Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign welcome to wealth on Main street where conversations about growing your wealth are fun and entertaining. Wealth isn't just about money. It's the skills and the knowledge that we develop to pass on to future generations. Tune in each week to to grow your mindset and your net worth at the same time.
So who exactly is your millionaire mentor? Well, we're joined by one today. We have Christina Wise with us on the program. Excited about that she's been named one of the hundred most influential real estate leaders in the United States. She's a millionaire coach and creator of several multimillion dollar businesses. She's also an international speaker and an award winning author for the Amazon bestseller Falling for Money. It's essentially a romance novel for your bank account, which is kind of interesting. Excited to unpack some of your journey today. Christina, thanks for being on the program with us.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Amazing. Now you know you've been involved around finances for some time. You help people in a lot of areas.
Before we hit the go button, you're talking about an amazing course that you're about to launch an online platform and you have a very incredible story. Now a lot of this goes back to some epic events that happened to you back in 2013. You almost had to recreate your life a little bit. So maybe that's a great starting point to kind of introduce you to our audience and what really transpired for you back at that stage of life.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a big turning point for me that this is a turning point that has me teaching and talking about money. That given if you'd given me a crystal ball in 2012 and I'd had some fairy godmother that says with a hundred percent accuracy you're going to be teaching money, inspiring millions of people with money, helping women with money, talking about money, all these things, money. I'd have been saying, I'd have said you're a joke. This is the most ridiculous thing. I lead the real estate industry. That's where, that's what I do. Who am I to talk about money? So yeah, 2012, 2013 wasn't in the, the books, the cards whatsoever. But I got really sick and the kind of, the where it started was funny enough. Funny kind of, I don't know, funny, haha. Just funny how the mysterious universe works is that I was actually speaking on a real estate stage and this was the top like 800 real estate leaders in the country. A lot of tech, a lot of tech names we know in real estate. And I Was just very well known to time. I was talking about tech disruption, the future of the real estate industry, what we needed to do, provide for brokers and agents and just all the things. And so I was on stage, and I was a keynote speaker, and to be invited to this group is a big deal. To be on the stage of this group is a bigger deal. To keynote this deal was like the big deal of all big deals. So, as you can imagine, it was. I was very honored and very nervous. And so I practiced my speech and my talk and rehearsed it and wrote it and rehearsed it. So I'm on here performing basically in front of all these people as their opening keynote. And I was like a Broadway play. I mean, I hit every mark, I made every joke. I did all the pauses. And I'd never done anything like that before because I knew that if I succeeded at this speech, game over. Like, I'd made it to the top. But this was kind of that final thing that I could kind of name my price and do what I wanted to do, and I did it. So about 90% of the way through this thing made it through practically the whole talk. All of a sudden, my body paralyzes.
I can't move, and I'm standing just, like, with my arms down in my head. Imagine if y'all ever had a dream where you want to scream to wake yourself up, but you can't scream.
That had happened in my head, and I couldn't move. And at the same time, I heard this screeching sound. Imagine a train going full blast and hitting the brakes.
Screech. That was going through my ears.
So it's just crazy now. I think it only lasted, like, 30 seconds. It felt like a lifetime in my head.
But the speech was so rehearsed that I think the audience, if it had gone on much longer, they probably wonder what was going on. A little awkward, but I snapped out of it, finished my speech, and actually kind of forgot about it. I mean, it's kind of that fast in the sense that. Because afterwards there's a break. I mean, I kid you not, People are trying to get my autograph. They're asking me for how they get in touch me, how they book me, and I'm high adrenaline. And in my head, this is. You can't make this up. In my head, I said, christina, girlfriend, you start in a trailer home, you are homeless, all these things, and you have made it to the top. You can name your price.
This is. Everything you've done was for this Moment. The future is bright from here.
Within 48 hours, I couldn't speak, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't get out of bed. I completely deteriorated and I just unraveled. So just kind of, I hit the highlight and then game over. And my body was just, it just basically gave up. So lots of things happened. But what happened on stage is I had a tia which is a stress stroke that I just been pushing myself for so long and running marathons and in building this multimillion dollar business. And we were kind of one of the fastest growing companies. And as entrepreneurs, I think everybody listening can relate to this story. And more was never enough. It was always more, always bigger, always better, always more successful. I was never satisfied. I was, everything was always too slow. So I had 50 employees at the time. I had like, or executives. And so that was the starting point of the story.
And the interesting thing about that story is that I had hustled for 10 years to, I think the business was maybe 5 or 6 million at the time. So I spent 10 years starting with nothing to build. This business gave everything and I'm just. That story. I traded my health for wealth. I just thought my body was something I can just like a, a tool I could use to push, push, push. And I, I did. And good it served me until the day my body had no juice left in it. And I was, you know, I didn't, I didn't know, I said stressed out. I thought, I'm not stressed. I'm like, it's cool as a cucumber, but you know, so much stress, you know, guys making payroll. And I mean it was just, it's crazy times when you're really growing a company fast. And, and so what happened was within nine months of me having this business and it was starting to pay. I mean it was paying me. I was making, I was paying myself seven figures into my personal bank account that last year. So it was, it was profitable. It was a nice seven figure profit. Within nine months. It went from that to where I was paying my business to keep it going because I wasn't in it. I was focused on my health and I couldn't, I couldn't finish the sentence. My brain basically thistled. It broke. It, it just, it gave up through the stroke. So I mean I went through years of building my brain back. That's another story. But the whole thing there is that I spent 10 years on this thing that when I needed it, it let me down, it needed more of me. And that's where I'm Just like this whole entrepreneurial thing is kind of a joke. Like, I did all the right things. I would have got the Gary Vanderchuck T shirt. Like, I was entrepreneur of entrepreneurs in this total, you know, rags to riches success story. But it. It was. I was never happy. I was always stressed. I never had a break. My business owned me, and I didn't own my business. So that. That was that. No, I on the side, that was publicly, and that was my public identity. And everybody knew me in the industry. I mean, I was actually rockstar famous in my industry.
