May 21, 2023 • 41 mins
The life of an entrepreneur is not an easy path. When an entrepreneur sees success, it is very rewarding, but what people don’t tend to see is the amount of work that goes into the business. This path can be a consuming path so Rocco has helped with this by educating on his book and discussing the 3 cords approach.
Book Link:https://www.amazon.com/Three-Cords-Approach-audiobook/dp/B07N34CLC4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2UUJ7SIAK46BG&keywords=3+cords+rocco+carriero&qid=1684640413&sprefix=3+cords+rocco+carriero%2Caps%2C237&sr=8-1
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dustin Steffey (00:00):
Welcome to another week of chopping with
fire I'm excited to have guestexpert Rocco Corriero on he is
the author of three chords thethree chords approach to life
and wealth management forbusiness owners. There's a lot
of golden nuggets for thisepisode. So strap up your boot
laces and let's chop it upWelcome to your top rated global
(00:47):
podcast that is your one stopshop specializing in
entrepreneurship, selfdevelopment, smart investment
decisions and other relevanttopics that add value. This
podcast is hosted by owner, Drand content creator Dustin
Steffey we are blessed to haveaccolades that include a 2022
(01:08):
nomination by the People'sPodcast Awards in the category
of business, which is voted onby the people all of you money
donated to two amazing causescystic fibrosis and the Boys and
Girls Club. Lastly, globalrecognition of being a top 50
podcast in four countries.
(01:32):
Without further ado, let's chopit up.
(01:55):
I have the author of the bookthree courts. Rocco terreiro on
with me as well. Rocco, how areyou?
Rocco Corriero (02:03):
I'm doing terrific. How are you doing
today? Just a Dustin.
Dustin Steffey (02:07):
I'm doing well.
It's a it's about 85 degrees andhot but I'm inside there's an AC
so I'm okay.
Rocco Corriero (02:15):
Not to have AC in Reno.
Dustin Steffey (02:17):
Gotta have AC in general. I mean, I would die. I
like my house at like 68 Youknow, so I'm like a polar bear.
Rocco Corriero (02:25):
Hey, that's literally cool. Yeah,
Dustin Steffey (02:28):
literally pun intended. Yeah. But that being
said, Rocco, let's let's justdive in. i You're you're an
interesting person. You have alot of accolades behind you.
There's a lot of intellectbehind you. I kind of want my
listeners to kind of understandwho's on with me. So let's just
dive into your story.
Rocco Corriero (02:46):
Yeah, sure. So, basically grew up in a midsize
town on Long Island, New York,botanical Patchogue, my parents
immigrated to the United Statesin 1962, my dad was a tailor,
opened, went to work for atailor in our town, then
(03:08):
eventually opened up his owntailor shop. Learned the world
of business and entrepreneur,entrepreneurship from spending a
lot of time at the tailor shop.
Just seeing how business isbeing done. You know, grew up
with the large Italian Americanfamily surrounding surrounding
us. Wasn't a great student inhigh school, but did love
(03:31):
business went off to college,college. When I was at the age
of 19, College, threw me out,kick kicked me out of school.
And for just not focusing on mygrades, they focused on throwing
parties and making money. Andthe school didn't really like
that was a big disappointment tomy parents at that point, came
(03:54):
back with a vengeance and gotback into school, finish school,
got my MBA in banking, finance,ended up in the world of
financial services. And workingwith highly successful business
owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs,managing close to a billion
(04:16):
dollars of assets and thendecided to write the book three
chords approach to life andwealth management for business
owners. And that's what broughtme here on the podcast today.
Dustin Steffey (04:30):
Lot to unpackage from that first and foremost, I
have a fellow Italian on so Iappreciate that. I also
appreciate the fact of thetailor portion I think a lot and
maybe it's the Italian in me Ilike I like a lot of those
tailor jobs because if you lookat history in the past, most
(04:51):
tailors were well respected backin the day right because it it
it was more for like the mobsand stuff like that right? You
were tailoring for them. For bigpeople, and so you not only
learn the business side, but youalso learn a lot more than that,
in my opinion, I don't know ifthat happened within your
family, but in history, fromwhat I studied, that that's kind
(05:13):
of what I learned with some ofthe tailors back in the day. I
also can relate with you in theparty and in school my first
semester, and most people don'tknow this about me, unless they
were partying with me, I got a1.3. In my first semester, for
my GPA, which is very abnormalof me, I am highly intelligent,
(05:35):
and I do pride myself ingraduating with high
distinction. But partying wasmore important than school, for
my first semester anyway,because I was so good in high
school, I didn't experience anyof that. So put me out on my own
island, and I experienced it,and then some, and then the
(05:57):
butchering before would havebeen great. Oh, we, I think we
would have thrown the bestparties. You know. The
difference for me, is my myparents also got after me. And
so my next semester, I pulled athree, eight, because I was on
academic probation. And theywere threatening to kick me out
(06:18):
of school. And so I didn't wantthat. I also was going to lose
all my scholarships, and mysports and athletic scholarships
as well, too. So you can't playa sport, when you don't put in
the work for school. So Ilearned fast.
Rocco Corriero (06:35):
You know, sometimes those are the bet, you
know, those hard times thosehard slaps in the face, it's
sometimes what people need, itcertainly was a turning point
for me at the age of 19. Forsure.
Dustin Steffey (06:44):
The only accolade I don't have yet with
you right now is I still havenot published my book, but I'm
trying and getting there.
Rocco Corriero (06:54):
It's hard, it took me seven years to write the
book shouldn't have taken sevenyears, but it did. And it's one
of those things where you justyou just got to kind of focus
and, you know, get up at 345 inthe morning, and you know, and
just just kind of, you know,work at it and you can't do it
all once you got to work, get abreak it out the pieces. But
once it's done, it's and youknow, the other thing is, it's
(07:16):
never going to be absolutely,totally perfect. So if you wait
for that, it's never gonna getdone. So do the best job that
you can get it printed. And thenyou can always go back and
revisit it. I'm in the processnow of doing the three courts
approach to life and wealthmanagement revisited. Because it
you know that that's, thatshould come out, you know, some
later this year or something.
Dustin Steffey (07:37):
Yeah, that it's like my dissertation in my PhD.
I, gosh, I restarted that thing,like 30 or 40 times before I
finally got a draft that Ireally liked.
Rocco Corriero (07:50):
Yeah, that's it takes time. But you'll you'll
get it done. I'm working on twoother books now and one is
around recipes for retirementscan have a time recipes in it,
you're probably going to enjoyit.
Dustin Steffey (08:04):
I think so I think that'll be one that I
really will thoroughly enjoy. Iwould think. Yeah, you got
accolades back and you behindyour book, too, from what I saw
you not only how to interviewsurrounded around it, and I'm
not counting like this podcastright now. Our other podcasts,
you've had bigger interviewslike with NBC, right? Are it was
(08:25):
Yeah, yeah, NBC, you have? It'sa best selling book, New York
Times best seller, correct.
Rocco Corriero (08:33):
I don't know if it was a New York Times
bestseller, but it wasdefinitely a best seller on a
couple. It's I don't know if itwas New York Times bestseller.
That didn't focus on that, youknow, you know, what's
interesting about the book thatI wrote it very much is focused
on a particular segment of thepopulation, which is CEOs,
(08:53):
entrepreneurs and businessowners. So it's not really like
a mass market kind of book isfor people that kind of fit that
category that are that arehaving the challenges that you
kind of opened up the show witharound like business, family
self, and the struggling withit, right. And so that's why I
wrote it, you know, true wealthwas around when I saw you know,
(09:16):
these highly successful businessowners I was labeled, who's
truly wealthy and it was the theperson that was obviously a
phenomenal business person, butalso took care of themselves as
an individual. And also wasthere for their family and their
friends. And so it wasn't justaround business, right? The
(09:36):
people that just made a ton ofmoney, and just were focused on
business. You never saw the truewealth. They never got through
what truly wealthy, you know,never.
