Don’t Follow The Herd. Chris Craddock

[00:00:30] Bob Wheeler: Welcome to another episode of Money You Should Ask, where everyone has something they can teach you. I’m your host, Bob Wheeler, and in this episode, we’re going to explore, question, examine, converse, dig deep, expose, laugh, and cry about the money beliefs, money blocks, and life challenges of our next guest.

[00:00:45] Turn up the volume, listen, learn, and laugh.

[00:00:47] Our next guest is Chris Craddock. He is the founder and CEO of the Redux Group, a nationally acclaimed real estate team. He is the host of the Uncommon Real Estate Podcast, a realtor, real estate investor and coach, and entrepreneur who runs multiple successful businesses in the DC Metro area, including Richmond, Virginia. Chris’s real estate team has sold over $150 million worth of real estate in 2020.

[00:01:13] He’s been married 20 years and is the proud father to six beautiful children. Chris, welcome to the show.

[00:01:19] Chris Craddock: Hey, thanks for being here. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me here!

[00:01:23] Bob Wheeler: Well, we’re being here. We’re, you know, internet-wise.

[00:01:28] Chris Craddock: Oftentimes, I’m, I’m on the other side and so yeah, I don’t know. Just got lost, but thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here with you.

[00:01:36] Bob Wheeler: Well, you know, I will say, before I was going to dive into a separate question, but your podcast talks about, “be uncommon,” right? Don’t, don’t follow the herd, be uncommon. And I, and I like that, cause you’re not saying, “you’ve got to be special or perfect.” Just be uncommon, just do something a little bit different.

[00:01:52] How did you come up with that name?

[00:01:53] Chris Craddock: You know, I always, I mean, I do a lot of teaching, and when I’m teaching, one of the things that I always talk about is, you know, common people do what common, you know, common actions, common, you know, they have common sense. They have common, just, just everything is so common, but the reality is, you know, people rail against it.

[00:02:10] And I’m not looking to make political statements here, but people rail against the 1%, but the reality is, the 1% are willing to do what the 99% are not willing to do. They’re willing to do things that are uncommon, they’ll work harder. You know, they’ll educate harder. They’ll do all of these different things. You know, I think everything always comes down to activity and skill.

[00:02:30] Right? And so, you know, common people work as hard as everybody else. Common people educate themselves as hard as everybody else. And I think, you know, if you want to win, if you want to be better, it’s that slight edge, you know, do your job and a little bit more. Learn and a little bit more, you know? All that other stuff is like, how do you get that winning edge?

[00:02:47] And so I think, I just don’t want to be common. I want to be uncommon.

[00:02:50] Bob Wheeler: I love that. Don’t follow the herd, create your own herd. Start a new herd. Now you have six kids, so that leads me to ask you, did you grow up in a big family? Were you an only child?

[00:03:04] Chris Craddock: I was one of, I was the oldest of three, but my wife grew up the oldest of nine and…

[00:03:09] Bob Wheeler: Wow, okay.

[00:03:09] Chris Craddock: You know, I always thought that was crazy. And then when I went over to their house, and it was like a party all the time, and I was like, and I’m an extrovert, right? So if you, if you’re a DISC profile guy for a personality profile, like, I’m a massively high I on the DISC profile. I just like being with people, massive extrovert.

[00:03:26] And so, when I went over, I’m like, man, it’s a party all the time. I love the idea of a party all the time. And so, yeah, let’s have a big family, have a party all the time. I don’t want to do nine, but it’d be fun.

[00:03:37] Bob Wheeler: That’s awesome. Now, when you were growing up in that house of, of three, and you were the eldest?

[00:03:42] Chris Craddock: Yeah, I was the oldest of the three. Yeah, exactly.

[00:03:44] Bob Wheeler: What was the money scene in your family? Did money get talked about? Was there any expectations put on you as the oldest son? What was that like?

[00:03:53] Chris Craddock: Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting. My family was a little bit, I dunno. I think everybody’s family is dysfunctional. Right? My family was a little bit dysfunctional when I was, when I was younger and I, you know, I was, I was a delinquent and like, I, I just was always in trouble, always just doing bad stuff.

[00:04:09] And actually that’s part of my story is, you know, I ended up getting involved with an organization called Young Life, which changed my life. It was so massively powerful. I actually went on staff with Young Life. That’s how I got into real estate, cause you know, my wife got pregnant and I couldn’t afford to live in the DC area on $20,000 a year.

