Why aren’t people becoming financially free, despite all of the advice they’ve been given?
And what is it that financial advisors or experts NEVER teach you?
They NEVER teach you how to create cash flow TODAY!
On our 100th episode, Cash Flow Expert, Chris Miles, will teach you how he, and his clients, have leveraged their time and money to create more cash flow TODAY.
Tune in now!
Chris Miles Bio:
Chris Miles, the “Cash Flow Expert,” is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host that has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, Entrepreneur on Fire, and has spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results.
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Listen to the podcast here
Cash Flow Is King!
I’m so excited to welcome you to episode number 100. It’s been almost two years since we first started the show. I’m excited to be able to have you on and serve you for these last several years. Thank you so much for your emails, messages, chats, and all that stuff. All those people that have talked to me with her face to face or over the web, and thanked me for the episodes that we’ve done on the show. It’s been such an honor and such a great time for me to be able to serve you. I’m excited that we’ve hit episode number 100. What a great milestone. Thank you for being on here.
If this is your first time joining us, remember there are 99 more episodes to go. You’ve got no time at all. Luckily, I like to keep this short and sweet and to the point, especially if you’re a busy entrepreneur, this is big for you. I’ve been thinking for weeks about what I was going to teach. What would make episode number 100 special? What would encapsulate these first 100 episodes that we’ve had? We’ve covered topics all across the board. We’ve talked about business finances, personal finances, retirement, other things with business, how to market yourself, how to grow, how to discipline your mind, personal development, and all these kinds of things to help you grow and increase your cashflow.
It is about living life now. It’s about truly enjoying the life that you have, living a life of freedom, prosperity and abundance. That is where we want you to keep focus. I’ve been happy to be able to serve you and talk about these different topics in so many ways. I wanted to talk about a topic that would encapsulate some of these things and come back to the roots of the show, which is what I said. It’s not about creating wealth 20, 30 or 40-plus years from now.
Look at the world now. We’ve had financial advice out for decades. Financial advisors started coming on the scene more aggressively in the 1970s, especially into the ’80s and ’90s, they start to come out, but we haven’t seen people become more financially free despite more education and tools and better ability for people to save and try to create more money. They aren’t living a better lifestyle.
It’s not because the whole world is a bunch of spenders. I get so sick and tired of hearing people that are on TV and financial pundits saying, “It’s your fault.” You’ve got to have accountability for your own life. I won’t take that away, but I will say this, “No, it’s their fault.” Plain and simple. They’re part of the problem. They’re teaching the same old crap that hasn’t worked for years. People are starting to wake up and say, “This isn’t working. I’ve been saving like crazy, and I’m still broke. I’ve saved dime after dime.”
Retirement Is A Lie
Some of you might have read an episode that I’ve done before, and as well as I did a blog on MoneyRipples.com about a year and a half ago in September of 2014. I ended a blog called Retirement Is a Lie. On that, I talked about if you want a $60,000 a year lifestyle based on what the market would more likely return, not the averages that they claim, but the actual rates of return, especially when you factor in fees and everything else, I was even being very generous for the rate of return of 6%.
When you factor in inflation, and even I was being conservative on those numbers, you look at it and you’ll see if you want to retire in 40 years, you’ve got to save $88,000 a year. If you want to retire in 30 years, you’ve got to save about $106,000 a year. If you want to retire with a $60,000 a year lifestyle in today’s dollars, you want to retire that way in twenty years. Let’s say you’re 40 or 45 years old, and you want to return in 20 years, you’ve got to save up $140,000 a year so that you can have a middle-class lifestyle.
You guys are going to be saving well into the millions, probably at least $5 million-plus so you can live off a $60,000 a year type of lifestyle, a very basic middle-class lifestyle. Does that excite you? Does that make you feel like you’re so happy and excited, and you want to live life and keep saving more? Of course not. With all these financial people that are out there that they’re telling you, “You need to save all of this money. You’ve got to save everything and spend nothing. Sacrifice your days away. Delay gratification and do everything possible to sacrifice, and hopefully someday you’ll have money.” They’re telling you to do this, and it still hasn’t worked.
