4 Rules for Creating Multigenerational Wealth | Zach Miller, Sam Acho, Jeff Locke, Riccardo Stewart | NFL Players’ Podcast #27
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Elite NFL players could create multigenerational wealth. However, making millions of dollars doesn’t equal multigenerational wealth.
In this episode, the AWM NFL Team discusses the 4 rules of creating multigenerational wealth: money, knowledge, skill & discipline.
For questions, you can reach out to Riccardo Stewart at +1 (602) 989-5022.
+ Read the Transcript
Riccardo Stewart (00:11): We want to welcome you guys back to another episode of the AWM NFL podcast. My name is Riccardo Stewart. I have the privilege of being the host of this show and I'm joined by my friends and my coworkers here at AWM. Got Sam Acho, we call him the mayor because he runs things. We got Zach Miller, we call him the truth because he's so knowledgeable. And then we got the professor. One, because he knows a lot, but he has the ability to be able to teach the knowledge that he has. And so...
We are going to talk today, as we do a lot, about multi-generational wealth, right? We sit with clients, we meet with clients, and that is something that is talked about. How can I have multigenerational wealth? Like, I don't wanna just have enough money for me and my family. Like, I wanna be able to have money where my kids' kids and the kids' kids are taken care of.
And so we're talking about people who are making 30, 40, 50, 100, even more million dollars, and particularly the NFL athlete, that you have the opportunity to create this because of what you've been able to do on the field. But what happens is, like all of us, we watch the 30 for 30, we read the articles, we listen to the podcast, and we think about people going broke. Our job is not to just prevent our clients from going broke.
That is like a bare minimum. The job for a family office is to be able to allow you to take the resources that you have and be able to create multi -generational wealth. And everyone thinks it's easy, and it's not. It's like people watching you play in the NFL on Sunday and going, man, that's easy. Give me a ball, let's go out in the front yard. It's like, nah, bruh, it's not easy. very, very few people actually made it to the NFL. I happen to be on a show right now with three guys who have. And so we're gonna talk about what are the things, what are the four rules of building and creating multi-generational wealth? First, you gotta have some cheddar, you gotta have some cheese. And so where does money play in this, Sam?
Sam Acho (02:21): Well, the simple fact is that money is just a tool to help you accomplish your desires and pay for the things or people that you care about. I've heard it said when I was going to the NFL, people said, man, Sam, don't change. Don't let the money change you. Don't let all that fame change you. And I was scared. was like, well, I don't know. I've never had this kind of money before. Will it change me? Will it not? And a friend of mine, a mentor of mine, a guy who had played multiple years in the NFL, I was at an event with him.
And I said, I don't know what to do. I don't know if this money will change me. And he gave me this great reminder. He said, that money is just a magnifier. That's all that it does. Money and fame, success, it's a magnifier. It magnifies who you already are and what you already were doing in the past. And so if there was some kind of some good, it would just magnify the good. If there was some shady stuff, like would magnify the shady stuff as well. At the end of the day, money is a tool to accomplish the goals that you care about and pay for the priorities that you have.
Riccardo Stewart (03:16): I love it. It's funny you said that, that don't let the money change you. I don't know if you guys remember in the like 90s when Dion was, or Coach Prime, my bad, when Dion was rapping and he had that sunny, that had that, excuse me, he had that song, Must Be the Money. And he's like, people say money gon' change me. He goes, money did change me. It changed my bank account. It changed my address. And so money does change you a little bit. So.
(03:42): And here's the thing, people on the outside, they look at athletes and they go, how do they have all this money? And they don't do this and this and this yet. But the reality of it is money's not enough to build multi -generational wealth because there's a lot of people who have money and they're miserable. There's a lot of people with money. They have horrible relationships.
But a lot of people who have had money and don't have that money now. So you gotta have money. And the next thing I'm going to say that you need to have, you need to have knowledge. And so I'm gonna go to the truth here because that goes hand in hand. So what part does knowledge play in building multi -generational?
