If you want to create a ripple effect that will affect others in this season of giving, you have to learn how to give back. Does giving only involve money? What are ways you can give beyond just giving money? How can you create your own ripple effect, giving to others throughout the year that not only helps others but enriches your life too? Join Chris Miles as he shares from experience the gifts given to him as well as ways you can give to others, enriching BOTH of your lives. Master the principle of giving today and at any time of the year.
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The Gift Of A Ripple Effect
Welcome to the show that’s for you. It’s for those who work so hard for your money. You want your money to start working harder for you right now. You want that freedom and cashflow now, not 30 or 40 years from now, but right now, so you live that life that you love with those that you love. Most importantly, it’s just not about getting rich. It’s about creating a rich life because as you’re blessed financially, you can create a greater ripple effect to create a blessing in the lives of others.
I appreciate you allowing me to create that ripple effect for you because that is the topic of this episode. If you haven’t done so already, go to our YouTube channel, click subscribe, and then like this episode, especially if it touches your heart which I hope it does, and share it with others. Give them the best Christmas gift ever, which is a ripple effect in your own life and the lives of those around you. Please do so and check that out now.
Creating Your Own Ripple Effect
I want to wish you first a happy holiday and for those of us, Merry Christmas as well and a Happy New Year coming up. I wanted to talk about a subject that’s important to me. If you’re not on our email list, go to MoneyRipples.com and subscribe to our email list. If you’ve taken the passive income calculator, you’re probably already on our email list, or you have gotten your eBook or anything else. We’ve been doing twelve days of Christmas. This one is important to my heart. I want to make sure I gave you something this season.
I’m not going to go through all the emails and different stuff that we gave in that sequence there for you guys, but I do want to talk about how you can create your own ripple effect. What is that gift of creating a ripple effect? This is something I don’t want you to just carry through during this holiday season. I want this to be something that affects your life forever and something that blesses the lives around you forever.
The whole reason I’m here doing this show is because I want to create a ripple effect of the things that I’ve learned and figured out a few things right, and be able to share that with you guys, so it blesses your lives too. As I’ve said so many times before, I don’t need to keep doing this show. I don’t need to even have Money Ripples. That’s not the purpose of why this is here. The purpose of Money Ripples is to give something back. I want to talk about that now and what can you do to give back to others.
It may not just be monetary. There’s always the gift of giving to others and being able to give off money. In many cases, giving money is a cop-out. It’s the easy way out. Granted some people do need money, but that’s perfectly okay. That’s the first gift I’m talking about here among many gifts you can give. You can give a monetary gift and that’s awesome.
Understand that sometimes the best gifts don’t require any monetary exchange. Sometimes the best gifts, in truth, have more to do with who you give of yourself. I want to go through some of these together with you because I want this ripple effect to keep going strong for you throughout the rest of your life. I want this to be something that catches fire. That’s ultimately what we want to do here.
Sometimes, the best gifts don't require any monetary exchange. The best gifts have more to do with who you give of yourself. Click To TweetThe Gift Of Candor
The first gift here is the gift of candor. Sometimes the best thing you can do, especially for those of you that are willing to be bold and honest, is the gift of candor. It can be amazing. Someone who could be bluntly honest. I think of my friend, Doug, to give him a special shout-out. He was the one that got me to question what I was doing as a financial advisor. He was the one I trained to be a financial advisor who left to go do real estate investing. When I’m calling him up to wish him happy holidays and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and see how he’s doing, he’s like, “Chris, my life is amazing. It’s great right now. My dad and I have partnered on some real estate deals. We’ve doubled his income as a professor at this local university.” In my mind, that did not compute.
For some of you, if you’re just joining the show now, maybe that’s the case. For our VIP clients and VIP ripplers, they get it. I’m like, “I’m a financial advisor here. There’s no way that in a matter of months, he’s able to ‘get out of the rat race,’ and be able to essentially become financially independent.” It created this little debate between us back and forth about, what’s better, stocks are real estate?
He finally stopped me and said, “Chris, how many of your clients are truly financially free?” I’m like, “What do you mean?” “Financially free, where they don’t worry about money. It’s one thing to be retired, but it’s another thing to be retired and not worry about running out of money.” If I look at some of the retired people I have had that are clients of mine, even ones that I’ve inherited from decades of financial advisors and from their experience, none of them are.
