Mike Crawford interview transcript.

Chris Bay:

We’re starting down this road of interviewing our team members at Life Success Legacy so that you, the listeners, can get to know us a little bit, but really part of it is for you to hear the diverse ways that we came to know about life’s Infinite Banking and how we implemented it in our own personal lives. Everybody on our team were clients at one point, and we applied Infinite Banking in our own lives. Then many of us joined Life Success & Legacy because of how it impacted our lives. This podcast is going to be talking with Michael Crawford, one of our team members here. These podcasts are because of Michael; he does a lot of the background technology work. He manages our website, the podcast, and other things for us. Today we’re going to get to hear his story. Michael, give us a sense of where you were in life. When you first learned about the Infinite Banking concept, give us age, family, that kind of stuff.

Michael Crawford:

Sure, I would have been 32 years old. I was working in Baldwin city for a software development company, and I was working a lot of hours and very stressed. It was a good, fun job. I’m very much grateful for it because I’ve learned so much about technology and implementing proper marketing strategies and things of that nature that the time that I spent there was more than valuable.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

But also at that same time, when I learned about Infinite Banking, my wife was pregnant with our son.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

And about 6-7 months pregnant stuff.

Chris Bay:

What was your introduction to Infinite Banking?

Michael Crawford:

Well, our office as a software development company, we didn’t get a lot of walk-ins as you might think. We normally dealt with people via email or phone calls or went to their place of business to learn a little bit about them and who they were rather than come to us. One afternoon this gentleman walked in, had a bunch of stuff in his hand, and he goes, I think I need to talk to you, and he pointed right at me, and I thought, do I know this guy from somewhere?

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

Well, it turns out it was Mike Everett, the founder of Life Success & Legacy. He was in desperate need of a website rebuild.

Chris Bay:

Okay.

Michael Crawford:

So that was my first introduction to Mike Everett.

Chris Bay:

Okay. So, you were introduced to Mike Everett, and then how did it place that you were introduced to Infinite Banking?

Michael Crawford:

Well, you see Mike, didn’t try to sell me on anything at all. In fact, when he sat down, he gave me an overview of the company that he was trying to really take to the next level. He handed me a packet of information between flyers, brochures, handwritten things that were just notes about what he wanted the new website to look like.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

And last but definitely not least was Nelson’s book.

Chris Bay:

Oh okay.

Michael Crawford:

And being Mike Everett, if you know him at all or have listened to his podcast, he takes the look at the diving board, the high dive, jumps off, and then determines if there’s water after he’s jumped off.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

Same thing occurred with this website. He gave me all this information. He asked how much it would cost. We wrote up a contract; he signed a check that day.

Chris Bay:

Wow.

Michael Crawford:

That was the fastest sale I’ve ever made. And then began the process of building the site, which just by a pure reading [crosstalk 00:03:56].

Chris Bay:

Osmosis [inaudible 00:03:57] yeah.

Michael Crawford:

In osmosis. I started absorbing some of the information and considering that my wife was six, seven months pregnant, falling asleep on the couch.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

Early. I did the first cardinal sin that we teach people not to do. And I read the book after nine o’clock.

Chris Bay:

So, we’re two for two on our team of people reading Nelson’s book after nine o’clock. Interesting. We tell everybody not to read it after nine o’clock, and both you and Everett have both started reading it late at night.

Michael Crawford:

As it turns out, it was more a matter of like I started reading the material on the website and transferring it to the new website. And I kept thinking to myself; this information is very pertinent to where I was in life. I was adding a new human to the world with my wife. And, finances were obviously a concern [crosstalk 00:04:48].

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

Always are right. Most families have that discussion weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

You know, sometimes when they don’t want to, they have it.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

In my head, I was just like, is there a better way? Where I was, we did not have a 401k program. So everything I did was on my own.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

I had to be the researcher, I had to be the investigator.

