I Challenged Curtis Ray About MPI Here's What Happened

 If you have your money in whole life and something in an IU, well there's no point in having an IU without that. Whole life, I get the whole life thing, because you get to guarantee dividend and things like that. And there are some benefits of the death benefit playing things like that. But if you have an IU, well there's no reason to not leverage it. I think where I'm concerned is it feels like it potentially could be built on a house of cards. What happens if the insurance company stops this? What happens if interest rates go down? What happens if and when the market doesn't perform? What happens when the company shuts down? A good growth potential in S&P 500, which you need. But those two are not good enough. In a whole life it's not good enough. IU is not good enough. Real estate is not good enough. You have to include leverage. I know leverage gives you a little bit more risk. Where are the places that this could unravel? And if they do, is it just going to perform worse? Or is it going to blow up in someone's face? Because we all know that there has been IUL that has... Now this is more of like 20 years ago, but have not just not performed, but have blown up. Life insurance is not an investment. And it very much feels like you're selling it like an investment. Do you ever worry that the insurance company or something in the contracts are not going to turn out the way that you think it is right now? Because that's like, that's my biggest concern I think with when I see your marketing. We've been taught no risk, no reward. That to me is the single worst idea in all of retirement planning and personal finance. Obviously, I'm not a believer in what you do. I just don't have a belief in this structure over 30 years because of insurance companies, because of all the factors that you and I can't control. My question to you is you're a big, big fan. And I've seen videos of you say like, don't do real estate or don't do other things. Like, MPI is the one and only way. And any time I hear that, I go like, oh, is that really like... If everyone did that, we would be providing value in the world. We've got to get to the point where let compound interest through all the heavy left and not you. Because you can only work so hard. Compound interest can work 10 times harder. Well, what's your definition of risk? I lost $2 million in a single bank. And it was devastating. I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars, some years, millions of dollars. And I put every single dollar back in my business to buy a hundred thousand square foot building and new CNC machines and 150 employees and all this stuff. And I think about how it was all gone. So what is good? How is yours different? Because I'm getting the sense that you're buying more cash value. You're getting more indexing power, but you still have an outstanding loan. If insurance companies who are dying for our premiums, why are they not embracing this? Hey guys, this is Caleb Williams here, founder of Better Well. This is part two of a two part series that I'm doing on Curtis Ray MPI and the whole movement that is, you know, involved in Curtis and what he's up to. And part one I shared, you know, my heart behind this entire series. So if you've not watched, if you've not watched part one, I would highly encourage you to do so. It gives a lot of context. And I share why I've sat on this interview for, you know, since 2022 since I did it. And the summary of that is I just didn't know if I wanted to promote this, put a spotlight on this. I didn't know if I wanted to be a channel that created drama. And so I sat on it and I really was at peace to not publishing it. And then, you know, as, as we've grown as a channel, I've shared things. People have said things on the podcast. And I just thought, you know what? And I think it's time. I think it's time to publish this. I believe our audience is at a level that they can do it with they may. Know that I don't endorse people just by them coming on the show. You'll know that I don't agree with almost anybody across the board. And that doesn't, that's not the prerequisite of being on the better. Well, show I need to agree with you. But I'm hoping to have more conversation instead of less conversation. And so which leads me to this interview with Curtis. It's the entire interview. And the reason it's the entire interview is I didn't want to doctor it in any way. When I reflected on the interview, I part of you was like, man, I wish I would have been harder in some areas. Part of my nature is just like, I love people. I love people. I especially love talking to people that are passionate about what they do. It is one of the most life giving things. And so there, there's many critiques that I have of this interview. But I felt like in full integrity, I needed to publish the entire episode for you to see. And you'll also see that I did push back even even the two years ago. Caleb was pushing back. And I think some of the answers that Curtis gives is we'll help fill in more of the gaps. And maybe hopefully increase more conversation. I said this in the part one intro. My hope is to have more conversations. I would love nothing more to have Curtis back on. Maybe include some other voices, including Rocky in the conversation and not do the whole name calling or anything. But just have discussion. And hopefully more conversation equals better outcomes. And I understand with better wealth, we want to find a better way. And I know that sounds cliche, but part of the better way I believe is more conversation and not less conversation. So without further ado, here's my sit down conversation with Curtis Rae himself. Curtis Rae, welcome to the better wealth podcast. Are you doing Caleb? Glad to be doing it. I'm doing phenomenal. It is an honor to have you on. The reason it's an honor to have you on is I think out of anybody in the insurance business, you have gone viral on TikTok multiple times. I'm wondering first and foremost, have you been stopped by anyone that are like, hey, you're the guy that told me not to pay off my house. Like how is TikTok change your life in business? And like, did you get into TikTok on accident? Or did you see that being like the next trend? And did you want to jump on it? Well, it's funny. It's because I was just in Florida and three different people in Florida stopped me randomly and said, you're Curtis Rae from TikTok, right? And they're like, yeah, that's I'm that guy, right? So it was March of last year that my social media guy came up to me and he says, hey, let's start a TikTok channel. I'm like, I don't dance. I don't sing. Why would I want to start a TikTok channel? He's like, no, trust me. And at that time, there was, I think, 40 million users. So it was a pretty smaller platform at the point. And we started making a lot of videos. I had my first viral video in about a month. I got a million views on on why to start a compounding for a child as soon as possible. It could be the single most important decision you ever make for them. And then then I started growing it. I got 10,000 followers, 20, 50,000 followers. And then I am, I'm a big energy guy. I believe the universe blesses those who want to be blessed and those who believe they deserve it. I'm not a, I'm not a big idea that you have to always do everything right. You just have to believe that you're doing good things and then go out there and get it. And if you believe you deserve it, it just comes to you. And I'm doing this keynote speech in October of last year. And I tell these people, you just have to believe you deserve it. And then you got to go offer all your energy and your value to the world. And they're going to receive it. And if you have good products and you believe you deserve it, it's going to come. And within one week, I had two viral videos back to back. And I said, I told you guys, the universe just blesses me. And then I got up to 250,000 followers. Then I got verified. And that was a big moment. I was live on a TikTok live when I got verified and it was like, I almost came to tears and stuff like that is kind of funny. Then I'm on a podcast with Hocki Vias, who's an NFL football player. And he goes, how the heck did you get a TikTok channel about retirement planning to go viral? That's such a boring topic. And I go, because I told the universe, I deserved it. And I offer good, awesome information and education and watch. I'm going to show you it works