Walking the Unbeaten Path to Financial Freedom with Chris Miles

The time that I usually screw up the most in life is when I overthink something. You know, even after I became financially independent. It's funny how many people my life said you should go back and finish that degree. Just finish it. It has been so ingrained in our society that the college degree is the thing. If you're a visionary kind of person where you in a sense have a gift to foresee the future and cause an effect of decisions and things like that, you should use that gift. If you feel something deep down is right, go for it.

Hey everyone, welcome to the Walk To Love podcast. If you're tuning in on YouTube or any of the podcast directories, make sure to do yourself a favor and give us a follow so you can never miss a beat. I don't want you to have FOMO. we're bringing tons of amazing guests and tons of value this entire year, in the years to come, So make sure to give us a follow. Without further ado, let's get right into this interview. You have a super special guest here, Chris. for anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to get to meet you yet, tell us your elevator picture, You know who are you and what do you do?

Yeah, i'm the anti-financial advisor, right? So I'm the guy that basically tell you to do the opposite of what most of those guys will tell you in media. Or that person down the street that wears that suit with a two short of a tie. You know their belly hanging out and not like, can I crap? Yeah, that's pretty much who I am. I'm the anti-financial advisor because we teach people how to actually create passive income now and you know just like we talk about. You know, live your life now, not tomorrow, right? Like, how do you actually create that freedom and prosperity today, not 30 or 40 years from now if you're lucky, right?

That's really what we do, yeah, crazy. I'm super excited because I'm also personally against it And also I'll get to somebody else here today actually about the traditional advice that we're giving them. It's like the S&P 500, it's like, man, you gotta invest in yourself, especially for people who are my age, but if in any age, honestly, you gotta invest in yourself because you know why, live for tomorrow. If you can't satisfy today, right Gotta make it through today first. So let's get right into your backstory little bit. Before you were the anti-financial advisor, before everything that you have going on now. What was the money like? growing?

up. Yeah, the one thing that definitely was the common theme of money growing up was scarcity. Right, there's just never enough. In fact, those are the words I always heard from my parents. You know, they taught me good values and they taught me to work hard, but when it came to money, it was always hey, we don't have enough, we can't afford it. What do you think I am made of? money? money doesn't grow on trees, you know. Yeah, that's kind of things that you hear, and even my dad would say things about his work. He would say you know what, chris, i'm gonna work until I'm dead. You know, this job will literally kill me. And actually my real personal favorite, but even beyond that one was when he said he said you know what, because I'm such a good man, i actually didn't buy that Ferrari, i didn't buy that Corvette because I had you kids instead, like that kind of stuff. The stuff we grew up with when it came to money was just there, wasn't enough of it, you know. And so naturally, like any kid growing up, you wanna do the opposite of your parents. You wanna do something to kind of prove them wrong or not become like them. So I was the first one in my family to go to college And I always feel like Napoleon Dymite your mom goes to college, right, but first one to go to college. My family And my goal was to become more financially prosperous than they had been. But I knew, even doing that like I didn't wanna be the same old person that just worked a job and got trapped. I didn't wanna be the person I was told how much money I can make when I had to go to work or when I couldn't take time off. I wanted freedom. So I knew that would be at some point being my own boss, being an entrepreneur of sorts. So right before I was graduating college with my bachelors, i thought I'm gonna be a business consultant. But if I'm gonna do that, i shouldn't have business experience. So I dropped out of college with one class to go right. And as I dropped out of college there I said, all right, i'm just taking a year off, let's figure out if I can create some sort of business. And the first business that came up was becoming a financial advisor. And it was interesting to me because I said I don't really know much about money. Obviously I was raised that there was never enough. Maybe if I can learn some things. It would give my dad his life back. Even if I gave him an extra year or two of his life back, wouldn't that be worth it? And even better, if I learned something and I became financially free, that would be cool too. So I went down that path And so I stayed dropped out of college, never went back, and then, after several years of being a financial advisor, my dad asked me for advice. He said, chris, i need you to sit down with me and help me out. So I sat down at the very kitchen table where he whined and complained about money. We're sitting at that kitchen table, i'm looking at all this finances there and all the papers are spread out. And I'm looking at really his finances for the first time in my life. I'd never really seen how much money he had, and as I looked at it he's saying okay, chris, why two Ks sucked, it was not good in the stock market. I'm 61 years old, i want to retire. Can I do it? I said, dad, after looking at all your stuff here, the honest truth is this if you retire right now, you better hope you die in five years, Because if it weren't for social security, you'd run out of money in five years. Now this guy had done everything right. I mean, he had max funded his 401K, just like you're always taught to do by that good old HR rep at your job that you work at right. He was paid off all his debt early, just like Dave Ramsey would tell you to do. In fact, he's probably the one that taught Dave Ramsey what to do, because my dad's older than Dave Ramsey, so he was doing that stuff before Dave Ramsey was paid off his debt, super proud of it. So he's debt-free, packing in money and his retirement accounts. You would think he would be in a better position, especially because he's such a cheap guy. I mean, the guy is super duper tightwad, you know. Yet he still couldn't be financially free. And of course you hear me saying that he's gonna have to die in five years. That was not bringing comfort to his 61-year-old mind. He's like, well, what do I do? And I said I don't know, you did everything right. I mean, you basically did everything I would have advised you to do as a financial advisor. And so that bugged me And for a few weeks I was just kind of, i was really just thrown off a bit. And then, of course, when the students ready, the teacher appears. One of my friends, who had actually trained to be financial advisor, left to go do real estate investing And I decided to call him up. It was just after Christmas time, i saw, so I thought I wish him happy holidays and everything, and then I, you know, i wanted to hear how he's doing. I figured he's probably broke trying to do his whole real estate thing, and he thought I was to come back to work for me again. Didn't I get that at all? In fact, it was the opposite. He just said, chris, my life is awesome right now. My dad and I have partnered on some real estate deals And we've doubled his income as a professor at the local university. I said, come on, that's too good to be true. There's no way that could ever be the case, because, you know, i just met with your dad four or five months ago and there's no way this guy would be making that much money. He said, well, he's doing it. And so we got this debate about what's better stocks in real estate And he finally stopped me. He said, chris, how many of your clients are truly financially free where they don't worry about money? I said not worry about money. Well, let's see, there's those retired doctors none. They all worry about running out of money. Great, good job, chris. Way to help no one. How about this? How many of you guys, as financial advisors, are financially free Not off the commissions you're earning, but actually doing these investments you've been recommending? And when I thought about the guys around my office and remember I'm in my late 20s at this point, i'm looking at the guys in my office who've been working there since the late 1970s right, i mean, these are the OGs here still there broke And I said none of them. I don't think any of them can retire. That is your problem, chris. So conversations led to another and eventually I realized I couldn't keep teaching this stuff anymore. I could either keep making money as a financial advisor and there are many good-hearted financial advisors that feel trapped because they have so many clients and so much money under management that if they quit, they lose all their income streams And so I had to make that decision Do I cut off and lose all those, lose the income streams I had, which weren't that much by that point in my life, or do I, you know, make this, you know, or do I just stick? you know? do I stick around, do I stay or do I go right? That was really the question, and so I chose the latter. I left. I said I gotta keep my integrity intact. I can't sell something that I don't believe in. So I left. I was just a mortgage broker and did that for a little while And over the ensuing months, as I started talking you know learning from my friend doing stuff with real estate at 28 years old almost 29, i was able to become financially independent, where I didn't have to work anymore And there's a crazy point of life to be in, because I'm like wait, i thought if I was lucky, i'd be 40 years old and retired. Now I'm 28 years old. What do I do with my life? Yeah, and that's kind of what led me down the path today that where I'm teach people how to do the same thing I did, which is get out of that rat race where you work optional. You can keep working if you want to, but you don't have to.

