The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast 241 Mark Willis, CFP of Lake Growth Financial Services

Episode Date: November 28, 2018

Mark Willis, CFP of Lake Growth Financial Services

Hi folks, Chris Voss here from thechrissvossshow.com thechrissvossshow.com Hey, we're coming here with another great podcast. And always, we certainly appreciate you guys' support. Be sure to go to iTunes, Google Play, tell your friends to go there and subscribe. They can also go to youtube.com, fortunately it's Chris Voss.

Hit that bell notification button so you get all the notifications for the Chris Voss Show. Hey, guess what? We're on Spotify and iHeartRadio as well, so you can also go there and listen, and of course, on any podcast app. Today, we, of course, have a brilliant, intelligent, and super smart certified financial planner, and this is going to be a pretty interesting conversation with Mark Willis of Lake Growth. Mark is a number one best-selling author and the owner of Lake Growth Financial

Services, a financial firm in Chicago, Illinois. Over the years, he's helped hundreds of his clients take back control of their financial future and build their business with sophisticated tax-efficient financial solutions. And he's also the co-host of Not Your Average Financial Podcast. How about them, Apples? Welcome to the show, Mark. How are you today? Hey, great. Chris, how are you?

Awesome sauce. So, Chicago, Illinois, is it getting cold out there yet? You know, every day above freezing is just another day in paradise. Chicago is an amazing city. An amazing city. Don't get me started on the pizza there. Or let alone anything else. But the people are so warm and wonderful and nice.

The last time I was in Chicago, the people were creeping me out. They were so friendly. Sounds about right. They're like, how's that pizza over there? I'm like, hey, it's mine. Get away from me. But no, they're really nice people in Chicago. And what a hell of a town.

Chicago. I mean, it's pretty good. Hey, you know, when you're called the second city, you've got to make it up somehow. That's true. That's true. Why would anybody, you know, I've got to tell you, I've been in New York and I've been in Chicago and I like Chicago better. I think I just lost my New York audience. I probably shouldn't have done that.

It's only a rivalry one way. That's when you know you've got an inferiority complex. Chicago is always competing against New York, but not the other way around. But that's okay. I love it. I mean, I'll tell you where the second city, but it takes a whole minute over in New York.

Well, I mean, the great thing about New York is you've got lots of streets that smell like urine and well, that's about it really. And bed bugs. So we picked on poor New York. We love New York. So, um, we picked on poor New York. This, we love New York. Um, the, um, it's got a special place in my heart right behind San Francisco and Southern California.

Uh, I guess, I guess that makes me an East coaster or West coaster coaster. I don't know what that means, but, uh, anyway, let's get to you and let's talk about, and you're also an author as well. I believe I brought that up, bestselling author. So we'll get into that. But let's talk about late growth properties, who you are and what you're about. Give us some indications of what that's going on there, Mark. Sure. Yeah, we're a full financial firm here in Chicago, Illinois.

We are on a mission to help people break free from financial insanity and help them in building tax-free income in retirement and becoming their own source of financing. You know, the last person from Chicago to say we're on a mission was, I think, Elroy. We're on a mission from God. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, where's my sunglasses? That's what that reminded me of.

We're on a mission. I can't hear that line without thinking of ROI. So you guys have been around for quite a few years, I guess? Yeah, yeah, we've, I affectionately refer to our firm as a post-recession firm. So we started, I started this practice years ago in the midst of the Great Recession. And, you know, it was an eye-opening experience. I was working for a CPA at the time, and I was helping her with some tax returns and some accounts for her clients. And she's one of these, I mean, incredible people, I mean, nationally recognized, incredible person to work with.

However, she, like many financial advisors, were losing her clients' money big time. I mean, Chris, we're talking 401ks, we're becoming 201ks in a matter of weeks. So it was a big eye opener for me because I wanted to get into the financial space. That was like a dream of mine, seeing solutions solved, problems solved for clients and so forth. But I got into it right when the house of cards was tumbling down, and it was an eye-opener. It shook me to my core, to be very honest, not only for my career, but also my own money. I mean, why would I put my money into something that I just watched collapse for folks who were 61, 62 years old? I'm sorry, Mr. Client, but I just lost you half

your life savings. That doesn't exactly instill a lot of confidence in the traditional ways of saving for retirement. Yeah, it definitely was crazy. And a lot of people, especially in the older areas, older ages, got wiped out with the 2008 economy collapse. Here in Las Vegas, people had gotten used to the drug of refinancing every one to two years. These crazy increases in values we're getting. And they were kind of overextending themselves. And then they got caught with their hand in the till. They were taking out huge equi lines and partying and having fun with it, and then didn't realize the party would end. They thought it would go on forever and ever.

That's right. Yeah, so you've probably seen it just like most people. If they think back, it's not even that long ago. There's probably some stories you've seen over the years. A lot of stories. I came from the business of being a realtor and owning a mortgage company for almost 20 years, owning a lot of other companies. And 2008 took me down with all the things it had. Every business I had stopped working, everything we invested in stopped working. Thankfully, I'd sold my home in Utah and moved to Nevada to invest here and then realized that it was a bubble that was going to pop. And so I sat not owning a home watching everybody else get stuck with their hands in the equity till. And yeah, I met a lot of people that were you know

hundreds of thousands of dollars upside down in their homes and they're just like what are we gonna do and they were 55 you know 60 you know in a you know in a world where they're pushing up against their thing and you know here here they're expecting their homes to be their retirement vehicles or at least one of their income sources for retirement. And all that had gotten washed away. And it's taken, what, 10 years now to just even kind of recover and come back to what it is. I mean, that's a lot of time in retirement or close to retirement years.

