Live Your Extraordinary Life With Michelle Rios

Rewriting the Rules of Wealth with Chris Miles

• Michelle Rios

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Unlock the secrets of financial empowerment with Chris Miles, a cash flow genius who defies the norms of financial advice. Raised in a world of financial scarcity, Chris took the road less traveled, leaving college to pursue a career in financial advising with a mission to help his father and others break free from the chains of conventional wisdom. Together, we navigate his remarkable journey, uncovering the revolutionary philosophy behind Money Ripples, where money works for you rather than the other way around.

Are you ready to challenge the status quo and embrace a mindset of abundance? Chris and I dig into the transformative power of valuing your services and creating win-win scenarios. This isn’t just theory; it's a proven strategy that has not only revolutionized Chris's business but can elevate yours too. We peel back the layers on myths surrounding money and explore alternate investment strategies that prioritize cash flow and liquidity over conventional Wall Street gambles. By taking calculated risks and solving real-world problems, you can set the stage for financial success.

For those seeking financial freedom, especially solopreneurs and professionals eager to escape the 9-5 grind, Chris offers practical steps to transition into passive income streams. From understanding the power of self-directed IRAs to accessing funds more strategically, we cover it all. His upcoming book, "Upside Down Millionaire," promises to illuminate these strategies further, urging you to align wealth-building practices with personal values for a fulfilling and extraordinary life. Prepare to shift your mindset and explore the possibilities beyond traditional income sources.

WAYS TO CONNECT WITH ME:

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Live your Extraordinary Life podcast. I'm your host, michelle Rios, and I want to welcome my guest this week, chris Miles. Chris is a cash flow expert, an anti-financial advisor we're going to have him explain more about that and a leading authority on teaching entrepreneurs and professionals how to get their money working for them. Today he's an author podcast host of the Money Ripples podcast and has been featured in US News, cnn Money, entrepreneurs on Fire, bigger Pockets, and has a proven reputation with his company, money Ripples. I cannot wait to hear more about his philosophy. We happened to have met not too long ago at a Creating Wealth Summit and I really enjoyed listening to Chris talk, really breaking things down, so that we could have a conversation about money that was both accessible and aspirational. So, without further ado, chris, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

It's such a pleasure to be here, Michelle. I'm so glad we connected at Summit.

Speaker 1:

Me too. So, okay, I want to just start right off the bat. I know that you have been working in this space around creating wealth for clients and for yourself for a long time, but give us a little bit of the backstory. How did you come to be doing this? What were you doing before and what drew you into this space?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, not the way you expect, which I guess is kind of like life, isn't it? You know, you plan one path and then it takes you a different direction sometimes, and that was kind of my path too. I mean, as a kid I grew up. I mean, my parents taught me good values, all your passions, your heart, my mom would teach me, my dad would teach me, your word is your bond. You know work. You know work your tail off. You know that kind of thing. And, uh, you know, don't do anything half-assed it was. It came to money. There was never enough of it. We can't afford this. We think I am made of money. Money doesn't grow on trees, you know. You know those kinds of crazy here growing up and so I was I heard that even after my parents divorced, lived in a trailer park for like five years when my mom was single, before she went on the road to do art shows and things like that and and so like.

Speaker 2:

For me, I wanted to grow up in a way where I could have control of my own destiny. I wanted to be able to prosper differently than what my family did. So I went to college and, of course, going to college, it didn't take long when I you know cause I like to see the evidence and things that work and I could tell that you know starting to see the path forward. If I just went down the same old corporate path, I might be kind of trapped or pigeonholed into something. So I was going to become a business consultant.

Speaker 2:

That was my goal. I thought I'm going to become a business consultant. However, I have zero business experience. Even if I get an MBA, who cares about this kid coming out of college trying to tell me what to do with my business? So I thought maybe I should just take a sabbatical from college before I go and finish my degree and just try to start a business. And so I did. And the first one that came up that was semi-interesting to me was a financial advisor, because I figured, worst case scenario, I'd learn about money.

Speaker 2:

Best case maybe I'll help my dad too, because my dad would always talk about how his job would literally kill him. He figured he would die from the stress of working. He'd already had strokes in his forties, heart attacks in his fifties, and so I wanted to at least give him something, but also learn about money for myself. So I started doing that and actually stayed dropped out of college. I never went back.

Speaker 2:

I stayed in that career for four years and while I was doing that, my dad then reached out and said well, chris, when are you going to advise me? Now? Understand, this guy was always guarded about his money. I always thought everybody's going to try to take money from him. He wouldn't even let me drive a car while I was in the house because he was so afraid somebody would want to sue him Right. And so I sit down with him, see his money for the very first time in my entire life, see that it saved up in his 401k, got the match Like every good boy and good girl should get. You know, he paid off all of his debt, including house, 100% debt free.

Speaker 2:

And then I said dad, here's the deal. You're 61 years old. If you want to retire today, you better hope you die in about five or six years, because that's when you'll run out of money. Okay, I, what? What do I do then, chris? Like that's not what I wanted to hear from you. What do I do? I said I don't know. You did everything right. From what I teach as a financial advisor, I mean you, you're like Dave Ramsey's dream come true. You're his poster child right now, even though Dave Ramsey was not, it was just starting to get some popularity. Back then, my dad probably taught Dave Ramsey everything Dave knows, I'm guessing you know, and so so I was. Really I was really bothered by that. I actually walked away. I didn't give him any recommendations because I didn't want to throw him in a stock market to possibly have him lose his money and then set him back more years, and so he ended up working into his seventies before he was forced into retirement.

Speaker 1:

And uh, and of course, because of here for a minute, because they do want to, just not to put a fine point on it, but this is exactly how I was raised right. Parents were working class. They worked very, very hard. My dad did have actually have a 401k through his work, but I was taught get the corporate job, work to get the corner office and get the biggest. You know amount of money you can and save is saving. Save as much as you can. Don't have credit card debt like spend less than what you earn. Always make sure you know so. I had a frugality mindset. My mindset was save, pay off, don't spend more than I earn, and my parents for the most part did the same. My mom is in her early 70s and still working.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, amazing. I mean it's sad because we've been marketed to by financial institutions and companies which then teach financial advisors that this is going to work, that this is the way right. It's almost sounds like Mandalorian this is the way right, but it's not. It really isn't a proven good way of doing that. And that's what I kind of came to realize at that moment.

Speaker 2:

I was, and I had a choice, because I realized one my clients weren't financially free. Right, if I really looked even at the retired ones, they still worried about running out of money too soon. But then you also had the other side, and, by the way, these are also clients I inherited. I can't take all the credit, but I hadn't. Even these guys had worked with financial advisors previous to me too, right. And then, of course, on top of that, how many financial advisors did I know that were financially free, where they could actually retire off the investments, not off the commissions earning? And the answer was zero. I didn't know of any that could actually just retire off the actual investments. And I had a choice Either I had to stay, I could stay in the industry, just put blinders on and just keep working hard and say, well, it's better than nothing or two. I keep my integrity intact and leave and vow and never teach about money again, which is pretty much what I did. I chose the latter of March of 06.

