Secure Your Financial Health And Wellness

Ann Shippy, MD

Welcome to the Mold, Mycotoxin, and Chronic Illness Summit. I am your host, Dr. Ann Shippy, and today I have the pleasure of getting to have a wonderful conversation with Garrett Gunderson, whom I have known for years. He is an Inc. 500 financial firm founder and an amateur barista. He has had multiple Wall Street Journal number-one bestsellers. He has more on the way. He is an incredible keynote speaker, and he uses comedy to teach most powerfully. I have had the honor of getting to see him teach that way. It is so much fun. Garrett, your bio had me laughing and crying. He has statements from his wife that are just so, so funny. Hopefully, during our talk today, you will get to share some of your humor. It is just so fun.

Garrett Gunderson

There is this box behind me back there. It is just barely out of sight. But she just put these notes in there for a birthday once. So I just pulled a few of those notes and put them in my bio. This is one of them: a man who can only dream of tequila under supervision. But then she said, Nice things, too. It was a good mixture of humor.

Ann Shippy, MD

I loved the last one that you shared—a man loyal to his family and friends, but most of all, his values.

Garrett Gunderson

Yes, she wrote that pretty awesome.

Ann Shippy, MD

She does it pretty well. I want to dive in because I know you have so much to share on the personal health front and how this all fits together with finances. But what I see with my patients is that chronic illnesses dealing with mold and environmental illnesses end up creating huge financial stress for most people, even if they have plenty of money. It is just such a hit, often that it creates a major issue. I love what you do where you integrate mindset and true strategy very uniquely, so let us dive in. Let us just start with: What is financial health?

Garrett Gunderson

Well, I have to tell the story about how just recently I went to Montana and we backpacked high up in the mountains. The whole time we were there, we were not even eating the healthiest foods; all it was was cooked, with duck fat and butter. By being in an environment where everything was crystal clear, there was no light pollution. What I noticed immediately, and this is where to start this with, because we were talking health, I had perfect digestion, which is good when you are in the woods because

Ann Shippy, MD

It is often the opposite.

Garrett Gunderson

Of the day. There is no, and as soon as I came back down to where I live, I felt there was so much glyphosate. I could just feel it. There is so much pollution. I could sense it there just because I was eating cleaner here, supposedly, and I was having desserts there and stuff like that.

Ann Shippy, MD

But you would not normally eat, and you felt better.

Garrett Gunderson

Yes. I mean, it is just frustrating to a large degree. But yes, I mean, there is a lot to say there. But what I do know, and this is something that many people probably do not know, is that I sold life insurance from 1998 to 2005. I just bought life insurance. That was a part of my career. Insurance companies, if you are wealthy, pay less for insurance because wealthy people live longer because of access to care and better food, and they can detect if they have mold and do something about it. Because, when I was working with you, we hired people to come in and do mold tests on our home and in our office, and it was a bit of an investment to do that. 

Those things do matter. Health and wealth do go hand in hand in a few ways. Number one, wealth has a lot of confusing factors, just as health does. There’s a lot of misinformation. Just the allopathic Western medicine that is very symptomatic, stick and chop away, and take pills. That is how finances have been. It is just to set money aside, forget about it, start early, do it often, take risks, and not focus on cash flow. Don’t it? It is just a lot of the same stuff, and it can seem overwhelming and confusing to a large degree. But there are certain tenets, I think, in health that we can all agree on. I think pretty much everyone can agree on five things: maybe

Ann Shippy, MD

Maybe, yes.

Garrett Gunderson

If we get good sleep, something important; if we get some sun, we get our sun; we move our bodies, whether that is walking or stretching or maybe a little bit of lifting; and if we drink good, clean water, that is something, and then

Ann Shippy, MD

Non -negotiable.

Garrett Gunderson

Honestly, the last one would be our viewpoint, because we can see what happens when we have a negative viewpoint about our cortisol levels. We can see what happens to the negative viewpoint of our blood pressure. One of the things that I have adopted for a long time in my life that was harmful to my health was that I just saw food as dangerous all the time, and I saw everything that was wrong all the time because there is just so much that is wrong. What I started to do was go. What do I have some control over, and what do I not? What can I do from a mindset of just eating? I would eat sometimes if I had to. I am just going to say this little prayer—that is, whatever nourishes the body, let me take it up and let the rest pass through. Just having.

Ann Shippy, MD

That is a beautiful blessing.

