THRIVING during the Pandemic Canadian Business

We're building a work from home plan. We're going to fire drill that plan so that if we have to pull the lever on it, we are rising to our best level of preparedness. The process of banking goes on no matter what, and someone has to perform that function in your life, and it should be you. If that is recognized by anybody who's watching or listening this, if that's recognized as a problem, which it is, then the solution will matter to you. The solution will be important to you.

What day is it now? 628,247 of the COVID 19 pandemic.

Right. And how has your business done in whatever number you said, how has it done in that time?

Actually, it's been outstanding. You know, I'll share with everyone that at the onset of COVID and Peter, this is something that you're familiar with. When we recognized that, you know, restrictions were going to come into effect and we didn't really have any visibility to how severe this was going to be. And so I met with my entire team and basically just communicated to everybody to say, look, first and foremost, we want to make sure that everybody is reminded that we want this to be a very safe and open environment for people to talk about their concerns. We're building a work from home plan. We're going to fire drill that plan so that if we have to pull the lever on it, we are rising to our best level of preparedness. And in that moment, I shared with all of our team that we have two choices here. We can advance or we can retreat, but we can't do both. So choose one now. And our entire team said, look, we want to advance. And our business more than doubled last year. And in 2021 year to date, we are well above 111% year over year. And so we recognize, you know, that there are so many other companies and entrepreneurs and investors and people who are not in that very same situation. And so that's why one of the things that we did with how we handle money that's flowing through our business is really emphasized our profit sharing pool. And on a quarterly basis, we take 50% of our profit sharing pool and our entire team decides how to bless other people's lives in a positive way. Because we know that, you know, there are people who are obviously experiencing financial hardship and a lot of stress and a lot of pressure. And so we're doing what we can, you know, to give and to support those folks that we know are going to come back even stronger. We didn't know what to expect. But we. We adjusted and our whole team got behind our, you know, commitment to advance. And I give all of my teammates the credit. They. They deserve it. And so we didn't lay a single person off. And I told my team, I said, look, as. As the leader, I will commit to you that I will be the one to eat last and nobody's going to lose their job. And we came through it stronger as a result.

Right. No, that's great. And what do you attribute to that? The success? Like, how do you. How do you double a business in this environment? What was it that made. Maybe you did, or maybe people see that they didn't see in that time.

Oh, boy. Being present, you know, being present where people were paying attention. So with. During the restrictions, the lockdowns, et cetera, people were literally crazy glued to their computers, crazy glued to their phones. And so we made just a, I guess, an increased push to show up where people were paying attention. And that played a very big role in, you know, the market response and people reaching out to us and saying, you know, I've heard about this process and I've been researching it a little bit, but I've had a lot more time, and we're ready to go now. And, you know, Peter, what's interesting, too, is that on the very. To contrast what I shared earlier about, you know, unfortunately, obviously, the economy suffered. Businesses are shuttering, and, you know, a lot of industries and certain areas of the economy have been impacted. Canadians saved over $150 billion last year. And so, you know, the media does a really, really good job about keeping fear and that mindset at the top of people's radar. And the news should provide us with knowledge, not trigger our emotions. And it's. For us, the impact that we had was showing up on those social media platforms and having a positive influence and letting people know that not only can you work your way through this, but you can also shield yourself from future pandemics or future economic events that can unnecessarily have an impact on your finances. And we are blessed beyond the definition of good fortune.

All right, so let's get the cat out of the bag here, then. What is it that you do or what ascendant does that? Why is it that you. I guess there's something that you do beyond being present, being there.

Oh, yeah.

You know, taking time. What is the essence of what you do so that we can maybe tell people and give them a good understanding why the business has doubled because they wouldn't even. Even Being present in itself was great. But there's something you do that people need to know.

Absolutely. You know, we specialize in the implementation of the process of becoming your own banker, the infinite banking concept. And the essence of that concept is to recapture the interest that one is presently paying to banks, to credit card companies, to finance companies for all those things that you need throughout your lifetime, and equally as important to have the flow of the money redirected back to the family, redirected back to the business. And regardless of what's happening in the economy, for example, with COVID 19, the process of banking goes on no matter what, and someone has to perform that function in your life, and it should be you. And so we are educating people to take control of that banking function as it relates to their needs, recognizing that their money has to reside somewhere. And what better place to have it reside than inside of an entity that you own, that you control, where from that very place you can take control of this in your life. And we know everyone that we interact with, you're going to need the use of money and the banking system for the rest of your lifetime. So why not control that function? And that's what we do. And we're pretty good at what we do.

Right. And so I think we were talking kind of in the green room before about this. An example, you know, I have a friend that's doing, is flipping real estate. And so he's, he's saying, I've got this cash, and then I, I don't know what to do with it. I go and put into more real estate, and then I put into more real estate and put in more real estate. But is he really getting ahead? I don't know. What, what's your thoughts on that?

