Teaching Kids Financial Literacy Early - Episode 88
In today's episode, I talk with David Delisle, the creator of "The Golden Quest," a graphic novel that teaches kids about money. David shares how he started investing at age 11 and how his passion for finance grew over time. We dive into the importance of financial literacy for kids and adults, how to make smart money decisions, and why it's never too late to start learning about money.
About our guest
David Delisle, founder of The Awesome Stuff™, is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, real estate investor, speaker, and most importantly, Dad. He is a contributor to Entrepreneur, Yahoo! News, Thrive Global and more. At age 11, David made his first investment. By age 20, he began investing in real estate and was retired by age 40. His book, The Golden Quest, is a Calvin & Hobbes-style graphic novel that teaches potent lessons about money, focusing on breaking the cycle of always chasing more. David’s goal is to change the way our kids think about money and create more freedom for what’s most important to them… the Awesome Stuff™. David has been featured in Good Day LA, Good Day DC, NTD TV, NY Post, ScaryMommy, GoBankingRates, MindBodyGreen, Credit Sesame, and more!
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema: [00:00:00] David Dsil, founder of the awesome stuff, is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, real estate investor, speaker, and most importantly dad. He's a contributor to entrepreneur, Yahoo News, thrive Global and More. At age 11, David made his first investment. By age 20, he began investing in real estate and was retired by age 40.
His book, the Golden Quest, is a Calvin and Hobbes style graphic novel that teaches potent lessons about money, focusing on breaking the cycle of always chasing more. David's goal is to change the way our kids think about money and create more freedom for what's more important to them.
David has been featured in Good Day L. A., Good Day D. C., NTD TV, New York Post, Scary Mom, Go Banking Rates, My Body Green, Credit Sesame, [00:01:00] and more.
What's up, my financially intentional people. I am excited to have David Zellow join us today, and he has done some amazing things in finance. And I love it when it includes the kiddos to get them exposed to personal finance as early as possible. So first, let me welcome you, David. How are you?
David Delisle: I'm good. I'm so happy to be here in a SEMA. This is going to be a fun conversation.
Naseema: Definitely. Happy to have you first. I just want to get like your background. Like, how did you end up in the finance space? What's your story?
David Delisle: I was a total. My money finance nerd. So I was reading finance books when I was like 10. So I've always been interested in finance and love this stuff. and then I found as I was getting, as I got older and I have my own kids and want to pass some knowledge on to them. That's when I started looking around, realizing there wasn't a lot of material for kids, [00:02:00] and so that's what inspired me to write this graphic novel that teaches kids about money, but in a bit of a different way without the shame and judgment, keeping it simple, making it fun, the whole thing's a story and an adventure, and over that journey, I'm becoming more and more passionate about just financial literacy in general, whereas before, just my own nerdiness.
And now I'm passionate to try to share that with others.
Naseema: But what inspired this? Like, how did you even know? As a kid, like I wasn't, like I was interested in making money doing this, selling the candy and all of those kinds of things, but like understanding finance in itself was like something that I didn't even get exposed to until my thirties.
So were your parents into finance? Was there somebody in your life that like prompted you in that direction or guided you that way?
David Delisle: I wish my parents were into finance and there was a mentor. It would have made my life so much easier. It's funny because on reflection, I noticed like a lot of it. My dad, he was a, like a commercial diver, [00:03:00] very but hated his job. He was of this like mentality of work hard, play hard, never had any money, was never around.
He'd be, away for weeks at a time, if not months, where we wouldn't see him. So he just, I saw how much he hated his work. And that probably stuck with me a bit of It just felt like a terrible way to go. And then the first time I found out that I could put money in a bank account and earn interest for doing nothing.
I was like, I don't know, but there seems like to be, there seems like there's another way to earn money that maybe isn't. As where you don't feel as trapped and miserable and unhappy. So yeah, I just started reading finance books and then I think, and this is what I think gets most people excited about finance.
