[00:00:21] Speaker A: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Life Refresh podcast. You know who it is. It's Ryan Robinson. Excited and delighted that you would join with us today. Like I told you, we're going to have some more interviews and I am blessed to be able to have my brother here, Chris Brown, in the house. Ladies and gentlemen, before we get going, let me share with our audience a little bit of your background here. He's had 20 years of experience in retail market thing, in digital commerce, collaborated with many retailers, pioneered, actually helped out with building out what we now know as the influencer market and has done so many things and launched his first ecommerce media company back in 2005. Before there was a YouTube, before an iPhone. Right? Like, hey, he's a pioneer. Laid the foundation for all those things. And outside of business, he has a passion for creating, helping individuals have financial wealth. He's debt free, you all. And him being debt free has created opportunities for him to be able to serve individuals, build and create more real estate investment opportunities. And actually currently has a portfolio of billboards and is teaching others how to generate passive income doing the same. And also, he's a good brother in Christ as well. So, ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, my friend again, Chris Brown. There we go.
Chris, how you doing? Again?
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Good, man. I'm blessed. How are.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Good? Very good.
For those that don't know you, can you give us a little bit of background, man, how you're a little bit of origin story. I tried to do the best I could on your introduction, but tell people really about you, man.
Most people I know are like, how'd you get debt free and how can I help people? But get right to it, but just tell us a little bit about where you are, where you've been, where you live and all those good things.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Yeah, man, I definitely didn't start out there, that's for sure. So I'll go back to the beginning. I'm just a farm boy from Arkansas, so grew up and raised here, live in Bentonville in the headquarters of Walmart World.
I've been married for about 23 years. And like I said, I didn't start out the debt free place. I actually started out broke as a joke. I'm talking like the broke that. We had two cars, one which we had to crawl in through the passenger side to get over to the driver's seat. The other one, when it rained, we actually had the back seat full of water. That's how broke we were. When we got married, we traded those two cars in for one. So started out 23 years ago doing that, living the life, got at the job, started getting all the stuff, buying and house and cars and accumulating that debt. So the process was definitely not how it ended. So I started out with lots of debt and not knowing, having a clue what I was doing.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Man, as a humble beginnings of foundation. Right, man?
Yeah.
And one of the things I'm curious about, I'm going to ask, it looks like you wanted a different life than that.
What was the fuel for you? Because many of my listeners are seeking what we call a life refresh, really, which is really becoming and walking in what God has purposed and designed us to be from the foundations of the earth. And a lot of that requires vision for that. So what was the fuel and motivation for you when you're going on that journey?
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. So I wanted the freedom. I wanted to really be able to live a life that I wanted to live and not be tied down to what others wanted me to do. Started 20 something years ago, that first year after I got married. Like I said, I was the negative direction. We were in debt, had credit cards, car loans, house mortgage, all that good stuff. And I even joined a country club.
All the good stuff you should do those first few years when you don't have a lot of money. But what I wanted to do was be able to do the things that I wanted to do, which was impact others and help others out. And I knew I couldn't do that if I was going to be strapped down. So begin learning and studying the principles of wealth building. Actually started out, funny enough. I was driving in a car, had a cassette tape series that kind of taught the basics of getting out of debt and how to build wealth. And I started studying that. I was 21, 22 years old, started listening to these and started saying, okay, I can do that, and began that journey. So that was able, the desire to not be tied down, and then the desire to be able to live that life abundantly, that I wanted to live, was what allowed me to start to pursue that.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: Wow, that's incredible. I think many of us, I think sometimes having, first of all, you had cassette tapes. Now, for those who don't know what a cassette tape is exactly, the Walkman is one of the, what do they say? The most important products the world has ever had, next to the iPhone. So if you're interested, go ahead and go.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: That just dates me a little bit, doesn't it? Just gives me a little date. Like, I had to turn my cassette tapes over at the end of each side and flip it over and rewind it to get it to play to the next side.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: Listen, I already know I'm with you. I had the cassette tapes, too, and the Walkman with the cushy headphones, you know what I mean? With the phone we there. Some of my listeners may not be, but if they relate, man, you all there, you all understand.
But it's really hard for many people to have hope during times like that.
