Episode Full Transcript

Length: 01:08:49
Host: Patrick Francey
Guest: Garrett Gunderson

• [0:00] Patrick Francey

  Hi there, and welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Podcast. My name is Patrick Francey, and I am your host. And I want to begin by saying, thank you for listening on this show. I am having conversations with seemingly ordinary individuals who have achieved some amazing and extraordinary results in both their life and business, my intention is to inspire and help you learn and grow by having my guests share their journey of how they face and overcome their challenges, but also how they celebrate their many wins. And now, let’s get on with this show and have a conversation with today’s guest. Most people think that the goal is to make more money, generate more revenue, more cash flow, more assets, more net worth, but here’s the question that very few people stop to ask, and that is, What is the money actually for? Because if wealth costs you your health, your marriage, your kids, or your peace of mind, then it may not be wealth at all, it may just be a very expensive distraction. My guest today, Garrett Gunderson, has spent his career helping entrepreneurs keep more of the money they make without cutting back on the life that they say they want to live. And in this conversation, we go much deeper than tax strategies or just investment planning. Garrett is an entrepreneur, an author, speaker, and the creator of wealth frameworks, including the Rockefeller method and family legacy planning. He’s authored 10 books, built and rebuilt businesses. He’s made and lost money. He’s recovered from hard lessons and learned firsthand that money is a powerful tool, but a very dangerous master. And in this conversation, we talk about what entrepreneurs often miss. Why legacy is about more than leaving assets behind, and how family values and financial structure need to work together, combined with why purpose matters more than passive income. We’re going to delve into the question of how you create money without letting money become the thing that defines you. Having said all of that, let’s get this show started. Listen in, enjoy. Garrett Gunderson, welcome to the Everyday Millionaire podcast. Thanks for joining me.

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  [2:15] Garrett Gunderson

  Thanks for having me. Yeah, no,

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  [2:17] Patrick Francey

  I’m gonna go. I’m gonna stick with my traditional openings, Garrett, and when I look at bios, there never seem to be quite what’s up to speed and up to date, so I dial in and open with a question that’s pretty simple. when somebody walks up and says, “Garrett, what do you do? What’s your answer these days? You’ve had a lot going on, but what do you do these days?

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  [2:39] Garrett Gunderson

  Yeah, I help entrepreneurs keep a lot of money that they make without having to cut back, so we’re really good at saving tax and interest, and finding non-performing investment fees, and redesigning insurance, so they have more cash flow, so you fit, independent, and free.

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  [2:52] Patrick Francey

  Is that normally, what you just described? There is somebody that has money, or somebody has a portfolio, somebody who’s maybe done okay. What I guess I’m getting to is that is that part of building up to that is you on that journey, or does that word you enter what you do?

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  [3:09] Garrett Gunderson

  Yeah, like we don’t really work with a startup that’s pre revenue, that’s not really our expertise. But what I think we’ve done a good job of is if someone’s doing 350,000 of revenue, we can start working with them, where most financial firms want you to have a lot more money. In that, we don’t care about how many assets they have to manage. We consider them the asset, and if we can improve their cash flow, they can build those assets more effectively. But I think a lot of them get financial people that get them to rob money from their business to put things and lock it away and things they don’t understand. So we really want to help them grow that first, and then just have one asset class, they could trigger that business wealth and turn it to personal wealth. So, I pride ourselves, I pride myself in the fact that we can really help entrepreneurs on the way up, not just the ones that are already successful.

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  [3:51] Patrick Francey

  Now, are you going into those conversations? Are you solving problems up front? Is that how you’re entering that, or somebody reaching out to you and saying, “Hey, something doesn’t seem quite right, I think we should be doing better, and we’re not. Why are they actually connecting with you?

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  [4:05] Garrett Gunderson

  Yeah, like happens through a few ways, but the two most popular ways are I might speak somewhere, or they might hear me on a podcast, or something like that, or read one of my books, and then they can get into a discovery session, which is a one on one, where they’re like they know they need to do better with their finances, that discovery uncovers like where they at, where they set, not set, or is their financial confidence, are they paying too much in tax, they have their asset protection done right. And then we do report of findings that says here’s everywhere we can improve, and 60% of those people hire us, and then some of them just take that to their existing financial team, or they’re just not ready because of timing. And then the second way is we do these wealth building, wealth breakthrough experiences, and we create these little cohorts of like 30 people, and I just did one this week where we did full three hours with them on Tuesday night, going through where they set financially, not set, where’s their blind spots, where could they improve their cash. Low, what are ways they could save tax, save interest, all that stuff over three hours, answer their questions. There’s a nice intake, and then they get a roadmap afterwards that’s happening right now, where they get that one on one, and that’s another way that they would come into the program. But we get a lot of referrals. I have a lot of people that have a group of people that they’re like, hey, this is the firm that you should go to, and they’re consistently referring to us, and yeah, I have 10 books I’ve written, so three of them do a lot of the heavy lifting of letting people know what’s going on and who we are and helping them out to get to know

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  [5:30] Patrick Francey

  us. So, tell me a little bit about your journey to get where you are. this is, I don’t want to call it heavy or heady, but it’s, you’re really getting into the weeds and getting into the technical stuff, but how did you get to this process? Because again, you’ve written books, you’re a comedian, or.. and you used to do that at some level professionally. How do you get so..

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  [5:53] Garrett Gunderson

  it’s the only way to be the funniest comedian in my categories would be the only one, like. yeah.

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  [6:00] Patrick Francey

  So, your comedy was around finance, or what?

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  [6:04] Garrett Gunderson

  So the one that’s on Amazon Prime, called The American Ream, which Canadians can definitely watch. There’s some good Canadian jokes in there, as we have to do to our neighbors. But yeah, that was around money. I’m making fun of, debt and crypto, I’m making fun of tax, I make in front of insurance, I’m making fun of just our whole viewpoint. And then there’s a lot of personal stories about just things my kids actually said, or things that happened that way, and what that’s like. But yeah, that’s a money comedy, essentially. Is the opening joke is money. Whoever thought six inches could be so destructive, it’s like no girl, no girl I ever dated, yeah. So it’s like just right out there, and I’ve just loved comedy since I was five years old, because my mom had an infectious laugh, my dad’s got an amazing dry sense of humor, all my uncles on both sides of the family are hysterical, and that always felt like family and love and connection. So it’s always in the back of my head, I always told jokes in high school when we got family stuff, my time was in college. I told inappropriate jokes, and even my – I’m from Utah, so I got half my family was Mormon. My Mormon grandma loved him, the dirtier the better, which I found hysterical. Then the other side of family was like seven day a week Catholics, right? Like Knights of Columbus volunteer for everything, but it’s the only time I could swear and get away with it, and that was that was where that comedy thing came from, because I sold a business and had a little bit space in between that business and what I’m doing now, but it all, my whole business life started really when I was 15, because I was playing sports, but I want to have a job, my dad’s like, “You can’t really do both, but he was a coal miner, and he’d have these surface vehicles that, when the bosses would come in, he’d bring them home and clean them. My dad’s just like one of those, like, go the extra mile guys, taking care of, like, every time we went to my grandparents’ house, he’s cleaning their vehicles, he’s taking care of their yard, just like, just one of the best people on the planet. And so he showed me, and then he’s like, “Hey, if you get good grades, you’ll get this 75 Chevy pickup truck. I’m from a small coal mining town, those are like, gun racks, and your girlfriend’s sitting next to you, like that was that was the vehicle, and so I started cleaning up and fixing up, getting really great grades, and he’s like, you could probably start detailing some of the vehicles for the, for the, the miners, and I was like, that’d be great, and then my mom worked at a credit union, and I knew the president, because that’s friends with his daughter, I said, hey, you guys repossess vehicles, could I clean them? So I learned about income statements and balance sheets from, someone at the school district. I had a teacher that took interest in me and helped me get in these business competitions, and I won money as a teenager that I thought was a huge amount, $5,000. I’m going, oh my god, like I remember them handing me the check, and I’m going, like, dude, did anyone else make that money right now? I need now. I see how naive it is, but I thought, and like any teenager, I want to invest that money, because I want to get out of a small town, man. I want to get to the big city, which was to me, Salt Lake City, seemed intimidating. Now it seems small that I live here, but I wanted to invest that money. But I was not old enough to do it without a custodian, and my mom said, ‘what the hell you’re doing? I’m not signing off on this. keep it in the CD. My family put cash in coffee cans and put in the seller, so that is CD, even seemed risky.

