Chain of Wealth - Debt, Investing, Entrepreneurship, Wealth & More

A highly successful entrepreneur, Matt DeCoursey launched his first company in a spare bedroom in 2009. Using nothing but an AmEx card with an $8000 limit. Since then he has built companies that have generated millions of dollars in revenue. Currently, Matt is the founder and CEO of GigaBook, a cloud-based appointment-booking platform.

1. So Matt, tell the Chainers a bit about yourself. 0:51

• father of two children and a husband
• living in Kansas City, Kansas
• Hobby- making money and I haven’t worked a day since

1. So you have just had your second book published. Congrats! Let’s talk about “Million Dollar Bedroom: Scrappy lessons of success, setback and other surprises not taught in Business School” available in paperback at Amazon.com What was the motivation for this book? 1:56

• My story
• Entrepreneurial journey

1. How long did it take you to complete “Million Dollar Bedroom?” 6:26

• Less than 6 months

1. What was your favorite part of your book? 7:55

• Finishing it

1. So Matt, what was your biggest disaster in starting a business? 9:11

• No disaster, learn a principle
• Path the revenue

1. What advice would you give to someone just starting out but has no money? Are there any free or cheap resources that they could use? 12:35

• Be specific for what you’re going to be good at

Speaking of starting a business, you also are the founder of GigaBook, a cloud- based company that helps small businesses increase their service bookings. Tell us a bit more about Gigabook. 15:23

• It turns your website into a booking platform
• Makes the business more efficient

1. Where did the idea come from? 16:26

• Dropping off dogs
• Nobody is answering phone

1. What’s the hardest part about starting a cloud-based business? 18:44

• If your cloud program doesn’t do what your user wants, you aren’t going to have a user.

Value Link-

1. Can we expect another book from you in the future? 20:43

• Two books
• Will come out in 2018

1. What is your advice to Indie Authors? On writing? Marketing? 21:37

• Start writing

1. Why do you think that people fail at achieving their dreams? 22:09

• By never even starting

1. What is your favorite quote? 23:01

• Success demands payment in advance

1. Are there any other books that you recommend? 23:18

• Balance Me by Matt DeCoursey.
• Million Dollar Bedroom by Matt DeCoursey.

1. Where can we find you online? 24:05

• mattdec.com

1. Any last parting advice for our listeners? 24:25

• Yeah- try

Jackie Ruka is a life coach and happyoligist. She is the founder of Get Happy Zone, Inc. and has been quoted or published in the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch, Yahoo Finance, Lioness Magazine for Female Entrepreneurs, Daily Worth, Fox5, NBC, Philly.com, Health and Family, U-T San Diego, the San Barbara News-Press and SHRM, for her knowledge in business coaching, her ability to overcoming self-limiting beliefs, and her expertise in wellness, and leadership skills.

Wow, Jackie! That’s quite an impressive resume!

1. Tell our listeners a bit about yourself, your family? Timestamp- 1:10

• I am a Happyologist, work with women to focus on their passion. Live in beach town, outdoors person, likes to write, around family, work with children with learning disabilities

1. Being a “Happyologist” sounds great! Tell us, how did you get started? Timestamp- 2:26

• I did not come up with the term, positive psychology research- people who are stressed less when they focus on what they love.

1. Give us some insight into what you or your company does. Timestamp- 4:20

• It is a lifestyle company. We help people go from stress to success. Create a lifestyle around your business.

1. In you book “Get happy and create a kick butt life” you say “turn worry into happiness”, can you explain what you mean? Timestamp- 5:26

• When people worry, they focus on the problem and not the solution. There is a solution to every problem.

1. As a woman entrepreneur, what were some of the financial risks you have had to take? Timestamp- 5:57

• Everyone has a different leap of faith. I transitioned to entrepreneurship from my regular day job and I hired a business coach. I also put myself on a budget so I didn’t have to go into debt.

1. You attended Drexel University as well as Roger Williams University, what advice do you have for people who are looking to further their education, but are turned off by not wanting to take out more student loan debt? Timestamp- 7:21

• If there is an opportunity to go further, there are schools that offer cheaper tuition if you live in that state. There are also loans that are forgiving. Or there are regular student loans and you just pay them off. Focus on making it happen and you will find a way. There are also grants that can help pay your tuition. There are lots of avenues.

1. Being financially bogged down can do harm to a person’s well-being, what advice do you have for our listeners who are feeling this way?

Timestamp- 9:53

• My number one advice, when you focus on your desires, your fears will fade. If you are not doing what you love, you’re just creating more stress. Make a list of things that are important to you.