Yeah, no, i love your story And I genuinely appreciate anyone that could tell a good story, and you definitely did a great job to kick us off, and so let's get into today's conversation a little bit. You have so many different amazing points that I kind of wanted to touch on and ask about, one of which that really resonated with me is the constant theme of you were faced with the traditional track, the traditional thread of information that we're all kind of giving And kind of like myself, you just decided to go the other way, and this is something that not a lot of people really have the courage, the willpower to do so, and you've been able to do so, and it ended up leading you to a spot that you might have not have ever realized that you would come to, especially this early on in your life. And I wanted to ask you my first question really is what was it like, knowing that your end goal wasn't as clearly defined as it would be if you had stayed on the traditional track? What allowed you to keep on pushing forward, when the horizon may be a little foggy or maybe a little misty, you might not be able to see clearly, so the other side of the fence. What was that like? navigating your life, even like right after I quit? Yeah, just to add any of those points where you decided like dropping out, decided to quit your job, and constantly you just decided to go the other way. It's the un-traditional track. So like what was it like? what keeps you going when you're on this track of like going the road less traveled by right, as the poem says?

That's true. I guess I didn't think about that even like when I. It was only supposed to be a one year sabbatical I took from college, you know, and it was primary because I just felt burnt out And I thought, well, let's add to my resume by just not just having a degree but having experience too. So I thought that would also help improve my odds of getting my MBA and coming out of college. So I guess to me it just made logical sense in that sense. But part of a lot of what directed my life is I just have this gut feeling right, i just use my intuition. You know, the time that I usually screw up the most in life is when I overthink something right, when I try to think almost too logically about it And I like to think logically. But if I think too logically about something and feel differently inside, so where that, especially when that feeling defies logic. Like you know, quitting being a financial advisor, for example, when I spent invested four years in becoming one, that one was hard. It took me a couple months to make the leap, but it's one of those things that just I can't, you know, I feel I have to feel like I live, like a life full of integrity. I got to practice what I preach, right. I think that's the common theme, like even when I dropped out of college. You know, if I'm gonna become a business consultant, should I practice what I preach? Shouldn't? I have real business experience, you know, before I just tell people in their own business what they should be doing just cause I got a degree at a dumb college by a bunch of professors who never had a business before. Right, like to me. That to me, real life experience always met more. I mean, that's something I picked up for my dad because he was always about like getting life experience, you know, and so for me, that kind of evolved into life experience. Integrity. You know preaching, you know practicing what you preach, but then also preaching what you've practiced you know. That kind of thing. I think that's the important thing. That's kind of been the common theme in my life And so let me ask you another question.

