259: RRSP Meltdown Creates Real Estate Opportunity with Stan Wolny

Foreign.

Welcome to wealth on Main street, where conversations about growing your wealth are fun and entertaining. Wealth isn't just about money. It's the skills and the knowledge that we develop to pass on to future generations. Tune in each week to to grow your mindset and your net worth at the same time.

So how do you successfully melt down registered accounts, things like RSPs and 401ks so that you can control the banking function in your life? Well, we're going to discuss that today amongst a number of other things with our guest, Stan Wolney. Now, Stan has gone from raising high $100 million in private equity financing in the oil and gas sector to becoming an infinite banking practitioner. And we're going to talk about his incredible journey and everything in between. So, Stan, welcome to the show today.

Hey, welcome, Rich, thank you for having me on here. Real pleasure.

Yeah, we're excited. Now, you're based out of Calgary, Alberta. Of course, everyone knows Calgary is the Calgary Stampede. Of course, we know about oils. And you got oil down there, you got engineering, you've got wide open fields, lots of farmers, lots of ranches, lots of big trucks. It's a great place to be. I'm a big fan of Calgary. I'm not a big fan of their hockey team, mind you. I'm an Oilers fan, but.

Or the big boss.

That being said, we're excited to have you here. And so you know, what preempted this was, you know, talking about, you know, interviewing some of the advisors that we have working on our team and you being one of those individuals and really actually talking about the concept of melting down RSPs and helping get your, your, your policy up and running, which is something that you're doing uniquely in your family circumstance. And everyone has a different circumstance. And we talk. That's why it's important that we interview people coming from different vantage points. And so I think you provide a unique vantage point for our listening audience today because not only are you coming at this at a certain stage of life, but you're also a cancer survivor. So there's a lot to unpack there. I want to start the journey by going back to being in the petroleum business, being, you know, a petroleum engineer. You know, you, you raised $100 million in capital in private equity. How did we get from that vantage point to saying, you know what, screw all this in the oil business, I'm going to stop all that and I'm going to go work in the insurance sector?

Okay, well, thank you for asking. Well, it started after I did that. One startup company, you know it, we got merged with another one. And. And so I was like, what do I do now? Well, I had a really good partner geologist, and we work really well together. We thought, let's go do it again. So investigated those avenues, looking at different assets, trying to raise money. Came close a couple of times. And then at the end, you know, we got to a point we brought another guy on our team and we found a really good asset and we were going to get the money, and then it was time to pony up. So right about that time is when the federal government changed and the economic environment, let's just say, wasn't really as good here. And I thought, do I really want to risk six figures on this opportunity when there may not be an exit strategy? Don't know what we're going to do with this asset after? And I was quite worried, you know, being in my late 50s at the time, losing that much money. So I thought, you know what? I'm not going to do this. Thanks, guys, but I'm walking away right now. So I thought that was a pretty good decision on my part because Covid happened after and high likelihood I may have been even let go by my partners because two of us really had a similar skill set. So I thought, well, I've got to do something else. You know, a lot of people told me I'm a little too experienced and overqualified to go back to do what I did before, which means I'm too old. But I thought, well, I'll look at something else. I got recruited by an insurance company. I thought, well, you know, I'll listen. I'm. I'm open to new ideas. So I went and, you know, had an interview. I was working on my llqp, got licensed, and let's just say that that opportunity didn't. Didn't turn out like I thought it would.

What was your experience with that? You know, you mentioned being recruited by insurance companies. I'm sure lots of people have had a similar experience as that to some degree or another. What was it that made it so that that particular insurance opportunity didn't resonate with you? What was. What was one of the things that, you know, had you say, you know what? I got to see if there's another. There's something else in factor I can look at that's not with this particular.

Organization, but just it didn't align with my own personal values. You know, I like to hold myself to a very high moral and ethical standard, and it just didn't live up to that, Rich, I'm not gonna disparage anybody here right now, but let's just say we were told to do certain things that I didn't feel comfortable with, and the people that I met in person just weren't people that I wasn't interested in working in with.

