SPEAKER_02 0:01

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SPEAKER_01 1:36

Our winning persona would be like a mindful manager, is one example. A mindful manager is like detail oriented. They're very efficient and they're great at improving things, right? They they're good for an organization that wants to reduce waste and they want to like be more resourceful. There's also the planner. The planner is really stable, they're thoughtful, they're strategic. They're instrumental for an organization that wants to uh, you know, plan for contingencies and project into the future. Like you'll see a lot of CFOs that are kind of that way. There's also creators. Creators are artists, inventors, or entrepreneurs, and they add new value and create new ways to create value. Or there's catalysts. Catalysts are movers and shakers, they're connectors, they're visionaries. They think and play big and show us ways we can win together. So those are the winning personas mindful manager, planner, creator, and catalyst. But each one of those has a shadow persona. If someone gets stuck in scarcity, if someone gets into a selfish standpoint of fear, doubt, worry, or maybe even they get into greed or isolation, or they get into a place where they just have bad thinking about, like, oh, profit means that someone's done something wrong or bad instead of created value. And so that could lead someone to be a miser instead of mindful manager. Now a miser plays a game called preservation. They're kind of the, you know, scrimp, save, sacrifice, defer, delay. They know the price of everything, but the value of nothing is that's a Jay-Z lyric.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

Welcome back to the Transform Your Mind, where we explore the ideas, stories, and strategies that empower you to transform your thinking and transform your life. Many of us spend our lives chasing financial security. We work harder, save more, invest wisely, and hope that one day we'll have enough money to enjoy life. What if we've been asking the wrong question? What if true wealth isn't about how much money you accumulate, but how much life you get to live along the way? What if true wealth isn't about how much money you accumulate, but how much money you get to spend along the way? Today's guest believes that too many people are sacrificing their health, relationships, happiness, and purpose in pursuit of financial success. He teaches a radically different approach, one that helps entrepreneurs and professionals build wealth while actually enjoying the journey. Garrett Gunderson, known as the Money Jesus, he looks like it too, is a wealth liberation expert, best-selling author, entrepreneur, and creator of the Rockefeller method. His mission is to help people break free from financial mints, eliminate self-sabotaging money beliefs, and create fasting, lasting prosperity without sacrificing the life they're trying to build. Please join me in welcoming Garrett Gunderson. Yay!

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Nice, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

You're welcome. You know, this is where we have audience participation. Awesome, awesome, awesome. All right, Garrett. Yes. I mean, I do a lot of longevity and mindset things on the show, but I don't do a lot of money management because this is not a wilt podcast. But I said yes to you because this um I like your work, I like your topic. And once in a while we need to infuse retirement, because that's basically my audience with some information. It's not just some longevity, it's also keeping your money uh while you get there. All right. So as we dive in, tell us your journey from entrepreneur to wealth liberation expert.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Wouldn't you agree though that like uh wealth does help with the longevity thing?

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Because you know, of course, which is why I said I mean we want to live longer, but we also want to have money, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Right. And I feel like money, purpose, and relationships are the keys in longevity that are not directly health related, but that are peripheral things that like really matter, you know, and people have really high quality relationships, life is better. And you know, like I like when my grandfather died, my grandma died, she was super healthy. She died quickly after because I was like, that was her guy, you know, and like you lose those relationships, you can have a real impact. Um, yeah, I I grew up in a small coal mining town, so I didn't know a lot about money growing up. I just had great parents and they loved me and encouraged me. And, you know, I started a business when I was 15 years old and it was just washing cars because I was playing sports and couldn't really hold a job uh and do sports. So I did that and I won $5,000. And I was like, man, that's a ton of money. I was as a 17-year-old, I thought it was so much money, and uh I wanted to invest it because I thought, man, if I could grow this, I could make it to the big city, I could live live a more successful life. And you know, the more questions I asked, the more confusing it kind of became. So uh when I was 18, I finally invested a small part of it, realized pretty quickly it wasn't what they said it was. And so I was like, okay, I gotta do something different in that you know process of looking. I ended up getting offered an internship at a financial firm, which sounds kind of cool. Like what I found out is they just taught me how to sell and they wanted me to basically peddle mutual funds and life insurance, right? Like that was the gist of it. But that got me my start and it got me to meet certain people and ask questions and be like, what is it that the wealthy are doing that the rest of the people don't know about? And how can we have that, you know, translated or transferred down to everyone else? Because I didn't come from a bunch of wealth. And, you know, what I realized pretty quickly is no matter how much money someone has or doesn't have, that their mindset really matters, their quality of life really matters, their health really matters, their social life really matters. And so wealth isn't this one-dimensional thing, being rich might be, but wealth is yeah, you get your financial house in order and you have your finances taken care of, but you also have purpose, you have a good mindset, you have good relationships, and you have good health. Like that's the key. And that's when I realized like it's about the person. The person's the asset, not the investments that they make. So, what if they invest in themselves? What if they consider how to create a better life along the way? What if they create financial independence where they have cash flow from assets rather than waiting for 30 years to finally enjoy their life? I mean, I think if finance had its way, it's like, hey, just never spend money and then, you know, then you'll retire one day and then you can spend money. But the problem is people are worried. What if I outlived my money and I didn't learn how to create cash flow? And so I don't want people to wait to enjoy their life. I want them to enjoy life and have a good future. I want both.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

Yeah, well, I think it's great. So you've got you started in this financial journey at 18. Did you they they they had you selling mutual funds, but do you not need to learn have a securities license or something like that? Or you didn't have to. I guess.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

