Epic Real Estate Investing - The Ripple Effect: Redefining Wealth with Chris Miles | 1454

Episode Date: March 30, 2025

In this episode, Chris Miles returns to discuss his journey from financial advisor to achieving financial freedom through passive income. Chris shares insights on rebranding his show to the Money Ripples podcast, the concept of creating a ripple effect through financial prosperity, and his experiences in real estate investment. He delves into the pitfalls of traditional financial planning, the significance of passive income, and the strategic use of infinite banking. Chris also discusses navigating the current economic landscape and making smart investment decisions. This episode is a vital listen for business owners and aspiring investors aiming to achieve time and financial freedom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terio Media. Hey, strap in. It's time for the epic real estate investing show. We'll be your guides as we navigate the housing market, the landscape of creative financing strategies, and everything you need to swap that office chair for a beach chair. If you're looking for some one-on-one help, meet us at rei-aise.com. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.

Let's go. All right. Please help me welcome back after 10. 10 years being on the show, Mr. Chris Miles. Chris, good to see you again. Matt's good to see you, too. I apologize, I have a little less hair than I had last time. Yeah, I got a few more pounds than I had last time for sure. I probably have the same hair, though. It was none and then, too. Good to see you. You have a new show, the Money Ripple Show. Yeah, Money Ripples podcast. It used to be called Chris Miles Money Show. Now it's rebranded as the Money Ripples podcast. We're in our 11th season now. So I'm very excited about that, for sure.

Very good. Why the rebranding? Did you change the subject or the time? topic or your point of view? I just didn't want it to be about me all the time. I'm not a narcissist. You know, so I decided I was actually just going to, you know, brand it like the rest of the company. That's what all narcissists say.

That's what all naturally. That's exactly it. A narcissist would say that, you know, I'm not a liar. That's what a liar would say, right? Yeah. It's true.

Like everything's money ripples branded anyways. I never want to be about just Chris Miles because I know this is something that's, I believe is a ripple effect that goes beyond me. So my team finally just said, Chris, you know, why we just call the Money Ripples podcast? Let's get rid of the old Chris Miles Money Show thing.

And I said, I'm all for it. Let's do it. Very good. So what does ripples mean? That's got to have some sort of symbolism there. It does. It's really about, I mean, it's kind of like what the whole show is about and everything we talk about in our business is about if you create enough passive income, financial freedom, right? You do those kind of things that actually really gets you to be financially prosperous. You stop worrying about yourself and you start opening your eyes to the world around you. You can create a ripper ripple effect in the lives of others. You can bless more lives. You can do more. and ultimately that ripple effect ripples across the world when you stop thinking about yourself so much and start finding ways to play at a bigger level, serve more people.

Nice. That's a refreshing sentiment in this day and age. Isn't it? Totally. Well, I was reading your bio catching up and reminding myself of what you do and what you've done and what you've done since. And we have very similar stories it seems like. I mean, I don't know exactly, but kind of the same venture, the same path. And so you've been able to create enough passive income to exceed your expenses.

And I believe you said you've done that twice. So tell me how it happened the first time and then why did we have to do over? That's right. Well, that's what happens. I mean, you screw up the first time, right? You've got to do it again. Just to prove that you can do it once more, right? Right.

Just make life harder. So what were you doing just before that you discovered this passive income thing? Yeah. So even before I started doing anything with passive income, I actually started out as a financial advisor, like the traditional salesman in a suit, you know, trying to sell you on mutual funds and insurances and annuities and all that crap, right? I did that for four years, but at that point, my dad said, well, Chris, are you going to sit down with me at some point? Now, understand that my dad was kind of the inspiration for me to even go

in that industry. I mean, I was originally going to become a business coach. I was even a sociology major with a triple minor in psychology, Japanese, and ballroom dancing, you know? It's kind of a Renaissance man of sports. But, you know, my dad was like the penny pinching saver. Like, he would say frugal, we all say cheat, right? Like, you know, So when he said, are you going to sit down with me? He meant as a client, right? That's right. Yeah, he wanted to sit down as a client.

