December 7, 2023 • 43 mins
Ever wondered if your money is working as hard as you are? Join us on the Buy Time podcast where we promise to challenge conventional financial perspectives. Our guest, Chris Miles - the cash flow expert and anti-financial advisor, extracts the truth behind traditional financial advice and its shortcomings. He explains how his company, Money Ripples, assists clients in achieving time freedom through financial independence. This includes guiding them towards a work optional status where passive income takes care of bills and provides security during uncertain times.
Dare to challenge traditional financial wisdom? This episode exposes the pitfalls of conventional financial advice and presents a compelling case for the pursuit of passive income and cash flow over mere wealth accumulation. Chris, drawing from his past as a financial advisor, offers unique insights on risk-taking and the importance of betting on one's abilities. He shares his transformational journey from being an advisor to exploring other successful ventures and the lessons learned along the way.
In this episode, we also debunk the high risk equals high returns myth and explore the nuances of diversification. Chris warns against the potential downfall of continuous reinvestment in one's business without generating profit. He emphasizes that real value lies in investing in yourself and maintaining integrity in your financial dealings. We even discuss the tricky subject of charging appropriately for services and the effective management of funds for time. Tune in to glean valuable insights on achieving financial independence and time freedom. Don't miss out on this opportunity to redefine your financial mindset and reclaim your time!
Until next time... Follow on Instagram @buytimepodcast
Follow Jacob K. Mead on all the socials @jacobkmead
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everybody, this is Jacob K Mead and this is the
Buy Time podcast, where wediscuss everything there is to
know about buying back your time.
Be sure to like and follow andshare with somebody who needs to
buy back their time.
Enjoy today's episode.
Welcome back to another episodeof the Buy Time podcast.
I'm your host, jacob K Mead.
I'm so thrilled that you'rehere today.
(00:22):
We always discuss conversationswith successful business owners
and entrepreneurs aboutstrategies and tactics for
reclaiming their moats.
Precious resource, and that istime.
I'm all about buying back yourtime, and today I have Chris
Miles here with me.
Chris knows all about buyingback your time.
Let me tell you so.
Chris is the cash flow expert,the anti-financial advisor.
(00:43):
He is a leading authority inteaching entrepreneurs and
professionals on how to usetheir money to work for them,
something I absolutely lovehearing.
If you can use your money towork for you, you're buying back
your time.
He's an author, a podcast hostof the Money Ripples podcast,
and he's been featured in the USNews CNN Money.
Entrepreneurs on Fire PodcastsBigger Pockets and has a proven
(01:06):
reputation with his company,money Ripples.
Chris, thank you so much forcoming on today.
I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Man, it is such a pleasure to be here, Jacob.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
So let's start off with this Money Ripples, because
I looked at your websitephenomenal, by the way.
So what exactly is MoneyRipples?
What are you all focused on?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Really like what you said.
It's really about creating timefreedom through money freedom,
creating enough passive incomein your life that you work
because you want to, not becauseyou have to, where you become
work optional, and I thinkthat's really what it is.
A lot of people really don'twant to necessarily retire,
quote unquote they still want todo something, but to be able to
have enough money that yourbills are paid for, you can
(01:49):
pursue your passions, you canspend time doing what you love
with those you love.
I think that's ultimately thereal freedom that we all want,
right.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Absolutely.
I mean, like I got my businessto a place where it was a time
asset versus a time liability,and one of the nice precious
things was is I could wake upand choose okay, do I want to go
into work today, or do I wantto stay home with the family, or
what do I want to do, where doI want to put my focus?
And so it's awesome that youtalk about that, so you help
people be able to get theirmoney to work for them.
(02:18):
So what's some of the bigaccomplishments that you've been
able to do for people?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, I mean, besides just getting myself retired
when I was 28, right, and beable to get to that point too, I
started teaching people how todo this stuff, really from like
2007 onward.
More seriously, though, just inthe last really five to 10
years when we launched MoneyRipples 11 years ago, you know,
I mean, we've had so many peopleseveral people get to the point
where they are.
They have enough pass to makethem to cover their bills.
(02:45):
If they haven't got to thatpoint yet, still they're getting
there, right, like, I've gotone client.
He's literally just a fewhundred dollars away a month
from getting his goal and thecool thing is, like he's.
You know, you hear about thewriter strike going on in
Hollywood.
You know well, he's affected bythat because he works in
Hollywood.
He's a set designer, so, ofcourse, when they all shut down
(03:06):
and they've done that now twicein the last three years because
2020 was just ridiculous, right,oh yeah, and then the writer
strike's been happening, so he'she's, of course, getting stuck,
you know, not able to work halfthe time, and he actually just
sent me an email just a few daysago saying it's like hey, chris
, this is where I'm at right nowand yeah, writer strike is
still going and but luckily it'scovered my bills for the most
(03:28):
part.
He's got a little extra savingsto kind of make up the extra
couple hundred bucks a month.
But still, like I mean healmost everything he makes when
he does work can go towardsbuying more investments to then
generate more income so that hecan actually be work optional.
And so it's.
It's actually for him been areal kind of a lifesaver, right,
like it's not like he's goingto stop working and stop doing
what he loves, but just gettinghim to the point where, even if
(03:52):
out of his control, things shutdown right, or you have another
COVID where all of a sudden ourbusiness becomes non essential
quote, unquote.
You know, it's nice to knowthat you just have those
additional streams of incomecoming in to protect you.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Oh, absolutely, I actually love that you talked
about that.
So I was on a call with RobertAngel so he's the inventor of
Pictionary and one of the bigthings that he was talking about
is that he got to the pointwhere he was able to have that
freedom of time, like he got toa point where he had time and he
could do what he want with thistime.
And now he's the point likeOkay, well, now what do I want
to do, Like what's next for me?
(04:25):
And so I had a conversationwhile back with some
entrepreneurs and it was what doyou do with your time when you
have it?
And the thing is anything youwant, like you want to start
another business adventure, godo that.
And I love that you talk aboutthat because it's so true.
Once you know you have thatstability and you recognize, hey
, that's there, Now you can goexplore other options.
(04:46):
You can choose when you want towork and not be forced to have
to work.
It's not easy to get there.
I don't want my audience hereto think that it's easy to get
there, because it's not easy toget there, but you can get there
through the right steps and theright tools.
So it's awesome that you wereable to retire at 28, Chris, and
that's amazing, I mean.
I like just your inspiration isfor hearing that.
(05:06):
What was your journey like upto that point?
So what did you do?
What steps did you take to beable to get to that point?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, I was doing all wrong to get to that point.
So, funny enough, like I wasn'tlike an investing, investment
genius or anything like that, Iwas raised by pretty normal
parents.
You know, my, my dad was prettymuch the guy that says you work
for a company for 40 years andyou retire.
Of course the companies weren'tever loyal to him.
So he'd get laid off fromdifferent jobs and and you know
(05:36):
that was rough because it wasalways about scarcity growing up
hey, we can't afford this.
What do you think I made ofmoney?
We're not.
Money doesn't grow on trees.
You know all this kind ofphrase you hear growing up,
right?
So I didn't want that.
And so when I went to college,it didn't take long that I
realized, you know, I could tellthat the typical job path is
not for me, because I want likewhat you described.
(05:59):
I want freedom, I want controlof my own destiny, my time, my
money and things like that, andso I want to become a business
consultant.
Well, of course you know whenyou're in college, if you think
about it and at least this isthe way I think I always think
you should have a real lifeexperience.
That's the only way I can teacha real experience.
So I said you know what, let'stake a little sabbatical from
college before I go get my MBAand let's, and let's just try to
(06:21):
find a business to start.
And the first one that came upa few months later that
intrigued me was being afinancial advisor.
Not realizing that you didn'thave to have any financial
training and really you justhave to be able to pass a test
and not have a criminal record.
That's the only requirement tobe a financial advisor.
Well, I did that because I'mgood at passing tests.
So anyways, long story short, Istarted down that path and I
(06:44):
stayed there.
I actually dropped, stayeddropped out of college, never
went back, and I was starting togo down this path.
Well, I went to sit down with mydad, because my dad said, well,
when are you going to advise me?
And he said I'm 61 years old, Iwant to retire.
Now I understand.
Remember, he was the guy whowas, you know, very cheap, saved
every penny.
I mean, this guy was like theDave Ramsey poster child.
Before Dave Ramsey was DaveRamsey right, and so so he paid
(07:09):
off his debt early.
I still, he was totally debtfree.
He had been stuffing money as401k.
And then I had to tell him.
I said, dad, I hate to say this, but if you want to retire
today, at the age of 61, youbetter hope you die in five
years, because that's whenyou're running out of money.
And he said, well, what elsecan I do?
I said, I don't know.
You did everything right fromwhat we teach as financial
advisors.
(07:31):
And that was like the realdestruction of my, almost like
this existential crisis that Ihad.
Right, because I started torealize, as I looked at it, none
of my clients were financiallyfree, where they didn't worry
about running out of money.
Even if they were retired, theystill worried about running out
of money, right?
So they weren't really free.
And if you look at otherfinancial advisors, if you look
(07:54):
at the actual investmentsthey're doing, they're not
financially free either.
They're only making good moneybecause of commissions that
they're earning, not because ofthe actual investments they're
doing.
When I realized that none ofthem could retire, nor could any
of my clients retire, I said,well, why am I teaching this
crap, right?
And so I left.
I said I can't do this anymore.
I can't keep my integrityintact and keep doing what I'm
doing, so I vow never to do itagain, but of course, when the
(08:17):
student's ready, the teacherappears.
I had a friend that I trained mea financial advisor that went
to go do real estate investingand as I started to go down that
rabbit hole I realized itwasn't about accumulating a lot
of money to get to theretirement mode.
Right, like my goal, my dreamwas to save up $2 million in
mutual funds, live on the 3% ayear and I'd have $60,000 a year
(08:37):
or $5,000 a month.
I thought 20 years ago $5,000 amonth was pretty awesome.
Maybe it kind of was.
Yeah, that's about like $10,000a month today, right, so
definitely not the samelifestyle today.
But I thought, man, if I canretire by the time I'm 40,
60,000 a month or sorry, I wishthat would have been awesome.
No, $5,000 a month, I thoughtI'd be living a life Well.
(08:57):
When, all of a sudden, I startedto learn about cash flow and
passive income and I could getmy money to actually do harder
things like actually create moreincome and things like that,
and I even had like some thingsaccidentally, even through
business streams, income thatwere like residual streams that
came through, the next thing Iknow I was making $4,000 or
$5,000 a month just months laterafter I quit, because I started
(09:18):
focusing on that cash flowpassive income mentality versus
the accumulation mentality thatfinancial advisors teach you,
and so it was almost kind ofdiscovery accidental.
But it was a beautiful accidentbecause it helped me realize it
was actually a lot easier thanI thought.
It wasn't as hard as it has tobe.
But if you try to followtraditional financial advice of
(09:38):
getting debt free and stuffingyour money in 401ks and
retirement plans, you're justnot going to make it.
The stats show that you've gotabout a 1% chance of maybe
succeeding at that.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
You know, I love that you talk about that because I'm
a risk taker and I've neverreally started to be a risk
taker because growing up, my dadlove him to death.