Particularly what they see is not what they are experiencing or, sorry, what they see is not what they want to have in their lives.
Again, that is a journey for many people, particularly if they don't see light at the end of the tunnel. And you have all of this debt and all of the circumstances, and you have a heart to serve. What kept you anchored in all of that? Because there's all kinds of debt free folks and all the books and things like that. And I think there's a part where people's like, does this really work for me? Kind of thing? What kept you? Kept you going?
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And so you're right. It's a mindset. So you got to get the mindset right that you really want it. You have to understand why you want it and understand the bigger picture. And then you have to start to believe that. You have to start living that. Make it who you are. It's not hard. It's really not hard to get out of debt. It's really not hard to build wealth. It's really not. It just takes time. It takes consistency, and it's like a lot like working out or losing weight. It's not hard. You eat less, work out more. You will lose weight. You will get in shape spending same way. But you have to understand the mindset and you have to understand why we actually do the behaviors that we do. So money is like, mostly psychology, and you start to study that and you start to understand that. I had to make the decision. I didn't want the debt. I didn't want to. I wanted to build wealth. I made it a desire. I started reading. I think I read rich dad, poor dad in 2001, early on, right after it came out, started reading through all those series, started studying the ways others built wealth, way they got out of debt, and then made a personal choice how I wanted to live. Debt free is not for everybody.
Building wealth is not for everybody. They may not want that, that's okay. But the freedom that is what most people do want comes with a little bit of a cost, which is just being consistent, making a decision to do it and then following through on those decisions. It's small practices every day. It's little habits.
I don't need to have a coffee out or for the first few years of our marriage, we didn't have cable television in our house.
So there are some choices you have to make of what's important, what's not important. And was it inconvenient? Maybe. But once you start doing it, you don't even realize you don't have it or don't need it. And so I think it's just once you make the choice, what are you willing to do to make that happen and then to follow through with it, and it's just those little things. And then make sure your spouse is on board so you're not fight in each other. That's a big help. My wife did a great job of that, of being on board and understanding because she had a desire to stay home with children eventually. So part of our plan was we both worked. She was a school teacher and I was in sales, and she was going to work till she had our first child, and then she wanted to stay home. So we actually worked hard and diligently, literally saved every one of her paychecks for five years and said, look, we're just going to pay us that. So when you do stay home, we could pay ourselves back just like you were getting a paycheck. And so that was one of the things we did. So a little discipline. So it does, it just takes a plan. It takes a little bit of having a guide, someone to show you how to do it if you don't know how. And then it takes just the action and discipline of doing that and understanding that, hey, if I continue to do this, it will work. It just takes a little bit of time.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Man. That's incredible. First of all, I keep saying that because most people, at least what I've seen, is that it's just so far away for people that they're like, I'm not even going to do this, or they think they need to get a higher paying job with the mentality that they had when they were that started the debt. You know what I'm saying?
[00:10:27] Speaker B: You're right. The bigger job or bigger income. It's a shovel, right? It definitely helps if you're digging a hole to have a better shovel or sharper axe if you're cutting down the tree, but you got to start somewhere. What most people do is actually they get the bigger job and their spending goes up. So you have to have the mindset right beforehand for the first several. So first year was totally in debt, had a lot of debt, didn't know what I was doing, but made a decision after that to start really working on that. And so once we started to get that plan of action, lay those out, it's pretty simple steps. It's like you list them in order. You start to pay off the highest to the lowest or the lowest to the highest, so that you get, psychologically you get wins. So the lowest debt, first you pay that off, then you move to the second one. The money stays in the system. But what happens is you can't pull money out of it. You got to keep letting that snowball work. And it really does work because you start paying off one after another. So you pay off one credit card with $100 a month or whatever it is, and you put the $100 on the next thing, that snowball starts to end up being bigger and bigger. So when you end up on your car and you're paying a $500 car payment, plus the 200, $300 that you had from the other debts, you're paying $700 a month on that car payment. It doesn't take as long to pay off. Most people don't realize that you can only get in so much debt that you should technically be able to pay off everything that you have in about eight years, including a mortgage, eight to ten years. And people don't realize that it's based on your scores and everything and the amount of debt to income limits. So everybody can get out of debt. It's possible. Most of it comes back to what your spending is and your choices you're making on what's the output.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Man, I think that's a very many of us will sit there and think like it's that easy.
