Episode 108 – Chris W Harder: From Broke To Boss

Casanova Brooks:

What’s up Dream Nation back again with another episode and I’m sure this one is set to not only inspire you, but give you some actionable tips. So we all know that I believe in the dream, but we must take action. Otherwise it’ll only merely be a fantasy. And I think we have the perfect person here today to help us go from dream to action taker.

And so without further ado, help me in welcoming my man, mr. Chris, Harder to the show, Chris, you want to go ahead and say what’s up to Dream Nation.

Chris Harder:

Yes for sure. What is going on guys? It’s an honor to be on and I actually love what this represents by the way, taking the dream, but putting the action behind it.

That’s everything. So I’m excited to dive in, man,

Casanova Brooks:

Man, we’re excited to have you here. Now. I’ve seen that your, your show, you have a podcast as well. It’s called For The Love of Money and you’ve been a business coach you’ve been featured in some of the biggest publications all across the world, but yeah. I love to make sure that we have the proper introduction and the backstory.

So before all of the publicity, before you becoming a world renowned business coach, if we can take it back. And the reason why I like to do this is because I think of us as entrepreneurs, as superheroes. Yeah, we’re constantly flying around the world and we’re putting on our Cape trying to solve problems that are in the world to make this world a better place.

So before you became this, we’re now problem solver. Let’s take it back to when you were just a young boy and tell me, who is Chris Harder?

Chris Harder:

Yeah, for sure. You know, today, uh, my wife and I have sole ownership or partial ownership in eight different seven and eight figure businesses. So we’re definitely entrepreneurs, philanthropists giving means the world to us.

Um, and you know, we’ve got our hands in a lot of very successful things, but quite honestly, The journey, getting here has been one of lesson after lesson and trial and error and insanity and you name it. Right. And that’s the most important part to talk about now, Midwest born and raised. And I know that you’re Midwest born and raised as well.

So you’ll get this. One of the best things about being raised in the Midwest is you get some really good foundational values, like family values, work ethic, um, you know, some grit and some, some muscle and yeah. If you can take those good foundational values out to the coast where all the opportunity is a lot of times that’s a perfect scenario and that’s what we ended up doing.

But I’ll tell you one of the downsides sometimes of growing up in the Midwest. And by the way, I am obsessed with the Midwest. So this is not enough. This is just like talking about reality. Mmm. One of the downsides is sometimes you’re not encouraged to dream as big as you want to sometimes. Um, mediocrity can set place and people don’t even realize it.

They’re accidentally sabotaging your dreams by saying, Hey, why isn’t this good enough? Or why do you guys have to be dreaming so big? And I gotta be honest as a kid, I felt a little bit out of place, like at a hard time fitting in. And what I get a kick out of is this. In the intro. You just said something about entrepreneurs are the superheroes and it wasn’t like that back then.

And for context, I’m 42, right? So 25 years ago, as I’m making my way through middle school and high school, it wasn’t like that it was sports or nothing. And, you know, I gave my, my best effort at sports and it just, it wasn’t going to work out for me. And so I really felt like this big dreamer that even in middle school would sit down and read all the classifieds, looking for business opportunities and homes.

And, you know, I could buy this one and flip this one. I mean, imagine doing that like sixth, seventh grade is so weird, right. Something was different about me. And so I went on to go into college. Because that’s what my parents wanted and that’s what my grandparents wanted. And this almost falls into what we can talk about later.

There’s new rules to money, and that sometimes that advice fits into the old rules of money. And so I went to college for the wrong reason and because I didn’t want to be there. I got kicked out after two and a half years. In fact, I went there to play baseball, got booted out, kicked off the team, the whole nine yards.

And when I got kicked out of college, just as a very formative moment, I got kicked out of college. I was excited because I already wanted to be out there participating in the economy and my parents were devastated. They thought I ruined my life. I ruined my chances. I’m sure a lot of people can like, totally understand this story.

So what did I do when you get kicked out of college while I loved cars? So it seemed logical, go get a job at a car dealership. Like I was so excited to spend all day around cars. No problem. And it was at this car dealership that I learned two really key things. Number one, I learned sales and number two other leadership.

And if you can learn sales and leadership. Man, I swear you can write your ticket anywhere. So I spent a couple of years doing that, had a lot of success at an early age and right about that time, right about let’s see, this would be 20 to 21 years ago. There was this great big mortgage. Boom is great, big banking, boom.

That was just starting to form. And all my friends were getting into it and I wanted to get into it. Now, remember I was booted out of college, so I didn’t qualify for most of the jobs out there that I wanted, but I talked my way into one. And I talked my way into a job at the world’s biggest bank and ended up crushing it.

Ended up I’m working my way up to becoming one of the fastest rising executives at the world’s largest bank. And for a while, it was great. It was hanging out with friends and every branch it was traveling. It was almost like all the, kind of the sexy banking stuff you see on TV. Right. But then when the recession hit, it turned on a, on a dime.

And it went from this fun, productive, positive sales driven type of atmosphere to everyone was just down and out. Now here’s the problem you’d think being in banking that I would have taken really good care of our money, but I didn’t because I was young and I was arrogant and as ignorant. And quite honestly, I thought it would last forever.

