The Legacy Within | Purpose, Balance, and the Power of Non-Negotiables

In this powerful Burn Podcast compilation, Ben Newman sits down with two remarkable thought leaders — Mel Abraham and Angie Wisdom — to explore what it means to live with purpose, lead with intention, and build a legacy that lasts far beyond success.

First, Mel Abraham shares how lessons from his father and his own battle with cancer reshaped his definition of wealth. From navigating financial uncertainty during the pandemic to writing Building Your Money Machine, Mel reveals that true success isn’t about profit — it’s about presence. He reminds us that the greatest investment we can make is in the moments and people that matter most. His story is a masterclass in aligning ambition with values and leaving a legacy by living it now, not later.

Then, Angie Wisdom joins Ben for a deep conversation on mastering mindset, defining personal standards, and honoring the non-negotiables that shape how we live and lead. Drawing from her book The Non-Negotiable YOU, Angie shares how discipline, awareness, and self-leadership are the foundation of lasting growth — in business and in life. Her wisdom challenges us to stop running in place, lead ourselves first, and create alignment between our goals and who we are becoming.

Together, these conversations remind us that fulfillment isn’t found in chasing more — it’s discovered when you commit to living intentionally, with clarity, purpose, and an unshakable standard for who you choose to be every single day.

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/KOBRaWl5P8U
Listen on all platforms: https://www.theburnpodcast.com

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Connect with Angie: https://angiewisdom.com

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Connect with Mel at https://melabraham.com/

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Question Of Passion And Purpose
• 0:19 A Father’s Courage And Living Legacy
• 2:36 Presence Over Profits And Harmony
• 4:31 Facing Cancer And Finding Meaning
• 8:53 Sponsor: Q-Logics Partner Message
• 9:13 Support, Uncertainty, And Ongoing Recovery
• 10:15 Money Mastery Through Lived Experience
• 13:10 Service, The Book, And A New Mission
• 16:05 Burn vs Why: Origins And Purpose
• 18:05 Awareness As A Catalyst For Change
• 20:03 Values Over Feelings And Discipline
• 22:03 Morning Mindset And Owning The Day

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:12

Where does that come from for you? Where's the burn? Where does this passion for life come from for Mel Abraham?

SPEAKER_02: 0:19

God, if I went back to it, I think part of it is my dad. My dad came to the, I'm the son of an immigrant family. My dad came to the U.S. He was in a country where they were hunting him down. He was, they were gonna hang him in the square, changed his name, got fake papers, ended up here at 17 with nothing. And he always did, like he was smuggling people out to keep them safe. And and I remember four days before he passed away, I asked him, I said, I said, if they caught you, they were gonna hang you at 17. What why would you do this? I I know what I was thinking at 17. It wasn't that, you know? And he said, he literally, as he sat in his wheelchair, he looks at me and he says, Because it was the right thing to do. And all of a sudden, my dad's life made sense to me. My journey made sense to me because he lived that way, always asking, What's the right thing to do? How do I leave people better than when I came into their life? And not asking what the sacrifice is. He was this quiet man, he wasn't boisterous. He was he was a he was a chemical plastics engineer in the aerospace industry. It wasn't anything, but as I look back, this this perspective of of knowing that each moment matters, and that it actually is an opportunity to shift someone's life for the better. And that when we look at it that way, I think we start to give reverence to the moments that it deserves. And you know, I have a philosophy that says legacy isn't what we leave behind. You know, it's not legacy, isn't what we leave for people, legacy is what we leave in people. And when we understand that, then we realize that it isn't about leaving a legacy, it's about living a legacy. And I got that from dad. It's just it's just knowing that even if this was, if if our moment together backstage was the only time we met, how do I make it important? How do I make it meaningful? How do I make it impactful? And so I try to be present. And you know, I I I fall down plenty of times, but uh, but at the same time, I just I just know that the moments can be monumental.

SPEAKER_01: 2:40

And so is that a mindset that you carried through not only as a father, but in your work and all relationships and everything that you've done?

