68. Financial Wisdom For Millennials – Client Series – Justin Dubeau

You are listening to the Wealth Without Bay Street Podcast, a Canadian guide to building dependable wealth. Join your host, 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.

What is life like for someone who's been practicing the process of becoming your own banker for the past five years? We're excited today to be joined by Justin Dubois. Now, Justin has been practicing this process in his family for the past five years. Justin works in the oil field, presently loves hockey, loves family, and we are just honored to have him as part of our client series on the wealth without Bay street podcast. Also joined by our co host, my dear friend and colleague, Richard Canfield, who of course is out of Chilliwack, bc, otherwise known as the wac. Justin, welcome to wealth without Bay Street. It's a pleasure to have you. How are you doing?

Very good today. Very good. Thanks for having me.

Thank you for being here. And why don't you take our listeners on a bit of a journey through your process and how you first became introduced to becoming your own banker. And equally as important, what was life like for you before implementing the process? And what has life been like for you and your family since becoming your own banker?

That's a loaded question. It's tough to say where to start, but I guess working in the oil field, I always knew that there was going to be a decent wage, but you kind of want to do the best with what you're given as well. I mean, lots of guys you see with all the fancy campers and toys and stuff, but really nothing to show for it in the bank or anything for the family. So I didn't want to be that guy. Always looked into TFSAs, RSPs, any kind of financial vehicle that I could, did research, and I guess up to the point of 25, I thought the TFSA was the best way to do it. But one day, just sitting in my work truck, I was listening to 6:30 Chad for some reason in the afternoon and then the advertisement came on and I thought, well, no knowledge is bad knowledge, so maybe I should go try out the seminar. And that's how I met Jason. And he was putting on seminar that day for becoming your own banker and, and went through the seminar and I was convinced after one day that that was probably the right idea to get started at least. And I thought if I could do one policy on myself and see how it goes and we'll fire away we'll see what happens. And five years later, I'm glad that I did and happy to say that I also started a policy for my wife and one son. We're working on the other one right now, so hopefully can get that started soon as well.

And if you think about your first experience with the process where you accessed a policy loan, you were able to experience the ultimate simplicity of that element of it. But how was that an advantage for you? What was your feeling after having going through that the very first time? If we can take you back a few years?

The first time I would have pulled out a policy loan was for my vehicle that I bought back in 2016. I think there wasn't a large amount of policy available, obviously being the first year, but it helped me pay it down a lot quicker. I think I put half down for the vehicle. So then the other half came from the policy was within a year or two, I had 17,000 paid off. So right away I knew that if I kept continuing with this policy, that would be the right route anyway. And then all of a sudden, fast forward five years later, buy your wife's vehicle cash, and you get to pay it back at your own schedule. It's nice to be flexible. And then any overtime hours that come in, you go back to paying it right away. And it seems to go pretty quick. Seems within like a year or two, your loans are paid off, because it's a more, I don't know, organized, stringent process, I guess, than just rewilling it with your own bank.

And how did that make you feel?

Describe the feeling of being free and not tied to a bank for a loan. Yeah, ecstatic would probably be the right word. I think, knowing that you're not beholden to anybody and just can sleep at night, knowing that, you know, tomorrow I have some extra cash, I put it into it and pay it down quicker. It's fantastic. I like being my own bank. Just for the control especially.

That's the key word, credible. So important to share that and with, you know, so, you know, one of the most recent things you did, you said, is you bought a vehicle for your wife. Obviously you needed to replace that. And you've got a couple of young kids as well. Guess it wasn't a minivan. Just a curiosity.

Yeah, it was actually a Buick enclave, just to upsize a bit because the two dogs going down a medicine hat is a little cramped in there. People are on each other's laps and it doesn't go well when they're 4:2. And the dogs are 5 and 12, I think, so.

Definitely needed some, needed some extra space. And so being able to make that control decision and I'd love to just hear so you know, you and your wife as you're talking or communicating, but just the ability to do that together and have that conversation as a couple, to be in that control position, what was it like to be able to have that discussion and be able to be on the same page with being in that control position? I'm curious.