I would come home once a year or twice a year. I’d be like, Hey babe, got a promotion. We’re moving to such and such city sell the house. I’m getting on an airplane. And I thought that would last forever. And when the music stopped, I was left holding the bag of absolute garbage, a bag of bad decisions. And so I had to make some bold moves.

I had to come home and I’d tell my wife, Hey, we got to start over. That was not an easy conversation to have. Cause at the time she wasn’t really privy to running the finances, another set of old rules versus new rules when it comes to money. Right. Um, and so I came home, I said, babe, we need to sell this great big home that we just finished building way bigger than we needed.

We need to get rid of all these cars, way more than we needed. Um, we need to really do everything we can to do what I call stopping the bleeding. Right. And I took it as far as to listing every single belonging, the furniture, the art, the TVs, the grills, everything that we had gotten for this home very recently on Craigslist.

And I watched as every single car pulled up in front of the house car after car. And person after person walked to my front door and they bargained for chairs at bargain for the couches bargained, for the tables, bargained for the TV’s, whatever they want it and walked out with my belongings while the neighbors looked on judging me and they already judged us.

What’s this young couple with no kids doing in this neighborhood type of thing. Right. And this was the most humiliating, but most important moment on my life because what this gave me. At the end of it all, it was, I was able to take my severance package. I was able to short sell our home, which means selling it for less than it was.

Then we owed on it. I was able to walk away from the investment properties as able to do everything, to get us right back to zero and have just enough cash by selling everything as swallowing that humiliation to go prepay a lease in a tiny little apartment in uptown Minneapolis. And that became the space and the runway that we reinvented ourselves with.

Hmm. And so I tell this story, so people get a real understanding that as we have a conversation today, I’m not training from the place of having all the businesses. I’m not training from the place of having all the success or the audience or the things that we have right now. When I talk, when I train it’s from that place of having to do some pretty extreme, humiliating things, to put ourselves in position, to choose again and reinvent and pivot, which a lot of people are doing right now, reinventing and pivoting, right.

And create the life that you actually want from a place of below zero.

Casanova Brooks:

Wow. That’s such, I love how transparent that you were because a lot of us right now, We have that denial, that things are bad. And we won’t like, I see a lot of people that when in private they will say like, Hey, I’m struggling right now.

I lost my job or whatever, but in public they’re still putting on a front. Right. And so I think that it’s very, when you said like, Hey, I didn’t know how to manage finances. And my wife didn’t either like, that’s where a lot of people you have to face it. And when you talk about having that humiliation at the same time, it also gives you humility, right?

And it brings you back to square one where you become humble. And I remember from my wife and I, we did have that exact situation. So I can relate to you a hundred percent after we lost everything. Now, this also became because of the fact that I lost my mom, but there was, you hit that rock bottom, and then you live in what I call “the best form of your life”.

Why? The reason why I say that is because you understand that, Hey, joy would not feel so good if it wasn’t for pain. And then you started to think like, if I built it, I can rebuild it again. It’s going to be a lot of hard work, but I can build it up there again. But the second time it’s going to be better than ever, because I didn’t know in the beginning, what I know now.

Chris Harder:

Yeah. It’s a brand new perspective, right? So I always like to call it for anyone who has their back against the wall right now. Listen. It won’t feel good right now. I’m not going to convince you that it will. It’s going to feel like garbage and you have to do some really rough things, but I promise you, you’re going to be able to look back on this time with such fondness and such appreciation.

It’s going to blow your mind. And I don’t expect you to believe me until you get there, but, but just trust me if you will. Here’s why when your back is against the wall, when you’ve got nowhere to go, but up, you get to choose again. You get to now with this new perspective that you just referenced, right?

Right. With this new perspective, with this new grit, with this new humility. you get to choose again. You get to choose how you want to show up. You get to choose how you want to add value to the world. You get to choose what type of life you want to build.

You get to choose who you want to do it with. And that my friend is a privilege. It’s a luxury. It’s an unexpected luxury of having your back against the wall is the ability to absolutely choose again.

Casanova Brooks:

Man. I love it. So for you coming out of this, right, and now you’re in this apartment and you’re trying to reinvent yourself and talk to me about like, was there, what was the one thing that you gravitated to?

Was it the Bible? Was it, did you like, for me, it was the first time that I understood that there was more out there when I was exposed to it as a young age. Um, because growing up in Chicago, like I never had that. So I was always exposed. In the TV world, but they would only show you this, like you said, the sexiness of banking.

Right. But it wasn’t until for me, I got exposed to the book of Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. So what was it for you that was like, listen, here’s how I can come out of this situation and gets a recreate myself and be better on the other side.

Chris Harder:

What a great question. It was two things. Uh, ironically, one of them was a book.

I’ll start there. The book was Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind by T Harv Eker. Somebody gave it to us and like, Hey, you gotta read this. And my wife and I read this thing out loud to each other chapter by chapter in bed each night before we went to bed one or two chapters. So when I was tired, she would read when she was tired, I would read the least sexy thing you can do.

