You Winning Life Podcast Ep. 102-Derrick Van Ness "Have a Big Life"

Hey everybody, today's guest is a wealth strategist who is passionate about helping people reach their full potential. His company, Big Life Financial, is focusing on removing the mystery and misinformation surrounding money and financial strategies so people can live Their Biggest Life. So Derek Van Ness is a financial strategist. He has lived all over the country from DC, San Diego, Brooklyn, Texas, and now is back home in Utah. So Derek, thanks so much for hanging out with us today.

Happy to be here, Jason. Sounds like it's going to be fun.

I'm very much looking forward to— we already connected over a good bourbon whiskey. Place out in, out in your neck of the woods that I, I, I heard about. So I know we're already going in the right direction. Um, so what I want to start the conversation off is, of all the things in the world that you could have done, you went into wealth strategy, financial planning, helping, uh, small businesses and, and professionals create a life, um, so they can have, you know, success and stability and contribute to the world. What was the thing that made you decide that this is what you want to be doing?

Well, it, it's kind of a long convoluted road and I won't go down all the side, you know, side roads, but I didn't know that this is where I would end up. Of course, you know, I thought honestly coming out of college, I wanted to be a dance teacher. Like I loved competitive ballroom dancing and swing dancing and all this kind of stuff. And I thought that's what I wanted to do, but I also got a business degree because I was pretty sure that I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I figured everything's a business and this is gonna serve me no matter where I end up. So I kind of went that route and got my business degree, love economics for whatever reason. It is just like my, I don't know, it's my spirit animal if there's such a thing in topics. And from there ended up with my dance passion and my business knowledge. And I came outta school, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but once again, I took the approach that, I just know that I need to learn how to sell and talk to people. Because if you can't sell, you can't be in business for yourself. And I was sure about that. So long story short, I went, went into a sales job, did about 50,000 cold calls over the couple of years. So that kind of got rid of my fear of talking to people. And then I transitioned into— at the time, I didn't realize it was going to be a big thing. But I transitioned into house flipping because I had a construction background. And I was grinding it out in LA, driving an hour each day, getting up at 5 in the morning, getting home at 7 at night. To make, you know, $50,000, $60,000 a year. And I thought, there's got to be something better than this. And if I could just buy an old house and fix it up and make it pretty, and then sell it a couple of times a year and make the same amount of money, that sounds like a lot less work. And as soon as I got into that business and thought, well, I should get educated, I realized there's like a whole world there, a whole business. And this is around 2001. So flipping houses like wasn't a thing. It was just called buy a house and fix it and sell it. And I just really realized that I loved businesses and I love systems and I love optimization and I love all these things that you have to do to be successful in life. But when you have a business, all that's on steroids, right? There's no safety net, so you really have to figure it out. And I just discovered I loved that. And then 2008 happened. And when 2008 happened, I was in Southern California. I had just been hit by a snowmobile while snowboarding, so I had a broken femur, laying in bed on Vicodin. Knowing what I now know about how that can go, I'm really happy that I got out of that okay. But in the meantime, the market crashed and I lost a couple million bucks. And that was kind of a reset for me. A good friend of mine came and swooped me up. His name's Garrick Anderson. He's kind of a financial guru. And one of my best friends said, said, hey, you've got the business skills, you've got kind of the spiritual background that we're looking for, because we're doing more than just money, money, money. You've got— you've been a business owner, you've made lots of money, you're not going to be intimidated by working with these people who are making six and seven figures, like really come to work for me. And I started working with him. And what I discovered is that I really love working with people a lot more than I love working with houses. Because houses are about bugs and inspections and things that are broken down and decrepit. And sure, you get to do all the pretty stuff. But you know, my job, once we got all the systems styled in was to put out the fires. I just had to deal with the crappy stuff that no one else wanted to or could deal with. And that's kind of a crappy way to build your business to where you have to come in and like really deal with the hardest stuff all day, every day when you've got 15 or 20 projects going at a time. So, uh, yeah. So, so what I discovered is I love working with people. I love helping people and I love systems and optimization. And that kind of led me down this road. It took a couple of years and working with with my friend's company, we— I worked with probably 1,000, 1,500 business owners. So I just got a ton of reps. I got to see what's working, what isn't working psychologically, financially. You know, it all ties together in a small business. And that was primarily who we were working with. And so it just got me a ton of experience. And I just, I've just loved it, you know, and of course, you acquire a skill set, and it's fun to continue to go with that.

So this idea of finding a mentor, finding a friend, but really I think like, right, friends can be mentors, but they show up right in the same way and to decide that they're one and both sometimes is incredibly powerful. So, so getting connected, were you already connected with, with, with Garrett or were you, this was something that evolved as you were already, you were looking for some type of resource?

Yeah, I actually had known him from, from college. I was in college. He came down as a high school kid to a camp I was a counselor for. It was a camp for talented high school kids, and he certainly got on to be a very talented guy, very successful. And, and so we became friends when he was like 16 and have been ever since. And quite honestly, like, he ended up marrying my sister years later. So we're, we're very, very close. We're family. Yes, we are. He's the closest thing I have to a brother.

So this, this mentorship status, walk us through like, you know, what were some of the key things? And it's not just some of the financial stuff, but some of this you know, whether we want to call it mindset, whether we want to call it leadership, right? This whole world that we're now dancing in, you and I, even though I'm coming from the therapy side, you're coming from the financial side, it's all about helping people reach their success, helping them reach their passion, helping them reach their purpose, right? You also coming from a similar background. I'm a, um, I'm a musician. So you have that from, from one side of the creative arts. I have it from the other side of the creative arts, but they all weave together and we want to bring it all to the table with what we're doing.

Mm-hmm.

What were some of the things as you were going through this difficult time that, that Garrett helped guide you through, um, that probably is universal, but you needed to hear the most at that stage of life?

