Brad Gibb: Why 97% of Financial Advice is Wrong & How to Break Free

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Brad what’s up, man. Thanks for joining. Learn from others. I am excited to be here. Thanks for having me Damon. Yeah. Um, I want to say what’s up to Josh 40. He introduced us. Um, so Josh is, is he gigantically taller? What, because every picture I see of him, he’s like the tallest person in the frame. He’s a lot taller than you think when you see him by himself.

Yes. I was surprised when I met him in person, I was like, Oh, you are, he was not hugely tiny. He’s like six foot maybe, but yeah, yeah, that counts. Yeah. So, you know, before we talked, I was poking around and I saw your pictures with Russell Bronson. And then also, um, because of the topic of Josh, you know, he’s been like dream 100 NG Russell Brunson from ClickFunnels for, I think he said two years and he has him this morning on his podcast.

So that’s cool. Yup. Yup. He has been doing a luxury monitoring through me to Russell. So that’s been fun. You were part of the facilitation? Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been in Russell’s inner circle for a couple of years now, so it’s able to help facilitate some of those connections. Good. You know, it’s funny. I was telling Josh this.

Um, so when I was listening to, um, the, the black box of the two books on a little MP3 of Russell’s, um, I have a property up at bear Lake in Idaho, and I was working on the lot. When I was listening to that. And then Russell Brunson talks about his whole epiphany and everything while he was at Bentley.

Yeah. So now, so now it’s like cemented in my head every time I think about Russell with bear, like so awesome. Well, cool. Well, let’s, let’s catch the listeners up to speed. So the usual two questions, the first one is what are you good at? And what are we going to learn from you today? So, what I am good at is I’m good at numbers and making connections to me, spreadsheets.

If you can put it in a spreadsheet, I can understand it and I can make connections with that. That’s what, I’m what I’m really good at. And we’re going to make some connections and money and finance, especially when it comes to entrepreneurs. Because we as entrepreneurs play a different game than the rest of the world.

And we need to learn that our money has a different set of rules that it needs to play by as well. So that’s what we’re going to learn. That’s what I’m good at. Very cool. Alright. And what are you bad at? Oh, I’m bad. At the other side of that, I forget that people have feelings and not one is a spreadsheet to be analyzed.

And so I’m, uh, I I’m. I’m very much more social, awkward, socially awkward in person than I probably come across in video or trainings because I get excited when I talk about income taxes. But if you try to have me small talk about game of Thrones, like I’m a fish out of water. Yeah. What’s that movie. I don’t know if you’ll remember.

Um, it was like 15 years ago. I think it was like poly or something. Polly. It’s a comedian, it’s a comedy. And I think it has been Stiller. Um, and he analyzes everything based on data. And so he’s trying to figure out if he should go into this relationship or not. And it’s all based on data instead of his emotions, whatever that is is I need to watch it.

I literally kept, yeah. I keep spreadsheets for everything. So, yes. Alright. So you’re a former Goldman Sachs employee and you realized that finance, you know, financial stability and investing the way it’s all being taught to the general public is wrong. So you kind of did your own thing. And right now your team generates over 250 K and monthly cashflow.

For our, for, yeah, for our, just in the last two years for our, our clientele. That’s what we’ve, that’s what we’ve created. Yep. Okay. So what is it that you started to see and realize, and how long ago was that that made you just say, wait a second. Yeah. So, so the big aha for me, cause I mean, I, I did the whole get a good education, get a good job, climb the corporate ladder, like that’s financial stability, security.

And since my path was money and accounting, that led me to, into, into Goldman Sachs. So after getting a master’s in accounting as well, As well as degrees in statistics and economics. And again, I love numbers. I started out at Goldman Sachs and I started out there, there, uh, in, just at the beginning of the Oh seven Oh eight crash.