Dustin Steffey (09:47):
And I don't want to overstep you But you did say
something that I politelydisagree with. Like you said the
book is tailored toentrepreneurs, wealth and biz.
business people. But I thinkit's tailored a little bit more
based off of some of the thingsthat I've read in it because I'm
about a quarter of the waythrough, I think, aspiring
(10:10):
people that are looking to gointo the field, it almost gives
a snapshot of some of thestruggles too. So I think, I
think it tailors a lot to awider demographic than even you
and I think,
Rocco Corriero (10:23):
yeah, you know, if you think about the three
chords, financial, it reallycould have it could apply to
anybody really could you know,the, the idea of financial being
one of the chords and whicheverybody has and then self and
then family. So it does apply toeverybody, you are correct. This
particular one, this particularbook, was it kind of tilted
(10:46):
towards if somebody was was aentrepreneur or a business
owner, CEO, kind of they wereable to relate a little bit more
to it or an aspiring one aswell. For sure.
Dustin Steffey (10:54):
Yeah. And I'm not here to like, call you call
you out on it, right? I'mactually giving you more kudos,
I think it does reach a wideraudience. But I think you're
right, the main audience are thepeople that can relate right now
that are in the thick of it, andI get that for sure. But I'm
putting my hat on as if Iweren't. And I do see some cool
(11:17):
things in there for peoplewhere, I don't know, it works. I
mean, I've always appliedbusiness, even in my personal
life, because there's a lot oflessons learned in business that
you can apply to personal life.
Rocco Corriero (11:31):
Totally, absolutely. That's, you know,
my, as my kids get older, youknow, whatever they decide to do
in their life, totally going tosupport them. But I kind of do
hope that they they go the routeof being entrepreneurs, because
being an entrepreneur doescreate certain skills in one's
life that can be applied to allareas of one's life. I mean, I
(11:55):
think it helps you be able todeal with adversity, more
challenge, a lot of debt, a lotof different things, really, you
know, somebody wants it said tome, listen, Rocco, when I was
younger, they're like, listen, Ihope that you become a
millionaire. I was like, I hopeso. I do, too. And he they said,
not for what not for what youcan buy with the money, but for
what it will make a view inbecoming a millionaire. And I
(12:17):
never forgot that. And, and, youknow, listeners that are out
there, you know, the, it's notnecessarily about what you can
buy with the money. It's theperson that you become as a
result of learning what'sinvolved in creating the
resources?
Dustin Steffey (12:34):
Absolutely, absolutely. And speaking of your
book, I do want to dive in alittle bit into it not, not like
read it, like I guess we couldread it page for page if we
wanted to. But I want to diveinto the main concepts, right, I
do want to dive into the threechords, I want to break them out
a little bit, I think. And I usethis loosely, because I have a
(12:55):
wide range of listeners, whetherit be global or domestic. I
think sometimes when people gointo entrepreneurship, the
thought process behind it is ifI go into business for myself,
when I'm not working for theman, to I'm going to have more
time, and three, I'm going tomake more money. But then I
(13:15):
think as people dive intoentrepreneurship a little more,
they start seeing the samethings that you and I have seen
when we dove in, right. It's alot of hard work. It's a lot of
dedication, you're on your ownisland sometimes because it is
your business your baby and noone understands it. And you are
(13:35):
submerging yourself in it, whichmeans that things that are in
your life right now, whether itbe you're married, whether it be
you have kids, whether it be youhave hobbies, those start
getting put kind of in thewastebasket for a while as you
start living and breathing, thebusiness that you're trying to
create to create your ownsuccess. Now, I'm not going to
(13:56):
say that you're never gonna havetime, I'm not gonna say you're
never gonna have money. I'm notgonna say any of that stuff
whatsoever. What I am sayingthough, is it takes a lot of
time to get to that point. And Ithink the three chords that you
bring up, kind of explain itreally well. So I'd love to dive
in. Let's do it. Alright, solet's start with the first one,
(14:17):
whichever one you prefer.
Rocco Corriero (14:19):
Let's start with the first chord of let's put the
let's do the first chord of selfright, most business owners put
themselves last but let's let'slet's take the first quarter of
self let's do it. So when youthink about self, right, it's
(14:39):
yourself as an individual right?
So three chords representyourself as an individual, your
family slash outsiderelationships and also your
business. So first chordsmeaning self is are you taking
care of yourself, right? Are youyou know, are you letting
yourself just go? Are you goingto doctor's appointments? Are
you exercising? Are you eatingright? Are you aware of your
nose? numbers, right? Not justyour financial numbers, but are
(15:01):
you aware of your own numbers,right? I every three to four
months, I get blood tests doneand I measure my numbers, I do
my inner age score pretty cooltool called inside tracker
that's out there. I'm 49 yearsold right now it says my, my
inner age score is 46. And thebest I could have it be is 38.
(15:21):
That's really important to me,you know, it's usually useless
to create all this money andhave all these relationships
become useless if I don't focuson taking care of myself. So
first chord being itself,personal development,
professional development, allthe things that revolve around
you is self that that prettymuch wraps up the first chord.
Dustin Steffey (15:46):
So with that first quarter, I think that's a
really important chord, becauselike you said, it's taking care
of yourself. So other thingsthat revolve around that
quarter, you taking enough timeto do the things that make you
happy to
Rocco Corriero (16:02):
absolutely, a lot of business owners, you
know, on people, sometimes theyfeel like, it's a little bit
selfish, if them if they have alittle too much time for
themselves, or they take timefor themselves. And we're all
guilty of it. I mean, that's abowl, the three chords, that's
the chord that I need the mostwork on, and I wrote the book on
it. And so it's, you know,hobbies, interest. I mean, some
(16:23):
people are really good at it,some people are so good at it.
But that's the you know, I foundmost people are really good at
two out of three of the courts,right one chord is usually they
really struggle with. And sowhether it's if they take really
great care of themselves, andthey're super, super successful
business owners, then yousometimes see them not spending
(16:47):
any time with the family. Or, ifthey're really great at
business, and, and family, theylack on taking care of
themselves, or if they're reallygreat with their family and
themselves, they let theirbusiness go away. So you know,
all three or all three is realtough to do. But if you pay
attention to all three, you'lldo better that way.
Dustin Steffey (17:08):
Which let's dive into the next chord, I think we
should dive into family.
Rocco Corriero (17:12):
Yeah, let's do it. So why, you know, family. So
most, most business owners thatgo to go to work during the day,
they come home at night, wake upin the morning with their
families. And they're there,they run their businesses and
they create, and they believethey're creating wealth, to to
(17:32):
take care of their families andhave their families be in better
position. But that sometimesbecomes too much where it's
like, okay, well, they focus onthe business, but their family
feels like well, there's secondfiddle, third fiddle here, where
because the parent may notactually be around or the spouse
may not be around. So the youknow, what I found is the only
(17:55):
way it's going to kind of soundfunny, right? He and I talked to
my family about this andsometimes they laugh at me, the
only way to really make surethat you get the most amount of
time with your family is toschedule it. Business people
know that they you know, they'rereally good at scheduling
appointments with customers,clients prospects, but you also
got to schedule time with yourfamily and and things that are
(18:16):
scheduled have a very highpercentage chance of happening,
things that are not scheduledhave that very high percentage
chance of not happening. Sobeing there for the family. I've
married 20 years, two kids. And,and so and I've got my mom is
still alive, my dad passed awayin 2011. So today, I stopped
(18:39):
over to see my mom went to pickher pick up prescription drugs
and, and, you know, I had a lotof things I had to do. But I'm
very conscious of the fact thatI got to see my mom, right, I'm
not sure how much longer mymom's going to be here. So I can
always make money, that moneywill always be there. But I know
that you know, your family andyour friends wall.
