Chris Miles [0:00 - 0:19]: My money mindset is that money is just money. You know, I realized that, you know, when I lost everything, that's when I realized I had everything. You know, money is just a magnifier of the soul. You know, it only makes you more of who you already are. And I hear people, parents say, well, I don't want to corrupt my kids. Well, that's the case. They're already corrupted, and that's your fault.

Krisstina Wise [0:20 - 1:29]: Hello, and welcome back to the Wealthy Wealthy podcast, where we explore the intersection of wealth, health, and entrepreneurship. I'm your host, Christina Wise, and today I'm thrilled to have Chris Miles with us. Chris is a financial expert who has navigated the complexities of wealth creation, and he's here to share his insights. In this episode, we dive into the myths surrounding traditional finance advice and explore alternative strategies for building wealth. Kris shares his personal journey from being a financial advisor to discovering the power of real estate and passive income. He reveals how breaking away from conventional wisdom and embracing a mindset of stewardship and financial education can lead to true financial freedom. If you've ever felt trapped in the rat race or questioned the effectiveness of mainstream financial advice, this conversation is for you. Chris offers a fresh perspective on how to make your money work for you, leveraging tools like real estate and whole life insurance to create lasting wealth. For those eager to take control of their financial future, Chris's story and strategies provide a roadmap to success. But before we jump into this uninterrupted conversation with Chris, here's a few updates on what's happening in my world. Chris Miles, welcome to the Wealthy Wealthy podcast.

Chris Miles [1:29 - 1:31]: Hey, it's a pleasure to be here, Christina.

Krisstina Wise [1:31 - 1:47]: My goodness, it's. We've just really got to know each other face to face over the last few months or so, and. And I think we're scheduled beyond each other's podcast before we even realize that we knew each other through a mastermind. So I thought that was.

Chris Miles [1:49 - 1:51]: I know. It's a small world, isn't it?

Krisstina Wise [1:51 - 2:08]: It is, and you know, it is. It's just fun when those overlaps start happening. And then, you know, I was introduced to you and you were introduced to me, and we talked about being on each other's podcast. We realized, like, oh, my gosh, you're the Chris Miles and the Christina Wise that we, you know. Anyway, I just love it when things like that happen.

Chris Miles [2:08 - 2:21]: And I was actually joking with somebody the other day that if I ever want to meet people from the same same state of Utah, I have to go out of the state. In our case, somebody else out of state introduces us and then we're like, wait a minute, you're on my backyard. How is this possible, right?

Krisstina Wise [2:21 - 3:10]: Exactly? Well, yeah. Great love for this great state of Utah. All right, well, I'm really looking forward to our conversation today. You're. You're an expert in something that has been very rewarding in terms of wealth creation for me personally. But I know it gets a bad rap and most people don't understand it and they don't understand how this can fit into a wealth building long term strategy. So let's talk today about money and net worth and passive income and a method for checking all those boxes. So before we do that, as we have everybody hanging on, share a little backstory. Chris, what got you into kind of the financial world? And have you always loved money and numbers? Or is this just something that you've come to discover and love over time?

Chris Miles [3:10 - 3:42]: You know, I think in some way I did like money, but not in the way that most people do. I, I do remember. Do you remember watching Family Ties with Michael J. Fox? Yeah. Back in the 80s, I, I used to love his character and I didn't even know what economics was, but I knew it was about money and I thought that was pretty cool. And you know, I even remember the episode and he was talking to a therapist and he dropped the change. He's like, that's 83 cents, right? And I thought, well, that's kind of cool. That's a cool trick, you know, parlor trick or whatever. But I actually went to college. I was actually a sociology major with a triple minor in psychology, Japanese and ballroom dancing.

Krisstina Wise [3:42 - 3:43]: Oh, gosh.

Chris Miles [3:43 - 10:01]: So nothing about money at all. But however I, as I got into that space, I realized I want to become more like a business consultant. And I figured if I'm going to be a business consultant, shouldn't I have real life business experience, not just an MBA, right. Or a PhD? So I actually, you know, took a sabatical from college right before I got my bachelor's and I thought, I'll just take a year off, find some business to start, and then from there maybe I'll go back to college, finish up, and I'll have a better resume. Well, I did that and several months later, I finally found a business that I didn't realize they'd take anybody off the street. And that was becoming a financial advisor. Right. Um, I thought it'd be really tough to get in. I was trying to like, really impress them. I was like, I don't have A lot of economics classes. I took some accounting and banking classes in high school, but that's it. And they're like, no, if you could pass the test and not be a criminal and not be a mass murderer, we'll, we'll hire you. And so that's how I got into the financial space. And I did that for four years. And after four years, I mean, I was really, I drank the Kool Aid, right? I was, I was, I was selling it, you know, I thought, this is the best thing ever. And I'll tell you, the main inspiration for me to get in, besides just learning for myself, was my dad. Because my dad was like the penny pinching saver, right? He was the one that, you know, he, of course he would teach me great values, like your word is your bond, right? You know, work hard and all that kind of stuff. But when it came to money, it was always about scarcity. It was always about, well, hey, we can't afford this. What do you think I am made of money? Money doesn't grow on trees, you know, you know, all those kind of Great Depression type of perspectives. And so I figured, you know, because he would always tell me, chris, my job is going to literally kill me. Because by his 40s, he'd already had strokes, he had heart attacks. In his 50s, he thought he was going to be dead. So I thought, well, if I can give him some of his life back, that would be worth learning this stuff. Well, four years as being a financial advisor, he reached out. He says, you going to financially advise me at this point, finally? And so I did. I sat down with him, looked at all of his numbers, and he paid off his debt. He was debt free in 18 years. He had stuffed money his 401k for decades, getting the match and everything. I mean, this was like the poster child for Dave Ramsey. Except Dave Ramsey probably learned from my dad because my dad's a cheap son of a gun, right? And so anyways, as we're, as we're talking and I look at all his numbers, I said, here's a deal, dad, you're 61 years old. If you want to retire today because you can't get Social Security yet, you better hope you die in about five or six years, because that's when you'll run out of money. Now this is the guy that had done everything right. This guy was a penny pinching saver. Like many people will be all judgy about other people, right? They'll be judgmental, saying, oh, people don't save. I'm the only one that saves because Dave Ramsey said so. Like, no, the vast majority of people that work jobs actually do save money. The. You know, here's. Here's how you know, because if you look at people that are actually eligible for 401ks, 52% actually do the 401k plan, even though there's people like me and other of our clients that actually don't believe in the 401k plan. Right? So there's still more people eligible for it that won't do it by choice because they know it doesn't work versus those that actually do do it. So the majority of employees actually save in their 401ks. Business owners, different story. But employees w two workers, that's the case. So the majority of people actually are savers, not spenders. And this bothered me because I realized I didn't have an answer for my dad. He's like, well, what do I do? I said, I don't know. You did everything right from what I teach as a financial advisor. And a few weeks later, I was talking with a friend who I actually trained to be a financial advisor, but he left to go do real estate investing. And I'm talking to him and I'm wondering, okay, he's probably broke, trying to chase this little real estate investing dream. He needs to come back to work for me as a financial advisor, right? Well, I got the opposite response. He said, chris, my life is amazing right now. My dad and I have partnered on some 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 you could have done that in like, five months. And he said, chris, how many of your clients are actually financially free where they don't worry about money? I said, well, they all worry about living too long and running out of money. So I would say, none. Okay, great job, Chris. 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 mutual fund investments? And when I was really, truly, brutally honest with myself, and I was mentally picturing about a hundred people that were working in our office, some of them have been working since the mid to late 1970s, I realized. I said, you know what? Maybe none. There's your problem, Chris. Okay, well, give me the answer. What's the answer then, if you're so smart? Doug. His name was Doug. He said, I'm not going to give you the answer. You just got to argue with me that stocks are better than real estate. I said, listen, I'm willing to entertain this. Give me something. He says, if you're really serious, I really don't think you are. The guy had the greatest sales method. He didn't even know it because it just made me more obstinate. He's like, if you're really serious about this, go get this book called who Took My Money By Robert Kiyosaki. It's a lesser known rich dad series book. And then go listen to this AM talk radio show with these two real estate investors that talk here. Because this is pre podcast, right? This is back in the AM talk radio days. And, and I started doing that. And a few months later I realized I had a choice. Either I stay in the financial advising business at the height of my practice, or I leave and keep my integrity intact. And I chose the ladder. I said, I'm out of here. I'll never do this again. I'll never teach about money again. I will just do mortgages and I'll teach ballroom dancing. And, and that's what I was kind of doing in 2006. But I started getting more into real estate investing, doing things like flipping and whatnot. And eventually later that, that year, right before I turned 29 years old, I was able to be financially independent where I could actually retire. And it blew my mind. It was that easy because I'd always thought I'd have to save up at least 2 to 3 million dollars in my mutual funds, then live on less than the interest, live on that 3%. Right. That we always talk about as financial advisors. And, and I thought that would be the answer. If I could just live on 60, 000 a year, that would be the dream. Because that's amazingly comfortable lifestyle. 20 years ago, not today, but it was 20 years ago. Right. And, and so when I started to realize that that's it, like that's the path, I realized that, you know, I could either just fade off into the sunset, you know, and just be very, very comfortable with my family and just do our thing, or I could actually do something with my life and give back. And so that's where in 2007 I actually came out of retirement, start teaching people how to do what I did, which is get out of that rat race.

