In this episode of the Profitable Christian Business Podcast, host Doug Greathouse sits down with his good friend and financial coach Andy Bennetts to discuss two of the most misunderstood and mission-critical topics in the Christian entrepreneur world: faith and finances.
With humor, depth, and practical wisdom, Andy shares how Christians can break free from debt, avoid the hidden traps of the traditional banking system, and walk in true financial stewardship. From uncovering the meaning behind the word mortgage to introducing his "Financial GPS" system, this episode is a must-listen for anyone who wants to honor God with their finances while building a lasting legacy.
This isn’t just about money—it’s about obedience, sacrifice, and freedom.
🔑 What You’ll Learn:
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Why most people are trapped in a cycle of unnecessary debt
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The spiritual and practical importance of budgeting
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How traditional banks profit from your ignorance
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What “good debt” really means—and why that phrase is misleading
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How to start using a "Financial GPS" to chart your journey
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How obedience in stewardship opens doors to God’s provision
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The mindset shift required to create generational wealth
🎙️ Featured Sound Bites:
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"The borrower is slave to the lender."
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"Mortgage means death pledge. That should wake us up."
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"Refinancing is a racket. Banks want you in debt for life."
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"Financial freedom begins with naming and taming the problem."
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"God will test your obedience with your money."
📌 Chapters:
00:00 – Intro: Faith & Finances
03:07 – Debunking Debt Myths
06:03 – Budgeting as Kingdom Stewardship
09:02 – Good
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Profitable Christian BusinessPodcast.
I am your host Doug Greathouse and I am so pleased to have my friend Andy Bennett with metoday.
Andy and I met a while back.
We've become quick friends.
uh We align on so many different things.
We're going to talk about one of my favorite topics, one of his favorite topics, uh whichis faith.
(00:24):
Faith, of course, Jesus.
We're going to talk about some Jesus.
That's our number one favorite topic.
But our other favorite topic is money, right?
And profitable is in the name, profitable for the kingdom first of all, but profitablebusiness, right?
We want you to be profitable as an individual and have a profitable business.
And Andy's gonna help with some information towards that.
uh Andy, give us a quick introduction.
(00:45):
Hello everybody.
Yes.
Thank you so much Doug for having me on.
I've been looking forward to this.
Yeah.
So I'm born and raised in Colorado.
I was a teacher for about 10 years.
I thought that that was, actually, remember vividly at church camp being called intoeducation, thought that would be my life for the rest of my working career.
But uh God changed course about halfway through there.
(01:06):
And I've been in technology sales and consulting the last 15 years.
And I'm super excited about my newest venture, which is financial literacy.
So back to my roots of education and helping people see a brighter future, get out of debtand build real wealth.
So uh many hats that I've worn throughout the years, but at the core, I am just a dad anda worship leader at the church.
(01:33):
And just look forward to sharing some of the fun things that I've been working on and somelessons learned along the way, shall we say.
Wow, I see I learned something new about you in the introduction.
I did not know you were a worship leader.
Nice.
years I took over for my dad.
So yep, kind of a fun deal.
Singing instrument, what instruments do you play?
(01:54):
Do you sing?
Of course, you probably sing.
most, yeah, that's kind of generally how I do that.
I play trumpet, but I'm not as cool as like Phil Driscoll, way, call.
Was there no Phil Driscoll?
I'm not that cool, but yeah, you bet.
Yep.
Nice.
I think that's a good lead into my first getting to know you question.
If you could instantly master any hobby or skill outside of what you normally do, whatwould it be and why?
(02:17):
It is perfectly then because I have play guitar or play piano.
I can kind of hack my way through that, but there's no way that I can actually sing and doboth of those.
So if I could just snap my fingers and be able to, you know, be just a master at either ofthose, I would don't even care which one it is, but that would help things out immensely.
And it would definitely help me to connect with people and be able to kind of share thatgift.
(02:40):
That'd be pretty awesome.
Nice.
I can't wait to get into some of these topics.
Like I'm boiling with anticipation, especially talking about debt and how that controlspeople and how the Bible reflects on debt and all those kinds of things.
So let's bust a money myth that could get us canceled, but it needs to be said.
(03:01):
uh What's one financial belief that Christians really need to rethink?
I think, and I'm gonna speak specifically to the folks in America here, because I do havequite a few folks that I either work with or colleagues that are in other countries.
So uh I'm just gonna speak to my American uh fellow Christians.
I think the myth that we need to bust and just speak about and talk about is the idea thatdebt is a normal thing.
(03:28):
Debt is just part of life and we need to be okay with that.
That is an absolute lie, I think, from Satan.
that we have just been lulled into this reality of like, to do anything, right?
I mean, it's gone so quickly from not having debt at all to now we can't buy our couchunless it's on a car.
It's like generations we've gone from debt being a uh negative evil thing to now it isjust a way of life.
(03:56):
And I think we have been lulled into this false ah narrative that that is just the waythat we need to carry on.
And obviously there's some...
some variance in there.
So there's some, know, can you, is it possible to buy a house without going into debt?
Probably not, right?
So I'm not saying that all debt is, you know, evil and that kind of stuff, but I do thinkthat we have been lulled into this false sense of reality that that is just the way that
(04:20):
God would have us live our lives.
We could go deep there, but we'll circle back ah to that for sure.
ah What is one money habit that people would definitely judge you for, but you secretlywish they copied?
ah I am an obsessive budgeter to the point where I had this queued up and ready to go.
(04:42):
I have swag of a budgeting app.
Like what kind of a dork has swag?
Like that, like that's me.
I just think numbers matter.
ah It's always it's a means to an end.
I actually posted on Facebook earlier today.
You know, people get wrapped up in like, are we earning, you know, obsessed with money,right?
That people have some very negative connotation about that.
(05:02):
Money is a tool that allows you to accomplish whatever
purpose it is that you have.
If you have good intentions and you have more money, you can do more good in the world.
If you have evil intentions and you have a lot of money, you can do more evil in theworld.
So I think people demonize having money and I think that that's a little bit askew.
So as far as like a habit that I wish people would would copy uh would be keeping track ofyour money.
(05:26):
One of the rules in YNAB, which is that app that I use, is give every dollar a job, right?
If you
about every time that you got a paycheck, you assigned a job for every single dollar andsome of that might be savings.
Again, Christian wise, we give a tenth to Christ before we do anything else, right?
But if you assign um every dollar a job from the get-go, we roll with the punches.
(05:49):
There's a lot of different rules they have right there, but I think that would help all ofus to be in a better spot and maybe not get so far into the weeds and into the bondage if
we really, I mean, if we're being honest, of debt.
uh
I think that is a bondage and then we don't call it that way because that's not a fun wayto uh think about it.
that is that's what the Bible says.
(06:10):
And I think that's a true, true representation of what it is.
um before we go into the fill-in-blank question, I kind of want to dive in a little bitmore on debt.
Because I've had other people on the podcast and we've talked about that a little bit.
uh And this just kind of lets you know where I'm coming from.
(06:32):
think there is, and this may be a debate and you can help bring me around if you need to,is there's a term, there's good debt.
uh What are your thoughts?
Is that a falsehood that there's good debt?
uh And if not, why?
If so, why?
(06:52):
It is a tricky subject, so I don't want to get canceled too quickly.
What?
I don't want to have people tune out because of this.
I would say maybe we let's change the narrative to good and bad.
There's a whole story.
There's a stallion story.
Remind me to tell you that sometime.
I'll try to post that later.
It's really, really interesting of what is good, what is bad.
Anyways, that whole thing.
So I think good and bad are probably not the right moniker to kind of attach to that.
(07:17):
What if we switched it to necessary or
like a need or a want, right?
You need a place to live.
You need a place to live.
Whether you rent or whether you own house, you need a place to live.
Do you need that brand new phone?
Do you need that brand new car or want it?
I think that's a pretty important distinction when we're talking about debt.
(07:37):
I mean, so that's one aspect that you could look at.
The other one is, is this debt going to lead to something that can, is it an investment,right?
I mean, we talk about real estate, that is debt.
But if that's something that can then turn into income, then that's what experts wouldcall good debt.
I love that.
And I think really, I think really what we're looking at is good debt is usually what youjust said, it's an investment, right?
(08:02):
Something that you can't necessarily afford right at the moment, but you know will producemoney at the later end, you will recoup your investment.
Now there's a lot of discernment and prayer that probably needs to go around that.
And you really need to know what you're doing uh before you go into any of that, becauseit is, uh we just saw the market.
(08:23):
Right?
People invested in stock, we saw it tank recently, it declined back up, but um you're notin control of a lot of that.
So that the
and we could go very deep into this, which I realize we're not gonna be here all day, soI'll try to get there.
I have another podcast that I do with my buddy named Dale, and we call it the Money DNA,Dale and Andy Money DNA podcast.
(08:47):
And we had a really interesting episode a couple weeks ago talking about the birthdaycake, right?
So what are we basing our, what's our base layer of cake, and then next, and then thatkind of stuff.
It brought up an interesting point, Doug, you talk about investments.
A lot of times when people get,
their first big boy check, they jump into investments and that's the foundation thatthey're trying to build things on.
(09:10):
And I would argue that that's probably not, your idea, the most stable foundation to putthings on, right?
What is your protection?
Are you getting in debt or getting out of debt, right?
What is your emergency?
There's so many other aspects to finances that need to be.
caught into or taken into consideration maybe before we just dump every last dollar wehave into some type of investment.
(09:35):
Yeah, I'm going to reference another conversation I had recently that we talked aboutsome, think sometimes better than an investment is find another way to make passive
income.
Right.
That some of those things require a little bit of investment upfront, but some of themdon't, they just take a little time and skill.
(09:55):
Right.
So maybe something that you can control a little better is get into something like that,that will create another passive income stream.
And maybe you're going to talk about some of that.
I don't know.
But let's talk about uh the fill in the blank question.
This is on every one of our episodes and I love the answers that I get from this.
(10:16):
Faith-based entrepreneurship means blank and requires blank.
Very good.
This is something that I would say I'm relatively new into this aspect of entrepreneurshipand just uh the idea of bringing God into that.
And I've been a Christian my entire life, uh but for whatever reason, and this is not a uhindictment of my parents or my upbringing, they did a wonderful job.
(10:39):
I think it was just my thick skull that it took a while to figure this out.
uh But I would say faith-based entrepreneurship means bringing God into every aspect.
think a lot of times,
that we leave God at church, right?
We leave him at the altar, then we go about our week, and then we pick him back up when wecome back to church.
And I think that that is something that the Holy Spirit's really been working on me, isthat, you know, God wants you to pray about your business, right?
(11:02):
He wants to bless your business.
Again, money is not evil, right?
If you've got good intentions and you are enabled with those tools, you can do betterthings in the world.
So I think first off is that bringing God into every aspect of your life, business,family, community, outreach, all of that stuff.
And then what does that require?
This is another difficult thing that depending on where you're at, if you're on a mountaintop or you're on a valley, you need to trust God in every aspect of that.
(11:27):
If you're on a mountain top or if you're in the valley, trust that God will see youthrough that.
ah I do believe strongly that God will provide.
You may not be wealthy.
The whole, what is that?
oh Prosperity, right?
The whole prosperity.
I think that people get that skewed a little bit.
(11:47):
do think that God will provide.
I don't know if God guarantees prosperity, but I think that he does say that he willprovide for his children.
Yeah, most of the, I'm not gonna say most, that's probably not the right word to say, buta lot of the conversations that I've had dealing with faith and money and relying on God
(12:09):
is, God sometimes is the 11th hour.
