EP117: Rewrite your money story so you can serve the world as your authentic self with Garrett Gunderson

Hey, Sachin, and welcome to the Perfect Practice Podcast. It's my mission to use this podcast as a platform to help holistic, heart centered practitioners transform the world. I think we can all agree that the world needs more of what we have to offer now than ever before. And I want to take all the information and all the knowledge and experience that I've gained over the years and leverage the community and the contacts and the mentors that I've had over the years and share some of the most valuable nuggets that I've picked up over those years. I also want to bring special guests on so that they can share their valuable wisdom and knowledge with you as well. Each episode is going to be packed with valuable nuggets of information to help you grow, both personally and professionally, all while moving you towards more impact and more freedom. I'm excited that you're here. I'm excited that you want to grow and learn. So let's jump right in. Hello my friends. Welcome to Perfect Practice. Today I'm super, super thrilled because if you're joining me, you are going to experience, hopefully what I've experienced, which is getting to know a human being who is profoundly intelligent, who is profoundly funny, and somebody who's going to take a topic that many of us may have challenges with, and he's going to make it enlightening and entertaining. I'm describing nobody else but my friend, Garrett Gunderson. Garrett's joining us from Salt Lake City, Utah. And one of the things that I love about Garrett is that he is not only one of the funniest people you'll meet, but he's also one of the nicest people you'll meet. Today we're going to be talking about money and how money shapes our reality, how it shapes our future, how it shapes our self image, how it shapes our relationships, how it shapes our business, and so much more. So really quick. I met Garrett through several networks that I belong to, one being mindshare. Recently I was in Park City, Utah, and Garrett came and just blew us all away with his knowledge and his sense of humor and enlightenment around money. And I've also known Garrett through Genius Network, which is, as you know, where entrepreneurs connect and collaborate. And we've just gotten to know each other through various encounters and seeing him on stage, listening to his podcast, reading his books, and I've always loved his approach to life. So I want to get behind the man, behind the thinking that goes into the thinking of Garrett Gunderson. So welcome my friend. Thanks for joining me today.

Hey, it's good to be hanging with you, man. I would do this just without the recording going on. Just. You're a very insightful, thoughtful, deliberate person, and you always make me feel better about myself when we hang out.

So I appreciate you and thank you. I know how busy you are, so I want to make sure that we honor your time and also honor your experience.

This is my birthday today.

Is it really?

Yeah. I turned 64, so I feel like I'm looking pretty young. No, I turned 44 today, so people are like, are you working? I'm like, well, I love what I do. And it's the 44th birthday. Not like it's a. I don't know. It's weird that we still celebrate birthdays, but I do like the best part about birthdays. You just get to connect with people that reach out to you that you haven't talked to for a while. It's an excuse to kind of get together. But yeah. So 44 today.

Happy birthday, man. Happy birthday. So I'm so honored to spend this day with you and spend this next few minutes with you. So I want to read your bio because when you submitted it to me, I read it, I was like, this is super awesome. This is super cool, and the world needs to see this side of you as well. So I'm going to read this verbatim and you can all, as you're listening in, really see how you can connect with Garrett because he is truly, truly a Renaissance man. So Garrick Anderson is a modern day Renaissance man? Well, Maybe he's an Inc. 500 founder of a financial firm and amateur barista. A rookie fly fisherman and Wall Street Journal number one bestseller. A public speaker who's delivered hundreds of keynotes. And a mediocre guitar player at home. A Bow Hunter, Traeger Grill semi pro, former Crossfitter. And he wants me to emphasize the former. We'll get into that. And a whiskey sommelier, which is real and is just as douchey as it sounds. But maybe the best way to know Garrett is from a few notes from his wife. Garrett is a man who can only drink tequila under supervision. A man who will stop at nothing to provide his wife food if she gets hangry. A self preservation strategy, I might add. A dad who is totally cool with letting his sons go anywhere with him in any costume they may have on. In fact, he shares a story about how he dressed up like Spider man with his family and went around collecting. They were actually doing a. What was it? A neighbor. A neighborhood is safe Door to door knocking. You guys did right. So he's a man who can't fix a toilet, but can help you become financially independent so you can hire someone else to do it. A man who supports his wife's meditation, even if she's just sleeping. A brother who bailed his sister out of jail while almost going to jail himself in the process. I have to hear that story. A father who loves and adores his sons for exactly who they are. A son that loves his parents with all his heart. And a man who is loyal to his family and friends, but most of all, his values. Welcome again, Garrett. Thanks for being here.

Yeah, it's good to be here, man. Look forward to it.

So I want to hear about this. I want to hear more about this Spider man costume story and I also want to hear about the jail story. So why don't we extract a little bit of that just so people can get to know you a little bit better.

So I have this client, his name's Trent, and we just finished this thing called the Awakened Spirit Retreat. We're up in the mountains, hiking, meditating, doing all this soul searching and personal work. And then he's just hanging out at my house afterwards. And my kids had bought me a Spider man costume that was too small, mind you. Definitely didn't fit me. But they both had Spider man costumes. Said, hey, if you get your dad to wear his and go around the block, knock on every door and tell everyone the neighborhood is safe, I'll give you $100. So my kids were super committed at the time to 100 bucks. So I put it on and I think it was more like I could have been Moose Knuckle man more than Spider Man. It was just riding really high. And there was one lady who left the chain on the door as she cracked, and we're like, the neighborhood's safe. And she immediately shut the door. But most of the time, people laugh as the three of us went around the block and they earned their hundred dollars.

How old were your kids at the time?

They were probably like 5 and 7. It seems like they're 5 and 7. Actually, in my new book that's going to be coming out, I have that picture of me in the costume with those two. Definitely don't want to zoom in too much on it, but it shows that because I did his bio in the book.

