I am Charles Schwartz Show - The Daily Habits Behind Endless Income - Garrett Gunderson

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

Garrett Gunderson grew up in a coal mining town, made his first bad investment at 18, and spent the next two decades figuring out why almost everything people believe about money is wrong. Now he's written the books, built the business, and works with the entrepreneurs and high earners who are tired of being told to just wait it out. Charles and Garrett get into the real problems with how most people handle money, from the three myths that keep even hard workers broke, to why the wealthy spend their time managing risk instead of chasing it, to the tax moves that the average business owner never hears about until it's too late. Garrett breaks down why cash flow beats the long game, how relationships and ideas build more wealth than capital, and why the financial industry is designed to work for itself first. They also go deeper on what it actually looks like to build a life you don't have to escape from, why waiting until retirement to enjoy your money is a losing trade, and how the right environment, the right people, and a few unconventional reads can change the way you think about all of it. This is not a lecture on saving more. It is a straight conversation about why the rules most people follow are keeping them stuck. KEY TAKEAWAYS: Why hard work with the wrong philosophy still leads to broke, and what needs to change before the work pays off How the three biggest money myths were built to benefit institutions, not the people following them Why the wealthy focus on mitigating risk while everyone else is told to take more of it How cash flow and enterprise value beat the long-haul savings model for anyone who wants financial independence before old age Why the average business owner overpays taxes by $11,000 per quarter million in revenue, and what to do about it KEY POINTS: 03:53 The first bad investment: Garrett walks through the decision that cost him money at 18 and turned him into someone who questions everything, while Charles connects it to the moment most people stop trusting their own instincts with money. 05:40 The three myths: Garrett breaks down why it takes money to make money, high risk equals high return, and playing the long haul are the three ideas that do the most damage, while Charles pushes him on where he first saw these fail in real life. 26:44 Risk is not what it looks like: Garrett explains what the wealthiest people actually do with risk and why taking action gets mistaken for recklessness, while Charles ties it to the entrepreneurs he has watched blow up and the ones who did not. 39:25 The tax moves most people skip: Garrett walks through the checklist he uses with business owners to find the $11,000 per quarter million in taxes they are overpaying, while Charles digs into which ones apply the moment someone starts making real money. 53:22 The books and the habits: Garrett names the reads that shaped how he thinks about money, relationships, and health, while Charles shares the unconventional places he picked up his own best lessons.

Welcome to the proven podcast, where we don't care what you think, only what you can prove. If you ever want to sit around a bunch of entrepreneurs and listen to their proven tactics on what they do and how they do it and what their routines look like, this is the episode for you. Garrett and I sit down so much so that we're going to have to do another episode just to talk about the finance stuff. This episode is about our routines, about the things that we've seen that create success and really what it's like when we all sit down and talk to each other. The show starts now. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. I'm really excited to have my guests on.

Thanks, man. Thanks for coming on. I appreciate you. Yeah, it's been a fun chatting until we got to the show, like right away. You and I, you know, just hit it off. So look forward to this. So for the four or five people on the planet who aren't lucky enough to know who you are, let's get everybody caught up.

Who are, what do you do? How did you get here? Well, I grew up in a small coal mining town, so I didn't come for money, but I teach money, you know? So when I was a teenager, I won $5,000 being the young. entrepreneur of the year for the state of Utah. And I wanted to invest that money. But my mom was like, you're going to mess that up. I'm not signing off, you know, so she wouldn't be a custodian. So as soon as I turned 18, I made a really dumb investment in this variable universal life insurance

policy that they said was going to earn 18% a year for 40 years, which was nonsense. But that led me to getting an internship by the time I was 19. And that internship was basically teaching me how to pedal products, but it also was the foray to like finance. And in the year, 2000 and 2001 and 2002, the market starts to tank. That's when I got my real education. Because I didn't want to just tell people, oh, you're enough for the long haul or dollar cost average or any of that kind of nonsense. And so I became really good at like efficiency, helping people save tax, help them save on interest, help them find where there's nonperforming fees or design their insurances more appropriately. And I just was fascinated with what the wealthy did versus everyone

else. So a lot of my books are about where would that apply to everybody? Yeah, I think you and I both grew a pu we couldn't afford the last few letters of poor that's just how we were and that's how things kind of kind of worked out we just got a little obsessed with the the freedom that money buys i think it's one of the things that people understand money's not going to buy happiness but good god will buy some comfort because those business class seats are really quite nice it makes a big difference man like lack of money creates a lot of uncomfortable moments that are unnecessary if you had money so it's just like a life of inconvenience. And unfortunately, in the world of finance, they kind of teach inconvenience. Like, oh, just wait until you're old. Just keep setting money aside. You know, it's, it's never about

enjoying life along the way, which I abhor. I like, I want to make sure that people have a high quality of life. And the more you can, you know, have good energy and have a life that you love, the more you're going to create value in the world, the more you hate everything because you have to wait until you're too old to enjoy it to finally, you know, enjoy the money you've been saving. I think that's just a bad path. And I think we're taught that too much. We're taught, hey, do this and avoid it and don't enjoy now, push it off to the end and all that. There's so many myths out there when it comes to money because, you know, again, when I was taught growing up was, you know, work hard.

And I was like, what are you talking about? That is absolutely ineffective. So what are some of the myths that you have towards money that you're like, yeah, absolutely, no, this isn't what you do, completely wrong. I've learned this. What are some of the myths? Yeah, like one of the things you just mentioned is hard work with wrong philosophy still leads to limitation or bankruptcy. So I kind of learned this a little bit at an early age because this Miss Alibetto, I would ride my bike to do her lawn, pull her leads, pull her weeds and all this kind of stuff. And she would pay me with quarters and dimes.

So it was excruciatingly painful work, yet it didn't pay off. And then one week I worked at the East Carbon dump site where it was 105 degrees trying to pound stakes into a ground that was hard as coal. And, you know, so the next thing you know, I was like, all right, I've got to get an education. Now, at first I thought that education was going to be school, but I got most of my education outside of the classroom. I did have professors that used to be fun managers that I learned a ton from or just people that were really intelligent that I could have conversations with and that knew a lot about business.

And so that really did help. But the way I've kind of figured out these myths was making mistakes myself and just questioning everything. I went to Korea to teach English when I was 18 years old. I'll be honest. I went to Korea because someone said, you should go to Korea and model. Why do they need a six-foot three white dude?

model in Korea. That's how stupid and naive I was in vain. Oh, yeah. I end up teaching English there. I go to this movie one day and they have subtitles in English because it's Korean and they were showing how this woman was getting really sick because she was running her air conditioner too much during the day because they're having rolling blackouts at the time. And then when she turned off her air conditioner, she got healthy even though she's sweating because it's the monsoon season. And I was like, oh man, this is propaganda. And I can't. home going, what am I buying into that isn't real as well? And I had just made that mistake of putting the money in the VUL and stopping that. So I just started to question everything,

almost like annoyingly. And that's where I really kind of figured out. There's a lot of myths. The three main myths are based upon this accumulation philosophy of it takes money to make money. Well, it doesn't take money to make money. It takes relationships and ideas. It takes value in exchange. And yeah, you can make money on your money. But there's other ways. Number two, high risk equals high return. Actually, the wealthiest people are amazing at mitigating and managing risk, not taking it. It just looks like someone's taking risk because they're taking action. And third is when they say, you're in it for the long haul. Well, that's how most people, you know, run their finances. Money times rate times time. But that's a really slow kind of

dangerous way to run finances instead of cash flow, instead of financial independence, instead of enterprise value instead of like there's a completely different way to look at it. But those are kind of the first three myths I talked about in Sacred Cows was You know, those, it takes money to make money, which almost everybody said at some point in their life, high risk equals high return and you're up for the long haul. That's, it's not true. It's just what the institutions like to preach to people because then they get to take someone else's money and make money on it.