And what.

I. I'm always curious, and I ask every single one of our teammates, what was it specifically about the infinite banking concept that sort of tipped that domino over for you, where it opened your eyes to, to a whole new financial world and all, all the possibilities of being able to serve people and to share this message? What was, what was it about the infinite banking concept specifically for you that tipped that domino over?

Really? You kind of said it, Jason. It's that control, being able to do the things that you want, not having your, your capital tied up in jail and having access to it. There's just so much more that you can do with the resources that you have. And that's really what excited me about this. I had a certain portfolio, but it's stuck. It's stuck in jail. What am I going to do with this? And having the risk, you know, seeing these wild market swings and, you know, like, oh, my God, what's going happen? Am I going to have anything left by the time I need it? You know, and that really got me quite concerned. And when I saw the safety and security of this, that really swung me over and that, that really won me over. And now being able to share that message and help other people out, share my story, get them excited, just, I don't know, makes my heart feel good.

It's so nice to hear RSPs Rich and I, you know, Rich and I talk about this. We've chatted about it over the years that, you know, an rsp.

Much like any other financial product, it just is right. It has its own set of characteristics, and it's super important to understand what those characteristics are because it can represent an advantage for someone, but it can also become a trap. And, and the person may not even be aware that that could be an eventuality because they don't have awareness of other ways to achieve whatever the financial objective is that they're trying to achieve. And so it. Going through this process of melting down, which we'll talk a lot more about, is something that was very personal to you and something that you wanted to get done in order to, you know, experience this journey of, of becoming your own banker, but to also make sure that you don't end up in another trap, which is Also equally important, people jump from one financial product to the next and they just don't realize what those HIDD traps might be. So, yeah, it's, it's interesting to know that that's what tipped the domino over for you was control.

And you know, also too, Jason, you speak about this a lot, the peace of mind. Yeah, you know, I, before I did this, I went and looked back at my portfolio just since 2017, just, you know, a shorter snap in time and I couldn't believe the two huge drops that occurred during that period. We're talking six figure drops. Wow. And that, that hurts. You know, luckily after Covet, things have kind of rebounded a little bit and kind of got back on track. But you know, think, you think about all that lost opportunity there that happened during that time period and just sitting on pins and needles all the time. And you look at the geopolitical uncertainty out there right now, what's going to happen? You know, we got maybe tariffs coming. What's that going to do to our market and the other instabilities around the world? It's really disheartening.

It's concerning when you reflect back, I mean, going back to 2017 and just being able to have that impact on seeing those significant drops, obviously that's, that's eye opening, heart palpitating to a degree. But you know, you've, you've, you've grown up in an experience where the common financial thinking and recommendations from probably everyone up until you learned about infinite banking concept was to go ahead and put, and park your money into a registered account and do this and do that and do this and do that and, and you followed to some degree those recommendations and advice that allowed you to build a substantial portfolio, which is fantastic. But you always were stuck with that trap. So when you think back now in the, in the knowledge base you have, Stan, you go further back in time thinking about raising your children, things that you and your wife wanted to do along the way. What are some of the, I guess unintended things that you can recognize that you could have done differently had you had more access and liquidity?

Oh, I probably would have definitely gotten back into more real estate. You know, that's something even, you know, my parents as immigrants, they, they talked a lot about that. You know, they had another property that they had. You know, they, you know, my dad always said that, you know, land is good, so is having a house. That's, it's never going to go away. You can at least have a roof over your head and that's something I probably wish I would have gotten into earlier instead of, you know, risking my money on companies, you know, trying to do startups and hit that big home run, instead of maybe being a little more conservative and take care of my family a little better. You know, if I would have done things differently and I had I known about infinite banking a long time ago, I'm pretty sure each of my kids would have had a home by now and I would have a little bit more and I'd be doing other things.

