The Secret Strategy Real Estate Investors Overlook

It's not about the tool, it's about the concept and it's about the thought processes that you go through to eventually use the tool. But it's going through that process and creating that greater financial awareness and bringing family into it. That it's a financial awareness strengthening exercise and it's a family strengthening exercise. That whole process, that ongoing process of the infinite banking concept.

Real estate investors are at risk, but are they? Well, we're going to talk a little bit about that. As a real estate investor, how are you strategizing your defensive game to make sure that your portfolio and your family are taken care of now? Today we're joined by Rick Goldring. Excited about this now, Rick, really. He's entering his 34th year in the financial industry so he's got some stories to tell. However, he had a little bit of hiatus there and There was a 12 year break where he served two terms as the mayor of Burlington, Ontario. So excited. He's resumed his financial career and he wants to serve business owners and real estate investors focusing on estate planning, life insurance and the infinite banking concept. Rick, excited to have you joining us today.

Well, thanks for having me, Richard and Jason. I look forward to our discussion.

This is going to be great and it's amazing to have you as a teammate, the Ascendant financial team. And we're excited to have a great chat with you and share for our listeners. I know Rich is going to want to dive in as well. But share for our listeners, what initially inspired you all that long ago to get involved in the financial services space to begin with? What was that domino that kind of tipped over for you and inspired you?

So, so I'll say this, my dad was a bank manager.

Okay.

And he was in the with the CIBIC CIBC for a long time. Originally Imperial bank of Canada became CIBC and my dad was, was called upon by a Sun Life agent because he had a Sun Life policy that he purchased when he got married. He thought he better get some life insurance. So he bought a $5,000 policy back in six. And so that was big money back.

Then, a lot of money.

And so this, this insurance agent with Sun Life, you know, phoned my dad and said, you haven't had an update for a while, I should come by. Da da da da. And then I met this gentleman and he says, I understand you're going to be finishing university. I said, yeah, what are you going to be doing? Not sure. He goes, oh, well, next thing I know, the branch manager of Sunlight called me in Hamilton and I thought, this is great. I don't even have to apply for a job. I'm going to get, get offered a job. This is wonderful. And I was intrigued, I was intrigued by the, the tremendous impact you could have on people's lives and you know, particularly delivering a check when it's most needed and helping people deal with issues that they don't naturally want to deal with and helping, you know, going through a process and helping people understand, you know, what could happen if they died last night, what the impact would be in their family and that they could take action and do something about it to prefer, prepare for that eventuality. And so I was inspired by that. I was inspired by the, you know, potential to, you know, protect people and, and bring a big, big check if somebody died prematurely to replace income, to pay off debt, pay for kids, future education. And I've had, you know, the opportunity to do that over the years and it's tremendously gratifying, tremendously gratifying to be able to do that. And, and also the, the Sunlight branch manager also said, you know, do you ski, do you golf? And I said, oh yeah. He goes, well, I don't ski or golf, but if I was going to ski or golf, I wouldn't go on the weekend because it's too busy. I would go during the week. And he says, you know, when you go in our business, you can control your time and you can work when you want and you can play when you want. So that appealed to me as well. And being in a position where you could, you know, be entrepreneurial and, you know, create something significant by serving others, it.

One of the things that we talk about so often is that, yeah, when we have to fulfill that duty of care and we have to deliver, you know, a windfall, a tax free windfall to a grieving family, you know, it reminds us we're the only profession that can create a legally binding promise to pay a guaranteed sum of money that triggers no taxable event. And it shows up exactly when the family needs it the most. So they can take the time to grieve the way that they should and to celebrate the life of the loved one that they lost. And that's one part of this profession. When you marry the process of becoming your own banker with the tool to get the job done, which just happens to be dividend paying, whole life insurance, you know that you're literally covering both sides of the coin, for a lack of better description. You've got the living side of the coin and then you've Got the death side of the coin and we are just blessed to be able to, to cover both. And so it's just, it's such a great. We were just having this conversation before we hit the record button of a family that is in that position right now. And Richard is having to fulfill that duty of care. And our team combined, we were all over it the moment that we got notification, much like we always do. And so it never gets, and never should and never will be easy, but it's a duty that we take very seriously.

Yeah, I mean, it's something I'll be able to notify that, that client that we've got the claim being processed and you know, there'll be a large sum of over a million dollars of tax free money showing up in their bank account next week. So, you know, at the time of this recording at least anyway, and again, not, not, not a conversation that you want to have, but the fact that we can show up and indicate that that's what's going to take place and they can, they can have peace of mind and rest a little bit easier knowing that things are taken care of. They can, you know, they can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief about certain aspects of the stress that they're under right now. I mean, just the fact that I'll be able to provide that kind of clarity for them is going to be really valuable.

