In this episode of the Business Blast Podcast, host Tyler Wagner interviews financial advisor, author, and two‑time Investopedia 100 Most Influential Advisor Kim Butler. The conversation begins with Butler’s childhood story of running a milk‑cow business in fourth grade, illustrating her early entrepreneurial spirit. She then shares what she considers the most valuable piece of financial knowledge: using whole‑life insurance as a liquid, tax‑advantaged emergency and opportunity fund that grows faster than traditional savings accounts. Butler expands on her core business philosophy—focus on what you can control, whether in entrepreneurship or employment, and avoid environments where control is limited. This leads to a discussion of paradoxes: the need to both hold control and learn to let go, especially as businesses scale, and how embracing these contradictions contributes to happiness. She recommends the book The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto, highlighting how U.S. property law underpins entrepreneurial activity. Butler’s favorite personal mantra, “go slow, start small,” underscores her belief in incremental progress and periodic reflection, referencing Dan Sullivan’s “free day” practice. The episode concludes with a plug for her online presence at prosperity.com.
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All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Kim Butler with us and she helps people in all 50 states make their money work harder. As a 2-time Investopedia 100 Most Influential Advisors. Financial thought leader and author Kim works to help you use the whole truth about your money to your advantage. So, welcome to the show.
Oh, happy to be here, Tyler Wagner. Always fun to talk with you.
Yes, you as well. So, Kim, we start the show off going deep. So, the first one I got for you is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Getting a milk cow in the 4th grade. And being taught to be an entrepreneur and sell the milk and make the money and take care of the clients and do all the recording and the physical work and the whole bit. Put myself through school and have been entrepreneurially minded ever since.
That is so awesome. Since 4th grade?
Yes. So cool.
I just, I love stories like that where it's like you knew, or I don't know if you knew, but like the entrepreneurial like spirit, like, started really young. Like, it was, it was there. I think that's so cool.
Absolutely. My parents were teachers, and it did not come from them. It came from the cows.
Got it. The cows, they got some wisdom in them. Um, so the next one I got for you is, what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
All right, this is a boring one, but I gotta put it out there. It's that whole life insurance is a perfect place to store cash for your emergency opportunity fund, and it's the best secret that's been around for 300+ years.
So tell us a little bit more, more about that. So like, the best secret, so like, does it— how does your money like make money by being stored in there? I don't know much about it, right? So can you tell us a little more?
Absolutely. So again, this is an ancient product, and I'm talking whole life, not universal, not index, not all the brand new hybrids that are out there. This is one of those times when you've got to go back to basics. And it's really very straightforward. It has some complex things that people try to make it, but it's not a sexy product. It's very straightforward. It is liquid. It stores your cash. So think about your emergency money, your money market money, your savings accounts. It's not an investment. And yet it's a product that will provide a foundation for every family and every person. It doesn't even matter if you're not married or don't have kids, or if you're 20 years old, or if you're really up to about 70 years old. It's a way to store your emergency opportunity money in a place that will grow. So you ask the question, like, is it, is it giving me something? Yes. It will grow a little bit faster than money would at a bank or a money market account or a savings account. So, it's that kind of asset that's liquid.
Okay.
And it's safe and it doesn't get taxed.
Got it. Okay. Well, I think— I like that last part too.
Of course.
I think we all do. So, thank you for elaborating a little bit there. The next one I got for you is, what is your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.
Sure. It really, I believe, comes down to focusing on what you can control, whether you're an entrepreneur, an employee, it doesn't really matter. But the more you can control, and this is true of your thinking, this is true of the actions that you take every day, this is true of the work that you do in the marketplace. So in other words, let's stay out of government environments. Let's stay out of large corporations where you have no control. Or if you are in those environments, find little pockets where you are in control. And we could argue that yes, there's a higher power or whatever word you wanna use for that. And absolutely, that's true. But we're still human beings here on Earth. And when we function in areas that we have control over, when we put our money in places that we have control over, when we work in areas that we love, we typically have more control over that. And that's an important message.
Yes, it is. And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Let go, have a little more fun. I was a very boring teenager. And, you know, probably that farm girl thing just like inserted itself way too often. And I know that just being happy and being uplifting and being energized by whatever is going on, even when the chips are down, is a really valuable thing. And I'm much better at it now than I was 20, 30 years ago. And I'm gonna be even better at it 20 or 30 years from now.
Oh, a perfect segue here. So in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
It's the control. It's the letting go. So how's that for a dichotomy?
It's like the— there's a lot of paradoxes in life, you know.
Isn't that the truth?
I always found that— not always, but maybe like 6 years ago, I remember I was at this event, um, and this woman that I was talking to, she like brought up like 5 or 6 like huge paradoxes. Like, what One of them in entrepreneurship is like, uh, in the beginning, right, like a lot of people become entrepreneurs because they want to have full control, right? So you have full control and then you can get to a certain level in your business, you know, managing everything. But then the only way to get to the next level is to actually let go of control. Um, and so that's like a big, you know, paradox is, you know, actually to grow a company with like hundreds of employees, if you want to go like that big, you actually have to not be so micromanaging and controlling. You have to let go and allow others to lead, which is kind of a hard transition for a lot of people. So, that's just one paradox.
It's beautifully said and that is absolutely the key to happiness is embracing those paradoxes and figuring out when do you go to the left side and when do you go to the right side.
Yeah, exactly. And with life, another one, right, is that like everything you do matters, and then at the same time, like, you're just like one of like 8 billion people. Like, you're really like a speck of dust at the same time, and both are true, right? That's the thing. So if you can hold both things to be true, then it's kind of actually like fun. So, um, so next one I got for you is what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
So I'm gonna go with The Mystery of Capital. Because it's one that most people wouldn't have run across. I could list 50. I love books. I have a huge Kindle. Thank goodness for Kindle. And yet, The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto talks about how in the US we have property law that enables us to be entrepreneurial and to do amazing things in the US that other people and other countries cannot do. And it's something that we forget to be grateful for. And it's got a lot of wisdom and it directly relates to how people should be handling their money, of course, which is my love.
And then what is your favorite quote and why?
Go slow, start small is my favorite. I use it with everything because in life, so many times we think it's the big thing that's gonna matter or It's the big investment that we do that's going to change the tide. And when we set ourselves up for that, we won't make decisions because it's too big of a decision. It's too scary of a step to take. So it's, I guess, my quote, but if you go slow and start small, you can get results. And I'm not saying that you're always going to go slow or always go small, start small. And yet, at the same time, if we adopt that mantra, we'll make progress.
Yeah, and again, it's, it's interesting. I guess we'll just— it's all about paradoxes with this one. So it's like, you know, speed matters a lot, especially in today's world because of like technology and everything. But what I found interesting is sometimes we can get so caught up in our business and speed that we're not actually like— we're just go, go, go. So what I found effective is that's great, but then you have to take like a week every, you know, week, every like 90 days, and just step away and just reflect on everything. And then that could be a huge difference, right? You could notice like, oh, one of my systems in my business could be improved upon dramatically. So all this work that I was doing, it may have been busy, but it wasn't productive. So sometimes going slow, like taking a step back, allows you to take two steps forward.
Yes, that's the Dan Sullivan free day thing, which been a disciple of him, his for 25 years, and it is so effective.
Absolutely. So thank you for coming on. The last one I got for you is where can our listeners best connect and find you online?
Of course, partners number 4, prosperity.com.
Perfect. Thanks again for coming on.
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