everybody intrigued me and you mentioned that with throughout your journey, you ended up getting to the point where now your father looked up to you for advice. A lot of the times, our, you know, our crutches, our anchors, the things that are weighing us down and holding us back, are the people that are usually in our most closest circle, in our innermost circle, and for, maybe out of fear, maybe out of genuine concern, a lot of the times it comes from a very, you know, warm and loving place, but they don't understand it. And it got to the point where your father now viewed what you do as now you're the expert, you're the professional. What did it feel like when the dynamic shifted? How did that feel? or what led up to it? And before the dynamic shifted, how were you able to keep on, keeping on when most people might have not understood the track that you were headed on?

That's true. He definitely did not agree with me wanting to drop out of college. You know he's like you got to finish your degree And I thought I could just always go back and finish it later. By the way, i did try to finish it five years later after I was able to retire, and then they said you got to go to school for a year and a half. I said screw that, like I'm not gonna get my sociology degree. You know, a bachelor's degree in sociology, you know when I'm already making more money than somebody with an MBA or PhD is making at this point. So you know, for me I kind of came back to what's reality. But it's true, like I mean, even when you know, even after I became financially independent, it's funny how many people my life said you should go back and finish that degree, just finish it, that's all you. You should just finish it. You need that college degree because it was. It was been so ingrained in our society that the college degree is the thing right, that that has to be it. That's your ticket out. But again, real life experience taught me I mean, i remember this was during the recession. Even So, during the recession, like I was already financially independent before it. But then, when the great recession hit, especially 2008, 2009, i was broke, like I went from millionaire upside down millionaire. I was over a million dollars in debt because of, you know, after starting a new business that was failing. We barely pulled it out without getting paid for a long time. You know even even my own situation, my financial situation I lost my house. It was foreclosed on, you know, and those kinds of things Like I lost a lot. And there was family members saying even then, see, you should have got your degree, you should, you should go back to school and get your degree. And I was like, yeah, but I've got one of my best friends who's got an MBA. He hasn't. He's been unemployed for two years, so I'm still doing better than he is, you know he's on. You know I'm on welfare, but he's living in his parents' basement and on welfare, you know, like he can't do anything. Yeah, so what's? what's a degree gonna do good for me? at this point? You're like I already, I'm already unemploymentable as an entrepreneur, so it's hard to chart it that path. But again, if you know something inside feels right, go with it, because I'll tell you now. I mean again. This is now years later, right. I mean, that was 15 years ago Now. I mean both those sets of parents, you know, those are like former in-laws, you know they're now ex-in-laws. And then even my own dad. My dad even recently just told me. He said, you know, he's like I can't even understand your life, like it's just so foreign to me that you're making so much money. He's like I've never experienced that in my life at all And he's like I'm proud of you, like that's amazing, i'm glad that you took a different path, you know. So he's now seeing it because he's seeing now the end, the end no, i wouldn't call it the end for me, but he's seeing now the end results of what I saw years prior. Right, and I think that's the case. If you're a visionary kind of person where you kind of you know sense how a gift to foresee the future and cause an effect of decisions and things like that, you should use that gift. You know, it's not like fortune telling per se, but you know, if you feel something deep down is right, go for it. In my opinion, that's always worked out to be the best.

Yeah, and some of those things were. The reason why people can't see your vision is because they weren't blessed with it. And so if you have something that you see deep down and no one else can see because they weren't meant to see, and you have to have that faith that if you pursue this, it will turn out. Okay, it may not turn out how you originally planned, but it will work itself out, and as long as you continue to put in the work and figure it out and not in a oh, what's meant to be? what happened? for you know, it's like you have to go out there and make it happen. And if you go out there and make it happen, you'll find yourself stumbling across what you were looking for. It may not, as I said, it may not be in a way like for me right now, like I thought this year I'd probably be the top selling real estate agent and you know, just selling houses left and right in my area, but it ended up that I'm not even focused on real estate at all whatsoever And I'm just totally focused on growing this podcast and my marketing company, and it's like the end goal was always to get into public speaking now And I spoke at my first conference in January. So it's like I got to the place where I wanted to eventually end up getting to without having to take the path that I had I was so sure of. I was so sure that my plan was the golden plan And this is how I was going to work and this is how I was going to play out. And I just kept on keeping on and it's been working out a lot And, as you said, following that intuition and kind of segue into today's conversation, i just wanted to get through that part first, because you have such an amazing story And actually I have one more question that I'm just curious to ask you before we talk about cash flow. It's that feeling of knowing that you're finally free from. I'm genuinely curious like what does that feel?