Dustin Steffey (19:00):
So a lot of people know this. I'm a single
father. And I know you know, asa dad, that it's hard to raise
children having both familymembers but having one it's even
harder. And I think that chordright there. Well, the self one
I have some improvement on aswell too. I don't focus on
(19:22):
myself. I feel like I throwmyself at the business and I
make my hobbies and everythingelse go the wayside. But the
family one is even moredistressing, in my opinion
because I'm a single dad, so I'mtrying my hardest to raise my 10
year old daughter. But I alsoknow that if I fail, she fails
(19:42):
to so it's it's a hard balancingact. But the one thing that you
did bring up that I do agreewith is when I have something on
my calendar when I havesomething scheduled, it has to
happen. And so I can fix thefirst two chords pretty easily.
But scheduling actually andhaving like, for this hour, this
(20:04):
is gym time. And that's it. Likethere's no other time other than
that, and it has to happen. Xamount of days a week. And for
painting, I can schedule sometime to whether it be an hour,
whether it be two hours, whetherit be a whole weekend, whatever
the case may be, like, I thinkthat is a really good strategy
(20:25):
for business owners specificallyto and entrepreneurs is schedule
it, put it in the calendar. Itdoes sound a little cliche, it
does sound a little weird, butit it's your right about 90%
chance that you'll followthrough on it too. Yeah,
Rocco Corriero (20:42):
you know, I I've got a daughter too. And once a
year, I tried to do dad anddaughter weekend we go into the
city, do fun things just turn iAnd and so if it doesn't, if
it's not scheduled, there'll bea million the whirlwind will
come in, it'll be a millionreasons why it doesn't happen.
So it's almost like you'refighting against the world when
(21:03):
to make sure it actuallyhappens. And that's it. That's
why you got to schedule things.
I'm a big, big believer in that,you know, scheduling things is
kind of boring. It's not soexciting. It's not spontaneous,
but to perform at high levels.
In all three, you gotta yougotta have a calendar. We will
Dustin Steffey (21:20):
be right back after a quick break. Cory,
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(23:11):
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dropping more fun and relevantcontent. Let's transition to the
third chord.
Rocco Corriero (23:23):
Their quarter business, just like I love my
family and, and I love myself, Ialso love my business. I love
the work that I do, and thepeople that I help it with their
financial planning and assetmanagement, I'm able to take the
three courts concept, and I'mable to apply that to them and
(23:44):
have able to have them becomemore aware of life besides just
being about the money. And andso you know, not only do I, you
know, I focus on running myfinancial advisory business, I
also have my, my I also have anauthor, right, so I'm writing,
I've got the one book, I'mwriting two other books right
(24:05):
now have a small real estateportfolio with rental tenants.
And so becoming and beingfinancially successful is
important to me, again, not forwhat I can buy with it, but for
what I can do with it. I'm a bigproponent of philanthropic
(24:27):
helping others who actuallyeither can't help themselves or
offer you know, I'm not, youknow, I do believe that people
have to be, you know, to payattention to what they're
supporting and what they'rehelping because sometimes you
can actually do harm by helpingthe wrong people when they when
they maybe shouldn't be gettinghelp. Most almost enabling
(24:49):
people, important thing. So I'vebeen, you know, helping people
for 20 years and you kind of seeright, this is where you know,
this is where you can reallymake a big difference and so
That's important to me as well.
So, yeah, so making money anddoing well in business really
important. I know sometimespeople say, Oh, money is the
root of all evil. Money doesnothing but cause problems. And
(25:10):
that's not the truth, right? Thetruth is that money is a great
emphasize or, and so if you're akind, generous, wonderful
person, the more money you havethe kinder, more generous, more
wonderful you will be. If you'rea mean, nasty, rotten person,
the more money that you have,you'll be meaner, more rotten,
(25:31):
and nastier. And that's been myexperience with financial
resources.
Dustin Steffey (25:39):
money to me is not it's important it is because
it helps you to pass on wealthto your children or child or it
helps you to do the things thatyou like to do. However, money
is not the most important thingto me. It's what you said prior,
(25:59):
I like giving back to people. Solike my podcast, is about giving
information back to people tohelp them be better, to help
people create more success, tohelp people understand where
they might have deficiencies,I'm sorry, we shouldn't use
deficiencies, let's use the wordopportunities to be able to
(26:23):
address them and become moresuccessful. So I do this for the
philanthropy side, right. Butthe money side, like you said,
as long as your relationship isgood with the money, like it
also adds value, in my opinion.
You
Rocco Corriero (26:41):
see, we all see the Hollywood celebrity, which
had huge financial success, butthey're, but you know, major,
major trouble and so and soagain, the trouble was there, it
just the enormous wealthbasically just created, it made
it even bigger, like added fuelto the fire. And so, you know,
(27:04):
it's, it's, I agree, I agreewith us, you know, some people
that are focused on material Ilistened, if somebody is focused
on material items, you want togo out there and buy 10 cars,
more power to you. But But Ithink, I think wealth creation.
Well, the I think were, I'm notsure if you got to the chapter
(27:24):
yet. But there's a chapter Ithink it's at the end of the
book that focuses on thebillionaire who had tons of
resources, bought a footballteam, planes, yachts, everything
it just couldn't find anyhappiness. And so he ended up by
a friend of him said friend ofhis said, Hey, listen, I'm going
to Mexico on a on a missionhere, we're going to bring some
(27:47):
kids wheelchairs, that can getwheelchairs. So the guys, that
girl go with you. So he goesdown there, and he brings a
wheelchair, and he gives it to akid, and the kid looks at him
and with tears in his eyes andsays, you know, I want to stare
your face because I want to Iwant to remember your face,
because when I see and heaven, Iwant to thank you again. And the
(28:09):
guy, the guy told me he's like,I you know, he's like, with all
the stuff that I had. He's like,I never felt wealthy wasn't
until that moment where I couldactually provide a wheelchair
for this kid who couldn't getthrough a wheelchair is when I
felt well, really true. Well,and that was like a, you know,
and he, you know, nothing madethe guy happy. I mean, he had
every car, you can imagine jets,boats, yachts, cars, you know,
(28:31):
none of that actually made himhappy. But buying a wheelchair
and making a positive differencein the life of somebody that
could not help themselves, youknow, was was true wealth. And I
hope that, you know, the clientsthat I work with, I My hope is
that they get to experience thatI work with some real fabulously
wealthy people. And I try toencourage people to really get
(28:55):
that enjoyment from whilethey're still here, right?
Because we're all we're allwe're all none of us are gonna
get out of here alive, right?
Dustin Steffey (29:02):
Not at all. Not at all. Yeah. So a couple of
questions have stemmed fromthis. So we identified the three
chords just to recap, chordnumber one itself, and that's
taking care of yourself,enjoying hobbies, making sure
that you're keeping your sanity,that that would be the self
chord. Yeah. Number two isfamily. So being able to balance
(29:27):
your business and yourself withfamily to make sure there's
adequate time there. And thenthe third one is obviously the
business and making sure thatthe business is thriving. So
with that being said, and in allthe experience that you have
right now, what have you seenwhen you go and advise your
(29:48):
clients? What are somestrategies that you've seen
where you've seen all of theseclick? And what are what are
these people doing? What arewealthy people doing right now
to make these all click what aresome good strategies to maybe
start implementing this a littlebit. I know, we brought up a
few, right, like scheduling inthe calendar time to make things
(30:09):
successful. But I know thatthere's a little bit more that
you've seen. And I, I'd love toenlighten people on that.
Rocco Corriero (30:15):
You know, we we talk about this, and there's,
you know, everybody hasaspirations to be really
terrific in all three areas. Andso sometimes people say, No,
where do I start, and Ibasically, without a yellow pad,
my yellow pad says, get it done.