again. I'm going to have a million followers on my birthday, which was six months as June 7th. And he goes, that's impossible. I'm not going to happen. I go, no, watch it happen. It took less than one week. In one week, I went from 250,000 followers to one million followers. He calls me back up and he goes, did you sell your soul to the devil? Like, no, I just told the universe, I believe I deserve it. And I truly believe I deserve it. And it came. What's next for you on the social media space? I know that you've been focusing a lot on YouTube. You're still going heavy on TikTok. You've done that documentaries. So you're very innovative on in the space. What are you looking for 2022? Well, we just created, so I created this whole online compound interest video series. And it's the first of its kind. There's never been a video series regarding the phenomenon of compound interest. How you maximize it and then apply it to your everyday life. And so we just launched it. It took us seven months to build it, 250,000 dollars. And we offer it for free for the whole public. So it was like this big moment. But I come to realize that it's pretty in depth. Like, a lot of people get scared away by it by understanding the mathematical side of it. And then what you have to do to commit to it. And so we just created the mini series, which is the 25 minute version of the two hour version that is much more like how you. Hey, you can do it. You deserve this. This is how you get compound interest. It's not as hard as you think it is. Don't let the mathematical side scare you away. Because all it takes is pay yourself first, put it somewhere that is growing, protect that money. Do not put yourself at risk and then give it time. And if you can give those four little things, all of a sudden wealth is achievable by anyone. It doesn't matter if you make 30,000 dollars a year or 200,000 dollars a year. The phenomenon of compound interest is for every single person. So we're going to be launching that on all social platforms. I'm going to see a lot of those webinars like Webinar goes live in 37 minutes. You know, it just is playing at 2 a.m. They're like, I don't know if that's a live Webinar. Here this is crazy, but maybe not even that crazy. It's interesting because I'm a big fan of compound interest. I don't add the protection piece, but that's a big piece, obviously. But it's interesting. It's like, compound interest is not complicated. You need something to compound because 100% is zero, zero. You need to give it time. And then what are the other things that you find that it's like people just don't get? Because I feel like at the end of the day, you feed the beast at compounds. You don't lose money, which I guess is another way of protecting it. And you give it time. It's just an amazing thing. Is there like what gets people, like what gets people tripped up when it comes to the idea of compound interest? The most important thing is commitment. You've got to keep putting money into it. Like it's a lifestyle. My favorite book is The Richest Men in Babylon. And you go through a book I read on money, by the way. And it's like my life as well. I read it every single year. I highlight every single time I read it. I'm like, I don't remember this part in the book. This is gold right here. But he says pay yourself first. You've got to put money away. Then live on the rest of your, your 90%. You save 10% live on 90. And then put it somewhere that doesn't lose principal value. You've got to only invest in experts. The best guaranteed securities collateralization. You've got to not put yourself at risk because we've been taught no risk, no reward. That to me is the single worst idea in all of retirement planning and personal finance is the idea that you have to put yourself at risk in order to get a reward. Think of someone came to you and said in order to have the best health, you have to put your body at risk. You'd be like, shut up. You're an idiot. Or if someone says, if you want to have the best marriage, you have to put your marriage at risk. You're a terrible marriage counselor. Yeah. But money is so exciting. So we get tricked in this. Gotta put it at risk. Gotta go for broke. Gotta do all in. No, no, no, no. Slow and steady wins this race. And that's the hardest thing for me is to convince someone that believe in 10 or 15 years from today. You do not need to get a home run today. You need to win singles and doubles over and over and over. And we'll get into life insurance because you've already said you're a, you're a big promoter, promote, proponent of life insurance. But we've got to get to the point where let compound interest do all the heavy lifting, not you. Because you can only work so hard. Compound interest can work 10 times harder than you. What's your definition of risk? Risk is when you can lose principal value where you can put yourself in a position where something can blow up and you start losing the actual money you earned your money. You can put your money that the money makes at risk. You know, that's, you know, a lot of things I'll talk about things like that. But when you start putting your principal value at extreme risk and yeah, everything has a layer of risk. There's nothing that is riskless. But the goal is to minimize risk. And that's why I go real heavy on secure compound interest. Because there's a clear difference between secure compound interest and risk based compound interest or what I call investments. They work together, but they're not the same thing. Right. My, my favorite definition of risk is your chance of loss. And so only in America, it's increased your chance of loss and you'll have more money. It's like, oh, I don't know. I don't know how that translates. But maybe that's why everyone's broken America. So, okay. So one of the things I want to jump into is I don't know if you have any context of who I am or better wealth. I've watched some of your videos. So obviously when we reached out, I did my own research to make sure I understand what I'm getting into, right? Okay. Yeah. So one of the things is like, I, you know, I got, I grew up in, I was the oldest of six kids. My dad was a PhD molecular biologist. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. So I was homeschooled. Very, very, like, thankful for my upbringing. Got a job at a bank when I was 17. Took over a bank's investment apartment when I was 19 years old. And then from there, just learned a ton. And in that, I was a very big day, Ramsey. I read, read other books that I was just like, I always wanted to understand money. And then I realized, like, okay, Dave's just an entertainer. He's sharing half truce. And it really like tainted me. But it helped me understand, like, I became, became very convicted on certain things like efficiencies, taxes, life insurance. And I really much felt like I was the biggest skeptic and then became one of the biggest believers. I'm just in full disclosure, our company sells whole life and I, you know, I'm not one of those people that are just all in on one strategy. And I feel like life insurance is a powerful place to store capital to save it for the future. I think the biggest difference between you and me is it sounds like, and I don't want to put words in your mouth. But it's very much of a, I think, savings. I don't know if you'd call it an investment via call on your end, but it's the strategy. I look at life insurance more as a, let's store it. Let's look at the power of life insurance and you'll utilize it as more of like an and asset. And it sounds from your research. And I've done, well, I've watched a lot of your videos that it, for you, it's, it's for income. And you're, we're using the HELOC method and we can, we can like look into that a little bit more. But one of my biggest, my biggest concerns is like, do you ever worry that the insurance company or something in the contracts are not going to turn out the way that, the way that you think it is right now, because that's like, that's my biggest concern. I think with when I see your marketing is, it sounds really good. You own compound interest.com, which congratulations. That's one of the best domains out there. I love everything about life insurance. I save over six figures a year into life insurance. I love compound interest. I get the definition of compound interest. But I also don't know 40 years from now with all of our assumptions are going to translate into what we think they are. And does that concern you at