119. The Money Advantage Using Infinite Banking In Canada

You are listening to the Wealth Without Bay street podcast, a Canadian guide to building dependable wealth. Join your hosts, Richard Canfield and Jason Lowe as they unlock the secrets to creating financial peace of mind in an uncertain world. Discover the strategies and mindsets to a financial future that you can bank on. Discover the Money Advantage that's available to you and your family. Create generational wealth. All this is possible. We're joined together by the co founders of the Money Advantage podcast, Rachel Merkel and Bruce Wayner. Both wonderful individuals have an incredible podcast and we encourage our listeners to check them out. Now, Rachel is the co founder and chief financial educator and content strategist at the Money Advantage. She's known for making money simple, fun and doable. And she has an interesting story. She's going to tell us about her near death experience, how that's shaped her method of teaching people about finances in a new way. Bruce is the lead advisor of the Money Advantage and he designs and communicates the individualized solutions help their clients increase cash flow and financial control. He is also an authorized infinite banking practitioner. We had the pleasure to spend some good time with Bruce here recently at our annual think tank conference. We always see him down there and what a wonderful event that is. And we're blessed to have both of you with us today. And so tell us a little bit about your journey, starting the Money Advantage podcast and taking it to where it is today.

So Rachel, let me kick it off this podcast just briefly and then we'll go from there. So several years ago, you guys have been in the industry a long time. You know, we're sitting around St. Louis and we're just kind of getting tired of fighting with other producers in the industry that, that were, you know, not, not doing things correctly in our, in our view. And when we say not doing things correctly, they weren't taking a full financial picture. They weren't looking at people's cash flows properly. They, they weren't talking to people about their goals. They were just selling products. And you know, but then we took a sympathetic view towards that. You know, we're like, you know, this industry is hard and people are trying to survive. And you know, there's a lot of good, good people in this industry that, that haven't been trained properly. You guys know, the, the insurance companies don't, they don't really train people. You know, they, they put a, they put a vice president of, of regional marketing out there, you know, or vice president or regional guy or whatever you want to call them out there and they, they're supposed to help you. But most of the time those are people that failed in the industry to begin with. So they got to go, they got to go to home office. So we decided we were going to start something called the Freedom Advisor event and we were going to open this up to people across the nation who wanted to do things in a collaborative way to help make the industry better. So we weren't selling anything. We weren't trying to get people to, you know, join our agency or our, our wealth firm. We were just saying, hey, let's, let's get together and share best practices because we want to make the industry better.

And so first I can pick up.

Then, then Rachel can pick up from here.

So we heard about this amazing event. My husband Lucas and I were in the financial space and we were wanting to sell whole life insurance. Not doing a whole lot of it, but trying. And you know, as Bruce mentioned, the industry was hard. We were trying different tactics and techniques and we said we were connected with the Nelson Nash's newsletter and we were reading that and Lucas is a huge reader. He is digging into history and economics and monetary policy and Austrian economics. I mean anything that is in that vein, he's read it and consumed it and understands it. And, and so as we were personally reading Nelson Nash and as we're on this Nelson Nash email list, we heard about this event. We said, well, that would be a great opportunity to meet Nelson Nash. And this sounds great, what these guys are doing with this, this event to really help build the industry and what better way to meet like minded people. So we went, I still remember Bruce, you guys and your team sitting up on that couch on the stage and I was like, wow, these guys are really cool. Not only are they very holistic in their approach, they were really genuine, good people who were genuinely wanting to do what's best for the client. And that's how I felt about Nelson Nash. That's how we felt about Bob Murphy. And am I saying that right? Yeah, Bob Murphy, Carlos Lara, and then the whole team at E3 Wealth. And so we were looking not only for a way to grow our business, but then also just for even mentorship and saying how do we continue to grow and do things better? How do we serve clients more effectively? And we knew that some kind of a long term relationship with somebody at E3 was going to materialize at some point. And so then it was a while later we were camping and we had this idea. I was creating videos on YouTube and, and that was going well. I was Providing pretty high level education about saving and investing and storing your cash, and just really high level information about infinite banking. And we said, really, we wanted something that could put a lot more teeth and meat into this and provide a lot more substance, whereas we know these concepts well. But how can we make sure that people are getting all of the details that they need as well? And Lucas called Bruce and said, hey, would you do a podcast with Rachel? And Bruce said, yes. And really, we've seen Bruce as a mentor and a leader in this space and just a stellar Bruce. I don't tell you often enough how much we think of you. And really, that is what started this whole journey, saying, how can we help educate people more effectively to give them the tools they need to be able to confidently make decisions, not just try to sell them, not just try to share all the things that sound too good to be true, but really to unpack it. And so through, I think, four and a half years of podcasting, now together, I've learned a lot. We've been able to reach a lot of people. We've had a lot of people reach out to us, and that's really been the journey of the money advantage, which sometimes I think. The money advantage. What do people think when they hear that term? I mean, obviously, if you have money, it's an advantage, but I hope that people see that it's deeper than that. There is a way to use your money in a way that provides a greater advantage to you and your ultimate life and the goals that you have and the outcomes that you have that you want. And we're helping people have that advantage with their money.

Mic drop. Yeah, I was gonna say.

Be back later. Go ahead, take over, guys.

Yeah, it reminds me of, you know, something that, that Nelson did such a wonderful job at, Through. Through all the years that we were blessed to know him, is that he wouldn't explain to you what you need to understand. He would share knowledge and then ask you what your understanding of what he explained is.

What it.

What does this mean to you?

Yeah.

