How To Make MONEY Without Working HARDER! | Garrett Gunderson & Allison Maslan

You're a business owner. You're throwing your hands up right now going, I am not sure what to do, where to go, how do I drive up my cash flow now and beyond. Right now on the Scale or Fail show, we have the answers for you. Welcome everyone to the Scale or Fail show. I am your host, Alison Maslin. I'm also your business mentor and the CEO and founder of Pinnacle Global Network. And today we're going to dive in and help you with cash. We're going to help you financially. And I have the wealth expert expert on the Scale or fail show today. So you definitely are going to want to tune in for this entire episode and take notes. So Garrett Gunderson is the founder of the Wealth Factory, which helps self made business owners and entrepreneurs who understand hard work but who haven't been given the proper financial tools to build lasting wealth. And that is probably most of us. He tackles topics like business growth, success and prosperity that are critically important yet normally neglected by most business owners. And besides being the founder of an Inc. 500 firm, he's also the author of multiple Wall Street Journal bestsellers. He hit the New York Times bestseller list with his book Killing Sacred Kill. A regular on ABC's Good Money. He's been interviewed by Neil Cavuto on Fox. He was kicked off CNBC and I'm really dying to hear that story. He's been featured in over a thousand radio interviews. He's been guest on hundreds of podcasts. This guy is in demand. He's also spoken at MIT several times. So if you want to transform right now your thoughts into into profits, keep way more of what you make and grow your money without sacrifice or delay. Garrett Gunderson is your guy. So Garrett, thank you for coming on the show today.

Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to this.

Yeah. So we kind of need you now more than ever.

That is definitely the case. I mean, what's interesting is the cnbc thing in 2008 is when I got kicked off because I said it was the time for people to stop contributing to the retirement plans and really start investing into their business because we were in for a bumpy ride and the market was doing well when I was on and it just tanked over the next couple of months. But they just like this British guy just got really big eyes. I was just on camera and then they just cut me off and never spoke to me again. So it was really crazy. But I was fairly accurate about what I was saying.

Yes.

Now it's just as critical if not more than it was back then.

Wow. Well, I want to dive into all of that and, you know, for those business owners that were around during 2008, 2010, I mean, I've been in business since 1980 something, I mean, way too long, but so been through lots of ups and downs. This is definitely different. But let's back up a little bit so that people know who you are. And how are you the expert to share all this information? What led you to start the wealth factory?

Well, I grew up in a small coal mining town. My dad is a coal miner. My grandfathers and even my great grandfather, all coal miners. So they knew a lot about hard work, but didn't know a lot about wealth. Because hard work with the wrong philosophy still equals misery, bankruptcy, scarcity, frustration. Right. And so I started this business when I was 15 washing and detailing cars. And then I won $5,000 for being the young entrepreneur of the year. And I wanted to invest that money, but my family put money in coffee cans and put it in the cellar so my mom wouldn't sign off as a custodian for me to invest. And then when I was 18, I just went and talked to anyone that I possibly could. You know, like, I used to detail cars for a credit union. So I talked to the president of the credit union, I talked to my unc. He had more money than anyone I knew. And I'm trying to get financial advice to invest and I just got really confusing. But during that process, I got offered an internship. And so it was 1998, I start this internship. I'm peddling mutual funds for a couple of years, which are doing really well in 98 and 99. And then the year 2000 hits the market starts to go down. And I was so young that most of my clients were like my parents and my family, you know, like aunts and uncles and, you know, parents of my friends and, you know, family unions. Got really awkward. I showed up from being little financial Einstein to like, what the hell is going on? Or we're losing money. And I had a professor, Stephen Harrop, that managed $5 billion in municipal bond funds before he became a professor. And he mentored me. And we got everybody but one client out of the market by May of 2000. And then in the year 2001 and 2002, where the market was down double digit interest rates, we did 41% positive and 44% positive those next two years and we were out of the market 80% of the time. But then I really changed everything. Because I realized that those were just strategies and techniques. And I said, okay, look, I wasn't married at the time. And so I just flew somewhere every single month and used my young age to be able to get in and meet with people that were, you know, very affluent, very wealthy. And I found out they were doing things completely different. They were saving on tax as their first initiative that was very guaranteed. They were handling their money and how they dealt with interest rates and finances completely differently. They didn't have all the hidden fees and commissions, and they managed their risk, and they didn't have duplicate coverage and costs with their insurance. So I just, like a nerd, immersed myself into that world and then decided, okay, I'm not going to be the person that's peddling the stock market. Instead, I'm just going to help people keep a lot more of what they make when, without cutting back. And I became really an efficiency expert.

