Brian Carruthers: Sharing His Experience of True Financial and Time Freedom
LISTEN TO FULL EPISODE ON:
Brian Carruthers started out as a real estate agent and broker, working for his father's company. After working long hours and getting burnt out, Brian turned to network marketing and pursued that industry to build and grow his income. Now, Brian is one of the top experts in the industry and spends his time giving back and helping others to build wealth and grow their income in network marketing, recruiting, and in other areas. He also has authored 4 books including Building An Empire and Untrapped Freedom Manifesto. In his spare time, he loves to spend time with his wife and 3 kids.
Note: This episode was taken from the REL Freedom event "Fredom Con 2020" that was held in October of 2020. In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson and Vlad Kats, we discussed:
- How his career got started and his background
- Author of well-known books like Making My First Ten Million and Money Mindset
- If you have to trade time for money, you can never experience true time freedom
- Success is a decision made by daily choices
- Wealth is a measurement of time
- Invest extra cashflow
- Conceive it, believe it, and go to work
- Be more consistent than everyone else
- Two jobs are meant for two people. You should have one job and then a side business
- How he has set up a trust account with his kids, where he does a matching bonus for every dollar they make, as a way to encourage them to pursue their own dreams vs living off of the money he has made
Timestamps: If You Want To Jump Ahead To Your Favorite Part
0:00 - Intro and overview on Brian’s career
5:40 – A look into some of Brian’s writings
7:34 - How to building wealth
13:16 – Importance of paying yourself first
26:26 – Advice from Brian
29:30 - How he teaches his kids about money and freedom
32:50 – How he balances time and focus for freedom
Links Based On This Episode:
Brian's Website: https://briancarruthers.com/
Brian's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brian.carruthers.56
Brian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realbriancarruthers/?hl=en
Purchase Brian's books:
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Hi, Mike Swenson here with REL freedom, you know, this episode of our real freedom stories is going to be a little bit different. So recently, we had an event called freedom CON . And on there we had some wonderful guests that share their stories, and some of their tips and successes on their journey towards financial and time freedom. So, this particular episode, we're going to pick up with Brian Carruthers, and he's going to share his story, he'll give his background on the episode and hear from Brian will pick it up from the event. We hope you enjoy it. Let us know if you have any questions.
Mike Swenson
So first up, we've got the wonderful Brian Carruthers here who's going to share with us so just a little bit of a background on Brian. So he was actually a former real estate agent and broker. He is well known in the network marketing space. And so he'll talk a lot about that. And then he's also authored a few books. So I know, personally, his most recent book untrapped freedom manifesto is a fantastic read, previous to that also building an empire making my first 10 million. So that's a book. You know, there's a lot of folks out there that can't write that book, and Brian can so and then money mindset and you guys can go to his website, briancarruthers.com and read more about him. And welcome, Brian, if you want to go ahead and take it away. We'd love to have you.
Brian Carruthers
Awesome. Well, then, Mike, I appreciate the the invitation. And it's an honor to be here. I don't take it lightly. And I know that we've got quite a number of people that are watching live and I'm sure on replay later on. And I want to just preface what I want to talk to you guys about today. With the with the idea that this is not about me, showing out or showing off is more so about me showing you I actually just got back from my 50th birthday celebration, my wife and I, we went down to Mexico. And if anybody watches bachelor or Bachelorette television shows when anybody gets kicked off, they're invited to bachelor in paradise.
Brian Carruthers
Now, if you don't care about those shows, that doesn't matter that much. But they do it at this beautiful jungle Beach Resort down in Sayulita. And I always tell my wife every season I want to go there. Well, we actually went there just this last week, we had an amazing, amazing time. And I actually just did a big webinar last night for for about 1000 folks. And I just told him, I said, Look, how awesome is it to be able to have the freedom to completely detach and unplug from the universe, and just go away for two weeks, and just completely enjoy ourselves. And when I come back, and I get replugged in yesterday, I my net worth grew by half a million dollars.
