Have you ever noticed that financial advice is always about helping you “down the road?”
What about creating your dream life today?
What’s the opposite advice that you should be following right now to create that life of freedom you always dreamed about?
Join Cash Flow Expert, Chris Miles, as he teaches you what advice you can follow that can create the freedom you want today. Check it out!
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
The “Anti-Financial” Advice that Creates Your Dream Life Now
I am so grateful to have you on. I’m so grateful for those who have been following us. I love seeing the topics that you guys love to see as well. In fact, keep emailing me and sending me messages at Chris@MoneyRipples.com. I love the ideas and questions. In fact, that’s what’s inspiring this episode, especially as many people have been asking me questions and looking for answers. I realized that there’s a lot that I’m not teaching you. I can’t teach you everything in a show, especially in 15-to-20-minute episodes, but I try to do my best to create value for you guys. You’ve got something to chew on and at least somewhere to start.
I’m excited to talk about what is this anti-financial advice that I give because I consider myself an anti-financial advisor. If you guys read other episodes, you’ve probably read that I’m not a big fan of the traditional stuff. The traditional advice is what I did for four years. I was a financial advisor. I saw it inside and out. I saw the evidence of what people came out with.
What you’re seeing is more and more people not financially prospering and financially free. They’re paying off all their debt, doing everything they’re supposed to do and saving for the long haul. They’re saving for years and saving for their retirement plans for X number of years and putting in even more than what’s recommended and still coming up short. That’s a sad place to be. That’s why I had to because I knew that people weren’t getting wealthy and weren’t creating financial freedom following that advice.
I didn’t meet one. They weren’t financial advisors, even though financial advisors could create passive streams of income because of the stuff they sold, their clients would not get that same benefit. Their clients were hoping and praying and they have to save like crazy. You’ve read other episodes I’ve done where I went through the numbers. If you want to retire in 25 years, you’ve got to save over $8,000 a month or more than that, and have a $5,000 a month type of lifestyle. That’s insane.
That’s what I want to talk about. I want to talk about what advice I give that is almost contrary to what they teach now. Granted, I’ve been talking about tracking money and doing stuff, and I agree with some of that financial advice. There is some decent financial advice out there, especially if you’re trying to get a start. If you’re brand new, you never dealt with money before, maybe you’re like young or you just got out of high school or something like that, or going to college, that traditional advice is decent. It can help.
You can have all the savings in the world, but that savings doesn't create income for you. It doesn't create a cash flow. Click To TweetWhat I teach here requires wisdom and that extra level. Most of the people that I talked to, and a lot of the people that I work with one-to-one usually will say they’re in two different places. Either they say, “Chris, I’m making more money now than I was before, but where is it all going? Why aren’t I better off financially?” They might say, “Chris, I’ve been saving like crazy, but I’m ready for my money to start working for me so I’m not always having to work for money.” Those are great questions.
That’s the thing that is not being addressed by any financial advisors out there. They’re not helping you figure out why you don’t have more money. It’s always about tomorrow, someday, down the road when you’re 65, when you decide to retire whatever age that is, or when you eventually die, then somehow you’ll become financially free magically, but people aren’t doing that. Baby Boomers are retiring every single day. They’re still like, “I don’t know if I can retire that well. Maybe I’ll get a part-time job, and then I’ll slow down the leak of money that I’m losing every month.” They’re in a survival mode, not enough thrival mode. They’re not thriving, they’re surviving.
I wanted to talk about some of the key advice that I give, maybe 4 or 5 quick tips to help with this because this is what changed for me. This is when I changed. This is when I was able to retire when I was 28 going against the grain or the financial advice I was teaching. It works and I’ve loved watching my clients. In fact, I had one person that’s increasing his income by about $200,000 if he does nothing else and will probably find more. Even if I took some of the other clients I have, the average one has been over $34,000 a year. I’m loving to see the difference in their life. That’s in the first year. That’s not talking about year-after-year that number can increase some more too.
Focus On Cash Flow Not Net Worth
I’m going to give you some good tips. I’m not going to dilly-dally. I’m going to give it to you right now. Number one, this is critical and this is the crux of a lot of what I teach. It is that we’ve got to focus on cashflow, not net worth. Everybody is telling you to build up your net worth or savings, and pay off your debt. You have this net worth. Net worth is worthless without cashflow. Net worth doesn’t mean anything.