Well, my, my thought would be initially that what he's doing is he's making the wheels of the banking business and the real estate business turn in that order. And he's doing it over and over and over again. So the money shows up in someone else's bank, he finds another flip, he transfers control over the motion of that money again to someone else, completes the flip transaction, transacts again, the money ends up in someone else's bank, and he keeps repeating that process. And so the, the individuals in the banking system that are controlling the motion of that money and the use and liquidity of that money are profiting handsomely from, from that. And he's probably doing pretty good on the transaction too, but he could be doing so much better if he was the one controlling the function. So if he took that money and he moved that capital into dividend paying, participating, whole life insurance contracts, where that being the tool, and then from that very place, he can still conduct all of his real estate flipping activities. However, he's now got this growing pool of financial value inside of these policies that keeps growing on a daily basis, uninterrupted, while he's conducting his real estate investment activities. And so you cannot. One thing that we talk about all the time, Peter, as you know, you cannot get a better rate of return doing anything if you ignore who's controlling the function of banking as it relates to the very thing that you're doing. And so this process will help that real estate investor, that Flipper, really produce far better outcomes without changing cash flow, without having to work any harder and without ever losing control of his money. Isn't that good?

Yeah, no, it's great. And so to, to take it a step further, just to peel back the end a little, a little bit about the opportunity cost of just money flowing through businesses. I think that's where it's a bit of a mind shift because everybody has bills to pay, right? Whether or not it's oh yeah, in business or in family, it's mortgages, it's rent, it's business equipment, it's groceries, it's living expenses, all these things are flowing through. And so what you're saying is that.

There'S an opportunity cost of that money that's literally hitting your bank account for like a minute and then it's gone. And then we've got that last little bit that's left over that we're trying to get ahead with. Can you expand on that a bit?

Oh, for sure. I mean, you know, for anybody who's watching who has maybe heard the term lost opportunity cost, you know, there are so many people that pay lip service to it, but very few who actually reckon with it. So let's give your viewers and listeners an example. When you earn income, regardless of what that source of income is, flipping real estate, interest income, dividend income, T4 income, investment activities, you know, whether you're stock trading or stock hacking or whatever that is, you've got money flowing onto the books of someone else's bank. The money sits there waiting for you to do something with it. But you, Peter, you and I both, no, the commercial banking system can't let money sit still. And when you spend the money on anything, doesn't matter what it is, the drive thru, a Tim Hortons, the utility bill, the grocery bill, cell phone bill, the mortgage, the car payment, the house insurance, the car insurance. Think of all those things that you spend money on. Every time a transaction occurs, that's a permanent transfer of that money away from you and from everyone else who comes after you. That has to be reckoned with because there are no exceptions. You either pay interest to someone else to access their pile of money, or you give up the interest that your own money could have earned otherwise for the rest of your life. And every generation that comes after you, if that is recognized by anybody who's watching or listening this, if that's recognized as a problem, which it is, then the solution will matter to you. The solution will be important to you. But the entire world out there, Peter, what they talk about is they talk about investments, they talk about Wall Street. Wall street isn't an investment, it's speculating. What we're talking about here is taking control of a function banking and never giving up the opportunity to earn interest on your own money for your generation and every generation that comes after you. And without interrupting your day to day lifestyle and your corporate ambitions, your business ambitions, your real estate investment ambitions. We're just changing the process. We're not changing your objectives financially, we're changing the process that you're utilizing to achieve them. Isn't that good?

No, it's great. And you talk about, you know, I guess it just comes down to really, you know, this is not something, the product is not new. You know, in terms of the wealthy keeping money in their system, that's not new. It goes back to just. The masses are kind of doing what we've been told. But what do the rich do that we aren't aware of?

The rich follow two golden rules. The first one is never lose money. The second one is never break rule number one. And if you store your money inside of an entity where, where it cannot be lost, where it is contractually guaranteed to rise every single day, regardless of what's happening in the economy, regardless of what's happening in government, regardless of what's happening in any temperamental or risky investment or stock markets. The wealthy store capital in these instruments by the truckload. And then from that place, the wealthy utilize capital to take advantage of opportunity. That tracks them down. I'll share something with your viewers and listeners that is so fundamental. When you have ready access capital, opportunity will track you down. And from that place of storing capital inside of dividend paying, participating whole life contracts, you can implement a process. The product is not the process. The process of banking goes on. No matter what is Happening and you should control that function as it relates to your needs.

All this is just. And it's about.

I guess it's, you know, you haven't built anything. I mean, you mentioned about two seconds about a product, but it's all about a process and maybe a mindset. What kind of. Sorry, before we get into that, actually I was going to say we talked about the wealthy. Wealthy. One of them being the banks, would you say as well?

