Breaking Free from Traditional Finance with Chris Miles

Ever grappled with the flaws of traditional financial planning? What if there is a more efficient way to achieve financial freedom? We sat down with Chris Miles, the anti-financial advisor, who has been there, done that, and now lives to tell the tale. A former financial advisor turned real estate investor, Chris debunked the myths of financial planning and unraveled his path to retirement at the tender age of 28. He let us in on some secrets, including why focusing on passive income and cash flow, instead of traditional financial planning, might just be your ticket to financial independence.

Would you rather wait till you hit 60 to access your 401Ks or would you be bold enough to explore alternatives that could deliver quicker returns? Chris unpacked a myriad of investment options that go beyond the conventional retirement accounts. We delved deep into the often-ignored drawbacks of 401Ks, the merits of self-directing 401Ks, saving accounts, infinite banking, and turnkey rentals. Not forgetting, the significance of effective property management in reaping maximum returns from your investments.

But how do we achieve that elusive financial independence and live a life of abundance? Chris shared his invaluable insights on breaking the 70k income ceiling, and how understanding the principle of 'dollars following value' can skyrocket your income. He prompted us to track our money, increase our income, and automate our savings. As an added bonus, Chris has a free book "Beyond Rice and Beans: Seven Secrets to Free Up Cash Today" for anyone looking to free up some cash. From his journey to his teachings, Chris Miles is a treasure trove of financial wisdom. To learn more from Chris, tune in to his Money Ripples YouTube channel or visit his website, MoneyRipples.com. You don't want to miss this!

This episode is brought to you by Premier Ridge Capital.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Latinos and Real Estate Investing Podcasts, and today's guest is Chris Miles. Chris started down the financial advisor path but soon realized that his clients had no hope to financial freedom investing in 401Ks and other mutual funds. Chris left the industry to become a passive real estate investor and was able to retire when he was only 28 years old. Since then, he has diligently taught hundreds to do the same thing he's done. Become work optimal, he calls it where you have enough passive income to work by choice.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Chris, welcome to Latinos and Real Estate Investing Podcasts. It is my pleasure to have you here, sir, Same here, so excited to be on hey brother. So why don't you tell us a little bit about this journey? Tell us about this anti-financial advisor you call yourself and how you came about that, how you got started, and just tell us this journey and the story, how you realize and I have my own thoughts on that Excited to have you on until we can unpack it For sure how you started and how did this whole thing come about.

Speaker 2: 1:36

Yeah, you know, I was raised by good parents. That taught me good values. My mom taught me to follow your passions, follow your heart. My dad, he taught me that your word is your bond. You do what you say you're going to do. Right, have that integrity. I mean. They taught me great values, but the one thing that they didn't really teach me well was money.

Speaker 2: 1:53

Now, my dad had talked about being cheap, right, like save everything, try not to spend anything and just pack it all away, right. But the problem was this is that my dad, growing up, it was always about, hey, we can't afford this. What do you think? Money grows on trees. I'm not made of money, you know, you hear those kind of phrases growing up, and so it wasn't really a very abundant type of lifestyle when it came to it. Even though we're middle class, still there was always this feeling of lack when it came to money. So I vowed I didn't want to be like that, and so when I was going to college, I realized I want to be a business owner. I want to take control of my own finances, my own time, freedom and things like that, and so, as I did that, I actually dropped out of college with one class to go, and I thought let's find a business to get some more experience and then maybe I can go back to college. Well, the business that I found that kind of intrigued me was being a financial advisor. I didn't realize at the time that they take anybody off the street as long as you can, and what has to test is 70% and not have a criminal record right, and as a result, you become a financial advisor too. So you don't have to be a financial expert to do this.

Speaker 2: 2:59

So I did that for several years and then, after a while, my dad said Chris, will you go to a financial advisor me? So I sat down with him. He opened up his finances for the first time in my lifetime. He'd always been very hidden with his money and he opened up his finances. He said Chris, I'm 61 years old, I want to retire. How could I do it? I looked at his finances and, to my surprise, I said dad, here's the deal. Even though you've been stuffing that 401k, even though you paid off all your debt early, you better hope you die in five years if you try to retire today, because that's when you'll run out of money. And he said well, I don't want to die that soon. Well, what else can I do? I said I don't know. You did everything right, everything that I taught as a financial advisor. You did right.