So there's different things thatneed to get done. So just take a
yellow pad doesn't have to befancy or sophisticated, and you
(30:38):
start writing down all thethings that you would like to do
in all three areas. So you canbasically, you can basically
break it into three differentcolumns, self, family, and
business, what are the thingsthat you'd like to do, sort of
by doing that, and then youtranspose that into a calendar,
calendar system as to when areyou going to work on those
(31:00):
different things. And the otherpiece is, you know, somebody
might have a list of 100 things100 Things is not even possible
to get done, come up with three,come up with three in each each
of the areas to or one and say,Okay, over this next quarter,
I'm going to do these differentwhat to do, you know, three
things. And if you do threethings in the three areas,
(31:21):
that's nine things that you gotdone over the course of the
year, that you might not haveactually gotten done before. So
that's because people dostruggle with this, right? We
all we all get charged up, we'regonna movie great, we're gonna
do all these different things.
And then when the world when hekind of stops.
Dustin Steffey (31:42):
I agree, I agree with that. And, you know, I
wrote down the same thing asyou, I don't know if we're on
the same wavelength, but I wrotedown before you even had brought
it up, get it done. I thinkthat, that's just the mantra
that I live, like, you get itdone, you do it, you you
execute, and you're better offfor it. So at the beginning of
(32:06):
the year, my biggest strategywas, I want to sleep a minimum
of seven hours. And I needed tochange my schedule around
because I still want to wake upat like, five 530 in the
morning. So I can get myselfportion started, right. So going
to the gym in the morning, tostart the day off for about an
(32:28):
hour. And that night, I gavemyself about a half hour before
bed to read. It doesn't matterwhat you want to read, like if
you all want to read achildren's book, go read a
children's book. But for me,it's reading things that add
value to my business, to createthat success. And so, in doing
(32:50):
those two small tweaks thisyear, I've noticed a little bit
of a shift in how I operate alittle bit. And I feel a little
bit better than what I did lastyear, because last year it was
flying by the seat of my pants,and I was being roped or doing
the roping or whatever the casemay be. I didn't know which day
was Monday, in which day wasSunday, sometimes because I felt
(33:13):
unorganized. And so I think forme, structure is good the
calendar, the calendarscheduling, like you and I were
talking about, I think it'ssolid, because it's a structure
for me to be able to follow.
It's a roadmap that I'm prettymuch making for myself. And I'm
putting non negotiables in thatroadmap. So from 530 to 630,
leave me alone, I am workingout. That's it. From 10 to 1030.
(33:36):
I'm reading Leave me alone,that's my time to upskill
myself, not only for thebusiness, but for myself as
well. Everything in betweenthough, is business family, and
creating the Empire or whateveryou want to call chopping with
fire, right? Because it it'smore than just me at this point.
(33:59):
It's everyone. I'm creating thatsuccess right there one step at
a time.
Rocco Corriero (34:08):
You know, you're you know, the idea that you had
said, getting it done and almostlike, you know, really trying to
protect your time, right?
Nobody's really nobody's gonnacall you or really bother you
between that 530 to 630 time,right? So your daughter's
probably sleeping, you know,friends, business associates,
nobody's calling you at thattime. So that's, you know,
(34:28):
that's what you gotta do. Right?
So if you you plug that in atdifferent times, if you tried to
plug in, oh, at six o'clock atnight, I'm going to sit here and
and read the book. It's nothaving it right. You know, you
got your daughter you fold yourring in. It's just not not
possible. So I think that youknow, just listening to you, you
(34:52):
know, you know your mark in thatEMR in that time and when you do
your market is the only wayyou're going to get it done
right Right can't bespontaneous, you know, like, you
can't be spontaneous aboutreading that book. It's
basically like, this is my timeto read the book. This is it.
Dustin Steffey (35:08):
Yeah, and I purposely bought a Kindle on
purpose, like an expensive one.
Because I hate spending money,I'd rather invest. Because I
know that when I spend money onsomething, I have to do it. So
I, I kind of purposely, like didthat on purpose. So I'm starting
to do the things that are right.
For me. And it did take a goodsolid couple of weeks to adjust
(35:32):
to it, it was rough, right?
Because my normal schedule waswake up, work all the time, go
to bed late, do it all overagain. And I was noticing I was
beating my body down, I wasbeaten, I was beaten down, I was
short, short, fuse shorttempered. And so that doesn't
help with raising a childeither, because you tend to
spark a little faster, andthat's not okay. So I had to
(35:54):
take a step back. And, andthere's a lot that's happened to
me, I mean, in between, right.
And I feel like I deal withthings a little bit better. Now
that my head is a little moresolid.
Rocco Corriero (36:12):
You need that, right? That's, you know, you if
you're not clear, right? So, ifyou're not focused, you're not
clear, you're never gonna get tothe levels that you want to get
to. So it sounds like you got,you know, you got clarity as to
what you want for yourself andhow you're going to do it. And
you're actually doing it. Andthat's really so awesome. Yeah,
(36:34):
it's, you do what's required,it's through the deal.
Dustin Steffey (36:38):
And like you said earlier, no one's perfect
at it, I still haveopportunities to address, but I
took some of them already andhave addressed.
Rocco Corriero (36:49):
That is so awesome. That's, you know, that.
And if you continue to do that,right, just continue to work on
that and do that. And you don'tbite off too much, too much at
once, which I tend to do myself,you'll get, you'll just get a
lot done. And you'll do it withbalance, and you'll do it with
happiness. And you know, thatthere's, you know, you gotta you
(37:14):
got to take a look and say,Okay, where did I start? Two
years ago, five years ago, oneyear ago, and I'm growing. And
so measuring yourself againstwhat you actually where you
where you've come, where you'vebasically grown from versus what
you aspire to, right? So a lotof times we just, we visually,
you know, we we think we wemeasure ourselves against the
(37:36):
ideal, right? And so we might bedisappointed ourselves with
that. But if you measureyourself against what you've
done over the past 135 10 years,it's a great, you know, it's a
great way to live.
Dustin Steffey (37:52):
So what's one major key piece of advice, if
you were to, let's say, you andI left tomorrow, because time is
not infinite? It's finite? Yep.
What would be one key thing thatyou would want to impress upon
the world? Like, what's one keypiece of advice?
Rocco Corriero (38:09):
I would say, the key piece of the key p one piece
would be focus on all three,like, be aware, work on all
three, don't just work on one,right? You need, you need money
to live. Right. And, you know,it's like, money's not
important. But, you know, andmoney does help solve a lot of
(38:31):
problems when problems occur inpeople's lives, right. And
family is important, right? Soyou got to work on it. So that
doesn't doesn't just happen. Sopeople think, Oh, I'm entitled
to family. I, you know, it justI don't need to put any work in
there. Because I don't, that'snot the way it works wrong. And
(38:51):
then self, right. You know,people think, well, I don't need
to pay attention to my house,right? I'm fine. Wrong. So so so
the one piece of advice I'd giveto everybody who's listening is
work on all three.
Dustin Steffey (39:06):
And then just for the listeners, because this
book is powerful, and I thinkit's important, especially for
my listeners, where can you findit?
Rocco Corriero (39:15):
It's available on Amazon, Barnes and nobles.com
I think it's on target.com It's,there's a retail within
walmart.com and, you know,Amazon's and you know, easy
place to get it. It's threecourts approach to life and
wealth management for businessowners. And I hope your
(39:37):
listeners get a copy of it andit makes it impacted their life
pretty cool.
Dustin Steffey (39:42):
And for my listeners, I will drop the I'll
drop the Amazon link because Ithink that's the easiest one for
me to be able to draw. Sure willbe episode description, and all
sorts it to you Rocco so thatway you kind of see like, who's
who's kind of taken it in. SoI'll make Everything's good in
the episode description for allmy listeners.
Rocco Corriero (40:04):
Thanks Dawson.
This was It was great meetingyou. My next trip out to Reno
I'm gonna look you up hope toget together with you.
Dustin Steffey (40:12):
Well, if we have a live event coming up, I do
send emails. I'd love to haveyou out. I think it would be
great to have some of the peoplethat I've interviewed and had on
be there for support. Love to bethere.
Rocco Corriero (40:24):
Thank you so much for the invitation.
Dustin Steffey (40:27):
And thank you for coming on. Thank you for
just talking on such a such apowerful concept. I think we're
all in. We're in this rat racetogether, right of the fast
paced society trying to make itand everything and sometimes we
need to slow down and focus onWell, the three chords.
