[00:00:00] Speaker A: The foundational wisdom of using a participating whole life product as a capital repository. You can build capital, which is an economic principle, and you can utilize that capital to fund your lifestyle.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Our guest today is the president of Infinite Banking Concepts llc, which controls the distribution of becoming your own banker and Infinite Banking concept materials, the copyrights and the trademarks. He is the late R. Nelson Nash's son in law. He started working directly with Nelson Nash in 2004 and then Nelson asked him to take over the company and continue the IBC legacy in 2009. David has been the director of the Nelson Nash Institute since it was formed in 2013 and he's a retired U.S. army lieutenant colonel serving 27 years in the army with four kids and nine grandkids. He has something to say about family legacy. Welcome to the program. David Stearns.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Hey Richard, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Well, I'm excited to have you on. We've known each other for quite a number of years now, going back to about 2012 when you and I first had the chance to meet. And it's been a wonderful relationship. And I really wanted to have you on the program because for a variety of reasons. Number one, I thought it'd be great for our listeners to get a bit more of an in depth understanding as to the power of what this thing called the infinite banking concept is, but to also talk through some of the challenges of making sure that the general public a has awareness of it. But also they recognized why it is difficult for people to even understand that this concept is possible. So maybe we'll start a little bit there. You know, you got exposed to this earlier on because you wanted to, of course marry Nelson's daughter and you were forced into the situation fundamentally.
But over those years of of course, being a member of the family now, you started to slowly learn and embrace over time the importance of using this in your own life. So maybe rewind the tape a little bit and talk us through just from your perspective, what the infinite banking concept is at a high level degree and why do you think people need to be aware of it and know more about it.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Internet bank is a paradigm shift, number one. So most people think it's a scam because they don't understand what we're talking about. Okay?
And infinite banking concepts, which is a critical word concept, especially when you get into the compliance realm, is talking about creating a privatized banking system that the owner controls and uses, okay? To essentially earn what a banker would earn or bank owner would earn. Okay? So really, it really Frustrates a lot of people because they think that they're buying a bank. Okay. And unfortunately bank charters are hard to come by and they're expensive to, to purchase. So Nelson came up with an innovated idea and he came to, you know, he didn't, he didn't just wake up and warn and said this is great. I'm marketed make and become a millionaire. This was a life journey for him. Also. Nelson was a forester, so he understood how to grow things. And most stuff he grew were like a long range products, that is trees that you didn't see any financial windfall until 30 or 40 or 50 years out. So he took that, that background and then when he became a life insurance agent, I think I said something negative there, I'll keep going down that path. He melded that understanding of growing capital, that is Trees into growing capital, I. E. Dollars in a whole life insurance policy.
And he, you know, he saw this as a way to get away from the snakes and dragons. And that's what he calls bankers, snakes and dragons who owned him. Okay. Some of his real estate investment ventures were, were underwater back in the late 80s when the interest rates jumped to the roof. And, and so he just did that personally for his personal life to get out of, to get out of the grip of the bankers. And then of course he's selling life insurance.
And so he saw his, his, his clients, most of them were small business owners, that this would be a perfect way for them to create their own line of credit through, through a, a life insurance system of policies. And so for me, you know, being a, being an army guy, I was very linear thinking, very standardized thinking. I want everything to be perfect. I wanted everything to be dress right, dress. And so when Nelson, you know, asked me to join him in the business because you know, he was, he was a one man shop and he was selling life insurance and all of a sudden he's selling books like crazy. All of a sudden he's doing seminars all over the country. So he needed somebody to handle all the administrative stuff for him. And so he paid me to do that. And so I'd watched all, as he was doing his seminars, I'd be watching him and listening and I'd be doing, know, selling you know, books in the back of the room and whatever and trying to figure out what was going on so I could be a good steward of the concept. And of course, what did I do? I tried to standardize and I tried to say, you know, let's, let's take this concept in your book, become your own banker. And let's, and let's get it through compliance. Yeah, let's get through insurance compliance. And if you want to get something through insurance compliance the United States, you go through New York state insurance commissioner. That's the place to go. Because they're, they're, as far as I know, the most rigorous agency on the planet when it comes to getting insurance products, you know, approved. And so, you know, Nelson looked at me and he just, he just did this and said, you have at it.
And so that was, that was my first contribution. I said, oh yeah, I'm going to make a good contribution to the, to become your own banker. The NF concept. I'm going to take this thing to new levels. And so after about two weeks of beating my head against the wall, and for those of you that don't know what insurance compliance is, if you have a book and that book talks about any numbers, any kind of illustrations, any kind of concepts related to financials, whatever, you have to, you have to have a, you have to cite everything and you have to, you know, one of the Nelson, one of the numbers Nelson talked about was 34.5% of the average American males after tax income goes to paying interest.
