Latest / Wealth On Main Street / 284: Taking Financial Control: Being the Pilot of Your Finances with John T. Urbik IBCP

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284: Taking Financial Control: Being the Pilot of Your Finances with John T. Urbik IBCP · Wealth On Main Street

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:11
  Speaker B: Welcome to wealth on Main street, where conversations about growing your wealth are fun and entertaining. Wealth isn't just about money. It's the skills and the knowledge that we develop to pass on to future generations. Tune in each week to grow your mindset and your net worth at the same time.
• 0:36
  Speaker C: Welcome back. Today's guest has logged literally thousands of hours at 39 plus thousand feet. And what makes him extraordinary isn't just his time in the cockpit. It's what he's learned from dodging missiles in a B52 to helping clients dodge financial disaster. He's the kind of guy who, he knows how to land a jumbo jet and a wealth building strategy with precision. And so we are in a world where most people are just flying blind financially. Pun intended. And John's the voice in your headset just telling you how to avoid turbulence and to build a bulletproof financial Runway. And so if you're looking for just a great interview, this, this one today is going to be it. And so buckle up. Today's guest did not bring his parachute, which means he's all in. So welcome to the show, John. It's good to have you.
• 1:35
  Speaker A: Oh, Jason, Richard, thanks so much for having me. Very, very kind of you. Thank you. And the reason that I got into this business is a big part of it. After meeting Nelson, that was enough. But yeah, I'll tell you, for those that don't know you guys, you'll never be the same after meeting these two guys. They are awesome. Jason, Richard, you guys are just phenomenal and you inspire like nobody else I've ever met at any seminar that I've ever been to. So kudos to you guys.
• 2:04
  Speaker C: We're humbled. Thank you.
• 2:05
  Speaker A: And that's true statement.
• 2:07
  Speaker C: Given that you've flown, you know, literally flown missions across the globe. What did flying teach you about human behavior? And I'm genuinely curious, like, how does that inform the work that you do with helping clients regain control of their finances?
• 2:26
  Speaker A: Well, this is going to sound maybe a little passe, but it goes back to my training in the air Force in my early days. You're all pumped up. You're just, you're a bundle of nerves and you've got a very short timeline to prove yourself. And you're always three rides away from getting bounced. And about a third of my class washed out. So there was a clear and present danger the whole time. And I was on a particular day. One of my instructors, Chris Duffick, great guy, if he ever listens to this. He gave me a complex ep emergency procedure to do. And he asked me what I would do, and I went right into it. You know, aviate, navigate, communicate. I'm going to do this. Somebody goes, no, you're not. He goes, you're going to take your proverbial cup of coffee and take a sip. That's the first thing you do first. Do no damage, do no harm. Kind of like what the doctors do, you know. So the most important thing in flying is not to do anything at once. There's nothing. Very few things require immediate action at that moment. You need to step back and assess the situation. What have I got? What are my orders of priority? What's going to hurt me first? And that ties in beautifully to ibc. Because IBC sets up your foundation, you don't have to do anything. There's so many slick talkers out there on the Internet right now pushing all kinds of stuff. What people should do is they should contact Richard or Jason and talk to you guys, set the foundation. Take that proverbial sip of coffee and think about where you're at right now. Where do you want to go? What's going to hurt me first and how can I prevent that? And if I'm going to get hurt, how can I minimize that? We live in a very difficult, complex financial world right now. We don't know the future. No one does. But, you know, there's a lot you can do to protect yourself and minimize any of those financial obstacles that we all have to deal with. I don't know if that answers your question, Jason.
• 4:26
  Speaker C: It does, yeah, because it's. We think of, you know, some, I guess, some of the foundational elements of, you know, implementing the infinite banking concept, one of which being the tool that's utilized to implement it. And there are a number of autopilot attributes, you know, to these insurance contracts. And it reminds me of. What I was going to say is that it reminds me greatly of what Nelson often said. And we're referring to our Nelson Nash, the developer or the pioneer of the concept. And he would often share with the three of us, he would say the policy owner's behavior is far more critical than the behavior of the life insurance company. So when you run into a financial circumstance where you have to be situationally aware, you need to take the time to develop your situational awareness. And, and that's, I think, what you're sharing, John, is like, just take a moment, sit down, look at the situation, and then determine, you know, what your next steps are going to be and where you come in. And Richard And I, who are blessed, we're all blessed to serve people, is that we get to help guide, so we get to be that, you know, air traffic control. We get to be the, the on the ground engineer. If we're having a problem with the airplane, we can communicate back and forth and help you, you know, pilot your way through it. I guess so. I just love how it ties to aviation, not to mention the fact that Nelson was an aviator. And I, I'm fascinated with aviation personally. And so I really like the analogy and how it, how it goes together.
• 6:06
  Speaker B: The other thing that Nelson often said was that being a, being an airplane driver, as he liked to say, was essentially hours and hours of sheer boredom punctuated by a few moments of stark terror. Is that true in your experience, John?