Rocco Corriero (40:44):
You got it.
Nice. Thanks. Thank you.
Alright, take care well
Welcome to another week of chopping with
fire I'm excited to have guestexpert Rocco Corriero on he is
the author of three chords thethree chords approach to life
and wealth management forbusiness owners. There's a lot
of golden nuggets for thisepisode. So strap up your boot
laces and let's chop it upWelcome to your top rated global
(00:47):
podcast that is your one stopshop specializing in
entrepreneurship, selfdevelopment, smart investment
decisions and other relevanttopics that add value. This
podcast is hosted by owner, Drand content creator Dustin
Steffey we are blessed to haveaccolades that include a 2022
(01:08):
nomination by the People'sPodcast Awards in the category
of business, which is voted onby the people all of you money
donated to two amazing causescystic fibrosis and the Boys and
Girls Club. Lastly, globalrecognition of being a top 50
podcast in four countries.
(01:32):
Without further ado, let's chopit up.
(01:55):
I have the author of the bookthree courts. Rocco terreiro on
with me as well. Rocco, how areyou?
Rocco Corriero (02:03):
I'm doing terrific. How are you doing
today? Just a Dustin.
Dustin Steffey (02:07):
I'm doing well.
It's a it's about 85 degrees andhot but I'm inside there's an AC
so I'm okay.
Rocco Corriero (02:15):
Not to have AC in Reno.
Dustin Steffey (02:17):
Gotta have AC in general. I mean, I would die. I
like my house at like 68 Youknow, so I'm like a polar bear.
Rocco Corriero (02:25):
Hey, that's literally cool. Yeah,
Dustin Steffey (02:28):
literally pun intended. Yeah. But that being
said, Rocco, let's let's justdive in. i You're you're an
interesting person. You have alot of accolades behind you.
There's a lot of intellectbehind you. I kind of want my
listeners to kind of understandwho's on with me. So let's just
dive into your story.
Rocco Corriero (02:46):
Yeah, sure. So, basically grew up in a midsize
town on Long Island, New York,botanical Patchogue, my parents
immigrated to the United Statesin 1962, my dad was a tailor,
opened, went to work for atailor in our town, then
(03:08):
eventually opened up his owntailor shop. Learned the world
of business and entrepreneur,entrepreneurship from spending a
lot of time at the tailor shop.
Just seeing how business isbeing done. You know, grew up
with the large Italian Americanfamily surrounding surrounding
us. Wasn't a great student inhigh school, but did love
(03:31):
business went off to college,college. When I was at the age
of 19, College, threw me out,kick kicked me out of school.
And for just not focusing on mygrades, they focused on throwing
parties and making money. Andthe school didn't really like
that was a big disappointment tomy parents at that point, came
(03:54):
back with a vengeance and gotback into school, finish school,
got my MBA in banking, finance,ended up in the world of
financial services. And workingwith highly successful business
owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs,managing close to a billion
(04:16):
dollars of assets and thendecided to write the book three
chords approach to life andwealth management for business
owners. And that's what broughtme here on the podcast today.
Dustin Steffey (04:30):
Lot to unpackage from that first and foremost, I
have a fellow Italian on so Iappreciate that. I also
appreciate the fact of thetailor portion I think a lot and
maybe it's the Italian in me Ilike I like a lot of those
tailor jobs because if you lookat history in the past, most
(04:51):
tailors were well respected backin the day right because it it
it was more for like the mobsand stuff like that right? You
were tailoring for them. For bigpeople, and so you not only
learn the business side, but youalso learn a lot more than that,
in my opinion, I don't know ifthat happened within your
family, but in history, fromwhat I studied, that that's kind
(05:13):
of what I learned with some ofthe tailors back in the day. I
also can relate with you in theparty and in school my first
semester, and most people don'tknow this about me, unless they
were partying with me, I got a1.3. In my first semester, for
my GPA, which is very abnormalof me, I am highly intelligent,
(05:35):
and I do pride myself ingraduating with high
distinction. But partying wasmore important than school, for
my first semester anyway,because I was so good in high
school, I didn't experience anyof that. So put me out on my own
island, and I experienced it,and then some, and then the
(05:57):
butchering before would havebeen great. Oh, we, I think we
would have thrown the bestparties. You know. The
difference for me, is my myparents also got after me. And
so my next semester, I pulled athree, eight, because I was on
academic probation. And theywere threatening to kick me out
(06:18):
of school. And so I didn't wantthat. I also was going to lose
all my scholarships, and mysports and athletic scholarships
as well, too. So you can't playa sport, when you don't put in
the work for school. So Ilearned fast.
Rocco Corriero (06:35):
You know, sometimes those are the bet, you
know, those hard times thosehard slaps in the face, it's
sometimes what people need, itcertainly was a turning point
for me at the age of 19. Forsure.
Dustin Steffey (06:44):
The only accolade I don't have yet with
you right now is I still havenot published my book, but I'm
trying and getting there.
Rocco Corriero (06:54):
It's hard, it took me seven years to write the
book shouldn't have taken sevenyears, but it did. And it's one
of those things where you justyou just got to kind of focus
and, you know, get up at 345 inthe morning, and you know, and
just just kind of, you know,work at it and you can't do it
all once you got to work, get abreak it out the pieces. But
once it's done, it's and youknow, the other thing is, it's
(07:16):
never going to be absolutely,totally perfect. So if you wait
for that, it's never gonna getdone. So do the best job that
you can get it printed. And thenyou can always go back and
revisit it. I'm in the processnow of doing the three courts
approach to life and wealthmanagement revisited. Because it
you know that that's, thatshould come out, you know, some
later this year or something.
Dustin Steffey (07:37):
Yeah, that it's like my dissertation in my PhD.
I, gosh, I restarted that thing,like 30 or 40 times before I
finally got a draft that Ireally liked.
Rocco Corriero (07:50):
Yeah, that's it takes time. But you'll you'll
get it done. I'm working on twoother books now and one is
around recipes for retirementscan have a time recipes in it,
you're probably going to enjoyit.
Dustin Steffey (08:04):
I think so I think that'll be one that I
really will thoroughly enjoy. Iwould think. Yeah, you got
accolades back and you behindyour book, too, from what I saw
you not only how to interviewsurrounded around it, and I'm
not counting like this podcastright now. Our other podcasts,
you've had bigger interviewslike with NBC, right? Are it was
(08:25):
Yeah, yeah, NBC, you have? It'sa best selling book, New York
Times best seller, correct.
Rocco Corriero (08:33):
I don't know if it was a New York Times
bestseller, but it wasdefinitely a best seller on a
couple. It's I don't know if itwas New York Times bestseller.
That didn't focus on that, youknow, you know, what's
interesting about the book thatI wrote it very much is focused
on a particular segment of thepopulation, which is CEOs,
(08:53):
entrepreneurs and businessowners. So it's not really like
a mass market kind of book isfor people that kind of fit that
category that are that arehaving the challenges that you
kind of opened up the show witharound like business, family
self, and the struggling withit, right. And so that's why I
wrote it, you know, true wealthwas around when I saw you know,
(09:16):
these highly successful businessowners I was labeled, who's
truly wealthy and it was the theperson that was obviously a
phenomenal business person, butalso took care of themselves as
an individual. And also wasthere for their family and their
friends. And so it wasn't justaround business, right? The
(09:36):
people that just made a ton ofmoney, and just were focused on
business. You never saw the truewealth. They never got through
what truly wealthy, you know,never.