Well, you know, when I first got pulled into it, like there, there wasn't a ton of handholding, but he had a structure in place and he had some guys who were ahead of me on the trail. So they kind of took me through it. But what I discovered was the first thing is if you come from a place of principles, then all the specificity of your situation doesn't get quite so emotional, right? Because if we can determine A works and B doesn't function very well, and you can look at your situation, then you aren't quite as likely to try and justify B, right? So it was a big, big thing for us to start with principles and sort of universal laws and things that we know function and things that we know don't function. And so that was probably the first thing that gave me a really nice financial foundation. At the time, I think I was still going through a little bit of shock because, you know, I had a business where I was making a ton of money and doing really well. And then I literally went negative to like below zero to where I didn't even have money to put gas in my car for a short period of time. And so I had to, I had to kind of rebuild my confidence and what I think I really discovered, and this wasn't as much through, uh, through his coaching as just through the experience was learning to retrust myself again. Because I think when we make bad decisions, it's very easy to not trust yourself, right? Oh, I made a bad decision. I made a mistake and I suffered or others suffered for that. And I had to forgive myself and I had to really allow myself permission and believe that I was worthy of success again. And as silly as it sounds, being in that position where people were paying thousands of dollars per hour to work with me and esteemed me very highly was really good and For me to take that on like really as a responsibility, these people have entrusted me with their financial future, really pushed me to step up my game and realize, again, I can do this. I made a mistake, but that doesn't mean that I'm foolish at everything all the time. And as the years have gone by, I realized that I wasn't the only one that got hit by that tidal wave, but at the moment it felt very personal. So I think the biggest thing was just learning to trust myself. Truly in, in the space of adversity. And that was a big, big lesson. And also surrender, um, surrendering the things that I cannot control, because at the time when you're successful, at least this is what happened to me psychologically. And maybe you're like analyzing me, but at the time I've always been a person who wants to do more than, you know, carry more than my share and never want to be a burden and always take care of everybody. And so I was always just carrying this huge load on my shoulders. And I got to the point where I couldn't carry it. Right. And letting all of that fall off of my shoulders felt like I was failing everyone in my life. Come to find out they didn't think that way, but it sure felt like that to me. And so learning to let go of a lot of that and surrender a lot of that was a huge catharsis for me. And I remember the day I was sitting in a parking lot at the bank because I had to call my friend and ask for some money to just get through the week. And I was at the point where I was starting to make money, but I just hadn't been paid yet. And it was a real humbling experience. Thankfully, I had good people in my life, but I just let it all go. I surrendered it up to my higher power. And that's just offered me such freedom from that point forward in my life. So those are some of the big things psychologically. And I'm not saying that for you. I'm just saying, if I didn't have those in place, I couldn't have moved forward with a lot of the other financial stuff I learned because I was just too stuck in I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy, those kinds of things because I did this bad thing and not being able to forgive myself and move forward. I was really stuck in a kind of one foot in, one foot out all the time, and you just can't get anywhere that way.

Right. Well, what I find, especially in this young professional entrepreneurial space, is that they are trying to overjuggle too many things at once versus having this commitment into one thing and beat the drum over and over and over and over and don't give up too quickly, which is what our mentality, I believe, has become. Over the last decade. And what I'm hearing this process unpackaged for you was that you already put significant amount of effort. You know, that the money was in escrow. It wasn't like, oh, if I do this and this, then maybe I could make this money. The money was already in escrow. It just wasn't in your lap yet, which allowed you to then to feel at some level confident enough to know that you'll be able to repay it. There's so many stories I hear, and we all know this, and this has kind of been the last, you know, all these people who go in front of someone, can I borrow money? And then they have a difficult time paying it back. Is this the structures? What you were talking about, right? It's, it's in a way you're, you were creating yourself to be a person that other people can invest in. Getting you through this short-term bump wasn't, I'm not giving you a handout, I'm investing in you because I know you will be able to pay this back. I know you would be, you're already there. It's just right, waiting in escrow for you, proof in the pudding of what you're doing. And so I think that's kind of where people kind of get stuck in their own selves of, of finding their own proof in the pudding. Right. Of not— like you were saying, like, I had to let go of all of those stories in order for me to know that I'm worthwhile of being able to achieve success.

Yep. Yep. And that, that took a lot of work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, what, what was the moment where you knew that your effort and mindset and psychology and healing and whatever, whatever cliché words we want to throw at it in that journey was working and you were on the right path? What was that moment where you're like, Oh wait, this is okay. Like everything's going to work out for me again.

Well, I've had a couple of those, right? It comes off in layers for me. But the first one I remember is I was really having just a hard time. I kind of had this, my net worth equals my self-worth, right? Type of thing. And at the time I was making decent money, but I was living in New York City. And when you're surrounded by such opulence, even if you're making six figures, you're just barely getting by.

And that's just on the taxes of California and/or New York. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That whole thing, of course, is just makes it even worse. And I remember like I spent a lot of time, uh, I was working with, uh, with a mentor on, on the self-worth thing. And I, at the time, like just did, did a lot of mirror work where I looked in the mirror and like, I don't know if you've ever really taken time to like look in your own eyes and like really see what's in there. And, uh, and I just felt empty and she was really having me work on just loving myself. As silly as that sounds, it's like profoundly important. And at first it just felt like I was up against the glass wall. I just, I just couldn't get any traction. Like I didn't believe it. I really didn't believe it, which was interesting because I was getting feedback from so many other people about how much they loved me and how wonderful I was. And I just couldn't hear it. And I remember the day that I thought, oh my gosh, I'm really getting some traction. Like I really believe this. It's in there. It's really in there. I'm not just making this thing up. And I do remember that I was actually on the subway and I was spending like, you know, my 40-minute ride into the city, into Times Square, 'cause I was living in Brooklyn at the time. I was spending a lot of that time just like really like kind of doing affirmations and really thinking through and just digging deep, actually trying to pretend as if it were true to see if I could find some truth in it. And when I started to get that traction, that was my first big step of like, okay, it's in there. I'm starting to uncover it. I've dug and dug and dug. And finally I'm like hitting the treasure chest. Like, oh, there's something to find here. That was a huge step for me. And it seemed like it really— I sometimes make the comparison of it's like a knot. Everything's tied up really tight. And at first you just can't. Can't really get anywhere. But as the knot loosens, it happens faster and faster and faster. And so it just all unraveled, sort of whatever stories and narrative I've built— I had built around myself at that point. That was a really big one for me. And then I think rebuilding my business for the third time, just really getting traction, seeing that what I was doing was really impacting people's lives and coming back to, hey, what I do matters, the work I do matters, I'm really good at what I do, this is important. It really just validated all of what I'd been telling myself, but sometimes, you know, you're kind of operating on faith. And at that point when it really started to have impact and people really started to thank me and people broke down in tears and other kinds of things, I was like, yep, this is it. This is, I'm back. I'm really here again. So I know those are kind of abstract, but those are a couple of the key moments for me where, you know, you're running around, you're lost, and you just find a guidepost and you're like, okay, I'm on the right path here. Because sometimes in the entrepreneurial world, it's big and wide open, which is super awesome, but can be really intimidating and scary.