So I was downtown wall street, um, New York city. Um, So I got a front row seat to this entire meltdown. Like I literally, the day Lehman collapsed, which was like the official kickoff to all of the insanity that, that ensued from there. Our building was next door to theirs and they were filing out with cardboard boxes as we were showing up to work that morning.

Um, And so that was the, that was the big wake up call that I was like, wait a minute, financial stability. Isn’t what it’s been advertised. It’s not in my education or the job that I have or the 401k, because I was the new kid. I knew I was, I knew I was on the chopping block. Right. If anything were to go down with golden, I was the first one out the door because I was the last one in, but my manager who was two years there was just as scared as I was.

And so was his manager. And so as his manager, all the way up the chain, and I was like, Whoa, this is not. Where, where I want to be. And then to add to that scene behind the scenes of what was going on in the financial markets, in people’s retirement accounts, in just everything that happened inside making the sausage.

But I was like, okay, there’s there, there’s got to be another way to do this. And that’s really what. That was my, like my Jerry McGuire moment. And I was like, yeah, clearly you all see how crazy this is. I’m leaving. Who’s coming with me. And I was the only one silly enough to walk out the door in Oh eight.

So that was kind of the beginning to the end as you will. Did you ha, how long was your stint? Did you even get a very long stint with Goldman Sachs then before you were just onto the next thing? Nope. I fortunately for me, I feel fortunate that I didn’t have to spend a lot of time there. Um, I was there about a year.

Um, before, before that all happened. And then I’m the kind of person that like, I’m very black and white I’m very Monday to Tuesday. Like just it switches. And once that switches flipped there’s, I don’t know, spend any time in something that doesn’t make sense anymore. So as soon as that flip switched, I was already mentally checked out and gone and looking for the next thing.

Um, and, and there was nothing there left for me to, to, to milk. So I, yeah, I’d been there about a year and then, and then blitzed on to the next thing. So where did, where do you start from there? Like what’s day one of doing your own thing. So from there, I, I’m also a very, um, I’m not ready. Fire aim, or I’m not already aim.

Yeah, ready, fire aim person. I’m a much more planned and methodical. And so, um, I, I took enough time to plan an exit and I ended up with my brother who, who also has an accounting degree and had a different set of connections than I did. We came together and we started a consulting firm to where we were kind of on the flip side of what we were doing at Goldman, where we were actually.

Um, can we, we’re kind of CFOs for hire where a company that wanted to go public would bring us in. We would clean their books. We would interact with the sec and the regular regulatory agencies, the auditors, and, and put these companies together to be ready to be taken public. So for about a two or three year time period, we took about two dozen companies public, um, in, in that process.

So that’s what I, because my thought process was like, wait a minute. All right. If. If, if a job isn’t secure, then I just need to be my own boss. So that I’m secure. And that, so that was the idea behind. All right. Well, I just never want to have a boss again so that I can never be fired or never be feel in that vulnerable position ever again.

And so that’s when kind of entrepreneurship started, we started that business. Okay, well, you know, I’m curious, I’m sure. I’m sure you’re, you’ve talked about this a million times lately with what’s going on with coronavirus, but how much of what you’re seeing today with that scares reminiscent of the Oh eight crash.

Oh, it’s it’s I mean, the pin was different and actually very unexpected. Right. I was looking for other pins cause we were. We were due for a correction right now. I mean, now it’s 2020. We had 10 solid years of recovery. We hit market highs, you know, anytime you’re seeing that it’s time for something to change.

I didn’t think it would be a virus that was the pin, but that, that ended up being what it is. Um, but the everything very similarly, you know, history never repeats itself, but it often rhymes. Right. So it looks very similar to where. Um, we see a massive sell off and we see the same advice given of, well, now’s an opportunity or you’re invested for the long run and don’t worry about it.

Anyway, who cares that you just lost 30% of your retirement accounts? It’s not a problem. Right? We hear all of that out there. We see massive selloffs, but can’t really explain why, like nothing. Has been fundamentally shifted in the economy yet, right? There’s definitely, um, there’s definitely a cause to be concerned, but why did it sell off so quickly?