Yeah, no, agreed, 100%.

So, Rick, what was it like being a mayor?

It was, it was pretty special. It was pretty special. You know, I, I, I've lived in Burlington, Ontario since I was three. And it was interesting when I was, shortly after I was elected in 2010, I ran into two ladies I used to work at work with at Sun Life in the early 1980s. And they came up to me, they gave me, you know, big hugs and they said, congratulations. And we are so not surprised because you used to say to us, you know, 1981, 1982, you used to say to us, I'm going to be mayor of Burlington. And I said, I did. And she goes, yeah. No, they both said, yeah, you said that. And I thought, you know, I was always interested in municipal politics, always interested in politics at all levels and leadership conventions. To me, the old fashioned kind was like the Stanley cup playoffs as a kid. And I remember taking the afternoon off school playing hooky to go watch Pierre Trudeau speak at a rally in 1968, and then later that, that week going to see a Robert Stanfield rally in Hamilton. So I was just intrigued by politics. And it wasn't necessarily a strong party affiliation in those days, but I just, I wanted to be, I wanted to go and, and hear the speeches and be part of the, the crowd just the way you want to go to a hockey game and be part of the crowd. So I've always had an interest and. But what, what happened in. I got married and I was like 28 or so and became a dad at 30. And my first marriage came unglued when my, my kids were 6, 3 and 2. So any thought I had about a political path was gone. And you know, the focus was clearly on family and, and business. That was my focus and. Yeah, but it was always in the back of my mind. I was always in the back of my mind and I don't want to go through the long story of how I got there, but an opportunity did arise to run for council and I ran for council. I was successful. And then after one term there was some positive pressure on me to, to run for mayor and I, I went for it and I was successful and I was very successful being re elected in 2014 and not so sex success. Not so successful being re elected in 2018. But it's, it's a special job. You get a window into your community that nobody else gets.

Yeah.

And sir. And serving the people.

And serving the people. But you get brought in. You know, I had one of the first. But organizations reached out to me was the. A woman's shelter, Halton Woman's Place. And, and they wanted to meet with me so I, I went to the, the woman's shelter and I, they, you know, they went over the work that they do. They wanted me to be understanding of that. They took me on a tour of the facility and you know, I knew, I knew that you know, every community has an issue of, of violence against women unfortunately and, but I didn't know how prevalent it was. I didn't, you know, have the background and that's just one example organizations I had an opportunity to meet with, an opportunity to support in many different levels from recreational sports groups to social agencies to faith communities. It was a real honor to serve in that role and to be the leader of council and to do my best and point the ship in the right direction.

Very good. It's so interesting because so many diverse experiences, so many diverse projects and opportunities to like you say, connect with different organizations, meeting people in the community. One of the things I'm curious about, Rick, is how did the time the two terms you spent in with your marital dirty duties how did they relate to leaving that environment and now shifting yourself back into the financial industry that you'd spent the bulk of your life doing? What perspective did you come away from? As you said, I'm going to, I'm going to re. Enter kind of the financial services space so I can serve people, continually serve and serve it in a way that I did previously. I'm really curious what some of the mindsets and shifts maybe you had in making that adjustment from mayor back into serving people through insurance and so on.

Well, I must say it wasn't, it was a challenging very first year of being unelected and being fired publicly and going back into business after being coddled. For the eight years that I was mayor, ye had three full time staff members. You know, they arranged my calendar. If I had an IT issue, I wouldn't know about it because it would be handled by, by somebody else. So when you have, you know, everything handled and you had a certain job to do, you had to meet with people and be at meetings and prepare for meetings and, and so on and so forth. It was, I was coddled. There's no question I was coddled. And one of the things I, I joked about in a forum that was head meeting the mayor in the first six months where people came out, it was a casual thing. I made some comments and people asked me questions. Questions was what do you like best about being mayor? And I said I really like the fact that people call me back.

And.

Because after starting as a life insurance agent with Sun Life and you know, the 1031, making 10 contacts to get three appointments to get and so on and so forth. And I really like the fact that when I was mayor I would leave a message and people would call me back promptly. People will call me back and then.

Just let them know now that you're mayor of wealth building town.

