The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Chrysalis: Awakening to God’s Path, Protection, and Power in Your Life by Guy W Gane

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Chrysalis: Awakening to God's Path, Protection, and Power in Your Life by Guy W Gane https://amzn.to/4bYa6KG Ganewisdom.com/ This book will show you how to achieve any goal, realize any dream, and attain every wish. By adhering to God's word, by listening for His voice and by accepting His guidance and directionyou will bring to pass the life that He has planned for you. Man suffers by his own choice. Not out of hoping to do so, but out of ignorance of not knowing otherwise. Best-selling author Guy W. Gane, Jr. has now written a book truly for the ages. Not since 'Think and Grow Rich' has a book had the capability to change a persons' destiny in such a profound way. Throughout the Bible lies the blueprint for a life of happiness, peace and love. Gane has constructed a manuscript that allows scripture to attest to just that.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the big show.

We certainly appreciate it. Thanks for tuning in, as always, on the Chris Voss Show, where the family loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as your mother-in-law because i don't know man why can't you just be nice to her already she's she's a nice lady she just wants love and attention and you know she just be nice to her like go go take out the garbage at your house or something it sounds like a problem you're gonna have to fix and i can't fix it for you but the great thing is we have lots of wonderful people who are brilliant, and they can help you fix all your other problems.

I don't know. Maybe we should have a mother-in-law coach professional on the show. They can do 10 different ways to get along better with your mother-in-law. Has somebody done this? People are going to really think that I'm married and have a mother-in-law because they're going to be like, Chris is really scarred from this. No, I've never been married. So that's the most amazing part of that whole equation, ladies and gentlemen.

So today we have an amazing gentleman on the show. We're going to be talking to his book, Chrysalis. And we have Guy W. Gain Jr. on the show with us today. We'll be talking to him about his insights, his experience, his life's journey, and the lessons that he learned from that life and how you too can make your life better. Guy W. Gain Jr. was a nationally known stockbroker and registered investment advisor and is also a former federal inmate who, despite vehemently proclaiming his innocence as well as passing multiple polygraph tests, he was sentenced to a 13-year prison term. He's since published three books, Unchained and Unbroken Life, Life Lessons and Strength Training from Jailhouse Gym Rat, Manage Money, An Avenue to Wealth, and Chrysalis, Awakening to God's Path, Protection, and Power in Your Life. All are available on Amazon and other fine bookstores. Welcome to the show, Guy.

How are you? Thank you very well. Thank you for having me. I know we had a couple of hiccups two weeks ago when I let everybody know that we were going to be on. Yeah. I picked 8 o'clock when it was at 7, so I'm doing better than that. Hey, we got you.

We got our stars aligned there, so that's good. It's always good. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Yeah, you can go to gainwisdom.com. It's G-A-N-E, wisdom.com. And there I have links to all the things that we're involved with and gives you the opportunity to really get to know who I am.

There you go. Give us a 30,000 overview of your new book, Chrysalis. Yeah, Chrysalis is a book that actually I wrote while I was in prison. I've been out of prison now for four years, but Chrysalis is a book that was inspired to me to write. It took me two years to write, and the book is really about doing things in God's way. You know, I know that sounds kind of hokey to people, but, you know, God allows one of two things to happen. Either he allows things or it's his will. And it's been my experience over the years to know the difference. And I think a lot of people that are believers have seen that

and has been proven to see that as well. Chrysalis, though, really uses Christ's own words to show us that we can achieve the goals that we want, and we just have to make sure that what we're looking for is going to be in align with what he has planned for our lives. That sounds like an important thing, because if you're just kind of, I don't know, doing whatever you want, things might not work out so well. You know, again, I speak from experience with that, Chris, because, you know, when I owned my own firm, the government came in back in 2008. But when I owned my own firm,

I was the type of guy over the years, because I started in the business back in 1974. I was only 20 years old at the time. I'm dating myself, I know. But when I started, the Dow Jones was at 577. Today, it closed at 38,000, 3868, actually. But the thing is, is that I was the type of guy throughout my career that if I wanted a goal, if I wanted something to happen, I made it happen.

