Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 You are listening to the Wealth Without Bay Street Podcast, a Canadian guide to Building Dependable Wealth. Join your host, Richard Canfield and Jason Lowe as they unlock the secrets to creating financial peace of mind in an uncertain world. Discover the strategies and mindsets to a financial future that you can bank on. We're
Speaker 1 00:00:17 Super excited to be joined here today by Donnie, who's a team leader in the downtown Toronto Keller Williams office, as well as the team leader for his own investor focused real estate team of agents. And, uh, Donnie with 18 years of of experience, he's had a, a front row seat really, uh, as he puts it, you know, to the real estate ownership ins and outs across Canada's largest city. And he's recently discovered creative strategies for building and preserving wealth through dividend paying, participating whole life insurance, and, uh, has yet to come out of that rabbit hole, as you would say, <laugh>. But, you know, more importantly, at home, Donnie's a husband. He's a father to two amazing daughters. He's a diehard Raptors fan. And, uh, we're looking forward to a pretty awesome conversation today. We were chatting a little bit before the beginning of the show, and so without further ado, Donny welcome to Wealth Without Bay Street.
Speaker 2 00:01:12 Hey. Hey, thanks guys. Great to
Speaker 1 00:01:14 Hear. And you're nowhere near Bay Street right now, are you? Being that you're in the,
Speaker 2 00:01:16 You know what, not too far. I could probably walk there <laugh>, but No, not, not that close.
Speaker 1 00:01:22 No, it's good to be with you. Thank you. And so, Donnie, let's kick things off. So what inspired, you know, your introduction to the, the infinite banking concept, the process of becoming your own banker and what's got you so fired up?
Speaker 2 00:01:36 Yeah, cuz Rich, rich and Naja, you did say that I was in a rabbit hole. I am in a rabbit hole. I can't get out of it. I just want to consume more and more of what I BBC means and how it's gonna help me and my family. And I'm not kidding, I'm not blowing smoke for, for a podcast. I actually love this stuff and everyone I meet, like, let's talk about insurance. That's all, that's all I wanna do is talk about insurance more and more and more. So I'm probably losing some friends along the way, <laugh>, but
Speaker 1 00:02:01 That, that will, that is a, that will happen. It does,
Speaker 2 00:02:03 That's gonna happen. And I'm not even
Speaker 1 00:02:05 Sure, please, to all of Donnie's friends right now. Please.
Speaker 2 00:02:08 Sorry, everybody
Speaker 1 00:02:08 Don't abandon Donnie. He, he legit just wants to help you.
Speaker 2 00:02:12 It's not I'm doing this,
Speaker 1 00:02:13 The insurance
Speaker 2 00:02:14 <laugh>, I'm doing this for you. You just don't realize it yet. Exactly right. Um, so I actually backed into it. I, I fell into it. So luckily I am, I'm a big believer of behind you, Jay, who not how Dan Sullivan's book know that book. Well, I subscribe to that mantra as well. I had the right who's around me and one of my who's Jen said, Hey, look, you have your real estate corporation set up. Have you heard of this thing called Key Person insurance? Which I believe you guys did a podcast about last month. And I'm like, no, tell me more about this. Well, do you have kids? Of course I have kids. Do you have houses? Yeah, I do. Well, you have to take care of yourself. Prevent what is inevitable, the tax man and all that kind of stuff, and talk to me about an insurance policy that is going to help me just provide a buffer.
Speaker 2 00:02:56 And I honestly, honestly didn't know it was really what I was doing was I b c infinite banking. I now know that to be true because, you know, I've seen the results and I know what this is going to do for me and I'm happy to share with you guys so I can little, you know, give you some feedback on that. But just the simplicity of the entire concept, I just, I just love what it's done for me in the last two years. I love where it's gonna be in the next three, four years. I, I'll be capitalized, which is a concept we'll probably go over in this discussion. It's just marvelous. Like, it's, it's absolutely changed my world and it's insurance, I remind you. Like what, so anyway, yeah, I happy to, happy to chat about my experience with that and my subsequent purchase of another policy with Roman un un ascendant and where that's going to lead me. And I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. Everyone I know is going to have an insurance of dividend, high yield dividend paying, participating whole life insurance policy, <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:03:57 Okay. Company. We'll send you the check for pronouncing it properly there, Donny, that's great. And you know, what's fun about this is, so we have to give credit to, you know, one of our amazing colleagues who, who's helped us immensely, and that's Evan Carmichael and shout to Tevin Carmichael, who is one of the world's best YouTube influencers and, uh, who's also a client and just an amazing guy. And he said, you know what you need to do, whether it's on the podcast or on the YouTube channel, you've gotta coach go through a coaching session real time. And the aha moments that come out of that are gonna be the aha moments that the listeners and the viewers catch as well. So you said a, a few things, Donnie, that are really, really important to amplify. And the first is, so you, you're right. The tool, the tool that's used to implement the process is dividend paying, participating, whole life insurance.
Speaker 1 00:04:52 And when you put the best tool to get the job done, which is a process of becoming your own banker. So the insurance policy is a product, the infinite banking concept is a process. And when you put the best tool for the job in the hands of somebody who's not only ambitious but persevere, very determined to implement this in his life, then you're going to create very successful outcomes by embracing the process. Because regardless of, you know, where the insurance policy is, regardless of the carrier or anything like that, the insurance company itself is going to administer that policy if you do not implement the process to any degree whatsoever. And so the second teaching point is that, and God rests Nelson, you know, soul, he's still influences Rich and I day in and day out. He often said that the policy owner's behavior is far more critical than the behavior of the insurance company.