It's really not too much of a discussion because she seems to understand the process fairly well. I think I'm doing an okay job explaining it. Maybe I'm patting her, pumping my own tires a little bit too hard there, but just knowing that, yeah, when you do talk to her about it, you say, look, it's our money to use at this point. We want to save up enough premium during the year and then anything after that we try and sell away so that we can use. And then when we do have the opportunity to bite on something that's sound for us, either business or vehicle or whatever comes up in the future, we know that it's within our control that we can just put that money down and get started that day.

That's amazing. And now I understood in chat and prior to the show that you have a question for us. And so fire away. What's. What's on your mind? How can we help?

I want to say it's. It's not really a question because I think I already know the answer, but I had noticed. I kind of listened to most of the podcasts, not always all of the client ones, but I figured I'd ask anyway. On one of the pages in the Infinite Banker talks about.

Putting in, I guess, premium payment and saying after about seven years to start using the dividends to pay for your policy. And I kind of thought no one's discussed it, so I thought maybe I'd bring it up because I figured if you pump more premium in, obviously you're going to get better returns in the long run. But maybe you guys could elaborate more on that.

Absolutely. And that's so valuable to mention because what Nelson's describing in the book Becoming youg Own Banker, when he references the twin sister example and he's showing that there's $5,000 going into a policy over a seven year period. The reason he's using that seven year period is because his belief is that if someone can contribute premium to their policy for a seven year period of time, then that person has ultimately conquered what's called Parkinson's law. And Parkinson's law meaning that if you. If you succumbed to Parkinson's law and you weren't continuing to contribute to your own system, that your expenses are going to rise to find that $5,000 that you would have otherwise been putting into your own financial aquarium, I guess, so to speak. And so if you, if you know that you own, own and you control an entity that must grow in value every single day uninterrupted, it cannot go down. It can only grow. And you know that you're going to need the use of capital money for the rest of your lifetime. And you know that it's impossible for you to pay in what the insurance company is going to ultimately pay out. And if you had the opportunity to continue contributing to that system, or if somebody stood at the front door of the system and said, we're full, no additional deposits can be placed here, well, you'd be pretty upset about that. But if somebody said to you, you know what, Justin? After seven years, you don't have to put premium into your policy anymore.

That's the wrong way of thinking as it relates to becoming your own banker. The question that you should be asking, not you, Justin. I'm speaking in general. The question that one should be asking themselves is, how long can I deposit premium for? Because if I know that I'm getting back out more than I'm putting in and that it cannot go down.

Logic.

Is it logical to continue depositing into your own aquarium? Yes. Are you motivated to do it? Yes.

Then why?

That is such a good question. Because it does come up often in, as it relates to the twin sister example. It's like, why. Why did they stop? You know, why did the G, The GIC, or the certificate of deposit, twin and the IBC twin sister. Why did they stop deposits after the seventh year? And it was to teach a very fundamental lesson about Parkinson's law. And our Nelson Nash, God rest his soul. You know, we miss him. We think about him every single day. He used to. Frequently he would share with audiences whether it was on the air or live. And in person, he would share. Frequently he would say, show me someone who's depositing premium longer than seven years, and I'll show you someone who's conquered Parkinson's law. Isn't that good?

Yep, for sure. Makes more sense now.

Rich, anything that you'd like to add?

Yeah. Well, one thing I really love about your question, Justin, it's so awesome, and I'm so grateful that you asked it for us here because it's going to be beneficial for any of our listeners is that, you know, Nelson, he taught in stages throughout the book. The book is actually designed in sections, and it's to kind of bring people slowly along a journey to get them the fundamentals and then to give them, you know, the last kind of third section of the book is all about giving them new, fresh ideas on how they might go about doing things and implementing things relating to life circumstances, going to college, and you. What if you're uninsurable? So he has different ideas to get people's brains activated. And because Nelson only had so much book available and you could only have so much time with people, if you put too many illustrations or things like that, you'd confuse people even more. So he needed to pick a baseline to go with. And that's kind of some of the rationale here. But what you said, and I don't know if hopefully our listeners will have picked up on it, what you said was, it seems to me that basically you should just keep putting premium in is basically what you said, because you've already discovered through reading the book multiple times that why would I ever stop doing that? Because it's. It's working. I just want to keep paying premium for as long as I can. So, in essence, because you're a good steward, you're a good listener, and you're a good learner, you've already isolated exactly what Nelson's message is, and you've nailed it.