like It's. That's a good. It's a good question because, you know, now I've become accustomed to it. But, yeah, it's different in a sense, because I know, like when I, you know, i'm with other family members or whatever, like it's not, like I don't look at prices of things, you know. But I remember, like when I was paycheck to paycheck or even worse than paycheck to paycheck, right, there was too much month at the end of my money. You know, like you go to a restaurant and you're like, okay, i'm getting chicken again, because chick is the cheapest thing on this menu. Or nowadays, it almost be like vegan, because that was sometimes the vegan menu is almost cheaper than the any menu with any kind of meat on it, right? So I'd be like, if I had to go out to eat, if it was on those rare occasions, i'd be like I'm getting this, you know, like I'm just getting this. You know $10 plate, you know, or whatever it might be, or you know $15 plate, depending on the restaurant, right, you know, but I mean it was, i was counting, i was pinching every penny I could, and you know I don't do that as much anymore. I'm still trying to be a wise steward, right, and there's times that sometimes I'm not as wise as I should be, where I realize wait a minute, how much money I had to spend. I should probably track that, you know. So it's different in that sense. It's also different when you're work optional Because, for example, in my, in my line of work right now, what I'm doing here, i mean I don't have to be here, i don't have to be doing this interview, i don't have to be running my company Money Ripples And, and in fact we're even scaling Money Ripples, which, from a business perspective, when you start, when you already got to a place where the company's already self-sustaining, you don't have to do much with it, but then you want to scale it much bigger, it almost feels like you're starting over in business again. It's like, almost like you're, you're like back to work. And so you know my wife, who I've been married to now for six years. She's like you're working more hours than you ever have. You're almost full time, almost. You know you're like working, at least. You know sometimes 30, 40 hours a week, some weeks, another week's 10 or 20. Like that's. That's pretty excessive, you know, don't you think? Because when we first got married I was working five or 10 hours a week with a self-sustaining business. You know, and and that's the thing is that I mean one is when you become work optional. You know, in that sense, where you could just quit and retire or do whatever you think you have to ask yourself what would I do at that point. You know when with me, i can't just quit, i can't just not work, i can't just not do anything. It's actually depressing. I did that after we first got married. I was at the point where I was financially independent for the second time. I was 39 years old, was able to get out of that rat race again, even after going over a million dollars in debt, was able to get to the point where, again, i had enough passive income streams coming in that could quit my business. And and at that point, you know, we took a few months off. I went to travel to California and stay there for a few months and and then realized, like you know what I hate this, like I'm losing that fire. You know that fire for life, that purpose, that meaning, and I truly believe that we're all given time on this planet. You know that we'll have these God given abilities and talents and and circumstances and we're meant to use it. You know, it's like Spider-Man the great power comes, great responsibility, right. Same thing. And so for me, like I felt a duty, that, yeah, i could just live quietly and just enjoy my time with my family and just keep making money on my investments and such. But I just knew that I had something there. I have a gift to teach. Why not use that gift and use the money that I'm making to put it right back out to create a bigger megaphone? And that's really what I'm doing now. And so it gives me purpose, it gives me meaning. But, again, i'm doing it all by choice. I can shut it down at any moment. I don't want to say that too confidently because that might freak out the people that work for our company. But and they know it, i say it all the time They know that I'm here for a mission, not for as you know, in your like in case of a real stage, you're here for a mission, not for a commission, right? That's the big key.

Yeah, And that's amazing man, And that's so powerful And it shows often it's that ability to step away from whatever situation, that love, attachment, right, That gives you that much more power over life, over everything in front of you, because it's like you're not there for any reason other than you want to be there, And that just is so much more powerful. And it shows in sales as well. You could tell when someone doesn't need a commission and when someone does the commission breath they talk about all the time. So let me actually you mentioned several times in your story that you had enough passive income. I know you went, you became financially independent twice. So from both of your journeys on becoming financially independent, share with us, if you don't mind, like what were some of those vehicles that helped you get to the financial independence and help you design. You pretty much live your life by design and live the life that you wanted.

