Manage, Protect, Grow: A Practical Path to Financial Self-Reliance Episode #77

Samuel: Hey world, welcome back to another episode of Be Inspired Podcast where we're inspiring you to live the abundant life you deserve. I got another awesome guest on the line. His name is Parish Clef, and he's gonna teach us all about money today. So what if your biggest money problem isn't your income, but your relationship with money? A lot of us were never taught how to manage money. We learn how to make it, but not necessarily how to manage it, protect it, or grow it. And sometimes the issue isn't that we don't make enough, it's the habits, it's the emotions, it's the decisions we make when nobody's watching. So today we're gonna go beyond budgets, bank accounts, and investment. We're talking about financial reliance, financial self-reliance. What does it really mean to become confident with your money and ultimately take responsibility for your financial life when you're building it? Because financial freedom isn't just about having more money. It starts with learning how to think differently about the money you already have. So I have Paris Clough on the line. He's been married with to the same woman for over 29 years and is a proud father of five children and two sons in laws. He has experienced significant financial hardship, including losing everything and relying on food stamps, but rebuilt his life to achieve a six figure passive income and a six figure liquid network. So welcome Paris on the line.

Paris Cluff: Thank you, Samuel. I appreciate it. And that was a great introduction.

Samuel: You're welcome. You're welcome. So tell us a little bit before financial self-reliance became your mission. What was your own relationship with money like?

Paris Cluff: Yeah, that's a great question. I I started in two thousand and one. well, I think it was around there. I actually got a job working in corporate America. And a couple of years after that, I had the HR department come and tell me that I had qualified for the four one K. And, you know, I was like, What's what's how do you spell four one K? What is what's a four hundred one K? What does that mean? I was like, Who what is that? You know, so All I knew about money back then was that it was green and I wanted more of it. Right. So I decided I was gonna learn how to make a good choice with this four one K that I had been given. And so I wanted to learn to me it was important. Like, how do I who do I marry? What house do I buy? Like what how do I save for retirement? Like that's an important thing and something you should determine early, because the earlier the best time to invest was twenty years ago. The next best time is today. Like don't wait. and so I realized that I needed to get money in the market and get going and growing. And so I just decided to read a bunch of books, learn a bunch of things about how money worked, interest rates and rule of seventy-two and you know, tax advantages and liquidity and all these cool concepts. And I read about half a dozen books maybe in a couple of what months and realized that I had a lot to learn still. And I finally got confident enough to invest my 401k and pick my choices, make my choices. And I had a coworker turn to me and say, Paris, she she sat right next to me. She says, I see you're reading all these books. And I just qualified for the 401k two. Would you would you kind of share with me what you learned and help me with mine? And I was really confused because she was older than I was. I'm like, what do you mean? You should know what you're doing. Like I'm I was this, you know, 21, 22 year old kid and she was, you know, in her thirties. And I figured she'd, you know, had a few experiences and should know how to pick the right thing. And she says, I've never no one's ever really taught me how to do it. And I said, Well, I don't I'm not a professional, but I'll share with you what I've learned in these books and what what I felt like I knew to d to give me confidence enough to to pick my own. And in the process of explaining to her what I had done and how I had learned what I had learned, she says, Paris, you have a gift. Like you've taken something that I've never been really able to understand and you've made it simple and easy to understand. And I finally get it. Like I finally get what this is. And you should do this for a living, she said. And I thought, Huh, maybe I should. You know, grow growing up in in, you know, a middle middle, middle class kind of family, you know, we didn't have a We didn't have all of the nice things, but I, you know, one of the one I in fact I was just talking to my mom the other day and she says, Remember when you wanted to buy those converse high tops? And I said, Yeah. She says, I made you save up 50%. And then I got I paid the other 50%. We got you those converse high tops. And do you remember And I was like, yeah, that's kind of cool. So I learned a little bit about work ethic because I had to save, I had to come up with 50% of the, you know, so to speak, to to get the converse high tops. And my mom came up with the other fifty percent. And so that was something that we it was that was one example of many times that we kind of had that same strategy for things that I wanted or we needed or we wanted. And I, you know, I didn't I didn't necessarily feel a lack, but I knew I wasn't

Samuel: Yeah.

Paris Cluff: the richest kid in school. You know, I knew there was kids that would make fun and stuff like that. And so my mom was a seamstress and she liked to make clothes. And so sometimes you'd show up to school with clothes that mom made. but they were always really good quality. I mean I didn't really but it wasn't the name brand, didn't have the tag on it, so to speak. So But we grew up in a in a relatively good life. And so go coming into money, I didn't realize, you know, I I knew I was gonna make money and I was gonna do well and I was gonna have my own family and stuff of that nature. And I had the confidence and the skill set to know. And I that's kind of my mom and dad taught me those things as I grew up to have that confidence. And so I knew I was gonna do well, but I didn't realize the skill sets that I really needed to learn to become wealthy, to turn that income into wealth. And I think that's something that kind of really opened my eyes. And I'm grateful that I started with that lady. Who said you should do this for a living, kind of got the wheels turning for me. And I went and asked, you know, I found I went to go to college to get a degree in finance. And in the process of doing that, I met with a recruiter for a financial services firm and they said, Paris, you can work with us part time. And I said, that's cool. And they said, Well, you can earn you can go to school and you can learn and then earn, or you can come work with us part time and you can earn while you learn. And I was like, hmm, earn while I learn. I like that idea. So that's where I started, Samuel. in the industry is earn while I learned. And I I learned a lot and I learned fast because I was actually in the industry, the money industry. And so some of the strategies I'm just grateful that I've learned early. you know, there's a there's a thing though, Sammy, when you when you feel like you know something, sometimes you feel like you're actually doing it, even though you're not. Like I knew about the strategies around money and I was doing well, but every time I'd make money, I would still spend it more than I should. And so I came to a crashing realization at one point when I lost everything that I probably should have saved even more. I probably should have been more d diligent and more self-reliant in my pursuit of wealth and pursuit of of becoming, you know, self-reliant and resilient. And it took a hard lesson to to finally teach that. But ever since that lesson, I've been in a place where, you know, yeah, I've been okay. I've been good. And it's been it's been wonderful to have learned the lesson once and not have to repeat it.