Yeah, and lonely at a lot of times too, right? Because the vulnerability of being in that space, there's a lot of bravado, there's a lot of I'm kicking ass, there's a lot of look what I'm doing versus here's where I need help. And one of the words that's coming to my mind that is used both in the financial space as well as in personal development and business growth. So the overlap between those three is the word legacy. And I find that in all of those worlds, we need to look at long-term versus short-term. And especially now, right, it's the beginning of 2021, there's so much chaos, even more chaos than there was in 2020. It's just added on. And, and, and we, we, we look at everything that's going on in the world as a short-term— what's going to happen next week, what's going to happen next month— versus we have to realize that there's a long-term game at play, and we have the long-term plan, long-term legacy plan. So let's get into some nitty-gritty, because now I want to really, you know, move from the, the psychology to the strategy and talk, and talk legacy when it comes to financial stability. Because, right, we also have to understand that the psychology, the mindset of money, the understanding your relationship to money, your beliefs about money, all that, right, culture, family, gender, whatever, all that stuff is very relevant, but there's still stuff that we strip through that is, you know, again, universal and applies to everybody. So, so jump off for me from the perspective of creating legacy through financial strategies, what that means to you and how we should be implementing that.

Yeah. Okay. So there, there's a couple of pieces to that. The first one is legacy. I was a sole purpose coach for business owners for a long time. And that was a lot about like finding out, you know, what, who am I as a human and what am I here to do? And like that, that can be really big. And one of the things we had to do to allow people to tackle that was not necessarily like trying to figure out the rest of your life, right? But really understanding what's important to me right now. The power is in the present. And so we have to start where we're at. And so for most people, if you don't already have a strategy in place, the first thing you have to do, you know, I wrote an article and one of the most highlighted things on that article is, I think it's been read 7 or 8,000 times, is that the grand is made up of the minuscule, right? It's the grains of sand that create the mountain. And so we have to start with the grains of sand, and nobody wants to do the grains of sand. They want to get to the mountaintop. But the truth is, you know, you, you have to start where you're at. So systematizing wealth building is key. And so for most people, that starts with systematizing savings. Now, nobody wants to save, they all want to invest. But if you don't ever save, you don't ever get enough money together to significantly invest. Right. And so I don't— I'm, I'm personally not a huge advocate of 401s, IRAs, and these kinds of things for for business owners because I believe their money is better spent on things that they know about, things they care about, things they control like their own business and their areas of expertise. You can just, you can keep risk much lower, get much higher rates of return, you can impact outcomes. So many things that I think are better. But at the end of the day, the reason that the 401s and the IRAs at least do quite well for a lot of people is it systematizes savings. The money comes out before you even get it. So if you don't have that in your life, in some way, shape, or form, you want to set it up. And it could be as simple as setting up a sweep account. Every— if you get paid on the 1st and the 15th, then on the 2nd and the 16th, 10, I think 10 to 20% of your money should get swept over to a savings account. Right. Um, if you're a business owner, you got to take taxes into account, but you, you really want to be saving 10 to 20% of what you're earning. It gets swept out of there and it starts to build up somewhere. And I think you should build up an emergency account, uh, just for the psychological part of it. You know, I think you, once again, universally, your ability to earn, whether it's as an employee or as a business owner, is your number one asset. That's where wealth is actually built. I know people see it in the stock market and they see it in real estate and they see it in all these other things, but usually to put the money in the stock market, to build the real estate portfolio, you had to make a decent income. Because if you're only putting in a dollar a week, you're not going to get anywhere, right? You have to earn the money before you can save it, before you can grow it. So psychologically, those are all, I think, key things is not being— is being humble enough to start by saving if you're not already doing that. Now, if you're already doing these other things, then the next tier here, and this is what I think a lot of people don't talk about, and my understanding is you're probably listening to this in probably March-ish, is taxes are a really big deal, right? Especially for business owners, because there's so much you can do. And I don't care if you're making millions of dollars or only making $75,000 a year. Taxes are generally a pretty significant portion of your income. So if we can get tax efficient, in other words, not pay unnecessary taxes, that's a huge deal. Because, uh, when I was working with Garrett's firm, we did an audit of all of our clients. And these are people who have CPAs and they have tax pros working for them. But on average, per $100,000 of income, people were overpaying $11,300. Right? So a lot of my current clients make $200,000 to $700,000 a year. That's $20,000 to $70,000 a year. They're probably overpaying and truly gets worse as you go up the ladder because those tax brackets, you know, when you're in a 37% tax bracket plus your state, like if you're in California, you're, you're giving Uncle Sam almost half your money or New York.

Right.

So it's a, it's a really big deal. And so I think being tax efficient as you go really makes a big difference. And, you know, if you're making as a business owner, you know, you can make $150,000 but have all the write-offs to only show $40,000 or $50,000. And if you're only paying $3,000 or $5,000 in taxes, you may not need a tax pro yet. You should probably have a bookkeeper though, so you know, and can be proactive. But once you start to crest that hill, $7,000 to $10,000 that you're paying out in taxes per year, it's worth having a tax pro. You know, they're probably going to cost you $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 versus TurboTax or the guys at H&R Block who don't really know what they're doing. But the truth is, if you're in those lower tax brackets, it's not as big a deal. But tax efficiency is huge. My, my investment advisor that I work with, we partner on a lot of clients and work together. One of his cornerstone rules, and I've adopted it as truth myself, is that investing is only as powerful as the tax strategy that accompanies it. If you make all this money but have to give half of it away in taxes, was it really? I mean, crushes your ROI, right? So that's another big thing. And then I think the third sort of foundational thing that I talk to people about that I don't know if I've ever heard other people really talk about, everybody talks about return on investment. ROI. I'm a huge believer in what I call ROE, return on emotion. How does it make you feel? How does it impact your quality of life? Because if more money means a lower quality of life, to me, that's just, that's not a good trade-off, right? And so this is where things like, should I pay my house off? What should I invest in? Um, how much savings should I have? These are all emotion questions, right? Because if you're putting money into things you don't believe in, it's going to undermine your integrity. If you don't have enough savings in place and you're always looking over your shoulder and operating from fear, doubt, and worry, you're going to make less optimal decisions. I won't call them bad, but a lot of times that's where bad decisions come from is desperation, fear. You know, people get into survival mode, right? And they're operating from the wrong part of their brain. So really understanding the impact of what do my financial decisions do to me as a human being? How do they impact me? How do they impact my significant other, my family, my interactions with clients and teammates and employees and all that stuff? It really makes a big difference because if you're messed up, especially in a small business or as an employee, how you go, your income goes. If you're doing well, chances are real good it's on the up. If you're in a— if you're a mess and struggling and frustrated and fearful, chances are it's on the down. And that's kind of the beginning of the equation. We got to have that working. Otherwise, everything else doesn't work because if you don't make the money, you can't save the taxes or save the dollars or invest it or grow it or protect it or any of that stuff.