And we call the fundamentals are the same, right? It's the blocking, the tackling, the catching. If we're playing football like those things. But putting yourself in position are the items that are probably the most challenging for individuals.
I think it's important for us as individuals who are looking to walk in their purpose to understand these ways, to be able to be free, to do things like what's in your heart to do. And as you were going on that journey and becoming debt free and paying things off, had the appetite to really serve people in a very unique way. Was that always there or as you became more free, the want to give and serve people started to make itself more apparent to you.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: So I think it's a little bit of both. I think you have to have my heart. Had to be generous and want to give. That's a principle. I believe in tithing and giving, in generosity as a whole. But that's in you at the little and that's in you at the lot, and it has to stay consistent. Right. That doesn't change if you say, oh, I'll give when I have. Doesn't work like that. You got to give from the beginning when you don't have, because that's the behavior that you'll build into you that you say, okay, this is who I am. I'm a giver. I am a financially frugal person or independent person, or I'm going to be wealthy. That's a mindset thing. So becoming generous, you have to kind of do that at the beginning so that you can serve now. It does make it easier to choose to serve other things when you have free time or you have extra resources. But I think that's why we want to do it. It's so fun. The reward on the backside that I have been able to been blessed with is to be able to give.
We don't tell many people what we do on that, but it's really fun when you can go pay someone's rent or mortgage because they're behind and they're struggling. They're about to get evicted, and you can just go take care of it anonymously and you pay that.
Buy someone a car. That's a real joy when you can talk to your child about that, hey, we're buying this person a car. The single mom that doesn't have a way to get to her work. And now this is going to offer her the opportunity to break that cycle of poverty because she has transportation that's reliable so she can do that. Being able to give like that is life changing for the giver. Everybody says, oh, it's about the person that receives it. No, it's about you being able to actually give and to have that heart of generosity, to realize that we're all just broken people. And we've been shown so much grace that it's one of those things that it's our privilege and our job to extend that back out to others. And so once you're able to do that, it makes it a lot easier and it's a lot more fun.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Man, I can't keep saying incredible.
And many people, I know, they have a heart to do it right as they've grown. And again, if you have experienced and want to serve and care for people, again, this is something that it's a heart thing, right? That your heart has to be in the right place in order to be able to be generous like that. And God always talks about having a soft heart and being generous and always being a pastor, because none of this is ours, right? None of this is. We are just managers of these resources that we've been given.
A question.
What do you think keeps people from being extravagant givers? What's that mindset, as you established? Like, hey, I wanted to be a giver from jump.
Some people may start out that way, but then circumstances may change their mindset. So what keeps them from actually getting that, giving that flow or being that conduit to be able to bless people like you've been able to give?
[00:16:41] Speaker B: Well, one, it's a heart thing, right? So it comes back to what's in your heart and whatever will flow out. So if you believe in abundance and you believe there's plenty and God's going to take care of your needs, then you're open to help others. Some of it's just good old blocking, attacking, like you said. Like, am I a good steward of what I've been given, or can I delay self gratification? Our country, this generation, this time, people are not very good at delaying self gratification or delaying that self gratification. They want everything now. We live in that microwave society that I need it now. I mean, gotta stop at a Starbucks every time you drive by one, you gotta go out to eat four times a. Like, I didn't do that for a were. Those were luxuries and you had to kind of understand that. And so being able to delay some of those, I bought furniture for my house one piece at a time over months. Not like I needed the whole thing, so it looked good and I'd have it. We went and bought one piece at a time.
So you had the chair and you had the couch, you had the dining room, you had each piece. And so the house took a year to fill up. And that's a choice. You have to kind of make that, but that allows you then to say, look, that just becomes who you are and what you're going to do is be able to do that in other areas. So I'm not constrained by resources, and so then I feel the abundance that I can then share, and I think that's important for people to do.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: Yeah, you correlated it to working out, having carbs in versus carbs out.
