Becoming Your Own Banker Book Review (Part 2) | "Don't Steal the Peas"

Speaker 0 | 00:00.092 All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the number one fastest growing life insurance podcast on the planet. We got Dom, we got Austin, you got myself, and we're going to be continuing our review of Becoming Your Own Banker, the book that R. Nelson Nash wrote that very much became I'm a pioneer on how you use life insurance, how you pay yourself. You pay yourself back with interest. You create capital for your family. And you ultimately take banking, which is a very profitable business in the world, and you apply that in your family. And you create ripples. And I think we talked last week about part one. Lots of great things covered there. And if you've not watched that, make sure to go back and we cover part one. And in today's episode, we're going to be covering part two of this book. And what I love about part two, outside of the last. chapter in part two, it's all about mindset, all about mindset, all about mindset. There's some gems here. And I think like anything, learning these, understanding the principle and then applying that principle is going to be super key. And so Dom, we're going to start off with you, my man, and just get your overall take before we go chapter by chapter. But what were some of the big takeaways that you had when you were just reading part two? Speaker 1 | 01:25.168 Amazing. So... I actually really love this part personally for the beginning of the mindset, but also when you started talking about some of the life insurance stuff too, I really loved some of the language that was used. So I think this is going to be a great segment to talk about chapter by chapter and some of the benefits and what he says. I would have loved if this would have been the first part of the book personally. it seems like that it would be more fitting to get people in the right mindset of why so and so forth and then start getting into more of the conceptual pieces of Speaker 0 | 01:57.256 the the banking system afterwards but you know even though that wasn't the case that's okay it does feel like it's just a hodgepodge of like like you almost like if nelson was still alive and i could have asked him this question i'd be like nelson i i know in hindsight sometimes it's all 2020 and we're gonna make like this is a great book but like what why did you put it in a certain way. I'm sure he would have a reason because remember that this was a 10 hour course. And so maybe it's like hook them with some of the key banking ideas, but then let's go to the mindset before we get into the illustrations. But sometimes I, I sometimes scratch my head. I'm like, okay, I wonder why this was put here. Um, so I'm, I'm with you, Don. That was one of, one of the things that I was thinking about and wondered if some of these stories should have ended up in part one. But again, I'm sure, sure. Nelson has a reason for everything. And, um, Speaker 1 | 02:52.840 Yeah, no, no, I agree. And the best part about this chapter is like, it's not just about the infinite banking concept. It's just life. And that's what I really loved and sound money principles and life principles. And there's some really good nuggets that we can take away through each chapter that I'm excited to talk about and dive deeper into. So overall, love the chapter, wish it would have been first. And yeah, I don't want to go too much into episodes that right now. Speaker 0 | 03:19.200 Austin, I... In part one, if you had a couple of big takeaways as you're reading, what were some of the things that hit you? Sorry, I said part one. Part two of becoming your own banker. Speaker 2 | 03:29.767 No worries. Yeah, no worries. Yeah, so I think he does a good job labeling it in an early 2000s way in the title. And we say mindset. Mindset is kind of the buzzword of nowadays because of the human problems. And ultimately, these are all the hangups that prevent people. From either seeing the value in the strategy or from even if they understand the value in the strategy, being able to implement it long term, because there are some some shortcomings that we have as humans. There are some ways that we are short sighted that ultimately are like a stumbling block to ourselves that we're going to trip over. And we have to be aware of them if we are to overcome it. And so that's that's really what he's laying out over this part is, you know, what what is it that. comes natural to you that you're going to have to resist in order to successfully implement this. Now, he kind of touched on that a little bit in the last part, if you recall the whole analogy with the grocery store. You know, we have this natural inclination to go out the back door, right? And like, you have to resist that because ultimately you're stealing from yourself when you do that. And he does touch on the idea of theft in here as well, although in a different way. But there's just a lot of things in here where it's like, you know, you have to have a certain way of thinking and seeing the world and a certain way of just of moving through your, your financial life, if you're going to be able to make progress to steady progress towards the goal of, you know, being your own bank and of, you know, creating your own banking system. So that, that's ultimately kind of what I was picking out of the chapter is like, you know, what do I have to overcome in myself? Um, if I'm going to be, have like long-term financial success. Speaker 0 | 05:12.718 Yeah. Those are, those are, those are great points. I, I, uh, really, I really appreciate what he wrote in just these chapters. And I... It's cool because a lot of these points and rereading them, I'm like, I've really applied some of this stuff to my life. Like the Parkinson's law, how many people do we know the more that they make, they just start spending more. And it's like once you experience a luxury, it becomes something that we need all of a sudden. And that's like we get sometimes super analytical, but that's just like a human behavior that you just. you just need to be aware of and like nip in the bud. And so like that, that's an, that's an aspect. And also I was thinking about you, Don, from just an operation standpoint, if we, if we, if we say that it's going to get, take a month, takes a month, it's normally things don't happen faster. And so it's almost like even in running a business, how do we create almost constraints that make things move along? And I almost think in your, your personal finances, how can you purposefully create constraints in your life. that by default help you. And a constraint would be that you're going to pay yourself at market rate interest back to your family. It's like, well, why would I pay my family or myself interest and almost like create more friction and you end up buying less because you have more friction. And it's like, well, actually, in the long run, that friction is good. And so sometimes the ease of money is not necessarily a great thing. It's super easy to use a credit card. Where is that led most people. And so that that's been great. I Also, the Willie Sutton's law, it's like just the philosophy. I know that lots of people are going to get triggered by this, but the philosophy of qualified plans, the philosophy of the government saying, hey, we have a problem called income tax you're trying to get out that we've created. We're going to give you a way out. It's like just the idea of like they potentially will take that money eventually. And I was at an event recently, and someone was the idea of Ross. Ross came up and just for the record, I'm not anti-Roth and I'm not anti-Roth at all. I know that some people might get triggered by that. I think a Roth IRA is a great approach, but there was someone that made a really good argument to say, listen, like, I just don't trust the philosophy of the Roth IRA. Like I believe they will take our money eventually. And they referenced Nelson's book. And so it's just, again, we can get all technical, which leads to the arrival syndrome of like, a lot of times people want to be like, no, that's not how it works. And it's like, There's something to say about the older that you get. Just being like, let's look at history. Let's not just take what they're saying today. Let's look at what other empires that have fallen, like the cycle that they went into. And you can't say that this is impossible because if we get to a place and there's democracy and people can vote in what they want and people could be like, well, is it fair that Peter Thiel has millions of dollars in his Roth? We should take that money. And it's like, well, You know, when you have people that can, when you have a group of people that can potentially change the rules through voting, nothing is quote unquote guaranteed. So that was interesting. I think the golden rule is just a classic. Those who have the gold make the rules. We're excited to talk more about that. And then just the use it or lose it. This is where I agree, but also I have some potential disagreements with some of the bridge that Nelson takes, like use it or lose it. And then it's like. I hear a lot of people, it's like, that's the justification why you should use your infinite banking policy at all costs. We can talk about that. And then it feels like chapter 10 is out of place, just being honest. Like, it's just like, okay, all the mindset. Now we're going to talk about creating an entity. But chapter, like, the last part is creating the foundation for the next couple parts of the book. And so overall, it was exciting. It was exciting and a great read. Speaker 1 | 09:12.803 Yeah. Speaker 2 | 09:14.277 Yeah, agreed. Speaker 1 | 09:15.999 Amazing. Let's go ahead and jump into the chapters. I think this will be a great segment. I think we can get after it and have some fun. Speaker 0 | 09:23.745 Cool. So the human problems, Parkinson's law, and the quote, the famous quote is, work expands to meet the time enveloped allowed. And then a luxury once enjoyed becomes a necessity. And then another thing that was taken is expenses rise to equal income. And you must overcome this daily. Dom, what was, uh, talk to me about this, this, this chapter. Speaker 1 | 09:48.532 Yeah. Here's the thing. I try to be. very objective about reality and looking at real life versus putting things in a box. And I actually think Parkinson's law has some benefits. And I know most people probably aren't thinking of it that way when they first read it. But, you know, like you mentioned, from a business perspective, if somebody if we give a week, then it'll take a week. So instead of giving it a week, like why not give it 30 minutes, right? And if you can use that as a tool, as Parkinson's knowing that Parkinson's law exists, then it's just like any other financial product. It's not good or bad. It's just a tool. You know it exists and then use it accordingly. Now, on the other side, where you understand that, you know, as you make more money, you spend more money. That's how a tool can be used in a very negative way. And if we understand that and then it can fight that, that urge, which comes down to human emotion, greed, and where the heart's at, then we can essentially come on the other side in a very positive manner. So for me, I think Parkins Law is a great thing to be aware of. It could be used as a tool. It can also be a very negative thing if you let it control you. Speaker 0 | 10:51.873 What is a practical thing that someone could take as just like what practically would you recommend someone to take around like dispenses rise to equal income and luxury once enjoyed becomes a necessity? Like, is there a tangible takeaway that we can help our clients or if someone's listening to this big, okay, great point. What can I do about it to make sure that I nip it in the bud? Speaker 1 | 11:14.728 I think you have to start. it's So, so cliche, but with the end in mind of what it is that you really want out of life. And you have to have conversations with your spouse, your kids, the people in your family tree, and really determine what's important and valuable to you. Because by nature, you just may think the typical American white picket fence is the thing that we should strive for. So therefore, as you make more money, you buy a bigger house, you make more money, you buy a bigger car, you make more money, your expenses go up, and you try to keep up with the Joneses. But if you really sit down and reflect and you really go over what it is you want out of life, you'll come to find out that it has more to do with abundance, more to do with education, more to do passing down from generation to generation, more so from a growth probably perspective that creates a lot of fulfillment, giving back more to your community. And by doing so, you need to shrink the expense side while you continue to increase the revenue side to create abundance and if you never get to that place where you're thinking abundantly and going above and beyond with the revenue, but decreasing expenses, you'll