3 Things Every Business Owner Should Know, Your Financial Freedom Number, & 5 Smooth Stones with Brandon Neely

“There are a lot of boys who are older, and there are a lot of men who are young.”

~ Brandon Neely

Guest Bio: Brandon Neely, an entrepreneur, Profit First and Bank On Yourself Professional, and the co-host of Wealth Wisdom Financial Podcast with his wife Amanda Neely. They founded and managed Overflow Coffee Bar, L3C from 2008 through 2018. Now, they share their experiential knowledge through podcasting and through developing personalized financial strategies for individuals and couples and profitability strategies for businesses.

SHOW NOTES: 

• WEBSITE: https://www.wealthwisdomfp.com/
• PODCAST: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wealth-wisdom-financial-podcast/id1430092759
• INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/wealthwisdomfp/
• MARK WILLIS EPISODE: Banking on Yourself, Uninterrupted Compound Growth, & Kickstarting Your Financial Future

REMARKABLE LISTENER SPECIAL OFFER(S):

• N/A

CORE THEMES, KEYWORDS, & MENTIONS:

• Showing up, being disciplined, wisdom, born unhealthy, Marine Corp, boy in the bubble, bubble baby, child abuse, unforgiveness, Marines, boys, men, becoming a man, music, Christianity, Bible, Christian, coffee shop, life insurance, entrepreneurship, miscarriage, teams, team work, balance, invest, savings, cash flow management specialist, five smooth stones, story brand, chaos, confusion, haphazard, anxiety, overwhelming, stressful, still method, financial freedom number

For more Remarkable Episodes, Inspiration, and Motivation, please visit https://davidpasqualone.com/remarkable-people-podcast/. Enjoy!

Transcript

3 Things Every Business Owner Should Know, Your Financial Freedom Number, & 5 Smooth Stones with Brandon Neely

Hello, friends. Welcome to this week's episode of the Remarkable People Podcast, the Brandon Neely story. This week, Brandon's going to take us through his journey of growing up in a quote unquote Christian home, but it fell apart. He's going to talk about how he was told from birth he was sickly and he couldn't do anything and he might die, and then he ends up joining the Marines.

He talks about his journey. throughout life and how he's growing as a man and as a [00:01:00] follower of Christ. But we also talk about business and principles that apply to everyone, whether you're a believer or not. We talk about personal life tips that apply to everyone. And then we talk about financial freedom and five smooth stones, which you're going to Probably know what that is from the Bible, and if you don't, you're going to learn more today about it.

Overall, though, the bottom line message is to keep our eyes focused on the vision, God, and what really matters. We reverse engineer our life and take the steps and persevere through each and every stage. And you're going to see that Brandon and his life hasn't been necessarily easy. But he exemplifies that forward motion, that keep moving forward, admitting your mistakes, learning, growing, and being the best son or daughter of God you can possibly be.

Before we jump into the episode, I just want to remind you, we have the privilege to meet men and women [00:02:00] all over the world like Mark, and to bring you these episodes that hopefully not only encourage you, but give you practical steps that you can take and apply to your life. and succeed and thrive from, right?

So, whatever culture you're from, whatever country you're from, whatever classification you're from, right? If you're in a caste system, here we love God and we love you and we're just trying to make everybody's life better. So, we are thankful to be here and we're also thankful to our sponsors who help support us so we can continue to bring you great content.

If you have the ability, Check out this season's sponsor, MyPillow. When you go to MyPillow. com or even call in and use promo code Remarkable, that gets you up to 80 percent off all of your orders, all of them up to 80%. It's amazing. I personally use MyPillow before they were a sponsor. They have over 250 products.

They literally have everything from pillows and [00:03:00] sheets and slippers. To full blown beds and household items. So check out MyPillow. com. Look at all the great stuff they have. Type in promo code, Remarkable, and you're going to see massive savings. So this Christmas for birthdays, for holidays, even just for yourself, for leisure and fun, check out the great products at MyPillow and I'm, you know what, I'm such a believer this was not planned, but right now on my feet, as I record this episode.

MySlipper. Telling you guys and gals, I love MyPillow, not just because they're a sponsor, because they're a great quality product, American owned and operated by the employees, and they are trying to make a difference in your life and your home and in America. So check out and support MyPillow. Now, at this time, Let's get into this episode with Brandon.

Get your pens and papers ready to take notes. When you're done, reach out to Brandon and myself, if you have any questions, but we want to see you apply this knowledge and have a [00:04:00] better life. So let's get going.

[00:04:03] INTERVIEW RPP S9 Brandon Neely 4 Dec 23-1: Hey, Brandon. How are you today, brother? I'm good, David.

I'm excited to be here. Oh, me and the listeners are excited to have you here. Welcome to our community. And on this show, like we discussed in the past and like our listeners know, but for our first time listeners, what we're going to do is we're going to hear what makes you remarkable and not an egotistical way.

But what God was able to use and do in your life through you, and then we're going to kind of reverse engineer what you're able to overcome and achieve into the practical steps of how you did it. So me and the listeners can too. And then at the end, we'll transition to where you are today and where you're headed.

So hopefully now we can help you get there. Sound good? Sounds perfect. Awesome, man. So if you were to summarize, you know, in this show, people are going to get tons of life tips and gold nuggets that they can apply and benefit from. But if our listeners stay with this episode, [00:05:00] listen to it in its entirety, what's one thing you promise and guarantee they'll get by the end?

