"The Wise Investor" Author Explains How "Rich Dad Poor Dad" Meets "The Alchemist

"That was their dream back then – going places. Traveling the world. Now, twelve years later, he was forced to admit that they hadn't gone anywhere." - excerpt from "The Wise Investor"

If you've longed to improve yourself, to reach greater heights, to have more freedom and more money to pay for it all, this book is for you. "The Wise Investor: A Modern Parable About Creating Financial Freedom and Living Your Best Life" by Rich Fettke is an inspiring parable about building what author Rich calls Real Wealth. It tells the story of Ryan Brooks, a husband, father, and hard-working employee who, with the help of a new friend and mentor, finds a different path to financial security for himself and his family and becomes wealthy in more ways than he thought possible.

In this episode, Rich joins his wife, Kathy on The Real Wealth Show, to talk about his new book -- why he wrote it, what it might teach you, why it's so powerful yet so much fun to read, and what it could potentially do to change your life.

Rich oversees the business development at RealWealth. He is passionate about developing the RealWealth team and systems, and is always looking for new ways to bring good people into the RealWealth family. As a licensed real estate broker, experienced investor and Master Certified Business Coach, Rich specializes in helping the team stay aligned and inspired to fulfill the company's purpose, mission and values.

Twenty years ago, he wrote "Extreme Success." His latest inspiration is a new book and the topic of this episode: "The Wise Investor: A Modern Parable About Creating Financial Freedom and Living Your Best Life." The kindle book is available now at Amazon. The hard cover and audio versions can be pre-ordered and will be available in late August.

If you're not yet a member of RealWealth, please take a moment to sign up at realwealthshow.com. RealWealth helps educate people on the creation of passive income with single-family rentals in desirable markets around the country. It's free to join and get access to the Investor Portal where you can see sample properties and connect with our network of resources. That includes experienced investment counselors, property teams, lenders, 1031 exchange facilitators, attorneys, CPAs and more.

And please remember to subscribe to our podcast and leave a review! Thank you!

TRANSCRIPT

Kathy Fettke: I'm very excited to interview today's guest on The Real Wealth Show. He is a best-selling author with a new book called "The Wise Investor." And this has come out almost 20 years since his last bestseller called "Extreme Success." I actually know a lot about this book already because the author is my husband Rich Fettke. Rich, welcome back to The Real Wealth Show.

Rich Fettke: Thank you, Kathy Fettke. Good to be here.

K: A lot of our listeners know who you are, but we have lots of new listeners. So I'm just going to give a little bio on you. You're a master certified coach from the Coach Training Institute.

He has coached people in business and in their personal life for years. He has coached us at RealWealth. He has been our Co-CEO and now CEO of RealWealth and I get to just be a Founder, which is awesome. Thank you for taking all those details off my plate, Rich! And, now he's published a new book called "The Wise Investor."

So let's talk about that. First of all, why did it take so long? It's been 20 years since your last book.

R: Yeah, well, we've been running RealWealth over the last 20 years. 20 years ago, when "Extreme Success" came out, I was touring all over the country and doing morning news shows and radio interviews and books, bookstore signing events, when they used to have bookstores way back then. But then I was diagnosed with melanoma and told I had six months to live, as many of your listeners probably are aware of. That was the impetus for you to say: "I have to find a way to make ends meet if Rich dies so I will learn about real estate investing." And that led to RealWealth being created.

So over the last 20 years, we've been really focused on running RealWealth and growing it and building it and helping members acquire investment properties and educating members. So, it's been my coach kind of knocking on my head saying: "When is your next book gonna come out?"

It wasn't until about four years ago when we started to apply story branding to RealWealth. It comes from Don Miller who wrote a book called "Building a Story Brand." It's all about seeing the customer as the hero of the story and you, the business, being just the guide.

So I really got into this whole thing about the hero's journey and Joseph Campbell and storytelling. I just thought it was fascinating. And so one day I mentioned that to my coach Kenji, and I just said: "You know, If I was going to write another book, I'd probably want to write some type of story and follow the hero's journey.

That was the spark, and then I got obsessed with it. It's like, oh man, I could tell, I could tell a parable with powerful lessons and really communicate these lessons emotionally. So that's why it took me 20 years. But it's done. I'm finally finished.

