This week our guest is the investing and money maintenance expert Christopher Larsen. Chris is the founder and Managing Partner of Next-Level Income, through which he helps investors become financially independent through education and investment opportunities. In this episode, we dive deep into how you can be managing your money better. We go into how you get started in the market, how to save on your taxes, how to manage your wealth, and much more. If you’re not already taking this advice then you could be losing out on a significant amount of money annually… monthly… or even daily. So jump in and join us for this conversation supercharged with information and learnings!
This week our guest is the investing and money maintenance expert Christopher Larsen. Chris is the founder and Managing Partner of Next-Level Income, through which he helps investors become financially independent through education and investment opportunities.
In this episode, we dive deep into how you can be managing your money better. We go into how you get started in the market, how to save on your taxes, how to manage your wealth, and much more. If you’re not already taking this advice then you could be losing out on a significant amount of money annually… monthly… or even daily. So jump in and join us for this conversation supercharged with information and learnings!
Key Takeaways
Resources Mentioned
Download your free copy of the Passive Investor Playbook - https://investormindset.com/passive
About our Guest:
Christopher Larsen has been investing in and managing real estate for over 20 years. He began syndicating deals in 2016, has raised more than $15M, and has been actively involved in over $150M of real estate acquisitions. In addition to real estate, Chris has invested in equities, oil & gas, and small business lending, as well as being active in Venture South, one of the nation’s Top 10 Angel Investing groups.
Chris lives with his wife and two boys in Asheville, NC where he loves spending time with them outdoors and enjoying the food and culture that the region has to offer.
Steven Pesavento 00:00
Investors have you grabbed your copy of the passive investor playbook yet. If you haven't, I recommend you go pick up the ultimate guide to passive real estate investing at the investormindset.com/passive, you can grab that in the show notes right down below, as we've interviewed tons of the top experts and brought together all of the knowledge that we have on passive investing so that you can lay a foundation for yourself to make sure you're making the right decisions in your investing career, you can grab that guide at the investormindset.com/passive, I hope you'll take advantage of it. And let's get back to it.
Steven Pesavento 00:44
This is the Investor Mindset podcast and I'm Steven Pesavento. For as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with understanding how we can think better, how we can be better, and how we can do better. And each episode we explore lessons on motivation and mindset for the most successful real estate investors and entrepreneurs in the nation.
Steven Pesavento 01:06
Alright, guys, welcome back to the Investor Mindset Podcast. I'm Steven Pesavento, your host, and I'm very excited. I have Chris Larsen in the studio today. How you doing today, Chris?
Chris Larsen 01:16
I'm doing fantastic, Steven, I'm fired up to be here.
Steven Pesavento 01:18
Awesome. I'm excited to have you as well. Chris is a syndicator and multifamily. And he's also author of the book next level income how to make keep and grow your money using the holy grail of real estate to achieve financial independence. And Chris has been investing and managing real estate for over 20 years, and has been actively involved in over $150 million of real estate acquisitions. And he found a next level income to put investors first through education opportunity to achieve financial freedom. And what I'm excited about is that this small little book has some very powerful concepts within it, we're gonna be talking about how to make money, how to keep more money, and how to grow your money. And it's kind of the core of the book. And so we're gonna have some really big takeaways that I think are going to help you regardless of where you're at, especially if you're a high income earner. So you're not gonna want to miss that. Are you ready to get into things? Chris? I am. Let's do it. That's what I like to hear well, why don't we start out by taking a look back earlier in your life? What events or influences specifically from your childhood, shaped who you are today,
Chris Larsen 02:24