But listen, this changed our lives because we were learning new things. Such as what’s a financial thermostat, what’s a ceiling. What are these patterns? And why do we have them? We’re learning new things. We’re learning them together. And that’s important to go on that journey together. So one does not pace the other one.

And so that was a huge formative peace in our life. It was that book. And I’ll tell you, because of that book, we always kept bumping up against this one number. When we thought we were successful. And that’s cause we had our financial thermostats that they’re growing up. We thought that was the Holy grail of numbers.

Right? Matter of fact, I’ll share it. I thought 300 grand in the Midwest 20 years ago, it was like the end all be all your rich life is great. Well, I read this book, I realized, wait, why aren’t we choosing a higher ceiling? Why aren’t we choosing a higher financial thermostat? Because it really is just a choice when you make a choice.

And I mean, when you really make a choice, not a wish, but a choice. And then you build a set of tracks working backwards from that choice. Man you can get there. And we went from completely restarting financially two, about 150 to 200 grand. I’ve got to go look up that year, the next year to over a million bucks the year after that because of resetting and choosing our, our new financial thermostat.

So that was one big shift. The other big shift was this. I had done no. Self-development up until this point in my life. And this, I was about 30 years old when this happened, right. 2008, 2009 crash. I had done no self development and my wife wanted to go to this weekend. It was a three day weekend where supposedly it was all self development.

You’re going to come out of there a different person. And I thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever heard of. The truth of the matter was I was probably just afraid of it. I went to this thing and I was so judgmental for the first day, and this is embarrassing, but I went in there and people had to get up and get a share why they’re there and share what some of their troubles were.

And they’d break down and cry and they’d get vulnerable right away from day one. And I remember sitting there and saying, well, I’m glad I don’t have their life. Whoa, glad I’m not like you, Whoa. You’re really messed up. That’s how I went into that thing. I came out of that thing three days later. A radically different person.

And that became the beginning of my self development journey that became the addiction to self development. And Laurie, my wife and I, we locked arms and we went full speed ahead, making sure that our life involved, lots of proactive self-development from then on.

Casanova Brooks:

Man. I love it. And again, I, I want to say to you kudos to you for being so transparent because a lot of people right now they’re in that exact struggle.

And even myself constantly, you have to be working on yourself to not have that self denial of whatever it is. It does not have to be your finances, but just like you said, I went in there thinking like, Oh, this is the dumbest thing ever. And naturally, if it’s not something that we are already in a sense of immune to, if it makes us get uncomfortable, our instant reaction is just to be like, Nope, this, that sounds dumb.

Like, I don’t need that. Right. And for me, I’ll never, if you’re not around self development at a young age, it’s very hard at even 27, 28. 25 years old. So now all of a sudden they start saying, Hey, I don’t know everything. And the biggest cancer is not knowing what you don’t know, because then you can never fix it.

Right? So you have to be constantly seeking and exposing. Um, I want to get into one part and I know this conversation is going to keep going. Great. You know, it’s a great Heights, but you talked about your wife and you reading together. Right. And, and being on the same page, and I want to know how much of a struggle was it, because if you’re supposed to be the breadwinner, right?

You said that’s the old money terms, right. Rather than being on a level, I’m supposed to be the person who brings home the bacon. And at the same time she’s going to cook it. But I gotta be the person who decides the baking or whatever else. That’s, that’s, you know, prehistoric. But in there, how did you all have a lot of challenges where, where it was like finger pointing to get to that point of where you guys were, because not only is it humiliating for you when your neighbors are looking at you and people are coming into your home, but then your wife is having to deal with that as well.

And now all of a sudden she has some sell some things and maybe she’s a little bit more emotional not saying she is, but then she’s like, you know what? This is all your fault. Like, was that a thing or was it like, no, we made our bed together. We’re going to be all together.

Chris Harder:

This is a fascinating question.

We were asked this question together on a podcast recently and they asked her, they said, did you feel betrayed? When he came home and said, Hey, surprise, we’ve been living beyond our means, none of this was really paid for. And we got to go restart in a really bad gritty way. Right. And she said, you know, I didn’t because deep down.

I knew two things. One I knew I was choosing to not be a part of the finances I was choosing to not look and number two. Mmm. My intuition told me, can we really afford all of this off of this type of income off of this type of job? She said, but I didn’t want to know the answer because I sure enjoyed it.

Hmm. And so she really took a big piece of ownership, even though the decisions were my fault. The, uh, running the finances was my fault. She would say, Hey, you sure we can get this? I’d say, sure, no problem. Look forward to payments easily. And I actually thought it at the time until the music stopped, right.

It was like a house of cards. Mmm. And so while the actions and the decisions were my fault, she actually took ownership of not being involved and not being a sounding voice in it. So I thought that was pretty cool. And there’s a neat lesson in there for everybody and going forward, you know, now we’ve both been very involved in the finances and in the businesses.

That was a big shift for her. I remember her looking at me saying, I am never, I’m gonna allow this to happen again. And not in a, in a bad way, like a suddenly empowered way. And that is when she began her career. And for those listening that may not know Laurie she’s had a massive growth way bigger and faster than then my career right now, her career was as a fitness celebrity that won tons of titles right away and had tons of covers of magazines and then became this huge self-development of personality and author.

