The Wealth Manager Who Became A Comedian, The 4 Scarcity Mindsets, The Insurance You Must Have & More: Disrupting Sacred Cows With Garrett Gunderson.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Podcast.

Hey, kids. Love you. Enjoy these bills. Legacy. P.S. to be fair, you were my biggest expense. Good luck. Sign Mom. Entertainment is the gateway to today's transformation. So I'm like, I could actually use entertainment to help people tackle a topic that most people won't address. What would it look like to design a life I love? What would it look like to live a life I would never want to retire from? It opened up and awakened the inner artist. And then this is the lesson. If anyone wants to have a better relationship with money, the simplest thing they could do is.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show. All right, folks, so I want to introduce you to my friend, Garrett Gunderson. Garrett's really cool because not only has he written really like, well, one book and now two books that have influenced me tremendously in the realm of finances. Although he's had his fingers in many books, including a book about habits of the billionaires, kind of getting into the idea of operating your family, your trust, your constitution, your finances, your family bank, et cetera, like the Rockefeller family. He wrote another book called Killing Sacred Cows, which I consider to be just like a quintessential. Even though I don't really even know what that word means. I'm going to throw it around and make myself sound smart. A quintessential or essential handbook to really define the status quo when it comes to the way that you manage your finances and making decisions that I think are a lot more helpful than perhaps what we're taught these days in economics and in finances. And now he has a new book. He has a new book called Disrupting Sacred Cows. I have. If you guys can hear me right here, ba boom. I have the giant manuscript sitting on my desk. I finished it last week when Garrett was kind enough to send it up to me in preparation for this interview. And holy cow, it's just as good, if not better than Garrett's book, Killing Sacred Cows. He's really into cows and he's really into offending people in India. I have a feeling not a lot of people in India are going to appreciate you.

Not going to do well there. Not going to do well?

No, definitely not. And Garrett's got an interesting story and he can tell it to you how he came from a fourth generation coal mining family in Utah. And perhaps we can get into his story on this show how he kind of. How he kind of really turned himself into quite not only a expert in economics and finance, but now a renaissance man. And that's why, coming back to the beginning of this introduction, I think that Garrett is pretty cool because he's now a one man show. He's a stand up comet comic con. You could be a stand up comet, I suppose. But anyways, just like the reindeer. So Garrett is a stand up comic now. Now not only is he a funny stand comic, you wouldn't expect somebody involved in like accounting or finances or economics to be funny. So now that we've lost all our accountants and all of our listeners from India, I'll just keep going. But he also has invited me to open for him at a comedy show in Austin, Texas. I will put all the details for that into the show notes@BenGreenfieldFitness.com BenGreenfieldFitness.com Cows because Garrett likes to put cows in his books. But in a nutshell, it's May 10, 7pm at the creek and the Cave in Austin, Texas. If you want to come see me open stand up comedy for Garrett. And I should note Garrett, and then I'm going to stop talking and let you talk since you're the person being interviewed here. I think it's a brilliant move, Garrett, to get your friends who are not funny to get up on stage before you get up on stage so that you can, in a manner very similar to price anchoring, make yourself look that much more comical.

Look, man, you are funny. That's the bottom line. And you're an artist. And so I've given this opportunity to several of my friends. I did a 15 city tour and my manager, Barry Katz, when I first told him I was going to do this, he's like, that's a terrible idea. It's a mistake. You cannot do this. Absolutely not. And we're sitting there at La Jolla Comedy Store, two of my friends opened for me and they both just crushed it. And he looked over at me and he just started clapping like, I don't even know how you just did this. But yeah, it's fun because, dude, it's gonna be more fun to celebrate this with you. Like to share this with you will make it more enjoyable. And I've seen you play guitar and sing. I've seen you joke around plenty. And you've done a lot of stage time. So I fully expect it to be great.

Thank you. Although I don't think I'm gonna be playing. I'm not gonna be one of those comedians, Garrett, who gets up and like plays Songs on a guitar or plunks around on a piano. I don't think that'll be my shtick. Although I can do a pretty. I can do a pretty good Kermit the Frog rainbow song on my guitar. So if. If. If shit goes south and I don't wind up writing a set, I'm gonna buy a giant green frog suit. I'll get up there and. And I'll sing the Rainbow Connection song with a banjo or ukulele or guitar.

Yeah, it'll be definitely weird.

Yeah. So what are you a comedian? Are you a wealth manager, man? Which one is it?

Well, I sold my. My business June 2021 in Wealth Factory. That's been an amazing decision. I did a licensing deal with them where I'm still teaching for them. But look, man, entertainment is the gateway to today's transformation. A few people want to get educated, but everybody wants to be entertained. And so I'm like, I could actually use entertainment to help people tackle a topic that most people won't address in finance. And so I'm in edutainment to sound cheesy as hell. I'm. I'm still using, like, the topic of finance. Even my first comedy special that we filmed April 15th called the American Ream of 2021, I. A lot of it's around finance, discussing everything from crypto to inflation to Wall street to insur. To taxes. And so there's not really other comedians that have the depth of knowledge that I have in that arena. And so rather than try to compete against the world greatest, I just invented a new category. And I mean, even the people that came and helped me with the special was like, Marty Kallner, who won an Emmy with. With. You know, I think he won his Emmy with Jerry Seinfeld. He did a special for Chris Rock. He did specials for Robin Williams and Steve Martin and George Carlin. So I got amazing people around me to get better.

You know, I hadn't even realized. I thought that it was called the American Dream, but you just call it the American ream.

So many people are reamed when it comes to finance and don't really know what's going on.

You're not using ream, like, in the British slang sense of the term. Like, you know, it's not a cool or fashionable. You're literally talking about us Americans getting penetrated sexually.

Screwed. Yeah, screwed. All right.

Interesting, man.

I got to tell you, I feel really good about what we did. It was. It was pretty exciting because so many people hadn't seen each Other because of what 2020 was. And we had two shows that day and, you know, several hundred people at both shows, and it was so much fun, dude. And just felt like I worked so relentlessly. I started writing it November 15th of 2020 and then performed April 15th, which is a pretty short window. Yeah, I got lean, bro. I was like you. I was like the Japanese walker every day. You know how you talk about how you move more towards that. I was walking to work on my rehearsal. I'm walking my. My dog became my friend at a 10 times higher degree because he just knew we were walking every day. I'd get on the rower and I just row and recite every day. I got so freaking lean and shredded. And then I went on a comedy tour for 15 cities and was stressed out, but sold out most of the. And then I just put some weight on. So, you know, I got some work to do now, so I'm back rowing and reciting. I just bought a house with the lap pool, so I've been swimming. Yeah, man, you know, you're always an inspiration on. On staying fit and looking like Jesus. We both kind of have the Jesus look going these days, man.

You. You were first. I. I am growing my hair out, though. I'll eventually get the Garrett Gunderson full on streaming Jesus hair look.

But look, you love the clothes, though, dude. You have the Jesus clothes. Like, when I went to dinner with you last, I was like. I was like, dude, you're. You're doing the Jesus look better than me.

