Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Welcome to wealth on Main street, where conversations about growing your wealth are fun and entertaining. Wealth isn't just about money. It's the skills and the knowledge that we develop to pass on to future generations.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Tune in each week to to grow.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Your mindset and your net worth at the same time.
So mechanical engineer turned contractor for 20 years, lived off grid for two years, started farming, and now helps people buy and sell homes in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. We're going to have a great conversation about independence from the system with infinite banking. And we're joined today by a guest, Ricardo Manazza. Ricardo, you've been practicing this concept of infinite banking for about two and a half years now. You've had a crazy experience in business and in life. You've done so many amazing things. Before we hit the record button, I got a little bit of the gist on some of the insights into your, your amazing life in business. And I'm excited to chat with you today about the power of going off grid financially when it comes to the infinite banking concept. So thanks for being on the show today.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Oh, thank you, Richard.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Now we're going to talk a little bit about some of your backgrounds. I think it frames up how ibc, you know, came into your life a little bit. And so you kind of mentioned before we hit the record button that you actually graduated as a mechanical engineer a little over 20 years ago, but it wasn't a very good economic timeframe. And so you found yourself building somebody's deck as a favor to a friend. And then this was pretty fun. I'm gonna go start a contracting business. So that's a very different shift for people after going through a four year university degree. Walk us through what's going on at that time and how you kind of gravitated to the idea of becoming a general contractor.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: I just got off the co op program UBC offers like a co op where you get to work in different areas. And I even traveled to Germany and I worked for a laser company, the UV laser, little molds that you could only see with the microscope. And at the time that was like revolutionalized. I loved it. I mean, there was a lot of computer work and stuff like that. But when I came back, I did my last four months and finished high school. I mean, I graduated from UBC and then I came back and then I started looking for jobs, you know, and I had my three experiences. So there was Costa Machine making and then I worked for a chemical company just in North Vancouver. And then this job in Germany. And the job postings were very few.
And the one that I remember was this, this one from domtar is a pulp mill company down on Annasiz Island. And they, they actually called me in for an interview and I was like waiting on the edge of the seat, right. Like when you get excited about getting information.
And then I just wasn't hearing back from them so I just called them up and I said, so what's up? How did I do on the interview? Like did I get the job or anything? And then they're like, unfortunately we couldn't get you in because we're in hiring. So they're hiring somebody that is already in the company.
And yeah, the way the market is going, it's not so strong that they're hiring engineers.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: So there's a theme developing about independence on the land. You know, from your background to you know, a drive and then even with a gift from your father in law. It's really fascinating how all these things are connecting. And I'm seeing a lot of parallels to what would attract you and need initially, which we'll get to about your infinite banking journey. This, this idea of growing your own seeds and having a level of independence and control over your family's destiny.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Yes, 100%.
Yeah. And then we started planting this garden and my father in law gave me actually two canisters. He's like, how are you going to grow the seeds in case of emergencies? Like you know, like when you have to, if you don't know what the seed is going to do. So he gave me one to play with and one to put in the ground, bury it in the ground and actually, you know, preserve it for long term. Right. And so I did that and all of a sudden I was like blown away. I had peas like 6ft high plants that was like producing like insanely amount of peas. Like we were just in the garden every morning, fresh peas on the pod and then in one of our brainstorm masterminds, let's call it at the time we decided to call it Susend Seeds and we started an online seed company and was all based on these heirloom varieties and then just growing them. And then because the story about seeds too, like I, I went in and I always want to research, I'm that kind of guy. After graduating from engineering, I always research stuff and I found out that the seed actually stores in its DNA the, the events that have happened in its life. So that's why it's good that heirlooms because they're considered 25 years or older. It's kind of like a vintage car, right? It's been through everything, right?
And so. But the seed has collected all this information about the soil, about the watering, and it builds strength over time because it went through all these seasons, right?
And I was like, wow, this is really cool. Like, this could make a really good story even when I sell it, right?
So I went in and we started this company. And then obviously when you are growing seeds, you're growing also products and you know, like you have zucchinis and squashes. And then I was like, what, what am I going to do with all this stuff? It's not just going to be a seed company. I'm going to have to market and sell it. So we started going to farmer's market and started selling it and having all this stuff. And then all of a sudden I was also into animal husbandry. You know, I was obviously, I was growing up in Italy, so it's all salami and prosciutto and sausage.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: You had to experience everything you wanted. The buffet menu of the farming experience.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: I wanted to be at one point and I did achieve it. Everything on my table came from that farm. I grew it myself.
And at that point it was the most amazing feeling because I was like, wow, this is an achievement. Obviously there's a lot of lessons that happen in there and related to that. It was like, I always built for freedom, right?
And I always looked into what freedom means for different peoples. It means different things, but for me is like freedom of independence, freedom of doing what you want to do. Obviously understanding society and being not like, oh, I just want to race my car down the streets and possibly hurt somebody. No, no, no. It's like not the no hurt concept, but have the freedom to do it, right?
And also have the freedom to grow my own food, know where it comes from and also know what to do with my money, right? And invest it and grow it and, and just have that freedom to go wherever I want right when I want.
And so I did achieve the food part, the food sovereignty part, and I also achieved the off grid part.
