Using policy cash value without overlooking the borrowing cost

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I don't care where you're at. Okay? Birmingham, Alabama, Mumbai, India, Los Angeles, Canada. I don't care where you're at. The number one business in the world, Joey, is banking. Most business owners are great at making money, but they lose control the [music] moment it hits their account. First three or four years I was a business owner, I doubled in revenue, [music] but there was no more money available than there was in year two than there was in year five. And I'm sitting [music] there going, where's all the dead gum money? So, we [music] take the money to give it to the bank. Okay? They give us a little bitty smidgen of a percentage of interest [music] to hold that money there. They then take that money and they let everybody else use our money at a rate that is so many more percentage [music] points above what they're giving us. Why is it so unheard of? I talked to a guy the other day that was net worth over $300 million. He didn't understand. He

didn't know what it was. I borrowed $200,000 off of that [music] policy and I gave it to Travis. He is giving me 15% to use that money. The money in that account is still growing. So basically building that IBC account kind [music] of helps you act like a billionaire. It's the same thing. All right, welcome to Beyond the Bottom Line. I'm your host, [music] Joey Lon, and this show is about pulling back the curtain on how the ultra wealthy actually protect and grow their money without the gatekeeping and the complexity. Each week, I sit down with elite experts working with top business owners and ultra wealthy families to reveal practical strategies that business owners can use today to keep more of what they earn and pay less in taxes legally. Uh today's episode's going to be different. My uh my guest today isn't just a financial adviser. He's actually a fellow business owner's first and foremost. Uh Thomas Cox runs multiple companies out of Birmingham, Alabama, a catering business, a destination wedding company, multifamily real

estate, and a private lending operation. He's also the host of the Owner Stable podcast with over 100 episodes. Uh, but what makes Thomas unique is what he discovered along the way. That a financial system that the ultra wealthy have used for generations to keep their money liquid, protected, and compounding even while they're deploying it to to fund deals, grow businesses, and build cash flow. And it's called the infinite banking concept. So, we're definitely going to dive into this. And Thomas doesn't just teach it, he uses it every day across his own businesses. So, that's what makes it uh special. So, if you ever felt like you're great at making money, but you're also great at, uh, you're not so great at keeping it working for you, well, um, or you've ever wondered why your financial advisor never talks about that stuff, uh, this conversation could be a game changer for you and how do you think about money? So, without further ado, welcome to the show, Thomas. Hey, thank you so much, Joey. Great, great

to be here. Yes, sir. Uh, Thomas, you said something. We were talking before before the show uh, that that shook me and stopped me. I want to start with this. You said that most business owners are great at making money, but they lose control the moment it hits their account, right? And I think every business owner, myself included watching this, felt that. Uh like we're all good at making money and then you pay your taxes, you put some away and somehow it still doesn't feel like it's working for you, right? So, as a business owner first and foremost yourself, someone who runs multiple different companies, what did you see in your own finances that made you realize that the system was broken? I saw a lot of people that were really good at the thing that they did. But the difference in being really good at your craft, okay? Uh selling, it's good at your craft. Restaurant, chefs, they're really good at at cooking, things like that. But there's so much more to running a

business. Whether it be tons and tons of employees or a sole proprietor, there's so much more to running a business. You have costs, you have inflow, you have outflow, you have taxes, you have investments down the line, you have margin. I could go on and on about all the things that we've done in business, but here's the one commonality. Every business owner at some point or another has to be able to manage the money that comes in and the money that goes out. Okay? You have to know where it's going at all times. And so, as a business owner, you have to be aware, keenly aware of all of those things on top of the craft that you're using to make money. There's guys out there that run landscaping businesses. They're wonderful at that thing. But being able to manage a employees and b the finances and the money, the inflows and outflows is a really, really difficult thing. I agree. I totally agree with you. I mean, you don't get you don't get you

don't get teach that in school, right? Or you never learn about that unless you go the extra mile and see it by yourself. Why what makes you say that that that the system is broken? [gasps] Because I see it in my business and I saw it in other people's businesses how so like first three or four years we were I was a business owner, I doubled in doubled in revenue, but there was no more money available than there was in year two than there was in year five. Yeah. So we we go double year one, double year two, double year three, get to year four, we don't quite double, but we're close. And I'm sitting there going, where's all the dead gum money? You know what I'm saying? So So I started to see, okay, where's the hole here? Well, what happens is is is as you as a buddy of mine, Jeremy Simmons, great friend of mine, he's grew multiple businesses. He looked at me one day on my podcast and he said, "Growth

is expensive. And if you can't manage that expense and be able to look and see, okay, is this a good spend on our dollar, then you probably don't need to do it or you need to hedge that number and figure out, okay, this needs to be a little bit of a smaller number. So, being able to see those things and see my own business is like, man, what what is going on here? And what how did you do to fix that? [sighs] The biggest thing I did to fix it was there's two things, okay? The old school way before I found about the the thing that I do now is um the first thing I did was I read a book called Profit First. Yeah. You ever heard of that book? Okay. Mike Malitz. Mike Malwix is an absolute stud. Never met him. Meet him one day. He's a genius guy. And so I started doing that process. Yeah. where every time, every week or every month, whatever your flow system is, I would allocate

the gross income into different accounts, like different accounts in my at the bank. I would put those those monies in those different accounts so when tax time come, I wasn't stressed. So when I needed to get paid my salary, I wasn't stressed because it was already over here. Or when I needed to pay sales tax, it was over here. Yeah. So that is where I created what we call margin. Okay. And margin was never evident enough than in 2020 when the whole world shut down and businesses ceased to exist or ceased to generate income almost overnight. Yeah. And the ones that had margin, meaning they knew that it wasn't going to be forever that their business was going to be like this, but they knew it was going to be some time. they could pull from that margin and keep everything running, keep employees paid, keep what? Keep the lights on, prover, the proverbial lights on. When you have margin in your business, you can do so many more things. It gives you so much

more freedom. That was the first thing, Joey. Y the second thing was as I talked to other business owners and I've been blessed enough never to have to use debt in business but as I also talked to other business owners I realized that people were using debt people were using banks. People were using hard money to fund the thing that they do. Okay. Y and as I saw that I started to see how much money people were spending on money if that makes sense. They were spending money on money. And when you start to add those quote finance numbers up, it gets to be astronomical. It can be shocking. Why do you think the financial system, the banks and just the mainstream doesn't want business owners to know that or doesn't advertise strategies to help that or I don't know, maybe they do and business owners are just not aware where to get that information. I think that's where the broken part comes from. No. Yeah. So I don't I don't care where you're at.

