How to Build a Family Banking System That Outlives You | Infinite Banking Blueprint

But the system has so much steam now, so much energy, I can't stop it. Total death benefit $51 million, total cash value $6.4 million. That didn't happen overnight. 77 dividend-paying whole life insurance policies, 27 individual lives insured, $1.5 million in annual premium. Can you build a system that outlives you? There isn't a single person on this webinar that cannot do that. And again, I'm living proof of it. Let's take a little bit of a peek behind the curtain, shall we? We didn't come from money in my family. There was nothing silver in terms of spoons or anything other than that. We didn't come from that. The life that I dreamt about as a young boy is the life that we're living today because I was surrounded by people that would never let me say the words, "I can't." And my kids, those two words combined are forbidden in our family. You never say that. You can say, "I need help," but you can never say, "I can't," ever. Forbidden. Do you want to know how to become a really good banker? Be a bad one. And so what I mean by that is, in our journey, when we began the process, and Nelson— I'll never forget this, and all the credit to the late R. Nelson Nash, uh, my late mentor, um, he's, he's right here, he's right here beside me in, in every, every meeting that, uh, that I am privileged to host., and I remember him sharing so often throughout the years that, um, the Infinite Banking Concept is more caught than it is taught. That's one thing for all of us to be reminded of. And he also encouraged me, he said, Jayson, take care of controlling the banking function as it relates to yours and your family's needs before you lend money privately before you lend money to anyone outside the family. Take care of controlling the banking function as it relates to your needs. That guidance that Nelson gave me never escaped me. It never escaped me. And when we got going in our journey and we decided that we were going to get rid of the bankers in our lives, it took us We got there on our principal residence 33 years ahead of schedule. And that triggered my ambition to want to lend capital because I was such a big advocate, more so today than I've ever been, of the infinite banking concept that I wanted to lend capital.. And I'm very glad to say that of all the lending that we've done, we've had, uh, two deals that went sideways. And when I spoke to another late mentor of mine, uh, Ray, I, I talked to him the first time we had a deal that went sideways. We lent money to, um, a borrower to purchase a vehicle that Went well for approximately the first 6 payments or so, and then the borrower defaulted. We had to use a civil enforcement agency to repossess the vehicle. We sold the vehicle, then we pursued legal remedy to recover the balance. And when I spoke to my late mentor about it, he said what I just shared. He said, "Jayson Lowe, you want to know how to become a really good banker?" I said, "Sure." He said, "Be a bad one." That's why they put erasers on pencils. People make mistakes. And so we learned a lot from it, meaning when I say that we learned a lot from it, I mean that we strengthened our process of vetting. We strengthened our process of underwriting. We strengthened our process of tracking. So it was It was a gift, right? That experience strengthened us. The second experience strengthened us even further. And so as you build your system of policies, I'm going to leave you with the very same advice that my late mentor, Nelson Nash, left with me. Take care of controlling the banking function as it relates to yours and your family's needs, before you think of, contemplate lending capital outside of the family. Now, our 77 policies that we have in our system, we have a mix of individually owned policies where myself or Rebecca, as the patriarch and matriarch of the, of the Lowe family, we individually own policies on all of our children. So for example, we have 4 children, um, blessed beyond the definition of good fortune. I love being a dad, and I have 3 daughters and my firstborn son. And we own, um, each one of our children have 6 dividend-paying whole life insurance contracts on each of their lives. And so that represents a, a good portion of our 77 policies in our family banking system. We're also insured individually, both Rebecca and I, understandably so. And we have policies on the key people that I am in business with. And so in our family, we now have 16 companies that form the Lowe family group of companies. We I'll tell you that what gave rise to all of that was entrepreneurs that reached out to me and said, "We acknowledge, we respect what you've built. We'd like some coaching. Our business is at a stage of moving from startup to sustainable or from sustainable to durable or from durable to scalable." I am experienced in every single one of those stages of business. I have a method. Of moving businesses through those stages. And so these entrepreneurs said, look, would you be open to working with us on a consultative basis? And then that always blossoms into, we'd love for you to have an equity stake in the company. If we can involve you in quarterly planning, annual planning, if we, you know, experience business issues that we can't navigate, if we can tap you on the shoulder to be coached through them. And that has blossomed into a group of companies that are valued more than $100 million. None of that, none of that would be possible had it not been for my discovery of the Infinite Banking Concept in July of '08. Was I already well on my way with my dividend reinvestment program? I Absolutely. But none of what I just shared around this group of companies and what that has blossomed into would be possible without discovering the Infinite Banking Concept, because Nelson helped me to see what I didn't see, which was that someone, some organization must perform the function of banking as it relates to your needs and you get to control how you finance the things that you'll need throughout the course of your lifetime, which can certainly include investment in businesses, which I've done significant investments in businesses. And he helped me see that. And believe me, when you have ready