Are These Financial Experts Leading You Away From True Wealth @DavidMcKnight

 There's a huge swath of America that puts a lot of trust in financial gurus. And, and, and, burr, the main suspects we're talking about here, we're talking about Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman, Mark Howard, and Fisher, Ramit Sadie. Those are the five gurus I really address in the book. And this is what he uses over and over and over again. Life insurance is a steaming hot pile of garbage, and it's only sold to you by money, grubbing life insurance salesman. He basically just called them both a scam. And I think that when you call something to scam without explaining why it's a scam, and really understanding the pros and cons of the issue, it feels to me a little bit like a cop-out. If you follow that course, 100% stock portfolio like Dave Ramsey recommends, and 8% withdrawal over time, you will run out of money two thirds at the time. That's the big irony of all this. The only way to truly get 8% withdrawal rates on your portfolio in retirement is to use two financial tools that he is absolutely opposed to. How can you give advice to people who want different things? Dave Ramsey has to dispense advice in such a way where every single one of his listeners is saying, wow, Dave is speaking to me. That's your breakfast ever worth. The problem is that's a linear average assumption is quite frankly not. It should be male practice, and it would be male practice if someone like we use that from a standpoint of helping people. She will say if anybody ever talks to you about cash value life insurance, you are to never work with that person. The 10-fishers way of mitigating longevity risk is frankly the most expensive way of growing better. You've said math a couple times, and like really utilizing math projections, history, and saying what is the best outcome, what is David McKnight's big picture framework? I like to refer to something that I call the Dave Ramsey Circle of Poverty, and it goes a little bit like this. David, welcome to the show. Hey, Caleb, thanks for having me. We had you on last year, and we had a great interview, and you talked about your frameworks and taxes, and it was a great interview. I will be in the show notes for those of you that want to know more about the backstory, David McKnight's framework on the power of zero. Again, phenomenal interview, but we're going to jump into your new book, The Guru Gap. First of all, congratulations on that amazing title. Before we dive into some of the gurus and talk about critique, maybe some of their views and statements, why don't you just give a little bit of backstory of why this book kind of wear your head spaces in 2024? I know that you just had an amazing event for financial professionals earlier this year, and so congratulations on the success that you're having and excited to dive into this new book. I think it's important to also know the subtitle of the book, which is how America's financial gurus are leading you astray and how to get back on track. The whole idea here is that there's a huge swath of America that puts a lot of trust in financial gurus, and who are the main suspects we're talking about here? We're talking about Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman, Clark Howard, Ken Fisher, Ramit Sadie. Those are the five gurus I really address in the book, and you have to sort of understand, if you want to be a successful financial guru, you have to get as many eyes on your podcast as possible, as many eyes on your book as possible. So it doesn't really benefit you to have an expertise in a single niche. You have to be able to dispense advice in a sort of a one-size-fits-all, paid by the numbers, black and white sort of away, because in the very moment that some listener says, well, Dave is, or Susie, the two niche for me, I'm going to, you know, to really solve my financial problems to really ring the most efficiency out of my retirement dollars, I'm going to need to get an independent financial advisor who can create a customized plan for me. In the very moment that a listener or a viewer comes to that conclusion, Dave Ramsey's lost him, and so there's no longer part of his tribe. And so Dave Ramsey has to dispense advice in such a way where every single one of his listeners is saying, wow, Dave is speaking to me. That's your baby step one. This is a one-stop shop where I can go to Dave Ramsey and he can solve all my financial problems. And that is the goal of these financial gurus. The problem is that approach is not very consonant with an individual American ringing the most efficiency out of their retirement savings. It's not, we can talk about lots of examples, but that whole paradigm, that whole financial guru paradigm, I think, is causing Americans to run out of money years in advance when they ever thought possible. And it's because they're implementing strategies from quote-unquote financial experts who are not truly financial experts, but who are just trying to build a following. And so that was really the main impetus behind the book. Yeah, I love it. I think if you take a step back, my personal belief is everyone should want to be as efficient as possible. And my definition of efficiency is removing any friction to get to where you want to go. And it's like, how can you give advice to people who want different things? We all want different things. And so the idea that one size fits all is going to be like the path would be laughable. And yet on the flip side, we look in like that, we live in a very shallow political world where it's like you can never say that you're wrong. Like you kind of have to stay in your lane. And then I think I'm going to have to stay in my lane for four day of Ramsey to say debt is okay if, with like, destroy his entire movement. And so I, in one aspect, respect his like ability to just like stick to one thing because I'm like, I'm way too 80. I can't stick to anything for like, and I'm like willing to change my mind. And I love that. But again, there's me who have a teeny following in the state Ramsey who's probably known as like America's top financial group. I'm like, I'm like, Dave, I want to, I want to take a step back and say, what is your, what is your Dave? You should have like a, a debate, Dave versus Dave. What is David McKnight's big picture framework of how you think and how you believe that people should be viewing money? Because I want to set this stage before we dive in and maybe critique the other gurus that could be missing some things. Well, I'm a, I'm a big fan of academia. I'm a big fan of math. I'm a big fan of doing whatever strategy will help you literally ring the most efficiency out of your retirement savings. And sometimes that sort of approach calls for financial instruments that are nuanced. That that don't fit in every single situation that fit maybe in situations A, B, and C, but not in situations D, E, and F. And so there's some nuance when it comes to understanding how to incorporate these different financial tools into a given person's financial scenario. The problem is if you have that one size fits all approach, you don't have the luxury of the nuance. You don't have the luxury of saying, okay, you know, listener, I could see how this annuity could work in these scenarios. He has to have, financial gurus have to have, they have to adopt a position that is