He wanted some advice from his son. Yeah, which I didn't expect. He was always the guy telling me, you know, save everything, spend nothing, you know. So sitting down with him, I wasn't sure what to expect. Well, I look at his numbers and I realized he paid off all of his debt, including his mortgage, so he's 100% debt free. He'd also been stuffing money as 401K, like getting the company match and everything. You know, so by the book, he was doing everything exactly right. However, I had to tell my dad, I said, listen, dad, you're 61.

years old right now. This is back in 2005. It's like, you're 61 years old right now. If you want to retire today, you're going to have to die in about five years because that's when you're going to run out of money. He said, well, that's not what I was hoping to hear from you. So what do I do? I don't know. You did everything right. Everything I teach as a financial advisor, you did it to the T. I guess you just have to keep saving. Just keep working longer. Maybe into your 70s, which he did. End up having to have to work to his 70s doing that. And you got to understand, Matt, that bug the heck out of me, right? Like, I was so pissed. about that because remember, I was drinking the Kool-Aid. I believe it was going to work. In fact,

I was on that same path as him trying to be cheap, turn off the AC in the summer, turn off the heat in the wintertime, you know? Yeah, yeah. All right, just I've saved a few bucks to throw my mutual funds and hopefully I'll have $2 million to live on $60,000 a year, right? Because back then, $60,000 actually meant something. Today, that'd be like living on $10,000 or $12,000 a month. Yeah. Well, of course, when the students ready, the teacher appears, one of my friends who I trained to be an advisor, he left to go do real estate investing. And as we're chatting about it. He says, man, my life is awesome. My dad and I have partnered on some real estate deals, and we've now doubled his income as a professor of the local university. I said, well, come on,

that's too going to be true. That's impossible. You've been what, doing this five months? Come on. He says, Chris, how many your clients are truly financially free where they don't worry about money? Well, they all worry about money. Even the retired ones still worry about outliving their money. Okay, so none. Good job, Chris. How about this? How many of you guys as financial advisors are financially free, not off the commissions you've been earning, but actually doing these investments. And when I really thought about it, there's about 100 people in our office. I said, well, none, because even these guys have been working since the 1970s still can't retire. There's your problem. And so I started taking the matrix red pill, the real estate red pill, so to speak, right?

I started going down that rabbit hole and also learned I could do things like actually lend my money to real estate investors and do things to create passive income where I'm not even having to be the active investor. And later that next year, after I quit being a financial advisor, vowed never teach about money I went and I was able to be financially independent. I had about four or five thousand a month coming in with a 3500 a month lifestyle. I was out of the rat race, as Kiyosaki would say, right? And then I was like, well, what do I do with my life? And that's why in 2007 it came out of retirement, said, I'm going to teach people how to do it.

Recession kicked my butt. I went from millionaire to upside down millionaire. I dig out of that hole again. Didn't go bankrupt, but it could have easily gone to bankrupt for sure. But paid off over a million dollars in debt. And then later in 2016, retired the second time, had enough passive income. this time over 10 grand a month, be able to be out of the rat race.

And so that's kind of my message. That's the thing I teach people how to do is how do you create that system that actually has been proven to work time and time again. It's remarkable that following the traditional plan, my dad did the same thing. It was very frustrated and annoyed later in life. But following the traditional plan, you really only get to do it once.

And if it doesn't work, you don't have any time to do it again, right? And your advisor is going to be retired or dead by that point, so you can't blame them, right? Totally. But if you take the income approach rather than the saving the pile of money approach, if you mess up, you got plenty of life to do it again. It's funny because this is like, I mean, I just released my book Escape crushing conventional wisdom with real estate investing. It's all about bad 401Ks, bad stock market, bad, this, bad, that, right?

It's just all about focusing on streams of income rather than the mountains of money. And it's really fresh, top of mind. And I do a lot of research now. So I do a lot of the YouTube stuff now. And so I'm always doing massive research so I can make the best video possible. So it's kind of like my school, my hobby. And it kind of ties into my business and everything. It's just like my pleasure and my joy.

So I get to learn all kinds of stuff. And I'm redoing a video that I did about seven years ago on the compound interest scam. Right? And the whole get rich slow movement. Yeah. And I'm like, do you realize what you're trading for get rich slow? You're trading your life. Right?

You get rid of slow. And the compound interest thing being, it takes a lifetime before that thing hockey sticks for most people, right? They just don't make enough to save enough for it to work. It's magic. It looks great when you're sitting down with the financial planner. They draw out the lines and look at what's going to happen right here when you're 62. It's going to double the next year and you'll be ready to go, right? And just that whole thing.