They get the other person to take the return at the risk while they get the return. And they cash flow from day one when they tell everybody else to wait for 30 years before they touch the cash. Absolutely. I remember the first secret cow that I shot in the head was that you have to work hard. I was sitting down and I got brought into an environment and I was pitching IT services at the time. And he came in and while I was there, there was an individual who did a slip and fall. This was a, this was a swap shop type environment. It was a open air mall and the person

fell and he was losing millions of dollars a year every year to these pretend slip and falls. And I was like, why don't you just put cameras up? And he's like, he goes, well, I don't know how to do that. And I was like, well, let me walk around. I go, I can give you an inch of this. So I walked around, took up my cell phone, called the closest dealer next to it and said, okay, this is where I am. This is what I'm doing? What would it cost? Gave me the cost. I walked back in the office. two or three X the cost. I said, I could do it. I can give you a one-year warranty,

but that's going to cost you an extra this, which it was already included with the vendor, sold it and made more than I made in, I think it was like two hours that it took me to do this, made more in two hours than I did in the last three years. And I was like, okay, that's a different conversation. And it was a whole...

And solved the problem that was putting someone out of business, solving a problem that someone couldn't see, right? Right. It was just, you know, find the pain, eliminate someone else's pain, and you will be rewarded. That's the cow that I started praying to. So you went in and you gave us a formula to say, hey, this and this and this and it's completely wrong.

What is the formula that, you know, you now know to be a completely true? That is a sacred cow for you that you're like, this is the actual formula you should use to create wealth, freedom and everything else included. Yeah, the first part of it is instead of diversifying, most people prematurely diversify, it's about focus with investor DNA. So risk is in the investor, not the investment. So you figure out like what investments make sense based upon who I am and you go first in the investment in yourself. Gain the skills, gain the knowledge, increase your financial intelligence. First, before you try to save another dollar, you put it there. And second, focus on financial independence instead of retirement, which is how can you create enough cash flow for masses to cover your lifestyle expenses?

So the first place to do is go, all right, well, where can you plug financial leaks? Are you tipping the government? are you overpaying on interest? Do you have hidden fees or commissions on your investments? Do you have improper design on your insurance? And you plug those leaks so it actually comes in to help you create more cash flow. Then once you've got that, you focus again on velocity instead of accumulation. Velocity, you know, to break it down is just the GDP or the gross domestic product or output of a country divided by its money supply. So how many times does a dollar exchange hands? So rather than accumulating velocitize. So one way to velocitize is be more efficient, right? If you keep

the money supply you the same, but you can increase up what you can do through efficiency or expansion. So expansion is that value creation game. How can you solve bigger problems, serve more people and deliver value because money will follow value. And so when you put the money into yourself first, when you then focus on an asset class that makes sense, then you look at like three dimensional assets, which are things that create equity as time goes on, cash flow and tax advantage, versus just deferring taxes in something one dimensional like retirement plan. Now, here's the thing. This does require a little bit more work up front, but it has way more reward long term.

I agree. And I think there's a huge part that you talked about the difference between capital and cash flow. Because when I talk to people all the time, if they're talking about, oh, I want to make a million dollars, or I want to have $10 million in the bank, I know where the financial literacy at that point, I'm like, okay, I know the conversations I'm going to have. If I've got someone coming and say, hey, you know, I'm doing a buck 50 right now in pure passive income, I want to write that up into something else. I'm going to have a very different conversation.

Everybody I know that's a billionaire talks about cash flow. They do not talk about capital. It's a totally different conversation. What are the things that I can buy immediately? That's either going to help me stop tipping the government or be what's going to create more cash flow. And I don't think people understand what the ROI is on paying taxes. And listen, I'm all for legally paying taxes. You absolutely should.

The government gives us an immense amount of things. I love firemen. I love police officers. I love roads. I love plumbing. I love our military. I love all that. There is money that needs to be done. However, if the government's going to reward me for investing and allow me to get through things like cost SAG or things of that nature, I'm going to go do that. So how does this asset make me money

right now? So one of some of the things that you're invested in versus some of the things that you're like, I am not touching that. That's a nightmare. Yeah, I'm not like a, I'm not an index fund guy. I think that most of the stock market are companies that I don't really care about and don't necessarily want to support and I don't like having my hand my money outside of my own influence like to me if we went back and looked at me in my 20s I just invested in everything I had IPOs I was putting money into oil and gas I was putting money into I had over 100 real estate properties and indoors you know some was commercial some was residential uh I did a fix and flip I had a hard money lending I just everything looked like an investment I worked my ass off on things I didn't enjoy doing

so Warren Buffett said hey look If you could only invest in 20 things over your lifetime, you become a better investor because you become more selective. It's about focus. So now I just feel like I have a big enough vision in my business that I'm investing there. And I just turn that business wealth into personal wealth with one or two asset classes that are very simple and straightforward. I don't want to have anything that requires a lot of management that would take me away from where my biggest focus is in that business. But sure, I have some gold and silver and Bitcoin as a hedge. And yes, I have some like property, but it's,

It's property that I can drive to, one that I rent out, but I'm probably going to sell it because the renter wants to move on and he's been with me for five years. And so I'm just going to make a profit by selling it. And then I've got my, you know, my house and my cabin that I don't run out, but it's just kind of inflation hedges. I really see like my business, the more I grow it where it doesn't require my daily involvement, the more enterprise value and cash flow that comes in. And ultimately, that's my great tax advantage because there's so many incentives with it that

I've just simplified and focused. So I just have, you know, a very simple portfolio now. So one of the things that I learned really early on was it from a guy named Melvin Simon. Melvin Simon, any mall you've ever been in is a Simon mall. He was 64th richest person on the planet at the time. And he said, don't invest in things you don't understand. Period. Full stuff.