Garrett Gunderson

I just looked at it that way so that I was not exacerbating the issue. I was not making it worse because I was afraid or because, and this is,

Ann Shippy, MD

Being that you do not digest as well when you are afraid, it puts a halt to digestion. That is brilliant.

Garrett Gunderson

Yes. I do some things that I think are helpful when it comes to merging quality of life and hobbies into my health. One of those would be to hunt; I like to elk hunt. I feel that is about as clean and healthy as I can get. I feel related to the food, and a lot of society is not related to their food at all. They do not know how it is harvested; they do not know how it happens. It is just this big disconnection. Then we know about the chemical dependency that is created because companies want stomachs to share how much calories and caloric intake they can create, and how can they make it as artificial as possible so that certain parts of our brain center get addicted to that? 

What I find is that when people have more money, they have access to better food. They do not, let’s face it, have companies like McDonald’s that are subsidized by the government. How do you produce a 99-cent double cheeseburger because certain beef is subsidized or it is not real beef and stuff’s inside of it and that stuff’s harmful? But for some people, if that is all they can afford, then all of a sudden, the way they get their calories is white bread, soda pop, and fast food. That is going to be extraordinarily hard on the body, even though the body is pretty damn resilient. There’s a certain point where people simply do not know what good energy feels because they have become accustomed to living in pretty tough situations. I know that this is mold and mycotoxins.

Ann Shippy, MD

I love that you are talking about some of the basic principles of health. I hope we are going to be able to. I think you have some great principles for finances and are saying some of the same things.

Garrett Gunderson

Because of the five that we agreed on,

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes.

Garrett Gunderson

There are five things that we can agree on when it comes to finance. These might not be as common denominators, but I think it would be hard for most people in wealth to argue these points. The first thing would be to just pay yourself first. Every time you make money, you automatically sweep it into a separate account. I call that a wealth capture account. It can be savings, checking, or money market. It is just somewhere, or it is liquid, where it is safe or accessible, but it is separated, so it does not automatically get spent. We automatically save and deliberately invest. The second thing is, once you have automatic savings, then it is about how you can plug your financial leaks, become more efficient, and keep more of what you make. This is a step most people miss when it comes to their wealth. There are four main areas where we can do this. We can plug leaks by not overpaying the government, which means if you are getting a refund, it means you have overpaid and given a tax-free loan to the government. There are a lot of strategies if you are a business owner, that can help with that.

Ann Shippy, MD

Many people do not mind doing that because they do not want the stress of finding it at the end. But if they have done step number one that you talked about, they are covered.

Garrett Gunderson

This is just where people’s money is moldy because they are simply not keeping all of it that is useful, because they are just letting it go to waste by overpaying on interest, overpaying on insurance, overpaying on tax, and overpaying on investment fees that do not perform. That is what is eroding the money. If number one, we can pay ourselves first; if number two, we can keep more of what we make without cutting back, because this is the problem. Budgeting gets people into a scarcity mindset. Just as I said, if I am afraid of all my food and see everything as bad, I exacerbate the problem because of the reaction I have to it. Some people see money as bad and do not want to deal with it; they just try to make more, which is their only solution, and they get on this treadmill. If we could just pay a little bit of attention and say, Well, what if we could keep more of what we make without budgeting? 

What you do instead of budgeting is what I would call mindful cash management, which is two steps. Pay yourself first. Number two: keep more of what you make. That is being mindful. Then the third part of this is that you simply classify your expenses into four categories. The first category is a destructive expense. A destructive expense is if I borrow to buy something that I cannot afford, like a trip, and then I come back from a trip. Now I have a loan but no asset attached to it. That is a destructive expense. I am paying monthly for something, but I am not using it. That would be a destructive expense.

It can also be vices—that people can handle an alcoholic with alcohol, a drug addict with drugs, or whatever that might be. It is an essentially destructive expense. The second type of expense is a lifestyle expense. Lifestyle expenses for me are health expenses. I want to always be in a place where I can make whatever the best choices are for me and my family without insurance ever being a consideration. Because the way insurance is typically set up is reactionary and symptomatic and in a framework that is controlled by an outside entity, an insurance company that is in the business of profit, not in the business of health. What I want to do is be proactive with that. If it is a lifestyle expense, I do not budget for my health. I go, What will it take to invest so that in the future I am not spending twice as much money or twice as much time to handle the same issue because I have eroded my health over time? 

