Buy Time
Quest for Time Freedom: The Power of Passive Income with Chris Miles
Ever wondered if your money is working as hard as you are? Join us on the Buy Time podcast where we promise to challenge conventional financial perspectives. Our guest, Chris Miles - the cash flow expert and anti-financial advisor, extracts the truth behind traditional financial advice and its shortcomings. He explains how his company, Money Ripples, assists clients in achieving time freedom through financial independence. This includes guiding them towards a work optional status where passive income takes care of bills and provides security during uncertain times.
Dare to challenge traditional financial wisdom? This episode exposes the pitfalls of conventional financial advice and presents a compelling case for the pursuit of passive income and cash flow over mere wealth accumulation. Chris, drawing from his past as a financial advisor, offers unique insights on risk-taking and the importance of betting on one's abilities. He shares his transformational journey from being an advisor to exploring other successful ventures and the lessons learned along the way.
In this episode, we also debunk the high risk equals high returns myth and explore the nuances of diversification. Chris warns against the potential downfall of continuous reinvestment in one's business without generating profit. He emphasizes that real value lies in investing in yourself and maintaining integrity in your financial dealings. We even discuss the tricky subject of charging appropriately for services and the effective management of funds for time. Tune in to glean valuable insights on achieving financial independence and time freedom. Don't miss out on this opportunity to redefine your financial mindset and reclaim your time!
Until next time... Follow on Instagram @buytimepodcast
Follow Jacob K. Mead on all the socials @jacobkmead
Ever wondered if your money is working as hard as you are? Join us on the Buy Time podcast where we promise to challenge conventional financial perspectives. Our guest, Chris Miles - the cash flow expert and anti-financial advisor, extracts the truth behind traditional financial advice and its shortcomings. He explains how his company, Money Ripples, assists clients in achieving time freedom through financial independence. This includes guiding them towards a work optional status where passive income takes care of bills and provides security during uncertain times.
Dare to challenge traditional financial wisdom? This episode exposes the pitfalls of conventional financial advice and presents a compelling case for the pursuit of passive income and cash flow over mere wealth accumulation. Chris, drawing from his past as a financial advisor, offers unique insights on risk-taking and the importance of betting on one's abilities. He shares his transformational journey from being an advisor to exploring other successful ventures and the lessons learned along the way.
In this episode, we also debunk the high risk equals high returns myth and explore the nuances of diversification. Chris warns against the potential downfall of continuous reinvestment in one's business without generating profit. He emphasizes that real value lies in investing in yourself and maintaining integrity in your financial dealings. We even discuss the tricky subject of charging appropriately for services and the effective management of funds for time. Tune in to glean valuable insights on achieving financial independence and time freedom. Don't miss out on this opportunity to redefine your financial mindset and reclaim your time!
Until next time... Follow on Instagram @buytimepodcast
Follow Jacob K. Mead on all the socials @jacobkmead
Hey everybody, this is Jacob K Mead and this is the Buy Time podcast, where we discuss everything there is to know about buying back your time. Be sure to like and follow and share with somebody who needs to buy back their time. Enjoy today's episode. Welcome back to another episode of the Buy Time podcast. I'm your host, jacob K Mead. I'm so thrilled that you're here today.
Speaker 1:We always discuss conversations with successful business owners and entrepreneurs about strategies and tactics for reclaiming their moats. Precious resource, and that is time. I'm all about buying back your time, and today I have Chris Miles here with me. Chris knows all about buying back your time. Let me tell you so. Chris is the cash flow expert, the anti-financial advisor. He is a leading authority in teaching entrepreneurs and professionals on how to use their money to work for them, something I absolutely love hearing. If you can use your money to work for you, you're buying back your time. He's an author, a podcast host of the Money Ripples podcast, and he's been featured in the US News CNN Money. Entrepreneurs on Fire Podcasts Bigger Pockets and has a proven reputation with his company, money Ripples. Chris, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:Man, it is such a pleasure to be here, Jacob.
Speaker 1:So let's start off with this Money Ripples, because I looked at your website phenomenal, by the way. So what exactly is Money Ripples? What are you all focused on?
Speaker 2:Really like what you said. It's really about creating time freedom through money freedom, creating enough passive income in your life that you work because you want to, not because you have to, where you become work optional, and I think that's really what it is. A lot of people really don't want to necessarily retire, quote unquote they still want to do something, but to be able to have enough money that your bills are paid for, you can pursue your passions, you can spend time doing what you love with those you love. I think that's ultimately the real freedom that we all want, right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean, like I got my business to a place where it was a time asset versus a time liability, and one of the nice precious things was is I could wake up and choose okay, do I want to go into work today, or do I want to stay home with the family, or what do I want to do, where do I want to put my focus? And so it's awesome that you talk about that, so you help people be able to get their money to work for them. So what's some of the big accomplishments that you've been able to do for people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, besides just getting myself retired when I was 28, right, and be able to get to that point too, I started teaching people how to do this stuff, really from like 2007 onward. More seriously, though, just in the last really five to 10 years when we launched Money Ripples 11 years ago, you know, I mean, we've had so many people several people get to the point where they are. They have enough pass to make them to cover their bills. If they haven't got to that point yet, still they're getting there, right, like, I've got one client. He's literally just a few hundred dollars away a month from getting his goal and the cool thing is, like he's.
