Latest / The Thought Leader Revolution Podcast / EP768: Michael Santonato - Becoming Financially Indestructible

Transcript

EP768: Michael Santonato - Becoming Financially Indestructible · The Thought Leader Revolution Podcast

• 0:01
  (air whooshing)
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: - Your money can work harder than you can.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: It can work 24/7.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: You can't, you need to eat, sleep,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: go to the bathroom, shower, go out, do things for fun.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Your money can just work, work, work, work, work.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: So you have to put your money to work.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: - Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nicky Billou.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Join the revolution.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: There's never been a better time in history
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: to speak your truth, find your freedom,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: and make your fortune.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: and learn the secrets of how they built
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: a six to seven figure practice.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: This episode has been brought to you
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: by ecircleacademy.com, the proven system
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: to add six to seven figures a year
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: to your thought leader practice.
• 0:46
  Nicky Billou: - Welcome to another exciting episode of the podcast,
• 0:48
  Nicky Billou: The Thought Leader Revolution.
• 0:51
  Nicky Billou: I'm your host, Nicky Billou,
• 0:52
  Nicky Billou: and boy do we have an exciting guest lined up for you today.
• 0:55
  Nicky Billou: Today's guest is my dear friend,
• 0:57
  Nicky Billou: my brother from another mother.
• 0:59
  Nicky Billou: He happens to be one of my A-list clients
• 1:02
  Nicky Billou: in my top level mastermind.
• 1:04
  Nicky Billou: And this dude is one of the world's top thought leaders
• 1:09
  Nicky Billou: when it comes to white front
• 1:11
  Nicky Billou: becoming financially indestructible.
• 1:15
  Nicky Billou: I'm speaking of course, another, another one,
• 1:18
  Nicky Billou: the only, the legendary Michael Santonato.
• 1:24
  Nicky Billou: Welcome to the show, Michael.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: - Graham, what a blast to be here, brother.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Love you so much.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you and the love, brother.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: What a great introduction.
• 1:34
  Nicky Billou: - Yeah, you bet, man.
• 1:35
  Nicky Billou: So brother, I know you really well,
• 1:37
  Nicky Billou: but the folks on the show don't know you.
• 1:39
  Nicky Billou: They're here to learn from you,
• 1:40
  Nicky Billou: but before they can really open themselves up to you,
• 1:42
  Nicky Billou: they gotta get to know you.
• 1:43
  Nicky Billou: So tell us your backstory.
• 1:44
  Nicky Billou: How'd you get to be the great Money Michael Santamano?
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: - True, brother.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I lost a million and a half dollars.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: That's how I became Money Michael.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: - Damn!
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: - Yeah, man, I had an unusual upbringing.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: My parents were bank managers.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: They taught me everything about money and finance
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: at the dinner table, along with being a good boy
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and a hard worker and a good Italian,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you know, get a job, keep the job, stay in the job,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: all that stuff.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Followed their rules, followed their advice.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: By 22, I was in the stock market,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: had my first rental property.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: By 25, I had $400,000 in assets.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: By 30, 33, I think it was,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I had about, you know, $1.4 million in crypto and assets and stocks and everything.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: And I built it all up really well.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: And then, uh, and then lost it all, man.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just did some stupid.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I just did a bunch of stupid moves.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I'll share with everyone happily in the episode, all the dumb ass
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: mistakes I made, so that nobody has to do that ever again, you know?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:44
  Nicky Billou: So brother, um, you lost a bunch of money, but obviously also turn it around
• 2:49
  Nicky Billou: and, you know, you're in pretty good shape right now, so why did you
• 2:53
  Nicky Billou: I'm doing this to other people.
• 2:55
  Nicky Billou: Like why that?
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of things happen, you know, in every story, there's a lot of ups
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: and downs, failures and successes.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: You know, you, you know, I went through a divorce.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: It was around that time.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I lost a lot of money as well.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I lost a bunch of money from a divorce.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I lost a bunch of money from giving a dumb guy who was a con man who
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: scanned me and about a hundred other people out of about a $25 million.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Uh, USD.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, myself and about a hundred other Canadians and Americans got scammed out of, you know,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: basically a very, very, very sophisticated, elaborate Ponzi scheme.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: He was paying good money.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: He was paying us the first few years, a hundred percent rate of return.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: And the FBI and the RCMP, you know, interviewed us and there's a warrant out for his arrest
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and all that good stuff.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: They'll probably never find him.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I was doing really well in crypto myself.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I had a smart move to buy my first Bitcoin back when it was $3,000 Canadian in 2017.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: My parents didn't teach me well about investing.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: They were afraid of crypto, of course.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: They would never do that.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: They're in their 80s now.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: God bless them, still healthy and alive and well.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: But me, I got really, really cocky and got away from their basics and their fundamentals
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and their foundations.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I went through two times in my life where I followed their wisdom and made a lot of
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: money and then lost a lot.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Made a lot and then lost a lot.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And one was being in business for myself.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I had no successful mentors or coaches or advisors to learn from in the business world
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: when I went into business for myself at the age of 25.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I had nobody to lean on for how to be a successful business owner.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I had plenty to lean on for how to do well in the career world and be a good employee
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and crush it and grow and get promoted and get raises.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: But when I wanted to be in business for myself, that was when I had my first huge failure
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: and my first business at 25.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I went from several hundred thousand dollars in assets to losing it all in two years.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I hired people I had no business hiring.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I had no sales skills.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I had no mentors, no marketing skills, and no real mission and purpose.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: And that's when I had my first huge loss at the age of 25.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I'm 40 now and the old adage of save your money and invest it and grow it and let your
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: money work for you and all that stuff, that works.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: So I've recovered twice over.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I've got a book coming out now.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I've been successful as a financial advisor for the last nine years, taking a lot of what
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: my parents taught me, my own investment experience, my own failure successes.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I've made a lot, lost a lot, twice over and put it into a book.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I'm doing really well now.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I'm in your top tier program.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I freaking love it.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I just had my best year in business last year.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: My best year crossed a big milestone.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Almost 250k. - And you're gonna do
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a TED Talk, right?
