If you’ve listened to this show long enough, you know that I often critique what’s being taught by financial advisors, and experts, like Dave Ramsey.
But are they the true enemy here? Who teaches THEM these financial myths?
Chris Miles dives into his true feelings about advisors and why he’s doing this podcast instead of sitting on a yacht.
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Listen to the podcast here
Friend Or Foe? The Truth About Mutual Funds And Financial Advisors
Welcome to our show that’s for you, those who work so hard for your money, and you’re now ready for your money to start working harder for you today. Why? Because you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. You want your money to work for you so you can have that life and that freedom now to buy your time back so you can live the life that you love with those that you love, but it’s not just about getting rich. It’s about living a rich life because as you are blessed financially and as you have greater wealth and ability, you have a greater capacity to bless the lives of those around you.
Thank you for tuning in today. I appreciate so much those of you who have not only been tuning in to this but you’ve been applying the concepts in here, binging, and sharing this with others. Thank you to our wonderful handyman who has been referring several of you to this show. Thank you so much for doing so already. If you don’t want to have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest and then create passive income but you want to do something now, a great thing to look into, if you want to get your money to pay you not once but twice, is to check out infinite banking on our website MoneyRipples.com and see how that works. Watch the videos and watch your mind get blown as you see how that works in your life to help you create greater wealth and faster income today.
Mutual Funds: A Critical Examination
I want to be real with you right now. I want to get more real about two comments that I got in the last 24 hours. You know that I mean well and that I care deeply about this. This is why I haven’t retired. Even if I can retire and have the ability to retire twice now by the time I was 39, I still keep going. I had a few comments that I thought would be good to address because it might seem like on the outside that I hate financial advisors. It might seem like I think Dave Ramsey is the most disgusting human being on the planet, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
The truth is that all these people are great. Ninety percent of financial advisors truly deeply care about you or their clients in general. There’s 10% that do it for money but I believe that the vast majority of financial advisors want to do what’s best. This is also true with Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey has some amazing stuff, especially for those that need him. Those are the people who are the spendaholics or just getting started out in life. They don’t know how to manage their money. They need this basic remedial type of instruction to help them get started and get a good path.
That’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about this. On YouTube, there’s a little conversation thread that I had going. This goes along with someone I know who has been looking into our company as well. His wife said, “I don’t like what he said about mortgage brokers. They said that mortgage brokers are broker than you and I are.” That’s not true. It was never mortgage brokers. I love them. I was talking about financial advisors and those that are brokers. I quote Robert Kiyosaki when he says in his Rich Dad Poor Dad series. He says that brokers are called that because they’re broker than you and I are. The point is that many financial advisors aren’t out of the rat race either. They’re not able to retire without the commission they earn from your retirement accounts.
The point is that many financial advisors aren't out of the rat race either. They're not able to retire without the commission they earn from your retirement accounts. Click To TweetI want to go into this one right here because this is based on a Dave Ramsey video where he’s teaching to do something different. This is the advice that Dave Ramsey won’t give you but I will. I was talking about what got Dave Ramsey to be wealthy, and it’s not what he’s teaching about paying off your debt and saving in mutual funds. That’s not what he did to create wealth. This comment that came here is interesting. Missouri6014 says, “If it was that easy, why are you on YouTube fashion Dave Ramsey? If it was that easy, you would be on a yacht someplace. You get my point.”
Missouri6014, I get your point. Why am I on here doing this stuff on YouTube and getting paid nothing on YouTube to produce these videos to tell you? Here’s what I see as truth. Here’s my reply. Why am I not on a yacht? Why am I doing this? Why am I even talking to you about this stuff and beating into your brain over and over that mutual funds stink and that alternative investments are a better way to go if you want freedom, especially within the next century? My response was my family isn’t into yachts. My wife gets motion sickness too easily, which is true. She cannot be on a boat at all. We can’t even do a cruise. It’s a bummer.