Perfect.

Yeah. It's so good. And if you think so, Justin, now you. You were in your early twenties when you began implementing this process.

Process.

And so what would you share with listeners who are discovering wealth without Bay Street? They're reading about this process of becoming your own banker. Their curiosity has been piqued and they want to know. But they might be procrastinating or not sure of what to do next. Like, what would you share to listeners in their early 20s, and what advice would you give them?

Well, the best time to plant the tree is yesterday, but the second best time is now, I believe is the saying. Right. It's probably the best way to put it. Go get the book. Start reading. There's other resources out there as well, other books. I haven't checked them out yet because I think the infinite banking one has served its purpose for me. Anyway, I think I've learned enough. But you don't want to have the arrival syndrome either. So I've got a couple in the mail hoping to read those soon. Love it. Yeah. Are you Guys doing any kind of seminars or anything now or with COVID Day 300,000 of COVID Yeah, they're all.

Virtual at present and we can't wait. We are as excited as anybody to be able to get back to our live and in person events because of all the networking opportunity and relationship building opportunity that it creates. And there's just something about being together, being in that venue together and congregating and learning about this amazing process. But we are doing them virtually in the interim.

Awesome. Yeah. So if anybody's listening to this, please book in now. Cause you want to get in there and do some learning and at least get it explained to you in person by people that are practicing the process too. Because I don't know, especially being in rural Alberta, I actually don't know too many people around here that have even heard about this. When I talk about it at work, you can see everybody's eyebrows kind of raise up as high as they like cartoon wise, as high as they can go. Like, what does that mean?

And how do you respond to that? How do you respond to that when a coworker or somebody says like, Justin, what on earth are you talking about?

It's. I'm not sure. It depends on the person you're talking to because there's some. You could tell, they just don't want to hear it. So when you want to teach, you obviously want somebody that is interested in what you're saying first and then after that to slowly kind of do what the book does. Just lead you down the path of why it's good to have your family covered in case of emergency. And that's why the life insurance is there, but at the same time being able to use that financial process for as long as you're here. So yeah, it's just slowly giving details here and there and hopefully they ask for a number and maybe book in for a seminar or something like that too.

I love it.

Great. Thank you for continuing to spread the message. And it's so wonderful that so many of our listeners and our clients do that. And I'm really curious, Justin. You know, you're being a young man, you've got young kids, you've got a lot of incredible future out in front of you yet to be lived. What are some things that excite you about what your future looks like while being. Well, while having this process already well under its way into your life?

I don't know. I guess just being in control, like it said earlier. It's just nice to know that if tomorrow something were to work, I guess, were to go wrong. Like you lose a job, a family member, or something like that. It's nice to have some financial backing so that you don't really have to worry too much about the grieving process. You can take your time coming back to work. Just knowing that in the future, if I did want to go back to something I've done previously, or if I want to go to school, there's a little bit of financial leeway. There's something that I've built for myself, and hopefully it's a legacy for my kids later on down the road too, that it's something they can learn and implement in their lives as well.

And that's such a special thing that you've done for your family.

And it all began with just hearing something that made you say, wow, okay, I want to discover more about this. There's something in this message that I want to learn more about. And if you think about Nelson's book, and so many people who have been practicing this process for as long as you have often say that Nelson's book is the resource that they continually go back to. And so if you think of Nelson's book, is there a particular part of the book that really resonates with you? In particular?

Oh.

You mentioned the arrival syndrome. You talked about, you know, the capitalization phase.

Right.

Of depositing premium into the system. And you talked about the importance of always being receptive to learning something new. And so is there, is there any other section of the book that really resonated with you?

No, just the feeling of having that death benefit there in case something were to happen to me tomorrow. And at the same time, being able to use it financially for the rest of my life, it's just. It's something that you can't get with other things like RRSPs or TFSAs, where you're going to be paying tax on it later. It's just a check to my family. And in a time of grieving, that's something you can't replace. It's just something they can use right away.