access capital on demand, on your terms, without interrupting the underlying asset's value, without triggering a taxable event. You're paying no tax on the daily buildup of cash value. You're paying no tax on the death benefit proceeds. You're paying no tax on the annual dividend declaration. My own logic stepped to the front of the line, turned around and looked at my brain and said, how much capital do you not want residing here? Because from that place, we've been able to do everything I'm going to show you. And so when I get into business, meaning I take an ownership interest in a company, a privately held company, I must insure the key people in that business. It is not negotiable. You could have the best business opportunity on the planet. If you do not consent to me insuring your life, we don't have a basis to do anything together. And so that forms another portion of the 77 policies. I, I've insured my assistant, I've insured my family, my extended family. I have policies on all my nieces and nephews. I've got a policy on my sister-in-law that popped in before the start of the webinar, my own sister. So I have done what Nelson encouraged me to do, which was to ensure everyone that I have a beneficial interest in. What I wasn't able to do is I wasn't able to ensure the lives of my parents because both of them passed away prematurely. All right, now if, if you want to understand how money actually moves through the system It's really, really super important to understand the simplicity, right? So you've got a policy or a system of policies, you are paying premium, and that premium is paid to the life insurance company. Now, Nelson describes this wonderfully in his book, Becoming Your Own Banker. If you've got access to the book, and if you don't have it readily accessible, what I would suggest that you do is just take note. And if one of my teammates can put in the chat window the page number— so on page 69 of Nelson's book Becoming Your Own Banker, he describes it just like a trust agreement. So he says a trust has a grantor, a trustee, and a beneficiary. So I want you to think of, as it relates to all of us who are on today's webinar, I want you to think of all of us as being the grantors. So we pay the premium. And I want you to think of the life insurance company as the trustee. And the beneficiaries are you, me, everyone else on the webinar, along with the beneficiaries of the death benefit proceeds. Because out there on the internet, on social media, there is a lot of, um, sensationalism regarding the process. And the sensationalism involves people describing things that, um, they may be very well intended in what they're saying and they want to be helpful, but what they're saying is not actually accurate. So when you hear expressions like, all of your money is growing inside your policies while you use the life insurance company's money to go and finance all the things that you need, that's not accurate. When you pay premium to the life insurance company, you're the grantor. Think of when you put property in a trust. You don't own that property anymore. It's the property of the trust. It's not yours. And so when people say— I've got a question now. Let me know in the chat window. Give me a why in the chat window if you've ever wondered, because somebody said to you all of your money is growing inside of your policies every day uninterrupted. Give me a why in the chat window if you've ever wondered, well, if that was true, then how does the life insurance company make any money? And that's what triggers the confusion, because that would be a very logical question to ask. It's like, okay, wait a second, help me understand this. If all of my money and every other participating policyholder's money is growing inside of their policies every single day, then how is the life insurance company making any money? Nelson Nash often said, people can take a tiny bit of information and reach an absurd conclusion. And there's no better example of this than one's misunderstanding of dividend-paying whole life insurance. When you pay the premium, it's not your money anymore. It's the property of the life insurance company. The life insurance company puts that capital to work to fulfill the contractually binding mandate that they have to you as the policy owner. And guess how often in the past 2+ centuries these life carriers have failed to satisfy those contractual obligations, including growing cash value daily, which is not money. Cash value is just the net present value of the future payment of a death benefit. Cash value is equity in the contract that you can borrow against on demand on your terms. That's it. Ridiculously simple. What is appealing, among many things, is that the cash value cannot go backward. It's not correlated to the stock market. It's not correlated to the economy. It's not correlated to tax policy or who is the sitting president or the sitting prime minister. I believe that all of you can. Okay, in the chat window, let me know in the, in the chitter-chatters When you're thinking about your own family, what are you most curious about? So just type the letter in that corresponds with what you're most curious about. Okay, yeah, we have some folks, uh, who are saying all of them. All right, okay, very good, very good. I like that, I like it. The way that we structured our policies, and I'm going to cover all those things on the previous slide as well, The way that we structured our 77 policies is that we wanted to have the most flexibility with premium. And so what I mean by that is we designed the policies with the highest emphasis on cash value accumulation. Now, we weren't, uh, we weren't focused on, you know, microwave timetable results like Nelson had always told us, show me someone who's paid premium for 7 years consecutively, and I'll show you someone who's conquered Parkinson's Law. And so we structured our policy so that we had premium flexibility, meaning if we decided that we were going to pay a dollar in premium, that we wanted to have the, um, paid-up additions portion of that premium to be very flexible for us. And the same approach applies to every single policy, every single policy that we've designed from inception. And the reason that we like to have