all that all of this, all of this energy is going into this strategy built on some levers that could change? I mean, there's some assumptions that we're making that I'm making that you're making that could change. And that, that is concerning. So that's where I just want to be upfront to be like that. I don't know everything, but I know quite a bit. And that's probably the biggest difference between you and I and I would love to talk about it because I don't know how many podcasts that you're on that of people that are have this context. But I, I do not like people that are just like calling names are like, oh, this person's a scam and all this stuff without being willing to have a conversation. And so I commend you, but I also, this is unlike interviews I usually do because it's I don't like the being confrontational. And so I'm going to do my very best, but I very much want to learn and seek truth and hope to give people clarity as they're doing their research because people are researching our strategies and researching your strategies. And I think episodes like this are vital. Yeah, and I'm a believer in brace all good. Yeah. So when you see something good, you embrace and that's I do struggle with financial advisors and other life insurance agents that they go, well, MPI's a scam. It says it's better than me. It must be a scam. It's like, you don't really know anything we do. So there are some assumptions we make. The good thing we have is we have 100 years of research and data that allows us to predict a probability of success. Nothing is 100% but what is the probability that this succeeds over an index fund or you know Roth IRA built in traditional stocks or ETFs or even whole life or things like that or even the regular I well, like I only think the regular I well is average at best whole life is average at best for one case or average at best. But when you start combining all their simple features that make them good into one direction, that is what I believe MPI is it's the combination of what is the best real estate leverage what is the best of a 401k IRA the stock market what is the best of insurance security if you can get all three of them. And a single platform that is what is what I call the triple the triple advantage of compound interest security growth and leverage and so when they go, oh, well, what is the probability that MPI is going to work well if we go in the last hundred years of research and data it had a 100% probability. Yes, there are things we can't control in the future are you I guess I want to ask you the simple question of do you understand what how an I well actually makes money like where the money goes. They've ignite I think wrote a book a while ago that got me into like oh indexing they're buying a call option and it makes a lot of sense whereas whole life all the money is just really built into their general fund and so the benefit of life and of I well is you're getting upside with no downside risk now you and I would both say if it gets zero there's still internal cost to that. And if you don't over fund it like majority of people out there any life insurance whether it's whole life or I well will underperform mainly because of the internal cost so I'm a this is this is in my research you guys are and I don't have to disclose the company that you're working with I don't know if that's a public. You work with a bunch of them so it doesn't matter. Okay, so you're working with one one company in particular but I'm sure you work with multiple to do the strategy you over fund and you do what's called hyper funding where then you take out alone in the year three and on and then hyper fund it so put it back into additional policies or or the policy has the ability to put more into it and the whole concept is that arbitrage you use the word leverage if you can. If you can if you can pay for and make six that's a beautiful day you know because not only are you getting the power of indexing but now you're getting the power of arbitrage and that's where that's what you would say is the biggest difference between that strategy versus playing old I well and then playing old whole life is like that that's like the minor leagues where you're really you're taking I well and taking it to the next level in my in my mischaracterizing what you guys are doing and is there anything that you want to add to that. Yeah, I'm obviously hyper funding is when you know that's a no no word because that is when you stop premiums and you use the loan feature to make your premiums for you I don't believe in that because if you believe your product is good and you can make that six to seven percent average plus you can make a two to three percent spread on the participating loan feature now you're building if you were have both of them working together not just one but both are working together you have created a life insurance contract that can potentially earn double digit returns. Inside the same policy we don't buy multiple policy that's all complicated we built a really simplified automated strategy that anyone your only job is put money into it and everything else happens by itself and so yeah we make that assumption over the you know the history we have that we're going to make somewhere between six and seven percent pretty securely obviously there are costs and stuff like that but when you do the last 25 years even with dot com 2000 made the low bond industry all the different things that go along with an I well we've been able to average seven is the same as the other six point eight seven percent over the last 25 years assuming a 10 percent cap so the you know 10 percent cash really low according to a bond that's making 1.75 2 percent somewhere on that range and so we're feeling pretty secure about the 10 percent cap range then when you take the loan the leverage feature you know real state guys have been doing this forever they buy one asset they get a loan against it they go buy more appreciating assets I just said hey I like that idea let's use inexpensive money by appreciating assets and assets but I want to do much more simple because not everyone is cut out to have 6 10 15 20 rentals so let's build a program where someone who doesn't have time or just likes the 9 to 5 and goes home and places their kids and have their best life also has the ability to get advantage of leverage in the things that typically only rich people have advantage of right on one thing I like to say about real estate is it's it can be an amazing asset because you can use leverage it can appreciate it can create cash flow and it has some amazing tax benefits and what you've really done is you said all right we're going to take the leverage effect maybe minus the cash flow but we're going to get the appreciation we're going to get I mean life insurance when set up and use properly has some of the greatest tax tax benefits of all time and so that I'm like I'm all about what you guys like I'm all about life insurance I think where I'm concerned is it feels like it potentially could be built on a house of cards because it all sounds amazing and I and you're calculators incredible by the way I'm going to do it. Like you type in but it's like man what happens what happens if the insurance company stops this what happens if interest rates go down what happens if and when the market doesn't perform what happens when the company shuts down because that's I mean as you know like a lot of companies are getting sued for for like aggressive schemes like that and that's where I go like I I'm with you on the math I think the math is brilliant I just and I'm young I've only been doing this for six years I've been I've had mentors who pretty much say Caleb the biggest mistake people make in the space is they make assumptions that their widget whether it's an annuity life insurance this real estate investment is like the end all be all and that's why I get concerned because I always grew up that life insurance is not an investment and it very much feels like you're selling it like an investment and and that's where I'm like okay where are like my critical minds like I love the mindset where are the mosquitoes here where the where the places that this could unravel and if they do is it just going to perform worse or is it going to blow up in someone's face because we all know that there has been I well that have now this is more of like 20 years ago but have not just not performed but have blown up and like that like I forbid