Yeah, that's a. That's a men's fashion clothing company called Spiritual Narciss. I guess, like luxury and possibly prohibitively expensive clothing for men that does look kind of like flowy and Jesus and all spiritual. And it's not necessarily something I ever would have thought I'd find myself wearing, but one of my friends, Austin Floyd, he started the company, he sent me a big box of their stuff, and I'm like, this is great. This is not only extremely comfortable clothing that I think looks pretty good with my new look with the hair and everything, but it gives me an excuse to wear my underwear out to dinner. Because that's basically what it is. You know, you just free balling with the Jesus yoga toga on. So it works. And by the way, folks, Garrett is not kidding because so he and I did. We did a Father Son wilderness survival camp last year at Twin Eagles Survival School. And Garrett would literally be up at like 3am meditating and then preparing himself to study for his one man show when all the rest of us were still asleep in our teepees. And like, and then the amount of dedication. We went elk hunting a few months later and I would wake up, like at an ungodly hour, like 4:30am to get dressed to head out to the spot where we were elk hunting. And Garrett was already out on the porch with his headlamp on, having been out there since like 3:30am practicing this one man show. So the dude has dedication. So I am not surprised that you're doing the Japanese walker and the rowing machine thing while practicing your show, Garrett, but all that means is that you better be fricking funny when every podcast listener is listening in right now comes to see us perform on May 10th.

Yeah, it's funny. I. I was on this podcast for Mind Valley and the envision had seen me perform comedy. So he's like, we finished the podcast. He goes, dude, you weren't even funny at all. I'm like, well, you were asking me serious questions, bro. Like, I, I didn't know you want me to do comedy on this podcast.

You know, well, people think comedians are funny in real life. Most. Most of them aren't really, you know, because, you know, they don't have anything. No, I'm actually, I'm actually, I'm slightly serious. There are some comedians who are just deadpan boring in real life. But you're not. You're a funny guy, Garrett. And by the way, for those of you listening in, Garrett and I had a fantastic discussion for a documentary on happiness that's coming out. We talked about the link between happiness and money. And while I was tempted for this show to talk a lot about money and where our true source of happiness is, I thought, well, gosh, Garrett and I have such a great interview that's going to be coming out in a few months on this. I wanted to instead focus on this concept of sacred cows and some of the content within Disrupting Sacred Cows. So, Garrett, you're going to take the comedy hat off now and put on your collars and your cufflinks and all of your fancy wealth management gear, and we're going to dive into this Disrupting Sacred Cows. So I think probably it's important, especially since the link for the show notes Everybody is@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Cows. Garrett's new book is called Disrupting Sacred Cows. His other one is Killing Sacred Cows. How would you define a sacred cow, economically speaking, Garrett?

It's an unquestioned belief that we just go through and it's handed down from generations and even built by billions of dollars of financial propaganda essentially that comes from these institutions like banks and Wall street, that those unquestioned beliefs just become how we do finance. But it's different than the actual rules of the games of the institutions. Like when they tell us to accum. Stimulate for 30 years, to set money aside and forget it, to invest early, often and always, or to dollar cost average. They're not doing that. They're in the game of cash flow. They're in the game of efficiency. They're in the game of mitigating and managing risk.

Who is they? Who is they?

Banks and Wall street are the primary culprits that we're talking about here. So everything from retirement plans to any, any type of person that's telling you to wait for 30 years or longer for your plan to pan out, anyone that's promulgating an accumulation mindset of, you know, hey, you're going to compound your interest. I mean, that's even a sacred cow. People like, oh, compound interest. Einstein said it was the eighth one of the world. Bullshit. That's not what Einstein said. Einstein said compounding numbers was a wonder of the world. He said at a conference in Austria in the 1920s. And then security, national life misquoted it and it became this sacred cow that everybody believe.

I didn't know that I've heard that quote before. I thought I, I scratched my head a little bit when I heard the quote because I'm like, I didn't realize Einstein was that into economics, but he was in the mathematics of course. So they actually took that and they twisted his words from compounding numbers to compounding interest.

Absolutely. And that's why one of the chapters of the book is money and math are not the same thing. Money and math. Math can help us measure aspects of money, but we have to first view money as a concept, as a man made efficient tool to exchange with one another. Money represents a moment, like a snapshot in time, and it accounts for value created from moments in the past. So ultimately we can use spreadsheets to interpret data. But there's a quote I once heard that said, if you torture numbers long enough, they'll confess to anything. And so a lot of the thing is people feel intimidated by money because they think of it as spreadsheets and numbers and these like things that are so hard to understand when it comes to, you know, what they should do. But the reality is it's actually a lot simpler than we think think. And it's really a byproduct of value creation. As we add more value, then dollars will follow. If we're in the game of economics, maybe if it's in the game of raising kids, that doesn't work. Exactly. But value comes in many forms and money is only one representation of value.

Yeah, and it doesn't help too when, when we're handing over, you know, 10% plus of our earnings to these investments, you know, in terms of just like fees and everything else. So just buy and hold or dollar cost average or engage in any of these standard economic practices that you've alluded to. I mean you were my financial manager for some time, Garrett, and I remember it was odd because we really didn't lead out with like a stock and bond portfolio or well balanced traditional portfolio. We were doing things like paid up additions to whole life insurance, which you and I will probably get into in a little bit here. We were talking about maxing out your car insurance and your home insurance, investing in your business, investing in and things that result in a pretty good rate of return combined with personal protection. And then like the well balanced stock and bond portfolio certainly wasn't ignored, but it really wasn't that. Well, that sacred cow I suppose that many people make it out to be when investing. I've taught my sons the same thing. Now they keep asking me about investing and we're doing a lot more either angel investing or investing in their own business, their podcast and their cooking channel and everything else. Just because that's really what I learned from you when it comes to growing money. And I guess I hadn't planned on getting into this like I mentioned, because you and I talk so much about happiness, but I kind of feel like I really want to bring it up because it seems like money buys happiness is a sacred cow. And so I do have to ask you Gary, especially because you make people laugh. Haha. So of course you know a lot about happiness. What's the link between money and happiness? And why are people so convinced that money, money buys happiness.

There is a direct correlation between the basics in life, handling the basics, having the financial situation just to cover like being able to eat, being able to have a roof over your head, not, not like have a massive house or anything elegant, but just the basics. There's a direct correlation as soon as we get past. And the study that I saw on this that was more comprehensive is over a decade old. So it was something like $75,000. If people were making $75,000 in America, they could anything less than that, they could see a decrease in happiness, but once it got above $75,000, there was almost no correlation. That really happiness, I think, comes from knowing our purpose. I think happiness comes from the, the way that we operate in our daily relationships and our connection to ourselves and other people. And ultimately we have a society that's based upon consumerism. And consumerism says, the more you consume, the happier you'll be. The more that you have, the more respected you'll be. The more money you have, the more powerful you will be. And we see that reinforced through Hollywood, through rap music, through almost every facet of life. And so people are chasing something and expecting money to do something it's not capable of doing. They say, hey, money make me happy. But the reality is just like more money doesn't equal more health, because we know how much America spends on health and yet what our healthcare system looks like. The same core correlation starts to happen in our own life. Definitely I would choose to be unhappy with money than unhappy without money. But I would rather just be happy and have money be a representation of the value I create, not the person I am. People get confused then when they think their self worth and their net worth is the same thing. It's not. And as soon as they collapse those two, they are in a torture chamber of more. No matter how much more they have, they go, why am I not happier? Because someone else has more. And the more they have, the more they realize that they could have, oh, well, now I don't have a private jet, I need to have more. So I have that because that validates me. And so it is an absolute terrible sacred cow trap that has people's attention and they're working through that, but they're not finding happiness by chasing it.

