Why Making More Money Isn’t Making You Wealthy with Phil & Trish Calandra

Trish, you work specifically with female entrepreneurs. How do you see that they experience the wealth gap or everything that we're talking about? Is it different?

Women are built beautifully differently. You put everyone else first. You put your business first, your clients first, your family first. That becomes true with building your personal wealth because you, you move the milestone out. I'll do it next year. I'll do it next quarter. I'll deal with it then after I get this next Launch.

All the while that you're trying to gain more, you're losing the most valuable asset.

Which is time.

100%.

And time is what makes compounding compound.

That's right.

And that's the big secret. It's not a secret. It's the compounding.

Phil and Trish, welcome to the podcast. You are officially on the Earn Your Happy podcast and the Chris Harder Show.

Yes, welcome guys. Good to be with you.

So happy to be here.

I'm so excited you're here. I know we've been waiting to do this for a little while and we'll dig into that. So it's so fun to have you in here and you guys are some of Chris and I's absolute favorite people. You are So much fun. You're extraordinary humans. You inspire us. We've gotten to have the honor of not only being friends with you, but also having you in the room of our masterminds. And what's been really cool about seeing you not only in the friendship realm, but also when you get in a room of a bunch of entrepreneurs, is so many people end up being obsessed with you because of all the value that you offer.

Yeah.

And truly, whenever we ask who some of the most impactful people every single year is, it's always you guys, and they always say Phil and Trish changed our lives. So, um, that's why this conversation today, if you guys can really understand what they do and listen to how this can impact you, this also has the opportunity to change your life. So, we're excited to dig in with you guys.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Let me frame this a little bit further just so people can really understand. As of today, you guys have had 2 exits, meaning you sold 2 companies. You're what I call post-economic, meaning you don't have to work, you choose to work, and we're even going to get into that a little bit later. You've got a term for it that I like even better. But it wasn't always that way. There was a moment, and this is why you work with entrepreneurs now. And Phil, I'm going to direct this at you to begin with. There was a moment where you were a credentialed financial expert, meaning you had— you passed all the licenses and all that stuff. So supposedly you were the expert.

Yeah.

But then you running a business, you only had $0.08 in your business account.

Yeah.

What did that feel like being, quote unquote, a financial expert, but waking up that day only having $0.08 in your business account?

Yeah, well, first, it took me a long time to be able to talk about it.

Yeah.

Because I was ashamed as a financial professional, probably had more knowledge than most people in the room.

Yeah.

And it was March 2009 during the great financial crisis. And everything was just a mess, as you, as you well know, because you went through something similar in the back.

That was our reset point.

And I sat at my desk at the end of the day and my face just fell into my hands. I was in tears. I had $0.08 in the business account. The payroll was due the next morning. Oh, the bigger punch was my mother worked for me at the time. She had retired. from a brilliant career, but she worked my front desk.

Hmm.

And her name was the first name on the payroll list.

Oh.

And I was in tears. I said, I don't know how I got to this point without sharing a lot of financial data. I was already a 7-figure entrepreneur.

Yeah.

The financial crisis did a lot of damage to a lot of people, but in particular, as a financial advisor, right, in that time was very, very hard. And I sat there and I just prayed and I said, if I can get out of this mess, I will never allow this to happen again. And now we sit here today with a book, the course, the new firm on a mission. It was information I didn't have that I have now that I can give to others. And that's why we're on this journey.

That's an amazing story that, you You're vulnerable enough to share. What do you think changed for you from that day forward? Because a lot of people are going to hear this, 7-figure entrepreneur and, quote unquote, an expert in whatever field. In your case, it was finances. And they have no money in their operating account and they have shame. What do you think switched for you?

So, it really stems to a structural problem. And that's the pattern. Most entrepreneur business owners go through the same type of struggle.

Yeah.

When you have a successful business, 7 figures, you know, $2 million, $5 million, $10 million, you have this financial ecosystem like none other that we're trained to deal with. So for the first time, somebody has a bookkeeper, they have a CPA, they have a financial advisor. Maybe they have a fractional CFO, where the hell— whatever the hell that is. They have all these people And they're good people. They're specialists in a specialist model. But that doesn't work for the business owner.

Yeah.

And so our mission is to impact the business owner by coordinating, unifying the tax strategy, not just the tax filing, the tax strategy, the cash flow like a CFO does. And then why do we do all this?

Yeah.

Why are we entrepreneurs to begin with? It's not to create a job. It's to create financial independence and freedom. We call it the wealth freedom number. Everybody has it.

Love it.

Okay, so, Trish, in 2012, you packed up your life from Chicago and then you moved to Atlanta and you were essentially betting on a firm and a man that you believed in. And most people would never take that kind of risk. And honestly, we share a common home. area, which is the Midwest. And I never saw people taking risks like that ever back there. It was very much like, are you insane? What made you take that gamble?

So, like you, I grew up in the Midwest. I grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Yes. Go Packers.

Go Pack. I still am a Packer fan.

Yep.

So I grew up in a household that didn't have much money. And there were a lot of problems around that money and there was a lot of tension in our household. And what that did was it ingrained in my sister and I a scarcity mindset. And so that was deep in our household. And like you said, the Midwest has a different mindset. There aren't— I mean, there are big thinkers, but you work hard. Not my household.

