Ensure Your Financial Future With Whole Life Insurance With Sarry Ibrahim

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Welcome to beyond you'd why podcast where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. So if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we bring on somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. And so this week we're going to be talking about the why of Simplify, which is a very rare why. If this is your why, then you are one of the fabulous people that make everyone else's life better. You have the unique gift of reducing the number of steps required for almost any task. If most of us believe that a procedure requires eight sequential actions, you see how to do it in six. You constantly look for ways of simplifying, from recipes to business systems to how you organize your garage. You feel successful when you eliminate complexity and remove unnecessary elements, and in a process, you streamline things for the benefit of all and break things down into their simplest form. You like things direct to the point and don't give me the fluff. And so today I've got a great guest for you. His name is Sari Ibrahim. He is a financial planner and member of the Bank On Yourself organization. He helps real estate investors, business owners and full time employees grow safe and predictable wealth regardless of market conditions. Using a financial strategy that has been around for over 160 years. Sari started his journey when he was in grad school completing his mba. He worked for companies like Allstate, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Cigna, healthspring, and Humana before founding Financial Asset Protection, a financial services firm that focuses on one sole concept, the bank on yourself concept, also known as the infinite banking concept. Sari, welcome to the podcast.

Hey, Gary, thank you so much for having me on, man. I appreciate it.

Hey, this is going to be interesting. So we're going to dive back into your life. Sari, I know you told me already you're in Chicago. It's probably a little bit chilly there today and you said you grew up there, so tell us about that. Where did you grow up in Chicago? What were you like in high school? What would your friends say about you?

Yeah, so I grew up in a southwest suburb of Chicago, Palos Hills, for those familiar with the chicagoland area, about 30 minutes south of, maybe 40 minutes south of downtown Chicago. And yeah, I was always very curious growing up. I always wanted to learn more about the, how the world worked, more than I could handle and kind of beyond my scope. Like, for example, in class I would be, you know, thinking about, you know, I would look out the window and think about how things worked outside of the classroom rather than inside the classroom. I was a visionary, always a visionary. And, you know, I learned recently that visionaries think far ahead of steps. And that could actually be problematic. Right, because if you're not focused on in the moment, you, you can miss certain things. And that was also part of my life too. You know, I would make mistakes because I wasn't present. I was thinking way too far ahead. But still I enjoyed thinking of, you know, imaginating different things. And I still do. As an entrepreneur, I think it's one of the reasons why I'm an entrepreneur is because I can't settle for just the normal day to day things. I had to always think kind of far ahead. But one thing that, you know, kind of where I'm at today is when I was a senior in high school, I took a class called consumer economics. And it was literally like how to write a check, how to look at a bank statement, how to what is a mortgage, what is interest? You know, all these things. And I liked it a lot. I had a, you know, I still, I kind of understood those things back then, but I really liked it a lot. And I wanted to make that into a career where, like, that's what you do for a living. Like, you help people with things like that, like financial, things like that. And I was still new to it, so I didn't, I was still young. I didn't know what that was called. Financial consultant, financial planner, I didn't know. So I got a bachelor's degree, went to college, got an MBA with a Concentration in project management. And then I started working for like insurance companies and I really started to see like how they would think, how they evaluated risk, how they were, you know. And then that led me into financial planning and helping people with financial strategies and helping people accomplish financial goals. And I felt like that was thankful, you know, that that was exactly what I've always wanted to do is solve financial problems. Not so much of if you have money, you can work with me. It's more of what is it? What's going on in your life right now? What are some of the financial problems? Either too little money or too much money or whatever the case is. What do you need help with? That's kind of like what I do today. And I help clients in all 50 states kind of accomplished our financial goals. So that's who I am. And kind of some of my, some of my background.

Yeah. So what made you go into insurance? How did you get from college into working for different insurance companies? It sound like you worked for a couple of them as well.

