How to Bank on Yourself: The Keys to Financial Success With Brandon Neely

Are you tired of feeling like your financial goals are always out of reach? 🤔

Do you want to take control of your financial future? 💪

Look no further than the latest Chasing Financial Freedom podcast episode, where we welcome serial entrepreneur and financial expert Brandon Neely. 👏

In this episode, Brandon shares his expertise on the keys to financial success through the power of the Infinite Banking/Bank On Yourself framework. 

He reveals how he and his wife have used these strategies to build wealth and help others do the same. From practical tips to actionable insights, this episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking financial freedom. 

Tune in now to learn how to bank on yourself and unlock your financial potential.

Transcript

How to Bank on Yourself: The Keys to Financial Success With Brandon Neely

[00:00:00] Ryan: Hey guys, Ryan DeMent from Chasing Financial Freedom Podcast. I hope you guys are having a great day today. On the podcast we have Brandon Neely. Brandon is a serial entrepreneur, profit first, and bank on yourself professional and the co-host of the Wealth Wisdom Financial podcast with his wife and business partner, Amanda.

Brandon, welcome to the show. 

[00:00:23] Brandon: Hey, thanks for having me, Ryan. I love that you're chasing financial freedom. I feel like it is definitely a, something that keeps eluding us sometimes. And a lot of times people want that kind of thing, but they don't know. , they haven't even defined it. Whatever that it means for them.

So 

[00:00:42] Ryan: love this. It's, I think we could have a long conversation, not just on financial aspect. How about this life, what we were just chatting about. I So we can go down a lot of rabbit holes but we'll see where it takes us. So before we get into all the craziness and going down rabbit holes a little bit about yourself and then we'll get into your.

Yeah, 

[00:01:01] Brandon: so my wife and I run Wealth, wisdom Financial Partners. We have been doing this for five years now, and it's been an amazing journey. We started out running a coffee shop. We thought it was like, we wanna make a difference, change the world. That's why. Launched a coffee shop of all things, which mj DeMarco, the Millionaire Fast Lane, wrote a book saying, if you want to be rich, don't start a coffee shop.

And I read that a little bit later in life and I'm like, man, I wish I would've read that. Previously that would've been awesome. And then I also learned about the, you heard the fire movement, financial independence retire early , apparently I didn't get the memo that that you have to have fi before you get re retire early

And so we retired early from our W2 jobs to end up getting a. Job in the coffee world, and I was making less money doing that. And people would just say, oh yeah, but you love it. You love what you're doing, so it's okay that you don't get paid. I'm like I still like to eat, besides ramen and.

It's just interesting as we go into business ownership in our world right now, that a lot of people think that it's easier on the other end. I'm gonna leave my cushy job because I wanna go be a business owner, an entrepreneur. And I'm like, yeah, you don't, you've never been a business owner yet.

. So anyway, I've learned a lot along the ways, and my hope is to help business owners thrive and succeed. Majority of businesses don't make it because they don't understand cash flow. They don't under understand that the business that they're building should work for them, not the other way around.

So anyway that's a little bit about us and why I'm so passionate about this industry and what we're doing. . 

[00:02:42] Ryan: Cool. I fell into that realm myself too. I'm a two-time failure at entrepreneurship I know. , corporate America did not teach me how to fish, be able to put food on the table and make sure that I ran a successful business.

Totally different when you've got a paycheck coming in every two weeks. A bonus coming in at the end of the month and an annual bonus. It's a little different when you don't have to worry about those things. And then you get in into the real world and, oh crap, I've gotta worry about that. And I racked up about a hundred thousand dollars worth of debt and had to, go through that whole process.

Would I do it all over again? People ask me that. Yes and no. Yes, as in there's great learnings in there and I'm learning, but no, I don't want to go through that heartburn of having to pay off a hundred thousand dollars a debt. So I will defer on that piece. So a little bit about yourself in, in what you're doing, today and how you're specifically helping small business owners.

