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.

 

Mike Everett Interview. Transcript

Chris Bay:

Welcome to the Life Success Legacy Podcast. My name is Chris Bay and I’m joined today with the founder of Life Success & Legacy, Mike Everett.

Chris Bay:

Thanks to our listeners for joining us today. This next set of podcasts are going to be a little bit different. What we want to do is we want to introduce you to the team members of Life Success & Legacy and our stories as to how we got introduced to the Infinite Banking Concept. How we learned about it, how long did we study and research it, how it’s impacted our lives, et cetera. So today what we want to do, and each of our stories is unique and diverse, and you may find that you connect with some of these different stories because we all have very different stories of how we were introduced to IBC. Today what we’re going to do is focus on Mike Everett, the founder of Life Success & Legacy and how he was introduced to the infinite banking concept. How it’s impacted his life and where he is today with his IBC strategy.

Chris Bay:

So, Mike, why don’t you start off with telling us, take us back to the day when you were introduced to the Infinite Banking Concept. How old were you? Where were you in life? With kids and that kind of thing.

Mike Everett:

Well, I had just turned 50 years old and I was a little bit disenfranchised with where I was in my career in the property-casualty business. And then I had gone into Applebee’s after church one day and all of a sudden this guy made a beeline over to our table and said, “Hey Mike-”

Chris Bay:

So you knew him?

Mike Everett:

I did.

Chris Bay:

Okay.

Mike Everett:

I did.

Chris Bay:

Okay.

Mike Everett:

Yeah. He basically asked, he says, “If I could show you and Linda a way to recover the entire cost of all the cars you purchase the rest of your life, would you be interested?” And I said, “Well, who wouldn’t?”

Mike Everett:

Long story short, he sent me the book. It came on that following Wednesday in a Manila envelope. So I opened this envelope, out comes a book, out comes a letter that tells you exactly how to read the book. And the book we’re talking about obviously is Becoming Your Own Banker by Nelson Nash. And along with all of that, there was a bill for $22 there. And I literally hollered in at Linda. I go, “Honey.” I said, “He sent us a bill with the book.” This is a book he wanted me to read. So I was a little upset about it. So I just took the bill and I tore it up and I threw the trash. So literally I threw this book over by where I do all my reading and this was Wednesday. So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday came along. Right after the news, the book somehow made it to the top of the pile.

Mike Everett:

And so I said to Linda, she was getting ready bed and I said, “I’m going to read this book.” I said, “I’m going to read it tonight.” Because it was only 92 pages. So I started in on it at 10:30 at night, began to read it and-

Chris Bay:

Oh, wait a second because that goes against everything we tell people.

Mike Everett:

It does.

Chris Bay:

Please do not read this book after eight or nine o’clock at night because it’ll mess with your sleep.

Mike Everett:

Well, let me just tell you, after my first reading, I was so excited. I did exactly what the letter said and I read it a second time and finished my second reading at 1:30 AM and immediately went in and woke my wife up and said, “Honey, I know what I’m going to do for a new career.”

Chris Bay:

So, you weren’t just thinking about how this could impact your financial life. You were looking at it in addition to because it was so powerful to you.

Mike Everett:

It was.

Chris Bay:

It just made sense to you.

Mike Everett:

It did. As many of the people who know me, I’m the guy who jumps off the high board and I don’t really check to see if there’s water in the pool. So literally I have decided at 1:30 AM that I was changing careers, just like that. But it wasn’t a giant shift in my career change. I went from property-casualty insurance to dividend paying whole life insurance. So it was all in the same family, just a little bit more specific, a little bit more focused.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. That makes sense.

Mike Everett:

I woke up at 7:00 AM and started calling this guy’s office at 8:00 in the morning only to find out that their office doesn’t open until 9:00. I left three voicemails between 8:00 and 9:00 AM in the morning, I was that amped up about it.

Chris Bay:

So you went to work with him?