growing up, Steven, I grew up in Maryland, just south of Baltimore. And I talked about this in my book. And by the way, if anybody wants a copy of the book for your audience, I'm giving it away for free, just go to next level income. com, click on the Book link. And you can read all about my history in there as well. But I had to really impactful moments that happen. So my father passed away when I was five years old. And over, over, you know, doing research and reading about these sorts of things, when when a child has that sort of impact, it really kind of gives you an idea that life is finite. And that I didn't come to this thought process until over 30 years later. But it dawned on me that, you know, I realized that there was there was something finite to life. I didn't think I was invincible. I didn't think I had all the time in the world on Earth. And people have asked me since I was young, like what what's driving you like, why are you doing all these things? And I just thought, Oh, it's just it's just who I am. It's just how I operate. I did well in school, ended up going to Virginia Tech for engineering. But my love was cycling. So I raced bicycle started when I was 14 and raced into college I was present the Virginia Tech cycling team was doing well went from a cat five, which is where you start off like a total amateur and cycling. And I was a cat one which means you can go pro. That's that's the limit. I got to train with Lance Armstrong, Trinity Olympic Training Center raced all over the country. But between my freshman and sophomore year of college, my best friend died abruptly of a brain hemorrhage weird a bike race, went to the hospital. And there he was laying there on the table for me to identify. And for about a year I just kind of focused on cycling. I was definitely depressed. But it made me really focused. And that was my therapy was racing my bike. A year later, I was winning races all all up and down the East Coast. The most successful I had been and I won what happened to be my friends Memorial race the second year in a row. And I was I fell hollow. I quit racing. And when I went back to school, I kind of had this epiphany that if cycling wasn't making me happy because it wasn't really what I was meant to do. It wasn't me giving the most out of the life that I was given. And I had this sense that now I had to live the equivalent of two lives to really honor Chris's life that he didn't have had the chance to do. And I committed that every day I woke up, I would make the most out of my life, I wouldn't give up an opportunity. Even something like when I met my wife, I said, I'm going to, I'm going to ask her out. So those two moments were most impactful. And you're really driven me for the for the rest of my life after that,
Steven Pesavento 05:17
I think it's, I think it's such a good reminder to everyone, like if you, if you've gone through a major loss like this, you know exactly what Chris is talking about. If you haven't, you will, you're definitely going to, it's going to hit you at some point, whether it's somebody far off that you don't quite know, or it's somebody really, really close to you, I recently lost my sister about six months ago. And, you know, she's just 27 younger sister, and it completely changed my life. And I can imagine what that did for you, Chris, especially early on in your life and kind of knock you out. And it can be so emotional, and I want to share with listeners is that these moments end up making a huge shift for the people who are impacted by them by when you have a huge loss, or huge pain or something like that, it ends up sending you down this path to do the thing you were really meant to do. And so we got to take advantage of that opportunity. When bad things happen. Sometimes good things can come of it. But I just want to take this moment to remind you guys that it doesn't have to be a bad thing happening for you to make the decision to go there. Maybe take a few minutes and imagine what your life would be like if you lost the most important thing, your kid, your wife, your some family member, and cherish the moments that you have even a little bit more, but stop accepting less than what you're capable of. Because guess what, this is the only life we get to live. So I'll jump off my soapbox, Chris for a second. But thanks for sharing that with us.
Chris Larsen 06:49
No, I mean, you know, I would underscore that. And you know, you talked about like what you do in the morning to kind of get yourself in the right mindset. Steve and I were talking before the show. And I get up every morning and one of the first things I do I meditate first thing in the morning to kind of clear my mind. But then I think of three things I'm grateful for. So I would just tell your audience, you know, you don't have to think about what you're going to lose. But think about what you are grateful for. And and think about what that means to you. I think that's a great place to focus on.
Steven Pesavento 07:18
Absolutely focus on the things you're grateful for. Pain can drive you pretty strongly. I don't want you to stay there, but use it as a tool if it's necessary. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you're focused on primarily as an investor.
