How Infinite Banking Can Transform Your Financial Future with Nate Scott of @thelivingwealth

Nobody feels threatened when Jason gives them instruction, challenges them, because they know that he cares. You know, that's why it's so engaging to get advice from Jason, because you know that he's going to say it how it is, with nothing to gain except for you becoming who you are. So that's essentially what you're saying, Jason, and if it's your unique ability, that's something you could do all day, every day, and always feel excited to wake up and do it again.

Thousand percent.

And that's where I haven't been the last couple of years. And that's, of course, where I think the Lord's taking me to. On this, on that journey to transition to. Every day you wake up and you're. And it's a fulfillment the work itself fulfills.

So you want to know a little bit something about living wealth, not just accumulating it, but actually living wealth. Well, we're pleased to be joined today by Nate Scott from Living wealth, and we're going to have an incredible discussion around his journey with the infinite banking concept, the insights that he's developed along the way. This is what we love to do. We love to connect with colleagues in our industry who have been on this journey for years and who can agree that there's no such thing as having arrived in knowledge as it relates to the infinite banking concept. Our mentor, the developer, the pioneer of the process, the late R. Nelson Nash, always said, the more you see infinite banking concepts, plural, the more you'll see you didn't see. And so, Nate, let's talk about how accurate Nelson was in making that statement. Welcome to the show.

Oh, thank you so much, Jason and Richard, for having me. So it's a pleasure to be here.

So share with us, how accurate was Nelson in making that statement?

You know, it's amazing that you can be in a. Jason, you've been in this business longer than I have, but I've been doing it since 2012. And how can we be doing the same thing? You for 17 years, I want to say me for 12 years, and still feel like we're just scratching the surface of what we're doing. And I know that that might sound biased from a group of free guys who have drank vats of Kool Aid in the industry, who make a living from it, but there's no.

It's iced tea. It's unsweetened.

That's right. Unsweetened iced tea.

Yeah.

And. But all that to say, Jason. Yeah, there. Nelson understood. He named infinite banking infinite for a reason. Yeah, I, I think sometimes the phrase infinite banking can almost seem, I don't, too markety to some people. But there's a truth to it though. Yeah, that if, if you actually try to put it into a box, you're the one that's wrong, not the concept. And that was the whole purpose of the word infinite banking. There's, there's the endless possibilities. And that's what I've taken of recently, Jason, is I was, you know, really probably the first eight, nine, ten years involved with infinite banking. I was really building capital waiting for using the policies, but, but building capital, waiting for something to occur. And it wasn't until a couple of years ago where I felt like it was time to flip the switch and start to deploy capital. And so once that occurred in my life and I went from building up capital, using it occasionally, but really starting to deploy it and investing money and building businesses and starting new businesses and things of that sort with the capital I had built, it wasn't until you, you had your hands on, they're like, oh yes, this is infinite. I mean this is something that's, that everybody should be doing, there's no question. So I mean, absolutely, I mean I went from having a storage mode to passive income, exceeding my lifestyle like a switch that was flipped. And you talk to people about the unseen versus the scene of infinite banking. And of course we can all see a policy and we can derive value from this policy. But what we can't see when we start infinite banking is all the things that are going to transpire just because we started doing infinite banking. That is of course the infinite in the banking concept. And that's of course where the true value, I believe, of IBC really starts to shine, is where you end up after having practiced it for 10, 12 years. And so it takes people like Jason, takes people like Richard, it takes people like myself who have done it for that long to be able to say, hey, I had no idea where I was going to end up when I started. I just knew it was a great idea to start. And I'm not finished yet. Right? I mean there's, I'm 30, almost 32, there's 50 years of IBC to, to achieve infinite possibility. So I hope that answered your question, Jason. But Nelson, he did it longer than anybody. So almost 40 years of practicing the infinite banking concept, nobody else is anywhere close. And he was the one to see how transformative the process can be when you truly dive into it. When you buy into the concept, well, you talk, be transformational.

You talked about the deployment of capital. And I'll share with you. I was having a conversation, I was discussing this with Richard, was having a conversation regarding potential strategic investment in another company. And in having that preliminary conversation, one of the things that came up was, hey, the current leadership team of this business, they're very conservative with capital. They're burning somewhere in the range of a few hundred thousand every month, and they've got 11 million sitting in a bank.

Okay.

I'm, I'm like, I can't find conservative red flags on my desk. Like, why? Like there's conservative and then there's just, I think, just an absence of maybe logic. Like, what do you, what do you have $11 million sitting in the bank for? You're, you're a company that's wanting to move from startup to sustainable. Get that capital moving, get it deployed in technology, in R and D, in customer acquisition, human resources, hr. Like, get the money moving. And then the question was, okay, well, based on how familiar you are with our business model, well, my question to your leadership team is going to be, where should the capital be residing? Based on what you're doing and what we're doing, where do you think that money should be? And I'm going to be the one to sell them the policies.

That's right.

So I'm going to get a return on the investment right. From day one.

Are you saying that, though, if I back up, that they have 11 million cash and they're losing money every month, Is that what.

No, no, no. They're.

So they're making multiple six figures every month of profit, is that correct?

