EP 79: From Trailer Park and College Dropout to Millionaire, Chris Miles, Founder of Money Ripples
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This week on The Millionaire Choice Show, Tony talks with Chris Miles of Money Ripples. Chris grew up in a single parent home raised by his mother. After his parent’s divorced at age 9, Chris found himself living in a trailer park. After high school, Chris managed to get into college where he dropped out with one class left to finish his degree so that he could start his first business.
About Chris Miles
Chris Miles, the “Cash Flow Expert,” is a leading authority on how to quickly create cash flow and lasting wealth for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate.com, and has a high reputation for getting his clients life-altering financial results in his company, Money Ripples.
After working as a traditional financial advisor and stock coach for several years, Chris came to a stark realization that the financial advising industry was not showing anyone how to quickly and safely become financially prosperous today.
After leaving that industry, Chris was able to retire when he was 28, and has since worked to teach his effective, unique strategies, for companies like Freedom Fast Track and Garrett Gunderson, and now Money Ripples, while exposing the popular myths around money that have kept so many from enjoying financial freedom and peace of mind.
Chris consistently practices and teaches small business owners how to do what no other financial advisers can or will – achieve financial prosperity, now and in the future, spending time doing what they love most.
Learn more about Chris Miles, moneyripples.com
Take advantage of Complimentary Life and Money Mentor Session with Tony or Downloand FREE eBooks.
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Show Transcript
Tony (00:01):
Welcome back to the millionaire choice show. We're gonna have a lot of fun on the show today, cause we are gonna talk to the anti-financial advisor, Chris Miles. Chris is the host of the Chris miles money show and founder of Money Ripples. So we're gonna get some good conversation. I'm eager to hear this too about, financial advisors, maybe the bad side of the financial advisor world. So we're gonna hear Chris share that with us. Chris, welcome to the show.
Chris Miles (01:08):
Hey pleasure to be here, Tony.
Tony (01:10):
We didn't get to do a lot of pre-show today, which I normally do. I'm eager to hear your story the first time. Just like the future millionaires that are listening to the show, I'm gonna be hearing it for the first time. So, let us have it, like what did life look like financially or up for you?
Chris Miles (01:25):
I definitely didn't grow with a silver spoon in my mouth. That's for sure. I grew up with a dad that was all about, trying to save your money and get that good job. You had to get an education cuz he didn't. So he wanted me to be the first one in our family to go to college. My mom was more of the starving artist. She was trained by the same master painter that trained Bob Ross how to paint. So, she did that, but she's like, "Hey, once I die, then I'll make money." I'm like, "I wanna be different. I don't wanna be like my dad who said he's gonna work the rest of his life. He'll literally die working, and I don't wanna do that."
Chris Miles (02:00):
I did go to college, but I ended up dropping. Even though I grew up with all the, "Hey, save everything, spend nothing." And, "money doesn't grow on trees." And, "what do you think I am made of money?" that's all the kind of money conversations I had growing up. Even lived in a trailer park for five years, that was fun. We had the double wide. We were "fancy"
Tony (02:21):
You were the rich trailer park guys.
Chris Miles (02:24):
That's right. We were on the rich side of the dead end street. But anyways, I went to college and I wanted to have my own business. I wanted be an entrepreneur. I knew that because I didn't want someone to dictate how much money I made; didn't wanna dictate my own freedom and that kind of thing.
Chris Miles (02:40):
I wanted to dictate my own schedule, my time and money and all that kinda stuff. So I was gonna be a business consultant, but I thought, "if I'm gonna be a business consultant, shouldn't I have real life business experience," not just get an MBA and then come out and say, "yeah, I studied a bunch of books. I'm so smart." So, I actually dropped outta college with one class to go before I got my bachelors, took a sabbatical. It was only gonna be for one year. And I thought, "I should start a business. What's it gonna be?" And the first business that came that kind of perked my ears was actually becoming a financial advisor. Little did I know they take anybody that has a heartbeat and can pass a test with at least 70%. You don't have to be a financial genius cuz I wasn't, like I was smart.