Krisstina Wise [10:02 - 10:45]: Yeah, man, what a great story. And it is the rat race. So why do you think. I mean, I'm a financial educator and coach and, and you are as well with what you do with your podcast and, and your work. Probably you like me most Everybody that I talk to is in the rat race. So why? What? Why is that? Why is everybody just in the rat race, working harder to try to make more money, not getting ahead, following some of this more conventional financial advice, thinking that they're going to be okay, but they're financially insecure, maybe month to month broke, and it just. Nothing changes.

Chris Miles [10:46 - 18:11]: Well, I mean, you basically just said. Exactly. I mean, it, it's a. We're all sold a dream, aren't we? Right? We're all sold a dream that we just all keep doing the same thing. Somehow we'll all be free, yet we're still finding hard evidence. We're not finding very good evidence that people are becoming financially free, are we? But still, people still believe the dream. It's like, you know, if I go to college, I'm gonna get a great job. Well, until you don't, right? You know, I can't tell you how many friends I had that had MBAs and PhDs, and they're like, I can't even get a job right now. Especially when there's recessions and things like that. There was no guarantee of security. They think there is in their mind, but there's not. Same thing with retirement, right? And the reason being is because you have to go back to where does this financial education come from? Now someone might say, well, it comes from financial advisors. Well, who do they work for? Whether you like to believe this or not, they do not work for you, right? You do not pay their bills. Now, there are some cases where you literally do pay them money, but even then, the education they receive, the certifications they receive. And I know I was them, I was one of them, right? It all comes from financial institutions, all of it. All the education gets handed down from big, large institutions, banks essentially, right? The fidelities, the Merrill Lynches, the Goldman Sachs, even Wells Fargo and all these kind of companies, they all teach the same thing. Why? Because they're teaching you what works in their system. Because if you actually did the same things that they did as banks and fund institutions, you would be using your money very differently. You would be doing the opposite. Because think about this. How often are you supposed to be putting away money? As often as possible, right? How long you supposed to be putting that money away? Forever. And how much of your money you supposed to be putting away? As much as you can, right? Even 10% is not enough. It's not even 20% enough anymore, right? They kept telling us that 10% was the secret. No, it wasn't. It wasn't. Enough so they just have to keep raising that number. And then of course, here's the kicker. When it comes time for you to start using that money, how much are you supposed to spend? As little as possible, right? Don't pull out more than that 3% because of inflation and possible market swings and everything else, or bad interest rate environments. You never know. So you just got to take out as little as possible so you never run out of money. So make sure you die first before the money dies, right? And then of course, how much risk should you take? All of it. Because high risk creates high returns, right? Well, the bank doesn't do that, do they? In fact, they don't take high risk. They take their guaranteed fees off the top. If they took high risk, they would say, listen, if you lose money, we do too. But they don't invest their money in the stock markets, do they? They let you invest money in stock markets. That was one falsehood that I taught as a financial advisor. I would say these institutions, these banks, they are the number one investor in the stock market. We should be doing it too. What I failed to also realize and draw, draw the connection was that the reason they are the number one investors, because we're all throwing our money at them to then put in the market for us. Not because they're putting their money in the market. They wouldn't do that. And how do you know? Because I would, I would challenge you to do this. Go into your bank right now and say, listen, I want to be able to get a line of credit, right? What do you want the line of credit for? I want to be able to put it in the stock market. And listen to what their answer is. It will be 100% of the time. No, they will not lend you money. Put stock market. They made that mistake in the Great Depression. They lost all that money, right? Well, but what will they lend you money for? Business, Real estate? That's pretty much it. I mean they might give you a credit card, right? But even then, you know, that's the only thing they'll give you that they'll say they won't ask you the reason for. So you're lucky. You have to use a credit card to put in the stock market and you're not going to beat those returns, I can guarantee that. And so, so everything comes from them. It's all their self interest, the whole set it and forget it. That comes from banks, right? Even paying off your mortgage. Like I, as a mortgage broker, I would tell people, here's my truth and lending Statement, here's how much interest you'll pay over life this loan if you pay the minimum payment for 30 years. So if you want to stick it back to the bank, pay them back faster. But what I didn't realize is that the bank wanted me to tell you that, you know, that the mortgage companies want me to tell you that because the reason is, is that they want the money back faster, not slower. If they wanted it back slower, you know what they would do? They would say, listen, the best interest rate you can possibly get is a 30 year mortgage, you know, 15 year. We're going to charge you more because we don't make as much an interest. So we're going to charge you more interest. Don't do that one, do 30 years. Everybody from their own traditional mindset thinks, oh, they want to make interest forever. But what they don't realize, it's not about accumulating money. Like we've always been taught by those banks, institutions to set it, forget it, and let them make their guaranteed fees off the assets under management, right? No, they want the money coming back faster. They want you to pay off your loan faster, which is why they'll give you a lower interest rate on a 10 or 15 year mortgage. You get a lower straight on a three year car loan versus a six year car loan, right? They're all lower because they want you to pay them back faster. Because every dollar principal you pay them gives them the permission to spend at least 10 to loan you $10 back. So if you pay an extra thousand dollars on your mortgage payment, congratulations, you just gave them $10,000 a loan out to somebody else making interest off them. They love it when you pay back your loans faster. That's where you start to realize, like everything I've been taught is just to be a cog in their wheel to create more profit for them, not for me. What if I played by those same rules that they did? Because obviously they got the bigger house, the biggest skyscrapers in any city you go to is always a bank. Shouldn't I follow their rules? And when you start to realize that, you start to kind of wake up a little bit. It's like the matrix. And you realize, you know what, I got to start doing something different here. I got to, what if I got money working harder for me? What if I lent my money to real estate investors? I could become a passive investor by lending my money to them, right? And invest in those people. I can do it myself too. I can buy my own properties, I can do all this stuff. And make more wealth doing that. And the truth is, I like evidence. This is what got me out of the financial advisor realm because I saw the evidence around me. It wasn't working. But what I did see is I saw plenty of people in the real estate game in their 20s and 30s making millions and millions of dollars. I've even seen people that don't even know how to real estate invest, buy a couple properties and all of a sudden they're a multimillionaire doing nothing. Right. You don't see that in the 401k world. You don't see people like, yeah, I just put in money one time and somehow I became a millionaire. Right? You don't see that ever, right? Said no one ever. In the, in the, in the, in the 401k game, you can't save your way to wealth and you really can't. It's very, almost in difficult, impossible, save your way to freedom. And the reason I know is because I get all these people are asset rich and cash poor. I get people that sometimes are worth 3 million, 5 million, sometimes $10 million and yet they're like, I can't be financially free yet because I have no income coming from these investments. It's all accumulated my money set and forget it, lock it away in prison. And so the best thing you could do is instead of lock your money away in prison, which is with these financial companies, get it back in your control so that you can do something with it as well. But it does require a higher level of education and stewardship and basically debunk and question everything you've been taught by financial experts in the media who also work for those companies, by the way, financial media, they're all, who are all their sponsors, the same people that want you to put their money with them. Right. So of course they're not going to trash or bag on them. They're going to just say, hey, you should do this. Here's our, here's our, you know, Charles Schwab resident, you know, spokesperson or expert. Right. They want to bring those people on that. Of course they'll tell you that money managers come on like, hey, well this is what I see in the marketplace. You should keep investing. Of course they say that because they make more money the more money you put with them. So it's, it's just a money game. That's really all it is. And if you get past like the financial self interest and all the money, you start to realize that freedom is on the other side of that. It's Sometimes almost doing the opposite of what everybody else has been teaching you to do.