Yeah, exactly. Well, no, actually I'm the mayor of money. I'm the mayor of money. There you go. I love that. That's actually a great.

Yeah, we should actually market around that. Thank you for that idea.

I do have that. Mayorofmoney.com Mayor of Money CA I've got those domain addresses. But in going back in the business and I wanted to go back and not focus on investments, focus more on the insurance side, business owners, estate planning. And it was a challenge because I had to go back from the. I was no longer the guy that everybody returned his call. I was the guy that people weren't as anxious to return his call. And so that was that was an adjustment. Again, I knew it would be. And it's just something that, you know, you muscle through. But I guess I met a lot of business owners, met a lot of people in the development industry, and I. Some of those people became clients and really, really got to know in a lot of detail the development process. And, you know, I looked through it as a legislator, decision maker and very political process, the approval of development applications. And it was very interesting to get the other side of the coin and that and seeing the, the effort that, you know, the industry goes through to come up with good development projects and that, you know, the, the elected officials at the municipal level often don't give much credit to the development industry. They're very critical of the development industry because it's good politics to be critical. And it was interesting understanding the business from a different side and, and really, you know, one of the. The interesting observations I had, and not that you didn't already know, because I was in business before, but after eight years as mayor and four years as a council before that, you develop, you know, your thinking evolves, as we all know. And my thinking evolved in a certain way thinking about government. And I. It was very pronounced for me when I was working with business owners, the disconnect between government at all levels and the business community. Because successful business owners and entrepreneurs, they will do whatever it takes. If they're going through some difficult times and they've got to save money, they will do whatever it takes to stay in operation. They will be as fair as possible with everybody, you know, staff and so on and so forth. But they will do what it takes and they'll make difficult decisions if they have to. And there's tremendous disconnect from the business community that are very accountable for their decisions that they make with regard to their businesses and their payrolls and such and so forth. There's a lack of understanding of how the public purse works and how the public budget process works and how it never appears that government cuts back. Government just continues to spend and spend and spend and spend. And I didn't really think about it when I was in office in the same way, but I was very, very impactful on me. And looking back at being in office and understanding why there'd be such a disconnect between the business community and government.

Well, it also gives you just an added element of serving the people. So when you're dealing with a business owner and you're uncovering perhaps there's some challenges that are either, you know, real now or maybe emerging and you can help that business owner to think about what their next steps may be, especially if they're, if they're in development, if they're, if they're looking at, you know, creating new projects within the community and you can help steer them in the right direction on how to be best prepared, I suppose, to, to get through all of that regulatory or, or you know, framework that happens politically because yeah, we hear that often from business owners who are in that realm where it's, it's incredibly friction based. It's very irritating. It's because the business owner wants to move quickly.

Right.

And it don't move quickly. Right. Slows, slows molasses in most cases and, but shifting gears like to, to the infinite banking concept. So how did you first discover this concept and what triggered that inspiration where you're like wow, this is something that I really want to serve the marketplace with.

So a client of mine said to me about a year and a half ago, do you know anything about infinite banking? And I heard of it, that's all. You know, you've been in business for so long and I'd only just heard of it, thought I knew what it was and I said, oh yeah, no, I know exactly what it is and so on and so forth. And he goes, are you an infinite banker practitioner? And I said no, I'm not an infant banker practitioner. And he said, oh. He says maybe we're too old for it anyway and they're 71 and 67 or something. So I just sort of, you know, I put a insurance policy in place, joined life last to die, cover off taxes and create some liquidity. It wasn't done through an infinite banking lens. And then, but after they said that I sort of stayed in my mind. And Jason, it was, it was sometime between Christmas and New year's of, of 2023. And I responded to one of your Facebook ads and you were offering for 50 or $75 of all that money going to a charity. You were offering me a book and you were offering me a connection to a few videos and I thought I got some time between Christmas and new year. It's 50, $75. I didn't care what it was. Sure, I got the book, read the book and I looked at these videos and I said this is interesting. This is very interesting.

That's how it happens.

