Nelson Nash's Foundation Lesson

How long do you suppose a skyscraper would stand on a weak foundation? Everybody is trying to add new floors to their skyscraper, and they have yet to understand the foundation. The distinction between a process and a product. I'll never forget that for the rest of my lifetime, that the Infinite Banking Concept is meant to be ridiculously simple. It'll take about 11 minutes on the internet before you start running into comparisons on products and, uh, discussions around interest rates.

We all need the nourishment of a favorable environment. No one elevates himself or herself much above the environment in which they operate. It's like having a new hard drive dropped in your head. What you end up with is just a whole bunch of stinking thinking.

He said, uh, Huh, Canada. I'm surprised you all can speak American. I tell people now that I'm not, um, self-made, I mentor made. So before we jump into today's episode, you're going to notice something just a little bit different. Richard and I aren't actually hosting. Our very own teammate, great infinite banking practitioner on our team, Paul, is hosting it. And we chatted about this right before hitting the record button, and Paul sort of dropped this bombshell on Richard and I and said, you guys have been interviewing, you've done hundreds of episodes and talking about the Infinite Banking Concept, and it'd be fun to flip the microphones around. And so, Paul, you're probably going to ask us some questions like you mentioned that— You know, listeners may have been wondering about for a long time. And so the show's yours today. Be gentle.

Awesome. I love it. I love it, Jay. And yeah, I just want to, you know, flip the script a little bit, right? And you guys have interviewed so many incredible people. You've had so many great stories coming to the podcast. And, and, and just being able to be a part of the journey and to see things that have, have happened over the years and, and even like hearing some of your guys' stories, there is so much value for there. Um, there's so much value in that. And, and I just thought it'd be really cool to just ask you guys some questions today.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and I mean, Jay, you're, you're getting close to 19 years in this, in this concept and the journey and Rich, you're, you know, 16, 17 years. And, and I know there's some super cool stories. And so today, you know, one of the things that I really love, and I know it's super important to you guys as well, is just that, like, the community, right?

Mm-hmm.

The people around you, the people that, you know, build you up, encourage you, pour into you. You know, we all have what the heck am I doing days, right? And I know you guys have had a couple of those over the years. And, and so I just really love to hear some of the, just the stories maybe, and some of the insights and kind of those things that, that you've just had over the years. Does that sound like a good time or what?

It sounds great.

Okay. So now we can't talk about—

Don't threaten me with a good time, Paul.

Yeah, I, I know, I know, I know. Um, now I know, you know, talking about the Infinite Banking Concept, we cannot go anywhere without, you know, first talking about Nelson.

Mm-hmm.

And so, you know, Nelson Nash wrote the Becoming Your Own Banker book. He's the pioneer. He's, you know, he's the reason we're all here, like, to be quite frankly, right? Like, the impact, it started with that. And I know Nelson was such a catalyst in both of your lives. So going all the way back, I'd just love to hear— and Jay, I love the quote that you always say is, you know, you're this— and I'm going to butcher this, so feel free to Feel free to correct me, but you're the sum of all the people that have invested or mentored you, right? That's— I got that kind of close, right?

You sure did.

And so I know how much of an impact Nelson has had on both of you, both of you guys. And so I'd just love to hear, just to kind of kick off here, you know, I'd love to hear about that first moment where maybe you, you know, you met Nelson for the first time. And, and just knowing the impact he's had on you, what was that first, like, interaction? You know, what kind of jumped out to you? What did, what did you leave that first meeting, you know, thinking about or feeling and, and how it kind of impacted you starting from that first moment?

I was at a conference in Michigan and it was A Bank on Yourself. It was a Pamela Yellen event, and I had been invited to attend. And I was, uh, I was one of 4. There were 4 Canadians that were there. And I put my backpack on a chair to save a seat for myself. And right across the aisle Who sits down? Nelson. And I didn't know that he had been invited to speak at this event each and every year. And so before going to my very first think tank, I had attended this event in Michigan. And I sat down. I knew immediately that it was Nelson. And I kindly introduced myself and we started chatting. Nelson was He could almost instantly make you feel so relaxed and at ease, and talk to you as though you're the only person in the room. And we were maybe a minute into pleasantries and getting acquainted, and he looks up at me and he says, "Where are you from?" And I said, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Now, you have to understand, Nelson at the time resided in Birmingham, Alabama, and had that deep Southern drawl. And he said, huh, Canada. I'm surprised you all can speak American. And that was the very first interaction that I had with him. We talked obviously quite a bit more over the course of that conference. And, uh, the rest is history, so to speak. And I, I tell people now that I'm not, um, self-made, I'm mentor-made.