Okay? Birmingham, Alabama, Mumbai, India, Los Angeles, Canada. I don't care where you're at. The number one business in the world, Joey, is banking. It is. It goes back to ancient times. The number one business in the world, and this will probably never change, is banking. The largest building in your city is probably the bank. The largest building in my city is the bank. Banking is the number one business in the world because [laughter] this is crazy. But everything in the banking business runs off of capital that's not theirs. [laughter] Yeah. Okay. So, we take the money to give it to the bank. Okay. They give us a little bitty smidgen of a percentage of interest to hold that money there. They then take that money and they let everybody else use our money at a rate that is so many more percentage points above what they're giving us. They're in essence making quote making the spread. Yeah. And that money in a lot of ways gets really really expensive, Joey. And so being able to

s you sit there and go, okay, this banking function, God, these guys are killing it. They make a lot of money. But the the solution was for for me and what made the light bulb go off was, "Okay, my my my mentor sat down me. He said,"Hey, Thomas, I want you to continue to do what you're doing. I want you to continue to own multif family. I want you to continue to own these businesses. I want you to continue to do hard money lending." Yeah. But also be in the banking industry. I was like, "Dude, what are you talking about?" So that's when I was introduced to infinite banking and and how I can create a bank inside my own system that I can benefit from. So the crazy here's what's crazy. No lie. Two minutes before you called my one of my best friends called and said, "What are you using for business capital?" I I can't make this up. Okay. He just called. Just got off the phone with him and I said,

"What are you talking about? He has to buy something for his business." I said, "Well, the number one thing I'm going to use is my my IBC my IBC credit, my infinite banking account." Yeah. He goes, "Yeah, okay. That's what I thought." The question is always comes up because people want to continue to grow their businesses, whether it be to buy, you know, to spend more money on ads in a financial service business or to to have more equipment in a landscaping business or or a restaurant, whatever the thing is. People are always going to need more capital. But being able to use your own capital in your own banking system is a life-changing thing especially from the financial uh standpoint. Huh. So the solution you're saying from what you've seen uh to kind of fix that issue and unbreak that that financial problem that most business owners have would be to that infinite banking concept you're saying, right? Yes. And yes, that that is kind of one a one B. One A is is

is operating margin. Yeah. oper operate in margin. Like if you mean having having like enough margins to like if something hits the fan, then you're good. Yes. You you have to have margin. Listen, Joey, we have to have margin in every part of our life. We have to have margin in our time getting up in the morning going to work. We have to have margin how long it's going to take me to get to get drop my kids off at school. We have we have to have margin everywhere. in the financial part in relationships. In the financial part, if I'm if my if I've got $10,000 to spend on payroll and cost of goods sold and advertising, don't go over that. Like, how much do you have? Don't go over that amount. And that sounds really, really simple, but sometimes as business owners, we want to drive the fancy car, wear the fancy clothes, look the part, when in reality, owning a freaking business is hard. Yeah. talk to me. It is really, really hard.

[laughter] And a lot of times we are the ones that get paid the least the last. Oh, for sure. In order to get that thing that proverbial flywheel going. Now, once the flywheel go is going, then that's a different story. But for for the first however many months or years, bro, it's not easy. And you got to create margin when you're small. Because when you can create margin when you're small, it doesn't seem like it's adding up. But if as I grow that margin continues to grow and it grows with you and when you do you have you have more capital that you can do more things with. Yeah. Yeah. And especially today where things are moving extra faster than it has ever been with AI and everything like who knows where we're going to be in five years like if your business is going even going to be relevant in five years. if you don't have margins for that. Like I don't know if you heard about that new cloudbot uh or it's like

this new thing that you just buy a Mac Mini and then you put in place like an AI and it's like an assistant that runs your own computer. You give them access to your WhatsApp, your email, your Google Drive and they do whatever you want them to do. Like there's obviously a lot of flaws right now. So it's not fully done but like it's like we're in 2026. So 2027, 2028, 2030 like where are we going to be? So if you don't have margins for that for sure. So margins 1A and second would be the infinite banking concept you're saying right? Yeah. I IBC has changed our life is from a financial standpoint just simply because it we take back the banking function in our life. When we can take back the banking function our life we can cycle so much more cash into our system. Um the guy that came up with this proverbial system guy name Nash and he says you finance everything every everything you do you finance. Either you're borrowing money

from the bank or somebody else and paying an interest rate and financing that or you're using cash. When you use cash, you're losing the opportunity cost on the dollar that you spent paying in cash that could have been interest could have been earned somewhere else. So, I'm either paying interest over here or I'm losing interest over here. So, everything we do is financed in life. With infinite with with infinite banking what we can do is we can take back that banking function in our life and our you know Einstein said it one of the you know eighth one of the world seventh one of the world is compound interest when you can compound on dollars over time over time over time it's it's a it's a phenomenon that you've never ever seen anything like and what it can do that that that thing there can just be so freeing as far as from a business owner perspective that's good that's good and I definitely want to you to dive dive deeper into the IBC concept

and how to how to make it super clear and easy to understand because even for me I still have some some questions and I'm not even sure how it is. So I definitely want to dive into that but just for the audience as well I want to kind of paint paint the picture and and and share more about who you are. Um um so I know that you you you you were a football coach, right? College football coach to now building multiple businesses uh becoming what you call the private banker for your own for for your own business. um walk us through that journey, right? Because I think it's important for the audience to hear isn't coming from someone just trying to sell something like you actually have some some some life experience. So um what's what's that journey been like? Context is always good. U so from the time I was five, I knew what I was going to do. I was going to be a college football coach. My dad's a hall of

fame coach in the state of Alabama and I knew that I was going to co- coach college football. So that's the what my really world revolved around. Now, there's a finance piece in there where I always saw my parents argue about money when I was a kid. And I I thought to myself, I don't ever want to argue about money. I don't. And so, I started dollar cost averaging in the market when I was 18 years old. Had excuse me, $2,000 when I graduated from high school. I spent a,000. I gave a,000 to a guy in the church who was a um financial adviser. He put it in mutual funds and I started do he said, "Send me 25 bucks every month." Said, "Okay, what am I doing? what am I doing with this 25 bucks? He said, I'm going to put it in the stock market. I said, great. So, I just started dollar cost averaging at 18. And honestly, I did it all through college and even my earlier jobs when I was