that would be horrible and I know in just doing my research that you guys have have a lot of checks and balances as it relates to that and and from day one are making sure that you're monitoring this so it's not going to blow up in someone's face. Yeah and full disclosure there's never been an IO that blew up that was max funded. They're designed to we we run calculations and it literally takes 70 years if you fund these things like you're supposed to which I only design max fund a contract if you're not willing to max fund a contract you're not an MPI plan. Yeah you can't do it and then after the second year as we use the re lock and things like that the participating loan it allows people to be flexible off the second year but there are some assumptions we make. The first assumption is that the bonds market the good thing is everything the MPI's built in the world is built in if the bond market fell so does whole life because that's where the majority of all general fund accounts inside of insurance is inside the bonds market so does the retirement community suck because the 4% rules built on bonds and things like that if the bonds market can stay consistent between the two and 4% like it it traditionally has then that is where the S and P 500 comes into play which we have a hundred of the 150 years of the S and P 500 if the S and P 500 completely fell does you know we get a zero one here then it balances back we don't care so I have run MPI in a 2% bond scenario with the great depression 15 years of 1929 and 1944 and it produced less it didn't produce the 12 13 14% income it produced 7 8 9% income which is still dramatically more than the 4% income so when I go and compare are there Armageddon's there yes that is the case but when you look at probabilities of success and you run it again side by side and and for funny little story is when I presented this right at the beginning in 2014 to the insurance world they told me that's impossible there's no way you can create a life insurance contract and get double digit returns it's not possible Curtis and go there is one way to do it and only one way to do it that I'm familiar with a max funded I well that uses the re lock the the participating loan to put it back into double your contributions not replace your contributions and they're like can't work two months later they call me out their actuaries you know from Harvard and you know and stuff are trying to break this thing and they go holy crap it worked in every single scenario we we ran it against there is no scenario at least in current modern data that we have that it didn't function in I go yeah because you have enough security it's not perfect like a whole life security but you have just enough security that down markets don't devastate you you have just enough upside that the market is making 678% for you on average and your loan features just low enough that 4% where you combine all three of those together it produces a pretty awesome result in nearly every single market scenario that you can imagine if the bond market went to zero we are we are all in trouble and but the insurance as you probably it hasn't always been in bonds so the insurance world would would adjust in one second they need their general funds to make 3 to 5% regardless so they would adjust and that's all an I do well is money goes in the general fund whatever the general fund makes that determines your cap the general funds making 5% or caps used to be 15% general fund right now is making 3% or whatever now it's at 10% so it's always going to range in my opinion in that 10 to 15% range because the insurance companies are not stupid they're the smartest people in the whole world so when I want to bank on who's going to win this long term race with volatility and inflation and stuff like that my my bet is on insurance because they've been able to be profitable in the great depression 73 74.com 2008 there probably the only financial institutions in the whole world that were profitable even in the worst case scenario so that's why go hey is it perfect no nothing is perfect but the probability of this succeeding when you have three key features a floor a good rate return based on the S&P 500 and a low cost leverage when you add those up the probability is very high that's going to succeed there in in the past I will companies have just like a lot of whole life companies have different blocks when they come out with a new product they have different blocks and there has been companies that have changed the cap rates and crediting and features on the other products when they get a new product which seems incredibly misleading and there have been critics out there that have said all right one thing like cap rates are coming down on I well and they're not even being truthful because the people 10 years ago are getting screwed because they're getting less is that true or is that like something that you guys are watching because obviously insurance companies and this one thing I'll give I you well companies you're you're like they want you to stay competitive because they're I mean you can move your money elsewhere there's provisions that you could transfer to another company so it's like obviously everyone's everyone wants to win and serve people well my biggest fear is as interest rates decline as we potentially live longer insurance companies are the yield is just going to get harder and harder the the ability to buy a call options going to get smaller and smaller that's why the caps are coming down and it's just when we build our whole strategy on life insurance with leverage it's not going to turn out the way that we want it to maybe not not because life insurance are stable it's just not going to be a good thing to be optimized any any concerns there and how are you guys working around that making sure that your clients five years from now are going to be getting the max max returns that the new clients are getting. Yeah, I mean that's the only thing that controls an I was the cap if someone goes what is the flood tonight you will the cap yeah the cost are super super low people like to talk about the cost but they're decreasing in the end of a very small percent long term so it's not the expenses inside of a life insurance contract like Dave Ramsey and other financial advisors like to say it is the cap and the cap alone what's amazing about MPIs we address that we do an assessment and an adjustment and a modification to the contract every two years. So every two years we are going to look what is the highest cash we can get where are we at so if there are snow my little my brother had a I you well from 2005 and the cap start off at 12 or 13% and now it's 8% because those blocks of businesses they over what's the right word. They over committed to something oversold because they was so new every new product has their flaws for the first 10 years that they didn't calculate them correctly they weren't expecting bonds to go down to three or four or two percent sometimes you know things like that we had you know 50 years of bonds somewhere in the right range outside of the 1980s obviously but you know bonds are writing that four to six percent range and then. dot com happened and there are a lot of things that happened and so what's nice the companies I work with and you know which company I'm referring to they are probably one of the most conservative grandpa insurance companies they have one of the lowest caps but they say our cap is as strong as it's going to be we're not promising bonuses we don't do persistency bonuses we don't do multiplies we have no bells and whistles we are going to perform we're not going everyone else and say oh we're 15% caps well guess what I'm a 10% cap but our 10% cap is done by conservative actuaries who want to over promise or under promise over perform maximize that hey we're going to give you something and we've been around for 110 years and our reputation is way more important to us to make him extra buck and so that's why people go well why are why are you cap solo because we're more conservative I want to make sure that we get where we're going to get and we don't mess around with stupid persistent bonuses and multipliers and stuff yeah this is my next question is not a question that I came up with is is a question that I've heard from someone else and again I'm a fan of like I'm not just going to let them say that without getting a check from you I'm if it's not the company that you work with