I had to be honest with myself. I at least give myself the good gift of being honest. Even though I was a little fired up, my ego had to take a hit. He then put the nail in the coffin and says, “Chris, how many of you financial advisors are financially free, but not off the commissions you’re earning?” That’s a big key factor because many of my friends who are financial advisors, as good intentions as they are, they’re stuck in that career because they’re making tons of money off of the assets under management or commissions or whatever it is.
As I thought about it, I said, “Maybe. There’s this one guy in my office who seems pretty affluent,” but then I was like, “I can’t say for sure if he is.” I found out later that he wasn’t. I remember thinking about the guys that had been working there since the late 1970s. I said, “Probably, none of them. Maybe this one guy is, but I’m not so sure.” He says, “Chris, that’s your problem.” He was willing to call it as it is and because I was willing to listen, he changed the course.
One of these days, I hope I will be able to get in contact with Doug again to bring him on the show and get his perspective. That would be an awesome gift for you and me. I’m curious to see what he’s up to nowadays. That was a huge gift for me because he was willing to be brutally honest. He wasn’t like some other people that avoid creating conflict. Some people will avoid conflict and not get into it with me. They would say, “Okay. Whatever. Good luck, buddy. You’re the same old financial advisor that everybody else talks about.” That woke me up and got me to do something different. A big shout to Doug for that.
The Gift Of Service
The next gift I’ll talk about is the gift of service. One thing that’s interesting is I still tithe my money. Even though it wasn’t a lot of it, I still gave at least 10% to my local church. I did that because that’s a true principle of giving. It’s that expression of faith and that always comes back, but I didn’t have other money other than that. I was out. I learned that service is often free. It requires my body, my mind, my spirit, whatever it might be, but serving others often doesn’t require any monetary exchange.
Giving your time is harder to do than giving off my money. It took me going broke to figure that out. I remember being so broke that I couldn’t afford to pay the bills, so I would try to do other things. I wanted to create what was called karmic debt. I wanted to create so much karma that it had to come back to me. I remember at that time I was on welfare. Even though I was giving to my local church, they were also giving a little bit back to me during those hard times, so I would go and offer to clean the church for free.
It wasn’t for free because they gave me a lot more than I ever gave back, but I offered to clean the church willfully. I felt like I had to give some value back. If it snowed, I would shovel my neighbor’s driveways. I remember one Christmas, I literally shoveled twelve driveways including my own. Needless to say, I needed the gift and it was a back massage. That was the gift I needed after I was done, but it felt so good to give. Sometimes doing those little unexpected things for other people makes a big difference. How can you show up to serve somebody else?
The Gift Of Friendship
It might be a listening ear to somebody and offering some help, advice, friendship, or whatever it might be. That leads me to my next one, which is the gift of friendship. It’s having that gift of someone who’s willing to be that friend as Doug was for me, and willing to be honest, and put you in your place when you need to be put in your place, but also not to judge you.
I can’t tell you how much more I treasured friendship than when I went through a divorce. When I went through that period of time, I got to see who my true friends were. It’s tough for friends because they feel like they have to pick sides. I was shocked because the people that stayed as friends, I didn’t always expect that. There were some good friends, the kind of people you called at 2:00 or 3:00 AM, and know they’ll come to help you. Those friends are priceless. They’re worth so much in your life, but there were other friends that showed up that I was surprised about.
There are other friends that I thought would show up but didn’t show up. It was the same thing when I went broke. It’s interesting to see who shows up to serve and be a friend. How can you also be a friend to somebody else? How can you give of that true friendship? Maybe somebody has been misjudged. I remember I reached out to a friend when I was going through some hard times and feeling I have judged myself and I apologized. I said, “Listen, I need to apologize to you. You didn’t know this, but I judged you pretty harshly. I said it behind your back,” but I was pretty harshly judged.
That friend wasn’t Dave Ramsey. It was a different friend. If you want to know, it was Garrett White. He’s a friend that I’ve had for years. I said, “I misjudged you. It was stupid. I want to say I’m sorry.” He’s like, “Boom.” That was his response, which if you know Garrett White, that’s how he responds to everything, but it was good. It was great to be able to do that. How can you be a better friend?
