Life Insurance Insights: Expert Journeys and Powerful Epiphanies

All right, welcome everyone to the very first And Asset Show 1. We got Austin Williams in Idaho. We got Dom Rufrin in Colorado. And we got your host, Caleb Williams, coming from Nashville, Tennessee. And guys, I thought I'd come with the OG And Asset sweatshirt first edition. I've had this for many, many years. And I bring it out on special occasions. And I thought, you know, we're going to have a very exciting life insurance podcast. Why not just get this thing started the right way? And so anyways, Austin, I know you're traveling with the fam. How have you been? Man, it's been a roller coaster of the last 10 days, Caleb. Yeah, as you said, I've been traveling with my family. We normally are headquartered out of mid-Missouri, about halfway between Kansas City and St. Louis. And we went to summer camp south of Denver in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains over the last week as a family. And so I got to spend some really good quality time with my girls and my wife. And then we had been planning this for a long time as if that wasn't enough. Because that's, I mean, camping for a week straight is obviously a lot of logistical challenges and planning that goes into that. We then drove north another 17 hours, almost to Canada. We're like two hours south of Canada. uh, to this town called Sandpoint, Idaho. And that's where we're going to be for the next six weeks. We just wanted to try living somewhere else for a while, see what it was like. Um, I love it. And the beautiful thing about the working virtually is you can work anywhere. And, uh, I think I just even modeling that for your family, I think it will be fun to get updates on the pros and cons of, of doing a six week deal. Oh yeah. Dom, I know you got to see Austin in person. You had a funny story that you shared earlier about going camping. For those of you that don't know Dom, you know that camping and hiking put together are not on your top 10 list, to say the least. Yeah, no, there's a lot of things that are not on my list of things that I don't enjoy, and that's at the peak, including with moving, including with anything with cars, building, pictures. I live in Colorado. And surprisingly, I'm just not that type of person outdoors and all that. So call me an anomaly, but that's definitely it. And Austin, I went to go visit him and he had me and my family hike 45 minutes by accident by the wrong directions when it should have been a two minute walk. So I'm grateful for Austin for bringing my family closer together, having my two and a half year old son falling in the dirt, his face deep in the ground and me saying, hey, get up, let's go. And it just be a great time. So thank you, Austin Williams, for the adventure. Pleasure is all mine, Dom. Pleasure is all mine. I'm glad that I got you and your family hiking just in the worst way possible. It was so that we were talking like the whole week leading up to it. I was like trying to give you like really good directions. And I realized like on the back end, like there's definitely some things I could do differently when you have zero cell service. This is like there's a very few times in our life when we have to live without the internet and allow. without instant communication. And then when we don't have it, we realized that we have this muscle or I mean, I, I have this muscle that I've just never used and it's so withered and it's so under like underperforming of just like explaining somebody something really good, like way far in advance and not being able to like, you know, call and like confirm and do all this stuff. So, uh, the directions were literally go to the second entrance and then go take a right and then go all the way to the top of the hill. So we did exactly that. But there was a right that he missed. So we went to the first right versus the second right, which is what he meant to say. But the easier thing would have been go to the merchandise center and literally walk two minutes to the left and you'll be there. Yep, that would have been. I feel like we could come up with plenty of analogies, life insurance analogies. That's what we're going to do on the show. We're just going to be talking about life insurance. And I'm pretty sure. I'll be surprised if we, like, it'll just be humbling to see the people actually watch this. But believe it or not, there are weirdos out there that want to watch grown men talk about life insurance and all. And it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun to see the life insurance nerds. Where are you? You guys should definitely let us know in the comments. And this is going to be a lot of fun. There's a lot of things that we're going to talk about on the show. Today, we're going to open up with just getting to know each other. and the epiphany of how you learned about life insurance, because we all have different, different epiphanies around just like, you know, life insurance is not something that you just stumble upon, or it's not like in high school, Austin, you're not saying, you know what I want to do? I want to help people set up a life insurance policies like that. That's just not a thing. And also, there's a lot of other cooler things that we could be doing, like just even representing something that's not life insurance, like investing. There's so many other things that could be way cooler than being like, yeah, I help people set up life insurance policies or I'm a nerd when it comes to life insurance. And so the reason I find that interesting is a lot of times there's stories behind it and there's conviction that might be greater than the average. You know, person that's you have to have extra conviction, I think, to do this, because why why create why why do this if there's not a reason? And so that is the purpose of this episode. Number one, I know that there's going to be further episodes. We're going to be going through a book review of our Nelson Nash's book, Becoming Your Own Banker. We're going to do the book review of the and asset and there's going to be lots of other topics. And it will be fun to go through it with people because I know that there's. people that will want to join us along our journey. And I'm excited to learn from both of you because the beautiful thing is we all think differently, which is great. If we all thought the same, this would be a really boring show, but I'm looking forward to arguing, pushing back, agreeing, having epiphanies, and all the above. And so is there anything that you guys want to say before we jump into the stories? I think uh the answer is no minus context of people but maybe that you know for people for the first time watching then i know who caleb austin or dom is in just regards to who we are relative to the uh the even the and asset show so i think that that is that's relevant besides just jumping in testimonials but um you know it's like also why us why the three of us versus anybody else on the team right that's also you know i think a great valid thing just to bring up nice first episode Well, the, uh, so I'll, I'll. I'll set the stage here. So if you're watching, this is your very first video that you're ever watching on any of our channels. Thank you. My name is Caleb Williams. I'm the founder of betterwealth.com. And part of the things that we do at Better Wealth, our purpose is to help people better their wealth by living more intentionally. And intentional living is very much our stance. And we do that a couple different ways. One of the things that we're most known for is helping people set up life insurance. And that's what this whole show is going to be about is life insurance is not just a protection vehicle. It's not just a savings vehicle. It's not just a thing