Mike Everett:

I did.

Chris Bay:

Okay.

Mike Everett:

I did.

Chris Bay:

Tell me about just your personal IBC experience. When did you start your policies? How did you get started? Those kinds of things.

Mike Everett:

I immediately did two applications the first time I met with him within that first week. I decided to do a policy on myself and a policy on my wife. But then all of a sudden it dawned on me, I didn’t have any money. So I had to figure out how to go get money. So literally I went down to the bank and one of the loan officers-

Chris Bay:

This is going to be exhibit two of what not to do, right?

Mike Everett:

It is.

Chris Bay:

Are there future exhibits?

Mike Everett:

Well, I’ll just tell you. I went about it a different way, let’s put it that way. But there’s a really great ending to this story.

Chris Bay:

Absolutely.

Mike Everett:

I went down and borrowed money to do policies for my wife and I. Number one, I tell people don’t do that unless you have equity in a place that you can use. I had no equity. So I borrowed money, started my first policies and then off we go.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. So at that point, tell me where you were in life with family. And what was your thought process in terms of how is this going to benefit you or family or who’s going to benefit from this?

Mike Everett:

I think my daughter was a sophomore or junior in high school and my son was already out of college. So this was a pretty big shift for us because I had started to then think about infinite banking in a completely different way.

Mike Everett:

First off, when you buy life insurance, normally you buy life insurance because you love someone. It is that simple. You’re actually not buying it for yourself, you’re buying it for the people that you love and care about. So when I was buying my policies for Linda and I just knew deep down that these were not for me, they were for the next generation.

Chris Bay:

So you didn’t see how this IBC thing was really going to benefit you in the meantime?

Mike Everett:

No.

Chris Bay:

Okay.

Mike Everett:

But let’s just go back to Nelson’s number one principle, think long-term. So I knew when I was purchasing the policies that somewhere down the way my family was going to benefit.

Chris Bay:

Right. So talk to me about implementation of your IBC strategy. How did that go in the early years?

Mike Everett:

Well, there were about 25 to 35 of us. Some real small number where we literally, we were learning this thing as fast as we could. We were going around wherever Nelson was, we’d go. We’ve needed information because literally it felt like something so new and so different. But yet it was so exciting because we just needed information. So literally we were doing three, four, five seminars a year and going to places wherever Nelson was, or having him come to Lawrence, Kansas and learning about IBC. It was pretty darn exciting because nobody had ever taught me about something like this that can set people so free in their financial life.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. So fast forward for me now, how long has it been since you started your first policies?

Mike Everett:

Well, I just paid my 13th premium, so 13 policy years. But I’ve only been in this for a little more than 12 years and this is all part of the learning that we help with clients learn. But, so I started out with two policies. I think in the first year I had five policies. I borrowed all the money to do this, which I was telling you, I was an idiot. But…

Chris Bay:

How’s that played out for you now?

Mike Everett:

Well, now it’s played out unbelievably because what happened was, as life grew and things changed quickly, so did a number of things in my life that made it easier to purchase additional policies. Now we have 16 life insurance policies. They’re not all on me. I’ve got some on me, some on Linda, some on Kurt, some on Karen, some on the grandkids. So-

Chris Bay:

I know at one point Nelson had 49 life insurance policies and now you’re up to 16 policies.

Mike Everett:

16.

Chris Bay:

That’s right. Yeah. Have you learned a few things from the time you started that you might put in the category of wisdom that you can share with your clients-

Mike Everett:

Let’s put it this way, let’s go back to day one when I went to the bank and borrowed money. Now, because of the way we’ve assembled our team and the learning curve that I’ve gone through and the things that were misfortunes to me, can greatly benefit the clients that we work with. We can see a little bit further down the road to where we can help somebody avoid the mistakes that I made.

