How to Start Building Wealth at Any Age
Chris Larsen
(YouTube Transcript)
Aneta (00:03): Chris, welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast.
Chris (00:07): Aneta, it's great to be here. I'm excited.
Aneta (00:09): I'm so excited to have you. And it was so interesting reading your story and looking at your website. I just thought here's a multi passionate person that I cannot wait to have a conversation with. And so I wanted to maybe start today really talking a little bit about the diversity of your career and of your life because it is so interesting. You've done biomechanical engineering, you've done medical sales, you've dabbled in real estate for a long time, dabbled. I put that in air quotes. I know you've spent quite a bit you've yeah, you've spent quite a bit of time in real estate.
Chris (00:39): Traveled. I haven't been I I don't think I've heard that in a while, but yes. Thank you. You could say yeah. Yeah.
Aneta (00:46): and then you also have involvement in purchasing other businesses that are passive income products, and now you're creating financial education and writing books. So, with all of that, maybe share a little bit about how you got started in expanding beyond just one area of focus for a career and what your approach is when you think about all of these different things that now make up your wealth and how you're building the life that you have.
Chris (01:12): Well, thank you. And yeah, multipassionate, I love that. I've never heard that expression before. And
Aneta (01:16): Okay, yeah.
Chris (01:17): yeah, and that's really good. I'm gonna remember And yeah, I've when you look at it from the outside, I can see how it's almost like, well, you got your hands on all these different things. but I think if I share a little bit of kind of like my origin story, it'll kind of
Aneta (01:28): I love that.
Chris (01:28): align. And as I look at things, with our business, I always say, okay, does it all fit within the framework that we've built? And where it started for me, Aneta, was I went to Virginia Tech.
Aneta (01:37): Sorry,
Chris (01:39): I got a degree in biomechanical engineering, but I realized two weeks in when I was in that class and this professor showed this video of the Kent Narrows Bridge and it was like rocking back and forth. And he's like, if you don't do your job, this is what's gonna happen. And he's like, he's trying to scare you. And I was like, I don't want to do that. I just wanted to be a professional cyclist at the time. But I thought professional cyclists don't make hardly any money. And I want to have a good degree that I can fall back on. And then I'll go race my bike for about five years. I'll come back and figure out what I want to do. So I get into that first year. I'm like, this is not fun, but I'll stick it out. I always like physiology, physical performance. But like I said, my real passion was racing my bike.
Well, in between my freshman and sophomore years of school, my best friend, who was a year younger than me, he was gonna be my roommate. He was my training partner. He was like a brother to me. He had a brain hemorrhage and died. And that was June 21st, 1997.
Chris (02:34): And I went back to school. I kind of used the bike as my therapy. I got really good. I was an all American cyclist that year. I was top five in the nation. I hit category one, which is once you're a category one amateur, you can become a professional.
Aneta (02:43): Only we're on your phone or why you're on the production.
Chris (02:47): And my team actually went pro, but I stepped away from the sport. And during that year, thought a lot you when you're training 15, 20, some weeks 30 hours a week on the bike, you have a lot of time to think about things. And I thought, am I really happy doing this? And the thought that kept coming back to me, Aneta, was
Aneta (02:58): Yeah.
Chris (03:07): What if I die tomorrow? Like, would I be satisfied with the life that I lived? And the answer was no. And I said, okay, well, how do I structure my life in a way that I can live life on my own terms? And
Aneta (03:17): Yeah. I can basically can make it really
Chris (03:20): as a 19-year-old college kid, maybe 20 at the time, you're like, I wanna go out with that girl. I wanna go do cool trips with my friends these are the things that you want to do.
And for years I'd said no, I didn't have a girlfriend because I was training. I didn't have time for it, or I didn't want to stay out late. I didn't go to parties. I didn't do hardly anything because I was dedicated, I was very focused. my wife says I can be obsessive when I get into something. So it's a blessing and a curse, but that's what led me toward to my path towards financial freedom. And I actually bought my first property at twenty one in that endeavor. I read 250 books, got an MBA in finance. You know what it's like going through the MBA process.
Aneta (03:57): Yeah.