But it's at that point, the off grid part that went well, maybe I can work with society and not be so.
So you were able to do it.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: But there's sacrifices in making that decision that you also experienced. So you, you realized, okay, I want to be able to push, put the plug in the wall and unplug it when I want and plug it in when I want. Relative to my interaction with society is that kind of what happened?
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Yes.
Well, no, when I bought the property, going off grid, it was just a few field, just a two acre field.
And when I bought it, I bought it. I wanted it to be mortgage free.
That was my other freedom status.
So being away from the banking system, because with the farm, I learned a few things about the mortgage and how it works. And like we talked about it before in our preview, it was just a.
The freedom on the land sort of concept is like, how are banks charging us interest out of nothing? And I just wanted to know like, where's the money coming from? Because somebody put a bug in my ear that it's actually your promissory note. And when I looked at my mortgage contract, holy shit, it is my promissory note. And I'm like, I am promising to pay this and then they're giving me the money based on this promissory note. And then when I hand them over, they just collect the interest on that. And I'm like, that doesn't sound fair.
So I did confront the bank at the time and I told them, hey, where does the money come from?
And they're like, well, that's a lawyer question. We can't have that disclosed that. And I was like, but this is the bank, like you're charging me interest on the money. Is this money created from my promissory note that. Like this right here? And I just showed them the piece of paper and I was like, we can't answer that. That's a question that you have to ask our.
What's it called? Some type of a lawyer.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: The legal team?
[00:10:40] Speaker A: Yeah, the legal team.
And I was like, oh, okay.
So then I researched again.
Is this really true? And then I was finding out, you know, like people were trying to give up the mortgage. I mean the banking system and the, obviously the legal system is all tied in together.
So it's a really nut, hard nut to crack.
So it's not that you can just be like, hey, this is all my stuff. You can't do this, I'm not paying you back. No, that doesn't work. There's resources and foreclosure proceedings. So I was like, no, I don't want this anymore. So we just went off and unfortunately my wife followed me through it. So we settled at that farm and then whatever proceed we had from it, we. I wanted to find a piece of land that was mortgage free, independent. And so then I found this property, it was in the next valley over and, and then I started building from there. And I'm Like I don't want to be tied into the power system. So I got myself some solar panels and then I had to get myself a generator because obviously here in Canada we don't have sun in the winter time. And then at the time I also had problems with pumping the water because I had a hundred foot drop down below. Like it wasn't a flat land as I used to be. This was like a up top and then an acre up top and an acre down below, right. And everything in between.
And so then I had a plumbing system so I had to generate enough power during the day to pump the water up and then collect it there. And then I could spread it around the farm up top because I, I, I used to have the animals and everything up top.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: You have new challenges to face after you've already conquered a bunch of them. And so what I'm hearing, Ricardo, is you've gone through a number of reinventions, but the theme of your life has been number one, a curiosity to learn new things, research, grow, develop, grow yourself, grow things, grow your family, grow, grow all the things that you need to use. Independence and a desire to have your version of freedom to the maximum capacity that's able to provide you. And your experience with the bank in, and just dealing with mortgages and things in that nature led you to understand that there must be a better way. So two and a half years ago, somehow Infinite Banking jumped onto the scene for you. What happened? How did it become, how did you become aware of IBC originally?
[00:13:24] Speaker A: That's a great question.
So obviously social media grew, right, over the years, it's becoming unseen. And then obviously we all know that the microphones are on by now and they're listening to you and creating profiles, right? And I've always been looking to find out other out of the box sort of ideas and freedom. So that was in my profile, but and it was also in my wife's profile because she's, she was more towards health research and money and finances. And then she's like, hey, hey babes. Have you ever heard about the infinite banking system?
I just got this commercial and I was like, I looked at it, I was like, policies, assets, this is what the rich people do. I was like, I don't know, No, I never heard of it. And then I, I researched it, I typed it on Google and then I went, infinite banking system. And then Nelson's Nash book comes up first, right? I'm like, oh, this is interesting. So then I went and bought it and I couldn't put it down. I read it. Yeah, yeah, I read it in two days.
I was just like, no freaking way.
I was just telling it to everybody. I had to repeat it because it just sounded so out of this world. I was like, you can become your own banker. I was like, it's everything, you know, Like, I felt like the universe was like, finally I got it. It's telling you, look, this is where you have to go, right? And then, and then I researched more into it and that's how I got in contact with Jinja. Right? I was like. Because, like, it, it was related. They were promoting the Nelson book. So I was like, I called her up. I was like, is it true that there's no infinite banking system possibility, like policy writers here in Canada? Because at the time, Nash didn't know if there was anything in Canada. Maybe mentioned one or two policies that you were able to underwrite. And then I was like, okay, well, I talked to her and she's like, no, no, it's possible, it's possible. You got to read these books. And I'm like, oh my God, it's possible. Go away. And then she ran the numbers of like a scenario for, for myself, what I was comfortable with. And then I was like, let's do it. I signed it up and then I was telling to my friends, I was like, I know it takes time. It's like a long term view. But because of my farming background, I knew what it takes. You know, like seed savings and storing.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: And the idea of a seed bank.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Yeah, this.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Preserve it for a long time for emergencies, etc.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: And then I was like. And then, well, that's not the part about financing all your, all your stuff, right? Like buying a car or buying real estate and doing deposits and everything.