that can help you in retirement. There's a lot of things that can happen when you set it up and use it properly. We've been doing this for many, many years. We have clients all over the country, and we have an incredible team. And so that's who I am. Dom, why don't you introduce yourself, what you do with the company, Austin. then you can then follow and then we'll give. a couple of shout outs to the people that aren't on the show that very much could, but we'll, we'll explain why, why it's the three of us, the, the three, the three foolish people that committed to doing something like this. I think we just, uh, we, we drew the short ends of the sticks. And so we're all here and, and, uh, we're, we're figuring it out. Amazing. Thanks Caleb. And as everybody listening, uh, Caleb is our visionary and you can, you can hear that when he speaks and how he communicates, uh, the things that we've built, we've created, uh, whether it's, uh, the channels, the show. our events. Majority of it came to life because of Caleb's vision. So we're grateful for what he started and how he leads us in the direction that we're heading. For myself personally, I am the president of Better Wealth. And so I run and operate the company and that entails many things. And so I actually used to do lots of content. So for some of you that are watching, hey, where's Don been? The And Asset channel. Caleb and I started that at the early stages of it that you're watching right now. And I took it over and started just doing content exclusively on it. And then as we started to grow as a company, it became hard for me to do that. And we realized that it was more advantageous to bring on other people to the show. I haven't been on the channel and I think it's been like seven, eight months at this point in time. So for me, I'm really excited to just be here, do content again. You know, obviously there's any questions, comments, anything that you guys have that you want to know. please let us know that I'd be more than happy to answer, but this is going to be a great series and a great time. Amazing. Yeah, Dom, that's seven, eight months. That's like an eternity as far as the internet is concerned. You pretty much stopped existing for people in the outside world. So thank you, Caleb, and thank you, Dom, for kind of painting the picture for what Better Wealth does. I am a wealth coach at Better Wealth, and I'm a wealth associate, and I'm more on the kind of the ground floor of the company as I'm kind of directly interacting with people who watch our videos. They want to learn more. They want to maybe even talk about their situation specifically. They're interested in life insurance. They call, they get on my calendar. I'm actually even kind of transferring to a slightly different role inside the company where, you know, I'm going to be, you know, focused on, you know, maintaining existing relationships with clients. And so just kind of all part of the churn of, you know, having a company that is constantly evolving and adapting and just kind of, you know, responding to different needs in the marketplace. And I... did not have a very obvious route into life insurance whatsoever. So this has been a bit of a wild journey for me to kind of end up in the seat that I am today. And we'll get a little bit more into kind of the specific parts of our histories that kind of led us to right here right now. But simply put, from my first two jobs that I had to get into life insurance represents like a huge, a huge shift. And, um, there it's, it's a very different kind of job than the jobs I've held in the past. But, um, I think that I've brought some of the, the best parts of that in, into it with me so that it's kind of helped me kind of do the job that I have even better, even better today. So that's a really quick snapshot into who I am and what I do at this company. Yeah. Austin, the people that you've been able to serve on the front end, love you. And then a lot of our clients, if you don't, you've not had a conversation with Austin, you will see her soon and you are going to love. the interactions uh austin you're wholehearted in whatever you do and we've had some of the videos that you've done on the and asset show have performed extremely well and that's one of the reasons why when we're trying to put this show together we're like okay well back in the day dom and i would just sit together do three minutes of prep and just turn on the camera and just ramble and people watched it i mean it just blows my mind and so we're like okay we should we should do something where it's more casual. Um, I, I find that people want to get to know us. They want to know what we're working on, what we're thinking on. This is, this is not going to be scripted. We will have videos that are more to the point scripted. And so people will be able to watch what they want to watch. But at the end of the day, we were thinking, okay, we want to, we want to do this show and who can roll with the punches and who would be an, a great addition. And Austin, you're, you, uh, were our first choices. You said yes, which could be a, the biggest mistake of your life, but... You said yes. Some honorable mentions. We'll still have Alden. He's going to be on both channels. He's one of our top wealth coaches and very technical product specialist. We have Demetrius, who's a wealth coach who does amazing content, incredible work with people. Justin, he's the freak in the sheets kind of deal. He loves the numbers and the case studies, and he's going to continue to do that. And listen, we all need… We'll all need some nicknames. You'll learn in real time. We'll get some type of thing where it's like, Dom, you'll have your nickname and Austin and myself. And this will be fun. Let's hope that Justin's nickname freaking just doesn't stick. I want to see what Justin's family thinks about that. But, you know, he owns it. He owns it. And I'm going to go with it. So with all of that being said. We're going to start off by life insurance epiphanies and really getting down to the journey because I know I've had quite the journey of like aha moments, and then I had to rethink my thinking even on the original aha moments. And so I want to just be very upfront with you. We make videos. I just made a video the other day talking about policy loans, and there's You know, there's some people that are like, I made a ton of money buying cars with life insurance and and made a video to say, hey, listen, I appreciate the people out there that are making content that bring people into our world. But this is how the math works. And I would say things differently and laying things out. And I think it's it's important to have that truth aspect, but it's also important to realize that you're not going to get it right the first time always. And I know for myself personally, I cringe sometimes on thinking about what I said early. Even we're going to go through my book here on the show and like beat it up. Lots of things I would do differently in writing the asset and And as it sold over 20,000 copies and we have clients today and it's opened up doors today on an imperfect piece of content, opened up doors and and has enriched our lives. And so I think it's important to acknowledge that. And if you're someone who's watching this, that is waiting for the perfect time to get started on something like make this be your motivation to not. And we need to have enough humility to say I was wrong. And there's a lot of people that. are unwilling to say that and so they're doubling down on on things that aren't true even if they know it's true it's not true so with all that said austin i think you'd be a really good person to start off because you are out of the three of us the greenest when it comes on the newest edition to to this um what i would love to hear is your story and and again under five minutes if you can your story, which means 10 minutes. Okay, I'll just wait for it. And just like the life insurance journey you've been on. And I even know early on you were like amazing with people, but there were some things that were harder. It didn't click early on for you in some areas. And so I think it's important to even share some of the stuff of like why didn't it all come naturally day one? What were some things that you had to wade through? What are some of the things that you're still working on and learning? I think that's going to be one of the most relatable things that people can learn, whether people are in this space. There's going to be people that are financial advisors, life insurance agents, representatives, financial professionals watching this. But there's going to be some of our clients and some people that are just shopping around, seeing who are we, what are other people. And so with that context, I want to hear your life insurance epiphany story. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely learning to still… obviously taking place every single day. I think you alluded to earlier is like, you know, I, I was picked to be a part of the show. I think one of the reasons I was picked is because I am an unrepentant extrovert and I love talking to people and I love the relationships that I have with others. Uh, one of my favorite, uh, uh, phrases is that, you know, strangers are just friends you haven't met yet. And that's just like a, that's like something that I kind of carry with me into life is that like, I kind of look at each new interaction with somebody as, you know, ultimately a chance for me to get out of my own story and get into the story of somebody else. Cause I think we often get trapped by the narratives, like, and specifically our own narrative that we're in. And so I love, I love being a life insurance agent because, and I'll get into how I got here is at first I was an English teacher. That was, that was my first job. And being an English teacher, you're all about that stories. And there are three taboo topics in life really. Right. um pretty much death sex and money right these are three taboo topics and in my conversation in my job i get to talk with people about death and money every day so i break like major taboos every single day with people and you get to have some really nitty-gritty kind of granular conversations and that you would never normally get to have another human being because i'm a life insurance agent and because they're not going to hold those things back from me so i think that's really cool um as i said i was an english teacher uh that's when i met caleb that That was my, like my. Technically, my first foray into life insurance was meeting Caleb oh so many moons ago, probably 10 years ago plus now. I met Caleb through his cousin, who I'm still really good friends with, Trevor. Love you, man. I live in Nashville there. Shout out to Trevor. And I met Caleb at Trevor's wedding. Caleb was a groomsman. And I... At the time, I was going to be an English teacher, and I was like, that's the track I was on. So life insurance, finance, that was nothing. But I liked Caleb, and I'm an unrepentant extrovert, so I was like, I'm going to keep up with him. And I kept up with him throughout the years. I'd call him a few times a year. We'd talk back and forth or whatever, and that was great. And at some point, I got his book. And I don't remember if you gave it to me. I don't remember if I bought it, but I read that book, and I was like, I really like it. And this was, like I said, like 10 years ago. But I had a Dave Ramsey education. And I literally had Dave Ramsey. My finance class was like the Dave Ramsey books. Like that was kind of my, so I was like, I, I, I trust what Caleb's saying about whole life, but at the same time, I know that whole life is evil and is bad. And so I just kind of, I had that, like that tug and pull going on and I didn't really know what to do with it. So I was like, I trust Caleb, but I also trust Dave Ramsey. Like, what do I do with that? I don't know. So, uh, time goes on. I actually get into farming and that's as an aside, we could go a long time into that, but we won't. But then after about five years, beautiful years of being a farmer, a youth pastor, I decided to make a switch for my family's sake. And I was looking around for new jobs, trying to find a way to make sense of an English teacher background and a farmer background. Quick side note, there is no way to kind of make sense of those. I tried really hard to be like editing an agricultural journal or something. Didn't work out. And then... Through a very like miraculous, God-ordained set of circumstances, Caleb was looking for some person to do writing for him. I also had a life insurance license and we ended up going, making it into a job. With as far as it goes, you know, I'm are you still learning new things every day? Like, what are the challenges? Like, absolutely. Like I had, you know, the relational side of things. I have like a strong relational instinct like that's black parking naturally. But like the thinking about numbers and like talking about them with people in a way that still felt relational, I think was a challenge for me. And just kind of getting it through my head. And we had some amazing people like Demetrius is someone we haven't mentioned yet. Demetrius, who was my supervisor, who kind of walked me through like and how to really, really not like let things slip through the cracks. That was really important. That was something that I learned. So so, yeah, so just kind of being surrounded with the right people and the incredible, incredible team that we have here at Better Wealth, which, you know, I'm I'm not ashamed to say is I think like one of the best in the world, if not the best in the world. Like, I love our team. I love getting to show up. and do what I do every day. And I think that, and we'll get into this later, but there was a couple of things in your book that really like changed kind of the trajectory of my life a little bit. I didn't realize it at the time, but when Caleb, when you specifically talked about average rate of return, it was something that, and how it's not actual rate of return, it blew my mind in so many more ways than one that we'll get into later. But that was like, kind of like that. initial piece that got me thinking about life insurance and how life insurance might not be what I was taught that it was. Um, and eventually it's what led to me being here today. It's awesome. Awesome. Um, any, any, uh, follow up questions you got Dom? I know that I do, uh, at least some things to add for sure. Uh, one, uh, said nobody, uh, I love being a life insurance agent. So, you know, kudos to that statement. you know how you represent and show up um just so you guys also know from an unrepentant extrovert he is not lying uh often than i'd be one-on-ones to making sure that like accountability we're doing the right things we have to set a timer like a legit five-minute timer every when that time hits zero i'm like austin we gotta go and he's he does it religiously he like starts sharing his screen he's like it starts ticking um also just for clarification uh trevor wood is not caleb's cousin You know, we said big shout out to Trevor. You guys, that's, you guys know who Trevor Wood is. He's our head underwriter, head of servicing, serves people extremely well, but that is, that is not the case. And Austin, what did you say that you don't ever talk about in school and stuff? It's, it's death, money. What were the things that people like to talk about? Death, sex, and money. Two, three taboo topics. Death, sex, and