• 6:20
  Speaker A: Well, I don't know. There's the old adage, there are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots. Right. You learn to be a little circumspect. But there is one concept in aviation that carries over into this world and really every other world, and that's one we learned early on. It started out as CRM, Cockpit Resource Management. And they found through human analysis of studies that better than 90% of the accidents were caused by the pilot. It was a human error. It wasn't mechanical, it wasn't. I mean, airplanes are, especially today, are extremely safe. And so one of the first things they're going to do is they're going to look hard at the human factors that went into that accident. How does that relate to this? Well, when you get into the cockpit, they say that you might be flying, you're gonna be flying all day, maybe the next three, five, seven days with the same guy. If you don't mesh, it's kind of a bummer, but it happens. But when things don't go right, what's so important is not to let that wall of communication or to build a wall of non communication. You can't have that. And so there's a saying. It's like, listen to what the person is saying, not who they are. You know, you may not particularly like somebody, but in our business as a practitioner, I want to listen to what people are telling me. It doesn't matter what I think. What matters is what they think. Right. So that is kind of one of those lessons I carry over from flying is to listen to what the other person is saying, not who's saying it. I don't know if that resonates with you both, but to me it helps.
• 8:04
  Speaker C: And, and so speaking of that, so As a, an authorized infinite banking practitioner, what is the most common misunderstanding you have to undo when you're introducing a prospective client to the concept?
• 8:23
  Speaker A: There's many, but I think that. Coming from them or coming from me.
• 8:29
  Speaker C: Yeah, coming from them. Where? Because you're, you're listening carefully to what they're sharing and to what they're thinking. And often, as we've all experienced, there are some common misunderstandings of what the concept is and what it's not. And so what are you running into in the way of misunderstandings when you're speaking to somebody about the concept?
• 8:51
  Speaker A: I think oftentimes I see a conflation, if that's even a word, of their expectations of their investments and taking money and investing it and then putting into this contract two separate items. As we all know, this is not an investment. This is a control of your cash flow. This is about the other. If you're investing in your qualified plan, which I'm not a big fan of, but if you're putting money in there, as Nelson was talking about back when I had this conversation with him years ago, he said, look, they're all focusing on that 5, 10, 15, 20%. They're ignoring the other 80%, which is our cash flow that we're using. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about where's that money going to reside. And if you are the banker and you run that function and you control where that money resides and you make the decisions, game changer. Now, if you got a great investment, wonderful. You got all kinds of capital, you can go and snag and deploy it wherever you want on your terms. You have to pay it back today, tomorrow, the next day, this year even. No, you don't. You should. I mean, you don't want to steal the piece, as Nelson would say, but you have the ultimate flexibility with your money. I can't think of a more accessible, more functional money system than infinite banking. I can't. And that's why I love it so much.
• 10:14
  Speaker B: This is a key element, John. I think I want to hit that again to make sure that our listeners really caught hold of what you're saying. Nelson talked a lot about the spending patterns of the average individual. And okay, everyone's trying, or a lot of the adage of advice has been to save 10% of what you earn or what you make. Very few people are actually doing that, but that's what they say. And they also say pay yourself first. But most people don't know what that means or how to actually accomplish it. And implementing the infinite banking concept is actually a way that you can do that in a very effective manner and do it consistently in a repeatable, measurable pattern by paying premium. But what's really cool is that you're talking about the flow of capital that people are handling. As Jason likes to say, it's not your money because you're just handling it because it runs through your hands. But if 80% or 90% of that money is running through your hands and you're only retaining or keeping 10% of it, which number do you want to optimize? The 10% that's left over or the 90% that disappeared? If we can fix even a chunk of that 90% that disappeared, contain it into a reservoir that allows you the ultimate of decision making and control, control and autonomy over all of your future tomorrows and a cascade effect from your future tomorrows to the future tomorrows of your next generations. Wouldn't you want to do that?
• 11:34
  Speaker A: All right? Certainly, certainly would. At the end, it's just not that hard. It's hard until you get it and then you're like, ah, the aha moment. The, the eureka moment. This week all talked about back in no one else must was teaching. But no, it was hard for me. I had to get past some hurdles myself. I'm a type one personality and I know how to do it. I'm a hard driver. In my previous world, I grew up in a finance world. My dad had a big operation. I worked for my brother. I was a series 763 guy. I was slinging commodities like there was no tomorrow. I was making money, losing money, making money, losing money. And I take heart pills for heaven's sakes. Because you're so stressed out. This is a zero stress strategy. It truly, and that's what's beautiful about it. You can be 20 years old doing this, you could be 70 years old doing this. And the implementation is the same. And it works. It works. It's stress free. Go fish. You're not going to lose a cent. It's great.
• 12:36
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's, it really is. And what's interesting, and you know, we've all experienced this talking to clients who have been in the process who have been implementing for many years, some, you know, approaching 15 years in our case. And the difference in how they view money, how they view financing, how they view their bigger future, it is drastically different than when they first got going in their journey because they hear folks like us shouting from the rooftops. Exactly what you just said. That this is a zero stress strategy, but they can't see that right away. It takes time. And Nelson emphasized that so eloquently that this is not a get rich quick anything. This is meant to happen gradually and incrementally. And in fact it'll take most people approximately 20 years to gain full control of the banking function as it relates to their needs. But when that time comes, what a peaceful, stress free way of life it is financially. And so zero stress strategy. I love that.
