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SEP Episode 33: Creating a Contagious Vision for Your Business with Garrett Gunderson
Hello, and welcome to The Story Engine Podcast. My name is Kyle Gray, and today, I'm really excited to share something special with you. Today, my guest on the show is Garrett Gunderson. Garrett is the founder of Wealth Factory, a company that's been making big waves and innovations in the financial planning industry, especially when it comes to entrepreneurs, but it's not just his methods that are unique. Garrett also has a unique and powerful business vision, which he's built his company around. You can see it in his unique and viral marketing, his highly-committed and loyal team, and his own personal energy and creativity in everything he does.
[1:12] Garrett's defining moment growing up
[3:30] Recognizing your limiting beliefs and working on them
[6:37] Defining true success
[10:09] How you can utilize your money more efficiently
[13:27] How Garrett's used his passion for comedy to enrich his business
[17:00] Garrett's business principals for Wealth Factory
[19:50] How Garrett and his team generate great content that creates high engagement
[27:54] Garrett's unique future plans for Wealth Factory
[30:42] How Garrett is able to find and hire the very best
[36:25] Garrett's vision for improving the financial industry
[42:20] Garrett's core values that allow him to live his best life
Links and Resources Mentioned in this Episode
Wealth Factory Articles
Wealth Factory Facebook
Wealth Factory LinkedIn
Wealth Factory TV on YouTube
Garrett's Books:
Killing Sacred Cows
What Would the Rockefeller's Do?
5-Day Weekend
The Financial Freedom Mastery Course
New Rules to Get Rich
Landmark Worldwide
Gobundance
Total Money Makeover
Kyle Gray:
For this episode, I was able to interview Garrett in person, so we set up a few cameras and recorded this full interview on video as well. If you'd like to check out that video, go to thestoryengine.co/garrett, and you can watch this full interview in video format. There are multiple cameras. It's professionally done. It looks awesome. With that, let's take it over to Garrett.
Garrett, thanks so much for joining me.
Garrett Gunderson:
Hey, it's good to be here with you, man. This is going to be fun.
So I like to start this off by just introducing the audience to you a little bit, and I would love to hear about a defining moment in your life that has lead you to create Wealth Factory. And then, of course, tell us a little bit about it just in case anybody listening or watching doesn't know you.
I think what started me out in, like if I go to a defining moment early on, the earliest I can remember is I was in kindergarten in Ms. Ashcroft's class, and we were doing this project where you got to drink your chocolate milk but then you turned your chocolate milk carton into a replica of your home. And for me, I think it was my best art project to date. I still remember it. I couldn't wait to go show my mom. And then she said, "Look, here's the deal. I'm going to take these from you, and you go home and memorize your address. When you memorize them, I'll give them back to you." Well, I was a little boy. So I went home and played. I didn't even remember whatsoever. The next day I think every girl in the class got theirs back, remembered to do the assignment. All the boys are like, "Ah, crap. We forgot." So then the next day, most kids memorized it. Well, I went out to the front of the house. It was freezing cold. So I looked real quick. It was 326 Carson. That's all I had to remember. And I went back and I totally forgot. Right? I think I transposed the numbers or missed some things.
So now it's like the final day of the week. It's on Friday. So I and this one other kid are the only ones left. So I'm like really focused in on it. I really feel like I've got it dialed in, and then we come back and he gets his right out the gate. So now the entire class is looking at me and I freeze. So I can't get this. So she grabs it off the shelf and throws it in the trash. Dude, at that moment, I told myself, "I'm stupid." I really thought I was stupid.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j3baojCBvQ[/embedyt]
So I think when some people get that belief, they kind of crumble and they kind of prove that. For me, it was like trying to prove everything but that. And I thought, at one point I got in my head, like, "What would show the world that I'm not stupid?" And I don't think this was the best ambition. It was just the start was, "Well, if I could have a million dollars doesn't mean I'm not stupid," right? So it's not accurate into the real world, but in my mind at some time maybe as a 14-year-old or 13 years old, that's what I came up with, and I launched my first business at 15.
That's really cool. It's funny because there's these little like defining moments in our lives that keep coming back, we keep revisiting. How has that story impacted you from maybe 15 and beyond starting businesses and have you done some work to kind of integrate it and rebalance it in your life?
Oh, I've done some work on that for sure. Like one of the biggest pieces of work I did was I recognized that when things weren't going my way, I felt out of control, they weren't working the way I wanted, is I would throw a temper tantrum. And I didn't really recognize this until my very assistant. One day she wrote me this letter, and she says, "Hey. If I'm going to continue to work here, you're going to have to do something about your temper." I was like, "Dude, I never thought of myself as having a temper at all." But if something didn't go right, I used to get really like animated. I'm all loud anyway. And I never yelled at her, but the fact that I'd be upset stressed her out. And so what would go on is every time life wasn't going how I wanted it to, the five-year-old took over. The five-year-old that thought he was stupid came in and was like throwing a tantrum. And so I'm living my life this way until I went through the advanced course of Landmark and recognized that this had happened, and that was the beginning.
Then later, one of my friends Gary, he and I had this accountability call every week, and we'd kind of coach each other as peers. He recognized because he had done a lot of work. He goes, "Dude, you need to have a conversation with your five-year-old." So he made me go get a picture of myself as a five-year-old, right? And I just sat it on the couch on this pillow. He's like, "You need to tell him that you're capable, but you got to speak to the terms a five-year-old would understand." So first, I'm uncomfortable. I'm on the phone and I'm trying to talk to a picture of myself. I'm feeling embarrassed as hell, and every time I go to talk he goes, "Dude, you really think a five-year-old knows these vocabulary words?" I'm like, "Damn it. No."
So finally, I start doing this real conversation with a five-year-old and I start crying. My wife happens to walk out of the bedroom at that time, sees me bawling, like just bawling because I'm realizing like every time I'm beating myself up is I'm beating up this five-year-old. I'm really getting present to it, and she thought there was something major going on in our lives. Like, "Are we okay financially?" I was just having this major breakthrough of like recognizing that that was an initial ambition but it was a limiting belief. And that I would be very … Rather than being fully expressed, I was very like limited and controlled. Am I smarter than the person I'm talking to on a topic? Great. Then I'll speak up. If I'm not, I'm just going to be quiet. So I felt introverted at times. I felt like even awkward in social settings at times because of that incident with the milk carton, and really doing that work and having that conversation was so healing that even in one of my offices, I still have a picture of me as a five year just as kind of a reminder.
That's really cool. And I think a lot of us … I mean, all of us have these stories that are defined by us, and you mentioned your first conclusion was like, "If I make a million dollars, that's what will make me smart." And you now with Wealth Factory, you're working with hundreds of entrepreneurs around money. And I would love to know what a lot of these people coming to you if they have kind of … What are some of the most common kind of inner child stories with money that people bring that a lot of entrepreneurs are facing right now that you like help correct?
Look, man, entrepreneurs feel broken in a lot of ways, right? Tons of them were high school dropouts or no college education or had a rough relationship with a parent that was important to them or major incident, and so a lot of them are trying to fill that void with business success. The problem is what is success? Like if we let society define success, a lot of times it's how much you have, do you have more than everyone else, are you on the cover of a magazine, having all these accolades. It's so external, and that external validation is never truly fulfilling because it's hard to love yourself if you're looking for other people's approval. And all you have to do is go to social media to see there's plenty of people that are really, really good at being negative and only looking at what's wrong. And so entrepreneurs, when it comes to money, they usually look primarily at revenue because that's kind of the ego bragging rights, and not as much about what they keep and if they're building a business that's congruent with what success really means to them.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzUwAgEyJMo[/embedyt]
Like I really encourage entrepreneurs to use money as a benchmark but always have a second benchmark for success at a minimum. Right? Which could be anything from quality of life to time away from the business to just things that really fulfill them. Like I'm taking up archery right now. I'm taking up fishing right now. I just did a cooking lesson last night. I have an archery lesson coming up. I'm doing standup comedy on a regular basis. I'm looking for things that are really cool hobbies that actually can enhance the experience and quality of life along the way because I never really planned on retiring. But I had to stop comparing myself to others, and I had to really get clear about what success meant to me and make sure that I was creating a game worth winning because just working harder, just making more money, I was checking off those lists but I'd always find someone who had more. And I would find jealousy, I'd find envy, I'd find that I'd look at them differently or treat them differently or want something from them versus just saying, "No. Let me get grounded. How can I love myself? How can I love my life?"
And one of the things that are ultimately important, not like because if I look back in my 20s, if I would have told you what was important, I was pretty clear. It was like a business. Like when people say, "Hey, you live in Utah. Do you ski?" I'm like, "No, man. I own a business." They're like, "Well, what about like what are your other hobbies?" I'm like, "Business." I'm like how do they not get it? Just work and when that's done, I think about work. When I go on vacation, I'm not on vacation, I'm thinking about work the whole time. And back then, when I'd go to church, I thought about work. Now I can actually leave the computer at the office, not have the cellphone at night, and actually feel like I can create this cool quality of a relationship that has a presence versus a distraction, right?
So when it comes to money, most entrepreneurs are kind of a mess when it really comes down to it. They're stuck on this treadmill thinking if they work harder, that it's always going to pay off. But hard work with the wrong philosophy can still equal bankruptcy. They're like on that treadmill where they run faster. They don't always get further ahead. And honestly, the think that if they just make more money, it makes everything better. And that's great if they can continue making more money by adding value, but what if they could actually just keep a lot more of what they make and have a lot more stability and security because if they're married, usually their spouse feels like they're a little bit too risky, and the spouse is looking for a little bit of safety and security. At Wealth Factory, we help them get economically independent so that they can be supporting each other without compromise.
[bctt tweet="Hard work with the wrong philosophy can still equal bankruptcy. -Garrett Gunderson" username="kylethegray"]
On top of that, as far as like people's strategies with money, I think a common one these days is kind of put a bunch into Betterment or some broad allocations.
Some Robo Advisor or hedge fund.
Yeah. And you've got a lot of really unique ways that people can use the money that their business is making or I assume even in a non-business, just a salary situation. What are some of the ways that you think people can utilize their money better?
Well, this especially works for business owners, but it could work for anyone. Before they're risking money or locking it away in a retirement plan, we're like, "Why not just be more efficient with it? Why not keep more of what you make?" And there's four I's to do that. One is the IRS, especially business owners, 93% overpay tax. That's money that's rightfully theirs, they just aren't in the know. The second one is interest. This applies to pretty much anyone with a loan. If they have more than one loan, it's like an 80% chance they're overpaying on their interest. If they haven't restructured, renegotiated, figured out if they have under providing assets that can pay that off and improve cash flow, there's so much money that's in that.
The third I is investments. There's a ton of nonperforming fees. That's why something like Betterment or index funds becomes really popular. There's expense ratios, 12B1 fees if it's in a retirement plan. There's legal fees, admin fees, all this stuff adds up, and it confiscates massive amounts of wealth. But more importantly, market changes confiscate a lot of wealth, and people, unfortunately, participate in the downside. They don't need to if they know how to have protection mechanisms. And then the fourth I is insurance, which a lot of people just have duplicate coverages, improper structure, and therefore they're paying the insurance company more than is necessary, and so we're really good at showing them how to get that money back because if you can boost your bottom line by 10% or more through a few hours of knowledge and maybe a weeks worth of execution, that could save you 10, 20, or 30 years of just scrimping and saving and sacrificing, trying to build up that amount of cash flow that you could get because of that insight.
So I'm an efficiency nerd. I love finding cash and putting it back in their lives. They can reinvest it in the quality of life, they can reinvest it in their business, and I feel like business owners have a really cool advantage that they can grow that business and see really a lot bigger returns than most stock markets because stock markets are already pretty established companies. Where most small businesses still have a lot of room for growth. They haven't saturated the market yet.
I love that, and I think a lot of business owners never consider these things because I mean, most of the time they're worried about, again, revenue or how do I bring in more revenue, how do I solve a problem. They're usually good at one particular thing or a couple of things and managing their finances is usually the thing that they want to do the least.
Then they know that they should do it, but it always falls to the bottom of the task list. Understandably because there's horrendous advice out there because most of the time it's the pain of, "Oh, I have to spend less and enjoy life less," which I'm against. I'm about living wealthier along the way. That's why efficiency is so important. And there's so much conflicting advice out there. They're like, "What do you listen to or what do you do?"
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So you've been talking about living life along the way and some of the hobbies that you're doing right now. I would love to hear … So you were mentioning even before we got on the show, talking about standup comedy, and I think it's really interesting because you also … One of the main growth drivers for your business is speaking onstage and presenting your ideas, which can make a really big impact and share. I would love to hear like about how your work in comedy right now is impacting kind of your presenting onstage and how is that evolving because it's fun to see one of your core business skills and then a side passion really synergizing.
Yeah. I spoke at this event Mastermind Talks back in 2014, and then I've been doing round tables at it ever since. But this year I actually did standup comedy. So I did a round table one day teaching, and then at the end of the event, I did standup comedy. And someone else was in the crowd from Go Abundance, Mike McCarthy, and he had me speak at his event the year before. And he's like asking me to come back this year, and says, "Why don't you speak, but then would you do standup comedy." So I'm actually doing standup sets at events I'm speaking at. I've done it at some of our events, not most of them.
But yes, by doing standup, one, I was uncomfortable. I was nervous. I wasn't sure how it works. It's a different skill set I'm developing. So it's good to kind of get uncomfortable. You grow a lot that way, and it was like releasing of endorphins after doing it that first time. So now I'm integrating it more into my speaking. One of our mutual friends, Reagan Archibald, like I said, I spoke at three or four of his events. It's like half comedy, half content, but people enjoyed it a lot. They'll actually listen to finance at a totally different level with it.
So I want to be the most impactful speaker in money and finance in history, and the way to do that I feel is making it more entertaining so it's less threatening, it's more digestible so that people can get value. So I'm turning a hobby that's very near and dear to me because it was something that connected me to both sides of my family, the Gunderson's side and the Aquino side. My mom and dad side because they used to, from the time I was a kid, say, "Oh, Garrett's here. Why don't you get around and tell jokes?" And I'd tell the whole family jokes. Even when my grandpa got like community awards, "Ah, my grandson tells funny jokes. Come on up here." And so I realized it was this familial thing.