Speaker 1 00:05:49 And so by you working with a great coach who practices this process in his life day in and day out, he's going to, to be able to help you along in inspiring your imagination to get to work on how you can take this process even further as you say in your life. And then lastly, I'll just say this is capitalization Nelson. Always, always reinforced, don't be afraid to capitalize. And here's what we see happening, particularly with key person insurance or when there's a discussion about a permanent policy. It's always structured, especially with business owners or very successful entrepreneur business owners like yourself. There's always a conversation around you only have to pay the premium for this amount of time. And when you truly embrace the process of becoming your home banker, your question is going to shift from how soon can I stop paying the premium to, can you confirm for me that I can pay this for the rest of my lifetime <laugh>? Because the more capital you put in, the more capital you get out. And but your just the from the first conversation you and I had together to see your ambition and your desire to not only embrace this yourself, but to share it with others is really inspirational. It's, it's just awesome.
Speaker 2 00:07:04 You know, I actually feel compelled, I think much like you guys do because I've consumed your, the podcast, the YouTube, your stuff about the cpp by the way
Speaker 1 00:07:14 <laugh>, my Anger,
Speaker 2 00:07:15 The anger when I was listening to that. So Richard did an amazing job on that one. But just, I feel compelled as a hardworking Canadian with many hardworking Canadian friends and, and partners and colleagues, we need to make sure that people are aware of this specific option. And I think Ascends done an amazing job, by the way, this is not a plug for sentiment, but this is, senates done an amazing job of making it available to the masses. Because this whole thing to me started off, I don't even know how I got onto something with mentioned infinite banking or that, just that phrase in a podcast, which turned into a web search, which turned into next thing, next thing. And then I landed on, on ascendance stuff. Yeah. And it's like, oh yeah, how much more content is there? There's, there's dozens and dozens of podcasts. Yeah, sign me up, <laugh> and the Fur, the further I go into it, the more I realize how valuable it is and how h how it just transcends everything. And everybody should figure out a way to incorporate at least a portion of this into their lives just to create an awareness about the whole thing.
Speaker 1 00:08:23 Yeah, that's, it's really good. And, and, and something that you said, Jason earlier, again, just with Nelson and Nelson pouring into us as he's done, and we're just, you know, really we're kind of like a, we're just like a conduit to help channel what he was able to download into this, you know, this, this noggin. And we're just trying to, you know, project that a Nelson knowledge out into the world. And I was literally sitting with a, with a client yesterday, we were doing a policy review, young guy, 24 years old engineer, just earning all kinds of d decent money, not spending a whole, whole lot. Cause he doesn't have anything to spend it on. He's got a great policy and we're talking about paying himself interest, should get another policy, all this kind of conversation. And I was walking through a section of Nelson's book on the equipment financing, and I was sitting there on page 59 and I was showing him something.
Speaker 1 00:09:09 I was about to teach him something out of the book. And I'm going back and forth to two different illustrations and all of a sudden, like a ton of bricks, I was about to say something, and I'm almost like, whoa, I just saw something I never saw before in the book right here. And it just, it just hit me. I, I stopped dead in my tracks and I just started like chuckling. I'm like, and I just, I looked up and I said, Nelson, you got me, you got me again. <laugh>, you know, it, it's literally this, this gift that keeps on giving. And so you're, you're in, as you said, the proverbial rabbit hole and you're going down this huge track of discovery and because you're, you're excited and you're motivated, you're, you're attacking things. I'm, I get the impression, Donnie, you're a high quick start person on the Colby Index <laugh>, you're attacking things at some level of speed.
Speaker 1 00:09:49 And you know, it's probably goes to some degree with the tagline on your emails, which is don't go bananas, go mangoes. Which I love, by the way. Totally fantastic <laugh>. I just love that. So good, so catchy. And, and so you're, you're, you know, you're literally in, in encapsulating your learning in, in as quick as you can and you're gobbling it up and it's creating that excitement. And so as you go about your learning, everything that you're learning right now in this, in this short kind of period of time that you've been in your discovery process, you've been learning about insurance related things, and then you've been learning about infinite banking relating things and how there's overlap on these, these two things. Yeah. And everything that you're learning now, the beautiful thing is, I'm just gonna share this with you, and maybe a couple years from now we'll have another conversation about it. You're gonna have the opportunity to even relearn all the things that you're presently learning.
Speaker 2 00:10:39 I can't wait.
Speaker 1 00:10:40 It, it's, it's gonna be this, like, it's just like this epic thing where it's Olson like, wait a second, I already, but, but then wait, there's like a whole nother layer on the onion that just showed
Speaker 2 00:10:49 Up. It's funny that you said that because this is what I'm, so I backed into this policy, right? I bought a policy with a, it wasn't a mutual company, it was a high yield public or a stock company, but two years ago, and it was more geared towards insurance. And this cash, someone was looking out for me. Yeah. So someone was looking out for me, and then now two years later, I'm looking at the results saying, oh my God. Like, this is, this is amazing. So, and now I'm rereading, you know, Nelson's book all over again. Like my wife's reading it now, she's not really into finance, but she's now reading this because she can sense how passionate I am about the subject. So I completely agree that I know that two years from now, I'll read it again or I'll look at my numbers from the policy statements and just be blown away all over again and I'll, and cover another way, make this work for my life. Because
Speaker 1 00:11:38 Nelson Nelson said, and he repeated this, and it's just so true in our 15 years now, in, in our journey with this process, when we first heard Nelson say, the more you see infinite banking concepts, the more you'll see you didn't see. And he is so correct in that statement. Because if, again, if you may have heard this through consuming podcast content and reading and, you know, finding us on the YouTubes and the Facebooks and all that Nelson's golden rules. The first one is to think long range, which it means to think three generations past your own. And the second is don't be afraid to capitalize, meaning your money must reside somewhere. What better place to have it reside than here? And then from that very place, you can go and control how you finance all the things that you need throughout the course of your lifetime.