Okay, 34.5%. Where does that number come from? If it's 33.7%, you're wrong. Okay, so long story short is my first lesson that I had to overcome working with Nelson was no Internet banking concepts is a paradigm shift. And so I need to think differently also. And so I moved away from the compliance piece and I got into the, okay, this is an exercise in imagination. So I need to get on board quickly. You know what I mean? So that, that was for me, but my personal journey.
You know, I married Cam, Nelson's daughter in 79. Both my first policy and change it for before the wedding, which is, which I couldn't afford.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: You were voluntold to purchase that policy, I believe.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: Well, what, you know, the story I tell is that not only did I buy the policy two days before my wedding, but I met, I met Nelson for the first time two days before my wedding when he sold me the policy. So that was quite a, quite an experience. But I didn't really, you know, back then in 79, infant banking concept was nowhere in a planet. And it was. Nelson was selling whole life insurance. That was still, that was, that was the, the gold standard in the insurance industry. And that's what he sold. That was great. But like I said, he didn't, he didn't really understand what he was doing and really understand the power, power of this, this product, this dividend paying, participating, whole life insurance policy until the late 80s. And I didn't get it. Even though we're using policies as collateral to buy stuff and finance it through these insurance company coffers, I didn't really understand until 1992.
And that's what I used an insurance policy loan as a down payment, a 20% down payment for a conventional loan to buy a house.
I mean, hey, last time I checked, if you, if you wanted to buy a house and get a conventional loan, you, you really, it wasn't really smart to go get a loan for the 20% down payment. You probably wouldn't have your mortgage approved, right? Well, I was wrong because this asset is different, okay? It's different than a conventional loan. There's many things that are different about it. The way they handle interest, the way they handle internal rate of return. Everything's different. You got to think about it differently and use it differently. So anyway, so that's, know that's, that's where I'm at. I've been doing, you know, doing this, you know, for 20 years now. And Nelson, we lost Nelson in 2019.
And so it's been, it's been a little bit lonely since then. But Nelson rings in my ears 24 7. And every time I have a conversation like today, he's, he's listening to it. I can hear him whispering in my ear.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: We all have a conscience. Yours just has another voice attached to it.
One of, one of the incredible things about that journey, again you talked about down payment on a home. And again, you're going back several years or 1992, just the idea that you could access capital from a system that was created and that it was in place that allowed you to go buy that home and put 20% down. For some people, they're not even do that. And you were able to control the environment. And so now shooting forward to today, your whole family operates inside of this system. You have a number of insurance contracts, but the contracts are just a tool. It's what you do with them and how you incorporate in your life. And you've really embraced this and turned it into a lifestyle. So how would you express the idea of that lifestyle to someone who's just learning about this for the first time?
[00:10:34] Speaker A: When I think about it as lifestyle, you know, I don't think of it as, you know, paying an insurance premium in lieu of making a contribution to a qualified government plan or, or Whatever I think about it as like a lifestyle is you live it, you breathe it. Okay? Money goes in, money comes out. You're. You come, you track your, you track your premium payments, you track your loans, you track your loan repayments. You find better ways to be a responsible banker, quote unquote.
Whenever you talk to your family at family meetings, you talk about what's going on. Hey, listen, you know, the anniversary date of that policy renewal is coming up next week. And you got a $45,000 outstanding loan. You got $3,500 of interest.
Now let me tell you what you got to do. You got to pay the interest first. I mean, you have those types of conversations. So, so the family can better be better suicide their money also. So they understand the best way to maximize loan repayments within a life insurance construct. So those are, you know, those conversations happen all the time. And it, you know, it's just, just a fact of life. I mean, you know, cars, houses, tuitions, whatever you're paying, you know, the first thing you think about is like, okay, do I have room to, to finance that? Okay, windfalls.
You sell a piece of property and you come up with some money, or somebody passes that money. So what are you going to do with that money? Are you going to take a vacation? Are you going to dig a hole in the ground in the backyard and bury it? Or are you going to put it somewhere where it's going to continue to grow tax free? I mean, those types of thoughts are always going around in the family. So everybody's. You think about that. And I chastise the kids, my kids all the time. They're grown adults with a kid, their own children, but they're not as responsible as I want them to be. Their portfolios or their systems are not as big as they should be. And so those, those, those conversations are always brought up and talked about.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Also, are you looking for a great book to read? Turns out I have one for you. It's called Cash Follows the Leader. It's available anywhere books are sold, but if you want to get a free copy and you can download it right to your inbox, you can go to coachcanfield.com cash follows.