I was going to say I have to see that picture, but that also means I'm going to pick up a copy of the book. So that's awesome.

Yeah, it's not going to be. It's turned into the publisher. It's been probably a seven year process for this book. I think it's going to be my seminal work. Like my other books are very informative and that information is very helpful. But this book is very in touch with like emotions and taking people on that journey as well. So you could learn in a different level of engagement. So like I was writing, it was in this very room recently, just like calling my wife and like, oh, you got to hear this next. Like, listen to this. And it's like, so I'm really excited about the work. I think it's really my intent behind it is to shape how we look at money and finance. Have this book be the type of work that Rich Dad, Poor dad was in its time, or the Millionaire Next Door in its time, or Financial Peace University or Total Money Makeover in its time. Like it's time for a new conversation around money. And I believe this to be that conversation. I feel just gratitude that I was part of the process. I don't even know how some of it came to be. I just felt like it was almost bestowed. But it's definitely been my life's work and I'm, and I'm really, I'm. I'm proud of it because I'm like, this is amazing. I like, I'm learning while I'm like, I don't even know where it all came from, but it's pretty cool.

Well, it came from a higher source. Right. And it's probably our higher source.

Totally, totally.

I would say it's 44 years in the making.

Definitely. And who knows, man, Maybe it was other lifetimes and lessons that came through in those as well.

There you go. Amazing. Well, so timely. Right? Especially with everything that the world is going through. At least what we're supposed to be thinking about what the world is going through.

Well, you know what it's called? Is that Unmasked Money Unmasked.

Okay. I love it. That's the title of the book. Yes. I don't.

Yeah.

Awesome. So let's get right into it. I know there's lots that we can cover and one of the first things I want to start with is what is money? Let's come up with an operational definition from Garrett Gunderson. What is money?

It's a man made tool of efficiency. Money represents value, but it's just a snapshot in time that counts for value that you created in the past up until this point. Today that could include luck because of where you were born or how it was inherited. But for the majority of people, it represents your energy that you put out in the world because you either serve someone, solve the problem, or added value. So money represents value, but it's not why you're valuable, and it doesn't dictate what you're capable of doing. So money doesn't reflect your potential or determine your destiny, but it's a way that we can tap into other people's abilities to be more efficiently connected to what we're doing.

I love that that is such a inspiring definition of money and our relationship with it, because many people define who they are, being so attached to their past versus understanding where they can go into the future. So it does make a lot of sense. And it's a much better definition of money than I think most people's definition of money is.

I think about, like, how even our definition of investing, looking at something that's kind of a cousin of this, has been so convoluted, because in society, we're almost programmed that more is better and that our investing should always be about growth. But what happens when that growth is to our own detriment because it's more than we can handle? Like, if you buy too many pieces of real estate or if you get involved in too many different cryptocurrencies, or you have too many stocks that you don't even relate to any of those businesses. And ultimately, the less related we are to those investments, the more risk we invite into our lives of not being clear about how we deliver value. That risk can become a downturn, and we go, oh. And we start worrying about it. We're frustrated, which means when we're in worry and we're frustrated, we're not serving others, we're not solving problems. We're not at the best of who we are. And like, when you meet me and you talk to me, you're not sitting there going like, oh, I'll talk to Garrett at the level of his net worth. Like, you don't know what my net worth is. I don't know what your net worth is. It's kind of like dick size. We don't really know. We just kind of, you know, pretend to know. And we act like the bigger is always the better. But you know what? Sometimes people with a big dick are just big dicks. And that's not always a good thing either. So it's this weird thing that even the stuff that we own, whether it's a car we drive, like you, I don't know where you Live. I've never seen your house. I've never seen the car you drive. You've never seen my house, the car I drive. Yet we're connected in relationship. Without money being a deterrent of that, without money being a determining factor of why we're connected, we can simply be in intellectual ideas, we could be in just love and gratitude for each other, and we can see each other for the moment that we're in, not the things that we have. And that's where society is very confused, is that we're struggling because we think that our value is in our money. And yet nobody knows how much money anyone has. So a lot of people are posing that they have more than they do, which creates a lot of jealousy and envy. And ultimately we get in an addiction of trying to always grow at the expense of our personal growth. Having so much that we can't even manage it, or being so attached to it that if it's fragile and doesn't do what we want, we start to identify as worth less, which is very similar to feeling worthless.

Hmm, I'd love to.

That was a lot to unpack there. And I've never.

It's like this is like a money meditation, right? It's really helping us reframe the way we. We think about, you know, something that's external to us, but also how we attach value to ourselves. One thing I love about your attitude towards money is that it, it doesn't fully represent how valuable you are. And a lot of times we get caught up in how much money's in our bank account or what our investments are doing, or if our money's being deflated for whatever reason, then our value is deflating with it, which obviously is not an accurate self image that we should have.