And now she’s started a great big beverage company. Um, okay. That was all starting in that very moment when she said I’m never going to let this happen again. And she went to work. That was the first time she decided I’m going to go follow my dreams. So there’s a lot of beauty that came out of that situation.

Casanova Brooks:

Here’s what my thoughts are. And if she already was a big celebrity, right.

And she already had a lot of success in her industry, now you are. In a sense you’re the right hand, right? Not to say you all aren’t partners, but you’re the right hand. So she’s out in the spotlight and you’re supposed to be the protector and more ways than one. And all of a sudden, you know, you, in a sense it could be looked at as you let her down.

So now you’re figuring how do I figure this whole part out again? And then my question to that part would be. Did you, did you all decide to then have roles as in you know, like, did she say, okay, well, if I’m going to be out in the front running, here’s what I need you to take care of or was it like, no, we’re both going to try to do this together because it can be hard when we’re trying to create the success over again, but then manage it.

Chris Harder:

I want to be clear on the timeline. So she had not done anything until we lost everything. And that became the moment that she said I’m going to go become who I was meant to become. Right. So that was the catalyst and here’s, this is such a good question. So here’s how the roles, all of a sudden switched. I felt defeated.

I lost my swagger. I lost my confidence because I had a BS image of what was important as a provider. You gotta understand. I thought a provider was someone who create a situation where their wife didn’t have to work. I thought a provider was someone who created a situation where their wife had really nice things.

I thought a provider was somebody who said. Um, no, you don’t, no, you go have a good life. I’m going to work and that’s messed up a provider is some of that provides security and communication. And here’s where I really had it wrong, provides the opportunity for their significant other to go do what makes them happy as well.

Right. Right. And I had all that backwards. And so all of a sudden our roles got reversed. Mmm. She went to work, so to speak, rolling up her sleeves and becoming who she became and because I’d lost my swagger, my confidence. And everything because I was slowly choosing again and figuring out who I wanted to be this next time I spent a long time just being the supporting role, doing the pieces of the, of the job that she wasn’t good at yet and staying in the background.

And that was great for a few years, until all of a sudden I got bored of being in the background. I realized I was born to be in the front ground and I started to get my swagger back and I started to get my confidence back. I started to get that hunger back or for a few years, she was the breadwinner.

All of a sudden, instead of me. Right. And I was the supporting cast and I remember I’m actually loving it. I remember being grateful for it. I remember being impressed and loving watching her go out there and absolutely kick-butt, listen to all the men and women listening out there. Guys, if you’re afraid of a powerful woman or of a woman that makes a lot of money, or of a woman is super talented because you think you’re not going to be needed.

You got it all wrong because there is nothing better for your marriage. There’s nothing better for your relationship. Then when the other person is fully in their zone and fully owning their capabilities, because now they’re happier, they feel more valuable. And in return, they show up differently in a relationship, making the relationship happier and more valuable and not to mention.

You should be grateful if you have a woman or a significant other, that is just an absolute badass income creating machine, right? You should empower that you, that should be exciting to you, right. If you’re a true partnership.

Casanova Brooks:

Man. I love it. I was the same way. Like I was in the beginning, I was the breadwinner.

Right. And that was everything. And I was always trying a new idea. My wife does not come from a background of entrepreneurship, right. Her parents have always worked at the jobs that they’ve had, things like that. But after I lost like my mom, my job, and we lost our home, not only was my wife. Supporting me emotionally, but now she was supporting me financially as well.

So just like you said, I felt defeated. Right? And it became that’s when you really know that you have a partner that’s with you to stay because they will step up. Right. And they won’t say, Hey, no, you made this. You’re going to get us out of this. When they say, listen, it’s time for me to roll up my sleeves.

My family needs me. That’s when you know, you truly have a superwoman. On your hands. So I love that you brought that part up. And then the other part of this is having a daughter, having someone that’s younger, that looks up to that.

About nine, 10 months ago, we opened up a daycare center, right? 7,500 square feet, sh but kids have always been her passion. And so my daughter goes there, but it’s so great because now when my daughter grows up, she’ll not only see, Oh, dad had to go to work. Dad was working, but mom did it too. And mom didn’t just go work for someone else.

She figured out a way to, to live through her dreams, to her passions, through her goals. So I can do it too. So I would say for any male out there, just to piggyback off of what you said, if you’re afraid of that, understand that if you have a goddaughter, if you have a daughter, you have a granddaughter. If you even just have younger brothers and sisters, they are looking up at someone who can be just like them, who they can be just like.

And so that’s really essential. And I’m glad that you brought that part up because it’s not just the males, you know, you have to be thinking about other people. There’s someone out there that wanted to see Laurie go out and do that because it let them know that it was possible and it gave them permission.

Chris Harder:

Man, that is such a great point. You’re always starting a positive chain reaction because people are looking or you’re starting a negative chain reaction because people are looking and these chain reactions they’re started accidentally. You don’t realize you’re starting it, but no different than let’s say you’re in line at a coffee shop and you buy someone’s coffee for the person behind you.

