How To Make Crazy Amounts Of Money

 Nobody can tell me now that it's not a good product. I've had it for 15 years. I've used it like 25 times to make crazy amounts of money. But I bought two rental properties out of my plan. And within 18 months, I flipped them. I made $69,000 on those using the money from my life insurance plan. I work here for you. And I'm not serious. Steven, welcome to the Better World Show. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Love the background. There might be some people that recognize you because you're a very big deal, man. You've blown up. And what was it, last two years? Last two years, yep. Last two years, you started making YouTube videos, talking about this stimulus checks, and then it kind of turned into news updates. And let me tell you, you've gone to the moon. You have a steady listener group. You have incredible sponsors. You do such an incredible job. It's funny. It's like, if you want a good news source, you need to like stop listening to this and go subscribe. And we'll definitely have all your links in what we're up to. And so it's a pleasure to have you on because I actually got connected with you through your wife. I'm just grateful as I've gotten to know you like the person you are. And then we realized that we share some other things in common like our love for life insurance, which is kind of weird when people hear that and other things. So we're going to just have a fluid conversation. But I love this concept of intentional living. I love people that grasp on this wealthy life. And I want them, I want to give them tools and tactics to be able to do that. And I figured that interviewing people that have lived it, that have taught it and are currently in the trenches doing it is the best way to go about that. And so with that, welcome to the show. The bar is set, my friends. And I'm excited for this. Great. Well, I'm ready to go. I definitely am. I'm just grateful to have the opportunity to share any wisdom that I've learned in my four decades of being on the planet. And I recognize I still have so much more to learn, but happy to be here. So how does someone get a million subs and have the listeners and watchers that you have on a daily basis? Like talk to us about how you how you pull that off. Yeah, great question. You know, people say, oh, I want to make that easy money on YouTube. And I'm like, you're obviously not on YouTube or they're like, oh, anybody can grow a channel. And I'm like, OK, well, best of luck to you. But honestly, when people ask me, like, how do you grow to a million? I don't really have I don't really have an answer because most people don't realize that my YouTube channel is older than my oldest child. I've been trying to make it on YouTube for 13 years. And I meet people they haven't even been doing their career for 13 years, let alone trying to make it on a social media platform. And so but I was very intentional with what I wanted to do. September of 2019, I said to myself, I've got to be better about educating people and also informing people and attracting people to me. And so I was like, OK, I've got to have a bigger voice. And I've got to break through all of the noise like anybody that does marketing. And I was like, OK, I could do a podcast. I could do, you know, I could try to make it on Instagram. I could try to get on board with this TikTok thing. And I was like, you know what, I'm just going to stick with YouTube and I'm not going to give up on trying to ride this horse and cross the finish line. And so I just I started talking about things that I thought were important to people and covering broader topics. And I started to started to get some momentum. And then by the time the 2020 rolled around, a friend of mine back East named Mark Mayowski, he asked me, what is your one word for 2020? And I was like, my one word, he said, I want you to say it every single day. And I said, attraction, I want to attract people to me. And so I kind of came up with this idea in my mind that I would take massive amounts of action until I got some traction. And if I got enough traction, I would start to attract people and eyeballs and success to myself. Now, granted, I had already been a six figure earner for multiple years, but I wanted to take my my business to the next level. And so that became the focus of 2020 was attraction. Well, I was just starting to get attraction when the entire economy shut down. All of a sudden, I went from cash flowing to owing people money, wondering how I was going to pay the bills, tapping into my life insurance, getting ready to put my life insurance auto loans on hold. And I told my wife, like, I think I'm going to have to get a new career. Like, I don't know what to do. And so I was like, you know what, I'm just going to start educating people on what I'm learning about the lockdown, about COVID, about stimulus checks, PPP loans, business loans, EIDL loans. And people just kept coming back every day. And I was like, OK, maybe I could be a source of truth and help to people. And all of a sudden, my channel just like grew like crazy. And then seven days a week, I was coming on keeping people in the loop on what was going on. And I've been doing that for about just over two years now. I had to slow down, had to scale it back to five or six days a week just for my mental health and time with my family. But once I knew, once I had my horse that I wanted to run in the race, I wrote it every single day. And I just kept the commitment. I put on the blinders. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and bring to the public. And it just it worked out and attraction became a fulfilled word in my life. A couple of observations I know about you is number one, you're very positive. You're loving you, but you and your wife are so generous to your community. And so that's unique because I don't know of other people that have that style that are also bringing me up to speed of what's going on in the world. So that's number one. Number two is you, your videos are short. I have to watch 60 minutes of news and and you've you've done the work. You've script your your like you put in work. It's not like you're just winging it talking. And so you you've definitely put in the work. It's resonated and this is how you become this. How you get traction on YouTube. You provide content that people find valuable, ongoing value. It's very hard to do people's attention. Like, you know, and you don't have to answer this, but do you know, like on a monthly