Brian Carruthers
My business grew while I was gone as well. And so like those will go on vacation or like they're worried you're anxious. Am I losing business? How much am I gonna pay for all this. So there's a method to the madness, you got to design your life ahead of time and then live out the plan, you have to have a plan and then you have to work the plan. Unfortunately, most people spend more time planning a one or two week vacation than they do planning their lives. And I'm going to give a little bit of background on myself because I know most of you are real estate professionals. So that was my life. My dad built one of the largest real estate companies on the East Coast back in the 70s Colquitt brothers sold to Merrill Lynch in 1981. And he had 34 offices.
Brian Carruthers
After his five year non compete ran out, he got the business going again, knowing my brother and I were going to get out of college one day and maybe join him which we did. And so I jumped into the real estate game at 21. I was Rookie of the Year my county by the time I was 25, I was making six figures. This is me by the way, you can see how long ago this was this back when we used to wear double breasted suits. I used to have hair, you can see my name on the sign there. So I was all proud of our family company. But let me tell you something, you know, I know what it's like to hustle and grind seven days a week. You guys know in real estate, if you're not willing to be there when a client calls you, they're gonna drop you and they're gonna go find somebody else.
Brian Carruthers
So I know what this is like, right? I there's my what my wife and my three boys is that our property that we own it and in Turks and Caicos, we have a beautiful tip of North Caicos Island. Matter of fact, I've been, you know, spending time being mentored. And as I look, when I spoke on stage last two years ago, with Lou Holtz, Harvey Mackay, Grant Cardone, Eric Thomas, Eric wory, Richard Branson, I mean, Magic Johnson, who is an amazing cast of characters. And one of the things that whole set is the most valuable thing you're ever going to find in your life as a mentor. And I ask people all the time, who is your mentor? People like all my mom, my dad knows your parents. There's your parents, who's your mentor, somebody who's done great things in your chosen path and is willing to teach you and help you to accomplish greatness like they have.
Brian Carruthers
Well, I started getting around Robert and Kim Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad I spent time some of you all might not know who this is, by Paul J. Meyer is the grandfather of the entire personal development industry, he authored and sold over $2 billion of his own books in audio training programs. Matter of fact, when when Paul Meyer passed away, people say one day, I want to be so successful, I'm going to own my own condo in the Cayman Islands. This great right? When Paul Meyer passed away about a dozen years ago, he owned 352 properties on Grand Cayman, he owned more property on Grand Cayman than any other human being. He gave away $450 million to charity while he's alive, and he still gives to this day with his his estate. In his past efforts passing. I've been very blessed and fortunate to not only be successful as a real estate agent, but I also became an entrepreneur. And there's a difference there, by the way.
Brian Carruthers
And as an entrepreneur, I fortunately made many millions of dollars. But I created time freedom for myself, which I didn't have when I was a real estate agent. And so I wrote making my first 10 million back in 2012, that I wrote, building an empire which people all over the real estate industry are using, especially people that are building teams that are real money mindset to teach people what to do with the money they make, pay the least amount of taxes, know how to put overalls in their money, or like Kevin O'Leary on Shark Tank, he says, I like to send my money out into the world and have a comeback with friends. So I wrote a book about that. And then Ryan grant Conan and I have become great friends.
Brian Carruthers
Now as a matter of fact, he had me on one of his shows, not too long ago, back when I had a little little hair in my head about a couple years ago now. And he was talking about the need for people to get this information. And then last year, I I've released untrapped freedom Manifesto. And I'm today's talk this, this seminar is about freedom. So I'm going to key in on this freedom concept. Because I don't know very many people who have true time freedom, the way I look at it is if you have to trade your time for money, I don't care if you're a real estate agent hustling your next transaction. Or if you're an employee, going out and trading your time punching a clock for a salary. If you have to trade time for money, you can never experience true time freedom.
Brian Carruthers
So that's why I wrote on trapped because most people don't know what real freedom looks like. They don't know how to create it. And my estimation, look, I've been an entrepreneur now for 25 years. And I've coached all over the world with regards to it had big, great mentors. And now I've been mentoring many, many, many people. At the end of the day, you've got to have passive residual income, so that your cash flow keeps coming in when you're not having to work for it. Right. So we're going to talk a little bit about that here today. And so, but let me just go foundational, foundational, what is wealth in the first place? Okay, because building wealth is a decision. Success is a decision, followed by daily choices. You might say I want to be wealthy, that doesn't matter who doesn't want to be wealthy, everybody wants even people who think money doesn't matter.
