Transcript of He Made the Rich Richer for 20 Years. Then He Walked Away | Ep. 438 with Christopher Mackin WELLTH Advisor

What do you think is the biggest misconception about money?

That it's a limited resource. It's not just a measure of what's in our bank account. It's this measure of full spectrum of life.

This is Christopher Mackin. He spent 20 years as a wealth advisor to visionary leaders, making the rich even richer. What he says about money will flip everything you were taught.

Staying in the business that I was in was keeping me small and limiting my ability to really expand and create the impact that I was meant to create while I'm on this planet. We're killing ourselves in a variety of different ways through—

So Christopher, probably the most important question. that I need an answer to is, how do you define wealth?

First and foremost, thank you for having me. To me, wealth is when looked at a lens, you know, through, you know, abundance, right? And infinite possibility. It is this opportunity that we have to look within and Appreciate the things that we have, do the things that we enjoy, balance between the doing and the being, and giving back to community. Those are the 3 aspects of life that I believe would lead a wealthy life.

So you spent 20 years making wealthy people wealthier, but then you walked away from all of it. Why?

I can't tell you why I walked away from it at the moment. outside of feeling a call to something greater. I, after 2 decades and feeling that I have accomplished a lot in my career, there were some, there was some evidence of like resistance and things that weren't necessarily working in the way that I envisioned them to. And I've had this feeling inside that I'm really meant to create in big ways in my life. And I felt that to a certain extent, staying in the business that I was in was keeping me small and limiting my ability to really expand and create the impact that I was meant to create while I'm on this planet.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about money?

That it's a limited resource. Yeah, I think most people that I interact with, they, it seems that there's this imbalance between what they have access to and what they believe they need. So for me, what I help people understand is that money's being created every single day, right? There is this, the way that our systems were created, there's an increasing supply every day and we're all meant to have access to our highest timeline of what percentage of the wealth that exists out there is. So Yeah, it's not a limited resource. It's continually expanding. And that's the, I would say, the most common misconception.

Why do you think that many people get wealthy, they get it, but then there's also many more people that don't build wealth, that don't make much money and don't get it?

Yeah, I would say to me, there's, you know, I could ask the same question around why certain, you know, musicians achieve the levels of success that they do and others don't. The same thing, regardless of whatever profession it is, there's there's subtle differences between people that reach uber levels of success and those that don't. There was a book that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this. I can't— The Outliers, I believe. And it's no different to me. There's you know, there's people that think about money all the time and create from that place of like wanting to, you know, build more with money being the focus. And, you know, business-wise, I think the people that are willing to, you know, let go of like some attachment of like what money is and like really create from a place of like, I just, I want to build this thing, right? I don't care if if it's gonna bankrupt me or I'm gonna run out of it at some point in time. But I'm just gonna create from a place of like knowing I need to be doing this and I will get the resources that I need in order for me to build this thing regardless of my circumstances.

So, you know, I hope that answers your question and, you know, feel that The less attachment that we have to things, the more things comes into our field in terms of reciprocity of opportunity, if that makes sense.

I'm betting that most people sadly would probably choose more wealth, more money, less fulfillment than more fulfillment, less money, less wealth. What do you think? And maybe it's because the misconceptions, right, like around what they think happiness is.

You know, when we, when we poll the population, I would say in, in general, you know, over 50% of, you know, just say, uh, don't have 3 months of living expenses. And that creates a, a feeling, uh, for most people of lack of safety. And if we look at the length, like what most people in the world are looking for, there's certain levels of comfort that you're looking for, especially women. Women look for more comfort than men do in terms of safety. And when we look at, okay, would someone rather have money or fulfillment. It depends who you're asking, right? Because I've asked a lot of people who have a significant amount of money who aren't fulfilled, and they say they'd rather be fulfilled than have all the money, right? And then you ask people that don't have a significant amount of resources, like, would you rather be doing what you're doing, what you're really passionate about, or would you rather be fulfilled? And, or I'm sorry, have the resources, infinite resources. needs to, or connected to their truth in their heart. If they had to be like, if they had to make a decision, I think they would make the one that leads to fulfillment, honestly.

But they, they're, but they're, what their actions are, what their actions are in, you know, in the real world might dictate something differently.