And funny enough, I used the loans because I was able to take the loans after two years. I used the loans to fund putting a mobile home on the property and getting power to the property.
So.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: You have your off grid capacity, but now you have in the grid utilization as well.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: Yes, yeah, yeah. And then that's when I signed up for it. And I was like, this is amazing. What a product.
And the other thing too that people don't realize is the protection for family. You know, once I signed that policy, I was like, I'm protecting them if anything happens to me, you know, in some ways, not over the years, I'm not expecting to happen right then when I was 42, you know, but in the future, if anything happens to me, my family will be okay, kind of right and having that assurity too, it just, I don't know, it create a sense of more freedom. But it wasn't like a freedom personal, it was like a legacy sort of way, right? And I was just like, just my mindset changed and the discoveries and you know, like helping it to promote to other people too changed, right? And just, I was just like, wow, this is cool. And you know, and just trying it too. It's not something that you deposit money and you gotta wait, you know, five years. I, I tried it after two years, right? I got a loan for 20,000 and I was like, wow, it is working, you know, because at first you read it and it's always scary, you know, I don't, I don't know if I could do this. And what if it doesn't work? You know, all your doubts, we all get doubts in our life, right? But when I clicked loan and it was such an easy application too, I was like, no, no background check, no credit score, no nothing. It was just like, how much money do you want?
And then my money's still growing too.
And it's not depending on the market, it's not fluctuating because I knew about investments and I was into crypto and blah, blah, blah and all that other stuff and volatility and risk management.
Nope, it grows every year for the last 500 years. I was like. And then I see it the next year, I'm like, oh, it did grow.
This is amazing.
And then, you know, I was just like, wow, like what a concept.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: And what's the feeling like being, you know, given the experience you shared about, you know, the previous mortgage, wanting a property that was mortgage free, now having to utilize your policy, equity from your policy, to fund things that you needed for the property or for other items. What's the feeling like, Ricardo, for you knowing that you get to dictate the terms of how you repay that loan?
[00:19:54] Speaker A: At first I had to read the don't take out the P's a couple of times.
I read the book over and over and I even have it on audiobooks. So with my real estate I travel a lot. So whenever I want to refresher and just get energized and you know, motivated, inspired again, I just listen to it because I don't know if you have experienced it. But every time as you go through life, there's different events that happen and then you correlate those events with what the book is telling you.
So at first it was the infinite banking concept, because I was going through the banking and questioning the banking system and everything. And that's what connected to me. But then it's like when I had the loan, it's like, what do I do to repay it back? Because there's no, there's not restrictions. You can pay it back a hundred dollars a month or you can pay a thousand dollars a month. It's all up to you. And how do you see it and how you project it, right? And how, how you can adapt it too. It's not that you have to call your loan officer, Hey, I can't make the payment this month. Can we reduce it a little bit? No, you have full control. And I was like, this is crazy. Like it gives me the goosebumps, right? Like just to be able not to be dependent, especially on the bank. Because when you realize that, you know, like some of the problems that we have in the world is because of some of the structures that are there.
And also what I found out, the banks take deposits in and then they lend the money 10 to 15 times the depository, right. Of what they have in deposit. But the insurance companies don't, they just grow.
And so it's like you're pulling money together with people that have the same idea, the same goal, the same sort of freedom. And I was like, this is where you leverage people, right?
And by good planning you can achieve the same as the banking system, but without the printing, the inflation, the problems, like now we're talking about affordability. Well, yeah, because the banks have screwed it up. You know, they're making all these loans and printing all this money on your promissory note.
And it's destroying us in a sense.
And then I have experienced it because I pulled myself out of the real estate market. A real estate market is the perfect example because it will go with inflation. But if you pull yourself out, you know, at 100 grand per home, because back in the days when we were starting looking, there was 100 grand for a home. And now that same home is a million dollars. But if you pull yourself out, you can't get back in because you lost it with inflation, right?
And it's taking disadvantage for the new people. The first time buyers, like in real estate we are now at 40 years old is your average first time buyer age, right?
And knowing this, it's a little bit of a plague, right? It's like, man, how do you spread this word, right? Like, how do you spread this knowledge that, hey, listen, when I was going back to the free man on the land, if everyone dropped their mortgages, there would be no more banks.
Right. And I was like, okay, that's a great concept, but I can't dream in that sense. But we need to create a system that can run parallel and then have the people joining to it. Right. And that's why I'm a big supporter of the be your own banker.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: Well, and you mentioned working essentially with other people in contract even though you don't know them. And in real estate, now that you're heavily involved in real estate from a realtor perspective and helping people with buying and selling.
You know, often in real estate people talk about opm, other people's money. And you had that situation, you used to flip some houses and do some housing deals with your mom and stuff. So you've, you've experienced that. And usually we talk about OPM and they think, oh, we're, we're using the bank's money. Well, in this situation, OPM is the insurance company's money. But quite literally the OPM is actually other policy owners money because it's all caretake, it's all under the caretaker administration management of the insurance company. And the sole purpose that they have is to do a good job for all the policy owners. They have literally no other purpose.