Yeah, i mean, the starting foundation is, like, you know, kind of you've seen, you know we have an ebook called the seven secrets free up cash today. You know beyond rice and beans that you know that kind of thing And in there, like, the very first thing I talk about is tracking your money, Like I mentioned about being a wise steward of your resources, of your money, and that kind of thing is really track your money, track the income that's coming in, track the money that's going out to, like track both sides of the equation. You know people that are in scarcity. Scarcity drives away money. Just so you know you can never become financially free and scarcity. Both spenders and savers live in a scarcity world. Neither of them can ever become financially free. Let me repeat spenders and savers can never become financially free. It's always taught to us by financial advisors in the media that savers are the winners, right. I mean, heck, even Dave Ramsey comes out and saying, like you know, dead is dumb, you know, and savers the winners, right. But I'm telling you, the poster children for Dave Ramsey end up coming to us saying we just got debt free. We have all this money we saved up in crappy mutual funds that lose money like 20% last year in the market. What do we do? Because we're not financially free. Dave lied to us, right, we can help you with that. And then they turn around. They become financially free, right, that's the kind of difference. And so savers and spenders don't become free, because spenders it's always easy come, easy go. They keep having to keep making more money, so they focus on income but ignore the money they're spending. The reverse is true of savers. This is the deception. Savers, yes, they hyper focus on what they spend but they kind of ignore the money they make. They don't really increase that side of the equation. Because you can only do one of two things increase income or decrease expenses. You can only decrease expenses so far before you're living in a cardboard box, and I don't recommend that. Right, you want to make sure that you're wise with your expenses, but also focus on how do you increase income. And the best way to increase income, the best way to be a wise steward of your money, is one to do both. Then two on the income side is to focus on one thing, and this is the principle that broke me free of what I learned as a financial advisor, which is dollars follow value dollars. Follow the value that you create for other people. Whether you work in a job as an intrapreneur, where you're working as an employee, or you're an entrepreneur working in your business, the key to always making more money and in fact, this is even the key to breaking inflation, no matter how high inflation gets the one way to always prosper at any time, no matter the economy, is to always focus on how do I create value for other people, where money is just the natural byproduct, it's the result, right Causes. Value effect is money, and the big. If you even go deeper, it's about how you go about serving people, solving problems or adding value in such a way that money comes back. Once I had made that focus which is funny because as a financial advisor, it was always about the win-lose scenario How do I, you know how do I make money? Well, i have to win, but that usually means my client loses. Well, the opposite has to be true. If I wanna be a benevolent financial advisor, i'm just gonna cut my commissions to almost zero and lose so that my client wins. So nobody really wins, right? Because then I had to be given crappy advice anyways, because I'm broke and I might even go out of business. It doesn't work right. It's about creating the win-win in people's lives. And when I started focusing on that and this is what happened to me in that 2006 time period, when I started to break free and before I got into investing specifically learning those principles of realizing, like wait a minute, how do I go about creating a win-win for people? How do I make sure that I'm helping give them what they want? and then, naturally, i'm gonna get what I want anyways. When I started having that focus on people that way, that's when everything became easy. That's when money became formulaic, it became predictable, it became easier Didn't mean that I didn't, you know, i could just do nothing, but it became very predictable, right? It became easy to figure out. So that right there, i mean so long with tracking your money. I guess I threw in a bonus there, which is one of those other seven points, which is increasing income. That really is a secret. Even when Warren Buffett says, increase your skills, that's what he's really saying is increase your skills so you're more valuable in the marketplace. Whether you work as an employee or you work as a business owner, increasing your skills and your ability to provide value for other people is the only way, the safest way, to be able to make the most return on your money. So, if you're just starting out especially, don't even worry about investing, because if you don't have at least, in my opinion, if you don't have at least $100, $200,000 to invest, don't even worry about it. Just focus on building up that cash, creating more value, increasing your income, because that velocity of money from that income that you're generating is that engine that will then will feed the money to create passive investments and passive income.

Yeah, so focus on one course until success, right? Focus yeah is the acronym, and let me ask you, because a lot of people that hear this advice it's oh man, i got like seven streams of income and they're getting like 10 bucks from each stream And it's like, yeah, you got seven streams of income, it's all right, but the acronym is really making you financially independent at all whatsoever And it's always thought that you have to have multiple streams of income. Everyone's always trying to start multiple side houses. We have like this side of household pandemic going on almost And it's not really benefiting most people. So let me ask you right, what are some of these skills that you would recommend people focusing on when they are looking to boost their value in the marketplace?