Right. So you say people build the exact life they were supposed to want. And then quietly suspect that they got the scoreboard wrong. When did you suspect that you got the scoreboard wrong?

I don't think I got the scoreboard wrong. So yeah, I think that we evolve as people. I know that we evolve as people over time, and I don't regret any of the decisions that I've made or look back and say, oh, I shouldn't have done that, or I shouldn't have been in this business, or I shouldn't have focused on this or spent my time doing this. Like, I fully own all the decisions that I made and don't have any regrets on the things that I've done. I fully believe that I'm in exactly where I'm meant to be.

I love that. Take me back to the retreat that you had in India. What awakened inside you?

Yeah. I did a Vipassana, uh, which is the 10-day silent meditation retreat in India about 3 and a half years ago. And I don't know if you've ever taken, um, full days of silence before for yourself.

I need to.

But yeah, but, um, it was very, uh, Interesting process. It was the hardest thing I've ever done mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And just after the pain that I was experiencing in my hips from sitting down for 10 hours a day cross-legged in my back and the mental struggles I was having around trying to sit still, During the meditation. Yeah, I had a little bit of a, you know, breakdown of sorts. And through that process, I think, you know, through that process of breaking down and really surrendering, I believe that it opens and creates a channel, you know, for us to be able to receive. And That's what I did. I received very clear, my book that I just published a few weeks ago. And the message was, write this book and what you're meant to create will come. So, you know, I'm here creating and exploring and curious what's next.

I've done a retreat in, where was I? I was in Central America, but I've never done a retreat in India. I imagine it would be awakening. My wife tells me all the time that I need to be silent, so I probably need to do a silent retreat, but I don't know if I could survive because we're just so used to talking and communicating all the time. Do you now ever go back to sitting in silence? And when, if you do sit in silence, do you find that ideas and things or solutions come to you?

Yeah, I sit in silence every morning. I meditate for about an hour a day, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less, depending. I just sat in another Vipassana actually right before I published my book in, I sat in Thailand for another 10-day Vipassana. And yeah, I think, you know, sitting in silence. As an observer, you know, allows us to explore and identify, you know, where there's patterns, behaviors that are not serving us. You know, it allows us to move energy through, you know, a variety of different ways. It allows us to feel, you know, certain parts of our body. Like I do a body scan. Every morning during my meditation allows me to go through the different areas of my body and feel everything that's, that part of my body is experiencing. So it, you know, creates a deeper connection with self, greater levels of awareness and moving energy.

I'm sometimes trapped in my thoughts and I don't know if I want to be trapped in my thoughts. I want to distract myself, I guess I should say. What have you experienced that you think might help me in terms of not being afraid Of whatever, like you're saying, the feelings that come, the feelings of your body, the thoughts in your mind, and being okay with that and just moving forward?

Well, first and foremost, I would ask you, um, what are you fearful of? You know, if you sit in silence, uh, what happens?

It's so many things in the moment. Whatever's in the moment, that's gonna stress me out, I guess.

Okay. So what happens when you get stressed out?

It's a rabbit hole. I like go down this rabbit hole, Christopher, of like what could be, what should be.

So what happens when you go down the rabbit hole?

I just think about more things and then more things.

And what happens when you think about more things and more things?

Eventually nothing happens because I eventually stop thinking about all the things and realize that it's all irrational, probably.

So during the, um, you know, say the 10 days that I'm in silence, You know, you start experiencing this pain and these thoughts and all these things. And when you start to actually let go of the attachment that you have to the pain and just be like, ugh, like, you know, the pain starts to dissolve. When you start to let go of the, you know, judging yourself for the thoughts that are coming up, the thoughts start to go away. And ultimately what happens, you know, kind of towards the end of the time is that, you, your mind's quiet, there's less pain. The pain doesn't necessarily completely go away, at least for me in my experience so far. But yeah, the, you know, when we have these fears that come up, whether it's like fear of not having enough money, right? For example, you know, you can ask yourself like, what happens if I don't have enough money? Okay, well, this happens. Maybe I need to, you know, live on the street or go live with my parents or don't, you know, whatever it is that, you know, that happens. And then you go, okay, well, what happens if you live on the street?