Yeah, good question. So a lot of, you know, typically the average, I think person who works for an insurance organization is like 59 years old. So it's like, usually like an old school industry to be in, but not so much of my friend. Like I was probably the only one in my social group that went into insurance. And I don't know what it was, it was, was, it was just, I told myself, you don't. I came across an opportunity to work at all. That was the first company. And I told myself, you know, I don't know what to expect. I have no idea what's on the other side of that door until I actually go through that door and see. And that's what happened. I just did. And it was kind of the lessons in life, like you'll never know like your passion before you actually do something. You know what I mean? Like, you can't. It's almost impossible to say, all right, I'm going to do this career because I like it when you haven't even done that career yet. And I feel like that's how kind of high school and college is training does, is like choose something, stick to it, something you're passionate about. Well, how are you going to be passionate about a career that you never done before? And same is true. Like I would've never chose insurance or financial services. It doesn't sound, to be, to be transparent. It doesn't sound that appealing. Right. But once I got involved and I understood it and you know, I liked it, you know, it made sense. There was a lot of logic behind it, you know, and speaking of simplifying things, like, there were a lot of. There were a lot of things that you could simplify in that world.

So of all the options you had, you're done with now, you got your mba, you're done. Many directions you could have gone, why Allstate?

Yeah, good. So, okay, so I. Good question. So I like the name. First of all, I like the name, I like the brand of how it was marketed. So I worked there. And then while I was working there, I found that a lot of clients also liked working with the brand, but more importantly, they liked working with people. Right. That's why, that was one of the selling points, Right. Of working in insurance is working with people, not just the companies or the brands. I enjoyed that more working with people and then actually owning the process of dealing with problems and dealing with claims and things like that. And then it was also a self employable field to be in. So that means that you could branch off, start your own business either with Allstate or other companies. I then went from Allstate to being an independent consultant broker so I could represent different companies. And that was something that was attracted to me. I thought about it, I was like, you know what, how would the future look? The future could be that I have contracts with 30 different insurance companies and financial organizations. I have thousands of clients. I can work anywhere in the world. I just need a computer and a phone. That was the kind of industry it is now. If I was, for example, working as a mechanical, I'm just gonna make up something. A mechanical engineer for a Fortune 500 company. That's not really a self employable field. I can't just branch off, start my own mechanical engineering company and then just do that, mimic, you know, it's. But with insurance, you could, you have that, you have that opportunity. It's a small. It's people to people, small business to small business. So that's what really got me attracted to it. It was the lifestyle that got me attracted to it. And right. Like I work entirely from home. All my. Everything is done on Zoom or over the phone. I. All my podcasting as a guest and as a host is done on Zoom. So. And my wife and I, we have a son. We. I could literally, you know, tomorrow, I could, we could just travel, we can go somewhere. I'm not restricted to a 9 to 5 anywhere. So it's kind of the lifestyle that got me into it.

Mm. Seem like a not too Many steps to get you to where you wanted to go.

Exactly. It's hard work still, you know, like I had to build up the book of business. The independent insurance route is about, I want to say like a 95% like turnover rate, like for every 100 people, 95 just quit and go do something else. Because it's very difficult.

Right.

You're. It's hard to attract people, to work with people, to keep them as clients, you know. And I positioned more into financial planning, not just insurance. Insurance is just one of the tools we have. Right. There's also so the financial planning aspect of building out financial plans for people saving for retirement, getting out of debt, negotiating that, you know, things like that. So we do more of that too now.

Nice. And so you got into insurance and then transitioned over to financial planning and then you got out and started your own, is that right?

Yes, correct. Yeah.

In your bio it said you used one six year old process. Now tell us about that.

Yeah, so it's something. Okay, so it's a little bit. It's called the infinite banking concept. Infinite banking banking, yes, infinite banking, yeah. It was invented by Nelson Nash 20 years. 20, about 30 years ago. But the core of it. So that one of the primary roots of the infinite banking concept is the use of cash value whole life insurance. And cash value whole life insurance is actually for how not sexy it sounds. It's actually one of the most significant things in the world in that these insurance companies have been in business for over 160 years. They've been implementing these. Same with companies, a lot of organizations that have been around for a really long time. Their backbones are their reserves are in cash value life insurance. And banks have most of their reserves in cash value life insurance. Of the things that happen in the world, financially speaking, revolve around life insurance companies. As a matter of fact, there's about 2,000 life insurance companies in the United States alone. And if you were to take all their reserves, all their money and pull it together, it would be greater than all of the cash from all the banks and oil companies in the world combined. So it kind of gives you a visual of what's happening. If a high rise building in Switzerland is being built, a US life insurance company probably has something to do with it. They've probably loaned money to it, they've probably invested in that deal. So there's a lot of things in the world happening from the backbones of life insurance companies.

