Eileen:

Hello, and welcome to Soul of a Leader Podcast where we ignite soulful conversations with leaders. On today’s episode, Dr. Alicia and Dr. Eileen sit with Chris Gandy to discuss Building Wealth.

 

Alicia:

Welcome to Soul of a Leader podcast. On today’s episode we have Chris Gandy. He has spent the last 20 years helping individuals reach their most important financial goals. In 1999, Chris started his own financial services practice. And since then he has traveled the US working with athletes and executives and minorities. Chris specifically focuses on the areas of individual and corporate life insurance, disability income insurance, investments, unique tax reduction strategies, retirement income optimization and pension maximization. At 2013, Chris was nominated to the NBRPA Chicago chapter. Also, Chris is a lifelong advocate of diversity inclusion. Welcome to Soul of a Leader Podcast, Chris Gandy.

 

Eileen:

Chris, did we miss anything in that intro that you would like to add?

 

Chris:

Well, she didn’t even mention that I’m a recovering athlete. I may say a recovered athlete because yes, I spent a little bit of time formulating a hobby into a career.

 

Alicia:

Yes.

 

Chris:

It was wonderful. She also missed the fact that one of my most aspiring and one of my most proudest moments is to be a father to a wonderful young man in which we’re grooming to be a product in society. And as a minority father, that’s very important in our kid’s life. So she didn’t mention that, but other than that I’m ready to go on and I’m excited to be here.

 

Eileen:

So Chris, tell us that you’re a recovering athlete, but tell us was that your first career? Did that help you in your career now? Would you like to share a little bit of that with us?

 

Chris:

Sure. Well, I mentioned I’m a former athlete or recovering athlete, and so I’ll expand a little bit on that. Of what I mean. I think it gets a little chuckle out of people when I say recovering athlete. But for the first 26 years of my life [inaudible 00:02:44] I played basketball for 23 to 24 of those years. During that period of time, I learned some very unique skills. One of those skills was sacrifice, and the sacrifices that I believe in the parallels to life and or your listeners are everything you always want in life, you always have to sacrifice something else to get it. I think that sports taught me that.

 

Chris:

And when we look at society today, I think people of lifting others and the goals in which we ultimately are capable of, and we want to create, we have to let go of something to make room for something else. So it taught me sacrifice. The second thing it taught me is it absolutely taught me to that you can’t do it on your own, that you have to have teammates along the way. So you need people to celebrate with, but you also need people to fight with. And I see so many people striving for what I call success with success in one person’s eyes is that success in someone else’s eyes. So we’re constantly chasing that.

 

Chris:

And so what does success look like to you? I think people have to define it and they have to bring people along the way, and they can’t be bashful about asking other people to help them accomplish the most amazing goals that they have in life along the way. And the last but not least is you got to work harder than other people. I think people, unfortunately, the way society is today and some of the things that we’re watching and we’re seeing on TV and in some of the narrative is, people will do the ordinary and expect extraordinary results. So, people have to be willing to put in more time, energy and effort and reinvent themselves along the way to really accomplish their lifelong goals, dreams, and aspirations, and their ability to be able to impact the lives of other people.

 

Chris:

So those are the three things that I think sports has taught me. And so I say recovering, because when you’re in sports, those are the three things that your life is really focused around. And so you neglect some of the other things. So I’ve neglected love. That was something I neglected emotion and tiny motion to as an athlete. How many times do you see an athlete break down in tears? You don’t see that very often. And when you don’t exercise that muscle on a regular basis, you get disconnected from life.

 

Chris:

And last but not least is the skill that I had to develop after college was I had to have the ability to articulate an ability to communicate with people on a different level than what we did in sports. And so I started working on my vocabulary the way in which I communicate and how I communicate. So it’s one of the key things that I think that if I was to say the comment about the comment I made is that those are the things that it taught me, but at the same time it made it so that some of those other things, those skills were not developed until later on in my life.

 

Alicia:

So one of the things I heard, Chris, that I really like what you talked about, which all of it what’s good, success. And so often people measure success with material things than outer, but the other key point that you brought out was, you had to define what success is. And I write that down a lot when I’m doing work on projects or work with people and clients, or even just for my business, what is success? And then you begin to define what that is.

 

Alicia:

And the other key point you brought as a team, it takes a team. Everything is a team approach. And so what you have in that background and basketball, my question to you is how does that now correlate with your business? I know you’re into the finance industry. You’ve been in a very long… How has being a former NBA player and now as successful businessman, how those techniques and styles working with you in your career?

