72: Inside Infinite Banking: David Stearns Distinguishes the Authentic from the Superficial

[00:00:00] Hello, everyone. This is John Montoya. And this is John Perrings. We are Infinite Banking Authorized Practitioners and Hosts of the Fifth Edition.

[00:00:12] John Montoya: Episode 72 of the 5th edition. Today, we are honored to have a very special guest. We have the president of the Nelson Nash Institute, David Stearns, joining us. David, how you doing?

[00:00:27] David Stearns: Fantastic, John. Thanks for inviting me. I appreciate it. Yeah,

[00:00:31] John Montoya: absolutely. We're thrilled to have you here on the podcast with us.

[00:00:35] And why don't we go ahead and get started? Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what will go

[00:00:40] David Stearns: from there? Okay, great. Thank you. David Stearns. I am a a strong Christian. Okay. I am the, like you said I'm one of the co directors of the Nelson Nash Institute and I also own Infinite Banking Concepts LLC.

[00:00:54] I met Nelson in 1979. So we go way back and I guess we can explore that further, how [00:01:00] that relationship developed and what it means today. But I currently live in Birmingham, Alabama. I have a beautiful wife, Kim. 4 children, 9 grandchildren, and again, we can talk about that.

[00:01:18] I love paying premiums. That's number one. And whenever I can get more money out of my bank account into a policy, we do it. Okay? We live IBC. It's part of our culture. We don't do business with banks. And let me just also qualify, why I like paying premiums.

[00:01:37] If I was an insurance agent, I'd love paying premiums because I'd get more commission dollars on those policies that I set up on myself. However, I am not a licensed agent, okay? I never have been. My agent of record was Nelson Nash, and now I work with somebody else after Nelson's passing. But I am strictly a consumer of life insurance and a consumer [00:02:00] of IBC.

[00:02:01] Okay, so hopefully that frames who I am and where I'm coming from, because even though I'm deeply embedded in Infinite Banking Concepts, I always try to maintain a perspective from the consumer side, okay because I learned a lot from Nelson Nash. And one of the things that he told me was, you worship, what you're dependent upon.

[00:02:26] And I'm not dependent upon commissions from life insurance, okay, so I don't chase that noise. So that's, again. That's what it's all about. Okay.

[00:02:40] John Montoya: Yeah. I love it. I love to hear your convictions and hear your values because that resonates with both of us. And hopefully it resonates with all the listeners to the show because to be invested in IBC you have to have conviction in what you're doing.[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] If you don't have that conviction you're really not going to. Reap everything that you can sow within what what can be done with IBC. So thank you for sharing your background and your core beliefs, David. One of the things that we wanted to start with was learning. We know about Nelson's book, but when did IBC, Infinite Banking, really start?

[00:03:24] And that's a question that I know I've gotten over the years. I try to remind people whole life has been around for, well over 170 plus years, but when did IBC actually start? What prompted Nelson maybe to start the book and the community?

[00:03:39] David Stearns: In the book he talks about when he had the epiphany, on his knees praying.

[00:03:43] After a series of tragedies in his life that almost caused him to declare bankruptcy and whatnot. So that's when he got the idea of how to do this, but actually when he coined IBC was in the early, was in the early to mid nineties. Okay. [00:04:00] And he, he was an insurance agent.

[00:04:02] Okay. He worked for a major mutual insurance company as a captive agent. And so he was, the first thing he did was try to load up himself on life insurance so he could expand his capability to borrow money from the insurance company to, cover his debt and whatnot and expand his personal banking system.

[00:04:22] And then he started looking at his client set and he started, when he did annual reviews of his clients, he started talking about the concept of doing this. And again, it wasn't coined IBC at that time, in the mid 90s, but he he got them to understand him. And most of them didn't get it, didn't want anything to do with it, okay?

[00:04:44] And my first exposure to it was probably 1994. I was stationed at Fort Rucker, Alabama, I was an Army aviator, okay, I was a career Army officer and we spent a lot of time together. [00:05:00] He was in Birmingham. I was at Rucker and one day he was he made a He had a client down around the Fort Rucker area.