No, that's their burn rate on cash. Right. So they're paying payroll overhead. Um, they're paying for their systems.

Sure.

Right.

Yeah. So that's over. I was just curious, did you mean that that was, that was a loss or that's being paid by revenue?

Right. Okay.

Yeah, the, the business, the business is.

Yeah, that is conservative. Oh, my God. That is.

I said, I sort of explained. And for the benefit of all of our viewers and listeners, you know, there's a reason that life insurance companies keep very little cash on their balance sheet because they understand that money that isn't in motion isn't worth anything. It's super important to have some cash readily accessible. And you know, the, the insurance companies mandate whatever the board mandates, as, hey, listen, this is what we need to have readily accessible, that's one thing. But they maintain very little cash on the balance sheet. And some people think that when a potential investor looks at a balance sheet and they see a lot of cash there. They're saying to themselves, good job.

And all we see is a waste of money.

Oh, it's the exact opposite. It's like, what are we doing with all this capital?

That's right.

Well, you know, the leadership team's conservative and. Well, the leadership team needs to be tased. Like. Yeah, get the money moving.

Right, Absolutely. I mean, I am a huge proponent of what I call relegating the banks to only serve the function that they're good at serving, which is primarily a payment facilitator. So whether you're an individual, whether you're a business, whatever it is, there really should only be in a bank account the money that's needed to run the operation. I like to have maybe two or three months of operating capital max, sitting in a bank account. So if their burn rate's $250,000, about a million in cash would be as much as you would ever want to go in the bank account. So that leaves $10 million that is not there to facilitate the transactions of the business. Yeah, $10 million is there. That is actually capital that the business is choosing to put in the worst place that ever was created for capital to reside, which is just bank accounts.

And that lending institution is using that money while it's being warehoused there. Because as soon as they transferred the money and put in that account, it wasn't the business's money anymore, it's the bank's money with an iou. That's right. Banks going and saying, hey, this is a good chunk here. How many times can we turn this over and how many payments can we generate off it? And for how payments are being generated? Every day, just like an insurance company, premium payments are received every day. Some are big, some are small, but every day there's a prepayment coming in. So their balancing act of cash can be, you know, adjusted on a frequent basis. And they, you know, the best part is they even know the premium schedule. They know the day that they're taking the payments out of people's accounts. They know the anniversary data policy so they can reasonably assume and project on a pretty nice looking spreadsheet, I'm sure, exactly how much cash is available and coming in on a repetitious basis on a month by month basis.

Yeah, very good point. And I asked the question, which you're both already thinking, I'm sure, what do you need my capital for?

Yeah, why are we still raising money, folks?

And if we want, you know, in this particular scenario, if we want life insurance carriers to be our friend, then maybe we should have some capital reside there.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Like, you know, these are things that just come up when. So when you have. The point being when you have ready access capital, whether it's personally or whether it's corporately. Because if you're running a successful business and you have surplus capital, it's no different opportunities of high caliber will track you down. And we have a large number of clients who have corporate owned dividend paying whole life insurance contracts because there are very specific and distinct tax advantages in Canada to doing that as compared to the United States. And I was having this discussion with an advisor earlier today that when you're dealing with a real estate investor, for example, and the real estate investor has an accumulating portfolio of assets that are corporately owned, the capital dividend account is more than a gift. It is the solution to your intergenerational transfer of wealth. And so it makes perfect sense for the, the insurance to live there, to provide not only the living wealth.

Sure.

You like how I'm doing this for the audience? Living wealth. Nate Scott.

Living.

Well, living.

Pun intended.

Just say living wealth. And so that it makes perfect sense for the insurance to live there. Right. Whereas Nelson would share.

Right.

He would say. And he, he said it in his book. The book that we're referring to that Richard displayed earlier was becoming your own banker. This book has sold more than 550,000 copies because it works. And Nelson said in the book, though, however, the corporation should not own it. And then when we, throughout the time that we were blessed to spend with Nelson and we would share with him, you know, what some of these distinctions were, all Nelson would say is, well, work with what you got.

Yes.

Sounds so much like Nelson. And for sure, in the US we, most of the time it's actually better to own policies personally and lend money to corporations based on our tax laws. But I do know that the Canadian tax laws are a bit different. So Nelson could be right and wrong at the same time, depending on where you live, what side of the border you live on. Absolutely.

I don't know if I ever told you this, Nate.

About what I gotta tell you this. Okay, let's do it.

First time I met Nelson, it was at a, an event hosted by Pamela Yellen, believe it or not.

Well, was this your first introduction to the infinite banking concept?

No.

Or did you know about it and then you just met Nelson there?

Yeah. So I, I first heard about the concept and it was described as the banker's optimal system of security. Ryan and Tyson Thacker.

I know who, yeah, I know who you're talking about.

Two amazing guys, like top shelf guys, incredible guys. And met them at an event in Las Vegas in July of 2008. And there were 300 plus advisors there and two Canadians, myself and a prior business partner. And when I met Nelson in 2011, the year before I attended my first think tank with Richard, I was at this event and it was in Michigan and I sat down at this table. It was a sales conference for Pamela Yellen's organization. I sat down at the table and directly across the row I was at the end cap of the table and directly across the row was Nelson. And I said Nelson. Nelson Nash. Yes. And oh, it's so nice to meet you and oh, I'm so excited to, because I've been reading your book and yeah, so much to learn. And you know, you're just kind of like a kid in a candy store.

