EPISODE 498: The Financial Playbook Most Doctors Never Get with Chris Gandy

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Mastery Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry.

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] Hey, docs. Welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie, and today I'm bringing Chris Gandy onto the podcast here. This will be the second time he's been on, and he's someone that we've really, uh, relied on with a lot of topics around retirement investing and tax strategy when you start to make good money and profits, which is always nice.

Uh, he's been helpful for our mastermind group. Obviously, he's been on this show before, and we really dive into some, some new and fresh great topics on, you know, how to start thinking about your money, uh, and how to start planning for the future of your business. Before we dive into that, I wanna mention Thrive in Atlanta.

That is the combination of MPI, FTCA, and MCM bringing a practice growth summit to you. It's gonna be all practice growth related. It'll be January 30th and 31st, 2027. We've got, uh, Mark King talking about leadership in practice. Bobby May be talking about ethical sales. Myself talking about [00:01:00] chiropractic marketing strategies.

Lindsay Mumma, aligning your niche and team culture. Brett Winchester on the it factor in practice. Great talk. Really, really great. Uh, Holly Tucker on chiropractic practice finances. Brandon Steele on stop buying functionality, start creating capacity.

And then Curt Kippenberger will be our MC. We're making it easy for you. Atlanta, a lot of direct flights, a lot of more affordable flights. Tram ride right to where the hotels are. We're trying to make this easy to get in, easy to get out, but you're gonna have some heads down work on these. It's not gonna just be didactic lectures.

There's gonna be some work that you're gonna do on your business, and the, the whole weekend is gonna be centered around business and leadership and marketing. So we highly recommend you check us out there early, but it'll be ending in the near future, and you can go to bit.ly, bit.ly/thrive2027. And that is [00:02:00] bit.ly/thrive2027.

All right. Without further ado, here is my interview with Chris Gandy

All right, excited to have Christopher Gandy on the interview podcast here again. We had him back on episode 449, so check that out. We talked about a lot of different things there, which we'll touch on again today, but, uh, Chris, welcome to the show again. What's new?

Chris Gandy: Kevin, it's great seeing you, man. I got an opportunity to meet some fantastic people that are aligned with, uh, your organization and the work you guys are doing and helping them show up better for themselves and their businesses and make smarter financial decisions collectively versus in silos.

So I think, you know, our last episode we hit on a handful of things of kind of where to start. Yeah. Right? If I had to throw a dart, close my eyes, and ideally if I had to start somewhere, we gave them a couple nuggets to start with. Mm-hmm. Uh, and then at the conference where we spoke at, uh, with you,

We went into, [00:03:00] uh, a little depth, uh, at least enough to, you know, to get our... up to our knees in the water. But, uh, let's see if we can't get submerged a little bit in some of the cool stuff that's happening financially to help, help your listeners. Yeah, no, absolutely. I remember originally Jeff Flewitt and Vanessa, um, she a- a- a- and Jeff had, had connected us with you, which was awesome.

Had you on the podcast. We talked a lot about the defined pension, defined benefit pension program that you've set up with them and some other chiros. And then in Tampa talked about that and, and got a lot of great feedback, and then we also touched on a couple other things we'll dive into today. And, uh, I just again recommend people listen to episode 449.

It just was something that as, as, you know, as the listener, you know, as a chiropractor, depending on where you're at, some of you are high level. We get a lot of audience members here that are high level, and you got a lot of profits, and you're trying to figure out how to strategically manage that. And, and also just asset protection was something we also talked [00:04:00] about.

And then we have chiropractors that maybe are just trying to, you know, figure out cash flow right now, but at some point when you start to do things right, you'll need to have someone like Chris here on your, on your side. Um, I wanted to f- first start out for today's episode with what's exciting you the most?

What's changing? Uh, what, what, what's the environment looking like? And we can go from there. Well, the, the one thing I wanna, I wanna just comment on is I, I just recently, um, I've been asked to speak at a couple different conferences, and I'm always looking for the one unique nugget that everybody's missing, right?

What, what's everybody missing but they should be paying attention to? And whether you work with Chris Gandy or you work with a local advisor or whatever it may be, information they can take back and they can, they can use right away, um, and they can do it today. Not tomorrow, not two weeks from now. They can, they can do it today.

So, um, the topic of that, that talk [00:05:00] was, uh, the forgotten pieces of the, of the SECURE Act 2.0. Mm-hmm. And the reason why I talked about that is because in, like in the Chiropractors Association, I'm, I'm sitting as the national president in DC, so I get a chance to see the policy when they're made with Treasury and a bunch of other things between the senators and congressmen, congressmen and women, and we get a chance to pipe in on how, what it should look like between policy and practicality.

Like the difference between what they think works and really, as you know, what really works in real life. Mm-hmm. And there were a couple major significant opportunities that if most people don't know about, they're just gonna brush over. I don't know how many people read the, you know, 798-page bill, you know, or, or whatever, and said, "What's in it for me?"