always be a slave essentially to quote unquote, the man, to yourself, overspending. Speaker 0 | 12:28.667 Dom, you're mainly camping on the mindset. I hear what I hear from you. Speaker 1 | 12:33.120 Yeah, that's everything. A hundred percent. Speaker 0 | 12:34.823 Yeah. Yeah. And I, I'll, I'll disagree with that, but I want to hear Austin, your thoughts. So Nelson later in this book, he says, if you can whip Parkinson's law, you will win by default. because your peers can't do it. How do we go about this? And again, mindset's important, but how would you go about this in your own life, Austin? And how do you help other people with Parkinson's law? Speaker 2 | 12:58.059 So I'll start with an analogy to something that's happening in the world, and I'll bring it back in. So interesting, the first part of Parkinson's law, that work expands to meet the time envelope allowed. There is a basilica. in Spain. It's called La Sagrada. It's been being built for like over 120 years. Like it has been in the process of being built for that long. And granted, there was some pretty grand sort of vision that kind of started at being built, but it has like, there, there are multiple different ages worth of like artistic representation on the outside. And there's never a time deadline, right. Of when it needed to be finished. Contrast that with, you know, something like if you've if you've ever seen like work being done on highways or whatnot, um, usually the work occurs at night because in the morning, uh, when the, like at like 6am or whatever, when like traffic starts to pick up, there's like this fine that will be assessed on them if they continue work past the time that they're allotted. Right. And so, you know, if you, if you don't have any sort of a, of a timeframe on when something needs to get done, it could take 120 years. Um, if you do have a timeframe and you do limit yourself, you probably can get it done. in a reasonable amount of time. And so, you know, how, my question is, you know, how do we go about doing this to ourselves? How do we go about, you know, if you can get this, the rest of the world can't. The answer is probably not very sexy. It's probably going to involve just a lot of willpower. And, you know, there's going to be times when your friends are buying things and you're not. There's going to be times when it's just like, you know, you're like, oh man, I we're driving home in the car and we could go to a restaurant, you know, we could go do something and we could, you know, push the budgetary limit this month a little bit as a family. Or we could just go home and eat some of the leftovers that we already have in our fridge, right? Is that I think there's going to be a lot of times where the decision is going to seem small in the moment, but if you compound those over a month and over a year and over 10 years, you know, it's going to make a big difference. Like if you, if you just have a I'm going to do whatever I feel like in the moment mentality, you're not going to be able to resist Parkinson's law because in the moment, you are going to be hungry, you're going to be thirsty, you're going to like the way the luxury looks, right? Speaker 1 | 15:22.839 Caleb, I would love to hear your Caleb because Austin and I seem like we're talking a lot about the mindset side of things. Speaker 0 | 15:28.911 Yeah, you guys are in the fluffy clouds right now. Speaker 1 | 15:30.645 I would love to hear you just to bring it back to what you're going to disagree with or whatever Yeah, Speaker 0 | 15:35.207 so here's my mine says huge. So I'm not going to discount mindset, but I think sometimes we can get too high on our own supply when it comes to mindset and mindset becomes the convenient thing that we always go to. And so one of the things is when you track it, you control it. I really do believe that when you can start tracking numbers, you have more ownership and there's accountability that are tied to that. There have been people that I've known that they have accountability groups where every time they meet, they go over their balance sheet and their cashflow tracking. And by default, You don't even necessarily need to make goals, but if you track these things ongoing, you start seeing patterns, and you have to be accountable for what you're spending. This is an example that Dom and I went through. As a company, we track what people are spending, and you have to account for you have to stand by that. And that might change someone's behavior on like, hey, knowing that I'm going to have eyeballs on this, I may think differently when I spend money. And so I think creating a practical system. that's tracking cash flow is really important. There's another tool out there called Currents that we're going to be starting to use in some of the ways that we help clients. And what they do is they almost separate a bank account where your money comes in and then where it goes out. And their whole default is what usually happens is the more money you make, you just spend more. And so what they're saying is if you can lower your spending rate versus what you're making, by default, you'll win over time. But their whole deal is like, You can have all the mindset in the world, but you actually need to set up a system to recapture some of that. Yes, I said that word, recapture. But as a default, like over time, those you're setting like you're creating friction to make it harder to spend versus right now it's like the default. Last thing I'll say is accountability is practically setting up accountability, whether it's with a spouse, whether it's with a coach, whether it's with an advisor, whether it's publicly. there's someone I know that publicly tracks their portfolio in front of everybody. And you better believe they have a different energy. So those are, I love mindset, but these are like some practical things that are like mindset and to, I think, really hit the Parkinson's law. Because even myself, I think I'm pretty frugal and I think I have some good mindsets, but these tools have helped me become more aware because we can have the mindset, but these tools create accountability that. I think are really practical to help people get to the next level. So I don't know your take on those, but it's not a disagreement. It's just like a mindset. Yes, but let's focus on the tracking. Speaker 1 | 18:11.561 Amazing. So you were going from a real tangible, what can somebody do to actually improve Parkinson's laws versus just like the headspace of it? So one, I agree, you obviously can't improve if you don't actually take real action. And I think that's sometimes where people do get in the fluffy clouds for too long where they stay there and they never take any action. I also think as a society, what we've actually done is we've got so numb to the idea of quote unquote mindset that we almost just forgot about how important it actually is. So like you actually go through like these swings of life. We could talk about this from gender equality. We could talk about policy. We could talk about a lot of things where things start from one extreme, then they go to the complete et cetera, et cetera, the other side of the extreme. I think we've done that with the whole personal development mindset thing where That was such a big focus like 10, 20 years ago where you had all the Tony Robbins, those books. So people are like so focused on the headspace. And then nobody takes action. So then it's like, well, okay, now action is important. And then so on and so forth, you stop doing so. Now I think it's the other side where people are so numb to social media, so numb to the idea of actual mindset that they're like they don't actually ever get anything done, period. So I do agree with you, but I still think like it's so important. and it actually hit me even harder the other day when I was in church and the, the pastor talked about literally our headspace and mindset of the things we think about literally control the activities that we do. And it's literally this far away from sin creeping at the door from essentially creating generational curses, just like the story of we're down going the whole thing with Abe and Cain and Abel where, you know, Cain essentially killed Abel because his headspace was just like in a place of like, distraught because I didn't serve the Lord well and ended up killing his brother because of it. That's a whole crazy thing, right? But when I talk about this from this perspective with infinite banking and Parkinson's law, I do think all the things that I mentioned before. is super important because Austin talked about willpower. And I think willpower is fickle. And I think unless you have the conversations around what's important to you and what you value, you'll never actually have the quote unquote willpower. You'll never actually create the systems that are important for you. Right. And so that's why there is the two people of like the Vanderbilt's versus the Rockefeller's because they did create the mind space, the education, and then they created the system. So yeah, I think that the system is super important and that's the tangible piece of it that will actually make the generational changes. and I think that the books like you know, Robert Kiyosaki, you know, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And it looks like the Secrets of the Millionaire Mind talking about paying yourself first, like the first 10, 20% should always go back and send you to yourself. And if that's essentially your banking system, that's amazing. And then you essentially use other tools like currents or shoot a spreadsheet for is great as well, just to essentially create more value in dollars to your household economy. Speaker 0 | 21:04.323 The richest man in Babylon. was that that was like my biggest takeaway is a tenth of what you make is yours to keep and pay yourself before you pay others and i think that one takeaway is a great example of that and not that nelson said that in this chapter but but parkinson's law one of the arguments to be made around whole life insurance is you're you're physically setting up a system to make sure that you're paying yourself and some of the same things that people could say that this is a negative it's like You have flexibility, but it's not as flexible as a savings account. It could be an asset long term because you're creating a system to literally a bill to pay yourself. And it's sometimes I love flexibility, but flexibility could be a problem. And there's a lot that we could talk about that. Austin, do you have anything, any takes before we go on to the next chapter, Willie Sutton's? Speaker 2 | 21:59.001 No, I think we hit them all. I don't think I have any extra takes. I think that I think willpower, I think mindset, I think even lastly systems. I think obviously you need to have all three of those working in concert with each other in order to kind of effectuate any change. Right. And so I think everything that we talked about is probably equally important. OK, Speaker 1 | 22:22.139 the last thing that I will mention that was talked about in here that we didn't talk about yet, because I think for the reader, that's like they may not understand what does that mean? And maybe you guys have a different take on it. But he talks about the role. Rule, remember rule six, right? And he said, Hey, like, don't take yourself too seriously. And like, when you first read it, you're like, well, what does he essentially mean? Like my takeaway from what that means is that ego and pride and things like overconfidence can essentially get in your way from essentially creating something significant like this and creating a family foundation and headspace mindset systems, all the things that we're talking about. And so I think ego and pride is a downfall of all man. And I think that that's essentially what's like hey don't take yourself so seriously like It's okay that we let go of some of those things and we start implementing some other things that are going to be more beneficial to you. Speaker 0 | 23:10.721 I totally agree. And I also felt like, Nelson, why wasn't that in the chapter of the arrival syndrome? I don't know. That seems like it's like, hey, don't take yourself too seriously. You're all going to die. No one's going to remember you in 200 years. Like, chill. And I think it's, you know, maybe it's the start of like this whole section to say like, hey, we're going to go through some human behaviors. so I did I wanted to make a take on that, and I'm grateful that you brought that up. I just didn't know how that tied into Parkinson's law, but I think it's a great mental model that I go back to when I'm reading YouTube comments of people that are hating on me, and I'm like, okay, relax. I'm not that important. And usually when you think you're important, that's when ego becomes an enemy of yours. So I appreciate you mentioning that, and I think there's some really truth in that. Take yourself less seriously and you'll actually be more happy and probably more wealthy as a result. Speaker 