And it's just such a unique kind of a closed loop system. You know, in Nelson's book on page 26, he has a picture of the money pool and he talks about the hierarchy of who can receive capital. They have to put the capital to work for the benefit of everyone in the system. They got to invest some money on big projects and they got bonds, they got all these types of things. And then one of the places they can put the money to work is with you and with me and with other people watching this right now who have similar policies. So when you take a policy loan, it's an invested asset of the insurance company and they have to manage that. And yes, they have to charge interest, but they're charging interest for everyone in the, in the deal. We all participate in that advantage. So when I take a loan, hey, Ricardo's going to benefit if we're in the same insurance company and vice versa. I may not see the interest that you're paying and you won't see the interest I'm paying. But it's all getting congealed together in that big glorious money pool that we share in. That's the beauty of mutual ownership. The idea and the theme of, you know, being self sufficient.
And you've walked us through a journey of self sufficiency from an economic Climate that couldn't support your degree in mechanical engineering, taking the initiative within two weeks of a new job to buy a truck and get some ryobi tools to start your own business to create self sufficiency. You know, leaving all that behind to start a farming, but in the process of running your day job, running your contracting business, building and growing your knowledge base around farming so that when you made the pivot you already had the skill set that had built up over probably five or six or seven years.
So you had skillset to move into the new idea and that was a capitalization period that allowed you to move that energy that you created and the time and the knowledge into business. Number two, being a farmer, the heirloom seeds and all these things you share with us, then transitioning that into creating self sufficiency on your own land, being mortgage free, being self sufficient, off the grid, to now going from separating from the bank to now controlling the banking environment in a way that most people don't even know is possible for the rest of your natural life.
And how old are your kids again, Ricardo, share that with us if you don't mind.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: 15 and 13.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: So you left Italy at age 15 and you now have children that are the same age that you were when you left the whole country. You moved lock, stock and barrel and you are now able to share with them the degree to which they can create independence in their life that they already seeing they're living in a farm situation and they've experienced off grid life. They these are inherent lessons, not unlike the ones that you received on your grandparents property in Italy. Then you're carrying that torch forward and creating this generational knowledge base and now you get to now infuse that knowledge base around the complete independence from a banking system.
Now it doesn't necessarily mean that your kids won't have some connection to the traditional banking system, but they're certainly going to be aware and know that it's possible to completely disconnect from it and how they can go about making that process happen. When you think about your bigger future in relation to what you see for your children, your wife, how does that make you feel?
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Well, wow.
First of all, I never heard anybody put it that way.
That's an amazing insight. But I just felt like, wow, I did achieve a lot.
I don't think I've given myself enough credit as being the example. But yeah, my kids are able to decipher. I mean we did homeschool them too, right? Because another rabbit hole is the schooling.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: System and Nelson Nash used to say when him and his wife Mary, when they'd see a school bus go by, they would nudge each other and Mary would say, there go the inmates.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly what it is. It's another prison, right? But it's also a prison of the mind, you know, and that's the biggest thing that people don't realize when they put their kids into the schooling system, that they're binding them to have these rules and construct, right? And what are. They're not going to learn about the infinite banking system?
They're not going to learn how to grow their own food.
They're not going to learn what makes them independent, right? All they're going to be learning is how to be dependent, you know, and how. I don't know about you, but if I wasn't like the guy that was standing up is like. And questioning everything, I was just like the kind of the shy guy and just hoping that somebody was going to ask the question that I had.
But that seldomly happened because I already had the mental freedom. I was like, why? You know, most of the times my question was, why?
Why did you do that? You know, and. But going back to the kids, it's like, it is, give him the choice.
And that's what I think the society doesn't have. You don't have a choice, you know, like, or, or for. What I wanted to do in my life was being able to have the choice. It's like, you know, if you want to choose, that's freedom, right? Like having choices. If you have one thing like, oh, you gotta go to school now.
Once they got of the age that they weren't so naive, let's say 10 years old, then we gave them the choice, you can go to school or you can continue here and learn on your own.
So they chose to go to school. My eldest chose to go to school because he turned first 10 years old, right, Obviously. And then my youngest followed through because he was seeing how much fun he was having instead of being at home. But again, kids don't understand the concept of you're doing it for a reason. Because they haven't experienced life right.
Yet. Like you said, they experienced the farm, but they didn't experience the why, why did daddy and mommy brought us to the farm kind of thing, right? Like, it's the same thing. I was 15 when I moved here. I didn't know why I was going to the farm. Yeah, I lost my dad, but I didn't technically know, like there was a financial issue with my mom she had to go to work and work 10 hours a day and she wasn't able to come back and she wasn't going to pay for a babysitter. Right. I didn't know those issues until I learned myself, like, holy shit, man. She did a lot of sacrificing. Right.
And so now my kids don't really understand why we went off the grid, why we did this. I mean, yeah, they hear it because it's me and my wife always, they hank about it, right.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: They have knowledge because you can share. You can share reason and a rationale, but knowledge does not equal understanding.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: You can research something all day long. You can read this book, Becoming youg Own Banker, and you can know that it exists and you can know that you can go get a whole life insurance policy, but until you get one and take that policy loan and get, you know, power services to your property that's been off grid for two years and be able to dictate the terms of how you repay it back to a system where you get to reuse all the payments again.