If you don't understand it. So, you know, I got a lot of trouble because I haven't touched any of the crypto. And I was there when it was like a hundred bucks a coin, which, of course, in hindsight, would I have loved to about it knowing what I know now? Yeah, but I still don't fully understand. crypto. I still don't understand the blockchain. I'm like, ah, I don't know. So don't invest in things that you don't know. I've made a ton of cash doing other things that this makes sense. I'm a real estate guy. I understand it. A conceptually, this makes sense to me. I'm going to stay in that lane because I have

some sort of control over it. But the other stuff, I'm very much with you. I'm like, I don't get this. But I have made more money from business opportunities for acquisition and scaling and flipping businesses than I have in any other businesses that I've worked with because that's just something I'm good at. If you're really good at hockey, play hockey. Don't try and play baseball. It gets real simple. That's investor DNA. That's investor DNA right there. And if you can have the muscle to say no to all the things that are really just distractions, disguises opportunities, you have more time, you enjoy life more along the way. And the biggest problem some people have is they go, oh, well, this sounds like a really good story over here. And I want to be part of that

cool kids club. And so they get outside their expertise because it sounds good, but it's actually just a complete distraction. And the people that can stay focused are the ones that grow the most wealth. And even if you miss out on some deals here and there, that's okay because then you stick to what you know. And when times change and economies start having difficulty, your knowledge becomes so essential

because you've got the mental capital and the relationship capital to see it through. But if all of a sudden you invest in something you know nothing about, you don't have the network for that. You don't have even maybe the desire to learn about it. And there's a learning curve to that, and especially if we're going against pros, Like someone that doesn't do anything in real estate is going to go up against pros in real estate.

And if they think they're just going to get amazing returns because they solve one deal, how many deals do you pass up on before you say yes? What's the criteria that you've created so that you have a formula and a format for what you do? And the people that I know, they're the wealthiest, they do that. The people that aren't just go, oh, I have the money. Here's a deal. I'm going to go ahead and do it. Or here's a story.

And there's way too many people that are good at selling the story that aren't capable of getting the deal done the way it's supposed to be done. Correct. And I think it's also hugely important to understand that as you're going into whatever these deals are, where do they have? There's always going to be another deal. I miss Google's IPO. I missed Yahoo's IPO. There's always going to be another. And as I said, it's stacking all these. I was like, wait, they're always coming. There's someone in another city somewhere right now that is making a deal that's going to retire their next three generations. That happens multiple times a day. You just need to relax. It's a big ass pie. And just because someone else is getting their cut in the pie. It doesn't mean yours got any smaller. Get over it.

It's a big pie. Yeah. And if you can say no to something because it has the wrong deadline, even if you miss out on it, the next deal will come. The problem is if you if you circumvent and kind of avoid going through your rules and then all of a sudden you say yes and it works out, then you might get sloppier in the future. Like when I first started investing when I was 19 years old, I bought a house. It was a town home and I got a champ loan, which means I didn't have to make the down payment.

My mom signed as a coach. signer and I rented out two of the two of the three rooms lived in the one room and then a few years later after school I sold it and I made you know I paid 96,000 sold it for 170,000. I thought man, this is amazing. My second deal, my buddy Joel, who I just actually saw for the first time in years a couple weeks ago, he said, hey, I have a buddy that's just got him a job, but he's really behind on his mortgage payments any way that you could buy his home and then rent it to him and then you guys could split the equity because there's a ton in it. Did the research, a ton of equity in it. So I do that deal.

Third deal, I just gave someone $25,000 that I knew well. And they gave me back $50,000 three weeks or sorry, three months later on a real estate deal. So I have three deals that are all just huge percentage returns, almost infinite on two of the three, because I put no money down on either property, just financed it. And the other one I put in $25, got back 50, three months later. That's a 400% annualized return. So I thought I was a genius, but I was young and naive. And so I just was like, well, if one or two or three is good, I might as well get to a hundred.

And I just started doing deal after deal after deal without being selective enough because I confused lucky with good. And so this is why I was saying the first place you invest is in yourself and you get really knowledgeable. Then you invest in the team. So you've got the safeguards and people that can do due diligence because I've seen people that they can't do real analysis on a deal because they're so sold on it. And they need that outside perspective of someone not involved in the deal to ask the questions they don't know how to ask. And that's the thing in finance. there's not enough people doing due diligence. There's a lot of people doing selling,

not enough people doing what could go wrong and how do I protect myself? And also to your point, I think there's not enough people investing themselves and educating themselves. So if you're in that situation, you're listening to this, wherever you are in their life,

if you're in your 60s or if you're in your teens, you know, with how the world's changing, as dramatic as it's happening with AI right now, with everything that's happening in politically, which I will not get into, the world is not going to look the same in five years per period, full stop. It's going to be one of the most radical

changes we've ever seen. So if we're having people coming in and we want to have them invest in themselves and they want them to make sure that we're doing a better job with this, how do you walk them through this man? How do you sit there and say, hey, this is how you start investing in yourself? This is what you read. This is what you do. Walk me through that. Yeah, so there's a couple of things I start them with. First is I usually start with like my own story just so they understand. I didn't just like pop into money and then all of a sudden invest in myself. I won that $5,000 and I invested almost the full $5,000 in education while I was in school, meaning it wasn't for college. It was for things I was doing outside of college, flying and traveling

to places to learn. And I took every dollar and put it all in there right from the beginning, which allowed me to hit the ground running while I was still in school. And by my final year, I made more than any of my professors. So that was pretty big. But for someone that doesn't even have money, we're in a world where we have access to amazing information, really inexpensively. And with AI tools, we can sort through it pretty quickly. So my suggestion is people start their day with investing themselves in at least three ways. Exercise, education, and enlightenment. Like the things that you could listen to while you're getting ready in the morning, while you're working out, and then just take time to see how it applies to

you by asking yourself questions of what's one thing I could do from this to improve my life. If you start your day right, the rest of the day gets better. So I spent several hours this morning just writing, just taking time to write. And then when I was getting ready, I was listening to an amazing audio because I'm focused on what can I do to improve in media. So I'm obsessing about that and learning about that. In the past, that might have been something that was so hard to access or so hard to get information with.

But I just, I set my house up that every bathroom has books piled up in it. You know, I've got every, every place I go, like in my backpack, I've got books. So if I'm on a flight, I'm just, I'm constantly finding easy ways to access what I'm reading. And we're carrying around phones that have so much information on them that I just make sure I always have something downloaded, whether it's a book, an audio book, or even a podcast or a program I'm part of. And so if you just start your day that way, but what I recommend to make it really real is say, all right, what is it that if you learn would make the biggest difference to apply? So you're not just going for generalized knowledge, you're going for specialized knowledge. So this quarter, everything I'm listening to is,

how do I improve with media when it comes to YouTube, when it comes to Instagram? So I can get more reach and reputation to serve more people to be able to be known because it's not just what you know. It's who knows you. So I've just set my life up like that. I tend to pay attention to that which I pay for. So I've hired coaches in that.

I'll be with my coach right after this call. And we're going to be doing walkthroughs of what I'm writing and how I can improve my performance and delivery of it. So you pay attention what you pay for and then just create like this. I look at it this way. Like mentors are so essential to this because they ask any questions you don't ask yourself. So have a mentor that asks you the questions. Have a coach when you know what you want that tells you precisely what to do to get that.

Then create the systems and tools to reinforce it, which is all the morning habits and rituals that kind of help you out. And then fourth, create accountability. That's why paying for it will help you pay attention to it. Because too many people in the world, what they do, is they spend time to save money. I know you're the kind of guy that spends money to save time. And so if you find yourself not sticking to your education, not sticking to learning, you've got to make sure it's something that can apply and that you can see results with because that'll make it more specialized. And then maybe put your money where your mouth is will be

the next level of accountability or find someone that you can study with and work with this on in some type of accountability group, whether that's paid for or not paid for, because it's someone with a shared vision or a shared goal that they're working on too so that you're not left to your own devices that when you're tired or when somebody doesn't go your way, you don't just abandon it. Well, I think there's some proven steps in it, right? So the first thing I always do when I talk to Mike people or is Mike, listen, if there's a game on your phone, delete it.