coaching. And that that dollar just built. It just built and built and built and built and built and built and I just shut my eyes and even pull anything out of it. So, I started coaching college football. Uh did that for about 10 years. And then I just my heart got moved. I got out of it. Can't really explain it just the Lord Lord moved us out of that. Well, I started working at a church just cuz I didn't have any job. I had a great job. Love my job, but quit my job, started working at a church. I was there 3 months. My boss walks in and says, "Can you help me with a meal plan?" So, this is back before you could pick up your phone and find a meal plan in 30 seconds. So, I started doing meal plans for this guy and it just snowballed from there. Fast forward over the next five or six years, we did thousands of meal plans for people in 27 different countries. It's astronomical. It's

crazy. Well, I got after work at that church for about two years, year and a half, two years, I parlayed that and I started doing my own thing. Scared. Golly, I was I was as scared as a cat in a rocking chair factory. I didn't know what I was going to do. So, I I I made the leap and started my own business. And then the meal plans parlayed into meal prep again way before this where we are today. And then after meal prep, I started catering. Now, I really really have this theory, Joey, to side to sidebar on you. I think that all businesses need three streams of income. Whatever it is you're doing, there needs to be three sources of income and how you're generating, whether that be your household, with your business, or whatever. So, those three sources stayed consistent throughout the the food journey in our life. Okay? So, it started out being meal plans, meal prep, and then catering. Then, it went from restaurant, meal plans, uh, and catering. It

just is morphed. Now, now here I still own the catering companies. Don't have to do near as much as that anymore. And but we've got vending machines all around Birmingham. We've got we feed a small college and we have two catering companies. So there's three still three separate things there. So we just started building this business and honestly it was like coaching hours. Worked a ton of hours and just built it. Now I had a restaurant for a little bit but I realized quickly Joey that I did not want to be in the restaurant business. You say well well you're in the food business. Yeah, but every dollar that goes out or comes in, I know that the dollars are coming in before I buy the food. It's a major difference in on having a catering company and feeding a college than it is having a restaurant because if the weather's bad or it gets too cold or too hot or something, people don't show up to your restaurant. Yeah. So, not a huge fan.

Margins are super thin, you know. So, we just we we decided to stay out of the restaurant business and then just screw that. 2017 um I saw a video and um Grant you remember you know Grant Cardone probably seen Grant Cardone all over the internet. Okay. So Grant Cardone said why would I buy a single family home and rent it out when I can buy an apartment building. And I'm going to be honest with you Joey that 5-second statement changed my thought about creating wealth outside of my business. So, I took a lot of that money that we had made in the market over those, I don't know, 15 years, and we bought our first apartment complex, okay? We had an aggressive payown structure, which I wouldn't have done again, but we did. And then two years later, we pulled some money out of that apartment complex and bought another one. And then two years later, I bought one by myself. And so in that journey of being my own owning my own business, I

love the money, but I more than anything, Joey, I was unemployable at that point. I love the fact that I didn't have to work for anybody, even though if I went and got a job, I would have probably worked less. But I'm creating the I'm creating something and and I'm in control over that. And I love that aspect of being my own business. I love that aspect. And so we start we start the the food businesses are going. We've got the real estate. And then from there we got involved in private money. Okay. Private money, private credit, whatever you want to call it these days. People call it alternative investing. I don't know. We've been doing it for years. But it caught me. Okay. I had excess cash from the the times we had made the the the the really really the the margins we had in the business. I just allocated money in different places and so I had money to to to play with or to invest and I started doing private money

lending. I would lend money to house flippers and I would create a create a spread off the money and I'd make 10 15 16 18% off the money. And so here we are. We've got the food businesses. We've got the real estate. And honestly, Joey, I don't do anything with the real estate. I have a pro managers that manage it. I have some of my units I hadn't been to in three years. And then we have the private money part. So, we got these three things going and and things are good. We're creating income. But then I sat down with uh one of my men mentors, Justin Craft, and he started talking to me about infinite banking and the whole process. At that point is when everything really started taking off for us for us from a financial standpoint. It's when you installed infinite banking. Mhm. It is when I installed that into what we do. It allowed us to allocate capital in a savings mechanism that gave us more freedom to be able to

do the things that we wanted to do. whether it be loan more in private money, buy more apartments. Um, we've got a house at the at the lake that we have as is a short two houses at the lake that are short-term rentals. I mean, it just it freed us up and allowed us to do so much more. Huh. Let's go deep on IBC because I think that's the main the main question that I have and the audience should have. So, infinite banking for someone who's never heard of this before, explain it to like you're talking to another business over over a beer, okay? Like what is it? How does it actually work? And why have the ultra wealthy been using it for centuries? That's a that's that's a great question. So infinite banking is taking whole life insurance, okay, and minimizing the death benefit as much as possible. So people hear whole life, they think expensive and big and all that. Okay, there are a lot of truths that your dad's whole life policy

that cost X number of dollars and you couldn't use the cash value for a number of years. That is very very true. But what we do is we partner with the insurance company. Nelson came Nelson said this. Why don't we partner with the insurance company? Okay. We have a whole life policy that has as small a death benefit as we possibly can. And then what we're going to do is we're going to give the insurance company extra cash. So small death benefit, put a lot more cash in the policy. Okay. Does that make sense? You tracking with me now? Yeah. Okay. So when we do that, what happens is is we have access to use the insurance company's cash. Okay? So we have a death benefit, but then we also put extra cash. So let me let me make this clear. IBC is not an investment tool. IBC is a savings tool. Okay? Savings dollars are dollars that we can't afford to lose. Correct or incorrect? Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Investment dollars are putting money into

an ass an asset and hoping that it goes up up in return. There is a risk there. With savings dollars, we don't take a risk on savings dollars. Okay? So, this is a savings mechanism. I I tell people this all the time. This is not an investment. We can use these dollars for investment purposes, but the vehicle itself is not an investment. Okay? So, we have a whole life policy, life insurance policy that will last forever. We put extra cash in there. Okay? That cash is in the it's the insurance company's money, but we can then borrow against that cash. Okay? Now, let me go back. That cash in that policy is growing at what we call a guaranteed rate. Okay? You can have a fixed rate, you can have a floating rate. You get to choose. The companies we use, we use a fixed rate. Okay? So, like for example, the fixed rate I have is a 4% fixed rate plus a dividend. Okay? Now, there's another key. You only want to use companies

that are mutual insurance companies. Okay? Mutual insurance companies means it's owned by the clients, if that makes any sense. Yeah. So, I put money in a cash a life insurance policy. I put extra money. I get to use that extra money. Here's the key. Just like I do the bank. So, I'm going to take you're going to take your money and go to First Bank of Canada or First Bank of wherever you live and you're going to put your bank your money in that bank and then you're going to call the bank and say, "Hey, I've got this much money. Can you give it to me?" And they're going to say, "Yes, sir, Mr. Joey, we can." And they're going to give it to you. It's the same process. Okay? But here's the difference. At your bank, when you put $10,000 in there, you have access to that $10,000. Okay? You pull it out, it's gone. You're not going to get a very good rate and it that's it. If I put money in my