[00:05:07] He said why don't you join me? And this guy was a was an officer was a National Guard pilot and so Nelson flew with him in the guard Plus, he was an instructor pilot at Rucker as a civilian, plus he owned a restaurant. And he was a long term client of Nelson's, so I, we attended a a conference with his client.

[00:05:27] Nelson delivered a new policy to him, and so I was just sitting there watching and listening. This, in 1994, the policy premium was 60, 000. And so he handed it to this guy and he said, your sign here. And he goes, okay. And he goes, what do I do next week? I need a check. Okay. And so I'm going, why, we, I said, why was that, who's going to pay a 60, 000 premium?

[00:05:52] He goes he's using it to manage money in his restaurant. I'm going, what? It just, I didn't have a [00:06:00] clue. Okay. And I, it took me 15 more years to figure it out, but that was my real first exposure. And so what he started doing after that he started doing, individual presentations with clients and whatever.

[00:06:11] Then he started doing seminars locally in Birmingham. And at this time he was, he had moved his agency, he moved his contract to a different company. And so he used their facility to do these seminars. And he talks about, he'd invite 20 people, and he'd get people from all walks of life. And most of them he knew professionally.

[00:06:35] And out of the 20, maybe 5 or 6 would show up, and he'd go walk through a seminar, and it took him forever to do it. Again, I sat with him, watching him do this, and he used these old VGTs. Do you know what that is? A VGT? No. Go back to high school, and the teacher had a overhead projector in the front of the classroom, and they had the transparencies, they plopped on that thing.

[00:06:59] And it [00:07:00] showed something on a screen, or they'd write on it and it projected up on a screen. Okay, he was using that to do seminars, and so he had a box of these VGTs, that's what I call them, these transparencies, which are currently now the slides in the book, or the illustrations in the book. And he'd prop 'em up there.

[00:07:19] And he just, he, as he's talking, he's was going through his box trying to find the right slide . And it was, and he put it on, be backwards. He'd flip it around or be upside down, he'd flip it over, whatever. It's man. And so in 2000 he'd had his seminar was locked in. It took him a couple years to get it done, but it was locked in.

[00:07:38] But he was still using mechanical devices. And I took an army job in Birmingham, we PCS'ed here, permit changes station here, and the first thing I did was, I said, Nelson, you want me to go ahead and build you a PowerPoint presentation? And he goes what's that? And I said, it's, I'll show you. So I built him his PowerPoint and we went [00:08:00] out, went up to, to Best Buy and bought a laptop computer and a little projector.

[00:08:05] So we basically brought him up into the 21st century in 2000. Okay. So in 2000 the book had been written in 1999, Becoming Your Own Banker. And now in 2000, it was out on the street. Okay. And he ordered, I think, 500 copies from the print plant. And he, contacted his, he had a group of advisors he was working with and whatever.

[00:08:30] And so he mailed them all a copy of the book. And most of them said, Hey, great. That's really fantastic. And a couple of them said, man, send me, 50 or 60 copies. And so he says, oh, okay. And so he's ordering more. And so I'm in Birmingham as an Army guy doing my job. He's in Birmingham still as an active life insurance agent, but now he's got the concept going.

[00:08:52] And he's got this book out there, and he's got a single page website, and people are calling him on the, [00:09:00] calling him, because his phone number was on the website, and said, hey, send me a copy of the book, and he'd go, okay, and anyway, so he'd have a conversation with every one of them, a 15 or 20 minute conversation with these people, and it took, and so it spent all day long talking on the phone, and then after that, he'd get out his laptop, and he'd type out a thank you letter in a . And then he'd take the book and put it in a sleeve or whatever and take 'em down to the post office. And so it took him all day to do this stuff. And and he was building relationships is what he was doing, but he was also selling a product. And so he, so this is now 2021.

[00:09:39] I'm sorry, 2001. And he's man, you got to help me with this. I can't keep up with this. I got too much going on. I'm getting these phone calls ringing. I said I'd like to help you. But, 911 just popped. And, I couldn't get out of the army, okay, after 911.

[00:09:55] And so I worked a little bit part time with him, trying to help him out. And then finally in 2004, [00:10:00] I finally retired. And he, he said, he kept pushing me to retire, for three years, to help him out because he needed somebody who was invested in what he was doing and it was local.