And the industry, to Bruce's point earlier, the industry's got it completely backward for the most part. You know, the general community of financial professionals or advisors who want to share this process with their inner circles, with their, you know, communities, they're leading with product first and everything that you need to understand. And that in our experience, you know, 14 years into our journey is far more difficult and far less sticky because people aren't developing an understanding of the concept by thinking they're just developing Somewhat of an understanding of the process by listening to someone say, these are all the things you need to know about the process of becoming your own banker, the infinite banking concept. And for folks like, like Bruce, who, Bruce, you've always been kind to me. You're just a consummate professional. And anytime I've heard you talk at think tank, you. You really, you're coming from a place of integrity. Like, you really want people to grasp it. And the tools that you use to. To develop a really clear understanding of what people. How they're structured financially, what outcomes are they looking to achieve, and how this process can be a great, you know, advantage. No pun intended. But we need to. To really continue to. To get our message out there the way that Nelson intended it. And before he passed away, he shared with us, he was. He was quite clear that he wanted to make sure that people understood that this is all about the message, not the man. You know, we. We do, I think, a very good job in our community of giving credit where credit is due and really honoring Nelson and his legacy. But he really wants people to honor the message.

And so that's.

That's beautiful, Jason. If I can just share something on that. I was thinking the other day how much more transformational it is to engage with material rather than just hear someone else talk about it. And, And I think that this is really important even for listeners to the show. I mean, we were just discussing a scripture passage for Lent that we're doing with our kids right now. And it was a question that we had to think through, through in our own life and apply it and come up with a story of where it related to us. And, you know, you can say, well, let me just pass, because I'm just going to hear what everyone else has to say, and I'm just going to pass. But that doesn't really transform you or make it stick. And it's the same thing with coaching. It's the same thing with making decisions in your financial life that if you're just listening and you're not doing something with the information and talking about what it means to you, it's not fully making that transformation in your life. And so then we just had Rabbi Daniel Lapin on our podcast just the other day, and he was talking about the financial value of reading over watching. And I thought, well, you know, yeah, watching is still good because you can watch educational content like the Money Advantage and like Wealth Without Bay Street. You can watch something that is going to fill your mind with good thoughts. You can learn through watching or. Or through audiobooks. What about audiobooks? And. And he was talking about the true value of reading. Now, he was basically differentiating between reading books versus watching television. So you can imagine the dynamic of just watching television is not necessarily going to improve your mind. But if you think about it, though, you can listen to a story, you can listen to a talk and walk away and say, that was an amazing talk, but forget what it was the next day. But if somebody asks you what you think about that or what you would say if you were on stage, all of a sudden, things change. And so that's part of the value of teaching. I think that's part of the value of. I mean, all of us know that as soon as we learn something, if we can go turn around and teach that, or somehow work with that information and help somebody else gain the understanding, then it benefits us more powerfully as a teacher. But I think anyone listening can do that as well. You can teach to your children, you can teach to a friend, or simply get into a conversation with an advisor where you're working with the information, not just listening about it.

Reminds me of something that Nelson talked about frequently, and it was a message that he learned from the gentleman who started Piper Airplanes. And he said that you may have the best message in the world, you may have the best delivery system in the world. He was talking about the telephone, but if you don't have a person listening on the other end, you won't have this thing. And so the Money Advantage podcast, what we're doing here with Bay street and many of our colleagues who have similar mediums that we're utilizing, we are simply trying to get what we believe is the best message in the world, being Nelson's message, out to as many people as possible. And we're just seeking those active listeners on the other end. And thanks to, you know, the mechanism of the podcast platform and YouTube, et cetera, we're able to find those individuals More. More importantly, they're able to find us. They're seeking that message. They're seeking some method. Method, a mechanism of financial change and empowerment in their life, because they haven't had it. And so they're grasping for that thing that's going to help them meet their objectives, give them the financial peace that they're looking for and the clarity that they want on their financial life and the active steps. But like you said, Rachel, nothing happens if you don't book that first phone call. If you don't start the engagement process of doing the activity to take yourself down that road. And that means meeting with a coach, booking a time to speak with someone about how you can implement this in your life.

Well, and, and recognizing too that. And we, we share this, this is just part of how, how we show up is that as a coach, we're responsible to you, not for you. Because Nelson didn't title the book taking control of the banking function, provided someone else is doing all the work for you.

He, he titled it becoming your own banker, which means you, you've got to do a deep understanding of the problem so that the solution actually matters to you. And when Nelson coined his fifth golden rule, to rethink your thinking, it's about developing the ability to rethink your thinking. And a coach can be very helpful in helping you to do that. But once you've begun to rethink your thinking, it's really that the, you know, the heavy lifting cliche is true. It's really entirely up to you because if you continue to abdicate the responsibility, you might understand the process. But if you can continue to abdicate the responsibility, you're not truly becoming your own banker. You're dependent upon an advisor, you're dependent upon a coach to be the banker in your life because every single time you want to implement the process, you're reaching out to that person. And what we're, really, what we're doing in our community is empowering people to really do this for themselves. And Bruce, I'd like to ask, you know, for the benefit of our viewers and our listeners, what was the domino effect for you? Like when were, when were you first exposed to the process and what tipped that domino over to lead you to where you are today?

Well, I like to say that I was doing infinite banking before it was. And I, and I didn't, and I didn't even know it, but my, my mother and father. See, I don't know how it is in Canada, but, you know, in the United States, the government tends to get involved with a bunch of things, you.

Know, so you have the same disease here, right, that.

Yeah, I was being a little facetious. I know you guys have a few little problems too, but it might even.