We sometimes are like, oh, I hope something comes through because there's nothing, I'vedone everything that I could possibly do to make it happen.
And then,
boom, God shows up and takes care of that bill.
Or there's money that comes to you that you had no idea was out there.
(12:30):
And it covers that bill.
sometimes it just helps you take the next step forward.
But sometimes he does bless us with more than we expect.
ah But so many conversations that I had is just in the nick of time, just when you'vegiven up, you've done all that you can do, ah God shows up.
(12:51):
Yeah, and I think maybe sometimes we as uh fallen humans need that reminder of like, wheredoes our source come from?
Where does our prosperity come from?
It's, yes, we're working hard.
Yes, God's given us talents to do that.
But at the end of the day, every good thing in our life comes from God, every good thing,right?
So let's not get it skewed and make it about us.
(13:14):
I wanna go here for a second just cause this popped.
I'm letting the Holy Spirit lead.
So I had some planned questions, but um let's talk about obedience in this, right?
Because there's financial, like there's obedience to God and God has some rules outlinedfor how we deal with our finances, right?
So I think oftentimes when we get into trouble and we get to that point of I need God toshow up, it's because we've had some disobedience.
(13:41):
uh
in some of the things that we're doing.
uh What are your thoughts on that?
I completely agree.
I I it was very interesting.
put a thing out on Facebook the other day of uh something like what is the number one uhfinancial burden or financial?
What is the reason that Americans struggle with money is basically the gist of it.
And it's been very interesting to hear a wide range of everything from I mean, I love mybuddy.
(14:06):
I'm sure he was not going to watch this.
My college buddy was like government overspending government conspiracy.
You go there.
Right.
And then and then it was all the way back to, uh you know, uh
overspending or just what's the word, priorities, right?
What are your priorities?
Are we valuing that brand new car?
Is it a status thing or is it a need, right?
(14:26):
There's that whole balance of things.
So that was a really interesting thing.
I'm looking off to the side here of a course that I'm going to teach here in a little bitabout biblical foundations of healthy finance.
I think it starts with this idea and we actually already talked about it, right?
Understand from the very beginning, God owns everything, right?
Your house.
your job, your family, everything.
God owns everything.
(14:47):
Start from that position and then moving forward, what can we learn, right?
The Bible says debt is a burden.
We're not to be slave to the lender.
So get out of debt as quickly as possible.
uh Wise ways to spend money.
And again, that idea of if we are not in debt, I think that we can um use those tools in away that God would have us to do that, which is giving generously, giving to whether
(15:11):
that's our church or different community things.
and then building a legacy that can impact our ah future generations, right?
And again, not leaving them millions of dollars, but how can we do that in a way that willbetter their lives?
What if that's setting something up for like a college foundation for your grandkids orwhatever the case is?
ah again, it's a very, very deep subject.
(15:31):
I hope I'm not too far off track there.
No, no.
One of the things that you said in there is I'm not going to, I'm not going to recite theexact verse and hopefully maybe you can tell me.
A wise man leaves, I think it's in Proverbs, a wise man leaves an inheritance to hisfamily, right?
So you kind of touched on that a little bit there.
(15:52):
Right.
I have a couple of scriptures I'm terrible about memorizing so I will just own up to thefact that it is off to the side here I'm not reciting these I need to get better at that
but Proverbs 22 7 the rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lenderagain debt is a spiritual and financial bondage that God never intended us to have so we
what is the fastest uh ethical obviously way to get out of that debt right and then
(16:16):
the one in Romans, which I think is similar to the one that you quoted, is let no debtremain outstanding except for continuing the debt to love one another, right?
And again, that's not on our kids, but the only debt that God wants us to have is the debtof loving God and then loving other the way that He loved us.
I think if we can realign our priorities to that, I know that God would honor that.
(16:39):
Yeah, a couple of things I want to circle back to.
Let's go back all the way back when you talked about budgeting.
uh Was there ever a time when you didn't budget?
And can you talk about the transformation point from when you didn't budget to when youdid budget?
Absolutely.
So my my lovely parents were accountants.
So numbers was always a thing that we talked about.
(17:02):
Oddly enough, though, it was never something I think they probably showed me how tobalance a checkbook.
But but budget wise is something that I kind of stumbled into.
After college, again, my buddy and I had a really interesting conversation about the ideaof credit and how ah the credit industries kind of prey on college kids in America.
I mean you walk into your freshman thing and there's know, there's discover there's a mixThere's all this kind of stuff.
(17:26):
So before I knew what I was doing I had racked up this credit card Crazy interest rate,you know 25 29 percent something like that.
So that took a while to dig out So I think mine was we always talk about you know, is it astick or a carrot mine was very much a at the beginning like I had got into a bad spot
between ah Between credit card debt student loan debt all this kind of stuff, you know
(17:49):
starting out as a teacher wasn't making a lot of money.
So I had to kind of scrape my way out of uh the negative spot that I put in.
And when I found budgeting as a very, I like order and I like plans and this was a greatway to say, how am gonna give every dollar a job?
And how can I systematically and uh over time dig my way out of there and then be smarterwith that.
(18:12):
Let's not ever get back to the spot where we are uh having to choose between.
groceries or this kind of stuff.
mean, and it wasn't, it was a very short time, but there's, there was a time where thatwas a pretty rough go.
So mine was definitely out of a place of want.
And maybe I probably should have brought God into those conversations a little bit sooner,like you'd mentioned.
(18:32):
Yeah, that's I think that there's one thing I want to talk about on that.
But first, the idea in this country, I don't know if it's the same in other countries, butas soon as you get into college, it's not just the credit card companies.
Most students go into student loan debt at the same time, right?
(18:53):
So they're they're putting you in a condition of debt right off the gate.
Right?
So you're just accustomed to it.
I have my student loan debt.
I have my credit card debt.
I have all this.
You start listing off all your debt.
You're not listing like I for the longest time, I always said this and it's never going tohappen because well, I'm not going to say never.
(19:15):
They there needs to be a financial.
The most important class that someone could probably take in high school if they put itthere is a financial education class.
Generate assets, not debt.
So.
Anyway, that's, oh, so the one thing I wanted to mention about the whole budgeting thingthat always comes to mind is something I talk about a lot is wherever you focus on
(19:39):
expands, right?
Like most people aren't focused on their money, right?
Or they're focused on it a negative aspect.
They're not focusing on fixing the issue.
They're focused on being weary about it.
uh
the thing just related to budgeting, but I mean, talk about mindset.
mean, so much of this when it comes to finances, investment, all of this stuff that is amindset.
(20:02):
And I think maybe another question that people should be asking themselves rather than canI afford the payment is what is the complete payment right there?
Because when I do a thing with mortgages and it literally feels like a gut punch whenpeople figure out how much they're actually spending in interest.
90 % of the time it is over 100 % of what the house is worth, right?
(20:22):
I got numbers right here.
A $400,000 loan at 6%, you would think 6 % of that would be, I don't know, you $50,000.
Over a 30 year loan is $463,000 in interest alone.
That's 115%.
And people don't know that, right?
And credit cards are just as bad.
So this idea of like, stop focusing on what is my monthly payment and figure out what isthe total cost of that and is it really worth going into that amount of debt.
(20:48):
for whatever it is, the house, the car, the watch, whatever.
Can we talk about this for a minute?
From a biblical standpoint, one of the things that God talks about a lot is not to covet,right?
And a lot of this spending comes because we covet, right?
And let's just talk from, I wanna speak to the business owners too, because that's a lotof people that watch the show, is we covet other people's businesses.
(21:13):
We covet not just their things, right?
We covet, we want to get to that level of business.
I think so much is about your heart posture.
uh when when you're and are you doing it to get are you doing your business get rich areyou doing it to serve right
Yep.
Yep.
No, completely agree.
Completely agree.
And it is different when you shift away from just personal finance to business finance.
(21:36):
But there's definitely some synergy between the two of, hey, this person has X number ofemployees or they've got a VA or look at the brand new company car that they have.
it again, is it necessary or is it a need?
Is it a want or is it a need?
And I think if you could, we are so spoiled.
We are so spoiled in America and we get what we want.
(21:58):
uh aspect of this is like having having a uh longer term understanding of things, right?
Rather than focusing on the here and the now, what is this doing for me five years downthe road, 10 years down the road?
What is this doing for my legacy?
Is it really serving where I want to be?
Or is it just an immediate fix because I want to be like I want to be as cool as Doug.
(22:19):
Doesn't everybody want to be as cool as Doug?
oh
Yeah, so making the smart decision, not the emotional decision in your business as far asmoving forward.
uh Yeah, that's awesome.
So I'm finally going to get to the secret question.
So your secret question, what is the secret to starting your journey towards financialfreedom?
(22:44):
I think it again, we're, weaving this together very, very nicely here.
I think the first one is just realizing that there's a problem and just owning up thatlike, I don't have all the answers.
I think it's so, it honestly breaks my heart.
And this is not in a, uh, sense of like, Oh, well if you know, so and so doesn't dobusiness with me, that's going to hurt me.
It really, at the end of the day, if they have a uh proven system that's going to helpthem accomplish their goals, then, then, you know, God bless them and go on your way type
(23:10):
deal.
But
most often when I find people, don't have a system and they don't have a way to do this.
And they have just, again, resolved to the fact that I'm going to live in debt.
I'm going to, you know, I'm going to end up paying more for my house in interest than it'sworth.
And I'm always going to carry credit cards.
I'm always, you know, I'm saying like, it's just like pause for a second.
So, so the, secret is understand that you don't know everything and find somebody that youtrust, whether that's me or somebody else, it's really kind of up to you and God, right?
(23:37):
But find somebody that you trust and come in with an open mind.
I think there's,
We live in such a ah negative and just a, uh what is the right word?
Like a mistrusting society.
The second that someone, something feels just a little bit off or like, that sounds toogood to be true, our minds shut off to like, well, that can't be the, that's not possible,
(23:57):
right?
It sounds too good to be true, so it can't, right?
I get that there has been that.
think you probably have been there before, Doug, right?
Where you go down an investment route and it ends up burning you.
Find people that you trust, find,
organizations that have been around a long time that have a good track record and thenhear them out.
And then if it makes sense, pray about it.
I've actually tried to get into the habit before I meet with people is like we pause likelet's let's put this before God.
(24:23):
You know, Jesus is if this is something that you want, em you know, John and Jane to moveforward with me, then let's do that.
If not, then then give them insight as to how they need to handle their finances in thefuture.
Right.
If we put everything back to what would God have us do in this situation and then we allow
for the Holy Spirit to kind of move through that, then I think we're gonna be in a goodspot.
Whether you're working with me or somebody else, just um trust that and believe that.
(24:49):
Yes.
I'm just to sit here for a second.
I have some thoughts about that, but I think I might just roll into the next question, andthey'll come back to me.
uh So you talk about a financial GPS.
Can you break down how someone can start charting their course today?
You bet, you bet.
(25:09):
So I love the idea of a GPS.
I think there's kind of works on so many levels.
Just personally, I would get literally lost in a paper sack.
So I love GPS because I'm terrible at directions.
My wife can can attest to this.
So the idea of having a GPS not only for our traveling, but also for our for our finances.
Right.
So what does a GPS need?
(25:30):
They need where are you?
Where are you starting from?
Where are you going?
That's all it needs.
Right.
So it's the same idea.
financial GPS.
Okay, what is your current state?
What are your debts?
What is your income?
What are your expenses?
Right?
Let's figure out where we're at, right?
And then where do you want to go?