[00:03:36] Brandon: Yeah. So I do think about that question that you said of, would I go back there? And I usually say, no, I would never do that again. But it made me who I am and empathy to understand how business works. And so for me understanding the cashflow, gain the cashflow system like Robert Kiyosaki does, and knowing that everybody has a plan for your money, including Wall Street and including, every piece of it.

And so like understanding if we all have plans for our money, and if you're a business owner, guess what you're trying to do? You're trying to get people's attention for them to give you money, right? That's probably what's happening. But if you really want to get into it so what I think about is, okay, using the Profit First system, how do you make sure that you are paying yourself?

First this is like the richest man and Babylon idea, right? Pay yourself first and then making sure you're getting profit distributions and running a healthy lane business. That's using the right percentages. So you're not like just racking up credit cards saying, oh, I hope it's gonna work one day.

It'll pay out one day. , and we've all said that to ourself and we don't actually run a business and understanding how to read a p and l statement, for example. So we have a community where we help people, do what we call the still method, right? Because you wanna give your money jobs.

not just have the money telling you what to do, you want it the other way around. But a lot of people say I don't know money, it's confusing. It's this and that. I'm like this is the acronym we've thought about is it's chaos, which is confusing, haphazard, anxious, overwhelming, and stressful.

That's the tax code. That's all kinds of other areas, right? Why is it done that way? It's intentionally done that way. And so what we need to do is go back and where I say from the beginning what is the. , what are your goals? And then we call it the still method. So you have to set your sites, you have to track, inspect, look for 1% adjustments, and live deliberately.

And if you've done those things, you'll get to where you wanna go. There will be, what do you call it, things that happen that kind of deter you, like that's called life. But if you have an idea, if you're moving in that direction and you can make those 1% adjust. Dials. That's a lot better. But again, business owners are like I know how to make, I can sell widgets, but I don't know how to understand cashflow.

And that's a problem I think. 

[00:06:13] Ryan: Do you think that is a systematic issue from what we've lack in the schooling system that we have in the United States where you just don't understand financial literacy? , 

[00:06:26] Brandon: I think 100% because who makes money off of you going to college? And getting all the loans and stuff.

Who makes the money if you're putting it into things that you can't control? So you're 60, right? And deferring taxes and all of those things that we. are good for us, but maybe they're not right. And , trust but verify. And this is where I fell into the bank and yourself system, which apparently is a naughty word in a lot of places, using properly designed whole life insurance that you can access and use.

I used it. Multiple times to get out of an emergency. I had a flood in my business. Luckily I had a access to capital at a low cost in my policy that I was able to use to overcome that. Used it to buy a Office condo and my house, and I'm recycling and using that money because I'm thinking about the system of how money is done.

And what I've learned is don't do what the banks tell you to do. Do what the banks do. They run a really good system on purpose. And we also have the Dave Ramseys of the world saying, do it this way. Just don't worry about the man behind the curtain kind of idea. Just keep doing that. And I'm like, maybe we should think.

Strategic about our cash flow and systems and if the life insurance was called something else where we have a different opinion about it, 

[00:07:55] Ryan: right? Probably but can we go down a rabbit hole? I like, oh yeah. I love rabbit holes. Awesome. I love whole life. A lot of people don't understand that you can take a loan against it from the cash value that is available to you at that point.

Can we walk through that and that's a good topic, but it's also a great way for people to help themselves out and also grow their money if they need to. 

[00:08:18] Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. So what I love about this is I think about this as my liquid savings part, right? So it's okay. I don't know if you have money in a savings account, you get taxed every year just for it being growing a little bit, which is not that much, right?

Correct. I can put it into my policy. And have access to a good portion of it. My biggest investment is me and my biggest risk is me. This is why I find it interesting that we will ensure everything else like our phones, our smartphones, do that, but we don't wanna ensure the cash machine, which is us, right?

And knowing that what I love about the power of a contract, , it will be made whole at the end. Like . Eventually there will be an end to it. And there's nothing you can do about it. That's what's so powerful. And to be able to look in the power of the contract, I could tell you with high degree of certainty where, and then the Dave Ramsey of the world would be like, yeah, it costs you too much.

