Author: Kyle Malkin

• He started his investment business in Real Estate, and eventually migrated to Gold investment.
• Money market (UK) saw some of his publications on gold investing and enlisted Simon to write a column in Gold investing.

Opportunities with gold:

• Invest in gold stocks.
• Invest in gold – some low and other high risk. A place to look at and download some info on gold is goldprogram.go.uk.

Different levels of Gold investment:

• Physical gold
• Gold keepers – large companies; invest in a lots of different companies – multinational, multi-commodity.
• Defenders – diversity in terms of commodity and countries.
• Forwards - High Risk, high rewards.

Mechanisms – exchanges that are available:

• Physical gold – go through a reputable gold dealer. Check the World Gold Council recommendation list.
• Defenders and Forwards – go through Australians or Canadians.
• There is gold all over the world, but I have a jurisdiction preference, and I tend to buy and invest in Canadian, US, and Australian gold and access them through the Canadian, Australian, and US stock exchange platforms.
• There are many other opportunities in Africa and other parts of the world.

Gold seems to be popping up the social media and internet a lot, why? Gold marketers tend to be more active during fearful economic times. Is this true and is there a reason for this?

• Gold is a great and valuable asset, and there are terms like golden age, gold medal, etc. The risk in the world can be eased through gold, because the value of gold is the same across the world; this is not the case with other assets.
• Is there any relationship or risk with the rise of cryptocurrency and decentralized digital currency? These things are separate, and they run separately. It’s not possible to see gold going to zero, but that can happen to any other value, including crypto.
• I like the fact that I can hold in my hand a gold coin, but cannot hold a bitcoin.

Get Simon’s free gold investing advice in his beginner's guide to investing in gold: https://goldprogram.co.uk/free

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• Eric grew up in a single household – at times with mother and at times with father, quite a poor background.
• I ended up going to a seminary, became a pastor, planted a church, but took a break to give full attention to entrepreneurship.
• I learned financial management, but not financial strategies.
• I’ve had a window washing company, a pressure washing company, wedding venue business, among others.
• I started searching the market on cryptocurrency in 2017-2018, and that’s where I am.
• When you are pastoring, you are not looking for money; but I was entrepreneurial even while a pastor to supplement my income, leading to learning about self-directed IRAs.

Collective Influence Group

• This was started by 2 men I was in (Bible) college with
• Within 2 years, they started the company, “Impacting others”, hence initiatives such as clean water initiatives, orphanages, and Christian media radio. They buy companies, build them, and sell them.
• Collective Influence is a private equity firm that has 15 -16 different companies in it. But the main goal is self-directed investment, especially as people become more educated on their personal finances. Self-directed investment frees people from investing through institutionalized processes. If we can release people from this “institutionalism”, we will have succeeded.

Tax Free Crypto – one of the companies that Collective Influence has acquired.

• Tax Free and Retirement Accounts: I started with Roth IRAs while a pastor. I chose the fund. I thought this was self-directing but realized it was self-managing.
• Analogy: we are good when it comes to self-directing our consumption, but it’s not the case when it comes to investment. One needs full control of where their money goes.
• So instead of being given choices by someone else, I make a choice of where to invest and how.
• Consider the case of the bank, who takes my money and makes money from my money, and I do not get a dime from the money they make from my money. They hand over a circa!!
• But I want to self-direct my money; so, if I had accumulated some money, rolled it over to a self-directed IRA, got a deal, gave a company some credit, and got an 18% return over a 6-month period, I would have thought it was fantastic.
• This is the kind of a thing that Mitt Romney did: he made about 13 different moves out of his Roth IRA and accumulated about $100M; How the hell did he achieve this? What is good about a tax-free IRA is that there is no limit to your gain.
• If you self-direct on the promissory note, then you can gain as much. He gave a high debt to private equity.
• Crypto currency is an asset.
• So, if one gets a paycheck and contributes to their retirement benefit, they can’t do anything with their contribution until they are old enough to withdraw the money. But if this was released to a private equity, it is possible to buy real estate or other investments, or a rental property.