SPEAKER_02: 2:50

Uh it is a mindset that I think I tried to carry through. There's I like I said, I I I am I am not I am not perfect, you know. And being a you know, I raised my son as a single dad, and he reminded me. He reminded me really vividly at six years old that I was screwing it up. I, you know, I was working a lot, I was building stuff, and he came in one day and he just says, Daddy, daddy, I drew a picture of you at school today. And all of a sudden I kneel down because he's so excited, and I see this picture of me in blue fel, a stick figure standing in front of two computer screens and a phone in each ear. And at the hands of a six-year-old, I kind of go, Oh, shoot. And it was, you know, and I think that we all can look at it. I could have easily looked at it and said, Hey, kid, you know, I got to keep the roof over our heads, we got to do this. We need the profits so we can do the things we love to do. But he didn't understand that. He didn't need my profits, he needed my presence and and this idea of work-life balance and all that stuff came to roost with me and said, What? We can't do balance. Balance is two counterweights playing tug-a-war. What we need to do is harmony. And harmony comes from intent and intentional. So I think from that point is where I started to look at it and say, how do I make it happen? And so I tried to bring it in in the things I do when I speak, when I, when I, you know, when I have my my employees, my teams, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 4:20

But I know I'm I'm not infallible, but I I want people to feel important. Well, you you certainly make people feel important. Uh, you're certainly very present. Now, let me take you to this mindset battling cancer. Yeah. You know, people face challenge, people face adversity. So you have this life lesson from dad, almost embracing an appreciation for the opportunity that you have and to lead people the right way. You have this deep, profound lesson from your son at six. When adversity struck, and I don't know if anybody's ever asked it to you this way, when cancer hit, where did your mind go then? Did that mindset get you through it? Did you have a little bit of a setback? How did you battle that adversity when you got that cancer news?

SPEAKER_02: 5:08

I was in denial. Truth be told, that I found out for certain on a Friday. And my wife and I laid around on a Saturday crying just all day, just because I I was in my mind young. I'm not a smoker, not a drinker, no in my family ever had cancer. I didn't, and and my my struggle. So the struggle for me was I was searching in my past to find something or someone to blame. Who did I wrong? Why did I deserve this? Why is this coming after me? And then the bigger thing for me that caused the emotion and the fear was I loved life too much and I wasn't ready to let it go. And at that point, that weekend, it was still unknown because they literally said, right now it looks like a five centimeter tumor. It turned out to be seven and a half centimeters. It was on top of the prostate. So he says, you know, we'll go in, we'll have to take it out. We gotta, we gotta, we might have to take out the prostate. I can't see the ureter. We might have to put a tube in a bag in. And if it's bad, you're gonna lose your kit, your your bladder. And I'm like going, hold on a second. How did I go from the top of the world to the point of I might have a bag? And and it just, I was scared. I mean, I and I freaked, and I was I was resentful and I was in a dark, dark place, and it was hard. And it took a little while for me to try and dust myself off and say, I had to get to a point of accepting it and saying, okay, I've been dealt this hand. I have what what am I gonna do? What's what's the choice? And the thing that allowed me to get through it was I I realized that I was searching for something I did in the past that caused me to get the cancer. And when I shifted that to start looking at it and saying, what if it wasn't because of something I did, but it was for something I'm supposed to do? Can I now all of a sudden the cancer found some meaning and found some value? And then and and I said, okay, this is the hand we've been dealt. How do we fight this as best as possible? And we hit it from every possible medical way possible. I didn't matter. I just, and the blessing of my financial situation allowed me to do that, to shut things down and say, we're in a game. Let's fight this thing and let's do it, you know, with with abandon. We're we're gonna beat this thing and and let's give it a fight, you know. And so that's what we did. I was blessed to have people like, you know, my my wife, my son, you know, people like Brendan. Brendan got he got angry at me because I didn't call him enough to to fill him in. And and to have people in your life that sat back and said, Hey, checking in on you. But it's it is a tough battle. And it's still, truth be told, it's not the the surgeon that I have is a great surgeon. He said, You and I will be in a relationship for the rest of our life because it's a high-reoccurring cancer. And so I go in for regular scopes, regular checkups and everything. And and so it's never too far from the mind. And and as you know, the week before I'm going in for a scope, I just did it just uh uh before the holidays. That week I I keep telling my wife, I go, I know what a defendant feels like. When when they say that the jury reached a verdict, come on into the courtroom, you know, and it's like you're going in and you're just all right, you're on pins and needles, and and he says, you're all clear.