I'd love to ask you as well, like even in your thirties, once you start understanding like compound interest and how much money can grow over time, all of a sudden you're like, I don't have any time to waste. I need to start investing today. And it's [00:04:00] ridiculous how it grows. And I think that also inspired me because some of the early books I read, they talk about, the difference between starting at 10 or 20 or 30.
And the numbers were so great that I just got excited about it.
Naseema: and you started investing really early, right?
David Delisle: So I started making my first investments around like 10 or
Naseema: That's crazy. And this was a long time ago when making investments wasn't just something you can do on your phone, right? How did you do that? And where did you get the money from? Really?
David Delisle: and that's why I'm so passionate about it now because it's simpler and I wish I had some guidance. So at that time I went into a bank with my dad. He had to set up a bank account. We had to do it. There weren't really high minimums, maybe 100 or something like that.
Naseema: Mm hmm.
David Delisle: Whereas now they're even lower, but I think like my first investment was basically like a government bond, which as a 10 year old, just terrible investment.
And even then I knew it was a bad [00:05:00] investment, So you're like, what, what are the returns on this again?
exactly. And that's at a time where you can take all this risk. If I lost it all, it wouldn't matter. And I had nothing but time on my side. So I knew it was a bad investment, but my dad just wanted to rush me through the bank. He didn't care.
He was like, this is fine. And. And it was my dad. So I went along with it and I think that too, like I realized no, I'm not going to listen to someone else or go against my gut or do something like it, it was a crazy investment, but that's how I started, but it was trickier back at that time because we didn't have.
Access to the stock market. Like we do today. So I wasn't investing in stocks. We do, it was mutual funds and I remember even like setting up brokerage accounts and having to like fax. Paperwork over, it was just a different, it was tricky.
Naseema: and that's what I'm telling people, like the access that we have to financial markets, just, Happened over the last couple of years, I would say even during COVID, it [00:06:00] accelerate the process of getting us access to these things. And, I love to talk about how bad Robin hood is, come banks like Robinhood or whatever you want to call financial institutions like Robinhood spearheaded a lot of that getting people access over their phones and easily with little minimums and little financial fees. And the things that people just don't think about when they think about investing but. Those platforms increase access to so many people who didn't think investing was for them, but even now with some of the bigger discount brokerages, the access that we have to be able to invest the almost. Elimination of the fees and the ease in the process is something that. Was a dream back in the day.
Like you wouldn't even think about that. You never think it was that possible back then. So kudos to you to stick into it at 11 years old. And I just wanted to talk about that because it was a chore to be able to invest back then. But still your 11 year old [00:07:00] self was like, I am going to do this and you stuck with it.
So I applaud you.
David Delisle: Thanks so much. And I'd love to go deeper into that because that's a great example of how things have changed. I think because it's changed, financial literacy hasn't caught up to that. So when I was doing this, it was really hard to go to show how nerdy I was. We would get books.
We didn't have the internet. Like I'm old. I didn't, we didn't have the internet to just get, daily stock tips and what's going on. So I would get annual books of like mutual fund advisors and funds and top funds to figure out like where to invest. It was so much more difficult and that's why when we think about investing people, it feels overwhelming and so tricky and people are like, I just don't get it.
I don't understand it. And I have to know all of this, but just like in my book, like, when I talk about the investing portion of my book, I emphasize the habit of investing and the idea of compound growth, [00:08:00] but not the actual mechanics because the mechanics It's not something that we have to worry about anymore.
We have financial advisors and apps and tools that automate this. So it's so simple. You don't really have to understand it. You just need to just automate it and just invest in the entire stock market and keep that happening for a long period of time. Like it's just, the world is different now. You don't have to understand the mechanics like you did when I was younger.
Naseema: And that's what stops so many people. I Like people come up to me. Like where did you get started even with me? I said, I didn't really start like actively understanding investing until I was in my late 30s and so I was like 36 and I was just like Okay I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna do it and then once I started diving and I was like for real It's really that simple.