K: There are so many things I want to say about what you just said. I'll just start with it's so cool that you have a coach. You are a coach, and yet you have one and you always will have one, and you are religious about that. You look at your coaching journal every morning. So would you mind just kind of telling us a little bit about how you do that, how you do your life?

R: Yeah. I mean, just having a coach, it's like having someone else there to ask the questions that we're not asking ourselves. So I'm going to speak for me individually. It's like, I can only ask myself so many questions and it's easy to get stuck. It's easy to get in my own way. So having someone hold up that mirror in front of me and saying, How are you living?

Are you being your best self? What's working? What's not working? Where can you improve? Where can you love more? Where can you give more? How can you create more? It just helped me see beyond myself. So that's why I think the coaching process is incredibly, incredibly powerful. It's been amazing for me.

And, you know, I've seen it with my clients. I've been coaching clients over the years and seeing people who took years to create a business plan and that still hadn't done it. And then they start coaching and six weeks later, their business plans are done.

For example, another client who wanted to be a real estate broker and had put it off for 10 years. Within a year, he was a licensed real estate broker and it was because of the support, accountability, and clarity. That's why I love that process.

As for my coaching, I get up every morning and I review what I call my coaching, my master plan. It's my three ring binder that has my goals for the week and my rituals and my success habits that I track. All those little tiny actions that build up to help me be a better me. I need to be reminded of those actions consistently.

K: It's so cute. You've got the check boxes for things like, did I compliment my wife today? Did I call my mom? You check them off to make sure they happened. It's in the book. It's all about self-reflection and measurement. Whether I measuring up to what I want to be. Not what somebody else wants me to be, but how I want to be and what I want to be. Such a scary thing to do.

I remember when I first started "The Real Wealth Show, I refused to listen to it. I didn't want to hear my voice. I didn't want to hear me mess up. I just wanted to think that it went great and not really analyze it or watch it.

And I remember, you would watch every speech you gave. You'd watch it five times to just take notes and see where you can improve. You didn't take it personally. It was more like, I'm going to really see myself and then make adjustments.

R: Yeah. Except when I did, sometimes I would take it personally and be like, God, I suck.

But yeah, it would just be like, okay, what am I doing there? You know, it's like, I'm talking too fast or I'm coming off preachy. So it's that feedback to be find out how I can improve.

K: Why do you think people are so afraid of that self observation?

R: Ego. Yeah, I think it's ego.

I think it's when we let the ego, that little gremlin come in and say, like, see you suck, see you're not good. That little gremlin is always looking for artillery to hold against us. So I think it's kind of like saying, okay, gremlin, I know you're going to kind of try to berate me here. The gremlin is always there to protect us, to try to make us better, to challenge us. It's not really a bad guy. It's like putting the ego aside and say, okay, gremlin, if you want me to be better, this is what I need to do. And to realize that's how we learn. That's how we grow. It's like watching our little grandson learn to walk. He would walk along and fall. He'd get up again. And he's like, oh, I see what I did there. And he'd go along. So it's that constant feedback. We have to fall down for us to be able to say, okay, what didn't work there so we can get better.

K: Now in your book, the wise investor, it's a parable. And I got to just. You decided to do the audio for this and there's, and it's a story. So you actually have to act throughout the whole entire time you read it. And not only that you had to do it in like 10 different voices, several of them being women.

So I cannot wait for this audio book to come out. I think you said it's coming out in August.

R: Yeah. So the ebook is out now. It's been out for a month now, and I'm really stoked because it's been on the bestseller list every day since it came out. It came out on April 20th and it's still on the bestseller list on Amazon so that's super cool. And then the hardcover and the audio book will come out at the end of August. So they're available for pre-order, but, yeah, we're waiting for that. It's the supply chain issues. We're waiting for the printing presses to get enough paper, just like in real estate, they're waiting for wood to build houses.

Right. So yeah, I'm excited about that. Excited to hold the book in my hand.

K: I just love that you read it because I mean, acting creates a whole new world of self criticism, right? When your first audio book came out, we were just going to bed, I think we were somewhere in Utah skiing and we were listening to it. And we're both, huh, I don't know if I loved that so you just went back to the studio and rerecorded it.

