Next Level Pros - #88: Breaking Barriers: Kris Krohn’s Blueprint for an Entrepreneurial Mindset Shift

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Welcome to a new episode of the Founder Podcast. In this episode, we’re joined by Kris Krohn, a dynamic force in real estate and personal development. Kris shares his remarkable journey from humble beginnings to becoming a titan in real estate investment and personal growth. With a passion for helping others achieve their highest potential, Kris discusses the importance of mindset, the power of positive debt, and the transformative effect of mentorship.  Highlights: "The greatest risk is not taking one. Everyone playing safe will land on their deathbed and regret."  "Every single word is either charged positively or negatively... So, guess what? You're not motivated? Guess what? You're not getting off your ass" 3. "Debt is... really beautiful. But it's only beautiful because I understand financial arbitrage” Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction to Kris Krohn 01:28 - The Importance of Breakthroughs 02:04 - Happiness and Emotional Intelligence 06:42 - Transforming Negative Thought Patterns 10:00 - Simple Steps for Personal Improvement 13:48 - Mastermind Investments and ROI 17:23 - Decision Making and Seeking Inspiration 24:01 - Learning Integrity and Hard Work 32:06 - Strategy for Real Estate Investment 38:02 - Dealing with Critics and Haters Live Links:  Join my community - Founder Acceleration ⁠https://www.founderacceleration.com ⁠ Apply for our next Mastermind:h⁠ttps://www.thefoundermastermind.com⁠  Golf with Chris h⁠ttps://www.golfwithchris.com⁠  Watch my latest Podcast Apple- ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-podcast/id1687030281S⁠ Spotify- ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2⁠ YouTube - @thefounderspodcast

Hey, Founder Nation, super excited to share with you Chris Krohn. Chris is a well-known social media strategist that has built his real estate portfolio and private equity to the moon. Today we're going to be focusing on how you can break through mentally to really get to that next level. A lot of us are stuck in what we would perceive as just normal life, mediocre relationships, mediocre finances, mediocre finances, mediocre opportunity in front of us. And so here in this next 40 minutes, we are going to dive

into the strategies that have helped Chris go from zero to absolute hero in all areas of his life. Let's dive in, baby. Let's go. Yo, yo, yo, yo. Welcome to another episode of the Founder Podcast. Today, I am joined by the one and only Chris Krohn. Chris is a real estate guru, family man, entrepreneur, private equity investor. He does it all. He's currently building a crazy monstrosity on top of his home. I've been following him on social media. He probably doesn't know that I've been stalking him so much, but dude, welcome to the show, Mr. Chris. Thanks, Chris. Listen, your parents got your spelling right. C-H-R-I-S. My parents spelled mine with a K. And I got to tell you, I always felt made fun of my whole life. I'm like, dad, I know we're German, but why did you spell my name with a K? And when social

media took off, I'm like, dad, thank you. Just a little bit of differentiation in a world with a million. Yeah. Yeah, dude. I do appreciate the CH spelling. So I'm glad my parents got it right. But dude, let's talk breakthrough, man. there are a lot of people that are just happy where they're sitting in life, whether it's fitness, whether it's career, family or whatnot. And I know that's something that you're really passionate about, like helping people take it to the next level. What, what do you think, what do you think is like, keeps people standing still and like, how do they overcome that? Yeah. So I don't think there's a ton of happy people out there. I think emotional intelligence is at an all time low. We got this mental health crisis that is going on big time since we

went all claustrophobic and master selves and no one, it seems as doing a great job recovering from that human beings as a whole with that emotional intelligence. They, they seem to me like really unhappy. Like I step out my door and it seems like so many people are fat. They're struggling with their weight. And I I'm just telling you, like, you don't look in the mirror and feel good and say, wow, let's go champion. Right. There's, there's, we got high divorce rates. We got people financially that are struggling, can't figure it out. Um, and, and I think part of the problem is that human beings are afraid to change. I think when we were kids, someone came into our world and changed stuff on us. And we've just learned to say, wow, change is bad. Do everything you can to avoid it. And as long as we're not changing, as long as we're not growing, we're actually dying.

And so year after year passes, decade after decade. And it's just like problems that we have today only become bigger problems tomorrow. I think from where I stand, the majority, not been in the same career for the last 20 years. I've been saving my 401k. I've got a wife, two kids, a dog, mediocre relationship. What advice you giving to me? Well, first of all, if you're that at 45, let's take a look at where you're going to be at at 55 or 65. Are you going to weigh less or more? Well, you're going to weigh more. Are you going to be richer or poorer? You're not going to be richer. And are you going to be happier in your marriage or less happy?