And, you know, sometimes it was in poor judgment, hiring people the wrong way, turning left when I should have turned right. And I really believe that when everything happened with me, that it was really God's way to get my attention and to put my life on another track. And that really has been what's happened. But with Chrysalis, to answer your question, it's a primer, if you will, to really achieve the things that you like in life, using Jesus's own words to do that and showing that with God, really all things are possible.

There you go. And you've got quite an interesting journey. Let's talk about your whole life. How did you grow up? Where did you grow up? What were some of your influences? And how did you get down this road? Yeah, I grew up in Buffalo and my main office was in Buffalo as well. But as I mentioned a minute ago, I started in the investment business in 1974. And over the years, I had finally decided that, you know, anytime I had moved to another firm, which I did a few times in my career, I decided to just go on my own. There was no reason to continue to go to another firm and give them my business and the overrides and so on.

So I started my own firm back in the 90s, the early 90s, actually. And along the way, I was able to deal with so many wonderful, wonderful people. And as time went along in my business, I also became a registered investment advisor. And what that does, it allows you through the security and exchange commission, it allows you to charge clients a fee as opposed to charging a commission. So I really thought that was the better way to deal with people because, you know, after all, you know, you've got to have skin in the game to really do the best job. And what I did is I charged my clients a fee, as I mentioned, but I would only charge them a fee after the second year, excuse me, after the first year, if I made the money. And if I didn't make them any money,

then I continued to manage their money for free until I did. And it was a very, very great platform. And people really appreciated that. What was nice is at the time, I was kind of the only one that was doing that, at least here in Western New York. And it became a very, very popular firm. We did seminars every six to eight weeks, lunch seminars, actually. And our attendance was averaging about 230 people. And sometimes there were many more, and sometimes there were as few as 150. But in any event, as the years went by, and I was accumulating more and more clients, more and more assets under management, the rules and regulations got changed. In 2003, it was found out that a lot of the big mutual fund companies, which I'm not going to name because I don't need any more legal, but it turned out that a lot of the big mutual fund companies had allowed the big, big money managers.

I'm talking about the billions that they had under management. I was paltry. I just had millions. But in any event, they were allowing them to trade after hours. When that happened, it did a couple of things. First of all, it was unfair to the investors because you're not playing on a level playing field any longer. People are getting preferential treatment. And the reason that they were allowing them to trade after hours is that when the foreign markets started opening up, especially in Asia, they were able to make decisions. These other money managers were able to make decisions. It was unfair because they already knew what was going on worldwide. It changed the industry completely. It's a long story, but it changed the industry completely. And in the industry, what happens is when there's

one problem, everybody ends up getting new regulations and that's what happened. They decided mutual fund companies, and I was dealing with mutual funds and variable annuities. Now I could buy and sell stock and I did that for my clients, but I wasn't promoting that. If the person was a client, I was managing their money and they wanted to buy a stock or whatever, I did that for them. But anyway, when everything changed in 2005, even though this particular investigation had been going on for a few years, things began to change in 2005. And what they did is they started limiting, the mutual fund companies, I should say, started limiting the amount of transactions that we as registered investment advisors could do

in a year. Normally, I was moving my clients' money between growth and money markets and so on that are involved in each one of these mutual fund families. You could do that for free. There was no fees, no commissions. But what happened is they limited it to 10, depending on the fund, 10 to 15 trades a year. I was doing on average 70 to 90 trades a year. And I just couldn't do my business any longer.

So I had employees at the time. I didn't really want to let them go. And I remember I was walking on the beach up in Maine. I had a place up there that we would stay, me and my family. And I was walking along the beach thinking, I don't know what I'm going to do. And I happened to notice a house that I had looked at some years previously that was for sale again. And I started thinking, I'm sure the house is more than it was when I looked at it. And as I started thinking about it, I thought, you know, waterfront property always makes money, even in a bad market. Waterfront property is very limited, obviously. And I walked along the beach, I thought about that. And then I thought, you know,

not only here in the ocean, but on a lake, even a canal or a creek, waterfront property is just very popular with some people. As I thought about that, I thought, yeah, I wonder if there's a real estate trust that I could put my client's money to that is invested in waterfront property, at least give them the option because I was no longer going to be able to do what I was doing. And the more I thought about it, when I got back to the house, I took a look to see what was out there and what real estate investment trust was there that was involved with Waterfront Property, and there were none. And I thought, this is impossible.