All right, blah, blah, blah. And it ultimately, if you continue to go down that path, you know, most often people are just afraid of death, right? And, but, you know, when you realize that At the end of the day, we're all gonna die anyway at some point. Your time will come when the time is meant to be. You just accept that, like, okay, like, here I am. It is what it is. Like, people like this, we're all, you know, in the game of life, really just here to connect, live in our truth, live in our hearts, and play.

Thank you for that. You're right. I feel better now. You said that money is a mirror to our fears and our childhood, which I can relate to that statement. I have a very interesting relationship with money and I could definitely trace it back to my childhood. How do you see us getting wired as a child and how that creates our relationship with money?

Well, it doesn't just— like our experiences as a child dictate our relationship with money. It dictates a lot of our ways of being, our existence, how we show up in the world and in all aspects, right? When we're young, particularly in the first several years of life, we're just sponges. We're absorbing everything, energy, sounds, colors, experiences, and we're creating these We're taking all this information that we're receiving and we're trying to dictate that into what it means to us. Right. So, I don't know if you feel called to share around your experience growing up or if you'd like me to share mine.

Share yours. Yes.

Okay. So, I was younger, I had an experience, you know, where my Parents were fighting about money. And then I started to, from there, I created my own story around like what situation they were in, right? I started to identify like, oh yeah, we didn't go on family trips a lot. Or, oh yeah, the car that we're driving, it looks more beat up than everyone else's car that they're driving. And I started to kind of look at certain things in ways that I'll make, okay, yeah, that makes sense why they're arguing. Okay, you don't have enough. Whereas with what's behind the house and, you know, on a cul-de-sac and super quiet and just like, you know, I didn't look at that aspect. I started to just focus on what was wrong or off or, you know, and, you know, ultimately for me, I created this whole story about that my parents, you know, needed They needed help and I needed to step up and take care of them at a very young age. And what I started to do was let go of the things that brought me joy, the sports and the activities, and started to work.

So there's many things that we learn as children and carry with us through life, right? And, you know, I've heard some reflections from people in their, you know, mid-60s, 70s, 50s, 40s, every aspect, you know, of their life, you know, those that have been extremely successful even that, you know, they recognize, wow, okay, I didn't even think to dissect this experience that I had when I was a kid, but now that I am, I'm seeing it and more aware of it. So it allows people to just to show up and have the choice to show up differently, right? When you recognize a pattern that you have and you show up to that pattern with awareness, you now have a choice, a conscious choice to say, I'm gonna continue operating by way of that pattern, or I'm gonna— no, that actually doesn't serve me. I love you. I appreciate you. I know, you know, a little kid that's inside.

Okay, great.

You know, this is the way I see it now.

What is the difference between wealth and what you call wealth, which I guess is spelled W-E-L-L-T-H?

Yeah, so I mean, I shared the definition earlier around, you know, the experience of life, you know, that I believe wealth is. You know, when I say true wealth, right, it's this experience of life where we're joyful, we're abundant, we're expansive, we are doing what our hearts feel we're meant to be doing. We're balancing the doing and the being, and we're giving back to community, right? Like that to me is true wealth, right? This experience where it's not just a measure of what's in our bank account, right? It's this measure of really a full spectrum of life.

Sometimes I'm not always positive that we as humans are truly going in the right direction. Sometimes I question it. I'm unsure, right? Because I see things that happen now that happened thousands of years ago, and I wonder if we ever will learn our lessons. But you believe that people can go into business to truly help humanity, the world, versus only looking to make a profit?

We're already there. There's people doing it. Yeah, there's people doing it. I mean, you know, what percentage of the population is creating in that way? It's growing. There's a lot of things, you know, when I look at society, there's a lot of things that I think we're, you know, doing a disservice to one another. We're killing ourselves in a variety of different ways through, you know, consuming, you know, some of the food that we consume and, you know, using pesticides and, you know, all these chemicals that, you know, cause poor health, right? Health is wealth at the end of the day. So if you're putting the things that you're putting in your body are taking away from your ability to really truly live the life that you want to live, I think we're doing a disservice to ourselves. That level of competition where people are disconnected from the interconnectedness of everyone, that in my belief is something that is a problem. And ultimately that You know, I think again that we're working through that and the trajectory I see is one in which people will start to change, you know, their belief systems and their patterns, you know, that they were brought up on.