In 1998, I got my life insurance and six and sixty-three licenses.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

And so I had one of those two.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Yeah. And so I I was uh you know, it was 98, so basically 98, 99, the market just went up. Uh, there was a little glitch in October of 98, but the rest of the time it was went up, and then my education began in the year 2000 when the market started to go down, and it went down for two more years after that, right? So that was a big wake-up call. And I was like, well, what is there to do other than the market? And that led me to like, well, if I could help save people tax or restructure their loans to be more efficient, or you know, find out where there's hidden fees or commissions that create loss into their investments, or even redesign insurance so that they have more efficiency and they don't have duplicate coverages. And so I became more of like an efficiency expert and a cash flow expert than an investment expert. I don't even have money in the stock market. I just don't really like I believe in my business and I look at my real estate as the 10 books I've written. So if you look at me in my 20s, I had a lot of real estate. I had oil and gas investments, and I had uh chaos in my life because those were overwhelming, the amount of time that they took. So I've simplified and got more focused and said, Well, does this improve my quality of life or just my bank account? I wanted to do both. So I have higher standards. And, you know, like I just was meeting with my clients today, and she just has so much going on, and she just got engaged, and I'm like, you've got to sell some things because she's a full-time investor. I'm like, you've got to get simplified and more focused because otherwise you're just not gonna have the quality of life that you want. I'm like, do you have any hobbies? She's like, I used to. I'm like, right, let's let's find out what things produce the highest return with the least amount of effort and which things produce the lowest return with the most effort. And that's the easy move, right? Let's get rid of the things, sell them, whatever it is, even if you had to take a small loss, even if it wasn't the best thing. And you know, we also talked about some really cool strategies where she could be charitable with some of those properties and get tax advantages. So it's uh it's it's tempting to just want more. I know I did in my 20s, it's just like, oh, I'm just gonna do more. And then my wife's like, you're never around, and when you are around, you're tired because you just work all the time.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

I got married too. Wow, you started early and everything.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Yeah, I've been married for 24 years now. We just celebrated our 24-year anniversary.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

Congratulations. Congratulations. I just celebrated my 20th. So yeah, but that was my third marriage. I didn't, you know, I didn't get married in yeah, my first one was at 17, but you know. Um, I you said a lot of things there. So um I I like what you said about um uh you know being emotionally tied to your money. And that's when they say that's one of the you know, the drawbacks of having money because you're always looking at it, you're one of always not wanting to lose it. So you you were saying that, you know, um you took yourself out of real estate and stocks because it took too much of your time. Um uh yeah, I mean, almost everyone that um that creates wealth in this country creates wealth from those two avenues. Um uh so you you you're thinking that you know, real estate and and and and um stocks take up too much of your time because yeah, the people who have stocks, they're there looking at it all day. I've never really, I just started dabbling in it now because you know I'm I I'm risk aversion, I don't want to lose it. So I I've never I never really got into stocks until maybe a couple years ago. So um, but you know, it's probably because of my money persona. You talk about that. Yeah, what do you mean by someone's money persona? And how do we figure it out what what ours is?

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, good question. And I mean, the first thing is uh back to what you're saying, 91% of people worth $5 million or more own a business. So that is the biggest wealth generator, you know, in this country at least is business. Um, real estate is where a lot of people have done well and they treat it like a business, but there's a lot of people that don't do well in real estate because they don't love it. And then another place is intellectual property, like what you're creating right here. That's another wealth generator. So you find your wealth generators that create cash flow where most people, if they're investing in stocks, they're usually not getting cash flow. They're usually putting in a retirement plan and waiting for 30 years before they benefit from it. So that is one way is to just say, I'm gonna set it and forget it. That's just not the way that I prefer. I prefer to stay really connected to the work. Like I love to write, so I like to put out books. I love to, you know, um create the content, I love to build my business, and I have a big vision for that. So I like to keep investing in that versus into other people's companies and other boardrooms that I've never been in, and I don't know what they're up to. And I there's just a lot of like big companies that I don't like the companies. I don't want to give them, you know, more support and money. I'd rather, you know, give it to you know, people that I know and um help grow my kids uh to be better, you know, human beings. And so that's just kind of my philosophy. But money persona is so helpful because there's really four main money personas, and we also have like a winning persona when we come from abundance, and a shadow persona when we come from scarcity. So our winning persona would be like a mindful manager, is one example. A mindful manager is like detail oriented, they're very efficient and they're great at improving things, right? They they're good for an organization that wants to reduce waste and they want to like be more resourceful. There's also the planner. The planner is really stable, they're thoughtful, they're strategic. They're instrumental for an organization that wants to uh, you know, plan for contingencies and and project into the future. Like you'll see a lot of CFOs that are kind of that way. There's also creators, creators are artists, inventors, or entrepreneurs, and they add new value and create new ways to create value. Or there's catalysts. Catalysts are movers and shakers, they're connectors, they're visionaries, they think and play big and show us ways we can win together. So those are the winning personas mindful manager, planner, creator, and catalyst. But each one of those has a shadow persona if someone gets stuck in scarcity, if someone gets into a selfish standpoint of fear, doubt, worry, or maybe even they get into greed or isolation, or they get into a place where they just have bad thinking about like, oh, profit means that someone's done something wrong or bad instead of created value. And so that could lead someone to be a miser instead of mindful manager. Now, a miser plays a game called preservation. They're kind of the, you know, scrimp, save, sacrifice, defer, delay. They know the price of everything, but the value of nothing is that's a Jay-Z lyric. But but um basically, you know, they're they're they're very much like never spend ever if at all costs. And they might die multimillionaires, but they live like paupers, okay, if they get stuck in that shadow persona. Well, the planner would be their shadow persona is a conservative, and that's not like a uh like we're not talking politics or politics, we're just talking finance, right? And so the conservative is hesitant, they're overly analytical. Sometimes they're a no-at-all, right? And so they play the game called accumulation, but they end up with money that they, I don't know, they they always delay gratification and never truly enjoy it because it's always about eventually. So a miser is more likely to put money in a coffee can in the basement like my family, or they're more likely to put it under their mattress, where a conservative is gonna be more like put it in a diversified portfolio or an index fund. Okay. That's kind of the distinction. Now, instead of the the creator, we have the striver. The striver's the shadow persona there. They play a game called status and they think they could just work harder to make more money, but they're probably gonna burn out. You know, they just all work and no play. The difference of the you know, catalyst, their shadow persona is the high roller. The high roller plays a game called opportunity, but they cut corners and they take too much risk, which leads to bankruptcy quite often. Or, you know, sometimes they're really up and other times they're really down. And they're more willing to rent the lifestyle, they're more willing to let you think that that's their car that's on an air, you know, that they rented or the Airbnb they pretend is their home. That's kind of like the high roller. Um, so we all are not all our winning persona or shadow persona, but the reality is we want to pay close attention if we get into scarcity and that mindset that leads to you know, fear, doubt, and worry could lead us to a shadow persona, which limits our ability to create wealth because wealth is a game of expansion. Nobody shrinks their way to wealth, wealth is a game of value creation. And so when we get in the thought of like, how do we serve others and solve bigger problems and add more value? That's how we get in the winning persona. We get in our shadow persona, where like, I'm how do I hold on to what do I got? How do I just work harder so that I make more? Right? It's like pretty simple to see.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Yeah, that's yeah, like a money mindset. I've had people talking about money mindset on here before. But listening to all those, and you give like eight of them, I didn't see myself in there at all. So um uh how can somebody determine what's their money mindset?