Speaker 2:You know, you hear about the writer strike going on in Hollywood.
Speaker 2:You know well, he's affected by that because he works in Hollywood.
Speaker 2:He's a set designer, so, of course, when they all shut down and they've done that now twice in the last three years because 2020 was just ridiculous, right, oh yeah, and then the writer strike's been happening, so he's he's, of course, getting stuck, you know, not able to work half the time, and he actually just sent me an email just a few days ago saying it's like hey, chris, this is where I'm at right now and yeah, writer strike is still going and but luckily it's covered my bills for the most part.
Speaker 2:He's got a little extra savings to kind of make up the extra couple hundred bucks a month. But still, like I mean he almost everything he makes when he does work can go towards buying more investments to then generate more income so that he can actually be work optional. And so it's. It's actually for him been a real kind of a lifesaver, right, like it's not like he's going to stop working and stop doing what he loves, but just getting him to the point where, even if out of his control, things shut down right, or you have another COVID where all of a sudden our business becomes non essential quote, unquote. You know, it's nice to know that you just have those additional streams of income coming in to protect you.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, I actually love that you talked about that. So I was on a call with Robert Angel so he's the inventor of Pictionary and one of the big things that he was talking about is that he got to the point where he was able to have that freedom of time, like he got to a point where he had time and he could do what he want with this time. And now he's the point like Okay, well, now what do I want to do, Like what's next for me? And so I had a conversation while back with some entrepreneurs and it was what do you do with your time when you have it? And the thing is anything you want, like you want to start another business adventure, go do that.
Speaker 1:And I love that you talk about that because it's so true. Once you know you have that stability and you recognize, hey, that's there, Now you can go explore other options. You can choose when you want to work and not be forced to have to work. It's not easy to get there. I don't want my audience here to think that it's easy to get there, because it's not easy to get there, but you can get there through the right steps and the right tools. So it's awesome that you were able to retire at 28, Chris, and that's amazing, I mean. I like just your inspiration is for hearing that. What was your journey like up to that point? So what did you do? What steps did you take to be able to get to that point?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was doing all wrong to get to that point. So, funny enough, like I wasn't like an investing, investment genius or anything like that, I was raised by pretty normal parents. You know, my, my dad was pretty much the guy that says you work for a company for 40 years and you retire. Of course the companies weren't ever loyal to him. So he'd get laid off from different jobs and and you know that was rough because it was always about scarcity growing up hey, we can't afford this. What do you think I made of money? We're not. Money doesn't grow on trees. You know all this kind of phrase you hear growing up, right? So I didn't want that. And so when I went to college, it didn't take long that I realized, you know, I could tell that the typical job path is not for me, because I want like what you described. I want freedom, I want control of my own destiny, my time, my money and things like that, and so I want to become a business consultant. Well, of course you know when you're in college, if you think about it and at least this is the way I think I always think you should have a real life experience. That's the only way I can teach a real experience. So I said you know what, let's take a little sabbatical from college before I go get my MBA and let's, and let's just try to find a business to start. And the first one that came up a few months later that intrigued me was being a financial advisor. Not realizing that you didn't have to have any financial training and really you just have to be able to pass a test and not have a criminal record. That's the only requirement to be a financial advisor. Well, I did that because I'm good at passing tests. So anyways, long story short, I started down that path and I stayed there. I actually dropped, stayed dropped out of college, never went back, and I was starting to go down this path.
Speaker 2:Well, I went to sit down with my dad, because my dad said, well, when are you going to advise me? And he said I'm 61 years old, I want to retire. Now I understand. Remember, he was the guy who was, you know, very cheap, saved every penny. I mean, this guy was like the Dave Ramsey poster child. Before Dave Ramsey was Dave Ramsey right, and so so he paid off his debt early. I still, he was totally debt free. He had been stuffing money as 401k. And then I had to tell him. I said, dad, I hate to say this, but if you want to retire today, at the age of 61, you better hope you die in five years, because that's when you're running out of money. And he said, well, what else can I do? I said, I don't know. You did everything right from what we teach as financial advisors.
Speaker 2:And that was like the real destruction of my, almost like this existential crisis that I had. Right, because I started to realize, as I looked at it, none of my clients were financially free, where they didn't worry about running out of money. Even if they were retired, they still worried about running out of money, right? So they weren't really free. And if you look at other financial advisors, if you look at the actual investments they're doing, they're not financially free either. They're only making good money because of commissions that they're earning, not because of the actual investments they're doing. When I realized that none of them could retire, nor could any of my clients retire, I said, well, why am I teaching this crap, right? And so I left. I said I can't do this anymore. I can't keep my integrity intact and keep doing what I'm doing, so I vow never to do it again, but of course, when the student's ready, the teacher appears.
Speaker 2:I had a friend that I trained me a financial advisor that went to go do real estate investing and as I started to go down that rabbit hole I realized it wasn't about accumulating a lot of money to get to the retirement mode. Right, like my goal, my dream was to save up $2 million in mutual funds, live on the 3% a year and I'd have $60,000 a year or $5,000 a month. I thought 20 years ago $5,000 a month was pretty awesome. Maybe it kind of was. Yeah, that's about like $10,000 a month today, right, so definitely not the same lifestyle today. But I thought, man, if I can retire by the time I'm 40, 60,000 a month or sorry, I wish that would have been awesome. No, $5,000 a month, I thought I'd be living a life Well.
