Income Before Impact: The Melanin Money Blueprint for Wealth

22:15But the real thing that we're after is deep down inside, there's a desired lifestyle, right? There's things you want to do for your family, for your spouse, for your community, for your loved ones, for yourself. And if you sit with yourself for a few minutes, you can probably define what that is, right? And then that creates kind of a container around what you're really marching towards. because, but if you don't have that target, right, you will continue to chase because you don't have a target. You don't have a measuring stick on when enough is enough, right? You don't have, you won't have a measuring stick, but if you define that, hey, if I could just have my primary residence in my home city, I would love, this is this travel destination that I absolutely love.

22:54And if I could have a nice little place there, if I could help my mom out financially because she didn't understand about retirement, as long as I could do that, when you add it up, that will create a target for you, right? Most people haven't sat down to define it and add it up. And it will also let you know what's not inside that container. So when you start thinking about all these other things, oh, wait, that doesn't fit inside of this. So you have to at least question why. Not to say that things can evolve or things can't change and your worldview expands. I'm not saying that, but it at least will cause you to question because you have a recipe.

23:23It's like, oh, well, this ingredient wasn't there before or I didn't need it before. Why do I think I need it now? But most people don't have that benchmark or measuring stick to be able to figure that out. So everybody has to define what their target is. And then that way you know when is enough enough. You know if something does align or doesn't align or you at least have the framework to be able to challenge it when it comes up. Because we're humans. Entrepreneurs historically have shiny ball syndrome. It is what it is, right? How do we curb that appetite? By reminding ourselves and having an actual benchmark on what we said is what we wanted to do, if that makes sense.

23:59Ryan Hanley:It makes complete sense. I don't know. Do you guys know Mick Hunt? He's got a very big podcast right now. He's blowing up, Mick Unplugged. He's a very good buddy of mine. And I met him through the insurance industry. And he's owned and sold a couple agencies and consulting businesses. And now he's running essentially a media company. And he's doing very well. And I asked him one time, we were just having a conversation. And he likes bourbon, I like bourbon. We're just chilling and talking. and I said, man, you've been like so many different things, right? Like you've been, you know, insurance salesman, you've been, you know, agency owner, you've owned a consulting firm, you've started technology companies, you've done all these things.

24:44Ryan Hanley:Like, how did you make the decision to move through these various businesses? And he had one goal. He was raised by a single mom and he's like, my mother will never have to worry about money or lifestyle again, right? She did her job getting me into the world and making me who I am. And he's got this idea of that's his because like your why is important, but his because is making sure his mom's taken care of. And like the hard days, the next decision, it was, does this next thing allow me to obviously live my life, but also take care of these people in my lives who got me here? And like, he's like, that's what drove me.

25:24Ryan Hanley:He's like, if I knew to say no to something, because it was easy. My filter was, does this thing, you know, service this goal? And if it didn't pass through the filter, it was a no. And I, to your point, like, he's so clear. And I envy him because I know in my own life, sometimes I've lost my filter, right? I think it's natural that we do. But, you know, I've lost my own filter sometimes, various things happen. And then you find yourself too scattered. And I think this is like one of the most important exercises an entrepreneur can do. and I and I'm this is where I'm interested in you guys and how you operate like I think it's okay to reset that filter sometimes right like like now his mom is set up he's got his family and the people he want to take care of and his kids and stuff so now his his filter is he's moved it to impact in terms of his message and what he's trying to do with the communities that he serves right so he's he was able to change it in time and I think some people think that you pick one and like that's it for the rest of your life how have your filters moved and changed and how do you know when to create a new filter for the decisions you make yes that's that's phenomenal insight um and so i'm i'm always a firm believer that what gets you here won't take you there right and so at the beginning i was like my personal journey right you know just coming from not having money, losing my parents early, having my back against the wall my whole life.