But most people probably skipped over it, and the narrative became whatever the media decided to pull out of it. And- Mm-hmm ... you know, hey, that means I, you know... Most people pulled out of the Medicare [00:06:00] deductions and deductibles changed. Like that's what most people pulled out of it, right? You know, those type of things.

They, they noticed that their 401they could put more in, right? They, they noticed that RMDs changed. They noticed those things. They noticed there was a catch-up provision if you were over 50 that didn't just appear. That was in the SECURE Act 2.0. It was the- Jeff, let me give you some, some parameters on this.

It was, since we know it as government, it was the largest retirement reform ever in the history of the United States government. Mm-hmm. Ever. And how many people made the adjustments as is, as it- So, you know, I'm here to kinda talk a little bit about that and whatever else you wanna talk about. I think we got enough good stuff to talk about, and I think people, they'll, they'll rewind this a couple times, and hopefully they take some notes and they, they, they start to act on a handful of these things.

Yeah. You know, w- well, before we hit record, we were chatting about the, you know, the whole bugaboo in the room is the, [00:07:00] is the student loans for chiropractors and doctors in g- general, and everybody's kinda concerned about that, right? And always worried about how they're gonna figure that out. What were...

You were, you were talking about some of the awesome i- you know, things that came from that as, as it pertains to student loans. Yeah. So, so in the SECURE Act 2.0 was a new part of legislature, and it's actually law. So I- I'll, I'll take it apart. So, so, so two chiropractors, one that's an employee of an organization and one that owns his own practice and/or, or, or is in a partnership of some sort.

So let's take the employee for a moment. So in the SECURE Act 2.0, there is a, there is a item in there that everyone gets to take a care of, gets to take advantage of- That allows for individuals to be able to essentially pay their student loans, because right now, Kevin, everybody's paying with after-tax money.

So they're getting a dollar. So if you're [00:08:00] a W-2, you get a dollar, you really only get 70 cents of that dollar, right? And from that you have to pay a full dollar in a student loan, right? So it's after tax, so every dollar you pay in a student tax is costing you 30, 30% more, just simply based on, on numbers, right?

Well, Congress realized this, that the debt was growing with loans, and they, because of that they weren't able to put money in their retirement accounts. So you know what that does long term, it puts pressure on the Social Security system. So it's already got pressure on it. It's set to run out now in 2039, so they have to do something and some sort of reform to either, A, get more people putting money in and/or to revamp the system.

All those things are going to happen, but with the one thing they did do that was very positive was this. Was before if you decided not to put money in your 401at work or your retirement plan at work, you missed out on the match. Yep. Right? So if you put a dollar in at work, or you put 3% in at work, they match the 3%.

Yeah. Right? And so people were [00:09:00] deciding, do I put in the 3% or do I pay my student loans off 'cause the interest is really high? Well, Congress realized that, and they passed this rule in, in the 2.0, and everybody can do it. People can say, "Well, my, my employer doesn't allow it." Every... It, it is law now. Wow. So, so if you pay a student loan now, you automatically count, that counts as part of your contribution to your qualified plan.

So Kevin, example before, if I got, put in 4,000, I got a $4,000 match, then that's a great thing. Problem is they were taking the $4,000 and paying the student loans, so they didn't get the match. That's it. Now if you pay your student loans- You now still qualify 'cause you give a, a, a actual form to your employer, they still have to give you the match even though technically you didn't put the money in the 401.

Gotcha. So now your student loan contributions still count for your matching [00:10:00] contribution. So all of you out there should be putting up to what your employers match if you're on that side. Okay? Gotcha. Reason why, Kevin, let's make it simple. You know, I like to take it from 50,000 feet down to five. Mm-hmm.

Listen, I ask people all the time, "Mr. Kevin Christie, if every time you gave me a dollar I gave you back $2, how many times would you trade with me, Kevin?" Yeah. Keep on trading. Until Chris Gandy runs out of money, right? Exactly. Until his jacket is no longer checked. Sounds- You know? Sounds like our, uh, federal government.

Right. Sounds like our federal government. Right. But then all of a sudden every time now, Kevin, with that same game, like, every time you gave me a dollar I only gave you back 70 cents. Yeah. How many times are you gonna trade with me? Till I run out of money or- Right. Right. Hope- hope- hopefully at least once.

Hopefully just once, right? Just once. Hopefully, hopefully just once, right? You know, the one time I only gave you 70 cents back, you're like, "I'm not doing that again. That doesn't make any sense." And so people need to understand that there is no investment advisor, there's not a Smith Barney, and stop listening to TV and TikTok and everything else.

No one can guarantee you [00:11:00] 100% on your money other than the match. Yeah. Every time. 100% return on your money, right? And so this now gives people an opportunity who have student loans- Mm-hmm ... to still benefit and get a jump on retirement, so start to build those assets up. Now, those other, on the other side, like my guy Jeff Williams and Dr.

Fergus and Fluid and all those guys, let's take those guys. Well, they say, "Well, Chris, you know, well, we own the company and we..." O- okay, great. So, so now those guys, because they get two benefits, they get the ability to do, to pay the student loans, still get the ability to be able to put in the match from the corporation side, and then the government said, "Well, if businesses are doing this- Here's the deal.

