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Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where we explore the journeys that lead to success.

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I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you

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insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders, and experts who will share not just their expertise

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but the milestone moments that have reshaped their journeys and led to significant achievements.

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So if you're looking for motivation, you're in the right place. Subscribe now and discover the

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milestones that mark the path to success. Hi, everybody. Thank you for joining me today

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in Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership. I'm your host, Sheila Slick. And today, my guest,

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Jerry Fedda, is a wealth expert who helps people take control of their finances. He is founder of

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Wealth Dynamics and two other organizations, Fraud Free World, which is a nonprofit initiative

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aimed at preventing and eradicating financial fraud from this planet, and the North American

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Effective Management Association for Financial Services, where he serves as founding director.

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Jerry also serves on the leadership council of the National Small Business Association

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in Washington, D.C., and is an author of five books, all centered around wealth creation,

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money management, and financial guidance. Welcome to the show, Jerry. Thank you, Sheila. It's great

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to be on today. I've read a lot about what you do, and I'd love for you to share a little bit of

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your backstory. How did you get to where you are today? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think, you know,

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my my story is is not too much different in certain elements from from many of our stories

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where, you know, I didn't grow up learning about money. And that was something that caused a lot

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of problems and a lot of pain in my family growing up. Right. So, you know, one unique part of my

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stories when I was eight years old, all in the same summer is a hell of a year. Mom and dad got

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divorced. We lost the house. The car got repoed. I was homeless both on my mom's side and on my dad's

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side. On my dad's side, we were living in a tent. I was eight. So I thought we were just camping.

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And then on my mom's side, we were in a dry camper behind someone's house. But I knew all of that

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happened because of money. And so that was something that, you know, was kind of a negative experience

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for me. And I grew up kind of not wanting to be involved with money. I had a disdain for it. And

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that definitely kind of planted an early seed into, you know, me doing what I do today. A big part of

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that is tied to the experience that I had growing up with money. Why do you do what you do? Is it

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because of what happened to you as a child? Do you want to help others or did you want to help yourself?

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Yeah. So, you know, when I first got involved in this, this finance stuff that I do, my vision

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really was like, I want to learn this, right? Because I started becoming an adult, you know,

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learning that money was kind of like oxygen and gravity. It doesn't just go away. It's a very big

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part of all of our lives. And so I realized it's something that I need to learn, or it's going to

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continue to be the master of me and my decisions and my freedoms and the things I can and can't do.

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And so I got into, you know, financial services from that aspect. And as I started learning this

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stuff, Sheila, I started seeing solutions for the things that my parents faced when I was a kid.

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And I started seeing that a lot of them weren't that complicated. It was stuff that

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if the information was presented, I'm sure my mom and dad would have been like, wow, this makes

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sense. We should be applying these things. And I just was never taught. I wasn't taught this stuff

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in school. So that was kind of my initial thing was I wanted to just learn this for myself. But

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when I saw how helpful and how impactful it can be for anyone, really, I love helping. And so that

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was something where like I felt the need. That was like, now that I know this, it would almost be

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unethical of me to not share this with more people and prevent, you know, the stuff that I had to go

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through as a kid. And that was kind of the first point. That's evolved quite a bit. I've been doing

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this since I was 18. I think I'm 32 or 33 now. I always have to count my age and remember how old I

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am. But my vision today is a world where the majority of wealth is controlled by good people

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who use it to make the world a better place. And I think that finances are a tool that we can use

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to improve quality of life for ourselves, the quality of life of our loved ones and the quality

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of life for the world around us. And that's really my big push on everything I do today.

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Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Yes, here I also have that you believe the right to build wealth

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and the right to help are both human rights and they're only right. So long as we know them,

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we use them and we protect them. And it says with great financial wealth comes a responsibility

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to lead by example in our daily lives, to help others achieve the same and ultimately to use

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financial wealth to help make the world a better place. I really like that perspective that you

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have. And you have a quote that is also highlighted that I'd love you to explain, walk us through what

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it means to you. And it says before investing in any venture, take the time to evaluate its

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ethical implications and align it with your personal principles. Yeah. So that quote for me,

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it's very important because I didn't grow up in the financial world that way. And I think a lot

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of us when we invest, we've not solved one of the major problems in our lives. And most people have

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this and it's the disconnection of what you do for money and your purposes and your values.