Like, Oh, that’s cool. I’ll buy it for the person behind me and then behind them. And it goes like 80 people long. We’ve all heard this story a hundred times. The same thing happens in life. Right. So when. Your daughter or God daughter or another woman sees your wife, absolutely kicking butt and sees a man that supports that and is excited by that.

It gives them permission to grow up and do the same. And then it gives their friends permission to grow up and do the same and so on and so on. And that’s one of those positive chain reactions that actually creates meaningful change.

Casanova Brooks:

Man. I love it. That’s the word right there. We don’t need to go any further into it.

I think that you summed it up beautifully. Um, I, a hundred percent agree in everything that you just said now, fast forwarding it. You, you then started to have a change of mindset when it comes to money. Right.

Positive propaganda

And a lot of people they’re struggling with how to have this, especially, you know, in, let’s say the, uh, poverty stricken communities.

Right. It’s just that you don’t talk about money. It’s definitely heavy in the black community, but I would say overall, you know, in any community that you’re in, you don’t talk about money. If you don’t have a lot of money, you’re very secretive of it. And so how did you start to not only learn it yourself, but more importantly, how were you able to help other people?

If somebody right now is thinking, how can I learn about how to face money, the money challenges, like what’s the first step that you would take that you would tell them to take, to be able to get their finances in order.

Chris Harder:

I love this. So step one is awareness. It’s literally what you just said. It’s that inner urge that says, wait a minute, I want something different.

Wait a minute. This is not how I want to live. Wait a minute. I don’t want to be scared by money, or I don’t want this to be taboo or I don’t want this to be uncomfortable. So step one is totally awareness. Step two then is going out there and finding what I call positive propaganda. So what’s negative propaganda or the term propaganda typically means something negative, right?

Positive propaganda is information that reinforces how you want to feel and how you want to believe. Hmm. And so you start seeking out books, you start seeking out podcasts, you start seeking out, um, YouTube channels. You start seeking out inspirational. People like yourself. That will start to reinforce what you want to believe is possible, how you want to feel about money.

And as you start seeking this information out, you’re gonna find more and more and more and more cause you get what you look for and look what happens. Now you’re starting to tilt the scales in your favor and you’re starting to change the most influential individuals on you from this is the important part you referenced growing up in a neighborhood or in a family where money is taboo and not talked about.

Right. Well now, by being around people even digitally that are talking about it openly and honestly, and vulnerably. Now you’re changing the inf who has an influence on you. I’ll give an example. If you listen to your mom and dad, four hours a day, talk about money off and on. If you add it up, that it’s your job to go listen to podcasts, books on audio, YouTube channels, four and a half hours a day.

It’s your job to go tilt the scales of positive propaganda in your favor and listen. Here’s my favorite part about right now, this time that we live in, you don’t need to pay a coach right out of the Gates. You don’t need to buy someone’s course right out of the Gates. We live in a time where there is enough free information to consume, to radically change your life.

at least get a good start and a lot of momentin changing your mindset and your habits around money. And then once you get that going, once you get that steam rolling, then buy the course, then get the coach. But I’m telling you the barrier to entry has never been lower than it is right now to get this type of education by just starting to Google and starting to surround yourself with this positive propaganda.

Positive propaganda

Casanova Brooks:

Absolutely it YouTube university, right? It’s taught us so many things. You can learn everything now. Yes. And the thing that I tell people all the time is I think that mentorship is huge, but for me, I’ll be honest. I didn’t grow up with mentorship because it took me a while to. Just like you, I felt out of place.

I felt like I was a big dreamer when I was young, but especially when I got to the age of, I would say 20 and I’m 32 now. Um, so I, when I got to the age of about 26, 27, there was no one. Who was doing the things that I really aspire to do. Right. So all of that was still like the TV. Like I never saw my parents never owned house, car, business, nothing.

So I didn’t know that that was really possible. I was going on YouTube and they’re talking about this, but it gave me enough foundation after I saw enough people talking about it. Just like you said, to really start to change my mindset, to say, Hey, this is possible because I couldn’t go back to my mom or my grandma because they never owned it.

So why don’t you go find somebody who actually has that? And at least just like you said, like if you’re listening to them for four hours, go listen for four and a half hours to someone else. Because the best thing that we have as human beings is the ability to have an opinion and a perspective. Yeah.

Chris Harder:

Yep.

New Rules Of Money + Real Estate

Casanova Brooks:

Right. And so if we could just find like a different perspective, it allows us in our minds to question what potentially could be the norm and you add the ability to have your own opinion.

Chris Harder:

Yeah. And once you go down that rabbit hole, right, it just gets crazy. You first you crack the door open. You’re like, wait a minute.

There might be a different way of believing and you open the door more like, Whoa, look at all these things. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know. And then you just go down that rabbit hole and you go crazy learning. Right. And that’s the idea. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Um, I’ve got a, I’ve got a totally free resource.

Um, if people want to go down that rabbit hole, they can go to fortheloveofmoney.com/free. I mean, literally free, no strings attached, no anything. And it’s a whole bunch of video trainings on the new rules about money, because listen, you mentioned ma and PA and grandma and everybody.