Chris Bay:

And you had been a business owner as well. Right.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah, exactly. I used to own an automotive repair shop in Lawrence, Kansas. And you know, in fact, when the economy took a downturn in 2008, that was one of the first things we had to get rid of was our match on our 401k. So I also took a drastic hit, like everybody else in that time. I had a very bitter taste in my mouth pertaining to these qualified plans.

Chris Bay:

So you’re curious about something else. There’s got to [crosstalk 00:05:38].

Michael Crawford:

You know.

Chris Bay:

Be something else out there.

Michael Crawford:

I had read just enough information to know. I didn’t want to get involved with the Dave Ramsey stuff and his stuff; his teachings were fantastic. But it just didn’t seem like it was the lifestyle that I wanted.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

I have read about other things that you can do other types of investments and not only did they seem too risky, they required me to manage them constantly.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

As I was sitting there thinking about raising a new child and the life changes that were already about to take place, the idea of undertaking additional responsibilities to manage money that wasn’t guaranteed to grow seemed daunting.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. I bet. And you were how old at that time? About [crosstalk 00:06:22].

Michael Crawford:

32.

Chris Bay:

32 or so.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah.

Chris Bay:

That’s pretty high stress.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah. And it’s not unique. I’m not unique in that. Right.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

That’s what has drawn me towards Infinite Banking, more than anything is the idea that it can be and is for anyone.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

Whether you’re a college student or whether you are in your fifties or sixties.

Chris Bay:

Or even seventies.

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

It is called the Infinite Banking concept because of that exact thing. It is infinite in the possibilities of application and infinite in who can actually join it.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. Okay. So you read the book.

Michael Crawford:

Yes.

Chris Bay:

And what was the next step, and what was your timeframe from the time when you start reading the book to the time when you and Mary said, we’re starting a policy.

Michael Crawford:

Well, I read the book in November, maybe middle of November. I called Mike that very next morning at like 7:15 because I just knew he’d be awake. And I said, dude if this is not complete garbage, we’ve got to sit down and talk. There’s got to be something to this if this is not just a scam.

Chris Bay:

Mm-mm (negative).

Michael Crawford:

And he said, all right, let’s do it. We schedule an appointment. In fact, no, I take that back. We did not schedule an appointment. He said you know what? We have a boot camp coming up. It’s our first time doing these things in Lawrence, Kansas. We’re going to do an introduction to this concept, and I’m going to walk through some book review stuff with everybody. I’d like you to join; they’re free to do.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

And I said, okay. He said it’d be really good if your wife could make it. And I said, well, she’s pregnant. We’ll see how she feels that day.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

Fast forward to now, January, it was the middle-end of January. I went to this boot camp, and I took three full pages of notes that day. I went home, and my wife was convinced that they had served a Kool-Aid.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

At the event and that, I have now joined a cult.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

And that being said, she shut me up after about 10 minutes of talking and said, I’m not interested in hearing about this right now. We’re trying to have a child.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

And I thought, okay, well that may be that. I couldn’t let it die though.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

I was becoming a little disgruntled in my job just because of the time investments, more than anything. And the fear that that would continue when my child arrived.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

I didn’t want to feel like I missed out on his infancy.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

The more I contemplated that, I was like, I’ve got to find a plan. And then things have got to start coming together.

Chris Bay:

Like Mike Everett, this was not only in your brain thinking about you personally, how to manage your money, how finance things in your life; you were also looking at the potential of it being [crosstalk 00:09:00].

Michael Crawford:

Exactly.

Chris Bay:

A career change.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah. For more than any reason, it was the word hope I wrote it down. And I think I still have those notes. I wrote the word hope down at least seven times that day at that first boot camp. That was something that we lacked was the hope that there was something out there that could work.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

For the hope that our finances would not be the topic of an argument every now and then, especially now you’re bringing a kid around, you’ve got more expenses and hospital bills.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

Doctor bills and this, that, and the other. So yeah, absolutely, it was sort of a mind shift where I had to make a decision whether or not I wanted to continue down the path I was on or find something that would fulfill me more.

Chris Bay:

That’s awesome.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah.

Chris Bay:

So you came to a bootcamp?

Michael Crawford:

I did. Yeah.