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And when those two things become unlinked, that's where you have people that are working at jobs

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that they don't love just because they need to make a paycheck, just because they need to pay

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the bills. And it's like you have this monotony going through life. And so I think when you can

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align your activities that you do to earn income, the way that you exchange with the world around

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you to bring money in, if you can align that with things that you really value and things that you

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really believe in, it fundamentally changes who you are. Now, what happens is most people don't

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have that. We don't have that figured out yet and we've not aligned those two things together.

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So we step into the investing world and we don't have alignment between money and purpose.

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And so we start looking for investments that are just going to give us the highest rate of return

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or the best looking retirement account or whatever it might be. And we don't realize that the

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investments that we're funding our businesses and enterprises and organizations and those

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businesses, enterprises and organizations, they produce something, whether they're good or bad,

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that something provides a financial return. And I can remember a time when I was a licensed

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financial advisor sitting down with a client and realizing the portfolio that I built them was

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really good, but they started asking questions, Sheila, and they're like, what are these companies?

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And I was seeing warfare, pharmaceuticals, things that I would never usually support.

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And I was like, okay, well, if I wouldn't support this with my time, if I wouldn't work at this place

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for my job, why would I invest money there? Because it's creating an effect that I don't believe in.

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And it goes against my values. I think that that's a point of responsibility for all investors to

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really understand that and keep their integrity in with that. So how do you serve your clients apart

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from the books, which I do want to go over one of the books that really fascinated me?

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How do you help your clients? Yeah, so I've been in this industry for,

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I don't know, 12, 13 years, something like that. And one of the things that I've seen is there is a

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lot of new things being used. And when I say new, for example, the 401k, everyone does it.

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It's only been around since 1980. And so when you look at, okay, we've got this, just as an example,

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we've got this financial tool that we're using. And it's kind of a social experiment. We've never

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seen a full generation of people successfully use that from start to finish and get the result

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that's been advertised. Yet everyone's going all in on it. So I started to really study, Sheila,

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the top 1% of wealth historically. What are the people like the Carnegie's and the Rockefellers

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and the Vanderbilt's? What were they actually doing? And the way that I did that, as I read

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their biographies and I read about how they conducted business and investments, and I started

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to see that those things are very different than what the average American is doing today. And I

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started to see that there's a lot of commonality between those kinds of people. All of them had

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very similar strategies. So I started just on the premise of if you do what successful people do,

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even if you do it badly, you're going to get some semblance of what they have.

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Right. So I started doing that and I started to see some incredible results in my own finances.

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So I took my financial background, the planning, the investing, all the stuff I was doing. And I

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said, I want to really blaze this trail where the average everyday person that's doing the right

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things with their finances can start doing the right things with the right tools. And those

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would be the same tools that the wealthy use. So that's really kind of in a nutshell what we do.

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Our vision is good people building more wealth and making the world a better place.

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And so we work on education. We help people set up investments that they do believe in.

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We've got a lot of really cool technology stuff going on where we've leveraged artificial

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intelligence, mobile apps, certified financial planners, and kind of put this into an interface

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where it gamifies your finances, really simplifies it, and it allows anybody to go through the

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literal steps the top 1% would go through to establish their wealth. And where can the

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audience get more information about this? So go to my website, wealthdynamics.com,

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and you can start learning more about all of the different things we've put together for that.

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Okay. Do you want to spell that out? Yeah. So we spell it unique. It's wealth,

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like W-E-A-L-T-H. Dynamics is D-Y-N-A-M, and then just the letter X. So like dynamex.com.

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So apart from that, you also have five books. In your book, The Big Three Daily Habit Tracker,

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you talk about three big daily habits that we must master in 90 days in order to achieve

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financial freedom. Can we talk about what the big three are and why 90 days?

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Yeah, absolutely. And I've got a copy of it just to show what it looks like here. So this is the

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big three challenge, and mine's a little tattered because I use it myself so much. But basically,

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this came, Sheila, because I used to be a bodybuilder and a personal trainer.