Wow, that's quite the story. So I do have a question is, what do you think that quality is inside of you, Garrett, that you were talking about stocks and mutual funds when you were a kid? I'm sure that was so different than anyone that you were around. Where did that come from?

You might not expect this answer, but I actually. I'm really clear about it in two ways. So, one, I got hit by a car when I was three years old. And when I got hit by a car, I watched my whole family in fear and in worry. They were really like, you know, my mom was pregnant. The hospital was 30 miles away. It was the first time I saw my dad in his full coal mining gear with dust on his face, showing up to the hospital. My grandparents showed up, and I had this, like, notion of, like, wow, look at all this pain. And then I saw that same pain again when my dad was laid off from the coal mine. I saw that same pain again when in 1987 when the stock market dropped and my mom said, we lost all our money. And so I had this, like, real fascination with, like, maybe I can solve that pain. Because when I was the cause of that pain, getting hit by a car, I thought maybe I could do something different. And then also when I was five, I was in kindergarten and I made this little milk carton project, turned it into a replica of my home. But the teacher took the milk carton from everybody in the class and said, memorize your address and you'll get this back. And I couldn't wait to show my mom, but I didn't memorize the address. The only one, the Final day in the class that didn't, and she threw it away. And so I thought, I'm stupid. And so to prove I wasn't stupid, I thought if I could get really wealthy, I could take care of my family and I could prove to everyone else that I wasn't stupid, including myself. And so that was not the best belief long term, but it was the thing that got me started. And, you know, I just saw so much pain and suffering with my family. I mean, my great grandfather didn't see his wife and didn't meet his daughter until she was seven years old, because when his wife got pregnant, he couldn't put food on the table in San Giovanni, Italy. So he had to get on a ship, come to America, become a goat herder, eventually a coal miner, live in a tent. And what I realized is if people don't understand finances, it creates so much pain. And so I gained this massive passion because my grandfather was my hero. My mom was always there for me, and I thought maybe I could be there for them if I could figure this out.

Wow. Yeah. So that's such a deep driver, you know, now that really makes sense to me. And you sure appreciate, you know, when you have. When you've experienced that, you definitely appreciate what you have, and then you want to keep it and grow it. And so I want to talk about COVID 19 businesses now and beyond. But in general, how do you generally help clients make these big leaps financially in their wealth and in their success?

Well, the first step is to find out where things have unnecessary risk or where they're inefficient. And so we actually went and built an entire financial team. When I was 22 years old, I flew to New York City. I was a pest to this guy named Vince, but I made friends with his wife and his secretary, and they said, you're going to let Garrett go and watch you on some of your appointments. And so we went into this appointment where he's presenting a $400 million strategy, and the client's not even in the room, but it's a conference room table with attorneys and accountants and other investment professionals and risk managers. And after the meeting was over, I said, what was that? He goes, oh, it's called a family office. And it's. This was a low tier one. You just have to be worth $30 million to work with them. And he said it, matter of fact, and I was like, my young mind was like, well, what if you're not worth $30 million? I didn't know people worth $30 million at that time. So I naively said, I'm going to build that for the entrepreneur, that all their money's tied up in their business, that they're first generation, that they don't have this cash. And it took me 13 years to build that team of attorneys, accountants, investment advisors. And I created an investment philosophy and a wealth philosophy that they had to subscribe to. They had to go through a nine month application and interview process. And then, you know, so I was able to kind of build that. So what we do is we're like a quarterback for people. We help them navigate that. And the first thing is get their financial house in order. And then the second thing is plug the leaks and get them more cash from the dollars they're already making. Then the third thing is focus on how they can become economically independent, which is having enough cash flow come from two sources. Their assets that kick off regular cash flow, or their entrepreneurial income, which, which is the income that shows up if they don't open a computer, look at their phone, or go into the office. Right. And when that could cover their basic expenses, it meant that every active dollar they earn could go back into investing in their business, their mission and their vision, and give them a really strategic advantage over people that are right now scrambling to make payroll. And so what we see in these times right now is people that have followed that advice are feeling calm. Unfortunately, I feel like I wish I could reach even more people because there's so many people suffering and having that difficulty that now we're saying, well, what can we do to help people get access to cash today so they could bridge and then work with someone like you that goes and takes them to growth, you know, beyond where they're at right now. And so it's kind of cool we find money for them to put money into the things that you're teaching them to do, which is rare for most financial firms. We don't, we don't do the stock market, we don't do fees on assets under management. We'd get paid a lot more if we did. But I believe in small business more than I believe in big corporations. And so I want to see the small business owners thrive.