You bet. Well, you're exactly right. The Great Recession kind of laid bare the myth that home prices only go up, right? And if we're packing away all of our money into something that we can't control, can we really call that a retirement plan? Or is it just gambling, right? I mean, let's be honest about it. And what's crazy, Chris, is it's been 10 years. We've had the longest bull market since the dawn of mankind. And people, the average Joe, actually has more debt now than they've ever had before.

That seems strange to me, that we've got the best running bull market in all of human history, and yet we can't pay our bills on time something's not right there so what do you think it is I mean I think I think there's a lot of human nature wrapped up in that I think right right there's an old quote we buy things we can't afford to impress people we don't even like yeah money we don't even have. I'd say that Wall Street since the 60s has really lured us into thinking that that is the only

way to achieve financial independence. They're a pretty recent phenomenon. Is it because a lot of people went into debt digging out of the recession and stuff? I know some people walked away from their homes and filed bankruptcy. You know, it was interesting because I had a lot of conversations back then,

and I work with some mortgage bailout people. I was consulting with banks after our businesses went down. And in consulting with banks, I mean, I remember in, I think it was 2008, um, in consulting with banks, I mean, we, they, I remember in, um, I think it was 2008, 2009, uh, around that era, I was consulting with banks and, and there was a bank I was working with in Santa Monica and, and I was meeting with them and they go, oh, we just got a new bag of jingle mail. I'm like, what the hell is jingle mail? And they go well something unique and new is happening we have people just mailing in the keys to their home and there's so many people mailing in their keys to the home that when the Postal Service brings us the bags of mail it jingles because there's so many keys in it. People are just literally

just, here's the key, F you, have fun with that. And of course, they have a lot of investment property homes, and those are usually the ones that people walk from first. But people are just giving up. And I remember having conversations with some people who were older, and they're like, we don't know what we're

going to do. We just took out a $100,000 credit line, a home equity. And, and we anticipate our home would go up. We could sell it and flip it. And we put in a new patio and a new kitchen, all this crap that they probably should.

And they're like, now we're stuck. And I'm like, well, technically you're not losing any money. Your home may have lost 200,000 in value overnight, but you haven't lost any money until you sell it. So most likely the value is going to come back.

It didn't take 10 years, but the value will come back. And they're like, no, we're just going to file bankruptcy, or we're just going to let it go into foreclosure. So it was kind of an interesting time. It was kind of like stocks. I was, it was kind of like stocks. I mean, you, you,

you don't lose until you sell. And sometimes it's better just to hold and see if you can, you can hit the curve. If it, if it ever comes back. That's exactly right, Chris. I mean,

you're right. The over the last century, it's taken the stock market at on average 16 to 25 years just to break even when it goes through a major recession like we've had two of those. That's not really 16 years. Yeah. Isn't that nuts? And that's just to break even.

Now what about the time value of money? Yeah, time value of money, the inflation pressures on the value of that money. I mean, if you figure if you're a working adult, you're most likely, I don't know that most people are retiring anymore, but technically you're supposed to be working between the ages of, say, 20 and 65, maybe 70, so you have 45. Wait, am I doing the math right?

45 to 50 years of working time and if you're losing 16 years out of every recession that's that's quite the hell of a cyclical nature of your economy yeah well and you know it again it's it's the trouble is nobody knows where that roller coaster will be when it's time to get off now the market over an infinite period of time will go up, right? We all kind of know instinctively anyway, home, home prices will go up. The stock market will go up. So they say the trouble is we're all finite human beings. We're not infinite. You know,

we don't go on forever like the market possibly could. At least that's what I'm told. Maybe you, Chris, maybe you, Chris. Holy crap. I didn't get the memo. Yeah. So what's the market going to be doing when it's time for us to pull that money out and spend it on grocers? What's our home value going to be worth when it's time for us to downsize or convert it into cash? Maybe you do, Chris, but I don't have a bunch of money locked away in the drywall of my house. You know, I have to sell that house to get the money from it, right?

I've got the bodies in my drywall. That's usually what I have in my drywall. I paint them in, you know, all that stuff. So it's harder for the, you know, I used to bury them in the backyard, but now it's harder to find them if they're in the house. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It's not that great either. No, it's a good thing we're not recording. It's a good thing them if they're in the house. It's not that great either. No, it's a good thing. We're getting into a whole different thing there.

So what does your firm do? What do you guys help people do with your firm? So we work with individuals and business owners who want to create wealth in ways that are safe and predictable without necessarily relying on Wall Street for their solutions, quote unquote solutions. I believe our solutions really built for people who believe they have control over their financial future. They don't have to put it over here with some money manager to take care of it for you. So we focus on people who want to become their own source of financing

and actually take control of their financial future. So that's what we specialize in. So you guys counsel people on doing a lot of different things. I might imagine real estate investing is some of that, maybe? Yep. We work with folks that have a desire to get into real estate and want to see that kind of cash protection, that cash flow that real estate offers. There's really three different

ways that people can put money to work for themselves. The first is real estate. That's been around since the pyramids, as you know. The second is owning businesses. And then the third is paper wealth. And paper wealth is actually the least efficient way to grow your money. I mean, that's Wall Street, right? That's paper wealth. It's only worth what the paper is printed on until you sell your stock or whatever. Until then, it's just paper profits or paper losses. So yeah, we have folks that believe that financial freedom is actually possible and that Wall Street is not the only or even the best way to get to financial freedom.