I mean, I think the wisdom to just show up and just be disciplined. If you're disciplined and you show up and you don't give no for an answer. You will go places. Beautiful. And that's so true on a biblical level and a life experience level. So let's go through this. Go back from your childhood through today.

Where did you grow up? What was your upbringing like? How did it all start for you, my friend? So, do you have like how many hours we got? Because we can go for a long time. So, I grew up in Southeast Texas when people ask, where are you from? You know, I lived in Chicago for a few years, 20. I lived in Southern California.

I lived in. North Carolina. I'm here in Cincinnati right now, but where it all originated, was in the great state of Texas. And I was born [00:06:00] there in the Gulf, Gulf Coast raised, well, my mom and dad, but then they got divorced. I was one of the first, parents that got a divorce back in the, Southern Baptist days, right?

And also I was born unhealthy, very sick. So I was told I wasn't gonna live very long that I was gonna not be able to run and do all those things. And well, long story short, I, I defied the doctors, joined the Marine Corps. And joined the music industry, done all kinds of crazy things since then.

And yeah, I just keep going. So that's where I started in the great state of Texas. And then I lived in New Orleans for several years too. Yeah, and that's why we kind of go through the [00:07:00] past of our guests, because everything that happens to us, good, bad, or ugly, ultimately happens for us. You know, all things work together for good to them that love God.

So, whether we perceive it as good or bad at the time, or even still today, it makes us the men and women we are. So, going back to your childhood, you said you were born unhealthy. Like, did they give you two months to live, two years to live? What did they, what was the, what did you have as a prognosis? So, I don't know if you ever lived in Texas.

The refinery area is, is very, I don't know. There's a lot of not good air around there. And I had pneumonia three times before I was a year old. I was told I was, you know, one of the baby, what are those called? Bubble babies. So I was in one of those places and just, you know, very, very sick. And they just said, you're not gonna, he's not gonna make it.

He's, he's gonna just be, what do you call [00:08:00] that? Not, just not a runner, not, not going to be able to do those kinds of things. So that's kind of why I joined the Marine Corps, because they said I couldn't. So the doctors said, he's not going to run. He's not going to do this. This is what I grew up on telling me, telling me what I cannot do.

And you know, I'm not, I'm not one, I'm a business owner. Don't, don't tell me I can't do something. I'll prove you wrong. So you're going through, and were you an only child, brothers, sisters? So I did have my, after I was born and my, my mom got a divorce. My, she, she married, my white mom married, my sister's father.

So then I had a sister. So it was half sister, but she's pretty much a full sister. And then afterwards my mom, Was divorced a few [00:09:00] times that, that affected a lot of things, but I just, you know, kept moving forward. You know, I was a latchkey kid is me and her, my sister and my single mom.

So all these things, the illness, the, your mom and the divorces and the instability in that area that just shows you, you just keep moving forward. You keep going. So from an early age, you, you saw, like you just go now was the, a lot of times people in that. When you're young, it's learned behavior. So you learn from your parents or those around you, but you can learn one or two ways you learn through their successes or through their failures.

So when you were learning to, Hey, no matter what happens, no matter what this doctor tells me, he's not God, I'm going to do this, you know, no matter what happens financially, we can be poor. My mom got divorced again, I'm going to make it. Was it something that your mom was a real positive person or were you learning through her failures and the failures of those around you?[00:10:00] 

I think it's a both. You know, I, I don't have a strong relationship with her now if any, because of some of the other conditions that she has. There was a lot of abuse that happened in her life that was generational and, and she still harbors those. I believe that a lot of times unforgiveness brings in.

Unhealthiness in other areas of our life. I'm not saying that, you know, health conditions are because you didn't forgive somebody. But I think sometimes there is a lot of that that happens. And, you know, for me, I wanted it to be a different, different place. What I've learned in even our financial services world that we live in now.

A lot of times it's unforgiveness that affects people's, emotional, psychological, spiritual, all kinds of stuff. [00:11:00] And it's, it was a very hard thing to go through, you know, seeing, you know, my mom, multiple, multiple married and just learning, I don't want that for my family, I don't want that for my future family or the people that are coming, my kids or kid along the way.

Yeah, that makes total sense. And there's science, you know, just because we don't understand it doesn't mean it's not true, but more and more scientific data is coming out every day that more diseases are caused by emotions and spiritual conditions than anything physiological. And they're even tying it directly, like, you know, this type of cancer is directly related to this trauma.

So I think you're spot on, man. All right, so now you're going through all this, you're in school you're, you know, you're growing up, you decide to become a Marine. Did you join as soon as high school was over? Did you go to [00:12:00] college first? What was your path? Yeah, I had no dad, right? So I was like, well, let's, how am I going to learn this guy's stuff?

So I was like, well let's join the Marine Corps. Cause you know, that's the, those are manly guys. They Alpha of Alpha, right? Yeah, that was like, and they told me I couldn't run. Might as well join that one. I didn't realize I should have watched Full Metal Jacket and I would have chosen a different path maybe.

But, but did it overcame that, you know, it was four years of hell. It was not the easiest thing, but I overcome it and learned that I could accomplish more than I thought I could. Now, would I ever go back into it and do it? No, never again. And you're, I don't want to, I don't know if you care about age, but I'm 46.

And are you around the same age? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when we were younger, there was commercials. For the Marines, I mean, [00:13:00] it was we do more before 5am than most people do all day and it was real. And so that was the challenge you went through. It wasn't like, you know, a health club. Yeah. And it was, it was a great experience.