Chris Bay:

And then what happened after that?

Michael Crawford:

Well, like I said, I went home wife shut me up after a few minutes. I said, okay, well then if you won’t go or listen to that, let’s have Mike come over and do a presentation for us.

Chris Bay:

How’d that go?

Michael Crawford:

Because he’s offered to do that. It scared the living crap out of her; to be real honest, it was so intense. She was so stressed anyway with being pregnant. It freaked her out. But she knew that there was something to it if I was really that into it. That I was continually bringing it up. And she trusts me, but also she knows that I wouldn’t have ever put us in a position of high risk.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

Or completely turning our world upside down if I didn’t have to.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

And so Mike said, okay, well, that didn’t work out as well. Come to this next boot camp. It was March like fifth or something like that.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

And so, at eight and a half months, virtually eight months pregnant, little over eight months pregnant, we come to this boot. She comes to this boot camp with me, and there was like ten people there, I think.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. And I remember it so clearly because I’ve known mary for years.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah.

Chris Bay:

When she was in high school.

Michael Crawford:

Exactly.

Chris Bay:

I remember just seeing her, she was so pregnant.

Michael Crawford:

Yes. Long story short, she got interested in it because she realized that there was something to it. She felt very comfortable with you, Chris. And she became more comfortable with Mike as that boot camp went along because she saw the event. I think for her seeing other people there and hearing some other people’s stories [crosstalk 00:11:18].

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

Associated with it and even hearing yours and Mike’s in a different light than just sitting in our living room really made a point to her. It was a very few short days later that our son was born. And we decided to go ahead and get this thing started.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. So Milo’s born. How did you start with policies?

Michael Crawford:

Mary and I both did a policy on each other.

Chris Bay:

Okay.

Michael Crawford:

Or on ourselves.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

We did a $5,000 annual premium policy on both of us.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

And we drew up a plan with you guys in the software that we had available. Without changing our cash flow, excuse me, we found out that we could be debt-free in about eight years.

Chris Bay:

Okay. So how long ago was that?

Michael Crawford:

Three policy years.

Chris Bay:

Three policy years.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah.

Chris Bay:

Okay.

Michael Crawford:

A little over two years ago.

Chris Bay:

Okay. So a little over two years ago. Can you give us just a real quick update? You mentioned hope.

Michael Crawford:

Yes.

Chris Bay:

How’s that hope playing out?

Michael Crawford:

It’s fantastic. We actually used part of our policy this year. Once we paid our premium to go on our first vacation in a very long time. We actually went to Chicago to see the musical Hamilton and to goof around a little bit. It was our first time leaving our son behind, which was hard and exciting at the same time.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

We also paid off my student loan. We, in fact, just got the email yesterday that congratulated us that our student loan was paid off. We are down to a couple of car loans, and our mortgage as really our only debt. And we started with, what was it, roughly $250,000 worth of debt.

Chris Bay:

Wow.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah, it’s been pretty amazing. And to be Frank, we haven’t implemented as efficiently as we should have.

Chris Bay:

Maybe not as efficiently, but aren’t you even ahead of schedule though.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah, we’re a little bit ahead of schedule. Some of it was because of a small windfall that came our way in the form of a bonus for Mary that we were able to reinvest.

Chris Bay:

Okay.

Michael Crawford:

In our policies.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

Last year. Honestly, we’ve just become smarter with our money.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

Like to be real honest, it’s not so much that we’re making more money or being given gobs of cash by other sources, but we are learned how to be very smart with the use of our money. And not change the things that we want to do, but alter the things that we don’t need to do.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

It’s just been really good because now we have that open conversation instead of arguing about the money.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

We are actually talking openly about, okay, well, what if we take this money and do this with it? And having you guys as coaches has been unbelievable because it’s taken the stress off of our relationship where you guys can be the mediators.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

It sounds odd to say it that way, but honestly it is refreshing.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. Well, we all know finances is one of the top stressors in a marriage.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah.

Chris Bay:

It’s one of the top stressors for us as Americans, and that impacts our health [crosstalk 00:14:22].