That's good.

And, and that, you know, Nelson's influence and impact, the debt of gratitude alone can never be sufficiently repaid, nor would he ever accept repayment now or when I get to see him again. He would never accept repayment. That's the type of selfless, incredible human being that he was.

In February 2012, we attended our first Think Tank conference. And this was before, the year before actually, that the Nelson Nash Institute itself was formed. And originally it was called the Infinite Banking Institute and they relabeled it afterwards, which was a good move. Nelson was so proud of the logo. Do you remember when we, when they launched the logo for the Nelson Nash Institute with the, the like eternal learning flame in there and it's like a double N situation? It's really cool. Nelson was really proud of that. And I remember we got the opportunity, Nelson would do his 2-day seminar or, you know, it was like the evening before and a full day, a total of 10 hours, which the book Becoming Your Own Banker is based on. And so Nelson was still delivering that seminar at the time. And so we had opportunity to attend it for the first, first time and we got the whole, it was a small room. I don't know, there might have been maybe 20, 25 people in the room, Jason, all advisors attending that session, many for the first time like us. And of course, we sat in the front row and always had big name tent cards in front. That's how Nelson did everything. So your name had to be written nice and big so he could call upon you and he would involve everybody much like you've seen us do, Paul, involving everyone in the experience and he would make you a guinea pig somewhere along the line. He's like, well, Jason, I'm gonna put you in the grocery business. You know, he would go through the grocery store. And so he would always pick on someone to play a role or a part as part of his seminar and engage them. And so everyone felt very included. And the experience of going through that, you know, was, as one of our other mentors would say, was like, it was like having a new hard drive dropped in your head.

Yeah.

And it really put a lot of clarity in a way that I, I don't know if I would have ever received or gotten on my own just from reading Nelson's book. And at that point, that's all I had done. So my first interactions with him were really quite something and very memorable. And when I think though on it, Paul, what came for me when you asked the question was actually my last time seeing Nelson.

Okay.

And we had launched the documentary film. There was a screening of the documentary film, This Is Nelson Nash. This was in 2019 in Birmingham at the conference center for the think tank. A lot of, you know, amazing, incredible people were there. There were people from the Foundation for Economic Education. Larry Reed, I believe, was there, former president emeritus at that organization. Just a number of incredible people and a lot of Nelson's family, etc. And so they had a theater there and we did everything in the theater. And then there was kind of reception afterwards and they had people were taking pictures with Nelson. What was interesting was, I believe it was the next day or it might have been the day after when the think tank ended. I actually went over, Winnie Lau and I went over to Nelson's house and we got a chance to go and hang out with Nelson for a bit in his office, his studio there. And he had this wall where he had his, you know, Mac computer with a nice big screen, And it was just filled with books and there's books everywhere. And Nelson loved YouTube. He would watch YouTube and learn things and history. And he's like, it's like, why is everyone watching the television, watching that idiot box? There's so much you can do right here with that YouTube. You know, he just loved it. And on his— and he had a couch and everything there and like a loveseat, I think, in the den. And it was surrounded, it was this big circular coffee table. Really thick. It was like, you know, inch and a half, 2 inches thick of kind of solid wood. And the whole thing was just stacked full of books. It was 3 or 4 books stacked high and it was, they were all over the table and they all had Post-it notes in them. And Nelson, number one, he was earmarking books to give away to people. That's one thing that was happening. And then number two, he just had key areas of books that were identified. And so the conversation was more about history. He spent a lot of time talking about the First and Second Boer War in South Africa and how that led to a chain of multiple events that may have precipitated some of the things that happened in World War I, which really set up the experience for World War II, and how bankers were, you know, were a part of this whole experience. You know, the bankers that Nelson was concerned about, fundamentally, some of the people pulling the strings around the world is kind of the way that he might identify it. Business owners and farmers, look, capital is the lifeblood of your operation, and liquidity matters more now than ever. Discover how to grow your own capital and create the ultimate business line of credit. Get our best-selling book for free at growyourowncapital.com. That's growyourowncapital.com. And it was just a really amazing and interesting experience just being there with Nelson, of course, and sharing the experience with Winnie was wonderful as well. And You know, that was one of maybe about 3 or 4 times I had the opportunity to go and spend time at Nelson's house and be with him. And those little fireside chats and conversations, they weren't centered around infinite banking, but they were centered around thinking about the world in a way where you could take a look at history and question what you've been told or taught about history. And Nelson was really big at recognizing Where are you rethinking your thinking? And where are you rethinking the thinking of other people that's been forced upon you was actually probably really what we, what he's getting at. Would you agree with that, Jason?