And actually, it's funny because right when I started doing standup, my wife saw I got the bug. She goes, "Next thing I know we're going to be traveling, you're going to be traveling." I'm like, "No, no, no. I'm just doing it in Utah." Like honestly days later I got offered to do something at the Mesa Theater in Grand Junction. It was right after Thanksgiving where my family on the Gunderson side was having Thanksgiving in Grand Junction. So I said, "Yeah, we're going." So I booked flights for everyone, and she goes, "See, I can already feel it. Here we are." But I got to have almost everyone but my grandma from that side in the crowd. I did five of my 20 minutes just on making fun of them. They were hysterically laughing. So like I've got this legacy connection to it, but I also can use it in what I do to really get a message across that I think is imperative for people to understand their finances in a non-threatening way.
I really like that, and what you've done really well with your speaking is you've positioned yourself as very different than most kind of financial advisors or anyone in that space. And I've worked with a lot of people that it becomes very dull and dry. And through I think your speaking and presenting and probably just your methods, you've really differentiated yourself in a crowded and extremely competitive market. And I would love to know kind of how Wealth Factory has evolved and how you've found your unique voice and your unique position in this marketplace, and maybe there are some nuggets that other people in different industries could use to differentiate themselves.
I'm still feeling like we're trying to connect who we are online to who we are in person because I once did this video and I don't know if you know Ian Stanley, but he does standup and he's a copywriter and he's like, "Yeah, I saw the guy on video, and it's not Garrett. It's Garrett trying to be what the world wants," because he had seen me speak in person. And I realized I was just a little bit more formal, not as much like humor, not as easy. So I'm looking at I don't want Wealth Factory to ever feel corporate because I don't ever want to take Wealth Factory corporate. Like Wealth Factory isn't here for money management. You can go to Betterment or you can go to Wealth Front or you can go to these other organizations, Robo Advisors, and they'll manage your assets and invest your money. We're here to get their financial house in order, create economic independence, do they have enough cash flow to cover their basic expenses and change their family's financial future and financial destiny because they can build a legacy to last. That lights me up, right?
So even though any consultant if they come and looked at our organization, they're like, "Oh, you'd make so much more money." I'm like, "Yes, but you think that, but we'd have to give up our core values to do it." So at Wealth Factory, I like that we can have a little playfulness. I like the culture here within our organization. I love that almost every month we're doing Wealth Acceleration Workshop at our headquarters where we're at right now. We've got Legacy events, Soul Purpose events. We've got strategic business forms.
Like we're doing two to three workshops per month here, and in that, people get to see our team, and then there's joking and there's fun. But they're really good at their craft, and they're here because they love it, not because they have to be here to get a paycheck. Because honestly, we're more of a production-based economy than time and effort. There's not a lot of salaries in this firm, but there's a lot of people making six figures. So it's because when they contribute to the bottom line, we share in that. We give them unlimited upside potential without the downside of being an owner, which includes cash flow issues or if this building were to flood or if there's an issue, there are things that happen with the business owner.
So at Wealth Factory, we're really looking to serve the right customer that is willing to do the work. Like I got to have lunch with one of the people who just joined our program today. He flew in because he was dealing with some stuff that he wanted to get done before he came to a workshop, and I just happened to get done with my filming early. So we had lunch, got to know a lot about him, and that's what I love that we do. I get to meet people. I would say of the people I spend the most time with, I met two-thirds of them through going through my program. Like that's cool. You don't get that with a mutual fund. You don't get that with traditional investments, but you get that with a program that's working with people to actually get implementation and results.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJlHhxCViRg[/embedyt]
I love that you say you get to meet people, and that's what lights you up. That's one of the reasons I love this show, that's one of the reasons I'm also a big content creator. I love doing a lot of writing, making videos, and all kinds of things like that. Just walking through your office, you've shown me you've got this really cool film studio set up too, and you're always … You're prolific. I want to hear about kind of your plans for your podcast, but first, I think tell me, you've got a great video studio set up just next door and you're doing a lot of recording. How do you decide what you make, how you put it together, and what's your process for really creating great content that's spreading this online brand?
We have an awesome marketing team. We have a CMO who's a business partner who really thinks through things even deeper than I do. We've got two copywriters. We've got a web developer, and we've got a customer service person. So they're really good and in touch with all the issues that are going on not only in the marketplace because they read so much and research so much but all the feedback we're getting from people that we're reaching out to. Because Wealth Factory, even though we want a million people to be economically independent, I'm doing that by licensing my content to even other financial firms that share our values. The way that we're casting our net wide is everything from our weekly publications and our video courses. So we have a video course on step by step way to economic independence. Well, there's this one topic inside of there called Cashflow Banking where you kind of cut out the middle man, you rig the game more in your favor where it's rigged against you, you earn interest rather than pay it, and it's been kind of my never filming strategy from the time I was 19 years old. And we get tons of feedback of people wanted more. So I ended up filming a separate course of 42 videos on that, right? And that was a team. Like our whole team came together and said, "I feel like this is something we need," right?
Or another thing is people were when they think about scaling business were running too fast and running out of steam and harming themselves or finding that they were being eaten up by their business rather than having it improve their life. And so we filmed a course on that. So I get a lot from the team, and then I still keep an oar in the water by doing One Day Emergence. So do these One Day Emergence where people hire me just for the day to work through their chaos, work on their creation, and I get a lot of understanding of what people are dealing with in those one-day things because I don't like to do the one on one followup. I got an amazing team that's way better at it than I am because I want to stay on the creation side. But that helps me understand it.
[bctt tweet="Your business should improve your life, not run it. -Garrett Gunderson" username="kylethegray"]
Now today when I filmed, I filmed for three hours. I filmed the video for an event that I can't be physical attendance. So I did a video for it. I filmed a lot of social media because I'm starting to actually do more social media stuff since I've neglected it my entire life. I'm hesitantly getting into it to be candid. But the social media firm asked my opinion on a ton of stuff. So I just did really short segments on that. I film a lot for our existing members of people that are working with us on all the additional benefits and the workshops and the things that are included in what they do that we didn't announce, which is exciting for me to do, right?
So like today wasn't as much content creation. It was just kind of connecting with a lot of people. But right now, like last year we filmed a ton, and a lot of it was version three of some of our things. So I can make it really current and up to date, and some was just version two and one of the courses was just the very first time we did it. But that was about I would say 75 hours of edited content last year. And I look at most of that as like it was supplemental resources for people that are getting one on one from us. So that's kind of collaboration. But right now writing my book, there's just so much new content to share, and this content I'm writing right now like you can research it on Google and so much of it doesn't exist, even the terminology. And so I expect the next book to be my perennial bestseller, the main kind of key books that's like the Rich Dad Poor Dad was for 20 years or the Total Money Makeover for Ramsey. Like this is the change in the game book. This is the reinvent the industry book.
I think that's really cool, especially since you're creating so many things and you've been able to build a team outside of your core kind of office team. You have so many different content creators working with you. And you mentioned before we got on camera a little bit about the challenges of having so many people working with you but staying true to your own voice. And I'd love to hear about how you manage that and some of the ways that you make sure that now 100% Garrett's coming through.
So when Wealth Factory writes an email, it's from Builders at Wealth Factory. Builders mean our writers and our team. If it's from me, they always send it to me even if they wrote it, and I get to rewrite and make it mine and in my voice. So that I think helps out. In writing my books, I enroll like Steven Palmer who wrote Killing Sacred Cows, a New York Times Bestseller together. He's working with me on the new book. So he knows how I write and how I think and how to take me… Like I just put bullet points and he knows how to write that in the paragraph. But then I kind of rewrite it to make it more my voice because he's more intellectual than I am. He's more well-read than I am. I'm more kind of straight forward, coal miner kid at the time, even though I've gotten a lot of knowledge in the financial world. So I really feel like as my books have gone on, they're more and more in my voice.
And I wrote this thing called The Wealth Book, which is 140 pages. I think it's the best writing I've ever done. I wrote over 90% of it. Some of our writers at Wealth Factory wrote about 10%, some portions on legal and accounting because they did some interviews and everything. So it's a little bit dryer in that part because it's just stuff that people need to know. But it was like hard for me to write in a punchy way. And man, that took me a long time because I'm good at getting it 80% of the way, but to get it to 100% of the way. So I ended up bringing in Steven Palmer to help touch it up at the very end and paying him, and I had another editor. But that was all. Like when you read that, it sounds like me from the stage. You can tell it's directly from my voice, and I felt more connected to that project, and I also put a video in that. And I think it was the first time that the writing was better than the video.
So that was really cool on the content side, and the social media firm I hired, I rewrite everything that they write unless they just nail it. And a lot of times they say things a little differently than me or a little more harsh than me or not quite grasping the concept 100%. And I've met with a few of them, and we talk not every week if I'm out of town but most weeks and talk through things. And then I film videos for them and then they take segments from that.
So I really want to make sure it's authentic. I want to make sure that … Like I don't want to become so corporate that I'm disconnected from the people or disconnected from society or all of a sudden our clients are numbers. If our clients just become numbers, it's not a business I want to own. I want to be connected to them, shaking their hand, hearing the story, building those relationships. Like I got an email two days ago from one of our clients, her name's Karen, and she just said, "When are you coming to see the dream home?" Like within weeks of our program, they got their dream home. You might know who she and her husband are because they're big in the health space, like really well known. And I was like, "That's really cool." That's cool that she sent me an email and when I go to Phoenix, I'm going to go see this dream home because I get to see it come to reality. I've made bets with my clients on how much tax we had saved. If I had won, they owed me a football game.
So it's like I get … I like that. I like that there's like people come to the Wealth Acceleration Workshops, I'm leading half of it. So I'm meeting them. I'm shaking their hand, I'm hearing their story, right? There's a connection. I realize we're helping individuals. We're not dealing with spreadsheets. We're not dealing with robots.
Garrett, you've mentioned several times that you don't want to get too corporate. You want to keep this a nice kind of boutique operation, and a lot of what you're doing, your videos are around you, speakings based on you, your business is very much driven around your personality. A lot of entrepreneurs want to create something that an asset that they can eventually sell one day. But this doesn't exactly sound like your plan because you also don't want to get corporate. What's your long game vision for this, and how do you see yourself fitting in, especially like bringing in more elements of just living your life?
Well, the good news is we do have some other people at the firm that speak. A guy by the name of Tim Carden and Brandon Allen and Demi McConku so we've got the speakers, and a lot of times I might be the first speaker at an event, and then a year later one of these guys come. So we can kind of build a long term relationship when I go speak somewhere. But having the organization we do, I freed up my time to create content, to write like books, and then to speak on stages. So that's been a lot of fun.
But my plan with Wealth Factory is to be an ease up, employee stock option program where the way we sell it is to the people that work here, and then we all just own it together so that we can all be entrepreneurial and they're entrepreneurs within the organization. And they can benefit even more form the upside. If I were to sell this to another entity, there's a lot of ways they can monetize it. there would be against the core values of who we are and what we stand for and the commitment we made to our clients. Look, I look at Wealth Factory as like this art lab for me.
Like I don't consider myself as much an entrepreneur as an artist because I've been doing this for 20 years now in the same industry, just keep evolving. And so whether it's creating a wealth book, which you get a wealth book right over there if you grab it. This, to me, is the art, right? We've got videos that we film. We've got the great magazine that I think is super sexy and all the writing in it. Like putting that together to enhance the experience, that's not a marketing tool. That's an enrollment when someone's already enrolled, an experienced tool, and so that's part of the artistry. I want to continue to create this art for this organization, have it be as sustainable as it can.
So my CMO and I have this really healthy competition of who is more responsible for getting people in the program. Them doing all their media buys and all their marketing initiatives or me being on stages, and that's one of the games I'd love to lose. I'd love for them to beat me, and they just keep gaining ground and I love it because then I can say, "Well, I want to speak 10 to 12 times a year, and I want to be really selective with those stages that I'm on so I can spend more time at my cabin and more time writing a book." I mean, when I wrote my first book, it took me years afterward because I was so entrenched in operations and sales. I don't do the sales. We got a great sales team. I don't do operations. We have a COO. So I've been continuing to build a life I love by having an organization that I love, and I'm only doing the things most of the time that I really want to do and that I really enjoy.
So one of the most essential things about honing in and doing only what you enjoy, which I think is critical for an entrepreneur to be really successful …
And sustainable.
And sustainable, for sure. You've got to find that your vein, where you add the most value, and you love what you're doing.
But I think it's really challenging. A lot of people don't make it, especially you get limited in operations and by your team.
And you've already mentioned you want to have employee stock options. You want to co-own this business with your team members. So you've got to get amazing people in here, and you've got to create. We've already talked a little bit about your culture, but I want to know like from the job application or from the first time somebody touches your brand as far as becoming a team member, what's that process like and how do you get the best pick?