Dustin Steffey (09:47):
And I don't want to overstep you But you did say
something that I politelydisagree with. Like you said the
book is tailored toentrepreneurs, wealth and biz.
business people. But I thinkit's tailored a little bit more
based off of some of the thingsthat I've read in it because I'm
about a quarter of the waythrough, I think, aspiring
(10:10):
people that are looking to gointo the field, it almost gives
a snapshot of some of thestruggles too. So I think, I
think it tailors a lot to awider demographic than even you
and I think,
Rocco Corriero (10:23):
yeah, you know, if you think about the three
chords, financial, it reallycould have it could apply to
anybody really could you know,the, the idea of financial being
one of the chords and whicheverybody has and then self and
then family. So it does apply toeverybody, you are correct. This
particular one, this particularbook, was it kind of tilted
(10:46):
towards if somebody was was aentrepreneur or a business
owner, CEO, kind of they wereable to relate a little bit more
to it or an aspiring one aswell. For sure.
Dustin Steffey (10:54):
Yeah. And I'm not here to like, call you call
you out on it, right? I'mactually giving you more kudos,
I think it does reach a wideraudience. But I think you're
right, the main audience are thepeople that can relate right now
that are in the thick of it, andI get that for sure. But I'm
putting my hat on as if Iweren't. And I do see some cool
(11:17):
things in there for peoplewhere, I don't know, it works. I
mean, I've always appliedbusiness, even in my personal
life, because there's a lot oflessons learned in business that
you can apply to personal life.
Rocco Corriero (11:31):
Totally, absolutely. That's, you know,
my, as my kids get older, youknow, whatever they decide to do
in their life, totally going tosupport them. But I kind of do
hope that they they go the routeof being entrepreneurs, because
being an entrepreneur doescreate certain skills in one's
life that can be applied to allareas of one's life. I mean, I
(11:55):
think it helps you be able todeal with adversity, more
challenge, a lot of debt, a lotof different things, really, you
know, somebody wants it said tome, listen, Rocco, when I was
younger, they're like, listen, Ihope that you become a
millionaire. I was like, I hopeso. I do, too. And he they said,
not for what not for what youcan buy with the money, but for
what it will make a view inbecoming a millionaire. And I
(12:17):
never forgot that. And, and, youknow, listeners that are out
there, you know, the, it's notnecessarily about what you can
buy with the money. It's theperson that you become as a
result of learning what'sinvolved in creating the
resources?
Dustin Steffey (12:34):
Absolutely, absolutely. And speaking of your
book, I do want to dive in alittle bit into it not, not like
read it, like I guess we couldread it page for page if we
wanted to. But I want to diveinto the main concepts, right, I
do want to dive into the threechords, I want to break them out
a little bit, I think. And I usethis loosely, because I have a
(12:55):
wide range of listeners, whetherit be global or domestic. I
think sometimes when people gointo entrepreneurship, the
thought process behind it is ifI go into business for myself,
when I'm not working for theman, to I'm going to have more
time, and three, I'm going tomake more money. But then I
(13:15):
think as people dive intoentrepreneurship a little more,
they start seeing the samethings that you and I have seen
when we dove in, right. It's alot of hard work. It's a lot of
dedication, you're on your ownisland sometimes because it is
your business your baby and noone understands it. And you are
(13:35):
submerging yourself in it, whichmeans that things that are in
your life right now, whether itbe you're married, whether it be
you have kids, whether it be youhave hobbies, those start
getting put kind of in thewastebasket for a while as you
start living and breathing, thebusiness that you're trying to
create to create your ownsuccess. Now, I'm not going to
(13:56):
say that you're never gonna havetime, I'm not gonna say you're
never gonna have money. I'm notgonna say any of that stuff
whatsoever. What I am sayingthough, is it takes a lot of
time to get to that point. And Ithink the three chords that you
bring up, kind of explain itreally well. So I'd love to dive
in. Let's do it. Alright, solet's start with the first one,
(14:17):
whichever one you prefer.
Rocco Corriero (14:19):
Let's start with the first chord of let's put the
let's do the first chord of selfright, most business owners put
themselves last but let's let'slet's take the first quarter of
self let's do it. So when youthink about self, right, it's
(14:39):
yourself as an individual right?
So three chords representyourself as an individual, your
family slash outsiderelationships and also your
business. So first chordsmeaning self is are you taking
care of yourself, right? Are youyou know, are you letting
yourself just go? Are you goingto doctor's appointments? Are
you exercising? Are you eatingright? Are you aware of your
nose? numbers, right? Not justyour financial numbers, but are
(15:01):
you aware of your own numbers,right? I every three to four
months, I get blood tests doneand I measure my numbers, I do
my inner age score pretty cooltool called inside tracker
that's out there. I'm 49 yearsold right now it says my, my
inner age score is 46. And thebest I could have it be is 38.
(15:21):
That's really important to me,you know, it's usually useless
to create all this money andhave all these relationships
become useless if I don't focuson taking care of myself. So
first chord being itself,personal development,
professional development, allthe things that revolve around
you is self that that prettymuch wraps up the first chord.
Dustin Steffey (15:46):
So with that first quarter, I think that's a
really important chord, becauselike you said, it's taking care
of yourself. So other thingsthat revolve around that
quarter, you taking enough timeto do the things that make you
happy to
Rocco Corriero (16:02):
absolutely, a lot of business owners, you
know, on people, sometimes theyfeel like, it's a little bit
selfish, if them if they have alittle too much time for
themselves, or they take timefor themselves. And we're all
guilty of it. I mean, that's abowl, the three chords, that's
the chord that I need the mostwork on, and I wrote the book on
it. And so it's, you know,hobbies, interest. I mean, some
(16:23):
people are really good at it,some people are so good at it.
But that's the you know, I foundmost people are really good at
two out of three of the courts,right one chord is usually they
really struggle with. And sowhether it's if they take really
great care of themselves, andthey're super, super successful
business owners, then yousometimes see them not spending
(16:47):
any time with the family. Or, ifthey're really great at
business, and, and family, theylack on taking care of
themselves, or if they're reallygreat with their family and
themselves, they let theirbusiness go away. So you know,
all three or all three is realtough to do. But if you pay
attention to all three, you'lldo better that way.
Dustin Steffey (17:08):
Which let's dive into the next chord, I think we
should dive into family.
Rocco Corriero (17:12):
Yeah, let's do it. So why, you know, family. So
most, most business owners thatgo to go to work during the day,
they come home at night, wake upin the morning with their
families. And they're there,they run their businesses and
they create, and they believethey're creating wealth, to to
(17:32):
take care of their families andhave their families be in better
position. But that sometimesbecomes too much where it's
like, okay, well, they focus onthe business, but their family
feels like well, there's secondfiddle, third fiddle here, where
because the parent may notactually be around or the spouse
may not be around. So the youknow, what I found is the only
(17:55):
way it's going to kind of soundfunny, right? He and I talked to
my family about this andsometimes they laugh at me, the
only way to really make surethat you get the most amount of
time with your family is toschedule it. Business people
know that they you know, they'rereally good at scheduling
appointments with customers,clients prospects, but you also
got to schedule time with yourfamily and and things that are
(18:16):
scheduled have a very highpercentage chance of happening,
things that are not scheduledhave that very high percentage
chance of not happening. Sobeing there for the family. I've
married 20 years, two kids. And,and so and I've got my mom is
still alive, my dad passed awayin 2011. So today, I stopped
(18:39):
over to see my mom went to pickher pick up prescription drugs
and, and, you know, I had a lotof things I had to do. But I'm
very conscious of the fact thatI got to see my mom, right, I'm
not sure how much longer mymom's going to be here. So I can
always make money, that moneywill always be there. But I know
that you know, your family andyour friends wall.
Dustin Steffey (19:00):
So a lot of people know this. I'm a single
father. And I know you know, asa dad, that it's hard to raise
children having both familymembers but having one it's even
harder. And I think that chordright there. Well, the self one
I have some improvement on aswell too. I don't focus on
(19:22):
myself. I feel like I throwmyself at the business and I
make my hobbies and everythingelse go the wayside. But the
family one is even moredistressing, in my opinion
because I'm a single dad, so I'mtrying my hardest to raise my 10
year old daughter. But I alsoknow that if I fail, she fails
(19:42):
to so it's it's a hard balancingact. But the one thing that you
did bring up that I do agreewith is when I have something on
my calendar when I havesomething scheduled, it has to
happen. And so I can fix thefirst two chords pretty easily.