Speaker 2:When, all of a sudden, I started to learn about cash flow and passive income and I could get my money to actually do harder things like actually create more income and things like that, and I even had like some things accidentally, even through business streams, income that were like residual streams that came through, the next thing I know I was making $4,000 or $5,000 a month just months later after I quit, because I started focusing on that cash flow passive income mentality versus the accumulation mentality that financial advisors teach you, and so it was almost kind of discovery accidental. But it was a beautiful accident because it helped me realize it was actually a lot easier than I thought. It wasn't as hard as it has to be. But if you try to follow traditional financial advice of getting debt free and stuffing your money in 401ks and retirement plans, you're just not going to make it. The stats show that you've got about a 1% chance of maybe succeeding at that.
Speaker 1:You know, I love that you talk about that because I'm a risk taker and I've never really started to be a risk taker because growing up, my dad love him to death. He's really great at finances. He does kind of the anti-opposite of what you do, Like he puts money away from 401k and they're doing well. But one of the things that I like to do is I like to take risks, and sometimes they're big financial risks, whether that's opening up another business, going on another business adventure, spending money on myself, personal development coaches, consultants. So I take these large risks and I love that you talk about passive income, Because that's what I look for.
Speaker 1:I don't look for that 401k that has millions of dollars in it. I'm looking for that passive income. Okay, what can I build that's going to get me $5,000 to $10,000 a month, every single month. And then how can I build that out? Two, three, four times? Because, right there, that's your passive income. So I really love that you talk about that. And then I think you talked a lot about how you're a traditional financing advisor and that you knew that wasn't the path for you. So when you made that transition, what was that like for you? Did you have people come into you and saying, hey man, why aren't you doing this anymore? Like, what was that like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was interesting period of time. Remind me to talk about risk too, because I might have a different viewpoint on risk than what you or your dad are seeing right now.
Speaker 1:You know I would love it. Let's definitely talk about that after this, yeah, so, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it was interesting because I didn't know what to do with myself. Right, I was like, okay, I'm going to quit being a financial advisor because I couldn't make it work. I tried to see if I could have this new perspective work with being a financial advisor, but just didn't. So I ended up quitting like March of that next year, December about the time I met with my dad, and then I had like three months of like, you know, can I make this work or not? Yet while I'm learning about passive income, Well, I quit and at that time all I was doing was pretty much I stayed on as a mortgage broker because I figured I could at least be honest there. And then I was also teaching ballroom dancing on the side, because you know one of the things I used to do, I used to be one of the nation's top amateur ballroom dancers oh that's so cool, I was doing that as well.
Speaker 2:And actually I was even stock coaching a little bit on the side too. I was doing that independently, so I had actually dropped even before that I dropped my securities license as a financial advisor so I could teach people how to trade stocks and options. But the interesting thing was like I was kind of wondering what to do and people even were like, hey, well, do you do this? I'm like, well, I don't do that anymore. But I would tell them I was like, well, I'm learning something different right now. And the thing is I was really excited, like I remember, like it was March. I quit March through May I was on cloud nine, like just blown away, like what you could actually do in creating paths of income. Like, for example, someone has a million dollars from a financial advisor mindset, you should only be pulling out maybe $30,000 a year If you're going to actually want that money to last, based on the current real numbers. Right, and actually that's even aggressive. That might be too much. You might need more, like 20 to 30,000 a year that you want to live on. Well, that's living below the poverty line. You're like you're a broke millionaire, right, living below the poverty level when you do that. But when I realized you could take a million dollars and let's just say you made even like 1% a month on that money. Well, now you're making $10,000 a month on that same million dollars, not 20 or 30,000 a year. 10,000 a month, that's 120,000 a year, right. And that was all said. It like was like angels singing, you know. Because it was like, oh my gosh, there's actually an answer here, there's actually hope. Because when I ran real numbers of the real stock market returns being less than 8% and I was running real inflation numbers and actually even then it wasn't real, I was running like trying to run 3 or 4%, I'm like there's no way people are going to retire off this. Like it's whatever you save in a 401k is what you'll live on after inflation. You know that lifestyle. So if you save Max fund your 401k at 20,000 a year, you will live on 20,000 a year lifestyle with inflation, on a conservative number of inflation, right. So to see that was like oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:And so when people would ask me, they're like, what do you do now? Like well, here's what I'm learning. And I'm like I don't even understand it completely. I'm like, but it's, it got me excited. And so people were like, well, cool, when you figured out, let me know, right. And eventually, like months later, you know, I got the point where it's like wait, I could stop working if I wanted to. I could stop stop coaching. Like everything I was doing there was just gravy. I was like I could just stop right now. Even the mortgage side, you'll like this because you were buying back time.
Speaker 2:It actually took a friend of mine that was a millionaire that said what do you like doing with the mortgages? I said well, I like getting people the results, but I cannot stand paperwork and underwriting. I can't stand it. Like I hate the fact that I tell people it's probably going to be about three weeks before this mortgage is done and then they call me the next day wondering if it's going to be done yet you know like I couldn't stand that. And so he said, well, find some of you who does like doing that. And in a scarcity mindset you never want to share, right.