If YouTube, the app is on your phone, get rid of it. Sit down. So that's step one. Clear on all the distractions because don't let the distractions distract you. Number two, understanding time is not your most valuable resource. It is not. Your health is because there's a bunch of people who have polio who are stuck in those Coke cans who had tons of time. They lived 80 years, but they couldn't move. So health above all else.

So you start with health. You want to do that. I love how you broke things up into quarters, right? Say, okay, what am I focusing on this quarter? And then also, you know, the conversation of eating the frog, which is a great book. What is the one or two things that you're going to focus on that will radically change your life more than anything else? Everything else can wait. What are those two things? So if your case, it's social media, because again, your network is your net worth. We are all over that. It's not what you know. It's who you know. And more importantly, it's the pain you can eliminate in those people's lives. The more pain you can eliminate, and I tell people when I go to networking events, I hate networking events. So if you ever see me at a networking

event, please understand, I'm not having fun. So what I'm normally do is I'm playing matchmaker. I walk up to you and I say, you know, Garrett, what is it that you have? You need a plumber. I'm going to walk around until I find a plumber. And I'm going to grab some plumber and bring them to you. Now I've eliminated a pain. Now I've given value. I will be rewarded for value. So when you go through the things that you're listening to and the mentors, which I agree with you wholeheartedly, what are some of the things that you've listened to in the past that you're like hey you've got to listen to this or hey this is this one mentor this is the next step what are some of the lessons that you've done yeah like there's some some books i revisit every year like uh the war of art by stephen pressfield because it just talks about like when people face resistance how you get through that resistance because if you're resourceful and resilient you can accomplish almost anything almost no matter where you start because a lot of people don't have the every resource but as you know you know you're resource but as you know you're resource you're resource but as you know you're resource you're not you're know, like spending time around billionaires, they always think in other people's time, other people's ability and other people's money. So they find a way to get there or other people

go, well, I just, I don't have the time. Well, if you don't have the time, you probably aren't managing it properly. Number one, I don't have the money. You might, but you just say that is a good excuse that lets you off the hook. Or I don't have the ability. Well, grow into it. Grow into the ability. I wasn't a great speaker when I started. I wasn't a great writer when I started, but I grew into it by investing in that because it was something that mattered and it was something significant to me. So I put in the reps and I had the people that supported me. So that's, you know, a lot of it is we have to not just get information for information's sake.

It's not just about like, you know, because sometimes what we think is productive is just a distraction. Yes. Like we do it. It feels good in the moment. But is it really leading to the life that we love or was it just the easiest thing? Like you mentioned, eat the frog. Was it the easiest thing that made us? still feel good versus like when we're creating a new skill that we don't have that's uncomfortable when

i'm doing that it's like i'm frustrated sometimes i'm like this sucks this pisses me off i want to get better at it and it's part of the motivation and figuring you know it's also kind of fun sometimes because i'm like oh this i'm not used to not just getting my way what and it starts to refine that you build that muscle and so too many people are afraid of what will i look like sound like what if it doesn't work they go through all of these kind of like fears and doubts and then they make excuses instead of taking action. Well, it's not that important. I don't want to do that.

This doesn't matter. They excuse it away versus commit to it. So there's a difference between interest and commitment. Commitments 100% or nothing. You know, if I said, dude, I'm 50% committed to this interview today. You'd be like, so you're probably not going to show up or what, you know? You're either 100% or zero. And I think that a lot of people don't go all in because they're afraid.

What if I go all in and it doesn't work? What does that say about me? But it's like all we have to do is change. the timeline sometimes. Sometimes we have to give ourselves a little bit of grace and say, I'm going to put in the extra reps. And when it doesn't work out, like I was dealing with something with media yesterday, super frustrated about it. So I just called Sam Godette, who's Dan Martel's creative director. I said, hey, dude, I'm struggling with this. We spent 20 minutes. And then he goes, hey, can you help me on some financial things? I said, sure. So with this amazing

exchange, and it's just so happens we're going to be in San Diego. So we're going to have dinner on Sunday and talk to each other and help each other out. That's being resourceful. That's going straight to the source instead of trying to like, you know, filter through a hundred things how you finally give up. Well, also, I think you did it really well. You know, I'm going to simply say, I completed a book. I read a book every single day. Don't do that.

Take one page and implement it. Don't read the whole damn book. One page implement it. I'm like, this is what I did. I'd rather have you just read four pages all year and master those four pages than read a book a day. I'm like, what do you do? You're letting the distraction distract you. The other thing, because you're the other same people that I do in my world.

It's very much the same people. What you said is your tolerance, what your said is important. For example, I have a client that if he doesn't do a million dollars a week, he freaks out. He just absolutely freaks out. And I sat down with it and I was like, walk me through this. He's like, would you cut your hand off? I'm like, absolutely not. Is there anything that you could do to cut your hand off?

I was like, no, there's not a single thing. No, absolutely. And I just had this regret. And he kept getting in my face and getting my face. He goes, that's how I feel about not making a million dollars a week. That's how I had to train my mind with this as intensity of there is no way. in hell that this isn't going to happen. So any opportunity that remotely came in to me, if they're like, oh, well, I know you don't want to cut your hand off, like, maybe just the tip of

your pinky. I'm like, what are you out of your mind? I'm not cutting off my pinky. It's the same mindset he has towards, I'm going to create a million dollars, period, because he has a goal. He knows that when he hits a certain amount of numbers, it'll kick out a certain amount of cash flow, and then he gets to spend a bunch of time with his little girls, which is all he wants. He just wants to spend time with his daughters. So he's like, I have to do this. And either I'm going to abandon my daughters, or I'm going to hit, this goal. That's my only choice. So everything he does filters through that filter of that. It's really simple. Yeah. I remember in 2008, you know, over leveraged with real estate business

went down for the first time in 10 years. It's just been going up every single year. And I met John and Missy Butcher. And when I, they had a program called Lifebook. And so I'm in the middle of like my first book tour and, you know, and they're like, so I go to Chicago, go to this four day event. And I take this assessment. And it's in 12 categories. right so everything from like business and health and marriage and all so it goes through these 12 categories and my fitness and my marriage were the two lowest scores of the 12 and i was like all right well let me look at the other areas where do i have a high score and i looked at these other areas i'm like well in the areas i had the highest score i was reading books i was in groups of people

and even had mentors that like helped me focus you know i was paying money towards those things so I'm going to start doing this in my marriage. So I basically had this formula that if anything that you want to achieve, there's a way to accelerate your way there. Right. And so the first part is you figure out your success formula. You look at any area of your life that's working and say, what am I doing there that is missing in an area that's not working as well? So in my marriage, I went and I called three of three couples that I was like, you guys have amazing marriages. Why don't we get together where my wife and I can interview you because we want to do better?