that could work across most industries, Yeah, you know that's a great question Because it depends on the industry you're in. I think it's part of it. I mean, if you're in a specialized industry, you want to become more of the expert in that industry, right. But that being said, just being the best doesn't mean that you'll be the one that gets paid the most. I learned from a coach early on. He was a marketing coach And he said he always said he said you're never in that business, right. Like, for example, i'm in the financial business. He's like you're not in the financial business. He said you're in the business of marketing that financial business, just like you as a real estate agent. You're not a real estate agent. You're in the business of marketing the real estate agency, right, that's really what you are. And if you think about that, like really everything and this isn't even true if you work as an employee. You know Meryl Streep I think he's Meryl Streep. He was going close one of those actors, right? They said that when they got into Hollywood it thought it'd be like college. You know, like whoever's the best Vespian, those are the ones that end up making it big in Hollywood. But what she found out was more like high school. You know, it's a popularity contest, right, And that's really what it is Like, and I'm not saying you have to try to focus on being the popular person or anything like that, but there's some truth to it, because even in my business, right, i know there's people out there that are bigger names than I am that suck, absolutely suck at getting their clients results. I mean, i don't want to name names because I don't want to trash on people, but there's people with some of the books I've even recommended that I say, right, read their book but never buy their crap. You know Like their stuff sucks, you know. But we pride ourselves on the fact that we get real results and that organically does grow and it does, you know, build, but you know it didn't have all the pomp and circumstance that maybe some of those nerd times bestselling authors got, even if they don't have the back end to actually create it for people. So, really, focus on that is how do I go about not just developing these skills, but some of your skills should be how do I actually promote me? How do I go about showing and teaching people how I can create value, right? So I think communication is a really, really big thing If it's not just marketing per se, communication. How do you communicate? You know how do you deal with the conflict. You know there's like those crucial conversations, books out there, right? You know great, you know great books to read to help you in sometimes those really tight spots. Your ability to clearly communicate the value that you offer is what allows you to be able to grow bigger. If you're ambiguous, if you don't really know what you offer, right, and I had that problem, i'll be honest. I mean, my problem was that growing, you know, especially in college and things like that, you know, i remember taking IQ tests and I had like a really high IQ but and I could, you know I can pass through college really easily without any problem. So I wasn't like the dropout that couldn't hack it in college. I was the guy that was like the model student that then dropped out. And the thing that was interesting is that, you know, i was a sociology major with a triple minor in psychology, ballroom dancing in Japanese, right, and people were like what the heck you know? but that's the thing I was kind of this renaissance man where I kind of I was good at a lot of things, even in high school. I hated it because I had above average GPA but not high enough to get a scholarship. I was above average athlete but not high enough to get a scholarship. I was like the guy that was always overlooked. You know, i was always like just good at a lot of things. Well, that sucks if you're trying to become specialized, but in business that's a gift. Right, because now being you know I don't have to be the best at everything because I can hire the best people, but being good at a lot of things allows me to be very versatile and allows me to adjust and flow. So I guess, coming back to your original question of what someone would learn or invest in, i guess we go back to my story, which is investing in what you're already good at. You know, don't focus just on your weaknesses, but focus more on what you're gifted at already, your strengths. Invest more heavily there, and then your ability to communicate that to other people or show or illustrate that value is what's gonna take off And that's what's helped me be successful in business and in life in general.

Yeah, that is such a solid advice because everyone always hear the saying right, a jack of all trades is the master of none, and they forget the full quote. It ends off by saying but still better than a master of one. And when you, as you said, in business, right, it comes into so many play. Because if you don't know how to do at least a slight you know understanding of the marketing or the sales or the, you know the finances or the research or whatever it may be. And when you do go to eventually hire out and any good entrepreneur knows that it doesn't matter if you want to scale to 100 million or trillion or whatever, you just want to have a, you know, a small business that takes care of your family and your loved ones, it's you're going to have to hire out. And eventually, if you want to build a sustainable business and a sustainable life, right, you're gonna have to hire out somebody, whether that's a VA, whatever it may be. And and if you don't know what you're hiring out for, you could get taken advantage of very easily. You can be overcharged very easily. You could have someone actually providing you bad work and you may think it's good work because it's better than what you could provide. But in the actual reality, comparison with the marketplace offers is not good. It was like knowing that. You know, knowing being able to dabble in different things give you that kind of well-roundedness that you need to just be, you know, give you an edge in as an entrepreneur and as a business owner, and it's something that I was very similar Like for me. I was, i was very good in school and sports rise I was also very good. Wasn't D1 talent? I wasn't a D1 prospect. I think I could ball with a couple of D1 cats honestly if you, if you ask anybody, they might say otherwise, but I think I could genuinely ball with some D1 cats honestly. But I went to college. I had a 378, same, similar to you. All I got was always good in school And I wasn't minoring as many things honestly. But while I was in school I was like, all right, i'm gonna a bunch of different things and just figuring out. Like, all right, how did this apply to anything And did it make sense? until I got into entrepreneurship And it's like, oh, i got all these unique perspectives So that when you are trying to run a business or something like that, your value just becomes so much higher because you have this unique perspective, so no one can really compare you to anyone else, because you're bringing someone that no one else is offering And because, as you have those diverse flavors kicking in from all these different areas and things like that, i kind of want to ask you right, so you focus on your skills. Right, you focus on tracking what's coming in, what's going out. What are some of the other tips that you leverage to help you again become financially independent? because I mean, with those two they could easily go out and make a ton of money. Right, just tracking what comes in or comes out and being a good steward and then honing down your skills. What are some other tips that you could advise young people like us to figure out so that we can have it easier than, maybe, what you had to go through?