He's really great at finances.
He does kind of theanti-opposite of what you do,
Like he puts money away from401k and they're doing well.
But one of the things that Ilike to do is I like to take
(10:10):
risks, and sometimes they're bigfinancial risks, whether that's
opening up another business,going on another business
adventure, spending money onmyself, personal development
coaches, consultants.
So I take these large risks andI love that you talk about
passive income, Because that'swhat I look for.
I don't look for that 401k thathas millions of dollars in it.
(10:32):
I'm looking for that passiveincome.
Okay, what can I build that'sgoing to get me $5,000 to
$10,000 a month, every singlemonth.
And then how can I build thatout?
Two, three, four times?
Because, right there, that'syour passive income.
So I really love that you talkabout that.
And then I think you talked alot about how you're a
(10:53):
traditional financing advisorand that you knew that wasn't
the path for you.
So when you made thattransition, what was that like
for you?
Did you have people come intoyou and saying, hey man, why
aren't you doing this anymore?
Like, what was that like foryou?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, it was interesting period of time.
Remind me to talk about risktoo, because I might have a
different viewpoint on risk thanwhat you or your dad are seeing
right now.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
You know I would love it.
Let's definitely talk aboutthat after this, yeah, so, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So it was interesting because I didn't know what to
do with myself.
Right, I was like, okay, I'mgoing to quit being a financial
advisor because I couldn't makeit work.
I tried to see if I could havethis new perspective work with
being a financial advisor, butjust didn't.
So I ended up quitting likeMarch of that next year,
December about the time I metwith my dad, and then I had like
three months of like, you know,can I make this work or not?
(11:42):
Yet while I'm learning aboutpassive income, Well, I quit and
at that time all I was doingwas pretty much I stayed on as a
mortgage broker because Ifigured I could at least be
honest there.
And then I was also teachingballroom dancing on the side,
because you know one of thethings I used to do, I used to
be one of the nation's topamateur ballroom dancers oh
that's so cool, I was doing thatas well.
And actually I was even stockcoaching a little bit on the
(12:03):
side too.
I was doing that independently,so I had actually dropped even
before that I dropped mysecurities license as a
financial advisor so I couldteach people how to trade stocks
and options.
But the interesting thing waslike I was kind of wondering
what to do and people even werelike, hey, well, do you do this?
I'm like, well, I don't do thatanymore.
But I would tell them I waslike, well, I'm learning
something different right now.
And the thing is I was reallyexcited, like I remember, like
(12:26):
it was March.
I quit March through May I wason cloud nine, like just blown
away, like what you couldactually do in creating paths of
income.
Like, for example, someone hasa million dollars from a
financial advisor mindset, youshould only be pulling out maybe
$30,000 a year If you're goingto actually want that money to
last, based on the current realnumbers.
Right, and actually that's evenaggressive.
(12:47):
That might be too much.
You might need more, like 20 to30,000 a year that you want to
live on.
Well, that's living below thepoverty line.
You're like you're a brokemillionaire, right, living below
the poverty level when you dothat.
But when I realized you couldtake a million dollars and let's
just say you made even like 1%a month on that money.
Well, now you're making $10,000a month on that same million
(13:10):
dollars, not 20 or 30,000 a year.
10,000 a month, that's 120,000a year, right.
And that was all said.
It like was like angels singing, you know.
Because it was like, oh my gosh, there's actually an answer
here, there's actually hope.
Because when I ran real numbersof the real stock market
returns being less than 8% and Iwas running real inflation
(13:31):
numbers and actually even thenit wasn't real, I was running
like trying to run 3 or 4%, I'mlike there's no way people are
going to retire off this.
Like it's whatever you save ina 401k is what you'll live on
after inflation.
You know that lifestyle.
So if you save Max fund your401k at 20,000 a year, you will
live on 20,000 a year lifestylewith inflation, on a
conservative number of inflation, right.
So to see that was like oh mygosh.
(13:54):
And so when people would ask me,they're like, what do you do
now?
Like well, here's what I'mlearning.
And I'm like I don't evenunderstand it completely.
I'm like, but it's, it got meexcited.
And so people were like, well,cool, when you figured out, let
me know, right.
And eventually, like monthslater, you know, I got the point
where it's like wait, I couldstop working if I wanted to.
I could stop stop coaching.
Like everything I was doingthere was just gravy.
(14:15):
I was like I could just stopright now.
Even the mortgage side, you'lllike this because you were
buying back time.
It actually took a friend ofmine that was a millionaire that
said what do you like doingwith the mortgages?
I said well, I like gettingpeople the results, but I cannot
stand paperwork andunderwriting.
I can't stand it.
Like I hate the fact that Itell people it's probably going
(14:35):
to be about three weeks beforethis mortgage is done and then
they call me the next daywondering if it's going to be
done yet you know like Icouldn't stand that.
And so he said, well, find someof you who does like doing that
.
And in a scarcity mindset younever want to share, right.
And so eventually, as I startedto expand more into an abundance
mindset and that hey, we canactually help each other and we
can create value for everybody,I went to my broker, says who
(14:57):
fits that description, who's anerd, basically, and he says
Clark.
I mean, if a guy has the nameof Clark, he's a nerd, right.
So I go to Clark and say, hey,if I just basically spoon feed
people to, they've already beeneducated about how they can take
their mortgage, use the equityto invest and make more than
their mortgage payment andessentially pay off their house
for them.
Like you know, if I just spoonfeed them to you, will you do
all the work?
(15:18):
He said yes, and I'll pay you50%.
I said perfect.
So I'd spent me a half an houror so with these people, or just
friends and family.
I wasn't even activelymarketing, but I would do that.
Send them on to Clark becausethey're like well, how do we do
this mortgage?
Talk to Clark, he's got, he cando it all for you.
A month or two later I'm givinglike a thousand or $2,000 check
in the mail.
I'm like this is great, like Idid almost nothing.
(15:40):
That's a great per hour where Iremember as a mortgage broker I
felt like I was making 50 bucksan hour, you know when I was
doing all the work myself.
So to do that was just awesomeand that's where some of that
residual stream of income wascoming in because that's maybe
it was just again.
I wasn't even like activelypromoting myself.
People were just coming to meand of course they would refer
some of their friends.
So it's just friends and familybasically come to me, make a few
(16:03):
thousand a month on a mortgagethat had passive investments
from real estate kicking in, andthat's where it's making like
four or 5,000 a month.
And that's, of course, wheneverybody's like holy crap, you
retired, how did you do it?
And eventually, after so manypeople kept asking, I would just
try to teach them privately,but if I didn't charge them
money, they didn't do squatwithout information, right,
absolutely.
So eventually, 2007, I joinedforces with another another
(16:25):
other partners, and we created acompany that did actually teach
that and charged the money forit, you know, and kind of came
out of retirement to teach thatkind of stuff, you know, and so
that's kind of what it was.
Like it was.
People were coming to me but Ihad to tell them like, listen
what I taught you before.
Erase it from your memory.
It's not good, you know here,this, this actually works.
This has been proven, not justmy own life, but I see it
(16:46):
working in other people's livestoo.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
You know I love that because you can be so humble
about hey, I did teach somethingthat I thought was right at the
time, but then I found a bettersolution and now I'm coming to
you and telling you that youcould keep doing that solution.
It's not necessarily a badsolution with the old way, but
it's not the best.
Like here's something betterand you can recognize that and
actually tell people that.
So, first of all, that's areally good trait to have.
(17:09):
I don't see that very often.
I see people just being stuckin their mindset and their exact
same way and they never want tochange.
They never want to see it froma different view.
So sad when I see that, but Isee it so often.
And then I also want to say Ilove that you talked about
giving up control of what you'redoing.
Like you know the mortgages,like you didn't like doing the
mortgages right, so you foundsomeone that did.
(17:31):
One of the things I talked aboutin buying time is focusing on
your strengths.
What are you good at?
What do you like to do?
And you focus on those.
What is something you don'tlike to do?
Well, outsource it.
Figure out a way to havesomeone else do something that
you don't like to do, and I getsome pushback on that because I
get people are like, well, Ican't afford to hire someone.
I go no, you can't afford notto hire someone because you
(17:52):
don't like to do that.
If you keep focusing onsomething that you like to do,
then you're going to see thatyou're going to generate extra
revenue from it because you'regoing to be so passionate about
it, so driven, that you're noteven going to have to worry.
But because you're focusing onoh, I have to do this paperwork,
like you said, I got to do thispaperwork.
It's not something I reallylike.
You thought you were making $50an hour.
Then you went out, foundsomeone else that could do that
(18:14):
paperwork for you and then youget those $1,000 checks in the
mail so nice.
So I love that you talk aboutthat, because it's something I'm
very passionate about,especially in the buy time
aspect of things.
I want to revisit risks,because you seem very passionate
about that.
Let's talk about risks.
I know risks are everywhere inlife financial risks, time risks
(18:35):
but let's talk about risks.
So what do you have to say onrisks?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, I kind of had a epiphany when you're talking
there a little bit, because Imean there's always risk, right,
but if you look at the realdefinition of risk and this has
even come from the financialadvisor definition of risk it's
called it's really just chanceof loss.
What's your chance of losing?
One thing you hear out therethat's a complete lie, right,
and it's taught by financialadvisors and the institutions
because they want you to takeall the risk in the stock
(19:01):
markets and things like that.
But while they take none of itis that they'll teach you that
high risk creates high returns.
Think of the definition of risk.
Definition of risk is chance ofloss.
When did a 90% chance of losingbecome a 90% chance of winning?
That math doesn't add up, doesit no?
Speaker 1 (19:19):
not at all.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
No, 90% chance of losing means you have a 10%
chance of winning right.
Well, if I really truly believethat high risk creates high
returns, the best risk I couldtake meaning that the worst risk
or the highest risk I couldtake is buy lottery tickets.
Let's cash in all of ourretirement accounts, cash in
every dollar we've got, takeequity out from our house, throw
it in and buy lottery tickets.
(19:40):
Let's do that Powerball right.
Let's do Mega Bucks or whateverit might be, and let's see if I
can win big.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And that doesn't work , does it?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
When you talk about you taking risks right.
But when you take risks, youtake risk on you.
I can't hear that come out ofyour mouth.
You're personally developingyourself.
You're investing in a businessAll things which you have
control over right.
That's more in my mind.
That's more calculated risk.
Because if I'm going to make abet, why not bet on me,
especially if I know that I'm agood bet?
(20:11):
Right.
And the opposite is what mostpeople do, most Americans.
Instead, they don't want to beton themselves.
They go and they bet on acompany or companies or mutual
funds where they have zerocontrol, zero effect.
They can't make the returns goup or down, right.
And, by the way, picking a fundis not control.
(20:32):
That's literally just guessing.
You are like blinking thecharacter from Robin Hood, men
in Tights, the blind guy who'sup on the watchtower saying I'm
guessing, I'm guessing no one'scoming right.
That's what you're really doingwhen you buy mutual funds.
You bought Hookline and Sinkers.