You don't understand.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: Exactly.
Beautifully said. I couldn't have said a better myself.
[00:32:46] Speaker B: Um, you know, I'm not, I'm not sure. Ricardo, if you've. You've checked out much of our resources in our online membership site, if you've probably logged into the Ascendant membership site a time or two.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: Yeah, a couple of times.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: You know, one of the videos that's in there is the backwards bicycle. Did you ever watch the Backwards bicycle?
[00:33:02] Speaker A: No.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: It's a video I found on YouTube years ago. Also a gentleman. He's got a channel called Smarter Every Day. And he's an engineer, mechanical engineer, actually, I believe.
And so he had this welder create a bike where.
Well, he didn't actually the welder just created it. But when you turn to the right tire goes left.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: I've seen it. I've seen it.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: It's a seven minute video. It's absolutely beautiful. I love it. So we have that inside of our membership portal because I actually, I'm the one that sent that video to Nelson Nash. And I actually, I got the chance to. The first time I was able to emcee our annual conference at the Nelson Nash Institute, our think tank event. And Nelson asked me to mc.
I played that video for everybody and then I got them to go through a thinking exercise. Because while it has to do with learning how to ride a bike, it really has to do with neural pathways and how we train our brain on something and become so natural or so built up as a habit in our life that it becomes very difficult to pivot and just immediately change gears into something else. Whereas so for an adult, hard to make that choice. But yet he was able to teach his seven year old son how to do it in two weeks, something that took him eight months to do.
And like that's the degree to which, that the child's brain has more capacity to, to, to maneuver and see things because it hasn't developed 40 years of bias about something else in life. And it's a powerful lesson. And so what you're identifying about your kids and yeah, they have this knowledge base but they don't necessarily truly understand.
There's so much potential in what you're going to be able to share with them and show them over the next number of years. And as they really get out into what we like to refer to as the real world, you know, the quote unquote real world where you have to earn your own money and do all these things and put food on your own table, it's going to become a very eye opening experience. But because of the past that they'll be looking back upon, they'll probably be able to maneuver much quicker than other kids who didn't have that experience.
So you may not see what that looks like yet, but I already have a vision of it into your future. I'm excited about the conversations 10 years from now you're going to be having with your kids.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: Now that you talk like that for sure.
Yeah, it's like on the bias side, I'm a big fan of the Matrix, the movie and when Neil says that people can't be awakened past 35 years of age.
And that came true with a few things in my life because if I wasn't the age that I was, I don't think I would have awakened to how the banking system works, how everything is.
Because when I talk to now that I'm 46, now that I talk to 46 years old, they're just, they don't even want to learn anymore. They lost that capacity to wanting to learn and grow. And so even explaining the concept becomes harder because I'm like, how do I explain it to you if I can't show it to you? I do a little bit of graphs around or what, what do you need?
But it's not just that, it's just like they didn't even get exposed to it. Like, like, like, you know, we could have talked for hours because you have to unravel all the, the biases, Right, like that you said, right. And then it's just like there's so much. There's a lot, right? Like there's, there's health, there is, you know, life, there is banking and there is, you know, land and real estate and like you just gotta go and wind back the wheel and then erase it all and then start over again. Because the way society is structured, right. And yeah, it's.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Well, and, you know, there's, there's lots of acronyms. The, the word fear, my favorite acronym for that has been future Events Appearing Real.
And often, you know, you can't fear something in the past because it's already happened. Can only fear something into the future.
And so often people fear the unknown and the degree to which the unknown in the past has caused them some kind of maybe pain. And so you have enough past buildup and you start to figure out, how can I minimize and reduce the unknowns in my future?
And so that's, I think, what causes a little bit of that maybe walled view that some people have that where they've lost the inspiration to learn. There's. There's enough. There's enough past behind them where they've been burned or something has happened that they're just more guarded about what unknowns in the future look like. I think that's kind of what happens for people. But when it comes to, you know, your kids and stuff, I don't know if you got a copy of this book, Don't Spread the Wealth. I suspect you might have one potentially, but this is our most recent book. We have one we're launching soon called Growing youg Own Capital. It's actually a book for farmers how they can develop the ultimate line of credit to keep the farm and the family for generations. And similarly, this book is all about how to have those family banking meetings and really create a positive and exciting environment about discussions around money while having that control and really thinking about a legacy that, you know, legacy isn't dollars that we leave behind. It's the knowledge base and the value system that we have we're leaving behind to the people we love and care about. And so that's what this book is all about. For those of you watching and listening, you can go to don'tspread wealth.com that's don'tspread wealth.com and pick up a copy. And of course, look out for our new book, Growing your Own Capital, a great book for farmers that's coming out soon. Co written by the amazing Dan Allen. Now Ricardo, I'm curious. I'll look forward to circling back with you once that book comes out and you get a copy in your hands and you, you get a chance to give us your farmer's perspective as an infinite banker on that new work. I, I look forward to hearing your feedback on it. Given everything we've talked about today. You're two and a half years with this process. You talked us through one of your first major policy loan purchases.