It costs this much. I'm like, yeah, you're looking on the year one. Anybody that has started a business realizes that there's a cost of starting that business. That they don't see until almost three years later if they're lucky. And so for me, in designing a well designed policy, I could tell you with a high degree of certainty where the business model will be a profitable business model.

And I can have a, where it's growing more than I put in, but it doesn't stop there. Like again, I told you I used my cash value. in my policy to buy my 20% down on my house. And then I paid it back, right? Cuz I'm the bank in that regard, right? Paid it back, did the same thing again.

And I just rinse and repeat multiple times. . 

[00:10:06] Ryan: So can we go a little more depth on that? So when you talk about the cash value the timeframe or horizon that you have for that loan, and then what, how do you set the interest rate for that type of a loan? Yeah, 

[00:10:19] Brandon: so it depends. You're in control, right?

If I were to start like a, say a $50,000 policy, so I have one that's way bigger because I'm a business owner and I have to save for taxes, right? I just happen to save for it into a policy. I combine Profit First and the Bank and Yourself method in that regard. And then I have another policy.

It was 400 bucks a month, right? So when I first started 10 years ago, my ki kind of, the way I think about it is it's like a line of credit or a HeLOCK, right? . if you bought a house you just happen to be the house. So I'm not gonna be able to take a line of credit if I haven't been paying into the.

Right, of course. And so that's the way it works with the HELOC sim, similar idea. So if I were to put it into a policy day one, 400 bucks, I could probably take out 250 bucks in cash value. And then as far as paying it back, I make the terms of loan repayment. I could choose not to pay it.

I think that's not smart. The company that companies we use, and this is why you wanna work with the right agents that understand this bank yourself authorized type types is it's a non-direct recognition company, mutually owned. So my money is growing in the policy as if I never touched it.

as it's growing. My, my policy now, the 400 bucks a month, it's now been 50,000 because of compounding, right? It's been 10 years, right? And then I take the the loan cost from the insurance company is 5% simple interest. So I know that it's 5% simple. and I could borrow, and what do I want my APR to be?

Depends on how much I wanna pay back. I can lower my APR way, way down. But I know if I took a hundred thousand dollars loan, 5% simple interest is $5,000. 

[00:12:17] Ryan: Yes. That's powerful. I Those are things that we don't talk about on a daily basis, and most people don't under even understand that concept.

[00:12:26] Brandon: Yeah. It's all cash flow management and thinking about controlling that. And I'm not saying that this is gonna get you rich. Never do I say that, but it's a way in which you can then deploy your cash if you're a business owner. If I know that by having a loan access to capital, and I can use that to.

Do a loan to, to buy a, to, to create a book. That's gonna create 30,000 instead of 15,000 at least. That's a good thing. And it's off of the policy. I'm not, I'm, and when I talk to clients, I'm like what are you gonna do with it? Don't just use it to Spend be ridiculous, don't go to Tijuana or something, but using it efficiently to grow your wealth.

[00:13:14] Ryan: Yeah, it's it's crazy because I read a stat a couple weeks ago last several years, the, a small business starting up is spending between 60 and $70,000 just to get started. And That's right. I That's, that seems to be a little low, but, okay, we'll go with that. That's a lot of money.

And then the probability of that small business failing in the first several years is dramatic. It's high. I think 95. , right? Yeah. Something like that. And then by year five or year six it's close to a 50 50 shot type of a thing. . But that's hard. One of the things that I'm looking at and starting to understand is I've had a few guests that have come on and said, man, there, there's some type of business coaches or whatever they're doing, and they're like, we have clients that are baby boomers that have no succession.

and I'm like, really? What type of businesses? And dollar amount and stuff like that. But the one thing that really got me was when I started reading more about that there's almost 13 million small businesses out there between 1,000,005 million in annual revenues that. Have a baby boomer in charge or owning it with no succession plan.

So let's call it, let's call it 12, 13 million businesses. That's a lot of opportunity. And some of those have been around for many years, so they potentially could be ripe for an acquisition. And you've got built in, Cash flow along with revenue, but you could grow it in a certain way or it could be a total dump.