Because this is the game changer right here. The game changer is hiring the right people. I mean, IBM says an A team is 50% to 100% more productive than a B teamer. 50% to 100%. Where else are you going to get that return, right? Steve Jobs said he got 100 to one return on a good employee, right? Think about that. That profitability. So this is what we do. They have to read Killing Sacred Cows and give a book report. They have to do a cover letter with a resume, and they have to give us three times they can speak for 15 minutes the next week. If they don't follow that precisely, the don't get an interview, they don't get a callback. The first interview's always over the phone, never in person. We don't want them to totally feed off our energy. The biggest way that we get candidates is we go to our quality relationships and we ask them who they know, and we get those introductions. I just hired writers that came from Hugh Stewart, a guy that I've known for seven years now. Just an amazing prince of a man that he's like, "Oh, I think this could be a good fit. She wrote for me in 2012," and then he just … I thanked him, he thanked me because he cares about her. Like she and her daughter are now writing for me, and it's phenomenal.
But I bring them to our three-day workshop before I hire them. They get experience. They get to see like who we are, what we stand for. They get to meet with the rest of the team because the team kind of endorses them. But I'll tell you the number one way to hire, killer vision. If you have an amazing vision and a great culture, people are seduced by that. They want to be there. Even more than the money they make, they want to be around that energy. They want to be somewhere that they really enjoy and feel like they're contributing and making a difference. And if you can help them see how they're impacting the bottom line and give them that upside potential, that's not built for everyone, but people here it is.
I looked at our payroll, our payroll last year was just under $5 million on an organization that every account that if they looked at it, "Oh, you can cut payroll down substantially," and we could if we went to salary. But we wouldn't give them as much of the benefit and we wouldn't get as much of the benefit either. So we're paying a lot compared to our ultimate revenues. We're in the low eight figures as a revenue company, and ultimately I feel good about like who's here. We've got people that have been here since 2005. I can think of two people right there. We've had coaches that have been with us since 2009. I mean, our turnover is ridiculously low. The last time someone left, we asked them to go not because we didn't love them, they didn't love the culture, we just couldn't find exactly the right fit for them and felt like we were holding them back. And I'm still really good friends with them.
So I think that you got to get rid of the cancers in an organization because they drive away the very best, and that's unfortunately what people miss out on. And you got to get really good at hiring or have someone on your team that's good at hiring, otherwise, you're going to stay stuck where you are where it's all about the hustle and the more work that you can do to get more money. Hiring the right people allows you to step back. And when you've hired the right person, you can 100% delegate and have them own it like it's their own business and free you up, no worries in your mind. Like if you're worried about someone when you're at home, it's time to fire them.
Like and I've had to fire people after getting that advice. I was at an event where one of my camera guys was late, and I had just told someone that was one of our clients … He was like, "What about this?" I'm like, "They're not going to be an A team. You're not going to groom an A-teamer. They're already in a negative place. Just cut your loses." And then I'm up there going like, "Where's Andrew?" And couldn't find him. So when Andrew finally showed up, I said, "Hey, man. This'll be your last event. Go ahead and finish your filming but we can't work together anymore. I can't be worried about your whereabouts when I'm up on stage supposed to be focused with people."
That takes a lot of strength and a lot of courage.
Firing sucks.
Firing sucks, man. But dudes cry in front of me during firing them. It's no fun. It sucks to have people not do what they're best at and have them rob your clients of experience and your own pocketbook in the name of providing for their family. It's not principled.
No. No. But I think what drives that and what enables you to do that well when challenged is your vision again. You mentioned your vision is the ultimate way to attract A team. So tell me a little bit about your vision. I think you've mentioned also in this interview economic independence and how you want to create that with people. Tell us about that vision and how you created it, how you came across it, how it evolved over these years.
I look back at like the very first mission I wrote when I was the only one in the business. I was just a financial advisor working inside of a firm structure but had a little bit of autonomy. It was something about being the preeminent organization for financial services in the state of Utah. Something like that. Like it was wordy, it was standard like being good at customer service. Then I looked at the next iteration, it was really being a leader for individuals, families, our community, and this nation by teaching financial principles that lead to material and spiritual prosperity. So a little bit better, and I kept going. And then in 2014, having a lot of conversations with the team and letting them be part of it, we came up with, "Liberating one million people by creating economic independence." And then that evolved last year to be, "Changing families financial futures and destinies through economic independence." We're like we're focused on legacy. We're focused on the individual. And it just feels inspiring. It feels right. And you get people like, "Hey, I'm going to be one of the million, and I'm going to get other people on board." The people we're working with feel like they're a part of it.
Now, to get there, we decided Wealth Factory would have to go to a bigger place than we want in these walls with the number of employees, and that could lower quality and intimacy because I feel like we're a customer intimate kind of company. So we decided let's start licensing and teaching this to financial people that align with our values. So we're starting to give what we do to improve the industry, and we teach this to our clients. When they hit a ceiling, like Dr. Corzana who connected us, you hit a ceiling and having the biggest practice in history or at least in North America. And you're like, "Okay. Should I open another office?" We decided with him no. Why don't you show people how you did this? And you actually start improving the industry. So you move from B2C to B2B, and that's what we're doing right now because I used to train financial advisors. I have a lot of equity and value and goodwill in that world, and we're just going to show them exactly how we do it.
I used to have people that watched and shadow me. I taught Chris how to do this too. They just come and watch me meet with clients, and I was in my 20s. So it brought me credibility when a person's like, "This guy's 30 years older and I get to work with you?" So it was kind of cool, but it also helped me monetize that time at a different level. And then I had this mission-driven advisor thing that I co-created with another individual that trained them twice a month on conference calls before it was teleseminars or webinars way back in the day. I had an annual event that grew to over 100 advisors. I'm a 20-year-old teaching, and then I end up bringing in joint work. So I can take all that I learned from being abundant back then, improve an industry, and I'm going to reach the million through helping other people that are getting one to one because we're better one to many. And if we team up, now they'll be more efficient and effective with every person they meet because we can position them properly, give them the equipment and tools to educate people even more deeply and show them the lessons that we've learned.
So like that's an exciting future for me. And it's fun to talk to financial guys, like, "Wait, you're not trying to compete with me. You're trying to help me. And why would you share this with me?" It's almost like takes them aback at first.
I think especially in the financial advising market, people tend to hold their cards really tight to their chest, and they don't want any kind of competition to know what they're up to …
We share it all.
Gunderson:
We're letting them come in. We're doing an event where they get to watch the first two days of the workshop that we have 80% to 93% people join our program after the workshop, and we don't sell the workshop inside or the program inside the workshop. We do a bonus session at the end of the second day. So far we've been getting like 100% attendance. So they're going to watch that, and then on Saturday, I'm going to meet with the advisors the whole day and say, "Here's how we did this. Here's how we did this, and here's what we might be able to do to collaborate. We'll plugin where it makes sense. Where you already have it handled. Don't worry about including us, and how can we create a winning scenario together." That's how we get to the million.
Sure, we didn't know how to get to the million when we first said it. But that's what makes it a vision and not a goal. You know how to get there, it's just a goal. A vision is beyond your reach.
And a vision, I think, especially something that you've just outlined there, saying something like kind of your first one where it's like, "I want to be the best in Utah," then that's like, okay.
Then you go.
I'll watch you do that. But when you get a client that says, "I want to be one of those people to achieve that thing," there's something bigger than yourself and something quality. Again, a legacy in a different sense, and that's what really makes it stand out to me.
I got to talk to I think it was seven of our clients for a half a day earlier this week, just one on one over the phone that had just joined our program in November, and one of the bonuses if they joined because it was all something we said online where we normally enroll through a sales team, was they could do a 10 minute call with me. And I ended up doing mostly 20 minutes calls. I blocked off 30 minutes for most of them. But it was really cool. Like some people's questions were just about like me and my background, some had real business questions, but we got emails particularly from one. I'm talking about the impact that 20 minutes had. So that felt really good, man, because I don't get a lot of that anymore. I get like the general feedback of when I speak on the stage and there's feedback forms or Amazon reviews on a book, which fortunately I don't pay as much attention as I used to.
My very first negative review of Killing Sacred Cows, I read many times, and my coauthor, the first negative review in the St. Petersburg Times I think it was, he wrote a letter to the editor. I was like super thin skin and sensitive, and now I'm like, "If we don't get some pushback, we're not doing enough. We're not taking it far enough." So it's a little different now.
That's funny. Yeah, I can remember some one-star reviews for me on Amazon, and I'll go and like look at the person. I'll be like, "They just leave one-star reviews for everything. They're just assholes."
What's funny is I look at some of the feedback years later, I'm like, "Yeah, there was some wordy chapters." Yeah, I was making fun of what would the Rockefeller's do when I record the Audiobook. In case you didn't hear this last chapter, I'm just going to say another paragraph of the same thing I said before. So I would catch that. There's some real feedback in there, and then there are just some people that feel threatened, and there are some people that it's just not the right concept for them at that time. So it's like it's fine.
I only have one one-star review for Five Day Weekend, and I just feel like why only one? There should be more.
It feels almost like we should be skeptical that there are 70-some five stars and only one one-star. We got to get some more like fours and threes and twos because you can't have … Because I could give it a four because I could look at that book now and say, "Ah. Section four of that book was too fluffy," right? Or whatever. So anyway …
What I love about even what you're talking about right now is, and the whole theme of this is at your core, you've been an artist and how you've created and how you've moved and even what you're doing now in your company, how you built your company to facilitate you creating art. And I'd love to kind of bring this all back around with kind of your own personal values and your own vision for your life. And, again, how you've set up the business to really bring out the best in yourself. I think that's it's a fascinating journey you've had.
Soul Purpose is the core value. Soul Purpose is values, abilities, passions combined for that vision, right? It's who we are when we're at our best. That's Soul Purpose. So that's the core value. So Soul Purpose is about building a life you love because you're really congruent and true to yourself. So I really encourage that in my kids.
And the second thing is quality of life. So in 2017, we spent two months in Europe. Took the kids and my wife. We had tons of friends come and visit along the way. We had a villa. Like we're not waiting for retirement. We're having these experiences and then coming back into the world of value creation. Right? Then last year we went for a full month, and that was great. And then this year we bought … Or just at the end of last year, we bought a legacy cabin that we can go up and have these great experiences. So we're living wealthy along the way. Like I got to practice what I preach. And so economic independence allows that and having an organization that can operate without me. Our numbers weren't awesome during the two months I was gone, but they made money because we have a team and they've got videos and they can leverage technology and we got great marketing minds to bring that out and we've got resources like a book.
Like my marketing team sold 2100 copies of What Would The Rockefellers Do? in the last 30 days. That's phenomenal. Like I sold 22,000 copies of Killing Sacred Cows over nine months before it ever came out, and I was just on the phone, dialing, and selling 100 at a time or 500 and doing a speaking gig for it. That was just part of what they were doing, not even like as much time as I was spending. That book came out almost two years ago. So that's really exciting to have those kinds of people around and having that kind of freedom that my wife and I just booked a trip. We're like let's just go have a fun weekend. And then we're going to the Indy 500 because one of our clients, her family owns the Indy 500. So we get VIP Access. We're just doing all these things to enjoy life along the way, but I like coming back, being engaged in what I'm doing. I think that's a big test. If you were away for two months, would you still want to come back to what you had created?
And being away for two months helped me dissociate me and the business. Like I'm not one and the same. It's an asset I have that I can express my artistry in, but it doesn't define who I am. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs are still in their business to find who they are because that's part of the broken … Like I'll prove or what do other people think. Like I don't compare my revenues to other revenues. My life to other lives because people tell part of the story. Cocktail party stories, they highlight the best a lot of times, and they don't tell you about the worst. My best entrepreneur friends, we share the scars, the mistakes, the mishaps, the bad partnerships. I really learned a lesson from him. I think that that realness, you learn better lessons from it, right? Because you're creating a bond or you're creating jealousy. Are you saying something out of ego or are you saying it out of accomplishment? And I think that there's a difference between that you can appreciate something or you can push something. There are those nuances.
That's a subtle, subtle thing, and yeah, I feel like a lot of people do come from a place where they want to position themselves where it's not fully authentic and it's not fully vulnerable. And, again, I feel like every time I've seen you speak or wherever you show up, I love to see the authenticity. So yeah, thank you so much for joining us today.
If anybody listening or watching right now wants to learn more about you, what you're doing, and tell us about your next book coming out too. Yeah, where can we learn more about you?
I think Wealthfactory.com/podcast is the best because there are actual real, relevant, great resources that they can put on the ground to improve cash flow today, to get depth to some of the topics we talked about, and we've created like a what we call the 7-7-7 but it's seven months that our intent is let's give seven major categories of value and give seven touches per month. So yeah, every now and again there's a, "Hey, you can buy this," but we're really trying to build that relationship through that. So that'll be great.
Win and Play, I'm going to start pre-selling that book and giving a lot of core resources. I film three webinars and have transcripts that are being kind of tidied up, and I've been writing a keynote on it. But I think that's the game-changing philosophy that shows people how to profit first from their ideas and make money now without raising money or without taking a risk and how to be a lot more resourceful. If they think they have a money problem, it's just a symptom of two more precious forms of capital being mismanaged, and they're just one idea or one relationship away from that next level of prosperity. It has, I mean, legacy components, cash flow components, and a lot of business components that I think are going to give really big insight.
Garrett, thanks so much for joining us today. It's been a lot of fun.
Thanks for listening to the Story Engine podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes and resources mentioned in this episode and every episode at thestoryengine.co. If you want to tell better stories and grow your business with content marketing and copywriting, be sure to download the content strategy template at contentstrategytemplate.com. This template is an essential part of any business that wants to boost their traffic, leads, and sales with content marketing. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.