Samuel: Yeah. So tell me a little bit because you talked about your not having not being the richest kid in school. and some of those beliefs that you had of growing up. What are some of those beliefs you had to let go in order to become the person to that you are today?

Paris Cluff: Yeah. I realized one of the things I realized was that money money needs to be talked about more, communicated about more. I think that we t a lot of times we don't talk about it because we think it's there's some taboo or or there's some shame and blame around it. And I feel like one of the things that I saw growing up is that, you know, sometimes my dad would come home with something and My mom would be like, Why did you buy that? And he's like, Well, because it was on sale. I got a deal, you know. And even if we didn't need it, it was like, Okay, well, that was great. And the other thing I would see a lot is my parents would f, you know, sometimes their siblings weren't doing as well. And so they would try to, you know, as we were sometimes we'd go visit our cousins and visit our aunts and uncles and, you know, they'd slip them a twenty dollar bill to say, Hey, I know you're not doing so well. We're doing a little better right now. So we we'll help you. And And they would argue and they would fight and they'd say, like, no, no, you keep it. You need you need it more than I like. And it was just back and forth. And I just remember sometimes even driving away and they're throwing money at the into the car window and like they're throwing it back at like there's just this weird interaction with it with my aunts and uncles that my parents had. And I thought to myself, you know, I don't want to do that. If somebody's gonna have if if I wanna give somebody money and they say no, I'm not gonna force them to take it. And if somebody's gonna give me money, I'm gonna say yes because that's that's a gift to them to allow them to give to me. And so some of the money beliefs that I had early on that I changed were I'm just gonna be more open about money. I'm not gonna try to hide things and I'm gonna communicate more with my spouse and with my children and with others about how money really works and stop this nonsense of, you know, nope, you shouldn't talk about money with your friends and family and your kids. Cause that's that's produced a result today. where now we have money is the leading cause of stress, money is a leading cause of divorce, ruining families. And it's it doesn't have to be that way. And I feel like if we would just talk about it more, we would be more open about it. We would just realize, hey, it's okay. We all make bad decisions about money. I've made bad decisions about money. I've lost more money than I want to tell you because I've done dumb things. And it's okay. And sometimes we just get, you know, we see the neighbor doing so well and we're thinking wow, they must have done better. And they probably didn't. Maybe they're in a season where they're doing better right now, but I bet you a hundred bucks that either they've lost a lot before or they're about to lose a lot in the future. Cause nobody gets out of this life without having some of these roller coaster rides with their money, you know? And so if we just all remember that and realize that and say, Hey, look, let's help each other. Let's instead of trying to one up each other, let's and and compete with one another. Let's try to collaborate and coordinate. And I think we'll get a lot further along if we did that. But that's my th my opinion and my belief now.

Samuel: Yeah, yeah, that's that's interesting. And you said a lot of things and one of the things that I wanna ask is like when did you realize that people don't just need more financial information, they need to change the way they think about money.

Paris Cluff: So when I was first started in the business, and I have a free gift to offer your audience if they're interested. But when I first started in the business, I would I was trained, you know, Paris, here's all of the products and services. You're a financial advisor now. Here's the mutual funds, here's the products that services that our company offers. Go out and sell them. Go out and, you know, make money. And so I'd call on friends, family, neighbors, referrals. Just anybody that I could leads, whatever, I'd call and I'd say, Hey, look, I got this great investment opportunity. I got this great strategy, this tax advantages, liquidity, I got rate great rates of return, like all these things, right? And a lot of people would just tell me, Paris, you don't have we don't have enough money. We don't have any money to to to buy we're in debt. We have our budgets doesn't allow for it right now. And I'm like, Well, what do I need to do to help people really believe that they can actually have the cash flow to be able to do these things. Because I think there's no lack for investments. There's plenty of real estate investments and business ideas and there's plenty of stocks to purchase. So what's the real big issue? Right now, Americans have they're woefully underfunded for retirement. Like it's every study you look at you it across the board, every firm, every Fidelity, BlackRock, all of these people who do studies, they recognize that the average American they're not gonna make it to retirement. And to me, it was like, what what's the difference? It's really about funding. So I decided I was gonna teach people how to create a surplus in their income and their expen between their income and their expenses. So make make more money or spend less money than you're making. And not, you know, I don't talk about beans and rice, you know, that you still have to have a nice lifestyle, but at the same time you could be more disciplined and maybe put three or four hundred, five hundred, six hundred dollars a month That's leaking out of your bank account to better use. And so one of the things that I found was how I learned a lesson of my own in my own personal budgeting about why it's so important to be disciplined and really plug those money leaks. And so if if somebody wants to download my free ebook, you can go to ParisClough.com forward slash free gift. That's ParisCleft.com forward slash free gift. And that's an ebook that describes the process that I went through to learn how $10 here, $20 there can add up to hundreds of dollars a month. And before you know it, you're you're like, wait a minute, where did all my money go? Well, it went to all these frivolous spendage expenditures that you you didn't even think about or realize. It kind of slipped under the radar because it was just ten or twenty dollars here and there. And then in the ebook, not only do I give you the strategy to help you identify those spending leaks, but then I also give you some hope about how you can moving forward start tracking your expenses more efficiently and effectively and really making sure dialing in what you're what you're Money habits are going forward. Cause I think if I was to sit down with a couple and I was to say, okay, I'm going to give you a million dollars, they're going to rejoice. They're not going to argue with each other. They're not going to be angry with each other about income, about money coming in. Now, if I sat down with them, I said, okay, how are we going to spend this million dollars? That's where the argument starts coming in. Like, I want to buy this, I want to buy that. No, we we can't afford that. We want to buy this. So it's really about spending. that's the argument. It's not about the income. So if I can teach you how to discipline your spending and get on the same page with spending and develop a strategy around spending money, I think that's going to reduce stress. It's going to increase the likelihood that you'll stay married and your family will stay together and you're going to have a wonderful life. And so to me, I help I really want to help people understand their spending habits. And once they understand their spending habits, they can make changes. I don't tell people what to do. I say let's just identify your current habits. And then I ask them, is this habit serving you? Do you want to keep that habit or do you want to exchange it for a better habit? And they decide, they say, Paris, yeah, we see this. You've you've educated us, you've shown us, you've made us aware of our spending habits and the different other habits that we have and the beliefs that we have around money. We don't want to continue with these some of these habits and beliefs. And some of them we love and we want to continue with. And those are the str strong good ones. And I say, yes, absolutely. Let's let's fund those habits and beliefs. But the habits and beliefs that are that are taking away from your success. We want to change those ones as soon as possible. And that's kind of how I how I w work. And I hope that answers your question, Sam.