And you can go deeper into that with the fees and how those compound two and all that kind of stuff. But it's the whole point is, you know, if you're just going to save your way there, you bet your income better be really, really strong. Oh, yeah. Right. That's why I realized, like in real life, well, one, I mean, Fidelity, for example, has like the largest number of 401K is out there. There's over 45 million people that have a Fidelity, 401k or IRA. Only 900,000 or over a million dollars in their balance. Yeah.

So think about that. I mean, that includes, there's a lot more baby boomers in that number than that. Plus, I'm a Gen Xer. Gen Xters are now entering under 60s too. We're well into our 60s at this point. Shit. And even then, I mean, the average Gen Xer only has 599,000. Yeah.

And that's before the market tanked like 8% or 10% recently, you know? So when we put that all together, you realize, wait, if you only get a million dollars and you live on 3%, because that 4% rule was debunked years ago. You live on 3% a year. That's 30,000 a year. And this is why Transamerica also did a study, the same year about Fidelity, come out with their numbers. Transamerica interviewed the people that did have. over a million dollars and 35% of them surveyed said it'll quote unquote take a miracle to be able

to retire. Yeah. Because they saw that same thing. They're like, wait a minute, I only have a million dollars. That's 30,000. That's not enough. And even people that have two million. There's like, that's 60,000 a year. This day and age, unless you're like debt free and you're living on a really lean budget, it's not going to be as easy as people think. And so that's where we're run into a situation. It kind of reminds me of like someone that goes on Google, right? You're like, you're looking for a good restaurant and then you find this restaurant. The average star rating is like one because there's 99 one star reviews because the food sucks. There's one five star review from that mom that went there and thought was really awesome. And then, I mean, would we ever try that restaurant to have 99

bad reviews and one good one? No, but that's financial advising. That's exactly what's happening. I think it was Wednesday last week in Washington. The CEO of Black Rock and CEO of Chase, Jamie Diamond got together with 270 lawmakers all to discuss the retirement crisis in America and the failure of the 401K. That has happened last week. Yeah, I mean, I think it was just a few months back. It was actually Diamond that said. He's like, the new retirement age should be in your 70s.

I think he's saying that because he knows it's been failing. Is it Larry Finch? Is that the Black Rock guy? Yeah. I think that's his name. who said it. He's saying, hey, we have to redefine retirement. We got to work to 75. Right? I was like, oh, there's a good plan. I like that one. We're 50 years to live on, you know, 10, right? Yeah. It's like, save 20% of your income. So then

you can live 20% of your years finally. You know, like that's the thing. Like I actually looked at Fidelity stats. I was looking at their target date retirement funds. I said, you know what? How have they compared to the actual stock market? I found out there were 2.1% less than the average of the stock market. And they also have at least three quarter percent. fee coming out too. So that means they're about 3% less, which ironically, if you get a 100% match over the course of 40 years, guess what that match does? A 100% match. It's not 100% rate of return because that's BS. People are like, you get 100% return. No, you don't. It's only one time. It's not compounding. It only adds about 2 to 3% a year compounding interest. So the bad performance of the Fidelity funds just pretty much are taken up. Even with the match, it just barely gets it back to breaking even. You'd be better off just putting your money in the spider fund than putting into a 401K. Yeah, yeah. I have to sit down and do the math, but on the surface, by the way, just to talk about,

I think we've read a lot of the things, maybe a whole episode of the choir preaching the choir. But there was a study done across everyone, every company that does a 401k match versus the companies of the same size, like their counterparts that don't have a 401k match. and they notice that the ones that have the match have an average salary of 3% less than the ones that do. So it was like, well, you're not even getting the match because you're getting less salary on average. So you're getting paid less for today. But there's that the other thing that I haven't done the math on it, but it seems like why would you want to put your money into a 401K?

Obviously, if that's what it is where you work, then that makes sense, right? I mean, might as well. But by taking that money and just putting it into an SMP something, right, some sort of fund, when you withdraw on the SMP, you're withdrawing as capital gains, right? The 401k is ordinary income. That's right. It's ordinary income. Exactly.

So it's a worst deal. Where's the advantage now? What's the track you could be in? Yeah. Where's the advantage of putting it in the 401K? Now, I just don't even think there's an advantage at all. No, I get so mad when I hear CPAs that, and I get it, CPAs are trying to keep their business. And so they're like, well, yeah, you could save on tax by contributing to your IRA or 401K.