You don't know, but you have to look at it and see what's going on. But it's just another opportunity to expand your cash. So why not? If it was me, if I was gonna take 50 or $70,000 out of my whole life. and look at it to go acquire an existing business. That's where I would go before I'd do a startup again, if you asked me that 

[00:14:55] Brandon: today.

Oh yeah. And then what you would always do, I think in selling a business and doing a business valuation personally we always over do the numbers when we're the business owner and we say it's worth this much. And you ever watch Shark Tank? Seriously, these people? Oh yeah.

Are delusional a lot of times . And I'm like, wow. Now that's not even you're not in the real world. Because we think all of the sweat equity and all of this but as I run the profit first system and access to capital, again using the policies, but but I reverse engineer begin with the end of mind using the still method.

What do I want to end up at? And if I'm paying myself right, that's going to be able to be a business that's more attractive. right then if you don't if you're saying I wanna buy this business, and the owner makes less the minimum wage who's gonna wanna buy that? And seriously, and then no one and the owner typically thinks this is my retirement.

This is how I'm gonna retires because I'm gonna sell this. I'm like uh, no you started on the wrong foot, but you have to know your numbers and know how to deploy your. Again, the B banks love us. De depends. They don't love business owners. They love college grads or people going into college.

I, I don't understand why, but it's really interesting to me to think about it. But then they charge us money. on getting that loan to grow it. Same with if you do real estate, commercial real estate and those kind of things, the interest rate's higher. I'm like why is that? Oh wait, because they're skimming off the top.

That's what they're doing. Yeah. Let's call it what it is. It's what's happening. But they're saying it's not about that. It's about the risk. There's more risk. That's why we charge more. Okay, whatever. 

[00:16:38] Ryan: Yeah. But if, when you come in and you actually have the information that risk gets a little crazy and it's talk about being, I'm a firm believer being the bank because I do something a little different.

I think we talked about it in our pre-call, is. We originate private mortgages and we buy defaulted mortgages. So we are the bank. Defaulted mortgages today after the pandemic, I would say is a crapshoot right now, just for the simple fact people haven't paid. The people that are coming through the pipeline now from the bank's, credit unions, lenders that we do business with haven't paid in almost three years.

Some of these people are living so high on the hog, Mercedes-Benz, bmw, Chanel purses and all this luxury stuff sitting in their house and it's man, and you think you're gonna get bailed out. But anyhow I digress cuz that I saw that a couple weeks ago in a site visit from the bank that they were sharing out a note they were trying to sell and they, I can't believe they shared these pictures that, these people had boxes of high end shoes just stacked in their living room and BMW Mercedes-Benz in the drive.

and I'm like, yeah, you haven't paid in almost 36 months, but you can afford those things. That's crazy. All right. 

[00:17:49] Brandon: I think it's the illusion of the world that we're in delusion, I guess you could say. Even with Instagram and all of this. I'm like let me see your p and l statement. because that's gonna tell me something more than I run a seven figure business or I run an eight figure business.

Okay. How much are you taking home? That's a different number. And oftentimes we're done by the headlines or we're done by the Gucci bags and all of that. I'm like what's really going on? And on top of that this is something I think that is really interesting. We have gotten all of these things yet our human.

Values of like suicide and all of those things are in a blinking bread, like a lot in all areas. And I think that there's There, there's things that are just telling us, Hey, we need to stop. And we need to go back and say what's important again, the still method. What is important? Is a Gucci bag important or is it quality time?

I dunno. 

[00:18:47] Ryan: I'm with you. Quality time. The most valuable thing we have in our lives is time. What's the old adage is, somebody has a lot of money. They're rich. But if you have time, you're. and I, yes. That's what it needs to boil down to is the time piece, because you can only make so many experiences because we're on the earth for X amount of years in our lives and that's it.

And we don't know when that time's gonna expire, so why not enjoy life? And I'm with you when you're talking about, and I digress back into it, is show me your p and l I go even further. Yep. Show me your last three years tax returns. And then if I think those are. , let me see the transcripts. Because yeah, it, when you're looking at s d e, you know that seller discretionary income that hit that bottom line.