Samuel: Yeah, sure. so what do you hear when someone say, I'm just not good with money? What do you hear underneath that statement?

Paris Cluff: I hear that they've made mistakes in the past and they're blaming themselves and they're they just don't have the confidence to know that they probably made a decision with not enough education and more and too much based on emotion. a lot of times people tell me too another one is that I'm not good at math. And I believe that money has more to do with behaviors, habits, and beliefs than it does with math. Now, don't get me wrong, money does have a lot to do with math, and you need to be relatively decent with math, but Thankfully we have calculators today, right? And so we don't necessarily need to be too good with math. We just need to kind of know what the inputs are and make sure we we put push the right buttons. but really it boils down to habits, behaviors, and beliefs around money. And so if you don't feel like you're good with money, it probably stems from an experience or multiple experiences that you've had or your friends, family, and neighbors have had, and that you learned gr about growing up and that you heard that money was hard and that money was. elusive and that money was only for you know only the only way to get more money is to be mean and to walk on people or to, you know, be a tyrant or to be a dictator or to be a miser or to be something you know, the all these negative things around I mean, shoot, the Bible says that, you know, it's easier for a rich man to walk through the eye of a needle than it is to get into heaven, right? So the idea is like, why do we want to have these things? The root of the the root of evil or money is the root of all evil, something like that. You know,

Samuel: Yeah, yeah.

Paris Cluff: So we we get these especially as Christians, I'm a Christian, and we get these ideas that money is bad. And it's not that money is evil because we forget the we forget the first part of that scripture that says the love of money is the root of all evil. Not money. Money is a tool. Money reveals you. I ha I have a saying, a lot of people say money doesn't make you, it reveals you. And then I added to that and said, and it then it magnifies you. So if you're a jerk and you have a ton of money, you're only going to be a bigger jerk. If you're a f if you're a loving kind individual, more money is only going to make you more loving and kind and and and giving. you know, not to I'm I'm only sharing this because it's an example. my family and I were out with some friends and we were walking to a restaurant and we saw a gentleman lying on the street. He was asleep on this on the on the sidewalk. And my family said, you know what? Let's let's how much let's so see if he's hungry and let's give him some food. And I actually went and woke him up And invited him into the restaurant. I know the owner of the restaurant, because I go to that restaurant a lot. And I said, Hey, this gentleman, whatever he wants, I'll pay for it. Just make sure he gets it before the bus. Cause he was actually waiting for the bus. And I said, just make sure he gets the food before the bus comes. And so I don't I'm not I only share that to show that when you have a a an abundant mindset, you and you have money and you're a good person, money can serve you and give you opportunities to do good in t in the world. And so I You know, f whoever's listening right now, raise your hand. Do you want to do more good in the world? If you want to do more good in the world, raise your hand and that's why you need more money. You need to get moneyed up so that you can magnify good in the world and not be selfish and not be a jerk and not be, you know, a tyrant, but you get what you need, live modestly, have a nice life of your own, and then take that extra and and just help the world become a better place. I think that's a huge part of it. When people say that they don't believe that they're good with money. It's because they just don't have the confidence to know that they can do good things with it and that it's worth their effort and time to learn the skills necessary to be able to obtain it.

Samuel: Thank you for sharing that. So can making more money actually make someone's financial problems worse?

Paris Cluff: Yes. Absolutely. And do you want me to explain?

Samuel: Yeah, tell me more.

Paris Cluff: So how you manage a thousand dollars a month is how you're gonna manage ten thousand dollars a month. So if you can't discipline your spending, if you're s if you make a thousand a month and you spend a thousand a month, I more than likely you if you make ten thousand, you're gonna spend ten thousand because your habits are the same. You haven't changed your habits, you haven't changed your beliefs around money. A lot of pi times people get a raise. I mean, this is that was a huge, you know, jump from a thousand to ten thousand. But let me give it in more realistic terms. let's say you're moving along, you have a nice job, you have a salary, maybe you're hourly, whatever, you have your nice $15, $20 an hour, whatever it is, and you get a raise. Now you're at $21 an hour instead of $20. Well, that's only a dollar an hour more, and you think no big deal, but that's, you know, over that's $40 a a week, potentially. If you're working 40 hours, that's $160 a month. So what are you doing with that $160 a month? Well, most people, they'll just, it's called lifestyle creep. They'll spend it. they'll go spend it and they'll they won't save it. So whenever I got a raise or whenever I got an additional income, for example, I have I have a business that pays. And then if I get a new client and I make a little extra, I'll take a percentage of it. I do percentages. I take a percentage of that and I save my save for taxes. I take a percentage of that and I give tie you know, I tithe, you know, what I to my church. And then I take a percentage for savings and I take a percentage for spending. And so you're like, well, Paris, that's a lot of percentage potentials. Exactly. W it that's part of the discipline is when when a dollar comes in, you gotta f tell it where to go. Cause if you aren't intentional with your money, you're gonna give it to people who are. And so my my goal with people is helping them. Once it hits your bank account, it shouldn't just bounce right out into some purchase. Once it hits your bank account, take a minute. Leave it there for a while. Let it let it kind of marinate, if you will. But let that money do good for you and figure out what you really want to do with that dollar. Because once I have a mantra, once you spend a dollar, you can't spend it again. So you only get one chance to spend a dollar. Once it's spent, it's gone. So make sure you're spending it in the way that you really will have value and bring value to your life. And so that's one of the things that that I think that if you spend, if you make more money before you've developed the habits necessary to manage that more money, you're gonna just put yourself right back on the treadmill. I know people that make fifty thousand dollars a year and they have they have more discipline than those that make a hundred thousand dollars a year. And so they have way more money. It's not how much you make, it's how much you keep and how you manage it after you make it. And I think too many people are out there making six figures thinking, well, we've made it, we've arrived, we've we're making six figures. Yeah, but if your habits haven't changed, you you're still on the treadmill. You're still in the rat. the hamster wheel.

