Could you really live the life of your dreams? Even a life that others can’t imagine or believe is impossible? How do you achieve something that unbelievable?
Our host, Chris Miles, shares how you can actually have true freedom and have everything you dream. But it requires doing something others don’t know. Find out what that is!
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How To Create A Life Others Dream About
Welcome to show that’s for you, you that work so hard for your money and now you’re ready for your money to start working harder for you right now. You want that freedom and cashflow today, not 30 or 40 years from now. You want it right now so that you can live that life that you love with those that you love. I know it’s not just about creating money. It’s about creating a rich life, which we’ll talk about today. As you are blessed financially, you have the greater capacity to bless the lives of those around you.
Thank you for reading, guys. Thank you for allowing me to create a ripple effect through you, especially as you guys take action. Shout out to so many of you who, whether you’ve done infinite banking or whether you’ve joined our group as VIP clients to change your life. It’s so awesome to see so many of you guys coming in and trying to change your lives. That’s what I want to talk about today, especially. Thank you for doing that. Special shout out to those of you who are our VIP clients.
Today, I want to talk about how you create a life that becomes the envy of others. How do you create a life that only people dream about or could only hope to have? Not just financially, but really the better quality of life in general. I want to take a deeper perspective into this because we mentioned strategies. We mentioned a lot about the stock market and retirement accounts. We mentioned a lot about real estate investing of various types.
However, this is the one thing I’ve learned, especially over time, is that your financial freedom has nothing to do with your money. Maybe it has a little bit to do with it because it is financial freedom. I’m here to tell you that your financial freedom has more to do with your state of pocketbook. Not so much with that, but more of a state of mind and being. If you want to have the life that people envy, love, or would love to have themselves, surprisingly, it’s not what you think.
This inspired me because I’ve noticed that there are a lot of influencers, especially, who will show off their nice, hot cars. That’s great. I know some of these guys personally. I know that they can afford to pay for these cars. A lot of it is from selling this very kind of concept. Some of them are real estate investors. They got these great exotic cars. I’ve seen people comment and say, “I want to be that way,” or “I want that FU type of money,” or, “I want to have that Lambo or that Ferrari that I can drive to my ten-year class reunion and stick it to the bullies and to all the people that overlooked me.”
After reading one of those comments, I said, “Enough is enough.” I did a short video on this on this channel. You might have seen it from a few weeks ago. I’ll tell you that it does disturb me because financial freedom has very little to do with your bank account. It has more to do with this. Financial freedom is when money is no longer the primary reason or excuse that you do or do not do anything. Money is not an excuse for it. You might be using money and looking at value, but money is not dictating your life. That, to me, is what true freedom is. It is when money doesn’t dictate all of your decisions and when you actually are free. You are a free man or a free woman who’s able to say, “I’m liberated from this attachment to money.” That’s a very different thing.
I’ll tell you this. I promise you this. There is no amount of money that will do that. There are people that I know, multimillionaires that are still in bondage to money because it’s still a reason that they haven’t broken. For me, I get it. I get wanting to show off things and having that kind of life that you’re trying to get people to be jealous of. I did that. It didn’t help that I was a financial advisor at first. I know there are many financial advisors that are in this place that feel like they have to fake it until they make it, drive a nice car, or show off a little bit.
The sad thing is that all of us judge people off of their face value. Naturally, especially when you’re younger, that’s a bigger thing, especially for me when I was in my twenties as a financial advisor. You’re young. If people are twice your age or older or even three times your age that you’re meeting with, try to tell them about what to do with their money. You don’t have that kind of experience. Even people later on. I even know people my age in their 40s, 50s, or whatever still feel they have to keep this façade. It’s not just financial advisors. It’s everybody. There are a lot of people who have this kind of problem thinking, “Maybe my house or my car should be a certain way.”
Some of you may not care, and that’s awesome because you’re already taking that first step to freedom. When I say that, I know there are various reasons. Sometimes you can say, “I don’t care,” but you care a lot. You’re just saying that because you don’t want to care. You’re trying to make an excuse. I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about those of you who are unattached to material possessions. This is a point you need to get to if you want financial freedom. You need to be detached from material possessions.
