How to Build Wealth in Any Economy

With all the uncertainty in the world right

now, how can you win in any economy? That's exactly what we

brought Laurel Langmeyer to talk with us about today. Hello, my

fellow Ripplers. This is Chris Miles, your cash flow expert and

anti-financial advisor. This show is for you if you want to

become work optional. We have enough passive income to work

because you want to, not because you have to. And if you want

your money working hard for you. Still have to work so dang hard

for that money, guys. Thank you for tuning in again. For the

last 14 years, you have been faithful listeners. Sorry, 12

years, but you've been faithful listeners here. Thank you for

tuning in. Of course, as a reminder, if you haven't done so

already, be sure to subscribe to this channel on YouTube with the

Money Ripples with Chris Miles because we've got more content,

more education coming out for you guys help you towards that

path of freedom. All right, as I said today, I brought on Laurel

Langmeyer. Now I'm especially excited today because one, I've

been following Laurel now for about the last 20 years. I saw

her on a panel between her and Kiyosaki and Larry Wingate,

people like that, and I was super impressed. I love what she

teaches, especially if you're a business owner, you've got to be

following Laurel for sure. But even if you're not, I tell you,

the conversation we're gonna have today is gonna be very

critical, especially if you want to figure out how to win in any

economy. She's a best-selling author of nine books. She's been

an entrepreneur. She's podcast host and been guested all over

media. If you don't know her, you got to get to know her and

follow her today, guys. So excited to have Laurel on with

us. So, Laurel, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you. It's exciting to be here and

love the conversation we're going to have about how to win

in any economy. I've had it on and off through multiple

economies that we've been and lived through, and there's

always a way to win.

Well, give us some of the backstory. I mean,

obviously, you have been through multiple economies. Tell us more

about what your journey and how you got to be where you are

today.

So, quick story: grew up in Nebraska, 17

years old, got the book Think and Grow Rich, which changed my

life. By 21, I was in college figuring out how to pay Bob

Proctor $25,000 to mentor because I just kind of found

this world of you know self development and personal

development and all of the things and it's like that's a

cool thing you don't really go to school for that you've got to

hire the mentors and the coaches and the guides to get here and I

still got a business degree finance degree I got a master's

in exercise physiology because I didn't want to get a job and to

your point I love what do you call yourself an anti what

financial advisor? Yeah,

I love that because financial advisors go to

school for less time than it takes for the people to cut your

hair. So true. Yeah, so it's that bad. And anyway, so I

actually spent the first part of my career doing the analysis for

Chevron employees and building fitness centers and health

programs. So that whole corporate wellness phase, and I

did 272 fitness centers on the offshore all rigs. Landed in San

Francisco. Fast forward 1996, I called Bob back. By that time, I

had hired him multiple years in a row, and I said, "It's time.

Like, I got to have a new. I want to get back to, like, think

and grow rich. How do people become millionaires? And that

was kind of my inquiry. How do people become millionaires, and

why is it so difficult? And he introduced me to Robert

Kiyosaki, Sharon Lecher. So, 1996, I just jumped out of being

an exercise physiologist, became the cash flow distributor. Talk

about a split of identity. It's like I'm leaving that world of

health and moving this way to wealth. And the thing that's

common about that, though, Chris is the wealthiest and the

healthiest live in alternatives, and that's what you teach. It's

what I teach. We live in alternative investing,

alternative strategies, and in 1999 became a real estate

millionaire. Later that year, 1999 a gas and oil millionaire,

and then I jumped ship and I started what was then live out

loud, which is now integratedwealthsystems.com. So

I've been doing this for just a few minutes. So yeah, all all in

this my 30th year of being a financial coach and mentor, and

26 years of doing my own called the Big Table.

That's fantastic. Sharon's friend of mine. We

actually had her on the podcast here recently too, and got a lot

of great information from her there. What what do you see? Is

kind of what's the same and what's different from what

you're seeing right now in the economy or just in the

marketplace?