Like how come we're not all doing this why was I hyping myself up like that? And I realized it was because, and I think it's intentional, it was so investing with soul. So it's this complicated thing. [00:09:00] You need either a degree or you need a financial advisor to do it for you, or you won't be able to figure it out.
And so we usually just throw our hands up and just be like I'll figure it out when I have time, even when it comes to simple stuff, like understanding what's in your 401k, either you do it, you set it up and you do the little quiz and you're like, what's my risk level. And you just invest based on their recommendations, or you just don't do anything and you're just like, I'll wait until I can understand this or until somebody can help me or until I have a financial advisor, that can handle this for me.
And oftentimes. People come up against their retirement and they're just like, I got to figure this out because, I don't have the time now, you know what I'm saying? And I know I don't have the money to retire. So what do I do? But yeah, I just think intimidation is still very real in so many people.
And so that's why I like to talk about it and normalize it. And that's why I love that you have this book, because I think. It's a little hack. I get people to talk [00:10:00] about investing because I talk about it for their kids. And, people are more likely to do things for their kids than they are for themselves.
And so just Oh yeah let's talk about this kid's book. and then it's just Oh no, but I'm really teaching you
David Delisle: Yeah,
that's exactly what I mean. It actually isn't a kid's book. It's a book for adults and it's just written for kids so they can teach their parents because it is exactly that. It's that little hack. And that's where that's why I'm so passionate about this as well. Cause I find when it comes to a lot of these conversations around money and financial literacy and economics.
There's so much judgment and shame and it's been, I'd love to just introduce a new tone, a softer tone where it's more approachable. It is much easier. People don't have to feel insecure or like they have to know it all. And we're in a world like you said, where you really don't this is a lot easier than people think.
But we need to remove the [00:11:00] taboos. You need to ask for help. You need to talk about it. You don't have to feel ashamed if you don't have the answers. That would change everything. But right now it's sort of like, no, if you don't understand this, you're a bad person and we just need to change that.
Naseema: Not even that it's just so many people feel shame that they don't understand it and then they're ashamed to ask for help because they feel like I'm an adult. I should understand this. But how do you know you went to school or you went through a certification program to do the job that you did.
You have to be taught that. how do you think. You're just supposed to automatically figure out investing. I tell that people that like, when it comes to kids too, cause I'm a labor and delivery nurse, I deliver babies and parents are so scared and they think I'm supposed to know these things.
How are you supposed to know how to be a parent? Unless you've studied it, unless you've been around like kids your whole life, it is a whole learning curve, honey, you didn't study enough. So don't be intimidated. And so if you don't have access to this information, how are you supposed to know?
And that's why I [00:12:00] like to normalize it for people, but also I like to encourage people because people are more apt to go after those big wins, those lottery hits, these stories that they hear about people making it big on investing in AMC and all of these crazy things, like that's not it either.
Yeah.
David Delisle: Yeah and that's the thing is if we don't talk about it, then we start seeking information from like social media, which is not where you want to be getting your information. I was just earlier today. I was just doing a interview talking about like money dysmorphia. it's this concept where your perception of your, your finances doesn't match reality. And it's because we see all these other people doing things on social media, and we think we should be doing that. And it's just not true. And as soon as we start having more and more of these conversations with our kids, with our friends, normalizing it, if you don't understand it, you don't know where to start, ask your friends, do you invest?
Where do you invest? [00:13:00] And if they're like, I don't know. And then be like let's go let's find someone who might be able to help us or find an app or talk to someone. Because what a lot of people don't understand Is that the people who are investing a lot of money and do this a lot and really understand it, they ask for help.
Naseema: That's it
David Delisle: Like they're not doing it by themselves. Warren Buffett, he's not doing this whole thing in a vacuum, in a silo with no information. He's has advisors and mentors and people that he's talking to all the time. and it just makes sense because if you want to understand anything. Ask for help, talk to other people, learn, grow, and it really is something I'm trying to really remove that shame and that taboo around this.