And then the part that I love about this is that unlike the bank's plan that takes us onthis long winding road and as long as humanly possible, because the longer you're in debt,
(25:57):
let me just give you a little bit of a uh side note here if you don't know this, bankswant you to stay in debt.
Credit cards want you to stay in debt because the longer you're in debt, the more moneythey get, the bigger buildings they get, the higher ah salary the CEO gets.
mean, let's just be honest.
mean, that is they are in the business of making money.
They're not in the business of being your friend.
(26:19):
I realize that there's some very friendly bankers out there, but the reality is they arein a for-profit business, right?
So rather than following their plan, because again, their plan does not benefit you.
is let's figure out where we start, where do we want to go, and let's find some technologyto go as quickly and as mathematically uh efficiently as possible.
(26:42):
So we're not paying all of this extra interest, and we can do this in a fast route.
another GPS alliteration to this is that when life happens, because it will, right, thecar's going to break down or you get a raise, right, you insert that into your GPS and
guess what?
It's going to reroute you again to the fastest route.
Maybe instead of 7.4 years, now you're going to get debt free in 7.1 or when you have tobuy that new car.
(27:08):
Hey, that's only going to go from 7.3 to like 7.8.
It only adds four months because we're doing this again so efficiently.
ah So that is what I love about the GPS is it takes all the guesswork out.
We're not having to remember to do this stuff.
It is just saying, hey, at this point, turn right here, transfer this money and this isgoing to be the fastest way to get you out of debt.
I think it's brilliant.
(27:28):
Yeah, now it came back to me what I was going to ask her on the previous point, it kind ofrelates just right to this.
So I think many people, because there's all the mainstream financial tools, mortgage beingone of those, people don't realize there are other options and other ways.
Because a lot of people might have heard you at first and was like, well, if I can't go indebt for my house, what do I do?
(27:50):
Right?
or there's different ways, right?
And I'm thinking what you'll teach them in that financial GPS is those different routesthat they can take that are not the mainstream routes.
Exactly right.
Exactly right.
I thought it was interesting.
I don't know if I can pull it up here, but I have on my screen.
Do you know where the term mortgage came from?
(28:11):
ah I do, but I don't recall.
It was told to me before, but tell me again.
Mort death get like a pledge.
It is a death pledge.
Mortgage means a death pledge.
That is literally what you're signing on the line.
The other one that just bakes people's noodles is that the banks will sell you on the APR.
Hey, you got this great rate.
(28:32):
We're not getting great rates now, but hopefully you refinanced or bought a new housearound COVID time.
You you're at 4%, 5%, whatever the case is.
They sell you on APR.
They do not charge you on APR.
It actually says in the loan disclosure, this is not your interest rate.
Look at it.
It will shock you if this is not your interest rate.
What they charge you on is the tip, the total interest percentage, which that is thenumber that's usually 100 % or more.
(28:56):
It's nowhere close to your APR.
So many tricks, right, that they have fooled us into believing that, again, we're peelingthe curtain back and saying, how can we?
How can we use the bank strategies against them and get you out of debt faster?
That's what I'm all about.
man.
ah So let's let's talk on that for a minute.
(29:19):
Why do so many people I mentioned them things being mainstream.
I think that's one of reasons why do so many people unwillingly fall into banking trapsthat sabotage their wealth.
Um, good grief.
Where do we start?
I think it starts with education.
again, as a former teacher, which I'm so excited I've got, I have some in-person workshopsthat I'm going to be doing.
(29:42):
I was just literally on a training with a good buddy of mine talking about how to do someawesome virtual events.
So I'm really trying to get the word out there, right?
So it's all about education.
If you don't know, then you can't.
Another thing that my buddy Dale says, if you, cannot tame what you cannot name, right?
You cannot tame this beast that is dead and interest rates and all this this terrible uhthing until you name it.
(30:05):
Right.
So let's identify.
Here's here is how they're actually charging you.
And if you take their route, it's going to take you a lot longer.
We won't even get into the whole idea of refinancing.
That is an absolute racket because the second that you get to the point where you'reactually making some headway on your principle, then you refinance and you start all over
again.
OK, it is if you hear that, hopefully you're hearing a lot of things that I'm saying, but.
(30:28):
Be careful when you're looking at refinancing because it will end up costing you a lotmore interest than you think that it would.
Side note.
ah But again, and I think I mentioned it before and I literally do.
I'm not saying this just to try to make a point.
I do have some really good friends that are bankers.
They are some honest, there's some good Christian people that are in the banking industry.
I'm not trying to demonize the people, but let's be realistic that the industry, thelending industry, whether that's banks or credit cards, they are not in it to help you.
(30:58):
they are in it to make a buck, right?
They can do that by lending money.
And then the other peeling back of the curtain, the second that you lend them money, theyare lending that out to other people and making money on your money, which is another
banking strategy that people are probably not aware.
It makes me like, how uh is sometimes what I come up with is the we've had the governmenthas had bailout banks before.
(31:25):
If they're getting all this money from us and they're misusing it to that extent, that'skind of scary, right?
That they have to get bailed out.
Not that that's a question.
That's just a statement about some banks in general, like.
You think your money is going, they're going to really allocate your money well, but notnecessarily.
(31:49):
man, so many things pop in my mind as you're talking and I pride myself on being a goodlistener.
So sometimes those thoughts slip my mind.
So they'll come back in a future part of this interview.
So let's just move on.
What's the biggest mind,
just saying, you need to do a part two, we can definitely work that out too.
(32:12):
so I really want to start bringing this back around.
So I'm glad you said that because that jogged my mind.
What I want to start to do is I think a lot of what you teach applies to individuals.
Can we kind of bring that into a business aspect?
Because I love what you said about the end, an end, like knowing what your end goal is andplanning a route there.
(32:34):
Business owners get that, right?
At least they should.
Right.
They should get that.
If you're going to be a good business owner, should have the end in mind all the time.
ah And then routing a path to that.
ah can you talk about how some of these strategies that you have would apply to businessesin particular?
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of funny.
(32:55):
uh I thought I had a really good analogy on this and then I actually busted up my ownanalogy.
I always kind of equated to getting into debt as kind of like uh gaining weight, right?
You don't gain weight overnight.
You know, it takes time.
And then the input that is also true, right?
If you're 50 pounds overweight and you're trying to lose weight, understand you didn't getthat to that point in overnight.
(33:18):
So it's going to take time to get out of that.
So
I think I was like, oh, that's a perfect analogy.
I'll apply the same to debt.
Here's the crummy part.
You can get from zero to hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt just like that.
It's not like gaining weight.
You can actually do it so, so quickly, whether you're signing a mortgage, you're signingstudent loans.
(33:39):
I think that is another just, oh, I don't even know.
Like that one gets me fired up.
It is such a racket.
because you can go from zero in debt to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt literallyin an afternoon.
And is that when we talked about good investment, bad investment, mean, depending, right?
Depending on how you're doing that.
But man, that's just a slippery slope.
(34:00):
So back to your original question about businesses.
ah Understand that.
Understand that, know, debt can be crippling if it's not done the right way.
And then the other aspect that we talked about earlier is
start thinking a little bit further down the road, right?
Not the immediate, like, what do I want my legacy in?
And there's so many different books out there.
Rocket Fuel is a really good one that talks about, we start from 10 years out, then wemove to five, then we move to three, and then in our year, what are our blocks and or what
(34:28):
are our rocks?
mean, there's, there's 1000 different ways to do this, but kind of reverse engineer, wheredo I want to be?
And what decisions do I need to make right now financially or uh with my clientele or withmy associates, whatever the case is?
reverse engineer that of how am I gonna get there and what sacrifices do I need to makefinancially or whatever.
(34:50):
So I think uh it's getting over this idea of uh just the here and now.
Like understand that it takes a time to build a business and generational wealth doesn'thappen overnight.
you know what word I want to key on that you said so much right there is sacrifice.
And I think that's what plays into debt a lot is because we're not willing, we're morewilling to go into debt than sacrifice something else.
(35:15):
We want to live up to this lifestyle, right?
ah And we're not willing to sacrifice that part of that lifestyle in order to, I wouldrather go in debt.
It's crazy to think about that.
But yeah.
Man, I think we do need to do a part two because my brain is just going crazy.
(35:36):
uh But man, I love that you said that word, sacrifice.
here's, let's talk about the mindset again, long-term vision, right?
ah I think that's another piece of it is we don't need to be short-term business thinkers,right?
We need to long-term vision thinkers.
And I think this goes back to the covet thing, right?
(35:58):
We need to be the
This is, I'm going to kind of do this as a dating analogy, oddly enough.
Early on, when we had our little entrepreneur hub and I was just starting my entrepreneurjourney, there'd be a few of us entrepreneurs in our condo doing things.
And we'd often talk about relationships.
This was before I was married.
(36:20):
And one of the things that we, I don't really know exactly who brought it up or what itkeyed off of, but we need to become the men.
that would attract the woman that we want, right?
And it's the same thing with money.
We need to be prepared.
Like if you've seen a lot of people get rich quick and then lose it all uh or have a lotof uh what's called moral disasters uh because they were not equipped.
(36:49):
Think about all the pro sports stars that you've heard of make millions and millions ofdollars and then lose it all because they were not equipped to handle that money.
uh Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Sure, yeah, I mean we can go down that road.
I have often thought that and maybe it's just something I tell myself because I wasn'tfinancially where I wanted to be, but I think that there might be some truth.
(37:11):
I'll throw this back to you.
ah I often wonder if some of the blessings that God wants to bestow and wants to give us,he is holding back until we are ready to receive them.
We should pray that he is, actually.
The funny thing is we should pray for withholding.
I think a lot of people don't get that.
They're like, because we're in this have it now culture, you would be better off nothaving that.
(37:37):
God is hopefully gonna say you'd be better off not having that now.
I will give that to you when I feel you are ready.
And then when you can manage it, you can budget when you know the concept of budgeting.
oh
Right?
Andy's gonna teach you that and a lot of other stuff.
Oh man.
(37:57):
uh Can we touch?
What is what did did Jesus do with the idea of the talents?
Right.
Gave him the one.
What did the person with one did?
They buried it.
Person that had three.
They doubled it.
Five doubled it.
So so God God will bless you in kind to your your ability to work and be obedient to howhe's how he's given the talents.
Right.
Exactly, exactly.
Can we talk about, we talked about legacy a little bit.
(38:18):
I think it should be in everyone, especially as men desire to leave something for ourchildren.
Right?
um Can we talk about not just from a financial standpoint, but I think it's the what weteach our children.
Right.
So transforming like so they're not living paycheck to paycheck.
How do we create that generational wealth mindset?
(38:42):
man, that's a tough one.
I have two boys just as a background here.
I've got two boys in high school.
One's about to graduate and the other one's a sophomore.
So I am, ah it's one of those things, I'm not sure if you've ever been there Doug, whereit's like, man, I wish I would have taught that earlier.
Or man, I wish I would have, you know what I'm saying?
Like I'm sure as dads, we all do that.
It's like hindsight's 20-20.
So, you know, with my older son being ready to kind of go off into the world and do whathe's going to do, ah I start rethinking of like, okay, have I laid the groundwork?
(39:10):
Have I, ah
ah What is the word?
Impressed upon him the importance of giving every dollar a job, not spending more thanyou're making.
mean, doing the sacrificing now so you can have what you want later down the road, thepower of compound interest.
I mean, there's so many things and I realized that I'm talking mainly about financialthings.
uh More important than that is that they have a personal relationship with Jesus.
(39:32):
Like if they have that, then everything else will come into play.
ah But, you know, back to the finance aspect or just being a good person, a legacy, right?