You know, in the modern world in North America, people aren't having conversations about money and they certainly aren't having constructive ones, not in the home. And it becomes a stressor for everyone. So the virtue of implementing this process, which is not, you know, the, the insurance product is just a product as a tool, but the process and the discovery and the in the, in the construct of conversations that you're having is really where the rubber hits the road. And I think that's such an important thing for people to understand. And if you haven't done so, please make sure you get a copy of the book Becoming your own banker. That is where all this information comes from. So, you know, we won't read you the whole book here today, of course, but you know, for me it completely changed my life in 2009 when I got a copy. And you know, that led to me eventually meeting you, meeting Nelson, getting unbelievable mentorship. He poured into me in a way that no one else really, really has. And so I'm eternally grateful and been able to be blessed to help so many people because of it. Now there really is a movement here and I just want to reflect back on some of your experiences because, you know, another instance of you using this is really when you, when you moved to Birmingham and you actually bought Nelson's house and then you ended up doing a pretty monstrous renovation. Now I was able to be down with you here recently. About a month ago, we put on an incredible session for authorized infinite banking practitioners, a training event called the Coaching Academy. But we were able to break bread at your house. Wonderful meal. Walk us through a little bit about the idea of purchasing that home and then, and then going through the renovation process. But using the infinite banking concept as a, as a, as a platform to be able to make it all happen. I think that's going to be helpful for our listeners to understand.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a good case study. It really is. But we moved to Birmingham in 2000. We bought a house, oh about, about two and a half, three miles from, from Nelson and Mary's house. And they, they lived in their house since 1963. The house was built in 1960 and Nelson, one of his hobbies was, was building. And so he took this, you know, 2,500 square foot, two story ranch house and he doubled the size of it with, you know, in 30 years, you know, of living here or whatever. Anyway, in 2010 he was getting on in age and Mary was, you know, always wanted something nice and pretty and new. And so he one day we came over for dinner or something and he looked at him and I says, you said you wanted to buy my house eventually. Well, we're moving so you still want to buy it. It's like, oop, gulp.
And this is, you know, this is 2010. Things were not going very well. And the housing market in 2010, if you remember abuse. The whole, like, economy was, Was. Was on its knees. And so I'm thinking, well, if I buy their house, I got to sell my house. And that doesn't. That doesn't feel like it's going to happen. At least not the price I want. And so, you know, we said, yeah, well, you know, we'll get back to you. And so Kim said, well, yeah, I think, you know, I think we can do it. You know, listen, let's. Let's, you know, talk about it. So more. So we did. Anyway, came back, said, okay, Nelson, we'll do it. But. But you have to understand that, that if we buy the house, we're going to do some major renovations on it. And, And I mean, he was in love with the place because, like I said, he just kept building on it looked like, you know, one of those, you know, Chinese Hong Kong apartments that kept, you know, kind of growing a little bit. But anyway, he says, yeah, once you buy at your house, I don't care. Okay? And so we decided by. He said, okay, here's the price of the house. You get a family deal, and it's great. So, okay, we'll do it. And so instead of going through a mortgage company and doing all that stuff like that, we, you know, we went down to a real estate attorney, did a contract for us. We took it down to the, to the, the county and had the deed register. We paid, you know, 10 bucks or whatever to do that. So that was transferred to ownership, right? Then both just transferred it. Boom. And then hired an architect, and she took a while and we had to pay her. And basically when she came to the house, she says, okay, you know, what don't you like about this house? And what do you want? So we told her. So she said, okay. She just came back a week later and she said, tear it down and start from scratch, because the difference between what you want and what you got is going to be huge. And I said, well, can we do what we want to do? It was. Here's a preliminary plan. Yeah, we can, but it'd be a lot easier for the builder if you just tore it down and start it from scratch. Said, no, we can't do that, because, you know, Nelson, love this place. So we're going to. We're going to do it. Okay. Long story short is it took a year to. Once we brought it to, we moved into it and we hired a builder, and the builder said, okay, this is what it's going to cost. It was about $500,000 and he said, we're going to invoice you every two weeks, and it's going to be around 20,000 bucks, something like that. And, you know, some cases it'll, you know, be a month or whatever, but it's going to be typically, that's what it's going to be. Okay, fine. And so we looked at our system of policies back then. We had bright 20 policies that either Kim or I owned, looked at all the cash surrender value in there, said, well, we have over $500,000 in cash surrender value, so we can handle this. And by the way, once we sell our house, then we'll have a place to put the windfall from the house sale. So we initiated the first policy loan, and back then, it took about a week to get the money. They mailed us a check. We didn't have a direct deposit in our bank account. So we get an invoice from the builder, and we had a $20,000 check already and, you know, already deposited in our checking account because we asked for it a week earlier. And so every two weeks, it was a cyclic thing, you know, policy loan, policy loan, policy loan, policy loan. And we used them as a building loan or a construction loan. And so we lived in our house two and a half, three miles away. We're paying a conventional mortgage on that.