Speaker 2:

I was like I'm done, I'm out, and especially because I started learning about things like real estate, investing and this thing called abundance mentality right, which I know you teach about all the time and even scarcity.

Speaker 2:

I had no clue about scarcity versus abundance. I didn't know about any of this stuff, but I had a friend who was in the real estate space because I was looking for people that actually are living it, like they've been there, done that, still doing it today, and he's like listen to these guys on this AmTalk radio show here in Utah. And so I did, and there were two real estate guys, guys, but they rarely talked about the real estate strategy. They kept talking about the principles, even from founding fathers, and what they all taught the principles of prosperity and what made this country so great and prosperous and how you could apply that to create wealth in your own life and things like that. And so I realized like there's a different way here. I never heard of any of this stuff as a financial advisor and as I started. Of course, because of that, I had to know what these guys knew, so I started getting into real estate investing and actually retired that next year.

Speaker 1:

And how old were you, Chris? How old were you?

Speaker 2:

I was 28, almost 29 at that time.

Speaker 1:

So, 28 years old, my career was just taking off and Chris retired without a college degree. Mind you, it's true, to great mind you, it's true. So I would love for you to talk, as you go on, about the myths, because I do think we still, by and large, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, we have a group mentality and group think around. Well, pour as much money as you can into your 401k, pay off your debts, live within your means and not to say that those principles aren't good. It's better than spending all your money and not having any. But if you really want to create wealth, this is not the way.

Speaker 1:

In fact, I remember when I read Robert Kawasaki's book for the first time, I was like this is the opposite of what I have learned, the complete opposite. So much so that I was like I can't read this book. I put it down for a while and then went back to it and I was like, wow, it really is wholesalely different than the way we think, as you know, what I would consider like middle America, right, yeah, so talk a little bit about what you learned as you move forward. And the fact that you were able to retire through primarily real estate investment. Was that it Amazing? Tell me a little bit about what we see in the mindset of most and what we're taught, and, and and how to bust those myths.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'll tell you it was hard because I mean, I was so indoctrinated into, really it was. It's like almost like dogma really. I mean, when it comes to the financial world, what you're taught because you're taught to drink the Kool-Aid, right, that you just, you know you spend nothing, save everything, save it forever, so you get that compounding interest, the eighth wonder of the world, which Einstein never said, by the way and then somehow, someday you're supposed to pull out less than you than it earns, so that you never run out of money. Right, and, and those are hard myths to break. And remember, I came from a similar background to you frugal, saver mindset. You know, set and forget it. You know those kinds of things you're always taught. And and again, like I saw that my dad was that person and it didn't work, you know, I mean my, and my dad was a cheap, cheap guy, I mean, and and I realized I was on the same path as him, and so the, the whole, you know. For example, you mentioned like, spend less than you earn.

Speaker 2:

There's a difference between principles and practices, right, there's a very different thing. Principles always work, no matter the situation. Practices are very much dependent upon the situation. So, for example, let's go with that one. You know, spend less than you earn is a practice right Now, the principle and it's close to the principle that one's closer. Most people just say don't have debt, right, and that's also a practice, you know. Or pay off all your debt Practice right. Be debt-free is a practice, it's not a principle. The principle is produce more than you consume, right, and obviously, as we know, especially in the entrepreneur space or even if you're in the corporate space, the best way to do that is to keep producing more, and it doesn't require you always trading time for money to do that. It to keep producing more, and it doesn't require you always trading time for money to do that. It's about how to create more value, right, and so, like I realized, uh was one of the key things that shifted and changed my entire life was the principle that dollars follow value. Dollars don't follow luck or exploitation.

Speaker 2:

Which is what so many people believe, and I even kind of subconsciously believed myself, is that I believed it was a zero sum game. It was win, lose, right. If I wanted to win, someone else had to lose in the transaction. Vice versa, if I'm going to be a good, benevolent person. This is, of course, a scarcity mindset, right? If I'm a benevolent person, then I got to lose so that others win. So, funny enough, like as a financial advisor, the guy's supposed to have it all figured out. What was I doing? I was trying to tell people listen, I'll cut back my commissions so that you'll win. Right, I'll try to do what's, you know what. Basically doesn't even feed my family anymore so that you can win.

Speaker 2:

And even on mortgages, I was a mortgage broker too. In fact I kept doing mortgages even after I quit being a financial advisor because I figured at least I'm safe there to not deceive people, you know, in the financial game. Well, mortgages, I would cut back my origination fee. I would say you know what? I'll cut it back because I love you, I value you as a client. The crazy thing is they would still shop me around looking for somebody cheaper, which was usually a bank, because they embed their fees into the interest rate. So they'll tell you a quote your lower interest rate and then bait and switch you when you got approved, saying, oh, sorry, the interest rate is going to be higher, sorry, and do you want to go through that process again? No, okay, we'll take the higher rate Right, and so I still get shopped around.

Speaker 2:

The crazy thing is is that even when I was getting to the point I was about to retire, I actually started referring to another guy, because one of my friends said well, why couldn't you refer to the person that likes doing paperwork? I hated doing the paperwork with mortgages, but I love teaching about it. Refer to somebody who actually loves doing paperwork a nerd, basically. I found that nerd in my office, you know, and that guy split me 50-50 on it and I would get paid so much less and here I mean so much with doing less. Right, I got paid about the same because instead of cutting my fees in half, he would charge the full fee and we would split it 50-50. So the crazy thing is I would still make the same amount of money, spend a lot less time because you know he was willing to do it.

Speaker 1:

You could do more transactions because you weren't spending so much time on the paperwork on one individual one.

Speaker 2:

So even then like because I was only spent like half hour and an hour teaching, I wasn't dealing with all the paperwork on the backend I was trying to work my tail off to only get that half percent origination versus the standard 1%. Right, he would charge a standard 1%. And here's what's crazy. This is what most people might think is kind of an enigma, but I got more referrals when we charged the full standard rate than I did when I cut my commissions in half. People actually liked it more because instead of trying to shift to hey, how do I create a win, you know, how do I make this best of this win-lose scenario? And I started looking at how can I create a win-win scenario right, where everybody wins.

Speaker 2:

What's amazing is people actually were happier. And if you ask even people that in car sales business, if you ask even people that in car sales business, if you ask that who's the happier person that walks off a lot, it's a person that paid full price or close to it versus the one that nickel and dime all the way down until you said yes and then they walked away, still angry, because they knew if you said yes, it should have gone lower. Right, because they live in that scarcity world and when I started going in an abundance state of mind right, where it's like no everybody can win, everybody can be happy, the funny thing is I got more referrals and more business from people because again I was trying to do what's right for people. Naturally, that never changed. But what the difference was that I wasn't trying to minimize me and diminish myself in the process.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about that for a minute, because that abundance mindset, that shift that you had, was probably not overtly evident to them. It wasn't like you had a conversation, it was simply you showed up energetically, differently to the scenario and you valued yourself more and therefore they valued more. Right, people are only going to treat you to the extent of whatever level you treat yourself. So I tell me a little bit about that because I think that's fascinating. I'll be honest with you. With my coaching practice, I did no advertising none in the beginning, none and all of my clients were based on referrals and people who found me just energetically. They're like I don't know what you're doing, but I want some of it and how can we work together?