And many people want that quick weight loss pill that like, oh, I'm just going to lose weight all of a sudden, and even that takes time to get there. Bible says that owe no man but to love him.
I'm incredibly inspired, really, because many people have thought that financial freedom is something that's for everyone else except for me.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: Not true.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: I think that's a lie that people digest, a lie from the enemy that really helps them stay where they are.
Particularly when you said paying off a mortgage and paying off a house, people are like, what? That's like hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Well, if I made a lot of money, then I could do that. That's not the case because they won't loan you x amount of dollars based on your income. You can pay the income off or the loan off based off that.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: I think for individuals that say they want financial wealth, it seems that you already had a plan for what you were going to do. And with your experience in this influencer market and kind of on the ground floor of what that actually looked like, how were you able to share, especially as you're going through the financial freedom, build something that actually speaks to serving other people? And how did you get into billboards as a response to that?
[00:20:11] Speaker B: Yeah, so billboards were just a vehicle. So I've done real estate. I bought my first investment, real estate property in 2004. So I was 24 years old, I bought my neighbor's house. So it wasn't like I went out looking for a bunch of things. They had a house that was sitting there.
I bought that from them. I flipped it, made $10,000 in a month. I was like, wow, this is more than I make in a couple of months, right? So that was one of those that I was like, okay, there's something to this. So started studying it, started buying other real estate deals, started really focusing in on that. Billboards is just another real estate play. It's another way to do that. My company that I run in my local market here is called signs of good. So I own billboards. People advertise on the billboards. It's a pretty simple business, and that's what I'm going to teach people. It's like, anybody can do it. It's not that hard. I don't have any tenants, no toilets. I don't have to sell anything to fris and family. So it's a nice place to be. But what's cool is my billboards. The name of them is actually, my company is called signs of good. And so what we are able to do is we're able to take that advertising that people do and then turn around and help try to break the cycle of poverty through other local nonprofits. So we give back to food insecurity, to feed the hungry, to single moms, to orphans, foster and adoption, those kind of things. So we're trying to take care of the community. So the advertising dollars that I turn on and I'm able to help back in the local community.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Wow.
And that's one thing I think most people almost forget, that billboards are still a huge revenue driver for multiple businesses these days. The ones I see are lawyers.
Lawyers if they get in an accident or something like that. But if you go into a place like a larger city, like La or New York, there's digital billboarding. There's all kinds of things. Like is as we have progressed technologically in different places, how have you seen billboarding, whether it change, evolve, and why is it such a forgotten piece of real estate these days?
[00:22:41] Speaker B: A couple of questions in there. So, yeah, definitely lots of versions of it. So I have digital billboards. I have good old fashioned static billboards on the highway that they're made of steel and the advertisers range. And it is a local, it's national, it's a little bit of everything. So that's a great thing. And it's a media that no one can change. So you think about your options. When you're driving in the car, you may be listening to a podcast one day, the radio sports talk the next, and XM serious satellite the next day. You can change any of those. You got a lot of options. You can't change billboards. They're going to stay there whether you want to change them or not. You can change your television station, you can change a lot of things, and you got a lot of options out there. But you don't have any options when it comes to billboards. The reason you don't hear about them very often is it's actually controlled by just a handful of people. So most people don't know about billboards because that's not something people talk about building, because it's kind of a closely held secret. And I kind of feel like the magician, as I'm about to roll out this course and teaching others how to do it, because magicians don't share their tricks.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: That's part of the thing, is you don't share what goes on behind the scenes. But I feel like it's such an opportunity. It's been a great path for me. And one of the vehicles that I've used to build wealth that I want others to do that as well, and have that opportunity so that they can be givers and can become financially free. So it's not been talked about. It's not one of those out there because it's really owned and controlled by a handful of major corporations, your lamars, your outfronts, your CBS medias, those kind of things. And they don't want anybody to know how to do it. So it's not like real estate that changes hands all the time.
It's one of those, if you know, they're kind of the rule in the billboard business, you'll never just own one billboard. Once you own one, you're going to want to own others because you go, oh, this isn't a bad deal. So I went from zero to 30 in a couple of years. So it's like, how do you go to own those? And especially when you're just like a door, whenever you own real estate, multifamily or single family, whatever, and you have cash flow coming in or rent coming in, and then I put up a sign or I digitally put out a sign, and then the advertisers pay and then if they don't, I can take them off. And that's really the headache I have. And it's a great business to be in.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: Wow. So it's incredible.