Speaker 1 00:12:46 And then the, the next golden rule is don't steal the peas. So whenever you're accessing policy loans or, or you're gonna control how you finance those things you need in life, you have to be an honest banker. You have to replenish the vault, you have to get capital back in. And the fourth is don't do business with banks. And that takes the average person 20 years to achieve that end. It took Nelson 13 years and it took us the better part of nine years to get rid of the banks in our lives. We were very aggressive in that process. And then the fifth golden rule is to rethink your thinking. And now the sixth is to have a storage place for windfalls. Meaning at some point death benefits will show up. And if you have a, a number of people that you have a beneficial interest in your spouse, your business partners mm-hmm <affirmative> key people in your agency that have a direct impact on creating value for the agency.
Speaker 1 00:13:54 And, and, uh, God forbid if the unthinkable happened, there would be, uh, a remarkable setback. So when all these lives are insured and death benefits start showing up, you should have a place to store those windfalls. Meaning you should have outstanding loan balances inside of your family banking system for these windfalls to be placed in so that you keep that money in the family. And then in thinking three generations past your own, you're not only transferring wealth in dollars, you're transferring wealth in knowledge. The knowledge of the process. Because early in the journey, and Rich and I are guilty is charged as well. Our excitement and how enamored we were was all focused on the product. Oh my God, look at how fast the cash value's accumulating. Look at the dividends and look at the paid up additions. And oh my God, it was all product focused.
Speaker 1 00:14:52 And Nelson, in his amazing way, he would just go, like, he would just have a little chuckle because he knew that we didn't know what we didn't know. And so, as you immerse yourself more in this process, and we're gonna have you back and believe me, we're gonna have you back. We're gonna bring you in and we're, we're gonna, you know, help case study check in with you along your journey, and it's gonna be so cool for you to reflect back on this episode and go, oh my God, I was, I, wow. Have I ever progressed? And we're just so excited for you. Like, this is, thanks guys. This
Speaker 2 00:15:28 Is like
Speaker 1 00:15:28 Being kids in a candy store, man, just <laugh> talking to you about this. And
Speaker 2 00:15:33 Well, I, I've not pulled out a, I've not done a policy loan. I've not been that banker yet for myself. Right? So you will be, I'm, yeah. And I, I'm looking forward to that part of it. I, I'm like everything, I'm trying to be strategic about how I, how I leverage that. But, you know, thanks for giving me permission to at least <laugh> to solidify you can do this then if you wanted to us some money for this reason, and you're gonna make it work for you, go on and do
Speaker 1 00:15:55 It. Look at it from this vantage point, Donnie, if you and I owned a Loblaws grocery store together, how soon would you wanna start shopping there?
Speaker 2 00:16:07 Exactly. Right away, <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:16:08 Yeah. Hopefully the next time you need food, you're gonna want to go to the Loblaws that we co-own together. Agreed.
Speaker 2 00:16:16 Totally.
Speaker 1 00:16:17 And so that, that is the, the mindset that we would encourage you to receive inspiration, to say, okay, it's really important to apply strategy, right? Where you're looking at how you're put together financially, what, what your objectives are, how much capital do you need to get those objectives accomplished? What timeframes you envision getting them done in all those great things that are really important to do. But the process of banking is going on no matter what <laugh>, no matter what's happening in your life. And so you're, you're, there won't be any breaks or pauses in your need for money. And so if you have already accumulated a reservoir of ready access capital, then you are already well on your way in terms of being equipped to get started in implementing the actual process. Far too often we get introduced to people who have policies that are seasoned, a few years old, sometimes even longer.
Speaker 1 00:17:14 And we ask them, Hey, describe to us how implementing the process has been going for yet. Oh, I haven't been doing that yet. I've just been piling up cash value. We, you, you haven't yet gone down the path of becoming your own banker. Somebody's told you that you have an infinite banking policy, whatever it is, that means what you have is a dividend paying, participating, whole life insurance policy mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And you're building up an aquarium of capital. And now it's time for you to implement the process. And, and that's what you're gonna do. And it's gonna be awesome, awesome to see how this works for you
Speaker 2 00:17:47 Very, very soon looking at acquire, acquiring real estate, because that's what I do. And it'll be using it, it will be my corporately funded, my corporation's going to be acquiring it through, through a loan, let's say. And yeah, I sh I absolutely should be using these funds rather than whatever other savings or other personal loans that it might come outta that. So yeah, you know what, I'm, I will make sure that I execute on this strategy and just give it a whirl. Like just try this policy loan thing out and see how, how it could work for me.
Speaker 1 00:18:19 Yeah. Yeah. It all begins with that first, that first loan. And so I, I was having a conversation with a lady yesterday, she's just in the process, should be going into application for hers policy next week. And, you know, she doesn't have a lot set aside for retirement. She's a single mom, et cetera. So this is gonna be a big component of her financial life. She doesn't really like or trust the banking system, not a big fan of, let's just say big government in general. So she wants to have a little bit more autonomy and control, and that's, so she's very excited. But I said, you know, as soon as you get this policy issued, we're gonna be meeting within, you know, roughly 15 days or so. I mean, as soon as you can get a meeting booked in my calendar, we're gonna be meeting, I would be going over some resources, and I'm gonna be giving you some homework.
Speaker 1 00:18:59 There's gonna be actual tactile things you're gonna need to do. And I'm gonna give you a list of videos that you need to watch in our inside of our membership platform, because these are gonna be training for the next year of your life. Yeah. But you'll be taking a policy loan right away. She said, well, what if I don't need it for anything? I said, I don't care. You're gonna take it anyway. Because if you don't, if you don't get on the bicycle, you can't learn how to fall off and get back on it again.