[00:04:25] And I was in ministry for a long, long, long time, and always did a lot of premarital counseling and other stuff. And it was funny because one of the things you’d always say is, listen, everybody’s got their own crazy, they’ve all got their own baggage. It’s just, can you handle this other person’s brand of crazy?

[00:04:41] Bob Wheeler: Right, no. Exactly. Exactly. So then you weren’t sitting around at five years old saying, “I’m going to build a real estate empire. I’m going to do all these things.” I’m just going to live in the moment, maybe more so?

[00:04:52] Chris Craddock: Going from ministry, you know, with Young Life, like, like 20 grand a year, you know, when, when you’re trying to figure out how to do what you’re going to do, I mean, I loved, I love making an impact in other people’s lives.

[00:05:05] It was just great. But you know, you also have to take care of your family. And so for me, I just… I’ll tell you, I just went and, like I went to the library and checked out every book on real estate investing and just tried to figure out how do you make ends meet, right? When it’s, when you get thrown into the deep end and sink or swim, you’ve got to learn to swim real fast.

[00:05:23] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. What was attractive about real estate to you?

[00:05:26] Chris Craddock: There were a couple things. One, I saw, you know, my dad’s side of the family was very blue collar. My grandfather was, he was a road worker, made like $3 an hour, but somehow cobbled together a lot of money and, not a lot, but cobbled together money and kept buying real estate and ended up dying a pretty darn wealthy man, which is crazy. Even though he was a road worker.

[00:05:47] My mom’s side of the family, they’re all white collar and they all were massively wealthy. And they just always invested in real estate. And so, to me it was more like, I just, you know, the devil you know, right? So that was just like, when I look around, I saw that when I looked around to wealthy people, when I was on Young Life staff, people that were supporting us and other stuff. You know, a lot of people were wealthy because of real estate.

[00:06:14] So it just, it just seemed to make a lot of sense. Plus I know you can make a lot of money in the stock market, but I just feel like real estate makes more sense to me because you can touch it, taste it, feel it. I don’t know that you should taste it, but like, you can, you know? Yeah. You get what I’m saying.

[00:06:28] Bob Wheeler: But maybe if it’s, maybe if it’s the ocean and it’s got a little bit of, like tequila with it, then maybe the saltwater goes well.

[00:06:34] Chris Craddock: Right, right.

[00:06:36] Bob Wheeler: I’m curious about now, you’ve gotten into real estate. Things have been really successful. You’ve got six kids. Do you talk to your kids about money?

[00:06:44] Chris Craddock: Oh yeah. All the time. I mean, my kids, you know, they have some of their own money. We pay them, we pay them as, you know, because they can get paid and not have to pay taxes. Right? So we pay them…

[00:06:54] Bob Wheeler: Right.

[00:06:55] Chris Craddock: As models for, for our company and they’re all over our social media stuff and everything else. So, and then we talk about how to, how to do well. And honestly, that’s one of the things that I’ve learned is who you’re around will dictate everything. You know, I still remember one of the first books I read that got me excited about real estate was Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And when I…

[00:07:17] Bob Wheeler: One of the best books.

[00:07:18] Chris Craddock: Oh, so good. And I still remember. I, I was reading it. It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was reading it, and he said, almost all wealthy people have their own corporations. And I was having dinner that, as a family, were having dinner with my uncle who was a commercial lender. And I know like half the people he hung out with were like these like, massively wealthy people.

[00:07:37] And I remember just saying to my uncle, as like a 20 something year old kid, “Do most of the people you hang with have their own corporations to run like taxes, like for tax reasons and everything?” He’s like, he’s like, “Yeah, I’ve got my own corporation. I take a loss of like 90 grand a year.” He’s like, it’s awesome.

[00:07:53] You know, cause you know, he’s a commercial lender, but he had his own side corporation that he was able to take losses in for tax reasons. And all of a sudden I realized, there’s this language of money that we don’t realize. Like, like I teach sales training, and I’ve got a daughter who’s four and she uses the wrong words sometimes.

[00:08:12] And you know, but she’s learning to use the right words. For us, like in sales, it’s the same thing. You gotta learn to use the right words. Money has its own language. It has its own laws. And if you don’t follow those, that language and those laws, then, you know, you’re going to break the rules, and you’re going to get put in money jail, which is called being poor.

[00:08:31] Bob Wheeler: Exactly. Well, you know, to the point, just to point out to listeners and maybe you’re doing this, maybe you’re not, but I’m wondering if, are you funding Roth IRAs for your kids that are getting some salary?