They tend to move to Atlanta and California and New York.

They tend to leave, but So I grew up around all of that tension, and so I had to flip that script for myself, and I did. So I got licensed, I got 5 financial licenses, I got educated, I got 3 degrees. I had to flip that for myself, and I, I found a book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I've read that probably 5 times by now, and so I flipped the script from scarcity to abundance, and I created my own career in the financial sphere. And when I lived in Chicago, I actually got fired from a job. And so I was unemployed and looking for other positions in Chicago. But Chicago is a financial—

Hub. Yeah, hub.

And so I could have gotten any number of jobs in Chicago, but I had met Phil at one of— at the job I got fired from, actually. And So I met Phil, and so I knew he had a vision, and I knew him professionally only. We did not have a personal relationship. So I was living in Chicago.

I'm calling bullshit on that. Just kidding.

No, seriously. For many years, it was purely professional, but I knew he had a vision. And if you know Phil for 5 minutes, his visions are big. His dreams are big. And he's brilliant. And so I didn't know anyone in Atlanta except for Phil and this vision. But I've always been very convicted in my gut feeling. So I moved.

Wow.

Took the chance.

And it panned out. You got more than a job. You got a marriage.

Got a husband. I love it.

That's very cool. That's one of those stories, the way you hope it turns out, right?

But I had no idea I'd end up with a husband.

Oh, that's the best.

But also, that also speaks so much to the power of someone with a vision, like really giving it life and speaking into it, because it sounds like you spoke so much into it that she got on board pretty easily. Like, wow, that just shows that when you give more faith to the vision, like that is when everybody gets enrolled and that's when it starts to grow. So you were like one of the first.

Yeah, absolutely.

People to really help with that.

Yeah, absolutely. And it was just the two of us for a long time quietly building. And then obviously it worked.

Yeah, it worked and then some. Okay, so I want to kind of frame this for the people, you know, the majority of people listening, a lot of them are small business owners, solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and they get caught up in something that you call the revenue trap. And I really just want to paint the picture quick. Business owners seem so good at marketing or so good at design or so good at sales or so good at these few things. But then when it comes to personal finance and business finance, they don't spend any time getting good at it and they end up in this damn revenue trap. Can you unpack that for us? Yeah.

So the revenue trap happens because we're playing 2 games as an entrepreneur founder.

Mm-hmm.

Business owner. There's the income game or the revenue game.

Mm-hmm.

And there's the wealth game. They're 2 totally different games.

Mm-hmm.

But what are the rules? Really, there are no rules. So if there are no rules to the game, hmm, it's like playing tic-tac-toe. I had twin sons. They're adults now. We'd go out to dinner and we didn't have, they didn't have phones in their hands.

Yeah.

Back then. So we would bring paper and crayons everywhere we went just in case the restaurant didn't provide 'em, which they probably don't even do that anymore. And so we're passing time and we'd play tic-tac-toe. Well, what are the rules of tic-tac-toe? Tic-tac-toe, 3 in a row, X's and O's. And I would go first. If you play a game of tic-tac-toe, the person that goes first takes which square?

I don't even know what the strategy is.

The middle. If you go first and you take the first square, you're almost guaranteed 100% of the time to have a cat.

Okay.

A tie.

Yep.

So we would play and we'd play and Kyle and Davis would lose and they'd lose until they figured out. They said, Daddy, we want to go first. So no, no, no, boys. Dad goes first. Once they figured out the game, which doesn't really have rules.

Yeah.

Right.

Yep.

They could win the game. Same thing with money. So the revenue trap is this fixation for us to— what is society talking about? We're talking about 7-figure entrepreneurs.

Top-line revenue.

Right. And it doesn't really matter if you can build the revenue. And I would say income or revenue will make you rich, but it won't make you wealthy and it won't make you free and it won't give you flexibility. So the revenue trap is just this idea. It's the pattern that people get sucked into. They think, I just need more revenue. And I say, wait a minute. Before you spend more money to generate more revenue, there's got to be a plan to extract the money. That's what I learned. I didn't have any way in my business prior to 2009 to extract the success that I was having.

You had a way, you just didn't have the knowledge to do it.

And then lifestyle creeps.

Yeah.

I wasn't placing investments. I didn't have work optionality. I didn't have the type of business that I really set out to have. The business should be the generator. We call it generate, keep, and multiply. The business is the fuel.

Yeah.

Business will not make you wealthy.

I would really want to unpack this so that people understand these 2 separate games that they're playing. Yeah. Because we have fallen into that idea of, ah, you just make the business bigger and you'll get richer. Yeah. And then we learn quickly, oh, that's not the case. It just means you have more employees and more advertising, more overhead, and And it's a game you almost can't win until you learn how to extract the right amount at the right time in the right ways and then go multiply it like you said.

Yeah.

Yet almost everybody listening, I guarantee they're under the impression that I just need to, you know, cross this number in my business. I just need this launch to go right. I just need whatever. And they think that's going to make them wealthy. That's it.

And it doesn't work that way. For most people, the pattern repeats, and that's the revenue trap.

Okay. So you guys work with founders who are making $1 million, some $5 million, some $20 million a year, and most of them don't know what they're worth. Tell me about that. How is that possible?