You're just so excited, meeting a celebrity.

And then he says, where are you from? And I said Canada. And he goes, huh, I'm surprised you all can speak American. And that was the.

What a beautiful way to meet Nelson Nash.

Oh my God.

And you couldn't have asked for a better experience.

God. Hey, Rich. He was a character when we first saw him at Think Tank as well. Wasn't that an incredible experience?

Yeah, we attended, we got to attend this two day seminar and before the event and it was, it was amazing. It was fantastic. And you know, you think that you know something and you don't and you learn that you don't and you learn that even though you think that you know what you know, you're wrong. So it was really not only is it like humbling, it was exciting, it was invigorating. There was all these kind of adjectives you could use to describe the experience. And of course that, that first think tank itself was also great just to know there was this community of people that was out there that were, that were learning and connected to the same ideal and message of personal autonomy and personal freedom around your financial life that would allow you to literally unplug and disconnect from the banking system as, as we've been traditionally taught to work within it and a little bit from the government system and that we could secede peacefully from both of those things while being personally profitable at the same time and not even have to ask permission. So it's just this peaceful method of creating autonomy and a little bit of harmony in your, in your financial and your family life if you do it the right way. This September 12th is don't spread the wealth day. Get a copy of our new book, Don't Spread the Wealth. How to leverage the Family Banking System to own all the gold, make all the rules and enjoy generational riches. This book is jam packed full of incredible bonuses that we've put together, including our 15 page guide to hosting your own family banking meetings. Pre order your copy today using the link down in the description or Visit don't spread wealth.com that's don don't spread wealth.com learn how to keep the money in the family so you can prosper together for generations to come.

Yeah, let me ask you this. If how clear did you. Do you think Nelson saw the whole concept of seceding from the conventional banking system and the living autonomously? When do you think he started to see that clearly along his journey? I know I never asked him that specifically, but when do you think that started to become the driving vision for expressing this to the world?

I think that he may have not have seen it clearly, but I think it actually began when he first got his very first copy of the Fee magazine, the foundation from Economic Education. He told a story about a party and he went to and somebody took him into their, their office and their, their library and he gave him a copy and he says hey, read this and send him, send them a letter. They'll start sending it to you for a year and they'll just stop sending it to you if you don't send them any money by donation. And he says where, where you been hiding all this stuff and why are you hiding it from me? And that understanding about Austrian economics, I think it just started to open the doorway. And so he knew that fundamentally there was a way to do things that was, was accurate that would, that would create this existence that was detached from top down thinking. Nelson always talked about, you know, we need a bottom up solution to top down thinking. You can't solve a top down problem with more top down thinking. Yeah, and, and I, I don't think he really, really made that connection because your question is a fantastic question until the experience he had with the interest rate rise in the 80s and realizing the position that he had put himself into, using the advice of everyone else. And then that, that like, oh wait, I need to get out of this hole. Here's a method, I could do it and the problem is I can't do it because I haven't been using this method enough. So I think that's probably where the glue latched, it may not have like crystallized. He would have been able to maybe state it in language. But there's sometimes you just like, know something. It's kind of like for me, when I first read Nelson's book, I couldn't immediately go tell someone, hey, this is everything I've been looking for. But I knew like somehow I just knew fundamentally like this undeniable feeling was upon me after reading Nelson's book. But I couldn't.

Nelson. Yeah. The way that Nelson would often describe it was not that he created the infinite banking concept. He discovered the infinite banking concept and I feel like there's a bit of a difference there. Whenever he stumbled his way through trial and struggle into the infinite banking concept, and somewhere in along the way he realized this is the ultimate answer for personal autonomy, financial freedom on the back of becoming your own banker. And it just so happens to be for some wild, outlandish reason that dividend paying permanent life insurance policies issued by mutual companies actually provides the platform that anybody can plug in and accomplish this, that we don't even need to create a new platform, in fact. And it's not that he created the idea. He's like, I just happened to do it when I needed to. And suddenly he's like, this is the answer. And that's what I was trying to ask to you, Richard, on that front was like, hey, at the beginning, what I found just engaging about it was that he did not know that we were going to secede from the banking system. When he started to discover the banking concept, it was definitely a process of saying, oh, this is a good financial strategy. Oh, this makes a lot of sense. Oh, why do we. It was, it was certainly there must have been a few years from 1982 through, you know, 1986, 87, 88, when this thing became, oh my gosh, this is the answer to the problem.

Yeah, it took him 13 years to get rid of what he referred to as the snakes and dragons, really. And then from that point forward, him and his wife Mary, God rest her soul, now as well, him and his wife Mary never saw a conventional bank again for anything other than the convenience of debit. And so I think the revelation for him was the peaceful, stress free way of life that he experienced when he got the banks out of his life. And from his vantage point, he wanted the entire world to be aware of it because he was saying to himself what a peaceful, stress free way of life this is. And so I, I need to share this and make sure that other People are aware that you can, you can take control of this function and no longer abdicate the responsibility of it to someone else. And most importantly, no longer abdicate the opportunity that controlling it represents. And, and he was very, very good at helping you to think about your thinking, not his.