basis, how many watch hours people are getting of your channel? It's like probably absurd. Um, I just got an email yesterday that said something I want to say it was like 35 million hours of watch time. Can you even comprehend that? No, it's hard to wrap your mind around. I mean, according to YouTube, my face has been seen by 180 million people. Like that's more that's like half the United States, you know, like my son, he's 13. Uh, I get noticed in public a lot. We were at an amusement park. He asked me how many people are in the park. I gave him my best guess. He said, you realize one in one and 250 people here know who you are. And I was like, oh, dude, that's weird. Yeah, that's weird to think about. So, but, you know, I've never wanted to be famous. Uh, I've never, uh, I have no desire for power, but I do have desire for influence and sharing the truth and sharing good ideas and optimism. And, and so I've just, I've stuck to that, which has been really, really hard. Like people think growing a YouTube channel is hard. Try growing a YouTube channel with integrity. Yeah. Uh, where they reward deceit and click bait and trickery. And I have just tried to avoid all of that. Um, and in the end, I think it's made a very, very loyal subscriber base and I just love my YouTube community. Yep. Would you say a lot of news stations are either right or left? Where would you put you? Like, are you trying to be as in the middle? I try. Yeah. I try my very best to just deliver the news every now and then something will really, you know, rub me wrong and I'll, I'll give an opinion on it. But I try to, I try to leave the opinions out. I'll chime in with advice, you know, like I've been telling people lately, Hey, if they say there's going to be a food shortage, just go get some food. And worst case scenario, you have to eat it. Like that's, like that's the worst. Yeah. And, but the best case is there's food shortages and now you're prepared. You know, so like I'll chime in with financial advice about the stock market or life insurance or annuities or how to save money, how to budget better. Like I'll give those, but as far as my opinion, I try to keep it out of there because I have such a like diverse background. Like, I don't know if Democrats watch me. I don't know if Republicans watch me. I don't, you know, like I, I've never pulled. I don't, I don't want to ask. Yeah. I just want to deliver information. But yeah, so I try not to, but yeah, as I study the news, you know, for four or five hours every day, it shocked me. How right winged or how left wing certain organizations are. And I never considered that. Like I never considered just how left like CNN is and how they like to stoke certain stories or defame and things like that. Where like Fox News is like really, really right wing and, you know, and I don't, I don't watch either of those because I kind of find them both a little bit grotesque. So then it's like, okay, what can I glean from each news station to try to pull together a narrative of what's going on today and how it's going to affect your wallet. Any, before we transfer over to the whole money conversation, any other things that you want to share about what you've learned in your journey launching a YouTube channel, what you see in the news, like, like just any patterns that you see or just what you've learned in the last two years. Yeah. Well, let me ask you this and then I'll answer that. Who is the person that's going to be watching this? Is it advisors? Is it individuals? Yeah, it's probably one-third to two-thirds of people in our space that are, you know, doing this. But then I also have, you know, I know hundreds of entrepreneurs, investors that listen and some watch on YouTube. I definitely get more people listening than watch. Okay. Well, this is what I would say then is I think we're about to go through a really rocky patch. But I think for people that are in our industry, this is about to be a tremendous opportunity to make significant amounts of money. And so don't don't let all of the bad news or the fear porn or, you know, the distraction cloud your mind. Stay very, very focused on what you can do, what you have control of and the value that you bring to the market. And I think people in the financial space, there is a tremendous opportunity to make money right now. I 100% agree with that. All right, let's let's transfer over a lot of people that are on YouTube. Some of our mutual friends are big into index funds, pay off your debt, you know, live below your means, which I think you and I both subscribe to the living below your means part. But it's interesting because you've written a book or two on life insurance and you're a big fan and you could teach and you have videos on YouTube about this. And so I'm just curious, like, I want to hear from you, not me. Like, how did you learn this? Why are you a fan of that? Why did you like it's not popular for you to say this, by the way, it's much popular for you to do the other, you know, say other things. So talk to me about your belief about money, how you learn this and why you still are willing to come on shows like this and talk about it. Oh, yeah, I'm I'm an absolute believer. It's the first place I put money is in the very programs that I try to help people get into. And so I would say practicing what you preach is huge. I had a friend who was always losing deals. And so I tried to I tried to like coach him like, OK, what's going on? And he said, oh, yeah, they would ask me, like, do you own one of these? And then I would be honest and I would say no. And I would say and then you would lose the deal, you know, so I said, you got to practice what you preach. Like, don't tell people to do this if you don't have your own money in it. Like, if you have your mind in your heart, like, that's great. But they want to see, do you have your money there? Because you're not asking them to put their mind or their heart. You're asking them to put their money. So be willing to do what you're asking other people to do. But so a few years ago, I was oh, gosh, this was like over 15 years ago. So I might have to go through the cobwebs in my mind. But essentially what it came down to is I was working for I was not in the industry at all. Had no plans to be in the industry at all. And a good friend of mine from my childhood, his father was my scout master. He said to me, hey, there is a seminar that I really believe that you would enjoy and find value in. And I want you to go. I was like, oh, okay, when is it? And