[00:00:00] Speaker A: Understanding and acknowledging that we don't want to use AI to replace people in our organization.
Where do we see AI being our best copilot, seated right next to us to help us do things faster, better, cheaper, insert whatever efficiency would be helpful to your business.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Welcome back to innovate and overcome. I'm excited about today's guest. This guest is a personal friend of mine, someone I've known for many, many years. I'm excited to unpack his amazing journey. He is the CEO of the low family group of companies, 13 companies to be exact. At least that's where he's about to add. Company 13 at the time of this recording and employing over 100 people amongst all these companies. Now, I've known this gentleman for a long time. Again, amazing friend of mine. Welcome to the show. Jason Lowe.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Now, Jason, of course, we've known each other for such an amazing time, and at present you're the CEO of multiple companies. The primary one, the big Kahuna we'll call it, is ascendant financial.
Together we help people implement the concept of becoming your own banker, as taught by the late R. Nelson Nash, someone who both you and I had the pleasure to get to know personally and be mentored by. Um, we are constantly thankful and grateful for his influence in our lives.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: But I want to kind of rewind the tape before ever meeting Nelson, before learning about the concept of infinite banking. Sure, let's rewind the tape a little bit back to when you left Ontario, Canada, and you drove all the way across the great nation of Canada on a very long road trip, and you found yourself in Edmonton, Alberta, where, you know, in the area where you presently live.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Take on a major role with, with a company that many people will be familiar with. Walk us through some of the challenges of leaving home.
What are some of the things that transpired in that preceding timeframe as you were making your life as a young man in a brand new environment?
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Well, the, you know, leaving home where you were born and raised and moving to a completely different part of the country, that in itself is stressful, let alone the, you know, the nature, the reason, you know, for the move, which was all career related for me personally. And I had a number of family members that had relocated to western Canada, and so I was able to connect with folks that were close to me. But it was a brand new environment, brand new people, brand new career, and it was exciting, but it was also really challenging because I was very early in my own journey of leadership. And, but I had an opportunity when I moved out west. It was originally with a company named Staples, which most people would be familiar with and perhaps may have even shopped there on one or two occasions throughout their lifetime. But at that time we were opening 26 new stores a year. And when I moved out west, I wanted to take on a leadership role. And one of my mentors, who still a dear friend and mentor of mine to this day, he said, jason, if you want to lead, build something to lead. And when you're working inside of a corporation, sometimes that's difficult to do. But I was blessed with an opportunity to build a new line of business in technical services from the ground up. And that's what gave birth to my first opportunity to lead. I literally took his advice and said, okay, we're gonna go build something to lead. And I gotta tell you this real quick.
In, in a store when people would come in and they were buying paper for their inkjet printers, and I would always ask these people, what kind of computer are you plugging this printer into? And people of course would have thered be a wide variety of different computers. And then I just started asking the question, whens the last time you had that computer tuned up? Well, people naturally would say, what are you talking about? Whats a computer tune up? Do you have a hoist? Do you put it up there and you tune it up? So this is what gave birth to this service related business, which then blossomed into, let us upgrade your memory, let us upgrade the hard drive, let us upgrade the CD ROM, which some listeners won't even know what the hell that is. But that's what gave birth to this business. And I was obviously inexperienced in leading. I was inexperienced in growing a business, but I was very acutely aware of the advantages of surrounding yourself with great people who could help you achieve, you know, whatever that objective is that you may have. So that was one of the earliest challenges that I can think of that I was able to overcome and build a multimillion dollar service related business within a big corporation.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Well, that's probably what they refer to as the Geek squad these days, I think. Which they still operate out of.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Well, that, yeah, with another company, I think Best Buy, they ended up buying the Geek squad and implementing that in their business. And with Staples, now the technical services part of that business is in every single location wherever Staples operates. And that all was born out of what kind of computer you plugging this into. And when's the last time you had it tuned up? And so who knows? What one great idea can lead you to if you're perseverant and ambitious enough and you believe in it enough to make it an achievable reality.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Right now, shortly after landing in Edmonton and starting that new career, you received an unfortunate phone call with some really unfortunate news. And I'm sure many of our listeners will have received phone calls similar to this. But what transpired, that was part of the next aspect of your personal journey that really we talk about the business here a lot on the show, but everything that we do in business has some connection to our personal life and vice versa, that they're intertwined. It's very difficult to separate these two things and, and they, they impact us, uh, in so many tremendous ways. So I think people will get a lot of value out of hearing what transpired for you and how that materialized in your life.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Well, uh, I'll never forget and I, I've told this story so many times and uh, when I was leaving Timmons, Ontario and moving out to Edmonton, Alberta, and my dad at that time, because my sister had already, my only sibling, she had already moved a few years earlier and so I was now moving out of the province and he, he wasn't one to really display emotion, you know, unless he was upset with something. But in that moment, you know, he, I'll never forget, I was standing in the foyer of his home and he just kind of wrapped me in this big bear hug and he said, I'm really proud of you. Drive carefully out west. Don't get any speeding tickets. Call me when you get there. Just great fatherly advice. And when I got out west, I didn't call, literally got straight to work. And I did get a speeding ticket along the way. By the way, thank you to that RCMP member that pulled me over right outside of Winnipeg. Really appreciate that. And when I was in Edmonton and I didn't call home, a few weeks had, you know, gone by and we were really busy getting the store set up there. And I finally called home and my stepmom answered the phone and she said, well, your dad's busy at the moment, do you want to hang tight? And I said, no, it's fine. Just let him know I made it here and I apologize. He would have demanded an apology. So I said, just tell him im sorry I didnt call.