Speaker 2: 3:45

And remember, I didn't want to follow the same path as my dad, but then, seeing what the path he was on which was the same path I was on as financial advisor because I thought I should just stuff money into my mutual funds and then someday I could live off of maybe $60,000 a year if I'm lucky, right, if I save up a couple million bucks and it really bugged me because I was on the same path as he was and I saw my future. And I also realized that my clients were all in the same place too, because my clients, even the ones that were retired, still worried about running out of money. They didn't know if their money would last them for their life. And it became apparent to me because my friend, who actually left my financial business to go do real estate investing with his dad, he was happy as a clam, right, he was happy as could be. And he told me. He said, chris, well, how many of your clients are truly financially free, where they don't worry about money? I said none. He said, chris, well, how about this? How many of you guys, as financial advisors, are financially free? Not off the commission's priority, but doing these mutual fund investments?

Speaker 2: 4:47

As I really was honest with myself and I knew there's over a hundred guys in my office and I was looking around and there were guys that have been working there since the late 1970s, yet they couldn't retire either. And that's when I realized I said, well, none of them. None of them could retire or financially free. So, chris, that's the problem you have right now.

Speaker 2: 5:08

And so it led me down a path of real estate and alternative investments and focusing on passive income and cash flow, to the point where I had to quit being a financial advisor. I couldn't stay teaching something that I knew wasn't working. It had been proven. I had already seen it in my clients' lives, financial advisors' lives. Nobody was becoming financially free, not because they were bad investors, but because that system is broken. And so I went down instead the real estate route and following passive income, and next year I was 28, almost 29 years old. I was able to become work optional, where I could work because I want to, not because I had to, because I had enough passive income to pay my bills.

Speaker 1: 5:45

I love that, and that is one of the biggest lies that Americans are told. Let me tell you, brother, that is one of the biggest lies that Americans are told. I, like you, already started my career in kind of the financial services space. I used to work for a life insurance company and when I first started and yes, I know exactly what you're talking about you see these older guys selling insurance, selling financial services products, that they're broke and just the numbers don't make sense. What was your biggest takeaway? When you look at your dad, what was it that you learned? That gave you that wake up call? Because you alluded to five years. Why don't you talk to that to the American people? Or just when they think about their retirement plan and what that looks like?

Speaker 2: 6:40

Yeah, it wouldn't be a very different world if, all of a sudden, financial advisors said I'm only going to give advice that I know will make you money, because if you lose money I don't get paid. I guarantee you the advice that would give you would be very different than what you hear today. Right, but it's not the case, and you're right. The problem with the whole mainstream financial advice today is it's overpromised, under delivered, it's all based on faulty numbers. Right, the numbers are wrong if they run. And I kind of got to and that's the thing leading up to when I met with my dad, which was towards the end there I was already starting to question what I was being taught as a financial advisor, because I realized that I was really just a salesman in a suit, that these companies that trained me were all financial institutions training us how to sell their products. Right, and remember, I was a financial advisor during Y2K, so when that got hit, it got hit hard. I remember talking to guys that used to work for Enron Before Enron went bankrupt. They lost literally millions of dollars in the retirement plan overnight because they had dumped all their money into that company stock Right. So I saw the ugly right in the beginning of my business and I'll tell you like. So here's some of the faulty assumptions you hear.

Speaker 2: 7:52

A good example is if you ever heard the guy named Dave Ramsey, right, you know, ramsey's show is a very popular finance show. Many people follow that Ramsey is full of crap. Okay, I know. Yeah, I mean, now I get it. He's a good guy, I know. He actually teaches some good things, especially if you're broke, right, if you're trying to learn about money, he does teach some good concepts about budgeting, right, and how to manage your money a little bit. So the problem is is when it comes to investing, he teaches something very different than what he actually does himself, because he's made all of his money, his hundreds of millions, his couple hundred million dollar net worth comes from real estate and his business and that's it, not from the stock market. He just plays and dabbles in the stock market. So he's telling everybody throw your money in mutual funds. He's telling them to do something he hasn't done himself to create success. Right, and that's what I find it, because you know, for example, he has a.