money. Well, good thing, good thing with, Good thing with Justin's big name. We'll probably get to talk about all of them. On the show. So it's all three. It's the only finance channel for those who are interested. PM me if you're interested in learning more. Overall, man, I'm blessed to be able to have you part of the team, hear your story. And it's been crazy to see your growth over the last year or so from where you're at to today. And it's like, it's night and day difference. So, and like, I used to be the life insurance. guru and nerd behind the scenes that was doing a lot of this stuff. And I could design illustrations better than anybody on the team, like hands down. And now we're to the point as a team where Austin can design and structure life insurance policies way better than I can at this stage. And we have four other people on the team that can do that as well. And it's just mind blowing to see the growth in a very short period of time. So yeah, thanks for sharing, brother. I'll just say, shameless plug, if you have... All the seeds that you want us to review, even if you're not a client, we'll review them for free. We'll have a link down below. And if you want to talk with someone on our incredible team, we'll also have a link there. Austin, I'll say this before we go to Dom and hear his epiphany. It's funny how Dom mentioned how him and his family are running around the wilderness trying to find you. We have an interesting story because when one of the first times we were together, this was when you were in farming. And I think you were a client of ours before you were on the team. Yes, I was for many years. That's something that you didn't mention. No, I didn't. So you came to the house. We were living in Colorado and you're like, hey, let's go to the, is it St. Mary's? St. Mary's Glacier. Let's go to St. Mary's Glacier and just like have a fun time and hike. And it's super like legit. We've done it many times. And so we're like, yeah, that sounds fun. And so April, my wife, comes along. and And there's two ways that we could get to the point. And Austin, in his infinite wisdom, was like, yeah, let's just go. Let's go this way. And we're going. My wife almost died like four times, you know, and she, let's just say, likes you now, but didn't like you at the moment that that day. And I remember thinking, you know, again, it's not like my wife's the most adventurous person in the entire world. She had her shoes that were like really worn down. So she didn't have the proper shoes. And we're like on this edge of this cliff, it seemed like and like she's slipping and she just sits down. She just sits down and she's like, I'm not moving. And we're like, well, you're gonna have to move like. Like, we're over, like, you can't go back because it's too, and you got to go. So it was just one of those things where, like, I cracked me up when Dom shared that because I was like, hey, Austin, Colorado, wilderness, not a great combo. But, you know, just setting the record straight there. Definitely some good memories, though. Yeah, good memories. All right, Dom, if I were to ask you your life insurance epiphany and your journey, how would you answer that? It's a great question. And there's actually a video that I've done on the Andasa channel, and it's actually labeled, warning, Cali's life insurance MLMs are scamming people. Just know that it's clickbaity to some degree, but also does be very direct to the point. And in there is a piece of my testimony and the journey that I've been on. And I started as a IUL advocate only. Everything else was the worst thing in the world. I was like, looking at illustrations and numbers and that too. And I was like, why would anybody put their money into a Roth and the market into whole life? Like anything, everybody should put a hundred percent of all their money into an IUL, let this thing compound and grow over the next, you know, 30 years. And you'll be set, you know, based off of the way that the numbers looked. And then I started comparing like whole life and like actually looking at the numbers and they were so bad with the company that I was looking at, that it validated that belief. And then what ended up happening is two things that kind of like gave me a little mind shift into my journey was one, uh, I was in a competitive situation cause I was selling IULs only at that time with another company called Forrester's. And it was the first time that I saw that a life insurance policy with whole life actually compared relative on the growth with the IULs that I was selling. And I was like, this doesn't make any sense. Like how is this possible? And the client actually ended up going with the whole life policy. And at that time I didn't realize, and I didn't know, but it's because the whole life that I was looking at the very first time was a, uh, a stock company. So there was no dividends that was going back to the policy. So the growth really was long-term was like 2%. And then the Forrester's policy was getting dividends that were coming back to the policy, which made it a lot more attractive, sexy, and actually made it way more competitive. And so that was like one of those like moments in time that just made me like, think like, okay, maybe there's something that I don't know. And then the second pivot that really changed things was I met Caleb. And what ended up happening was we met at a networking event. We grabbed lunch. A weird networking event. It was a very weird networking event. That could be for a whole other story, but very, very weird. But it's funny and ironic how God works all things together. Because if we didn't go to that weird thing, we wouldn't be here today. And so he shared with me his book. He shared with me his testimony, his faith. I did the same. And then he shared like, hey. you know, I'm not a fan of IUL. Like, and he was like completely against it in a lot of ways at this time. This was a long time ago, just so you guys know, just across the board. You know, there's even a video that would have him and Dan Kaminsky that got a lot of backlash in regards to the way that they communicated and talked about IUL at the time. And so we've obviously just learned a lot in regards to just products and how we communicate them and whatnot. But through that journey of listening to Caleb, I started looking at other people So... that we're now friends with, whether that's Kim Butler, whether that's Garrett Gunnarsson, you know, there's the whole gamut of people that are in the space that love whole life. And in that kind of season, I started getting plugged into people like Primerica and Symmetry Financial and WFG. And I started going to their networking events and was like this close to getting started with like some of them as well. And I just like said, okay, I can't do this no more. I cannot go down this path of selling life insurance. Without being confident in what I'm actually offering and selling people. And so I went, took like a year break, literally of like not pursuing life insurance, except educating myself. And I actually hear that a lot of times from clients where they're like, Hey, like I've been watching content for like six months and just like, I'm still learning this. I'm like, Hey, I get it. Like I went down for an entire year of learning VUL, IUL, UL, whole life. Why whole life this way? Why? And these companies and trying to make an educated decision. And. The epiphany that I had, long story short, was all financial products really have a place in financial planning to some degree or another, right? And depending on the person's wants, needs, what they desire out of life and their roadmap for clarity for their end result in life, you essentially then take that financial product to help them get to