So you really have a holistic perspective. You're not just focused on one area, you're really looking at their wealth and saying, okay, how do we drive, you know, how do we really have wealth building processes in place so that that just covers your nut and everything else is just to help fuel growth, Right.

Like, I just got off a Recording with one of our mutual friends that connected us. One of the many people that keep telling us about each other, Pete Vargas. And when he, when he started working with us, I said, okay, first off, let's get your financial house in order. There wasn't a lot to do because he was really early and had just barely started his business. But then we said, how do we create economic independence? And 17 and a half months later, 82% of his expenses were covered by one type of investment we helped him analyze, which was all he did was Airbnb on properties in his area of Colorado Springs. And then we said, well, now that this is covered, what do you want to do in your business? And he just took that to a whole other level because he didn't have to worry about the day to day. His wife wasn't stressed about what he was doing with his business. It could be even more supportive. So that's that economic independence is such a game changer that you really get like a 10 times growth in your business. If you know that your kids get to go to the school you want them to go to, you're going to eat the type of food you want to eat, you drive the cars, have the house, and that's never at risk. Where entrepreneurs, a lot of times have a significant other that operate very different than them, and then they're at odds because entrepreneurs are notorious for having an idea that takes longer and more money than it's originally intended to do. And so the other person that's asking for stability and security ends up kind of like gas and brakes at the same time. We find economic independence puts people on the same page, even though they have different money personalities and they can accelerate in everything that they're doing.

Yeah, I totally get that. That's why none of my relationships when I was dating with people in the corporate world ever worked. So I said, I think I need to marry a business owner. It took me a while to figure out.

So.

Well, I love everything you're saying. It just makes so much sense. And you know, when you can go to sleep at night and not worry, you know, you can be so much more creative in your business. Let's go ahead and dive into what's happening in the world now. You know, what can business owners do now? You know, in our community, as I was telling you before, Garrett, we have brick and mortar, we have restaurants, we have retail chains, and we also have the construction company, the staffing company, the marketing company. We really are all across the board. And what's been exciting Is that within the challenge? It's amazing how the human spirit prevails and we are really helping them pivot like crazy. But you know, some of them are having to furlough employees and you know, for those of you that might be listening to this interview. And we're back, you know, we're back into our lives. You know, I would like to talk about some cash strategies, things that they can take advantage of now and thinking ahead for the future.

Great. And I'll give the most simple, practical things first and then we'll just get to the. It'll kind of compound and get a little bit bigger as we go along.

Sounds great.

Yeah. The simple thing to look at, you could go to your state government site for this first one or you can just go to missingmoney.com and a lot of business owners change locations, they change homes, they have multiple vendors and people paying them. And if that payment doesn't reach you, it becomes state property. So@MissingMoney.com you can get those checks back. I've probably got seven of them over my lifetime. We just got someone that just got $1,000 back. Not a huge amount of money, but it's just, it takes a few minutes and you get the money and you can even have an employee do it. My controller does this once a year for me. The second thing is I think that bridging wherever we're at or even have access to capital is essential. So even if you have a paid off car, you can go refinance that car, get a really low interest rate and get access to that money right now or well, interest rates are so low and those types of loans that are installment loans like that are super easy to get. Now more difficult to get might be refinancing a home because interest rates are lower. Refinancing that will mean you have better cash management. The payment will be lower. But you might even consider, and this isn't ordinary advice, but this is not ordinary times. We just had a guy, James Bentz, that got $300,000 extra when he refinanced just to go put it in a safe account just into cash. Because one he knows on the other side of this, his profession, a lot of people aren't going to make it. And he'd be able to buy those businesses and the employees inside of those businesses and keep them alive by having that cash on hand. But also if you know right now we're doing this, there's quarantines. If the quarantines are longer, he can ride that out longer by having access to that cash or even getting a line of credit is useful. But if you have a line of credit, you might want to pull that money out of the line of credit, put it into a bank account, pay the interest even if you're not using it, because you can always pay it back. But we're going to see a lot of people lose their lines of credit if they're not used, because the banks are going to find increasing defaults more difficulty. And so that's another piece. And I'll breathe here for a second. There's a lot more I can cover here, but that's some immediate cash management for people.

Yeah, I love that. I'm going to do all of those things. And really what you're saying is to hold on to your cash, like really pull out. And just for safekeeping, you may put it back in, you may not spend it, but just as a backup. In fact, we are. We were just talking about refinancing the house. So that's interesting because we definitely have equity in the house, but also having access, because this is one of our scale strategies, is buying other businesses. It's one of the fastest way to scale so you don't have to build it up. And there are going to be people now and over the next, probably year, maybe longer, that are like, you know what? I'm done. I just don't want to do this anymore. And so that you can buy businesses like, no money down, there's going to.