A lifestyle expense could be utilities, buying clothes, trips, and stuff. But it is just getting to a place where you can pay cash for those instead of having to borrow. The third type of expense, which relates to health again, is a protective expense in finance, or protective expenses, asset protection and estate planning, insurance and savings, anything we do to transfer risk, but it is also education, because the more you know about your finances, the better off those finances could be. Protective expenses are the perfect thing to relate to health. There are a lot of things we can do for our health that, if we find out, if you go get mold tests and you find out you have mold, that is okay. You are being protective. 

You are saying, All right, I am going to research before I feel the symptoms before I am in a place where I feel sick. I am doing what I can to protect myself. That might be getting enough sleep, enough movement, enough water, enough sun, and enough positivity in my life. So protective expenses, whether it is in health or whether it is in finance, are the ones that most people neglect the most because we were not built anymore to be proactive. After all, the world has consumed us with the busyness that overtakes our lives, and that busyness is other people’s demands, societal demands, where we think that we need to always be doing more. Otherwise, we were not valuable enough. We get into that trap where we do not create enough space for hobbies, relaxation, and rejuvenation, which are all part of our health.

Part of the reason we have chronic illnesses is not only the mold and mycotoxins. It is not only the environmental concerns of what we were breathing every single day, the chemicals, and all that stuff. Part of the issue there as well is that we do not take time to recover. When we do not take time to recover, then it starts to infringe and impact every other aspect of our lives. This is what is most frustrating about that, as we spend more time trying to earn and do, and we become less effective at it because our health starts to deteriorate and we do not feel as well. The first expense, destructive sickness, and lifestyle are protective. The fourth one is the game changer, which is a productive expense, not a productive expense. I looked at health as a productive expense; a dollar that goes into health and makes me feel better and have more longevity is a productive expense because now I am showing up as the best version of who I am. Then look, I have been in places where I had too much work, I took on too much, and I was not sleeping well. What that led to was eating my emotions, because now I am just trying to look for some form of energy, which typically comes in the form of a short burst of sugar rather than something nutrient-dense. It is this cycle that we can face.

In the wealth world, we were saying to pay yourself first and keep more of what you make without having to budget. You get more mindful of cash management as you start to look at these different types of expenses. Then, what it is about is creating financial independence, which means having enough cash flow to cover your expenses, and that cash flow is recurring cash flow that comes from assets. You do not have to show up to do something that day, and you can still get paid. Then, when you have that financial independence, it is finally about the last two factors: your investor’s DNA, when you only invest in things that you are aligned with based upon your competencies, your drivers, and your values, and then you focus instead of diversifying. Then, when you are aligned with your investor’s DNA, it is about making it count. It is about treating yourself as your greatest asset, not a stock-bond or piece of real estate, which transforms people’s health. Because rather than thinking about contributing to a retirement plan instead of contributing to better food, contributing to a better life.

Ann Shippy, MD

Your house.

Garrett Gunderson

Or all those things. A lot of people do not want to invest in their health because they think it is going to be at the expense of their retirement. But the problem is that retirement is not going to be what they expected because they are going to be too busy being in a hospital, which is no fun, or not feeling up to do the things that they waited for ten, 20, or 30 years to do. Ultimately, make it count. As you enjoy the process along the way, you enjoy life along the way. Because I feel that when I took trips for two years in a row, we did extended stints in Europe. You have to have a certain amount of wealth to do that. But what happened was that I learned to relax. I learned that, and that is when I became an amateur barista. I had not even drank coffee before I went. By the way, coffee, you have some mold issues. You have to be careful with coffee.

Ann Shippy, MD

No doubt, we are covering that.

Garrett Gunderson

That is the crazy thing. I go every third day because if I go more than every third day, then I can feel the caffeine’s impact on my body. I make sure I am awake for an hour and a half before I have the cup. I make sure that it is consumed before 11 a.m. so that I do not have it interfere with my sleep. I’ve had to adjust some of these things and balance what creates quality of life without being at the expense of my health, which ultimately means I do not drink anymore because I could not find the benefit of drinking to overcompensate for the deterioration that I had on my sleep, my health, or how I felt. Again, a lot of times we just do not pay attention.

Ann Shippy, MD

I am so happy to hear that you are because, I think, with all the research that is coming out on alcohol, because it does have mycotoxins in it, we were going to look back and we were going to think how foolish we were. It is like smoking.