If you're telling me you're generating $4 million a year and you're only taking home, $65,000, there's something wrong. There, there's clearly something wrong and you have to go after it. And I literally about three weeks ago, four weeks ago, I reached out to, I like self-service, car washes, six bays at least, you know, with a potential tunnel on it, blah, blah, blah.

Anyhow, the owner says, Hey, I'm trying to sell this. I'm retiring. My kids don't want anything to do with it. Go through all the details. He's making, it's multiple locations. He was making close to the 4 million, whatever it was, and he was taking home roughly, 65, $60,000. And I questioned it. And after a good, healthy conversation, he finally told me is he's funneling all that money out to his kids so they don't have to work.

So each of those kids were getting roughly, approximately $82,000 a year to do nothing. What I can, yeah, I said that I could see why they don't wanna take over the business. You don't have to. So figure, figure that out. And it was just amazing. And then last week he emails me and says, Hey, you're still interested.

And I'm like unless we can get down to the brass tacks and understand where everything is going, because there's still holes in some other places. I can't get that valuation. And if I'm gonna be backed by my investors, they're gonna wanna look at something that's more stable than what you have.

And he's been around 22 years and they just went through a nice remodel of all three locations and they spent a pretty, they spread a penny. Penny on, on that. Man, I just at least he was honest because most business owners and I'm not saying they're lying. I think it's more of embarrassment and maybe we can talk about that.

As, when you're looking at the books and it's it doesn't add up, let's have a conversation. How do you work with that? How do you approach all that? 

[00:21:11] Brandon: I do this with regular individuals and business owners. And a lot of times we are lying to ourself. Really? Yeah.

We tell ourselves certain things to keep our, this is in politics and in various things. We just keep the delusion going because we don't wanna address what's really going on because that means we would have to. , right? And no one likes change, right? Or not having to buy that bag, right?

They, God forbid, you have to like, not do those kind of things or you live within your means or not have trust fund child children or something like that. And then I just did a video that we talk about of why you should not. Why you shouldn't be budgeting and you know how many people tell me they don't have time for this kind of stuff, they don't have time.

I'm like, whoa. What you tell us is when you say those kind of things, that your priorities are somewhere else, right? Yes. And as you're doing evaluation with I, when I have my life insurance policies that are fully funded, it shows me what I value is my. , first and foremost, that's why we built these and a succession plan.

. My, my son is four years old. I'm, he, hopefully he's gonna run the business one day. Maybe, but building with the end of mind. But he's in a good. Good position and we're hopefully gonna teach him Also, he has a channel, like a YouTube channel and all the stuff that he's gonna be able to see the archives of what mom and dad think.

That's 

[00:22:43] Ryan: cool. But I don't know. Some, as I dig more into existing businesses, I see more and more. owners that just, they don't have a succession plan one and two. , if they do, it's very loose. And they're like I want to exercise and take a look at, what the open market would, be able to bear.

But those individuals, at least from my experience, are anywhere between two and three times higher than what the multiple should be. Like you said, they're asking for the stars. , but that just seems to be a challenge with business in general. So how do we effectively and this is where I want to go back to is listeners are entrepreneurs, small business owners, and some people are just small.

They wanna do side hustle. Yeah. How do we effectively leverage those positions in our lives? One to, take care of time, take care of family, but then also be financially, 

[00:23:38] Brandon: Yeah, I think we need to, one is realize that savings is different than investing. And we need to separate those things out, right?

And saving for emergencies. This is the sad part, like a majority of Americans don't even have an emergency fund because it's Yeah. Designed. To us to not have an emergency fund actually. So being able to have some lazy money, I guess you could say. And then you reverse engineer. Whenever I think about the Profit first model for my business, right?

For every dollar that comes in, it's not a how much can I spend or whatever, what's in the different buckets. So instead of having one giant plate of food, I break it down. Five to six different little plates, right? And so I'm not running a fat business cuz my opex is 30 to 40% depending on what type of business it is, right?