26:50My first why was to survive, right? I never want to be in a lack of control of my life and my circumstances ever again, right? That's the filter. Anything not getting me close to that filter, I'm not paying attention to it. Then once that's done, it's like, all right, Carter's good. Now, I want to make sure my sister is good, right? And then I think, and so when you come up with these filters, I believe once you achieve them You need to change the filter because here's the problem if you don't change the filter My early success was built off of fear I didn't want to be broke again And fear drove me for a very long time But at a certain point It the same thing that keeps the house warm.

27:34Well as yours says it will burn it down, right? And so now like at that I can't operate out of fear anymore because it won't help me get to the next level So I need to then change my why to, oh, I want to help this person. I want to have this amount of impact. And I think if you don't change your why after you accomplish it, it could be an unhealthy motivation. Right. And so I just believe like that's why I think doing like yearly checking is like reviewing. I review the year at the end of every year. What did I do? What I say I was going to do? Did I like it? Did I not like it? And now I'm in a stage where like my success is not going to be governed by what I say yes to.

28:11My next level of success is going to be governed by the things I say no to. Because my number one goal is just to not get distracted, period. I love that. I love that.

28:20Ryan Hanley:George, what about you, man? Yeah, I have a simple quote. I know Carter's heard me say it often is, when the facts change, so do I, right? So I think we're operating from our worldview with the information, the context, the resources that we have at that time. At any given time, right, that could be disrupted. that could be changed. We could learn something new. And as a result of that new information and new insight, right, in this context, it might require us to change our filter, right? And so that's kind of me. So I think the issue is people hold so closely to their own beliefs that being a truth seeker, you have to live on the edge of contradiction, right?

29:02It's like, okay, well, I said this. I believed this last year. Well, I'm not the same person I was last year. It's okay for me to say that, oh, I did believe that with the context, information, resources, worldview that I had at that time. People hold so closely to those beliefs that they're unwilling to make that shift because they feel like it was a bad reflection on them. You know what I mean? Even in business, right? Like we just get to give a completely separate example. Like we were using this one CRM system, but then at that stage in business, just be honest with you, it was too expensive.

29:31I was like, I'm not. But you know, this is getting bigger, the charges are more. I don't, we got to find a better way, right? And so then we went to the iteration trying to use two or three other CRM systems only to come back to the original one. But the facts were still true at that time. The facts were that was too expensive for where I was in business and I couldn't justify the cost. Not that it wasn't the right CRM system. It wasn't right at that time, right? And so being willing to like, you know what, let's try this. Oh, that doesn't work. That doesn't work. But now we circle back because this works in this season with this information, this context, this reality.

30:02But you got to think from a leadership standpoint, that can make me look like I'm doing what I'm doing. Like, hey, I have an ops team that has to unravel and stand this up and set up this automation again. It's like, we were just using this six months ago. But I don't care about holding on to my beliefs because I know that my beliefs can evolve, right? And I'm okay with that is the first thing. And another thing is just, and this is more about self-awareness, but the true root of all disease, if you break down the word dis-ease, is being disconnected from oneself. I think people don't get enough solitude.

30:34They get so much outside noise from social media, from peers, from everything else that's going on. They have a hard time making a decision that's their own decision because they're getting so many outside influences and they're not even hearing their own thoughts. And so I think it's very important to be truly connected with yourself so that your beliefs are actually yours. Like, why do you want this? Like, if you can't answer that, right, then you got to challenge, like, where is it coming from? Why do you want this? and if you can't and if you're not clear on that it's probably time to challenge that belief.

31:04Ryan Hanley:This is like a therapy entrepreneur master class that you guys are laying down right here. This is We told you we probably want to ask those questions and we said bro we are we are all right we're all interacting together right now. Yeah we're attracting the best out of us so kudos to you as a podcast. This is you know man I have this I have this philosophy and you know it's exactly what you guys are saying like I'm just I line up so closely with the way you guys are talking about this and teaching it. Because one of my core principles is operate in reality, right? What you said, exactly what you said.