On the side, I was just buying some houses in real estate because I loved real estate. And I'd flip some deals and I'd do that, but that was just private. Nobody knew I did it. Nobody knew I owned real estate. Because my whole focus and public identity was we as entrepreneurs, our faces are everywhere, says people. How people identified me. So interestingly enough, what happened was what saved my ass when I was sick, it wasn't my business.
It was the fact that I had some assets over here, and I was actually able to sell one piece of real estate that paid, you know, I was able to pull out a quarter million dollars. My business took money. I didn't. My business wasn't worth anything. It didn't have a quarter million dollars sit there that I could take from it. My real estate, sable, see, save one, it took me, you know, close to half a million dollars by the time it was all said and done. But it also is providing some passive cash flow that allowed me to pay a lot of my bills while I was trying to get healthy. And that's where this. You would think maybe I'd be smart enough that I'd kind of gone in with that intention in the first place. But I was just focused on my business. It was by accident, pretty much, that I'd been doing this thing on the side that saved me. So that just coming out of that whole thing, you know, once I took two years to build my brain back and to get healthy, and there's a number of other things that went wrong at the, you know, the time I had to fix. But it just woke me up to say, like, entrepreneurship isn't about hustle and chase and grinding and burning ourselves back and always in the game of more and what's next and never.
I mean, there's an enough number. There's. There's. We need to get to a place of satisfaction. How much is enough? And what are we willing to sacrifice and trade for success? And what are we not willing to sacrifice and trade. So that's where all those dark lessons that I learned out of that experience and coming out of it, I was like, I want to teach life and money through a different lens. It life, money, entrepreneurship through a different lens. And so here we are today.
[00:10:05] Speaker C: I love that. And it reminds me of a couple of things that Dan Sullivan, you know, shared for myself personally back in 2022 at one of our quarterly sessions, Dan said, he said, you know, Jason, you could have all of the financial objectives and pursuits, but you just simply, if you don't have your health, you won't have the time to get all of those pursuits done. You won't be able to make those things achievable realities if you don't have your health. And I was about 60 pounds heavier than what I am today. And the families that I talk to now who come from similar backgrounds, like, we have 12 companies in our family group of businesses. And I know your journey, I know the path that you've taken. And the families that I speak to with similar backgrounds who have come to that realization that health, family, financial security, in that exact order, is what's most important.
And I remind myself daily now I just have a little in my home gym, I've got a sign that just reminds me, focus on health, family, financial security. Everything else is just a distraction.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: It really is. And, and it is that order. It's. I absolutely agree. It's that order. And to add on to that, it's, it is health, family as what we want to hold up, the financial freedom, this financial security, and then on that, that just is the foundation that holds that up. So it's for the sake of these things.
Money likes to be all, end all. And then we squeeze in the family and we squeeze in the health and we squeeze in these other things, thinking, if I just have enough money, those other things will work themselves out or I'll worry about it later. It's like, no, when the focus is wellness, when the focus is fulfillment, when the focus is families, part of fulfillment. So wellness and fulfillment and knowing money is a big is a part of that equation. But the aim is having a good life is the wellness piece. And the money is just there to pay for the cost of what it costs to live that life. And that's different for everybody. So I absolutely agree, and I'm probably going to butcher this. Let's see if I can somewhat remember it. But it's something like the man that has his health, has a million opportunities or dreams, and then the Person that doesn't have their health has one opportunity and one dream, which is get the health back.
[00:12:40] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: I mean I'm, I promise you that's true. That we hear these things like a nice quote, you know, if I wouldn't have butchered it. That's a nice quote. We hear the things like if we're on our deathbed, we're not going to care about that cell, that extra sale or something. We're going to want our family.
I was there. I'm telling anybody listening it is true. I didn't care about my business, I didn't care about my money, I didn't care about my fam.
All I wanted was my health back. All I wanted is be able to think again, to go for a walk again, to be able to sit at the dinner table again. That's all that those little things is what's mattered. It wasn't about being on the stage again. So yeah, it's like we hear these things. It's like, it sounds like nice, but it's, it's true 100%.
[00:13:24] Speaker C: And when you think of all the business experience that you've developed, all the ventures that you've grown, what are, what would you say are some of the core, like non negotiable principles that you take with you regardless of the venture? What, what core principles come along with you?
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's a good question. I, I think that you know where the mindset that I like to teach maybe first before principles is just to have clarity of. I believe it starts with two pieces. One is the philosophical life piece which is as adults is asking ourselves the question, especially married adults, especially married adults with kids or thinking of having kids. I think the first step is to really get clarity on what is a good life versus just chasing the money and thinking we're going to buy some life based on how much money we have is getting that clarity. And to your point, Jason, is like family and health and, and where do we live and what's good enough and, and if it never got better than this and we got to sit down at the dinner table and we got to go to Disneyland or take one trip per year and if we live pretty simple in this type of environment and we could eat organic food and, and we, I could attend my kids games and whatever, whatever that looks like and just getting real with that, not in pretending that there's no world out there that's going to judge us, whether our dream is big enough or good enough, that it's just ours. And there's nobody else out there that we have to measure up against 100% and just get clarity on that. But it answers the question what is my good life like? What does it look like on a day to day, kind of month to month annualized basis and get as close as we can right now. It'll evolve and change over time probably. But then the second piece is how much does it cost to live it?