Chris Larsen 07:33
I started as you mentioned in the intro over 20 years, actually, it's 21. I just had my 42nd birthday. So it's exactly half my life ago, almost here, I bought my first investment property like you started in single family and bought a property cost me was less than $3,000 down is about a $90,000 townhouse, bought the townhouse next door, bought another bought another bought another built a portfolio of properties. And my plan was to own these properties, go get a high paying job, I went to the medical device industry spent 15 years in that industry, which I still manage a team today a sales reps that are out there producing. And I thought if I can pay these properties off, I'll have you know, five figures a month coming in. And that's that's a nice, that's a nice security blanket, and I can really help make some decisions. Another impactful moment my mother passed away from cancer that is going to be nine years ago this year. And at that point, it was another turning point in my life. I took a step back. I said Is this really my you know, is this really what I'm meant to be doing? And I decided, yeah, I was happy with my life. I was happy with the directions. But one thing I did was I looked at my investments, I wasn't happy with my real estate investments. And my return on equity dropped from about 30% down to single digits and after tax. We're talking low single digits. And I was lamenting this at a meeting that was with my with my wife found Reno kind of a business networking meeting. And the gentleman said, Have you looked into multifamily? Like that's yes, commercial. And he said, Hey, you should talk to a couple friends of mine. They syndicate multifamily deals. I talked to him. I'm a demographics guy. So I moved to the southeast because I believe in the growing nature of the SE and I talked to these guys. And it was like I was listening to myself and the reasons why I chose the medical device industry and why I made certain investing decisions. I looked into it, and I thought man, renters are going to be growing in this country from millennials and baby boomers for the next 15 years. Now we're talking this is 2012 2013 when I was going through this process, so you know, eight years ago, seven, eight years ago, and I decided you know what, this makes a lot of sense, did some research, and over the next three years sold off my entire portfolio of single family properties and one 100% into multifamily and now I'm either a GP or a limited partner and over 1200 units.
Steven Pesavento 09:53
Wonderful, wonderful. I think it's amazing to see how people have these realizations that you know you can go down this path You can create incredible wealth for yourself. But you can actually create true passive income in commercial properties that is so much harder in some of the more traditional residential space. So let's get deep into this great book that you wrote with some of these phenomenal strategies on making money, keeping money and growing your money. So let's start at the top. You know, what, why is it so important to start with, you got to make more money in order to get to that next level of income.
Chris Larsen 10:29
Yes, Steven. So that's the first for a reason. So if you want to be an investor, if you want to have passive income, you basically have a couple different options. You can either go grow wealth by building a company, and cashing out and doing something that way. Or you can make money and invest that money into something in a new investment to grow that. So one of the one of the core tenants that I talked about teacher sons this, I say, make it a goal to save half of what you make. So if you make $100,000, strive to save $50,000. Now I kind of said, Okay, so about half after taxes make make it a little bit easier, it ends up being maybe about a third of what you make, if you save a third, pay a third and tax and spend a third, that's a third, a third, a third, but I say make it a goal to save half. I was on a show at the beginning of the year. And somebody said, Well, what about somebody that's only making $50,000, you expect them to live off that much. I said, Well, if you can't live off that you have a family, now you got to make more money. And I said, that's why I say make more money, find something that you're good at that you're passionate and work on being the best at that it might not happen overnight. But start on that process in two to five years. I think anybody can double the income that they make, depending on you know what they're doing?
Steven Pesavento 11:48
Yeah, so many people think, well, I want to be an investor, I want to I want to grow in this passive income thing. But they're starting in a pretty difficult situation where they're not making any money. And so you've got to find a way to make enough money to actually invest that money, so that you can then earn a return. Because when you're looking at these multifamily deals, sure the general partners are making some good money off that deal. But the passive investors are often making quite a bit more. And there's a reason for that. And so it's really important, if you can actually make money so that you can invest alongside all the investors, no matter what type of investing you aren't doing.
Chris Larsen 12:25
That's right. And look, wait, just wait to put a spin on that is you can you can start investing right away. But you say you say I think the best you say invest in yourself. So make more money is really invest in yourself first, you know, teach yourself, grow your profession, whether that's going to college. And that's why we talk about we help investors achieve financial independence first through education. That's why we have our show. We have our blog, we have our resources on our website to help people have the resources to make more money. I don't say hey, Steven, go make some more money and come back and talk to me. That's not how we operate here. Next Level income?
Steven Pesavento 12:59
Of course, of course. Well, that's great. So we got the easy part down, maybe not so easy. But let's say we've got that money or high income earner. How do we go about keeping more of it?