Get their way into some, into, into the movement of trucks these days.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But my mother's father actually took, my mother and father actually took a whole life, life insurance policy out on me when I was born in 1963. Wow. And prior to 1973, when Nixon took us off the gold standard and we had massive inflation here in the States and probably caused Some across the world too, because that's what we do in the States. We like to get. Get involved with everything across the world. I didn't even know it was existing, existed until I got married and my father handed me that contract and my wife and I borrowed against it in 1986 to put our first down payment on a home. Oh, wow. And then I paid it back. And then Mark Benson, who you guys know, you know, he and I got involved part time with Franklin Life Insurance and, and we wrote our own policies as, as every producer should. You know, we're maximizing. We're living, we're living what we're preaching. And then, but I was still doing it part time and then I got out of it for a while for a variety of reasons we don't need to talk about on, on the show. But I moved to California to start a private Catholic high school because I got the opportunity. And California real estate prices were a lot higher than Missouri real estate prices. So I needed more capital. Well, just like, you know, Nelson used to always talk about, you know, you need a place to store your capital. Well, guess where I, where, guess where I got the additional down payment for my house in California was my whole life insurance contracts.

Love it.

And so that was a, that was 2001. And then that, that thing didn't work out very well. So that's when I got back in the industry full time. Then in 2007, of course, then we know what happens in 2008. And Mark Benson and I, Mark Benson and I were, were kind of thinking, we've got to figure out what went wrong and also how to prevent it in the future. And we were already whole life insurance people, but we weren't infinite banking people.

Although we were still, you know, we were still helping our clients with that concept, but we, we didn't have a systematic way. So we, we went to Bob and Carlos's Night of Clarity in Nashville, I believe it was in 2000, late 2008 or 2009. And we sat in the front row and we were like, okay, we get, we had the blueprint and, and from there then, you know, we just kept going down the rabbit hole to get better and better and better. And because we were already exposed to it, you know, all we needed was the master Nelson to help us formulate, you know, the systematic approach to this and to help people realize it, accelerate their education on this. And, and that's how it went. So that, that was the story, our story. And then when Rachel and Lucas reached out, I Tell people we're now we were. I also say that we were doing Zoom before it was cool. Now maybe you guys were doing Zoom meetings before it was cool too, but we, we've been doing them for about five years. We, it didn't take a pandemic for us to do it. And so we've all. Yeah, yeah, we, we've always kind of been a little bit of ahead, but this gave me an opportunity to actually, Jason, you know, you're, I know you're a big Dan Sullivan guy and I've been in a couple of the programs too. Not in Dan's actual program, but some of the other programs. And, you know, I was trying to make my business self sustaining where I could just do it wherever I wanted to, when I wanted to. And, and that was the impetus of us getting together because I wanted to be wherever I wanted to be and, and make a business like that. And that's what we've done pretty successfully now with the Money Advantage.

What a remarkable journey. And I think that, you know, all of us would agree and to all of our viewers and listeners who are familiar with the process, you've heard us say this so often. The more you see infinite banking concepts, the more you'll see you didn't see because you've developed the ability to rethink your thinking and you're receptive to learning new things and to thinking differently about them. And so, yeah, that's a great, great journey.

Wow.

Nelson said that the most important word was the word concept. Yeah. And it's from it because that it, it ties directly to our brain's ability to think something through. And that's why he really referenced that and infinite, obviously being. Because if something's finite, you put limitations on it. And so the only limitation is what's in between your ears. It's your ability to see what's possible in how the implementation of, of this, this mindset and this cash flow management happens throughout your lifespan. And now you talked about, you know, Rachel, you're, you're connecting with Bruce at that first event. And I, I, I recognize that right away because that's the same, that Freedom Advisor event, I believe, that Nelson attended, that's the same one that's available that the talk that Nelson provided there it's recorded is on the Nelson National Institute Channel. And it's Nelson talking about his very first estate farm policy that he got in 1959 and $388 a year in annual premium. And he talks through so that that whole video is 1 hour and 14 minutes long. I know because I've documented all the things that Nelson talks about in that video. It's one of my favorite videos to go back and watch because I saw Nelson deliver that conversation, that talk about his state farm policy example and the graph and the four checks that he took out to get his cost basis back and all those things multiple times. Not. Not as many as some, but certainly a number of times. And for my opinion, that one session is the best session I ever saw Nelson do it. And I wasn't even at that event. So I encourage my clients to go back and watch that. That session a number of times. Because Nelson talks about his most profitable land deal that. That 500 acres of timberland, and then how he financed that deal. 50% interest to the guy that bought the land for him. Like, that doesn't show up in the illustration, does that?

Right.

And what an incredible capture of Nelson's message that's available for everyone because, you know, you guys put that event on, the Freed advisors event. And so, Rachel, I'm assuming that might have been the same one you attended. What a. What a wonderful experience for you and your husband to have to. To see Nelson deliver that talk. And, you know, I envision myself being in the room every time I watch it.

Well, you guys. Yeah, I was going to say, Rachel, talk about your experience with Nelson and how he was. He gave his time.