You know, I learned a lot. I did a lot of things that probably shouldn't have done there, but you know. I did learn I could accomplish more, but there was a lot of so I go to a church called Crossroads here in Cincinnati and the pastor Brian told me, he says, there's a lot of, boys who are older and there's a lot of men who are young, you know, 18 year old men.

And, and, you know, I think that there's a lot of, Even in the military, you know, there's still a lot of boys, even though they might be gunnery sergeants. Right. And, and I think that that's the difference, you know, and I'm also have a background in, in, church [00:14:00] planting and all of that. And I feel like I've matured back then I was a boy and a lot of people, you know, big guns and do all kinds of crazy stuff.

Now there's difference, you know, wisdom over time. So, I don't know. Yeah, no, so now that's interesting. We're kind of jumping, but when you were younger, you mentioned you were part of the church and it was a divorce, which was taboo. And then your dad, did he pop smoke and leave? He wasn't even part of your life or because I know you said your mom.

Yeah, he was supposed to get married to my wife, my mom. I keep saying the different words, right? Get married to her. She was supposed to get her MRS degree. That's what they said back then. And he was going to be a priest, right? Or, or a Baptist pastor, I mean. But then that happened and now everybody in.

in the south is [00:15:00] divorced now at least four times over, right? But back then it was not a thing you do. Yeah. So now you're seeing a bunch of people say they're Christians, but I don't want to use the term live like the devil, but they're not living like Christ. So how, as you develop and you go in the Marines and now you're becoming a man, how does it transition with the relationship with Christ work in?

Yeah. I don't know if I was becoming a man yet. Not then. You know, cause again, you could have all the muscles and do all the stuff and not be a real man. So, so that's something I, I also left from there. I wanted to make a difference. That's why I joined the Marine Corps. Then I joined, the music industry.

I was in the music industry after that and said, all right, [00:16:00] let's make a difference in the world. I still want to do it. And so I worked for. Some of the biggest celebrities in the world. And I saw some of the craziest stuff that, you know, you shouldn't see, that is illegal actually. And I had really had to get out of it because I would probably be dead.

You know, with addiction, you know. All of that stuff. Cause I was not, I would say mature at all, but I still wanted to make a difference in the world. Still is what I do now, but I was in the music you know, I worked for R. Kelly for a few years ministry, which is a hardcore industrial brand, not Christian.

Don't, don't Google them unless you really want to. But they were, heroin addicts, right? And it was just crazy the amount of things that we saw. And this is our [00:17:00] influence. These are all like the musicians that we look up to. And I was like, man, if I want to make a difference, I got to be in this. But I left it after a while.

I was like, man, this is, this is crappy. Yeah, this sucks. And that's where I actually, I think came. Maybe that's when I started going back to, to churches around that time. If I remember. So it was like, you were just seeing such a depravity of humanity that somehow you're, I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you were like, God, what's, what's out there?

There's gotta be hope. What, what motivated you to go back to God? And again, me and you, I want to make sure, we have listeners from all over the world. Church doesn't save you. Church is a place where we can hopefully honor God together and glorify God and grow. But our relationship with God saves us. [00:18:00] Yes.

Through faith. So I want to make sure that, you know, Brandon and I are taking stuff for granted. But if you're listening from anywhere in the world, we're talking from a biblical worldview. The Bible is truth and salvation through God's grace and through faith. That's it. So when we say go back to church, it's just to kind of get kick started and to start thinking and seeing more of the balance of life.

Yeah, whenever people ask me are you a Christian? I'm like, well, I'm a follower of Jesus. I say that a lot because I don't think that the word Christian means very much in our culture today. A follower of Jesus is, you know, practicing the ways and, truths of Him, right? And then I'm also been thinking a lot about this idea of, a repentance, a movement towards Jesus.

And instead of a, I'm either a Christian or I'm not, it's a, [00:19:00] a centered set. I'm moving towards that. And that's what I continue to do is move towards that. Even, I've been like a follower of Jesus for 20 plus years, right? But it's still movement in that direction. Cause there's a lot of Christians who might not be moving towards that.

And that's the hard part. Love your neighbor as yourself, you know, anyway. So for me, you know, my, I ended up living with my dad here in Chicago. Made some connections here cause I was going to be homeless in California after the military. My mom actually ended up living with us, which was. Not the best move.

And she had found this church. Your mom and his sister or just your mom? Just my mom, just my mom. And, and she was living with there because she was going to be homeless. And they were like, well ask my dad you mind if your ex wife moves in? [00:20:00] And you know, that was just weird. And she invited me to church and I said, I'll go, but only once, it's Easter Sunday and I remember going there and help, you know, Deuteronomy, blessings and curses, you know, good things and bad things I think it's Deuteronomy 30 or something like that.

And I was like, I've had the curses world. I want the blessings. I want to go in that. And so I remember literally. Stopping, hanging out with certain people. Like I was in a negative, sexual relationship that I was like, we got to stop this, and started going with on Sundays to, to the church, which is great, that was a great experience.

But I really learned a ton. And I just wanted blessings or I wanted [00:21:00] not just knowing that it's not going to be just sunshine and rainbows, but I, I've seen the other side, you know, fast cars and, and women aren't all that, that's cracked up to be so. Yeah. They're both dirty under the hood a lot of times.

So, yeah. All right. So now you're going to church and you're forming, you're just, it's a tool to get your personal relationship with God back in line. And you're seeing that there's more life to all the money, all the drugs, all the women, everything. That means nothing. It's all about our relationship with God.