Well, I think the late Bob Shields, Rich had said it best when we would receive this frequent feedback stand. Early days when Rich and I were doing boot camp events and educating the general public where we would have, you know, somewhere between 20 and 30 people together in a room and we would spend an entire day educating on this process. And it was so common where people would feedback throughout the day. Typically it started right as we got close to noon because we had sort of poured a foundation of the problem and we were getting into solution mode. And people would say, I wish I had known about this. Things would have been different if I had known about this 5, 10, 15, 20 plus years ago, whatever the time frames were. And Bob Shields said something to us many years ago that has never left us. Somebody mentioned that to him. And for those who don't know who Bob Shields is, he wrote a great book. It's titled you don't have to Die to Win. And he's no longer with us, God rest his soul. But he said, you can't say that 10 years from now. You're here today and you're learning today. And so I think what sets you apart, Stan, much like anyone else who's been exposed to the, to the knowledge, is that you took action. Knowledge doesn't equal understanding. Knowledge doesn't mean a darn thing if you don't apply it, if you don't do something with it. And you did that and look at how far you've come and just, yeah, get excited about how far you're going exactly.

Well, Stan, you know, we, we, we, we jumped in here right away talking about this idea of a meltdown idea, meltdown strategy. And this is language that's kind of, you know, used out in the marketplace. My curiosity is, as you were looking at getting started in the process yourself from a personal vantage point, how, how did this strategy come up for you as a, as a, as a method to begin the funding source? Because there's, there's some rationale to it that works in your circumstance and would works for some people, but certainly not for all. So I want to walk through that a little bit because, you know, you're also a cancer survivor, so there's, there's something unique there. And it kind of ties to another common question that we get is, you know, what if I'm uninsurable? So I'm really curious for you to walk our viewers through what, what led to how you started to package your own program together to begin this process for yourself and your family.

Sure. Thanks. Well, first and foremost is what you said. I'm a cancer survivor, so I wasn't sure if I would be insurable. And I honestly didn't want to wait. I wanted to get my RSPs out of the market, so I took them out of equities and put them into a cash account. And then I thought, well, my wife is healthy. I want to put a policy in place on her and direct our RSP holdings under her. I'll worry about myself down the road. So that's what we did. Now, RRSP portfolio is basically, I contributed all. I have some spousal in there and some under my name. So, as you know, when you withdraw RRSPs, you have to be taxed. So it didn't make a lot of sense for me just to pull out of mine and have this huge tax bill. So I thought, well, let's take a little bit out of yours, take a little bit out of mine. We'll melt it down like that. That way we're paying minimal taxes and we'll be able to pay our premiums.

Well, it sounds like, you know, you're the methodology for you and what, what's allowing this to work is again, the uniqueness of your situation and being able to say, okay, we can pull from the spousal aspect, we can pull from mine. You can dictate how much you're taking out. You can have a bit, call it a, an initial idea of what some of that tax amount is, is going in. So you already have a, a pretty good estimate of what you're anticipating. So it's well designed, you know, it's strategic, so you can determine how big you want to make the policy. But also, you know, you're, you, you're in a. Between you and your wife. You have different income structures beyond that, and that allows you to kind of decide, okay, well, how much extra can we take our income up? That's still on a reasonable basis. Am I, am I capturing that effectively 100% rich.

That's exactly what we did.

So I think the important thing for our listeners to understand is that again, the uniqueness of your circumstance and combined with your decision to say, you know what, I'm just tired of the fluctuation, the risk, the geopolitical environment, I need to move into that peace of mind scenario. And peace of mind for me looks like ramping up a system of policies that's going to support our family and our other objectives.

Absolutely. And I have to tell you, since I've done this, I met more at peace and I'm not as anxious. Like, you know, I see the stock ticker all the time, you know, when you see these drops and it's like, I don't have to worry about that anymore.

Oh, what a, what a relief that is.

Oh, I can't begin to tell you, Jason, I, I lived up for so long that I feel so much better. And you know, thanks to you guys for helping me with that.