Speaker 2: 8:46

He often will post things like saying you save a hundred bucks a month for the next 40 years you'll have $1.176 million, right? Well, first and foremost, he based that on a 12% return on the stock market. The stock market has not returned 12% long term. The average of the S&P 500 for the last 30 years right now is about 7.75%. That's it. 7.75%, not 12, not even 10. 7.75% On top of that, you know, by the way, when he did those numbers they weren't even right. He's just saying like $1,176,000 you'll have after 40 years, saving a hundred bucks a month at 12%. I ran those numbers on a calculator. You can too. It comes out with $979,000. So he can't even do the math, right. He's $200,000 off, right? So he screws up on the math and he over promises on a return. If you actually put that down to like 8%, you'll find that you only have like $400,000, not almost $1.2 million. You have a third of it, even though you've got just a few percentage points off.

Speaker 2: 9:48

That's the problem with guys like Dave Ramsey and financial advisors. They're no different. I mean, they see the numbers and I know because if you are in it long enough, you see the numbers, and if that's not proof enough, I'll tell you once a year I go to like a financial advisor, kind of like this study group, right? Very intimate group of people, usually like 30 or 40 financial advisors. These guys all make millions a year in their business Not in their investments, but in their business. Hands down, at least once. Because I'm the one guy that shows up in shorts and a t-shirt, just like I'm wearing today. Right, you can't see my shorts, but I can show off my leaks later for you at the family barbecue. But it's interesting because I'll be the one guy in shorts and a t-shirt, while some of these guys are wearing suits, even among colleagues. But then one of them will always pull me aside each year and say hey, chris, so you got to be financially free. Can you teach me how to do that, because I'm not there? Nice again.

Speaker 2: 10:43

Visor dollars, financial visors the best of the best. Still there's at least one. If they swallow their pride enough many of them won't, but they swallow the pride enough will say how did you do that? Because I, I haven't been able to retire, I can't quit because they have to rely on the commission's coming in there. Make millions from their business, not from their investments. That's an important point. Find, find out who you're listening to, because many people will listen.

Speaker 2: 11:07

People that make a lot of money in their jobs or business, even like and I'm like you know, somebody does wholesaling or flipping in real estate, that's great. You can make millions there. I have a lot of friends in the in the wholesaling and real estate flipping game. Although they make millions, if they were to stop that business today or if the government said, hitter your dog and I don't need to do anymore, they are broke. There is broke. Is that every other American out there? Because they haven't also created multiple streams of passive income? That is the difference. And that's the difference between what financial visors teach and what I teach today is that financial visors teach Accumulate money, build up that big nest egg, for example. I taught that for myself.

Speaker 2: 11:44

My personal goal was if I could, by the time I was 40 years old, save up two million dollars in my mutual funds, hoping that the market smile on me. Just right, fill up two million dollars there, so then I can live on three percent a year, because that's the new number, that financial Well, it shouldn't be new, but it's becoming more popular now among financial visors because the old four percent rule doesn't work anymore. There's been too many simulations that've proven that the four percent rule worked back in the 1970s, but not today. Now they say you should only pull out three percent of your money. Well, two million dollars, live on three percent, sixty thousand a year. Twenty years ago I thought that was a lot of money. I thought that was a comfortable lifestyle. $5,000 a month that's not so comfortable today. Is it because of inflation? And so there's a. That's another headwind you've got here.

Speaker 2: 12:29

Here's what I'll tell you when I've run people putting money into 401ks with the match. Whatever you put in per year into a 401k given that 401k funds don't actually perform as well as the stock market anyways Whatever you put in per year, that's pretty much what you'll live on per year after inflation. So if you match out your 401k at $20,000 a year with your employer, you will be living on a 20,000 year lifestyle based on traditional financial planning. That's the problem, and most people that's with a match. Imagine if you didn't have the match is even less. That's the problem.

Speaker 2: 13:02

So the answer is focusing on passive income and cash flow, like what Robert Kiyosaki talks about rich, dead, poor dad. He just doesn't teach you how to do it. How do you create passive income? So give you example. I had a client out of California he had. He was one the rare few that had a million dollars in his retirement plan. I just so you know how rare that is Fidelity fidelity has the biggest 401k pork of like clients of anybody.

Speaker 2: 13:28

Right, they have the biggest, the biggest business in the 401k realm. There are about 48 million Users that have 401ks in fidelity. Of that 48 million, at the end of 2022, only 299,000 had one million dollars or more. Wow, that's less than 1% had over a million dollars saved in their 401k. Now, remember Dave Ramsey said it was easy just save a hundred bucks a month and you'll be there. Right, it's not that easy because that's a big fat lie. So the truth is is that people most of already hit millionaires.