Well, here's the thing. If our money, like investments, the time we're doing this have been down, crypto's down substantially, the stock market's down quite a bit, real estate's been up quite a bit, but it's starting to kind of, you know, especially in Canada, there's been some major declines in some of the real estate prices. And so there's so many people that are determining their happiness on those factors. So here's the thing. If the cryptocurrency market goes down and your mindset goes with it, that might not have been the best investment for you. And if the stock market's down and you feel down about yourself, maybe that's not the right investment for you. Maybe what we really have to look at is when I Pay my acting coach to work with me, that's an investment. When I set up a studio that we're using right now, that's an investment. When I take a guitar lesson, that can be an investment because it's part of my one man show. Or when I go to a writing course, that can be an investment. I think that we've been so addicted to investments are dots on a piece of paper that represent a number. And that number feels more concrete than the investment in a skill set. And that skill set we're like, well, we got to have all this money over here because that determines our retirement. But maybe retirement's even a problem. Maybe what we're doing is we're giving up who we are and the best of who we could be for things outside of what we really want. Because they add dots to a piece of paper in a bank account and all of that is crowding out the best essence of our life. And it's really hard because if I go, well, what if my acting coach is $500 a session, which he is, and it's like. But I don't see an immediate payoff. Investments can actually make us very shortsighted or so long sighted that there's no space in between. So someone that puts money in an RRSP, they're waiting for 30 years before that pays off. There's a lot that's going to happen in their life. Yet someone that goes, well, I need to see an immediate return on this investment that I'm putting money in. Because that's why they got it in the bitcoin. Not because they knew anything about it, but because other people are making money. They're so short sighted. But there's this entire field of vision that exists in between in that space, which is when I invest in becoming a better writer, when I go through personal development and therapy, when I spend time at my cabin in silence to just download and listen to my intuition. That space in between might take longer to develop, to become a comedian or to write a book at a deeper level. That might take time. And a lot of people don't have the patience because they're in fear of being behind and not being able to retire. And ultimately they lose at life when they're only looking at that very, very long term goal or very, very short term goal. And everything in between is where the joy comes from. It's where the fulfillment exists. And yet we're either so impatient or we're so in daydreaming for the one day someday that we miss out on life. And to me, that's the message that I'm here to help provide. And not just a message, but as an example of living, of how I live. Like, I'm not buying more real estate. I have money to buy more real estate, but the reason I'm not buying more is I only buy real estate that I can utilize. So I bought this house. It doesn't cash flow because we don't rent it out to anyone, but it is a place that we love and we enjoy. I bought a cabin. We did put a podcast studio there. I do immersions, like 10 a year where people hire me one on one. And that more than pays for the cabin and all the expenses associated with it. And I bought another one that we're going to make a music studio because I believe that music is this, like, most connected way to reach people. So I only want to buy anything else if it's going to be land in between those two cabinets or something that really enhances my life. I'm not looking for an apartment building that I'm never going to go to. I'm not the best in the world at providing housing for people or thinking of unique ways that it would be more valuable for those people that buy those apartments. And most people that invest in real estate don't think that way either. They just go, oh, that's going to make me more money. Okay, it's going to make you more money. But what's the amount of time and worry that you're going to spend in that? What could you have done otherwise with that money? And what aren't you doing in your life right now? Because you're waiting too long for something to pay off. So I find real estate isn't my most enjoyable thing unless I relate to it and I can utilize it. Otherwise, real estate to me becomes talking to property managers, maintenance people, attorneys, and bankers. And I got to tell you, that's not my favorite part of my life. So I. So I'm in a weird place compared to most of the world where I'm like, I'm not looking for more. I'm okay with what I've got. And if I end up with more money, which I'm doing okay, I'm like, why don't I put that in my messaging? Why don't I put that in the reach of building a community? Why don't I put that in adding more value to the existing? And I look at my investments as books and companies that I'm part of and a vision and a message that matters to me and I can see the impact and I can feel fulfilled, which means I never want to retire. I like writing. I like getting up and doing stand up. I like connecting with relationships like you, because I bring something intellectually to that conversation. And then you offer me to stay at your house when I'm in town and I make sure to bombard you with the number of times to get you out to my comedy show when I'm there. But it's like there's all these things I look at in investments and it's an investment in me as a human being and the connection I can have to other human beings because of that. I don't want to invest in mutual funds because I'm not connected to it. I don't want to invest in day trading because I don't think clicking a mouse is anything that excites me or matters in this world for that matter. A lot of it is. We've really stopped making investing about people and we've made it more about product. And there's this weird narrative. The narrative is personal development is bullshit. And if you're into that, you're just airy fairy. Like your background, right? You know, not your background in life, your background backdrop behind you, right? And so there's a lot of like this devaluing the significance of investing in ourselves because we've been taught in society to be indoctrinated. Indoctrination is the more educated I am, the more time I spend in school, the more degrees I get, the more degrees I have, the higher my wage, the higher my wage, the more money I can make to buy these things. And therefore I trade my life for that money. But what if that indoctrination doesn't lead to my inner voice, doesn't lead to my fulfillment, or is antiquated, and doesn't teach me the best things that are out there. Like for me, I've just become incessant about asking more questions and seeing the different ways that could happen. And not just believing something because someone says it, but like really asking more questions to get to the bottom of it. So I could truly understand it, or I could see there might be other ways, or it might be limited. So that's annoying for someone who's indoctrinated because they start quoting things like my favorite thing. People tell me all the time, it's like, it's science. I'm like, well, where does that science come from? Which studies have you looked at? What was the sample size of that? Are there other studies that back that up as well? Or is it gist that you heard dark chocolate is good for the heart? Or you heard that drinking a glass of wine adds longevity? Could it be that it's lower cortisol? Or could it just be the grapes were the things that held it? Like there's so much marketing behind that and there's so much corporate agenda behind that. So part of where a lot of my life comes from, as far as my ideas, is simply questions. I find that asking better questions leads to better living and better questions lead to deeper relationships and better questions lead to different types of learning that doesn't just come from the classroom. And in the classroom we've learned very little about money. But what we did learn about money, that it was about diversifying away from the things we understand. It's about trusting because we're indoctrinated to give it to people that have more degrees or that have a certain financial planning thing. But most of the stuff you get in financial planning is minimal amount of time and effort. I passed something called a series 65, which is your registered investment advisor test, by watching a LeBron led Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Detroit Pistons back in the day when Detroit was favored to win the whole thing, while I was kind of reading, but paying more attention to the game because LeBron scored 28 of 31 points to finish that game out, went into overtime and they won. It was insane. And yet I passed the test the next day. Does that really make me qualified? Because I don't really know how to research a company, look at their financials, go through the financials and say why they'd be more valuable in the future than they are today. And then compare that to the price earnings ratio and say, hey, this makes sense. And then think about the greater economy overall and the implications that might have. And understand the artificial intelligence and technology that might make that company antiquated. And the world wants you to think, yeah, that is too complicated, so just trust us. But they don't have those answers either. Where we have our answers is in ourselves, in our own life and our skill sets. But we've been given the shadow of a doubt that we could never figure it out because other people are smarter than us. But no one is smarter than us in our own sole purpose, in our own values, our own abilities and our own passions for who we are at our best. And yet we think we got to go do what everyone else is doing. But guess what? What everyone else is doing hasn't really led to sustainability, hasn't led to peace and prosperity has really led to commiserating more than anything else. And indoctrination is part of the problem. So I know you've only asked one question and I've just been talking the whole time, but I'm learning as I speak to you. There's just an energy that you're holding and so I'm just going with it.