If businesses are doing this, we're gonna give them a tax credit. We're gonna give them a credit for doing it. And everybody out there knows that if they give you $1.50 for every dollar you actually match [00:12:00] your employee, that's kind of a good deal for you. Yeah. And that is exactly what happened. So all of you have the ability to take care, take, take advantage of that.

It doesn't matter if you're an employee or you're an employer, please take advantage of that. There's a lot of student loan debt, and it may not be your debt. It may be your kid's debt. It may be your wife's debt. It may be somebody else's debt that you love and care about. But allow them to take advantage of that.

And it's a form, literally it's a form you take to your employer, and your employer can say, "We're not enrolled in that." They don't have a choice. They all were automatically enrolled in that in, uh, when the, when the bill passed. So- Okay. So- You might be... Yeah. So everybody should be taking advantage of it.

So from the employee standpoint, let's just say, uh, you would, you would not invest money into your 401as the employee per se. Let's just say you're gonna instead pay, uh, your student loan, but then you would still have that 401account and then the employer would match 3%, and that would go into the 401account and grow.

Is that [00:13:00] accurate sum- Correct ... summary there? Correct. Correct. Perfect. As if you had put the money in the 401. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So obviously they're maybe per- saving a little bit less, um, in the 401. They're still, but they are still investing in 401, and then they're paying down the student loan more. Right. So they're paying, they're doing, they're getting the best of both worlds now.

Before it was the or, they had to choose one or the other. Yeah. Now they're getting the best of both, which is a fantastic opportunity for young chiropractors out there who are, you know, as you know, "I'm, I'm thinking about building my own practice," or, you know, "I'm just getting out of school. I got all these student loans.

I gotta take 'em. I gotta make a bunch of money." Right? At the end of the day, they're trying to figure out how to reduce the overall obligations that they have. Yeah. So there may be more people that start their own practice because now this doesn't hinder them from doing it, of having to make those choices.

So there's, there's gonna be a lot of opportunity from it. If people want to know more, they can, they can let, they can let us know or let me know, let you know, and we can give them [00:14:00] information exactly where to find it in the bill and actually the, the, the piece of paper they actually need to have- To actually just take to their employers so they get it.

I love it, love it. Now, from the em- the em- uh, owner's standpoint, so say someone like me, do I still have to pay my student loan out of my personal account, but now I can get a tax, a different tax deduction now from the Secure Act, uh, from that timeline? Is that accurate? Well, before you weren't getting a deduction for student loans, right?

There was no deductions for student loans. Yeah. So, so now if you put the money, you pay the student loan, whatever that plan is that you have set up for your qualified plan- Yeah ... you now would get... So if you didn't have a qual- those that don't have a qualified plan, if you never had an incentive to do one, you have one now, right?

Yeah. Because all of a sudden it's two for one. Yeah. It's literally two for one. So I'ma pay a dollar here, and then I'ma get the match on this side, so I have the ability now to get credit for both because you [00:15:00] own the company, so you get the, you get the tax deduction for that, and because now you paid the student loan, you get the deduction for that.

Okay, and that, so that qualifi- that's that defined benefit that we talked about in episode 449. If someone does that, they now have this benefit. No. No, this is completely different. The DB is something even completely different. They can get the deduction for that too, right? So- Okay ... this is, this stands on its own.

This is, uh, this is a great thing that, that, you know, we always ask what's, what has, what has the government done for us lately? Well, this is, this one's a good one. This one's a good one. It's a really good one. Yeah. You know, and it goes back, I remember I'm old enough to, uh, have opened up a practice right before the '08 crisis, which wasn't fun, and, and it really was a struggle for a lot of people, as we all know back then.

I don't know if that was worse than it is now. Like, you know, the last six years have been challenging for a lot of people. I, I definitely understand that and appreciate that. I don't know which was worse, '08 or, or the last six years. Guess depends on what side of it all you're on, but it was really hard for me at the [00:16:00] time.

But on the other side of it was a lot of good stuff that happened for a lot of us professionally and opening up businesses and- Mm-hmm ... you know, one of them I always talk about was that commercial real estate was so low down here I was able to buy my commercial real estate in 2013, and I got a great deal.

Uh, great deals on commercial real estate. S- South Florida obviously don't exist right now, but... And there's challenging times, but again, on the other side of that sometimes are some, some unique benefits and, and this seems to be one of them, and it, and, and there seems to be some other ones that are happening.

Is, is that accurate? Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity happening right now. Um, I, I mentioned the student loan piece. Let me kind of highlight a couple pieces specifically in that- Mm-hmm ... area that I think people need to so check, have your checklist. I, I, I... My talk was the five things you need to know from the Secure Act 2.0.

Um, the first thing was the student loan plan. That was super great, but the next one c- the next one, Kevin, is huge When they pass that [00:17:00] rule, the changes in the rules change on trusts. Okay. So there are trusts that actually go 10 years or 15 years or 20 years or a lifetime. The, the spousal trust now... So let's talk about Kevin, one of your doctors gets sued.