Speaker 2: 14:01

So this guy was one of the 299,000. He had a million bucks and you know his financial advisor said he said, alright, this is good, you can pull out 3% a year. That's $30,000 a year. You live on as a millionaire. That's below the poverty line. You're living as a broke millionaire.

Speaker 2: 14:19

He came to us and we said listen, you can go in the alternative space. There's lots of options here, like turnkey real estate. You can buy some duplexes here. You, there's. There's things like, you know, oil and gas you can put money into. There's apartment syndications. You can put your money and lend it to other real estate investors, get paid a certain return of it, usually at least 10% a year, minimal at you know. As he started to see all those options he started to do, he started diversifying those different areas. His Million now wasn't paying him 30,000 a year. Now is earning him 130,000 a year and Somewhat with tax advantages because a real estate and things like that. So that's the difference, right, you can take the same money and give it to work harder for you. So you have to work so stinking hard for it.

Speaker 1: 16:21

So a couple of questions. Man, you give us so much gold there. There's so much. There's so much wisdom. There's so much meek there. You just gave us Chris.

Speaker 1: 16:29

So I just took notes, because you mentioned Ramsey or you know, I've heard this before and I agree with this statement Ramsey, dave Ramsey, teaches poor people, he speaks to poor people, so that's right. He resonates with poor people. Don't stay out of debt, don't buy a car unless you could pay a cash. This is all the crap that he tells you. Which is this sound if you have no Financial literacy at all, if you have no baseline? They? I used to resonate with that. Then you got Susie Ormond. She talks to the middle class people.

Speaker 1: 16:56

And then you got guys like yourself, myself, kiyosaki that are talking more high-level stuff like what's cash flow? How do you create cash flow? Where, while you're sleeping and you're putting up your money to work for you so that you don't have to worry about keep, protect the golden goose and let that produce for you every month, month, in a month, I'm right. But so you said something real key, which I love that you said is focus on cash flow. Right, you said focus on cash flow, and I think that's the key. You got a lot of gurus out there that talk about real estate, for instance, and they focus on Appreciation and I that's a bad. That's for me, my opinion, that's a bad bet, because markets have cycles, like right now. We're gonna be going into a down cycle. We're seeing it with the commercial, commercial space and there did we're good. If you were betting on appreciation, you're in trouble, right.

Speaker 1: 17:48

And when I started buying real estate and I got clear on all this and I started learning about money really and I was like, yeah, I need to focus on get becoming financially free. You call it optimal work. Well, it, optional work is what you call it. I need to focus on that. Nothing else matters to me, nothing else. I don't care about appreciation. I don't eat that. My family and we pay the mortgage with the cash flow. I put food on the table with the cash flow and if I could get enough of that to surpass what I spend every month, now I become free.

Speaker 1: 18:18

So my question for you is, if there's an American listening to you or whoever around the globe listening to you, and they have Some money and some IRAs, 401ks, pensions and I'm not against those things at all, by all means is me personally. I'm not against them. I just see them for what they are, and I know that there's way better options for you out there. What would you tell them? You're not a financial advisor. You're not here as a financial advisor. Neither am I. If you were, that person had two, three hundred thousand. Or your brother came to you and said, hey, I have two hundred thousand in this 401k. What are you telling them? How are you telling them to deploy that money? How would you tell them to move it?

Speaker 2: 19:01

The question is does the vehicle match the goal? Does the vehicle match the goal right? So you know, for example, like, if I want to get to get the France, I'm not gonna drive a car because my car only skip across the water before it sinks, right? So you need to have the right vehicle to get to the right places. Now, a 401k is great, if potentially great, if You're looking to retire after the age of 60 and that's assuming the government doesn't change the rules on you in the meantime, which they can do at any moment and you have no say in the matter right, they really have control of your money in that process. Now, if you're somebody says I would, I would like to have the option to retire before I'm 60, well then, why put your money in a place and we'll let you touch it till then without giving you a 10% penalty? Right? This is gonna slap your hand for touching your own money. You Don't put your money in places like that if you want to retire sooner. So if something has a 401K already, for example, right at the work, you know, if they're already after the age of 60, there might be strategies we can use. With their 401K we could pull the money away from the 401K and invest it elsewhere, right? You could self-direct it or use it somewhere else and still get the match. That's rare For most people, though.