No, you're just deferring your income to a later date. And remember, we're in the Trump tax plan right now that's about to end. This is one of the lowest times in history for the federal income tax rate. I mean, since really 1914. So 110 years is one of the lowest periods. Are you willing to gamble and bet that taxes will go lower in the future, especially with the debt climbing by trillions every few months, you know, about a trillion dollars every few months? and we've got issues with like trying to, I mean, we got Doge trying to figure out how to save it.

We got the crisis of Social Security going bankrupt and by 2028 they have to make massive decisions or that's going to, you're going to see a reduction in your benefits, right? Yeah. All this stuff is happening. You think taxes are going to go down? And not to mention, if they didn't go down, inflation alone requires you to have to take out more money. Therefore, you go in a higher tax bracket anyways, right? So when people are like, oh, I save money, no, you don't. You just defer your income to a later day, which is likely probably getting.

get taxed. You think the government doesn't know this? Of course they do. Right? Yeah. It's so, I've done so many videos on this and I have to stop reading the comments. Mercedes tells me, my wife says, you have to stop reading the comments. And I was like, but I can't like I read them. And so when I do something that's anti-401K, the amount of passion people have for their 401K. It's an amount of love they have for and it's something sacred to them. And I've done many videos like, here's an article from Ted Benna. the guy who invented the thing and he said he made a mistake

and the whole thing should be blown up. Yeah, that guy doesn't know what he's talking about. That's the guy that made the damn thing. Well, and again, that was higher tax bracket time, right? It was for executives that were making massively high incomes. In the 1970s, when the tax rate, the marginal tax rate was about, you know, over 70%. Deferring tax to a later date

when you might be living on a cheaper type of income? Sure, especially when taxes did go down. That's not the case today. We're playing by old rules. That's like the 4% rule. I'm so pissed about people, the fire movement. You guys, I'm sure you talk about this sometimes. I've heard of it.

I haven't looked deep into it. I realize they're not real estate investors. I thought I'd be getting into this group with a bunch of real estate investors. No, no, no. These are all like millennials and Zoom, some or even Zoomers, saying, no, no, we're going to be as cheap as we possibly can, so we get our burn rate down. And we're going to stuff money into our 401ks and IRAs or whatever, our mutual funds, and save up. And then we can live on 4%.

What they don't understand, though, is that 4% rule is broken. It's old. That rule was created from 1926 to 1976. He was taken to the stock market, looked at it, said, what could you pull out and not run out of money between those 50 years? Well, two things happen since 1976. One, we're taking off the gold standard in 74. So inflation's been higher.

And two, we're living longer. And so now the numbers are coming out are saying, like, no, it's 3%. If you're in your 60s. But these guys are trying to retire early, it's two. And so I had a friend who's in the real estate space. He actually does stuff that helped with marketing for real estate investors. He's like, yeah, I've got over a million bucks. I'm financially free and I'm not even 30 yet. I said, that's awesome, man. So you only need 20,000 years. Like, no, I can live on 40,000 a year. Well, you can only live on 2% if you're

30 years old. That's all you can take out. What? No, it's 4%. I'm like, dude, that number was disproven a long time ago. He's like, I don't believe it. It was almost like you were talking about the sacred cow with a 401k. He's like, no, no, no, it's 4%. I'm like, no, it's 4%. percent. I'm like, okay, dude, I've only been doing money since you were in first grade, but we'll let you just believe what you want to believe because you don't have to double the number now because you were so proud to hit that number. By the way, he should be proud. But if you're relying on mutual funds, you cannot do that where I can lend my money out at 1% a month. And I'll destroy any freaking 401k or IRA because that same 100,000, I'm supposed to live on 3,000 a year.

Or if I try to do it early, 2,000 a year, I can make a thousand bucks a month. I'm going to kill the crap out of all those people are trying to fire. By the way, I actually got booted out of the fire Facebook group for saying the 4% rule was broken. They booted me out. They're like, no, no, no more truth bombs, please. We like to live in our little bubble. Yeah, see how people get the, the conviction behind these things. There's nothing been more true in the last, let's say, 10 years, at least five years.