Michael Crawford:

Yeah.

Chris Bay:

And our relationships and everything. So with IBC, so many times, it relieves that stress.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah.

Chris Bay:

One thing that I didn’t ask you about, and I’m curious if you touch on it, is how did you capitalize your plan and your policies?

Michael Crawford:

Yeah, so we didn’t have any money. We were saving every penny we had just for our child’s birth because we knew that that was not going to be free. When I had left some other jobs and moved past owning my own business, et cetera, I had a few IRAs, and Mary had some old Roths from another company that she had worked for. And all told, we were able to cash those out, pay the penalties and taxes upfront.

Chris Bay:

Right.

Michael Crawford:

And capitalized our system saved a little bit behind because we knew that first year would be rough with the new child, and some of the unknown expenses. We’ve been able to honestly, by the grace of God, pay all of our premiums with fresh money.

Chris Bay:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Crawford:

And so it’s been a very fun and exciting adventure.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

Learning how to take better advantage of our current assets.

Chris Bay:

It’s a great story. What I love, I wish we had a camera right now that people could be seen because sitting here between us.

Michael Crawford:

Yup.

Chris Bay:

Is a brand new policy that you just received.

Michael Crawford:

I did.

Chris Bay:

Tell the audience real quick. As we wrap up.

Michael Crawford:

Yup.

Chris Bay:

What is this policy?

Michael Crawford:

Well, this is a policy for our son, Milo.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

It’s pretty exciting too, sorry, to get him started on something that will forever change his life. He’ll never.

Chris Bay:

Changes lives. We think about Nelson’s number one principle, think long-term.

Michael Crawford:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Bay:

And for us as guys, often we think about our families.

Michael Crawford:

Yup.

Chris Bay:

Our kids, those kinds of things.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah.

Chris Bay:

And that’s exactly what you’re doing. You got a policy on your son.

Michael Crawford:

Well, and what I was going to say is he’ll never have to borrow money from an institution.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

He’ll never know the fear of not being able to make a payment or, and it’s not for the fact that I’m a wealthy person, but by taking advantage of something that has been in place for 250 plus years and utilizing it for our benefit will forever change his and our lives.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. So thanks [crosstalk 00:16:47].

Michael Crawford:

Yeah.

Chris Bay:

For sharing your story. Thanks for sharing your heart. Michael Crawford, you are a blessing to this organization and just as a friend.

Michael Crawford:

Thanks Chris, appreciate that [crosstalk 00:17:00].

Chris Bay:

To our listeners, thanks again for joining us on these podcasts. You are getting a sense of who we are. We are a heart-driven organization. We love helping people. Please check out our website at lifesuccesslegacy.com, which Mike Crawford that you have to hear today. He is the man who makes that thing happen. If you have not read Nelson Nash’s book, get a copy of it and read it. Again, don’t read it after nine o’clock like all of us did. Thanks again for joining us.

 

Chris Bay Interview. Transcript

Michael Crawford:

All right, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Michael Crawford, and yes, you may have noticed I am not the voice of Chris Bay. That is because today’s podcast, if you’ve been following our podcast series, is on our team, and Chris Bay is the next victim.

Chris Bay:

Nice. Nice.

Michael Crawford:

He is in the hot seat, as it were, and we’re going to go through a little bit about how he got started in Infinite Banking and tell a little bit of his story and give some insight into how it’s working for him and where he sees it going. How are you doing, Chris?

Chris Bay:

I’m doing great, yeah.

Michael Crawford:

Awesome.

Chris Bay:

Doing great. Love talking about this topic.

Michael Crawford:

Yes, you do. You’re not used to the position though, right?

Chris Bay:

No.

Michael Crawford:

You’re the one asking the questions.

Chris Bay:

I’d much rather be asking the questions, but I think our story will connect with some people out there.