And then that next morning, it was just before noon, I was working in the store and I get paged to pick up this urgent phone call. And when I picked up the call, it was my stepmom and she said, I need you to get to the airport. I need you to come home. And I said, well, whats the matter? Whats going on? And she said, well, your father passed away. And it had literally occurred just moments before her making that phone call to me. She discovered my dad. He had retired. And almost a year to the day that he had retired, he was doing what he normally did, which was check the mail and sit at the dining room table, opening the mail and figuring out what he was going to do with his day. And he just passed suddenly and unexpectedly. And so that is a moment when you receive a phone call like that, it just. It changes your world in an instant, in an absolute instant. And I didn't take the time to grieve the loss of my father, and not too long after the loss of my mom, I didn't take the time to grieve. I tried to bury that grief in work, and that just fed my workaholic issue that I still deal with to this day. I'm a full blown workaholic. It's the most publicly accepted form of addiction, and I'm working on it, I'm getting coached on it. But the one thing I'll share with you that was really powerful, which I hope it impacts someone out there who's watching or listening, that when you lose a loved one and you're nothing, taking the time to really process that grief or to talk to somebody to help you process it, it's really detrimental. It's detrimental to your mental well being. It's detrimental to your physical well being, and it manifests itself in a number of ways. But when I finally attended grief counseling, one of the things that the grief counselor invited me to do was to write a letter to my parents and express to them, if I had known that that was the last time I'd be communicating with them, to really, truly express everything that I would say. And so I went through that exercise, contacted my grief counselor, said, hey, I'm all done. I've got it done. They said, well, you're not done yet. You need to invite your family to attend your next grief counseling session, and you're going to read these letters out loud with your family present. And that created this waterfall of emotion that had been bottled up, and I'll never forget it for the rest of my life. He was seated right next to me. He leaned into me. He asked, how are you holding up? And I said, well, I feel really emotionally drained. And he said, that is what I want you to take away from this. That when you feel the emotion, let yourself feel it. Don't try to overshadow it or store it away and try to forget about it and replace it with things like work, which just takes you away from your family, the very people that want to help you process this grief. So I would say to anybody, when you experience the loss of a loved one, take the time to grieve and connect with people who want to help you through that. And don't try and be the macho man and or the macho woman. And I try and just file it away and not address it because it's not helpful for anybody.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Well, you know, you talk about the workaholism, and I suspect that certainly on the number of individuals I've had the pleasure to interview on this program, there's a consistent theme there amongst them. And the high performing entrepreneur finds themselves often in that scenario, whether it's because their back is against the wall or whatever, and there's these epic highs and even lows. And in the low situation, sometimes the fight or flight response kicks in. And for most people who are high performing entrepreneur, it's a fight response and it's to plug in, head down, just kind of go for it. And I think that that's a really common trend for people. So I appreciate you sharing that because I do think it's a lesson people need to take no, take heed of. And we're going to hear more about Jason's entrepreneurial journey as he began the process of building building 13 companies. After these messages, are you looking for.
[00:12:04] Speaker C: A great book to read? Turns out I have one for you.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: It's called Cash follows the leader.