[00:08:41] Chris Craddock: Well, this is something that we’re, we’re trying to work through. We just had our, oh man. You’re touching a pain point right now.

[00:08:48] So with our business, we were just going through like, some of the retirement stuff, the retirement stuff for other stuff. So we have not been, been doing that for our kids yet. But this is something that we were talking about, talking about funding Roth IRAs, talking about putting them in self-directed stuff so that they could have their self-directed Roth, where they could put it into other investments, but…

[00:09:11] Bob Wheeler: Yeah.

[00:09:11] Chris Craddock: Yeah. Man, every time, you just make me feel bad because I know it’s something that needs to happen, but there’s only so much time in the day, but yes, like, we have not done it.

[00:09:21] Bob Wheeler: No, well it’s, no. I just, because the fact that you’re putting kids on salary, which is great. People don’t realize they can do that. They just need to have a task, whether it’s being a model or whether they’re just organizing paperwork in the office.

[00:09:32] But if you can at least give them 6,000 bucks and put some money into a Roth IRA for them, man! They won’t thank you now, but they’re going to thank you later.

[00:09:40] Chris Craddock: That’s, that’s powerful. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And you just reminded me that, that it’s something that we really, really, really need to do for them, for sure.

[00:09:49] For sure. Yeah. What, what is your take on the cash value life insurance? Do you, are you, are you a Dave Ramsey side, or are you more on like, some of the other side?

[00:09:59] Bob Wheeler: For me, life insurance is great if you’ve got a family and kids, and it’s like, for me, it’s that, or maybe for long-term health care. You know, you know, a whole life policy or universal policy, that’s gonna let you have that. Other than that, I sort of, don’t really dabble in life insurance, personally.

[00:10:16] Chris Craddock: Yeah, it’s interesting. Just because, you know, I love the, I love like, self-directed IRAs and you know, I’m at a point in my life where, I mean, heck you know, 10 years ago, I joke about this, but it’s for real. I was trying to go to NIH to sell my blood for 300 bucks to buy Christmas presents for my family, you know?

[00:10:36] And so like, that’s where I was like, 10 years ago. And then, you know, now I’m, I’m just on the total opposite spectrum of that, like total opposite spectrum. And so now it’s like, I love the book, The Richest Man in Babylon. And one of the things in that book he talks about is like, your money is an army. How do you like, how you deploy it? How does it go out and fight battles and come back better? And actually, I heard somebody refer to wealth as, as being when your money works harder than you do.

[00:11:04] Bob Wheeler: Oh nice, I like that. I like that. And that’s, I think what wealthy people do is let their money work for them versus people that want to show people, “look, I’m rich,” and they’re just blowing through money.

[00:11:15] People with wealth tend to just stay off the radar. Let it do its thing.

[00:11:19] Chris Craddock: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. And that’s the…

[00:11:22] Bob Wheeler: And how did…

[00:11:23] Chris Craddock: Sorry, go ahead.

[00:11:24] Bob Wheeler: No, go ahead.

[00:11:25] Chris Craddock: But I was saying, but that’s like, the Roth stuff. Like you put it in, you let it, you let it start working, you let it flex its muscles.

[00:11:31] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. And look, for folks out there, self-directed IRAs are great.

[00:11:35] Make sure you know the rules, because all those stock people out there don’t really like self-directed IRAs all that much. So there’s a lot of rules. If you’re not careful, they can unwind that self-directed. But it is a great way to invest in real estate and all kinds of other things other than just stocks and bonds. So definitely look at self-directed IRAs.

[00:11:54] As you were telling your story about 10 years ago, things weren’t as, as, as good as they are now. And you’re, you know, “Hey, can you buy some, buy some of my blood.” How do you keep the faith? Like, how do you stay in the game sometimes when it doesn’t feel so optimistic? When it feels like, “Huh, this is pretty dark?” How do you know that there’s better days ahead?

[00:12:16] Chris Craddock: Yeah. When things are down, well, I’ll tell you, one of my mentors said this to me. Never trust someone that doesn’t walk with a limp. And I think that that’s a real true, truism in life. Is you know, I, I was talking to a friend who just dumped a lot of money into a real estate syndication, where somebody is putting together a big apartment complex and people are dumping money into it.