Crypto and risk:

• People make a mistake by equating volatility to risk, which are probably within the same meaning range but different concepts.
• The same number of people buying and selling crypto currency presently is the same number of people who were using internet in 1997, i.e., 130mil people globally. Today, the internet is the main thing.
• Bitcoin was invented in 2009, 14 years ago. The adoption rate trajectory is exactly the same with the internet in 1997.
• Many people did not understand the internet those early days, so they abandoned it, but there are others who jumped in, and they are the market leaders today. So, it pays not to make same mistakes of ignoring an opportunity simply because one does not understand the crypto world.
• Crypto currency is an opportunity. It is an asset. The block chain — which was started for the purpose of mining bitcoin — now has a “utility” behind it being used by other businesses. This is how they track damaged goods. What was invented for crypto is now a utility that is used publicly.
• Pay pal is creating a new stable coin, which is attached to a reserve, always equivalent to the dollar.
• Look at crypto currency from the same way you look at internet; it’s a free resource for sharing.
• The crypto currency is taking 3^rd world countries out of poverty, e.g., El Salvador.
• Today 300 of the many companies in the US are taking crypto currency.

strong>Bitcoin:

• Make sure when you invest, you are investing money designated for investment, not your utility money – food, bills, rent, etc.
• Let’s address investment “volatility”, Warren Buffet; 46% of his portfolio is Apple (the most valuable company in the world). So, diversity is not really a panacea for volatility in Buffet’s opinion.
• Crypto does not move the same way as a stock does.
• Investing USD 5000 in crypto is really a low investment but will always have great returns; you will never go wrong with it. (Eric’s opinion)

Connect with Eric on:
www.taxfreecrypto.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-tastet-05a320193
https://twitter.com/EricTastet

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Adam Carroll – Host of build a bigger life podcast; curator of master of money.com and founder of the shred method:

Personal Background – pathway leading to him doing what he does

• His family appeared affluent or middle class, but money wasn’t really there.
• His family was loving and considerate.
• I used to use my credit card in college, and so I became part of the debt stats;
• He was an entrepreneur in college, hence borrowed loans from students to build this business.
• He studied books about personal finance and started applying the principles, and he was able to pay off all my debts at age 26, except the mortgage. This enabled me to save between 3,000-4,000 USD per month, and made me feel like a millionaire, something I started sharing with other people.

Making this my career

• I met a personal financial guide and mentor, who gave me a couple of books.
• I became intrigued by the concept of passive income, and how to create it, especially as an educator, speaker, and creative.
• I wanted to make money speaking, writing, and creating content; so I describe myself as a mediapreneur – meaning I like creating media in all its facets and then figure out how to turn around and sell it.

The Shred Method

• One of the big things the podcast is dedicated to is retiring debts, hence the need to know every new dynamic, principle, and practice to achieve that.
• The Shred Method is a tactic for optimizing people’s income.
• Most people don’t have an income problem, they have a liquidity problem; they make enough money to afford what they are doing, but they are not able to go beyond that to save because money is tied up in their lifestyles.
• The Shred Method tries to help people manage their finances by helping to knock off the debts one by one, maximizing how much money you have remaining at the end of the month, and then figuring out what one should do with the money that is left over; i.e. what is the most efficient use of that money that is humanly possible?
• Our goal is to create certainty around retirement, to guarantee the working class that they can retire comfortably and never worry about debts and sustainability.
• We rephrase words differently, for instance, we call retirement choice-age, because we want people at retirement to have many choices and not limited by money in any way.

The Shred concept:

• I was a mortgage broker for a number of years; I started a company that I branded and packaged as the first socially responsible mortgage company in our State.
• I witnessed the exploitation that was happening in the mortgage sector. This was underhanded and morally reprehensible.
• I wanted to start a company that didn’t function that way; we would receive people who wanted to refinance their mortgage, and we would do the math and show them they could save between $50-$200 per month; but I would be left with this feeling that you have just paid $2000 or $4000 to refinance your mortgage, which essentially would send the client to the same square they were before.
• I started digging deeper into this mortgage issue at the decision table, I realized that you pay interest for the first 36-40 months, and this is when most people would refinance before they got their hands on the mortgage game itself.
• So Shred happens in the first 36-40 months of payment is where you can make the biggest difference in how much principal you can pay down on a mortgage
• When you do that, you are paying in advance your mortgage; you are accelerating your decision table.
• So we started realizing that one of our goals was to help people have more equity in their homes, reduce the amount of interest that they pay, and then figure out what to do with that extra equity and strategically deploy it in the right places to start building their own wealth.