Well, like you said, the there's the the market

is so overflighted. I mean, it's it's unbelievable. So it's going

to be interesting to watch that correct. But you're also

coupling that. In fact, I just got up a call, an hour call,

that we do every second and fourth Wednesday, just on the

real estate and the economy of where real estate is, and given

where interest rates are, and they're probably not going to

come down. I mean, you know, the years when you and I met, you

could get a two and 3% mortgage. I mean, debt's the cost of

money, so now you've got a four to 5% spread that you've got to

cover in your cash flow that you normally never did. Does that

don't go buy real estate? No. There's there's great zip codes.

I'm going to call it that have good real estate. Does everyone

have great real estate right now? No. But can you find good

deals all over this country? Absolutely, and. What you know,

the the place that I lean to to saying you can make money in any

economy is what I call living corporate life. It's a theme

that I actually made up around COVID. COVID was a blessing for

me because it brought me home because I was on the road to six

continents on a rotational basis all year round, and I literally

had offices in countries had to shut down after COVID. But it

brought us really back to, you know, what's the core? What's

the foundation of anyone, no matter what you're investing in?

Ideally, you're in alternatives. Is what's the core foundation,

and it's living corporate life, meaning your company. And this

is all like based on the stuff I wrote in the Millionaire Maker,

which we just redid this last year, Chris. So it's version

two, has 40 more millionaire stories in it, so we have 47

total stories in the book. I'm gonna give everybody a copy of

that for free, by the way. But when I say living corporate

life, I'm not saying being an employee for a corporation like

I worked for Chevron for a while. This is you owning an S

corp, an LLC, limited partnership, or C corp, or some

combination to make your taxes as low as possible with the big,

beautiful bill, and that's really, really, really shifted

the the company's attention to tax strategy. People think, I

mean, they just you have to pay tax legally, but you know, and I

know, Chris, it's an invisible pain that everybody just gets

through, versus gets strategic. So I started saying, you know,

and helping people understand your CPA is really a historian

unless you know how to really lead them and use them. So you

hand them all your stuff at the end of the year, and then they

hand you and they tax prepare a return, and there's your number.

Versus, what if you got with somebody who forecasted your

year and says, "Well, Chris, how much you going to make? How many

deductions then? How many companies do you need to

actually bring those personal expenses into business

deductions and take it as low as possible, and then invest in

alternatives like real estate and gas and oil. And like this

year, we're doing. I'm doing more solar. I bought a bunch of

water rights, and so you're buying real assets. You're not

buying the stock market version of the asset. You're buying the

real asset in the street, and it changes. So how you make money

in your company, how you do deductions and how you invest in

any economy, you will always win, because can I just give a

statistic on how how much people overpay tax? That's going to

astonish everyone listening.

Yeah.

So if you over 20 year span, if you overpay

taxes in each company, let's talking to those who actually

understand how to live a corporate structure, meaning an

S corp, C corp, LLC, primarily those three, sometimes limited

partnership. But for any of those, if you overpay 10,000 for

20 years in any entity or yourself, you've just given over

1.1 million to the United States IRS that you'll never get back,

or you start forecasting and get in front of the strategy, yes,

you pay for it, but I would rather pay for a high, high

strategy making millions of dollars to pay very little at

the end legally, but it's all documented, than give the

government one, you know, 1.1. So it's not a way to save your

way to wealth. It's a way to strategically organize who you

pay, and ideally, you're paying yourself. And I know your kind

of listeners want to pay themselves more. They just don't

know how to get there.

Yeah, I love that because you know I often quote

Bear Bryant, you know, Alabama coach, that said, you know that

offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships. They

talk about that having that best defense is the best offense, so

to speak, right? And and what you're talking about is a

defensive strategy to create more offense is how can we keep

more of the cash that we have, no matter what situation we are

in, no matter what we're investing in per se, right? It's

it's about how do we reduce those taxes, have more money in

our pocket, so then we can invest, and I love that.