the end result. And as long as it's educated correctly, designed correctly for the person's wants, then there's not a product that can be essentially quote unquote better on a standalone basis. And what ends up making it better than the next. is plugging it into helping the person achieve their financial goal. And that was the epiphany that I had at the end of the day. And so that's kind of like the, uh, the, the drum that I continue to pound is that I want to constantly, and I want our team to constantly speak highly and sophisticated about products. No like gray areas, like talk about how it really works and functions. And if people don't like it, then it wasn't meant for them. And they necessarily don't bad mouth, essentially a product, you know, it's You could talk about how this product may not be great for this person's situation or how somebody can maybe be unethical because they designed it inappropriately for the person's goals. And here's why and how. But don't on a standalone without any understanding and merit of the person you're speaking to. Just put it in a black box and say it's bad inherently. Well said. Well said. Do you remember the moment that you were like, oh, whole life, there's something here like this is attractive? because I also know that You are in crypto. You do some real estate investing. What was the epiphany that life insurance plays a role in some of your portfolio? Yeah, and it was actually before I joined Better Wealth. So this was like, what, six years ago now, which is kind of crazy to think about. But I went on that journey of researching and studying and looking at all these different policies and people and videos. I just decided that for where I'm at in life, the safest, most foundational place to store money without any uncertainty of what could be, because I then came to a conclusion that I don't know fully the ins and outs of IULs for what could be. There could be a chance to lapse, and I'm just not at that stage of life where I'm willing to risk potentially that at that time. And I got set up with a mass mutual whole life policy. And it's actually funny because Caleb probably was mad at me at the time because Him and I were actually really good friends. He wasn't really mad, but he's probably like, what the heck? And I hear this all the time happen in business where people are like, oh, we were really good friends. Why didn't you get a policy with me? Or we were really good friends. Why did you go with somebody else? That's what happened. Caleb was a really good friend. We've connected for a couple of years at that point in time. And I decided to get a policy with somebody else. And ironically, the policy that got set up for me was actually a policy that was not advantageous for my goals. it was like a karma in real time. Yeah, probably. It was like a, probably like a 70% base, 30% UA. And, uh, it was like $20,000 a year that I was wanting to put into it. And like the first year cash value was like $4,000 or something like that. And I like signed the dotted cause I like just trusted the person and I wasn't still, still learning the education. I was like, I didn't need to jump into this. I just need to do this because I know there's something here, but I was still trying to figure out the design perspective. I got this like yuck feeling in my gut for like, a solid month it was just like something doesn't feel right it's like i feel icky i feel like i was like i just feel almost like i got used in regards to like what i set up after like everything that i knew and i went back to this person and i just kind of like ripped him a ripped him one i was like you're unethical you didn't give me exactly what i wanted and i went ham and this was you know this was a while ago so obviously the way i communicate now is a little different things that i know but i did not feel good so there's a lot of money at the time to be able to put into policy to justify to starting something in. Feeling like I got scammed was not a good feeling. And I know that there's people out there that are in the space of consumers that are trying to find a policy that feel the same way. They look at their policies today and they're like, I had $0 in the first year, $0 in the second year. And then they come watch a video like ours and they're like, wow, there's such a massive difference in cash value that I didn't even know. And that's kind of where we try to come down from an education perspective. The best case scenario for me, what ended up happening is... The guy just didn't, he wasn't the person that knew how to design stuff. He didn't know how to design stuff. So he had to bring in an expert who actually knew how to design it. Luckily, MassMutual had this essentially a clause that within a certain timeframe, I could change the policy. So it got changed. It ended up being a 20% base, 80% PUA. And the first year had closer to like $15,000 of cash value. And that was like, now this is what I want. I feel a lot better. And I've had that policy ever since. And so that was just kind of like that journey to help me like solidify where I'm at today too. I appreciate you sharing that. Only in our space, I think, could someone be studying life insurance for over a year and still get set up with a policy like that because there's like education is… like a black box. There's not a ton of people that know this kind of stuff. And then there's just, it's just so interesting to know, like the lack of, I don't know, it's not even the unity is not even the right word, but like the lack of transparency that goes on. And so that's one of the things that we, we're trying to do. That's one of the reasons why we're doing the show is we're obviously talking in a different light, but you're going to like in real time, like I want to be able to like if someone If we have a video that goes viral for us or if we have certain comments to like, this is the show where we're going to respond to some comments. This is the show that we're going to maybe react to things in real time. And this is the show that we're going to rub some people the wrong way. I know that there are people in the space that don't appreciate our videos because they feel exposed. They set up a policy and their clients come watch our videos and then go back and, you know. maybe in a different way, Dom, but say like, what the heck? I would agree with that. Even just look at our content today in like, even when we started Caleb and that was the content that I would have loved and craved of just like looking at the numbers, seeing live illustrations. I think at the time there was just a lot of, if there was content, it was the philosophy and how it worked and the concept. And that's where I was like, okay, I know there's something here, but I can never find the numbers. And like, people always want, like, I want to see the numbers or. you know, for myself, I wanted to go into software and design it, but I wasn't necessarily appointed with a company that could do it. Or even if I did was, I think I maybe was the time, I didn't know how to design them. So I didn't know what I was even looking at. Right. So that becomes challenging. So you have to find somebody you trust, like so on and so forth. And there are friends that I have in the space that we were close with that they were telling me a couple years ago, they were like, yeah, like we would just present this to them. We'd essentially like the concept, we would go through the health process and we would just blanket statement, and get everybody set up. with a 40 base, 60 PUA across the board. And they didn't even know. Like they would just have it and they would know. And then they would come back a year or two. And then they would talk about maybe potentially a different design. And