[00:10:12] So finally, 2004, I finally retired and I started working the full time. Okay. And and so I started, I took over the website and I took over all his book sales and took over everything so he could just focus on doing seminars. Okay. Because. Let me take it back just a little bit. The book itself, he never sat down and said, okay, I'm going to write a book.

[00:10:40] Okay. That never, that was not on his mind. What he did was people, he was doing seminars and he did them locally. And then these people that he's building this community with started hiring him to fly out and do a seminar for their clients or prospects. Okay, so he did that, and he loved it. Okay, he just [00:11:00] absolutely loved standing up and telling his story.

[00:11:03] It wasn't a formal presentation, it was a story. And the notes that outlined that story ended up becoming the book, Becoming Your Own Banker. Because they kept saying, hey listen, this seminar is fantastic, but we need something physically in our hands that we can use. And so he basically just took all his notes and all his resources, and he just put them together and wordsmithed the whole thing into the book.

[00:11:33] And so that was the genesis of the book. And then and then we filmed the seminar. The first one was actually filmed by somebody else, very formal filming, and it was, fake, but it was Nelson, way back when, in probably 2000, and and that, and so that was used to develop a DVD so people could buy the DVD if they couldn't get to a live seminar.

[00:11:53] So really 2000 was really the turning point for everything for him, and then things just exponentially exploded,[00:12:00]

[00:12:00] John Montoya: and just curious, but how long, what was the length of that seminar?

[00:12:06] David Stearns: When he first started doing it, his intention was to do a he believed, he had some models that he followed like Larry Wilson Learning, stuff like that, where they talked about progressive seminars over a period of time.

[00:12:19] And so his vision, since he thought IBC was a paradigm shift. And it was something you couldn't just sit down and have a 30 minute conversation with somebody. He decided, what he needed to do was he needed to give him something to chew on week one, okay? And then, for two hours, okay, here's a, here, let's, we're not going to talk about IBC, we're going to talk about different parables in life and how that relates to finance, how that relates to the flow of money, how that relates to debt, how it relates to control of that.[00:13:00]

[00:13:02] His intent was to create a 10 hour seminar over the course of five weeks, okay? And but what happened was, that, and so by the time they got, the ones that stuck with it when they got to the end of it, they had a full grasp of what this was about.

[00:13:27] Because they could chew on it, they could think about it, and when they came back the next week, it was Q& A. In a reinforcement time. When he decided to take it on the road, obviously that wasn't going to work. So what he did was, he said, this is what we're going to do. a 10 hour seminar. I'm going to do two hours to chew time.

[00:13:44] Okay, so you can ruminate on it. So on a Friday night or Thursday night. And then we're going to come back and we're going to do eight hours the next day. Okay, so it was a 10 hour seminar and that was how, that was the fundamental set up on it. Because you, number one, people only had to [00:14:00] commit, to a day and a half.

[00:14:02] And number two is, there's plenty of time on day two for Q& A and to, get it down tight.

[00:14:08] John Montoya: Yeah, the reason why I asked that question is because the, you said it really well. This is a paradigm shift in thinking and the, to really grasp the enormity of IBC becoming your own banker, it requires an investment of your time.

[00:14:30] Nelson did such an incredible job condensing all his thoughts and his wisdom into about 90 pages in his book. And I think sometimes people take for granted just the impact of what's in his book and what he shared with the world. And we live in a, in this modern world where everything is, we're trying to consume everything so quickly.

[00:14:57] And IBC is something [00:15:00] that's really different. It takes time to understand and grasp these concepts and to really have a eureka moment and own what what IBC can give you. It just, it can't happen. In just 20 minutes or in 30 minutes. It's a process like, he teaches banking as a process and the investment into learning about IBC.

[00:15:23] It's one that ironically, it pays dividends, right? It pays dividends long term. Yeah, that's the reason why I ask you about the length of the seminar to give people an idea that, when you are learning about IBC. There there's it's an investment in your time, but it pays off.

[00:15:40] And we hear your convictions and we share on the show, our convictions too. And this really becomes a lifestyle. And I just hearing you share the backstory and how Nelson. Would teach people what he learned it's incredible. And I just want [00:16:00] people to appreciate that this isn't something that you can just, watch YouTube videos for 20 minutes and grasp this.