Yeah, he didn't say give it away.

His, his golden rule isn't rethink my thinking. Yeah, his golden rule is rethink your thinking. He wanted you to do that. And so for everyone, the answer to that question is going to be a little bit different, isn't it?

There was a couple of things that occurred along that timeline, too, in, in 88, when he had his quadruple bypass surgery, which he turned into an amazing lesson about the financial system. And, and that. So that, that experience of surviving an unexpected occurrence and he had. That was a wakeup call for him about, I'm playing small. I needed to. I, I'm. I'm here to do something as a reason I have to get up and go to work.

Because this thing just him personally meeting with clients to describe infinite banking, creating a movement.

Yeah, yeah. He, he knew that there, he alone could not do the thing that needed to be done. There was a realization that happened there, and then that realization crystallized more because he wasn't sure how he was going to go about doing it. The seminars doing that, that was a starting block. That was, okay. This is what he could conceive at that time. And then Tim Yurich hired him to come out and do a seminar for him that went really, really well. And then that day he drove home with Mary and says, this is how we're going to do it.

Well, let me ask you this too, Richard and Jason. If you were Nelson and you were thinking you had this concept, and you're like, how am I going to. And you're in the insurance business already, and you're thinking, I'm going to take this to the masses. How would you do it?

Well, I think we have the curse of knowledge in that we already have some preconceived ideas of that because we've been doing this for a while. I don't think that I would have had any context on how to do that at an early stage. I don't think I would have had any idea. I think I would have probably approached in a similar way that Nelson did, and actually in a similar way that we did when we started. What do we do? He says, oh, we got to teach people well, the best way to do that. Let's have some evening Seminars. And then we'd invite six or seven or 10 people out and then we teach them for an hour and a half, 90 minutes, two hours, answer a few questions. Everyone would feel real great and then they'd walk away and immediately forget everything that you told them. Even though it was really impactful. It was so confusing. So maybe it was the messenger, could have been the messenger, but it was all, it was just wasn't enough time. It wasn't enough time to get all their questions answered because it was like, okay, we had to retrain their thought process. And two and two hours was an insufficient time to do that on a Wednesday evening. So we, you know, Nelson talked about how he first started doing his seminars and he did some evening things and then he would do four weeks, or I think it was five weeks and it was two hours an evening on Monday nights. Because he said, I wanted to compete with Monday Night Football. If they want to, they want to go watch Monday Night Football rather than come see me, they might as well go do that. Good on him. You know, he's like, I only want the people who want to learn and they're willing to prioritize. Basically was his mindset. And he said the first, first week people would show up, the next week, a lot of them wouldn't come back. But the ones that came back brought friends.

Yeah.

And so they did. He did that for quite a long time. And then he eventually realized, like, this is inefficient. And he converted it to a Friday evening and a Saturday event. And we literally, we literally followed the exact same process before we met Nelson.

So true.

And we, we didn't, we, we could have saved ourselves two years of energy by simply going to the very first paragraph. On the very first page that says becoming your own banker is a text for a 10 hour course of instruction about the.

And you were trying to give it to people. Life insurance, hour and a half on a Wednesday.

It's the first, it's the first sentence in the book. And we just like completely missed it for two years. We're slow, but we're worth waiting for.

That's right. And I constantly tell my clients they will, they will dive in deep down the rabbit hole to learn about infinite banking. They will fall in love with it. And they think that they are, they must be special because they can go take this rabbit hole of love and bring it to their brother in law and give them a 30 minute spiel of cliff notes about IBC and then wonder why their brother in law doesn't Actually think it's anything good. And that's what I'm trying to say. It's like, it's. You can't do it in 30 minutes. You have to. It's a 10 hour, it's a 10 hour course from, from Nelson. As he would say, you got to spend 10 hours in it. There's just no way around it.

In 30 minutes you can get inspired to learn more. You gotta get a taste of what's possible and be called to learn more. But you're not gonna know. And how often do you get the question of like, just, just tell me how it works. Hey, Nate, can you just.

Yeah, just. Well, just pitch.

I don't, I don't wanna. 10 year webinar. Can you just tell me how it works?

Yeah, just pitch to me real quick. Give me the, give me the elevator pitch.

Yeah, yeah, give me the elevator pitch. How's it, how's it, how does it work?

How does it work?

I really don't. I just say, no, thank you. Here's a book. The elevator pitch is a four hour read. And if you can't handle the four hour read, that's okay, I'll take the next elevator. That's right.

Yeah, it's, it's always a function of. And again, credit to Nelson, always emphasizing that unless you understand the problem, the solution just won't matter to you. And that has come up so often throughout the years. And one of the things that Rich and I used to do, understandably so we were really excited about the table of values in a policy illustration. And we get super, super excited about that. And we would teach people how to interpret it and what those values actually meant. And I'll never, I will never forget this ever for the rest of my lifetime. When Nelson pulled me aside at a think tank and he said, remind yourself, infinite banking concepts does not need to be sensationalized. It is ridiculously simple. And, and he, he would go on to say, if I could write this book all over again, there wouldn't be a single illustration in it.