And then when I found out, they were doing date nights. I'm like, cool. I'm going to start planning date nights every single week. They did regular meetings where they talked about their vision and what they're up to and also the details and what's happening with the kids. So we scheduled. They said put each other first over the kids. And my wife's like, need to hear from them. Higher support.

Don't do everything yourself. So I got us a part-time nanny. And man, just like we got to see all of that. And then we got to implement it because we saw people. And by the way, anyone that was going through really bad parts of their marriage for six months. I decided I'd take a break. I wouldn't be around them because I only want to be people in extraordinary relationships as I was trying to take my relationship from mediocre to extraordinary. So I then looked at my business. I said, look, I have a vision in my business. Why don't I have a vision

in my marriage? So I created a vision for my marriage. It would be a premier romantic and extraordinary husband. I had values in my business. I'm like, why not have values in my marriage? So I just did that. And then the same thing with my fitness. It's all right. If I'm going to be more fit, I'm going to pay someone to show up to my house every day and we're going to work out. I'm going to get together with the fittest people I know once a month. What are the best practices they're doing? So I had that success formula. Now I use it in everything.

I go, anytime I want something, I'm like, who's my co-creator, who will support and inspire me, bring me accountability and make sure that I stay in abundance and move forward? Number two, what escapism would I have to eliminate? What thing is an excuse or reason that would prevent me from doing what I do? Because that's what you're saying, I've got to raise my standards so that I don't go back to something that's comfortable, even like that I might justify. is, well, I needed to do it or it was productive or a lot of people, it's not even productive. It's just, you know, binging TV or it's cleaning the garage for the eight time that didn't need to be cleaned or whatever it is.

It's like this excuse. Then the third thing is I learned to delegate roles, not tasks. Roals remove the micromanagement and someone owns that role so I can free up my time in my mind. And then finally, I get into a place of collaboration. Who are the people that if I'm going to do something world class, I could bring in that bring skill sets that I don't have. And so it's co-create, eliminate, delegate, and collaborate. That's the acceleration path. And so it's not just about reading.

It's about who you bring into your life. It's about what you're implementing and how you implement it. It's about enrolling other people in the vision. So they're excited about it too. And to me, just getting a skill for the sake of getting a skill is not as powerful as having a vision that's so compelling that other people want to work in it. Yeah, I love what you said, you know, someone, and that's important. I'm separating those towards. Someone owns a role.

one individual person owns the role owns the outcome. It's got to be one person because if not, they're always going to flack off. So one of the things that I have that that's really hard to people understand is getting access to these individuals. If you're a situation where you're like, okay, that's great for the two of you.

You guys know these people. That's really adorable. You two A-holes are just, yeah, you hang out. What are you of that individual who doesn't have that? How do you start putting yourself into that circle? What would you recommend to those guys?

So when I didn't have that circle, what I would do is I would always look for people that I wanted to know. And if I knew someone that knew them, I always got introduced to them versus just approach them. So if that's one strategy. The second is I would just look to add as much value as possible to them to get to know them. So I was in strategic coach in my early 20s. I've been listening to these audios with Dan Sullivan. And I finally meet him the first day that I've been in coach for a couple of years.

And I'm in the bathroom and he's in the urinal next to me. I'm like, okay, I'll wait until we wash our hands. We go there and I go, hey, I'd like to get a chance to have lunch or meet you. He was like, yeah, come over and have lunch. So I go to have lunch and he's surrounded by people so it doesn't happen. But again, I'm resourceful. So I call the home office. I say, hey, I was supposed to have lunch with Dan.

It didn't work out. Next time I'm in Chicago, is he going to be teaching and could I maybe have lunch then? They said, well, if you can come in a day early, I said, you bet. So I come in a day early. And the whole conversation with him and his wife, I was going, I want to find out what makes them tick, what's important to them. I want to be able to add value to them and make this memorable. So I got really clear early in that meeting. They love referrals.

They track referrals. They see who's made the referrals and what impact that is. And so I just told them, I said, hey, we host an event like every six weeks. I'd love to just have one of your coaches come and speak at it and we'll tell them about strategic coach. 170 people are at the event. Tons of people sign up. All of a sudden, I've got that relationship.

I was in my early 20s. I hadn't even made a million dollars in a year yet, but I looked for ways to add value. I looked for ways to build that bridge and that relationship. And so that's what I do at all times is I look at how can I deliver for them? I mean, sometimes I'm asked to speak in an event. And by the time I go on stage, I've hopefully talked to the person hosting the event and saved him so much tax. They're like, oh, my God.

Like, I just had a conversation with Garrett. He just told me three things I had no clue about. It's going to save me like a hundred grand. I can't wait for him to speak to you guys. I even have more questions for him. So I'm always looking like you want to build a relationship. To be memorable is to add a ton of value, to really figure out how I could do something for them instead of look to get something from them. I make those deposits first. I agree. And

I think it's also important with people understand, like you might not have access to Tony Robbins, but you could have access to Timmy Robbins or someone else that's lower down in your ecosystem. Practice was then there. Do your reps there. Keep going. There's always someone in your world, even if it's just the local small business owner down the street who's got more experience or has wisdom that you don't have. Don't dismiss them because they're not an influencer. Make sure you're eliminating their pain. It's one of the things I learned really quickly. the difference between millionaires and billionaires, that's what do you do?

Billionaires, that's what can I do for you? And it's always this of being in service, always providing value. How do I do that on the highest level? Just make, if you, again, it's real simple. If you can eliminate someone else's pain, that you will get rewarded.

That's your job in life, eliminate people's pain. So what are some of the biggest challenges you've run into? And how did you get yourself out of it? You know, you talked about, you know, date night, which anybody of you guys who, because I've had to coach couples for 20 years, guys, just date night every single night, even if that means I'm exhausted and my newborns driving me out of my mind, just drive down the street, sit in the car and take a nap in the car next to each

other for an hour. Whatever it is, just make it a non-negotiable. So what are some of the problems you've run it to? Yeah. When we had young kids and, you know, we ended up having just someone that would come every Wednesday night or Monday night, depending on the week. And now we had that carved out, right? And then I got an apartment that was just our date night.

that we would have for a while because when the kids were young and we would go there, we would cook. One time we just went and literally took a nap. We were like so tired. Like, hey, we're just going to go take a nap. You don't have to have the money to maybe do that kind of stuff. But what you could do, like, I've used AI now to describe so much about my wife. I'll spend 20 minutes on a prompt.

And what it tells me to do for like Mother's Day or Date night is amazing because it's crawling everything in my area within a certain radius and saying, here's all the different things you can do. There's just no excuses. I always ask my friends, what are your best practices? What are the things you've done? What's the coolest date night?

What's the most romantic thing? So that's, you know, that's that level. And I think that a lot of entrepreneurs lie to their spouse and say, I'm doing this for you. Now we say that.

You're not. But we're doing it for us. Entrepreneurship's kind of like a trauma response. And we're trying to fill this void of like, are we good enough yet? Are we lovable enough? Are you proud of us enough? Do you respect us enough?