Oh yeah, all day long.

He wanted you to kind of challenge the mainstream thinking. And, and what is the, he would say, what you end up with is just a whole bunch of stinking thinking. You know, how, how are you gonna change From that mindset. And I really appreciate those lessons. And that was my last experience being with Nelson in person.

I used to love when on occasion you would get either an email or you would get a book and there would be a note that would read something to the effect of, Read chapters two, six, and twelve. Think about it. Give me a call. And and now you knew the assignment, and you knew that there was likely more than one incredible teaching moment where you had some kind of breakthrough in your thinking, and. Books that, like Richard said, these are not related to the Infinite Banking Concept, like the book titled The World Inside the Grip of an Idea. And he would ask you to read something, think about it, call him, and he would share this amazing conversation and he would just help you think about your thinking. He was just so brilliant. And when, you know, you've used this expression, Paul, I'm sure at some point in your life, maybe more than once, trust your instincts.

Maybe.

Have you used that before?

Maybe once or twice.

Yeah. And so people say that frequently, right? If they're grappling with something.

Yeah.

And I always now, I catch myself if I'm about to say that, And I replaced the word instincts with thinking.

Nice.

Because all the thinking that Nelson has just inspired in Richard and I and countless other people, that's what— it's no different than instinct. Instinct is just a culmination of all your life's experiences. That's why you trust your instincts. And now I trust my thinking. Credit to Nelson. Isn't that good?

Yeah, that's awesome.

Paul, like the Think Tank, which, you know, I don't know if Nelson was the one who came up with the name or the idea or someone else did, but, you know, it was meant to be not an educational session, but an opportunity to get together in a roundtable format and share ideas, learn best practices, grow together. It was about growth, development, removing the arrival syndrome from your mind. And I don't know if anyone ever put it in words that way, but I think that would have been— my gut says that would have been Nelson's intention. And obviously it grew and it expanded. It certainly has done so today. And so it's much more of a presentation style, you know, speaker up front and people taking notes. But, you know, we're really trying to incorporate the Nelson Nash Institute bringing more of those like collaborative engagement discussions in place. We've implemented something like the Connection Zone. You know, Jason and I facilitated that a few times where you're having these smaller roundtable discussions and then you're, you're popping into different tables and getting different perspective and different ideas. It's really hard to manage, but it's a lot of fun. And some of the feedback and stories from that have been really incredible. I think if Nelson, if Nelson could have been a participant at the last couple of think tanks, I think he would have been really happy and really excited to see the direction some of the things are going. That's just what my gut says. And I, but I, and I'm, you know, Jason, you might have some insight there. But one other thing I really appreciated is when Nelson was in the room, obviously he didn't like, he didn't want the session to be about Nelson. He wanted it to be about everyone else's thinking. And he would try to say very little, or he would have a little section of a talk and he would talk about what was most important to him at that point. And he would look out and point out a few people. You know, and he might politely chastise them about something, you know, from the stage to a degree, you know, as a kind of like a calling you out on like, make sure you're keeping an eye on this and keep an eye on this. And if he wanted you to specifically take something away, but he would do drive-bys. If you were in the back of the room or talking to someone, he would come by and he would just tug on your, like on your suit jacket or something and you to get your attention and he would do a drive-by conversation. And then, you know, he was— he just loved comedy and he loved to laugh. And so he would laugh specifically at anything related to, you know, maybe, maybe the governing body causing some kind of shenanigans by overregulating something or whatever. Someone would make a comment and you would hear him in the back just laughing. He'd be sitting in the back or on the side, and you could hear him laughing from anywhere in the room. And I always appreciated that. So it was— he was really an enigma. But I think the key thing is, like you talked about community, well, the community of practitioners that the Nelson Nash Institute creates, well, you might, you know, you might not directly get along with every single person there. If there's 300 or 400 people in a room, you're not going to get along with everybody. But far and wide, you are there for similar mindset, similar purpose. You're aligned on several fundamental things. And it's an incredible group of people to be around. I personally, one of my most exciting and favorite parts of the year is when I get a chance to be around those individuals and building lifelong friendships with people that I wouldn't know had it not been for Nelson's book and for Nelson himself fundamentally.