Speaker 2:And so eventually, as I started to expand more into an abundance mindset and that hey, we can actually help each other and we can create value for everybody, I went to my broker, says who fits that description, who's a nerd, basically, and he says Clark. I mean, if a guy has the name of Clark, he's a nerd, right. So I go to Clark and say, hey, if I just basically spoon feed people to, they've already been educated about how they can take their mortgage, use the equity to invest and make more than their mortgage payment and essentially pay off their house for them. Like you know, if I just spoon feed them to you, will you do all the work? He said yes, and I'll pay you 50%. I said perfect.
Speaker 2:So I'd spent me a half an hour or so with these people, or just friends and family. I wasn't even actively marketing, but I would do that. Send them on to Clark because they're like well, how do we do this mortgage? Talk to Clark, he's got, he can do it all for you. A month or two later I'm giving like a thousand or $2,000 check in the mail. I'm like this is great, like I did almost nothing. That's a great per hour where I remember as a mortgage broker I felt like I was making 50 bucks an hour, you know when I was doing all the work myself. So to do that was just awesome and that's where some of that residual stream of income was coming in because that's maybe it was just again. I wasn't even like actively promoting myself. People were just coming to me and of course they would refer some of their friends.
Speaker 2:So it's just friends and family basically come to me, make a few thousand a month on a mortgage that had passive investments from real estate kicking in, and that's where it's making like four or 5,000 a month. And that's, of course, when everybody's like holy crap, you retired, how did you do it? And eventually, after so many people kept asking, I would just try to teach them privately, but if I didn't charge them money, they didn't do squat without information, right, absolutely. So eventually, 2007, I joined forces with another another other partners, and we created a company that did actually teach that and charged the money for it, you know, and kind of came out of retirement to teach that kind of stuff, you know, and so that's kind of what it was. Like it was. People were coming to me but I had to tell them like, listen what I taught you before. Erase it from your memory. It's not good, you know here, this, this actually works. This has been proven, not just my own life, but I see it working in other people's lives too.
Speaker 1:You know I love that because you can be so humble about hey, I did teach something that I thought was right at the time, but then I found a better solution and now I'm coming to you and telling you that you could keep doing that solution. It's not necessarily a bad solution with the old way, but it's not the best. Like here's something better and you can recognize that and actually tell people that. So, first of all, that's a really good trait to have. I don't see that very often. I see people just being stuck in their mindset and their exact same way and they never want to change. They never want to see it from a different view. So sad when I see that, but I see it so often. And then I also want to say I love that you talked about giving up control of what you're doing. Like you know the mortgages, like you didn't like doing the mortgages right, so you found someone that did.
Speaker 1:One of the things I talked about in buying time is focusing on your strengths. What are you good at? What do you like to do? And you focus on those. What is something you don't like to do? Well, outsource it. Figure out a way to have someone else do something that you don't like to do, and I get some pushback on that because I get people are like, well, I can't afford to hire someone. I go no, you can't afford not to hire someone because you don't like to do that.
Speaker 1:If you keep focusing on something that you like to do, then you're going to see that you're going to generate extra revenue from it because you're going to be so passionate about it, so driven, that you're not even going to have to worry. But because you're focusing on oh, I have to do this paperwork, like you said, I got to do this paperwork. It's not something I really like. You thought you were making $50 an hour. Then you went out, found someone else that could do that paperwork for you and then you get those $1,000 checks in the mail so nice. So I love that you talk about that, because it's something I'm very passionate about, especially in the buy time aspect of things. I want to revisit risks, because you seem very passionate about that. Let's talk about risks. I know risks are everywhere in life financial risks, time risks but let's talk about risks. So what do you have to say on risks?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I kind of had a epiphany when you're talking there a little bit, because I mean there's always risk, right, but if you look at the real definition of risk and this has even come from the financial advisor definition of risk it's called it's really just chance of loss. What's your chance of losing? One thing you hear out there that's a complete lie, right, and it's taught by financial advisors and the institutions because they want you to take all the risk in the stock markets and things like that. But while they take none of it is that they'll teach you that high risk creates high returns. Think of the definition of risk. Definition of risk is chance of loss. When did a 90% chance of losing become a 90% chance of winning? That math doesn't add up, does it no?
Speaker 1:not at all.
Speaker 2:No, 90% chance of losing means you have a 10% chance of winning right. Well, if I really truly believe that high risk creates high returns, the best risk I could take meaning that the worst risk or the highest risk I could take is buy lottery tickets. Let's cash in all of our retirement accounts, cash in every dollar we've got, take equity out from our house, throw it in and buy lottery tickets. Let's do that Powerball right. Let's do Mega Bucks or whatever it might be, and let's see if I can win big.
Speaker 1:And that doesn't work, does it?
Speaker 2:When you talk about you taking risks right. But when you take risks, you take risk on you. I can't hear that come out of your mouth. You're personally developing yourself. You're investing in a business All things which you have control over right. That's more in my mind. That's more calculated risk. Because if I'm going to make a bet, why not bet on me, especially if I know that I'm a good bet? Right. And the opposite is what most people do, most Americans. Instead, they don't want to bet on themselves. They go and they bet on a company or companies or mutual funds where they have zero control, zero effect. They can't make the returns go up or down, right. And, by the way, picking a fund is not control. That's literally just guessing. You are like blinking the character from Robin Hood, men in Tights, the blind guy who's up on the watchtower saying I'm guessing, I'm guessing no one's coming right. That's what you're really doing when you buy mutual funds. You bought Hookline and Sinkers.