Krisstina Wise [18:12 - 19:49]: Well, I just love everything you said. I mean, I, I'm, I'm like, preach it. Cause I, I preach the same thing and it's just so great to hear someone else say it. But you've said a couple things that I've really not even thought about before, so thank you for that. And one is really this idea that paying off your mortgage faster because the banks want the cash. And I mean, I haven't really thought it, thought about that through that lens and it's like, oh yeah, you're right. So, but what I found is that one, we've just like you said that we've been trained to think put your money into 401k or max out your Roth IRA and, and just these retirement things and all about retirement sometimes way in the future. But this belief, it leaves this belief that that's going to be enough money and as long as I max out my Roth or as long as I match my 401k and do these retirement things, I'm going to be fine. And those that I talk to that don't want to go beyond that. I think the mindset is that I don't want to become an investor. I don't want to have to think about real estate. I don't want to have to take the risk or find out like if whole life insurance is something positive or negative. And I don't want to like, so there's no agency there. It's like giving this agency and like you said, the stewardship away to these institutions or these government programs thinking, like you said, selling the dream that everything's going to work out. So what do you find to be true? Like do you find something similar? What do you say to that? If you do?

Chris Miles [19:50 - 26:33]: Well, this is the reason why I was attracted even before I realized it was you, Christina, when I saw your, your title Wealthy. Wealthy, right. Realizing that wealth is much, much more than just money and it is stewardship. And here's how you know something is a true principle, right, Is that it doesn't just work with money, it will work with health, spirituality, everything, right? Because for example, you know, I mentioned about the whole high risk creates high returns. What's the definition of risk? It's chance of loss. When did a higher chance of losing equate to a higher chance of winning? When did a 90% chance of losing become a 90% chance of winning? The numbers don't add up, do they? Higher chance of losing means a Higher chance of losing, period. Lower chance of winning, right? But we've been taught to take all that risk so that the banks don't have to. If they would, like I said, they would be like the one saying, you know what, if you don't make money, we won't either. You won't find that company anywhere, okay? It doesn't exist. Right? And so same thing with stewardship, right? Stewardship is a very true principle in all aspects of life, all of us, of course, myself included. It would be. It would be a dream to do nothing, to receive nothing. But the law of the harvest states that it's you only can sow with what you reap, right? Now, I'm not saying you can't do it leveraged. I'm not saying you have to work by the sweat of your brow the rest of your life like it says in the Bible, right? I'm not saying you have to like sweat your, your tail off, you know. And I was going to say something else, but I don't know what kind of profanity you allow in the show, so I was going to refrain from that. But you know, like, we're always told, like, we just got to work harder. No, it's not true. We can definitely do things better and more efficient. But the problem is that if I look at stewardship, right? If I look at things like, for example, what if. What if I. It's like the law of attention, right? The law of attention, which is kind of go along with the law of the harvest. Law of attention states that whatever you put your attention towards expands and grows. But the opposite's also true. Whatever you ignore will decay or disappear. So for example, if I stop brushing my teeth, I mean, the lazy man in me would say I don't have to brush my teeth anymore and definitely not have to floss. I mean that especially when I got. I've got five wisdom teeth. I had one removed. I had six. That's one of weird, probably TMI for you, but I actually have five wisdom teeth still. I'm proof that more wisdom teeth doesn't make you more wise. But I've made plenty of mistakes. But you know, flossing, those are pain in the butt. But if I don't floss them, if I don't take care of my teeth, what happens? I lose them. If I don't take care of my marriage, what happens? I lose it. I don't take care of my kids, what's going to happen? I'm going to lose them. If I don't take care of my business, I'll lose it. If I don't take care of my money, I will lose it, too. So the problem is these financial institutions say, you know what? In fact, here's literally the term, the phrase I was taught as a financial advisor, you lack the three T's. You lack the time, the training and the temperament to do your own investing. So just trust us. I guess that's a fourth T, you know, but that's really what it was like. You lacked the time, the training, the temperament. Yeah, you could do your own investing. Yeah, you could do this. But you really, you're just not smart enough. You're not, you know, you know, rational enough. And so just let us do it for you. And so we were taught to, you know, tell people to set it and forget it, right. In fact, even if the market goes down, don't worry, you're in it for the long haul. Well, how long is the long haul? Because my dad, his long haul went into his 70s because Y2K, right before I, right before I talked to him, right? He had Y2K experienced, destroyed a lot of his retirement account. All that money had built up over the 90s, disappeared like that. And as it started to rebuild again, it was getting right back up to that 2,000 high. And then, bam, the Great Recession hits, right? When the market hit the very same high as in 2000 and then tanks, right? And so he spent. I mean, there's people, I had clients that literally, because of fees being charged, other accounts, if they put their money in 2000 at the height of the market, they didn't even break even till 2015. That's the long haul, right? You have been better off putting your money in a cd, right? Even though that seems like the biggest swear word. Heck, a Savings account earning 0.9% would have paid, made you more money than having your money in the market from 2000, 2015. But nobody talks about that anymore. Because the last 15 years, since 2009 till now, there's only been one down year. That's way out of whack. Usually for every four or five up years, we have two down years. So we're already overdue for about four down years right now. But nobody's talking about that, right? They're all. And this is how you know you're. You're going to be in the wrong. If you're following the masses, you will be wrong, right? It's like what Warren Buffett says, you know, when there's, you know, blood in the streets that's when he gets greedy, right? When everybody's fearful, he gets greedy. Whenever he's greedy, he gets fearful. I would be fearful right now being in the stock market because everybody's greedy. Everything's. It just keeps going up. They get lazy. They. They lose that stewardship. That agency, as you mentioned, right. They just kind of just say, you know what, it's fine, it's gonna, it's gonna keep growing over time. Which, yes, the market does go over time, but you have to time it just right or to work for you. And it's really high risk, mediocre returns anyway. So why would I do that when I could buy real estate that almost always goes up? Not every time, but. But more often than the stock market is a much more stable, secure asset. And especially if I know I just have to have a little bit of knowledge, at least enough knowledge to know about what I'm doing, even if I'm not the one doing all the work. I can leverage people, Christine, you know this. I mean, we can leverage people that are, that have been in the real estate game for decades. We can put money with them. We could partner on deals with them, let them do the work. I have a. I have a raw land partnership right now where I'm a 70% partner because I'm financing everything. But I'm not doing the work. They're doing all the flip land flipping and things like that with my money. And I love the fact that my now $450,000 is generating about 11,000amonth. Right. Like, that's the kind of stuff that I love. Again, I don't have to be super, you know, in involved. I just have to know enough to know how to ask the right questions. And that is what you need to do as being a steward. You don't have to be the active investor flipping properties, wholesaling properties, doing all the things that you see on TikTok Instagram, they say, look, look at my check I made from this one property. Well, of course, they don't show you the other five checks where it didn't look as good, you know, but they'll show you that one check, right? You know all that. You know, people that basically have a business doing real estate, and you could do that, you can make a lot of money, millions doing that kind of thing. But you can also be a passive investor, knowing the right rules, knowing the right people, the right connections, the right questions to ask, to know whether this is somewhere I can trust to put my money. It's not guaranteed, but Man, I would trust that rather than a stock market where even financial advisors, and I know this from firsthand experience, and even as a stock trader, even when I did that, too. Still, you can never guarantee anything. You know you're going to be wrong at some point because you're just guessing.