palatable for everybody. I'm just the opposite. I say, what there's going to be some situations where, for example, a cash value life insurance policy would help extend the life of someone's retirement. And there's other situations maybe where it wouldn't. And so it's just a much more nuanced approach. And over arching this entire paradigm is is a belief in my core that tax rates even 10 years from now are likely to be dramatically higher than they are today. And then the rising tax rate environment, there's an ideal amount of money to have in your 401k and your IRA. And so we talk about that all the time. How much should you have in your 401k's and IRAs? And if you have anything above and beyond that ideal amount, we should be systematically repositioning those things a tax free. So, so, so really I'm real big on math. I'm real big on trying to shield ourselves from the impact of higher taxes down the road. And then building a customized plan that helps shield us and then mitigate as many risks as possible over time. So just to be just be clear jumping in, you're not anti stock market. You're not anti life insurance. You're not anti annuities. You're not anti reverse mortgages. But you're also not like a proponent of any one thing. And that's going to like solve your problems. You're a fan of like taking a look at things you've said math a couple times and like really utilizing math projections history and saying what what is the best outcome. One thing that you have an amazing brand on is this concept of power of zero. It's like this when you look at all the things going on. I don't know if you know the current, you know, debt liabilities, national debt. But it's like you look at this is this is a train wreck. Ready to happen. And you're like, okay, we can look at math and we can also say you're probably going to be better off if we can understand the tax liability in the future and limit that as much as possible because that could be the thing that you could do all this thing over here. And math could look great. But taxes could essentially rob your ability to have a bright future. Yeah. And the thing that's great about what you and I do Caleb is our job is to take account of those things like rising tax rates and take account of all of the different. Financial tools that are in the toolbox and we are just sort of fit the puzzle pieces together and figure out how they fit together in the right way and everybody's different. There's no cookie cutter approach and people come back to me and they say well Dave aren't you a guru. Don't you fancy yourself a guru. I say no, I don't fancy myself a guru because I. I'm really appealing to a very narrow segment of America, which is the sophisticated, disciplined investor that's done a good job of saving money for retirement. They've just saved it in the wrong types of account. Yeah, I love it. Alright, so we're going to dive into some of these gurus. I'll, you know, I think we need to start with America's most famous controversial potentially guru Dave Ramsey. And what I want to do when we talk about these gurus is I want you first to share what you admire about. About these gurus what you like if there's anything that you like about what they say and then let's go into some of their things that you're like hey these these messages could be damaging if they're amplified to the marketplace. Sure. There's a lot I love love about Dave Ramsey. I was listening to talk he gave the other day I think he was talking about biblical financial principles and I listed the whole thing I said to myself I don't think there's a single thing in there. I disagree with right like it was really sort of this odd moment. I'm writing a book about Dave Ramsey but everything he was saying in that talk was speaking to my core I was like. I said in some sense I'm a Dave Ramsey fan like I really love what he says about the debt. I love how he talks about living within your means and saving 15% of your income live on less than you make. You have a plan you avoid debt you save money for emergencies and later for investing so you're all things and you know I've talked personally with people that have really turned their financial lives around by implementing the types of things that Dave Ramsey talks about and you know he's to be commended for the outsize impact he's had on America I mean he talks about all the time he goes I can help more people in 15 minutes than you CFB that you can help you know and you're in your entire lifetime and you know it's true he's got this massive audience and he's helping a lot of people. But I like to refer to something that I call the Dave Ramsey circle of poverty and it goes a little bit like this people start off in poverty because they're not living by correct financial principles Dave Ramsey teaches them financial principles he gets them to the point where they're saving their marching their way towards financial independence they get to the point where they have this nest egg. But then he gets out of his lane you and I talked about making sure you stay in your lane then he gets out of his lane and he starts he starts dispensing advice that can literally actually force people into bankruptcy and I'll give you one example he recently made a lot of headlines by criticizing his co-host George camel for preaching the 4% rule and the 4% rule basically has been vindicated by a remediate. There's a lot of economic data and lots of you know Nobel laureates over the years over the last 4 decades and basically says look there's a sustainable amount of money you should withdraw from your stock market portfolio and if you exceed that sustainable amount you could run out of money years in advance of life expectancy and that number that has become the gold standard in our industry is 4%. So in other words you got a million bucks in your 401k day one of retirement you can take 4% out that first year and adjusted every year their after to to keep up with inflation will Dave Ramsey his somehow arrived at a number that's twice that high he says if you have a million dollars in your 401k you can take out 8% and you can take out 8% every single year until you die in other words he says it's like the stock market is going to deposit $80,000 into your account actually it's not $80,000 it's 120,000. Because he thinks the stock market is going to grow at 12% will runearly over time okay so easy to the stock market is going to deposit $120,000 in your stock market portfolio January first every year and to keep up with inflation he doesn't say take out 12% that's built in 4% for inflation therefore you should only take out 8% but he says 8% is perfectly sustainable and you know the Wade foul doctor Wade foul from the American college he's he's writing the he's actually written the forward. He's written the forward for my book and he has said that if you follow that course 100% stock portfolio like Dave Ramsey recommends and 8% withdrawal over time you will run out of money 2 thirds of the time in other words 2 thirds of the time your money will not last through life expectancy so that's what I call the Dave Ramsey circle of poverty he gets people to implement correct financial financial principles he gets them so they get to the point where they build a nest egg and then he promptly bankrupts them by forcing them or by encouraging them to take that 8% withdrawal rate so that's probably the