he was like, well, it's on this day and this day. And I was like, oh, shoot. So I have to miss work. He's like, yeah, you have to miss work. And he's like, and it's $100 to get in. And I was like, okay, what's it about? He said life insurance. I said, okay, hold on. You want me to miss two days of pay and pay $100 to go to a life insurance thing? He said, yeah, there's also a $25 book you have to buy. And I was like, dude, no, I'm out. Thank you. I said, I'll buy life insurance from you, but I'm not interested in going to this seminar. And he said, what if I paid for your ticket? He said, I just, in my heart of hearts, I believe this is going to resonate with you. And I was like, okay. So I took time off and I went and I met this little old guy with white hair named Nelson Nash. And he had a Southern accent and he went through all of the, you know, benefits of life insurance and the guaranteed growth, the protection. And then he got into the being your own bank part. And I was looking at the car scenario and I was like, okay, wait a minute. I, you know, at this time, I don't have any kids. I don't run my own business. Like I'm working for corporate America. And I was, I was looking at that going, okay, you know, I'm my own 10 or 20 cars in my lifetime. And I started to just do the math of controlling my own money, things that were in my control. And I was like, oh my gosh, this, this makes a lot of sense, right? And then, and then Nelson Nash said a line. He said, whatever business you're in, also be in the banking business. And that just like, it struck me and like I went and got a picture with him. I think he signed my book and I went home and I thought about it. I told my wife, one of these days I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to spend all day teaching people how to be smart with their money. And she said, you're crazy. And I said, you know, I am, but I would appreciate your support. And within a year or two, I quit my job and started full time teaching people how to do this. And of course, I, I, you know, I'm not telling anyone to do this, but I exited out of my 401k, took the tax hit, put it over, funded my first plan. Now I own three plans. I put, you know, tremendous amounts of money away. And I've used it for buying real estate. I've used it for hard money loans. I've used it for, I think it's either five or six cars, vacations, publishing my, I can't even remember how many books I have. It's either seven or eight that I've self published all with my plan. So like when I tell people, I practice what I preach, like I'm not kidding, you know, I'm using it right now to buy a condo for my mother-in-law here in Utah, from a strategy that you actually taught. Thank you so much. But that's kind of my background is I got invited to this thing I did not want to go to and about 60% of the way through the light bulb went on and I was like, wow, like it changed, it changed my thinking. Again, I wasn't in life insurance. I wasn't in retirement plan. I had no plan to do any of that. And then I did that for like 13 years. I made great money. I almost all of my clients were over the phone. So I was moving millions of dollars over the phone with people I had never met and still have never met and they're happy with their plans. And so anyway, that's kind of my background on getting into this concept that I just wholeheartedly believe in. It's interesting. The epiphany for me was, oh, life insurance is not an investment. It's not. But when set up and use properly, it removes this choice of future and now like I can have control over my money now and I'm a big fan of investing in yourself and controlling capital. Like I put a premium on that. But then also the benefits of life insurance, not just the growth, but the the death benefit, the other options. And some people call retirement, the other riders, the health benefit. Like there's so many benefits to life insurance long term and you're telling me I get all of those with the future options and I have the ability to control capital to invest in myself, real estate, what not. That for me was like, oh, I don't have to compete with investments. It's an and and for me, that was like, okay, this makes a ton of sense. What was your epiphany like when you said around 60 percent? Was it was it the line that everyone should be in the banking business no matter what business you're in? Or what was the epiphany that you had because a lot of people have so negative views of life insurance and were drilled into us that this is a terrible investment. It's a terrible investment. So it just taints the way that people think. Built incorrectly. It's a terrible investment. It's a terrible place. Period. Yes, I agree. Built built correctly. It's phenomenal. And you know, I I do I do look at it as an investment, but not in like the typical sense. Here's where I see it as an investment. I know for a fact I'm going to die and I know for a fact I'm going to pay taxes. So if I can control when I die, it triggers a much larger amount of tax free money to my family. So for me, it's investing in my family and that for me was huge because I'm very family oriented. Now, again, when I bought my first plan, I had no kids. I didn't know I was going to have three kids. I had no idea, but I knew I wanted to make sure my wife was taken care of and that those future children would be taken care of. So for me, the biggest thing was can I control the U.S. economy? And the answer was no. And then I lived through the Great Recession and it taught me you cannot control the U.S. economy. But guess what? I learned I could control my household economy and I have weathered some storms as an individual and as an entrepreneur and as a business owner because of those plans. But I tell my clients all the time, you can do more with this plan than the plan can do for you. But we've got to set it up. We've got to structure it and get it set up and let it grow. And then once you have that in place, you'll be so grateful that it's in place, but we've got to start, right? And so then I just have to bring the future to the present and help them see, okay, here's how I could use it. And here's where it benefits you, right? Now, okay, so now let me go back to the death thing, right? So right as COVID started, I had an eye doctor contact me. He said, I read your book Taming Wall Street. I'm very interested. We met. We had lunch at Chili's. I went through everything and he was like, I'm very interested. He puts $1,500 a month in, right? He calls me up