Take the numbers out.

So from that day, from that day, there comes a point in the process where you have a duty of care to review an illustration with somebody. Of course you're going to do that at some point. Do you know how many illustrations Richard and I have referenced in a content specific webinar for the past several years?

Leading question, Jason. If it's. The answer's not zero, then I, I wasn't following. So it's zero, zip.

And, and here's the Reason why.

And.

And you witness this and tell me, just tell, tell me if I'm wrong. We, we struggled with that to make that change. But the outcome is incredible in clients understanding of the problem so that the solution actually matters. And the illustration, here's the one thing that I always try to communicate to colleagues in the industry. The illustration is not going to look anything like what it looked like on the day that you printed it and showed it to somebody because the policy owner's behavior is far more critical than the behavior of the insurance company. And Nelson said verbatim, and he would say, if you're an advisor, I want you to write this down. Infinite banking concepts has absolutely nothing to do with life insurance.

Yeah.

Do you remember when he would say that, you know, he would, if he could go back and do it again, he would probably change the way that he named it. He said, you know, I probably would have done it the way that the Spanish did it because they'd say agua caliente. Water Hot, not hot water. Yeah. And so it's really, it's, it's a concept about banking that just so happens to be infinite. Yeah.

And so quite as catchy though.

It's not. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't roll off the tongue as well. It doesn't look as good with the trademark on it necessarily. But, but he, he really thought that, you know, the way that we describe. So not only are the words important but the way in which we describe the reference to the words is important.

Yeah.

And he really thought, you know, that was almost a disservice that he might have done in his mindset of, of, of naming. It's like, yeah, well, we always ask for hot water but that's not how, that's not how it's done in a lot of other areas of the world. They ask for water and then they want it hot or they want a cold.

Yeah.

You know, so what's the primary thing that you want? Do you want the hot or the cold or do you want the water? Well, you want the water and then you want a temperature attached to it. So that kind of thinking was how he wanted people to approach looking at the concept by which you could bank through an infinite model of thinking.

Well, even just the phrase becoming your own banker I think really does serve it better possibly than the actual infinite banking concept. I think maybe he would agree, I don't know. But just the name of the book is becoming your own banker and that is the premise that he wants to take it across is that we are, as Jason said, it's not the power of life insurance. He could have written a book called the Power of Life Insurance by R. Nelson Nash and honestly could have kept a lot of similar things in the book. But of course that wasn't the name of the book. The name of the book is becoming your own banker. Because that's actually what we're doing. It just so happens that we do not know of another way to do it apart from utilizing dividend paying whole life insurance policies, you know, as the platform to plug into, as he talked about with you know, plugging into an electrical, you know, or whatever it is.

Can I share, can I share something with you real quick? Rich Rich is going to get a chuckle out of this. So we, we do a very large volume of social media content and in one of the posts recently, it was a reel and just describing the problem and then essentially a call to action to discover the solution to that problem. And you get people who comment on there, which is good for engagement. And when you start to read things like don't, you know, don't, don't buy permanent life insurance, put your money in the market and buy term life insurance, you know where I'm going with all that, right?

Oh sure.

And I just ask a really logical question. So what does buy term and invest the difference have to do with controlling how you finance the things you need in life?

Zero.

And the response that always comes back now it's like, oh, I've been asked an intelligent question, so rather than answer it, I should demonstrate to the world how dumb I am. And they start lambasting you with temperature assaults and whatnot. Yeah. Oh yeah. Everything that's wrong with permanent life insurance.

You must be evil because you sell insurance in the first place.

It's like you like to, you want.

To protect people's families, you, you horribly a human being.

Totally.

And then you're going to pass on generational wealth and helping get gain control. You are this company.

And then you come back and you say, okay, I've, I've heard, I've heard your feedback, I've read your feedback. And while I feel differently, I'll ask the question again. What does buy term and invest the difference have to do with controlling how you finance the things you need throughout your lifetime? No response. So people, in other words, this is.

Why IBC is a paradigm shift.

The point I'm trying to make is that people get so possessive of their idea or their, their method or their investment philosophy or whatever that may be.

But.

Prior to July of 08.

I.

Didn'T know anything about this concept or that it even existed. And so when you're exposed to something new that you didn't know before, if you approach it with an open mind, like we did, the three of us, your eyes get opened to a whole new financial world, and you can move away from, I need to argue with somebody versus just have a good conversation about the problem. And once you're all calibrated that it is, in fact a problem, the solution will actually matter.

Yeah.

And you haven't. You haven't even gotten to describing the tool that you're using to implement the solution. You're just talking about how to solve what you agree is a problem.

Can I share something with you, Nate?

Yes.

So in 1999, I got my first mortgage on a rental property. And I actually looked at the mortgage paperwork because I never signed that many pieces of paper before, and I thought, this is absolutely insane. The purchase contract was this thin, and then the mortgage paperwork was this thick. I'm like, what's going on here?

So I'm the only guy that they've ever had that dread through the paperwork, by the way.

Well, and I, like, I'm not a details guy, but I was just. I was just curious. I'm like, what's. Like, what is this all about?

Reading.