It's possible because there isn't anybody that's coordinating or unifying all of these fragmented, like I mentioned, CPA, Financial advisor, business coach. If you don't have somebody that's coordinating or unifying, what you end up with is this fragmentation. So they don't really know what they have. They're not even looking at the business structure properly. They might have a fractional CFO. They might have a CPA that guides them, but there's no connectivity.

Yeah. So they don't talk to each other.

Right. They don't talk to one another. And then they think they're getting— I can't tell you how many times I've been in a meeting or talking with successful people, just amazing. And they think, well, I think my CPA is doing that. Or I think my, I think my CFO is doing that. I'm like, well, is there no clearer picture? And to me, it was always about the personal net worth. That's why I, that's why I took all the risk. That's why the entrepreneur does that.

Yeah.

To, to provide something more. So, um, a lot of people just don't know what their real number is. We call it the wealth freedom number.

Hmm.

And the wealth freedom number is that sum of money where if you don't go to the office or you do go to the office or you choose to work or you don't choose to work, our lifestyle continues. We can do the things that are important to us.

And where, and for people, listening who don't fully understand what you're saying, where is that sum of money being held at? Like, where— what are you—

It's different for every person. You know, I always say we made our fortune helping other people make their fortune, mainly in financial planning and investment management. I love real estate. It could be private equity. It could be investing in other business. It could be startup. We've worked together on startups. So there's not one answer to where the money should go.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you a quick story because this just happened recently. I'm working with a founder who has $3 million sitting in a checking account. Mm-hmm.

That's wild.

What's your initial reaction is like, yeah, I'm like scared for them. And I asked him, I said, you know, why do you have $3 million sitting in checking? He said, I just don't know what to do. I said, I said, explain that. He said, well, I have a realtor. He's telling me I should be buying.

Of course he is.

I have an advisor that's telling me it should all go into SpaceX or Bitcoin. I have another person that's telling me I should put it all back in my business. Isn't you see the problem?

Yeah.

And my response was, I said, congratulations. I'm glad you have three million sitting in checking because you didn't make a dumb decision. Let's unpack this. Let's get to 36,000 feet. Tell me where you really wanna go. Little red arrow, you are here. You wanna go there. Now we can build a unif— what we call a unified wealth plan around it.

Mhmm.

And so now we're slowly— he's a little reluctant, but I'd rather somebody have that position than a haphazard financial structure. And that's what a lot of people The reason they don't know what they have is it's, it's all over. It's not coordinated.

Trish, I know Lori has a question that she's dying to ask you. But before, I just want to unpack this a tiny bit more. You mentioned, you kind of skimmed over it. Most people, if they're doing it, quote unquote, right, they have a CPA and they have a tax advisor and then they have an accountant and bookkeeper and they might have a fractional CFO and they're paying all of these people money and they're paying all these people retainers and they're still leaving On an average, because you've shown me the average savings, you know, based on clients, an average of $60,000 to $110,000 a year.

Correct.

Worth of low-hanging fruit that they're not taking advantage of, even though they have all these quote-unquote experts. You guys basically take over what all the experts are doing. So it's cheaper not only to pay you instead of paying all these individuals who are not working together, but then You actually get better results to the tune of an average of $60,000 to $110,000 a year per client. Right. How, how's that? How can you do this cheaper than all these experts and get— grasp all this low-hanging fruit that the experts are missing out on?

Well, I don't want to imply that the specialists that people work with are not good. These are good people.

I've met some not good ones.

Well, okay, fair enough.

Should we name them?

Maybe not. But you're right. So The reason that you can have that geometric gain, it's like compound interest. Simple interest is flimsy. Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. So it's the same thing. If we can coordinate— Trish uses the analogy of an air traffic controller. If we got out to John Wayne Airport and we were getting on the flight from here back to Atlanta, God love the air traffic controller.

Oh yeah.

They can see all the planes in the air and they can help navigate my pilot. Another analogy, if we were going to Symphony Hall tonight and you had the string section and the percussion section and the trumpet brass section, they all were reading different music and there was no conductor up front.

Yeah.

That's going to sound like hell.

Shit show.

Yeah.

Same thing. And it's not that people don't understand this. It's not the rules of the game.

Yep.

Entrepreneurs and founders have never been shown this because the vast majority of financial guidance is geared towards who? It's not for you.

Yeah.

It's not for me. It's never been entrepreneur-centric.

Yeah.

It was always siloed.

Yep.

And we think that this is the way, our way, to make a bigger impact. By coordinating it and unifying in a way that we close those gaps. If you just close the holes in a bucket, the more water you pour in, the faster it fills up.

It is the way— like, I'll just be on record saying it is the way. So many of our friends are your clients. You've helped us with so many things. Once you have that air traffic controller to coordinate the pilots, it's a game changer. You realize, oh, they weren't communicating and the planes were about to crash until somebody starts to guide them. It's fantastic.

When I was first scaling my company, I remember realizing I could not just hire somebody who understood marketing. I needed someone who actually understood the beauty and wellness space along with the supplement space. And they also needed to know how to do e-commerce and they needed to understand our voice and be able to hit the ground running so they could help us scale and not have a huge learning curve of catching up. And people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed according to Indeed data worldwide. That's wild to think about. While I'm sitting here, somebody just got the next great hire. So with Indeed Sponsored Jobs, your post gets boosted. So it actually gets seen and you get matched with candidates who fit what you're actually looking for, not just whoever happens to stumble across your listing. And you only pay for results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

Indeed.