[00:16:07] You have to invest your time. You have to pick up a copy of the book. And like John and I both say, reread it. I'm constantly rereading it. And as long as it's been for me, since 2007 I still open up to a chapter and I reread it and I feel like I get something new each time.

[00:16:27] It's just so profound his impact in his words. So yeah. Thank you for explaining that.

[00:16:34] David Stearns: Yep. It's you're right. It's it's written as a conversation. Okay. And unfortunately, you talk about two problems. Number one is these little bite sized insights on what this is about.

[00:16:45] Okay it's much deeper than people think it is. Okay, it's not a philosophy, it still is a way to to, free yourself, okay, from some different forces out there that are trying to control your life. [00:17:00] Okay, I'm not going to, I don't want to go down a revisionist path there, but, IBC, if you do it correctly, it is financial freedom, number one, and it relieves that kind of stress on your life and your family, okay, which enables you to focus on other things, okay, so it's, it's just too bad that YouTube and Instagram and TikTok is filled with people who, some of them might be very strong advocates of IBC, but what they're doing is they're promoting themselves number one.

[00:17:34] Okay. And they're trying to sell IBC in order to sell life insurance number two. And some of those individuals. Don't know what they're talking about, and some of them do know what they're talking about, but they're omitting some critical information, okay, that a client needs to know. That's why we, that's why we set up the Nelson Ash Institute, not to sell life insurance, okay, we're [00:18:00] trying to promote.

[00:18:01] Nelson, and we're trying to promote IBC in its purest sense and reduce it down to the fundamental form of what it is and what it looks like. And if a consumer, either in Canada, or the United States, sees it, hears it, or feels it, then they have an opportunity to do their due diligence and see what is this all about.

[00:18:20] Is this too good to be true? Okay, if it sounds too good to be true, then guess what, it probably isn't. Is so fun, do your research. Okay. You'll read the 22, the 92 page book, figure out what this is really all about, and then started asking some educated questions to your financial advisor, your insurance agent, whatever, and see.

[00:18:39] If they can defend themselves when it comes to, what this is really, what the real essence of IBC is about, okay? So it's, Nelson always said that, there's, this is more something that is caught than taught, okay? When somebody gets it, they get it in a big way.

[00:18:58] Okay, and it's like you got to [00:19:00] slow them down because they want to do everything now Okay, and some people just regard it is saying listen life insurance is terrible. The whole life product is antiquated Okay, why would I buy an antiquated product number one? And why would I pay the insurance company interest on my money?

[00:19:18] Okay, in the form of a policy loan. Okay, guys, you don't understand what this is about. Okay, so that's, anyway. What our greatest fear is, okay, ours, Carlos, Laura, and I at the Institute, is that our practitioners don't feel confident to debate anyone out there about IBC.

[00:19:44] Okay, that's what we want you to be able to do. If Dave Ramsey gives you a phone call, you should be able to debate him in any form about IBC and about whole life insurance, how it works. Okay, and again, it's not about selling, it's [00:20:00] about helping. If you're helping in the right way, you don't have to sell.

[00:20:05] Because once the public understands the problem, then they'll eagerly accept the solution.

[00:20:15] But anyway...

[00:20:16] John Perrings: Hey David, John Perrings here. Great to have you on. I wanted to just jump in. And, you brought up a great, the topic that we have written down here is something we wanted to discuss, and you touched on it already, but in your mind, what's the big difference between, the Nelson Nash Institute and authorized practitioners versus some of the other stuff you see out there?

[00:20:40] I think it'd be great for people to hear that directly from you in terms of what those things are. Number

[00:20:45] David Stearns: one the practitioners. are vested in Nelson Nash and his legacy, okay? They don't stand behind anybody but him. They don't project themselves as, somebody who has [00:21:00] the Arrival Syndrome, okay?

[00:21:01] They're humble enough to say, this is the man who started this, and this is who I'm indebted to for what I'm doing, why I'm doing it and that's, that, that is critically important for us. Number two is... The institute is not a sales program or a marketing program, it's fundamentally educational in nature and the vast majority of the resources that we provide are free.

[00:21:24] To the public, okay, in the form of either podcasts, videos, or articles or whatever, okay and our methodology and philosophy is to educate the public, okay, and if I educate the public and they come back to me and says, okay, I'm educated now, what do I do next? It's time to implement it.

