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Episode #287
Garrett Gunderson | Financial Independence: Your Growth Plan for the Future
In this Episode, you’ll discover how you can get the Strategic Advantage to Create Financial Independence, how to accelerate your business growth and invest wisely with Genius Network Alumni Garrett Gunderson. Garrett is the Founder and Chief Wealth Architect of Wealth Factory, and New York Times bestselling author of Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths That Are Destroying Your Prosperity.
Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn from Garrett Gunderson in this episode:
- How Garrett and Joe met and why Garrett thinks Joe is brilliant
- The most strategic advantage you can have as a business owner if you want financial independence
- Stock Market Slipups: Why being heavily invested versus keeping a lot of cash on hand could be a BIG mistake (PLUS: When diversification is the WRONG move…)
- How to increase your cash flow, keep more of what you make and successfully manage your money
- Ask THIS question to invest your money wisely and accelerate your business growth
- 2 harmful money mistakes entrepreneurs make and what you should do instead
- What every parent should understand about stewarding family wealth and setting up the next generation
- Here’s how to tell if you’re overpaying on your taxes and what you can do to legally lower them
- Scared of running out of money? Here’s what you need to know and do…
- 4 smarter ways to look at expenses and the RIGHT way to think about cash flow
- A Surprising Truth: There’s No Such Thing as Passive Income. Instead, if you want to truly be financially free, focus on “________ Income”
- Garrett shares the simple financial principles you can put into place immediately to improve your finances, create economic independence and enjoy your life more
- Who is Garrett Gunderson? [01:04]
- Garrett is not the “Wall Street” guy [02:37]
- Solving the entrepreneur’s dilemma (regarding finances) [02:56]
- More money, more problems [03:03]
- Growing up without money [03:06]
- The big difference in making money and managing it [03:47]
- Being an entrepreneur means trading your security [04:20]
- Most people are stressed over money [04:35]
- The greatest asset anyone has is their ability to earn money [05:17]
- Don’t chase “bad profits” [06:09]
- The strategic advantage is to create economic independence [06:35]
- The Big Lie and Myth: passive income [06:40]
- Investing is NOT saving money and waiting for the interest [07:19]
- Investing is about cashflow [07:28]
- Money is a receipt of two things [08:02]
- The power of mental capital [08:10]
- Business is the bridge between what we know and other people [08:16]
- “Money is a representation of value” [08:37]
- The story behind Garrett’s New Rules to Get Rich [09:23]
- In 2006, two of Garrett’s business partners got into a plane crash [09:55]
- The importance of having systems in place [10:07]
- Dan Sullivan’s advice of who to follow for marketing advice [10:19]
- Garrett’s book, Killing Sacred Cows, was sent to Joe and that initiated the connection [10:47]
- Joe and Garrett got on the phone and Joe invited him to Genius Network [11:00]
- Garrett said “yes” even before he knew it was $25K – and he had just written checks for $500K that day for other purposes [11:42]
- The power of one introduction and connection: One connection helped him sell 1000 books the first week his book was out [12:04]
- Going to Genius Network was an investment in relationships [12:48]
- Strategic By-Products: Garrett was introduced to health professionals that helped him with his son’s health [13:37]
- Too many people think you should invest in a magic product – there is no magic product [13:50]
- Real wealth is built on focus [15:02]
- Diversification spreads you thin [15:09]
- Diversification can create risks [15:14]
- The admission of ignorance [15:28]
- You’re one idea/relationship away from prosperity [16:30]
- “We pay attention to what we pay for” [17:33]
- People get caught in the details too often, instead of focusing on the vision [17:42]
- People want to build relationships without putting the work in [18:21]
- Most wealth in the world that is undercapitalized is Relationship Capital [18:34]