Chris (03:57): but I loved it. It was so much easier and more enjoyable for me than engineering. But, again as a young 20-something year old, I ran out of capital really quickly. And I was fortunate to read Rich Dad Poor Dad when I was 20 years old, right when it came out. I had somebody hand it to me in Barnes and Noble in Charlottesville, Virginia, because I was reading a book a week on business, finance, stock market, everything. I was day trading. I was like actually making five thousand dollars a month day trading in my spare time in college.
Aneta (04:25): Well
Chris (04:26): But I wasn't sleeping much and I was like 3 a.m one night I was like, I can't do this. I'm gonna die by the time I'm 40 if I keep doing this.
Aneta (04:32): Yeah. Yeah.
Chris (04:34): I said, this is not freedom. This is not investing. So when I settled on real estate, I said, how do I make more money? Rich Dad Portad talked about sales, which I had done some. I'd sold Cutco knives, different things as I was younger. And
Aneta (04:46): Yeah.
Chris (04:47): I said sales is a good career for freedom and earnings. And I learned about medical sales, which is what got me in there. But why I got into medical sales, why I got into multifamily real estate apartment investing was because of demographics. So as I go through my life, I say, okay, does this give me more freedom? Does it follow our macro investment thesis when it comes to demographics. And now with the business, the question is, can we help others achieve financial independence with these investments and
Aneta (05:11): fortunately the thing is very good to have to. Like one.
Chris (05:18): with these types of education? And I ran cycling teams for years too and did things. I've always had kind of seems like two jobs going on at once My philosophy is that you get fulfillment out of doing your best every day. If you do your best every day, you end up doing a lot.
Aneta (05:33): There's so much in there that you shared that I wanna just go back to. So how old were you when your friend died?
Chris (05:39): I had just turned nineteen. Yeah, two weeks prior, yeah.
Aneta (05:41): Okay. So not many 19-year-olds, I'm assuming, here are thinking, having these existential conversations with themselves about like, if I die, will I be fulfilled?
Chris (05:52): Yeah. Yeah.
Aneta (05:54): Will I be happy? How do I want to live my life? What are things most important? As you look back on that time, were you consciously aware that you were identifying the values and how you wanted to structure your life at the time? Or did you just know that you wanted to start that work and that's why you were seeking through reading the books and everything else that you were doing.
Chris (06:14): So there's a blessing and a curse. I've always been very future oriented, which, know, I have to be very conscious of trying to live in the present, enjoy what's happening. Even when I was young, I remember like I would put dollar bills on top of my dresser in my room, I was saving for something my mom used to take and put in the bank, fortunately. But you know, this is a really weird story, and I'm sure people will be like, You're a little bit weird.
I would take snowballs in the winter and I would put them in the freezer so that when it got too warm, I could have snowballs in the freezer and I could hit the kids that hit me. But then what happened was they turned into solid ice balls. So when I pulled them out, I was like, I can't throw this like basically baseball at somebody.
Aneta (06:50): No. Yeah.
Chris (06:53): So I've always had this future oriented bias. But Malcolm Gladwell talks about this. And this didn't dawn on me until about 10 years ago when I read one of Malcolm Gladwell's books. But he talks about kids who lose their parents go on to be disproportionately successful. And this is how I see it. And I think my friend dying, my father also died when I was five, but that didn't have as big of an impact to me. And this is how I describe it a analytical engineer brain. If you think you're gonna live forever the value of each day is basically, that day divided by how many days you have left to live. If you have one day left to live, that value is massive. If you think you're gonna live forever, effectively the value is zero. Now we know we're not gonna live forever, but as soon as you know that your life could end tomorrow, that value goes up exponentially. And that's what happened to me. That's what clicked in my brain. And it was like, my friend's 18 just died.
This life could be over. I've been giving all these things up. So I started to think, well, what have I been giving up? Has it been worth it? What do I still want to accomplish? What if I go have this career that I want to have and I'm stuck working in this career till I'm however many years old and I don't get to do those things. And all of those thoughts just constantly going through my head every day. I've always been one who kind of thinks in frameworks and trying to get to the bottom of my thought process. And I said, I've got to figure out how to create freedom in my life.