And that's just getting clear. Okay, my life, maybe your life is, I don't know, a hundred thousand a year. And, and Mike, you're, I mean Richard, your definition is I need 250 a year. And let's say mine's I need 500. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. 75. We can all determine what the cost of our good life is. And then the money then it's about creating and building two financial engines. The first financial engine is the engine is if most of us are entrepreneurs is what type of business do I need to build that's going to be able to create that type of money that's going to pay for my life. And so it's a different business strategy. If my life is a million dollars a year, my it pays. It's a million dollars to pay for the cost of my fancy schmancy lifestyle then that's a certain business size that's going to come with certain trade offs. Maybe you know, it is a $5 million business like I had. I sacrificed a lot for my $5 million business and it was only 5 million. It wasn't a 50 million or a hundred million. It was only a $5 million business. And that $5 million business owned me. I was always on a plane, I was always on the phone on vacations. I somebody was always calling me. I was never completely cut off from my business. There was always something, some stressor going on. So I missed a lot of my kids games. I missed a lot of dinner table conversations. I sacrificed my health. I mean all the things there was a trade off for that amount of money and fame and things.
Now to go Jason, a little bit to your question. When I got a do over I got take my mulligan of life. It's like I just want a lifestyle business that if it's. But here my, here are my rules. I want to be able to be location independent. I want to be able to be able to do my business online and not have to be on a plane. I want to have fewer than five employees. And so I just created this thing Because I didn't want the trade offs of being on a plane all the time. I didn't want the trade offs of all these things. I used to have to trade for that big growing business and it needs to make this certain amount of money. So then what I did was I went and like figured out a business model and created a business that could throw off the amount of money I needed along with hitting those, you know, like I said, those constraints that I, those boundaries I put around it. And that's what my business is today. It's not even close to a $5 million business, but it creates enough money that meets my definition of a good life for all the things that I'm not willing to sacrifice anymore. So that's part one. That's the, the financial piece. Number one is you have to build a business that's going to create enough money that's going to pay for your life, the lifestyle. The second piece is, is that we also have to, you know, I know I'm speaking to the choir to everybody, you know, you two and then everybody listening, but we also have to build that, that protection and we have to build the financial security, the financial security, not just the, from our business, it pays for our lifestyle. That's just piece one of money. But we have to, like you said, we have to build that financial security. We have to build in that future financial freedom. We have to build in the protection, we have to build in the banking system. If we don't want to depend on the normal banking system, we have to build that separately, which is more represented on our balance sheet versus our profit and loss. But to build towards creating that financial security is having cash and knowing that, you know, if things go wrong, like Facebook shuts you down, like in my case, I can still pay my bills, you know, the, the financial security piece and then moving towards the financial freedom. We all know financial freedom means that the money, the passive income or kind of passive income from our assets, the cash flow from our assets pays for our lifestyle versus the cash flow from our business. So we're just working on those two financial engines while we're, we're working. And again, we can quantify those. How much money is enough? How much money does it cost to live my life? How much money do I need to save and invest to be able to pay my premiums for my whole life insurance? To be able to buy real estate in my case, or to be able to buy whatever I'm going to buy? This is going to set me up for my financial future so one day I can be financially free. Or some people call it retirement. So anyway, that's, that's kind of the frame that I, I think through things now in the way I teach it. And it just starts, like I said, to just goes back with what is a good life, what does it cost to live it and how much is enough.
[00:20:00] Speaker C: That is amazing.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: Fantastic. And the rules that you have in place make total sense. I think a lot of people will resonate with the simplicity of those rules and getting clear on a couple of key elements. A couple of key elements so that you can build your life around what those keys are. I think that's really powerful. And you mentioned the word foundation a couple of times, Christina. And not only the business structure, the thing, you know, Nelson Nash used to, you know, would say that everyone's in two businesses. The first business is the one in which creates your income. So whether that's a W2 or a T4 employee, someone that's working for someone else's business and happy doing that, or you've got your own business structure, whatever that is, it's the one that's generating your income. As you identified, what income do you need to make that functional for the good life? Business number two is the one that finances everything that you do for a living, the banking business. And people don't realize that they're already in the banking business. They just don't own and control a lot of it. And that's really where setting that foundation that you identified I think comes into play. So it's kind of a two pronged approach and it's a simultaneous approach at life financially to accommodate life the way you want to live it. Is that a fair way of kind of summarizing what you identified?
[00:21:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny. I'll tell a little story with Nelson Nash since, you know, that's what you guys do. And I don't know, I think Richard, maybe I mentioned the story to you, Jason. I don't know if you've heard it but. So I had this friend that we were kind of, you know, young, young versions of us, younger versions. And we were just like both very success motivated and younger entrepreneurs. And we'd meet semi regularly and, and talk about what we're doing and how our business is doing and all the things. And a lot of people don't like to talk about money. So he's one of my money friends where we could actually sit down and be really truthful and talk about this taboo subject. So anyway, he gave me this book he said, christina, you need to read this book called Be youe Own Banker, Become youe Own Banker by Nelson Nash. And so this changed my life. Yeah, there we go, that one becoming, becoming your own baker. So, and he gave it to me and I get back to my office or home or wherever and I just laid it down. It sat on my desk for like three or sat somewhere in a pile for like three or four years. I never. He'd ask me about it, be like, yeah, I'll get to it, get to it. He's like, christina, you have to read this book. But I just so busy building my business. And so finally I was flying to a trip, San Francisco from Austin, Texas. And I was, I was. Back then they didn't have TVs on the back of your seat, so you brought books to read. That's what you did when you sat on a three hour flight. So I was looking, I didn't have any books. I'm like, ah, hell, I'll pull, I'll bring this become becoming your own banker book because I promised Darren that I would read it. And it's been sitting there. So that was my, my, my reading material. That's all I had. I wouldn't have chosen it had I had a better book sitting on my table, my desk somewhere. So. But I needed something to read. I didn't want to sit there just, you know, staring out the window for three hours. So I picked up the book, I read it on the way to San Francisco once. It's not that hard to read. I read it again on the way back and it just, that was like one of those life changing books. It just changed the way I thought. I'm like Christina Wise, why did you wait four years to read that damn book? And you know, that started everything from there. But talk about a life changing book and just changing perspective. I think there's only been a few books that have just radically changed like the way I see things, financially speaking. And one, we just know our all time favorite like think and grow rich from a young age. Second one was Rich dad, Poor dad. And the third one was becoming your own banker. It's like those three books, they kind of, you know, fit together in a, in an awkward sort of way. But I just like to say like that book was life changing for me. And I'm not in the insurance industry, I'm not even in the finance industry really. But just from a personal point of view now I teach a lot of those principles just through woven in, you know, how I teach Money mindset in general. But again it's just such a powerful way to think. That's very uncommon.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: It's interesting you identify that because given the circumstance that happened to you, you know, the timeframe, you know we're going back 2013, you would have read the book a little bit before that on that airplane. So you probably move forward and you know, as a high quick start individual you would have moved forward with implementation and so you would have had something going, something set up for yourself prior to the unfortunate health circumstance that occurred to you in 2013. Is that a fair assessment?