Mark Twain quote says it's easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they've been fooled. And it's like, okay, you got fooled with the 4% thing, but you want to, You won't listen, like you won't even allow yourself to be unfool, right? Yeah. Like people think you still get 12% in the stock market. It's like, dude, we never got 12% in the stock market long term. It's like even the best 30 years I've seen lately is right now, it's still an 8.7% return the SEP 500, not 10 or 12. It's all these faulty numbers.

It's all over promise under deliver, right? Yeah. But you got your TikTok financial advisors and they have big followings and they preach it out. You get that 401k paying you 6%. But it's okay, I got the 100% match. Well, not if you're maxing out, then you're not getting 100% match, are you? You know, I remember growing up and I just thought of this right now, as I said, TikTok and their advisors, the expression that is it youth is wasted on the young? Is that what the expression goes?

Right. And I just think like, gosh, if I just knew what I knew now when I had the age, you know, and I was younger, but you have to go through it, I guess, to act before you actually believe it and change your mind. All right, so you've got multiple streams of income. So you built it back again. Did you do it all through real estate or what are your multiple streams? Yeah, I did it back through real estate again. I still had like some business streams of income or whatnot, like even the first time. So where do you live, Chris?

I live in Utah. You're in Utah, okay. But I never invest in Utah. You didn't invest in Utah. So you did virtually. Okay. So tell me how that planned out and how you got how you did that starting over. Yeah.

Now, first time I did invest in Utah, but I just know the market the way it is now I don't like anything in the western half of the U.S. really. I look more out east, southeast, Midwest, or for whatnot, depending on the deals. But yeah, like the next time around, I want to make sure I do. did it better because, one, I was managing my own properties the first time, right? I thought I'd be a good property manager and I suck at it. I do not do well, pulling people to their feet to the fire when they give me a good sob story about why they can't pay rent. So I will buy it, I'll climb and sinker. You know, I actually, maybe I'm one of those people that do get fooled again, right? I don't know.

So I didn't do that well. I was lending money out, but again, I lent to people that are just real estate flippers and they didn't have that much experience now when I do it. So like, for example, rentals, even though I don't buy a lot today, I have bought several since the 2010s. I buy rentals. I buy rentals. I buy turnkey rentals. So I buy those that have other property managers taking care of it. As long as you have a good quality marketing manager, that's the key. And I wouldn't call it passive income. I would call it semi-passive just because I have to manage the property manager. But, I mean, other than, for the most part, I'm like checking and make

sure I guess a year or a month. That's all. Yeah. If that, right? I mean, that's with multiple properties, you know? Yep. So it's really still quite passive. Now on the lending side, now, I make sure I have people that have been in that space for a long time. I like to invest with people that have been invested for at least minimum, really now going on about 15 years. Like anybody who's been through a real good full market cycle, they've been investing at least since 2010 until now, those are people I prefer, right? Because they're the ones that they've had to

adjust and move and do stuff. And that's still no guarantee. I mean, I've had friends. I know you have too that, like, in the multifamily space, been in it for like 20, 30 years. And then this was like the worst period of time they've ever experienced because of those interest rates, right? too fast, right? But that's what I'll do. Like, I might go into some syndications here and there. I'll lend money out. I do it well in gas investing as well now where it's, you own the land, but you get paid all the royalties off of it. Not the speculative drilling stuff. I don't do that as much. I even do things with raw land. You know, like I have a raw land partnership where it's been going gangbusters and making great money there. I put in half million and I have somebody else doing the work and they're kicking off over 13,000 a month with that. So that's kind of stuff I love, right? Like just really, again, being that hands-off investor, letting those that have been experienced in real estate, they've cut their teeth, they've got a lot of gray hairs or lost a lot of their gray hairs as a result of the experiences they've had. And those are people I tend to trust more. Got it. Got it. So I noticed something that you have on here that I've looked into multiple times,

but I do really like the concept of having the velocity of money work for you. Infinite banking? Yeah, the infinite banking thing. So is that incorporated into your whole plan now? it's become that way. I mean, I first learned about it back in 2006 when all these real estate investors were yapping about it. I thought they were crazy because as a financial advisor, you always ripped on whole life insurance, right? I was like, why would you put your money there? It's a rip off.

