Michael: Hello, and welcome to the HaBO Village podcast. I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: And I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: And this is a podcast where we are working with leaders to help develop the whole leader for the whole business. Our goal is to help small business owners and business leaders grow a passion and provision company. What do we mean by that?
Kathryn: Well basically we mean, we want you to love what you're doing and actually make money doing it. And that both are possible, and both have to be there for your business to be sustainable.
Michael: It really is a mindset. And this podcast is about just talking about those subjects, educating, trying to encourage you and equip you. And today, we have a guest with us that has been a friend of ours for almost two years now.
Kathryn: Almost two years.
Michael: Well, tell everybody who is on.
Kathryn: We met Caleb the day before the COVID breakout, lockdown shut down, so that is always going to date that, right? Right as Colorado is shutting down, that's when we first met our friend Caleb. So Caleb Guilliams, always a fun... Did I pronounce that?
Caleb: You butchered it. It's Guilliams, but that's okay because I have the most empathy out of anybody as it relates to my last name being butchered.
Kathryn: So it really is rhymes with Williams? It's Guilliams?
Caleb: Think about guacamole. Just call me Caleb Guacamole.
Kathryn: Caleb Guacamole. This is our friend Caleb Guacamole.
Michael: We're really close friends because we know his name.
Kathryn: I just never have to say your last name, so I never even, I should have asked you before we started, but hey, we're friends. It's okay. You're not going to hate me. So Caleb, he is the founder and CEO of a company called Better Wealth. So, he is all about helping leaders to create wealth that's sustainable and ongoing. And so, we're super excited to have this conversation today and just see where it takes us. So welcome to the show, Mr. Guilliams.
Caleb: Amazing. Guys, it is such an honor to be here. I'm so grateful for both of you. I remember the day that the world shut down, going to Walmart thinking, "Is this the United States of America right now?" And yes, I have a confession to make, I took the extra toilet roll in our hotel room.
Kathryn: Did you?
Caleb: I did not know if we were going to run out a toilet paper. When we met, I had one of my lowest days because it's a pretty low deal to take toilet paper from a hotel. But it is a true honor to be here guys, and love what you guys are up to in the world.
Kathryn: Oh, that's awesome.
Michael: All right.
Kathryn: I love that story. I think we were the only people in the hotel. It was the weirdest week. Anyway.
Michael: Yeah. For our listeners, it was March 2020, and literally, there were, I don't know, 75, 80 of us in this conference. And there was about 90 people in the entire hotel, including staff.
Kathryn: Yeah.
Caleb: And this was a big hotel, by the way. It was a ghost town.
Michael: It was so weird. We went to Red Robin for dinner, and there's four people in the entire place. And everybody's like, "What are they going to do?"
Kathryn: We're trying to figure out if we're going to get home, "Can we fly out of Denver Airport? Are they going to let us go home?" We don't know what's happening.
Michael: It was very strange. I mean obviously, we're now reminiscing about the beginnings of the COVID, the great COVID. So, let's talk about business. What I want to talk about today, for all of our listeners, one of the things you need to know about Caleb is he's one of these entrepreneurs that really is a true entrepreneur in my mind. He's unique, which most of us entrepreneurs usually are in our community. We stand out. He's on the younger side. How old are you, Caleb?
Caleb: I'm 25. But if you would look at me, you probably guess around 17.
Kathryn: He's 12.
Michael: I'd give you 18, maybe 19.
Caleb: Thank you. Thank you, yeah. Some people are honest and say 12, but I like to round that up.
Michael: You know what, it'll serve you well when you get to this age, because when I was your age, I was similar.
Kathryn: For those of you that are more our age, just think Dougie Howser. I don't know.
Caleb: Oh.
Michael: So, I want to set this up because Caleb is on the younger side, but Caleb is A, an amazingly old soul in many ways. I don't know how else to put it. You are, in my mind; kind mature, beyond your normal 25 year old.
Kathryn: Humble.