And so I remember my wife called me out and saying, I just, like, I didn't ask for this. I asked for you. Like, do we have to sell some stuff for me to get more time with you? And I was like, I just need to like be less. I just didn't have the mindset at the time to think I could have it all. I kind of thought, well, you have to give up one thing to get another. And that's not necessarily true. It's just when you're bad at delegating or when you have a belief system that doesn't

believe there's another way to do it or you're maybe addicted to, you know, there's no boundaries. So, yeah. I mean, I think the big. problem is partnerships is where the biggest struggle is in business. Right. I think there's an equation, right? Everyone has been taught this equation that if I do this, I'll be enough. And if I'm enough, I'll be worthy of love. And that equation in itself is broken. Because if you think about the person, you love the most in this world. And you say, what does that person have to do to be worthy of

my love? The answer is nothing. So then if you finish the equation, which is what do I have to do worthy of love? The answer is also nothing. When you realize that, you will find peace. But we're trapped in this loop of if I make enough and pretty enough and drives a fast enough car, blah, blah, blah, then I'll be enough and then I'll be maybe worthy of love. That equation by itself is just broken and getting people out of that is so hard. Right. It's like it's so funny because I got just so shredded in 2024 and you know who it really impressed?

Dudes. Yes. The dudes weren't. My wife was like, I think you're too rock hard. It's like, you're too skinny. Like, you're not as fun to cuddle with. You know, so it's like, here we are a lot of times doing stuff to impress other people, not even what we say we're doing.

So it's just kind of this, when are we enough? That's a question. When can we love ourselves? I didn't really get a good roadmap when I was born of like, here's how you love yourself. I've been super judgmental of myself. I've been like super harsh. I've forgiven everyone before I've forgiven myself quite often. A thousand percent.

And we try and fill it up with different forces. Because people don't understand that. Being an entrepreneur, I always tell you, people, I don't drink, I never have. It's just I can't have more than three sips. It comes right back out. But I tell people, it's kind of like, AA. You stand up and like, hi, I'm an entrepreneur. I don't know the difference from my personal life and my business life. They're like, oh, yes, hello, hello, welcome. Because we just don't. We're just, we grind and we just like, oh, I've been on dates and I've sitting on date. Oh, I just had this idea. It's all my funnel and people, and I've watched the

person I'm dating and be like, what are you doing? I'm like, I can't turn it off. It's just how my brain works. It's just, it is what it is. So as you're going to, as you're going to, through this, you know, going back to, you know, what are some of the, you know, we have everyday carries. We're talking about this all the time. Like, hey, this is in the military, you have your everyday carry, you've got the guns, you got this. What are the everyday things you do in your life? Because you've been around this environment of things that are like, you know what, this has given me the most value in my life. You talked about journaling earlier. What are some of the things that has radically changed your life on how you do things?

Yeah, there's a journaling process I used that was taught to me by one of my coaches called the LAF, love except forgive. So I did this yesterday. Because I just woke up and I was in some angst and I was like, man, this is weird. You know, I just, I normally get up, I want to write, I want to work out. I didn't want to do any of those things. So I just pulled it out. It's just right here. I just pull it.

I was like, all right, we're going to do this exercise. And it was like, what am I protecting, defending, and trying to control? That's the first thing I write down. Right. So I go through that. Just kind of brainstorm what I'm doing there. Then it's like, all right, what can I accept and acknowledge that I'm protecting and defending or trying to control in myself?

And so where can I take response? and what can I confess essentially as a confession. Then it's like, well, why am I protecting, defending and trying to control myself or someone else? Am I afraid of feeling guilt, shame, or fear? So I'll go through. What am I afraid of losing? What is it that I've got to forgive? And then can I move into loving myself and just loving what is? And then from there, I just go through, what do I hate, shun, what do I hate shun, judge, like, or make wrong? And then go through this, accepting that, forgiving that, loving that. And then going, through the truth of who I am. And so just, you know, I'm the only one that ever sees it,

but it helps me understand those emotions and move them versus hide from them or ignore them or pretend they don't exist or bottle them up. It's like, no, I'm just going to go through them. And by the end of the day, at an amazing day. And it also got me to be more resourceful to figure out what I was frustrated with, just being like, oh, what can I do about it versus being, like, held captive to it. So that's an exercise I've been doing for years is going through that. It's been super helpful. I do a five-minute. journal every morning and I use a productivity planner. Have you seen a five minute journal?

I use those. It's just I've got it right here. I mean, so the five minute journal, I actually did. It's just asked a couple questions like what are three things you're grateful for? So I start the morning with what are three things I'm grateful for? What would make today great? Three more things. And then daily affirmation.

Just write that down. And then I do the highlight of the previous day in the morning. And so it's like, what are the three biggest highlights and what did I learn that day. And then I've just, I've got these sit in the sauna. I've got him sitting in my truck. I've got him right here in the drawer. So it's just something I can easily do. And I was working out with my buddy Michael right before this. And he was like, oh, what are you doing there? Because I just got in the sauna and start writing. I'm like, oh, this is just my, my five minute journal to just take time to appreciate what I have and have an intention about what I'm doing. And then

the productivity planner is where I can just write down what my priorities are for the day. And then I use the Pomodoro method, right? Where you just go like, set an alarm for 25 minutes, work on it take a break come back to it so it just is really nice to get those little endorphins every time you fill out one of the circles or i do and it just kind of helps me you know prepare what i'm up to so those are those are definitely some daily uses that i have are those things i i work out five six days a week as well i always hang from a bar dip my head in a cold plunge hit the sauna you know i do that kind of standard stuff um for the most part as well and if it's a good if like some days i meditate I'm not as consistent with meditation.

You know, some days I'm good at it. Some days I just go, all right, I'm going to get up and listen to something and move because it's meditation I'm too in my head. Right. Well, I think what, you know, when you do it matters instinctively for each individual. For example, I do what I call gratitude prayer at the end of the night because it allow my brain to relax and to kind of spit the bed, which I'll sit there before I go to bed on my claim. What am I really grateful for today on?

What is it? Because it's hard to be anxious or down or freaking out when you're in a place of gratitude. there's just no way around it. Your brain can't do both at the same time, but it's not that efficient. So I've done this for years that before I go to bed, I'll sit down like, what am I grateful for? And even some of them could be failures.

I'm like, what are the failures that I'm grateful for today? And sometimes it's ridiculous. I'm like, I'm so glad I went to this all you can eat sushi place. That was awesome. Or I'm so glad this deal made me X, Y, Z dollars. Just having that and celebrating like, okay, cool, your body, for me at least, goes,

and it lets go. And then the other things that I found that are really valuable. is making sure that all tech, no matter what it is, doesn't go into my room, especially if it has a screen on it. If it's got a screen, it can't see my bed. It just, they have to be polar opposites of each other. They're never around each other. Right.

And it's just a non-negotiable. One of the guys I know really well, he was a client, he's like, how don't get my kid to start reading? I want my kid to start reading. I said, well, from now on, just take your phone, put it in a box, and they go sit down to the couch and read in front of him. He was, yeah, but I'm going to tell them I'm reading. I'm like, no, don't tell me anything. just sit down and start reading in front of them. Within two weeks, the kid was bringing books over and reading because they, you know, kids ignore everything that you're saying and they only follow what you're doing.