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Yeah, we have a quiz. We did we create a quiz.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Oh, right, yes, yes, yes. You have a quiz. All right, yes. I will I will do that.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Yeah, Garrett Gunderson.com forward slash quiz is the best way to get that quiz.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Yeah, and that's where you get that information from. Right, right, yes. Um, right, because you know I couldn't I couldn't find myself in that. I spend money freely, I don't spend money on things I don't need, which is one of the reasons I never budget, and I know we're gonna talk about that in a minute. Um, so I'm not I'm not an overspender and I'm also not a miser, but I'm risk aversion.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

So you're uh probably you're winning. You're probably the planner. You're you're probably the planner. The planner or a mindful manager, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

Right, a mindful manager. Okay, all right. That makes sense. That makes sense. Right. Okay, so I like that. So um I think we you touched on this um earlier, but it's a question I have here. Why are so many successful people still feel financially stressed? Is that part of those? They're my the the scenario that you just mentioned, they're one they're one of those, you know, um archetypes.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

The people that probably feel like they should be further along more than anyone is either the striver or the high roller. So there's never enough, right? It's always there's I gotta have more. And the problem is, even if they get more, someone else has more than them. So it's like this treadmill that they can never kind of get to where they're trying to go. And so it's also people aren't really honest about their finances, you know, quite often. So people think that everyone's further ahead than they are, and that makes them feel behind, or you know, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

It's like that's that's the that's what social media is giving us because everybody is, you know, um uh putting on social media their best foot forward, and nobody is seeing uh, you know, the trail end. So yeah, and I love what you said about the high rollers because that's where that's we're in. I mean, I remember somebody calling it posers, where you go and you get this this big old fancy car and you or this big old fancy house, and you're walking around with all this gold and all these things, and you're showing wealth, right? But you have no money in your bank account.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Yep. Yeah, so that's yeah, social media is one of the main culprits because it's like positioning that everyone's life's so great, then we compare ourselves to that. And yep. You see how many, and then there's people that you know, you see how many people follow or like or comment, or you know, it's a never-ending kind of cycle that happens there.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what that's the you know, that's where we get from social media right now. So um, you also teach people how to make more of what they make. So what's the first step? So if um you're you're you're you're teaching someone right now, um, I heard you say something about um uh passive income where I mean we all talk about passive income, right? I mean everybody knows that you write a book once or you write a song once and you you keep getting royalties and passive income. People like real estate. Well, it's not really passive, because you know, but I mean, um, but you're you're you're getting you're getting, you know, you're you're you're you're taking your money and you're putting it and making it work for you. So what's the first step if that's what you're talking about there? In today's market, brands don't just have an awareness problem, they have a trust problem. People are overwhelmed by ads, skeptical of marketing, and craving something real. That's why CEOs and purpose-driven brands partner with the Transform Your Mind Podcast. When brands partner with the Transform Your Mind Podcast, they're not just buying an ad. They're gaining trusted access to a deeply engaged, values-driven audience that is actively investing in personal growth, wellness, fate, and transformation. So let us tell your story in a way that actually resonates. Your brand is featured through a CEO or expert interview that positions you as a thought leader. Host red pre roll and mid roll ads woven naturally into other episodes and long term visibility across our full media ecosystem. Every partnership interview across multiple high-impact channels, including 20 podcast platforms and directories, television distribution at PTWNTV, YouTube and streaming platforms like Reveal, social media clips and reels, and a blog article with backlinks to your website. That means your message doesn't just disappear after one episode. It's repurposed, replayed, and rediscovered across multiple platforms. If your brand service people who value healing, mindset, wellness, faith, and personal development, the Transform Your Mind podcast offers more than exposure. It offers alignment, authority, and authentic connection. To explore a brand partnership with the Transform Your Mind Podcast, visit us at myhelps.us slash partner. That is M-Y-H-E-L-P-S.us P-A-R-T-N-E-R.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Yeah. Um so I have this like framework that's make more money, keep more of the money you make, then grow your money, but always grow yourself. And that's what's going to multiply results. So the best way to make more money is you invest in a skill set yourself that allows you to add more value, serve more people, solve bigger problems. So you always start with investing in yourself. Then you learn to keep more of what you make because a lot of people pay too much in tax, or they overpay on their interest, or they have fees that are creating drag and hurting them at their investments that they just didn't know about, or they don't design their insurance properly, so they're paying more in premium than they need to. So what we do is we plug those financial leaks so they can put that money back into themselves so they can grow their money. And then we look at like, okay, where to invest? And for a lot of people, the best place to invest isn't what most people are doing. Most people kind of don't know what they're doing, so they just hand their money over. There's others that like learn where to invest and become better investors. You know, some are really good at real estate, some are good at acquiring businesses, others are good at creating, you know, content and intellectual property. But what's the wealth engine going to be? And what I try to get people to focus on is can you create cash flow from those? Because when there's cash flow from your investments, that can start covering your lifestyle expenses, which means when you make money, you don't have to save more because it could build more assets. Where most people are going, oh, I try to save 10% of my income, I chase a 10% return on the market, and I wait for 30 years and hope it all works out. I'd rather see I want to see 100% of the income covered by assets. If those assets are kicking off recurring revenue or passive income, then active dollars can build more assets. It's a huge advantage than someone having to just like live off what they can, try to save a little bit, set it aside, lock it away, no cash flow.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