I’m sick and tired of seeing it. If there’s anything I want you guys to take away from this is that the old model is not just broke, it has never worked. It was simply a great place, a great way for financial institutions to make more money. They said, “Financial advisors can become salespeople for us. Let’s get them out there.” The financial experts, even the ones on TV say that they’re not swayed by certain institutions. They’re totally wrong. Those institutions are the same ones that are sponsoring them and paying their paychecks to teach you the same old crud that hasn’t worked.
If you look at the wealthiest people in the world, they don’t save in 401(k)s and IRAs. They don’t save in retirement plans like that. They don’t go around thinking about how they can be so cheap and sacrifice their entire life to have money. It’s not because they stole from people, got lucky, or exploited someone. It was because they knew the real, true principles of what it takes.
Banks Want You To Accumulate Money
There are tons of episodes about what we talked about here. We talked about even principles of how dollars follow the value and how you create more value and make more money, and things like that. I want to focus on one simple principle that you’ve got to understand, or these things don’t work. You’ve got to understand that when everybody teaches you, they’re teaching you from a place of accumulation. They’re telling you to accumulate money, to save as often as possible, as much as possible for as long as possible, take as little out as possible, so you don’t run out of money and then take higher risks or take all the risks possible because high risks create high returns.
Wealthy people do not do that. Banks do not even do that. Even though they teach you to do that, they do not do that themselves. They do that because they want you to save money with them. They want you to keep money with them for years so they can keep making those guaranteed fees. The reality is the banks want money to come in as often as possible, not to save it as often as possible. They want as much of it coming in for as long as possible. They want as little going out as possible, and they want to take as little risk as possible.
Cash Flow: Accelerate Money
Their own philosophy and strategies are not based on accumulation. They’re not based on saving everything and letting compound interest work because it’s the eighth wonder of the world, which is a bunch of cruds. What they’re doing is they’re trying to create acceleration. Everybody in the financial industry is telling you to accumulate money. I’m going to tell you to accelerate money. It’s about acceleration, not accumulation.
What does that mean? That means we focus on cashflow. It’s got to be about creating cashflow. Some of you have read this before, “Cashflow is the difference between your income and expenses. It’s your profit.” It’s the money you have left over when all is said and done. When we look at that, we want to have as much of that cashflow, as much money as possible.
The reality is the banks want money to come in as often as possible, not to save it. Click To TweetRemember, from my own experience as a financial advisor, I was teaching people to simply save. I remember running the numbers, and they were not very impressive. This is why I gave you these numbers in the beginning because I had run the numbers and say, “Maybe I should lower the rate of inflation so that it doesn’t look as bad or have them increase their savings year-after-year because every time they get a pay raise, they’ll also increase the amount that they’re contributing.
Not addressing the fact that inflation also goes up, so therefore they probably need more money because things get more expensive over time not less despite what some people say. You do not get cheaper as you get older. Things get more expensive. I was teaching people this stuff, but I realized that it wasn’t working. That’s why I had to quit in 2006. I said, “I cannot be in integrity and teach this anymore. I feel like a liar.” I wasn’t purposefully or even consciously realizing that I was teaching things that were helping. I was teaching everything that every financial person has been teaching out there. I was teaching the same old stuff.
I realized it wasn’t creating wealth for me or any other financial advisor, nor was it creating wealth for any of our clients. No one was becoming financially free. However, the ones that were focused on generating cashflow, those were doing things to increase income and to keep expenses under control while they increased income. I’ve met lots of people that are millionaires that are still broke because they spend what they make. They know that if that income dries up or something happens, they’re in trouble. It’s not about that, but it’s also not about living on rice and beans every day. It’s about living the life that you love, being a wise steward of your resources, and truly coming from a place of abundance.
When I look at cashflow, we’re looking at acceleration. How can we create cash fast? When I quit being a financial advisor in 2006, I started being coached by millionaires, a few of them in particular. As they coached me, I started to realize there’s a different way of thinking and seeing the world and seeing money. When I realized it’s about creating value for people and serving, and dollars follow value. How can I keep creating value? Focus on cashflow, not accumulation. All of sudden, things open up.