Speaker 2 00:19:23 Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 00:19:23 So e even if you take that loan and then you're just setting it right back to the life company, that means you're going through a full rotation of activity. You filled in the form, you sent it in, you received the funds, you've completed that process, you said Yes, check, check, check. I know how to do this now. Then you send the money back, you've completed the transaction from that sand standpoint, which means you've gone through a full loop or rotation, now you know how to make the payments to the policy. You know how the, they accept it. You can see the difference in the values and changes in the loan going up, the loan going down, and you've, you've experienced. And so experiential learning is the most fundamental, valuable way that we can learn anything. And so it's, it's learned by doing. And that's really where the rubber's gonna hit the road. So all the things that you've been learning so far, they're gonna, they're gonna level, you're gonna like level up. It's kind of like playing, you know, whatever, a Super Mario game or something. You're just looking to get to the next level and you're just like one policy alone away from that right now in your, in your present part of your journey, which is just so ridiculously exciting.
Speaker 2 00:20:23 Thanks guys. So my, my next question then is who do I need to involve in my life to start this policy loan application? I just gotta figure that part out
Speaker 1 00:20:31 And, and
Speaker 2 00:20:32 The
Speaker 1 00:20:33 Make sure your coach is right there with you to lead you through it. And you know, what, if, if you were to look back again on what triggered your inspiration to, to really immerse yourself in learning about this process, what would you say to other top producing real estate agents out there? Because there are so many who earn a great living, who are really passionate about the profession, but just want to, they want to take that next step in, in, Hey, I'm doing really good in this chosen path that I'm on, but I want to either improve or expand the wealth that I'm creating for myself personally and, and for by proxying my family. So what would you say to those other top producing real estates?
Speaker 2 00:21:16 So, okay, well, absolutely. You don't know what you don't know. So part of the problem is awareness. We, we don't, um, I'm going back Donnie, five years ago, you don't know this is an option. Like you don't actually know this exists. Well now if you're listening to this podcast or you're watching this, you do know this exists now. So you can't claim that anymore. There are way, there are better ways to go about achieving your goals or more efficient ways. Rich, I know you're a big fan of the word efficiency. There are way more efficient ways to leverage your, your money. Yeah. So a couple years ago, the reason why this whole thing started, so my peers, if you're listening in on this in Ontario, we couldn't hold our real estate license within a corporation, right? That changed October, 2020. So now that we had the ability to incorporate and we're able, you know, we can earn commission income within that structure, well after tax is a very different number in that category than it was when you were doing it personally.
Speaker 2 00:22:11 Yeah. So the number that you're pulling from has, you can buy your policy within the corporation if it funds it, and there's a lot more effort tax dollars in that category. So you could, you could use that to achieve your personal goals because you are the owner of that corporation. So you know, you don't know what you don't know. Well now, you know, that you can incorporate if you didn't know already. So you can buy a key person insurance in your corporation and turn that into a lot more after tax dollars quicker to fund this kind of stuff, which helps you go ahead and become your own banker a few years from now. Did I sum, did I summarize that well enough for you guys to Yeah, I
Speaker 1 00:22:49 Understand. Absolutely. And when, so Donnie, when you think about having, you know, having not only consumed our content, which we're sincerely grateful for, and we, when we extend that sincere thanks to people, we, we truly mean it. You know, rich and I are so passionate about sharing the message, getting it out there, being a source of inspiration for people to do like what you said, to uncover a different way of doing things financially and understanding that it exists and that it really works extremely well. And so when you think about your exposure to Nelson and to Nelson's book titled Becoming Your Own Banker, what can you share from your own vantage point in terms of what, what inspired you? Like what, when did you catch it, when did you catch it?
Speaker 2 00:23:38 So this guy here, so this, I too despise hope. The one's listening. I too despise big banks and <laugh> that whole world and, and big government and intervention. And I don't, I'm not a big fan of where, of how this whole system works. Yeah. So I'm a big, the wealth is one thing. I'm a big fan of what the wealth does, which is give you freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationships, like all that kind of stuff. I want freedom above all else. Yeah. This is freedom above all else. So it's not about savings accounts or what, it doesn't even matter. It's what what rep represents the freedom that it gives me. I don't wanna ask permission, I don't, you know, like, I think it was in his book, it might have been in your podcast just saying like, when do you need money the most, when times aren't great.
Speaker 2 00:24:24 So look, we might be heading towards a recession right now. Might not, unemployment might, it's likely going to increase. Yeah. People are gonna be able of a job they're gonna need, they're gonna need money. How does that work when the banks, when you ask for the bank for some money, for a loan when you need them the most is when they're going to abandon you the most. Well, how does that make sense to me? Like, I, I just, I just couldn't understand how that is a concept that we knowingly accept. We opt to live like this, we opt to encourage savings in the banks and all that kind of stuff. So it really, it upset me. This, the book title probably got me and said, okay, what are you talking about? W you know, where are you going with this? And then I had no idea. I was reading an insurance book when I first picked it up, but it was very much, very clear, you could do this on your own. This is how you can do this. It looks a little different Sure. But it's ultimately going to give you what you want, which is that control and that and that independence away from big banks.
Speaker 1 00:25:23 Amen to that. I had an email today actually from, from a client who, you know, is only really in this first year of his, of his journey. And you know, he has, he's very, very successful as a physiotherapist and he's got a lot of great rental properties. He's done some really well things. And he's, he's been actively trading, you know, stocks on his own. He's done really well with that. Of course, the markets, I don't know if you've heard or not, but a little bit around the water cooler, but they're, uh, kind of in a tank. You could say they've shit the bed a little bit to some degree <laugh>. And so, you know, he has experienced some of that downfall as well. I mean, he's confident that, you know, he's, again, he's been very active, so he's aware that this can happen and how he's gonna address that.