Mm-hmm. A lawyer understands that you're just gonna transfer assets to your spouse, and you're gonna say, "I don't really have anything. Hands up. Um, I don't have anything." They learn that. And so spousal transfers count as clawbacks to your assets. Yes. You, you couldn't even do it until now. Now, if there's a spousal trust set up, a spousal trust, you can actually transfer assets to your spouse that you're not liable for.

Like, you can't, you can't take them. And now that spousal trust now goes 199 years. I don't know how many spouses are living to 199 years, right? Well, depends on how technology takes us here soon. Yeah. Right. So [00:18:00] 100... It's 199 years, and then they took the other, the other what they would call complex trust or whatever it may be that we use for asset protection.

Mm-hmm. Like, I'll give you an example. In, in a handful of states, it's no longer... I'll give you example. Florida, one of the great states. Mm-hmm. Florida now has 1,000 years, one thousand, 1-0-0-0-0, right? On a, on a simple trust that can go from one generation to the next generation, to the next generation, to the next generation, to the next generation, to the next generation.

It's now 1,000 years, and there's three states where it's infinite, meaning that the trust will last in the perpetuity forever. That didn't exist before. They all were just when Kevin passed away, the trust was over. Kevin or, and/or his spouse. One generation, now they've extended it past that. That's huge as we deal with multi-generational wealth, right?

How do we pass assets? To pass them with the least amount of tax as possible. Well, what if they don't have to pay taxes on it at all? And the [00:19:00] dynasty trust, which was basically Kevin, you and I are married, we want our assets to go to our kids. What we do is we give them to the kids' kids, to the trust.

Mm-hmm. Our kids get to use it while they're alive, but it skips that generation. That trust now, that trust is infinite now. So before it was that trust would last one generation, two generations, and then they blow it up, start something else. Now it continues in, into perpetuity, which is, which, which is huge, right?

And so now you have these couple opportunities. So asset protection, the ability to pay down debt, you know, those are, those are massive opportunities for people. And we talked a lot about this idea of, of recapturing interest of our own because of the study that's been done that the average person in the United States will spend over a million dollars of interest to [00:20:00] somebody else through a third-party lender, credit card, whatever it may be, over the course of their working life.

And so Kevin, just, I asked a question in the room not too long ago is- Yeah ... if everybody on this, on this call could recapture at least half of that in interest back to themselves, how many millionaires would we have? A lot. A lot, right? And so, and so that idea of how do we become less dependent on traditional lending and start to create some on our own?

Yeah, and, and that's one thing that I, I've always struggled with in the sense of looking at that. It's, it's depressing, right? You got a 30-year home mortgage, and you look at how much you bought the house for and what you're probably gonna pay for it over 30 years. It can be pretty depressing. Especially, I mean, I'm one of the fortunate ones where I have a 3% interest rate, uh, on my house, and I know that doesn't exist anymore, and some people are at higher rates.[00:21:00]

Um, we had touched on in Tampa, and it was a, a lot... It just sparked a ton of great conversation, and I remember, uh, Nota Hashimoto was in our... He was our actual, uh, full presenter that day, and he kept on chiming in on when you brought it up and how mu- how great it's been for him and other people he knows, and that's that infinite banking concept.

Um, can you, can you dive into that? Since you brought up interest and us paying too much money in interest, you were telling a little bit of story about that. Can, can we dive into that now? Yeah, so, so, so the idea of infinite banking, those who haven't heard it, um, Kevin, on this podcast, I... We'll, we'll leave it in the bottom.

There's a, there's a link you should watch. Mm. Just so you have personal education on it, right? Um, there's a guy by the name of Chris Naugle. Chris is great. I'm really good friends with him. And what he's done is he's actually spent his time on the education of what it is- Mm ... and the moving parts. Um, there's a book out there called, [00:22:00] by N- by Nelson Nash called Become Your Own Banker.

Okay. Okay? If you wanna read, that's the book you should read. It's the original. Chris Naugle does a good job. You can find him on YouTube and just, all you have to put do is put in, or we'll leave the link. And it's called Becoming Your Own Bank 101, Step by Step. And it, it's about a 48-minute video. Turn off the Netflix, turn off all the stuff, and give a way, figure out a way to invest in yourself.

So, what it simply is, is the idea... Like I mentioned, people will pay over a million dollars of interest during the course of their lifetime. The idea is that if there's a way for us to be able to take back the interest and use it again either two or three times during our lifetime, how much more wealth could we build?

So Kevin, let's, let's give everyone on here an example I use the example in my illustration as a car. Mm-hmm. Right? So we'll start with a car, and then we'll go to a house, right? So a car, we can go buy a car right now, and say the car costs $50,000. But we're gonna finance it, right? And we're [00:23:00] gonna finance it, but we're gonna put 20% down, right?

When we put the 20% down, that's $10,000 that goes on the principal of the car that is a depreciating asset from day one. If you drive it off the lot, it's already depreciated 20%. Like, like, like we buy assets that accumulate, not depreciate. Like, no, no one does that. But for the concept, so now we're gonna finance the $40,000, right?

