AJV (00:00): Hi everybody, welcome to the influential Personal Brand podcast, AJ Vaden here. Super excited to introduce you to a friend of mine. And here’s one of the things I want you to know about this episode before I introduce you formally to Caleb. This is one of those episodes that it just doesn’t matter who you are or what stage of life you’re in or business you are in, it pertains to you because we’re gonna be talking about money today. We’re gonna be talking about finances and financial independence and freedom, and our emotional ties to money and just different ways you should think about money and how it can be working for you versus you working for it . So this is, you know, one of those rare episodes where I would just encourage you, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, what stage you’re in, this is a universally applicable message today about money, right? AJV (00:56): So I invited my friend Caleb, onto the show to talk about money today because I think he’s got a really unique perspective, a young, fresh perspective on something that I would say most of us are looking for the gray hairs in the industry to learn about financial peace and financial wisdom. And Caleb is not that in fact, let me give you a little bit of his background. Caleb Williams is the founder of Better Wealth, and not only is he the founder of that he founded it at 21, the Age of 21, right? So, again, when I say Young, fresh Perspective, he’s not 21 today, but he started it at a really young age, and I think that’s a really important component of the conversation of how do we look at it in a new and fresh way, which is what you’re gonna get today. He’s also the author of the bestselling Bug, the And Asset. He hosts the Better Wealth Podcast and The Better Wealth YouTube channel. He also speaks to thousands around the world on how they can be more efficient with money and have more intentionality in doing it. So, Caleb, welcome to the show. CG (02:07): Hey, it is a pleasure to be on here, and I’m just so grateful to spend these next couple minutes with you and your audience, and we’re gonna have a lot of fun today. AJV (02:15): It’s gonna be great. And I have to tell you too, it’s like, as you, you know, we’re really big on titles at Brand Builders Group and Better Wealth is such a great title, right? One of the things we talk about all the time is, does it pass the I Want test and back to this importance of this universally applicable episode of, I think we all want better wealth, not always more wealth, but better wealth. And that’s it. The huge, honestly, it was one of the key foundations of why I wanted you to come on the show today is, you know, I think, I think sometimes we think about wealth and money as how do I get more of it? Yeah. And I’d love to kind of reframe some of that today for our audience, audience. But before we do that, I do wanna help everyone get to know you just a little bit. And as I mentioned you got into the financial world at a really young age, then you founded Better Wealth at 21. Yep. How, how, how did you do that? CG (03:13): I’ll, I’ll, I’ll make this quick, I’ll make this quick, but I, I think context is key. So I’m the oldest of six kids, grew up in central Wisconsin. My dad’s a PhD molecular biologist. My mom was a nurse. Talk about opposites of attract. My dad has no friends, very smart. My mom loves people. I, and she’s also smart, but in her own way. And I grew up homeschooled and, and, you know, grew up dyslexic and like, wasn’t sure what I was gonna do, but I was always fascinated around business and money. I got a job at a, at a chicken farm when I’m 15 years old, I apologize to all the vegans. So if you’re a vegan and you get offended, get off right now. But I, I literally gutted chickens. Oh my. And I made a dollar for every chicken that I processed. CG (03:56): And 15-year-old Caleb was given two books, good To Great by Jim Collins and The Richest Man in Babylon. Hmm. And those two books, especially being someone that reading was really tough. I forced myself to be a student of those concepts. One of the books is about level, level five leadership and like this idea of like, rallying people. And if you get the right people on the bus, you’ll be able to go to new heights. And at 15 years old, I’m like, I love this. And then the Richest Man in Babylon is like a parables of how anyone can be wealthy. And just going back to the basics of you gotta pay yourself first and all that good stuff. And so I remember, you know, being 15 years old and being like, I wanna do something in the money space, which led me to get a job at a bank when I was 17 years old. CG (04:37): Now, one thing you gotta know about me is I look young today, but if you’re not watching on YouTube, like I have kind of what you could maybe call a beard. But you know, when I was 17 years old, I’m the oldest of six kids. My younger sister was taller than me and looked way older than me. And, and again, like I looked like I was 12 or 13. So working at, at a bank was, had its own challenges to begin with. But what I did and what I committed to, and maybe as the first writer downer, is like I wanted to defer on money and learn as much as possible. And working at a community bank I became an HR nightmare because I would sit in on meetings, they gave the 17-year-old the, the ability to open the bank and close the bank. CG (05:15): ‘Cause I would, after clocking out, I would just stick around and work and go to networking events. I would talk to the CEO of the bank about how we could be more profitable. And so I was definitely, I took that opportunity and ran with it and learned a ton about money. At the age of 18, I got to work in our investment department. And then at 19 years old, the person I was running our inve investment department at Community First Bank took, took another job. At 19 years old, I became the youngest person to step into the corner office and to many people’s horror helped them with their money. And the, the CEO, who’s like a second father to me, said something very cliche, but it’s very true. He said, Caleb, people don’t care how much you know until they, they know how much you care. CG (05:58): And people, for better or worse, saw me grow up at this bank. And they knew that maybe I wasn’t the smartest kid, but I would work my butt off to serve them. And so there’s a lot more to unpack. Stephen Covey, I’ve been indirectly impacted by him so much, made a mission statement, which simply read to help people see and reach their highest potential. I realize that money is not the number one reason why people get divorced. It’s up there though. But it is, it is the thing that if you don’t master, if you don’t understand it is, it’s a tool. And most people are using the tool not properly, and they’re living to a fraction of what their God-given potential is. And I think that’s a shame. And so it was like, I wanna do everything that I can to help people with that. CG (06:39): And so