That is a very, very, very good, very good description because we, sadly, we meet with families every day who, many of whom have nothing in place. And when they start down that path and that journey and they know that that portion of it is taken care of because we're all going to die. We just don't know what anyone's best before date is. And we've had to deliver a number of death claims. And every time that we honor that Duty of care, which we take very, very seriously. We refer to it here at Ascendant as a 911 moment. And when a 911 comes in, we drop everything that we're doing to immediately get to work to look after the surviving family. And we haven't had a single family yet. Say, gosh, we wish the check that you showed up with was for less than what you showed up with. It's never happened. And it gives the family time, time. It gives them the right to go on living, takes care of them through their readjustment period and all those additional things that come along with that, the bereavement counseling, the, you know, just being there, being there for the family. To say, you're never going to have another bad financial day for the rest of your lifetime, so take the time to grieve as you should. And so for you, Justin, to have taken those steps and, you know, put that in place for your family is, it's commendable. And to begin this process in your early twenties is just remarkable.

Remarkable. Yeah. I think it's going to pay dividends in the future too, just starting so early. I'm pretty sure a lot of people get started later on this just because of, I don't know, being taught that the banking system is all we have and not knowing that it's something that they could use. So that's a good point. I'm kind of glad I found it younger.

Well, and think about Nelson. Nelson didn't even get started until his early 50s. And so you've got a big head start on him.

Richard, what's on your mind?

Well, I'd love to hear more about these incredible kids that you have, Justin, because it sounds like obviously you're packing up dogs and the kids and everybody in the family vehicle.

But.

But you also indicated that you're in the process of getting another. A new policy set up, I think, on your youngest, is that correct?

Correct. Yeah, yeah. He actually had a rough start to his life. We didn't know anything about his health, but he was born, seemed healthy in the first week and then ended up needing open heart surgery at about day 13. So he was. Yeah, we were in the stallery for about 25 days. We came.

I guess, a hair away from death at one moment, but he made it through. Now he's the biggest, roughest two year old you've ever seen. I don't even think the adults want to play with him because he'll claw your eyes out. But.

He'S a lot of fun. So yeah, now he's a handful, but we're very, very grateful he's here. So we're looking to get a policy underwritten for him and put in place hopefully sometime soon.

Well, that's amazing that you know, even through all that circumstance and that journey, first of all, that he's here, what a miracle. And he's thriving and that you're able to now initiate that process. One of my favorite sayings is give a two year old a hammer and the whole world becomes a nail.

But if you, if you think about, you know, if you're able to get that established, plus you already have one, I think on your, on your oldest as you. And so just kind of to share with you, you know, recently I had one of my clients notify me that one of his children, early, early teens, was recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. And so that's going to create some complications for future insurability on her life. And thankfully we already have a policy in place on her. And additionally we have options, additional options called flexible guarantee insurability, where we can initiate more coverage at a future stage, regardless of her health status and insurability. And just to be able to have those kinds of things in place. I know for myself what it means for me as a father, but I'd love to just hear, you know, father to father, how does the knowledge that you have that in place for your children or you're in the process of doing it for your second, how does that kind of add to your, your sleep and your, your just your knowledge for the future?

Yeah, yeah. It's good to have options like that in place. Yeah. Just knowing he's at some point will be insured, he's got a clean bill of health now. Yeah, that's something that he can carry on in the future with. It's his own policy that at some point will probably be his. So then he can choose to do with it as he sees fit. And that's probably the biggest reason why I took it out on my children too, is just knowing that it's kind of something for them in the future where if they want to use it for education or business purposes or whatever, it can be theirs at a certain age. So that gives them a little bit of a head start. And that's part of that legacy thing I guess we talked about a little bit earlier.

So important. Nelson said his first golden rule was to think long range. And that means thinking three generations past your own. Because what we see in the industry overall, if we have families where mom and dad, are life insured, but.