about a year in and he's all like, hey, listen, I want out. I don't want to do this. And I'm like, okay, listen, this happens. Usually it's at like the three or four year mark, but this always happens. Let me just do a review with you on why this is good. We went through and he goes, you know what? I want to keep it. Well, a month ago, he contacts me and says, hey, listen, now that the pandemic's over, I want to do some other things with my business. I need to free up that capital. I don't want this plan anymore. And I said, okay, listen, I want to walk you through how you could use it for your business and all the reasons to keep it specifically your family's well-being down the road. And he goes, well, you can try to convince me, but when I get back from vacation, I want to have this conversation. Two weeks ago, I found out that he died out of the blue, completely out of the blue. And he had that policy still in place. And his family is now going to get hundreds of thousands of dollars completely tax-free because I was able to help him stay in it. So he turned, he turned like $30,000 of premium into hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax-free wealth for his family. Does it bring him back? No. Does it give them some of the sleep next to at night? No, but it covers the bills. It helps the daughter who's taking over his eye practice not have to go into debt to keep it alive while she transitions without dad. So it was like, I've lived through seeing the death benefit payout. Same thing with my own parents. I made sure my mom and dad had a plan in place. Well, guess what? When my dad died unexpectedly, July of 2020 from a bad reaction to chemo, his death benefit paid out tax-free more than all the money he had saved for my mother, his entire work career. So just boom, creating that instant estate of tax-free money. That's an investment that paid off big time, right? Did he have to die? Yeah. But did he have access to that money his entire life? Yes. And they used it to replace a roof and not go into credit card debt and for some other things. But anyway, so I just see like this is like a Swiss army knife. And, you know, people just need to really dig in and show this product the respect it deserves because it does. It gets bad mouthed. It's not sexy. It's just really reliable and sometimes reliable doesn't have the same amount of press coverage that something sexy gets. Yeah, like, oh my gosh, Robin Hood grew. Oh, Ethereum's up by 180%. And you know, like those are all really great. And those maybe deserve some of your money, but not the bottom of your pyramid, right? Like your foundation should be things that you're not going to lose. Right. Well, and the beautiful thing is if something can get a greater rate of return and you're confident in it, you don't need to choose between this or that. And that's that's the beauty. You use Swiss army knife, which I love. An example that I use is the smartphone. Majority of people that I know have a smartphone and we can say it's expensive. I mean, I think this iPhone is over $1,000. But think about all the utility that I get out of this one device. It's my GPS. It's my alarm clock. It's my, you know, my flashlight. I still call it's a phone. I, you know, there's so many things that I do. And so I'm not thinking about like, oh, like I've never been someone that's like, should I have a phone? Is it worth it? And I don't see that this phone doesn't get me a rate of return. But how many relationships? How many times have we communicated because of this device? I think the very similar to, to life insurance is like, I see it as all the other benefits that I get. And sometimes I do give people that are like, okay, like I could be making more money here. And what I remind them is they're looking at one metric, the cash value growth, which is important. And you're right. You have to set it up properly. But it's like life insurance is multi-dimensional. And it's so hard. It's like, there's no calculator to date that shows a true multi-dimensional aspect in the true value because there's some things that are, you might value more than others. But I appreciate you sharing about the death benefit because majority of our clients that do the strategy don't care about the death benefit until they do. And those are the times where we're like, wow, that's insane. Well, they don't, they don't get anything out of it, right? Like, right. My client got nothing out of it except for knowing that his family is taken care of. You know, same thing with my mother. Like she's taken care of because of this boring plan that was put in place, you know, so, but like, okay, so think about this though. Okay. This client who put $30,000 of premiums in almost two years worth of premiums in. Okay. Could his 30 have grown to like 35 or 37? Yes. I'll concede that. I'll admit that. But when he died, his wife would then get the 37, oh, some taxes versus getting hundreds of thousands with no taxes. So in the end, again, I see this as like a multi-generational opportunity because again, I know I'm going to pay taxes and I know I'm going to die. So why not play to the guarantees? And then you have a pool of money you can go take some risk with, right? Like I had a, excuse me, I had a brother-in-law or excuse me, it was my own brother. It was my own brother. He said to me like, oh, you and your wife seem to vacation more than most people I know. And we're not like crazy, you know, but I said to him, well, I feel okay using a little bit more of my money during my lifetime because when I died, they'll be fully taken care of. And he was like, what? And I was like, yeah, like if the only money you have is your retirement money, then like, yeah, you feel like a squirrel, like, oh, I can't lose a single nut, you know, like I've got to hold on to everyone because there's no pay off at the end. You only get what you've collected. But with this, I get what I've collected and usually a leveraged higher amount. And so it's given me confidence to go live more because I can, I can play with my retirement money more than the average person because when I die, boom, it's going to just kick back so much money and without Uncle Sam taken a 30% bite out of the apple, you know, or who knows what we don't know how to teach your holds. Let me, what I know about you is your big framework person. You're an amazing teacher. And so if I were to come to you and say, okay, just walk me through the basics of how you would explain this and why this, like what part, where