Well, credit to you for being receptive to learning something new. You know, Nelson always said that it, it takes two to tango. Anytime somebody would thank him for all of the impact that he had on their, their life, he would say, takes two to tango. And so when you think of, you know, a meltdown of an RSP for people who are watching and who are listening. So we, I don't think Rich, that we've ever gone out to the marketplace and said you should tactically nuclear Vaporize.

Your, your RSPs, throw a grenade on your port, you know, yeah. Your registered accounts and walk away and hopefully hope everything just works out for the best. Right.

What's super important again is going back to the characteristics and understanding. And so look, if, if your money is inside of an RSP and you're completely happy with that and you want to continue to, to invest money through the device of an rsp, then that's your privilege. But folks like Stan and like Rich and I, we just have different objectives. We want to, to build that peaceful, stress free way of life financially. Because this is all about controlling how you finance the things that you need throughout your lifetime. And financing things is not just products. It's a phase of your life. You can literally finance your retirement and have more than enough death benefit to extinguish what you financed throughout your retirement. But you're doing it by leading a peaceful, stress free way of life financially. So you can build up a lot of capital in an rsp and then once you begin to systematically access it in the retirement phase of your life, the anxieties around the volatility of a Market don't go away throughout the whole time that you're retired versus if you know that there's a way to finance your retirement in such a way where the asset base continues growing in value, not diminishing in value, and you pay no tax on the, on the transaction, you pay no tax on the buildup, you can contribute almost unlimited sums and you can engineer your retirement outcome.

Logically. What disadvantages would you see, and I'm referring to our listeners and viewers, what disadvantage would you see to doing that? Not to one or the other. Putting money in a policy or a system of policies or putting money into a registered retirement savings plan. What advantages do you see to leading a peaceful, stress free way of life in retirement? And.

Is what you're currently doing engineered to deliver that? If it isn't, then I think you owe it to yourself to investigate an alternative method of achieving it.

No, I agree with you. 100 Jason. And as an engineer, I love the analogy. So it took a lot of, you know, a bit of thought and planning. But I just tell you, like I said again, it's such a peaceful, stress free feeling right now. And you know what's ironic about it is you know, you have your RSPs and you have, you work with an advisor of some kind. You're generally with a company and I found they weren't contacting me. I was the one that was always looking at my portfolio. I was the one that was reaching out all the time here, change this, do this and do that. So why am I paying management fees when I'm not really getting helped out? And then, you know, I'm at the risk of the market all the time. So it just, I don't, just didn't fit what I wanted to do in my life right now on you're paying.

The fee on the account value, not the fluctuation in its value.

Exactly. Yeah.

You know, again, these are things that people may not fully grasp.

You reiterated of course that you're an engineer, Stan. And I'm curious because.

I personally work with a lot of engineers. I don't know why that is. I just, for whatever reason I seem to, I don't know, be good at working with engineers. I'm not sure why I don't want to promote that. So please don't have every engineer in the country reach out to me. I'm sure you're wonderful people, but we are. What, what I do recognize though is, is a common trait and again, it's not exclusive, but common is that engineers really do like a Spreadsheet, you know, they really like to be able to see the details and the numbers and things of that nature. And so but what I'm really cognizant of in our conversation today and every conversation you and I have had, you've really isolated the feeling and the impact and like the peace of mind. Like these are, these are things that don't exist on a spreadsheet. They're not quantified by a spreadsheet. So what would you share with someone who is, is similar minded? Maybe they're an engineer themselves or they're, or they're a software. They have a, they have that need to kind of, you know, pick out like every, every misspelled word on the page sort of a situation. What would you share with them about the experience of you incorporating this into your, your life and your family in comparison to what anyone would see on a piece of paper when they're looking at a table of values? Let's say.

