038: Adam Carroll – Becoming a Life Architect: Build a Bigger Life, Not a Bigger Lifestyle

Adam Carroll has spent the last decade studying human behavior, particularly as it relates to leadership and personal finance. He’s an internationally recognized financial literacy expert, a two-time TEDx speaker, and the author of four Amazon best-sellers.

Today, Adam joins the show to share his passion for helping people create financial freedom through unconventional financial strategies. Jonathan and Adam discuss how our relationship with money has changed over the last two decades, what it takes to change financial habits, and the importance of architecting the life you want to live.

📺 Watch on YouTube

https://youtu.be/Nv3NddjPabI

Key Takeaways

01:03 – Jonathan takes a moment to read a five-star review and encourages listeners to leave their own reviews

01:52 – Jonathan introduces today’s guest, Adam Carroll, who joins the show to share his first entrepreneurial memory and what he learned about financial fights from an early age

07:52 – The importance of being on the same financial page as your spouse

12:03 – Adam’s journey to teaching financial literacy

19:05 – How to improve financial literacy through behavioral change

22:19 – Why money is such a difficult subject here in the United States

23:55 – Architecting the life you want to live

26:48 – How our relationship with money has changed in the last twenty years

31:29 – The Shred Method

37:08 – One piece of financial advice to focus on and one thing to absolutely ignore

41:07 – The last thing Adam changed his mind about and one thing he would like others to know about him

Tweetable Quotes

“I remember very distinctly thinking, ‘Well, if I want to make money, I just have to create something of value and that will be how I make money.’ And that’s kinda how I’ve existed over the past couple of decades.” (05:09) (Adam)

“In conversations with some of our clients, when we’re doing money coaching and relationship to money coaching – we’ll often say to people, ‘How much money do you need to feel safe and secure?’ And one partner will give a number and the other one will say, ‘That’s not true. There’s no amount of money that will make you feel safe and secure, because we’ve had that money sitting there for X amount of years and you’re still insecure about money.’ And I think that sort of goes to the very heart of maybe the message that we’re given early on, or an early money memory that was created around money.” (10:53) (Adam)

“We have this mantra. ‘If you do for two years what most people won’t do, you can do for the rest of your life what most people can’t do.’” (13:36) (Adam)

“I truly believe that the single best thing that someone can do that really wants to dial into their own financial literacy is find someone that’s living a life that they aspire to and then go deep on that person’s content.” (19:41) (Adam)

“It’s one of my favorite quotes, ‘Our lives are perfectly engineered for the results that we’re currently getting.’ So, whatever you’re living right now has been the product of the last six or twelve months or five years of decisions that have put you in this place. And if you want to change what the future looks like, just change the decisions you make today.” (26:10) (Adam)

“The two greatest expenses we have in life are taxes and the interest expense on debt.” (34:36) (Adam)

“The way to be financially successful is to make sure your income is always greater than your expenses for as long as humanly possible.” (37:41) (Adam)