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And as I started to get more and more involved with finances, I started realizing that there's a lot

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of advertising, marketing, and reliance on financial products and services. But there's a lot of,

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I guess, lack on education and basic fundamental behaviors. And I really related that to like when

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I was a personal trainer, you still have to go to the gym, you still have to drink enough water,

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you still have to eat right. And no supplement under the sun is going to change that. It can

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enhance the good things you're already doing and help you make more progress. But if you take bad

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financial habits and plug them in with all the greatest tools in the world, it doesn't change

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the fact that a bad financial habit is a bad financial habit. So the big three themselves,

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what we've put together in the book is really the concept of the amount of time it takes to build a

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habit. So I was taught 21 days. What were you taught Sheila? Was it the 21 days as well?

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21 days to build a habit. So that's not my expertise. I'm going to let you pick that

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because I'm learning from you here with the habit and the discipline, which is what you need to be

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able to break a habit and replace a bad one with a good one. I was always taught the 21 days thing

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as a kid. And some of your listeners might be listening to that and be like, yeah, I was taught

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the 21 days also. A study was done that actually showed on a minimum level, it takes 66 days

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to build a habit or to break a bad habit either way. So that's a lot more time. That's like more

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than 300% more time than we're expecting. Now we live in a day of automation and artificial

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intelligence. Well, the real original automation is human behavior. If you can build habits,

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your mind will automate those things and you just do them daily without having to think about them

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or use too much discipline or effort. So we really put this together on 90 days because I believe if

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you can do anything every day for 90 days, you can do that thing forever. It can really become

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that habit. The three behaviors that we go through in this program is number one, learn about money

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every day for at least 10 minutes. And 10 minutes might not sound like a lot, but if you add that

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up, that's an hour a week, little over an hour a week. And if you do an hour a week, every single

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week for three months in a row, you really start to change your financial intelligence level.

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And for the better, the second thing that we teach is do something additional to earn extra income.

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And this is because one of the keys to building wealth is active income. And we've got this weird

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thing of like go to school and get good grades and go to college and get your degree to get a job.

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But then once you get the job, you can't wait till you turn 60 to stop doing the job you just got.

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And it's like kind of contrary. So in my company, we teach income is good, working is good,

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being productive is good. It's how we add value to people around us. And so that's something where

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we shouldn't be looking for less ways to do it. We should be looking for a higher level of

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contribution and a higher level of income from that contribution. So that's the second habit is

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no matter what it is, even if it's Uber eats, do something, whatever it would be to earn more

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income. And then the third one would be really paying attention to your expenses. And so we

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have something called the one to five game where every day our clients, when they're going through

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this challenge, they're reviewing all their expenses for just the day. And the reason we do

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it for the day is if you think about if you wait an entire week to do dishes in your house, in your

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kitchen, you're not going to want to do them. There's this giant stack and it's like, this is

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overwhelming. If you do a little bit every day, it keeps it down and it's easy for someone to

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confront and handle because it's like 10 dishes instead of 40. So if you do the expenses every day,

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you'll get the same kind of experience. And that one to five skill, it teaches how to prioritize

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expenses and to focus on things that generate income, that reduce taxes or things that are

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like vital needs with your finances. If you're trying to budget, you don't ever want to cut out

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things like food, shelter, clothing, transportation, education, personal wellbeing. Those are things

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you would want to make sure you make room for in the budget. Something like a flat screen TV or a

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new truck or, you know, a brand new four hundred dollar shoes, maybe not such a priority, depending

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on where you're at in life. And that program kind of teaches someone to prioritize those things.

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Do you have like a special tool or one that you would recommend for someone that isn't tracking

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their finances? You know, we do it old school in the journal here. We have it to where someone can

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literally just go through the pages and they can write here and I don't probably can't see that

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very well, but you can write here in the book, in the journal and you can actually there's maybe

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10 or 20 line items so that you would just write what they are in the journal and then you would

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write them right there in the journal. And that kind of takes the barrier of like, I forgot my

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password or I need to download the new version of the app or any of these things that can stop

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someone from doing it. Good old pen and paper is always the most successful foolproof way to get it

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done. Interesting, because you're kind of like a millennial if I calculated correctly, right?