I think I'm going to go back to Nelson Nash and something he said in his book, you have to rethink your thinking. And it was something I learned along this journey as well. Your mind is like a parachute. It works best when it's open. So, you know, I've always prided myself and wanted to continually learn and grow and I'm never going to stop. So, you know, when new ideas like this come across, you have to take a look at them seriously. And that's what I did. And yeah, even though I'm an engineer and I have that type A personality and I love spreadsheets and numbers, but, you know, I'm also a man of faith like Nelson was. And that's a huge, most important part of my life. And that's where that whole feeling comes in. And I truly thought this was good work that I'm doing. I'm helping people out and it just aligns with all my values. And that's really what hooked me was Nelson's book and his quotes of scripture. And then I thought, wow, this is incredible. This aligns completely with, with who I am. And that's why I've jumped in with both feet and you know, thank God I'm here with you guys right now.

Ditto. And it reminds me too that Nelson said that if he could have renamed this because he thought that it was grossly misclassified, meaning the tool that's used the best tool to get the job done right, dividend paying, whole life insurance, ideally with a reputable, you know, mutual company, and he would Say if I could have renamed it, would have named it a personal monetary system with a death benefit thrown in for good measure. And the good measure is something that we experience when we have to fulfill that. That duty of care and, and to deliver a death benefit to a grieving family. And when that news comes in a. It's obviously completely unexpected, right? Nobody reaches out to one of us as advisors in North America, given that we operate in North America, nobody reaches out to us and says, hey, we just want to let you know that Billy died at exactly the right time. We just thought we'd give you that heads up and we're ready for the windfall. It's always unexpected. Even if it's a terminal illness, there's still an incredible amount of grief. And so the good measure is that we get to show up with a large windfall that attracts no tax exactly when the family needs it the most. And we don't go anywhere. We're still there for the family because naturally, the first thing that comes up is, what do we do with this windfall? Generational wealth is not built on assets. It's built on knowledge. That's the distinction. And everything that's going on out there in the marketplace is all around building generational wealth by focusing on what assets you should accumulate. That. That's the discussion, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, guys, correct me if I'm wrong. Listeners in the comments, correct me if I'm wrong. Everything is about the accumulation. This is where you need to build wealth. Real estate, mutual funds, equity, private equity, private placement. The list goes on and on. Bitcoin, crypto. That's not building generational wealth.

We're educating around building generational knowledge so that you know how to keep it.

Grow it and transfer it. Again with the knowledge on how to keep it, grow it and transfer it. So this is not just about taking advantage of all the amazing living benefits, the financing characteristics, what happens with that windfall, and are the recipients of it really, truly prepared for generational wealth?

I'm glad you brought that up, Jason, because, you know, coincidentally, at the time of this recording, I'm dealing with supporting a family who's got experience right now. And we're, we're doing our best to, you know, we're facilitating the claims process for someone. And that gentleman, wonderful man, wonderful gentleman, truly. I enjoyed every single interaction, every conversation. I was, look, I always looked forward to them. And 50, if I recall correctly, 58 years young, a very simple accident that took place, you know, a fall which led to A series of events that you wouldn't think would cause a situation where he's no longer with us, but it, but it did. And the result of that is, you know, he had a policy, had only been enforced for less than four years, about three and a half years. He'd been using it very diligent, taking loans repayments, loan repayments, honoring Nelson's core elements, you know, not stealing the peas, doing all those incredible things. And you know, so despite the fact that there's over $100,000 loan on the policy, there's still going to be a net million plus tax free amount that's going to go to his spouse and his family because of what he set up. And you know, Stan, it's interesting because gentleman, also an engineer.

Very, you know, similar demeanor as yourself, a guy, very open minded, had the same types of frustrations that you've identified with his past financial life and experience before learning about this concept. You know, all about the things that he didn't know and, and all the challenges he always, you know, the frustrations he had to deal with with markets and governments and changes and you name it, really everything you identified. And so we, I feel blessed that we're able to support them in the way that we are. I'm also deeply saddened that he's not available for us to have more meetings. But the fact that we can show up and help their family is, is to me absolutely tremendous.