Speaker 2:

That would test the formula. Yeah, I can test that Cause I I mean, when you hopped into the zoom room I know you came in like a few minutes late the energy of the room changed right. Like I was, I was almost like why isn't she on the summit with me? And there's two other great ladies too? But I was like I want to hear what she has to say. Can we bring her on too, you know, and and and so there is a difference.

Speaker 2:

Like you can sense the difference in that and it it does come from the inside and expresses outward, and most people can't describe it, and, and so I'll give you an example. If you've ever gone to a networking event, you know whether it's a chamber of commerce or something else. You've met that person that's throwing business cards at you, like Chinese stars, in fact, they're so desperate to give you cards. I may hand you a stack to say, hey, I know we just met 30 seconds ago and you don't even know who I am, but here's a stack of cards just to hand out to other people for me, right? That kind of scarcity. Yeah, you, you've met that person, haven't you? Michelle?

Speaker 1:

You know, look, truth be told, I probably was that person at different points of my life, because we don't all stay in that abundance mindset 24 seven. It is a daily practice and there were moments where business was not good in my corporate world and I was told go, you got to hustle. We need to bring in another quarter million dollars in a week. So I was thinking I was doing the right thing. What I was actually doing is repelling a lot of potential clients.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's true and I did it too, especially as a financial advisor, Like I mean, I was the. I was in a smaller networking group that we were like very big on sharing referrals. I was the number one referrer in that group, Yet I received so few referrals and I started to get bitter about it because I thought, well, hey, I'm giving, where's the reciprocity? But looking back, I wouldn't want to give me a referral either, because I didn't know at the time, but because of how financial advisors train other financial advisors.

Speaker 2:

It is a scarcity world. It's always about delay, sacrifice, never have enough Right and, and so when you're always exuding, you never have enough right, you never have enough business, you never have enough time, you never have enough of this or that. People will honor that energy that you put out. And so if you feel like you never have enough time, people would just be like you know what I got to stay away from him. He doesn't have enough time or she doesn't have enough time. Obviously, you know like, even if you don't say it, you just seem frantic and and kind of just frazzled, they're going to say, oh okay, they've got too much on their plate.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to stay out of their space, which could be kind of compared to that next level. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time someone said I really want to do this or work with you or be in that mastermind or what have you, but I can't afford it. And then you know I've come to the conclusion of I simply say you probably can't afford not to do it because you're going to constantly be in this turn. When is it ever going to be calm? When is it ever going to be calm? When is it ever going to be perfect? Stars aligning so that you feel confident to make that big leap? Never just make the leap and then the path appears. That's right. Tell me a little bit about the shift, because obviously you were going, you had the same scarcity mindset that majority of people out there have, and then you started to realize but what was it? What were you reading, what were you doing, what were you consuming? What changed and shifted for you internally, to shift your whole energy and your path forward?

Speaker 2:

Well, it was really that radio show and them talking and philosophizing a lot. You know that helped. You know that's kind of why I have my own podcast for that same reason, but it was. It was really. If there was ever that one that I focused on was that dollars follow value.

Speaker 2:

Because, when I realized it wasn't about just trying to screw people over, trying to get lucky, or you have to exploit somebody or whatever it might be, which is what I thought as a kid growing up, when I realized it's formulaic that if you're going about serving people, solving problems or adding value in such a way that money is just a natural byproduct, because people will say, listen, like whatever you have, I need that in my life because my life will be enriched and better with you in it or with your product or service in it. Therefore, I'm willing to exchange these pieces of paper called dollars to get that Now understand. Like you, I read Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, poor Dad a couple times as a financial advisor and somehow I twisted the narrative to somehow support financial advising, even though he very overtly is anti Mutual funds suck, in fact. That so helped. I did have a friend that referred me to the book that he also wrote, that's lesser known, called who Took my Money. That really rips into mutual funds quite a bit and it's kind of like who moved my cheese? Right, it's who took my money. And a great, great book there too. That kind of got me to waken up a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Um, also had shifts too, because I was stock trading at the time and a lot of stock traders were anti financial advisors too, cause they're like, yeah, those mutual funds are joke. They're high risk, mediocre returns, not even worth it. It's just like blah. You know, like, don't even get that stuff I don't also agree with. I also saw those guys live in scarcity because they would drive the worst cars. The only people that drove the best cars in the stock trading world were the salespeople selling you into the stock trading programs. I know that from firsthand experience.

Speaker 2:

So, so, anyways, like, so, really like that, that evolution of like trying to figure out, well, how do I go about, instead of just asking how do I make more money? Stop asking that question. That question has not worked for centuries. Okay, people have asked that question forever and they remain broke. Instead ask what can I do? How can I add more value? How can I serve people or solve problems in such a way that money is just the natural receipt of service, right? The natural receipt of what I'm giving? If you realize that money is just the receipt, value is the cause, you start to realize I should focus on that. How do I serve people? How do I serve more people? How do I add more value into their lives? How do I solve problems? People are complaining so much. Nowadays more than ever, there's more problems to solve.

Speaker 2:

Find a way to uniquely solve that problem that others may not have done, and, even if they are doing it, still find your own unique way of doing it.

Speaker 2:

You know I mentioned those mortgages as an example right Like one difference that changed my mindset, because I was doing mortgages before. Besides discharging the full origination, the other thing is I was shifting my mindset of how I saw money. One of the things I was teaching people was did you know you can use the equity from your house to invest, to generate cash flow to pay your mortgage and then have extra cash flow left over so you can not only pay off the debt of your mortgage, but you could also have extra cash that you could possibly even retire off the money that's the equity in your house, and that blew people's minds too. So that helped to also create a stir when I started to shift my perspective of wait a minute, this could actually be used, because I would never put that in the stock market. In fact, it's illegal to take money out of your house and put in mutual funds, they make you sign a waiver saying you're not doing that. Oh interesting. But that's not the case in real estate, because-.

Speaker 1:

I was going to say, it doesn't prevent you from buying an asset that can work for you in other ways.

Speaker 2:

Exactly so. There's shifts like that going on and of course, I was excited. I remember the first lunch I went to before I made any money right. This is after I just barely quit as financial advisor.

Speaker 1:

And let's just be honest, you were all of maybe 25. What are we talking?

Speaker 2:

about I was 28 at this time.

Speaker 1:

yeah, Okay, so your money came quickly, because you were retired in a short time.

Speaker 2:

Now I will say this in my defense or to help people put them at ease I only needed $3,500 a month to live on, so pre-inflation it was pretty awesome. So I didn't need a lot to hit that number and I'll go into the strategies of what I did to do that and what I learned. That didn't work. That I now do today. But with that I remember going out to lunch with a couple of friends and they remember me as being the struggling financial advisor right, because I was struggling to make money. I was working hard. I even had to get side jobs. Ironically, when I got a side job I made more money as a financial advisor Never equated that. I was in more abundance when I knew money was coming in as a paycheck versus when I was on commission.

