[00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to the podcast. [00:00:05] Today, I’ve got Rory with me and we’re talking about money, wealth, riches. [00:00:13] What to do if you have some, how do you get it and how do you keep it? [00:00:19] Really we’re talking about just like personal philosophies, best practices with money, mindset, [00:00:26] tactics, strategies, but anything around personal finances. [00:00:31] I feel like people have asked us to talk about this before and we’ve kind of been resistant [00:00:35] to it because it’s like, we’re not the people that are like, hey, look at us, we’re rich, [00:00:42] which we’re not like ultra-rich or anything, but I feel like we’ve been a little bit resistant [00:00:46] to that, but I also feel like there’s a lot of bad influences online about money. [00:00:53] I’m excited about this because I do think there’s some things that we’ve done differently. [00:01:01] I think we have a joke inside in our family that we’re weird and it’s like, we are very [00:01:05] weird. [00:01:06] I think we’re very unusual in many ways and I think statistically, financially, we’re [00:01:12] pretty unusual for our age. [00:01:16] I think it would be fun to do this and talk about it. [00:01:18] I’d like to start off with asking you, what are some of those philosophies that you think [00:01:25] we have about money that are different from what most people have? [00:01:31] And again, just kind of a qualifier, right? [00:01:34] We’re not like billionaires and like the world’s wealthiest people, but you know. [00:01:39] We might be thousandaires. [00:01:40] Yeah, we’re definitely hundredaires. [00:01:42] Most days we’re hundredaires, but I do think we’ve been able to achieve a lot. [00:01:48] A level of, I guess I’ll call it financial piece beyond what most people ever get to, [00:01:54] certainly from where I grew up in and I’d love to just kind of, yeah, just start with [00:02:02] that. [00:02:03] What do you think are some philosophies about money and maybe not even that are different [00:02:06] from other people, but just like philosophies we have that maybe we have spoken or even [00:02:10] ones that are sort of unspoken between us because we haven’t talked about this subject [00:02:15] in a while. [00:02:16] Yeah. [00:02:18] And I think one of the reasons why is we’re not financial advisors. [00:02:23] So this is not legal, formal financial advice, please go talk to a professional. [00:02:28] These are personal philosophies and best practices mainly curated from some really good things [00:02:36] we’ve seen and some really hard things that we’ve seen. [00:02:40] We’ve seen money build marriages up. [00:02:43] We’ve seen money build marriages down. [00:02:45] We’ve seen money help expand. [00:02:47] We’ve seen money help implode. [00:02:50] And so I think those are some of the things that have curated some of these practices [00:02:54] and beliefs. [00:02:55] If I were to start over archingly, I think one of the things that makes us most unique [00:03:02] is how simple and conservative our philosophies are. [00:03:07] Somebody asked me last week, they’re like, Hey, I’m in this mastermind and they’re talking [00:03:12] a lot about crypto and investments and real estate and she said, can I just get your take [00:03:18] on how you invest your money? [00:03:20] And I looked at her and I smiled and I’m like, it’s going to be a very short conversation. [00:03:25] She goes, why? [00:03:26] And I said, I don’t invest in crypto. [00:03:29] I don’t invest in a lot of real estate and I have very little investments outside of [00:03:33] some very conservative, boring 401k IRAs, Roth IRAs insurance, the end. [00:03:40] And she goes, wait, what? [00:03:42] And I’m like, yeah, I told you it was going to be really short. [00:03:46] It’s very conservative. [00:03:48] And I think a lot of that is what I have found and I know that you agree with this is the [00:03:53] best investment that we have ever made that we will ever make is reinvesting back into [00:03:58] our own personal development, our own company and our own family. [00:04:03] And there is nothing in the world. [00:04:05] There is no reward, great enough to risk my sleep and my peace and the security of my [00:04:13] family and my team for some potential one day big payoff. [00:04:20] And maybe that’s just really ignorant, but I’m choosing that I am choosing peace. [00:04:27] I am, I am choosing enoughness than some big potential investment and payoff. [00:04:34] I’m choosing peaceful rest at night versus any anxiety over what the stock market is [00:04:38] doing or what’s happening with Bitcoin or anything in cryptocurrency. [00:04:44] I’m not stressing out about managing lots of properties. [00:04:47] Don’t care. [00:04:48] I’m not saying it’s bad. [00:04:49] I’m not saying don’t do it. [00:04:51] I’m just saying that what we have learned for us is no thanks. [00:04:54] I think I think that’s something that would shock people to know like for us, we really [00:05:01] believe that peace, that profit, like peace is the new profit. [00:05:06] I think we end to go like, we aren’t really money motivated. [00:05:11] Like we don’t go, we have to like earn this much money to do this and like, let’s think [00:05:17] about it every day. [00:05:19] It’s going money is subservient to the mission that we’re on. [00:05:24] And so it’s like money shows up as a byproduct of what we’re doing. [00:05:28] And I think to your point of simplicity, I have to give a shout out here and I don’t [00:05:34] know if you would say he’s been as impactful in your life as I would. [00:05:37] So I’ll be curious to hear this, but like I still look back on Dave Ramsey’s financial [00:05:43] peace and we made a decision that we weren’t going to get married until we were both debt [00:05:47] free. [00:05:49] And I look at that decision as like the first step to being rich. [00:05:56] If you want to be ultra rich, I really still believe to this day, the most important first [00:06:02] tactical step is to be debt free because when you don’t have debt, everything you make piles [00:06:10] on top of itself. [00:06:12] So like if you don’t have a car payment and credit card bills and student loans and a [00:06:16] mortgage and you don’t like paying off TVs and sofas, if you make $50,000 a year, then [00:06:25] that means at the end of a year, you’re going to have $50,000 sitting there and then in two [00:06:28] years you’ll have $100,000 and then $150,000 and then it starts to grow with interest and [00:06:32] it’s like you can have peace much earlier than you think. [00:06:39] Like people feel like, I have to invest because I need to hit the Bitcoin jackpot or I have [00:06:45] to hit the lottery or I have to pick a unicorn company to invest in that I’ll have this huge [00:06:51] payoff and they expend so much time and so much energy and so much money diluting all [00:06:59] of this where it’s like if you just like live simple and don’t get into debt and you keep [00:07:04] investing in yourself, you grow your income. [00:07:07] So I personally really still feel like being debt free was one of the most important things, [00:07:12] first things that we ever did. [00:07:14] Yeah, I think when it comes to personal financial decisions and it’s not that we don’t have [00:07:20] strategies. [00:07:22] I have pretty much a minor in taxes at this point with the amount of books and courses [00:07:27] that I’ve invested in terms of, I want to know just enough or I can make good decisions. [00:07:33] I’m not going to read all how many per thousand pages of tax code there is but there’s this [00:07:39] new big beautiful bill that came out and it’s like I went to a course and I listened to [00:07:44] this webinar and I need to know enough to go how does this impact me but I’m not going [00:07:50] to like spend every extra dollar I have with some new investment or tax