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. It was probably just starting it like really getting starting to do some small whole life policies. But even when I got sick I lost everything. I, I mean I didn't file bankruptcy but I mean to save my life and my health care was so expensive and my business went under, I think I couldn't afford my premiums and different things. So I kind of started over from a white slate financially speaking after that. But right after when I got back on my got again I started do policies and set up policies for my kids and did that so sadly like anybody listening, do whole life insurance when you're really young and just keep doing it your whole life. I, you know I, I wish I would have started much earlier for obvious reason but the way I use whole life today, even getting a later start but, but I've, you know I've got a pretty decent, I mean I think I've. Right now my cash value is up to about half a million. So not small, not huge probably what you guys are used to but, but I use it and so you know it grows obviously it grows year over year. Might, might be probably when my premium it probably go up six figures again. But it's just been such a great tool is that especially I've made so much money in a very short period of time because I had to build everything back in the last, you know, decade and I just didn't start making money and getting things right away. So let's just say in seven or eight years using tools like the knowledge that I've gained and tools like whole life and real estate and stuff. I've been able to build an eight figure net worth again in a relatively short period of time. But it's using things like whole life like really understanding it and, and you know I borrow against, I borrow against. I'll give you an example. I live in Park City, Utah and the last I just bought investment. I closed on this investment property 12 months ago. Yeah, 12 months ago in October. And you know it's a multi, it was a, it was a multi offer situation because it's a great property, just a rare property. I saw it and I was able to basically pay cash for it through life insurance. So I just did a cash offer. So I got.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Your offer was accepted because you could control the terms of the offer and.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: I could close in seven days. Like it took me four days to get at the time I only needed for this one I think is like three or four, like 360,000 if we want to be more accurate. So I needed $360,000 for this, to put this cash down. And there were, I was doing the seller financing piece on the back end, how I structured it for like a couple months, blah blah, blah. But I was able to just within four days be able to say hey, here's cash up front. Pulled it out and then was able to pick up the rest of the cash, close it and then pay everything back. So it's just having access to that to be able to win a deal for example and that, you know, I was able to make three or four hundred thousand dollars on that one deal by buying it right. And doing all the things. But, but it was just having access to liquidity without going to the banking system.
[00:27:40] Speaker C: Does that sound familiar, Richard? So our, our late mentor, this gentleman here who's with us, we think about him every single day. Blessed beyond the definition of good fortune to be mentored by him from so many years. He often said that when you have ready access, capital opportunities of high caliber will track you down.
Here's a sharp example.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: And yeah, and I've done that several times. I mean that's just the latest one and, and then you know, I'll just, yeah, just. It's great for bridge loans. It's great. I'll give another example that I just used it is that my 27 year old son, he's building credit and doing all the things and he goes to buy a car. So here again, again, true stories. These are, I just love these great stories. So he goes to a bank to try to get a car loan to just buy little a $13,000 Subaru. So that's what he's buying. And so he goes to the bank, the bank turns him down because he doesn't have credit. He's not, he's establishing his credit and is a used car. You have to go through the. So he said mom, would you co sign for this car for me? I didn't want to do it because my kids are adults, they need to be on their own type of thing is kind of the way I feel about that. But he went through all this stuff and it wasn't because of any bad stuff. He just, they just weren't going to loan him this thing. So I'm like sure, I'll co sign. So I tried it. This is $13,000. Like I could pay it off in you know, by just doing a quick transfer, right? But this is his car, he needs to do it. I go just to cosine.
I didn't qualify because of the way I do my taxes, everything, all my Money's hidden in LLCs and whole life and I mean all the things that we know, I mean it was laughable. And again I write off everything on my taxes which I maybe shouldn't do. I kind of preach against that. But in this case I did and they just wanted and then I did. I could have forced myself to qualify. If I want to go do all this paperwork and go through years of stupid for thirteen thousand dollar loan. I mean I'm like are you effing kidding me? This is such a stupid joke. Like look at my bank accounts. Are you idiots? Like you're not gonna co sign?
I mean I just, I couldn't get my. It's been so long since I went to went through the normal banking system and so finally I'm like what am I doing? So I just told my son, I'm like I'm just going to go to my whole life, I'm going to create a contract between you and me. I'm going to be your bank and here's the loan terms and we did it and I did a little four year loan with them and I think he pays me $253 a month and I just, and it took me, I don't know, not even 24 hours to get my money out of my whole life and do this and get him the money and he bought the car.