[00:12:39] And I talked to the guy who he’s going through the syndication with, and he’d been in the business for two years. And I said, “So what happens when it goes bad?” And he’s like, “Well, we’re buying so that it won’t ever go bad.” And as soon as he said that, I was like, I said to my buddy, I’m like, “Run brother. Run, RUN! Like this is, this is scary.” Because the second somebody says it’s not going to go bad, means they’ve got no clue what to do if it does. And…

[00:13:08] Bob Wheeler: Right.

[00:13:08] Chris Craddock: And they’re doing it with their money, somebody else’s money. So I mean, why worry about it if it’s not your money? Not my money. Like, well, if it goes bad…

[00:13:16] Bob Wheeler: Yeah.

[00:13:17] Chris Craddock: Sorry buddy.

[00:13:19] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, no. And I’ve seen investors or advisors who will be like, “Yeah. You know, you lost a hundred thousand, you lost 500,000.” Like that’s somebody’s money that they, you know, sweat and tears went into that for some.

[00:13:33] Chris Craddock: Yeah. 100%. Yeah. That’s, that’s it. Like, it’s, this is your money. This is, you work your butt off to get it. And so for me, I’ll tell you, when I got back into real estate, 2011, 2012, I started flipping houses again. So I made a lot of money, you know, when I, when I started flipping houses in the early 2000s, I made 12x what I made in a year in about four months.

[00:13:55] And I just put it aside, continued doing ministry. Well, as I started having more kids, I got back into real estate. And, and what I realized was, that man, I could make a lot of money, because I started flipping, made a lot of money fast. And Jim Collins in his book, How The Mighty Fall, talks about the Hubris born of success as one of those main reasons.

[00:14:14] And man, I thought I had the Midas touch. I thought everything I touched turned to gold. And it was turning to gold. The problem was, I found so many deals that we couldn’t turn them around fast enough. And so all of a sudden, I had a lot of amazing deals. And so I just, I went to the banks, got as much money as I could from the banks. I went to friends, family, everybody, I’m like, this is a great deal.

[00:14:36] And so we ended up with like, massive, like we had 27 deals we were working on, and I owed $10 million to banks and friends and family and everything else. And all of a sudden, I realized that we were going to run out of money before the next house sold. And man, I’ll tell you, I got as creative as I could. I sold as much as I could, as fast as I could.

[00:14:56] I, I mean, I’ve never worked as hard as I did then. I did things that I would never do ever again, like, you know, I don’t know if anybody’s heard of subject two or seller financing. But essentially, I let other people do the deal. Finish the deal that kept the loan in my name. But don’t ever do that, but, unless you have to, but, but honestly, I didn’t have the time or resources to finish those deals. So I had to do that.

[00:15:22] And man, it was crazy, but we got out of it. It ended up costing me $660,000, which I paid off over two years. But got out of it. And man, there were some, some dark nights of the soul. But I’ll tell you, I learned so much from it and it also, it made me the man that I am today. It also, it also forced my retail team to grow a lot faster so that I could pay off $660,000 in two years and still afford to live. And I got that done. And, and then because of that, I was able to, you know, we have a ton of other businesses now that all work in conjunction with our retail team.

[00:15:58] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. Well, I think there’s, I mean, sometimes trial by fire is the best way. As long as you eventually get out of the fire.

[00:16:05] Chris Craddock: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, yeah. It felt more like combat fire, but yeah.

[00:16:11] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Well now, let me ask you this. I’m going to jump back to your kids for a second. Cause I really do love talking about kids and money and, and how we consciously or unconsciously deal with kids around money. So if, if one of your kids comes and says, “Hey Dad, Mom, I want a bike.” Is there a conversation around that?

[00:16:29] Chris Craddock: Well my four year old, last year or two years ago, wanted a, it’s called a camper car. It’s a $400 thing, and I said to her, “No, no chance. We’re, we’re not getting you a $400 thing,” cause I don’t want like, trust fund babies. And she kept asking, kept asking, and I thought, because at the time she was like three, I was like, “Skylar it’s, it’s $400.” And she kept saying, “It’s ‘frundred dollars,’ ‘frundred dollars.”

[00:16:56] And I’m like, “I’m not going to buy you something you’re not going to use for $400.” Like, it’s just not what I’m going to do. Could I afford it? Yes. Did I want to? No. And, and so I said to her, I was like, “Listen, if you remember, if you remember and ask me for this by your next birthday, then we’ll do that.”