OBJECTIVE: We conducted a metaanalysis to determine whether antibiotics prolong pregnancy and reduce neonatal morbidity in preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM) and preterm labor (PTL) at 34 weeks or less. STUDY DESIGN: Randomized trials comparing antibiotic therapy with placebo in PPROM or PTL at a gestation of 34 weeks or less were retrieved. The primary outcome was time to delivery (latency). Infant outcomes included mortality, infection, neurological abnormality, respiratory disease, and neonatal stay. RESULTS: Antibiotics were associated with prolongation of pregnancy in PPROM (P < .01) but not PTL. Clinically diagnosed neonatal infections were reduced in both groups; there was a trend toward reduced culture-positive sepsis in PPROM. Intraventricular hemorrhage (all grades) was reduced in PPROM. Other neonatal outcomes were unaffected by antenatal antibiotics. CONCLUSION: Antibiotics prolong pregnancy and reduce neonatal morbidity in women with PPROM at a gestation of 34 weeks or less. In PTL at a gestation of 34 weeks or less, there is little evidence of benefit from administration of antibiotics.


We introduced this song on a Wednesday evening and many of the members commented how much they liked it. We will be using it very soon in our Sunday morning services. Thanks for making songs like this one available for those of us who sing A cappella and use the shaped notes to read music.
Ordered the song last week. We just used it tonight in our song service with overwhelming approval. Thanks for making this wonderful song available for use in our worship service. We expect more usage in the years to come.
Click the button below to add the 10,000 Reasons Song Slides to your wish list.