Yeah, there's a good argument and we've had a lot of planners on the Chris Voss Show podcast. There's a good argument for the good slow growth, slow return, but consistent return on investment that's low risk as well. And I know a lot of people find that in real estate, whether it's commercial or residential. And, you know, over time, price home values do go up and there's only a certain amount of finite land and finite room um they're not making more room so the more housing that goes up the more there's

demand and and of course we seem to be these uh become more and more of these coastal sort of cities where uh more and more people i think i think millennials are part of this they they want to move out of the rural areas and they want to move to the big cities. Of course, I think we're seeing some reversal in cities like San Francisco, but that's just in California just because of the peaking prices that are down there.

But definitely having those sort of investments. So you guys help people make plans even inside or outside of using the stock market for this real estate. And then you guys talk about doing why self-banking is better than traditional banking. So you guys talk to people about doing their own self-banking? Yeah. Well, so, you know, again, where is it written that we have to build up wealth at someone else's bank? Where is it written that we have to, you know, put our wealth into a mutual

fund and then hope and pray that it grows over the years or our home? I mean, even the case Schiller index says homes only grow like 1% above inflation over the last 30 years. And the market itself, this is according to Dalbar. Dalbar is one of those awesome third parties that doesn't have a dog in the fight, right? They're just looking at real actual investors over the last 30 years. I'll give you, I'll throw this out to you.

See what you think, Chris. All right, so average investor before taxes, before fees, what was their actual return over the last 30 years in the stock market if they were all in on mutual funds? According to this report that Delaware puts out each year, what do you think? Was it 5%, 10%, 12%? What do you think the average investor before taxes, before fees, what was their return, average return over a 30-year period? Over a 30-year period? I'm going to guess 10%. 10%? Cool. It's less than 10. It's less than half of 10. Actually, it's 3.98%.

Wow. Over 30 years. Damn. 30 years. I mean, that's including the 90s, right? You don't have to put it on a passbook savings account. I think. Almost do better packing it into the...

Yeah, I mean, maybe we should all move to Vegas and just try our luck at the tables, right? Yeah, that probably won't work. Anytime I walk in those opulent casinos here in Las Vegas, I go, yeah, I know who's winning most of the time. Looks like Steve is doing really good. You know, somebody who paid for this Italian glass, some poor schmuck.

Exactly, yeah. Well, that's actually a really good metaphor actually, Chris. So who are the people who actually made guaranteed returns in the market over the last 30 years or any period of time? It was the investment advisors that were getting an asset center management fee. Most mutual funds are loaded up with assets under management fees and Those guys are going to get paid whether you grow your money or lose half of it in the market. Same thing with

the guys who run the hedge funds and everything. That's where they make their money is off all the fees. You see firms and their funds whether they have a portfolio that loses a bunch of money or gains a bunch of money or gains

a bunch of money, they're going to feed the crap out of you. That's how they temper their wins and losses. You've seen that scene at the beginning of Wolf of Wall Street where Matthew McConaughey is talking to DiCaprio and he's like, look,

this is how it's done. You churn and you burn or something like that. He's talking about the fees that the investment advisor makes every time you buy and sell. And the poor schmucks that are investing, their pension money, their retirement money, they're left with all the risk. And Wall Street typically is given most of the guarantees. I don't like that contract. I don't think that's a fair shake. I don't think that's a fair shake. I don't think that's like the only way.

It's certainly not the only way to save for retirement. It's definitely not the most efficient way. I think some people do invest in certain hedge funds or certain funds to lose money for write-offs. I don't know. It seems that way sometimes with some of the losses that you hear. So there's some different things that you guys had to talk about.

And what are some financial vehicles that you recommend that you can put money into without being taxed in the future? Because tax is a big thing. I've had some friends that have had some windfalls where they've gotten large amounts of money from selling their business and stuff and there's not really any big financial payoffs in the future and

so their big thing is trying to make sure that they you know they reduce their taxes in the future and they also um you know fight against inflation inflation is another thing that is their enemy over time i don't think most people even realize how much inflation inflation is another thing that is their enemy over time. I don't think most people even realize how much inflation is their enemy, really, when it comes down to it. Yeah, it's just a tax that we didn't have to vote on, basically. You know, we're getting an annual increase in our expenses, which is nibbling away at our cost of living, right? You're exactly right.

And, you know, most people, and again, I'd love to know your thoughts on this, Chris, but most people I talk with, when I exactly right and you know most people again i'd love to know your thoughts on this chris but most people i talk with when i ask them you know hey uh what do you think in this country or at least in even in your personal circumstance for the average american in the country at large do you think taxes are going to be lower or higher over the next 30 years what do you think most people say probably lower yeah. Yeah, they act that way. But most people, when I ask them that question, they say, heck, taxes are going up definitely, right? Taxes are going to be higher over our next 20, 30, 40 years because we got programs we can't pay for. We got people aging.