Should that make me feel good or should that make me feel bad?

I think that should make you feel good because there's certainty now, there's security. Because the people who made it through the Great Depression, the families and corporations that made it through the Great Depression, were ones who had reserves and life insurance, because the way that insurance companies operate is not directly correlated or affected by the stock market and other things. In March 2020, when Covid first happened, life insurance companies weren't affected by their cash reserves, weren't affected by Covid, whereas the stock market was. Even the stock market went up since COVID happened, but initially there was a hit to it. So from the perspective of certainty and safety, you want your money sitting somewhere, at least one place, that if everything goes down, everything shuts down. You have one account somewhere that's protected and it's going to earn compound interest and growth. And this is exactly what we do now. We use the infinite banking concept to help clients, small business owners, individuals, have at least some sort of certainty for the future, something they can predict and look onto. We have a podcast called Thinking Like a Bank and we just launched episode 51 today. Check out episode 51. We talked about what happens if there's chaos, you know, what if there's, you know, this Ukraine, Russia situation, How does that can impact us? We don't know. Nobody knows how long that war is going to last and the magnitude of it. Nobody really knows. But, you know, I guess we need, as business owners and individuals here, we need some sort of certainty of how do we take our cash with us into the future and grow it into the future and not risk at all.

So tell us, what is a cash value? Whole life insurance. What is that?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there's typically three types of life insurance out there. There's term, whole life and universal. So term has a set period of time. Right. It's either usually 10 years, 20 years, or 30 years. It's life insurance only. There's no cash value to it. It's just simple life insurance only. You use it for that certain period of time. There's a start date and end date. Whole life has a start date. It's life insurance. And there's also like a savings account portion to it that grows and earns interest and divide. Dividends are not guaranteed, but there's dividends involved with life insurance, with whole life insurance. So it grows over time. The cash value universal life is very similar to the both to term and whole life. It's a little bit complicated to explain, but it's pretty much another form of permanent cash value life insurance. But we're focused on the middle one. We're focused on whole life insure cash value whole life insurance, a special design, one not just any from any company, from any agent, but a special design cash value life insurance policy, whole life policy that allows you to build up cash in a to protect from market conditions. There's a lot of a ton of tax advantages with whole life insurance and to give you the ability to always have access to that money. Because here's one problem in 2008, right? So for the real estate investors listening to this podcast, you know what happened in 2008, right? A lot of people had properties, A lot of real estate investors, contractors, construction companies had money in real estate. And then a couple like compounding problems happened. So one problem that happened was the market crashed, the real estate market crashed, so all the values dropped significantly. And then after that happened, bank stopped loaning out money because the collateral went down. So it became too risky. Plus unemployment went up and then a lot of companies shut down. The stock market took a hit. So that meant that it wasn't a lendable society or it wasn't a lendable country. I mean not country, but a lot of people weren't lendable anymore. So debt changed the way banks started lending money. So what happened if you owned like 20 real estate properties, they were all paid off and then now you're stuck, right? Because you don't want to sell them at such a low rate, you might have to, you can't borrow against them because there's no bank available to loan you the money. And even if there was a bank to loan you the money, they're going to loan you amount that's much less than that because the values went down and the banks loan according to the value of it. So it had the spiraling effect. Like if this, then that all spiraling together with whole life insurance. That won't happen because it's not correlated with the stock market. When the stock market goes down or the real estate market goes down, the account values don't go down. That's one aspect of it. So you always have the value of it increasing, no matter what happens in the market. And then the other side to it is you have guaranteed access to the funding to the money, either through loans or withdrawals, regardless of how the economy does. So it's not based off of credit, nor is it based off of economical or financial external conditions. Banks loan out money according to the person's credit and according to the economy and the community we're in.