You can have all the savings in the world, but that savings doesn’t create income or cashflow for you to where you know that you’re okay financially, no matter what. It doesn’t do that. You’ll feel like you have this bucket that’s got a hole in it, and you hope that that hole is small enough and won’t leak out too much water before you die. That’s how people are living life right now, even if they do save up a good amount of money.
I’ve had a lot of people that I’ve met that have sometimes $50,000 to $60,000, or even into $500,000 to $600,000 in their retirement accounts or savings, and it’s not doing squat for them. They’re like, “Chris, what do I do?” I’ve even had some people where they don’t even know they had money that we could take and turn around and create cashflow with it.
That’s what’s so much fun is that when you don’t even see what’s right under your own nose, there’s money there. Every one of you has money leaks. Every one of you has money that’s not being capitalized on to its fullest potential. How do we create that? How do we do more of that? You’ll know some of these other tips as we go along. If you understand what you have month after month, that’s what makes the difference.
Picture in your mind right now, if you had $1 million in an IRA, savings, and retirement account, or if you’re in Canada, that RRSP or whatever you want to call it, but it’s not creating any cashflow. Granted you could cash it out and you have cash, but contrast that with just getting an extra $5,000 a month. Which one is more valuable to you, getting $5,000 a month or more forever, or having money sitting in a retirement account and hope you don’t run out of money? Which would you prefer?
If you look at it, people say, “I hope that money that’s in there will last forever,” but what if it doesn’t? What if you have to pull out a lot more than that? Think about $60,000 a year, that’s $5,000 a month. $60,000 a year for $1 million will only last you 16 years then it’s gone. We’re not thinking about inflation or anything else, but what if you got $5,000 a month, but it could increase with inflation so it keeps going up? Wouldn’t that be cool? Even if you had $3,000 a month.
I had one client who was like, “I need $3,000 a month and that would be plenty for my sake where I’m single and for everything right now. That’s all I need.” What’s so cool is that we’re almost there. We’re on track to getting there. I’m getting excited about that alone, just helping her get to that place. Probably by year two, we’ll probably hit it. That’s the thing.
Focus on increasing your income, not just reducing expenses. Click To TweetEven if this takes you 5 to 10 years, maybe even 15 years, are you okay with that? I’d rather have you guys at least hit your dream life and your goals within the next number of years, rather than never. That’s what financial advice has proven. You will never get financial freedom. It’s always something else that has to happen outside of their advice that works. That’s going to be true here too.
Remember, it’s about cashflow, not net worth. Let me throw out a little bonus too. This is something that’s missing in financial advice that I see all the time. Financial advisors do not talk about how to increase your income. They might say work harder, but that’s a crappy answer. Don’t you? It’s like, “Good. Thanks for that brilliant advice. I’ll work more hours.” You don’t have to do that at all, but do focus on income not just your expenses. I encourage both. I want you to be a wise steward of your expense as well as your income.
Some people think, especially with business owners that I’ve worked with, as long as they make more money, their problems are solved and that’s not true. There’s got to be some control and some real accountability there. You could do it very easily without a lot of effort, but if you have that accountability, yes, more income does make a difference.
The thing that financial advisors always miss is that they’re not talking about increasing your income. It’s about how to put money away, save as much as you possibly can, live on as little as you can, be as cheap as possible while you’re alive, and then someday at retirement, hopefully, have enough to at least have some meager living that you can come off of that. That’s not cool. One little bonus that I didn’t say about, it’s focusing on increasing your income, not reducing expenses.
It’s Okay To Use Debt And Use It Wisely
Number two is it’s okay to use debt and use it wisely. Someone’s going to blow money. I don’t encourage them to get into debt. Also, for people that don’t know what to do with the money when they have it, I don’t encourage them to get into debt either because why get out all this money to then not know what to do with it? I’ve seen a lot of people cash out money because they hear that concept about use utilizing loans or using other people’s money to go and make more money than what it cost them.
The problem is that if they are not wise with it or don’t know what to do with it, usually they’ll get desperate for an answer because they realize, “I’m paying money per month for this money that I borrowed. I better do something with it,” and they throw it in something they shouldn’t have. That’s not cool. I’m talking about being a wise steward and that does take training. That’s one thing I do spend a lot of time teaching. I’ve mentioned a little bit on this show, but something I teach a lot of my clients more in-depth is how you know if something’s the right opportunity or investment for you and that’s critical. Debt can be used in great ways.