Speaker 1 00:26:00 But it has put a squeeze on things. And then plus, you know, looking at now doing a refinance situation on one of his rental properties, now he's getting new questions, different questions, things that the, how the bank was looking at his rental income a year ago, two years ago versus today, it's totally changed. So it's putting him in a bit of a, a bit of a squeeze. Not a huge one, but one that he just didn't expect. And again, he's done well. He's had got good capital. And so he's just becoming very aware how in this environment now, with the changes that are happening presently, it's, it's a totally different landscape. And these landscapes shift and change as things, you know, you see a one rate hike, it changes and really, you know, try to try to close on properties for your clients, helping your clients get into properties, you know, condition day, right?
Speaker 1 00:26:49 Mortgage condition day is a big deal because if the, if you can't remove conditions on the property, not only does, does your buyer client not get the house or your seller client not sell the house, but, you know, the realtors done all the work, it doesn't get paid either. So nobody really wins in that deal. And banks kill deals that impact re the real estate agents lifestyle pretty quickly. And I'm sure you've experienced a lot of that. Yep. So Well, and these changes are changes that are real and they're gonna impact people. And so you want to be well capitalized to be able to deal with them and, and put yourself in the best possible position. And if you haven't started already, well the, again, when's the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago? Second best time is today. Uh, I would add to what you said, Richard, and, and share this with you, Donnie, that, you know, I was similar to Richard.
Speaker 1 00:27:33 So we, you know, we're in conversation day in and day out. This is what we get to do. We get to talk about this day in and day out. And I was having a conversation with a gentleman and helping him to kind of put things into perspective, being an active real estate investor who hasn't experienced a downturn. And so if you took, if you took a look at a mortgage rate, and I, I'm picking arbitrary numbers here, please forgive me. But if you took a look at a mortgage rate of, you know, three and a half percent versus a mortgage rate of 6.25, but the property you wanted to buy was $700,000 nine months ago and it's $420,000 today. Not really a whole lot of difference in the payment there <laugh>. Right. If you look at it from No, that's where we are right now, very much from that per perspective.
Speaker 1 00:28:25 Yeah. And so, and, and that was like, oh yeah, okay, yeah, that makes perfect sense. So you, you can continue your real estate investment activity, you can achieve great success with it, especially in periods of time where there's correction and, and all of that. But always reminding yourself again, that capital, your wealth must reside somewhere and it's not a either or, right? Do I become my own banker and expand my real estate investing activity? No. You, you gradually and incrementally do both. You take control of that financing function so that to your point, you don't have to ask for permission when an opportunity of high caliber tracks you down. You've got ready access to capital, albeit maybe in the early stages for just the down payment on the property, but you've got ready access to capital to take advantage of a high caliber opportunity without having to ask permission from anybody.
Speaker 1 00:29:25 And if you can do that faster than the next person in line who's wanting and has their eyes on that same opportunity, you're gonna win. That puts you in a position of total and absolute, total and absolute control. And who doesn't want that? And so any successful real estate investor that I talk to, or any successful realtor that we talk to, they grasp that immediately. Like, who doesn't want that? It's a win for the realtor <laugh> not only personally, but for their clientele. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, especially active clientele who are actively growing a portfolio of real estate. You want to be in a position as your portfolio expands of less or more control logic and reason would say, of course, I want to be in a position of control, especially when the market goes the other way, because that's when the greatest opportunities are gonna present themselves to you. It's true. Yep. So food for thought. A, a mango for thought, <laugh>. You were, you were talking about, you know, the, again, the high performing realtor and, and really just in realtors in general, and obviously you've been doing this for a long time, I think, I think you said like almost 18 years, Donnie. So you've been, you've been acting in
Speaker 2 00:30:38 This rich, I had a hair, I had luscious, beautiful hair,
Speaker 1 00:30:41 <laugh>, I I can picture the business cards that used to be there at, at that time and, and now, but, but let's be honest though, the reason you don't have the hair anymore is because you really wanted to double down on that tagline about go mangoes. And so
Speaker 2 00:30:55 Did you just say it? My head was like a mango? Is that, is that basically what I <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:30:59 I'm just thinking from a marketing perspective, I can see how this could really be an advantage
Speaker 2 00:31:04 For you. Some of my staff at one point, I think it was a, I don't know if it was a gag or if they actually, they, they created a screensaver of a mango. Like my head was the mango <laugh>. So this has been done before. This is humiliating.
Speaker 1 00:31:15 This is, well, it's an opportu, it's a hidden opportunity, is really one way to look at it. But, but you know, being a recovering realtor myself from my past and thinking about knowing that, you know, you, you, you operate in a environment where income is inconsistent, it changes and it flows. Mm-hmm. You do an awful lot of work. And then, and then you have these closing. Sometimes closings are 30 days, 15 days, and then sometimes they're like 90 days, 120 days, and you're waiting for this future income and then off that income you have to, you know, put some aside for the G S T and Sure. Government, slave government, slavery, taxes, some people call it, and all these other kinds of things so that you can, you know, you run your life, run your business. And, and what I always encourage for people who are in that environment and other types of like similar sales related type environments, consider at least doing, putting away two deals a year, right?
Speaker 1 00:32:07 So two ends a year, whether it's a purchase and a sale or you know, again, whether you double end deals or however, as you do at minimum, consider you want to contribute to two deals a year into your family banking system. That's a great way to start the thinking of capitalization and where whether you earn more of your revenue in the summertime, fine, but make sure that you plan. So again, because of the cyclical nature of how commissions could come in on deals like that you can owe on a policy while you're waiting for deals to show up. And then you could backfill the policy when those deals come in and you have a bigger month, essentially.