IBC account, okay, I'm going to put that money with the insurance company. They're going to give me a rate. I'm not going to withdraw that money. I'm going to borrow against the principal. Yeah. Okay. So, when I borrow against the principal, Joey, the money in that account is still going. It's still growing. Can I can I give you an example? Yeah, please. I'll give you this is an exact example of what I did. So I've got one of my infinite banking accounts. I've got five one of my in policies I've got $300,000. Okay, that policy is growing at four and a let's call it four and a half%. Let's just call it 4% for argument sake. So it's growing at 4 and a.5%. I did a hard money loan with a guy named Travis. I borrowed $200,000 off of that policy and I gave it to Travis. Okay. He is giving me 15% to use that money. Are you tracking that? Yep. He's going to pay me back in 6 months. So, he's going to

give me 15% in 6 months. All right. Yeah. When I borrow this money that borrowed the $200,000, I've got to pay the insurance company 4% to use that money. I've got a fixed growth rate and I've got a fixed borrow rate. Are you tracking that? Yeah. Okay. I'm growing on 300. I borrowed 200. So, I've got to pay interest on 200. Okay. It's a 4% annualized rate. So, I'm going to use that money for 6 months. Okay. What how much am I going to Not a trick question. I'm going to owe 2% because I only had it out six months. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, let's do the math real quick. I borrowed 200. I had to pay 2% interest because I was only had it out six months. Yeah. Okay. So, that is $4,000 that I had to pay. Yeah. Got it. I bought the 200. I gave it to Travis. Travis gave me 15%. That's $30,000 cuz it was $200,000. Are you tracking that? Yeah. So, I made $30,000 off

the loan. I had a carry cost or interest cost of $4,000. So, I'm up $26,000. You tracking that? Yeah. But what did the $300,000 do? It was still growing in the background as well. Yeah. So I have and it only was out six months. We can only track the six months. So the $300,000 grew at 4% over the six months. So it only grew 2% in that 6 months. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, it does. It does. Okay. So if you are whatever your business is, I don't care what it is. If you're cycling money, when I mean cycling money, money goes in, money goes out. Money goes in, money goes out. If you're cycling money in your business, you got to have at least one of these policies so that you can cycle money in and cycle money out to capture the growth and cap recapture that interest. Interesting. So, the [clears throat] biggest benefit there is it is it also that that money is that is is t is taxfree because it's

technically debt that you get from that. Is that where the magic comes from or is there something else? That's a great question. That's a wonderful question. So, here's how it's taxree in two ways. Anytime you borrow money, you don't pay taxes on that money. It's debt, right? It's not. If I want to pull out a helock on my house or I wanted to do a securities back line of credit, I pull money off that and I borrow that. I don't have to pay taxes on that dollar. Okay? But anything in this policy that grows grows tax-free. Why? Because it's not an investment. It is an insurance product. Okay? So, the money in this insurance policy grows tax-free. Now, here's the kicker. If I were to abandon this policy or dissolve this policy and just withdraw all the money and never pay it back or anything like that, that would be a taxable event. Oh, yeah. A big one. Big taxable event. Yeah. But all I'm doing is borrowing off this money so my cash value

increases over time. Yeah. because making sense. Do you understand this a little bit? Yeah. Yeah, it makes more sense. Yeah. Okay. So, interesting. So, that's that's that's basically how you're able to not rely on banks to access capital and without worrying about the taxable event of taking more cash out of your company as dividends or salary is through that policy that you're able to lend it and then you can do whatever you want with that money. Right. There's a handful of things that a policy does. It gives you control. It gives you liquidity. You have a have a guaranteed competitive rate. Okay. 4% is competitive rate. Okay. And it's creditor protected. So those are the things that we that we have in this. Okay. The biggest thing is one of the biggest things is is control. So Joey, let me give you a great another great example. Um in our catering business, I had to buy a van. I had a payroll issue because the summer's slow and I had three or four things come

up. I had to I pulled out $75,000 of my IBC account and injected it into my business. All of those different expenses that came up. Okay. I spent four months and didn't pay pay back that loan at all. I am in control of that loan because it's my bank. Okay? Does that make sense? But if I were to go to the bank and get a business line of credit, the bank would want an interest payment every month. Correct? I don't have to do that with this. It gives me the control. I'm the one in control. Why? Okay, this is not a trick question. The reason the insurance company is not worried about loaning me the money is because there's a massive death benefit there. If I take the money and run to Mexico and never pay the money back, they got a death. They got to collateral on the death benefit. Does that make sense? Everything in life needs to be collateralized when we're talking about loans. Okay. If you're not if you're making loans

with no collateral, we need to sit and talk because that's a problem. They're giving us that money because they've got collateral. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Know it does. Yeah. Mhm. Interesting. Um I want to ask you this. That's that personally. So I I used I'm Canadian citizen. I used to have my companies there. That's where we started. We moved a couple years ago, two, three years ago to the US. Now we have corporations in the US. So I'm I'm I have access to all those strategies, right? Um when I'm hearing this, um I don't know how do do you know anything about crypto? Are you knowledgeable with crypto? A little bit. Not a ton. Yeah. Because I know it works a little bit the same where again it's decentralized and I I just can't stop thinking of it very similar. Again, this is not financial advice, right? This is just my my my opinion, your opinion, right? We're just sharing what education there, but it's it's it's basically if you have it's it's

not in the hands of the government. And I think that's what we're that's kind of the theme right now that we're putting on. It's like the more you can have control over your money and from what you're saying um again crypto is an option when uh and and infinite banking is an option where you have the policy where it's not dependent on the bank itself and when you take loans it's not a taxable event. Um that would be my my question right is like is there anything that um like that that's comparable between those two options uh within the crypto or do you have any clients that comes to you like that as far as crypto is concerned the biggest par like the differences I would say would be crypto has a chance to go down the value has a chance to go down okay the value in this thing is contractual it's not going to go down they're giving you They're giving you a guaranteed rate. Now, it's not going to be a massive

swing. You can make a crap ton of money in crypto. It's kind of like the tortoise and the hair. I know you're from Canada, but there's a story when we grew up of the tortoise and the hair. Okay? The hair takes off really fast and goes and goes and goes and goes and goes and goes. Then, he takes all these trails and and rabbit trails and all this stuff. And the tortoise just continues to keep going. Continues to keep going. The freaking tortoise wins the race. Okay? Slow and steady is going to win the race ultimately. Now, there are a lot of like massive hockey stick growth companies out there. I get that. But in these policies, Nelson, the guy that taught this policy and invented it, said there's there's two things that you have to always do. Number one, don't be afraid to capitalize. Don't be afraid to load money into these policies. Number one. Number two is you have to think long term. You have to think long term because the the longer