shelter or tax [00:07:57] saving strategy and it’s like I care enough to go, yeah, I want to know what’s happening [00:08:03] and I feel the same way about investing, right? [00:08:06] It’s like I think we should have IRAs and Roths and we need retirement plans and we [00:08:12] did a cash balance plan and we have a donor advice fund, like there are things that we [00:08:17] do but those are very simple and honestly they’re all with the long game in mind and [00:08:24] I think that’s one of the philosophies we have is we’re not doing any quote unquote [00:08:29] get rich quick strategies because at the end of the day our goal isn’t to get rich. [00:08:37] I think that’s what’s surprising in a lot of ways. [00:08:40] It’s like we don’t build a lot of, you know, we don’t make decisions on, we don’t buy a [00:08:46] lot of real estate because we’re not trying to get rich. [00:08:50] It’s really back, you know, and I said this since to somebody a few weeks ago, like I [00:08:56] have never since I have been alive seen the stock market or any of our funds get the rate [00:09:01] of return that we do in our own business and it’s like if I’m going to invest money somewhere [00:09:06] I’m going to go where the greatest rate of return is and I have yet to see any fund any [00:09:11] investment opportunity, anything come my way that has a greater almost guaranteed with [00:09:18] my influencing control rate of return and then investing into myself and investing into [00:09:23] my own business. [00:09:24] Which includes investing into people and it’s hiring new people, it’s giving them raises [00:09:29] and trying to like grow the pay so we can attract better people into the business and [00:09:34] keep good people and all that kind of stuff but it’s like, you know, if your business [00:09:38] makes, you know, a 20% profit margin, it’s like show me some other investment that’s [00:09:43] going to consistently make 20% and you know, I think what’s crazy is all the get rich quick [00:09:48] schemes are like exciting for a hot minute but it’s like literally trying to time the [00:09:55] lottery and then they like crash and it’s, you know, there’s, we’ve been around now long [00:09:59] enough to go. [00:10:00] We’ve got lots of friends and people who’ve done like real estate. [00:10:04] I think real estate could be a great investment. [00:10:07] It’s also like people get really leveraged and it’s like, man, I can’t make money fast [00:10:13] enough. [00:10:14] I can’t buy enough properties and then the moment the interest rate goes up or, you know, [00:10:18] there’s the mortgage crisis or whatever, it’s like, man, it all disappears quickly [00:10:23] and it can invert and go massively upside down and it’s like, did you need all that [00:10:28] in the first place? [00:10:29] Like you, like you have this high high but then you have this really low low, you end [00:10:33] up averaging in the middle. [00:10:34] Like what if you just kind of like plotted along? [00:10:36] Yeah. [00:10:37] I mean, my family, I come from a construction business and my brother and my dad build a [00:10:41] lot of real estate on the side, right? [00:10:44] And the quote unquote, not no busy, the non busy seasons of the construction industry. [00:10:49] And there’s often been seasons of life where I’m really tempted of like, wow, like he’s [00:10:55] cranking out neighborhoods left and right and look at all these deals he has coming through. [00:10:59] And then I remember it’s like, but that’s not what I want. [00:11:02] I have to like, I mean, that’s how you, one of the biggest financial personal philosophies [00:11:08] I have is stop looking at what other people are doing and that’s, that’s the temptation. [00:11:14] It’s like, and I even have it with my own family and I’m like, wow, it’s like, look [00:11:17] at all this, look at all these deals they’re turning and look at all these houses and look [00:11:20] at all this, wow, wow, wow. [00:11:23] And then I’m reminded it’s like, yeah, but he works a lot of nights and weekends and [00:11:26] a lot of mornings and is always on the phone and always handling problems and I just need [00:11:33] to put on my own blinders and go stop paying attention to what other people are doing. [00:11:38] And there’s no judgment at what other people do. [00:11:42] And I just need to know like, that’s their lane. [00:11:46] This is my lane and I’m making choices that are good for me and my family and they’re [00:11:51] making choices that are good for their and their family. [00:11:54] And not one is right or wrong. [00:11:55] They’re all unique for each of us, but every single time that I’ve been tempted to try, [00:12:03] you know, I don’t know, maybe we should buy, you know, Bitcoin or maybe we should do it’s [00:12:06] only because there was some comparison, right? [00:12:09] There was a bit of FOMO or there was a bit of what everyone else is doing it. [00:12:14] And when has that ever done any good for me? [00:12:16] When I go back to my high school days, every single time I did something that someone else [00:12:20] was doing, I got in the biggest worst trouble of all time, every single time. [00:12:24] I cannot think of one time ever that me jumping on the bandwagon did me any good. [00:12:31] I think it’s a mature, one of the most important places you can get to in your life financially [00:12:39] is when you can consciously say, I’m willing to accept less money if it gives me more peace. [00:12:50] Like I remember one of the recent things that happened to us, I don’t know, it was maybe [00:12:54] around the time of COVID, we started saying consciously, we don’t need more money. [00:12:58] We need less stress, right? [00:13:01] It’s like, what are you going to do with more money? [00:13:04] Like what? [00:13:05] I got plenty of things we could do with more money. [00:13:06] Well, I’ll make you a list. [00:13:08] Really? [00:13:09] Yeah. [00:13:10] Is there a lot of things that you want to do like with more money? [00:13:12] I didn’t say want. [00:13:13] I said could. [00:13:14] Oh, yeah. [00:13:15] Lots of things we could do. [00:13:16] Like when you ask the question, what are you going to do with more money? [00:13:19] I’ll give you a list. [00:13:20] There’s a lot of things we could do with more money. [00:13:22] Yeah. [00:13:23] But I think realizing to be, you know, getting to the place to go like, I’m okay with less. [00:13:30] Like I don’t need to have the nicest car, the biggest home, the private jet, the like… [00:13:39] Really you don’t want a private jet? [00:13:42] I would mind flying private, but I don’t think I’d want a jet. [00:13:45] It’s a boat is a good example, right? [00:13:47] Like we could definitely have had a boat. [00:13:48] I don’t want a jet. [00:13:49] A long time ago. [00:13:50] Yeah. [00:13:51] But I’m like, we could own a boat. [00:13:52] But I’m like, what a mess. [00:13:53] Like what a night. [00:13:54] I don’t want to own a boat. [00:13:55] I just want friends with boats. [00:13:56] It’s kind of the same thing with real estate. [00:13:57] It’s like, yeah, I know we could kind of build the empire and like, I don’t know, maybe we’re [00:14:01] missing out there. [00:14:02] But I’m like, man, it’s so much. [00:14:04] But that’s good to that point. [00:14:06] We’re only missing out because we’re looking at what someone else is doing. [00:14:09] Yeah. [00:14:10] Or listening to what somebody else is saying. [00:14:12] And here’s the part about running your own race because it’s like, it’s the… [00:14:18] You know, you always say the grass isn’t always greener. [00:14:20] It’s almost never anywhere near as good as it sounds, right? [00:14:27] Like they say, oh, I got this Bitcoin thing. [00:14:29] And it’s like all they’re talking about for a year. [00:14:32] And then, you know, we have some friends that have lost significant money, very painful. [00:14:38] Same with real