You know, I talked with Robert Breedlove when we did an interview recently on Bitcoin about this concept of future discounting or time discounting, and the idea that if what we own now is something that we know is going to be devalued due to, say, inflation or financial instability in the future, then we're far more likely to simply jump into that consumerist mindset with the spirit of scarcity, because we just don't know how much that money that we do have is gonna be good any longer or is gonna be worth as much as it is now. So we just decide, heck, I'm gonna go spend it now. How much of that part of the psychology of money do you think feeds into this?

Well, it feeds in because uncertainty and instability creates a sense of scarcity. And scarcity is the greatest destroyer of wealth. No luck saving discipline, rate of return or financial advisor will save someone in scarcity. And if scarcity is breeding fear, then ultimately that level of stress starts to run in the background and people never really find that expression of, of happiness. That's why when you were mentioning earlier like I always encourage invest in yourself because building really amazing relationships and really developing the skill sets that matter, which Ben, you're a prime example. You have so many skill sets that you bring to the world in a valuable way that's allowed you to grow your business, your reach, your impact. You know, you're delivering value on a regular basis. So inflation will have an impact on you, but it won't be a devastating impact on you because you fully invest in yourself and continue, continue to grow and express that value in the marketplace and find mediums and modalities to share that. And because of that you're in a much better position than someone who's trading time for money in a structure that doesn't help them to grow. It's simply a, you know, it's almost like today's assembly line where they're using maybe brawn instead of their brains and because if they're in a middle class or lower middle class position where they don't have a lot of assets that they can adjust for inflation. You as a business owner have some inflation proofing because you can adjust pricing as inflation exists. You as a business owner get massive tax advantages. Those tax advantages can help you keep a lot more of what you make versus someone who's on a salary. And the government automatically is taking those taxes out and there's no write offs that can happen. So I mean I can go down a lot of the road that way. But ultimately we have to re engineer how we do life and business and finance so that these things don't completely disrupt us by saying I don't see hope for the future. I guess I'm just going to consume today. And that is a dangerous place for society to be.

It's kind of paradoxical too because you do see a lot of people kind of taking the root of like the. What's the guy's name? Dave Ramsey, the cash is king guy, you know, and they'll hold and they'll hoard Cass cash as a sort of display of. Yeah, to a certain extent, some amount of financial prudence, you know, avoiding excessive debt. Even though usually I actually, and I think you do to encourage good debt and discourage bad debt. But in many cases people who are just socking away cash are operating with the spirit of scarcity. And then in the same way, people who are out living a consumeristic lifestyle and spending everything before it all disappears are also operating with the spirit of scarcity. And so it seems to manifest in two different ways. But I'm curious for you, Garrett, because. Because I hadn't really heard much about operating with a spirit of scarcity versus operating with a spirit of abundance until I heard you talking. And what really struck a chord with me, Garrett, and I'm sure perhaps you could share a little bit of your backstory that led you to this conclusion. What really struck a chord with me was you were talking about how you were on vacation, you took your family on vacation and you spent the money on the plane tickets and to get to the place you were going. And then you're like, you didn't do much, you didn't enjoy much, you didn't go out to nice restaurants, you didn't go too many excursions because you had to save money while you were on vacation. I was the same way. I was like, oh, we got to where we're going and now family, we're gonna sit in our Airbnb budget bedroom and you know, go to the grocery store for all our meals and avoid any of these cool restaurants and culture and not pay any extra money to go out on a boat deep sea fishing or go take, take, you know, surf lessons or anything like that because, you know, we're on vacation, but we got to save our money while we're on vacation. And, and you know, when you, when you stood up and, and it was at some event we were at, and you gave a talk about that light bulb that finally switched on for you that I think did involve like vacation or you really wanted to be able to step away from the business, not have to work so much. I just thought, gosh, you know, it really makes sense. So, so can you get into that a little bit more? That spirit of scarcity versus spirit of abundance and, and how you came to discover that. That in your own life.

So this is my family's favorite pastime. My kids don't remember me being that miser. So what they love is when my wife tells these stories of when I was like that, like when I first got married, my father in law says, hey, if you guys want to live in the basement, I won't charge you rent. So I came back to carry up Mike, babe, we can live in your parents basement rent free. She goes, sex free. If that's where you Think we're living like that's just the miser. Me and my kids would be like, dad, why were you such a miser? And I was like thinking about it, my wife just chimed in and she goes, because he just thought that was the best way to help our family. And so she could see that I was operating from scarcity. So Ben, this, I think this will, this is so helpful for people. We're going to start with there's four money Personas that we have and there's the way that we operate from scarcity and there's a way that we operate from abundance. So I'll call when we operate from scarcity the shadow Persona. And I'll just review these money Personas. The first is the miser that plays a game called preservation and typically ends up with money that they won't spend because they are addicted to holding on to what they've got. Then there's the conservative. This isn't a political ideology, it's a fiscal philosophy. And the conservative is like the Dave Ramsey's and they believe in the game of accumulation and they end up with funds, well, that they probably won't spend because they're not sure when they have enough. See both of those come from a form of scarcity called play not to lose. What can I do to avoid loss? Now there's a, a different one that you and I spent a lot of time and I think this next one, and it's called play to win. And that is the striver who plays a game called status that thinks they can just work harder to make more but will inevitably burn out. And then there's also another play to win which is called the high roller. The high roller plays a game called opportunity but is likely to end up bankrupt because taking on too much risk or cutting corners leads to short lived riches. So we have the miser playing the game of preservation. We have the conservative playing the game called accumulation, both playing not to lose. We have the play to win, striver playing status and high roller playing opportunity. So those are the shadow Personas. And when you understand your money Persona, first off, if you're married, you're probably not married to someone with your same money Persona. It's like that 90% of the time. Maybe that's like the laws of attraction. And before I understood money Persona, my wife and I thought about money a lot actually our first year we were married. She's like, I didn't realize I was married to such a miser. She was a schoolteacher. I wouldn't Let her buy supplies for a classroom. I'm like, you're supposed to get paid, not pay for this stuff, you know, And. And it was just a tough year for her until I finally made the shift. And you, you said, well, when did you make the shift in the question? Well, I was actually at this event. I used to sell life insurance from 1998 to 2005. And I was at MDRT Million Dollar Roundtable getting this rookie of the year award. And I went and talked to this woman, Nancy Ogilvy, and I said, said, yeah, this is cool. I won this award. And she's like, yeah, I can't wait for you to get to the next level. And you'll see those people view money differently. And I was like, what? What do you mean? And I was like, teach me, help me. And so she asked me a few questions, and I started saying stuff like, well, we can leave our apartment when we've got this much in savings and we can have a baby once we have this much in savings. And I kept saying this. And she goes, I wonder what it's like living in the financial prison you've built for your wife. And, dude, I started to cry. And then the session let out and everybody's walking out. Then I think they were like, oh, look at this kid. He's so proud of his little award. You know, I'm crying. But then I called my wife and I just profusely apologized. And within 45 days, we bought a house that we loved. And that year, my income went up 170 grand because it wasn't about what I could reduce or cut out or budget or eliminate. I was more thinking about how do I add more value, how do I serve more people, how do I expand what I'm up to instead of hold on to what I got? And it really transformed things for me. And so those are the four shadow Personas. I could tell you the four winning Personas, but I'll take a break for water and let you ask some questions here.