So this trend line of understanding where am I at and where am I headed? I'm teaching my children this. I got four kids ages 12 to 18. And every Tuesday morning, my kids are all private school in my own home. So I hire, pick my teachers. I bring them in. And last week's lesson was on that we become who we hang out with. So I said, Hey, you know, if you're 50 pounds overweight and all your friends are overweight, guess what you're going to want to do for fun. You're going to want to go to the all you can eat buffet and

hang out with those friends for a decade. And you're going to be more overweight. Now, by the way, if you're okay, I'm not fat shaming. If you're okay with that, great. But I honestly don't know people that are like the, like most people I'm like, um, what you, what we see in our health is really just indicative of other problems in our belief system. Right. And so it's usually comes down to, I don't feel like I'm good enough. I'm not getting enough love. I felt, you know, betrayed or abandoned. And, and so we live with these feelings and we believe that these ideas are true without waking up to the idea that we're the author of our life. Like we're the ones with all of this agency. And the moment we're just living this predetermined life based on

things that happened in my past, it's like I'm a robot. It's like, I'm not even alive. I'm not really living. I'm going to wake up in the morning, go to the fridge. I'm going to take the same thing out for breakfast that I had yesterday because I'm just so stuck in my routine. And so to that person, my advice would be, first of all, the teacher only appears when the student is ready. And that's the really, the biggest thing is whether or not someone finds that to be a problem. If they find it a problem, I'm like, you're my people. Let's hang out and let's level up and grow because you can only work with willing people. You can only work with people that are ready to, you know, so that's, that's, I think so much of what it comes down to is do you want to change? And let's, let's continue with this avatar, right? The, the, the avatar is looking at you,

Chris. And, and he's like, look, I follow you on social media. I know you only, you know, work 20 hours a week and you kind of plan everything around your life. It's easy for you to say this. You've got it all figured out. You took risks at a young age. I'm too old. I want to change. I find an issue with what I got going on. I don't like my relationship. I don't like my financial situation. I don't like my fitness. Like what is the first step that I should take if I'm willing to change to kind of get that breakthrough? And because, because, you know, we're on completely opposite ends of the spectrum, Chris, right? Like you've, you've already got it all figured out. I wasn't born this way. Like I wasn't born ready. And, um, I was at one point, a total hot mess. And my marriage was a disaster and I was overweight. You know, my mess became my message. It became more. Um, so if we were having this conversation, you were just starting out. I would want to go back to the basics. And this is the most basic thing I can share with

anybody. The scientists are measuring that you're having 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day. And if every one of those thoughts is a sentence formed into 10 to 14 words, that means that you are thinking around 1 million words a day. And here's what most people don't understand. Every single word is either charged positively or negatively, right? If I use the word good versus hate, one feels good and elevates and one tears me down. Well, if you take a look at the million words that you're using every day, the majority of those words, not the minority, not equal half, the majority of them are negative. So now let's turn it into a game. Every word has a point value of one point. And to make it really simple, if it's a good word with high vibrational energy, you get a point. And if it's negative vibrational energy, you lose a point. At the end of the day, you have

spent 1 million words and what's your score? Most people are going to be several hundred thousand in the negative. And so it's just like, guess why you're not motivated? Guess why you're not getting off your ass? Guess why you're not eating healthy? Guess why you're not taking risks? Guess why you're not fixing your marriage? It's because your operating system is rooted in this idea that the majority of what you think during the day is low vibrational energy. So that's why when you meet people in public, Chris, you know this, instead of being charismatic or open or gregarious, they're quiet, they're shy, their head is hung low, their body language says that they're shut down. They're not the first to raise their hand. They sit on the back row. That's most human beings.

So they're not really living. And it all starts, it all starts with thought because the words and the thoughts that we think ultimately dictate feeling and feeling dictates motivation. So when people look at me like, dude, Chris, you're such a spaz, man, dude, you got so much energy. I'm like, why? It's because it's because every day I score a million points. That's right. That's why I'm high energy. And so I have some rules that, that I share with people. I'm like, there's four words that everyone should get rid of and never use because you

just can't use them responsible, responsibly. Get rid of the word bad, hard, difficult, and challenge. Love it. And the reason why is because when you say something bad happened, guess what happens when two bad things happen? Now you have a bad day. And once you declare that the day is bad, what comes next is bad. And all you've done is colored your own perception by your own agency to see bad. Most human beings live this way. Right. And so if you want to change your life, you have to look at the operating system. Don't, don't, don't, don't align on a strategy. Like,

well, I need to do things financially different. I need to get to the gym. I'm like, whoa, before you do that, what you've got going on upstairs in your mindset is not working. I love it. I love it. I think, uh, yeah, these are, these are basics that, uh, you know, every, everybody's got to start with. So once I fix that, right. So once I, once I've got, I'm starting to think more positively or whatnot. What, what do you, what do you recommend that you attack? Is it, is it the fitness? Is it the financial? Is it the relationships? Like what we're, I think it's whatever's hurting. I think it's whatever's hurting the most. And it's also recognizing, I mean, I weigh 270 pounds and my relationship