31:40Ryan Hanley:I can want to believe anything is true, right? I can want to believe that if I go outside my house and shake the tree, money's going to fall out of it. But that's not reality. Leaves are going to hit me in the head, right? That's a nice belief. so many people that particularly that that I'll work with that they have these like they it's almost like they're wishing something was true they're operating based on a wish right I wish that things would you know that this CRM worked perfectly for me and we could afford it and it was a right you know I mean like I wish that this type of customer would do business with me I wish that I would get more attention in this for this and it's like well you don't have a bold claim so No one cares.

32:20Ryan Hanley:The fact that it is that CRM is fancy and people talk about it, but it's not right for your business. You know what I mean? How do you ground someone? If someone comes to you and maybe they just have delusional ideas of money, right? Or delusional ideas that they can spend as much as they are and say, how do you get someone? How do you coach someone back to reality, back to operating the way that you just described where we're actually taking real inputs and not just working off of beliefs or things we see as we're scrolling through reels on Instagram or whatever. What I can say is I can tell you about how we deal with it internally and then how that translates to the people that we serve.

33:02So internally, I'm pretty sure you read the book, what is it, Traction? One of those books, but they talk about like the integrator and what is it? The integrator. Visionary, right? So in our early ages of our partnership, even though we're both co-founders of the business, you know, I, the visionary, McCarter's the integrator, right? So it's like, hey, look, this is what I can see 10 years in the future. This is what we got to do. And then I, and then he runs the place, so to speak, just to oversimplify it, right? Yep. And in that context, right, we create this very healthy balance of like, that is great.

33:36And I'm glad that's 10 years in the future, but what about the next 10 days, right? And then it pulls us back, right? To like, oh, okay, great. Like we have, there's certain things we have to do today. And so we're always balancing, like let's look at it from a business standpoint, what will be our retirement plan and what pays our bills today? Our retirement plan meaning we exit a business for a substantial amount of money, right? But there's so much that you have to do leading up to that for that to be a possibility while keeping the lights on right in real time. So for us, it's just knowing that we can play in that space and have that balance of like, yeah, I'm gonna let you have that autonomy to see as far as you can.

34:12and I'm going to play the role of making sure that we take step one, two, three, four, five, right? That's how it's worked out for us. Now, for a client who may not have the luxury of having a built-in business partner, brother who can have that balance, we're always acting as the integrator for them, right? Because most of them are, for whatever their vision is, they see it more clearly than we will ever see is their vision. And so we're able to say, since we're not emotionally attached to it, and because we've experienced the highs, the lows, the ebbs, the flows of, you know, all, all iterations of business, we're acting as that ground.

34:44I think Gary V puts it as clouds and dirt. So if they're in the clouds, we're helping them stay rooted in the dirt. Like, Hey, that's great. I'm not mad at you for this vision you have, but here's what we, here's what needs to be true today. And making sure that they're calibrating on this, if that's something that they really want. Cause oftentimes it's almost like on my social media, I have like an interest folder. I'll see something like, Ooh, I want to buy that. I don't buy it anymore. I used to, you know, I used to hit what they call impulse purchase. Now I added my interest folder and I almost never go back to it.

35:12So how much money have I saved by just like adding it there and saying, oh, well, you know, if I, if I still wanted, I'll go back to it. I had the link handy. I've got, I've got, I think I've gone back and bought one of those things. Right. And so it's the same thing. Like we just helped them understand like, Hey, we're going to park this for now. We're going to focus on what matters most. And if you really, really want to do this and you're really convicted by it, we can, we can revisit it and just reminding them of their North Star, which for a lot of times you have a lot of clients that are women it's like they want to be able to take care of their their family and have and you know show up for their daughters and like you're like we remind them like hey the the more you do more of that like it may not allow you to do as much of this as you think it is and just reminding them of their true why yeah i love that i want to

35:51Ryan Hanley:pivot now um i'm not sure carl as you or george has said this early it may have been you carter but there was one of you mentioned like you're always looking for potential activities, businesses, etc. that not only can help support your main interest, but also potentially generate revenue. And I think content and how you guys are doing your content game is a big part of that. And I'd love for you to talk through how you thought about how you frame building the content side of your lives and of your work with how it then supports the business itself, you're right, the advisory and tax firm, etc.