Speaker 2 00:32:46 I did not know that. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:32:47 Right. So as an example, you know, let's say you have a policy and, and, and one thing we don't really necessarily control is the, the start date of a policy. Okay? So whether you've backdated it or whatever it is, but you know, today we're recording this, we're we're stepping into the December of 2022. This might might air into the new year of 2023. But you know, whatever date it is that you're listening is, is that day and if that's the start date of your policy or the policy anniversary date, well the anniversary date goes around the clock and it, and it renews on that day. It doesn't match the calendar year, it matches the policy year. And so if you have a policy that starts, let's say in December or in January, I, I have several policies that start actually in December, then maybe December isn't your highest income earning year or, or or month, right?
Speaker 1 00:33:32 So you might want to say, okay, well I'm gonna, maybe I'm gonna earmark capital that I earn in the summer cuz I earn a lot of revenue in the summer. I'm gonna set that aside inside of the policy system so that I can fund my policies up to the maximum that I need. Maybe I owe a little bit of my policies, but I'm gonna backfill that now as I generate more revenue as the year progresses. So again, if you have a seasonal type of a business, this is one way to consider how you can maneuver those cash flows through your life. So people I think in the, in, in real estate, in, in real realtors, specifically realtors, mortgage brokers, et cetera, th this type of a system that allows them to self bank with their, their income and deposits and, and deal with kind of trying to level out some of those highs and lows of a commission structure is extremely advantageous because you have a warehouse to store capital access capital during the low periods of the year and then you could just fill it back up again. And, and farmers, you know, is another example of that as well, because again, a lot of their income comes after harvest, right? So there's not a lot going on until after harvest and then they have big boatloads of money that show up, right? So that's how, you know, you can think about the ebbs and flows of, of your income versus someone who just kind of gets a very consistent, you know, monthly or biweekly.
Speaker 2 00:34:47 Yeah, absolutely. You can jump into what do Jay, what do you say? It's an qua your aquarium of, of cash, right? Like it's a very visual, but if you need it, you can take it from there for now and then just, you know, when you get the sales in, in three months time or whatever it is, replenish it.
Speaker 1 00:35:00 Absolutely. And that's as long as
Speaker 2 00:35:02 You're not going over there, you're grabbing it from
Speaker 1 00:35:04 Here. Precisely. And that speaks to Nelson's fifth golden rule, which is to rethink your thinking and money must reside somewhere. And so Rich is describing brilliantly, you know, how someone with variability in commission income can begin to smooth out not only the growth of their aquarium, but also making sure that there's more money flowing back to you versus money that's flowing away. And if you've got a corporation where you've got retained earnings or surplus capital, if you're not implementing this process, then who is actually retaining your earnings? It ain't you. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's all on the books of someone else's bank. So if you get that surplus capital, those retained earnings inside of an entity that you control, then you're just expanding the square footage, no pun intended. You're expanding the square footage of your own warehouse of wealth. Where do you want the wealth to reside when you know that you can grow your own square footage and you set the terms, you're the one that controls it. So realtors, again, grasp this very quickly. Okay. Yeah. More square footage. I control it <laugh> my wealth expand. Yeah, I get that. I'm gonna add a basement suite. A garage suite. Okay,
Speaker 2 00:36:27 Now we're talking guys, now we're talking policy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:36:29 I can do triplex on one lot without any bylaw. We can
Speaker 2 00:36:33 Hack what house hacking, we can figure we can insurance hacker. Totally. Something.
Speaker 1 00:36:36 Totally. It's so this is, um, again, it's just so, so gratifying to, to speak to people when they catch it. And you've clearly caught the concept. Nelson, again, we give him all the credit. You know, he often said that infinite banking, uh, the process is more caught than it is taught. So you can, you can impart knowledge and like you said, you know, you're sharing with people who are in your inner circle, Hey, you need to, you need to know that this is an option that exists out there and some people will catch it and other people won't catch it right away or perhaps not even catch it at all. And it cannot be taught through a method of convincing, Hey, let me convince you that this is the something that you should do. The whole step that got missed was why don't we talk about a problem that you might not even be aware exists. And then once we have clarity that you truly understand the problem, which is you are not the one controlling the banking function in your life, and more importantly you're abdicating the opportunity that it res represents for you to actually control it and you're doing all the work to earn your commission income through the sale proceeds of real estate transactions and someone else is getting all your damn money. Can we agree that that's a problem?
Speaker 3 00:38:02 Yeah. We don't like, nope.
Speaker 1 00:38:04 The solution to the problem, and again, assuming we're making a big assumption here, that people out there want to create a more peaceful, stress-free way of life, financially fair. And, and if, if that's true, then the way to go about doing that is to implement the infinite banking concept. And so in other words, once you understand the problem, the solution becomes clear and you'll know exactly what to do. And what happens far too often is we lead with the solution. I'm so excited to share this solution with you. You need to know that this exists. You need to go out there and do it. And a person's like, gosh, I really don't grasp that. Versus if we start with clarifying the problem, once we present the solution, the person goes, that is what I need to do because I understand I've got a problem.
Speaker 2 00:38:52 Yeah. Uh, the problem, so the problem, pardon of the steal out word there is, it's just difficult to explain on a billboard. Whereas, and that, that is the issue. We can't communicate this concisely enough for the masses. And not everyone has the, has the ability or the curiosity to just pause or they're doing and just say, wait a second, what, what is, what's this about? And yeah, so I I I feel your mission. I feel like I am thankful for, for what you guys are doing and I'm encouraging others to like, even if it means they gotta stop what I'm doing for 10 minutes and try and explain as best as I can to get them to see they have a problem. They haven't realized it yet. I, I think there's like, there's, there's a need, there's certainly a need for, you know, sh just sharing what this is.