[00:12:08] Speaker C: 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 cashfollows.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Welcome back to innovate here with Jason Lowe, the founder and CEO of Ascendant Financial. Thinking about your experience?
One of your next major challenges, Jay, happened, from at least my understanding of your incredible story, is having an opportunity to be transitioned out from the Staples organization to another well known organization and being able to move into an international work assignment, going from small town kid in Ontario to big city Edmonton, Alberta, to now having an opportunity to move all the way down to Tampa, Florida. So how did that materialize for you? And what was that challenge like? Being able to say, okay, Im presented with this amazing opportunity. How do I even weigh these options to make the decision that Im going to go and literally leave my country? Leave everything that I know and move lock, stock and barrel someplace else.
Trey.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: Well, when I was recruited by Dell, which most viewers and listeners would be quite familiar with, that organization, wonderful company, great company to work for.
Amazing leadership development program there, bar none. And I had an opportunity to.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Move.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Internationally, and I was given a choice of a few different locations, and I selected basically my route to visit these three locations. I wanted to visit the location that was struggling the most first, and there was intention behind that, and ill share with everyone what that is. So when I arrived in Tampa, ill never forget it, ever. So I get there, and theres an armed security guard for people to get into this office space, which I found to be a little bit bizarre, but I thought, okay. And he hands me this visitor badge. And I asked him, I said, well, how do I get my hands on one that has my photograph on it? And he said, well, you actually have to be employed directly here on site to be able to do that. And I said, well, would you humor me? I'll keep the visitor badge on. That's what I'll scan in and out of the building with. But can I get a photo card? Just humor me. I'll give it back to you before I leave. Got my word. He goes, yeah, yeah, of course. Come on in. So we get this photo card, and I tuck it into my pocket, my pant pocket. And then I met with the team, and there were 65 plus people there at the time, and the metrics were not good for that location at all. And they were providing commercial support to customers. And I met with the whole team, and I said, look, I've traveled all the way here from Canada, Rebecca and I, my girlfriend at the time, my wife today, I said, you know, we're contemplating relocating. And, you know, moving two blocks away from where you live is stressful enough, but going to another country, I said, look, uh, this is a fix or close it scenario, bottom line. And I just need to know that you want to fix it more than I do.
And, uh, so I connected with the site leader there, and I said, look, take all the time you need to have this conversation with people.
Let me know what you decide to do.
And so it's probably 20 minutes. Half an hour went by, and the site leader came to get me, and he said, we've decided what we want to do. So I go in the room, and everybody says, we want to fix it. I said, are you absolutely certain that you want to do that? They said, yes, absolutely. And so I stood up and I popped the visitor badge off my belt, and I took the photo badge out of my pocket and I clipped it to my belt and I said, I'm moving to Tampa. While the place just kind of erupted, went nuts. And it was such a special moment because someone believed in them enough to say, not only do I believe that we can achieve great success here, but I'm going to put my address where my mouth is and I'm literally going to move. So I called my boss at the time and I said, I made up my mind. I'm moving to Tampa. And he said, well, you still had two other locations that you were planning to visit. And I said, my mind's made up. And he told me in that moment, he said, you passed the test. And then he hung up on me. And so I knew that being on this executive leadership development program, that I had just passed the test, which I wanted to take on a challenge that I just knew that could be turned around if there was chemistry. I believe that any team that wins at anything, pick your sport, pick your business, pick your niche, whatever it is, the teams that win are the ones that have the best chemistry. And I know how to develop chemistry on a team. And so that began. And by the time I moved back to Canada, when Rebecca and I got pregnant with our firstborn and my actual entrepreneurial journey began, Tampa was the best performing center in the network, and there were more than 700 employees by the time we were done there. So. And the chemistry was rock solid. And that's credit to the team.