On top of that, I do these videos because the bad advice out there pisses me off. It would be easier if I chilled all the time but God put me on this planet for more than just sitting on a yacht. I truly believe that. I believe that I can sit back and live a very quiet and peaceful life, which I don’t mind, but I believe that if I have money, resources, knowledge, and the ability to teach you, why should I sit back and do nothing? God put me on this planet to do more than sit around and be comfortable. We all have a purpose. We have something we can give back. This is the legacy that I choose to give.
I’ll put more context beyond this quote. He says, “Did God tell you to bash a fellow believer like Dave?” What I wanted to say was, “God told me to do it,” but I didn’t. I said, “Jesus did it all the time to the Pharisees and Sadducees.” I’m not bashing his belief in God because that’s true. I respect his belief in God. I’m bashing the financial strategies that he teaches but didn’t do to become financially wealthy. He teaches great things about budgeting and consumer debt but to convince people that they can have freedom saving in high-risk and mediocre-returning mutual funds that he didn’t even do himself, that’s not cool with me.
Financial Advisors And Their Strategies
That is the crux. That is why I’m here. That’s even why I’m teaching about infinite banking. My retirement is where I came out to bring out something new. The main reason that we do infinite banking with our company is because even the people I trusted still didn’t do the best for you, and that ticked me off. I get it. Everybody has their self-interest but when that self-interest, in my opinion, clashes with your interest, which should come first, there is a problem.
You might argue and say, “You’re not thinking abundantly.” I’m okay with these people making money but what I’m not okay with is giving something to somebody that’s not the best. That is one of the core principles of our company. If anybody on our team doesn’t give the best, they’re not on our team anymore. If they’re not doing the best for our clients, they’re gone. That’s not an incentive because I don’t want to fire anybody. I’m a horrible person when it comes to that but that’s a non-negotiable, something that is not allowed.
When I see financial advisors out there, and they’re teaching stuff, for the most part, it’s not the financial advisor’s fault. No more is it the fault of somebody who works at a dairy company producing milk, even though all the ads say, “Milk does a body good. Got milk?” Do you remember all those ads, especially growing up? They’re not as prevalent as they are now as they were back then but remember when people always said, “Milk does a body good. It gives you strong bones and muscles.”
You see the picture of the kid flexing in the mirror and the beautiful girl that he’s talking to. He eventually gets big and strong to try to get her attention because he is drinking milk all the time, only to find out later that now milk has caused major inflammation in all of us as a society, or we become obese with not strong bones but strong flab. It has created all kinds of issues for people. It wasn’t that milk did our body good. It was all marketing from the dairy association.
I’m not opposed to them having it. I love dairy. Ice cream is one of my loves but to then tell people, “This is what you’re going to get. Sell the dream. This is what your life is going to be like because it’s got calcium. We add vitamins A and D to it. It’s pretty much going to hurt you. You going to make your life miserable later on,” is not cool with me. Financial advising is no different. Financial advising is taught to financial advisors by financial institutions. I know this because I was one. All of the training that we got came from our, “product providers.” These product providers came from those companies. It could be like the USALLIANCE of the world. It could be the Goldman Sachs or the Merrill Lynch.
Everybody has been trying to get us to sell products. When you get a license as a financial advisor, you do not have a license to create wealth for people. You have a license to sell. That’s it. Even if you say you’re an investment advisor, you’re still advising based on the products you can offer and sell them. You understand where that could go wrong. Not all companies are the same. It’s not a standard thing that companies pay the same amount. Some companies will pay advisors more than others.
This is like in the medical industry with pharmaceutical companies. There are a lot more regulations today because of it. Pharmaceutical companies started getting a bad rap because they were trying to financially incentivize doctors. There are still a little bit of those kickbacks involved even though it’s more regulated than it was before. Even though product A might be better for you, they still give you product B because there’s a little bit better incentive for the doctor.
