Chris Garrison went from staying broke in his 20s to building a cleaning and restoration company, buying two more businesses, and growing the Blue Collar Millionaire Facebook group to over 350,000 members. In this episode, he explains why technical skill alone will not grow a trades business, how to invest in yourself, your people, and healthy debt, and why you are living in the results of yesterday’s decisions.
Episode 37: Building Blue Collar Wealth with Chris Garrison
What does it take to turn a hands-on service business into an asset that creates opportunity beyond the owner’s daily labor? Chris Garrison, serial entrepreneur, real estate investor, and co-founder of Blue Collar Millionaire, shares lessons from building businesses, investing, and developing leaders.
Mike and Zach talk with Chris about growing Absolute Cleaning and Restoration, acquiring companies, investing in real estate, and building an online community with more than 350,000 members. He explains why technical skill alone rarely produces growth without strong marketing and sales.
Chris presents financial literacy as a series of deposits: knowledge, relationships, visibility, productive debt, and responsible execution. He explains why investing in yourself comes first and how a proven operator can move from trading time for money to owning assets.
The conversation also explores how owners can step back by recruiting capable people, developing leaders, and building predictable systems. Clear communication, realistic expectations, and extreme ownership help protect the two bosses of every business: employees and customers.
Chris closes with a long-term view: stay close to what you know, diversify through trusted operators, track the activities behind your results, shape an environment that supports better habits, and enjoy the journey while building something that can operate without you.
“You are your biggest asset.”
“I don’t think there’s a shortage in capital. I think there’s a shortage in talent.”
“You’re living in the results from yesterday’s decisions.”
“It’s not the goal and the destination, because that constantly moves. It’s the journey.”
Chris Garrison is a serial entrepreneur, real estate investor, business coach, and mentor. He owns multiple service-based businesses and a mix of residential and commercial real estate, and he co-founded Blue Collar Millionaire, an online community with more than 350,000 members.
After a series of difficult business and personal experiences in his twenties, Chris committed to self-development and rebuilt his career around the skills he had developed in car sales, maintenance management, and cleaning. He grew Absolute Cleaning and Restoration into a brand centered on quality and integrity before expanding into restoration and roofing.
Chris later invested in rental properties, acquired additional service businesses, and helped grow a national windshield company and a manufacturing coating business. Across these ventures, he focuses on assembling strong teams, creating predictable systems, and developing companies that can operate without depending entirely on their owner.
Through Blue Collar Millionaire, Chris shares practical frameworks, community, events, and coaching for ambitious service-business owners. His mission is to help create as many blue-collar millionaires as possible by teaching repeatable systems for leadership, investing, business growth, and long-term wealth creation.
Connect with Chris Garrison on Facebook, join the Blue Collar Millionaire Facebook group, or email chrisg@absoluterestoration.com.
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Chris Garrison (0:00)
You're living in the results from yesterday's decisions. Whatever you did yesterday has stuck you where you're supposed to. You're exactly where you're supposed to be at based off of your actions from yesterday. Now, the question is, if you don't like where you're at, what are you going to do today so that tomorrow looks different. And if tomorrow doesn't look different, then you only have yourself to blame. Because if you want change, you have to change something. And if you want something different, something has to get sacrificed. You filled your time, your 24 hours a day, you have filled it up with something. So if you want something else in it, you got to sacrifice something. So what are you going to sacrifice to be able to enter something else that you prefer and desire more?
INTRO (voiceover) (0:43)
Most people think saving money is the answer, but the truth is saving only gets you to zero. Join Mike and Zach as they flip the script from saving to earning. from zero to unlimited potential. Welcome to Save to Zero.
Zach Richards (1:01)
Hey everybody, welcome to episode number 37 of the Save to Zero podcast. Today's guest is uh Chris Garrison. He's a serial entrepreneur, real estate investor, and more recently a business coach who started the uh Facebook group called Bluecollar Millionaire. and he um it's all about business investing and real estate and uh growing particularly bluecollar businesses. Chris, uh thanks for coming on,
Chris Garrison (1:28)
man. Thanks, Zach. Thanks, Mike. Um it's good to see y'all. It's been a while since I've had a chance to hang out with y'all. I know we've been in another mastermind together and uh it's been cool to see y'all's growth. It's been cool to see that y'all started a podcast and start to bless others with information and I'm honored to be a guest.
Zach Richards (1:45)
Awesome.
Mike Seidl (1:45)
Yeah, man. It's great having you on. It's great having you on, man. I'm excited. This is going to be fun. Glad to cut you out.
Zach Richards (1:51)
Now, tell us about, you know, what your business is, what you do, how you got to where you are. Give us, uh, give us some background.