R: Yeah. I just didn't like my pace and my cadence and all that stuff. It was like, yeah, it was a discipline and a practice. And, I think I pulled it off. Let's see what the reviews are like in August, but, I'm pretty happy with it, except when I'm not. Sometimes I'll listen to it and be like, oh, I wish I did that different.

So it is a modern parable. I wanted to tell a story. There's so many books on finance and real estate investing and personal development books and everything, and they're great. But a lot of times the statistics are crazy. 86% of people who start a book, don't make it past chapter two. It's insane. So I didn't want to write a book like that. I didn't want to write a book that people would just buy and have it be on their bookshelf. I wanted them to read it, cover to cover, and I love parables.

I've read so many great parables that are engaging, that tell a lesson, that share so many lessons when you weave it in. So yeah, that was the purpose of writing a parable. Creating a story that would be compelling, that would connect with people emotionally, that would actually elicit a change in them so they do things different. It's about creating financial freedom, but it's also about, living your best life, becoming your best self.

K: Well as a coach, and you're very, very good coach, you simply don't have the time to coach all the people that would love to have you be their coach. And, so the book reads like you're coaching them. I know you didn't write it with you being the wise investor, but it's what it feels like, you know, because it's a younger guy who's just really frustrated with life. Right. Just working too much, not enough time with the family and wants a change and things are kind of falling apart until he meets this older, wiser man who guides him along the way.

And it just so happens that older wiser man also does a lot of extreme sports. (laughter)

R: Yeah. He says in the beginning, yeah, this wiser mentor... It was powerful writing the book because it was like, what would I do? What would my future self say here? What would my future self coach them like?

So I really looked at the mentor as me in the future. If I get wiser, if I get in better shape, if I'm living a better life. So he's like this guy who I aspire to be, but at the same time, that was really powerful because it really got me. I could just close my eyes and think, okay, what would my wisest self, my best, what advice would he give here? Whether it be about investing or money management or being a better husband or being a better dad or being in better shape.

So yeah, this mentor, absolutely, he doesn't want it to be these boring mentoring sessions. And that's what he says in the beginning. He's just like, you know, I don't want to be sitting on a phone or sitting on a desk with you. Let's do something fun. Let's get outside and let's play. And he quotes Plato where he says, you can learn more about someone in an hour of play than in a lifetime of conversation. So he learns a lot about Ryan, this guy, this struggling family man who really needs the needs to help. He learns a lot about him. And then Ryan learns about a lot about his mentor as well.

K: It seems men are under a lot of pressure these days. I mean, they always have been, men typically were responsible for the finances until, you know, the last generation. =But there's still a lot of pressure on men. What, what do you see as that being and how was that described in the book?

R: Well, we create our own pressure. Right? I think it's like, so what I wove into "The Wise Investor" were sort of the best, most important principles that are around wisdom. They came from my mentors. They came from, us interviewing people on The Real Wealth Show together and their real wealth stories.

So I kind of wove a lot of those stories in, but there was a book that I read called "The Way of the Superior Man," which you're familiar with Kathy...

K: Oh man, I'm so glad you read it.

R: And it was really good. It's by David Deida, "The Way of the Superior Man," and in that there are really powerful lessons about showing up as a really good spouse, or man, or partner, to your woman, or to your significant other. It's like really showing up, being more attentive, acknowledging, like you said earlier, I checked that thing off, you know, make sure that we acknowledge Kathy consistently.

It's an easy thing for us to forget because like anyone, men or women or anyone, we get overloaded and we get overwhelmed and we start focusing so much on all this stuff we have to do and work and all that, that we often don't stop to step back and say, how am I showing up? How am I living? How am I being? And so some of the huge lessons in "The Wise Investor" is Ryan, the protagonist, learning these lessons. He's really looking at himself and his life and saying, how am I showing up? How am I showing up as a husband? How am I showing up as a dad? What about as an investor? How am I managing my money?

You know, he makes a decent income, but that money is going everywhere except for into investing. So he learned some big lessons about where to direct that money so he can not create financial freedom.