I never really, you know, I got a 40 year old son life, whole life policy that I borrowed on. No question I borrowed on, but not in a very thoughtful or organized way. And, and yeah, I would. I would say, gee, I Wish I put 10 times as much money in that policy as I did. You know, I would say that anyway, you know, before and from the banking days. But going through the. The videos and studying and, you know, watching you guys and hearing the work that you would do, it inspired me because I could see a very meaningful and tangible way to serve people and to serve many people with this concept. And as we've said so many times, I can. I'm part of the team now, if I can say we. As we've said so many times, even though I've only been part of the team for four months. But as we've said so many times, it's not about the tool, right? It's not about the tool. It's about the concept and it's about the thought processes that you go through to eventually use the tool. But it's going through that process and creating that greater financial awareness and bringing family into it, that it's a financial awareness strengthening exercise and it's a family strengthening exercise. That whole process, that ongoing process of the infinite banking concept, there is so much meat and substance to it that I look back and how I was trained, you know, many years ago when I started with some life, and it pales in comparison to the process that I have gone through with the team in the last three or four months. I mean, it pales in comparison and I can't articulate, I don't think any better than I am right now that it. It's a. It's a concept that is elegantly simple that most people haven't really thought of. And when it's pointed out and when people educate themselves and get some coaching, it becomes, you know, painfully obvious the. The attraction of the. Of the concept. But yeah, Jason, it was a Facebook ad and. And I said I was going to book with. I booked an appointment with one of your Soukman, one of your former teammates.

Yeah.

And. And then before the meeting, I said, look, I gotta tell you, I'm a licensed life insurance agent. And. But I was quite committed. I was gonna. I said. I said in the text, if. If there is some work to do with me and you do some work with me and any business results from it, it's your business. It's not my business, it's your business. I'll be the client. And he said, yeah, sorry. Which is fine. He says, but I'll introduce you to our teammates and maybe you want to join us. And he was right.

Well, shout out to Sukman. Who went on to pursue his passion to be Ministry of Wildlife officer. Essentially, that was the career path that he deeply desired and credit to him for facilitating the connection to you and to our team. And again, it's a pleasure having you. And yeah, it's always interesting to hear someone's method of getting to clarity around what the Infinite Banking concept is and how ridiculously simple it is. And whether it's books or videos or podcast episodes, we are always going to be emphasizing the ridiculous simplicity of this process because what we see happening in the marketplace is a high degree of emphasis on, you know, the euphoria around the tool, which is not a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with shining a big bright light on dividend paying whole life insurance contracts. There's a lot there to shine a bright light on. But Infinite Banking, bringing it to the family level, taking it past the individual level and, and maximizing its impact on the family, that's where we're focused because we're at that stage of our own journey in sharing this with North Americans across Canada and the United States. And so it's always amazing to hear. And for everyone listening and watching, I mean, we're always on the lookout for great people just like Rick. And stay tuned for more on the Mayor of Money. That's going to be a really. We've got something going there. We're going to help Rick really amplify that message. Thanks for reminding me of that, Rick. Like, what an incredible.

I did have a Merit Money podcast and I did it for a while, but it was all me and it was a lot of work and sort of got, I got very busy and it was a bit of a distraction as much as I enjoyed doing it. But yeah, I'd like to, I like if there's a way to reactivate it in a reasonable way, I'd enjoy that opportunity.

Speaking of Jason, you know, mentioning the importance of, you know, family, family embracing this concept, finding ways to do that, being that you've got such a history with financial services, insurance and so on, you've got a policy that's approximately 40 years old. I mean, you've already indicated that you've used it. How has things changed in conversations at the family level for you, Rick, since you've been going through this process more so in your own life. So just to give people a glimpse into what's shifted for your own situation around conversations?

Well, my wife Cheryl and I, we're in a unique situation. We have a combined total of seven daughters and, and she has four. I Have three and we have six grandchildren between us. And as you can appreciate, our estate plans aren't necessarily simple and we agree on lots and there's some things we disagree on. And it's been seven years since we've had our wills done and we're going through the process of updating those wills. And as a result, I decided that I wanted to bring the family in and that I wanted to have a meeting with my daughters, which I've had. We're going to have a meeting with Cheryl's daughters and then we have a meeting with all the other girls and bring them in as to what our plans are and be totally upfront about the assets we have and, you know, what wealth we have. So there's no surprises. And, and, and part of the exercise they went through with my daughters and I'll go through with everybody is the importance, the importance of the insurance policies that we have and why they're there and what they're doing for us now and what they will do in the future. And you know, God, I've got my own nine whole life policies are not all me, but I own nine whole life policies. I have some term 100 policies. I have critical illness insurance policy. I have, I have, we have term insurance. I have term insurance in place right now for a specific short term need. And I want to bring everybody up to speed about why I did all that and what the benefit has been as part of the education process and so that they have a familiarity of what the goals and objectives are. And one of the things Jason and Richard, I said to my three daughters and I said, okay, so you know, I got, I got it structured so if I go first before my wife that there's some insurance that goes directly to my kids because I don't want them waiting around for their stepmom to die before they get any money from me. So I had that insurance in place for that purpose. And I said, so if you get a chunk of, if I died last night and you get a chunk of money, what are you guys going to do with it? And I listened and I listened and I listened and I asked questions. Why would you think that? Why would you think that? Why would you think that? And, and I said, well, if you could do this with it, you know, and I described sort of the infinite banking concept. If you could do that with it, would that make sense for you to. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So I went through an exercise of, of, of setting up policies for them so that they're in a position to do something with a windfall in a meaningful way. You know, if I died last night, and, and it's not a case of it's if I die last night. I always use that with talking with people because then it's happened. And you don't say if you die tomorrow or whatever, but if I died last night, but we all know that I will die and those policies will be in place and they're going to continue to grow in cash value and, and, and death benefit. And I want to be them, to be prepared of what they're going to. What they're going to do with it.