Speaker 2:The lie taught by advisors and by those that employ advisors, which are financial institutions like your Fidelity's, your Goldman Sachs, merrill Lynch's, all those companies have taught you over the years and brainwashed you to believe that high risk creates high returns. Therefore, you should take all that market risk while guess what they're doing. They're taking zero risk on you. You know what they're really doing. They're actually charging you guaranteed fees every single year. Whether you make money or not. They're getting paid. That's why the person that wins is the financial advisor, not you. They get paid, whether you make money or not. You could be your livelihoods at stake and you're gambling on them and really they're just guessing, like everybody else, right With something you have zero control over. If you're a business owner and maybe you have it quite expressed this way, but you're a business owner you might have a hard time with financial advisors because they're telling you to throw your money somewhere else instead of a place where you know you can manipulate and control the returns right.
Speaker 2:My brother-in-law taught me that when I was a financial advisor. He was from a very successful family. His dad was a self-made millionaire. In fact, his dad ran away from home at 16, got his first auto dealership at 19, millionaire by 21, and that was in the 1950s. Oh, wow, I'm impressed. Being a millionaire was a big deal back then. His son was my brother-in-law. I thought, man, if I can get in with this family, I'm set for life because I'll make all my guaranteed fees off of the money under management, right? Well, I sit down with my brother-in-law, I give him the best presentation I've ever created. I brought one of the best guys from my office to back me up because you got to have two on one double team on this guy.
Speaker 2:As we're talking to him, my brother-in-law says this very simply. He says, chris, let me just play around with this. Let's just say I give you 10 grand to play with. You're saying you can make me 12% in a year. Right, because everybody believes the market actually produces 12%, which is bull crap. It never has. I'm like well, there's no guarantees, right? But yeah, if you get 12%, that's possible. Well, chris, okay, let's just say I get 12%. Well, that means I made 1200 bucks on my 12 grand in a year. But, chris, I can take that same 10 grand.
Speaker 2:I could put a down payment on a semi truck in my dealership and I can make $20,000 in a couple of months. So 20,000 in a couple of months versus 1200, maybe with you over a year. Why would I invest my money with you? And I said well, you should be diversified. You should pull your eggs in one basket. Besides, business is risky, you know, just like you said right, and he said thanks for your time, we'll see you later, and he sent me with my tail tucked between my legs out the door, right, the best thing he could have ever done, because he was 100% correct right Now I'm not saying that permanently you're always quote-unquote reinvesting in your business.
Speaker 2:That's a fallacy that many people buy into, where they, if they always are spending money in their business, they're never profitable. If you don't have profit and you know this right you don't have profit. You can't buy time back. You know so many entrepreneurs and CEOs will end up creating their own rat race. They might just make millions of dollars in that rat race. They're still stuck doing that, like if they were to quit today they would be broke as everybody else.
Speaker 2:But you know to actually have that control bill, say, now I can take my profits, use that, generate other streams of income and, of course, still invest in my business where I get the best ROI possible while keeping the rest of the profits. That right there is like in my mind, like the ideal, what any entrepreneur should be doing and really should be sending every other financial advisor with tails tucked between their legs saying I don't need you. Because the truth is, why would I invest in everybody else's company, like Apple or Microsoft or whatever, and where I have no control, when I can invest in my own company stock? Even if you don't sell stock, you still have the same kind of format, right. Why not invest in my own company and make better returns where I control all the risk? That, to me, is being conservative and left risky. I think everybody else that puts money in a mutual funds and 401ks are very risky gamblers. They're gambling on something they have no control over.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 1:I love that you talk about that, because something I get a lot of people doing is they'll come to me and they'll say what's one of the best investments I can make, jacob?
Speaker 1:And I'll be like well, there's two. You can either invest in yourself or invest in a business that you want to do, and they go no, I don't want to take that risk. And then I look at them. I'm like investing in yourself is the best thing you can possibly do because you control the outcome, the amount of work that you put in, the amount of effort that you put forth. You're going to see the results based on all of that. And so I did that at such a young age. Like I got my first commission job working for Radio Shack, by the way, I love sharing this I was horrible at sales.
Speaker 1:I was so bad at sales that our district manager walked in and he had a conversation with me. When I went on, I was like he's like, how's things going? I'm like great Customers love me. He goes, your sales don't show that. And I was like but they love me, they're coming back and he goes. It's because you're an informational kiosk, jacob. You're giving them all the information and then they're walking away with it and they're going somewhere else to purchase the product. And I was like what, why would they do that? So he shared with me some tips and tricks and then I really got into sales and once I seen those commission checks I was like wait a minute, I am never going to work for any business again that does not have commission, because I was in so much control. I was using those commission checks to pay my rent. I was using those commission checks to sometimes have a vacation. I use those commission checks to buy my wife for engagement ring. I was using commission checks as basically extra money because I had my hourly wage and then I had these commission checks. And that got me to thinking like hey, wow, commission is amazing because I'm in control of it. If I show up one day and I put my head down and I did do this there's a snowstorm showed up one day, put my head down, it's like this just sucks, I'm not going to make any sales. Today, made excuses, I want to figure out how to make sales. Because halfway through the day I said what am I doing? I'm a fool. Like figure out how to make sales. So I went out, went outside of my area, got some sales, brought them back and then ended up having to hop on a call because I closed sales when no one else could, in the middle of a snowstorm and it was. It was a great time.