they have been sued they they've they've done some scammy scammy stuff just in the space and what I've been told is that the only insurance company that will exit like a prove what you are doing is the one company that you're working with and all the other companies don't even want to touch it not because the math doesn't work because they're afraid of the insurance commissioner coming after aggressive marketing people getting in it some people call it premium finance for the poor that can't qualify for premium finance and you can see why they're doing that because you're used you are using leverage and like I'm a fan of this framework called value leveraging if you want to become wealthy provide value and maximize that value that's every wealthy person has done that and that's I mean you provide a value at scale as well and that's why you make more than the average person my my fear is what what is your response back to that when people are like no company will touch you you have insurance commissioner that might come after you and I'm I'm there's no claims as I as of right now it's just aggressive marketing and that's one thing that's concerning is if insurance companies who are dying for premiums what like why are they not embracing this or are all those things that people are saying just not true. Oh, I mean we have two companies so it's more than one and we talked to many other ones and almost all of the same thing we don't like to be the first we're going to see how this place out as soon as this starts to and now that we're three years into it you know full marketing and full everything more knocks are coming on the door like I guess it does work but it is aggressive you know when you start saying premium finance for the normal person that scares away commissioners that scares away whoa you're leveraging oh what and you know we have lots of talks with the nsc we have lots of talks with insurance lawyers we have lots of talks with individual state regulators and things like that so we've done our due diligence we're not the guys I don't hide you know a lot of people have these these secret deals and they don't tell you they won't tell you anything about their product you just have to trust them I'm the one guy says I disclose everything if you've read my book or watch my videos I don't hide anything and that's how I've approached it with the insurance companies here is what I do here is what I say here's the the acronyms I use re lock and secure compound interest account and things that that help the public understand what I'm trying to do and any questions you have all answered and so two of them are say hey we ran it we're not scared it's a little scary right because new products are always scary if I'm going to represent them correctly they're trusting that I represent them 110 year company in the right light you know and it's it's gone extremely well we have thousands of clients we have thousands of clients coming in per month so they're loving it and now that we're three years into it more knocks are coming on that door like you know Hey, how do we get our premium and I tell them hey I'm not ready for that I got married and I like my wife yeah I Curtis this is one thing I will give you a ton of credit on you do not hide and you put I mean you put out your calculator which I'm shocked is able to be public like but I'm sure it's approved because you's like you're kind of a famous person and you're putting this out and you're not hiding it I just typed in MPI calculator we can agree to disagree that I don't think that that's actually going to happen like I think that's I don't think those numbers are going to be true 30 years from now I do believe if properly structured these are not going to blow up and it probably is it there's a good chance if you're if you're monies on it outperforming whole life Roth IRAs I think I think there's a good chance of that happening if it's properly funded if the insurance company doesn't shut it down like I so I'm not like I don't want you to think I'm like a Diniar I think the biggest difference is I look at Dave Ramsey and I say man this guy is such a hypocrite because he's like like you think he's made his money on mutual funds and all this stuff no he's made his money on building business and building value my question to you is you're a big big fan and I've seen videos if you say like don't do real estate or don't like don't do other things like like MPI is the one and only way and anytime I hear that I go like oh is that really like if everyone did that who would be providing value in the world and I look at you you don't have to disclose how much money you made but it's a lot and you're going to continue to make money you've invested in a team you've invested in new building you've invested probably hundreds of thousands of dollars into marketing so when when do you say to an entrepreneur don't invest in MPI or the re lock and invest in yourself you have an you have an equation for that or how do you teach and coach people that MPI might be the the starting place but when do you instead because there's an opportunity cost everything when you shift dollars to another initiative well so I believe in business I have four businesses I am an entrepreneur I'm a pure red I love everything about business but in 2014 after 10 years of building my import export business slash homer model and granite countertop business I lost two million dollars in a single day and it was devastating because no risk no reward every penny I had went back in my business investments in that business etc etc and throw a bad unfortunate investor who yeah decide take all the money out of the count one day and I had no money because all my money went back into my business I had to start over and that's the day someone introduced me to an I.U.O. it was 2014 and I said what the heck what do I do now? luckily I was 32 years old so it wasn't the end of the world I wasn't like I was too old to start a business so I tell people this you have to make money compound interest does not work unless you make money find something you love to do that brings value to people and go make the absolute most amount of money possible but then the very first thing you do is pay yourself first you cannot invest 100% of your money back into your business because there is a 95% probability and 25 years from now that business does not exist there is a 72% probability in 10 years that business does not exist and me being the prime example I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars some years a million to dollars and I put every single dollar back in my business to buy a hundred thousand square foot building a new CNC machines and 150 employees and all this stuff and a blink of an eye it was all gone and I said if I could have just taken 10% 20% of my net profits and put it away into a secure compound interest count when that devastating moment of Armageddon happens in a business which almost happens to every single entrepreneur that on this planet I would have had two or three million dollars saved up by that point time and life would have been okay so I'm a firm believer my business protection plan I have a business protection plan and I tell people 75% of your net profits goes back to your business to expand you've got to be growing you've got to be expanding but take 25% of your money and get into a secure compound interest count because inevitably your business is going to blow up and I know that hurts people's feelings sometimes but the data tells us and so and they go no I need to go all into my business it's going to grow slower no no no trust me 75% of your net profits are 100% your business ends up in the exact same point because there's only so many variables you can control and money is just one of the many variables of expanding a business and so 75 25 is why tell everyone go start a business I love business I'm not going to do it now. Find something you love to do than you're not working but 25% of your net profits needs to be going to your security so in 10 years if you have my experience you've got two three four million dollars saved up okay life's good. Why wouldn't you put 100% into the IUL and then instead of doing the HELOC method you would just take a loan and reinvest it in like 75% of that person into your business because you're still getting the arbitrage is that is that what you recommend when you say 70 I put 75% back into my business and 25% saved. Well what one of the