these things go, the better they get over time. Okay, that's interesting. That's good. That's good. And I want to talk about what you've you've said as well u off air, which is the the four corners of wealth, right? That's a framework that you have and uh if we have the picture, we can put it on here. Um which is real estate, infinite banking, Wall Street, and business lending. Right. So, walk us through like how these four corners of what work together and um why most business owners are stuck in one or two corners and what happens when you activate all fours. Sure. Um guy I had a guy one one time that owned a massive amount of real estate but his business okay bottom left corner his business was sales. He was in sales and what he decided to do is he would inject all of his profits from the sales business. Okay? And he would buy real estate, okay? So he'd take money earned active income from one quadrant and he would go buy

real estate in another quadrant. Okay? Why would he do that? It's a slow appreciating a what we call asset. Has real estate went down in value in the past? Yes. very very rarely. Okay. But as inflation and and just the dollar continues to go up and down, real estate is going to continue to rise in value. Some years it's a massive amount, some years it's a small amount. Okay? But what that does is that creates another asset. All right? There's a lot of people out there the infinite banking space, Joey, that don't like Wall Street. They don't like their money being tied up in equities and things they can't control. Okay? But I do believe that a section of our wealth should be involved and invested in the market. It is the biggest set it and forget it avenue out there. You can what they call dollar cost average. Put money in the market, shut your eyes and go on about your business. And you sit there and you go, "Well, Thomas, why would I

just shut my eyes? Why would I not play?" The real estate game is to continue to buy. Continue to buy. Very similar to IBC that we just talked about. Let that pot grow. And when that pot grows, what we do is we can use that money, borrow from that money. It's called a securitiesbacked line of credit. Now, the rate that you do that at is a lot higher than an IBC loan, but it's still something that we believe in. So, we've got business, some sort of business that's creating income. Profits from there are used to go into real estate. Okay. Number the other reason real estate's good is because you can use the tax write offs, the depreciation in real estate to lower your tax bill. Number three, how do we just continually drip money into Wall Street to use the economy of the of the world to help our wealth grow? But all of it can flow as much as possible can flow through our infinite banking or our storage storage tank our tank

of money that we can cycle money in and out and that's where infinite banking comes in. So in my opinion again not financial advice this is how I run our business. This is how I run my life and I've enjoyed it and it's very very stable. I'm not super flashy but these are the four corners that we that we have wealth in our lives. Yeah, we got a house, but we've got real estate. We've got money in the market. We've got our business income. And then we've got our infinite banking. This is super stable. We don't do oil and gas. We don't do I This is our life. Okay, these four corners, in my opinion, are extremely stable. I just read a book called um Invest Like a Billionaire, brand new book. And one of the things in there they said, Joey, and I'm not a billionaire, but one of the things they said was is the bulk of billionaires, like overwhelming amount on average, have only have about 30% of their wealth in the

market. 30%. Like actively right now. Yes. 30% of their wealth is in the market. Okay. If you've ever met a billionaire, most of them are, you know, like control and like power. Yeah. They they're putting their money into other places that they can can control. Look at Musk, right? How much of his freaking net worth is in the market right now? I say more than 30. Oh yeah, I would say. Yeah. Oh, there's always the exceptions. Warren Buffett, always the exceptions. Musk, always the exception. Probably Zucks. Always the exceptions. But here's the thing you don't realize is what have they used from their value in the market to go purchase? How have they leveraged something to go purchase something else? how they leverage something to b buy things that we don't even know that they've bought. That's the other thing you sit there and think of. Yeah. It's through debts, right? And through taking loans out of that and collateral like you said because when they take those loans and they go buy that that

whatever, they're not taxed on that dollar. Yeah. Same way I borrow from my infinite banking account. I'm not taxed on that dollar. So basically building that IBC account kind of helps you act like a billionaire in that sense of like you're building your own kind of little treasure there that you can access taxfree just like the ultra wealthy is doing right it's the same thing the number one holders of cash value what we call cash value life insurance is what IBC is is banks it's called bankown life insurance they put these large gigantic polic policies on these key men and when they pass away they get paid these massive amounts. It's another way that the ultra wealthy hundreds of years ago the ultra wealthy were um we're spurning up legacy. Okay. This is this is a a legacy play that when we pass on, the Bible's very clear that a man a good man takes care of his children's children that the Rockefellers are massive into this where they take these insurance policies out and

when they pass away that money gets not going to individuals but goes into trusts so that that can then perpetuate the family's wealth. Like my my question is like of course I'm in the space so I've heard about the concept but I've never really understood it like I'm understanding it right now. Um and imagine a business owner that's not even in the space that's not talking to guys like you every day. Um like why is it so unheard of and like why is it like not like if you go in the street how many business owner do you think knows properly what IBC is? What infinite banking concepts is? Oh and why why is that the case? Why is that the case? 10%. Like I I talked to a guy the other day that was net worth over $300 million. He didn't understand. He didn't know what it was. And what's his reaction when you hear about it? Huh? What's his reaction? What is what's his reaction when you hear about it? Anytime you Anytime

you introduce a topic, it takes some education because it's a little bit foreign. Okay. People hear insurance and they run the other way. Who likes to buy insurance, Joey? Yeah. Every time you get associated with insurance, you think your car, your house, your own health, you think, I don't need it. Okay, but we all need health uh life insurance. But why not use this mechanism in order to create wealth? Why not use an expense in order to create wealth for us and our families down the road? Yeah. Um, back to your question, why do people not know about it? Couple reasons in my opinion. Yeah. Number one, people are a little bit averse to insurance, the the vehicle in which they do it. Number two, financial advisors don't like this concept or this process simp for for a number of reasons. Number one, they don't totally understand it. Number two is when you take money and invest it or excuse me when you take money and you save it in these policies when you do

put money in these policies you are taking money out of the market that these financial advisors could get paid on get used. It's very very rare. There are some out there that understand and and know that there is a place for IBC and then there is a place for the market. There is a place for both. You should never have all your money in IBC and you should never have all your money in the market. It is a it is a seessaw the balancing act of like how much do I need here and how much do I need there. Financial advisors don't talk about it because it takes money out of their pocket. That's the God's honest truth Joey. It it's just the truth. But if you can understand both where as fiduciaries we can help people say okay you need some over here but you also need some over here. Yeah that's very interesting. Um, and this is the part that I think blows people's mind that you were saying too is that you

said that your money can compound in two of those corners at the same time. How like that sounds impossible, but can you walk us through how that that works mechanically? Yeah, sure. Um, okay. So, compounding interest, you understand compound interest? Okay. Yeah. So, you got 100,000 got $100,000 and you make um 4% interest. Yeah. Yeah. You get 400 at the end of the year it's4 $104,000. Well, then that next year your new number is $104,000. Yeah. And then you'll take 4% of that and that continues to grow. It grows really really slow. It's really like a snowball. It grows really really slow to start off with. Yeah. But over time as that dollar continues to grow or as you also put more dollars in the policies, it is it's an unstoppable force. it will continue to grow and grow and grow as time goes on. Okay, that's where the IBC concept. The other concept is real estate. Okay, I'll give you a great example. The first apartment complex we own, we paid $565,000 for a