I mean that's just a silly example. But I mean this is, it's just having control of your own life in your hands and not have to deal with this stupid ass banking system. I could imagine if it was $2 million or $200,000, but $13,000, when I have, you know, 20x that sitting in one bank account, they can look at, let alone the other bank accounts. I'm just like this is so asinine.
[00:30:52] Speaker C: Welcome to the world.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: And on and on and on about these things. But that's another recent example.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: I'M really glad you shared that example. First off, it's very comical, number one. But number two, it's like the degree and the level to which you can see the emotional connection to the hoops that you're forced to jump through just to be able to do a lesson fundamentally for your own kid is astronomical. And you can see it. So Anyone watching on YouTube, like you can visually see just the experience. And I've gone through that experience, Jason, I know that you've gone through that experience. Most of the entrepreneurs that we know have been through that experience.
The what is, what value do you place on that experience? And I think this is where the people get focused on things like what a spreadsheet can show you. You know, you're, you're buying a real estate deal, you look at the Performa, what's the ROI on this deal? And, well, it depends on how you, how you lay the ROI out. You know, sometimes a spreadsheet can be very misleading, but we're only looking at a static implementation of numbers. What do the numbers actually mean in reference to how much work you got to do? Or what's the value proposition? It goes back to the good life you're talking about Christ. And so all of that experience you identified is this experience leading me to the good life I was seeking. Probability is not let's just solve it the way that we want to solve it.
But going through those steps, it really amplifies the power and the importance of what control really means and what is the value that we place on control.
[00:32:22] Speaker C: Richard, you're so correct.
I, I was just dealing with. And Christine, I'd love to get your, your insight on this, given that with your experience and with everybody that you've, you've met along the way. So I was invited recently there were a couple of financial professionals who wrote an article to, to critique the infinite banking concept. And a colleague in the industry reached out to me and said, hey, I think you would be the best who to provide some insight and to help clarify maybe some things in this article. And I said, yeah, I'd be honored to do that. And so credit to these financial professionals. They didn't rush to go and publish something. They really genuinely wanted to reach out to somebody who, who knows a thing or two about the process.
And the entire article was comparing dividend paying whole life insurance to investment portfolios. It had nothing to do with controlling how you finance the things that you need throughout your lifetime. It had nothing in the article that described anything remotely close to what Christina just Shared. And so Christina, what comes up for you when you hear me sharing that?
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Oh, well, a myriad of different thoughts and feelings but you know, just goes back is that it's a big rig system out there and if you don't understand the game and you don't understand the system and you don't understand the rig, you're going to be mercy to it. And that's just part of the rig system and you know, information to try to convince somebody that's leaving out other information that we know how that works. So yeah, I mean money is not easy. It's the reason why I, I'm a money educator and I like to tell a lot of stories and I'm my. I'm an example of starting with nothing, making a bunch of money, losing it all. Making a bunch of money again, losing it all because I have a health crisis that, you know, I've been through every part of the money journey and total mindset stuff along the way. But it's, it's why I wanted teach money just in a very easy to understand way without complimented vehicle compl. Complicated. Understand complicated vehicles and all these different things that all these money gurus are talking out there because it just makes money very confusing and then people get paralyzed. If we, if things are confusing, we do nothing. And when we can just get to this, understand the game, understand the system, understand just the, the simple financial principles and rules that we must follow, a few tools or instruments or vehicles that can help us get to where we want to go, then money's actually pretty easy. I mean really, you need to spend less than you make. You need to invest a certain part of that money to be that for growth, which I did. Real estate did. Well in real estate people put it other places you need to have a place to store cash and have liquidity or access to liquidity. And so that's a great place without it being in the banking system necessarily. So that's where whole life is really great for that cash piece. You need protection. Especially as we grow our businesses and we grow our net worth and we grow the value of our family, we need to protect it. So there's protections through, through entities and how we set up our entities, there's. We do protection through life insurance. So whole life is great for life insurance. It's. And it actually pays out. So you know, there's, there's guaranteed payout. So that's nice to have if you want to do something for your kids and that type, you know, that type of thing. But life insurance if something happens, the family's covered. And it's less about legacy life insurance, less about legacy, and more about if somebody dies. We don't want to leave our family in a really terrible place. That's why life. So whole life does that. And then there's the legacy piece. And so if you don't want to, you know, use all your money and die broke, which, you know, there's, there's, that's okay too, meaning you, you use every last dollar while you're alive. But if you want to leave legacy, the whole life is going to have that payout. So that's nice to have. And then again, when we're really looking at other things like tax structure and how to save money and how to keep more money through just simple tax planning, nothing crazy. Whole life is a really good vehicle for that and so is real estate. So for me, this real estate and whole life has really been this one, two punch of wealth and growth creation with protection, with legacy, with tax strategy, all built into these things. And then, you know, I can use one to, to help the other. So long answer to your question that. And it's that simple. I started a trailer home. I had a really, a really bad education. I mean, I had a teeny tin. My entire town, I think was 3,000 people or something like school. We didn't learn much. And then I went to Arizona State. That's a party school. That's not where you go for academics. So I'm just saying that I am no smarter than the very average person out there. And I need to keep things simple and without having any advantages, without being any smarter than the next person, without with understanding very little about stocks and investing. In the grand scheme of things, I've ended up pretty rich. And it's just because of the things we've talked about. Very simple. Nothing rocket science, but like you said, it's a quick start. It's learning. Take action. Learning, take action, Take some risk, follow, make a move. And I think at the end of the day, it's about do you take action or not?