Michael: Because here's what's going on, and it happens to all of us. Most people in their 20's and in their 30's are still learning a lot of stuff. Caleb's willing, you're willing to admit you're learning, but I just want you all know, he's got an already an immense amount of experience and knowledge and a keen insight into a lot of things around wealth, business, stewardship, and those kind of things. And Kathryn and I both consider him a friend, and consider him really, in many ways, a growing advisor in our life. And so, I just want to say thank you and acknowledge that what we're going to talk about today folks is got a lot of depth to it, and do not despise a man because of his age.
Caleb: Thank you. Thank you. Like I said, it's I think back on the last two years and the growth that we all have had.
Michael: Oh, man.
Caleb: And the intentional conversations. And a lot of times, I've always been called an old soul, mainly because I was the kid in the friend group that was the joy killer, like, "Oh, no, let's go to bed on time. Let's not do that because that's illegal." Didn't drink underage. So, I'm glad somebody is PO spinning it to a positive, because I don't know if all my friends would jump on that train. But yeah, it's an honor to be here. We are going to talk about a lot of deep things that I hope translates into helping people live more intentionally.
Michael: How long has your company been around? Let's talk about that for a second.
Caleb: We've been around for over five years. And the story, can I share a little bit of the background?
Michael: Absolutely.
Kathryn: Yeah, please do.
Caleb: The story came... I started working at a bank when I was 17, okay, and that was a whole nother story about the power of relationships and on one person believing in me and picking up the phone and getting me a job at a bank. So, I'm a 17 year old kid that truly looks like he's 12. That's not even an exaggeration. And I'm learning how to interact with people, I'm learning how money works. And it became very, very clear that the bank that I was at was going to be the launching pad to whatever God had in my future. And so, I didn't know what that looked like. I've always been into money, and I was always that kid that was looking at investments and doing calculations, but believe it or not at 17 years old, I was not very confident. I was shy, which is probably shocking for you guys to hear. And I just didn't know what I didn't know.
Caleb: But one thing I did know is that I was not going to work for money. I was going to work for value. And what I mean by that is, I did a self-audit of myself and I realized that I didn't have a ton going other than I had a great upbringing and all of that. But there was really, I understood that money followed value, and I knew at 17 years old I needed to create skills that were going to be valuable.
Caleb: And so, I pretty much worked in every department. I would show up to meetings and sit in for meetings for free. I became an HR nightmare because I was only supposed to work 30 hours. And so, I clocked in for 30 hours and then worked for free the rest because I did not care about money, I wanted to learn. And so I worked in our loan department, I worked in our investment department. I thought I arrived when I had my first business cards, "Caleb Guilliams, investment assistant." And I just rode that train and started going to networking event. And then my life changed pretty dramatically when the guy that was running our investment department left the bank. And at 19 years old, I became one of the youngest children essentially to take over a corner office and big responsibility of helping people with their investments. And from there...
Michael: Okay, stop at that moment before you go into the rest of the story, because the rest of the story's good. Why in God's name would anybody give a kid your age, with your experience level, that job? What were the unique circumstances that led to that event?
Caleb: So, there's a couple of unique circumstances that made the perfect storm. So number one, you need certain licenses in the space and no one at the bank was licensed. I was the only one that had certain licenses that could even make me able to have conversations...
Kathryn: Legally.
Caleb: Yeah, legally.
Kathryn: Wow.
Caleb: So, that was like, "Okay, unique." The second thing was the owner of the bank was a fifth generation and ran the bank when he was 28. So, his dad pretty much gave him the responsibility of running the bank. He was 28 years old. So, he became one of the youngest people in the country to have that big responsibility. And he also got his CFP when he was 26. During the time, I don't share this a lot, but I'm the 17, 18 year old kid that on the weekend is calling the CEO of the bank, strategizing on how we can bring in more business and how we can be more creative.
Caleb: And so, every time the CEO would come in, because they didn't live locally, we would go out to dinner and it was shocking to me because his dinners were open, and we would strategize on like how to build a bank. And so, I didn't do it to try to win the system. I did it because I loved the game of business. And so, there was that built up trust.
Caleb: And then finally, I was super well loved at the bank. I was young, I looked incredibly young, but I was very much that old soul. And believe it or not, usually when there's a transition that happens, you lose about 10-15%. We lost nobody because of just the well-lovedness. I didn't know a ton, but I made it very clear that I was going to go to bat for every single person, and the trust level didn't dip dramatically like on paper it should have.