Brian Carruthers
Deep down, they know that's kind of a, you know, a false statement. Everybody wants to have wealth in abundance, so they can do great things for people in their lives. Okay, so wanting something, it doesn't matter that much is a decision, you have to decide I am going to get wealth in my life. And then every day the following daily choices that you have to make between doing the right activity to create the wealth or not doing it, which is a slight edge compound effect. I've got a good friend Darren Hardy, who wrote a book called the compound effect, and you're not going to go out and eat an elephant one bite, you're not going to get wealthy in one day. It's the little disciplines that you have to make every single day those little decisions. Do I eat a banana? Or do I eat a Twinkie? Do I drink juice? Or do I drink a coca cola? Do I make a call to a prospect? Or do I watch TV? Okay, that's it.
Brian Carruthers
These are these are daily choices that we have to make now. What is your relationship with money? When Vlad and Mike asked me to talk on this webinar today, you know, I always want to remember that most of us did not go to school, high school or college and ever learn anything functional. Anything that I truly apply I learned geometry, physics, social study, I learned a lot of stuff, but I never had wealth building one on one I never heard money 101 like so a lot of people don't even realize that they don't even have a good relationship with money in the first place. Except people say well, you know, the the love of money is the root of all evil. Ah, you know, yes, I know that's the stated in the Bible. But at the end of the day, the way I look at it is it's it's doing bad things for or with money is the issue.
Brian Carruthers
Loving money itself is an issue but how many you got How many of you all would love if somebody in your family got sick and they needed $100,000 to be able to go to Mexico to get the right treatment to save their life? How would you How would you love to stroke that check and save a loved one's life? Would you guys love that? Of course you want something you love what money can do you love to actually love money but you need to love what money can Therefore, just cut it short and say, hey, look, I've got a great relationship with money. I love money for what it can do. And if you stop despising money, if you stop saying they wealthy people are greedy, and grim and greedy people are bad, but it's not the case. But we've been conditioned and programmed by so many people for so many years to think that is not a good thing to want to becoming wealthy person.
Brian Carruthers
So once you've got the right relationship with money, that's why I wrote my making my first 10 million, you're either repelling money or you're attracting money. And there's a lot of people that don't understand what wealth is, wealth is a measure of time. So if you're making five now, if if your cost of living is $5,000 a month, and you got 100 grand your name, that means if you lost your income source today, you lost your job today, you basically basically can survive for 20 months before you are destitute and homeless on the street. At $5,000 a month, you got 20 months worth of money in the bank account at $100 $100,000. So Well, there's a measurement of time, it's not rich riches, different riches, like oh, I, you know, wearing rolexes and Louis Vuitton bags and eating out low surf and turf. You know, that's, that's more of a description. Wealth is a noun, wealth is a measurement of time.
Brian Carruthers
Now, you might not feel wealthy if you only have 100 grand in the bank, and you've got a $5,000 cost of living every month. But if you had 20 million in the bank, and your cost of living is 5000, you'll never out earn your money, so you will feel wealthy. There's also another concept of wealth, building wealth or servicing debt. Most people spend their whole lives servicing debt. That's why they never master the money game, servicing debt. Let me tell you what that what I'm talking about if your cost of living is $5,000 a month, and your income is 6000. Most people make the six they pay the five and they have an extra 1000. And they go blow it. They're buying the Gucci handbags and going out and spending it on lavish things. And therefore they're never building any net worth. And they will retire dependent on family friends or federal government because they never planned for retirement, they never built any wealth.
Brian Carruthers
So instead of servicing debt, what if you actually had a wealth building what I call the money mindset. In that scenario, you make 6000, the $5,000, and bills gets paid out of it. But the $1,000 that remains is what you were after the entire time, you weren't working for the thought of the 5000, you are working for the 1000. And if you focus on that one, and you retain that money, and you and you put that money away, and you invest that money and you grow your net worth, now you're on the right track, most real estate agents that I've worked with over the last 30 some years, guess what, they are transactional. It's all about getting that that addictive fix, I need another commission, I needed a commission, I need to sell another house, I got bills to pay.