They'Ve never heard of the process of becoming your own banker. They don't practice that in their lives. And death eventually occurs and there's a large tax free windfall that comes to the children. And if the children have no awareness of this process or the whole idea of thinking three generations past your own, what happens most often is that the proceeds are used to eliminate debt. So the money's transferred away from the family immediately, never to be seen again, never to earn interest on again. It's gone and then the remainder is spent quickly. And through this process, you're going to be able to provide not only the gift that your children have now that you're doing for them that they can't do for themselves now, but also the gift of knowledge so that it can be transferred to the next generation, so that when your children take over ownership of their own policies that your death benefit, your spouse's death benefit, will backfill their systems and provide capital to continue funding the grandchildren's policies and so on and so on. It just carries on from one generation to the next. Because we all talk about legacy as a transfer of wealth, but nobody's clearly defined what wealth is outside of money. It's the knowledge. You have to transfer the knowledge as well.

Yeah, you got to give them the right, the right tool. Yeah, I think you've mentioned that in a podcast before. You know, you give them a tool but don't teach them how to use it. You're not going to get any good work and probably a broken tool.

So you got it. Yeah, we got a good podcast listener here, Rich.

Yes, he's good. Get that. And we appreciate that because we need all the, all the listeners flocking to us so that we can spread the message and help Nelson's wisdom get out to a further and further audience. So, um, yeah, I just appreciate you, Justin, coming on and sharing this because we, there's so many people who are looking at this from different stages of their life. And you're right, you, you being, you know, kind of catching on at a very early age. It's a, it's a real blessing. And you know, there's, there's such a potential for your message to now spread to folks, you know, similar to yourself, who they're looking for alternatives. What I find in people that are in, you know, the age group that you're, you're, you're part of is that there's a, there seems to be a bit of a distrust of the system and they've been watching what their parents did and their grandparents did, and they're seeing how these, the booms and the busts and the ups and the downs and the 2008 meltdowns and how people were impacted by all this stuff and what did it do to them when they were either still at home or very young. And they saw how the stress that it put on their parents and their grandparents. So that fundamental, I think distrust of the system is really giving people reasons to seek the alternative, a way to set up the alternate bank in the way that you've done.

Yep, exactly. I'm. Yeah, I definitely have financial distrust in the government system and that, but that's a whole other hour long podcast.

And Justin, let me ask you this question. Do you think Connor is going to break the 100 point mark before the end of the final of the next four games that they have left to play in the regular season?

If there's anybody that's going to do it in that short of time, it's going to be him. I have my full faith in him. To get, I think it's. After last night, he had three points against, what are we, four points out.

You got it. Yeah. He's got four points to go. Four points to go and four games to play.

Yeah. I'm not a guy to put money on things. I'm not, not a huge sports bettor or anything, but if there's something I put money on, it'd be that.

Well, let's see. Because by the time this episode is released to the world, the Edmonton Oilers hockey season will be over. And so we will know whether or not the great Connor McDavid has been able to break that 100 point mark and do something that has never been done in such a short season. And Justin, thank you, thank you sincerely for being with us. We rich. Take us home.

Well, Justin, you know, I'm sure you've watched a few superhero movies along the way, maybe even a couple with your kids. Not all, of course, superheroes wear capes. And you may not think of yourself as a superhero, you know, but when you share your message here, you go into work and you start talking to folks in the job trailer and about what's, what's going on and what some alternatives are that they can explore in their financial life. You're showing up in a, in a unique way and you're creating value for others and you're benefiting people. So every time you do that, you're making their lives easier and better in some way. So our question for you is who would you like to be a hero to?

For me, it's just my family, I guess anybody that does know me just want to make sure you do the job right, I guess would be the best way to put it. I like coming home safely every night and being able to wrestle and play sports and whatever with my kids. So that's the biggest thing for me is just making sure that they know that Dad's looking out for, I guess. Or trying anyway.

That's spoken like a true family man. And Justin, thank you again sincerely for being with us on Wealth Without Bay street, our client series. And to all of our listeners on the YouTubes, the Facebooks, the Instagram, wherever you're finding us from, we encourage you. If you just look right up there, you're going to see a playlist of recommended videos. We'd love for you to as Justin shared, don't arrive in knowledge. There's always something new to learn. So continue your journey of learning. Thank you again for being with us on Wealth Without B Street. Make the rest of your day great. And gentlemen, awesome episode. Pleasure to be with you both. Have an awesome rest of your day guys.

Thanks Justin. Thanks for listening to the wealth with Elbay street podcast where your wealth matters. Be sure to check out our social media channels for more great wealth, great content.

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