estate. [00:14:39] Same with investing into businesses. [00:14:41] Same with buying individual stocks, right? [00:14:43] I mean, our plan, I think, you know, looking back on our path was very simple. [00:14:48] It was like, we got debt free. [00:14:50] We lived below our means. [00:14:52] We maxed out, first of all, our IRAs, then we maxed out our 401Ks. [00:14:58] Then we had enough amount… [00:14:59] We had enough in the stock market that just the rate of compounding interest over the [00:15:05] next 30 or 40 years, plus we had term life insurance. [00:15:10] And then it was like, okay. [00:15:12] Now we have, after all that is taken care of, you go, now what? [00:15:17] It’s like, well, I guess we’ll, you know, buy a few things. [00:15:20] You know, we got to the house of our dreams and we upgraded. [00:15:24] For those of you that don’t know the story, like the first house we bought when we were [00:15:27] married was 1,000 square feet. [00:15:30] It was 1,200 square feet, and technically I bought it. [00:15:33] Technically you bought it. [00:15:34] Just to be clear. [00:15:35] Yeah. [00:15:36] Just so everyone knows who the sugar momma is in this relationship. [00:15:41] $179,000 house to be clear. [00:15:44] But then… [00:15:45] $179,000. [00:15:46] That was 2010. [00:15:47] And then it was like seven years later, we built our dream home, which was a very nice [00:15:51] home. [00:15:52] And that was because our business has also quadrupled. [00:15:55] And you know, we’d had books come out and we were speaking everywhere and like you were [00:15:59] doing consulting with big companies and you know, we had some more income, but it was [00:16:04] just going, it was because we weren’t trapped by debt. [00:16:06] Everything that we made just started to kind of like pile on top of itself. [00:16:09] And we were also not quick to be like, oh, let’s go buy a hundred properties and you [00:16:13] know, like multiply everything. [00:16:17] It was like, no, I just want to have like this place that we live every day that we’re [00:16:21] happy with and not have a lot of stress to like pay the mortgage and like be buried underneath [00:16:25] the weight of feeling like we have to do stuff. [00:16:27] And I think, and then after that it was like, oh, that put us in the position to start brand [00:16:32] builders group really. [00:16:33] You should tell them about the financially, you know, why we were able to start brand [00:16:40] builders group just on the purely financial side. [00:16:47] Do you know what I’m getting out there? [00:16:48] I’m trying to take your cue here. [00:16:50] I have no idea where it’s coming from. [00:16:51] Yeah. [00:16:52] Okay. [00:16:53] So anyway. [00:16:54] Why don’t you tell them, right? [00:16:55] Yeah. [00:16:56] Maybe I’ll start that. [00:16:57] But just to go like, you know, when we exited our former company, it takes a lot of money [00:17:00] to do it. [00:17:01] And by exited it when I got fired. [00:17:03] When AJ got fired and then, you know, I resigned and we started brand builders group. [00:17:11] Our income went straight to zero. [00:17:13] So literally like in a matter of a few days, a two week period, but we had two incomes [00:17:18] that went to zero straight to zero. [00:17:21] We had a newborn baby. [00:17:23] We had our brand new house. [00:17:25] And then we were starting a company and that is very expensive. [00:17:30] The reason we were able to do it is because of savings. [00:17:33] We were able to weather that storm and then literally day Ramsey and your six month emergency [00:17:39] fund. [00:17:40] Yeah. [00:17:41] And then, and then COVID hits and we were literally able to weather that storm. [00:17:44] We were, we were literally able to hire the people we needed to start brand builders group [00:17:50] because we had savings. [00:17:51] Well, yeah. [00:17:52] And I think that’s important to go. [00:17:54] It’s like we had savings, but we also, we didn’t pay ourselves a salary at brand builders [00:17:58] group until year five. [00:18:00] So every, every dollar that was coming in was going right back. [00:18:04] We earned commissions for the first five years of brand builders group. [00:18:07] There were no salaries. [00:18:09] We earned commissions just like anyone on our team did sales commissions, delivery commissions. [00:18:14] And that was a huge part of it is like we could do that, but it was also because we [00:18:18] were betting on ourselves, but we also knew that we had to give the company enough runway [00:18:24] to make it. [00:18:25] And if we were going to pay ourselves big salaries, it wouldn’t make it. [00:18:28] Yeah. [00:18:28] I think that’s actually a really important financial philosophy in the business side that [00:18:33] people don’t think of. [00:18:33] It’s like when you’re a small business owner, you just kind of like pay yourself the profit. [00:18:37] One of the things that we do is we, we earmark the money. [00:18:40] We, we, we take people actually in our eight figure entrepreneur course in our membership, [00:18:45] we take them through an exercise called divide the dollar. [00:18:48] And we basically say, okay, if there was for every dollar you make, there’s a hundred pennies [00:18:53] divvy up who those pennies are going to go to. [00:18:56] And so we’ve always said, we’re going to pay this percentage to the person or [00:19:01] persons doing the work. [00:19:04] We pay this percentage to the person or persons who sell the deal. [00:19:09] We take this percentage and pay the person or persons who generated the lead. [00:19:15] We then have this percentage allocated to paying for the overhead and being able to go, [00:19:20] okay, this is the amount we can reinvest into like more infrastructure and staff. [00:19:25] And then there’s this percentage that theoretically is what should be left over for profit. [00:19:29] Well, in actual budgeting, I do it the opposite. [00:19:34] So you start with profit first is what you’re saying. [00:19:36] Yeah, it’s a profit first budgeting. [00:19:38] And I go in order to make a, you know, I’m just crazy math, a 10% profit margin. [00:19:44] I reverse engineer like, what are the fixed expenses that we’re going to have? [00:19:48] Then what are the variable expenses that includes labor, that includes all the software [00:19:53] and all the rents. [00:19:55] And then I reverse engineer it and go, can we do that? [00:19:59] And that tells you, right, how much revenue we need to bring in and what gross margin [00:20:04] products and what percentage of products. [00:20:06] So I actually, in terms of budgeting, I take the reverse approach. [00:20:11] And then if I feel like that’s too much of a stretch, then we back it down. [00:20:14] We back it down. [00:20:14] We back it down, but it’s a profit first budgeting. [00:20:17] Yeah. [00:20:17] And just, you know, high level percentages, because people ask this a lot, um, in our, [00:20:23] in our internal trainings, like roughly we budget 30 to 30% to 40% of a dollar for all [00:20:31] the variable expenses. [00:20:33] So that’s paying the people that includes like, you know, if there’s food and meals [00:20:37] and all, all that stuff, roughly, you know, somewhere between five to 10% for sales [00:20:44] commissions, when, when you add in like salesperson salaries and stuff, it’s like [00:20:48] 10%, then you go roughly 15% is what we budget, 15% of revenues, what we budget [00:20:54] to pay for lead generation, which we can either pay to our affiliates and referral [00:20:59] partners, whether that’s employees or clients or true affiliates, or we can pay [00:21:04] that in advertising dollars. [00:21:07] And then roughly, uh, you know, so what, what is that? [00:21:11] That’s like 65. [00:21:12] So then roughly you could do like 20 to 25% and overhead. [00:21:17] And then that leaves something like a 10 to 10 to 15% profit