And where's your relationship go, where's your life go from there, Brandon? And then what's going on within the home? You mentioned it didn't last long with your mom there. Yeah. So from there my dad ended up going to back to, a connection to God because of my relationship to, to him and [00:22:00] invited him well.

Later, I don't know how I ended up meeting my wife, because I was doing a lot of cool stuff in the vineyard, which is the church I belong to, and I was learning, I was planning to be like a, a pastor or something like that. And so, so met other people, young people through that relationship, I was hanging out at a house that, you know, Rich Mullins, have you heard of him?

That name sounds familiar, but, Awesome God, he's singing that Awesome God song. Oh, or My God is Awesome, okay. Yeah, he, he was actually at my friend's house, I think a couple of weeks prior to, his accident before he died. [00:23:00] So just, you know, it was just a great house to, to be around. Learned a lot, but also through that met, met my wife through the, their connections.

And I'm saying a whole lot, a lot, life has happened. A lot of life has happened to us, right? We We, end up getting married, and, let's see, what else did we do here? This was where this first, I told her, we need to, you need to move in. With me, because I make the most money here in the, in our area, the suburbs, and she's like, well, you need to come to Chicago because that's where I think God's calling us.

And this verse, in humility, consider others better than yourself, came up five or six times in a row. And I was like, Oh no, [00:24:00] I got to move to Chicago and I got to, follow that I could do that. And so I actually tattooed it on my arm because it's a reminder of me like to put others before myself.

I had somebody tell me they like it cause it's not very religious. I was like, it's actually quoted straight from the Bible. But what that means is, Hey, I need to put her before me. That's what marriage is. And so we moved to Chicago. We're doing our thing and that's when we started our first business.

After a little while was a coffee shop. And that was. Great experience. I'm glad that I met my wife, who's an administrator. And then we started our own business together. I think I was, four or five years after [00:25:00] we were married. So, and we launched our business, our first child, if you will.

Yeah. And you know, anytime you launch a business, there's learning lessons from that. We have a lot of people who listen to the podcast for entrepreneurship, but to do it with a spouse, that takes an extra level of balance because 24 7, 365, you're together and good times, everything is good, but rough times, things can get rough.

So, what kind of tips did you learn from that experience about starting a business or starting a business with a spouse that you want to impart to the audience? Oh, I'd say a ton of things, I would tell you. And listen to our podcast for all of that, because we've been doing it for years. Yeah, and just so you know, we're going to put links to all of your info in the show notes, but what's the name of your podcast now?

And just so people can start. If you go Wealth Wisdom Financial, you'll see both me and my wife that lead that podcast or YouTube. [00:26:00] So look up Wealth Wisdom Financial, you'll find us. Beautiful. We'll put that in the show notes and we'll talk about it again at the end of the show, but yeah, I love when people cross pollinate and just keep growing beyond the conversation here.

Yeah. So, so we, second year of, and I, I'm going to tell you some of the tips, but second year this is what I've learned is, you know, you know, the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. There's that. And as you're pursuing even your passion, maybe things are happening and sometimes maybe it's testing God.

I don't know. Right. I don't know. Well, all I know is I'm supposed to take the next step, right? So our second year of business, this is when we were first starting out. Everything that could go wrong did, right? Everything from my cat dying. [00:27:00] My, I think my grandmother died that year. My mother in law had a stroke.

I think, I don't know. My appendix was removed and we also were expecting a baby and we had a miscarriage, right? All of these things happened in the, in the span of nine months of the second year of the business. Now, what was the hardest thing is the business was doing okay. People would come in and ask, how's it going?

And you have to say, it's great, right? But the reality was, it wasn't. Life, life sucked. It was really, really hard. Right. And I was, we, the reason we were starting a coffee shop was because we were church planters too. We wanted to start a church. Our business name was called Overflow, the coffee shop was, and [00:28:00] it was about the overflow flowing.

through us. That was kind of a fountain. Changing the world through coffee, ethical economics, and community building. Kind of saw it like John the Baptist leading the way to Jesus and we were planting a church. So we were doing everything right, right? But it didn't feel like it, right? I mean, definitely an attack was everywhere.

So through that experience, I remember at one point having, My wife has, after the miscarriage, she retreated inward. Right. And I'm like, man, screw this. I'll use some big words, but you know, bigger words. And I remember throwing a mug because she was just not communicating. And this, this was going to like destroy our marriage.

Through a mug, there was a customer in there and I was like, screw this place, you know, whatever, I'm [00:29:00] about to walk out. And we, we had too much debt, right? We couldn't like close anything as we, or, or, get divorced because the debt was too much, it was too messed up. But I, I remember talking to my spiritual director, calling and asking, what do we need to do?

What do we do here? And that was one of my key things is having a team around you that care about you. Not just what you want to, what you're going to accomplish, but you, right? And that was important because even in your, if you're in church planning, they want you to build a church, right? Whatever. I mean, they might care about the, the efforts or the, the outcome, but not you.

And, and our, our guide, spiritual director, Marty, So having a team that cares about you is really important, right? The other three [00:30:00] things is, or two things is know that you know that you know that you're called to it. Whatever it is, because it's going to get hard. It's going to suck at times. And if you are like pansy and not, you know, going to over go through the pain, like that's any business, any business, if you're going to hit a brick wall at some point, right?

Even if, if it's not spiritual tech or other things, whatever you want to call it, there will be opposition. So you need to know that, you know, that you're called to have a team. And then know your numbers. Most people don't know their numbers at all. And so those three things I tell every business owner, have those in place from day one.