My friend Phil Cooper has called my attention to the idea of writing a blog post every day. Apart from the obvious fact that I barely have anything to say once a week, I'd think my readers (small in number though you are, you dear things) would grow bored of me posting every day. He managed a 20-day unbroken streak; personally, I'd settle for two to three posts a week.
There is, says friend Scruff, an event on the horizon known as Blaugust. Of course I was instantly inclined towards it, enjoying as I do the odd portmanteau. (It's such an uncomfortable looking word! I love it.) The event itself is for gaming bloggers (though none of the posts themselves need to be on-topic), which I am not. A blogger yes, a gamer yes, a game blogger, not so much. Yes, friends, breathe a sigh of relief: I shall keep my fangirlish screams about Varric's chest hair on tumblr, where they belong. However, I like the idea so much, that I do intend to see if I can keep up the post-a-day pace, come August.
Not all posts will be on writing. With luck, there will be a few creative pieces in there as well, but I hope to, most days, sit down and just see what comes to mind as I write. Blaugust's rules state that a post must be of ten sentences or more, which seems fair, poetry aside, so I'll keep that as a baseline, and see what comes of it.
Why not just start now, or do it some other month, if I'm not officially participating? Because I like the portmanteau. Obviously.
I love to see the word of mouth spreading of this thing 🙂 I would ultimately love to see it branch outside of the game blogger thing… but since that is largely what I am, it had to start somewhere. Really look forward to seeing your posts this year!