You're walking us through your story, man, and this is incredible. So you went from debt free to signs of good, a business in an area that is completely controlled and very siloed, like you said. No one really, I don't think about it. I'm like, oh, man, it's a billboard there. But you're absolutely right. It's such an important static piece that you can't change because you can't miss it. No, you literally can't miss it.
So for those who are looking, and I want to get into your course here in a bit, but I want to kind of talk about this niche you've had and found when it comes to building a business, because not only are you debt free, but you also have built a sustainable business that is creating income for you in an area that very many people are not privy to that kind of information. And now you're sharing the tricks that make the things go through your course. If someone is out there who's listening, is looking to get into a business that may not necessarily be advertised highly, what were some steps that if you can kind of give us a few clues as to what those kind of steps may be, whether they're looking to get into, like, I don't know auto mechanics or doing something that can create some passive income. What were the steps that you walked through to find a particular niche that has garnered you to continue to create the wealth and stay debt free and be able to impact people?
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you have to just one be open, right? Your mind has to be able to look. And one of the things that I tell people is when you focus on things, they start to appear. What I was taught a long time ago, it's called the reticular activating system. We've all know about it. We just don't realize we know about our reticular activating system. It's in our brain. But the minute you buy a new car, let's just say you start looking at a new car and it's just a red mustang. Let's just call it that. And all of a sudden now you're driving, you start to see red mustangs everywhere because your brain's picking up and looking for it. So that's one of those things that you don't even realize, like, oh, you start to pick up on things. So when you're looking for a business, I think that's the same thing is what is it you want? Why do you want certain businesses? You want kind of a dream business, something that's dependable and reliable, and it brings in steady income that you're not having to have trouble scaling, that you're consistently worried about going up and down.
Service businesses are great. They can also be challenging. So how do you want into the services? Is hospitality your thing? If you wanted to run a restaurant or something like that, but looking at the overall business and how it operates, I think you just got to look and start digging into, find someone that's doing it. What you think you want to go do? Go work for them, go learn. I tell people all the time, there's times I would just go learn a business just to learn it. And just because I was interested in it, maybe you go take a job and you give them six months or a year of your time to learn and decide. You may decide, I would never want to be in this business again. So I think there's plenty of information out there. I think it's finding something you like that you enjoy, that is profitable. We often overlook that. A lot of times we think we want to get into businesses, and then we realize these aren't very profitable. So why am I doing all this work? And I think one of the things I started studying early on was there's a couple of things rich dad, poor dad. Taught in the book or cash flow quadrants, is, do you want to be an employee or self employed, a business owner or investor? And you start to look at those different things, and you go, a lot of people start a business, and they actually just move from an employee to self employed, which is just, they own their job. It's the same thing. It's not an actual business. It's just they're self employed, so they still have to work for somebody, still have to show up for their hours, still have to do the work, and that becomes just a self employed. You can make a little bit more money, but you have a lot more responsibility. What we really want to do is start building business systems, which is then when you move into that business, ownership. So that's what I look for now, when I buy businesses or when I buy properties or when I buy or start something, I want the business system that I don't have to be in it every day. I may help. I may help start it. I may run it. The billboard business, I do about two to 4 hours a month on. That's all the effort I put into it, and it runs itself. So I think what it is, is you want to have that kind of business or even be an investor into that kind of business so that they run themselves. I can pull myself out. All of it's automated. I have an accounting. I have the operations done. I have the creative done. I don't do all that work.
It kind of sells itself because I put a number on the sign. It's one of those type things. I can make some phone calls if I need to. I drive around, look for places. I look for different things. But that's one of the things I would say is understand what kind of business it is. Understand. Do you want to be a business owner and really run a business where it's a system that you own that if you could pull yourself out, that business would still run. That's the great thing about billboards today. I could sell any of my billboards, the whole billboard thing, for multiple, multiple millions of dollars based on the multiple of revenue that's coming in. That's a business that sells whether I'm there or not. They don't need me to continue on, on that business. A lot of businesses, they need the person that's there to continue to run it. And that's a different. Again, that's a job.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: Got it. Man, you are giving us some clues here, man. This is great. This is great stuff.