Yes, there's one concept I would love for you to break down that I wonder if most people don't take into consideration. Um, and I've had this conversation with other people in the financial space and it doesn't get shared enough. And that's the concept of how inflation and dollar amount in 2020, 2021 is not going to be— when you see like, oh, well, if you put this into an account in the next 25 years, you'll have $500,000, but $500,000 in 20 years— to my assumption at 3% inflation every year— is not going to be worth $500,000.

Well, it won't buy what $500,000 today buys. That's correct. And that's one of the large flaws in what I see with like traditional financial planning is they kind of ask you, how much money do you need to live on? And a lot of people say, well, I need to live on $100,000 a year or whatever their number is. And then they like reverse engineer it. Well, you need to be putting away $643 a month. The market will go up or down, but on average it'll do this and that, and you'll end up right where you need to be. And it's like, so if everything goes perfect, I get the minimum I can live on. And we haven't really factored in inflation. And I'm just shooting from the hip on what I think I'm going to need to live on. Like, there's just so many holes. It's like, you know, the Swiss cheese approach does not work. So, I mean, it's better than nothing. So I don't want to like totally hamstring these people, but it's a little bit like, you know, people just having one, one, uh, tool in their tool pouch and they're trying to cut a log and they've got a hammer. So what do they do? They just start pounding away. And I guess you can get there, but it's not the best way to do it.

But it doesn't take into consideration like just pure math. I'm not a math guy. Like, you know, my, my story, as you might know, I barely graduated high school. So I, you know, my skills are based on my interpersonal engagement versus like counting with my fingers that I still do for tips at the end of dinner. And thank God for the tip app. So, but, but like, but facts are facts. Numbers are numbers, right? And the numbers don't lie. And if, if we don't look at what that's going to look like here, like here's the spreadsheet and all the numbers of every year of what you could be making out as long as you live it and you put it in. But here's also the spreadsheet of like what those numbers will be based on 3% and what the— right.

All these, uh, it's massive.

It's massive. And it's such a different philosophy. And people, again, like, I, it's not, I'm not using this as a scare tactic, but these are questions that people need to understand that, right? One of my, one of my friends who, um, who works in the, in the level, I would say from the wealthy to the uber wealthy, um, is there, is their niche. She had me do a, a spreadsheet sheet that was from now till dead.

Okay.

And it also included goals. Do I want to put, you know, any children through school, and what would that cost on average based on today? Do I want to give them cars? Do I want to get— when, how often do I want to buy a new car? What's the price, right? And factoring that out, and I just did, just based alone on cars, I realized for myself and a spouse, if I were to get a car, if we were to be very conservative, to buy a car and keep it for 10 years. And we're talking about a car between, let's say, $25,000 to $40,000, right? Right. It would cost $100,000 per person over the next 40 years just in cars.

Yeah. Well, and what you're— you may or may not be factoring in there, one of the things we teach is something called the Infinite Banking System. And it's the idea that when you go and buy that $25,000 or, well, I'll use $40,000 because I run this scenario all the time. If you buy a $40,000 car and you pay— I'm going to just use random numbers, so get the, uh, the concept here, not necessarily get hung up on the details of the numbers— but if you pay 7% interest over 5 years to pay that car off, you're going to pay about $6,000 in interest. Okay, so people think, well, that car cost me $6,000 to finance, but, but that's not true because now that you don't have that $6,000 and the bank does, you don't get to earn on that money for the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years depending on age, right? If you can just get— and a lot of what we do with, with the infinite banking model, we use life insurance policies, and the best companies right now are paying about 6%. If you could earn 6% on that money— and that's broken down into a couple pieces— but if you could earn 6% on that money, it would double every 12 years. So at first, the first 12 years, it would just go from $6,000 to $12,000, and then $12,000 to $24,000, and then $24,000 to $48,000. So 30 or 40 years from now, that car actually cost you $48,000 in potential income that you could have in retirement or later on in your life. That also doesn't take into account the fact that you have access to that cash the whole time and could use it for more cars and more things, and use those dollars again.

To borrow against it.