One of my clients, they have to increase their mortgage payment by a couple of hundred dollars a month, but we can get equity out of their property that they’re now turning around to make an extra $800 a month. If you can make $500 to $600 a month for free you didn’t have to use any real money, but now you’re creating money without your own money. Isn’t that cool? Isn’t that stupid that they teach you that it takes money to make money?
It doesn’t have to take your money and even that’s not totally true because those of you that are in business already know that it does not take money to make money. There are ways to create money from nothing. Even if you’re not in business, you already know this to be true because if you went to college and you were a broke college student or a high school student, you’re alive and didn’t have to have money, but you did have to figure out ways to create value so that money would be paid. When you start to align your activities of creating income with how you create value. That is true in investing. It’s incredible what you can do with that.
Debts are okay as long as it’s used wisely, and as long as you’re a proper steward of it. Otherwise, it’s horrible. I’ll give you an example. I had $25,000 from a business line of credit that I got, an SBA loan when I first started one of my previous businesses. That $25,000 only cost me $126 a month. If I can’t create $126 a month in my business with that $25,000, I shouldn’t be in business. I created at least ten times that even in the first few months. It’s cool that you do want to do that and use it wisely. It’s okay to have debt.
Sometimes I have people pay off debt, sometimes I don’t. Some of the biggest cashflow freed up for people is paying off the right debt, not the ones that are traditionally recommended, but paying off the right stuff. While others, I said, “No, don’t pay that off. Leave it alone because you can make more money over here than you can in the cashflow you free up over there, so don’t do that.” It’s always case by case. Every person’s different. Every situation is different. Every steward is different, but if you use your stewardship wisely, you’ll find out pretty quickly, which one’s going to be the best course of action for you. Debts are not evil, but you do need to be careful. Don’t fear it, but do respect it.
Don't fear debt, but do respect it. Click To TweetUp Level Your Team As You Up Level
Number three is up-level your team as you up-level. When you were looking to get advice, especially professional advice, don’t stick with the same people you’ve had for years. Every once in a while, you get somebody who up-levels along with you or maybe the up-level faster than you, and that’s great. For the most part, what I see with a lot of people that I’ve met with lately is that they have a little bit of a team together or usually a hodgepodge of teammates thrown together. Unlike where I have a team that’s already created, and some of these people know each other. They can communicate and get each other’s perspective and it works.
A lot of times, even people I know make good money. They want a crazy amazing life, but you can’t have an excellent life if you have a mediocre team around you. The advice and results you get will only be as good as the advice of those around you or on your board of directors. You got to have the right people around you. I get people all the time, they’re like, “I’ve got this accountant I’ve used for years.” “Your account is missing stuff that even I know, and I’m not an accountant. Let’s get somebody better.” “I liked them.” “I’m not saying they’re not nice and good people, but you need to up-level your team. If they’re not going to up-level, don’t limit yourself and stay behind because they won’t improve themselves and stay with the same advice they’ve had.
Financial advisors are like this all the time. I’ve known financial advisors who have been in business for 30 or 40 years, but the problem is they’ve repeated their first year of business, 30 or 40 times. They haven’t increased their knowledge. They learn about products, but they don’t know anything more about money and their lives show it. Their lives aren’t any better off. They’re constantly working like a job. Not like because they’re creating financial freedom with the advice they’ve been given and taking themselves.
It’s ridiculous. You’ve got to have a team that follows that. You got to have the right attorney, insurance people, investment people, and all these things. You got to up-level everything. I up-level my team from time to time because I’m like, “I feel like this person’s good, but I’m going towards a great. Are they great?” I have to sometimes kick people off my team and up-level to somebody better, and that’s fine. It doesn’t mean that they’re bad people. It means that I need people that are amazing, especially when my reputation is on the line and my own finances are on the line too. That’s huge. Up-level your team as you, up-level yourself.
Protect Yourself
Number four, you’ve got to protect yourself. Whereas you’ve heard the old rap song from the ’90s, “Protect yourself before you wreck yourself.” This is one that’s missed by almost everybody, including people that make good money. I’ve met with very successful business owners when we look at this piece, they’ll say, “No, I’m good here,” but then I look it up. I’m like, “No, you’re not.” There are people that teach protection. Their livelihood is about being in this category. Maybe their insurance agents, their attorneys, or whatever, but they still have holes in this area too.
You’ve got to do everything you can to get rid of scarcity, everything you can to make sure that you know that no matter what happens in your life, that one single event or one thing that could go on in your life, won’t take all of your wealth away because why bill up all this money to have it taken away in one event. You don’t want that. We got to make sure we protect you.
