Brian Lessinger on the Four Fundamentals of Money
Entrepreneurship · From Student of the Game
Brian Lessinger on the Four Fundamentals of Money
Money is one of those topics people avoid. On this episode of Student of the Game, Brad Noll takes it head on with his friend Brian Lessinger, a real estate professional he met through the coaching program they both belong to. Their relationship grew through a shared love of basketball, sports, and investing.
Brian has completed more than 2,000 real estate transactions over 25 years, owns and operates The Lessinger Team at RE/MAX Gold, owns an office building, and holds an MBA in finance with a minor in economics. He also grew up in a family that talked openly about money, and he has made it his mission to pass that along through his YouTube channel, The Complete Money Playbook.
The Four Fundamentals
Brian keeps it simple. There are only four things you can do with money: earn it, spend it, save it, or invest it. Most people are pretty good at the first two. Saving and investing are where people struggle, usually because they are not paying attention. "The absolute worst thing you can do with money is just not pay attention to it at all," he says.
He reminds the young people he mentors that money is just a tool. "Money does only what you tell it to do," Brian says. "So if you tell it to do something, it will do it." The same principles work for a family and for a business. Running a household, he says, is like running your own personal family business.
“Money does only what you tell it to do. So if you tell it to do something, it will do it.”
Brian Lessinger
Play Your Own Game
Brian is open about his own path. He was a real estate agent when the economy collapsed in the late 2000s and ended up deep in debt. Over roughly a decade, he went from about $700,000 in debt to a net worth of more than $5 million. When people ask whether it is too late to start, his answer is that ignoring it guarantees you won't get anywhere.
He also challenges the usual picture of wealth. To Brian, being wealthy means you could stop working today and still generate enough each month to live the life you want. Many people who look wealthy, with the cars and houses and jewelry, are not, while truly wealthy people are often invisible. He calls himself "everyday wealthy." Because he does not need the next sale, he can always give clients advice that is best for them.
Brad adds a thought about comparison. "I think comparing against the wrong thing robs us of our joy," he says. Comparing yourself to someone 10 years ahead or in a different industry is not fair, but the right comparison can motivate you.
Attack the Debt First
When Brad asks about earning, Brian says he rarely starts there. Most people earn a decent income. Their problem is usually spending and debt. If you have credit card debt charging 20 percent or more, a savings account earning 5 percent will never catch up. A mortgage on an appreciating asset is one thing, but car loans and personal loans can pile on stress.
Brian has seen what that stress does. Early in his career he sat in living rooms with people old enough to be his parents and grandparents who were in financial trouble, and he watched financial pressure strain couples. In many relationships, he says, one person is a saver and the other is a spender, and the answer is to sit down and get on the same page.
For business goals, Brian starts with the minimum. He figures out how many homes and how much revenue his team needs to cover staff and expenses. Knowing that number takes the pressure off, and because fixed costs don't change, every deal after it is more profitable.
Where to Start: Put It on Paper
When his son and his son's friends started coming to his house once a month to talk about money, Brian gave them a simple first assignment. He believes automation can be the enemy because people never feel the pain of spending, so he had them take out a pad of paper and work through their statements:
- Write down what you actually make, meaning what gets deposited into your account after taxes, not your salary.
- List every expense: rent, utilities, car payment, student loans, and everything else.
- List every debt with its balance, interest rate, and minimum payment, and how long it would take to pay off at the minimum.
- Once the high interest debt is gone, automate saving and investing off the top.
- Find someone who has gotten ahead and ask for help. Brian says people who have done it are usually happy to talk.
Sometimes the hard truth is that your stuff is too nice and you need to downsize for a while to get ahead. Brian and his best friend, who is also his financial planner, have a saying for it: be the tortoise, not the hare. "In the long run, the tortoise will win," Brian says. In the short term the hare may drive the fancy car, but over time the patient approach comes out ahead.
Starting the Conversation
How does a teenager, or a 43-year-old business owner, start talking about money? Brian asks young people questions that surprise them, like how much it takes to be in the top one percent of earners. Then he encourages them to find someone living a life that looks good and ask how they got there. The best way to help your friends, he says, is to start doing it yourself. One of his son's friends called him amazed after moving his down payment savings into a high yield account and earning interest for doing nothing.
Brad compares it to sitting on the bench. You can stay quiet, or you can go to the coach and ask what you need to do to earn more minutes. Brian agrees that it takes courage, and he credits the friendships where men can be honest about money, relationships, and parenting.
How Do You Run Your Household Like a Business?
Brad shares how he built his team. He never treated business revenue as his identity or his income. He uses a model called Profit First, with twice monthly transfers into accounts for profit, owner's compensation, taxes, and operating expenses, plus a quarterly profit distribution. "I don't spend everything I make," he says, and that is what has let him hire and grow.
Brian, a fan of David Bach, applies the same idea at home. Think of household income as revenue. In a perfect world, take 20 percent off the top for saving and investing and live on the rest. Pay yourself a set amount, keep your percentages the same as income grows to avoid lifestyle creep, and meet with a CPA regularly.
For Brian, winning at the game of life means being able to say yes to experiences with his two grown kids, and giving this information away to help as many people as he can. He sends his flowers to his dad, who taught him lessons about money he only recognized years later. As Brad puts it, it's okay to admit you don't understand something. That's where growth starts.
▶ Listen to the full episode
Mastering Money: How to Set Financial Goals and Actually Achieve Them with Brian Lessinger, on Student of the Game.
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