The Gift Of Not Giving
There’s also the gift of not giving. What do I mean by this? It’s to essentially serve by not serving. This sounds a little bit weird, but I’m going to give it to you in a form of a story. I had a family member and I was going through some tough financial times as you’ve heard me talk about before. It’s so tough that I remember there was a time in that cold November after midnight. I set my alarm to wake up at midnight. I went outside. I was so desperate for money. I was rattling my brain out of how can I make money while I sleep.
I didn’t have money to invest. I didn’t have the ability to create passive income that way. I was like, “How can I make money while I sleep?” The answer came to me, “Make money while people sleep.” I set my alarm for midnight, woke up, went out on that cold November morning, and got my gloves and a warm coat on, it was about 20 to 25 degrees. It was super cold. It was way below freezing. I went out there in the pitch black and I went to the drive-through windows. The drive-through windows were like the ones you see at any fast-food restaurant and bank, and I started looking for change.
Back in the day, people would give change and they’d drop it on the ground and they would forget about it. They’re like, “I lost it.” I started looking at any drive-through I could find, all up and down. It’s probably about a good 10-mile stretch of this busy road looking for places to be able to get change. There was one sandwich shop that I banked on and I got $0.75. That was awesome. That was a great find.
For some of them, it was so cold and they got driven over so many times that sometimes were stuck in the tar that was in the concrete of the drive-through. I’d have to dig it with my fingernails. My skin was literally peeling back from my fingernails. That feeling when your fingernails get pulled back a little bit and it stings because you got something under that fingernail is what I felt.
I came home at 3:00 AM and I counted my change. I had $4. It was like Napoleon Dynamite saying, “That’s like $1 in an hour.” It was. In fact, it was a huge lesson to me because I realized, “I could literally work at Wendy’s making minimum wage and made way more money in one hour than I would have if I was doing what I’d done.” It was a big wake-up call to me. That was the desperate situation I was in. I was literally looking for change.
I had a family member. He was affluent and had a lot of money. He was in the position I’m in. Maybe I was not quite there like where I am now, but not hurting for money. I remember asking for money. He had already given us some money and I came back a second time. He said, “Chris, I’m going to do you a favor. I’m going to say no. I’m not going to give you this money.”
In my mind, I was furious. I was not trying to show it. I’m like, “What? Come on. You’ve got money. I don’t. Help a brother out.” He’s like, “No, the best thing for you right now is to solve your own problem. You need this. I’m not going to help you. I wish you the best.” I was so mad afterwards because I felt so entitled to that money, which was so dumb. It wasn’t true, but I was desperate. It was a desperate time.
The best thing he could have done was to do that. I had to man up. I had to figure my stuff out and that gave me resources and tools to allow me to essentially teach you guys what you’re learning now. It’s not just about passive income, but even when I talk about the cashflow secrets like the program that we’re launching this month. What were those things that I learned that was able to take and apply and get resourceful? That is the gift that I’m telling you about.
The Gift Of Mentorship
Money couldn’t buy it. In fact, it didn’t because my brother-in-law refused to give me that money and that was the best thing he could have done for me. Sometimes the best gift you can give to somebody is to do nothing. Wish them the best. Offer support, maybe an encouraging word, but tell them, “You need this. You need to figure it out. That struggle is what you need.” That’s the gift of not helping.
Sometimes, the best gift you can give to somebody is to do nothing. Click To TweetAlong with the gift of friendship, I want to express thanks for the gift of mentorship. Having a good mentor can mean everything. That person is your guide. It’s like my brother-in-law was to me. He was a mentor in a way because he knew what it was like to struggle as an entrepreneur. He had been one himself. He said, “Chris, you need to struggle. You need this.”
Sometimes mentors do a great job there. They also can help clear roadblocks by helping you avoid some extra pain too. The thing is my pain would’ve been extended had he given me money. I would’ve extended the problem longer. I wouldn’t have learned the lesson. He let me get that harsh reality. It’s kind of going with that gift of candor.