Chris Larsen 13:10
Yeah. So there's, there's a couple strategies that I talked about. So one, I highly encourage everybody to go out and find a tax strategist, somebody that can help you structure your life, your business around efficiently utilizing your capital, and minimizing the amount of taxes you pay. And I'm not saying to commit tax fraud here. But you need to like I restructured the way our family made money. So we could keep more. When you're a W two professional making mid high six figures, and you're giving up sometimes 50% in taxes all in. It's really hard. If you have to make $200,000 to keep $100,000 You got to work a long time before you have enough capital to invest. It's a lot easier to go into that structure things properly. One of my favorite strategies, I talked about this in my book as well is infinite banking. So I say set up an opportunity fund, so you're making more money. You've talked to a tax strategist, maybe it's your current CPA if you have a good one. But again, I would say if you have a CPA that's just doing your taxes, go out and find a strategist that can help you save more. There's a couple of great interviews on our on our podcast on our website for resources there. I use infinite banking as our opportunity fund. So people might say, Well, how is that keeping more money? The number one expense outside of taxes, for most people is interest expense. So you're going out, you're paying interest on your home, on your cars, you know, people I hope, I hope listeners aren't putting stuff on their credit cards and paying that student loan all these things. What if you could recoup that interest and keep that interest? And that's what the Infinite Banking strategy talks about. We actually have a web link on our website called banking and you can learn more about that, but those are the two things, tax strategy and properly structured. And what we use is high cash value life insurance to avoid that interest paying tax or interest paying.
Steven Pesavento 15:10
Yeah, and as as a real estate investor, I'll just tell you guys, so when I heard about Infinite Banking, it kind of melted my brain a little bit, because there's so many things. And they really require you to learn a lot before you can even get into doing it, because it's kind of a complex thing. But once you learn it, once you're on the other side of just learning, it only takes a half an hour, an hour, two hours reading a book or getting a good overview, it actually makes so much sense. And it gives you the ability to essentially park your money in this policy, and then use it to loan to yourself or use it to invest into deals while still earning a return from both directions. So it's a really, really strong strategy. But let's go back to this tax strategist, how does somebody go about finding somebody that is going to help set them up to be you know, in a tax benefited situation?
Chris Larsen 16:00
Yeah. So I think this is this is something a lot of people don't always think about. So they think, Oh, I have a CPA, they do my taxes. A tax strategist and most are CPAs is different. It's actually taking a step back. So you hand your CPA, your stack of receipts, and they do your taxes for you, right? A tax strategist says, Hey, how are you spending your money? And can we be more intentional with how you're spending your money, how your business is structured? And then also, and this is a big part of the growth strategy on the back end, when we talk about commercial and multifamily real estate? Is, are your investments structured properly from a tax perspective? So again, we have a couple tax strategist that have been on the podcast, Steven, that people can go onto our podcast page and check out John Hyers, one that's been on there, you can listen to his I would also say if you if you're working with a CPA, just ask him that question. Say, Hey, do you do tax strategy? So if you're interviewing CPAs, say, do you do tax strategy? If they say, What are you talking about? I'm just a bookkeeper. Ask, ask around, ask your friends, your trusted business partners, and people you respect, they'll have a CPA most likely to set up tax strategy.
Steven Pesavento 17:15
So of course, you're not a CPA, I'm not a CPA, we can't give you guys advice. But let's give some examples of what some of the strategies have resulted in for folks that you've worked with. I know I've got a whole list of them. I'd love to hear what are some of those tax advantages that people end up getting by investing in multifamily or in real estate in general?