Yeah. What's kind of sticking with the Nelson thought there? I love that you're describing like the fireside chats, Rich, and the drive-by conversations. What would you say is like one of those, maybe in the early days or maybe a little bit later on, what would you say is one of those lessons or those challenges or one of the, you know, just his words of wisdom? What would you say is like one that really stuck out to you and like maybe shaped like your journey so far?

You know, the first one that comes to mind for me, Paul, actually happened when we were down in Birmingham. Filming for the documentary, and it had to do with recognizing the impact of, uh, generational policies, trying to build a system that could withstand growth and accumulation expansion, and how certain things could kind of screw that up that, that Nelson and David found out along the way, where, you know, insurance companies have rules and, and there's certain, like, criteria on how much death benefit a person can have. There's human life value. Well, when you're trying to get policies on children and they're brand new children, they— there's a limit on how much you can get based on what the parent has and based on a variety of features. Well, what we learned is that, you know, Nelson, he, you know, he had himself and Mary insured really well, and then he kind of, he kind of skipped over and he went to grandkids for a period of time and didn't have as much on the, on the kids initially. And then he realized that they created a problem where when they wanted to get the, the great-grandchildren done You know, sometimes there wasn't enough death benefit on certain people to be able to level up a certain degree. And so they recognize, well, okay, I'm great-grandpa, and then grandpa wants to get something, and maybe the parent wants to get something. So now there's 3 policies issued on this kid. It's a lot of death benefit. The insurance company's looking at you like, what's going on here, guys? What are you up to? And so trying to defend that case became more difficult because they didn't maybe plan enough on the parent in advance to make sure that they were leveled up. And I didn't think about that and the degree to which long-range thinking, my brain got expanded on how I could maybe take that lesson that they experienced, their life experience, and then convey that way of thinking, not just to my clients, but also other advisors who are going to run into that experience.

Right.

If I can help them learn and level up so that they can start to see one further generation down the road, And how something we do right now today actually can have an impact 30 or 40 years from now that we didn't even know. That was a really eye-opening experience for me. Do you want a clear and focused way to decide if the infinite banking concept is even right for your family? It's simple. Download our free 7 Steps Guide at 7steps.ca. It's a very smart, time-saving roadmap that'll help you evaluate this process Fast, so you can move forward with total confidence. In fact, once you complete step 4, you will know if this is even the right fit for you. Find out now. Get it at 7steps.ca.

Jay, what about you? Is there any, any one of— I know, I know, I know there's probably a bajillion lessons along the way, but is there kind of one that, that jumps out to you of like that really shaped, you know, the, the direction for the last, you know, 18, 19 years?

Oh, absolutely. When Nelson described that the Infinite Banking Concept is meant to be ridiculously simple, and very early in my career in educating and implementing the process, I didn't fully grasp just how Right he was. And I would get very excited, understandably so. Dividend-paying whole life insurance contracts have a lot of wonderful financing characteristics, a lot of amazing attributes. And there was a think tank, this might've been 2014, where there was a presentation on the stage and there was discussion around the utilization of calculators and tools, software-based tools to interpret rates of return and fees and taxes. And when you're evaluating different financial products, and it's still true to this day that when people talk about how they're researching the Infinite Banking Concept, It'll take about 11 minutes on the internet before you start running into comparisons on products and discussions around interest rates. And Nelson was brilliant. He helped me understand, nobody's suggesting that you don't take a look at or contemplate or consider interest rates. Just don't leave everything else out of the equation. We're talking about the financing experience. It's not just a process, it's everything that you experience in implementing it. And when, when these, uh, tools and things were being demoed and talked about on the stage, wonderful technology, like it all that is great. But Nelson, just like Richard described, I'm standing at the back of the room.

I, I'm—

I just got a little glass of water, and Nelson comes over and gives me a little tug, and he says, uh, can I ask you something? And I said, yes, sir, absolutely. He said, how long do you suppose a skyscraper would stand on a weak foundation? Has nothing to do with what's being talked about. I said, well, uh, I suppose not for very long. And he says, precisely. Everybody is trying to add new floors to their skyscraper and they have yet to understand the foundation. Think about it, man. Because everybody's like, oh wow, look at all these amazing tools that I can add to my toolkit. And yet difficulty in describing the essence of the infinite banking concept, the foundation, the distinction between a process and a product. I'll never forget that for the rest of my lifetime. That was an epiphany. Would that be the right word? Would that be a powerful enough word to describe it?

