How to Build Wealth As An Entrepreneur

Hi everyone, and welcome to the Launch

Podcast with Allison Michels. Today's guest is a phenomenal

lady. I had the privilege of meeting her in Arizona at

Alliance's Grand Table. We hit it off, and as I've been reading

her book and learning more about her, I'm just absolutely amazed

and excited to have her on the launch podcast today, Laurel.

Welcome to the launch podcast. Thank you so much for joining

us.

Thank you. It's exciting to be here, and it

was great to meet you. Feels like years ago already, but just

a while ago,

right? I know it's been a busy few weeks for

you. And just tell us a little bit more about yourself.

So I grew up in a farm in Nebraska, and then

read the book Think and Grow Rich. I always jump to that

because that's what changed everything. And so, in reading

the book Think and Grow Rich, really started studying like why

so few people can sort out how to become millionaires. And then

I said I had my first career and first life was an exercise

physiologist. I built 272 fitness centers for Chevron on

offshore offshore oil rigs, and then Bob Proctor was my mentor

at the time. I'm like Bob, I'm so done with this. I'm not an

employee. I can't be an employee, and so he introduced

me to Robert Kiyosaki, Sharon Lecher, who you knew I sat. You

know, I called my financial mom, and so I did my first part of

this career with the Rich Dad Poor Dad team as the master

distributor of the game, and then 1999 hit my first

millionaire status in real estate. Later that year in gas

and oil, decided to go on my own, and then a couple years

later wrote the Millionaire Maker. So that's been our

leading brand and our just leading conversation is helping

people become millionaires in three to five years.

I love it, and it's such an awesome book. I'm

reading it, and I'm reading. Sometimes you read books slow

because you want to just kind of absorb all the information. So

I'm I'm intentionally reading it slow because I think I could

just finish it like right away. It's amazing. So let's talk a

little bit more about that book and really the premise around it

because I love the way that you create these frameworks that

people can implement in their lives in order to really change

their lives for the better and create that wealth in their

lives.

Well, I'm going to give everyone a free

ebook copy as we get to the end of the podcast. But when you

read up to chapter three, I start with the gap analysis

because you know what I what I really understood when I started

really studying this is there's always everybody a lot of the

gurus and people writing said you just do these 10 things

right and it always started with getting organized and thinking

well that's not motivating no one's going to get organized so

I teach you how to make money as fast as I can teach you how to

make money is the biggest premise because the faster you

know how to make your own money, and as an entrepreneur, you're

going to be taxed very differently than an employee. So

obviously, my you know career has you know gone over now 26

years. We have the longest mentoring and mastermind. In

fact, that's where I where I was last week. We had about 280

people in a room studying how do you make money, keep money,

invest money, and you know what we win on the the most, Allison,

is we win on tax strategy because so few people know how

to use the right corporate structure, the right tax

strategy. They're overpaying taxes. I mean, a lot of your

listeners that are you know high income earners that have

especially a w2 like if you're an employee, it gets worse. So,

really, I spread out. You know, where are you? Where do you?

Where do you really want to be? And I think what you're seeing

in the book is what I call sequencing. Is no one has like

the first one to 10. You know, I you know I learned this from Bob

too. Proctor is yeah. I'm gonna meet you where you are and take

you where you gotta go. So in my book, the third chapter is about

a gap analysis, which is where are you and where do you want to

go, and that's completely a different way to start than you

know do the 10 steps and then we'll get started. It's no, I

want to know where you are first, then we'll make a

sequential plan to get you where you want to go. And Allison,

your plan is going to be very different than you know the next

person, next person, and there's not one sequence that fits all.

Everybody's so different. What they did, they're married,

divorced, blended family, just decided to never have kids and

older. So everybody has such a different spot. So that's what

we do. By chapter three, you're doing a gap analysis. Where are

you? What do you want? And then we begin.

Absolutely, I love the story about the TV

producer who came to you and is like, "Can you help this family

become millionaires?" And you're like, "Absolutely!" And you just

walk in there and you help them see a different future for

themselves. So let's talk a little bit about that story

because obviously some of our listeners haven't heard that,

but I want to give them a clear example of of something that

you've done for a specific family.

So everyone starts with a gap analysis, and

the TV producer you're talking about is Dr. Phil. I was Dr.