Krisstina Wise [26:33 - 26:42]: Yeah, right on. You know, you said you were trained to tell others you don't have the time. Training. And what was the third one?

Chris Miles [26:42 - 26:42]: Temperament.

Krisstina Wise [26:43 - 27:13]: Temperament. To do it yourself. And I think that's what's built in is people have been trained to think that finance is complex, investing is complex. You have to go to these experts to be able to do it, because it's been part of that narrative, is like, yeah, you're not smart enough to do this. So just give us your money and don't worry, you'll be just fine. So let's talk about. I think we covered a lot of just bad mainstream financial advice and where the hefty majority of the population has bought into that.

Chris Miles [27:13 - 27:14]: Let's.

Krisstina Wise [27:14 - 27:37]: You brought up the name Dave Ramsey, so we probably have a very similar opinion of him. I have a lot of people come to me that said, oh, I've been through Dave Ramsey's program, and I'm like, man, I need to deprogram you. But, you know, let's. Let's talk. But I mean, they believe that that's kind of gospel when it comes to financial advice. What are your thoughts on. On Dave Ramsey, the advice that he gives to the masses?

Chris Miles [27:37 - 34:32]: You know, like, I think he does amazing work helping people, you know, get out of debt. He's great for those people that have zero financial knowledge at all, don't even know where to start. He can be a great place to start. Just don't finish there. It's. It's kind of like, you know, when you go to. You go to college, right? You know, assuming you went to college, you know, but, you know, when someone goes to college, they'll take different levels of courses. Dave Ramsey is like. Like, it's not like math 101 or, you know, it's not like that. It's actually like math 99R. It's like the remedial math, right? It's like, here's the math you should have known up to this point to be able to at least start from zero. He gets you to zero. He gets you out of that debt hole, right? And I'm not even saying I. I actually have a different way of paying off debt I think is much more efficient than his and safer in a lot of ways. But I mean, it's not horrible either what he's doing, so budgeting, you know, debt, even having a little bit of a rainy day fund, even if it's not enough, still good stuff. But once you start talking about wealth building, this is when he, the lies start flooding out of his mouth. Right now it's. And I say lies because I just don't think he's that dumb. Okay? Because he'll tell you things like, first and foremost, the stock market returns 12%. And I've even had people argue with me on YouTube about this, like, it's 12%, I've got charts to prove it. Or they'll say, well, it's actually 10.4. Like, okay, for one, you just said 10.4, not 12. Two, even the stock market doesn't return 10.4. Real actual yield. I track it all the time, month by month. And I use the actual chart of the S and P. I don't trust what financial institutions say. I trust what the actual chart tells me. Because I was a stock trader, right? So I actually figure it out and I'm looking, I'm like, well, look at this. It's actually averaged SP8.4%. And that's the highest I've seen in the last couple decades that I've been tracking it for a 30 year period. So 8.4, usually it's between 7 and 8, not 10 and not 12. Right. And some people say, well, they reinvest dividends. Yes. I, yeah, you look at reinvesting dividends, they're only about one and a half percent now, 1.6%. So even if right now 8.4 is the highest I've seen, still even with 1.6 extra, that's at, with the 8.4, that still puts you right at 10, not above it, just barely at it. Usually it's below. So when you get that kind of stuff coming out right, and people say, well, it's history. I have the IPSYN chart to prove it. I had the Ibsen chart too. But you know what, I went to the real source and it's a bunch of crap. They're showing you average returns, not actual. So Dave throws out all these numbers. He throws out the 12%. He even says if you save a hundred bucks a month for 40 years at 12%, he says, you should have $1.176 million. And he has it all over social media all the time. He's like, everyone should retire a millionaire. Well, I know a lot of people to save a lot more than A hundred bucks for 40 years and they still have $1 million is one. They're not earning 12% despite what he's saying. So either he's dumb or stupid as he says in his words, right? It's stupid or he's lying. There's also the issue too, is that even his math was wrong. Because I ran the math and guess What? It wasn't 1.176 million. A hundred dollars a month for 40 years at 12% is 979,000. So you're not a millionaire even then. So he's off by $200,000 on his calculations and he keeps post reposting on social media as if it's true, right? And so, and, and here's the other thing that is the kicker. This is the real thing, you know, you ever hear like, especially when teenagers challenge their parents, right? It's like, you know, don't do what they say, do what they do, right? Like, what's their example really saying? Are they a hypocrite or not? Dave Ramsey always tells you you should be saving your money in mutual funds, right? Pay off all your debt, put your Money in the 401k and the mutual funds. And that's great average advice that still hasn't worked. Just so you know. Fidelity came out with their numbers last year. Out of 45 million clients with fidelity, 45 million in the United States. That's a good chunk of the United states. In fidelity 401ks and IRAs, only 810,000 have a million dollars or more. 810,000. That's about 1.8% success rate if you even look at a success rate. But here's the thing that's not. $1 million is not successful anymore. You know why? Because what I just said earlier, you're only supposed to live on 3% a year, right? That 3% means if you even have a million dollars, you're living on 30,000 a year, you're living below the poverty line. This is why there was a separate study done also in 2023 by Transamerica, who went to anybody who had at least a million dollars in there. So that essentially they went to the same people that were the 810,000 of the 45 million for 401k holders in Fidelity. Transamerica did their own study of those same people, found out only that actually 35% of them said it would be a miracle, quote, unquote, a miracle for them to be able to retire because of that very same reason. Because a financial advisor who Even knows what they're doing. And I don't even like financial advisors, but at least the ones are up to speed, will say only pull out 3%, right? Well, that's 30,000 a year. They're like, that's a, it'll be a miracle for me to be able to make it. I finally got to that million dollar mark and now what? Even If I want 60,000 year, I have to get to 2 million. If I want a hundred thousand a year, I need three and a third million. Dave sells people, hey, you should be able to pull out 8%. Did you