I love it, man. I feel like I'm on like a plant medicine journey myself, hence the background. I feel like I'm getting these spiritual downloads from source right now. Your approach is very contrarian, or this philosophy is very contrarian than what we've been told in the narrative that's been.

And fulfillment as a concept is contrarian. Peace contentment is contrarian. Medicine journeys are contrarian. Happiness in reality is contrarian. Simply doing what you. All of that is contrarian. Because what is being promulgated is buy more, work harder and retire. Don't ask, just do what we tell you. We're smarter than you. And that is what is non contrarian. Because that is what separates your money and gives it to other people so they get really wealthy. While you live a life of mediocrity. Not to your own, not because that's what you want, but it's what you've been told, it's what you've been shown, it's what you had to believe because it's what everyone else told you is possible and it limits prosperity.

You know, it's so. It's so interesting because the question I had for you, what I wanted to ask is, where did you have a life experience or something that opened up this new way of thinking or this new paradigm? Or was this the way you've always thought from when you were young?

No, 18 years old is when it all happened for me. I actually have a little representation of over on the wall. So I had a friend, John, and he goes, hey, I'm gonna go teach English in South Korea for the summer. You should go over there. You could probably model. And my little pea brain, you know, 18 year old mind was like, I could model. Now why would South Koreans want a 6 foot 3 white dude to come and model? Like, what was I gonna model for them? You know, I don't know. But I ended up going there and teaching English, did not model at all. And I remember the first time I went to a movie. So I grew up in a rural town in Utah, a coal mining town, a hard working town. And what I always heard from my teachers and from everyone is America was the Only free country. They told me that all the time. They said that, like, there were people in the state of Utah that were religious that actually said that God favored the founders of the United States, and that's where the Constitution came from. Was almost like we were better than others. Like, it was almost like this systematic indoctrination that created separation and racism. Like, at the time, I didn't know. I just thought, holy shit, are other people under a curfew? Are they under martial law? That's what I thought as a kid. Right? We didn't have the Internet back in those days. And I decided to go teach English in South Korea. And the first thing that I learned when I showed up was like, oh, my God, people are people. These people are amazing. They're friendly. It's safe, and they're free. They're as free as we are. I could go do whatever. I could sleep outside in the city of Seoul and be totally fine. Then I go to that first movie, and the opening of the movie, there's like, it's all subtitled in English because it's all. They're speaking in Hangul and South Korean, and. And the second or third advertisement was actually a public service announcement type of thing. I was there during the monsoon season, during the summer, which is extraordinarily hot and humid, and there had been some rolling blackouts. I was on a subway, and one of the worst moments of my life is I was being squished. I couldn't even get my feet on the ground because of how many people. And there was no power. And then more people started getting on, and it was so hot, it had to be like 145 minimum degrees in there, if not more, maybe 165. Like, if it was a truth sauna. And I couldn't breathe, and I was claustrophobic. And so what happened is this advertisement was saying, hey, air conditioners harm you. So it had this married couple. The guy went to work, and the woman stayed at home running the air conditioner. She's happy. And then each day she gets sicker to the point where she can't move. And what the change was is she started using a fan, sweating, but using a fan, no air conditioner because of air con disease. That's how it translated. Air con disease, which is air conditioner disease. And in that moment, I was like, oh, this is propaganda. There's simply too much energy that they can't produce, and it's creating these blackouts so they get more people to run this. And look, my roommate's girlfriend used to turn our fan off at night in our room. She'd come in. I had roommates, 18 years old, turn off the fan, and she would open the window, and it was hard to sleep because it was such loud locusts and shit. So she believed that that fan would suck the air out of the room and we would die. We would suffocate because of propaganda. So I'm 18 years old, and I'm like, oh, my God, this is a free country. They're being told all this stuff. What am I being told? Because I now realize I'm not. We weren't the only free country and that people are people and that there was, like, this superiority complex and this judgment was coming. So that moment changed my life. To start asking different questions, to start understanding what governments try to do to control people and what financial institutions might do to control people or what parents might. Like, we all have these things. I'm not like, it's not a big conspiracy theory. It's like simply, we know that we've been told things that absolutely haven't been true. It's well documented throughout centuries and throughout history. Every history book is someone saying something was true that wasn't true. And it caused war and it caused all this separation. And so I just came back at Changed man and how I viewed the world. When I came back from South Korea, three months, that changed my life forever.

That's amazing. I think that every person should visit another country to get that type of perspective. I mean, it reshaped your life. So how did that translate into your perspective on money and finances?

