Why Your 401(k) Won’t Make You Free: Build Passive Income Instead with Chris Miles

Episode Highlights Here:

Brett

Before we jump into this episode, I would invite you to join our community to help you become a better steward, scale to billions, and ultimately give more or all of it away. All I want you to do is to click the subscribe button right now. I love your support, it’s incredible to see your comments, and we’re just getting started. I can’t wait to go on this journey with you. Thank you so much for subscribing. It means the world to me. Welcome to the Build to Billions podcast, where we got successful entrepreneurs and investors on their journey from millions to billions. We believe the key to scaling and compounding your wealth and life starts every single day with the mindset and practice of stewardship over ownership and applying billionaire biblical principles. Our ultimate goals have to scale and compound your wealth and life, so you can give more all the way to help MVPs. My name is Brett Swarts. Each and every episode, we’re joined by some of the world’s top entrepreneurs and investors and billionaires and millionaires who share their secrets and insights with us, so we can all level up and make a bigger impact. We’re also streaming on Capital Gains Tax solutions.com and our YouTube channel, so you can check us out there as well. I’m excited about our next guest. He’s out of Utah, and he is on a mission. He’s an unapologetic anti-financial advisor who helps high-income earners break free from the grind and achieve financial freedom without gambling on Wall Street. He was disillusioned by the broken financial industry, and so he built multiple streams of passive income and retired twice by the age of 40. He’s the founder of Money Ripples and author of Work Optional Blueprint, and the host of the top-rated podcast Money Ripples Podcast, and he’s helped clients create over $300 million in immediate cash flow and long-term passive income, and so much more. Being featured on CNN Money, Bigger Pockets, Entrepreneurs on Fire. Please welcome the show with me, Chris Miles. Chris, how we doing?

Chris

I’m doing great, Brett. Gathered to be on, man.

Brett

Grateful to have you, and it’s good to have a pro on the show. And, as you know, the best question to start with typically is, hey, tell us a little bit about your story.

Chris

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned I was the anti-financial advisor, that’s because I started out as being the financial advisor in the early 2000s, I was the guy that told you to set and forget it, you know, save everything, save it forever, and hopefully you’ll have something someday, right. And as I taught that, I mean, I really drank the Kool-Aid, I believed it wholeheartedly. And then four years into my career, my dad said, “Well, Chris, when you go to sit down with me now, you have to understand, my dad was like this this penny-pinching debt-free saver, right? Like this guy was like post-depression era mentality. He’s kind of guy that Dave Ramsey would say, “Oh, I hope I can be like Ron Miles when I grow up, right? And so, anyways, I sat down with him, and I figured, okay, this should be easy, because he was 61 at the time. He said, “Chris, listen, the stress of my job that I’m at is killing me, literally killing me. I’ve had heart attacks and strokes. I want out. And I looked at all his finances. He was debt free, including his mortgage. He stuffed money as 401 k with a match, like every good boy should. And then at the end of the day, I said, Dad, here’s the deal, if you try to retire right now, you have to die in five or six years, because you’re gonna run out of money,

Brett
right? I know

Chris

I’m like, you did it, Dad, you were like the poster child of doing it right, and you got five or six years to do it, and so he’s like, okay, great, Mr. Sunshine, what do I do? I’m like, I don’t know, I mean, you did everything right from what I teach, so I just save more, work longer, and he did. He worked until his 70s. He only had about 10 years of retirement. A few of those years were okay, where he got to do what he wanted, but then after that, medical issues and everything else came up. He became bedridden for the rest of his life, and eventually he ran out of cash, where I was even bankrolling 13,000 a month of home health care before he passed away this last December. You know, and so it was kind of like this thing where he just had to keep, you know, stretching every dollar he could, and it was miserable. And because of that, that’s why I started to question what I was teaching, you know, because this is back in 2005 2006, I said, “Man, if it hasn’t worked for this guy, who will it work for? And about a month later, I’m talking with a friend of mine who I hired to be a financial advisor on my team. Then he quit to go do real estate investing, and he tells me he’s like, “Well, Chris, my dad and I have partnered on some real estate deals, and we’ve doubled his income as a professor at the local university. I said, “Come on, how is that possible? That’s too good to be true. “No way. He finally just says, “Well, Chris, how many of your clients are financially free, where they don’t worry about money? I said, well, they all do. Okay, Chris, good job. How about this? How many of you guys, as financial advisors, are financially free, not off the commissions earning, but actually doing the investments you’ve been recommending? And at the time, I’m thinking back, I’m like, well, there’s guys in my office that have been there since the 1970s so I’d have to say none. There’s your problem. And so, long story short, I started going down the rabbit hole, right? I started looking to like things like real estate investing, and he was more of a fix and flip type of guy, or whatever, or just flip, because 2006 you could just buy a property, sell a few months later, and make money, because you’d have to be skillful. But, anyways, I mean, I started to do different things with my money, I asked. Enough passive income that was able to retire later that next year in 2006

Brett

So, if you like this little, short clip of the interview I just did, click over here to watch the full interview, and please don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks so much, everybody.

Watch the episode here:

Important Links:

• Chris Miles
• Website

About Chris Miles

Chris Miles is the founder of Money Ripples, a cash flow expert, author, and podcast host who helps entrepreneurs and investors create greater financial freedom through passive income. Known as the “Anti-Financial Advisor,” Chris challenges conventional financial strategies and teaches people how to move beyond traditional retirement planning by focusing on cash-flow-producing assets, alternative investments, and smarter ways to put their money to work.

Through Money Ripples and the Money Ripples Podcast, Chris shares strategies designed to help people increase their cash flow, make work optional, and use their wealth to create a positive ripple effect for their families, communities, and future generations.

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