Aneta (08:18): It's interesting that you use the word freedom a lot, which I love, even though you teach people financial wealth, but only as a method or as an end to get to the freedom. When you first bought your real estate property, did you buy it to live in? Did you buy it as an investment property?
Chris (08:36): Yeah. So now we call them house hacks. So I bought that it was a townhouse in Blacksburg, Virginia, three bedrooms, and I rented two of them out. So I got to live for free. So now I've got that one property. But my plan I was like, okay, 10 properties, the number wasn't important. Five, ten, fifteen. I said, Hey, how can I get to ten thousand dollars a month of net income from these properties and then I'll just pay off
Aneta (08:59): Yeah.
Chris (09:00): in ten or fifteen years. So that was my plan because I thought, hey, if I have ten thousand dollars a month coming in and I'm pretty reasonable with my expenses, then I can hit that freedom day pretty quickly.
Aneta (09:12): Mm-hmm. And then can you share how much how many real estate deals you've done since? Or I don't even know the right terms to ask you. Is it yeah.
Chris (09:19): Yeah, no, that's great. No, that's perfect. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we say deals. So I've been part of over two billion dollars in transactions over the course of now it's about twenty five years if you add it all up. And we're somewhere around that's probably fifty to sixty deals over that course of that time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Aneta (09:35): Wow. And what are your favorite deals? Do you like multifamily or what or do you have a specialty?
Chris (09:42): Yeah. So our core portfolio is multifamily our apartment buildings. That's what I wrote. If people want to get my first book, it's at nextlevelincome.com. You can get it for free there. But I talked through that strategy. And yeah, it's one of those asset classes. People need a place to live. Affordability is the worst it's ever been in our lifetimes today.
Aneta (09:59): Yep.
Chris (10:00): It's way more affordable to rent. You have households being formed later with the millennials. The term, people living in their parents' basements, it's actually kind of real. So as people move out of their parents' houses, they leave their roommates, they get married, they form households. That's happening slower. And even households are renting, like builder rent houses and homes and those sorts of things. But multifamily, as the millennials have gotten older, it's still a great core asset class in my mind, but there are a lot of other asset classes out there that we've invested in to supplement that as well.
Aneta (10:29): amazing. And do you still recommend real estate for folks who are looking to diversify their investment portfolios?
Chris (10:34): Yeah. Yeah. And again, I've got a whole framework around this as well. There's a real estate cycle. So we can kind of see how the real estate cycle moves. It moves up, it moves down. we're kind of at a peak right now, especially in residential prices. So it's expensive, interest
Aneta (10:49): Yeah.
Chris (10:49): rates are high. So right now, you have to be really selective. If you bought 10 years ago, you almost couldn't go wrong as we came into COVID. But now interest rates are higher, prices are higher, inflation, expenses are higher, insurance is higher. You have to be very selective in the deals that you do. I'm a fan of real estate that has cash flow today, that you can have long-term stable debt on that. So you're not forced to sell during a downturn, for instance. And ideally there's some sort of what we call a value add component. So somewhere where we can add value to that property and commercial properties tend to be easier to do this than residential property. What we do in multifamily, Aneta, is basically it's like a fixer upper. We buy properties like the one we're buying in in Houston right now. It'll probably be closing right around when this podcast airs in a couple of weeks. But what we do is we go in and we just renovate the apartments. We make them nicer and then the rent goes up a little bit and that rent drives net operating income and apartment buildings are actually valued like a business. So if you can drive income up, you drive
Aneta (11:52): I think that's it values.
Chris (11:53): the value of the property up. And that's really our core strategy.
Aneta (11:57): That's wonderful. And you were doing this while you were still working as an engineer, right? So tell me what that looked like.
Chris (12:05): So it was kind of two phases. So I ended up actually going into medical device sales. So I really enjoyed it because I always joke, I said one of my professors, and this is a joke, people think they're like, Yeah, that's probably true. And if you've have an engineering degree or talk to engineers, you would believe that an engineer would say this. But I said, Yeah, my advisor pulled me aside one day and said, Chris, you're not smart enough and you got too much personality to be an engineer. So you need to consider something different. And so I got no, not a true story. but what I found was a technical sale in medical device sales, which allowed me to work with the technology that we got to study in and design in our engineering classes, but I got to do the application part. And the fun thing for me was we I actually gotten to go into surgeries for many years. Now, the flip side of that was I had to be on call and be in there with the surgeons when they were doing those surgeries. So I worked a lot.