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: That's happening.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: - I'm doing a TED Talk this year, 2026.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Super excited.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: The book is coming out in two weeks.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Almost crossed 250k last year,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: and I'm serving people,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and it's just growing and growing,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: and it's getting better and better.
• 6:00
  Nicky Billou: - So how did you reestablish yourself financially,
• 6:06
  Nicky Billou: and how did you come up with this concept
• 6:08
  Nicky Billou: financially indestructible, which is also the name of your book, I believe, right?
• 6:11
  Nicky Billou: A hundred percent.
• 6:12
  Nicky Billou: Yeah.
• 6:12
  Nicky Billou: That's the book.
• 6:13
  Nicky Billou: You have a copy you can hold up for people to see.
• 6:16
  Nicky Billou: You know what?
• 6:16
  Nicky Billou: I'm going to hold the, I'm going to hold up the iPad because the digital versions.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: The print version is up in two weeks.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I'll have it in hand physically in two weeks.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Uh, but at my website, you know, michaelsantanada.com people can see the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: book and the cover and all that good stuff.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: How did I do it?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: How did I rebuild it?
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: You know, the fundamental financial principles never lie.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: They'll never go away.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Uh, they're in great books like rich dad, poor dad, and, uh, George S.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Clayson's, uh, you know, the richest man in Babylon.
• 6:47
  Nicky Billou: Yeah, yeah, sure.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Classic of a book.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: The fundamentals are there.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Number one is produced in the Bible.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: It says produce.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Number two, it says reproduce.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Number three, it says multiply.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: And number four, it says dominate or, um, you know, distribute.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: So those are the basic financial principles in the Bible.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: One is produce.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: That means do something, serve someone, help someone, produce something, get a job,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: sell a client, perform a task, right?
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Provide value.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Number two is do that again.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Just, just do that again.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Reproduce, right?
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Number three is multiply.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Find a way to multiply that with social media, with an online course, with
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: employees, with other business partners, with other coaches, with other people
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: that can take and replicate the first two steps and number four is dominate.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: That's what brands like Microsoft and Apple and Zappos and Amazon do.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: They dominate the market.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Number four, dominate, subdue.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: It's right there in the Bible.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: It's subdue the earth.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: It's bring it under your command, you know, like dominate the market.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: And you do that with goodwill by providing good value.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: So those are the first basic steps.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: That's all about making money.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Making money is the easy part.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: In every YouTube video I've got and all over the book, I say,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: it's not about how much you make.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: It's about how much you keep that counts.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: So making money is the easy part.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Follow those first four steps straight from the Bible,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: the greatest bestselling book of all time, right?
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: After that, what do you do with the money?
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: You gotta keep it, you gotta save it,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: you gotta put it towards use,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: you gotta put it towards an investment,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: you gotta start small.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Anybody can start small.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Anybody can start with investing 50 bucks a month.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if it's 50 bucks a month
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: or 500 bucks a month.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Anybody and everybody can start investing.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: And you have to invest
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: because you cannot save your way to wealth.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: You must save your money, yeah,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: but then eventually put it into something, right?
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Your money can work harder than you can.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: It can work 24/7.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: You need to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, shower,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: go out, do things for fun.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Your money can just work, work, work, work, work.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: So you have to put your money to work,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: and that's the fundamental principle
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: that my parents taught me.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: The main one that most people miss is live below your means.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: A lot of people say live within your means.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, that's bad.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: You can't live within your means,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Because that means if you make five grand a month,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: you're spending five grand a month.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: No, you have to live below your means.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: You gotta make, let's say five grand a month,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: and spend only 3,500, 3,400, whatever, four grand,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: and put the other money to work.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, you'll be a slave the rest of your life
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: working until the day you die.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Those are a lot of the ways that I broke out.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Start small, cut your expenses, reduce,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: put your money towards working for you
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: in an investment that will grow.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Me personally, I love dividend paying stocks.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I love crypto.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I love real estate.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: You know, in the book, there's five ways to become indestructible financially.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: There's five asset classes.
• 9:47
  Nicky Billou: So I love it.
• 9:49
  Nicky Billou: Walk us through that and maybe give us some stories for each.
• 9:52
  Nicky Billou: Like give us the five ways and maybe a story of like a client or somebody you've worked
• 9:56
  Nicky Billou: with for each one.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, happily.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: So the five ways are really accessible.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: There's actually more than five ways,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: but these are the no brainer, bare bones, dumbed down,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: anybody can do it five ways to become financially
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: indestructible, five asset classes.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: The first is gold and silver, precious metals.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And by the way, right now gold and silver
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: have freaking taken off, which is amazing.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: A lot of people have been waiting--
• 10:19
  Nicky Billou: - I wish I bought even more, man, holy crap.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: - Right?
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: So a lot of people are benefiting right now
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: in gold and silver, but that's because gold and silver have taken off.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: So first is gold and silver, super easy, accessible.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: You can go to a pawn shop, buy some gold and silver.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: You can go online, buy some bullion, buy some coins, doesn't matter.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: The next is life insurance.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people don't understand life insurance and that's okay.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: A lot of people take it for granted, but the wealthy buy boatloads, boatloads of life insurance.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Because it's an asset that can grow and it's 200 years old.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: originated from farmers and farming.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: And it basically teaches and shows you like your money can work harder than you can and
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: your money can work on multiple levels.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Life insurance is also one of the most tax friendly, tax beneficial assets that exist.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: And anybody can start with a hundred bucks a month or 50 bucks a month or more.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Life insurance, also the investment portion grows at a rate of six to 8% return a year.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: And in the last 60 years, they've never missed, most insurance companies have never missed
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: a dividend payment on that 6% to 8% per year.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: The other thing is that a life insurance company is least likely to go bust in a recession
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: or in a downturn or in a depression.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Banks are 10 times more likely to go bust than a life insurance company, okay?