1 | 24:07.025 Amen. Speaker 0 | 24:08.947 Okay. Dude, Pastor Dom, getting this thing off of the banger. All right. So Willie Sutton stole money from the banks when asked why. It's like, well, that's where the money's at. So here's some of the takeaways I got from the chapter. And then, Austin, we're going to start with you after this. I wrote down, wherever wealth is accumulated, someone will try to steal it. You know, Nelson alludes to the IRS being the biggest thief in the world. The government is a parasite. Very interesting take. When taxation becomes onerous to a point where the government officials sense rebellion, they will always resort to exceptions to the rule. Interesting. And then he writes this. The lawmakers create a problem by spending money that they don't have, which results in straggling taxation. And then they create a solution. to form an exception to the rule they created and the natural result of such a process is a system in which the government controls everything you do. And then he goes on to say they can and will change their minds upon the slightest whim of times. He also takes a jab at the income tax was 1913. So there's certain things that predate that. And then he ends the chapter by saying this is best solved by people freely contracting with one another. with government limitations to function in enforcing those contracts. Or sorry, I misread that. So best solved by people freely contracting with one another with a government limited to enforcing those contracts. And that's very consistent with Nelson's take on just how politics work. There's a lot here, and there might be some things that I did not mention in that summary of Chapter 6. But Austin, take it away. Speaker 2 | 26:03.475 Yeah. Yeah, this one, and ultimately, like, once again, what we talked about in our previous video is you have to, like, zoom out, look at everything he is saying, because if you zoom too much in on any one thing, it's easy to really get lost in the weeds. Because even this morning, as I was doing prep for what we were going to talk about today, I got really deep in the weeds on something, even a little bit yesterday, that ultimately, it was really fun to research. wasn't entirely like in line with what he was talking about because What he's talking about, like, and really my point of contention comes down to the way he characterizes the IRS and taxation and theft, because you really hear his libertarianness coming through strong. He's a fiscal libertarian through and through. And libertarians are like, for those of you who don't know, they're like further right of like conservatives. Like they believe in extremely limited government. You know, they believe in like, Speaker 0 | 26:58.454 I would say there's a lot of libertarians. That's hard. more liberal when it comes to social issues, but yes, fiscally. Speaker 2 | 27:04.791 Fiscally liberal, yeah. It's like government enforces contracts only. They really don't do anything else. The transactions are really person to person and the government really plays no part in that. And the reason why he's saying that is to set up everything he's saying about 401ks and qualified plans and how the government creates the problem and then tries to be part of the solution, which is a little bit backwards. I do think, though, that, like... you know, he, he does like make these kind of, he drops these like very blanket generalizations and he doesn't really spend much time justifying them. So like when he says like, who's the biggest thief in the world, the internal revenue service, um, it is, I guess it may be important to just to realize is that like, you know, that like tax and taxation is, is a reality pretty much anywhere in the civilized world. Now, Some places don't have income tax. There's a couple states that don't have income tax, and there's several countries that don't have income tax. But there has to be revenue for the government to function in some way. And it has to come from the... Somehow it has to come from citizens. It either comes from our incomes, or in the past, it's come from tariffs. And right now we are experiencing what a heavy-handed tariff policy is like in this country. Or, you know, it has to come from the extraction of natural resources, which, depending on the way that that's done, could be its own form of ecological theft if you really want to go down the rabbit trail. So, like, taxations, it's necessary. It's something that, like, ultimately I would not want to have live in a society that doesn't have a centralized government. So, ultimately, like, I'm glad that it's occurring because ultimately I do think we need people to kind of arbitrate disputes between people, like the police and, like, the federal government. but I think it is important to realize that, yes, like, okay, it's important to have a centralized government. It's important to have these things. However, like when it comes to your, your personal family finances, do you trust the government to provide an adequate solution to the problem of taxation? Because even if it's a necessary thing, I still think it is a problem because you're, you're taking money that would be part of your household economy and it's leaving it and it's never coming back. I actually go over this with clients and pretty much all. of I have the clarity calls that I do is I say like, okay, I talked to them, hey, money only goes one of two places. It's either spent or it's saved. And taxes is I consider part of spent because it leaves your wallet and it never comes back. And so it's weird to think of taxes in that way, but like you're losing access to those dollars forever. And so what's the best way to not have to get involved in a system where you're going to continually be paying taxes every year. If you could create this alternative system of life insurance where it's not going to be taxed after it goes in because it predates the income tax law, like, that's amazing. Now, Caleb, I want to talk with you about this. So it's important. Now, I tell people, like, you know, people who ask. It's important to know that this predates the income tax law, and once your dollars go in, they're not going to be taxed again. However, like you said, we live in a society where if we vote in people, we can get the rules changed. Now, ultimately, life insurance, I think it does fall prey to just like anything else in society. If there was a point in the future when enough people decided that they wanted to change the rules on life insurance, they could do it. But I think that they would be facing some stiff headwinds just because I don't think it would be a very popular thing. Speaker 0 | 30:40.990 Anything technically could be possible. Yeah. And historically, there's been people that have been grandfathered in. And there would be a lot of other things that I think would come under attack before life insurance. Yeah. But it would be very hypocritical of us when we're talking about don't take us too seriously in the arrival syndrome. I can't ethically be like, this is impossible. It's like, you know what? Who am I? Who knows? I mean, you know, if some people in the future get elected, they could go, you know, they could maybe go that direction. But just know, like, it would be a lot harder and you could very much make the argument that they're coming after private property. And, you know, so I think we have bigger issues. Austin, I'm going to go through this quick with you because I just want to get your take. Do you believe wherever wealth is accumulated, someone will try to steal it? Do you like that mentality? Do you agree that that's a good mentality to have in the back of your head? Speaker 2 | 31:37.501 Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 0 | 31:39.501 IRS is the biggest thief in the world. I would assume you don't agree with that. Speaker 2 | 31:43.485 No. No, I don't. Speaker 0 | 31:46.345 Government is a parasite. Not agreeing with that. Speaker 2 | 31:50.579 Very nuanced question. I think I'll say the quick answer would be no. I think the government's made up of people who are all trying to individually do the right things. but might collectively do the wrong thing sometimes. I'm just not the same kind of fiscal libertarian that... Speaker 0 | 32:05.777 And last question, do you believe that the 401k IRA and even the Roth system that in our lifetime will come under siege and the rules will change that will potentially hurt people in the long run? Do you believe that that's doable or do you think that's on the radar and that will happen? Speaker 2 | 32:28.343 It seems... It seems unlikely just from what I've even seen. And maybe I'm just having a short sighted with the current administration. But like it seems like like like I know that people say like, oh, I bet taxes would be crazy in the future. Like tax like it seems like every president, whether it's Democrat, Republican, they're always trying to find ways for like for tax breaks for like the majority of people touching like the 401ks or Roths is like it's kind of like a middle class attack. I could see maybe like income access. income taxes being raised on like you know like the higher i gotta take on this i gotta i gotta take on this and i'm gonna hand this over to to dom yeah but i just i don't see it being likely um just because once and even even ross and iras get phased out the higher in income you go so like i see really high income maybe i can see you that your wealth uh coming under attack but like middle tier income it just seems unlikely so i don't think it's i think directly taxed Speaker 0 | 33:28.078 could be a problem. But there's nothing. Everything's on my bingo card when it comes to government, just an FYI. What I think is very likely is we look at things like Social Security, other government handouts, just different aspects of how things are tracked. I think it's very likely that money coming from Roths, 401ks, IRAs, that that will affect you indirectly in some way. Like the fact that Social Security is double taxed is not right at all. I know that there's some conversations about changing that, but the fact that social security, you have to pay a dollar of tax on that is straight up death in my opinion. And we're already seeing that. And so, yeah, I think those are the aspects. And this is what happens all the time is they'll be like, hey, if we actually tax a Roth IRA, this could be problematic. But if we include it in the overall tax bill, then like are we taxing it? no, but indirectly, it's bumping you up into a place that might, you might get less benefits. I very much see that happening. And I think that's very much on the bingo card when it comes to government needing money, because right now we're fine. I mean, we're not, but I guess we're fine. But if we really get to a dark place in our country, I think all bets are on and it's like, hey, what's what's worse, starvation or, you know, justifying something. And so that's that's my take. I think it's one thing if someone goes after it directly, like, hey, we are now taxing your loss. I think that could be problematic. And I think there's a lot of other creative ways that they can, you know, like a parasite, take that money. And I'm not saying the government's a parasite, but I think it's an interesting. word analogy. So Dom, you've been quiet for a while. I want to hear your take on on some of these matters. Speaker 1 | 35:17.276 Amazing. So I'm going to start with the first question that you asked Austin because it gives an overarching thought process around just the Willie Sutton's law. You asked Austin, do you think that whatever wealth is accumulated, someone will try to steal it as a good mindset to have? Austin said, yes. I think that's a terrible mindset to have. I do. I think it's terrible. Speaker 0 | 35:39.790 I'm going to disagree with you, Speaker 1 | 35:41.032 but I want to hear your take. No, that's okay. I think by having that mindset, you get in a place of paranoia and scarcity. And I'm in the mindset of having abundance and seeing, quote unquote, the best in people. I think that it's good to be aware, right? But I do know what it's like to have this fear and the crippling that it can have on you by thinking the government's after me. People are after me. I built this wealth. You just shrink and you no longer expand. So go ahead, share your counter. I'd love to hear it. Speaker 0 | 36:15.235 Yeah, again, it goes back to, yes, when it comes to abundance versus scarcity, we should have an abundance mind. And I like to think of myself personally, like I'm trying to be an optimist and a pessimist at the same time. And where I become pessimistic is I have very low expectations of the system, which Which makes me better at dotting my I's, crossing my T's, asking better questions, and just having this mentality of like, hey, you should do proper planning when it comes to liability. You should be aware of some future like wherever your money is, there's future ripples. And so I hear what you're saying is like you don't want to be