[00:38:25] Speaker A: I love one of the things you identified as the 1, 2, punch, the real estate and the whole life. And what comes to my mind, other than a picture of Mike Tyson literally making the punch, is that from a boxing standpoint, you can't be effective in the ring or in the boxing, in the sport if you don't have good combinations. You can't just have one punch and win the match. You need a combination of punches. So what you're talking about is a combination of financial punches that can help amplify both through protection, a little bit of defense and offense as you go through the life financially and it provides you that protection. And I really think that's a great analogy in what you've described both from your own personal stories and circumstances. And that's something relatable to our listeners and people who are thinking about, how do I want to attack my life financially and what way do I want to be able to do that? Well, you need to create some combinations and how you punch through life. And this is a way that you can go about doing that. In your case, real estate, you could replace real estate with some other financial vehicle, growth oriented vehicle. But you need to have that other punch available for when life comes at you and you can dodge through it and you can effectively manage that whole process. So I think that's a phenomenal analogy.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I, me too. Thank you. I like the combination.
[00:39:49] Speaker C: I told Rich, I put in the chat window, I said, rich, that's the title for the next book because we do quarterly books and the one that we released here just most recently was. You've heard that expression, right? Hey, spread the wealth, spread the wealth. Like if you've got all this money, spread the wealth. And it's like, no, we don't do that. Here's a different way to keep the wealth in the family and still be able to give and to bless other people's lives in a positive way without having all that money leave the family. And I shared with Rich in the chat window, I said, this is the title for the next book, Real Estate and Dividend Paying Whole Life a one, two Punch. And it kind of really resonates. So you get credit for that book title, Christina. Credit to you. We're putting that in the book.
But the one thing that, you know, you mentioned that I think again is such a key, such a key teaching moment in this episode that real wealth first begins with health.
And we've heard that expression, we've all heard that many times. It's. It's a very popular thing to be saying. Now.
What practical advice would you give to someone who might be struggling with taking their first steps in actually not only understanding that, but doing something about it? What would some practical advice be that you would share?
[00:41:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, philosophically, again, I, I had to be taken out the kneecaps to, to wake up. So part of why I like sharing my story is hopefully it might wake others up that don't have to go through the type of life and health crisis I went through.
But you know, in financial terms, what I realized going through my stuff is that, you know, we're all about building assets. You know, that that's part of what the piece of money is, is growth. But it's, it's growing that net worth and it's growing the asset value. But we understand what assets are. And you can't be wealthy if you don't have any assets.
Our body is our number one asset that if we don't, if our body goes down, we can't make any more money. Like, and then it's actually going to. We can be withdrawing money versus depositing money. So it's just to really think, you know, we're talking in financial terms if we can think of that our first asset. And like I said, I love your order. It's kind of, you know, health, family, and then. And wealth underneath it. But I agree with that, that our bodies are number one asset and asset. You have to invest in an asset to get a continuous roi.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:19] Speaker B: And that's just it. So the mindset is that my body is my number one asset. It has to be taken care of first and foremost for any of the other assets to really, you know, do what they're going to do. And that means I have to be my number one investment. So from a lifestyle perspective and a financial perspective, how much money. And I teach this as part, as part of my framework for how much money you should spend and invest, but it's determining how much money do I need to invest back in my body every single year to be able to maintain and optimize my health so that we don't get to a disease state. What people I think don't understand is that we are always moving towards a disease state if we're not taking care of our health, aging, but people are aging and getting diseases because we're not treating our body like an asset to take care of. So that's what I just say is that we just one. It starts. Every state thing starts with mindset and kind of the philosophy of how we, we take care and then how we spend our money as a representation of taking care. But yeah, just. And I think underneath that, Jason too, it's kind of love thyself. We have to love ourselves. We have to appreciate this container that is. Allows us to create magic and to experience life. And sometimes that's a good place. It just gets this place of really realizing how amazing we are as humans and how amazing and what we do to contribute and make impact in the world like we have a place. And to really embrace our worthiness and the fact that we're here and then as entrepreneurs and business owners is to appreciate our creations and how we add value to the world and how we make impact and help other people. And to do that, you know, we have to take care of ourselves and, and I think when we love ourselves and we value ourselves and we know our worth, then we're more apt to invest and, and you know, do what it takes to be healthy. So my health is my number one concern. I'm always thinking about it sounds like the same for you guys. And as long as I have my health, I have wealth and the rest of it is just a game that's fun to, to play and, and try to win.
[00:44:40] Speaker C: I would add to that firstly. Thank you. So eloquently put and very practical. I would add to that. You know, Joel Polish of the Genius Network, for any of our viewers and listeners, you hear us mention Joe frequently and if you don't yet know him, you have an opportunity. He's a wonderful human being. And Joe said at one of our meetups, he said accumulating. There's so much discussion around accumulating wealth. Everybody talks about it, especially entrepreneurs who are very ambitious, very perseverant, very, you know, goal driven and, and they want to build wealth. Very few people are having discussions around how not to lose it. That, that's an entirely different skill set altogether. So somebody please get out there and have the conversation and teach people. It's one thing to accumulate it, but learning how to not lose it is an entirely different skill set.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: It. Yeah. I mean there's, there's a different, that's a different skill set because I always say, you know, when it comes to money, there's a skill set of making it. So we, our compensation basically is in proportion to the value creation. I think we know that, that if I want to make more money, give more value, sometimes give more value, we have to have more skills. It comes back to us to invest in ourselves to be better at something that will command more money. So that's, that's the, that piece of money. The second piece of money is managing it. That then like you said, we might get really great at making it because we create a lot of value as entrepreneurs or business owners. Get skill one, get great at making money, get great at making high incomes. The second skill, you can make money and be broke every single month. That's the high income broke person. And that just means that great they can go make a million dollars, but their lifestyle. So there's a whole different making it's hard enough, but there's a whole different money skill which is called managing money. And that managing money means you're managing it for certain purposes and outcomes. And hopefully that's managing it to create wealth and financial freedom while managing it to be able to pay your bills. But that's the skill of managing your money and that's skill number two. Then there's the skill of growing your money, which I call multiply. So it's make, manage and multiply. And you have to gain some skill there. Like I gained the skill in real estate. I learned a little bit about whole life. It's not like it's, it's pretty simple. It doesn't break your brain to do it, but it takes time to sit down and how much money is enough and what are our goals and dreams and what are we going to look at the family like? It takes maybe less skill, but it does take some enough knowledge to know that you need to do that. But it is a skill of like how do I grow my wealth and multiply my money over time?