does this play in a portfolio and how you have the conversation. Do you have like off the top of your head, like how you have conversations? I know that this is, you're still in this space, but you're definitely like you, you have a lot of things that you do. But I'm just curious because of the, of the teacher you are, like how you teach people and what things resonate that you share with, with some of your clients. Yeah. Admittedly, I am rusty. I don't do this as often just because of YouTube, you know, 20 to 24 videos a month and then, you know, anywhere from eight to 10 sponsors a month. But let's see, how do I frame this? I think the main thing is I want to understand people's goals. I want to understand their timeframe. I want to understand their risk tolerance. And then what I like to do is I like to tell them like, okay, do you know how much money you're going to have at age 70? And they're like, I have no idea. And I'm like, okay, what if I have a tool that will show you, give you a very good idea of how much you would have. And I'm going to show you how to avoid the heartbreak of market loss that we're all living through right now. I mean, like my, my stock portfolio just got kicked really hard, you know, but, but none of my insurance are down. And so I show them like, okay, here's how to avoid the emotional roller coaster of the stock market. Here's how to avoid the losses of the market. Here's how to legally avoid taxes on, on your money. Here's how to use it in two places at one time. Here's how to ensure that your family is taken care of from, from day one, you know. And so once they have a foundational understanding of the different aspects of this Swiss Army knife, then we go through the numbers and I show them, hey, listen, here's the downside. It takes a couple of years to get back to break even. But once you pass that, look how much the growth really gets going. Now, what happens if you die during this time? You look like a hero from the grave, right? Like you immediately look like a hero. It pays off. So it creates immediately what you didn't have 10, 20, 30 years to build for your family. And if you do have 20, 30, 40 years to build, you just leave even more money, right? Like the longer this goes, the more it leaves, right? And so once I have that foundation of here's how this is going to grow. Here's when you can start using it. Here's what happens if the market drops. Here's what happens if you die. Here's what happens if you need access to capital. If you have an emergency, a medical situation, you need to buy a car. You want to send the kid to college. Like here, here is, I just lay it all out. And for the majority of them after reading the book and going through it, they're like, what's the next step? It's really not that hard of a sell if you take the time to educate. Now, I have operated very differently for probably, let's see, it's 2022, I would say maybe eight years. Eight years ago, I gave up the scarcity of selling insurance or annuities or retirement planning. And I just decided whether I get a deal or not, my focus is 100% on education. And if somebody walks away, like I don't do any of the try and trick them to come back. I don't do any of the like clever email one liners that get them to open. Like I don't, I don't do any of that. I tell them upfront. I literally, I get paid on this. If you move forward, if you don't, it was really nice to meet you. My entire focus is on making you understand this so well that you either know it's for you or you know it's absolutely not for you. And that's my entire goal is just that education and building trust. And then it, again, it's worked. Like I have, you know, I say this humbly, but if somebody reads my book and gets on the phone with me, I have over a 90% close ratio. And the 10% that walk away, I don't lose us. I don't lose a minute of sleep over it. Yeah. Great. Yeah. So, but I remember, I remember being really, really broke in this industry in the beginning. And like we went through the great recession and it hit my family really hard. We had some medical stuff. We had some mortgage issues. Like it was really rough, but I had, I had my life plan and it was like my, it was like my parachute. It was my plan B. It was my safety net, right? But I remember getting down to my last thousand dollars and I remember going to people's houses and I'm not making this up. I would put that thousand dollars of cash. Now looking back, I probably shouldn't have done that, but I would put that thousand dollars of cash in my pocket and I would go to their house. I would sit at their kitchen table and I would literally tell myself whether they say yes or no, I've got this thousand dollars. I like, I'm going to be okay. It was just like trying to tell my mind that there's enough and that there's not scarcity, right? Like if I don't get this deal, it's okay. I've got this thousand dollars and if I do, I'm going to add some money to this thousand dollars. And it just, it worked, right? Like it doesn't mean I got every deal back then. My closing ratio was probably like 30%, right? It was much, much lower because I was still learning things. I was learning how to conceptualize and educate people. I was building my own plan up and, you know, I was getting real life hands-on experience using this tool myself. And over time, that closing ratio got really, really good. And at your conviction probably grew as well. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, nobody can tell me now that it's not a good product. I've had it for 15 years. I've used it like 25 times to make crazy amounts of money. Like I bought two rental properties out of my plan and within 18 months I flipped them. I made $69,000 on those using the money from my life insurance plan. Like it helped me with my down payment. It helped me get through. I had a pipe break and I don't even want to get into all of that. Anyway, my point is I did more with the plan than the plan could do for me. But the entire time had I kicked over and died, my family would have got like 2 million bucks. So I was able to operate with total confidence that no matter what, my three children and my wife are taking care of. Yeah. That's a huge confidence builder for me. Huge, huge. And the foundation is already there regardless of what you do with the rest of your life, which I think is pretty incredible that a paper asset can do that. Let me ask you this. What is the downside to this? I mean, there's all kinds of people that are going to be listening to