We. We put the house on the market, and of course, nothing happened. But we didn't. I mean, we really didn't care because we. Our cash flow was the same because these policy loans are being cut from the insurance company and they're deposited. Then we wrote out a check, you know, $15,000, 25,000, whatever it is, to the builder. And it just. Seamless transition. We never lost one, any momentum because of lack of funding. He knew that he was getting his check, and so they, you know, and we, you know, our house is still on the market. And we planned on moving to the house in May of 2011 in our house and sold. Well, guess what? August 27, 2011, this massive tornado came from Alabama. We went through Birmingham in the morning. Then another one went through Tuscaloosa that afternoon. And there was over 200 people that were killed in the state from tornadoes. And the house I was living in was not damaged. And that morning I was watching all kinds of stuff, you know, hell break loose. And so as soon as it calmed down, I came over here praying that this house was still together. It was perfect, had power, no trees down. It was perfect. The house I was living in, no power. So we took it. Let's move all of frozen goods, refrigerated goods, over this. This house here. So we, you know, save the food. Did that. Well, that night came along, still no power. Well, let's move a mattress over there up next morning, still no power. Let's move some clothes over there. Long story short is after a week, no power in the old house, and we just about basically moved over here completely. So now I own two houses. I'm living in this one. And it was done. Except for the punch list is still being done. The builder, you know, held back. I held back 10% until I was happy. But hey, besides the stress of the storm, now I own, you know, I was in. I had owned two houses. I lived in the new one, old one was still full of my furniture.
And it's like, hey, you know, we haven't. We haven't paid back one loan yet to the insurance company. Did they care?
No, because those loans are nothing but, you know, collateral against my insurance policy. Death benefit. Yes, the interest. I was being charged interest. But hey, it was, that was. That's a good example of lifestyle. Okay, so. And then, and then, guess what?
One month later, we sold our house.
And once we paid off the conventional loan, we had this pretty sizable chunk. And where, where did it go? Went right back into the policy loan holes that were still remaining from the loans that we took. Purchase this new house. So, I mean, that's. That, that's how it worked. You know, it was, it was, it was, it was perfect. And. And it's like, hey, that is total control.
That's total freedom. And that is, you know, besides the stress of selling the other house, it was, it was, it was, it was beautiful. It was seamless. And, you know, we talk about, you know, relocating now, you know, because, you know, I'm a little bit older than you are, Richard, and, and Ken always talks about moving south, you know, the Florida. And it's like, oh, no. You know, it's like. Well, you look at the, you look at the. The policy loan portfolio, the system of policies that she and I still own, and we can do the same thing. You know, low stress, you know, boom. You know, policy loans, buy it, you know, move into it. Then this house, we want to sell it, then, you know, it's worth a lot more now than it was back in 2011. And we can, we can do that. Of course. I don't want to move. I want to stay here.
But I mean, that's the beautiful thing about infinite banking. It's, it's. It's it's, it's not about comparing this asset to that asset, this interest rate to that interest rate, this tax exposure to that tax savings or tax deferred. It's not about that at all. It's about freedom. Okay? That's why a lot of, a lot of our practitioners are outside the box, early adapter type of people like you are, because they see this and they get it a lot faster than the common person does. And I'll tell you why. Because watch the super bowl and tell me how many infinite banking commercials there are. Or go down to name, name your advisor and tell me who knows what infinite banking is.
Ask Mr. Ramsey what he thinks about it. And I mean, that's fair because if you're not exposed to it and if you're not, you know, quote unquote, rethinking your thinking, you're probably not going to see it, hear it, or if you do understand it, you know, so, but, and then, and you know, Carlos Laura is, he's a quarter director with me with the Nelson Nash Institute and he's an Austrian economist layperson and he coined the phrase gaining the 10% or building the 10%. Know as a Malcolm Gladwell chipping point comment where if, if we can build the momentum, the grassroots momentum of infinite banking, infinite banking concept within America and Canada, you'll get to a tipping point which is, you know, according to Gladwell, it's 10% of the population, whatever that demographic looks like, 10%.