It was certainly epiphanous if it wasn't a full epiphany.

Well, and Nelson, he just had a way of— he just had a way of pointing something out that tipped a domino over in your brain, and you just went, oh yeah, that makes perfect sense. And you're right, it is ridiculously simple. Why are we getting so wrapped up about All this other stuff. He said it just boggles the mind.

One of the things I remember, it was probably around that time, like maybe 2014. Nelson was— we had Nelson hosted in Edmonton and we were doing some small group training. I mean, there's maybe 10 of us there and it was just us sitting around and Nelson on a stool chatting away and going through areas. But it was more to do some deep dive and he expanded on a lot of different stories. You know, I always loved it when he talked about things that were kind of maybe touched on, or you could sense there was something there in the book, but then he would give you the rest of the story. One of the ones that, you know, he would bring up is the lawyer who he spent all these meetings and all this time trying to get this lawyer to take on this policy. And the guy ended up saying, you know, basically saying no, it wasn't for him. And And he proceeded with whatever, investing his money however he wanted to do it elsewhere. And then a little bit of time passed and he received a phone call. Essentially, it's like, oh, I heard through the grapevine, I was talking to so-and-so, some other like individual or client of Nelson's, that you do private lending and, you know, I'm looking at buying an airplane. And so the guy Nelson knew a lot about airplanes and what they were worth and he knew that sort of thing. And so he ended up financing this guy's airplane. And the amount of money and the payments was the same amount of payment that the lawyer was gonna make on the policy that he was gonna get. And he said, well, what do you think I did with all those payments? I went and bought the exact same thing I was gonna sell that guy. I made the same commission as if he bought it. I made interest on doing the plane. Plus I got the same policy that was gonna happen anyway. Do you think he knows that? And And that was just like one example of, of so many that he had about a real-life experience that, you know, you couldn't even fathom an experience like that happening. But that was, that was real life.

I would add to what Richard shared, the brilliance of Nelson's ability to tell story and to help you develop understanding through story. He was just so good at doing that. And Nelson, when he emphasized— and Rich, maybe you can think of what Think Tank this was— when he placed an emphasis on surround yourself with people of like mind, and he may have been as part of his opening talk describing the significance of that and why we were all together in Think Tank. And Rich and I literally took that Literally, and said, we are going to help people to do that. We're going to help people to surround themselves with others of like mind. So, you don't feel like you're a lone ranger in the implementation of this as your journey of life progresses. And, that's what gave birth to all the things that we do. It gave birth to the podcast. We wanted to have a voice and we wanted to be Omnipresent out there on social media and on podcast platforms. It gave birth to our quarterly group client coaching format where we invite clients once every 90 days. We record all of those sessions. We archive them in a client portal. So when you're a client of Ascendant, that's what you get, whether you're in America or Canada. We've got the Ask Me Anything sessions that Rich is going to expand on. We've got so many different venues for people to surround themselves with others of like mind. And what do you suppose that does to the degree of everyone's thinking?

It all goes up.

It elevates it.

Yeah.

Isn't that good?

Yeah.