biggest bone that I have to pick with Dave Ramsey I mean there's a lot other smaller bones that I have to pick with them but that's that's the big one and ironically the two ways that people could actually get 8% distribution rates which is using annuities and life insurance in the correct way are things that he is being mainly opposed to okay so the only that's the big I already have all this the only way to truly get 8% withdrawal rates on your portfolio in retirement is to use to financial tools that he is absolutely opposed to so that's probably my big my biggest bone to pick with Dave Ramsey The what's interesting is when I heard because he's had multiple clips and he keeps them up by the way he keeps them up I think I even saw a clip that he said 10% and I don't know if I miss heard him but he's like because his whole thing is like of course like if you're making 12 what like what's right like math yeah yeah one of your lower than 12 you're good yeah and I agree with that logic that the problem is that's a linear average assumption is quite frankly not it should be malpractice and it would be malpractice if if someone like we use that from a standpoint of helping people but I have a lot empathy for him because if you believe you believe to your core that 12% number then why would you do anything like annuities and life insurance and not like I get that yeah but at the end of the day you're right with one of those things crumble then he's been he's so adamantly against life insurance annuities I wonder if he if he knows or if he's just like and he just refuses to to address it because it's like hey it would just it would throw a grenade and other things or like he like what is your thoughts on that like as he has smart people around him he talks with a lot of knowledge like he understands what how these products and annuities like I've heard him talk about annuities and life insurance and he's not like oblivious to all the things going on in there but he's just he thinks in almost every case that it's that you should just cash it out and he's told people on air to literally cash out their annuities and life insurance no questions asked right I've actually thought about this long and hard and I believe in my heart of hearts that day Ramsey thinks that he's preaching the right thing but there's another reality at play here and if Dave Ramsey works to concede that he's wrong on any given issue then all of a sudden his listeners are going to say well if he was wrong on that really important issue if he's wrong on something as important as Disustainable withdrawal rates and retirement then what else might he be wrong about and then it becomes sort of the slippery slope and so He asked to really stick to his guns even in the face of you know Hadrays of CFP's ganging up on him online and saying Dave, you know you have no clue what sequence of return risk is you have no clue what the what reams of academic academic data over the last four decades have said regarding sustainable withdrawal rates and retirement he has to stick to his guns because if he Concedes defeat in any one arena then I think that starts to bleed into the other areas where he you know is is professing I'm sure of expertise Yep, all right. We're gonna move on to remit steady and the reason I'm moving to him is we're gonna we'll talk about Susie Orman and Clark Howard and Ken Fisher but like to my generation Susie Orman doesn't have a lot of influence. Don't even know who Clark Our Clark Howard is like I so it's just like I know that they're gurus But remit steady has done a phenomenal job has a Netflix has a Netflix show has book I will teach you to be rich and has done a really like I would say from our like my age group when we look up to a financial guru Remit has done a phenomenal job from a standpoint of branding and my thought like he hates life endurance like hates it And then he you know he hates you know Essentially advisors charging a fee for assets and her management and he hates about Bank of America And and let's see he like let's see what other things that he hates he's extremely liberal And so those are like the key points that I have but overall I like a lot of what he has to say so same thing with her Meet what do you like about him and then where are your critiques and where do you think he's leading people's tray? Yeah, I mean the the the heart of what he does is he gets people out of debt I mean he gets people on the path to to wealth And so I so you know the heart of what he does I don't have any problem with it It's just sort of my little critiki nibbling around the edges So he's he's good at what he does he obviously has a best selling book. He's got a Netflix Documentary those are all great. I didn't see anything in the Netflix documentary that I found to objectionable Most of his book was actually good Until he got to the part about annuities and life insurance and part of the issue that I have was he He dedicates about that maybe Three paragraphs in his book to life insurance and annuities and he tells this story where he had a friend who called up And said yeah, I've got this financial advisor who sold me a whole life policy and the annuity and Without really digging into the details as to why he basically just called them both a scam And I and I think that when you call something to scam without explaining why it's a scam and really understanding the pros and cons of the issue It feels to me a little bit like a cop out. It feels like I'm just paying lip service to this to what the rest of the gurus Have said about these about these you know these products I don't want to do the heavy lifting to really become acquainted with these products Therefore I'm just going to dismiss it with a wave of a hand and call a scam very easy to do and because it sort of Resonates with what a lot of the other gurus has said people don't really question it the problem is It it flies in the face of what these You know these Nobel laureates. There's a movie out by the same director who who did who did the documentary That that I did the powers hero the tax trades coming called the boomer dilemma And this guy's basically interviewing Nobel laureates from Ivy League schools who talk about how for example annuities Will help you ring the most efficiency out of your retirement savings? They'll help maximize the income that you can that you can draw from your retirement savings I mean we've got the likes of Ernst and Young who recently produced a study Talking about how a combination of life insurance as a volatility buffer retirement and The you know guaranteeing lifetime income annuities actually give you superior levels of income and retirement to the stock market approach along which is what Remedes A.D. is actually Recommending and so I just want a little bit more nuance a little bit more heavy lifting a little bit more You know a little bit more legwork from these gurus who profess to know all of these different Topics inside and out and so I've just I guess the thing I am getting fatigued from gurus Opining on subjects about which they know actually very little Yeah, well in a common theme and I'm sure we're gonna keep pick up on a common theme with all these gurus is There's two there's really two sides of a mountain. There's the incline or accumulation and then there's the decline and it seems like the all the incentive is in Focus is