It makes sense. And the way that that manifests in terms of the mental switch that occurs, I know for me at least, is just the whole idea. And I don't think this is really going to come as a surprise to most people of experiences providing a lot more happiness than belongings or wealth. Wealth or possessions. Do you know the idea that. Yeah, when you go out on vacation and you're creating a ton of memories for your children, I'm taking my family to the Grand Canyon, to Sedona, literally in like five days, we're gonna hike for 10 days. I'm not gonna be working for those 10 days. I'm not gonna Be making money for those 10 days. And the bend from a decade ago would have literally been, like, on my phone, on my computer, half that time trying to bring in funds so that we could hope to afford to go out to a restaurant that night, even though we really could. Right. I just didn't really want that humming away at the back of my mind. And I'm not enjoying anything, you know.

Dude, I've been there and healed from that. I'm a recovering miser, which is great. I'm also recovering striver because I spent most of my married life in the striver mode. What. What changed my life in 2014? I. I always had this little secret, like, aspiration, Go spend a summer in Italy. But I never spoke it out loud because my great grandfather came over from Italy, crossed the sea with honey bread, barely made it, was separated from his family for seven years, was a goat herder, and then eventually started becoming a coal miner, and then finally afforded to bring his family over. So, like, I came from this blue collar family.

I'm gonna interrupt you real quick with the blue collar family story. Did you just say that your grandfather crossed the ocean with honey bread?

All he had to eat was honey bread.

I don't even know what honey bread is.

So basically it's this. It's bread that you add. Add some honey to it. It's kind of a sweet tasting, tasty bread. But, like, right now I have some up on my wall just to remind me of his track. And it's like, so hard that you could barely bite into it. But my family has always made it and passed it down. It's. It's a lot to work. It's really. It takes a lot of kneading and. And this kind of stuff. But that's all he had. He didn't have really enough money. And he came over with his brother, his half brother, and his dad, and they barely made it to Ellis Island. And then they changed their name at Ellis island because he couldn't speak English because they couldn't understand him. And then he got on a train and goes all the way to Sunnyside, Utah. I mean, what a. What a crazy life. But that's where, like, I learned scarcity from that, because he was separated from his family because he barely was able to eat enough and have enough sustenance to live until he started to make money. And then he lived in a tent until he could afford to bring his. His family over. And so those stories and those feelings were passed down for generations. So when I wanted to be an entrepreneur, my family was scared. Like, wait, that sounds risky. That seemed, you know, like they were really, really worried. And my hero was my grandfather, my great grandfather's son, James. And. And when I told him I wanted to, you know, start a business in the financial world, he was scared. But I actually had a professor that used to manage $5 billion in municipal bond funds become a client. I made six figures that month while I was 22 years old. And I showed my grandfather. And I got to tell you, Ben, he. He always grabbed my shoulder and te me how proud he was, because he knew that we broke some chains of scarcity and changed our family. But that. That was hard to overcome. To be like, I'm gonna go spend a summer in 2017 in Italy with my family. It took. I didn't proclaim it till my wife pulled it out of me in 2014. We spent a few years preparing, and we went there. And that's when I became the Renaissance man. I came home, started taking barista courses. Started. I went and became a whiskey song. I started to learn to fly fish. I went and bought a cabin. And the crazy thing is, I thought that that would take away from production. All it did was that 2017, at that point, was the highest net profit year I had had to that point. My team grew massively. They learned to work without me, which made. Which meant they crushed it and did well during COVID instead of just having me on stages, it gave me freedom, and it opened up and awakened the inner artist. And, Ben, this is the lesson. If anyone wants to have a better relationship with money, the simplest thing they could do is find a hobby and find something that doesn't pay them. But they lose track of time and they enjoy and do just for themselves, because it will unlock gifts inside of them that lay dormant because of busyness and exhaustion.

Yeah, and, you know, I saw that transformation occur in you, Garrett, because I think I've known you since maybe 2015, 2016. So I saw some of that transformation occur, especially after you got back from Italy. And it really was crazy just to see you begin to expand your talents and your interests and your hobbies and, you know, do the type of one man show and comedy tours that you're doing now. And I'm sure you get asked this. I don't want to be an asshole by asking this, but I'm sure you might have an answer for it because you've probably been asked it, you know, what do you say to people who are like, yeah, but you were rich, right? Like you lived with the spirit of scarcity and you worked your ass off and you skipped family vacations, all this stuff to get to, to the point where you had enough money to there to, to, to where you could then turn around and say like, hey, look, just live your life and have experiences. It's a better way to live. You're going to be happier. And you know, and people who are just trying to make it in life might look at that and say, yeah, but you saved up a million bucks or whatever so you could do that. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I understand that. In 2002 was when I got married and I lived the miser life there for, you know, basically till 2004. So it was only two years of while I was married that I was a miser. I, and, and yeah, we did really well. I didn't understand this concept investor DNA in that time and I made some major mistakes. Like my brother in law came to me and said, hey, you got 25 grand, I've got this real estate investment, I'll pay you back 50 grand. Three months later he did. I had another friend say, hey, I got a friend losing his home. Could you come and buy it and lease it back to him and then he can split the equity when he can get back on his feet and refinance. I made 90 grand. So I started to think I was a better investor than I was because of timing and luck, not skills. And so I ended up with over 100 real estate properties. I ended up with oil and gas investments and IPOs. And I had this major portfolio. And the year 2007 came and all of my real estate partners, all of them declared bankruptcy and walked away. And so now I owned all the properties myself. And I had to figure out how to navigate and sell those properties, which created such a massive negative cash flow that in 2008 my net worth was $8 million. And that dwindled down to next to nothing by 2009. And so I'm now starting from scratch. I didn't, Claire, I didn't declare bankruptcy. I fought through it. I learned massive lessons. And these lessons were important because that's when I discovered investor DNA. That's when I discovered how to do real due diligence and risk mitigation. The discovery I had in that helped me get clients out of really tough situations and it really helped me dial in what are the guaranteed things in Finance like you're. It's a guaranteed return if you save tax, if you save interest, if you take care of non performing fees and eliminate them if you find duplicate coverages or improper structural insurance. So it's more efficient, you put more money in your pocket. It really opened my eyes. But dude, when I in 2009, I was now starting from scratch, basically. Now I had all of my mental capital, I had all of my relationship capital, which are the most precious forms of capital we all have. Mental capital is our ideas, knowledge, wisdom, insights and strategies. Relationship capital, people, networks, mentors, friends, family, business associates, organizations. But I took that and I said, what can I do? And I came back so much stronger. By coming from a place of abundance when everything felt scarce around me, I learned to be more resourceful. I learned to ask for support and not just be in suffering by myself. And by 2010, had the biggest year ever and hit the inc 500 and you know, so, so I had to, I had to pull out of that and even in that to take this time off. In 2017, I was still a business owner. I was still speaking multiple times a month. I was still responsible for generating the most profitable leads for my business. And so I had to have this mindset to be able to do that, to be able to go on that trip. And so it wasn't like I was handed money, I was handed love by my family. And I have an amazing family. But I had to navigate this. And I made mistakes along the way. There were bumps and bruises. And I didn't just have wealth and go, yep, now I can go do all these kind of things. Like, even if you're struggling right now and you can't make ends meet, the importance of you fighting in a hobby. Some of these hobbies don't require much money. I'm playing guitar 30 minutes a day right now. That's a hobby that I'm developing right now, right? Like I write, I'm writing comedy. When I came back from Italy, Ben, it was transformational because I, it was my, my birthday and I took my wife to Atlanta. We went to a John Mayer concert in Atlanta Braves game. And I'm telling her jokes at this Atlanta Braves game and she's like, hey, that's kind of funny. Were you coming up with it? And Ben, that's all I needed, was kind of funny for my wife. She might as well say, you are the funniest man in the world. I get my wife think I'm kind of funny. That's golden. And then I had had enough space in Italy because the first two and a half weeks in Italy was miserable, dude, because my business started to suffer. I could go in slack and see we weren't selling as much. And I was going, how do I let them figure it out on their own? And I didn't have my normal morning rituals because I was in a new arena, sorry area. And I was trying to eat completely Paleo while I was in Italy, which was a mistake. And the first two and a half weeks I just was suffering. And then finally I just actually got drunk that one night with my, with my wife and I said, what are the most epic concerts we should go to while we're live? We booked an Elton John concert in Italy and I just had this moment of like relaxation and let go the stress. And all of a sudden my team started to figure it out on their own. Having the rest of the summer with downtime and without something to do opened up the creativity in me, opened up the design of what would it look like to design a life I love? What would it look like to live a life I would never want to retire from? That became the things I would inquire about. And we just took time to have meals and laugh and hang out and spend time with my kids and do the things most people reserve for retirement. But if we enjoy those along the way, I think it's hard to even measure all of the other things that awaken in us and the life that starts to open before us.