• 13:55
  Speaker A: It just works out. It's worked out well for me. Nelson saved my bacon. You guys probably know my backstory. I went through a lot of, with the airline business and the ups and the downs and all that, I discovered this. I'm going, holy cow, boom, this is it. You know it, it, you don't, you don't, you don't need a lot, you just need a little bit to get started.
• 14:17
  Speaker C: And one of the things that you say, John, is that every business problem is ultimately a cash flow problem. And so could you expand on that a little bit?
• 14:26
  Speaker A: Sure. I mean, if you don't have, look, cash flow is the lifeblood of any organization. You could have the best idea in the world, you could have a wonderful invention, you could have the most beautiful buildings. But if at the end of the day, you can't pay your employees, you can't pay for product, you can't keep the lights on even though you've got this dynamite structure because it's coming later. Well, I need money right now. Where are you going to get the money? You go to the bank and they give you the financial enema and they don't see your vision that you know is there and it's going to work. I mean, talk to Elon Musk. I mean, you can't do those multiples on paper. You need a spreadsheet that goes to Mars and back to try to do an Elon Musk kind of flight plan. And I call it a flight plan because a financial plan is no different than a flight plan. Where you start and where do you want to get to. A flight plan is not about taking off. And you know, in Canada, in Vancouver and going to la, you know, you need to know you don't want to wind up in New York if you're trying to get to la. And that's exactly what is it. It's a giant casino out there where people are throwing the dice going, maybe I'll get to la. Well, gosh, look at the, the current median values in American. I don't know about The Canadians, I'm sure they're similar. 401ks, what people have out there. You're going to retire on that. That's not going to happen. You're going back to work or you're going to continue to work. Infinite banking, if you fund this thing properly, money is not about dollars and cents. It's about freedom. You cannot have freedom, liberty without financial freedom, can't have it. They're intrinsically interwoven. Infinite banking is the bridge to take you from financial freedom, individual freedom and financial freedom. And putting those two things together so you can actually build the future that you want. As soon as people understand that, they're like, here, sign me up. Press hard three copies. I mean, it's not that difficult. And I have yet to find somebody who's ever regretted doing one of these contracts ever. And I started, I think, 2017, I think, is when I. My first think tank, I think. I think that. Yeah, I think that's my first one. And I was licensed long before that. I was an annuity guy trying to survive after the airline cuts. But I'm telling you this, if you're disciplined, I mean, you gotta follow the rules. You can't steal the P's. And if you haven't read the book, you know, Becoming your own Banker by R. Nelson Nash, I'm sure you can get it on Richard's and Jason's website. If you can't get it there, you can't. They're down. You can get it on mine, Flight Path Financial, but get it. I don't care where you get it. Read the book. It's 92 pages. You can do it in two hours. And if you have any questions, call these guys because they're the real pros.
• 17:18
  Speaker B: I love the idea of the flight plan as the financial thing because there's so many elements. I see. I don't know a whole great deal about the airline industry other than having logged a few miles as a passenger, but I do know that you need a certain amount of fuel depending on where you're going. You're on a short flight, you get a lot different fuel because there's weight issues and how much you're burning when you're in the air and all that kind of stuff. Those are all elements. How high are you flying? You know, you're checking weather patterns. Those change and shift while you're. You might have a pretty good idea, but they could change and shift as you're in the air. And so those are all correlated elements that are happening to people. In real time, financially, those changes and shifts in weather pattern, those are market conditions, regardless of what the market is that you're facing. And so you might already be in the air, you might be on the path heading to your destination, and you might have to make an emergency landing, you might have to hit it to a different location.
• 18:09
  Speaker A: You bring up a very interesting dynamic there. I mean, when you're flying, things happen. It's a very dynamic business, whether it's weather, whether it's maintenance, whether it's passengers. And you've got so much gas to get from A to B. And as a pilot, you're constantly assessing all those, all those variables. And when it starts piling up, what do you do? You offload the flying to the first officer. He better know how to fly. He's there to do that. Why do the airlines do that? It's so that the captain can think. It's not about flying at that point. It's about making the right decisions. And that's what you're paying your captain for. Not to fly it, but to make the right decisions. And this is no different than infinite banking. Now, in the airline business, they call it expanding your team. All right, so you're going to go, all right, I've got an issue here. I've got multiple EPS emergencies going on right now, and I'm looking at my fuel, I'm degraded here. I'm going into bad weather. I might have to do an instrument approach that's not compatible with some systems that are down. It could be any number of things. And so you expand your team and you. And with that team, you can come up with the best solution. That's what infinite banking does, because behind closed doors, behind this. Where's Nelson's? Blah. I can just show this because. Oh, gosh, you can't see. I can only show the folder. But you've got attorneys, you've got actuaries, you've got CPAs. You've got this whole group of people working behind the scenes at the insurance company for you. You're the customer. And oh, by the way, if it's a mutual company, you own that business too, as part of your company, and that's why you're paid a dividend. It's awesome. I can't think of a better combination of putting wins in my column. If I'm going down, I'm taking a lot of people with me and they don't want to go down. So I know that they're going to be doing all they can to make sure that I win. And if I win, my client wins.
• 20:04
  Speaker C: I love that. I got to tell you guys a real quick story. So, John, you may not be aware of this. So this was several years ago, and Nelson and I were invited to the Delta Airlines pilot training facility in Atlanta.