 

Chris:

Let’s break that question apart for the first piece. Let’s call it sports. What is sports? Teach me about business. And it’s very simple. Sports has parallels to business because you have things that you have to accomplish. You have to have the ability to execute, and you have to have the ability to turn the focus on the key things on a day-to-day basis to be able to move the needle. I think people sometimes say I’m busy. And then of course they’re busy being busy, but what are you really doing? Me thinking about you’re listeners out there have they ever… Have you ever had a day where you said almost so busy, and then you look back and you say, what did I accomplish?

 

Eileen:

You’re right.

 

Alicia:

Busy being busy.

 

Chris:

Right. So you have to have the ability to focus on the… What I call the RG revenue generating activities, the RGAs. And so you start with the RGAs and you end your day with whatever’s left. And what you find out throughout your day is, your day is purposeful, because you’re able to do that. I think sports allowed us to do that because you could only focus on two or three things. And then the rest of the times you were reacting. And so I think a lot of times people spend the majority of the time reacting throughout the day versus doing what they want to do, to be able to move the needle. So if you start to rearrange your day and you start to rearrange your life, you’ll start to notice that if you do the things you want to do first, you’ll always get them done.

 

Chris:

So that’s one, the second part of that question was teams, and the parts of teams. And I always relate it back to what I played sports, and I’ll give it to the same way. So I’ll share with you Alicia, just when you close your eyes and think about this. We all have seen the fact that over the last 12 to 16 months, that they promoted and they’ve shown that Michael Jordan was one of the best players. There was a documentary out there just recently about how Michael Jordan was the bulls and the bulls were so great. But Michael Jordan was the best. Well, let’s take a Michael Jordan. And if you do agree that he’s the best or whether you’re not, or you agrees he’s the best, it’s irrelevant. But no matter how good Michael Jordan was, if I put Michael Jordan out there by his self, against the worst team in the NBA, in a basketball game, Michael Jordan would lose.

 

Chris:

And so why is that? Well, because he can’t do it by itself. No matter how good he is, he can not do it by himself. And so I challenge all the people on this call, especially the people, the industry of financial planning, financial service, helping people make smart decisions with money. I challenge everybody who says to me, I can do it on my own. And I say, Michael Jordan, couldn’t do it on his own. What makes you think that you can? So sometimes it’s best to have people that help you along the way, even if they’re not as talented or as smart as you, but they play a role on your team to help you get better. Amen. That’s how we do it.

 

Alicia:

Oh, you were preaching.

 

Eileen:

That’s really good. So [crosstalk 00:10:32] That is phenomenal. And Chris, the next question is, obviously you have a team that you are leading in your business. And your financial planning as such business. First, tell us a little bit about your business, your business name. And where we can find you and how you lead your team?

 

Chris:

Sure. Well, the name of our company is called Midwest Legacy Group, LLC, put it in Google, put it in Instagram, put it in Facebook. You can find us all over the place. But we’re a team based out of the Midwest, i.e. Midwest. The second word was put in there on purpose. I believe my mother gave me the vision that leaves the world a little better than you found it. That is behind the legacy.

 

Chris:

So many times we weren’t given this fair opportunity. We weren’t given an opportunity equal to some of our counterparts, just because perhaps you didn’t come from that a wealthy family, or perhaps you didn’t come from a family of means or relationships. And I didn’t come from that. I came from very modest means myself. But that wouldn’t be the thing that defined me and I wouldn’t let it define me.

 

Chris:

And so the legacy, the idea of legacy means we leave the world a little better than we found it. And imagine if out there everybody did that. If everybody said today, instead of take, I’m going to give more than I receive. This would be a world of abundance. So that’s the mindset that we have as a Legacy Group, which is the idea of we work with people and we want to teach people how to build legacies that outlive the breadth they have in their body. And then grew it on purpose.

 

Chris:

So my name is nowhere in the name. The idea of group is, “Together we are stronger than we are independently.” And so we lean on each other, we depend on each other and we win together and we lose together. So there is a legacy group as a family. We aren’t for everybody because we love all our clients all the time. And we share with them information along the way. And we do some things that’s a little bit different.

 

Chris:

But I think it’s one of the most unique approaches because I go back to the quote of my mother who has told me and it sticks in my mind, “You don’t have to be all, thanks to everybody, but you need to be something to somebody. We work with you on behaviors, how to create great behaviors that will lead to wealth. We teach you how to teach your children how to build wealth, through your actions and behaviors. And at the end of the day, we teach you how to make sure that the people you love and care about the most, your parents, are in a better place themselves. So that’s one generation ahead, one generation behind. If we all do that, the world’s a better place for everybody.