Phil's money expert for quite a few years, and we would do the

same. He would send me in all these like 1000s and 1000s.

1000s of people would apply to be in the Dr. Phil show, and

then I would go make them over, starting with a gap. Where are

you, and then what do you want? And I got lots and lots of

stories about those kind of folks. And some of them were

motivated; they really wanted to learn and make money, and some

just wanted to be on TV. So the ones that wanted to be on TV,

they were quickly, I should say, edited out. But we didn't spend

a bunch of time with them because they weren't willing to

do any of the work. Because inside of the work, you think,

well, how do you become a millionaire? We have to learn to

make money. Now, let's just kind of break that down. So some

people are employed, some people entrepreneurs. Either way,

there's not enough corporate structure, is what we find. And

companies make money; individuals get taxed. So for

those that were given to me in the TV show that were employed,

we had to start an operating company because to activate the

tax code, over 81,000 pages of, you know, opportunity of the

United States tax code, which is why we're still the reigning

country in the world for just capitalism and making money and

our freedom. I mean, you got to make the money inside of a

company. So even the high income earners had to start a company.

So one family, what did they end up doing? One was more of a

handyman. He had several boys and was more of a handyman.

During 2008 nine, I was given a family where she actually had a

great marketing web design, knew how to get people online

marketing skill set, and he was a lender. Well, you know, eight,

nine, and 10 lenders went, you know, completely bust. So we

helped fix her into her own company. He actually had a lend

a job as a lending company, so he was the employee, but she had

the entrepreneurial business, and we had her up. I think I had

her up in about 100 days, so less than 120 days. She was

making 20,000 a month by signing contracts and you know having

essentially marketing projects that she got up and running

right away. And then once your company makes the money and you

can activate the tax code, then they employed their kids. So she

was really the activating source of that family. And you know

when we came back to Dr. Phil and we said, you know, right,

we're ready for a 124 month checkout, and we were like,

well, where are they? I said they're over 20,000 a month.

Like the executive producer is like, there's no way anybody can

make money that fast. It's like you really can if you have a

good plan, a good service. I mean, being an entrepreneur is

providing a good service and a good product, and then it's how

do you execute the teams and the systems around it to to get

there faster, and you know the the tax code is huge. I was

going to give a statistic, Allison. Is for every 10,000 you

overpay in tax, if you did that over a 20 year span, you have

just given the IRS 1.1 or more Million dollars, so literally

people that aren't paying attention to a money plan are

you know they're they're spending it they're spending it

the wrong place. I mean they literally could be millionaires

if they would have just handled just their tax strategy.

Wow, isn't it powerful? Yeah, absolutely,

absolutely. That's so good. I love your motto: "Is say yes and

figure out how. I think that's amazing, and I love that

philosophy in business and life. And and I can tell, like when

you're working with people and helping them, you help them

really understand that mindset. So in your own life, how have

you implemented that that mindset into how you do business

every day and how you interact with people.

So, say yes and figure out how was kind of

my my formula. Do I have it right around here? I don't have

it right on here. I wrote another book called Yes Energy,

and how do you keep that yes in your life? And the the real

truth of that formula and where I made it up was when I did get

that contract with Shepherd. I was only 24 years old. I

remember flying offshore for the interview, and you know, going

rig to rig to rig, looking at the different environments. And

the engineer that was hiring me said, "So, do you think you can

do this? Do you think you can build 272 fitness centers?" And

I remember that yes moment, and then watching my brain

immediately process in like nanoseconds every reason why I

couldn't do it, and then I got back to my you know mentors,

guides, and teaching. Going now, I'm not going to do it. I'm

going to lead it. And who's so? The real formula is say yes and

figure out who's going to be on your team that's going to do it,

and who can help you develop the systems. So it's really about

who do who can you put in play the fastest because if you think

about that, Allison, most of us in this listening, you know,

whether it's listening to you or I or that are listening out on

today's podcast, they have opportunities every day. It's

just which ones are you saying yes and no to based on your

skill set. And most people, I think, deny the opportunity

because they're like, well, I can't do it. That's fine. You

don't have to. You need to know how to lead it, and then hire

the people to do it. And once you once you understand, I'm

going to get a team. I'm going to lead the team. I don't need

to put my hands on the keyboard and do all the things. Someone

else can do all the things. You just have to lead the project.

