How I Retired Twice | 400

Hello, my fellow Ripplers! This is Chris Miles, your Cash flow Expert and Anti-financial Advisor. Hey, I want to welcome you out for another show. A show that’s for you. And it’s about you guys. It’s about those of you that work so hard for your money, and you’re now ready for your money so start working harder for you today. You want that freedom. That cash flow. That prosperity. Right now! Not 30 or 40 years from now, but today. So you have that life that you love doing what you love being with those that you love. But guys, it’s so much more than that. Isn’t it? It’s about having that life of freedom. A life of happiness. Of quality. A life of service for other people. Because as you prosper financially, you can bless more lives. And as you bless more lives, you create a ripple effect through people’s lives. And that’s what it means to be a Rippler. And I’m excited to be that Rippler on with you. Thank you so much for allowing me to create a ripple effect through your guys’s lives. And to be able to teach you and guide you and help you to prosper today. Because without that, without you guys doing these things and actually taking action, this I’d be wasting my breath right now. It wouldn’t be worth it. I would just be doing my own thing, making my own money, but I’m so happy that I can be able to share this stuff with you guys today. So thanks so much.

Speaking of sharing, if you guys want to find more ways to find more cash, you can check out my website. MoneyRipples.com. There’s the book Beyond Rice & Beans, Seven Secrets to free up cash today that you can check out there. By the way. Also, if you’ve got questions for me thinking, Chris, I think I’m ready to take my money to the next level and get it work for me. Shoot me an email, Chris@MoneyRipples.com and say, Chris, like, what can you do with my situation? By the way, just on that topic, I’ll just let you know, I just got done with the client we’ve worked with for the last few months. And the cool thing is he didn’t have a huge amount of money, right? He just had a few hundred thousand to play with, but between everything we’re able to do both freeing up cash flow by paying off loans and by investing. And this is even without him having quite enough credit to do extra leverage or anything like that just found out today, we calculated all the totals and he has cash reserves. So he’s emergency savings too.

So he’s feels protected in this time. And he’s got extra cash flow. The cash flow total was 2,911 bucks a month, or just shy of 35,000 a year. This year that he’s going to have to be able to put that money away, build up and create an income snowball. So guys, that’s the fun stuff I love. That’s the reason why I’m still doing, I’m doing because man, when I see what, what people aren’t doing and what is possible, it’s so much fun to be able to create a new reality. So anyways guys, again, thank you so much for tuning in. Today, I want to talk about, I really want to go more into a, I want to make this episode special. I want to have my wife on this podcast. I am actually really disappointed to get a recording out soon enough, but we’ll get her all right. And, and I’m putting pressure on her right now for that reason, because she should have been doing recorded episode. That would have been awesome for you guys. So I wanted something that was a good consolation prize of what am I going to do for episode number 400. So I want to go with the number one question that everybody asks.

Chris, how did you retire twice? How did you do that? Here’s the short answer first and foremost, it shouldn’t have been twice if I did it right. I shouldn’t have had to retire twice. The reason of course, as you guys know my story, if you followed enough, is that I was able to get out of the rat race back in 2006, came out of retirement, 2007 to start teach people how to get out of the rat race. And then of course, when the recession hit, I went from, you know, being financially free to being over a million dollars in debt within about a year, about $1.1 Million of debt to be exact.

So I went to a massively drastic place in the whole 16,000 a month. So because of that, I had to stop teaching people how to gather rat race. Cause I was back in it I’d be a total hypocrite for trying to teach something that I wasn’t living myself. So anyways, over the next several years, you know, really from 2009, sort of build things back up again. And then of course by 2016, I was able to be out of the rat race once again. Now, for those who aren’t, you know, maybe you don’t understand what the rat race is. I know many of you already know cause it’s such a Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad term. You guys probably read over and over. But what it means is that you’ve got residual and or passive income coming in without you having to work actively, right?