know that George Camel, just last fall, George Camel, one of his co hosts, did his own video saying, hey, you should be only pulling out 3%. And I did the video. I did a reacts video on my podcast because just a little while later, a caller calls in and says, Dave, I'm really worried about my retirement because I don't think I have enough. He's like, because if I only pull off 3% and also see Dave's face go like this, you know, like which, you know, you see that face, you're like, I've seen Dave do that face before. He's about to get pissed off, right? And he's like, what are you talking about? He's like, well, George has said you can only pull off 3%. Dave said, what? What? I don't know where he's getting that information. That's, that's, that's wrong. Oh my gosh. You know, he's just going off about it. He's like, no, you make 12% in the market, you can pull off 8% a year and never run out of money. So in that same episode, I showed what happens, people at 8% a year based on the real average of the stock market, with two years up, one year down, you run out of money in about 15 years doing Dave's method. So this is, that's one thing that ticks me off. He's using all these faulty numbers and assumption numbers that everybody else believes to be true, but it hasn't ever been true, right? Here's the worst part. Dave Ramsey, he has said recently he's worth between 600 and 700 million dollars. So I thought, okay, I want to see where he actually stores that money. Where does he actually make that money, right? Because I want to follow his example, because it's true. He's rich. Great, let's follow his example. Let's do what Dave Ramsey did. Well, I looked it up. I found out this, that you'll not Believe this, Christina. He's actually only worth about 200 million, arguably $200 million, not 600 million or 700 million even. Some people introduced him as being a billionaire. He's not even close. And of that 200 million, about 52 million is his business worth again, arguably, because they believe it's so much worth about him. The other about 150 million. Real estate.

Krisstina Wise [34:32 - 34:33]: No way. Come on.

Chris Miles [34:33 - 37:02]: None of it is a mutual funds. And the whole reason I was doing it, I was like, I want to find out how much he has a mutual funds. I couldn't even find it because it was so negligible of how much he had mutual funds or stocks or bonds that it wasn't even that nobody even reported the number. They all knew about his real estate. And the only reason he thought he's worth 600 or 700 million is because he has a conference center that really only he uses and maybe a few churches might use, but it's very vacant most of the time. He was saying it was worth at least 2 or 300 million, and they're like, no, it's worth more like 14 million. So even about his own net worth, which you don't even. 200 million is such an amazing success, right? To be worth $200 million. I mean, I'm not worth 200 million. Heck, I'd be like to be worth about tenth of that. I'll be there soon, but not, not today. And 200 million, he still has to feel. He has to inflate it and lie about that. So he's inflating and lying about all these things. Why would we trust him, right? Why would we trust that guy? You know, and he's supposed to be the good Christian guy that really believe. And again, I believe he's done such good in the world, but it's not. It's only to get you to zero, right? Not to wealth. If you want to create wealth, well, just do what he did, which is what you and I teach about. I know because I've had you on my podcast. You and I see this eye to eye on this. Just do what works, which is invest in yourself, which could be your job and, or your business becoming a better value creator in the world. And then if you're going to hold any kind of asset, hold real estate at least, you know, have something, especially with cash flowing real estate, even better. Right there. That's how Dave did it. Just follow that example. Don't believe him. In fact, my wife, by the way, she was actually the, the very first Licensed, approved counselor. Dave Ramsey, counselor in the state of Utah. He didn't want to do anything in Utah because Utah, of course, doesn't get along well with Southern Baptist, apparently. So he's like, no, I can't have Utah people. Well, my wife was the first one approved over 10 years ago. It's actually about 15 years ago. Well, she went there. She went, drove by his house. She was in his office. She got to see it firsthand. And she's saying, wait a minute. What he's teaching versus what I know to be reality. Because she's like, I've seen abundance. He teaches out of scarcity. I can't teach this stuff anymore. She's like, there's good strategies here to some degree to get people, you know, doing budgets and tracking their money and financial management, but beyond that, wealth. She's like, I'm leaving. I'm out of here. By the way, she was the only one actually making money selling the programs, doing it as a business. And they were getting mad at her because they're like, no, no, this must be like a charity. You're not supposed to make money off of these programs. She's like, I'm a financial counselor. I should be able to make money and pay for my daycare when I put my kids up for daycare, you know, when I'm doing these classes. Crazy stuff. I mean, so anyways, I'm ranting and rambling.

Krisstina Wise [37:02 - 37:11]: Yeah, thank you for that. You know what I love about you, Chris, is that one you're calling out the financial industry because you were one, right?

Chris Miles [37:11 - 37:11]: Yeah.

Krisstina Wise [37:11 - 37:45]: I mean, it's like, no, I've been on both sides and I'm, you know, I drank the Kool Aid, I was saying all the same stuff until I got educated differently and realized like, oh, yeah, that's a lot of bullshit. But I love your story, too, with Ramsey. One that you did the fact checking yourself. And so, like, I love that. But then your wife is a true life example again. So you guys really have a unique perspective where it's. It's not opinion. It's. It's really like, no, this is my life. And how we've been exposed to these things and how we can call because we have what to compare it to.

Chris Miles [37:45 - 37:46]: Exactly.

Krisstina Wise [37:46 - 37:55]: So thank you for that and I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. So let's switch gears just for. To. To wrap up here.

Chris Miles [37:55 - 37:56]: Yeah.

Krisstina Wise [37:56 - 38:26]: And you know the word passive income? Everybody wants passive income. And out of all the coaching calls that I do, which I do, you know, thousands, and I'm like, hey, like when it comes to money, like, really, what do you want? And it's like passive income is always the word. And I don't even know if most people know what passive income means, but they want passive income. And so I guess let's start there. What is your definition of passive income? And when people say they want passive income, what do you say to that?