I didn't have a lot of control over my time. but what I was doing is I was being very disciplined with my earnings and our savings. And we were investing first in residential, then in multifamily properties. And then in 2016, and to your point, I was still in the business. That's when we syndicated our first deal. We brought investors on board alongside of us. And then at some point I didn't have the time to do it all. And I didn't have to. So when it wasn't fun anymore, and as I mentioned before, we started recording, I had that revelation one day. It was like, I don't need to chase the VP title on my business card for my kids. I need to chase my kids around at their games on the ski slopes and those sorts of things. I'd rather chase that.
Aneta (13:39): Yeah, it's interesting. Becoming a parent is another one of and we talked a little bit about loss and grief and what that does in terms of the value of every day, but also becoming a parent does something very similar as well. So what was that like for you and how did that shift maybe your thinking even more?
Chris (13:57): Yeah. I mean, it's such a blessing to be a parent, right? It forces you to become a better person, I think. Just something as simple as how do I explain this to my child. You have to be 'cause kids are smart, they see through things, they're like, your behavior's not in alignment with what you're saying. So how do I explain to my child that they're not allowed to cuss, but I am? Things like that. but what it did for me was it really motivated me, Aneta, to get to that point where I had full control over my time again and really say, okay, my father wasn't around because he passed away when I was five. How can I create a life where I can be there for my boys? I have a meeting in November and it's put on by a good friend of mine. I was like, Yeah, I'll be there for sure. I just found out my son has a lacrosse game in Maryland. that weekend. And messaged him, I said, Hey man, one of my rules is I don't miss their games. He's 16. He's a sophomore and
Aneta (14:46): Yeah. It matters. Yeah.
Chris (14:49): yeah and there aren't going to be many of those weekends left. And especially weekends where, he kind of relies on me and wants me around and has that ability. So yeah, it made me kind of realize what's important. There's the expression, you got all these balls you're juggling, you're juggling your career, your business, your health, your social life and you got your family and that's a glass ball and that's the one that can't be dropped. And the other thing, I think about this a lot too. I love the expression that fellowship starts in the home. So if you're in church, we have such an impact that we can make with our family. And I try to be conscious of that. We did a lot of relief efforts after Helene here in Asheville. I have two boys. If I can raise young men that can go out into the world and make it a better place, that's the most important thing that I can do in the world today, I think.
Aneta (15:33): Yeah, I love that. Actually, I would love to go deeper there about how does your faith impact the way you do business, the boundaries
Chris (15:37): Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Aneta (15:42): that you set around my family is most important. I'm gonna have to, I have to change the schedule. Like how does your faith play out experientially in all areas of your life?
Chris (15:49): Yeah. I will say it's not perfect and it's been shaken. I lost my sister two years ago.
Aneta (15:58): I'm sorry.
Chris (15:59): Actually it was just the two year anniversary last week. and yeah, it's hard. You lose both your parents, you lose your sister. I'm the remaining person in my family. And it makes you wonder, is God really there? And even when you have business challenges, it's been really challenging in the real estate market the past few years. There's been a lot of forces that have kind of been moving against real estate, interest rates, prices, inflation, monetary policy, all these things have negatively affected the commercial real estate market. I mean, it's been the worst commercial real estate market in many decades. So when there's a lot going on, Helene hits, it ruins your local businesses, you lose your sister, business is hard, You start to say, like, why is this happening? Again, if whether you believe in God or not, I think, there's a great Rocky quote. He says to his son, it's not how many times you get hit, it's how many times you get back up. And, I have a philosophy that God is preparing us for something bigger and better in the future. And it can't just be faith. It has to be action as well. So, I think you have to have that faith, there's something better there. Also I think I don't know. I can't really describe how God or the universe works. And I think anybody that thinks that they can or how energy works from a metaphysical perspective,
Aneta (17:06):Yeah.