Yeah, and there's so many investments

right now. I mean, the places I'm looking, like I have someone

and a client of mine. I mean, most of what I invest in now, my

clients who become millionaires and you know been in our

community for years, they'll go shopping. So I have somebody

shopping for mobile home parks. I have someone shopping for

areas of good storage, very strategic areas. So I mean,

those are the two that I'm looking at now. Yeah, it's you

know everybody on this call can decide which strategy they where

they want to be, but there's always a winning formula.

Another asset that I just want to kind of bring to the

conversation that a lot of people don't think about, and

this is really to your high income earners. Like I have a

lot of executives from financial institutes. I won't name them,

but those executives are with me doing what I mean. What probably

your clients are trying to do too, or attempting to do, which

is quit their job, and and replace their income. Some of

these are though, like I mean, I have Walmart at five, 600,000. I

have doctors making a million. So these big w2 paychecks kill

them in the tax code, and the only way to offset it is to have

a business. It doesn't have to make millions, but you're going

to have to have an operating company to get the deductions,

and most importantly, like you you know, as I think you you

teach a lot, is where do you invest for cash flow? And

franchises is a great choice. So the people who have the money,

and when they quit their big jobs, they can take their 401k

and go buy some franchises, and they can. Within 6090 days, so

there's a lot of opportunities that, especially in the

franchise world, that's where we see a lot of our high income

earners, and not necessarily quitting their job, but some of

them are. They're doing it to quit their job or putting you

know going the franchise route. So a lot of options.

Well, let's go deeper on that a little bit

because I know I've had you know several clients looking into

that option as well, and I see one of two hangups that tend to

happen. Right, there's the one side that people are like, "I'm

listening to Cody Sanchez. I'm going to buy this mom and pop

small business, whatever, and take it over, which is not

necessarily a franchise, but they're trying to go that route

of thinking versus those that buy legitimate franchises. But

then we've had a lot of franchise owners lie about

valuations, right, and try to, you know, step it up, and then

also when they get into the franchise world, they're like,

"This is harder work than I thought. Oh my goodness! They

said I could be more hands off, or just a manager working 20

hours a week, and now I'm working 50 in the business.

Like, how does somebody protect themselves or find the right

deals?

So we were just we were blessed. I had a

gentleman who I met in Ohio. He way back in the day, and I'm

going to name names that you're going to die laughing, but you

know Vina Cox Jones and Robin Thompson, kind of the women of

real estate. I was one of them in that era, and we had a show

we did. Chris was called the Five Wonderful Women of Real

Estate, and we took it all over the nation. It was so much fun

because we all had our niche of how we were doing different

strategies, and why did I share that? That was so funny. Why did

I share that real estate? What was saying about oh, so that's

where I met this guy, Rich. So he joined because he wanted to

expand his real estate portfolio. Owned 11 subway

franchises, and to your point, was having that experience of

having you know somebody call in sick, and you had to go, you

know, make the sandwiches, and so he, for him, you find your

way out of it when become a better entrepreneur. Whether you

you take over a local you know business or you do a franchise,

either way, you've got to understand teams and systems.

You've got to understand how to hire? You got to understand the

systems, so you can actually be on the business and not in it.

But then, he he actually walked us farther and farther into the

franchise world, and so we have someone that we completely

trust. We have a small team in the Ohio Illinois area. They'll

evaluate. They'll give you total transparency on what's the

reality of getting up? So it's like an intermediary between the

franchise person because there also are franchises that I would

say absolutely no to, because it limits you. I mean, it puts you

into such a tight box you can't market anything else but that,

and you can't add any revenue to it. And I'm a huge fan of adding

additive revenue to other other things, but there are some

franchises that are really, really clean, good. They do what

they say they're going to do. But I like that we have this

intermediary expert group that helps you truly evaluate, like

what are your needs, what do you need to do. When you speak of

the mom and pops, right? What I think is a fascinating place,

and I'd love to own one. So if you can find one, or I'll find

one, or we'll invest together, is I would love to buy anything

in the trades, carpentry business, HVAC, electric. Those

are taking such a toll. I mean, now the truth is, they're making

amazing profits because just electricians were able to double

with all the data centers. They were literally on at least where

we are in Northern Nevada, and you know a lot of those data

centers that land was bought here in our state, and so it's

the hugest pull on, like literally some of the big tech

guys. They'll come in and they'll just buy the entire mom

and pop electric. They want the entire business of electrical

engineers because they don't want any competition and they

need them. So if I could buy anything in the trades and grow

that back up. I take those businesses all day because

they're going to be higher, higher demand, higher, higher

prices because they're hard to find. They're hard to find.