I just didn't come up with this idea. In fact, I say this humbly, I did. And when I came back to Buffalo to my main office, I spoke to some of my folks, and I also spoke with a couple of investment bankers and told them my idea. And needless to say, everybody thought it was a great idea. So what happened is we decided to put a company together to promote this. And it took us longer than we thought, which a lot of times happens with a new company. But in the meantime, in order to keep my employees employed, my office running and so on,

we decided to raise money for operational expenses of our company. Unfortunately, and again, I'm giving you the short story, believe it or not. Unfortunately, a couple of my brokers decided to get creative with what they were telling the investors and actually outright lied to them. And when they got caught a few years later, they said that I told them to do that. And I said, that's ridiculous. I mean, being in the business for the years that I was, over 30 years, I never had a customer complaint. That's unheard of almost in the business.

And I fought with the government, argued with them, went back and forth with them for a number of years. As I say, as you said, I should mention that I passed a couple of polygraph tests that proved that, at least by that standard, that I had never done that. But in federal cases are a little bit different than maybe a state case, because when the federal government comes after you, chances are you're going to go to prison. And the more I argued with them and the more I fought them, the tighter the noose was getting around my neck with them. They gave me 51 accounts in an indictment. And from what I understood from my attorney, the more indictments that they give, the weaker the cases. Because when you go to trial, which is what I plan to do,

when you go to trial, you only need to be guilty on one of those charges and they can throw the book at you. So after a lot of prayer, I decided to plead. And this was, as they say, years later, I decided to plead. And when I got to court, the judge decided to throw the key away and he gave me 13 years. And it was traumatic. It was horrible as anybody can imagine. But again, God used that. There's a part of the Bible, which I'm sure a lot of viewers are familiar with, the story of Joseph. And I'm trying to compare myself to Joseph. But the analogy and the similarity is there that, you know, what people meant for bad, God meant for good.

And I was able to help people while I was in prison. But while I was there, over and over and over, Chris, I found that God had my back the whole time I was there. And even though I was a Christian before, my faith became rock solid there. I've seen miracles happen. I've seen miracles happen with me. If I can relate a story. Sure. Okay.

I had only been there a couple of days, and there was no primer that I could talk to or look at or a consultant even though that's another story I'll tell you about that but there was really no place I could go to find out what's really like there so I was on the phone and I was making a phone call and as the phone was ringing this is 11 o'clock at night and let me back up a minute the The phones in the federal prisons, I'm not sure about state, but the phones in the federal prisons are on from 6 a.m. until 11.30 p.m. Once you make a phone call, however, and you hang up, which they only give you 10 to 15 minutes depending on the facility, once you hang up, you have to wait another hour before you make a phone call. So I'm making this phone call at 11 o'clock, but I happen to see a phone off the hook next to me. So being the gentleman that I thought I was, I picked up the phone and I hung it up.

Shouldn't do that in prison. I came to find out because this huge guy came over to me. What? And you got, I'm not going to repeat the things that he said to me, but you know, he said, who did this? And I said, I did. At this point, you know, I've already hung up the other phone because I don't want the other party to hear this. And he went ballistic. And I was scared out of my mind. I've only been there a few days. And, you know, of course, I've heard all the stories that all of us have heard, you know, about all the things that go on in prison. So I thought, I'm dead. I'm dead. I go back to my cube. And by this point, it's about quarter after 11 at night.