What else have you been able to use or are you planning and thinking about using your IBC system for your family system for over the next year? What's coming up for you and what other things have you done? Some small little items as well. Where else have you been able to leverage it so far?
[00:39:34] Speaker A: Yeah, well now my goal is to take everything like from insurance and future purchases like you know, tools or trucks and everything and have that implemented and separated.
And so then I repay myself back because it's a learning process. Right. And so I want to repay myself back that amount that I would normally with a bank, but I would recover everything. So what's next is my, we're going to Italy with the whole family for the first time in the kids life. So that's going to be an achievement that I can do through the infinite banking system. Right.
And yeah, we're super excited. So that's really coming up. And then yeah, just renewing my, my insurance for the cars and trucks and then obviously with, with real estate, I also keep it so that you know, my marketing and everything like that I can just, you know, take it out and then slowly, slowly put it back in. And if, if an opportunity pops up because there might be a good deal here in town where I'm at, it might be a good deal so that I might have that down payment as well. So it's just, it just, it's just so amazing. It's like, it's like I don't even have to think about it. I just look at what my loan available loan is and I'm like, okay, okay, okay, I got a pre plan. Obviously this is all to build legacy. I'm not spending it to buy stupid things, but it's possible to do it. You know, like I was reading that now the new kids are spending money and getting into loans about paying for tickets for like a Taylor Swift concept concert. Right. And I don't doubt it, that's the best experience that you could have. But at least teach the kids the concept of paying interest over time and you know, the ticket is going to cost you a thousand bucks now.
And then when you do the payments and you're done doing the payments, then you're paid 1500. So you technically could have gone to one and a half concerts if you really managed or built in a system like the infinite backing system. Right.
And yeah, it's, it's. It's about, you know, and it's also a learning progress too, because it's like you said, with the new books coming out, and I do want to have a book out, which actually Jing Jin suggested it the other day that has. I think it was farming without the bank.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Mary Jo Irman. Yeah, Mary Jo.
Great friend. Yeah. Amazing gal. She's actually did the forward for our new book, which we're blessed that she.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: Oh, there you go.
Yeah. So then I ordered it right away, you know, as soon as Jingjin said, hey, oh, you're in farming and you want to know more about the banking system on how to use it. Because I do have still a lot of friends that are in farming. And every time I try to support my farmers, by the way, I want everybody here on this call to support farmers because forget about the grocery store. I know it's cheaper to go to Walmart and grab your veggies and your meat and everything like that, but in the long run, it's not.
It's subsidized money, first of all.
And a lot of people don't understand even subsidized concept. But guess what? They take your taxes and put it into the agriculture. So technically you're paying for it indirectly, right. As they raise your taxes, then they pay for their grocery stores. Right?
But farmers don't have subsidies, right. Actually, they have more regulations over and over, the small ones. And that's my goal, is to help out the small farmers because we are not going to have the seed diversity that we need in this world unless it's the small farmers. Because the big farmer, they don't care.
They're just going to have one seed or two, right? They don't. They don't need the diversity. They just want the strongest seed and then everything else can be left. So if you want more products and more choice and that goes to freedom, then you got to support your small farmers.
And it's like talk about it as an investment to the future.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:44:14] Speaker A: For your kids and grandkids, you're probably.
[00:44:17] Speaker B: Going to get a lot better quality stuff. I know being in Chilliwack now from. From the Edmonton area also, growing up in a small farming community, I remember as A As a kid we used to go and get, get our milk directly from the farmer that milk the cow and bring it home and separate our own cream. We grew a large garden. We, we used to do some very similar things that you shared.
Granted was probably a shorter growing season than you may have had in Italy.
But you know, being here in Chilliwack, British Columbia, which is a beautiful, great farming community, you know, shout out to Chilliwack corn of course, which is fantastic. But we, you know, we love being able to walk. You know, I walk down the road, there's, there's a trail literally about 4 minute walk down the road. And right beside that it's a small farm. They've got a couple of horses, a couple of goats, a couple of donkeys. We can go get farm fresh eggs there and some veggies and then there's numerous places. And so I love the idea of being able to hand deliver virtually often into an honor box still it still exists in, you know, and pay for my goods and give my money directly to the farmer that did the work, grew the food directly. And it just feels really amazing to be able to do that. So, so. And I can tell you personally, the quality of materials that we get are far and above anything we've ever gotten. A grocery store, not to say that there's always bad stuff in the grocery store. I'm just saying our personal experience has been when we buy directly from a farmer, we always get high, high quality, superior flavors and everything. And it's just nice. There's a really wonderful feeling about supporting, watching my dollars go right back into the local economy. You know, Nelson Nash used to tell a story about what was known as Black Wall Street. There was some race riots in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I believe is in the early 20s. I don't remember the exact year, but where, where it took place, the area was known as or referred to as Black Wall street because it was the most prosperous and economically, you know, fervor of activity in this environment because the dollars in the community weren't allowed to leave the community at that time. So the dollar turned over so many times before it ever left that community. And it was that activity that took place of economic value from this person to that person to this business to that business, all within this kind of localized community environment that caused such prosperity to happen. And when you do work in your local communities, in your local environments, you can see that start to take place. So that's one of the reasons why I love supporting the farmers in our local community. Of course, and keeping the dollars turning over, the turning of dollars and repeatedly inside of a smaller micro economy creates an amount of prosperity that's, that's really something to behold. And so I encourage everyone to be aware of that and try to do more of it. And coincidentally it's the same principle that applies to the infinite banking concept because we are operating inside of effectively, you know, in this case it's a national community. When we, when we have, if you and I have a contract with the same life company, which I'm pretty sure we do by the way, I probably have 12 or so contracts with that company.