Yeah. Yeah. But what you're saying is that inflation works the same way. Over time, that $6,000, what it buys today, might be more, won't be $48,000, but it might be $25,000 that you need. And inflation is definitely the secret eroder of wealth. And I on my web, uh, my YouTube channel, I did a couple of videos talking about inflation because here's the good— here's the counterpoint to inflation. Because got news for you folks, inflation's coming. We just did these little stimuluses, you know, and basically increased our national deficit by about 20% in, in less than a year. So that's got to be accounted for. We were already in trouble with the deficit. A lot of our government's earnings and tax dollars go toward servicing that debt. So that's only going to get worse. And I believe That part of the strategy to pay that off is inflation, right? Like Fed keeping the rates low, so we'll have more inflation. So when they pay it back, those dollars are cheaper. Well, you've got to live in that world too. And the scary part for people is, oh my gosh, house prices are going to go up and everything's going to go up, but your income should go up and adjust for it, assuming that you're in free market, right? Hopefully your investments, if you have money in assets, assets will go up. The stock market will adjust for that. Real estate will adjust for that. For a lot of people who are mortgaged up to here because they've Bought the biggest house they could. It's actually going to be relief. People with massive student loan debt, it's actually going to be relief because they're going to get to pay that stuff back. So if you have fixed debts, it'll actually work in your favor. So as much as we can, we want to keep those fixed debts at the lower interest rates that we've had. As we have some inflation, of course, just being in a place where we have at least a significant portion of our money in things that will appreciate with inflation as a part of a strategy. And we need to account for that. And so when you own a house, it's going to go up in value if there's inflation. So I tell people this so that they're not so afraid of inflation. In some ways, it's going to help you, and in other ways, it's going to hurt you. If you don't get a raise or you're stuck in a static situation income-earning-wise, that will hurt you. If you're sitting in a ton of cash, just dollars, dollars are the thing that will get eroded by that inflation. But if you've got some money in gold and you've got some money in other assets, or even in life insurance, it's probably going to more than keep up with that. You're going to be, you're going to be just fine. And so I tell people like to not panic about that. It is a consideration and it's the thing you need to pay attention to, but like don't let the, the inflation tail wag the live your life dog, right? Like don't let that overarching— but it is really, really important, Jason, that we account for the fact that it's going to happen. And so the dollars that we need to have in the future are going to be much bigger than we probably realize. And that's why I think a system is so important and a system that's based on your earnings, not a system that's just a rote number. I save $1,000 a month because as you make more to adjust for inflation, you'll want to save more and put more to work and buy more assets. And I think it's really hard for the human brain to wrap itself around how that changes over time because like my parents, I think they bought their house back in 1972 or whatever for $26,000 or whatever. And now that house is worth $300,000 or $400,000. That particular house is a small starter house, but that's crazy to think over 40 years that it's 10x'd, but that's kind of how numbers work when they get on that algorithmic scale. And the good news is if you're buying assets and you're putting money into places where it will adjust for inflation, you're going to be just fine. But I think it's a consideration. And I don't know that you have to have that whole thing figured out because We may go into periods of hyperinflation and we may go into periods of zero inflation. Trying to guess all that will just keep you up at night. What you really want to focus on, in my opinion, this is going to sound really basic, is be really, really good at what you do so you make a lot of money, systematically save 10% to 20% of it in things that almost always go up and that you know about, things you care about, things you control. And then if you want to do some things outside of that, some other types of investments to diversify, you can do some of that. But I think Really sticking to what you know, saving consistently into safe places that are always going to go up. And then thinking about retirement differently. I think a lot of people, there was this adage and retirement was kind of made up as if you worked in the coal mine until age 65, you're only supposed to live to age 68. So you can go fishing for a year or two. But now people are going fishing for 30 years, from 65 to 95 or 20 years or whatever. Urge you to rethink retirement, right? Even if you're in a job or a business that you, that you love, at some point you may want to transition or not have to put as much time into it. I think if you can find a way to do the things that you love and create income around them, right, streams of income, even if it's just teaching or, or sharing or writing about things that you know about and care about, you can turn that into a part-time income and you get to live a life you love. You get the tax write-off, so it's super efficient. And even an extra— in today's world, even an extra $25,000 a year is a ton of money that you don't have to pull from those other assets. You can allow them to snowball and grow and, and weather the storm. It can really be a release valve. And the truth is, when people don't have stuff to get up for in the morning, they get old and die. Yeah, that's just what happens. So I think it's really important to think about retirement as a place where you're going to create purpose for yourself, especially if you feel like you're in a situation right now where you don't get to be as fulfilled that way. Really start thinking about that. Start planting the seeds 10 years earlier so that by the time you get to retirement, you can really spend your time doing the things that are most important to you. Obviously, people want to spend time with family, but, but you need a reason to get up and, and go out into the world and create value and be productive. That will keep you younger. Your quality of life will be better. You'll have more relationships. You'll make more money, and it won't be about the money. It'll really be about letting people just pay you for what you love to do.

So the one question that's kind of— I feel it's like sitting on my, on my chest, is that there's a fear factor of people taking money and putting it into some type of vehicle. And, and maybe more specifically, let's call it whole life or a PRA, or a— right, how would you break down a PRA? A personal retirement account would be the, uh, an IRA. Yeah, a PRA. PRA. Yeah, right. It's a personal, right, long— it's long, it's whole life, but it has living, has living benefits, and you can borrow against invested, and it's also retirement, and it also has, uh, also has death benefits, right? That's one of the— I guess, sure. Yeah, people— I, I'm— my, my imagination is that there is a fear factor of knowing when you're making enough money to start putting away money that you know you're not absolutely going to touch for 30 years, versus having money in the stock market, versus money having in a Roth or, or another IRA or another vehicle, um, cryptocurrency, whatever, maybe real that you can offload it and get liquid within the span of a day or a span of, you know, 90 days versus something like, you know, one of these whole life or policies that also, again, have a living benefit that at a certain point you're going to start getting paid on that annually post, uh, right, post-tax. You're gonna— you can have death benefits with it and you can also borrow against it, but you can't touch that money. So I think that, that factor right there of like, I can't get liquid How would you address that, that fear, first of all? And then two, how does someone know when the right time when they're making enough to start putting that purely, right, $1,000 a month, $1,500 a month, $500 a month, whatever that is, but knowing that like, you're making enough that this is no longer a worry, you shouldn't have to worry about putting that away and not touching it for 20 to 25 years. Yeah.