Yeah, i mean learn about money, right, i mean we're talking about money already, but it really is about that and not to be self-serving, because there's lots of different places you go to learn about money. Books like Rich Dad Porter is a great book by Robert Kiyosaki. I mean that was a great one to learn and kind of open and expand your mind to look at things differently. Don't buy the crap, but it's a good concept, right. But I'll tell you, for example, with me. I was trained as a financial advisor. I was thinking I was getting good training but in reality it was just the same old crap that my dad taught me which got him his results. It's the same stuff that you hear in the media. you hear from everybody, even your well-intentioned family members or friends. They're all telling you the same thing. They're telling you pay off your debt. They're telling you to save early and save as much as you can and have it. take out of your paycheck, put it into your 401K plan and save it up until you're 60 plus years old, and then you should have something that should make you a multimillionaire. The reality is people aren't becoming multimillionaires with their 401Ks. The average 65-year-old today has about a quarter million dollars in there. I'm saying average, i really mean, it's literally the average, the mean, there's the mean, the average, and then there's the median person, the middle person. The middle person only got about 85,000 in their 401K. If you live on not the 4% they talk about, ignore the whole fire movement that's going on. the financially independent retire early. those guys are full of crap, bad concept. but they teach bad advice because they're telling you well, just build up as much as you can in your mutual funds, your savings and retirement accounts, and then you can live on 4%. Just know that 20 years ago we were already proving 4% wasn't working and that's already been proven by big banks already in the last several years saying, hey, the 4% rule is outdated. That's bad advice. If anything, at most 3%. So think about it. If you happen to be lucky enough to save up a million dollars in your retirement plan, you live on 3%. that's 30,000 a year. You're living below the poverty line as a millionaire. You're a broke millionaire, and just think what 30,000 is going to be worth in 30, 40, 50 years. right, it's going to be worth nothing. So don't follow the traditional path If you want to get the same results as every other average American today which is broke and worries about running out of money. keep doing that path, being Dave Ramsey-fied in the sense that you think Dave Ramsey's advice of no debt and saving up a mutual funds deal will work. it won't, because it never worked for any of my clients or clients inherited after decades of advice. It won't work for you either. Don't keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Instead, focus on things like alternative investments. These are things like real estate investing. Give you an example I did a comparison on my podcast. I have the Money Ripples podcast and on there I did a show talking about comparing the results of what I would have done in the S&P 500 versus what I would have done with my real estate property that I bought in Memphis, for example. And I bought that property. It was a four and a half year just timeframe from when I had purchased it And I compared that to the S&P at the same time, with the amount of money that I invested it was about 32,000 into that property. I put that in the S&P. I would have had a little shy of $50,000 after four and a half years. That was before the market tanked as much as it has now. So now it would be less. Now it would be like 40,000, which isn't too shabby, right, but that 32,000 is maybe well over $100,000 in that property, some of it in equity but a lot of it in cash flow. I cash flow about $6,000 a year from that 32,000. Do the math I'm making 18% a year, not counting tax benefits, not counting the fact that they're paying down my mortgage balance for me, which means I'm actually getting extra equity, and not even counting any appreciation. But you factor all those things together, i made roughly about 300% rate of return on my money versus would have been about 40% in the stock market. That's the difference, guys, those people, if you look at the real evidence. again, i like to come back to evidence. What actually works? What's integrity? Well, the real evidence is there's 25 million millionaires out there today. One thing they all have in common, if you look at different studies, is that nearly 100% of them have real estate in their portfolio, even if it's just their own house. But the one thing you won't see is that they all have 401ks, which isn't true, because a lot of them are business owners and a lot of them are real estate investors. If you have both, you have a much better odds of becoming a millionaire. But if you have those other alternative streams of income, come in from real estate. it doesn't have to just be rentals. Don't buy the one in your backyard, for example. All my properties are outside of the state I live in because I'm in different pockets where the cash flow is better. I can invest anywhere in the United States. By the way, that number that 300% came from a property that I don't personally manage. There's a property manager doing the work for me, so I'm passive. I'm actually hands off on that. Not to mention, i've got oil and gas investments. I've got land that's being sold and stuff. I'm making like 48% return a year on that. I've got different investments going and doing different things apartment buildings, all that stuff. You can invest in those things without a financial advisor. In fact, a financial advisor will never tell you to do it because they don't make commissions off of you investing in those things. They make commissions off of you when you're making the crappy S&P 500, which is only average in the last 30 years. 7.6% is the real return of the S&P, but my properties minimum. Many of my investments are making at least about 10% a year. So you know, financial advisor can kiss my butt Like I. will take his butt all day long and I'm wealthier than him. Even no matter how much money he makes in commissions, we'll still make more, because my investments will actually grow, while theirs don't.

Yeah, i love that you mentioned that man. It's one of those things where I miss one guy that I interviewed. He was actually my first guest that I interviewed on Riverside and he was Sean. He worded it a lot better, but he said something along the lines of I eat what I cook without throwing up, and pretty much what he was saying. He worded it a lot better than I did. Pretty much what he was saying is that the stuff that he preaches, that he practices, is stuff that he still does in a day to day and stuff that he does and does very well, does very successfully on in a day to day. It's not just something he's seen on a fire blog or seen on a day in the radio and Z podcast episode. It's like he's really living out the stuff that he talks about. I love that you mentioned the part about real estate and business ownership and, like my four pillars here for this podcast is mindset, personal finance, entrepreneurship and real estate, because it really well, i mean for the latter two, it's like no matter who you talk to, who you go to, where you go to, what investor meetup you're at, it's like real estate and business ownership will always be in the conversation some way shape or form and you can't get around it, so you might as well get in it, and it's one of the things that I'm looking to get into once I start growing this and start growing my marketing stuff that I got going on, because it's like, as you said, the benefits, everything inside. There's so much more, but for the time being, i'm investing in the SME 500. And so I get to that point and investing and growing myself and growing my skills, because there's no better return on investment than in myself, especially at this stage in my life. Chris, you dropped some amazing nuggets this entire conversation. What can we catch up with you at? What could connect with you? We wanted to find out what you got going on and learn more about you know, the stuff that you have up are coming.