In financial advising, if product A is the better fit but product B is still a decent fit, it still works. It’s nothing illegal or unethical. It’s just not the best. They do that because it pays more. This happens in the life insurance world. It ticks me off. There are people that I respect in this industry, and I still know the companies they use because I’m appointed with those same companies. I know the numbers I can get with those companies, and I know it’s subpar yet they will still offer it. Why? Because they have the better trips. They pay higher commission rates.
I can’t tell you how many times those companies have said, “We will pay you more. If you came over and did the same production you do with these other companies with us, you would get paid more than the companies you’re with.” I said, “Here’s one thing you have to do. Beat that company. If you can beat them legitimately or if you can allow me to be able to find ways to manipulate the product that you have to be able to be better for my client, I will sell your stuff all day long. I don’t care if you even pay me more.” I don’t give a crap because the truth is that we’re investors first and foremost anyways. I’ve got investment income coming in. I don’t need your money. I need you to do the best job for my client.
That’s what I look for in an insurance company but most insurance companies go right back to, “That’s just Chris. We have this whole other bunch of agents that will much love to be able to be incentivized by the commission percentages that we pay.” That to me is not cool. Even the guys that choose this still intend well. They will still say, “It’s good enough.” It still gives them a good policy. It’s true. They might get a good life insurance policy but is it the best? No. It’s the same thing in the investing world.
The Truth About Passive Income
When I talk about creating passive income, I know for a fact those can do a better job. Does it mean that they’re risk-free? There’s always risk in investing. It doesn’t mean you have to follow what I do because I’m not giving you any advice or recommendations here but in my life, I’ve seen the evidence based on being a financial advisor over the course of four years, meeting with clients that have had financial advice for decades before they came to me and seeing the results.
I’ve seen the results happen in my dad’s life when he did everything that guys like Dave Ramsey or financial advisors have taught, “Stuff the money in a 401(k) and get debt-free.” What did we find? I’m sitting down with them and saying, “If you try to retire now, you’ve got five years left, and then your money is gone.” That’s not what I want for you. I want you to have to put your life and defer your life. If you believe this, and maybe you do or you don’t, you know that traditional saving and mutual funds and paying off your debt don’t do enough but maybe you do believe this.
You sacrifice. You suffer. You’ve sucked up money away. You put it away for not just rainy days but a rainy retirement. You’re putting that money away religiously as much as you possibly can to make sure that you can have potentially a comfortable enough retirement to pay your bills. You defer your life. You defer spending a lot of time with your family more than you want. You might be overworking yourself all in hopes that the sacrifice will pay off someday.
You even tell your family, “We won’t do that trip now but we will do that trip later.” I know some of you still do your trips and do your stuff but you still know that there are passions you want to pursue and things that you want to do from a standpoint of giving back to the community. Maybe it’s a service-related thing. Maybe it’s being able to help out more in the very causes or beliefs that you have to be able to move them forward just like I’m doing with you.
Maybe you want to do the same thing but you say, “I have to put my head down, make this work, and put as much money as I can away, then I’ll be able to live that life free and do the things that I want.” What would happen if decades down the road, you’ve done that only to find out it wasn’t enough? What if you went and sacrificed so much only to find out that you passed away early? If you did, it would be like, “It’s gone. That’s it.” Maybe your life came to an abrupt halt. Maybe you end up getting terminal cancer, heaven forbid. I’m not wanting to attract that into your life but I want you to think about this. What if you don’t get to live those extra 10, 20, or 30 years to even enjoy it? What would that do?
You might say, “I can pass it on to my family,” but if you put it in those traditional plans, a lot of them get taxed through the wringer. Uncle Sam gets paid before your family gets paid. You got all that stuff happening. You deferred and delayed your life. You delayed living so that someday, you could have a life. What if you can make that life today? That is what I want for you. That’s what I want to give you back. That’s my gift to you. By doing these things, you can get it back.
