Jan 18, 2023
Description: I have Christopher Mackin on this episode. He is a partner at Bleakley Financial Group, 3 time-recognized Forbes Top Next-Gen Wealth Advisor, serial entrepreneur, and philanthropist.
Christopher has a magnetic warm aura around him that makes you want to have conversations with him. We talked about wealth and finance and of course, he shared a bit of his story. I think you’ll gain a lot of insight and value from this one.
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Connect with Christopher
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/consciouswealthadvisor/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/consciouswealthadvisor/
Website: https://www.bleakley.com/themackins
Connect with James:
jamessilvas.com
Bethatonepercent.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/james_silvas/
Key Takeaways
05:20 Christopher's view on wealth.
When you think of wealth, do you just think of liquid cash and assets? Here is Christopher's multifaceted definition of what wealth truly is about.
Christopher: "So before I go into the definition, I would say that the majority of the mindset that people have around finances is negative, regardless of how much or how little they have. And over the years, what has just amazed me is that as I have been growing my financial wealth and connecting more with people that have a significant amount of financial abundance, I expected that I would see happier people but I started to see a pattern, that there are just as many unhappy people that are loaded with financial abundance as compared to those that don't have that. So when I consider wealth, I focus on wealth as having a good mindset around not only your financial abundance, but also just your mental, physical, and spiritual connection to yourself, to your family, to your community, to the earth, to the universe".
16:14 Getting a mindset shift on wealth. Christopher shares some proven to work steps by his clients that can cause a shift in the misconceptions about wealth.
Christopher: "There's a lot of different modeling that can be done. People do financial projections in their companies, but they often don't do financial projections for their personal life. So I think that taking the opportunity to speak to someone holistically about what it is that is important to you in your life, the things that you want to accomplish, how much money you require to live based on the lifestyle that you want for yourself and your family, what's needed, what do you want to do with whatever is left over? Do you want to hoard it and hold on to it? Are you willing to let go of some of it and share it with other people, share that energy with the rest of the community, the world, however you want to look at it, giving people, taking the opportunity to just see where you're at and see how you're doing along the path to where you want to be? Because I think most people that hoard their money have a scarcity mindset in thinking that they're not going to have enough, that they're going to run out, that they're going to lose their money, and that they need more. But if you don't know what you need, then it's hard to conclude that you won't have enough. Taking a look at what you need and doing it in a very conservative way, using conservative expectations of future returns on investments and other things and income growth and so on, I think is a great exercise for people to go through regardless of where you're at in your life".
22:50 The money scarcity mindset. Christopher shares his thoughts on the origin of this mindset and possible steps to embracing abundance.
Christopher: "I think a lot of our scarcity mindset is inherited from our parents and grandparents. Think about the Great Depression and what happened during that time. I mean, you and I weren't alive at that period, but I don't know how much you've read about what happened during that time. People had a lot, and then everything was taken away from them.
The clients I have that started working with us last year came in just when the market went all the way up. You know, it's on the heels of $13 trillion of stimulus that was injected into the economy, and now the market's down.
That was the last point that they remember. So today, for some people, if their portfolios are down because the market is down and crypto's crash and real estate are kind of starting to soften a little bit, they're looking at their loss because of what they had last year, even though it was just arbitrary. Like, the value of whatever they had at that time, but they used that as, a new baseline of where they were and then where they are today.
And it's that comparison of feeling like you lost something that puts you back into that scarcity mindset. So we've inherited it not only through ancestry but also too, because at the end of the day, with scarcity, I feel that people often think that there's not enough to go around. You see it during Black Friday deals. People claw at each other, trying to get, the last toy that's on sale or whatever before someone else does. That is animal-like activity.
If people just approach every day that what is meant for them, they will receive, and as they continue to show up and deliver value to the world that's in alignment with what they feel good about doing, they will forever have enough.
But it's the comparison that I think also helps with scarcity, that people compare themselves to other people. You see people on yachts and planes and all of a sudden everybody wants to be on a yacht and plane now. So that's their new baseline of where they want to build their wealth to. And at the end of the day, that's like not the top 1% thing and that's like a top .05% thing. It doesn't have to be that way. But it is that way at the moment.
So I think that focusing on what you have instead of what you don't have is the first step to overcoming abundance. They always say, where your energy flows, your mind goes. So wherever you focus your energy, I promise that's how you're going to feel".
34:20 Save, invest, and spend.
For entrepreneurs, between being scared of increasing the cost of service rendered and the current economic situation, there is barely enough left to save or invest. Christopher tells us how to go about this.
Christopher: "Most people discount the value that they add and underprice their services because they're afraid to ask for more. They have the mindset of like, oh if I ask for more money, they're going to say no most of the time. That's just a story we're telling ourselves in our head and what we're accustomed to. Don't be afraid to ask for more.
Understand what your value is. Feel into your value. Do you feel confident in what you're delivering and that what you're delivering is well received? If so, raise your services. I mean, if you as a coach haven't increased your coaching services by 8% this year just like inflation has, you're doing yourself a disservice. Your cost of living went up, but your fees stayed the same.
Consider raising the rate of your services, I think that's a good step for people to earn more, but I think once you start earning enough to sustain the baseline lifestyle that you want for yourself, don't focus on spending all of the new money that comes in on just enhancing your lifestyle.
Spend some on investing back into yourself, coaching, for example. Spend some, save some. People should be saving ideally 15% of their income, to be able to retire at a decent age if they want to stop working. If they don't want to stop working, then the numbers are different as long as they can. But make sure that you have the right benefits in place so that you protect yourself from health events that might occur, and you protect your family.”
46:15 Christopher lets us in on his favorite part of his job.
Christopher: "To help people change their mindset around their money and help them make smart decisions because so many people make decisions from scarcity, from worry, and oftentimes if you look at the masculine and feminine, most women are very conservative, most men are very aggressive, and on average, it's not always the case.
But when you have that difference between a man and woman in the household or even just a masculine-feminine in a gay relationship. There are typically two mindsets, opposites sometimes attract. So helping people overcome those differences that oftentimes they don't talk about together and be able to be a bridge for those conversations to happen.
Sometimes I got to be the deliverer of bad news, but that just comes along with the job".
If you have attached your value as a human being to how much wealth you have created, Christopher has this to say to you, "regardless of how much money you've made or saved in the past, you are enough. If you continue to just stay focused on doing things that you're passionate about, doing things that feel good, and creating value for other people in the world, you'll never worry about not having enough".
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