on this incline and and what's easy and what's what sexy is talking about net worth and like gross returns And that's the thing that's where you can be like yeah, you shouldn't be paying a fees and all these things and I don't necessarily Disagree with some of the math but the idea is is like okay Are do you have the right strategies coming down and you're totally right like you could read Remedes book, but if you give that to someone nearing retirement What where in his book does he talk about distribution planning? Where is in his book does he talk about like this is the 4% rule and all like I Again, maybe I missed it, but like I just don't like I don't know he's he's maybe talking about life insurance and annuities solely when it comes to rate or return and accumulation I'm gonna give him the better for the doubt But I would love some of these gurus to literally talk about distribution and to say like this is how you come down the mountain and Actually use math and data and it'd be nice if it had one of the like actual gurus our boy Dr. Wade foul or someone else to at least acknowledge that any thoughts on that like that's kind of my theory and empathy of like Yeah, it's it's easy to talk about people going up and it's like obviously get the highest rate of return like check But then it's like that that's a very shallow advice when you zoom out and you look at coming down the mountain and you look at leaving a legacy I think some of those things don't Don't get appreciated or don't get focused when it when gurus open their mouth Yeah, I think I think that the likes of remeats 80 and Susi over Dave Ramsey these guys are all popular because There is a like I said a huge swath of America who's financially undereducated that are looking to They're looking for guidance frankly and And Remeats 80 has packaged that guidance in a way that appeals to like I said a broad swath of America The problem with this approach is in this whole you don't need a financial advisor because the financial advisor is gonna charge you X expense ratio on your portfolio is that when you have a good financial advisor They actually earn their keep they actually Earn that fee that they're charging you why because all of the studies show that when you don't have a financial advisor When you're just following for example a book that you're making decisions based primarily on emotion over the arc of your Accumulation period and that that a motion driven investing approach can actually cost you up to three You know a three full full percentage points of return over the course of your Accumulation phase and so The where you and I Caleb or an our keep is we're very good at number one fitting the puzzle pieces together and number two Holding their hand along the way so that they're making good decisions that align with what their ultimate investment objectives are and so I my fear is that by following a book or following a Netflix Commentary or even following a podcast you're not gonna get that hand holding and the end holding seems like A bad thing, but if you're paying a financial advisor a fee you should expect some hand holding along the way And that's not what these gurus are gonna give you. They're not gonna give you a hand holding They're gonna give you one size fits all paid by the paid by the numbers sort of advice and and believe it or not I mean that can really take a toll on your on your returns over time. Yeah, let's talk about Ken Fisher. I believe Ken Know's better like I'll give Dave Ramsey and Susie Orman and Rumi a pass but Ken's literally runs a company helping retirees and He's got to know the reason like he's got to know. Why does he hate annuity so bad like he literally Pretty much like pretty much thinks annuities are the worst thing in the world And I think he's even said maybe I'm putting words of smoke that he'd rather like burn and held and sell you annuity or something And that's like I don't even want to touch those words from a standpoint But like why is he so adamantly against it and how is he still like Prevalent and why do people still work with them? That's a good question He is an IA. He's got he's the biggest R.A. in the country I believe it's too young he manages 210 billion dollars and There's a couple of bones. I have to pick with them I think that you know if all you have a hammer every all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail He is not in the business of selling annuities annuities are his competition. He's got a bias Against annuities because he does not get paid to sell you an annuity. He does not get paid to maximize your Distribution rate and retirement the problem is in Michael Finke doctor Michael Finke talks about this very eloquently in recent article He says there's two things that annuities can do and Ken Fisher if he's being truthful He cannot deny these two things. There's two things that annuities can do that a stock market a pure stock market portfolio can't do number one, they can guarantee that You're gonna receive a paycheck so long as you're on this side of the grass that your money will last as long as you do That's one thing a stock market portfolio cannot do, okay? Even with the 4% rule There's a 15% chance you could run out of money prior to life expectancy The second thing that an annuity can help you do that a stock market can't is it can actually Help you spend more money and retirement you spend more money and retirement by utilizing annuities then buy the stock market approach alone for example According Ken Fisher who loves the 4% rule if you want $40,000 per year adjusted every year there after for inflation starting year one A retirement you need to save a million bucks, okay? That's going to give you that $40,000 per year Adjusted for inflation every year thereafter If you utilize an annuity especially under today's interest rates you can get that same level of income guaranteed including inflation for more like $650,000 so in other words, I can accomplish the exact same thing that Ken Fisher can accomplish with his stock market portfolio Where the 100% guarantee my money will last through life expectancy and I have an extra 350,000 dollars that I can do some very interesting things with for example, I can use it to build a You know to build a discretionary fund in the event that I have some emergency along the way I can use it to put some money into what I call the life insurance retirea plan They can give me a death benefit in advance of my death for the purpose of paying for long-term care so so Ken Fisher's way of mitigating longevity risk is frankly the most expensive way of going about to and when you utilize things like annuities and life insurance You can you can purge longevity risk from your Workfolio much more inexpensively and you can get some guarantees that your money will last as long as you're alive Let's talk about Susie Orman and again, this is someone who I heard a lot of people talk about I've never actually seen a suit I've never watched a Susie Orman Joe or what not I've seen clips of her talking about life insurance But what what do you like about Susie Orman and then what are the things that you say that? are Not okay with There's a lot to like about Susie Orman. I think she does a really good job. She's much more in tune with the data An academia than Dave Ramsey is she's She talks about the 4% rule. She says the 4% rule me even be