If it were just money for us, trust me, there are so many more things we could do to make a lot more money in our company. For example, when we bring on clients, those that we consult from a standpoint of how to help them strategize and connect them with passive investing deals and things like that, connect them with that stuff, and help them strategize and figure out where the money can come from that they can use to invest, we don’t bring on any clients unless we know for a fact they will make more than what they pay us, especially in that first year or so. We want them to make more.
It’s not like all the money they make in passive income goes to paying us although that’s not a bad thing, especially if they’re making that year after year. Ideally, I want people to come in making about one and a half to two times the amount in that first year so that they can make that money back and then some, and then it’s all gravy anyway. That’s always my goal. It makes sense. Even though we could sell a ton of people hopium, dreams, and things like that, “If you do this for the next 10, 20, 30, or 40 years, watch your life. It will be so much better,” it will be but that’s not what we want.
We want immediate results. When I say immediate, it means you probably wouldn’t even make your first investment for at least the first 2 or 3 months. Even then, it might be 6 to 12 months before you’re starting to see the payments coming in. You will say, “Based on what I’m getting on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis, it’s now exceeding what I paid them.” The thing is we always want you to get those best results. We want you to be able to do that because it’s about your life. It’s able to create that ripple effect through you and allow you to get those real results.
That’s why I’m so anal about results. I do not like it when people don’t get results. I take it personally. That’s why we don’t even want to bring on people unless we know they’re going to do something with the information they have and that they’re going to take action and have faith. I won’t say the couple’s name but they know who they are. They’re in our program, and they’re willing to question things, which I love. They’re willing to think about it. They don’t brainlessly accept whatever we say. They understand the principles and then say, “What are the strategies that can fit with that?” We discuss all the different types of strategies, and then they go and act accordingly. They act with whatever strategies feel the best for them. They’re willing to take that faith and do it.
Those are the people who get results. Those are the happy people. We try to screen you out beforehand. If you’re all wishy-washy, it’s not going to work. We don’t want to be wasting your time or ours. Notice that the things that I teach align with what I tell people to do. I tell people, “Your best economic engine is your source of income, whether it’s through your business or your job.” I know a lot of people say, “You have to put your money in the stock market. Do this. Do that.”
Your best economic engine right now is your source of income. Click To TweetIf financial advisors are truly aligned with what they do in their lives, they would say, “You should probably become a financial advisor because you will make more as a financial advisor than you will in listening to me.” That’s the truth. You can make a lot more commissions. You get paid that steady stream of income for those assets under management. You get paid each and every year whether your clients make money or not. Your clients could be losing money, and you’re the one person that gets paid.
Aligning Financial Advice With Reality
Does that sound right to you? Think about it, ethically, it’s a little bit questionable. That’s part of the reason why I left my integrity was being shaken because I realized I get paid whether they make money or not. I get paid even if somebody doesn’t get the dream that I sold them after 30 or 40 years. I saw that future. I saw what people’s trajectory was based on the trajectory of people who were great savers like my father was, and then it still wasn’t enough.
The financial advisors will blame you, not you blaming them. They will blame you for not saving enough even though you might have said back in the day, “I saved $100 a month. Save 10%, and you will be fine,” only to find out you have to save 40% or 50% to be able to make up for the bad performance of their mutual funds. That is what bugs me so much. The industry doesn’t align. You make money first and foremost in your career. That’s where you make money first, and then you take that extra cash and use that to invest. The best way, in my opinion, to do that is to go into passive investments invested in real assets, not arbitrary stocks and things like that.
Going back to that guy who was getting mad at me about ripping on Dave Ramsey, my only point was this. If you follow what Dave Ramsey has done, he made money in two places. First and foremost, he’s made hundreds of millions of dollars in that business. Two, he did it in real estate. He owns, by his admission, $600 million in real estate. He did those two things. That was a secret to wealth but what does he tell you to do? “Get debt-free and then invest your money in mutual funds. Maybe you will make 12%,” which is never done, and he still teaches that crap.