So how does your money Grow in a whole life plan.

Yeah. So let's say, for example, one of the companies we work with is Lafayette Insurance Company, Right? So Lafayette Insurance Company is a private, for profit life insurance company. And they have invested in the bond market. They give out loans to banks. They have. They invest in real estate, properties. They earn profits from that every year. So part of their profits every year get distributed back to the policy owners. Because it's a mutually owned life insurance company and because that's how they've structured their policies is to give dividends back to the policy owners. That's one way. The second way is they guarantee you an interest rate. It's a very small interest rate, nothing crazy. It was 4% up until 2022. And then a lot of. There was some regulations change. They dropped down to 3% guaranteed gross. And then there's also the dividends. But we're expecting the dividends are going to go up because dividends are positively correlated with interest rates. So as interest rates go up, so it's projected that dividend rates will go up as well. So that's how insurance. That's how somebody could have a cash value whole life insurance policy and have the cash in it grow over time, not just from the money they're putting into it, but also from the insurance company growing and then providing dividends and interest back to the accounts.

Okay, so let's say you took $100 and you put it into a whole life plan, and you took $100 and you put it into stock market S&P 500. What happens? Take us through the scenarios.

Yeah, so a lot of people do that. A lot of people will project that. They'll project. All right, what If I put $100 a month into a whole life policy ver the S&P 500 fund? So, number one is that the whole life policy is not meant to be an investment. It's meant to be a savings account. So it's meant to be used for investment. So what you could do is you could put, for example, fund the whole life policy and then borrow against that and then put in the stock market, which a lot of people do, a lot of our clients do. We help them structure things like that. And the second thing to do is you want. I guess it's a matter of both. And it's not meant to replace either one. I would recommend, like, I mean, there's so many different ways to give financial advice. Right. And so many rules to follow. But one thing I would recommend is the whole life part is just One of this, you know, one of the legs in your financial portfolio. It's not the whole financial portfolio, and it shouldn't be like either whole life insurance or the stock market. Like, I believe that, you know, people should be truly diversified. They should have some money in the stock market, some in whole life insurance, some in real estate, some in their business and different places. And I think, you know, like. And I use the word truly diversified. We talked about this on episode 51 on our show, truly diversified. Because some people might have money in the stock market in low risk, medium risk and aggressive, and then they might say that they're diversified, but all their money's in the stock market, and that's not truly diversified. Truly diversified is money. Somebody in the stock market, bonds in different markets in different areas, and even places that are not correlated or connected to each other. So the example of whole life insurance, if the stock market goes down, whole life insurance is still there. If the real estate market goes down, your whole life, you want some foundations in your financial plan.

So typically. Well, if you put $100 into whole life, you'd get a 3% return.

Yes, exactly.

If you put it in the stock market, you could get a 20% return or you could get a 20% loss.

Exactly. Yep. Yeah, well said.

So it's not much of a gamble, but it's not much of a return.

Precisely. It's not meant. Nobody gets rich off of whole life insurance. It's meant to preserve capital. It's meant to keep it. It's meant to keep your wealth, to have it outpace inflation. At the least, have it outpace inflation and have it outpace a savings account. Right. Because savings accounts nowadays give a tenth of a percent if debt or half a percentage, at least with the whole life policy, you can at least outpace that. Plus you get the tax advantages, plus you have it sitting somewhere that's not going to be impacted by market conditions. Plus there's no credit qualifications for the loan when you borrow against it. Plus there's some legal things, too, with litigation. In most states, it's protected from creditors and people trying to sue you. So there's a lot of other aspects other than rate of return that people I think should consider, because you mentioned a good point, is that the rate of return aspect. A lot of people come in and say, all right, what's the rate of return on it? We tell them 3% to say, no, thank you and go somewhere else. Potentially earn 12% or whatever, 10% in the stock market. And I see what they're thinking, they're thinking they want the most value out of their money. But there's still other aspects. The taxes, the protection, the economical conditions, other things that go into play other than rate of return. Plus you could use the policy for higher rates of returns. We have clients who fund whole life policies, and then from the funds in the policy, they borrow against those and then do private money lending where they're investing to real estate investors. And it actually inflates your overall return when you do it that way, when you have whole life with other lending, other investments. Because what happens is you get both. You get the growth from whole life insurance and you get the growth from the loans you're lending out, the private money lending you're lending out, or the other investments you have. And then those together give you a much higher rate of return when it's together, rather than just using one or the other. When you integrate them together, it gives you a compounding return, a much higher return than just using one without the other.