I just, I just, part of my unique ability is I just know how to assemble a group and a group that has chemistry. And so I'm most proud of them because they were the ones that achieved it. But im very blessed to have had that opportunity.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Trey, tell us about becoming your own banker. When did this enter your life and how did you make the decision that you were going to change everything you were doing to go double down on this incredible concept? Jeff.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Wow. It takes me back to 2008 and when Rebecca and I had moved back to Canada from Florida. So we, of course, developed some great friendships and acquaintances and loved to socialize with folks who we were down there. And one of the folks that I had developed a great relationship with, his name is Matt Love lady. And he had reached out shortly after I'd moved back, and he had sent an email initially and he said, hey, we're going to be hosting this event. It's going to be in Las Vegas, and it's a three day conference and were going to be learning about what I later knew to be the infinite banking concept, this process of becoming your own banker. And so I called Matt and I said, im not really sure what this conference is going to be all about. And he said, well, Jason, look, whats the worst that can happen? Come down, spend a few days. Youll learn something. Im going to be learning, too, and we can get caught up. And I didnt have the financial resources to go, but determined to get down there, I attended. And I was one of two Canadians in attendance, which was my first business partner, I guess, if you will. And there were 300 plus people in the room. And we learned about this concept. And so we came back to Canada and we began to ask every life insurance company that would take a meeting with us, given that we had no experience with these companies, we had placed no business with them. I wasn't even licensed in the industry at the time. And they were answering and affirming everything that we had learned regarding this amazing concept. And so my wife Rebecca and I decided to begin implementing it personally first.
And then we began to educate, share the message with people while we were simultaneously right in that journey of learning ourselves and implementing it ourselves. And it wasnt until a few years later that I actually knew of the book titled becoming your own Banker, which was authored by our late mentor, the late R. Nelson Nash. And when I had the opportunity to first meet Nelson, this was at a sales conference in Michigan.
And I walk in the room and I sat down, and right next, across the road next to me was Nelson. So I recognized him instantly, introduced myself. And you have to remember, he spent the latter part of his life in Birmingham, Alabama. So his accent, his southern drawl, we had this great conversation, and then he says, where are you from?
I said, well, I'm from Canada. And he goes, huh, I'm surprised you all can speak american.
And instantly, you know, when there's chemistry.
That was the beginning. That was the domino that tipped over in a multi year mentoring relationship where we spoke as often as we could, quite often. I would connect with him every week. And he was kind enough and generous enough with his wisdom and his expertise and his time. But this gave rise to getting into business and being an entrepreneur. And maybe your editor can edit this out, but being scared, my first year as an entrepreneur, after covering all expenses and just barely doing that, my net income year one into my entrepreneurial journey was a whopping $186.
So while simultaneously looking for a new pair of shorts because I crapped myself looking at those financials, my wife Rebecca said something to me that ill never forget for the rest of my lifetime. And heres part of the overcome.
She said to me, she said, jason, I need you to know because I was contemplating going back to a corporate life.
And she said, jason, whether youre earning minimum wage at Walmart or you create and earn a fortune, I'm going to love you just the same.
Don't sit on your skill. Don't sit on your talent. Get up, get to work. I believe in you. You've got all of our support.
And that was a rocket booster because I never wanted to ever feel like I was letting her down or our children. That started coming along and she just reassured me, hey, its going to be okay, but dont sit on your talent or your skill. You got to get up and get to work. And it was like say no more. And I was off to get making it happen. And fast forward now several years later and weve got a business that operates across North America and were very grateful and fulfilled to serve so many people. And it's a business that, it's a multi, multi million dollar business and it's operated by really, really amazing people who have really strong chemistry. And so I couldn't be, I just pinch myself sometimes because had I not gone to that conference. So I want every viewer and listener, if you're thinking, hey, I've been recently invited to something that might help me, but I don't have the resources to go find a way to go because you just don't know what Domino's going to tip over for you and wherever that's going to lead you in your entrepreneurial journey.
[00:23:52] Speaker C: 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]. dot take the initiative. You won't regret it.
[00:24:30] Speaker B: You got started, you got up and running and you're now teaching this concept.
I'm coming along for the ride in the process. Um, what happened as you were building the business up? You know, you think you were, you know, things were going really well, doing seminars regularly, meeting people.
Something transpired when you were at an event a few years later and it kind of, it was almost like you had to hit the pause or the stop button and retool everything. So, so what transpired there from an entrepreneurs journey?
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Oh, boy, this is a great story that I hope is really helpful, you know, to folks who are watching and listening. So I was partnered up for eleven years and seven months. Thats not a short period of time. And most partnerships in business a, dont last that long and b, dont end well.
And I just knew that there was a change where people were leaving the organization. The chemistry was non existent and I was already contemplating, look, it's time for me to move on. And I called Nelson, actually, I spoke to Nelson directly about it and he said, you already know in your heart of hearts what you want to do and you just need to do it. And so I was at an event in the US and one of our canadian team members that I had just recently hired had shown up to the canadian office and that partner had asked that employee to leave the building, like literally right after the employee just said, hey, I just want to say good morning, introduce myself.