So that's the. That's the real premise behind say yes and

figure it out. It's really figure out who's done.

I love that. I love that. So you have worked

directly with Bob Proctor. What is the biggest lesson do you

think that you've taken away from being mentored by him?

Well, I was mentored for probably a decade,

and then he and I became business partners where we had

what's called head of the table, and people would pay Bob and I

$100,000 to work with us for one year, 365 days. So that came

about when he he and I were more in a mentor relationship. It was

sort of expired. I had him on a lot of my stages. I was on his

stages, so we're more in a working relationship, and then

one day I'll never forget from the green room, and this is the

lesson. He said, "Laurel, let's go make over a million dollars

in the next hour." And I remember my brain, I think,

exploded because I was still, you know, I was doing hundreds

of 1000s a month, like I knew how to do that, but then just to

move to millions and then millions and millions, and he

kept saying, "You know, Laurel, you're going to make, and

anybody's ever listened to Bob. This was one of his favorite

"Is when you make, you know, what when you make what

you do. See, in a day that you normally would have made in a

month. If you make what you make in a, you know, in a month, in a

year, like you take your annual and you make it in a month, he

would always have these like outlandish financial like

statements, and I'm like, yeah, right, Bob. And he's like, no,

seriously, we're gonna go make a million in the next hour. And

I'm like, so we're in the green room getting ready to go out.

I'm like, and how are we gonna do that? He said, follow my

lead. I'm like, all right, Bob, here we go. So we go on stage,

and he he starts asking me a lot of you know questions and

complex financial questions, and then he started sharing his

complex, you know, subconscious and how that's going to, you

know, screw all this up. And he says, "So." And he turns to the

crowd and he said, "So we're looking for 13 people that will

pay us $100,000 to put her mind and my mind together for the

first time." And 15 people ran to the back of the room, and I

looked at him, and literally $100,000 checks. I mean, like it

was just done. And he said, "There's no collect. There's no

like pay later. There's no payment plan. It's a if you if

you know you want our collective brain for 365 days, you're 100

grand. 15 people bought it, and it was like, oh my God, look at

this!" So it changes everything when you have, and I do that. I

do that outlandish stuff to my clients. It's like you're going

to do a course. You're going to do an eight-week course. It's

going to be on this. I've never taught before. I said I know.

I'm going to do what Bob did to me. He did that all the time to

me. Show up in Chicago, and we'll go create an eight-week an

eight-week program. But we're going to do it in eight hours.

No idea what he's going to do. He's going to go along with it,

and it gets done. Anyway,

does it? I love that lesson

after lesson of just stretching what you

think your capacity and limits are. Yeah, I would say he's got

a pretty limitless energy, and yeah, I love that. What's your

favorite book, and why? My favorite book in life, and why

think I have to I have to go to Think and Grow Rich because it

changed me so much. It changed my perspective of you know

Nebraska farm girl. Like you never hear about you know

progressive thinking, those kind of manifesting ideas, creating a

burning desire, living like an entrepreneur. So I still have to

put that right at the top, and then you know I kind of have my

own favorites because I wrote six New York Times, so I got

them. Yeah,

they're amazing. I love them. So one

thing that I think a lot of entrepreneurs deal with is like,

how do you push through when you feel like you're it's like

struggle or resistance is hitting you? What's one way that

you do that in your own life? I know you have so many different

projects and deals going on. How do you keep going?

Team the right people around you that support

you that you can delegate to, that can handle things. So when

you know if if one project, for example, has got a lot of issues

and things that got to be resolved, make sure you have

enough team to support you, and the other side of it too, that I

write about my synergy book is it's it's a long story how to

end up in some litigation. I'll give you the one minute version.