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The Ethics of Debt and Repayment
The assumption that the power elites want you to make is: When you borrow money, you have pay back your debts. Also, it is a moral obligation to pay the entire debt back.
The advertisements, marketing and public relations propaganda of the power elites attempt to have you think more frequently that you must always return the debt payments on time. So, in that case, your lender loses the risk.
Exception 1 is legal bankruptcy: Imagine that a bank loans a million dollars to a gambler who owns a house and a car, and this (pretend) loan money is to be used at a casino.
If the gambler loses his bets and the million dollars is gone, he is unable to make the loan payments afterwards.
So, the bank takes his house and a few other assets as collateral, according to the loan agreement. However, his assets do not cover the loan payments completely.
The losing gambler files for bankruptcy. The lender is then unable to retrieve its losses.
Now, imagine a slightly different situation. If the gambler has absolutely nothing, no money or other assets, and he cannot legally file for bankruptcy, erasing his debt, then the bank could own everything he has for the rest of his life. Moreover, the lender would have an extremely low risk because the loan recipient would always be beholden to the bank.
For instance, the bank could legally give out loans that people are unlikely to be able to pay back during their life times, and then the bank would be able to take any assets that the recipient makes thereafter. The loan recipients who cannot pay their debts would become debt slaves!
Undoubtedly, it is absurd for loan recipients to become debt slaves and lenders to become their debt masters. Such societies with economic systems of slaves and masters are antiquated. So, bankruptcy must be a legal option in any civil society.
At best, then, it is arguable that you should try to pay back your debts, unless one becomes legally bankrupt because the lenders never deserve to become owners of slaves as debtors.
A lender must always assume some risk of loss in any civil society with a functioning justice system. Otherwise, the banks could just begin giving out loans that are used to take people's assets and their future assets, effectively leading the lending bank to own people as debtors. The banks could begin attempting to make it even harder for loan recipients to pay back their loans so that they can take all their assets from them and make them their slaves based on their debt!
Through lending so much money, which lenders are unable to pay back, the lenders could make debt slaves, if there were no laws concerning bankruptcy. Obviously, making slaves is unethical and illegal in any society with functioning justice systems.
So, once bankruptcy is established, whatever means that the loan recipient gave for receiving the loan and whatever assets the debtor planned to use to secure the return payments are always good enough for the debtor to stop paying back the debt that he or she owed before the bankruptcy.
Unforgivable Debts in America: Student Loan Debt and Undermining the Education System
Against the Christian moral value of forgiveness, the U.S. government has allowed corporate powers to create unforgivable debt concerning student loans.
What this does is make it exceedingly difficult for Americans with student debt to contribute effectively to the economy.
With rising prices of degrees, especially over the last three decades, and increasing readiness of lenders to enter loan agreements with student borrowers, lenders have continued to lend, despite the growing inability for borrowers to pay the loan payments on time.
In the United States, the idea was that it would be easiest to create massive amounts of debt through making student loans a type of unforgivable debt. It would allow the power elites to gain money constantly through the massive amount of compound interest students and graduates have to pay.
The idea was brilliant for short-term gains because the elites realized that this type of debt would be for people who have a history of earning the highest incomes, i.e., people with university degrees. However, while the justice system was being undermined via disallowing legal bankruptcy of student loan debt, the education system was also being undermined greatly. So, the elites' plan is not only failing, but now both the financial system and education system have been greatly compromised, in the early 21st century.
Any international comparative analysis of countries with low debts for students, as compared to high debts of U.S., UK and other nations' students, will demonstrate that there are problems of fraud, corruption and injustice in their education systems and banking systems.
For example, many other countries without student loan debt (e.g., Germany and France) have identified cheaters who have plagiarism in their work, and they have rescinded their degrees from the universities. Plagiarism has been detected and is used to identify and justify stripping graduates of their degrees that they obtained through fraud.
In Hungary, the former president had his doctorate taken away from him after significant plagiarism was discovered in his dissertation. In Germany, the former minister of defense had his doctorate rescinded as well. There have been many European members of parliament who have lost their degrees and political positions, too.
In the United States, however, the major difference is that NO high profile politicians have had their degrees rescinded yet. Also, no military or corporate power elites have had theirs rescinded with any news footage demonstrating their fraud and cheating in the mass media.
However, there have been some high profile court cases that have shown the role of ghostwriting and false authorship, which has been particularly harmful concerning medical writings since ghostwriters cannot be held accountable for their own writings. Also, other authors are gifted the publications so that the authorship appears to come from an impartial third party of experts. However, the writings actually come from corporate writers who hide their identities to publish more effective propaganda for their corporations under the names of false authors. This creates an extra layer of risk to the society.
It is naïve to assume that that Americans are not cheating, not committing fraud and that they do not have plagiarism in their work at universities at least at the same levels of their European counterparts. For now, Europeans academics are ahead of their American counterparts in virtue of raising a level of integrity at their institutions of higher education.
From where does the money come that weakens the education system?
Wealthier students are able to take full advantage of buying university work, especially because instructors at universities have very low salaries. For example, a masters degree only earns a U.S. university lecturer at state universities about $3,000 for 16 weeks of teaching a single class, holding office hours each week and completing bureaucratic duties, and a doctoral degree raises that salary only $500.
The U.S. education system has been thoroughly compromised via paying its university teachers very low salaries and hiring them as temporary workers who work part-time or full-time on the basis of the demand for classes at the universities. Moreover, the system is compromised even more via salaries of administrative workers making more than the teachers at the universities, in many cases.
Secretaries or hierarchical classes of "administrative assistants" from levels 1 to 5 and beyond can make more than many or most of their colleagues who teach classes, although the latter workers make the university system possible. Consequently, university teachers with masters degrees may decide to shift from teaching to administrative work in order to gain higher salaries, especially if they consider having families.
For all of the latter reasons, improving the American education system involves decreasing the cost of tuition at public universities and forgiving students of their loans for university tuition.
Debt is used to promote feelings of guilt against the poor and wield power over them
The American proverb is: "If you owe the bank a hundred thousand dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank a hundred million dollars, you own the bank." Debt is for the poor to pay back and for the wealthy to use as an aspect of their power.
During the 1970s, there was a global oil crisis, and the OPEC nations entrusted their newfound wealth in many of the banks of the West. Some of these banks, including Chase and Citibank, sent their agents into poor nations to persuade politicians and dictators to enter into loan agreements with them. The big first world banks lent a lot of money to these political figures from poverty-stricken nations, and the corrupt politicians, then, stole the loan money from their own countries and placed it in their own private Swiss bank accounts and other places.
By the 1980s, U.S. banking policies changed so that the originally low interest rates went up to 20% approximately, extremely high rates. So, the 1980s and 1990s led to the Third World having a debt crisis.
As a consequence, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) took charge. In order for the poor nations to receive the refinancing, they were required to sacrifice their food reserves, abandon free education and free healthcare. These banking policies with justifications from debts led to massive increases in the malnutrition, violence and extreme poverty in the poorest nations.
The wealthiest nations began sucking the money from the poorest nations based on the debt that was established from agreements by unelected dictators who stole the money along with their cronies. Also, many of the poor nations had already paid back the price of the loan three to four times over. However, these countries still had a lot of debt because of the compound interest. In essence, these countries have had to follow the banking policies from the U.S. and Switzerland that they would have never agreed to follow in the first place.
David Graeber asks an economist from one of the Breton Woods institutions why there are no executives waiting to be brought to trial for the fraud of 2008, the financial crisis.
Breton Woods Official: Well, you have to understand the approach taken by U.S. prosecutors for financial fraud is always to negotiate a settlement. They don't want to have to go to trial. The upshot is always that the financial institution has to pay a fine, sometimes in the hundreds of millions, but they don't actually admit to any criminal liability. Their lawyers simply say they are not going to contest the charge, but if they pay, they haven't technically been found guilty of anything.
Graeber: So, you are saying if the government discovers that Goldman Sachs, for instance, or Bank of America have committed fraud, they effectively just charge them a penalty fee.
Official: That's right.
Graeber: So, in that case, okay, I guess the real question is this: Has there ever been case where the amount the firm had to pay was more than the amount of money they made from the fraud itself?
Official: Oh, no, not to my knowledge. Usually it's substantially less.
Graeber: So, what are we talking here, 50%?
Official: I'd say more like 20 to 30% on average, but it varies considerably case by case.
Graeber: Which means, correct me if I'm wrong, but does that effectively mean that the government is saying: you can commit all the fraud you like, but if we catch you, then you are going to have to give us our cut?
Official: Well, obviously I can't put it that way myself as long as I have this job.
In many countries, the poor and the middle classes are unable to take out substantial loans from banks during the 21st century. The reason for this is that excessively wealthy people have used the process of entering loan agreements to lower their taxes to extremely low rates, and they use their yachts and other assets as collateral. This is obviously not a sustainable system, and the lower and middle classes have suffered greatly from it as well as entire nations.
As the system currently stands, the excessively wealthy are greatly contributing to monopolies in each industry and are using the money and banking system with debt in order to undermine small and mid-size businesses, which are unable to attain loans because the excessively wealthy have taken over the money and banking systems for their own loans. In essence, debt is being used as a power play by the corporate and political power elites at the expense of the middle class, which is the life support for every society.
The middle and lower socio-economic classes owe debts of service to their banks, whereas the wealthy make money from their banks by accumulating interest. That is, the people who have bank accounts with just hundreds of dollars or merely a few thousand dollars are required to pay their banks fees for services. However, people who have hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars or more are accumulating vast sums of money from the interest, especially compound interest. In these cases, it is as if the banks are taking money directly from the poor and transferring it directly to their wealthiest clients.
Thereby the debt for the underclasses makes any movements from lower to middle or middle to upper exceedingly difficult. Moreover, it makes it extremely easy for the upper class to remain in power, gaining systematic advantages from the money and banking system of their countries.
In effect, what this has accomplished globally is an even wealthier global power elite than in the past that FEELS like they deserve these privileges of access to the money. However, that money comes to them from, and is made possible by, the poor and middle classes. The excessively wealthy feel entitled and increasingly value individualism over all other values, including over all of the moral values.
In these ways, the elites from multiple nations are very similar to each other because of their shared values. They are very often narcissistic and thereby extremely dangerous to societies, especially their own societies from which they profit greatly while leaving poverty and destruction in their wakes.
They are not patriots because they use their fellow citizens for their own private gains, and one important means of doing this is through creating debt for themselves, which is unnecessary, and creating debt traps for others. However, their public relations and propaganda (PRP) characterize them as giving people who donate generously. Their PRP smears others who expose them for what they are with vicious attacks, and PRP diverts the attention away from them as the sources of fundamental societal problems.
Since we will not be saved by the wealthy power elites who use debt to their own advantages and to the disadvantage of the lower and middle classes, what can we do to solve these problems regarding money, banking and the use of unforgivable debt against the lower and middle classes?
Citation: Brant, William Allen. "The Ethics of Debt and Repayment." Ethical Conflict Consulting. December edition. https://ethicalconflictconsulting.com/ethics/ethics-of-debt-and-repayment/