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  [9:05] Garrett Gunderson

  So that got me in the financial services industry by the time I was 19. And, as sounds like, oh yeah, financials. I was a product peddler, I didn’t know squat. They just taught me how to sell, and I just brought family and friends into the office, so that they could buy products, mutual funds, life insurance, and then the year 2000 the market starts really going down, and that’s when my journey began. That’s when I was like, okay, at a professor that was a municipal bond fund manager, before being a professor, managed $5 billion was the number one in his categories. Started learning from him, got so good that I actually was able to get him to be a client on one strategy I knew that he didn’t, that I figured out, just, yeah, so it was like that was the beginning, humble beginnings, but amazing parents that love me, encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do, and helped me start a business, and then I got in the money world, which my grandparents and my parents were my first two clients, so I just had a.. I’m fortunate. Enough, that I just have a really phenomenal family, still live close to them. My parents are still alive, along with my in-laws. That’s probably where I’m luckiest. The is the family that I have, you know.

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  [10:11] Patrick Francey

  So, you focus.. I don’t want to say you do, but part of the services you provide is accommodating and thinking about those families that want to create legacy, financial legacy for their families. Interesting, you know. I just had a Frank Stronach on my show, and he’s a multi billionaire, one of the few Canadian billionaires, owns Magna, which is a big automotive distributor. But my point is, is that his, he spent a lot of time over the years, he’s 94 years old now. I interviewed him at, he’s 94 little sticky, but he’s on his game, so it’s very, very interesting to see that. But he talked a lot about family legacy, and it was all about legacy. So, when you’re having conversations with your clients about legacy, do you see common threads of oversights, or what people are missing or what they aren’t doing. you talk about the strategies that you have, so you must have developed strategies because of consistent misses that you’re seeing.

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  [11:11] Garrett Gunderson

  Well, I wrote a book called What Would the Rockefellers Do, and it’s a pretty popular book, you know. It’s got 2800 organic reviews on Amazon, sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and what happened was I just, had an attorney that was like telling me about this Rockefeller method, so I started diving into it, but I was in the middle of writing a book at the time, and as I was writing the book, I did a webinar, and one of the accountants, the CPA for the Rockefeller family office, was on learning for herself, reached out, and she was like, ‘Hey, this is what the Rockefellers do. And I, in that moment, I was like, ‘With my long hair, when I was younger, people would just say, what would Garrett do, like in reference to what would Jesus do? Because the long hair, and I’m too great, I’d probably be referenced like that. But some people think, ‘Man, what would the Rockefellers do? Then I was went down this like path of, like, I want to, I want to figure this out. What do they do? And, and I just got a lot of good insight, good people, good advice, and yeah, I’ve seen a lot of people that have made mistakes, and I talked to a lot of attorneys where they would talk about the commonalities and the issues that people would have, so what I established was this thing called the family legacy rings, and so the first piece is a family office, now the Rockefellers were so wealthy that they could afford their own financial team that only worked for them. There’s billionaires, maybe the guy you interviewed has his own family office just for him, right? Those are not many people can afford that these days. I talked to two, I spoke at an event with 20 family offices a couple years ago, which meant everyone in the room was a billionaire, but me and the person hosting, I think, little nervous, because, yeah, it was. I did comedy and content for these billionaires, but one of them was spending $19 million a year on their family office, and the other one was spending $23 million So, it’s like that’s pretty out of reach for most people. So, there’s now a thing called the multifamily office, where you don’t have to have as much money, then you have one cohesive team that might work with 100 different clients, instead of just one family, or there’s fractional or virtual family offices where you still have a team that communicates and they coordinate and they, and they like make sure that everything’s working together, and that’s who we are, so that way we can serve a lot more people, especially people on the way up, aren’t as complicated, so that’s the first piece of people that have a coordinated financial team, they typically just have things that don’t go into a trust, and then they pay more tax than they need, and if you don’t have a trust, what’s going to happen is you’re going to have to pay, you might have to pay taxes, you might have to have it go through the court system, and all your assets become public knowledge, so that’s not the only mistake, some people have a trust, but they have what I call a trust, where they divide the assets at a certain age of their kids, and then they distribute it, at another time, and then it’s all out there to be destroyed, you know. Divide, distribute, destroy is the plan that a lot of people follow. They go, “Oh, when my son turns 30, he gets a third, and when he turns 30-five, he gets a third, when he turns 40. I’m like, well, when did you stop making financial mistakes? Like, do you think that’s what if they’re going through a divorce or a health challenge or not in a good place or don’t haven’t found their purpose? So, I like the 3p protect, preserve, and perpetuate. have.. and that’s the next two pieces of the family legacy rings, is a family retreat structure. A family retreat, like if we look at any major organization that has stood the test of time, we can look at religions that have stood the trust of time.

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  [14:25] Garrett Gunderson

  corporations, they have three things in common: rituals, these are like daily huddles or regular meetings, or, whatever it is, like going to church, like those rituals that happen pretty frequently. Then they have traditions that happen less frequently that are bigger a deal that bring people together, and then finally they have symbols, symbols like every business has a logo, but a lot of families don’t have that family crest. So we actually build family mission statements, family crests, we build family values, and turn those into like mottos, so they’re not just words, but there’s something like my kids still reference at 18 and 21 our creed. And our mottos, because it’s like, hey, we have each other’s back, we hug and kiss, disagree, and say goodbye, and so, like, it’s a way to show action with the values, and then finally, the third part of this is a family constitution. Family constitution is in your own words, before the trust begins, what are the signposts and guardrails, and what do you want to make sure that you send as a message to the next generation. Do you want to help a partial funding for a business? Do you want to do down payments for, the first house that they buy? Do you want to cover weddings? Do you want to cover, retreats, or do you want to incentivize anything? And mine used to be 52 pages, which is my attorneys, like you’re wordier than I am. I’ve got it down to 11 pages, you know. I’ve taken the time over the years, and it just has basic frameworks, but it also has who are we, what we stand for, what we did this for, our letter of wishes, our statement of purpose in our own words before the legal work comes in, and so those are the peripheral things that the core of it is the right type of trust and the right type of insurance to keep it going, so there’s really five pieces: family office, family retreat, family constitution, insurance, and trust is what really helps with this perpetuating wealth and not spoiling kids or not watching it go to waste.

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  [16:12] Patrick Francey

  So, when you think about what you’ve just discussed, when you think about you’re working with, people with millions, 10s of millions, billions, and you think about that plan, but what you just described, and I’m going to ask this question, I have my view of it, but I’ll ask you, does all of this come after money or does it come before money?