It's as basic too as like knowledge is power. And a lot of times, you know, as a founder, you're so busy and in your role and your role is, you know, probably the most important role, which is bringing in the money. And like, that is what you play every day. And that takes all that you have.

Yeah.

That sometimes it's like there's this little thought in the back of your head that, you know, there's things that you don't know.

Mm-hmm.

And you wanna know, but you don't even know what to ask sometimes. And even when you do ask, because they're all not communicating, you don't get clear answers.

That's right.

Because I have fully been in that situation where I'm just like, one, I don't know what to ask. Now that I think I know what to ask, it's disjointed and there's pieces all over and it's getting them all together. Now you've created a second job for yourself as the founder of being now the maestro for this group, which is going to be too much for you. It's a lot to coordinate while doing the other jobs that are required.

Add to that in an area you were never educated in.

Exactly. It's another bottleneck.

It makes you the bottleneck.

Absolutely.

You are the bottleneck.

The other reality is trust. You have to know, like, and trust the people you're getting guidance and advice from. And our model is, you mentioned retainer model. I grew up and lived, we both were licensed in a world that was fee-driven by the amount of money that we managed, an asset management model. But think about it. When does a realtor get paid?

Once they create a sale.

After the closing.

Yep.

Yep.

You know, the fractional CFO is being gauged by a very narrow lane. So the commission issue, how are we getting compensated in this financial advice-giving world? And I think the retainer model is where the puck is moving. I think that there is a, in my view, over the next 10, maybe shorter amount of time, The fee dilemma goes away when you look at it that way. Who do you turn to just like a sounding board and say, hey, what do you think? And I don't have the answers to everything. Trish doesn't have the answers to everything. But guess what?

We find them.

Hell yeah, we can find them because we have the expertise, the years, the resources, the resources. And that would make it work for people.

Okay, so, Trish, you work specifically with female entrepreneurs. How do you see that they experience the wealth gap or everything that we're talking about? Is it different than men? Do you see it completely?

It is different.

Okay.

It's very different. I think that women are built beautifully differently, very differently, as you know. I mean—

Oh, we know.

Love the men. Love the men. I mean, and Phil and I work very differently, as you know. together and we complement each other. Sometimes we go head to head.

Right.

But female founders are brilliant. They're intentional. They work in their zone of genius. So do men. I mean, and like you were just saying, you become your own bottleneck. And with females, what I'm finding and have found for years and years and years is that You put everyone else first. You put your business first, your clients first, your family first, your—

It's true.

Your fitness first. And, you know, and your fitness actually comes pretty low sometimes because you're in the zone. And so that becomes true with building your personal wealth because you, you move the milestone out. I'll do it next year. I'll do it. I'll, I'll do it next quarter. I'll deal with it then. I will after I get this next big launch, this next big— I'll write my book, then I will worry about it. But the problem is you lose out on all of that time compounding. And that's the big secret. It's not a secret. It's the compounding.

Can you explain that for those listening? A lot of people don't understand compounding and why it's powerful.

I'm going to let him answer that because he explains it better with the compounding versus simple.

Well, I mean, compounding just is geometric growth. And the time that you wait, because I think you said, you know, I think always I need more money, I need more, I need more, it's not enough. And all the while that you're trying to gain more, you're losing the most valuable asset.

Which is time.

100%.

And time is what makes compounding compound.

That's right. And so you have to, and this is Countercultural. We live in a minute-by-minute, click-by-click, 24/7. They put the ticker symbol. Why do you— they put that stupid thing scrolling across the bottom of the TV.

Yeah.

We want it quicker. We want to accelerate. How many programs are called The Accelerator? It's how do we get it faster? And the reality, true wealth, really generational impactful wealth, Takes time. Old money never sells. And you can get lucky and make it, but you can't get lucky and keep it.

Yeah.

And as soon as people understand that compounding works for you instead of against you.

So what I figured out with women started with me. I had to give myself the permission to stop and start systematically saving. So it becomes the permission that I get to do this. It's a deliberate decision to start building it and compounding it. And I wanted to be work optional. I wanted the freedom. And so it's a systematic plan to do that.

Mm-hmm.

It's a freedom that I wanted. So I have a lot of deep conversations with female founders, and it's all about Their money story, like my money story from Green Bay. I have a whole money story that I can I talk to women about, and I really connect with them, and it brings a lot of emotion out. We do it with men too. It's a lot harder to pull it out of men sometimes, but there are a lot of deep conversations because everyone has a money story, and it is emotional, and everyone has one, and that's where it starts. But it's Really about the permission to build it, to intentionally build it. Give yourself the permission to be work optional. Yeah. To build your own wealth.

Yeah. Trish, you mentioned this money story. What's the most common money story you hear women share with you? Because the story dictates our moves. It dictates how we see money, dictates when we start saving, etc.