that paid-up addition flexibility— so for example, from the dollar, we may have 30 to 40 cents that gets applied as the minimum required premium And then the remaining portion of that dollar is paid-up additions. And one of the primary reasons is that you'll recall in Nelson's book when he's walking people through the equipment financing example and he says on page— let me reference it here real quick— as he's going through this equipment financing on page 58, bottom right-hand corner, He says, actually, this interest is not really interest, it's additional premium that has been paid into the policy that equals the interest that was being paid to the finance company. The reason is that it's adding to the cost basis of the policy. If you have trouble understanding this, go back to the grocery store on page 15. If you still don't understand, then contact me. When the Lowe family is repaying policy loans— and we, like, presently we have north of $100,000 every month that comes back in policy loan repayments. We send the money back to any policies that'll hold the money. So we're not saying, hey, this loan came from policy number 123, so every dollar being repaid has to go back to policy number 123. We think of our 77 policies as a consolidated system. And this surfaced when we were right around 6 or 7 policies early in our journey. And my wife Rebecca, she was quite irritated because she said, I'm really finding it complex and, uh, really frustrating that I have to keep track of where each loan repayment needs to go to. And what I shared with her in that moment— and my hope is, is that you find this very helpful as well with your own system— what you're focused on is the repayment schedule, not the policy that the repayments are going back to. So if you've got a repayment schedule that you've put together, you're going to borrow money to go finance a car, you're going to control how you finance the car that you need. You take a loan from the life insurance company and you've decided that you're going to repay that loan in a total of 60— 6-0 payments. So you put together a loan repayment schedule. If you're an Ascendant Financial client, in the client portal we show you exactly how to do that. It's remarkably simple, but we show you the tool that we use and how to do that. Very easy. If, uh, if you haven't seen that, get with your advisor. And, um, make sure that you can get logged on to the client portal, and they'll point you to exactly where you can replicate that. Focus on the repayment schedule, meaning you need to repay 60 payments that you've determined. If you have more than one policy, send the money back to whatever policy will hold it. Because you may have policies where all the premium is paid up, your minimum required premium and your paid-up additions are all paid up, and you have a zero policy loan balance. So that policy, for all intents and purposes, is full. And then you've got another policy that the original loan didn't come from, because again, doesn't matter, but but that policy, the minimum required premium is paid, but none of the paid-up additions have been paid up yet, and you've got a loan balance that exceeds the payment that you're making. So you've got to be able to take a look at your system and say, okay, the, the money's just going to go back to whatever policy is going to hold it. Well, am I not going to lose track? No, you're not going to lose track because you're just checking the box on that repayment schedule. So you might have 20 different loans, meaning you've got 20 different repayment schedules. You're not pulling the hair out of your head trying to determine what policy each payment needs to go back to. You're just checking the box. Did I send the payment back to my system? Did it go back in to the family's money pool? Isn't that good? Let me know in the chat window if you think that's good. All right, yes. So key takeaway: capture it in any way that you commit things to memory or how you organize, you know, your, uh, your family banking. Before you submit the loan request to the life insurance company, construct your repayment schedule. Here's what I'm going to borrow. The only reason why our family utilizes 10% as a non-negotiable rate is because when I asked R. Nelson Nash very early in me getting acquainted with him and him taking me under his wing, I asked him, "What interest rate do you apply to your policy loans in your family?" He said, "10%." I didn't ask him why. I didn't ask him for any supporting logic. Didn't matter. He was my mentor. I said, "Done." We're gonna— and we've never wavered from that since. Now here's the key teaching moment. The life insurance company— let's presume the life insurance company is only, um, applying 6% simple interest to that policy loan. Well, naturally, if your schedule is on a 10% interest being applied, you're going to pay off the policy loan with the life insurance company sooner than your loan repayment schedule, where are the remaining payments going to go? So for example, if the, the life insurance company's, uh, assessing 6% simple interest, you're at 10%, you have a 60-month repayment schedule, the loan balance is paid off with the life insurance company at month 52, where are you going to send the remaining 8 payments that are on your schedule? Well, they have to go back into your system as premium or loan repayment. It's entirely up to you, and you just send it to whatever policy will hold it. That's how loans actually work. Isn't that good? I'm always curious to know this. I ask this every time. Nelson often said that when you have ready access capital Opportunities of high caliber will track you down. I get approached with opportunities of high caliber regularly. I say no more often than I say yes because somebody asked me about how I make investment decisions. Do you mind if I share one of my criteria as it relates to my investment decisions? If the investment does not pay me from day one, I'm out. Doesn't matter to me how alluring the investment opportunity is. I've been approached so often. We've got this wonderful real estate deal. We just need— the minimum investment's $50,000. Okay, great. How much does it pay me from day one? Well, it's, it's an equity play. It's, um, let me