You’re managing it, but you’re not actively working in it where you’re able to pay for expenses. Now, the first time was easy for me, right? The first time, you know, it was, I only needed 4,000 a month and that was it. Now with a blended family of eight children, 4,000 a month is impossible in my opinion. So for us, plus we have an at least a little bit of a lifestyle, even though we don’t live an extravagant life, it’s about 15,000 a month. And so that’s why it took me several years to get to that point. But I want to talk to you about that secret. What really did it because yes, I have investments. I do invest in real estate and syndications and other things just like we talked about on the show, but you know what? That is not the main thing that got me there. Now, you know, we can talk about like, you know, I’m not gonna talk about transactional income and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, here’s the thing is that your business or your job is the primary engine that helps you get there. But then you always have to be thinking too is all right, that’s my active stream of income. What can you do to create passive or residual? So there’s two different types of streams of income I’m going to cover briefly. Cause I just talked about this in a recent episode, you know, one passive income. I label this as anything you can do with investments where it pays you cash. It could be interest earned from investments, interest earned, especially from different types of funds or whatever it might be. It’s also money that you earn from cash flow on real estate and things like that, right? It’s actual income that’s coming in, being paying out from your money. It’s your money making money for you without you having to necessarily work super hard for it, right?

This is not the same as someone going in say, they go and flip a house that is not passive income. That is active income. That is a business. That is not the same thing, right? We’re talking about stuff that you can do that is paying you on a regular basis. You know, like I said, interest from a fund though, I be paying you a certain amount. We advertise HP a lot, right? You hear about that. They pay interest on their money. You know, it could be getting passive income on your real estate properties where after all expenses are paid, you’re getting cash flow each and every month. Again, thing that maybe you put some up from work into or some money into, but then it pays you.

The second stream is residual streams of income, right? Residual streams are going into more of what I refer to as those business streams, they could be like passive streams, but I consider more residual because it’s from your business. These are things that maybe you created once and then it pays you over and over. You know, it could be that you wrote a book and then you get paid royalties on that book. It could be your produced, you know, an online program or something like that. And it keeps paying you over and over. Now you might, you know, pull the trigger and you click some buttons to make sure that, that, you know, things are working, they’re active, but you get paid on that. You know? So those are the, the residual streams.

So here’s the thing guys, is that I learned this the first time I retired and it blew my mind because the real principle and this goes true for anything is if you want to make more money, passive or active or residual, if you want to make more money, you got to always answer the question of, how do I create more value for more people? What can I do to create value for people? What can I do to create a win, win for them, to give them what they want to solve a problem to serve them, just fulfill a need that money is just a natural byproduct?

Now see, when I understood this actual principle, right? This is a true principle from the beginning of time, it said. If you want to be paid, you got to give something in order to receive it’s that law of the harvest you got to give in order to receive. So I started obsessing over that question. Now it wasn’t until one of my friends who was wealthy said, Hey, Chris, you know, do you like doing mortgages? This is back in 2006. And that was the one active thing I was doing. And I said, well, I like advise people on it. And I like helping them get the end result.

But I hate paperwork. I hate dealing with all the application process. Those you have that done in life insurance through me, already know that’s the same exact thing I do now. I’ll help design the policy and get it just right. But then I’ll pass it on to my team to let them handle all the backend on the underwriting side of things. Right. And that’s the way I like to be. And so I told them, I said, I really don’t like that. And he said, well, why don’t you find somebody who does like doing that? So I did, you know, I went to the company, the brokerage I was working with and I found a guy that was great at the backend. It wasn’t necessarily the guy that was the most outgoing, but he had a really decent bedside manner. He was able to give people they want.

And I went to him. I said, listen, if I get people to the point where they already know what kind of mortgage they want, you just have to help them do it and apply for it. Would you, would you split the deal 50-50 with me? And he said, yes. I said, great. Well, the next thing I know, I started meeting with people for half an hour to an hour and then month or so later, there’s a check in the mail for a thousand or 1500 bucks or so. I’m like, that’s awesome. That’s super easy. You know, I didn’t have to do all the work, all the legwork. Right. And that’s the key thing guys. And that’s the real secret that I started to understand was, wait a minute. How can, if I can’t do it myself now, if I can do something to create value, awesome.