things that MPI does different than like your hyper funding scenario and things like that is when you over leverage that puts you at risk MPI is extremely calculated when do leverage exactly how much do you leverage at this proportion according to growth so that you never exceed an over leverage and so I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to over leverage and so I am not a fan of these guys who like sell these these IULs and even a whole life where you put in 100% of your money and take out 95% because you just create a 9 to 1 leverage ratio right two or three down years and a row you're done. So what it was I was yours different because I'm I'm getting the sense that you're you're buying more cash value essentially I mean I'm trying to dumb this down for the so you're getting more indexing power but you still have an outstanding loan. Are you saying that every year that goes by you're out saying loan should increase but your cash that compound should increase is that is that correct yes and so when you're putting in your own money that's why say pay yourself first regardless every single year move forward and then the leverage starts adding to it you get to a one to one ratio you get to a two to one ratio we never want to go back past the three to one ratio because of three to one ratio can last seven years consecutive down markets. The most we ever had is three and a half so I want to be double the worst scenario that's ever happened ever and if you leverage slowly and let it compound on itself rather than all upfront and being over aggressive and and then you have the hyper funding scenario of 2005 where people pulling out he logs and hyper funding their products and then down markets happen and then lost suits and all the other things you're talking about MPI was very calculated by actuaries by security first never go past too much leverage there is a point of too much leverage and if you keep it inside these confines of one to two leverage ratio somewhere in that range you can get these amazing 10 11 12% returns without armaged in just two years down the road those type of things so I'm not a fan of putting a ton in and leveraging it out slow and steady wins this race okay okay obviously as as an analytical person I love to see the numbers and I have I've seen general numbers obviously one of the potential disadvantages of insurance companies is when they do illustrations they're not supposed to be able to do that. They're not supposed to have a loans in the final doc so it's there's some hypotheticals but at the end of the day I do respect where you're coming from what are your thoughts on Doug Andrews and do you do like his philosophy or I know you put you you jab that in a little bit earlier and directly is are you guys friends or is it one of those things that you guys have different philosophies. I mean he does option A which option A is always worse than option B but it pays three times more so I don't know if he does that on purpose he runs his numbers and when he starts saying that your I was going to make 9 10% without leverage it's like oh my goodness that is that is my beef is when people overstate if you see my calculator I'm claiming 6.4 I'm not overstating I'm just saying we think we're going to get around 6 6 and a half I'm going to build this calculator and I'm going to get a lot of money. And the numbers are sticker shock I mean they look so big even on a 6.4 but when some people start saying your I will get 8 9 10% no it's not no it is not unless bonds go back up to 5 or 6% that is not a 10 to 4% cost is going to go up to the I just fix also exactly so we're all in the same industry so there are some things that I don't think we have to oversell insurance I get my numbers are really big but that's just to leverage that's not going to be overselling so when I see insurance guys and infinite bankers and uninterrupted compound interest. And I'm just using it slightly different getting that 2 to 3% arbitrage spread and you let that compound over 20 years now that is where my numbers come from not because I'm overstating a 7 8 9 10% rate return internally. I'm with you by the way I think the biggest threat to our industry is people overselling and again the thing that I'm really really critical on is why are we selling life insurance as an investment. And I don't obviously you know investments in my opinion are things that put you at principal risk I was don't have that so I'm more on the side of what produces retirement income. I don't I whatever the end result is it should be focused on retirement income I know financial likes like say what are your fees and what about your taxes going to be in one end that's like well although we're tax free income and we have the lowest season all the other great things about MPI. Retirement income the only thing that matters when you're designing a retirement plan so I say live insurance retirement plans if you want the most retirement income tax free there is a vehicle that can do that I also believe in real estate I also believe in stock market build your foundation so you earn the right to invest you don't invest first build your foundation that's how it works. Are you familiar with doctorate files research and Jason sayingers research when it comes to volatility buffers and pension maximization the philosophy there because you're very critical on the 4% rule I always I always like to challenge people when they're like why is a 4% rule like the gold standard like how does anyone have a job if that's if that's the best we can do because it's like that's not the American dream if you look at the actual money that people have at quote unquote retirement and then you translate the 4% now they're saying the 4% is too risky it's like. Yikes if we actually thought with the end in mind we would think different with our money cash flow would come first here's here's my big concern is life insurance I love life insurance I love it I just want to go on record by saying that we sell not as much as you but quite a bit of life insurance but we do not sell it as the vehicle in retirement because in just 5 years of being in business I had some very I had mentors early on that we're very aggressive using whole life and I well. And I saw those companies totally shift and and I saw families have all their eggs in one basket and I was one thing that I said the math is right the insurance power of insurance companies in the laws are right but it's like the all their all their eggs were in one basket and I saw how one insurance company changed their mind and how that that had a lot of effect and so from very early on I would always were like I like the idea of this being an enhanced. So I talk about it more as an and asset and part of the end as you can utilize it for income I just think you're very vulnerable long term if all your eggs are in one hypothetical example or yes you're right the math does work what does happen if something changes and I've seen how a little changes can really have a big effect and and you kind of answered that by saying that you do believe in diversification and maybe someone shouldn't have all their eggs in one basket even though the math looks good 6.4% is very conservative my my push back to that is what happens. And so if you don't get 6 and it gets 0 on year and so that the average rates of return versus the consistency there is a difference there any any thoughts on my maybe not so clear question more of a rant. Well everyone inside of an MPI plan you probably know you have a max insurability you can only get so much insurance and so like I maxed out I'll be honest I put in 1.5 million dollars per year into my MPI plan but I make a little bit more than that and so where do I go after that I've got to go find investments but I've earned the right to put myself at risk I've earned right because even if the investments blow which are more probable than my insurance contract I still have a foundation and so we have we have a thing called the conservative risk taker plan and that is when you hit max insurability. Where do you then use the participating loan to get other things or when you use your your money to go get into real estate or reach or things like that that you can also have multiple buckets I always say max fund your security blanket first and then go find things because you've earned the right to invest so yeah I mean there are so many places to earn money I I put money in a guy who guarantees me 8% on a real