36:30Like, so, so I think a lot of people get confused in that one, they have to be

36:35Ryan Hanley:directly related all the time, or that they have to be two completely separate things or that you can't actually support the content business on its own that all of the support has to come out of that business is where a lot of people get caught. So how did you think through this? And How did you start to build it so that your content side of what you guys do wasn't just a burden to the business, but was actually thriving alongside of it and supporting it? Yeah. So I'm a firm believer that it is not the best who makes the most money. It is the most well-known. Right? We all can make better burgers than McDonald's, yet they've made a billion burgers.

37:13Right? So for me, I think that it's a few things. Number one, when it comes to content, people will buy from you because they believe, because of what you know. Other people buy from you because of who you are. And when you have content, you are able to, when you have content, you are able to show both, right? So through our content, we've been able to show our expertise, but we've also been able to show who we are as humans. and some clients hire us because they love our expertise. Some clients hire us because George is a good father, right? And so you are able to leverage this and be able to get more clientele.

37:59So for me, content has always been a very, very big and very important pillar of our business because with our cell phones, we can get millions of views and not have to worry about marketing for our business. Then after we got the content piece figured out, I was like, okay, how can we, now that our content is bringing us in customers, how can we also make money from this content? Right. So we have a podcast, we get sponsorships, we have a podcast where we get brand deals, all those things like that. And what we notice is the more money we make outside of our advisory firm, the easier it is to reinvest money back into our advisory firm.

38:34Right. And we, and Alex Ramosey has this concept called sawdust where it's like, okay, look at areas of your business where you can turn it on and make money, but it costs you no extra time, investment, you know, X, Y, Z. So for us, this has really been around how can we figure out ways to make money outside of our business that takes the stress off of reinvesting in our business. I'm a firm believer, and I'm curious to hear y 'all sentiment on this. I believe that we all, everybody can become a millionaire by doing the big three. Number one, you get experience in whatever you're doing. So if you say you want to be the best podcaster, get podcasting experience.

39:16Number two, through that experience, we'll make you a expert, right? Because with enough practice, anybody can become an expert at whatever they do. And then once you become an expert, you then can educate people on how you became an expert. So people will pay you for what you know. People will also pay you for who you are. So once we become these, you know, we are now very, very known in the financial space Some advisors will literally pay us thousands of dollars to spend one day with us So that they can get the lesson without having to get the scar Right, and so now we can be that coach for that person We can be that advisor for that advisor And that money is all profit because it costs us nothing And the more we make doing that we don't even need to take distribution from our business if we don't need to.

40:05And that, again, because we're in the scale phase and we knew this already, so we're like, okay, how can we still make sure our personal wealth is secure, but make sure our business can still scale and stay profitable? Yeah, and so, Card, I got an E to add to that for you. So you said expertise, experience, education, or educate, that's what you said? Yeah. Yeah, and you can also add equity to that, right? So many people aren't familiar with consulting for equity. So, So on one hand, we could educate, right? And people pay us$25 ,000 or whatever it is for a day. Or it's like, hey, if I could help your business grow by X percentage, would you be willing to give me a percentage of the business, right?

40:42Like in many instances, people are willing to do that. So I agree wholeheartedly with what he's saying because we're both doing the same thing. Now, the other piece, going back to your question on looking at the media aspect of the business and the content and how does that serve? Well, to be honest with you, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on paid advertising, right? So for us, it's like you can only build an audience in a few ways. You can buy it, which is what we do a lot of, fortunately and unfortunately. You could borrow it, right? Like going on platforms like this and you've built an established audience and people will hear like, oh, I like these guys.