We got social safety net programs that we have unfunded't pay for. We got people aging. We got, you know, you know, social safety net programs that we have unfunded liabilities for. I mean, literally there's 70, what was it? 74 trillion. No. Yeah. $76 trillion of unfunded liabilities that the government's reporting. And the, I was just reading, you probably read this, just recently, even with this Trump tax break that the GOP has supposedly given most people, the IRS recently issued a ruling or I guess whatever they're going to do and how they're going to evaluate stuff. And I guess they changed the IRS changed, uh, the way they're calculating the inflation to change it. Yeah. Or actually it,

it actually is not going in your favor, uh, the way they're calculating the inflation rates going on in the future for how they assess their tax. And so therefore, uh, there's some, there's, there were some articles that said

that may wipe out for some people, some of the tax benefits that they would have gotten with the Trump tax plan. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. It's interesting that, I mean, we can get into the particulars there, Chris, but yeah, you're exactly right. The government has always had a... I think you're saving money in the Trump tax plan, which most people aren't. And you're right, the perception of people and whether they're saving money is pretty crazy or not. Like I recently saw how someone on YouTube, they went to like a Trump rally and they started asking people how much they save with the new tax trump law and the it was astounding the answers people had and the the interesting thing about the new tax savings

for the trump law is they don't kick in until 2019 when you file your taxes so you can't have had any windfall yet really yeah well and then they all expire uh 2025. I don't know if most of them. It's gone. So for people literally saying, oh, yeah, I got like $40,000 back. I saved like $10,000. And you're like, you haven't filed your taxes for 2019. It's not even over yet, 2018. You can't even hit that.

And people's perception of how much they're saving and money and stuff sometimes is just out there. And then they wonder why I guess they retire and there's nothing left in the till. Chris, you know, it's so interesting to me when I ask the question like, hey, what do you think? Just, you know, I ask them a few questions just to kind of hear from them. What do they believe about their own money? This is their hard-earned money here.

And almost to a person, they all say, yep, taxes are definitely going to go up in the future. And then I'll say, well, what's your understanding of how the 401k that you have at your work will be taxed in retirement? Oh, well, I'll be taxed in retirement. Well, okay. If you're going to get taxed in the future, and that's when taxes are going to be higher, is it a good idea to keep packing money into a tax deferred? I'll call it a tax postponed plan, right? 401ks are technically called tax deferred, which sounds great. Like who doesn't want to defer something like taxes? But if I said, hey, Chris, I need a root canal, but I'm going to defer that root canal is that a good idea or a bad idea

probably not a good idea my experience say i mean so the the the trouble is we we have been given a lot of i think um i mean we've been given a lot of ideas about how Wall Street would have us save our money with them. And the 401k turned 40 years old this year. So it's not even old enough to retire. And yet it's the biggest retirement experiment that this country has ever gone through. And how has it turned out? I mean, the average American doesn't even have a year's worth of savings for retirement. How will they turn that into 25, 35, 40 years of income where they aren't living off food stamps? We're all living longer.

But we have a nice sale to save for that. I'm on the corner with a cardboard sign saying, give me money. I'll meet you there, man. I'll take you to Chicago. We'll have some great pizza. It'll be great. I don't know what a lot of people are planning because you hear so many people that don't have savings. There's a lot of older people that have their savings wiped out

or at least some of their investments wiped out with the Great Depression, but they either lost it both real estate or the stock market. So there's some other things that you talk about in your profile here. How can an entrepreneur fire their banker and become their own source of financing? I know we talked a lot about being an entrepreneur on this show, and I've been an entrepreneur all my life. That sounds like an interesting sort of line of questioning. Yeah. I think that, again, it comes down to what do you believe about who controls the financial

environment your money lives in? The fish is usually the last to notice that he's in the water. And unfortunately, most entrepreneurs and Americans in general, the stats are pretty identical. Actually, Chris, the average American and the average business owner spends about a third of their income, 34 percent of their income on debt financing. So that's everything from your mortgage to your student loans to your business line of credit to your auto loans. And that's a ton of cash. Think about that that's that's a if time is money chris that means a third of our day is going to a bank working for a bank and then if we throw taxes in there that's now that's half our day gone right now taxes and the other third for

working for your wife and there you go that's's 100%. You've got about 10 minutes a day to yourself. Now, the biggest problem that most financial planners see is opportunity cost. And that's the problem where if I spend a dollar on this cup of coffee over here, I never ever see that dollar work for me ever again. Where are you buying your coffee for a dollar? I'd like to know. Every time I go to Starbucks, it's like

$15 and I'm like, man. Sprinkling gold on your coffee down there. Yeah, there's gold nuggets in that coffee. I keep looking at the bottom of the glass and there's nothing in there except diabetes from those lemon cake muffins they always sell me that I can't stop eating.

So what if you could become your own source of financing? Like what if you could recapture that 30 plus percent of your income and pay it to your own personal banking system? I love that. Hey, Chris, can I get along? I'm sure how much you need. Yep.

And then I'll be like, 10,000. And then my financial advisor will be like, do you take a check? And even better, I hope you'll charge yourself interest, right? You're a captive customer with your own bank. So be a greedy banker because every dollar of interest you pay yourself is just money going toward your future. You know, I've seen a lot of companies do this. I remember when I was a kid studying to be

a stockbroker, I watched mutual fund agencies do this where they would buy a bunch of furniture and then lease it back to themselves. Lease it back to the company and charge some sort of exorbitant leasing back fee

far more than the property was worth and stuff like that and do different games to play, income games to their stuff. I think there were some times we bought stuff in the businesses that inadvertently ended up in our home.

There's all sorts of ways of writing stuff off and depreciating things and buying things. I mean, certainly, like, if you buy cars and stuff, you probably want to buy them through your business rather than buying them personally so you can get more write-off through them, I would imagine. Yeah, or, you it uh own the bank personally and then you know lend it to your business and then your business has to pay you back on a

certain interest rate over a certain time period and when you're the bank when you're the bank chris you could you know wave a magic wand and say you know what business if you're having a tight month or tight couple of months, just skip a few payments. I mean, if you were in control of the repayment schedule, if you owned the entire financial environment that your business operated in and your family operated in, wouldn't that add a bit more peace of mind and sanity even to your financial future?