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Because life insurance has 200 years of actuarial data that says that, you know, these frigging
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: mathematicians who are actuaries, they said that, you know, a person at this age is likely
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: to live this long and they've got 200 years worth of data, over hundreds of millions of
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: people to prove it.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: So life insurance is incredibly, incredibly secure.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: The next one is Bitcoin.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: It's a personal favorite.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Everybody should own at least 0.09 Bitcoin in their possession.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Everybody should have a little bit of Bitcoin or crypto in their portfolio to diversify.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: It's the fastest growing asset class in existence.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: It's the highest performing ROI asset class right now in existence.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: It averages 60 to 100% a year per year.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: And Bitcoin is something that produces deflation.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: So it's a hedge against inflation.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Inflation is the rising cost of goods and services over time, which is guaranteed 2%
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: every year for the last 60 years nonstop.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: But also Bitcoin and technology produces deflation and Bitcoin is a superior technology than
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the current financial system.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Crypto is a superior technology than the current financial system.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: So the current financial system, you know, you've got to, you want to send $50,000, you
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: want to buy a house, you got to go through tons of paperwork, you got to go in person
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: to your bank, you got to sign all these forms, you got to show ID, there's an intermediary,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: there's all these fees you got to pay.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Bitcoin and crypto, you can send $100,000 and it'll be there in 10 minutes or two minutes,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: depending on which crypto you use.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And you'll pay anywhere from $1 to $3 in fees.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And you don't have to ask anyone.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So it's permissionless and it's borderless, right?
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I'm in Colombia right now traveling, you know, I'm traveling Latin America, Mexico, Colombia
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: was in Europe this year for a few months.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: And I moved money around in seconds from my phone.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I didn't have to call or ask anyone and I paid as little fees as possible.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: And I did it all from tapping some buttons, saving myself time, money and energy.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: So Bitcoin is something that is going to be around forever.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: The US federal, the US government is adopting it as a reserve, meaning they're going to
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: put it in their treasury.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Most countries already have it in their treasury or are planning it, putting it in their treasury
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: in some form or another.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: The thing about Bitcoin is that no more will be created.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin in existence ever, and they're not going to
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: make more after that.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: So Bitcoin is something that everybody should have.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Crypto is where I made my first million, and it is going to be around forever because it's
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: a superior technology.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I read in an economics book that technology is a genie that once let out of the bottle
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: was never put back in the bottle.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: That's how we have to think about technology and crypto.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: That's three out of five.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: You want me to stop there?
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: You got a question?
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: So Bitcoin's a personal favorite.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Crypto's a personal favorite.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I'm a millennial.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I'm 40.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: My generation, we understand it.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: We get it.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: It's all technology, right?
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Look at AI, look at where things are going.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: The next asset class is one of the oldest in existence, and it's probably made the most
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: millionaires on planet earth, and that is real estate.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Real estate is not going anywhere, right?
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: They're not making any more of it, similar to Bitcoin.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: It's probably going to be the most expensive asset class on planet earth.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: It's very easy to get started.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: You can buy a simple condo unit or a rental.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: You can Airbnb it, you can flip it,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you can renovate it, you can rent it out.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: You can do so much with real estate.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: And it's only going up in one direction over time,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: and that's higher prices.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Cost of living is going up.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Look at COVID, look at what happened in COVID.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Pretty much all over the world, inflation happened.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Real estate prices went up.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: So real estate is really easy to get into,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: super low barrier of entry.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and you can quickly turn one property into a few properties.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: We all played Monopoly as a kid.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: The game of Monopoly is super simple.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: It's how you win in life.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: It's how you win in real estate.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: And it's one of the ways
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: you can become financially indestructible.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Frigging Monopoly is super simple.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Do whatever you can, beg, borrow, steal, negotiate
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: to get a set.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Once you get the set, then you can put houses.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: One greenhouse, two greenhouses, three greenhouses,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: four greenhouses, a red hotel, and then more red hotels.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: You gotta love real estate, super easy to get into.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Maybe you can't do it in your city,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: you gotta go to another city, say in the US or Canada,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: for a lower barrier to entry, right?
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: You and I are from Toronto, big barrier to entry there.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: You can go to other cities and other towns
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: in other parts of Canada or the US
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: and get properties on the cheap, right?
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Really easy to refinance the mortgage
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and take money and equity out
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: and use that money for good in other ways.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: - Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I like it.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Number four, really easy and simple to get into.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Number five is everybody's favorite,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: at least probably those of us that are listening
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: to this podcast is business, baby, business.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: There's nothing like putting your name on something.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: There's nothing better than putting your name on something
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and making it yours and building it and growing it, right?
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Business is the kind of thing that can produce
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: an unlimited amount of money
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: as long as you have the right product and service to sell.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: As long as you have the right market, the right message,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: and the right people, the right team,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: you can build a business that can set you free for life.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Business is also incredibly tax favorable.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: You can take money out as a salary or as dividends.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: You can take the money out later.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: You can defer it for later on.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: You can obviously have it pay for your lifestyle expenses.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I was on a flight today, flying in,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: checked into my hotel a couple of hours ago
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and flying business class
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and my business pays for that, right?
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: It's a business expense.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: So business allows you to pay for certain things
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: your lifestyle, travel, trips, vacations, research, food, meals, conferences, you know,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: you can learn so much and it can be a business expense.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: There's so much that you can write off as a business.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: But the best thing about business is that it truly, you know, is a system and that system
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: can pay you for life.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: McDonald's, that's a system.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Coca-Cola, that's a system, right?