People who flat-out lie bug me. You might ask, “Why does he do that?” He’s not a financial advisor but he does profit from telling you to do things that financial advisors like because they will refer to his show. He gets paid a crap load of money by people doing Financial Peace University. The banks love him because he teaches what the banks want you to believe versus what works for you. The banks like to promote him. Everybody likes to promote him because of those things. He teaches what’s popular. He teaches what you already believe to be true, and you buy it. Hook, line, and sinker.
For you, it takes a great deal of faith to believe me because it’s worked in my life. It’s worked in a lot of our clients’ lives but it’s still not what’s commonly taught. It’s not taught. It’s still common in the sense that I’m not the only voice out there but I’m teaching from a place of experience. I’m teaching from a place of knowing what’s truly created wealth for me and others versus what hasn’t. I can assure you that you have better odds of success if you do it right by buying real assets, especially when they give you cashflow and passive income.
That’s the difference. That’s why we have people who say, “I’ve got $300,000. If I pull out 3% a year as my financial advisor says, that’s $9,000 a year or $750 a month. That’s not enough,” but if you can take $300,000, turn that into $30,000 a year, and still keep your $300,000 intact to make money, that’s a very different lifestyle. $30,000 a year or $2,500 a month is better than $750 a month. That’s the difference. That’s why I’m doing this. That’s why I’m preaching about infinite banking and getting the max ROI possible. That’s why often we will refer to it as no-BS infinite banking because we don’t BS you on it. It has to be something that truly aligns with what’s out there.
What I would like to see happen in the financial industry is I would like them to do and teach what they’re doing. It’s not just preaching something but following what they preach. If you’re a financial advisor, tell them all to become financial advisors. That is a more sure way of creating more money. Financial advisors can’t retire either. If it weren’t for those assets under management, they couldn’t do it either because those mutual funds don’t do enough for them. They need those streams of income.
Insurance agents set you up a policy but are they giving you the best? It’s the best that they know but are they looking to do the best for their clients? I can already tell you that 99%-plus of the time, they don’t, whether they don’t know it or they aren’t willing to do it. The worst one is the latter. The ones that know how to do it but refuse to do it are the ones that tick me off. That is why we’re here to exist. That’s why I’m not on a yacht. That’s why I’m not sitting back happy on a beach, sipping my piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
This is what I do because I want you to have the true life that we talked about at the beginning of the show where you work because you want to, not because you have to. Your work is optional. You show up to work and love it but you know that you’re not trapped there. You could take time off and still be okay because your bills are covered by the passive income you have. When you combine all of these strategies together, that is when you can do it, not in 40 to 50 years if you’re lucky. For some of you, it’s this year. For the minority of you, this year or the next year, you could probably be hitting that point. For most of you, 5, 10, or 15 years could be very realistic depending on your situation.
I’m beating a dead horse. I want you to know that I’m here for this very purpose. I feel like I’ve been placed on this earth and blessed financially. I’ve been blessed with experiences, including losing all my money and making more of it than what I lost. I believe I went through all of that for a purpose so that you can have hope for a better future than most retirees. Most people are trying to figure out how to make it. Without Social Security, they would be broke. Even financial advisors without social security would probably be broke too. That’s why I want you to be able to have a different life.
Choose that for yourself. You don’t have to listen to me or trust me but test it for yourself. Prove it. Make it work in your life. You will be like me and say, “Why didn’t I see this before?” I was a financial advisor but I was blind to it because my pocketbook and the finance institutions taught me to do otherwise. They are the enemy, not the advisors and not even Dave Ramsey. It’s the whole institution that has been teaching you that this is the way. That pays them but not you. That’s what I want for you in this life. You can choose what to do with that information. Make it a wonderful and prosperous week. Let us know if you have any questions. We will talk to you later.