sucks and my financial situation, they all hurt pretty bad. Yeah. So, so I do believe that every day it's possible to be a little healthier, a little financially wiser and better off and, and, and have a little better love life. And these things actually don't take a lot of time. They take actually just a little. So nobility, my definition for every one of us is being better today than yesterday, but you don't have to be loads. You don't have to do crazy stuff. You just have to do something small. So take your love life. Like if you want to change your relationship, it starts with turning to the person that you love and asking them a simple question. How can I love you today? You ask that question every morning and whatever they say, you just do it. And as an unconditional

gift, not wanting anything back, we'll shift love from stagnant and transactional to something heartfelt, real, and meaningful. So there's a small little thing that you can do in your love life to actually say, wow, I actually created more love today than I had the day before. In health, it's really simple. Like you can just measure that stuff. You look at the food that you're putting in and it's like, okay, I'm going to start measuring what I'm doing.

Measuring might be going to the gym. Measuring might be what I put in my body. Measuring might be knowing what I'm doing and tracking it and just saying, hey, just do it a little better today than yesterday. And guess what will happen? You'll see it is like I gave up, you know, you know, soda pop or I gave up, you know, my energy drinks. And, you know, within two months, I lost 30 pounds.

Great. One little thing, right? It's when you have the right mindset, it's easy to be a little better today than yesterday. And your finance, the same thing. It's like, how do you clean that up? Here's the number one hack. On your own, as a lone wolf, your mind can only get you more of what you've gotten. So for me, at least my path forward, I feel like I've lived so many lifetimes in this life. And it's because I found people that had 10 X or a hundred X what I wanted. And I enrolled them as my mentor, as my

coach and said, give me the blueprint and the formula, and then be my calendar, be a partner and let's do this. And it's like, wow, that's such an easy, simple, but most people they're too prideful to do that. Or they think it'll cost too much money. But the reality is fixing this operating system, I believe really revolves around the people you spend time with. And if you're financially struggling, look at the people you hang out with, they're broke. Like you got to go hang out with millionaires. Yeah.

You got to find a way to pull one of those into your ecosystem to start producing a change. If you're hanging out with other like lame marriages, you got to introduce like an inspiring marriage into your world. And you probably got to, you probably got to make some fit friends. So all of a sudden the people you surround yourself with, especially if they're calibrated at 10 X or a hundred X beyond you, like you're going to, you're going to start seeing some huge shifts in your life. Absolutely. So you talked a lot about just enrolling people. So obviously when you enroll

these different types of coaches and consultants, a lot of times you're money out, right? So over my career in the last, I mean, just in the last eight, nine years, I've spent about a million bucks in my own personal education. Have you tallied up the amount of money that you've spent on enrolling? It's in the millions. Yeah. Yeah. I've kind of lost sight. It's actually a guilty pleasure now.

Yeah. I remember the first time I dropped 25 grand on a mastermind and I've been, I've been trying to get everything for free up to that point. And you get what you pay for. And so I was ready to like lay it out and I was so stingy and I was so scared. And so the only way I could get myself comfortable with laying out this, this money was I told myself, okay, I need to, I have to have an intention of getting an ROI out of this thing. And so I said, I got to make 150 grand if I spend this 25 grand. And a year later I made the 150 grand. I was like, oh, it was a fluke. Well, the next mastermind was 50 grand and I did it. I said, oh, the only way I can feel good about this

is if I can make a quarter million out of it. A year goes by, I made over a quarter million dollars from it. And then after the second time I said, this is a pattern. And I love looking for patterns because pattern recognition is like the mother teacher. And once I recognized that it wasn't a fluke, I found this next mastermind and I paid 350 grand. I said, I'm just going to pay as much as I possibly can. And I've made millions of dollars off of that investment into myself. And so I actually gamified, I actually get a little off on it. I get excited about it. I'm looking for like the biggest outstretch as high as I can. And, and, and it's strange because there was a timid version of me a long time ago that was scared to, you know, hop around with people that were in a better position. I was

just scared to leave my ecosystem because I had a comfort zone around people like me and I had to sacrifice that. Yeah. I mean, you're, you're keeping on a common thread. I mean, it's, it's all about leaving the comfort zone, changing, doing something that yeah, pushes outside that may initially we're fearing. So I actually have two questions kind of regarding the masterminds, one about the $350,000 mastermind and one about the 25. So let's go back to the 25. It was the first time that you had invested money to really go like, what was your financial position at that point? And obviously the way that you were able to kind of make sense in your mind was I got to have this ROI, but like, what was it prior to that? Because I mean, most people that are listening to this podcast haven't made that initial $25,000 investment.

They've bought the books. They bought a $1,000 course. They've done a few things like this. And there's many successful people that never, ever invested this kind of money. So tell us how you made that first initial jump besides the justification. So first year in college, got a full-time job so that we would try not to go into debt. And I got this sales job that I wasn't really good at. And the first year I made 18 grand. What kind of sales job was it?