Zach Miller (04:19): So knowledge is massively important. One thing I'll say first, though, is the 30 for 30 broke that whole thing. It's like it's 15 year anniversary. I'm still looking for someone. So hit me up if you want to produce this. But essentially the opposite of 30 for 30 broke the following the families that create multigenerational wealth from their earnings in the NFL. Like that's the documentary I want to see. Obviously, they're not going to make it because no one wants to watch success. They always want to watch failures.
But how do you avoid failures? Like one, like one of those tools is the knowledge. So the knowledge is just what you can recall and remember that you can explain, summarize, compare. It's all those facts, stories, frameworks, concepts, opinions, formulas, and all those beliefs that are in your head. And so that's, you have to have those things. It's massively important to creating generational wealth, but it's actually, it's not enough. Even if I took all the knowledge I have went back in time and gave it to myself at 21 years old. It's actually not enough to have just the knowledge. You have to have what Jeff will talk about. You have to have the skills or the skillset to implement it.
Jeff Locke (05:31): Leading the witness. Strike.
Riccardo Stewart (05:33): Good. I was going to say, Jeff, would you add any of that?
Jeff Locke (05:36): Yeah, I like to use analogies, right? So on the football side, knowledge is like memorizing the entire playbook and doing all the film study. Cool. You know what it looks like on paper, right? But Rick, as you're going to team up in a second, like what is knowledge without actually going out and practicing it?
Riccardo Stewart (05:55): I am going to tee you up because what I know is the math is still not mapping. Money plus knowledge does not equal multi -generational wealth. It's money, it's knowledge, and then we have to add skill. so, professor, speak on it.
Jeff Locke (06:14): You know, skill is really something that all athletes know. And the first thing I'm going say is like, skill is not talent. So don't mix those two up, right? Talent might be like what you're born with, like what you inherited from your parents. Skill is all the thousands of thousands of hours of practice, deliberate practice and feedback, making it look easy on Sundays. All right. You talked about early in the podcast, right? It looks easy. I can go pick up a ball and do it. No, you can't.
We put in 10 ,000 plus hours doing the smallest little thing over and over and over again to develop our skills. Right. So we think of those as technical skills, right? The footwork for me, when I was punning, like every little movement I made, every millimeter was exactly planned when I was putting a football. And that's a skill that I develop over time. When it comes to multi -generational, generational wealth, kind of like Zach said, you can have the knowledge. You can have the knowledge that stock markets go up and down over time, but do you have the skill to not freak out when stock markets go down? Right. And it's going to happen probably 10 plus times over the, over your lifetime and 10 plus times over your kid's lifetime.
Do you have the skill to stick with it? Right. And the coolest thing about skill is that's also what you teach to your next generation. Right. You can teach them all the knowledge. But what your kids are gonna remember is seeing you apply the knowledge. That's what they're gonna learn and that's what's gonna keep the generations going and going and going with this wealth that you created.
Riccardo Stewart (07:54): Zach, would you have anything that you want to say to that?
Zach Miller (07:57): Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's no different than someone who, who's super athletic and they have all this talent, but like, doesn't have the hard work. It's like that wasted potential you have. mean, you can have the knowledge, but unless you develop a skillset and then like Jeff was alluding to the discipline and we'll talk about that, the discipline of being, making good investments over long periods of time, keeping, you know, controlling your spending, all of that. And we'll get to that, but that is -
It's another part where that skill set and you're not born with it. And unless you come from a family with money, it's very hard to learn. If you don't come from money, you're just not going to get the skill set. Even if you have some of the knowledge.
Riccardo Stewart (08:42): That's good, that's good. So the math is still not mathin'. We got one more piece here. You gotta have money plus knowledge plus skill. And the last thing that you need, and Zach's already talked about it, is discipline. I mean, you think about you as an athlete and the discipline that it takes to do what you've done. I remember getting just to college. And I remember something simple as this. My head coach being like, hey, you guys, you gotta start getting up earlier. We gotta get into the weight room. Like, you never lifted weights at 6 a .m. when we were coming out of high school.
