedom.

To learn how to have a healthy relationship with money. Visit the money nerve.com. That’s nerve not nerd. We’ll be back next week with another perspective on money and the emotions that bind us. .