- The Vietnam trip with Tim Ferriss [19:14]
- Tim packs very light on trips [19:48]
- Bonding at a water puppet show [20:34]
- The scarcity-driven accumulation philosophy that causes more damage than good [23:06]
- Return on Health (and the health care system) [24:02]
- People believe in the high risk-high return philosophy [24:20]
- Risk is a chance of LOSS [24:24]
- How long can you wait on an investment? [25:00]
- People only think about how much they can save [25:25]
- Wealth Solution: How you can continually expand your means [25:40]
- Live within your means, but expand your means [25:44]
- Evaluate your mindset [26:48]
- Las Vegas as an example of risk [27:17]
- Calculated risk taking is different from playing with risk and taking chances [27:51]
- Your own capabilities, drivers, and values reduce risk [28:08]
- Liquidity reduces risks for entrepreneurs [28:27]
- 5 ways people can create economic independence [30:12]
- Boost your profits [30:15]
- Stop overpaying the government legally and ethically [30:22]
- Investment fees [30:49]
- Interest [31:28]
- Insurance [32:17]
- Boost your profits [30:15]
- How are people overpaying their taxes? [33:24]
- Work with a conservative accountant [33:28]
- Tax strategist vs. a CPA [34:24]
- Most accountants are just focused on filing many tax returns, not proactive about finding strategies [34:42]
- Wealth Factory helps create financial results [36:03]
- Garrett knows each entrepreneur needs an integrated financial team [36:55]
- First thing they do is recover cash forms [37:18]
- Second is to align investments to their “investor DNA” [37:23]
- “Investor DNA” varies from one business to another [37:33]
- It’s where you are most competent [38:09]
- Wealth Factory puts your business finances in order [38:54]
- Tuition based payments [39:12]
- Garrett started his first business, which was detailing cars, when he was 15 [40:20]
- He had a belief that being successful was becoming a millionaire [40:32]
- He thought he was stupid because of an incident in kindergarten [40:40]
- He wanted to prove he would become successful [41:03]
- The more questions he asked and the more people he talked to made everything much more confusing [41:09]
- At 18, he invested some of his money at $70/month in multi-level marketing [41:16]
- He did an internship selling insurance to his friends and family [41:27]
- The most transformative part of Garrett’s career was when the market went down in 2000 [41:42]
- The professor: Steve, the money-manager [41:48]
- When the market went down, Garrett didn’t know what to tell his family who had invested in him [42:08]
- The truth hurts (advice from Steve) [42:32]
- Everyone but one got all of their money back by May 2000 [43:01]
- Garrett’s biggest “ah-ha” moment was when he realized there was only one way to guarantee returns – save people on tax [43:19]
- Garrett explains marginal and average tax rates [45:03]
- “The greatest tax shelter in the world is to earn another dollar more” [45:52]
- Garrett’s book, What Would the Rockefellers Do? [46:40]
- Look at the Vanderbilts as an example of what NOT to do [46:46]
- The Rockefellers used the family office concept [47:08]
- The Rockefellers are going 6 generations strong and donated $50M to charity last year [47:22]
- The Rockefeller Method [47:32]
- Garrett took John Butcher’s Life Book program which provided the Gunderson Family with the most important success formula they could abide by and learn from [47:46]
- Garrett created a family bank for his family to borrow from [48:18]
- “Trust fund babies” are the least happy people Garrett has met [49:44]
- “Money is just a magnifying glass” [49:59]
- When people have no incentive to figure out who they are, they are the least happy [50:18]
- Garrett doesn’t believe in passion alone as a means to success, but real abilities and good stewardship also play as factors[51:05]
- Trust funds [51:39]
- “We can make choices right now financially that would set up the future” [52:15]
- Garrett doesn’t teach about anything considered “off shore” or the stock market—his expertise is in anything that creates predictable, immediate cashflow [53:39]
- It took Garrett 10 years to build a professional team [54:42]
- Garrett’s game—cashflow [55:55]
- What cashflow means [56:14]