Chris Miles [38:27 - 39:25]: Yeah, it, you're right. It's. It's become a buzzword. It's almost become an annoying buzzword at this point, isn't it? Even though I love passive income and I love talking about it, but it's true. I, I mean, there's passive income from an accounting perspective, which is income you earn from real estate, right? Like from accounting term. That's where it came from. It came from real estate investments. What do they call it? They call it passive income. However, everybody online, especially with Your Instagram and TikTok, right, loves to call it passive income, even when it's not anything but passive. I truly believe the passive income is money that comes in when you don't have to work hard for it or even work at all, for that matter. And the only way to get true passive income, in my mind, truly passive income, is if you have somebody else doing the work for you. You have to leverage somebody else's labor, somebody else's talents or something else. So that means my money has to work for me, so I don't have to work for it. Right. When people try to tell you, oh, yeah, I did this wholesale deal or I did this flip, it's passive income. No, it's not. You worked your tail off to do that. Don't give me that.

Krisstina Wise [39:25 - 39:27]: To do it again. And you have to go, do have.

Chris Miles [39:27 - 41:13]: To do it again. Yeah. And, and you and I both have friends in this space, like, and I've talked, I've talked to a lot of these guys. Some of them are my clients. And if, if their business were to shut down today, they'd be just as broke as every other American. They're just earning a lot higher income. They might be making millions upon millions of dollars in their business at least, but they don't have the profit to create real passive income. I warned, I was in a real estate mastermind group. Still am in that group. I warned them back in like 2018, I was like, guys, you need passive income. You know, trust me, because I didn't have it at one point in it, you know, especially when the recession hit, I went broke. You need passive income. Only a few guys really listened, even though even the leadership was saying the same thing, like, guys, you need to build your cash reserves, build passive income, all that kind of stuff. The few guys that did that were still around after 2022 when things really started hitting the fan for a lot of these guys. The ones that actually already had other additional streams of income coming in were the ones that survived. Other guys that were bragging about making millions upon millions of dollars are nowhere to be seen. In fact, they're even out of business. Or they had to completely change their business model, shift to something else completely because they were going broke. And so passive income is very important. I think every person needs passive income. I don't care if you're an employee with the government job. I don't care if you're a business owner thinking you have control of your life, which you really don't. Business owners just have bigger rat races. It just looks different, you know, but it's most. I would say most business owners are in bigger rat races sometimes than even employees are because they work hard. But if they were to stop that business, they're out. They're out, right? They don't have anything to back them up. So you need that real passive income where your money is working harder for you, that requires you to take your profits, take your money, not lock it away in 401ks, not lock up with your financial advisor to make 0. Nothing percent or at the bank or wherever it might be, right? Instead, get that money working harder for you. That's for me, passive income.

Krisstina Wise [41:14 - 44:35]: Damn. I mean, I could just talk to you all day. It's like, again, it's like, preach it, brother, preach it. And it's like, it's so great to hear somebody else say exactly these things. And it feels just really good, like validating to me because I've been saying these things for years. But it just seems like for a lot of people, it's like, I don't want to invest in real estate. That's too complicated. I just want to max out my 401k. And again, that's better than nothing. But thank you for all that. I just, again, for Everybody listening, I'm 100% on board with this. And that's my definition of passive income too. Not different streams of income in your business that. I hear people say that all the time that, that I have some passive income because I have a good funnel working in my business. Like, no, that's not passive. That could turn off any day now. And I totally agree with you. Most businesses and entrepreneurship, total rat race again. They go broke if they, their business had to shut down tomorrow. So the other thing there, the. So there's passive income. And we just discussed that and you know, maybe like you, it sounds like you were probably a lot smarter than I was as I did this, started this whole venture and. But you know where I sit today financially, it's, it's. And I like to share this to everybody listening. It's not because I was all that smart, great with numbers, great with math, just had. I want to be an investor and I'm going to create a bunch of real estate. I'm going to become uber rich. Like, I never went in with it that way or really with that intention. I just wanted to build wealth and net worth and didn't really know what it meant. But when I started studying Kiyosaki and some of the things back in the day, because I wanted to be a millionaire one day and wanted to be financially free, whatever that term meant at the time, you know, 20 years ago, but a small girl, like a girl who started in the trailer home, who had a poor education and all the things, I just like loved real estate and I just bought a piece of real estate every three to five years and then I'd buy another piece of real estate three to five years. And I just kept saving money and doing that. And then I read this book called become your own banker and that just made a lot of sense. And then I got whole life insurance and then didn't even really know what it was, but did just some study and talk to people like, hey, this sounds like a pretty real deal and talk to people that used it and then use my life insurance to borrow against my cash value to buy more real estate and use real estate to pay. And it's just been this really beautiful like this thing called real estate and whole life insurance that again, not even really knowing what I was doing, but just like, yeah, this makes sense. I think I can work with this. And it's been kind of these two tools that, I mean, I've, I've. I love investing money because I love putting my money to work and I just love the money that makes the money. Like I work hard for my money. Like I work hard in my business like you do. You're here, I'm here doing podcasts. We're still like working to make money, like working income, not passive income. And I enjoy my work, but the money I love more is the money from my money. Like it just, it's such a great Feeling like all that passive income that comes in from the real estate and things. So I've just always loved putting my money to work. So these two vehicles between whole life insurance and being an active real estate investor and a passive real estate investor with, with syndications and partnerships and stuff like that.

Chris Miles [44:36 - 44:37]: You're speaking my language. I love it.

Krisstina Wise [44:37 - 45:54]: Over the time. Yeah, Chris, I mean, yeah, I know I am. Over the time, these two, these things have made me rich. Let's just put it. Yeah, all the other money I've invested, I've had some wins, like I've invested some private equity where I put some money in some startups and, and some things and I got kind of lucky, but most, I lost most of my money there. Put a lot of money in crypto, maybe one day there'll be a payoff. But didn't really know what I was doing and, and lost a lot of money in crypto. So I mean, I've just played in the stock market a little bit, lost a lot of money. So like the tried and true that have made me, let's say, rich by probably most people's standards, these two things have worked. All the other money, it's kind of just a bit disappeared. Like I've lost millions of dollars like playing in these other arenas, wanting to put that money to work and thinking it might be a home run because these other things would have been kind of slow, you know, for 20 years worth of investing for to finally like all the numbers, you know, create that financial freedom. So what do you say to that? Like these vehicles compared to these other not necessarily get rich schemes, because not all of them are schemes, but this belief that hey, I want to get rich quick and these real estate seems slow or what is whole life insurance. I've been told that this is a bad thing, you should never do it.

Chris Miles [45:54 - 45:54]: So.

Krisstina Wise [45:54 - 45:57]: Yeah. What's your reply to everything I just said?