Chris Bay:

Absolutely. Mike, thanks for sharing your story. When we do our live boot camps, when you do share your story, it always has the room just rolling. And at first, just honestly, it used to freak me out because you just messed it all up so bad. But the beauty of it is, even as bad as you messed it up in the beginning-

Mike Everett:

It still works.

Chris Bay:

… it still works.

Mike Everett:

It does.

Chris Bay:

That is what’s amazing to me. So thanks for sharing your story-

Mike Everett:

You bet Chris.

Chris Bay:

… appreciate that. To the listeners, our next podcasts are going to be you getting a chance to know the rest of the team of Life Success & Legacy and how we got introduced to this crazy thing called the infinite banking concept. Check out our website, lifesuccesslegacy.com. And if you have not read Nelson Nash’s book, Becoming Your Own Banker, we cannot encourage you strongly enough to do that. Thanks for joining us.

Whole Life Insurance is bad, right? Transcript

Chris Bay:

Welcome to the Life Success & Legacy Podcast. My name is Chris Bay, and I’m joined today with the founder of Life Success & Legacy, Mike Everett.

So Mike, today, I want to address one of the questions that was a huge stumbling block for me. When Shawn and I first were introduced to this concept of Infinite Banking and I got a hold of Nelson Nash’s book, Becoming Your Own Banker, and I read it multiple times, there were pieces that really fit and made sense to me. But I had a mental block, and that was because I had been taught that whole life insurance was the worst place in the world to put our money.

Mike Everett:

We hear this over and over.

Chris Bay:

So let’s dig into that. There’s a lot of people out there, a lot of financial people, a lot of financial personalities, that are out in the world that are saying whole life insurance is the worst place in the world to put your money. Why did they say that?

Mike Everett:

Well, if you go and you look at a traditional whole life insurance policy and the way it’s designed, I really would tend to lean towards what those personalities have said, that whole life insurance is a bad place to put money.

But if you go back a couple of generations right now and you think, “Where did people put money before 401ks and IRAs became the traditional place to put money … ”

Chris Bay:

Tax qualified plans.

Mike Everett:

You got it.

Chris Bay:

Before those every came about.

Mike Everett:

I’m going to just tell you. The only place most of those people, and you’re talking about my grandparents and my great-grandparents, they only had one place that they could … Well, excuse me, two. They put it in whole life insurance programs, policies, or they put it under the mattress at home. That’s the only place that they did.

But if you go back and you think like Nelson does, you think long term. Whole life insurance is the safest place you can put your money regardless of how it’s designed. But because of the way in which we go about re-engineering the way the money is allocated in the policy, it’s the safest, best place in the world, and it’s got more guarantees than anything that somebody would put their money in.

Chris Bay:

Yeah, I think from my standpoint, or at least how I was taught to think about money, it’s because whole life insurance may be traditionally designed, which was designed to emphasize the death benefit. You want to pay as little as possible.

Mike Everett:

That’s right.

Chris Bay:

Right? Well, when you look at that and you’re looking at it purely as an investment, that maybe it doesn’t match up to some other things. But honestly, I’ve seen some work out there by some folks, where actually it can even show up to be better than some of the investments that are out there.

Mike Everett:

Well, in Nelson’s book, I’m going to just tell you, he uses a couple of examples, one with the twins and one with the equipment financing. If you look at this over the long haul, I’m just telling you, it outperforms the market. It outperforms inflation.

Chris Bay:

What’s interesting, when we read Nelson’s book, the examples in the book aren’t even designed-

Mike Everett:

They are not.

Chris Bay:

… to emphasize the cash value part, which is how we would design it for people.

Mike Everett:

That’s correct.

Chris Bay:

Why did he do that?

Mike Everett:

Well, the reason why he did that was he wanted to make sure people knew that it would work even if the policy wasn’t designed properly.

Chris Bay:

If it’s designed traditionally to emphasize death benefit-

Mike Everett:

The death benefit.