Chris Miles (03:20):
I was good with numbers. But, definitely, I wasn't anybody who had been trained in that industry. I started doing that, loved being an entrepreneur. So, I stayed dropped out. I didn't go back. I figured, "Hey, I'm gonna take this path. Maybe it's hard one." I did that for four years. Then after four years in, I started- I'm one of those guys. I like evidence. I like to know that things work, and four years in, I realized, "this isn't working," but I didn't wanna admit it because that would destroy my business. Right. I mean to tell people, "Hey, I don't think people are retiring doing this stuff, but you should still invest money with me." That's not exactly the best marketing strategy. So, what I ended up doing is-
Chris Miles (04:01):
When the student's ready, the teacher appears. So, end of 2005, one of the guys that trained to be a financial advisor had left to go do real estate investing. And I reached out to him, wish him Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, all that stuff. And I was hoping to hear that he had went broke. So he would come back to work for me again, exact opposite was true. He was like, "man, life is awesome. My dad and I partnered up on all these deals and my dad's now doubled his income as a professor at the local university." I said, "doubled? You guys just started doing this four months ago. That's Too good to be true. There's no way." He's like, "man, it's worked." And so we got this debate about what's better; stocks or realistic.
Chris Miles (04:41):
Finally he stopped me. He said, "Chris, how many of your clients are truly financially free? Where they don't worry about money?" And as I thought about it, "I thought, well, none cause even the retired ones still worry about running outta money." He said, "well great, good job, Chris, way to go! Way to help nobody. How about this? How many of you guys, as financial advisors, are financially free? Not off the commissions you're earning, but actually doing the investments because if anybody's got figured out, it should be you guys. Cause you're the experts." And I thought about it. I said, "well, maybe this one guy in our office is, but I don't think anybody is. Even the guys that have been working the late seventies, they're still working." I found out later that guy wasn't either. So, nobody was financially free. He said, "well, there's your problem, Chris."
Chris Miles (05:27):
I said, "well, give the answer if you're so smart." And he's like, "I'm not gonna give you the answer," because he just got into an argue with me that I'm wrong. And I said, "listen, I'm open you. You got me. Give me something." So, he's like, "all right, I don't think you're serious. But if you really are-" I love how he used reverse psychology on me without even knowing it. He's like, "I don't think you're serious, but if you are go get this book by Robert Kosaki called, Who Took My Money." It's a lesser known rich dad, poor dad book. It says mutual funds suck. And then he's like, "and then go and listen to this radio show," It was a FM talk radio show, here locally in Utah.
Chris Miles (06:04):
I started listening to it with these two real estate investors. Pretty soon I started to get my whole world rocked. By March of 06', after a while I realized I can't stay in integrity and teach this stuff anymore. It doesn't work. So, if it doesn't work, why am I trying to sell this thing? It's crap. So I quit. I put in my resignation at the height of my practice. I was just gonna do mortgages and then be a ballroom dance instructor. That was my thing I was doing. But of course I wanna know what these guys knew. So, I started to learn from them. And, long story short later that summer of 2006, I became financially independent. Granted, I only needed $3,500 a month to be independent back in those days.
Chris Miles (06:45):
I had a growing family of, two kids at that point. Now, I have eight kids in a blended family. So, it's a busy household here. But needless to say like, 2006; I was outta the rat race. So I was 28, almost 29 years old. And I realized, "holy cow, that was so much easier than what I had taught as a financial advisor. Now, what am I gonna do with my life?" And so that's where I came outta retirement 2007. I did it informally in 2006, but 2007, I came outta retirement to teach people how to do that. Well, behold, I went through the recession, which kicked my butt. Got back in the rat race over a million dollars in debt, short 16,000 a month. I went from a millionaire to upside-down millionaire. Had to dig back out of that. Didn't file for bankruptcy, but I did pay back a bunch of debt.