[00:17:11] You know? So that was, that was one of the times where I just gave them something to, but literally every day. Like, she would come up to me and give me, like, she’d find like, a dollar somewhere. Or find coins on the street and she’s like, “Daddy, is this ‘frundred dollars’?” And I’m like, oh my gosh, she’s not going to let this go. She’s not!

[00:17:29] And sure enough, so I’ve got myself stuck into buying a $400 car, but you know, my son, he wanted one of the VR Oculus deals. And, you know I wasn’t gonna pay for it. So he, he went out and he mows lawns and he umpires baseball. And so, and you know, he now has the Oculus because he earned the money to do it. And so for me, I feel like you don’t have, because you, you know, if you don’t work, you don’t, you don’t eat, you know? That’s kind of the way it works.

[00:17:57] You know? You gotta learn how to, how to do that. And I’ll say this. So my wife won some major awards in screenwriting, and so we were out in Hollywood, walked the red carpet. There was some like, really cool stuff that happened with that. And I met a guy who owns a company that basically, his whole company was helping people transfer wealth from one generation to the next.

[00:18:21] And, and so I, I said to him, I was like, “So tell me about this. How do you avoid the trust fund baby syndrome? Where people just feel entitled and everything else.” And he’s like, he said, “The first generation works so hard to get it. The second generation still is usually pretty good with money because they saw the pain that it took to, to get that, and they, they understood it. And then the third generation tends to be very soft and just spend the money.”

[00:18:48] And then he’s like, he’s like, “Or you could hear it that the first one was builders, the second one was maintainers, and third ones were snowboarders.”

[00:18:58] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. It’s hard to avoid that, because when you’re sitting with a lot of money, it can be sometimes hard to be motivated if you didn’t have to work for it.

[00:19:05] Chris Craddock: Right. Right. Right. Right.

[00:19:07] Bob Wheeler: Now, I’m curious that, this is gonna be, maybe this is out of left field. You’ve got sons, you’ve got daughters. Do you notice any bias in the way you talk to your sons and daughters about money or goals or any of that stuff? Or is it pretty even playing field?

[00:19:25] Chris Craddock: No, it’s, it’s pretty even. You know, they’re just all so different in the way they, they act, that I just, I, you know, I, I, I treat them, you know, I treat them differently for sure, because their, their makeup is different. Like, I think they get treated differently because of how they see stuff.

[00:19:49] So my, my oldest daughter, I mean, she’s, she’s a killer. Like she is like, I mean, she could be a CEO. She could take my job tomorrow, right? Like easily. And so kind of helping guide her, you know, knowing that that’s, that’s where it’s at. You know, like you see like, my, my other kids, they all have their own different path that they’re on.

[00:20:14] And so I just look at that and try to try to treat them differently based on their, their style and what they’ll be. Cause not everybody’s made to be a CEO, not everybody’s made to be the, you know, the guy that picks up trash, right? Like, like everybody just has their, their place, you know?

[00:20:31] And then you, or what I call it. I’ve got a sign in my office, it says, “Are you in your genius zone?” And so, you know, just try to figure out what is their genius zone and how do you encourage them to be in that genius zone? And then, how they handle money, how they handle everything will, will come from that.

[00:20:47] Because if, if you’re excellent in the workplace, you know, I’m a Christian guy. Like I said before, there’s a verse of the Bible. It says, you see a man skilled in his work, he’ll stand before Kings. He won’t stand before obscure men. And so, that’s the thing, is if you can find your genius zone and really go after it and really be excellent, the marketplace rewards excellence, right?

[00:21:08] People think that, people think that getting money is like winning the lottery or getting lucky. It’s not. It’s, it’s a reward for excellence. And so that’s what we, we’re trying to do with our kids more than anything else is figure out, like, where is your genius zone and then encourage them to live in that. And that’s how, how they’re going to be rewarded financially, I think, in the market.

[00:21:29] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. Absolutely. And do you and your wife have the same money beliefs and the same spending habits? And if not, how do you work that out? And if so, did you know that ahead of time? Was that even a conversation when you first met?

[00:21:44] Chris Craddock: Yeah, so I’m, you know, I’m definitely more frugal for sure. But she, she is too, so she was the oldest of nine and they had no money, like, like none.

[00:21:53] Bob Wheeler: Right.

[00:21:54] Chris Craddock: So, so yeah, as she was growing up, she just didn’t have money to spend, so she doesn’t like, go blow money on stuff. I’m very much like, I don’t like to spend money on things, although it’s, it’s weird because, like I would, you know, save money, save money, save money. And my parents always said that like as a kid, like they’re like you’re always, always saving money. Cause delayed gratification was something that I was always okay with. Right? I would…

[00:22:17] Bob Wheeler: Wow, cool.