SPEAKER_01: 8:53

This episode of The Burn is brought to you by our dear friends and partners at Q Logics. Now, you know I don't co-sign things I don't believe in, and I believe in John Chiarando and the team at Q Logics. He's built multiple nine-figure businesses, real integrity, real character, the kind of guy you want in your corner. But here's what happened all that expertise, all that knowledge, it was just his. Locked in his head, his decisions, his team. You couldn't access it. So John created Q-Logics. He basically said, How do I make everything I've built available to people who actually need it? Here's what that looks like. Q-Logic helps you see the blind spots in your business, the gaps you don't even know you have. You don't know what you don't know. They're your tour guide through that. Q-Logics helps you build systems that make your business work better, or they ask better questions so you're approaching it in the most effective way. And Q Logic has access to a network of businesses and resources, real connections, real synergies that can accelerate what you're building. If any of that resonates, go to QPython Logics, L-O-G-I-X.com forward slash Ben. Fill out a form. Their team will research your situation personally, then they'll tell you straight. Can they actually help? Thank you to our friends and partners at Q Logics. Make sure you find out more about Q Logics and your opportunity to win more with them today. How important has it been for you to not just be somebody who read the books or was, you know, an accountant and learned a lot about finances, but they weren't in order? How important has it been for you as a leader in this space to be an example by taking care of your money the right way?

SPEAKER_02: 10:33

I I think it it's everything from the perspective because look, look, I got a CPA license, I got a valuation credential, I got all the credentials, I got all the licenses. But I think that there's so much more to the fact that I lived it. That that there is nothing that I talk about that I just I I lived. So so I speak not from I don't I don't speak from just an education, I speak from a knowing. I speak from a learning. And it's something that is is I can truly say, this is my truth. It it's given me the peace. It started with the picture that Jeremy drew. I knew I had to do money differently. I knew I had to do business differently, I knew I had to do life differently if I was gonna take care of the greatest gift that was given to me. And then the importance of it really came full circle in the cancer. Because now I sat back and said, I'm gonna fight for my life. I'm getting back in the ring. I used to fight competitively, I'm back in the ring. And so if you're gonna fight that, I I had to fight it spiritually, energetically, medically, psychologically, all of it, but I didn't have to fight it financially. And that was a gift. And and it's a it's a gift to be able to do that. It's a blessing. I feel it was a privilege, but it was something that allowed me to do this. And then, so let's just do some timing so we understand where this came from. I got diagnosed in June of 2019. Pandemic hits in 2020. I watched people struggle in the pandemic financially. I saw people destroyed. And and I had a dear friend of mine who said, if they knew what you knew, would would they have struggled as much? If they did what you're telling people to do, and I said, No. He said, then maybe this is your path. And so so this is where the whole the book, the speaking, the show, everything came out of because in the process of healing, I did it through serve. I'm doing it through service daily, I'm doing through giving daily. And and I literally I was on Brendan's stage speaking in Austin, 2,000 people, and then he had me do some QA after I did my session because we had a little extra time. And I listened to the questions, and I got backstage. This was uh almost a year ago, a little over a year ago, November. And he says, What's up? And I said, There's a lot of uncertainty in the world, there's a lot of pain out there. And he said, Yeah. And I said, They need access to this, and they can't get access to me necessarily. And uh, so what do you think? And I said, I'll write the book. And that's where the that's how the book was born. 75 days from that, from from me making the decision, I had the first manuscript.