paranoid. You don't want to be miserable. We know a lot of people that are in the libertarian camp that are always miserable. They're always like, you know. just angry humans. And I'm not saying that that's what you should do. But I actually think it's a really good mindset in the back of your head, wherever you're putting your money being like, okay, how easy could this be to lose? And that has made me a better investor. And maybe I've passed up on some things I shouldn't have. But I've avoided some mistakes and short term thinking because of that due diligence. I very much think of it as a due diligence. I assume like, in every deal that I do, how can I lose money in this deal? And I think that mental framework is a similar here. It's not very abundant to think, how am I going to lose all my money? But it helps me make better decisions. And I think we are so often so trusting in areas that we maybe shouldn't be trusting. Speaker 1 | 37:51.802 Yeah. I think for me, it's the way that it's framed. I just think that to me, I see it more as a game. You understand the rules of the game, you play the game and you essentially do the best you can to win. I'm not going to look at it as it like, oh. everybody's out to get me slash the scarcity mindset. It's just like, I have education that I understand that these things are in place and they're happening. So yeah, I'm going to do my due diligence, cross my eyes, cross my T's. But by doing it in that way where it's, hey, I'm educated, I'm going to play this game. It doesn't create this scarcity pessimistic thing. It's like, hey, I really like just learning now because now I'm going to implement things that nobody can take my money from me more so than like, ah, somebody's trying to steal my money from me because I built this wealth. So it's just, we're talking about the same thing. I just, the way that I view it is just so different. I'm, I'm a very half glass full type of guy. So yeah. Speaker 0 | 38:42.402 Which I appreciate that about you. Speaker 1 | 38:44.164 Yeah. Um, something that I just want to say real quick that I just, I was just doing, looking at it cause someone we've talked about in the past is there's the line in here that talks about a lot of makers create problems by spending money that they do not have. Um, I just looked at the debt clock right now and it's like up to like $37 trillion or something like that. It's like absolutely insane. And just to put that into perspective, it's like if you spent $1 million every single day, every single day, it would take you 101,000 years to spend that. 101,000 years every single day to spend $37 trillion. So it just was mind-blowing to just put that into perspective on how much money that actually is at this point in time. So I think Nelson's whole point of this chapter is really just to have people be problem-aware of like, hey, maybe it's not. the best thing to put all of your money in a qualified plan and give it to the government. And maybe you want to start shifting it to something different. And at the end, he says, essentially says, this is what I don't necessarily agree with. The solution to all economic problems is essentially putting it in dividend paying whole life insurance. And I do agree it's an amazing place to store money, but I definitely don't think it's the solution to all economic problem solving. Speaker 0 | 39:56.031 Hey, it's Caleb Williams here. I'm just interrupting this video quickly to invite you to check out our and that's it vault you may have been there, we've actually revamping it. And if you are somebody that wants to learn more about is life insurance right fit for me? Does this and asset makes sense? Like, does this actually help me be more efficient? We've put together a 10 minute documentary style video that I think does a really, really good job giving the history why the and asset different setups and designs that we use. And then we have an and asset ball that gives like case studies, calculators, handbooks, and so much more. We are here to serve you, whether it's a conversation, whether it's education or the video. So make sure to go check out andasset.com slash vault. Learn more. Right. The pushback to that statement is if the government just goes and steals people's money, like straight up, we're still living with our citizens. And so the idea of just saying, I'm going to be fine, but everyone around me is going to have no food, it's like that doesn't work out well. You know what I'm saying? So it's like there comes to a point where there is an aspect of like you got to bet on America. And let's say the market, let's just say the market drops and it just goes like, it just, everyone loses all their money. That's not a great thing. Like period. Cause you're creating massive chaos and you can say all the mindset stuff you want, but at the end of the day, massive chaos is not good. And so you could have all your money in gold and all this stuff, but it's like now, now the real, now, now it's like you have, Speaker 1 | 41:27.734 I could disagree with that in some aspect too like i think if the market actually tanks and drops pretty drastically. I think it's actually, there is positives. Inflation eventually comes down, interest rates come down, and you essentially get a reset to essentially like create new beginnings. So, you know, Speaker 0 | 41:43.702 I just want to keep- Which leads us well in the next, the golden rule. But the other thing that I'll say, because I'll just give my take on the, you know, do I believe in Roth IRAs and using qualified plans? Here's my take. I'm going to take a very middle of the road take, and it's the word diversification. is I think you should be diversified, not just in the risk of where your money's being invested and how it's growing, but I think you should be diversified on who's controlling it, who you're entering into partnering with. And so that's my take. Speaker 1 | 42:23.425 Very interesting. Speaker 0 | 42:24.331 Yeah, I mean, it's like Roth IRAs. I'm cool with people doing Roths, but I think it's a good mindset to have to say like, hey, like... I'm not assuming that it's all going to be good. And then deferring your money, we both know, like, you're partnering with a government who's spending money that's out of control that can change income tax. Don't love that. But it's I mean, there's people that defer their money and have a strategy, and they feel like there's a risk in anything that you do. And I will say, out of all the things on this card, if this is a big hot button for you, this is a big pitch to why a whole life insurance contract with a mutual dividend paying life insurance company would be really high on the list. And if everything hit the fan, insurance companies are going to be the last to fall. But to say that they won't fall, I think is, again, pretty ignorant and doesn't show a lot of humility. I think they will be one of the last institutions to fall. But if everything, if everyone's panicking, we have bigger issues. What are you guys' takes on my take on the Roth versus 401k? Personally, I'm not deferring any of my money in qualified plans. I'm not anti-Roth. If I could qualify for them, I would do them. But I think diversification of where our money's at is the key and not just looking at where our money's invested, but diversifying the tax aspect as well. Speaker 1 | 43:52.697 Amazing. So the reason why I said interesting is because you use the word diversification as a thing that you believe in. And if you talk to most... Wealthy individuals, they would argue that diversification is not a great thing to do. It diversifies knowledge, diversifies resources, it diversifies a lot of things versus pouring everything into one bucket will actually create more exponential growth. So that was the reason why I said, interesting. I do know a lot of financial advisors, people in the space, they do talk about diversification and like different asset buckets. I've talked to other of our friends, that's what they believe in as well. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of that at the end of the day, but I understand that. The question you asked actually ties into that is that there is no black and white answer for this. It's like, should I do a 401k? Should I do a Roth? Should I do life insurance? I don't know. Should you? It really comes down to, again, what do you want out of life? And I have, okay, we can go. Did we stop? Good. I'm willing to pause. Go ahead, Caleb. Speaker 0 | 44:48.914 No, just going back to diversification, there's a difference in how you make your money and then where you save and invest your money. And so the example would be like. putting all your money in one stock. Certain stocks have done really, really well, and then certain stocks and companies don't exist anymore. And so the aspect of that is, yeah, there's aspects of diversification that are different. But when it comes to investing and saving my money, life insurance itself is extremely diversified when you look at all their holdings. You're not insuring one person, you're insuring thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. And so I think... You know, in our business, we're not serving one person. We want a diversification of many different people that create. So I think the law and principle of diversification. is a strong one. What I'm not saying is that that's how you should go make your money. That's not the advice I would give someone. I would give them, go all in on yourself, figure out how you create value and all. But there is something to say that the more money you make, diversification is something that you should be well aware. So I stand by what I said, but I do appreciate the pushback on that because I think, yeah. Speaker 1 | 46:02.380 Yeah. And to follow up with that, I would say that it becomes in like your bucket ties. If you're in the stock, putting all your money in one stock, probably not great. But becoming an expert in stocks and diversifying within that asset class is great. Just like real estate, putting all of your money into one thing versus like many different real estate properties inside of the asset class of real estate. To me, it's still centralized, but you're diversifying within that centralized bucket. So you said something about business, one client, many clients, it's still business at the end of the day. But I do think that there's a point where it comes to like People always have the conversation around passive and active income and people always want to go for the passive income side of things. Well, you obviously have to create active income first before you can go into passive income. And most people that create real generational wealth, their active income is very superior to their passive income at first. Then once they get to a point where their active income is so much and they're like, well, it makes more sense now for me because I don't have as much time and energy to actively do any more active income. I now put all of the overflow to the passive income side of things, which would then start the diversification conversation. So it's go all in on the one thing, build wealth, create it. Then once you make a certain amount, then go to the passive, then go to the diversification to then go into other asset classes is more of the headspace that I'm in. And again, there's no right or wrong answer for a lot of this. You asked the question, what do you think about Ross and 401ks? Again, I think it really comes down to the human, the person, what they want. If you're somebody that values control and you're putting money into your 401k every single day and you're 30 years old, to me it seems like the most maniacal insane thing you could possibly do. It actually makes zero sense even from just the logical perspective. I just give that look. But I also have empathy because that's what we're told to do. So that's why we do it. Speaker 0 | 47:50.749 Yeah. You jinxed us, Austin, because you're like, yeah, this episode is going to be really short. and then we're up we're already uh we're only two chapters in and we're yeah this is really good i would love to hear you all in the comments what are your take on so far parkinson's law but more importantly like what's your take on government would you call the government a parasite what are your thoughts on the irs being the biggest thief in the world i want to know your thoughts on just your take on qualified plans and uh we read every comment and uh and we just we And also your comments help us make sure that we're talking about the things that are relevant. So I'm going to move on unless any of you have any last thing. One more thing. Speaker 2 | 48:34.681 One more thing on this section because I have strong feelings about this section. So for those in the comments who are about to hit us up and just actually eviscerate us, if you kind of take the kind of the very libertarian kind of bend of Nelson Nash here and you're like, oh, like, you know, government is a parasite and, you know, where wealth accumulates, somebody will