The lie taught by advisors andby those that employ advisors,
which are financial institutionslike your Fidelity's, your
(20:54):
Goldman Sachs, merrill Lynch's,all those companies have taught
you over the years andbrainwashed you to believe that
high risk creates high returns.
Therefore, you should take allthat market risk while guess
what they're doing.
They're taking zero risk on you.
You know what they're reallydoing.
They're actually charging youguaranteed fees every single
year.
Whether you make money or not.
They're getting paid.
(21:15):
That's why the person that winsis the financial advisor, not
you.
They get paid, whether you makemoney or not.
You could be your livelihoodsat stake and you're gambling on
them and really they're justguessing, like everybody else,
right With something you havezero control over.
If you're a business owner andmaybe you have it quite
expressed this way, but you're abusiness owner you might have a
(21:36):
hard time with financialadvisors because they're telling
you to throw your moneysomewhere else instead of a
place where you know you canmanipulate and control the
returns right.
My brother-in-law taught me thatwhen I was a financial advisor.
He was from a very successfulfamily.
His dad was a self-mademillionaire.
In fact, his dad ran away fromhome at 16, got his first auto
dealership at 19, millionaire by21, and that was in the 1950s.
(21:57):
Oh, wow, I'm impressed.
Being a millionaire was a bigdeal back then.
His son was my brother-in-law.
I thought, man, if I can get inwith this family, I'm set for
life because I'll make all myguaranteed fees off of the money
under management, right?
Well, I sit down with mybrother-in-law, I give him the
best presentation I've evercreated.
I brought one of the best guysfrom my office to back me up
(22:18):
because you got to have two onone double team on this guy.
As we're talking to him, mybrother-in-law says this very
simply.
He says, chris, let me justplay around with this.
Let's just say I give you 10grand to play with.
You're saying you can make me12% in a year.
Right, because everybodybelieves the market actually
produces 12%, which is bull crap.
It never has.
I'm like well, there's noguarantees, right?
(22:40):
But yeah, if you get 12%,that's possible.
Well, chris, okay, let's justsay I get 12%.
Well, that means I made 1200bucks on my 12 grand in a year.
But, chris, I can take thatsame 10 grand.
I could put a down payment on asemi truck in my dealership and
I can make $20,000 in a coupleof months.
So 20,000 in a couple of monthsversus 1200, maybe with you
(23:01):
over a year.
Why would I invest my moneywith you?
And I said well, you should bediversified.
You should pull your eggs inone basket.
Besides, business is risky, youknow, just like you said right,
and he said thanks for yourtime, we'll see you later, and
he sent me with my tail tuckedbetween my legs out the door,
right, the best thing he couldhave ever done, because he was
100% correct right Now I'm notsaying that permanently you're
(23:25):
always quote-unquote reinvestingin your business.
That's a fallacy that manypeople buy into, where they, if
they always are spending moneyin their business, they're never
profitable.
If you don't have profit andyou know this right you don't
have profit.
You can't buy time back.
You know so many entrepreneursand CEOs will end up creating
their own rat race.
They might just make millionsof dollars in that rat race.
They're still stuck doing that,like if they were to quit today
(23:47):
they would be broke aseverybody else.
But you know to actually havethat control bill, say, now I
can take my profits, use that,generate other streams of income
and, of course, still invest inmy business where I get the
best ROI possible while keepingthe rest of the profits.
That right there is like in mymind, like the ideal, what any
entrepreneur should be doing andreally should be sending every
(24:08):
other financial advisor withtails tucked between their legs
saying I don't need you.
Because the truth is, why wouldI invest in everybody else's
company, like Apple or Microsoftor whatever, and where I have
no control, when I can invest inmy own company stock?
Even if you don't sell stock,you still have the same kind of
format, right.
Why not invest in my owncompany and make better returns
where I control all the risk?
That, to me, is beingconservative and left risky.
(24:30):
I think everybody else thatputs money in a mutual funds and
401ks are very risky gamblers.
They're gambling on somethingthey have no control over.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
I love it.
I love that you talk about that,because something I get a lot
of people doing is they'll cometo me and they'll say what's one
of the best investments I canmake, jacob?
And I'll be like well, there'stwo.
You can either invest inyourself or invest in a business
that you want to do, and theygo no, I don't want to take that
risk.
And then I look at them.
I'm like investing in yourselfis the best thing you can
possibly do because you controlthe outcome, the amount of work
(25:01):
that you put in, the amount ofeffort that you put forth.
You're going to see the resultsbased on all of that.
And so I did that at such ayoung age.
Like I got my first commissionjob working for Radio Shack, by
the way, I love sharing this Iwas horrible at sales.
I was so bad at sales that ourdistrict manager walked in and
he had a conversation with me.
When I went on, I was like he'slike, how's things going?
(25:22):
I'm like great Customers loveme.
He goes, your sales don't showthat.
And I was like but they love me, they're coming back and he
goes.
It's because you're aninformational kiosk, jacob.
You're giving them all theinformation and then they're
walking away with it and they'regoing somewhere else to
purchase the product.
And I was like what, why wouldthey do that?
So he shared with me some tipsand tricks and then I really got
(25:42):
into sales and once I seenthose commission checks I was
like wait a minute, I am nevergoing to work for any business
again that does not havecommission, because I was in so
much control.
I was using those commissionchecks to pay my rent.
I was using those commissionchecks to sometimes have a
vacation.
I use those commission checksto buy my wife for engagement
ring.
I was using commission checksas basically extra money because
(26:07):
I had my hourly wage and then Ihad these commission checks.
And that got me to thinkinglike hey, wow, commission is
amazing because I'm in controlof it.
If I show up one day and I putmy head down and I did do this
there's a snowstorm showed upone day, put my head down, it's
like this just sucks, I'm notgoing to make any sales.
Today, made excuses, I want tofigure out how to make sales.
Because halfway through the dayI said what am I doing?
(26:27):
I'm a fool.
Like figure out how to makesales.
So I went out, went outside ofmy area, got some sales, brought
them back and then ended uphaving to hop on a call because
I closed sales when no one elsecould, in the middle of a
snowstorm and it was.
It was a great time.
I love that you talk about that,because having control of your
money is so important.
And when you give it away tolike you were talking about to
these financial advisors oryou're letting them control it
(26:49):
because they're promising youthese returns, you're almost
just hoping.
You're sitting there likefingers crossed like, oh, please
give me 12%, please give me 18%.
And now I feel like the rate ofreturns you can correct me if
I'm wrong on this.
It's thrown around left andright.
There's numbers everywhere.
I mean I look at this site andthey'll say 18% returns, 12%, 8%
, 9%.
(27:10):
I can't tell you what the truenumber is.
What I can tell you is if Itake money in my business and I
invest in marketing, I can tellyou what my return is going to
be on that.
I can tell you if it's going togenerate 12,000, 20,000, 30,000
a revenue based off of what Iinvest.
So that's a safer method.
So I can tell you with data.
I can look at it, I can see it,I can tell you with data hey, if
(27:30):
you put I've done this forbusinesses, hey, put $5,000 in
ads, Some of the owners are like, absolutely, I'll do that.
They do it, see great success.
And others that say, hey, put$2,000, $3,000 in ads and they
go, that's a lot of money,that's big risk, I can't do it.
And I'm like, why, we'll makeit back, we'll get what?
Here's the data.
And they just they can't see it.
(27:50):
So I think some people justcan't see the outcome in almost
that.
I don't want to say it scaresthem, it just scares them.
So they rather just give theirmoney to someone else to control
.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Well, that's it, because you know, many people
don't want to take ownership fortheir life, and if you're going
to be a CEO of your life, notto mention a company, you got to
be willing to take ownership ofyour own life.
The problem is is many peoplelike to lay blame, whether they
subconsciously admitted or not.
They'd like to say you know, ifI put my money with this person
, if I make money, I'll say, oh,I made a smart decision.
But if I lose money, I canblame that financial advisor,
(28:21):
even though they had nothing todo with it.
I'm telling you a productbecause that's all they are
salesmen in suits.
But you have to take thatownership responsibility and I
love you mentioned becausereally investing in yourself
especially if you want to buyback your time you're going to
invest in being a bettercommunicator and a better leader
that actually not just leadswith an iron fist but really
inspires your team.
(28:41):
Because if you can do that,that's where your ROI is just
massive right.
That's when you can actuallyreally get your time back and
get profits back too, and Ithink that's essential and
that's scary, because that meansyou have to have ownership.
You have to admit.
Hey, you know what I might suckas a leader which, by the way, I
was saying that just a year ortwo ago.
I was like I was so good atbeing the self-employed guy Once
(29:02):
I had to bring on more teammembers.
Then I was like, oh my goodness, like I'm really horrible at
being an accountability manager.
You're like I'm horrible atthis and I'm still not the best
accountability manager.
But as I've learned to lead andinspire what really helps the
team perform better, and evenget surrounded by people that
could also help manage my teamtoo, it's just been a game
changer for me.
(29:23):
So I totally agree it's scaryto invest in yourself, but in my
mind it's the easiest thingthat I can control the
circumstances.
I can control the variable ofme.
But many people just don'ttrust themselves enough to
invest in themselves, and that'swhy they just rather invest in
somebody else, because they'rescared to take a bet on
themselves.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Oh yeah, they want to blame someone else.
I mean, I know, if I invest inmyself and I don't do the work
that's required, then who's toblame Me?
I'm the person to blame.
I think some people can't takethat ownership.
They can't take thatresponsibility.
And the fact that you've sharedyour stories and I love that you
shared your story of hey, Ithought this was the right path.
I realized it wasn't.
Now I'm on this different pathand sharing why this is a better
(30:04):
path, without necessarilysaying, hey, that's a horrible
way to do it.
The other way, you'reacknowledging that, yeah, that's
an okay way.
You might be fine, you mightnot, but here's a better way.
And right there, that's awesomethat you're not just saying,
hey, this is wrong, but you'resaying, hey, listen, I have a
better solution, given that youhave more control over and that
(30:24):
you can financially make a lotmore money.
And who doesn't want to makemore money?
Because you have to have moneyIf you're going to buy it back
your time, it's just somethingyou have to have.
And then leadership that's likeone of the hard.
That was a hard one for mebecause I thought I was a good
leader at first and I'verealized as time gone by, I was
like you know I'm not the bestleader.
(30:44):
Yeah, I would do things for myteam, I would show up, I would
be out the front lines, but Iwasn't that, like you said,
accountability person.
I wasn't making sure.
You know, I was holding themaccountable, and having those
one-offs and one-on-ones andit's more stems from that.
I like I'm a people pleaser, Ilike to make sure everyone's
happy, overcoming that now.
But it's that I didn't want toupset anyone and now I'm
(31:07):
learning hey, listen, sometimesyou're going to upset people as
a leader, but you're going tosay some things that need to be
said and that's going to makethat person stronger.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
It's true, I almost cried the first time I had a
fire or friend, right, he was agood guy but he just wasn't
performing at the level heneeded to and it you know
warnings to come and whatnot.
I mean not like warnings, butbasically we're just saying, hey
, we got to step it up, step itup, and it wasn't happening.
And I was, I was almost intears, you know like I was like
I feel horrible about doing thisand it's not like my favorite
(31:37):
thing to do.