As you keep growing and improving, you got to keep protecting and growing with it. You got to make sure you’re creating as much peace of mind as possible because peace of mind creates abundance and abundance creates more money. When you’re in scarcity, fear, and doubt, you limit how much money you can make and create in your life. Don’t do that.
Low Risk Creates High Returns
Number five, low risk creates high returns, not high risks. If you ever have people tell you high risk creates high returns, and these people are on your team, fire them. It’s a false concept. Never ever in mathematical history or history alone when it requires people to take crazy high gambling risks to create high returns. It doesn’t work, other than people that win the lottery, and there are people that get lucky, but the thing is, you can’t do that over and over. You can’t expect one event to make you wealthy. It’s going to take multiple events.
Do you ever watch Shark Tank? I love that show. One thing you’ll notice is that they’ll say, “This is too risky for me.” Think about it. They’re billionaires. Some of them are millionaires, but others are billionaire investors that say, “No, that’s too risky for me. I can’t do that.” Why do they say that? It’s because they know that low risk creates high returns. The lower the risk, the more money you make, even Warren Buffett.
I love when people say, “Warren Buffett invests in the stock market.” No, he doesn’t. Warren Buffett buys companies, and he buys a good share of the company so he can at least get on the board of directors, if not have sole control of that company with him and his team, and then they control the company. They ensure their investment. They keep making money. They protect themselves and then they make more with it.
Peace of mind creates abundance and abundance creates more money. When you're in scarcity and fear and doubt, you actually limit how much money you can make and create in your life. Don't do that. Click To TweetThe best investment for you, it’s not about taking high risks. It’s about taking lower risks. If you’re a business owner, it might be investing in our business. It might be somewhere else too. It might be a combination of things. In my business, I can control some of the best things. I can create some of the best money and best returns.
People ask me, “Chris, where do you put your money?” “In my business.” “Where else?” “Mostly my business, especially right now in the stage of my life, but I’m looking at other things and expanding. I’m looking into real estate and have done things with these commodities. I’ve bought precious jewels. I’ve even bought gold and silver, and things like that. There are all kinds of ways to do it, but the thing is you want things to give you low risk, but also create cashflow. That’s where I love seeing people’s retirement accounts, and then they make more money with it. It’s sweet. When people are like, “I can create retirement now.” That’s awesome. That’s creating your dream life right now.
It’s not about $30 million to $40 million or $50 million years from now. It’s about now. What can we do now? As I talked about focus on cashflow, not net worth, being okay to use debt, but use it wisely, up-level your team as you up-level, protect yourself, and then create low risks to get the best investments, which I love seeing people creating cashflow from their money now.
That is what I want you guys to focus on. If you remember nothing else from what I teach, remember these 5 or 6 things I told you about, focus on income, not expenses and focus on creating cashflow now, and that’s where the dream life comes in. It is when you know you have more money coming in every month and what you spend that’s freedom. That’s the real benefit of creating cashflow, not building a big nest egg. That does nothing for you. It’s having cashflow each and every month, knowing that every dollar you bring in, stays with you as much as possible. You make money, keep it, and then make more on top of it. That’s the key. That’s the secret.
I have two actions for you guys to walk away with this, one is making sure you understand this stuff. A better way to understand it, if you’re in the position to do so next month, September 16th and 17th 2016, I’m doing my Wealth Empowerment Intensive where I teach this stuff more in-depth. If you want to learn how to do this personally and make this stuff work, I’m doing that next month. Again, September 16th to 17th 2016, 9:00 to 5:00 is in Utah. It’s South of Salt Lake City. It’s about a little less than a half hour South of Salt Lake City.
If you can be here, awesome. I would love to have you there. You can register for that at MoneyRipples.com/Wealth-Empowerment-Intensive. You can go to the Events page and find it there. I love to have you there for that. Make sure you put in the special code, if you want to register, you can get a few hundred dollars off. Put in the code, PODCAST.
Secondly, if you’re like, “Chris, I need to know what I can do,” email me at Chris@MoneyRipples.com and let’s see if there’s something we can do for you. I would love to see how I can serve you more. I would want your life to change. This is why I came out of retirement is to teach this stuff. This is what drives me every day. This is what I love to do. I love to help the right people.
If you’re the person that’s in that place where you say, “I make more money, but where’s it all going or how do I get my money work for me, so I don’t always have to keep working for money?” Let me know. We can do a complimentary assessment for you guys. Anyways, make a great and prosperous week and we’ll talk to you later.