Samuel: And you talk about those people that make six figures, and you experience it too as far as like hitting the rock bottom. So talk a little bit about the mindset you had to have to get out of that dark place because you know, losing a six figure income and going to zero, you know, that's where people start paying attention to the money. So talk a little bit about that and what you experienced.

Paris Cluff: So I I actually had thankfully I was smart enough to put a couple of bucks in savings every month, before I lost everything, which gratefully gave me a few months before I had to f you know, actually start surrendering my car and my house and other things. But unfortunately the the downturn in two thousand eight lasted longer than my savings. And so I was a little bit frustrated about that and I was just sad and you know, I I really had a place where I was depressed and I spent a lot of time wondering about my my worth as a man, as a provider, as a presider, and as a protector of my family. And you know, to go from a decent a r a good business, you know, knocking on the door sick figures to zero and food stamps and Medical and you just it does something to your psyche and your mental health, right? And especially as a man who we men, we love to give we often associate with our net worth. Which is our money and how our ability to provide and preside, which is huge. And that's true because w our wives and our women, they look for that safety. And we so we need to be providers and be able to do that. And so I think it's important and it should be something that we considered carefully. and as I lost everything, I started to realize what is my real worth as a man, as a as a husband, as a father. And it taught me that it's more than the money, but the money is definitely part of it. So I One of the things that I did, I spent a lot of time on my knees. I'm a God fearing man and I love I I just prayer is a big part of my life. And so I spent a lot of time on my knees and I I got a lot of answers from God that he just told me, You don't we'll we'll get through this. It'll be okay. Yes, it's hard. Yes, you're experiencing the probably the some of the biggest hardships you've had in your life to this point, but we're gonna get through it together. And I just really felt that faith and that hope. And I decided, you know what? If God's with me, I can do it. And I can figure it out. And so I just slowly started to try to figure it out. I started to set goals. I started to make plans. I started to make strategies. I realized that if I had maybe there was just something I needed to learn, something that I needed to do differently. And you know, there's an old saying if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. And I realized if if what I'm getting is what I I don't want, then maybe I should start doing something different. And so that was a huge part of it as I part of my strategy was Okay, what I've what I did before gave me the result I'm experiencing. I don't want the result I'm experiencing. So I need to change what I was doing before. So I went back and I evaluated what I was doing and how I was doing and how I was living. And I and instead of having this attitude of everything's great and I'm always going to be making money and and I'm I'm rich and I'm going to be rich and God wants me to be rich so I can give more tithing. You know what I mean? Like this whole attitude of arrogance and pride, I decided God was saying, Look, I don't need your money. I just need you. I need your heart. And so I I said, let's go. And I changed. And as soon as I made that change, I stopped I stopped chasing money. And I started chasing like, what was my calling in life? What was I supposed to do? And how was I supposed to help people? And how was I supposed to be different? And it's just one of those things. Sometimes you what you change from what you're doing isn't physically what you're doing. Sometimes what you change is your mentality and your mindset around why you're doing it and how you and how you're doing it. And so that's something that well, that was the first thing that I changed because I I asked God, I was like, So am I supposed to change to a new career? And he said, No, keep the same career, but change how you do it. Change your mindset around what you teach people and how you live. And so now I teach what I live and I live what I teach. And that's been a huge difference for me coming out of that hardship because I think that a lot of financial guys out there, and it's kind of funny that one of the things is like, would you give your money to a guy who calls himself a broker? Like he's broker. He's broker than you. So don't give your money to that guy. Well, that's kind of a funny way of of using it. But, you know, I wanted to live I wanted to live in a way that when people saw what I was doing, they would say Paris has the moral authority to teach us about how to build wealth because he's actually doing it. And so that was a big difference. As I really focused on myself. And then I was said, once I'm full, I can overflow. You can't pour from a empty cup. So I needed to become full and then I could pour from that. And I could give out to people and give to people. And so that was the first thing that I realized is that I needed to to fix myself first.

Samuel: Yeah, it's it's good that you take that approach of fixing yourself first and then also leading by example because most leaders out there, you know, they say do this, do this, do this, but they themselves don't do it. So it's good that you have

Paris Cluff: Mm-hmm.

Samuel: the mindset of doing it so you could teach people and show them the way versus saying the way and you're not really sure, you know?

Paris Cluff: Exactly.

Samuel: So, what's one financial habit that looks completely normal in society, but can quietly keep someone financially stuck?