A lot of times it's that money was never talked about. We weren't taught about money. No, money was a shameful thing. A lot of people grew up that money was— rich people are bad, rich people are evil, greedy, greedy, horrible, or there's never enough. The scarcity is a huge one, and it's very emotional. Yeah, money is very emotional, and Our job, we've always said, is to take the emotion out of the money. We are— we'll put it into black and white. We'll put it into a P&L. We will take the emotion out and we'll say, okay, here's a strategy. Here's how you can look at it so that you can be free. You can have work optional. You can hit your wealth freedom number.

Mm-hmm.

We've named it. We have naming conventions to put it logically and take the emotion out. To take the shame about, to use one of your favorite words, unapologetic, to be unapologetic about what you want. You don't have to apologize for wanting $100 million, to want $1 million. It doesn't matter what your number is. It's your number. It's personal to you, and you don't have to apologize for it. Yeah.

It's so interesting because money really is, for so many people, it's like identity, worth.

And it's not.

Shame.

It's neutral.

And you're unpacking all of that.

Yes. It's a lot. And a lot of times you have to have that conversation first, which is why we work together with almost every client in the beginning, and then we separate our roles because you have to unpack that first to get over that hump.

Totally.

A lot of our friends that we work with, we have to have those emotional conversations before we work with— they'll even sign on with us because they have to get past that hump of the emotions. And they'll be like, okay, let's sign on.

Is that the hardest?

Yeah. Yes.

Yeah.

So the hardest part of what you guys do is not telling them what to do, getting them to actually get over their money story and do it.

It's not that hard because we both have really deep money stories. They were ingrained deeply early on in our childhoods, and we're very willing to share them. And so I think that makes people feel more comfortable to open up.

As brief as you can, would you share yours?

But it— yeah, sure. But sometimes it takes a while for someone to come to us and actually open up.

Yeah.

Even though they're friends with us or they've known us for years.

Well, sometimes that's harder.

It is hard. Yeah, it is. Sure, I'll share mine. So growing up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, my sister and I would be in the living room in our little house playing Monopoly on the floor on any given Saturday afternoon. And we would hear the door between the living room and kitchen close, and we would look at each other, zero in on each other, because we knew that meant my mom and dad were in the kitchen laying all the bills out on the table, and they were going to decide which bills were going to be paid that month. Not all of the bills, which bills. And the yelling would start.

Oh.

And my parents were very loving. We had a great family. We didn't know we were poor. We didn't. We always had food. We always had clothes. We had 2 golden retrievers, 2 kids. You know, we had bikes. They were used bikes.

Yeah.

We grew up camping in northern Wisconsin. Yeah. Like everyone else we knew. But every month they would fight and yell about the bills. And so I would grab Trine and we would go outside and play. It didn't matter if it was, you know, snowbanks outside, whatever. We'd go out and—

You had to put your snowsuit on.

Yes.

Snowsuit on.

I remember.

Yeah, absolutely.

We would go out and play and our yard was adjacent to a park. which we thought was our backyard as well. And we'd go out and play until the bills were done being paid. And so we just always knew there was never enough.

Yeah.

And we would hear, we can't afford that. We can't afford that. We can't afford that. And they did their best. And I recently had a talk with my mom because I told her I'm going to be going on podcasts, I'm going to be speaking to people, and I'm going to be telling this story. And she said, Do you feel like your generation or other parents didn't educate their kids on money? Like your friends that you grew up with? And I thought about that. She's right. I think that's kind of prevalent.

Mm-hmm.

And then she said, well, how did you get— she's like, you're really smart about money right now. And I'm like, well, let me tell you. And so I, I went through it, and she handled it very well.

Wow.

Very, very well.

Growing up, money wasn't something that we talked about. I was raised in a more religious family, and there was kind of this unspoken rule in my religion that wanting money made you a bad person. So we didn't talk about it much. We didn't plan for it, and we definitely did not have enough of it. And I really carried that tension around money into my adulthood with this weird mix of needing money but feeling really guilty for wanting it. And it's taken me years to rewrite that story. And that's part of why I think so much about the tools that help people do that. And Monarch is one of the best that I've ever seen. So instead of just showing you what you already spent, it helps you actually plan accounts, investments, savings, goals, spending all in one place. So you can see if you're on track before it's too late to adjust. So imagine finally seeing exactly where that extra 15% of your paycheck has gone. And where it's been going every month, and you didn't realize it before that. So the AI weekly recap flags spending spikes and net worth shifts before they become a real problem. And you can ask the AI assistant things like, how much did I spend on travel last summer? Or can I afford this without touching my savings and actually get the answer? It's basically a financial advisor in your pocket. How cool is that? You don't have to be ashamed of wanting money or scared of it. You get to write your own story with it, and Monarch just makes the story a lot easier to write. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code EYH at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code EYH. I mean, there was a gap there. There wasn't— it's not even— you can't even say it's their fault because they never saw it. They did their best.

They're doing their best.

They did their best for sure. Yeah.

And it was— it's their first year. first time around in life as well. And they were young parents and they were doing their best. They were working very hard. I mean, they did their very best.

Yeah. You're making me think back. I'm like, I remember moving out when I was 18 and there was never a conversation of like, hey, a checking account.

Like, I had to figure absolutely all of that out by myself.

And I remember I was 18 and went to the mall one day and opened up like 3 credit cards.

Me too.

Used it all. I was like, this is amazing. This is incredible, this adult thing I get to do. And then I learned really quickly.

Me too.

All about money. Exactly. Me too. In a very bad way.