K: You call it "The Wise Investor" and people would assume that means that you're talking about money and building wealth, but it's much broader for you. So tell me about that.

R: Absolutely. "The Wise Investor" is about investing but it's not just about money. It's about investing in assets and the way the mentor describes it as assets are things that bring you income or happiness or health or time. And liabilities are just the opposite. Liabilities are the things that cost you money or health or happiness or time. So it's really about investing in yourself, investing in your life, investing in assets that, whether it be real estate or whether it be working out or whether it be into investing time into your family or investing into your own business, which his wife, the protagonist's wive has her own business, so he learned some really powerful lessons from the mentor's wife, actually. So yeah, there's definitely some girl power in there too. That's cool.

K: Yes. I love that. Now on your website, people can download a life wheel. Right? You want to tell people how to find that?

R: Sure. So with the book, there's a whole resources center and in the back of the book. It's just realwealth.com/grow. So if people go to realwealth.com/grow, they can see Ryan's "grow" notebook. He takes a notebook throughout the whole thing, all his lessons that he learns. And so that ended up being like 35 pages long, which is just the lessons without the story. There's the life wheel where you can really do an assessment. And this is where, if your listeners have attended a "Focused Investor" that I do every year, we do that life wheel. And it's about looking at these 10 major areas of your life, to really look at how satisfied you are in these areas. And it goes from health to fun and recreation to your significant other and your romance to spirituality, to your career, to your finances, all these different areas.

So the mentor actually takes Ryan through this process of assessing. So it's the same thing. It's like, I want the reader of the book to kind of experience being mentored by this wise investor and kind of step into the shoes of Ryan or his wife Carissa, and really learn these lessons. So there's that. He takes him through the future self exercise, which is also on that resource page. People can listen to the future self visualization that I walk people through that the mentor takes the protagonist through as well. Good stuff, but you know that this story kind of connects it all and the resources is more about the doing. So you can do that after.

K: Our daughter is traveling Asia right now. And she is partially volunteering and partially just having an amazing time traveling. And one of the things that she keeps telling us about is how happy people are there. She was in Thailand and then Indonesia and the Philippines, and she said, there's such extreme poverty yet she saw so much happiness.

Now she grew up in a very wealthy place, right, in Malibu where she saw a lot of money, not necessarily a lot of happiness. So what, what would you say it is about our Western culture, where there's so much focus on this one quadrant of our life, of that circle of life, and you know, that one quadrant where we spend the bulk of our time and energy, just trying to create more money.

So, you know, What is that? Why don't we do that?

R: I know that's a really good question. That's the big question mark, and then the mentor says that he says, you know, people are so poor. All they have is money. And that's what we see in Malibu. There's people who have a lot of money and they're really happy. There's people who have a lot of money and they're miserable or grumpy which kind of blows my mind.

I think the why is because in our capitalistic society, which I believe in capitalism and conscious capitalism when you're focused on making a difference in all these different areas, but when we get too sucked into the how you look and if I just have that, then I'll be happy type thing. And that's one of the huge lessons woven throughout the whole book. You know, the mentor talks about creating real wealth, which is more than just money. It's about having the freedom to be able to do what you want when you want with the people you want to be with. And he says most importantly to enjoy each moment.

So this mentor talks about the wealthy people he knows, and the people who have real wealth, where they have that fulfillment and that peace of mind, and they have the abundance in many different areas. He really goes into these lessons about the way wealthy people think and the way poor people think.

And it's not just people. Like he said, there's some poor people who have a lot of money, but they're still poor. So it's wealthy people, and what I've seen as wealthy people, the true wealthy people, have a lot of wealth and abundance, they have an abundance of connection with the people they care about.

They have an abundance of health because they take care of themselves and they have energy and vitality. They have an abundance of time because they leverage their time and by investing in it. They put their money into it, they hire people who can do the things that they don't want to do, and they can focus on what they're really good at their unique abilities.

So it's a shift of mindset that's intentional. It's really about being intentional. It's about like, okay, if I was really feeling abundant and fulfilled and really experiencing real wealth, what would my life look like? So it starts there. It's really about getting clarity about what does your life look like for you to really feel happy? And the bottom line is we really happy when we're moving toward what matters most to us. That's the bottom line and that's scientifically proven -- when we're moving toward what we really care about, what's important to us and we're getting better. That's when we have happiness.