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
La batalla de Al-Shaykh Maskin fue una ofensiva del ejército sirio (SAA) para capturar la ciudad de Al-Shaykh Maskin en la gobernación de Daraa y asegurar la carretera Daraa-Damasco.

La batalla

Captura de la Brigada 82 capturada y asalto a la ciudad
En la mañana del 27 de diciembre, la 15ª Brigada de la 5ª División Blindada del Ejército Sirio lanzó la operación para capturar Al-Shaykh Maskin, atacando sus flancos norte y este. Durante los dos días siguientes, la fuerza aérea rusa (RuAF) llevó a cabo más de 80 ataques aéreos en la ciudad.

El 29 de diciembre, el Ejército tomó la base militar de la Brigada 82, en las afueras de Al-Shaykh Maskin, así como la parte norte de la propia ciudad. Las fuerzas SAA  perdieron temporalmente la base debido al mal tiempo, pero la volvieron a tomar durante la noche. Al día siguiente, las SAA continuaron con sus intentos de tomar el control total de Al-Shaykh Maskin y capturaron la parte oriental de la ciudad.  Esto los dejó en control de la mitad de Al-Shaykh Maskin. Llegaron a la plaza principal de la ciudad, así como a la Mezquita Al-'Umari (al norte del centro de la ciudad), mientras los rebeldes emitían una llamada de socorro pidiendo refuerzos. Los avances del Ejército fueron apoyados por otros 15 ataques aéreos rusos.

El ejército intentó avanzar más entre el 2 y el 4 de enero, cuando 43 ataques aéreos rusos más alcanzaron la ciudad.

Fallido contraataque rebelde
El 5 de enero, los rebeldes lanzaron un contraataque hacia la base de la Brigada 82. Al mismo tiempo, la 15ª Brigada, apoyada por unidades del NDF, continuó intentando avanzar hasta la colina Tal Hamad, al oeste de la ciudad, pero no tuvo éxito. En este punto, el ejército tenía el control del 55-60% de Al-Shaykh Maskin. Por la noche, el contraataque rebelde se estancó. Al día siguiente, los rebeldes renovaron su contraataque y asaltaron el perímetro sur del cuartel general de la Brigada 82. Sin embargo, finalmente, este segundo asalto también fracasó. La RuAF realizó 12 ataques aéreos a lo largo del día.

En la mañana del 8 de enero se lanzó un infructuoso tercer asalto rebelde contra los muros del complejo de viviendas de la Brigada 82. Fuentes rebeldes confirmaron que desde el inicio de la batalla habían sufrido "importantes pérdidas materiales y humanas", pero informaron que todavía se estaban preparando para hacer nuevos intentos de recuperar la base

El ejército sirio captura Al-Shaykh Maskin
Entre el 9 y el 10 de enero, se llevaron a cabo 33 ataques aéreos contra Al-Shaykh Maskin.

El 11 de enero, las SAA capturaron un total de 17 edificios en la parte sur de la ciudad y dos días después, otros 35 edificios, tomando así la parte sur de la ciudad y dejándolos en control del 80 por ciento de Al-Shaykh Maskin.

Entre el 23 y el 24 de enero, los militares capturaron la escuela Al-Zaheriyah y sus alrededores, así como la ciudad de Al-Burj en las afueras de Al-Shaykh Maskin, después de que se llevaron a cabo más de 40 ataques aéreos. Sin embargo, los rebeldes pudieron recuperar la escuela. Aun así, los avances del Ejército continuaron a medida que tomaron el control de más posiciones en la ciudad, que incluían la Mezquita Al-Bassam, partes del vecindario Al-Diri y grandes secciones de la carretera Saydaliyat.