Michael: Interesting.
Kathryn: Amazing.
Michael: Okay, so you got the position, you got the corner office, which is crazy. Nobody hates you, which is even more crazy. So, you still didn't have a bench. What's the next part of the story?
Caleb: So I'm like, "Okay, how am I going to do this?" Because on one hand, I'm a freshman in college, still living at home by the way. Living at home, freshman in college, corner office of a bank. And so on one hand I'm like, "Man, I've arrived. This is amazing." And on the other hand, I experience what I call the 10 minutes of horror. When people come in, they're thinking, and some people said this, they're like, "I have grandchildren older than you." It doesn't necessarily instill a ton of confidence.
Caleb: So, one of the things that I did was I took Simon Sinek's concept to start with why, and for every single person that came into the bank, I would spend our first meeting not talking about their investments, not talking about their retirement plan, because quite frankly, I didn't have much to talk about. I talked about why they were doing what they were doing.
Michael: Did you do that because you just figured, "Oh, this is the wise smart thing"? Or it was, "I don't have a lot to talk about, and at least I know people so I can do that."
Caleb: Yeah. So it first was like, "I need something to talk about." And so it was like a, "This will just delay to the next meeting." But it turned in really quickly to, "Oh, this is genius," because nobody's ever been asked that.
Caleb: I remember there was someone that came in and they wanted to retire. And I started talking about like, "What would you do if money wasn't an issue? Or what would you consider your why to be?" Because I want to make sure that whatever we do with your money aligns with that.
Caleb: And again, now this is such a big deal of what we do. But early on, there was no one teaching me that. They were like, "You have to get their fact finder and then figure out a way to ask for referrals and sell them on products."
Caleb: And intuitively early on, I knew that I wasn't going to do that because it just didn't sit well with me. And since I didn't have a direct mentor, which I ironically was one of the greatest blessings, I was figuring this out, but I just was like, "How would I want to be treated?"
Caleb: And Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was a book that I read early on. And the second habit is, "Think with the end in mind." And one of the things that Stephen challenges his audience is, "Make a mission statement for yourself." And so, I remember reading that, I'm like, "Okay, why do I get up? What is my why? What's my mission?" And it was to help people see and reach their highest potential. And so, I would communicate that with people. I would say, and this is a 19, 20 year old kid, "I am here because I want to help you reach your highest potential, and I realize that money and your retirement plan and strategies are just the vehicle of helping you get that. But for me to understand what your highest potential is, I got to know, in your own words, what you really want."
Caleb: So again, I make fun of myself from a, "Oh, I didn't know a ton." I knew enough about EQ and people and what motivated them to realize, not only... I started out doing that to just get by the first meeting, but I realized that everybody that I met with leaned in, felt trusted, and then the next meeting I would do research and I would give them what I thought would be the very best way to live out what they told me. And it made sense to people, it flew well, and I realized what an amazing blessing that I wasn't this genius kid that understood everything about products, because I would've been the same old financial advisor that maybe made more than the average, but what good would I have actually done in the end?
Caleb: And so, that's really the biggest lesson that I've learned at the bank. And that translated into when I was 21, starting Better Wealth and taking that full philosophy of all the things that we can talk about of efficiency and taxes and investing in frameworks. All that good stuff, but centered on the foundation of, "What does intentional living look like?" And living intentional or living with intention means really knowing myself and living life with the people that you want, with what you're doing, on your time.
Caleb: So, all of that trans into just early on in the bank and the early days of dreading everyone that would come into the bank because I was so nervous.
Kathryn: That's awesome.
Michael: Well, and there's a part of the story that I think is really interesting. Actually, a lot of it is interesting. But there's a phenomenon... Let me start like this. There's a phenomenon that many people talk about, and it's the idea it's 10,000 hours to become a master at something. I think there's a lot of value at that. In some industries that's been pushed to 14,000, 15,000, but you need a lot of time. And sometimes the time is the practice, but sometimes the time, one of the things that a lot of people don't understand is the time allows us to have exposures to different things.
Michael: I really think from your story when you and I have talked in the past that, strangely enough, your exposure to a lot of people and a lot of thoughts was actually accelerated because you didn't have a mentor and you started getting on the phone and calling people around the country that you should have never been able to have a phone call with. You want to talk a little bit about that?