If you want financial freedom, you need to be detached from material possessions. Click To TweetLet me give you my backstory. This kid I am talking about graduated from high school. He wants to go to his ten-year reunion and drive in that Lambo or the Ferrari and stick it, like giving people a middle finger a little bit for how his life is today. I have a friend that does that. He parked his Ferrari right in front of the high school that he dropped out of. He said, “I’m a high school dropout. They said I’d never make it. Look at me now.” You can look at that with various perspectives of what the real intention is behind that. Knowing this guy, I know he’s doing that more to get comments and get a rise out of people because, sadly, that’s what social media does.
I will say this is. I was in a similar place. I was bullied. He mentioned he was bullied, too. I grew 6 inches between my junior and my senior year, which only got me to 5’9” and a quarter. I went from 5’3” to 5’9” pretty much over the summer break between my junior and senior years. I was short. I was smaller. I was picked on. On top of that, girls overlooked me too. We were in a small school, a very small town. I only had 130 people in my graduating class, just outside of Portland, Oregon. As a result, it was a rough time for me. I have some fond memories, but there were a lot of painful memories too.
I remember going to my ten-year reunion and thinking, “I’m going to show off.” I wasn’t quite at the point where I was making a lot of passive income, but my life was starting to look up financially a little bit. I flew there. I rented a sports car to drive to my class reunion. I went there. I remember I went Latin dancing, which shocked a lot of people because I became a dancer after that point. These guys knew me as a very introverted, quiet guy. I wasn’t very outspoken at all. In fact, if I talked to more than one person, I got a little frantic because I didn’t know how to create a real good conversation at that time.
I looked like I had broken out of my shell. People were like, “This is a different Chris Miles.” Not because of the car, but because I was a different person because I did break out of that shell. Because I had that lack of confidence in myself, that ego that steps in, I thought, “I’m going to keep doing this.” I remember getting an even better car the next year. I got a nice Mercedes, something to show off and show how my seats inflate when I take corners. It cuddles you like a little teddy bear as you go around corners and stuff. I bought a nice house. I remember I told the realtor, “I want a house that people walk in and say wow.”
Why? Because I wanted to put the stuff in front of me because I value the stuff more than I value myself. I didn’t see the value in me. I put my stuff out in front to show more value and to make me feel like I was more valuable. In truth, all I was doing was trying to feed my ego. That’s a dangerous place to be. I know that people do it for various reasons. I’m not saying I was trying to be malicious with it at all. I was just insecure about who I was. I wasn’t standing in my own power. I didn’t know truly who I could be or who I was at that time. I saw glimpses, but I never felt sufficient enough. I didn’t feel like I was enough as Chris Miles. That’s the thing, guys. More money doesn’t solve your problems. Money is only a magnifier of your soul. In fact, it only makes you more of who you already are. All it did was amplify the expression of me having lack of confidence in myself.
The change for me happened after 2008 and into 2009, especially by 2009 when I pretty much had lost just about everything I could. We foreclosed our home in April 2009. I remember that was shocking because I had to pay the guy rent for two more weeks so I could have our fourth child. My wife had her fourth child and pretty much we’re moving into a new home. That was a quarter of the house payment from what we had as a mortgage.
We downsized everything. We sold off almost everything we could other than keeping our family vehicle, the minivan that we had to transport our kids. I had to borrow a car from a friend. I eventually paid him off on this cheap, old car. This was not a car that people would say, “That’s a financially successful guy.” The car was worth maybe $3,000 used. It was a cheap car, very basic. That’s what I needed. I got my life simpler.
I’ll tell you. When I lost everything, that’s when I realized I had everything. When you take all that stuff away, all that was left was me. It was a very vulnerable time for me because I felt like, in some ways, a complete fraud because I was teaching people how to get wealthy at one point and how to get out of the rat race, but I was back in it. I was in the hole for over $1 million, and now I’m teaching people how to create more cashflow and get resourceful and creative, which is essentially what I was doing at that time. I aligned my integrity. I made sure that I was at least teaching the things I was doing versus teaching something that I wasn’t living myself. As I got my life aligned, I started to realize that the stuff didn’t matter anymore, that it didn’t change me. I was still there. All of me was still there.
In fact, I knew that the real key to wealth was within me and that everything I could do to create and rebuild was within me. I could create that income. I could build or rebuild and fight my way back, and I did. From 2009 through 2016, it was a long battle of seven-plus years of trying to make a comeback to eventually pay off that debt and get to a place where I can say, “Now I’m financially independent one more time once again.”