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  [16:31] Garrett Gunderson

  So I encourage people to start before the money gets there, because the family retreat is the family retreat, a basic like it’s a different type of trust. When you’re not wealthy yet in the United States, we would just have a revocable living trust, which is very transparent. You put stuff in, you can take it out. It doesn’t offer really any protection until you die, but when you die, there’s protection. You can pass on more money, you can have a set of instructions. But when you’re wealthy, then you want more of an asset protection trust, which removes it from the estate, so you owe nothing control everything, but it’s still getting your basic trust planning. I started a trust when I was 19, before I was married, because I knew that I plan on getting married and having kids. So I was like, why not start? I started the most basic part of the Rockefeller method plan at 19 years old, putting away 50 bucks a month. I didn’t have the whole picture, I didn’t know I was going, but I think that those small steps, make a big deal. And when our kids were seven and nine, is when we really brought them into the planet. And it was a two and a half day retreat. It was hard, because it’s like herding cats at that age. They got to circle the values, they got to be part of talking about what the family crest would have, and kids support that, which they helped to build. Now, we just last month went on a two week trip to Hawaii, where we spent days going through all of this, because my son’s leaving, my oldest son, who knows, he’s 21 he’s, we still have him around, but he might be leaving soon, so I’m like, let’s make sure that we have everything as secure and they’re as prepared as possible, so we really invested in them, but we started doing that when they were young, and we did family meetings weekly when they were young, and those family meetings, we were like people always thought, man, is that hard. So we actually filmed, we actually broadcasted one on what on a webinar, and my kids didn’t know how many people were watching. There were hundreds of people watching. We’re joking around, my wife’s late to it, talking to a contractor, and I think more people is like, wait, this isn’t that hard. We just ask a few really important questions. How am I doing as a father on a scale of one to 10. What’s something you’re working on that you’d like to support? What if what could you compliment the family on this week? What did we do really well that wanted to keep more, keep doing more of, and what can we improve upon? We just have these like basic conversations where that way they aren’t on screens, that way they aren’t just off with their friends, like it gave us that time, and I had money by the time they were seven and nine, but I would have done it even if I didn’t. I would have, you know,

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  [18:45] Patrick Francey

  I love that. I think that is, just in terms of creating a family unit that’s aligned. Stephanie, my wife and I do a lot of work around and coaching around about ourselves as aligning our values and having values conversations, and of course, over years, as we evolve and grow, values can shift and change, and they’re at the core, some of our core values never really change, but ultimately these are conversations, we’ve done lots of work with families, doing, family mission statements, and designing and dividing or designing or creating a culture for your family or a mission or how do we want to be, how do we want to be with our neighbors, how do we want to be as a family unit. So again, I think that part of it needs to happen regardless of money. I think that’s a really important thing, and then as you close those individuals that do go on to grow wealth, that becomes a little bit more complicated, or in some cases a lot more complicated. I just want to share a little story with you, is, and I’d like your view of it, given what you do. So, a guest that I had happen to know him, he’s a very accomplished lawyer, real estate investor, he’s based out of Canada, but the story is, is that as we got into. He was brought up, his father was a pastor, his mother was stay at home mom, he and his brother, so right away, and there’s small town Canada, so right away that upbringing, pastor does not make a lot of money, of course, stay at home mom, but he then went on and built a fantastic law office and a very significant real estate portfolio. So, as I was talking to him, I said, “Marcus, if you’ve accomplished all this, you’re worth many, many millions of dollars. Is this all about legacy for your family? And he just stopped, and he went, “Why would I do that to my kids and there’s a pregnant pause. He goes, I am who I am because of what I had to accomplish. My kids will go to great schools, they have gone to great schools, they’ll be, they’ll travel the world in terms of education, but he goes, this is not about my family legacy at all. He goes, I am who I am because of what I had to create. So, in that moment, I went, “Oh, what an interesting view of the world. Because from Mark’s point of view, you got to work hard, you got to struggle, you got to face challenges. I’m not going to make it easier for, in his case, daughters. I’m not going to make it easier for my girls, I’ll give them what they need, but this legacy, this financial legacy, is not about them. And I just thought, well, that’s an interesting philosophy, but it’s very true. And then I then, and I’ll just expand on this a little bit, and then I listened to somebody who had said, look at a trust funder, never have to worry about dollars and cents financially, but it doesn’t matter what they accomplish or don’t accomplish. If they don’t do anything, they’re a trust funder. If they accomplish amazing things, yeah, well, it came for money. What do you expect? So it was like a no-win situation, right? So I don’t know if you have a comment or a thought process that, based on your experience,

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  [22:03] Garrett Gunderson

  I think that there’s some merit to everything that’s been said, and I would rather not. My kids have to go to a bank and make the bank money and go through all the hoops. If I could just finance a home for them, now I look at my trust like a meritocracy, if one of my kids is making more than the other, they’re going to have access to more capital than the other, because that’s just how the world works, what they can afford to pay, but I also look at, like, if I could finance that home for them, no closing costs, as far as loan origination fees, every dollar of interest they pay is interest that could be for their next generation, instead of just making a bank rich and building another one of the biggest buildings in every downtown that you ever go to, so I would want to give them advantages that don’t rob them of the ability to find a career and shine their light in the world. If I’m giving them money, but they don’t do something for that money, that’s where I’m spoiling them, because now they can’t find their purpose, and a trust fund person without purpose is often miserable. And yeah, I get the second one. I do think that the people that get the least amount of credit are a second generation wealth that continues to grow the wealth that is extraordinarily hard, because first you have the judgment of people saying you just inherited the money, like my wife’s best friend, her husband inherited money, but he’s done extraordinarily well with it. He’s grown that, he’s been very intentional with it, and his son, I think, is going to do a good job with it too, because he wants to get in that same real estate business. And so I admire that. I’ve seen people attack him online and say, “You just.. I’m like, no, that’s actually harder than my path, where I didn’t come from money, I came from tons of love, and my family telling me I could do anything, and willing to support me to the point my mom worked for me for years to make sure that, like, our books were in order, because I’m like, hey, we’re getting big, I’m a little bit worried, like I don’t look at the books good enough, and I need someone I can trust, and I said, if anyone’s gonna rob me, I want it to be you, because I robbed you for 18 years, so it’s, it’s fair, fair trade, and she always laugh about that kind of, so I look at what I’m doing is I don’t want to set my kids at the top of the hill, but I don’t want them to start in the lowest valley, and I just don’t see any merit in starting over, like I don’t see any merit in not being able, like in my trust it says if my kids want to start a business, we would contribute up to 10% to help them launch that business, because if I give them more than that, I know businesses – one of the best ways for them to lose money is just get more money than they need. A lot of businesses could just bootstrap and do better than getting raised funds, and so I wouldn’t want to. And then, if they fail with that business, if they ever want to borrow again, they have to teach anyone else that’s benefiting from the trust in any way, what they learned, what they would do differently. They have to communicate with the board along the way. I want to have parameters, but I also want to have encouragement, and I’m not giving them 100% towards any educational thing, but I’m giving them 50% and I’m even doing that for education outside the classroom up to a certain age. Now I’m going to do that while I’m alive, but if I’m. Not alive. I want the trust to continue to provide that again. I don’t want to destroy incentive. I want to provide the basics, so they can, like, I think of so many kids today, feel like, how will they ever afford a home? How will they ever get started?