What an incredible conversation to have to elicit thinking and to find out where's their thinking at and to be able to have that open discussion. I mean, what a great way. You know, people are always asking us, how do I get my family involved? And you've given us your description, Rick, of doing that again. Interesting. You know, just a curiosity again. So much time in the financial industry, and I think it's common amongst a lot of people and families that we create these silos around financial conversations. And there's almost this taboo situation that still exists kind of in the air. It's like a mist hanging in the air for people about financial conversations in the, in the family. And we're really trying to break free of that. And, and you know, we've got a big giant fan that's blowing the mist away and clearing it up so you can see through it. And you've just created that environment in your own family situation. I would imagine there was a really powerful feeling that was created for you just being able to have that conversation after so many years in a new way.

Oh, for sure, for sure. And, you know, for the 12 years I was on Brilliant City Council, eight years as mayor, I was absent. You know, I. And I had coffee yesterday morning with another elected official who's currently in office. And unless you talk to people who are in and they don't appreciate the sacrifice and doesn't matter what party or what the job is, but there's a tremendous sacrifice. And I look at the 12 years that I was absent, really. I mean, I didn't really travel much, but as my wife said, For 12 years, Rick wasn't home, and when he was home, he really wasn't home. And, you know, there's so many decisions that I should have made or could have made personally, as well as involving my children that I, I just was too busy. I was all in being mayor of Burlington, and I just didn't pay attention to anything else. That was. That was my reality. It was wrong, but that was my reality. And I look at the fact that being in the business and knowing the value of purchasing whole life policies at such an early age, I didn't do that for my kids. Now, I am pleased to say I did buy them critical illness insurance.

Good.

I am very pleased to say that. But I didn't buy them, you know, whole life insurance policies when they were young. But on my granddaughter who was born last year, she just got her policy issued today or issued this week, and she's got a policy in place for her, and I'm sure that won't be the last one for her.

One of the things that we encourage parents to do, grandparents to do, is I'll just share a real example. So Rebecca and I, we've already preempted each other on this many years ago, that on each of our children's 18th birthday, it's not a birthday cake. It's signing a life insurance policy application that they're paying for.

Yeah.

And I'm not asking them.

Yeah, yeah, do it Nelson's way and just show up with the paperwork and say, sign here 100%.

And we're gonna. We're gonna film it. And. And the reason that we're gonna film it and this is something that we. We want to make sure we're, you know, beginning to really emphasize that all these great tools like Zoom exist where you can record and you can literally record how you want your. Your family, what actions you want them to take so that they're not committing anything to memory. They just know where to go to get the direction and recording, loading it up on Google Drive and having a repository for your wishes as they evolve. And you can record specific messages for your grandkids that aren't even here yet. You can record specific messages for your great grandchildren that aren't here yet, and you can really give them, much like we did with Nelson. That's why we recorded the documentary film about Nelson, was to give people a deeper glimpse into the essence of the man who pioneered and developed this concept. And so do the same thing as a patriarch or a matriarch of the family. Give the generation now and the generations that come after a deeper glimpse into who pioneered the implementation of this concept within the family. And watch what happens. Because generational wealth is not built on money. It's built on action and the things that you want to get across that need to happen. And so credit to you for having those conversations and Getting the dialogue going and being genuinely curious, what are you planning to do with my death benefit proceeds? I think I kind of have a right to know what your plans are and then you can sort of influence and offer some ideas and some insights that get them thinking. But at the family level or the general public level or a prospect level, you can't get the infinite banking concept across by method of convincing.

Yeah, I agree.