Garrett Gunderson

Here is the thing: We have to look at why alcohol is such a popular thing. It’s because so many people are going through their lives unexpressed, and it helps them relax and let go. Part of why they are doing that is because they are not doing enough work that fulfills them. They are overworked and overtaxed, and so they are looking for some type of escape. The most tempting thing for alcohol for me is when my wife wants to have some champagne; it is hard to say no because it’s not a fun time. But the next day, I am just not going to feel as good. I am just saying, how could I show up that relaxed and connected without it? Sincerely, I think there is one additional piece that makes it hard for me not to drink alcohol. I am from Utah. When I do not drink, people just think I am Mormon, and I am not, and I do not know why that bothers me. Hey, I am not. Let me have a drink. But it is a local thing.

Ann Shippy, MD

It is.

Garrett Gunderson

Just like eating is a social thing, one of the harder things is to break this pattern. I also think that it is an epidemic, and it is so hard to buy something without vegetable oil in it that it is almost like consuming plastic. It is just so.

Ann Shippy, MD

It is getting ridiculous. Yes, just eat outside the grocery store or the farmer’s market.

Garrett Gunderson

Yes, go ahead.

Ann Shippy, MD

One of the things I admire about you is how you practice what you teach. I would love it if you would give some examples. When you were talking about clarifying expenses and you talked about lifestyle and investing in health, what would be some examples of some things that you do or that you think would be helpful in that category?

Garrett Gunderson

Let me say that I was not always this way. I will give the most painful example. I do not know that I have ever shared this. Maybe I wrote about it once, but when my son was born, he had a very misshaped head, and we could have taken corrective measures when he was young, but the insurance would not cover it. I was. It does not matter. You cannot tell because I was thinking of it from a visual standpoint, but where his head was misshapen, it put pressure on his brain, which consistently put him in a fight or flight. Eventually, I had to have him see a cranial orthopedist to get it, which is super painful when the brain and skull are more formed. I have gone through just this experience so I could understand it myself, but it was so painful and so expensive. But I did not invest in it when he was a kid. Later on, we had to invest way more, and he had to go through a lot more hardship because I did not make that investment. That is, that is early on it was from a lack of

Ann Shippy, MD

Well, that sounds like it shaped your teaching and your thinking. To have to go through that must have been hard.

Garrett Gunderson

It was a tough thing. I did not know anything about health in my 20s. My wife was content and happy with who I am, whether I am super lean or not. That is not part of what is attractive to her about me; she would not push that. But I remember when we first got married, there were days when she would say, Maybe you should go to the gym. I had gained so much weight that I had not even carried it fairly well and just did not pay attention to it. But I was; I am 209 pounds right now, and I have a good body fat percentage. At that time, I was 255 when she said this. I was in my twenties. With my higher metabolism, probably naturally, I was still eating dessert with every meal. I was taking clients out. I did not even consider it until she said that. Then I was, and I will work out. But then I realized back in those days in college, when I worked out and thought about this, I thought, Well, you got a car, you want spaghetti? Then I thought, Oh, you need to have it. I thought tuna fish was the best thing for my cancer. I probably just poured mercury into my body.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes.

Garrett Gunderson

I cannot even imagine. But I did not know that was what my cousin had told me, and I did not know anything about health. It took reading, being around people, becoming patient, and stuff like that to change it. But we have got to be intentional, and society is not going to help us be intentional. They are going to help us just continue to eat the things that are not the best for us. Discount the issues that people are facing because of mold. I have just been around enough people who have been around black mold or whatever. It just terrorized them. When they moved, because some of them were in Hawaii, and there is just not a place in Hawaii where that mold is, that place just needs to be condemned and rebuilt. It changed their lives and the environment. Look, it is not always easy. 

In 2021, it was a chaotic year for me. I sold a business, and I started a new business. I filmed the comedy special, and I was in the middle of so much going on all at once. My wife called me because we had a friend, and his second dog died. They both died of cancer, and they both died pretty young. So he is testing the soil, and he is testing everything he can. It turns out he had faulty wiring in his house. The dogs would go away where the faulty wiring was because they could feel it, whatever. It ended up messing the dogs up. He just sent a group text to all of us and said, Our last dog died of cancer at seven years old. We should look at our wiring. I came out; the wiring is fine in your house. There is nothing. But let us just go to your backyard, which is a very small neighborhood there were two major transistors, and just pushing so much EMF into the home—a massive amount—means there is no paint that we could use because there is just nothing we can do. He said I was just wondering if anyone in your family has these symptoms listed. Both Roman, my youngest, and my wife, had those exact symptoms. We had been on a health search, and so we put the house up for sale that day.