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Doesn't matter if it's Tesla, like everything is a system that can be built, that can be
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: sold, that can be licensed, that can be leveraged.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: that people are creating these days and the brands that exist are leverageable through licensing.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And that's basically effortless, you know what I mean? Passive income through continual client
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: retention, through building a book of business. Myself, I manage over $4 million in assets and
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: TFSAs and RRPs and RESPs and pensions and Liros and all that stuff. And that stuff pays me a
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: passive income because I manage that money passively. That's a business asset. And then
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: trust is an asset I can also sell and leverage later on.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: So there's so many ways to create indestructibility
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: for your personal finances through owning a business,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: through having a brand that you can leverage
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and all the amazing tax benefits
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: that come along with that as well.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: So those are the five ways, those are the five easiest ways.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: But Nicky, there's other ways like oil and gas.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in oil and gas,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: but even though everything these days is solar,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: there's still so much oil and gas that's up.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: - It's massive, man.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: It's ginormous, right?
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be around probably still for another 30, 50, 40 years, maybe even more.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: It might never go away, right?
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: But that's another asset class that could make someone financially indestructible.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: But I didn't grow up in Calgary, Alberta, or Texas, or Houston, so I just can't speak
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: to those.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: But I think out of my years of research, 10 years of being a financial advisor, advising
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: thousands of clients all across Canada and the USA, those are the five simple, easiest
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: ways that anybody can get into an asset class that will make them financially indestructible.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: But what about stocks and bonds?
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you asked, brother.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I'm thrilled actually that you asked that because here's the thing.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I just love that you asked that so much because I addressed that in the book.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: The thing about stocks and bonds is that they're done through banks typically.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: They're typically done through banks and banks go bust, right?
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: In 2023, there were three major banks in the USA that went bust.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: What happens is people lose their money, they can't access their money, there's a bank run,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: they can't get their money, and then the bank goes bust and bankrupt and then people have
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: to wait years for the receivership, which is the lawyers, to go through the process
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: to get those resources and those funds back to clients.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Doesn't happen all the time, does happen sometimes, it does take a lot of time, and for me it's
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: just not an indestructible way.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And I know you can invest in the S&P 500 through an individual brokerage like Interactive Brokers
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: or Vanguard or whoever and your individual bank.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And they'll probably be around and they'll probably not go bust.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: But Lehman Brothers did and Berensterns did and Silvergate did and Signature Valley Bank
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: did, right?
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Banks do go bust and you can create wealth.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: You can create good money, good assets and good savings and investments and profits in
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: stocks and bonds.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: And it is part of a good diversification strategy, yada, yada, yada.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Warren Buffett, yada, yada.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Of course, yeah, totally.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: But pensions get lost.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Pensions go bust and banks go bust.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: And so for me, it just fails my indestructibility test.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Real estate, you can own Bitcoin, you can own,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: no one can take it from you
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: unless you have your private keys.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Business is in your name, you own the corporation,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: you're the shareholder.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: You have to die in order for those shares
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: to get passed on to someone else
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: or you sell it to someone else.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: But the banks and the stocks and all that stuff,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I deal in stocks and I have stocks and I like stocks,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: especially the dividend paying ones,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: but they just fail my indestructibility test.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Life insurance is on you, it's your life.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: When you die, someone else gets a boatload of money,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: right, from your life insurance.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: While you're alive, you get the benefit
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: of growing that life insurance investment
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: at six to 8% a year.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: And you can take it out tax free,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: you can take a loan against it,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: you can leverage it, use that money to invest.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: There's all these other cool things with life insurance.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: So life insurance is that a contract, that's the asset is the contract between you and
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the life insurance company.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: And it's legally applicable to be held up in court.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: So for those reasons, they just stocks and bonds just kind of fail my indestructibility
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: test.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: That's what indestructible means, right?
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: That's what indestructible means.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: It means non-negotiable, non-messable with, you know, non-fuckable with, it's indestructible.
• 22:15
  Nicky Billou: All right.
• 22:16
  Nicky Billou: So tell us a couple of stories about clients that you've worked with.
• 22:21
  Nicky Billou: Yeah, so Alex and Marianna are some of, they're like my dream team.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: They currently live in Italy.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: You know, they were born and raised in Italy, moved to Canada with their family when they
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: were young.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I met them in Canada.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: They lived in Woodbridge.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: You know, they had a house in Woodbridge, two young girls, eight and five, Mia and Milena.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: And I love them so much.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I became so close with them.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: They had a typical Italian big house home and the husband, Alex, was a bus driver, worked
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: for the TTC, making good money.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: And his wife, Mariana, mostly focused on the kids, but had a small job doing payroll, making
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: like 40K a year.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: So he had a six-figure salary, she had a 40K salary.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: So right in between, they're 140K each.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I met them in 2018 and I started working with them then.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: And they used to say the funniest things.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: They're super humble, just diligent, hardworking, cash-saving people.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: And Alex would always say, "I'm just a stupid bus driver.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I'm just a stupid bus driver.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know anything."
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: And his wife, God bless him, so humble.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Me and his wife would always say, "You're not a stupid bus driver."
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: They were great at saving cash, putting away cash.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: They lived below their means, like good, hardworking people, and they didn't go out and splurge.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: They had two cars over 10 years old.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: So in working with me over several years, I was able to help them shift their mindset
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: because a lot of people think that your house is an asset, but it's not an asset until you
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: use it in the right way.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I had to tell them and I had to knock on the walls because it was a multimillion dollar
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: home in Woodbridge, right?
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Big, big home.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I had to knock on the walls and tell them, "You have all this money in these walls.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: You have all this cash in these walls sitting there doing nothing."