It is a fool's errand versus give them the knowledge, give them the awareness. And those who catch it are going to run with it. And those who don't catch it now may catch it later. But make sure you capture your vision for your family's legacy on film. And, and just load it into a Google Drive. It'll be there in perpetuity.

Isn't that good? Yeah, it's great stuff. It's great stuff. Earlier today I had a meeting with a client and I hadn't talked to him for a while and he's a disability insurance, critical illness insurance client, he doesn't have any life insurance with me and very successful entrepreneur. And I brought him a book. You know the book you just showed Jason? I brought him the book and I said, you heard of this? And he goes, I don't think so. And I sort of explained a little and he goes, well, I think so. I, I saw it, I saw it advertised, I think online and I just sort of found out it was life insurance. I said, I just ignored it and I started laughing and, and I said, well, read the book. And, and I sort of described, I, I convinced him, Jason, that he should at least look at the book, you know, and, and he's going to do that. But I, you know, I described to him the essence of the, the concept. He goes, well, I didn't know that. You're blowing my mind. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I didn't know that.

That's typically what happens. Yeah, I, I heard it was life insurance, so I just told my brain to turn itself off. Well, yeah, you know, people are recapturing their interest. They're paying the banks and the finance companies, they're getting the money for everything that they would have otherwise paid cash for leased or finance, just delivered a two million dollar check to a grieving family. Wow, that was a real left turn. Like you're a successful entrepreneur who are like, and I'm speaking to all you entrepreneurs out there who are successful who might have that same thought pattern that Rick just described about a gentleman that he's just recently interacted with. Who are you doing all the work for? Just stop and ask yourself that question. It's you. It's your family. It's likely those people that you love and care about the most. And so read the book. It's 92 pages, and it's not even 92 pages of reading. What is the actual number of reading pages, Rich?

It's really only about 54. If you condense it down to the pages that don't have numbers on them, and there's like two pages with like maybe a single paragraph or a couple of sentences that, you know, you could basically say that we really call that a whole page. If it were me. There's a glossary of terms. You don't really need to read that. There's an epilogue.

You know, it's not overly taxing read. Not at all.

And.

But there's so much. What I can't get over is the substance.

Yeah.

The wisdom.

Yeah.

And I say to people, you know, they're sort of skeptical about the book. And I said, read the book. And. And I said, even if you do nothing with the concept, even if you do nothing with the concept, read the book. Because there's so much insight and wisdom there that you can. That everybody can benefit from, whether they use the concept or not. And mind you, after you read the book, I think it's difficult not to do something with the concept or want to do something with the concept. But even if you don't, there's good substance. Thousand percent. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

You know, Rick, you were talking earlier about all of your experience with both developers and business owners that you've connected with, as well as your. Your experience from the political side, municipal government, dealing with developments and permits and all those kind of things. When you and I were chatting the other day, you'd indicated a couple things, and, you know, we talked about real estate defense a little bit. You've got some personal experience from different vantage points of being a real estate investor. You were sharing about a project, Nanaimo, that's you're involved with. It's kind of gone a little bit sideways, and I think that'd be a helpful story. But you also told me a really unique story about a project, a development project in Quebec where you were participating in, and it's kind of installed because of a development issue. So when we think about risks that real estate investors are dealing with and the different, you know, what are some of the things that you see there and how does that relate to some of your Own experience.

Oh, you know, for investing in real estate and particularly at the development stage, there is so many risks that, that really needs to be well thought out. There's interest rate risk, there's market risk, there's trade risks, there's supplier risk. You can go on and on and on. And one of the risks that I was involved in, and sometimes I didn't, I contributed to, is the municipal risk and the red tape risk. And this particular project that I'm involved in in Quebec City, we're still waiting for a parking variance. And there's no, we're not sure when. We're not sure when we're going to get that through. Not sure, not sure. And that's unfortunately, in municipal government, that's too common. Too common. I think some municipalities are getting better with the processes, but it's too common. The, the, the involvement of municipalities. Municipalities are the ones that really are on the hook for development. And you look at, you know, you, you do your performance and you're planning it based on certain development charges. And then the municipalities increase their development charges, increase cost, and you got to redo your performance again. Well, maybe it's not worth doing, you know, and you got to do the redo the performance. There are so many risk factors with development. It is not for the faint of heart. And you have to be very patient and you have to be calm and you cannot get overly uptight about it as much as it's so easy to do. Because I, I've felt for some developers, a few projects that we didn't approve, that we should have approved, and I've seen the frustration. But, you know, you just, you, you cost them another half million dollars by delaying or what, you know, whatever it is, you can do the math on it. It, it's not for the faint of heart. And you know, we need developers to, to build our communities. Developers are the partners in building our cities and building our towns and needing. Putting up the housing that we need. And we need successful developers. We need developers with deep pockets to build because it is so risky, it is so challenging. You can't have people do it on the cheap. You need to be well healed and have good reserves and good credit and, and in order to be in that business, because it's not simple, it's not easy, and you gotta have the right mindset to be successful at it.