Chris Garrison (1:58)
Yeah. So, um, I'm 42 this October. And, um, I grew up around a dad. Calm down over there, Mike.
Mike Seidl (2:06)
That's old crying, man.
Chris Garrison (2:10)
So, I I grew up around a dad that uh, always owned his own business. So entrepreneurial um you know lifestyle was was that just seemed normal to me. Um I didn't realize that that was abnormal until I would talk to other folks and they're like man how do you start a business or whatever and I'm like just start going and doing work and you get paid for it and then you know when you see it's uh actually something then you you go and file with the secretary of state an LLC. But um you know so I I tried that in my 20s. Um didn't do very well in my 20s. Had a lot of um uh you know I I wasn't aligned right in the marriage. Um I had kids very early on. I had a lot of excuses in life. Didn't work uh even full 40 hours every week. Um you just I stayed broke in my 20s because of my choices. And uh so when I got through that decade in my 30s I said tired of being broke. I want to make some changes. Uh I'm ready to be happy in life. I'm ready to be the giver instead of the taker and I'm ready to do what I know I was destined to do which was achieve great things in life. Um so got my divorce at 30 and uh started going down that path. Um I had already started kind of a cleaning and restoration business. Really it was cleaning at that point. Um commercial floor cleaning, upholstery cleaning. Um, I do windows and and vehicle detailing for like um furniture rental companies. Uh, if it was a cleaning and I could hop on YouTube and I can get uh the uh the tools fairly cheaply, I could apply the knowhow and the sweat equity to it to make a living from it. So, I'd already kind of started that when I went through my divorce. Um, I jumped out of that, worked with my dad for a couple of years and then I jumped back into the cleaning and said, "Let's make a run of it." So, for the last 10 years, um, I've successfully been doing the cleaning business called Absolute Cleaning and Restoration. That's moved from carpet cleaning, then added restoration. Then two years ago, we dropped the carpet cleaning and only uh did restoration now, and then we add added roofing as well. And every time I make a pivot in life, it's because I'm looking for the growth opportunity. I'm butting my head against the wall and I can't get past the hurdle. So, I'm just brainstorming and my brain never stops from daylight to dark of, okay, what do we do to be able to spur growth on again? Um, so that's my main core business. After I started making a little bit of money inside of my restoration uh business, then I thought, "Oh, all the rich folks are in real estate." So, I got shiny object syndrome and I started learning about real estate. Um, I got on all the free stuff and I started listening to uh podcast and YouTube videos and making phone calls and then I started paying for knowledge after I got through my free information uh period and and uh I started going to meetups and and joined a group that did traveling and had daily calls. Um, and it was mainly geared towards commercial real estate, but I had easier access into residential real estate. So, I started filming and this was something that your your uh audience needs to pick up on. Um, secret agents um stay secret, right? And so, nobody knows what they're asking for and what to give them. And I heard a Grant Cardone um YouTube video in my early 20s when I was making that transition in my life and he said, "You have a personal brand and you have a business brand and your personal brand can transcend through business after business after business." So, I started with that uh cleaning and restoration company building a personal and business brand at the same time. And it would be something simple as, "Hey, this is Chris Garrison with Absolute Cleaning and Restoration. We're here on this blah blah blah blah." And and so they would get my name and the company name. So, when I decided to do real estate, I just started showing myself walking around on uh how I was inspecting real estate and why I thought it was a good deal and and what I thought was going to be a negative and a hard lift. And then I would always mention if you're looking into real estate but you don't have the time but you got the money reach out to me um I can find ways to help you. And so there was always a branding play on anticipating what I was going to need as resources. And I did that with real estate. Then I started building up a little uh portfolio of rentals, a little flip here and there. And then I got into business coaching because I had a friend come out and say, "Hey, I got this idea." And I was like, "I love it. Fantastic. Let's do it." Um, and when I said yes, I thought this is an opportunity pipeline. Again, there's eyeballs. And I heard someone say before, eyeballs is currency and because it's opportunity. So, um, we started the community that was focused on bluecollar service businesses since that's what was um, kind of paying my bills and giving me play money. Um, so then when I got in that flow of stream, I saw everything was getting kind of sounds like I'm a big follower at the end of this story. Um, I I got on the trend of buying businesses, business acquisitions in the circle that I was running with was getting popular. So, um, I had an opportunity with some partners to buy and then I was like, well, I want to do this on my own and go hunt it down and and prove I could do it without partners because that deal was kind of brought to me through the the business community I was a part of. So, then I found one locally and I bought a second business in the same year. Both of those businesses I still have. One of them is just murdering it. I mean, just fantastic, massive growth, uh, unicorn kind of growth. The other one's just steady growth. um doing doing good, just nothing that you know you could put up as a um trophy type business. And after going through that, I realized, you know, my first business is the thing that was teaching me all the fundamentals of great investing mindset, great leadership mindset. Um it made me relevant uh in all of these other businesses in the coaching community. So, I went back and said, I still have something I have to finish there, which is I got to build it up to where I'm an absentee owner and um uh I need to be able to take it to an exit because if I could take it to an exit and not just be liquidating for assets, then there is something that I have learned that most people never get the opportunity to learn because I've been able to walk that journey. So, that's where I'm currently at right now. I'm trying to build this restoration business up to an exit so I can know what that journey feels like, looks like, smells like and I can then teach it to others and help others do the same as well as I've got my other things going. So, um, some people say, you know, how do you do it, Chris? And I said, man, you got to have good people around you because I don't run my real estate. Um, I don't run my other two businesses. I'm very active in uh my restoration business and then I'm somewhat active in my coaching community. Um enough to be present and fulfill my responsibilities. But even in that business, we graduated one of the founders to an operator, a paid operator to make sure that that business that community keeps pushing forward and um growing.