Here's what I'm here to help Jason with. And so that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. And I returned to Canada and a day later had announced that I was going to be doing something completely different. And without hesitation, the very next morning, that partner said, you need to leave and everyone who's here with you needs to go too.
And so I asked him, are you absolutely sure that this is what you want to do? And he said, yep. So first phone call I made in the parking lot was to my lawyer. And my lawyer said, you know, when somebody's screwing up like that, there's no sense interrupting them.
And so thats what gave birth to ascendant financial.
And ill never forget this, I got to tell you this. So when we moved all of our stuff out of an office into a new office, which we acquired in a three day timeframe from a realtor who spoke to me, heard the same story, and he said, im going to move a mountain to get you a space. And hes a client to this day and will, if youre out there, we appreciate you, youre amazing.
And so we are moving into this new office space. Now, this is in February and up in Canada in February when it was about -847 degrees celsius, not very. So we move into this new space. And I had a decision in my minds eye. So for every entrepreneur, pay very close attention to what Im about to share.
I literally sat with myself and I said, look, ive got two choices here.
I can write the script of what the next eight weeks is going to look like and literally hand out direction to all four of my team members at the time and say, here's what the next eight weeks is going to look like. I need you to do this, I need you to do that. I need you to do this, I need you to do that.
Or that. So that would have been managing the situation, or I could have decided to lead the situation. And so fast forward eight weeks, and I sat down with all of our team members, and we were five at that point, actually hired someone. And we're sitting around this table and I shared the same story because everyone was saying, we've grown so much. We persevered like we're in a rhythm now, and we really feel like this is going to blossom into something great and big.
And I said, here's the distinction.
If I would have managed the past eight weeks, I would have robbed each and every one of you of the opportunity to grow the way that you have over these past eight weeks. Well, tears started flowing from team members who felt the impact in that moment because they really took the time to reflect on how far they came just in that eight week period.
Fast forward to today. We operate across North America, gainfully employ incredible people. We have wonderful strategic partners that deliver services to us, that help us serve the people better. We've got our employee stock ownership program that's launching on January 8, 2025. All of our team members, including our contractors, are going to have an opportunity to have ownership interest in the business.
None of that would have happened if I didn't have boundaries that were crossed. That triggered me to say, we're going to go and do this differently, and I am going to be the one that is going to build the chemistry in this group, and we're just going to be unstoppable. And so in that moment where I could have caved, we pushed through. Because when I was asked to leave the building rich, all my technology, all my access to client records, everything was turned off in an instant that would have caused most people to cave. You talk about fight or flight. Well, when I felt the fight or flight in that moment, I sprinted into the fight because I was like, there is no way that Im ever going to be taken down, first of all, and secondly, certainly not this way. And so we persevered. And again, its credit to my teammates. I give, yourself included. I give all my teammates the credit for all the folks viewing and listening. You have no idea. Richard showed up in my office one day. I looked like I hadnt slept for four months, and he. So he showed up. We were going to brainstorm that day, something that, when Richard and I start brainstorming, things in the world change for the better.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: And so better have a decent whiteboard and some decent whiteboard.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Oh, big time. So he shows up in the office, he walks into the office, and I'm sitting there, and he's like, dude, like, have you been sleeping well? And I said, not really. So he kicks the desk and he goes, get up. We're getting to work. And we had one of the best brainstorming sessions, I think, that we've ever had on a whiteboard that was way too small and is a day that I'll never forget, because he showed up for me in a way that was just remarkable and very impactful for me. Because when you're carrying the weight of a bigger future on your shoulders and you're not sleeping well, sometimes it takes a good friend, a confidant, somebody to just kick you and say, snap out of it, like, let's go. And that's what Richard did, and I'm eternally grateful for that.
[00:31:21] Speaker B: Well, shooting forward as you think, you talk us through the birth of ascendant financial and its expansion.
What I think is really helpful for people to learn, Jay, is how the advent and the utilization of technologies help that growth.
Additional challenges have come up along the way. We had this thing called the global pandemic. You may have heard about it in the news. It showed up for a while, a couple of years at least, anyway, if, that is, if you watched any of the news.
And so what would you want people to know who are watching about the type of business that ascendant financial is and where it was and how business had been done traditionally to the way that business is being conducted now? How do you think you should expand on that journey for people to get them some context of how technology has been a huge innovation?