. And so then for every dollar that comes in, if it's a small business, 50% as owners pay 15% towards taxes, 5% towards profit. and 30% towards opex. And I did not say a number. I said a percentage, right? And so we can reverse architect those and make the 1% adjustments to run a healthy, lean business.

May maybe you're overpaying yourself. and you need to like actually run a profitable business and get the kids off of payroll, right? , maybe that's an important thing that needs to happen, right? Because you're not running a business that's scalable, right? But the numbers tell me that.

And then from there, whenever I have these percentages, I just happen to put one of them one of the amounts into a life insurance policy that I use for taxes. Cuz taxes aren't paid every, you know they're yearly, right? . I save for it and then I'll deploy it. Or big expenses that come through.

If you pay annually, you get it cheaper, right? Yep. So then I just happen to save for it. Or this is another cool thing that I've done and people thought you're, you can't do that. My escrow I self escrow. and people are like, boy, that's impossible. You can't do that. You have to you always have to desk grow.

I'm like, no we don't have to. We will take care of the tax. We'll own it, we'll do it. And it just happens to go into our policy. We lowered our amount of closing costs. , and then instead of a 0% loan going to the government, it comes to us, and then we'll pay our property taxes. But that means I have to understand cash flow manage cash flow like a millionaire is what our quest is.

So , knowing those things help us figure out and deploy it in those other areas. 

[00:26:28] Ryan: and that first piece of running your business effectively and making sure it's cash flowing is the biggest piece. Like you said, get the kids off the payroll. I asked them, , how long they've been on the payroll because I only asked for three years and I could I'm guessing they've been on it for longer than three years, and he told me they've been on it since they were 18, 19, something like that, and it's gone up every year and they're in their thirties.

Right around there. Yeah. Early, late twenties, early thirties. 

[00:26:57] Brandon: My son already, he is four. I'm like, you're not gonna be on the payroll go get a job. He's four. Maybe I need to be a little less strong on that, but, 

[00:27:04] Ryan: It. It's work ethic. Yes. Yeah, it's work ethic. Go out there and get a job.

I was 15 and a half, I got my first job, working at a car wash and gas station and, kept on going from there. But that doesn't seem to be the aspect that we see in today's society that, I know we've talked about it, but from that piece, the profit first and being able to start a business effectively, how, what could be some tips you could share?

We'll start we'll talk, start up first and then we'll, we could talk acquisition. Mm-hmm. What would be some tips you could share from that aspect? 

[00:27:35] Brandon: Yeah, so from startups, don't be delusional and think it's gonna be easier. I'll just leave my job and it'll make it easier on the other end, I'm like, yeah I'm five years in and I think about with this.

Business. It's five year, five year old business. There, there's still crazy things that I have to do, right? That I, again, if it's kind like a child in the beginning of the business, you have to do all kinds of stuff. You don't really wanna do like clean diapers and stuff, right? And that's the way baby business is.

And then it mature. and there's less things that you have to do, but you have to realize where you're at, right? If you want a, buying a 20 year old business is different than buying a two year old business, right? , that's for example. But I tell every business owner that's starting know that you know that you're called to it.

Because it will be hard and it's gonna suck and it's gonna test your marriage, it's gonna test all areas, it's gonna test everything. So you gotta know that, then you have to have a team around you that care about you, not just your. These are like your spiritual directors, your guides, pastors your family, that are there for you, not just for my cup of coffee, cause when you we had the coffee shop and we had, we're going through Payne. The customers didn't care. When they ask, how's it going? They don't want to hear that. Life sucks, , they wanna hear, that's great. Here's your coffee.

So you have to have that team and then know your numbers. Too much is not about numbers. We think we're, it's an easy thing. I'll just hire an accountant or a bookkeeper and they'll do it for me and, or I'll just hire a manager. I hear this all the time. I'll just hire a manager and I'll make all the money so I can be passive and the manager will do all the work for me.

I'm like, I don't think that's the way it works, right? Yeah. You have to like, maybe you get to that point, but you have to build up to that point. So don't be thinking that it's just gonna start there. You have to build it, right? So know your numbers. Those are the three things for every business owner I tell.