Mike Seidl (9:37)
Nice. Sure. And in that community, you talk about you know you want to build more bluecollar millionaires, right? That's the whole name of the group. Like
Chris Garrison (9:45)
that's right.
Mike Seidl (9:46)
What are some uh common traits or misunderstandings or whatever that bluecollar people have about business money becoming a millionaire?
Chris Garrison (9:57)
Yeah. So, um they think if you're great at something that you'll get rich and that's that's that's false. Um you do have to be great at it. Matter of fact, I I'm going to even retract that statement. You don't have to be great at it. You have to be great at marketing and sales at the fulfillment. You really don't have to be great. That is, in my opinion, a need to have. Um, but I have seen people that actually kind of suck at the fulfillment side, but they're really good at marketing and sales and they grow and they keep growing and they get really wealthy, but yet um they would be beat by someone else when it comes to quality of fulfillment.
Zach Richards (10:33)
Yeah. They grow despite their quality and not because of Yeah.
Mike Seidl (10:38)
It's funny. The the company that I think of most is McDonald's. That is actually absolutely garbage food. But look how much they sell every year and it's just garbage.
Zach Richards (10:48)
But you know when you're on a road trip at 2 in the morning in a place you've never been, you know exactly what you're going to get.
Chris Garrison (10:54)
That's right.
Mike Seidl (10:55)
Yep.
Zach Richards (10:55)
There there's that. And then you can always count on their uh McFlurry machine to be broken.
Mike Seidl (11:01)
Yeah. Exactly.
Zach Richards (11:02)
The running joke. So
Chris Garrison (11:05)
Oh, that's funny. It's so I mean but to to go back to that question is um so many people think they need to be a great technician to be successful at business and so that's what makes them go into business for themselves and um the reality is is you will get some work but you will never get enough work to grow it so that you can grow a team if you're just great at the technical side of whatever service you offer. Um the other thing is is uh we underestimate how much effort and how long it will take because we hear the success stories. Social media is fantastic. Yes. Um YouTube is fantastic. It gives us inspiration, but it those are the outliers of what you see on there majority of the time. Or it's posers. I heard a really good uh reel. Um couple of my friends sent me a real and it was this pastor and he was talking about these ground bees uh that came up when he was mowing, bush hoging. Ground bees came up, stung him. So he walks in the feast store to go get something to kill these jokers. And so they walk he walks in, the two guys sitting at the counter said, I forgot the terminology of the the name of the bees, so we're going to keep calling them ground bees. So they said ground bees. And he goes, "Yep." because he was all swollen and puffed up where they just tore his butt up. All right. So, um they said, "You need some gas. Wait till the evening, let him come back, pour the gas in the hole, and then light the gas on fire and it'll take care of the colony and and you won't have to worry about him anymore." So, he goes back and he gets the gas and he's got five gallons. And then he's like, "Hey, I got another 15 gallons in the hole." So, he tells his um partner there to go get the other 15 gallons. So he pours now he's got 20 gallons of gas in the hole and he's thinking this will take care of this colony of bees and I'll never have to worry about him again. He he tells his partner he said step back for a second and he goes and lights the match and he said I lit the match and that's all I uh that's all I kind of remembered from that moment. He said, "So, I walked in uh the feed store the next day and
Mike Seidl (13:09)
with no eyebrows and no hair."
Chris Garrison (13:11)
The two guys looked at him and they said, "Too much gas." And he said, "Yeah." And he said, "It's because I was missing my eyebrows, eyebrows, my hair, and everything." And he said, "So, we looked at him and he said, "How much gas did y'all use?" And they said, "Oh, I don't know. We've never done it." And that's the problem with social media and what most folks are getting their advice from. They're taking advice from people that's never done it before, but they have theory. And therefore, this is why you see people walking away almost dead from trying what someone else has never tried.