Credit cards. Learn the hard way.

Me too.

Me too. Same thing. I got myself in debt with the credit cards. Yes, totally. In my early, early 20s.

So easy. I can just open this up. This is great.

Do I have to pay these?

Everybody's asking me at the cash register if I want one. That's great.

You guys are work optional. Those cards are pay optional.

Yeah.

What do you think the most important conversation that parents Could or should be having with their kids is right now around money.

Oh, there are so many, and they should be having classes in middle and high school.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I don't think that school is going to be the place to get us over this dilemma that we have in our country.

No.

I think the conversation that I always—I had tried to have it with my sons. Money is a tool. It can be used for good. It can be used for evil. But if you look at it from the lens of there's more than enough money to go around, the world runs on money. You have to either control it or it will control you. When I was growing up, if I could, I'll tell my story quickly. Please. We lived in Florida at the time. I think I was 12 or 13 years old, and I got off the school bus. It was a beautiful, sunshiny day in Florida. I'm walking up the driveway with my sister, and I see this big yellow sticker on the door. And my mother and my baby sister were on the stoop crying. It was an eviction notice. My father left that day. And I didn't see—

left, left.

Left, left.

Like, peace out.

Peace out. Wow. And I didn't talk to my father for nearly 15 years after that. Wow. But that was a source. We— my mother had a friend who had a friend that was a banker. Thank God for this man. She made $16,000 a year with 3 kids.

That's rough.

We didn't know we were poor. Yeah, I was, you know, Going down to the beach. Yeah. Where's the surfboard? Yep. That was a source of so much pain around what? Money. Mm-hmm. And I didn't learn money from my father. He was incarcerated twice. Mm-hmm. I learned it from my grandfather. And one thing that always stuck out to me, and I'll never forget it, when I was home from college, I lived with my grandparents. Mm-hmm. Because my mother had a one-bedroom studio with 2 other, with 2 sisters. There was no real, I was the only boy.

Yeah.

So I moved in with granddad and he was an Army colonel, retired. He would get up at, you know, the butt crack of dawn. It's like most military people do, I guess. Mm-hmm. And he would be in the kitchen drinking his coffee, Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It was all the financial pages.

Mm-hmm.

Back then. And he had a highlighter and a red pen and he'd be going through and he'd circle and then he'd make a note in a notebook and I, One day I said, Granddad, I said, what are you doing? He said, son, I'm looking for an advantage.

Hmm.

I said, what do you mean? An advantage for what? He said, nobody's going to show me these financial pages. It's up to me to find the edge that may or may not work out, but it's up to me to find it. And that stuck with me. I went away to college, and in the Monday edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, they had a personal finance section. Every week. Insurance, wills and trusts, your 401, your brokerage account. And he would cut that section of the Monday AJC out and mail it to me away at school. And it would always come on a Thursday. Yep. And I was in the business school and I would run from Hollis Hall to the mailbox, to the student center so I could get my mail. Now, I think now he probably would email it, but we didn't have email back then.

Right.

This was in the '80s.

Yeah.

And unfortunately, I lost that file. I kept all those clippings for years and I can't find them. I guess too many moves. But, um, that taught me a lot that I wouldn't have found any other way. So there is somebody, anybody that's listening, there is somebody out there that can guide you away from the scarcity, away from your lack of knowledge or your fear about money.

Mm-hmm.

You've got to find that person if you want to get to whatever it is you want to get to.

Mm-hmm.

I want to ask you about the term, you know, I called it post-economic, but I like your term better. It's work optional.

Yeah.

And every time you guys use that term, I'm like, oh, that just makes good sense. And I think the best thing that money can buy is choice, is freedom.

Yeah.

Work optional is the freedom to work if you want or not, or to work doing what you want, not because you have to.

Yeah.

But I think a lot of people hear that and they think, oh, I could never get there. I only make blank. Talk to the people that think they don't make enough to ever get to a point where they are work optional.

Yeah. So work optional as a term. About a year ago, I was driving a Ferrari in Tuscany.

Yeah. With a really good looking guy.

Just ahead of you and your brother. Yes. Because I was a much faster driver with a common— with a good friend of ours. With Rob.

Yep.

And I was just finishing. We were, we were in Italy together, and Jake Kelfer, our publisher, that book you have sitting there, was just about to be kind of final print, ready to go. 25 years of lessons are in that book. And I was talking to Rob about it, and he's like, well, tell me about it. What, like, what's the book really about? And he's like, no, really tell me. I said, you know, He said, why in the hell do you want to start another business? He was like, aren't you done? I'm like, well, I couldn't retire. I was bored. It wasn't what I wanted. He said, so you really just want work to be optional? I about floored the brake. I was like, Rob, that's the 2 words.

That's the goal. Work optional.

Work optional. So, what it means to us is to get to a point where your wealth, the structure of your financial plan, allows you to say when, allows you to say with who, allows you to say where.

Yeah.

And if the business stopped tomorrow, the question for the audience is, if you didn't work and it stopped, could you live the lifestyle you imagined? And for a lot of people, whether they have W-2 jobs or whether they have, you know, businesses, the answer is no. So, what do we think about in the financial services industry The whole industry is based around retirement planning. And when I got to that at 51, 52 years of age, a number of years ago, I was like, this is dumb. I hate fishing. I really suck at golf. I want to work, you know, and you— it's a game. You're really good at work. I want to play. I want to do more. I love it. And we get to do it the way we want to do it from Florida, from California, from wherever we are. So work optional is a better strategy in general because what if you don't ever make it to 65?