steal it. And then... Really, like, the end of that thought is, like, essentially, like, a stateless society. Like, well, we didn't have no government. And I think that all of us here would agree that, like, some government is a good thing. And, like, ultimately, like, unless you are, like, historical examples, like, the Kurds of Afghanistan, the Roma of Europe. Like, people who don't, like, they're, like, a diaspora who don't have, like, a specific geographic area, really. they They don't have any centralized government. They don't have anybody to like settle disputes between them. And if, unless there's like a strong bond of like customs and norms that are, one second, one second, unless there's a strong bond that's tying like everyone together, then like you really need a centralized government. So I think what we're all saying is like, okay, like, okay, like we need, we need the government somehow, but like, you know, how much are we going to trust the government? Right. Yeah. Speaker 0 | 49:49.054 So here's, here's my take on that, Austin. The government's not going anywhere. So all the people that want to debate this magical world, it's just not going to exist. We got to play the game. So I take more of like the game. It's a game. Let's play it well. Let's play it so it favors us. And anyone that wants to make a would we build roads, it's like that's just not a reality. So we could debate all day long, but we're in a system with where we are. So I appreciate that take, but that's just more of a practical deal. All right. So the golden rule. The Golden Rule. Love this. I love this. This is probably the most memorable thing from the Becoming Your Own Banker book. The moment I read it, it stuck in my head, and I think that there's a lot of wisdom there. And it's simply the Golden Rule are those who have the gold make the rules, and that can rub some people the wrong way. Is that a true statement across the board? Maybe not, but it's pretty powerful when you think about control. And one thing that Nelson cares a lot about is control, who's controlling the pools of capital and all. So that's really central. He talks about savings is in the same as creating capital. That was really big for me, and that was one thing I picked up when I reread. I'm like, okay, saving is in the same idea of creating capital. And you're like creating a pool of capital. That's interesting that it highlighted that. And then the story of Panasonic and the Mexico story of like Mexico is being all like this is this is how you have to work with us and making it really, really hard to do business. And then it's like peace. We'll go do it somewhere else, which which again, we can get into politics and say, like, is this what happening in certain states? Certain states want to tax and create more regulations. And, you know, there might be a reason why people are leaving. And so that's a... Less maybe about insurance and more just about Nelson's he couldn't help himself to create some political jab. So anyways, I could miss some things, but those are like my big three takeaways. Dom, we'll start with you. The golden rule. Speaker 1 | 51:56.950 I do really like the chapter as well, and I think that there's very some sound principles in here. The first one that I think when I was reading it, I was like, wow, that's really good. It says, the common man has been so infatuated with living for today. and that the importance of saving, of creating capital is all but a loss to value, which essentially says that man is a slave to their pleasures and their desires of the world. And by being in the world and being a slave to it, you spend more than you create, and you're no longer a value creator, and therefore you never have any money to save, which shows, based off of the debt that we're in as a society, Credit card spending be at all time high. We're just essentially a victim to our flesh at the end of the day. So for me, I thought that was that was really good. I really did enjoy the story, like you mentioned, of the Japanese versus the Mexican outlook. The reason why I think that is very powerful for the average person is that especially when you're younger, younger days is you should really take this story to heart and be willing to make less money earlier on and to be willing to work hard. Even if you have to lose some money to then break even, to then essentially make more money, just based off of the mindset that the Japanese have, right? They talk about how they build businesses. The first five years, they lose money. Next five years, they invest everything back into themselves, quote unquote, their business. And then the next five years, they essentially start taking money out. And if you have that same mindset of like, hey, I'm going all in, I'm learning some skills. Next five years, I'm going to start being like break even, keep pointing at myself, and you can start reaping the rewards and the benefits of it. that's where you will start creating real abundance for yourself and no longer live paycheck to paycheck or just above your meat. Like at the baseline, you'll actually start creating real value for your life. So, um, and then the last thing that I want to point out that I thought was incredibly, incredibly, incredibly powerful, that was under that's undervalued when it comes to financial planning, investing, all of these different things is he says large amounts of cash on hands, all sorts of good opportunities will appear. And I think that people undervalue the power around liquid capital, liquid liquidity, and building real wealth. And I do stand by this. And I say this often that a lot of people build significant wealth during some of the downturns, whether it's COVID 2008, whether it's out when things are at chaos on a discount, if you have the capital, you can control the rules, right? You essentially buy, let things appreciate, you get the real value from it. and you create generational wealth. Most people aren't patient enough to just sit in cash and do nothing. Therefore, they can never create real generational wealth. They just DCA to creating just enough to essentially not have to worry about retirement. Speaker 0 | 54:44.504 It's my favorite take so far of yours, Dom. Speaker 1 | 54:48.684 I love it. I don't have many, so I'm glad that you found my point. Speaker 0 | 54:51.091 Out of all the good takes you've had, Speaker 2 | 54:56.591 it's my favorite one. Awesome. Uh, man, uh, can I just double click on Dom's for a second. I think he just laid it out for us. Uh, I, yeah, he, he who has the gold makes the rules. And I think what you said earlier, Caleb also, um, or no, sorry, no, this wasn't Caleb. This was Dom. What Dom just said very much applies. It's like, you might lose money the first five years. Like, like don't get it in your head that you need to be, you know, wild, like making like wild amounts of profit really early on. Um, because, you know, you might just need to apply yourself, build up the skills, the head knowledge, and that that's going to like, you know, whatever the like business venture you're in a time, if you build up a mindset. where you're investing in yourself, you're learning skills, you're applying them, you're getting good about saving. That's going to carry, no matter what your business you're investing in, no matter what your career is, that's going to carry you far into the future. So I really like that about this chapter is ultimately that, hey, it's the long-term. We want to be thinking extremely long-term with everything that we have in here. And just with the people that I know in my life, when I see just the way that people have their habits around spending money, I see there's a certain mindset which is looking for quick fixes and quick gains. And you see it play out in small everyday decisions. For instance, if you just didn't go to that gas station to get your breakfast every day, By the end of the year, you'd have like an extra. you know, $1,500, $2,000 or whatever. And so I think it's just like, once again, small, tiny decisions that you're making every day that are going to really impact like you moving forward in your, essentially your, the financial situation that you find yourself in for the rest of your life. So yeah, love it. Make sure to have liquid capital on hand because you're going to have opportunities that you could not have dreamed of. Speaker 0 | 56:59.848 Yeah. The psychology of money. which is one of my favorite books, talks about the idea of 0% being worth more than 0%. And it's a similar take on having access to capital creates peace of mind, but it also is a magnet for all kinds of things, which are not all good, by the way. When you have money, you only get a lot of good ideas and good opportunities, but probably a lot more bad opportunities and bad ideas. And so it's, it doesn't, it's not a straight up. uh solution and fix but like warren buffett has been criticized in the past by having a ton of money on the sidelines and you could easily say like look at it you're you're missing out on what you could earn and in and it's his mind and history speaks for itself he's been able to use that to be able to take you know buy things at a crazy discount and it just goes back to you have your 401k set by rays and all those things like there's there's more control and friction to getting that money. And so you might be getting a tax benefit, and who knows if it's actually a benefit in the long run, but you're creating your money is more locked up. Your money is more locked up, and there's a cost to that. And this is a mistake that I see a lot of entrepreneurs making is they're making money, and they're like, inflation. Like I got to get my money to continue to work for me. So they're constantly busy. They're like busy bodies with their money, and they're more stressed, and they're making okay deals. deals they're they're potentially losing money but they're not they don't have a position of cash to be able to say heck yes to something in a powerful way. And this is one thing that our business has benefited greatly from because we've been able to sit back a little bit and not have to play week to week. There's a lot of business owners that are playing week to week or payroll to payroll. And that's a lot of stress and it's hard to play long-term games. And I would argue that having an emergency fund and an opportunity fund that has liquidity gives you the ability to create a volatility buffer on opportunity. And I'm a big, big fan of this. And I think I need to almost balance myself out because sometimes I like being too much in a cash position and that's not always right. But I think even where your money's at, because if your money's in a brokerage account, it's a lot easier to access than if your money's in a SEP IRA. It doesn't make one right or wrong, but the golden rule. is highlighting one area. So I love this, that Nelson talks about this. And this is one thing that again, going back to the power of whole life insurance is sometimes it feels not sexy and all, and it's like, my money could be over here, but it's not bad to have a pool of capital. And it's not fair to also say over the next 30 years, you're only earning 4%. It's like, well, you're assuming nothing's going to happen over the next 10, 15, 20 years. And if you hit one home run, it could change everything. And it's easier to hit that home run if you have the ability to say yes. Speaker 1 | 59:56.016 I think the thing that I grabbed from what you said is that we cannot, we don't value enough the power of a rate of return that's not tied to a percentage. And I really love that because when you start looking at using your policy, your life insurance policy, we advocate very heavily for when you borrow, if you're borrowing at 5%. You go get an activity that's a greater return than the 5% you're borrowing at if you're looking at it mathematically. Anything greater is better in theory. But when you start, we're not a huge fan of using it for buying cars or expenses or anything like that. But let's just use an example of like, hey, I don't have any other money, any other sources, right? What if I absolutely need a reset in my life because I'm stressed out, high anxiety, my family and my spouse, we're not in a good place. I'm going to go borrow from my policy, get 0% return, if not negative in the quote unquote dollar amounts, but we're going to go on a vacation and it's going to allow us to reset, rethink, talk about our family values and get back to normality to where then I can be more abundant back into my life, which will then create a greater rate of return dollar wise. And so I think you can't put a dollar amount onto stress, peace, creating that peace in your life. And we talk about this all the time when people like, hey, I want to pay off my house early. You talk about the math, you show them the math, like, hey, mathematically, it doesn't make any sense to do it. But when you start having the conversation of like, well, I just don't like the debt, and it puts me in a better place. I'm