sometimes they'd even use that first policy to leverage to start another policy within that same workflow. And I don't think they do that anymore because I think that is the beautiful part about education and content. I think it was actually a movement that we started. There's one other person out there that I do believe has... that started the foundation of like doing education right, which I do really appreciate. But people are starting to see that. And because of that, they can't necessarily hide because it does, like you said, get exposed. And everybody, I think, collectively is starting to change on how they communicate and starting to mature, which I really love. Hey, it's Caleb Williams here. I'm just interrupting this video quickly to invite you to check out our and asset 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 make 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 Andassit, different setups and designs that we use. And then we have an Andassit Vault that gives 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 andassit.com slash vault. Learn more. I love it. All right. So my epiphany... was I grew up in Wisconsin, worked at a bank with the dream to help people with their money, more of like the hedge fund, like traditional financial advisor route. That was kind of the goal at the time. And then got exposed to life insurance for the first time when I was like 18. And I got life license. I was working as the investment assistant at the time and I loved it. And I was doing term insurance. And I have some very cringy videos, very cringy videos of me pretty much doing like a term presentation. And, you know, the pitch was, all right, if people are going to get mortgages, instead of doing mortgage insurance, which is not a great product, if you know what it really is, I mean, you'd be way better off just getting level term insurance. And so the thought process was like, hey, if people get mortgages, send them over to me, I'll do a quote, a life insurance quote and get them started. And so I just remember like selling your first term insurance. Dude, it was like... the greatest feeling of all time. Like I just, I was, I don't know. I, I, I was so, I was more excited about that than, I mean, we, we have the honor of working with some incredible people and it's, so it's not, it was less of a money thing. It was more of like, man, I'm like, I'm doing it. Like you always remember your first, you know? And I, I remember, I remember the first couple of clients and it's just like, it was just awesome. So that was like my intro to life insurance, but it was purely the pitch was term insurance. You need this for your family. and be a good spouse, be a good husband, be a good wife, and insure yourself. And it was always like, well, you could get a million, but what? It was just always. I was just like, didn't want to rock the boat at all. And I was afraid to even say like, you need this much coverage. Like what's your budget. Let me get you like, it was just, it was just cringy, but I just, I was trying my best. And I think many people can relate when you're first getting started. It is intimidating to know how to even start. And so I'm learning all this stuff and then I'm learning about permanent life insurance, but I just was very against permanent life insurance because it's a terrible investment, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I remember going to an event. And this is right at the time when the person running our investment department left, and I took over the investment department at 19 years old. So it just is a story in itself, but had a crazy opportunity there. So I'm learning. I'm meeting with people, and I go to this conference to learn about life insurance, and I'm very against life insurance. One of the things you got to know about me is I'm a high quick start, so I'm constantly wanting to get moving, but I'm a high fact finder. Dom can tell you firsthand it's a pain to work with because I'm like let's get moving yesterday. And I want to know all the details before we make a decision. And so it's very, very frustrating, but you know, it is what it is. That's who I am. And so I'm, I'm like that. I'm like, I want, I want to grow. I want to be successful. I want to help people. I had this drive, but I'm like, I'm not going to sell anything that I don't understand, which that leads you to a frustrating point because nobody knows what they're talking about. And so it's just so frustrating. So we all kind of had a similar journey. I mean, Austin, a little bit different because you you you knew you you met us from the beginning but you had your own journey but like if you didn't have the right people to start with it's very frustrating so i went to this event and it was an event helping people set up life insurance to pay off debt super interesting it was like dave ramsey meets nelson nash and they had a kid and that was what i learned and i was like okay this is really interesting parts of it that were like awesome they were software and all but like there's this thing in the back of my head that I was just like, there's something that doesn't add up. Like it just doesn't, doesn't make sense. And so I was like asking this kid, I think they were just frustrated because they're like, like, dude, you're a 19 year old kid. You produce nothing. You're a waste of my time. Go, go find a different job. But they mentioned a few books and those few books I read one of them being this book right here, which we'll do a book review. Arnelson Nash, Becoming your own banker. Which at the time didn't really help me because I read it. I was like, I'm more confused. But it opened up the gateway to learning some other things and had many conversations, got software, had conversations. That's when I got first introduced to Todd Langford, his wife, Kim Butler. I hung out with some of the Paradigm Life people. I would go, I met Russ Morgan of Wealth About Wall Street. I went to Truth Training. I met Don Blanton at Circle of Wealth. got introduced to the wealth building cornerstone people. Like just for those, like, I'm just name dropping a bunch of legends in our space that are doing different things. And like, I started learning from them. And I think one of the best, best things, best decisions I made was, I'm not going to look at this as a way to make money. I'm going to look at this as a way to learn. And so that was like the commitment of, I, I did, I made a lot of mistakes. That was one thing that I so glad I did and created the foundation of why we're all here. It's like, Hey, let's do, Let's build this right foundation. And so the mission I had was to help people see and reach their highest potential. That was like at the end of the day, that's what I wanted to do. And I'm like if life insurance if there's a reason for life insurance, I want to know it. But if not, I want nothing to do with it. And I remember the epiphany that I had was I was looking at it as an investment. A lot of people that watch me talk, they're like, Kayla, why do you always say it's not an investment? It's not an investment. The reason is I'm therapy for me. I think it's like, I'm still traumatized to this day of like how I was taught about life insurance is like, it's an investment. And I, it's cringy on even probably the first people that I started talking to is like, this is an investment that's going to change your family's life. And I, so I'm, I'm like learning some of this stuff. And I remember the epiphany for me was, oh, this is an, and, and I didn't invent the word, the and asset. This was things that people taught way before we were born kind of deal. But it was like, it hit me that I was like, oh, I've been, I've been seeing this as a thing, but actually this is like the key