Yeah. I want to circle back on the question. The part of the question I think is really important for people listening are the ones hearing this saying, yeah, sounds great, but that's not in the cards for me. What are some of the levers they can pull so that they too could become work optional at a certain period of time?

I think it goes back to filling the holes in the bucket. If you've got holes in your financial structure, not because of the, the fault of the CPA, it's not the fault of the CFO, call it out. It's your fault that you can fix.

Mm-hmm.

Plug the holes in the bucket. Identify where you are. What are the gaps? What are the holes? What are the leaks? If you plug the leaks and you can identify where you want to go, and that's the other thing, most people don't decide Discover what is it that I really want. Yeah, it's not enough to say I want to build a 7-figure business. That's not enough. It's going to be hollow and it's going to be empty. What's the purpose of the business? It's to generate the work optionality.

Yeah. Most importantly, it's to start now. Yep. Start right now because you're wasting time. You waste that compounding, that compounding interest.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes good sense.

So if someone's listening right now and has a profitable business and a personal net worth that That hasn't kept pace with them and they have never had anyone look at their whole picture. What does that first step for them actually look like?

So it starts with taking a look at everything. And we have, we have a methodology to do that, that we can send anyone that they can take a look at it. And it's 39 questions. Is it 39 questions?

Well, there's a couple of different tools.

We have tools, 39 questions. It's very easy. They can just answer these questions, send it to us. We'll analyze it, and we'll spend an hour with them. We'll give them an hour of our time. We'll analyze it, and we'll give them a clear picture exactly where they are. And then they can't hide from it.

Yeah. Once you know, you know, you know, you can't.

I mean, yeah, knowledge is power. I mean, what do you always say? That if you could know that you— what's that term?

If what you thought to be true turned out not to be true, when would you want to know?

Yeah. I never remember.

Right away.

I never remember.

Immediately.

Immediately.

Yesterday. It's a good phrase. So it's a combination of 2 things. Number one, diagnose the gaps. Yes. And then determine what the gaps are costing you. So there's 2 tools. One is the Wealth Creation Scorecard. It's the simplest way that we found to identify, diagnose the gaps. After you've diagnosed where you are, take that— don't walk, run— to your advice givers and ask them, how do I close these gaps? And they're going to give you a fragmented answer. It's going to happen. That's the pattern.

Yeah, they're not going to collaborate. That's the problem. The tax guy is going to give his tax answer.

That's the problem.

Personal advisor is going to give their mutual fund answer.

Yes. So, the second phase of our Wealth Ascension System is to unify or design the plan around it. And that's the second tool. Diagnose the gap, identify what it's costing you. And if you discover that you can find 40, 60, 80, 110, $1,000, it's found money. It's like, it's like walking out the door here. There's a $100 bill sitting on the curb. I'm fighting you for it, dude. Yeah, I'm going to go for it. So if you can find the money, then you walk through that door and you systematically bring it back.

You'd be surprised how many times this happens. People take the diagnostic or one of the tools that we have and they do go back to their CPA, for instance, And they say, why haven't we done this or that? And the CPA pushes back and says, well, I don't think that's such a great idea. And they say, well, this would save me $35,000. And then they fire the CPA. Yeah. So it's sometimes that they don't have such a good advice giver and they have to discover that on their own.

More often than people would ever imagine. It shocks me, actually. Yeah.

But they have to peel back the layers and they have to figure that out and they have to take a look at exactly where they are right now in order to figure these things out. But like you said, they don't communicate with one another, so it's hard to have a unified plan.

Working out has been such a huge part of my identity, and I work out 3 days a week. I have for years now. But creatine hasn't always been a part of my routine. But in the last year or so it has been because I know how much it does for my strength and recovery. But honestly, one of the things is all the studies that are coming out about your brain health, and I'm telling you, that keeps me so excited about it, along with what I know it's doing for me physically. And that's what got me into Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, is that I'm not just hoping for the best. I want to make sure that I'm getting the best one out there. Creatine is one of the most researched and effective supplements out there right now, but most brands have spent most of their energy on flavors and marketing instead of actually making the creatine better. Momentous did the opposite, and Signature Spec is manufactured in pharmaceutical facilities using reverse osmosis water purification, and it's verified through a 6-stage testing process with 4 independent agencies. That means 10 times fewer impurities, 2 to 5 times tighter heavy metal limits, and it's screened for PFAS and microplastics. It's also an ultrafine powder, so no grit, no clumping. It just mixes clean. And I put this in my protein shake every day, and I used to hate that gritty feeling, and it has none of it. So that's the Momentous standard, the relentless pursuit of better. And knowing what I know now, especially as a woman who lifts and wants to actually get the full benefit of what I'm taking, this is the one that I love. If you want to try Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, head to livemomentous.com and use code EARN for up to 35% off your entire first order. That's livemomentous.com, promo code EARN for up to 35% off. livemomentous.com, promo code EARN. You know, it goes back to the quote that you shared, and even if the quote ended up being answered that, you know, what you think is true is true, the faster you can know it's true— this is fixable. You guys have seen it where people can feel like they are very broken and they're ashamed and they're afraid that they can't come back from where they are financially. What do you say to those people?