Paris Cluff: I think one of the well in general, a financial habit is using your credit card more than you should. the mentality of buy now, pay later, I think that's a big one that needs to be adjusted dramatically. I teach people in my coaching program to instead of buy now, pay later, save now and buy from savings. So if you want to buy a Let's say you want to buy a well, let's do something a car. I still believe that a car is good to sometimes we need to put that and finance a little bit of that. But if you can pay for a car cash, that's better. But let's say that you want to go on a vacation and you you know, you know you want to go somewhere and you can kind of determine how much it costs. Well, let's say that it costs a thousand dollars to go on this little weekend to get away that you wanna do and you have a hundred bucks a month that you can put aside for it. I would not Go on vacation for 10 months. I would put aside a hundred dollars a month. Once I have the thousand, then I would go on vacation. and I would pay for that. If you want to buy a TV or you want to put rims on your car, or you want to buy something that, you know, a a new couch or don't pay for those things on credit. I mean, the the credit card companies and the store cards are gonna be angry with what I'm saying right now, but good. They make too much money already. We don't they don't need more of your interest. So I

Samuel: Yeah.

Paris Cluff: think that's one financial habit that a lot of people will just swipe the card or they'll hit, you know, especially you know, Amazon is a big one. You know, people just go on Amazon and they click a button and two days later it's at their front porch and they don't realize that I'm hey, I'm gonna have to pay for this in 30 days, you know, with my credit card statement. And so that's I think a big one. I think another big one is that people think that they have all the time in the world. And they think, well, I'm 20, 25, I'm 30. I have plenty of time to invest. I have plenty of time to put money aside. I have plenty of time to save. And by the time they get to 50 or 60, they realize, holy snaps, I did not save enough. I did not save soon enough. I should have saved sooner and I should have saved more. And that's another big one that I think that that a lot of people regret when they get to a point where they can. and I have several stories about people who are older that look back over their life and physically told me in appointments that I was with them. They said, Ferris, we wish we would have saved more. We would have spent less and saved more on certain things because all the cars, all of those things can't feed us now. Like we don't, we wish we would have had the money and not have had the things. And or they'll say we wish we would have had the experiences and we wish we would have used money to do more vacations and and experiences with our kids and our family than to have you know, the nicest car or the nicest house or the nicest TV or the nicest watch or the nicest phone, you know. so experiences and money, cash are really kind of what people really at the end of the day, those are the things that they really wish they had done better and differently g throughout their life. That I've at least in my experience working with people.

Samuel: So what's what's one of the lessons you would tell that person who saved later or didn't save enough for their retirement? What are some advice you would give that person or coaching that you would give that person?

Paris Cluff: Well, there's an old saying is I'd rather aim for the stars and hit the moon than aim for the moon and hit a rock. So let's say that you're starting late. Hey, Paris, I should have invested twenty years ago. You're right, you should have. But let's not say that again twenty years from now. You know what I mean? Let's invest now as much as you can and get it in as n no, I'm not talking about risky stuff either. Like let's not go speculate and buy the next you know to the moon stock or meme stock or you have crypto whatever. It's you need,

Samuel: Don't

Paris Cluff: you know, you need to have a strong foundation of investments. And let's say, you know, you I let's say that you need a thousand dollars a month because you're 50 years old and you want to have a million dollars when you're 65. Well, you and you never saved anything. Well now you're gonna need a couple thousand dollars a month. Well Paris, I can't afford a couple thousand dollars a month. Okay, what can you afford? I can probably afford 500. Okay, well I'd rather miss with 500 a month than zero a month. So start with what you have, do what you can and get what you can. I you know, I'd rather if you're if your goal is to have a million dollars, but unfortunately you were able only able to get five hundred thousand, shoot, that's better than nothing. That's better than zero. That's better than two hundred thousand. You know, so my recommendation is start with what you can, start when you can and just move forward. I there's people listening right now probably, they're like Paris, I don't have a dollar. Okay, then save fifty cents. You know, save it's the habit of saving that's more important than the amount you're saving. So save 50 cents, save 25 cents. You know, in a in a year you got four bucks. Well, that's doesn't sound like a lot, but you can confidently say, I'm a saver. I saved this money. Then build up 50 cents to a dollar to two dollars to five dollars to ten dollars to before you know it, you maybe that next raise, you know, gave you a hundred dollars a month. You can now start saving. So that's the key thing is you're gonna be making more money. And so save as you go. Just get in the habit of saving. And then once your savings accounts are full, then you can let that money spill over into investments and start really investing for your future. Is that if that makes sense?

Samuel: Your framework is manage, protect and grow. So let's start off with manage. What's the first thing someone needs to understand if they're they feel like their money is controlling them?

Paris Cluff: The first thing that I would say is take a look at your spending. And that free ebook that I give you will give you a very good strategy on how to analyze your current spending habits. The number one cause of problems right now is your spend in if you're having financial problems right now, a leading cause of that is your spending habits. Now, some people say, Well, you can't let's just go make more money. Well, that's great. And you should make more money. And I think that's a great idea. However, You should still discipline yourself on the money you're spending right now because when you make more money, you don't want to be spending more. You want to, if you can spend the same and make more, then you build a bigger surplus and then you use that money for savings to get out of debt more quickly. You built use it to buy the proper types of protection that you need. And then you can really grow. So manage, protect, and grow. So managing your money really boils down to what's your cash flow statement look like? A cash flow statement is what is your what's all your income? What's what's everything coming in? And what's everything going out? So if you have a clear idea of your cash flow, and I and business owners know what a cash flow statement is, but I think we should all have a personal cash flow statement where we know what's going out and what's coming in and we manage it properly. And we have less going out than what's and and more coming in. Then so the next thing is to create a balance sheet. A balance sheet as a business owner is what are all your liabilities? What do you owe? And then it's also what you own. So what are your debts? What are your you know? mortgages, your card loans, your credit cards, your personal loans, and also what do you own? Your 401k, your savings accounts, your investment accounts, your maybe some property that you want to put in there on what you own. And that's all part of your balance sheet, which gives you your net worth. And so you know, I don't know if you remember at the beginning, I said that I have a liquid net worth that's six figures. To me, 90% of Americans have a positive net worth when they include the equity of their home. It drops to about 30% if you If you take away the equity of their home. So 30% of Americans have a liquid net worth over six figures, or have a liquid net worth over zero. Right? But

Samuel: Yeah.