through that journey, learned from a ton of people. A big blessing in disguise was I didn’t have a direct mentor. So I didn’t learn like, maybe like an average way to think about money. I really got to stretch and be stretched. And through that process, I realized that I’m gonna die someday. as dramatic as that sounds. But I’m like, I really need, I need to share these principles with the world. And working at the bank did not allow me to go national with what I wanted to share. And so I started Better Wealth Solutions ’cause we could not afford Better wealth.com and no one can spell solutions, by the way, FYI. And so that we started that, I was in a basement of a Papa John’s building. Our first office lease was 250 bucks. I had this thesis that the internet could be used as a way to educate and teach people. CG (07:22): And people thought I was crazy. It’s like, you look like you’re 15 years old who’s gonna meet with you on the internet. And ignorance is bliss. And now we are, we’re, we have clients in all 50 states, and we have coaches in every time zone. We, we do insurance, we do invest, we have an investment arm, we do tax planning, and we have a fractional family office arm that helps six and seven figure entrepreneurs be more efficient with their money. And that’s the story in a nutshell. And there’s a lot of lessons that we’ve learned. We can talk about anything that you want, but there’s a lot of lessons. I currently now live in Nashville, Tennessee, and so grateful to be neighbors with you. AJV (07:55): You know, I love that story for so many different reasons, but what I love it most is it just feels like you found your calling in life at a really exceptionally young age, which gives you such an amazing opportunity to make a profound impact on the space that you’ve decided to be in. That’s, that, that’s like such a, that’s such a gift, right? Yeah. And I also love that you’ve done some really hard sucky jobs. Like, I don’t know, gutting chickens for a dollar chicken might be the worst job of all time. It might, it might be. I CG (08:34): Loved it. That’s the weird thing. I loved it. And I would go back to it tomorrow if I had to because it, I have so many memories, and actually some of the ways I think about money are going back to those jobs of like trying to be efficient. Yeah. And realizing that some of those universal principles are, are how we use money. But I, I’m with you. I’m, I’m, I’m not complaining about doing what I’m doing now, . AJV (08:57): But, but I love, I, I think, and genuinely speaking, I’m a mom of two little boys who are five and seven, and we’re constantly talking about like, how do we ensure that our kids know the value of hard work? And, and I think it’s just so important. So I love that you kind of have that background and history. And then also just like the importance of reading and books and learning and all of the things. There’s so many things I love about your story, but one of the things that you said in there, and this is where I wanna start our conversation today, is you said money is a tool and most people just aren’t using a properly. So I would love to start there, like, what do you mean by money as a tool and how are people using it improperly? CG (09:42): Yep. We’re gonna, we’re gonna start with two words. I’m a big framework person and it’s wealth efficiency. And so when I, when I get the opportunity to speak to people, a lot of, a lot of times, you know, having a company called Better Wealth, a lot of people have mental thoughts on what wealth is. Usually when I say wealth you think of net worth being rich, having money in the bank account. And one of the, one of the different reframes that I try to encourage is asking the audience, how do you define wealth? Because if you, if your definition of wealth is foggy or not clear, then how in the world are we supposed to accomplish something that we’re not really clear on? And so the, the story that I used and I ask is, would you trade places with Warren Buffet? Warren Buffet at the time of this recording is worth over a hundred billion dollars. CG (10:27): And he’s one of the world’s wealthiest on paper, if we’re gonna use that definition. Men. And yet majority of the people watching and listening to this podcast, do you really think about it, wouldn’t even think about trading places with Warren Buffett because he’s also over 90 years old and not gonna live that much longer. And so there are things in our life that we value potentially more than money in a bank account. And so on a macro level, we get it on a micro level, if you actually believe that you’re disrespecting or, or not being true to that definition of wealth. And so our definition of wealth at Better Wealth is intentional living. You, you cannot be wealthy if you’re not intentional about your life. And the way that I think of Intentional Living is a couple categories. It’s your God-given skill sets. It’s how you use your time, it’s your relationships and how you use your resources. CG (11:17): There’s obviously more to that, but at the end of the day, those are like the four categories that we look at. And we, and we really try to identify like, what does an intentional life look like? And, and that’s where we start. And so you can’t be wealthy if you don’t live intentionally. The beautiful thing is it, an intentional living looks different for me than it looks like for you, but my encouragement to you is, is get really clear about like what what brings you a lot of joy in what you get to do. Like, you’re totally right. I have found something that I love. I don’t love all the aspects of my job, but I love the mission that we’re on and that I, I wake up excited and I want that for everybody. And so that, and then the, the, the relationships that you have and how you use your resources and how you use your time, super key. CG (12:01): So wealth is really key and, and we wanna make sure that we wanna lean into that intentional life. The second word is efficiency. It’s interesting because efficiency sometimes gets a bad rap. Even your husband who has a, a TED talk, that with five million views uses efficiency. And a lot of times people, sometimes the efficient thing is not what you should do because we are maybe not, not figuring out the right end goal. But the way that I define efficiency is, is something like this. It’s getting to your desired result by removing all the friction. And so to be efficient, you need to get really clear about that desired result. I would agree that if without the desired result, just removing friction to remove friction is, is not gonna help anyone. And that’s what a lot of people look at when it comes to money. CG (12:45): You should do this, you should do that. But it’s like, why? And so when we are trying to be efficient, we have to get clear about what we’re going or what our desired result is, and then removing any of the friction that’s getting in the way of that. And so what is the desired result? It’s that