Someone ordered a team, a real estate team, ordered over a

million of my books, and they gave them away, like presuming

so the the people that got them in the mail presumed that I was

part of the deal because they were getting my book for free. I

had nothing to do with it, and the real estate deals were

scams. So I went through this period around 2009-10 because

like foreclosures were happening. There was just a lot

of mess in that space, and I started getting lawsuits. And

like I mean, Capital One was in 1u.S. Bank was in one bank B of

A saying that we had you know taken advantage of these people

with this real estate deal and so anyway that's how I got into

litigation as someone ripped off my then it ripped it off they

they bought a million books and then gave them away used my my

brand as a marketing tool but what I learned in that the most

is the way I lived through it is. You when things are really

negative, like you really you've got to have someone take the

negative brunt. So in that case, it was a personal assistant,

kind of part-time bookkeeper who just knew paperwork and knew how

to get it done. So she kind of fronted the whole front wife,

sustained positive, continued to make money, continued to talk to

Phil. The secret had just came out. So you really have to

manage. Like in a day, you can't put your a negative impact and a

negative energy. And then, I mean, you can fake it till you

make it, but it's a huge drain on your energy. So I just chose

to stay positive, forward facing, which is my job to keep

making the enterprise money, which is a lot of families I was

feeding. I still have, you know, I don't even know how many

families rely on this organization. 4050. We have a

huge, huge team, and it's across the world. So I think that that

was a huge lesson of energy management. I call it is making

sure that you, you know, compartmentalize that negative

stuff. Whatever it was, in my case, it was this huge flood of

litigation when in real estate transactions. I had nothing to

do with, but I still had to lawyer up. I still had to defend

it all, and then I put somebody in front of it. And then the

things that you don't know how to do, hire it as fast as you

can. I think there's still an old school, especially with the

baby boomers and Gen Xers. I don't think the millennials do

it as much. Well, I think they do. I think they go try to

figure it out on their own and and and be the expert. So they

stop and have this block of time. And you see it in

marketing. Everybody's trying to do what you do, and you're an

expert in what you do, right? So they're not able to catch up in

a six-week marketing class to think they can do it. So if you

need something done, hire it as fast as you can. And if your

excuse story is that you can't make money, then you need to

figure out how to generate the kind of capital that you need

and the revenues you need to pay for what you're going to walk

yourself through.

I love that. What do you think has changed about

building wealth since the Millionaire Maker came out? What

hasn't?

So I launched the original. This is actually

version two. It came out last year. It's our 25th anniversary

of the book, so because it came out, actually it was 25th

anniversary of my work, 20th anniversary of the book. So what

changed is a couple asset classes: crypto, big blockchain,

gold and silver just took a different light, IPOs. But the

biggest ones. I mean, cannabis, hemp, crypto. There's just a

whole different level of asset class. And then fast forward

now, like last year, this year, AI is changing everything. It's

changing so much, even about expertise, right? You know,

there's all sorts of searches now that says, "What would

Laurel think?" And you know, if they loaded my books in, I mean,

and get that out of AI, unfortunately, quicker. I still

don't think AI will ever replace a true expert because AI doesn't

have intuition, it doesn't have experience, it doesn't have a

Rolodex, it doesn't have, you know. I know I won't give up

mentors and live guides like real people who have experience,

who then can layer, you know, complex situations. So what I

find with people who have said, you know, I'll I'll just you

know use AI to work with you versus work with me directly. I

said, well, good luck with that because when you get into

complex financial layering, corporate structure, tax

structure, it hallucinates AI because it can't do complex

formulas. Then and you're seeing in my in the book, you know

there's there's there's there's 12 points of sequence and if you

those that's a lot of layering and it doesn't know how to do it

it doesn't have the experience to do it, so I think I mean I

think a lot's changed, I think, and then I'd say if the biggest

one is the 2020, you know, work ethic. I don't think it changed

work ethic. I think it exposed work ethic. That a lot of people

never really wanted to work, and now they kind of found

workarounds. And it's just interesting. The workforce is

different. I find so much is different. Really, since not the

book came out as much as COVID changed a lot.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think those are all such great

points. What's one thing that I want to make sure that I ask you

before we end the podcast is what's one money belief that

that you held early on? Because I know that you grew up on a

farm in Nebraska that you had to unlearn. I want to share that

because I know some of our listeners are listening and

they're like, "Yeah, she can do it, but I can't, and I know that

it all comes down to our mindset. So, what? How did you

do that, or where did that, you know, change and shift?

Yep, mine was strong, and it's still, I'd say,

a farm family work ethic that most Midwestern farmers is: the

harder you work, the more money you make. And I had to unlearn

that. And when I was in the secret, you know, my whole

saying was in the red jacket for just a few minutes. It was so

interesting. I recorded for five, six hours, and then only a

few minutes of a lot of us got in the secret. But the money

comes easily and frequently. Money comes easily and

frequently was the just consistent. You know, when I

went into working hard, now. Working hard and having a good

work ethic, then I had that all tangled up for a while. And I

think just having a great, methodical work ethic,

discipline, persistence. You know, practice is not perfect.