like, okay, as long as you know that mathematically, you're not going to be better off financially efficiently, there's a better way. But you understand that it'll put you in a better peaceful mindset, and you will have a higher quality of life. Well, you're living intentionally now and that's all that matters. And I can't argue otherwise for you. Speaker 2 | 61:40.337 Yeah. I'm going to jump in there quickly. So Dom, and I think this is once again where it ties into just, this is a, I think Caleb called it the first day. It was like this whole mentality of infinite banking over funny life insurance. It's like a savings plus, like it's a really fancy way to like trim down the amount of unnecessary expenses in your life and save more. It's just a really, really interesting way to do that. Now when you say like Hey I want to go on this vacation with the family. It's going to bring me peace of mind and abundance mindset. I think bringing in this whole, like the mindset of like cutting out unnecessary expenses, like, could you accomplish that peace of mind and that abundance mindset by going to like, instead of going to the Maldives, which is like super expensive, super far away, could you just go to Pensacola? You know? And so like, and that's part of his like, okay, if you're going to use it for vacation, like make it a vacation. That's like, that's like not ridiculously expensive, but like still is going to be able to capture. that abundant mindset that you're going for. Speaker 0 | 62:36.435 Hey guys, I just want to interrupt real quick. If you're watching this and have an indexed universal life policy, a whole life policy, have any type of insurance policy in general, and you're like, I want to know if I'm on the right track. I want to know if this is set up properly. We at Better Wealth want to help you. We want to give you a free policy analysis and show you, are you on the right track? Is there some things that you potentially could be doing better? And so we have a link down below that you will have access to. We would encourage you, if you have a policy. And you want to see if you're on the right track, check that out. And if you're someone that's watching this and you're like, I want to talk to someone and maybe setting up a policy for myself or I have questions, we would love to serve you. You can also see a link to have a call with someone on our team. Back to the episode. All right. I'm going to move on to the arrival syndrome. And this one, Nelson opens up and says, quote, we turn our attention to probably the most devastating matter. that we have examined thus far. That's a big statement because there's been some bangers that we've covered so far. So this is according to Nelson, the most devastating matter. It's called the arrival syndrome. This phenomenon probably limited the achievements of mankind more than anything else. When this thing infects us, we stop growing, we stop learning, we rot. Exclamation point. We turn off or tune out the ability to receive inspiration. Because we, quote, already know all there is to know. I think he goes on to say, this is based off my memory, but just don't work with these people. And your life will be a lot more peaceful. Anything else I'm going to add to this? Austin, what was your biggest takeaway from this chapter? Speaker 2 | 64:19.962 I loved, once again, he's going back to the Japanese. And he's... And he's making the comparison to how, you know, with American businesses, they he was trying. There's a guy trying to sell them on his ideas. They're like, hey, we've already learned this. We're already doing this. Like, what do you like? What do we have to learn from you? And then the Japanese, though, they were receptive. And now Japan is known as like this is like a super high industrial manufacturing quality for all these products. And once again, like and we see this. and not just like on a socioeconomic level with like different societies, but we seem to see this like on a personal relational level is like, you know, is there anything worse than having a conversation with somebody who knows it all? Like, like honestly, there's nothing like, I can't think of a worse version of torture than to be trapped for like 10 minutes in, in a conversation with somebody who they like within the first like 30 seconds, you already know that like, Oh, they know everything and I'm stupid and I'm just inhabiting, I'm just breathing the same air they are right now. And I'm just, I should probably thank them for it because that's how awesome they are. Um, so like, and it's so frustrating to like, to meet people like that. Um, but ultimately, uh, it's whenever we have like a mindset of like, Hey, I have not arrived. have more to learn. Maybe I can just be curious here, lead with curiosity and see if there's something here that I haven't yet learned and that I could actually improve my life. Such a better mindset to have both professionally and personally. Speaker 0 | 65:51.784 Love it. Dom. Speaker 1 | 65:54.230 In a simple perspective, I think that this really attacks the younger and the older generation because I think when you're younger, you have this arrogance about you that you just naturally know everything. And then when you're older, You feel like I've already lived through entire life. So therefore I already know everything because I've experienced it all. Now the middle, right? I think that there is, they don't even get to experience this quote unquote arrival syndrome because they've got to a place where they just lost all hope where they just don't even, you know, get to a place where they get to experience I've arrived or, or feel that there is something that they could experience to create more. So for me, I think that what you brought up, Caleb is like that one, uh, the rule of six, um Definitely should have been put in this chapter for sure, because I do think that the things that like Austin said and that we're talking about, it's all around ego. It's all around pride. And, you know, to essentially to die to oneself of like, hey, maybe there is more things that I don't know. Even if I do, quote unquote, know more than most, there's probably things that I don't know. And that's some of the wisest people that I've ever met know that even though they know a lot, they realize that there's so much more that they can keep learning in this world. Speaker 0 | 67:03.500 And you can learn from... Anybody, if you're someone that says, I can't learn from somebody, you need to reread this chapter and hopefully humble yourself because I have a mentality that I can learn from anybody. My Uber driver doesn't necessarily I'm not necessarily looking maybe for like sage wisdom, but you might be able to learn on some things to avoid. What is it? A smart person learns from their own mistakes. A wise person learns from others. And there's just so much here. I also think this, if someone's unwilling to change their opinions on things, they have a pride to them. And I know people in the infinite banking space that are in this place. Like they're so, boom, my way or the highway. Or, you know, boom, over here. Or like insurance is a scam. It's like anyone that says that, insurance, permanent insurance is a scam. Okay. You want to have a conversation? a scam or like all across the board is the is banks getting scammed every time they do it like i don't know um so these are the kind of things where i feel like i've taken to heart and been like you know what i'm gonna take a step back have i made comments and you know have i made takes on my book that i don't stand by yes and i'm willing to admit when i'm wrong and i think that there's a there's a freeness that comes just is you an individual but then there's a humility that says, hey, I'm doing the best I can. But I'm also wanting a better way. That's why I think our business, Better Wealth, resonates with so many people because I think people know there's better ways. And that doesn't make you not better. That doesn't make you a loser. This pursuit of betterment is really key. And part of that is just asking questions. It doesn't mean you're always wrong. Sometimes you're just validating, yes, this is why I believe what I believe. but it's the humility of being able to ask questions and learn from people. So love what you all are saying. And I think we need to remember this when we're talking to people because there are certain people that we're never going to change. Like people live their perfect life based on how they live. And so we can't change people. So sometimes we do need to just be like, you know what? I think your way is the best way for you. And I wish you the absolute best and not have to feel like I need to justify my position. Just know like there are many people. that think we are scamming people because we talk about permanent life insurance and if we try to spend all our time trying to change their mind we're going to be miserable and we're never going to change their mind versus being like acknowledging them and also being like and and staying in our lane and hopefully the people that are trying to do their research will resonate with some of the points that we're making and and and we've seen that as a fact like there are people that have come to us that appreciate our approach so good yeah yeah it's it's really hard to God bless. Speaker 2 | 69:58.762 With our approach, I feel like we take a really conservative, nuanced approach. And I'll say the people who are in our space and maybe even people who get 100,000 views in their videos, it's usually people who take a really strong position without a lot of nuance. It's really hard to get a lot of traction really fast, having a balanced view, not taking this extreme position because the algorithm wants you to take an extreme position. because you're going to attract more people with your extreme position than like... a middle of this road centrist position where you're curious and you listen and that you're, you, you can see both sides of it. Like you're going to find way more views and way more likes if you're going to go either to the right or the left on some issue. Speaker 0 | 70:42.800 than if you like try to understand i love it all right next chapter use it or lose it this one um is it we bring justin on for this one what we bring justin on for this one sorry Speaker 1 | 70:58.293 i couldn't hear you what did we bring jg justin on for this justin garman our yeah what does that mean you know we talked about the uh every time it's just The freak in the sheets and now we lose it or use it. That's his nickname, right? We were supposed to bring him on for this episode. Speaker 0 | 71:18.291 Joel, you can keep that in or not. Speaker 2 | 71:22.314 I also lost in that one. I knew who you were talking about, but I did not get it. Speaker 1 | 71:26.916 If we do choose to keep it, everybody has to watch. Go back and watch the very first episode to understand. It is completely 100% financially related. Somehow, someway, one of our wealth coaches got that name. I have no idea how. But now when things are related, it seems like he should be brought in. Speaker 0 | 71:43.326 No, it's on Dom's mind right now. Okay. Use it or lose it. And this one, and maybe you guys can do a better job summarizing this, but I highlighted two things that I'll read. So Nelson writes in this chapter, many are still caught up in the posture of thinking that the matter is a function of interest rates. That is a fatal error. It was It has to do with recognizing where money is flowing to and the failure of changing charging interest to yourself for the things that you buy using your own banking system. Anytime you can cut out a payment of interest to an entity that you own and control, which is subject to minimal taxation life insurance companies do pay taxes. They... then you have to improve your situation. So I'm sorry that I can't read, but maybe we can put this quote up, Joel. But he pretty much says, anytime that you can cut out the payment of interest to an entity that you own and control, which is subject to medical taxation. So essentially, my summary of that is, don't get caught up in interest rates. Flow as much money to your system as possible. And be willing to use your own bank. And if you don't use it, you will lose it. He also goes on to say, just like EVA, which is economic value added, to be effective, the infinite banking concept must become a way of life. You must use it or lose it. And my take on this whole matter is I think there's wisdom in this whole thing. And I think like anything, I still don't. believe that you, going back to the golden rule, those who have the gold make the rules. I think that needs to be a function whenever you're making decisions. And there are people that will use this chapter and say, I'm going to use my infinite banking stuff on my system for all kinds of things. And they actually put themselves less in a position and they actually end up saving less money. And, and again, that sounds crazy, but like that is possible to do. with like your paying