Is it an interest free loan that you give yourself?

So you would borrow the money from the insurance company, you would pay interest to the insurance company. It's typically a simple interest rate that's compounded in arrears. So at the end of the year, the interest is due and it doesn't compound on it. And then when you earn on your policy, you're earning compound interest. So what happens is that there's an arbitrage. What an arbitrage is is that it's the growth of your money even when you're using the money. So a lot of real estate investors do this. So they'll borrow, for example, $100,000 from their policy and then use it for real estate. And then when they pay it back, let's just say they paid $5,000 back to their policy. They may have earned that year, like $10,000 to their policy. So there was an arbitrage, a net gain of $5,000. They bought money at $105,000, they earned $110,000, and their split is $5,000. In that situation, there's a lot more that goes into it, but it gets to the point where the money outpaces, which brings it into a whole other topic of opportunity cost. So imagine if you just paid cash for everything. If you bought real estate with cash, you bought cars with cash, you invested in your business with cash, only cash. The downside to that is you would never earn interest on your money. You would lose the opportunity cost you could have earned on that interest. Had you spent that money, had you invested that money and then borrowed against it or saved it somewhere and then borrowed against it and then paid it back, you would never skip a beat on your interest. You would always keep earning interest even when you are buying real estate, buying cars, investing in your business or whatever else you're doing.

So are there different times in your life when whole life makes sense and times when it doesn't make sense, or does it always make sense?

Yeah, good question. So I don't think, you know, in financial, you know, that's one rule of financial planning is it's never like one solution for everybody. Like there are different situations. This is why, like you need to work with somebody who's unbiased, who's going to take a step back and really look at your financial situation. And you're right. There are some times where whole life insurance doesn't make sense for the people who, for example, who don't have much in reserves or much income, in my opinion, wouldn't really make sense to tie up that money into a life insurance policy because there's a capitalization period, right? There's a period of time where you're funding the policy and then your cash value is not going to match directly with your premiums going into it. There's going to be a dip. It's like when you start a business, you're not going to be profitable. Year one, there's going to be a slight dip to your business and then maybe a couple years later you would come out profitable. Same thing with life insurance. With whole life insurance, you might do a policy, for example, year one you put $10,000 in your cash value is year one is $6,000. So there was a cost to that insurance. But it's not about year one. If somebody's only focused on year one, then I would not recommend it to them. If somebody's focused on the next 10 or 20 years, I would absolutely recommend it to them. So there's a cost to you. Eventually the cash value exceeds the premiums paid to it. You end up coming out ahead. You get more out of the policy than you put into it in the later years, not in the first year. I actually don't know of any really investments where year one, without taking any risk, where year one you could just come out ahead. Maybe there's some bonds and things like that you could do where you come out ahead. But for the most part it's a long term play when you passively invest.

So then your goal is to just as the financial planner is to a find. Well, tell us, what is your goal as a financial planner?

Yeah, my goal is I really want to just help people solve their problems. That's how I stay in business. That's how I can get satisfaction out of. What I do is by solving problems, problems for people. So whether it's if somebody has debt they want to pay off efficiently, they want to get out of debt, I can help them with that. If they want to save for retirement, I could figure that, you know, we can, we can go through a solution for them. If they want to transition it from a full time employee to running a business and they need help with the financial aspects of that, we can help with that. That's. So that's kind of what I want. I want to be able to solve problems for people and concrete problems. Not just, you know, sell a mutual fund and say that that's a solution. You know, it's more concrete where the client actually says this helped me a lot. This helped me out this way. You know what I mean? They're saying it, they see the benefits of it.

So who's been your biggest mentor that's taught you the most because how old are you now?