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Oh, thats such a great question, because in our industry, in the sale and placement of life insurance contracts, everything was manual, paper to pen and manual. And so one of the questions that we asked ourselves very early in the journey of our business was, how can we leverage technology? So if we were to examine any process that is meant to deliver a desired outcome, which is a satisfied client, which of those processes can we leverage technology to either automate or enable us equip us to do faster, better, and cheaper? And if we check the box that this is the process that we can automate or leverage technology for, and we choose not to do it, well, we're just holding the whole organization back. And so this was a very lengthy exercise for us. And then we found the right who that possessed the capability to help us get that technology in place. And then we began to innovate by optimizing and process engineering and continuing to expand the utilization of technology. But it all began with the question, are there any disadvantages to us leveraging technology for one or more of these processes to deliver the desired outcome? And that came from part of my process engineering background and my responsibilities with Della. We were very big on that. Everything had to be process engineered. And so I brought that experience with me from a corporate career into an entrepreneurial journey. And fast forward to today. We have a very robust sales and marketing automation platform to which we receive compliments regularly from fellow entrepreneurs to say, youre dialed in, really dialed in from a sales and marketing automation perspective. And again, that's all credit to having the right whose I possess the capabilities to get the house done well.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: And even beyond that, just the experience of transitioning, as it were, to a virtual meeting space. Oh yeah, I know for myself I adopted that a little bit earlier maybe than the average bear because I always felt that I wanted to be, for lack of better term, we call it location independent.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:33] Speaker B: And, but you know what, what really forced that is the, is the COVID And it wasn't just certainly for our business, it was for, globally, because businesses had to make those adjustments. And to some degree, you know, people have certainly have gone back to environments where they're working in offices and so on. But you know, when it comes to meeting and working with clients, there's a lot of people who only wanted, that need a knee face to face environment. And now in, in the world today, it's, it's a lot more common and it's more acceptable to be able to have meetings on a virtual basis. And I know for myself, I mean, I can count on one hand the number of times I've met a client in person in the last like three to five years. And it's, it hasn't been because I don't want to do that. But there's an efficiency that's created by making sure, you know what, they don't have to hop in a car, they don't have to fight traffic. They don't have to come meet me in an office. I don't have to fight traffic. I get to have more time with my kids. They get to have more time with our kids. All of those things I think ultimately are designed, sure, they benefit me as an advisor helping people implement the process of becoming a real maker, but they also benefit the client because they don't need to give up that time that could otherwise be better spent.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: Very true. And when we come back, I want to tell you a Covid related story that I think any entrepreneur watching this is going to benefit from.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: Well, we'll do that when we come back.
[00:35:52] Speaker C: What is this incredible thing called the Colby a index I keep hearing about?
I'm a certified Colby consultant, and I can't wait for you to discover what your natural instincts are.
It works incredible for teams, for business owners in families, with our kids. The more you can develop and understand your knowledge of how you go and get things done in the world and how that happens with the people around you, everything can get so much better.
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[00:36:40] Speaker B: We are back with Jason Lowe. We're learning all about the incredible birth and journey of ascendant financial overcoming some challenges. Even along the way, Jason, were talking a little bit about technology and the advent and the implementation of technology and how weve seen that change just in the industry were in. We went from doing everything, pen and paper. Now, most of the applications, the signing process, all these things are done digitally, which really ramped up in a very short period of time. Certainly across the globe. Theyve been doing it digitally in different areas. But in Canada, it's really been a voracious rise of that occurrence just in the last four to five years. So walk me through some of the technology that you see the company using now, some of the direction that you plan on going with the company. And a lot of this really came about during COVID I think, is when the switch almost flipped. So maybe we just take a walk backwards and look at that moment in time and as we look forward into our bigger and brighter future.
[00:37:40] Speaker A: Well, I'll tell you, during COVID when we were aware that lockdowns were coming and we had already been well into our journey of the adoption of technology, thank goodness, because it allowed us to move quickly in getting the team together, because I could sense that there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of anger in some cases, for any entrepreneur watching this, whenever you experience either fear or anger, it's usually a result of an absence of control or you're not getting something that you want is what triggers that. And I remember thinking, okay, how am I going to approach this with our team? And so I brought our team together, and I said, look, here's the truth. All progress begins with telling the truth. I don't know what's going to happen, but what I do know is that I'm not in fear and I'm not in anger. And so we have a decision to make as a team, because I want to reassure you that everyone who's employed here today will be employed here today, next year. So if you're fearful of that, just wiped it away.