Zach Richards (13:47)
Yeah. Excellent point.
Mike Seidl (13:48)
Okay. Well, then let me ask this. I know you said that you were banging your head against the wall for a period of time before you really started to grow. uh before you were 30, you got divorced at 30, took two years working with your dad, then at 32, you went off on your own again. What is transparent? What is transferable from what you learned to other people in blue collar that you can explain to them beyond what was very extremely important what you just said as in terms of don't just listen to YouTube and don't just listen to Facebook because some of these people have never poured gas into a hole in the ground and they have all their hair.
Chris Garrison (14:29)
Yeah. So, so, so let me just give you the fundamentals of kind of my financial literacy. Um, you know, I like to deal in frameworks and when I teach my team, you know, the restoration industry, I try to build frameworks because it's easily understood and digested. And matter of fact, it helps me. Um, I prefer an eighth grade level, maybe even a third grade level of communication. And so, I just try to communicate on the same. Um, then you don't leave anybody out, right? So when I look at the financial liter literacy side of things, um you know, if you're going to take a withdrawal, there's got to be a deposit, right? So question is is what type of deposits, what type of assets are you accumulating so that you can make withdrawals from later? And so I think the knowledge of how something works is a great asset to deposit into your piggy bank. I also think that um your people around you um people with positive mindset, people with a desire to learn, people that are constantly trying to do something new that's going to better them and the things around them. That is a deposit that I want to make in my life because I can learn from them. I can get borrowed belief from them. I can um uh I can collaborate with them and brainstorm out loud to help me understand what I'm trying to understand because most of the time we have the answers in us. We just need to hear ourselves think out loud and then we have those aha moments. The other thing is is debt. Many people get scared of debt. So debt used correctly, debt used on assets that produce new income is a great uh asset to put into your piggy bank. So, I'll give you a great example, and we your community is going to know this example. If I sit there and I go um take debt out on a uh piece of real estate that I'm going to rent, all I'm doing is making sure that my rent pays for the debt and leaves me a little cash flow so that I can put back in reserve so that when something breaks, I have money sitting on the sideline to cover that and I don't have to go in Chris's personal piggy bank to cover that repair bill. So it's just a matter of saying so that is healthy debt. That is debt that doesn't scare me and I will take as much debt as you will give me as long as someone else is covering the expenses of that uh debt payment because every time the payment's made, I'm building equity and it's it's breaking my debt down and it's building me equity because I've got a non-depreciating asset like real estate sitting in my portfolio. So um the other thing is is I'm always trying to have visibility. That's the other asset. So I want the personal brand because if I have visibility and many people get scared of judgment and they're like ah so many people hate on you on social media and all that. Well, I had those same thoughts when I turned about 30 and heard that Grant Cardone statement and I thought, you know what? This just means that I will have to be able to justify every action I make in case anyone ever tries to challenge me. I'm not an aggressive type personality. I'm not a type A personality, D on the disc, assessment, whatever you want to call it. Um, I am a people pleaser. I like to I'm can be considered a chameleon. I can go into any group and I can find a way to sit there and blend in with that group. But at the same time there's a part of me that really wants to achieve and so I naturally start to have people recognize me when I do get in groups. Um so in that process I am trying to make sure that whatever I say online I have a reasoning behind it and I can justify it. So, I'm very careful not to just repeat whatever, you know, flim flam I hear from the another influencer. And that ability to get out and let people hear what I do and what I'm about and see. This is why I'm on this podcast with you guys. It gives me another opportunity to get exposure to new crowd that may not know my name. They hear me. They know my manorisms. They make a judgment call. Am I honest? They make a judgment call. um you know do am I successful when I touch things? And so when people know your story and they know what you're looking for and what you have to offer, it brings opportunity. So that's another and I I call this my financial literacy because if you understand what's assets and what liabilities and I just named off several what I would consider assets, then you know what you should be collecting and depositing in your piggy bank because later you'll get withdrawals. And this is where I come into the givers gain thing. When you give enough and you collect enough, eventually you'll get to make some withdrawals and you'll get given to from the resources you've collected.
Zach Richards (19:26)
Absolutely.
Mike Seidl (19:26)
Yeah. Huge.
Zach Richards (19:28)
So bluecollar businesses, you talked about how you're in the dayto-day of absolute, but you have two other businesses that you're not involved in day-to-day that you own. What are some of the things that what is the first thing or the first couple of things that a bluecollar owner can do to step back from the day-to-day and work on the business versus in the business?