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I would knock on the wall.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I'd say, "You got to put this money to use.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: You got to put this money to use.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: It's just sitting there.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: You've got all this equity you're building up.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're humble.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Your job is to... You're just paying down the mortgage, but it's not doing you any good.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Everything is backwards.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: A house is only an asset when it's used the right way.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad says, "A house is not an asset.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: It's a liability."
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Anything that takes money out of your pocket is a liability.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: An asset puts money in your pocket.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: So through the several years of working together, I helped them invest in some crypto.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I helped them invest in some different assets for their kids, education savings plan for
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: their kids, which is stocks and mutual funds and segregated funds.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: But they had two girls, want to give them a good education.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: And then I got them to take that money and put it to use.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: So a lot of mindset shifting.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I do a lot of education when I work with clients in my programs.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: It took a lot of time, a lot of dinners.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: They cooked me a lot of pasta, a lot of feasts.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: We had Italian feast.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I'm not complaining.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I'm Italian.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: table, meeting with their kids, talking with them.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: And over, over the years, we basically got them a nice crypto portfolio.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Uh, they were able to retire from their jobs.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: They got their pension and took it privately and invested it themselves.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: So their pension company, you know, cannot jeopardize it.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: They put a lot of money to work for them every month, putting
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: money into different assets.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: And eventually, uh, they put that money from the house into a good
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: investment that pays them regularly.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: They moved to Italy.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: They now live their dream life.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Their kids are learning Italian.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: They're living in their hometown where they were raised.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: They're living by the ocean.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: They're spending a lot of time with their kids.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Their house in Woodbridge is rented.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: They did not sell the house.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: They rented it out.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: That's now putting money in their pockets, paying them a, uh, paying their mortgage
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: and positive cashflow for them to live a good life in Italy, along with all the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: other assets and investments that they've built.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: So a phenomenal example of like how your mind, when you start to see things
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: differently. I had a million dollar business idea today on the plane is why I love traveling.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Cause you see money with your mind, everything's in your mind, right? I'm not sure that I'll take
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the time to execute that particular business, but it's, it's all in the mind. So changing your mind,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: transforming your mind, the way you see money, the way you see your assets, your cashflow,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: like when you change that, everything can change and your life can be a lot better.
• 26:22
  Nicky Billou: You know, I learned a lot from just listening to you talk about this, Michael,
• 26:26
  Nicky Billou: And a couple of thoughts came to mind.
• 26:28
  Nicky Billou: I think in addition to the book,
• 26:31
  Nicky Billou: you should create a, like an online course.
• 26:35
  Nicky Billou: Take what you've said to me, each chapter of the book,
• 26:38
  Nicky Billou: flush it out a little bit, turn it into a course,
• 26:40
  Nicky Billou: and start selling it.
• 26:42
  Nicky Billou: Because then you can make money from that
• 26:44
  Nicky Billou: while you sleep, right?
• 26:45
  Nicky Billou: And you don't need to interact with people,
• 26:46
  Nicky Billou: they just buy the course, you know,
• 26:48
  Nicky Billou: 500 bucks, 1,000 bucks, whatever it is,
• 26:51
  Nicky Billou: and you make money from that.
• 26:53
  Nicky Billou: And that's gonna be valuable for you.
• 26:55
  Nicky Billou: Secondarily, I think you should have an investment mastermind, and you should say, "Look, I'm
• 27:03
  Nicky Billou: a professional investment advisor, and I've made this much money for this many clients,
• 27:09
  Nicky Billou: and I'm running a mastermind, and there's two ways to be in the mastermind.
• 27:14
  Nicky Billou: You can either pay to be in the mastermind, or you can commit to X number of dollars that
• 27:18
  Nicky Billou: you let me manage for you," in which case, then you're in the mastermind for free.
• 27:22
  Nicky Billou: So I don't know what that number is.
• 27:24
  Nicky Billou: you gotta figure it out, maybe it's 500,000,
• 27:26
  Nicky Billou: maybe it's 300,000, who the heck knows,
• 27:28
  Nicky Billou: but I think you come and you put that together
• 27:31
  Nicky Billou: and this mastermind, this could be something
• 27:36
  Nicky Billou: that doesn't take up a ton of your time here
• 27:40
  Nicky Billou: but it's a chance for you to teach these concepts,
• 27:43
  Nicky Billou: teach these ideas, give people some advice
• 27:46
  Nicky Billou: on particular investment options that are hot
• 27:50
  Nicky Billou: and just say, look, I'm not giving you investment advice,
• 27:54
  Nicky Billou: I'm just telling you three or four things
• 27:55
  Nicky Billou: I'm doing for my clients.
• 27:57
  Nicky Billou: That's all you do.
• 27:57
  Nicky Billou: That's how you gotta phrase it
• 27:59
  Nicky Billou: so you don't get yourself in trouble.
• 28:00
  Nicky Billou: But then the people in the group,
• 28:02
  Nicky Billou: they can start bringing ideas to one another.
• 28:05
  Nicky Billou: And you make everybody sign waivers that says,
• 28:10
  Nicky Billou: look, you're not responsible for anything that happens,
• 28:13
  Nicky Billou: et cetera, and they gotta assume that risk fully themselves.
• 28:17
  Nicky Billou: But that would be a beautiful thing.
• 28:20
  Nicky Billou: And that kind of mastermind could be,
• 28:21
  Nicky Billou: I don't know, a thousand bucks a month,
• 28:23
  Nicky Billou: $1,500 a month for somebody to join you get 10 15 people in it
• 28:28
  Nicky Billou: It becomes something powerful and I think over time it could become quite a bit bigger than that
• 28:32
  Nicky Billou: But I think you could sign up 10 15 people for that lickety split. You know what I mean?