Well, I'm 19 years old, and I get offered an internship because I won $5,000 being the young entrepreneur of the year in the state of Utah when I was in high school. And I wanted to invest that money, and my family just put cash in coffee cans and put it in their cellar. They didn't really have a money management philosophy other than save, don't, risk. And so I, as I was out there trying to figure it out, I ended up getting offered an internship when I'm 19 years old. And that internship really meant, hey, bring your family and friends, and we'll pedal life insurance and mutual funds to them, and you'll get a commission on it. It wasn't real financial planning. It's just kind of, you know what? And so what happened was I'm being told you're in it for the long haul. The market's on sell when it's down dollar cost average. And I was just Always asking questions. Is that the best thing? And the craziest thing? I ran into another young guy, his name was Les McGuire. And we sat down because he was so inquisitive, so curious and really, really smart. And we dissected the US version of the RRSP, the 401k, and was like, oh my God, this isn't what everybody said. It was me. And by the way, the first part of the analysis, we're like, yeah, there's nothing that's going to beat this. This is the best thing in the world. But then we start looking at fees and we look at volatility and we look at taxes on the back end and we look at the tax rates over time and we look at the government spending, we're like, wait, this isn't what it's being. And so it just helped me ask those questions. And I could ask it because I wasn't married yet, I didn't have kids, I had no debt, I simply had no like dog in the fight of what the answer needed to be. And so Les and I, in that moment we said, if we're committed to what's right over who's right, we can absolutely change the financial game. And then we were just. My wife said, you two are the nerdiest sons of bitch. She's like, you guys, I don't even want to be around. You guys are geeks, like, because we just were fascinated by it and passionate about it and we're constantly asking questions about anything. Well, why would this be sold this way? But what are the downsides? And most people don't ask about the downsides. It's like artificial intelligence. I think Elon Musk said for every thousand hours used to develop it, there's only one hour used to protect it, like to understand the ramifications of it. And that's kind of what happens in the world of finance. All the reasons it could work, all the reason could grow without understanding what the downsides are. And so that became my obsession is like, what else is out there? What else could be real? What else? What's another angle of looking at it? So that's why I wrote Killing Cigarette Cows. Here's the nine financial myths that people can't detect because it's very silent, it's very, it's subtle. If it was obvious, we would avoid it, man.

I'm going to ask you some rapid fire questions. Great.

I'll be rapid with my answers, hopefully.

Because I know there's lots of value that you can add and I want to make sure we try to extract as much of it as we can in our limited time together. So first question, where does our money mindset come from? What shapes it? Is it our parents? The government? Who can we not point the finger to? But where can we point the finger of opportunity to, to create a better money mindset?

So we have four money Personas and a lot of our money mindset comes from scarcity. So a miser, they're all about holding onto what they got. A conservative is all about accumulating for the future. A striver is all about I'll earn more so I can have more status. And a high roller is all about, hey, I just am addicted to opportunity. That all is scarcity. Thinking there's only so much to go around. And, and I call it the consumer condition. If we were to pinpoint where most of our money mindset comes from, it's Edward Bernays. Edward Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud. He changed the word public or he changed the word propaganda to public relations. He just knows how to do that. And he really is the father of modern consumerism, which is zero sum game and scarcity. Now what enhances it is that we have conversations we hear over here from our parents, our grandparents on tv. Like we're influenced by a lot of things, but ultimately it's whatever happens in our life where we feel the, like, childhood pain, childhood trauma, where we feel we're alone or something wasn't right or something. And we actually don't mature beyond that with our money if we don't address those childhood trauma points. I think it's childhood pain and trauma that's our number one factor. And second is the overall construct of the system set up in scarcity and consumerism. Zero sum game, take, you know, compete, all that kind of stuff. It's a myriad of those things and you know, just to be a shameless plug disrupting sacred cows. My newest book really addresses that in a way that I've never addressed even close in any other book I've ever written. I really got clear about that and wrote about it.

Thank you. Next question, how does money affect our relationships? Maybe with our children, our spouse? Any thoughts on that?

Yeah, we usually marry someone that's not the same money personality as us. And if we don't understand that, it's like I'm a striver when I'm at my worst and my wife's conservative when she's at her worst. But there's a winning side of that. When we get into abundance, when we think in co creation and collaboration and delegation and value creation. And on the other side of that, see, if I'm being the striver and she's being the conservative, I'm going, let's hit the gas and she's the conservative. Like, let's hit the brakes, push, pull, and a lot of fight we don't have. We're not on the same page. But when we understand the abundance side of the striver becomes a creator and the conservative becomes a planner. I actually go, here's the idea. I initiate. And then she goes, well, let's think through all the details of it and what it's going to take and what things need to be handled. And I go, when she does that, we now do it with more predictability. And once we understood our money Personas in 2008 is when we figured it out. We have not had a financial fight since now our first year of marriage. We fought about finance over anything else because at that point it was just not understanding that created tons of contention. And she felt like I valued money even more than her. I mean, it's, it's sad to admit and it might have been kind of true, unfortunately because I was blinded by it, but that's how it impacts our relationships, is there's these factors that we don't understand and when we don't understand them, we make bad decisions. But when we understand them, we can collaborate and be much more effective.

Great insights. Another question for you is how does money affect our health?

Well, money is like the chronic stressor for people. And if they don't understand money and they're afraid of it, or they're striving for more of it, or it becomes the thing they think about most, it's going to run that stress throughout our body all the time. And it's almost impossible to get to a parasympathetic state because it's either I got to hold on to what I got or I got to get more of it. So is it hiding or is it running? But either way it's not being present, it's not being at peace, it's not feeling contentment because it's only about growth, either through saving or growth through earning. And so it's fight or flight rather than being in the moment. And that's the unfortunate thing is people are in that dissonance and that destruction almost all the time until they master what money really is and understand it as a byproduct instead of who they are.