Glass half full. I need to be more half full. People used to work at a job. They just worked at the job. They didn't really care what the company did or what the company did outside. They just worked at a job and then they retired. Nowadays, people are saying, I want to work at a job or a company that has aligned values, or they could be making a lot of money like a tech company and they realize the values are not the same, so they leave. Or maybe they start a business like you're saying around something that's related to the values, not just around the profits. Are you seeing this shift?

I definitely see some differences between like the generations. I think that sometimes people can make that shift when they're into retirement. Others like are just stuck in their ways. They're like, they can't adjust to like not having a thing to do or spending the money that they worked hard to create because they're then nervous that the money's going to run out or whatever. So for people that are now working, the third generation of the Great Depression parents, this feeling that there's like something greater, something that's missing, right? And I think that when you experience life coming from a place of, you know, what lights me up the most, you can't like look back and say, I ever, like, you know, I should have done this or I should have done this. You're just you know, living in your truth, right? So I think there's more and more people that are starting to recognize that and realize that, you know, the money doesn't buy you the happiness.

Final question. There's about $80 trillion of wealth that is about to be transferred from basically our parents. It was like $38 trillion in real estate and then, you know, like another $40 trillion in in IRA, 401s, savings, stocks, et cetera. That is about to get transferred now to mostly millennial-age people like you and I and Gen Z. And it got me thinking though about how this is going to change a lot of things because I don't know if these people gain this wealth and that wealth can make its own money and they don't really have to work anymore, I don't know if they even will work. Maybe they just retire at 30 and they just travel around the world and then, I don't know, volunteer, or maybe they work in something, but this is going to change the whole amount of people who are even working in jobs. And then what do they do with that wealth?

20 years in finance managing money for people, the family values are carried through multiple generations. when there's no conversation and, you know, the children inherit this money and there's a trustee that is kind of dictating things and, you know, doing all of that, it can create complacency, it can create confusion. And then there's situations like Tom Petty, for example, he passed away and didn't even have a will. So there was, massive amounts of confusion and fighting. And yeah, it was a complete disaster. And there's several celebrities that have been, I think Michael Jackson was one of them. They just did a lack of planning or maybe no planning at all. They didn't care about it. And the next generation, the people that were inheriting the wealth, You know, wind up getting in major conflicts because of that. So one avenue where there's really good communication structure, 2 where there's communication like an estate plan and things are distributed in a very structured manner. And then the 3rd is where there's absolutely nothing done, no planning done, and it's a complete disaster. What that does for the next generation, I think instead of just like allocating money into the S&P 500 and, you know, putting, you know, money into companies that they don't really have any affiliation or interest in, maybe they carve out a portion of that money that they have invested in the public markets and put it into companies that really, they support, that they're connected to, that they really believe in, that are doing good things in the world.

So I think that, you know, what I've seen at least is that, you know, people that have a significant amount of wealth, they've accumulated it, they have low cost basis, so they're like hesitant to like make a move because then they got to pay taxes and then there's going to be less money and blah, blah, blah, like whatever. Whereas when the money transfers from one generation to another, you know, the inheritors can do really whatever they want with much less tax implications. The ease of making those decisions are much greater than they are for the people who are like, don't want to pay taxes and, you know, kind of go through that whole loop in their mind around like why they can't be doing things. Yeah, I love that. You know, I think that reallocation of capital into things that are not necessarily your typical public market securities are very likely, especially because access to those types of investments are getting greater and greater with all the technology that we have and is developing.

Super exciting. I'm excited when you, you know what, You make me very optimistic just about life in general. So I appreciate that. You have a very soothing voice. You could do a meditation app and I would listen to it, by the way. But Christopher Macken, I think everyone needs your book, True Wealth. Like, we really need your book. It's no better time than right now to get the book True Wealth. But thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for creating this container, for leading these beautiful discussions, and for creating the impact that you do in life, man. Just keep showing up and being honest and transparent and creating in the way that you do. You obviously have a lot of magnetism and excitement about what you're doing. So appreciate you very much.

Thank you.