How a Nurse Escaped the Rat Race to Build Generational Wealth

I knew that I was in the rat race.

“And I'm like, I cannot do 40 years of breaking my back as a nurse.”

I didn't want to be the person that constantly had to trade my time for money. I quickly realized that I had to start a business. And that's when... Christina Avetta is an entrepreneur, asset protection specialist, and the founder of Seven Ways to Well.

She helps individuals and families build, protect, and preserve generational wealth through financial education, and strategic trust planning. Seven Ways to Well, where I started teaching people about structure, asset protection, how to set up trust funds, things of that nature,

and it kind of just evolved from there. And I just turned into, you know, this business woman that I am today. Someone out there who's on the fence, right? They're thinking about starting a company or getting into investment. What advice would you give that person?

I would tell them not to allow fear to hold them back. I would tell them to take the risk and to bet on themselves. And... It spans the globe. Like a super high school.

Internet elders.

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It's our home off of town out here. The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Oh, that is sensational. Open. Check out the list of latest info in the blog just now on the planet.

You can live your dream. Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast. Again, I am your host, Jason Tyler, and I am joined today by Miss Christina Vett. Yes. Welcome to the show.

How are you feeling? Thank you so much. I feel absolutely welcomed and I feel fantastic today. Now, we're about to go into filming your episode of Women in Power.

First of all, how are you?

Are you a little bit nervous? Got a little bit of the jitters? How are we feeling about the interview? Well, I am excited because I've been anticipating this day. Like, I booked my studio session two months ago.

So I've been really looking forward to it. And I'm just not, I don't have the jitters, but I'm like, I want to see what the fight on product looks like. So I'm like wanting to get it done. All right, I see.

So I will be the steward of making sure that, you know, we give you everything that you're looking forward to in your episode.

“Now, I do want to touch on what do you hope that the audience will be able to learn from your story?”

So I hope that the audience gets to be impacted by my story because my story is not your typical rags to riches story, but I do come from very humble beginnings. And I want them to see that I try them through everything. So I was able to just fight my way starting from the bottom and pretty much making my way to financial freedom.

Starting from the bottom now we're hitting on you. Yeah. I joke, guys. Got you.

Now, this is our audiences first time getting to know you.

So I want to take a second here to really just get the story of Christine, right? Where did you grow up? How do we get the version of you that's sitting in this chair across from you now? Well, that's an excellent question. So I am your typical Miami girl, right?

So I was right. The real follows born and raised here. And my parents are from the Caribbean. And I grew up with this Caribbean lifestyle. And I come from very humble beginnings.

So like my parents, they were pretty much having us live in poverty. Like we were at a point where we were homeless living in an abandoned building. And I had to quickly get a job just to help my parents keep the utilities on. And then from there, I had a passion for entrepreneurship. Once I started working at McDonald's, I was like, I want to own the McDonald's.

I want to be a franchisee. And then from there, I went off to college. I ended up getting into nursing. So I am a registered nurse by trade. And as soon as I started working in my nursing career, I knew that I was in the rat race.

And I was like, need even the rat race. And I was like, I cannot. That would do it. Right. And I'm like, I cannot do 40 years of breaking my back as a nurse. Like being here for 12 hours. I can't even eat.

I can't even go to the bathroom. I can't even do anything. You can't do nothing when you want to do it. You're on somebody else's time. Exactly. And I didn't want to be the person that constantly had to trade my time for money. So I quickly realized that I had to start a business.

And I was early on in my 20s.

So I was pretty much 25 years old when I started my first company.

So it was two years into my nursing career. And I started a real estate investment company. And I started flipping houses here in Miami. My first property was in North Miami Beach. It was a little beat up to a bit room house.

And when I told you that I turned that house into something so gorgeous, I was like, I didn't know that I could transform things. And then from me being able to transform real estate, it kind of evolved into me being like this real estate investor that I wanted to branch into other things.