Love that answer another question that comes up for Me, just as an aside from that, is one of the most common objections that we hear in healthcare, especially in the functional medicine world, is, I can't afford it. Or maybe what they're saying is, I'm not worth it. I love your take on that.

I'm not worthy. The first thing is when people say, I can't afford it, it's like, I don't have the time, I don't have the money, or the two main excuses where people let each other off the hook and there's no accountability. So I always say, how could I afford it? Is a much better thing. And let me break this down into the three measures of work. There's price, there's cost, and there's value. So price is what we pay, cost is the economic impact of that, and value is the overall feeling of satisfaction, joy, or fulfillment that comes from it. Most people are stuck in price and price alone. So they might have millions of dollars in their retirement plan, but they are not willing to spend $10,000 or invest $10,000 in their health because they're comparing it to an expense rather than an investment. They're not thinking about what I said early on, which is investing in themselves. They're thinking about dots on a piece of paper. And so it's to the detriment of their own health and ability. And look, I opened my newest book with the quote that says I actually should just pull it up because it's completely about, hey, without health. And I'll use a different quote that says the same thing. It's like, hey, a person with health can have a thousand dreams. A person without health has but one, right? And so ultimately, health and wealth are two very confusing things for most people that are very related in a principal standpoint. And until we really get to the point where we feel worthy enough to invest in ourselves or don't think that investment in our health is competing with our net worth, we're going to be stuck. And here's the sad truth that, you know, is if they don't take care of their health now, they're going to spend far too much time in hospitals or decrepit or struggling and all that saving. And I'll just give this perfect, here's a perfect example. My son was born, had a very misshapen head, and with a very inexpensive something out of my pocket, we could have changed that. Now, by the way, I decided, oh, it's probably not a big deal. It actually, the way his head was misshapen put him in fight and flight at all times creating massive stress. And we had to take him to a cranial orthopedist, which was very painful. Took a lot of time, but it actually completely changed his life. I could have spent $800 and instead over eight months spent $6,000 and put him through pain because I wouldn't do that ounce of prevention, which cost me pounds later. So ounces versus pounds or whatever that saying is. An ounce of prevention say, well, I'm butchering it. But you get the sense, it's like I think that people don't feel worthy and they think their net worth is their self worth. And they think that anything that invests in themselves competes with their net worth. And it goes right back to the conversation we started with.

Yes. So it goes up. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Yeah, see, that's why you helped me out.

So we hear people say this all the time. Health is wealth, time is money.

Yeah.

So let's talk about time and money. What are your thoughts on one versus the other? Because clearly they're not equal to one another.

No. Chapter seven of the new book is Reclaim Time. We believe that time is somehow linear. And because we're convinced time is linear and effort creates linear results with our money, that's why we believe time is money. What I found was in 2017, taking a few months to go to Europe, I made more money that year. Because time is not money. Energy is what impacts and value is what impacts our money the most. And if we are in a state of exhaustion, we're in a state of depression, we're in a state of being overworked, overtired and underslept. We're simply going to have less ability to deliver value in the marketplace. And so more doesn't equal higher amounts. So ultimately we have to understand that time is just a measurement that helps us understand this duality of the world. But on a quantum realm, time is absolutely not linear. It's exponential. And we can see that because when you do something that's aligned with your sole purpose, you can lose track of time. You can get so much more done to the point where people are like, how did you do that? Because it's the essence of who I am. And I wasn't just trading who I am in the pursuit of money. I was being who I was at the fullest amount. And time fit my life. And like, if someone's never done medicine, it's hard to understand time not being linear and understand it's just a man made construct. But when you start to see that it's not linear in the quantum, you go, oh, okay. Like, I don't have to be governed by this. It's just a useful measure of when to meet up with someone.

I'm thinking of a tree as it's growing and how when we focus on growing the trunk, all the branches can grow, and they all grow simultaneously. So when we're focused on kind of growing ourselves being the trunk in this metaphor, then everything around us or everything that comes from us and from within us grows. And that's how a tree can grow thousands of fruit simultaneously instead of growing one at a time, because it's tapped into this fractal architecture that basically governs all of the universe.

By the way, that tree having all that depends on one thing more than anything else, its ability to receive support. It doesn't receive the soil nutrients if it doesn't receive the water, if it doesn't receive the sun. And the reason why people get stuck in time is money, is because they get stuck not receiving support and trying to do it all themselves. And when they do it all themselves, they lose energy. They don't build relationships. They. They get grouchy, they get tired, and they ultimately show up a lesser version of who they are. I had business partners in 2006. I mentioned one of them, Les McGuire, died in a plane crash. And for that four months, I worked more of that four months than any other period of my life and got less done by the end because I was exhausted. I couldn't think clearly. I had nothing left to give because I didn't take care of myself. And the best thing you do in wealth is take care of yourself. And by having more energy, then you can be more connected with others. And the way you take care of yourself is. Is receive that support from other people instead of trying to do everything on your own.

It's really a mindset shift for a lot of people. You know, it's. Especially practitioners. Like, it's hard for us to ask for help from others because we're used to helping, right? Yeah, we're. And, you know, when I grew up, my mom, you know, she's like, oh, you're a doctor. You should be able to figure out how to fix a car. And I'm like, what. What's the correlation between the two? You know, you should know how to do this, this, and this. And some of that inspired me to stretch my limiting beliefs and actually do things outside my comfort zone. So I appreciate her for that. But at the same time, we don't Ask for help when we're sometimes positioned in that role, that, hey, you could figure this out yourself. I think asking for help is a superpower as an entrepreneur and something that we can all lean in a little bit more on. Because what I've also found is that people are always willing to help, especially the ones that you want to learn from. They're always willing to not just give you some crumbs, but a slice of the loaf and show you exactly what you can do to prevent the same mistakes that they did. Because if there's alignment with your future world that you want to create, and there's alignment in the future world that I want to create, which you and I think we connect because there is. We can visualize a world where people are happy, they're healthy, they're whole, they're content. Right. I'm going to send you a prayer after this, a Hindu prayer which talks all about that. May people not be rich, but may they be content. And that contentment is something so profound.