10 unit apartment complex. Okay, rent roll was about $5,600 a month. But what did we do? We sat there for a while. We didn't do anything. And we we slowly increase rents. Okay? So instead of getting $500 a month, we're getting 530. The next year we're getting 550. The next year we're getting 600. And we just slowly increase rents. As we slowly increase rents, they start doing other things around the property. And so the value of our property continues to go up. 7 and a half, eight years later, we were offered 1.1 million for that property that we paid 560 for. Yeah. Okay. I mean, in essence, it doubled in like sevenish, seven, eight years. Pretty damn good. That's that's not too bad. Now, will it double in the next seven? Maybe not. But it'll continue to go up in value for two reasons. Number one, the value of that land will continue to rise. But number two, the value of the income that you're making off that off that those apartments will continue to

go up, too. This is why people love multif family, Joey. This is why they do because it but because it can create a a massive amount amount of cash flow and legacy. So So how does it how does it grow in two corners? Like what are the two corners that it grows into? Or is it real estate? Real estate. Go ahead. No, sorry. Go for it. Real estate and infinite banking. Now, I'll say this, too. I don't ever plan on selling my my stock, my brokerage account. Yeah. Where we buy every every week or every month. I I I don't plan on selling that because here's the thing. If over time I've put $500,000 in there and it's now worth a million, okay, if I were to pull that money out, I would have to pay what on that that gain, Mr. Uncle Sam. Taxes. Yeah. Got to pay Uncle Sam. But if I can borrow off of that money and use it, why not do that? So, here's the thing. when I die and

I pass that on that that brokerage account, the the ownership of that brokerage account will go to my trust, the brokerage account gets what they call a step up in basis. So instead of it being bought at 500 and worth a million, it is now the basis is a million. So they wouldn't do it, but if they decided to cash that account out after I died, they would know, owe no taxes on it because of the step up in basis. So that's why I sit there and I go, why would we ever sell anything in the market? There's going to be a lot of people that disagree with that, Joey. Yeah, but like I don't have a plan to sell that stuff. Just keep buying. People sell cuz they think there's no other way to access the money. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I talked to a guy yesterday. He's got $3 million in his brokerage account. He plays a professional sport. And I expl I walk through this process and I explain it

to him. He's like, "So, I can go and ask them to borrow $100,000 for something." I said, "They'll give it to you." Yeah. I said, "Because I said, what happens if you take the hundred grand, you don't come back? what are they going to do? He just looked at me like I was crazy. Like, I don't know. I said, ' They're going to sell your Apple stock or they're going to sell your Microsoft. They've got leverage. They they they've got collateral. Their collateral is I can go sell some of this stock and get myund the company can get their 100 grand back. Yeah, that's very interesting. I want to know the the playbook, the business owner playbook to to implement that. So, like give us a real example. I know you're talking to a lot of business owners on a daily basis. So, like let's say a business owner come at you, good money and netting a million dollars a year, right? And they've got cash sitting in their accounts. I never heard of IBC

before. Um, and that that money is doing nothing, right? Just sitting in their account. Um, how do they actually implement that? And what does like month one look like, year one look like, and so on? Yeah, that's great. Good question. Um, so number one is it's it at the end of the day is an insurance product and you got have to be approved. Okay. So, if you've got horrible health, it's going to be difficult to do this for you. Okay? Yeah, that's the first thing. So, we got to get you approved. If you're not approved, okay, we can put a policy on your spouse. So, like for example, the next policy I'm starting in the next probably month and a half is going to be on my wife Jackie. Jackie is really healthy. I've got two policies on me. I've got one on each kid, which I do want to talk about before we get off. Yeah. Is I've got a policy on each kid. So, you can put a policy on on somebody. There's

four parts to every policy, Joey. There's an owner, there's a payer, there's an insured, and there's a beneficiary. Okay. Three of those four can be changed. The only thing that can't be changed is who the policy is insured on. Who is the human being? Yeah. Yeah. That the that the policyy's on. That's the only thing that can't be changed. Okay. So, what we're going to do in year one, let's walk through this in year one. So, I always get asked this. Okay. Hey, hey, Thomas. What's the biggest negative to IBC? Yeah. Okay. Biggest negative to IBC is the first year cost. Okay. Not afraid to say it cuz it's going to come up in conversation anyway. But let me ask you a question. In the state of Alabama, if I wanted to start a bank, I would have to have $15 million between 15 and $30 million depending on who you ask. 15 and $30 million in liquid cash. It would take me 10 years to get what they call a bank charter. And then

at that point, I could start my own bank. Okay? I got to hire people. I got to build buildings. I got to do all this stuff. So, banking is expensive. All we're doing with this policy is we're using the insurance company's back office. We're using the insurance company, the insurance policy as a mechanism to store cash. Are you tracking me? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, let's take a $100,000 policy, Joey. Okay. The that policy is broken up into two parts. It's called number one is called the base or the insurance part. Okay. The other part is the cash. Remember we said earlier we're going to we're going to build this policy for as little a death benefit as possible and fill up as much cash as we can that will that'll match up to that amount. Does that make sense to you? Yeah. Okay. So, we're going to buy some death benefit. That first year, Joey, the death benefit part is not liquid. Does that make sense? So, I can't use that death benefit part

I purchased for the insurance. I can't use that in year one. What I can do in year one is I can use that amount that we've put in as cash. What's that amount? That's the next question. Is it 50%, is it 60? Is it 70? Whatever. There are guys that do policies where 90% of it's cash. Those policies aren't very good in my opinion. Because what happens is you get on down the line, you don't have a lot of death benefit for the policy to keep growing. Again, I'm getting into level 301 stuff. I'm going to try to keep it simple. So, in year one, let's just say I've got access to $60,000 because it's costing me $40,000 for the policy or for the quote bank. Yeah. Am I making sense? Yeah. Okay. That's in year one. Your your dad's old school life insurance policy, they didn't have access to the cash until like year six or seven. Okay. Not the way we write these policies these days. Okay. Year two, you put in $100,000.

