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[MUSIC PLAYING] Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Tyler writes, "I just turned 24. I live with my mom, and I recently got out of prison. I have zero debt, but I have no direction in my life. I know being a felon is not holding me back from accomplishing my goals, and I'm not using that as an excuse. I have no investments, no stocks, no nothing. I don't know where to start, and I have zero guidance. I have a high school diploma, so I'm not a dropout. I just want to know what you would tell somebody in my position who is basically starting over." That's a good question, man. I'm going to assume that the felony that he has served his time, this is done, and he is able to-- the felony, particularly the felony that he has on his record now, he's able to go get a job. And so when I would start doing right now, I think what he needs to do more than anything is go work and work. And that might mean that he's got to start a law in business. That might mean he's got to start a business of his own, but I would just get to work, and get to work, and get to work. And I think you can sit down and spin, and spin, and spin, thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and you're going to look up and be 25, and be 26, and 27. If he was my friend, that's what I tell him. I'd say you need to go get a job right now, start working. And then we'll start working on the mentoring and finding people in your life, but you're going to find those people as you are out being productive out in the world. Yes, I completely agree. I'm trying to think it's not a question that-- his situation is a bit unique in that he's got a felony, but basically we all start over every morning. And so what do you do when you're starting over? I mean, what do you do at the beginning of the year for your new year's resolution? And so one of the things I've done throughout my entire life is I've studied people who became successful, and also studied people who were the opposite, who didn't become successful. And that starts pointing you towards several things. One thing it points you towards is you become who you hang around with. And so start choosing a friend group of ambitious go-getter people who are going somewhere with their life type people. And that's who you run with. You don't run with the guy who gets off on Friday and smokes weed all weekend and tries to figure out how to not get back to work on Monday and end up anything but like him. So you become who you hang around with, that's one thing. So choose your friends really careful. As a matter of fact, one piece of research says that over a course of a decade, you will earn within 15% of the average of your 10 closest friends income. So if you hang around people making 100,000, you probably have a high tendency to make 100,000. Hang around people making a half million. You're going to have a high tendency to run around. If you have to run around people making minimum wage, you're going to end up making minimum wage. So number one, be careful. Number two, read nonfiction books constantly about subjects that you want to get better at. Whether it's success, whether it's marriage, maybe later on marriage and parenting. Read books in the area of the profession that you choose to move towards. Number three, if you aim at nothing, it's exactly used to say you'll hit it every time. So you need to have goals. You need to say, OK, I'm 24. By the time I'm 30, I want to be doing X, Y, Z. And then what are the steps and the things you need to do to hit that goal? My friend Henry Cloud calls that your desired future. What does your desired future six years from today? And then what are the things you have to do to become that? What classes have to be taken? What do we do? All those kinds of things. And a great place to plug into people with integrity, people that are forward thinking, people that are family-oriented, is in a good church. Now, is everybody in a church good people? No, that's why they need to be in church. But they're not. But sometimes there's some bad people there like there's anywhere else. But it's a great place to get young men and old men in your life that are of quality and disciple and mentor and develop the spiritual side of your life as well, your values that you base your life on. And if you do those things, you're going to go a long way really, really fast. And the starting point of that is exactly what John said. It's get a job. But then get another job, and then get another job, and then keep moving in the direction that that-- what have you got to do? You got to go be an apprentice to do this? Have you got to take a certification class to do this? And then start moving in that direction. But something right now, if you think about being that person when you're 30, when you say that person and you know what that person is, I don't, your pulse rate changes. You get a little bit excited and a smile breaks out on your face. Now, go do that one. That's the one you need to go do. And for me, when I was his age, I was going to be a real estate mogul. I wanted to be a big time real estate guy. I wanted to own shopping centers and office buildings, and I was going to be a commercial real estate guy. And so I started buying real estate at 22 years old. Now, I went broke and lost everything, because I did it wrong, because I was stupid. But the end of the story is, I ended up owning a whole bunch of real estate. Now, today, although it's my second passion, not my primary, but at least it caused me to move in a direction that ultimately led me to this desk. So it's cool stuff, Tyler. It's a good question. And it shows a lot of maturity. It does. I don't think he had some time of reflection when he's behind bars. And this is stemming from a call I took this morning on my show, Dave. There's going to be things that Tyler runs up against. I'll just tell you, Tyler, direct. There's things you're going to run up against. You're going to really be moving and shaking. And you're going to meet some people. And they're going to be impressed by your work. Let's say you start doing electrical work. And you keep moving and moving. And then your buddy's going to come take you out to lunch and say, I want you to come work for my company. And then you're going to get down the pipeline at the company. And then an HR director is going to flag your application, because you have to check a box, says I'm a felon. And it's going to get you dropped out of the process. I don't want you to beat up young Tyler. I don't want you to go back. I want you to dust your sandals off and go on to the next thing and say, all right, we all have a great week. And I appreciate the opportunity to move on with you. The more you let these past decisions haunt you into the future, it's not going to help anything in the future. It's just going to drag on you. What's the saying you are not the worst thing you have done? You're not the worst thing you've ever done. And if that's not your identity, no. And this will cost you some opportunities. Oh, yeah. It will. And so it's-- I'll bankrupt see. That's right, of course. Every time for the rest of my life that I fill out an application. And I don't fill out loan applications, but there's all kinds of things that come up. Have you ever filed bankruptcy? You still have to click that box. It doesn't say have you recently. It doesn't say was it a decade ago. It said ever. And so forever, I'm a bankrupt person. No, I'm not. I'm a person that did that one time. I'm a guy that filed bankruptcy a long time ago. There's nothing bankrupt about me. That's exactly right. So don't let this become-- you're not a felon. Nope. You're a guy that committed a felony. You paid your debt to society, and now you're back out there, making a contribution. And so it's going to depend on you, though, to not let this thing haunt you forever. Yeah, that's true. That's good. That's good. Yeah, you reset your identity, and you read your way, and you hang your way-- who you hang with, and you get up and go to church on Sunday, and you work your tail off Monday through Saturday, and you read and read and read and read and read. Make it a goal to say how many books I've read, not how much Netflix I've binged. Create your free $3 budget today, the simplest way to budget for your life.