And that's why, again, with the kids book, it's great because if young kids are starting to talk about this, they'll grow up as adults that'll feel comfortable talking about money and
Naseema: exactly. Normalizing those conversations. Then I just [00:14:00] have to say, I do have a social media presence where I talk about it, but not as a financial advisor, as a way to normalize the conversations as a way to make it accessible for people. Like it does not have to be hard, these are the things that you can do, and just remove that stigma remove that I have to understand everything to get started. You don't. You don't. You really just have to get started.
David Delisle: When it's that habit of getting started, like that compound growth, if you start having that compound growth, if it happened 10 or 20 years ago, it doesn't matter if you're like what percentage you were earning, what you were in, what was happening, that habit 10, 20 years ago would have had much bigger impact than anything else.
Naseema: Exactly. And that's why I try to tell people listen. A lot of times you want to wait, or you want to think that it's not for you or that people that are rich look a certain kind of way, but it's not that. It's people who have done, [00:15:00] invested continuously, just, Early on and just haven't stopped that are rich, that's the biggest population of the rich than these people that are like these overnight successes and all this kind of things that you are glamorizing that is not it.
It's your millionaire next door. I actually like love that book because it's, you are a millionaire and there was a study that was done that shows like the percentage of like millionaires by career. And one of the bigger percentages are like teachers and people are like teachers don't make any money, but teachers were forced into retirement systems early on where they had to invest their money, whether they understood it or not.
So they make up a big portion of those millionaires just because they had to start early in their career. And they just had to do it often. It was just that simple.
David Delisle: Yeah. One, if it was as simple as just. earning a lot or having that money, we wouldn't have these people with these massive salaries going bankrupt,
Naseema: Come on. [00:16:00] Yes.
David Delisle: about how much you earn, it's how much you keep, how much you invest in getting your money working for you. I think I like to say that I feel for people who don't understand this or get it, but it's a real good shift is instead of thinking of your money in terms of what it can buy. If you think of it in terms of what it can earn, that'll start to change everything for how you, your relationship with money and how you view
Naseema: No, I love that. I love that. And I like to say, turn yourself into an owner instead of a consumer. If you understand that these are things that you like to buy you're always on Amazon. Why not own a portion of Amazon? And that's how I like to frame things for my kids.
Cause that's the way that they can understand, like they're inundated with all of these messages to buy all of these things and advertisements at school. What's popular, like all of these things, but I try to shift that conversation. What if you. Own that. Imagine how much you can earn. Imagine how much you can [00:17:00] have for your future.
Imagine how little you have to work. Cause of course they hate working. They hate doing things, already. It's just you could just chill, make your money work for you because it can work harder for you than it can, than you can work for it. Yeah.
David Delisle: Yeah. So yeah, no, it's that really is it. That habit and getting your money working for you. You don't then have to worry about money. You don't have to read the finance books like I did. You don't have to check out stock markets or doing things just automated. You don't have to know any of that.
Set up that habit and that's it. You don't have to worry about money ever again.
Naseema: So has that financial dirtiness rubbed off on your kids
David Delisle: Not at all. My guys, not at all. I'm a parent, I'm sure you find this as well. Like your kids want to do the exact opposite of anything you're doing.
Naseema: Because you're so dumb, like, why would they listen to you?
David Delisle: yeah and on that, so like my boys, I don't talk about all of these complicated things, like I'm not talking about, day trading or real estate investments or stocks.
What [00:18:00] I'm talking about is like the habit of investing. So setting up that habit. So it's automated. It happens at the beginning and their mindfulness, like their approach to money and really understanding what's important to them. And that's almost it. And it's really cool because especially on the mindfulness side, and we can go into that a bit if you want, but my boys at 12 and 15, they don't understand a lot about money.
But they aren't trying to keep up with the Joneses. They're not jealous of what their friends have. They're not chasing all these things. And when I asked like my younger guy what, what's the difference for you? Like, why is that? And he's I, I know what my awesome stuff is and I don't care about anything else.
Yeah.
Naseema: and I remember like I had to teach my kid, my daughter just one instance, like, All of a sudden I think Mr. Beast endorsed Prime or something. And so all the [00:19:00] kids at school, had Prime, and that was like the hot thing to do.