I mean,
I had a business coach a while ago talk about writing your own eulogy.
And that's a tough one, right?
I mean, if you really think about like, hopefully 40 years down the road, we're gonna livea long time, right?
(39:55):
What do you wanna be remembered for, right?
What do you want your kids to remember about you, your grandkids, your coworkers, yourpeople that you work for?
That's a pretty powerful place to just operate in, right?
If you kind of can operate from that position of like,
ah By the decisions that I make today how I treat people what I impress on how I you knowwhat I'm saying like all of those things ah If that is what I want to be remembered for
(40:20):
then you know continue on that path if not check yourself and and let's let's realign thisto To what what really matters right?
ah It's not necessarily profitability at every second It's like how can we how can we be agood person and and set but put good things out into the world give lessons that matter to
to our kids
that are going to last well past when they're in uh our house.
(40:42):
So kind of a rambly answer, but those are my thoughts.
no, it was good.
And one thing that comes to mind oh is I have this picture in my head of the way that Iwould want my remembrance, if you will.
Like, it's one thing you hear about, like there's people that have probably made a lot ofmoney in their lifetimes and there's like two or three people at their funeral because
(41:05):
their priorities are way off.
And maybe even one of those person doesn't want to be there, but they were dragged there.
I'd rather have a ton of people that
have come to my funeral because of the way that I impacted their life, no matter how itwas, right?
Because I was a good man, not because I had a lot of money, right?
uh So yeah, I think if you can strive to anything, we can talk about this, again, end inmind, eulogy, strive to be that good man that people will remember, not for your things
(41:38):
and your assets.
uh Yes, we'd love to have those things, but most importantly,
is that we are good, we're followers of Jesus and modeling Him.
Yep.
Well, and speaking of legacy and this is again, maybe this is just something that's on myheart, but I feel compelled to share it is the idea of whatever it is that you're doing,
right?
I mean, I forget again, we've identified I'm terrible with scriptures, but I know what itsays, just not where it's from.
(42:02):
Do everything, you know, for the glory of God, right?
Whether we're serving, whatever the case is, do it for the glory of God.
ah
I'm and again, this is why I'm so excited about this new new venture that I'm in ofhelping people with debt and wealth and that kind of stuff.
Because that's something that I feel like, you know, 10 years down the road, 20 years downthe road, conversations that I have with people now could literally set the course of
(42:25):
their family in a brighter spot in a out of freedom.
I'm sorry, out of bondage into freedom, where they are able to travel, they're able to payfor, know, their vacations or their education.
It's just that that feels like really, really meaningful work.
So
That's just my calling.
Whatever it is that you guys are doing, those that are listening, find that thing that youfeel like what you're doing is making a lasting significant difference in the people you
(42:49):
work with, uh your colleagues.
Anyways, that's just something that I'm very excited about because I've, I don't know,I've kind of fallen away from that aspect of things.
And then this new calling on my life just feels like...
I'm in the spot that God wants me to be to make a significant difference in people's livesand use my talents for His good.
(43:13):
That's what I'm going for.
Sounds like you are being obedient to God's calling.
You know, we're all striving to be more obedient.
Unfortunately, we live in a fallen world and we're never going to be completely free ofsin.
But just strive a little bit more every day to be more like Him.
And it is all good.
(43:33):
um Speaking of obedience, um have either in your life,
Or in someone else's life that you've noticed, maybe a client or something, have you seena difference when they step out in obedience and start to steward their finances wisely?
Absolutely.
ah So I'll speak personally and then about a client.
(43:54):
I look back on I've been married 20 it'll be 21 years this this summer to my beautifulwife and I look through all of the the ups and downs that we've had over those 21 years
and you know some very some very prosperous months and some mini lean months right minimini lean months starting out as a teacher.
But that transition between teacher into technology there was about a year or so.
(44:17):
where I stepped away from having a guaranteed paycheck, healthcare, all of this stuff intoa completely commission-based role.
And I literally, outside of the grace of God, have no idea how we survived on a few ofthose months where it was like there was no commission whatsoever.
Like how are we gonna pay for our mortgage?
How are we gonna pay for our food?
We had a little, actually it was before our boys, but so maybe that's why kids areexpensive.
(44:41):
I ah mean, it it shocks me as to how
How God got us through that and anyways back to the back to your question the thefaithfulness of God if you Will be obedient with your finances specifically.
I think this is the only one you can correct me if I'm wrong God says test me right if youare if you honor God with your finances you give your 10 % before you do anything else You
(45:05):
don't scrimp you don't say percent or 7 % You know I'm saying 10 % and then whatever Godand Holy Spirit calls on your life to do above and but beyond that
I am living proof that even through those very, very lean months, if you are faithful toGod, he will be faithful to you and see you through those months.
So I'm definitely living proof of that.
Wow, a similar story to yours.
(45:25):
oh Our family was struggling.
That was in the beginning of my entrepreneur journey.
uh My wife was uh employee number one at her company.
our car was towed.
uh And up to that point, we were not tithing or even tithing sufficiently.
(45:48):
God put it on both of our hearts to say, uh
It is not yours, it's mine.
You need to get that through your head.
And once you realize that, know, um so we started tithing, even when we didn't have, wegave money we didn't have to tithe.
Right, yep, I know that feeling.
it's either we're going to pay this bill or we're going to tithe.
(46:10):
We're going to tithe.
it's like a line in this like after like once we started doing that, everything started tochange.
And I know some people out there are like, you're just trying I'm not here.
I'm not a church.
I'm not asking you for your money.
So sometimes when people hear that from the pastor, they're like, their church just wantsmy money.
(46:36):
Andy's living proof.
I'm living proof.
Once you start realizing that it all comes from him uh and you start giving God, again, itmay not be the riches in the castle that you think it is, it's going to God's going to
provide.
You're not you won't have to have worry about that next bill because God will make surethat it's taken care of somehow some way.
(46:58):
uh I recently had a conversation with somebody uh that was in a lot of credit card debtand.
they started to really pray about it.
And I don't know the background of it, but somehow their credit card debt was completelyerased.
Wow.
(47:19):
God's math does not equal human math, right?
right, that's right.
uh yeah, it's just been amazing.
just test him as he says, test God, start to give your 10%.
uh And my story is it worked out.
Andy's story is it worked out.
(47:40):
So uh my confidence is yes.
I'd love to give like a client uh aspect of this is I met with a lovely couple Christiancouple in their 60s just bought a house.
So do the math.
Right.
And it was not a 30 year maybe maybe it was a 20 but I'm pretty sure it was a 30.
And I might one of my first conversations with him is like you know what's your retirementplan.
(48:02):
He's like not die.
Oh gosh.
terrible.
Let's see if we can do something about that.
in the conversation and going through running their numbers and kind of having, uh youknow, just some real, you know, kind of some difficult conversations about what would this
look like.
ah We were able to go from a 30 year plan, which again, would put them in their 90s, downto paying it off in less than seven years, all of their debt that that include their their
(48:25):
house, their cars.
I think they had some student loans for their grandkids, which I did not know is a thingthat is a huge thing in America right now that grant
parents are taking out student loans for their for their kids or their grandkids, which islovely.
But then they're dying with all of this debt.
So there's just that is such an epidemic that we're facing at this point.
(48:46):
And there's a if there's a proven way, a mathematical way that we can do that in a fasterroute where we put more money back in your pockets and we give you some time freedom back.
It seems like that's a that's worth the conversation to have.
Yeah, wow.
uh Thank you, Andy.
This has been amazing.
(49:07):
uh So where can people find out more about what you do and how you can help them?
You bet.
So I'm working on getting a uh website together for you right now.
I do have a Facebook page and a YouTube page.
So YouTube, so you can scan that link tree.
I'm pretty sure we can put links in the things on the back side.
(49:29):
Is that correct?
Yep.
be in the show notes.
Wherever you're watching this video, there'll be the links to get in contact.
Exactly.
So there's there's really kind of three different ways the Facebook page, which is kind ofan ever growing community of folks that we are just trying to m again, it starts with
financial literacy, like do we know about what's what what's the best way to handle ourmoney?
(49:50):
What are some different ways to pay down debt?
Different things like that.
The YouTube page, which has a lot of different things every time I get inspired orwhatever, I try to come up with a cool video to kind of show out there.
One of the ones that I would recommend checking out is the financial GPS.
I've got a video that my
VA helped me put together and it likens treating your finances like an old map or a GPSand those are literally your options.
(50:12):
Do we listen to old outdated strategies that we, you know, do an extra payment when wethink about it or do we we uh shift over into a more uh mathematical technological way
that is doing this as efficiently as possible.
It does not take into the affect the uh the emotions of things or forgetting and that kindof stuff.
It just says, hey, now would be a great time to
(50:33):
transfer this money to pay this debt down or to earn some interest as well.
That's another little banking strategy that I'll give you for free.
If your money is sitting idle, it is you are losing money, right?
If you are not in ideal interest savings or something like that, you are losing money byputting in an end savings.
Just a little bit of a chocker there, but there you go.
One thing that comes to mind, I think this relates to something else, but made me think,the math doesn't care about your feelings.
(51:00):
Yes, so true.
The math just makes sense.
It's true.
So, oh except some of this math they might be teaching in school nowadays.
I don't know.
Yeah.
The good old school math makes sense.
(51:21):
All right, well, thank you again, Andy.
I do ask one last question of every entrepreneur that comes on this show because I don'twant to leave any stone unturned.
Do you have any parting words of wisdom for anyone watching?
I would say again, whether that's me or whether that's somebody that you know and trust,um swallow some pride, guess is the nice, that's probably not a very PC way to say it, but
(51:44):
swallow some pride.
Like if you were in a spot where you have a bunch of debt, do something about that.
Again, whether that's talking to me or somebody else that you trust, that's another thingthat I've found is like, don't emulate or don't follow people that you don't want to be in
their shoes, right?
If they're in a good spot, then that would be a good person to talk to, someone that'sdrowning in debt and not paying their bills.
(52:04):
Probably not the best person to take financial advice from, uh So I do have a freeEmpower.
So Empower Wealth Solutions is name of my company.
We do a game plan and it's just a free 15 to 30 minute conversation.
No expectations, just like, where are at?
What's going on?
Let's figure out where you're at in your GPS.
Where do you want to go?
And if there's a way that we can get you there faster, then I would love to, uh I would behonored really to partner with you to help you do that.
(52:31):
But if it's not me, find somebody else because there are,
There are ways to get out of debt faster than what the bank is telling you, because again,it's not in their best interest for you to get out of debt faster.
So find somebody that is looking out for you and let's figure out a way to get you out ofdebt.
I love that.
And one of the things that we talk about as a company and instructing business owners isto lead with value.
(52:52):
And that's what Andy is doing right there.
if you want, he talked about knowing, liking and trusting someone, he's given you anoption to meet with him so that you can evaluate whether you know, like and trust him.
And he can give you some value before you've even done any uh ongoing work with him.
So that's awesome.
Yep.
I actually know that idea of the no like trust.
(53:12):
had I was on a training a while ago that the individual added care.
So no like trust and care.
And if I mean it was it was shocking because there's numbers.
If you have all four of those it's like a 99 percent uh chance that they're going to dobusiness with you.
You drop one of those it's down to 60 percent.
You drop another one it's 40 percent.
If you are you know if someone is pitching you that you don't know
(53:36):
that you don't really like, you don't trust them and you know the fact that they don'tcare about you, why would we do business with them, right?