Yeah, you know, um, I follow um this guy called Myron Golden.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Oh, Myron and I are good friends. Love Myron Beats. Okay, all right. Oh, yeah. I've been I've been out uh to dinner with him many times and been on his uh podcast a few times. He's a he's a wonderful guy. I've spoken to a few of his events. I love Myron a lot. He's just great.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

Yeah, well, he said something on one of his videos that I plugged in my mind and I I said to myself, I've got to find out what he's thinking. He never taught on it, but he said that every year he used to cringe when he had to write the government a check for a million dollars, and you know, because you have to pay all this taxes on the money that he made until someone told him that if he got real estate, that he shelters that. And I put that in my brain.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

I need to learn how to do not that I'm writing check for millions, but yeah, well, the the real estate can be a very big advantage from a tax perspective. So I'll give you a few examples. Okay. So when you own real estate, um, normally you get what's called depreciation. So even though the real estate might be going up in value, you have to eventually repaint the real estate or you know, change out the carpets or you know, re like change out electrical wires, whatever it is. So you could do what's called cost segregation, which allows you to accelerate the depreciation for tax purposes. And so there's a in the big beautiful bill, it came out that you could buy a short-term rental, that would be like Airbnb, and then you can cost segregate those. So all of a sudden there was more tax advantage. If someone's married and the person they're married to spends 750 hours a year working on a real estate portfolio, you get what's known as a real estate professional designation, which allows you to write off all types of income with your real estate with no limitation that you would have otherwise, because normally you have to like match active to active, passive to passive capital gain, all that kind of stuff. So, like there's huge advantages that way as well. So the cost segregation, which the depreciation, also real estate can grow in value and you don't have to pay tax until you sell it, but you can roll it to other real estate to avoid the taxes. You could borrow against it to avoid the taxes, or I taught this on, I was actually uh when I was with with Myra, and I was teaching him this uh on in front of a live audience there. He's just interviewing a man like, or you can do a charitable trust. You could donate your real estate to a charity, then when you sell it, you'll pay no tax on the sale. You get a partial tax deduction for the value of what the charity expects to have left over when you die, and then you get to take a lifetime income off the gift, and then when you die, you hope to leave at least 10% to the charity. 10% to the charity is better than 20% to the government for most people. So that's like a couple pieces where real estate could be really advantageous from a tax perspective.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

Well, that's awesome. Um, and this information is in your courses or in your book.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Um, let's see. That particular thing um on real estate, the tax navigator. I have a thing called the tax navigator. And if people just DM me, Garrett B. Gunderson, Garrett B is in Boy Gunderson, and if they just put tax navigator in the DM, we'll just give them the checklist. We'll give them the writing and the checklist where it talks about this and shows them how to do it.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

Okay. Yeah, because that is that is amazing. You know, um, I have real estate and my daughter has real estate. And, you know, I I work at the end of the year with a a tax accountant, and I leave it up to her to figure out, you know, my tax advantages and all that. And I don't even think I um I do that depreciation thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Um, you need an engineer to do the analysis, not an accountant, typically. So um they would coordinate with the with the accountant.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

Yeah, right, right, yes. All right, I like it. All right, so why do you say that budgets fail so many people? I'm one of the people that never created a budget. I worked at the bank when I was, you know, in my 20s, and I just looked at my bank account every day. And I said, All right, I don't need a I don't so I'm never a budget person, but my daughter, and I told her I was gonna talk about her, my daughter right now is creating this budget where she is very stringent because she she's 37 and is planning for her retirement and saying, I need to have this much money in my retirement, so I don't, I'm not gonna spend money now, which is exactly your work. And I says, I said to her, I cannot believe that this interview is coming so timely. You know, we were booked on a cruise and she just canceled the cruise. She says, I can't spend all that money on the kitchen. And I said to her, listen, you've got to learn and to enjoy your life. You don't overspend, but there are certain things that I think you should. Anything that I want, I buy. If I don't want it, I'm not gonna buy it. I'm not the person that can't control myself that I go out and buy 150 shoes. So yeah, so let's hear you. That's that's my feelings and budget. What's yours?