So that way you can thrive and it still might not work, right? Even if the best laid plans, it's still maybe a challenge, but those things are, are what got us through, [00:31:00] to the thriving business that it was. So the three things every business owner should know is know your calling, that this is what we're called to do, have a team surrounding you to love you, and then, what was the third one?

How did you know your numbers? Know your numbers. And when you say that, you mean basically like, no, these are my costs. These are my expenses. This is my margins. Yeah, don't just, yeah, don't just say, oh, God's going to take care of us, blah, blah, blah, and be all on one side. You know, know the numbers, you know, and be ready to like.

Put everything into it. Five years, we burned the bridges, but also at the same time, no, God called us to it. We know for sure. But he also said at one point, all right, it's time to go. And I was okay with that. Yeah, yeah, I, I couldn't agree with you more, Brandon. I know I've seen firsthand. I came into some companies that were in the red and were, my job was to turn them around and make them profitable.

[00:32:00] And they wanted to form partnerships with global organizations who are well known. But they didn't know the numbers. And literally by forming these partnerships, they would have went deeper in the red because the volume and they were losing money per unit. So it's like, the more you sell, that's great for your ego, but you're literally digging yourself in millions of dollars of debt to say you work with this organization.

Right. So. That's huge. Now, another thing I want to touch on and talk about what you've learned from this is God's perfect and He hasn't changed. He was, is, and will be a hundred percent holy, but we have our churches and our opinions and we, you know, interpret scripture differently and, you know, I always tell people, you're right and I'm wrong about a topic, I'm right and you're wrong about a topic, or we're both wrong and we need to seek God's truth either way, right?

So when you're going through this, you're hurting and you said, well, we can't [00:33:00] tell people. Now that's not a truth, but I know what you're saying. Socially, we're not supposed to act that way and behave that way. We're not supposed to Or at least tell your customers. Yeah, life sucks right now. Can you buy a cup of coffee and come back tomorrow?

Yeah, it doesn't work that way. But between business and church though, there's so much fake that when you're real, you're almost getting stones thrown in your head. Yeah, so Where do you think the balance is? Because I have, you know, I have experience in business, you have experience in business, and I believe that transparency and honesty is huge.

Now, there's still discretion, what you're talking about, but I really, because you know, if you're trying to make a big sale and you're like, oh, we're on the brink of bankruptcy, nobody's going to want to buy from you. You're just. Ensuring your bankruptcy. But at the same time, if you're lying to them and you really are about to go bankrupt, that would be negligent.

So there has to be a balance. But whether you are talking about your personal life, your marriage is suffering, and in your church you're pretending everything's great at the Sunday social, [00:34:00] right? And then you have your business, you're struggling, you're throwing cups at the wall. That's not a good testimony.

So where did you find the balance to be? Yeah, I think it's always, it's, it's a When you're in movement you're actually never in balance, right? When you're walking because you're moving from one side to another, it's like a dance. Okay. So I don't know that I can never be in balance because it's about the movement and the growth, right?

That's at least me. I don't, I don't know, because I've been thinking about this whole walking thing and I'm like are we balanced? Or, you know, as we're moving, because you get off balance every time you take a step. And so it's been more of like, hey, I have a good group of people around me, but Even then, even in a small group of, of, do I share this with them?

They're not going to get it. And it's hard if you're a high level business owner [00:35:00] to find the right people. That's why I think Jesus only had a few, really close knit. And I do think that there's a, all the, the the stats are blinking red. on loneliness, depression, everything right now. And I think it's because we don't have relationships where we can go into somebody and say, you know, life really sucks right now, right?

Cause we're all about what do we perform? What do we do? How's this look on social media and Instagram? Right. Not about the heart. And, and I think that that's, where even the churches like we've, we've done the outside. My, my coach from the spirit or from the church planning world was we focus on bucks, butts, and buildings, right?

How many, much money do you have? How big is your building and how many butts are in the seat? [00:36:00] That doesn't matter, right? In the end, it doesn't matter, sale or no sale. What matters is you know, where are we impacting people? How are we, moving people towards the, I don't know, the right path, whatever that is.

All I can do is just try and help and do one step in front of the other and try and run a good, healthy, smart business and my business, I, I literally, I'm in the finance world of all things, and I'm like, I help people and I pray for people on, on here, you know, all the time. It's kind of weird that this is what, what I do, but it's amazing.

Yeah. I mean, so many thoughts in what you're, you're saying biblically, you know, the Bible says a false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight. And Old Testament, New Testament always talks about balance. But as soon as [00:37:00] we're balanced, I always picture it like we're on Not just a teeter totter, but it's like a 360 degree teeter totter and you're always have to be in control.

And as soon as you lose control or go too far one way or the other, you can topple over. And that's what Satan's like king of the mountain. Oh, I see somebody stable up there serving God and he tries to knock you off. Right? So I agree with you that, we're always moving forward. We're always striving for balance, but I think we can achieve it.

It's just enduring, you know, and then having friends to give you a hand. If I'm tired and I'm weak, you're going to hold me up, you know? So I think that's, that's very good. And then the wood hand stubble illustration in the Bible, you're talking about butts and bucks and buildings, man, God looks at things so different.

He looks at our hearts and there is also the concept of. We reap what we sow, and if [00:38:00] we're, you know, the Holy Spirit's acting through us and we're a true servant of God, we will have fruit. And it says if we don't have fruit, we'll be pruned and cast into the fire. So, again, I think it's, it's all about balance and real, but I know a guy who, he never, he had a church, never over a hundred people in it.