Chris Bay:

… and pay as little into it as possible, there’s some debate amongst people whether it would be better to do that versus some other things.

But when you start factoring in that a policy could be designed to de-emphasize the death benefit and you could emphasize the cash value portion of it, and then you introduce the whole concept of using it for banking, financing your financing needs in your life, there is no comparison.

Mike Everett:

There’s not. One of the questions that we always ask people right this very minute, “What is more important to you, cash or life insurance death benefit?” What do they all say?

Chris Bay:

Cash.

Mike Everett:

Cash every single time. What if there was a program out there where you could put money in and have access to it income tax-free all along the days of your life. We need cash from right now til the day we die. We only need death benefit one day. We can show you through the program, through IBC, through the policy, that if you did this all along your life, not only would you have access and be able to utilize the cash that’s flowing in and out of your money; but at the time of your death, you’ll end up having two, three, four, five times more death benefit than what you could purchase right now.

Chris Bay:

You know how I would phrase it is, so many of us look at, whether it’s whole life or an investment or whatever, we look at it as an either/or. Really what this is about is a yes/both.

Mike Everett:

That’s exactly right.

Chris Bay:

If you really want to invest in the market or other types of things, you can do that.

Mike Everett:

Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Bay:

But if you’re smart, you’re going to run your money through your IBC system, get all the guarantees that they offer, and then take loans against your policy and go do the stuff that you love to do.

Mike Everett:

Exactly.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. It’s a great question. It’s a hard one in our culture because so many of us have been told that whole life insurance is bad, bad place to put our money. But truth be told, it’s actually the best place in the world to store our money. It’s foundational to a whole financial economic system for ourselves.

Mike Everett:

It is.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. Great discussion, Mike. Thanks.

Folks who are listening, we encourage you as always to go to our website, lifesuccesslegacy.com. If you have not read Nelson Nash’s book, Becoming Your Own Banker, please get yourself a copy of that and spend the time to read it at least once, if not more.

Is IBC too good to be true transcript

Chris Bay:

Welcome to the Life Success & Legacy podcast. My name is Chris Bay and I’m joined today with the founder of Life Success & Legacy, Mike Everett.

Hey, Mike. In all the conversations that we have with people, there’s several questions that continually come up. We talked about another one in a different podcast earlier. The one I want to tackle right now is pretty common. And it is once people start to learn about this, especially after they’ve come to one of our boot camps, they say, “This sounds too good to be true.” Right?

Mike Everett:

We hear that all the time.

Chris Bay:

All the time, yeah. So when you first learned about IBC, you read the book and everything. Did you have the same feeling?

Mike Everett:

Well, being an entrepreneur, I didn’t have the same feeling because I always look a little bit on the super positive side of everything. So after I got done with the book, the second time, I literally thought I’m leaving a career and I’m doing this full time because it did sound too good to be true. But I thought, okay, I was 50 years old. I’d been doing what everybody else was doing. I was putting money into my 401K, my IRAs and mutual funds. I even had a stock account, but yet wasn’t getting ahead. So there was a part of me that said, “Yeah, it sounds too good to be true.” But there was a part of me that goes, “Wow, if this thing works…”

Chris Bay:

Well, let’s be real. Knowing different personalities and such, your personality is going to be a quick start. I mean, you’re going to see something and you’re going to process it in the snap of fingers. You’re like, “This works. I want to get into this. Let’s go.”

Mike Everett:

Yeah, let’s go.

Chris Bay:

But not everybody’s like that.

Mike Everett:

That’s right.

Chris Bay:

Present company included.

Mike Everett:

That’s right.

Chris Bay:

So for some people it’s not this, “Wow, I’ve tried all this.” Not everybody was at the stage of life where you are when you were introduced and not everybody’s had a chance to try all those things. And so, all they’ve heard out in the media and in the financial thinking is different ways to manage money. Then they get introduced to IBC and the common question is, “It sounds too good to be true.” Right?