• 20:27
  Speaker A: Been there.
• 20:28
  Speaker C: And we were able to simulate in a Boeing Triple seven. And I absolutely, like I shared earlier, I. I love aviation. I love everything about it. And the extent of my awareness and knowledge was accumulated by watching every YouTube video I could get my hands on of pilots landing, taking off, dealing with scenarios, a whole bunch of things. So we get to the simulator. We're walking up to. To go in. There's an engineer that had got acquainted with us and gave us a sense of what the day was going to look like. And it was incredible. And he. He looks at me and he says, how much stick time do you have? And I said, none. Like, you mean joystick, like video game flight simulation? He said, no real stick time? I said, none. And he goes, well, I need to let you know the simulator is as real as it's going to get. And so if you experience any nausea or anything like that, I just want you to be aware that that's a possibility that could happen. And I said, oh, okay. You know, I appreciate that. And so we get into the cockpit, and Nelson was the first to go. And Paul Horsley was with us.
• 21:52
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, Paul.
• 21:53
  Speaker C: And so he was sitting in the right seat. And so I gotta tell you, this is hilarious. So when it came to my turn, what airport do you want to, you know, depart from? And I said, oh, I'd love to depart from Edmonton, Alberta. And so he configures everything and away we go. And I said, I just want to be sure, like, you're not putting this on, you know, amateur level so that there's no way I could screw this up. And he goes, no, like, you are set up to fly this airplane. And Paul's right next to me, and he goes, don't worry, I got you. Like, if anything goes sideways, he said, I'll just call my plane. You let go of everything, and I'll take it from there. And I said, okay, sounds good. So we. We leave the Runway. I have this all on video too, by the way. I should share this, actually. I'll post this on our YouTube channel. And so we leave the Runway, and I'm calling out, like, we, you know, Paul goes, V1. I said, rotate. He's like, how do you even know any of this stuff? I'm like, positive. Rate, gear up. And he's like, do you need me in the chair? So we were climbing out, and there's a cloud, you know, a big cloud formation. And Paul goes, just fly right into it. And so we did that. Obviously, we hit some turbulence. And I look back at Nelson, and I said, nelson, this is absolutely incredible. And he. He just goes, having an ecstasy fit, huh? And I said, yes, I am. But what was really interesting, again, when we think about the advantages of having a guide. So the. The next airstrip was Honolulu, and we were taking off into really, really bad weather. And Paul said, let me show you how to do this. And so he took us up, brought the plane back down, and then he said, okay, now it's your turn. So we. We go to leave, you know, Honolulu. And what I didn't realize is that they set up a simulation where one of the engines would fail the moment that we left the Runway. And so the. The. The aircraft, like V1 cut, they call that. It just tipped like this, right?
• 24:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:08
  Speaker C: And so I. With the, you know, the. The pedals. You can describe this much better than me.
• 24:14
  Speaker B: You're doing a great job.
• 24:15
  Speaker A: Right?
• 24:16
  Speaker C: And so I. I did that and kind of leveled things out. And Paul goes, what are you going to do now? And I said, I'm going to climb out. I need. I need altitude. I got to figure out what the hell is going on. Like, I know you guys hit me with something, but I'm going to fix it up there. Good plan. And so we keep climbing. And he said the same thing. He's like, wow. He's like, good. Yeah, that's exactly what you should do. And so it was a lot of fun, but having a guide, somebody who, when you run into an unexpected engine failure, in this case, having a guide where if you didn't know what to do, that guide could step in, right? And say, let me show you how to correct the problem. And you're learning. And so that's where I could see you just being so effective with clients, because you know how to sort of draw those same analogies where you can help people out that way and be very systematic in how you guide them on their journey. So I think it's just. It's brilliant.
• 25:16
  Speaker A: Well, that's a very, very nice compliment. Could you tell my wife that for me?
• 25:20
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 25:21
  Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. They're happy to do that. But anyway, the gist of the story is that the experience was out of this world, and they presented. It was so awesome. They presented me with this amazing certificate of simulation and Nelson and I got a pic with each other in the cockpit, and I had that all framed up and hanging here in my home. And it just brings back an incredible experience. So credit to Paul, if. If he's listening, shout out to Paul for putting that together and inviting us. It was a once in a lifetime experience. Phenomenal.
• 25:57
  Speaker A: That's wonderful. Can I expand on that a little bit, what you just discussed?