And I really believe that, that we're almost there, I really do. And I'm seeing a lot of activity both within my sphere of influence and unfortunately outside of it. That confirms that this is starting to take off. And the more onerous the central bank is and the top down thinking from the federal government, the more people appreciate what freedom looks like. And we're not talking about some off the wall oddball. They were talking about just taking control of your financial assets and using them to recapture a lot of interest that would go somewhere else.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: And on that note, we're going to talk a lot more about the freedom this provides when we come back after these messages.
Okay, Richard, I keep hearing about this thing called the Colby H Index. You talk about it all the time on the show. What is it? How do I get information about this thing and why is it so important?
When I first got my Colby done, it totally revolutionized everything for me. I finally felt like, oh man, this is what I was looking for. All the things I've been doing that have been working for me and all the frustrations I'd had if I just understood this at an earlier age, boy, oh boy, would my life be different.
You can take that step. If you want to learn and understand how it can change things for you and the way you communicate with others, you can go to coachcanfield.com and download your free report.
We're back with David Stearns and we're talking about his experience and his lifestyle experience with the infinite Banking concept. What we learned from the amazing R. Nelson Nash. David, of course, getting to spend the most amount of time with him in the last number of years of his life. Nelson, again, who was my friend and truly a mentor for me, he would often say that the last decade of his life was the best and the people he met, the things he was able to do, the response to his concept and the mission that it provided. And today we have approximately almost 300 people who are authorized practitioners in North America that are out there teaching and helping people embrace Nelson's concept. So. But they're up against some challenges as well, David. So from your perspective at the Nelson Nash Institute, really an educational organization is your format. What are the challenges that people are being faced with, both who are trying to teach the concept and for those in the general public who are attempting to absorb and to learn about it?
[00:27:38] Speaker A: Well, I feel like a mosquito and a Neuter's College. Where do I start? No, yeah, this is kind of related to the tipping point thing I was talking about because we're getting a lot of exposure and unfortunately a lot of it's coming from individuals either in the insurance industry or even not even in it, who have become self proclaimed experts and influencers. Okay. And they don't know what they're talking about or they do, but they, they're, they're electing to give out information that they think would make them more an influencer or more wealthy. Okay, so there's a problem now. You know, we created the Nelson National Institute in 2013. And the reason we did that was because three or four insurance companies, mutual insurance companies that supported what we were doing, they supported the IBC concept and in fact a couple of them actually designed whole life policies that, that would support the concept, whether you could design the policy and use it.
But, but they kept saying, you know, we want you to develop a training program so we can, we can know that the agents that are using your concepts are doing it correctly. Okay. Are trained correctly. And before that happened, you know, Nelson was kind of, he still had a life insurance license. He was, you know, Kind of retired from the industry. And he. And he didn't want to get involved in that. I never have been licensed or contracted with any insurance carriers.
And so what we did was relied upon some of our insurance agents who sponsored Nelson seminars, and they support what he was doing, and they, you know, use his products to sell life insurance. So we use them, say, listen, you know, what are you using for agent training? You know, how do you guys do it with your agency? Or how do you do it? So we got several people that had some, you know, pretty good little. Little training programs that did it. And, and we kind of pedal those in front of the industry. And he said, no, we want something to come from you guys. The experience that I had personally using these other agent training programs is kind of like we'd sponsor them or we'd promote them, and we'd say, hey, listen, if you want to understand how to do this, go to his, you know, training session, whatever. Well, what would happen was, you know, you know, the human problem, human nature would take over. We can do. That's another segment, I think. But they would get gouged for training. You know, they'd get charged a lot of money.
The agent would go off the rails and do, you know, go down some rabbit hole that wasn't consistent with Nelson's philosophy and his training. And so we said, okay, listen, we can't work with any agents anymore. What we have to do, we have to create our training program. And I talked about Nelson being a forester and thinking 40 to 50 years down the line and also being a.
An Austrian economist. Well, I guess I didn't mention that with Nelson, but he was. He had that Austrian economic mindset that he picked up from some of his mentors early on in the 60s. And so Carlos, Larry came up the idea, okay, let's create a training program, but it's not built around agency training per se, selling product. Let's build it as a strictly educational program so our students can understand that the foundational wisdom of using a participating whole life product as a capital repository. You can build capital, which is an economic principle, and you can utilize that capital to fund your lifestyle. And so we'll talk about the Australian model. We'll talk about becoming your own banker. We'll talk about all the stuff out of the book. We'll talk about the economics of life insurance. We'll talk about, to some level, case studies and policy design. But it's going to be a foundational, economic kind of curriculum. So we did that, and then. And we Used several insurance companies, actuaries and legal departments to make sure everything we're doing was, was legit. And there's nothing funny money about the illustrations that we did whenever. So, so that's what we did. We built that in 13.