There's just, there's no way around that. Right advice. So one of the things is also you talked about, you know, cold plunges and IRsana's or sonnas and all that. You're also someone who cares about their fitness. What are you doing with your diet? Are you doing blood work? Are you going through blood work? What do you do with that?

So I have a, I have something that designs. I have two people just because I had some kidney things in 2023. So I have one person, Deborah, who says what foods are approved for me to eat that are healthy for me. And I have Allen that kind of designs the, you know, the quantities and the frequency of eating. And then so I pretty much eat the same thing every morning. I eat this organic oatmeal with papaya or kiwi and a little cinnamon. And then I'll put in some bone broth protein powder in it. And then, you know, I have Christina, who.

makes my food now because this was just a big thing. It seems extravagant for people a lot of times I think about hiring a cook, but it's actually mentally extravagant, but it's financially pretty affordable for an entrepreneur, meaning I'm paying her $35 an hour. So I'm paying her, you know, like she works basically three to four hours a day, five days a week. And then she gives me back three hours a day, five days a week, or really seven days a week. How much more can I make with that. So health has never been easier from that standpoint because I know what I'm eating. She makes that food. She made some banana bread that was paleo. I probably wasn't supposed to eat that because she's like, I just want to get you a treat. And then I just realized, oh, I can't have that around. I'll probably

just eat it. Like, so I'm going to tell her, just keep it. She just thinks I'm a little bit boring on the food side. But, you know, I have meat and veggies for the most part throughout the day, sweet potatoes you know i can have goat stuff so i can have like goat yogurt not not cows but like dude i'm now trying to gain weight which has never been the case my whole life i always tried to like get leaner now it's like no i'm trying to put weight on i'm eating anytime i'm hungry in whatever quantity it feels so abundant because i'm eating whole foods i'm eating real foods i'm not eating the process stuff that is chemically you know changes our taste buds and really impacts our minds and can hijacked our life. In the past, when I didn't have someone like this, I would just skip meals a lot of

times to get really hungry and then have to like go look and see what we had. And it might not have been the best option. And I'm now famished. I'm just eating so much. Now it's like now I'm eating every two and a half hours. Everything's kind of planned out. And then I just do kind of old school weightlifting. Like do progressive overload weightlifting. All my stuff right now is just super slow on the way down, time under tension type of stuff. It's a new workout that I started just a few weeks ago. and I'm getting sore again, which feels really good. And that's kind of the, you know, it's so nice that now that I know what I want, the coach tells me, here's what you do.

The system helps me get it done. And something that used to be an up and down struggle is just easy. Right. I think it goes back to the form we're talking about. It costs $35 an hour to do this, five days, you know, three hours a day, five days a week. So if you're using that, that's 15 hours, can I offset the $900 that it's going to cost me? If you can't make $900 and 15 hours a week, you're not an entrepreneur.

Please go back. Go work it. Go get a job. You're just in the wrong ballgame. I remember when the rule was, and I was in my 20s when this happened, I was told by my mentor because I was hiring a mentor. He goes,

if it's less than $200 an hour, you shouldn't be doing it. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? He goes, never cut your lawn again. I was like, wait, what? He goes, you do not do laundry. You do not cut your lawn. You do not cook your foods.

And I was like, huh? He's like, do it for 90 days. I know you can afford it. I know what your bank count looks like. Do it for 90 days and get back to me. I have not cut my own lawn since. I'm just like, it's just because the ROLI was just huge.

I was like, this is the best investment I've ever had. So getting people to understand that. I also like that through data drone. You know, I'm an individual who, you know, true diagnostics is I'm close to the people who run it.

Give me your blood work. Have fun. This is where you are. This is what you need to do. This is how your body react to this. Hey, you might be super athletic and thin, but your tendency to be pre-diabetic.

Awesome. Adjust your food intake. Simple and easy. You might find out that for you. Like, I love lamb. I love it more than I can possibly tell you, lamb does not work well in my system. I've had to have the biomarkers come back and say, you can't eat lamb. I'm like, ah, darn it.

I'm like, but is ice cream good for me? And they're like, no, I'm like, get it. So you get to have those, those ghost conversations when you go into it. So if you have someone who's on the outside, looking at the entrepreneur journey, trying to get the investment DNA, things are changing. And it just, it's only going to speed up. We've got AI. Again, that doesn't mean artificial intelligence.

It means always incorrect. So some of the data you're getting back doesn't have the experience. So if you're sitting here and you're looking at the scope of where society's going, where entrepreneurship's going, where investment going, where's AI going into it, where do you tell someone right now, say, hey, should I be, because I know you're focusing on scaling your social presence and more of the influencer and having that impact, where would you tell the average person to go and how to get there? I think that the way that things are going is people want more one-on-one interaction or

human interaction with people. people. So intimacy is going to be valued at a whole different level. Just like getting to, like, AI might be able to remove so much busyness that we could just sit down and have a conversation without a thousand things on our mind. You know, in the early stages right now, people in AI are working 10 times harder because they're trying to figure out what valuable, what's not valuable, what works, what doesn't work, build out those systems. So I think community, I think connection, that's what we're going to see is the future because now people could, you know, go to a mastermind and actually have human contact and be like so like look what came out after COVID.

People were so excited. When I did my comedy special in 2021, people were, it was like I got more laughs than I deserved. I got more applause that I deserved because people are just so excited to be out and be with other people and have so much fun. So I think that AI is going to help people be a lot more effective when they learn to use it properly. And then other people are going to get sucked in and waste their time with it because they're thinking of it as a tool to replace people instead of enhanceability. I look at it like something that helps us to become more productive, not something that helps us to become replaced because it doesn't have point of view at this point.

And, you know, again, I still like to do business with human beings. Now, I have no idea what it looks like in five years, honestly. So I'm just like, let's figure it out and do the best we can so that you're in the best financial position you could possibly be and be willing to adapt and adopt faster and make changes quicker than we did in the past. I think it's the conversation of productive versus purge. There's so many people with AI are so afraid it's going to be T2 or it's going to be Mad Max and we're all going to die. I'm like, okay, what's the winning lottery number?

They're like, well, I don't know what the winning lottery. I'm like, why are you predicting something in five years? What are you doing? So having that productive versus purge, I agree with you completely when it comes to the community. It's the one thing that I'm being begged for right now from my environment. They're like, can you do events? Can you bring us together?

You know, you've got these, you know, the people come on. we want to sit together. How do we help each other? How do we get in rooms? And that's been something that, yes, people, I'm listening. I'm working on it. Leave me long.

Working on putting those things together because that's what I'm being begged for. More than anything else. Is that connection? What are your, I'm just curious because you, again, you've got the reps in. You've got access to this. Someone listening right now who might not have access to you.