But I actually would muchrather attract good talent,
which is what a CEO should bedoing anyways.
You know, attract the righttalent and the right people for
your team.
But I appreciate the kind ofwords about me, like you make it
sound like I'm a really niceguy, but the truth is is that,
although I'm, I'm not very niceto the financial industry,
because you know.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
So you're saying Dave Ramsey might not have you on
his podcast?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Oh, definitely, definitely not.
No, he would have hang up on mepretty quickly, right, In fact,
I just did another podcastabout that, because he even
ripped on his own co-host fortrying to teach real stats that
contradicted his stats that he,you know, heard as a lie like 30
years ago.
Right, like that's the problem.
Like that bugs me.
Like you, the one thing that'strue that you said is, like you
(32:22):
know, when I realized thatsomething was wrong, I changed
course.
Right, like I can't.
Integrity is such a big corevalue in my life that I tell
people like I can't teachsomething I don't do myself,
even even when I like, duringthe recession, I got knocked out
of the rat race.
Right, like I was out of therat race but then I was knocked
back in because I went over.
I went over a million dollarsin debt with that new business
(32:44):
venture, plus the recession washitting, so my real estate was
tanking, like it was like theperfect storm in a George
Clooney death way.
Right, and for that time, likeI stopped teaching people how to
get out of the rat race becauseI was back in it.
I couldn't do it.
But when I see people like youknow, like guys like Dave Ramsey
teach stuff that he doesn'teven do himself.
That pisses me off.
(33:04):
You know?
Same thing with financialadvising.
Like if they were really beinghonest.
What they should be doing isrecruiting everybody to be a
financial advisor but not investin their own products.
That's really if they were tobe an integrity.
That's the true thing that afinancial advisor should be
doing is recruiting morefinancial advisors, because you
have better chance to successthat way and you ever do saving
in your, your IRAs and your401ks.
(33:26):
I like to say fidelity.
1.5% of people that have savedin their 401ks and IRAs with
fidelity have at least a milliondollars.
But of those people surveyed,35% of them think that it'll
take a miracle for them to beable to retire because of the
very thing I mentioned.
You have a million bucks.
You can only live on 20 or30,000 a year.
That's not enough, right?
(33:46):
The 4% rule that people talkabout is completely debunked.
That's actually what DaveRamsey is arguing with his own
co-host about was about that 4%rule, which is not really a rule
, but I mean.
You think about it like.
That means that less than 1% ofpeople think they have a chance
of retirement, right, itdoesn't mean they could do it.
That's scary, like.
(34:07):
Think about it.
If you went to Google andlooked up a business and 99 out
of 100 reviews were one-starssaying how much they hated it or
that it didn't you know thatproduct.
They didn't deliver on theproduct or service, would you go
to that company?
No, why would we go tofinancial advisors when they
have a less than 1% success rate?
That, to me, is ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Wow that's that's.
It's so powerful and actuallyso true.
I mean you look at it andyou're like, hey, there's better
options out there and Investingin yourself, get your time back
and then invest in otheropportunities, that's.
That's a pretty clear path andyou can control it.
And the one thing that I wish Iwould have done sooner and Now
(34:48):
that I know this, so I wish Iwould have invested in myself
more at in my early 20s, like Iwould have spent the time for
mentors.
I would have spent the time forcoaches.
I wish I would have spent thetime to overcome, you know,
childhood trauma, all of that inmy early 20s.
And If I could go back and doanything again, I would invest
in myself more.
I was so focused in investingin my business because I built
(35:09):
my business at 21, grew it fromthere, but I was so focused in
investing my business that Ikind of put myself on hold and
Now I'm having to redo that.
So I'm in my 30s now and I'mlike, hey, now I'm investing a
lot more myself.
That's the my personal brand.
I'm rebuilding this back out,because who would I be to help
all their business owners?
Who would I be to help otherpeople if I didn't do it myself,
(35:31):
like I'm, like you, I'm notgonna be a hypocrite.
I'm not gonna say, do this,this is, this is the path I can
guarantee you it's gonna work,or do this and have no idea
Because I've never done it.
I'm gonna do it first, provethat it can be done, and then
the people that want to see thatget done.
I welcome them and I lovesomething that you said because
I've had this asked, asked mebefore is well, jacob, it works.
(35:53):
Now, why don't you just teachit for free?
Why don't you just helpeverybody?
And my response to them wasPeople don't get value out of
something that they're notpaying for.
In my business we used we usedto do a bunch of free services.
Constantly, we do free services.
I learned something really,really quickly On in my business
that the free services theywould leave.
(36:15):
They'd say thank you so muchand then they would leave.
We would either never see themagain, they would never leave a
review, they would never telltheir, tell their families about
us unless it was to come to usfor a free service, and we would
only see them back if and whenthey wanted another free service
and if we tried to charge whenthey came back because Something
was different.
(36:36):
They would almost throw a fitlike, well, I didn't get charged
last time there was, there wasno cost.
And it was amazing what happenedwhen they started to have some
value, not only did they feelmore confident leaving the store
, but they were more obligatedto leave us a review.
They are more obligated toshare us with their friends and
family, who would spend money inthe store because they already
(36:57):
have value tied to you.
So that's why I'm learning inthis coaching and saw things out
of.
Things is.
I've offered my services forfree and I've helped people.
I thought, hey, pro bono, I'llhelp this person.
See where it goes.
They don't do the work.
They don't do the work, theydon't put any of the effort
forward because there's no valuetied to it.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
That's, you know that's.
It's so insightful because Iremember, for me, 2006 this is
when I was starting to learn toget out of the rat race.
I quit being financial advisor,right?
I remember one of the thing Ilearned from guys that were
millionaires, you know, in realestate as well as in business.
They kept saying this keyprinciple is that dollars follow
value.
Right, the dollars follow value.
Create further people.
Your ability to be able toserve people, solve problems or
(37:39):
add value in such a way thatmoney is just a natural
byproduct pretty soon.
Making money as formulaic it's,it's, it's predictable, it's
easy to do money was alwaysmysterious to me, even as a
financial advisor.
Ironically, it was mysteriousabout how to generate income.
It was in my mind back then, itwas always a zero-sum game.
Someone had to lose for me towin.
Therefore, if I'm a good person, I have to lose for somebody
(38:01):
else to win, right?
So when I was a mortgage broker,you know when I was first doing
that I would tell people.
I said, hey, I'll cut back myyou know the normal standard 1%
origination fee.
I'll cut it back to threequarters percent.
I was getting down to a halfpercent and so I say I'll only
charge you a half percentorigination so you'll save on
your costs, giving you, you know, more flexibility, better
(38:22):
payments or whatever.
Well, the crazy thing is, whenI did that, people still shopped
around Like that.
When I say, hey, I'll be thecheapest option, they're like,
well, okay, well, let me go tothe talk to the bank.
Oh well, the bank says they'lldo it for cheaper.
I'm like, yeah, but they'regonna give you a higher interest
rate to do it for cheaper.
You're gonna get ripped off.
And then they find out later, afew weeks later.
They're like, oh, it's true.
Yeah, they came back, said therate was actually higher.
(38:44):
But you know, we're already inthe process, we're almost done,
so we'll just gonna go with itlike you just got ripped off,
you know, and I was so mad, andthe funny thing is when I
started referring to Clark,right, clark would not bend on
that 1% origination.
He's like that's exactly whatwe charge, that's it, and I kid
you, not even though we split50-50.
So basically, I was gettingpaid the same as what I was
(39:06):
trying to do, doing all the workmyself.
We're splitting it 50-50.
People were happier paying thefull price and they referred
clients to me when they paidfull price.
They didn't do that before.
When I discounted my services,they didn't refer people, they
did it after.
I was seriously like chargingthe full amount.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And I learned amazing .
Speaker 2 (39:25):
When we kicked off our new coaching company, right
Like I, first I was trying tocharge like 500 bucks, but again
, people weren't doing the work,they weren't getting results.
Therefore they weren't happyand they weren't referring
people.
But the more that I charged,really, the truth is, the more
they invested in themselves.
They knew they had to getresults and as a result because
it was a little bituncomfortable they actually did
(39:47):
the work and when they did thework, they got the results and
then they were happy and thenthey referred us more clients.
And so the funny is, the morethat I've charged them, better
results people get, not becauseI charged more, but because they
were more committed tothemselves to get the results
that I already knew they wouldget right.
So that's, that's the core, keydifference in my mind.
And I just told somebody lastnight.
(40:09):
He's like, yeah, honestly, I'mgetting hung up on the tuition
to hire you guys.
I said, hey, we're not thecheapest, we're also not the
most expensive.
There's plenty of people you'llget ripped off with, but I'll
tell you this like your ROI,you'll make more than your money
back.
You'll make more than doubleback in the next year, and
that's a one-time fee You'repaying us right and the plus a
small like monthly retainer ifthey want to keep us on retainer
.
But it's like you're paying solittle to get a better ROI.
(40:32):
Most people hire a financialadvisor hopes that they'll make
10% Not 200% 10% of their money.
They think they'd be thrilled.
I was like, and you're you'rebe, you're like having all this
BS, you actually have to pay outof pocket, like it's.
It's not about that, it's aboutvalue.
What do you get back in return?
It's like if I know I can makeyou 40,000 a year, you only have
to pay me 15,000.
That's pretty amazing.
You know that's a prettyawesome ROI and that's ongoing
(40:55):
year after year.
And you're not paying me 15,000year after year, not like a
financial advisor.
They charge you that feewhether you make money or not.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, they'll charge you if you're losing money.
If the markets down, markets up, they don't, they don't care,
they'll be billing you out.
Man, I, I love it, chris, sofar for our audience.
I always like to ask what aresome ways that we can help,
support you?
What's something we can do tohelp you?
What can our audience do foryou?
Speaker 2 (41:20):
You know, honestly, like the best thing you do is
just take this information, dosomething with it, right, I mean
that's take action.
That's always the best liketake action and get results.
That's always been my, my, mybiggest like flex, you know, for
me, like I don't flex in theflashy cars or nice houses or
anything like that, I flexresults.
You know it definitely.
(41:40):
If you like more information,you can always follow my podcast
, money ripples podcast.
I teach a lot of free infothere.
Money ripples calm.
I've got a lot of informationthere as well, like you already
mentioned that earlier.
So I mean, fine, you know,whatever, whatever you need
information wise, do that, takeaction on it, make it work in
your life.
I mean that to me.
That's why my company's calledmoney ripples right, because,
(42:02):
even though I could literallyquit my business right now
because I don't need the money,I'm got more than enough passive
income coming in.
I actually was able to retiretwice.
I did it again in 2016 after Iwent broke, but but I'll tell
you, like the thing that I loveso much, that ripple effect is
why I called the company moneyripples, because, as your Bless
financially, you now have agreater capacity to bless the
(42:22):
lives of those around you.
So what I want to see for you,if especially for your business
owners, I want to see yousucceed in your business.
Invest in that, first andforemost.
Secondly, create enough youknow wealth right, enough enough
of that so that you don't worryabout paying your bills anymore
, so then you can show up andserve other people as well and
make this world a better place,and that's, that's what I'm
excited for.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Man.