Yeah, I agree. I think the concept of many retirements and taking time to experience the same type of things that many people traditionally associate with retirement, such as golf or sailing or big international trips, when you actually aren't at risk of a hip replacement and on anti diabetic medication and unable to get from point A to point B, you know, two miles away via foot in anything shorter than an hour, just because you're so old and hobbled, like just waiting for the end of your life, should you have the time and the health when that end of life actually comes, or at least end of work life actually comes, to go out and begin to do all those fun things that are on your bucket list. It's really just a pitiful way to live your life. And I think that really is a sacred cow, right? This idea of retire and then start to do all your fun stuff versus these mini retirements and. And I can tell you what, like another kind of light bulb moment for me, Garrett, was when I thought, and again, this sounds simple, but it just works for Me, I thought, why am I, why am I working? Why am I making money? Why am I saving? Why am I putting all this time in the business? And yeah, some of it can be escapism and workaholism and there's certainly that little obstacle that you got to take care of and then, and some of it also, though is based on this idea that, yeah, I want to provide for my family. I want to provide for my family can be a very noble pursuit, right? I want to prepare. I want to get some money socked away in the bank so my wife or my husband or my children or my children's children can actually have something and maybe not have to live the hard life that I lived growing up. And you're doing all this, and you're doing all this and then you get to the end of the day and you're like, well, gosh, all these, all these people who I love so much, who I'm working so hard for, I'm not with them, right? I'm, I'm not actually part of their lives because I'm doing so much to protect them or to provide for them, that I'm not just like being with them. And now, like I check myself every day, Garrett, because, because you know me, like, I love to work. I mean, you've been, you've been out hunting with me and you, you see me get back from a day of hunting and sit down on my laptop and start to crank out emails and work on a book. And I love to work and that's great. I'm self actualized. Time goes by quickly like you were alluding to earlier. But I got to check myself and say, wait a minute, why am I doing this in the first place? Whether it's family or let's say you're single and you're listening, whether it's just life enjoyment, right? You can work and work and work. And then the whole reason you're working and putting aside that money really doesn't make sense when you don't have any, any time left over to do what it is that you want to do with all that money that you've saved. Right?

Right. And the thing is, if you're stuck in the scarcity paradigms of the miser or the conservative, you'll never enjoy the money you accumulate because you'll be relegated to living off the interest, which interest rates, if you don't know about stablecoin and staking it. And you're in the people that are retired today that are just trying to put it in fixed income things like bonds, it's barely spitting off any interest. So they might have a million dollars and live like a pauper, getting $20,000 a year, that's taxable, possibly because they deferred all their taxes and then inflation's eating it away. So this whole dream of, like, wait till one day someday the money is not what, like, you could be a multi millionaire and still not living better than some kids are living the first year out of college financially. And, and so that's. That's frustrating. And my dad once told me, he says, son, you could never get back the memories. You never have. And so it's like, what would it take to extract the essence of life and have a high quality of life along the way? And I call that living wealthy. Like, what would it look like for you to live wealthy? And maybe some of the times, like when I had that cash crunch in 2008, I was just super resourceful. Any friend or family member that's like, hey, I've got this great cabin or I got this great place downtown if you ever want to use it. We used it that year to go ahead and have a good time without having to spend a lot of money. I thought of great things to do. So. So, you know, some of my happiest moments in life, they didn't require much money. There's other times where, yeah, I was stayed in some pretty amazing places that did. But, you know, like, there are opportunities for us to just find ways and moments. And what you're saying is to be present, to really be present, because we could spend five minutes with someone, have it count for so much, and spend five days and have it count for nothing or count against us because we're not present. And part of consumerism and part of scarcity prevents us from being present. Either playing not to lose, wishing the past was different than it was, or playing to win, chasing a future that's never going to exist at the expense of today. So how do you create an exciting, compelling and future without sacrificing and giving up of who you are today? And I think that that's one of the major ailments is people believe they have to sacrifice to be okay financially. Hey, I got to cut back, I got to scrimp, I got to save. I think sacrifice is one of the things that harms people the most because it takes us away from being present.

You know, we can talk about the philosophy of scarcity in abundance till we're blue in the face, but I think I would like to Jump into the trees here for a little bit from the forest, from this 40,000 foot overview that we have right now. So one of the things that I mentioned earlier, Garrett, is I had never thought about protective expenses and the value of protective expenses. Frankly, I thought a lot of protective expenses were wasted time, you know, and in your book you get into how we have these different expenses, like destructive expenses, you know, like borrowing to consume, which I think makes sense, and lifestyle expenses, like you know, just, you know, basic clothing, food, etc. But one of the expenses that you get into is protective expenses. And you taught me about this and I began to implement this strategy, particularly via some insurance strategies in my life. And I would love for you to tell me a little bit more about why protective expenses are beneficial and not just a way to line the pockets of some insurance agent.