I'm 32.

32. So you've got, you're competing out there in the marketplace with guys that are 60.

Yes.

Have been doing this for 30 years. So why should somebody choose you over somebody that's been in the field for 30 years.

Yeah. And just full disclosure. So thankfully, thank God, I've actually, you know, I've been in a situation where it was me or another advisor who's, you know, been in the industry for 30 years and I've been thankfully chosen over them a couple of things. So number one, I'm part of an awesome team. Right. So I'm part of the Bank On Yourself group. We're a group of advisors of 300 advisors in North America. We have, you know, weekly training calls. We had to go through a credentialing program to get everything to get accepted and to be able to provide these types of policies and solutions for clients. So that has a huge impact on my success. And then number two, I have a mentor too. Right now. I've been with him, working with him for about two years. His name is Mark Willis. You could actually check out his podcast called not yout Average Financial Podcast. So he's helped me out a lot. He's a big reason to my success. He's one of the top, he is the top. Bank on yourself professional out of 300 advisors in North America. He is number one since he started with this program. So I have a lot of back, a lot of support with, like, the top advisors in the country. So I'm really thankful for that. And then I also. I'm very. You know, we talked about this before we started recording. Right. So, like, I like to simplify things. So I've worked with clients before who said they've read books, they've listened to podcasts, and they still haven't figured out this concept. You know, and then 20 minutes on the phone with me, they did. And not to brag, but that's been practice on my end, I've been practicing this skill, and not just this skill particularly, but also the skill of conveying subjects and concepts to people and breaking them down into smaller and more manageable pieces. I think I'm very good at that. I take in very complex things, very complex situations, and then breaking them down to the point where somebody who's, you know, 10 years old can understand exactly what's going on. And I think, you know, it's kind of like Albert Einstein's quote, Right. If you can't explain something in very simple terms, then you don't understand it properly. I'm a big advocate of that. And I think that, you know, thankfully, that a lot of clients have seen that in me. They've. They've been wanting to work with me because I don't just start off the conversation by talking about bond rates and the S&P 500 and all these things that are irrelevant really to them. It's not about the company. It's not about the percentages, not about the rate of return. It's about working with individuals who can listen to you and who could implement things that truly matter to you. Not just things that if a client just says, I want 10% on my money, and then you say, okay, I find something for 10% of your money, that's not an adequate solution. What is it about the 10% that you want to accomplish and then going further into that? But that's what I think that, you know, the advantage that I have over people who have been in this industry for a really long time.

So why is it important for you? What do you see as the benefit in simplifying things for people?

Yeah.

Why is simplicity important?

Yeah. People need to understand what's going on. Right. They need to understand. They need to learn. They need to remember what you're saying and how things work. It's a huge factor to how they live. Right. The Way you live has a lot to do with what you learn, what you know about the world. That's a huge impact on the way you live. So I think people need to understand those things. Plus, there's a lot of chaos out there right now. There's a lot of confusion. A lot of people don't know the details of things. So if you could really break it down and it's actually very satisfying, you know, to take something hard or complex and then break it down and then make it simple to understand it, it creates momentum. Right. And even for the person, like in my shoes. Right. It's good to know that I can work with a client and they're kind of all over the place financially and we could, we can solve a problem, you know. So I think it's very important. I think that too, that if you're working with a professional, they need to make sure that they're making things very simple for you and not making things more complex or confusing.

What did it feel like to you when you took the why discovery and it came up with Simplify and you started to read about it? How did that feel for you?

I was kind of surprised, but not really. So I was. As I was going, it was like I figured out like 10 or 20 questions. I was going through each one, and then when I got the result, I was like, really? That's who I am? But then I thought about it further after that. I was like, yeah, you know what? That actually does make sense. Like, I've done podcasts, many podcasts, where we're finished recording. And then the host said, you know what? I literally, like, for example, we'll be talking about infinite banking, like how we were talking about, and they'll say, you know what, it makes a lot of sense now. You broke it down. I remembered everything you said. It's very clear. So, yeah, so it does align with what I think that making things very simple. And it is kind of what I expected.