Here’s the truth of the matter people that loved us, taught us how to think and behave with money. And they meant well, but they were not qualified to teach on this teachers, coaches, neighbors, parents, aunts, uncles. They thought they were doing the right thing and they were passing down information that they got from their parents.

But the problem is one, they were not qualified. Two. They were passing down, out dated information. I’ll give, can I give you example?

Casanova Brooks:

Absolutely.

Chris Harder:

A what I refer to the, the new rules of money. I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up and most people I know growing up, they were taught, rush out and buy a home.

Home ownership is the American dream is the best investment you’ll ever make. Now. It sounds good. And the reason why people fall for this is they hear the stories where mom or dad or grandma and grandpa bought the home in 1976 for 75 grand. And here it is 2020, and it’s worth 700 grand. They’re like, look at this, my money went from 75 grand to today. It’s worth 700 grand.

When you do the math that way, it makes sense. The problem is what they’re not factoring in. Is the average appreciation of a home across the nation. Understand that the different pocket by pocket, since the time they’ve been tracking this, taking an account for every single boom, every single bust, every single bubble, every single you name it, the average appreciation has been 4% a year, year over year, over year.

Sounds okay. Right? Here’s the problem. What people don’t share with you when they show that example about the home going from 75 grand to 700 grand and you know, 30 years later, But they don’t share with you is that while your home might be appreciating at four or five, 6% a year, they don’t share with you that you’re leaking nine, 10, 11, 12% out the back door in taxes, in interest, in repairs, in maintenance, in insurance, in all of these inefficiencies that they forget to factor in when they’re bragging that their home went from X to Y in value.

Right. Here’s the other thing they don’t factor in. Inflation. Inflation goes up about two and a half percent per year. So the value of a dollar loses two and a half percent value per year. Right? So that’s 700 grand that they’re so excited about in the same dollars as when they bought that home might only be about 275 to 300 grand.

Hmm. So what they’re really saying without saying, without realizing it, if they truly did the math, they’re saying they waited 30 years. For their investment to go from, not even counting the 9% leaking out the back door, their investment to go from seven, um, 70 grand to like really only 300. If we had deducted for inflation, that’s all very inefficient, a means of investing over the course of 30 years, because if you track the actual stock market and here’s something that most of us aren’t taught since the inception of the stock market, it’s gone up.

With every bubble with every bust accounted for, it’s gone up approximately 10 to 11% per year, year over year, over year with no insurance, no mortgage, no interest in anything. And so you can actually reach this tipping point where if you would just rent and put a few hundred dollars a month difference between renting and owning into a low fee index fund that in about 15 years.

You’d have enough extra money to go pay cash for a home. And that’s when you should buy a home. I’m not anti homeownership. Hmm. I am anti rush out and buy it right away as soon as you can as your best investment, because that part is not true. And so here’s the track. The whole point of it is this, the whole point is I watched a young couple after a young couple rush out and buy that home because they’re told is the best thing to do.

And then the furnace goes out. And because they bought a home right up to what they could barely afford. Now it goes on the credit card and then the roof leaks, and it goes on a credit card and the basement leaks, and it goes on a credit card. Right. And they want to redecorate and it goes on a credit card and now they can’t figure out why they can’t get ahead.

It’s because of the unexpected unaccounted for expenses leaking out the back door of that home. So that’s just one of them, a million different, new rules of money that we weren’t taught growing up.

Casanova Brooks:

Right? No, I love that. And I love that you gave strategy behind, like what’s the solution on it for me, I always tell people because I’m in the real estate world, I do believe in home ownership, but I always tell people that you have to buy right.

Right. And buying right is really huge. And the same thing I’ve even told my wife, and many people who I’ve come in contact with, if you have a lot of equity in your home. Right. And it’s just sitting there, it’s essentially just like monopoly money. Right. So you have to, if you are going to buy a house because you want this home right away, you don’t want to rent.

Things like that. Um, that’s totally fine, but you have to one make sure that you buy the house. Right. And then you go get an investment. Right? The other way that I teach a lot of people, especially young, where you don’t have any kids yet is doing something where you’re buying a multiunit home, right.

Buying three to four units.

Chris Harder:

Yes. So here’s, here’s where ego gets in the way. Yeah. Well, here’s where you and I probably totally align on this. I’m all for people rushing out and getting to duplex. I’m all for people rushing out and getting even a home that they’re not going to live in and rent out. If they rush out and get an income producing property, right.

By all means get like the pedal to the metal, get out there buy that income producing property. the reason why that is different is now somebody else is paying that 9%. That’s leaking out the backdoor or a good portion of it. And you’re going to wake up with an asset that somebody else paid for. That’s why it’s a good idea to get an early start on real estate in an income producing property.

Not in your main property where there’s nobody to offset. What’s leaking out the back door there and you’re right. It’s such a timing thing, because if you talk to somebody who bought in 2012, their home’s gone up quite a bit right now, they feel like it’s the best investment ever. Right. Talk to somebody that bought in 2007.

And then you talked to them in 2009. They think it’s the worst thing that they’ve ever done. Right? So it’s such a timing thing and timing things really at the end of the day are gambling. So if you’re going to buy that home, buy it when it makes sense to buy it, when you can truly afford buy that home.