Mike Everett:

That is true.

Chris Bay:

So talk to us a little bit about those kinds of things. When people come to us and they say, “It sounds too good to be true.” How do you talk to them about it?

Mike Everett:

Well, I get back to some pretty basic stuff. Is number one, you got to think long term. You hear that thing, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Well, we take a different approach and we think you ought to do some more research and spend some time with us and let us educate you. Because if we can somehow educate you, you’re going to be able to see IBC in a different light. And one of the things that Nelson has said that is IBC is caught not taught. There’s a certain portion of us that can learn that, but there’s a certain portion of you that says, “Golly, this just sounds right.”

Chris Bay:

That’s how it was for me. But it took me a long time to get to that point. And part of my, I mean, just being honest, part of my stumbling block was that it used whole life insurance. And from my previous exposure to financial information, whole life insurance was the worst place in the world to put money.

Mike Everett:

We hear that all the time.

Chris Bay:

Absolutely, right? So we tell people to research it. We tell people to educate themselves. We tell people to come to our boot camps, go to our websites, all those kinds of things. Right?

Mike Everett:

That’s right.

Chris Bay:

Now, do you push people to make a decision?

Mike Everett:

No, absolutely not. We want people, we want husbands and wives, we want partners to be fully on board with each other.

Chris Bay:

Talk about that husband and wives thing.

Mike Everett:

Well, I’ll tell you what I learned. I learned the hard way. Me, being an entrepreneur type, one of the things I want to do is just get out and talk to people. I want to talk to anybody and everybody about IBC. That’s how excited I am about this. But learning that the hard way was tough for me because sometimes I would just go and see just the husband or I would just talk to the wife and I can tell you exactly what’s going to happen. Is if I talk to one without the other, I’m going to have to tell the other one the same exact thing and spend the same exact amount of time with them again. So we really believe that husbands and wives are going to do this together. They are going to share in the experience before they proceed. We will not talk to one spouse or the other without the other one.

Chris Bay:

I just had a conversation with somebody recently and it was the husband and we were talking about IBC and he was wanting to meet. And he’s like, “Yeah, my wife trusts me and all that.” And I said, “Let me give you an example. Let’s say that your wife and you have talked about doing some counseling, okay? And your wife goes to a counselor and they’ve had maybe three, four sessions. So they’ve developed some rapport. They’ve gone a little deep. They’ve had those conversations and then they invite you to the next session. How effective is that going to be? How comfortable are you going to feel? Right? Is there going to have to be some going back and covering some groundwork with that?” And this is the same thing.

Mike Everett:

Yeah. That’s why we don’t push the sale.

Chris Bay:

We don’t. And we really are pushing for mutual purpose, mutual understanding with the couple. And it doesn’t mean that both parties have to know every cell of every spreadsheet and all that, but we want to help them get on the same page because we talk about this all the time, this is so much bigger than just numbers.

Mike Everett:

It is.

Chris Bay:

And what is one of the top stressors to a marriage?

Mike Everett:

Money.

Chris Bay:

Absolutely. So if we can take away, or at least reduce one of those key stressors in a marriage, how much power does that give to a couple?

Mike Everett:

It is truly unbelievable. My wife and I have experienced it ourselves. And I know that you guys have as well.

Chris Bay:

Absolutely. Yeah, that’s good.

It’s interesting when, we do our boot camps, this is almost a quote from your mouth. You say, “We want you to be skeptical.”

Mike Everett:

Absolutely.

Chris Bay:

Why do you say that?

Mike Everett:

Well, part of it is, if somebody comes in a little bit skeptical, what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to educate and then we’ve got to educate again. And then we’ve got to educate again, because we believe that education is the key piece to why somebody would think that Infinite Banking would even work. Because we were taught to be skeptical about everything with our money.

Well, what we’re doing is, in this education piece and this, we are teaching people. We are empowering people in a way that no other financial group is doing throughout the entire U.S.