Chris Garrison (19:53)
So, we got to look at our assets. And the biggest asset in a bluecollar business is people.
Zach Richards (19:59)
Yep.
Chris Garrison (19:59)
And so, all of my people, I consider them assets. And I try to pay attention to them like they're assets. So, I'm looking for people that are um you know, humble, that want to uh grow, that want to follow a process, that want to give their opinion and help collaborate on how we can be better. And the more leaders you get in your organization, the less responsibility you have to hold by yourself. We've all heard the analogy, you know, I wear multiple hats. a marketer, then the next 30 minutes I'm a salesman, then the next 30 minutes I'm an operator, then I'm the finance guy. And you just move through and there's so many different um techniques and uh strategies and talents that are required in any business, whether you're a flipping business, a a rental portfolio uh property management company, or a bluecollar trades business. there's so many talents that's required. The more people you can bring on to help hold those responsibilities of individual talents, the better they'll be better than you because, um, Bruce Lee says, um, I don't fear the guy that knows a thousand kicks. I fear the guy that has practiced one kick a thousand times. So if you've got one person that gets to do the same thing over and over again, then they're going to be better than you that's doing that other things. So look for the asset called people. Stack the people in. There is um and you're going to have two different types of people. Some people are meant to just, you know, bring in the muscle. They're they don't care about leader. They're they're they're followers. They're just natural followers. Then you're going to have leaders. And leaders are the ones that are sitting there paying attention to the details. They can see, you know, what's happening here plus what's about to happen and they can kind of orchestrate. It's like the conductor on um the symphony and they're just sitting there leading the entire band. And so I try to find as much as those those are harder to find and when you find them, you got to make a place for them until you grow a place for them to really sit. Um, and so I'm always looking for talent and um, I could almost say one of my jobs is talent acquisition because at the end of the day um, I don't think there's a shortage in capital. I think there's a shortage in talent because there's a lot of money on the sidelines waiting for some great talent to put that money to use. The problem is so many people think that you can get rich by being lazy and it just is not unless you hit the lottery and then most of those folks die because they didn't build the muscle and the the fortitude to be able to handle the responsibility of that kind of money.
Zach Richards (22:50)
Well, I think you're right because a lot of business owners are they love to brag about how they're wearing all these different hats, right? And what they sometimes mean is, "Oh, I'm so busy and I got nothing done. and I didn't do anything that actually moved the needle, but I feel good cuz I'm busy.
Chris Garrison (23:05)
Yeah, busy makes you feel busy, but it doesn't move the needle. And so that's what I'm constantly trying to figure out is um you know, what is my time worth? What is should my time be spent on to move the needle? I still have to trade my time for money on some, you know, busy work that keeps the ship moving forward, but I have to make sure that I'm giving enough time over here for pre-planning, for looking at trends in my reporting, for noticing my leadership's cadences, and seeing where uh processes are breaking because when a process breaks in every business, you have two bosses. You've got your employees and you've got your customers.
Zach Richards (23:51)
Sure.
Chris Garrison (23:52)
And when a process breaks, one of them, if not both of them, are getting dissatisfied. And what happens when they get dissatisfied? They fire you. When your customer fires you, you lo lose revenue. When your employee fires you, you take on new responsibility and you lose sanity. You lose happiness because now you're getting overworked and you're handling too many things. Y so two people in your life that you will constantly be trying to make happy and those are your two bosses and so if you can figure out systems to help you keep these people happy and at the end of the day it boils down to communication and expectations. So, anytime we have a break um or a you know a fire breakout uh per se, if you want to call it that, I always say, "Okay, where did we not communicate well enough?" Because either we didn't communicate what they should expect or we didn't communicate often enough so that they didn't have to come and ask us questions. And I always look at myself first because ultimately um I'm doing the hiring, I'm doing the firing, I'm doing the um I'm making sure the even if I don't design the process, I'm making sure someone's designing the process. That was another thing that I think is worth mentioning. Extreme ownership. That's really what turned my life around in my 30s. I used to make excuses in my 20s and in my 30s. I stopped making excuses and I just said, "What can I do about it?" What happened was is I be I I gained the ultimate freedom when I did that. No longer was I controlled by someone else's actions. It let me be able to control my future because I knew I based off of Chris's ability could go change the situation. May mean I get a divorce. May means that I um I don't get to, you know, get eight hours of sleep at night because I got to work through the night. Whatever the case is, but I got a choice I can make to change and alter my future for the better.
Zach Richards (25:43)
Yeah. very powerful way to think of things.
Mike Seidl (25:46)
I love that. That's cool. So, when you talk about investing in assets, business, real estate, people, yourself, etc. How should someone decide where to invest first? Because you have a finite dollars and time.