So we use assets that have nothing to do with Wall Street, but that have a lot to do with the banking system, the banking function in one's life. So that's really what we, it's not everything we do, but it's one of the things we specialize in to help folks buy those big purchases. We're all gonna spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on our cars, vacations. I mean, heck, a trip to Vegas is going to be a hundred grand right there. So

then of course, kids college, I mean, millions of dollars will go through our fingers over a lifetime. And if we just simply pay cash for stuff or use a bank to finance all of our big purchases, it's just going to be that much more expensive. And it's no wonder that the average American is spending a third of their income on debt. It's no wonder that they don't have much saved for their future. Yeah, I mean, I remember with mortgages, when we used to do a lot of mortgages with people, we'd refinance their debt. And it'd just be crazy. People come to me and they go, hey, Chris, I off thirty thousand dollars in credit card debt and you know we'd show them how if you if you had five thousand dollars in debt on a on

a credit card uh it would take you like 25 to 30 years to pay that off and you would end up paying five times the amount of the principal of five thousand so you'd be paying twenty five thousand thirty thousand and we pay off their debt and we go, now don't do that again. And we just pay off your debt through your home equity. And so now I'll go free and pay cash for everything. And they come to me a year or two later with another $30,000 in debt.

They went back and just ran out their credit cards. And they were just living for years on refinance to refinance and pulling the money out of their home equity, paying off the debt. And then when their home equity would go up, they'd pay off the debt again. Eventually, once recessions would hit or downturns in the real estate market, they'd get caught with their hand in the tail because they'd been so used to this drug-addled addiction of the mortgage market constantly going up.

And then they'd be stuck with all the debt and then they have liquidity problems. Yeah, there's a better way. I mean, you can either live flowing downstream with your money and just kind of letting money happen to you. But again, I believe that if you are aware that you can control the stream by which your money is flowing, if you can control the financial environment that your money lives in, everything else begins to become a lot simpler. My clients, my, my clients are typically, you know, able to find solutions that keep them out of the financial insanity that I hear most people tied up in, because they've, they've made a few small decisions that took care of 1000 other decisions, right? If I could just

make one decision that solved me having to come up with a thousand other solutions to problems, if I could just be my own source of financing, I won't have to worry about which stock to pick. I won't have to worry about how I'm going to pay off my house or if I'm going to have to work that extra side hustle to work 80 hours a week instead of 40 or 30. It's really the simple things that make the biggest impact in one's financial life. Yeah, it's interesting how complex people go. I mean, people are always looking for the next big get-rich-quick scheme. And I remember my dad, when I was a kid, he used to quote somebody,

and I forget who would say that. I don't know if he got it from Zig Ziglar or one of these financial gurus back in the day. But he said, what would you rather have, Chris? What was it, $100,000 or $1 million? Or would you rather have a penny a day for 10 years at a passbook savings account? Of course, back then they would pay 6%. What would you rather have? And he'd be like, well, I'll take,

you know, the, the larger sum immediately. And he would show you how with the compound interest and blah, blah, blah, that the penny a day would actually compound to be an incredible amount of money.

And you'd end up, you know, making more money over the longterm. And a lot of people, I think get so caught up in these, in the garagees of it. Oh, should I invest in Bitcoin? We recently saw now that Bitcoin, you know, it's come down from what,

like a year or two ago, 20,000. Now it's hitting new lows of 3,000 again. And it just seems like cryptocurrency is in a bit of a dive right now. So if you chase that get-rich-scheme, you're probably out some of your time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we might be setting up a little cardboard box camp there, Chris. Yeah, I keep all my refrigerator boxes for this reason.

I plan on having, like, at least... I don't want a one-carboard box. You know, kind of like you have a single mobile home. I want a double-wide cardboard box. So I can't use two refrigerator boxes at all times. That way I can have a double-wide cardboard box because then I'll probably have the best cardboard box house on the alley, I'm thinking. You bet.

Let me tell you a story if it's all right on how one of these, because this is all a cool concept, right? I mean, it's a nice thought. The cardboard box concept? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you've got a business going there, Chris. I do. Yeah, the way we're going,

I'm going to be selling those cardboard boxes for like Thunderbirds or something. There you go. Water bottles and ammunition so uh you know i just yeah i i think the the concept of being your own source of financing appeals to me anyway and appeals to most of my clients people who believe that the banks are you know there's a reason why the bank in your town is the largest building and uh there's a reason why banks have been the most profitable business for millennia but it has to have it you have to have an actual tool it's not just a concept uh you know it's a neat concept but you got to have an actual tool financial vehicle to make it all work and my wife and i we graduated from college with like $120,000 of student loan debt

in the midst of the great recession. And that's like eight, 50, 900 bucks a month that we didn't have. So we were thrown as much as we could overpaying on them. It did, it felt like an extra mortgage payment or two. We were throwing all of our money toward the debt and honestly getting no return on that. Because as soon as you pay off a debt, it's not like they're going to give you any kind of interest on that. You can sell your house, you can sell your car, you can sell once you pay it off. Right. Yeah. Some dollars would be the term for it maybe.