They're hard to get. So you got to think more common sense is

how I usually teach people. I think people getting so into you

know valuations and the numbers, and not to say don't be there,

but also just put your head up and drive around. Like, what is

going on in your town, in your community? The boys are. You

know, where do you live, Chris? I'm going to. Oh yeah, that's

right. I'm sorry, you said that. Yeah. So we're both in beautiful

mountains, live in in Lake Tahoe area. But for some of you, if

you're in coastal towns, my God, if you're in California, run.

But don't come to Nevada. That's right. Jump over and go see

Chris. Go to the wannabe

California called Oregon or something, right?

Yeah,

yeah. Go up there. But there are so many

things that you can, you know, that you can buy, develop. It's

just, you know, look, go around military bases. They need

storage all the time. They're constantly out of storage. So I

think there's more of a common sense approach. Is what what is

really going on? What are people doing? You know, the other side

of this too, like any food prep business. I mean, COVID put a

lot of different behaviors into our society, and they haven't

retracted the amount of I'm going to call it lazy of having

everything delivered, like. Having it all done for you,

yeah. There's just a lot of interesting businesses that, if

you really got creative and had some initiative, you'd be up and

running easily in six figures.

Yeah. Well, and kind of going back to the theme

of the show, right? It's like, how do you make it work in any

economy? I mean, is that a factor you should be looking at?

Like he said, like look for the opportunity. But let's just say

we do move into recession, which could easily happen after an

everything bubble, right? How would you look at that when

you're looking at future opportunity? I mean, are you

just looking for that future need, or are you looking for

something else?

I think you look for future need. I also,

you know, have a huge base of a lot of what I call stability. I

have a link with a bunch of gifts, Chris, that I want to

give people, and in that link is a platform that actually got

developed through our community, through our big table community,

where it was actually a client and I were doing robotic

trading, and we're like, it's not really working. There's too

many. There's there's just too many open holes in it. So we

actually developed a an AI plat AI driven platform and it's

seven years old eight years old now I mean it's so it is before

all this boom of AI and what's going on with AI now and it

literally puts you into smart folios and takes you out of

smartfolios so when the market's been moving you know went down

just a little bit yesterday today it will pull you depending

on how far it goes down it pulls you into cash and puts you back

in. So you, so again, you stay in the you know buy low, sell

high model because it pulls you out, puts you back in. You may

go back in and out of the same stock. Like I've already made

you know a nice you know profit. I'm watching SpaceX go up and

down a little bit. It's a very cool platform. So I'm going to

give folks a free link to is called iFlip, and that has been

a major stabilization for a lot of our clients in how to

stabilize just being in the market in this volatile

arrangement. And again, I've just always got to go back to

real estate and just your own business is critical. So even in

a recession, I mean, think the the company is yours for your

family's legacy. So you're not going to just because we go to a

recession get rid of your C corp, your S corps, your LLCs.

You're not going to get rid of that stuff, nor should you,

because you can't activate the tax code if you don't. I mean,

you get a little Schedule C, but that's nothing compared to what

we're talking about. 80-something 1000 pages of code,

officer and director benefits. I mean, there's just so much you

can do if you study the tax code, and most people don't

study it, so that's what our teams do, and that's why I know

you'll survive it because you're not going to be overpaying

taxes. What you invest in, you know. Again, I think people need

better mentors and coaches than what they probably have, and

doing it alone, I think, is the craziest idea any of you could

ever have.

I totally agree. Well, and I was kind of leading

my next question because I could already hear somebody saying,

"Okay, Laurel, this sounds great, but I'm pretty busy

already in my own business, you know, or my own profession. You

know, I know I probably maybe even get some tax management's

over there, but I don't want to spend a lot of time creating

another, you know, 2040-plus, hour week job for myself, right?