Speaker 1:

You were relaxed about money. You no longer worried about it. You were on the frequency of money and wealth because you were bringing more in Interesting. I love it when it proves a point that we know to be true.

Speaker 2:

I know Entrepreneurs have seen this all the time. It's like you seem like it's feast or famine, right Like all of a sudden with money coming in. That seems like everybody else says yes, but then when it's not coming in, you're working five times harder to try to get to that yes.

Speaker 1:

Right, the first one, absolutely. All this it's all that, it's all mindset.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's all mindset and so I didn't know that at the time, I was just haphazardly doing it. But I remember I because of the things I'm learning and one of the friends asked me. He's like well, how much money have you made? Nothing, but you seem different. I'm like, I know, I'm super excited. I haven't made anything yet but I will. And in fact he even joked to me. He's like when are you going to buy that Mercedes? I was like did I tell you that I was going to buy a Mercedes? How'd you know? And the smug look on his face disappeared, right, because again, they had prospered more financially than I had up to that point.

Speaker 1:

And he's like but still have the scarcity mindset.

Speaker 2:

That's right. That's right they did. It doesn't matter how much money you have.

Speaker 1:

if that mindset is what drives you, yeah.

Speaker 2:

That's right. And so, yeah, I did buy that Mercedes a couple months later, funny enough, Right after my oldest daughter was born, like that same week, I went and bought a Mercedes but, you know, got to release the pregnancy weight you know I was going to say that was your holding onto her hand while she pushed gift to you.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, but I think that's really what it comes down to is like when you realize there's more than enough opportunity, there's more enough time, you don't have to get into the ground floor, right, you don't have to get at the early start because there's so many people have that gambler mentality when it comes to money and investing. They're like, well, I got to get in the ground floor, I got to get in now, the timing's now, I get into Bitcoin now. And then they wonder why they keep losing money. You know, and they do scarcity Understand, that it's not just fear and impatience and things like that, but greed is also a scarcity emotion. You got to be aware of all these emotions that could seem like excitement and abundance, but they're not. Greed and impatience are very much scarcity emotions, just like fear, doubt and worry are too.

Speaker 1:

That's right. They're on the lower emotion frequency scale. So if we talk about love and generosity and kindness and optimism being on the higher end of the scale, it doesn't just mean negativity and pessimism, but it's also irritation and annoyance and all of those other anger, all those other lower frequency emotions that are on the lower end of the scale that are going to create really a negative. It's going to repel the things you actually want away from you and you don't even realize it and bring more of what you're creating in your own life. It's a mirror, right? We know that it's a mirror, All right. So let's debunk some myths. What are the biggest money myths that are out there? Maybe even the ones we've already talked about? Let's just go maybe the top three myths and then what have you come to realize are the truths.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, um, what myth number one. It's funny Cause you I actually what my mind was. Here's some of the myths, and uh. So number one it takes money to make money. That's a myth. Now, when I talk about passive income cause I love it obviously Right, you know I love passive income, but I'll tell you who are listening in and not watching the YouTube video.

Speaker 1:

Chris is wearing a shirt that says I love passive income, which is also one of the reasons why I wanted to bring him on the show for sure.

Speaker 2:

So I will tell you this like for passive income, yes, I need money, but it does not take money to make money. And this goes on with my previous point about dollars fall of value. Right, because if that were true, this means you would never have survived past teenagehood or college years, because how broke were we in our teenage and college years. It's not like you went to your employer right now, or if you had an employer at one point, you know, you went to your employer, says listen, I got $50,000. Will you pay me 80,000 a year? That was never the case, was it Never?

Speaker 1:

No, you didn't want them to know you had any money.

Speaker 2:

No, they didn't give a crap right, and you wanted them to give you a promotion and a raise.

Speaker 2:

Exactly If I pay you a little bit more money, will you give me a promotion? Like that's a little like at all right, like you had to offer value. You offer your human life value, not your money. Your human life value in exchange for that money, for those things. That is where it comes from. So when I realized, oh, I don't need money to make money. You can create money out of what seems like nothing. And I've had to do it because, just so you know, after I retired in 2006,.

Speaker 2:

By 2008, I was over a million dollars in debt with a business that was failing, real estate was tanking, everything else. I had to dig out that million dollar debt hole with no money, no credit, no bankruptcy, but still I was able to do it the second time by the end of 2016, to be out of the rat race of over 10,000 with passive income. Had a bunch more kids. I couldn't live on 3,500 a month anymore, but but anyways, but that's a big one right there. Number two high risk creates high returns. This one I bought like a hook line and sinker as a financial advisor, but I remember hearing it for the first time in a different light, when, when you look at the definition of risk is chance of loss. When did a higher chance of losing become a higher chance of winning? I mean so if you have a 90% chance of losing, does that mean you have a 90% chance of winning?

Speaker 1:

No, in fact, if you go to Vegas and the odds are stacked against you, yeah, there's a potential, but it's like the odds are crazy against you if you're going to win big, but it's like the odds are crazy against you if you're going to win big.

Speaker 2:

Right, that's right, that's exactly it, and so like. So that's why I realized I was being taught by financial financial companies that I work for as a financial advisor, because that's really who you get paid by, not your clients, but the financial companies. I realized that they were the ones teaching these myths. Right, they're the ones that were teaching me to set it and forget it. Why? Because, right, they're the ones that were teaching me to set it and forget it. Why, because they get paid forever. That's another myth.

Speaker 2:

Right, high risk creates high returns. Well, if that were true, why do they take the guaranteed fees from you? Right, all the financial advisor fees? Right, those you get. You pay the financial advisor whether you make money or not. Shouldn't it be like if you lose money, hey, that financial advisor needs to pay you back. But no, that doesn't happen, does it? No, they're like nope, you take those high risks, so you take all the high risk, while the financial advisors and the institutions take none of the risk.

Speaker 2:

They don't put their money in the stock market. They put your money in the stock market. You know. That's how they become the number one investor in the market. They'll, and I used to teach that. I used to say all the financial companies are the number one investor in the stock market, so you should too. No, they're the number one investor of your money in the stock market, not their own. They don't do that stuff, you know. That's why even people say well, what about Warren Buffett? Warren Buffett doesn't invest in stocks. Warren Buffett literally buys businesses that he has a controlling interest in that can influence the return of that business. He does not buy something, he just rides waves like everybody else does in America. That's why you can't be Warren Buffett that way, unless you are a small business owner or something like that. So so those kinds of things, right, another myth that is a hard one. Like you're in it for the long haul. You ever heard a financial advisor tell you this?

Speaker 1:

Oh for sure. Well, it's along with the, with the. Put it in and forget about it. Like don't worry about the ups and downs, because we're talking about the long haul. We're not going to, you're not retiring anytime soon, so don't even worry if you see the ups and the downs, because we're talking about 15, 20, 25 years out, so relax.

Speaker 2:

That's right. Well, see, that's what happened to my dad. My dad was in it for the long haul, right, like he. He was getting ready. He was hoping by 1999, he was like thinking you know what, if it keeps going at this pace, maybe I can retire by 60, you know, in 2004,. But guess what happened? Y2k the money tanked. We lost a lot because the funds went very tech heavy, kind of like a lot of people are right now.