tangible, intentional life. And so the example is, I, I live in Nashville, but if I wanna get to California, I’m really clear about where I want to go. I could walk there and it would take me like a long time , I could drive there and it would take me probably a week, or I could fly there and be there in four hours. And so if I’m clear about my destination, actually flying is not just fast the fastest, but it’s actually the cheapest, which is unbelievable. And that’s how I think of our, our money as a tool is if I’m get, if I get really clear about where I wanna go, then I just reverse engineer all the aspects of my financial life and say, what are the areas that are creating more friction to live that? CG (13:38): And let’s eliminate that because the intentional life becomes the standard, becomes the metric that I reverse engineer everything by. And I think that is the first thing that I wanna encourage every, everyone to, to have the freedom to do is don’t let a financial advisor, don’t let me, don’t let someone on TV tell you the most important thing. Get really clear about what that looks like for you. Retirement is not biblical. It’s actually, it’s the definition of retirement is to be taken out of service. I don’t know why retirement’s even a goal for any, I don’t think any of your audience wants to be inspired to like retire someday. And so let’s get that out of our vocabulary. Let’s figure out what we want, like what that God-given calling is for our life. And then let, let’s that be the thing that we’re reverse engineer everything else by, and we can get into some of the other frameworks, but like that is a key deal, is like intentional living and then removing friction so that we can live intentional and making sure that that intentional standard is a thing that trumps cash flow, net worth good debt versus bad debt. CG (14:36): All of those are many frameworks, but should elevate your ability to live your one life. Well, AJV (14:42): Okay, well first of all, that is the most impactful conversation around the concept of wealth efficiency and absolutely not without what I thought you were gonna say at all . And I, and I love that so much. And just to recap it for everyone, ’cause I’m taking notes from myself over here. Well, it’s just intentional living, right? You get to define what that is with intentional living. And then efficiency is getting to your desired, desired result by removing the friction. And I think that’s really, really a great definition of efficiency because no matter, even if we’re not talking about money, right? Anything, it’s just like, man, there’s a rub, there’s friction. It’s like it’s taking longer, it’s harder. It’s like, well, let’s figure out what those things are and then how do we, how do we eliminate that to get us to what we want faster? AJV (15:31): So I love that. I love that. I also loved your side comment on retirement. I don’t know if I talk a lot about this on the show, but I know I talk a lot about it in my Instagram stories. But we don’t believe in retirement in our house. Like people say all the time, like, Hey, what’s, what’s the end goal with Brand Builders Group? And I’m like, I don’t know. We don’t have one. Like we don’t, we there is, there’s not some event that we’re working towards. We’re not planning on selling it or we don’t wanna retire. And it’s like until, until the Lord takes me home or my business is my ministry. CG (16:05): That’s right. AJV (16:06): And I think I, so I love just that, that whole concept of like, okay, first of all, retirement is not the end goal. Yeah. So let’s, let’s reframe that and now let’s start from there. So I love that. So I love that. So I’m curious to hear from you then it’s like it with this concept of wealth efficiency, right? Defining wealth, defining efficiency what is it that you see that is causing friction? Like what are the things that are causing people to not use money properly? Or where is the friction in this wealth concept? CG (16:41): Love it. And I’m gonna go through the next framework, which is the, the wealth framework. And stop me at any time. ’cause As you can see, I get really excited about this, but, okay, so now if we understand wealth efficiency, okay, now, now let’s get into like what that actually means. I, I have a problem with people that just stay in the clouds and don’t actually get tactical. And so this is, this is the way from a dyslexic mind, how you can understand this. And hopefully you can draw a picture in your mind as I speak. And so when I am speaking with someone on a whiteboard, I’m drawing a, a, an individual of a stick, a stick figure. And this stick figure represents you. And so we’ve already identified that it’s clear that you should get clear about what you want. If you don’t know where you wanna go, it’s like the Alice in Wonderland at the fork in the road. CG (17:26): Any road will get you there. Welcome to America. And, and if you’re Canadian, welcome to Canada . Okay? So it’s like, that’s where most people are at. Get really clear about that. And so, so then when we look at, okay, what’s the next step? It’s, it’s this idea of creation. It’s interesting. There’s, there’s things out there, you know, assets, liabilities, and like what’s your definition of an asset definition of an asset of some something, of value, something that creates cash flow. Robert Kiyosaki is, is known for being the author of Rich, rich Dad, poor Dad. And he talks about an asset is something that puts money back in your pocket. I can’t think of a better asset than you the individual listening or watching this video. Like the, it is so, it’s so clear to me, AJ, that so many people disrespect their number one asset. CG (18:10): And in fact, your number one asset, which is your ability to create, doesn’t even show up on a traditional balance sheet. That’s how messed up that is. And so once you get clear about what, what you want, the next, the next conversation that I’m always looking for is how are you creating this thing called currency or cash? We’ll talk about that in a second. But a lot of times we divorce ourself from like cash from value. And, and you, you can really only create two fundamental things, a service or a product. Those are, and if there’s a third, please, please let me know. But someone can fundamentally create a service or a product. And just because you exist doesn’t make that service or product more or less valuable. We, we, we all know people that do the same thing on paper, but one gets paid a lot more. CG (18:55): An iPhone and an Android are not the same, right? So there maybe someone could charge more for one of those products. And so the idea is to get hyper-focused on am I creating the most value and really focusing on that. And what I find is a lot of people ask me, like, Caleb, what should I invest in? Should I do this Roth and other things? And I look at their financial situation, I say you should invest in nothing until you triple your income because