And this poor guy cannot make another phone call. What had happened, by the way, he went to get a pen and a piece of paper. And it turned out that that's kind of common in prison, that if somebody needs to run back, they just put the phone down like that and take off and they come right back. Anyway, he was in the TV room it was a saturday night and i went into the tv room to apologize to him because i was just i'm telling i was petrified yeah so when i walked in there had to be 50 or 60 guys in there chris i was totally embarrassed this guy's got a full head of steam on and i went i said look i'm really really sorry about this and i didn't know and he went off on me again.

The next morning, of course, I'm not sure what's going to happen during the night. The next morning, this guy comes to my cube. I'm dead. And he puts out his hand. And he said, I am really sorry. I shouldn't have talked to you like that. And of course, I'm trying to be, that's okay. Don't worry about it.

You know, I'm thinking, oh my God, thank God, you know. But anyway, a couple of days later later i went back into the room and you know as a lot of people may imagine the tv rooms in prison are really where the problems are because guys sit in other people's seats guys like to turn the channel on people that's a big problem you don't do that so anyway i there was a young guy sitting there i then he had a chair next to him i said do you mind if i sit here for a minute he said no no no have a seat you know we're sitting there for a young guy sitting there, and he had a chair next to him. I said, do you mind if I sit here for a minute? He said, no, no, no, have a seat. You know, we're sitting there for a minute or two.

He says, you're Gino, right? Because that's what everybody called me in prison. I said, yeah. He said, you know, you got a lot of respect in this place. Me? Really? He said, you know, the other night when you came in and you apologized, he said, when you left, everybody in this room got on him. And this guy that was upset. And he said that everybody had told him, here's a guy who's brand new, didn't know any better. And not only did he fess up, but he comes in and apologizes in front

of all of us. And you ripped this guy apart. So there was only one example of how God really had my back. It was amazing. It was just, you know, and credibility in prison is extremely important. Respect is the most important thing. But when you have credibility, you know that you're not lying to people. People that you're serving time with know that you're not a liar. You know, my reputation started growing from that point on. It's kind of weird that they would have a reputation of non-liars in a prison.

Oh, that's, in prison, Chris, I met more millionaires, more real estate moguls, more PhDs. It's, you know, because there you can be anything you want. Oh. You know, the guys, the guys really kind of get to know, you know, because it's how you carry yourself. And, you know, sometimes, you know, because it's how you carry yourself. And, you know, sometimes, you know, the thing that our parents used to tell us, the only person you're fooling is yourself. That really is the way it is in prison because guys come up with all of these fantastic stories.

And most of the guys know it's all BS. And, you know, they ruin their reputation. And once your reputation is ruined, at least there, you don't recover it. I'm going to read your book if I ever have to go to prison. I mean, I try not to do anything that ends me up in prison. Yeah, you don't want to go there. But, you know, you can have accidental manslaughter if you drive your car wrong and this stuff. Yeah, it's pretty easy to go. I mean, unfortunately, that does happen.

Yeah, that's wild. There's lots of great stories in the book, and Anna goes about your journey through that. And, you know, one of the statements you make, man suffers by his own choice, but not out of hoping to do so, but out of ignorance, of not knowing otherwise. I think that's kind of a great line there. Yeah, it really is true, because, you know, a lot of times what happens is people, especially going back to prison about a story there, a lot of the white collar guys really had been, maybe some of them were pushing the envelope a little bit, but there was a certain amount of guys that really didn't think that they had done anything wrong.

And, you know, unlike urban legend has everybody believing that everybody that goes to prison says, I'm not guilty. I know in the Shawshank Redemption, it's kind of made light about that. But most of the guys that I ran into, I would say 99 out of 100 really had said, I messed up. I shouldn't have done this. And I did. There were guys that I met, a handful of guys that I met that were in fact, I believe innocent. And you say, how do you know? When you live with people 24 seven, Chris, you get to know them. You get to see how they behave. You know, one of the things that like attracts like, because if a guy was a bad guy, I'll just leave it at that. He hung around with

other bad guys and they had that reputation. But if a guy was a good guy, he always tried to go on the straight and narrow. And I seen that a lot. Some guys, you know, were over sentence. It was funny. Speaking of that, my case manager at all the prisons I was at had all said, my God, Gane, what did you do to the judge? I've never seen anything like this. And I would laugh. I remember the first time I was told that and I chuckled. They said, no, no, I'm serious. I've never seen anything like this. This guy just, he crucified you. You know, I had some empathy even from the staff.