Yeah. So I don't remember that talk as well as you do. I'm gonna have to go back and listen again. I'm. I'm a concept person. More. More so than the detail person. So as you' those details, I'm thinking, I remember him talking. I remember him talking about being on his knees praying and needing the capital and saying, where am I going to get this cash from? And I mean, God told him, or he had an awareness through the prayer time, however you want to say it. He had this realization that there was money in his life insurance policy. So I remember specifically that piece. But I will have to go back and look at the. The numbers. But I'm. I'm thankful that you bring that up. I loved listening to him talk. And he was just a good person. I mean, you just hear from people who are wholesome, good people that have an amazing life perspective and just a desire to share that goodness with others. And he just radiated that. And he had passion for the work that he did, but there was nothing, I mean, sleazy or weird or odd. You just didn't feel any of that around Nelson. It was just only goodness and I, we were. My husband and I, Lucas, are at this event. We're saying, how can we get the most out of this time as possible? And we said, well, let's see if we can take Nelson out to lunch. And so I think we just sat in the hotel or the conference location that we were at. It was a hotel, I think. Right, Bruce? So we just said, well, let's just go to the hotel right here. And I remember Nelson is drawing on napkins and talking about his history, and we're asking him questions. And I just. The most important moment for me, that just felt so affirming. He looked at my husband and I and said, you guys are the future of this industry. Not like just us personally, but the fact that we were young and grabbing onto this concept and that we were a couple doing this together and that we wanted to not only do it for ourselves, but help other people to understand the power of infinite banking and being able to use it for themselves. He just recognized that desire that we had to be able to help others. It just felt so, so cool. And I remembered saying, we are going to someday have you on a podcast. We had in our mind that we wanted to do some kind of a podcast at this point. And this was way before, probably six months before we reached out to you, Bruce, to start the podcast. But then we said, let's go ahead and make sure we get Nelson to speak and be interviewed on this show. And I knew that he was up in years, and there was that extra motivation to say, you know, I need to start this podcast before the end of his lifespan. And I was so thankful that we had that opportunity to interview him on our podcast. And this is several years ago now, so just such a beautiful legacy that he left. And I'm just so amazed that he did say, it's a concept. It's a. A way of thinking. It's a framework, if you will, to be able to fit in so many of the challenges that people face financially and find a way to put control in someone's hands. For the person who is willing to say, I am responsible for my own financial future, yes, that's me. I will choose to become educated. I'll choose to make the right choices. And I'm going to choose not to just rely on someone else to tell me what to do.

Amen to that.

All day long. And, you know, that's. Oh, go ahead, Bruce.

Well, I was just going to say if we could circle back a little bit, Jason.

Sure.

You know, because I was so motivated having Rabbi Lapin on the other day and, you know, when he talked about reading versus watching, I wanted to jump back into that because I really think it can help the listeners. Sure. Because even, you know, I, I consume a lot of documentaries. I'm actually a biology major. Well, I actually have a master's degree in biology. And so, you know, I love documentaries, especially nature documentaries. And I, but also I, I also taught physical science. I like the physical world and so on, so forth. So I like documentaries. But the one thing you cannot do. And I discovered this by. After I was reading the third, you know, the third most celebrated Canadian book or Canadian, and his book, Jordan Peterson. You guys are the first two celebrated Canadians, but Jordan's number three. I was reading his book after that and it hit me, Rachel, I didn't tell you this yet. It hit me this. The reason that reading is much better than consuming by watching is you have the opportunity to stop and reflect and think before you, before you move on. And I, and I'm actually reading Jordan's book and I'm thinking. And it, and it actually hit me at that time period, probably because I was thinking. And that's the difference between. Now you can, obviously you can pause, you know, your. And think you can do that. But it's, it's. It's much more intrusive when you do that. So, So I, I would encourage the listeners, you know, St. John's St. John's College in Minnesota and Hill, and I believe Hillsdale, where Robert Murphy went to. They, you know, their entire curriculums are reading classical novels, you know, and what you get from. From that experience of learning from not only the stories, but, but about each author and what they're trying to give back to the world. Because that's what they're doing in books, Right. They're giving to the world an expression of their experience. And that's what Nelson's book does also. It's giving back to the world, the expression of Nelson's experience of discovering this concept. And so that's why reading the book is much even better, Richard, than probably watching the video because of that situation. So that just popped into my head. I. I thought.

I think there's something I want to say about that. I'm in the editing stage of my book that will be coming out hopefully this summer.

Good transition.

So. So thank you. So the writing is so challenging. I would not consider myself an amazing writer in terms of. I would think that an amazing writer would just love writing, would sit down, the words would just flow out of them and they would feel so much better about their expression by the time they're done writing. I feel like I belabor over everything because I want to make sure that it's congruent and it fits. But I can say something in two seconds, and I might take 30 minutes to write the same thing. And when you write, you have to make sure that everything that you're communicating is fitting together. So a person like Nelson, who creates a book, has to have thought very, very, very deeply about something in order to produce it into a book that's logical enough for someone else to pick up and be able to read through. And I think that might even be part of the value of reading, because, I mean, Bruce, you always talk about there's a difference between knowledge and wisdom. And we have people, I mean, anyone in this world now who's hungry for information can go find loads, just plethora of information. I mean, you can go to YouTube and I don't even know. They're producing millions and probably trillions of hours of video content daily. I don't even know. But it's a lot of information that people can put out on YouTube, and we're on YouTube. So I'm not downplaying the platform or the video content or speaking in any way. But what I am saying is there's just so much information available out there. And you can take something like an article and you can chunk down one tiny piece of information that might sound logical and well thought through, but if you have to read it in the context of an entire book, you have to have thought through not just that one piece, but everything in context so that it fits and works together. And so there's so much more wisdom, I think, that can truly be gained by reading on that account. I mean, because it has to be deeply thought through.

And what are you seeing from people who are connecting with you, who have taken that journey of spending a little time with Uncle Google and then hopping onto the YouTubes and the Instagram and the tweeters and all of that stuff? So what are you seeing out there in the United States, in the marketplace, around this message and how it's gaining traction? And I. I think I have a sense of what your reply is going to be, but I'm just very curious to hear.