• 26:01
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 26:02
  Speaker A: You know, there's what happens, what you talked about when you get into a tough situation, you get a V1 cut, loss of an engine on takeoff, like you were talking about what happens to our attention. All it's doing, the pilot is beginning to focus on the adi, the little, you know, little airplane in front of them in the instrumentation, and they begin to lose focus on everything else around them. So what you have to do to maintain situational awareness, what you talked about, it's compartmentalization and delegation. So you know what's going to hurt me right now? I got to fix this. I got to make sure the airplane's flying. You know, where am I going? Are there mountains in front of me? I don't want to hit those. And then I got to tell somebody what I'm doing because air traffic control's out there going, where's this guy going? What's going on with him? They want to know because they're trying to move airplanes. So those three things. So it's the same thing. So now you're delegating to the other pilot. You say, hey, do this, do this, do this. We're not real polite in the cockpit. It's do this, do this, do this. And you have to be. It's very matter of fact, and it has to be. But infinite banking, tying it all together. You know, gosh, there's so many people out there. They're worried about their money, they're worried about the markets, they're worried about their job, all this stuff happening. And they're trying to make a good decision. And so what's happening? Their focus is beginning to narrow. All they're caring about is, what's my rate of return? Forget that. Look over the horizon. You know, things that may have happened in their life that could have some bad life events. I tell people, take that rear view mirror, rip it off and throw it in the back seat or out the window, because it doesn't do you any good anymore. What's important now is right out that front window. That's incident banking. Incident banking is your front windshield, and that's the horizon. You need to be Looking at. And so you delegate where you need to. And so if I'm a consumer out there and I'm looking for good financial advice, I'm going to call Jason, I'm going to call Richard, say, hey, I'm going to delegate this to you. I need some guidance. I need a good air traffic controller, I need a good co pilot, I need a good captain, I need a good maintenance guy. I need somebody who's going to help me see what I'm not seeing right now. That's what the process of infinite banking is. It's bringing your group together, picking the right people, of course. And you know, this is not a transactional business like so many of them, unfortunately are out there. We are not a transactional business. We are a process. We are a people business. And I'm sure you feel the same way I do. I don't care if I sell you anything. I want to make sure you're pointing in the right direction. I'm going to make sure that you're not going to hit terra firma, you're not going to hit the earth. Because you were talking aviation a minute ago. In the old military context, that's called PK probability of kill. And they talk about it in ratios for missiles and all this stuff. Well, what's the PK of the ground? 1. 100%. You hit the ground, you're done.
• 28:55
  Speaker C: Well, and there is, there is such a thing as controlled flight into terrain.
• 29:02
  Speaker A: But that's not a crash, that's not a PK1.
• 29:05
  Speaker C: That's somebody who's. They think they've got everything going properly financially and they're just controlling that flight right into that terrain.
• 29:15
  Speaker A: Well, that's the focus thing and that's where you delegate. One guy is always flying the airplane. That's key, you know, matter what's going on in your world when you're in that airplane, someone is, whether it's the pilot or the captain or the first officer, somebody has absolute authority on the controls. They're making sure. And that's why you pass it off to the first officer, who should be very skilled at that. So the captain can think because there's a lot going on sometimes and you gotta, geez, I gotta take a deep breath and have my proverbial cup of coffee and think through what my plan of action is gonna be. That's ibc, that's you guys.
• 29:51
  Speaker B: Key elements there, John, that I really connect with is I think that ultimately the consumers, the clients that we serve and that we wish to serve, they have Never been trained to be a pilot of their financial airplane, right? And they're always in control. They just didn't realize it. And so they've been abdicating it to random people who also have no hours behind the wheel of a financial aircraft, but they claim to.
• 30:19
  Speaker A: Right?
• 30:20
  Speaker B: And so the result is that they don't even know that control is sometimes being handed back them because there was no communication in the cockpit pit, Right. They don't even know that they're communicating, handing it off to a first officer, maybe a financial professional they've engaged with. And there's not proper communication about what that delegation handoff is. So that person doesn't know what they're supposed to be doing. Meanwhile this person thinks that they are doing everything for them, but that's not the case. So I think there's a lot of elements that happen here. And so ultimately the survival of that plane, reaching a destination, landing safely, etc. All depends on that responsibility. Captain's chair comes with responsibility. That's why not everyone gets a chance to get sit in the captain's chair. Not everyone will take that lead initiative. But when it comes to your financial life, you don't have a choice in the matter. You have to take on that responsibility. You are the captain of your financial life. If you're listening to this, you can't have.
• 31:13
  Speaker A: That's what the defined contribution plan is all about. It's offloading all that responsibility to the individual, has no training from the defined benefit plan, which is what we came from. And there's, there's only a handful of them out there. Most of them are government plans that are defined benefit plans. Most, most companies have gone away from that, as you all know. And so now you got these people, you get, the sheet of paper says, okay, what do you want? You want global growth? You want small cap, large cap, aggressive growth? They're like, I don't know, what does that even mean? And how much is that costing me? That's garbage. That is absolutely garbage. Because now you're in a partnership plan with the irs. They call the shots. You try to get your money out of there, good luck. You can get half or in the United States, $50,000 or half, which is ever less. And then you got to pay it back. IRS is five years. Some companies are down to four years and they take it out of your paycheck. And most people don't realize you're double taxed on that money because why the money went in tax free. Now you borrowed it out. You got to Pay it back as you're paying it back, you're paying it back with what? After tax dollars? And then ultimately, at the end of the term, when you take that money out again, guess what? You're getting taxed again. At what rate? We have no idea. All we know is we got in the United states, we got $37 trillion of debt, and only about half the people in the country are paying any taxes. Where's that money going to come from? What's going to happen here? But I do know I can't fix that by myself. But what I can do is I can build my own personal economic model founded in infinite banking, where I can control it. I can go buy my real estate. I can go. If there's a great stock opportunity, I can go do that if I want to do hard money lending. Think of it. Anything you can conceive of in your mind, as Nelson say, it's infinite. You can do anything with this money without restriction. That is not true with any qualified plan.