Caleb: Yeah. The power of mentorship. One of the things that I saw on a local level, I shared this with you guys on the show, that one person picked up a phone call and got me a job at a bank when I was 17 years old. That was a local version of the power of a network. And so since I didn't have a direct mentor locally, which I'm so thankful for what I did was I looked at videos and read books.
Caleb: And just for your listeners, just because you're an author doesn't mean you're unreachable. And so, I would just find a way to reach out to people. And I was amazed by the people that were willing to help and pour back into me and encourage me. And to this day, I'm just amazed.
Michael: Give our listeners an idea, at least one, of some places that were like, "How did you get there?" Because some of them are just like, "Wow."
Caleb: Well, probably the funniest story was I wanted to go to this conference in Birmingham, Alabama. I had about $10,000 to my name and I'm going to school and I'm like, "Okay, I want to go to this conference in Alabama." But I really, at this time, I'm too young. I can't even get a hotel room. And the conference was $2,500 to go to.
Caleb: And so, I remember watching this video by this guy who just articulated wealth really well. His name was Russ, and he also lived in Birmingham, Alabama, and I saw some mutual connections. And so, what I ended up doing is I got a hold of him, got 15 minutes, a phone call with him. I remember, I was in the car in between classes and two minutes in the conversation I'm like, "I'm going to stay at this guy's house."
Caleb: And I just asked him, I shared with him my story. And I was just like, "Could I stay at your house and go to truth training with you?" And he just paused. And he's like, "Let me talk to my wife and get back to you on that." And thank goodness, this is where Facebook came through for me, because then he did a little bit of stalking. He's like, "All right, this kid is involved. He's campus crusade president at college. He has a family. He was homeschooled." Because he had young kids. And so, I ended up meeting with him, shadowing him for two and a half days, going to a conference, a workshop that literally changed my life. And that was one of the turning points. That week was a turning point for me.
Caleb: I had to invest my own money, my own time, and I almost felt like Aaron Rodgers throwing that Hail Mary pass. And that was an example of that one friendship, I mean, we're still friends this day. And what's funny, and I'll do a little bit of bragging. Russ got a new house and built a whole new guest house because of the impact that I had on their family, opening up their house to the stranger that was a life-giving situation.
Caleb: And so from there, it was really cool. He gave me an opportunity that I could never repay him. But at the same time, even though I'm the one learning, you can still be a blessing and encouragement to so many other people. And they, again, now they're involved in so many ministries where they're letting people stay at their houses because of programs and it's had impact on their kids. And so, it's a really cool story, but that was one of the things that I would do is I would just reach out to people, and in a really authentic way, ask them to mentor me. And I got people on a local level and on a national level to spend time with me and pour into me. And again, I'm just where I am because of those experiences.
Kathryn: I love it.
Michael: That's pretty cool.
Kathryn: Okay, so. Tell us about starting Better Wealth, and what is it that Better Wealth is offering?
Caleb: Yeah. So it's interesting, I gave a talk a week ago in Naples, Florida to a mastermind that had nothing to do with money. And the talk was called charisma leveraging. Charisma leveraging. And it's interesting, I can't take all the credit for the name or what it means, but charisma, what makes someone charismatic? If you look up the definition of charismatic, you'll see people are drawn to someone, they're really attracted, they'll follow a charismatic leader, but very few people actually can tell you why someone is charismatic.
Caleb: Charisma is made up of really two things. Number one, you need to be competent, because if you're not competent, I don't really want to follow you. But the other area is you need to have warmth. You need to have EQ skills. You need to be able to make people feel welcome and invited.
Caleb: And so, charisma is really this in between of balancing warmth and EQ, and also IQ and competency. And so, the reason I share that is I believe the reason why we were successful is I intuitively knew that. Even though I couldn't articulate charisma or leverage, I wanted to be a magnet. And one of the things that our industry is known for doing is they're saying, "Okay, look, make a list of 100 people and then invite them out to coffee. And then before you add any value in their life, ask them for three referrals and they're going to feel so uncomfortable that they're going to cough up three referrals." And then it's like, "This is how you do business." And we wonder why over 80% of financial advisors fail, why the industry is so sleazy, and why it has such a bad rap on the inside.