And I remember the first thing he said is the first thing in morning you need to do is stand up. As soon as your alarm goes off, stand up in the morning, as opposed to sitting in the bed, hitting the snooze. And the discipline of that, I mean, that was 2000, 24 years later. That's the first thing I do when I'm getting up early in the morning is I just get up. Like one, I get up, which gives me the opportunity to not go back into the bed. Okay, that's something small. Jeff talked about punting. Zach can talk about route running. Sam can talk about the bag that he has when it comes to rushing the pass rusher.
Those things might have been born within them, the talent, but the actual skill to be able to develop those things, that's made them the NFL players that they were. And it's the same thing on the financial side. you begin to allude some things on discipline. I want you to talk a little bit more about that. What does discipline look like in building multi -generational wealth?
Zach Miller (10:02): I mean, the things you can control, discipline is having, using that knowledge, using that skillset to then either say no to certain things, that's a discipline, saying no to even family, saying no to things that aren't important to you. Like those are all the discipline it takes to create generational wealth or just, you know, the right team around you, having the discipline to hold them accountable.
And then on yourself, like, Am I am I going to be disciplined to follow my plan? That might sound like easy. Oh, I got this plan laid out. My kids will be wealthy. My kids kids will be wealthy. But then am I going to execute this plan? Am I not going to go off on my own and do my own thing like buy things I shouldn't be buying wasting money on things like that? I mean, because if you follow the plan, it's just like follow the follow the game plan in the game, run the plays and hopefully it works out in the end. If you don't, if you just go off script, you don't know what can happen. So the discipline to hold yourself accountable to.
(10:58): hold your team accountable, all those little decisions along the line, are they above the line or below the line? Discipline's very yes or no, like you're either doing it or you're not. It's no different than when you're at practice, you're either putting in the work or not, you're either working your tail off in the weight room, and only you really know that, because not everyone's always watching you. It's the one thing, if you're out on your own, are you making the right decisions? It's the same thing with money, because at the end of the day, you're either going to have it or you're not your kids are going to be super wealthy or they're not.
Riccardo Stewart (11:31): Sam, I see you nodding your head, and so I want you to get the last word in as you begin to talk about discipline as it relates to building multi -generational wealth. What are some of the things that come to your mind that like, I have to say this?
Sam Acho (11:43): How you do anything is how you do everything. So we talk about wanting to be disciplined when it comes to our finances, but are you disciplined when it comes to what you eat? Disciplined when it comes to how you study? Disciplined when it comes to how you prepare? So much, we are integrated. We are one person, one human. And so, like we've been talking about, it takes, yes, money, but it also takes skill.
But it also takes knowledge, but it also takes discipline. If you don't have those three things integrated, you won't be whole - And so as I'm listening to this conversation, nodding my head and everything that Zach's saying, everything that Ricardo's saying, everything that Jeff's saying, I'm reminded of myself. Oh, I want to be an expert. I need to be disciplined as I parent my children. I need to be disciplined as I prepare for different things, as I do the different work that I do. I am integrated. I'm a human being. I'm one human. And so as I'm listening, I'm learning and not in my head because I'm like, oh yeah, this applies to all facets and aspects of life, not just as an athlete or a coach or an advisor or a strategist. This applies to us as parents. Some of us are children. Some of us are our colleagues. And then ultimately, as we talk about often, it applies to our wealth and our money and our future and generations. And so how you do anything is how you do everything. We are integrated. We are human. We are one.
It takes knowledge, but it also takes skill, and it takes the discipline, three in one.
Riccardo Stewart (13:03): Well said. So I'll say this, the math math now. Money plus knowledge, thank you Jeff, plus skill, thank you Zach, plus discipline, thank you fellas. That gives you the opportunity to set yourself up to build multi -generational wealth. As always, we will tell you any resources you need on that. If you want us to elaborate more on that, we would love to send you some resources. You can shoot us a text at 602-989-5022. Again, that's 602-989-5022.