There comes a time in our lives (or maybe a couple of these moments) when we pick up our heads, look around and realize that we aren’t where we thought we’d be by this point in time. Maybe it’s just before a milestone birthday or when one of your kids hits a milestone of theirs.
Maybe it’s at a rock-bottom moment where you’ve been passed over (again) for a promotion, your relationship is waning, and you feel like you’re always working. You ask yourself how on earth you got to this point and attempt to trace back your steps from years ago.
Sometimes we can’t quite pinpoint where it went wrong or what went wrong, but the glaring truth is that things don’t look the way we imagined when we were young, naive dreamers.
Maybe you followed all the rules, got the degree and the corporate job, saved diligently into your 401(k), budgeted, and even snagged a couple of rental properties. Unfortunately, you’re still feeling held back, hampered by an invisible ceiling. In complete opposition to your grand vision in your twenties, you still managed to become a cog in the wheel, get stuck spending time to earn money, and the life you dreamt of seems a little out of reach.
What’s worse is, looking into the future, you can’t see how this path could ever change. Maybe a property appreciates, and you sell it; perhaps the stock market spikes, and your retirement savings get a boost, but then what? How is it protected? How can you depend on appreciation and Wall Street spikes?
You can’t. So, you start trying to crack the invisible code. You know there’s a way that the ultra-wealthy do things that must work, so you begin exploring how to get there.
Ryan D. Lee felt this same way. That was his story before he founded Atlas Wealth and Cashflow Tactics. You see, as Ryan says, most financial advice is archaic, and 97% of it is dangerous, misleading, or flat out wrong. However, it’s what most of us are taught, and what so many of the financial gurus out there are peddling, thus what the majority of the world believes.
It took Ryan a few years of suffering through a high-travel career, a diminishing connection with his wife and family because he was gone so much for work, and the 2008 stock market crash for him to step back and start to question the path he was taught to follow. Does any of this sound familiar or parallel to your experience?
The number-one thing you can realize is that YOU are your greatest asset. Now, that doesn’t mean you should silo yourself and struggle harder, longer, alone. That means you can and should harness the power of knowledge, connection, and innovation when it comes to your wealth strategy.
To get out of a rut — any rut — you’ve got to surround yourself with others who are inspiring, more intelligent than you, maybe a couple of steps ahead of you, and who share (or are already on their way to achieving) your same goals or desires. If you want to lose weight, surround yourself with really fit friends, a nutritionist, a health coach, yoga instructors, runners, and the like. Lifestyles and habits are contagious, and Ryan knew that, so he surrounded himself with people who craved financial freedom.
He began to examine how other successful, wealthy people lived and noticed that they have a team on which they rely. He immediately immersed himself into a mastermind/book club where the group read Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Creature from Jekyll Island, and Becoming Your Own Banker, and would discuss how they could implement these books’ principles into their lives.
Once you cross into that alternate mindset of educating yourself and leveraging your relationships, you become unstoppable by the standard money myth-conceptions (Ryan’s words). Ryan and his now co-founder started to reverse engineer the banking system, explore new interest and appreciation-earning opportunities, and evaluate how they could increase their control while decreasing their tax liability.
Together, they learned a little-known way high cash value life insurance policies are used to create your own banking system. At first, the idea of using a life insurance policy while you’re still alive seemed ludicrous, especially as a part of a wealth-building plan, but the concept goes so much further than that. When a high cash value life insurance policy is set up and used properly, you can earn interest inside the account while also using the cash to propel your real estate investment strategy.
This is where the knowledge-gathering piece collides with the networking piece. First, you learn about the tools and how funding a high cash value life insurance policy can efficiently fund your real estate investments.
Next, leveraging your network of property management professionals, brokers, financing, insurance professionals, and other key relationships creates accessibility to the components needed for your accelerated wealth-building strategy.
Maybe you’ve done the math and it’s already clear to you that $300K in your retirement account earning an average of 8% or even 10% or 12% per year just isn’t going to cut it. So, there are two options, right?
Wrong. This is the archaic way — the old way. This way is assuming your money can either be spent or saved, not both and definitely not at the same time. So, take a step back with me once more.
You already know real estate syndications are a great way to invest, earn great returns, reduce your tax liability, and protect yourself and your money from the volatility of Wall Street. Right?
So, combine that knowledge about real estate syndications with this fresh perspective on life insurance policies. An investment strategy that combines high cash value life insurance with real estate syndications opens up a new world of possibilities because it allows your money to work for you in two places simultaneously.
When you fully fund a high cash value life insurance policy, borrow against the policy, and use that to fund your real estate syndication investments, you’re successfully making your money work for you in two different places.
How?
The cash value policy continues to grow while your cash flow from the real estate syndication deal begins to trickle in. Suddenly you’re earning interest inside the life insurance policy AND getting checks in the mail. Mind. Blown.
You’re already on the right path because you’re here, reading this. But know this with all truth and conviction: Your success with investing well and achieving financial freedom depends on your ability to increase control over your cash, increase the appreciation and returns you’re receiving on your investments, decrease the risk you face (overall and per deal), and decrease your tax exposure.
Like you, Ryan craved time freedom. He wanted to be home with his family while also being confident that he could provide financially now and in the future. So, he became obsessed with implementing a set of core principles within his personal financial plan to achieve that goal as fast as possible. He now teaches others about the Core 4 and how to use them to create velocity with their money.
We’ve found that investing in real estate syndications with cash borrowed against our fully-funded high cash value life insurance policies is one of the best, most lucrative ways to make sure our money is working as hard as possible for us and not the other way around.
About the Author:
Annie Dickerson and her partner Julie Lam are founders of Goodegg Investments — an award-winning real estate private equity firm — and creators of the Real Estate Accelerator Mentorship Program. They are authors of the book Investing For Good and hosts of the popular Life & Money Show podcast: https://goodegginvestments.com/
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as an offer to buy or sell any securities or to make or consider any investment or course of action