The car was 50, we're gonna finance 40, okay? We're now going to go get an interest loan, and typically it's not overly cheap. Typically, car loans are, you know, mid, mid, mid, mid, mid-fives, sixes, great credit, and then they escalate from there depending on your debt-to-income ratio. So if you have a practice and all of a sudden now you're gonna have a car financed at 7, 8%, then now all of a sudden you got a real, you got a real issue.

Because that $40,000, if financed at 6 or 7% over a five-year period of time, you're gonna give $11,000 to $12,000 back to a, a bank [00:24:00] who is either, A, gonna pay it in bonuses, or B, you know, increase the, you know, enhance the waterfall in the foyer when you walk in. I mean, that's, that's, that's where the money goes.

That money you'll never see again in your portfolio. So- Yeah ... so at the end of the day, this car is e- this true cost of this car is either gonna cost us $53,000 versus the 40 that we were gonna pay for the... w- versus the 40 we were gonna pay for the car, okay? Or the 50 we're gonna pay for the car minus the 10, so it's gonna end up costing us even more.

It's gonna cost us 50, almost $60,000. What infinite banking does is say, say this. Even though we probably had the money to pay the car, what we're going to do is we're gonna take a fixed, uh, interest rate at 4 or 5%, whatever it may be, and we're gonna put that asset into another tool. And then half the time of the car, we're gonna accumulate a pile of money over here, borrow it out, and then pay it to ourselves.

And now the car is 100% paid off. What that essentially does is half the interest is gone, so instead of paying $11,000 to the bank [00:25:00] executives and presidents, we're only gonna pay five. The timeline in which the car's depreciating goes down 'cause now you can trade in and do something else if you choose to do that, too.

I ran the numbers on the Tesla. I w- we were just... Everybody likes Teslas, so we ran that same numbers on a Tesla, and the net cost of the car is about $21,000 out of pocket because you actually get back a couple things. One, you get the dividends that are paid out on the policy every year of about seven, 6.5 to 7%.

Two, you get the actual, um, the actual, uh, money that you're putting ba- that you would've been putting into the, the traditional loan you're now putting into, into, into this loan- Yeah ... which is great, and that's compounding. And then there's interest that you're going to pay to yourself 'cause you essentially loan the money to yourself, so you're gonna pay a little bit more.

And most people when they have a car, they usually wanna pay a payment and a half. "Hey, Chris, you know my payment's $600, but I'm gonna pay $800. Ha ha." Yeah. Right? But if you actually run those numbers out, it only [00:26:00] subtracts maybe a year or two from the car. Okay. Maybe. It only subtracts... It's literally like 10% or f- 10 or 12% from the car.

But if you do it this way, it's literally half. So you have a car, you finance it for five years, we're gonna do it for two and a half. It literally cuts it in half. Let's take a house 'cause this is the example I gave you. Yeah. I recently had a client, and these are stifling numbers because they're, they're so long.

I have a client that was buying a house for $850,000, the exact number, right? I actually have it up on my screen here, uh, the numbers, so I'm gonna read them off to you. So $850,000. Here's the, here's the situation in this case. $850,000, new home. They were gonna put down 10% on the house, okay? I suggested they put down 100 just so we had an even number.

They said, "Okay, Chris, that's what we're gonna do." But the problem is that still had them paying PMI. Yeah. Right? And the PMI was $600 a month. Mm-hmm. Right? PMI just disappears, right? It's just, it's a magical number, right? And so they were paying [00:27:00] PMI. But the loan, Kevin, I hope you're sitting down, that loan of $850,000 with a 30-year loan, by the time they paid that loan off was $1.9 million.

800,000 to the house, the extra 1.1 million went to, again, bank presidents, went to the waterfalls, went to enhanced bonuses, whatever it may be. They never saw that money again, whatever it may be. We set this infinite banking tool up to pay off the house in 17 years, 'cause the, the lady said that she was going to make an extra payment.

Mm-hmm. She's like, "Chris, I'm gonna pay an extra payment." And okay, great. She goes... So we had them run an amortization. If she paid it on the traditional loan of 30 years, it cut off five years, so she still paid 25 years. In the infinite banking tool, we paid it off in year 17. That $1.1 million of interest, we cut down to $600,000.

We saved them almost $500,000 in interest just [00:28:00] by her making the extra payment, but making it into her own banking tool versus giving it to the banks and letting them actually control the interest. Home run. Literally, her husband said, "Holy shit." "How do we do that?" Mm-hmm. When they saw the numbers. And so it's hard for people conceptually to see, to, to think about these numbers in their head- Yeah

and think that it makes sense for them. But when you see the numbers on paper, you can't deny that paying someone else interest on something that you can actually own yourself- You wouldn't do that. You'd just pay it to yourself. Well, then there's those people out there, Kevin, that I'm sure is in your crowd.

It's like, "Chris, I'm just gonna pay it in cash. I got the cash. I just pay c- pay it in cash," right? There's those people. Well- Yeah ... I would argue that, let's just talk financial philosophy. One, when the moment you buy the car, the car goes down in value, so it's a depreciating asset. You're losing money.