Chris Bay:

Yeah, when people come to our boot camps and they see us wearing shorts and tennis shoes and we’re goofing around and having fun, talking about money and things, they’re always a little surprised, but it’s refreshing. People laugh. They leave having… They’ve had a good time. They haven’t felt pressured. And they feel like they walked away with a new perspective on money and really with hope.

Mike Everett:

Well, this is why we offer every other Tuesday, a webinar free of charge, regardless of what state or where you’re at in life. We offer those every other Tuesday, you ought to go to lifesuccesslegacy.com and check out, under bootcamps, and find out when our… Tuesday evening from 6:45 to 8:00 PM Central. It’s unbelievable.

But when we aren’t doing our Tuesday evenings, we do these boot camps. We do a boot camp one, which is really just a gigantic book review. And then we do a boot camp two, but this is where we offer people a live version of exactly what we do. But we do it in a fun, no pressure atmosphere, where you can ask questions. You can be skeptical. You can throw things at us if you want to. We want people to be skeptical. We want them to think, “Golly, this just does sound too good to be true.” But once they get in and they find out that they can control things in their own way, it’s unbelievable what happens.

Chris Bay:

Yeah, so it really is too good to be true, isn’t it? It actually is true and it is good.

Mike Everett:

That’s right.

Chris Bay:

That’s right.

Well, thanks for listening. Again, we point you to our website, lifesuccesslegacy.com and check out some of our other resources that we have there. I’ve got some other podcasts for you to check out as well. Thanks again for joining us.

Chris Bay:

Welcome to the Life Success Legacy podcast. My name is Chris Bay, and I’m joined today with the founder of Life Success & Legacy, Mike Everett. Mike, in our last podcast we started to talk about the policy design for Infinite Banking. And one of the phrases that you used is, “What’s more important to people? Is it cash, or is it death benefit?” And obviously, for most of our life, cash is more important than death benefit. So now what we want to do is dig in a little bit more into how we design the policies to emphasize the cash value, and then how that is utilized to, for example, turn the wind current, or, people use their cash value for investment purposes, retirement purposes, a variety of things. So can you talk a little bit about the two pieces of a policy design, and what I’m getting into is the base portion and typically what it generates, and then the paid-up addition portion and what it generates.

Mike Everett:

Okay. Traditionally, once again, life insurance was designed almost 100% for death benefit. So one of the things that Nelson discovered was, if you can reengineer or rearrange the way the premium is allocated internally with the policy, there are these two pieces that you’re talking about. We have the base premium. The base premium purchases almost 100% of the death benefit in the life insurance contract. So basically what you’re doing is, you’re taking a certain percentage of the premium and you’re allocating it to what we call the base premium.

Chris Bay:

So in a traditional life insurance policy, most, if not 100% of that premium, is going to go to base-

Mike Everett:

That’s true.

Chris Bay:

… and so it’s going to be 100% going towards death benefit.

Mike Everett:

That’s correct.

Chris Bay:

Okay. So how is this different?

Mike Everett:

Well, then Nelson realized that there was a way to actually create cash in your life insurance contract by adding a piece called the paid-up additions rider. This paid-up additions rider, what it does is it creates almost 100% cash value available in the contract that people can access. Now, there is a certain portion that purchases a little bit of death benefit. Remember, it’s a life insurance contract, but yet, I asked the question again, what’s more important right now, cash or death benefit? We’ve all said cash. We’ve said this a number of times, but we want to reiterate this to the people listening because cash is king, and if we can get access to that cash in some sort of way, and still have the life insurance contract in place, why wouldn’t a person want to do this?

Chris Bay:

Let’s put this into specifics for people. Let’s say that I come to you and I say, “Hey, I want to start an Infinite Banking concept policy. And I want to be able to put, I’m going to say, $10,000 annually into this policy.” Break that out for me, then. If I’m putting money into it, when do I get access to the cash value that I can then utilize for turning wind current and other things?