Like, what would you say to those people that say, "I don't

have a whole lot of time to devote to this" What would you

say?

So I, I would say you need, and again, you

need teams and systems. And if you already have a business,

then I would just say, how do you optimize your business more?

And are you truly using your company to its fullest

advantage? I get clients all the time that have one, 510,

companies, and they've never done corporate structure right.

They really don't have the companies related right. There's

law firms, pretty prominent. I won't say their names, but you

and I probably know who I'm going to refer to. But there's

law firms who have literally they sell big bundles of

entities. They they sell yeah you know the the series LLCs to

a single doctor who might have one piece of property, and

they'll say, "Oh, it doesn't matter. You're going to grow

into it. So here they spend 15 $20,000 on a series seven or

series of a seven LLC, you know, structure not accurate. So I

would just say optimize, double down on your optimization of the

company, what the company is buying, and then more

importantly, especially when they don't have time, what else

could you do to leverage what you already have? Most people

don't leverage what they have, and they don't optimize what

they have. So that's how I I see you being able to win in any

economy. I mean, and especially if you're buying, and if you own

like you know, think of the recession-proof kinds of

companies-they're not sexy, right? They're cleaning

companies, they're pesticide companies, though the trades.

They're, you know, cleaning companies are my favorite

because they're never going to go away. People are always going

to pay people to clean. So double down on those kinds of

investments, and you will win bigger, more sustainably. And

even if the economy rocks and rolls, if you want, if you don't

want, yeah, mountain mice like in our area. I don't know where

you are in Utah. You have mountain mice, but you don't let

your pest control people go, even in a recession. You don't

let a lot of stuff go. So you look for the non-discrete, like

things that are not as discretionary. If you're if

you're out. You're listening, and you need to choose something

new, or for those of you who already have a business. Again,

to your point, Chris, not a lot of time. What can you do to

optimize? Offer more to those that you already have. Yeah, and

the way you do that is ask your customer. I mean, when's the

last time you sent out a survey? I do surveys pretty regularly,

meaning quarterly, on all my social channels. You know, you

all know I'm an expert. You know, I make millionaires. I've

made over 10,000 millionaires. What else do you want to learn?

Like in this economy, what do you want to learn, and you know

how do you want to learn it?

Yeah, you know, it's it's a good point because I

probably should have reached out to you six years ago when I was

I almost went into buying like a a running gym type franchise, or

maybe like something like renting to hair salon owners,

and then I thought, wait a minute, why am I trying to start

something new when I could just get more efficient and maybe

even expand and scale my own business? Money ripples, right?

And and you're right. Like sometimes it might just be the

very you might be on your own acres of diamonds that you're

not even maximizing yet, and that could even lead to future

opportunities as well.

Absolutely, and like you know, Sharon Lacher

has repurposed a lot of Napoleon Hill's work. One of my favorite

was the three feet from gold. Most people are three feet from

gold. I have so many doctors and medical because of my background

in health. I attract a lot of those you know naturopaths, you

know nurses, nurse practitioners that have left, they've gone to

telemed. You know, they're doing all the Ozzybic tricyptides, the

peptides. You know, they're doing mobile IV, you know,

treatments. There are so many things again in the alternatives

that those folks can do. And I've had full-on, you know,

world-class heart surgeons after COVID not go back. They want all

telemed, and they're making more money and have a different

lifestyle. So you also have to think, what can I do to make

that transition to still offer the products and services I

offer, but do it in a very different way. Again, like I

said, COVID was a blessing. It took me off the road. You know,

I was on the road probably 250 days at least a year, and going

continent to continent, not just around the United States. So

it's it just shifted it. Never thought I would do it. Right

here you are.

Right.

And now to get me back on the road is like an

airplane. I sold my plane. So that was the other part. I was a

pretty spoiled, you know, entrepreneur in the way I did it

because I thought if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it

where it's you know a little more ease and grace than

commercial airline. So,

yeah, yeah, I love it.