I remember in July of ’06, I was in a place where I said, “I could retire. I don’t need to keep working.” Understand, I didn’t have lots of money saved up. I only had a couple of thousand dollars in the checking account. Everybody will tell you, “You’ve got to live off the interest or even live off less than the interest.” Finance advisors will tell you to live off of only 3% of whatever you save up, but the problem with this is that you’ve got to save up a lot of money to do that.
As I mentioned, if you want to retire in 30 years, you’re going to have to save up about $8,800 a year to ensure that you can live off that 3%, which will equate to a middle-class lifestyle of 60,000 a year. I don’t want you to do that. That’s a ridiculous thing to do. It’s a long, hard, and non-guaranteed path. The one guarantee you will have is that you probably won’t make it. You won’t save enough to get there. You’ll settle for a worse lifestyle, or you’ll try to get the government to help you out because, “The mayor, Social Security, or other things can help us out,” because we’re not doing it.
Income Streams
It’s not going to be solved by the government. It’s not going to be solved by anybody else but you. We got to focus on things that generate income. If you’re in a business like a lot of people that follow me, you’ve got a great investment that you should be using. Look for ways you can start generating streams of income. Here’s the kicker though, I don’t mean creating multiple streams of income like massive amounts or so many different streams of income. You can keep managing and keep tracking it all. You got to do it progressively. You’ve got to do it in a way that your stewardship can handle. Look for ways to grow it and increase your income.
For example, are there additional services or products that you could offer? For me, people kept coming to me for financial advice even though I quit being a financial advisor. People would ask me, “Do you know someone who could do mortgages?” I’d say, “Yes.” At that time, I could have done it, but I didn’t enjoy doing mortgages. I understood the business. I knew exactly what to do. I hated paperwork.
I remember I went to a mortgage broker, the guy that was a nerdy guy, and I said, “If I send you referrals of people that are already ready to do a mortgage, would you be willing to split 50/50 on the fees?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “I’ll send them right over.” I send maybe 1 or 2 people a month, but I was making $1,000 or $1,500 every time. I thought, “That’s cool. Who else can I do this with?”
I started finding other businesses and places where people would ask me for referrals, and I would ask the business owner, “Out of your marketing budget, do you have a referral fee or do you have something like that?” I was making a lot of my income streams through referral basis or being an affiliate, as I later found out, but I was being a good referrer. I was working a few hours a week and making between $4,000 and $5,000 a month doing that alone.
That blew my mind because $4,000 to $5,000 a month, remember $5,000 is a $60,000 a year lifestyle. Even if it’s 50,000 a year, still most people would have to save up to over $1 million to get that income coming in, but I didn’t have to work that hard. I work a couple of hours a week and I was making more than enough to feed and take care of my family. This changed my world forever. I stopped looking for ways to accumulate money. I start to look for ways to generate income.
One another example I have is I’ve had several clients that have done this through business. We’ve looked at ways of adding additional products. For example, I’ve had people in the health and wellness business. I said, “What about nutritional products?” “I don’t have those.” “Cool. Why don’t you look at that?” “There are other business owners that aren’t competitive, but it could help you. Do you know a massage therapist that could be a great addition for you?” It could be a nutritionist or something like that. It could be somebody else who deals with certain aspects. Could it be an energy worker or something of that nature?
There are many people that you could exchange with and people that you could refer to and say, “Can we create something together like where I do with my coaching where I have people pay me a consulting fee, and then I give them access to the people that are CPAs, attorneys, investment people? Anything that deals with money, business, or personal finance, I’ve got somebody to help with that.”
For me, I give value through my own coaching and ability to see the big picture and help people get out of that rat race. They get their money working for them, so they’re not always working for money. They can have some freedom and some time, especially a better quality of life. I help them do that, but that’s the way I’ve chosen to do it.
Cash flow is the difference between your income and your expenses. It's your profit. It's the money you actually have left over when all is said and done. Click To TweetI didn’t have additional streams of income necessarily doing that way, but I was able to increase the value, and that enabled me to be paid more for less work because now I’m leveraging other people’s time or abilities. It’s not just my time. I’m leveraging other people’s talents and gifts. That adds value for my clients, gets them excited and happy, and that makes me happy. We’re always looking for ways to create value with that.