Yeah, but they went back after his 50 year career and he had like a ridiculous amount of missionaries and pastors and people thriving all over the world because God kept his ministry small, but it was tight and he could pour his life into those few people. So I think you're spot on there, man. Yeah. Well, I think it's part of as we go into our, our venture and, and just listening to God, right?

Listening to the next steps. You know, taking over territory or, or in Isaiah, finding the mountains, right? Well, you get there [00:39:00] and then you're like, wait, I can accomplish this. I didn't even know this existed before. Right. And so I think a lot of times people are just navel gazing, waiting for something to happen.

And they don't do. Any movement, right? Or they just go in the holy huddle and they show up on Sundays and that's it, right? And I'm like, I know it's about an active part, right? And you also have to have a tight knit group of people that you connect with and, and guys, I think specific small groups and stuff that you can go and say, you know, I'm not okay.

Now things are hard right now. And I think that's important. And I, I remember going through a couple floods in our business and in our, actually in our house here. And someone asked me, how are you okay with this flood that happened? I was like, well, it's not my first flood. It probably won't be my last.

And [00:40:00] you, but what am I going to do? I just go overcome it and, do what I can, but it's not going to, that flood is not going to dictate. Who I'm going to be in the future. That's good. That's good. And that's strong. So you had a coffee shop and then everything starts, you know, pressure is raising.

The marriage is getting hard. It doesn't look good for Brandon. How do you go from there to where you are today, my friend? Yeah, so afterwards we, we kept pursuing, we went to counseling. My mother in law ended up living with us and, and father in law at the time. And at some point we, we knew we were doing everything right.

We sold the business. Because, well, we found out when we had one of those floods right when the store [00:41:00] is falling apart roof is off and it's raining, which is not a good time to have it rain when you're, they're doing roof repairs, just, just so you know, yeah, and, and, and then we found out we were expecting a child.

We're like, oh, that, that was probably not the best thing for her to be walking through. So we found that we were expecting and we're like, all right, well, looks like it's time to sell. Luckily, we had set up a, life insurance policy of all things. That was our ability to have liquidity. We used our life insurance policy to overcome the flood.

Amongst other things. And because of that, I was able to sell the business and not close it. Right. So it's still going to this day. And then I remember my friend and, and mentor [00:42:00] he, I think he was on this podcast. So Mark, Mark had invited us to, like his clients or no, he was in the office, as a tenant there.

And we were clients of his, and he had a job posting and I said, Hey, I could do that. So I applied to work for him. He said, no, because I'm too entrepreneurial. I was like, oh, well, great. I don't have any other Prospects. I can't really go get a job. I don't know what I'm going to do. So then a month later, he comes back to me and says, I have an idea.

How about you and your wife start your own agency and I'll coach you. I was like, Oh, that sounds great. I I've been telling people about you anyway. And, and Amanda's like, that sounds awesome because I'm seven months pregnant and no one's going to hire me. So it was like, awesome. So [00:43:00] we started our own agency.

We called it Grandma's Wealth Wisdom. The tagline was sometimes intelligence gives generation. And we were like, Oh, this is awesome. We didn't know. That what we were doing was, a challenging thing. We just knew it changed people's lives, right? It made a difference for us and other people. And then we learned that Dave Ramsey loves to hate on us a lot.

And the Prophet first. method we learned through the business as well, but we did not realize we were going to come into a whole different war from the coffee shop war to church planning war into this. We just knew it made a difference. And so we've been doing it ever since. Now it's now wealth, wisdom, financial.

We got, we didn't, we weren't as confident in ourself in that, when we started grandma's was like, who are we? We only [00:44:00] owned a coffee shop. We're not that. We're not financial people, but then we moved in and said, all right, no, we, we are. And so we switched the name late recently. Okay. And now what is your talk about what you do?

So people are listening from around the world. Some people are very with investors. Some people have, they're like, I don't have money to invest. Some people are like. I've thought about this, I just haven't had time. So talk about what do you do, Brandon, and who would be a good fit for you? Or what should they be doing if they never work with you?

What are some things we should be thinking about? Yeah, so I think that investing versus savings is two different things. Right. We're told to invest, put it in Wall Street, do all of this stuff. Actually, that's a fairly new construct within the concept of time, right? It hasn't been around that long. And something I've [00:45:00] thought about is, there's a book called Richest Man in Babylon, right?

And it says 10 percent of all you earn is for you to keep. And what I like to think about is I'm a cashflow management specialist, right? The reason that most people are broke, and I, again, the, the, our business name was, former name was Grandma's Wealth Wisdom, is because we were told to invest and call it savings, right?

And, and it's not the same thing. And we wrote a book called Five Smooth Stones recently. And in this stone, or in this. I don't know. Do you know where Five Smooth Stones comes from? Have you heard? From the David and Goliath story, correct? He picked Five Smooth Stones and put them in his bag. Yeah.

And he used one, right? Yeah. And before you go on, I want to disclaimer this. Brandon and I, we both love God. We love the Bible. I have no idea where he's going with this, [00:46:00] but I've heard just, you know, Brandon, there's so many concepts on the five smooth stones. I don't know. So I'm learning from you at this moment too, as our audience is.

Well, and then some of it, I mean, we just used it and we're like, five smooth stones. This is amazing. We do a lot with life insurance which is really interesting. The idea of life insurance, which is, I don't care whether you believe in term or whole life, it's. It's to protect widows and orphans.