I started a second business, which is seven ways to wealth, where I started teaching people about structure, asset protection, how to set up trust funds, things of that nature. And it kind of just evolved from there. And I just turned into this business woman that I am today.

Almost a serial entrepreneur.

Yeah, a serial entrepreneur and investor,

because I'm addicted to investing. Multiple streams of income. You could call me that.

“Now I stick a pin from moment here, which Caribbean I think,”

from my dad. So I was born in Miami, but my dad, he was born in Haiti. And my mom from Puerto Rico. Got it, got it. Because I was got something in me, was like, are you training?

Right, not, I just get that all the time. I can see it, I can see it. I want to talk a little bit about, you know, you had this sort of two years of being a registered nurse to where you made the decision you're like, this is, this is not it.

This is not what we're doing. Right. That's such as when I talk to so many people in these chairs about their business and about, you know, the start of their entrepreneurial journey and a lot for a lot of them,

that trajectory is on a much longer time frame. It took them a long time, like for some people was 15, 20 years of working in the rat race before they realized like, oh, I need to go and start a company.

“What do you think it was about you that made you say immediately, no?”

Yes, I know exactly what it was. So at that two-year mark when I was working as a nurse, I had a co-worker and my co-worker, she was 65 years old. She was a beautiful Jamaican woman. Her name was Miss Audrey.

And she was-- Miss Audrey? Yes. Big up in South America. Big up in South America.

So Miss Audrey one day, she was exhausted at work. And I asked her, I said, when are you going to retire? Because she's 65 and at that time, she had already been nursing for 40 years. And you know what society wants for us.

They want us to work for 40 years and to retire when we're 65. So I felt like she hit the mark. And in some ways, not even that nowadays. How did they look and like, you know, what stick around of the longer? Exactly, they really do.

“So I told her, I said, well, when are you going to retire?”

Because you're 65. She's like, I'm not ready to retire. And I'm like, why not? She's like, I am going to wait until I'm 67 and a half. Because social security is going to give me an extra $300.

And at that point, I was so sad for her. And I told myself, at that very moment, I said, that is not going to be me. I'm not going to work in my nursing career for 40 years. And I can't even retire at 65 years old.

And I'm not going to depend on social security. And unfortunately, Miss Audrey, she was so tired that night after her shift, when she pulled out of the parking lot, she hit the tree in front of the emergency room. And she died on impact.

She never made it to retirement.

And that impacted my entire life. And it changed the trajectory of my whole career. And I told myself, I said, I am going to do 10 years. And I end over time myself at 31 years old. And I did eight years.

Shout out to you. Thank you. Shout out to you. And it's a testament to the story of overcoming adversity and being able to look at a situation and say,

I'm going to change this. I have the power to make my life whatever it is that I want it to be. If you had to give our whole audience, they're all entrepreneurial minded. They're business minded.

If you had to give any advice to someone out there who's on the fence, they're thinking about starting a company or getting into an investment. What advice would you give that person? I would tell them not to allow fear to hold them back.

I would tell them to take the risk and to bet on themselves and to just go after whatever they're passionate about.

or their skill set into a business.

“And allow your career right now, your job,”

your nine to five to be your initial business partner. But then once you have that initial business, at the point where it has replaced your nine to five income, is time to fire your boss. My passion was cameras.

Yeah, this, I could go. From the day that I picked up a camera, I was like, this is my, this is my Michael Jordan thing. This is when I have a camera in my hand. This is when I feel like Michael Jordan.

That's the thing that I'm born here to do. And so I tell people not to just credit what you had said about wait until that income is stable enough to then fire your boss. I tell people sometimes you're going to need to jump in with both feet, because there's, there's people out there who are working jobs

that they're not, the ends aren't even meeting. Right. Enough for them to save up money or to have enough time to, you have people out there that are working 12, 14 hours a day that don't have the time to make that side hustle,

“to build that side hustle into what it needs to be.”

And for those people, my advice is get be prepared to have to jump in with both feet. If you really believe that you can do something,

sometimes it takes an incredible act of courage,

an incredible act of getting out there and just doing it and walking on faith to go out and do the thing, you know, I built a business with a buddy of mine last year. And we started a podcast studio in his apartment. Wow.