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  [25:11] Garrett Gunderson

  Like, we’re in a world where right now anyone could get a student loan, anyone that can fog a mirror can get a student loan, but not even the best and brightest can actually get a loan from a bank to start a business. We are really, it’s really a racket, and so if I can help with a few of those things, that would have made it easier. And here’s where my real legacy is for my kids. I had no network when I, when I came into business, so I didn’t. I also was young, you know? I was 19 by the time I was in my, by the time I was 25 I own 45% of 45,000 square foot building, was winning architectural awards. I owned a plane with my partners. I owned a Bentley, like I had all the things that looked like this kid’s really wealthy, but I didn’t have wealthy networks of people that could tell me the mistakes I was making. I had people that saw the success came in as people that weren’t substantial, that were more on the scam side than the value side, and I went through it, and in 2008 it really almost took me down. It took me two years, and I became much more intelligent after those couple of years. And now I look at my network, I look at the people that I know. Most of my close friends are worth nine figures, I’m, I’m behind them, but the nice thing is I can call them and get great advice. So, when my kids are older, like my son’s starting a sales job, door-to-door sales next week for a whole summer, that’s not an entitled kid. I told him, I’m like, go up there, you’re going to learn, it’s going to be super difficult, and you’re going to, like, you’re going to grow so much from that. Like, I love that he’s doing that right. He’s in New York right now, just because you want to go with his buddy, and he saved up enough money from his last sales job to do it. I’m like, that’s really cool. I paid him $0 to go on that trip. He figured it out, you know. So, so basically, I want to be able to have my kids have great relationships that they can look to and learn from, so they don’t make the same mistakes I made, they’ll make their own mistakes. We’re like, we don’t get out of business without making mistakes. We don’t know

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  [27:05] Patrick Francey

  a lot of, a lot of them.

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  [27:07] Garrett Gunderson

  I think one of the main things is we don’t even really like work with really young 20 year olds like I was, because I was confused with luck and timing and skill, right? I was like, I just got, I did my first real estate deal at 19, did well with it, did my second deal at 20, did well, did the third deal at 21 did even better, no money down. I was like, dude, I’m genius. And by the time I’m 27 I have a portfolio of over 100 properties and a hard money letting fund that I’m founder of. And by, $8 million net worth, and then by 2008 I had $0 in net worth. I’m like, I guess we’re selling the Bentley, and we’re barely able to make the mortgage payment right now, like it was really tough, and it would have been great to have the type of people that my kids will have access to right from the get-go. So that’s the legacy is to me, the relationships, if I can provide that more than the money.

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  [27:56] Patrick Francey

  Well, it becomes a little bit of a philosophical question, right, because at the end of the day, what you’re equipping your children with, and by the way, you think about the legacy your dad is set you up for, which was maybe not financial, of course, but what he showed you was work ethic, he showed you ways to be out there and to drive revenue for yourself, a way of thinking that’s a legacy, what you’re equipping your children with is, of course, tools and strategies, and here’s what you can do with a trust, or here’s what you can do to generate revenue, and yes, take that sales job, because that’s a training, it’s a way for you to train and get narratives and understand how to meet people, how to build a network, so that’s a different legacy, as opposed to a financial legacy, and, and my background with real estate and education that I provide, and the things that I do, is, I often hear of people who are going, “I’m buying, and I’m going to own all this real estate, I’m going to, it’s for my family, it’s part of my legacy, and I always say that that’s all noble, and that’s great, but understand that as you go on your real estate investing journey, you are going to buy real estate from kids who just want to get rid of the real estate that their parents left them, they’re not interested, they watch their parents grind, and you’re going to get great deals on buildings and real estate of all types from second generation, even third generation kids, they’re going, ‘Get me the hell out of this shit. I don’t want nothing to do with it. Sell it, get it. I don’t care what you get for it, doesn’t matter to me. Just sell it. So you get deals doing that. So there is an interesting component of legacy when it comes to finance and business. we think the kids want it or will do it, and they’re going, ‘Now show me the money, give me the cash. I’m out. that’s also what

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  [29:44] Garrett Gunderson

  I remember when I was deep in the real estate, game and world. I was like, we’re hosting a Super Bowl party, I’m working on a closing that needs to be ready for the next day. it’s like I’m on a vacation, something’s going on, I didn’t have control over, and I was like, go. I either talk to bankers, attorneys, property managers, or, really even like the maintenance people, and no tenant ever wrote me a letter saying this is amazing. So I switched my business to my real estate is books. I have 10 books, those are 10 pieces of real estate that I care for, and and upgrade over time. I’ve rewritten a few of them to make it more current, and that’s what I really enjoyed, but I was at the Biltmore last year, speaking, and the Vanderbilt family owned 125,000 acres back in the day, they built the 150,000 square foot mansion, that’s the, Biltmore, and now they have 8000 acres, which cost them about $248 million a year to maintain for a $250 million revenue, so they have a $2 million revenue with that thin of a margin. Can you imagine inheriting 150,000 square foot mansion like that? Like in the digital world, that’s one of the worst gifts that a family could ever give you, because you’re like, what am I supposed to do with this? Who do you sell it to, like, you know? And, and they unfortunately didn’t use trust, so that’s why they’d keep selling land, because they had tax issues, and they had making some bad decisions. They had a lot of, family strife, and stuff like that. But, yeah, it’s pretty interesting, you know.

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  [31:17] Patrick Francey

  Everybody has a dream, everybody has a dream of, owning that 50 million or 100 million dollar, whatever mansion, and then, but they step over one fundamental, what it costs you to operate that piece of real estate on a month to month basis. a $50 million or $20 million home, all looks fantastic, but there’s some huge cost of just operating that property on a month to month basis. I

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  [31:40] Garrett Gunderson

  have some clients that built a ski chalet, kind of, out here in Utah. $5 million into it, they just got offered, double what they, what they put into it, but they said we got to get rid of it. It’s just $300,000 minimum per year in maintenance. It has no mortgage, just the maintenance, and there’s water issues, and there’s all this, and like, and they’re like, and it’s, it’s cold up there a lot of the year. We like living in the valley. It’s like, I like that they just are consolidating down to like what really moves the needle for them. It sounds great, it looks great, but it’s like, it’s funny. We spent a summer in Italy, so everyone just assumed I bought a place in Italy. I’m like, no, because I don’t necessarily want to go to the same place all the time, and I don’t want to take care of something from America that’s over there, and there’s all these offers to the word science citizens. It’s like, hey, you could buy this for one euro, and here’s the fine print, you have to fix this up. Good luck with that, you know. And so, a lot of stuff sounds great on paper or in a story, but isn’t like I’m actually selling a piece of land that I love right now, has a little cabin on it, has a beautiful pond with fish, but I spend more time there mentally than physically, because we have another cabin just a quarter of a mile from it that we just go there. So I’m like, why do I own two? Like, it’s and it was just one of those things. Maybe it’s a young ambition, it’s like, gotta have more. Let’s get 100 acres. Well, if you’re not benefiting from it, you got to ask yourself, is this what you should do?

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  [33:00] Patrick Francey

  Yeah, so I want to pivot a little bit, you know. 10 books, what drove you to become an author to begin with? writing – I’m in the middle of writing a book, and I want to say middle, I’m on the journey, and I definitely have some writing skills, for sure. certainly with AI these days, that makes the job easier, at least a little more efficient and quicker from an editorial point of view, but what got you, what drove you to write 10 books? What, what was the showed up for you, and went, “This makes sense.