Paris Cluff: the higher that you go, the less the more the fewer people that have that net worth. So when I say I have a six-figure liquid net worth, that means that's not including the equity in my house. I d I literally have a six-figure in investments, in cash, in in lick liquid. things that I could go and sell if I need to and make that money quickly. Or you have to convert it into fiat currency quickly. So that's one of the things that I suggest is that people get clear on their income and their expenses and their debts and their assets. If you're clear on where you are, you can that's a starting point to really build success. If if you if you figure all that out and then next month you look at your net worth and it went down, it's probably because you spent too much money or your stocks didn't do very good. If it went up, you have probably got a surplus that you were able to fund the assets more effectively or you were able to pay off debt more quickly so that now your net worth increased. If you're if your net worth isn't increasing, at least on a quarterly or semi-annual basis, you're you've that's a key indicator that something on your cash flow statement isn't doing what it should. You're not paying down those debts fast enough. You you don't have enough cash flow to be able to pay down the debts or to fund your investments. Now of course, of course, with the, you know, economic downturns, like you could have five hundred thousand dollars in your 401k one month and the next month it's two hundred thousand because of the market and that's a huge loss. So that net worth is not what that's that loss in net worth is obvious. That's why you lost. But if your net worth if if the market is moving like it should and your net worth isn't increasing regularly because you're not funding it properly, that's where I'm t that's that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. And so those are the some things that I think are critical for everybody to have. and be aware of where their money's going and track how it's growing. Cause if they're if they're managing it properly and protecting it with insurance and with emergency funds and with savings and other things, then they can have the strength and confidence to say, let's let's really grow from here. Let's grow our income,

Samuel: Yeah.

Paris Cluff: let's grow our investments and move forward with success. And that's why I have manage, protect and grow as my as my framework.

Samuel: Okay. So we insure our cars, homes and phones, but people often overlook protecting their financial foundation. What does protecting your money actually mean?

Paris Cluff: So a couple of things. One is there's something called insurance and insurance that you mentioned kind of that we pre we insure our homes, our cars, but we don't we we kind of we kind of look down on or there's a there's kind of a an avoidance of protecting the most important asset that we have. A lot of people will say, and I'll ask you, Samuel, what do you think is the most important asset that we have as individuals? What do you think it is?

Samuel: I would say first home, your home.

Paris Cluff: Okay. A lot of people will look at things that are, you know, like a house, a car, things of that nature. But really the most important asset is you. Your ability to make money, your assets, your skills, your ass, your an asset. You're you're an asset to yourself, your knowledge, your schooling, your skill sets, your career. That is your biggest asset. That's your biggest income-producing resource. And so when you're married and you have a family and you're not protecting your life with life insurance, I think you're. Do you I think you're doing it? I think that you need to take a look at it, honestly. And so protecting your life. Another thing is a lot of people are like, hey, Paris, I'm I'm doing great. I got the new boat. I'm I'm financing everything. My income is strong. I'm financing all these things because I bought now and I'm paying later because I I have all the confidence in the world that my career is strong and solid and I've got a great position at work. And then they get laid off. And they get downsized and they never had a they never saved. They never they're like, Well, how am I supposed to pay for this boat or this car or this put food on the table? Well, you should have thought of that before while you had the money coming in to build a savings account, to build an emergency fund. So those are the two big things. Now I'm not talking about, you know, life insurance alone. I'm talking about all kinds of insurance as well. You know, health insurance, people have health issues. A couple of years ago, my wife had a lot of health issues and we were in the hospital quite a bit, and that was a an expensive year. Thankfully, our insurance paid for a lot of it, but we still had to come out a lot out of pocket with some of it. But you ha need to have good, strong insurance and also per self-insure a in a little bit with emergency fund, have three to six months of cash available for those expenses so that you can take the time and f you know, most people believe that you know, when they get laid off, they're gonna be able to find a job right away. And some people can. And I think it's important for you to. You know, there's this an old saying, dig your well before you're thirsty. fix your roof before it rains. So if you have a good career right now, I would I would highly recommend you start looking for another career or at least putting feelers out for a transition. So you don't have to transition to a new job or a new career, but have the have a couple of leads constantly that you're you're working on. So if your job or you get downsized, left size, right size, or we're going in a different direction. You can immediately transition because you already have those relationships in place. So I would suggest if you're solid in your career right now, that's the best time to look for opportunities, whether it's a side hustle business or whether it's you know, keeping your options open for other career opportunities. You don't want to be the guy that thinks everything's great like I was when I was in 2008 and I lost everything. And now I've got to pivot and now I've got to change in in crisis. You want to be able to make those decisions from confidence, not from crisis. And so That's one thing I would suggest for sure.

Samuel: What's one financial decision that people rush into because they want to grow their money before they've built the right decision? I mean the right foundation.