Caleb: And so when I was taught this, I'm like, "This is not something I'm ever going to do." But I'm like, "If people understood what I just spent the last two, three years of my life learning, there will literally be a line outside the door. So, I don't understand why this is so hard." Not to be irony at its finest, but I was like, "If we can learn how to create a brand that's charismatic, obviously like helping people with competency, but also inviting them in. And we can leverage that," meaning leverage is maximizing. I think of magnets. If we could be a magnet and draw people in, we'll have a brand.
Caleb: And so, one of the first things that we did was wrote a book, started a podcast, started speaking, and this journey of, "Hey, what we're going to do is we're going to really spend our time creating a brand that draws people in and then maximize that by doing things like creating a podcast and building relationships."
Caleb: And so, I gave 17 examples of, in Naples, on how we did that from understanding frameworks, to video, to a book, to a podcast, to winning our first stages, and how that created charisma and leverage in our company.
Caleb: And so, that is essentially where we started. It was super humble beginnings. Our first office was $250 a month in the basement of a Papa John's building. So, not super exciting. I knew that this internet thing was not just something that was going to go away, so I wanted to invest in a company that could provide service to multiple people. And I wanted to come to us. And to do that, we needed to create content and be able to create a message that people are attracted to.
Caleb: And so, it wasn't the fastest way that we grew, but we've definitely built a foundation that now we serve clients in all 50 states. We have partnerships in Canada, we have 15 people on our team and we've been growing every year since.
Caleb: We've been five years in the making. And so, I don't know if that answered your question, but that gave the insights to what I was thinking early on. And now, we use the internet to coach people. We have four businesses, we have a tax company, we have an insurance company, we have an investment company and a coaching company. And our whole purpose is to help people live more intentionally, and we use those four companies in the money space to help people check that box.
Michael: So, do you have an X, Y, Z statement? "We do X for Y for people," that type of thing? How do you condense what you do in a single sentence or two?
Caleb: No.
Michael: Have you figured it out yet?
Kathryn: Ha. "No."
Caleb: No. When people ask, "Oh, Caleb, what do you do?" It depends on if I want to talk to them or not. We're a virtual financial planning company that helps people take back control of their wealth. We help unlock intentional living by helping people take back control of their wealth or being more efficient. It's something that maybe is a weakness of ours. We exist to help people live more intentionally, and we do that by helping them with their money. And so, no, we don't have an official X, Y, or Z phrase.
Kathryn: But that wasn't bad for just off the cuff.
Michael: That wasn't bad.
Kathryn: You did it.
Michael: Yeah. And part of it is being charismatic and having charisma, and being able to offer really quickly, somebody, so they at least can put a frame around, "Okay, what is this guy talking about, and what is it?" Because some people are asking right now, "Okay, This is really interesting. Really interesting story, but how's he going to help me, and why am I investing another couple of minutes in paying that?" And somebody right now is going, "Thank God he asked the question."
Michael: And so, part of what I think is important for us to talk about is the idea that as entrepreneurs, as business leaders, most of the people who listen to our podcast own or are in senior leadership of a small business or something that's privately held.
Michael: We as entrepreneurs and business owners, we don't have a normal way of making money. We take higher risk. Maybe we've been in business 25 years, so we don't like to take a lot of risk, but we have taken all these things. We have to deal with payroll and taxes and the uncertainty of the world. And now we've got COVID and VUCA, are you familiar with the term VUCA yet?
Caleb: No.
Michael: So, it's an acronym. Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity.
Caleb: Yeah, I like it.
Michael: And as time is going on, VUCA is increasing. Therefore, we have got to continue to sharpen our tools to deal with the ever-changing complexity of the world, because what worked yesterday isn't going to work tomorrow, usually. Fundamentals will always be there, but in the midst of that, so we've got this challenge of being entrepreneurs. At some point we want to retire. We know the dreaded statistics, 90% or more businesses fail. Sometimes it takes 10 years to do that, but they fail. There's no cash left. All your cash is gone. You may not have gone bankrupt, but you close the doors. There's nothing extra because you didn't have it.