margin. [00:21:21] So high level, that’s kind of like, at least what’s worked for us in terms of [00:21:25] like how we would structure a company, it’s in theory. [00:21:28] Yeah, in practice, they change each product, each service changes in that. [00:21:34] But that’s, but, but I guess my point in saying that to what you said was if you [00:21:40] don’t, even when you pay yourself as the business owner, you need to pay [00:21:46] yourself for each of those different roles, even if you’re doing all of them. [00:21:50] Um, because if you don’t, then you don’t ever feel like you can afford to hire [00:21:56] somebody. [00:21:56] Well, and then it’s all false sense of profits, right? [00:21:59] If you’re not paying yourself at all and you’re just taking profits, those [00:22:03] aren’t real profits, right? [00:22:04] It’s like you, if you had to replace yourself, right, as whatever role you [00:22:08] play in the company, salesperson, delivery, you know, CEO, president, [00:22:13] whatever, right, that costs real money. [00:22:16] You’d be paying someone else that. [00:22:17] And so we didn’t take a salary because we simply couldn’t afford it with overhead. [00:22:21] So we took it in commissions and then we worked our way towards that. [00:22:25] But that’s how we, that’s how we had the runway. [00:22:27] When people talk about most small businesses don’t make it, that’s what [00:22:31] they’re talking about, right? [00:22:32] There wasn’t enough financial runway to hit the stride. [00:22:38] And, and often that happens because of a variety of different things. [00:22:42] But at the end of the day, not enough revenue, right? [00:22:44] And so we acted as the primary revenue generators, which is why we took commissions. [00:22:49] It’s like they’re, I’m, we’re seven years in and I just now feel like I’m [00:22:54] starting to sit in the seat as real CEO, right? [00:22:57] And that’s because we couldn’t afford it, right? [00:23:00] I had to take sales calls and we didn’t have people, right? [00:23:03] And it’s like, well, that’s how you have enough runway to make it, right? [00:23:06] It’s like, yeah, sure. [00:23:07] I would have loved to stepped out of that. [00:23:09] Some of that stuff, customer service calls, writing copy. [00:23:12] It’s like, I still find myself doing some of those tasks on a pretty [00:23:16] frequently basis today, but that’s because that’s what the business needs. [00:23:20] Yeah. [00:23:21] And there’s power in paying yourself, I think, commissions. [00:23:25] We have three different types of commissions. [00:23:27] We’ve got the lead generation commission, the sales commission, the delivery commission. [00:23:30] There’s, I think it’s powerful to do that because you, you’re, when you pay [00:23:36] yourself in that way, you know that you’re directly contributing to revenue [00:23:40] generating activities, and then you’ve set up the business model to do the same [00:23:44] so that other people are stepping in and they’re getting paid to generate revenue, [00:23:47] which is always, that’s always the hardest thing is like generating revenues. [00:23:51] The thing that nobody wants to do is the hardest thing. [00:23:54] And so we’ve always kind of compensated well for that. [00:23:56] And then it’s like, it’s easy to step out of it. [00:23:58] Like we really just pulled me out of delivery like last year. [00:24:03] And it was because we were able to ramp up the income and the overall revenues [00:24:06] and finally start paying ourselves, but it’s like, there’s a bucket of money [00:24:10] that is earmarked to pay other people to step in and do the delivery. [00:24:14] So that’s good. [00:24:14] I want to ask you about taxes because you have learned a lot about taxes. [00:24:19] What are, what are some of the, what are some of the key tax strategies, [00:24:27] you know, or just philosophies, maybe not even tactics or strategies, [00:24:31] there’s people from different countries listening, but like, [00:24:34] how do you think about tax strategy? [00:24:36] Where do you find tax strategy? [00:24:38] Are there some key things that, you know, you advise in general for small business owners? [00:24:45] Yeah, I think there’s a few things. [00:24:48] But before I forget to say this, I would just say, if anyone is looking to go, [00:24:51] where do I get more information around some personal philosophies around money? [00:24:58] One of my favorite books, and I really a turning point in my own relationship [00:25:01] with money was the book by Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money. [00:25:06] And so if you’re looking for additional resources of going like, maybe I do have [00:25:10] an unhealthy attachment to money or the idea of money, or I really need to talk [00:25:15] about my relationship with money. [00:25:18] And I think that’s where we all need to start is like, what is our emotional [00:25:21] relationship with money? [00:25:23] And that dictates so much. [00:25:25] Even tax strategy, right? [00:25:26] It’s like, if you’re obsessed of, you know, how do I make more? [00:25:31] How do I keep more? [00:25:32] How do I do this? [00:25:32] How do I, you know, not pay the government more like whatever it is. [00:25:36] Like there’s an emotional attachment there. [00:25:38] That’s worthy of you doing some self discovery in. [00:25:40] And that’s a great first place to start. [00:25:42] I would just preface that. [00:25:43] Now, why I became somewhat obsessed with taxes is because I knew nothing. [00:25:52] And I was taking a lot of advice from advisors, tax CPA individuals that quite [00:25:59] honestly, I took them out their word and it cost us a lot. [00:26:03] And I think that was a first lesson. [00:26:05] And just because they’re a bunny ears professional, it doesn’t mean they [00:26:09] know what they’re doing. [00:26:11] And it was a really good, hard lesson for me to learn in the early days of [00:26:15] the brand builders group of, Oh, that was bad, bad, bad advice that just [00:26:21] cost us tens of thousands of dollars. [00:26:23] I will not be making that mistake again. [00:26:26] So I think this would be shocking for people to realize that some of the worst [00:26:30] tax advice we’ve ever gotten is from tax professionals and some of the best [00:26:35] tax advice we’ve ever gotten is from where? [00:26:38] Where do you, where do we ultimately learn the best tax strategies? [00:26:42] Most of them have been on Instagram. [00:26:45] I was going to say other entrepreneurs, I would say other when I bet them, but I [00:26:50] think that’s, uh, I follow a few very, very reputable tax, you know, content [00:26:57] creators on Instagram. [00:26:59] And when I say, I’m not, I’m not kidding. [00:27:01] Right. [00:27:02] I learned some of my best, but then I don’t deploy those. [00:27:05] I go and I bet them. [00:27:06] Yeah. [00:27:07] Cause by designing this, I heard this, I saw this run this through Tennessee, because [00:27:13] a lot of things that are out there might work in another state, but they don’t [00:27:17] work in your state, which was some of the awful hard lesson that I had to learn [00:27:22] when they deployed something that was counter to Tennessee tax law. [00:27:26] And then we ate it double sides and it was really bad. [00:27:28] So I think a part of it was, I don’t need to know all of it, but I need enough. [00:27:32] I need to know enough where if somebody says something whack, I can raise my [00:27:35] hand and go, no, I don’t think so. [00:27:38] Not in Tennessee or not here or we’ve done that. [00:27:41] Or I know what that is, not some random thing. [00:27:44] I’m also always going to follow our fall on the side of the law. [00:27:48] Right. [00:27:49] I, I want to pay my fair share of taxes and not one cent more, but I want to pay [00:27:54] my fair share of taxes. [00:27:55] Right. [00:27:56] Right. [00:27:56] And so it’s like, I’m always