We’re seeing similar things from await. And then we see the bailout packages are already on the table. Tax reform is already on the table. More government involvement is already on the table. So all those things are happening. Um, very reminiscent of, of what they, of what happened in Oh eight. And now we’re seeing that like, well, wait a minute.

Now this last one decade of supposedly recovering and getting my financial plan back on track and getting everything lined up, you know, now I’m set back. Three four, five, six years again. Right? So the stress and the worry and the volatility is is, is all coming back, it’s all the same, same exact conversations.

Yeah. I think that’s a good opportunity to segue into your area of expertise, because I’m sure you don’t have to talk about. You know, where do you tell people to start to get on the path of financial security? So I guess like a two part question, um, one is, what do you usually tell people? And two is, has that answer changed since the world started to fall apart in the last two weeks?

Uh, it’s all answered the second one first. Um, no, that the message is only more solidified, more relevant. And it’s these times where we have waves of people coming back to us saying one of two things, they’re either saying, Hey, I heard you. And I listened and I did it and I’m so glad because I was prepared.

I’m ready. And, and, and this didn’t affect me or it’s the other half of them that said I heard, I didn’t believe you. And I, I didn’t mean the changes and the shifts, and now I wish I had right. Um, so our, our our message that we tell people very succinctly and summarize is that the truth about money is 97% of the financial advice that you’ve been given is either dangerous, misleading, or outright wrong.

And that’s just the, that’s just the way that we see it when it comes to financial stability, financial security, financial freedom, 97% of what you’ve been told is a lie. And so. Then there’s lot, obviously there’s lots to unpack back there, but it sits in this, in this concept of, especially for the entrepreneur, which I know a lot of your audiences is entrepreneurial minded or entrepreneurial focused.

At some point in time, we, as entrepreneurs realized that we were. A little different, right? I’m sure you had that wake up moment to be like, wait a minute. I don’t think I live in the same world that everybody else lives in. Right. For sure. Yet when we do that, when we leave and we exited and we, we go the unconventional path, we realize we’re totally different.

And we start to play by that different set of rules. Once we have a little bit of success in that, then we’re told to take that success, take the money you’ve made and go right back to the box that you just left. And somehow that’s going to work out for you. But the, and that’s why we say that financial advice as a product of the same as any other product it’s created with an intended audience that wants an intended outcome, but most of us don’t want the outcome, but it has and created for an order or the, or are we the audience to consume it?

There is no absolute truth when it comes to money, right? There’s what do you want and who are you? And what’s the path that you want to take to get there. And so we’ve created, um, Really from our perspective, the only financial strategy that’s aimed specifically at the entrepreneurial or the entrepreneurial minded person, um, who wants to our, our kind of our, our mantra, our tagline is rise up, live free.

Those that are ready to rise up, who want to take control, who wants the responsibility of it to build the life that they love, that they can actually live free? Not, not someday, not maybe when I’m 65, not, not if it all works out right, but where we can design it in simultaneously financial freedom. With a life driven by purpose that that’s our plan, that’s our angle.

And that’s why 97% of what you have does not lead to war that end. Yeah. I want to talk about that 97%, but what’s give the audience a little bit clarity, a little bit of clarity of, of what is it that you actually do, like help us get the general understanding of where this financial freedom comes from.

Yeah. So, um, it’s. Most people expect me to lead in and say, here’s the best investment that you’ve made. Here’s the product. Here’s how we use it here. How’s we take advantage of it. Are there products involved? Of course there are. We have to do things with our money, but we go, what really makes us unique and where we focus with clients is.

We have to raise our financial IQ. We’re just not taught enough about money. We don’t understand how it works. And that’s a lot of what leads us astray. So where we start with is we teach what we call the frameworks and the formulas. So we help you. You understand how the, how money and finance and financial freedom actually works.