So, so everything you're talking about here, I think, is built on a very common misnomer. Life insurance is incredibly liquid. You can get— you, you call the company up, they'll send you a check or they'll wire the money. So we tell people generally 3 to 7 days you can have your cash. So it's basically like having money in a savings account in a bank that's out of state, right? They, they— you just call them up, hey, send me a check for whatever against my cash value, and they'll, they'll send you a check. So life insurance is actually incredibly liquid, and most of our clients use it as their liquid holding account their emergency opportunity fund over and above 30 to 60 days, maybe 90 days at most of liquid cash in a savings account because you can get that money right away. And so we have a ton of real estate investors who build up all their cash and have it sitting there, or private money lenders. The money's sitting there and then when a deal comes along, they just deploy the cash right out of the life insurance and then use the deal to pay the money back into the life insurance. So it just becomes like a very— it's not exactly a savings account, but a high-interest savings type of vehicle. Where they store their cash, and then they can take it and deploy it. So a lot of the fears you're talking about— so I feel— I love real estate, but I feel like what you're talking about with real estate, because a lot of people assume that they can easily sell their property, and that's not always the case, right? If you tried to sell property in 2008, '09, and '10, you know, yeah, it is not liquid. That's also my primary concern with people who want to pay off their home. If you want to pay off your home, most people are dumping all of their cash into equity. And the problem was, and this happened to a ton of people in 2008, '09, and '10, was if you lose your job or somebody gets sick or your income takes a hit and you go to the bank and you're like, "Hey, we've been paying all this extra money in, can we get that back out?" If most banks, if you need the money, they won't give it to you. And so you would have to fire sale the property because you can always sell property, it's just a matter of how cheap. But that's a reality as part of, I think, a good strategic plan is there are, am I investing for growth? Am I investing for liquidity? Am I investing for cash flow? And having a balance there, because there are some investments that you got to park your cash for a period of time, but they have incredible benefits. And there are other things where you need to stay a certain amount of liquid for things like the pandemic. If you didn't have any liquidity, you're in a bad spot right now. So I think there's a counterbalance to all of that. And that's part of the consideration of the big picture is how do I create enough flexibility to do the things I want to do? And if I have to tie my cash up, is that trade-off worth it? Because there's an opportunity cost, right? If I tie my cash up, I can't use it for other stuff. So just making sure that trade-off works for you and where you think you're going. And nobody's perfect and you can't predict the future. But yeah, so I think what you're saying is If you want to put money into illiquid things, I think you want to have liquidity that is going to help you through a difficult time. You want to have a plan for if I need that money, how long is it going to take? And make sure you have plenty of runway to get there. And that way, as long as you've accounted for that, then I think you can feel really good about dumping cash into things that are illiquid because you've already taken care of the liquidity first. And that's once again, a little bit of a psychological thing. Because we tell people to have 3 to 6 months of liquid savings set aside, but some people are like, "1 to 2 and I feel great." And other people are like, "My wife and I are really conservative. We want 12 months." And that's fine. But once again, that's the return on investment. Whatever it is that empowers you to be really productive as a human being is probably the right number for you.

So when people have, let's say, whether it's a 3-month savings or 12-month savings, and that's just sitting there, and then you start building on that, I guess maybe the question would be, is you now know even the worst part of a pandemic, right? You can pay your rent, you can pay your mortgage, food's okay, school tuition if you have private kids in private school, right? All this stuff is cared for, cars paid for, right? Insurance, all that stuff. Where would now be probably the top? And I don't know if this is a universal thing or a one-size-fits-all thing. And my guess is it's probably not like, so you have this, right? You have this in this account. I get, does it go back to what's your long-term strategy? Does it go back to like start here, then do this and do this? Is there, you know, is there, is there kind of a, a stepladder in that mindset of like, yes, get your— right, get that, right, get that savings to keep you stable for the next 3 to 6 months, then focus on debt you might have, right? Or credit card debt, or right, the high-interest debt. That's about— not talking about mortgage, right? High-interest debt. Is there, is there kind of like a stepladder of the way that, like, on at least on the basic simple levels that people should take into consideration?

Yeah. So I would actually do one month worth of savings if you've got credit card debt. And then I would go to credit cards because credit cards are, you know, if you're paying 17, 19, 25%, like that's incredibly expensive debt. Right. And so the first thing I would say is if there's a way to manage that by like, if you have an empty credit card and you can do a balance transfer and get that 0%, and then you emptied off this card, now you roll from this and kind of play that rolling balance game and get as much of that debt as low as possible. That would be incredibly helpful. But I do think you don't want to have to have 6 to 12 months' worth of savings. Let's say you're in debt and you've got a little bit of savings, but not much. I would get 1 to 2 months' worth of savings to where you feel comfortable with that. And then I would aggressively go after the debt. Something I learned through Garrett is something called the cash flow index. And it's a way that you can determine which one of the debts is most inefficient. But quite honestly, in a lot of cases, especially if you're just comparing credit cards with credit cards, the higher interest rate ones just Put all your money toward one of those and really start knocking it out as much as you can. And once again, I would say to just build the right habit, to have built up the savings, hopefully you're saving 10% to 20%. Once you get that one month, then take that 10% to 20% and start using it to pay down the credit card. That's your savings, because if you needed to run it back up, you could. I mean, I don't love for people to depend on credit cards for their liquidity because a bank can cut those off at any time. I've had two of them turned off just credit cards I wasn't using during the pandemic. So I would definitely do that. Even if you get those down to 0%, you need to have a plan before that kicks back in. So you might be able to appease something for a minute there, go pay off another bad debt, then come back to the credit cards. But, you know, so there's a little bit of like juggling and what can you do there? But ultimately credit cards, paying those off, it's zero risk. It's guaranteed rate of return. It probably doesn't impact your liquidity because you could borrow the money back again. So it's almost a no-brainer. And before I have people start saving into other places or doing other investments, pay off your credit cards. If you're getting 7% on average in the market and you're paying 25% on your credit card, that's a losing game. Don't do that. So, so that's step 2 is bad debt. We actually have people, if they don't have a specific plan, you save into your savings account and then your savings account starts dumping into life insurance because it's just like a high-interest savings vehicle. So the money builds up in there until you've got a chunk of $25,000 or $50,000 or whatever And then you can take that and you can go buy a piece of real estate or you can invest in private equity or you can invest in— if you want to put it in the stock market or whatever you can. I don't love to see people pull from life insurance to put money in the stock market, but if you want a stock market portfolio, maybe you split some of your money that's now being saved every month goes into the stock market, some of it goes into life insurance. I think if you're going to save into the stock market, I think a Roth is a great way to go. You're going to pay the taxes this year, but And this is another thing a lot of people are starting to talk about is chances are really good that taxes are going to be higher in the future. So paying the taxes now, unless you're in your prime earning years and you're just killing it and you're in a tip-top tax bracket, and even then, I think a lot of times you can't even put the money into a Roth, putting money into a Roth can be a great idea. And I have an investment advisor. I'm not licensed as an investment advisor. So please talk to your professionals about that to make sure your situation's right. But I think there are very few places that you can earn money and not have to pay taxes on it. And if it's done right, life insurance is one of those, but a Roth is one of those. And then also municipal bonds, which is kind of a very limited, small thing. So it's not really the answer for people, but if you want to sprinkle that in there, that's fine. But I think really, you know, we go savings, life insurance, and then go into these other investments based on your skillset. A lot of times you can make so much more money in areas that you know, your industry, right? I work with a lot of dentists and chiropractors. Some of them will take and they'll fund new dentists or chiropractors. They'll do loans for those guys. They can make a nice rate of return, or maybe they get a small bit of ownership in the practice and then get paid back over time. But they're working in a field that they understand. They understand the risk. And if they need to, they can come in and help impact that. And the rates of return they can get are much higher and they feel aligned with what they're doing. They don't have to be like watching the market or watching all this outside stuff. They're just in their world doing what they're really good at. So I try to get people to align that direction. And if you don't know what that is for you, my next investment would say, or what I would say your next investment is, is if there's something you're really interested in, invest in your education. If you want to do real estate, invest in real estate education. If you want to actively trade stocks and be in the stock market, invest in some training. If you want to learn how to be a whatever, do anything else, you want to run a sailboat business, then invest in a little bit of business training. Right? Like, investing in yourself is usually the first step. People want to skip it, but I mean, I invested $60,000 into real estate investing, and I made about $4 million over 7 or 8 years. So I felt like that was a good ROI. That's a very good ROI.