I. I just knew that there was some kind of racket going on. And then I looked at the thing, and I. And I saw that, like, okay, the payment and the interest rate. I'm like, all right. So I figured out how to find an amortization of what that looked like. And then I saw what that was, and I'm like, oh, my God. This is like.

This is.

The word slavery didn't come to mind, but that's what I was fundamentally thinking about. And then I said, this is what we actually need to be doing. We're buying this rental property, but we need to be in this business.

Yeah, this is what we need to do.

And I didn't know that it was possible. And then I learned about a year or so later that you could do private lending. Oh, I could take my registered accounts, and I could be a private lender on a second mortgage or a first mortgage. I didn't have enough to do a first mortgage, but I could do a second mortgage. And so I did that, and I thought, this is it. I'm. I'm doing it. I'm.

I'm the bank now.

This is the best. I figured out the solution. Hooray for me. And so then, you know, and then moving forward, you put a number of years on it. I don't know. I give it. Give it nine or 10 years. And then all of a sudden, Jason tells me to go buy this book. And then. And then that's when I knew. I'm like, this was what I was always looking for. The thing that I wanted, that I thought I could do. I now know that it's possible to do because somebody's already done it.

Yes.

And then, you know, we talk a lot about the words your own, and, you know, that's the most important piece here. But I don't want to discount the importance of the word becoming. We. We have been doing this, all of us on this call, for quite some time. I don't.

I'm.

I haven't arrived at any destination. No, I'm not anywhere. I'm still becoming. I'm becoming my own banker. I intend to keep becoming my own banker for the rest of time. And for our clients, they think that they're getting started then, like, oh, I got my. I got my first policy.

All right. Loan.

I'm making some loan repayments. This is it. High five, bump chests. Everything's great. I'm like, no, you're. Yeah, this is all good. I mean, yes. Celebrate.

They buy their first policy, and they say, I have become my own banker.

No, you're becoming.

Yeah, I'm. Exactly.

You just started.

You just started becoming.

And nowhere close to where you will be.

Here's the other thing I think is really important for people to understand. People don't realize they're already their own banker, and they always have been.

They just.

They're just really bad at it.

They just didn't realize that they were making a voluntary choice to abdicate the responsibility of that to some third party. Yeah. Who's basically managing and doing that whole process on their behalf. Correct. And. And because we don't know what we don't know, the reality is you're your own banker today. Whether you're using this concept or you're allowing someone else to facilitate it on your behalf, You're. You're choosing to let them do it for you, and you're making a voluntary choice. Every dollar that comes in your hands, you have to allocate somehow, voluntarily or involuntarily. Involuntary part is when the taxman comes knocking, but for the most of it, it's voluntary.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I've. I've said that many times. You're already in the banking business. You're just really Bad at it.

Right.

You just kind of suck at it right now. And I think a lot of people understand that to be the problem. I think that's the ultimate problem. We just, we just gave the elevator pitch. You're in the banking business already. You're already your own banker. You've just given all of the profits, all of the control, all of the benefits to some third party and you've abdicated your responsibility completely to, to be able to do it. And now you're stuck with whatever the kind overlords, the, the scraps off the table that they throw down to us peons whenever we are using the conventional.

Banking system and the possible lessons that exist with understanding how to do what they're doing, you're also not conveying to the people that you love and care about. So, so you're abdicating that responsibility to them as well. Really? You're taking the educational capacity of learning how to do this yourself and then training the people you love and care about and you're handing that over to a third party also. Yeah.

You're saying it's becomes a generational problem.

Yeah, yeah. Really good points. And you know, Nate, I want to ask you a question. So if you were to have a conversation with the Nate on day one of embarking on this journey of researching and investigating this process, what would you say to that? Nate?

I would tell them to pay more premium.

On that note. So, hey, Nate, listen, this conversation was a lot of fun. We're going to have it again. We're going to be on your podcast as well. We're going to cross pollinate with content creation and have a lot of fun collaborating.

Absolutely.

I want to ask you a really important question. If you think about this next chapter that you're going to open in your journey with this process and you were to. To look ahead and you and I and Richard were having this conversation on June 14, 2027.

And we were to.

Look back to today, June 14, 2024. What specifically would have had to have happened in order for you to feel happy with your progress?

Yeah, I mean, it's a beautiful question for me. It really is. I'm gonna, I'm gonna paint it back one second to actually the question that I asked you, you both a moment ago, which was if you were Nelson and you had this and you said I. And you were about to say, I need the world to know, how would you go about doing it? And I think the way that the world. What I almost expected you to say, and maybe I would have been right. Maybe I would have been wrong. Was that Nelson, if you were him, you would have ended up potentially building a big. The conventional way in our business is to build a big agency. Yeah. And so you would have said what I need to do to get this into the world is, is build an organization of captive people to do this. Right. And Nelson chose to do it something a different way. I think if he would have chosen to do it the other way, it never. It would have flamed out with him. Maybe not. And the way he did it was open to the world and it was almost free. I know he would get paid for his time to come, do a seminar or something, but it was essentially an extremely scalable model in the sense that nobody had to commit per se to sign up under his insurance agency or whatever it was. I'm not even trying to push anything of that down. But what I was trying to say in my own life, the way I see it is I do want to transition to a world where it is. I do not care who gets the credit or I mean, even more so I think up to this point it's been Nate doing infinite banking to. I mean, of course I'm a huge believer in it, but. But primarily to make a living. The Nate that's three years down the road wants to create an organization that truly has an enormous impact on many, many lives. And I've learned some of that from you, Jason, with the who, not how principles. The 10x is easier than 2x. Where of course up until this point it's just been okay, how do we build a business that generates money? And of course that has to be a part of it. But the way that Nelson chose to do it was not about him anymore. That's what I think was so unique.