I'll share briefly, and then, Bruce, I want you to unpack this. I think the challenge is that because information is so easy to come by, the people who are best at presenting that little piece of information the most in the most compelling way and seeming the most confident about it and putting the most money behind the advertising dollars to make that more visible to others.

Get heard. And then the consumer sees that and thinks, well, it's most popular, so it must be the truth. And it is a challenge. Bruce, I'll let you take the rest.

So, Jason, when we first started, just like anything, you know, we tried things and it didn't work. And we got a lot of nut cases, to put it mildly. And then we. And then we get. We tweaked things, and then we started getting people because we are genuine about helping people, but we started attracting a lot of people that didn't want to help themselves. And so that was a challenge. Now we've gotten it pretty good where we're actually attracting the right type of people. I've. We've kind of even weeded out the.

The.

The really small base and the huge pua. You know, the people that want it, they want to start fast, not finish fast, you know, kind of situation. And then, you know, okay, occasionally we still have. We don't get these confrontational people signed up, but we get confrontational people commenting on. And what I've always. What I've always found really interesting, when a person says, oh, whole life is a scam, or they'll say things like, well, the only reason you want it to be higher base is because you want to get paid, you know, greater or, you know, you will get. We'll even get a lot of what I would call the supposedly CFAs. I don't know if you have that in Canada, but yeah, and these people are, well, you should just put it into investments, because in the long run, and I'm like, you're not. Then I can't help myself. I got to reply. You know, I'm like, you're not even listening to what we're talking about. We're not talking about investing, okay? So please. You know, I do know that part of the CFA exam has an insurance component, so you must not have done very well on that piece. You know, really drives me crazy because, you know, what happens is people comment more on what they've heard rather than what they experience. Have you guys ever noticed that? So people say, well, I heard whole life is a bad. A bad deal. Oh, have you ever had whole life? Well, no, I haven't. Well, then you really need to sit down with us so you can actually experience it, because people that have actually had it actually love it, you know, because that's what they've experienced. So why people feel the need to comment on things they've heard rather than what they've experienced, I don't understand. But we've, we've done a pretty good job of tweaking it and dialing down the message. And, and I took away some of the things from, from the think tank that, that not only you, you presented, but the rest of the speakers presented. And, and I don't know if I was talking to Richard about this, maybe I was talking to James about it, but the reason you should go to a think tank is because everybody needs to get back to fundamentals. The reason, you know, Dan Sullivan, you should go to Dan Sullivan periodically is because you need to get back to fundamentals. Every great athletic person and entertainer, and they're, they're kind of the highest compensated people in the world. Yeah, they get back to fundamentals all the time. I, I, I heard somebody comment on this the other day. Think about it. Professionals. People that are professional, they hire coaches.

Amateurs don't hire coaches. So if you want to be a professional, you need to get some coaches.

That's right.

And so many people out there are trying to do things where they get paid in an amateur way because they're not getting coaches to help them along in their journey. So, you know, I just think if, if we can continue to stick with the message because James and I had lunch two, well before the pandemic started. So I guess it's actually three, because the one was, you know, electronic zoom, you know, virtual whatever you want to call it. And you know, I, I tried to bring up the whole 1090 to James three years ago, and James was like, hey, don't even pay attention to those people. You know, he, he didn't even want to talk about it. He probably doesn't even remember it. If he sees this podcast, he's probably going to go, I didn't say that. Because now, because now he's so passionate about it. Not as passionate as Ryan is, but, you know, about straightening out. But it's starting to go away. I really see that this, it's starting to go away. And why is it going away? It's the same reason why all these other fads have gone away. Because it's not, it's not set up in good sound fundamentals, right? And it'll be like, oh, look over here, look over here. People look over there for a while. But then they, they real, they're going to realize that now this doesn't really work. So I would encourage any, because I know we have a Lot of financial advisors and insurance producers listen to our podcast. I'm sure you do too. Oh yeah. So I would encourage them to continue to. They're doing a good job right now by listening to podcasts, but get other professional coaching and, and become a part of the Nelson Nash Institute too.

When you talk about going back to the basics, we have to remind ourselves that our clients need to do that too.

Yes.

And so one of our approaches in having conversations with clients in our. We, we host quarterly client group coaching to bring like minded people together so that clients don't feel like they're a lone ranger. They're actually networking, getting to know, developing relationships within the client community. But we're continually going back to the fundamentals, the essence of the process. If you were to, I, I would wager, I mean I'm not a, I'm not a betting person, but I would wager that if you, if you put a group of professionals together in a room and then you put a group of clients who believe they're practicing the process and you asked one question, can you describe to us what the problem is and what the essence of the process of becoming your own banker is?

And the array of answers that you would get would, would just blow your mind. And so it's continually reinforcing that with our clients as well. That, and Nelson does such a great job describing it when he, in the, the, when he talks about use it or lose it and he was discussing Eva, the whole focus of that particular part of the book was about economic value add. But he made some really good points in there about making this a lifestyle. And that's really what the concept, the process is all about. It's not a financial plan, it's about making it a lifestyle. Because if you don't continue to train, if you fuss too much like what you were describing about all this 1090 nonsense and focusing on all the, as Nelson would say, majoring in the minors.

And you make training short shrift, then you're, you're going to lose it. The knowledge is going to escape you and the, the, the shallow. All I need to do is read a book and sell someone a policy and now they're practicing a process is just amateur night at the arena. To your point, Bruce, like if you want to be the best, then I believe our clients want to be the best in practicing this process in their lives. So we've got to get them back to the basics too, at a, at a higher frequency than I think we believe we should be. It should be even More frequent.