That’s where active income comes from. But what if I’m not the best person for the job? What if I just know that somebody has a need and I can introduce them to that person that can fill that need, how can I be that connector? And I realized I was really naturally, really good at connecting. And this is what I’m going to recall. Wealth sharing. I’m going to call this wealth sharing. And I think right now with the situation the world is in right now, this is absolutely essential for all of you to understand, because as a society, for us to prosper as a whole, there has to be this other principle in play. So it’s not just dollars follow value. That’s principle. Number one, principle. Number two is exchange creates wealth. Exchange creates wealth. The faster we exchange goods and services with other people, the more movement, the more free market, right?

As you might hear, people say, right? The more movement there is a value exchange happening. There’s also money exchange happening. And the more money that’s being exchanged and changing hands, the more prosperous everybody becomes, especially if it’s something of use, right? So again, that money moving, this is why all the stimulus money is going. That’s why they keep trying to put money in your hands. They understand that the principle is that if people don’t have money to exchange, the wheel stop. The cogs and everything just explodes. It’s just like whenever you see the movies, right? And they, they stick some sort of, you know, metal bar into the cog and then the thing starts heating up and then boom, it explodes, right? Same thing happens to our economy. The when way to get out of this bad economy is how do you get those cogs moving?

How do you keep the money and value exchanging, especially that value gives something of greater value to that person. And this is not about ripping people off this that should never be a conversation in your head. The conversation is all about how can I serve people and solve problems. And if I can’t do it, if they have a problem that needs to be solved, can I connect them with someone who can? And so, you know, so give an example, like I’ve had people send me referrals. Some people that are like, you know, podcast host of other shows saying listen, your stuff is amazing. I think I want to create an agreement that if they go to you, you know, you can pay me. Now, depending on what kind of service, if it’s just like my consulting fees, great it’s easy to pay. Now, if someone becomes a life insurance client, unless their life insurance license, I can’t pay them because that’s against the law. Right?

But that’s how I do that. And that’s the same concept that happened when I was using that mortgage broker saying, Hey, why don’t you do this kind of the work? He enjoys the work, by the way, it wasn’t like I was pulling the wool over his eyes. He willingly went to this agreement saying, this is good. I like this. But for me, I want something that was more, you know, residual, right? And so that’s where that comes in by sharing with other people, by helping other people, by connecting people who, to each other, to help people solve problems and prosper. Everybody, everyone becomes more prosperous. And by the way, when your friends and your neighbors and families become more prosperous. So do you, because as money starts circulating and it all works. Now I’ll give you an example. And I’ve used a story in a few other episodes, but I remember about six or seven years ago.

I remember I was doing, I was in the first quarter of that year. I believe this was actually the year of 2015. In fact, I actually, yeah, I do know it’s a, it was 2000, no, sorry. 2014. It was 2014 first quarter. And that quarter, for whatever reason, even after I have a great year in 2013, my numbers were down, you know, my revenue in the business was down and I was like, man, people aren’t committing, they’re having a hard time. And I remember I was frustrated, right? I was, I remember him calling my friend. It was by March, about early March of that year, I was still fresh as saying, Man! Why isn’t this working? You know why? And I was even telling, I was like, yeah, people aren’t exchanging like, like there’s like, people are frozen. People need to move in order for this to happen.

They need to exchange with one another. And then it dawned on me. I said, I need to exchange. I need to lead by example. So what did I do? I started like, I actually wrote a blog post. And I, this blog post said, here’s the five areas of business. And by the way, it’s still on MoneyRipples.com. If you go there way back. Right. But I said, here’s the five areas of business you need to address. And I brought up like, you know, coaching, I brought up, you know, the finances of business by the way. I of course plugged myself for finances. But I also included some of my competitors who, by the way, eventually became my wife, ironically enough. She was a competitor. In fact, she was shocked. She was like, why would you resend me referrals? I said, because I don’t do what you do.