• 28:38
  Nicky Billou: That's pretty cool. And that's a great idea. It really is. It really is. Your ideas are good. Your explanations are good
• 28:46
  Nicky Billou: Your stories are good. I want to see you put together
• 28:50
  Nicky Billou: About a half a dozen stories. So I'm gonna interview you again
• 28:54
  Nicky Billou: We're gonna have you come back on the show and all I want you to do for that
• 28:57
  Nicky Billou: Interview is I want you to go and come up with a half a dozen stories. So you're just gonna come for each asset class
• 29:04
  Nicky Billou: You're gonna have a story for each asset class
• 29:06
  Nicky Billou: and that's how you're gonna bring it forward to people and then bring the concept of the mastermind to people man and
• 29:11
  Nicky Billou: And put it out there start putting it out there
• 29:14
  Nicky Billou: Couple of your existing clients that are putting that are that have a lot of money make them your your your anchor
• 29:21
  Nicky Billou: Mastermind clients right because they're already spending money with you
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: You're not gonna ask him for new money, but they can help you attract other people and I think that's value, right?
• 29:29
  Nicky Billou: Right, right. Yeah, it's cool. Can we finish this interview though?
• 29:32
  Nicky Billou: We can but the you know part of being the interview is not dead right now, brother
• 29:37
  Nicky Billou: I just like when you share all this, you know that I put my head on I'm like, okay, this is pretty cool
• 29:41
  Nicky Billou: I learned a few things by myself and I thought to myself, well, how can I help
• 29:45
  Nicky Billou: Michael like leverage this in a bigger way?
• 29:47
  Nicky Billou: So that those are my thoughts.
• 29:49
  Nicky Billou: Like, so, so continue on with a second story.
• 29:54
  Nicky Billou: Give me a second story.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: So, um, what I, what I love about what you shared in what you said is that like
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: laugh, sorry, math is the language of money, right?
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Math is the language of money.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: That's what I love about this.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: There's a woman who I worked with, let's call her Katie.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: She does like to remain private because she's also, she's got a big name.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: She's got a great business doing costume design.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: She's like niche, niche, niche in costume design for classical periods,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: for classical pictures.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: So any movies or plays or like things that you see where it's like really old,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: like 1800s stuff, like settlers, colonialization, she's got a business.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: That sounds super cool, man.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I'd love to meet her.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super niche.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: So, so what she, what she's done actually, is she's built a business doing that.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Now, what she's done is she's replicated her work and taught and
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: trained other people to do the same thing.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: So she basically gets money for licensing.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: She gets money from passive income from her staff who go out and sell, who
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: go out and do these kinds of things.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: She teaches people how to do these classical costumes based on these historic periods.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: So she can narrow it down to like 1800 to 1850, 1850 to 1890, 19.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: sorry 1900, 1900 to like 1930s right? She can go through all these time periods now and she has
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: these models, she has these courses, she has these outfits, thousands of drawings, thousands of
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: costumes, examples that she's used for this uh for for these time periods which they're constantly
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: making. Amazon, like YouTube, like um Netflix, obviously Apple, they all need content so she
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: She really positioned herself really well about seven years ago when I met her.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Now I do the financial coaching.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: What she's done on the business side, I only sprinkled a little bit of dust.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: She's done most of that herself.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: But what we did was we turned the business into a corporation that then pays her dividends.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: She can tax defer that money also later and she can sell that IP if you will, that intellectual
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: property at a later date.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Her business also has invested in tons of assets.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: So if you have a business and you have a corporation, you can do something really cool called a
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: three to one loan.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: So you can do a leverage three to one loan where if you put in 20 grand, you can get
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: 60 grand as a loan, which for your business is not income.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: And then that money that you're paying interest on the loan is also a tax write off.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: So she's been able to increase her asset base huge by hundreds of thousands of dollars by
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: doing this a few times and doing this three to one leverage loan in a non-registered account
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: that's not tied to any SIN number. And it's not like an RRSP or a TFSA, but by using the money
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: wisely in her business to invest, she was able to kick up her net worth and her asset base
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: by a couple of extra hundred thousand dollars in a very, very, very short period of time.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Now she loves what she does, so she's not retired. She's not like, you know, stopping the work. She
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: in the business which she can sell or just like live off of, take the profits.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: She can take it as dividends which is a more tax favorable asset or sorry as a
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: more tax favorable you know income strategy and tax strategy. So she's not
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: she's not done but she's pretty much indestructible because she's made this
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: niche for herself through business and through building the worth and the value
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: of her business by investing that money wisely in the markets with these extra
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: three to one leverage loan that we've done a few times.
• 33:26
  Nicky Billou: That's pretty darn smart, man.
• 33:28
  Nicky Billou: I like it.
• 33:28
  Nicky Billou: I like it.
• 33:29
  Nicky Billou: She sounds like she's got a cool business.
• 33:31
  Nicky Billou: She's leveraged her IP.
• 33:32
  Nicky Billou: Super smart.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, that's the power of me.
• 33:36
  Nicky Billou: Um, ask her if she'd like to be interviewed on the podcast.
• 33:38
  Nicky Billou: I'd like to interview somebody who's built their IP in such a unique way.
• 33:42
  Nicky Billou: Good thought leadership stuff.
• 33:43
  Nicky Billou: Um, okay, great.