just stop you right there. I'm out. And when I look at companies to invest in that are privately held. They're not publicly traded. These are companies that are going places. I always bet on the jockey, not the horse. The business structure, the opportunity can be incredible. If the jockey is not someone I would bet on, the entrepreneur, I'm out. And when I get involved in helping a business move from either startup to sustainable, sustainable to durable, or durable to scalable, if I have any capital, any skin in the game, I'm going to have a voice. And things are, as a method of operating the business, are going to be done the way that I do in my method. I'll coach the entrepreneur on how to do that. I'll help them assemble a team, and then off to the races they go. The biggest myth, the biggest myth: generational wealth is easy. This is the hard part. This is the hard part. I'm curious, I'd love to know your thoughts in the chat. Why do 70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the second generation? I'm curious in the chat window, let me know your thoughts. Why do you suppose that occurs? Lack of education. Nobody teaches literacy. They weren't practicing IBC. Children are trained, disciplined to retain and grow. Lack of proper family meetings. Not doing the work. The hardest part is hoping your children will listen to you. Lessons not passed along to children. Poor management. And so on. These are all understandably very good reasons why we would suspect that happens. When you think of what we were encouraged to do growing up, whether it was from people in our circle, like maybe family, uh, maybe a mentor or somebody in our lives, and you may have heard things like, uh, well, here, let me know in the chat window, give me a why if you've ever heard this, okay? Someday you're gonna move out and start your own family. Okay, look at all the, the yeses are pouring in. Someday you're going to understand what it means to have financial obligations, to pay the bills, to, you know, make the money go round in the family. I have been blessed and humbled to be Introduced to and acquainted with and surrounded by a number of very wealthy families. Not one of them has ever spoken that way. Not one. What I hear them say and continue to say, and we say the same in our family— this is all my kids have ever known from birth— is that we circle the wagons in our family. We want to keep the money in the family. Someday you are going to be called upon to be a steward of the family banking system. All of the loans, mortgages, cars, businesses, equipment, appliances, vacations, weddings, college degrees— all of it flows through the family banking system. And I'll tell you something that you may relate to or you may not. This is all my children have known. So when my children are old enough to purchase their own dividend-paying whole life insurance policies, our family attorney is going to sit down with our kids Not me, not Rebecca, our family attorney who's been with us for as long as I can remember. And our family attorney is going to sit down. So Britt is going to say to the kids, you've been attending annual family office meetings and the family banking is an element of the annual family office meeting. This is all that you've known since birth, but your parents do not want to force you to be included in the family banking system. So the purpose of us meeting is for you to understand your options. Your options are You can borrow from the family's money pool, and you repay those policy loans at an interest rate of 10%. That rate is not subject to negotiation. What's subject to negotiation is the time frame. So the amortization schedule, the repayment time frame, is absolutely negotiable. But the rate is not. You agree to finance everything that you need throughout the course of your lifetime through the family banking system. If you choose to do that, if that's your decision, when your mom and dad pass away, you will also be included in the Lowe Family Trust. And provided that you fam— that you follow the family constitution, both you and your heirs will never have a bad financial day for the rest of your lives. Option B is that you can shop outside the home, meaning you can borrow from someone else's bank or finance company because you've decided that the lower rate is more appealing to you. That is your privilege to do that. If you choose to do that, your parents will transfer ownership of all the policies that they have on your lives. They will transfer ownership of all of those policies to charitable organizations of their choosing. You will not be included in the Lowe Family Trust. And you will not receive any death benefit proceeds from your mom or dad's life insurance contracts. Take all the time you need to decide which option is best for you and let me know how you plan to proceed. What comes up for you in the chat window when you hear me say that? Easy decision, no-brainer, makes sense, tough love. Okay, that comes up often. I've even had some people at live events where I'm speaking to 300, 400 people. And I've had some parents come up to me and say, that is harsh, like, you're harsh. And I— my response is always the same. It's like, thank you for that feedback, I've received it. May I expand for a moment with you? Yes. This is a business, and it's treated that way. In the business, I am not my kid's friend. I am not I am not their dad. I am not their coddler. This is a business and it is treated as such. If that struck you as being harsh, I make no apologies for it. The alternative, the alternative is what you saw earlier, being a part of that 70% where all the wealth is squandered by the second generation. Because nobody wanted to be harsh. We are running a business. My kids have— that's all they've known since inception. First policy loan for my firstborn son was at age 9. His money flows through the family banking system. That's all that he knows. My oldest daughter actively borrows and repays the family banking system. My twin daughters, who are aged 14 are entering that phase of their lives now where they are borrowing and repaying the family banking system. And when they mention a word of this to any of their peer group, it's deer in the headlights. We at Ascendant