Now, that project you were talking about, how long does this parking variance held this project hostage for? So it can't really get off the ground.

I'm estimating. But it's, it's, it's gone back and forth. But I would say the issue is eight to nine months old. Yeah. And there's no indication when, you know, even if the staff at the municipality says, yeah, we can support that. Sometimes there's a political process it has to go through. And I'm always concerned because of my experience when I hear people working on development projects that aren't very experienced. And I say, well, what do you, what are you doing with the municipal risk? What do you mean? And I said, well, what are you going to do with the politics? Well, we're working with the staff and they think there's no problem. I said, yeah, okay. You know, don't be so naive that you got to know the politics because you don't know what the situation is. If you're proposing, you know, a significant increase in height and density. You don't know when the, the counselor may change their mind on something, it may go hard against the project because their constituents are going to hard against the project. Now politics can be very challenging at the local level for development projects and you need to know what you're doing. So it's not simple or easy. The whole process is not simple or easy. And you need to have deep pockets and patience.

Now, when you think about that in relation to some of your other experience, just personally for yourself as an investor in different types of real estate endeavors and you're also, you know, very involved with some of the real estate and networking communities that are well known in, in the country, what are you finding as a, you know, as some of the call it, maybe risks or mindsets that hold real estate investors back from being truly successful. Like what are some of the things that really get in the way? You know, is it, is it a matter of that they over overextend themselves? Is it being too overly leveraged? You know, not, not really putting in place the right protection so that they can weather the winds of change as they shift.

I think there's a number of different factors and you highlighted a number of them. But I think it sometimes is mindset as being overly ambitious. And one of my long time or one of my clients in Burlington successful developers said, what's one of the biggest risks you have to deal with? And he goes, me, he's, I'm the biggest risk because I got to learn to say no. Too many projects come up that I, that, that I like, that I have to say no to. But I keep them in mind for the future because I've only got A certain capacity that I can mentally handle, I can financially handle. And I don't want to put my team at risk by being, you know, despite how attractive the deal may look, I don't want to put my team at risk by being overly aggressive. So I, I think it's knowing your capacity and, and recognizing you're in it for the long term. You can't expect to, to hit a home run in the short term. It takes time. It takes time and you gotta have the right again, you have the right mindset and, and don't overly leverage and don't take too many, too many projects on at the same time. Know you can manage and, and, and make sure you have reserves because you don't know what's going to come up. Make sure you have liquid cash reserves. And that's one thing that a lot of people in the real estate investor area dismiss as having liquidity. They want to have their liquidity all tied up, invested in projects. And I get that, and I get that. But something goes wrong. You got nowhere to move and you don't want to be forced to sell something because a, you know, you died and your estate has to deal with something. You don't want forced liquidation and you certainly don't want forced liquidation to deal with a black swan risk that came out of nowhere that you don't have cash reserves to deal with. And you've got a gun to your head because you got to sell a property to come up with some money for another project. You never want to be in that position. That's very true.

And it's a sequence of steps too. I find that most real estate investors that I have occasion to connect with or be introduced to most often the sequence of steps was off in the sense that they dove into the journey very quickly, got over levered very quickly versus pouring a very strong foundation to include having a capital surplus reserve before you even dive into the shallow end of the real estate investing pool and getting really focused on and really enamored by single family investments. And you know, you buy that first one and then all of a sudden it's vacant. You've got 100% vacancy rate versus you know, owning a multi family piece of real estate and one or two doors goes empty temporarily and you've got a 96% bill rate, 4% vacancy. Like there's a big difference there from a cash flow standpoint, zero versus majority. And it just, people are very much like they're looking for that lift, that capital gain, that lift in equity. They're buying the real estate for a deferred benefit and shifting focus away from. For me, when I get involved in any type of real estate project, if it doesn't cash flow from day one, I don't care how good the project is. No, no, just give us your money, we'll get it back to you, hopefully in four years time. And we're projecting our targeted return to be somewhere in the range of 20%. That flies in one ear and right out the other faster than you can say no thanks. It's got a cash flow from day one or I'm not interested, period. And if the project doesn't have reserves, I don't care what the cash flow is. You're telling me everything you need to know about how undisciplined you are financially.