Start now.

Is every financial picture fixable or are some people just fucked?

I think some people are probably just fucked. Yeah, but I think that there are mistakes that are reversible, and they're mistakes that you learn from and you move away from as fast as you can. It's just the knowledge. And you say, you know, knowledge is power. I disagree with that. Applied knowledge is really power. Yep. Yeah. So just learn. I've made the mistakes too. I had $0.08 in my damn business account.

We both have.

I learned from that. You know, we went through the financial crisis. Look back on COVID. How many people sold their portfolio out in the middle of COVID with the mask on your face and you're at your keyboard? And now the S&P 500 is now 3x from where it was at COVID. Come on. This is— it's not rocket surgery.

Yeah.

Or science or whatever the phrase is.

Rocket surgery. Is that a new field?

I'm a rocket surgeon.

Yeah.

That's what I'm gonna say.

I like to operate on rockets.

It's an old— that's an old Nick Murray saying. One of my coaches used to say that.

I love that. It's so good. All right, so you told us about the Wealth Scorecard.

Yeah.

That's a really good place to start.

Yeah, where can we take that?

Where can we take that?

Yeah, so wealthcreationsscorecard.com. Spell it all out, one word. We can post it in the show notes. Instagram @truewealthadvisors. Okay, we're always asking people to DM us there. And, uh, yeah, you just need the link. And the purpose of the scorecard, again, is just to diagnose. It'll score you in 3 primary areas: tax strategy, your profit acceleration or your business finances, and then your personal finances.

Yeah.

If you can look at the gaps in each of those 3 areas, but then assess them as one whole, it's the holistic, coordinated Unifying approach that's going to magnify the, the, the geometric growth.

The scorecard is actually awesome. Even if they don't want to work with you guys ever, do the scorecard and then take it to your own professionals and be like, what are we doing about these gaps? Right? It is the best free, just go take it type of tool anybody could ever do, whether they want to work with you or not.

Yeah. But you guys are working with people of all different— tell me who your ideal clients are right now because you are taking People, uh, businesses between $1 million in revenue and $20 million.

Okay. That's a sweet spot.

Yeah, that's the sweet spot. Those are who we can help the best.

Okay. Yeah. And I think that the reason that that level of entrepreneur or business owner is because the pain is acute at that level. If you're under $1 million, maybe even under $2 million, you can, you can hide behind that. You can get by. Especially a solopreneur. Mm-hmm. Or somebody that doesn't have the messy middle of a P&L. Mm-hmm. But when you get to that level, you've got more advice givers, you got more specialists, you've got more silos, you know, and when you fix those things, it amplifies and multiplies the personal side. Mm-hmm. That's why we do what we do. Mm-hmm. You know, uh, being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. Mm-hmm. As we all know that.

We all know.

But think about it, the person that signed up for that, He's got a screw loose. It's what most people don't do. Most people go get a job or they get an education, then they get a job. They make sure the job pays for all the bills. At the end of 11 months, they sit across from a man or a woman they call a manager. They don't even like them. And they ask, do I get another raise this year?

Raise. Yep.

Or do I get another day of PTO? If that sounds like suicide to you all, which I know it does, It's like not signing up for that. Yeah. So stop thinking the way traditional money advice is given, the Instagram, the TikTok, the, the, the specialist model. Think differently as a founder entrepreneur. And I think you're gonna get much further ahead. So.

So what would you guys wanna leave with people listening? Because there's people in their car right now. There's people, they're getting ready, they're thinking this is a great idea. What do you wanna leave with them?

The time is now. The time is now. Take the quiz, read the book, reach out to us. There's no better time to do it. What's the phrase?

When's the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When's the next best time? Right now.

Right now. Today.

Well, we're so excited about this, you guys. Definitely. I have all of the links in our show notes, so it's so easy. You can just Scroll right down. We also have the book sitting here, The Wealth Creation Method. Go grab that.

You can binge all of this content and read the foreword.

Yeah, read the foreword. Good looking intro there.

Yeah, by my friend Chris. But we're so grateful for you. You are such incredible people. You have such hearts of service. You truly— we get to see all the people that you impact, including ourselves. And I'm just so happy that you guys are out there. In such a big way. I know how much you have, like, grown this business so quickly because of who you are, your skill set, what you're helping with. Like, your referrals are insane because people are loving what's happening when they work with you. I'm watching people that we know feel insanely empowered. Yes. So good in their business now after working with you. So I'm so excited that you came on.

Yeah, I would just add to that, I would stake my reputation on working with you guys, meaning people should have no hesitancy that you're going to judge them. They should have no hesitancy that you're not going to have an answer for them. They should have no hesitancy that, you know, are you the right choice or the wrong choice? If they want a point guard to call all the shots and clean up their finances, it's you guys. I'll stake my reputation on that.

Thank you. Thank you both so much. Thank you for having us today. We are so excited to be here. Thank you.

Of course.

Yes. Okay. Well, you guys, thank you so much for tuning in. Make sure you go check out the show notes and follow them. And until next time, earn your happy and listen to Chris Harder.

Yeah, I don't know. Peace out, bitches.