 

Alicia:

You keep on preaching here, Chris. I really like something that you… You said a lot of great things, but that one part is teaching our young people and teaching ourselves sometimes how to build wealth. And there is a huge misconception about what that is. And I want you to talk a little bit about, few steps about how you build wealth. And importantly for me, growing up on the West Side of Chicago, in our culture a lot of times that’s not taught almost what you just said. So let’s just go into it a little more and give the listeners an idea of what you mean by building wealth.

 

Chris:

Sure. Well, if I go back to the Bible, because I grew up in a spiritual family and… But I’m not going to preach. So one of the things they talked about is planting seeds and reaping the harvest. And so wealth is not necessarily just money. Wealth is knowledge. I mean, can you imagine if someone sat down with everybody who’s over the age of 80 and wrote down all the knowledge they have and shared it with everybody under the age of 21. Wouldn’t that just be a fabulous thing? Because history has a way of repeating itself.

 

Chris:

So, if we’re going to build wealth, the first thing we got to do is we’ve got to start with a solid foundation. It’s all related to building a house. We got to build a solid foundation. So we got to dig a basement. If you live in the Midwest or wherever you live. Most of the time, people don’t come up to your house and talk about the foundation. They just say, “Oh, your foundation is so beautiful. I love it.” No, but we know when storms come and challenges come, we all know that the first thing you do is you run in the basement.

 

Chris:

So we need to actually have a solid foundation. And that deals with risk. The things that can go wrong on the way, the things you think you’ve taken care of. We want to make sure that that is aligned with your intent. I’ll never say that again. Your actions are aligned with your intent. And most of the time, 90% of the people I talk to, their actions are one thing I want to go, Chris, I want to build a house. But then at the same time, their actions are something different. They’re over there building it out strong. So you built a house, but it’s probably not the way you want to build it. So you want to start with a solid foundation.

 

Chris:

Second thing you want to do along the way is you want to make sure that you’re getting rid of debt strategically. Strategic debt management is just like money management. Try to do it on your own is just asking for trouble. I always say, always ask for help along the way. And then you want to start to accumulate wealth. And so there’s a difference between having money, or getting rich and accumulating wealth. True wealth you can’t outlive. Let me give it to you again, Dr. Alicia. True wealth you can outlive. You can outlive riches, you can outlive money. You can not outlive true wealth.

 

Chris:

True wealth is you get to a place where you have enough and it continues to grow just you living off the interest of your money. So everybody can get there. I don’t believe there’s anybody that can’t get there with the right discipline and without the right team of people around them. So that’s what our team does.

 

Chris:

Last, but not least, leave the world a little better than you found it. If you leave your world, this world, your siblings, your children, whoever you love and care about a little, just a little bit better than how you received it, the wealth in communities that are downtrodden and communities that don’t get wealth, or don’t have wealth and the communities to have wealth, keep it, as a world become a better nation. And we all collectively win.

 

Chris:

So that quote, Martin Luther King said, “We’re all bound together to one mutual stranded destiny.” Which means I can’t win if my brother’s struggling or my sister’s struggling. So we have to pick each other up along the way and share some of this knowledge because there are no secrets.

 

Eileen:

Well, thank you so much. That is so true. As we talked to so many people on our podcast, the recurring theme is people need to work and be disciplined and grow something. Things don’t come quickly overnight. How do you deal with people, who think that things should come quickly, especially when you’re trying to educate them on wealth? [Crosstalk 00:18:29]

 

Chris:

Well, the first thing we got to do, is we got to deprogram them. Give you an example. I love examples because people have it in real life. Today if we all got on Google and put in Chris Gandy and nothing popped up. What would we do? Dr. Alicia what would we do?

 

Alicia:

We would probably wonder why it’s not popping up. And we’re probably saying, “I need to look a little further.” That is what I would do.

 

Chris:

There you go. So the first thing you would do is you would say, “Something’s wrong.” So you would then put in, “Maybe it’s not Chris Gandy, maybe it’s Christopher Gandy. Maybe the Christopher’s spelled with a K, maybe this.” So we’re so used to within five seconds of us requesting things, getting results. So unfortunately we’re conditioned in a way currently in our current society and our current society, we are in the rat race.

 

Chris:

Let me give you what that means. RAT: Results, Action and Thinking. That’s what it is. So we’re in the rat race and we want to go faster. We’re already going a hundred miles an hour. We want faster information. The people are talking 5G. People are talking, I want to be able to stream it on my phone. We want instant results. We’re in a society of instant results.