I'm taking notes. Honestly, you can't even see me. I'm like, I'm taking some notes here.
Incredible. Incredible. So one of the things I want to get to. I want to get to your course.
I want to get to your course. Because is Arkansas considered Midwest still South Midwest?
[00:31:01] Speaker B: It's right there on the line of both. It falls into Midwest. I mean, I'm 30 minutes away from Missouri, 30 minutes from Kansas, 30 minutes from Oklahoma.
But we're in the SEC, so I'm south.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: Right.
Well, you know, big ten, baby, all day.
We can talk offline.
[00:31:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Well, in the midwest, there are a lot of billboards that are between cities. There's a lot of land and opportunities to be sold to and shared some products and services. So through what your course is going to help individuals understand that level of business. So explain to us kind of what that course looks like, and then kind of, is it possible for someone to really leverage that for some financial blessings and opportunities to be able to be an extravagant giver like yourself?
[00:32:07] Speaker B: Absolutely. Again. And what I love about billboards is you can start out as simple as possible. One of the questions I always get is, well, how do I get started? What would I do and how much do I need? Is it super expensive? In billboards, you can range from $200 to buy a billboard to $250,000 or $500,000. So there is a range of stuff. But four x, four post and a piece of plywood from Lowe's is a way to start. That's a billboard. Like you could put up a sign, right? And anybody can do that all the way up to the big digital billboards in the big cities or downtowns or whatever it may be, the ones on the highway that you're talking about in between cities and the big steel structures. So I have a little bit of everything. Steel structures, digital boards. And so it just takes you understanding and doing that. It's an insider's game. It's really not a fair place. Like I said, it's kind of a secret marketplace. But if you have a guide, someone to show you how, once you understand the basics, you can definitely scale that up from one to 2030 boards over time and doesn't have to be in a big city. The rural areas that you're talking about are actually the best places, I think, to grow and scale this business. So don't think your downtown, New York's or, you know, Manhattan's or LA's, that's not what we want. We actually want the know, midwest cities, southeast cities, that kind of stuff makes a really good place to.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: You would, you wouldn't think about, know, I don't know how many times I've driven down the highway and may have seen the same billboard like, hey, Wendy's exit 70 something or whatever the case is.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: And they're just paying them monthly. Yeah, that's just a static. They're paying them thousand, 2000, $3,000 a month per sign.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Wow.
Because that Wendy's isn't going anywhere.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: No.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: As long as it's by that highway, people.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Food. Now is there a particular, as you're going through that process of getting into the insiders game of billboarding, is there a particular business like food or commerce or legal that you find are more successful? Or is it just kind of like, hey, these are the ones that people are interested, people are going to buy it and that's it.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's businesses that want more customers. That's who advertises. Right. The good businesses that actually understand they want to make advertising or marketing is to make known. And so if you want to make your business known, advertising is a way to do that. And billboards are a great way for that. It's one of those, again, you can't turn off. It's always on.
It's out there. So there's a little bit, you see the ones that have bigger budgets, that spend regular, your furniture stores, your car dealerships, your banks, your lawyers, your different ones. But I have some of those that have been on with me 810 years. The same clients like you're saying that Wendy's has been up for whatever it may be. The heating and air places, they do a lot of business. The insurance agents do a lot of business. So it's not something that's hard. It's not something that you're out having to pitch every day. Especially the static boards are normally on a year lease, so they're year to year or two year leases. So you start to put those up, but makes it a fun game when almost everybody's a potential client in your market.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: Right. Man, that's incredible. Gosh. Why? I keep saying it's incredible.
That's really cool. Let's use a different word.
So, another question for you in regards to the billboarding business.
Are there any places or real estate you can actually take over and actually build your own billboard now these days? Or is it just the existing infrastructure of billboarding that you've been able to build a business from? That's another great question, because there's buildings now, particularly as a result of the pandemic that downtown businesses, there's walls that are, I'll say brick walls on some buildings downtown that you can put, I've seen Apple put a huge banner whenever a new iPhone comes out that they put on something just down the street. So is it generally something that, hey, I can take my current real estate, turn that into a billboard or do I have to put something up or do something that's traditional in that way?