And in the meantime, if you want real estate, get out there and get some income producing real estate, that’s going to pay for itself and even cashflow a little bit.

New Rules Of Money + Real Estate

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, we definitely align on that. I thought that’s what I tell people all the time. You make your money when you buy, not when you sell.

Right. And you said income producing cashflow, right? Cashflow is King because a lot of the times people are only banking off of the appreciation, the present. Oh yeah. Well, my grandparents did it just like you said, so 15 years from now, it’s going to be great. Well, you might go, let’s say for the first seven or eight years, just like you said, if somebody bought this home in 2000, Then all of a sudden 2007, 2008 hits, and then they lose 30, 40, 70% of what they thought they had in the appreciation, maybe even more.

And now all of a sudden they have to rebuild that all over again, and they never had any cashflow, you know, on top of that. So now they’ve put so much stuff on credit cards, just like you said. So having that knowledge, which I, a thousand percent agree with, we were never taught these things and we still aren’t.

The kids now in school, they’re not being taught about assets, appreciation, taxes, liabilities. They’re not, they’re being taught about history and things like that, which is great. And it has its place, but that does not help you with understanding how to balance a checkbook, how to separate your taxes in a different bank account, all these other things, which is the real day to day life that we all deal with.

Once you get out of college or whatever it is that you’re doing that trade school.

Yeah, man. I totally agree with you. It’s and this is to almost come full circle.

Money and shame

This is why everyone listening needs to decide if you want a better life, if you want a different life, or if you want a different relationship with your finances, then you need to go crack that door open and see what do I not know that I don’t know.

And start Googling and start looking and start finding this new way of thinking and behaving with money that was not taught to you or passed down. Growing up. Cause listen, you referenced how you grew up and you said, uh, especially in black communities, a lot of times it’s not talked about even in white communities.

There’s a lot of shame around money. I, when I speak in front of like auditoriums of people, I’ll stand up there and I’ll say, okay, you can only raise your hand once. And I want you guys to decide what sounds grosser to you, sex. Or being rich. And so everyone that thinks the word sex sounds, you know, gross.

Do you raise your hand and not that many people raise your hand. Everyone that thinks the word rich sounds gross to you. more than half the auditorium. They raised their hand. Hmm. White community black community, we’ve been taught to be shameful around our desire to become rich, to talk about money, state out loud, what we want.

And growing up, I had the same experience I grew up in your average Midwestern middle-class. Professional white family. Right. And even in that family where they we’re encouraging about going after my dreams and, and meant well and loved me really well, when I would say, Hey, how much does dad make? I’d hear it’s none of your business.

Hmm. Or I would hear them say things about the neighbors who got this new Mercedes and they’re just leasing it to look good, or I’d hear them say things, you know, that like, we’d come across somebody with a, a lot more money and you’d hear them say something like, ah, you know what they say, more money, more problems.

And these are damaging statements.

It is

Chris Harder:

We don’t realize how damaging, but these are, cause it as a kid, this becomes a part of your DNA. And what do you start to believe? Rich people are greedy. I wouldn’t want to be greedy. I’m a good person. When you start to need more money, more problems. Well, I don’t want more problems.

I want less problems. these. The statements form how you think and behave with money subconsciously. And we all end up fighting a battle that was stacked against us.

Casanova Brooks:

Man that, and that’s so big. And just the thing, when you ask them, if you you asked the average person like, Hey, how much is your car payment?

They won’t tell you. Right. And I know, especially in the black community, they mind your business. Right. It doesn’t matter. But on the backside of that, let’s say that, you know, a banker, right. Or, you know, someone who does refinances, like a credit union or something like that. If they’re like, Hey, I’m at. 400, $400, $500.

And I got 6%, you know, they’re not thinking it on the backside. You might be offering a solution to say, Hey, I was just asking you, cause I got a, you know, a similar situation and I was able to go get 2.75 with my credit union. You should maybe check them out, but it’s because like you said, we’ve been so taught to be secretive on it.

Like mind your business. It’s none of your business. But then it keeps us in our own hole. And then subconsciously, when someone else asks us, if we don’t already have that foundation, same thing that we’re going to say, like, why are you in my business? Why do you care was because we don’t open ourselves up.

So now we can ever go out and get the knowledge because we think that we already have the best solution. Yeah.

Chris Harder:

And you can’t fix what you don’t talk about when you’re, when you’re ashamed of something and you step it down and you hide it, it’ll be impossible to fix it. Hmm. And so when we start taking shame away from anything, to be honest, When we start taking shame away from anything that’s, when people will talk about it, you realize people have solutions for you.

People have better ideas, better ways of thinking and everything could get a lot better really quickly. If we start taking away shame around any of these subjects.

Money and shame

Casanova Brooks:

Right. I love it. So I know that we’re coming to the end here, and this has been such a super dope conversation. We will have you back again for another part where at I’m sure it’s going to go even more in depth on so many of these topics that are necessary to talk about.

But one thing that I want to know and something that I’m always curious about is know what you know now, right?