Oh, exactly.

So one thing that's interesting you mentioned, Rick, you talked about kind of liquidation and you know when everyone's doing their net worth statement, the real estate investor, they're putting their properties down. They've got a nice little spreadsheet where they're tracking everything and every once in a while their realtor is sending an update of the value or they're getting an appraisal done and it's always based on a market value. You know, the thing about market value is market values do shift and they change. But no one has a spreadsheet that I've seen that shows liquidation value and everything that you own is considered sold on the day that you pass away. Well, it may not be sold, but the people you leave behind, your family members, they got to deal with it. And if they don't know what to do, if you're the driver, if you're running that real estate endeavor and you're not bringing them in to understand, if they don't know where the paperwork is, the binders are, the addresses, they don't know what, what account mortgage payments are being made from, etcetera, you're going to have a real problem. And most likely they don't want to deal with all that real estate because I don't want the headache and the hassle. They don't have the knowledge base that you do. So the result is they end up being liquidated just to get rid of them at some kind of a fire sale value. Which case you spent all the effort and the work to build it up to see it come crashing down for a lot less than what you, what you expected to get out of it. And here's the rub, because I've seen that happen in numerous occasions you know, real estate investors, they get trained on looking for deals and opportunities. Well, what's one of the deals that you look for? You look for estate sales. Every time you see the word estate sale, you think, oh, someone's going to get a deal here. Well, what you don't want is you to be the one with the estate sale like that one day that's going to be you. How do you prevent that? You prevent that with proper planning, Working with guys like Rick, building a good estate plan, having cash reserves, great place to store those cash reserves. And that liquidity is in dividend paying, whole life insurance, which coincidentally protects the whole portfolio and your family at the.

Same time and gives you a guaranteed purchase price for all that real estate.

No, no, exactly, exactly. But it is interesting that, you know, I've said to many people that I work with, you know what, good for you. You know, you got good offense, you're growing a portfolio, you're. You're investing thoughtfully. That's good. What's. So you got good offense. And we all know to win a Stanley cup, you need good offense and you need good defense. Tell me what your defense is. What do you mean? What happens if you died last night? What happens if you need money unexpectedly? What's your defense? Where is it coming from? What, what, what money can you get access today or tomorrow without penalty, without paying tax? Most of the time it's not very much of any.

That's, that's one of the things that we talk about. If, if. And this is something for all of our viewers and listeners that we would encourage you to do, to add to what Rick just shared and to truly become the mayor of your money.

Do you like that? Do you, Jason?

I love it. I love it. Just, you know, take a close look. Just examine all of your assets, all of them, and ask yourself which of those can be converted into cash today without triggering a taxable event and without reducing the assets value. And then when you realize that the vast majority, if not all of your assets don't meet that criteria, and you've got to speak to someone like Rick who can help you bolster your assets with a tool that's going to equip you to do exactly that, and I'm going to say it again, to really.

Become the mayor of your money.

Mayor of money. Mayor of the money. Mayor of money town.

I love it. Okay.

Sorry, it's just. Yeah.

Well, Rick, this is, this has been fantastic. What a pleasure to have you on. Hear a little bit about your story. Love the concept of planning a good defense. I think that's one of the core elements of any good sports endeavor and certainly should be incorporated to anyone's financial endeavor. So, you know, just to, you know, share with our listeners, you know, if although you spent a long period of time helping the city of Burlington, of course, in your role as mayor, and you've helped a lot of people over your long career in the financial space, who is it that you'd most want to be a hero to?

Oh, I think it's family for sure. Yeah, it's definitely family. Definitely family. And you know, that, that's, that's evolving. You know, that's, that's, that's evolving. And you know, when your kids are in your early 20s, their focus is a little different on my, all my daughters are in their 30s and, you know, now all of a sudden they know more. Right. You know how that goes. So, no, it's definitely family. Yeah, definitely family for sure.

Love that.

Well, with the, with the grandkids you've got now and probably more on the way, I'm sure in the future you'll be able to certainly provide that with what you set up for them already at this stage. And for our listeners, of course, and those of you on YouTube, you'll see magically, a great little video just popped that says, watch me. I've got more great information. So we always encourage you to do that. Make sure to leave a comment down below if you enjoyed this episode and we will catch you on the next episode of wealth on Main Street.