Speaker 2:

If you're in the SP 500 30, well, the top, the top six, really six companies, seven stocks, but six companies. Google is counts twice. They're kind of about 30% of the S&P 500, 30%. So if you have a big tech sector, drop, you're losing tons of money in this diversified. So quote, unquote, s&p 500, right, that's why my dad in Y2K he lost a ton of money by 2005,. When I met with him, it was just recovering after two years. It was a start to recover. Well, that wasn't enough. And then, of course, a couple of years later, we had the global financial crisis of 2007 through 2009,. Right, and that happened. That set them back again. That's why he had to wait till the 2010s to be able to retire. That's the long haul they keep talking about. Well again, how long is the long haul if you have to keep watching that money go up and down? They already predict, even the wall street's predicting that they don't expect the market to go up more than 3% per year average in the next 10 years.

Speaker 2:

Why would I want to put all that gamble into high risk things like that when I know I could lose my money anytime? There's nothing real backing it up, it's all. I mean heck. If Musk all of a sudden dies, guaranteed your Tesla stock is going to be worthless, right, because they knew it's all based on Musk. You know Elon Musk doing that stuff, so you got to be careful. You got to be really careful, and so I started. When I started to wake up to that kind of stuff and I started to realize wait, I want to take low risk to create higher returns. That's how real investors do it. That's how business owners do it. When you're in business, people say, oh, you're risky. No, because I know the risks I'm taking. I know what I'm going to do, that will work and what doesn't work, and that's how I become profitable.

Speaker 2:

The ones that do take the biggest risk in business usually do fail, right, because they're saying, oh well, you got to take high risk, create high return. If anybody ever tells you that, don't ever trust them with your money, ever. If they ask for money and they say that don't ever do it, that's like an accountant saying, oh, you'll save money if you put money in your IRAs and 401ks, you'll save tax. No, you won't. You just delay your tax to a later date when we're likely to be taxed more in the future. Right that they lie. So I mean you just get past all this. It becomes a lot easier to realize and here's the biggest myth that if you overcome will also lead to the answer, which is this it's not about accumulation of your money, it's acceleration of your money. We've all been taught to set our money set and forget it. Let it just accumulate and grow over time. That's why they talk about compounding interest so much, because they tell you just walk it away and that compounding interest leads to compounding revenue for those companies. But when I realized it's about acceleration, this was what got me out. It wasn't about how much I built up.

Speaker 2:

My goal when I was a financial advisor was to save up to $2 million in my mutual funds. Be as cheap as possible. Turn off that AC in the summertime. Turn off the heat in the winter. Right, save up as many little squirrely nuts I can save up to hoard away for that winter of my forties. If, up as many little squirrely nuts I can save up to hoard away for that winter of my forties. If I could get $2 million, I'll live on the 3% a year, which is what financial advisors recommend. The 4% rule was debunked a long time ago. People still teach it and I. It's ridiculous. The 3% a year, that's 60,000 a year I was hoping to live on. I thought 5,000 a month would be a very comfortable lifestyle in the early two thousands, which it was. That's now like 10,000 a month, right, for most people.

Speaker 1:

And I'm going to say that does not include any of us living in any of the metropolitan areas of the United States. Forget that. You need double.

Speaker 2:

You're like 10,000, like I'm barely above poverty line in California.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, that's a mortgage payment for most people.

Speaker 2:

It is, it really is, and so I mean so. Even if you want 10,000 a month, you still need to save $4 million in mutual funds. But if the market's not really producing 12% returns, like they always claim, but it's closer to like really, after dividends reinvested, maybe 9% if you're lucky. Most people don't even get that. They get maybe 7% or 8% a year. You do the numbers.

Speaker 1:

And we're told to be excited about seven or eight.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're supposed to be excited about that, but inflation is about that much the real rate of inflation.

Speaker 2:

Right? So you're chasing, you're like a Dalmatian chasing a firetruck. But when I switched it I said, well, wait, what if I had, you know, even $100,000 that instead maybe paid me 1% a month. That's $1,000 a month I'm making. That's $1,000 a month I'm making. Now. To make that, 12,000 a year, before right, I needed $400,000. Now, with a quarter of the money, I can make more because I'm living on more. The interest is actually paying me income. So if I'm lending my money to a real estate investor making 1% a month, if I have a million dollars, guess what I'm now making a hundred thousand a year, aren't I? Or actually, no, no, sorry, 10,000 a month.

Speaker 2:

Actually I'm making 10,000 a month, or 1.2 million a year, or 20,000 a year from that.

Speaker 2:

A hundred thousand a month. Right, that's right, you guys get it. You know you do the math in slow motion later, but uh, but yeah, like so I make 10,000 a month with a million dollars. And that's what happened with one of my clients in California. Right, right, he had a million dollars in his retirement plan from saving up in the military and then the advisor told him you can now live on 30,000 a year. He said I'm not going to do that. That's, I can't live on that. He's like I worked this hard to save a million bucks.

Speaker 2:

By the way, he timed it perfectly with the market. He pulled his money out of stocks right before Y2K and before and put it back in. Oh wow, Pulled out again before the global financial crisis and put it back in. He had time to perfectly to finally get that million dollars Only by way of fidelity. Only 1.8% of people actually have saved up to a million dollars, Not because they're not saving, but because the returns aren't as good as what you've been promised. It's over-promised, under-delivered, right? Well, he didn't want to live on 30,000 a year, so instead we got invested in like duplexes. We did some things with lending, we did some things with oil and gas space and diversified his money in alternative investments that now pay him over a hundred grand a year with that same million bucks.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. That was the difference Versus 30,000 through his mutual funds. Let's say that's right, so let's talk about it. Let's talk about passive income. What do people not understand? Because I do think it feels very vague and ambiguous for a lot of people. When we think about passive income, we're thinking, oh okay, well, I own properties that are generating income off, like rentals or Airbnbs or stuff like that, but it's so much more elaborate than that and there are so many more options. Talk a little bit about, maybe, what it is that people don't understand or know about passive income.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, the easiest way to create it is you got to get lean, get liquid and then get it out. And so, for example, get lean. Obviously, be a wise steward of your money. Track your money, which many people don't do. If you will use things like rocket money or monarch money, actually track your money. If you watch how much money is coming in and out from an abundance perspective, you realize I'm a steward of this money. I need to be responsible for it, and how do I best use it to get? Make sure that it keeps paying me.

Speaker 2:

Get liquid means don't lock your money way into the. You know paying off that house, right, which is what every financial person will teach you. Banks, by the way, teach you that on purpose, because when you locked your equity in the house, they now have your money to go and, ironically, lend out to other people. They're making money off of your money when you put more in. That's why they give you a lower interest rate on a 15-year mortgage than a 30-year mortgage. So be sure to get your money liquid in your control versus giving it to the banks. Stop giving it locking away in 401ks and IRAs where you can't touch it, even though it's your money. They're telling you it's not your money anymore because you're a benefactor, while the US government is actually the owner. People don't realize that when you put your locker away, your money in 401ks and IRAs, the government is now in charge of your money, not you.