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  [33:34] Garrett Gunderson

  Yeah, so the first book I was getting a lot of people saying, “I wish I would have known this earlier, I wish I would have done this 10 years ago. I was young, so I was like, well, I didn’t know any of this 10 years before that. And then I thought, man, that would be cool to write a book. Now, deep down, I just want to be cool. I want to be like, oh, I’ve written a book, that would be awesome, like it was my ego. And so, with my ego at the helm, I wrote 72 pages in two years, didn’t get very far. And then one day we got our whole team together, we had this big team retreat, and we’re like, what can we all get behind that, we could all work on together, and why would that be important? We thought, if we wrote a book, so me and my partner were going to write this book with the whole team helping us with research and feedback, and like, it was like, this is cool, we could really do something great. And then two weeks later, he died in a plane crash, our plane, and so I was like, took a break from the whole book writing process, and then because I was just trying to keep everything together, we had multiple offices, but then I just one day my wife was like, “Hey, so that happened in June and in November, where my first day off was Thanksgiving Day, we’re driving down to visit my family two hours away, and my wife’s like, “You’re pretty extraordinary in business, but just pretty ordinary as a husband and father, because I was absent, man, I was just gone all the time, right. And so I was like, oh, it hit me, I got emotional, I was like, all right. So I told the office, look, I’m gonna office from home, like I’m just gonna take a break all December, and I did, I just office from home, but then my wife. Life and son would fall asleep, so I started writing. I’m like, just, man, it just came to me that month, and I got this other writer to help me, and yeah, we put it out there. And the best part of it was I just built so many great relationships because that book, I met so many great people, it just opened up this whole other world, and I got so much good feedback from people, like knowing who, like, when I met him, it’s like we had a quicker relationship because they read my book, so they feel like they know me. And it took me a while to write the second one, because the first one I didn’t know what I was doing, I was afraid to write, I didn’t think I was going to be good enough at the writing game, and the second one got even bigger and better, and as far as reach, and I was like, oh, this is had fun writing it, so it just became a process where, as I had more to share, I did more writing. Now, one of those books is a children’s book that this woman, Julia Cook, co-wrote with me, because if I wrote a children’s book, nobody would read it, but she took my content and made it so sweet and profound. I actually got so teary-eyed the first time I read it, I was like, this is amazing message for kids, so I just really enjoy the process of writing. I feel like I learn a lot through that process, and I can share a lot of who I am through that process. And people that read books, it really, it’s pretty amazing how many good connections and even my close friends my books have made a difference for. So it’s just like a really rewarding project, really rewarding process.

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  [36:20] Patrick Francey

  Were you self-published, or did you have a publisher, or was it.. I’ve

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  [36:24] Garrett Gunderson

  done all three types. I’ve done published, co-published, and self-published. I’m a.. I now am a self-published guy, because I have, I like to have control of the whole process. Yep, but I did a published book called Five Day Weekend. We hit Wall Street Journal with that. My first books were co-published with, with a co-publisher that’s like a hybrid called Green Leaf, and they did a couple of my books. I published with Guildon, like, so I’ve done both, but my self-published books have outsold my published books.

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  [36:50] Patrick Francey

  So there’s just, basically authors, most authors, unless they’re, really that’s their game. Most authors are writing books, and they’re saying it’s just a really expensive business card. Is that how it lands for you? Does it, is it more? Do you make money? Do you make money writing your books?

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  [37:09] Garrett Gunderson

  Look, I’m in a.. I someone that says that it’s like that’s like saying vinyl is just some expensive way to listen to music, you know. It’s like if you’re an artist, like I go, a book, I get to design a cover that’s a piece of art, I get to share who I am, like nobody wants a business card, I don’t, everybody hands out a business card, Terry, a lot of books are no better than a business card, they’re thin, paperback with regurgitated information, I don’t look at that as a book that way at all, I look at it as a catalyst to change someone’s life, and we connect with them. And when I think of it as I’m writing to one person that I’m really trying to impact, it helps me become a better writer. If I was writing, like, I wrote two books that I would say were probably more of that, like, hey, this is a good, business card, and guess what? Nobody knows about those books. I don’t do anything with those books, but Killing Sacred Cows, I gave my life to that book. I, that’s.. I poured my heart and soul. Money Unmasked took me seven years to write. It’s got everything that I am in that. I put everything, like, so to think, yeah, it’s just an expensive business card. Like, absolutely not. Like, it is a change agent and a catalyst to connect with people.

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  [38:16] Patrick Francey

  Yeah, I agree. By the way, and it’s just.. was a comment that was made. You know,

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  [38:20] Garrett Gunderson

  I’ve heard it too. I’ve heard it, you know. I bite my tongue where you ask, so I felt the

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  [38:27] Patrick Francey

  years ago we worked quite extensively with a guy by the name of Dr. John Demartini, and

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  [38:34] Garrett Gunderson

  he’s a good dude. I’ve interviewed him a few times.

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  [38:37] Patrick Francey

  Yeah, we worked with him. He’s great. So he actually was the first person that actually said it, pointed it out to me. Well, to us, and he goes, “you must write a book. there is ultimately, in order to be an authority, you have to be an author. And I went, “I’ve never connected those two dots, but it really is when you see an author, when you grab that book, depending on the content, but ultimately that establishes them as an authority, and I went, ‘Oh, there’s the breakdown of the word right there, and I, it had never occurred to me, but since he said that, I think about it in those terms right now. So, I encourage people to write, myself included, and I don’t, as much as I don’t necessarily haven’t produced my first book. I do a lot of writing. The point is, is that is really the breakdown of that word, and I thought it was very interesting.

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  [39:28] Garrett Gunderson

  And just, just writing helps you become more articulate, helps you be clear about your emotions, it helps you. I really encourage that process, even if someone’s not going to write a book. A lot of the writing I do, nobody sees but me, you know. And then some of the best writing I do ends up in books, but a book ends up in someone’s house. You’ve got books behind you, so I regular books like Santa Claus. Santa Claus shows up in the house, like you’ve got gifts, you’ve got an experience there. So the same thing with books and vinyl, like more records were sold last year than any of the time in. History, and people would think of that as an outdated system, records, because we have Spotify, but people experience art with it. You like, if I listen to an audio book and I love it, I buy the physical copy, because I just.. I’m like, yeah, then I can just, peruse it here and there, and I can display it, so it’s vintage, and it’s something that is in, like, people take it on their trips, they take it into their bedroom, the most intimate places, they take it to the shitter, even, write better, yeah. But the bottom line is, like, books haven’t died yet, maybe AI will ruin them long term, but for now, is free as information is, people still like that journey of having a full experience, not just a little snippet of 30 seconds,

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  [40:41] Patrick Francey

  yeah, yeah, and I, and I don’t disagree. Interesting enough, that when I started this podcast about 10 years ago, is the reason I started the podcast was I was getting pressure from a couple of peers to write a book, and they wanted me to write a real estate book, and I just wasn’t interested at the time, but I, they also made a point of brand, and getting out there, etc. Now I started the podcast, and that’s why I started the podcast, is because I didn’t want to write a book, and now 10 years later, but to your point, so the audio podcast of this, we get like 150,000 downloads a month, which is pretty great for a podcast, but it’s you’re going out into it’s a lot like writing a book, it just goes out there, you don’t really get direct feedback, per se. We do, but not as you’re in a bubble, right? Yeah, my point is, is that something that you said earlier is that we’ve had friends, family, just people we don’t really even know, just randomly go, oh, I listened to your podcast. I listened to this guest, and I was listening to you this morning, and I go, that the feedback is so cool to get it when you get it. It doesn’t show up, but if you’re.. I don’t do the podcast for the views and the downloads. that’s all great, because you have to measure, are you having an impact? But for you, and I go back, and I just weave into one fundamentals. What drives you? you’ve been an author, comedian, you’re a business guy, your father, like from a business point of view, and the journey that you’ve the path that you’re taking right now. What drives you? Is it literally just dollars and cents keeping a scorecard? Is it making a difference contribution? What is it for you?