Yeah, I just want to circle back to something that Jason said that was, I think super important and I've been talking about that with clients that I have right now about that passing on of generational knowledge because when you acquire wealth, you really have to know what to do with it. I mean, I learned that early on in my career because they're preparing us to have success and how to deal with windfalls, things like that, you know, the salaries we make and you know, how many stories do you see and hear out there where people who win lotteries or athletes who make a tremendous amount of money, when that stops and they end up living under a bridge somewhere, it's because they're not equipped to deal with that kind of wealth and what to do with it. So I, I, that's what I love about this whole family banking system and infinite banking. You teach your kids, they teach their kids what to do with this wealth and how to transfer it and how.

To keep it while we're sorry.

Go ahead, Rich.

It reminds me, Stan, of something that we were talking about the other day. And so since You've got this process started. You know, you mentioned being a real estate investor, having a real, you know, avid inclination to real estate. And you actually have a real estate project that you're working on right now which kind of ties into teaching your kids a little bit and supporting that. So I'm curious if you can walk our listeners through, you know, again, what, what's, what's the opportunity that's been presented to you that you can now tap into that wasn't really available before? Not, not to the degree that you're able to do it now?

Sure. So I have another home. It's my parents home and they've passed away and they left it to me. And so my two older children live in the home right now and my wife, through some friends of hers, they had built a garage in their backyard with a carriage suite above it. She said, you know, that's, that's really cool. We should maybe do that at our property for our two younger teenagers that are home with us. That way everyone's going to have a roof over their heads. So you start thinking, well, how am I going to do this? How am I going to tackle it? Where am I going to get the money to do this? And we thought, well, now that we're going to be practicing infinite banking, I'm putting this policy together. We are going to have the means to take out policy loans and fund this. I couldn't have done this if my money wasn't in an rsp. Then I'd be going to deal with a bank trying to get a loan or maybe going to my line of credit. And then the money's not flowing to me, it's flowing to somebody else. We're going to keep this in the family, keep it to ourselves. And that means so much to me now.

I love that. And I was going to add Rich, that we, Rich and I have been having these discussions around, you know, how we're going to be educating around the steps involved in family banking and we know that that's what the marketplace is craving. And, and we, we're going to deliver that and it'll be in a course format. It's going to be amazing. And so Stan, one question that I have for you that's really important. What do you want the world to know about you?

What I want the world to know about me. I'm a God fearing man.

My faith is first and foremost to me. I love my family with all my heart. I try to love my neighbor and I just want to help everybody and I Love my teammates, and I love what we do at Ascendant Financial.

We do, too.

And we love our teammates, and we're definitely blessed to have you as one of them. And this is the caliber of teammates that we most love to work with. And.

You'Re definitely going places in this. In this business. And I think the good thing is, is that we always remember that there's a distinction between a policy number and the owner.

And a lot of companies.

You know, in the. In this space. I'm not referring to colleagues in the industry. We have so many great colleagues outside of Ascendant that run great businesses. I'm referring to the life insurance companies themselves, can sometimes lose sight of that fact that we're dealing. We're dealing with people. We always. We always. We always refer to the industry. If you talk to anybody in the life insurance industry.

They always refer to policy owners. Let's talk about our policy owners. And I'm saying, why don't. Why don't we talk about people?

And that's what I love about this job. I call a lot of these clients. I call my friends because we've developed friendships. Yeah, we actually like each other and we want to talk to each other and we support each other. And, you know, I've been just blessed with some of the people that I've met through this, and I get such energy doing this and helping people out and showing them how to do something differently that's going to benefit them and their families. It's. It's very rewarding, and it checks off so many boxes. I have my own personal goals.

Yeah, it's. It's part of our culture here to.

To be.

People focused versus instead of being competitor focused, it really shapes everything that you do so much differently. And, yeah, it's, you know, the infinite banking concept.

The impact that it has. I don't know that we could ever truly measure it, because we have the conversations right with existing clients and family members that are involved, but we aren't privy to the conversations that they're having with their family and with everyone that's involved. And what that actual ripple effect truly, truly is.