Brian Carruthers
Now, and I know guys that you will always I know people, when I stopped selling houses in 1998, some of the same agents that were selling houses full time, then here they are 22 years later, and they're still selling houses, not because they love it, they're doing it because they have to, because they can't afford to stop. That is not how anybody wants to be in a position where they have to do something. So pay yourself first Paul Meyer, tada says, pay yourself 10% of every dollar, pay it first into a separate bank account. Now your operating account, not your checking account, but an investment account that you're going to build for your future.
Brian Carruthers
The latte factor, I'm gonna speed through some of this because I want to get to some more of the story. But look, some sometimes if you want to get wealthy, you can do things, earn more or spend less, if you want to get there faster, earn more and spend less. So instead of spending six bucks for a Starbucks, a Starbucks coffee, what if you invest in that money, and build for your future? I'm gonna give you an example of this. By the way, there's also an opportunity cost, which I'm gonna, I'm just gonna touch on this real quick. I owe for my 50th birthday. This past week, for a couple of weeks, I actually flew first class with my wife, I never fly first class, and people were like, Brian, you're worth 10s of millions of dollars, you've got that much. Liquid, why would you? Why would you fly coach, it's opportunity cost?
Brian Carruthers
Why would I spend an extra $400 for an extra 10 inches of leg room for a two or three hour trip when I can take that $400 the rule of 72 I can I can double that money at a 10% compounded return every seven years that money is going to double so that $400 that I could have dropped on an extra little bit of leg room, I could turn that into 800 then I can turn that 800 to 1600 I can build my wealth by not squandering that opportunity cost now for my 50 if you only turn 50 once I'm like hey, let's let's go ahead and do this in some style and and make it you know a little bit more more comfortable. So I did it. And I'm shifting a little bit because now I'm 50 I'm not going to give my kids a whole bunch of money. I'm not going to ruin them and make them not have to go out there and become somebody themselves.
Brian Carruthers
So well, you know, I've got to spend a little bit of it, but I also want my money to have a lot of impact. So I'd rather give my money to charity, or invested for exponential growth. So I can do more with more impact later on in my life than to go out and spend it on a first class ticket or, or a new watch or a new whatever, right? So but here's the thing, guys, you can get too sick, you can get you can build wealth, without even earning six figures. Some of you right now, maybe it's Look, I know some of the speakers on here do really, really well. But some of you guys might be like, hey, look, I only make 60 grand a year. And we're kind of struggling right now. So how am I ever gonna get wealthy? Well, first of all, decide you're gonna get wealthy, tell the world you're gonna go do it and then figure it out.
Brian Carruthers
Let me show you guys out of my out of my money mindset book is I've got a chart in there that shows this. It's so if you, for example, just find $5 a day, whether it be the latte factor where you stop smoking cigarettes that cost so much money, you stop drinking coffee from Starbucks or whatever, it's been fined $5, or just earn an extra $5 a day earn an extra 150 a month like, well, how can I earn an extra 150 a month, there are 1000s of ways to make a little extra money. There are 1000s of ways I help people every day make extra side money from a side by side business from home. But if you made an extra five $5 a day, an extra $150 a month, again, at the s&p index, average return over the last 50 years is 10% and 10%.
Brian Carruthers
Return you're looking at $30,000.10 years from now just putting away $150 a month, 20 years, 114,030 years, 341,040 years, you've got almost a million dollars, you become almost a millionaire with 150 bucks extra a month that you invest properly. What if you had $300 a month? Look good luck with that turns into almost $2 million in 40 years? You might say one I'm too old. I'm 60. I'm not going to live to 100. Well, let's say you got 20 years to go out and build up for it well, at $300 a month. $230,000. What if you have $600 a month I tell people all the time, if I can show you how to work in a business project with me, then you can make an extra 600 bucks a month on the side. Without matter to me that help your life like 600 bucks. Some people were like, heck yes, we were like I'm not sure if it would move the needle, watch watching move the needle here, I can show you how to take that $600 a month, invest in a 10% return.