Speaker 1:I love that you talk about that, because having control of your money is so important. And when you give it away to like you were talking about to these financial advisors or you're letting them control it because they're promising you these returns, you're almost just hoping. You're sitting there like fingers crossed like, oh, please give me 12%, please give me 18%. And now I feel like the rate of returns you can correct me if I'm wrong on this. It's thrown around left and right. There's numbers everywhere. I mean I look at this site and they'll say 18% returns, 12%, 8%, 9%.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you what the true number is. What I can tell you is if I take money in my business and I invest in marketing, I can tell you what my return is going to be on that. I can tell you if it's going to generate 12,000, 20,000, 30,000 a revenue based off of what I invest. So that's a safer method. So I can tell you with data.
Speaker 1:I can look at it, I can see it, I can tell you with data hey, if you put I've done this for businesses, hey, put $5,000 in ads, Some of the owners are like, absolutely, I'll do that. They do it, see great success. And others that say, hey, put $2,000, $3,000 in ads and they go, that's a lot of money, that's big risk, I can't do it. And I'm like, why, we'll make it back, we'll get what? Here's the data. And they just they can't see it. So I think some people just can't see the outcome in almost that. I don't want to say it scares them, it just scares them. So they rather just give their money to someone else to control.
Speaker 2:Well, that's it, because you know, many people don't want to take ownership for their life, and if you're going to be a CEO of your life, not to mention a company, you got to be willing to take ownership of your own life. The problem is is many people like to lay blame, whether they subconsciously admitted or not. They'd like to say you know, if I put my money with this person, if I make money, I'll say, oh, I made a smart decision. But if I lose money, I can blame that financial advisor, even though they had nothing to do with it. I'm telling you a product because that's all they are salesmen in suits. But you have to take that ownership responsibility and I love you mentioned because really investing in yourself especially if you want to buy back your time you're going to invest in being a better communicator and a better leader that actually not just leads with an iron fist but really inspires your team. Because if you can do that, that's where your ROI is just massive right. That's when you can actually really get your time back and get profits back too, and I think that's essential and that's scary, because that means you have to have ownership. You have to admit.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know what I might suck as a leader which, by the way, I was saying that just a year or two ago. I was like I was so good at being the self-employed guy Once I had to bring on more team members. Then I was like, oh my goodness, like I'm really horrible at being an accountability manager. You're like I'm horrible at this and I'm still not the best accountability manager. But as I've learned to lead and inspire what really helps the team perform better, and even get surrounded by people that could also help manage my team too, it's just been a game changer for me. So I totally agree it's scary to invest in yourself, but in my mind it's the easiest thing that I can control the circumstances. I can control the variable of me. But many people just don't trust themselves enough to invest in themselves, and that's why they just rather invest in somebody else, because they're scared to take a bet on themselves.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, they want to blame someone else. I mean, I know, if I invest in myself and I don't do the work that's required, then who's to blame Me? I'm the person to blame. I think some people can't take that ownership. They can't take that responsibility.
Speaker 1:And the fact that you've shared your stories and I love that you shared your story of hey, I thought this was the right path. I realized it wasn't. Now I'm on this different path and sharing why this is a better path, without necessarily saying, hey, that's a horrible way to do it. The other way, you're acknowledging that, yeah, that's an okay way. You might be fine, you might not, but here's a better way. And right there, that's awesome that you're not just saying, hey, this is wrong, but you're saying, hey, listen, I have a better solution, given that you have more control over and that you can financially make a lot more money. And who doesn't want to make more money? Because you have to have money If you're going to buy it back your time, it's just something you have to have.
Speaker 1:And then leadership that's like one of the hard. That was a hard one for me because I thought I was a good leader at first and I've realized as time gone by, I was like you know I'm not the best leader. Yeah, I would do things for my team, I would show up, I would be out the front lines, but I wasn't that, like you said, accountability person. I wasn't making sure. You know, I was holding them accountable, and having those one-offs and one-on-ones and it's more stems from that. I like I'm a people pleaser, I like to make sure everyone's happy, overcoming that now. But it's that I didn't want to upset anyone and now I'm learning hey, listen, sometimes you're going to upset people as a leader, but you're going to say some things that need to be said and that's going to make that person stronger.
Speaker 2:It's true, I almost cried the first time I had a fire or friend, right, he was a good guy but he just wasn't performing at the level he needed to and it you know warnings to come and whatnot. I mean not like warnings, but basically we're just saying, hey, we got to step it up, step it up, and it wasn't happening. And I was, I was almost in tears, you know like I was like I feel horrible about doing this and it's not like my favorite thing to do. But I actually would much rather attract good talent, which is what a CEO should be doing anyways. You know, attract the right talent and the right people for your team. But I appreciate the kind of words about me, like you make it sound like I'm a really nice guy, but the truth is is that, although I'm, I'm not very nice to the financial industry, because you know.