going to fall to a little more on the right side of [00:28:02] the line in terms of, Hey, I’m going to follow a little bit more to the letter [00:28:05] of the law than not. [00:28:07] Right. [00:28:07] A lot of people go, is it a ask for forgiveness or ask for permission policy? [00:28:12] That’s like, well, I’m probably going to follow a little bit more in the [00:28:14] ask for permission a little bit, uh, even though I’m walking the line [00:28:17] pretty close personally. [00:28:19] Uh, but some of the, the best things that I have learned, uh, that have helped us. [00:28:24] And again, uh, I believe this was set to sunset this year, but it has just been [00:28:28] extended is the one 99 a QBI deduction. [00:28:32] And that’s a classification for training companies, um, that you’re able to take [00:28:38] a major deduction on pass through revenue. [00:28:40] And, uh, the first year that we took the QBI, the one 99 a business deduction [00:28:46] qualified business, um, I think we saved $80,000 in taxes and it’s been roughly [00:28:51] about that. [00:28:52] So again, I’m not going to go into all the, the details of each of these for [00:28:55] limited time, but these are things that take to your CPA, to your tax advisor [00:28:59] and go, Hey, would that apply to me? [00:29:01] Which is what you should do with anything that you hear from taxes is not [00:29:04] making any assumptions and go, does that apply here? [00:29:07] But that has been a very tangible, helpful business deduction. [00:29:12] Um, that we just, if you’re not out there learning, you would never know about it. [00:29:16] And I think that was another big thing that went with personal finances that I [00:29:20] learned is don’t expect others to come to you with ideas that save you money. [00:29:23] Yeah, that’s what I want. [00:29:24] That’s your job. [00:29:25] That’s what I wanted to really get at was, was going, it’s. [00:29:30] The tax professionals aren’t often the one to give us the, the ideas to vet. [00:29:35] It’s usually other entrepreneurs or even if it’s on Instagram, it’s usually [00:29:38] other entrepreneurs, or it’s just people doing more sensational things. [00:29:41] Cause that’s what you, how you get followers, but you gather the ideas and [00:29:45] then you take them to a professional to vet. [00:29:48] Um, but it’s your, like, I would just say, take the personal responsibility of [00:29:52] no one’s coming to save you and your banking account. [00:29:54] Yeah, you go. [00:29:56] This is another financial philosophy we have. [00:29:59] It’s like one thing we never do is completely outsource our money and just go, [00:30:06] I don’t understand that. [00:30:08] I’m just going to like, so-and-so takes care of that. [00:30:10] If I don’t understand it, then I go learn it. [00:30:13] Yeah, we know enough to be dangerous. [00:30:15] Um, and taxes, one of those things, just general finance and accounting. [00:30:19] I didn’t go to school for a finance degree. [00:30:21] Uh, I didn’t tell everyone what your degree was in, babe. [00:30:24] Until my junior year, it was in painting. [00:30:28] Um, and then my, and now it’s in financial statements. [00:30:33] It’s a different kind of art. [00:30:34] It’s a different kind of art. [00:30:35] Uh, no, I didn’t graduate with a painting degree. [00:30:37] I graduated, uh, with an advertising degree with a minor in Spanish and business. [00:30:43] Um, but up until my dad said, you can’t graduate with that. [00:30:47] It was painting. [00:30:48] Uh, no, but I would say with all of that, though, I think just something I’ve [00:30:51] learned in all of this tax research and tax knowledge is [00:30:58] one of the things that thing is really important and I have seen them as a [00:31:01] mistake and I would say this with financial advisors or tax advisors is [00:31:05] make sure you don’t outgrow who you use. [00:31:08] And over the years, um, we have, uh, outgrown three separate tax firms. [00:31:15] And what do I mean by and, and bookkeeping? [00:31:17] We’ve also, we’ve also, uh, and yes, several things we’ve ensourced as we’ve [00:31:21] gotten bigger, but what worked for you as a $1 million company or a 3 million or [00:31:28] 5 million or to 10, 15, 20, beyond, you know, you really have to look at are [00:31:33] the service providers that I’m using now advancing at the level that I am advancing. [00:31:39] And what I learned is the first, you know, really amazing, you know, and this [00:31:44] was specific to taxes, tax strategy firm that we used, uh, who are all CPAs. [00:31:48] They were great until we had deployed every single thing they had to offer. [00:31:54] And then there was crickets for years and then it wasn’t so great anymore. [00:31:59] A lot of them have a playbook of like, these are like the, the five or 10 plays [00:32:03] we know how to run, but then they don’t have much beyond that with you. [00:32:08] So I would just say as you’re growing and your own knowledge and your [00:32:11] and income and revenue, it’s like, make sure that you’re up leveling your [00:32:15] providers as you grow. [00:32:17] Now, some can grow with you. [00:32:18] Like we’ve had our personal financial advisor for as long as we’ve been [00:32:23] together and he has grown with us, but not all, not all do. [00:32:28] And so I have found it’s really good. [00:32:30] Even if you make the decision not to change, you should have an audit of [00:32:35] how you run your finances every couple of years. [00:32:39] And I did that this year and the, I hired an external firm to come in and just [00:32:44] do a tax audit because there were just some things that felt rushed. [00:32:47] If I had, I had lingering questions that didn’t get answered and I wasn’t [00:32:52] comfortable with it. [00:32:52] So I would say, trust your own instincts, but you’ve got to be in your [00:32:55] finances enough to go, I don’t know about that. [00:33:00] And I didn’t know the answer and I really didn’t have the time. [00:33:02] So I hired someone to come and do an audit. [00:33:04] Y’all, let this be a lesson. [00:33:07] You never have to learn the, that feeling I had within of like, that just [00:33:12] felt rushed. [00:33:13] That just felt like not thorough with no good explanation. [00:33:17] It was just a gut feeling when I had the audit done. [00:33:21] The previous tax firm had simply forgot to select a very important box that [00:33:27] cost us $40,000. [00:33:33] That was it. [00:33:33] They forgot to select the box. [00:33:35] What was the box? [00:33:37] That’s confidential financial information. [00:33:40] Come back next week. [00:33:43] But the audit firm that I did, they were like, Hey, great news. [00:33:46] This is our very first meeting after they had, you know, done an audit of our [00:33:50] financials and tax statements. [00:33:51] Uh, we found $40,000 that we’re going to get returned to you. [00:33:54] And I said, how? [00:33:56] And they’re like, well, this is good news, bad news, good news. [00:34:00] We found it. [00:34:00] You’re going to get the refund check, bad news. [00:34:03] Your prior firm forgot to select this one really important box about, uh, how [00:34:07] you file taxes. [00:34:11] Like what? [00:34:12] What do you mean? [00:34:13] They just forgot. [00:34:15] So I wouldn’t have found that. [00:34:18] I just had enough wherewithal to go. [00:34:20] Something’s not right. [00:34:22] I’m going to pay the $500 to have someone else review the tax statements. [00:34:26] They found $40,000 of refunds. [00:34:28] And I think this is an important thing. [00:34:29] I feel like this is happening in the medical world too, where it’s like, [00:34:33] let’s get a second opinion. [00:34:34] It’s like, don’t blindly trust someone because they’re the professional. [00:34:39] And, and especially with taxes, here’s what’s interesting. [00:34:41] A lot of, a lot of firms, somebody, if you’re a