Michael Crawford:

Absolutely. I agree 100 percent. So let’s dive in. I want to start from the beginning. Your story is unique in how you got started, and I think it’s pertinent for a lot of people. Because we all have different stories on how our money came to be where it is, and learning a little bit about where yours came from and how you took advantage of your next steps with the Infinite Banking Concept, I think the people would like to hear about.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. Well, at the time when I was in introduced to the Infinite Banking Concept, I was working as an elementary school principal, and my wife and I had worked pretty hard and made a lot of choices and sacrifices to be single-income family so that we could invest in our two daughters. And so at the time, we actually had been practicing the teachings of Dave Ramsey for actually about seven years. And I will tell you, that was a source of frustration and a source of conflict in our relationship, and the word you use in your podcast was hope.

The hope for us was so far down the road using this approach, Dave Ramsey’s approach, that our hope was very little. We were not going on vacations. We were not going out to eat very often, and it was really frustrating. And I was working my tail off, doing the best I knew how to do to provide for my family, but we were not doing it very well. I remember, Sean reminds me that we were negotiating with medical care providers who were providing services for our daughters and for our family because we didn’t have the money to pay it, so it was tough.

Michael Crawford:

Right. And so when you talk about the stress, was it the stress that you were experiencing in your financial picture that led you to investigate alternatives?

Chris Bay:

Yeah. In fact, I remember there was a teacher that I was working with, and this would have been back in 2007, the fall of 2007, and she had taught for over 30 years, and she came in and said, “I’m going to retire in the spring.” We were celebrating her career. And she came back in in the… Sorry, that was the fall of 2007. In the spring of 2008, so think about the world and financially what was going on, she came back in and said, “I’m not going to be able to retire.”

Michael Crawford:

Hm.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. I filed that away in my brain, because I thought… Are we good?

Michael Crawford:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Bay:

Oh, okay. I filed that away in my brain, because I thought where we all have been told to put our money, it’s not safe.

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

And so I’m working my tail off to do all this and I’m putting it at risk. Who’s to say, depending on the timing of the market going up or down, that it’s going to be there for me when we need it?

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

I didn’t have a solution at that time, but I knew what the world was doing, all the things I’ve been told and taught was not working. The buy term and invest the difference that we hear from Dave Ramsey all the time and others, I didn’t want to go that route because I had seen it doesn’t work.

Michael Crawford:

So that was 10 years ago, because it’s currently late, well, middle fall here in 2017.

Chris Bay:

Right, right.

Michael Crawford:

And so that was 10 years ago today. Kind of give us a timeline from that point until you officially got introduced to infinite banking and how that took place.

Chris Bay:

Okay. It probably was a little over seven years, probably between seven and eight years ago that I was introduced to it. It was actually from two different conversations with dads, two separate dads that were volunteering in our elementary school where I was a principal. And I had developed trust with them, relationships with them. One was a business owner in town, and I asked Dave, I said, “Dave, do you mind me asking as a business guy how do you think about and manage your money?” And he said, “Have you ever heard of the Infinite Banking Concept?”, which I had not. And so he said, “I’d really recommend you check it out.” Research, I heard that and I don’t even know if I dug into it much at that point. It was probably about two months later that I went to another dad, and I asked Doug, and I said the same question, and he came back with the exact same answer.

Michael Crawford:

So two different sources.

Chris Bay:

Two sources, same answer.

Michael Crawford:

Got you.

Chris Bay:

The Infinite Banking Concept. So I said, “Okay, how do I learn? This is crazy that two of you have told me this and I’ve never heard of this. What do I do?” And he said, “Well, you need to read this black book, Nelson’s book, Becoming Your Own Banker, and you need to get ahold of this guy who lives down in Baldwin.” And I said, “Who’s that?” He said, “Well, it’s Mike Everett.” Well, crazy thing is, I actually had known Mike Everett back when I was in college. His niece and I knew each other in college, and so I had met Mike through Heather. So anyway, started, got ahold of the book. In fact, I think Mike gave me the book, and we always charge people for the book so they have a little skin in the game to read it. I don’t think I actually paid him the 20 bucks until like a year later when I was actually a client of his. But that all comes out in the wash anyway, right?