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  [42:24] Garrett Gunderson

  There’s a couple things I’ll give you, the good and the bad. I’ll give you the good, the bad, the ugly on this. Okay, so my son wrote a letter for his college admission, and he said it’s funny because my wife and I talk about it. She does 90% of the work, I get 90% of credit, because he’s like, so great. Watch me, Dad. I’m fit because I watch him work out. He travels with his own food. He doesn’t miss his workouts. He pushes hard, and that’s just really inspired me. And then he’s taught me so much about money and how that works, and encouraged me to go into set. Like, so I’m like, man, I’m living by example now. On the other hand, I was at a meditation retreat with my older son, and he’s like, “Hey, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to live up to you, just so productive, and like, I just don’t know if I could ever do that. And I was like, “It was good that he said it, because I got to say, I don’t love you because of what you do. I love you because of who you are, and my love’s unconditional. Doesn’t mean that I don’t get disappointed, frustrated, or want more for you at times, but the bottom line is I love you for you, and so we have this great exchange, you know. So, on one side it’s inspiring, on the other side it’s almost deflating to the other one, and so I have to, understand. But, like, why do I like, when I’ve – I’m a bit of an artist, I’ve written a one-man show, I’ve done comedy, I’m mediocre at guitar, like, like, I do enjoy having a Renaissance life. I like to hunt, I like to, make an amazing cup of coffee, and have people taste better coffee than they would at a coffee shop, because I’ve been trained, and, like, I like essence of life to connect with people, but I also work sometimes because it fulfills my, my fragile ego, it feels really good, like I’ll go to an airport and people recognize me. I like it, that if they’ve read my book, they come talk to me. It’s never bothered me once. I’ve always enjoyed it, and so I think that I’m a little bit more external than I’d like to be at times, because I’d like to be like, hey, I just have this amazing family, loves me, I have an amazing relationship with my wife. It’s about to be our 24 year anniversary here coming up. I’ve got great kids, I’m close to my siblings and my in, like, but I still desire more, and where some of that more comes from is I want to prove to myself that I’m not stupid at times, I want to prove to myself that I can provide for everyone that matters to me, and I try to overstep on that to some degree, because I want to make sure everyone has massive opportunity, and that they could do great things, and I feel a deep sense of responsibility for that, even when it’s not my responsibility. So that’s where a lot of the motivation comes from. Now, I love, like, making an impact for clients, and I love, like, bonding with them, and being, like, really truly at a place where they can share stuff. With me, they wouldn’t share with anyone else, and feel like I’m an advocate for them, that fulfills me, that lights me up. I love to get on a stage, I love to do all those things, and so when I had the most money coming in, I was not happy, because it was coming in pretty automated. I built the system and the business and the team that, like, I didn’t have to be as involved, I didn’t like it, I felt a hole. I like to be involved. I like money that I make more than money that is passive, not that I have no problem getting, but even my recurring revenue is stuff I’m still involved in. I’m still teaching, I’m still part of that process, because it keeps me connected to people, not just looking at money.

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  [45:35] Garrett Gunderson

  I’ve never found, like, there’s never been a time where I’ve made an amount of money where I’m like, man, that just is, that’s everything I’ve.. but there’s been a time where I’ve had massive impact that has really meant all the world. I like both. I want impact and money, because money buys me options. It gives me so much, you know. It’s a good scorecard if it’s a companion, it’s a terrible scorecard. If it’s a solo artist, because it’s just never going to be enough. But if it’s like part of the process, I think it’s perfectly fine and healthy.

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  [46:04] Patrick Francey

  Was there any particular forks in the road moments that you’ve had in life that you went, when you reflect and you go, gosh, I could have gone right or left, I chose right for whatever reason, but it turns out in reflection that that was such a fork in the road moment, anything come up for you in that, where you reflect on and go, gosh, if I wouldn’t have done that, it would have been crazy.

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  [46:29] Garrett Gunderson

  Yeah, if I wouldn’t have lost so much money in 2008 and then just said, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get through this side of this, but I’m just going to communicate with people that I owe money to, what’s actually going on as soon as I know I’m in like I just didn’t I know people that got they went to jail during that time I know people that lost everything during that time I didn’t just because I was honest about it and it was hard to be that honest because it’s like hey I’m struggling right now I’m going to put my head down and work if you’ll work with me I’m going to pay you back it might take me 10 years if you want money now I’ll give you pennies on the dollar, because that’s what the fund is going to have after this disruption, and 95% of people I was able to maintain a relationship with and garner respect from, and that was a really hard time, but if what if I didn’t lose, I was naive, I was in my early 20s buying so much without really doing enough due diligence, because appreciation was masking what was really going on, and I’d like to have a quarter, I’m like, oh, that’s a million dollars of additional net worth, and then what I’ve known, that net worth is relatively worthless if I didn’t go through that experience and write about it and Killing Sacred Cows, probably not, but I’d be able to have the compassion for people that are going through a tough time, even though it looks like they’re successful, and help uncover what’s beneath that, without going through those hard times, probably not. So I hated those moments. I really, I gained weight, I lost sleep, I judged myself, but at the same time, like, I learned a lot about what I was capable of, and got to the other side by being resourceful, and learned the power of integrity, even when it’s tough. Learn the power of, like, creating a safe space for people to share, no matter what they’re going through. Because before, I would have probably been arrogant, smug dickhead, thinking that I had the whole world figured out and not been able to see people, you know. And then I just really can be there for someone now, and I can appreciate them, and I can love on them, and acknowledge them, and create a safe space for them. I don’t know if I would have had that without 2008 just whipping me, just really hurting me.

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  [48:26] Patrick Francey

  So that goes back a little bit. That do you get grounded in some universal law, spiritual law, God, like as in the universe, the universe happens for us, not to us. Is that some level you adopt that philosophy, a higher power of some sort.

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  [48:44] Garrett Gunderson

  I love that sentiment of it happens for us, not to us. I practice a thing called the path of light and sound, and it is a meditation practice that is about connecting to God. It’s about giving God your love and receiving God’s love, and seeing that everything that happens is divine and part of your karma. It’s something that you go through, so you’re going to learn the lesson, and you’re going to go through that experience, and in the reality, we’re all just one in the end, and we’re all returning home, and we’re all really just there having a physical experience right now, like Avatar

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  [49:11] Patrick Francey

  boils down to consciousness at some level, whatever you want to call it, it, that’s where you can get back to now, you practice that meditation, and you’ve been doing meditation for many years as part of your daily practice of looking after yourself.

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  [49:26] Garrett Gunderson

  I’m consistently inconsistent, just to be, honest. Sure, my wife is two and a half hours a day, every day, because she says 10% tithing is your time to God. So, she is truly dedicated to that. I am hit and miss, but I also feel like I have a service in the world that is part of that calling, and so as I continue to adopt, how do I surrender to the divine will, and then just serve? That’s part of that, and where hers is more that meditation connection, but yeah, I’ve, I’ve had times where I’m meditating two and a half hours, uh, definitely do good at a med. Retreat, that way I am at a place where if I wake up in the middle of the night, I immediately meditate as my way to go back to sleep, and I’m doing that connection with God, or right when I wake up in the morning, or right when I go to bed, it’s anchored in my life, and so it’s a part of my life, and just giving it all up to God, whether it’s good, bad, ugly, whatever it is, just seeing it as like, hey, this is this is what I’m meant to experience, and sometimes I don’t like that, to be honest. I, I, but I get if I don’t like it, I’m being a victim, and if I don’t like it, I’m not trusting. And if you go, all right, well, let’s see if I could zoom out a little bit and have a different perspective here. Unfortunately, the people that run, the path of light and sound here in the United States, I’m very close with, and I’m able to, I’ve just been able to donate money that they’ve never asked for. It’s so cool to, like, I’ve been around a lot of people that once they saw that I had a degree of influence or wealth, the spiritual relationship got warped a little bit, you know. They’re instrumental, but then there was something that we could do together, and when I met these guys, I met them after my wife went to the first retreat, and she was complaining about me a little bit to them, and their response was, “Okay, so you don’t think he’s the husband that you want right now, are you the wife that he wants? Like, what can you take responsibility for? Because they have three tenets: take responsibility, love, accept, forgive, and connect with God through meditation. Those are the three main pillars. And once I heard that, I was like, I’d like to meet them. And then, when I was around them, I was like, man, this is probably what unconditional love feels like. They love me just like they love this person that I might have an agenda and say, well, what could they bring to me? because I was young and naive, and what could I get to get ahead instead of just seeing the person across from me is like a human being, and loving on them, like I still have a ways to go, but I’ve come a long way, and I talked to my wife about, thank God, I’ve done so much work, because I really was an asshole when we were first married, especially the first year. I first, I thought, man, she’s so lucky, like what a catch I have, like just I look back and I’m like, what a jackass I was, now it’s like, and what a gift she’s been like, just like more than anything, she’s she’s shown me that I’m valuable and lovable, and that like no matter what, she’s by my side, you know? If we’re going through our time, she’s like, what do we need to sell, what do we need to do? Like, I’m with you, but I’m like, hey, I’m a middle-aged man, I’m gonna do comedy. I know in her head she’s like, well, you’re not as funny as you think you are, like, but out loud, she’s like, “Where your dreams are, my dreams are, baby, let’s go for it. So, like, that’s that’s pretty cool. And she really, we were, we grew up Catholic, and it just, it no longer served us.