And so I thought it was going to be like, wow, they're going to love this. This is going to be great. Well, some of the agents that were involved with IBC, you know, 2001, 2, 3 and 4, all the way up to 13, they, they didn't need any kind of training. They knew everything they needed to know. They didn't, you know, you know, can't teach me anything. And so when we came up with the program, we said, listen, we want everybody to reset that's involved in the IBC model, that's involved in what we're doing. But we didn't have any membership or anything like that. So we said we're going to create an institute and we want you to be members, but you have to go through the course and you can. No rubber stamps. Everybody goes to the course. Well, so we probably picked up 50% of our little group that are doing that and over the course of the next few years lot more came on board. But that was, that was a challenge because, because most of them didn't understand why they needed to know what Austrian economics was about and, and how to talk about economics within the construct of, of life insurance. So that, that was a big challenge. Now you know, Nelson, you know, Nelson was, you know, he was all for it and, and the, the, the, Nelson was involved in several of these libertarian Austrian organizations, Fee, one of them, Mises Institute, another one. And, and they were all a bunch of PhD economists and they talked about, you know, a lot of stuff and a lot of them were consultants and they were, you know, researchers and they were academicians and you know, all that stuff like that. But they really, in my mind it was not any actionable type of things they did. Nelson always thought that infinite banking concepts was Austrian economics in action because you take that concept, you know, sound to sound money solution, you go look that up and you can actually employ it at a, at a, at the UN ME level. He used to Nelson say at The U&ME level, I. E. You could create your own privatized bank, okay, Even though you're not creating a bank, you're acting like a banker and, and you can, you can control the flow of money and your sphere of influence, you know, instead of having, you know, top down kind of thing. So that was, we wanted to get through to these ages to understand that. So they weren't selling product. What they were doing was they were outlining the problem for their clients and their prospects. So the pro, the client understand the problem. And if you, and so you don't introduce your B's life insurance policy, you introduce a solution to that problem. Right? And that was the whole context of the course.
And you know, 11 years later, we're still, we're still growing, so that's good. But, but another piece about this, what we hear all the time, even from the life insurance home offices, is that there is no training in the industry now. All that kind of evaporated in the early 80s, you know, back during the ERISA days and back during the, you know, the federal government qualified plan time frame. And everybody kind of, they kind of like walked away, you know, from a lot of these training platforms. And the old idea was trying to innovate new products to compete with mutual funds and you know, IRAs and all that stuff like that. So I think, you know, don't ask me to qualify this, but I think that we have one of the only pure training programs for life insurance agents out there that provides them a foundation to build on. Okay? And that's what it is. And the Coaching academy that you mentioned earlier is a live capstone event for those students who go through our training program, because that's the training program that we offer is self paced online with a manual, a proctored, live, proctored examination. And the capstone event is they show up for a two day academy and they take a deep dive into becoming your own banker. And it's facilitated by experienced IBC practitioner agents who do this every day with clients. And they say, this is how I use chapter one of the book. This is how I. It's important for you to understand how to promote this concept with your clients. And this is why, and if there's any in these Nelson's books, it's kind of hard to get through. Okay? It's ridiculously simple. But the concepts can get, you can get lost in them if you don't really stay on track and you understand where he's coming from. And so the coaching academy, that capstone event, solidifies that. You know, plus a lot of our students that go through are new to the industry because how they, how they get there, they were clients of practitioners, they bought policies, they've used them, they've gotten into it and they said, man, this is, this is doing so much for me. Just like you mentioned at the beginning of this this segment, I mean change your life. Well, it's changed in their lives too, but now they want it, they want, now they want to be a practitioner. So you share the good news. And so that's good except for they don't know what it means to be a whole life insurance agent in an independent one man shop. I mean, what's the failure rate? 90%.
[00:37:43] Speaker B: So it's very high.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So part of the Coaching Academy is a two hour segment to say, okay, you're getting into a small business, okay, and you need to figure out how you're going to position yourself in the industry. You need to figure out who your customer niche is. You need to, you know, a b just run them down the elevator road to give them a path to success. So we provide that formula. So and we also provide them mentors that are existing practitioners that will help them work with live cases and help them position themselves where they can't be successful. They work hard. Not everybody's going to make it because you know, you're selling product ultimately so you have to really, you know, have to be good with it. But so we provide that also mentor and also the Coaching Academy piece.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: In the year 2009, my life completely and totally changed.