you’re, if you wanna look at me with a straight face and say that what you’re making is, is optimized for your, for your situation. And a lot of times that’s, that’s just giving them the permission to quote unquote invest in themselves. But I can’t think of a better investment early on than making sure that you’re, you’re maximizing, this goes to our business owners. CG (19:38): If you’re, if you’re in business and you’re not reaching the heights that you know deep down that you can, it may, you may not want to tie up your money in other things until you’re really making sure that your printing machine is able to print out money. I’ll stop there. But then I, I wanna share what you do when you get money, but I find that so many people skip that step. They go, they wanna know where they should invest their money. Should I pay off debt? And all these things, we’ll, we’ll get to in a second, but I’m telling you, majority of the people listening to this probably need to hit pause and figure out ways that they can be more valuable, create more valuable services, or more valuable products to the marketplace. And cash flow or currency will reward value creation. AJV (20:18): You know, I love that you said this because we literally had this conversation a couple years ago and it was like, you know, we started Brain Builders Group, what, six years ago? And it was a couple of years ago, and we were, you know, deciding how we wanted to grow it and did we wanna grow it, and what, what, what did we wanna do with the money? And we were actually sitting down with our financial advisor, and this was like, again, like three years ago. And this was the conversation. And at that time, this was rates were still pretty good in a couple of different places and you know, better than they were in the last 12 months. And it was such a fascinating conversation. We were sitting here, we were listening and also doing math in our head mental math, and then we pulled out a calculator and we were looking at each other and we were like, literally the, and if you just think about this in really tactical forms, it’s like the rate of returns on any of the investments that we were talking about were half of our own profit margin. CG (21:17): Yeah. AJV (21:17): And we were just thinking, why would we put all of our money into these funds that are getting half of the return that we would be getting if we just reinvested into ourselves and reinvested into our people and reinvested into our business? Because our profit margins were double what any of the rate of return turns were even at that time period. And I think it’s a fascinating concept to what you’re saying. It’s like, like how often are financial advisors actually saying, well, hey, let’s talk about your profit margins. Let’s talk about how, how good you are doing versus where should we put your, your money in terms of funds or, you know, the market or whatever. But it was, it is literally what you were just saying. And it’s like, Roy and I recapped after the meeting and we were like, yeah, actually I think that BBG is the best investment that we can invest into right now. So we’re gonna, and it’s almost exactly this conversation you’re having, but realizing you are your number one asset. You are your best investment, and at least you can have some influence and control over what you do versus anything else that’s happening. CG (22:23): I I, I even, I’m, I’m writing, I’m writing a lot right now. I’m forcing myself to write some of these concepts down. And I was doing the math around just someone getting a $5,000 raise versus like investing and like breaking down the math and showing, okay, 8% compounded over a period of time, like, awesome. And then just like what a $5,000 raise would look like. And just showing them on paper of like, even if you’re not an entrepreneur watching or listening to this, like just by figuring out a way to make yourself more valuable to the marketplace, which is your employer is just something that I believe every single person going into college, going outta college, we gotta understand how this works. And I think it’s one of the things that we don’t talk enough about, but if, if, if people can be, if people can really maximize and optimize that space in their life, everything gets easier as, you know, making more money, just life gets a lot easier. It, it also covers up for a lot of mistakes that we make on the back end, and we can afford to make, quote, unquote, more mistakes. I say that tongue in cheek because we’ve really are are em, we’re creating emphasis on creating more cash and the person that’s creating more cash in the long run has just more options. And so that’s so yeah, I think you said it perfectly. AJV (23:36): No, I love that. And I think that’s a really important just reminder to all of us. It’s like, before you start investing elsewhere, just take a really good hard look at where are you investing in yourself? How are you helping yourself become more valuable? Because that’s, that’s the number one place to start. Awesome. That, that whole concept, I love that. That’s so good. Okay. CG (23:57): All right. You’re gonna love this next piece. ’cause I, I think what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna simplify this so dang easy where people will be able to get, ’cause a lot of financial, the financial side gets really complicated and they almost, people wanna make it complicated so that you trust advisors, you know, like I, and to be, to be frank, we help people too. So it’s like I’m sharing with you all of all the best stuff you can do it yourself. And then obviously you could work with people like me or a bunch of other great advisors out there, but just don’t let, don’t let anyone ever dictate what you should do if your gut is saying something different and make sure that you’re maximizing what you should do. So anyways, once you make money, your, your dollar can only be capable of doing two things. CG (24:37): Okay? Hear me out here. It can either be consumed or it can be saved, can be consumed. So I, I already know the Christians that are listening to this. Well, what about tithing? And I’ll, I’ll get to that. Okay. When you make money, there’s only two categories that can go consumption, which I’ll, I’ll talk about lifestyle. Think of lifestyle or saving, which is a verb to hopefully invest and multiply. Okay, we’re gonna talk about consumption first. When I make money, my dollar’s only capable of doing one of two things. Lifestyle or saving. Let’s talk about lifestyle. Lifestyle could look like taxes. Well, Caleb, I don’t like, taxes doesn’t affect my lifestyle. Well, if you don’t pay your taxes, you’re going jail. So taxes is a cost of living your life. It’s just the cost of living your life. Jail free paying debt is a, is a form. CG (25:27): Your, your debt service, your, that’s part of lifestyle. Your coffees, your intentional decisions that you make, intentional or unintentional. That’s the cost of living your