Yeah. Then that's one of the things I. I took away. You know, we have a private Facebook page, but Rachel and I are working on videos now with our podcasts that can turn into videos so that we can share those with people. But, you know, you just gave us another about getting our clients stick together. We've had clients on the podcast before, but I think we probably ought to get our clients together.

That would be fascinating.

Yeah, I think that would be great.

It'd be amazing what kind of conversations come out of it, especially when you do the. The breakout rooms. And again, going back to the fundamentals in Nelson's book. So we always reference the book all the time, and I tell people flat out. So I was on a call right before we went live here on our session, and I speak to a gentleman who's referred by a client, and he's had, you know, conversations over the last six years with this client of mine, but he hasn't read the book. He's maybe watched two little. Two videos, a couple things. Then he said he has a cousin that has whole life insurance. Okay, great. So he doesn't really do anything yet. And I said, okay, cool. Well, the great news is you have a massive opportunity to. To get a lot of education and to make a decision if this is something you want to do in your life. Because as you said and I said, this book, this 92 pages in this book, has changed every aspect of my life, including my financial life. But not limited to there's not a single single component of my. My world that is not shook and impacted in a positive way by the essence of what is in this book.

It is a core element that underpins every single item that I think about in my life, including my relationships with people, all because of this book. So it's far expansive, much beyond just your financial life, and it's a lifestyle. Now, you may decide that's not the right path you want to go, and that's okay. But I could tell you flat out, if you want to work with someone on our team, if you don't own a copy of this book and you haven't read it, there is absolutely no point in getting started, because everything begins here. And if something were to happen to me and you still have this book, I can sleep. I can have confidence knowing that you can figure it out, because all the answers are here. And so that really impacted him in that conversation. So he's like, I'm going to commit to read the book. I'm going to buy the book right now. And I gave him some other resources, of course, the documentary film and also this documentary and some of our webinar content to go through. And so we'll be teeing up a meeting in about two weeks for him to get through that information. But I says, look, there's just no point. There's no point starting. All the fundamentals are here. If you don't know this information or at least have exposure to it, you may not know what it all means, you may not know how it interacts with you yet. But if you don't have exposure to those core components, we can't build anything. We can't start building a structure on top of it without the foundation. You don't want to build a skyscraper on a weak foundation.

That's wonderfully said. I think there can be the illusion of knowledge in the world that we have such ready information at our fingertips. And we think that I've heard something about this before means I know it. And I think we delude ourselves to thinking that we know way more than we actually know. And actually, I'll credit this back to Circle of Wealth was one of the tools that I used as I was learning about infinite banking and just about finance in general. And they talked about this idea that, you know, there's this huge vast knowledge in the world and the amount that each one of us actually knows is probably maybe 2% of all of the knowledge in the world. And so you see the humility of those who have pursued knowledge and pursued wisdom over time because they're continuing to seek knowledge and seek wisdom because they realize that they know so little in comparison to how much wisdom is accessible. Yet it's the closed minded person who has a scarcity mindset, who thinks, I heard one thing, I know everything, I don't need to continue growing and continue pursuing this information. And it is amazing how rich just becoming your banker, becoming your own banker is and how you can study it over and over and continue to grow your knowledge and your wisdom and also lean back on the simplicity of something that has lasted over time. And that's what allows you to then recognize, Bruce, the things that you were saying are the, you know, that you said a certain word, but like the, the flash or the, the things that crop up and they seem really, really spectacular and they seem really popular for a short period of time, but then they're gone because it's not the true fundamentals. And so continuing to seek true wisdom and not thinking, you know, everything is, is really key.

Oh, definitely. Nelson said it best. There's no such thing as having arrived in knowledge. There's always something new to learn. And Bruce, when you were mentioning that earlier about, you know, how some, you know, sometimes you receive comments or on content and that can.

Yeah.

And you know what? What I share with my teammates and. And try to reinforce as often as we can and is. Is to just be triggerless.

Jason, I didn't share the whole thing. I don't do it on our content. It's when I'm at somebody else's content.

Yeah.

That I do it. And I don't. I was probably. I probably sounded like I was a little more harsh than what I. Although I do point out the fact that there is an insurance section on the cfa, but I do, I do point out the fact that I'm surprised that you're making recommendations for somebody that you don't even know their financial picture or their financial goals. You know, so. Because I'm just speaking the truth. Right. I'm just saying it. I'm doing. I'm doing it all much. I'm being a little bit more animated than what I do. And I don't. I don't do it. Matter of fact, I encourage Lucas. Lucas is one who takes care of our social media. And he. And he has a more of a trigger to re.

Not.

Not because Lucas is the nicest guy in the world, but he has more of a trigger to reply to those people. And I, I encourage him not to reply, but he's always doing it for search engine optimization, you know.

Well, here's. And part of. I mean, here's part of what you can see behind this as well. And I'm. For a while, I was just thankful that I didn't read all the comments because, my goodness, I mean, people will find crazy stuff to say about the shape of your nose for, like, really ridiculous things that have nothing to do with the content. So it's, it's just, it's baffling to me who is commenting sometimes on, you know, social media, especially YouTube. But what is very interesting is that we realize that, well, if somebody has a negative opinion to share, that still allows more people to see that content because there's more engagement. So engagement of all forms is okay. And what we also know is that when somebody shares a question or even, you know, sometimes there's those. Those comments that, you know, are not really questions. They're more like instigating or they just want to argue. And so there's those. We realize as well the value of having Somebody else who might be more interested in the concept reading this comment later and saying, well, you know, they do have a good argument. So what is the answer to that? And so we like to make sure that we respond with kindness and with grace and with providing resources to somebody who might be coming across that content and comment later and wondering, well really what is, is what is the answer? So how do I think through this? And so the one thing that I can say is anyone ever seeing the comments section of any of our social media would always say they've been very professional and that we've definitely provided information and resources and knowledge.