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

So anyway, for us, unlike you and Mike Everett, I’m the slow guy, and we all joke about it here within our team. But I’m the slow guy, and Shawn and I, my wife Shawn, we researched this thing inside and out. I read the blogs, the websites, the pros, the cons, Kiplinger’s, Forbes. I read everything about this thing.

Michael Crawford:

Got you.

Chris Bay:

And Mike was coming to our house and teaching us the concept about once every month or so. This took place over a nine-month period, and it was actually Shawn at one point, my wife, grabbed my arm. She said, “This just makes sense.”

Michael Crawford:

Yeah.

Chris Bay:

And so at that point is when we made the decision to go ahead and start our first policies.

Michael Crawford:

Okay. So to recap there, you kind of had something stuck in your brain in 2007 when the financial crash occurred.

Chris Bay:

Yep.

Michael Crawford:

A couple of years later, two individuals who you trusted both of them on separate conversations told you about Infinite Banking Concept. So it only took you, what, four years to make a decision on something?

Chris Bay:

I didn’t have the solution at the beginning.

Michael Crawford:

Got you, yeah.

Chris Bay:

That’s right. That’s right. No, but I’ll own that. I’ll own that.

Michael Crawford:

No, fair enough. But 2000-what, ’11?

Chris Bay:

Yeah, probably.

Michael Crawford:

’10, ’11-

Chris Bay:

Yeah, somewhere in that.

Michael Crawford:

– is when you got your first policy. Can you tell the listeners your story on how you capitalized it? Because the way you guys capitalized it is actually very beneficial to many of our existing and potential clients.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. Well, in our boot camps, we always tell people, “You’ve got a pool of money somewhere. You may not know it, but you do.” I didn’t think I had a pool of money.

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

We had been doing Dave Ramsey, so we didn’t have a whole bunch of consumer debt, smaller things, those kinds of things, but we had our mortgage.

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

Well, as we started looking at things, we actually had equity in our home. And so what Mike helped us do is put together a plan where we could leverage. And I don’t even remember if Mike suggested it or we came up with it. I don’t recall, but we leveraged a home equity line of credit to get our first policy. We started four policies; one of myself, one on my wife, and one on each of my daughters.

Michael Crawford:

Okay.

Chris Bay:

And that was really important for a couple of reasons. One, my wife had previously had thyroid cancer and she was now cancer-free for 10 years, and so we were for sure starting a policy on her.

Michael Crawford:

Absolutely.

Chris Bay:

And we saw the power of you start a policy on somebody when they’re healthy, because you never know. I mean, she was young.

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

So you start a policy as soon as you have the opportunity to, and we have other team members that’ll talk about that.

Michael Crawford:

Absolutely.

Chris Bay:

So we started four policies. We leveraged the equity in our home and took out a line of credit, and that’s how we got our policy started. Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

Okay, so you used the HELOC or home equity line of credit to capitalize your system. Tell the listeners going from a nine-month investigation to what kind of policies did you guys do?

Chris Bay:

Well, people who work with us will soon find that we have no secrets. We will show our policies, our policy loans, cash value. We have no problem with doing that because we’re just full disclosure. Mike was not suggesting this, by the way.

Michael Crawford:

Right. Absolutely.

Chris Bay:

He was suggesting, I think, maybe like a $20,000 annual premium policy for us. Well, as I learned through my investigation that premiums are deposits into a system that I own and control, and so do I want my deposits to be large or small?

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

Secondly, I know because of the power of compounding interest, the sooner I start and the bigger I start, the better.

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

So Shawn and I actually leveraged the equity in our home, and we started cumulative premiums for our four policies of $50,000 a year in life insurance premiums.

Michael Crawford:

Wow.

Chris Bay:

Which people hear that and they just freak out.

Michael Crawford:

Absolutely. Well, I mean, I think anybody would have a reason for pause when they don’t understand the end game or if they’re thinking short-term, which is one of Nelson’s principles. And so you only really had your mortgage to eliminate at that point.

Chris Bay:

Yeah, because part of that was I was still working for the school district.