We’ve looked for complementary businesses or things that can be a value-add to their business. There are also other things you can do too. I had a client yesterday and we’re talking that they had purchased a building for their office, but they’ve got space that they’re not using, “Let’s find a way to use it. Let’s see if we could rent it out or use it in certain ways.” We even talked about ways of generating money through them being a mentor to college students coming out into the profession, and generate income streams that way. There are multiple ways there.
I had another client in New York who worked only half a day a week out of his office, making $500,000 a year. He’s very comfortable. He had money and time, and he wanted something to do. He wanted to get into things with oil investments. He ended up getting connected with the group that dealt with oil investments in Kentucky. What happened is that not only was he putting money in, he got himself on the board of directors. I’ve made sure that we’ve got them some control in the business when we talked about that opportunity.
While he was on the board of directors, he realized that he had some value to offer. He said, “You aren’t the best at this business, but I’m good at being a CEO, systems, and keeping things running smoothly. Why don’t I use my business acumen in your investment or business? Appoint me as CEO, and pay me a little salary.” He got paid two ways. He got paid for the oil investment and salary for using his gifts as a CEO. There’s a myriad of ways to do it.
I’ve had clients who have done it through real estate investing. That was the thing they wanted to focus on. I have one couple that that’s what they’ve been doing. They’ve been doing real estate investing for a few years, and then we talked about ways to maximize their credits, “How would we get both of you as a couple making money in real estate rather than one?” They double the properties, and that could double your cashflow. There are many ways to do it.
I had another client who purchased three properties, down payments on three different investment properties for $84,000 in his IRA. That’s all it took for him. I want you to compare that. Let’s use that example. With the $84,000, he was able to buy three real estate properties. Those properties’ net cashflow will pay him $1,250 a month, approximately that’s $15,000 a year. That does not include the tax benefits that he gets for being a business owner and making that his business. Also that does not include his building of equity. The $1,250 is the net profit that’s after all the fees. When you factor in some of the other money, there are renters in there helping him pay down his mortgage.
When it’s all said and done easily conservatively, his benefit to him each year, cashflow-wise is between $20,000 and $25,000 a year from $84,000. That means he’s easily making over a 25% rate of return in that situation. That’s not guaranteed. Everybody’s situation is different but think about that comparison. That’s with $84,000.
Someone with hope prays to make 6% in the market in their retirement accounts. 6% would only be $5,000 a year normally. Sometimes you lose money in the market. I’ve got plenty of people lately who have come to me saying, “I need a shelter away from the stock market. What’s out there? What can we do that can still give me cashflow and maybe even more so than the market, and at the same time, not lose money?” How can I make more money and not lose money? We talked about those options.
I see all the time people are hoping and praying for a small piddly return and hope that will happen over time, and it’s not enough. Even if it’s $20,000 a year, it doesn’t take much more effort or a whole lot more money to make more than that because what would you rather have, $20,000 a year or $5,000 a year? What’s better?
Some people in business can make $20,000 a year with maybe a few thousand bucks invested. It depends. For me, starting a book, I pay a couple of grand to be a contributor in a book, but from one connection, it made me $20,000 in a matter of a few months. That was a great rate of return. The $2,000 was invested to make $20,000. That was awesome. The thing is that there’s even a return that keeps coming from that.
When you think about the ability to leverage and create more, it’s about cashflow. It’s not about saving forever. This is why a lot of times, I tend to shy away from certain people. I tend not to focus on people, the typical 9:00 to 5:00 employees that only want to live a mediocre life, save money in a mediocre type of fund, and mediocre broker type of retirement accounts. That’s all they want.
I am calling out people that want more. If there’s anything that these last 100 episodes have been about is calling you out of mediocrity, getting you to live a greater quality of life, having hope that you probably never knew was possible that I never knew as a financial advisor was possible that I now know is possible. That’s why I came out of retirement after 2006.
In 2007, when I started to do this again. I came out to educate people like you to get out of this rat race and live a better quality of life. I’ve had my own bumps and bruises too, but I’m telling you the things that I teach are solid, they work, and have made a lot of impact in many people’s lives. Hopefully, you’re a part of that too. Thank you so much for being a part of me for the last 100 episodes. I hope you’ll be a part of me for hundreds to come. Thank you so much, everybody. Make it a prosperous week. We’ll talk to you all later.