The first thing is protective expenses come through education, through asset protection, through risk management mitigation, and through insurance, even through corporate structures. And when families like the Rockefellers that are on their sixth generation of passing on wealth without it being decimated fully understand protective expenses, the ultra wealthy understand protective expenses. And even when I look at insurance, I think that the sentiment that I would give is that you want to ensure the catastrophic, never the inconsequential. Because when we buy insurance, the first dollar we pay for insurance or the first dollar we would use is the most expensive dollar. So let me give an example. Example. If you have car insurance and you have a really low deductible, like a hundred dollars or two hundred and fifty dollars, maybe moving that to five hundred or a thousand dollars frees up money that you could now get $100,000 of liability coverage. Yes, you're more likely to use that, you know, lower deductible, but you could probably afford a couple hundred dollars where if you have a major liability or someone sues you, that hundred thousand dollars could be pretty devastating. So proper design means how do we transfer risk so that we don't have a mindset that worries about being exposed. Most people don't think about their insurance when they wake up in the morning. The time they think about it is when someone they know has a major issue, like maybe someone, you know, dies. You're like, I wonder if I have enough life insurance. Or someone gets in a major car accident and gets sued and you're like, I wonder if I have enough car insurance. So, so I'm about transferring the catastrophic, which means we use life insurance companies or car insurance or homeowners insurance to more efficiently insure ourselves. Because if we don't have their insurance, we have to use our own cash and simply said anytime we use our own cash, we're using at least a dollar to insure that dollar. Right? But if we use insurance companies, we're putting pennies on the dollar to transfer that risk so we have more use of our money and we free up our mental space so that we're not in scarcity, worrying that we're not protected. So I look at protection as a tool to be more productive because it keeps our mind from being scattered or, or from scarcely creeping in because we haven't properly protected our family or ourselves.

Now, when it comes to protective expenses, Garrett, and thanks for that explanation. One of the things that I mentioned that you heavily encouraged me to do and that I did do was to get a whole life insurance policy and actually do paid up additions to that whole life policy. I mean, which I've been doing. I think I've got not a ton, but I think I probably have about like, like half a million dollars in paid up additions on a whole life insurance policy that you had me start. And the idea behind all of that paid up cash is that I can borrow against it. I can use myself as a bank. And there are other benefits of this as well. I know the interest on that kind of accrues on a tax deferred basis. But can you get into why you're a fan of whole life insurance and kind of explain, explain this to people who may not really be familiar with the concept of using yourself as a bank.

Most people that you know 25 years ago or 50 years ago that had whole life insurance, it looked like a hole they threw their money into because they didn't design it properly. And so you have people like Dave Ramsey that are pretty negative about it because it has been high commission, low cash. I look at whole life insurance with paid up additions in particular, also referred to as overfunded funding, as a medium term storage for your money where savings accounts or stable coins might be the short term stuff and long term might be the equity that you're building inside of your business or, you know, other investments that might have a little bit more volatility. But this is something that when the right opportunity comes along, like tomorrow, if you knew a company in the health space that you could acquire and absolutely roll into Ben Greenfield's, you know, portfolio of companies and you knew what to do with it because of your listeners, like you could grab that money and have it within 72 hours from your cash value. And so I Love that you have a tax advantaged account, that you could get access to the money without a penalty like an ira. And that you can avoid paying taxes on the gains in two ways. One, just by taking withdrawals and it's known as fifo. First in, first out. So you can take any money you put in back tax free first. Most investments, you take your interest out first, which makes it taxable. The second thing is you can use the cash value as collateral, continue to earn interest on it, and have the insurance company give you a loan with their money that's a similar or even identical interest rate. So then you can not have to use your credit and you can pay it back on your own terms. And if you don't pay it back back, it'll come out of your death benefit when you die, which means you now have access to capital. That's why I call it like a medium turn storage. But the other thing is you now have a death benefit which protects you. So that in the future if you want to increase cash flow, I can use that death benefit to do things like bend any of your capital gain assets like your businesses or other investments like stocks or real estate. I can show you because you made decisions at an early age how to sell those tax free using your death benefit in coordination. Now that we're getting a little bit deep here, but, but I'm. There's things called charitable trusts where you can donate your asset to a charity of your choice. You get a tax deduction that's a partial tax deduction. And when you sell that asset, you pay zero tax. Then you can take a lifetime income off of that with the intent to leave at least 10% behind to a charity when you die. So now you're giving 10% to a charity rather than 20% to the government. You're getting a partial tax deduction. And your full amount of money after the sell is still at work. Now when you die, the money goes to the charity. But remember, you have a death benefit that will be around a day longer than you that comes in tax free with your life insurance. So it's almost like that. Life insurance death benefit is a permission slip for you to extract higher cash value value from other assets. You can do this with a paid off mortgage. You can use your death benefit as collateral and get a reverse mortgage that's tax free. I wouldn't recommend doing that. I'm just giving an example that turns now a lazy asset or stagnant asset like equity in a home into cash for you because you have A death benefit that would then replenish the bank for getting access to that capital and never have to owe a penny out of your own pocket. The death benefit takes care of it for you. Plus you have this cash value along the way, then maybe it's only earning 4%, but that's a tax benefit with 4% and once you get paid the interest, it never goes down. So when the market's chaotic and things go down and things are now discounted or on sale, you can take that cash value and acquire assets. I've done it. I bought a business in 2014 doing it. I put in a TV studio years ago doing it. I launched my first book, Killing Sacred Cows. Even funded my comedy special that I just filmed myself with my own cash value and then I just pay that back on my own terms and I can do it again and again.

Does that affect like. Because if you were to do that like with say like a credit union and I don't. Well, kind of a two part question. I know two part questions are a no, no, but I'm going to ask you anyways. So could you get a better rate barring against your own policy than you would from say like a credit union? And would one reason for borrowing against your own paid up additions using yourself as a bank be that doing that wouldn't affect your credit in the same way as say like borrowing from a credit union?

Yes. It doesn't impact your credit at all.

Okay.

And you don't have to apply for it using any level of credit. You simply have to have cash in the policy and you can get access to it. Now I've even seen people use their cash value, go to a bank and say, hey, will you give me a line of credit against this? Like I have a policy called a premium finance policy, Ben. So I've got 26 whole life policies between the ones on me because I started one when I was 19 at 50 bucks a month. And I make a little bit more money now. I've got ones on my wife, on business partners, on my kids. So I've added up a lot of policies over the, over the time. But I also have a policy called a premium finance policy where the bank lends me money, which I get between 2 and a quarter percent to 4% depending on the year that the bank lends me money. And then I put that money in my cash value and they use that cash value as collateral. So I'm essentially earning more my policy than the banks charging me, which is kind of how the banks work. Against everyone else. I'm now using the banks to do what they do to everybody else for myself. So that's another way I can even borrow from the bank and use this collateral. But I've used cash value without it hitting my credit at all. And I know people that have used cash value to get loans from the bank using the cash value as collateral and they can lower the interest. I've had someone get a one and a quarter percent loan using their cash value because usually when you borrow from the insurance company, you're going to pay an interest rate that's similar to what you're earning, which might be like 4 or 5%. So it might be even cheaper to just use it as collateral with the bank or a credit union. But then again it just depends on if you want it to hit your credit score or not, or if you want to fix the payback or flexibility.

That makes sense. And then all the paid up additions are tax deferred and then the death benefit itself is tax free.