The gift of being a mentor is everything. Can you be a mentor to somebody else? Can you offer that guidance? You’ve already been there. This is why we coach people right now. We coach the things that we’ve done ourselves to help people get out of the rat race. We’ve seen the light and how to get there. Now, we’re passing on and teaching it back to you to have that financial and time freedom to get your life back. That’s the big thing. Having that mentor in your life is critical.
The Gift Of A Team
The next one is I want to do a big shout-out to my team. It’s the gift of a team. It’s having those people around you to help support you. It’s the team who is producing this episode and is helping me get this out, the team that is creating shorts, and the team that helps us to even launch our website or have our website updated.
I have guys like Craig Feldmeier who’s coaching our clients. He’s offering that help and support. We also have the Wealth Accelerator Academy. We have people like Danielle Hollembaek who we have had on the show as well who’s also helping as my Chief Marketing Officer and many other people. My team, Leah, Rafael, and all of you guys. Even other people that are ancillary that are helping outside like Parker who has done a great job in our team as well and many of you guys that we’ve contracted that I can’t even count. Even Video Power, shout out to you guys for doing our YouTube videos.
That support and that team are so important. This is from a guy who’s a lone wolf in a lot of ways. I was a lone wolf even a few years ago. I was producing this show all by myself up until we started doing video episodes in 2020, but up until 2019, I was producing all these myself. I had no VA and no support other than the occasional here and there. That was it.
That’s fine. If you choose that path, there’s nothing wrong with it. I enjoyed it. It’s good to have a team to support and surround you and help remind you what’s important. Sometimes they call you on your bull, to be honest, to keep your eyes wide open. A big shout out to my wife who’s the number one team member and mastermind in my life with her. Honestly, she calls me on bull all the time and has no fear of that. She does not ever want to pander to me at all ever. She does hit me where it counts. It keeps me humble and growing. A big shout out to having that team around you. Can you be a team member to support somebody else? Do you have a team around you too? Having that gift is priceless.
Gift Of Talents
Last few here, the gift of talents. It’s the talents that you have. We talked about the divine genius like in the Wealth Accelerator Academy. It’s how you use those talents to serve others. This is why I’m here. I love teaching, serving and helping. I happen to figure a few things out in the financial world that I figured I need to share.
I didn’t always feel that confident. I wasn’t able to figure things out financially. I wasn’t that smart as a financial advisor, but I was smart enough to get out and follow other people’s advice that was smarter. That’s some of my talents. I’m often willing to look at and see patterns. I see patterns and how things work. I can see some things almost ahead of time. I can almost see the future, especially if things are going to be dangerous, and sometimes for opportunities as well.
I also love teaching, which is why I’m here doing this. It’s that passion and love of teaching. I love to serve others and help, and even build a better mouse trap. I always try to improve things and make them better. I just happened to combine all to be here right now, which is why I’m trying to create that ripple effect for you guys. I’m taking all my time and my talents, and infusing that into the show, coaching programs, and everything else to ensure that you get the absolute best results and that your lives change.
This became apparent to me, especially as I started coaching and finding that. When I talk about divine genius, what’s that unique strength? It’s the combination of strengths, passions, talents, values, and everything else that becomes one. It becomes part of your mission that you have. I remember when I was working for the previous company I was working with before I did Money Ripples, which I helped start the predecessor to Wealth Factory with Garrett Gunderson. I remember that there were so many people that got benefited, but before that, we struggled.
During the recession, we almost went out of business. It was rough. Even Garrett White left the business, he went to do his own thing. It was Garrett Gunderson, me, and a few other people working in that company. That was it. I remember all the things I was suffering and struggling with. I’m talking about all these gifts. There’s even the gift of hardships, trials, and obstacles in your life or those roadblocks. Those are the things that make you stronger.
If you could take those things and use them to serve other people. My pain became other people’s gain. No pain, no gain. I started creating a whole cashflow process when I was over there. There was a guy that I remember saved on his taxes by partnering up with a good CPA. The next thing you know, he’s saving $60,000 a year. The guy literally cried. On average, those people free up about $34,000 or so a year. They’re doing nothing with passive income. They’re just freeing up cash.