Be so much opportunity. I've been saying the opportunity since 2018 for small business is going to be here. It's here in a bigger way than I even imagined. And so let's look at the stock market for just a minute. We look at the companies in the stock market. People are automatically putting in money in a retirement plan. They have index funds and mutual funds. And if we look at the earnings of those major companies versus what people are buying the companies for, it might be 20 times or more earnings. But if you're buying a small business, $2 million of revenue, a million or less in revenue, you might be buying it for less than one year's revenue. And what you're buying is infrastructure. And what you're buying is the employees. And more importantly, you're buying something from someone that didn't know how to manage it the way you might be able to, especially if it's complementary to your existing business, Especially if you're working with Alison. You could then turn around and say, hey, we're. We know what to do, because maybe you're just better at communicating in a one to many fashion with the customers or potential customers that are along with that business. Maybe you just have infrastructure that they never thought of. Or what I find a lot of these businesses where the owner gets tired is businesses have a really hard time when the founder will not fire people, will not confront people. Oh my gosh, the majority of them. And we have found people like in 2008, if we just go back to the couple year recession, we had a lot of our clients buy businesses during that time. And what we do is when they bought the business, we'd say, okay, we want you to not really worry about firing anyone for at least three months, maybe up to six months if the cash flow makes sense. For what I want you to do is interview everyone, understand that culture and find the superstars in there. Because I assure you there's a few there and just go to the superstars and say, hey, if we were to eliminate these three positions or these three people, could you take on a third of that for a 10% increase in your income? They go, oh my God, if they were to leave, I'm cleaning up their mess anyway. And what you find is with a little bit more comp to those people, you eliminate a lot of the expense of the others, improve the culture. And especially if you're bringing infrastructure that business didn't have. So we have a client named Mike. He's bought eight businesses in the last two years. It's all health oriented and he's a brilliant list manager. And so he just goes out there and sometimes he'll just put an amazing superstar face in one of those businesses. And other times he'll just say, we're going to integrate it into what we already have. And he no longer does any mutual funds. And his lifestyle is ridiculous. I mean, this guy works two to three hours a day now. I'm a little bit pissed that he's this good at it, you know. And before, when I met him in 2008, he just worked all the time and his health suffered. So there's so much opportunity where you're buying it for a fractional multiple less than a year's revenue. And you now get access to these employees. And I'm glad people are listening to you because here's the deal. It's hard to get employees. Pre COVID 19 we were overemployed. It was hard to attract some of the best talent that is now available and will increasingly be available moving forward.

Yeah, man, you hit on so many important points here. And you know, with buying a business, whether you roll it in under your own brand, into your own business, or have somebody else to run it, it's just, it's quick scaling. And you know, I think you definitely. One of the difficult, most difficult, but most important part is letting go of people that, you know, they may have been great to get you where you are, but they're not the people that are going to take you to that next level. A lot of times keeping them is habit. We care about these people, of course we care about these people. We feel indebted to them. But, you know, people can get comfortable, a little bit lazy, or they may just not have the money mindset to, you know, go the distance for the business. But somebody else comes in, doesn't have that kind of relationship, is able to see more clearly and say, okay, these are the people that are leaders. These are the people that are putting in, you know, 100% beyond the effort. And you know, I'm sure you've experienced when you've let somebody go, as painful as it is, you know, like the next day your team's going, oh my gosh, thank God you did that. You know, like, it's like, why didn't anyone tell me?

70% of what that person that we let go of did was try to convince us they're valuable and only 30% of what they did actually mattered. And look, the last person I let go, well, actually the last, the second to last person I let go, when I first let him go, they got this shot of adrenaline, they were kind of upset. Within a couple days I called them back, we had another conversation and they were fine. And they actually understood why we weren't working well together, even though they'd been with us for 10 years and it was two years too late. I even teaching this, waited two years too long. The last person I let go, as soon as I saw there was an issue, and in the end of the conversation, they said, is there any way I could ever come back? I said, maybe I'll leave that door open, but here's what I'd have to see to even consider that. And so of my 21 year career, I would say there's two people I've ever let go that don't talk to me and don't like me. Everyone else, I have a formula and a way to have the conversation that if they see me, we talk, they say good things about me out there in the community. Even in the moment when it happens, if they don't feel that way. And the reality is I'm not doing them a favor or me a favor keeping them around. It's just that people struggle with confrontation, and I'm one of those people, and I've had to mature over time with it. But there's, you know, there's so valuable for all parties involved.