I didn't know anything about it, just what other financial advisors told me to say. When I got to look at it, I said, okay, this is kind of cool. But I realized one thing I didn't like was it was so expensive. The first policy I bought was in 2006. And I'm like, man, like the first two years, I have no cash. It's all going to pay for insurance costs. He's like, yep, that's how they all are. I'm like, okay, I'll take your word for it. Well, two years later, I'm in the whole $16,000 a month. I can't keep paying $1,000 a month premium. So I lost the policy. I paid $25,000 into it, had zero to show for it. Well, just months later after that, I find out the agent lied to me. When I had asked him, I said, is there a way I could put more money in this? Or, you know, we could pull some levers and make this more cash rich for that tax-free savings account, not just death benefit, but that tax-free savings account can make more. He said no. And then when I confronted him about it, he finally

just say, Chris, I just designed it that way because I couldn't afford to cut my commissions. And I'll tell you, Matt, like, even since then, like, I've been a fan of it, like, designing in a way where there's cash from day one and making more cash rich where I can make money with it twice, especially when I'm doing passive investments. But the thing is, I couldn't find anybody to do it the way that I would want done as a as really like an investor. And so finally in 2017, we brought it in-house. We're like, you know what?

We're going to do it ourselves because the strategy works if it's designed the right way where you minimize the costs, maximize returns, and that cash really becomes, I mean, especially in real estate for a lot of my investors, some of them don't even use it to invest. They just literally use it to store cash because it's paying like 6% tax free right now, and it's still liquid. You can access it. So I've got like some friends that like keep millions in there because they know it's also protected from lawsuits and creditors. That's a big one that even Ryan Paneda, I was on his show. He's like, I hate infinite banking. And I said, well, did you know it was 100% protected from lawsuits and creditors? He's like, I now love it. I didn't know that was. the case. He's like, I've had five infinite bankers on this show. And all they talk about is paying yourself back. And they're like, well, that's BS because you actually do pay interest back with the insurance company and stuff. So lots of cool ways to use it. But I primarily use it first and foremost as a good place to store my cash reserves and unbanking myself. Get it away from, you know, Chase Bank, they'll pay me 0.19% anyways, right? And these other banks that don't pay me anything. And then I get taxed not 0.0%. I now have a place I can

protect it from lawsuits and creditors and it'll pay me 6% tax free. Yep. No, it's got so many pros, and I've looked in it so many times, and I think it is a good strategy. I just, it's pitched like kind of to Ryan's point, I guess. He's had the infinite banker people on his show. It's just pitched as you should do this right now. And it's just not a good first place to put your money. No, definitely not. This is not the initial strategy. And I even think that with the 401k and the IRA, those are fine, but that shouldn't be your primary goal to max that thing out. Right. Well, and the whole thing they give is it's always about. like the supplemental retirement income, which is like, no, I want money right now. What can I do with that money on today? Right? So even when I fund it, like those first two years, the way we do it, like by year three, it actually pays for itself, like very quickly versus year 17. But, you know, those first two years when there's a net cost, I tell people, just use your emergency fund. Move the money over like you're transferred to a high-yel savings account. Move it over those first

two years. By year three, whatever money you put in, you can pull right back out anyways and invest it, right? At that point, then it makes sense to do that. But just a very first, first fight emergency fund for those first few years, don't use it to invest from day one like some people teach. And definitely don't do this. I've heard some real estate infinite banking focused guys say, oh, well, just dump in a couple hundred grand up front and then pay a smaller amount down the road. The only reason I've seen that be a benefit is, one, if you really want to get money away quickly, sure. But usually they're saying, well, just put more money in there and you supercharge it. You don't. You actually make it more expensive because the death benefit has to go up,

increasing all the costs, but it does make the insurance agent more commissions if you do it that way. So I tell people, it was like, no, no, no, look, you want all that money to invest, get out to invest, create your passive income, use just your emergency savings to fund it for a little while, and then have the passive investments, actually, then pay for it, then pull it back out, invest with it, and then, yes, you can pick up more interest dollars that way. You do that strategy, not the 60-40 split, like some people say in the infinite banking space, which means you're basically paying double the fees you should be. Don't believe all that crap, even though they're real estate guys. They're unfortunately, the most of them are just commissioned hungry. And that's why I don't

use them. That's why I had to bring it in house because I couldn't find anybody I would trust to do it for us. Is that your business right now? Like, what do you do and who do you help? Yeah, we do mostly like passive income consulting, especially for those people are like business owners that want time freedom, they want to get away from it. It could be an active real estate investor if they're saying, I want to diversify my portfolio. But truth is, if you're an active real estate investor, instead of just wholesaling, you know, cool, get some other things that generate passive income. You could probably do that in your own. So we really focus more on like the traditional business owners and stuff like that, maybe

highly successful W2 employees. But we also do the infinite banking. And that we do do for a lot of real estate investors too, is how do you actually set it up to where it does make sense for a real estate investor? Got it. So who's the ideal client for you then? It's usually a business owner that wants to save a lot in tax, also want passive income. They want that time freedom now.