Brian Carruthers
And in 10 years, you got 124,020 years, 460,030 years, 1.3 million in 40 years $3.8 million. And you look at some other examples here you take a look at Well, what if you have 15 $100 a month or what do you have $3,000 a month, you can become a multi millionaire. If you take that extra cash flow, whether you saved it or you earn extra and you invest it properly. Again, you don't have to be Warren Buffett, matter of fact, Warren Buffett tells people go buy an s&p index, go get like the vo o vandaag. Vanguard SP index fund, you just put the money in it and forget about it and let it do what it is done for 50 years. Just want to give you guys a little little insight on that taxes, make sure you're putting away at least 10 or 20% as it comes in so that you're not caught flat footed without having to tax money when the time comes.
Brian Carruthers
Pay it on time and use all the tax advantages that you can to your advantage. Okay. Look, at the end of the day. If you're an entrepreneur and you have a business, you've got access, right? You look instead of having a job, if you're a W two employee, you make this much money, you pay income on this much money, income tax. But if you're an entrepreneur, you'd make this amount of money, you take all your deductions and then you pay taxes on the remaining smaller amounts. It's just smart. That's what's that's what smart people do. Robert Kiyosaki says it's more important to grow your income than cut your expenses is more important to grow your spirit than cut your dreams. He also said financial freedom is a mental, it's an emotional, it's an educational process.
Brian Carruthers
And I can tell you, when I became an entrepreneur, on the side for real estate, I was in my 20s. And I engaged in this process as he as he you know, as he talks about here, and through that process. Yes, I've made a lot of money. Yes, I've retained a lot of money. Yes, my network as net worth has, has really elevated and grown big time. But one of my friends, I said this many years ago, he said don't make a million for the money. Go make a million for the person that you had to become to make the million. It's pretty profound, isn't it? And the person who I am today talking on this webinar with you. I'm a different guy than I was when you sold me that real estate picture on the cover of The Washington, you know, business magazine right there. So knowing that you need to make a change is not enough. You got to have the guts to go out there and do it. Now. Robert Kiyosaki talks about everybody lives somewhere.
Brian Carruthers
Everybody lives somewhere in one of these four quadrants. You're either an employee trading your time for money, and if you're doing that you're never gonna have time freedom because you're always having to trade your time for money. So maybe most of us say, Well, okay, well, if I, if I'm not gonna get freedom there, I guess I want to be self employed and not just be an employee, well, you, okay, great, you become a self employed. But now instead of having a job, you own a job. And if you don't show up as a self employed person as a traditional business owner, then your business isn't working, right. So you still are owning a job, you're still tied to that time clock. And so you know, I don't care if you're $100 an hour massage therapist, if you're a $400 an hour attorney, or you could be a surgeon who makes 20 grand per surgery, if you don't work, you don't get paid.
Brian Carruthers
So people start realizing, okay, on the left side of this equation, as an employee or as s self employed, you're not going to find freedom there. So people start to realize when they when they grasp this, that I want to be a B or an i quadrant person, I'm going to live in the B quadrant, a big business owner, where you got leverage got a lot of people that are working for you. And when you've got a lot of people that are making money for you, now you've got a system that's creating your cash flow. So you've got the cash flow comes in, whether you're working or not, that's super important, right. And then once you've got a B quadrant business, throwing off cash flow, then you can become an I an investor, where your money is now making you money, like I said, so I go to Mexico for a couple of weeks. And as I'm down there, my investments grew by over a half a million dollars, my cash flow from my main business, that's got residual income came in to the tune of 100, and some $1,000.
Brian Carruthers
So at the end of the day, change where you live, go from being a sales person chasing commission deals to becoming a B quadrant business owner, I cannot stress this enough, you guys. And why recruit. And again, I don't care if you're recruiting to a team, in any kind of a real estate brokerage, or if you're building a real estate office or a company, why recruit is because you want wealth, and you want freedom. And I don't know very many wealthy agents, who got wealthy as just an agent getting paid on only their transactions. And guys, I know many 1000s of agents, I don't care if you're doing a half a million a year in agent commission volume. I mean, if you're making a half a million a year as a real estate agent, I mean, you're working your butt off to do it. How long can you do that?