Yeah, I think it's something that most business owners need to work at. I am the middle child. I'm the Jan Brady that is trying to make everybody happy.

So you're the peacemaker, right?

Yeah, I am. But I'm like you. I've had incredible experiences, even though I, you know, it's always dreading it, and then it's actually healing for both of us. And what I find, like what you're saying is that, you know, they're probably not feeling very good about themselves anyway because they don't feel like that they're, you know, really meeting up to expectations. So you rather. It's like hanging on to a relationship just because you feel sorry for the person. I mean, that's just not fair. You know, it's. They need to get on with their life. So, you know, the business owner. So right now, I mean, being within COVID 19, obviously there's some things that they can do right now with the PPP and all of that. We'll see where that's going to land. I do see some people already getting some cash, which I just saw that somebody on Facebook talking about that we filed ours as well. But then beyond that, if people right now, what are some things they should think about? They're scrambling. They're just trying to pivot with their revenue streams and so forth. What would be just some action steps they should take right now? I mean, you've got the finding the money missingmoney.com I'm definitely going to do that. You're saying, you know, look at refinancing and holding onto the cash. What are some other things?

So this one will last for a while. So I'm going to start here. And I think it's one of the bigger opportunities. It's called net operating loss, or NOL. And what's happened is in 2017, we had a new kind of Trump tax plan that came out. And one of the things that eliminated was how we deal with losses as a business. It capped it at 80%. So anything over 80% you had to carry forward. You couldn't take in that year. The other thing that would happen is there was alternative minimum tax. So based upon how much you make that started to creep up. And what they've changed with some of the new IRS notices is there's no longer a cap rate, so you can write off 100%. So you might have had profitable years in the last five years that normally you could only go back three years, and it was capped. Now you can go back to 2015, and there's no cap on it. And so we had someone, just recently, we did this thing. If someone owns a commercial building like their own building, they can do something called cost segregation. Cost segregation allows you to accelerate your depreciation for tax purposes. So it's limited how much you can write off. So he was going to get $70,000 back and felt really good about that. Well, in the midst of this and after the study, when that cap was lifted off, the number came out to be a million dollars. A million dollars. Same strategy, but with new net operating loss laws. Another example that was very similar is there's something called R and D credits, research and development. So any business owner that's built a website, that's modified a CRM, that's built an app, that's done something in technology, and they've done that within the United States. They didn't, you know, they didn't go to India or they didn't go to the Philippines. You can get credits above and beyond your expenses. Those credits are because of the time that you spent. And it's a way to say, please keep that here and keep the money in the United States. So, once again, that was limited by some of these rules. You can now go back three years still, and then the cap is taken off. So again, someone that thought they were going to get back, you know, I think it was something like $19,000 is getting closer to $100,000 back because of the rule change. So everyone at all times can go back three years and amend returns if they've missed something. And I find most people miss things on their taxes because they're busy business owners. They don't understand the tax code. They have had the same account for a long time. That might be more of a historian saying, here's what you made, here's what you owe them. A strategist that says, well, how do we maximize the tax deductions? Could you pay your kids? Right now, people are working from home. There's a thing called the Augusta Rule. The Augusta Rule says you can rent your home out 14 days a year to your business. Your business gets to write that off. But you don't have to claim that as personal income. So it's pure tax deduction for the business. Or the bigger things that happen in accounting really come from tax attorneys and corporate attorneys. But most people don't integrate them into the tax team. And so there's four ways that attorneys can help you. One is reclassification of income. So reclassification of income is taking a active income like a W2 and then taking more distributions like 1099. Because it's when you're operating as a business owner, you can be 1099. It's only when you're operating as a technician that you're W2. It's the reasonable salary test that avoids 15.3% tax. Or if you own your building, you can rent that out to an LLC that you own. You, you can charge top rent and that comes in as 1099. Those are just two examples of moving from active to passive. Another one though is moving from ordinary income which is 37% at the top rate, to capital gains which is 20% at the top. 15% is a little bit lower rate depending on how much. And there's some that's even at 0%. Well, let's say you have international clients. International clients can pay you through an international sales corporation, which makes it a capital gain instead of ordinary income because again, the United States wants the money here, not the money there, right? So or even if you have a business that you sell off pieces of stock, that's capital gains. Or I did something years ago because of times like this called a captive insurance agency, which is just a way that I can put money into my own insurance company so it insures my businesses. I put money into it pre tax but then I can make a claim. I'm making one right now because I'm a speaker and all this stuff is, you know, really messed up my speaking schedule. And so I am able to make a claim for my own insurance company. It was my cash, but it comes to me if it's a distribution as capital gains, not as ordinary income. And so another thing is there's tax free income available. Anyone that's a C corporation that wants to sell their business and has been around for at least five years and sometime in later 80s they had to not be before that time, but they can sell up to $10 million tax free. Or there's donor advised funds that are tax free. Or there's charitable trust that if you ever sell your business, you can use a charitable trust, get a tax deduction, not pay tax on the sale and get a lifetime income off of that, between 5 and 50%, depending on your age and your return. So I know I'm throwing a lot out there right now.