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Well, uh, budgets remind me of diets. And I used to, you know, I used to go up and down in weight all the time because I tried to like restrict calories. Now I just eat healthy and I eat until I'm full and it's hard to get all the calories in. So it comes from more of a place of abundance. But I'm eating and making healthy choices. So when it comes to finance that people budget, they get so constrained that it comes from scarcity. And it no matter how much you budget, it's a finite game. There's only so much you can reduce. There's only so much you can get out. But when you think about making more money, it's more infinite, there's more possibility. And so if you start thinking about no one shrinks their way to wealth and think about how you add more value versus reducing value, this is where I kind of figured it out. It all happened in a few week period of time in my in my when I was early married. Because when we first got married, I was like, okay, we moved in together after we got married, and all of a sudden I went from being romantic and fun to being like a miser. Like, hey, we gotta save every dollar so that we could be prepared when we decide to have kids. And you know, why is the heating bill so much? Let's turn that down. Why are you buying these extra clothes? For you know, uh, you're a teacher, you don't need those extra. Like, I was a jerk. I didn't know that I was an a-hole. I just I was, you know, and and uh then I met this woman, Nancy, and she kind of called me out on it. She's like, I can't wait until you around the really wealthy people to see they think about money, not just differently, it's almost the opposite of what you're doing. I'm like, tell me more. And then as I told her my philosophy, she goes, I wonder what it's like living in the financial prison that you built for your wife. I was like, Oh, wow, I thought I was building that worth, I was building walls, you know? And so I called and apologized to my wife. And then she says, Look, you're smart. Let's go ahead and look at what we could actually budget. So we we found $170 a month that we could lower. One was like back, that was back in the day we got rid of cable, which sucked because then we didn't have anything to watch on TV. Um, you know, we got rid of a massage envy uh subscription, which I actually used and enjoyed, and you know, so I wasn't like so. We got rid of this stuff, and then the next day she said, let's just spend the whole day thinking, like, what could you do that would actually help people out? And I was like, Well, people are really interested that I'm young. At the time I was like in my early, you know, I was like 24, 25, and yet I'm doing a lot of business and they want to know how. I could actually just they could just come and watch me and I could charge them to sit on the meetings all day. And then I could just start doing two calls a month and teach them what I'm up to and share with them. And so within a year, we had 100 people paying 170. So we made a hundred times more in 12 months than cutting out those few bills. So that's a an expansive thinking instead of reductionist thinking. And all you really have to do is pay yourself off the top, just pay yourself first so you have some savings and live off the rest. And if you don't spend more than what's left over, you don't need to budget. We just automatically put money away every month, automatically save, and we live off the rest. And that's it. We don't budget.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

Well, that's one of Myron Golden's teachings, too. He talks about live on 50%, and then he's got these five um buckets that you put um 10% money in. But one of the things that's always worked for me is I have actually never had a fixed income. I'm always been in sales where the possibility of me making a sale and and getting, you know, um a higher income was always there. There's people, 90% of the people that are probably listening to here is on a fixed income. They are retirees that are getting a fixed income or they're getting a fixed paycheck. So and I like what you said about um instead of going from the scarcity mindset, like oh, you you're you're taking out $170, but these things that you really like, so your quality of life sucks. But you went to how you can expand on what you have. So that's really what a lot of people, we just finished putting my daughter and I just finished listening to An Audible, the one minute millionaire. And there are so many skills there of where you, I mean, the premise of the book was someone needed to make a million dollars in nine months. And there's all these tools that they share with you, you can you can do, which is an expensive, um uh an expansive way to go about thinking instead of cutting, you're thinking about what you can use to grow. But people that are in a fixed income, what can they grow?

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Um, on a fixed income, I would still go, is there a way to be more tax efficient? Is there a way to is there loans that could be refinanced, renegotiated? Could there be things that are paid off because there's assets that are underperforming? I mean, I would look at those types of things and find the money, right? Could we just could we be more efficient? That would be the really key first in those situations.

SPEAKER_03 35:04

We teach people to have like a um one of the things I also I wrote a book on it is to have a side hustle.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Um, it just depends. Like if they're already a business owner, then no, I don't want them to have a side hustle. But if they're not a business owner, right? A side hustle could allow them to start making money that would be good for them so you you know could expose a skill set, they could have some upside um when they're in that fixed income situation.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

Yeah, definitely. I am yeah, that's yeah, you should always have a side hustle if you're living paycheck. If you're if you're if you have a paycheck, if you have a business, you know, Tony Robbins talking has 150 businesses.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

I mean, I wouldn't go that far, but a lot of businesses, he's done very well.