And you were talking a few minutes ago about at a certain point where they can put into, you know, business partnerships or equity partnerships or venture partner, you know, experiences. And one of my buddies, Matt Monero, who he was on Episode 50, and he was talking about like that people at a certain level, they don't want to talk to you unless you're ready to bring $100,000 to a deal. Like, why would I go around to try to get $10,000 from 10 people when I can get $100,000 from one? And it's going to make it a lot more sexy for anybody who's interested in partnering with you to have that liquidity that if you're ready, obviously beyond your stability, right? We're assuming you're already stable and financially secure. But that most serious partnerships start playing out at the $100,000 buy-in level. And now there's obviously smaller deals like real estate and flipping and stuff like that, but that's still right. But you're still talking about $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 on an average, right? To, you know, to put down payment and to put money into a house and contractors. And especially if you're not doing it yourself, which you shouldn't be doing. But I think the bigger stuff starts, you know, the really good, like, you know, bigger projects that he was referring to started about $100,000.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are plenty of things that start— I mean, there's not much that starts below $25,000, but there's a handful at $25,000, a bunch at $50,000. Once you have $100,000, yeah, you can play in a lot of swimming pools at that point. But yeah, he's totally right. You got to get that cash together. And that's why everybody wants to get there, but that's why I encourage saving so much because If you're not used to saving or that's not been your deal, it takes a little practice. It's like building a muscle in the weight room. You don't get to start with the 100-pound dumbbells for your curls. You got to start with the 5 pounds. So start with the 5, then go to the 10 and move your way up. That's how savings works. And there is something really powerful in that. And then once you have those things, you can start to look at, and once again, getting educated. If you're really going to be an active professional investor, you're going to have to spend some time on it. It's going to be part of your business, part of your life. And that's why I'm such a big fan of investing in things you care about because your quality of life's way better. If you're investing in debt strategies and you don't want to be around attorneys arguing over debt or buying collections or whatever, there can be some really good money in that, but it's a messy, ugly business. Do you want to be around that your whole life? I don't know. I mean, for some people, maybe it's fine. For others, it's, it's not. So I think if you can invest in things you care about, like, you just get to live your life. And during the course of your life, some of those things are things that make money for you. And I heard it said that the secret to life is finding a way to get paid for the things you were already going to do with your life. I'm just a huge advocate of that.

I completely agree. I remember about 10 years ago, post my divorce, and I'm like, I want to go do family court mediation because my process didn't, um, it wasn't as effective or efficient as it could have been. And so I took a training and it was whatever, let's say it was $2,000 for the training and it was a bunch of weekends and then I had to go do mediations and the, you know, and all that stuff to, to get certified. And I realized by the end of that process, I absolutely completely don't ever want to do a divorce mediation, but I realized that I want to help people avoid getting there. So the knowledge that I accrued from it while I'm still doing couples counseling and family therapy is, hey, these are the warning signs on the wall. This is the things that you're going to have to do. By the way, if you do know that if you each hire an attorney, that's going to cost you $4,000 just at bare minimum. And then that's just your, right, your, your down payment on the attorney. Forget what you're going to accrue, but the average divorce is a minimum of $15,000 to $20,000 per person. And by the way, they're going to tell you to go back to mediation anyway. So you might as well, if you are going there, you might as well just start with collaborative family mediation. Which will only cost you $4,000. So don't be stubborn about it. Right. And I realized like, I, if I wanted to ever be healthy for me, I can't be in that world on a daily basis. I can help you save your marriage and get your marriage better and your relationships better. But I don't want to be at the other end of the coin of settling all of the affairs of your family and parenting plans and all that other stuff. And that was like such an aha moment. So that's $2,000, $2,500 plus all the hours. Was the best investment to learn that.

Yeah, yeah. And kudos to you for investing the money and then being willing to say, I put money into this, it's not the road I want to go, I'm going to take what I learned and move on. But there's a Turkish proverb that says, no matter how far down the wrong road you are, turn around. And, you know, a lot of people keep sinking, taking good money after bad, and that's a terrible idea. And what you did there, which you said, oh, I just realized this is the wrong road for me, let me back up and take a different route. And a lot of people just, their pride won't let them do that, or they convince their spouse to let them do it. So you really have to be honest with yourself if you want to create that quality of life. And listen, I've been guilty of it too many times where I get a little bullheaded. So kudos to you for that. Cause that's a big deal.

And I thought it was Air Supply, not the Turkish proverb about turnaround. So that awesome, awesome song, right? Yeah.

That's a good one.

I'm like that Turkish proverb. No, no, no.

That's Air Supply. So maybe they said it too.