estate portfolio and all stuff and it's just an income fund money you know I have nowhere to put is like okay here give me 8% per year and I get my principal. I can get my principal back and then what I do you talked about the 4% roll and man my first book was called everyone ends up poor my first best selling book everyone ends up poor because no one is taught that these investment plans aren't retirement plans your 401k your Roth IRA your IRA they are not designed with retirement income as the focus they're designed as net worth is the focus. So the hey you got a big nest I got to the elusive one million dollar portfolio that 1.6% of all the population ever get to and that still only produces you around 40 thousand dollars retirement income no one tells anyone that and by time you find out it's too late and so my thing is hey probability of your 401k producing a lot of income or MPI producing a lot of income my money's on MPI and it can produce maybe double triple quadruple the amount of money that a 401k with the exact same account value they both grow a similar. So by the time you get into an S&P 500 index fund over 30 years it's going to grow at about 10 to 11% MPI in the same 30 years is going to be 10 or 11% on average you know collectively side by side but one slows down as time goes on I assume you know how the 4% roll works you're a lot of stocks in the beginning very little bonds and as you get as you near retirement your sprint your your sprint mentality to make money slows down to a walking mentality got to go buy some bonds now because I got to be secure. Where MPI accelerates as time goes on so your highest rate of return is when you're older where 401k I rate your lowest rate of return is when you're oldest and your rate of return in retirement is your income so you should be focusing on one thing and one thing only what produces the best long term result and if it's not focused on long term result you got to reconsider there are a lot of things out there leveraged real estate leveraged life insurance a few other things that focused on long term everything else is a pretty amateur best retirement plan but that's where all the money is. Because it looks so good early you can make a bunch of money early in stocks and things like that and people get tricked by yes I feel really good by getting a home run today even though it's going to be a strikeout when you get to retirement. Yes Curtis does there anything else you want to say about any any questions or like any like tough objections that people throw at you because I think one of the biggest things is like if you don't understand the power of life insurance this is really hard to understand and obviously thanks to 7702 a you know it's like there's some amazing. Amazing, amazing tax benefits to life insurance and I'm a big fan especially with them adjusting it this year. Yes. It's even more amazing. So and I mean we can touch on that is there anything else that you want to touch on because I think obviously I I'm not a believer in in what you do and I have a lot more respect for you by coming on explaining, I'm glad that you're you're are being conservative. I just don't have a belief in this structure over 30 years because of insurance companies, because of all the factors that you and I can't control. And I think there's a lot worse things you can do with your money and that includes 95% of where people are putting your money because I think putting your money in a 401k, deferring to an unknown date where who knows the tax rates, who knows what the markets are gonna do. Like so I'm not saying like it's just one of those things where that that's where I'll just be honest with. But I think there's a lot of worse places you can put your money and I think the way that you articulate yourself and hold yourself and a team that you've built is impressive. And I think people can watch this and maybe feel way more confident on whatever decision they're gonna make. Yeah, I mean ultimately in 15 years we'll 1035 your old contracts into a good contract because at that point in time we'll be 20 years into it and you're like, oh, I'll be I'll be I'll come on board and you're like, hey dude, you have a sales position. I want to come on your team. But even this, even this, when you compare it to other strategies out there, why not take 10% of your assets and put into something that potentially has this type of long-term long-term asset, long-term retirement projections because like you just said, diversify if you're if you have your money in whole life and some in an IU, well there's no point in having an IU without leveraging it. Whole life I get the whole life thing because you get the guaranteed dividend and things like that and there are some benefits as a death benefit playing things like that. But if you have an IU, well there's no reason to not leverage it because it's either going to blow up because the whole thing elapses because insurance is like the whole time or leverage is going to work. But leveraging I feel like leveraging increases your chance of of it blowing up if with insurance risk like cost of insurance, cap rates, like you're you're not doing it to the max but aren't having an outstanding loan creating a potential probability of that. Like who would be more safe from it blowing up just funding it with no leverage? Obviously that's boring. Or your strategy with leveraging it, I feel like if everything hits the fan, you're going to be the first one to top of low versus the plain old vanilla over fun with no leverage. Well, the good thing about MPI is there's always an exit strategy. See the the loan feature is additional premiums inside your plan. There's an exit strategy if this thing ever got to a point where the 4% loan rate or whatever the loan rate is at the time, it could even go lower now because interest rates are so low. At any moment in time, you're not in an average arbitrage spread. You know, some years are going to be zero. We know that some years are going to be 10. We know that. But if there's a get to a point where that average return is less than the loan rate, you exit it and go back to a max funded IUL. We've crossed all these teas and done these ice things. What happens when this happens? And we need to have a solution for that because we are people are trusting us. People are building a plan that is supposed to last for the next 50 years of their life. And so we've gone through every scenario, every iteration that we can think of like, okay, what happens here? What happens here? And ultimately, a regular IUL, if you max funded everything, yeah, take seven years to blow up. But the income is, yeah, if you're using a supplemental income, then it does exactly what it's supposed to do. Whole life barely keeps up with inflation, but it's an inflation-proving account. Okay, that's exactly what it's going to do. If you want to compete with a stock market, if you're already going to have money in the stock market, why am I so have it somewhere that has the guaranteed security in the tax advantages and the life insurance, all stuff. So it's more of that, hey, if you have, if you can accept a little bit of this extra risk because of the market and the environment and things like that. And there's already $26 trillion inside the 401k. There's a much better place to put that 26 trillion with a lot of additional features and benefits. Is it perfect? No. But does it give you a high probability of success? The answer is yes. Ted Ben on the guy that discovered the 401k I've had on the show and he said he's number one, he's created. I don't think he's he potentially said this. People put it words in his mouth. He's created a monster, but it's really where he's very disappointed in is the income side. And just the lack of understanding. And then a lot of companies are deferring all their responsibility to a third party 401k. And we really do have a disaster on our hands. And I think people, people like to point fingers and it's so easy to do the blame game. But at the end of the day, we need to take responsibility. Going back to the richest man of Babylon, the biggest, like, epiphany that I had was you have to pay yourself before you pay other people. You have to have that conviction of paying yourself first. And when we look at very, very James Dykes just spoke at one of our workshops. And he said that the national savings rate is embarrassing low. It's like less than 5%. And now maybe with COVID that increased a little bit. But