• 33:03
  Speaker B: For instance, there's another key element that Nelson would talk about when he would use his headwind, tailwind analogy. And he would reference airplane stuff and he talked about what he knew and he related it to other people's lives. But one of the elements was the reference point of people trying to get that 10% rate of return. Well, in the element of the airline analogy, it's like, okay, you've got your airplane flying at 100 miles an hour, but you're trying to get it to fly 110. Well, if you get it to fly faster, or you might reach your destination faster, but you're also adding stress on the airplane and the elements. And so, you know, never having sat behind the cockpit of a simulator or a real airplane, but I do know that every motorized thing usually has a red line on it. And that red line is a suggestion that you shouldn't stay at this level for long before something bad happens. And if you go all the way to the far end of the red line, that bad thing will happen much faster. So the degree to which the human condition is trying to chase after this ever better, greater, faster, higher rate of return is a degree that you're putting stress on your financial airplane and your financial condition and taking on all that risk. At some point in time, an engine failure is going to happen or some other element is going to happen and you're going to have to land the airplane, financially speaking, Pause fix.
• 34:24
  Speaker C: Correct.
• 34:25
  Speaker B: Which just means you lose time, effort and energy. And so all the returns you might have received are now obliterated by that correction or, or pause that has to happen for you to retool everything and get yourself back on the horse. So I think that's a really key analogy that people should take heed of. That Nelson talked about directly is it doesn't matter if you're flying at ABC speed if you're just trying to make it go faster. Faster doesn't always work. Faster isn't always better because you often end up creating, you know, it's the law of unintended consequences.
• 34:56
  Speaker C: Yeah, I would say, oh, go ahead, John.
• 34:59
  Speaker A: No, I was just, I wanted, I wanted to couple into something you said. And I've never thought about this before until this conversation and it has to do with flying airplanes and headwinds, tailwinds. I've never thought about this before. But what do people do when they're getting toward the end of their working years? They're taken, they should be lowering their risk. But a lot of them are upping their risk because I don't have enough money. So what are they going to do? They're going to try to fly faster. Well, there is a, there's a speed at which it's called L over D max, right? That's what's the optimum speed on the critical angle of attack on the airplane. And you get up to cruise, all the variables kick in. There is a long term range cruise speed and that's your, your optimum speed you're going to fly at. Can you go faster? Sure you can. But guess what? So you're, you're going from zero up to this speed and you're going to burn this much. I'm backwards here on myself burning this much gas, right? If you try to fly faster than that, you're going to go Instead of Mach 0.78, you're going to do Mach 0.84 because you can't, your fuel doesn't go like this. Your fuel burn goes like this. You burn fuel much, much faster. Same thing in a portfolio. If you start trying to lean into that really hard, are you going to have the results you would if you just level that thing out and had slow and steady as you go. But you did it from way back here and you brought it into the future. It's a much saner way of approaching your, your finances in, in my view.
• 36:24
  Speaker C: I, I just think 100, 100. And you know, on looking at this, this whole notion like when Nelson shared that every decision that you make with money is a financing decision and one of the Things that I understand, you know, that we all teach, is that, you know, paying cash and taking a bank loan are financially equivalent. But most people's brains, you know, short circuit on that idea. And so what are your thoughts on that, John, in terms of paying cash and taking a bank loan being financially equivalent?
• 37:02
  Speaker A: Well, I agree with you 100%. Now, if you, if you, if you're going to pay cash for something, it's arguably better than taking a loan from a bank. Okay, I got it. You're part of the way.
• 37:13
  Speaker B: There's.
• 37:13
  Speaker A: But what is your future purchasing power from that money? So all of us who use the infinite banking concept, we have the money. We're not using our money, we're using other people's money. We're taking a loan from the general funds of the life insurance company. Our money stays fully invested by this team of really bright people who are working there and our and everybody else's best interest to drive that portfolio ahead to meet the obligations of the company. So when we borrow, well, we all know dividends aren't guaranteed. So I'll just hit that real quick. So there's two parts to an insurance contract. Dividend, whole life policy. You've got the guarantees, which are paltry. I mean, those are small interest guarantees, but then you've got the dividend. Those are not guaranteed. However, the companies that we all use, they've got a history going back over 100 years that's paid them like clockwork. Every major disruption, every major economic disruption, every war, they have paid dividends.
• 38:07
  Speaker C: So there one thing real quick, John, one thing that Nelson. So this came up, Richard, you remember when we had Nelson in Kelowna and we had a bunch of advisors in the room, and we had a few representatives from a mutual life insurance company in the room. And one of those representatives said the same thing. One of those representatives said, well, hold on a second. Dividends are not guaranteed. And Nelson said, to the contrary.
• 38:38
  Speaker B: The.
• 38:39
  Speaker C: Only dividend that isn't guaranteed is the one that has not yet been declared.
• 38:45
  Speaker A: True. Statement. That's a great way to say it, too.
• 38:48
  Speaker C: And so in that moment, everybody in the room had the same reaction, John, that you just had. Now, the only dividend that isn't guaranteed is the one that hasn't been declared yet. Once it's declared, it's contractually guaranteed to be paid. It cannot be repossessed, it cannot lose value ever. And so when Nelson said that words have meaning, super important that we clarify that, because that is the language that is ingrained in life insurance. Company wholesalers, home office personnel, executive leadership.