[00:21:46] Implement the concept, and go find somebody, okay, no, implement the concept, okay, this is what you've learned, okay, here's somebody that's learned the same thing to a higher degree and they've committed [00:22:00] themselves to the program, so obviously this is the individual you need to talk to.

[00:22:05] John Perrings: And you're referring to the authorized Infinite Banking Practitioners listed on the website.

[00:22:10] David Stearns: Authorized Practitioners. And again, we, they're listed by state of residence. Okay. And so you can find somebody by state. Now obviously if somebody wants to, if an agent wants to become a practitioner, then it's how many hits am I going to get? How many leads am I going to get? Get Generated.

[00:22:29] It depends on you, okay? It depends on who you are, it depends on how you project yourself, it depends on what type of media you use, or whatever, blah, blah, blah. What surprised me, okay, when we set this thing up, and we offered these listings for authorized practitioners for the public to find typically, I think that a lot of people do not look for a practitioner.

[00:22:53] What they do is they try to validate if somebody they've seen, either on YouTube, or somebody they've talked to, [00:23:00] Or somebody that you've done business with who's a financial planner is that person listed as a practitioner or not? And so they use my website, my finder, as a vetting tool, and they don't find an individual there, so they move on, and then they find somebody who's, who is listed.

[00:23:18] So that kind of surprised me, because I thought they'd be looking for somebody right off the get go, but typically that's what happens.

[00:23:25] John Perrings: Yeah, and, so one of the questions that I've gotten a couple times is someone will contact me and they'll say, hey, I see you're listed on the Nelson Nash site.

[00:23:36] Why should I care? Basically, like what's the difference between you and someone that I found on YouTube, whatever. So like for someone, we obviously care. We care about upholding the legacy because that's important. We care about, continuing on with what IBC was originally.

[00:23:53] Meant for, and the principles of IBC. We of course care about that, but why should [00:24:00] someone who just learned about infinite banking, why should they care about working with an authorized practitioner versus like someone who just has a bunch of YouTube videos?

[00:24:09] David Stearns: You should care about it because you know that you're going to get the right support, okay, the right education.

[00:24:15] You know you're going to get the right product set. Okay. We've been talking about permanent home life, from mutual company. We still think that is the absolute best product set for privatized banking or infinite banking business stability and the guarantees. Okay. If you find somebody else on YouTube or whatever.

[00:24:36] You don't know what you're going to get. If they say, what kind of product are we getting? You're getting the best product. It could be a UL, for example, or something like that. And they, and that's what they like to sell. So that's what they'll defend that and say, this is a better banking tool than a permanent product.

[00:24:52] Because of XYZ and I'm your you don't know you're a consumer So if you want to make sure [00:25:00] and feel comfortable and confident that you're getting the best Support and product then you got to do a practitioner and also I don't know how many clients that you guys have, but typically, in my mind from seeing, and talking to authorized practitioners, if you're doing this right as a practitioner, it's hard to manage more than 200 clients as an IBC.

[00:25:23] Professional, because it's not just, policy design and policy delivery. You better be coaching those people, your clients, from here on out. You gotta coach them. You gotta, you, it's not delivery and walk, okay? Because I find myself slipping also and doing something stupid or forgetting how to do something because I'm not doing it every single day where you guys are.

[00:25:47] Okay, so a practitioner, Authorized (IBC) Practitioner, better be vested in supporting that client from here on out, okay? And it takes, constant coaching on how to utilize that [00:26:00] policy as a banking mechanism is critically important, okay? And and also if you do that, what is that going to do? It's going to lead to referrals too, obviously.

[00:26:09] And most of the people that I work with that are authorized practitioners, that are the old school guys that have been doing it for a long time, They, the lion's share of their business, their new business, is referrals or just repeat policies from somebody because they, they take that time invested that coaching support.

[00:26:30] John Perrings: The last [IBC] Think Tank, which is, we have an annual think tank for authorized practitioners where we all get together. It's been in Birmingham, Alabama for a long time. And the, one of the focus of the last couple anyway has been policy design. So one of the big things that we deal with as IBC practitioners with all the various, sources of, information information can be good or bad.