Yeah. We knew that every dollar we threw toward our debt would never earn for us ever again wow we we've gotten it down to you know a good 70 grand or so when a mentor of ours came and said you know what you really need to look at this bank on yourself strategy uh and he brought up the truth about how mega banks were basically running the show and how the super wealthy didn't get to where they are because they got their 401k match with their employees, their employee 401k. And he suggested that, you know, hey, Mark, is it possible that Dave Ramsey and folks that tell you to buy term and invest the rest could be wrong about something? And, you know, my mind shut off at that point because he started talking about how life insurance was one of those rare assets that grew outside of the market and let you grow, when you access this money out of the cash value of a life insurance policy, if it's properly designed, the policy will continue to grow

without delay with interest and dividends, even on the capital you borrowed out. And when he said that, I was like, why haven't I ever heard of that before? So I started doing some research. Again, I'd been in the financial world for years. I had heard about life insurance a long time ago, just kind of got through those classes because I had to. But I looked deeper into this particular kind of dividend paying whole life policy and found out that, yeah, if I've got, for example, if I got $100,000 in cash value in a policy that's properly designed, and I use that money, I borrow that money out, I become my own source of financing, borrow that money out. If the policy was designed correctly, that's really important to factor in.

Let's say I take a $30,000 loan to buy a car, and I've got 100 grand in cash. That year, my policy will still pay me a dividend and interest on the full $100,000 as if I had not taken the loan out. And then I get full control to repay that loan as I please. Could be six years, could be 10 years, could be never. It's a non-recourse loan. And if I pass away and never paid a loan off they just deduct it from my death benefit that's a phenomenal way to pay off our student loans so that's exactly what we did Wow life insurance huh of all things yeah yeah you look into all sorts of places you pack your money away that'd be one of the last ones I'd look as someone that was very much into stocks, bonds, mutual funds, everything that Dave Ramsey said.

It sounds like you've got some really good ways to take and pack away money. People should definitely contact your guys' firm to take and do that because it sounds like you've got some good ideas on where people can put it and how to do it. I've seen things where with corporations, I think we did things with corporations where we gave loans to ourselves instead of distributions.

Yeah. And we pay ourselves for a good portion of the year with distributions and advances so they wouldn't go on the books as income. And we had it all worked out back in the day. But yeah, there's all sorts of tips and tricks, especially you can do when you're an entrepreneur to take and save money. And I think even if you're not an entrepreneur,

if you're someone living on retirement, there's tips and tricks they can do. And it sounds like contacting your firm is a smart thing to do. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. We found a lot of fun strategies for business owners specifically. I know you mentioned the e-commerce business you have with Amazon and yeah, the biggest issue with a lot of folks that I've worked with in the Amazon space is just, hey, I need inventory and I don't know when that I need capital, you know, big pool of capital to purchase my inventory. And most people

typically put that on some sort of line of credit or credit card or some sort of even Amazon lending now, by the way, Amazon's a bank too, by the way. So they'll use debt to purchase the inventory. And wouldn't you know, banks love to get money, loans paid off. So they start asking for repayment of that loan, maybe before the inventory is sold. So now the business owner is stuck. I got to sell my inventory on discount so I can pay off my creditor, my bank, to avoid paying hefty interest payments. Now, what if it were possible to have a big pool of contingency capital, you know, big line of credit to your own business, where you could loan your business 10 grand, 50 grand, 100 grand, whatever, to purchase your inventory for your business, and then wait for

that inventory to sell, your policy, your cash value policy is still earning dividends on the capital you borrowed. Then you just pay the loan off whenever you sell the inventory at a higher price, by the way, because you were patient enough to wait for it to sell full price. Now this is probably the data found in your book that they can find on Amazon,

I guess. How to Be an Amazon Legend and Fire Your Banker is the book you've written Mm-hmm Yeah, I had a ton of fun working with Danny stock who you know, I think is consulting with several hundred Expert level Amazon sellers online if you've bought anything from Amazon recently you probably bought it from someone in the Amazon legends group and

So I wrote the book with Danny to kind of share some of the strategies that have worked with hundreds of his members of his group, Amazon Legends. Amazon is a great place to sell things. It's far, far better than eBay. The scammy buyers on eBay and the Nigerians and fake buyers. It used to be you could control a lot of the people who would be looking or bidding on your projects on eBay. I don't know if I don't have access to them for some reason anymore. If they just took them away, it seems like they took them away. But Amazon is a great place to sell stuff.

And whether you're selling used stuff or new stuff, it's a great place to sell things. Every now and then you run across a buyer who is clearly trying to put people over a barrel for refunds and stuff. I rarely ran into it. But I just usually tell those people, I'm just like, just return the product. And they're usually trying to hustle you just to do the product down. Or, you know, sometimes you get people that say the product's broken so they can get the free return on, on stuff. Cause they just decided they didn't want it.

You get the product back and you're like, it looks fine. But in that it's a great, it's a great place to sell stuff. And the other thing that I love about Amazon is their pool of buyers is so large that you can retain much more margin. Anytime I got to sell something on eBay, it's like selling in a garage sale. And, yeah, you know, you're selling some shoe for 25 cents and some guy's busting your nut to get you to you know cut that down five cents you're like really for the amount of work this is taking the internet are getting over five cents um and the margins just just perform way better on amazon when it comes to selling anything compared to ebay uh i don't even know why eBay is still in business, actually. Maybe they don't know PayPal separated from years ago.