Speaker 1:So you're saying Dave Ramsey might not have you on his podcast?
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely, definitely not. No, he would have hang up on me pretty quickly, right, In fact, I just did another podcast about that, because he even ripped on his own co-host for trying to teach real stats that contradicted his stats that he, you know, heard as a lie like 30 years ago. Right, like that's the problem. Like that bugs me. Like you, the one thing that's true that you said is, like you know, when I realized that something was wrong, I changed course. Right, like I can't.
Speaker 2:Integrity is such a big core value in my life that I tell people like I can't teach something I don't do myself, even even when I like, during the recession, I got knocked out of the rat race. Right, like I was out of the rat race but then I was knocked back in because I went over. I went over a million dollars in debt with that new business venture, plus the recession was hitting, so my real estate was tanking, like it was like the perfect storm in a George Clooney death way. Right, and for that time, like I stopped teaching people how to get out of the rat race because I was back in it. I couldn't do it. But when I see people like you know, like guys like Dave Ramsey teach stuff that he doesn't even do himself. That pisses me off. You know? Same thing with financial advising. Like if they were really being honest. What they should be doing is recruiting everybody to be a financial advisor but not invest in their own products. That's really if they were to be an integrity. That's the true thing that a financial advisor should be doing is recruiting more financial advisors, because you have better chance to success that way and you ever do saving in your, your IRAs and your 401ks.
Speaker 2:I like to say fidelity. 1.5% of people that have saved in their 401ks and IRAs with fidelity have at least a million dollars. But of those people surveyed, 35% of them think that it'll take a miracle for them to be able to retire because of the very thing I mentioned. You have a million bucks. You can only live on 20 or 30,000 a year. That's not enough, right?
Speaker 2:The 4% rule that people talk about is completely debunked. That's actually what Dave Ramsey is arguing with his own co-host about was about that 4% rule, which is not really a rule, but I mean. You think about it like. That means that less than 1% of people think they have a chance of retirement, right, it doesn't mean they could do it. That's scary, like. Think about it. If you went to Google and looked up a business and 99 out of 100 reviews were one-stars saying how much they hated it or that it didn't you know that product. They didn't deliver on the product or service, would you go to that company? No, why would we go to financial advisors when they have a less than 1% success rate? That, to me, is ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Wow that's that's. It's so powerful and actually so true. I mean you look at it and you're like, hey, there's better options out there and Investing in yourself, get your time back and then invest in other opportunities, that's. That's a pretty clear path and you can control it. And the one thing that I wish I would have done sooner and Now that I know this, so I wish I would have invested in myself more at in my early 20s, like I would have spent the time for mentors. I would have spent the time for coaches. I wish I would have spent the time to overcome, you know, childhood trauma, all of that in my early 20s. And If I could go back and do anything again, I would invest in myself more. I was so focused in investing in my business because I built my business at 21, grew it from there, but I was so focused in investing my business that I kind of put myself on hold and Now I'm having to redo that. So I'm in my 30s now and I'm like, hey, now I'm investing a lot more myself. That's the my personal brand. I'm rebuilding this back out, because who would I be to help all their business owners? Who would I be to help other people if I didn't do it myself, like I'm, like you, I'm not gonna be a hypocrite. I'm not gonna say, do this, this is, this is the path I can guarantee you it's gonna work, or do this and have no idea Because I've never done it. I'm gonna do it first, prove that it can be done, and then the people that want to see that get done. I welcome them and I love something that you said because I've had this asked, asked me before is well, jacob, it works. Now, why don't you just teach it for free? Why don't you just help everybody? And my response to them was People don't get value out of something that they're not paying for.
Speaker 1:In my business we used we used to do a bunch of free services. Constantly, we do free services. I learned something really, really quickly On in my business that the free services they would leave. They'd say thank you so much and then they would leave. We would either never see them again, they would never leave a review, they would never tell their, tell their families about us unless it was to come to us for a free service, and we would only see them back if and when they wanted another free service and if we tried to charge when they came back because Something was different. They would almost throw a fit like, well, I didn't get charged last time there was, there was no cost.
Speaker 1:And it was amazing what happened when they started to have some value, not only did they feel more confident leaving the store, but they were more obligated to leave us a review. They are more obligated to share us with their friends and family, who would spend money in the store because they already have value tied to you. So that's why I'm learning in this coaching and saw things out of. Things is. I've offered my services for free and I've helped people. I thought, hey, pro bono, I'll help this person. See where it goes. They don't do the work. They don't do the work, they don't put any of the effort forward because there's no value tied to it.
Speaker 2:That's, you know that's. It's so insightful because I remember, for me, 2006 this is when I was starting to learn to get out of the rat race. I quit being financial advisor, right? I remember one of the thing I learned from guys that were millionaires, you know, in real estate as well as in business. They kept saying this key principle is that dollars follow value. Right, the dollars follow value. Create further people. Your ability to be able to serve people, solve problems or add value in such a way that money is just a natural byproduct pretty soon.
Speaker 2:Making money as formulaic it's, it's, it's predictable, it's easy to do money was always mysterious to me, even as a financial advisor. Ironically, it was mysterious about how to generate income. It was in my mind back then, it was always a zero-sum game. Someone had to lose for me to win. Therefore, if I'm a good person, I have to lose for somebody else to win, right?