Chris Garrison (26:03)
Yeah. So, I will say this until until I I I go blue in the faith face. You invest in yourself. You you are the biggest asset. And I didn't mention that earlier on your assets because I kind of took that as a given. You are your biggest asset. So invest in your knowledge because that knowledge can't be taken away.
Zach Richards (26:26)
All right. Excellent point.
Chris Garrison (26:27)
People can take away your car, your bank account, your business, your real estate, anything else. But I've listened to so many people and they've said, "If it was all taken away today, what would you do?" And they said I would go and I would redo what I did, but I would rebuild it much faster because I have relationships and knowledge that I didn't have before.
Mike Seidl (26:50)
Yes.
Chris Garrison (26:50)
And that is extremely powerful. So invest in yourself and then you you you find some way to create fast money. And whether that's a service business, whether that's you go in and work as a W2 for sales and you start stacking cash, you have to trade time for money first. And then once you have money, then you can start trading money for assets. Now, let me jump on top of that so that I don't make a blanket statement. You don't actually have to have the money, but you need a track record to show someone with money so that they can trust that you know how to deploy their money. So for most people, they need to go trade time for money so that they can show that they know how to grab money and stack money on the sidelines. But if you don't have enough money to go into purchasing assets to where you can create streams of revenue by trading assets like real estate, um then that's when you can reach out to other money partners and use other people's money because you've already proven that you're a good jockey to ride the horse. So, um I say trade your time from money. Build a track record. show that you can be responsible for the money and you don't eat every dime that you make. Um, and then at that point you can get other people to trust you that have done the same thing but have been playing the game longer and then they will partner with you on money and that will help you grow faster and that's where you can use debt in a healthy manner. Um, and now you can start trading assets instead of just trading your time.
Zach Richards (28:30)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And so when you're talking about, you know, you have all these different businesses and you've started the blue collar millionaire and all that, when you look at an opportunity, how do you decide if it's actually something worth investing in or if it's just a shiny object that might be a distraction?
Chris Garrison (28:49)
Well, so that has changed over time. So I'm going to give you my um um gray hair and my beard um comments now, right? So
Zach Richards (29:00)
Okay, let's hear it.
Chris Garrison (29:00)
My answer from from some time in the game is to say put most of your money into what you already know and most of your time into what you already know because every time that you go to learn something new, you're you're starting the learning curve over. And I don't care what it is, there's a learning curve. I mean, every time someone thinks it's simple and it's easy money, that's when you're going to get burned or you're about to go through a uh just a storm of of trials and tribulations and it's going to take a ton of your time and a lot more of your brain power than what you expected. Um, so stay in your lane and then as you get money that you can deploy deploy to diversify, then you send that off with other people like yourself in whatever that niche is. So you find great operators with a proven track record and then you deploy your extra money over there and expect to make a lower return on your money than what the operator would make because the person that is a great operator, your best investment again, you're the biggest asset. So your best investment is going to be you. So you're going to make the biggest return on your time and money. But to diversify once you've gotten so much that you don't know what to do with. When you got so much money, you're like, I don't know what else to do with this and I don't want it to die in the bank. That's when you deploy it with other operators like yourself and you take a smaller return, but you have a bigger return than when inflation is eating up. So I always just mark inflation at 6%. If I can get anything above 6%, then uh it's worth deploying. Now I'm asking how risky is it? because I want to preserve my capital. I want to make sure I don't lose it. The higher the risk, the higher reward, but I don't want to get so risky that I might lose. And if I'm going to get that risky, and it's one of those moonshots, I'm going to treat it like gambling money. I take so much money when I go to the casino to play blackjack, knowing I'm losing this, and I'm just buying so many hours to play for fun. It's entertainment. Yep. So if you can treat it with that mindset and that should be a fraction of your net worth when you deploy it there. But every once in a while you'll hit and you'll see venture capitalists do this and they'll they'll sit there and out of the 10 they're hoping one or two hit and that gives them a return on the investment but they're expecting several of them to to um you know
Mike Seidl (31:33)
and all you hear are about the ones that hit. So you got to keep that in perspective. You don't hear about the nine that went to zero. So everybody thinks, "Oh, I take all this risk and it always works." No,
Chris Garrison (31:43)
nobody wants to share the Yeah. Nobody wants to share the negative while they're in it. They share it when they're out of it. And I'm I'm the same way. One one reason is is I don't want to be negative Nancy. Um when I'm talking to folks, the other thing is it's just embarrassing. But when you've overcame it, then you tell the story. And so everything out there is the overcoming story side. very few people are in the middle of it talking about it. Um, and we just have to you got to put things in perspective. And what you see on social media, you have to remember the majority of it is people that have never done it and they're telling someone else's story. The rest of them is what 30 years. I I just played it to my team this morning. We do a team meeting every Monday morning and inside of I got a windshield business um with three other partners and it's doing fantastic. I mean, um, it it is, uh, I don't even know the multiple. Um, we're almost 10 times we are we're 10 times bigger than we were two years ago when we fantastic. So, I mean, it's just incredible growth. It's a lot of things have aligned all at the right time. But if I told that, it'd be like, "Oh, man. Yeah, he's he's the got the mightest touch. Everything turns to gold." And I'm like, "Man, just things aligned perfectly on this business." And we executed. I mean, I'm not trying to downplay the fact that we didn't execute. Uh, but things lined up and then we executed. And so now we we're getting to reap the rewards of that. And so I I just look at that and I'm like, we I played this video. This guy's been in business for 39 years and he's got a $32 million business. And you could tell he was just living the life. He's in five different states, hardcaping business. And I I stopped playing it and I said, "What did y'all pick up there?" And so there were several little things like set a two-year goal but try to achieve it in one year then reset. Um get great at your craft, stuff like that. But I said no none of them caught it. And I said it took him 39 years to get where he's at.