• 33:46
  Nicky Billou: Now give me another one.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Give me another story.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Well, myself, I've used life insurance to combine with other
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: asset classes.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: So the first way that I made a good chunk of money was back when I was doing the financial
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: advising and the life insurance and the crypto, I was kind of doing all these things that
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: I was juggling all these hats.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I would take these loans against my own life insurance policies and allow that money to
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: be used to invest it in crypto, which is also a tax write-off because I'm paying interest
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: on the loan.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: So anytime you use money to invest as a loan, you're getting a tax break and a tax write-off.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I love tax write-offs and I love tax breaks because the more that I do that, the more
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: money I put back in my pocket, the more I don't have to pay in tax, the more I get to
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: keep in my pocket.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I don't have to give that to the government.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I get to put that back in my business, back in my investment.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: So the first time I did it, I took a simple $4,000 life insurance cash value policy that
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: I built up and I took about $2,500 and I bought some crypto with that.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: I bought some Bitcoin with that.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And I did that several years ago.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: That $2,500 investment turned into over $25,000.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: That was a really cool, simple, easy, just let time work its magic tax hack and investment
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: hack.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Then I did it again because you do what works and just repeat, rinse and repeat.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: I did it again.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I had another insurance policy for about $5,500 and I took that and I got another loan and
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: I got over $4,500 of that.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Because that's the other thing I forgot to mention that's really cool about life insurance
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: is you can get a higher loan to value ratio than real estate.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: So in the economy, in the market's eyes, life insurance is actually a more reliable
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: investment than real estate. Get that.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: In real estate, you can only get like, you know, 70% typically at a bank.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: A private lender might give you 80% on the high end,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: but life insurance you can get from 75% to 85 and even 90% as a loan
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: because it's the most reliable and indestructible asset in existence.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: So I took that second one and I took about, um, you know, $4,500 and invested that again.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: And that, that turned into another $16,000.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: I can keep doing this as much as I want.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: And I can take as many life insurance policies as I want.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: This is like a printing machine, a money printing machine.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the infinite banking concept.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: The man who wrote the book, the infinite banking concept, you know, you can bank
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: on yourself an infinite amount of time by doing this because you don't
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: have to ask anyone for permission.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: The life insurance contract is on your life.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: So you're the asset, you're the product, and you're the policy owner as well.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: So you can do this as many times as you want on yourself.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: So I've done this on myself a few times.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I've got clients that do this as well.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: I've got lots of clients that do this every couple of years
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: because these policies just grow and grow and grow in value.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: So in like a good house, you can just take a loan against them,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: you know, without needing anyone.
• 36:41
  Nicky Billou: Someone has a half a million dollar life insurance policy.
• 36:45
  Nicky Billou: Let's say they bought 15 years ago.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:48
  Nicky Billou: They need a loan on that.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: How much?
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: So there's two, it's two factors.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: It depends on the cash value, which is the investment value.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: And then there's the death benefit.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: So if the death benefit is $500,000, you can't get the $500,000.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: You can get whatever the asset value or the cash value is.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: So you just email the company and ask them for a statement.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: What's my current cash value?
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: They'll send you a statement.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: If you bought it 10, 20 years ago, you should have like,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Depending on how much you're putting in each month, you should have many thousands of dollars.
• 37:19
  Nicky Billou: What if it's a term only life insurance policy?
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Term only policies do not give you this option.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: It's only universal life and whole life policies that give you this option.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with term. Term is good, but it doesn't allow you to do this leverage loan ability.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Because term, what's good about term is you get the largest amount of coverage for the cheapest amount of cost.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So you can pay like 50 or a hundred bucks a month and get $500,000 or a million dollars
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: in coverage.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: So that's good.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: And the other kind is the one with the asset value that allows you to be leveraged.
• 37:54
  Nicky Billou: The Mixels?
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: It's a fantastic tool.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: It's highly underrated.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: It's definitely misunderstood.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: One of the things that the book walks people through is not just the five assets of how
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: to become financially indestructible, not just my journey of rebuilding myself up twice
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: after these two giant failures, but also it gives you the basic financial education we
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: should have got in school.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: The one that school will never teach you, the one that your bank manager or your bank
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: person doesn't have the time to sit down and teach you.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: But what it talks about is the financial house as a basic example of how to build your financial
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: house in the proper way.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: And the aspect that we most neglect is the aspect that is most important, which is the
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: protection level.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: So, after you have income, that's your foundation, you need to protect that income and make sure
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: that you have the right protection products in place to protect you should anything happen
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: to you because your income is what your family and your whole financial house is dependent
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: upon.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: But the thing that people neglect is I need to protect that income.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: If you had a toaster that spit out $5,000 every month in your kitchen, you do everything
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: you could to protect it.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: You probably wrap it in gold, put a bill on it.
• 39:00
  Nicky Billou: Yeah, I'd have to wrap it in gold.
• 39:01
  Nicky Billou: I like that.
• 39:02
  Nicky Billou: That's awesome.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: stay away from this, don't touch it, don't mess with it, leave it plugged in, whatever. Because
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: every month, it pops out five grand. That toaster is you, right? Your whole family depends on your
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: financial income. So you need to protect that income in as many ways as possible. An insurance
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: policy that pays you for disability, one that pays you if you die, one that pays you for an
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: accident, one that pays you for an illness. You know what I mean? I fell off a bike in France
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: this year. I couldn't work for two weeks. I was freaking propped up with my leg in a cast in a bed
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: At least two weeks, it couldn't work.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: So you got to protect your income.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: The thing that the wealthy do is they buy tons of different kinds of insurance policies
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: as soon as a child is born because they know that that is the moment when the policy will
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: be the cheapest.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: And with that amount of time, you'll get the most bang for your buck and that money can
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: grow in the investment type that we discussed earlier called whole life.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: So the thing that people neglect is the thing that we need to do the most, which is protect
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: that which you depend on most, which is your income.
• 40:02
  Nicky Billou: No, amen.
• 40:03
  Nicky Billou: Amen.
• 40:03
  Nicky Billou: - Man, beautifully put my man.
• 40:05
  Nicky Billou: So show us the cover of the book brother.
• 40:07
  Nicky Billou: - Physically I don't have it, remember?
• 40:09
  Nicky Billou: - Yeah, yeah, you're gonna show your digital copy.
• 40:12
  Nicky Billou: - Oh, shit.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Dude, that'll take a minute.
• 40:16
  Nicky Billou: - Yeah, right.