Speaker 2: 20:12

You put your money in a 401K, you've locked it up in prison. It's just like paying off your house. You pay off your house, you just locked up your money in prison. The only way to get to it is either sell the property or ask permission from the bank, who might just tell you no, that's a risky, risky play. Remember all the rules you've been taught is for the financial institution, like you just said, right? Remember, everybody wants to use stuff money in those 401Ks because those companies make guaranteed fees off of your money. The more you put in, the more they make in fees. Same thing with banks the more you pay off the house, the less risk they're taking and the more risk you take for trying to pay down your equity because that money's out of your life. The best thing you do is have the money in your possession. If that's the case, somebody's like funding a 401K.

Speaker 2: 20:55

In many cases that our clients have to realize I should stop funding the 401K. Where should I put it? You can put it in somewhere as simple as a savings account right, make point nothing percent. Another option we have people do is that we actually teach a strategy called it's not the traditional grandpa version, but more I refer to as max ROI infinite banking. You've been in the insurance industry.

Speaker 2: 21:15

You've probably heard of infinite banking reference before, where you use whole life insurance as a tax-free, supercharged savings account. But that only works if you get a policy that has minimal fees so you can get maximum returns inside that life insurance policy Because it's not just by the death benefit. You can actually use this as a tax-free savings account, earning a lot more than point nothing percent of the bank. It's protected from lawsuits and creditors. You have that liquidity and you can use the money and invest it however you want. In fact, if you invest it the right way, you can actually double dip on your investment returns. You can get your money making money in two places at once. You can make it inside the life insurance while also investing the money by getting a line of credit against it and investing it and making money over here. So you can make money in two places, accelerating your progress to getting financially free. But again, it has to be done the right way, and we have all kinds of videos on our YouTube channel about that. But, that being said, get that cash liquid. Like I said, you can just have a simple savings account and then invest it elsewhere.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Now, if someone has, like, an old 401K or an IRA, you can do what you mentioned, which is you can self-direct it, because it may not make sense to cash it out, and especially if you're not 60 years old yet you don't want to cash it out and have a 10% penalty in tax, unless the investment opportunity is really, really sweet. Then it might make sense, right, but for many people it may not make sense, and so that's where we might do what's called a self-directed IRA, where you roll it over into a different company and there you don't invest it in mutual funds. You can invest it in whatever you want. You could hold it in cash. You can invest it in real estate deals In fact, almost any real estate deal you can do that with. The one thing I tell people, though, is you know, I just had a guy email me yesterday about these questions If you're going to use the IRA, don't. You're not going to have you invest it. Usually, we aren't going to have you buying investment properties with it right, at least not if you're going to get a mortgage on them, because there's potential for taxes and extra taxes that you don't want. But the great thing is, you can always invest in places where there aren't tax managers. So here are the investment options you could be doing right that are very passive.

Speaker 2: 23:15

I mentioned turnkey rentals. You know that means you have a property manager that deals the headaches. You don't deal with it, you don't. You don't even have to find the property. They find the properties for you, they help you get the financing. They can put a property manager in place, which is often them, and then your hands off. Now you do have to manage the property manager. You still have to pay attention, right, you still got to make sure the money's coming in, but for the most part you're not dealing with the tenants, the toilets and the trash, right Like? I've got several properties. I don't even know their names, you know. I know I have the lease agreement if I need to have it for the banks and everybody to prove it, but I don't keep up on that stuff because I'm not the one dealing with the tenants. The property manager is, and yet I can still make good returns. Now, in today's market, the returns aren't as great because interest rates are higher. So you got to be careful on that strategy because it does work great overall, but there's still some risk there because of the interest rates.

Speaker 2: 24:06

Another strategy is dealing with funds. Right, you can lend your money to other investors. For example, you know there's I know there's one of my friends right now, like he goes and renovates properties in New Jersey, even has some multifamily down, like Atlanta, georgia and places like that, and he'll pay anywhere from 10 to 12% a year depending on how much money you're putting in with them. Right, just contractually he pays that. Now, is it guaranteed? None of these things are guaranteed, of course, right, but contractually that's what he's supposed to be paying you. So you have a hundred thousand bucks. He can be paying you at least 10,000 to 12,000 a year based on those returns.