But I guess some people are still selling on there. So do you talk about how to set up a seller account? Sorry, go ahead. Do you talk about setting up a seller account in your book, teach people how to sell on Amazon, all that good stuff? Or do you just go right to how to become a legend if you're already an Amazon seller? The book itself is expounding on this strategy of, hey, you know what? There are other expert books out there on how to set up your account

and put your inventory on there and retail arbitrage and private label. But what that book, How to Be an Amazon Legend and Fire Your Bankers, is all about is how to hit the biggest wealth nut in your portfolio, which is controlling the function of banking for your business. The biggest issue with most of our financial plans is that we are no longer in control of the banking function in our lives. If we outsource banking to somebody else, whether it's, you know, we're not, I'm not talking about checking and savings. I'm talking about the loan function, the banking function in your life. If you could operate your entire business on your own bank, you'd be way ahead

of your competitors on the e-commerce space. We're already in the banking business, Chris. I mean, you, me, all of us, we're already participating in the biggest, most profitable business in mankind, which is banking. So why not sit on the banker's side of the desk and take control of that function in our lives to reap the benefits and reap the wealth. It's going to go somewhere. That money is going to flow into somebody's pocket. A third of our income, on average, is going to a bank anyway.

Might as well let that money flow to me. If I have a mutual fund... A third of my money flows into someone else's pocket. Wait, that's not funny. That's the taxes. I had a guy one time who was making a really nice income, you know, a quarter million dollars a year. And he was, you know, he was proud of his, you know,

his mutual funds, which we're doing, you know, for the last three years, doing pretty nice. We've had a great market the last couple of years. And then we got into some of his numbers and he was spending, Chris, $80,000 a year just servicing his interest payments on his debts. Not paying down the principal, just the interest was 80 grand a year. That's a third of his income, you know, paying for the two houses and the boat and the cars and, you know, his medical student loans and all that. So what good does 10% a year on a mutual fund do

if you're losing after-tax money of 30% to a bank? Yeah, it's crazy what people do with their money and everything that goes into it. So you teach them how to be a legend, how to self-finance their inventory and then stay away from the bank clinches that they're going to take and get locked into? Yeah, that's right. I think we've built a case for a couple of things here on this episode.

I know we're coming in for a landing. So the problem is Wall Street has convinced most of us that Wall Street is the only place to achieve financial freedom. And I think, Chris, you're an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur. I think you and I have kind of woken up from that matrix and said, nope, we're going to take control of our own financial future. And even if it's risky, even if it's, you know, you know, there's plenty of statistics out there on businesses failing too but you can you can have i think a more productive more sane lifestyle if you're not tying your hopes to something uh over on wall street that could you know if someone sneezes the wrong way or votes the wrong way uh your future is crap is is doomed but you know with becoming your own source of

financing being your own boss, you're just moving upstream financially. You're going from passive to active in your financial life, which I think matters more than any financial tool that you can choose. I don't care if it's a mutual fund or life insurance or anything. If you know that you control the financial world around you, you'll win. I'd rather see our clients functioning more like thermostats than thermometers in their financial life. I talk to a lot of people, even family members, and I'm like, so what's going on with your 401k? How do you have it set up? They're like, I don't know, somebody's handling it. You're just like, okay, so you're just trusting

that they're going to handle your money properly? Look at that. I know a couple of bank robbers that could probably handle some money too. Sure, yeah. I mean, people can mail me checks all day long if they want. Certified, preferably. And I will hold it for you. That's about it.

But, yeah, I mean, it's interesting. So people can get a hold of your book. They can learn how to maybe finance different things like an inventory basis where they don't have a gun against their head with the bankers. And, of course, the great thing about Amazon is you can really create one hell of a sales sort of thing through Amazon. It really is a hell of a business reselling stuff on there. That's right. Yeah, so imagine how this fits into paying for your kid's college, which is going to be several hundred thousand bucks here in just a few years.

What I do is I tell my kids just to sell a kidney or something or a liver. They got two lungs, two eyes, two kidneys. He gave them plenty of stuff to sell. You're right. He just sold one of the Chinese organ harvesting companies. That's what I did with my first kids and bought myself a BMW.

I miss Johnny and Jamie, but I know they would want daddy to have a BMW 5 Series. That's right. But, yeah, those organ harvesting things, it's amazing. You don't need that second kidney, most likely. Just sell that thing for, I don't know, $30,000 and got yourself a first year's education.

That's right. Well, the $30,000, that's on eBay. You can get more on Amazon for those kidneys. Can you get more on Amazon? Yeah. Better think you get more on Amazon yeah that's how Bezos that's so well all my first children is on Amazon that's how I discovered that you get a little some of the kids on Amazon that could be your next book that could be the next title that's the title of the episode and save yourself all that college money see there's a retirement program right there i mean i think a kid from start to finish just from going to zero to 20 years or 18

uh it's like i don't know what is it like quarter million dollars or a million dollars or half a million dollars or yep yeah there's some great websites out there that'll help you calculate this but yeah you're exactly right if you're born today public school about a quarter million dollars is the projected cost so wow yeah yeah yeah so throw a couple of college educations in there a wedding or two how many cars are you going to buy over your lifetime how many houses you know again it's cool I didn't have any kids and most people have at least two kids I should have like half a million dollars sitting around here somewhere should night for all the money I saved in the

walls of the house I'd say probably in the walls now so the bodies I knew I should have gone through their pockets before I plastered them in the walls. Sort of dark, whatever. So the best, yeah, I'd say the best thing you can do is just sort of say, all right, what are the small hinges that can swing the biggest doors? You know, what's one decision that'll help make a thousand other decisions so much easier for you, for your family, you know, for your business? You know, again, I'd family, for your business. Again, I'd say the first thing I'd be honored to do, happy to do, Chris, for your listeners is one, happy to chat with folks offline. If they heard anything that struck a chord or they'd be interested in,

be very happy to chat with them. We do a podcast on this strategy called Not Your Average Financial Podcast. And you can find us anywhere that you're listening to this podcast. And you can go to the website, notyouraveragefinancialpodcast.com. If you click book a meeting, happy to chat with you guys for 15 minutes, no charge, of course, just to hear your questions or feedback on this episode. And if you put Chris Voss show or sell your kids on Amazon, if you put that in the notes of the appointment, I'll send you a copy of this book, How to Be an Amazon Legend and Fire Your Banker, bestselling book on Amazon, completely free. Just make sure to put Chris's name in the notes. There you go, guys. Free books so you can read.