Speaker 1 00:39:38 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:39:39 Agreed. At the risk of sounding cultish. Cause like it kind of does come across that way. I just want to make sure that people get, they're not, they're not going to be o you may not be okay. And this can make you, this will certainly set you up to be okay, love that. I wish my dad, like my dad is 74, I believe, and he's okay with his retirement, but his retirement could have looked very different if he had done, if he had been told at my age. Yeah. Hey man, you got, you got problems here.
Speaker 1 00:40:12 That's that. You hit the nail right on the head. And that's why we emphasize with people, look, you, you're gonna need the use of money for the rest of your life anyway. And Nelson didn't begin his journey with this process until he was in his early fifties. And so when people say to us, you know, gosh, you know, like we meet with folks who might be more little more mature than that. Maybe they're in their late fifties, early sixties. Am I too old to do this? Well, the last time you went to deposit money at your commercial bank, did the teller ask you how old you are?
Speaker 2 00:40:43 <laugh>, same thing
Speaker 1 00:40:45 <laugh>. They just wanna know how much are you planning to deposit? And by going back to the communication and getting this message out there, you know, that, uh, it's all a function of rather than, and this is something that you may wanna share with some of your colleagues as part of your, your how you lead them and, and coach them and, and inspire them. Rather than saying, I don't have the time. Try replacing that with, it's just not a priority for me.
Speaker 2 00:41:15 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:41:16 And see how that, and and see how that makes you feel. And so you've got the time. If you look at your smartphone, which is a very interesting name for that device, if you look at your smartphone, it'll give you a report of how much time you're spending on average daily on that device. It is jaw dropping. And so if we just shift a priority and say, look, rather than spend 32 hours a week on, on the smartphone, maybe I shave off two hours of that and I discover this process rather than binge watching that series on Netflix in one evening. Maybe I just carve out another few hours and just shift my priority and immerse myself in learning about this process. If I, if I go to watch ibc.com again, that's watch ibc.com, I go to that link, I watch an introductory session on the process, I either catch it or I don't.
Speaker 1 00:42:15 I read Nelson's book, becoming Your Own Banker. I either catch it, I don't if I have thoughts or inspiration in terms of questions. If I read Canadian's Guide to Wealth Building Without Risk or Soon to Be Cash Follows the Leader, which is the second in our quarterly book series. There's no shortage of resources to give yourself an opportunity to catch this. And when you begin to go down that rabbit hole, <laugh> like Donnie <laugh>, believe me, <laugh>, it is so inspiring because you're gonna be asking yourself, gosh, I I just, it's like it was always there, right? The the function of banking has always been there for as long as you've been handling money. Nobody's ever talked to you about taking control of it. Isn't that good?
Speaker 2 00:43:00 It's amazing. The the same way that we just described my dad and his generation, and now here I am. Yep. I'll maybe on a next call or or a next podcast you guys might have put out there, I'd love to hear about my kids. So, you know, they're, they're 12 and nine and I, there's certainly gonna be a way to incorporate i b c in their lives so that they can, you know, they can start young. So this guy Rich, 24 years old, that's amazing for him. How do I get my daughter at 12 to really see the, you know, the value.
Speaker 1 00:43:31 Oh my God. Well I, I think, you know, on that note, so perfect segue by the way, because I, I had a note here I wanted to ask, you know, mention about your kids, cuz you mentioned 'em earlier and you mentioned your father at his stage. And so now as a father at, at a, you know, you're, you're just like a section, a chunked section in time differential, and then you have kids, roughly you were about the same age your dad was when you had kids. If, if that makes sense based on the math. Yeah, I just did there. So you, you have the unique opportunity to practice Nelson's rules. And the first rules, you gotta think long range. So now your thought process is gonna begin to shift into third generation thinking. And so you can begin with your children and you can start planting the proper seeds and things in place to plan for your grandchildren that aren't born yet today.
Speaker 1 00:44:19 And I was actually doing that, I was on a conversation yesterday with one of my clients, amazing guy. So he had a windfall event. He just sold a, a property in Ontario. He's gonna be buying a property in Mexico. He's kind of semi-retired. He's, he's done pretty well for himself. He has twin daughters and one of his twin daughters just had twins, <laugh>. So he's gonna be, he's gonna be looking to get some policies on the grand, the grand twins <laugh>, right? And, and, and so just fantastic. But in doing that, what's gonna happen is we're gonna be adding a, a rider onto these policies that will allow for guaranteed insurability on those children. Which means as those grandchildren age and they get to age 21 and 25, there'll be an opportunity for the parent or the child themselves to be able to kick in a new policy.
Speaker 1 00:45:07 And what we're doing is we're actually by instituting that policy on the grandchild, we're automatically creating a value proposition for a generation that does not yet live. And so we're creating a cascade effect like a, like a rock and a pond of generational impact with decisions that are made for people that aren't old enough to make the decision themselves. And that's part of the power of what we can do by changing the way that the breadth and length of thinking that is possible for us by having a future outlook and, and, and, and, and ca cascading a vision about what you want your, your generations to look like moving forward by taking certain actions today. So you're in a position where you're able to do that now, and you, I'm sure after this call, you'll connect with your coach to, to initiate that. I, I even one of your emails I think you'd indicated about, you know, getting things set up with your kids and everything, because you wanna move away from the, the government-sponsored plans that we've been taught to use such as RSPs.