Chris (17:06): I'd love to hear it. So I'm always kind of open to that. But I think, it comes down to that mindset, or I was trying to explain this to my son, which is and I know I'm kind of going around in a lot of different areas, but
Aneta (17:16): No, it's great.
Chris (17:17): I'm thinking out loud. But I think it starts with that faith. It starts with that belief. And, Zig Ziglar, and I'm paraphrasing, but he says, you have to first believe it, then you have to do it, then you become it. And I think that's how God works. You have to, believe. And then you have to act and then you will become what you're meant to become.
Aneta (17:36): Yeah. I mean it's like the verse, ask, believe, receive. And there is action. And the aligned action is in there too. I would almost ask, add the act part in there. I love that. And it's really interesting because I think that the more time that I spend in podcasts and in business, it's nice to see how many more people are talking about their faith, whatever that is. And there was a period of time where you couldn't. And maybe in certain circles it's still uncomfortable, but I love talking about it because there's always a drive or a force behind why we do what we do. And for those that it is faith based, I think it's important to be able to talk about it and not have to dance around it, just like if it's mindset based or something else or
Chris (18:15): Yeah. Yeah. That's right.
Aneta (18:19): maybe an early childhood experience. So thank you for sharing that. And I'm so sorry about your sister. That's difficult.
Chris (18:24): Well no, thank you. And if I can add to that,
Aneta (18:29): Course.
Chris (18:29): when Charlie Kirk was killed, I said I'm not gonna suppress my faith any longer. I'm gonna speak freely about that. I was on an airplane when Charlie died. coming back from Austin and my older son texted me and sorry. I didn't know it, but he watched Charlie every day. And it was devastating to him. It's hard when you have a 15 year old that's so moved by something like that. I think there's a lot of misinformation about who Charlie was as a person, what he did. And will tell you, I didn't spend a lot of time watching what Charlie Kirk said. but because of my son and I knew he was interested, I took an interest in it. Because I was like, who is this person that's influencing my son? So I watched a fair amount of what he did, but I didn't know my son, who was at a boarding school, all boys' boarding school, watched him every day and the impact it had on him. So I think it's important to be honest about that and have these conversations. And it's okay if you have different belief, that's okay.
But I think it's very important. And I'll share another story. After my sister died, my faith was shaken tremendously to the core. And I was on a bike ride two days after she died and I've never done this, but I prayed to God. I said, I need a sign that you're there, that you have her, that she's with my mother. And actually Aneta, I said
God, I need you to show me a mama bear and her cub. And I rode down the back of that mountain and turned onto the Blue Ridge Parkway, less than about seven minutes later, and a mama bear and one cub crossed the road right in front of me.
Aneta (20:05): Isn't it incredible when we do that? I want to share my husband is from New York City and when his father passed away two years ago, we were driving back and the funeral was being held in Queens. So we're on the George Washington Bridge and I said, you know, it would be so nice to just to get a sign that he's here, that he sees us, that he's with us. And we have two girls, we're all in the car and they're adults, but everyone kind of went through and said, it would be nice if I see this this weekend. And I don't remember all their things, but I remember I said, your dad loved hawks, like he loved to be outside and my husband goes, Okay, seriously, we're not gonna see a hawk in New York City. And yes, we did. We're on the George Washington Bridge, and I came across and he was like, my gosh, like It was just one those things where whether you believe or you don't, I just think that it's a nice validation to say, okay, it's a good reassurance that we're not here alone. So I do believe in asking for signs. I think that it's good that we do and I think it's great when it happens. So I do want to talk a little bit about financial independence because so much of the work that you do today. Your work is called next level income. And why is it so important to you to help other people to create financial independence? What does it mean for someone when they're able to do that in their life?