41:13I'm going to go see what they have going on. You can build it and that's what we're doing with the content, right? Because then it becomes owned media. So it's like, okay, well, if we have hundreds or thousands of video on YouTube, well, across all platforms, I can't even fathom how many pieces of content it is. But if we have five years, five to six years of content archives, some of which is long form, right, we are building our audience through that content. And we're able to nurture our potential clients at scale. There's a gentleman who actually set up our podcast studios, and he helps people do this.

41:45but he, I can't remember exactly what he said. Carter will remember probably more eloquently than me. Actually, I'll let you interject real quick to what he said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically, we always talk about the power of compound interest when it comes to investing where you put a dollar in today, it could become tens, a hundred thousand dollars tomorrow. He looks at every piece of content as a dollar in the content market and that that will compound, that same compound interest that happens with investing can come from an audience that will help you build your business, yeah. Yeah, and so from that vantage point, But you have to, again, it's about the frame.

42:18If you don't have that frame, content is going to feel like a drag. It's like, oh my gosh. Because we record, I record a video that goes live every Monday. Carter records one that goes live every Friday on YouTube. We have a podcast that goes live every Wednesday. We've been doing that since 2021. Every week. Have not missed a day, right? And then sometimes it's like, did that hit? That one got 1 ,000 views. This one got 80 ,000. That did really well. I don't know if anybody saw that. I did this on a Saturday when I could have been relaxing. but you never know when someone's going to see that piece of content is going to be the reason that they make a decision.

42:50And more importantly, imagine your favorite show, right? Some episodes you love more than the others, but if it comes on every Wednesday at 8 p.m. and then one Wednesday they don't make an announcement and just doesn't come on, you've lost all trust and credibility with your audience, right? And so at some point, once you make the decision to become an authority, to become a leader, to become someone who says they do, who does what they say they're going to do. That's what brand is. Brand isn't your colors. Brand isn't how you make people feel. Brand is, I know them for this and I can trust them for that.

43:18And the moment that that changes, you start to lose brand equity. And so for the foreseeable future, if our brand is saying, our podcast airs every Wednesday, doesn't matter if Carter's sick, doesn't matter if Georgia's sick, doesn't matter if my son's not feeling well, doesn't matter if it's raining outside. If that's what our brand says, that's what we have to do. That's the commitment that we make. and we understand the dividends that that can pay. Every time we acquire clients now, it does rain, sleet, or snow. Someone says, oh, I was watching that YouTube video and that was what made me sign up.

43:47So that keeps us going on the days when like tomorrow when I got to record a YouTube video and I don't feel like it, right? I know that it's a part of the brand. And so hopefully that answers your question.

43:56Ryan Hanley:No, it does. It does. Inside the insurance industry, I get brought in to do a lot of workshops on marketing because how I kind of cut my teeth was using content, which in the insurance industry was, when I first started doing it, was very rare. The insurance industry in particular operates about 10 years behind the rest of the world in terms of both technology and general marketing and sales stuff. And God bless the monetization structure that insurance has. It's able to do that. But my point is, what I used to say is think of every piece of content that you create as a salesperson working for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, right?

44:37Ryan Hanley:They don't take vacations. They don't get sick, right? They don't bitch about the health insurance plan or the 401k, right? It's just working for you all the time. And when you start, like just as you guys said, when you start to think about it, not as this thing I have to do, this task I have to get through of creating content, but like this video could make me a sale, right? Someone could hear me talk about what I do mixed with the fact that I like the Buffalo Bills and you know whatever and all of a sudden they're like oh like I like the Buffalo Bills and I need growth consulting so you know this is I'm gonna give this guy a call like all of a sudden those things click and I really like your point about you never know which piece of content is gonna be the one that hits right like you in your mind could be like the hook is perfect the graphics are done the pacing and it just bombs and then you can put one out where you know you're just kind of stream of consciousness and you're like, ah, whatever.