And even, you know, the story that where I keep saying that God had my back. What happened many times is when my cube was, I shouldn't say my cube, the prison was shaken down. Things were taken out of the lockers and destroyed and all of those things. I can't tell you, Chris, how many times it was like Passover in my cube where I didn't get, nothing happened. And I finally had to go to the staff and say, you can't do this. These guys are going to think I'm out there snitching on them. I said, you don't do anything. I said, whether I do anything or not, it's got to be fair. I mean, I don't know anybody that wants to have their paperwork and such taken.

But, you know, for me, it was just another example how God had my back. There you go. It's great you found that. And, you know, it probably helped sustain you through your time in prison. How many years did you serve in the end? Yeah, I ended up serving nine years. In 2018, a law was passed called the First Step Act. And what that did is for guys that were, and women too,

that were 60 years of age or over would only have to do two-thirds of their time so long as they never had any what they call shots. A shot in prison is a disciplinary report. And if you didn't have any disciplinary reports in prison during the whole stay that you were there, you were allowed to go out early, and that's what happened to me. So I was able to come home early. And, you know, even that, Chris, was kind of unique because coming home two and a half years early was such a blessing. But I was supposed to serve the rest of my time on home confinement.

So those two and a half years, I was supposed to serve at the house, had an ankle bracelet on and so on. I got a phone call about a year and a half later while I was at home. And every couple of weeks, I had to go to the halfway house for meetings and urinalysis and all of those things. But I got a phone call from my case manager at the halfway house about a year and a half later and said, Mr. Gain, you're all done with us. I said, what do you mean? She said, you're going to probation. Now, probation meant that at least I could move around. I had three years of probation, so I was prepared to be on probation for the next few years. I'd been on probation at this point now for a few

months, and I spoke with my probation officer. And I asked her, I said, you know, is there any way that you guys could put a good word in for me after a year goes by? And I wasn't at a year yet on probation. She said, Mr. Gain, you can apply anytime. I said, yeah, but, you know, they're going to look at me in a different way. She said, you've never been a problem. She said, at the end of the day, they're going to come to us and ask us. And she said, who's your judge? My judge, thank the Lord, by ending up in Detroit, I was no longer in Buffalo with the hanging judge that I had.

When she found out who my judge was, her eyes widened up. She said, oh, Mr. Gain, you have the best judge in the world. She said, I can't make any promises, but if I were you, I would apply. And Chris, once again, God had my back because it's unheard of for a guy with a money crime to get let off early, and I was let off in a year of probation. I would still be on if that were the case. Yeah. That's a good deal.

That sounds like a really good deal. You got to love that, man. So let's get into some of the work that you do on your website. I know you do some speaking, some coaching. Let's talk about that and how people can onboard with you. Yeah. You know, as I say to a lot of people that I talk to that I've mentored, it's easy for anybody to start a business. But the hard thing is to know what not to do in business. How do you know not what to do? I'm the guy that kind of knows not what to do. I hired people that I shouldn't have.

I always tell people there was that still small voice that I attribute to the Holy Spirit. But all of us have that. We hear whether we call it our conscience or whatever the word is that you attribute to the Holy Spirit. But all of us have that. We hear whether we call it our conscience or whatever the word is that you want to use. And even though I kept getting the feeling of not hiring this person or doing something a little bit different, I just ignored it. And I hired people that probably were not the best. Not all of them. I had wonderful employees, but there were a few that if I had the choice again, I wouldn't hire. But the thing is, is that when I talk to someone who's starting a business or already owns a business, I try to go from a basis of strength, strength for them,

because in order to build a house or remodel a house, your foundation, your basement needs to be strong. And so many businesses that I've talked to are not like that. They build up, they go quickly. You know, the business expands. It's a construction business. I was just working with someone recently. And unfortunately, what happens is sometimes we get caught up in those bad habits and habits as we know are hard to break. And one of the things I would say to our viewers is that if you have a business, do not become friends with your employees. You know, I know that sounds harsh, but, you know, you can be friendly. But if you're going to have a party, don't have it at your home.