Speaker 2: 24:40

There's other things like syndications. You mentioned, like apartment syndications, that those have been really risky lately, especially if someone says we're going to refinance in a couple of years, that's it. In this today's market, that's a bad strategy to rely on. Those are the people that rely on appreciation. You can't rely on that. You need strong cash flow regardless of that strategy. But apartments, there's self storage, there's even assisted living. Heck, you can invest in syndications that deal with franchises like car washes and things like that.

Speaker 2: 25:07

Even one of our more popular ones with our clients lately has been in the mineral rights space oil and gas. Right now oil prices have been kind of kept low, but everybody's predicting them to start skyrocketing pretty soon. Well, if you're going to have to pay more of the gas pump, you might as well make more money outside of the gas pumps, right, you might as well profit on that kind of price manipulation that happens with different countries and governments and whatnot, and so that's a great way you could be making some great cash. I've had some clients that made—I mean, I was on the low end, I made 8% last year on it. I've had clients make like 35% last year.

Speaker 2: 25:41

So it just depends on the opportunity. Everything is different and, by the way, my 8% is only because they only drilled 25% of them. The other 75% they're still like waiting for the prices to go up before they make more profits, and so they're kind of holding off on the production on some of those wells, even though no-transcript. So those kind of things, there's just so many options you could be doing and make at least double digit returns. You know, and that's that's the the fun part for me, that's the difference and and that's where you get to the point we can really be work optional.

Speaker 1: 26:11

Are you talking a lot of high-level stuff here, brother? Let's be honest here. Right, this is high-level stuff that this discussion we're having. Most Americans, right, we're just too busy trying to survive going to work, paying our bills, coming home, having dinner, the kids, the soccer games of this, the weekends of chores and it becomes an Additional new thing to have to worry about. Now I have to learn all of this stuff. I know what that's like, brother, because I've been there. I'm talking about myself right now. Now you're telling me I got a lot of this stuff and I got all this stress with work and bills and family and kids and this and that. But what's the alternative, man?

Speaker 2: 26:48

Yeah, I'll give you three get lean, get liquid and get out right. I'm getting lean, I don't mean because I already know it's tough. Especially I have. I have eight kids, so I get it right, like it's not.

Speaker 2: 26:59

It's not easy raising a family, especially if you're on 60 or $70,000 a year, but do whatever you can to get lean. Don't destroy your life, though. Don't live on rice and beans, as Dave Ramsey would say. Right, don't just take out all the fun enjoying your life, but really track your money, like understand how much is coming in, how much is going out. Most people, when they're just surviving, they're not doing that, and there's easy ways to do it. There's things you can use that are automated, like I use mint, right, mint. There's an app for mint commets, totally free. You can actually track your money and even have it categorize it for you to know where your money is going. So you can do things like that.

Speaker 2: 27:35

My wife likes a spreadsheet. You can do that too. I just think that's a lot of work. But but really start tracking your money. And here's the thing you can only get good so long, right, you can. Only. You can only reduce your expenses so long before you live In a cardboard box. So the other half of that equation is your track, your money is looking at the income. What can you do to produce more income? Here's the key that that broke the glass ceiling. For me, right, the ceiling that set felt like it was impossible to break certain income levels, right, in fact, there's one point I was hard for me to break 70,000 a year in my life, like it seemed like it was like this invisible ceiling I couldn't see, I couldn't get past that 70 or 75,000.

Speaker 1: 28:15

The thermometer effect, the thermostat effect. You're that hardly the thermostat effect? Yeah, you're 70 thousand and you can't pass it.