I absolutely love that.
Chris.
I just want to say this hasbeen a pleasure.
I absolutely love it talkingabout finances and talking about
ways to increase passive incomeso you can get your time back.
You can do more of what youlove and stop doing the things
that you hate.
So thank you so much for comingon today and just sharing with
our audience.
I really do appreciate that.
And for those of you looking toactually get your time back by
(43:05):
Leveraging your funds, go tomoney ripples calm.
Check out what Chris has tooffer some pretty cool stuff.
Went to the site myself and Itell you what.
There's some pretty neat stuffthere.
So money ripples calm.
Thank you so much, chris, and,as always, until next time.
Thanks for listening to today'sepisode.
My name is Jacob K Mead anduntil next time.
Hey everybody, this is Jacob K Mead and this is the
Buy Time podcast, where wediscuss everything there is to
know about buying back your time.
Be sure to like and follow andshare with somebody who needs to
buy back their time.
Enjoy today's episode.
Welcome back to another episodeof the Buy Time podcast.
I'm your host, jacob K Mead.
I'm so thrilled that you'rehere today.
(00:22):
We always discuss conversationswith successful business owners
and entrepreneurs aboutstrategies and tactics for
reclaiming their moats.
Precious resource, and that istime.
I'm all about buying back yourtime, and today I have Chris
Miles here with me.
Chris knows all about buyingback your time.
Let me tell you so.
Chris is the cash flow expert,the anti-financial advisor.
(00:43):
He is a leading authority inteaching entrepreneurs and
professionals on how to usetheir money to work for them,
something I absolutely lovehearing.
If you can use your money towork for you, you're buying back
your time.
He's an author, a podcast hostof the Money Ripples podcast,
and he's been featured in the USNews CNN Money.
Entrepreneurs on Fire PodcastsBigger Pockets and has a proven
(01:06):
reputation with his company,money Ripples.
Chris, thank you so much forcoming on today.
I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Man, it is such a pleasure to be here, Jacob.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
So let's start off with this Money Ripples, because
I looked at your websitephenomenal, by the way.
So what exactly is MoneyRipples?
What are you all focused on?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Really like what you said.
It's really about creating timefreedom through money freedom,
creating enough passive incomein your life that you work
because you want to, not becauseyou have to, where you become
work optional, and I thinkthat's really what it is.
A lot of people really don'twant to necessarily retire,
quote unquote they still want todo something, but to be able to
have enough money that yourbills are paid for, you can
(01:49):
pursue your passions, you canspend time doing what you love
with those you love.
I think that's ultimately thereal freedom that we all want,
right.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Absolutely.
I mean, like I got my businessto a place where it was a time
asset versus a time liability,and one of the nice precious
things was is I could wake upand choose okay, do I want to go
into work today, or do I wantto stay home with the family, or
what do I want to do, where doI want to put my focus?
And so it's awesome that youtalk about that, so you help
people be able to get theirmoney to work for them.
(02:18):
So what's some of the bigaccomplishments that you've been
able to do for people?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, I mean, besides just getting myself retired
when I was 28, right, and beable to get to that point too, I
started teaching people how todo this stuff, really from like
2007 onward.
More seriously, though, just inthe last really five to 10
years when we launched MoneyRipples 11 years ago, you know,
I mean, we've had so many peopleseveral people get to the point
where they are.
They have enough pass to makethem to cover their bills.
(02:45):
If they haven't got to thatpoint yet, still they're getting
there, right, like, I've gotone client.
He's literally just a fewhundred dollars away a month
from getting his goal and thecool thing is, like he's.
You know, you hear about thewriter strike going on in
Hollywood.
You know well, he's affected bythat because he works in
Hollywood.
He's a set designer, so, ofcourse, when they all shut down
(03:06):
and they've done that now twicein the last three years because
2020 was just ridiculous, right,oh yeah, and then the writer
strike's been happening, so he'she's, of course, getting stuck,
you know, not able to work halfthe time, and he actually just
sent me an email just a few daysago saying it's like hey, chris
, this is where I'm at right nowand yeah, writer strike is
still going and but luckily it'scovered my bills for the most
(03:28):
part.
He's got a little extra savingsto kind of make up the extra
couple hundred bucks a month.
But still, like I mean healmost everything he makes when
he does work can go towardsbuying more investments to then
generate more income so that hecan actually be work optional.
And so it's.
It's actually for him been areal kind of a lifesaver, right,
like it's not like he's goingto stop working and stop doing
what he loves, but just gettinghim to the point where, even if
(03:52):
out of his control, things shutdown right, or you have another
COVID where all of a sudden ourbusiness becomes non essential
quote, unquote.
You know, it's nice to knowthat you just have those
additional streams of incomecoming in to protect you.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Oh, absolutely, I actually love that you talked
about that.
So I was on a call with RobertAngel so he's the inventor of
Pictionary and one of the bigthings that he was talking about
is that he got to the pointwhere he was able to have that
freedom of time, like he got toa point where he had time and he
could do what he want with thistime.
And now he's the point likeOkay, well, now what do I want
to do, Like what's next for me?
(04:25):
And so I had a conversationwhile back with some
entrepreneurs and it was what doyou do with your time when you
have it?
And the thing is anything youwant, like you want to start
another business adventure, godo that.
And I love that you talk aboutthat because it's so true.
Once you know you have thatstability and you recognize, hey
, that's there, Now you can goexplore other options.
(04:46):
You can choose when you want towork and not be forced to have
to work.
It's not easy to get there.
I don't want my audience hereto think that it's easy to get
there, because it's not easy toget there, but you can get there
through the right steps and theright tools.
So it's awesome that you wereable to retire at 28, Chris, and
that's amazing, I mean.
I like just your inspiration isfor hearing that.
(05:06):
What was your journey like upto that point?
So what did you do?
What steps did you take to beable to get to that point?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, I was doing all wrong to get to that point.
So, funny enough, like I wasn'tlike an investing, investment
genius or anything like that, Iwas raised by pretty normal
parents.
You know, my, my dad was prettymuch the guy that says you work
for a company for 40 years andyou retire.
Of course the companies weren'tever loyal to him.
So he'd get laid off fromdifferent jobs and and you know
(05:36):
that was rough because it wasalways about scarcity growing up
hey, we can't afford this.
What do you think I made ofmoney?
We're not.
Money doesn't grow on trees.
You know all this kind ofphrase you hear growing up,
right?
So I didn't want that.
And so when I went to college,it didn't take long that I
realized, you know, I could tellthat the typical job path is
not for me, because I want likewhat you described.
(05:59):
I want freedom, I want controlof my own destiny, my time, my
money and things like that, andso I want to become a business
consultant.
Well, of course you know whenyou're in college, if you think
about it and at least this isthe way I think I always think
you should have a real lifeexperience.
That's the only way I can teacha real experience.
So I said you know what, let'stake a little sabbatical from
college before I go get my MBAand let's, and let's just try to
(06:21):
find a business to start.
And the first one that came upa few months later that
intrigued me was being afinancial advisor.
Not realizing that you didn'thave to have any financial
training and really you justhave to be able to pass a test
and not have a criminal record.
That's the only requirement tobe a financial advisor.
Well, I did that because I'mgood at passing tests.
So anyways, long story short, Istarted down that path and I
(06:44):
stayed there.
I actually dropped, stayeddropped out of college, never
went back, and I was starting togo down this path.
Well, I went to sit down with mydad, because my dad said, well,
when are you going to advise me?
And he said I'm 61 years old, Iwant to retire.
Now I understand.
Remember, he was the guy whowas, you know, very cheap, saved
every penny.
I mean, this guy was like theDave Ramsey poster child.
Before Dave Ramsey was DaveRamsey right, and so so he paid
(07:09):
off his debt early.
I still, he was totally debtfree.
He had been stuffing money as401k.
And then I had to tell him.
I said, dad, I hate to say this, but if you want to retire
today, at the age of 61, youbetter hope you die in five
years, because that's whenyou're running out of money.
And he said, well, what elsecan I do?
I said, I don't know.
You did everything right fromwhat we teach as financial
advisors.
(07:31):
And that was like the realdestruction of my, almost like
this existential crisis that Ihad.
Right, because I started torealize, as I looked at it, none
of my clients were financiallyfree, where they didn't worry
about running out of money.
Even if they were retired, theystill worried about running out
of money, right?
So they weren't really free.
And if you look at otherfinancial advisors, if you look
(07:54):
at the actual investmentsthey're doing, they're not
financially free either.
They're only making good moneybecause of commissions that
they're earning, not because ofthe actual investments they're
doing.
When I realized that none ofthem could retire, nor could any
of my clients retire, I said,well, why am I teaching this
crap, right?
And so I left.
I said I can't do this anymore.
I can't keep my integrityintact and keep doing what I'm
doing, so I vow never to do itagain, but of course, when the
(08:17):
student's ready, the teacherappears.
I had a friend that I trained mea financial advisor that went
to go do real estate investingand as I started to go down that
rabbit hole I realized itwasn't about accumulating a lot
of money to get to theretirement mode.
Right, like my goal, my dreamwas to save up $2 million in
mutual funds, live on the 3% ayear and I'd have $60,000 a year
(08:37):
or $5,000 a month.
I thought 20 years ago $5,000 amonth was pretty awesome.
Maybe it kind of was.
Yeah, that's about like $10,000a month today, right, so
definitely not the samelifestyle today.
But I thought, man, if I canretire by the time I'm 40,
60,000 a month or sorry, I wishthat would have been awesome.
No, $5,000 a month, I thoughtI'd be living a life Well.
(08:57):
When, all of a sudden, I startedto learn about cash flow and
passive income and I could getmy money to actually do harder
things like actually create moreincome and things like that,
and I even had like some thingsaccidentally, even through
business streams, income thatwere like residual streams that
came through, the next thing Iknow I was making $4,000 or
$5,000 a month just months laterafter I quit, because I started
(09:18):
focusing on that cash flowpassive income mentality versus
the accumulation mentality thatfinancial advisors teach you,
and so it was almost kind ofdiscovery accidental.
But it was a beautiful accidentbecause it helped me realize it
was actually a lot easier thanI thought.
It wasn't as hard as it has tobe.
But if you try to followtraditional financial advice of
(09:38):
getting debt free and stuffingyour money in 401ks and
retirement plans, you're justnot going to make it.
The stats show that you've gotabout a 1% chance of maybe
succeeding at that.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
You know, I love that you talk about that because I'm
a risk taker and I've neverreally started to be a risk
taker because growing up, my dadlove him to death.
He's really great at finances.
He does kind of theanti-opposite of what you do,
Like he puts money away from401k and they're doing well.
But one of the things that Ilike to do is I like to take
(10:10):
risks, and sometimes they're bigfinancial risks, whether that's
opening up another business,going on another business
adventure, spending money onmyself, personal development
coaches, consultants.
So I take these large risks andI love that you talk about
passive income, Because that'swhat I look for.
I don't look for that 401k thathas millions of dollars in it.
(10:32):
I'm looking for that passiveincome.
Okay, what can I build that'sgoing to get me $5,000 to
$10,000 a month, every singlemonth.
And then how can I build thatout?
Two, three, four times?