Michael: Then on top of that, you've got to figure out, how many people survive? Do they want to sell their business? And as you know, we've seen tons and tons of people, they have no concept of what it means to sell a business. I just had a conversation with a guy a couple of months ago here in town, he's got a company that's about probably $700,000 a year, did a little bit over $1 million before COVID. He's in the agricultural industry. He's close to 80. And all of a sudden he is like, "I want to sell it. I want to retire." And he doesn't have a clue on sell a company.
Michael: He's tucked money away. But when it comes to that, he's lost. And I think he's going to get pennies on the dollar of what he wants, And that's going to be a disappointment for him. So as we talk about this, you actually come from a perspective of, "What does it look like for people to use their wealth," but even entrepreneurs and understanding that and the uniqueness there. Can you speak to that a little bit?
Caleb: Yeah. I can speak to that. That was a really good tee up. It really breaks down into this concept of efficiency, and the definition of efficiency is getting to a desired result and minimizing any of the friction; time, energy, efforts, into getting to that desired result. And so, if we break down the financial framework, it really comes down to, do you know where you want to go and can you analyze all the things that are getting in your way to getting that?
Caleb: So for example, I might know where I want to go, I might want to go to your headquarters and I could walk to you guys, which by the way, majority of people are doing with their money, or I could get onto an airplane and get to you guys much faster. An airplane is an example of the efficiency tool. And so when it comes to working with people with their money, a lot of people, number one, don't even know what they want. And then when they know what they want, then they don't have a really good way to analyzing what really matters. And the metric, the only financial metric that matters in your life is cash flow. Financial planning, retirement planning should to be called future or current, current and future cash flow.
Michael: Okay. Elaborate on that. Because not everybody understands it, and most business people do not understand cash flow.
Caleb: Yeah. Okay. So essentially, cash flow is the money that comes to helping you pay your team members, pay for your mortgage, and live your life. So essentially, think of cash as the lifeblood of any business. It's essentially the revenue and the income that's coming to your door. So if you're an employee, your cashflow comes from income. If you're a business owner, it comes from all the money that's coming in with services and selling products. And so...
Michael: Let me jump in...
Kathryn: Plus the money that's going out.
Michael: Yeah. I mean, and one of the big questions that we see in here from business owners is, "I sold a lot. How come I don't have any money in the bank?"
Caleb: Right.
Michael: And that part of understanding where accounts receivable, accounts payable, people paying on time, all that kind of stuff; being able to drill down cash flow into actually, how much cash do you have to use, versus how much you earned.
Caleb: And so cashflow is the money coming in. And once you have that money, your money can only do two things. It can either be consumed, and I don't care how it's consumed. It could be to taxes, employees, your kids' tuition, your Starbucks. Once a dollar's gone, it's gone forever. Or, it could be saved and invested for a future consumption date.
Caleb: So at its most basic form, know where you want to go, analyze what's going on. There's three things to analyze; the money coming in, where it's going, and essentially it's either being saved or it's being consumed. And from there we can analyze number one, what does your lifestyle look like? And that can be a really hard pill for many people to swallow.
Caleb: And it's like, "What are you currently spending?" And inflation is essentially that your future is going to cost more just to maintain what you're currently spending today because our money's getting less and less valuable. And then, "Is your savings invested in assets that are going to provide enough cashflow to live?"
Caleb: And so, when we talk about retirement, the reason I hate the word retirement is, it doesn't tell you anything about what it is. Essentially, people are investing money in a 401k or investing money into real estate or businesses. Why? For a someday in the future to have money to live where they don't have to work. That's what they would say. But essentially, you're investing in a 401k for someday for that to produce cash flow so that it will make up that you don't have to work.
Caleb: Unfortunately, the way that people are investing in saving for retirement is a complete sham in many cases. And majority people, you said 90%, it looks more like 97% of people will not be able to maintain anything of what they're currently living today because of system inflation and just a lack of knowledge. Unfortunately those are the numbers, and business owners are the worst because they're investing back in their business that you said, is not going to even be worth anything because they're not setting themselves up to exit well.
Michael: So as a business owner, what's the first place after doing... Well, what do people do? How do business people go, "Let me ask the questions to see if I'm in good shape or not"?
