Tom Wall Reveals the Best Kept Secret in Personal Finance

It's hard to believe. I started in the business 22 years ago, almost 23 as a college intern with Northwestern Mutual. And I think they found me at a career fair and I was just looking for ways to get in the finance industry and they told me I could make a lot of money and I could do a lot of good as a financial advisor and immediately I was in. So I spent my entire senior semester at college, basically, you know, studying for licensing exams, learning the business and you know, talking to people about life insurance and all the good that we do in financial planning world. And after four years of that, you know, I actually ended up joining the home office of a major mutual carrier as a life insurance wholesaler. You know, eventually got really good at that and they promoted me to run an entire marketing team, you know, doing some sales leadership roles and marketing and in the process was studying heavily. You know, I ended up putting together a couple advanced degrees and finally a PhD in retirement income planning around, around that time and I just got so convicted around you know, the message that we tell in this business and the fact that there's so few people talking powerfully about where whole life insurance dividend paying, participating whole life insurance from some of these, you know, 175 year old institutions and where that fits inside of a plan versus I think, you know, some of the people out there thinking that it's a bad deal or it's, or it's something that's being sold by commission driven advisors and it's not good for the clients. When all of my research and all of my background told me that no, I, I don't, I don't just think, I know scientifically that this is probably the best kept secret in personal finance when you really understand where it fits. So you know, here I am today, you know, five years after making that decision to leave that home office and I'm on stages, you know, every, I'm in a different city every week now. You know, I've published the book, I do, I do keynote talks to, to you know, financial advisors, you know, tens of thousands across, across the industry. I, I host a very large, you know, 1600 member group called Whole Life Masterminds. Really focused on you know, putting you know, these high end plans into people's, you know, you know, financial, overall financial plans and it's been, it's been the honor of a lifetime to do it and it's, it's grown so much that we're hosting large live events now, you know, first class, you know, 400 advisor events, you know, just, just coming together, talking about some of these core principles that in my opinion built the industry. You know, the Morgan Stanley's and these investment houses, they didn't build the industry. The financial planning world that we know was really created by these major mutuals and the advisors that they, that they recruited and developed over the last several decades. So that's where I'm at today, just really carrying the torch for this part of our space and talk and helping advisors talk powerfully about it to their clients.

So two things you mentioned. You know, you got pretty much recruited at a pretty young age looking to make some money. So you were attracted by the, the money aspect that you could do some good and serve people. Was there anything else? Just more maybe like personally that also was creating that drive for you. Because what I've been able to observe and see over the years, observing highly successful entrepreneurs like yourself and even Caleb, Garrett Gunderson, many of the people that were at the events that I've seen you at, they often are just driven by something, maybe a faith, maybe, maybe something personal happened to them in their, in their family. So there's like that aspect plus getting early insight or maybe a mentor into a specific field that is non traditional, just, just totally different, that is producing phenomenal results. As you mentioned earlier, like you've got scientific data that proves how this asset can fit into somebody's portfolio. So is there anything additional other than like the attraction of making money and helping people out with their finances? Is there something else?

You know, if I'm being honest, when I was 21, when I entered the business, I just wanted to make a lot of money and I was a little bit of a nerd. I loved math and I loved numbers and I was fascinated by the financial world and investing and all that stuff. And I, I thought how cool would it be to be a financial advisor and make a whole bunch of money and have all kinds of clients and be influential in my community and all that stuff that drives us to do that. But what changed my career was when I got really fascinated around the behavioral finance part of it. And it's really why I titled my book Permission to Spend. It's kind of a nod to the fact that you can do all the investing that you want. You can spend your whole life living like a miser and saving every dollar until you're a multimillionaire. But if you're not spending it al along the way, who cares? It's just a scorecard. It's. If it's not actually driving a better life. If you're not actually getting life experiences and you're not creating memories with your family because you're just hoarding wealth, that's not a good outcome either. So for me, I got really fascinated very early on with this whole concept of using insurance and annuities and actuarial science inside of your plan. Not as just another asset class, which it is, it's a way to accumulate wealth. But, but by, but it shifts risk out of your portfolio. You know, the risk that you would typically have to take if you want to have, you know, those big outsized returns that you're bragging about. You know, investing in businesses, real estate, equities, all this stuff carries a lot of risk and it's very cyclical. But there's just this, this north star of, you know, dividend paying, participating whole life insurance, an asset that always goes up in value and along the way protects your family at any stage, whether you're young or 90 years old. You know, it's, it's, it's protect you along the way. And because of that, that, that is the unlock that is actually what allows people to invest more aggressively elsewhere, take chances elsewhere, because they've got that backstop and it allows them to, you know, actually realize a true retirement or, you know, financial independence, however you define that in modern days, because you know that the people that you love are taken care of and the obligations that you morally feel toward them are met. So that's, that was, that was the big change for me. It was, it's not about math. It's not about getting a half a percent higher return, which is what everyone online like the, I call it the financial, like the CNBC world, like, it's financial entertainment. We're all just like betting on which stock is going to go up. That's, that's silly. That's not financial planning. These tougher conversations with these unsexy products, which I joke around, I think it's pretty sexy when you really understand it. But for the, for the, the average consumer doesn't sound like it. I, that's really where changes happen. That's really where impact is made.

I help moms, women build wealthy kingdoms that will last forever to have authority over their finances by helping them pay off debt, increase cash flow, lower your expenses, build your credit, all using your own income.