[00:26:58] All those various sources of information, [00:27:00] one of the things that was a takeaway from this last think tank was a focus on a little bit on policy design now, and of course, the Nelson Nash Institute doesn't take a heavy hand on Hey, this is how you have to do things, which I think is good.

[00:27:15] But I think some of the, maybe social media people who are not part of the Nelson Nash Institute are really just riding the coattails of infinite banking. In my opinion they don't even know about it. They're taught. A whole, different way, or they figured out a whole different way to talk about it.

[00:27:30] It really just boils down to, how to look at the cash value. That's the only thing they really look at. But what are your thoughts on helping people who are getting hyper focused on policy design? And what are your thoughts on policy design, for the Nelson Nash Institute and Authorized [IBC] Practitioners?

[00:27:48] David Stearns: I had a phone call yesterday from this gentleman from California and

[00:27:53] John Perrings: who is he? I'll get him . I'm just kidding. I dunno. He, I, he was Montoya, wasn't it? ?

[00:27:59] David Stearns: [00:28:00] He, I mean he, I get calls all the time from people and some of 'em are insurance agents who are pretending like they're consumers.

[00:28:06] Okay. But anyway, he said, Hey, this is great. I love this stuff, da, but I'm too old to implement it. And I said how old are you? He said 55. I said, I'm sorry. And he started laughing. Amazing. And he goes, because it's going to take me so long to build cash, etc...

[00:28:25] He said, I said, listen, I said, I bought a policy two months ago. And try to guess how old I am. And he goes I don't know, 50? I said, I'm 69. Okay. I said, why would I buy a policy if I'm 69 years old? Okay, so I'm trying to think about what we're talking about. And he goes gee, I don't, I don't know.

[00:28:52] I said, I don't have, I don't have a need for any more banking capacity, but I do have a need to insure a [00:29:00] grandchild. Okay, and set her up for her future and also put more of a commodity, banking commodity capability in my son's portfolio. And and he goes I don't know, what are you talking about?

[00:29:18] I said, I'm talking about banking, okay, I'm not talking about life insurance. And so going back to your question. Okay, so what does right look like? Okay, should I invest in a policy that's got a, that out of the premium 90 percent of it is Paid Up Additions Rider and 10 percent is base, or should I invest in something differently?

[00:29:39] It depends. Okay, how old are you? Okay, what are your fundamental goals in life? What are your financial goals? What does it look like? What are you trying to accomplish? Unfortunately, the YouTubers and the TikTokers, they say, you're getting ripped off. [00:30:00] Okay, if your cash surrender value on day one isn't X percentage of your premium, you're getting ripped off.

[00:30:07] Okay, so the public says, this number is bigger than that number, so they're right. By the way, you're getting ripped off because those other guys are making more commission than I am because the lion's share of the commission comes from the base premium, not the PUA. So I'm doing you a favor.

[00:30:24] Boom! Okay, you're my guy or gal or whatever. Okay, fast forward four years. Okay, I want to do a policy loan to buy a new GMC pickup truck. Okay, yeah, I've cashed my underbody. I'm gonna, I'm gonna borrow the money. I borrow it. Okay, I'm gonna start repaying. And all the different mechanisms in these policies, the dividend scales, the insurance companies interest rate charges on loan policies, da, all add up to guess what?

[00:30:52] If you do XYZ, your policy is going to MEC (become taxable). Okay, all these different little [00:31:00] mechanisms within the insurance policy construct, they just start floating to the surface. And now I have a policy that I had a great first year, second year, third year cash surrender value. Now I essentially, I really can't use it for anything I want to use it for because it's so razor thin, I can't use it.

[00:31:16] Okay, or I didn't understand this as a client because nobody told me that, yeah, it's not going to MEC today or tomorrow or the next day, but I'm going to have to reduce premium over the course of the policy so it will not MEC. If you guys need a MEC explanation, you can handle that. But anyway, so what I was an uneducated client listening to somebody who was telling me either the truth or telling me...

[00:31:45] What they thought was the truth. And now I'm stuck with it, with something that I really cannot use as a banking mechanism for the remainder of my life or a generational transfer, because there's again, nuances. [00:32:00] Okay that's, and our guys know that. If they don't, then please tell me. And, a 90% might work for somebody, perfectly for them, depending upon, again, who they are.