But scheduling actually andhaving like, for this hour, this
(20:04):
is gym time. And that's it. Likethere's no other time other than
that, and it has to happen. Xamount of days a week. And for
painting, I can schedule sometime to whether it be an hour,
whether it be two hours, whetherit be a whole weekend, whatever
the case may be, like, I thinkthat is a really good strategy
(20:25):
for business owners specificallyto and entrepreneurs is schedule
it, put it in the calendar. Itdoes sound a little cliche, it
does sound a little weird, butit it's your right about 90%
chance that you'll followthrough on it too. Yeah,
Rocco Corriero (20:42):
you know, I I've got a daughter too. And once a
year, I tried to do dad anddaughter weekend we go into the
city, do fun things just turn iAnd and so if it doesn't, if
it's not scheduled, there'll bea million the whirlwind will
come in, it'll be a millionreasons why it doesn't happen.
So it's almost like you'refighting against the world when
(21:03):
to make sure it actuallyhappens. And that's it. That's
why you got to schedule things.
I'm a big, big believer in that,you know, scheduling things is
kind of boring. It's not soexciting. It's not spontaneous,
but to perform at high levels.
In all three, you gotta yougotta have a calendar. We will
Dustin Steffey (21:20):
be right back after a quick break. Cory,
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consult today. Hello, chopnation, I hope all of you are
(22:26):
enjoying the guests and contentwe share weekly. Now, I need a
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(22:49):
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(23:11):
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dropping more fun and relevantcontent. Let's transition to the
third chord.
Rocco Corriero (23:23):
Their quarter business, just like I love my
family and, and I love myself, Ialso love my business. I love
the work that I do, and thepeople that I help it with their
financial planning and assetmanagement, I'm able to take the
three courts concept, and I'mable to apply that to them and
(23:44):
have able to have them becomemore aware of life besides just
being about the money. And andso you know, not only do I, you
know, I focus on running myfinancial advisory business, I
also have my, my I also have anauthor, right, so I'm writing,
I've got the one book, I'mwriting two other books right
(24:05):
now have a small real estateportfolio with rental tenants.
And so becoming and beingfinancially successful is
important to me, again, not forwhat I can buy with it, but for
what I can do with it. I'm a bigproponent of philanthropic
(24:27):
helping others who actuallyeither can't help themselves or
offer you know, I'm not, youknow, I do believe that people
have to be, you know, to payattention to what they're
supporting and what they'rehelping because sometimes you
can actually do harm by helpingthe wrong people when they when
they maybe shouldn't be gettinghelp. Most almost enabling
(24:49):
people, important thing. So I'vebeen, you know, helping people
for 20 years and you kind of seeright, this is where you know,
this is where you can reallymake a big difference and so
That's important to me as well.
So, yeah, so making money anddoing well in business really
important. I know sometimespeople say, Oh, money is the
root of all evil. Money doesnothing but cause problems. And
(25:10):
that's not the truth, right? Thetruth is that money is a great
emphasize or, and so if you're akind, generous, wonderful
person, the more money you havethe kinder, more generous, more
wonderful you will be. If you'rea mean, nasty, rotten person,
the more money that you have,you'll be meaner, more rotten,
(25:31):
and nastier. And that's been myexperience with financial
resources.
Dustin Steffey (25:39):
money to me is not it's important it is because
it helps you to pass on wealthto your children or child or it
helps you to do the things thatyou like to do. However, money
is not the most important thingto me. It's what you said prior,
(25:59):
I like giving back to people. Solike my podcast, is about giving
information back to people tohelp them be better, to help
people create more success, tohelp people understand where
they might have deficiencies,I'm sorry, we shouldn't use
deficiencies, let's use the wordopportunities to be able to
(26:23):
address them and become moresuccessful. So I do this for the
philanthropy side, right. Butthe money side, like you said,
as long as your relationship isgood with the money, like it
also adds value, in my opinion.
You
Rocco Corriero (26:41):
see, we all see the Hollywood celebrity, which
had huge financial success, butthey're, but you know, major,
major trouble and so and soagain, the trouble was there, it
just the enormous wealthbasically just created, it made
it even bigger, like added fuelto the fire. And so, you know,
(27:04):
it's, it's, I agree, I agreewith us, you know, some people
that are focused on material Ilistened, if somebody is focused
on material items, you want togo out there and buy 10 cars,
more power to you. But But Ithink, I think wealth creation.
Well, the I think were, I'm notsure if you got to the chapter
(27:24):
yet. But there's a chapter Ithink it's at the end of the
book that focuses on thebillionaire who had tons of
resources, bought a footballteam, planes, yachts, everything
it just couldn't find anyhappiness. And so he ended up by
a friend of him said friend ofhis said, Hey, listen, I'm going
to Mexico on a on a missionhere, we're going to bring some
(27:47):
kids wheelchairs, that can getwheelchairs. So the guys, that
girl go with you. So he goesdown there, and he brings a
wheelchair, and he gives it to akid, and the kid looks at him
and with tears in his eyes andsays, you know, I want to stare
your face because I want to Iwant to remember your face,
because when I see and heaven, Iwant to thank you again. And the
(28:09):
guy, the guy told me he's like,I you know, he's like, with all
the stuff that I had. He's like,I never felt wealthy wasn't
until that moment where I couldactually provide a wheelchair
for this kid who couldn't getthrough a wheelchair is when I
felt well, really true. Well,and that was like a, you know,
and he, you know, nothing madethe guy happy. I mean, he had
every car, you can imagine jets,boats, yachts, cars, you know,
(28:31):
none of that actually made himhappy. But buying a wheelchair
and making a positive differencein the life of somebody that
could not help themselves, youknow, was was true wealth. And I
hope that, you know, the clientsthat I work with, I My hope is
that they get to experience thatI work with some real fabulously
wealthy people. And I try toencourage people to really get
(28:55):
that enjoyment from whilethey're still here, right?
Because we're all we're allwe're all none of us are gonna
get out of here alive, right?
Dustin Steffey (29:02):
Not at all. Not at all. Yeah. So a couple of
questions have stemmed fromthis. So we identified the three
chords just to recap, chordnumber one itself, and that's
taking care of yourself,enjoying hobbies, making sure
that you're keeping your sanity,that that would be the self
chord. Yeah. Number two isfamily. So being able to balance
(29:27):
your business and yourself withfamily to make sure there's
adequate time there. And thenthe third one is obviously the
business and making sure thatthe business is thriving. So
with that being said, and in allthe experience that you have
right now, what have you seenwhen you go and advise your
(29:48):
clients? What are somestrategies that you've seen
where you've seen all of theseclick? And what are what are
these people doing? What arewealthy people doing right now
to make these all click what aresome good strategies to maybe
start implementing this a littlebit. I know, we brought up a
few, right, like scheduling inthe calendar time to make things
(30:09):
successful. But I know thatthere's a little bit more that
you've seen. And I, I'd love toenlighten people on that.
Rocco Corriero (30:15):
You know, we we talk about this, and there's,
you know, everybody hasaspirations to be really
terrific in all three areas. Andso sometimes people say, No,
where do I start, and Ibasically, without a yellow pad,
my yellow pad says, get it done.
So there's different things thatneed to get done. So just take a
yellow pad doesn't have to befancy or sophisticated, and you
(30:38):
start writing down all thethings that you would like to do
in all three areas. So you canbasically, you can basically
break it into three differentcolumns, self, family, and
business, what are the thingsthat you'd like to do, sort of
by doing that, and then youtranspose that into a calendar,
calendar system as to when areyou going to work on those
(31:00):
different things. And the otherpiece is, you know, somebody
might have a list of 100 things100 Things is not even possible
to get done, come up with three,come up with three in each each
of the areas to or one and say,Okay, over this next quarter,
I'm going to do these differentwhat to do, you know, three
things. And if you do threethings in the three areas,
(31:21):
that's nine things that you gotdone over the course of the
year, that you might not haveactually gotten done before. So
that's because people dostruggle with this, right? We
all we all get charged up, we'regonna movie great, we're gonna
do all these different things.