So I think that adding the aspect of caring about them, and again, I'm speaking from myheart, whether you're talking to me or somebody else, find somebody that can help you get
out of debt because there is life, ah there is freedom not being in debt to uh the lender.
(53:58):
Yeah, anybody that's feeling debt right now knows what it feels like to feels like it'sthere.
It controls so much of your life.
Make controls the decisions you make and the things you can or cannot do.
So.
So please reach out to Andy.
All the links are either in that link tree if you're watching this video or there.
If you're watching it, if you're listening to this on audio, they'll be in the show notes.
(54:21):
So make sure that you reach out to any and at least have there's nothing lost from havinga conversation with with with Andy.
A lot to be gained, much to be gained.
All right.
Thank you so much.
And until next time, entrepreneurs, keep moving forward.
All right, we are.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Profitable Christian BusinessPodcast.
I am your host Doug Greathouse and I am so pleased to have my friend Andy Bennett with metoday.
Andy and I met a while back.
We've become quick friends.
uh We align on so many different things.
We're going to talk about one of my favorite topics, one of his favorite topics, uh whichis faith.
(00:24):
Faith, of course, Jesus.
We're going to talk about some Jesus.
That's our number one favorite topic.
But our other favorite topic is money, right?
And profitable is in the name, profitable for the kingdom first of all, but profitablebusiness, right?
We want you to be profitable as an individual and have a profitable business.
And Andy's gonna help with some information towards that.
uh Andy, give us a quick introduction.
(00:45):
Hello everybody.
Yes.
Thank you so much Doug for having me on.
I've been looking forward to this.
Yeah.
So I'm born and raised in Colorado.
I was a teacher for about 10 years.
I thought that that was, actually, remember vividly at church camp being called intoeducation, thought that would be my life for the rest of my working career.
But uh God changed course about halfway through there.
(01:06):
And I've been in technology sales and consulting the last 15 years.
And I'm super excited about my newest venture, which is financial literacy.
So back to my roots of education and helping people see a brighter future, get out of debtand build real wealth.
So uh many hats that I've worn throughout the years, but at the core, I am just a dad anda worship leader at the church.
(01:33):
And just look forward to sharing some of the fun things that I've been working on and somelessons learned along the way, shall we say.
Wow, I see I learned something new about you in the introduction.
I did not know you were a worship leader.
Nice.
years I took over for my dad.
So yep, kind of a fun deal.
Singing instrument, what instruments do you play?
(01:54):
Do you sing?
Of course, you probably sing.
most, yeah, that's kind of generally how I do that.
I play trumpet, but I'm not as cool as like Phil Driscoll, way, call.
Was there no Phil Driscoll?
I'm not that cool, but yeah, you bet.
Yep.
Nice.
I think that's a good lead into my first getting to know you question.
If you could instantly master any hobby or skill outside of what you normally do, whatwould it be and why?
(02:17):
It is perfectly then because I have play guitar or play piano.
I can kind of hack my way through that, but there's no way that I can actually sing and doboth of those.
So if I could just snap my fingers and be able to, you know, be just a master at either ofthose, I would don't even care which one it is, but that would help things out immensely.
And it would definitely help me to connect with people and be able to kind of share thatgift.
(02:40):
That'd be pretty awesome.
Nice.
I can't wait to get into some of these topics.
Like I'm boiling with anticipation, especially talking about debt and how that controlspeople and how the Bible reflects on debt and all those kinds of things.
So let's bust a money myth that could get us canceled, but it needs to be said.
(03:01):
uh What's one financial belief that Christians really need to rethink?
I think, and I'm gonna speak specifically to the folks in America here, because I do havequite a few folks that I either work with or colleagues that are in other countries.
So uh I'm just gonna speak to my American uh fellow Christians.
I think the myth that we need to bust and just speak about and talk about is the idea thatdebt is a normal thing.
(03:28):
Debt is just part of life and we need to be okay with that.
That is an absolute lie, I think, from Satan.
that we have just been lulled into this reality of like, to do anything, right?
I mean, it's gone so quickly from not having debt at all to now we can't buy our couchunless it's on a car.
It's like generations we've gone from debt being a uh negative evil thing to now it isjust a way of life.
(03:56):
And I think we have been lulled into this false ah narrative that that is just the waythat we need to carry on.
And obviously there's some...
some variance in there.
So there's some, know, can you, is it possible to buy a house without going into debt?
Probably not, right?
So I'm not saying that all debt is, you know, evil and that kind of stuff, but I do thinkthat we have been lulled into this false sense of reality that that is just the way that
(04:20):
God would have us live our lives.
We could go deep there, but we'll circle back ah to that for sure.
ah What is one money habit that people would definitely judge you for, but you secretlywish they copied?
ah I am an obsessive budgeter to the point where I had this queued up and ready to go.
(04:42):
I have swag of a budgeting app.
Like what kind of a dork has swag?
Like that, like that's me.
I just think numbers matter.
ah It's always it's a means to an end.
I actually posted on Facebook earlier today.
You know, people get wrapped up in like, are we earning, you know, obsessed with money,right?
That people have some very negative connotation about that.
(05:02):
Money is a tool that allows you to accomplish whatever
purpose it is that you have.
If you have good intentions and you have more money, you can do more good in the world.
If you have evil intentions and you have a lot of money, you can do more evil in theworld.
So I think people demonize having money and I think that that's a little bit askew.
So as far as like a habit that I wish people would would copy uh would be keeping track ofyour money.
(05:26):
One of the rules in YNAB, which is that app that I use, is give every dollar a job, right?
If you
about every time that you got a paycheck, you assigned a job for every single dollar andsome of that might be savings.
Again, Christian wise, we give a tenth to Christ before we do anything else, right?
But if you assign um every dollar a job from the get-go, we roll with the punches.
(05:49):
There's a lot of different rules they have right there, but I think that would help all ofus to be in a better spot and maybe not get so far into the weeds and into the bondage if
we really, I mean, if we're being honest, of debt.
uh
I think that is a bondage and then we don't call it that way because that's not a fun wayto uh think about it.
that is that's what the Bible says.
(06:10):
And I think that's a true, true representation of what it is.
um before we go into the fill-in-blank question, I kind of want to dive in a little bitmore on debt.
Because I've had other people on the podcast and we've talked about that a little bit.
uh And this just kind of lets you know where I'm coming from.
(06:32):
think there is, and this may be a debate and you can help bring me around if you need to,is there's a term, there's good debt.
uh What are your thoughts?
Is that a falsehood that there's good debt?
uh And if not, why?
If so, why?
(06:52):
It is a tricky subject, so I don't want to get canceled too quickly.
What?
I don't want to have people tune out because of this.
I would say maybe we let's change the narrative to good and bad.
There's a whole story.
There's a stallion story.
Remind me to tell you that sometime.
I'll try to post that later.
It's really, really interesting of what is good, what is bad.
Anyways, that whole thing.
So I think good and bad are probably not the right moniker to kind of attach to that.
(07:17):
What if we switched it to necessary or
like a need or a want, right?
You need a place to live.
You need a place to live.
Whether you rent or whether you own house, you need a place to live.
Do you need that brand new phone?
Do you need that brand new car or want it?
I think that's a pretty important distinction when we're talking about debt.
(07:37):
I mean, so that's one aspect that you could look at.
The other one is, is this debt going to lead to something that can, is it an investment,right?
I mean, we talk about real estate, that is debt.
But if that's something that can then turn into income, then that's what experts wouldcall good debt.
I love that.
And I think really, I think really what we're looking at is good debt is usually what youjust said, it's an investment, right?
(08:02):
Something that you can't necessarily afford right at the moment, but you know will producemoney at the later end, you will recoup your investment.
Now there's a lot of discernment and prayer that probably needs to go around that.
And you really need to know what you're doing uh before you go into any of that, becauseit is, uh we just saw the market.
(08:23):
Right?
People invested in stock, we saw it tank recently, it declined back up, but um you're notin control of a lot of that.
So that the
and we could go very deep into this, which I realize we're not gonna be here all day, soI'll try to get there.
I have another podcast that I do with my buddy named Dale, and we call it the Money DNA,Dale and Andy Money DNA podcast.
(08:47):
And we had a really interesting episode a couple weeks ago talking about the birthdaycake, right?
So what are we basing our, what's our base layer of cake, and then next, and then thatkind of stuff.
It brought up an interesting point, Doug, you talk about investments.
A lot of times when people get,
their first big boy check, they jump into investments and that's the foundation thatthey're trying to build things on.
(09:10):
And I would argue that that's probably not, your idea, the most stable foundation to putthings on, right?
What is your protection?
Are you getting in debt or getting out of debt, right?
What is your emergency?
There's so many other aspects to finances that need to be.
caught into or taken into consideration maybe before we just dump every last dollar wehave into some type of investment.
(09:35):
Yeah, I'm going to reference another conversation I had recently that we talked aboutsome, think sometimes better than an investment is find another way to make passive
income.
Right.
That some of those things require a little bit of investment upfront, but some of themdon't, they just take a little time and skill.
(09:55):
Right.
So maybe something that you can control a little better is get into something like that,that will create another passive income stream.
And maybe you're going to talk about some of that.
I don't know.
But let's talk about uh the fill in the blank question.
This is on every one of our episodes and I love the answers that I get from this.
(10:16):
Faith-based entrepreneurship means blank and requires blank.
Very good.
This is something that I would say I'm relatively new into this aspect of entrepreneurshipand just uh the idea of bringing God into that.
And I've been a Christian my entire life, uh but for whatever reason, and this is not a uhindictment of my parents or my upbringing, they did a wonderful job.
(10:39):
I think it was just my thick skull that it took a while to figure this out.
uh But I would say faith-based entrepreneurship means bringing God into every aspect.
think a lot of times,
that we leave God at church, right?
We leave him at the altar, then we go about our week, and then we pick him back up when wecome back to church.
And I think that that is something that the Holy Spirit's really been working on me, isthat, you know, God wants you to pray about your business, right?
(11:02):
He wants to bless your business.
Again, money is not evil, right?
If you've got good intentions and you are enabled with those tools, you can do betterthings in the world.
So I think first off is that bringing God into every aspect of your life, business,family, community, outreach, all of that stuff.
And then what does that require?
This is another difficult thing that depending on where you're at, if you're on a mountaintop or you're on a valley, you need to trust God in every aspect of that.
(11:27):
If you're on a mountain top or if you're in the valley, trust that God will see youthrough that.
ah I do believe strongly that God will provide.
You may not be wealthy.
The whole, what is that?
oh Prosperity, right?
The whole prosperity.
I think that people get that skewed a little bit.
(11:47):
do think that God will provide.
I don't know if God guarantees prosperity, but I think that he does say that he willprovide for his children.
Yeah, most of the, I'm not gonna say most, that's probably not the right word to say, buta lot of the conversations that I've had dealing with faith and money and relying on God
(12:09):
is, God sometimes is the 11th hour.
We sometimes are like, oh, I hope something comes through because there's nothing, I'vedone everything that I could possibly do to make it happen.
And then,
boom, God shows up and takes care of that bill.
Or there's money that comes to you that you had no idea was out there.
(12:30):
And it covers that bill.
sometimes it just helps you take the next step forward.
But sometimes he does bless us with more than we expect.
ah But so many conversations that I had is just in the nick of time, just when you'vegiven up, you've done all that you can do, ah God shows up.
(12:51):
Yeah, and I think maybe sometimes we as uh fallen humans need that reminder of like, wheredoes our source come from?
Where does our prosperity come from?
It's, yes, we're working hard.
Yes, God's given us talents to do that.