They're probably about Gen X or older millennial at this point, like 35 to 55 years old. But the biggest thing is they're like, I've got cash. What do I do with this cash to make me more money? Like what do I do to actually create more income? So then I can work because I want to, not because I have to. Got it. If they wanted to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that? Anything money ripples.

It could be money ripples podcast. You can follow on YouTube or iTunes or Spotify. MoneyRiples.com. You got a moneyriples. com here. Yep, we're at Money Ripples for social media. Very good. Very handsome picture of you on the front page.

Very good. Yeah, Photoshop and AI is awesome. Isn't it? I got my eight fingers out and everything. I love these filters, man. They're just amazing. Cool. So we living in a whole new world here in the last, what, 50 days, right?

How is this impacting your business? How is it impacting the way you see the future? Business-wide, I see a lot of people that are sitting waiting for something to happen, right? But the smart ones, the more intelligent ones we're working with, man, they're like frothing. They're like, this is the perfect opportunity because people, if they can't move, they're frozen, opportunities are now more abundant, right? You now have the pickings you have. It's almost like 2020 repeated.

Remember like everybody froze in 2020. People are doing that because of Doge now. We're like, wait, well, what about Doge? What about the tariffs? What about this or that? Screw that. Like, invest now. Like, it's the best time to invest.

And, I mean, even in apartment space, I think the apartment space you'll see it recover. and start to come back here in 2025. Now that things have finally settled. Self storage might take a little time still, but apartments, I think, are making a comeback. And so I think there's plenty of opportunity, plenty of things to do to make more money today. But it will be the smartest, most intelligent people,

the people that are ready to act now. That's what they'll do. They'll act now. The average person, they'll wait until they lose about half their money in stocks, you know, because by the way, stock market is more than double the valuation. It's supposed to be right now.

Once they lose about half their money in stocks, That's the point that if I say, well, now I want to invest my money. Well, that's what average people do. They wait until they lose all their money. Stop markets just recover and then they pull their money out, right? No, like do it. Act now. Like, do it today and you'll have years and way more money to work with at this point.

This is like a great time to cash in your chips. If you have made money in stocks for Bitcoin, this is probably a good time to do so and go into real estate. You think with the crypto too, it's had its run already this cycle? This cycle, yes. I think it will go up overall. I could be wrong. But here's the problem with crypto. I have every single time I talk to a crypto person. They make zero passive income. Nothing, right? Unless they sell it. Unless they try to sell you with some program about crypto, then they make money off of it. I'm not saying it's not something you put a little bit of money into if you're willing to gamble some money, but don't bank your whole wealth and your whole financial freedom on that. Because it's just not, and by way, it's just not even predictable. It's not even going up and down with gold and silver, like people claim. It's going up and down more with stocks. So if stocks are going down, it's possibly we might see Bitcoin do this. the same thing. Yeah, it's interesting. That's a tough one to call. I started like in 2017, 18, just dollar cost averaging in, like small amounts. I would just have it come out of my account

like 50 bucks a week. It was just really, really small. So I did that for three, four years and then it took off what, is that 21? My crypto portfolio was bigger than my real estate portfolio. Just by doing that small little thing. And then that really pull. me in. I was like, okay. And when I moved to Vegas, I noticed just at the gas stations,

there's a Bitcoin ATM at every gas station. And that might not feel like news today. But at the time, I was like, oh my God, this is going to be big. And then you hear about all the Wall Street funds are all creating crypto divisions back then.

And MasterCard had done something with crypto and Visa was doing something. I was like, oh, this is it. Yeah, I don't think we're going to go through another cycle again. And I kind of aped in on the whole thing.

Yeah. And lost it all. I took a serious hit. But I was using the velocity of banking thing, like the velocity of money because I was borrowing against my crypto to buy real estate. Right. See, you actually turned it into something that did cash flow. Yeah. Yeah.