And my daughter didn't even like it. Like she tasted it and she didn't even like it. And she was like, but I have to have this Prime. And so she went to 7 Eleven. She got her little money, rode her skateboard across the street, got The prime went to school and they were just like, that's not even the real prime.
I'm like, let me tell you something. Okay. Like I supported this prime thing for two seconds. Just because I just wanted you to see that is stupid, but you need to tell your friends listen, I don't care about this prime. Okay. Cause I probably own the company that makes the prime. So i'm making money off of you guys buying this.
Okay. I really don't care about this trend. and of course now it's not even a thing. And I was teaching her you see that. Okay. You see this all these parents were like, oh my god I gotta get my kids this prime because it's like the hottest latest we're not gonna do that. We don't do that Okay, like we focus on making our money grow for us
David Delisle: Yeah. And it's neat because Once they recognize that so what's like in your daughter's case, like if you realize, you know [00:20:00] what I love and I love slurpees or ice cream or something instead, then all of a sudden That compared to the prime, it's like, why would I even want that? and as you get older, those comparisons just get bigger and bigger.
It starts to become, your health, helping others, financial freedom, travel, like all these other things. And that's what I try to teach is once you really understand what's important to you, what your awesome stuff is, everything else that you thought was important, just seems irrelevant in comparison.
It just doesn't matter.
Naseema: Exactly and that's like the intentionality of everything like I feel Once you get intentional about something, it does, it highlights what's important to you. And that then feeds into other areas of your, spills over to like other areas of your life, your health, the things that you eat, the things that you start to consume, the messages that you listen to, what you're willing to do, what you get to do.
And so I like to teach those lessons to my kids too, because Is this really gonna matter later [00:21:00] on down in life? Is this like what's really bringing you joy? Do you think it'll sustain bringing you joy for long? No, if it's if you are answering no to any of those questions, then why are we even doing this? Yeah
David Delisle: unfortunately, a lot of times it's when, something really bad happens where we start to realize what's really important. But if we could do that before a crisis, before, everything falls apart, it really does start that journey towards, a more joyful, richer life.
Naseema: Yes,
David Delisle: Yeah.
So the question I ask my kids all the time is like, is that your awesome stuff and just get them to pause and just ask that question
Naseema: I love that
David Delisle: and they get it. They get it better than parents. If I ask my kids, is that your awesome stuff? They're honest with themselves. Like they might try to, they might try to be like, yeah, it is, but you could hear their voice.
They know it. I know it. We know it isn't. We all know it isn't, but you start doing that with adults and it's a little tricky. They're like, Oh, yeah, no, that is my [00:22:00] awesome stuff. Like that, that house is my awesome stuff that dinner is my awesome stuff. But if they really start sitting on it and you're like, when were you the happiest, this past week?
When's the last time you laughed with your friends? When's the last time, you were just, you lost, the moment because you're having so much fun. Yeah. What were you doing? What did you have? What were you spending? And a lot of times, you weren't spending anything.
Naseema: Exactly, exactly. But I love that you're able to drill down on that with people because people don't think like that. What do you think makes them think that it's those things? It's the job, their careers, or their houses, or the things that they've accumulated, that is their awesome stuff.
That's going to always be their initial answer. Why do you think that is?
David Delisle: It's momentum, I think, a lot of it. We live such busy lives and we're just on a track of just doing the next thing, doing the next thing, doing the next thing. And that's why as soon as you break that cycle, like you said intentionality. I think of [00:23:00] mindfulness. It's all the same thing.
It's as soon as you pause and really just ask that question, it forces you to be in the present. And. And shift that. And so some great examples, like one of my favorite stories, I was doing an interview with someone and his awesome stuff that he told me was this new soundboard he wanted to buy.
He was a podcaster. He was doing he was doing daily lives like this new soundboard would have made his life so much better. He had his eyes on it and it was his awesome stuff. And again, for me, I'm not there's no judgment that could have been as awesome stuff. But I could tell by just the way he talked about it and his tone and his excitement that it wasn't not his awesome stuff.