Value Link ROUND

1. What books or other podcasts do you recommend to our listeners? Timestamp-11:12

• Books: Think and grow rich Podcast: Chain of Wealth

1. What is the best advice someone ever gave you? Timestamp- 11:30

• Focus on your true heart’s desire.

1. What is your favorite word or quote? Timestamp- 11:53

• Look up because the stars are hidden in your heart.

1. What last parting advice do you have for someone trying to get out of debt? Timestamp-12:15

• Don’t try to do everything by yourself- learn from others.
• As far as getting out of debt- there are organizations to help you consolidate your debt.
• Never feel like your alone- build your support team. You will get ahead.

Hey Chainers!

Welcome to the first ever episode of Chain of Wealth!

We’re so excited to get going and start sharing awesome free actionable financial advice that is relevant to everyone.

One of the topics where there is a massive disconnect in society and definitely something that the average person does not know enough about it (unless you’re a financial professional) is Wealth.

Thus - Chain of Wealth was born with the vision and mission to provide daily actionable free financial advice through interviewing people that have excelled and done something extraordinary.

This very first episode, or Episode 0, is just Denis & Katie. We’ll chat a bit about ourselves and the plan is just to discuss a bit about the podcast and give information about how best to use the website.

Ok so firstly, let’s dive into the Podcast itself, why a Wealth Podcast and what is the Chain of Wealth?

Quite simply put, there is a massive amount of information available these days on the internet and there are some really awesome people out there creating content and achieving their financial dreams.

The disconnect occurs in that this information is scattered all over the place, and unless you know exactly what you’re looking, it can take you ages to research and find it.

At the time we’re recording this, the US national debt is over 20 trillion dollars, and while it isn’t necessarily Joe Average’s debt, it definitely speaks to the economy as a whole.

Student debt is also at its highest level ever and people are starting their working careers with a massive debt already owning, pushing out their retirement and making it much harder for people to succeed.

In life, some of the most important things you’ll ever do financially you are not adequately prepared for, such as buying a house, car, saving for retirement and many other financial decisions.

The podcast and blog is a way to address this issue and help people make a massive difference in their lives.

This is one of the major reasons we decided to create the Chain of Wealth Podcast- to provide a free platform to educate people and provide financial advice.

So let’s dive into Chain of Wealth itself, what is the Chain of Wealth and who are the Chainers?

The Chain of Wealth is the hosts, interviewees and all our listeners. We all link together and leverage off each other to provide a network of knowledge, resources and a community where honest information is provided to help each other.

Chainers are our listeners and everyone that is part of our community.

Awesome! So we’ve gone through the basics, but now let’s get into introductions!

Let’s chat about Denis – Originally from South Africa, CA(SA), 5 years of working experience in Corporate in an extremely wide variety of industries and countries.

Let’s chat about Katie- Grew up in Tampa, Florida, 2nd Grade School Teacher, trying to learn more about the financial world and already done some big financial things, got student debt, bought and sold a house and bought a car.

We’ve already interviewed some leading inspirational people such as David Weliver from Money Under 30, Jackie Ruka from GetHappyZone, Brandon Krieg from Stash Invest and many, many other leaders in their respective industries!

The podcast will run from Monday to Friday and the structure will be an interview based podcast. Episodes will range from 15 to 30 minutes long and so will be perfect for most people who go about their weekly routine.

Now let’s talk about the format of the interview – each interview for Chain of Wealth undergoes a rigorous research process and questions asked in the main part of the interview. It is designed to get the most important information out of our guests and answer some questions that we might have.

After that we have a short break and then dive right into the value link round.

The value link round is a lightning round where we extract even more value bombs from our guests and finally end with some parting advice and how you can get in touch with our guests should you wish to do that.

Each and every interview will have a show notes page on our website which is probably where you want to go if you’re looking for a quick recap of the interview as a whole. To access the show notes page, you can either search for the interview or you can browse through the podcast page.

We also use timestamps in our show notes which are totally awesome! What it means is that if you click on the green links it’ll jump right into that portion of the audio clip so you can listen to our guests’ responses super quickly and easily.

There are also links to all the resources that get discussed in the show which provides an amazing platform and a huge amount of value as you can click directly through to what they are talking about.

Definitely check out the website chainofwealth.com there is really some awesome material on there. Check out the podcast page and Katie’s blogs about her journey to getting out of $30,000 in student loan debt from a public Florida university.

Speaking about the website, we’ve also going to add really great guides and content. As an example we’ve written a debt guide for you to check out – chainofwealth.com/debt which is completely FREE.

Anyway, we’re pumped to get going and super excited for our first two guest, Jackie Ruka and Matt DeCoursey

We love comments and questions that you leave, so don’t be shy. We will reply to you- so go visit and subscribe!

Catch ya on the flip side!