SPEAKER_01: 13:24

So, how excited are you about this book? Tell us about the excitement because see that that's another thing. You you hear something, you feel something, but this is the history. I hope everybody's listening. You take action and you do it. And so that's what I think is so unique about this book because a lot of people could hear that feedback and say, well, it just, you know, means I could do this, but I don't have time for it. But you did it. So, how excited are you for the release of this book, Building Your Money Machine? Here's how I look at it.

SPEAKER_02: 13:52

This is the whole new season of my life. Is to serve. I truly believe. So, my my firm belief, and you see it in the book, I say it, is that that financial freedom is a birthright. We just need to go claim it. We don't want to talk about money, we don't want to have conversations. You demonize money, the media doesn't like money, but you know what? Money's just a tool. It's no different than a hammer, a screwdriver. But let's show how you can have peace. So we take one aspect. Financial wellness destroys relationships, destroys productivity, destroys marriages, just destroys profitability. Let's give them financial wellness because you know what? It's actually simple. It's it may not be easy, but it's simple. Just do the right things and let's get get them in the game. And so for me, I'm looking at saying, if I look at my history and my journey, for all of a sudden, my whole this the book represents the culmination of my I'm 62, so six decades on this earth. Because all of a sudden I can look back and I I can follow the trail and go, this is how I got here. Because look, I'm a freaking accountant. You wouldn't expect me to be doing this stuff. And and yet that's what drives me. And and so I'm so excited because not because the book is coming out, I'm so excited because I think that we have the opportunity to allow people to become the inflection point in their family tree, that they get a chance to be that point in their in their generational living, to to have the generations beyond look back and go, Uncle Bobby made a difference. And because he did that, and because he made one decision, just like my dad did to come here, life is different for us. And that's that's why I'm so excited about it.

SPEAKER_01: 15:41

Well, I'm excited for readers to get their hands on the book. We're gonna make it as easy as possible in the show notes for people to stay connected with you, as well as the details in the release of the book, ways to get on a VIP list for all of those updates. And here's something that I think is special. And I've just, once again, we could we have a whole nother podcast episode about this. You know, there's a lot of people that do things because it's for money. Oh, I want to start this business for money. I want to write a book because I think I can make a lot of money. And I'm gonna ask all of our readers you have a man of passion, a fighter who's in front of your screen right now who is not doing this for money. He just shared with you that because of feedback he gets of people who are struggling in this country with their money. And most of you, I was a financial advisor for over 10 years. So I know many people, they don't share the truth about their financial situation until they talk to their accountant or they talk to their financial advisor. So I know some of you might be struggling. So here's a man who could care less about making money on this book. He wrote this book for you so that you have a better relationship with your money and your money works hard for you when you're done saving your money. You had an amazing career as a financial advisor, which then created wisdom trading, which is now giving you the opportunity to do so many things in the business world and being a master certified coach and writing this amazing book, The Non-Negotiable You. You are doing things the right way. And there's a lot of people, I'm not just saying coaches, it's all where a lot of people are trying to cut corners these days. And that's what I love. It's the longevity of you being in the business, your passion for being in this business. I can feel it in the interactions that we have, and I also can feel it in your words through your books. Where does this fire for your work come from?

SPEAKER_00: 17:41

Yeah, thank you for all of that. It's nice to hear that back. I appreciate it. Um, the fire comes from, you know, the way I grew up, Ben, I grew up with an alcoholic mother. My parents were divorced. I had a stepfather come into my life, you know, around seven, but it was a very, very volatile home. My mom worked a lot of jobs. You know, she wasn't there in the morning, she wasn't there at night. And so I grew up having to be very independent, but I also grew up going, this is not going to be the way I live my life. I will not live like this. And it wasn't for a lack of love for her anything, but I just saw how hard it was. I saw how much she struggled. I saw how the addiction overtook her. I saw how she threw my stepfather out of the house every other week because, you know, she was intoxicated and mad about something. And I just longed for a better life. And that's really what created the burn. And as I got older, what became really interesting was she ended up getting sober for about six years before she passed away, which was a blessing. But I had this crazy shift where I thought, you know what, everything happens for a reason. I truly believe that. I believe that God makes things happen for us. And if I embrace that theory, then she went through a hell of a lot of stuff. She lived a rough life that gave me the life that I have. And I remember having a conversation with Ed my Led on an airplane. And he said, I said, you know, when they take credit for what you do now, you know, when you have an alcoholic parent, like, well, I must not have been that bad because look at you. And he said, Well, she didn't do it intentionally, but what she did did impact you. And so that's created the burn for me. You know, she she suffered a long life that was not happy. And I have made a commitment to live a different life and to embrace, you know, what she sacrificed.