the 3% rule They may need to update the 4% rule with more prevailing data So secudos to her for for staying in touch with the data and generally when I read a Susie Orman post I find myself not in a degree She doesn't like annuities and she doesn't like life insurance. So this is sort of this recurring theme where You know and I get it. I think that there's a lot of That's easy to conflate Bad products with bad salesman and there's a lot of bad salesman out there that are praying upon people who frankly may not need life insurance or annuities Okay, I see Using your books. They're using your books using my books. They're using our videos to push their agenda and it yeah I understand that it sucks See that happening all the time where people will use my book as a cudgel to get someone to do you know to buy a life insurance policy And that's just you know, I believe in using life insurance, but as you know as One of multiple streams of tax-free income that don't show up on the iris is radar But ultimately contributing to you being in the zero percent tax back at a return. So so So I think Susie Orman is doing a good service by by trying to knock these people who don't ultimately have their clients Best interest at heart, but she'll get in she does so in a very sweeping one-size-fits-all way So for example, she will say if anybody ever talks to you about cash value life insurance You are to never work with that person again Okay, you are to turn around and run the other way Well, you know, this is the one-size-fits-all guru dispensed advice advice that I I think that it's you know It's lacks the nuance and I don't think that they've done the heavy lifting to really understand how the product works and And to really reflect upon this idea that if they make a sweeping Condemnation of a given financial product They're basically saying that there is in a single scenario in which that particular financial tool might ultimately improve your financial situation and so That's really the problem that I have with with Susie Orman 95% of the stuff that she does is terrific. She's I've seen her on good morning America say look ten years from now Tax rates are gonna skyrocket you should be doing Roth IRAs You should be doing Roth IRAs you should be doing a Roth conversions I did a video recently where I said the surprising truth of around Susie Orman's stance on tax free retirement planning and she basically is David Mcnight minus Life insurance and annuities, okay, so she's very very strong on that front and I and I say as much in my book I just have to take her to task on her you know her monolithic position on life insurance and annuities for that matter It sounds like though she she can be converted because if she already is under the if she already is preaching three or four percent rule That really needs to be understood to appreciate Insurance products like annuities and life insurance and and again she's she's even preaching that but then she's going back to Raider return good bad, you know good that fees or end-or-charges good bad and she's not looking at like what's the outcome? And it's interesting because no one wants to throw away their social security is and no one's like saying oh you have a pension Like that's that's horrible like you are left in the dark in fact like anyone who has a pension You know is is something like the high the best models we see are the people that have built in pensions versus not and that's Essentially annuities, so I wonder I wonder if someone like you could Respectfully get her attention and potentially be able to share and at least for her to say hey I'm not a fan of life insurance and annuities and the accumulation which you and I both know that that would still be wrong For you to be able to say because you have to think at the end in mind But for her to acknowledge that hey life insurance annuities could be used to enhance retirement income and only use it if you're thinking with the end in mind You're working with financial professional that has that it'd be an interesting I feel like she's a lot closer than any other gurus because she's at least acknowledging the withdrawal rates Yeah, I think that if she read my book and she did so with an open mind I don't know I think this is probably one of the first books through a major publisher that Takes direct aim at financial gurus and not aware of any other books through any of the major publishers that are taking aim at the likes of Dave Ramsey so maybe this the Unique nature of this book actually targeting these these particular gurus will get her attention in a way that maybe you know YouTube video from you or me might not get her attention So I think there's two contexts that that I think she could really come around on and it's this idea that That life insurance is an excellent bond replacement you reach the time agnus has this all the time Reach in your portfolio Remove the bonds replace them with cash value life insurance. You'll increase your return your lawyer risk your low The standard deviation of your entire portfolio and you'll experience a better outcome over time That's the first one the second context I think That I think that would really resonate with there's this idea of the volatility buffer Which you know you and I are very familiar with and that's the idea that if you can Accumulate three to five years worth of living expenses in your cash value life insurance by day one of retirement and then in a year Following a down year in your stock market portfolio in the first 10 years of retirement you pay for your living expenses out of your cash value Life insurance that will give your stock market portfolio a chance to recover before you take further distributions and that Act alone will allow you to Distribute as much as 8% of your stock market portfolio over time with a 95% certainty that you will not run out of money prior life expectancy I think those two those two strategies alone if she looked at the math behind it I think that she would come around and I think that of all the gurus we've talked about today She's probably shows the most promise and I can't wait to see that sit down conversation I think that would I think both parties would be shocked on how respectful that could be and how there could be a lot of growth Because if you get the financial professionals in line with the best marketing people I think there's some good things that could happen Let's talk about Clark Howard Not familiar with this person. I think this guy wears glasses and he has a call-in show But other than that I could not tell you a single thing of what he teaches But you know, so you tell me what cut type of guru he is what you like about him what you don't Yeah, he's a he's a nationally He's a nationally syndicated radio show host. He's he's in you know, he's in radio stations all across the country He's a bit of an older guy He was more popular in the 90s. I think in the early 2000s But he's still kicking around out there. He's still got a radio show He's still got a you know a YouTube channel and he's still people still pay attention to Clark Howard I love Clark Howard. He's you know, he talks about his radio show. I'm here to help you, you know, sock more Can't remember how he says it's like put more bang in your ballad and protect but more bang in your wallet and help protect Protect you from getting ripped off. That's you