That's great. So you have one of the most rare whys. Simplify is one of the most rare. And it's fascinating to me because people with your why get stuff done? Man, they just have a way to. They're so efficient and results oriented and super valuable to be around. What's the difference to you in simplifying something simple versus something complex?

Yeah, get stuff done. Yeah, for sure. You definitely, when you simplify things, you see a clearer side of it. Because one problem like I used to have without get with when I couldn't get things done is because it was too complicated.

Right.

To do so, like you weren't even going to do it anymore. But when you break it down into, like more simple terms, you get more things done. So that's very important. Right. Getting things done. It's especially in entrepreneurship, if you can't get a lot of things done efficiently because there's a lot of work involved with running a business and you need to be able to get a lot of small little things done in a day. Time flies by. I don't know why, but time flies by as an entrepreneur because there's so many things that need to be done. Yeah. And breaking it down, that's something I do like not to brag, but I'm very good at doing a lot of different things. Keeping track of clients, business plans, you know, retirement accounts, taking care of my immediate family, my parents, you know, things like there's a lot going on, so I have to be able to do a lot of things in a day. Yeah. One thing I do is I have like systems. Like, so I have everything in a calendar. And then every morning I go into the calendar and I write out each task one by one. And then after I completed, I highlight it so that way I could see what's done. And then it also creates momentum to get more things done. And it's tasks as simple as send an email to this person all the way to finalize analysis for a client. You know what I mean? So like varies and there's different degrees. I typically put the easier ones on top of so that way I can go through them quicker. Some people, I've got pushback from this. Some people say it's better to put the harder ones on top and then, you know, like the same. Swallow the frog first.

Yeah.

You know, so test it out. You know, test it out. Different things, people have different. It's gonna be different for you. But that's some of the things that works for me. And I like, I like making things more simple. Life is already complicated as it is.

You know, it's great for the listeners to get to experience somebody that has the why of simplify. Because there's only like 4% of the population that has your why. And people with your why are super valuable to have on a team. People that over complicate things are not as valuable to have on a team because they make it so complex that the only person that can do anything with it is them.

Yep. Yep.

Right?

Yes.

So if you were to start to build your messaging in your marketing, in your branding, do you Think it would be valuable for your clients to know that your why is to simplify.

Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. I think it's important because one thing that I do is, and I've seen success from this, working with clients, is that I constantly reiterate, you know, both of our whys, like, why I'm helping them and then why they are implementing too. Because along the lines, it's very easy for people to forget. Like, what do you mean? What are we doing here? You know, like, why are we having this financial. That happens a lot. Like, you know, people are just like, they need. They need kind of reassurance. So providing them the reassurance of, like, what's going on and why. And I've noticed that when you start with why, like Simon Sinek, you know, start with why, it definitely lays out the foundation for the following things. I've noticed, too, that I've even, like, subconsciously, like, I've chosen, like, titles of videos and podcasts to listen to and watch just based off of the titles. Like, instead of me saying why I became a financial planner is probably going to be more appealing than how I became a financial planner or what financial planners do. So I think it's a very power. I think it's probably the most powerful word in the English word or any. Any language with the word why. Like the reason why you do things.

Yeah.

See, I think from a marketing perspective, it's definitely the most intriguing part of.

The marketing message, especially if you take it and apply it to why should I choose you?

Yeah.

Right. So as a prospect, I'm sitting here and I meet you for the first time, and what's going through my mind is, why should I choose Sari? Because there's a lot of financial advisors, right? They're everywhere, just like anything. So they're trying to figure out why should they choose you? And if you don't tell them, then they won't know. So the better able you are to articulate why you do what you do and what it is you believe believe, the more you will be able to attract those people that believe what you believe. So your ideal client, Sari, is somebody who wants it simple, wants it easy to understand, doesn't want all the fluff.

Yes.

Doesn't want all the extra. They just want simple, easy to follow instructions on what do I need to do. I want to make sure it's getting done and I want to know what's going to get me the results that I want. Does that make sense?

Exactly. Yeah, makes sense. Like, my look, people who think like you are, you're most likely to attract those people.

Yes. Who believe what you believe.

Yes.