Chris Larsen 17:37
Yeah, well, I mean, take take it a step back. So if you're a business owner, that owns a piece of real estate, you should talk to your accountant or your tax strategist, about optimizing the structure, if you're paying yourself rent, and if you're not, if you're giving yourself free rent, then that may, that actually may be a financial negative, you might be thinking, I'm not paying rent to myself, that actually may be costing you money in the long run. So that's one example. Kind of a very simple example, when we talk about multifamily. So this was this was one of the light bulbs that went off for me. So we both we both own single family properties. So you have a single family property, you're getting some tax benefits, because you're taking the depreciation. Well, my wife and I get married, we phase out of the tax benefits. So I'm not sure the exact amount right now. But it was about $150,000. You can apply depreciation on your rental property to your individual income, you lose that benefit. So I just gave it up. I thought that's that's what she had to do. But I went from paying a 10% tax rate as a single individual to 20% on twice the income when I got married, that was that stung. Because that was money I wasn't saving. What I found out about multifamily was that you retain the tax benefits, even if you're a high income earner. So not only is it passive, not only does it well structured deals have cash flow, and the potential for appreciation, but you may not you may not have to pay taxes while you own that property. And then the other really powerful thing on the back end is what's called a 1031 exchange that we've exercised personally, also as investors, and what a 1031 exchanges is that you can take the growth of your money from one investment and roll it tax free into another investment. Now, if anybody hasn't heard this, and is saying that's too good to be true, think about it, the government wrote the tax code to encourage activities that help benefit the country in the growth of the country. So if you have $100,000 investment that turned into 150, they want you to take your 150 and reinvest it and continue to grow that they don't want. They'd rather you do that, then take your original 100 and do that. That means more tax revenue down the road from them, more growth, more economic power that's going into this country. So it all makes sense for the government and for us. So think of the IRS, like your partner, not like you Enemy. That's how my my tax strategist taught me to think about it. Now I don't get scared when I get a letter from the IRS.
Steven Pesavento 20:06
I think that's such a good way to look at it. Because we all think like, Oh, I hate paying taxes, the government's taking advantage of me. But if we just flip that on its head, that's a mindset tip, you guys, we just change it to saying, hey, you know, the tax code is a map. And on that map, there's a lot of different treasure chests, there's a lot of treasures all over the place. And if we just listen to what the government has incentivize us to do, ie investing in real estate, investing in housing, allowing people to have an affordable place to live, that we're going to take advantage of some of those benefits that they've put out there. So now that we've got ourselves in a good position, we're working with a tax strategist, which, you know, obviously, most of the syndicators or operators that you work with can point you in the right direction. If you're not working with somebody yet, I know I can. So definitely head over to the investor mindset.com/invest, schedule a call happy to share anything, even if you don't invest with us just happy to pass along some resources your way. But when you go to the final piece about growing your money, really getting to that next level, obviously, we've saved some of that money. So our returns are going to be much better, because we're making smart tax decisions. What are some of the things that end up going into really growing your money?
Chris Larsen 21:25
Yes, so look, there's a lot of ways out there. And this is this is what I really wrote the book, I call it I call multifamily, the holy grail of investing. And I still, you know, this is this can be a charged statement, right, the Holy Grail, I always think about the Indiana Jones movie, The I think it was the third one, when the knight says, you know, they're looking for the Holy Grail. And he says you chose wisely. So multifamily are any investment that you're looking to grow your money, I think it should have a few different aspects. And I talked about the other areas that you can invest in the stock market, which I invest in, you can invest in bonds, you can invest in, you know, startup companies and other things. But why I prefer multifamily and commercial is because it has cash flow. It has appreciation, and it has tax benefits. So I I like investments, and I call it the Warren Buffett strategy of real estate as well as the Holy Grail. But Warren Buffett buys businesses that are sick, that are cashflow positive, that he can improve operations, you know, whether that's through scaling, or making efficiencies in there, and you you are a management consultant, Steven, so that's, that's what this is all about. But then, if you get all these great benefits, and you grow this company, and you have all this great cash flow, but you're just getting hosed on the taxes. Well, a terrific return may be cut in half. So you have to you always have to look at those tax benefits on the back end. So whether it's multifamily or commercial real estate or anything else, look at it like a business cashflow, appreciation, tax benefits.
Steven Pesavento 22:57
Okay. And so when we're, let's expand on that a little bit deeper, tell me a little bit more about what goes into kind of analyzing and making some of those decisions.