Caleb: Yep. So, it really comes down to being able to measure what you're currently spending, what you're saving, and will those savings translate into living your life? And so, it's either finding a financial planner, working with someone like us to be able to show you that, but really three things that you can move the needle in your life that can change. You can make more money, which, making more money can be great, but what does a lot of people do when they make more money?
Kathryn: Spend more money.
Caleb: Spend more. Okay. But making more translates, you can reduce your consumption. So, here's a couple hacks. If you're an entrepreneur, here's some massive hacks that you can reduce your spending and not even affect your lifestyle and have more money. Have a tax strategy. Majority of people are overpaying on taxes massively. And so, having a good tax strategy can free up money and can do amazing things.
Caleb: Have a debt strategy. Majority of people don't know the difference between good debt and bad debt and how to analyze how they're paying their debt and why they're paying their debt and strategies there.
Caleb: Track your money. I just talked to my wife the other day. It's like, "We should be way more intentional with looking at the money that we're spending so that we can be super intentional in that."
Caleb: Those are three key examples of areas that you can really get ahold of. If you're running a business, there's so many more areas that you can start looking at and saying, "Am I overspending?" Overpaying on taxes is essentially like an ignorance tax. The second thing is being efficient or minimizing your consumption, and there's so many wins there and you're not reducing your standard of living in most cases.
Caleb: When it comes to investing, you have to ask the question, "What is the purpose of investing?" It's usually, and what I would say is to buy an asset that produces cash flow. And again, when people understand that cash flow is the metric that matters, they become less attracted to 401ks in the market. Not because the market doesn't work, because it's not a great vehicle that translates into cash flow. That's when you start looking at maybe buying businesses, rental real estate, alternative investments.
Caleb: As crazy is this might sound, annuities can be a future asset that creates cash flow. And you can start measuring to say, "My actions, my delayed gratification is going to produce cash flow for the future." And so really; make more money, reduce the money that you're currently spending, be better or invest better with your investments. Those are the three areas that you can make a difference. And you really need to talk to somebody that can show you where you are, because many people are just throwing darts in the dark. And I can't even hit a dart board in the light. So, that tells you how that's a problem. It's heightened by the fact that very few people don't even know where they want to go or where they're at.
Michael: So, one of the things that I know being an entrepreneur, there are unique strategies for entrepreneurs, right? Business owners. Some that I've heard of, and I haven't even used yet. Some that we have started to use. One of those is things like, if you own a business or own a building within your company and you start doing some tax deferring and moving around and things like that, there are different places in the tax code that are unique for people who are business owners or property owners to be able to do certain things, to reduce their taxes. Is that correct?
Caleb: Yep. So, I think you're referencing cost segregation. Some people use depreciation. And one really common thing right now that people are talking a lot about is this concept called the Augusta Rule. And the Augusta Rule is essentially, you can rent your purse residents to your business 14 times or less tax free and essentially get a deduction from the business and pocket that money tax free. Those are all examples of how businesses can use real estate to reduce their taxable income. And those three examples; cost segregation, depreciation, and the Augusta Rule, are all strategies on literally not changing really anything and reducing your tax bill.
Michael: So, I think there's a lot of opportunities, and a lot of people are dealing with potentially accountants or tax advisors who aren't used to working with entrepreneurs, or they might have a lot of entrepreneurs as clients, but they're not used to the uniqueness's and things like that. Part of what I wanted to introduce to people is that idea that it might be unique and there might be financial investors and strategies, people that can give you advice like yourself, like your company and your staff, that actually would be more suited for those of us that run companies.
Caleb: Yep. One thing that I will offer, and again, I wasn't expecting to do this, but we have a one sheet of, it's called our tax checklist. And it's literally 50 some examples that you should bring to your CPA. And such by giving, it gives just categories of all the ways that you could potentially be saving on tax. If people find a way to reach out to me or I can get it to you, I would love every one of your listeners that are interested to get that one pager. Because again, it's not going to create a bulletproof financial life, but it at least gets you to have conversations that can be helpful. And I'm telling you, if you're a business owner, don't overpay tax. It's an ignorance tax and it's a bummer. And so, that's some one thing that we can give to your audience if that's of interest.
Kathryn: Absolutely.