On the one hand, it was that. What kind of sales job was it? It was doing telesales for selling high-end packages for like Donald Trump, Robert Kiyosaki, Robert G. Allen, these financial gurus. And so there was high commission upside, but that first year only making 18 grand on the one hand, it was more money than I'd ever made in a year. I'm an adult now, but on the other hand, I still went 10 grand into debt. I didn't make enough. And I remember when it came time for me and my brand new wife to do this resolution, because we got married really young. She was 19, I was 22. And we sat down for resolutions and she's like, well, what do you want to do this year? I said, you know, it sounds kind of dumb

because I'm a college kid, but I would love to double my income. Like I know that the average American makes it back then it was $44,000 a year. If I doubled my income, that would be 40 ish thousand dollars a year. And at this job, I see people doing that. I have that potential. So I set the goal. And by the end of that year, I doubled my income. And I practiced. As I visualized, I repeated every morning in my meditations, 365 days in a row that

I doubled my income, I doubled my income, I doubled income. Got to the end of the year, I doubled my income. And it was exciting and it was shocking. And then all of a sudden, it was time for next year's resolution. And I remember thinking to myself, I've just practiced double my income for 365 days. I wonder if I can do it again. And I said, well, my, my, my job, I've gotten better at it. It has that potential. I'm in a position I'm about to buy my first investment property. You know, this would be the first of thousands of homes. And so I just said, you know, screw it. I'm going

to do another year of double. At the end of the year, bought my first property, grew up my job, and I made $100,000. And then by that time, dude, I had 700 plus days of practicing double my income. So the next year I doubled my income, made a quarter million dollars. The year after I doubled my income and this kept on happening, I got a half a million dollars. And so when you talk about the financial evolution, that first $25,000 mastermind, when I was early in the game, where I didn't have a lot of discretionary income, I probably had 30 grand in the bank. And that 25 grand, I was sweating bullets. Like, I don't feel like I have the money for this. This definitely feels like a risk. But if there's one thing that I really wrapped my head around in my

early twenties, it's that the greatest risk is not taking one. And everyone that's playing safe will land on their deathbed and regret. They're slowly living an increasing life of fear. And the person that fears dies a thousand times. And so I just said, you know what? I got to figure out how to take calculated risks. So that 25K was scary, but it had these dividends. And when it came time later to do the really high-end mastermind, by then I asked, I went to the back table. I said, what's your most expensive thing? And they said, well, it's a hundred grand. I said, what do you have something above that? And they said, yeah, but you have to qualify to get into it. And it took me like nine months before I qualified to get into that before I could invest at the 350K. And I did it because I just knew myself by then. I knew

that I could trust myself to take a risk that was calculated, that felt inspired, and that if I set an ROI intention, I was going to get it. And so it's just like, why? Like if you put a dollar into an ATM and got $5 out, like, would you do that five more times or 5 million times? You just, you'd keep doing it. Well, that's what I learned is that these calculated risks under the guidance of inspiration, dude, take the biggest risk possible.

Yeah, no, for sure. I can definitely see why when you made the investment of 350, where it was much easier than that initial 25. Because I mean, you're talking about 83% of your total cash on hand if you're spending 25 out of your 30 right like most I mean for anybody that's listening to this put yourself in that situation right like how much cash do you have whether it's investment whatever and you're taking 83 of that and and putting it into something that you really don't have a proven concept or model on so like Bravo to to that first initial risk.

And then yeah, secondary. So obviously you go and you, you make this big investment of 350 grand. Tell me more about that. So I've, you know, the largest investment I've ever made in a mastermind or anything else is $150,000, 350 grand. Like what, what kind of benefits are you getting from that? Who's, who's in the room, who you hanging out with, what you're learning? Like what? going on there? So first of all, I got to tell you the crazy part. The crazy part is it doesn't matter. Right.

Like this is really weird. There are two principles at play. I'm going to answer your question. But the first principle- I agree with you. Is that when we don't make an investment, we don't show up. Right. And so making a $350,000 investment, I was less interested on quote unquote,

whether it was worth it. I actually just knew that if I was in an environment and, I was less interested on quote unquote, whether it was worth it. I actually just knew that if I was in an environment and if I was masterminding, and if I would just show up the way I show up, then I was going to be okay. And I have to preface it with this. Um, when I was 18, I almost died in, in the ocean trying to save my sister's life. And when I came out of that ocean from that near death experience, I made the decision that every day was borrowed, which meant that I had to live to the fullest. And often, often would feel everyday anxiety. Like, am I living to the fullest? Like, like I was not the guy that would sleep in. I was not the guy that would take a nap in the afternoon. I was not the

guy that wanted to do something mellow or chill in the evenings always. For me, it was just always like, this is my last day. Like we got it. We got to do something. So motivation was endless for me. So I knew that I had become the kind of person that if I said I was going to do something, I was going to do it every time. There's so many people that live with a failure complex of like, well, I'll try it three times. And if I can't get it, I'll say I'm a failure. And then I bow out. I'm like, I can't do that. Like I just don't got quit in me, but I also don't see failure. And if I can't get it, I'll say I'm a failure. And then I bow out. I'm like, I can't do that. Like, I just don't got quit in me. But I also don't see failure.