Again, you've got access to like $95,000 of that $100,000. So, you put the 100,000 in, you can access all of that 95 and 60 from the year before. Are you understanding this? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, there's a little bit of cost of insurance in year two, but for the most part, it's not there. All right. Let's go to year three again. Don't be afraid to capitalize. Think long term. We're in year three at this point. Year three, I put another $100,000 in. I've got access to all 100,000 of those dollars. The 95 from the year two and the 60 from year one. Are you tracking that? Yeah. Yeah. Now, I am not factoring in growth at all. I'm not factoring in any dividends. I'm not factoring in our guaranteed growth. Not factoring in any of that. I'm just talking about cash outlay. Yep. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Yeah. Okay. All that money that we've put in there, we got access to that money when when we want to use that for whatever

we want to use it for. Here's the freedom part of that. I ain't got to ask anybody about using that money. It's my I can use that money whenever I want. If I want to go get a loan from a bank, it's going to take 15, 30, 45, 60 days sometimes. And here's the thing that I've that I've learned in the real estate business, just as example, speed, velocity of money is what helps deals be good and what makes deals go bad. Velocity. When you see a house that's for sale, I'll give you a great example. There's a house that was for sale, you know, two two streets over from me that was a someone passed away and the estate didn't want the house and so they were selling it next to nothing. There were 35 people there, Joey, looking at that house, cuz I live in a decent a pretty good neighborhood. 35 people. Okay. Yeah. Do you think the people that are selling the house are going to want to wait 45 days

for someone to get approved? They want it now. I know. What are they going to do? They're going to take less money, fire, sell for a cash offer that can close next week. Yeah. So, I call the bank or call my IBC company and say, "Hey, send me 150 grand. Take the 150 grand, go purchase the house." Velocity, speed. You know they say speed kills in football. Speed kills in just about everything, every part of our life. 100%. Okay. Okay. There's a long answer to a short question. What questions do you have about me explaining that? So I need to understand first of all that as a business owner it has to it I need to have the liquidity to be able to think long term. Right? If my business is not giving me the liquidity or I'm having profitability issues or the first part that you say about margins, I'm thinking that that might not be for me, right? Is that right? Yeah. Listen, let me tell you this right now, and I've said

this before in a lot of other videos on my podcast. Hey, Infinite Banking is not for everybody, okay? This isn't like your check your your dad's checking account at the at the local bank. This isn't for everybody. If you don't have excess cash and you don't have some liquidity, this isn't for you. You can't you can't do this if you're, you know, monthtomonth on your business and monthtomonth on your personal finance. You can't, you know, we deal with people that are cycling a lot of money. I got a HBAC guy. He brings in about 7 $800,000 a year. He's got margin. He pays himself about 60 grand, but he's a really good candidate for this business because he can sock in four, three, four, five, $10,000 a month depending on what the what we set the policy at into this account. Hey, in two years, he's going to have $100,000 in this account. Three years, three, two and a half years, he's going to have $100,000 in this account, Joey, that he can buy trucks

with. He can hire an employee. He can run a marketing campaign. He can do whatever he wants to because he's got this this this silo over here of cash that he can use for whatever he wants to use it with. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, it does. So, there's the speed like if you look at like the the biggest outcome or the biggest positive and like would you and would you say that it's for like is what's the floor like what's the minimum uh level? I would you say profitability of the business is the number one criteria or is there or there's another more important qualification criteria and what's that floor so that someone say okay that might be for me I might be look looking into this [snorts] the question is this the question is not what's the minimum I can do okay I'm I'm going cor and I know why you asked it you don't have this thought process but I know why you asked it if you're asking what's the minimum

I can do number one the first thing we need to change is your thought process. We got to get you thinking bigger. That's the first thing. Okay. The second thing is is what type of business do you have? So, what is the velocity of your business and what is the what what are the cash flows of your business? So, I'm going to give you two great examples. I if you can't tell, I like to tell stories. So, there's two different thoughts there. So, I'm going to give you the first thought. I've got a 10-year-old that I started a a policy on her when she was eight. I put 12,000 a year into her policy. $1,000 a month, okay? Or I just pay it all at one lump sum. That's a small policy, okay? But she's eight. She's not going to mess with this policy for years. Okay? But when she's 25, Joey, she's going to have $220,000 of of of cash value that she's going to have access to. Okay. Story two. I've got a

friend of mine in Huntsville. Her business does between5 and $7 million depending on the year. She's got a policy that she pays $235,000 a year into. So, we're talking two totally ends of the spectrum. My HBAC guys policy is 40 grand a year. My real estate flippers is $96,000 a year. I'm fixing to do one on a doctor in in Pennsylvania for $320,000 a year. So, this is where like it's not an out ofthebox, hey, here's your policy format. This is all right, let's sit down and look at your cash, look at your equities, what do you have, what's your margin, and sit and talk. Cuz I'm going to be honest with you, I had an appointment last uh two weeks ago with a lady. She had $70,000 in the savings account. That's awesome. She had $40,000 of credit card debt. She's living monthto month. She's living paycheck to paycheck. I just looked at I said, "Hey, ma'am." I said, "This is awesome." I said, "But you know what? You this is not something for

you. this would be a burden rather than a freedom for you. Okay? Because here's the thing. When we commit to these policies, this is something that not many people talk about online. When we commit to these policies, Joey, we are committing to doing this for at least seven years. Okay? We're doing these because we have to pay into these policies for seven years in order for the whole life, the insurance aspect to stick. Does that make sense? Because if I don't pay into it seven years, it then becomes an investment because that's just a that's just a rule we have in America. Okay? We got to pay into these things for seven years. Now, I can pay in for 30 years if I want to, but the minimum I have to pay into these things is seven years. So, it's the type of thing that like the more money you have, the more beneficial it becomes, the more liquidity you have, the more beneficial it becomes. Is it okay? Yeah. If Okay. So, let's just

let me ask you a question. If you made um $4,000 a month and you saved $1,000 a month into one of these policies, that would probably move the needle for you. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Making four grand a month. What if you made $200,000 a month, Joey? Would $1,000 a month move the needle for you that make $200,000 a month? No. It's a percentage. No, it it's it's a ratio. It's a percentage. It's it's a whatever. Yeah, I have to be I dealing with a guy right now. He's got $170,000 in the savings account at the local bank. His house is paid off. His car is paid off and his wife makes about 120 a year. He makes about 170 a year. Guyy's sitting pretty good. Yeah, we can do a pretty sizable policy for this guy because of his liquidity and because of what he's allocated and what he saved. I was like, "Hey, dude. Let's take a let's take some of that money that's in a savings account drawing 0.1%. let's put in one