That's what it was created for. I'm like, hmm, widows and orphans. That's pretty awesome. And then as I go into this, I was like, man, I used to be a pastor. We want to get people to, to drink, like commune is drink blood and you know, all of this stuff raw wine and the bread. And now. Symbolic like, we're not in the satanic church here.

Yeah, we're not in satanic, but literally some of it, I'm like, Hmm, that's interesting. But now I moved [00:47:00] to life insurance and I in order to qualify, I have to take blood, right? I'm like, really, this is strange. So when it comes to sales, I'm like, yeah, I could have picked easier things to do. Absolutely.

But and I'll get into what, what I do specifically there, but why we wrote this book is the world is in chaos. Right. It is in total chaos. We look at COVID, we look at everything, and it's confusing. It's haphazard. It's anxious. It's overwhelming and stressful. Have you ever felt those things? Oh, yeah.

Especially since I don't believe any of it's true. I think most of it's generated by the, the, the wrong side of the stick, Satan. Yeah. And when you think about tax code, the tax code. Chaos. The everything around us. The United States is the most complex and confusing tax code in the world. Literally the thickest, [00:48:00] most Thicker than the Bible.

Yeah. And it's made to confuse. So people can evade taxes and everybody else gets taxed till they die. And Donald Miller he wrote StoryBrand he wrote, If you confuse, you lose. So here's the thing, even again, looking at our money system, trying to figure out how your 401k works or all of that stuff, again, chaos, confusing, haphazard, anxious, overwhelming, and stressful.

Why are most people broke? Because they have a lot of chaos around them and they're just told, put this, do this, you know, all of that. So what we've thought about is, okay, as I do financial analysis for people, All the time I'm asking them questions, right? I'm asking, well, where do you want to be in five years?

What's your goals, right? Where do you want to end up? Most people [00:49:00] don't know. They're saying, oh, well, I want to go to Disney World. I want to do this. They haven't even asked their spouses. They haven't talked about this. I, I would tell you, I talk to more people now, than when, again, when we were in the church world.

I actually have real conversations and I can tell because they are avoiding themselves most of the time, right? And that's the, the thing of asking yourself these questions. And so, yeah. Moving from chaos, we need to move, and this is why it's in this book that we wrote, to the still method, right? Be still and know is what, you know, Jesus does.

He, you know, it's in the Bible quite a few times, but he, he, he retreats, right? And so we want to, set our sights, track our in and out, inspect our progress, look for 1 percent [00:50:00] adjustments. And live deliberately. That's the STO method. It's pretty simple. Now, we could do this in all areas of our life, not just money, but we happen to do this with money.

And for us, we, I will kind of, what do we want to end up? Track. That's budgeting. Inspect. Make 1 percent adjustments. Not big ones, but 1%. And then live deliberately. And you do that over and over again, you'll make huge strides. But again, you have to sit with yourself and ask those questions or your spouse or both of you.

Yeah. You have to have a vision, even in people who don't believe in God, you know, where there's no vision that people perish, but he that keepeth the law happy as he, that's just one of the many places it talks about stuff like that. But when it comes to even. The most ungodly human on the planet, but they're successful in business.

They have a vision. They reverse engineer [00:51:00] the steps to get there and they go, that's it. It's common sense. But let me ask you a question. You're chaos. No, I'm not saying that's easy to people do it, but it should be common sense. It's like one plus one is two, despite what the government tells you. Right.

So, chaos, you use that as an acronym for confusion, haphazard, anxiety, what were the other two? Overwhelming and stressful. Stressful. And that's what people get, and that causes the chaos. Or it's just, it's just chaos, it's just like, it is, you know, our financial system, our, you know, you know, TV, everything is like chaos nowadays, overly complex, everything.

Right. And what makes people, it's not the fast cars or more stuff, you know, capitalism, buy more things. That's not what it's going for. It's having a life to the fullest. And that's maybe [00:52:00] even three friends. Yeah, right. Three close friends. I don't know. Yeah. I remember hearing when I was a kid all the time, if you have one close friend, like a true friend in your life, that's doing something.

And then even though you mentioned Jesus, and ironically, I was talking about this in real life with business associates, we're talking with the best business model. I'm like one leader and 12 followers. Like it's a biblical model. Every study, Christian or not, It always shows that 10 to 12 people following you is the absolute best.

Shouldn't have more, you shouldn't have less. But what you were just talking about, even within the inner circle of Jesus and the 12 apostles, he not only had one betray him, but he had an inner circle. There were some that were closer than others and there, and you get to the outside and it keeps growing out.

It doesn't mean he doesn't love everybody, but he does have an inner circle or favorites, however you want to call it, or people have a different role. So what you're talking about is lining up [00:53:00] with scripture, which that makes it good for me. So where are you today, Brandon, and where are you heading and how can we help you get there?

And what advice do you have to our listeners to do next? Yeah. So, and, and I will tell you my wife and our financial freedom number is 12 people. I asked, right, what's that number? Right. Why do you have that number? And it's just like mentoring 12 people, whether it's my son and, you know, other, other people along the way, but 12, and it doesn't mean we have a bigger team that they're mentoring or guiding, but those are the 12.

Right. So, so that's right on with what we've. Thought about because people are chasing financial freedom. So where we're going now is like, we do a lot with the infinite banking concept and profit first, re educating people about what that actually means, a cashflow management. And, you know, again, As we are [00:54:00] heading in this, we just launched this book.

It's not going to be on Amazon. I, we've chosen to not put it on Amazon on purpose. But what we're doing is we want to help as many people as we can. Okay. I'm heading to, you know, help them. As many as they want, but, but they have to want to help themselves. Right? So the book is an interactive book.