Paris Cluff: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the biggest things is here's an example. I had a guy in two thousand and eight, one of my clients, he was investing in real estate. And he was buying properties and flipping them and he said, Paris, every dollar I invest in real estate is making me thirty dollars in profits. And I said, Great, that's that's really I mean, that's something you want to continue. However, that's not gonna last forever. You you need to take some of that money and you need to pull the profits and you need to put it into liquid things and safe and conservative things that will keep you and get you through when when this starts when this goes started going the other direction. He didn't listen to me at the time. And about a year after the collapse in 2008 and 2009, for the economic downturn, he comes to me and says, Paris, I should have listened to you. I should have had more money in liqu in liquid places. I should have had more cash, reserves. And so I think one of the big things that we get. especially when it comes to growing our money, is that we see, you know, our neighbor comes over and says, Hey, I got this great business opportunity. You're gonna make millions next month, or I got this great new stock pick. It's gonna go to the moon, you know. And so we think, shoot, I'm already behind the eight ball. You know, I'm I'm 45, I'm fifty, whatever. And I haven't I'm it according to the last research poll, you know, I I need to double my four one K balance in the next 10 years. So I'm I'm they get so anxious and so just filled with this anxiety that they just go out and they make financial and investment decisions on speculation and hope. And hopium is not the right thing to be taking for your growth. You need to have a for me, what I do is I teach my clients, you need to have a foundation where you're gonna hit your goal. And then if you have extra money, let's go see if we can hit our goal sooner. And then if you have extra money above and beyond that, We can go speculate. But if if you are speculating, it's kind of like the idea of like are you taking the rent money and going and gambling with it, then you're you're not doing it right. So pay the rent. And if you have money left over, save and invest in good, strong, solid things. And then if you have money left over after that, then we can, you know, speculate a little bit and see if we can kind of ex make a little more fun more money a little faster than normal. But there's no get rich quick. There are get rich faster than other things, but get rich quick just is I think a lot of people get duped into these opportunities and these get rich quick schemes and these pyramid type things that that's where they that's a huge error and it's because they feel like they're behind the eight ball and they gotta catch up. And so they'd make these decisions and end up making making it worse for themselves.

Samuel: So someone listening wanting to become more financial self-reliant over the next 30 days, what are first three steps you think you would have them do?

Paris Cluff: thank you, Samuel. I think the first thing I would have them do is download my ebook. So ParisCliff.com forward slash free gift. In that process, you would you what I s everybody that I've met with that's done this process, one one lady did it. she downloaded the ebook. At the time years ago, I actually had a f a video course. and you can actually upgrade to the video course. I highly recommend you up upgrade to the video when you go to the landing page. It'll tell you to download the ebook, put your information in there to download the ebook, and then it'll say, Do you want to upgrade to the video course? I would I would do that. I would recommend upgrading the video course because it's gonna give you more information, more knowledge. One one client, she was able to free up $700 a month just going through that video course that I gave her. She found leaks and she was able to then make make a difference in her in her situation. So I would say the f the step and and this is what I teach in that ebook. First, look back over the last 90 days. About your spending habits, figure out and categorize where you spent money. I spent this much money on going out to restaurants, I spent this much money on going on mortgage, I spent this much money on gasoline, and I spent this much on groceries. Just and then do it for each month. So right now we're recording this video. we're recording this podcast in September. So let's say that we're going to look back over the last August, July, and June. So I would take June's bills, categorize them, take June's spending. Categorize it. Take July's bills and spending, categorize it, take August bills and spending and categorize it. Open up your bank accounts, open up your credit card statements. This is going to take some work. But I promise, if you do it, you're gonna it's gonna open your eyes and you're gonna find hundreds of dollars a month that you're blowing. I everybody that I've done, I've even had a lady say pay tell me, Paris, I don't wanna do that. I'm scared to do that. I don't wanna do it. I said, do it anyways. And she was she she's like, All right, fine. I'll do it. And so we did it. And it was so eye-opening and so revealing. She actually found some fraud that was happening on her credit cards, one of her credit cards, and she was able to get it hundreds of dollars a month that she was paying in or over the course of the last several months, hundreds of dollars in fraud that she was able to stop because she finally made herself aware of it. So take those three months and then average out your spending. So if you spend a hundred dollars on groceries, one, you know, one month and two hundred the next month and three hundred the next month, now you know your average is two hundred dollars a month. And so that's your goal moving forward. You don't your budget is now 200 a month. Now you might say, Well, Paris, I spent I've overspent it. I should feel bad because I overspent, I'm spending 250. No, because the next month you might spend 150 and keep your average at 200. So don't don't worry about budgeting. Worry about your average and maintaining that average over time. Now, once you have an once you know what your spending habits were, now the next step is to track your money going forward and maintain. A strong log of where your money is going every month. Once you do that for 30 days, you're gonna s once you've seen where your money went and you sp take time to see where your money is going as you move along the next 30 days, now you're gonna be able to say, okay, these are the areas where I need to reduce my spending and free up some cash flow. And these are the areas that I want to continue to spend money into because they they bring me value. So I would say the first step is review the past, get clear on where you are now. And then as you move into the future, just track and be diligent with your tracking. And you don't need to track very long. Once you get good at your cause we're creatures of habit, you know, we we know what we do every month. And so it just once you get good at tracking for a couple of weeks, maybe a month, now moving forward, you can kind of just touch base with yourself every week in once a week, once every two weeks. Just touch base, make sure you're on track, kind of add it all up, make sure you're moving the right direction. And then once I would do that a couple of times a year. Just look back over the last 90 days, see where you've been, maybe once a year. Just do that practice. My wife and I, we did this, we do it every year. in January, we we look back. This last year we were we realized we were spending $500 a month on r random subscribe and save Amazon things. And we're like, what are we doing? You know, so it's it's an enlightening. Even 25 years into this business, financial coach myself, I still need to do these things every day, every year, so that I keep track of where I'm going, what I'm doing with my own money.

Samuel: Nice. So go back past the three months, analyze it, average it, see all the different habits, and then start from there to making a plan of building your wealth and investing, saving.