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So I would have assumed everything is digital, digital. So I like the pen and paper. I've heard

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it six more when you use your hand, right? You jot something down rather than type it in,

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you know, a telephone or a computer. So I found that fascinating. But I do agree, you know,

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being aware of where your money's going is a great step to be able to control it. Otherwise,

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you can't make smart decisions if you're not at the very least tracking it. So that would be a

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great beginning for anyone looking to, you know, transform their finances. So you've been an

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entrepreneur since 18, you mentioned. What has been, you know, entrepreneurship is a roller coaster.

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We all have our ups and downs. So throughout that journey, what would you say was one of the biggest

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challenges you had to face? And how did you overcome it? Yeah, the the entrepreneur thing

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is not easy, right? And I think like many people, when I started, I had this romanticized idea that

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I was now my my own man, and I was going to be free. And for the longest time, Sheila, I made less

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money and worked more than when I just had a job. Right. And so I think for me, you know, the biggest

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struggle that I had to really solve for myself as an entrepreneur is probably two things. One of them

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is if you look inside an organizational board, like an actual company's org chart, there is no

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post title called entrepreneur. There are CEOs, there are VPs, like there are a lot of executive

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type roles, there's general like managers and workers. So you can be an entrepreneur to get started.

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You're not going to stick as an entrepreneur, you need to become an administrator and an executive.

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And you need to learn how to run a group and run a company. And you've got to have operating

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procedures and statistics and a lot of different things. And it's very organized. And it's a lot

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of detail work. Right. That's the first thing. And so I was never taught that it took me a long time

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to really start figuring that out. And that's why I started the North American Effective Management

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Association for Financial Services is to teach those skills to other financial services businesses.

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There was something for me when I learned it, I was like, where has this been my whole career?

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It's been five, six years of just struggling, simply because I didn't know what my key performance

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indicators were. I didn't know what my standard operating procedures were. I didn't know what my

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org board looked like. Right. The second thing that I had overcome was I think as an entrepreneur,

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sometimes we become entrepreneurs because we're bad with groups and people.

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And we don't realize that about ourselves. I don't like having a boss. I don't like having

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coworkers. I don't like having, I just like doing my own thing. And I like to be my own guy and come

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up with my ideas. And you'll never grow if you can't overcome that. As soon as you get into a real

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business, you have to be really good with people. You have to be really good with managing and

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dealing with emotions and reactions and various levels of understanding and getting people to

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learn things and retain them. And so it's a lot of work. It's a lot like having kids where there's a

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lot of just repeating and training and making sure people are getting it. And so I think that

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that's a barrier where an entrepreneur, for me anyways, I got into it thinking like I'm going to

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run my own show and be my own person. And I immediately realized I need to hire people.

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And then I had this barrier of like, well, I don't like bosses, but now I'm a boss. So how do I

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figure that one? And I don't like distracting coworkers who don't do anything, but now I need

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to go hire a bunch of people and teach them to not be that. So when I was able to reconcile those

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things, and it all was me, like I had to change my own knowledge and understanding and realize that

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declaring I'm an entrepreneur doesn't do anything other than just declare you're an entrepreneur.

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There's a lot of work that goes into it after to become who you need to be. And as I started

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putting in the time to become that person, I started overcoming those barriers.

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And one of your books, if I'm not mistaken, is about your journey.

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Yes, the man in the arena. Exactly.

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Exactly. Just give us a little bit about that book. I know I chose the big three,

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the daily habits, because I love learning all about habits. What is that book about?