I want to let everybody know on the team, if you turn the thermostat on, if you open your fridge and your pantry and the heat's not coming on or there's no food, get in touch. I will take care of anyone on this team personally to make sure that you and your family are okay.
But you have a choice to make. You can choose to advance through this COVID pandemic or retreat, but you can't do both. You got to pick one right now. And everyone on the team was like, we choose to advance.
Let's go. And so the business doubled that year, doubled again the year after, and doubled again the year after, because the fear and the anger was no longer invading peoples time and energy and thinking and being that we were equipped to serve people from a technology standpoint where we could zoom ahead, no pun intended, and we could meet with a bunch of people and interact as a team and work remotely. We had already done some what we called fire drills, where we took printers and computers, and we purposely sent people home. We said, we need you to do your job from home. And we were doing this all in preparation for what eventually happened. Fast forward to today. And we have AI. We have machine learning.
One of our objectives in our business is that every single team member has an AI copilot by the end of next year.
And that AI copilot is going to help that teammate become more efficient in what they're doing. I'm not deploying AI in our companies to replace people's jobs. I'm deploying AI to support the work that people are doing and to free them up to do the work that has the most meaningful impact at a human connection level.
Everything that saves us time. Think about what we did with our most recent book. I know the authors of this book. These guys are top shelf guys. Like, they are really, really nice guys. One of them has a tv show. The other guy apparently doesn't know how to get the right shirt size, but they're they're super nice guys.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: But anyway, you can get a copy of that. By the way, don'tspread wealth.com if you're interested.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Shameless plug. Shameless plug. But this book, so the audio version is primarily AI. Like you yourself recorded your voice and then AI said, let me go ahead and read the rest of the book for you. Did that save you an abundance of time?
[00:41:25] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. And the recordings need to be done in a certain way to be approved by the where you submit audiobooks to be done. So I read the first chapter, they cleaned it up and it was a bit of an iterative process and we had people, we hired some whos to help us get that done so it could be done properly. But absolutely, versus me, it probably would have taken me the better part of two full days to record that whole book properly with retakes and all the things that were necessary and so to be able to use AI and had some great comments and feedback from people already from that implementation. I dont know if even people realized that AI read the book to some.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: Degree now, you know, and it's a great way to leverage and it's a great way to support. So for any entrepreneur, regardless of what business you're in, there are no exceptions. AI serves a purpose in your business. It's all a matter of identifying where can AI best serve your business in the achievement of its bigger future or its vision or its objectives. And getting your team members together and sitting down and having a really thoughtful conversation to say, understanding and acknowledging that we don't want to use AI to replace people in our organization.
Where do we see AI being our best copilot, seated right next to us to help us do things faster, better, cheaper, insert whatever efficiency would be helpful to your business.
And then the entrepreneurs brain immediately goes to, well, how are we going to integrate AI? How are we going to implement that? How are we.
I would just encourage any entrepreneur to shift your thinking to who, who possesses the capability to help our team get the hows done. And there are so many wonderful resources and whos that are building really great businesses, helping entrepreneurs to get that AI integration into their companies. And not one of our businesses is exempt from determining how AI can be a great tool for us to leverage, not to replace people, but to leverage the existing capabilities of our people.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: As you're talking that through Jason, something occurs to me, a memory of a recent experience, really your thoughts sought to implement.
You serve as an advisor to the board of directors of the Nelson Nash Institute and myself as a member of the practitioner council. And we had a retreat about a year or so ago where we had taken gobs and gobs of feedback that was all manually filled out on physical pieces of paper that all got scanned in. We hired someone temporarily to data entry all that information into a Google spreadsheet. It was all feedback based about what the Nelson National Institute practitioners wanted to see the future, what they wanted to see built for them, and all of that information. Then you were able to compile it and working with chat, GPT and so forth, start asking really good questions, summarize this, find the themes, find out core elements, pick out all these things so that we could drill things down over two, three days of meetings and get really crystal clear on what needed to be done, on what everyone wanted, rather than us all sitting there with 200 pages of flipping over in a boardroom for four days talking through, oh, yeah, well, didn't, oh, I can't read this guy's writing. And what did he say here? And well, doesn't that match on page like 48 and what that guy was saying? So we went from this really cumbersome, almost frustrating, really intense process to a much more simplified version where we could get right into important discussions about how to move that organization forward at the behest in the direction of the board of directors. And so this is a perfect example of that utilization and shooting forward. Had we done that exercise two years previously, we wouldn't have been able to.