Number two, [00:29:00] that money is dead. I can't use it for something else. Say I wanna... I, I need a machine. I can't use that money to go buy s- unless I sell the car. I'll never see that money again unless I actually sell the asset again. Yeah. That's it, right? And it's like, okay, so you've locked yourself up. Can't actually use that asset.

Asset's dead while you're driving it. At the end of the day, it depreciates in value. I just wanna make sure I understand the facts that you're, that you're, you're trying to convince me of here. And then at the end of the day, Kevin, here's the kicker. When I sell it, I'll never sell it for what I bought it at.

Yeah. No. Never, right? Unless it's... I mean, then there's, there's always somebody in the back of the room that says something like, "Chris, what about those, uh, those nostalgic cars, like the '92 or '62 Mustang Convertible GT?" Um, okay, that's different because that's actually more of an investment than it actually is, you know- Yeah

an everyday car that you're driving. Yeah. But my point is that, is that we need to take back control of our finances, period. We need to take... We need to look [00:30:00] outside the box, stop believing just the simple things, that this is the way it has to be, but there's other ways and other alternative methods to finance the things that we care about, pay down the credit cards.

'Cause any... And, and infinite banking works with anything with credit. So think about all the things in our lives with credit: student loans, houses, cars, blah, blah, blah. Like, all those things. And because of that, that's where all the interest ends up going. So- Mm-hmm ... ability to use our money three times: one, to pay the loan; two, to get dividends, which are great; and three, instead of paying o- instead of paying the bank's interest, we pay the interest to ourselves, right?

So our ability to get, use our money literally three times. Oh, yeah, and, and here's one for you, Kevin. I don't gotta wait to use the money. If I need to use the money before the timeline, like that 30 years, for something else, I could use the money for something else. And typically, the vehicle for that is a, a whole life policy, is that correct?

It's an [00:31:00] overfunded, properly designed. I want to asterisk properly designed. Yeah. Because people will go buy an insurance policy. I got insurance. "Hey, I'm gonna buy an insurance policy. It's infinite banking." And I'll look at it and I'll say, "No, it's not." I say, "An infinite banking tool is this: one, you need to be able to borrow up to 90% of the value within seven days."

So they're like, "Well, it's an IUL." It's n- and it's not a, it's never a IUL product because an IUL product you can't borrow more than 10%, ever. Two, you can only have one loan outstanding at a time. Three, like, so it is a, it's a properly designed with a mutual company, and it has to be a mutual company or else you don't get something called indirect recognition on the plan.

Meaning, when Kevin borrows out in year 17 that house, go back to the house, Kevin takes the money and pays off the loan, the insurance company will still pay the 7, 6.5, 7% [00:32:00] dividend on what he took out also. Yeah. Not just the money that's still left. Direct recognition only recognizes the money that's still left in the plan.

Mm-hmm. These plans recognize the cumulative amount that's in there, so the dividends are being paid on a much bigger number over time, and that is the leverage part of it. And you get to keep the arbitrage. So if your student loan is 12% and you do infinite banking and the interest rate is 3, 3.5, 4%, the arbitrage, the difference is yours.

Yeah. That makes sense. So I want to ask a couple clarifying questions on that, just so I make sure I have it down. Let's, uh, so let's just go back to the car thing. Let's say I got $50,000 laying around and I'm gonna go buy that car, that brand-new car, cash, thinking that I'm doing this the right way. You drive that vehicle off, you paid the 50K cash.

You drive off, it's now worth 20% less. So now it's worth, uh, let's call it $40,000. You basically just lost $10,000 of money [00:33:00] versus if you were to invest that $50,000 into something, that would obviously gain money. Uh, that's- Mm-hmm ... that's, uh- Mm-hmm ... correct, right? Yes, that is correct. Yeah. So that's one thing that I want people to understand, and that's something that I've thought about often is, is that, uh, uh, theoretically I understand, like, some of the Dave Ramsey stuff.

And I think for- Yes ... for some people it makes sense in certain scenarios and things like that, but that is a flaw in that, uh, idea. Second thing I wanted to kinda go over, um, you were mentioning the client with the home mortgage. I think, were they gonna make an extra mortgage payment a year? Is that, was that what this thing was?

They were gonna make an extra one ev- every other month. Every other month. Yeah. So they were gonna make an extra... Yeah, they were gonna make an extra mortgage payment every other month because she was like, "I wanna get it paid off." Right? And- Yeah ... I, I, I explained to her, "You understand how mortgages work?"

And she's like, "Yeah, you pay it and, and it goes to the mortgage company, and they... and a prince- part goes to the principal and a part goes..." I go, "Yes and no." I had to explain to her that mortgages are interest first- [00:34:00] Mm-hmm ... on payments unless you state otherwise. So even though she was just sending in an extra payment, it was still processed the same way, which interest comes off first and then principal.

Where if you're gonna take, make double payments to your mortgage company, everybody on here just agreed to do this. If you're gonna make an extra, you say, "Principal only," and that actually goes in the bottom left-hand corner. You don't just send it in as a traditional. You put principal only, so then that money goes in.