Mike Everett:

Well, if you were going to put $10,000 in, then there’s a certain way to allocate these dollars. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to take 40% of those dollars or $4,000 of that 10,000, and we’re going to buy the base portion of the policy. Then we’re going to take $6,000 or 60% of those dollars and buy the paid-up additions rider. Now, the easiest way to explain the paid-up additions rider is the Apollo rocket. You know, when it goes up into space, it gets up into space and it’s on the Apollo rocket. It’s got these turbo boosters. Well, after they get up into space, what do they do with the turbo boosters?

Chris Bay:

They drop off.

Mike Everett:

That’s exactly correct, but they need those two turbo boosters to get the rocket up into space. With the way that Nelson created the Infinite Banking concept, you need the turbo boosters or the paid-up additions rider in order to get this thing up and going.

Chris Bay:

So it’s flooding it with cash.

Mike Everett:

That is correct. Now, your question was, when do you have access to that cash? With the companies that we utilize, you can have access to that cash within the first month of starting your Infinite Banking Concept policy.

Chris Bay:

Now, when you say that you’re talking about an annual premium, so someone would pay the full 10,000 upfront.

Mike Everett:

That’s correct.

Chris Bay:

We also have clients who, for various reasons, they decide to do a monthly premium. So would they get access to that money right away?

Mike Everett:

They would not.

Chris Bay:

Okay.

Mike Everett:

Because, the way you explain that to people is, if you were going to write a check on your checking account, how much can you have access to? With whatever you’ve got in there?

Chris Bay:

Right.

Mike Everett:

So if you have somebody who pays an annual premium, they have access to their portion or their 60% of their policy when they pay that premium in the first 30 days. But if you have somebody who goes on a monthly plan, it’s going to take them the full 12 months or annual premium of monthly payments in order to have access to those dollars. In the great big scheme of things, it doesn’t make any difference.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. Yeah. So, if I understand correctly, when we put a chunk of money in, I’m going to get access, or I can borrow against my policy-

Mike Everett:

That’s correct.

Chris Bay:

… and really that’s a loan. It’s called a policy loan, but it’s not really money from my policy. It’s really a loan from the company.

Mike Everett:

That’s true.

Chris Bay:

And they’re using my policy as collateral, which is an unbelievable trade of this is that our policy stays fully intact and it continues to compound and grow for us on the full, let’s say it’s $10,000, even though I’ve pulled out a loan for $6,000.

Mike Everett:

That’s correct.

Chris Bay:

So, we’re never interrupting the compounding interest of our policy.

Mike Everett:

Eighth wonder of the world.

Chris Bay:

It’s unbelievable. Now, some people might say, “Well, I just put in 10,000 and I’m only getting access to six.” Well, let’s talk about capitalization and thinking of our policies as businesses a little bit.

Mike Everett:

Well, we’re going to go back to Nelson’s three main principles. Number one, you’ve got to think long-term. Remember, Nelson was trained as a forester, so he thinks 20, 30, 40, 50 years in advance. Infinite Banking is a long-term thought process, so we tell people, “If you’re not in this for the long haul, this is not a good thing for you.” But number two, you can’t be afraid to capitalize. That means that you have got to put some money into this thing in order for it to work. If you think traditionally about life insurance, and it doesn’t matter if it’s term or whole life or universal life, most of the financial gurus out there say, “Let’s buy as much death benefit as we can and put as little premium in there as we can.” With Infinite Banking, it is completely opposite. We’re wanting to flood this thing with as much cash as we can get and get as little a death benefit as possible in order for you to be able to access the cash efficiently in your own life.

Chris Bay:

In fact, we call our premiums, premium deposits because it deposits into a banking system, really, that we own and control. So, if it’s a deposit into your banking system, do you want that deposit to be a little or a lot?