[00:45:35] Speaker A: Do it that way.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: That's just the degree of measurement, of scale and implementation of technology that's taking place in the modern age.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Yeah, and I would say, in addition to what you described, its speed of implementation, you can move much faster. And those are sort of the buckets in my mind where I think, okay, how can we do this faster, better, cheaper, and still deliver the desired outcome, but just deliver it much better? And AI is such a big element of that. And if you were to sort of evaluate where AI is today, and then just imagine where it's going to be even just a year from today.
So companies that are getting on track with integrating AI, developing some machine learning so you can really make some data driven decisions at a very high rate of speed, AI can be a great copilot. And so I would encourage any entrepreneur, regardless of your business, you could pick literally any business, and without too much time, myself or Richard could easily identify a number of areas in your business where AI can create leverage.
[00:46:45] Speaker B: Trey, now, when you think forward, which is something you commonly do, I dont imagine theres an hour that goes by in your day where youre not thinking two to three to five years down the road planning the next greatest decade.
What are some of the things that youre most excited about right now, Jason? That whether its AI or technology might play a role in or even just thinking about how the future is progressing, what has you excited about the bigger future that youre building today?
[00:47:16] Speaker A: My teammates first and foremost, who have just repeatedly said how excited they are about building our best decade ever, im really trying to focus a lot on helping our team members to rather than always focused on IM here and I want to get to there, right. Its always that constant. I need to go from here to there and its always up.
Its like rethink your thinking and just be there.
Im not quite sure how to articulate it any differently. Be where your feet are and make where your feet are there. Like, stop worrying about the fact that its always got to be up and up and up and up and up. Youre just going to apply a bunch of pressure on yourself. Just be there. Make the impossible possible so that everyone else whos thinking that what youre up to is impossible, like with the Senate building a billion dollar business and everyone going thats impossible, its like, great. I want you to continue thinking that way because we made the impossible possible and were not thinking from here to there. Were thinking there is already here and we're just blossoming it. We're just making it an achievable reality. And so that excites me the most.
It's the achievement of an ever increasing degree of potential is what gets me the most excited because I see so much more potential. I'm always thinking 812, 16 quarters from now, and the leaders that I'm blessed to work alongside, yourself included, all those leaders that I work alongside are really focused in on the next two quarters or maybe the next four quarters and getting really tactical and really, and that's all awesome and incredible. I love that. But I get most excited about 16 quarters out from now, 40 quarters out from now. My brain just goes there. And then I look at our existing suite of capability, our existing suite of people, our existing suite of opportunities, and getting people really excited around that bigger future and then helping them to remind themselves that there's no destination or landing spot for potential at an individual level. It doesn't exist. It's just this constant. Like, rich, you and I can both agree we're much more capable today than we were in 2008 today.
Far more capable. And that's because we applied ourselves and we traveled a lot and we surrounded ourselves with great people who wanted us to be better. And so that'll never stop exciting me personally and where we're going with technology and how we're people are going to be tech enabled in this process of becoming your own banker. The infinite banking concept and their family.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: Banking, not the advisors, but the clients, the clients themselves.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: Oh my God.
That is going to, you've heard the expression, you know, it's going to be a game changer.
It's going to be a future changer. Okay, there's no, we're not playing a game here. It's going to be a future changer for clients who embrace that technology. And we're going to make it so ridiculously simple to utilize that. That keeps me awake at night in a very good way because Im super excited to see that come to fruition.
[00:50:48] Speaker B: Well that is exciting. And it makes me think about a couple of things that Nelson said. The first one being its all about how you think. You identified that very clearly. And it also reminds me of thinking long range, which is one of Nelsons four important rules. And he taught us how to learn how to think beyond our own lifespan. We cover some of that in our book, dont spread the wealth, but no one thrives alone. And so we would encourage everyone be a part of an organization, a community, get surrounded by amazing people. One way you can do that, by the way, is go to wealthonmainstreetcommunity.com. that's wealthonmainstreetcommunity.com. and you can start to get surrounded by people who are looking at implementing better financial habits in the household and begin to be surrounded by some of the best of the best. Jason, thank you for being on the program today, for sharing what's true for you, your journey, your story, your method of inspiration, and how you're looking at things in a future oriented way. And for those of you, make sure you tune in next week as we continue to unpack the ways that entrepreneurs are innovating and overcoming for tomorrow.