Well, it's so good. You know, Paul, you, you've always been really interested and excited about being involved in creating community. It's something that's like near and dear to your heart. And, you know, this, this comes directly from page 65 of Nelson's book. Assuming by now you're sufficiently convinced this is a course of action that you'd like to take, the question becomes, how do I get started? It all starts with desire, etc., etc. But Nelson, he further goes on to say, organize or join one already in existence, a wealth club in air quotes, that meets periodically. Here you have the support of others that are working their way out of darkness. Now, he's referencing it for financial darkness. You know, you, you, you want to improve your life, but it's really applicable to any area of your life that you want to do that. If you want to learn how to drop a few pounds and get more healthy, well, maybe you need to be in a health club that meets periodically, you know, some accountability to move you out of that darkness. It's applicable to all these areas of life. Be sure to include members that are already— that already have a good track record. It doesn't have to say the best or exceptional, but just momentum, a good track record in practicing the principles of the Infinite Banking Concept. This is important because you need to surround yourself with others of like-minded understanding. You don't want to be a victim of feeling that you are the Lone Ranger. We all— this is my— I have these highlighted in different colors. This was my favorite one. We all need the nourishment of a favorable environment. No one elevates himself or herself much above the environment in which they operate. Are you tired of watching your hard-earned money leave your family and go to the banks? Look, our number one bestselling book, Don't Spread the Wealth, shows you exactly how to build a family banking system that creates true generational wealth. Get the free digital copy plus over 4 hours of bonus videos And our guide to hosting family banking meetings. Go to dontspreadwealth.com. That's dontspreadwealth.com. You know, this, this page keeps coming back to me regularly. And for so many years, we wanted to try to build and create a community. And it's tricky to do that, especially when you're doing business all over the country or 2 countries. Like, it's expansive. And so logistically, it's challenging. And like, if you want to put on events, I mean, those are costly. There's, there's all kinds of logistics involved. And so you got to figure out, okay, well, what's this? What's a way to do it simply? And well, hey, doing it online is a good start, and having access to resources like we have is a good start. So that's why we have, as Jason mentioned, quarterly group coaching sessions. I make it a mandatory commitment for anyone that's a new client that they have to agree to attend at least one of those a year to participate in being a part of that community environment. The interaction from being in a live engagement— and Paul, you've been on a whole bunch of these sessions.

Mm-hmm.

They're interactive in the chat box. There's opportunity to jump in and speak. Sometimes we do little breakout sections. It allows you to meet other people who are like yourself that have similar questions, maybe have totally different questions and like, oh, I never even thought of that. Paul's perspective is great. I really appreciate he said that. You know, one of my clients, Sebastian, was on one of the calls. This is probably 2 years or maybe 3 years ago. Amazing guy. I really love this guy. He's just fantastic. And his father-in-law was actually a licensed insurance professional, and unfortunately he had passed away. And now he had done a good job of getting his daughter and son-in-law covered with various insurances, and he had some on himself, but he didn't have everything that he needed. And so there was still some chaos left behind when his father-in-law passed away. And, you know, as people go throughout time, you know, certain products come in favor and some fall out of favor. Well, They had some universal life products, and they weren't bad or inherently bad, but they also maybe could have been optimized better with what we know today. We can't go back in time. And so Sebastian shared a really powerful story about what happened when his father-in-law passed away and where there was still some confusion about the policies that they did have and how they didn't have access to a community like they were in now and just how much more momentum that could create in their life and what that meant for him and his son. So like those are the kind of powerful stories that we get by having that in place. And, you know, you always want to do more. We always want to do more. But I think we're doing a lot.

Yes.

I certainly think we're doing a lot more than the average bearer is concerned. And, you know, we also have access to regular monthly events over and above that. We typically have a webinar that's hosted by one of our amazing teammates every month or every, you know, 45 days. We have regular recurring ask me anything sessions where people can literally just pop on. They can be an existing client. Sometimes we have advisors come on. We have existing people who are interested in this process and just not sure if they want to get started or not that attend. You know, it's not like we have a guy at the front checking your admission ticket to say, oh, oh, Wait a second. No, no, you're an existing client. You can't attend this. This is for people who aren't doing this yet. Like there's no gatekeeper at the door and they're very, you know, I like to use the expression open kimono in that we're just having a conversation. It's just like this. It's just question and answer. Is every question gonna be answered to perfection? Well, if, sorry, if you're seeking perfection, maybe you're in the wrong place. We're fallible human beings. We're gonna do our best. You're going to get our best. Whoever's on the call, you're going to get their best, and you're going to get access to resources. You're going to be instructed where you can get more resources. I like to tell people, you know, everyone's been to a buffet before, and some of the buffets have a lot, some have less. Some of the food's really good, some of it's been sitting out for a while. So when you're cruising the buffet line, you want some salad, you want some protein, you want, you want to go to the ice cream place where you can get self-serve sundaes. And put all the, you know, sugary stuff on top. You get to pick and choose what you want to grab and put on your plate in the buffet. Well, we've got a huge buffet menu of content and learning opportunities available for every one of our clients and folks that maybe want to become our clients. And you just have to decide what you want to put on your plate.