So I asked him because I knew he was a parent and he loved his family. So I started asking about his kids and he'd just gone on a trip with his two daughters and it was a plane ride. It was just a local state to state plane ride but it's first plane that his daughters had ever flown on and he was like, [00:24:00] And that trip, it was just amazing and experience and immediately his body language changed and he got excited and he started leaning in and he started talking about this and it was so amazing because as he was telling me about this trip, he then there's a moment where he also like he paused because it was like it hit him.
Oh, this is my awesome stuff. This is what's important to me and that compared to the soundboard. There's just no comparison. And I think that's the thing is we forget, but once we start getting intentional and mindful and ask the question, notice, you'll start to realize there's things in your life that just are so much more important than the things you've been spending your time and money on.
Naseema: That is a word. I love it. I love it. So ,were you a financial professional before you retired at 40? What were you doing professionally?
David Delisle: So I was a programmer. Web developer online marketer. [00:25:00] So I did those things, but I started investing in real estate in my early twenties. So that was a lot of how I created. My financial freedom was through real estate and for me, the way I did it was, buying rental properties, keeping them and having tenants and it worked really well.
that's what I did. That was my path. I did. I was an advisor for a short period of time, more of as a hobby because I had so many friends in the industry that were just like, David come on and get into this. But I found it just, I wanted to educate my clients. I wanted to talk about, all these things and a lot of, the job as a financial advisor is a salesman selling a product.
Naseema: Mm hmm.
David Delisle: as an educator or helping and teaching your clients. So it just, it didn't align with what was valuable to me. So yeah.
Naseema: Space because I just, I love that she Think that you're wonderful at it. Like I could just tell like the level of engagement that you have with your clients or people that you talk to are people that you're just able to help them, drill down, like what's really important.[00:26:00]
And of course there's a financial piece to that. There's things that you have to do, but like an understanding that I really feel like it gives money a bigger sense of purpose. And then it just. It just makes it so much easier to work towards those things because you're not, it's not just like you're retiring out of this thing that you hate.
You're retiring into something or a lifestyle that's going to bring you joy. And so I really like that about yeah,
David Delisle: people, and that is the case for a lot of people, But all of this that we're talking about, like freedom's not black and white. It's not you work or you don't work. You create a big nest egg and you never do another thing in your life.
Like it's not that black and white. As soon as you have any of this freedom, that freedom might mean doing a job you love that maybe pays 10 or 20 percent less.
Naseema: yes.
David Delisle: Like it, there's a whole range of [00:27:00] things that can be, or it could be doing a job you hate, but having the, the privilege to go to do like a sabbatical every few years or take long vacations or not feel stuck in that job.
If you really have to just decide to leave, so all these things like freedom comes in many different forms and it's not never having to do anything again, ever in your life. And if that was your goal. If you achieve it, it won't bring you happiness. Cause as soon as you, as soon as you have nothing to do, your life is not better.
It's worse.
Naseema: And oftentimes people pass away after that, but I like to I like to say that the freedom that I'm giving my daughters is giving them the opportunity to opt out of a lot of the BS that I had to endure because I wasn't in a good place financially and, make better decisions for their whole life because money isn't going to be an issue.
But also I like to say that. A lot of [00:28:00] times it's not that people don't want to work. It's just that the way they're working is causing them so much strife that they feel like it's the job that's doing it. But if they could work less hours or they can move into a different position where they can, not deal with the BS that they don't want to deal with and focus on the things that they love.
They will work forever like me. I feel like nursing is a cheat code. I love delivering babies. I love, being able to see life be brought into this world. I love being there for my patients. However, there's a lot of things that I wish I could opt out of. Politics and all that kind of stuff that come with being in a healthcare organization.
But if you know that, you can minimize those things I can see myself doing this forever, but then I also be like, yeah, but I probably need to take a couple of months break every now and then do little mini retirement. So that, I can opt out of those things that I don't like. Don't ever see myself retiring.