Like I want to sit on.

Yeah. So thank you.

A negative word in Western society.

It is. Right. We're just never satisfied. We're insatiable.

It means complacent. Content and complacent are not the same thing. Content is one of the most valuable things that people. People, if they could find it will make life better.

Yeah, it's really cashing in some of the chips that we already have. I would say so. One of the quotes that I tell my clients is, the fastest way to become rich is to reassess the value of the things you already have. There's so much. And we're. There's pr, we call it now, but it's really propaganda to make us think we're never enough, that you've always got to get that next iPhone, that next car, that next this, that next that. And why are we doing this? I mean, we're destroying the planet in the process. We're sucking the life out of our souls in the process. And here we are trying to solve all these problems when if we were simply content, most of these problems would be solved.

Right. We're trying to validate something that we haven't accepted in ourselves in the never ending pursuit of more.

Hmm. What's a piece of advice you wish you had taken earlier that you didn't take?

This is a guy named Mike, Mike Sloan. Big dude. And I remember early on in my career, he goes, he's like, you're ambitious. You're going to start taking on more than you can Handle because you think that's always going to be the answer. He's like, you already asked me about starting a property and casualty agency because I know you have no passion for it. It's just a money play. He's like, but if you keep doing that, you're just going to find yourself busier than you want to be and doing things that weren't worth it. And guess what I ended up doing the P and C Agency. I ended up walking away from it because I was busier than I wanted to be. And ultimately, it was a big cost of time and stress and even a walk I took with my wife yesterday. She was talking about, we're 20 years married and she's talking about there's things I did in the first few years of marriage that made her feel insignificant, undervalued, and that I loved money more than her. So that still has ramifications. She knows that logically that isn't true today, but emotionally she's opening up and sharing. Like there's parts of her that shut down that she has to reactivate and get past the numbness because of that behavior. And if I would have just listened to Mike, I just wouldn't have gotten off track. But I went and did it the hard way.

And sometimes those are the most valuable lessons that we learn, right?

We remember a little bit deeper.

Let's talk about kids, because I have a now 12 year old. He's officially 12. He just turned 12 last week. I'm curious as to what we as parents can do for those that are listening, or maybe even as grandparents, to really instill a positive money mindset. And, you know, and not just money like, I don't want, I don't want this. Money is. Is a proxy, right? It's a proxy for other things. So we'll use that in the context of this conversation. But how do. How do we, you know, maybe undo some of our own money trauma and then help set the stage for more contentment in our children moving forward? Because it's, it's. We really got to start changing the next generation now. Not waiting till they make the same mistakes we did and then realized dad was right all along. How do we start them in the right direction?

Well, I just have this really cool project I'm working on. My oldest son, who's 17, trying to find what's he want to do other than VR video games. I'm trying to. What's beyond that. That could be your main thing. It just can't be your only thing. Turns out that he likes video and editing, and he's got a good eye for editing. So we created this program called School. So schooled with an ed. And I'm like, I said ed. And we're on a doctor thing. So not erect. Like, I'm S C H O O L E D School. Like, I don't want my. I don't want my kids learning about money from teachers. I want them learning about math and science and reading and writing. That stuff's hard enough. When they bring that home and ask me, I struggle with some of their homework. So I'm like, why don't I teach my nephews? My niece. I have two nieces, but one's a little too young. She's like 18 months for me to talk money with. And then my sons. And so I actually created this classroom at our house. My son's filming it, and I'm teaching them about money. But in that, we're talking about purpose, we're talking about career, we're talking about fulfillment, we're talking about leisure, we're talking about these things that usually get pushed to the side because of money. And what's cool is I found a way to connect with my son, with him filming and editing in a way that's connecting with my business again, blurring the lines between work and play. And because it's being filmed, I'm showing up the best version of who I am. And then I'm tapping in and going, all right, sometimes I'm way in the weeds. These kids don't know what the hell I'm talking about with investing. So I'm talking to my wife, who's a teacher, and I'm like, what should we do? She's like, we should create some cool activities to go at the end of each one of them. So the next time we film, we're bringing in a guy that's foundation for Human Rights and showing how Bitcoin is liberating people in third world countries that are oppressed, even countries like North Korea. And so we're going to give them all T shirts. We're going to talk about the cause, we're going to talk about cryptocurrency in that context of what it means to humanity. And then at the end of that session, we've got a box of stuff because we just moved a year ago, and we've collected a box of things that we're not using that could be valuable to other people. And we're teaching them how to sell that, then they can take that money and invest it in their skill sets or other types of investments in a practical way. So what I found was having that structure and having purpose to it where it's in my schedule is helping me do it versus trying to lecture them when it's like, we're on a drive or try to, like, force it down their throats when they're not ready for it. And I've really been engaging them and asking a question, having them answer, and letting them direct the things that they want to learn. And it's created new conversations. So that's been one of the coolest things. And I don't know where that's going to land. I just talked to someone yesterday that I think they have a huge, huge network of moms that maybe it'll end up there. But I'm just doing it because turn the camera on and I'm at my best versus, like, it's Sunday, I'm tired, you know, now it's actually carved out.