know, he's really down on for example time shares And so you know, he's really I guess he wouldn't get along with well anyway So he's he's he's out to protect the consumer He's sort of like the Ralph Nader of the financial space, which I think is good It's a lot of good things there, but again, you know, he he makes one-size-fits-all statements about both fixed index annuities and In permanent life insurance. He says and this is what he uses over and over and over again Life insurance is a steaming hot pile of garbage and it's only sold to you by money grubbing Life insurance salesman. So there's a lot of charged language there and How could you help but want to avoid Not just life insurance, but life insurance salesman with that type of characterization. He says Fix index annuities and he really doesn't really understand how fixed index annuities work works But that hasn't stopped him from commenting on them. He basically says that you know, fix index annuities are being sold by You know people that tell you that you can get the upside of the market unlimited upside of the market and guarantee against loss But if you don't read specific provisions in the in the in the In the contract if you don't obey everything you have to do with precision then you can experience stock market loss So I mean just right there that tells you that he doesn't fully understand that this is not a stock market product And your the growth in your account is linked to the upward movement of a stock market index up to a cap and your guaranteed Regardless of how negligent you are of what the policy says your guaranteed to never lose money in the market and so these so You know like Dave Ramsey and other gurus they have very very superficial understandings of how these products work But just enough to be dangerous and just enough to give our industry a black eye when someone calls in and asks about it Feel like the prerequisite to be a financial guru Do you like index funds? Yes, unless your name Dave Ramsey, okay? Yes, all right. Do you hate life insurance? Yes, do you hate annuities? Yes? All right, you are qualified to speak to America and you're just gonna be super popular I love it There's a common theme here and it really comes down to every one of these gurus hate annuities hate life insurance And don't just don't just like not like it, but they're very adamantly against like you are getting ripped off They use words like scam they get and and that's where I think that's where it's hurtful because it's like listen You have no context of this person's situation and you and you don't know who's there working with you Don't know the type of plan or strategy that's being talked about and and you have Influenced and you have power and not only are you saying that the person that they're working with is a scam But now you're now you're creating doubt and all these people's minds from a standpoint of like am I doing is is my person a scam Like what am I doing and you're creating even more uncertainty and that's that's that's where I'm hoping that we can have Conversations I'm actually Dave Ramsey would be at the top my list to be able to interview and I would love to just respectfully talk through different things I don't necessarily think he's gonna change his mind. I'm open to changing mine if you can make you good points But at the end of the day I'm just hoping that we can have more conversations that are hopefully more getting closer to the middle Sorry, the thing that these gurus are right a lot of the time. I mean Yeah, some of the policies that are being peddled out peddled out there in the context in which they're being peddled are Steaming hot piles of garbage. I mean it's true Yeah, there are some annuities that are steaming pot piles of garbage that shouldn't be used in a given context so I don't think that Whatever is inspired their particular position is is necessarily coming from a bad place It's just that when you make sweeping Characterizations sweeping statements about a given financial tool that are supposed to you know You mentioned earlier Dave Ramsey says if you have a cash value life insurance I'll say you should cash it out no questions asked right he doesn't talk about whether you have lost your insurability It doesn't talk about whether you have a massive surrender charge You should cash it out no questions asked these are irresponsible statements. Yeah, particularly since a lot of times these Have been sold the right way in the right context and they're gonna bring about a very real Real life benefit as a result of that you know the the stipulations in the program and so I think that Their positions have been inspired from you know, I think accurate real life scenarios But they've then taken that and they've morphed it into a world view that is all in composing and I think that's the problem Is it fair to say that if anyone's promoting one thing blanket? We're talking about life insurance reverse mortgages annuities index funds if you're promoting one thing and and and it's like the blanket statement that That you might you might be right in a group of people, but you might be wrong across across the border And I think we should just there's a lot of people that are preaching infinite banking over here and the you everyone needs an annuity over here And everyone needs an IUL over here and it's like Okay, is it possible that maybe we should take a step back and do a better job with the process of figuring out where these where someone wants to go look at the data And then with no like look at financial tools as tools and not just like that you said earlier that hammer and nail kind of deal It's like oh, I'm gonna like I'm gonna fit this around my agenda to prove a point any thoughts around that and then my next question for you is What what financial gurus out there or thought leaders out there should we be following other than you? Is there is there other people that are like you're like hey, they got a good pulse on things They're articulating things well and like you will not be led astray if you're like watching or reading these people's books Yes, so let's get back to your first question if we're talking about an RIA like Ken Fisher These people have a fiduciary responsibility to Make recommendations that they can defend in the court of law They have a fiduciary responsibility to make a recommendation and Michael Finke drives this point home He says look if an annuity Can provide more income over time and give you guarantee a better guarantees in a higher likelihood of purging longevity risk from your situation And you don't bring it up. You could technically be liable and he talks about how Ken Fisher's stance where People call in and consult about isn't about their annuity and he recommends that they replace the annuity every single time every single time without fail Replace the annuity take the surrender charge roll it over to Fisher investments and you're gonna be better off if you're a fiduciary I don't know how you could defend that in a court of law And so I wish more people would take if they're not fiduciaries I at least would hope that they would take a fiduciary approach where they could say is the recommendation that I'm making Defendable in a court of law. Okay, so that's Who are the types of people that I Think America should be following besides me Well, you talked about our recent heroes of