SPEAKER_01: 19:39

So let me actually tie something together here because this is a question that I frequently get. People will say to me, they'll say, Well, the burn is just your way of saying why and purpose. You know, it's just it's just your way of tweaking it. Now, for a lot of people, burn and why and purpose, they actually are the same. But if you're paying attention to what Angie's saying, her burn that is far different than why and purpose. So if you could share with us your actual why and purpose, because similar for me, my burn being my mom, I would never wish what I went through as a young boy watching my mother pass away and having 24-hour nursing care in the house. But that gave me an appreciation of how important every day was. So that's my burn. My why and purpose wouldn't be for my kids to go through what I went through, but it's that burn that caused me to appreciate every day that ignites my why and my purpose. And that's what I love about your work and your uh how you show up every day. It's the same for you. So you wouldn't wish that example of your burn on your why and purpose. So can you help us understand the difference for you? So that's clearly your burn, and then what the why and purpose is so people can see how that burn causes you to take ownership every day to ignite that why and purpose.

SPEAKER_00: 20:51

Yeah, and I think you what you have said before too is like that you talk about the burn being that first thing you think of, you know, or you see it on your, you know, alarm, and you are not going to turn away from it. You are not going to hit that snooze button. And it truly is that burn. Like I will not be overweight and unhealthy like my mother. I will not do all these things. That's the burn. But the why is because I have been gifted to help people change their lives. And I love to do that. I mean, selfishly, I love to be a part of somebody's journey. I love someone seeing that they are capable of something they never thought they were capable of before. And that, you know, that becomes a why for me. That is my purpose. That is why I'm here, including being able to give that to my kids for to role model that, to show them, you know, what I'm doing every single day is changing my life, is affecting their life, is affecting other people's lives. So the why is different, you know, than the burn. One feels it's funny the way you say it, like the burn actually feels different. It is literally a burn and not always the pleasant burn for me, but the why is a little bit more inspirational and it's kind of like the stars lighting up for me.

SPEAKER_01: 22:06

I I love it. It makes me think of a word that I've really focused on for about the past 90 days, and you really dive deep in your book with this word. And I'd like to go there with you because I think what you're articulating for us clearly understanding that burn, clearly understanding the difference with the why and the purpose. There's a level of awareness that you show up with in your life. And in the book, you really go deep into the importance of us having awareness in our lives. Why is awareness so important?

SPEAKER_00: 22:37

We have got to see what we need to see in order to make change in our life, in order to grow. And I think a lot of people go with this ignorance is bliss, and it's hard to deal with the pain or you know, seeing something that isn't so pleasant. But you've got to have that awareness because there's so much opportunity when you have awareness. And I'm not saying it has to be judgmental. Like most people, if they have that awareness, they're so hard on themselves and so judgmental that that's what closes their eyes to the awareness. But when we treat that awareness like a gift, like, wow, I can see that my finances aren't where they're supposed to be. I can see that I'm not showing up at my highest level. That is a blessing and a gift to say, what do I want to do about it? But if we can't see it, we have zero opportunity to change it.