The guy that came to the test says, What are you guys going to do? She is. I am going to call my husband, and he is going to say, Put the house up for sale, and we did. We put it up that next morning, and we had been casually looking in a market. If you remember, in 2021, it was just so hard to find a home, and something came up the next day. It is the one I am sitting in now, and they have got everything tested. We tested the mold, and we tested the EMFs. We have done some mold work on the house to work on and help with that. It was pretty minor. Otherwise, we would have moved. But that was the worst time ever. I was starting a comedy tour, and we were moving houses because the other house just could not overcome this issue that was impacting our health. What I feel is that in modern society, we can live longer today than maybe our ancestors did, but we are living sicker. We are living longer and sicker and longer and better. We have to work against all of these conveniences that are at our fingertips while at the same time deteriorating how we operate.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes. I can imagine that a lot of our listeners are reframing some of these priorities and decisions that they are having to make around finances. I love how you are even talking about the move that you have made and investing in all the testing and just whatever it took to get into a healthy environment. The way that you have described this framework just makes it non-negotiable; it has to go into that productive category where the resources have to go because it is so foundational for health.

Garrett Gunderson

This move was super expensive. This house is big. It is awesome. But it has just been a huge investment. But at the same time, yes, in the old house, some guys will maybe stay there for three months or six months, and now we will go live in our cabin for a while if that is what it takes. I am not going to once I knew there was no staying around; there was no, it was just it. Part of it, I think, has to be a mindset of what it would take. I cannot afford it. I cannot afford it. It is going to keep people unhealthy. What would it take to afford it? How could I afford it? What value would I have to create to be able to have this? What priorities would I have to shift? Those are the questions I think we need to ask because we have been trained that insurance dictates what we get or that circumstance dictates what we get, and we become defeated by it because it is expensive these days to be healthy. It is just more.

Ann Shippy, MD

It takes some focus and choice, doesn’t it? I was going to say budgeting, but no, it is not budgeting. It is just focus, prioritizing, and applying your framework. I love the framework. It is beautiful, and I think it is going to be a good way for people to step back and relook at how their relationship is with money.

Garrett Gunderson

Look, I do not know if I told you this, but my wife went to India for five weeks and did Ayurvedic medicine. I do not know much you know about Ayurvedic.

Ann Shippy, MD

Oh, yes, I am a huge fan.

Garrett Gunderson

Our inspiration was just spending time walking with someone who was going; we had been in my interest for three years. I knew Carrie was supposed to go, and I just thought there was no way she was ever going to go. She is. Yes, I think I need to go. Yes, she just went; it was just these five weeks of relaxing and detoxing.

Ann Shippy, MD

It is intense, though. It is relaxing at the same time.

Garrett Gunderson

Because of how much she had to drink there. But yes, exercise is just, hey, letting the body reach there.

Ann Shippy, MD

I went, and I have gone a couple of times too, to an Ayurvedic place called Parks Larson in Germany. The Indian Ayurvedic detox methods meet German precision for me from an M.D. standpoint, it ticks all the boxes. I know I am not going to come home with a parasite or something from doing it in Sri Lanka or India. Since I have a sensitive gut, I am going again for the third time shortly because I am such a huge believer in it. I am so glad you mentioned that because I think, in addition to all this financial stuff, we have not brought up the Ayurvedic detox process, as being helpful is one of the helpful ways for those of us who do not detoxify very well. I am glad she got to do that.

Garrett Gunderson

Yes, we have done a lot for our health over the years. I think it is all the stuff that you already taught and guided us on. But a lot of the population does not know. It is as if you are getting a root canal. I remember my wife getting a root canal, and we had to pull that tooth. That is one of the worst things you can do when it comes to dentistry. We had mercury fillings. We had to go to a biochemist and do all this fasting and prep and have special ways to get it out. But if you think about it, mercury is one of the most toxic things you could ever have in your body. People are putting it next to their cheeks, where they absorb so much. There are studies over and over about Alzheimer’s and all this stuff, and people are drinking hot beverages. That is what I mean; there are so many things that do nothing but harm our health.