What do you think about *HELOCs?, a sort of establishing an emergency fund or capital?

• A broad brush statement: Anyone who has equity at home, must have a HELOC as an emergency fund – in addition to money saved which is liquid and readily available.
• We use a HELOC very differently at Shred; it is not a spending account. For people who are disciplined in their expenditures and have a predictable income projection, this works well, provided you have money at the end of the month.

MasteryOfMoney.com

• This is a financial literacy resource.
• We should all pursue mastery; mastery has no peak; you are forever climbing higher, and getting better and better at what you do.
• MasteryOfMoney.com is built on this premise.
• I also have books on MasteryOfMoney.com for students, and others on Amazon; we are gearing to launch a podcast by the same name.
• We will be doing deep dives into a variety of topics from insurance, to mortgages, to investment in real estates, and people who are on their path to mastery can listen in.

How MasteryOfMoney.com podcast differs or dovetails with Building a Bigger life podcast:

• Build-A-Bigger-Life was started in 2015, and it was born out of interaction with people who were asking, what do I do with my life if I am not satisfied with my current life?
• I bounced this by the group I was coaching, and for instance, one of the ladies in the group just wanted to travel; when I asked her why she isn’t traveling she responded that she had just bought a new car, and new furniture, which she was presently financing, and she had a couple of gym memberships which she was paying every month.
• I said to her, I think you have built a really big lifestyle, but you don’t really have a big life. That became the show. I interviewed people who were building a bigger life, people who were doing what they were doing versus what they were supposed to be doing; this was an awesome conversation with people who were inspired to change their life in a better way.

Major Takeaways from the 170+ shows of the Build-A-Bigger-Life podcast:

• We are the architects of our own life, and we’ve got to decide what that life looks like.
• The way to do this is to identify what your core values are, and then live by those core values on a day-to-day basis.
• My interviews revealed that people who live by their core values are generally very fulfilled; and those who are missing out on some of their core values are always feeling unfulfilled, wanting to change some things, which they probably also do not know how to do.
• For instance, we do a self-assessment and help them ask the foundational and bigger questions, which helps them think through why they are not building a bigger life.
• Aiming for something for a lot of people requires permission – probably by family, employer, significant others, etc.

Connect with Adam:
https://www.adamspeaks.com/
https://www.instagram.com/adam.carroll/
https://twitter.com/AdamCarroll
https://www.facebook.com/AdamSpeaks/
www.buildabiggerlife.com
www.brokebusteddisgusted.com

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“The way you think about money determines how you behave and your behavior shapes who you are and how you interact.” — Florian Fritz

Florian is the founder of the Money Hero Academy, where he teaches how to create financial freedom by  improving:

• your money mindset
• money management skills
• money making skills

By 2008 Florian was a “financial advisor” and during the financial crisis that year, he started learning from some of the world's best financial coaches like Robert Kiyosaki and others how wealth creation really works. He tested many learnings while working with a real estate company, increasing their sales by 86% per year on average and helping hundreds of people to improve their investment returns. Today he teaches what he learned, encouraging everyone to take control of their finances and create the life of their dreams instead of always hoping for the next raise or the next client.

Listen in as Florian shares his thoughts on creating freedom and prosperity.

• Florian realized that he could inform clients about the problems that were happening but he had no solutions for the problems.
• It’s interesting that he was over half a million in debt but was teaching about money. He was the perfect example of how and when to begin thinking about your wealth.
• Florian, in his own story, shows us that you can begin your journey no matter where you are, from zero or negative, and build your wealth.
• His journey began with free courses on Facebook and has grown to several programs that he runs every week.
• Thinking about money is better than working hard for it. (take time to think about it)
• What you associate money with, especially the negative side of money will automatically make your subconscious protect you from money.
• We’ve been conditioned in a certain way about money. It’s good for one to identify your conditions.
• In investment, you need to be consistent in what you are buying, no matter the circumstances.
• An Inverse ETF is one way to “hedge”.