like if your interest rate is a lot higher and nelson saying it's not about interest rates i just want to acknowledge that but if i could get a way cheaper loan and i'm saving more money in my bank because of that my mentality is like you should do that and then my devil's advocate to that is saying okay caleb you're like you're making the talking points that a lot of people make like in a perfect world but most people aren't going to do that and that's one thing i'll acknowledge there's something to say that you could math your way to debt your your way to to anywhere, but at the end of the day, do something that creates momentum. Dave Ramsey uses the snowball method for paying off debt. That's not the most efficient way to pay off debt mathematically, but I will give him this. It creates the most momentum, and you're not in debt because of math. You're usually in debt because of behavior. And so they're like, create momentum, and this momentum might not be the on-paper, the fastest way, but it's going to be the most effective way because it's going to create wins, and it's going to be able to help stack up. So. I will say that I read this and I go like, hey, if you're sophisticated, the goal is to save as much money and control as much money as possible and have that compound over time. Whether you use your bank or use other systems, make sure that the thing that's tracked is how much money is flowing to your system. I agree with that. That doesn't mean that I'm going to use my banking system for everything, including refinancing my mortgage and cutting out the bank. Because I actually think I would be less in control in those areas. But I do agree that the function should be. how much money we're saving, and the pool of capital should be increasing every single year. And I want to do whatever is creating a greater pool of capital. So that is my maybe political answer. Please save me because I feel like I butchered this summary of this chapter. But that was some of the points that I took away from this. Speaker 1 | 75:48.401 Yeah. You mentioned the idea of if you're sophisticated versus not, so on and so forth. I think that using this concept for everything actually is a little bit more complicated than not. So I think that it creates a massive amount of discipline. It's actually harder to follow through. So for me personally, I think that when people... quote unquote, potentially to try to attempt this, they have a higher likelihood of failing if they're using it through everything. And I do think that the conversation on opportunity cost is mentioned in this book, really. And this is why people practice this concept. But when you start looking at the things that you're saying is you're missing out in a massive lost opportunity cost of opportunities that present itself. If you have your dollars being used for everything, such as cars, so on and so forth expenses, because that liquid capital is no longer in your control. It's now spent and used for X, Y, Z, and it's now no longer in your banking system used for the next opportunity. So for me, again, I'm not a huge fan of using it for everything. I understand what he's getting at, but I don't think that that's the best way, and I do think that there is a quote unquote better way. Speaker 2 | 76:59.056 I think the, and you said this in the beginning, Caleb, is that the use it or lose it mindset is, could easily lend itself to like a scarcity mindset is like, I have to use it or I will use it. Cause ultimately like that's, that's not the case. You know, like ultimately, you know, you're still are it, you still, even if you don't borrow against your life insurance policy, you keep the dollars there. You still have the, you know, the peace of mind that comes with having liquidity and just knowing that you can jump, totally jump into something if you want to. And I think that's still using it. Like just because the dollars aren't out somewhere else outside your policy earning a return doesn't mean that they're not still providing you a benefit when they're inside your policy. So I understand what he's saying. At the same time, I do think that it's just because it stays in there does not mean that it's not bringing you a benefit or that you're using it. Yeah, Speaker 0 | 77:55.167 I think I think I can acknowledge that people that are purists and they do everything with their infinite banking. they over time are winning because they're sticking to a system they're forcing themselves to save is it the most efficient we could debate that but it's like it's working for them and i also would say that um the idea of using like let's let's celebrate protecting your family saving as much money as possible making good decisions and whether that's just the infinite banking system or whether that's the system of saving and being in the game you know i think we could all agree that there's one thing about just debating and talking and there's another thing doing. And there is something to say that if you're just, if you're always just going to debate and never do, then you could always be right and not have these things compound in your favor. So that I would love to hear your take in the comments on your, your deal. And if you're watching this whole thing, we appreciate, appreciate you watching the fastest growing life insurance podcast in the world. I'm just making up claims now, but you know, we, we like to, I think, I think we can stand by that fastest growing. I mean, we were going from. No show to a show or so. Speaker 1 | 79:01.564 Zero to one. That's 100%, baby. Speaker 0 | 79:04.805 400%. Speaker 2 | 79:05.830 Infinite percent right there. Speaker 1 | 79:07.391 Yeah, literally. Speaker 0 | 79:08.955 So anyways, I mean, we appreciate the comments, the likes, the shares. It helps us. And we want to talk about things that you want to talk about. So last but not least, last chapter, which feels like it should be in the next section, but Nelson's slipping it in to get us excited for the next part of the book is creating an entity. He goes into mortality tables. He goes, he talks about not all insurance is created equal, like obviously fire insurance, you hope you never pay, but death isn't an if, it's a when. You know, he talks about short pays and he talks about overfunding, which, you know, later in the book, he uses an example of, you know, 60, 40% base, 60% PUA. And a lot of people will take that and say like, hey, like this is the way that Nelson talks about. But I think he's pretty clear in this chapter. the importance of getting right up to the MEC line. So he talks about that. And that's one of the things that I think we do really, really well. That's one thing that attracts people to us is we're very transparent in how we design policies. And that's, so I would say that this, this chapter and his philosophy is something that we try to do. He, he talks about, he does not endorse IULs. So if you're, if you're using an index universal life insurance policy, and also parroting Nelson's infinite banking concept, he's a Nelson would not be happy with that. I'm trying to think, but those are some of the key takeaways that I got. He talks about PUAs. He also has a graph that we can show Joel if you want. He talks about... Single premium policy used to be tax-free. It's no longer tax-free. And so if you just put a lump sum all in year one, it's considered a modified endowment contract. So there's some taxable consequences with that. Then he talks about getting a little line right to the MEC limit, and he talks about 20-pay policies and life paid up and ordinary policies. And there's something to say that Back in the day, short paying a policy was a way of overfunding. He actually mentions that word overfunding in his book. So that's a way to do that. And then there's other writers like PUA's and other writers that we can use to overfund in an effective way as well. So that was how that chapter was talked about. And ultimately, it's going back to like, OK, if we're going to create our own entity, where's the best way to do that? And he's making the point that dividend paying life insurance. uh, with, you know, in a free market is, is the best way to do that. So what are, uh, I'll let, I'll let this be a free for all who wants to take the next step. Speaker 1 | 81:42.027 Amazing. Well, I will share not just the, the concepts that he shared, but also my, my belief around them. So the first one, uh, that I want to just mention, he said the shorter the payment period, the better suited is for the purpose of the infinite making concept. I understand. And this is for people that are like, Reading the book, trying to understand what policy design they should get, how they should do it. That's, I think, the main thing that people read this book for is like, what should I do when it comes to this concept? How should I design it? I understand the concept now as I'm reading through it. And that's why they're probably here as well to understand our beliefs to say, OK, well, let me learn. Well, I understand what he's getting at. But I think when we have the idea of like long term thinking in a place to consistently need to store capital. I think that having the ability to store dollars into this asset even longer than 10 years, 20 years, 30 years becomes a very powerful asset that you'll want indefinitely. And the longer you have it, the more money you're putting into it, the sexier it gets. And so I know that there's lots of designs that I've seen in the IBC world where it's like you fund for five years and then you essentially stop PUA and then, you know, just the base after that. And I'm not a huge fan of that because I think you limit the power behind it at the end of the day. So there's that. The other thing is he talks about multiple policies versus one policy. We can go into a whole debate around this as well. I'm not a huge fan of splitting up many policies for many different purposes. You can use, quote unquote, your one bank for all things if that's what you wanted to do. I think as your income increases and cash flow increases and you can no longer put any more money into that policy, getting another policy makes a lot of sense. But I think creating one policy for maximum efficiency. And that's what we're really talking about is how do I create more money to my banking system? The most efficient way would be to just do one specific policy and start funding it that way. And the other thing is he talks about at the very end, he says, Kike, did you kind of hit home on this? The objective should be simply to get as much money as possible into a policy with the least amount of insurance instead of trying to put as little money. and provide the greatest amount of insurance initially. So Nelson Nash himself quoted it for every diehard infinite banking person out there. When you start having this conversation around the designs and people will argue like, hey, I should do 50-50 or 40-60. It's like, if you're really talking about what Nelson said specifically, right? It's either he's contradicting or he's lying or this is the truth. Like there's, it's really hard to argue it because that's what the coden said. And so it's one thing to say one thing, but then to back it up with math and design, I think is a whole other thing. So obviously, the idea of snuggling up to the MEC line, you can have a MEC line that's very different depending on how the policy is designed. So it sounds good in theory, but if it's not designed a specific way, then it doesn't make much sense or beneficial at all at the end of the day. So those are some just quick things that I want to talk about is like. There's obviously some other things that I do want to mention with RUL, whole life, et cetera, like that. But I wanted to stop there and give Austin or you guys to speak if you want to as well. Speaker 0 | 84:51.157 Yeah. I would say the devil's advocate could say the talking point would be the term writers are something that whole life has adopted. That's not really great because it makes it makes your policy less, you know, I don't know, efficient kind of deal or, or like more risky on long-term. And I would just say we could debate that all day long. So let's debate it with somebody and let's walk through the pros and cons of using certain writers. But yeah, when I read that, I was like, dang, Nelson's saying stuff that I think compounds very well for our philosophy. And there are certain people that are not a fan of some of the ways that we teach because they feel like, I don't know. I'm not going to say why they're not a fan of it. You can make your own conclusion. I would be willing to go to the table and be willing to learn and talk about pros and cons. And then at the end of the day, if clients want to do a 40-60 policy, we will do that for you. We will. We actually will be happy to do that for you as long as there's disclosure on what you could get. We're all for policies as long as the consumer is in the driver's seat. And I think if you looked at the pros and cons... And the talking