Right, right. And if you own it properly, like someone has a more substantial net worth, maybe above 10 million or more, they start to hit levels where they could get hit with the state tax tax. But you can actually own your policy through something like a domestic asset protection trust. And then you no longer own the policy, but you still control it. The Rockefellers always had the philosophy own nothing, control everything. So now the trust owns it. But you ben, get to determine who your trustee or your distribution trustee is. So you can still access the cash value. But now it's income tax free and estate tax free. So that's even more powerful. So yes, you can definitely make this completely tax free. Other than I've seen people try to make this pre tax where you put it in before you pay taxes. They've used things like, you know, trusts and things. And there's been these things like 412 eyes and 419s and I never use those because now it's a government qualified plan and it feels more like it's tax deferred than tax free. And I'd rather pay the tax on the seed than the harvest, so to speak speak. And I don't really want to invite the government more into my life because I think that the taxes could go up in the future and I expect to make more money over time and in the future. So I never defer taxes. I like to just save tax instead of delay tax. And most people in retirement planning are addicted to delaying taxes, not necessarily saving them.

That makes sense. So the whole Life insurance. I know you really get into that in disrupting sacred cows. And also your book habits is called Habits of the Rockefellers or How Habits of the Billionaires.

So I wrote a book, so Vern Harness wrote a really good book called the Rockefeller Habits. And I think that book may have inspired me to call my book what Would the Rockefellers Do? And then what happened is the Rockefeller family, through their attorneys, reached out and said, hey, we don't want you using our name on the COVID of your book because we actually own a financial firm. We said, they said we don't have a problem with what's in the book, but we don't want you running ads on Facebook and stuff with our name. So we change it to what would Billionaire Do? So what would Rockefellers Do? What would Billionaires Do? Same book.

Okay, got it. And do you think that that would be if someone really wanted to learn more about the idea that you've just outlined about how to, how to use whole life insurance in a very intelligent way and also to set yourself up as your own bank, would you say that'd be the best book or do you have a book that's kind of like you'd recommend as your go to book on whole life insurance?

That's definitely the book, the best book on whole life insurance. And we put together some resources for you. Garrettgunderson.com Ben People can take the quiz to find out their money Persona and there's no charge for that. They can also pre order disrupting sacred cows depending on when they're listening to this. That book comes out in June. You were the first person to get to view that. That wasn't, you know, part of my team.

So it's printed off on a bunch of eight and a half by 11 pieces of papers and stapled here on my, on my desk.

So, and, and then I wrote, I gave you an audiobook on this concept called Win Then Play. So we're having this whole concept of money and happiness and you know, play to win, Play Lose and Scarcity Abundance. That's the definitive book and, and it's not actually been released, but we put it together as a resource for your listeners. The Win Then Play audiobook. It's only been given to like a couple hundred people at this point to get feedback. And the feedback was amazing. I've spent five years on it. I have a lot of personality in that. I talk a little bit fast, I'll admit, but, and then there's a course for after being in this financial business for a Quarter of a century. I put together a course called Win Then Play on money mastery and business and so they can learn more about that. So those are just, just a couple of the resources that you can dive into. But no doubt what Would Billionaires do is the definitive book on whole life and it also talks about legacy and legacy structure. But it is probably my most tactical technique heavy book I've written.

Okay, that's what Would Billionaires Do? I'll link to that one in the shownotes@bengreenfieldfitness.com Cows out of the trees, back up into the forest. Even though you talk about crypto and you talk about investment strategies and portfolios and a whole lot more in disrupting sacred cows, I want to come back to this. Like what, what does that mean? Win then play. Why do you call it Win then play, Garrett?

Play not to lose. We know that's a form of scarcity hiding, you know, holding on, taking, you know, play to win is like rushing towards something. But Win then Play says when you know your win, when you've designed a game worth playing, when you understand that the win is in the work like you talked about, where you can lose time and enjoy your work and you've already won. I believe we have a sole purpose within us. We just have to listen to that voice. We have to get to that void where there's a blank slate for creation. I mean, call it an inner knowing or a gentle nudge or a gut feeling, it's like a light feather to the face. It's within us. It's a purpose that's born in us. And when we discover that sole purpose, which is our values, our script for how to live, and our passions and abilities for the highest context of living, we've already won. So what is your will? Win. And when we know what our win is, we get to design the game. That's Win then play. I win. When I play, I win. When I'm on State, like I invented being a comedian in finance, I invented, you know, like these concepts of how I wanted to live my life, like going to Italy. So most people are stuck in consumerism, letting the government or well intentioned preachers, teachers, family or friends tell them how to live life and they're trying to earn something or to get somewhere or they're chasing that trophy. And once I get that trophy, then I'll be happy. That's a losing game. Game. When we're enjoying life along the way, we've already won. When we know who we. When we know who we are. When we live our purpose, we've already won. That's what I mean by win than play. Design a game with playing. Design a life you don't want to retire from and now play out that life. That's win than playing. So I can give it practically. Like when you plug financial leaks rather than scrimping, saving, sacrificing or delaying playing, you're winning by keeping more of what you make. If you learn to profit from your ideas up front before investing, by generating revenue up front instead of borrowing money, that's where you win before you play. Right? Like the money's coming in. It's like they sell. We're selling tickets to our May comedy before we've done the comedy, we've already won before we get up on stage when it's packed with a bunch of people that we love and we're going to share part of who we are, we've already won. That's how I like to look at and live life. So those are just a couple examples. When you're economically independent, when you have enough recurring revenue from assets or entrepreneurial based income that doesn't require your daily involvement. So when Ben's in Sedona for 10 days, the income that comes in while he's not in the office or on a computer, that's money towards economic independence. And when you have enough cash flow to cover your expenses already won. So now it's win and play. Choose what you want to do with your life. So it's all those concepts of how do we win before we begin in how do you profit from day one? How do you become a cash flow investor instead of an accumulation based investor? How do you plug financial leaks and keep more of what you make without cutting back? How do you invest in yourself and your quality of life along the way? So I'm a little bit passionate about that. So it was a short question and I just bombarded you with all these ideas. Sorry.

Yeah, no, that's okay. I like guests who I can just wind up and let go so I can wander around my office and pick my nose as they're, you know, giving the reply and come back to the microphone and quickly unmute myself to jump back in. I'm kidding. So disrupting Sacred Cows, you get into a lot of this. And so folks, there's a few books you're going to want to jot down. Killing Sacred Cow is a good one. My son's actually read that for their financial curriculum. This new one, Disrupting Sacred Cows, is going to be available about the time this podcast comes out. And I think Garrett said it was something like GarrettGunderson.com Ben. But I'll link to all this if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com cows and then his book, Habits of the Billionaire Errors. Now, Garrett, we started off talking a little about comedy, and I am going to put you on the spot here and ask you, is there a way that my audience could get an insider sneak peek into perhaps a joke or a set or whatever the lingo they use in the industry is that maybe you haven't performed yet on stage that you want to test out on me or my audience to see how it resonates and see whether or not you get crickets, rotten fruit, or. Or laughs. Go for it.

Okay, let's see that I. That I haven't really performed. Yeah, like, give me. Okay.

Can't be something fringe like, oh, this is. This is my Teddy Roosevelt impersonation, you know? Yes.

No, no, this is. This is. Okay, so I'm. I'm writing a book right now called Life After Debt. Life After Debt. And it's a comedic look at debt and money. So here you go. This is the first time bringing it to a group. All right?

Okay. Okay.

So. So debt is the real four letter word that fucks you. What happens in Vegas stays on your credit card. Well, and sometimes your dick. So I've heard. I mean, debt, a word so close to death that sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. Difference? Debt and death are the new inheritance. What do you get when mom dies? Oh, hey, kids. Love you. Enjoy these bills. Hashtag legacy. P.S. to be fair, you were my biggest expense. Good luck. X.O.X.O. sign mom. Debt. It's something easy to get into.