[00:29:35] Ryan: A lot of people I think you said it earlier they're delusional When they think they're starting a business, it's gonna be, all easy. But the one thing, and I saw it today from Kevin o' Larry, he had a tweet that basically said, Hey, you potentially could lose your wife. You could lose your family.

You, you could lose practically everything. But if you're willing to sacrifice several years of your life, entrepreneurship is for you. Are you in. That's, that's sums it up is, you can lose everything in this journey, but you're working, nonstop in those first several years, seven days a week.

And in long hours people only see the outcome of what we put in on a daily basis. They don't see all the stuff that's below the surface. And that's why I try to talk about this on my podcast is, entrepreneur is entrepreneurship is crappy at times. It really sucks. Yeah. You get knock, you get knocked down and you gotta get back up every single time because people are depending on you.

Yep. But it. There's nothing rosy about it. And they think that these unicorns that you have out there, Airbnb and, and Facebook and whoever else you wanna talk about that are out there, those are one in the quadrillions out there that actually happen. Most of the businesses that come out, I, I read a stat, it's 78 or 80% are gonna be between revenue stages of about a million to 5 million and that's it.

Yeah. That, that, that's gonna be your solid base of a small. 

[00:30:59] Brandon: Yeah. And I think, again, we're comparing ourselves to the Ubers. And Uber's not very successful, right? Fi financially. Same with Facebook and some of those things that maybe it keeps growing and I don't know. But again, as I build the business that I want it's the business that I want for me.

Where do I want it to grow? And I know that five years there, there is that getting punched in the face and getting back up, having staff transition and you're like, all right, here goes again. How do we overcome those situations? I'm, that's happens regularly, right?

Especially during the, what is that, the quiet thing, whatever it's called. The quiet, quitting, quiet thing. Quiet, quitting, or quiet. Quiet. Refining. Yeah. All that stuff. And I'm like, that stuff is real. And then people are like, yeah, I'm just gonna, yeah. Get in a laptop and sit on the sand.

And I'm like, yeah it's not that easy. No, but it's, I will never trade it. I'm five years into this business and it's, I didn't come from a rich relative, but I feel. Most of the time as I do my financial analysis with people, the access rate is. Why we, why do we have a community? Luckily I have a business partner and wife that's really smart.

So we created a community because I'm like not everybody has that. We have a team in our marriage and it almost tested us. It did. But then we can help others. And then I've realized, man I'm doing more therapy sessions than anything , whenever I work with clients. I'm like, man, you guys, as I do my financial analysis to qualify for them, if the, if a policy works, I'll ask questions and I'll say, this is a good date night question that you guys should ask each other.

Cuz you have the one that's running the business maybe, and then you have the other person that's suspend thrift or things like that, that, that happens almost every marriage and . Yeah, I definitely feel like luckily we have a pastoral background, so we have some good counseling backgrounds.

, never thought I'd be having more about this than doing finance and doing life insurance and and Dave Ramsey loving to hate on us. I'm like yeah, do it cuz it changes lives. And. . It's dependent. If we don't do this, like you think about this your kids, like if you're, if it's not healthy and successful, it could end up in a divorce and broken marriages and fa all kinds of stuff.

That's how important the work we do. Is 

[00:33:19] Ryan: It's , it's mind boggling to understand what entrepreneurship, small business owner ship looks like and then what it impacts in your life. And if more people sat down and not went through that process to understand that before they decided to jump, knee deep into it, I think you'd have a lot more success in this aspect.

But the one thing that I've learned in this process is as I'm looking at businesses to. I have to tune out everything I know. I literally gotta, I have to stay away from anything I've done in the past, and I have to see a business that matches my skillset. I'm an operator. I like managing people. I like processes.

I like growing the top number. So if that, if those are things that the business needs, I want to go look at it. But if it's gonna be, if it's gonna be all marketing driven, all sales, which I talk about it all the time, is raising capital is probably my biggest bugaboo. And I still do it on a daily basis, but I suck at it.