Oh, goodness, yeah. What this boils down to, Peter, where we were may have been headed with this is what the wealthy do is the wealthy understand not only that there are characters in the financial play, but the wealthy understand who all four characters are and the wealthy become all four characters. So if you think about this in your life, if you think about this as it relates to your business or your investment activities, whatever it may be, there are four characters in the financial play. You've got the depositor, the borrower, the banker, and the bank owner. And people out there, for the most part, not only have no idea that the characters in the play even exist, they often get them very mixed up. They don't know who's who. And the wealthy understand. So when you implement this process, you become the depositor, the borrower, the banker and the bank owner. But in your life right now, if you're only the depositor and the borrower, then you're missing out on becoming the characters who are making the most money. And rightfully so, because those two other characters, the bank and the bank owner, they're the ones who are controlling the function as it relates to your needs. And so the wealthy get it, they grasp that. But I want to emphasize something for your listeners and viewers. You do not have to be wealthy to do this. Whether you're making $10 an hour or $10,000 an hour, you need the use of the banking system and the use of money. And so you can do this once you know how. But the key is, is to discover how to do it. A great place to start as, as Peter will know, is this particular book titled becoming your own banker. Now this is my copy that I've had for many, many, many years. And I take it everywhere with me. And it's a 92 page read. It takes the better part of an afternoon to get through. But one afternoon of a 365 day year can change your life. And you and I know that most people, when they get through, you know, when they get older, they don't regret the things that they tried. They regret the opportunities that they didn't even take the time to investigate. And so if you find yourself thinking this sounds really interesting and I want to discover more about it, then make sure that you get your hands on a copy of R. Nelson Nash's book, Becoming youg Own Banker. Take the time to read it. But the key is that without an understanding of the problem, the solution just won't matter to you. And so you've got to recognize that someone has to do this in your life. And if it's not you, that's a problem. And we've got the solution to that problem.

Right. And it to take the bank to an extension, literally. The banks that we bank with today, they use this product as well.

They sure do. So the commercial banks utilize bank owned life insurance. And so if you hop on to Uncle Google and you check out bank owned life insurance. So banks are purchasing dividend paying, participating whole life contracts by the truckload. Now why is that? They're either really stupid and creating a lot of wealth for their stockholders and for the principles of the bank, or they know something that your listeners don't. Which one do you think it is?

Yeah, I think we know the answer.

Right. Think about what Warren Buffett said. Warren Buffett said, if poor people don't want to be poor anymore, all they need to do is what the rich do. Well, think about this as it relates to bankers. If you recognize the wealth that bankers create for the stockholders of the bank and you're not in that position, all you need to do is what the bankers are doing. And so if you take control of this function, it'll change your life.

It's awesome. And I think definitely we're seeing this. You know, maybe we can talk a little bit about what you do and, you know, other ways that people can connect with you too, because we talked about other resources. Becoming your banker, that is really the foundation to everything in terms of you and other resources. You have a podcast as well. Can you talk about that?

We sure do. Thank you for asking about that. Our podcast, Wealth Without Bay Street. Again, that's Wealth Without Bay Street. We launched that podcast in February of last year and the response has been unbelievably positive. And we have a lot of focused conversations on this process of becoming your own banker. The infinite banking concept. We interview existing clients of ours who share their journey and how transformational it's been for them over the years. And the resource is something that's available 24 7. You can stream the podcast on your favorite platform. You can just head on over to the YouTube's and just type in wealth without Bay street. And we have all of the episodes that were recorded, video recorded as well. And so you get to see the faces of the folks that, that you're listening to. And we also have a YouTube channel titled the Banker's Vault. Again, that's the Banker's Vault. And that YouTube channel is amazing. You know, some great overviews again on the concept and some great value added content. Frequently asked questions where we capture snackable content, just really short clip videos that answer the most frequent questions that we receive, you know, on this process. And so when you combine the book with all of the digital assets that we have online, I'll tell you there's no shortage of information for you to consume.

Yeah, and I think when I started the process maybe four years ago, I think there was literally the book and you know, that was it otherwise. But yeah, you've definitely seen a great amount of it out there. And I think ascendance to definitely could have been a major push from a Canadian standpoint for sure in terms of filling that void.

Well, you'll never forget, Peter, we had dinner together. So we were sitting down, we were enjoying a meal and just having a great conversation about mindset and continually growing, continually learning. And you may not remember this, but we were just chatting about having that presence and, and really sharing this message with as many Canadians as possible. And at that point I had already been sharing this message with literally we would have more than 500 people a year come through our live events. And we had been doing that at that point for just under nine years. And you had kind of leaned over and you said, you know what, when you start going and especially with online content.