But I did lose. I got liquidated on all this stuff that I borrowed against, right? Yeah. I kind of learned, I used to be a stock trader. I learned the key thing is, is buy when nobody else wants to buy and sell whenever it wants to buy. Right. I'm wondering because it seems like it feels very, very familiar how it feels like crypto, it might be different this time.

You know what I mean? And those are like the famous last words, right, of any financial decision that you make. I'm just wondering if we're going to go through another cycle because I would like to get back in. But now it's like it's just all of everything's all so inflated now. But if it's going to crash again, like it always has the last, what, five or six cycles, then I'm just going to wait. So I haven't really followed it that much. know what's going on. Yeah, that's why I did. Like, I remember when it hit 20,000 back in 2017,

and I even told people on my podcast, it's like, listen, like, I know this is going to go bad because I have a high school classmate that didn't even graduate asking, how do I buy a Bitcoin? Do you go into a bank and pick up a coin? They thought it was a real coin, right? And I was like, okay, this is when dumb money goes in. And when dumb money starts going in, that's when it crashes. So I told everybody, it's going to crash. And then next month it did drop down. It got down to $3,400. I bought it $6,000 before because I thought that might. might be the low and it went a little bit lower. But then it went up to like past 20 and I took out all my profits plus 20%.

I said at least now I've got all my money back. And then, of course, it kept going. I held on some more. And once I hit 65 and it started a waiver a little bit and I actually listened to a crypto guy, this back in 2022 and he said, hey, you know how gold got manipulated by Goldman Sachs and stuff? He's like, well, guess what? There's more gold than there is Bitcoin. Bitcoin's either to manipulate.

He's like all the buying you're seeing now, the frenzy, he's like, I guarantee it's the feds. Because the Fed's number one job is not about interest rates. It's about how do we protect the value of the U.S. dollar? If they see it as a threat, they will find a way to control it. They won't buy it. He's like, that's what they're doing. I said, I need to sell. So I sold all but like 0.01 Bitcoin when it was about $50,000.

And, yeah, of course, it eventually came back up and went down to 16 and came back up. But that's the thing. I just buy the dips when they do dips significantly when nobody else brags about them. Nobody talks about them, right? That's one is the best time to buy them if you do. Yeah. I guess the next moment when you feel like, yeah, crypto's over. That's when you buy.

That's right. Yeah. I don't think this is ever coming back. Cryptos had its run. It's done. What a scam that was. That's when you buy. That's my thing.

Yep. But anyway. Well, thanks, Chris. It's a pleasure. Let's stay in touch. Moneyripples.com. If you want to reach out to Chris for all of his genius, that's where you go. And then also the Money Ripples podcast.

where all fine podcasts are broadcast. I guess that's it. What are the famous last words you got for us? You know what? Like, you're in the right place. You're learning from the right guy. This is legit. Like, if you're in the real estate space,

this is the only thing I've seen work consistently for financial freedom. So keep it up. Don't give up. You know, just keep going and make sure you got that passive income coming in too. For sure. Just on that note, real quick. I got started in real estate and I shared an office with a financial planner. and he was just getting into real estate.

And he would say stories, he goes, Matt, I've sat down to so many kitchen tables with families, I've gone through their stuff, and the only clients I ever had that even had a shot of any sort of financial freedom had incorporated real estate significantly somewhere into their financial plan. That's right. And this is a guy that's leaving that space to go into the real estate space. And I was like, I've just kind of been a believer ever since. It works for me and it works from the people that I've been able to help. And so there has never ever been a bad time to buy real estate.

That's right. If you bought real estate the day before Lehman Brothers went under, what an amazing timing that you had to buy real estate then. Lucky you. Everybody wishes they were you right now because it's double what it is when you bought it. So there's never been a bad time, just a bad time to sell. That's why you got to be liquid. You got to have the cash.

For sure. All right. On that note, goodbye, farewell. God loves you, so do I. Take care, Chris. See you. Bye. And that wraps up the epic show. If you found this episode valuable, who else do you know that might too? There's a really good chance you know someone else who would.

And when their name comes to mind, please share it with them. And ask them to click the subscribe button when they get here and I'll take great care of them. God loves you and so do I. Health, peace, blessings, and success to you. I'm Matt Terrio. Living the dream. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. You didn't know home for us.

We got the cash flow. This podcast is a part of the C-suite radio network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.