Ann Shippy, MD

It does not make sense. You would not think about putting mercury in your body purposefully, and yet it is just done without even thinking about it.

Garrett Gunderson

Look how dentists have to dispose of it. It is this container that has that toxic symbol, or whatever that is, that they have a hazmat suit look and things. They have to put it in this container, and it cannot go the way it is disposed of. It was just cheap and easy. That is easier than the other types of feelings and root canals that can mess people up. One of the things I found is that this is all because of how we eat; our mouths are different, and our face lines are different. That is part of the reason that we have to get wisdom teeth out—because of the processed foods and what they do. When people get their wisdom teeth out but do not realize it, most of those habitations get superinfected. Just a few years ago, I got mine cleaned out because I was getting monotype symptoms, having to sleep every day in the middle of the day. All they did was clean that out with ozone, flush it out, and all that. All they have to do to test it is prove that it is as soft as bone. It is soft because it is filled with disease. 

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes. It is a chronic infection.

Garrett Gunderson

Just all this stuff that we

Ann Shippy, MD

We became more predisposed when we were exposed to environmental toxins like mold.

Garrett Gunderson

It is just agitating. It is filling it up with garbage and all that stuff. Yes, I mean, I do not know, but I feel you always encourage me to listen to my intuition, and I have always been intuitive when it comes to health. I do not always know the answers, but I know my intuition will guide me on what not to do a lot of times or what not to do. That does not make a lot of sense. Another thing is that I used to be in life insurance, and one of the best ways to get a lower rating with life insurance is beyond pharmaceuticals.

Ann Shippy, MD

The pharmaceuticals, what?

Garrett Gunderson

If you are at the pharmacy, it lowers your rating. If you want preferred plus or super preferred, you have to be without, so too many people are relying on that. What they know is that maybe that helps their health in some ways, but there are always effects of that. I think that part of the reason that we become more reliant on those over time is because we were in an environment where mold was impacting us and we were eating poorly, and so these other things started deteriorating, and you get something. What they know is that someone is taking that because of other underlying issues. 

Even if it is improving their health, their health is not as good as it could be without it. There are times for those things that are lifesaving and helpful. I needed it, but there are other times where it is one-off and people are not getting to the root of the issue, and they could just be in a bad environment that continues to make them sick. They are taking a pill. The pill is just in finance; there is no one financial product that is going to make it all better. It is only part of a plan. A lot of times, when people feel they are behind, they take more risks. and they do not get to those underlying factors.

Ann Shippy, MD

That is beautiful. Talk a little bit about your comedy experience and what you are up to with that.

Garrett Gunderson

Every time I have done that club in Austin, four times, every time I am in town, I am always hitting up.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes, I love

Garrett Gunderson

The very first one is the one that you came to or the second one, and then you are out of town one of the other times. But, yes. I am not doing tours as I did. I tend to go on comedy tours because, as I realized, being in a comedy club does not move the needle for my mission or what I am up to. It was a lot of fun, though. What I am mostly doing now is corporate comedy.

Ann Shippy, MD

Oh, so people can bring you into their companies.

Garrett Gunderson

Most financial firms are doing it because I am doing comedy around money. I guess that is brilliant. When people buy this book, they get a copy of the comedy special, which is insane. I mean, we had all the best of the best in the business. My director had eight Netflix specials with eight different comedians. My executive producer won an Emmy with Seinfeld and Chris Rock. It is pretty awesome that this rookie comedian is doing it, essentially because I have only been doing it; I have been doing it for four years since I filmed the special, three and a half. But I have always loved comedy from the time I was a kid, and I think entertainment is the gateway to transformation. Billions want to be entertained, but there are only millions that want to be educated. This is a topic in finance that is usually boring and dry. I just love doing comedy, and I know a lot about finance. I married this passion for this love, brought it together, and filmed this comedy special called The American Dream. Yes, there are six main topics around finance, a little bit about raising kids, and stuff like that as well, a little bit of my personal story in there too.

Ann Shippy, MD

That is great.  Share a little bit about your new book. It is called Money Unmasked.

Garrett Gunderson

The MoneyUnmasked.com, so you can take Your Money persona, which is one of the major factors in this book, is that there are these hidden subconscious beliefs around money and they govern how we go about making our decisions. Then it is predictable whether someone’s going to make mistakes or succeed based on whether they’re in their winning or shadow persona. Also, if you are in a relationship, understand your partner.