What are the top five books they need to read right now? Well, if they're, if they're looking at it, money. There's, you know, like, I have three books that are really the core financial fitness books. One is killing sacred cows too, because it helps to understand what the financial myths are so you can avoid them. Because once you can see it, they're like, oh, and it helps you break free from a lot of that constraint. So there's a lot of prosperity and permissions to succeed. The second one is money on masked, which really helps people heal their relationship to money, understand, like, where they could put more money in their pocket by plugging the leaks.

expand their mind so they create a vision that's so compelling that they enjoy their life. And then what the Rockfellers do is making legacy accessible to the people who normally wouldn't think about it until they're far down the road, the things that they could do today so they can invest in their kids. And so they can build the structures that don't require a single dollar, but can change the trajectory to their family and change their, you know, financial future and destiny. So those are like the three big ones. Those are all mine. So it's super self-serving on the books to read that I'm saying there, you know, on the financial. side, because a lot of the other books I read in finance are pretty dry and boring and hard for

people to get through, like opportunity cost and finance and accounting, or the assent of money is a really fascinating book, which talks about how money started and its history of money and how that evolves. And it gives you really interesting perspective as we hear in today's world, everybody's saying, oh, the dollar's going to lose all of its value. You got it to get into go. And like, all that's the distraction economy. It's turning up the noise. The reality is your business is a solution to solve inflation. Your business is a solution to solve tax hikes. Your business is a solution when interest rates change. The solution is there. You just feel like, oh, you're maybe behind or should be further along and then you get involved in things you know

nothing about and outside of your influence because you're not focused enough. That's a distraction economy. So I think staying really like clear and concise and focused on that is super helpful. And then I think for like a for a business owner, it's really like, what? books going to help you increase your business acumen? You know, what's going to help you really understand whether it's, you know, anything from like 10x is better than 2x or buy back your time or, you know, like there's these books that help you think. When you first invest in yourself, that's step one. The next step is you invest in others. And when you read the books to help you invest in others, that's going to be more profound than investing in investments you know nothing

about. So grow yourself, grow your team, and that's the access to a whole different financial world. When it comes to relationships outside of the business world, what are some of the books that you've seen that have been, that have changed the ballgame for you on the relationship level? Way of the Superior Man, I really like by David Data. There's a book called The Married Man Sex Life Primer by Apple K. Love that book. Reread that book

quite often. I think that does a really good job of talking about like, you know, attraction and it's, you know, alpha and beta and like, It's so good. It's such a good book. That one was a game changer. I loved the five love languages when I was, you know, first married. That thing still kind of resonates with me.

And it's something that I think about and has been super helpful. So I think those are kind of like the top three that made a big difference for me. Perfect. And the last one I want to ask about is fitness. What is the fitness stuff that you read or that has come across that you're like, yeah, this is, this is the game changes for me. You know, like on the, like my wife is a ferocious reader on health. So she kind of is the catalyst on a lot of this for me.

But I read I loved deep nutrition by Kate Shanahan back in the day. It got me thinking about like the quality of the food and the nutrition inside of the food. I mean, I just, I love Rob Wolf and pretty much anything that he writes. He's been instrumental in my health journey and a client or a friend for a long time. So that's super helpful. And now I actually do watch a lot like on Instagram around health. from the people that I think are, you know, really dialed in the people like Mark Hyman or even like my fitness trainer, Alan Dick, like I like watching that stuff because I can get really,

you know, concise. And then I was in Allen's program where he's doing like full hour sessions once a week teaching stuff about nutrition and health. And, you know, so, man, I've read a lot in the nutrition space over the years because I've spoken at so many events with people that in that that world, like half of our clients felt like they were in functional medicine or, you know, chiropractic and, you know, biodentists and stuff like that. So there's so much good out there and there's so much bad. I think that almost anything that's traditional is pretty much antiquated and outdated. And even Andrew Huberman said that half the stuff they're learning in medical school doesn't apply. You know, it's not even real. So I'm kind of like, you know, where can we get

nutrition from food. What can we do use like with the quantity of food and how often that we have it? I have so many good friends that have huge channels that are that are fun to watch and learn from like my buddy Warren Phillips or Dan Pompa, those guys put out really good, you know, content on health. Uh, yeah. So I think it's, it's all really powerful something. When I first learned about chiropractor, I learned it from this guy named John Stockton. So he was a basketball player. And he would have to stock. Yeah, there you know, his chiropractor is my chiropractor. Yeah, there you go. And John used to go out and have it done three times a day when he was practicing. And he retired because they wouldn't let him wear his shorts anymore. Not that he was injured or getting too slow.

So I fell in love with the world of chiropractor. I was like, oh, that was so much better. Because the other day, I just corkscrewed my hip. Just it is what it is. I'm just the joys of being 48. I corkscrewed my hip. And I walked in my chiropractor. Snap. I'm like, thank you. He's like, I have a good day. It was simple and it was easy. God, I love it. Anyway, if people want to try to go. You and I were talking before. You know, how, you know, how. basically like I went to this meditation retreat my flight was canceled I ended up having to sit in middle seat instead of first class and I'm pretty tall and then the beds of the meditation retreat weren't very good I came home with a sore back but I went to Bueller's immediately right

and then he does that muscle activation stuff and then I happen to be speaking event for for chiropractors last week they did the rest of the work which came off of even my biofeedback machine that I was working on with Deborah this woman she's like here's where you need to get adjusted And when they're like here's where it was all aligned even though biofeedback. I wasn't even in the same room. It's there's so much more going on than we even know. You know, and you think there's like trillions of things happening inside of a body. And so we're just going to continue to evolve and learn so much more that I think is going to change the game with health.

But there's almost nothing that will be just move, get rest, drink plenty of water, get some sun, you know, and be in love. Like that, that's right there is going to solve a lot of it. That's pretty much it. That's the formula. So if people want to track you down, Because you know, Garrett, you give you so much value and you're connecting in so many different ways. If you want to get access to you, what's the best way to find you?

What's the best way to connect? I drop daily nuggets on Instagram, Garrett B. Gunderson. So if you want specific insights on finance and things that you could do, Garrett Gunderson.com, you can grab my newsletter in five minutes or less. What's going to help you get financially fit, independent and free? And then YouTube, I do longer form stuff like we did here today. So if people want to do deeper dives, I'm doing a video, today on the habits of marriage that made me rich and the things like it's it's got so many golden

nuggets or the nine habits and money that make the biggest difference so i do videos like that so and then people can just dm me and if they want like we barely mentioned tax today but if you want to save tax because i know you're entrepreneur tax navigator i have a full checklist where people can go through and see if they're doing all the tax strategies that are out there because we find that you know the average business owner overpaid taxes by about $11,000 per quarter million dollars of So when someone's making millions of dollars, they're just tipping the government unnecessarily unburied down the fairway, simple things. So this checklist is extraordinarily helpful for people to learn about how they can take the qualified

business deduction. And that's a 20% less tax or how they can rent their home out for 14 days a year to their business. And that's tax deductible or how they could pay their kids or whether or not they should do a home office or what type of corporation to choose or how they could sell assets completely tax free with charitable trust. Like I just geek out about that kind of stuff. So the DME Tax Navigator will hook you up, give that to you for free.

All right, I really appreciate it. We should have you come back just to talk about that because with my last name being Schwartz, anything I could do to save money, I get really excited about it. So we'll have to come back and we'll do that, man. I really appreciate you, man. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, man. I certainly appreciate it.

Hard work with the wrong philosophy still leads to broke. High risk does not equal high return. And waiting 30 years to touch your money is not a strategy. Garrett flipped the script on everything we were taught about wealth, and it is about time. See you on the next one.