Michael Crawford:

Oh, right.

Chris Bay:

So I had Kansas Public Retirement. We call it KPERS. I had 403b’s through the school district, but I couldn’t access any of that because I worked for them.

Michael Crawford:

Exactly. And so it was locked up tight.

Chris Bay:

It was locked up tight. Man, that fired me up, which spurred me then further in my investigation of IBC.

Michael Crawford:

Exactly.

Chris Bay:

Because I was thinking, “This is supposed to be my money and I can’t access it?”

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

That was really frustrating.

Michael Crawford:

No access to your own money, so you use the HELOC. You start huge $50,000 annual premium policies cumulatively. Give us a synopsis of where you’re at along that timeline after you started your policies.

Chris Bay:

Yeah, it was about probably two and a half, three years later, and I’m now, instead of reading educational literature in bed at night, I’m now reading things on infinite banking and Austrian economics. Here’s the thing. It’s a beautiful thing when your wife has such confidence in you, and she turns to me in bed and says, “You know, you’d be really good at teaching people that.” That opened up all kinds of possibilities, and so we made the decision to… Actually, I resigned from the school district three years after we started our policies. I remember having the conversation with Mike Everett in his office, and he thought I was going to warm up. You know, “What are you going to do? Do this on the side?” We didn’t. We burned the ships. We went 100 percent. Remember, I was single income after 22 years in the school system. Completely resigned and left to go 100 percent commission. When I tell people that, you’ve got to know that I believe in this concept 100 percent.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah, and I think it shows that you were dedicated to helping other people change their lives the way yours had been changed, right?

Chris Bay:

Yeah. It’s incredibly powerful.

Michael Crawford:

Absolutely.

Chris Bay:

My daughters, I’ve got a freshman in college now, which we’re using our policies to strategically do her tuition and all that. I’ve got another daughter who is a sophomore in high school, and much like you, they’re never going to have to borrow money from an institution.

Michael Crawford:

It’s very refreshing.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah.

Chris Bay:

So we’re changing the trajectory for our families.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah. Well, okay. I’m going to wrap this up, but I want to ask you a question that people often ask us, and that is, how long did it take you when you first started to get out of debt? Because we’re all fighting the wind current, as we say. And if you’ve listened to our other podcasts, you’ll know what that term really means, but it means basically the debt in our lives and the things that are working against us in our life financially. How long did you and Shawn have your policies in place before you had paid off all of your outside debt?

Chris Bay:

Well, we’re a little different, because we couldn’t get access to our pool through my 403b’s and KPERS and things like that. Had we been able to get to that, we probably could have turned our wind current the very first month.

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

But we couldn’t get access to that.

Michael Crawford:

Right.

Chris Bay:

So we were leveraging the home equity line of credit. So for us then, when I resigned from the school district, I did get access to those dollars. Then we were able to turn our wind current on our mortgage, the home equity line of credit, all of that, 26 months. We could have been debt-free of outside debt month one, which sounds crazy to people.

Michael Crawford:

Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Bay:

But I want to say this. When we did access our 403b and our KPERS, we got all of it. We went after all of it, so there was huge taxes, huge penalties. But I want to tell you that we recouped, by turning our wind current and using IBC, we recouped all of those taxes and all of those penalties in eight months.

Michael Crawford:

Wow. Eight months.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

Not even a year for you to recoup all of the debt that was incurred, associated with not the debt, but the taxes and penalties that were associated with your qualified plans.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

That’s amazing.

Chris Bay:

Yeah.

Michael Crawford:

Well, Chris, thank you very much for giving us a piece of your story. You’ll hear more of all of our stories in future podcasts as we continue to work through the Life Success Legacy team, and introduce you to their stories and how we all got started. For those of you who are continual listeners, you’ll know that we always suggest if you haven’t read Nelson’s book that we have a copy of it on our website, lifesuccesslegacy.com. Keep your ears and eyes peeled for future podcasts. We look forward to our next adventure. Thanks, Chris.

Chris Bay:

Absolutely. Thanks.