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  [52:32] Garrett Gunderson

  And I think it’s been hard on my parents a little bit, or my mom, especially, because she’s really devout. She was Catholic Woman of the Year last year for the state, so and I’m certain my mother-in- law has been that, or will be that, because she’s devout as well. But it just, for us, I dismantled that. And then my wife put the pieces back together for us spiritually, and what she found, and that’s.. I’m just really grateful for that. And I think there’s many paths, and many ways. And my wife, we were Catholic, she’s talking about multiple lives, and past lives. I’d always be like, this is bananas, but let’s go ahead and talk about it. like, how do I know? I know

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  [53:08] Patrick Francey

  your wife sounds a lot like mine. The, when I.. I’ve been, my wife and I’ll be celebrating our 30th anniversary in a couple of months from now, and been together 35 years, but just to give you some scope, your story reminded me, and I often share this one, is that my wife remind when we first met, she referred to me as her favorite Neanderthal, so my, my evolution was, that’s where I was, and together, we evolved together, but I got on that journey with her, so meditation, I’ve practiced TM, that happened to be my go-to back, we’ve been trained in that, and, like, you, my wife is, she doesn’t get out of bed without doing her meditation, and that’s her game, and I’m consistently inconsistent, and I do journaling, and that, what other tools do you use, and the reason I asked the question, because I will get back to something I want to give you to give some thought to, Garrett, is that you work with lots of high net worth individuals. I’ve been on this planet long enough to my own observations, and not judgment, but just observations, is that money, number one, does not drive happiness, secondly, many make millions at the sacrifice of their physical, mental health

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  [54:26] Garrett Gunderson

  family,

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  [54:27] Patrick Francey

  and their families, you know. And so, for you, what what is your.. I’m going to ask you, what your observations of those have been, but what other tools you, you’re physically, mentally, emotionally focus on that seven areas of life, or however, however you look at it, what are you, what do you just really consistent with, and and see it as you need to do that. It’s a part of what makes you tick the right way.

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  [54:52] Garrett Gunderson

  I meet with my with the founders of the path, the path, the ILM. Here I’m really. Line out to me with them in two weeks. I was just with them last month, and we spend like full days together, and just that really helps out. I do this LAF experience. It’s a little workbook that’s here by my side that they put out, and inside this workbook, just ask certain questions, so I can process things, like so it’ll last like in meditation today. What happened? What your awareness coming out of meditation is what. How will you love yourself today? And what is the follow up? And then, and then we get into the deeper stuff, which is like, what are you protecting or defending, or trying to control in yourself or others? You’re feeling beliefs, self images, expectations, desires, and I just take the time to write. What do I have to accept and acknowledge that I’m protecting, affecting what do I have a fear and loss around, what is the goal is that I have to forgive, or I get to love, and so I just, I go through this regularly. If I’m ever in a moment where I wake up and I’m like, why do I have this emotion, why am I in this emotion, I’ll use another one of my friend Joey Klein’s processes, where I’ll just put the tongue on the roof of my mouth and I’ll take in four second breaths, pause at the top, breathe out for four seconds until the process of that emotion is moved, and then when I get to a state of neutrality, I give it a moment, and then I start anchoring the most positive future that I could imagine with my wife, with my business, with everything that’s going on, and start to fantasize that, so I’m starting to program future emotions of love, and so that past emotions of fear that dictate where I’m going. So that’s another process, and I’m just really good at, like, if things aren’t going the way that I want them to go, or I’m not feeling.. I just am really good to call up peers, or friends, or mentors, and say this is what I’m thinking. And I think a lot of people are afraid to say those things, because they think that vulnerability will create a judgment. What I found is it creates a connection where they start sharing with me, and they can open up too. And I also had a friend call me that’s going through a lot just two days ago, and he hadn’t told anyone, but he’s willing to tell me. That’s what I think is important. If I open up, other people open up, and I think vulnerability is such a cool way of making that happen. Maybe I’m a little too codependent on I like to call the people versus do the personal work, but I do take that time every morning, meditate, breathe, laf before I make the phone call, so I’ve done some of the work before just unloading on someone, and because what by the time I’m talking to them, I’m looking for solutions, I’m not looking for sympathy, I’m looking for, like, yeah,

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  [57:20] Patrick Francey

  so what’s the difference between, okay, so when you observe, like, here’s my thought, the reason I asked the question, right, is you have your way of thinking, and I align very much with your values in looking after yourself, meditation, journaling, doing the work, doing that, we start these journeys, and where, for me, where I’ve got to is, we started on this personal professional development, that’s a a common term, and we start that journey, and we read whatever book that opens up that say, hey, there’s more than just the intellect, and we, we have other parts of us that is not physical, and then you go on that personal professional development journey, being the best version of yourself, we talk about mindset, that’s another conversation I got now in, into this point in my life where I realize that that’s all part of the journey, and I’ve shifted from mindset to me, we actually have a podcast called Mindset Matters that my wife and I do, she’s an Olympic and world-class mental performance coach, working with been to five Olympics now, and work with athletes, et cetera, and so we go on these journeys and have these conversations and mindset, but I didn’t like the term from a branding point of view. Everybody talks about mindset, and then I realized that the work that I’m doing, and this is the work you’re doing from my perspective, is it isn’t about mindset. Mindset’s a little bit about how do we manage those things outside of us, and then I realized the next phase of that is about self mastery. So I use the term self mastery. You’re on a journey of self mastery, you’re not even on a journey of mindset. It is really about you. You are working on you, so you can be the better person outside. Does that make sense? Do you follow that thought process, and whatever comments you might have on that, I just share it with you, because that’s self-mastery is a place you get to in your own journey, and I think interviewed hundreds of guys now on, or people, not guys, women and men, but it’s, it really is, I see the difference between those individuals who are very intellectual, not that that’s wrong, but I just make the observation, hear it in their language, and then I listen to those like yourself. It’s a totally different conversation when it’s about self mastery. You’re still producing results, you still want to be a contribution, you still want to be amazing with your family and your teams and all the things that you do, but it’s a different approach. I don’t know if you have a comment on that.