[00:29:00] Yeah.
David Delisle: there's a massive difference between feeling you have to work versus choosing to work. Massive difference that day to day is identical, but how you feel and how you feel towards your job and your life and your situation changes dramatically. And that's the thing is with all this, the goal shouldn't be not to work.
It should be to have the freedom to make that decision.
Naseema: exactly. And then as a nurse, I feel like it helps me be able to better show up as a patient advocate, be able to be the best nurse that I could be right to make sure that I improve those outcomes. And so yeah, it's because I want to be there. Yeah.
David Delisle: you approach it, because you're being a better nurse, a better version of yourself, you're probably getting paid more and, being promoted more and doing better at your job. it's one of these things where it just starts perpetuating itself in the sense of the happier you are, [00:30:00] the better you'll do.
The more you enjoy your job, the more you'll succeed at it.
Naseema: Not only that, it just opens up a whole world of opportunities that you didn't know was possible. Like when you put yourself in that position of intentionality of just like being there and loving what you do. Like I have gotten so many opportunities and exposure to so many things. I wouldn't have known what's possible until I set myself on this path of financial freedom.
So I think like those are the intangibles that a lot of people miss out on because they don't even get started.
David Delisle: Yeah.
Yeah,
No, I love that. No, it's so amazing. And if we could teach our kids that, then how much of a better world would we have?
Naseema: That's it. That's it. And again, like they don't necessarily want to listen, but they see you and that's the important thing they see you and it might not resonate now, but later on down the line when it's more important, it will.
I have hope because yeah, I know they, they, like we talked about, they don't [00:31:00] necessarily want to be like us, but, the more we can work on ourselves, the better that we can do, the more that, they can catch and can help them later in life. But I really want to drill down into this book and talk about the lessons and what people can get out of it.
It's for everybody, like you said, but yeah let's talk about it a little bit more.
David Delisle: So the book, it's called The Golden Quest, and you can find it on, Amazon or Barnes and Noble or your local bookstore, and it's a graphic novel so the whole thing. Is just illustrated, which is amazing because even young kids that can't read might just flip through it. Or I know my younger guy, he's dyslexic and I've had other friends that are dyslexic where again, they can, they read it and they understand it and they get it because it's just so simple and I've tried to really boil it down to what's most important because for me, I would love to talk about, like, all the nerdy stuff, but But that's not important.
Like I said, it's just exactly right over [00:32:00] people's heads. That's where people just, they don't want to talk about money and finances. So I didn't include that because it's actually not that important. It doesn't, the tactical side of things is not the most important is the mindset and the habits. So in the book, I really only cover four key lessons and these are for kids, but again, they would be the same lessons I would encourage.
That also follow and the first is only by the awesome stuff and that's all around the mindfulness and it sounds simple, but it's even for myself talking about it all the time, things that used to be important to me are no longer important. Friends that I used to spend time with, I no longer spend time with because all these things I started realizing what brings me the most joy?
Where am I the happiest? What do I really care about? And it really is one of these things where it just continually shifts and changes because you're constantly just being faced with, did I [00:33:00] have more is this what I love? Is this what's important to me? Or this other thing? And it just make a massive difference.
So that's the first lesson. The second one is all about saving first, always save first, and there's a dragon in the story that spends all its money on cookies and the whole idea is until she started saving first, she never had any money left over. And this is so important because this is the habit piece.
This is where people think it's got to be so much more difficult and budgeting and all these other things. But like my older son, he's a spender. So if he has the money, he will spend it. And so he started to develop the shame around it and feeling bad about it and worried about it because we shame our spenders.
But I've tried to tell him like, this is where they don't need to learn a lot from me. If I just say, look, everything that comes in, we're going to take a small percentage. And just that's saved and put to the side. We never touch that. The rest, you could do whatever
Naseema: on whatever you want. [00:34:00] Yeah.
David Delisle: That's it. And that habit, that's what governments do.