[00:36:47] Speaker B: All the above. So I think I've acquired, I've bought, I've leased land, I've owned my own land, I've built new structures. So I have a mixture of all that. So I think it's all open. I think it's understanding the right game to play in your market and where you can play that. That's the hardest part. That's where you need a guide to kind of walk you through that is to understand, okay, what does it mean? Where can I do this? How does that work? Because there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that you want to make sure that you address and have done upfront the work on. Otherwise you can get yourself in trouble. And it's not a fun place for people that if they want to put something up and they get it up and they realize they can't and they got to tear it all back down that they just did that. Luckily I haven't had that, but I've seen it happen and lots of people are like, oh, I'll just go put this up. It's like, no, that doesn't work that way. You have to understand the game and understand the rules, but everyone has them. The rules are clearly established. And some make it easy, some make it hard. It's not a game that everybody can play. It's not endless. Like, traditional real estate is probably a little more opportunity because there's so much single family homes. So this is a little bit more of a niche, but it's a great place to play because once you get it, there's not 1000 other people trying to play in the space.
And that's something with the course. This course isn't going to be for 1000 people a year, it's going to be for 20 to 50 people.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Course is really going to help unlock a lot of opportunities.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: That's the goal. That's the goal.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: Your course, I'm super intrigued. I know we talked about it before, but this is something that I think your course is really going to unlock a lot of opportunities for individuals who see something they see every day. And don't understand all the intricacies behind it. So I'm excited about your course and what that's going to turn into. I have one more question for you, and then before we get off, I want to make sure we get all your information for those who are interested in learning this business from you, contacting you. So we'll make sure we get that at the conclusion of this last question.
And my last question for you is, now that you have the financial wealth, you have created a very sustainable and lucrative business. And through that business you've been able to bless individuals with the things that they need. That we've been really commanded to do is to utilize our resources to bless someone else. How has your faith contributed in all three of these aspects? Not just in the fact of like, hey, this is what you're going to do. Not the doing, but the being person. Because it sounds like this journey for you has really transformed you as a human being. And honestly, you can't have anything.
All these things can take you if you don't have your hope placed in the right place. So how has that journey been for you with your faith walk?
[00:39:56] Speaker B: Yeah, great question. And I think it's so important that we have to realize all of it's God like, the money, the people, the stuff, it's all his, right? We don't really have anything. We just steward the stuff that's here while we're here. And so I think what we have to realize is that we're not here to consume, we're here to serve others and to love others first and foremost. And I think if our heart's that right and is focused on that, then all these other things will flow. So it's a daily abiding, it's understanding that I need to be close to my father and I need to be close to his word and what he says. And when I do that, the other stuff will flow my past and my history. Actually, I actually didn't always do that well. I was pretty egotistical, pretty selfish and driven and kind of left awake of bodies behind me as I was climbing for a little while. And I think that's important that we understand that, no, the change and the transformation of our heart is what then will allow us to be and live in that fulfilled life. And so the money won't bank you. Fulfilled money does not bring happiness, does not bring joy. It makes a lot of things easier and you can do a lot of things with it, but your heart has to be healed and you have to be whole which there's a lot of stuff. We've all been wounded, us as guys and ladies out there that we have to understand that we've been wounded in our past by others. And we need to have some of that healed up so that the insecurities don't come out so that we're not wounding others. And I think that abiding relationship and that spending time in the word and understanding that God cares. He knows me, he cares about me. He listens to me. And then letting him be our guide, right? Letting him be who I follow and who I get all my worth from. I don't need anything. I can't add anything else. It's all been paid for. It's all been finished. I just need him. And that's it. And I think once we do that, it's a lot easier to walk those paths. And I think we need guides in our life. I was ACTUALlY working out in the barn. This can be related to billboards. This could be related to our walk with God. It could be related to anything. I was working out in my barn. So I have a barn outside. I have a little crossfit gym in it. I'm doing a workout. And this LITTLE HUMMIngBIRd flies out. And it's in the middle of the summer. And I have two garage doors, one on each end. They're Both up. This LITTLE HUMMINGBIRd. It's a beautiful little green and red hummingbird. They're TINY if you've NEveR SEen one in person. And they're just flapping their wings a million miles an hour. Flies in. He flies up to the rafters. He's UP in the ceiling and he's going back and forth. And he's Just wearing HIMSELF out. Back and forth, back and forth. He's hitting his Head on the walls. He's hitting his Head on the wood. He's like stopping. He finally stops, sits down. He's just panting. And I'm like, it's like 95 degrees in the summer here and it's about 115 heat index. And I'm like, he's not going to make it. Keeps going back and forth. So I go grab the feeder that we have because we actually feed hummingbirds here. And I go get that hummingbird feeder and I put it up in the rafters. I get on the ladder, I climb up and I put it up there. After a few minutes, he finally sees it and he sits on it and rests, gets a drink and gets that refreshing water.