And so we are all mutually working within that community environment and the dollars are kind of turning over.
They're just turning over with an administrator that's overseeing everything in a really effective manner. They built the technology so you can click the button and take the loan and make the repayments. Like they put all that infrastructure together, kind of like the highway system, but they, they're allowing us to operate across the nation with other free contract people in this beautiful systematic environment where we get that autonomy. But now our dollars are rotating within that, that aggregate community. So the more and more people that are doing that and the more support it happens, the bigger and better that community. And that implementation under the management of a, of a great business administrator that's been doing it for 100 years allows us all to participate in those profits. So the same way you support your local farmer, you turn dollars in your local community on local businesses is the same way that you can see the aggregate power and potential of working within the same insurance company with other free people and entering into free contract which is the basis by which insurance is built.
[00:48:39] Speaker A: Yeah, that pops in like how the banking system has created this sort of animosity with the insurance system, you know, like, because when I, when I was first hearing about insurance, I was like, ooh, that's ugly word. I don't think I even want to go there. And my father passed away when I was 8 years old and my mom had an insurance policy on his life, but it didn't pay.
And so I always had this, no, I don't want to hear anything. Because again, it was like this knowledge that I had, but it wasn't like I experienced it, but my mom did and, and I was like, no, I don't want to hear insurance, they're just a rip off, you know, they don't make any sense. But as you get into it and I started learning how the rich people do it and I learned that, you know, the Rockefellers have been using this system over generations and look at that. They're like found rich, right? And I'm not saying that I want to be rich, but I want to be free.
You know, like, if my freedom is a different freedom from yours freedom or anybody that is watching this, right?
So I want to be free in the sense that I don't have to think or do anything. If I want to take a trip to Italy, boom, I can do it, right? Like, obviously right now I'm looking at how much I can low now, but, you know, having that freedom to be able to do what you want. And so going back to the insurance, I had this thing, oh, I don't want to hear. But then I read in a book at the same time I was learning about the insurance process, I read in a book that whatever you oppose the most, it's what you need to do or get into it, right? And I was like, wow, this is pretty profound because it's kind of like the universe saying, look, you gotta take a look at this because you can't be hearing insurance, insurance insurers all the time and not be like, why am I getting all this stuff, right?
Like, there's a way that we can all intercommunicate. Like, I don't call it God, but there is like a consciousness that wraps us around us. Like we're, we're droplets in an ocean and we're all communicating, we're all experiencing life at this. We have the capacity to experience life at the same level, right?
So the, the banking system is actually taking that life and sucking it out of you.
But if you pull together with other people in the insurance model, then it's actually you're cooperating, you're coexisting.
And that's what helps other people. Because with the loans, they loan it out, they're helping you, but at the same time, they're helping everybody else. That it's in the pool, the banking system. They're only helping themselves and they're CEOs and they're growing their salaries and actually they're sucking you out. Because the inflation, they're the cause of the inflation or part of it, let's say.
Let's not give them all the fault, right?
But they're part of the problem of sucking that energy. Because money is energy, right?
A lot of the money books, it's just a representation.
So when you're saying the dollar goes around, it's just energy being transferred then being used. You want to use it. The Most efficient. That's what they taught us about in animal Aspen tree. When I was training my horse, they told me in a training course it was like horses would always take the path of least resistant. Oh, guess what electricity does.
Always takes the path of least resistance.
So what does? Energy money does too. It always takes the path of least resistance. That's why they're making the bank payments so easy. Because hey, guess what? If it was hard, I had to count the cash and bring it out or do a loan, go up online and change it and transfer it, wait two days, you know, at least you would have the time. I see it with the real estate when people purchase, some people get like, what have I done? You know, the buyer's remorse.
I don't think I should have bought this. This is way too much for me. And they get anxiety and stuff. But if they had a process in between, like, you know, no, take your time, take it easy. Think about it. It's not, you're not committed fully or then they're more relaxed and you know, like number one reason for stress is like, for health is stress. Right. So it's like, you know, you just, you just, it's, it's good to put space in between every purchase as, as well, you know, like it's way too easy right now to go and purchase something. But with the banking system, you're the bank, so you have to do the file transfer. So you see the funds being transferred over and everything like that. So it put, it puts a process in between.
Right.
[00:54:13] Speaker B: I really like how you identified that, Ricardo. Because it's an awareness mechanism.
[00:54:17] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:54:17] Speaker B: And the heightened level of awareness. So a friend of mine actually lives out in the Okanagan Valley, she has a great real estate group out there, real estate investor group. She used to say that the more you manage your money, the more money you have to manage.