Chris Miles [45:57 - 50:20]: Well, I like one thing you said too. Like it took 20 years and you started to really see that freedom. Right. Well, 20 years, in my opinion is better than never because the traditional route, like we talked about earlier in the show, is that it's, it's, it's never worked really. Like you end up living a very meager life down the road, you know, that's the truth, that's the reality. Heck, even when I see people saving a couple hundred thousand a year, I had a guy that was 53 years old, had $3 million and the financial advisor told him, well, if you want to live on a half million a year, Just save for at least another 13 plus years and you might get there, right? As long as the market stays friendly. So the fact you sound like I did this in 20 years a slow way, is that really slow? That's a miracle for most people's lives, right? But you're right because of social media and a lot of people that want to just their attention spans, like the same attention span of like Dory from Finding Nemo, right? I mean, it's like you don't remember what you did yesterday. That's the problem, you know, and so it's, it's not, it's not that you can't do it faster, but what happens is that people swing so hard for the fences sometimes that they keep striking out. And it's, it's that. And that's why we talk about stewardship so much. Like stewardship is really that core philosophy. In fact, I even have a thing called the wealth wheel, right? There's really three parts of wealth wheel. There's principles first, then there's using, I call max roi, infinite banking, using that life sharing strategy you mentioned. And then passive investments. And then that just keeps feeding itself, right? And so with principles like principles of stewardship are very important. Even the, you know, even the high risk creates high returns. You gotta deny some of those lies that are out there. The fact that somebody thinks I just gotta make it big and make it rich. Well, the problem is, well, what if you just don't strike out? What if you just get base hits, you just get on base, right? Like the whole money ball philosophy, right, from you know, the Brad Pitt movie, right? That's all they were trying to do is like, who actually gets on base. That's what we go for. Instead of trying to go for the big hitters, the sluggers, right? That was what's really important, even in investing too is how do I just get on base? How do I not lose money? How do I make sure that I make it work? And so like, even with bitcoin, like I did the same thing. I bought some bitcoin. Like I waited till it crashed the first time, bought around 6,000 bucks. When it got up to around 50,000, I realized when everybody's asking to buy in bitcoin, that's the time to sell. When you have people that barely graduate high school with you as classmates that are asking about bitcoin, that's the time to not be in bitcoin, right? Same thing with the stock market. When nobody's saying to get out of the stock market, that's the time to get out of the stock market, by the way. May not be a bad time right now. September is usually the worst month, right? So when you get in the fall, things can go south a lot of times, you know, so all these things, right? All these things happen. So I, I agree with you. Like, and so I do that. So, like, it's, it's taking your money, getting out of prison, right? Don't lock it away in those 401ks and IRAs. Don't lock it away in your. And just trying to pay off your house. I'm not saying you don't pay off your house. Just don't speed it up, right? Just do your normal payments. Keep all that money in your possession. And one of the best place you can store it is that, you know, doing whole life insurance, not the traditional whole life. There's a reason why Dave Ramsey Susan Orman RIP on whole life insurance because the traditional ones do suck. They're horrible. They're horrible. But you can design them in a way. And it took me, by the way, 15 years to figure it out because I was sold a crappy whole life policy about back in 2006 when I was starting in this real estate game. I thought whole life was like the worst thing ever. I was like, why would you ever invest in whole life? As a financial advisor? I told people to never touch it. Why would somebody do that? Why are these investors loving it? And just like you, right? They're like, oh, no, this thing is really good. Well, I bought, bought into it, but I bought one from the guy that they were all buying from. Super expensive policy. I asked them, could I design this differently? Because as a, because I was also life insurance license even at that time. I said, and I am still to this day, I said, well, couldn't I do this or that or pull some levers to make this cheaper? He said, no, you can't, otherwise you'll get taxed. Ooh, I hate taxes. So let's not do it. Well, in 2008, when all of a sudden the market, the recession started hitting, I went from millionaire to upside down millionaire. I went broke. During that period of time, I couldn't keep paying my premiums. I paid 25 grand in and lost all my money. But then I found out later on that when I start playing with my own numbers, just like when I play with The S&P 500, right, actually look at real results, I started playing with my own numbers using life insurance scenarios and such. I found out this guy lied to Me. And when I confronted him about it, it finally came down to he says, chris, the reason I designed it that way is because I couldn't afford to cut my commissions.

Krisstina Wise [50:20 - 50:21]: Wow.

Chris Miles [50:21 - 53:08]: I was like, there's a problem. And so that's why I started like the last 15 years, like perfecting it and designing it to where you do get the best. All right, so it actually makes sense for investors and business owners because you don't have all this money going to cost more of it goes to your cash than that's liquid savings. I can actually use this tax free supercharged savings account that then can be used not just to hold my store, my cash to make more than zero point the bank, right. And it's a hundred percent protected from lawsuits and creditors in most states as well. But then I can also use this money and create leverage with it to double dip, where I can make money in two places at the same time, including in my passive investments. And so it's something I can use as a cash reserve and I can use with my cash flowing investments to be able to build and grow my cash faster. And it's crazy because there's a guy on my team that works with me now and his dad bought a policy on him when he was a teenager. He bought it for him because he's like, hey, I want to do this as an alternative to doing like a college fund, right? Well, the good thing is it doesn't count against his dad. His dad was wealthy, didn't count against him as an asset for that college funding, right? So his son was actually able to get, was able to get a financial aid, you know, interest free student loans, right? So at that point he's like, well, I'm not going to cash out his son. Even though he turned over to his son, his son's like, no, I'm going to leave it in there because it's interest free, but I'm earning interest inside this policy. So let's let it grow. Well, when he finally got out of college, he said, you know what, maybe I don't want to pay off my student loans yet. Maybe I want to use this money instead to start up a new business and start making more money that will more than pay for my student loans, right? And even his dad, who also was a partner in the biggest, what's called stock trading company in the country, he actually sold to TD Ameritrade. You've probably seen the building right off the freeway when you drive by sometimes. But like that large company, he was an owner in that he was a stock trader and an options trader. This guy bought and sold business, did, you know, did a lot of PE type stuff, right? He even did, you know, buy and sold businesses. He's done real estate, he's done everything. And even to this day his dad will still say, of all the things I put my money into, my life insurance was the best one. He's like, it was the one place that one, I didn't have another tax form to worry about because it's tax free, and then two, it's the one place I knew that the money was always growing. I never had to worry about it. It was the most passive thing I have in my entire life. Now you can't stop there. You won't get rich doing that strategy, which is why you also need other passive cash flowing investments to work with it hand in hand. But when you get all those things working together, you understand that, you understand real true financial principles, not the myths you've always been taught. Combine that using strategies like these two things, then you start to realize that, that that wheel, right, that wealth wheel starts to grow faster, your passive income can grow faster and you can actually become financially free so much faster and methodically than you ever would just trying to do it haphazardly like many people do.