business owner, a lot of the firms [00:34:49] that are doing your taxes, the people that are on that team doing your taxes [00:34:53] have not never actually been a business owner. [00:34:56] Or you have never spoken to either. [00:34:58] Yeah. [00:34:58] Or you don’t know that. [00:34:59] But there, it’s going like, if you’ve never been in my position, how do you [00:35:04] think like, how do you, how do you think like I think? [00:35:06] And you go, you don’t, they’re just running, they’re running a playbook. [00:35:10] Um, so let’s talk about personal finances for a second. [00:35:13] What are some of the financial practices that we’ve done on our personal side to [00:35:21] keep track of expenses, manage cash, like, you know, all of that. [00:35:26] So can you talk a little bit about more on like the personal side? [00:35:30] And also, I’d be curious, I think, I think a lot of people would be interested [00:35:34] in knowing how do you transfer that money? [00:35:37] When do you transfer that money between like, the business makes money and then [00:35:42] it comes into the personal and like, how separate are those entities or how [00:35:46] connected and like talk, talk, talk, talk, talk about some of that. [00:35:50] Now we just say, I think the, one of the biggest things that we’ve done on our [00:35:54] personal finances is we have a personal bookkeeper, right? [00:35:58] It’s a nominal amount of money we pay every month for sanity and peace. [00:36:03] We have a business bookkeeper, right? [00:36:05] We have two in-house accountants and a bookkeeper for the entities we run. [00:36:10] Why wouldn’t we have that personally? [00:36:12] Cause it’s like, what am I opening up every bill and paying every bill and [00:36:16] tracking it? [00:36:16] No, my tracking every receipt? [00:36:18] No. [00:36:19] Um, so we hired someone who’s a personal bookkeeper just for our personal [00:36:22] finances and I get a personal statement every month that I go through. [00:36:26] And so just like we do in our business and we have a P and L, we have a personal P and L. [00:36:32] It’s like, how much did you spend on entertainment? [00:36:35] How much did you spend on groceries? [00:36:37] How much did you spend on gas and how much income came in? [00:36:40] Yeah. [00:36:41] And so it’s like, I review that every month and I’m watching for trends of, why [00:36:46] did we spend that much in groceries last month? [00:36:48] What were we doing? [00:36:50] Uh, or whatever. [00:36:51] And so it’s like, it helps me go. [00:36:52] Like this is where we need to pull back. [00:36:54] Now a lot of people live by personal budgets and I wouldn’t say that we [00:36:59] necessarily have like a strict budget that we follow personally. [00:37:02] We did early. [00:37:03] We did in the early days when we were getting out of debt. [00:37:05] But what I do now is I have a better sense of how the money ebbs and flows. [00:37:11] And I’m looking for anomalies, right? [00:37:13] And you just can’t do that unless you’re looking at trends month over month, [00:37:16] year over year. [00:37:17] And if I see something that’s abnormal in one month, that’s not for the year. [00:37:22] I’ll go back and say, Hey, pull, pull me this same period last year. [00:37:25] And I’m like, Oh, summer water. [00:37:28] Okay. [00:37:28] That’s why it’s always high. [00:37:30] Um, you know, so there’s just like some of those things that by having a personal [00:37:33] bookkeeper has allowed me to not flip out, not stress, because I have historical records. [00:37:40] And at this point, we’ve had this bookkeeper for more than a decade. [00:37:42] They know our spending patterns as well as we do. [00:37:46] And they have caught fraudulent activity. [00:37:48] They have saved us money. [00:37:49] Um, you know, somebody was cashing a bunch of checks at Walmart and our bookkeeper [00:37:55] reached out to me and was like, I have never seen you shop at Walmart before. [00:37:59] What are you doing? [00:37:59] And I’m like, I don’t go to Walmart. [00:38:01] She goes, really, you haven’t cashed the X amount of checks at Walmart. [00:38:06] And I was like, no, $3,000 of checks that they were able to mark as fraud and get [00:38:11] that money back because you follow your spending patterns. [00:38:15] So that would just be one awesome best practice, uh, for the, for a nominal [00:38:19] amount of money to save you peace, track your own personal spending, which I think [00:38:23] a lot of people track it in their business and they forget to do the same [00:38:26] in their personal life. [00:38:28] One of the keys of managing a successful business financial statement, I think, [00:38:34] is also managing by anomaly. [00:38:37] And so one of the reasons to create a budget is that every month on our [00:38:41] financial statements, we have, you know, one column that says budget and then one [00:38:45] column that says actual and then another column that just says like the delta, [00:38:49] the difference, and it’s going, how do you quickly review financial statements [00:38:52] for a business? [00:38:54] You just take your kind of ruler down the page and go, where is, if we’re [00:38:58] kind of spending within the range of what was planned, okay, but we’re looking [00:39:03] for the big sharp deltas. [00:39:04] And then when there’s a big delta, it’s like, okay, let’s double click on that [00:39:08] and let’s tap in and let’s go dive in and what, look at every expense and all [00:39:12] that sort of stuff. [00:39:13] So I think that is just kind of a more general practice that you can use with [00:39:17] your personal finances or with your business finances is sort of like when [00:39:21] you have a baseline of like a trend line or create one by way of a budget, [00:39:29] you know, and you go, now all of a sudden we can manage by exception. [00:39:34] And I think that, that, that helps a lot. [00:39:36] So we’ve, we’ve done that. [00:39:37] Talk about the different bank accounts that we have because I think we’ve, [00:39:41] this has come up before it. [00:39:42] Some of our philosophy has changed over the years. [00:39:46] It has changed, but talk about, talk about the, maybe the journey, the evolution [00:39:49] of it, because I think, you know, at one of our accelerator events, which are, [00:39:52] are our in-person masterminds for our members, AJ and I still do four of those [00:39:56] in-person a year with our members. [00:39:59] This question came up one time and I remember people were like, so [00:40:02] curious about the way that we did this, because we, we did this for years. [00:40:06] So, so tell them about our, all of the accounts we had. [00:40:09] Yeah. [00:40:09] And we still have several different accounts. [00:40:11] And I think, uh, as all the interest rates were going nuts and when that [00:40:17] happened, you know, the high yield, uh, accounts also kind of went up. [00:40:23] And so I made some of these shifts with the market, right? [00:40:28] But prior to that, I would just say, like, we don’t do this as tightly anymore. [00:40:32] This has kind of shifted with some of the, [00:40:34] But for the first 10 years we were married, we did this like clockwork. [00:40:38] We did. [00:40:38] And I, we probably were managing eight different personal banking accounts. [00:40:43] Um, so that we couldn’t access our own money. [00:40:45] I think that’s the gist of it, right? [00:40:47] It’s like we put in measures to make sure that we weren’t touching money. [00:40:52] That wasn’t ours to touch. [00:40:54] So we had a primary checking account that was joint, joint checking. [00:40:58] Then I had a personal spending account. [00:41:02] Rory had a personal, personal spending account. [00:41:04] Rory allowance, which I could spend on whatever I wanted and you could too. [00:41:08] So we gave ourselves adult allowances and we had our own accounts and a certain [00:41:12] amount of money went in there. [00:41:13] And it’s like, [00:41:14] I don’t have to ask money. [00:41:15] Don’t ask any permission. [00:41:16] If it’s, [00:41:17] And that was great. [00:41:17] Like we, [00:41:18] Rory and I have plenty of debates and arguments about things throughout our life. [00:41:24] I can never recall in the 18 years that we’ve been together, [00:41:26] that we ever have had a serious argument about money. [00:41:30] True. [00:41:31] We’ve had others. [00:41:32] How late we work, how much we work, where we’re going to eat. [00:41:36] We’ve had plenty of arguments. [00:41:38] But trying to be in the same canoe together was the biggest fight we ever had. [00:41:42] But never about money. [00:41:43] And I believe a lot of that was due to the way that we had these accounts. [00:41:46] If he wanted to buy some nonsense piece of technology that I didn’t agree with, [00:41:50] he was like spending account. [00:41:52] Like, okay. [00:41:53] And courses. [00:41:54] I spent most of, [00:41:54] I spent most of my money on gadgets, courses and gifts for you. [00:41:58] Yeah. [00:41:59] Which the last one wasn’t so bad. [00:42:01] Um, [00:42:01] but we never argued about it because it was can’t talk about it money. [00:42:05] This is my spending money. [00:42:06] Then we had a personal savings, right? [00:42:08] That was like our emergency fund. [00:42:10] Then we had a giving account and that was just set aside for tithing and [00:42:14] giving sin. [00:42:15] That one gets populated first. [00:42:17] Uh, and we still have that separate. [00:42:18] We still have that. [00:42:19] That is still separate. [00:42:20] 10% of our money, no matter what, every, every dollar that comes in every [00:42:24] single month, 10% goes aside for tithing and giving. [00:42:28] And then we also have a donor advice fund, [00:42:29] which is just basically like a next level of that where we set money aside for [00:42:34] charity. [00:42:35] At the end of the year, [00:42:35] we do a large amount into that to figure out how we want to spend it for the [00:42:39] next year, but every month we set money aside. [00:42:42] Um, then we had a tax savings account. [00:42:43] So we were setting aside 30, 35% every single month. [00:42:47] So there was no surprise bills or, uh-oh, where’d all the money go? [00:42:50] Um, so we had again, a joint checking. [00:42:53] We had a joint savings. [00:42:54] We had a personal spend for each of us. [00:42:56] We had a tithing in our givings. [00:42:58] We had a tax savings account and then we had a household account and the [00:43:01] household account was for all the recurring routine bills that were paid, [00:43:06] uh, rather by check or on auto debit. [00:43:09] But those were for the routine types of bills and mortgages. [00:43:13] So when you looked at all of our different accounts, [00:43:16] it really made clear how much we actually had to spend on things like gas and [00:43:20] groceries outside of ordinary expenses. [00:43:23] And I think a lot of that was just the training ground to help us know how to [00:43:27] treat our money. [00:43:28] And we did that for 10, 12, probably 12 years. [00:43:30] And as we started hiring staff, like personal staff of like helping us, [00:43:35] like our family managers and, and you know, and once we had kids, [00:43:39] we have like nannies, they would have debit cards that would also have access [00:43:44] to the household account. [00:43:45] So there, there’s, we’re always separate with a $500 max. [00:43:48] So you have joint checking, joint savings. [00:43:52] We each had an allowance account, a tithing account, a tax account and a [00:43:57] hassle household account and then a separate account for, for assistance and [00:44:01] family matters. [00:44:01] So we had eight, we literally had eight accounts, [00:44:05] which now you know why we needed a personal bookkeeper. [00:44:09] But it’s like the Dave Ramsey envelope system in many ways. [00:44:12] It’s just, it’s just like, it’s instead of like having a bunch of cash [00:44:16] laying around stuck in envelopes, we’re, we’re, we’re actually segmenting it. [00:44:20] I learned about myself anyways, uh, and managing a lot of our family’s finances [00:44:25] is, um, don’t want to spend money that we don’t have. [00:44:28] And so I’m going to pull it out, separate it. [00:44:31] And then we really knew what we had. [00:44:33] Um, and there wasn’t this false sense of, Oh, look at all this money. [00:44:36] It’s like, no, this is God’s money. [00:44:37] This is America’s money. [00:44:39] This is Roy’s money. [00:44:40] This is the mortgage’s money. [00:44:41] Like it was all separated. [00:44:43] So at the end of the day, it, it really gave you a better sense of how much is [00:44:46] left over. [00:44:47] Um, and that’s, that is, that’s how we trained. [00:44:50] Oh, and an emergency fund. [00:44:51] Yeah. [00:44:52] That was our savings. [00:44:53] We use that. [00:44:53] And then we had a different savings. [00:44:55] If we were saving for a big house, no emergency fund and savings was the same. [00:44:58] Okay. [00:44:59] But I think it was again, back to, you have to know yourself. [00:45:02] That may feel like too overwhelming. [00:45:03] It may not be good for you, but it worked for us. [00:45:06] And I think that’s a part of the goal in all of this is like, you got to figure [00:45:09] out what works for you. [00:45:10] And just because we did, it doesn’t mean it will work for you. [00:45:13] But I think that was, that was our training ground of training ourselves of not [00:45:18] every dollar that comes in is for you to spend. [00:45:20] And going back to the divide the dollar in the business is the same thing is just [00:45:23] going like a lot of entrepreneurs wake up one day and they look at their checking [00:45:27] account and they’re like, Oh, we got lots of money. [00:45:29] Let’s go buy some stuff. [00:45:30] And they forgot that like payrolls next week and like they owe, you know, they [00:45:34] owe this other bill and they’re just like looking at their checking cows. [00:45:37] Like that’s not the way to do it. [00:45:38] Like look at the budget and, and earmark the money quickly to the places so [00:45:43] that you know what you really have to work with. [00:45:45] And I think that just helps a lot of people, you know, operate more logically [00:45:50] when you, when you, you segregate out the dollars like that. [00:45:55] Yeah. [00:45:55] That’s interesting. [00:45:56] I guess we’ve never really had a fight about finances, which is great. [00:46:01] Cause I think, you know, statistically, that’s like one of the biggest reasons [00:46:04] why people get divorced is because, it’s because of they have, they have money issues. [00:46:10] I think a lot of that was from the financial discipline of coming into [00:46:14] the marriage debt free. [00:46:15] Um, but I think a lot of it was the separation of accounts. [00:46:19] Last thing I want to talk about, we need to wrap up. [00:46:21] Um, I want to talk about giving money. [00:46:24] Um, I want to talk about tithing, generosity. [00:46:31] What is your philosophy on that? [00:46:33] Have you always been good at it? [00:46:35] You know, how has it evolved over the years? [00:46:39] Um, and then I’d like, I’d like to answer this question too. [00:46:42] Do you want to start? [00:46:44] Um, no, go ahead. [00:46:46] Uh, I was very blessed from a very young age to get to watch two parents, both [00:46:53] my mom and my dad give generously. [00:46:56] And so I was raised in a very generous home. [00:47:00] I remember sitting in church. [00:47:02] Um, my dad’s an entrepreneur. [00:47:03] My grandfather was an entrepreneur. [00:47:05] So, um, there’s a lot of family business and entrepreneurship in my paternal line. [00:47:12] And I remember sitting in church and I was probably seven or eight years old. [00:47:15] And