And so I, I, I always, that always stuck with me. And managing it also means you need to be aware of it. So it, so it, it, it alludes to the fact that there's a heightened degree of awareness and Nelson's process. One of the reasons that people become successful with this, it isn't the insurance policy.
The insurance policy is going to do whatever it's going to do. It's your interaction with an insurance policy over time and your behaviors that determine that success.
And because it, the, the, the mindsets and behaviors create new pathways of the brain, new habits being built, new seeking of efficiency, new decision making processes. You know, a lot of people may spend less money than they did before because their awareness has changed and that automatically can lead to more sex. It doesn't, doesn't mean that they're not still having a good life or that they're, they're, they're, they've decided that they're just gonna, you know, eat macaroni and cheese or something for the, you know, an ichaban noodles. It just means that their awareness of their spending pattern becomes more clear and concise. And then the result of that is over time, you start to see, what I have more money left over than I used to. Well, maybe some things have changed in your habits, and then that leads to expansion, and then that leads to more prosperity, and then that leads to more thinking and it leads more discussions and it just be creates this like expansion wheel of activity. But we don't always see it in the moment because it doesn't happen in an instant. It actually happens over a long period of time, the same way that you plant corn.
And it's going to take a while with some watering and some decent weather and some sunshine before you're going to start to see a sprout.
And then you talked about that 15 foot corn, that red corn at the beginning of our conversation, Ricardo. But every day that you went out there, unless you took a measuring tape, did you see how much the corn grew?
[00:56:27] Speaker A: No.
[00:56:28] Speaker B: You knew it was getting taller, but then all of a sudden one day you're like, oh my God, that corn is really tall.
But you remember a month and a half pri previous when it was four feet shorter than that, but you didn't recognize that every day it was growing because you weren't measuring it every day. Well, people aren't measuring their financial habits every day either. They should, but yet if you have a properly designed whole life insurance policy, that sucker is growing every single day.
[00:56:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: And that degree of efficiency can add a lot of power and momentum into your life.
And it's a subtle thing, It's a subtle change, but it's little changes that lead to big results.
That's how you get 15 foot corn. Yeah.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: No, it's funny that you mentioned that because at the beginning I was looking at my cash value growing every day because Xinjiang pointed it out, go look. How much is it growing every day? Oh, $5 a day. Wow.
Just like.
And it's like you said, it's like the corn. Then you stop. It's like having a new car. Right? You look at it and it's growing for the first few days and then life happens. And then you haven't gone back. And then you go and check seven days later, whoa, I got $100.
Whoa, this is awesome. And then you go a month later, oh, I can take out a loan. Oh, wow. This was exciting, right? And. And then. And it just keeps on growing. And then, you know, like, it's cool to go and see that growth, right? It's. It's kind of like. Like, why you made the analogy. It was amazing.
I like tomatoes as a plant because you can definitely tell how much they grow overnight. Like, the tomatoes and pot plants are the fastest photosynthesis.
So. And then people don't know that grow at night.
All plants grow at night. During the day, they collect the sugars, and then at nighttime, they use that sugar to grow the plant and the carbons. And so every morning when I get up there, I'm like, I don't have to have a tape measure because the tomato plants are like, holy shit, it's on my nose. Oh, man. It's like a higher. Right? And then it's the same thing with the policy. Like, if. If I was to look at it every day, I would see it growing every day. And it's again, it's a feeling that at first, the first few times, I don't even know, I was like, wow, this is for real. Like, it's like you gotta pinch yourself. You're like in a dream. How is it possible?
And I wasn't taught it before, and then I take it. Well, I guess the time is now, right? Like, you either plant a tree 20 years before or now, right? And it's just like, oh, man, the what ifs come in, right? But anyways, yeah, no, it's a great concept for sure.
I can't wait to spread it even more.
[00:59:31] Speaker B: Well, Ricardo, we appreciate you sharing your story and be with us here today.
You may not show up when you were farming or when you get in your car to go show some properties for people looking to buy some in the Okanagan Valley with a cape in hand.
But when you teach your kids to be independent on the land, independent from the banking system, when you teach and share this message with other people, in my opinion, you are showing up as a hero to others.
So my question for you here before we end our time today, is who do you most want to be a hero to?
[01:00:05] Speaker A: I had that question asked me in a coaching call my kids, for sure, just because I feel my dad didn't have a chance to do it with me. But even though in the little time that I know and that little memories that I had of them.
Yeah, for sure. My kids and my wife maybe, but my wife, she's on our path. We're on different paths, same family and that creates that energy, right? Plus or minus.
Yeah.
[01:00:39] Speaker B: Love it. Well, thanks so much for being with us here today and sharing a really cool story about your, your, your, your history, your usage of the policy, your, your strive for freedom and independence and the many ways that you've been able to achieve it over your life and, and the one. The ways that you're going to continue to do so going forward. For those of you watching, of course on YouTube, Shazam. You're going to see a great pop up of a video that says, oh my God, this is incredible content. So you're going to want to click that. Go ahead and keep learning because there is no such thing as having arrived in knowledge. Thanks for being with us today. We'll catch you next week on next week's episode.