Durante la noche anterior al 25 de enero, cuando se suponía que comenzaría el asalto final del Ejército, se envió un destacamento militar para capturar una altura que dominaba la ciudad, desde la cual los rebeldes pudieron detectar el ataque planeado por los militares desde el norte de la ciudad. La lucha fue intensa, pero una fuerte lluvia ayudó a la unidad del Ejército a subir la altura sin ser detectada. Luego, la unidad fue atacada desde tres lados, durante los cuales su comandante, Mohammed Fares, resultó herido. El destacamento logró aguantar la altura hasta que llegaron los refuerzos.

A la mañana siguiente, el ejército sirio lanzó su operación desde el lado norte de la ciudad y avanzó rápidamente, uniéndose a las tropas que llegaban del este. La lucha comenzó a las 08:30 a. m., y poco después la 15ª Brigada de las SAA capturó la Mezquita Al-'Umari. Los militares lograron avances en el vecindario noroccidental de Al-Shaykh Maskin, así como en otras partes de la ciudad, mientras eran cubiertos por 25 ataques aéreos. La lucha más dura del día tuvo lugar en el distrito de Al-Diri. Sin embargo, después de tomar Al-Diri, los rebeldes se quedaron con solo dos bloques bajo su control.  Los avances del Ejército también les permitieron monitorear todos los caminos que conducían desde la ciudad a otras áreas cercanas. Muchos rebeldes comenzaron a retirarse de la ciudad, principalmente hacia Ibta 'y Nawa. A las 10:30 pm, el ejército había limpiado a Al-Shaykh Maskin de toda resistencia rebelde. Al final de la batalla, el 70% de la ciudad se había vuelto inhabitable.

Secuelas
El 27 de enero, el ejército tomó las estratégicas colinas de Tal Hamad y Tal Koum.

Referencias

Batallas de la guerra civil siria

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The stories of how familiar plants arrived in our plots help add swash and buckle to gardens. The German plant hunter Philipp Seibold, who gave western gardens the flowering cherry Prunus x sieboldii, was arrested and accused of high treason in Japan; the Scot David Douglas, famed for the Douglas fir, died in 1834 when he fell down a bull pit trap in Hawaii; and his compatriot George Forrest, who collected thousands of plants from China including the early flowering Camellia saluenensis, escaped with two arrows through his hat after the rest of his party was killed in Yunnan in 1905.
Inspired by these planterly adventures I joined an RHS Plant Seekers' tour to explore the flora in a Yunnan valley nudging up towards the borders with Tibet and Myanmar where some of the west's 10,000 or so Chinese garden plants and flowers originate.
It was October, a hopeless month for flower blooms, but even if we'd been there in late spring — when beauties like the scented, deep crimson tree peony Paeonia delavayi bloom — little is guaranteed in the plant world.
The bus came to a halt alongside a deserted road in the middle of nowhere and, from nowhere, a guard appeared only slightly mollified by a sheaf of documents and government permissions to this politically and botanically sensitive area. He reluctantly allowed our group of amateur botanists and horticulturalists walk a mile or so up into the reserve.
This is part of the range known as Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and the view of it from Black Dragon Pool in Lijiang appears on calendars and postcards up and down China. Close up, on this cold, grey day, the foothills reminded me of Ernest "Chinese" Wilson's comment about the area of Yunnan where he found the sensational scented white trumpets of the Regal lily: "No more barren and repelling country can be imagined." His impressions were probably primed by his "lily limp", an injury sustained in a landslide when collecting the Regal lily, one of the best behaved and most underrated lilies around.
The snaking track into the reserve plunged into thick fog. On either side, oak and rhododendrons sheltered familiar and less familiar plants: delphiniums, small pom-poms of Pterocephalus hookeri and a clumpy Stellera chamaejasme with its pale yellow flowers over Euphorbia-like leaves.
Our route continued across a lake bed of the whitest clay. The fog had closed in, so dense that all sound was deadened. It felt as if we were walking through cotton wool. At 3,200 metres above sea level some of the party were struggling and had to be given oxygen. Others tramped on as the fog lifted to reveal a wide plain between soaring mountains and a glacier in the distance.
There was nothing and no one else in this desolate valley.
The first gentians appeared on the scrubby grassland beyond the lake, their flower heads furled tightly against the cold. Dr Zhikun Wu, from Kunming Institute of Botany, identified the true gentians from the Gentiana szechenyii. He was one of the three expert guides on the tour that also included Chris Bailes, the former head of both RHS Rosemoor and the Chelsea Physic Garden, and Jim Gardiner, RHS executive vice-president. George Pu, the indefatigable Chinese guide and his team helped make the long, fascinating but exhausting days comfortable.
On the steep wooded sides of the valley, tree peonies, delphiniums, bursts of thalictrum foliage, gentians, potentillas, marjoram, Pyracantha and Berberis jostled with less familiar genera and families such as Sibiraea angustata, a glaucous-leaved shrub, and the leaves of Reineckea carnea, which I kept mistaking for an orchid until Bailes corrected me. With the glacier a few hundred metres ahead we had to turn back with energy levels plummeting and tempers fraying. We left the area as the sun came out. A gentian, snuggled beside a tussock of grass, began unfurling at a rate of about one petal every 30 seconds. The party of 16 gathered to watch. Then clouds muffled the sun and the flower stopped in its tracks.
Rock had things slightly easier. While plant hunting in Yunnan in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, he lived in a remote village about 20 miles from Lijiang. Today, the route to Rock's simple, stone-built house is unmarked. Inside, curling copies of the National Geographic and fading photos record some of his adventures. Money is needed to save this precious archive. Rock's spartan bedroom is exactly as he left it when his family money ran out in the Great Depression.
A couple of valleys away is the area where Forrest found shelter with the Nakhi people after the rest of his party was massacred. The Nakhi remain in the area, the younger generation in ersatz versions of their tribal dress as they herd tourists around the places where Forrest and others collected botanical bonanza such as Rhododendron forrestii and Iris forrestii.
One of Forrest's favoured areas, a mossy, yak-grazed forest high above Lijiang, is now reached by ski lift. And despite the Chinese government's careful cordoning off of the sensitive meadows, they have been grazed in such a way that little remains of the plant treasure that Forrest witnessed. But we did find Pinus yunnanensis with its elegant groups of five long needles, purple-flowered Dracocephalum forrestii and yellow Primula forrestii.
Our plant seeking in the Kunming area, four hours' drive from the Vietnam border, was warmer and more plant filled. The stone forest, a sort of landlocked version of Ha Long Bay, provided the backdrop for old favourites such as Magnolia delavayi and Pyracantha angustifolia, while Clematis armandii and Trachelospemum jasminoides scrambled over the rocks. Just outside the city of Kunming — at Western Hills where Nie Er, composer of the Chinese national anthem, is buried — a ski lift wafted us over the ubiquitous magnolia, Begonia crispa and plenty of small tibouchinas, the glorious deep purple-flowered plant with red early foliage that I first came across in the 1990s when the late English gardener Christopher Lloyd gave me a specimen.
Walking past Buddhist and Daoist temples carved into the cliff face, excitement rippled through the group. A few delicate pink flowers above a whorl of mid-green leaves were just visible in a crevice about three metres above ground level — ground level being 2,000 metres. Bailes and Gardiner conferred: Primula duclouxii they concluded.
Even in well-tended parks there were delights and lessons: Chinese privet or Ligustrum lucidum, which makes a tidy, well-behaved small tree; the shrubby, blue-flowered pea relation Sophora davidii, which "should be grown more in our gardens", according to Bailes.
So should tree peonies whose buds are fattening as nicely in Yunnan as at home in Oxford where they form part of a kind of outdoor chintz made up of plants, many from China. It is a very English style and, like most English styles it is gathered from around the world in circumstances that might now be considered to be a bit cheeky — piratical even. But that is another story.
These green ambassadors were sending down roots and curling tendrils in the world's most fashionable beds and borders long before Chinese slipped into western school curricula and China's economic growth became a matter of envy.
China is one of the most plant-diverse countries in the world being home to 31,000 species of vascular plants — 10 per cent of the world total. However, the country's rapid economic development and population growth over the past 30 years poses a threat to this biodiversity. Between 4,000 and 5,000 higher plants are now at risk of extinction, constituting about 15 per cent of China's total flora. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) lists 827 globally endangered species, of which 189 are endemic to China.