So yeah, those are those three pieces. But to your point, I like that fourth piece. And there's this fourth skill of money which is not to lose it because you can do all these other things really well and be really stupid and then lose it all. And I've been that stupid. No more stupid, but I've been that stupid a couple times. So I would totally agree to that. I'm going to add that to my repertoire of oh, fantastic. Good. Yeah.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: Make, manage, multiply and maximize.
[00:47:52] Speaker C: Well, and oh God. Because I talked to you and probably I know Rich does and I, I would wager that you do too. I speak to a lot of people, especially in the entrepreneur space who are at some stage in their journey and relationship with money and, and most often there are a few very important skill sets missing and blind spots too.
[00:48:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:48:23] Speaker C: Like hey, you know, the world's my oyster. I'm producing more money than I could have ever imagined. And there's. So walk me through your process of not losing that.
Well, I don't have one.
Okay, well, we've got an opportunity. We might want to, you know, we might want to put one in place.
[00:48:43] Speaker B: And entrepreneurs are notorious for losing everything because. Right. We're very, we're risk takers. And so the same risk taking, built in personality profile that makes all the money is equally risky that can cause us to lose our money.
[00:49:01] Speaker C: So yeah, well, and it's getting to without, you know, we can, our editors can bleep this out, but I'm just, I'm just going to come out and say it like it's, it's getting to a point where you have a permanent foundation of you.
Like you've, you've got enough money where you, you own your home free and clear, your vehicles are unencumbered, there's no liens or loans anywhere, and you've got money growing every single day. And you've got passive income, and I truly mean passive income, whether that's dividend income from your, your blue chip stock portfolio, whether that's real estate, whether that's a business or a number of companies that are paying you each and every month, that leaves you in a permanent foundation position of. And I won't repeat what I said earlier, but I just wanted it to have maximum impact. Forgive me for saying that, but you're in a permanent position. If somebody pisses you off, you just say f you. If, if your boss at work gets on your nerves and you're just really not caring a whole lot about that, you can say F you. If somebody just irritates you and you're at the point where you just aren't going to tolerate it anymore, you just say F you. And nothing's going to hold you back financially because you set that foundation and that money is going to keep showing up even if you don't want it to. And to get to that point, many entrepreneurs get to the point where they start being in abundance and then they systematically begin transferring it all away.
They're buying crap to impress people who don't care, and they're trying to shield either pain, trauma, anxiety by purchasing things or thinking that the more money that they have is going to somehow alleviate those things. And it doesn't. And again, I have to give credit to Dan Sullivan for sharing something with me that, that just was so impactful. I'll never forget it. When I, in my journey as an entrepreneur, I thought 100% for certain, when I create my first million dollars of income, I'm going to be happier. Didn't happen. Okay, it must be 2 million. Didn't happen. Okay, surely it must be 10. Didn't happen. Surely it must be 20. Didn't happen. And, and when I talked to Dan about it, said, I just, I can't. Like, I'm working myself to death pursuing this happiness that I think is somehow attached to a bank account balance. And he said, jason, stop.
Happiness is meant to Be created, not pursued. Stop pursuing it and start creating it.
And that gave rise to all these changes that I'd made in my life. And I owe that man a debt of gratitude that I could never repay just for that piece of advice alone. I said, dan, I could leave the program, never be coached another second from you in my lifetime. And you changed my thinking permanently.
[00:52:11] Speaker B: And that really is the message for entrepreneurs, because it's built. We're built in for more. Everything's more skill, bigger. Everything's a competition. We, you know, I mean, I was just a. I was at a marketing event and I live in Park City, Utah now. I used to live in Austin, but I was back in Austin this past week for a conference. And I. It's just. It's almost a form of entertainment for me now. Like, everybody just like, is kind of throwing out their numbers in a way, and everybody's trying to show that their numbers are bigger than their numbers and. Yeah, and it's just a show. I mean, it's. I used to be that. So, I mean, I can see it happening because I would have been right in there doing the same thing. And now I'm just like, my God, it's just again, like what we talked about, it's kind of out of order, but. And I have to say, you know, I was building. You know, I had a $5 million business. I was working to get to 10 million. I was on track to do it, and I was chasing happiness. I was chasing all the things because just like you, I made a lot more money and I wasn't any happier. And I was harder and I was sacrificing more and more people, needed more from me, and I got a lot of fame and stuff. So that was kind of. That was built in also that I think that ego part can be. You have to be very aware of it, or I did. But now I have a million dollar business and I work from home. I don't have any drama. And I get to take long vacations. I take long walks every day.
I mean, I love my life. I get to ski the mountain. The ski mountain is like right there. I get to just hop over the street and go skiing. And life is so different. Like, I was missing life before, and I'm. I'm not putting as much annual income in my bank account, but I. I'm investing, I'm saving, investing just as much because I just downgraded some of the lifestyle expenses, which, you know, it's just simple math. But this, it's just life is Radically different. It's waking up every day, like, man, I love my life. This is so awesome. And I have this business I love that's just fun to operate and just do these things. And I can shut it off when I want to, because I don't need the money if I don't have to have it. So, I mean, I don't. I don't have to have it. I can shut it off when, you know, when I want to take two weeks off and go to Italy and not check my voicemail. So we can all design a life like that.
[00:54:43] Speaker C: You sure can.