Speaker 2: 28:22

Well, and I believe that money back in the day, especially one of the financial visor, I believe that money was a win-lose transaction. Right for you to win financially, somebody else had to lose and Therefore, if I was a good person, I was a benevolent person, I would say, well, I'll take it. I'll take the hit. All lose is that you can win right, all sacrifice myself so you can win, and that just leads to a life of poverty and being broke. What I realized? That the real answer, the real underlying, eternal principle that always leads to more income, is Understand the principle that dollars follow value, dollars follow value, that you create for other people. Find good ways that you and serve people Solve problems or add dye in such a way that they feel like they have to give you money to get that in their life right. You want to be valuable in people's lives. How do you find that win-win? That's the thing that kind of helped me get financial independent faster, even when I didn't have a ton of money saved up, is because I started focusing on that and all sudden it became predictable. Right, it became almost like a formula, a magic formula that all had to do is figure out how to serve people and then, of course, be willing to Ask for it in return. The key key that I always had a server, servant mentality, but I wasn't always willing to ask for it. But what I found is if I stopped blocking it like stop blocking things from people I would actually receive more money. So I know Warren Buffett said the same thing. People were asking how do you fight inflation? He's like make more money. That's how you fight inflation. Right, you don't have to create passive income. If you only have 25,000 bucks, don't even worry about passive income right now, because most of your opportunities won't be that great anyways. Even if you made 10% on 25,000, you made 2,500 bucks. That's hardly gonna move the needle. But if you can find a way to increase your income by $10,000 and then take that money and put it away, you're gonna grow much faster. So that's why I recommend is start finding ways to get outside of the box. Find ways to create value for people. Serve people in such ways, and it doesn't always mean more time, it just means that you have to get more creative sometimes to do that, and again, if you're in survival mode, I get it. It's hard to do, but that's the first thing I'd recommend and then I don't care if it's five bucks a week, you know ten bucks, hundred bucks a week, whatever it might be start automatically putting money weight into that savings account. Just do it automatic like, have it just come right out the account. Set it up on your bank online. You guys set up to where they do automatic transfers from checking the savings. Do that. You'll notice that actually money once it goes in that account, your lifestyle doesn't change at all. So that's a big thing. I recommend.

Speaker 2: 30:55

I also recommend to on my website, money ripplescom, there's. There's actually an ebook you can get called Beyond Rice and Beans Seven secrets to free up cash. Today it's a free book. You can download that one. Actually, I give you some my top tips of what helped me go from broke to Paying off over a million dollars in just a matter of a few years. A million dollars of debt, that is. So there's some really good strategies in there that can help you get that start to get going. And then, of course, you can say, great, now from here, maybe I could do something like that infinite banking strategy or something like that. We're gonna start saving in a better place and just putting in my crappy savings account Because the next, the next struggle is okay, great, you know that person.

Speaker 1: 31:33

That's that is Druggling, that's feeling stuck right? You and I have both been there. Right, where do they find the right people to associate with? Right, because it's all about who you're listening to, it's all about who you're spending time with, it's all about the information that you're getting, and then it's all about the action you're taking. So it's a combination of that, the information you're getting. So if you're listening to Dave Ramsey and you're taking the action he's gonna, he's telling you to take, you're gonna get somewhere. You might not be so pleased with where you're gonna get to, because he really wants you to be living frugal and he's got this strategy that resonate really well with folks that just want to be.

Speaker 1: 32:13

How do I put this? When I hear the words, chris, when I hear the words I just want to, I just want to make enough money to live and that's it, and I don't want more. I respect that for people, but I want more. I want more in life. I want to experience life in its fullest capacity. I want to travel, I want to do things. I like nice things, I want to have a nice house, I want to have multiple houses. I want to have real estate. I want to have multiple cars. I like, I like. That's me. I want to experience life. I believe in a life of abundance. I believe that God, I'm God's child and this is my father's creation. And if anything that's my father's is also mine, and I have every right to enjoy it to the fullest, as I for my kids. Anything that's mine is yours, kids, and you have every right, by birthright, to enjoy it to the fullest. That's my mindset, that's my belief. You know, how do I get around people that are talking about these things? Where do I find these people?

Speaker 2: 33:13

Yeah, you're meant for a lot more than just paying bills and dying, aren't you? Yeah, right, and one. I mean, that's the thing, like, I believe the same thing. I believe that God's put us on this planet to do something great, at whatever level that is. We're here to make this planet better than how we have came to it, yep, and the only way you can do that is really to liberate yourself. That's why you can't rely on these pensions you can't. You know which are dying away. You can't even rely on government, with social security and everything else, even though many people are right now.