Speaker 2:So when I was a mortgage broker, you know when I was first doing that I would tell people. I said, hey, I'll cut back my you know the normal standard 1% origination fee. I'll cut it back to three quarters percent. I was getting down to a half percent and so I say I'll only charge you a half percent origination so you'll save on your costs, giving you, you know, more flexibility, better payments or whatever. Well, the crazy thing is, when I did that, people still shopped around Like that. When I say, hey, I'll be the cheapest option, they're like, well, okay, well, let me go to the talk to the bank. Oh well, the bank says they'll do it for cheaper. I'm like, yeah, but they're gonna give you a higher interest rate to do it for cheaper. You're gonna get ripped off. And then they find out later, a few weeks later. They're like, oh, it's true. Yeah, they came back, said the rate was actually higher.
Speaker 2:But you know, we're already in the process, we're almost done, so we'll just gonna go with it like you just got ripped off, you know, and I was so mad, and the funny thing is when I started referring to Clark, right, clark would not bend on that 1% origination. He's like that's exactly what we charge, that's it, and I kid you, not even though we split 50-50. So basically, I was getting paid the same as what I was trying to do, doing all the work myself. We're splitting it 50-50. People were happier paying the full price and they referred clients to me when they paid full price. They didn't do that before. When I discounted my services, they didn't refer people, they did it after. I was seriously like charging the full amount.
Speaker 1:And I learned amazing.
Speaker 2:When we kicked off our new coaching company, right Like I, first I was trying to charge like 500 bucks, but again, people weren't doing the work, they weren't getting results. Therefore they weren't happy and they weren't referring people. But the more that I charged, really, the truth is, the more they invested in themselves. They knew they had to get results and as a result because it was a little bit uncomfortable they actually did the work and when they did the work, they got the results and then they were happy and then they referred us more clients. And so the funny is, the more that I've charged them, better results people get, not because I charged more, but because they were more committed to themselves to get the results that I already knew they would get right. So that's, that's the core, key difference in my mind. And I just told somebody last night. He's like, yeah, honestly, I'm getting hung up on the tuition to hire you guys. I said, hey, we're not the cheapest, we're also not the most expensive. There's plenty of people you'll get ripped off with, but I'll tell you this like your ROI, you'll make more than your money back. You'll make more than double back in the next year, and that's a one-time fee You're paying us right and the plus a small like monthly retainer if they want to keep us on retainer. But it's like you're paying so little to get a better ROI.
Speaker 2:Most people hire a financial advisor hopes that they'll make 10% Not 200% 10% of their money. They think they'd be thrilled. I was like, and you're you're be, you're like having all this BS, you actually have to pay out of pocket, like it's. It's not about that, it's about value. What do you get back in return? It's like if I know I can make you 40,000 a year, you only have to pay me 15,000. That's pretty amazing. You know that's a pretty awesome ROI and that's ongoing year after year. And you're not paying me 15,000 year after year, not like a financial advisor. They charge you that fee whether you make money or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they'll charge you if you're losing money. If the markets down, markets up, they don't, they don't care, they'll be billing you out. Man, I, I love it, chris, so far for our audience. I always like to ask what are some ways that we can help, support you? What's something we can do to help you? What can our audience do for you?
Speaker 2:You know, honestly, like the best thing you do is just take this information, do something with it, right, I mean that's take action. That's always the best like take action and get results. That's always been my, my, my biggest like flex, you know, for me, like I don't flex in the flashy cars or nice houses or anything like that, I flex results. You know it definitely. If you like more information, you can always follow my podcast, money ripples podcast. I teach a lot of free info there.
Speaker 2:Money ripples calm. I've got a lot of information there as well, like you already mentioned that earlier. So I mean, fine, you know, whatever, whatever you need information wise, do that, take action on it, make it work in your life. I mean that to me. That's why my company's called money ripples right, because, even though I could literally quit my business right now because I don't need the money, I'm got more than enough passive income coming in.
Speaker 2:I actually was able to retire twice. I did it again in 2016 after I went broke, but but I'll tell you, like the thing that I love so much, that ripple effect is why I called the company money ripples, because, as your Bless financially, you now have a greater capacity to bless the lives of those around you. So what I want to see for you, if especially for your business owners, I want to see you succeed in your business. Invest in that, first and foremost. Secondly, create enough you know wealth right, enough enough of that so that you don't worry about paying your bills anymore, so then you can show up and serve other people as well and make this world a better place, and that's, that's what I'm excited for.
Speaker 1:Man. I absolutely love that. Chris. I just want to say this has been a pleasure. I absolutely love it talking about finances and talking about ways to increase passive income so you can get your time back. You can do more of what you love and stop doing the things that you hate. So thank you so much for coming on today and just sharing with our audience. I really do appreciate that. And for those of you looking to actually get your time back by Leveraging your funds, go to money ripples calm. Check out what Chris has to offer some pretty cool stuff. Went to the site myself and I tell you what. There's some pretty neat stuff there. So money ripples calm. Thank you so much, chris, and, as always, until next time. Thanks for listening to today's episode. My name is Jacob K Mead and until next time.