Chris (21:26): Yes. So it's kind of an unfortunate reality that if you wanna have freedom and you wanna live life on your own terms, you have to have money. Dan Sullivan of strategic coach, which I was a part of for years, says if you can write a check for it, then it's not a problem. And my current coach says you can't ever ever have enough money. The more money you have makes it easier effectively. Maybe he doesn't say you can't have enough, but if you have more money, things become easier. My older son's going through a a challenging time right now and he needs some additional resources in certain areas. Can you pay for that coaching? Can you send him to a lacrosse camp or pay for a team and do those sorts of things. When I grew up, my grandmother made my clothes. After my father died, we didn't have a lot. We had enough, but we didn't have a lot. I started racing bicycles when I was 14. I bought that bike with my own money. My parents couldn't afford it. I had to hitch rides with friends to go to races and do things. Cycling's not an inexpensive sport. I was raising money from sponsors at 15 years old to help pay for my expenses. I'm thankful for that. So it's money's important in the world we live in. It makes things easier. The second piece is we're just not taught about money in school.
Now, there are new programs in the last 20 years that are coming into the schools and financial education is taught. I think that's great. But I said, well, it's not taught. Who's going to teach it? And you got great resources like Dave Ramsey, but who teaches the people that are going and becoming, surgeons that are engineers that are professionals that are out there that are creating real wealth for the first time in their family's history. Who's teaching them how the wealthy invest and how to do that?
So we started with our own investments and then we had investors join us in that. But I had a lot of people that would ask me, Aneta to how do I get there? So I said, Well, let's create those resources for them, which is why we started the podcast, why I wrote my first book. And we've continued in that mission as well.
Aneta (23:18): I love that so much. How many episodes or how long have you been doing the podcast?
Chris (23:23): Yeah. So we launched our first episode January twenty nineteen. so we're going into I guess next year we'll be we'll
Aneta (23:29): Seven year, eight years?
Chris (23:30): we're going into yeah, we'll be almost at eight years. Yeah. So we recorded our first episode in two months it'll be eight years. During COVID it was great networking opportunity. I've met a lot of great people, like yourself. It's been a lot of fun. and friend who was doing my marketing for me at the time said you should write a book. I was like, dude, I'm an engineer, like I don't write books, that's crazy. But I thought, well, like, okay. He goes, Well, Chris, if you write the book, we could make blog posts out of it, you can do this and that. And I was like, Okay. And then I called him back I'm like, I can write blog posts. I said, what if I write blog posts in the format of the book. And he's like, well, yeah, that's kind of what I said. But for me in my brain, I thought, well, if I it was overwhelming.
Aneta (24:08): Yeah. It was overwhelming. Yeah.
Chris (24:12): So I put the outline together and then every morning I got up and I wrote a blog post that I've been writing. And lo and behold, the book came out of my brain in two weeks. So it was good, I think, as you asked me about children, I think writing is good because you have to be able to formulate your opinions and your arguments and your thesis and your frameworks and all of that. So, one of the things I'm proud of is I've been writing a weekly newsletter now since twenty I forget twenty twenty. So that goes out every Saturday. And if you subscribe to the podcast, you get the newsletter at next levelincome.com. I used to charge for it. So it used to be fifteen hundred dollars a month, but you can get that for free. now, which is one thing we shifted a couple of years ago to. And now you got Claude, you got Chat GPT, you've got AI. I have Chris Larson.ai, which you can go to and that's got all my content that you can actually have a conversation with me. And it's crazy. Yeah, it's really why it's really neat.
Aneta (25:00): My gosh. Wow.
Chris (25:05): Yeah.
Aneta (25:05): what kind of value do you provide in the newsletter? Most people
Chris (25:07): Yeah. Yeah.
Aneta (25:08): think, I'm subscribed too many, but yours obviously sounds like if you're charging for it, you're adding value. So what kind of content can people expect in the newsletter?
Chris (25:16): Yeah. So this past week I wrote about the forty trillion dollar debt. not a very fun topic to talk about.
Aneta (25:21): Oof. Mm-hmm.
Chris (25:23): I talk about different investment opportunities, like how I think through that. So we're launching our small business fund and next week's newsletter is gonna be focused on like how did I do due diligence in this? How do I walk through a deal? So it's kind of a peek behind the curtain.
Aneta (25:37): no, I should.
Chris (25:38): I share some personal stuff in those things. But I try to make it relevant. There's a lot of content out there today. So I'm an engineer. Aneta (25:46): Yeah.