None of it goes to interest. Yeah. It all goes to principal. Okay. But the first payment, or the payment that you make that goes to interest and principal, that's always going to be there. So her se- her second payment was gonna do the same thing unless she stated otherwise. Either way, it's still only gonna knocked off, like, three to four years of the, of the loan.

Five years, actually. Well, g- I'm glad you mentioned that, because that is a big problem that people miss, is that if you are gonna make extra payments on stuff, make sure it's going all to the principal, not you're divvied up, right? Right, right. Uh, interest and principal. So that's great. Yeah. Now, with the, the infinite banking part, [00:35:00] you're taking that...

She would've taken that extra mortgage payment every other month, and instead of doing that, you're gonna apply it to this over-funded whole life policy- Mm-hmm ... not make any extra payments to the home mortgage- Mm-hmm ... accumulate money over, it sounded like 17 years- Mm-hmm ... which would then be enough to then take that money and pay off the entire mortgage at that 17-year mark.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And by doing that, that was a big differential in money saved. Yes. Yes. Uh, over $600,000. That's, uh, that's real money , to say the least. So- Over 600,000. So when people start looking at those numbers, they literally are like, "Okay, what am I do- why would I, why would I do it the other way?" And I always...

I joke all the time is once you see something, you can't unsee it. Yep, yep, yep. Now, that's- And so now, now you're, now you're awake, it's just what [00:36:00] do you do about it? Like, do you just continue down the path as a zombie and continue to just follow the status quo? Or do you start to say, "What else could I do?"

Just like on the de- defined benefit plan, there's a handful of your listeners that contacted us and we, and we talked to, and there's gotta be a catch. O- okay, I, I, I've got thousands of these things in force. Yeah. But it has to, it has... The structure has to be right, and it's... A lot of you out there have not really thought about a tax reduction structure, 'cause you're fighting, drinking out of a fire hose trying to just make a profit.

But once you get to a profit, you gotta start thinking about, do I want all this revenue coming to me on a 1040 and hitting my bottom line where I'm just stuck with whatever the taxes are going to be? And if that answer is no, I always... Ask Kevin. I've told him, I've told people, whoever will listen, that you can either, A, give the money to IRS, that's the default, okay?

B, you can give it to the people you love and [00:37:00] care about, including your future self. Or C, you can give it to a charity Those are the... Obviously, you can spend it in the business, but if you spend it in the business, at some point that money's coming out and you're stuck with those three choices again, right?

Yeah. It's like, okay, do this, this, this, or this. Or you can destroy it and you still owe the taxes on it. So t- you know, take control by making a choice. Who do you want to give the least amount of control of your money to? And the answer, if that answer is the IRS, you owe it to yourself to explore what other options there are.

And if it's, "Well, I'll talk to my accountant about it," or whatever it may be, because we have those conversations. Most accountants are familiar with how they work, but they don't have actually a lot of people doing them. So we spend so much of our time showing accountants how to implement what line to put it on- Mm

and where it goes in the tax code, because most of the time it's the default. I'm doing a SEP IRA or a simple IRA, or I'm doing my 401, that's it. [00:38:00] But you're paying 300,000, 200,000 in taxes, so why would you do that when you have these three choices? Why don't you give it to your future self or the people you love and care about, or a charity compared to the IRS if...

Well, if you had a choice, you would. And most people just don't have a choice because they don't have the plan set up. Yeah. Yeah. One, one thing I always reference, I forget what book I read it years ago, but I always try to implore doctors to, to... especially business owners, to put that scaffolding around your business and put...

Yeah, you gotta have a good accountant, you gotta have a good bookkeeper, you gotta have a- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm ... you know, you have to have a attorney in situations and, and you need someone like yourself as part of that scaffolding to keep this thing building and going and, and stable and, and strategic. And I, you know, we're, as doctors, we're just not inclined and we're not, uh, you know, we're, we just don't have the time to do it ourselves.

And, and I just always recommend, uh, when you hear certain things on our podcast that pique [00:39:00] your interest and you're like, "You know what? I need to make that change," uh, most of the time don't do it yourself. And this is one case where you definitely don't want to do it yourself, and try to have someone that can actually work you through this and that has, obviously, the experience that you have, the credentials you have, the, the, the whole foundation of your business and, and your firm behind it that's been doing this with people that, frankly, are multi, multi-millionaires.

And if they can do it for, for folks like that, you can do it for folks that are chiropractors that are starting to build wealth and- Mm-hmm ... starting to build profit, and you don't want to lose control of that. 'Cause, I mean, honestly, like I, I've, I've discussed it before, like 2016, 2015 was a, a struggle for me- And it was, uh, it was around not understanding how to take control of my finances, 'cause things were really good for me, uh, up until that point.