Because, right there, that'syour passive income.
So I really love that you talkabout that.
And then I think you talked alot about how you're a
(10:53):
traditional financing advisorand that you knew that wasn't
the path for you.
So when you made thattransition, what was that like
for you?
Did you have people come intoyou and saying, hey man, why
aren't you doing this anymore?
Like, what was that like foryou?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, it was interesting period of time.
Remind me to talk about risktoo, because I might have a
different viewpoint on risk thanwhat you or your dad are seeing
right now.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
You know I would love it.
Let's definitely talk aboutthat after this, yeah, so, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So it was interesting because I didn't know what to
do with myself.
Right, I was like, okay, I'mgoing to quit being a financial
advisor because I couldn't makeit work.
I tried to see if I could havethis new perspective work with
being a financial advisor, butjust didn't.
So I ended up quitting likeMarch of that next year,
December about the time I metwith my dad, and then I had like
three months of like, you know,can I make this work or not?
(11:42):
Yet while I'm learning aboutpassive income, Well, I quit and
at that time all I was doingwas pretty much I stayed on as a
mortgage broker because Ifigured I could at least be
honest there.
And then I was also teachingballroom dancing on the side,
because you know one of thethings I used to do, I used to
be one of the nation's topamateur ballroom dancers oh
that's so cool, I was doing thatas well.
And actually I was even stockcoaching a little bit on the
(12:03):
side too.
I was doing that independently,so I had actually dropped even
before that I dropped mysecurities license as a
financial advisor so I couldteach people how to trade stocks
and options.
But the interesting thing waslike I was kind of wondering
what to do and people even werelike, hey, well, do you do this?
I'm like, well, I don't do thatanymore.
But I would tell them I waslike, well, I'm learning
something different right now.
And the thing is I was reallyexcited, like I remember, like
(12:26):
it was March.
I quit March through May I wason cloud nine, like just blown
away, like what you couldactually do in creating paths of
income.
Like, for example, someone hasa million dollars from a
financial advisor mindset, youshould only be pulling out maybe
$30,000 a year If you're goingto actually want that money to
last, based on the current realnumbers.
Right, and actually that's evenaggressive.
(12:47):
That might be too much.
You might need more, like 20 to30,000 a year that you want to
live on.
Well, that's living below thepoverty line.
You're like you're a brokemillionaire, right, living below
the poverty level when you dothat.
But when I realized you couldtake a million dollars and let's
just say you made even like 1%a month on that money.
Well, now you're making $10,000a month on that same million
(13:10):
dollars, not 20 or 30,000 a year.
10,000 a month, that's 120,000a year, right.
And that was all said.
It like was like angels singing, you know.
Because it was like, oh my gosh, there's actually an answer
here, there's actually hope.
Because when I ran real numbersof the real stock market
returns being less than 8% and Iwas running real inflation
(13:31):
numbers and actually even thenit wasn't real, I was running
like trying to run 3 or 4%, I'mlike there's no way people are
going to retire off this.
Like it's whatever you save ina 401k is what you'll live on
after inflation.
You know that lifestyle.
So if you save Max fund your401k at 20,000 a year, you will
live on 20,000 a year lifestylewith inflation, on a
conservative number of inflation, right.
So to see that was like oh mygosh.
(13:54):
And so when people would ask me,they're like, what do you do
now?
Like well, here's what I'mlearning.
And I'm like I don't evenunderstand it completely.
I'm like, but it's, it got meexcited.
And so people were like, well,cool, when you figured out, let
me know, right.
And eventually, like monthslater, you know, I got the point
where it's like wait, I couldstop working if I wanted to.
I could stop stop coaching.
Like everything I was doingthere was just gravy.
(14:15):
I was like I could just stopright now.
Even the mortgage side, you'lllike this because you were
buying back time.
It actually took a friend ofmine that was a millionaire that
said what do you like doingwith the mortgages?
I said well, I like gettingpeople the results, but I cannot
stand paperwork andunderwriting.
I can't stand it.
Like I hate the fact that Itell people it's probably going
(14:35):
to be about three weeks beforethis mortgage is done and then
they call me the next daywondering if it's going to be
done yet you know like Icouldn't stand that.
And so he said, well, find someof you who does like doing that
.
And in a scarcity mindset younever want to share, right.
And so eventually, as I startedto expand more into an abundance
mindset and that hey, we canactually help each other and we
can create value for everybody,I went to my broker, says who
(14:57):
fits that description, who's anerd, basically, and he says
Clark.
I mean, if a guy has the nameof Clark, he's a nerd, right.
So I go to Clark and say, hey,if I just basically spoon feed
people to, they've already beeneducated about how they can take
their mortgage, use the equityto invest and make more than
their mortgage payment andessentially pay off their house
for them.
Like you know, if I just spoonfeed them to you, will you do
all the work?
(15:18):
He said yes, and I'll pay you50%.
I said perfect.
So I'd spent me a half an houror so with these people, or just
friends and family.
I wasn't even activelymarketing, but I would do that.
Send them on to Clark becausethey're like well, how do we do
this mortgage?
Talk to Clark, he's got, he cando it all for you.
A month or two later I'm givinglike a thousand or $2,000 check
in the mail.
I'm like this is great, like Idid almost nothing.
(15:40):
That's a great per hour where Iremember as a mortgage broker I
felt like I was making 50 bucksan hour, you know when I was
doing all the work myself.
So to do that was just awesomeand that's where some of that
residual stream of income wascoming in because that's maybe
it was just again.
I wasn't even like activelypromoting myself.
People were just coming to meand of course they would refer
some of their friends.
So it's just friends and familybasically come to me, make a few
(16:03):
thousand a month on a mortgagethat had passive investments
from real estate kicking in, andthat's where it's making like
four or 5,000 a month.
And that's, of course, wheneverybody's like holy crap, you
retired, how did you do it?
And eventually, after so manypeople kept asking, I would just
try to teach them privately,but if I didn't charge them
money, they didn't do squatwithout information, right,
absolutely.
So eventually, 2007, I joinedforces with another another
(16:25):
other partners, and we created acompany that did actually teach
that and charged the money forit, you know, and kind of came
out of retirement to teach thatkind of stuff, you know, and so
that's kind of what it was.
Like it was.
People were coming to me but Ihad to tell them like, listen
what I taught you before.
Erase it from your memory.
It's not good, you know here,this, this actually works.
This has been proven, not justmy own life, but I see it
(16:46):
working in other people's livestoo.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
You know I love that because you can be so humble
about hey, I did teach somethingthat I thought was right at the
time, but then I found a bettersolution and now I'm coming to
you and telling you that youcould keep doing that solution.
It's not necessarily a badsolution with the old way, but
it's not the best.
Like here's something betterand you can recognize that and
actually tell people that.
So, first of all, that's areally good trait to have.
(17:09):
I don't see that very often.
I see people just being stuckin their mindset and their exact
same way and they never want tochange.
They never want to see it froma different view.
So sad when I see that, but Isee it so often.
And then I also want to say Ilove that you talked about
giving up control of what you'redoing.
Like you know the mortgages,like you didn't like doing the
mortgages right, so you foundsomeone that did.
(17:31):
One of the things I talked aboutin buying time is focusing on
your strengths.
What are you good at?
What do you like to do?
And you focus on those.
What is something you don'tlike to do?
Well, outsource it.
Figure out a way to havesomeone else do something that
you don't like to do, and I getsome pushback on that because I
get people are like, well, Ican't afford to hire someone.
I go no, you can't afford notto hire someone because you
(17:52):
don't like to do that.
If you keep focusing onsomething that you like to do,
then you're going to see thatyou're going to generate extra
revenue from it because you'regoing to be so passionate about
it, so driven, that you're noteven going to have to worry.
But because you're focusing onoh, I have to do this paperwork,
like you said, I got to do thispaperwork.
It's not something I reallylike.
You thought you were making $50an hour.
Then you went out, foundsomeone else that could do that
(18:14):
paperwork for you and then youget those $1,000 checks in the
mail so nice.
So I love that you talk aboutthat, because it's something I'm
very passionate about,especially in the buy time
aspect of things.
I want to revisit risks,because you seem very passionate
about that.
Let's talk about risks.
I know risks are everywhere inlife financial risks, time risks
(18:35):
but let's talk about risks.
So what do you have to say onrisks?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, I kind of had a epiphany when you're talking
there a little bit, because Imean there's always risk, right,
but if you look at the realdefinition of risk and this has
even come from the financialadvisor definition of risk it's
called it's really just chanceof loss.
What's your chance of losing?
One thing you hear out therethat's a complete lie, right,
and it's taught by financialadvisors and the institutions
because they want you to takeall the risk in the stock
(19:01):
markets and things like that.
But while they take none of itis that they'll teach you that
high risk creates high returns.
Think of the definition of risk.
Definition of risk is chance ofloss.
When did a 90% chance of losingbecome a 90% chance of winning?
That math doesn't add up, doesit no?
Speaker 1 (19:19):
not at all.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
No, 90% chance of losing means you have a 10%
chance of winning right.
Well, if I really truly believethat high risk creates high
returns, the best risk I couldtake meaning that the worst risk
or the highest risk I couldtake is buy lottery tickets.
Let's cash in all of ourretirement accounts, cash in
every dollar we've got, takeequity out from our house, throw
it in and buy lottery tickets.
(19:40):
Let's do that Powerball right.
Let's do Mega Bucks or whateverit might be, and let's see if I
can win big.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And that doesn't work , does it?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
When you talk about you taking risks right.
But when you take risks, youtake risk on you.
I can't hear that come out ofyour mouth.
You're personally developingyourself.
You're investing in a businessAll things which you have
control over right.
That's more in my mind.
That's more calculated risk.
Because if I'm going to make abet, why not bet on me,
especially if I know that I'm agood bet?
(20:11):
Right.
And the opposite is what mostpeople do, most Americans.
Instead, they don't want to beton themselves.
They go and they bet on acompany or companies or mutual
funds where they have zerocontrol, zero effect.
They can't make the returns goup or down, right.
And, by the way, picking a fundis not control.
(20:32):
That's literally just guessing.
You are like blinking thecharacter from Robin Hood, men
in Tights, the blind guy who'sup on the watchtower saying I'm
guessing, I'm guessing no one'scoming right.
That's what you're really doingwhen you buy mutual funds.
You bought Hookline and Sinkers.
The lie taught by advisors andby those that employ advisors,
which are financial institutionslike your Fidelity's, your
(20:54):
Goldman Sachs, merrill Lynch's,all those companies have taught
you over the years andbrainwashed you to believe that
high risk creates high returns.
Therefore, you should take allthat market risk while guess
what they're doing.
They're taking zero risk on you.
You know what they're reallydoing.
They're actually charging youguaranteed fees every single
year.
Whether you make money or not.
They're getting paid.
(21:15):
That's why the person that winsis the financial advisor, not
you.
They get paid, whether you makemoney or not.
You could be your livelihoodsat stake and you're gambling on
them and really they're justguessing, like everybody else,
right With something you havezero control over.
If you're a business owner andmaybe you have it quite
expressed this way, but you're abusiness owner you might have a
(21:36):
hard time with financialadvisors because they're telling
you to throw your moneysomewhere else instead of a
place where you know you canmanipulate and control the
returns right.