[00:32:12] Because, it, I focus, again, like you said, on the consumer. I focus on the average American or average Canadian. And I focus on somebody who wants to build a system of policies, not just one. Okay, and they want to... Have coverage. Everybody needs death coverage. Everybody. Period. That's got to be, that's got to be adhered to and taken care of.

[00:32:37] And also, those policies need to be a lasting legacy for the next generation and the following generation. Okay what does that look like in policy design? You tell me, okay? And it's not a "90/10".

[00:32:55] I'm sorry.

[00:32:56] John Perrings: No, that, I think you're hitting the nail on the head, and that's, Montoya and I [00:33:00] talk about this all the time. And it really does come down to what the client needs. But, I will say that with all the, what I would call incomplete or inaccurate information out there, a lot of times the client thinks they need one thing.

[00:33:16] But if they understand the strategies around having the presence of a permanent life insurance death benefit, all of a sudden that death benefit starts to, you start to understand that. Actually is where the value comes from. That's where the cash value comes from. It comes from the death benefit.

[00:33:34] And then there are all kinds of strategies, retirement strategies, income strategies, all these things that you can do with a guaranteed permanent death benefit that you can't do as well or at all without it. I think that went. I think that resonated pretty well with a lot of people at the think tank this last year.

[00:33:53] And so I was appreciative of of some of that work that went into some of the talks we had this year.[00:34:00]

[00:34:01] David Stearns: Nelson boiled it down to five principles. Okay. So you check the box with those five principles. And if you want to do. If you want to own a bank, you want the bank to be a stable, long term entity that you can use forever.

[00:34:23] Okay. So with that in mind, what should, which is your policy look like, which is your policy look like? That's all it is. And then also another pet peeve I have is, Nelson said, finally do not do business with banks because they'll own you. Okay, especially, if you're a business owner and you have a line of credit that you turn into a note or whatever, you're, they'll own it eventually.

[00:34:51] Why would somebody take out a loan to fund a policy, like a bank loan? Isn't that [00:35:00] contradictory to the whole concept of being, becoming your own banker? Why would somebody... I

[00:35:04] John Perrings: didn't even know people were doing that. People are taking bank loans to fund a policy?

[00:35:09] David Stearns: Bank loans to fund a policy.

[00:35:10] Why would somebody have a HELOC? And use the HELOC to borrow money to fund a policy. Okay, those are some of the things that just don't make sense to me. And yet, some people defend that we're trying to jumpstart it. Because they can't afford a large premium.

[00:35:28] John Montoya: Yeah, I think it boils down to their mindset and that high time frequency.

[00:35:35] They're thinking of, what they're essentially doing is chasing yield. And they're just like an investment, and one of the things that we try to really implore is that this is a contract, it's not an investment. And, we're, if you're chasing yield you're doing yourself a disservice and [00:36:00] you need to step back because you don't grasp the bigger picture.

[00:36:05] And, what Nelson was really great at was over and over again, reminding people that you have to think long term. And one of my favorite things to remind people is that you have to build a, an economic foundation. A base, when you're building a house, you start with a foundation and the mindset where you're thinking about.

[00:36:28] Going out and getting a line of credit to jumpstart a policy, it just doesn't jive. It doesn't work. And so part of our part of what we're trying to do as IBC practitioners is. Help people to step back and see the bigger picture, like how Nelson taught us to do. And I think for me one of my favorite Nelson stories is how he told me called me up early in the morning back in 2007.

[00:36:58] I asked him a question about direct [00:37:00] versus non direct because I thought that was important in reference to dividends. And he called me up much to my surprise after I sent him an email. And after introducing himself, he said, son, you're majoring in the minors. And he set me straight right from the get go.

[00:37:15] And that's resonated with me really to this point and to the rest of my life. He helped me step back and see the bigger picture. And so one of the things I wanted to ask you, David, is do you have a favorite saying of Nelson that you hear him? in your head like how he told me, son, you're majoring in the minors.

[00:37:36] Do you have a saying that you could share with us?