Krisstina Wise [53:10 - 55:07]: Right on. So let's, let's slide into home base and the again, from, from my point of view, someone like me has been able to use these two tools and some others, but like you said, but really just everything you talked about, steward of money, spending less than I make, being serious about being an investor, putting my money to work, being really to go, you know, go slow and methodical and just, you know, believing, not believing, but you know, knowing that these things are going to grow over time, but just always, you know, that wealth building desire and just being consistent year over year over year. And so I just say that, and I think it's everything that you're saying too, that there's no rocket science here. Like to buy a house every few years and if you work with a really great real estate investor agent, that can help you make decisions if you're nervous the first or second time, like you said, go into a partnership with somebody who's done multiple times but maybe just needs some capital and cash because you know, that's one of the hardest things to find is capital and then you can learn. So there's, like you said, there's different ways to get into real estate. There's even passive income ways that don't have as much Advantages, but still have some, some good wealth creation advantages to them. And then maybe look into this thing called the whole life insurance. And you know, I'm going to put a link to in the show notes that if people are interested that they can call you and talk to you about how to fit this in. But I'm just saying none of this is rocket science. You don't have to be some investor financial wizard to build wealth over time and to build financial freedom. Like really. And just like you said, it's just, it's just a matter of principles and max ROI and passive, like looking for, you know, that passive income and passive investment strategy. Anything else to add to that, I'll.

Chris Miles [55:08 - 56:22]: Just say amen to that. I mean, Christina, this is why, this is why we really have two options in life, right? I mean, we can try to do it on our own, right? And do like what I did, where I had to bump my knees and lose money, make money and everything else. I never filed for bankruptcy, but I had to dig out of a million dollar debt hole to then finally become financially in 2016, you know, for the second time. Right. I wish I had somebody that I could have actually mentored with during that period of time, even before I lost the money. Right. I mean, that's why you're here, Christina, because I know you do mentoring and things like that as well. I mean, you can either do it yourself, which is the longer, more expensive way, or you can create a shortcut almost like a wormhole through space. Right? You can almost, you know, create this shortcut in a cheaper way, which is have somebody who's been there, done that, and still doing it today. And those are the kind of mentors I, I like to seek out for myself. Right? If there's anything you want to create, any kind of life that you want to create, find someone that you know like and trust that actually has that life. Not the social media life that looks like they have this nice sports car or whatever, Right. But they're really working 80 hours a week to be able to afford that sports car. I mean, somebody who actually has a life that you want, they legitimately are walking the walk and talk while they talk that talk. That is the easiest, fastest way of creating more wealth now.

Krisstina Wise [56:23 - 56:38]: Right on. All right, well, my final question. Well, two final questions is, the first one is you've done a lot of myth busting. What do you see is the next biggest myth in the financial industry that you would like to bust?

Chris Miles [56:39 - 58:54]: Ooh, that is a good one. I mean, I wouldn't say it's a new one. I mean, I've been hitting really hard on the 401k and the myth of the match that it's not truly 100% or 50% return. But I don't know if that's the next thing necessarily. I think that's. For me, it feels like old because I've been preaching that for almost two decades. Right. I would say the next thing that I'm kind of foreseeing right now is. Is really just the kind of the get rich quick thing, right? The passive income. I really think that, you know, when we talk about passive income, that's becoming thing that it's starting to make people vomit in their mouth a little bit because it's really been kind of bastardized a little bit, you know, um, because it, it's. People really start to believe it's not true. You know, even, even the coaching space, like there coaching is. Is so unsuccessful. Right? Like, you know, I've been, I've been talking to a friend and she's saying like coaching in, in the. Even the financial space, business space, doesn't matter. They might have, if they're lucky, a 20% success rate. I mean, that's horrible. Like, we don't even take on a client unless we know for 100% we can get them success. You know, otherwise we tell them you don't qualify. But it's so sad that you see that kind of stuff out there. And so there's all these marketers and all this noise out there. And, and I think the biggest myth I'm going to probably end up busting shorter term in the near future is going to be about the stock market. I really believe the market's going to come crashing down and it's going to. It's going to hurt. It's going to hurt a lot. And people won't be ready for it. And, and even some of my own clients have a hard time busting that myth themselves because they're like, yeah, but it hasn't gone down yet, so maybe I'll just keep. I'll do some real estate, but I'm going to keep a bunch of money still over here. But they're. At what point are they going to say, oh, that's not enough. Right? Because I've seen too many people where, as it goes down, this is just psychology. This is true. Even in stock trading, as it goes down, you don't sell because you don't want to, quote, unquote, lose money. So you ride it out and you Ride all the way through the bottoms and then back to the top. If you ever do get out, you usually get out the bottom when everybody else wants to get out, and that's the worst time. So. So really busting that myth about stock markets and why I don't like it anymore and why you don't need the stock market to be financially free at all, I think that's one of the biggest myths I want to bust.

Krisstina Wise [58:55 - 59:00]: Yeah, well, I'm there with you. The final question is, what's your money mindset?

Chris Miles [59:01 - 1:01:05]: My money mindset is that money is just money. You know, I realized that, you know, when I lost everything. That's when I realized I had everything. You know, money is just a magnifier of the soul. You know, it only makes you more of who you already are. When I hear people, parents say, well, I don't want to corrupt my kids. Well, if that's the case, they're already corrupted and that's your fault, you know, then you probably didn't teach them. Well, if that's the case, and I'm speaking as a parent from eight kids, I know you can't control everything a kid does. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion with some of the adult kids sometimes. But, you know, but it's true. Like, money only makes you more of who you already are. The best thing you can do is have an abundance mindset with the money. That's actually why my company's name is called Money Ripples and even the Money Ripples podcast, right, Is that it's. The money is not something that just simply is something to just buy your time back. Although it's great at doing that, but it's really something that allows you to magnify your mission on this planet. That's the ripple effect I talk about, right? It's like, how do you, as you get, you become more blessed financially, right? You prosper more in your life. Instead of just living a comfortable life like I could have done, right? You could do something else. You don't have to do what I did, but you could do something that can actually bless more lives. How can you make a greater impact in your community? How can you create a bigger legacy, not just for your family and just paying the bills? I think one of the most selfish things is when I hear people say, I just want to have enough money to pay my bills and take care of my family. Well, that's selfish. No, no, I'm a good parent. I'm taking care of my family. No, that's selfish still. That's your household. How do you take care of people that are outside of your family? What can you do to help them? How can you be more like Christina? Right. Like how you do what she's doing, where she could also just be very quiet, living her happy life, not have to produce a podcast for you. Right. Which is hard, you know, so that's the kind of thing is, what are you going to do with your life? What's that next step beyond financial freedom? That's what money can allow you to do. It's a megaphone. It's a magnifier of whatever you're trying to do. Ideally, you're a good person. We want more money in the hands of good people. Not bad people, but good people that want to help more people and serve more and make this planet a better place. That is what I believe money is meant for.

Krisstina Wise [1:01:06 - 1:01:20]: Well, I have goosebumps. Chris, thank you so much. You've been just so generous with your time, and I love everything that you say. And I'll do my part to get your voice out to as many people as possible because it's. It's that important.

Chris Miles [1:01:20 - 1:01:25]: Well, I really appreciate that. Yeah. We're both. We're both kind of yoked together in this work. It's great.

Krisstina Wise [1:01:25 - 1:01:59]: Awesome. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. If you wish to learn more from me about financial abundance, business, and wealth creation, I invite you to check out my new YouTube channel. Subscribe and receive weekly money education videos. You'll find me at YouTube.com ristinawise YouTube.com R I S S T I N a W I S E Otherwise, join me again next week for an episode of the Wealthy Wealthy podcast, where I interview experts about the intersection of wealth, health, and business. Until then, live your wealthy, wealthy life.