We did really well in business and ins- certain things changed with insurance and personal life, things like that. Mm. And I, I just didn't have a control of it until finally I did, and, [00:40:00] um, and still it's a work in progress. And I don't know everything, that's for sure. And that's why I try to put people around you, uh, like you around us to, to, to, to lift us up into this and, and just we're at that phase of probably ownership, a lot of us, that we maybe don't know what we don't know or we're sitting at the point- Yeah

where we kind of finally do know what we don't know, and that's the good place to be, 'cause you can find people around you to, to do it for you, so. Right. Well, I, I, I'll, I'll just say that you're building a team You know, I, I don't, I don't care how good Michael Jordan was, he was w- he, he wasn't as good unless he had a team around him.

And so if you think about it, um, I've actually talked to some of your people and they go, you know, the first response is, "I have a financial advisor." I say, "Great. What do they specialize in?" Yeah. They're like, "Oh, everything." I said, "You and I both know- ... the master of the all is the master of none." So, no, seriously, like what are they, what are they sp- after about four questions.

So no, seriously, just like kind of tell me what, what do they specialize in? And then they say, "Oh, well, just investments." I mean, so they [00:41:00] don't do any asset protection, no tax reduction? "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They just... I, I, I got SpaceX and I have some stocks and they're, they're, they're managing my portf-" Okay, so now I understand they're a place kicker on the team we bring in for certain things.

I get it. Mm-hmm. Right? You know, I, I... And as you think about it, uh, Warren Buffett had the best quote that he said, "There's a reason why my, my assistant pays more in taxes on an average number than I do. And the reason why is because we understand how to interpret the tax code. She just goes by it." So there's...

Th- that just tells you. I mean, just think about the most successful people. I mean, just take Elon Musk. Do you believe that Elon Musk has one advisor or he has multiple? What about Buffett? Do you think he has one advisor or he has multiple? Do you think... I mean, so typically what you do is you find someone, and it's okay for us as advisors to do different things.

Mm-hmm. I'm good with it, right? Because when I go in, I'm going in to do what I do and get out the way, right? You want Tom Brady going in, throwing the ball [00:42:00] in the flat. You do not want him going out for passes and blocking people. You want Tom Brady being the GOAT, right? And so- Right ... you want people on your team, when you're building your team, that enhance your team or improve the position.

So I tell people all the time, I really help complement what you already have in place. And so if there's no one in place, that's a different situation. But if someone's already in place, relationships are too hard to form in the first place. So if we can help complement what's already there and really take it to the next level, it's a team approach to help you, the client.

Yeah. So don't feel like, "Well, I don't really wanna." I have-- Matter of fact, I have one of your doctors right now I'm working with. Mm-hmm. And for the last 20-some years, he's been working with this one advisor. We found out this year we can save him almost $700,000 by doing one of those tax reduction, uh, defined benefit plans.

700,000. He goes, "Chris, where am I gonna get the money from?" I said to him, "You have five and a half million dollars sitting over there. [00:43:00] You call him up." He goes, "What do you want me to say?" I said, "You call him up and say, 'Listen'" I'm gonna save $500,000, $700,000 in taxes this year. Send me the money. That's what you s-

that's what you call, that's what you call 'em up and say. And he's like, "Well, you know, I, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't know what..." He's, he's gonna try to talk me out of it. And I said, "Wait, are we, are we having the same conversation? I just wanna make sure I understand. Is that you have this money sitting over there, you can pay $700,000 less in tax, and you're afraid to let him know that you're moving the money from one side of your pocketbook to the next side?

I don't..." So he did call him and tell him we're moving the money, but it was, it was just kind of this dynamic where he was afraid to say, "I got somebody else on the team." Doesn't mean they're taking your place, it's just so you got somebody else on the team to help round out the squad- Mm-hmm ... so that we can go try to win a championship together.

And, uh, I always revert back to Tim Ferriss saying is like, "Show me a person's level of success, and I'll show you the difficult conversations they're willing to have." [00:44:00] Maybe you have to have that difficult conversation. Yeah. Maybe your other advisor, there, there can be some ego into it, and you just gotta be able to navigate that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of the day, like I said, we work for you. Yeah. And if it's in your best interest and the family's best interest and the people you love and care about, then us as professional advisors need to understand how to work together. Yeah. Love it. Well, Chris, this has been great. Um, excited to have you come in to Dallas or EOS Mastermind to help out some small group work on helping building wealth and s- and some other tax saving strategies.

So how can our audience, uh, reach out to you, find out more? Well, they can, they can check us out on, uh, on the web at, uh, www.tlwglc. That's our, our website. Um, you can put me in Google now 'cause, uh, it's, I'm s- I'm of everywhere. But they also can send an email over to me at, uh, cgandy@midwestlegacyllc.com.

Um, or send [00:45:00] me a text. J- Kevin, do not call me 'cause- ... between Spam likely... I'm, I'm just like you guys, you know? I'm, I'm, I'm a doctor of finance a little bit, but, you know- ... um, you can text me at 312-532-2257. Again, that's 312-532-2257. Just say, "I heard the Kevin Christie... I heard you on the Kevin Christie show."

And, uh, um, I'll know exactly who you are, and we'll engage and see if we can set some time to have an intelligent conversation about money and taking back control of your finance. Perfect. We'll put it in the show notes, and thanks again for your time. Okay. Thanks, Kevin.