It's just learning. I'm like, I'll just, I don't, I'm okay if I get rejected a thousand times. If it's a worthy game of my life, I'll play. So when I made this investment, I actually cared much less about what it was for. I just knew me that in that environment, I'd show up. So by the way, what it was, I did Tony Robbins platinum program first year, and that's a six figure program has about another $65,000 of travel for the year. If you do all of the different events or more. And then by the end of that year, I got admitted into the lions club, which that plus my whole second year, that's what

put me at 350 K. That meant that I got to go to all of the events I was before, but I got to have a couple of special events with Tony. I got to be at his house with 44 other people. And I knew that I was going to be sitting down literally with billionaires. Some people were, you know, you know, great nine figures, uh, and just movers and shakers like deal makers, people deal makers, people that were relevant to the world today. Yeah. And that was a, there you go. Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more that it, the amount of commitment that you make to these different programs is really to yourself, right? Like you're saying, I am going to show up because I am spending this much, like no matter how

valuable the information is, how valuable the people are, whatnot, right? Like I am committing to get and go and multiply the 25, the 150, the $350,000. So, uh, really, really appreciate that, man. So, uh, what would you say? So obviously you've, you built a life, you know, line upon line, you know, it's been a lot of consistent effort through different habits and everything else. Like what made you different at a young age? Like what nurtured that into who Chris Krohn is today? Honestly, I, I feel like I didn't bring anything special to the adult game. Like my dad was like an off the boat German immigrant and he taught me hard work. Like I was still,

he was in this late generation that just said for fun on the weekends on our five acre property, I'm going to make you pull all the weeds. Or I'm going to literally order five yards of gravel and I'm going to have you fill in plot potholes for, for, for all of the, you know, the neighbor's roads. Like my dad would just put me to work. Sometimes I think just for fun. And, um, I hated it until at 15. I, I loved it like this Saturday morning. I had three older brothers. They had just left for college. And all of a sudden I was the oldest at home. My dad is little German, little chauvinistic. So my four younger sisters were off the hook for the, you know, the heavy yard work, whatever. And my dad brought me out to this massive hillside that is in the

back of the property up against a forest that no one sees or ever appreciates. And he says, you can play your stupid Mario cart after you've done this whole hillside. And so I'm going through and I'm like, this sucks. My brothers aren't here. I can't hide behind their work ethic. Uh, and so I just pull all the big weeds and then race in the house, play my Saturday morning video games. And my dad came weeds and then race in the house, play my Saturday morning video games. And my dad came back and he's like, Hey, let's check out your work. And it's like, okay. So we walk all the way to the back of the property. He's like, son, this is a half-assed job. And mathematically I was like, yeah, I think I pulled half the weeds.

Um, and then he got down on his hands and knees and he pulled out every blade of grass for like this little square foot. And he says, do that. So then I started pulling all the medium weeds. And my dad, right before I got done, came back out and he looked at all my work and he said, son, this is a half-assed job. And I said, by my calculation, dad, this is probably 90%. And that's when I learned this important lesson. He said 90% is half-ass. And after that,

I got down on my hands and knees and I pulled every blade of grass. And when that day was done, I found that I was proud of what I did. And so I really feel like my dad instilled integrity and pride of work ethic into me. That's kind of all I had going into adulthood. Like literally I felt below average academically, um, which meant that I had to, I had to lean into learning all sorts of things. Like a lot of people, when they find me online, they either think I'm a spaz or they're like, I love your energy. Cause there's so much of it. And I'm like, that is a learn trained thing. I'm charismatic. I know how to connect with people. I can soul connect so deeply with human beings. People are flying in on their private jets and we're working on these really big business deals. And it's like, wow, like those street smarts were just cultivated

as skills along the way. So, you know, I love who I am. I love who I've become, but really, I just love learning. I love growing and I love adding to all of my abilities. Because I think that's the way God made us. Like you look at our minds and the way we can expand and grow. And it's like neurogenesis through our entire life. You know, I'm in my forties now and I'm like, I'm not, I'm just warming up. Like I love just how much I am eating it up and learning. Awesome. Awesome. So speaking of God, how would you say that your belief or he has played an influence in your life? So the book that I'll never write is like my decision-making book, like how I make decisions. Take a look at decision-making and how most people do it. First of all, they rely on what they know.