[00:22:18] Chris Craddock: I knew that you work hard, you know, you could spend it later, but then sometimes I would, my problem is less overspending and more not spending on things that I enjoy. Like, I’ll give an example. Like when I was a little kid, I still remember, we were in Wildwood, New Jersey and we go to a, we went to this ice cream place and everybody got, everybody had $20 for vacation that we could spend. We were all like, little kids.

[00:22:42] We all had $20 for the week that we could spend. And, and my brother and sister both paid the extra 10 cents to get their ice cream cone dipped. And I was like, I’m not paying 10 cents for that. No way. So I saved it, but then I’ve watched them the whole time enjoying their dipped ice cream cone, and I was like, afterwards, I was like, why didn’t I just pay the 10 cents? You know?

[00:23:03] And so, so I think that’s, that’s where I struggle sometimes is, you know, sometimes, you know, or when we’re, something that’s just ridiculous. When we were newly married, I mean, literally we had no money. I told you, 20 grand a year, try to make that go far in the DC area. Like our, our end tables were boxes that we put, we put sheets over, right?

[00:23:26] I never would turn on the AC or the heat. And I still remember my wife came in one day. Like, I mean, we got married early. Like we were both like, 22. She came in and she’s freezing, blankets, everything. She’s like, “Chris, I really think heat is worth paying for.”

[00:23:43] So, yeah. So yeah, that was, that was kind of the thing, you know, where, where we were. So we both kinda came from that idea that we don’t want to spend frivolously. Although, I mean, we’re building a house that’s probably too big and you know, bigger than we need, but, but we look at it, and part of the reason we’re doing that is we want to host people.

[00:24:01] We want to host fundraisers and we want to host, you know? So there are reasons we are doing that. So. Yeah. Anyway, I probably rambled too long.

[00:24:09] Bob Wheeler: No, no, that’s awesome. I love that. And I’m wondering for the people out there, because I’m also the one that’s probably not going to spend the 10 cents on, on dipping the ice cream.

[00:24:17] And so sometimes I have to talk myself into things, even though I’ll tell other people, you know, do what you want, follow your passion. And I’m like, but I’m going to hold mine over here. So how do you talk yourself into paying for the heat, or making those decisions where, “I can afford it and I’ll really enjoy it.” Like what’s the dialogue?

[00:24:38] Chris Craddock: Well, here’s, here’s the, the rest of the, you know, I think who you spend time with will dictate how you think. Right? And so one of the things that I, I started doing a little bit of now, I think he’s a little more hardcore than I like to be on stuff. But I started listening to a little bit of Grant Cardone stuff.

[00:24:55] His whole thing, he’s like “cash is trash.” Did it all like, just like, like, I don’t want to be the millionaire next door that you know, that, you know, wore nasty clothes so that I could have a big retirement. And honestly, that’s one of my issues with Dave Ramsey, right? Like Dave Ramsey is like, like live a, like, “don’t enjoy anything you’re making now so that maybe by the time you’re 60 or 70, you can enjoy it.”

[00:25:20] And I just don’t think that that’s, that’s it. And so I’ve really been wrestling with that in my, my own mindset is, you know what? If I’m going to work hard, like my whole motto in life is work hard, play hard. So like, why would we not spend the money now that we’re working for it? Why would I wait until I’m 60 or 70 to enjoy what we’re doing? And so, so that’s, you know, that’s my internal dialogue. And so I listened to some guys like that. Now, again, I don’t know that Grant is my, like the whole role model as far as where I want to spend money, but he’s a very smart guy and I love it.

[00:25:53] But that’s one of those things where you know, I’m just listening to people that say, you know what? If you’re making it now, enjoy it now. And frankly, I’ve been massively blessed to get to a point where I went from nothing to, I mean, it’s just incredible. So, so now I’m like, well, yeah, I should spend it. I should enjoy it. I should be able to, to do that.

[00:26:15] And, and honestly, so I’ll give you another example. And actually this came from my wife, like, I’ve always, I always wanted a truck, but I never got a truck before because the gas mileage was terrible. I’m not a construction guy, so I don’t really need one. I just think they’re really cool.