Connect with Florian:
facebook.com/groups/moneyhero
facebook.com/florian.fritz.526/
instagram.com/fritz.florian/

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“Traditional financial advisors counsel us to plow our money into traditional investments, mutual funds, bonds, insurance, stocks, etc. I no longer take that position” — Chris Miles

Chris Miles, the Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor, is a leading authority teaching entrepreneurs and professionals how to get their money working for them TODAY! He’s an author, podcast host of the Money Ripples Podcast, has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Entrepreneurs on Fire, Bigger Pockets, and has a proven reputation with his company, Money Ripples (moneyripples.com/) getting his clients fast, financial results.

Listen in as Chris shares his thoughts on creating freedom and prosperity.

• I was raised by great parents, hard-working parents who taught good values. When it came to money, they lived with a scarcity mindset, they really felt like there was never enough.
• Before I finished my bachelor's degree, I decided to actually get real-life experience because I wanted to become a business consultant.
• My father was my biggest inspiration, and I wanted to make him financially free before he was too old to enjoy it.
• My father did everything “right”, yet did not have enough money to retire when he reached retirement age.
• I started to learn the things that others were learning and more about a perspective around money first, which was really like Robert Kiyosaki stuff more applied.
• I discovered how to invest and create passive income, which was really the trick to get out of the rat race versus just accumulating and saving money, hoarding it, and hoping that someday you might have something.
• Traditional financial advisors counsel us to plow our money into traditional investments, mutual funds, bonds, insurance, stocks, etc. I no longer take that position.

To connect with Chris:
https://www.moneyripples.com/
https://www.facebook.com/moneyripples
https://www.linkedin.com/company/money-ripples
https://twitter.com/Moneyripples
https://www.instagram.com/moneyripples/

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“We're using innovative ways to do things that are cheaper than the traditional way that people may not have thought of.” — Gordon Stein

In today’s episode, we are joined by Gordon Stein. Gordon is a personal finance author, keynote speaker, and blogger at cashflowcookbook.com. Gordon, in his book, spells out certain recipes that can lead anyone to a bright financial future. Also in the book, Gordon has identified 60 different recipes for freeing up money. The key point in his book is “you can find money in your lifestyle, without making any sacrifices to your current lifestyle."

Gordon is also very good at demonstrating the impact these strategies can have on an individual's long-term financial goals.

• I discovered a few hacks that freed up some more cash flow with minimal effort.
• I’ve had a career transition from high-tech industry to kind of high-touch personal finance.
• By using innovation and new innovations that are cheaper than the traditional way.
• Step one is what I call “broiling a bill”. Pick a bill, and broil that bill!
• Step two is: “Savor the savings”.
• Discipline is more powerful than budgeting.
• The more ideas you get on how to free up more cash flow, the more you build wealth.
• Make those changes, reduce the bills, and then commit that money right away to something good.

Listen to this and so much more on the episode.

To connect with Gordon:
https://twitter.com/cashflowcookbk?lang=en
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gordonstein
https://cashflowcookbook.com/
https://www.instagram.com/cashflowcookbook/

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“All traders and all investors are looking to improve themselves financially, to level up in their mindset, so that we can bring on more money and make it stick because that's the overall aim.” — Louise Bedford

In today’s episode, we welcome Louise Bedford. She is the founder of tradinggame.com, a trading company in Australia. She is a best-selling author with five books to her name, all topics on the stock market and behavioral finance. She is also a behavioral finance expert with degrees in both psychology and business.

Louise talks with me about approaching investment and trading not only from the money perspective but also from a behavioral side as well.

Listen in!

• I started trading back in 1990 because I always had an interest in money.
• I had a physical affliction, which meant that I had trouble moving my arms and due to this condition, I had to leave my employment work.
• All traders and all investors are looking to improve themselves financially, to level up in their mindset, so that we can bring on more money and make it stick because that's the overall aim.
• Too many people are not happy with market volatility, where the market keeps going crazy up and crazy down and makes for a very unpleasant situation.
• I like the idea of how investors borrow from traders; this is the concept of a stop loss.
• You need to work out in advance what your level of pain is, determine what your exit strategy may be, and stick to your plan.
• Do your math and consider what you wish for your future, have a plan in mind from the start to the exit, and have the three main tenants for the system that people should see in trading.
• Whether we want to believe it or not, our behavioral and psychological well-being affects how we see investment and trading.
• In trading, it’s always good to consider specific risks versus individual risks.