 

Chris:

So the problem with building wealth is it’s against the grain of what our society is, instant wealth. They want to press a button and get wealth. That’s why it’s difficult. That’s why it’s difficult because it’s like, we can’t get it right away. Then we’ll just try to figure out another way to do it. But we all know that tried and true is to stay in the past, stay the course and do something consistent and the consistency wins. So that’s the challenge with society today. And that’s what I’ll tell your people is that there are no quick fixes for wealth.

 

Chris:

The idea of building wealth is generational. It’s a lifetime journey. And we partner with our clients along the way to teach them the journey and what to expect. And the guy that holds their hand along the way. It’s truly a blessing to be in the role of inspiring people to do more than what they feel like they can do on their own.

 

Eileen:

You know Chris, you keep saying, you’re not preaching but you’re preaching [crosstalk 00:20:51]

 

Chris:

Pass the plate, please.

 

Alicia:

You are so dead on, society with all these social media, everybody wants something quick. And not only that, it’s this misconception that what they see on social media, the parents of something that they think is wealth. That person was wealthy and could be not or they could be. But diligence, you got to stay the race. You said something, “You have to have those actions aligned with what your intent is to build.”

 

Alicia:

And sometimes people see building wealth means you may not see it today. You might not see it tomorrow. You might not see it to another 10 years. And I think people give up so fast. And so my question to you is what are your top three values that you may use with your clients or for yourself to keep you grounded in what you believe is building wealth?

 

Chris:

Sure. I’ll just comment. Can I dovetail your comment on social media? I heard one of the most fabulous lines about six months ago. Someone said, “Chris, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. It matters what it looks like you’re doing.” They said, “That’s social media.” I said, “What?” He said, “Listen, it doesn’t matter what you are actually doing or where you’re at. What matters is what it looks like you’re doing.”

 

Chris:

So now when you look at social media, you look at it a little differently, because it doesn’t matter what people are actually doing. Because most of the things they’re not actually doing, most of the things they’re posing and it seems like they’re doing, and that becomes a reality. So the principles of values that we try to instill in our clients is one, is alignment. I talk about a financial junk drawer. Everybody’s got a junk drawer somewhere. Wouldn’t it be nice one day if you came home and it was all organized and labeled. So I believe that’s people’s finances. I think that’s one alignment with… Well, first organization, sorry.

 

Chris:

The second is your actions and intent have to be aligned. So I mentioned earlier that most people’s actions, they say they want to retire. And then we give them the formula to retire at a 99% ratio success rate. And then they say, “Well, I don’t really want to do that. I don’t really want to sacrifice that.” So we asked the question, “How serious are you about retiring?” I’ll give a couple of principles when we close today, about how to really get there and be in line with how to really align your actions and your intent.

 

Chris:

And then last but not least is listen to your coach. You can’t keep playing offense and expect to win the game. You got to play defense and offense at the same time. And so hire a coach, you’d get somebody to help you and follow their instructions. I think that’s super important, to understand that you got to play offense and defense at the same time. And most people just play offense. The offence is just, “Hey, I want to invest in the stock market. I want a 20% rate of return. I want to go.” But we all know the defense wins championships.

 

Chris:

That’s if you ask anybody to play sports, what wins championships also say defense, because that’s instilled in us. And so most people don’t play defense, very little defense in their portfolio. So we helped him build that defensive strategy so that defense and offense works together. So when offense is clicking, we score a lot of points and we win. When the offense isn’t working, then defense steps up and it holds down the lead. So we collectively put together a plan so we can win a championship together. And that’s why we’re a team and a family.

 

Alicia:

Woo! You’re phenomenal, Chris.

 

Chris:

Thank you.

 

Eileen:

That is great wisdom. And you’ve said in this, that you would talk later about aligning actions and intent, could you share with us what you meant by that?

 

Chris:

Sure. Well, actions that intent. So I’ll give you a couple situations that their actions and intent are misaligned. You ready? Hope you’re sitting down, take out your pan. If you’re listening to this?

 

Eileen:

Yes.

 

Chris:

First of all, so let’s talk. I’ll give you three examples that I’ll be quick. The first example is insurance. Let’s talk about Life Insurance. No one wants to talk about dying, but at the end of the day, we can’t leave here with it. So number one, people will say, “Chris, I want to take care of my family, if something happens to me.” I will change that into when something happens to you. Because it’s not our question. I don’t believe anybody on your podcast here would doubt the fact that they’re going to pass away. They’re no longer going to be here at some point in their life. So dealing with life insurance people will say, “Well, if I die.” Well, you mean when you die. That’s what you’re saying.