SPEAKER_01: 23:28

And so that leads me to the next question that I had because it's so powerful hearing you express it because it really is that simple. You have to be able to see it, you got to be able to understand it, you got to be able to attack it. And I, for years, have taught a concept standard over feelings. And I love the book. And as I had mentioned in the in the intro, I was reading the book when I needed it. So a lot of people they think just because we're coaches that we don't need coaching. I tell you guys all the time, I've still got two coaches. I'm reading books every day. I needed Angie's book at the point in time when I was reading the book. So it's like, yes, you're preparing for our time together with all of you, but it's like I actually needed the book. So here I am. I teach standard over feelings. I'm reading values over feelings in your book, and I'm like, I need this right now. This is really and there's really synergy. It's really almost the same concept. We're just saying it a different way. But how important has that been for you? And how important is that in your coaching work? If you could really take some time and to dive into why values over feelings is so important for you.

SPEAKER_00: 24:34

Sure, sure. I mean, most of our world is run by feelings. I mean, think about it. If you're at a football game and the team is winning, right? There's good feeling and there's excitement. If they're losing, the energy feels a little bit different. If you're in an office full of people and they're all making cold calls and it's buzzing and people are getting business, there's high energy. And so you're gonna feel one way. If it's quiet and it was COVID and a ghost town, you're the only one there, your feelings are gonna be different. And 90, you know, percent of our actions are subconscious. They come from our feelings, what's going on around us. If we constantly operate on our feelings, we're more than 50% of the time going to end up with regret and remorse because you may not feel like getting out of bed in the morning. That's normal. It's cold, you're tired, but you are not going to be happy later if you didn't get that workout in, if you, if you were late for work, whatever it may be. So we have to have a set of values, something that we can live to and know that what's important to me, you know, my values are faith, family, alone time, growth and development, challenge, all of accomplishment, those are some of my values. So I know that when that feeling comes up and says, Oh, you know, it's kind of cold out, you don't really feel like working out, it doesn't matter. That feeling is irrelevant because I know my values say, I like to grow and develop, I like a challenge, I like accomplishment, I like physical activity. So if you have these values to use as a compass, then you always choose what's in alignment for you and your best life and your best success instead of being, you know, lured by your feelings.

SPEAKER_01: 26:16

Discipline is how you win. Angie mentioned the word freedom. Everybody says they want freedom. Everybody says they want to be successful. If you lack discipline, if you don't lean into this non-negotiable mindset, it's going to be very hard to build discipline and to control your mind the way that you can control it. One of the best ways I've found to really build confidence through your discipline, it's another one of you guys are going to start thinking Angie and I are business partners because we teach basically the same things, is the importance of a morning routine. And you refer to it often in the book, the morning mindset. Why is the morning mindset so important to create confidence, which leads to that discipline and freedom?

SPEAKER_00: 27:05

It there's several different factors to it, but a little bit of context. I've coached for years. I've coached for you know close to 20 years now. And even, you know, as a financial advisor, we somewhat play a role of a financial coach even before then. But what I looked at were not only my success in my journey, but also looking at kind of the potholes that people fall in all the time. And the same things kept coming up for people. Whether I was working with a CEO of a hundred million dollar company or I was working with somebody who was just starting their business, we kept seeing the same obstacles trip people up. And so I basically went and I reverse engineered that. And I said, if we can own our mindset, if we can create some self-awareness and empowerment, if we can set intentions, which you know are kind of that prize, uh prize fighter day, right? Of like knowing this is what I'm going to accomplish, have some affirmations, have this routine where we are getting in the driver's seat of our day and we are creating our mind, we're creating our day, we're living into what we value. Our odds of living our best life and most successful, you know, meaningful success are going to be exponentially larger. Because without it, you end up starting your day in this reactive mode. It's just like, what do people need from you? What's the email say? What's socials say? And you start tuning into what everyone else needs from you instead of what you want to create in your own life. So that morning mindset is instrumental. I mean, you've got to have that time with yourself. You are the most important piece of the puzzle outside of, say, my faith, you are the most important piece of the puzzle. You affect your relationships, you affect your business, you affect everything. If you are not tuning into yourself every single morning to start your day, you're missing out on huge opportunities.