And then we build a personalized game plan, okay. For each person. That’s the big element. And we, we say anybody, if you’re following the right formulas, Anyone, regardless of age income, prior experience can be financially free in 10 years or less. So we start with a 10 year outcome. We break that down to the 12 month objectives, 90 day targets, and we roll a plan moving us toward those outcomes, which is very different than the traditional path, which is picking the best product.

Pick the products, pick an advisor, turn it over to them and cross your fingers and wait. And see what comes back, right. We’re strategically designing and building it. And then with your plan, we can then work in the specific. Strategies that you ought to be implementing based on that framework. Cause everybody’s a little bit different.

We’ve got to have, we’ve gotta make things personal, but it all comes out. Like I can’t tell you what to do until we have a game plan, so I know what you want, where you’re starting from and the path we’re going to take to get there. Okay. Super cool. So the people that work with you could essentially have any combination of, uh, investment potentials, it sounds like not, yes.

I mean, they’re all going to vary. Right. There’s definitely rules that we follow the big focus for us, where it is, how we define financial freedom. Okay. Financial freedom is not a, is not being out of debt per se. It’s not a net worth number that we strive for. It’s not a certain amount of money in our retirement accounts.

Simply defined financial freedom is when your cash flow from your investments exceeds your expenses. You’re financially free, right? Our goal is to own time, not assets, not money, not net worth, but own our time. Yeah. And the percentage of your income that is covered by your, your, we hate the word passive we’ll use it.

Cause that’s what it would be. Understand your passive income. We call it leveraged income. Um, but when that passive income covers, if let’s say your, your monthly burn rates, $10,000 a month, you have $5,000 of, of, of cashflow coming in your 50%. On your way to being financially free. And our goal is to get you a hundred percent free.

So you own all of your time, not so that you can retire on a beach, although hopefully you’ll take some vacations and spend some time, but so that you can then wake up every day, not pursuing a paycheck, but pursuing what drives you, pursuing your motivation, right. Your passions. And so, so that’s, so it starts with that element and that by definition elimination, it’s 97% of the investments we make because.

Most of them. Don’t focus on cashflow. Most of them are not accessible you today. Like I’m in my late thirties. Yeah. As a matter how successful I am in my IRA account, if I can’t touch it until I’m 60. Yeah. So we eliminate what doesn’t get us, what we want, which is to be financially free in 10 years or less.

And that actually gets rid of 97% of your options and leaves us with just a handful that we focus on. Got it. Yeah, I agree because I can’t remember if it was, you know, four hour workweek or book like that, but it talks about freedom being the new currency. And I totally agree. It seems like most people that have financial stability versus the people that want to pursue it, the big differences, you know, The people that are in somewhat of a comfortable capacity have realized that they want to buy time.

And then, you know, that’s why they want freedom or that’s why they want financial security. But then it seems like the other people that kind of kind of go down the wrong path are the ones that say, you know, I want to be a millionaire, but they don’t, they don’t want to be a millionaire. They don’t realize that what they want is the freedom that being a millionaire, affords them a hundred percent.

And that’s what we use. We call that like, money is not our outcome. Money is the thing we use to get our outcome, but we really spend a lot of time with our clients, ask them, what do you want? What does financial freedom mean? Right. Hopefully it’s not cars and status and prestige, but it’s again, it’s time.

It’s it’s what do we want to pursue? Who do we want to become? And then with that frame, it really shifts what we do with our money. Cause look like I’ve seen behind the scenes. I’ve I’ve had the opportunity to work with. You know, people that are worth several hundreds of millions of dollars. There are strategies out there that I could teach that would make more money than what we focus on with our clients, but it would not make them more free.

Right. And so that’s what we put freedom. Above everything else that we could do. Right. And, and same thing with risk. Like Warren Buffett’s number one rule of money is don’t lose money. And his second rule is never forget rule number one. And those are the types of tenants that we want to follow. We want to do what the wealthy actually do with their money behind the scenes.