we were sitting on the front row and I remember my dad would always give the [00:47:18] kids like a $20 bill to put in the basket. [00:47:21] And then every so often I’d watch him write a check. [00:47:24] And I just remember this one particular time I watched him write a $10,000 tithing [00:47:30] check to our church. [00:47:32] And I remember looking at that and looking at him and having a conversation in the [00:47:36] car after I’ve like, where’d all that money come from? [00:47:39] Like to me, like $10,000 was like millions, right? [00:47:42] I was a little kid and he was like, it’s a lot of money. [00:47:45] That, that’s money for the church. [00:47:47] And I was like, why did I get that much money? [00:47:50] Like why? [00:47:50] Like, I was so intrigued. [00:47:53] And I just, like my parents were just like, well, that’s not our money. [00:47:56] That’s God’s money. [00:47:58] And so I just was raised in a very young age of there’s some money for us. [00:48:03] There’s money for others and there’s money for God’s causes. [00:48:07] And I, my dad had lots of rental houses at my mom and my dad. [00:48:11] My mom died when I was 15. [00:48:13] So if I say my dad’s single early, that’s why I remember like going to all [00:48:17] these rental houses on Saturdays, collecting cash, right? [00:48:21] So my dad would like go through like all the properties he had. [00:48:24] And a lot of these people didn’t have banking accounts, so they paid their rent [00:48:29] cash and I remember so many times that we’d go to collect the rent and they [00:48:35] just didn’t have it. [00:48:36] And he’d say, all right, I’ll be back next week and he would just let them stay. [00:48:41] And it was like, pay me when you can. [00:48:44] And it just, it really set a precedent of sometimes it’s not always about making [00:48:51] more money. [00:48:52] Sometimes it’s just about providing some runway for someone else. [00:48:56] It’s about giving to something that you believe in. [00:48:59] You know, that old saying, it’s the one who gives the gift is the one who [00:49:03] receives the gift. [00:49:04] And I saw that lived out. [00:49:07] My mom was one of the most generous human beings on planet Earth with her time, [00:49:12] love, money, resources, just the ultimate giver. [00:49:17] I just got to witness it at a really young age from both parents, both in a [00:49:22] financial aspect, but also in a celebration aspect. [00:49:25] My mom was a great celebrator of life, of just, of celebrating, right? [00:49:31] It doesn’t matter what it was, it was a recital. [00:49:33] We got to have a party and roses and stuffed animals. [00:49:36] And it was like just a generous, generous giver of helping people feel loved. [00:49:41] And then I watched my dad do that financially. [00:49:43] So I was raised in a home that was like, there was an expectation that you get [00:49:50] 20 bucks, it’s not all for you. [00:49:51] Some’s for you, some’s for others. [00:49:54] So I was lucky enough to see that really witnessed and modeled. [00:49:57] And I was able to step into that. [00:49:59] That’s beautiful. [00:50:00] I love that. [00:50:02] You know, I, I came from a family that didn’t have much money. [00:50:07] And so I think I came at this very opposite where it was like, we didn’t have, [00:50:13] we felt like we didn’t have any excess. [00:50:15] And we, you know, we, in many ways we didn’t. [00:50:17] And so when I started to accumulate some money, I was living with this psychology [00:50:25] of like, I don’t, I, I’m never going to have enough. [00:50:27] Like we never have enough to get what we want. [00:50:29] We’re never going to have enough. [00:50:30] And so I was always naturally holding onto it. [00:50:34] And it’s not because my, like my mom was not that way. [00:50:37] My mom’s very generous and always has been, but it was just, but she’s also not had a lot. [00:50:42] And so I grew up like holding tightly of like, I can’t, I can’t give this away. [00:50:47] And, um, you know, I think I started giving out a sheer discipline out of just, you know, [00:50:56] the, the biblically speaking of like, you know, giving a tie the 10th and, um, [00:51:02] and didn’t really kind of like have the heart for it. [00:51:06] I was just doing it like out of obedience. [00:51:09] And in many ways, I think that’s a great place to start. [00:51:12] If you’re not, if for no other reason, it’s like, give it out of obedience. [00:51:16] Same way of like, I don’t want to go to the gym, but I’d do that. [00:51:20] Or, you know, I don’t, I like just do it out of obedience and see what happens. [00:51:25] Because, you know, there’s this great verse in the Bible in Malachi, [00:51:29] that this is one of the only places in the Bible where God says, test me in this. [00:51:34] He says, bring, bring your whole tithe into the storehouse and see if I do not throw open [00:51:41] the floodgates of heaven, like test me in this. [00:51:44] Like this is a place where God invites you to test him. [00:51:48] And there’s this great meme on the internet of a little girl standing next to Jesus. [00:51:53] And she’s got this teddy bear in her hand. [00:51:56] And she’s like, Jesus is saying, give me your teddy bear. [00:52:00] And she’s holding this small teddy bear. [00:52:01] And she’s like, I can’t, like this is my favorite teddy bear. [00:52:04] And behind Jesus is back. [00:52:06] He’s holding with another hand this huge teddy bear, like waiting to give it to her. [00:52:11] And he’s like, just, just trust me. [00:52:14] And I love that meme. [00:52:15] And it’s, I found that to just be true. [00:52:18] It’s like, you, you really can test God in it. [00:52:21] So it’s like, if you have to do it out of obedience, if you can do it out of faith, [00:52:28] ultimately that will evolve to doing it out of generosity. [00:52:33] And I think, you know, and you, I would say it’s like, my experience has been, [00:52:38] you can’t out give God. [00:52:40] There’s not been a season when it was like, sometimes we’ve been called to give to something [00:52:45] or like, that’s going to stretch us. [00:52:48] It’s like God has always blessed it somehow. [00:52:51] And then, you know, the last thing is just going, there’s nothing quite like the feeling you get [00:52:57] when you give to someone, especially when you give to something, you know, [00:53:01] someone that’s really in need. [00:53:03] And it’s like, what else are we going to do with the money? [00:53:06] Like what’s another meal or another car or another trip versus like watching the money [00:53:12] that you’ve worked hard for to make a contribution to someone else’s life? [00:53:18] And do that while you’re alive. [00:53:20] Like don’t wait to like die and give all your money away and never see that impact. [00:53:25] It’s like, enjoy that feeling and that fruit of getting to give people that gift. [00:53:31] And I think that’s one reason why, you know, I’m most excited about making more money is to give [00:53:36] more money. [00:53:37] And you’ve always had such a great faithful heart in that way. [00:53:41] And it’s really been encouragement to me. [00:53:43] So there you have it friends. [00:53:45] Those are a few of Rory and AJ’s random philosophies and smattering principles [00:53:53] that about finances that have made a huge difference in our life and in our business [00:53:58] and in the lives of the people around us. [00:54:00] You know, keep in mind, again, for us, you know, money is not the marker. [00:54:05] Peace is the marker. [00:54:07] Peace is the new profit. [00:54:09] Hopefully some of what you learned today will help you have more peace in your life. [00:54:13] Share this episode with someone who needs it. [00:54:15] If you haven’t yet, please go leave a review wherever you listen to this show [00:54:18] so other people can find us and come back next time. [00:54:21] We’ll see you then.