Ann Shippy, MD

Oh, that is so important for this audience listening today. 

Garrett Gunderson

Look, Carrie and I used to fight about money when we were first married because I was one of the early money personas. I was a miser, which is all about cutting back, reducing, preserving, and protecting. We made a lot of money and lived in a crappy apartment. We thought about the budget, my kids’ favorite stories, and the whole world, or when my wife tells stories of when I was a miser, buying her a fireplace for $0.99 for Christmas because it was in a clearance bin, or her or her dad saying we could live in the basement rent-free, or her saying sex-free. If you think that is where we were living, that was the fighting; I was always in this miser mode. Even though her money persona is not that different, she is a conservative planner. What were my intentions when I became a striving creator as an entrepreneur? I always felt I was the gas, and she was the brakes. 

Then, in 2008, the market was crushed, and the economy was crushed. I became humble for the first time in my financial life because of ten straight years of growth. Then, all of a sudden, it was on a downturn. I was all, why did I not see this coming? Even when I did, why did I ignore it? How did that impact my marriage? Then, all of a sudden, I started to uncover money for someone and I have not thought about money since 2008, once they uncovered the huge fees. She is the planner, and I am the trader. It is even this way in health. I met someone, and I am, I met this brilliant person in terms of health. She reads the book. She asks a ton of questions, but I am good at bringing people into our lives. I met you. I am; you got to check out and stuff. That is the money version of it. So the money persona quiz is part of when people get the book, and they also get a bonus where they get details about the questions that you asked to unlock that money persona and a guide that goes with it. Then the comedy special, which is not available anywhere else.

Ann Shippy, MD

I have not even seen it.

Garrett Gunderson

I could send you a little preview.

Ann Shippy, MD

I am going to immediately go by the book.

Garrett Gunderson

By the time this happens, people will see it. It might be a comedy special, or it might be in full contract because I have a proposal coming up.

Ann Shippy, MD

Oh, congratulations.

Garrett Gunderson

Which has been a long journey. It was a very big investment to make. I funded it all myself, and we got the very best. It was, and, we did it in April of 2021. We filmed it. We had four unions. We were dealing with all the COVID restrictions. We had to test everybody that came to the stop. We had to abide by a bunch of stuff. It made it a little bit more expensive, but it was good for that. Everyone had not been out. Then, all of a sudden, we filmed the special, and nobody had seen each other. It was this electric night, super fun, and challenging because, from the time I filmed that, it was five months from the time I started writing it. I turned my basement into a comedy club and did Zoom, sometimes one-on-one. Sometimes I had three, four, or five people there in person. It was work, but it was fun.

Ann Shippy, MD

Well, thanks for all you are doing to help people have healthier lives through healthier financial processes and actions. It is a functional medicine approach to life and money. Thank you so much for everything you are doing. Thank you for taking the time to share with us today. I just look forward to more and more conversations with you.

Garrett Gunderson

Thanks for telling me to listen to my intuition when I sit in your office. I have done a good job with that over the years. I remember you saying when listening that it was interesting, but yes, I do. I think that is a big part of health. We know deep down that we can get beyond the fear and just listen to the inner wisdom of our bodies and our lives. Sometimes you are always right. Look, we leaked the roof. We moved on that so fast because we could not have mold in our house. We replace sheetrock immediately. It just got finished. I mean, it is. I just understand the importance of having an environment. If we do not have it, it is detrimental to our health.

Ann Shippy, MD

You have it; you have great intuition. I am glad you are listening to it and that your home is staying healthy for you.

Garrett Gunderson

Definitely. Well, thanks for spreading the word on all this stuff. Hopefully, my wealth framework helps bring a different angle to this series. How do you afford to make this happen, and what’s the framework? Then there is just understanding that your health is a productive expense and making that investment. If you do not have the protective and productive expenses around your health, you are going to pay for them later on in a much worse way. 

Ann Shippy, MD

It is not, and it is never too late to make those changes. If you can get well, just get your finances aligned with your health goals.

Garrett Gunderson

It is the body’s resilience and can rebound if you just give it the proper support; your finances can too. I do not think you are going to see your parents transform their mindset around money. I started working with them years ago, and now they are taking great trips and enjoying their lives, whereas before it was all just saving and saving and being fearful. It is good to see.

Ann Shippy, MD

It is good to see the butterfly effect all around you. It is awesome.