And then when the world when hekind of stops.
Dustin Steffey (31:42):
I agree, I agree with that. And, you know, I
wrote down the same thing asyou, I don't know if we're on
the same wavelength, but I wrotedown before you even had brought
it up, get it done. I thinkthat, that's just the mantra
that I live, like, you get itdone, you do it, you you
execute, and you're better offfor it. So at the beginning of
(32:06):
the year, my biggest strategywas, I want to sleep a minimum
of seven hours. And I needed tochange my schedule around
because I still want to wake upat like, five 530 in the
morning. So I can get myselfportion started, right. So going
to the gym in the morning, tostart the day off for about an
(32:28):
hour. And that night, I gavemyself about a half hour before
bed to read. It doesn't matterwhat you want to read, like if
you all want to read achildren's book, go read a
children's book. But for me,it's reading things that add
value to my business, to createthat success. And so, in doing
(32:50):
those two small tweaks thisyear, I've noticed a little bit
of a shift in how I operate alittle bit. And I feel a little
bit better than what I did lastyear, because last year it was
flying by the seat of my pants,and I was being roped or doing
the roping or whatever the casemay be. I didn't know which day
was Monday, in which day wasSunday, sometimes because I felt
(33:13):
unorganized. And so I think forme, structure is good the
calendar, the calendarscheduling, like you and I were
talking about, I think it'ssolid, because it's a structure
for me to be able to follow.
It's a roadmap that I'm prettymuch making for myself. And I'm
putting non negotiables in thatroadmap. So from 530 to 630,
leave me alone, I am workingout. That's it. From 10 to 1030.
(33:36):
I'm reading Leave me alone,that's my time to upskill
myself, not only for thebusiness, but for myself as
well. Everything in betweenthough, is business family, and
creating the Empire or whateveryou want to call chopping with
fire, right? Because it it'smore than just me at this point.
(33:59):
It's everyone. I'm creating thatsuccess right there one step at
a time.
Rocco Corriero (34:08):
You know, you're you know, the idea that you had
said, getting it done and almostlike, you know, really trying to
protect your time, right?
Nobody's really nobody's gonnacall you or really bother you
between that 530 to 630 time,right? So your daughter's
probably sleeping, you know,friends, business associates,
nobody's calling you at thattime. So that's, you know,
(34:28):
that's what you gotta do. Right?
So if you you plug that in atdifferent times, if you tried to
plug in, oh, at six o'clock atnight, I'm going to sit here and
and read the book. It's nothaving it right. You know, you
got your daughter you fold yourring in. It's just not not
possible. So I think that youknow, just listening to you, you
(34:52):
know, you know your mark in thatEMR in that time and when you do
your market is the only wayyou're going to get it done
right Right can't bespontaneous, you know, like, you
can't be spontaneous aboutreading that book. It's
basically like, this is my timeto read the book. This is it.
Dustin Steffey (35:08):
Yeah, and I purposely bought a Kindle on
purpose, like an expensive one.
Because I hate spending money,I'd rather invest. Because I
know that when I spend money onsomething, I have to do it. So
I, I kind of purposely, like didthat on purpose. So I'm starting
to do the things that are right.
For me. And it did take a goodsolid couple of weeks to adjust
(35:32):
to it, it was rough, right?
Because my normal schedule waswake up, work all the time, go
to bed late, do it all overagain. And I was noticing I was
beating my body down, I wasbeaten, I was beaten down, I was
short, short, fuse shorttempered. And so that doesn't
help with raising a childeither, because you tend to
spark a little faster, andthat's not okay. So I had to
(35:54):
take a step back. And, andthere's a lot that's happened to
me, I mean, in between, right.
And I feel like I deal withthings a little bit better. Now
that my head is a little moresolid.
Rocco Corriero (36:12):
You need that, right? That's, you know, you if
you're not clear, right? So, ifyou're not focused, you're not
clear, you're never gonna get tothe levels that you want to get
to. So it sounds like you got,you know, you got clarity as to
what you want for yourself andhow you're going to do it. And
you're actually doing it. Andthat's really so awesome. Yeah,
(36:34):
it's, you do what's required,it's through the deal.
Dustin Steffey (36:38):
And like you said earlier, no one's perfect
at it, I still haveopportunities to address, but I
took some of them already andhave addressed.
Rocco Corriero (36:49):
That is so awesome. That's, you know, that.
And if you continue to do that,right, just continue to work on
that and do that. And you don'tbite off too much, too much at
once, which I tend to do myself,you'll get, you'll just get a
lot done. And you'll do it withbalance, and you'll do it with
happiness. And you know, thatthere's, you know, you gotta you
(37:14):
got to take a look and say,Okay, where did I start? Two
years ago, five years ago, oneyear ago, and I'm growing. And
so measuring yourself againstwhat you actually where you
where you've come, where you'vebasically grown from versus what
you aspire to, right? So a lotof times we just, we visually,
you know, we we think we wemeasure ourselves against the
(37:36):
ideal, right? And so we might bedisappointed ourselves with
that. But if you measureyourself against what you've
done over the past 135 10 years,it's a great, you know, it's a
great way to live.
Dustin Steffey (37:52):
So what's one major key piece of advice, if
you were to, let's say, you andI left tomorrow, because time is
not infinite? It's finite? Yep.
What would be one key thing thatyou would want to impress upon
the world? Like, what's one keypiece of advice?
Rocco Corriero (38:09):
I would say, the key piece of the key p one piece
would be focus on all three,like, be aware, work on all
three, don't just work on one,right? You need, you need money
to live. Right. And, you know,it's like, money's not
important. But, you know, andmoney does help solve a lot of
(38:31):
problems when problems occur inpeople's lives, right. And
family is important, right? Soyou got to work on it. So that
doesn't doesn't just happen. Sopeople think, Oh, I'm entitled
to family. I, you know, it justI don't need to put any work in
there. Because I don't, that'snot the way it works wrong. And
(38:51):
then self, right. You know,people think, well, I don't need
to pay attention to my house,right? I'm fine. Wrong. So so so
the one piece of advice I'd giveto everybody who's listening is
work on all three.
Dustin Steffey (39:06):
And then just for the listeners, because this
book is powerful, and I thinkit's important, especially for
my listeners, where can you findit?
Rocco Corriero (39:15):
It's available on Amazon, Barnes and nobles.com
I think it's on target.com It's,there's a retail within
walmart.com and, you know,Amazon's and you know, easy
place to get it. It's threecourts approach to life and
wealth management for businessowners. And I hope your
(39:37):
listeners get a copy of it andit makes it impacted their life
pretty cool.
Dustin Steffey (39:42):
And for my listeners, I will drop the I'll
drop the Amazon link because Ithink that's the easiest one for
me to be able to draw. Sure willbe episode description, and all
sorts it to you Rocco so thatway you kind of see like, who's
who's kind of taken it in. SoI'll make Everything's good in
the episode description for allmy listeners.
Rocco Corriero (40:04):
Thanks Dawson.
This was It was great meetingyou. My next trip out to Reno
I'm gonna look you up hope toget together with you.
Dustin Steffey (40:12):
Well, if we have a live event coming up, I do
send emails. I'd love to haveyou out. I think it would be
great to have some of the peoplethat I've interviewed and had on
be there for support. Love to bethere.
Rocco Corriero (40:24):
Thank you so much for the invitation.
Dustin Steffey (40:27):
And thank you for coming on. Thank you for
just talking on such a such apowerful concept. I think we're
all in. We're in this rat racetogether, right of the fast
paced society trying to make itand everything and sometimes we
need to slow down and focus onWell, the three chords.
Rocco Corriero (40:44):
You got it.
Nice. Thanks. Thank you.
Alright, take care well
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