But at the end of the day, every good thing in our life comes from God, every good thing,right?
So let's not get it skewed and make it about us.
(13:14):
I wanna go here for a second just cause this popped.
I'm letting the Holy Spirit lead.
So I had some planned questions, but um let's talk about obedience in this, right?
Because there's financial, like there's obedience to God and God has some rules outlinedfor how we deal with our finances, right?
So I think oftentimes when we get into trouble and we get to that point of I need God toshow up, it's because we've had some disobedience.
(13:41):
uh
in some of the things that we're doing.
uh What are your thoughts on that?
I completely agree.
I I it was very interesting.
put a thing out on Facebook the other day of uh something like what is the number one uhfinancial burden or financial?
What is the reason that Americans struggle with money is basically the gist of it.
And it's been very interesting to hear a wide range of everything from I mean, I love mybuddy.
(14:06):
I'm sure he was not going to watch this.
My college buddy was like government overspending government conspiracy.
You go there.
Right.
And then and then it was all the way back to, uh you know, uh
overspending or just what's the word, priorities, right?
What are your priorities?
Are we valuing that brand new car?
Is it a status thing or is it a need, right?
(14:26):
There's that whole balance of things.
So that was a really interesting thing.
I'm looking off to the side here of a course that I'm going to teach here in a little bitabout biblical foundations of healthy finance.
I think it starts with this idea and we actually already talked about it, right?
Understand from the very beginning, God owns everything, right?
Your house.
your job, your family, everything.
God owns everything.
(14:47):
Start from that position and then moving forward, what can we learn, right?
The Bible says debt is a burden.
We're not to be slave to the lender.
So get out of debt as quickly as possible.
uh Wise ways to spend money.
And again, that idea of if we are not in debt, I think that we can um use those tools in away that God would have us to do that, which is giving generously, giving to whether
(15:11):
that's our church or different community things.
and then building a legacy that can impact our ah future generations, right?
And again, not leaving them millions of dollars, but how can we do that in a way that willbetter their lives?
What if that's setting something up for like a college foundation for your grandkids orwhatever the case is?
ah again, it's a very, very deep subject.
(15:31):
I hope I'm not too far off track there.
No, no.
One of the things that you said in there is I'm not going to, I'm not going to recite theexact verse and hopefully maybe you can tell me.
A wise man leaves, I think it's in Proverbs, a wise man leaves an inheritance to hisfamily, right?
So you kind of touched on that a little bit there.
(15:52):
Right.
I have a couple of scriptures I'm terrible about memorizing so I will just own up to thefact that it is off to the side here I'm not reciting these I need to get better at that
but Proverbs 22 7 the rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lenderagain debt is a spiritual and financial bondage that God never intended us to have so we
what is the fastest uh ethical obviously way to get out of that debt right and then
(16:16):
the one in Romans, which I think is similar to the one that you quoted, is let no debtremain outstanding except for continuing the debt to love one another, right?
And again, that's not on our kids, but the only debt that God wants us to have is the debtof loving God and then loving other the way that He loved us.
I think if we can realign our priorities to that, I know that God would honor that.
(16:39):
Yeah, a couple of things I want to circle back to.
Let's go back all the way back when you talked about budgeting.
uh Was there ever a time when you didn't budget?
And can you talk about the transformation point from when you didn't budget to when youdid budget?
Absolutely.
So my my lovely parents were accountants.
So numbers was always a thing that we talked about.
(17:02):
Oddly enough, though, it was never something I think they probably showed me how tobalance a checkbook.
But but budget wise is something that I kind of stumbled into.
After college, again, my buddy and I had a really interesting conversation about the ideaof credit and how ah the credit industries kind of prey on college kids in America.
I mean you walk into your freshman thing and there's know, there's discover there's a mixThere's all this kind of stuff.
(17:26):
So before I knew what I was doing I had racked up this credit card Crazy interest rate,you know 25 29 percent something like that.
So that took a while to dig out So I think mine was we always talk about you know, is it astick or a carrot mine was very much a at the beginning like I had got into a bad spot
between ah Between credit card debt student loan debt all this kind of stuff, you know
(17:49):
starting out as a teacher wasn't making a lot of money.
So I had to kind of scrape my way out of uh the negative spot that I put in.
And when I found budgeting as a very, I like order and I like plans and this was a greatway to say, how am gonna give every dollar a job?
And how can I systematically and uh over time dig my way out of there and then be smarterwith that.
(18:12):
Let's not ever get back to the spot where we are uh having to choose between.
groceries or this kind of stuff.
mean, and it wasn't, it was a very short time, but there's, there was a time where thatwas a pretty rough go.
So mine was definitely out of a place of want.
And maybe I probably should have brought God into those conversations a little bit sooner,like you'd mentioned.
(18:32):
Yeah, that's I think that there's one thing I want to talk about on that.
But first, the idea in this country, I don't know if it's the same in other countries, butas soon as you get into college, it's not just the credit card companies.
Most students go into student loan debt at the same time, right?
(18:53):
So they're they're putting you in a condition of debt right off the gate.
Right?
So you're just accustomed to it.
I have my student loan debt.
I have my credit card debt.
I have all this.
You start listing off all your debt.
You're not listing like I for the longest time, I always said this and it's never going tohappen because well, I'm not going to say never.
(19:15):
They there needs to be a financial.
The most important class that someone could probably take in high school if they put itthere is a financial education class.
Generate assets, not debt.
So.
Anyway, that's, oh, so the one thing I wanted to mention about the whole budgeting thingthat always comes to mind is something I talk about a lot is wherever you focus on
(19:39):
expands, right?
Like most people aren't focused on their money, right?
Or they're focused on it a negative aspect.
They're not focusing on fixing the issue.
They're focused on being weary about it.
uh
the thing just related to budgeting, but I mean, talk about mindset.
mean, so much of this when it comes to finances, investment, all of this stuff that is amindset.
(20:02):
And I think maybe another question that people should be asking themselves rather than canI afford the payment is what is the complete payment right there?
Because when I do a thing with mortgages and it literally feels like a gut punch whenpeople figure out how much they're actually spending in interest.
90 % of the time it is over 100 % of what the house is worth, right?
(20:22):
I got numbers right here.
A $400,000 loan at 6%, you would think 6 % of that would be, I don't know, you $50,000.
Over a 30 year loan is $463,000 in interest alone.
That's 115%.
And people don't know that, right?
And credit cards are just as bad.
So this idea of like, stop focusing on what is my monthly payment and figure out what isthe total cost of that and is it really worth going into that amount of debt.
(20:48):
for whatever it is, the house, the car, the watch, whatever.
Can we talk about this for a minute?
From a biblical standpoint, one of the things that God talks about a lot is not to covet,right?
And a lot of this spending comes because we covet, right?
And let's just talk from, I wanna speak to the business owners too, because that's a lotof people that watch the show, is we covet other people's businesses.
(21:13):
We covet not just their things, right?
We covet, we want to get to that level of business.
I think so much is about your heart posture.
uh when when you're and are you doing it to get are you doing your business get rich areyou doing it to serve right
Yep.
Yep.
No, completely agree.
Completely agree.
And it is different when you shift away from just personal finance to business finance.
(21:36):
But there's definitely some synergy between the two of, hey, this person has X number ofemployees or they've got a VA or look at the brand new company car that they have.
it again, is it necessary or is it a need?
Is it a want or is it a need?
And I think if you could, we are so spoiled.
We are so spoiled in America and we get what we want.
(21:58):
uh aspect of this is like having having a uh longer term understanding of things, right?
Rather than focusing on the here and the now, what is this doing for me five years downthe road, 10 years down the road?
What is this doing for my legacy?
Is it really serving where I want to be?
Or is it just an immediate fix because I want to be like I want to be as cool as Doug.
(22:19):
Doesn't everybody want to be as cool as Doug?
oh
Yeah, so making the smart decision, not the emotional decision in your business as far asmoving forward.
uh Yeah, that's awesome.
So I'm finally going to get to the secret question.
So your secret question, what is the secret to starting your journey towards financialfreedom?
(22:44):
I think it again, we're, weaving this together very, very nicely here.
I think the first one is just realizing that there's a problem and just owning up thatlike, I don't have all the answers.
I think it's so, it honestly breaks my heart.
And this is not in a, uh, sense of like, Oh, well if you know, so and so doesn't dobusiness with me, that's going to hurt me.
It really, at the end of the day, if they have a uh proven system that's going to helpthem accomplish their goals, then, then, you know, God bless them and go on your way type
(23:10):
deal.
But
most often when I find people, don't have a system and they don't have a way to do this.
And they have just, again, resolved to the fact that I'm going to live in debt.
I'm going to, you know, I'm going to end up paying more for my house in interest than it'sworth.
And I'm always going to carry credit cards.
I'm always, you know, I'm saying like, it's just like pause for a second.
So, so the, secret is understand that you don't know everything and find somebody that youtrust, whether that's me or somebody else, it's really kind of up to you and God, right?
(23:37):
But find somebody that you trust and come in with an open mind.
I think there's,
We live in such a ah negative and just a, uh what is the right word?
Like a mistrusting society.
The second that someone, something feels just a little bit off or like, that sounds toogood to be true, our minds shut off to like, well, that can't be the, that's not possible,
(23:57):
right?
It sounds too good to be true, so it can't, right?
I get that there has been that.
think you probably have been there before, Doug, right?
Where you go down an investment route and it ends up burning you.
Find people that you trust, find,
organizations that have been around a long time that have a good track record and thenhear them out.
And then if it makes sense, pray about it.
I've actually tried to get into the habit before I meet with people is like we pause likelet's let's put this before God.
(24:23):
You know, Jesus is if this is something that you want, em you know, John and Jane to moveforward with me, then let's do that.
If not, then then give them insight as to how they need to handle their finances in thefuture.
Right.
If we put everything back to what would God have us do in this situation and then we allow
for the Holy Spirit to kind of move through that, then I think we're gonna be in a goodspot.
Whether you're working with me or somebody else, just um trust that and believe that.
(24:49):
Yes.
I'm just to sit here for a second.
I have some thoughts about that, but I think I might just roll into the next question, andthey'll come back to me.
uh So you talk about a financial GPS.
Can you break down how someone can start charting their course today?
You bet, you bet.
(25:09):
So I love the idea of a GPS.
I think there's kind of works on so many levels.
Just personally, I would get literally lost in a paper sack.
So I love GPS because I'm terrible at directions.
My wife can can attest to this.
So the idea of having a GPS not only for our traveling, but also for our for our finances.
Right.
So what does a GPS need?
(25:30):
They need where are you?
Where are you starting from?
Where are you going?
That's all it needs.
Right.
So it's the same idea.
financial GPS.
Okay, what is your current state?
What are your debts?
What is your income?
What are your expenses?
Right?
Let's figure out where we're at, right?
And then where do you want to go?
And then the part that I love about this is that unlike the bank's plan that takes us onthis long winding road and as long as humanly possible, because the longer you're in debt,
(25:57):
let me just give you a little bit of a uh side note here if you don't know this, bankswant you to stay in debt.
Credit cards want you to stay in debt because the longer you're in debt, the more moneythey get, the bigger buildings they get, the higher ah salary the CEO gets.
mean, let's just be honest.
mean, that is they are in the business of making money.
They're not in the business of being your friend.
(26:19):
I realize that there's some very friendly bankers out there, but the reality is they arein a for-profit business, right?
So rather than following their plan, because again, their plan does not benefit you.
is let's figure out where we start, where do we want to go, and let's find some technologyto go as quickly and as mathematically uh efficiently as possible.