Speaker 1:

You're just lending it out to other people to go do it with and everyone's got this impression in their mind that their money's sitting in a vault somewhere accumulating like return, like it is gone. There is no money there. It has been let out 20,000 times over.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. They're creating acceleration of your money, right? So that's what I mean by getting it out. Now many people think, okay, you mentioned real estate. Does that mean I go buy the rental in my backyard? And the answer is no, not necessarily, although if you were to do it and be accidental, there are people that become accidental millionaires just doing real estate much more than doing mutual funds right and doing the stock market. But no, because I had another client, also in Southern California.

Speaker 2:

He had a rental that he was planning. He was just he was on the path to pay it off. He's going to pay off both his mortgages. He'll free up 4,200 a month. I said here's the thing you got 700,000 equity in this rental. How much do you profit on this? $200 a month? Like that's nothing. You realize you're getting a 0.3% return on your equity right now per year.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, sell it and let's move that money over tax-free to other properties instead, things that are actually managed by other people, which he decided not to manage. After all, it took him two years to finally convince him to sell this property. He finally did it. Thank goodness Is he went and bought six more properties with that same equity. Of that one property. He bought six properties in Louisiana. He kept buying and taking the cashflow buying some others. He now has got up to about eight or nine properties. And here's the crazy thing he was supposed to pay off that debt next year to only free up, get this 2400 a month on that mortgage. He is now just email me. He says I'm now making over a hundred grand a year of passive income off of these rentals a hundred grand a year because he got his equity out right. He got it liquid and then got it out. And that's the difference.

Speaker 2:

And and there's and I, when I do rentals, I never manage my properties. I have somebody else across the country managing my properties for me right now. That's not the only way to do it, that's just the one way that most people think of. But what blew my mind when I left being a financial advisor was I could also be a lender. I could be the bank. I could be the one lending money to real estate investors and name my terms.

Speaker 2:

And guess what? It's not too uncommon to see them want to pay you double digit returns anywhere from 10 to 12, maybe even like 15 plus percent a year by lending your money to real estate investors to either do their rehab, fix and flip type things or whatever they might use it for. There are literally debt funds out there. You can invest money into a fund that's not just in one property. It could be in multiple properties and diversified, so to speak. You can actually be an equity investor. You can be in what's called a syndication, where you pull your money with other investors to go buy an apartment building together or self-storage units, or oil and gas earn royalties off of that. You know actually own the land that the oil companies lease and pay you for, and they pay your royalties from everything they pull out of the ground. You know even franchises you can do a car wash business.

Speaker 1:

Return on those kinds of investments. What's usually time frame before people can start getting money out of those are those considered working assets. So conceivably within six months or a month or a year like what's what's usually the time frame of you put this money in you can expect to start seeing passive income come back toward you yeah, well, in most of these cases and it depends, they all have their different terms Most cases, usually every quarter, someone will even pay right away.

Speaker 1:

So we're not locking it up money and saying hold tight for three years or five years.

Speaker 2:

There are a few that will do that. I generally am not a big fan of something. You have to hope and pray that's going to be there later, you know, for some payout down the road. I don't have cashflow now, right, absolutely. That's my personal preference. Everybody does it differently. But yeah, I mean I'm. I'm talking about actually doing it now.

Speaker 2:

Now I have a business partnership that I've done with raw land where they're buying and selling raw land using my money, right, so I'm a 70% partner, they're 30% doing all the work. Now that one, I 70% partner, they're 30% doing all the work. Now that one, I'm not pulling out any cashflow, but we've got our now our monthly income of less than a half million invested up to over 11,000 a month after three years, right, and I'm just reinvesting those proceeds and kind of keep buying and buying more, you know, and and that's even with the business you know startup costs and everything that we had involved too. So I mean there's lots of different ways you can do it. That that's what kind of made me excited when I went out to lunch with those guys was when I realized there's this whole other world and it's really not Wall Street investing, it's Main Street investing.

Speaker 2:

These are the kind of investments that people have done for centuries. Right, this is not something that just showed up yesterday. Wall Street is only a couple hundred years old. But this kind day Wall Street is only a couple hundred years old this kind of stuff, this is stuff that's been going on for many centuries. People have been buying and selling real estate since the beginning of time, right? I mean, heck, people have been stealing real estate from people for centuries too.

Speaker 1:

Let's be honest Barter's rates are a real thing and have been forever.

Speaker 2:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

But how do people find out about this? Because obviously the system is rigged toward more institutional financial education. So people are look, the people who have financial advisors are considered like a leg up for most people who don't have anybody advising them at all and are just hoping and praying that they have enough, and probably are mostly worried that they won't have enough. And so then you have the group that's aware that, okay, I found a financial advisor I quote, unquote trust and I'm in the system that most people are familiar with. And now we're talking about, really, what most people don't have immediate access or awareness of. So how do they learn where to go? How do they find out? More, obviously, you're doing this and you're advising people, but where do people even go to find out about these opportunities that are beyond the mainstream financial system that we're all indoctrinated to get you know, jump into and be part of?

Speaker 2:

See, that's why I can't retire, dang it. There's that big need, right, that big gap. Because even when I try financial advisors, I like real estate. When you have a license as a financial advisor you're licensed to sell mutual funds you are not licensed to make people money. That's the difference, right. And so even if they want to tell you about those things, they legally can't because the licenses that they hold and I know I was stuck in that place for a while, and so that's why we have the Money Ripples podcast kind of introduce people to this new world, right, to say listen, there's this whole other world that's out there and it's not that it's obscure, right, just because it's not taught and there's not people.

Speaker 2:

There's not a lot of people in the real estate space saying let me pay billions of dollars in ads during the Superbowl or on these financial news networks to tell you about it. They're not going to do that. These are private companies that are doing these kinds of things. There's literally tens of millions of us that have made millions of dollars doing this very same thing, but unfortunately there's hundreds of millions of people putting money in mutual funds, right. So that's where I mean the best way is, obviously you can find it. I mean, it's out there. There's plenty of podcasts like mine that are out there. I'm not the only one, but definitely that's why we exist as a company of money ripples, because it's that ripple effect. We want to create people's lives because you know, when I've seen people like improve their cashflow by $6,000 a month, $10,000 a month or whatever- it might be changing.

Speaker 1:

That is life for most people.

Speaker 2:

It really is.

Speaker 2:

I mean, it makes it a lot easier to stay in abundance.

Speaker 2:

I'll tell you that much you know.

Speaker 2:

And so that's that's the ripple effect I want to create.