That took until the very end of 2016 to do that. I did not do it at super-fast speed, but I did that in a way that I knew would bring more hope to you or anybody else. I knew that probably almost any of you reading now are probably better off financially than I was in the last recession. That should inspire you to say, “I can do it too.” Especially, if you’re a business owner, you have unlimited potential. Even if you’re an employee, you have more potential, but you have to get past some mental blocks believing that you have to work hard or be able to create more income from just working. There are other ways to create value for people, even if it’s a side hustle, wherever it might be, to allow you to build up more wealth.
Coming back to this, when I had everything stripped away other than myself, when I took away all those worldly possessions, the material possessions, then as I started to rebuild again because I had a focus on me, valuing me, seeing where my true superpowers were, what made me unique, and what made me valuable to other people. That was a long mental game.
Once I got through that, now that I’m at the point where I’m wealthier than I have ever been before in my life, I have more passive income coming in than I ever have, yet I drive a couple of Nissans. I have a couple of Nissans and I love them. All of them are at least 4 or 5 years old right now. They’re used cars at this point, even though I bought them close to new at the time, but they’re paid-off cars.
It’s a very simple life. My house is pretty expensive, partly because of the land. We want to have more land for homesteading and that kind of thing. Plus, I have a lot of kids. Even then, we could have gone more expensive with the house too and we didn’t. We would like to keep things simple. It’s not about trying to brag and show people how much wealth we have.
I know in the influencer space, this is completely counterintuitive because I’m supposed to show off my flashy cars. Yes, I could buy a nice Lamborghini or a Ferrari. I make about as much in a month or two to buy those things easily, but I don’t because I don’t give a crap. I don’t care. That’s what it means to be not attached.
The ironic thing is I didn’t have to be financially free to experience financial freedom. Let me repeat that. I did not have to be financially free, nor do you, to experience financial freedom because I had lost everything. Once I stripped it all away, it didn’t matter. The value was within me. To be financially free, you need to be detached from your things. You need to be detached from what you think financial freedom looks like and what you think being wealthy looks like. It’s not what you think it is.
In my opinion, this is my definition of wealth. That wealthiness that you have is being able to live the life that you want on your terms. It’s your life. You are in control. Like I said, I got that financial freedom when I didn’t have financial freedom or at least financial independence. I got that financial freedom by becoming detached from my things, detached from what I’m trying to show everybody else and show off, and instead just be me and do what I love and what makes me happy.
That is freedom, guys. That is the kind of freedom I want for you. That is the freedom that I hope you aspire to. If you’re reading right now, you are a Rippler. You are somebody who wants to live a greater life than what you’re living today. Not just financially, but a better quality of life, a life that’s richer in the sense that you have your relationships with those around you where you will have your health. Health is vital. I’m going to have to do another show on health alone because, if you don’t have health, why do we care about having money?
It’s having that better quality of life, a better spiritual life, those kind of things. Having all of these things in alignment is where true freedom lies. It’s true wealth. It’s not about having a lot of money. It’s not about getting out of the rat race. It’s not about passive income. That is great and that can help you express it more. The best thing you can do right now while you’re getting out of the rat race is focus on this. Focus on you and who you are and how to become free here so that you can be free in your bank account and free in your financial life as well. There is where you’ll find true freedom.
That’s my wish for you. If you want that ripple effect and your life to change, please do so in whatever way that is. If we can help support you, always reach out to us at MoneyRipples.com. I challenge you to live a free life. Become detached from stuff. Become a better person. Become someone who is free mentally as well as financially and you’ll have the kind of life that everybody else wishes they had. They’ll envy you for it. They will think it’s the money and it’s not. It’s not about the money. The money is the thing that’s a natural byproduct of that freedom. Freedom is who you become in the process and how amazing you are.
If you’re going to go to that class reunion, I recommend being somebody who actually asks questions and gets to know people. I did that in my twenty-year reunion. Way less ego. So much more fun. Even talking to the people I thought were bullies or people who overlooked me, girls especially, was a way different experience. I’m telling you, be proud of who you are right now. Live that life and be free. Liberate yourself because only you can do that. Make it a wonderful and prosperous week. See you later.