• 39:21
  Speaker B: It's on their marketing material.
• 39:22
  Speaker C: Yeah. Dividends are not guaranteed, whereas they should be communicating factually that the only dividend that isn't is the one that hasn't been declared yet.
• 39:32
  Speaker A: That's an excellent point. I'm going to start using it.
• 39:34
  Speaker B: Jason.
• 39:35
  Speaker A: That's good. Really? I really, really like that.
• 39:37
  Speaker C: Good.
• 39:39
  Speaker A: Can I give you a real life example? Because it's me. Yeah. Yeah. We got a terrible hailstorm here a couple years ago. Roof got pelted. Went through three roofing companies, said, you need a new roof, your roof's going to leak. Insurance company, this Property and Casualty, not the companies we would ever use, came out and said, no, not from the hail. So I had to wind up actually going to court over this. But in the interim, I started to get leaks inside the house. What am I going to do? I'm going to sit there and wait for the court system? Forget it. I'll have arterial sclerosis by the time I get a settlement. So I needed 30 grand. I got a big roof. So I got my roofers out and I said, throw a new roof on there. I need 30 grand. Most people don't carry 30 grand in their pocket. I don't. I have it deployed. Where did the money come from? Came from my contract. I had that money within a couple of days.
• 40:24
  Speaker C: Love it.
• 40:24
  Speaker A: So I decided I would take that 30 grand and I'd pay it off over. I think I paid it off in about six or eight months. I paid it off, but what I did is I looked at the cost of the money and this is. This is the nominal value, right? Nominal value, not interest. We're not talking about that. But. So the interest rate of that money was just under 5% and my dividend was close to that. So I had that money at a nominal wash. Now, you can argue all the other economic variables, but on a dollar for dollar basis, that money was awash. Now if I went with one of their third party lenders that was willing to give me the money, it was about 13% on the money. Okay. If I paid them over a four year period for their 13%, how much money is that that I just gave up? You talk about paying cash. I just used other people's money. I levered into that. And I benefited from the growth of the company's business model because they're doing an awesome job. Not ever guaranteed, but in my case it was a wash. So I used money for eight months for nothing. And I put a new roof on My house. Not bad.
• 41:35
  Speaker B: And you probably still ended up solving to some degree, hopefully the insurance settlement issue and you maybe got some of that back.
• 41:41
  Speaker A: Oh, I'll tell you a sidebar on that one, because I won't and I can't. Hey. All right. I don't want to make it public, but I'm four for four with Fortune 1000 companies. I'll tell you that. I don't. I don't mess around well, but I got to be right. If I know I'm right, I'll go after him hard. But which is otherwise.
• 41:58
  Speaker B: And you had the time. That's the other thing. Key thing here. If someone wasn't in your position, John, the exact same circumstance, but they didn't have access to 30 grand, they wouldn't have been able to make that decision and fight. They might have still went for the fight. Maybe they would have been right. But I'm guessing it took a while. It probably didn't resolve itself in 12 months.
• 42:15
  Speaker A: Right? What is that? You've just identified financial freedom. That's what it looks like.
• 42:21
  Speaker B: That is the unseen of infinite banking right there. Because that's a real world scenario. And so anyone that's been in that position where the transmission on the car goes, you need new winter tires, the car crashes, it's going to cost you $6,000 to fix. It doesn't even make sense because the car is only worth three. Now you need to go get a new car. These are real world scenarios that people encounter all the time. That control over the process of banking with access to capital resolves for you to a degree that you can make an informed decision. And you will never see that on an illustration or a spreadsheet. It doesn't exist. It only exists up here and right here in your heart where it actually matters to how it intersects with your life. Now, further to that meeting that Jason's talking about, if anybody listening wants to go check out that incredible session, you can go watch those videos Jason's referring to at learnfromnelson.com that's learnfrom nelson.
• 43:19
  Speaker A: Let me say it again. I'll write this down.
• 43:20
  Speaker B: There's a video series of about 30 videos. You can have your book with you and you can listen in as Nelson goes through a seminar reflecting on and speaking to advisors. Primarily. A lot of good book recommendations, good discussion. It's all. There's captions and there's a B roll of Nelson's book recommendations and his book in there. Even going through the equipment financing example. So learnfrom Nelson.com is a great resource we've put together for you.
• 43:45
  Speaker A: Awesome.
• 43:46
  Speaker C: Thanks for the reminder.
• 43:47
  Speaker A: You guys have done so many cool things. I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen that are listening out there, if you want some of the most innovative people that you'll ever meet, you're looking at them on, not me, them. Holy cow. I still have your banking with family shirt. It's my favorite shirt. That black shirt. You guys had that one day. That one.
• 44:06
  Speaker B: You won that for being the first person to jump up for a question at one of the.
• 44:09
  Speaker C: That's exactly it. Yeah.
• 44:11
  Speaker A: I love that T shirt. I love that T shirt.
• 44:13
  Speaker C: So John, as we, you know, prepare, make our final preparations for landing. What's the craziest thing you've ever seen in a cockpit?