life. And so really the three categories are spending debt and taxes are like the three categories we could get. We could get a bunch more nuance, but at the end of the day, the hacks here are track your money. It’s amazing when you start being intentional about like, why am I spending money and just like tracking it and then start asking the question like, am I actually spending the money on like what I care about? And what a lot of times we’ll find is we’re spending money to impress people for maybe some trauma re like, as a kid, like we can get really deep here, but a lot of times we’re spending money on things that aren’t actually helping us live more intentionally, but doing it for other reasons. CG (26:21): And so when we track that money, we just start having just better conversations. One of the best things that we do for clients is just help them track their money, because most people won’t do it. But if you’re, like, if you get a spending report every single month it could be painful, but it’s, it’s hard to hide when you start categorizing where your money’s going. Second thing is taxes. Nine outta 10 business owners are overpaying on their taxes. And I don’t know about you, but I want to legally pay as little tax as possible. I’m all about paying the government, but I’m all about paying the government as little as possible. And so without getting super in depth, there’s, there’s, you know, deductions, credits, things like depreciation, different tax strategies that you can go down. For any of your audience that reaches out to me, I can, we have a one page tax checklist with five categories. And within those categories, there’s a bunch of areas like in deductions and credits that you can take to your CPA and make sure that you have this checklist to see if there’s areas that you can save more money. That alone AJ is fun because on average a business owner is able to save 20 to $30,000 with that checklist just by taking it to their CPA and, and maybe asking certain questions or doing certain things that help you pay less in taxes. So that’s fun. Let’s pause right there. The AJV (27:39): Last, I wanna make sure that people hear this right, there is a one page checklist that Caleb is happy to give to you. And so if you wanna get that, then Caleb tell them where they should DM you. CG (27:52): You can, you can email me at [email protected] or go on to my Instagram at Caleb Williams and the, just trust the last name. Hopefully it’ll be in the title of this, of this podcast. I’ll put it on the, and if, yeah, it’ll be in the show notes. And so just if you reach out, I’d be more than happy to give you that. And we have a wealth efficiency packet, which is every framework that I’m talking about, whether it’s debt and other investments, like all these, I’ll give you the whole packet just to help you be more efficient, remove friction to get to your desired result. So yeah, we AJV (28:24): Did kind of recap that, right? Taxes, we, we all believe pay your fair share and not 1 cent more. So That’s right. How do you tighten that up? CG (28:33): Yeah, I, the, I I should go on a rampage here, but one of my good friends, Tom Wheelwright, who’s the CPA for Robert Kiyosaki, wrote the book Tax Free Wealth. He has a, a perfect analogy of this. He’s like the tax code, which is thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of pages long. It’s like two or three pages of like what you owe. And then the rest is like a treasure map of finding incentives on how to not pay that. And so it’s just, it’s one of those things where you, you wanna start becoming treasure hunters and figuring out, Hey, how can I partner with the government essentially and create more value for the government? And oh, by the way, if I create more value for the government, they’ll, I’ll pay less. And so it’s just really, really cool and incentives work. CG (29:13): So, and then the, then the last thing when it comes to consumption is looking at debt. I have a, I have a non Dave Ramsey approach to debt. But I, I think about it this way is, I think when we’re, when we’re talking about debt, we really need to separate it debt and what you’re doing. A lot of times people marry those things together, but debt is just a tool in itself, and a lot of times it, it can be an enabler to make you make bad decisions. So I just wanna acknowledge that if I was talking to someone that was really pro Dave Ramsey, I agree personally debt can enable bad decisions. But when I’m looking at just for my personal life, I’m, I’m asking two questions. Should you buy these things? And then if I answer yes, then the next question is, what’s the best way to purchase those things? CG (29:58): And so for me, I look at cash flow and I just go to, if I’m already gonna determine to buy this home or this car, I don’t ever want debt to be an enabler. I don’t wanna buy this car because I can get it with debt. I wanna make the decision. And that that’s a, maybe a different podcast in itself because it’s like, how can you know what to afford? But once you make that decision, then I go back to what’s the best way to purchase that thing? And you can either use debt or use cash. And by the way, cash on the, on the top of your dollar bills says federal reserve note. So if you really wanna go down the rabbit hole, like cash itself is a form of debt because once we went off the gold current standard, every, all the, the, the dollar bills are just a form of debt. CG (30:42): So I get less emotional about whether I’m using a mortgage or not. And, and I just look at from a cashflow perspective, what gives me more control, what allows me to have greater cashflow that I can save and what limits risk? And in a lot of cases actually a 30 year mortgage and debt can, can actually be that thing that checks a box for a lot of people. Again, I I maybe I’m, hopefully I’m not confusing people more in saying that. I just wanna give you permission when you look at the lens through efficiency versus being debt free or not, it just allows us to be like, okay, what gives us more control? What allows us to be more efficient? Sometimes debt is that tool that we use on the saving side and the consumption side, but sometimes you can have toxic debt that’s just killing you, and you need to eliminate that, and that will free up a ton of cash flow in itself. So cashflow is what we really optimize for, or not, not something arbitrary like being debt free or not. AJV (31:38): Yeah, I know. I love that. And I think that’s, again, it’s using debt with guardrails, right? Yeah. And it’s like, CG (31:44): It’s using it as a tool. AJV (31:45): Yeah. It’s like making sure it’s a tool and you’re not flying off the cliff, right? And I think that’s true, you know, sometimes with cash too, it’s like, you know, it’s like, you know, sometimes if you’re just all cash, right? If everyone, if you know, it’s like we were all just hiding a bunch of cash and, you know, boxes under our beds. It’s like, is that really the best