You'Re going to become a very well recognized ambassador for this message and advocate for this message. And it's blossoming in that today because of a great team. I have a great team that works right alongside me and we get to, you know, free me up for things like this to be able to be here with you and with your viewers and listeners. And so the more often we can get this message communicated for the better. And you're absolutely right. It's so much different today than it was even just a few short years ago. There's so much more available now.

And you just talked about having 500 people into a live event, but now you're doing these virtual events and you're getting literally 100, couple hundred per every time.

So yeah, it's amazing.

And so I was actually gonna ask you about the team and what Ascendant does communicate. Can you tell me a little bit about what that approach is, how you engage with clients and how you help them?

Oh yeah, definitely. You know, we lead from a place of education first and so.

Making sure that people really get clarity on the problem so that when we're presenting the solution it becomes clear and people know exactly what to do. And we really have a four point process here where, you know, people come through a process of education. They're meeting with an authorized infinite banking practitioner on our team, which all of our advisors are authorized with the Nelson Nash Institute as practitioners. And then once they've gone through that process and they're ready to begin implementation, we have a client service and success team that is amazing. They take our prospective client right through from application to hand off back to the advisor when implementation is good to go. And then we've got password protected client portal, where in that client portal we've literally built a Mount Everest of digital step by step, paint by numbers how to implement this process so that it's accessible to our clients 24 7, 365 from any device that connects you to the Internet. We have implemented quarterly group client coaching sessions so that clients don't have to feel like they're a lone ranger. They can connect with a community of like minded people who are implementing this and sharing their story, sharing their journey so that it sparks the imagination of newer infinite bankers who are just getting going on their journey. But we're compressing that timeline where we're sharing those best demonstrated stories and results and none of that gets done without a team. None of it. And so by I give credit to my team for all that wonderful work and our clients love it, as evidenced by all of our Google reviews and Facebook reviews and people who are kind enough to just hop online and say here's what my experience has been working with Ascendant and the team there.

Yeah, it's definitely seen literally a compound acceleration of this. Maybe just loop back to maybe where it all comes back to give me something in terms of mindset. I know you talk about Dan Sullivan quite a bit. Can you. Oh yeah, you tell the audience about what maybe talk about the four C's as a. As an example.

Oh boy. Well, what I would first say to people is that if you are unfamiliar with who Dan Sullivan is, then you have an opportunity. And so Dan Sullivan. I've been blessed beyond the definition of good fortune to be in Dan Sullivan's 10x ambition program. And Dan is my coach and I am so incredibly grateful to him and to his team at Strategic Coach. And there's a great book that he wrote. He releases a new book every quarter, as a matter of fact. And the book that he wrote is titled the Four Cs. And he talks about commitment, courage, capability. Just to those three are the ones that I just want to focus on here before I get to the final one. So when you kind of, you know, take on something new or you think about doing something new, there are very predictable phases that. That you go through. And the great thing that Dan Sullivan has helped me do is he's helped me to rethink my thinking. So, for example, he would say, listen, you know, the problem is never the problem. The problem is how you think about the problem. And that changed, for me, my method of thinking. And one of the other most profound statements that he shared with me about mindset is that when you begin to think collaboratively versus thinking competitively, everything changes. And collaboration opportunities begin to show up everywhere. Because think about it from this perspective, Peter. If we take this down to an individual level, can you. And maybe I'll ask you a question as part of this interview. Can you ever become the best version of someone else?

Not likely.

No. You can only become the best version of you. And so it's. While it's important to have a great coach or coaches to help you throughout what you're dealing with in your business or your personal life and things that you want to improve and get better at, you can only ever become the best version of yourself. And so whatever it is that you're thinking of doing, first of all, you have to have commitment. There has to be a commitment. Whether it's a commitment to change, a commitment to grow a commitment to. Into whatever. And then you have to go through that phase of, you know, courage and then capability. And then once you've gone through those, you develop the confidence. And the confidence is what it does. Two things. First of all, it strengthens, you know, your. Your muscles, whether it's your mental or physical muscles, but it also exposes you to the fact that the more you see, the more you'll see. You didn't see. There's always something new to learn. And you've heard that expression. Confidence breeds confidence. Well, confidence also breeds an awareness that there's always something new to learn. Because before you achieved that new level of confidence, you had to go through those other stages. You had to experience that. You've heard the expression face the fear and do it anyway. There's a little bit more to that. But I'll tell you, on the other side, it's. It's amazing. I've grown so much since being a part of Dan Sullivan's 10x ambition program that I really, I don't think I could articulate to you the impact that he's had on me and, by proxy, all of my teammates that are around me. Part of our painted picture vision is to weave straight, strategic coach into our organization, and that's already well underway. And so, for viewers and listeners, if you have an opportunity to read Dan's book, one of his most recent book releases, titled who not how, is a great book, but get your hands on the four C's and familiarize yourself with Dan Sullivan. He's the best entrepreneur coach. He's the Wayne Gretzky of entrepreneur coaches, bar none.