that unlocks lots of things and lots of things are better than one thing or two things. And it was like the, again, I couldn't articulate it at the time, but like more, like more benefits are better than less benefits. And you get more benefits by having this contract versus just going directly into this thing. And then the epiphany was like, oh, I could use life insurance. and invest. I could use life insurance and start businesses. I could use life insurance and do these other things. And over time, one plus one equals more than two. Why wouldn't I do that? And that was like, that was the thing. And, and, and candidly. The idea of borrowing against like the banking idea that using your money while you're alive was a thing that I was like all in on. And if you read the end asset, you're going to see like that was the big focus that I had. And then the other epiphany on the back end of that was like, okay, life insurance is a multi-asset. Like, you know, coming soon, like the multi-asset is something that I'm going to be talking more about. And it's... not just the living benefits of using the cash value. It's not just the ability that you can use your money and it grows, but it's the life insurance actually is a very valuable product to have from a protection aspect. It's a valuable product to have in the future when it comes to future cash flow. It's a powerful asset to have from creditor protection. And it's this idea of like, we all are in buildings. There's a foundation that we can't see, but we're in a building right now protected because there's a foundation that we can't see. And I think when it comes to someone's portfolio and their financial life, there's just not a lot of talk about foundations. Foundations have you need protection. They need to be deep. They're not sexy. But it's essential to building is you need a strong foundation. And the more I've learned about life insurance, the epiphany is like regardless of who you are, you might be more on the infinite banking side where you want to save more of your money and use it throughout your life. Or you may be on the side of like, no, I just I'm good. I just want to invest money. I want to invest money for the future. And you're going to use a portion of your portfolio into life insurance. Why? Because it's going to enhance the future benefit. But what we're not talking enough about, I think, is not just enhancing the future benefit, but even if the future benefit was the same or slightly lower, you are better protecting and creating more certainty to get to that future. And that is the aspect that early on I couldn't articulate, couldn't care. could care less about it quite frankly i was just seeing this as like a whether i would say it or not it was like a sexier place to i i wouldn't say it was an investment but i would i still looked at it like an investment and now you know many years later i just i just have an appreciation of this asset like i said this in a video the other day that my i've become way less hypey about it like even the actual rate return versus average rate return i like cringe at because That was a way to pitch life insurance competing with the stock market. I would never even have that conversation. I think it's a good conversation, but the whole idea of the reason you have that is to create doubt of why are you investing in the stocks. And I'm not anti-stock market. At the time of writing it, I was because I saw that people investing in the Roth IRA was literally taking away from them putting money in life insurance. And now I'm like, why did I care about that? Well, that was how I was taught. Like there's some of the times you just have to be like I'm here where I am and my journey is valuable. And I didn't do anything malicious, but I'm less hypey when it comes to that. But my conviction on life insurance has never been greater. And it's interesting putting the dots together is we're overfunding. We're a big, big fan. For those of you that don't know what overfunding means, like max funding life insurance is something that we specialize in. That's why people come to us is like we're really transparent. We set up policies really, really well. And... The people that don't necessarily do overfunding a ton, but they're like huge fans of life insurance, they're usually on more of like human life value. But like they're the ones that are saying like life insurance makes sense even if 100% goes into base. And the reality is they're not wrong. Like if you had to choose between 100% base or no permanent life insurance, I think proper planning still includes some type of permanent life insurance aspect. The third epiphany I would say is like, oh, what if you could take… their fundamental education around life insurance and conviction long-term. And you could structure the policy a little bit differently, more flexible, early cash value and all. And like, what if you could have both? Because I feel like a lot of people on the infinite banking side are just talking about early cash value and using your money. And they're like doing you a disservice long-term about your money long-term in life insurance. But then on the flip side, the people that are doing long-term on life insurance is great, but sometimes they can be put in a bad rap because if you look at the first couple of years, you're giving... the talking points to all of our favorite gurus that like to hate on it. And then it was like, man, if like people understood what this would look like, I really believe there'd be a line outside the door. And we've created a small line. I think we would all agree that there's more, there's more to come. And the more people learn about this stuff, the more we're going to attract. So that is, that's my epiphany. And I'm sure people in real time learn about it. all the things that we're learning. So I know where I want to land the plane here soon. Austin, any thoughts? I mean, this is probably the longest you've ever stayed quiet. I know, I know. I've like zipped it. I feel like you need a sticker, dude. We can give you like a sticker. There we go. So you obviously bring up a lot of good points, Caleb. You did put a lot of seeds of doubt in my mind with the average versus actual rate of return. But I think those were well placed because you hear about... Like, oh, S&P 500 does, you know, does 13% a year, done that for the last, you know, 30 years. And when I read that initially, I was just like kind of dumbfounded. I was like, there's no way. And then, yeah, and I, you will like this because you just got to wait till the end of the story. I use a part of that depending on the client. Not everybody calls in with it. But when clients call in, they're like, hey, like, why, like, you know, ultimately. why should I think about life insurance rather than stocks? Like if they literally bring it up, I'll bring them back to a version of what you, of what you had talked about in your book. And you had said, you know, and I take them through this thing as like, you know, okay, let's say you have a hundred bucks in stocks. And then this year you do, it does a hundred percent. Then next year, how much do you have? I literally let them do the math on their own. And they come out to $200. I'm like, fantastic. You got $200 on next year and next year it does 50%. Okay. How much do you have in year three? Now back to 100. Okay, amazing. So years one through three, what's your actual rate of return? Everyone correctly says 0%. But now I'm like, but calculated by average rate of return, you just did 25% year over year. And that blows their minds. Now, and this is very, very key to point out is that the kind of rate of return of life insurance, this is why I point out is that it's not a fair apples to apples with everything going