Speaker 1 00:46:05 And we have se in fact with, with my friend Roman, I did a, a webinar back in the summer about the difference between doing a policy versus an R E S P that was very, very popular. So this is really, really powerful what could happen. And you know, again, circling back to your question about a 12 year old daughter. Well Jason, your 10 year old daughter was on stage at an event that we did in Edmonton. Yeah. A month ago. We had a hundred, 170 people in the room for our family banking summit. And the way we closed out the day is Jason invited his daughter up on stage, just sit on a stool and he interviewed her and then not only was she dropped dead hilarious, like total comedy career in the future for her, she's basically telling him how she's gonna take over the business on stage, which is phenomenal.
Speaker 1 00:46:47 Everyone just floored in the whole room. And then she fielded questions from people <laugh> in the room, and she's 10, she's 10 <laugh>, she understands becoming your own banker better than most people ever will because she doesn't have any preconceived stuff getting in the way. Yeah. Right. She doesn't need to know about insurance. She never asked Jason, oh dad, can you tell me about the dividend that I earned in my policy this year? She doesn't care. She doesn't care about that <laugh>. And I, I would add to what Richard said, Donnie, um, you know, with your children without delay, get policies going on them because Richard raised a, a very, very important teaching moment where if you think about, if you kind of cast a vision into the future, and someday you'll be your dad's age and you'll be looking down the road and saying, Hey, you know what?
Speaker 1 00:47:41 I know that graduation day's coming and if you envision having created policies for your kids today, and those death benefits have increased significantly because they'll end up with more than one policy. All four of our kids have six policies on their lives. Wow. And my oldest is 14 and the he's also a giant, he massive dude. And so the reason that was done where we've added more policies along the way is because our Rebecca and my death benefits have grown over the years. And the insurance company says, look, as a general rule of thumb, we don't like to see children having more than 50% of the total death benefit that the parents have on their lives. So if you have an ever increasing total death benefit on both mom and dad, can you create an ever increasing death benefit on the kids? And then when the grandkids come along, you don't have to wait <laugh>, you can create really big policies for those grandkids right away.
Speaker 1 00:48:45 Because the general rule of thumb works to your advantage where to say, gosh, you know, wow, okay, my kids have total death benefits of 22 million, and I can go and create policies for the grandkids right out of the hopper that have significant starting death benefit that I could have never created on day one with my own kids. So I'm already positioning for the third generation by getting these policies cranked up for my kids as early as possible so that when they are my age and grandbabies come along, I'm gonna crank up policies on the grandkids. And so are they simultaneously? Isn't that good? You're gonna cryogenically you'll be cryogenically sealed in this, uh, device. Well, I'll tell you if, if anything, I have a client who's gonna do that by way here. Listen to this. If anything ever happened to me where I became totally incapacitated, I've instructed my family, don't pull the plug because the cash value keeps growing every day. <laugh>,
Speaker 1 00:49:46 You'll keep me alive as long as possible. That's one way to do it <laugh> and get that total cash value growth. That's great. <laugh> get, get me past at least one more dividend on every policy. Well, but <laugh> well if you think about it right, I said like the power bill will more than be offset by the increase in cash value. So just keep that plugged in <laugh>, keep me going. <laugh>. But anyway, I digress. But no, get going. Look, get going on your kids right away. There's, there's no, there's no disadvantage other than the longer you wait, the more you penalize yourself. Got it. I, I wanna say, I'm gonna add one more thing on that and Jason, Jason just sparked something for me. So recently, um, in this week, so I had some good friends of ours, wonderful, amazing people. Their son, about 12 years old, he has, was developing headaches and, and some stuff and he had some stuff going on and he actually had to go in and got a spinal tap done this week.
Speaker 1 00:50:44 Oh boy. And they were trying to verify if there was some inflammation and stuff happening. The good news is, is that of the two possibilities that were on the list, it was the better of the two outcomes. Mm-hmm. And so through medication, I believe they're gonna solve the problem. But little things like that would have the position of making it so that that boy was uninsurable, you know? Yeah. If it could have gone the other direction. Yeah. So thankfully he already has coverage, he already has insurance, so they, they've already put planted things in place to, to create some protectionary mechanism in there. But we, we don't, we never know. And nowadays, you know, we do hear from title nine, like there's, there's no guarantee that we can get covered. The only way we can find out is if we submit it and get the insurance company to say yes.
Speaker 1 00:51:26 Yeah. So we, we wanna make sure that we initiate that process quickly because we'd rather be looking at it than looking for it. There you go. Donnie, what a world it was a because this an incredible pleasure. Amazing. Yeah. So good to have you on the show. You can rest assured we're gonna have you back <laugh> And for all of our viewers, for all of our listeners, we appreciate you tuning in and go make sure you grab that free training. It, there's no charge, it's on the house. Just go over to watch ibc.com and when you get there, grab the free training and, uh, if you really wanna, we, we think you'll enjoy it. If you really wanna learn how to become your own banker, you can quite literally read seven steps and figure it out. You just go to seven steps.ca and boom, done In your inbox, there's a whole little list that says, here's what you need to do.
Speaker 1 00:52:11 Done see giving resources. And if you're on the YouTubes, you just saw that playlist show up, click through the next video, keep, keep progressing on your journey of learning and, uh, make the rest of your week outstanding. Donnie, we look forward to having you back. Thanks for being so great and we wish you nothing but the very best in your pursuit of this, this process in your family. Undoubtedly, you're gonna do great cuz you have a great coach in Roman and by proxy the rest of the ascendant team who are all here to support you and cheer you on along the way. So you thank Nemi, I've been the rabbit hole for a bit longer <laugh>, but all right.
Speaker 4 00:52:48 Thanks for listening to The Wealth Without Basery podcast, where your wealth matters. Be sure to check out our social media channels for more great content. Hit subscribe on your favorite podcast player and be sure to rate the show. We definitely appreciate it and don't forget to share this episode with someone you care about. Join us on the next episode where we continue to uncover the financial tools, strategies, and the mindsets that maximize your wealth.