Financial in the United States and Canada are going to change that. Isn't that good? Let's go deeper here. What happens if somebody doesn't repay? In our family banking system, we have a one-strike-and-you're-out indefinitely. So if a family member accesses a policy loan and life happens, which it happens to everybody, and that family member experiences a temporary financial setback, job loss as an example, and that family member sits down and says, I'm about to experience a temporary financial setback. I'd like to take a look at my loan repayment schedule, and if possible, I'd like to work out some temporary relief. Maybe we capitalize some payments on the back end of the schedule, um, whatever we can do. Well, that's proactive, right? That's proactively communicating. We absolutely work with that. Our family should that need arise. But if the family member was well aware of the temporary financial setback on the horizon, didn't communicate it to anybody, and defaulted, it's one strike you're out. Not two, not three, one. You will never access another penny from the family banking system again, ever. And again, that can be received as harsh to some people, But this is a business. It's not a daycare center. And we, we run it that way. And we have gotten to the point in our system where the quantity, the frequency of repayment is, um, it checked all the boxes where we do auto debit withdrawals for these payments. So family members are not delivering checks to our mailbox or to our front door every every day. This is all handled through automatic debit. And we're very pleased to say that we run a pretty razor-sharp family banking business. We have 0% default on loans because people are crystal clear. Have we made provision and compromised to take care of a temporary SIP, absolutely happy to do that. But we have 0% default. And so you've got to run this. If you decide this is what you're going to do, if you can picture a day where you're doing this in your family, and believe me, all the things that people say where it's like, oh my God, aren't you concerned about lending money to family? Won't that break the family apart? And what— you know what's breaking families apart? Do you know, do you know what the primary cause of marital breakdown is? Finance. Money. And one of the primary reasons is that it's not being discussed. It's not being treated like a business. It's not receiving that degree of attention and priority. And so it drives a wedge in what would otherwise be very good relationship in marriage with these couples that are breaking apart and these poor children that are affected by that. I lived through that with my own family. My mom and dad were great at arguing about money. Nobody told them what I'm sharing with you today. Had somebody, uh, have stepped in and influenced them in a positive way in their lives, who knows where that may have led. But I was the referee of more arguments than I can count between my late dad and my late mom, and those are very painful memories. And so when I place this degree of emphasis on treating it like a business, there's a reason for it. I know what the other side of that curtain looks like, and I have a soft spot in my heart when I work with families and they've got young children and they're coming up in the world, and these families want to do right, they just don't know how. And so if that's you, schedule, create a personalized conversation, have a family banking discussion with an advisor on my team. You'll be very glad that you did, because regardless of who that teammate is of mine that you're talking to, when you work with an advisor on the Ascendant team, you get the entire team, including me. The reason I have a great team alongside me is because I'm not taking on any more clients. My plate is full, but my teammates consult with me every day. Hey, I've got this family that I'm talking to and they'd love your feedback and your insight on— absolutely, I'm happy to help. That's what you get here. Isn't that good? Let me know in the chat window if you think that's good, if that's valuable. Ah, fantastic! Thank you, everybody. This is great. Okay, here's Oh boy, we're talking. This is the biggest, the biggest takeaway from today is the family constitution. Is there anybody on the webinar who does not want to have a glimpse at our family constitution? Could you imagine in the chat where people are like, no, I don't want to see it? Okay, here's what I want to do. Okay, I just want to show this to all of you. So This is the original document in its original format, word for word. Now what we do as a family is we, um, these are professionally printed. We have the family seal on it. Everyone in the family gets a copy of it. Everyone who shows up in the family in the future, right, all the grandkids and all that, they're going to get a copy of it. And printed double-sided, it's 55 pages. Single-sided, it's 110. Our family constitution outlines— now I want to show you a couple of key things that are very— I'm obviously not going to walk you through 110 pages. I hope nobody's concerned with that, like we're not going to walk through 110 pages of material, um, but I want to point out some, some key, very key aspects of this family banking, um, element that is within the Constitution. But I want you all to see something. So first and foremost is a letter from me, the patriarch of the family, and there's accompanying video. So in the future, you know, 70 years from today, I won't be here, neither will you. Future generations of the Lowe family are going to be able to go and watch me narrate the letter, and they're going to have access to everything I've ever recorded. They're going to have access to all of the recordings that I do around communicating, uh, plans around legacy, around utilization of the Family Banking System, so on, so on, and so on. Is the one portion of the Family Constitution that I really wanted to highlight Because when I sit down and talk to people and I ask them a question, "Could you describe to me your family's identity? Take all the time you need." And what I hear is incredible, right? I hear so many amazing things and it's unique to every family. This is ours. And this is read out loud at our annual family office meeting. And