SPEAKER_03 35:50

He's probably not taking up the brain mindpower to manage them. He's got people managing them. So, um uh so yeah, so if we were to, you know, wrap up the bull on the budget, you're saying that um budget is a scarcity. And I, you know, I believe that. This it's how you think, you know, mindset is is is a big thing. You come from abundance. You know, I was telling my daughter the other day, I says my mom grew up very poor, but she's never been broke. Never seen her broke. She always has money because she lives from the abundance mindset. You're you're a Christian and you're you know, yeah, um you probably have some biblical principles. You have to live that this is an abundant world, and you know, God will provide and you know, um the mindset of people that tithe, where they tithe all their money and uh they expect the universe to uh or God to look after their needs. That is that is a huge mindset. So I agree with you that um uh budgeting yourself, because yeah, I mean, if I wanted to have a massage envy um uh massage, if I felt like it, and it's like $60 or something, and I I would not say I'm not gonna have the $60 to pay that, because that again, it's it's a very bad thing. And entertainment is great. You canceled your your cable. And I heard Myron say that, that if you're not making a certain amount of money per month throughout your TV, but I would never do that because entertainment is part of my mental health, right? So um uh so yeah, so um anything else you want to, you know, wrap up the bow on budgeting?

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Just pay yourself first, automate it so you don't have to think about it, and live off the rest. It's that simple. I call it mindful cash management. You're being mindful, and then you can always go, well, what are the different types of expenses? Destructive expenses are the ones to eliminate, right? If people are, you know, have vices they can't control, that's a destructive expense. If they borrow to consume, that's a destructive expense. If it's stuff they're paying for and they're not utilizing, destructive expense. Then pay cash for lifestyle expenses. Just pay cash for lifestyle expenses. Those are great. The word expense, a lot of people think it is negative. It's the only way we utilize our money. It's not negative, but we've been trained and conditioned to believe it's negative so that we think, oh, we got to reduce expenses. No. You got to eliminate destructive ones, manage the you know, lifestyle ones, but then address the protective expenses. Like make sure that you have good education, that you have good insurances, that you have good asset protection. Like that's the protective expenses because we're all gonna have financial surprises. It's just that if we address that, they don't have to derail us. But here's the game changer: a productive expense. If you put in a dollar and more than a dollar comes out, don't budget that. Increase that until it's no longer effective. So if I'm running an ad to sell a book and I pay a dollar for that ad and I get back a dollar ten cents, let's go ahead and do two dollars. If it's getting back 220, we're going to three dollars. We'll keep going up until it's no longer effective. And there's no budget for that. Why would you budget something that's extraordinarily productive? You just want to eliminate what's destructive, and so you know, increase the productive expenses, manage the lifestyle ones, address the protective ones, and eliminate the destructive ones.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

I like that, right? And what will you classify as the destructive shopping? Um, like shopping sponsors. What are those? What is a destructive?

SPEAKER_01 39:22

It's destructive when you like one person can buy a video game console and video games that's not destructive. The other one it is, because the other one is now playing video games 12 hours a day and they're not doing anything else. It comes down to the individual, right? Someone might be paying $100 a month for a service that they've never used once, that becomes destructive. The other person is using it all the time, so it's productive. So it comes down to the individual. You know, it's not like a moral judgment as much. Um, you know, like I'm not the type of person that's like, oh, um, if you buy alcohol, like I don't I don't drink, so I don't really buy alcohol, but I know some people that love wine and they're super into it. So for them, it's a lifestyle choice. I don't see it as being destructive, but to an alcoholic, it's destructive, right? So it's it's it's the context matters, the person matters.

SPEAKER_03 40:09

Right, right, right, right. And when you were talking to suffer uh about using buying something you don't use, is those gym memberships. That's one of the top ones. People have these gym memberships. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go, and then they never go.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

So it's kind of annoying that like a lot of them have these long contracts. Like when people hire me, we don't have a con our contract. Is you pay us every month if we're providing the value for you, right? Like, that's the contract I like. Both parties win, you know. Like my son signed up for jujitsu, which would have been awesome for him to go to. It was a 12-month contract. I'm like, should a 17-month or 17-year-old really have a 12-month contract? Like, you know, they they're changing their habits all the time.

SPEAKER_03 40:51

About a month, he might decide he doesn't like it.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Right. He did it, he did well for three months and then he got busy doing other stuff, you know, golf and other things. So yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:00

That's good. That's good to highlight. Awesome. All right. So you probably talked a little bit about your Rockefeller method before in our conversation, but maybe we can, you know, give it a definition here. Um, and how is it different from traditional financial planning?

SPEAKER_01 41:17

So the way the Rockefellers looked at things is is unique. They thought, hey, every time a Rockefeller family member is born, that's an asset. Now, obviously they're human beings, so they're an asset, but they looked at it like this they're an asset because we're gonna help grow them, we're gonna invest in them, which meant they wanted them to be able to stand on their own two feet and be value creators. So they had family retreats, but they also bought life insurance on them right away so that if anything happened to them, it would help bring money back to the family trust. So every time a Rockefeller is born, they're buying insurance. Every time a Rockefeller dies, it's put it's helping fund the trust for the next generation. Now they don't make their money through the life insurance, they make their money through businesses, right? And so they grew their wealth through the businesses, they protected the wealth through the insurance. So the Rockefeller method is trust and insurance, followed by family retreats where they can invest in their heirs, family uh office, which is they had a cohesive, comprehensive, communicating financial team, which a lot of people don't have that. So it's very frustrating because they talk to one financial person, they hear something different from another financial person, and then they just go, I don't know who to believe, instead of having everyone working from the same sheet of music and under one roof. The the Rockefellers understood that. And then finally they created something called a family constitution, which is in their own words, what are the philosophies, guidelines, and signposts they want to leave for generations to come, just like the US has a constitution for their family? Because you can leave money behind in the next generation, but without a set of instructions, it might as well you could plan on it being burned. It's you know, there's a saying shirt sleeve to shirt sleeves in three generations. It means usually by the third generation, all the wealth is gone. Because if you don't train the person, it's a game of stewardship. And if they're not being stewards over the money, it's not going to be a blessing, it'll be a curse.