That's awesome. You know, growing up, there was a few things that. Sentences that were spoken that perhaps very early on shaped my money mindset or kind of how I engage with money. And that was, we can't afford this. And it was funny because my dad would say, we can't afford this. However, my uncles would say, your dad can afford this. So it's almost like he was indoctrinated to think that. So even though he had the money in the bank account, the psych. So there wasn't an actual problem. It was a psychology around it.

Is it worth it? Is a better question or it's not a top priority right now. Like, we've been really calculated with that with our kids. Like, we can afford it, but let's talk about it. Like, if you guys want to be part of this, we might match the earnings, but what are you going to do? Like, just giving them stuff. They're not, you know, it's not going to be a healthy thing. And I can't afford it as something that I've completely scrubbed for my language. It's how can I afford it? What would it take to afford it? Is it worth it? Is the value there? Like, and making sure that that's a conversation we have in our household, because words cast spells and a lot of people are under the spell of scarcity and consumption. And so we're breaking that mold. You listen to a lot of music. It's in that same vein. And I want to make sure that my kids realize I'll just have conversations. Sometimes our best drives are on the way to the cabin. And I'm surprised, like, of their thinking in a good way. Like, oh, cool. You know, that's cool that they think this way because they're very compassionate. They very much want to like help humanity, but they don't get stuck in, you know, communistic thinking through that where some people might. Or even socialistic thinking. I don't think capitalism is the answer. I think anytime we add an ism, it's the problem. I think that really private individual markets and how we serve one another in a way that's consistent with the best of who we are is the real answer. So cool to have these conversations with them.

What's your take on what's happening in the world right now in the financial world? I love your perspective and perhaps what we can, what we can close with. I'm definitely open to a part two because there's lots to unpack. What would you say is a good mindset or strategy going into this, you know, kind of closing, closing out 2022 and going into 2023?

There's a million plus problems in the world and they should begin at the end of your driveway, not in your home. Getting too caught up in a macro world, in an external economy that's impossible to predict with too many moving pieces that sound confusing. From quantitative easing to fractionalized banking to interest rate changes like that stuff can be overwhelming. So you got to focus on yourself, self care, your personal stock, how you add more value, how you serve more people consistent with who you are. Yeah, you know, you might want to make decisions around interest rates are going to change. Maybe a fixed interest rate might make sense or you know, what you can afford. Like I have a lot of practical videos to help sort through that. But most people get caught up in the news cycle instead of their own life. And that's the bigger problem in the economy is most people know there's a recession until they're told a recession. They don't experience it. Usually it's told and then they start to experience it because decisions start to actually hurt the economy when people buy into those conversations. And wealth is built through conversation. So if you find yourself in a conversation of scarcity and fear and worry and doubt, you're going to find you'll bring that into your life. It doesn't mean that just because we think positively, positive things happen. It just means when we think about the ways that we can serve others consistent with who we are, we find more power and influence in our daily action. And, and that's the thing to pay attention to.

What a wonderful answer. I love that. I love that. Garrett, how can, how can our community support you? How can we engage more with your work? How can you learn more about your upcoming comedy tour? How can we get access to the book or some of the amazing tools that you've created? Where do we want to send people to learn more?

Yeah. Garrettgunderson.com g a r r e t t gunderson g u n d e r s o n garrettgunderson.com I mean, I go to forward slash quiz. I'd take the quiz to know your money Persona, ridiculously helpful, can predict what your bad behavior might be or where you might have pitfalls and help you to leverage things that put you in a better spot with your qualities. So that's super helpful for everybody. As far as me giving, as far as becoming my comedy shows. That's. I really love that. If you buy my books, that's awesome. So that's a great way to start. You know, if you like to listen, I have Killing Secret Cows on Audible. What Would the Rockfellers Do? Is my most popular book. We don't have it on Audible, but if you, if you, you know, look it up, you can find an audio that we have on our kind of server and stuff like that. Or, you know, get my newest book, Disrupting Sacred Cows, which really dives into, I think some of the topics we're discussing today at a level my other books didn't. So, you know, whatever book calls to you, whatever title you know feels best, grab it.

Awesome. Well, this has been super enlightening. I always enjoy our conversation and I'm glad that we had a chance to record this conversation so that we could share your insights with so many more people, especially practitioners who, you know, we're entrepreneurs, where we're trying to make the world a healthier, happier, more whole place. And a lot of that impact that we're going to have starts with our money mindset and where we invest our time, where we invest our money, and of course, where we invest our energy. And I love your perspective on this because it gives us permission to invest in ourselves. Instead of taking this, let's energy, let's call it money, is a form of energy. It's a stored form of energy. It's kind of like a battery. And we're taking that and we're distributing it to outwards into the world, right? We're giving it to the government to hold on to until we retire or we're putting into the stock market and investing in other companies. And that might be okay if you really believe that that company is going to create the world that you want to create in a way that you can't create it. Right? So we should be investing in our businesses, in our personal growth and our development, developing skills, hiring people, you know, mentors and coaches, or, you know, engaging in events that allow us to become better versions of ourselves so that just like that tree, we grow that tree and all the branches grow. And then, of course, it. It bears wonderful, beautiful fruit as well.

It was a pleasure, man. Thanks for letting me learn some things myself and set the right space. I know I didn't. Well, you interviewed me, so I guess I want to apologize for talking so much.

No, you did.

You did.

Fantastic, man. I really enjoyed this. It was off the cuff and very organic and very enjoyable for me. And I know our listeners are going to enjoy it as well. And I also know that there's so many other tools and resources that you've made available to us to go deeper down this rabbit hole. So thank you, my friend, and thank you all for tuning in today. I'm so grateful for this wonderful opportunity.

Sa.