• 40:17
  Nicky Billou: - That'll take a little bit.
• 40:18
  Nicky Billou: - So while you're doing that,
• 40:20
  Nicky Billou: listener Michael Santonato, michaelsantonato.com
• 40:24
  Nicky Billou: is his website.
• 40:26
  Nicky Billou: Make sure that you go check out the website,
• 40:29
  Nicky Billou: his new book, "Financially Indestructible".
• 40:31
  Nicky Billou: It's full of a lot of great advice. I'm picking up a copy
• 40:35
  Nicky Billou: I'm actually gonna pick up a few copies hand them out to friends and family and clients as well
• 40:40
  Nicky Billou: And I recommend you do the same books are a way to spread knowledge
• 40:46
  Nicky Billou: Books are a way to show love and in this day and age not not as many people are reading books
• 40:51
  Nicky Billou: But if you're a thought leader or you're aspiring to be a thought leader
• 40:55
  Nicky Billou: You need to be a reader because leaders are readers and readers are leaders. That's what you got to understand
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Amen, brother. Absolutely. I live by those same principles as well. I just finished a great book by Robert Kiyosaki called second chance
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be doing tons of videos on all my learnings from that book like whoa, dude
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: What what a thousand worth of gems in that book that he's got and then just just started reading Marcus Aurelius
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: So amen to that, leaders or readers.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: But I've read a few of your books too.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: They're great, man.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I've read like three of yours, I think.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Finish line thinking, the podcast book, the one about America, making America great again.
• 41:34
  Nicky Billou: Oh yeah.
• 41:35
  Nicky Billou: How to become, look at that.
• 41:36
  Nicky Billou: Look at that handsome fellow.
• 41:37
  Nicky Billou: That's a good looking fellow.
• 41:39
  Nicky Billou: That's a nice looking book.
• 41:40
  Nicky Billou: So how to become financially indestructible.
• 41:42
  Nicky Billou: It's available on his website, michaelsantaneto.com.
• 41:45
  Nicky Billou: It's going to be available on Amazon as well.
• 41:47
  Nicky Billou: Make sure you pick up a copy.
• 41:48
  Nicky Billou: So Michael, we end every episode by asking you our guest expert, what are your
• 41:52
  Nicky Billou: top three expert action steps. These are your three best pieces of life or success advice.
• 41:59
  Nicky Billou: Bullet point truth quickly form. Go. 100% brother. No problem. First is everybody on planet earth
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: should have a financial advisor. The wealthy have multiple financial advisors. I'm out here
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: campaigning doing every book, podcast, anything I can do just to get people to have one financial
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: advisor. Well, the wealthy, the one percenters, they got one for taxes, one for real estate,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: one for crypto, one for stocks, one for life insurance,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: one for every single area of personal finance,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: cashflow, taxes, everything.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to get people to have one.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Everybody should have one financial advisor, at least.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: That would be the first.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Get a financial advisor, someone you can talk to,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: someone you can trust.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Number two is taxes in North America
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: represent 30 to 50% of your income.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: So you gotta find ways to reduce your taxes.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: I'm big on taxes right now.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: We just incorporated taxes as a service
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: into our business right now, tax advisory, tax planning, tax filing, because it represents,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: especially for Canadians, 30 to 50% of your income. For the wealthy, taxes are a primary thought.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: For the poor and the middle class, taxes are an afterthought. That's backwards. That's nonsense.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Think about taxes first. How can you reduce your taxes? That should be an obsession of yours
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: throughout the year, throughout this time period, January, February, March, which is tax time.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: So number two is pay attention and prioritize your taxes.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Cause like I said earlier, the more that you invest, the less that you pay, the
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: more that you keep in your pocket.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Number three would be read, you know, like you said, leaders are always readers.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I read 20 books a year.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: I think you read 200 books a year, which is amazing.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Well, I saw your good reads this year.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: You read like a hundred.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: It was over a hundred.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Over a hundred and four.
• 43:38
  Nicky Billou: Yeah, it was good.
• 43:39
  Nicky Billou: It was a good year.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: No wonder you're a gangster and you're crushing it and you're doing good in the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: world and you're getting posts through Trump and you're getting work done for Iran and
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: things like that.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: No wonder, man.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Readers are always leaders.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: So number three would be read.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Grab a copy of the book.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: 20, 30 bucks for my book for 20 years of my life of nothing but investing and different
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: businesses that have failed and different businesses that have succeeded.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: I've shared it all bare bones.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Divorce I went through, how to pay less money to the government, how to get the government
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: to pay you.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: book, you know what I mean? Like, so number three would be read as many financial books as you can.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Everybody should read, you know, at least like five financial books in their lifetime, right?
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: And I try to read at least at least two a year. Um, so money books pay dividends. Money books
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: will pay you for life. They'll pay you long-term because the one thing they can't take away from
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: you as education and are obsessed with financial education. So give yourself, give yourself the
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: gift of a financial education. Read lots of money books. Love it. Money Michael Santonato. Thank you
• 44:44
  Nicky Billou: for coming on the show. These are fabulous expert action steps and Lister, he's the real deal. Check
• 44:50
  Nicky Billou: out his website, michaelsantonato.com. And if you have a friend who could benefit from this message,
• 44:57
  Nicky Billou: share the episode with them. Okay. And honestly, give us likes, give us ratings, give us reviews.
• 45:03
  Nicky Billou: We put this show out for you. We don't ask for payment. The payment we asked for is that if it
• 45:08
  Nicky Billou: Give us likes, give us ratings, give us reviews.
• 45:10
  Nicky Billou: Help us get the algorithm working in our favor because this gets it in front of more people.
• 45:14
  Nicky Billou: Until next time, goodbye.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: This episode has been brought to you by ecircleacademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: a year to your thought leader practice.