Wow. I mean, yeah. So, I mean, really, there is just opportunities to find cash everywhere. It's not just creating new revenue streams and sales, which, you know, obviously I'm all about creating a revenue focused company, but there could be cash that you're not capitalizing on right now. That Augusta rule, that's something that I learned actually through jj, which I think was through you.

Through me? Yeah. JJ is one of my favorite because she's like, can we write off a wedding? Can we?

You know, everything is a mastermind. I know. So with the Augusta rule, can you go back. Can you go back to your taxes for three years for that?

No, that has to be in the given year. It's kind of.

Oh, it does. Okay.

Yeah. We're R and D credits. Another thing called D pad. Domestic production credits. You can go back. We found times where people paid self employment tax where it wasn't needed, just erroneously. We can go back there. But, you know, moving forward, you got the Augusta rule, and it's pretty simple. Moving forward, you can pay your kids up to $12,200 a year, tax free. That's something, but it's not something you can move back.

Got it. Got it. Well, I mean, gosh, if people did like a tenth of just what you said, it's going to make a big impact. So thank you for sharing all of that. I want to dive into some other things. You know, money mindset is big. You know, I really think that's the sabotager. Right. And so what do you find? Because you're. That's. You're dealing with. With money 24 7, with people. What are some of the most destructive, limiting beliefs that really hold them back?

Well, we're in a society that we vilify wealth. We vilify. It's like that person, if they're wealthy, they must have done something wrong. I remember my grandma saying that about someone, they're wealthy because they're just a bad person. Okay. I'm just a kid hearing that. And that has an imprint. And I love my grandma, you know, or my mom sitting at the table paying bills saying, we're insurance poor. All of our money goes to insurance. You know, or even waking up from a nap. As a kid, we had a plaque in our camping trailer that said, money's the root of all evil. And so these kind of things create subconscious beliefs. And when we have these people we care about we don't want to be seen as different or bad or anything that way. And so it's this dilemma. And so think about this. How many people think money is the root of all evil, yet they want more of it? That's a conflict for people, even if it's a conscious belief. But I think the most destructive money belief that's out there is that we are our money. That somehow our money defines who we are and what we're capable of. And that somehow our net worth and our self worth are the same thing. Where money is merely a ledger or a measurement of past things, not future things, just the past, past value we created, past inheritances. And at most, it's a snapshot of what's happening today. But the reality is money doesn't dictate our future as far as the value we can create, because it doesn't take money to make money. People that tell you it takes money to make money want your money like Wall Street. It doesn't take their money to make money. It takes your money. It doesn't take risk for them to get return. You're taking the risk, right? And so we have to really identify that money is a byproduct. It's a byproduct of value creation. And the way that we create value is in two modalities. One is our mental capital. It's our knowledge, wisdom, insights, strategies. It's all the tools that we have. And then we combine that with relationship capital. People, networks, organizations, subscribers, friends, family, cohorts, you know, associates, customers. And so the bridge between mental and relationship capital is business. Business is a bridge where we serve others, solve problems, and deliver that value. And the greater the value, the more byproduct of cash that comes in. Now, we might not get cash when we're creating value for family and friends, but when we're creating it for everyone else, there's this. They exchange with us and say, I'm willing to give you the money because what you're offering to me is worth more than the money I'm giving you. And we're saying what we're offering to you is worth less to us than the money because look, I wrote a book. I mean, I don't need to read it in the editing process. I read it more than I ever want to read it ever again in my life. But someone else can take my millions of dollars of mistakes and lessons and get it for 20 bucks so we can both end up wealthier because of that exchange. So exchange and value create wealth. And so what Happens during a time where we're under quarantine and a recession. And COVID 19 is, is that exchange starts to slow down. And we watch the ramifications of that because what we measure wealth in, in the economy is velocity. Velocity is the number of times a dollar exchanges hands in a given year. And so the more that happens, the more wealth is created. So wealth isn't finite like some people believe. Wealth isn't like sports where there's a winner and a loser. Wealth is like, you know, I don't know. I think of it more like music and even sex, because two parties can win in that you can even create a life from it at times. So ultimately we have to get past the scarcity mindset around money. There's like a piece of pie. It's like a pie and if I take too big of a piece, there's less for someone else. That pie expands through value creation, that pie expands through exchange. And if we stay in the service solving problems and we don't chase money piece, but we chase value, it transforms how money operates with the individual.