Practice will not make you practice perfect. Practice is

when you're in the heat of the game. You have muscle memory and

you have mind memory to just know what you need to do, and I

know that's what made me so different from stage. I

practiced so much to be one of the leading closers from the

stage, you know, in that era. Because prior to 2020, I was

only on stage and TV. I didn't do zooms. I didn't have an

online presence. I might even had 1000 people on Facebook or

Instagram. I just it wasn't the platform that I was engaged with

was Sages and the amount of practice, but also just

practicing to learn to make money. You know, as an

entrepreneur, most people don't know how to market, sell, or

understand cash flow as an entrepreneur, and to learn those

skills is so vital. So I can't encourage people enough to you

know to practice, practice, practice, practice. Don't read

the book once. Read it two or three times. How many times did

you read Rich Dad Poor Dad? You know, I was around that forever.

Almost five years of my life. You know, listening to Robert

and Sharon talk and talk, and that repetition and that, and

then putting it into practice is what changed me. You know, that

plus the work that was doing with my subconscious and the

work hard thing with Bob is sort of a combination, but what I

find, even when you know, because even you said mindset is

a huge piece, I'm going to say getting to evidence will change

you faster. Like while you're working on your mindset, and

money comes easier and frequently, or whatever you're

saying is going to be to get you through it. Getting evidence

meaning make money and get money in your bank accounts as fast as

you can, because then you have to change your relationship. You

can't say, "Well, I, you know, I have no relationship with money.

I don't know how to make it." Well, you just did. That's why I

love that piece of the work. Love

that, yeah.

When I when, not if I'm going to help you

make money as fast as I can help you. And but a lot of us, you

got to open your mouth. You got to ask for the money. And so

many people are so scared. You know, women are the worst. And

also, I'll just say this as we wrap up a little bit: is here's

women's best closing line. Let me know if you're interested.

That's not a closing line. That's like a chicken. That's

the biggest chicken exit. It's when do you want to start?

Here's the contract. I need a credit card, not your business

card. I need the credit card so we can actually start working

together. Isn't that? Yeah. I model with a pretty aggressive

tone because I need. It just needs to be said and modeled

that it's okay to ask when you know you have a good product and

service. You need to ask for the sale, and then that changes you

when you have evidence because you're like, oh, I don't, I

don't really have a bad relationship with money anymore

because I'm making it. Now I'm going to invest it, and then I'm

going to learn how to keep it through better tax strategy. And

so that's what we do at Integrated Wealth. We do all of

it. We do all those things.

I love it, Laurel. Thank you so much for your time

and energy and expertise today. How do people get a hold of you?

So I have a huge platform called

AskLoral.com, which my name is L-O-R-A-L. So it's a Ask L L O R

A L, and if you go to askloral.com forward slash

podcast, I have tickets to an event where I teach you how to

live that corporate life, meaning make your money inside

the company, not personally. That right there is your

trillion dollar tip. I say it very easily, but when your

companies make money and you personally make very little, you

will win. And most people think I need to be rich. I'm not. My

companies are, right? When my kids say, "Well, you know, my

mom is, but we're not," I said, "You're right. You're not. Not

yet." So if you go to askflow.com/podcast, I'm going

to give you two tickets to what's called the Millionaire

Intensive. I'm going to give you a copy of the book and a whole

bunch of other goodies that are out there. So, and then

consuming them. Don't just get them in the mail and send them

off to the side and say, "I'll get to it. I'll get to it." Or

put it by your bedside. It gets all dusty, like you are. Read

it. Consume it. Put it in your life. It'll change your life. It

will.

It's absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for

all of the amazing things you do in the world to help people, to

serve people with your gifts and your amazing spirit. I think

that's one of the things that I appreciate most about meeting

you, Laurel. So I appreciate who you are. I appreciate what you

do, and I wish you nothing but success. And to everybody who's

listening, what an amazing episode! Listen to this over and

over again. Share it with your friends. Thank you so much for

joining the launch podcast today.

Thank you.