it's like, you can't you can't get ahead regardless. Like I don't care where you're going. If you're not saving any money, you're going to get destroyed. And unfortunately, that's that's what we're seeing in this world. And so I commend the message of paying yourself first, talking about compound interest, that energy dude. It's no one can deny that you're not passionate about what you do. And there are people that are saving that wouldn't be saving because they watch one of your TikToks. And for that, I am very, very, I commend you on. And I'm hoping that we can stay in touch, man, because it's going to be exciting to see the brand that you continue to build. And if there's anything that I can do, I'm always open-minded. And Dan Thompson was one of the one of the books that I read on my journey. And I know that he wrote the forward or something to your book. And so I know that there's some mutual friends in the space. Time will tell. We're all on the same team. We're all on the same team. We're trying to help people. And you know, there's this article written by I think it was Forbes or Yahoo News. It says, someone needs to come out with a solution to retirement income because nothing's designed for retirement income. And I'm like, hey, I'm at least trying. No one else is trying. Everyone else is about asset preservation and lowest taxes and lowest fees. And no one's trying to address that there's a retirement income, Armageddon coming like that is going to look really bad. And I'm out there saying, Hey, what I've created gives you something that security, which you need, a good growth potential, an SMP 500, which you need. But those two are not good enough. In a whole life, it's not good enough. I was not good enough. Real estate. It's not good enough. You have to include leverage. I know leverage gives you a little bit more risk. But you've got to include that if you want to achieve the retirement you want in less than 40 years, like we've got to be doing this in 20, 20, 20 years. Yeah. And our framework for helping people is number one. No, no, I self know what you really want because it's a shame to go through your whole life and not ever live to the life that you are designed to live. And so I know that sounds woo, woo, but it's like we spend a lot of time figuring out what our clients really want if money wasn't an issue. Then we go into what are you currently doing? Looking at your cash flow, look at where your money's being saved, look at where your money's being consumed and saying, what are the inefficiencies there? Then we're saving is so important because that's the verb of paying yourself first. And then from there, it's where can you best maximize your your your wealth, your money? And we measure everything from cash flow because instead of retirement planning, we should call it future cash flow planning. And we have some clients that double down on on IUL because they have a belief that it's like, I don't really want to invest in myself or other things. I want to put my money in an asset. I understand the potential risk, but this will give me the best upside. It has good tax advantages. They understand, but we also have a lot of clients that save their money into life insurance and decide to use leverage in other things. But I would say we're one of my biggest frameworks is value leveraging. Learn how to create value, whether it's with your time, your money, your relationships, and maximize that. And if you're not going to do that, you you will be a very happy, broke person. And so it's just I think our biggest difference is is I'm not a big fan of leveraging and then investing back into an insurance product. I see it more as a place to storehouse money and save money and and have it be an and asset. And I think you're you're seeing it as the an amazing foundation to leverage back in. And I understand where your math is coming from and we will see what the future holds. But again, you're not going to go wrong by helping people save money. And so I think I think we're very much aligned for the most part of what we teach. And if I could communicate half the way that you do, I'm going to have a bright future. You're very good in your video. I'm like, dang, I wish I was as good as looking as him and could speak as well as him. Bro, is there anything else that you want to end? I do want to end this podcast with my legacy question. It's not going to be money related at all. Is there anything else that you want to say? Obviously, compoundinterest.com is is the website that you guys are going to probably be doing some crazy things on. Is there anything else book wise? I do want to be a platform that benefits you. Yeah. Well, compoundinterest.com is a complete video series. So I have two books. Everyone ends up poor and the lost signs of compound interest. But very few people like to read. It is six hours of content between the two books, maybe seven hours. So over the last six months, we condense those two books into a two hour video series. Sixteen videos broken up in five to six minute videos about every topic you'll ever want to know about life insurance and how MPI works and how the leverage works and things like that. So and it's free of charge to every single person. There's we don't ask for anything. You can just go on there and watch them direct. So if you have interest in a learning why the 401k IRA are not your best solutions, in my opinion, be what the value of life insurance can bring to you. Whether it's just an I you or leverage, die you or even just life insurance in general, go on there compoundinterest.com. Spend two hours get lost. You're going to spend two hours on YouTube and TikTok anyway. Might as well put it to value and an increase or knowledge because financial literacy is the key to financial freedom. You cannot achieve financial freedom long term without knowing how the game is played. Biggest asset you or life insurance. Well, life insurance can't get any money if I don't work my butt off and bring value to other people because everything. If people go, well, you know, I have four businesses and people come to me all the time and say, Curtis, oh, I want to start a business. I want to be successful like you. And I'm like, it doesn't quite work that way. But if you want to start a business, there's only two things you really need to know. One, can you bring value to other people? I don't care what your product is. Oh, I created this product. I created an umbrella in Arizona that doesn't bring value to anyone. And be love what you do so it never becomes a drain on you because I work 12, 14 hour days and I was like, you work so much. I'm like, I'm already retired. I do exactly what I want, what I want with whom I want. I fly to Tampa to go to a football game. I fly back here. I go to lie because I can always do what I want to do at any moment in time. So bring value to other people and love what you do when you combine those two things. Wealth is in your future. So last question is called a legacy question. And I'm going to I'm going to cut out something for you because I'm going to give you to kind of guidelines on how to answer this. So this is your last downer. You can't give you're with the people that you love the most. You can't give them any book or any of your videos. And you can't talk about compound interest, which I know is going to kill you. What are you going to make sure to say in that last conversation to your family and to your loved ones and all the things that you learned in life, like what do you want to pass down in that last conversation? Enjoy the journey. Enjoy the journey. I want to talk on their life like, oh, I hate my life. I hate this depression is rampant. All those things because everyone forgot that this is a journey. There's no finish line. Yeah, finish line as you die. So you've got to find something today that you enjoy and enjoy the relations. Enjoy the people enjoy your job. Even if you don't like it, you'll find a way to enjoy it because the journey is the only thing that matter. We die with memories. Memories experience and relationships. So find a way to enjoy the journey and everything else will work itself out. Curtis, thank you. Thank you for coming on the show. And I appreciate your answers and I appreciate your commitment to enjoying the journey. Guess what? That can compound because people can see that enjoyment and that has an impact. So thank you. Thank you again and I'm sure we'll be in touch soon. Thank you, talk soon.