I love that. I think that is the best explanation of wealth that I have heard. And I've talked to a lot of people and I've always felt like it's energy, it's an exchange of energy.

Yes.

And you know, I was in the healing profession for years as a homeopath and I built a school called the Homeopathic Academy of Southern California. And we would train these healers and they'd say, well, I can't charge these people, they're sick. I feel so bad. And I'd say, you're putting energy out there. You have to receive at that level.

Right.

And so I see it like currency. Right, Currency. A current is an electrical energy. We don't see it, but it is, it flows. And so we need to keep the money flowing because, you know, that's really what grows the economy. And we have the capacity to give back to people that, you know, we want to support. So yeah, I love how you explain that and that it's, it isn't finite, it's continually moving and evolving.

You so spot on. Your explanation is so resonant with exactly how I feel. And in my first book ever wrote, I had this whole analogy because I live in Salt Lake City. And so we have the Great Salt Lake, which is a dead lake. There's no movement of the water. I think there's one living organism in there. That's it. And yet we look at the Amazon river, the Amazon river is so powerful that there's fresh water for miles into the ocean where it enters. There's so much life around it. I'd be scared of everything that's around it. Right. But if we look at money more of a flow than as something that's stagnant, unfortunately, too many people have. Have erroneously believed that net worth is the game of money. So net worth is usually, how much can I scrimp, sacrifice, save, delay, and defer to have a number on a piece of paper that says how much I'm worth, that gets money to stop. And it's all about, like, retirement plans. I'm about cash flow. Cash flow is the lifeblood of a business. It's like blood inside the body. Net worth might be the muscle, but the muscle is nothing without the blood. And so I want people to focus through this more on their cash flow and how they can create recurring cash flow than just stopping the money in some type of fund they don't understand and some type of investment that they don't get that they say 30 years from today. I hope it all works out, because unfortunately, 95% of the time, it doesn't work out in the long haul because. Because there's no accountability, responsibility. There's no flow. And so if we could just transform into cash flow over accumulation, it would completely transform how people operate, and we start focusing more on value creation and currency instead of hoarding and setting aside. It would just change everything. It really would.

Yeah. I think the new visual is that rushing river. That's the visual to hold in your mind is just that water continuing to flow.

Like Mother Teresa, right? Like Mother Teresa. Some people are like, well, what about these people, you know, that weren't wealthy? I'm like, really? You don't think Mother Teresa was wealthy? She flew on private jets. Private jets. She could walk into any corporation anytime and demand money, and they'd be like, okay, here you go. Because it flowed through her. It didn't stop when it got to her. When it stops, when it gets to you. That's scarcity. It will limit your overall impact and outcome because it doesn't velocitize. This is think velocity, think flow, think currency, think energy. Everything Allison was saying combined with this, and it will transform how you operate in the world, which is a byproduct. You'll have more resources available to you.

Well, this is exciting. I'm energized by it. And so. And you've written some great books that people. I want you to reach out and get Garrett's book. But you have something that you've put together. You've put a special offer together right now to help business owners that are, you know, bleeding that cash. They're scrambling right now. They're listening, going, oh, Garrett, this sounds great. I'm just trying to, you know, trying to, you know, fill the drought here. So can you share with us how you're here to support them?