utilization of that? Right? So you can kind of go both ways, but I love that. So these consumption things, taxes, debt spending. What about saving? CG (32:12): All right, so, so, okay, so your dollar can only do one of one of two things. It can either be consumed and part of consumption is tithing, by the way, because that is the choice that you’re living your life. So if I decide I’m going to ti 10% in a way, I am voluntarily choosing a 10% tax as a part of my rich life, that’s just like, just something I want to be upfront with. But that’s a, that’s a lifestyle decision. Okay? So, so the beautiful thing is if you, if you make money and I figure out, I only need to know one thing, I either need to know how much you save or how much you spend, and I can determine, I can essentially model out your entire financial life. So if you make a hundred thousand dollars a year and you save 10,000, what are, what’s your lifestyle? CG (32:56): $90,000. We don’t have to do a whole budget to figure that out. It’s really quick. So that’s what, that’s a a life hack because part of that we can model out and say, okay, $90,000 today, this thing called inflation. Like what, in 30 years, what do you need to be having coming in to just maintain your current lifestyle? So that’s, that’s something that’s valuable. And understanding that your money’s only capable of doing two things, but okay, if we want to save money, going back to the richest man in Babylon, pay yourself first. Pay yourself first. There’s, there’s something really, really incredible about forcing yourself to, to save money. Saving is a verb. And so a lot of times a huge focus of ours is helping people be more efficient and then taking those inefficiencies from lifestyle and transferring them into savings category because majority of people are saving a fraction of what they need to. CG (33:45): But saving is, is a verb. And then what are we saving for? And, and we’re saving for investing and investing is a, is a multiplier effect. And one of the things that we, we try to determine is a lot of times people say like, what should I invest in? Should I invest in real estate? Should I invest in stock? Should I invest in myself? Should I invest in the stock market? And it, and there’s no right or wrong to this I wish I could tell you, like, do this thing, but it really comes down to everyone’s individual, you know, goals. And some people come to us and they, they realize like, I need to reinvest in my business. And so they, they’re in business, like for your example is like, that is helping me live more intentionally and oh, by the way, is gonna outperform any real estate or stock portfolio that I’m doing. CG (34:33): We have clients that are day traders, they really understand the stock market. Amazing. We have people that love real estate. Amazing. So it’s really identifying going deeper and saying, okay, what is this asset? It not only is gonna help me be more intentional, but it’s gonna create more cash flow. What’s the best way to be able to do that? And I’m not a fan of retirement, but I do think we need to be planning towards areas where our, our assets, whether it’s our business, whether it’s our stock portfolio, real estate portfolio, is creating enough cash that gives us the ability to do really whatever we want. Some people call this financial independence, some people call this financial freedom. But it, it’s just this idea of like, I have a system set up where I am able to live on my terms and to be able to make choices the way that I wanna make them, and I don’t necessarily have to go to work. CG (35:24): So that would look like in a business, having an operator do your thing. Or that could, and, but that’s ultimately you making the choice to continue to live intentionally, which a lot of our friends, aj, continue to work because work, they don’t work for money. They literally, literally are working because that’s what their God-given purposes for. And so all that to say, the saving is a verb to invest what you invest in. You can go through a process called investor DNA, which is something that I didn’t necessarily come up with, but it’s the idea of like, we’re all built a little different. And so instead of saying, is this good or bad, look at you and figure out where should I be spending my time and money? And then that will start highlighting where you should focus on. And then the last thing in this whole framework is risk, a risk management umbrella. CG (36:09): We could have, we could be crushing it, making money. We could be being super efficient in how we spend our money. We could be saving a ton, but if something medically happens or if something like a hurricane or a tornado comes and, and wipes out our business or on our, or our home and we don’t have it properly insured or having special risk management, like everything could be wiped out. And so as unsexy as it sounds like, you really do need to make sure that you are creating a, a moat and an umbrella around the life that you’re, that you’re living. And, and again, I don’t necessarily need to go into any more than that other than the checklist. I can give you a checklist to make sure that whenever you’re meeting with someone to help you, you, you can go through and make sure that you have all the risk management areas in your life checked. And, and then we’re, we’re cooking with gas. When you’re, when you understand that you’re your greatest asset, you really get clear about how you create money. Understand, once you create money, your dollars are only capable of doing two things. We can focus on optimizing or we can focus on multiplying. And then at the end of the day make sure that you’re creating a, a, a moat, a fence on umbrella around what you’re doing. So to, so that not one disaster can wipe it all out. AJV (37:25): This is so good, and I’m taking so many notes, I’m curious to hear from you, like, do you have a a and even if it’s not like, Hey, this is what Better Wealth recommends, but as a, as a personal, just curious, do you kind of have like a set aside amount of like, Hey, when I talk about paying myself first and we’ll call it sales, and that could be, you know, investments and risk, like risk mitigation and all of that, but is there a kind of like, Hey, this is what I’m gonna si set aside of every dollar that I make? CG (37:56): Yep. I, so, so any AJV (38:00): Personal recommendations? CG (38:01): Yeah. Okay. So the answer is you can actually, you, I could actually tell your audience exactly what they should be setting aside if I got, if I figured out how much money they’re making, how much money they’re spending, and then we could model out their situation. And not to depress anybody, but most people, 95% of people that model that are there, it doesn’t work. And so that it, it makes them realize like, oh, I either need to save more or spend less. So that’s just something that like, we can scientifically show what that in doing, hundreds and thousands of those models