it's a member of the family who steps up to read it out loud. At our last family meeting, it was one of my twin daughters, Charlotte, and she read it out loud to everyone in attendance at the meeting. It describes who we are, why we exist. It describes what we believe. It describes how we operate. It describes what is expected of us. It describes our relationship with wealth, our commitment to giving, our legacy, our promise, and our declaration as a family. I'd love in the chat window, take a moment and share with me what insights come up for you. Very intentional. I need to do this. Detail is key. It's a life agenda. It's structured. It's well thought out. Now I'm going to scroll to something here because I want you to see it describes how conflict is handled. This is our constitution. Remember I said that's going to be the most important. This is our actual family office constitution in its original format, word for word. What I wanted you to see here, we have the formation, the scope, the mission, the founder's authority. We've got, um, The fact that our kids and their kids and their kids will never be able to collapse the family trust. It's non-collapsible. We think long range, so we've created a 3-generation long-range mandate, which is all in the document. It's direct bloodline only, no spouses, no exceptions. Spouses are welcome to attend annual family office meetings, but spouses do not have a voice in, the family trust or anything associated with that. Now the, um, conduct standards, the, uh, path to reinstatement if, um, somebody breaks the rules. This doesn't mean the family banking piece, that's a one-strike-you're-out, but this is in relation to, uh, the Lowe Family Office, um, income suspension provisions, uh, prenuptial and spousal requirements. And so any direct bloodline descendant who intends to marry must without exception execute a legally enforceable prenuptial agreement, um, that acknowledges the Lowe Family Trusts are off-limits to spouses. The spouse will have— never have any claim or any access. And again, we are not going to ever force— and this is spelled out very clearly in the document— we are never going to force participation If, if someone in the family says, I've read the Constitution, I am not in agreement with it, I, I do not believe that I would be in a position to be compliant with it, um, I'm going to opt out, there'll be no hard feelings at all. It's like, hey, that's, that's your choice. Like, we've shared that from the very beginning. It's your option to opt in or opt out, entirely up to you. And we've structured— because people say, oh, you know, you're going to end up with, uh, what do they refer to them as, like trust fund, uh, what do they call that, trust fund babies or things like that. So the way that we have income structured from the trust is that, um, the income is supplementary. So if any beneficiary of the trust is not gainfully employed or operating as an entrepreneur or generating their own source, primary source of income, then they are excluded from supplemental trust income. And so this is not where the kids get to a point and they're like, hey, we're going to live the life of Riley, we don't have to work anymore, we don't have to do any of this anymore. Nuh-uh. You have to demonstrate gainful employment Um, you have to demonstrate entrepreneurialism if you're pursuing that, that you're running a sustainable, profitable business, and that you're leading with giving. If you're not demonstrating how you're giving and blessing other people's lives in a positive way in the communities where you live and work, then you have no access to anything, um, in the trust. No exceptions. And that is just us. That is just our way of doing it. I'm not saying that that is a prescription in terms of what you should be doing as it relates to your own family values and, and how you want to proceed there. But, um, we're going to have, um, you know, for, for anybody who's going to want access to it, so you're going to be able to to follow a process of questions that you'll be asked, and it will produce your version of your family constitution. That's going to be available. It is going to be available for purchase. We— I think we're going to be done, ready to launch it. Sorry, bear with me for one second. I believe it's going to be 24th, if that's a Wednesday. But yeah, we're going to be launching that, and, uh, it'll be something that you pay for, but it'll be worth every penny. Um, it's not going to be expensive or anything like that, but you'll be able to put together, just based on a series of questions, a, a sample format of your family constitution, and then you can modify it, update it, and then I'll do some additional coaching on, um, you know, how we host and facilitate our family office meetings. Isn't that good? All right. Yeah. How long did it take to get to this point? That's such a good question. For us, we decided, because we initially began with our family banking meetings and those began years ago. And at every family vacation, we would talk, all the kids were included as well and still are. And we would have a really great discussion around how we were utilizing the life insurance company's money in the form of controlling how we finance the things that we need and money that was coming back and recognizing people in the family for their utilization of the system. And it was right around midway through 2024 where credit to a number of, you know, entrepreneurs that I'm blessed to be associated with, I kept hearing so much discussion around their family offices, and I thought to myself, I need to take this now to a whole new level because there was so much that I hadn't incorporated in the family banking meetings. It was all discussion around the Infinite Banking Concept, understandably so. But now with the, uh, construction of our family constitution— so it took to get that all formalized and complete It took a year and a half to get done because there's a lot of work that happens, uh, legally as well. If you're establishing a family trust, the family trust has to align with your constitution, otherwise the family trust will supersede that and you could trigger unnecessary taxable events that you don't want triggering. You