Well, let me say as I go into this, the government can't save you, corporations won't save you. Effort isn't enough, but it takes swift, intelligent action in these times of kind of crisis or calamity. And so I've been working around the clock on this and brought in the experts that we have in our family office structure. And what we've created is critical cash in critical times. And so what it's designed to do is give you the support to navigate all that we've seen with the three IRS notices, with the different acts that have come out. You know, everything with the CARES act and the payment protection program to the emergency injury disaster loans, to the employee retention credits. I mean, there's a lot for people to navigate, and there's some that you can do both, others that are one versus the other. Some are for people that had a bigger than a 50% drop from last year to this year in their revenues, and that makes it available. And so there's some that you just click one thing and you can get a $10,000 advance. Some of this is to be paid back. A lot of it is not. But there's a lot of people that just don't even know where to start, how to navigate this. So we put together a program where we've got people shooting, showing you on video exactly how to fill out the applications. Every single week till the end of June, I'm on live Q and A's. I'm bringing in lenders, I'm bringing in the attorneys, so people can say, what do I fill out if I'm in this situation? Okay, this is where you go. This is how you do it. And so it's not the product I wanted to create. It was the one that I had to create, because we're in this, and we've got to make sure people get to the other side. And I want to see businesses succeed as a lifeline. So we created this@wealthfactory.com Allison wealthfactory.com Allison. You can get the videos on the net operating losses, which is how you go back and get taxes that I talked about earlier. Or we have in the initial Piece, the Payment Protection Program. So you get both of those videos for a really low investment of 97 bucks. But if you want all of the. What's out there, right? Because we know that there's a lot more to it. Because we've got everything from the Families First Cares act. We got the EIDLs, we got the PPP, we got the employee retention credit. So we have six different sections, and all those sections have all the videos required to get everything taken care of. And this weekly Q and A, So that's for 397 more dollars as an investment. And you'll have permanent access to this. And we'll update it, too. If the Heroes act goes through, if it hasn't by the time this airs, then guess what? We'll have that included in there. They were doing everything we can to put this out for people and help them. I'm just. I saw too much confusion, too many people not knowing what to do. And I was manning too many phone calls and text messages. So I'm like, okay, here you go.

Yeah. Well, thank you for doing this and thanks for pulling it together so quickly. There is so much confusion and, you know, missed opportunity. This is something where you need to take fast action. And I like that you're coming on every week because there are changes. There are going to be new things that are going to be offered, plus all of the other strategies that you employ and that you support people with. So it's even beyond that, you know, really just get your head in the game to get your finances turned around so that not to just get you through this time and survive, but it's really to thrive financially. And I will tell you that Garrett is the guy in this space. Seriously. I have had five people say, you have to meet Garrett. You have. You know, so I was. It's just. I'm so excited that you're on here today. I'm really happy for our community to find you. And for all of those listening, definitely take Garrett up on this offer. We don't usually make offers on this show, but I'm doing it today because I really want to help you. And it's really so reasonable. So it is. Let's give that. We'll put the URL up, But for those of you that are listening to this, it's wealthfactory.com Alison. Remember, Alison has two L's and this is fantastic. So thank you for doing this.

Yeah, thanks for having me on. And, you know, it feels good to get people money and then know that if they're Listening to you, they're gonna do the right things with it. It's rare that someone has the amount of status in my mind the first time I talk to them because your reputation is so stellar and I've talked to people that have got phenomenal results. And I know other people that share with your community that I highly respect and regard. And your name is usually at the top of the list when they say, here's someone you need to meet that I think you're really gonna jive with. So I'm glad that we're finally able to do something. Tough circumstances, but these tough times require tough answers and acting swiftly. So I'm glad we're able to support.

Yeah, I think there's some. Going to be some incredible innovation coming out the other side of this.

Yes.

And so what are some parting words? What would you say to those that are listening here that, you know, might be scared or just, you know, really waffling in the uncertainty?

Look, I mean, before COVID 1920, 20 was going to be a recessionary year that I think was going to last for at least two years. So that's not a massive surprise. Having a quarantine and pandemics, that's a little bit different. But it's not unprecedented. I mean, we had. I wasn't alive, but During World War II, people came back from World War II just to find themselves quarantined because of polio. And people were marking on their houses whether it was a polio or polio house or not. You know, obviously we've heard of Spanish influenza with a much smaller population and a major death toll. So here's the thing. We are resilient people. And there's nothing that's more resilient than purpose. I am rereading man's search for meaning right now because Viktor Frankl found himself in a concentration camp. And other people in the concentration camp didn't make it out because they wanted their time frame to be the time frame of the concentration camp. If they could just get out by the end of the year, then they'd be okay. But when they didn't get out, then they found themselves in a dire situation, depressed and feeling no level of power. So we cannot control the global economy. We don't have a timeframe of exactly when things are going to happen and how they're going to happen. But we do have a personal economy that we can control. Our daily steps that we could focus on how we're viewing it. And if we start to see it as something that happened for us to reimagine, rethink, reconnect, and. And really come out of this as leaders, well, then it really is happening for us, not just to us. So obviously, stay healthy, stay safe, but most importantly, be willing to take support and be willing to be that support. But you don't have to go it alone.

Wow. I could not have said it any better. That was beautiful and inspiring. And we will prevail and thrive, especially with your help, Garrett. So. So everybody jump over and go to wealthfactory.com Alison and take Garrett up on his support right now. And you will quickly make that back and so much more. So thank you, Garrett, for being here today. This meant a lot to me and so many. And for those of you that are listening, if you haven't subscribed to the show, what the heck are you doing? So go there.

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