Chris Larsen 23:09
Yeah, so I think if you're looking at but let's I mean, let's talk about a multifamily deal. Okay. So there's a few different areas of risk that that you have to consider. One, you have market risk. So I talked about being a demographics guy, I moved to the southeast, because I like the positive demographics growth, you can buy the best look and deal in the world with the best operator, but if it's in a dying factory town, or, you know, I mean, jeez, I could I could talk about a deal we had in Houston, when the oil market dried up about five years ago, or the oil, oil prices sank. Houston, it was tough because it had it was really concentrated in one industry. Now they've, they've diversified over the next five years, and they do a much better job now. But if you have a terrible market, it's not like The Simpsons where they pick up the town of Springfield and move it you can't do that with your apartment deal, right? So one, pick the right market, understand the market know, if you have somebody that you trust that's bringing you deals or an operator that you're working with, make sure you ask them why this market, look at the growth. You know, you want people moving into the market, not out of the market, you want a lot of jobs inside the market. That means a lot of different industries. That means growing industries, like tech industries, medical, which is very stable, universities are good stable job sources as well. These are all things that are very high level. Number two, make sure you're working with an operator that has experience. I mean, if you have somebody that's doing their first deal, I'm not saying you can't invest with that person, but you want to operator that has shown a track record of success in good times and in bad times. You know what happened here recently with the COVID crisis. If you work with an operator that stretched that stretched really thin they don't know how to deal with these situations. Then they may it may wipe Got a deal. That's, that's not a good thing. And then look at the deal itself. And I mean, I could dive I love numbers, I'm a, I'm a finance guy, I'm a numbers guy. So I was just looking at a massive spreadsheet this morning of the upcoming deal. And, you know, I can dive into any aspect of the financial applications or the financial issues within a property as well. But that's the last. Just remember, that is the last piece, you have to look at the bigger picture before you dive deep into a deal and the assumptions that are made in that deal.
Steven Pesavento 25:31
Yeah, it's, it's such a good reminder, guys that, you know, you it really starts with understanding the market and the operator, right, because we want to be investing with people who have a track record, right, I'm not putting my money with folks that have never done deals before, I wouldn't recommend that you do it either. And that's one of the big reasons that we partner with extremely experienced operators, so that we can be a bridge to really connecting folks do amazing investments, and being able to thrive together because of that. So I think it's so important to go out there and, and really get to know what it is that you're investing in. And it starts first at that market. And that operator level. So amazing, amazing stuff. And you guys, if you guys are just joining the investor mindset if this is the first episode you've listened to, or if you've been listening a while and you haven't yet, I highly encourage you to hit that subscribe button, I know that our listenership is going through the roof. And I'm seeing a lot of folks that are currently not subscribed. So make sure you hit that subscribe button, and head over and drop a review on iTunes. If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate it. And if you listen to more than three shows, time to pay the piper, this is a free show. And it allows us to reach more people so we can make a bigger impact. So if you guys could do that for me, I would greatly appreciate it. So we've made it to the growth rapid fire round where the questions are quick, but the answers don't need to be. So tell me, how would you define success? And what is success to you?
Chris Larsen 26:57
You know, it's a little nebulous, but I would say happiness today. And, you know, for a lot of years, I chased you know, financial success, Career Success, success on the bike. But when you are winning race after race, and you have that hollow feeling like I did, and you're not happy, you know, you have to look at what's you know, what's more meaningful. And today that that happiness comes from my family, my two wonderful boys, eight and 10, and the friends and the experiences that I get to share with them.
Steven Pesavento 27:26
That's amazing. I'm such a big believer in that as well. So what are some of the Keystone Habits, the things that you do on a daily or weekly basis that have led to some of that success?