[00:54:44] Speaker A: That.
[00:54:44] Speaker C: That is true. That's true. Entrepreneurial freedom. There. There. There's a lot of conversation around entrepreneurial success, entrepreneurial achievement, entrepreneurial drive.
What about the freedom like you just described? Freedom of time, purpose, money, relationships in a perfect nutshell. I love it, and credit to you for doing that.
[00:55:10] Speaker B: Well, thank you. What a fun conversation.
[00:55:12] Speaker C: I know. Isn't this great? We could jam on this stuff, like, because we're, you know, the world looks at the three of us as weird people, right? Because we're entrepreneurs. So we're like, we're a little strange, but we can. We can talk about this literally all day. And that's one thing that Rich and I do with wealth on Main street is we designed this business to really elevate to the point where it's paying us dividends. And we can utilize those dividends to really enrich our lifestyle with time, with family and taking a great holiday and knowing that the business took care of that for us. And it's all of this great content that is out there educating people 24 7, 365. And the business is paying Rich and I for curating that content. And so. And it's fun. It just brings us energy. Like, we don't have to do this, but we love to.
[00:56:07] Speaker A: And if we weren't doing this, we might not have ever had this amazing conversation.
[00:56:10] Speaker C: Precisely.
[00:56:11] Speaker B: It's just. It's a.
I think that it's a different stage of life. And. And I don't know, you know, when you guys arrived here, if it. It kind of felt the same. But I almost remember when it was that tipping point of where the money from my assets made more than my working income.
And it just was that moment like, oh, I get it now. I get this. That my assets are outperforming my hard work, where I get up every single day and work hard to create something that has, you know, that pays me in return.
And my assets are just over there. Just dropping money in the bank. And it's when I realized that like oh, that pays me more than my hard work and I do a fraction of that. So that, that was just a different moment of when that that transfer happened. And I just want everybody to feel what that feels like because it's an amazing experience when like the financial part of life all of a sudden makes sense. Oh, there's that. It just, it's just like, okay, that's everything I read in the books and that's everything I studied and that's everything I think I was trying to do. And this is what it is what it feels like. And they were right, they were onto something, whoever they were. So there's, you know, there's that piece and then the second piece is that what that does is it puts you in a position where one, you could retire. And some people retire and that's their number one motivation is like I don't ever want to work again. I just want to live off my asset income. And sure, now people don't live too long typically after they do retire and stop creating and doing things. But that's a separate issue.
But to be able to be an entrepreneur and own a business and work hard as a creator for the sake of creating and helping and impacting and from that, because when you don't have to do it for the money, it comes from a different place automatically. So it doesn't have to be like oh, go find your passion to search your passion. You are your passion. Because we wouldn't be doing this when we don't have to if we didn't love to do what we're doing and that's ultimately where we want to get to. And sure, I think some advice is like go follow your passion. It's like go build financial freedom that and have all that fu money and all the things and then it frees you up to really to do whatever the love of your life to be able to to for profit or non profit. I just like the pro, I like the for profit. I love more money. But, but it's same type of thing is that in a non profit it's like people are doing this because they're mission based and, and they're kind of giving up the money piece for the sake of that.
When you don't need the money, it's a for profit ex but with the same mission or you know, you're doing it out of a mission based desire to help as opposed to I've got to build this machine because I'VE got to pay my bills 100%.
[00:59:18] Speaker C: And I would ask this typically, you know, at the conclusion of a great conversation, you know, Rich, he always takes us home with a question about who you most want to be a hero to. And I thought that if you're both okay with it, I would ask a bit of a different question today. And just based on the. The conversation that we shared, which was outstanding, by the way. Thank you so much. And we're definitely going to have to have you back.
Some guest commentator appearances I think would be fitting if you were to.
If you were to think about one of the most important lessons that you would want someone to take away from your life, from your work.
What would that lesson be?
[01:00:07] Speaker B: I mean, my mission is to help people understand money. I just. Money affects every element of our life.
Every element of our life. You. It. It just is. And so get good at it. Study it. Learn the basics, learn the fundamentals. Just put a little time and investment to learn these things.
And if you get good at just the biggest basics of money and get out of the rat race what everybody else is doing wrong, by the way, and get out of the system and get. Get out of the narrative and all the stuff, life is just so much simpler.
It's so much more. There's just so much more clarity. It's so much happier in a simple sort of way.
And it just removes so many problems, like money. Not understanding money, whether you make a lot or don't make a lot, wreak havoc in life.
And there's so much life, havoc, havoc. I think that happens to people and families just because they don't understand. There's. There's a financial lack of intelligence when it comes to this thing called money. So that's why I say, learn it. Get good at it. Play the game, Make a few mistakes, study. Listen to your podcast, Listen to mine. Study. And then the final piece to that, Jason Enriches that kind of go back where we started again, is you have to take action. There's millions of people listening to podcasts and millions of people watching YouTube and millions of people, I don't know doing XYZ, but they're in the same situation because they're not doing anything differently. So you have to learn, and then you have to do well.
[01:01:47] Speaker A: On that note, Rich, fantastic. Absolutely loved it. Christina, thanks for being with us today. Of course, for those of us watching on YouTube, you'll see that poof. Magically, an amazing recommendation just showed up that says, watch me. I'm amazing content. So go ahead. Click that and continue that incredible journey of learning. Just as Christina indicated, there's no such thing as having arrived in knowledge.
[01:02:08] Speaker C: It was a pleasure, Christina. Thank you sincerely for being with us. I know our viewers, our listeners are just going to love this interview. We will definitely have you back. We promise you. And to all of our viewers and listeners, make the rest of your week outstanding. And as Richard said, continue that journey of learning. There's no such thing as having arrived in knowledge. There's always something new to learn. Thank you both for an incredible conversation.