SPEAKER_03 43:03

Okay. All right. So that's the same method that you follow or that we teach?

SPEAKER_01 43:08

I wrote a book called What Would the Rockefellers Do on it? And so I have insurance on me and on my wife, and then I have insurance on my kids. And we have we have interesting plans. Like when my kids go to buy their first home, we're gonna finance it for them. We'll cover the down payment. So what's cool is when they make an interest payment, that interest payment will be into the trust instead of a bank. So our family is gonna make the interest instead of a bank, which we don't have to charge as many closing costs as a bank would. And then every payment they make is helping their kids out because then they can in the trust finance their kids' home. And we don't have to use institutions, we can finance them together, and then we earn the interest instead of pay it. And that's a lot more control. There's collateral, there's the tax benefits, as you said, with the real estate as well. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:58

Wow. Over me, because that's really complicated. But I guess we'll have to get into your book and and and learn the concepts and understand that.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yeah, the nice thing is it's of all the books I've written, it's my most easy book to read. It's just very well, I wrote a kid's book. That's probably the easiest book, and it's easy to read because my co-author is such a good author. Her name's Julia Cook, she did a fantastic job on it. Um, but yeah, what would the Rockefellers do? Explains it very easily on how to do it.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

Yes. And this was helped my daughter because that's what she's doing right now. She's planning for her daughter's future. And her retirement and and all the things that she has is basically geared so she can have a certain amount of money, you know, when she gets older. And so uh she's got she's on the right track because she's thinking of, you know, you know, I came from a very poor family, so I don't have any of that set up. I had to do this on my own. But um, you know, I'm glad that, you know, she is in the mindset of, you know, leaving behind something for her for her daughter, and if she has more children, and uh all the financial planning they're doing and all the things they're doing right now is with that gold in mind um for their retirement and for their daughter. So this conversation here about setting up trusts and insurances and all that will be very helpful. Um, it went over my head right now, but um uh you know, we'll we'll kind of study it and um and understand what you're saying. So yeah, great. Okay, and um so you say that retirement, yeah, which is what I was just talking about here, is the wrong goal. Explain that philosophy.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

I want people to be financially independent where they have enough cash flow from assets to cover their expenses. The sooner you do that, the more you can swing for the fences in life and dream big and know that your foundation is handled. If people are just focused on retirement, a lot of times they're missing out on life along the way. There's like you're talking about with your daughter, and there's no cash flow, and they're waiting until they're too old to enjoy it sometimes, and their kids learn to oh, you just don't enjoy life, and what, and all of a sudden at 65, you're gonna start doing things that we never did. So I believe like create the life you don't want to retire from and financial independence is a better model than retirement. I get like in the old days, like we were in an industrial, you know, world back in the day. Uh my dad was a coal miner, so my grandfathers and great-grandfather. You want to retire from coal mining. That is a tough, tough living. But for me, I write books, I get up on stage and speak, I do podcasts. I really enjoy it. I don't want to stop doing it. I stopped doing it for a time. I sold a business and I was like, yeah, I want to do it again. This is fun. I, you know, I enjoy building the relationship. So, but when you're financially independent, you have choice. When you're not financially independent, you're kind of like trying to get to retirement, which is always like way out in the future, instead of being like, hey, what if we got financially independent? Now we can do what we want to do. We get to do it, we don't have to do it.

SPEAKER_03 46:52

Right, right. Yes, yes, yes. Because you know, I also heard a statistic the other day that scared me a little bit. And then I realized, oh, I don't have to be worried because, you know, I've done the things to make sure that that doesn't happen. But they say that people save up for their retirement, saying that when they get to retire, they're gonna do this, this, and this. And the statistics show that most people have health issues like two years after they turn 65. So they never get to do any of those things that they they they say that they're gonna wait to do. Um, and and and the and the and the message in that is don't wait, like you said, you know, enjoy your life right through. I mean, my philosophy is don't overspend it, but you should at least have fun while you're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Love that. That's what well said. Very well said.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

Yes, okay. All right. So, what role do relationships, health, and purpose play in true wealth?

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Well, I think that you know, true wealth is being rich is having money, being truly wealthy is having depth and harmony in these areas of your life. Your money, your purpose, your mindset, your health, and your relationships. That's true wealth, is when you have all five. If you have just one, great. But like, and it's never gonna be perfect or like totally balanced. It's just depth means you can be present and harmony means you're intentional. And so to me, true wealth is those five tracks.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

Oh, yeah. I mean, I do agree. I mean, wealth is not just about money because there's a lot of wealthy people that are unhappy. So, yeah, they've got money in the bank, but they don't have the relationships, the spirituality, the connections, you know, they don't give back. I mean, I mentioned Tony Robbins. He's saying that, yeah, if you're if you don't serve and don't give back, then you know, you're not truly wealthy because you're um, you know, you're you're bankrupt inside. Yeah. Paraphrasing what uh that's what I got out of it. And you're not truly fulfilled either. So awesome. All right. So um we're wrapping up our conversation. So what can we talk a lot of stuff today? So what can listeners begin do today that can begin transforming their relationship with money? What do you want to what do you want to leave behind as a as a summary of what we talked about?