Chris Larsen 27:35
Yes, so a lot of the discipline that I learned from being an athlete, Stephen, it really kind of translated forward. So the first thing I used to do, and I was in college for the majority of my racing career, and then I kind of picked up again, did age graded races after I after I quit. But the first thing I did was, I was scheduled my training. So I scheduled my training. So I would say for everybody that's out there, the most important thing that I do is I schedule the most important, most impactful things, whether that's analyzing a deal, like we were just talking about, whether that's personal education, or a seminar or a book that I'm reading, or it may be an important sales call or investor call that I have coming up, schedule that first. And then the other thing is schedule time to recharge, to reflect, to be with your family. I think that's the other thing, that's the most important. So at the beginning of the year, the first thing I do is I schedule our vacations. And I make sure everybody knows it's that's a no go on the calendar for anybody that works with me. So that's, that's from a big macro perspective. But then on a day to day basis, it's it's making sure that I focus on, you know, that most important thing first. And then the daily habit that I picked up about five years ago, I work with a phenomenal doctor. And he went through I went through a large battery of tests, and he said, Chris, here's my first prescription. I'm thinking like, alright, what are you gonna, you know, hand me a bottle of pills. He said, I want you to start meditating. And I've been meditating for, oh, it'll be four years, next month. And, you know, being able to, for me, I'm like a racecar. So being able to calm my mind down to lower the RPMs allows me to move into the day and be impactful, both personally, and also to the people that we serve. So
Steven Pesavento 29:29
such a powerful habit, and it will change your life. And a lot of people are afraid of getting into meditation, but just start with a little bit every single day. And just remember that. That's pretty much all it's all about is starting again. So give it a shot if you guys aren't already doing that. So what's a book that's impact your life the most or one you're excited about right now?
Chris Larsen 29:50
Well, I'm excited about my book, obviously, getting it out there, but I just finished. Let's see here. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm what I'm reading right now. So I've I developed this habit of I get a, I get an audio book. And then I also get the hard books, I can keep it going. But I just turned 42, I just picked up a book called lifespan by David Sinclair. And the reason I'm excited about I just started, he talks about aging as a disease and how you don't have to age. So I'm, uh, I'm a big, you know, probably goes back to racing bikes as well. I'm always looking to optimize my health, I think it starts with our health first. And I'm, I'm going to live to 122 years old. So I'm always trying to figure out ways, you know, to maintain and optimize my health.
Steven Pesavento 30:34
That's amazing. I've heard great things about that book. So from an inspiration standpoint, what impact have mentors made on your life? And how do you look at going out and finding great mentors?
Chris Larsen 30:45
Yes, I was very fortunate. So I had a man, Clint Provenza, I talked about in my book, he introduced me both to cycling, like actually racing, like he didn't teach me how to ride my bike when I was five years old. And then he also introduced me to this was when the Roth IRA first came out, he gave me this Money Magazine, and talked about compound interest. I've kind of had like, self motivation internally. But he really made a big impact with me, and I've never hesitated to reach out and talk to people that could, you know, that could help me. We had mentors when we when we started our first multifamily deal five years ago, I encourage anybody that's, you know, I was interviewed, I was asked the same question I asked on my show, what would you give your 25 year old self? What advice would you give, I said, find somebody that you respect that did what you want to do. And go ask them for advice. Find a mentor, you know, don't make the same mistakes that everybody else did. And what I found Steven is when I when I've asked those questions, those people that you're intimidated by that you're like, oh, they don't have time for me. There, they gladly give you your time and advice. And it's it's, it's it's kind of it's kind of the reverse of what you would think.
Steven Pesavento 31:51
Absolutely. So finishing on purpose, what drives you to live your best life every day?
Chris Larsen 31:57
Yeah, so I again, I mean, I talked about my boys like I want to be, I want to be the best father that I can be. But if you look at the bigger impact, my my goal is to help as many people achieve financial independence as possible. I think when people are free of the financial shackles in this world, they're free to pursue their passions, and free to bring the most impact and good to this world.
Steven Pesavento 32:19
That's amazing. So beautiful purpose. And thank you so much for sharing a lot with the audience today. Where can people find out more about you? Or get a copy of your book?
Chris Larsen 32:28
Yeah, easily. Next Level income.com. Click on the Book link, you can put your info in to get a free copy of the book, you can also find our podcast or banking page, and the other resources that we touched on a little bit today, Steven,
Steven Pesavento 32:40
wonderful. Well, I'll leave you guys as I always leave you with a reminder to live a life worth inspiring others and you can do so today by applying what we talked about here by applying what Chris was able to share and taking action in your own life so that you can inspire others to go and do the same. And we can get that compound effect of goodness happening in the world. So thank you so much, and I look forward to the next time we all get to hang out
Steven Pesavento 33:07
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