(26:42):
So we're not paying all of this extra interest, and we can do this in a fast route.
another GPS alliteration to this is that when life happens, because it will, right, thecar's going to break down or you get a raise, right, you insert that into your GPS and
guess what?
It's going to reroute you again to the fastest route.
Maybe instead of 7.4 years, now you're going to get debt free in 7.1 or when you have tobuy that new car.
(27:08):
Hey, that's only going to go from 7.3 to like 7.8.
It only adds four months because we're doing this again so efficiently.
ah So that is what I love about the GPS is it takes all the guesswork out.
We're not having to remember to do this stuff.
It is just saying, hey, at this point, turn right here, transfer this money and this isgoing to be the fastest way to get you out of debt.
I think it's brilliant.
(27:28):
Yeah, now it came back to me what I was going to ask her on the previous point, it kind ofrelates just right to this.
So I think many people, because there's all the mainstream financial tools, mortgage beingone of those, people don't realize there are other options and other ways.
Because a lot of people might have heard you at first and was like, well, if I can't go indebt for my house, what do I do?
(27:50):
Right?
or there's different ways, right?
And I'm thinking what you'll teach them in that financial GPS is those different routesthat they can take that are not the mainstream routes.
Exactly right.
Exactly right.
I thought it was interesting.
I don't know if I can pull it up here, but I have on my screen.
Do you know where the term mortgage came from?
(28:11):
ah I do, but I don't recall.
It was told to me before, but tell me again.
Mort death get like a pledge.
It is a death pledge.
Mortgage means a death pledge.
That is literally what you're signing on the line.
The other one that just bakes people's noodles is that the banks will sell you on the APR.
Hey, you got this great rate.
(28:32):
We're not getting great rates now, but hopefully you refinanced or bought a new housearound COVID time.
You you're at 4%, 5%, whatever the case is.
They sell you on APR.
They do not charge you on APR.
It actually says in the loan disclosure, this is not your interest rate.
Look at it.
It will shock you if this is not your interest rate.
What they charge you on is the tip, the total interest percentage, which that is thenumber that's usually 100 % or more.
(28:56):
It's nowhere close to your APR.
So many tricks, right, that they have fooled us into believing that, again, we're peelingthe curtain back and saying, how can we?
How can we use the bank strategies against them and get you out of debt faster?
That's what I'm all about.
man.
ah So let's let's talk on that for a minute.
(29:19):
Why do so many people I mentioned them things being mainstream.
I think that's one of reasons why do so many people unwillingly fall into banking trapsthat sabotage their wealth.
Um, good grief.
Where do we start?
I think it starts with education.
again, as a former teacher, which I'm so excited I've got, I have some in-person workshopsthat I'm going to be doing.
(29:42):
I was just literally on a training with a good buddy of mine talking about how to do someawesome virtual events.
So I'm really trying to get the word out there, right?
So it's all about education.
If you don't know, then you can't.
Another thing that my buddy Dale says, if you, cannot tame what you cannot name, right?
You cannot tame this beast that is dead and interest rates and all this this terrible uhthing until you name it.
(30:05):
Right.
So let's identify.
Here's here is how they're actually charging you.
And if you take their route, it's going to take you a lot longer.
We won't even get into the whole idea of refinancing.
That is an absolute racket because the second that you get to the point where you'reactually making some headway on your principle, then you refinance and you start all over
again.
OK, it is if you hear that, hopefully you're hearing a lot of things that I'm saying, but.
(30:28):
Be careful when you're looking at refinancing because it will end up costing you a lotmore interest than you think that it would.
Side note.
ah But again, and I think I mentioned it before and I literally do.
I'm not saying this just to try to make a point.
I do have some really good friends that are bankers.
They are some honest, there's some good Christian people that are in the banking industry.
I'm not trying to demonize the people, but let's be realistic that the industry, thelending industry, whether that's banks or credit cards, they are not in it to help you.
(30:58):
they are in it to make a buck, right?
They can do that by lending money.
And then the other peeling back of the curtain, the second that you lend them money, theyare lending that out to other people and making money on your money, which is another
banking strategy that people are probably not aware.
It makes me like, how uh is sometimes what I come up with is the we've had the governmenthas had bailout banks before.
(31:25):
If they're getting all this money from us and they're misusing it to that extent, that'skind of scary, right?
That they have to get bailed out.
Not that that's a question.
That's just a statement about some banks in general, like.
You think your money is going, they're going to really allocate your money well, but notnecessarily.
(31:49):
man, so many things pop in my mind as you're talking and I pride myself on being a goodlistener.
So sometimes those thoughts slip my mind.
So they'll come back in a future part of this interview.
So let's just move on.
What's the biggest mind,
just saying, you need to do a part two, we can definitely work that out too.
(32:12):
so I really want to start bringing this back around.
So I'm glad you said that because that jogged my mind.
What I want to start to do is I think a lot of what you teach applies to individuals.
Can we kind of bring that into a business aspect?
Because I love what you said about the end, an end, like knowing what your end goal is andplanning a route there.
(32:34):
Business owners get that, right?
At least they should.
Right.
They should get that.
If you're going to be a good business owner, should have the end in mind all the time.
ah And then routing a path to that.
ah can you talk about how some of these strategies that you have would apply to businessesin particular?
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of funny.
(32:55):
uh I thought I had a really good analogy on this and then I actually busted up my ownanalogy.
I always kind of equated to getting into debt as kind of like uh gaining weight, right?
You don't gain weight overnight.
You know, it takes time.
And then the input that is also true, right?
If you're 50 pounds overweight and you're trying to lose weight, understand you didn't getthat to that point in overnight.
(33:18):
So it's going to take time to get out of that.
So
I think I was like, oh, that's a perfect analogy.
I'll apply the same to debt.
Here's the crummy part.
You can get from zero to hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt just like that.
It's not like gaining weight.
You can actually do it so, so quickly, whether you're signing a mortgage, you're signingstudent loans.
(33:39):
I think that is another just, oh, I don't even know.
Like that one gets me fired up.
It is such a racket.
because you can go from zero in debt to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt literallyin an afternoon.
And is that when we talked about good investment, bad investment, mean, depending, right?
Depending on how you're doing that.
But man, that's just a slippery slope.
(34:00):
So back to your original question about businesses.
ah Understand that.
Understand that, know, debt can be crippling if it's not done the right way.
And then the other aspect that we talked about earlier is
start thinking a little bit further down the road, right?
Not the immediate, like, what do I want my legacy in?
And there's so many different books out there.
Rocket Fuel is a really good one that talks about, we start from 10 years out, then wemove to five, then we move to three, and then in our year, what are our blocks and or what
(34:28):
are our rocks?
mean, there's, there's 1000 different ways to do this, but kind of reverse engineer, wheredo I want to be?
And what decisions do I need to make right now financially or uh with my clientele or withmy associates, whatever the case is?
reverse engineer that of how am I gonna get there and what sacrifices do I need to makefinancially or whatever.
(34:50):
So I think uh it's getting over this idea of uh just the here and now.
Like understand that it takes a time to build a business and generational wealth doesn'thappen overnight.
you know what word I want to key on that you said so much right there is sacrifice.
And I think that's what plays into debt a lot is because we're not willing, we're morewilling to go into debt than sacrifice something else.
(35:15):
We want to live up to this lifestyle, right?
ah And we're not willing to sacrifice that part of that lifestyle in order to, I wouldrather go in debt.
It's crazy to think about that.
But yeah.
Man, I think we do need to do a part two because my brain is just going crazy.
(35:36):
uh But man, I love that you said that word, sacrifice.
here's, let's talk about the mindset again, long-term vision, right?
ah I think that's another piece of it is we don't need to be short-term business thinkers,right?
We need to long-term vision thinkers.
And I think this goes back to the covet thing, right?
(35:58):
We need to be the
This is, I'm going to kind of do this as a dating analogy, oddly enough.
Early on, when we had our little entrepreneur hub and I was just starting my entrepreneurjourney, there'd be a few of us entrepreneurs in our condo doing things.
And we'd often talk about relationships.
This was before I was married.
(36:20):
And one of the things that we, I don't really know exactly who brought it up or what itkeyed off of, but we need to become the men.
that would attract the woman that we want, right?
And it's the same thing with money.
We need to be prepared.
Like if you've seen a lot of people get rich quick and then lose it all uh or have a lotof uh what's called moral disasters uh because they were not equipped.
(36:49):
Think about all the pro sports stars that you've heard of make millions and millions ofdollars and then lose it all because they were not equipped to handle that money.
uh Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Sure, yeah, I mean we can go down that road.
I have often thought that and maybe it's just something I tell myself because I wasn'tfinancially where I wanted to be, but I think that there might be some truth.
(37:11):
I'll throw this back to you.
ah I often wonder if some of the blessings that God wants to bestow and wants to give us,he is holding back until we are ready to receive them.
We should pray that he is, actually.
The funny thing is we should pray for withholding.
I think a lot of people don't get that.
They're like, because we're in this have it now culture, you would be better off nothaving that.
(37:37):
God is hopefully gonna say you'd be better off not having that now.
I will give that to you when I feel you are ready.
And then when you can manage it, you can budget when you know the concept of budgeting.
oh
Right?
Andy's gonna teach you that and a lot of other stuff.
Oh man.
(37:57):
uh Can we touch?
What is what did did Jesus do with the idea of the talents?
Right.
Gave him the one.
What did the person with one did?
They buried it.
Person that had three.
They doubled it.
Five doubled it.
So so God God will bless you in kind to your your ability to work and be obedient to howhe's how he's given the talents.
Right.
Exactly, exactly.
Can we talk about, we talked about legacy a little bit.
(38:18):
I think it should be in everyone, especially as men desire to leave something for ourchildren.
Right?
um Can we talk about not just from a financial standpoint, but I think it's the what weteach our children.
Right.
So transforming like so they're not living paycheck to paycheck.
How do we create that generational wealth mindset?
(38:42):
man, that's a tough one.
I have two boys just as a background here.
I've got two boys in high school.
One's about to graduate and the other one's a sophomore.
So I am, ah it's one of those things, I'm not sure if you've ever been there Doug, whereit's like, man, I wish I would have taught that earlier.
Or man, I wish I would have, you know what I'm saying?
Like I'm sure as dads, we all do that.
It's like hindsight's 20-20.
So, you know, with my older son being ready to kind of go off into the world and do whathe's going to do, ah I start rethinking of like, okay, have I laid the groundwork?
(39:10):
Have I, ah
ah What is the word?
Impressed upon him the importance of giving every dollar a job, not spending more thanyou're making.
mean, doing the sacrificing now so you can have what you want later down the road, thepower of compound interest.
I mean, there's so many things and I realized that I'm talking mainly about financialthings.
uh More important than that is that they have a personal relationship with Jesus.
(39:32):
Like if they have that, then everything else will come into play.
ah But, you know, back to the finance aspect or just being a good person, a legacy, right?
I mean,
I had a business coach a while ago talk about writing your own eulogy.
And that's a tough one, right?
I mean, if you really think about like, hopefully 40 years down the road, we're gonna livea long time, right?
(39:55):
What do you wanna be remembered for, right?
What do you want your kids to remember about you, your grandkids, your coworkers, yourpeople that you work for?
That's a pretty powerful place to just operate in, right?
If you kind of can operate from that position of like,
ah By the decisions that I make today how I treat people what I impress on how I you knowwhat I'm saying like all of those things ah If that is what I want to be remembered for
(40:20):
then you know continue on that path if not check yourself and and let's let's realign thisto To what what really matters right?
ah It's not necessarily profitability at every second It's like how can we how can we be agood person and and set but put good things out into the world give lessons that matter to
to our kids
that are going to last well past when they're in uh our house.