SPEAKER_01 49:12

I mean, take the money persona quiz, garrettgunderson.com forward slash quiz, so you get insights and there's good videos that come for free with that to help kind of guide you. Pay yourself first, automate your savings and so that you kind of have money set aside rather than budgeting. Invest in yourself, grow your skills. If you're a retiree and you're like, what do I do? I'm gonna fixed income. Well, is there a better way to be tax efficient? Or if you still have loans that you know you can restructure those or renegotiate the interest rates so you have more money that's coming through. Consider what quality of life is to you. Like, what does wealth mean to you? What do you want in life? Not one day, someday, but what about now and in the future? And how can you build the life that you love, not just a life that you're delaying up into the future? I think that pretty much encapsulates most of what we talked about that way.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

All right, okay, so that's good. So, um, so if they were to take one first step now, it would be the simplest one. It sounds like automate your savings is that would be where they would start because they're making money. So you're saving. Um uh um uh you said you know Myron Golden very well. Yes, and um he talks about the 10 the um the five buckets. Do you propose that people live on 50% of their income and and save 50% or a year going with 10% savings?

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Well, like what I like is uh a hundred percent, which is you get enough cash flow from your assets, that covers your life, then you can reinvest all your money. That's ideal. But to get there, yeah, I mean, you got to get there, and you know, Iron's there, and you know, like the great thing is he could retire, but he chooses not to, and he's adding so much value out there. He's an inspiration, he's very, you know, just like so articulate. I learn every time I listen to him. And so I'm I'm glad there's people like him that are putting that information out there. And you know, he and I have talked at pretty great length, and we really subscribe to the same philosophies. I mean, we haven't found something that we disagree on yet, which is pretty interesting, you know, just because I think we've been very thoughtful about everything. So is five buckets and 50%. If someone can do that, man, they can really get ahead if they could do that, you know. And if in part of what I do is go, well, can I help you get to that 50% by saving tax and restructuring loans and you know, redesigning the insurance policy so that you have more money passing through?

SPEAKER_03 51:31

Okay, right. Okay, perfect. All right, just have to throw it in. Awesome, awesome. So, how can our listeners and those watching on TV and YouTube um pick up a copy of your books and enroll in your wealth program?

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Yeah, uh, GarrettGunderson.com forward slash rich life bundle gives you my three best books, which is What Would the Rockefellers Do, which how anyone can create a legacy. We talked a little bit about the Rockefeller method today. Killing Sacred Cows 2, which is how do you avoid the money myths that are out there so you can see them, avoid them, and have permission to succeed. And then Money Unmasked, which is the money personas, Hilly Relationship with Money. So you get all three of those books if you go to Garagunston.com forward slash rich life bundle. And if you go to Amazon, you don't have to pay more than if you go to that website. And I also like throw in the audio books as well as the physical books, you know, so that people uh can listen if that's what they prefer. I'm just trying to build that bridge, help them out.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

That's amazing. That's how I consume my books. I walk and I listen. It's the best time of my day. Awesome. All right. Um, so you don't have any, you you you only have books. You don't have, I thought the rec Rockefeller method was a coaching program. So you don't have that.

SPEAKER_01 52:39

We do. Yeah, and anyone you get the books, there's a download for the legacy builder toolkit. We have one-on-one um support where we build a whole financial team for people. Um, you know, yeah, so we definitely have that additional support if uh if people are looking for that, and the best way is just to communicate with us on DM and we initiate a conversation and uh see if we can support.

SPEAKER_03 53:01

Awesome, awesome, awesome. All right. Well, listen, you you're making um you're creating a great legacy, you're helping um, you know, people with financial issues, which to me, you know, they're saying that money doesn't buy happiness. And someone says, but yeah, but it certainly, you know, allows you to have, you know, to be happier.

SPEAKER_01 53:30

It definitely rents happiness. It definitely can rent happiness, you know, but you gotta find the sustained happiness inside for sure.

SPEAKER_03 53:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, people that go around and saying that, yeah, you know, yeah, money, um, you know, an abundance or overflow of it is always a good thing to have, and and people that can help you get there, that's amazing. All right. So we had a very inspiring conversation today. Um, Garrett reminded us, reminded us that wealth is much more than dollars and cents. True prosperity includes freedom, purpose, meaningful relationships, good health, and the ability to live a life aligned with your values. Money is a powerful tool, but it should never become the master of your lives. When we learn to use wealth as a vehicle for creating impact, experiences, and fulfillment, we begin to understand what it really means to be rich. Garrick, thank you for sharing your wisdom and helping us rethink our relationship with money. And thank you, listeners, for joining us for another episode of Transform Your Mind. So, Transformers, as I call my my tribe, if you enjoyed any um of today's information, um, you can reach out to Garrett. I will have his information in the show notes, which is in myhelps.us. I will link out to him on I will link out to his Instagram and social media profiles. So you can definitely DM him for some more information on and also that wealth management checklist that he was talking about. Um yeah, so um uh, you know, head to the show notes and pick up any information that you need. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this conversation with someone who can benefit from Meric. I know immediately I'm sending this to my daughter, even before it becomes live.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

Nice. Glad to hear it. Good luck. Let's take care of her.

SPEAKER_03 55:31

That's right, exactly. And remember, transformation begins in the mind. So change your thinking and you can change your life. Garrick, this was a wonderful conversation. I learned a lot, and I will continue my learning by getting your books. Um because, yes, this was just a short little tease here today. So, um, anything else you want to say before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_01 55:53

No, I think we're great.

SPEAKER_03 55:55

Yes, you you had a good um, you know, um wrap up there when I asked you, so I didn't think you had anything more. But all right, well, listen, Transformers, thanks again. Until next time, stay empowered, stay inspired, and keep transforming your mind.