could trigger, um unexpected consequences. And so you need professionals, and that's not me. I've, I, you know, work with very good estate planning professionals that, you know, um, take their time with these things and charged me enough for it, but it was worth that investment. But it takes Takes a ton of time. A ton of time. And yeah, the prenuptial piece, again, I'll just share with everybody. I have, as you can imagine, I'm a chartered life underwriter. And so I get consulted by estate planning attorneys regularly and accountants who reach out and say, "Hey, we're trying to figure out," "We're mapping out future distribution and the family is dealing with family members who want to carry on the family business, family members who don't, or family members who are very successful, other family members who are struggling. Can you help consult with us on this element of future distribution?" And I have witnessed and been privy to horror stories of wealth that gets created, a marriage that dissolves, a significant portion of that wealth is impacted by that marriage dissolving. I've seen circumstance where one of the spouses passes away, none of these arrangements have been made, significant wealth has been accumulated, The surviving spouse readjusts, remarries, the marriage goes sideways, and everything that was built is impacted. And so that's a scary proposition if you're the least bit effective at creating wealth. And I've shared with my own wife, Rebecca, I've shared with her, God forbid if the unthinkable happened to me, we've got everything in place where I, I would fully expect you at some point to readjust in your life. And all I ever would want for Rebecca is to be happy, for her to be happy and to be loved and cared for and respected and honored. But she will never have to worry that she will be in a position where our family's wealth can be compromised in any way, shape, or form. You could hire the best attorney on the planet, you're not penetrating that trust's veil for any amount of money. It is bulletproof. And I've assembled it that way for all the right reasons. Isn't that good? And if for people who have no children, for example, or they don't have plans to start a family, maybe there are some charitable organizations that are very dear to your heart, or, or maybe you have a pet in the family and you want to contribute to organizations that take really good care of, of pets, or what, whatever that may be. I've seen so many incredible unique ideas and imagination that have come up for clients, and, and they're incredible. Life gives to the giver and takes from the taker. And so if you lead from a place of giving, if your life has purpose and you're in motion, good things will happen. I promise you that. And this constitution is such a remarkable document that if you have occasion to put your own together, you'll be glad you did. And putting it together is just the first step. Articulating, communicating it, the repetition of revisiting very specific elements of it. It's so important to do that with your family. And, um, families today are just not having these conversations. Everybody is crazy glued to this thing, to this thing. Look no further than the next time you're in an airport and you're at the gate area. And just watch all the families in the gate area. They're all on their phones. All of them. When we host our family office meetings, these things are not permitted in those meetings. Leave them at the door. We're having a meeting as a family, and that means everyone participates. No exclusions. Isn't that good? All right. Okay. Let me get back to you. There we go. So how many of you heard the— and this is all over marketing, social media as well— the greatest threat to your wealth is taxes. Give me a why if you've heard that before. If you sat down in a room, how many do we have on? 170 people. If you sat down in a room with 170 wealthy families, Not one of them is going to tell you that's what they feel the greatest threat to their wealth is. Not one. What they're going to tell you is some iteration of the greatest threat is a lack of shared values. And if you've heard, if you've lost a loved one and you find yourself thinking, how would grandpa have handled that? I wonder what grandma would have said. Legacy Companion is going to help you. Your family constitution is going to help you because it's a reference document. You can go back and reference it. Hey, uh, Billy's developed a severe gambling addiction. That's probably contrary to something in the family constitution. We need to get Billy some help because it's out of alignment with our shared values as a family. It's not how would Grandpa have handled the situation. What does our family constitution read? That letter to future generations. Um, and I'm curious, in the chat window, let me know, how many of you have written a letter to your grandchildren that haven't even been born yet? And here's what I'm— the key teaching point that I'm sharing with clients: don't just write it, record it, talk it. You, you can create a very simple cloud-based account. You can sit in front of a camera, read the letter, say what you want to say to your future grandkids that aren't even here yet. Because we all know there are two certainties in life: death and taxes. And the only thing that doesn't get worse anytime politicians meet is death. And you don't know when that time is going to come. So don't just write it, record it. Let those future generations see who you are. This is the real asset. It's not what I showed you earlier, what people think we've built, this massive pile of money. We have in our family, I hope you find this helpful, when Rebecca and I started to have conversation around starting a family, and then we got pregnant with our firstborn, Given that both my parents had passed away, I didn't have a playbook on how to be a dad. I had memories, which were painful. I didn't have a playbook. And so I sat down with Rebecca and I said, "I need to speak my truth. I don't have a playbook on how to be a good dad. I don't want 1,000 rules for our children." She's like, "Oh, thank goodness. I don't want that either." So we developed 3 golden rules in our family. The first is to be respectful, be responsible, be