Use your talents to serve other people. Let your pain be someone else's gain. Click To TweetFast forward to 2011, there was a couple I was working with that impacted me dramatically. In fact, they’re the inspiration and the people I saw in my mind when I created the name Money Ripples. This couple was out in the Central States. He’s a chiropractor and was working his tail off six days a week, Monday through Saturday, just working to the bone. By the time, he got to Sunday, he wasn’t available. He was a great father and husband and a very faith-based man, but he was exhausted.
When we started to look at his stuff, especially with their debts and things like that between their practice and personal life, we found out we could do some things and make some maneuvers in their finances. We freed up $6,000 a month. What did he do with that first $6,000? He bought a four-wheeler. Dave Ramsey would be so pissed and mad. He’s like, “You bought a four-wheeler with that $6,000. You should have paid off more debt or put it in your crappy 401(k) or mutual funds.” He would’ve said something like that.
The thing that touched me the most was what his wife said. She said, “Chris, that four-wheeler was the best investment we could have ever made. With that freed-up money, he finally felt like he had permission to stop working so hard. Now, he’s only working four and a half days a week. He stopped working as much. He even takes off the weekend. I get my husband back. What do we do? We go four-wheeling each weekend. He takes the kids and they go four-wheeling. Not only did I get my husband back, but my kids also got their father back.”
That’s the ripple effect that I’m here to create. That image in my mind and that ripple effect in his family and what that does for his kids, what that does for the community, and ultimately, they create a ripple effect or that butterfly effect that can go across the world. That’s where Money Ripples came from. That was the inspiration behind this. That’s why I had to get that name and it means so much to me.
This is what drives me personally to keep giving back. This is why we do this. This is why we don’t charge for the show. This is why you get this. It’s because we want to give it back. That’s the gift of talent. How can you use your talents to bless more lives? How can you use your experiences even if there were painful ones? Can you use it to help guide and direct other people? Can you be able to be a blessing in their lives? There is so much that you can give.
The Gift Of Faith
Last, but not least, I want to give a special thanks for the gift of faith. Faith is ultimately what helped pull me through these things. Even when you’re running on empty, you can still run on those fumes of faith that get you through those hard times so many times. It required faith. Faith in God and these principles always work. They always do. That’s why I had to do it twice just to prove it to myself, and then secondly, to prove to you that principles work. They are governed.
I want to share this last little thought with you. This is in the Bible in Matthew 25, when Christ is speaking to the people and he’s given his little analogy, especially talking about sheep and goats and everything, and then he shares a story. He says, “Then shall the kings say unto them on his right hand, ‘Come, ye blessed of my father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungered and you gave me meat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you took me in, naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came unto me.”
“Then shall the righteous answer Him saying, ‘Lord, when saw we thee hungered and fed thee or thirsty and gave thee drink. When saw we thee a stranger and took thee in or naked and clothed thee. When saw we thee sick or in prison and came unto thee.’ The king shall answer and say unto them, ‘Barely, I say unto you, in as much as you have done unto the least of these of my brethren, you have done it unto me.’”
This is the season of giving. It’s giving of yourself, not just during the holidays but all year round. How can you be able to serve not just the great but even those that you may not know that it blesses their lives? That’s what we’re here to do. This is what it means to be a rippler. If you’re not going to be a person of this nature, then great. Don’t be a rippler. Go do your own thing. Live your own life and your own self-centered fun life.
If you want to live a rich wealthy life beyond the money, it’s mastering this principle. It’s showing up to give and to serve. It’s the core value that we have here at Money Ripples. I want that for you too. I know many of you guys who had been here long enough, you’re already that person. You’re already a giver. I’m going to re-emphasize, what can be your ripple effect? How many people can you bless? It may only be one.
When I was going through my roughest times, I thought if I can bless one person’s life from the experiences I’m going through, maybe that’s worth it. Little that I know that it has already blessed hundreds of thousands of lives and who knows, maybe it has been millions of lives and I don’t even know it. Whether I know you or not, have been able to meet you face to face or talk to you by email or whatever it has been or not, the same is always true. It’s that I am so blessed to be able to serve you. Make it a wonderful, prosperous, and giving week. We’ll talk to you later.
Important Links
- YouTube – Money Ripples
- Wealth Accelerator Academy
- Danielle Hollembaek – Past Episode