They take our money at the beginning. They don't put it in our hands. It's taken right off our paycheck before we ever see it. We should be doing the same with our savings. And, that habit , that will allow you to achieve financial freedom. And then the third lesson is all around like compound growth and just the idea of how money grows because that really is where, the difference between creating huge wealth and financial freedom or watching your money solely deteriorate with inflation.
And then the fourth lesson, and it's again, a bit of a mindset piece. It's this idea of giving, give and you'll have more. Yeah. And I really want to emphasize this, idea around giving and giving not always necessarily financially, just giving in general and seeing how there's a reciprocity to that and it comes back and those four lessons and the whole purpose is to [00:35:00] achieve more of that freedom for, the awesome stuff.
and I really try to emphasize as well, the awesome stuff's going to be different for everyone because that's where we have so much judgment. Everyone's going to have a different path, but just understanding these principles will give you the freedom to choose the path that's best for you.
Naseema: I love that. And no path is perfect, right? Nobody has it all figured out, but it's about taking those steps. It's about starting that journey. That's what's important. Yay. I love that. So again share with people how they can find the book and how they can connect with you.
David Delisle: Yeah. So the book is the golden quest and it's at bookstores or an Amazon. And then for me, they can connect with me through the awesome stuff. com. Or on Instagram at awesome stuff. So all of it's around this concept of the awesome stuff and that mindfulness approach and just really understand what's important to you.
Naseema: I just love this because it just reiterates that lesson that, most of this money around most of this the [00:36:00] movement around like building wealth is around mindset and people want to skip over that, right? And they're like, I don't want this, like this woo woo stuff. I need the steps. And Guest after guest, every time I talk to people, this is what they focus on.
And so if you haven't gotten the message yet, please get it today. Is really that mindset piece that needs to shift before you can really see any kind of substantial changes financially. Yeah,
David Delisle: if we think of like there, there's people that are, millionaires, billionaires even. And if they don't have that mindset piece, they're still chasing more. That's why we see these depressed. Celebrities or athletes that lose it all or commit suicide or just aren't happy the mindsets massive.
Because if you don't have that mindset, it does not matter how much you have. You'll never you'll you'll never be settled or happy or feel like you have enough. You'll constantly be chasing it. We see it with these [00:37:00] billionaires competing with each other. They're not happy.
They're competing with each other versus other ones where they are settled. Someone like a Warren Buffett's living in his old family home, driving his old family car. He's happy.
Naseema: Yes. Very happy. Yes. I love it. I love it. And again, like sometimes you just have to hear things over and over to really understand it and understand what it means for you. But I love that you wrote this book because I feel like it's an, it's a perfect way to demonstrate how to. Implement that those mindset shifts and I love that, it's written in a way that's accessible for so many people because Personal finance books aren't always the most fun to read.
They can be dry, even the best ones. Most people are like, I can't really get through this, but like something that is easily digestible with amazing graphics. That anybody can understand even people with learning disabilities are people that can't even read. Like I know [00:38:00] my youngest, my middle daughter would enjoy it.
My baby loves looking at pictures. But I just love this. So I appreciate you sharing that with us. I will definitely be picking up my copy of the golden quest and Can't wait to share with my kids, but I want to thank you so much for being on the podcast. You're just so refreshing. You're like, I love your tone.
Like I just, you just make me feel so Zen.
David Delisle: That's what I'm trying to do. I want the for me, I'm trying to inspire this movement where we just change the way we talk about money and change our relationship to it. It shouldn't be something that makes you feel shame or judged or insecure, all these things. Like it, it should be Zen
and inviting. What is financial freedom other than just not, not having to worry. That's financial freedom.
Naseema: Yes, yes, I love it. I love it. And so I love what you're doing. And I know people out there listening are gonna love it too. So David, thank [00:39:00] you so much for your time. Thank you for so much for this book. And I really look forward to seeing what you're gonna do in the future.
David Delisle: Awesome. Thanks so much Nesima. It's great being on here and love what you're doing as well. So
yeah, definitely reach out.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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