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Yeah, so the man in the arena, and I've got a copy of it here as well. This one, this is based off

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of Teddy Roosevelt's quote, I don't know if you've heard about the man in the arena. And just to

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paraphrase it, he basically is saying it's not about the critic. You know, it's not about the

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person pointing out the faults and saying what could have been done better. It's about the man

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or the woman that's actually making it happen. Right? They're in the arena, they're experiencing

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life, whether they win or whether they lose. If they win, you know, they achieve their goal. If

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they lose, they become a better version of themselves in the effort of trying. Right? And

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that's who it's about. So my book, The Man in the Arena, was really, you know, kind of my story up

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till now covering some events that I went through in life as a business owner. You know, one of the

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things that I don't think is talked about enough is as a business owner, that can be really rough

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on relationships. Right? How do you balance the two? So part of my story is I had a failed marriage

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because of my business. And I had to figure out, okay, if I'm going to be a family man as well,

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and a husband and a dad and all these types of things, also, I need to figure out how to make

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sure that aligns with being a business owner. Right? You run into, you know, working with people

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that you shouldn't have, you trusted the wrong people. And I had times like that in my business,

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where I lost a great deal of, you know, assets or businesses or maybe reputation because I trusted

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the wrong person. And so I think those are some of what I've put in here is really the raw, like,

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what do people go through as business owners? And I don't know if mine's better or worse or the same

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as what everyone else experiences. But I think these are the stories that don't get told. And

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it's kind of a tribute to every other entrepreneur that's out there in the arena making it happen to

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say, Hey, I see you when I'm there with you. And I understand. And it also is showing to others that

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aren't aren't in the entrepreneur space. Like this is the journey. And it's not this really pretty

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Instagram highlight reel all the time. It's a lot of hard stuff you go through as you climb

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that entrepreneur is a mountain. Well, thank you for sharing that other book. So what is your next

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milestone? So my big milestone right now is I want to continue expanding my company internationally.

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So we've taken our big three challenge right now. And we're working with kind of the concept of

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accountability partners. And so we're starting to pair people up, which is really fun, right? So

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we've got clients that they're working together as accountability partners going through the big three

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challenge. And so, you know, with with the finance world, every country is different,

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different currency, different financial services, different investments, but learning about money,

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increasing your income and being in control of your expenses. That translates over to any country

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on the planet. So it's been really cool. We had the end of 2023, we had our first big three

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challenge twinship, we call it where people pair up as twins. We had that happen in UK and also in

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Germany. So we're continuing to expand with that one. We've got a group now starting in Canada.

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Obviously, we've got the United States. We've got someone in Central America that's interested in

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doing it. So this is kind of my I guess for me, that's the fun part of this is like really seeing

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the impact on a wide scale. And this is a way to do that really without borders as a barrier.

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Well, I wish you much success. Before we wrap it up. What one you're only going to get to pick one,

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what one key takeaway can you share with our audience so that you can inspire them to take

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action? Yeah, so this one, I post this on my Instagram story every day, right? So I work out

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every day and every day there's a reason not to and every day I do it anyways. And so I have learned

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as an entrepreneur and just as a person pursuing success in life, the condition of our lives

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currently are a total cumulative sum of the times that we did it anyways, whether good or bad,

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right? So if I, for example, with my gym thing, right, I know I need to go and I I'm tired or

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it's cold outside or I'm going to be late or traffic is bad or whatever. And I have the choice

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for it then to do it anyways, and make the gym happen or have the choice to look at all the

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barriers and reasons not to say, well, I'm going to do those anyways, even though I know I should

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be going to the gym right now. And life really comes down to that, right? The more times you

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can say, I'm going to do it anyways with the things you know you should do and the things

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that really align with your goals, those add up. It's kind of like, you know, the whole idea of

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cause and effect. It's a natural law. If you put those causes out there and effect will return,

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we don't know when, but those moments where you do it anyways, that plants those little seeds,

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those will pop one day and you'll experience the benefit of it. And, and that's really the

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taking action part is just do it anyways, right? Whatever the thing is, don't think about it.

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Don't get involved in the reasons not to just make it happen anyways.

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Well, thank you so much. It's been great having you on the show. And if you'd share your website

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one more time with our audience, I'll also put it down in the summary so that they can connect

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with you more. Yeah, absolutely. So you can go to wealth dynamics.com. Again, that's the word wealth

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W E A L T H and then dynamics is D Y N A M and then it's just the letter X. So dynamics.com.

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Thank you very much. Thank you, Sheila.