The 2 secrets to success

You’ve been through a hell of a journey over these last 20 years. Um, If there was one thing that you could sup, if there’s one tip that you could give, what would be that tip to be able to get to where you are now from where you were at your lowest point and, and just figuring out how exactly you scaled, um, knowing what you know now

Chris Harder:

Got two of them. Okay. Can I give two?

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Harder:

The first one is easy. Ego is your greatest overhead. And what I mean by that is ego will cost you to cause you to buy things that you shouldn’t yet. Like I did back when I was younger, ego will cause you to speak up when you shouldn’t costing you relationships and opportunities, but ego will also do the reverse.

No, cause you to not speak up when you should, because you’re afraid of being judged. And you’re afraid that someone might say what you have to say is, is wrong or is dumb. And then you miss out opportunities. That way ego will always cost you more. Then any other bad decision in life. And so at the earliest age possible, if you can decide to just do you, and if you can decide to not care, what other people think, and if you can choose to mitigate to set aside ego, everything else in life becomes exponentially less expensive because you’re not constantly pulling yourself backwards.

From a place of operating from ego that’s number one, number two, is this, um, giving. Is hands down the secret to everything you want. Hm. And I mean everything. So you want a better relationship. Give more to it, give more presence to it. Give more time to it. Want a better body. Give more to your workouts, give better fuel to it.

You want a better bank account. Give more to your investments. Give more to your investment properties. Give more effort to want a better business. Give more to your customers, right. Serve them better. Serve them more consistently. And. Then the good old fashion giving you want more happiness. You want to feel more important and more abundant, then give to other people because it signals to yourself that you have excess to give, even if it’s a buck, right?

Giving is truly the secret to absolutely everything you want. And from a logical standpoint, people want to do business with people that they see are giving. And so you’re just naturally you gonna find better business partners, better customers, better people to collaborate with when you show up as a giving individual.

The 2 secrets to success

Casanova Brooks:

Man. I love it. Both of those are so critical in life and it clearly shows why you were able to come back and come back with a force because you understand the power of relationships. That’s all I heard, you know, as we’ve been talking these last. 40 minutes. It’s been how much that you have focused on relationships, not only your, your marriage relationship, but the relationship of how you could serve other people, how you could give this information out, you know, the links that we will put in the show notes, but all of this has been amazing. For someone out there.

That’s listening right now. That’s very inspired by you, right? And they want to blaze their own path like you’ve done. Right. But they have this little voice in their head. This little voice that maybe says that they’re not strong enough, they’re not smart enough. Or maybe they just don’t have enough resources or knowledge.

Right now. What’s the one thing that you say to that person to get them to just take action.

Chris Harder:

Great question. What you do in the privacy of your head is a safe space. And so if you want to just go learn one thing today, if you wanna question one way that you think if you want to discover one new behavior, one new habit, and you do it in the privacy of your own head, go learn something, go put on a podcast, could put on a book.

That is the safest space that you can start without worrying about anybody judging, what are you doing? Are you getting into something weird? That is a safe space where you can start to change your life from the inside out. Hmm.

Casanova Brooks:

I love it. I love it. You gotta be real with yourself. First. You’ve got to have the awareness, like you’ve said a couple of times, you’ve got to have that awareness to understand that you are meant for greatness, but it takes one step and you got to find a safe space if that’s what you need, because you’re worried about being judged.

So, man, it’s been a phenomenal time here and I look forward to having you on again for the people that want to stay connected with you. Where can they find you at.

Chris Harder:

So Instagram is the platform I’m hanging out on the most. These days, they could find me a @chriswharder. I’ve actually made a commitment that no matter how big the audience gets, I promise to answer every single business question that slides into the DMS.

So feel free to send me a business question and one more place that I would actually love for people to find us for their benefit. Is, uh, we’re giving away small business grants. My wife, Lori and I committed to giving away $20,000 in small business grants over the course of 10 weeks. And if they text the word GRANT to, (310) 421-0416.

Um, they’ll get a quick application, takes two minutes to fill out and everyone’s in it. We give away to business grants to two deserving solopreneurs mom and pop shops. You name it. And that’s one of the most fun ways of giving it we’ve ever done. Man.

Casanova Brooks:

I love it. And we will make sure that we put those links in the show notes.

But again, my man, thank you for coming on. It’s been a pleasure to have you you’ve dropped so much valuable information. We look forward to having you back again and really diving into the world of business and how you’ve been able to build, you know, seven and eight figure businesses, but remember Dream Nation, in the dream we trust, but we always must take action.

I think that Chris has showed us. What it means when you first identify, you know, what the problems that you have, where you’re bleeding in life, and then you also make a plan to go after it and you make a plan to edge out your ego. Right? And, and so many other things that you have just exposed us to, to understand how you know that we can really succeed in life.

Chris Harder:

Listen, a pleasure has been all mine and don’t forget, you’re going to be on my show. So everyone listening, you got tune in and listen to us flip the script here, because it’s going to be fun to find out everything about you and the way that you think and the way that you add value.

So totally my pleasure, my pleasure, and my privilege.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, for sure. My man, we’re just getting started. So thanks again. Dream Nation, remember in the dream we trust, but we must take action. We’ll see you on the next one!