Mike Everett:

I want it to be a lot, but we need to be careful here because, this is called the Infinite Banking Concept. But we want to reiterate that we’re life insurance guys, and you are purchasing a life insurance policy. And in that purchase, you are creating absolute control of that contract. So you get to decide or control where 100% of that investment goes when you access that cash through a policy loan.

Chris Bay:

Okay. I want to take you back to your analogy of the space shuttle.

Mike Everett:

Correct.

Chris Bay:

Or the Apollo, or whatever it was that you used. And you talked about those booster rockets falling off. And that is what we call the flexible paid-up addition rider.

Mike Everett:

Correct.

Chris Bay:

That flexible piece is an important word. And you talked about, on the rocket, those falling off. Does the flexible PUA, the paid-up addition rider, do those ever fall off the policies, and why?

Mike Everett:

Well, once again, it’s called flexible because you have the flexibility of deciding what you want to do with that. We personally would like people to leave that flexible paid-up addition rider on there, but we can adjust the premium or keep it flexible enough to where you have a place to put some additional cash if you want to. Or you can actually reduce that to a minimum flexible paid-up addition rider payment of $100. Remember earlier we talked about 6,000, but then it goes to a hundred. So that creates a whole bunch of cash flow on your side of the fence, so to speak, when we help you understand how the policy is designed.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. It’d be easier if we had some visuals for people to teach them this next concept. But in theory, if we think of our policies as businesses.

Mike Everett:

Correct.

Chris Bay:

And let’s say we’re in the business and let’s use McDonald’s as an example. Obviously McDonald’s started with one restaurant. Well, now they’re everywhere across the world, right? They franchised them. So if we think of our policies as businesses, are we able to franchise our policies?

Mike Everett:

Absolutely.

Chris Bay:

Nelson, I think, we know this. I’m not sure he says it in his book, but at one point he had 49 life insurance policies.

Mike Everett:

That’s correct.

Chris Bay:

And I think you’re up to what? 17 now?

Mike Everett:

16. Almost 17.

Chris Bay:

Yeah. And in, gosh, seven years, I guess of doing my plan, we’re up to six policies. Explain to people why in the world would they want to start adding additional policies?

Mike Everett:

If you look at your policies as a business and your one policies or two policies or three policies are doing well, why wouldn’t you want to go and start more? All we’re trying to do is create a system to where you control 100% of your own cash flow. So, bottom line is, Nelson on page 48 talks about expanding the system to accommodate all your income. He’s helping people think through, why in the world would you want to continue to build policies? But the way we design the policies is, your policy is going to get better every year, regardless of the economy, regardless of the financial landscape in our country. So if that’s true, why wouldn’t you want additional policies at certain time periods as you’re growing this thing?

Chris Bay:

And, theoretically, we’re able to show people that they could actually start a additional policy of roughly the same size every five years without any additional cash out of pocket.

Mike Everett:

That’s true.

Chris Bay:

And so, eventually, aren’t they going to be capped on how much life insurance they could get?

Mike Everett:

There’s a possibility of that happening, but it really takes a large number of years. 15, 20, 25 years before they really need to worry about that.

Chris Bay:

Okay. And obviously we coach people through all of that.

Mike Everett:

That’s correct.

Chris Bay:

That’s part of the strategic planning that we do with people. My great topic, for some people this may be a little too much in the weeds for them, but I think there’s probably some folks out there that, I know this for a fact, that they like to understand the design of the policy and why it’s different than a traditional life insurance policy would be designed. In the future podcasts, what we’d like to do is get into some of the applications of how people are utilizing their policies in their life for the different ways that they do that, whether it’s for business, addressing debt, college financing, things like that.

So, to our listeners, thanks for joining us. Lots more information on our website at lifesuccesslegacy.com. If you haven’t got yourself a copy of Nelson Nash’s book, Becoming Your Own Banker, you can get that at our website as well. We encourage you to read it. Come back and join us again.