And within six months of doing that business, I mind you, he had no, he didn't know a camera from his left elbow. Wow. But he called me and he said, Jason, I have this great apartment. I want to turn into a podcast studio, let's do the thing.

I was like, cool, let's do it. And we built this podcast studio. And within six months, we were seeing six figures a month in recurring revenue. That's impressive. Like, you just have to go out and do the thing.

Absolutely. And obviously, like, that he had the means to be able to invest a lot into equipment. Like, we probably spent like 120 grand on equipment to get this thing up and off the ground. But it just took doing the thing.

And then all of a sudden everything sort of steam rolled. And then that pivoted me into another thing, which pivoted me to into another thing to now here I am sitting in the podcast. See you last self.

“But I want to just get your take on what does somebody out there have to have?”

What are some character traits that you see in business owners? You have the seven, I'm sorry, remind me, the seven paths to wealth? Seven ways to wealth. Seven ways to wealth. On the way, I got where I got paths in my mind.

I know, right? You can remix it. You know what it is? It's some huge Naruto nerd and I thought seven paths of pain. But anyway, so seven ways to wealth.

What are some character traits that you notice amongst people who are successful? Better like unanimous among them? Yes, so I've noticed that they are courageous, right? And I like that you use that word. They're very creative.

They are very innovative. They're risk takers. They're risk takers. They do not mind. Yeah, they don't mind betting on themselves.

And they're very dedicated. And a lot of them are also disciplined. Like they're some are disciplined. But they're disciplined to the point that their weaknesses, they turn them into strengths.

Or they will outsource and get someone who that's their, you know, expertise. You gotta start a delegate. Exactly, delegation is so important. And that is what allowed me to scale up my business delegation. Because I thought I was wearing all the hats.

And then the minute I was like, OK, well, my strength is not in accounting. So here's an accountant. Here's a CFO. So here's a CFO. My immediately.

And then the business just went up, up, up, up from there. Do you, this is, I mean, this is just a personal question. Do you hire C suite down? Or do you hire about higher bottom level up? So I end up hiring bottom level.

And then I went to the C suite. And then I went down again. So you did like the same thing? Yes, I did the same thing. I got this, I got this, you know, piece of advice from another entrepreneur.

And they said, hire your C suite first.

Your major decision makers. And that way, when it comes time to hire at the bottom, you have a group. You have like essentially your war room that's going to be able to help you make those decisions. So that, I mean, for those of you guys out there, when you're creating a company, think about organizational structure, think about how, you know, you plan out your org chart.

Make sure you plan out your business as if it's going to be, you're going to have 1500 employees. And what does the organization look like at that scale, and then just work your way there?

But one thing that I would say is that when I went to go hire my C suite, they're like,

“"But who is going to be the one taking the actions?"”

Because we are not the one that's answering calls or doing SOPs. We need the manpower to be able to do it.

Yeah, so that was one thing that I realized.

“I was like, "Okay, like we got to get the people first, then the C suite, we didn't more people."”

Now, guys, if you're still tuned in at this point in the pod, I do want to make sure that you guys check out Christine's episode of Women Empower,

which will be coming out shortly after this podcast, "Ears."

“And for the people who want to follow you on social,”

find you on the internet, where can they find you? So, they can find me definitely on Instagram and YouTube. My Instagram is I am Christine Ivette. Ivette is IVE, TTE. And then for YouTube, our channel is seven ways to wealth and Christine Ivette.

Perfect. Perfect. And we'll make sure it will be through all of those different links up in the description for this one for you guys. But again, this has been another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I am your host, Jason Tyler. Christina, it has been a pleasure how you and you on the show. And I am ready to now go film your episode.

You ready? Yes, I'm ready and I'm excited. Let's go do it. Let's go do it. All right, y'all. We'll catch you on the app. We'll catch you guys in the next one. Bye.