Something momentous and incredible happened to me.
That thing was this incredible book, becoming your own banker. It was written by my mentor, an amazing friend of mine, R. Nelson Nash. It completely revolutionized and changed my entire life.
You can learn all about it by registering for a free on Demand
[email protected] Take the initiative. You won't regret it.
Since attending my first think 2012, I have made life changing connections with people and deep relationships with people that though we are separated even by an international border, I may not get to see see them physically all but once a year. There's a deep bond and connection there because we're bonded by this idea that of just how impactful this work can be and how it helps people at the unity level. You shared a couple of stories of how it helped you personally, David, and there are many more beyond that and, and we've heard that from thousands of people. So when you get a group of 300, you know, financial professionals together, but they're all sharing stories about the 300 clients that they serve and just how many amazing impacts it's having across their, their world, it really is something to behold. And so when I think about the ongoing aspect of this, this process and this concept and where we're going. You talked about building the 10% which is so fundamental. You talked about the Austrian economics and I've, I've previously interviewed Larry Reed who is former president emeritus at foundation of Economic Education. We talked about that, we, we mentioned Nelson, we talked about the Blinking Lights award. When we shoot forward, when we look into a brighter future, we think about this idea of building the 10%.
The real importance of that is, you know, the difference between again a top down thinking and a bottom up solution, as Nelson indicated. And so if we want to make real impactful change, if you can individually be personally profitable, happier, less stressed about money because you have control over the money that's flowing through your life in your daily hands and your family is also protected at the same time frame, that creates a peace of mind. But now if you have a whole bunch of people in a nation doing that and they're taking their money, which would normally be sitting in a brick and mortar, a commercial bank, and instead it's warehousing with an insurance company, they're not able to inflate the money supply. Today at the time of this recording, inflation is a real problem. It's attacking and impacting us daily. And people think it's the rise in the price of goods, but that's not really what's going on. It's the devaluation of the currency and that's creating this hidden tax on the backs of the consumer. So if we have a massive group of the population really doing this, we can get that 10% tipping point. What type of impact do you see that really happening on the broader scale economically for a nation?
[00:41:40] Speaker A: You know, I think it's gonna, it's, you know, we're talking about borrowing hard currency, okay. Not, not digital currency, I. E. Keystrokes that transfer money from, from one account to the other account. That doesn't really exist. You know, the fraction reserve banking system. And so the more people do this is, you know, theoretically it's kind of, it's kind of, it's going to slow inflation down. These are not increasing the money supply. Okay. And that will help. Number, you know, number two is hopefully these insurance companies will under, you will see the benefit of this stuff and they'll, and we'll, see some new companies grow.
You know, the, the last big thing that happened in the 90s was a lot of these mutual insurance companies demutualized. And the reason they demutualize is because they, they, they couldn't raise capital and compete with these other financial institutions. Because a mutual company, the only money that comes in is premium, right? There's no IPOs, there's no stock options is, you know, premium. Of course they have their, their investment portfolio so they can have long term growth to pay off their, you know, their obligations and whatnot. So these companies demutualize. Well, wouldn't it be great if we had a couple of brand new mutual insurance companies pop up and get, and get funded and grow that, you know, can get as massive like some of these, like the big four, quote unquote, but they're all predicated upon this type of concept and they have responsible policy owners who, who are adamant about eventually having all their income flow into these policies as formal premium and how many billions and billions and billions of dollars that would be. And, and, and insurance companies, they, that money doesn't sit there. They, they have to buy investment vehicles and stuff so they can, they can have long term growth like I said before. So that would fuel the economy by itself, at least that segment. But you know, if, you know, the one thing I do think about though is that, okay, if somebody's watching this grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, what happens if they don't want it to grow? And who are they and what kind of power and control do they have? You know, so, so that could be an issue also.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: But so we have to be mindful is what you're saying, and be be aware of where the, the dangers, but also the opportunities lie as we look to grow this, you know, both, you know, as wide as we can, but as deep as we can. And when I say deep, I mean the people that are already doing it, they, they are embracing it more and more. They're doing it to a larger degree in their own family life and they're extending it to the generations that follow. And for you, you've got nine grandchildren, you have policies, you know, cascading throughout your family and it's going to create a legacy of a ripple effect. So maybe just to kind of cap this off a little bit, David, I'd like you to speak to that, you know, from a legacy perspective and what that means to you and your experience to share with our listeners.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: You know, there's many ways you can use infinite banking. It's not just built for one thing. It's not built for debt reduction, it's not built for college funding. It's built for everything where you have a need to finance and also a great place to save money. But kind of my wheel of house is the generational wealth transfer piece simply because we were, Kim and I were Nelson's guinea pigs when he kind of put that chapter together in the book.