Zach Richards (33:45)
Yep.
Chris Garrison (33:47)
Most people won't last two years and they quit and say it's just not the industry. That's right. They give all the excuses why, but it takes a long time to build big money. And I know people that have trunk 32 million, but 32 million is some dang good money. I mean, you ain't got to, you will never have to work again. You got 32 million sent. And what people don't understand, too, it's not linear growth. You know, you spend those first years really struggling and then it takes off and then it drops again. I mean, there's a breaking point. I before we started this podcast, I told y'all, "Hey, I was here and then all of a sudden and now I'm like in the trenches. I mean, if I need to put the shovel in my hand, I'm putting the shovel in my hand. If I got to put the white button-up shirt to go make a meeting, I put the white button-up shirt. I'm swapping hats just constantly. And but through that process, I'm learning so much. So much is being built in me. And these are things that are going to make me 10 years from now, man, I can't even imagine what my life's going to look like as a business owner. Um, my, you know, what my finances are going to look like. There's just so much experience being piled in so fast. And that is the benefit of technology. we get to absorb and get uh opportunities so much quicker with the way that we're connected because of technology like virtual uh communications like this podcast, um Facebook, Instagram, whatever the case is. So, there's no excuse not to win except that you're not doing what you should be doing. Um here's another little favorite thing I like to tell myself and my team around me. I'm like, look, you're living in the results from yesterday's decisions. So, whatever you did yesterday has stuck you where you're supposed to you're exactly where you're supposed to be at based off of your actions from yesterday. Now, the question is, if you don't like where you're at, what are you going to do today so that tomorrow looks different. And if tomorrow doesn't look different, then you only have yourself to blame. Because if you want change, you have to change something. And if you want something different, something has to get sacrificed. You filled your time. Your 24 hours a day, you have filled it up with something. So if you want something else in it, you got to sacrifice something. So what are you going to sacrifice to be able to enter something else that you prefer and desire more?
Zach Richards (36:12)
Chris, this has been a lot of information.
Mike Seidl (36:15)
Yes, this is fantastic. No, I remember sitting in uh when you joined the mastermind that we're still part of together and I can see your growth over that period of time. I remember when you started Blue Collar Millionaire and you know you guys were just putting out content and how many members do you have now
Chris Garrison (36:37)
in the Facebook? Oh man, I think it's 360,000 something like that. Maybe 350,000. I I don't even hardly look at it anymore because it's just gotten ridiculous.
Mike Seidl (36:46)
I know. Well, I remember how excited you were when you got to 10,000.
Chris Garrison (36:50)
Yeah.
Mike Seidl (36:50)
And then when you got to matter fact, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Uh, let me see if I can
Chris Garrison (36:57)
You sent me this
Mike Seidl (36:59)
when you got to 100,000.
Chris Garrison (37:01)
At the 100,000 mark. Isn't that insane? I still have it sitting on my window over here. So, it is uh, you know, it's been a journey and and and I'll I'll be very transparent. I have to remind myself a lot that you got to have fun.