Speaker 2: 33:41

The only thing you do is rely on developing yourself, it for you to break the ordinary, which ordinary does mean broke and barely surviving. To break the ordinary, you have to do something extraordinary, right, you have to do something extraordinary. So to get around people, like you said, people that are like you, one is the easiest, cheapest option is you can listen to shows just like this. One, like keep listening, get those people's voices in your head more. Because the one thing I've noticed is this is you've heard the old adage, right, that birds of a feather flock together, yep, well, if you want to be around people that are having different conversations. You need to have different conversations in your mind and in your heart first to attract people like that. So you have to create the change first within you. You have to start doing that yourself, and this is an easy platform to do it. There's so much education for people like ourselves. You've got, you know, your show here. We've got Mike Show Money Ripples podcast, right. I mean, there's so many of us that are doing these things. That are the minority voices, yet we make the majority of the income. All right, you know, that's the kind of thing you want.

Speaker 2: 34:47

I did the same thing Even when I was broke. I was still reading books and I was not looking for the strategy I was looking for. How do they think, like, if I read a book about Donald Trump, for example, there's one book I liked called Never Give Up. I was more learning about. How does he think Even Kiyosaki's books? How Does he Think I don't care about what he did, because if I think like someone, I'll be able to implement the strategy more easily, right, so do that.

Speaker 2: 35:15

You can find groups like there are real estate investor or association groups, rio groups, as they're called, right, but just know that a lot of those people are also trying to search for answers too, and so you might have some situation where the blind leads the blind and you don't want to be in a group of people or attracted to people that are all wannabes. They all want to find something, but they haven't quite made it work. That's why I recommend finding people like this and not to be self-serving. I know I have my own community group as well within our circle for people that aren't ready to coach with us one-on-one. We have a community group as well where we actually help teach all those things. We give the education that all of our clients get. It's a little bit more do-yourself, but you got a community aspect as well, where you can talk with each other. And even I throw in. You know, I actually interact with the group as well. I even teach once a month and things like that. So there are ways to do it Even for myself, like now I'm playing at a higher level.

Speaker 2: 36:09

I go to mastermind groups. I'll pay anywhere from, you know, 15 to 25, 30, plus $1,000 a year to be part of masterminds, to be around people that are like-minded in the same space, and I'll tell you we all think the same way we all laugh at financial advisors, say, yeah, they're full crap. You know, just like when you and I talk, like we already know right off the bat, go, we get it because we see that, because we've been there right, and just like you said earlier, you look for evidence. You know success leaves clues. Look for evidence If they aren't being successful outside of the income they make in their business profession, if they aren't successful in that and you're trying to create passive income but they don't do that themselves, they don't listen to them, they don't know, they don't have the experience to do it. Follow those that have been there, done that and still doing it today. That's the best way you can associate with the right people.

Speaker 1: 36:54

I love it, brother, I love it, I love it. Yeah, woo Woo. Thank you so much, my friend, for coming on and sharing your wisdom, your insights. I mean this was a great episode. You shared some really, really good stuff and right now we're about to get into the entitled round. Okay, we're going to ask you a series of questions. You don't have to think, you don't have to justify if you don't want to. If you want to justify, you can, and are you ready to play, my friend?

Speaker 2: 37:20

I'm ready to play. Let's do it. Let's do it. Real estate is, real estate is. I had some negative words that came up, but I had some positive ones too. All at the same time, I say real estate is what you make it.

Speaker 1: 37:32

The market right now is Exciting. Inflation is Higher than you think. I've always wanted to travel too. Italy People coming to Utah should try Fry sauce. Business or friends? Yes. Passion or stability? Ha ha ha ha. Passion. More time or more money? More time, knowledge or experience? Experience, wine or beer I don't do either, so I'd say neither Long meetings or long marathons.

Speaker 2: 38:11

I'm actually a marathon runner, so I guess it's long marathons.

Speaker 1: 38:14

And lastly Trump or Biden oh.

Speaker 2: 38:18

I'd say neither. Ha, ha, ha.

Speaker 1: 38:24

My friend, thank you so much for coming on. If folks listening or watching wanted to get a hold of you, connect with you, join your community, check out your podcast, how do they get a hold of you? How can they connect with you on social media or online?

Speaker 2: 38:39

Yeah, social media. The handles are always at Money Ripples. That's also our website, moneyripplescom MoneyRipplescom. You can contact us there and learn lots more information there and also follow our Money Ripples channel on YouTube.

Speaker 1: 38:52

All right, you guys are here at MoneyRipplescom. Chris, thank you so much for coming on. My friend Really really appreciate it. Was my honor, my pleasure having you. It's always a great pleasure to have intelligent folks just like yourself Come on and share with myself and my audience. Thank you, brother, really appreciate you, man, thanks so much.