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  [59:45] Garrett Gunderson

  Yeah, I think that’s a good distinction. Right, semantics matter, like words matter, and mastery is a better framework in context than mindset, because mindset, like my mind betrays. Me regularly

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  [1:00:01] Garrett Gunderson

  on a regular basis, because

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  [1:00:03] Garrett Gunderson

  I’m just like, where did that thought come from? Like, what is.. how did that serve anything, you know? And my mind wants to go predict things in the future based upon past experience instead of like being in the moment. So I’m constantly training myself, how can I be more present? How can I enjoy the moment, like, where most of the world of finances only enjoy the future at the expense of today. You said something I say it this way: sacrifice is habitual, and when it becomes habitual, you miss out on life, because you just think it’s going to be better one day. And if you focus more, like the thing I want to master most is being present, because that’s where wealth exists, is when you’re present, you’re wealthy. When we don’t feel wealthy is when we’re comparing, or when we’re confused about something that happened in the past, or we’re concerned about something that might happen in the future, it robs us of that joy. And no matter what your net worth is, it doesn’t matter, because someone that’s got $100 million net worth and doesn’t travel but wants to is not that much different than the person has no money and doesn’t travel but wants

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  [1:01:01] Patrick Francey

  to, yeah, I mean,

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  [1:01:02] Garrett Gunderson

  one has a little bit more of a warm, fuzzy blanket, and also a lot of, like, if they’re not healing the relationship to money, they probably think everybody wants their money, and they don’t feel like they could be seen, and they don’t feel like they could trust people, like, and we’re just in a society where we don’t really have a lot of compassion for rich people, if you’re rich and white, then you have no ability to complain, according to the world, right? Like, they’re like, “Oh, you don’t get it, you don’t get to have a say. Oh, so you’re not a human being with emotions, you don’t maybe have some relationship issues or health challenges. we don’t know what people are carrying around every single day in the childhoods that they had, or even the last moment that they had, that maybe they have a sick parent or a best friend that just killed them, so there’s so much going on, and yet we think that money solves all those problems. Coco Chanel said, the greatest things in life are free. The second best things are very, very expensive. Everyone forgets about the free things that require that you have to earn not money but love and trust, and so I think that most of the richest people have a sense of arrogance, but that arrogance comes from a deep insecurity, saying, “Do you like me now? What about now? What if I could provide this? What if I could show you that? And often that actually creates a dissonance, or it like separates people instead of connects people.

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  [1:02:15] Patrick Francey

  Love that. That’s a really good point. So, as we start to wind down, you’ve been very generous with your time, I appreciate it very much. We just, I do what we call rapid fire questions. Just a real warm-up question is always Apple or Android?

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  [1:02:29] Garrett Gunderson

  Apple,

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  [1:02:30] Patrick Francey

  Apple, yeah, most are, yeah, but Android still shows up every so often. Mostly corporate background seems to be the Android guys, but we won’t want it again for a

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  [1:02:39] Garrett Gunderson

  while, and it was nice, but yeah, I have too many Apple products to have,

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  [1:02:43] Patrick Francey

  and they just integrate, right? They just work together. It’s a great system. So, you’ve written a lot of books, but do you have a particular book that was a standout, maybe created a fork in the road moment for you, or just one that really resonates with you?

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  [1:02:57] Garrett Gunderson

  Early in my life, Atlas Shrugged really helped me out. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, once I started writing, was instrumental, and lately, The Creative Act is probably my favorite reread that I’ve been doing by Rick Rubin, because I think he makes everything that be about art, not just about production.

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  [1:03:13] Patrick Francey

  Yeah, that you brought it up about taking responsibility, one of the books that still stands out for me, and I don’t know why. it was just so I had my whole team read it, which was Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink.

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  [1:03:28] Garrett Gunderson

  I figured you’d say that. Yeah, yeah,

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  [1:03:30] Patrick Francey

  but I was not an excuse maker. I didn’t think I was, but when you read that book and you really take 100% responsibility, it’s a real shift. You start to realize how many little excuses we do make in our life, or big excuses, blaming whatever. And that was a big shift for me. I, that book for me, really changed how I viewed the world. So, anyways, I share that along the way. Favorite swear word,

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  [1:04:00] Garrett Gunderson

  fuck, it’s just like, yeah, it’s my wife swears a lot. I love it. It’s just,

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  [1:04:05] Patrick Francey

  yeah, my wife can get a little carried away sometimes too. So that’s all good, good fun.

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  [1:04:12] Garrett Gunderson

  That’s just a funny one. Shit, brick. I don’t know what that, that’s funny to me. Do you have a favorite band, favorite music genre? If I’m with my wife, like we.. if we.. if we had only two records we could keep, we’d keep Daft Punk, Random Access Memories, and we’d probably keep John Mayer, Born and Raised. Those would be the with my wife, with me, but my kids would be something rap. honestly, people be pissed, but probably some of the early Kanye stuff.. I love it. I think that it’s he’s the goat when it comes to rap

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  [1:04:44] Patrick Francey

  favorite movie,

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  [1:04:46] Garrett Gunderson

  man. There’s like the movies I’ve watched the most are like John Wick, Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, you know? Like, just find myself re-watching those.

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  [1:04:58] Patrick Francey

  I, I’m not a big movie. V Buff, per se, I enjoy a good movie. I don’t. They don’t make good movies anymore. I think that’s what I’ve come to, you know. I look at,

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  [1:05:08] Garrett Gunderson

  we spend more time looking for something to watch than actually watching.

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  [1:05:12] Patrick Francey

  Yeah, I know it’s crazy, isn’t it? it’s just how that goes. Do you have a favorite quote, something that you sometimes lean on?

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  [1:05:21] Garrett Gunderson

  I definitely love that Coco Chanel one that I told you, and I also like, I have so many funny quotes from people in my book, Money Unmasked, like, just, like, like, just Ferris Bueller, like, hey, life moves pretty fast, don’t look around, like, just like, or like, Coach Taylor, clear hearts, like clear eyes. What was that one like? Just like I like some movie quotes for sure, but as far as inspirational quotes, there’s one that talks about blurring the lines, like work and play, and like I’ve had that up on, my like just by my where I get ready in the morning, but I have this John Lennon one here that says there’s two basic forces, fear and love. When we’re afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we’re open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love first in all our glory and our imperfections. We cannot love ourselves. We cannot fully open to our ability to love others or the potential to create evolution and hopes for a better world. Rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life. So, I have that hanging on my wall there. I don’t have it memorized, because I just.. I get the essence of

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  [1:06:36] Patrick Francey

  it. Yeah, that’s perfect. I love it. There’s a.. I go to one. I’m, just I get pretty philosophical in general, but when you look at understanding perspective is perception, you know. So Wayne Dyer quote is still my go-to quote, which is, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change, and it’s such a good one, and it’s always a great reminder when you’re, going through whatever we’re going through. Sometimes that’s really helpful. If there is a God, what do you want to hear God say when you get to the gates?

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  [1:07:10] Garrett Gunderson

  I think that God’s like just love – it’s a, it’s a river of loving, and so it’s just.. it’s a knowing that you were always love,

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  [1:07:19] Patrick Francey

  beautiful. And what are you grateful for? Grunt,

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  [1:07:23] Garrett Gunderson

  I’m grateful. My son just walked in. I’m grateful for him. We worked out together today. He’s pretty fun to tease and mess around with. A super kind kid, you know. Yeah, lucky to have him. Six seven, you know. So I look like a midget next to him, six three, but I look small next to

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  [1:07:39] Patrick Francey

  him. That’s hilarious. Well, I am always grateful for the opportunities to speak with my guests. I am grateful for my wife and my two Bernese Mountain Dogs, and living in

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  [1:07:50] Garrett Gunderson

  Bernedoodle, and he’s a character. He’s so much fun.

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  [1:07:53] Patrick Francey

  It’s so much fun. Two Bernese, two Berners, female, male, and two totally different characters. That’s for darn sure one is a joker and one is a diva duchess, so anyways, that’s always great. So again, thanks very much for your time on the show today. Thanks, Garrett.

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  [1:08:13] Garrett Gunderson

  Take care,

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  [1:08:15] Patrick Francey

  ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. If you found value in the podcast, please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends, as it is my goal to always improve and to provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions you’d like answered, please email me at ceo@reincanada.com that’s CEO at R E I N canada.com I look forward to hearing from you, and until next time, Patrick