But he takes off again, back and forth, back and forth. So what I eventually do is I start to lower it down. I actually take that hummingbird feeder every few minutes and lower it down. He sees it and lands on it, but he goes right BACK up, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I lower it DOWN, DOwn to the ladder. I get it down finally lower than the garage doors where he could see out on either side. He lands on it, gets a drink, takes right BACk OFf up into the. UNder the roof. I'M LIKE, Man, I'VE BEEN OUT HERE For 30 MINUTES WITH THIS HUMMINGBIRD, AND HE'S GOING BACK AND FORTH AND BACK AND FORTH. FINALLY, I lower that down a little bit lower. He comes back down. I mean, we're talking. He's got clear sight either way he can get out. He finally flies out. He has freedom. How many times in life are we the Hummingbird? How many times are we up in those rafters and we're beating our head side to side and we can't figure it out? We're like, where in the world? I'm trying to go this way, trying to go that way. But what he needed was a Guide.
He needed someone to help him slowly. It wasn't a fast process. Like, it wasn't a 1 minute thing. I spent and invested 45 minutes in this hummingbird coming down from the rooftops. But how many times do we need a guide, someone to show us? Maybe it's how to do Billboards and build wealth, get out of debt. Maybe it's those. Maybe it's somebody that needs to tell us and help us heal our hearts or get some of that woundedness healed up and become less selfish and become those things. And maybe that's Jesus. Everybody needs that, right? Everybody needs that. But maybe we all need that guide, someone that will come alongside and lower that down for you, give you a drink of water, refresh you, show you around the corner that you cannot see, give you insight into the areas that you can't see. We need coaches. We need mentors. We need people in our lives. We need Community to do. I bet, you know, as I was looking at that Hummingbird, I related to that Hummingbird. I'm sure a lot of our Listeners, your listeners out there, can relate to that. Are we the Hummingbird? Who are we looking to as our guide? One is Jesus. And then two, do I have other guides in my life that are helping me in all those areas? The Financials, the spirituals, Physicals, all those things? We all need that. So, as you think about that, are you the Hummingbird that's back and forth and who are you going to be the Guide? Who are you going to have as your guide? Do you have a guide.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: Chris? There's nothing to be said, man.
That's a perfect way to close out this interview, man. Chris, man, thank you so much for being on the Life refresh podcast. And it's amazing you use refresh and you might be a preacher, man. That was really good.
So if someone is interested in getting into your course, following you, getting more information, how can they find you?
[00:45:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the first thing is just see if it's right for them. Right? I don't know, maybe it's not the right thing. Maybe there's another area. But I have on my website, I have a guide. It's kind of a playbook to see if passive income through billboards is right for them. And you can just check that
[email protected]. So like, you want moremoney.org? So wantmore.org. And there's a free guide for them to take a look at it. Good checklist on that to see if it fits their personality or what they like to do or what they're wanting to do and their goals and if those two fit. Love to be a part of that, if I can help in any way.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: Awesome. We will make sure that that link is in the show notes so that we'll be able to get that. We'll make sure to also have Chris's other information listed there as well. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you guys for listening in. I hope that this podcast blessed you, and in the meantime, we'll catch you in the next pod.