(40:42):
So kind of a rambly answer, but those are my thoughts.
no, it was good.
And one thing that comes to mind oh is I have this picture in my head of the way that Iwould want my remembrance, if you will.
Like, it's one thing you hear about, like there's people that have probably made a lot ofmoney in their lifetimes and there's like two or three people at their funeral because
(41:05):
their priorities are way off.
And maybe even one of those person doesn't want to be there, but they were dragged there.
I'd rather have a ton of people that
have come to my funeral because of the way that I impacted their life, no matter how itwas, right?
Because I was a good man, not because I had a lot of money, right?
uh So yeah, I think if you can strive to anything, we can talk about this, again, end inmind, eulogy, strive to be that good man that people will remember, not for your things
(41:38):
and your assets.
uh Yes, we'd love to have those things, but most importantly,
is that we are good, we're followers of Jesus and modeling Him.
Yep.
Well, and speaking of legacy and this is again, maybe this is just something that's on myheart, but I feel compelled to share it is the idea of whatever it is that you're doing,
right?
I mean, I forget again, we've identified I'm terrible with scriptures, but I know what itsays, just not where it's from.
(42:02):
Do everything, you know, for the glory of God, right?
Whether we're serving, whatever the case is, do it for the glory of God.
ah
I'm and again, this is why I'm so excited about this new new venture that I'm in ofhelping people with debt and wealth and that kind of stuff.
Because that's something that I feel like, you know, 10 years down the road, 20 years downthe road, conversations that I have with people now could literally set the course of
(42:25):
their family in a brighter spot in a out of freedom.
I'm sorry, out of bondage into freedom, where they are able to travel, they're able to payfor, know, their vacations or their education.
It's just that that feels like really, really meaningful work.
So
That's just my calling.
Whatever it is that you guys are doing, those that are listening, find that thing that youfeel like what you're doing is making a lasting significant difference in the people you
(42:49):
work with, uh your colleagues.
Anyways, that's just something that I'm very excited about because I've, I don't know,I've kind of fallen away from that aspect of things.
And then this new calling on my life just feels like...
I'm in the spot that God wants me to be to make a significant difference in people's livesand use my talents for His good.
(43:13):
That's what I'm going for.
Sounds like you are being obedient to God's calling.
You know, we're all striving to be more obedient.
Unfortunately, we live in a fallen world and we're never going to be completely free ofsin.
But just strive a little bit more every day to be more like Him.
And it is all good.
(43:33):
um Speaking of obedience, um have either in your life,
Or in someone else's life that you've noticed, maybe a client or something, have you seena difference when they step out in obedience and start to steward their finances wisely?
Absolutely.
ah So I'll speak personally and then about a client.
(43:54):
I look back on I've been married 20 it'll be 21 years this this summer to my beautifulwife and I look through all of the the ups and downs that we've had over those 21 years
and you know some very some very prosperous months and some mini lean months right minimini lean months starting out as a teacher.
But that transition between teacher into technology there was about a year or so.
(44:17):
where I stepped away from having a guaranteed paycheck, healthcare, all of this stuff intoa completely commission-based role.
And I literally, outside of the grace of God, have no idea how we survived on a few ofthose months where it was like there was no commission whatsoever.
Like how are we gonna pay for our mortgage?
How are we gonna pay for our food?
We had a little, actually it was before our boys, but so maybe that's why kids areexpensive.
(44:41):
I ah mean, it it shocks me as to how
How God got us through that and anyways back to the back to your question the thefaithfulness of God if you Will be obedient with your finances specifically.
I think this is the only one you can correct me if I'm wrong God says test me right if youare if you honor God with your finances you give your 10 % before you do anything else You
(45:05):
don't scrimp you don't say percent or 7 % You know I'm saying 10 % and then whatever Godand Holy Spirit calls on your life to do above and but beyond that
I am living proof that even through those very, very lean months, if you are faithful toGod, he will be faithful to you and see you through those months.
So I'm definitely living proof of that.
Wow, a similar story to yours.
(45:25):
oh Our family was struggling.
That was in the beginning of my entrepreneur journey.
uh My wife was uh employee number one at her company.
our car was towed.
uh And up to that point, we were not tithing or even tithing sufficiently.
(45:48):
God put it on both of our hearts to say, uh
It is not yours, it's mine.
You need to get that through your head.
And once you realize that, know, um so we started tithing, even when we didn't have, wegave money we didn't have to tithe.
Right, yep, I know that feeling.
it's either we're going to pay this bill or we're going to tithe.
(46:10):
We're going to tithe.
it's like a line in this like after like once we started doing that, everything started tochange.
And I know some people out there are like, you're just trying I'm not here.
I'm not a church.
I'm not asking you for your money.
So sometimes when people hear that from the pastor, they're like, their church just wantsmy money.
(46:36):
Andy's living proof.
I'm living proof.
Once you start realizing that it all comes from him uh and you start giving God, again, itmay not be the riches in the castle that you think it is, it's going to God's going to
provide.
You're not you won't have to have worry about that next bill because God will make surethat it's taken care of somehow some way.
(46:58):
uh I recently had a conversation with somebody uh that was in a lot of credit card debtand.
they started to really pray about it.
And I don't know the background of it, but somehow their credit card debt was completelyerased.
Wow.
(47:19):
God's math does not equal human math, right?
right, that's right.
uh yeah, it's just been amazing.
just test him as he says, test God, start to give your 10%.
uh And my story is it worked out.
Andy's story is it worked out.
(47:40):
So uh my confidence is yes.
I'd love to give like a client uh aspect of this is I met with a lovely couple Christiancouple in their 60s just bought a house.
So do the math.
Right.
And it was not a 30 year maybe maybe it was a 20 but I'm pretty sure it was a 30.
And I might one of my first conversations with him is like you know what's your retirementplan.
(48:02):
He's like not die.
Oh gosh.
terrible.
Let's see if we can do something about that.
in the conversation and going through running their numbers and kind of having, uh youknow, just some real, you know, kind of some difficult conversations about what would this
look like.
ah We were able to go from a 30 year plan, which again, would put them in their 90s, downto paying it off in less than seven years, all of their debt that that include their their
(48:25):
house, their cars.
I think they had some student loans for their grandkids, which I did not know is a thingthat is a huge thing in America right now that grant
parents are taking out student loans for their for their kids or their grandkids, which islovely.
But then they're dying with all of this debt.
So there's just that is such an epidemic that we're facing at this point.
(48:46):
And there's a if there's a proven way, a mathematical way that we can do that in a fasterroute where we put more money back in your pockets and we give you some time freedom back.
It seems like that's a that's worth the conversation to have.
Yeah, wow.
uh Thank you, Andy.
This has been amazing.
(49:07):
uh So where can people find out more about what you do and how you can help them?
You bet.
So I'm working on getting a uh website together for you right now.
I do have a Facebook page and a YouTube page.
So YouTube, so you can scan that link tree.
I'm pretty sure we can put links in the things on the back side.
(49:29):
Is that correct?
Yep.
be in the show notes.
Wherever you're watching this video, there'll be the links to get in contact.
Exactly.
So there's there's really kind of three different ways the Facebook page, which is kind ofan ever growing community of folks that we are just trying to m again, it starts with
financial literacy, like do we know about what's what what's the best way to handle ourmoney?
(49:50):
What are some different ways to pay down debt?
Different things like that.
The YouTube page, which has a lot of different things every time I get inspired orwhatever, I try to come up with a cool video to kind of show out there.
One of the ones that I would recommend checking out is the financial GPS.
I've got a video that my
VA helped me put together and it likens treating your finances like an old map or a GPSand those are literally your options.
(50:12):
Do we listen to old outdated strategies that we, you know, do an extra payment when wethink about it or do we we uh shift over into a more uh mathematical technological way
that is doing this as efficiently as possible.
It does not take into the affect the uh the emotions of things or forgetting and that kindof stuff.
It just says, hey, now would be a great time to
(50:33):
transfer this money to pay this debt down or to earn some interest as well.
That's another little banking strategy that I'll give you for free.
If your money is sitting idle, it is you are losing money, right?
If you are not in ideal interest savings or something like that, you are losing money byputting in an end savings.
Just a little bit of a chocker there, but there you go.
One thing that comes to mind, I think this relates to something else, but made me think,the math doesn't care about your feelings.
(51:00):
Yes, so true.
The math just makes sense.
It's true.
So, oh except some of this math they might be teaching in school nowadays.
I don't know.
Yeah.
The good old school math makes sense.
(51:21):
All right, well, thank you again, Andy.
I do ask one last question of every entrepreneur that comes on this show because I don'twant to leave any stone unturned.
Do you have any parting words of wisdom for anyone watching?
I would say again, whether that's me or whether that's somebody that you know and trust,um swallow some pride, guess is the nice, that's probably not a very PC way to say it, but
(51:44):
swallow some pride.
Like if you were in a spot where you have a bunch of debt, do something about that.
Again, whether that's talking to me or somebody else that you trust, that's another thingthat I've found is like, don't emulate or don't follow people that you don't want to be in
their shoes, right?
If they're in a good spot, then that would be a good person to talk to, someone that'sdrowning in debt and not paying their bills.
(52:04):
Probably not the best person to take financial advice from, uh So I do have a freeEmpower.
So Empower Wealth Solutions is name of my company.
We do a game plan and it's just a free 15 to 30 minute conversation.
No expectations, just like, where are at?
What's going on?
Let's figure out where you're at in your GPS.
Where do you want to go?
And if there's a way that we can get you there faster, then I would love to, uh I would behonored really to partner with you to help you do that.
(52:31):
But if it's not me, find somebody else because there are,
There are ways to get out of debt faster than what the bank is telling you, because again,it's not in their best interest for you to get out of debt faster.
So find somebody that is looking out for you and let's figure out a way to get you out ofdebt.
I love that.
And one of the things that we talk about as a company and instructing business owners isto lead with value.
(52:52):
And that's what Andy is doing right there.
if you want, he talked about knowing, liking and trusting someone, he's given you anoption to meet with him so that you can evaluate whether you know, like and trust him.
And he can give you some value before you've even done any uh ongoing work with him.
So that's awesome.
Yep.
I actually know that idea of the no like trust.
(53:12):
had I was on a training a while ago that the individual added care.
So no like trust and care.
And if I mean it was it was shocking because there's numbers.
If you have all four of those it's like a 99 percent uh chance that they're going to dobusiness with you.
You drop one of those it's down to 60 percent.
You drop another one it's 40 percent.
If you are you know if someone is pitching you that you don't know
(53:36):
that you don't really like, you don't trust them and you know the fact that they don'tcare about you, why would we do business with them, right?
So I think that adding the aspect of caring about them, and again, I'm speaking from myheart, whether you're talking to me or somebody else, find somebody that can help you get
out of debt because there is life, ah there is freedom not being in debt to uh the lender.
(53:58):
Yeah, anybody that's feeling debt right now knows what it feels like to feels like it'sthere.
It controls so much of your life.
Make controls the decisions you make and the things you can or cannot do.
So.
So please reach out to Andy.
All the links are either in that link tree if you're watching this video or there.
If you're watching it, if you're listening to this on audio, they'll be in the show notes.
(54:21):
So make sure that you reach out to any and at least have there's nothing lost from havinga conversation with with with Andy.
A lot to be gained, much to be gained.
All right.
Thank you so much.
And until next time, entrepreneurs, keep moving forward.
All right, we are.
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