That’s why, you know, and you don’t do what I do. So there you go. I had all these different areas, marketing and sales and all that kind of stuff. Right? Like things, basic things in business. I’m like, here are the people I recommend. I got to probably look at that list. I’m sure some of those people, most of those people are going to be in business still, but some might not be, I don’t know, but it was, those are the people I referred to at the time. Here’s the thing. I got no referrals from those people, at least not short term. But I remember like I was not making a lot money. I was making about 40% of what I normally made in that quarter. But the dam broke. I call it karmic debt. Again, I’m going to do a podcast on that topic alone. But that point, because that exchange was happening, what happened is I got people from other places.

I ended up breaking records the next month in April. You know, I never made that much money in my business ever. And it blew my mind what was possible. The cool thing is eventually those people did start sending me referrals. Right? But not at that moment. That’s the coolest part is that it created that kind of, you know, karma for me, you know? And so that’s the thing, guys, when you create exchange, when you start doing that yourself, you’ll realize they don’t come back to you in many different ways. And that’s a true principle that always works is that when you, the more people exchange with another, the faster that money and value changes, people’s hands and goes in and out of people’s lives. The more prosperous the entire society becomes. When people hold on to money at a fear at a scarcity, that’s when everything breaks down. That’s when you get those great depression. That’s when people are holding on to money and fear and scarcity, they’re not spending, this is what’s happened with the COVID era, right.

You know, what’s been going on this year when people aren’t spending money, things collapse, right? That’s the key. People can say all they want, Hey, go eat at your local restaurant. You know, if they’re open, you know, go wear a mask and all that kind of crap, right? It’s like, go eat there. Well, here’s the thing. If you’re not getting paid, it’s kind of hard to go eat there. Isn’t it? So the fastest, easiest ways. And by the way, this is, what’s created a lot of residual income for me over the years is realizing that when there’s a need, when there’s a question that people keep asking, can I find the person to help that. Help that person, you know, can I find the people, connect them to, to solve that problem or create that kind of value for them? And by the way, you look like a hero, when you connect them to the right people, I’ve had people send me referrals all the time and they’re like, Hey Chris, you know, people that have barely even know me and saying, you should talk to Chris.

And they’re like, wow, this is so cool. What you do for these people. And it actually helps reinforce to me like, yeah, you’re right. I’m creating great value. This isn’t just cause I’m used to it. And it’s just everyday life for me. It can literally change people’s lives. So think about that in your life. Think about who are the people you can connect people to, you know, Hey, you’re welcome. It doesn’t even require money exchange. Right? I mean, now granted, there’s a money exchange. Be willing to, to go to that business owner to say, listen, I got a lot of referrals for you. Would you be willing to cut me in like on a referral fee or something like that? This is where you can create cash flow from no money out of pocket, just because you’re creating some sort of value. Guys and I’m telling you, that’s how I retired the first time.

And then I added investments later. That, that first time, the second time I started adding investments. But again, I was still doing the same thing, you know? And just so you know, just to be perfectly clear, most of the people that show up as guests on this show, we have no agreement, no financial agreement at all. I just bring on because I think it’s valuable, right? So almost everybody you hear on this show, there’s no financial agreement, but I guarantee you that if there’s a big show, that’s a hit. I’m going back to that person say, listen, you got a lot of leads from this show. Well, lets work on a deal. If it’s not just exchanging leads and exchanging, you know, people and contacts, Hey, let’s exchange money. Yeah. Let’s do something there. You know? So that’s how it works on my life. They’ll be completely transparent.

That’s a lot of the stuff that I do. For you that can look like so many different ways. But the key thing is, Is that regardless if you start just focusing on other people, instead of just your own problems, focus on what other people want and need and find ways to help them get that. I can assure you as long as you give people what they want, you will never want. I guarantee it. That’s a true principle. It worked. Even when I’ve been broke, it’s worked when I’ve been rolling in the dough. Right. So either way it works, guys. I want you to focus on this and make us a big focus for this week. Happy episode number 400. Hey, we’ll talk to you later.