Speaker 2:

Because when you start to release that, when you are in a more abundant state of mind, when you realize I don't have to focus on me and my family to survive and somehow squirrel away enough nuts to have that retirement someday if I'm ever alive for that long, you know instead, it's like right now I can live that life. Right now I can prosper. Right now I can teach my kids something different, to give them a legacy, to actually have a better life than I had. Right now I have the ability to help my community more, because now I have more abundance of money to help and serve my community, and that creates a ripple effect that ripples across the world, and that's really the ripple effect that we're here to create, to do. It's for that very, very purpose, and that's why we even help advise people one-on-one, help them even strategize, figure out what can you do with your money that your financial advisor will never want you to do, either because they don't know it or because they're afraid that if you do it they'll lose their business.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, okay, two things that you said this earlier, but I do want to just bring it back to the forefront. Chris mentioned really, the idea behind making money is where can you provide more value? And the bigger question that I have been asking myself now for the better part of 30 years, for different reasons. It wasn't actually driven by a desire to necessarily financially prosper. Initially, it was more of I need to find a way to get into better alignment as a spiritual being, having a human experience. I feel like I am not on the right path, and so the question I planted out into myself as I walked to work or commuted or what have you every day was how may I serve? And that became the foundation of my own growth. So I love that we have the synchronicity, because I do think at the foundation of all of this. When you come to the table in a spirit of serving, like we're doing right now, serving an audience with information, we hope that they will be able to digest and mull over and create an opening of thinking differently so they can consider alternative paths for abundance and growth in their own life and how it helps fuel their extraordinary life. I really love this idea and it's perfect timing with Thanksgiving coming up. How may I serve? It really starts there. How may I serve? Finding ways to provide value differently. And then the other thing that you just mentioned, and I have to chuckle, because Chris has many children, so this is really important.

Speaker 1:

But what do you tell your children? You have children that are not minors anymore. They're close to my son's age. He's a senior in high school and getting ready to launch into the world. He's super excited. Funny enough, he said I'm not interested in whatever you do for work, because it seems hard.

Speaker 1:

When I was working in corporate and planes, trains and automobiles and on conference calls all the time, the minute I stepped away and took a leap of faith and started doing my own business, he said I want to be an entrepreneur, just like you, mom. I just my head just nearly flipped because before all I heard was this does not sound fun, this is not something. I was like I'm good at it and it's what's needed and what have you. And then he's like you're excited to get up every day. You're helping people in a different way, you're creating money in a different way. It's exciting. And so now he's studying entrepreneurship at our local university and he's not even out of high school yet. He's so excited and I'm curious what do you tell your kids about creating wealth?

Speaker 2:

I'll tell you, it's difficult when you have a blended family, especially with ex-spouses and things like that who have different mentalities and whatnot. Because I have a blended family of eight kids, I have six. My wife has two from her previous marriage. It's interesting because her two are homeschooled and they have very different perspectives than my six, who are public's taught. We'll also, you know, live with a mom. That's very much like no, no, you go to school, get good grades, you have perfect attendance and you go to college because you do not want to become like your father, right, that kind of thing. So it's kind of interesting. You get those. You know different polarities but I've kind of learned to embrace that is that I actually want my kids to see the two different lives, right?

Speaker 2:

It's like rich dad, poor dad, or rich dad, poor mom, right, you know, like that kind of thing, it's like, you know it's not like she's, you know like she's broke, it's not like that at all. That that mentality, that scarcity mentality that she's always teaching you like this is the way, this is the answer, versus me saying here's another path, another way you choose, and uh, and so I don't shove it down their throats or anything like that. I know some parents like wish they could, Um, and some days I do, but every child's different. You have to teach every child differently as well. Some are just different, Some I actually I'm encouraged my oldest daughter.

Speaker 2:

She's in college. I'm like you're going to nursing, do it. If that's what your passion is, follow it. And so I just tell them all your passions, wherever that takes you. It could be a business owner, might not be, but don't think that your only path is just college and getting a job right. Like you have options that you can take. This depends on what you prefer. So, like the homeschool daughters, they're much more down the I'd rather be an entrepreneur, while the public school ones are more taught. No, no, you go to college. That's the next step, right? So it's very different to see the different teachings and things that happen that way.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's interesting you say that because I still having being first generation, I think like you college and recognizing for me, it enriched my life in different ways. Not necessarily, I mean, back then it was a calling card to get your first job, but hands down, you needed to have a college degree, preferably from a you know, a more distinguished university. Over time I don't even look at where people went or if people went right Like that. That no longer was the case Even 10 years ago. I was looking at who sounds like they know what they're doing and can learn and is coachable and what have you in that setting. But I still love the idea of being in a place where you're at least groomed to think it's so funny. I'm saying this out loud and now questioning my words, so bear with me to really think critically about the world and your role in it, while you're in an environment that's still pseudo, supported by mom and dad right Before you're out in the world, but have a mindset of independence, because creating money and wealth in this new time we're all living in is so different than 30 years ago when we were starting off. It doesn't have to be the same. It can't be the same way. Everything is shifted, and so I'm very cognizant as we walk down this road with him, to be like you know, I'm not so concerned with where you go, I'm not so concerned with what you study. I'm more concerned with who you surround yourself with, the relationship you build and the enriching experiences that you get to have while we still are nurturing you from afar, like travel and see the world and see the contrast and have some independence, but also recognize that wealth creation isn't going to be the traditional way that we did where you spend.

Speaker 1:

I remember being in my twenties and breaking down Chris, literally having this moment of I am on a treadmill to nowhere and people are looking at me like I am crushing it, because from the outside, looking in, I look like I have a picture perfect life. I am a quickly ascending corporate. You know, prodigy, I am getting promoted quick and fast. I'm making more money than my parents did. I'm living in a beautiful apartment in metropolitan Washington DC and I've got it made, and on the inside I was dying. A thousand deaths going.

Speaker 1:

I don't see an end to the hustle and the grind, and I'm not adverse to hard work. I'm doing it at this age and differently, though I'm not adverse to that but I didn't feel aligned with the work number one, and so there was that part of like, well, should I at least have something that I feel connected to? And then, secondly, I just don't really think that this is actually fueling what I've been told. It will fuel Work hard, make money, be happy, right, and so in that order. And now my philosophy is be happy, make money, make more money, bring in abundance. But you cannot do it from a place of misery, and I was low level misery and I didn't have any clue that that was actually preventing me from growing faster.

Speaker 1:

So true, I had no idea I was considered like I was the poster child for do all the dot your I's and cross your T's, go to the right schools, get recruited out of college, get into your first job, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow.

Speaker 1:

But I literally said to myself, oh my God, I'll be able to relax and have fun, if you will, when I retire and I am currently 25. That's a really long time from now for me to live this heavy feeling I have on my soul every day of my life. And it was a real spiral when I soul was telling me which was take chances, don't stay in this. You know, straight line and just you know, do jump through hoops. Like I'm a trained monkey, like, take some chances, you can do this, you'll be okay. And I felt that disconnect and I was like, oh my God, you're crazy, you're going to get me killed or broke. And I'm going to do what I was told and work really hard to do what I was told and be a dutiful oldest child of this family to really break the generational cycle of not poverty, of just getting by.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Right and it took literally coming to my knees at that point in time, going I can't do another day. I honestly can't do another day my soul is crying Like I'm not, as if my soul is broken here to then shift and start to say how may I serve, how can I show up differently? I have talents beyond this. On a piece of paper, I can think differently than. Why this? How can I be me energetically and not shrunk into fitting into this mold of you know, the corporate employee that really has no personality and has no point of view, just pushes it and become more of myself.