It's not just a book that you read and that's it, but it's a interactive journal because as much as you can go to a guru or guide, a coach, what you have to do the work, right? I can't do the work for you. And, and I want to help more people, you know, get out of the chaos because that honestly, it's getting crazier out there and I don't think it's going to get any, Easier when it comes to the system, but maybe that's a good thing.[00:55:00] 

I don't know. Yeah. I mean, again, as a believer, I've read the Bible and it's pretty clear. There's a beginning and middle and the end of our, what we know is our life. And I'm not going to say the world's ending today, but I don't think we're going to last a hundred years. I mean, you look at this stuff going on right now with AI alone.

One world order, one world currency, one world religion, trying to, the pope trying to mix Christianity with Islam. And if you really look at the roots, Islam is a social structure that was political in nature. And it was created by, you know, the Catholic church. It's just, there's so much going on that if you actually study history, even if you're not a believer.

It's pretty scary and we're, we're right there. So my main thing is, and you can chime up if you think I'm wrong or you have a different opinion. I think the number one thing we need to do is have our relationship with God secure. So we know when we die, when we take our last breath, are we with God for eternity?

[00:56:00] Are we burning hell on the lake of fire? After that, you know, what kind of servant are we, what kind of son or daughter are we? And then like, what you're doing is while we are on this earth, let's have a prosperous and Financially free life, which is amazing. Yeah. So if someone wants to get ahold of you, Brandon, what's the best way to reach you?

Yeah, if you go to wealth wisdom fp.com, wealth wisdom fp.com you can find me there, you can find us on YouTube, you can find us on, all the places. I would say in closing some of it. So my dad was like, yeah, the world's going to end blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And, and I said, well, let's not screw it up more.

I have a five year old let's try and actually do something to make it better. Not worse just because it is happening. And this is the thing I want to leave. Yes, we're in a weird, a crazy situation, [00:57:00] but it's up to us, right? You know, it's a hundred. 100 percent God, 100 percent us. Don't be the problems, the haters, but, but I look at my five year old and say, you know, let's, let's try and make it better for him.

Cause he's already got a lot of opposition. I mean, seriously, all the tech and everything that's there. But no, my, my main thing is I want him to know not just some go to church and that's it, but he knows what it is. I want to end with this, this story. And again, my, my son's a five year old and I remember driving to school with him and he said, and, and he's asking about a friend.

He's like, his, his friend said, well, some people aren't going to show up. Like, they're not going to be there. They're going to say they're going to be there, but they're not. You know, I said, but Neely's, Neely's, we show up. If we say we're going to do something, [00:58:00] we will do it. Whether it's even, you know, a Sunday thing.

Right. And he said, Oh, so we're like God. I was like, what, what do you mean by that? And he's like, well, his God follows his promises. His yes is yes. And his no isn't no, he does what he says he's going to do. We do that. So we're like God. I was like, well, yeah, and that way then we're like, God, this is a five year old.

I was like, wow, that's mind blowing. And if we were known for our yeses and nos, and not pushy washy and for known for our love, we'd change the world. Right. And we need that. I'm telling this to all fathers to Jesus, you know, that's so important, right? So hopefully my five year old gets it, but it's up to me to teach him not some Sunday school teacher.

Oh, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. And yeah, like you were [00:59:00] saying, we are instructed biblically. To live like today is our last day, but also to live responsibly like we're gonna be here a hundred years. Yeah. So I think you should a hundred percent be prepared for the rapture or death, but you should also prepare, like you gotta leave a legacy for five generations to your kids.

Yeah. So, or book for him. Yeah. And. Yeah, so between your birth and today, Brandon, is there anything we missed that you want to talk about, or is there any final words of wisdom you want to share with our audience? Yeah, I would say research, even like I know some people love Dave Ramsey and some people don't but, but the question that I like to ask is, could it be that he could be wrong on a few things?

Right, maybe. And especially with this infinite banking and, and banking yourself concept that I do he's got it wrong a lot of times. And how does it play in? How does stability, [01:00:00] building the rocks play in to the bigger picture? So I'm a foundational wealth creator, building the foundation so you can do bigger things.

Most people's financial pyramids are upside down. I want to help people put them right side up. And I bet you, if we had a good foundation, we'd be able to do a lot, but that's why everything is in craziness is that we've been, told to risk, no risk, no reward and all that other stuff, right? So build your foundation in Jesus on their financial foundation.

That's what we need to do. Alright, well, ladies and gentlemen, this is our friend, Brandon Neely. Check out his website, check out the work him and his wife are doing on their podcast, check out the book, Five Smooth Stones, and if you have any questions, you can reach out to Brandon or myself. We want to help you in any way we can.

First, to [01:01:00] know the Lord, and second, to thrive in this life for him and for yourselves. You know, like our slogan says, don't just listen to great content, but do it, repeat it, so you can have a great life in this world, but most importantly, an eternity to come. So Brandon, thank you for being here today, my friend.

Thanks for having me. It's fun. A lot of fun, Dave. Yeah, no, appreciate it. We had a great time and ladies and gentlemen, please share this with your friends and family support our sponsors cause they support our podcasts. We can keep bringing you great content. So check out my pillow, use promo code, Remarkable, get up to 80 percent off everything you order every time.

It's amazing. And then anyone else you can think of that might need to hear this, forward it on, and just keep spreading truth around the world for Christ, His glory, and your benefit. That's it. I'm Dave Pasqualone. This is our friend Brandon Neely. We'll catch you in the next episode.

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