That's right.

And I do feel like the Lord is calling me to do that. And there are some, there's, there's. I don't, I'm afraid to give away too much because there's actually three or four halves that are almost distinct that I feel like I am, I'm praying about on that front. And I don't know exactly which one. The Lord's going to end up telling me to go down just yet. And I've essentially given up my right to be in control of the outcome. And I'm going to become a certain process oriented like Lord, I'm just going to go down the process step at a time, trusting you the entire time. I have to know exactly where I'm going to be. Go Ahead.

Jason, can I share something with you? Nate?

Yeah.

So when you talk about what you just said, that you want it, you want to serve people and that you want it to be about them, and you don't want this to be about you.

And.

A private equity firm had a conversation with us in February of this year, and one of the discussion points was what they referred to as mitigating risk around the key man.

The founder.

Yeah, the key man. And I said, well, let me tell you a little bit, a little something about the key man. I'm the least important person in my business.

Yeah.

And. But that's the truth. That's not just a statement. That's the truth. And this is about the key team, not a key man. If you're interested in this business because of me, then I failed you in my explanation of how we operate.

Yeah.

And. But that wasn't always the case. I spent the first decade of my career pursuing individual glory.

Sure. Absolutely.

I got a whole. Great. Because they're all gone now. Nothing's displayed of awards. All kinds of crap.

That's right.

Hi, my name.

Throw those away as soon as I get it.

By the way, fifth time winner of the international producer.

Producer of the year.

Yeah, I, I.

We're not creating producers at Ascendant Financial. We're building industry leaders.

Yeah, absolutely.

There's a difference. And I learned that lesson. I'm a different person now. I've changed, and I'm going to continue to change. But the private equity firm, they were like. You raised a really good point. Because I said, when we first started Ascendant revenue, Jason, generated revenue was a hundred percent. This year, it'll be less than five.

Yeah.

So if you want to talk to the key man, I don't know where that person is at Ascendant, I can put an inquiry out if we can identify who that person is. But.

Well, if I could. If I could respond to that, too, Jason. It's what Nelson decided to do, and what a lot of the great business movement folks did is they became the platform for other people instead of you being or using other people to help you support your platform, which is. I don't know if you guys read the book. Good to great. Almost everyone has, I assume, but they talk about the difference between a level 5 leader or the genius with a thousand helpers model of running a business. And of course, what I'm saying is Nelson could have chosen the genius with a thousand helpers because that's what he was. But instead he said, I'm just Going to be the platform and come anybody who wants can get plugged in and use what I have kind of just laid down as a foundation and run with it and become as big as you want. And you guys can have all the credit, all the money, minus a speaking fee, or have your guys buy my $20 book. I mean, other than that, you can have everything you want. And of course, I mean, that's. That's all you're saying is essentially the difference between building a business around me or just me becoming the platform for anyone to plug into and their life would thrive by being there. And that's. That's, of course, is the vision. Now how. How that's going to pan out is still to be decided, but at least that. That is the fundamental vision is. Is. Is that model.

You've got four potential tracks as you identified Nate out in front of you, and you'll be pulled or drawn or walked down one of those paths. If there's still three other great paths there, you just need to go let someone else know what those paths are. And then there's. There's still four paths that can be walked. Just because you're choosing you're going to do one of them, doesn't mean that someone else can't do the other three.

I totally agree. So you. You nailed it. I think some of it is going to be. I think there's a chance that all four can end up taking place. Exactly right? Oh, yeah. Which one am I going to focus on to start with is going to be the question, but once again, the outcome is unknown. So. I mean, I'm very. I'm very much excited about. I'm probably more excited now than I've ever been. I think you guys are probably feeling the same way in your. In your shoes.

That's an understatement.

Yeah, it's just the. The longer you're in, the more excited you can be. But I'm also excited the. The excitement. For me, I was actually fading because I had the wrong perspective.

Well, we had a good conversation about that.

Yeah, it was. It's been fading because it's been all about me. And of course, no one would ever say, like, I'm here. I am saying it. I would never have expressed that. It's never. I'm actually not someone who actually wants to take credit by nature. But what I'm saying is I was losing steam because I was living a facade. I mean, it wasn't even who I am at my core to begin with. I just thought that's what you had to do to be good in this business type of situation, it's not be about how to be productive. You got to go sell, you got to go produce. You got to go do these things. And I wouldn't have ever said it was about me, but it was. I mean, it was just. I didn't realize it. And so now that you realize it, you're like, oh, I never wanted that. It was. It wasn't until that occurred that I'm realized, oh, no, there is a future that I can get excited about again. It just has to do with me laying myself down. Yep. Not trying to prop myself up. And so, yeah, more excited than ever before.