Chris (25:47): I want it to be understandable, short, digestible, and provide some value. And one of the things that's interesting is I found that, some of the things that aren't really investment focused actually get the best response from the audience that's out there. I can't tell you what I'm gonna write about next week until it kinda happens.
Aneta (25:59): Yeah.
Chris (25:59): If I have something pop into my head like I did this morning, I'll put a draft together and start to kind of research it and do that. And sometimes I have to change my mind because I'm like, I got this wrong. But in the debt piece, the point was like, how do we solve it? And the answer is it's a spending problem. And if you got a spending problem in your own household, at some point you gotta start
Aneta (26:17): Adjustments. Yeah.
Chris (26:18): Yeah, you gotta make adjustments and do that. so if we don't look at what we're doing in this country, I think what could happen is we're gonna end up hurting the people that need the help the most and do that. So we've got some hard decisions to make. And so if I see something, it's like, well, hey, people should maybe take a look at this. And, if you're on my newsletter, you can respond and say, you're wrong, or I don't think this is right, so hopefully it inspires some thought process and some discussion.
Aneta (26:40): Yeah.
Chris (26:40): By those that read it.
Aneta (26:42): Are you on Substack at all?
Chris (26:45): You know what, I'm not, but that's something I've thought about, yeah.
Aneta (26:47): I just started like maybe two weeks ago and it's actually I think it's changed a lot. I feel like I'm a little bit late to it, but I was craving a place where you could participate in like some really thoughtful discussions and also find other people who are interesting, who are writing long form content, who aren't there for necessarily the algorithm. Now, of course, human nature is to try to make everything about money and drive certain behaviors. But it's still very interesting and I think it's nice to be able to just dig into really good content and you could still find some interesting people out there. I'm sure there's a category under finances, and you could do paid and also free. So it just might be something I'm sure in your spare time if you're looking for another distribution. I wouldn't say creating specifically just for it, but it might be another distribution avenue for you. Yeah.
Chris (27:40): look into that because I've been on Substack as a reader for years.
Aneta (27:44): Yeah.
Chris (27:44): When COVID came out and I was reading about different things, being in the medical field and having some pharmaceutical background, COVID it kind of hit me because I was like, it had a lot of financial implications. We couldn't do surgeries, people didn't have to pay their rent in our apartments.
Aneta (27:58): Yeah.
Chris (27:58): So I started reading about COVID in late 2019 actually. So I really got into it and Substack ended up being the place where you had to go because a lot of these people that were writing about alternative theories, if you will, were censored.
Aneta (28:15): Right.
Chris (28:16): So a lot of those people that I was following ended up on Substack. And
Aneta (28:20): Interesting.
Chris (28:20): I support today because I appreciate, what they shared during that time.
Aneta (28:24): Yeah.
Chris (28:25): It's kind of an amazing time right now. know, Obviously you have AI, but you also have the ability to learn anything you want on YouTube, going through AI.
Aneta (28:34): Yeah.
Chris (28:34): But then you don't have to get all your news from a specific magazine or newspaper or news channel. So I'm gonna look into that. Thank you.
Aneta (28:42): Yeah, yeah. It just it kind of popped into my mind. I'm really curious also about the passive income businesses that you're in.
Chris (28:49): Yes.
Aneta (28:50): When you started working in the passive income, did you look at any of the things that Cody Sanchez was doing? I know she talks a lot about sometimes the yes, the boring businesses that are really profitable.
Chris (28:59): laundromats and those sorts of things. Yeah. Yep.
Aneta (29:03): So tell us more about some of your passive income businesses and if someone is curious about,
Chris (29:08): Yeah.
Aneta (29:08): finding a way to diversify, what should they consider?
Chris (29:13): Yeah, awesome questions. So obviously, as we talked about earlier, the core of our business and our investments is real estate. And I love it. You got cash flow, you got appreciation, you got depreciation, just fantastic benefits. It's a hard asset that you can own. One of the first businesses we bought was a local car wash, which is great. You got recurring revenue from members. That's an option.
And if you're out there and you're like, hey, I want to increase my income so I can invest, you could go buy a local business or start a business, a little brick and mortar but what's really cool right now, Aneta, is that the same demographic trends that got me into medical device, kind of the baby boomers getting older. I think we're gonna have a big boom in senior housing going forward. The millennials, which are the baby boomers' kids, got me into apartments. Aneta (29:57): Part of the right now.