Speaker 1:

It created a lot of like problems for me in my career. I grew actually much quicker and I stayed in the corporate world, which is crazier, but I started to do it differently. And then it took another place of getting there and going. I am literally. I was literally at the place where I no longer was in the trenches. Things were on autopilot. I actually had a great future ahead of me. I had lots of people working for me. I had to look in the mirror and go oh damn, it is really time to jump. I probably should have done this a while ago, but I do need to go into that next step of authenticity. That requires a leap of faith, and it will mean leaving the security that I built in order to do this differently. And here I am so, but I admire people who, from the get go, understood the message and had the courage to do it differently, because I think you become a beacon for the rest of us.

Speaker 2:

Right, it's true it's not an easy path, but man, life's too short to do something that you hate, right, it's true it's not an easy path, but man, life's too short to do something that you hate, right? I mean just to just try to make it to retirement. I mean, like we don't even know if we'll live that long. I mean, I actually have a client right now that he, right after he started working with us, he realized he actually had a very rare type of condition that the membrane of his like, even like of his blood vessels and things like that can actually like peel off and block his arteries and kill him any moment. So he's like, wait a minute, I'm on the same treadmill you were talking about, right, that's the same one.

Speaker 2:

Like just working my corporate job, what am I doing? And then that's why he actually said I need to stop doing this whole. You know, work until my sixties, cause he was about 50. He's like I don't want to work until my sixties. If I'm not even going to make it to my sixties, how can I get my money to do something now, you know? And what can I do to live my life now? You know, like my science says behind me, for those of you listening right now, try to bless your life and others lives now, versus waiting for someday. That's just not. That's just not living life.

Speaker 1:

All right, chris. So let's talk practical steps here for the solopreneur, the new entrepreneur, the corporate person that wants to make a transition. Um, the folks that are, you know, 10 to 15 years away from retirement of the traditional source, but are realizing that's still a really long time and they want to do something different. They want to start creating passive income. What are steps they can take? Obviously, listen to your podcast, mike Ripples, available on Spotify and Apple, I'm assuming. What are things they can be doing to educate themselves on the importance of moving beyond that one source of income that so many people are stuck on, to start creating these other income streams?

Speaker 2:

I definitely recommend anything that's like rich dad, poor dad, focused primarily rich dad, poor dad, if you haven't read that one. Or cashflow quadrant is a good one as well. If you're going to read some stuff. Don't follow him so much nowadays. He's gone a little bit cuckoo as he's gotten older, but his works, his writings are great, and so those are two great books.

Speaker 2:

To kind of help shift the mindset and look at that more, I am actually creating a book called upside down millionaire. That's going to be coming out Hopefully cross your fingers before the end of this year, but I want still a little bit of ways away where I'll talk about, you know, a lot of these different things passive income as well, or whatnot. But that's the big thing, if you remember what I taught you in addition to those books get lean, get liquid, get out. Even if you had said, getting liquid means you just get your money sitting in savings, that's okay for now. It's okay. It's better to have it there, to have it locked away. You can't do anything with it. So I just uh, I would focus on those kinds of strategies right now.

Speaker 1:

So if people have money locked up in mutual funds, how do they unlock it without getting penalized Like what's the what's the route of doing that? They obviously should be working with somebody to help advise them on how to do that in ways that isn't going to get them losing, paying a ton of I'm assuming they're going to be taxes on a lot of this stuff. Yeah, I mean, if it's normal mutual funds.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, normal mutual funds are easy to get out. I mean, there could be some capital gains or loss depending on what happens. If it's an IRA, you can do what's called a self-directed IRA, where you actually can roll it over into a self-directed account and then you can choose where to invest it, versus just putting it only in stock market stuff. So you can actually buy real estate backed investments with your IRA. Now, if it's locked in a 401k now if it's an old 401k, you can do the same thing, right. If it's locked in a 401k, now, if it's an old 401k, you can do the same thing, right, and there might even be strategies. We can cash it out and do some things with it, um, to where it doesn't have to be there. Um, there's even things like, um, the rule of 55.

Speaker 2:

I have a client that just got laid off and she's just turned 55, like last week, and so there's a rule of 55 that says you can access the money If you are out of a job, right, like if you're like changing jobs or whatever it might be, and your 401k is available, you can access it without the 10% early withdrawal penalty. You will pay taxes, but you won't have the 10% penalty, at least Just so you know. If you have a 401k and IRA, you're always going to pay taxes, so it doesn't. To me the taxes don't really matter.

Speaker 1:

It's about when they're coming. You avoided them going in, but you're going to get them when it comes out, so it doesn't matter when it happens. Whether it's now or when you wait for retirement, it's going to happen.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's why I talk about like don't keep blocking money on your 401k because you have to either quit, lose your job, or something has to happen for you even to tap into that money and borrowing from it's not really a great strategy.

Speaker 1:

So, really, your best bet is to not use the 401k and do something else. So, chris, I am a little remiss that I didn't ask you this at the gecko, so I'm going to ask you now. I ask all my guests the same question every every week, and that is what does it mean to you to live your extraordinary life?

Speaker 2:

It really does mean live. I like what you said really living in alignment with who you are, right, it's. It's one thing to live in abundant state of mind. It's another thing to live. It really does mean live. I like what you said really living in alignment with who you are Right, it's. It's one thing to live in abundant state of mind. It's another thing to live true to who you are and following your, your own vision.

Speaker 2:

What you have and I think that's what's really important is that you know to live an extraordinary life. It's, it's about here's how I see it for me excelling in all areas of life, not just financially right, spiritually, emotionally. You know I'm even done a lot of hypnotherapy this last year to help with that aspect and help me be more, more aligned with who I am too. You know, even on the physical side, like I do marathons and things like that, you know I'm always pushing the limits a little bit, you know, not to the point where it destroys me, but always trying to accomplish something more, to achieve more, um, to do something that's not ordinary, to live an extra ordinary life, you know and that's what I tell my guests, my listeners, all the time is if you want to keep being ordinary, you know, do the ordinary things. If you want to live an extraordinary life, you got to do some extra ordinary things, which means doing things that others are not willing to do themselves.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Somebody asked me why are you spending so much time writing a book? You could just hire someone to do that. And I just looked. I'm going. The book is on authenticity. I'm kind of thinking I need to be the one that writes it. But and he was like he's tying up so much of your time you can be doing other things, and I said I am having the best time because it is a self-discovery process, as you are creating what, that which you know you need to create. You also are really getting in touch with your own truest self and values repeatedly. So for me, it's really kind of a homecoming in so many ways I can't wait to. Your book is coming up then sometime in 2025?.

Speaker 2:

Yep Cross your fingers better, get it done.

Speaker 1:

All right. Well, you heard it here, folks, so we're going to be looking for Upside Down Millionaire. That's it. I love it. It's a great title. All right, chris. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the Live your Extraordinary Life podcast. I hope that you'll come back again when you have your book and we can talk more about what you're doing, what you're up to and how you can help people create abundance and an extraordinary life for themselves.

Speaker 2:

I'd love to.

Speaker 1:

Until next time, everyone, go and live your extraordinary life.

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Michelle Rios

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