Brian Carruthers
And hopefully, you're practicing the wealth building money mindset, and you're taking whatever your net income net profit from that is, and you're investing it because it gives you guys know, every January 1 is first and 10 all over again. Matter of fact, every transaction that closes is first and 10 all over again. Right. So that's a little bit about my money mindset. wanted to share that with you guys here. And, you know, the last thing I want to do is and Mike and Vlad all if you guys have any particular questions for my remaining few minutes that I have, that I might be able to answer for you. But I can tell you that first you have to believe it. Well, even before that, first you can see then you believe that you achieve. So conceive in your minds today conceive like Close your eyes and envision the life that you want to be but not the life that you're living. Now you already see it open your eyes, you're living it.
Brian Carruthers
Okay, some of you guys are stressed out. Vlad talk about the Coronavirus situation coming around. And for a lot of people, their lives got dislocated, their income was displaced. Some people lost their jobs, some people their income went down. Now luckily for a lot of real estate professionals, some people's incomes went up. Like in my business with legalshield. For example, people need our services. Now more than ever, people need an opportunity to make some side income from home now more than ever. So for the last seven months, my business has gone up consecutively. Every month for seven months, we've seen great increases.
Brian Carruthers
So for some people, there's been a silver lining, but there's still a lot of anxiety out there. So my my suggestion is really, you know, conceive of a life and a lifestyle that you want to live. Figure out how, what it's going to take to get there and believe that you can do it. And you're probably not going to do it alone. you need you need workout partners. You need mentors, you need the right model the right the right path, right? conceive it, believe it and then go to work. One of the things that I always have to teach everybody is consistency is everything. It's not an apple, it's not it's not seven apples on Sunday keeps the doctor away. It's an apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Brian Carruthers
You don't go to the gym for 10 hours on Wednesday and work out all day on Wednesday, you will die you'll you won't be able to move your muscles on Thursday or Friday or Saturday, you'll be stuck in bed on getting traction. If you're a workout person, you probably work out like an hour, maybe three or four days a week. So it whether it's real estate, whether it's what I do with legalshield in the network, marketing space, whatever you do, you just have to be more consistent than everybody else. And I have been so consistent. I'm really known for that in my space. I'm known as one of the more consistent people and that's why I've made 10s of millions of dollars because the Money Follows the consistent rock in the river leaders. So Mike, I'm glad I've gotten Unless there's anything I can, you know, chat with you else, anything else I can add with you?
Mike Swenson
Yeah, I, I actually have a couple of couple of questions that arose from, from what you were from what you were talking about. So Brian, I, I, I bought your building Empire book, both in, you know, in the hard version and the paperback version and an audio because I learned just like different ways. Like if it's a manual, I need to have it in a in a book version. If it's like something that just like information, then I'll, I'll get it on Audible and just so happens that it's both like that book. And so in that book, you go, you go fairly deep and describing and you you touched on that like that you were brought up in a I'll just call it like an affluent family, like your dad and your family is a legend I'm in I'm in Baltimore, right? So like, the the first brokerage that I started was right outside of Baltimore.
Mike Swenson
So Carruthers is like, you know, is a name all over the place. And you know, so you were blessed to be in that type of environment where I would assert that most people actually grow up in a, in a in the opposite of that an environment that either hates money or like looks at money as a root of all evil, rather than the tool that it is. So what advice do you have for the rest of us in terms of Okay, so you grew up like that, it doesn't mean that it has to run your life, like how to snap out of that thing?
Brian Carruthers
For sure. Well, if this right here is the destination, everybody wants to get to you want to become wealthy, you could be coming from this direction, where you're coming from an affluent family, you already come from money, or you're coming from this direction where you're on the other side of the tracks where you don't have that that affluent background, both are going in the same direction both want to go to the same destination. I could have gone either way. I know a lot of people, a lot of kids that were my age that came from affluent families, and they became derelicts because their parents basically enabled them to do nothing with their lives.