zero conference. We had Ed slot We had Tom Hagen and we had Van Miller So all three of those guys are people that are very admirable into me follow Ed slot is America's CPA Wall Street Journal called him the America's IRA expert he knows more about this stuff than just about anyone else on the planet and He's like he wrote the forward for the power zero I mean he and he and I are like two peas in a pot. He's a CPA He says life insurance is the single greatest tax benefit in the IRS tax code I don't know how you square that with Dave Ramsey who conversely says If you have a cash value life insurance policy, you should dump it no questions asked I mean, I don't know how you how you square those two things right so Ed slots a Loves Roth conversions believes that tax rates in the future are likely to be dramatically higher than they are today Tom Hagen is probably the foremost expert in the world on guaranteed lifetime income here with the forward for my book tax free income for life And he you know he's the guy that says that you know, you could talk to 50 different retirement experts They can give you 50 different Recommendations, but he says look if they don't include an annuity They're mathematically not the best recommendation and so he's always saying reach in your portfolio remove the bonds Replace it with cash value life insurance our annuities you'll increase your return lower your risk lower the standard deviation of your entire portfolio And experience a better outcome over time. So And of course, you know guys like you Caleb are out there You know preaching the good words so there's a lot of people out there that are to be admired for what they're doing and The wrongs that they're writing every single day and in clearing up all of the Confusion generated by these gurus, but I think it's loud and and Tom Hagen and Ben Miller of course you're all preaching really really solid messages right now. I love it I love it. I appreciate you sharing that it's anything else you want to say as it relates to your book How can people get it and how can people support this message? I have another question, but it's not related necessarily to your book Sure Book is going to be going up for pre sale probably in the next month. That's not available quite yet so here we are In June so sometime probably in July It's going to be ready for a pre-order and then it'll be it'll come out sometime in the fall So we're still waiting on details on all of that but the book's been written the floor has been written The cover's been created. It's all ready to go. We're just waiting for some things to fall in place and You're ready for some taking some shots Because you know that you're literally Take your calling out people that have bigger platforms than you and so you Have you ever have you thought and this is going to be published through a publisher? So are you worried about getting any legal letters or anything or have you are you staying kind of above board and in the way that you call out Yeah, the whole manuscript went through the legal department of this publisher and I was surprised they didn't have a lot to change. I mean they basically there was one statement There's a pretty bold statement. They said instead of making that a statement. Let's put a question market To make it up to soften it up a little bit. So I was actually pretty pleased When it came back that that they really didn't change much about the manuscript I mean, I think that you should be able to call a spade a spade and if you got a bone to pick with someone and it's true And it can be supported by the facts that you should be able to write it in America Well and what we have is we have a ton of public Record of people saying certain things and so it's not one of these things where you were like Hey, I went out to dinner with Dave Ramsey and he allegedly said it's like you got to be careful with stuff like that But it's like no there's videos that this person is not taking down in fact has millions of views Promoting this and you can reference that and then use data to give your opinion and and your opinion could potentially have more math and logic versus others. So anyways, let's let's go to two other gurus that I see in the life insurance space and I think it's fair to say David that you're a fan of Life insurance and when I when you look at life insurance, there's like whole life IUL you've had videos you've been even set on my show like hey like You're you like both you probably lean more towards the IUL because you're talking a lot about in their time and income space And when you look at the data, you're like hey IULs when set up and you properly probably are a more efficient And I can live with the the upside with the potential a little bit down So I don't want to put words in your mouth, but like you're a fan of both, but you're definitely more in the camp of the IULs IUL camp my question is there's two other people that heavily promote IULs that would love to get your thoughts on one is Doug Andrews And the other is Curtis Ray and and again, they both have different styles Curtis Ray is his takes this MPI approach and pretty much is like MPI is the thing that is going to change your life and he's using Index universal life in leverage and Again, don't want to put words in his mouth But he has videos of him literally saying like fun the IUL use that leverage and then he looks at the retirement income That could come out of an IUL. I think there's a lot of potential problems I have with that and I would love to hear your thoughts of what you like what you don't like and then Doug Andrews Has what he calls the laser fund and it's very much again like hey take everything out Put it in the life insurance because an IUL when set up and use properly give you a lot of retirement income That's all tax-free and they're saying some things that are true But they they could be saying some things that might not compound well and potentially give a lot of other people that sell life insurance a bad name That's these are my words I'll hand it over to you and you can say whatever you want say or you can decline to comment if you don't want to I very often I decline to comment So let's let's start with Curtis Ray. I like him. I talked to him. I don't consider him a friend necessarily in acquaintance And he seems like a nice reasonable guy and I think that what he's done with MPI is he's basically found a way to create a spreadsheet in which he can show leveraged variable loans on a life insurance policy basically my I don't profess to understand it Maybe even as well as you have a minor stage you take it money out by way of allowing you're putting your right back in So as to maximize arbitrage over time and when you look at that on paper you look at the spreadsheet it App performs pretty much anything else out there looks very very sexy And and if what's on the spreadsheet holds true then what Curtis Ray is saying holds true You should put all of your money into indexed universal life because you're gonna have so much more money on the back end Then you otherwise would had you just did for example a Roth IRA so How often in life do things look great on paper But they don't actually play out all that great in real life and that is my huge concern with this approach There's a lot of Administration and minutia that have to happen behind the scenes for the client to get the