this. Some people are clients and people help people with this. What's the downside to we call it overfunded or max funding or life insurance? What are some of the downfalls of doing this strategy? Because I want to be as fair and balanced as possible. Yeah. So the downside that I share with people is depending on the company and depending on your health and your age, this could take anywhere from five to 12 years to break even. Usually I can get people to break even right about six to seven years. Right. I build them very, very streamlined. So people just have to realize like, okay, you're going to put in 30. You only have access to 20. And then next year you're going to put in 30 and you've got 60 in there and now you've got access to 48, you know, and they just have to see, okay, here's where we break even. But once we break even, this plan is basically paid for. And then now I start showing them the growth. Right. So that is one of the downsides is just time. You just have to take time. But here's what I found. Whether you start today or 10 years from now, time moves with or without you. Sure. Time slows down for nobody. Right. So 10 years from now, you're going to be walking or sitting or laying somewhere. Like that's it. Or you're going to be dead. Right. Like so time is going to march on with or without you. So the faster you can decide whether something's right for you or not, the better. Right. So that's a downside. Another downside and I don't really see this as a downside. Some people are like, oh man, I got to pay money to have access to my money. I'm like, yeah, but it continues to earn interest as if it weren't ever gone. Right. It's going to keep growing. Whether it's sitting there or not, or you can take a loan from a bank, something that you've taught to me that I'm now executing on. And so, you know, you have to just help people. You have to educate people on here's how this works and here's how compound interest works in your favor. Here's how simple interest repaid works in your favor. I think the biggest problem most advisors have is they're not taking the time to educate people on the good, the bad and the ugly. And if you take the time to lay the foundation of how this actually works and how it benefits them and the fact that it's not like this is not get rich overnight, this is not even get rich in a couple of years. Right. Like this is a slow methodical approach to wealth. But like all of my clients are now prepared to leave hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to their families tax free. And if they don't die, that you know, they've got all this money that they can access, right? So for me, like those are the two big downsides that I would say another one is it's one of the few places that they can. They can say no, you can't be a client of ours. You've got a bad heart or you've had cancer. Health wise, it's you could have all the money in the world. And if you're not super healthy and you know, it's it could be. Yes, it might be something that you can't get and we can get creative, but you can't get actual life insurance on your life. Yeah, I had a this was a really, a really sad experience and there was really nothing I could do about it. It was one of the few times that I kicked myself for having this. You either want it or you don't and I'm not going to try to pressure you in the buying. I had a client who wanted to put around $12,000 a year, $1,000 a month into a plan. We went through, I educated and somebody told her to buy real estate instead and so she went ahead and bought real estate and I've stayed in contact with this person and she's done pretty well. She's she's made like eight or 9% on her real estate and gotten some good tax write-offs. But two years later, she called me in tears and I was like, Oh my gosh, are you okay? What's going on? I haven't heard from you in a long time and she said, I have stage for cancer. I'm going to die. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you push harder for me to get one of these when I was healthy? And I was like, I tried like educated you. I sent you books. We did like six or seven appointments. Like I did my very best to educate you and you made the decision that real estate was better and you're going to be able to leave that condo in North Carolina to your children. She'll have my children. They got no money. They've got no money. I'm like, well, they can sell it and get some of that equity and she was like, well, my only advice to you is it would have been a little more professional if you had tried harder to convince me to buy a plan. And you know, I got where she was coming from and you know, but in my heart of hearts, I felt I had done everything I could and she chose to buy real estate over this when she could have bought this and within a couple of years bought real estate, right? And so anyway, that's like one of the only times in my career that I was like, dang it, I should have pushed a little bit harder, but I've tried this. Again, trying to operate with integrity. It was like, listen, I told you six appointments before I am not going to pressure you into buying this. I'm going to educate you and let you make your own decision. And then as an adult, I'm going to honor your decision and I did. And again, I didn't hear from her for a couple of years and then boom, I got that crying phone call, which was really hard. Yeah. So I would I appreciate this conversation is a lot of people that I chat with that we go into this, they don't talk about the death benefit. And it's like a point that they make, but it's what you have given story after story of of why thinking with the end in mind. If you back that in just, it just becomes that much more powerful. And I appreciate the authenticity that you shared that with. That's I've never gotten that call yet, but it's convicting because I know that there's quite a few people that could say that of me and it's and then there's a fine balance. And I think we all need to find that, but it's yeah, it's it's powerful. And I hope that makes I hope that impacts some people listening to this. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, you have to honor another adult's decision. Right. But and maybe maybe I see the death benefit a little bit different because the first life insurance plan I ever recommended on somebody, they died five months later in their sleep. And it wasn't their death that affected me, right? Their family got hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax free money. It was the handwritten letter from the widow to me saying, thank you for helping my husband see the value and buying a plan. He did not want. And I was like, oh, gosh, you know, like, like she probably wouldn't have thought to two things about me if he had said no. But, you know, we went through it, went through it, and he was like, okay, just to get my wife off my back. I'll buy this so that she's taken care of. And that's what she wanted. She wanted to know, like, if your income goes away, I get a big lump sum of money to give me some time to grieve, figure out a career, take care of our kids that are under the age of 18. But dude, I'm telling you, I did not expect this guy to die. He was, I mean, he was in better shape than me. He was like 50, but he died in his sleep. And so, but that was the very first person. I ever helped get into insurance. So it affected me. It affected me to be like, oh my gosh, like, yeah, I got to help this woman file a death claim while she's grieving. I was not emotionally prepared. I was in my twenties. Like I was not emotionally prepared for that. I'm 40 now. Yeah. And so, but anyway, it affected me. So I never pitched life insurance without talking about the death. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And what's what's fun is when we go to conferences and meet with people that have been in the space 50 years, I met someone who's been in the space 60 years. It's almost impossible to even think of, right? And they just, I mean, they have, they have those stories times a hundred. And it's just like, oh my goodness. And, and yet it's, it's there. The way that they talk is just so different. And I think there's wisdom in that. I'll pivot because we're coming near the end. Number one, thank you for sharing. Thank you for your willingness to be on this. Just podcast and the chat. There's so many things I want to ask you, but you're in the news every day. You have a good pulse of what's going on in America. Where do you see, what do you see the future looking like? Like inflation seems like it's out of control. Seems like there's just a lot of chaos going on. I were printing money left and right, but yet the confidence level in the economy doesn't seem to be strong. What is, where's your thoughts? And you're not, you're not giving investment advice when no one in this audience is going to hold you to something, but what is, what are you feeling in your heart? What's, what do you think is going to happen next year or two? Yeah. Well, I think gas prices are going to go higher over the next six months. I think food's going to go higher. There might be a food shortage later in this year. I don't know that that will last multiple years, but once you start getting behind, you start getting behind, right? And I think as far as like the stock market goes, I'm reading a lot of analysts that believe there's going to be a slight recovery and then possibly a bigger drop. That one's hard to, hard to know what's going to happen, but I do think that we're going to enter a recession. There could be stagflation where product price goes up and wages do not. And so people are just kind of stuck for a while until prices can come back down and then people can start to earn more money. So yeah, I think you can't print $6 trillion without repercussions. Like for 40% of all the money circulating was, was printed in the last 24 months. It may even be higher than that now. And these are not political things, right? Like Trump dumped a lot of money to get through the pandemic. Biden has dropped a lot of money to get through the pandemic. It was probably all too much money, you know, but that's a whole different conversation. But I do think that we're in for some, some harder times. And for me, I have a lot of confidence just going forward because of the programs that I can offer to people where I can show them, hey, here's how to get into something that it's not going to hit home runs, but it's a base hit every year. And you get enough base hits compounding in your favor. And next thing you know, you've got a nice pot of money that isn't going to be taxed that you have liquid access to. So yeah, I think, I think that we're in for, we're in for, you know, some, some hard times. I don't know that we're heading for like a great depression or anything like that. But the political fighting is probably the worst it's ever been. I don't really have a lot of confidence in either political party, which again, can you control the U.S. economy? No, with the right education and tools, can I control my own economy? Yes. And that's where I try to focus my clients is what can you do to control your spending, your savings, where you put your money, how much 401k you contribute to, how much life insurance, like these are things that are within your control. Everything else, it's chaos. It's, it's out of your control, right? And then eventually things will start to smooth out and start to go back up, right? And that's like, if you have an indexing plan, it's not bad in an index universal life or indexed annuity to every now and then have a zero because the data shows us you usually have a double digit bounce back later, right? And so it all ends up working out in the end, but not participating in the losses saves you a ton of money and heartache, not having that emotional breakdown. Like, I know people like I read every single day in my comments. What should I do about my 401k? It's losing. It's losing. It's losing. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't have enough time to educate these people on what I would do. The best I can do is a general video. But so yeah, I think we're heading into some rocky times. But again, I just try to really stress with agents and with my own money and my own mental health and then my clients, you can control your own economy. Doesn't mean it will be perfect. Doesn't mean it's going to be a home run, but you can at least get your arms around it with a plan that you have confidence to move forward into the future with. So such a beautiful answer. And that that can be what we look forward to in the midst of unknowns because there is there's a lot of unknowns and I love you. You said this twice. You can't control the U. S economy, but you can learn to control your personal economy. I think it's great and I think it's a wonderful mindset. Yeah, yeah, that's you know, I tell people all the time like. Uh. Financial confidence comes from your ability to produce income. Right? Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't come from Oh, I knocked it out of the park with dogecoin. Right. Like yeah, those are like little blips, you know, but like this ability to consistently produce income consistently produce a return on your money and see it compound and grow in your favor. Now you just need time. Right. So, um, that that's the beauty. That's the beauty of it is, um, gives you a little bit more control than the rest of the society has and that gives you more calm and peace than the rest of the society has. You ready for a different question? Not not a financial question. Um, yeah, and I end all my shows with what's called the legacy question and I I purposefully don't tell people about this because I love to get their initial reaction. Um, but the legacy question goes like this. If this is your last day on earth and you're with the people that you love the most, which I know your family and you can't give them any videos. You can't give them any of the books that you've written. You can just give them one conversation. What are you going to make sure to highlight and say in that conversation? Oh man. Uh, yeah, I would have liked to have this beforehand. What would I say? Um, you know, of course, I I'm a religious person. So, um, I would probably focus on love and just remind them that I love them. I have done, I have sacrificed so much for their well-being and their future and it has brand, it has brought me so much joy to do that, to be the provider for my wife, to be the provider for my children and to just give them each day the very best example of trying to be a good human that I could. And I hope it's enough because this is my last day. It has to be enough and just do as much good for others as you can. And I think that would be it is just to focus on like love and using your talents to bless other people the best that you can. And you know, at the end of the day, that's all I've got is my best effort every day. Beautiful. And you're living that out and you're doing a phenomenal job and it's a pleasure to know you not just as someone that hits you up for an interview, but actually know how you operate and have conversations. And so thank you for being a good friend. Thank you for living what you practice and preach. And I'm just, I'm a better human being because you're in my life. So thank you for making it, getting it on, getting on the show, talking about the things that you're seeing that's going on in the economy, talking about life insurance and the conviction around the death benefit, but then also talking about how you got into even YouTube and some of the, some of the things that have taken you to the next level. And what I will say this, if you're okay with me saying this, if someone were to meet you like five, six, seven years ago, I don't think they, I don't think they would be like, yeah, this guy's going to make it on YouTube. You know what I'm saying? Like I wouldn't. I'll be, it's not, I wouldn't have. So, but I say this as an encouragement because you, even though no one would maybe bed on you, people aren't putting millions of dollars on like this guy's going to be a famous news, newscaster kind of deal. You have more people watching you consistently than some news channels. Okay. Which is insane to think about. Yeah. That should also be insanely encouraging because you have one life. And if you know deep down in your heart, just like what you had Steven, like, man, I know that this, I believe there's a way to be encouraging to give news in a better way, like you're an entrepreneur through and through. You solve the problem and you're solving a couple of problems with your channel. It's concise news. You're trying to be balanced. You're encouraging your life giving, like you're solving some of those things that I can't get on CNN or Fox. There's no, there's, I don't wonder why you have so many people watching you consistently. And so thank you. But I think that also can be an encouragement to some other people that know they need to do something, whether it's have a conversation, start a business, start a TikTok or a YouTube channel, or just do that thing, have that conversation that they know they need to have. Have the courage to do it because you're a perfect example of someone that we wouldn't be talking if you didn't put yourself out there. Well, I have had one person that would have bet on me for 18 years and that's my wife. She has bet on me every day of our marriage and her encouragement has given me the courage to move forward. You know, when I went through my hardest times and I remember one day thinking like, what's my two year old going to pick up a phone and make these phone calls? Is my two year old going to close these deals? No, I have to do that. Right. Like I have to do that. And so now I have three little kids and a wife that depend on me almost completely for money. And you know, but my wife, she has bet on me and her confidence to bet on me has given me complete confidence to go out and try to better the world. So I got one person to bet on me. And that might be the nugget that has the most impact. Thank you. Thank you, Stephen. How can people figure out or find you? I mean, obviously you have a YouTube channel that's hard to miss. So we'll link to link to that. Is there any other places that people can connect in? Yeah, you know, if they if they want to read Taming Wall Street or use it with their clients, I mean, I've made it very affordable on Amazon. And so they're they're welcome to use that my contact information. I'm not going to give it out here, but it's in the back of the book. If they want to reach out or connect or get a second opinion or whatever. But I would just encourage everybody that's watching this to help yourself believe that no matter what's going on, your best years are always ahead of you. So anyway, with that, you know, I thank you for the opportunity to to come on here and share, you know, most of this has been me smiling and talking about my successes. But I have lived through some really dark times as an entrepreneur. I have been down to my last bit of money. I have, you know, wondered where that next paycheck is coming from. I'm grateful to not be in that position. But anyway, I just want people to know like things didn't work out more than they worked out. But I'm so I feel so fortunate of how they've worked out and they've made me the person I am today. And so I'm just I'm just grateful for that. Incredible. Thank you. And I look forward to seeing what the future holds. Right. Thank you again.