But.

And by the way, that's a big but not always to get out of. Yeah, Ben, I remember getting suckered into this with my first credit card. I was 18 years old.

Old.

And some hot girl was giving out free t shirts with a 29 interest rate card. Turns out that was 29% more interest than she had in me. The cycle begins. I guess that's why they call it MasterCard. Because when you get one, you become their slave and spend years trying to buy back your freedom. So I don't know. I keep going. But those are just like the jokes I'm working on in this book right now. That'll end up being my special number two.

That's. That's pretty good. You know what? I think you're on track there, Garrett. Even though I Know, it's hard to. Hard to do comedy in front of a microphone on a podcast when you're invisible, but really, the only debt joke I ever heard is probably going to. In addition to alienating our. Which. Which audience listeners did we alienate our Indian listeners by talking about killing the sacred cows? And then who else was it the vegans? I forget, I alienate vegans on almost every podcast, but here we go.

Yes.

The only, the only debt joke I know is what kind of debt does. Does a paraplegic have? It's. It's crippling debt and highly insensitive. I know. Anyways, though, if, if you up.

If you upset vegans and I. I'll go ahead and one more joke. Okay, so when I wrote Killing Sacred Cows, I do my very first podcast after I wrote the book, and I'm super stoked about it. And the guy goes, oh, we've got the author of Killing Scared Crows with us today. And I was like, what? I was like, what the hell's that book about? Like, you know, like, I'm a terrified bird murder enthusiast or what? And the whole time he kept saying, killing scared crows. Killing scared crows. I'm like, nah, you know, by the way, it wasn't a book about harming birds. Or even, you know, like, people think killing scared or sacred cows, they're like, is it a book on veganism? No, if it was a book on veganism, I would have mentioned that immediately and often. And plus, vegans are so full of themselves, which, Ben, I think is the only way they actually get full.

Well, that. That just means, Garrett, that the next book needs to be called Barbecuing Grass Fed Cows. And that way you'll.

I remember you posted when we went on that elk hunt and you got some death threats for going to. To elk hunting.

Yeah, it's funny, you get all sorts of upset comments from people when you, when you post pictures of hunting or providing or harvesting animals. Unless it's there, there's like a, there's some kind of a switch if it's like an instant act or a fish. People really don't have a problem with that. But it's something about like, I don't know, the snout or the hooves or the eyebrows. Something like there's a line that you cross is the threshold that you cross. So I don't know, dude, I remember.

You go, hey, do you want to go elk hunting with me? And I go, yeah. And then like two days later I go, dude, check out this gun I just bought.

And you Go.

You know we're going bow hunting, right? Oh, yeah, let me. And so for 33 straight days, I shot my bow. And, you know, it's like, oh, man, I better. But, yeah, I was really appreciative of you taking me on it. And then you were like, dude, we better be in great shape because, you know, and I'm like, packing backpacks and sleeping bags and tents, and we get there like, you're staying in this. In this cabin. I'm like, I was ready to be on survival level with Ben Greenfield. And then they're like, you're telling them, hey, we're in super good shape. We can go wherever, whenever. And I like, ben's in super good shape. I'm in good shape. But I felt pretty good until I had to carry that beast out in the middle of the fog and the rain. And you were cold, and back at the warm cabin while I dragged that thing for two and a half miles back and forth and back and forth. But, you know, I can't complain because it was pretty fun, and I appreciate you taking me.

Yeah. Well, in. In your defense, they now make air saber arrow rifles. I actually have one. I might go hunting parents. It's legal in Idaho to hunt big game with it, so. So. So next time you send somebody a picture of a rifle, if they come back and tell you we're going bow hunting, just tell them it's an arrow rifle, because that's the thing now, and they're pretty cool. It actually spits out arrows, like, 455 foot per second. And I may or may not take it out for elk on the Idaho side in the fall just to. Just to hunt with a different weapon. So we'll see. We'll see.

I. I hit an elk this last year from 85 yards away. Was so happy.

Happy.

And then it got away, and the guide was like, what are you happy about? At first I was like, well, we tracked it for two miles. He's like, by the way, the arrow didn't go in very far. He's fine. So I was good because I wanted to make an. You know, I don't want to take an unethical shot or hurt an animal, but. And then. So the next time, I just. I could choose between a gun and a bow, and I shot it with a gun, and it just wasn't the same, dude. I felt disappointed in myself for. For resorting to the gun.

Yeah, you're right. Bow hunting is the way to go. It's a. It's more physical. It's a lot more.

So nothing to do with money. Just Ben and I catching up on.

Yeah. Inside baseball for everybody. But anyway, so. So come and. Come and see the. Some. Come and see the comedy show. Come ask your whole life insurance policy questions at a comedy show. It's. It's May 10th in Austin, Texas. It's a Tuesday night at 7pm and I'm gonna open for Garrett. I'm gonna open for him, so. So I'll put links in the show notes. You all come and throw some rotten fruit at me. BenGreenfieldFitness.com Cows I gotta remember, it's actually BenGreenfield Life.com Cows Change our branch. BenGreenfieldLife.com But, Garrett, I love you. I love your work. I've learned so much from you on the financial front and in so many other ways. I love to see your journey, the fact you're becoming such a renaissance man and also becoming pretty funny to Boots, both looking and now talking. So, Garrett, thanks for coming on the show, man.

Well, thanks for inspiring me and bringing me out to survival camp and the way that you are with your family. Super, super inspiring to me. You always hold a high standard there. But to watch your transformation from striver to creator, because we didn't really get to the other side, that there's a mindful manager instead of the miser, there's the planner instead of the conservative, there's the creator instead of the striver, and there's the catalyst instead of the high roller. Like you as a creator, watching the artistic nature that you have, the way that you operate with your family, I just, it's. It's pretty special to watch. And I will tell the listeners, when. When Ben was a client, you know, my team would be working with them and they'd say, hey, this guy's done with the program. Year one in three months. I was like, that's not possible. You talked to Ben. It actually was. You are a ferocious implementer, so always respect that.

Yeah, well, you know, you keep enough crack cocaine on hand, you can do anything. So anyways, thank you, Garrett. Folks, show notes are@BenGreenfieldLife.com cows until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield with Garrett Gunderson, author of Disrupting Sacred Cows and superstar comedian, signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com have an amazing week. Oh, hey. And a few events that you can join me at runga coming up May 12th through the 14th in Austin, Texas. Check it out. Runga. All these you can find at BenGreenfieldLife.com calendar intimate like VIP type of event. Me and 50 other people that you can join in Austin, Texas May 12th through the 14th. Also in Austin, Texas May 10th I'll be opening at a comedy show for my friend Garrett Gunderson over at the Creek and the cave in Austin, Texas. That's Tuesday, May 10th at 7pm if you want to come and see some stand up comedy. I'll also put that over@BenGreenfieldLife.com calendar as well as the Health Optimization Summit coming up May 28th through the 29th in London. And even sooner than that, Paleo FX April 29th through May 1st in August Boston. So links and details on any of those are all going to be@BenGreenfieldLife.com calendar if you want to check them out. More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do this that for you on this episode today. If you liked it, or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.