45:33Ryan Hanley:And it clicks to two people. And now all of a sudden you got two new deals in your pipeline. Like you just never know. So you got to do the work. Um, I love that. I absolutely think that, that, and this is kind of where I'm going and where I want to finish here in the last few minutes together, you know, AI is everywhere. We know AI is everywhere. I believe that with AI taking such a big portion of the work we do, it's slowly just taking this work away. Content and the human aspect of that content is actually becoming even more valuable every day. Because if we still believe that despite automation, AI, that kind of things, we still want to know who the humans are that we're doing business with.

46:21Ryan Hanley:If you're just putting out AI slop and this kind of stuff, or you're not creating any content, what differentiates my business from your business, right? If I don't know who the humans are behind it. So how are you guys kind of leveraging that and making sure that people know who you are in this maelstrom of AI content and shit that's coming out? We just talked about it yesterday, actually. So we do in-person events. at a pretty, I would say pretty grand scale. And I think the experience economy in general, if you do any research now, you'll see that the experience economy is actually upticking quite a bit because of what you said, right?

47:01No one can distinguish online what's real, what's fake, et cetera. And so with us, you know, we have the fortunate luxury of having a decentralized team. Everybody can work remote and we run a successful business. And as we think about how we connect and engage with the people that we serve, we understand that at some point, right, maybe not every day, the men that have to walk into our office and shake our hand, but they need to understand who we are and that we're real, right? Simply put, right? And so, you know, for us, the events that we do serve as that opportunity for us to just really separate ourselves.

47:31Like, again, you can fake online now. You know, AI can have a nice background. There's a lot of things you can do on the internet, but you can't fake hosting a multi-multi-multi-six-figure event with hundreds if not thousands of people. You can't fake that, right? And so for us, that's been something that not because of that. We did this before AI existed, but it has now allowed us to leverage an infrastructure that we already had to create that separation and remind people, like, hey, we're not just talking heads online. We do this in real life. We get real results. We have real clients. And so that's the ways in which we're distinguishing ourselves, or one of the ways, at least.

48:06Ryan Hanley:Carter, I know you got to run, man. Last words, you know, on this topic, and then hit me with, I know that my audience is going to want to go deeper into your world. Like, let me know how they do that. this has been a tremendous primer for who you are as people and your mindset and obviously it lines up so perfectly with my own and I know it will with the audience. Where do they go to get deeper into your guys' world? We'll have all the links, whether you're watching on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcast guys, the show notes will have all the links there, but where can they go to get into your guys' world deeper?

48:38Yeah, if they go on YouTube and just search MeloninMoney, I think that that will probably be the place for them to get the most amount of value just because we put out those three videos a week, long form content. We also host these virtual wealth workshops a few times a year to really give people like, you know, we believe in greatness on display, right? Well, we literally spend five days with these people and give them our best wealth and tax strategies and then allow them to become clients after. And if they want to, instead of that, it's just joinwealthworkshop.com. I'll get you both links.

49:13I'll have the team send you our YouTube link and then that link if they want to get closer to us. But that's really it. And we just put a lot of time, effort, and energy into showing people that we can help them by first actually helping them.

49:28Ryan Hanley:Love that. Guys, this has been phenomenal. I wish that we had three hours to go through this because we could keep going even further. But I appreciate the hell out of you. This has been a tremendous conversation. Anytime you guys want to come back on the show, So open invitation because I just, I love the way your guys' minds work. I love what you're talking about and the way you're doing it. I wish you nothing but the best and I just appreciate the hell out of you. We'll probably take you up with that offer. You'll probably save us some money on therapy because this was great. This was great.

49:58Likewise, we share the same sentiments, had an amazing conversation and we appreciate the fact that we didn't have to dive too deep on the things that people always ask us and you extracted more value out of us than we could have imagined. So we appreciate you as well.

50:11Ryan Hanley:Thanks, man. Well, with that, guys, we're out of here. Peace.