It's just.

It's beyond energizing. This isn't work. I can't honestly say. I. I mean, there are times where you feel busy and you feel that overwhelm and you can feel even a sense of burnout and. And that for our listeners and viewers, what I'm describing is maybe what you experience in your professional life at certain points, but when you really take a step back and you look at the bigger picture and you think about all the people that you've helped and that you're going to help, it sort of washes that away. It's like, wow, you know, if I was to take a look at my existing base of clients and I just, I think to myself, my God, A, the time's gone by so fast and B, there are a lot like the list is big and you've, you've personally impacted each one of those lives. You've made them a hero to their families. What a great legacy to, to continue building. Like, I would never want to stop doing this. You couldn't pay me enough money to stop doing this. And I know you guys feel the same.

Well, speaking of legacy, I, I'm glad you circled it back to that, Jason, because you know, Stan, you're this carriage house you're talking about. What's kind of interesting about this, this story isn't just that a, you have the opportunity to build it. It's a going to be a great investment. You're going to have more control. You already own the property. You can finance it yourself, you can do the equivalent of like a draw mortgage, but do it from a policy system so you never lose control of that whole situation. But there's a component of, you know, your, your kids living in the property presently creating space for the kids that are still at home with you for them to have a place just in case, you know, the real estate market's getting a little out of control in certain areas. I mean, Calgary is an area where we've seen a lot of, a lot of huge increase, lots of immigration to the Alberta marketplace. You know, so there's, that's creating some, some stressors and some impact around the marketplace. But additionally you're talking about a property that's effectively an investment property for you, but it was already part of a legacy. So you have, you're now tying the sinew of like a past generation flowing through you to your own kids that you're integrating in this scenario. And there's going to be a lot of opportunities to also teach and converse and educate with your kids about the impact as that happens if they get involved in the development, maybe they swing a few hammers, they, they watch the construction take place. There's so many powerful elements about that teaching component. The learning development that you can create through that experience now made possible through the choice and the decision to implement IBC in your life.

No, absolutely Rich. And that's something I'm working on with My older kids right now, you know, my daughter's still in school right now. I already have policies on her, but, you know, when she gets going, she'll do it. I'm working on my oldest son. He's a finishing carpenter, and he better be helping when we do this development. You know, he can swing a hammer. So I'm going to be getting him set up right away. And my younger ones, my, you know, even though they're teenagers, they understand the value of money because we've tried to teach them that throughout their life. So this is going to be a great learning experience for them. I'm going to be setting up some policies for them in this upcoming year because when I first did it for them, I didn't know what the heck I was doing, and I did it wrong. So I've learned a big lesson and I'll be doing it right now, thanks to the coaching for, from, you know, yourself and Jason. And. Yeah, it's that whole legacy planning piece that's really important to me because, you know, it was so important to my parents and to my grandpa. I'll never forget when I was. Oh, God, I don't know, what would I have been, 9, 10 years old? He used to tell me, stan, go to school, get an education. I'm leaving you this house. You can live in it after. You're going to be set up and you're going to have a roof over your head. Never forgot that and how important that is, you know, carried on to my parents. You know, I remember, you know, my dad had passed away. Then when my mom was nearing the end of her life, I remember when she was in the hospital, I was telling her, you know what, Mom, Sydney and Zach, they're going to be moving in to the house. You know, and she was so happy that I kept it, that I didn't sell it, that her legacy was going to continue on and my kids were going to have a roof over their heads. I mean, I can't begin to tell you how that made her feel. You know, she was happy in her last moments knowing something like that. And that's what we're going to continue. And there's so many other things that I'm going to be able to do with this. Now that I'm practicing infinite banking, I get to do this, and then I can do things in my retirement. And, you know, you've opened my eyes up to different possibilities for passive income for my retirement, using different strategies and being able to do that. And then, you know, I am going to pass away one day. And I honestly, I do worry about that because I've had that cancer struggle and I've overcome it. But you know, I get my blood work done every year. You know, I wait for my surgeon to call me and I see that number show up on my phone and I never know what he's going to tell me. So, you know, I just try to live one day at a time. And I'm setting up my family now for generational success. And you know, when I do pass away and my wife passes away, that's the great thing about this. We have accomplished all these goals and there's going to be something to pass on to my kids. If I would have went down my continual path, I would have just spent whatever was left over when it was time. There'd be no home for my two teenagers, there'd be nothing to pass on to them. So this is such a blessing and it's going to help out my family so much. And for children that I won't even.