And the problem with what you know is it only gets you more of what you've gotten. So the mind is a repeat model. And it just basically means that if you just hierarchically go to your mind for advice, that's why we're screwed and we don't grow. We don't get that. That's why I talk about mentors. I'm like, I hate what's in here because if I make today's decisions from what's in here, I'm going to be so limited. So what I'll do for my head is I will check in and say, do I have any empirical or, or, or data or information that's useful? I'm going to drop into my heart and I'm going to get actually emotional. And I'm going to ask, does this bring joy? Is this going to make me a happier human

being? Because you would be surprised how many choices people make that for money that make them miserable. It's like modern day prostitution. It's like, I'm doing what I don't want to do for money. Right. And most people don't have a joy quotient for me. Like my joy is tied to my motivation and my energy. But after I've checked in with my heart, the third and final check and I do is with God. And it's a very, very simple practice. It's just closing my eyes. It's taking a deep breath, recognizing I can connect to my higher or lower self. I connect to my higher self. And then I just ask the question, yes or no, this or that. Do I send this email? Do I send that text? Should I pursue this opportunity? And when in tune, there's this intuition spirit that just says either yes or no. And that's,

you know, after I've consulted what I think I know after I've consulted what other people know after I've consulted, you know, my joy quotient, I go to, I go to God and wherever that lean is, is usually the tiebreaker to know what I'm supposed to do. I love it. I love it. And where, where do you, where do you feel like you learned that from? Um, I spent years hunting down meditation that really connected with me because I found that I just hated, I hated transcendental meditation. I hated Oming. And I finally found a style of meditation that I feel like it is downloaded and received. It's very active. I get up at four in the mornings. I live two decades more than most people just because I have a little bit of a different sleep pattern. I love my early mornings. Wayne Dyer says that there's a secret only to be found

in the early hours of the morning for those that are there to hear it. So I'm an early guy. I'm also a late guy. And so I get up at four and by 420, I'm done listening to my audio book for the morning. I'm on my treadmill and I'm doing what I call an active meditation. And that's where I can do my uphill incline work before I hit the weights. And for about 30 minutes, I just go very, very deep within and I connect with myself first. And then I connect to God and I converse, ask questions, I receive downloads. And, and, um, that's just, you know, God's always been a part of my life, but it's just become an increasing, easier access point for me to be able to ask and receive.

I believe, by the way, every single human being, when we're in flow, you can ask and receive anything. Like everything you want to know is available in this moment. But unfortunately, most humans are just relying on what they know. And they don't realize that like that, that is the recipe for stagnation. I love it. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. So shifting gears a little bit, obviously, you know, you've been successfully from a financial standpoint. One of, one of the things I always like to know is like, what is your thought on debt? Yeah. You know, I, I'm assuming, you know, from a real estate standpoint that you, you utilize a lot

of leverage and those types of things, but just like, what is your overall theory on debt for personal finances, cars, homes, investment properties? I would love to understand that. So there are a few things in life I love more than debt. I love God, I love my wife, I love my kids, and then I love debt. Debt is really, really beautiful. But it's only beautiful because I understand financial arbitrage. For example, if that principle is new for some of you, imagine that you own a home with equity and you have a home equity line of credit. You went to your credit union, they set you up, you have a $100,000 line of credit tied to equity in your home. You can borrow that money at 7%. If I knew with conviction how to earn 20% on it, then I would borrow at seven. I'd lend at 20 and the Delta is 13. I would make 13%.

So I love debt because I know how to turn it into money. And I'm very aware that there are two types of debt. Like there's bad debt, meaning consumer, it costs you money. It hurts you financially. Those liabilities weaken you, but I'm so in love with positive debt, good debt, um, where I'm buying assets that actually pay for everything. And so I don't believe in paying things off. Um, the only time, the only time it's really worthy to pay something off is by this definition, when your passive income is greater than your ideal lifestyle needs, when you hit that, go ahead and pay things off. Until then, why would you financially weaken yourself? Like, let's go to the opposite extreme. There's going to be someone listening to this

that's 55 years old. They're Dave Ramsey-ite. They've tried their entire life to basically, I'm paying off my house. I have no credit card debts. And they're proud of this, by the way. And then I'm going to load money into savings and I'm going to accumulate money. And I'm like, you're screwed. Yeah, but I don't have any debt.

I'm like, no, no, you don't get it. You can't retire on no debt. Like no debt is a level of security, but it's not freedom. Do you understand what security versus freedom is? When you retire and you have no debt, you're screwed. Well, what do you mean you're screwed? I'm like, because when you can't work anymore and you still need to eat food and travel and buy stuff, you can't take a brick off of your house that's paid off and exchange it for that stuff. And people don't get that. So the only time to pay things off is when your ideal lifestyle is already achieved

with passive income. Until then you keep investing and you keep on going. And what would you say your strategy? So I'm, I'm a big real estate investor myself. You know, different investors have different LTV strategies, like the amount of right loan to value that they're going to have in there. What, what would you say yours is? So out of all known real estate strategies, there's one that I leverage that takes the least time, effort, and risk makes the most money. And it produces on average about a 34% annualized ROI rule of 72 means my money doubles every year. And I do that by acquiring single family homes below the median in one of the top five markets nationwide out of 324. I will put a 20 or 25% down payment on that home. And then these markets, when I rent it out, I can get a premium on rent,