• 44:26
  Speaker A: Ooh, do you want a scary story? A funny story? What? What do you want? I mean there's a lot. All right, I'll tell you one that I was going to put in my book. This is a true story. I'll try to make this real short. I was deployed as flying out of England, Desert Storm, right. I was a co pilot B52s during this period. And I'm flying with a crew that I'd never flew with before because when we showed up, the commander said you can't go into combat without going with one of our guys or intro. So your aircraft commanders need to fly with our guys. We're like, what the heck? We've been flying as a crew, an integrated crew all this time and now we're going to combat. I didn't even know these guys names. Bart was the ac, I was the co pilot. Well if we, we better not get shot down or I'm SOL here because I don't even know you guys. They're going to beat the living daylights out of me. So here I like potato chips. It's an 18 hour flight to refuelings, a long way to where we went. And so I had this big bag of potato chips. We're turning IP inbound. That's the initiation point. One minute from drop bomb release at 38,000ft, 45,000 pounds of weapon we're about to release. And so my job as the co pilot is to hit the pressurization switch. We go to 7.5 to 4.5. What that is, is it's in case you take damage. You have hit by flak, as flak was out there, puts a hole in the airplane, you get an explosive decompression, right? So you reduce it, you cut it in half. So it's minimize it. So anyway, so here we are. IP inbound. Checklist is running. You can hear the rumble. Doors are coming open. All this stuff is happening. I go to 4.5. What do you suppose happens to those potato chips? Boom, back out our window. And now we got these potato chips flying across the cockpit on the bomb run. Lucky for me that Bart's gun wasn't loaded because he probably would have shot me up there at 38,000ft. He would. They were not happy with me. Who the oh no heck is this guy? Yeah, True story. Cockpit flak.
• 46:20
  Speaker B: What I think you're telling me, John, is that you actually are all that and a bag of chips.
• 46:27
  Speaker A: The craziest things can happen. I mean, it was. What do you say at that point? But you just head between your tails. I'm really sorry.
• 46:38
  Speaker B: I think my response would have been, does anyone have any dip?
• 46:42
  Speaker A: Any great Poupon, perhaps?
• 46:45
  Speaker C: Well, John, you know what comes up for me in today's episode is three words. Flight path to freedom.
• 46:59
  Speaker A: Bingo.
• 46:59
  Speaker C: That. That's what comes up for me. And to all of our listeners.
• 47:06
  Speaker B: If.
• 47:06
  Speaker C: Something, you know, stirred you during this conversation, that's not a coincidence. It's clarity. And so don't let today just be another round trip journey of information. Take action. Start asking better questions. And if you want to, you know, get off of the financial hamster wheel, as Richard would say, then maybe it's time that you found a good Runway and picked up a good airplane and a good assembled a good team to help guide you in implementing this process. And you just do not have to continue giving your cash to banks, to financial institutions, to the irs. You can absolutely take it back. And the flight plan, you just heard it. So Rich, take us home.
• 48:10
  Speaker B: Well, I would echo that. I also like nice big bag of chips. But I will be more mindful when I'm taking it on airplanes in the future. Thanks.
• 48:18
  Speaker A: Don't get pressurized with chips takeaway.
• 48:21
  Speaker B: John, you know, you've shared a ton of great value with us here. Thanks for being on again. I really appreciate it. And you know, shout out to all the great analogies and what you're doing to help people. You obviously, in your time behind the wheel of an airplane, you know, doing all the incredible runs across the globe that you've done. I'm assuming that you didn't wear a cape for any of those particular endeavors. You probably were dressed in an appropriate attire, maybe on a Halloween trip. I suppose it's possible, though I've never seen it on one of Those. But you may not know this, but you're showing up as a hero for people when you help serve them in this process. And so our question for you, John, is who do you most want to be a hero to?
• 49:01
  Speaker A: Honestly, in this context, the guy that got me here, and that's probably Nelson, in all candor. I mean, we all have our heroes in this world, and that's a big word, but, I mean, I wouldn't be doing this at all had he not said, you all come out here to Birmingham, what are you doing? On Tuesday, he. We had that phone conversation. I flew to Birmingham to meet Nelson. I would not have been here without. Without that call, and I would not have met you two gentlemen. And I can't think of, for those that are listening, you, gosh, you know, Richard and Jason, if you want the. The Ivy Leaguers of infinite banking, there they are. I mean, there's a number of them, right? There are. There's some great. Everybody doing is a practitioner I've got enormous respect for. But these two gentlemen in particular drop everything I'm doing and help, help them anytime I could because they're just that good. And they're so faithful to the mission of what Nelson laid out for all of us. Building the 10%, that's what this is all about. And you can be a part of that 10%, too, and you can expand it and you're doing a good thing. So love that, John.
• 50:12
  Speaker C: And for all the folks watching this on the youtubes, you just saw another video show up, and that's our way, as always, of recommending that you continue your flight path, continue your journey of learning. And as Nelson always reminded us, there's no such thing as having arrived in knowledge. And so don't just consume this episode, do something with it. Use it. You've got everything that you need just on this channel alone. You've got everything that you need to stop flying commercial and start piloting your own airplane. So to all of our viewers and listeners, thanks for flying with us today.