kind. And that is embedded in our family constitution to be passed along from one generation to the next. Any behavior, good or bad, can be attributed to either one or all 3 of those golden rules. And when I mess up— and I do, I'm fallible, I'm human— If I raise my voice with one of my kids, I'll say, "I dishonored all three of our family's Golden Rules. What I did was disrespectful. It was irresponsible. I'm the parent, and it certainly wasn't kind the way I handled that. Will you accept my apology?" And now I listen to my kids when they have an argument with each other, and they're talking about The golden rules. And they ask each other, "Will you accept my apology?" Your kids are listening less and they're watching more as it relates to what you do. So, can this be transferred as it relates to your implementation of the Infinite Banking Concept and any other aspect of how you're building wealth in your family? Absolutely. They're going to watch what you do. So, if you're creating a loan repayment schedule, you're repaying it, and you're letting them watch you do that. What are they going to learn? They're going to learn what the right way is. If they watch you having conversations, steering, guiding, leading a conversation, a family office meeting, what are they learning? The right way. If they watch you handle money and you're handling it responsibly and you're prioritizing premium, you're prioritizing wealth creation, what are they learning? The right way. Capture it, record it, so in the future your son, your daughter can say, "Hey, don't just take my example and my word for it. Watch how grandpa did it. Watch how grandma did it." It's all going to be there. I think we all know the answer to this question. The money gets squandered quickly if you have a family with money, but No rules, wave bye-bye to the money. And I highlighted this in our family constitution that we believe families decay when money grows faster than character. That's what we teach our kids. We review in every family office meeting, we review our values first. Our family values supersede everything. Then we do a financial review. We talk about how much money is in the system, how much money is flowing back every month. We talk about the infinite banking concept. We're reviewing our utilization of it. Just most recently, we've added 2 additional— there'll be, pardon me, 4 additional policies that are being added to the system. My life being the life insured and my sister-in-law being the life insured. Given the, um, the business interests that I have in the United States, so there are two different carriers in the United States that are insuring each of our lives. Those policies are going to be owned by my InvestCo, my Lifestyle InvestCo company, um, asset holding company in the United States. And but those form a part of the family banking system. So that total is going to blossom from 77 to 81 policies here in pretty short order. Then we do leadership development. So I guide and coach and I pour into my kids, my nieces, my nephews, and adult family members. I spend some time being very intentional about coaching them. I show them. That's how I coach. Teach, don't tell. You might want to write that down. Teach, don't tell. Because as parents, right, we get really good at telling our kids what to do. Teach them, don't tell them. Um, philanthropy review. So we are, you know, we give, uh, 15% of— I'm just being truthful, full disclosure— 15% of every gross dollar that is handled by our family is given. Family education. So where are we focusing our energy on education? Well, we reference R. Nelson Nash's book titled Becoming Your Own Banker. And at our family office meetings, there is a specific part of the book that we're diving deeper into and having a really good expanded conversation on, because Nelson could not have crammed all of his wisdom into this 92 pages. I was blessed beyond the definition of good fortune to spend years with Nelson, and so I take that, all of his generosity and his wisdom and his knowledge, and I transfer that to my family? This is an interesting question, isn't it? How many families have annual arguments, especially if topics come up at the Thanksgiving dinner table that have nothing to do with money? Money is not taboo in our family and in the families that we're blessed to serve. If it's taboo in yours, that can change. It can absolutely change. It just takes time, repetition, and it can, it can change for the better. And my answer to this question is absolutely not. Access in our family is entirely conditional on character, has nothing to do with DNA, and there are no exceptions. This is the truth. I've seen plenty of estate plans and I always ask the same follow-up question. First of all, I commend whether it's a client or a prospective client for establishing an estate plan. It's like, excellent, this is fantastic, which it is. Can you show me your leadership succession plan for your family? Nobody's having that discussion. And if I sat here before all of you today and said, this is simple, The infinite banking concept is ridiculously simple, but generational character is hard. It is work that will never end, as it shouldn't. I've walked you through how we do this with our kids. We teach, we don't tell. I've talked to you about briefly about my dividend reinvestment journey. I've shared with you the step that most families miss, which is transferring the wealth mentality Right? People are sharing all the time out there. You're hearing it all over mass marketing. Generational wealth, generational wealth, generational wealth. Use this tool and implement this process and you'll create generational wealth. Ascendant Financial shows up differently in the marketplace. We're saying use this tool, implement this process, and not only will you create generational wealth,, but you will be coached on how to transfer the wealth mentality. We're not just transferring dollar amounts, we're transferring wealth mentality. Money flows. Once you begin to observe the pattern of flow, you start seeing something that most people miss. Money is always being stored somewhere and borrowed from somewhere. You've got car payments, credit card payments, loan payments. You're paying cash for things.