appreciation, basically all the benefits. So in my world, I revolve, my most conservative thing I do with money is 34%. And what that does is it means that I can borrow money from everywhere and make that pencil out every single time. Hence put $10 million in front of me today and say, sign it and you will owe that money. And I'll sign it right now because I know exactly what to do with that money. Right. Right. I love it. And so I know you have a lot of different strategies and whatnot for the audience. Like what are, what are some of the things that you teach and you, you sell? And cause I mean, most people and you know, I, I would say I understand your strategy, but we're not most people, right? Like to be able to go out

and get 34%. Most people are like 34%. That's mind boggling. How, how can I actually go and achieve that? Right. They're used to being able to get, you know, right now I think CD rates are coming in at 5%, which is like ultra high compared to, you know, the last 10, 15 years. But, you know, so how, how do they, how does the average person bridge from a 5% return and go and get that 34%? So I wrote a book last year called Have It All. And that's what the market wanted to call it. I would have called it the five ROIs.

Because there are five ROIs and most people don't invest in these ROIs. The first one is a single digit ROI. Now they'll do that through 401ks and IRAs. And the 20-year studies have come out on the 401k. It's producing 4.2%. The IRAs are at 5%. And so when you take a look at most people where they stash cash, when you're earning 5%, it doesn't compound meaningfully in your life. The average person at retirement at age 65 is $254,000. And they're living off of $80,000 a year. So they have three years of money. Like, so I worked 40 years to save, to not work for three years. And

then I'm out of money and modern medicine is going to keep me alive for decades, right? That's the problem. Here's the solution. You need to have some of your money invested in single digit, some double digit, some triple digit, some quadruple digit, and then even an infinite ROI. So my overall strategy is really simple. Number one, the only single digit thing I put money into is a rare type of life insurance where I can funnel it in and pull it out. And when I put money in and pull it out, it's earning 6% for me and it's growing tax-free and it's also unlitigatable. So there's a number of reasons why I do that, but it's only to pull it out. And then number two, put it in the double digit. That's my

34% on real estate. Now 34% is like, it means that if you do that for a couple of decades, you're going to have millions of dollars. It's slow and steady wins the race. It's not exciting. You go to a triple digit or a quadruple digit ROI from owning businesses or investing in companies. Well, that gets exciting. It's like, oh yeah, I bought this company. It's making me $600,000 a year. I bought this company. It's making me $6.4 million a year. I just bought a company this year that'll make me $9 million and I put nothing down on it. So I'm getting really high. That's when you can, real estate is your double digit game. Investing in businesses as a triple digit and then owning businesses as a quadruple

digit. And then at some point you get so good at the game of money, you're like, why would I ever use my own to invest? I have a replicatable model. I now need other people's money and now I can continue scaling this thing faster than I could on my own. If people would just go from a single to a double digit, like people all over the world, Chris invest with me in real estate. They literally

follow me on social. They submit a form. They talk to my team and they find out, wait, I can work with Krohn and use my 401k IRA and put it in real estate and make conservatively 27 times more money. And when they do that, they put up the money. I do everything else. We split profits equally. They make overtime millions of dollars, you know? So if all you do is go from a single to a double digit ROI, everything in your world will change. It means that instead of a guarantee to never be rich in this life, you can at least with double digit and 20 years retire on a few million bucks or more, right? You won't be rich, but you won't be in a bad way like everyone else is. Yeah, you know, for sure. Very good stuff, man. I think I,

this is a valuable information that anybody can go and apply and really just start shifting their mindset of like what, what is possible and what is out there and, you know, really start making that, uh, you know, hitting those breakthroughs, uh, you know, hitting those breakthroughs, uh, you know, starting mentally and then going and taking the work. So appreciate that, uh, shifting gears a little bit, man. So, uh, you know, you're, you're a big personality. You're, you're all over social media. You, you take, you have a take on pretty much anything, whether it's family or finances or relationships or whatever it may be. And, uh, you know, whenever people have a big take or a, you know, a hot take, or they, they, there are big personality,

it strums up a lot of drums of a lot of haters. And so what would you say? I mean, you know, recently, you know, I saw some of your stuff like on baller busters, right? Instagram, they they're notorious they're notorious for going after and and like you know i i follow those guys to you know occasionally like i i love when they take down a good scammer or whatever which which is great right but then other times they they go after legitimate people that uh that are doing good things uh what do you what do you, what do you say to those guys? I just don't care. Like, like if you, if you don't have polarity in your opinions, no one's going to listen to you anyway. And so I just, I used to be a huge people pleaser. I used to really care what people thought.