So Jason, but I have taken what you said under advisement for the future. I appreciate, I appreciate you for saying that mediators don't get triggered very often. That that's part of. I don't, I get triggered in, in isolation after because I'm supposed to get along with everybody, but that means everybody also ticks me off. So. But then I go off into isolation and get triggered is what happens.

Well, great about these comments is that, what a beautiful way to allow people to self select. Yes, yes. I mean.

You know, you guys running, you run your, your podcast. You do. We talked about this before when we went live here for a recording, but you guys do live sessions and, and which is phenomenal and kudos to you for doing that. But so you're going to get live commentary and things that happen and, and there's a lot of stuff that happens in a live. Like no, we don't edit much of our podcast unless there's a, unless there's a tech glitch or somebody's audio. There's, there's, there's zero editing that happens here. And so we, we just keep it raw and we, whatever comes up is what comes up. But the commentary that happens and you have the negative nellies of the world or whatever, they're seeking for a fight and they want to be a keyboard. Where am I? Good. Good for you. If that's how you get, you know, what, what turns your prank, but what, what a way to self select yourself out of an opportunity and the likelihood that you're going to be able to do business with, with those people. I mean you just eroded it and that's okay because now I just say, oh great. So this person that's now on my calendar to have a phone call is also the person that was making those comments on the video. I think I could cancel that meeting. It's good.

They normally don't have meetings anyways and they normally are not finding you at the moment that you're live either. So just a little bit of peace of mind there.

So, so, you know, Simon Sinek says you don't want to do business with everybody that needs your goods or services. You only want to do business with people that believe what you believe. Absolutely, yes. And, and, and we actually, in the early parts of it, you know, we were trying to help everybody, you know, see the light. And Richard, you're exactly right now, now we just, you know, really concentrate on the like minded people and let the other people self select and we've got our messages has helped do that, you know, along the way. So yeah, I agree with that a hundred percent.

Nelson used to say, you know, and anyone asked them, you know, what was it? You'd well, do you ever have the gut feeling there's something fundamental we live in? Yeah, give me 20 bucks, buy this book. And he would say, you know what, what do you have? You got, you, you maybe you made a couple of dollars or you broke even on the cost of the book. For us in Canada, we, we barely break even because it costs more to get across the board. But, but you, you know, someone reads it, they read it or they don't read it, at that point in time, it's in their hands and you're going to know real quick if you have a suspect or a prospect, he would say, right. And so the book is a great, it's great for all the things that we talked about it being great for. And that's the core, the foundation, the material that people need to have. But it's also great in that it gives people the ability to choose if they want to, you know, they want to take the red pill or the blue pill. Right? And, and they're going to choose to go down the path that they won't. Meanwhile, I've moved on with my life helping somebody else.

Which is an amazing, much better place to be in. And you know, it's interesting that I think from my perspective, coming into the whole infinite banking space, I was originally thinking of infinite banking as.

How do you store cash most effectively? And so we're talking with people who want to store cash most effectively and be able to access capital and be their own banker. And you know, there's the other component, the other piece of this that for a while I think, Bruce, we didn't do as good of a job of talking about the death benefit and the value of the death benefit. And we realized that we needed to really change the way we were communicating because we didn't want to say the death benefit is a side benefit, a fringe benefit. And. And, oh, by the way, you also get a death benefit on top of all of this amazing place to store cash. And so even the awareness of the problem, I think if you're looking at the problem is my cash storage, my banking function. That's one problem. We could then say, well, there's also another problem of how do I have the best kind of life insurance? I mean, even if it's just that question, how do I have the best kind of life insurance so that I can have a death benefit, so that I can pass on wealth to my kids, so that I can make sure I'm paying less in premium than I'm going to receive in a death benefit, and so that I guarantee that I'm going to have a payout. Those are questions then, that are on somebody's mind if they're truly caring deeply about their family. And so that even then shifts the perspective of what kind of a person is looking for this information and the solutions to that problem, because that isn't a different problem to solve. We all still have the same problems, but it's a different facet of the same problem.

Your perspective, Rachel, has shifted on that, I would suspect, because again, you had a. An experience in your life that shifted that for you a little bit. Can you speak to that a little bit as to how things transpired and how you elevated your understanding of the importance of the debt benefit?