of these policies so it'll grow the rest of your life. He started watching the videos that we put out, started seeing all that. It's like, okay, this makes sense. So, everybody's different. Yeah. And so, for you to sit there and say, "What's the minimum?" Lord, I don't know what the minimum is. I mean, it's really I know there I know we did a I know we did a policy on a guy that owns a bunch of veterinarian clinics and we did a policy for $3 million a year. Yeah. That was a minimum for him. 3 million bucks a year into this policy. You know what I'm saying? So we go from 3 million to 12,000. Yeah, that's interesting. That's very interesting. Everything is is perspective. And I think that's where the value of having professional advice. Look at look into your own situation is 100% key for these types of of of products because and services because everybody's different. You need your you need your your own set of eyes on your stuff before making

any decision. Right. Every everything I'm I'm a team guy. coached college football for many, many years. The quarterback looks totally different than the left tackle. Yeah. Okay. They look totally different. But we got to have both of them on the team in order to be successful. Yeah. I deal in annuities and I and infinite banking. I'm really really good at those two things. I understand the market, but I don't advise on the market. My my my mentor Justin is a whiz in the market. Yeah. Daniel's my lawyer. I don't know anything about trust law. Daniel understands trust law. Okay, I could go on and on and on. It takes a team in order to create the best possible outcome. And the better that team is, the better these these these uh these parts of that team is, the more wealth you're going to create because you got people that understand their sphere and their sphere of influence is is absolutely wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. So, building your team 100%. Yeah. Thomas, you you have three kids,

right? I've got three kids. 17, 14, and 10. And you were saying earlier that uh you're uh they all they they all have a policy, do they? IBC. They do. Um for business owner parents watching this, like explain how you're building generational wealth and teaching your kids about money at the same time and the benefits of doing this. If if you're a business owner out there and you don't you're not paying your kids the IRS limit and you're not don't don't have a policy on your kid on each of your kids, then we need to sit down and talk. And here's why I say that is the IRS number is $15,000 a year. I can pay my kids $15,000 a year for nominal duties. I pay them the $15,000 a year. And on that 15, let's let's make sure I'm super clear. And again, this is not tax advice. I'm telling you what I do. Yeah. I pay them $15,000 a year. I pay the payroll taxes and I pay the state tax. I don't

have to pay federal income tax, which is the largest tax there is. Y Okay. So, I'm paying them 15, but there's really more money going into that into that thought than just the 15. Okay. The 15 goes in from my the the the business checking account. I get the deduction. I get to write off that 15. 15 times three for me, so 45. The 15,000 goes into her checking account and then from her checking account, the money sweeps over into her infinite banking policy. Are you tracking that? Yep. Yep. Yep. I get the deduction. The business is creating wealth for each one of my kids. And then there are drip conversations throughout their life. We don't sit down and have these massive whiteboard sessions. We do once a year, but we talk about their IBC policy, what we're doing, where the money's going, the things we can do for with it. Okay? So, we have these conversations. The more we can have these conversations, Joey, the more they're going to get it. Okay? At that

point, we just continually continue to teach about the banking function, being good stewards of our money, how do we give, how do we live below our means, how do we have margin, all of those things. It's not this grandiose, you know, event. Yeah. It's a it's a 15-minute conversation on the way to volleyball practice. Yeah. It's a 15minute conversation at dinner. M it it's just drips. Okay. There's a saying that raindrops make oceans. Yeah. Okay. These little bitty raindrops that we can drop on our kids and what they what they hear, Joey. But what they also see is what's going to create that impact for them and what's going to create them to be good citizens and good managers of wealth. That's really amazing. That's really good. Yeah. I think if there was one takeaway, the biggest takeaway is that Yeah. It's like it's it's it's for your family that you're doing this most of all, right? It's preparing for generations. And you said it right. Like what's the phrase you use about your kids'

kids? Yeah. The Bible says a good man takes care of his children's children. It's in Proverbs. Yeah. Okay. We we do that through legacy and we do that through our trust and our our insurance policies. That's amazing. That's great, Thomas. And again, I think I think we're going to have to have you have you back on. I think there's a lot of insights that we can uh we can talk we can talk for hours and hours but I have to uh I have to cut this one uh there and I I want to invite you guys the audience watching this if there's takeaways or comments or questions we're going to collabor collaborate with Thomas on this one. So please drop them in the comments and we'll be more than happy to answer them uh and and ask your questions your takeaways and and and and that's going to guide us for our next conversations. But uh before we go, Thomas, I want to leave on a on a last question um which is you you

talk about family, finances, food, right? The three Fs. So you're building businesses, raising raising three kids, creating systems for generational wealth. If this episode outlives all of us, which I hope it will, what's the one lesson about money and wealth um you would want every business s every every every business owner to walk away with uh from this episode? Oh man, I I think it'd be hard to have one, Joey. Um I would say this I'm gonna give you a 1A and a 1B. Um 1 A is create margin. Okay, it's an old school principle of living below your means, but create margin. That would be 1A. Um, one B and we really didn't hit on it, Joey, is as um stewardship or giving. Yeah. Like the analogy that I'll leave everybody with is this. In Alabama, we have these things these these bodies of water that are that are pond. They call ponds. You have oceans, you have lakes, you have rivers, you have ponds. Yeah. Ponds are bodies of water that if not

taken care of properly, they can they can get stagnant and they can die. Yeah. The reason being is they don't have an inflow of water and they don't also outflow of water. Yeah. Okay. Money is the same thing. Okay. We got money's got to circulate in our lives. The the outflow part we got to give. there's there's someone out there that's less fortunate us. We got to give, but we also got to have some coming in. So, teaching that the teaching the flow of money and the stewardship of money is absolutely important. And then also having margin in our finances and our have in our lives is absolutely critical in every aspect of our life. That's great. That's great. Thomas, again, I think we've spoke for for an hour. You're an amazing human being. So, I want to thank you for sharing this and I think you've got really really strong values that a lot of business owners and even if you're not a business owner could take away from and and just be a

better better person for themselves, for their family. So, I want to thank you for that. That was very great. And uh keep doing what you're doing. I think you're helping a lot of people. So, thank you for coming on and uh for people [music] watching this. Um all we're asking if you like this video, just like and subscribe for more. Um, and share in the comments any questions or or takeaways you had from it. And we'll see you guys on the next one. So, thank you guys for your time.