And because we’ve seen that, like this isn’t about chasing returns. This is about taking big risks that this isn’t about swinging for the fences. It’s the boring, slow, repeatable systems that we can put in that get us ever closer to being free. And if we’ll run those systems, just like loading the base as in baseball, if we’ll be patient and hit single after single, after single, eventually the bases are loaded and now I can start bringing runner’s home without even swinging for the fences are hitting home runs.

I can just do the boring. Stuff that then produces results. Have you noticed a change in perspective of, uh, you know, in the last decade or so people that are starting to acknowledge that that are starting to value freedom more than the shiny objects? It’s interesting because we’re seeing both of that and definitely are our client avatar.

Is that person seeking freedom? And so we see it in spades and we see more and more of that. But what we see more than just higher numbers of it is we’re seeing more of a split there’s less middle ground than there ever was before either you’re all in on the traditional side of, of. Yeah, 401ks, IRAs, hope and trust and diversification, all that stuff.

Or you’re done with it and fed up and you’re looking for something else. And that’s where we want to meet somebody. I don’t want to convince like, if, if you’ve got something to review fine. Right. But once you realize, wait a minute, that path. It’s not the path that I want to be on. That’s where we want to meet with you, build you a game plan and, and show you an implementable path to the other side of it.

So where’s this seeing the loss of middle ground more than, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, I know we have a limited time with you, so I want to kind of circle back to, you know, you talked about 97%, um, inaccurate financial advice. Has that, do you feel like it’s always been that way or at some point in time did more of that advice makes sense.

And then we’ve just grown apart from that advice. I think what’s happened. And we see this across the board. This isn’t unique. I don’t think to financial advice, but as it’s become institutions , um, as it’s become mass produced, the, it makes sense. I mean, you business, the less variation you have in a client, the more efficient you can be.

And yeah. In running them through your process. Right? So that’s what’s happened is it’s become mass institutionalized and they tried to put everybody in the same bucket that everybody ought to do the exact same things. Right. The advice is the exact same, right. But if we rewind a hundred years, what we really feel like is we’ve almost like rediscovered the way wealth has always been done.

And it’s only been this last 30 or 40 years where we’ve gone mass, corporate, mass, 401k, mass market to it that we’ve lost. The things that actually built wealth and freedom from, from the beginning. And so, so that, that’s why we feel like 97% of it is. Is inaccurate, is it it’s, it’s like manufactured in a test tube and then tried to be fed to us where it’s, it’s never been proven.

It’s it’s never been like, there are very, very few people that have, that have got the outcome that’s been promised. Cause it’s, it feels like it’s been, been with us forever, but it’s really only been with us for two generations. And that feels long enough that it’s the norm when it’s, when it really hasn’t been.

Yeah. Well, the last question I’ll ask it, and then I’ll kind of give you the four for a moment. Is do you think that as that momentum swings, what would your crystal ball say? You know, is this like another two generational thing before we kind of hit the tipping point and more people are getting out of that institutionalized perspective?

Or is this kind of something that the majority of us of society just kind of gets stuck in for longer than that? Um, I’m actually very, very hopeful because with the transition of technology, with the transition of mass communication, the transition of, of more people, I think people are going to become more entrepreneurial over time.

There’s more opportunity for that to work from home to, to be a, a gig worker. If you ever follow like the gig economy type thing, there’s so much more of that opportunity out there, but I think it’s opening people up to there are, there are other options than what everybody in front of me did. Right. And we’re, and we’re starting to see that.

And that, that makes me very, very hopeful that people will be more willing to rise up and, and invest in themselves and, and take on their own responsibility. So I think we’re a generation or two away, I think, less than that, to where. A, an alternative approach becomes, um, more, more widely accepted and more followed.