So it's not about making the million dollars or the $5 million or the $10 million or 10 X'ing a business. That's not going to create happiness. What's going to create happiness is the journey on the way to making that happen. And knowing that you're on purpose and that you're contributing and your business is doing something, making a difference in the world.

K: And it's really, you know, there's this whole 10 X thing, and I'm not trying to put down anyone who came up with that. But, you've never been the 10 X guy. You do it differently. There have been times I'd come to meetings and be like, why aren't we texting?

R: That's so funny. You're right. It's so true because, it can feel defeating going for that. I heard a coach many, many years ago. He was keynoting at the International Coach Federation conference. And I remember he said one phrase and it really stuck with me. And it was "for the sake of what?" And he said, whenever you're doing something, anything, a goal, and you're setting it, you say "for the sake of what, why am I really, why am I setting this goal?" So the 10 X thing is like, "for the sake of what, why?"

And so I like to look at kind of more of that one X role. So it's like, how can you get 1% better each day? How can you make the business 1% better each day? And then you get the compounding effect and all of a sudden you look and you're like, wow, we have 10 X star business, but the focus isn't on the 10 X, the focus is on a little bit. It's the process. Is a little better each day? How can we serve our members more effectively? How can we, whatever it is, how can you, or how can I get a little better today? And that most important measurement I think is looking backwards. It's like, I'm better than I use to be. You know, how have I grown over this last month?

So you'll hear about, becoming the best version of yourself so much. Right. So I, I really look at that and I look at like, okay, what version of I am I right now. I'm at version 58.4. Next month, I'm going to version 58.5, and it's going to be better than I am today.

So, when you look into the future and when I'm 60 point, oh, I'm going to be better than I am today. That's my intention. So that brings happiness. That brings improvement. And that will lead you to 10 X or 20 X or a thousand X.

K: Well, I can just say personally. I've seen, I've seen all of this in reality. This is not just talk and, and especially over the past year where we both kind of realized we'd been going hard on that business for 20 years. And really most of, a lot of our focus was going there and you can kind of look at each other and go, oh, do I even know you anymore. It's been 20 years, same person, like have I checked?

And we've really turned our focus again on each other. Of course we're empty nesters, so it's a little bit easier. And on our family, the things that matter and really made sure that we're balancing that. And just again, people change and it's a constant practice of getting to know the people you love more and more every day.

R: People definitely change and they either get better or they get worse. Right. So I think that's the key. And I know that you and I met in a personal development workshop about getting better about being better humans, you know, and improving ourselves. And I think we've stayed on that quest and I think it just takes constant attention.

And even in a relationship, you know... just last night we had our Marriage journal out and we had our couple connect cards where we draw a card and we ask each other questions and stuff. So it's things like that, that you just have to do on a regular basis to keep getting better, to keep improving and to keep things fulfilling and connected and all that good stuff.

K: All right. So once again, let everyone know where they can get your new.

R: So it's on all the major booksellers, but, amazon.com is probably the easiest place to go. It's called "The Wise Investor." It's a modern parable about creating financial freedom and living your best life. That's the subtitle.

Robert Kiyosaki wrote the forward for it, which I'm stoked about. So yeah, it's through Rich Dad Advisors Press. They published it. The e-book is out now, so you can get that on Kindle or you can pre-order the hardcover, which will be out in August or the audio book for your own fun entertainment.

If people want to learn more about the book, you can just go to thewiseinvestorbook.com. That's got more information about the book.

K: It's so amazing that the reason it is not coming out until August is a shortage of paper.

R: What a time we're in. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, the cool thing on Amazon is you can go in and you can click on the look inside and you can read the introduction, the foreword by Robert Kiyosaki. You can read the first chapter and a half. So you can get a real good feeling of the book and the story. So, that's for free.

K: Awesome. All right, Mr. Fettke. Well, thank you for being back here on The Real Wealth Show and for sharing your wisdom.

R: Great to be here as always. Looking forward to next time.

K: Me too. All right, let's go surf.