My brother-in-law taught me thatwhen I was a financial advisor.
He was from a very successfulfamily.
His dad was a self-mademillionaire.
In fact, his dad ran away fromhome at 16, got his first auto
dealership at 19, millionaire by21, and that was in the 1950s.
(21:57):
Oh, wow, I'm impressed.
Being a millionaire was a bigdeal back then.
His son was my brother-in-law.
I thought, man, if I can get inwith this family, I'm set for
life because I'll make all myguaranteed fees off of the money
under management, right?
Well, I sit down with mybrother-in-law, I give him the
best presentation I've evercreated.
I brought one of the best guysfrom my office to back me up
(22:18):
because you got to have two onone double team on this guy.
As we're talking to him, mybrother-in-law says this very
simply.
He says, chris, let me justplay around with this.
Let's just say I give you 10grand to play with.
You're saying you can make me12% in a year.
Right, because everybodybelieves the market actually
produces 12%, which is bull crap.
It never has.
I'm like well, there's noguarantees, right?
(22:40):
But yeah, if you get 12%,that's possible.
Well, chris, okay, let's justsay I get 12%.
Well, that means I made 1200bucks on my 12 grand in a year.
But, chris, I can take thatsame 10 grand.
I could put a down payment on asemi truck in my dealership and
I can make $20,000 in a coupleof months.
So 20,000 in a couple of monthsversus 1200, maybe with you
(23:01):
over a year.
Why would I invest my moneywith you?
And I said well, you should bediversified.
You should pull your eggs inone basket.
Besides, business is risky, youknow, just like you said right,
and he said thanks for yourtime, we'll see you later, and
he sent me with my tail tuckedbetween my legs out the door,
right, the best thing he couldhave ever done, because he was
100% correct right Now I'm notsaying that permanently you're
(23:25):
always quote-unquote reinvestingin your business.
That's a fallacy that manypeople buy into, where they, if
they always are spending moneyin their business, they're never
profitable.
If you don't have profit andyou know this right you don't
have profit.
You can't buy time back.
You know so many entrepreneursand CEOs will end up creating
their own rat race.
They might just make millionsof dollars in that rat race.
They're still stuck doing that,like if they were to quit today
(23:47):
they would be broke aseverybody else.
But you know to actually havethat control bill, say, now I
can take my profits, use that,generate other streams of income
and, of course, still invest inmy business where I get the
best ROI possible while keepingthe rest of the profits.
That right there is like in mymind, like the ideal, what any
entrepreneur should be doing andreally should be sending every
(24:08):
other financial advisor withtails tucked between their legs
saying I don't need you.
Because the truth is, why wouldI invest in everybody else's
company, like Apple or Microsoftor whatever, and where I have
no control, when I can invest inmy own company stock?
Even if you don't sell stock,you still have the same kind of
format, right.
Why not invest in my owncompany and make better returns
where I control all the risk?
That, to me, is beingconservative and left risky.
(24:30):
I think everybody else thatputs money in a mutual funds and
401ks are very risky gamblers.
They're gambling on somethingthey have no control over.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
I love it.
I love that you talk about that,because something I get a lot
of people doing is they'll cometo me and they'll say what's one
of the best investments I canmake, jacob?
And I'll be like well, there'stwo.
You can either invest inyourself or invest in a business
that you want to do, and theygo no, I don't want to take that
risk.
And then I look at them.
I'm like investing in yourselfis the best thing you can
possibly do because you controlthe outcome, the amount of work
(25:01):
that you put in, the amount ofeffort that you put forth.
You're going to see the resultsbased on all of that.
And so I did that at such ayoung age.
Like I got my first commissionjob working for Radio Shack, by
the way, I love sharing this Iwas horrible at sales.
I was so bad at sales that ourdistrict manager walked in and
he had a conversation with me.
When I went on, I was like he'slike, how's things going?
(25:22):
I'm like great Customers loveme.
He goes, your sales don't showthat.
And I was like but they love me, they're coming back and he
goes.
It's because you're aninformational kiosk, jacob.
You're giving them all theinformation and then they're
walking away with it and they'regoing somewhere else to
purchase the product.
And I was like what, why wouldthey do that?
So he shared with me some tipsand tricks and then I really got
(25:42):
into sales and once I seenthose commission checks I was
like wait a minute, I am nevergoing to work for any business
again that does not havecommission, because I was in so
much control.
I was using those commissionchecks to pay my rent.
I was using those commissionchecks to sometimes have a
vacation.
I use those commission checksto buy my wife for engagement
ring.
I was using commission checksas basically extra money because
(26:07):
I had my hourly wage and then Ihad these commission checks.
And that got me to thinkinglike hey, wow, commission is
amazing because I'm in controlof it.
If I show up one day and I putmy head down and I did do this
there's a snowstorm showed upone day, put my head down, it's
like this just sucks, I'm notgoing to make any sales.
Today, made excuses, I want tofigure out how to make sales.
Because halfway through the dayI said what am I doing?
(26:27):
I'm a fool.
Like figure out how to makesales.
So I went out, went outside ofmy area, got some sales, brought
them back and then ended uphaving to hop on a call because
I closed sales when no one elsecould, in the middle of a
snowstorm and it was.
It was a great time.
I love that you talk about that,because having control of your
money is so important.
And when you give it away tolike you were talking about to
these financial advisors oryou're letting them control it
(26:49):
because they're promising youthese returns, you're almost
just hoping.
You're sitting there likefingers crossed like, oh, please
give me 12%, please give me 18%.
And now I feel like the rate ofreturns you can correct me if
I'm wrong on this.
It's thrown around left andright.
There's numbers everywhere.
I mean I look at this site andthey'll say 18% returns, 12%, 8%
, 9%.
(27:10):
I can't tell you what the truenumber is.
What I can tell you is if Itake money in my business and I
invest in marketing, I can tellyou what my return is going to
be on that.
I can tell you if it's going togenerate 12,000, 20,000, 30,000
a revenue based off of what Iinvest.
So that's a safer method.
So I can tell you with data.
I can look at it, I can see it,I can tell you with data hey, if
(27:30):
you put I've done this forbusinesses, hey, put $5,000 in
ads, Some of the owners are like, absolutely, I'll do that.
They do it, see great success.
And others that say, hey, put$2,000, $3,000 in ads and they
go, that's a lot of money,that's big risk, I can't do it.
And I'm like, why, we'll makeit back, we'll get what?
Here's the data.
And they just they can't see it.
(27:50):
So I think some people justcan't see the outcome in almost
that.
I don't want to say it scaresthem, it just scares them.
So they rather just give theirmoney to someone else to control
.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Well, that's it, because you know, many people
don't want to take ownership fortheir life, and if you're going
to be a CEO of your life, notto mention a company, you got to
be willing to take ownership ofyour own life.
The problem is is many peoplelike to lay blame, whether they
subconsciously admitted or not.
They'd like to say you know, ifI put my money with this person
, if I make money, I'll say, oh,I made a smart decision.
But if I lose money, I canblame that financial advisor,
(28:21):
even though they had nothing todo with it.
I'm telling you a productbecause that's all they are
salesmen in suits.
But you have to take thatownership responsibility and I
love you mentioned becausereally investing in yourself
especially if you want to buyback your time you're going to
invest in being a bettercommunicator and a better leader
that actually not just leadswith an iron fist but really
inspires your team.
(28:41):
Because if you can do that,that's where your ROI is just
massive right.
That's when you can actuallyreally get your time back and
get profits back too, and Ithink that's essential and
that's scary, because that meansyou have to have ownership.
You have to admit.
Hey, you know what I might suckas a leader which, by the way, I
was saying that just a year ortwo ago.
I was like I was so good atbeing the self-employed guy Once
(29:02):
I had to bring on more teammembers.
Then I was like, oh my goodness, like I'm really horrible at
being an accountability manager.
You're like I'm horrible atthis and I'm still not the best
accountability manager.
But as I've learned to lead andinspire what really helps the
team perform better, and evenget surrounded by people that
could also help manage my teamtoo, it's just been a game
changer for me.
(29:23):
So I totally agree it's scaryto invest in yourself, but in my
mind it's the easiest thingthat I can control the
circumstances.
I can control the variable ofme.
But many people just don'ttrust themselves enough to
invest in themselves, and that'swhy they just rather invest in
somebody else, because they'rescared to take a bet on
themselves.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Oh yeah, they want to blame someone else.
I mean, I know, if I invest inmyself and I don't do the work
that's required, then who's toblame Me?
I'm the person to blame.
I think some people can't takethat ownership.
They can't take thatresponsibility.
And the fact that you've sharedyour stories and I love that you
shared your story of hey, Ithought this was the right path.
I realized it wasn't.
Now I'm on this different pathand sharing why this is a better
(30:04):
path, without necessarilysaying, hey, that's a horrible
way to do it.
The other way, you'reacknowledging that, yeah, that's
an okay way.
You might be fine, you mightnot, but here's a better way.
And right there, that's awesomethat you're not just saying,
hey, this is wrong, but you'resaying, hey, listen, I have a
better solution, given that youhave more control over and that
(30:24):
you can financially make a lotmore money.
And who doesn't want to makemore money?
Because you have to have moneyIf you're going to buy it back
your time, it's just somethingyou have to have.
And then leadership that's likeone of the hard.
That was a hard one for mebecause I thought I was a good
leader at first and I'verealized as time gone by, I was
like you know I'm not the bestleader.
(30:44):
Yeah, I would do things for myteam, I would show up, I would
be out the front lines, but Iwasn't that, like you said,
accountability person.
I wasn't making sure.
You know, I was holding themaccountable, and having those
one-offs and one-on-ones andit's more stems from that.
I like I'm a people pleaser, Ilike to make sure everyone's
happy, overcoming that now.
But it's that I didn't want toupset anyone and now I'm
(31:07):
learning hey, listen, sometimesyou're going to upset people as
a leader, but you're going tosay some things that need to be
said and that's going to makethat person stronger.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
It's true, I almost cried the first time I had a
fire or friend, right, he was agood guy but he just wasn't
performing at the level heneeded to and it you know
warnings to come and whatnot.
I mean not like warnings, butbasically we're just saying, hey
, we got to step it up, step itup, and it wasn't happening.
And I was, I was almost intears, you know like I was like
I feel horrible about doing thisand it's not like my favorite
(31:37):
thing to do.
But I actually would muchrather attract good talent,
which is what a CEO should bedoing anyways.
You know, attract the righttalent and the right people for
your team.
But I appreciate the kind ofwords about me, like you make it
sound like I'm a really niceguy, but the truth is is that,
although I'm, I'm not very niceto the financial industry,
because you know.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
So you're saying Dave Ramsey might not have you on
his podcast?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Oh, definitely, definitely not.
No, he would have hang up on mepretty quickly, right, In fact,
I just did another podcastabout that, because he even
ripped on his own co-host fortrying to teach real stats that
contradicted his stats that he,you know, heard as a lie like 30
years ago.
Right, like that's the problem.
Like that bugs me.