And so if you're able to articulate it, say it, use it in your messaging, use it in your marketing, use it on your podcast, use it. When you sit down with your prospect, it instantly cuts to the chase to why they should choose you. So if you just sat down and said, I believe that success happens when we make things simple and easy to understand, when we don't overcomplicate it, where we go direct to the point, let's figure out what you want, let's figure out how to get there. Let's figure out what you need to get there. That's when we're going to have success, and that's what you can get from me. I'm not going to give you all the fluff. I'm not going to try to sell you stuff you don't need. I'm not going to try to get you to buy whatever. It's going to be simple and easy to understand. Ah, well, now we have a completely different conversation than I wonder what this guy's going to try to sell me.

You're so right. Exactly right.

Because that's. He's going to throw me into insurance because he makes the most money.

Right.

Or whatever the story is.

Right.

We create a narrative. But your ability to just cut to the chase and tell me what it is you believe. We didn't get to do your how and what yet, but if you we had your how and what it would. I'm going to take a stab at what I think your how and what is just based on our conversation. So I'm going to say that your why, which we already know, is to make things simple and easy to understand.

Yes.

How you do that is by making sense of complex and challenging concepts.

Yes.

And ultimately what you bring, is it more. Do you feel more successful when you're able to show somebody a path or when you're able to help them in whatever way they need help?

I think the path for sure.

So then I would say ultimately, what you bring is the right way to get results. Predictable, consistent results. So I'll say it again. Your why is to make things simple and easy to understand so that everybody can do it. How you go about doing that is by making sense of the complex challenges that they're facing. Solve their problems. Ultimately, what you bring is the right way to get consistent and predictable results. You bring them the path, you bring them the map to get where they want to go. How does that feel to you?

I mean, I definitely feel like I know more about myself now, hearing those things.

Does that feel right, though?

It does, yeah. Yeah, I would definitely agree. And I. I do agree that it does make sense. And. And I kind of noticed it, too. Laying out the path, laying out the solution, and then having a predictable. It creates more reassurance for everybody, for myself, and for other people that I work with. Like, I've thought about, for example, like, what if I were to be a consultant for a company, for example, a sales organization. Right. Well, it's very hard to predict sales because you never know what's going on in the customer's mind. You can't control that, but you can control things that lead up to that. So, like, you know, the amount of times you reach out to somebody, the length of time you speak to people, there are predictable things that you could do that will, you know, result, give you the results you're looking for.

Yes. Yeah. I love it. So, Sari, if there's people listening to this, well, you know, I have one last question for you.

Yes.

What's been the best piece of advice you've ever gotten or the best piece of advice you've ever given?

So the best piece of advice I've gotten was from my mentor who I mentioned. Mark Willis says, never take anything personally. So there's a lot of, you know, emotions out there in the world, and a lot of people could take things, and I do. I do sometimes take things personally, but I think having the ability to not take things personally will definitely put you ahead, especially in entrepreneurial mindset. And getting ahead is never take anything personally. There's so many other things going on in the world and other people's minds that it's the majority of time not intended to you or at you. And kind of having that mindset of never taking anything personal.

Love it. I love it. So, Sarah, if there's people listening and they want to get ahold of you, they want to contact you, they want to work with you, or they want to listen to your podcast, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Yeah, absolutely. So if. Yeah, if you're looking to kind of take a different approach, you know, financially and you have an open mind, you can go to thinkinglikeabank.com you can download a free ebook there. You could schedule an appointment with me. You can check out our podcast called Thinking Like a Bank. All that is from the website thinkinglikeabank.com awesome, Sari.

Thank you so much. For being here. I enjoyed getting to know you and meet another simplify.

Yeah, me too. Thanks Gary. Thanks for having me on.

Thank you so much for listening to the beyond you'd why Podcast. If you have not yet discovered your why, you can do so@yinstitute.com with the code PODCAST50. If you love the beyond you'd why podcast, please don't forget to subscribe below and leave us a review and rating on whatever platform you are using to listen to our podcast so that you can be part of bringing the why and the yos to the world. Thank you and have a great week.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be to sure sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez and I'll see you on the next episode.