And I was too busy living other people's lives. And I would just, I cared what people thought. And I wanted to control and manipulate the narrative of what they thought of me. Like it was an awful disease. And my personal development journey started 20 years ago when I woke up to that problem. And then it took years to uproot it and peel these masks off until I finally just figured out who I am. I genuinely don't care what anyone thinks about me. What do you think was the ultimate switch that got you there? Because I agree with you that that's where, in order for us to be powerful and influential, that's where we have to get. What changed?

And I know, obviously, it was a process, but was there like a moment that like, I know I'm ready. I was, I was externally minded. Like I needed something from somebody else to feel good about me. I needed to be liked to feel good. Or I was with my wife because I needed her love. And what I didn't understand is that everything that you want from outside of you, it's like this unfillable bottomless pit. But when you learn how to create

that internal, everything changes. And so the belief that shifted me really far away from that, that perspective was this idea. Some people like me and some people don't, and that's okay. Some people love me and some people hate me. And that's okay because I love me. And truthfully, the only person's love that I need on this planet is my own. And so I think that just shifted me out of this needing to be approved or liked. And the reality is when I share something on social media, it's actually not to be polarizing. It's not to rub people wrong. I'm just literally just being me. Right. And if someone doesn't like me, that's cool. Like, yeah.

Yeah. No, I love it. Yeah. I I've been studying a course recently. It's a relationship course for, for husbands and wives. And it speaks to this, the same exact thing. Like the most important thing is like understanding that like when we, when we desire the need to be needed by someone else, it actually is a turnoff, right? Like it's not, it's not attractive to ladies. Right. Right. And so ladies are like, all I need is one more child that needs me to nurse them back to health.

Right. Right. Right. And so it's, it's really being just that whole self-sustaining, but at the same time, being in a position where you can still serve and love and everything else, right. Without expectation of reciprocation is, is really what, what puts us into a, a really powerful point. The, uh, I think the most, and you know, I, I have a second add on to the answer to your question of like, what was the moment? Yeah.

Um, the reason why we, why we people please, most people are people pleasers and it's because we secretly want things from people. We want approval and we want to hear certain things. And one day I realized that those words can only come from within. And in my morning meditation practice, when I drop into my meditated state, the first thing I do is I connect with my higher self. We all have a higher and a lower self. The lower self feeds us all the shit and garbage, and you're not enough and you'll never be able to do it. And you're such a failure. The higher self is this part of the divine that is within us. And when we connect to who we are,

I love to ask myself, what message do you have for me? And sometimes it's a message of love. Chris, you're doing a good job. I love you, man. You're rocking it. And sometimes it's a message of encouragement and sometimes it's advice or sometimes it's something off the wall. But every time it's something I need to hear, that message is in us all the time. And the question is whether we're ready for that. So there's a big movement out there where people like to talk about self-love. Do you love yourself? and of all the things that I do to love myself going to the gym or eating healthy or spending time with my family I actually think that the one thing that I do that trumps everything is when I connect to my higher self every morning

and just ask what message and when I download and I speak that message out loud, it fills that bottomless pit. And all of a sudden I feel like I've got everything that I need and I'm okay. And, uh, I love that, man. I mean, dude, it sounds like you got a lot of, a lot of things figured out and you made some incredible transitions. Like what, what would you say is the number one thing that drives you? What is the vision and the mission for Chris Krohn Inc. You know, from now until I know you plan on living until you're about 130, 140. So what's the vision for the next 90, 100 years? So I live to improve lives. Like that's what the game, all of my companies are about one

thing. It's just helping everyone get a leg up, a hand up, moving in the right direction. I see the value of your soul. I see that you have goals like I do, and you have dreams, but you have fears like I do and nobody's perfect, but our worth, whether we have conditions or problems, I have a son who's autistic, our, our, our self-worth is the same. It's priceless. We're precious. We're these beautiful sons and daughters, daughters of God. And so for me, um, just every day, just asking, how can I be of service? How can I uplift someone? How can I improve somebody's life? Mission is that simple. I appreciate that, man. I can, I can feel your authenticity, even not being in the same room, just cross the interwebs here. You know, it's, uh, I can tell

that, uh, that you have a, a pure heart there with, with like real, you know, your real intent and what you're, what you're trying to go and accomplish, man. And I applaud you for that. Where, uh, where would you say the best spot for our viewers and listeners to, to give you a follow or reach out to you? Yeah. So if anyone wants to get any of my books for free, if they want to come to one of my events for free, if you just want to connect with me and my team, you can go to freewealthgift.com and you're going to find all sorts of resources. I make them available so you can find the one that really connects with you. I hope that helps. Otherwise, just look up my name on any platform and I'll be there. I love it. I love it. That's Chris, K-R-I-S, the wrong way,

Kron, K-R-O-H-N. So appreciate your time today. I know it's extremely valuable and really ultimately the thing that we're all trying to leverage. So thank you for sharing it with me today, Chris. Until next time.