Brian Carruthers
They just had a mom and daddy's credit card. So and I also know people that had nothing and become multimillionaires, you look at you just look at Forbes and look at their backgrounds. Most of them did not come from I mean, Donald Trump's dad had a lot of money. So he had a leg up. But there's a lot of people that didn't have that, you know. So at the end of the day, it comes down to desire. If you have burning desire, you're willing to work and you're coachable. You can accomplish whatever it is. So I think what helped me the advantage I took advantage of is I had the belief that it can be done because I saw it done right. So I knew what was possible. I'm like if my dad did I could do it. But if you guys don't have a written look, Robert Kiyosaki wrote the whole manual on it Rich Dad, Poor Dad, his dad was a government worker.
Brian Carruthers
So but his friend's dad was a wealthy millionaire entrepreneur. So he had a he loved his own dad, but he also also had his rich dad, his friend's dad that he got got to learn entrepreneurship from. So I'm gonna say find your mentors, whoever it may be, might come from inside of your lineage might come from outside. You know, I've got people I've coached and work with in my business like Mike Humes from outside of Baltimore, Maryland, was a mailman working for the post office delivering mail. He started working with me and legalshield, for example, he's made $7 million from legals, who's making 600 grand a year, nobody in his family history, nobody had ever made six figures in his entire family. Now he gives away six figures every year to charitable causes.
Brian Carruthers
So Darnell self, another guy, he worked in a mall, who worked at a mall at PG Plaza, selling clothes as a retail manager, he's made $16 million with me. And here's another guy who net didn't come from money, none of his people in his fit. He was his three months bounders mortgage payment when he, when he found a mentor found a business model that he could pursue. And now he's eight, he's killing it. So I just think it comes down to you know, you can make excuses for anything, you can say, oh, Brian had a family that had money. And I didn't say, therefore woe is me. I'm destined for failure, that that's a cop out. And it's nothing but an excuse.
Mike Swenson
God, I love the formula that you just described. He said, have the desire, have the mentors, and oh my god. And then there was a third thing that you're coachable and willing to be coachable and be coachable. Oh my god that, like for those of you who are listening, have desire, have mentors, and be coachable that that will solve most of your challenges. So I know that, and this is about my kids. So I have three girls all under the age of 11. And I know you have three boys, right. So like, how do you teach your kids about money and freedom?
Brian Carruthers
Yeah, that's a great question. So a couple things. Since COVID, I've gotten back into sports card collecting. So when I was a kid, as a young young kid in my you know, from age 12, all the way through college, I was really into baseball cards and sports cars, and I became a dealer. So I was one of the youngest dealers in the country. I was 15 years old. Going to card shows a week. By the time I was 17, I had an account with all the manufacturers top players score donruss upper deck. And so I learned about investing my money from raking leaves, cutting lawns, going to Ocean City, Maryland and catching crabs and selling them steam door to door, I did anything, I couldn't make money as a little entrepreneur, I took that money and bought cards.
Brian Carruthers
And then I would sell cards for a profit, I would buy like a Mark McGwire rookie for 22 cents, I held it because I thought he was going to do well. And when he did, I sold him for 20 bucks. So it's almost like buying stocks, you buy stocks and companies that you think are going to grow. And they're going to appreciate I did the same thing with sports cards and athletes. And so I learned about that. And that's why I think I've done well in the stock market investing world. Well, my son who's now 14, I've got another three and a half and one and a half as well. So I have three boys, but my 14 year old is in that perfect age slot, when COVID hit, you know, the sports collecting industry just went bonkers. People couldn't watch live sports, they couldn't gamble on sports.
Brian Carruthers
So now everybody kind of jumped into sports cards, they can get the sports fix, they can gamble on it by buying cards and hoping they go up and all that. And then the last dance with Michael Jordan came out of the documentary, which caused his cards to skyrocket. Then you got Gary Vee, and these other you know, DJs and these athletes and rappers are all getting the sports cards and talk about them on social media and the values of going crazy. So my son is now learning about things the way I learned it was awesome. He's doing the sports cards, investing, turning them for profit. And and now he watches me with stocks. And he wants me to get him a stock account when he's old enough to have one. So it doesn't.