Michael: No, I think that'd be huge. Invaluable. No, I appreciate that. Okay. We're at that point where we either could launch into a whole lot more or...
Caleb: There's so much more, I didn't even get into frameworks.
Michael: I know. I know. So here's what I'd like. Would you be willing to come back again and talk to us on the podcast?
Caleb: Absolutely. Anytime.
Michael: Okay, fantastic. Then what we're going to do is we're going to say this is a pause until next time. We don't know when next time is going to be folks, but we'll figure it out.
Kathryn: But we know it'll be in 2022.
Michael: Well, hopefully.
Kathryn: I feel confident about that.
Caleb: It might even be in person if we can, if the stars align.
Michael: Oh, boy.
Kathryn: That would be good stuff.
Michael: Okay. So, that said, we're going to have you back. I love the story, I love your friendship, and I really appreciate you, and I appreciate the gifts and talents and skills you have and the giving heart you have. So, I just want to say thank you for all you do, and I continue to be excited about our friendship and time going forward, and just watching your company grow and how you're going to help people, and how that's going to impact and grow you and your staff also.
Caleb: Thank you.
Michael: Because as you know, we love leadership development and we love to watch people just develop and grow and mature and be able to leverage their gifts more. So, thank you very much.
Kathryn: Yeah. So, if you want to reach out to Caleb, BetterWealth.com is the world that he is living in with all of his entities and companies and stuff. So, BetterWealth.com. And if you will send us that PDF, I will make sure that that is available to our listeners. That sounds like an amazing tool.
Michael: So either way, you'll be able to find the link on our show notes, and we'll figure out if that means you're downloading it from our show notes page, or we're sending you to a great landing page for Caleb so he can know who's really interested and cares about those things.
Caleb: Opt into the funnel. No, I'll give you. We'll figure it out, but yes, BetterWealth.com. If you guys have any questions for me, caleb@betterwealth.com. Reference this podcast, because you guys are my favorite and I want to serve your audience incredibly well in whatever that looks like. And I just appreciate your guys' hearts and love this whole conversation. And there's so much more, but at the end of the day, if I could end with one call to action?
Michael: Yeah, absolutely.
Caleb: If you can do two things; if you can know where you want to go in life, and you can audit what's currently getting in your way, those are the two things that need to happen before you have any success, whoever you work with.
Michael: Okay, say those two again.
Caleb: You need to know what you truly want, whether what you call it your why, your mission statement. I know they're in really good hands in this group. And then the second thing is you need to have a way to audit what you're currently doing and seeing what friction is getting in your way. And when it comes to money, it's either an income problem, it's a consumption problem, or it's an investment problem. And those are the three friction points when we talk about money.
Caleb: So if you know where you want to go, it's an example of me wanting to be at your house, then it just comes down to what are the most of the ways to get there. And those are the two things that would help you build wealth regardless of whoever you work with or what you do, what industry you're in. Those are the two things that need to be present in everyone's life if they want to be wealthy.
Michael: There you go, folks. Well, thank you very much for joining us today. That's a great conversation and a great starter conversation. This is going to be a longer two part or however many parts.
Kathryn: 10 part, 12 part.
Michael: As we continue to have conversation, because as you may or may not know the model we have, folks, it includes a holistic perspective on your business. And one of those areas that is got to be paid attention to, and it gets ignored so much, is the area of finance. Personal finance, your company finance. It's more than balancing your checkbook. And most of us,, unfortunately, weren't educated growing up well at all in understanding finance more than just paying your bills, paying rent, and going out and buying a new car. And some of us don't even do that well. I know we didn't when we were first married.
Michael: So, we want to make sure you're continuing to grow and develop in that area and in the rest of the areas of business, so you have a holistic perspective, because it's that mindset shift of a holistic perspective that's going to allow you to understand how you really can leverage the potential of your business and move yourself, your organization forward, and be able to reap all results and all the fruit from that.
Michael: And part of the fruit is getting financially paid and having the wherewithal on the cash to do what you want to do and live the life you want to live, and give back to the people around you and enrich their lives also.
Michael: So for that, that's enough for today. I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: This is the HaBO Village podcast, building the whole leader for the whole business. Thanks for joining us today. Have a great week.