To get the outcome on the back end and so Does the average American have the appetite for all of that administration taking the loan and then putting it back in and Is the advisor actually going to keep in contact with that person so that three years down the road when they need to increase their death benefit They can increase their death benefit and then keep track of all these loans. There's a lot of moving parts in this program and Frankly, I think that when you're luring people in with the sexiness of a spreadsheet It's not even on the official life insurance software you have to create a a spreadsheet that shows how it works because it's not actually compliant to show how it works On the actual software and so I think that when you have to sort of Jerry rig a spreadsheet to be able to To show these types of benefits. It just gives me a little bit of pause and it's not something I would personally do So that's something any of my clients personally do But you understand the appeal of it and the appeal of it is that if everything plays out like it does on that spreadsheet You're going to be light years ahead of where you would where you to take for example the approach that you and I are preaching The question is Is that attainable and in order for it to be attainable? There's a lot of minutia a lot of administration a lot of loaning money out and re-contributed a year over a year increasing death benefit all that stuff down the road How man it just I I Get anxious just thinking about it, you know, it's just a lot of leverage is an amplifier Leverages an amplifier and it amplifies it can amplify amazing things But it also can amplify things that if things don't turn out well It can amplify that as well and one of my thoughts is like you're taking a safe asset some would say a facet and you're Trying to optimize it maximize it like you said and it if it all works out. Yeah But I mean we've been around long enough to know that things change and and I just maybe I'm gonna Old soul but it's I don't want to take some of someone's safest asset that potentially could be their part portion of their bond portfolio and Make that be the thing that's if it works out is amazing But if it doesn't don't even really have a track record to see what's gonna happen any of the last comments on that Until we go to Doug Andrews Yeah, I've never met Doug We both He's from Utah. I went to BYU So had I stayed in Utah. I probably would have bumped into him sooner or later I think that Doug has done a good job Basically putting life insurance in the spotlight. Okay. He's a pioneer in our industry I'm and I think he does a good job of explaining the value proposition of an I. U. L. I guess what runs counter to my My Philosophical worldview is I get very very uneasy When somebody talks about a silver bullet one size fits all, you know Gonna like you said gonna fix your marriage type financial tool I think life insurance works best When used in concert with lots of other tax free retirement tools I think life insurance really comes to life when utilized with Roth IRAs Roth for one case Roth conversions taking money out of your IRA Up to your standard deduction and if you can keep your provision link on low enough then your social security is also tax-free So I'm a huge fan of the I. U. L. When used in contact with all of those other things I think there's a lot of stuff that can go wrong if I UL is your only tax-free stream of income and and I've tried to give Doug Andrew the benefit of the doubt On this I've watched a lot of his videos and I keep trying to Look for places where he talks about the Roth IRA, but what and then that it seems like he's slamming the Roth IRA and so I guess if I get sit down and have a conversation with Doug. I'd say Doug. I love what you're doing man Let's talk about the I. U. L And then I think it comes out of just this maybe a lack of an abundance mentality on the part of some That they think that Americans only have a finite amount of money in their budget And if they've only got a finite amount of money in their budget Then I don't want to give any of it to the Roth IRA. I got to get it all in their life insurance and that's just not how it works so I guess that that's the ball and I have to pick with Doug. I haven't been shy about that I've said that in a couple of different videos that That let's praise the benefits of cash value life insurance But let's do it not to the exclusion of all of these other great tax-free streams of income that you know I tell people let's just take advantage of every nook and cranny in the IRS tax code and everything's gonna work out just fine Yeah, I think there's I think we could bring this back to parenting You can you can have your kids be confident in themselves without tearing down other people like we can there can be an abundance I remember the epiphany that I had where I was like you know what I'm gonna have a platform and highlight other people in our space and And I believe that we can create a bigger pie and that's exactly what we're doing like the type of content the books that you're making Yeah, yeah, you're growing there's you're creating an amazing movement an amazing movement and That movement is helping people like myself and other people that are getting into the space and it's and that only works because we believe that the more people that can Understand this stuff like their eyes can be open and it there's a huge huge there should be a huge demand for what we do and the more Type of content and books that that go out that get people think differently hopefully will will increase that pie and and And they're there's gonna be a huge need for good people to serve to serve people so Dave this has been phenomenal sit down. Thank you. Is there anything else that you want to say in closing? With where you believe taxes are gonna be in 206 with with the presidential election coming up with just where your head space is at with this book coming out Is there any any final thoughts that you want to share with our audience and then we will do our very best to have our audience Get behind what you're doing and I my hope is that people will in July or whenever the book comes out We'll be able to support you but more importantly get a book and be able to better understand why they believe what they believe No, I think I've touched about everything that I think we should touch on today You know obviously believe the tech we all know tax rates are going up in 2026 My real concern is what's gonna happen in 2030 and beyond when I think tax rates could potentially double but Maybe that's for for another episode But I think I just want to I'd like to reiterate I like love fighting intro gurus. They preach a lot of good stuff They do a lot of good for a lot of people they get people off of square one and marching towards financial independence I think we just need to you know I'm just trying to advance a dialogue around sustainable retirement planning solutions and that's really it's nothing malicious I'm not trying to do anything malicious. I'm just trying to advance that dialogue and if this book goes a little bit of way down the road to realizing that that Realizing that goal then I think it would have been time worth time that was well spent I love it. David. David. Thank you so much for taking time and and look forward to reading the book Thanks, K. Loves my pleasure