We, we acknowledge that our message will never be mainstream because nothing that works ever generally as mainstream. I don’t know if that makes any sense or not, but it seems like, like just like dieting and exercise. It’s like, no one does what they’re supposed to do for themselves. Like the masses just.

We don’t. Right. So we’re not trying to make this mainstream, but we’re trying to make it to where it’s not crazy anymore. Right? Yeah. And I think we’re seeing the floodgates of that. And I think over the next 10 years, we’re going to, we’re going to see massive, massive shifts in what. A departure from what people thought as traditional normal back to more the side of where we stand and what we look at.

Yeah. I hope so too. I’m excited to see where things go. And I think that with the whole world meltdown right now, it’s going to open up a lot of those opportunities and, or just open up eyes to existing opportunities. And I think w I don’t, I don’t know what entirely is resetting right now, but it seems like there’s going to be a big reset here it is.

And I, and as painful as it is the. You know, what, what comes out of these ashes is, is those green shoots of, of opportunity. And I’m, I’m excited to see. It sounds weird, but the fact that we ought to spend a month in isolation, it’s only going to open us up to better possible forms of communication and, and opportunities and how we can work together.

And so I think it’s really shifting, what’s going to be possible. Um, the way that that didn’t happen, other like in other resets or other corrections. So it’s it’s man. I, I, I see. I see huge, huge opportunities. Once we get through the ugly painful part of it, which is terrible. And we never want those things, but life is ugly.

Life just has pain in it. And if we can get through it and learn the lesson, I’m excited about where things are going to go. Yeah. Yeah. I’m right there with you. Oh, there’s my beeper. All right. We’re out of time, Brad Gib. I want to give you the floor for a moment. People don’t want to learn more about what you offer and just kind of follow your advice.

Where can they go? Awesome. What the best place for us is we’ve, we’ve worked really, really hard to try to break down. Because what we end up with as an entire like comprehensive approach to system to build a run your money. And our goal is to help you become not, not the slave to your money. And certainly not the one doing all of the things right.

That my unique ability is in numbers and spreadsheets and finance. And that doesn’t have to be everybody else’s. But to be able to, we kind of talk about it. You should be the CEO of your investments. You need to like, think about Ford motor company, right? The CEO of Ford motor company doesn’t know how to build a car.

Right, right. But he knows how to, he knows how to have the right team and have the right metrics to get the outcome. That’s really what we’re working to help inside of a game plan. And so with a game plan, we then can bring the education, the resources, the team members, the opportunities to the table to help make that happen.

But for us, we’ve worked really, really hard to take. What seems daunting and complex at the time and break it down into a very simple process that gets started and we’ve put a five day challenge together for that. Um, so you just go through, it’s like 20 minutes a day, watch a video, do a quick exercise, and it helps you understand where you are, what your target of freedom really looks like.

So we get a good, clear objective. And then the beginnings of the steps to go from wherever you’re at to there in 10 years or less. And so by the time you go through that, that quick five day challenge it’s if you can go to cashflow tactics.com four slash five day challenge, I think both FIV and the number five gets you there.

Yeah. Um, or you can just find our group. We have a free group in, uh, in the Facebook. Um, if you go to Facebook and just search cashflow tactics, our group is there and inside the group, that’s kind of how we deliver that. But if you just go through that, it really sets everything up to, you can see in your life what’s been working, what’s not working.

We work to expose that 97%. That everybody else is doing, but you know, deep down something is just often never going to get you there. We help expose that. We help bring that to light and then start showing you the path to be on, to build your own game plan to financial freedom in 10 years or less, that’s the best place anybody could get started.

Okay, so we’ll go, I’ll go pull those links. Um, I’m smiling over here. Cause I think, you know, we opened, we opened this with Josh 40 and I’m going to close it with Kanban, Josh 40. I think he told me the way that you refer to face the Facebooks or institutes or other things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brad give cash flow tactics.

Thanks so much for joining alert brothers, Brad. Thanks Damon.