But guess what? I'll keep going and I'll continue to suck and get better every single day. , but people don't look at businesses that way. They go after that emotional attachment of that. Like for me, I could, talk about call centers or underwriting mortgages or whatever. I could go buy something to that extent.

It doesn't always match my skillset or going to match my skillset in real terms as an entrepreneur. And I 

[00:34:39] Brandon: think that is a really important thing where we get fall in love with certain ideas and say, oh, I'm gonna do this kind of real estate because I saw this person do it, so therefore I'm gonna do it.

And, all real estate is. Very different depending on the type of, real estate you're in and I just watched a YouTube video and therefore I'm gonna do it this way or that way. I'm like, do you know your yourself? What is it? Why do you wanna do that? Why do you wanna get in cryptocurrency?

Or, I don't know, whatever it is. But a lot of times we chase things and not looking inward and saying what is my skillset? and how can I amplify that? And then if you have a good team right then , then you can do a lot more. And if you have the good numbers associated, then guess what?

I then know because of my system where I can deploy capital into the things that I'm deficient in. 

[00:35:39] Ryan: Yes, and focus on the things that you're very good at to grow that top line or whatever you're good at. But man, we could go on for hours on this because we don't do that. We do the opposite. And it's frustrating when I see that, and now that I get to I'm out here in Arizona and I've probably talked about 15, 20 business owners so far in the last month and a half or so, and they all struggle with the same thing even though they've, their businesses have been around.

Let's call it, let's call it a decade at least, they're all struggling with one thing. They're all stuck. They're stuck at that one to $3 million annual revenue. They're stuck and they don't know how to grow the top line. So it's okay, I like this cuz that's where I like to come in and unstuck people, un unstick people and show them that, you can grow the top line, but you gotta be creative in what you do.

Again, it's gotta match my skillset and people don't look at that. That's frustrating for me, but, sorry, that's my tangent right there. 

[00:36:34] Brandon: And that, that's probably, you probably, if I would bet, use the 80 20 rule and , 80% of what people do doesn't really matter. 20% of what they do. does matter. And when you come in on fresh eyes, you're like, oh, let's double down on this and put more fire into that.

And if you have the numbers associated, then you can get rid of the 80 that doesn't work. And you're like, wait a sec, I just unlocked it. But sometimes we're too close us included in our business that's why you have people come out and say, oh, here it is. Here's the 20%.

[00:37:11] Ryan: Yeah. It's crazy. But that's, we'll see where it goes. I'm gonna do a little bit of a follow up on that, but yeah, that's, we'll see where it goes. We're getting close to the top of the hour. Before we get there, what would be the best way people could reach out to you? If they're small business owners, entrepreneurs, they wanna turn that side hustle, where could they get to you?

Where could they, excuse me? Where can they contact? Yeah, so 

[00:37:33] Brandon: go to Wealth Wisdom, fp, that's wealth wisdom, F as in financial, P as in partners.com. I focus a lot on the infinite banking and profit first side. So schedule a discovery called there no pressure, nothing like that. And then be a learner.

W this is why we've. Been doing podcasts for years now and a YouTube channel. So learn not just from Dave Ramsey, who will tell you the same old stuff, but learn what works for you. And then so for me I interview people on ours and just say, okay what can I learn from them?

Find a mentor, like those kind of things. . But go to our channel, wealth Wisdom financial Channel on YouTube podcast. I better be everywhere. If you can't find me, let me know because I need to fix . 

[00:38:20] Ryan: That's cool. I will link your website in the show notes. I will also put your YouTube and your other social media channels there.

Sir, I thank you very much for coming on the show. It was a great conversation. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and tips and everything that comes along with being an entrepreneur. You showed personal and professional and that, that takes a lot. Awesome. 

But 

[00:38:43] Brandon: thanks, Ryan. I'm excited to see where you go and how you're gonna amplify the people you're serving, especially these business owners that are trying to.

[00:38:53] Ryan: Yes. I might be getting into their business. I don't know. We'll see how it goes, but that's where I'm trying to go with it. So thank you, sir. I hope you have a great day.