 

Chris:

So when you die, do you want life insurance? And if that answer is, yes, the question is, tell me the day you’re going to die, because that’s the day I suggest you buy as much life insurance as you can possibly afford. So we’ll see people that have insurance at work. And they’ll say, “I want to take, I want to make sure I have life insurance if I die.” But you realize based on statistics, 90% of people don’t die while they’re working. They die after they’re done working. And so can you imagine being 70, 80 years old, trying to find enough life insurance to take care of our family? So there’s a situation where the actions and intent aren’t necessarily alive.

 

Chris:

The second one is saving money. Ooh, this is a good one. This is about to get a lot of you people. Saving money. People will say to me, “Chris, I’m a great saver.” Really? Okay, well, let’s just test that. So what I would want people to do is take out how much… Look at their salary. How much did they make minus the taxes, write it on paper, and multiply it by how many times you’ve been, how many years you’ve been working. And then subtract that from how much you actually have and divide that by how much you actually have in your savings. And tell me, are you a great saver. That a typical number is minuscule compared to how much money you’ve made over the course of your lifetime.

 

Chris:

And if you don’t know, just take an average, but people will say, “I’m a great saver.” But then all of a sudden, when we actually show them the data and the numbers, they say, “Maybe I’m not as good as I thought. I’m not as good as I thought.” And I just said, “No, you’re great. It’s just your actions and intent aren’t a lot.”

 

Chris:

And then last but not least is how you save. Is not what you’re saving, is how you save it. If people say I save enough money, wasn’t that how you… It’s how you save it. So I’ll give you an example. If you want to retire by the age of 67 years old, 67 to 70 years old, write this down. You have to start saving the minimum of at least 10% of your income.

 

Alicia:

Wow.

 

Chris:

The minimum of 10%.

 

Eileen:

And when should you start at what age?

 

Chris:

As soon as possible. Yesterday. If you started later in life, I’ll give you an example of what that really means. One sec. So 15%, if you want to retire between 62 and 67, you need to save at least 15% of every dollar you make. If you want to retire before the age of 62 years old, you need to be saving 20%. Don’t negotiate with yourself, 20% of your income.

 

Chris:

And so what I mean by that is simply this. Think of retirement or financial success, like an airplane. And we’re in the airplane and we’re buckled up and we’re ready to take off, which means we have to get enough speed to get off the ground. To get that airplane to take off. We got to get enough speed. Well, what happens if we don’t get enough speed? The plane probably will go down.

 

Chris:

Matter of fact, the plane might not take off. It might run into the wall at the end, which is a disaster. let’s say this, the planes going too fast, what happens? Well, now you take off and now the plane may not have enough fuel to get to where it wants to go, a disaster as another thing. So we want to have, based on the amount of time, the runway that you have, based on the amount of runway you have, you want to have enough speed, to get your plane off the ground and enough gas to get to where you want to go. And the only way to do that is to follow those couple principles that I gave you.

 

Alicia:

Amazing. So we had a great conversation with Chris and we have to end at some point, we really don’t because there’s really good information. But why don’t you leave our listeners with some words of wisdom?

 

Chris:

Well, first of all, thanks to two of you for allowing me to share what God has given me, which is the ability to be able to take a bunch of knowledge that people have shared with me during their life’s journey and to share with you on your show today. The wisdom that I would tell people is, “Leave the world a little better than you found it.” This is a world of abundance. And if we have the ability, if you have knowledge and you have the ability to share with others, then do so.

 

Chris:

And also for you, either green and growing and brown and dying. So either you seek the information and the light that will allow for you to continue to grow, or you’re brown and dying, and you just don’t realize it. So, Dr. Alicia, let’s be green and grow and I want your following to continue to grow with you as they continue both in wealth and spirit and also in life and success. So, thanks, I appreciate it.

 

Alicia:

We appreciate you. You are Dynamite. I don’t care what anybody else said about you, Chris. You’re the man.

 

Eileen:

Thank you, Chris so much. I love the green and growing. It’s so visual [crosstalk 00:31:32] wonderful things you shared with us today. Thank you.

 

Chris:

Thanks the both of you for having me on, I appreciate it.

 

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining us on Soul of a Leader Podcast. We are knighting a new way of leading with your soul and interviewing ordinary people with extraordinary impact. Thank you for listening to the stories of our leaders who will help and guide you on your leadership journey. For more information on our podcast, please visit our website @wwwsouloftheleader.com. Thank you for listening.