Paris Cluff: Exactly. And once you know where your money's going, you now have more control over where it goes. And you can say, Look, I can't believe that I spent that much money on sus subscriptions that I don't even use anymore. And then you just saved a hundred bucks a month. Well, what do you do with that new hundred dollars a month? Well, you put it in towards your debt. Now now you create a debt plan to get out of debt faster. Now you create a savings plan. Maybe you take fifty dollars and get out of debt and fifty dollars and save. It's just whatever you you're ca once you have a positive cash flow. Now you can start develop strategies about building your turning that income into wealth. And sometimes that means just paying off your debt. Sometimes it means making your increasing your savings. Once your savings accounts are full, now it's time to start investing. And so if you start investing before you have a strong savings habit, you're it's likely that you may not do as well. It really is important to have a strong savings habit or a habit of savings first. And then invest. And don't get me wrong, I do get it. I you need to put your money in the market. It and the sooner you can, the better. But it's really more about the habit and the belief than it is about the amount. So get the habit first and then start it's filling up your savings accounts. And once those savings accounts are full, like for example, I what's an example of a full savings account? Every year we know that Christmas comes. And for those that celebrate Christmas, you know that you spend, I don't know, three, four thousand dollars a year on just Christmas. Who knows? Well what if in January, let's say you sit, let's say you spend $3,000 a year on Christmas. that's $250 a month. $250 times $12 is $3,000. So what if you took $250 in January, $250 in February, and by the time Jan December hits, you already have the three grand saved up. That's a full savings account. Your savings account is full. You know you're gonna spend $3,000, you have $3,000, your savings account is full. So your Christmas savings fund is full. Now, if you have extra money above that $250, go put it in the car repair fund or go put it in the home repair fund or go put it in the upgrade my TV or go on vacation fund. And once those funds are full, then and you have extra money. Now let's go buy XYZ stock or let's go, you know, invest, you know, things. And you should be investing anyways. Like you should have investment strategies as well along the way, like for 401k from work or other things, you know, you should be investing too. But I'm just saying that the once your savings accounts are full. Now the extra money should be going to really help you build wealth faster.

Samuel: So got two more questions as we wrap up here, Paris. one of them is what's one of the first investments that you think people should usually start with if they're just starting out?

Paris Cluff: Honestly, the first investment you should do is in educating yourself on how investments work. Like there's different kinds of investments. There's there's the stock market, there's real estate, and there's business, starting your own business. So what's your what are you kind of predispositioned toward? Like do you are do you have an idea that you really think you could bring to market? So your investment should be in studying that business idea so that you can bring a new business idea to market and start a business and make more money. And then you can use that money. And then what if you're like, no, I really want to get into day trading or stock market stuff? That's where you need to educate. Get education first. Learn what you're what you don't know, because that's the biggest problem is that you have a blind spot and you're gonna if you if you invest in something before you're ready or before you have really done your due diligence, there's that's where your percentages of failure increase. The it's not about a bad investment, it's just an uneducated investment that really comes. If you know what you're getting into. Like if you look at investment, your your neighbor says, This is the thing that's going to the moon, and you do a little research and you realize, hey, that guy isn't doing what he's supposed to in the at the HR department or the CEO did something n nefarious and you're like, Okay, that's not going very far. That education is gonna stop you from making that investment so that you'll then use that money in a better investment that you actually learned about and you're educated about. So education is the first thing, and then after that, figure out where you want to invest your money and then learn more about those that individual thing, like investments in in the stocks. in real estate or in a business and then go from there. That's my idea.

Samuel: what's one thing you thought I would ask, but I didn't quite ask you.

Paris Cluff: that's a really good question. I think I think one thing that I that you I like to share with people is that people ask me all the time, like what's the difference between a financial advisor and a financial coach? And and a financial advisor, I was a financial advisor for many years, and I would help people with their money to the point where they could afford the product or service that I was selling. And that's what most financial advisors do, unfortunately. There are some good ones out there that will do education beyond that, and they're good people. So If you find one of those, definitely stick with him. But a financial coach, what the what we do is differently as than financial advisors. We educate, we show you the pros and cons, and then we help you implement the strategy. And as you implement and we we teach you how to manage your money from the income to the sp expenses to getting out of debt to building savings to building all these products. Like for example, a financial advisor, I don't have a savings account that I could sell you. But I as a financial coach, I'm gonna teach you how to put your money into savings accounts. So that's the that's a big difference. We educate and we help you implement and then we hold you accountable to that. And I think that's a huge part of the problem is the industry, the financial services industry has had financial advisors for years, yet we still see the same results. People are still not saving enough, they're still not investing enough, they're still not putting money where they need to, they're consuming more than they're conserving. And so I think if that's one thing, why? One of the questions that I see a lot, why do you think people are st why do you think the statistics haven't changed much over the last twenty five years in how much people really have for retirement? And I think it's because they're just not getting the right education and the education that will then help them implement a personal strategy and then help them to stay accountable to that personal strategy over time so they continue to maintain that habit. I think that's that's one big thing.

Samuel: Thank you, Paris. I really appreciate you coming on here, sharing your heart. tell me how can people connect with you online? I know you dropped your ebook and it's gonna be linked up here, but how can people connect with you?

Paris Cluff: So I the the good news is my name Paris Clough is very unique. And so I don't think you'll have a hard time Google searching Paris Clough. download my ebook and what happens is you'll you'll get a set of emails for a few days where you'll have different educational pieces in there. I do share different ways to communicate. Obviously, every meal, every email that I send out has all my socials, my social media at the bottom of it. And I have a s I have a different I have a community where you can join. and kind of ask questions and and be a part of that. It's and those are all in my emails. You can just do a search. Actually if you do a Google search for Paris Clough, you'll find a lot of podcasts that I've been on, a lot of education. You'll find my website for sure. You'll find my some my YouTube channel probably and so and my Instagrams and all those you'll find all that stuff. So just do a search for Paris Clough but download my ebook for sure and get in my system so that you can actually start receiving those great financial education tips.

Samuel: One last thing. Financial freedom starts with what?

Paris Cluff: Positive cash flow.

Samuel: Paris, thank you so much for joining us and I want to thank everybody that joined us on Be Inspired Podcast, where we're inspiring you to live the abundant life you deserve. If anything that Paris says resonates with you, go ahead and like, share, comment, and subscribe. And then also let's have a conversation in the comments. See what is your biggest insight was on the show today. All right. So we'll see you on the next episode of Be Inspired, where we're inspiring you to live the abundant life you deserve. Thank you.

Paris Cluff: Thank you, Samuel.