That's so good. Let, let me kind of, I think we'll wrap up pretty quickly here, but let me, let me just kind of ask this one last question. And, you know, when I'm meeting with clients and meeting with people, one of the questions I love to ask is, hey, we're sitting down for a coffee, you know, in a year. What is the progress you want to make or what do you want to see happen in that next year? And then I'll ask again, okay, now 10 years, we're sitting down again. And I ask the same question, you know, we're sitting down for a coffee. What are those things that are important to you? What do you value? What do you want to see happen over the next decade? And this question always shocks people because I always like, okay, one more step. In 100 years, we're not going to be here. What's the legacy that you want to leave behind? And so just to kind of wrap up, because, you know, like you hit on, Jay, when there's community, everybody learns, everyone gets better, everyone gets lifted up. It's when we're alone that that's where, you know, the danger happens.

Mm-hmm.

Whether it's like you said, Rich, whether it's working out or, you know, our relationship, anything like that, right? It's when we're alone. That's that's the most dangerous place to be, and so community is so important and why why I care so much about it. So Rich, I mean, I think when you guys back you know fifteen twenty years ago when you were you know sitting down and dreaming about the future and kind of I'm sure you had a plan for for community and building that connection maybe in the back of your head, but as it's kind of built into you know. reality, and there's this community and connections happening all the time and all these incredible conversations happening. Let's say, you know, 50 years out, 100 years out, when you're looking back at the Ascendant community, what would be one of the main things you'd say, hey, I hope everyone says this, or I hope everyone experiences this? What's something that you want to make sure gets left behind in regards to the the community?

I would, I would, looking back, I would like to see that people who show up and become active participants of the community have walked away with a feeling that they're supported, that they get to have both fun, engagement, and growth wrapped into every session where they connect with members of their community. Awesome.

Jay, what about you?

Yeah, I would hope that Ascendant becomes, or a subsidiary of Ascendant becomes a life insurance carrier and gets to build customized tools that cater to the community and that there are across the United States and Canada, that there are literally tens of thousands of people who say, gosh, who is that Jason and Richard guy again? Didn't they record stuff about 40 years ago? What was it that they were talking about? Well, why don't you just talk to their AI companions? So we have this artificial intelligence presence That just is there in perpetuity. Everything that we've ever recorded, talked about, educated on is is there and readily accessible. If we had a fraction of that on Nelson, the momentum and acceleration would be dramatically different, and. So we're going to create all of that. And for people to be able to share so many instances of what thinking long range actually means in translation, in the real experience where we have youngsters who are grandkids and great-grandkids today, that they're sitting down having discussions and saying, I didn't realize it obviously at the time, But I can see now what was put into place. It's transfer of the generational wealth mentality and the generational ambitions and generational faith and generational goals and generational perseverance, generational character, not just a check.

Hey, if you're getting value from this and you haven't subscribed yet, hit the subscribe button. Right now. Look, we're marching towards 10,000 subscribers, and every single one helps us bring more powerful content on taking control of your money. That's what we're all about. Go ahead, hit it now. Well, you don't want to just, uh, check yourself before you wreck yourself. I mean, you definitely need a lot more of those other things. And, and many people may not know, Paul, but we do have some, uh, some of those starter versions of those AI tools available for people to play with now. You can go to askjasonlowe.com and you can go to askrichardcanfield.com and you can, you can ask. In fact, you can call and speak to us through that mechanism. And for the folks that are watching, they, they might want to be a part of the community. Well, they can start by going to our Facebook community, which has over 3,200 members. You can go to wealthonmainstreet.com/community. And if they ever wanted to attend any of these events or register for the webinars that we've talked about, if they're not already in our system getting notified, about those things, they can slide on over to wealthonmainstreet.com/events, take you right to the events page. You'll see a little calendar. You can look and register with what's coming up and learn a little bit about it. Our most recent webinar that's coming up, the next Ask Me Anything session, it's all displayed there. So, you know, every opportunity exists for you watching to go ahead and take the initiative to build and develop the best financial life that you want going forward.

Well, thanks guys for, uh, for letting me flip the script here. I hope I was, uh, was I nice enough?

Hey, yeah, Rich and I are taking the next 6 weeks off, so we'll send you our guest list and, uh, you know, you can, you can copy our backgrounds and just kind of jump from one host to the other.

Um, I'll just get a cutout, cutout cardboard of your face and then stick it over me.

Yeah, that was fun. Good time.

Thanks, guys. Speaking of cutout cardboards, we need to get one of those ones that they had of Nelson at the last Think Tank, and, and we need to get one ordered so we can have one to bring Nelson into some podcasts in the future. I think that'd be a good idea.

All right, guys, this was fun.

Have a great rest of your day. Cheers, guys.

See you soon, Rich.

You bet.