points, a lot of people would actually choose not to do that. But I'm sure that's going to potentially create a little bit of stir on the internet. And we're more than willing to invite anybody on that disagrees with that statement. And I think that alone could be a really, really cool episode for us to go through the pros and cons of that. Speaker 1 | 86:24.440 Yeah. Oh, Austin, go ahead. If you wanted to say something, I don't want to overbear. Oh, no. Now that we're talking about actual insurance, I have a thousand things to say. So go ahead. Speaker 2 | 86:34.782 Okay, yeah, so just, I guess, a couple thoughts on chapter, a couple thoughts on what you guys said. You mentioned, Dom, that, you know, you aren't a huge fan of getting people multiple policies, and that's also, I'd say, generally speaking, that's something that I agree with, too, is that there's not really a reason why somebody, like, why two policies would be better than one, for instance, if they're doing the same thing. But something that I do coach people through is I do think, and this is more of just a personal one thing that comes down to behavior and becomes down to you and how much that you can essentially get behind the strategy long term. Is I think that there's something to be said for getting a policy that's not too big for you to bite off initially and that you know that you can handle, that you currently have the cash flow floor. versus getting a policy that maybe you can grow into, which some people want to do. They want to be able to grow into it. But there's something to be said for being able to max fund a policy that's completely within your ability to, and then feeling really good about it. Like you're like, dude, I know that I love this. Like if like, even like if it's like a 10 K or a 15 K, like, man, like I crushed that 10 K and then I love it. And then if you like three or three or four years down the road. When otherwise you'd be starting to second guess yourself and be thinking about maybe pulling money out of the policy because you're like, ah, I haven't been able to max fund it like I thought and money hasn't happened. If you'd gotten a smaller one and you saw a proof of concept that you liked, then it's a lot easier justification in the future being like, hey, I max funded this. I love it. The only thing that would help me love this more is if I could do more of it. It just makes all the sense in the world then to get another policy, just like what Dom said. But I do think there is something to be said for getting a policy you can handle. And just and not having to really stretch yourself at least too much in order to max fund it, because I think the goal of these, like Nelson said, is to max fund. You know, is you want to be able to put in go right under that neckline to put in a dollar, shove in a dollar to every single seat in that policy that you can, because that's going to be the most efficient. Speaker 0 | 88:43.811 Yeah, I agree. I agree with that statement. And I think one of the things that Dom was mentioning is. instead of just dropping off your ability to continue to pay after five years and now we have to start a new policy you know it's like no design it from day one so we can shove in as much money as we possibly can and you're it's going to be more efficient in that first policy than having to set up a second policy and so i i agree with you by the way and it's a good problem to have when you're like have a first world problem like i'm making i have more money what do i do with it oh, let's put it into another policy. But if the... Speaker 2 | 89:17.546 goal is every five years you start a new policy because we're dropping your ability to overfund that that's like that's something that's not efficient long term yeah the only thing that you're recouping that way is like yes you are getting a cheaper cost of insurance because you are like you know like the the young if you start now and you're you know it's cheaper now to start than if you had were to start in five years or whatever at a at a you know at a higher limit or whatever um yeah but ultimately like yeah so i agree with dom is that like ultimately design it you the way that you want it to be instead of just having this like five year sort of window or whatever because and ultimately when you do design it to be shorter pay two is you actually take away a lot of flexibility because you have a lot higher of a base than you would do if you designed it for a longer term and so you actually are obligating a lot higher cash flow and not giving yourself any flexibility with that so something to keep in mind yeah i don't want to get too technical but i i don't know if you're right on that it technically the shorter Speaker 0 | 90:15.322 the overfunding period you could make the argument that your base could be lower if you don't use term riders but again okay yeah yeah i don't want to be too technical i could be but i just i think uh i think it's a non-issue if you design if you overfund it with other riders and all but technically speaking the long like that's one of the talking points is like the reason we we short pay this thing is because we'll be able to get a smaller base we drop it off and it rides in the sunset and it's like okay Yes, but it's like you're playing golf with three clubs, not 15. And I'll be back all the time. Maybe we're not allowed to play 15 clubs, but you get the point. Speaker 2 | 90:53.648 Yeah, every time that I've designed like a seven-pay policy or a 10-pay or whatever, the base is always higher because you're having to pay it up sooner than if you get a pay-as-you-can. Speaker 0 | 91:04.632 Yeah, that's on a short-pay policy. And again, we're jumping ahead. Nelson's still going to recommend a PUA rider. as a way to overfund and then drop those. So it's maybe we got a little too far ahead for the listener. So we apologize that this can be something that we talk more. You're not wrong. If you just do a short pay, like a 10 pay, that is a true 10 pay, the base will be higher. Speaker 2 | 91:29.731 Yeah. Speaker 1 | 91:31.185 Amazing. Something that I want to add in this section is specifically a quote by Nelson Nash. And because we're talking about designs, 40, 60 or whatever, right? I want to be very clear that we design policies specifically for what a person wants and their goals. Like it's not a blanket statement. And I think that we can agree upon that. It's like, shoot a hundred percent base. If that's meets your needs for where you want, like that's what it'll essentially do at the end of the day. But something that Nelson said here that I thought was just adds fuel to the fire, which is why we design things the way that we do a lot of the ways is he says, this will de-emphasize the immediate death benefit, but accentuate the banking qualities, the cash values. And here's the kicker. The irony is that doing it this way will result in providing more death benefit at the point where death will probably occur than any other plan. So essentially saying that by doing a lower base and higher paid up additions, what you will essentially create long-term is actually more death benefit to be able to pass down to more generation because you have more dividends, more POAs that go back into the policy, creating a higher death benefit versus if you just have just a higher death benefit, you will have... maybe more death benefit up front, but when you actually need the death benefit, you will be better off at the end. So I get to practice the living benefits of the banking function early with a lower death benefit. And then I get more cash value early and later. And then you actually surpass the death benefit later on in life as well. So it just gives more fire to the, to why we designed them the way we do is because of essentially that quote right there as well. Speaker 0 | 93:03.563 Yeah. That's, that's fun in presentations to show, okay, first year, the death benefit's a lot smaller But after year 30, you have way more cash, way more flexibility, better long-term growth, and the death benefit is greater than the original. And your chances of dying 30 years later are a lot greater. So I love that, Dom. Speaker 1 | 93:22.855 Yeah. And just quick ideas on ways what we would design for certain people. Usually when it's 100% base, we're doing things for maybe estate planning, estate tax, that type of conversation. And then when you start doing maybe the 40-60, you start to design it that way. So you have the ability to put more money into the future. And so by increasing the base, it allows you to have a buffer to put more money in. It may not be the max efficient, but it gives you the space to grow into that. And if that's what you want, because you're like, I know I'm gonna make more money, I have a growth mindset, that's the way to design it. But if you're like, hey, like I want it to be overfunded, max funded based off of this split, well then that's the way that we'll do it. So you have a conversation with someone in the team, we try to get the goals in which you want, so that way we can make it fit into what you want out of life. So. Just wanted to say that as well real quick. Speaker 0 | 94:10.642 Dom, is there anything else that you have on this section? Speaker 1 | 94:14.707 I do want to talk about just the last thing because it seems like we're at the end of it. It's just the thoughts on universal and variable life. And then at that point, it's the end of the book. So, amazing. He mentions that in universal life, it should not be used for infinite banking. And I personally agree with that. I do think that if your goal is infinite banking, creating the banking system for yourself, that that is something that you should not play in the playground with, especially with straight universal life. Even in IUL, I don't think it makes sense either. Now, he does mention things in here where it's pretty black and white statements that essentially like he would never buy universal policy and it's like it's a terrible product, so on and so forth. And I think that that's where I disagree with strongly in that I think that there's a very strong play for universal life for the right person. It's actually a very great permanent product for a very cheap amount of death benefit and doesn't necessarily create the cash value that we're talking about now, but it does have a specific use case for the specific person. So when you read these, I don't want you, the consumer, to get locked in your head of like, these are bad products, but I want you to understand that they're just used for a different use case than quote unquote infinite banking. And it's the same thing with a variable life policy as well, is that Using it for an infinite banking would be very risky just from the idea of borrowing and having the, you know, connected to the market and, you know, cost of insurance and all that stuff into place. You could really lapse a policy likely if you're using it for that function. But having it for a permanent death benefit that you put it in a wrapper that's tax efficient, that still is exposed to market upside, can create a very, very advantageous asset for the right type of person. And again, it has to be very specific for the right type of person. And these insurance companies are getting better and better every single year as they're designing these products, that they're creating no lapse guarantees and other things like that, that maybe that when this was written 20, 30, however long ago it was written, there was more riskier products because they just didn't understand maybe some of the nuances that were built into it. So I just think it's important to take everything with a grain of salt and understand that, you know, there could be a use case for a lot of these products along the way. Speaker 0 | 96:23.506 Yeah. Yeah, and for those people that want to jump on you, read the arrival syndrome. But what Dom's not saying is he endorses IULs for infinite banking, but that, like anything, there could be pros and cons of designs. And I think he's also been on record by saying there's been a lot more negatives with IUL and how it's sold and promoted. And so we just want to acknowledge that. Guys, we're... Austin, you jinxed us, dude. You're making me second guess. The game plan was the next time we record together to do the next three parts. And I'm really second guessing that. So we'll talk offline. We want to hear from you. We want to hear from you in the comments. We thank you so much for making what we do possible. And guys, I have a lot of fun going through this, jamming with you. This is just going to be a blast. We get to show up every week. and talk about these matters. So any final thoughts before we sign off? Speaker 1 | 97:30.518 Man, the final thoughts is I'm 15 minutes late for a meeting. Speaker 0 | 97:33.221 There you go. Same. All right. See you. Subscribe for more. And if you want us to look at your policy or talk to you about your current situation, we'd love to do that. There'll be links down below. See you next week.