Chris (29:58): Right now, those say baby boomers that are retiring. about 10% of them have businesses. So we target businesses that are one to three million dollars in EBITDA, effectively profit. And there's not a lot of buyers for them because, you got the Cody Sanchezes out there that are buying these smaller businesses.
Aneta (30:12): Yeah.
Chris (30:13): But what if it's a five or $10 million cost to buy that business? That's out of a lot of people's reach. And it's not
Aneta (30:18): Sure.
Chris (30:18): big enough to move the needle with a big private equity group. So those are the businesses
Aneta (30:21): Sure.
Chris (30:23): that we target with our fund. We bought six so far. And we're talking about just like you said, boring businesses. These are like businesses that drill water wells, businesses that make signs, businesses that fix medical equipment, businesses that AI and robots, aren't gonna take over anytime soon.
Aneta (30:41): Yeah.
Chris (30:42): But also you have people in those businesses that, they're family owned and their kids, maybe they don't want to get their hands dirty or we got one and the owner's son, he's an engineer. He loves working on the equipment, but he does not want to run the business.
Aneta (30:55): Yeah.
Chris (30:55): So that's a really big opportunity. And I think if you look at how the ultra wealthy invest, they have some money in stocks, 20, 25 percent. They have some money in real estate, 20, 25 percent. But private equity businesses are typically the biggest asset class that the wealthy own. So again, we follow that framework as we target these investment options that are out there.
Aneta (31:16): So interesting. So good. Well, I'm definitely going to subscribe to the newsletter because I think that it sounds like there's a lot that I can learn here.
Chris (31:22): Please do. Yeah. Thank you.
Aneta (31:24): So if folks are interested in working with you and learning more, what are all the ways or how would you direct them to come in first? To the website, to your book, to the newsletter? Like what do you think would be the best entry point?
Chris (31:36): Yes, we got we got a few cool resources if you're listening here today. You can go to the website, nextlevelincome.com. You can subscribe to our podcast and the newsletter. But we just launched a new book. It's called How to Be Financially Free by 40. And it's totally free and it's short. It's five chapters, five sections. You could probably read it in an hour, but it's also interactive. So you get access to our online courses and it walks you through the same steps that I used to become financially independent in my mid 30s. How to make more money, proper insurance and legal structures, How to investments and how to look at sponsors and different investment options that are out there. But then my favorite chapter is the last one, which is generational wealth. So how do you pass it on? How do you teach your children? And how do you not end up like the Vanderbilts who lost basically all their family's wealth in two, three generations and be more like the Rockefellers that have grown their wealth all these years. And the answer is it's structure and education. So we're trying to help you put the right structure and education together so you can do the same thing for your family.
Aneta (32:38): So good. Chris, is there anything else you want to share with the audience in terms of if maybe someone's listening and they think, I wish I knew this when I was younger? And, is it ever too late?
Chris (32:48): It's not. It's like the old saying the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the next best time is today. So, if you want to get started, we've got something for everybody wherever you are on your journey at nextlevelincome.com. And just remember, life is precious can have it all. You can make more money, you can create wealth, you can have more time with your family. it takes a little bit of upfront work and a little bit of education. but that's what we're here for, is to help out with that.
Aneta (33:11): I love that. And Chris, I ask everyone a final question, which is tied to the podcast title.
Chris (33:15): Yeah. Yeah.
Aneta (33:17): What does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
Chris (33:21): Yeah, so I love that. and I was like, wow, this is a really cool philosophy that Aneta has. But really the answer is, can I choose what I do every day? Some days that's my family, some days that's my health, some days it's helping our community like we did during Helene. And again, that's why we help people build financial independence so that they can have that freedom to live the life that they want and get the full width out of their life.
Aneta (33:44): I love it. Chris, I just wish you so much continued success. I love the work that you're doing and I love the way you're living your life. Definitely is aligned to living the width. And thank you for your time today.
Chris (33:55): Thank you for having me, Anita. I really appreciate it.
Aneta (33:57): Me too.