38 years ago, my wife and I / got married.// We were stupid. // We didn't do any pre-marriage counseling. / I was a hell-raising, beer-drinking hillbilly.// Good salesman, though,// so I sold her. // And / about the time I started buying and selling real estate, I left that other thing, and I grew up in the real estate business. My mom and dad were in the real estate business, so I thought I was going to flip this house, and that's back before there was cable TV to tell you how. // And so, / I'd buying houses and flipping them,/ and/I got rich,/ starting from nothing. // By the time I was 26 years old, I had about $4 million worth of real estate, a little over a million dollar net worth,/ and / I was making about $250,000 cash taxable income a year. // That's $20,000 a month. / I don't know what neighborhood you grew up in, but the neighborhood I grew up in, we called that rich.// It was fun,/ too,/ y'all. // That car you always wanted, if you ever got some money,/ I want that car,/ mine was a Jaguar. I wanted to get me a Jaguar, because no one in my old neighborhood could even spell Jaguar. // It was exotic,/ you know. // So, I got me a Jaguar, man. Within 90 days, baby, I was a Jaguar. // I was having/ fun. //And Sharon and I, we had never traveled really much, other than a little bit of, I mean, we went to Florida on our honeymoon, and that was about it and.../ And / we started getting some money, and we said, well, what do rich people do? And they found out they go to Hawaii, so we went to Hawaii.// Rednecks in Hawaii, y'all, / wow! // The water's so blue!// It was unbelievable!// We loved it, too, man, it was a blast. We liked it so much, we got home and planned another trip, and two months later, we went back again. It was fun. // And we got Sharon some/ of these sparkly things, / and they weren't big enough, /so we got her some more. // It was fun, y'all. // Sometimes I hear these people say, oh, those rich people are miserable. // Mm-mm. // Now,/ I am not here to tell you money will make you happy, because money /will not / make you happy. // Money/ will make you/ more of what you already are.// If you're unhappy and you get money, you will be/ unbelievably /unhappy. // If you're depressed and you get money,/ your depression/ will darken. // If you're a jerk and you get money, you become a big jerk. // If you're sweet and you're /generous,/ and you love giving and you get money, you become what we call/ a philanthropist,/ and you change entire communities, entire people sectors.// You become more / of what you already are/ when you get money. // It doesn't fix your marriage. If you have a bad marriage, it'll make it worse. // And the crazy /that's in your family? // So we're cruising along, everything's pretty good, and / only I had done some stupid stuff.// Nothing illegal, I didn't cheat anybody, I didn't lie, I didn't commit fraud, I didn't do anything like that./ But I was just stupid.// How many of y'all ever done something dumb with money?// How many of you didn't raise your hand and have a problem with lying? // I borrowed too much money, and we were doing a lot of it on 90-day notes because we were flipping these houses, and/ our bank,/ our largest bank, got sold to another bank/ out of state. //And the guy looks down and goes, there's a kid,/ 26 years old, / owes us a million two/ on 90-day notes. // "Let's limit this relationship,"/ which is banker talk for "Ruin his life." // And / we weren't late / on a single note, / but they called all our notes because under the paper I signed, they had the rights to do that/ if they just squirreled/ and they squirreled. // I was the idiot to sign the paper that allowed that to happen,/ never dreaming that anybody would be that way.// Our second largest lender heard we were in trouble and called another 800,000, so we got $2 million due/ almost immediately, and it's all tied up in real estate. // We spent the next two and a half years of our life losing everything we owned. // One year I made $250,000,/ the next year my taxable income was $6,000./ Spent the whole year selling stuff, trying to pay my bills, because I was told you're supposed to pay your bills if you say you're going to. // Two and a half years later, we were at the bottom.// Our marriage was hanging on by a thread/ because the number one cause of divorce in North America today is money fights/ and money problems. // We didn't get a divorce. // Sharon said,/ I would've left, but I didn't have a car.//