Yeah, you always go to moneyripplescom. Our website's got lots of resources and free tools on there. You can also just check out any of our stuff on social media. We got Instagram, TikTok, you know money, even our YouTube channels all at Moneyripples. So you know, definitely check that out, Check out our podcast especially Amazing And Chris.

That's time for the famous five questions where we ask every single podcast Guys. Question number one what is the most impactful lesson you've learned in life?

You know, i think that the most impactful lesson is always about service, right? Like? how do you show up serving people, helping people? It doesn't matter if I get paid or not, like it always comes back to whose life have you blessed? you know, what have you done with the blessings you have? How are you blessing more lives? That's why we're called the company Moneyripples right, it's that ripple effect you're trying to create through people's lives by prospering, and as you prosper, you help prosper more lives too.

What is the most admirable trait a person can have?

I would say, in my opinion, and love, you know, i think that's the most admirable trait is someone who has genuine, sincere love of people you know, and that you know that service stems from that love. I mean even being patient, right? I mean how much man, with all the crap you're seeing in the social media and stuff, like we need a lot more love, don't we? I mean we got so many judgmental like better than earlier than thou. He says a crap out there, you know, like make comments in them. I'm sure they're good people in real life, but they obviously got anger issues. But if someone can like release that anger and just feel love for other people, i mean man, it would be so much more fun to be in this world today, you know.

If you had to change someone's life at one book, which book do you recommend?

Oh man, Okay, we take out like the Bible, you know, we take out like the Holy Scriptures and stuff. You know. I'd probably say you know I'm going to change. I actually had an answer and I'm going to change it. I went back. I'm actually going back to my very first personal development book that ever read, which was called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. That was actually. It's one I haven't read for a while, but it's a good one. I think it's even better than Rich Dad, poor Dad, because there's a lot of life application there. And, heck, it's even better than Atlas Shrugged, which I love as a fictional book. I mean that's my favorite is Atlas Shrugged by Enron, but no, i mean I think How to Win Friends and Influence People is a great one. What is the legacy that you're trying to be buying? You know kind of what I already mentioned. You know like I want to leave a footprint behind that. It wasn't, it's bigger than me. You know that. You know one. I leave a legacy behind that people actually give a crap by other people who actually want to do something to bless lives, like I mentioned about that money ripples. I mean that really came because you know, i recall, you know, when you know early on and when I started to really understand a lot of this cashflow and passive income stuff I was teaching it. I remember there was a chiropractor out of North Dakota that he was working six days a week, working his tail off, and he never got to see his wife and kids and we were able to free up without him, and even investing. We actually helped him free up $6,000 a month of cashflow in this situation. The first $6,000 they freed up he bought a four-wheeler for $6,000, which would have pissed off people like Dave Ramsey or financial advisors, right. But his wife, she has like tears starting to stream down her face. She tells me she's like Chris, you understand that four-wheeler was the best investment ever because now he has permission to take off Saturdays. He doesn't work Saturday anymore, he even takes off some Fridays and we have the whole weekend where he actually focuses and has energy for us as a family. He's like I have my husband back, my kids have their father back And for me that touched my heart so much that I was like I want that. That's bigger than just them, because it shows his kids a new path, it shows them a new legacy. It creates something different in the community because, as they're blessed financially, they can stop looking internally, being so selfish, focus on their own needs and they can look at other people's needs and help other people and serve more people in their community, the country and across the world. That's the kind of ripple fact I'm here to create. That's why I don't retire, that's why I keep going, even if it pisses off my wife sometimes. I'm still doing it because that's the legacy I want to leave behind, where it's not just me doing that, but other people feel the same duty, responsibility to leave the world a better place than how they arrived in it 100%, man.

It's one of the things that your calling doesn't stop for anyone wife, your kid, cat, family, whatever. We all have been called to do something. It's very glad to hear that you've been able to find yours and you're still going. And to finish off, If someone wanted to embark on their walk 12 today, what is the first step you would recommend they take?

Follow those that are also on that path, even they're just barely ahead of you. I'll tell you, the best mentors sometimes are only just a half or two steps ahead of you. They may just barely be there, they may not even be where you want to be, but they might just get you to the place where you need to be to then find the next mentor, the next mentor and so on. I think that's the best thing is. You mentioned it already about people that eat their puke or whatever Ever that phrase has said. I say it as this is that follow those people that have been there, done that and still doing it today. Those are the best leaders to follow. Find those people and then follow those footsteps. You can still forge your own path and do it your own way, but take those basic principles that they're following and the way that they think and how they see the world. Adopt that and then follow in that direction.

Amazing Chris, i had an amazing time interviewing today. You dropped a lot of. I know we took a little bit of a deep tangent in the beginning, but you dropped a ton of amazing nuggets and you have such a powerful story. Thanks again for hopping on and just providing the value that you did, man.

It's been such an honor. I really appreciate you having me on today.