- People over emphasized their net worth [56:17]
- Net worth is worthless if it does not translate into cashflow [56:26]
- Cashflow is your income statement [56:29]
- Garrett helps people look at their income statement [56:57]
- Destructive expenses – anything that has no asset attached to it that leads you further into debt [57:03]
- Lifestyle expenses – expenses where you pay cash to go out and enjoy life [57:18]
- Protective expenses – asset protection, estate planning, insurance, liquidity, etc [57:33]
- Productive expenses [58:18]
- “Budgeting is such a destructive mindset” [59:01]
- Garrett looks at people’s assets and helps them manage liabilities [59:49]
- Think of the balance sheet like you do muscles [01:01:18]
- Cashflow is the blood flow of your business [01:01:26]
- “Pay yourself first” [01:02:18]
- Automatically save, deliberately invest [01:02:48]
- Pay, at least, 18% to yourself first [01:03:04]
- Start saving [01:03:31]
- Reward yourself on value-based spending [01:05:04]
- Cost is the economic impact [01:05:13]
- Price is what you pay, cost is the economic impact, and value is the feeling of satisfaction [01:06:34]
- Garrett would never invest into something that would create a scarcity mindset for him [01:07:58]
- His example of what this means [01:08:07]
- People who are hyperfocused are the ones who tend to gain more money [01:09:29]
- People who lose money become more agitated [01:10:29]
- Why yoga can help create freedom [01:10:32]
- The instructor asked Joe’s class to imagine their minds as a tornado – calm in the center and chaotic everywhere else [01:10:53]
- To center your mind is the purpose of the whole class [01:11:11]
- Doing yoga 3 days a week will change your body; doing it everyday will change your life [01:11:54]
- Yoga can increase your capacity to respond to life rather than react to it [01:12:25]
- The ability to respond to life is a happier and more effective way to live [01:12:49]
- Most programs teach people that money is complicated [01:14:15]
- Lessons learned from bad financial decisions [01:15:34]
- Decisions started to haunt him [01:16:17]
- Garrett got involved with people who manipulated him [01:16:57]
- Is more money the answer? [01:17:23]
- The non-monetary scorecard [01:18:01]
- Living a life where you are happy [01:19:16]
- Having the right mindset [01:19:23]
- The importance of being physically fit [01:19:31]
- Enjoy a great social life [01:19:41]
- Financial freedom is when money is NOT the reason why you do or don’t do something [01:20:24]
- 5 things people can do immediately to improve their finances [01:21:37]
- Boost the bottom line; focus on keeping more of what you make [01:21:43]
- Strategically engineering wealth [01:21:51]
- Take any non-cash flowing asset and turn it into a cash flowing asset [01:22:23]
- Scale business revenue [01:22:48]
- Make life count [01:23:10]
- Almost all the financial books teach you about saving, budgeting, and putting money in the stock market [01:23:55]
- Owning a business is the fastest way to financial freedom [01:24:07]
- Setting up your money in a retirement plan has a 99% failure rate [01:25:10]
- Think like a financial institution [01:25:36]
- Think cashflow first [01:26:47]
- Invest in what you know [01:27:04]
- Check out Garrett’s kit on cash flow here [01:27:58]
- Learn how to invest in alignment with your “investor DNA” here [01:28:06]
- Text Garrett at 801-396-7211 and make the subject line “WWRD” to get a copy of What Would the Rockefellers Do? [01:28:50]
- Why Joe Polish became a huge part of Garrett’s life [01:29:59]
- Garrett made a lot of friends [01:31:07]
- Joe was the one who expressed care and concern when Garrett’s mom needed a kidney transplant [01:31:20]
- Genius Networking makes a lot of sense [01:32:12]
- Joe’s recommendations [01:33:05]
Garrett Gunderson is the Chief Wealth Architect at Wealth Factory and author of the NY Times best-seller, Killing Sacred Cows. Wealth Factory helps entrepreneurs optimize cash flow, streamline their finances and keep more of their hard-earned money so they can make more powerful investments in their best wealth creator: their business. He has appeared on ABC News Now, Your World with Neil Cavuto on Fox, CNBC’s Squawk on the Street and more.
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