Like you, the one thing that'strue that you said is, like you
(32:22):
know, when I realized thatsomething was wrong, I changed
course.
Right, like I can't.
Integrity is such a big corevalue in my life that I tell
people like I can't teachsomething I don't do myself,
even even when I like, duringthe recession, I got knocked out
of the rat race.
Right, like I was out of therat race but then I was knocked
back in because I went over.
I went over a million dollarsin debt with that new business
(32:44):
venture, plus the recession washitting, so my real estate was
tanking, like it was like theperfect storm in a George
Clooney death way.
Right, and for that time, likeI stopped teaching people how to
get out of the rat race becauseI was back in it.
I couldn't do it.
But when I see people like youknow, like guys like Dave Ramsey
teach stuff that he doesn'teven do himself.
That pisses me off.
(33:04):
You know?
Same thing with financialadvising.
Like if they were really beinghonest.
What they should be doing isrecruiting everybody to be a
financial advisor but not investin their own products.
That's really if they were tobe an integrity.
That's the true thing that afinancial advisor should be
doing is recruiting morefinancial advisors, because you
have better chance to successthat way and you ever do saving
in your, your IRAs and your401ks.
(33:26):
I like to say fidelity.
1.5% of people that have savedin their 401ks and IRAs with
fidelity have at least a milliondollars.
But of those people surveyed,35% of them think that it'll
take a miracle for them to beable to retire because of the
very thing I mentioned.
You have a million bucks.
You can only live on 20 or30,000 a year.
That's not enough, right?
(33:46):
The 4% rule that people talkabout is completely debunked.
That's actually what DaveRamsey is arguing with his own
co-host about was about that 4%rule, which is not really a rule
, but I mean.
You think about it like.
That means that less than 1% ofpeople think they have a chance
of retirement, right, itdoesn't mean they could do it.
That's scary, like.
(34:07):
Think about it.
If you went to Google andlooked up a business and 99 out
of 100 reviews were one-starssaying how much they hated it or
that it didn't you know thatproduct.
They didn't deliver on theproduct or service, would you go
to that company?
No, why would we go tofinancial advisors when they
have a less than 1% success rate?
That, to me, is ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Wow that's that's.
It's so powerful and actuallyso true.
I mean you look at it andyou're like, hey, there's better
options out there and Investingin yourself, get your time back
and then invest in otheropportunities, that's.
That's a pretty clear path andyou can control it.
And the one thing that I wish Iwould have done sooner and Now
(34:48):
that I know this, so I wish Iwould have invested in myself
more at in my early 20s, like Iwould have spent the time for
mentors.
I would have spent the time forcoaches.
I wish I would have spent thetime to overcome, you know,
childhood trauma, all of that inmy early 20s.
And If I could go back and doanything again, I would invest
in myself more.
I was so focused in investingin my business because I built
(35:09):
my business at 21, grew it fromthere, but I was so focused in
investing my business that Ikind of put myself on hold and
Now I'm having to redo that.
So I'm in my 30s now and I'mlike, hey, now I'm investing a
lot more myself.
That's the my personal brand.
I'm rebuilding this back out,because who would I be to help
all their business owners?
Who would I be to help otherpeople if I didn't do it myself,
(35:31):
like I'm, like you, I'm notgonna be a hypocrite.
I'm not gonna say, do this,this is, this is the path I can
guarantee you it's gonna work,or do this and have no idea
Because I've never done it.
I'm gonna do it first, provethat it can be done, and then
the people that want to see thatget done.
I welcome them and I lovesomething that you said because
I've had this asked, asked mebefore is well, jacob, it works.
(35:53):
Now, why don't you just teachit for free?
Why don't you just helpeverybody?
And my response to them wasPeople don't get value out of
something that they're notpaying for.
In my business we used we usedto do a bunch of free services.
Constantly, we do free services.
I learned something really,really quickly On in my business
that the free services theywould leave.
(36:15):
They'd say thank you so muchand then they would leave.
We would either never see themagain, they would never leave a
review, they would never telltheir, tell their families about
us unless it was to come to usfor a free service, and we would
only see them back if and whenthey wanted another free service
and if we tried to charge whenthey came back because Something
was different.
(36:36):
They would almost throw a fitlike, well, I didn't get charged
last time there was, there wasno cost.
And it was amazing what happenedwhen they started to have some
value, not only did they feelmore confident leaving the store
, but they were more obligatedto leave us a review.
They are more obligated toshare us with their friends and
family, who would spend money inthe store because they already
(36:57):
have value tied to you.
So that's why I'm learning inthis coaching and saw things out
of.
Things is.
I've offered my services forfree and I've helped people.
I thought, hey, pro bono, I'llhelp this person.
See where it goes.
They don't do the work.
They don't do the work, theydon't put any of the effort
forward because there's no valuetied to it.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
That's, you know that's.
It's so insightful because Iremember, for me, 2006 this is
when I was starting to learn toget out of the rat race.
I quit being financial advisor,right?
I remember one of the thing Ilearned from guys that were
millionaires, you know, in realestate as well as in business.
They kept saying this keyprinciple is that dollars follow
value.
Right, the dollars follow value.
Create further people.
Your ability to be able toserve people, solve problems or
(37:39):
add value in such a way thatmoney is just a natural
byproduct pretty soon.
Making money as formulaic it's,it's, it's predictable, it's
easy to do money was alwaysmysterious to me, even as a
financial advisor.
Ironically, it was mysteriousabout how to generate income.
It was in my mind back then, itwas always a zero-sum game.
Someone had to lose for me towin.
Therefore, if I'm a good person, I have to lose for somebody
(38:01):
else to win, right?
So when I was a mortgage broker,you know when I was first doing
that I would tell people.
I said, hey, I'll cut back myyou know the normal standard 1%
origination fee.
I'll cut it back to threequarters percent.
I was getting down to a halfpercent and so I say I'll only
charge you a half percentorigination so you'll save on
your costs, giving you, you know, more flexibility, better
(38:22):
payments or whatever.
Well, the crazy thing is, whenI did that, people still shopped
around Like that.
When I say, hey, I'll be thecheapest option, they're like,
well, okay, well, let me go tothe talk to the bank.
Oh well, the bank says they'lldo it for cheaper.
I'm like, yeah, but they'regonna give you a higher interest
rate to do it for cheaper.
You're gonna get ripped off.
And then they find out later, afew weeks later.
They're like, oh, it's true.
Yeah, they came back, said therate was actually higher.
(38:44):
But you know, we're already inthe process, we're almost done,
so we'll just gonna go with itlike you just got ripped off,
you know, and I was so mad, andthe funny thing is when I
started referring to Clark,right, clark would not bend on
that 1% origination.
He's like that's exactly whatwe charge, that's it, and I kid
you, not even though we split50-50.
So basically, I was gettingpaid the same as what I was
(39:06):
trying to do, doing all the workmyself.
We're splitting it 50-50.
People were happier paying thefull price and they referred
clients to me when they paidfull price.
They didn't do that before.
When I discounted my services,they didn't refer people, they
did it after.
I was seriously like chargingthe full amount.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And I learned amazing .
Speaker 2 (39:25):
When we kicked off our new coaching company, right
Like I, first I was trying tocharge like 500 bucks, but again
, people weren't doing the work,they weren't getting results.
Therefore they weren't happyand they weren't referring
people.
But the more that I charged,really, the truth is, the more
they invested in themselves.
They knew they had to getresults and as a result because
it was a little bituncomfortable they actually did
(39:47):
the work and when they did thework, they got the results and
then they were happy and thenthey referred us more clients.
And so the funny is, the morethat I've charged them, better
results people get, not becauseI charged more, but because they
were more committed tothemselves to get the results
that I already knew they wouldget right.
So that's, that's the core, keydifference in my mind.
And I just told somebody lastnight.
(40:09):
He's like, yeah, honestly, I'mgetting hung up on the tuition
to hire you guys.
I said, hey, we're not thecheapest, we're also not the
most expensive.
There's plenty of people you'llget ripped off with, but I'll
tell you this like your ROI,you'll make more than your money
back.
You'll make more than doubleback in the next year, and
that's a one-time fee You'repaying us right and the plus a
small like monthly retainer ifthey want to keep us on retainer
.
But it's like you're paying solittle to get a better ROI.
(40:32):
Most people hire a financialadvisor hopes that they'll make
10% Not 200% 10% of their money.
They think they'd be thrilled.
I was like, and you're you'rebe, you're like having all this
BS, you actually have to pay outof pocket, like it's.
It's not about that, it's aboutvalue.
What do you get back in return?
It's like if I know I can makeyou 40,000 a year, you only have
to pay me 15,000.
That's pretty amazing.
You know that's a prettyawesome ROI and that's ongoing
(40:55):
year after year.
And you're not paying me 15,000year after year, not like a
financial advisor.
They charge you that feewhether you make money or not.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, they'll charge you if you're losing money.
If the markets down, markets up, they don't, they don't care,
they'll be billing you out.
Man, I, I love it, chris, sofar for our audience.
I always like to ask what aresome ways that we can help,
support you?
What's something we can do tohelp you?
What can our audience do foryou?
Speaker 2 (41:20):
You know, honestly, like the best thing you do is
just take this information, dosomething with it, right, I mean
that's take action.
That's always the best liketake action and get results.
That's always been my, my, mybiggest like flex, you know, for
me, like I don't flex in theflashy cars or nice houses or
anything like that, I flexresults.
You know it definitely.
(41:40):
If you like more information,you can always follow my podcast
, money ripples podcast.
I teach a lot of free infothere.
Money ripples calm.
I've got a lot of informationthere as well, like you already
mentioned that earlier.
So I mean, fine, you know,whatever, whatever you need
information wise, do that, takeaction on it, make it work in
your life.
I mean that to me.
That's why my company's calledmoney ripples right, because,
(42:02):
even though I could literallyquit my business right now
because I don't need the money,I'm got more than enough passive
income coming in.
I actually was able to retiretwice.
I did it again in 2016 after Iwent broke, but but I'll tell
you, like the thing that I loveso much, that ripple effect is
why I called the company moneyripples, because, as your Bless
financially, you now have agreater capacity to bless the
(42:22):
lives of those around you.
So what I want to see for you,if especially for your business
owners, I want to see yousucceed in your business.
Invest in that, first andforemost.
Secondly, create enough youknow wealth right, enough enough
of that so that you don't worryabout paying your bills anymore
, so then you can show up andserve other people as well and
make this world a better place,and that's, that's what I'm
excited for.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Man.
I absolutely love that.
Chris.
I just want to say this hasbeen a pleasure.
I absolutely love it talkingabout finances and talking about
ways to increase passive incomeso you can get your time back.
You can do more of what youlove and stop doing the things
that you hate.
So thank you so much for comingon today and just sharing with
our audience.
I really do appreciate that.
And for those of you looking toactually get your time back by
(43:05):
Leveraging your funds, go tomoney ripples calm.
Check out what Chris has tooffer some pretty cool stuff.
Went to the site myself and Itell you what.
There's some pretty neat stuffthere.
So money ripples calm.
Thank you so much, chris, and,as always, until next time.
Thanks for listening to today'sepisode.
My name is Jacob K Mead anduntil next time.
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