Those are always good to have. I use them to level tables, but some people read them. So there you go. That's right. You can do both, I'm told. Yeah, I went to public school, so I can't read, but I buy those audible books so they talk to me. That's how I do all my stuff for those audible books. But that's awesome. People can get a copy of the book. The best way to reach you is how? To go to your website?

I'd say if you like podcasts, check us out at notyouraveragefinancialpodcast.com. Click book a meeting. You'll see'll see my calendar you'll see my other advisors there as well but feel free to chat with me for at least 15 minutes i'm sure we can find a time that works with your schedule my calendar is literally on the web um you can see when i'm going to go visit my dentist and what no i'm kidding it's all it's all just available time slots if you want to pick a time feel free or you Or you can email us at hello at nyafinancialpodcast.com. That's pretty awesome. They can get a chance to consult with you for 15 minutes. They can get a copy of your book. That's pretty darn awesome. That's pretty awesome. So people

can go check that out and everything else. Give us your websites one last time so everyone can check those out. Mark? Yeah. Best thing to do is just go to www.notyouraveragefinancialpodcast.com and click Book a Meeting. Cool. There you go. And, of course, you can listen to his podcast, so you can learn all the different tips and tricks. And, of course, some of the information you may need to know,

you can talk to him for 15 minutes. You can get a copy of his book, which I'd'd highly recommend if you haven't gotten into amazon reselling whether you're just selling crap around your home like you you know stuff that you normally would garage sale you can sell some of that stuff for some pretty incredible margins on amazon uh or if you want to create a business uh reselling stuff whether you make your own products there's there's a whole group of these people that do drop shipping they use sources like Alibaba or Alibaba how do you want to pronounce it and they buy their goods from from from China and and they you know there's so many of these me being in the review

business I get I don't know five requests a day from Amazon sellers. And they're asking me to review their products and stuff like that. Just like JBL or AT&T would or anybody else review here on the Chris Voss Show. They're out constantly asking me to review their products and promote their sales form. And it's just a hell of a booming business and a great market. But Amazon is just such a great resource of people buying and everyone buys everything on amazon pretty much these days i think they just announced that they had their largest black friday and and uh cyber monday ever so they're just they just keep racking up the numbers when it comes to amazon that's right. Yeah.

If you're looking for a time, another time in human history where you've had this much opportunity to take control of your financial future, you'd be hard pressed against any other time period than right now. There's more people that have the capacity to start a business, make a profit, and control their financial future. Now then, I think, I can't imagine another time in human history, Chris. Maybe you can, but. I can't. About the time when I was younger in the medieval area, most times you just had to hack off a limb if you wanted to sell and raise some money. But then eat it because that was your sustenance for food if you're living in a famine area. But no, it is a great time.

You know, back when I started my businesses in the 90s and stuff, it came in the workforce. When you wanted to start a company, you had to do brick and mortar. You had to put a bunch of money down, sign a contract with the, uh, commercial office. You had to buy the, you know, the phone bank. You had to put the secretary up

front and meet and greet and answer the phone. Um, you had to buy desks and all this sort of stuff. Now you can literally run virtual companies where, um, you don't have to have all that investment just to even get off the ground or get started or get the doors open so you can start accepting business. And you can virtually move money around and products and buy them. You know, the drop shipping and everything else they have. It's just crazy. Yeah, I think we've covered a lot of ground here today, Chris. I know our time is short.

So what else can I leave your listeners with before we wrap up? I think you've done it, man. Free book. Check out your podcast. Free 15 minutes to talk to you and get consulting. I think that's awesome. Everyone go check out Mark's book. You can check it out on Amazon,

How to Become an Amazon Legend and Fire Your Banker. Check out his websites for both podcasts in his financial services company and thanks for coming on mark we definitely love you coming on and sharing some of this information and hopefully making all of us more wealthier Chris you know next time you're in Chicago we'll share some pizza at the water tower with some sunglasses on we'll do some some Blues Brothers moves and we'll have a great time. There you go, man. Maybe we can go on a mission from God and steal us a trooper car

and just, I don't know, get chased around Chicago by police officers. Sounds great. I think we've got a movie in the making. Blues Brothers 2018. Anyway, thanks to my audience for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you guys, of course, being here as well. Be sure to refer the show to your friends, neighbors, relatives. Tell them to go to YouTube.com for just Chris Voss.

Hit that bell notification. We're starting to see the numbers go up on the YouTube channel. They're starting to soar up like they do every year about this time people are checking out the latest product reviews will of course have our recommended buying guides on the Chris Voss show on what to buy this year what's hot what we think is cool and what you can make the best investment on you want to check out the YouTube channel though because you can see all the products that are be offered and also the products that are coming up for CES we're starting to talk, we're starting to see some of the announcements coming out of CES that will

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