To connect with Louise:
https://au.linkedin.com/in/louise-bedford
https://twitter.com/TheTradingGame
https://www.facebook.com/TradingGame
https://www.youtube.com/tradinggame

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“When you're a business owner, you're building cash flows as well as an asset in that business that you can sell as long as you run it halfway decent.”  — Jon Ostenson

Jon is CEO of Franbridge Consulting and Capital, a company devoted to serving franchise opportunities, then aligning investors with top-performing opportunities leading some of those investors to be actual operators.

In this episode, Jon is going to help us look at this exciting class of investments.

Listen in!

• There are 4000 different brands roughly in the US involved in franchising across a number of different industries and sectors.
• Coming out of COVID, more and more people want that sense of control, flexibility and freedom that comes through business ownership.
• We do see an unprecedented level of interest out there towards franchising.
• I just see franchising as really going into business for yourself, but not by yourself because you've got that franchisor on the sideline and other franchisees around the country.
• While having that is not a guarantee of success, it does give you a lot of confidence going in.
• A study by Rancor School of Business found franchise businesses trading at a multiple typically of one and a half-time as compared to non-franchise businesses.
• I tell clients that there's a lot of ways to make money some more desirable and easier than others.
• To buy into a franchise, you pay a franchise fee and meet costs for the equipment build out.
• Some of the ways in which people fund their franchise business include self-funding, retirement funds through what is called a Rob's program or through SBA loans.
• The way I work with clients is I try to streamline the process and make it as easy for them and allow them to focus as well as possible.
• Franchising isn't risk-free, but you de-risk things a lot.

To connect with Jon:
linkedin.com/in/jonostenson
franbridgeconsulting.com
facebook.com/JonOstenson1
linkedin.com/company/franbridge-capital

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“We want to make sure that investing is more approachable and accessible for anyone with the same goal; building wealth for the future.” — Axel Thibon

In today’s episode, we welcome Axel Thibon to the podcast. Axel has founded a company called Wizest, a platform aimed at making investing accessible, transparent, engaging, and easy.

Axel received his MBA at MIT in Boston. And afterwards went into banking for a few years and now is on a journey of investing adventure.

Axel talks with me about his interesting approach to teaching investments as a solution for the long term. 

Listen in!

• My own experiences have shaped how I do investment and how I teach others to do investment as well.
• The key thing is to customize investment for each person who comes to the platform.
• A novice’s investor will have different needs than an expert in investment.
• Unlike the traditional bank, where you go and they are assigned to you like an advisor that you don't choose, right here in wisest you are the one in control. The best part has been the conversations I've had with the kids about not only saving money, but spending as well.
• We have a human layer that makes investing much more like personable and approachable.

To connect with Axel: 
https://www.f6s.com/axelthibon
https://twitter.com/axelthibon
https://www.linkedin.com/company/wizestapp

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“The best part of teaching kids about finances has been the conversations I’ve had with them about their financial decisions.” — Chuck Jaffe

In today’s episode, we welcome Chuck Jaffe to the podcast. Chuck is the author of three books titled ‘Getting Started in Finding a Financial Advisor’, ‘The Right Way to Hire Financial Help’ and ‘Chuck Jaffe’s Lifetime Guide to Mutual Funds.’ His two books on working with financial advisors have made them a rare critical voice in financial planning. Chuck is host of Money Life, a veteran financial journalist, nationally-syndicated financial columnist, and his work appears in newspapers from coast to coast.

Chuck talks with me about his interesting approach to teaching finances and investments to younger children.

Listen in!

• I am an expert when it comes to hiring financial advisors.
• The key thing to me which is really important is knowing that there is no one right way to reach your financial goals.
• I'm agnostic to approach unless the approach is going to hurt people.
• At home, Halloween is how I teach other people's kids about money choices and investment through games and lotteries.
• The best part has been the conversations I've had with the kids about not only saving money, but spending as well.
• Children start learning money lessons really early and I have been teaching my children about trading stocks and ownership of companies.
• The benefit to me, as a result of this has been my daughter telling me that she is maxing out her 401 K.

Connect With Chuck
www.moneylifeshow.com

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