[00:26:31] Everything else. And so about two years ago, three years ago, I was, I was selling my car and I was going to get a truck and I was looking at a bunch of mid-range trucks. And my wife’s like, why don’t you just get the truck that you want? And like, my dream truck is, is a Ford Raptor. I love Raptors. I think they’re, they’re incredible.

[00:26:47] And I’m like, ah, I don’t want to spend that kind of money on a truck. She’s like, why not? What else do you need to spend the money on? And I’m like, ah, and I went back and forth and it just made sense. She pushed, and now I have a Ford Raptor. And I’ll tell you what, I love my Ford Raptor. It’s so fun!

[00:27:03] Bob Wheeler: Right! Absolutely. That’s, that’s awesome. I mean, I think those are the things that are important in life is actually enjoying what you’ve worked for. And I think that, like, I’m in agreement there that we have to live and enjoy and not wait for, oh, I’ll wait till I’m 70 and then I’m going to travel and then I’m going to do this and this. We may not be here when we’re 70 or our health may not be in a, such a place that we can do things.

[00:27:27] So I’m a big believer in finding that balance of not creating unnecessary debt, but having an amazing life along the way, instead of just saving it until we get to the final destination, which is sort of the end. Like have a lot of fun in between.

[00:27:43] Chris Craddock: Right. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. That’s, I mean, that’s it, and everybody’s always saying, wait until you’re older and, and then have fun and yeah, that’s the whole thing, that is not, not for me.

[00:27:55] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. Enjoy your life. Enjoy your life. Well, so Chris, we are at the Fast Five. And I want to, we’re going to just change the questions a little bit. These are just top of mind, and let’s just see where they go. If you found $2,000 on the ground, what would you do with it?

[00:28:07] Chris Craddock: I’d give away some of it. I’d probably just put the rest in savings.

[00:28:15] Bob Wheeler: At a good interest rate, at a good interest rate.

[00:28:17] Chris Craddock: Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah I’ve got, I’ve got my, my account that I use for flipping and buying other properties and all the other stuff. so, and then I just, whenever I have deals, I can just buy cash and flip and everything else. So I’d probably just put it in that account.

[00:28:32] Bob Wheeler: Yep, perfect. What do you, what do you want your money to do for you that it isn’t doing for you yet?

[00:28:37] Chris Craddock: I keep wrestling with whether I, like right now, I have all of my investments where I’ve got massive, massive equity pay down. So it’s not cash flowing that much, but because my businesses are cash flowing a lot, I want to keep it like that for tax reasons where my net worth is growing, because I have as much cash coming in from my businesses as I want, and I’m always trying to not pay as much in taxes.

[00:29:04] So that’s, that’s it. But on the other hand, I look at it and I, I would like my income to be at a place where, my cashflow to be at a place where if I want to stop working today, I can stop working today. And it’s not there now. I probably could restructure it where it could be very close to where I could stop working, but not quite there with what I’m doing with my life right now.

[00:29:31] Bob Wheeler: When you get unplanned inflow of cash, do you usually spend it or save it?

[00:29:35] Chris Craddock: Come on, I already answered that question! I’m just kidding. You know the answer, you know the answer to that! I save it, I save it.

[00:29:43] Bob Wheeler: Put it in the bank, put it in the bank.

[00:29:45] Chris Craddock: But here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. I put it in the bank, but then I’m always, always, always looking for, for investments, like always looking for investments to spend that on.

[00:29:54] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. If you could use only one word for the rest of your life, what word would you choose?

[00:29:59] Chris Craddock: Hm. I’ll just say “awesome.” Cause my wife says I say it too much.

[00:30:09] Bob Wheeler: Awesome.

[00:30:10] Chris Craddock: I love it. I love that word.

[00:30:12] Bob Wheeler: It’s a great word. It’s a pretty awesome word. In your opinion, what types of purchases are worth going into debt over?

[00:30:16] Chris Craddock: Anything that is, is going to appreciate in value, as long as like, again, you don’t want to get into the liability, Kiyosaki, you know, Ramsey argument, but what, what is willing going in, like an investment.

[00:30:29] You know, I, although, I mean, this is a much longer conversation, college, right? Like, are, are you investing in yourself, you know, buying education? Like I spend, I think, I think we’re spending over six figures a year on personal development every year for coaching and building up, you know, cause your business and your life will grow to the extent that you grow.

[00:30:48] So anything that will appreciate, whether it’s personal development or whatnot, but not, not cars. Not, you know, yeah. Just not things that are liabilities.

[00:30:58] Bob Wheeler: Unless it’s a Ford truck.