Brian Carruthers
By the way, one more thing for anybody when you start having money and you know, not everybody's gonna be there like this. But you may come to a place where you've got a bunch of wealth, you got to figure out what am I going to do it? Okay, Vlad, you got three kids like I do. I don't want to ruin them. You don't want to ruin yours. I don't want to say okay, I got millions, okay. So when I die, it's yours. They will basically number one, they'll want me to die. I don't want that. Number two, I don't want them to be like, Oh, I don't have to go do much. Because at some point in my life, I'm going to just inherit a bunch of money.
Brian Carruthers
So I set this up as a part of my estate planning with my law firm, I put a an incentive program a bonus program, kind of like network marketing wise. So I'm doing a matching bonus. So I'm gonna match whatever they make. If my son talent goes out and makes 40 grand a year, he'll get another 40,000 for my estate. And because that makes a quarter million a year, he'll get an extra quarter million for me. If he goes out makes a millionaire, her gonna make a million for me. So if he wants to be ambitious, he can get more from me. If he wants to be lazy, he'll get a lot less. And everybody I shared that with even my law firm like, man, we've never seen that before. And it just makes a lot of sense.
Mike Swenson
Brian, that does make a lot of sense. I am so looking forward to to a minute that I can set that thing up for my kids. That's gonna be awesome. As you got going, how did you balance your time and focus between selling to get paid today and building your business for freedom tomorrow?
Brian Carruthers
Sure. Jim Rohn. If you guys don't know Jim Rohn please Google him go read his stuff. Listen to his stuff. Jim Rohn, he was Tony Robbins mentors. Matter of fact, Jim Rohn always said you work hard all day at your job to earn a living. But you should be working sparetime nights or weekends building your fortune. So let's say you're a real estate agent chasing deals. What are your hours? Well, you probably don't have set hours, you probably maybe you have set prospecting time you're making calls and fizz bows and whatever you do. But in and around that you just got a time block or find slivers of time to do something else on the side.
Brian Carruthers
So I had real estate full time, 60 hours a week minimum. And then I got into legalshield and other fellow real estate agent comes into my office one day, he tells me about a side project, he was working on selling this legal service 25 bucks a month. And when I saw what the services were about, I'm like, Oh my god, it's a gross no brainer. $25 a month I can have you using for speeding tickets and get my well done and handle writing letters for so I became a customer. He said, Brian, do you realize I'm gonna get paid every month for the rest of your life, even if we never talk again, because you're now my customer.
Brian Carruthers
You got I get residuals on that every single month. I'm like, I couldn't hear what I heard. I'm like, I want to do this business, because that was residual income. So in my spare time around on my real estate schedule, I just started contacting as many people as I could just show them information about legalshield. And that started to scale scale scale scale scale, and my first year my children 48,000 bucks. Now my disclaimer is not always going to go do what I did with it. There's no guarantee you're going to do that too. But in your spare time, scale it the compound effect like a side business that's got real passive residual income. I would not be a real estate agent and then have a side hustle that was also trading my time for money. Two jobs are meant for two people. You got one job and you should have a side business that's got residual income attached to it. That is my 100% most important advice.
Mike Swenson
Wow. Well let I think that's my drop. Mike. Bryan, thank you. Thank you like thank you for thank you for your time because for like you defined it earlier. for you time as well. So thank you for sharing your wealth with me with Mike with all the other panelists with all the speakers with, excuse me with all the audience and everybody who will watch it later. Like I can see that you have truly have taken on the advice from Jim Rohn. Making sure that other people live the life that they want.
Brian Carruthers
Here's the thing, you know, I'm not here to say, I need more people that I can work with because I need to make my money off of anybody else. I'm gonna give back mode. I want to see other people win and succeed and, you know, just the mentorship of just being around each other. You know, it's just I think it's just super valuable.
Mike Swenson
Thank you. Thank you for that, Brian. I appreciate that. We'll see what we see you. Thanks for your contribution.