on in stocks. So stocks are great, as you said. Stocks are fantastic. We're not anti-stocks, better wealth. But internal rate of return is a very different metric than average rate of return. Because internal rate of return is literally, I think, what people think of average rate of return is, but it's actually two totally separate metrics. Internal is point here to point here. What do you need every year to get from that point to that point? And average is just this kind of phantom metric that kind of means something and kind of doesn't at the same time. So when you said that so many years ago, like that, that changed my mind and that changed my life a little bit then. And I actually, it was so hard for me to understand what you were saying. I actually went to the S&P 500 the last 30 years of it. And I went year to year and I entered in what the gain or loss was for $1,000. And I did it over 30 years to see if doing it every year for 30 years was a different number than if you just did a 13% gain every year. And it's a wildly different number. So... I'm glad, even though you're kind of like said, you're kind of cringe over the way that you did that. Like, I'm glad that you put that in there because it was something that's important to realize is that like, it doesn't get talked about, but it's different. Now I have a question for you. All right. So my question is, and you're very humble, by the way, you know, you say you're an investment assistant, but you were like in charge of an investment division at your bank, right? Like, isn't that like what you were doing? Yeah, it was a community bank. So we had about 300 people total and that's a whole nother i mean met with people and realized firsthand that you had to have more life coaching conversations with people than financial conversations, because some people were never asked ever what they actually wanted out of life, which blew my mind. But yeah. Yeah. The question is, so there was one point when you saw yourself as in a kind of an investment banker or investment assistant, whatever your title was, who used life insurance to kind of solve investment problems. And then there came some point at which you kind of went over this invisible hump. where you stopped seeing like life insurance as this auxiliary thing that you were doing. And then now you're kind of looking at it as what if I made this the main thing that I do? When was that point at which you were like, it's not just this auxiliary thing that I'm doing to help investment problems is that it's actually, I think the main thing that I need to do. Do you remember the point at which you crossed? I think there's a quote that, that says something. I, I screenshotted this. It's like your most, your. best suited for serving the person that you once were. I think that's Rory Vaden that had that quote. And the answer that your question is the reason I went hardcore into life insurance is I was like, this is so misunderstood. And the upside for what I believe, like the upside from a business perspective of sharing something that was so misunderstood seemed really valuable to me. because I was like, okay, there's a ton of financial advisors out there. Probably 300 total financial advisors in the entire country have a real good understanding of insurance. That might be generous. Like I'm just like so there's a lot of people out there. I believe I'm making this crazy claim that I believe life insurance has a role in most people's portfolio, like a legitimate role. Not that we don't have to hype it up. It doesn't have to be an IUL. Like it's just a whole life insurance. And if that's actually the case, there's a business to be said here. And then that was while I was learning the learning from people like paradigm life and they were doing everything on the internet. And then it was like, okay, I'm not, I don't have to just be, I don't have to just be here in my market of Wisconsin. Like I can serve more people. And the idea of like, okay, I'm young. I'm already young. People are going to have a hard time taking me seriously. Do I want to be a generalist across the board? Or do I want to be like a specialist at this one thing? So that was, that was the, that was the bet I made. And, you know. probably to this point, my downfall would be going back to my personality of being cautious is I, I feel like I was never fully like hammered the gas because I'm like, one product's never going to change your life. Like real estate's not like, it's just hard for me to get on, like in a perfect world, life insurance, like we should just hammer life insurance. Like life insurance is this we'll solve it. And And. That's why we have our own brand and asset, and we're being more intentional there. And a lot of calls that we get are specialized here, but it also is important to me that holistically you don't miss the entire thing. And I would just because life insurance is amazing, that doesn't mean all your money should go into life insurance. So I don't know if that answers your question, but I did intentionally be like instead of going the investment banker route or all, I'm going to specialize in life insurance because I feel like the there's a lot of opportunity for growth here because of my journey because of my frustration of just trying to get answers. And I'm like, okay, there's, there's an opportunity. There's a business opportunity in any frustration you, you experience. That's awesome. That's awesome. Um, Don, I also have some questions for you. What's up? You don't get to ask them. Sorry, Austin. Just by sheer time. Just by sheer time. Okay. We got to, uh, we, uh, we have a meeting in six minutes. And so we want to make sure that we're able to, uh, we were, we were going to be like, yeah, we'll do two episodes a day to get this thing started. Right. Or like, yeah, exactly. There's a Caleb at a 12 minutes old Austin. He said, Hey, please do this in five minutes. Your, your thing. Right. So we are literally 45 minutes in and it took three of us to do so. This is what happens when, this is what happens when you get a visionary that is incredible at communicating and sharing the company and the vision and the story. and you get in. unrepentant extrovert into the same meeting together. It's going to be a ton of fun. A ton of fun that we're going to do. I might have to be the person that uses the phrase that the young kids use often, which they say, put the fries in the bag, which essentially is just like- I was waiting for you to say that. I was waiting for you to say that. Put the fries in the bag. I've never heard you say that ever. That's my highlight of the day. Okay, so as we land the plane, we don't know what we're doing. We're going to have a lot of fun. And this is going to be- casual way to talk about the things that we want to talk about. We will, Joel, this might be news to you. He's our producer. We will have a separate podcast. So if you prefer to listen on Spotify, Apple, and all, like you can subscribe to the And Asset show where you can listen to this. Obviously, YouTube, you get to see our beautiful faces. And if we will be showing things, you know, if we react to things, obviously, YouTube is going to be a great place there. It'll be on the and asset channel and and so make sure to subscribe Hit the bell if you want to get notified when we drop episodes. We drop life insurance content on The And Asset Show and then life insurance content and other content on the Better Wealth channel. And if there's anything that we can do to serve you in your practice, your family, review your policies, talk to you about new policies, we want to do that. And thank you so much for playing a role and watching us grow up and see you next week.

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