[00:30:59] Chris Craddock: Yeah, bought it cash! Bought it cash!

[00:31:02] Bob Wheeler: But there you go. You bought it cash.. So there you go. Not going into debt. Exactly.

[00:31:06] Chris Craddock: Yeah.

[00:31:07] Bob Wheeler: All right well, we’re at our sweet spot, our M & M spot, our Money and Motivation. I’m wondering if you have a piece of practical financial advice or just a piece of wealth wisdom, something that you’ve learned along the way for our listeners.

[00:31:18] Chris Craddock: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Lead with revenue, always lead with revenue. If you’re a business owner, you know, you got, you lead with revenue. So one of the things is, you know, I heard Gary Keller say this in, in a small group meeting. He said your business earns the right to build out its word chart. Right? So a lot of people are just spending money, hoping it’ll work, rolling the dice, and then sometimes it does work.

[00:31:40] I mean, I’m sure it does, but for me personally, I think that you should lead with revenue and prove that it’s working. And then when it’s working, you spend more money on it.

[00:31:50] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, you know, Chris, I, you know, as we’re coming to the end here, the thing that I, that I sort of keep hearing, even though it hasn’t been said explicitly is there’s a lot of trust there it feels like.

[00:32:04] It feels like there’s a lot of trust in yourself and a lot of trust in what you bring. And what I’m not hearing is that your worth is based on how much money you’re producing, but that there’s, and that there’s this, really, this piece about also giving back, wanting to help other people, wanting to be of service. And even with your own kids, not trying to get them to be mini versions of yourself, but recognizing that we’re all unique individuals that all have unique needs and wants.

[00:32:33] And so there’s just a real, it feels like there’s a real space there to just welcome whatever’s there.

[00:32:40] Chris Craddock: Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, I’ll tell you, if you’re not, if you’re not serving others, I mean, you know, what are you doing? And back to, you know, like, why are you here on the, on this planet, right? If it’s all based on you, then, you know, your life is gonna, I dunno, I think you’re going to end up having an empty glass at the end of your life.

[00:33:28] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, no, I totally believe that we’re all here to be of service, and that’s how we pass on our legacy is leaving the place a little bit better than we found it, and hopefully making somebody else’s life a little better than it might have been otherwise. So I appreciate that you’re out there doing that in the world. Where can people find you online and social media? People wanna get into all this flipping or buying or just connecting with you?

[00:33:29] Chris Craddock: Yeah. So if somebody’s already a flipper, I’ve got a program on wholesaling, wholesalinginc.com/revive. And I teach people how to make a lot of money from leads that are sitting, dying in their database. You can go to my website, chriscraddock.com and you’ll find some videos, some books, some reading lists there.

[00:33:46] I am active on Instagram @craddrock, C R A D D R O C K. And one thing, so many people were so generous with me with their time, when I was listening to podcasts, people were literally, if I like their vibe, I reached out to them and I could not believe how many people would respond to me and spend time with me.

[00:34:03] So I’ve, I’ve made it an effort to anytime somebody sends me a DM on Instagram, I always try to respond to that. And so that’s been really, really fun. So those are some of the things there. If you’re a real estate agent, go to my YouTube or sorry, my Facebook group Uncommon Real Estate. And if you’re a real estate agent or investor in that world, that’s my podcast, goes towards agent investors.

[00:34:27] I know the average person listens to seven podcasts. If you’re a podcast listener, I’d love to be one of your seven, if you’re in a real estate agent or an investor. And yeah, that’s, that’s what we talk about is how to invest and be a good agent. So that’s, that’s that world there.

[00:34:41] Bob Wheeler: Awesome. Well, we’ll make sure we include all that and hopefully you’ll pick up some followers and listeners for your podcast, which sounds like a good, I love the title. So folks out there please be Uncommon.

[00:34:51] So I want to say to our audience, please don’t forget to share the love. Like, follow, and share on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Search for MoneyYouShouldAsk, all one word. Follow this podcast on your favorite podcast player, or visit Spotify and search for Money You Should Ask or click on the link in the description.

[00:35:04] If you’re watching this episode on YouTube, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe. For more tips, tools, or to learn how to have a healthy relationship with money, visit themoneynerve.com. That’s nerve, not nerd.

[00:35:16] Chris, it’s been awesome. It’s been awesome. I’m using your word, but it has been awesome. Thanks so much.

[00:35:23] It’s been fun. Thank you.