Yeah. The. The wealth doesn't make you smart.

It makes you.

It makes you lazy and certainly doesn't provide happiness. You know, credit to Dan Sullivan of strategic coach. Can't extend enough gratitude to him. He said something to me that was so powerful, I'll just never forget it. And because when I shared with him that although I had generated, you know, a lot of income and made. I've made millions of dollars in this business. Millions of dollars. And he said to me, because I expressed to him like it didn't. It didn't make me any happier, the.

More money I made, just by the way, Jason, the less happy I got.

So he said, well, what I need you to do is I need you to understand that the problem isn't the problem. The problem is how you're thinking about the problem.

Yeah.

Happiness isn't meant to. To be pursued. It's meant to be created. And so be clear about what it is that you want and want it because you want it.

Yeah.

And create it, and then you'll be happy. And that just was like, hoof, because ascendant was born in February of 2019, and I began coaching with Dan in October of 2018.

So you were fresh with Dan.

Well, yeah, but I knew after my first quarterly session, and I spoke to Dan one on one, and I said, there's going to be a big change. And then I talked to Nelson about it, and I asked him for his advice, and he said, son, you already know in your heart what you want to do. Go do it.

Yeah. I feel like you and I were probably in very similar shoes today. And you in 2018. Yeah.

Yep.

And so I did. And now all the credit to all my teammates.

Yeah. It's all about them. Laid himself down to be the foundation. That's exactly right.

Yep.

And ascendant is going to stand for something more than just Jason Lowe's General Agency.

I go out of my way to say ascendant is not Jason.

Yeah. And that's going to be the future for. For us too. And so you guys know that I come from repoteet and not everyone has to know this, but he was the genius with a thousand helpers.

Yeah.

That's who he was. And that he loved being that.

So.

No, you say go create what makes you happy. You know, want it and then go. And then I think he was living the dream. It just. The biggest issue was that I thought that that was. That had to be everybody's dream. Yeah. And then I realized, oh, actually no, that's not even. That's not in me. So I've been living for what I think other people think I should be living.

Right.

And it was Dan Sullivan's books, as you know, 10x is easier than 2x, the who, not how book. The things that you. You. You introduced to me. That was releasing. No, you're. You can actually go after what you want. You. You can just go get rid of all these thoughts of what you think you should be and go after what you actually and want it for. For wanting sake. And so I realized, no, I've always not wanted the credit. I've always not wanted to go be a high income earner, super productive, high volume production. That's never even been my thing. I've always wanted to. I mean, deep down I've wanted to serve the Lord that is me. And so whenever it comes to business, I'm like, I don't think I've been serving you Lord, here. And that's why I feel that it's time to change for sure.

I've had the realization courtesy of Dan Sullivan when he said, after I took my first sabbatical and I explained to him the feelings that I was having during that sabbatical, I was feeling unwanted. I was feeling like, you know, my teammates could all go on without me and nobody would miss me. And you know, you. You were.

You're a little scared maybe in there.

Yeah.

And I wanted to be wanted. Right. And Dan said, again, I'm going to help you to think about your thinking. He said, what you may not realize. And he delivered this feedback so eloquently the way that he does. He said, your job now is to operate in your unique ability. And your unique ability is bringing purpose to other people's capabilities. So I always real like I would use language. I would say, listen, if I see potential in you, I'm going to get it. Out of you. And Dan helped me realize. He's like, that's. That's who you are. You can. You can bring purpose to someone's capabilities, and then they go from this degree of performance to that degree of performance to that degree of performance.

And the only way you can do that is if you care. And that's another thing, of course, that knows about Jason Lowe's. Yeah, Jason cares. And if you. If so, you can. Nobody feels threatened when Jason gives them instruction, challenges them, because they know that he cares. And that's. That's, of course, you know, that's why it's so engaging to, you know, get advice from Jason's, because you know that he's going to say it how it is, with nothing to gain except for you becoming who you are. So that. That's essentially what you're saying, Jason. And if it's your unique ability, that's something you could do all day, every day, and always feel excited to wake up and do it again.

Thousand percent.

And that's where I haven't been for the last couple of years. And that's, of course, where I think the Lord's taking me to. On that journey, to transition to. Every day you wake up, and it's a fulfillment. The work itself fulfills. Fulfills.

Yeah, y. Well, we'll be right there. Along.

Yes.

Hey, man. Just following orders, brother. That's right.

That's right.

That's it.

I'm not in management. I'm in labor. That's what I always say to the people. As far as, like, me, and the Lord's the manager. I just. I just do what I'm told, you know, Life is better that way.

Well, Nate, Rich, this was a great conversation. Appreciate you both. And to all our viewers on the YouTubes, you just saw another video pop up, courtesy of our awesome editing team. And that's because we want you to continue the journey of learning. There's no such thing as having arrived in knowledge. There's always something new to learn. And we recommended this specific video so that you can continue that journey of learning. So, guys, this was outstanding. Have a great rest of your day. Appreciate you both, more than I can say. And we'll. We'll see you all again soon. And, Nate, we'll see you on your show soon, and I'll give you a call so we can talk. Okay?

That sounds great. Thank you, guys.

All right, thanks, guys.