shows around 20 to 30%. That might sound extreme. Oh yeah. I, I I’m telling you, I’m not necessarily your biggest fan by saying like, you should save 20 to 30%, but I’m telling you, majority of people need to save 20 to 30% if they want to maintain their lifestyle. CG (38:55): And so a lot of times you, you can’t just strive harder. A lot of times people try to like, I need to just try harder. And that doesn’t work in most cases. And you, you, that’s where, again, not to, to pitch our business, but that’s where working with somebody that can be unemotional about your situation and help you free up cash and then also help you create a, a roadmap to say, okay, what does the next five to 10 years look like? And as we’re starting to make more money, let’s not spend dollar for dollar of what we make. Like, shocker. But there’s like anyone that’s listening or watching, and you are a value creator, there’s so much hope for you. You just wanna make sure that you could be your greatest asset, but you could also be your greatest liability. Most of the time it goes hand in hand. And so if you can get out of your own way 20, 20 to 30%, it should be the target. And it’s very doable if if you can get some of those pieces all working together. AJV (39:45): Yeah, and it’s interesting if you just sit here and do some, you know, personal calculations it’s like, let’s just say it’s like, yeah, the target is like, you really do need to be setting aside 30% of every dollar that comes in. And let’s just hypothetically say that tithing is something that you commit to. And even if you know, you’re not, you know, you know, doing that to the church, but maybe it’s like, Hey, I wanna give it to charitable causes or, you know, things I believe in, let’s just call it 30% savings, 10% tithing or charitable givings. Right? That’s 40% right there. And then assuming you are making over a hundred thousand, regardless if you’re an entrepreneur or in an, an employee job where you’ve got a salary, right? Let’s just call it’s a good healthy amount would be 30% in taxes. That means you’ve got to live on 30% of what you have coming in the door just there. CG (40:38): And yeah, it’s a, it’s, yeah, it’s a good, it’s a good framework to start at. And I, I don’t want that to be depressing for people to hear. And 30%, while it could be the target doesn’t mean you have to do that overnight, right? But it, it ideally for the people that are financially free, they are saving and investing in their unique ability. And, and it’s one of those things where they’re able to crush and it’s usually people that are able to save at least more than 20% of what they make are the people that can get on that road. And we’ve just seen a lot of success in that. AJV (41:14): Yeah. And I think that’s good. And it’s like as, and I don’t think it’s depressing as much as it should be a reflection moment of I wonder what I’m actually doing. Right? If you’re not sitting there thinking, huh, I wonder if I’m spending more than 30%. And I would assume that most people that you work with Yeah. Are spending more than 30% of the money that comes in. Yeah. Fair. CG (41:45): Yeah. And, and just so you know, like that would just be a friction area. You don’t need to remove all the friction overnight. But the beautiful thing is if most people that come to us have friction all over the place, and what we try to do is, like, for example, taxes is a good example. If you’re overpaying on taxes and we free up some of that money, you’re already used to that lifestyle of paying the government. Why can’t we just pay you the difference? So it’s those kind of things that are like I, I don’t wanna make sound saving 30% sound easy. It’s not, but it’s not as painful as it might sound because you might be way over efficient. And this is where I’ll give Dave Ramsey his flowers. A lot of people are enabling themselves with that to buy things that they shouldn’t buy. CG (42:27): And sometimes the conversation needs to be, I should not be driving a hundred thousand dollars car, or I should not be living in this type of house. And oh, by the way, debt was an enabler. And that’s where, in a way, I 100% agree with what Dave Ramsey and the Ramsey court company teaches. Because majority of people, if you look at statistics, are over consuming. And that is made possible because of credit cards, because of debt. And so it’s not a cut and dry, black and white, but a lot of times we just need to wake up and say, especially if you’re listening to this or watching this and have something that God’s put on your heart to like go out and do and you have a mission that’s bigger than yourself. You, you have to realize that you could be the greatest liability to get that gets in your way. And that liability could be your lifestyle. So I don’t wanna sound like rice and beans, but sometimes math will just tell us like, what you’re doing is not gonna compound. Well, yeah. AJV (43:22): But I think that’s wise, and I think like for so many things in life, awareness is the first step, right? Awareness is the first step. Now I do have, I have a another quick personal question for you kind of on this, you know, concept of saving investing. Now this is this does not have to be formal, but since so many people are talking about it, I am curious to hear what’s your take on cryptocurrency, bitcoin? What’s your stance on that? CG (43:54): I, I ha have 5% of my investment portfolio, majority of my portfolios in, in our businesses and other businesses that I’m acquiring. I think crypto is not something that I am going like head over heels for, but I think there’s interesting, there’s, there’s interesting arguments to be made about it. And I, I think of it as a hedge to the American dollar and the hedge to maybe, maybe the stock market. I say that it’s a lot more volatile, but there’s some pe sometimes I talk to people that are like, the American dollar’s going away and we’re going all crypto. And, and, and my caution is this is how I, I think through things, if we did something like that, there’s gonna be a t it’s talk about a major shakeup. And so the thing that I always do is like, okay, if that happens, if over 90% of people in the population are gonna be like on their heels, there’s a really good chance that, like, I don’t ever wanna make like a decision based on fear. CG (44:59): And I find that a lot of people are going to crypto because of a fomo, like a fear of missing out. And I would not do that. But I do believe that that technology of blockchain is going to be something that is gonna continue to be more valuable. And so I’m giving you like a very political answer. I am keeping my eyes on it, but I’m not, I have less than 5% of my portfolio in it. And I would heavily caution you not to go all in on any one thing maybe other than your value yourself, making yourself more valuable. But I’ve, I’ve seen a lot of people lose a ton of money on, on crypto, and they’re, they’re, it’s really greed that clouded their judgment. AJV (45:42): No, I think that the good wise discerning statement around crypto, and I ask because I do think that, you know, in, as we have, you know, kind of just come out of an election season, there’s lots of talks of, you know the economy and market and the value of the dollar and exchange of presidents, which will be coming next year. So I think it’s always good to have some, you know, , non-biased opinions coming in. And I think that’s really, and I think that’s good. It’s like, yeah. Are there some interesting conversations around it? Sure. Do you think you should go all in? Probably not. Probably same as you wouldn’t go all in on lots of different things. Yeah. But is it worth researching? And that’s, I think that’s the stance that Rory and I have made is that previously we have always said we cannot invest into something that we do not understand. AJV (46:33): And so we’ve spent me personally a lot of time reading and listening, trying to understand the foundation of it, where it came from, how it was created, the future of it, the trends of it, the history of it. And you know what, that’s a commitment, right? That’s a learning commitment. And that, that’s our personal stance is I cannot give my money to something that I do not have my head wrapped around. And so we took a, a long sweet time to go, okay, now we have a little bit more of a better understanding, so we feel more comfortable doing it. But I will tell you, like back to investing in yourself, it’s like that was like, that was like, I was like, I gotta invest in myself and my own awareness and my own knowledge of what I’m investing in before I give my money to it. That’s CG (47:20): Right. That’s right. And yeah, and, and you also mentioned it’s like there gets, you get to a place where your dollar reinvesting in your business is not the right answer. And profit margin is what you look at. And so at the end of the day, there, there will get to a point where you’re crushing it in business and you don’t necessarily, you might not even need more money to make more like, so you’re getting to a place where your business is mature and then there’s so much wisdom in diversifying and, but you just wanna make sure that di you’re not diversifying your ability to make an impact and, and make money. And a lot of people AJ, are doing investing too early. Yeah. Like they, if you’re, if you’re asking me like, where you should put $5,000 a year, you’re probably investing too early. Mm. CG (48:04): Like, you’re probably need to go back to the drawing board and say, how, how can I have $50,000 a year to invest? And again, I say that outta love, but like that is the number one hack if I could give you anything, is like majority of people are, have the ability to create so much more value than what, what they’re showing up on paper right now. And so look as yourself as that asset and figure out ways that you can generate more value and like literally everything else, your ability to give, your ability to live your dream life, your ability to save 30% or more, all will get a lot easier when you, when you are optimizing and maximizing your ability to show up. AJV (48:41): That’s so good. And there’s so much wisdom in this conversation. And there’s honestly, there’s just so many like good reminders of not even just some of the, the more tactical frameworks and understanding of money, but also just how we view money in comparison to ourselves and why we’re spending money. Are you tracking money? Do we even know, right? And I think those are some of the things that, you know, as we approach kind of the end of year when this podcast is being released and as many of us are, you know, emotionally and mentally preparing for a new year it’s just a such a great time to have these conversations of going whatever you’ve done, you don’t have to do moving forward. Right? You can make a change at any, any time to reevaluate how you look at money, how you spend money, how you save money, how you invest money. AJV (49:30): And this is just kind of like a kickstart conversation that I would encourage everyone to lean into. And I would also encourage you to take him up, take Caleb up on getting those checklists. Like, if you’re like, I have no idea, well, great. That’s why we have interviews like this. This is why you come to podcasts like this. So take him up on grabbing those checklists, DM him, send him an email, both of which I will put in the show notes and make some, you know, minor changes to change the way that, you know, you’re reacting and you know, your relationship to money as we approach the new year. Caleb, such a great interview. So much wisdom. So many good golden nuggets. Love this so much. One last quick question for you, and then I will let you go. For everyone who is listening, if there was one thing that you would say, out of all the research, all the books, all the time, time in the bank, time, working with people, time in my own, you know, finances, if there was one thing, if you could look over, look back over everything that you’ve learned, what would you say is the number one most significant thing that you have learned about money? CG (50:49): I, I think the more I learned about money, the more I realize that it, it, it’s all, it’s all meaningless. And to really, I lean into what does your one life look like? I have a sign behind me that says one life. And it’s like a constant reminder that our life is, it’s, we’re a walking miracle. If you start realizing the odds of just being born and then like being, like listening to this, if you’re listening to this, you’re one of the world’s already wealthiest people. And so like really identifying that and realizing it would be a shame to spend your entire life chasing something that doesn’t have any meaning and money in itself. If you look at just paper currency, there’s no meaning in paper currency unless you give it. And so the big takeaway is like, live a life that gives meaning and then everything else will, will follow. And hopefully I didn’t just kill credibility of the entire, but I just like, I love this stuff, but I, I, the more I, the more I learn, it’s, I realize that we elevate all of these money conversations maybe more than the real conversation, which is how should I live my one life and living it with zero regrets and living it for a greater purpose? AJV (52:02): Hmm. No, and I think that’s actually the perfect answer. And I hope what everyone hears in that is from someone who has spent his entire professional career learning and teaching money, that at the end of the day, money is not what it’s all about. And it shouldn’t be what we’re all about, right? But back to where you started, money is a tool to learn how to use the tool. All right. Don’t let the tool use you, Caleb. So good. Y’all, thank you for sticking around. And don’t forget the recap episode will be coming up next. Thank you guys so much. We will see you next time on the Influential Personal Brand. I’ll see you later.