Anyway, it's fun. I know you've been very

generous with time.

I want to make sure I ask you a couple last quick

questions. First and foremost, they want to follow you. What's

the best way to do that?

If you go to integratedwealthsystems.com,

there's a quiz. Take a quiz. It'll put you into one of

finance, one of four financial personalities. So I say, let me

know who you are, and then for gifts, if you go to ask Laurel

and it's A S K L O R A L, so I have to spell my name right.

It's asklaurel.com forward slash podcasts, and you'll get a copy

of the version to a millionaire maker, a free link to go get an

iClip account. Which, by the way, get two, get one personally

and one for a Roth if you qualify. And if you don't

qualify, you're probably paying yourself too much in a payroll,

which I see that all the time. Do not pay. I only make 42,000

as an employee. I don't own a phone. I don't own a car. I

don't own any of this. I don't. I the world out. My companies

do. I cannot impress. Like living corporate life from 18

and up will change your life for the rest of your life. And so

I'm going to give them two tickets to an event where I

teach for several hours how to truly live corporate life. So

I'll give them two tickets and I flip account and the book, so

they can go get some goodies and then read it, consume it. If it,

if it's you know, relates to you, then continue to follow up.

Love it. Yeah, we'll put that on the show

notes. You got guys, you got like the next month or so

planned here. Like you've got everything you need right here.

So that's very generous. Thank you.

Fun.

Your last question, being the Money Ripples podcast,

we talk about creating a ripple effect for people's lives, and

and it kind of sounds like you-you kind of this next

evolution that you're feeling called to. I can tell. What do

you feel like is your ripple effect that you're here to

create?

Well, this is the book I brought out in 2022.

Can make your kids millionaires. So for me, it's deepening the

work into more families, so they truly know how to create a

legacy. They truly create generational wealth. The

generational wealth, statistically, is 2.3

generations, which means your grandkids are going to blow it

unless you know how to put in the right trust, the right

corporate structure. Start training your kids how to live

it. So I attract more families now, Chris, not just

individuals. They usually start as one person in family, you

know, in the family are are more keen to to wanting to learn and

be mentored and and change their family's you know trajectory.

But then, how do you really sustain it? So we have a great

trust company, our legal teams to help people decide, you know,

how do you want to continue this legacy? So I'm in that. My son

just turned 27 a few days ago, and my daughter will be 20.

She's a pilot, yay! So now I get a plane for her. So to me, it's

like it's really living and teaching people. You know, the

the I'd say the phase that I'm in, and really helping them and

create generational wealth. And I always say a legacy is two

things, right? The inheritance is just the stuff, right? That's

the will and the stuff you're going to give away. The legacy

is the character, the values, and truly, you know, creating

that family relationship because money needs to be taught in the

family. It should never be taught in schools. I take a hard

stand for that. Teach this, not the place. Money is about a

family's values, and by the way, your family is inclusive of

those you put around you. They don't have to be, you know,

bloodline, and creating that kind of a structure. So yeah,

I'm on to that chapter as well as who's going to be. There's a

team actually out of Utah. I'm talking to Chris about expanding

the Millionaire Maker brand because it's just it's too good

of a brand. It's been an enormous career for me, and I

don't want it to die with me. So, talking to a huge team in

Utah that's going to expand the Millionaire Maker brand. So I'm

in a very cool transition. I say expansion, not even I'm not

transitioning, other than expanding and having more team

come in.

I love serve

more people.

Yeah, fantastic. Well, Laurel, I really

appreciate your time today. You've been so generous, and

again, thanks for all the free gifts and everything. Again,

we'll put that in the show notes for you. But thank you so much

for being here today.

Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Have been great

to be here, and the rest of you stay in touch.

Yep. And everybody else, hey, remember, like you

could be listening these episodes all day long, and you

could even say, "Hey, thanks for the gifts, Laurel. But until you

do something with it, your life is going to remain the same. So

if you want your life to change and you create your own ripple

effect, go out and make it a wonderful and prosperous week.

And we'll see you later.