Meet, I love that. And speaking of, you know, passing it down to family, the generational knowledge.

Just today my 16 year old son, he's finishes an exam, comes home from school. He's sitting at the island in our kitchen and I sort of caught a glimpse and he had his phone and he had a notepad and he, and I could see that his calculator was opening. He had some numbers on the calculator. And I said, oh, I said jackson, I'm quite curious, what are you doing? And he said, I'm putting my plan together for my next policy loan.

16. And I said, oh, I, okay, I had no idea that you were thinking of requesting a loan. And he said, yeah, I'm gonna schedule a time with you to have that conversation, but I want to have my plan put together first.

Nice.

I like, I turned to come back up to my office here and Rebecca was sitting in front of him, so his back was to me. And she kind of looked up at me like, you know, like one of these, like can you believe what we just heard him say? And, and I said to Jackson, I said, once we meet and you walk me through your plan, would you be open to adding this to your upcoming talk at the next think tank? And he said, yeah, absolutely, I'd be more than happy to do that. So he's going to walk people through as a 16 year old how he plans policy loans.

Incredible.

Isn't that good?

That's generational knowledge versus can I take a policy loan? Because that's what I know we should do in the family. Well, that, that's learning how to request something. That's not understanding the knowledge of the reason why and how to administer it. And you can truly learn that at any age.

Very true. And that's why, you know, I thought about buying my 16 year old a vehicle because I've done that for all my kids to help them out because they're athletes and you know how you're coming and going, sometimes you can't make it to practices and things like that. And like, no, you know what, I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna wait till all this is in place and, you know, maybe get him set up and take out a polishing loan, be responsible for it and see how things work and get them to even understand the value of money a little bit more. Because that's a problem sometimes when you start making it and I'm no different, you know, Parkinson's law, it starts coming in. You don't respect things and you know, yeah, it's going to be great for them as well.

That's awesome.

Love that.

Fantastic. Stan, this has been a blast. I absolutely knew we were going to have a lot of fun today and, and share some impact. We talked a little bit about some meltdowns. Great legacy story. We talked about using policy loans to craft and create the next iteration of housing for your own family. And the long term impact of that. Truly amazing. What I would love to find out from you is now that you're here, of course, helping people implement this process in their own lives, you're able to share them, not only a huge impact of your own life experience, including your own experience of being uninsurable for a period of time. You bring a lot of value to the people that you serve and that will really just extend and expand as you go. But a question we would love to know is who would you most like to be a hero to?

I think first and foremost my family.

You know, and then to all the others that I meet.

Throughout this whole journey because that's what it's all about. It's about sharing this knowledge and making everyone's life better. And that's what I'm really passionate about.

Stan, it was awesome. We had a great conversation and we'll definitely have you back. And for all of our viewers and listeners, thank you for tuning in. And one of the things like I mentioned that Rich and I are really going to be focused on this year is making our clients and our team members the stars of the show. And so if, if you're an existing client, love to hear from you. If you have interest to be on the show, just reach out. Let us know that that would be of interest to you and we'd love to share your story and just create more positive impact out there in the marketplace. And for all the youtubers you just saw another video pop up. That is the algorithm of YouTube recommending that you continue your journey of learning something that we fully support. So click through to that next video. Continue learning. And guys, this was great. Make the rest of your week outstanding. This was a lot of fun.