Exactly. It's like, it's like walk like an Egyptian was like, you know, oh no, no, that's, that's, you know, that's King Tut. That's King Tut. No, that's the bangles. But, uh, but I think, I think all of these, these, these strategies of, you know, it's not a screw up, it's a learning experience is something that I very much believe in. And there's so many things that I've done training and as a therapist, right? I did hypnosis many years ago because it was so cool to do hypnosis. And like, you know, all that stuff. And, and I had an incredible training, and one of my professors, um, who's a guru and world famous in that world, and I realized like, as I evolved, I'm like, it's cool and I'm okay, but I'm not great at it. So like, unless I'm going to be great at it, like, I don't want to push it. And then I stumbled into this, uh, neuro-emotional technique modality, which became my, like, my absolute passion and love. So when people call me for hypnosis, I say to them like, I, I, you know, I'm certified and trained in hypnosis, but I've evolved into this this new modality that I feel is much more efficient for me to help you. Would you like to hear about that? And, and so it's been a pivot point that I've been— right, I've capitalized on what I invested in and then grown. So like, I completely agree with you. Like, what would you be doing for people out there who are struggling with figuring out their purpose of like, am I in the right field? Should I make a transition? Is, you know, I know I want to make more money— is I always ask this, like, what's the problem that you are uniquely, uh, positioned to solve that no one else can based on your life experiences.

Sure, sure. Yeah, quite often a lot of people's best client is who they used to be.

Right?

Because they walk the road. And, and yeah, having those experiences 2008, 9, and 10, I actually coached a ton of people through that, a lot of them in that whole forgiving yourself and, and, you know, reconnecting to their family and who they really were and turning the lights back on. So, but the reason I could do it is because I went through it. So you're 100% right. Yeah.

So one of the ways that I want to challenge people out there is um, you know, to not only just listen to podcasts like this and obviously other podcasts that bring this in, but I, you know, I also want to give people some resources, um, right off the bat. So are there any books? Because, right, we can go in so many different directions, right? We have the Suze Orman side and we have the, uh, right, the Rohn, right, all the different Dave Ramsey, Ramsey, and, and, right, and, and all these other perspectives. Like, like, what are some of the things that, um, you know, that, that have been influential for you that people should have on their bookshelf, they should be watching on YouTube, they should should maybe consider some, you know, this type of, you know, early program that's not going to put so much financial burden on them, but that will just get it all in one concise place. What are some of those things for you that, you know, that are the good for alls?

Yeah, so, so there's a couple of books I would recommend. And also I have a YouTube channel. Um, you can just Google my name or, or biglifefinancial.com/youtube and, and find it where I go through— I try to really like break down all these little pieces, right? I do like 8 to 15 minute videos and, and try to go through a lot of the things. And I really try and talk about the stuff that people aren't talking about I do have one on why I think Dave Ramsey, what I think he's good at and what I don't think he's good at. I think if you're in debt, he's great. He will not ever get you to wealth, but he will get you out of debt. So take that for what it is. I don't study Suze Orman as much because her following has kind of fallen off over the years and so forth. But yeah, I think the books that I would recommend, if you want a simple book, there's a book called Busting the Interest Rate Lies. By a friend of mine. Her name's Kim Butler. And it kind of, it's like a parable. It's about a young kid who starts in high school and goes through life and sort of, you know, how he does, he works with this financial advisor gal and she kind of guides him through things and explains why you want to do it this way versus that way. And he tries some things and he learns and it's very good. It's very simple. It's like 100, 110, 150 pages, super simple. If you want something a little bit more robust and the book that I consider to be maybe the The book that's the closest to how I think about things, there's a book called Heads I Win, Tails You Lose by Patrick Donahoe. Both of those people are part of what's called the prosperity economics movement. So it's a different way of looking at financial strategy. It's outside of Wall Street. It's investing in things that you understand and control. Most of us do use life insurance as kind of a foundational piece. That's a big thing to not have money sitting idly, but have your money always working for you in multiple different ways. And so we kind of start with that and then, and then go from there. But I really love the way that they approach things and they make it simple. So if I, if I could recommend two books for people to pick up purely on financial stuff, I would go that direction. Another big thing that we haven't even touched on, but is most businesses out there, if you build something, customize something, work with the human body in some way, you're probably not filing for research and development credits. But in the last 5 years, the government's made some changes to where Those credits are now available to small businesses. And we routinely find $20,000 to $75,000 over the last 3 years for business owners that they can get back in a refund if they file for these research and development credits. So I work with a ton of like doctors and dentists and these kinds of people. Those are all like home runs. And then I have, like, I have a guy who owns a couple of franchises of a waxing salon and he's getting back like at least $90,000 over the last 3 years because he owns 4 or 5 locations. I know, like, real estate franchisees, anybody in a franchise, it sounds like, as I'm seeing it more and more, a lot of the research that's done at the corporate level. So this is one of those things that, like, nobody's talking about. And so it's not— doesn't, like, dovetail in. But we do have a book that we give away. If you just go to tax.biglifefinancial.com, we have a book that gives away. Or if you want to have a conversation, I have a video on my YouTube channel, but you can always go to my website, set up a time to talk, and I can talk you through it. But yeah, those are some of the key key things that I would say. And we do have a couple of resources. I have a free real estate course. I have a book that talks about the infinite banking process that Garrett wrote called What Would the Rockefellers Do? And some other things on the website. So you can go there and check out a bunch of things.

Awesome. Everybody out there listening to this episode, right? This is so important, right? We talked about psychology, spirituality, natural wellness, and entrepreneurship, but getting, getting your money mind and your, and your money heart straight is incredibly important.. And, and Derek is definitely one of the people that is providing a lot of wealth of information. Uh, so if there's anything out there that you do need, I highly do suggest that he be one of the people that you do reach out to. And, um, as you know from previous episodes, in order for us to get this episode out in front of more people, please, please, please just do us a quick 4-minute favor. Go on iTunes, especially those of you who are listening to on Apple products and leave us a starred and written review. What that does is not only gives us feedback on how we're doing and the type of value from the episodes that you're getting. But it also allows us to get seen by more people. It brings us up on top in Apple products. It will allow us to pop up, but it also gets us on different charts, which allows different platforms to push and promote us and get us seen by more people to bring the value more and more to others out there. So Derek, again, thank you so much. I know the topics today are things that I'm passionate about, things that I've had questions about, and I've evolved as I've gone through my entrepreneur journey, and there's a lot of things that I know people don't even know to ask. So I really want to thank you for, for sharing your wisdom in those things.

I absolutely loved it. This was fun, Jason Wasser.