Have it at the office or your business or a neutral site. Because what happened to me is people that I should have let go, I couldn't because I became their friends. And I couldn't do it to a friend. I knew that they should have been let go, but I couldn't do it. One gentleman in particular had a daughter who had a severe handicap and I should have let him go, but I couldn't. First of all, he had become a friend, quote unquote. But the other thing is, how could I look at his little girl like that? And I didn't do it. As I say, it's better for your business just to be business people, but you have to cover your tail no matter what you do. Like with the construction company that I worked with recently, what I had him do is sign his

employees where they were to be held, where he was to be held harmless. If something were to happen, he said, they're covered with my insurance. I said, I promise you this coverage was $3 million. I said, if one of your guys fall off a scaffold or he's working on a fourth story building and falls, I promise you they're going to go for more than $3 million. You know, these are things, the minutiae that's very, very important. And these are the things I try to cover. With the coaching, Chris, it's a little bit different because I have people that really want to be coached. These are people that are obsessed almost to the point where they want to be successful. But to be successful has to be

done the right way. Because again, if you go the route that I did, just full speed ahead, charge ahead, you may not be going the right direction. And again, I try to put my faith as well as proof, and again, that I speak about in Chrysalis, to show that if you do things in God's way, in God's will, it's going to be much, much better for you. What's the typical client that you work with? Is there a minimum net worth? Yeah, a client, yeah, it's a good question. The business clients, when I do business consulting, their business is generally $150,000 or more.

That's a small business. For the client that I deal with as a coach, they're usually somewhere in the neighborhood of about $500,000. And in that particular case, you know, I'm not getting $500,000 for my fees or anything like that. But, you know, they really start to take things seriously. I work much better, frankly, as a coach with salespeople, especially financial salespeople, because they can relate to me. I can relate to them. I can tell them the things that I've done, that I've done, that I've gone through, I should say, that I've done and really help them like that. Plus I know sales. I was a pretty good salesman. Yeah. You got to be good at sales. It's a good thing to have in life and all that good stuff. Any final thoughts as we go out that

people need to know about and give us the dot coms and how they can onboard with you? Yeah. My website is gainwisdom.com on there, as I mentioned earlier, the person can take a look at all of the things that we do. I have a newsletter, a financial newsletter that I put forth. I do that every week. It's a market update. And when I did that, Chris, it was really with the thought of the folks that never talked to a financial advisor. Most financial advisors have like a tier system. And if they have a routine trader, they spend more time with them because that makes them and their firm money. When I had my registered investment advisory business, I dealt with a lot of the folks that really never heard from their brokers much.

So the thing is, is that particular website is marketwatch.gainwisdom.com. Every week, as I say, I post what's going on in the market, where I suggest that people have their money. They can manage their money on their own. It's very, very inexpensive to sign up for a year subscription, and everything is in very plain English. So that has been very, very popular. One thing too, Chris, that I would want to say is that if someone would like to get my e-book, which is available on Amazon, when I do a podcast, I always offer the first 100 people that write in to guy at gainwisdom.com. I will send them that e-book for free. But, you know, the thing is, again, I think that, you know, the message that I try to impart,

and again, in Chrysalis that I know I impart, is with God, all things are possible. And I give example after example how Jesus himself spoke about having faith, not doubting, believing. It's all in the book. There you go. Thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I really do appreciate being here. There you go. Thanks, very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I really do appreciate being here. There you go.

Thanks for tuning in, folks. Order up the book wherever fine books are sold, Chrysalis, Awakening to God's Path, Protection, and Power in Your Life, out May 9, 2023. Thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschristmas, linkedin.com, 4chesschristmas, all those crazy places on the Internet. Be good to each other.

Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. And that should have us out.