Yes. So Lucas and I had come into life insurance first from the side of how do we store cash best? We, we moved from let's store money in gold and silver. And then we realized that's not as liquid as we wanted it to be because it was in half the value when we wanted to liquidate it for the purpose of investing in a business. So we came first to this idea of I need a better place to store cash that's better than the bank, that's better than gold and silver. How do I do that? And so we started asking that question. We really got gung ho about whole life insurance at that time and the concept of using infinite banking as that place to store cash. Then we realized, well, we've got this policy, but our cash flow didn't support a very large policy. And so that was one policy on Lucas and nothing on me. And we were saying, well, we have this good cash storage tool, but we're missing something here. We should probably make sure we have insurance on both of us. So then we came across the idea of human life value, and we said, well, let's go ahead and insure that. What does that mean for us? Well, it was tremendously higher insurance than we thought we could qualify for. And so we insured Lucas with an additional term policy to supplement up to his human life value. And then we insured me with two different term life insurance policies at that time, and that was my human life value. And I'm pretty sure that anyone listening is probably familiar with that term, but it just means as much life insurance as you can get. The insurance company is never going to overinsure you. They will insure you up to what they see your economic value. And I always say your actual value is infinite because you are wonderfully created, and you can do so much more than any dollar amount. But there is a fundamental or a financial cap on what the insurance company will provide as a death benefit for you. So we said, well, we have our maximum insurance for an, oh, by the way, we're insured if anything happens. So then we'd probably had that for three or four or five years somewhere in that ballpark. And we're going on living our lives thinking, well, this provides us the ability to convert this term over to whole life insurance later. Everything's all set. We're doing as much as we can today. Well, then I came into a situation. I delivered my second daughter. This was about three years ago. She was born May 20, 2019. And after delivering her, I had severe complications that ended up in emergency surgery. And I'll spare you the details, but that I hemorrhaged and had severe blood loss. At one point, they said at least 2 liters of blood that I lost. And then they were transfusing blood that ended up being eight units. I had to look up what a unit of blood is and how much eight units is. But it was basically every drop of blood in my body had to be replaced because of the. The extent of the hemorrhage, and went into another medical condition with a problem with the platelets and clotting factor that that condition, called DIC, had a 50% survival rate. And so the note, the. The information Lucas is getting in the hospital room where he's holding newborn baby girl. And I'm unaware in surgery. I have no idea what's going on at this point. He's getting the report. First, we can't stop the bleeding. Second, we stopped the bleeding, but it's worse. And he's just grappling with, oh, my goodness, is she gonna make it? And what am I gonna do with this, these two girls? And how am I gonna explain this to them? And what am I going to do? And of course we're people of faith and he's praying as well and he's having confidence in God. But that's a terrifying situation to face. And at one point he said his mind went to the, the point and the fact of realizing at least there is life insurance. And if something happens, I'm not going to have to tomorrow go back to work and try to figure out how do I have a full time nanny to take care of this brand new newborn baby. At least I'll be able to figure things out. And when I came to, it was about four hours later. I woke up from being unconscious for about 45 minutes. And guys, I, I seriously have no idea how I'm still standing here today. It was that miraculous of a recovery. Looking back, I realized that that death benefit could have tremendously saved my family. I didn't. I had no indicators that anything bad was going to happen. I mean my, I'm perfectly healthy pregnancy was going wonderfully. Baby was healthy. We were just excited to have another baby in the family. And all of a sudden our family was almost body slammed with this tremendous acute crisis that thankfully I lived, but really made me think completely differently, not just about life insurance, because I could have just had the awareness, well, everyone should have whole life insurance and as much death benefit as they could. But it really got us thinking even deeper that my life and my moments are not guaranteed. My husbands are not either. And if at any point something happened to both of us, there would be all the money that our kids would ever need to be able to handle their life and make decisions and have an inheritance. And however, that's not enough because we're thinking, well, what if they got life insurance checks and they had any other assets that we've built? Well, that's still not going to direct them to do good with that. They could just use all the money for bad things or spend it all and it would be gone tomorrow. And that would not produce in them the character and the virtue and the desire to do the best for their children and, and use infinite banking and, and think about managing their money from sound financial principles. So we realized that so much more was needed in terms of guidance to steward these resources of our family, not just money. And so then it just got us asking all these questions about what is a legacy and how do you have more than money that is something that you can give to your children so that they have the guidance and the, the stewardship and all of the training that they need to be able to make that money, do good and grow in each generation. So we were able to take it all the way into guidance in our estate plan with a memorandum of trust that specifically outlined the death benefit that pays out to you. We expect that you would purchase as much whole life insurance on your lives as possible, and this would be continued. Now, of course, we can't force that. We can't make it legally binding. We can't say you must or you're going to not get the money. I mean, but we can say this is our desire and our hope and we can write it down so that it's clear, it's not ambiguous. And that can be a document that continues speaking to them even when I'm gone. And hopefully I will live enough life to be able to train them in these ways and they'll understand it because I'm going to live to be 117 or so, and they're going to be, you know, in their 90s or 80s at least by time I'm gone and I will have time, have had time to teach them, and they'll have already taught their kids and their kids will have taught their children. But if I don't get all that time, how do I make sure that the guidance is in place to give that direction? And so that really just transformed my thinking on not only having the financial assets in place, but providing the wisdom that comes along with using them really well.

Second mic drop moment from Rachel here to close out our show today.

Again, the power of thinking, setting things up so that you can create that generational wealth. And thank you, guys, both of you, for being with us today, sharing your journey and sharing how infinite banking has impacted you. Nelson's message has impacted you, and you're continuing his message forward to impact so many others. We're just very grateful, very blessed to have you with us today and thank you for being with us to share.

Thank you, Richard, Jason, always a pleasure to be around you too.

We appreciate you both very much and we will have you back. So for all of our viewers on the YouTubes and for everyone who's tuning in on your favorite podcast platform, we will definitely have you back. And for the YouTubers in particular, you're going to see a playlist that just showed up because our editing team, as I share each and every time at the tail end of these videos, our editing team is amazing. So that playlist shows up to really empower you to continue your journey of learning, to really be receptive and to make sure that you're asking a lot of clarifying questions as insights and thoughts come up for you. Engage in the comments as we were discussing during the episode. Please share with us what resonates with you, what was problematic. We'd love to talk more about it and make the rest of your week great. Thank you both again sincerely for joining us. It was a real pleasure and we look forward to connecting with you again soon. And please call upon us at any time for anything that we can do to serve you and your audience as well.

Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the Wealth Without Bay Street Podcast where your wealth matters. Be sure to check out our social media channels for more great content. Hit subscribe on your favorite podcast player and be sure to rate the show. We definitely appreciate it. And don't forget to share this episode with someone you care about. Join us on the next episode where we continue to uncover the financial tools, strategies and the mindsets that maximize your wealth.