And so, you know, we have a system of policies that were built on that same little model that he had in the book. And I wish they were bigger, but they're not. But anyway, so I look at generational wealth transfer differently than a lot of people do.
When somebody says, okay, I buy a lot of these insurance policies and so generational wealth as I die, the next generation gets the death benefit. Well no, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm Talking about a 70 year old guy buying a policy on a newborn grandchild and you buy the biggest policy that the insurance company will issue for that, that child and it's not going to be as big as you want it to be for a lot of different reasons. And who's the owner of the policy? The 70 year old grandfather. Who's the beneficiary? The 70 year old grandfather. Who's paying the premiums? The 7 year old grandfather who's insured individual. A one week old baby. Now that doesn't sound like it makes the smart test. You do that because can I buy more life and death benefit on myself than a one year old or one week old baby? Probably. But that's not why I'm doing it. I'm doing it because the plan number one is that the child's parents also have policies on them that the grandfather and our grandmother own. So now you have the grandfather owning on the child and the grandchild and the grandfather pays the premiums, the grandfather is the beneficiary. But when it comes time to pass the generational wealth down and the grandfather decides he doesn't want to make any more premium payments, then he transfers ownership of that policy that he owns on the child to the child and transfers ownership of the policy on the grandchild to the child's father, grandchild's father. So transfer ownership. Okay? And now that, now those two policies that have been enforced for 20, 30 years maybe or even longer are now Transferred to a 40 year old male or female who is still making their way in life and you know, fighting off the snakes and dragons. Now they have a well oiled machine that they own and yes, they're responsible to make premium payments.
Now they, they have an asset that they can use to expand their system.
How they expand it?
Policy loans that they can use to potentially buy some more insurance on their children or grandchildren. And that's that side. Okay? It's a ripple effect. And so these things are cascaded down and then if, God forbid, if somebody Passes, then you have a windfall that you can, you can, you know, as I said earlier, you can, you can deposit in these, these policies in the form of either premium or loan repayments. But the idea is that generation that's two generations down to get an asset that is growing uninterrupted, compounding like crazy that now they don't have to struggle like we did when we're trying to, you know, make a living. Now they have something that's as already well funded. If they continue to fund it correctly, they'll have a, they'll have amazing assets that they can, they can continue to work with, you know, and so, so the kids would do the same thing. They, they, they ripple down and buy the next, next generation also. And so it's kind of a ripple effect and it keeps rolling out. The individual who's most able to afford the policy buys it. So the next generation will get it eventually. Like I said, it could be 20 years, it could be 30 years, it could be 40 years, but they'll get something. And the longer these policies are able to be funded or the premium is, is, can be paid, the better it is. Because if you had a bank and you were, and you wanted, every time you put a deposit in there, it grew. Why would you want to go through, have a bank door and say, okay, you can't put any more deposits in there. You can't do it contractually, you can't. Well, why would you not want to do that? Well, you know, the more you put in, the more you got access to. So most of the policies that we buy now in the states that are on grandchildren are paid up in 121 years.
Okay, that means you can put money in, you can pay premiums as long as that, that insured individual is alive. As long as that policy is, is in effect, you can pay premiums on that thing forever. And a lot of people think that's, that's crazy, but think of it differently. Think of it as a banker, okay, that, that's an entity that I want to put as much money in there as I can for as long as I can. And oh, by the way, the loggers enforcement, it can maybe transfer from generation of one to two and maybe even two to three.
Eventually that grandchild who's 70 years old will have a policy that's 70 years old and it's worth three or four million dollars in death benefit. And who knows what the cash surrender value will be? I mean, who wouldn't want to do that?
[00:50:52] Speaker B: We could take financial energy, from a generation that lives now to one that isn't able to do it on their own. And we can create perpetual motion. And you've done that in your family. You've created an incredible system that allows that to happen. And because of Nelson's work, because of this book, becoming your own banker, which has changed my life as it has changed yours, as you described, today, there are hundreds of thousands of people that are saying that same story. And that generational impact is something that can't be ignored. And so, for those of you watching, if you don't yet have a copy of the book, become your own banker. Make sure you get one today. And stay tuned for our next episode as we continue to unpack the major challenges that people are going through and how they're overcoming them and where they're finding innovation into the future.