Mike Seidl (37:19)
Yeah. And
Zach Richards (37:20)
sure,
Chris Garrison (37:20)
my personality type, you know, when we get at our events and and our mastermind events and whatnot, we get together and I have a lot of fun, but on like the daytoday, I have to remember, don't be so serious, Chris. Have fun. It's it's it's not the goal and the destination because that constantly moves. It's the journey, and you have to enjoy the journey. And so, occasionally, I'll have reminders. I'll look over and see that and and then I'm you know I I had the guy that I rented my first building to uh from walk in and and he just bought um a roof system from us and on his commercial property and it was a really big purchase and he walked in and he saw the the building that we've been in for the last 5 years and he said he kind of put a grin on his face and he just looks around and he said man y'all have come such a long way Chris and I I'd had a really tough day very stressful day that day. And I said, and I appreciate you saying that, it made me reflect just then and I needed to remember that today because we have come a really long way, a really long way from when I had just, you know, a fro with uh a generic blue polo and some khakis and I had a panel van behind me with a magnet on it. And I just think, you know, one day at a time and before you know it, 10 years later, you look and you've got this beautiful building with an amazing team and all these assets and friends like you guys um that know my name, that care about me. If something went sideways, I know I could reach out and um y'all would uh help me in some kind of manner. And I'm just like, man, we forget. Enjoy the journey along the way because um that's what it's about.
Zach Richards (39:01)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Seidl (39:02)
Absolutely. I know with my second business which was in restoration as well. I did not enjoy the journey at all and I wanted to kill people and bury them in the desert.
Zach Richards (39:11)
Uh literally.
Mike Seidl (39:12)
Um not that I thought about it but you know maybe I did. Um but no it's definitely I agree. Enjoy the journey with a with a lending business now that I have. I enjoy the journey a lot more. Um it makes it more enjoyable.
Zach Richards (39:26)
So Chris, we've been on for almost 40 minutes now. We want to be respectful of your time. What parting information or wisdom would you leave for somebody who's starting a bluecollar business or is in the trenches and they feel like they're not getting anywhere or they feel like um it it they they feel like they're just not having fun and they want to bury somebody in the desert.
Chris Garrison (39:51)
Yeah. So, uh I'm going to I'm going to give a little bit. Give me five minutes here. I'm going to say what's your environment currently and is that environment helping you achieve what you want? A positive mindset, a happier outlook on your day-to-day, whatever the case is. You might have a bunch of toxic people around you and you may have to churn some of those people and then set a new cadence and then bring new people in on that cadence. Don't be scared to change your environment because your environment is easier to create good habits in than willpower. power. Willpower can only do so much. If I don't want cookies, I'm not buying the cookies to stick in my pantry because I know I don't have to bite myself when I really have a craving for a cookie if I'm trying to do a diet. So, that there's an example there. The other thing is is um taking in the information that's relevant to you that uh you're you need to try to achieve your goals. So, there's a couple of books that I recommend. One is going to be traction. That's just kind of a fundamentals of how a business is ran by Gino Wigman. Um the other one is going to be Empire Builder by Adam Coffee. Um and that talks about business acquisitions because I believe everything that you build should be built so that it's predictable outcomes because when you have predictable outcomes, you have an asset. Otherwise, it's completely dependent upon you and therefore it's not an asset to someone else. It's only an asset to you as long as you work it. And the other thing is um is track your activities. When someone says uh I can't find anybody good to work for me, I ask what are you doing to try to find people good to work for you? When someone says I don't have any leads for my business, I ask what are you doing to try to get leads for your business? If you just tell me word of mouth, that's not doing anything. You're letting everybody else do the work. So, exactly. Ask yourself, what are your activities currently in in what you're trying to achieve? And almost everything can be fixed if you'll just pay attention to what your activities are because then you'll realize you're actually doing nothing and that's why you're complaining about
Zach Richards (42:02)
I like that.
Mike Seidl (42:03)
Gotcha.
Zach Richards (42:05)
All right. Well, Chris, this has been fun. Um, really appreciate you spare sharing your time. I know you're in the trenches right now. We talked be before we started taping. You're really busy. you got a lot of stuff going on, so we appreciate your time. If people want to get a hold of you, what's a good way to do that? And we'll put the information in the show notes.
Chris Garrison (42:23)
Yeah. So, my phone number is I'm just joking. Uh you can see me
Zach Richards (42:28)
feel free to call me anytime 247.
Chris Garrison (42:31)
You can see me on um Facebook. Uh Facebook's where I'm at. That's where I'm going to respond. I'm on Instagram and the other platforms, but I don't check them much. Um and then you can check me out in BlueCollar Millionaire Facebook group. Huge community. a lot of free advice and then we have gettogethers, we have dinners and uh private coaching groups and whatnot. So, if you ever want to just come and hang out with me and a bunch of other um you know, ambitious individuals, that's a great way to get plugged into my environment. So, Facebook and in the Facebook community, bluecollar millionaire.
Zach Richards (43:04)
Fantastic. All right, man. Thank you very much for your time. It's very much appreciated, my friend.
Chris Garrison (43:09)
Appreciate you, Mike, Zach. Thanks.