[00:37:40] David Stearns: Yeah. There's a whole bunch of them. I'm sure. And in one of them, this might sound negative, but here it is, you ready? Lies, okay? It's oh, it's okay, he's, of course, he's from Georgia, so he had a very strong [00:38:00] southern accent.

[00:38:00] Lies lies. And then he, and they talk about the fear factory, okay? And you see it on the news every single day. Fear. Most of those, they're trying to generate dependency, okay? By, by scaring you. And so he said, listen, everything's fine. Everything's good. Okay, just stop listening to the noise.

[00:38:29] Noise is a another connotation he kept talking about. And don't listen to the lies. Understand what's really going on. Educate yourself, okay? And then focus on the solution, okay, at the UME level. And like you alluded to before these policies are not money accounts. There's no money in a policy. Like you said, it's a contract.

[00:38:51] And it's a contract between an individual and a company, okay? There's no intermediary in there. There's no, it's not a [00:39:00] government plan, okay? You don't have to ask permission to do anything with these contracts. It cuts out the middleman, it cuts out... The government, these accounts, if they're handled properly, equals freedom.

[00:39:17] Okay. And it gets you away from that noise. So yeah, it's, Nelson was remarkable because he was he was taught parables, and taught, he used analogies a lot. Obviously the grocery store, most people never figured out what he was talking about with the grocery store. Okay. And he'd say, listen.

[00:39:37] If you're going to be an honest banker, then you need to understand how to run a business because you're creating a business. And so the grocery store analogy was about managing and correctly and developing and building and using a business correctly, i. e. Your own banking system for a series of policies.

[00:39:54] That's what it's about. And so that's what made him

[00:39:58] a [00:40:00] and yeah, I learned a lot from him, obviously. Since I was in the military, I only saw him two or three times a year up until about, the mid nineties. And then when we moved to Birmingham in 2000, I spent almost every day with him, okay, until he passed. And And he would one of the things that he would do, and I finally figured this out, okay, if he thought something was really important that you had to know, he didn't beat you over the head with it.

[00:40:28] He just drop a couple of hints out there and see if you picked up on it or not. And if you picked up on it and you came back and you were like asking questions or trying to qualify what he was getting at then he was, all he was baiting the hook. So you do your own discovery and you do your own learning.

[00:40:48] Okay. That's, he was really good at that. But anyway, going back to one of the initiatives that we're doing here at the Institute. We're doing two things. Okay. We've I've got this council of [00:41:00] practitioners that we, I put together to help me look at, help me and Carlos Lara look at the, look at what we're doing and where we need to be going.

[00:41:09] In the future. And so we're coming up with a three year strategic plan. Okay, and we're going to whatever resources are needed to support that will be decided upon also. And we're doing two things immediately. The first thing we're doing is I'm investing in a in YouTube platform because we do have a channel out there, but obviously it's not very active because we're not a bunch of YouTube enablers like we should be.

[00:41:34] But we're investing in that. And we're committed to putting out a lot of content. On a weekly basis and a monthly basis going forward, and that content looks like Nelson Nash. Okay, it's not me talking like I am now it's Nelson Nash talking because I have hours and hours of unpublished videos on Nelson that I've that we've been waiting to curate and get out [00:42:00] there, and so it's going to be bite sized.

[00:42:02] This is stuff that helps cut down the noise on these social media platforms. Because you're going to be hearing it and seeing the man talk himself about this stuff. And stay tuned for that, okay? The second piece is trying to develop a better mentoring program. Because no matter who you are, you need somebody to mentor you, regardless of your experience level, of your age, whatever.

[00:42:26] And we do have a mentoring program for our IBC practitioners, but it's not what I want it to be. And so that's going to be strengthened and revamped, and hopefully that will be out in the next year, so we can create a better community within the practitioner community,

[00:42:43] John Perrings: anything you could say about the changes you might want to make with that, or?

[00:42:48] Is that something for our next podcast interview?

[00:42:52] David Stearns: It was, it's still, right now it's just discussion. Okay. Yeah. Every three weeks and we talk, I say we, I'm talking about my [00:43:00] six guys that I'm working with. And we talk about, ideas, what it looks like now, how it can be better, dah.

[00:43:07] And I always thought that we needed a stronger implementation training program. Okay, all this education is great that we're teaching, but let's take it and let's create something that a new practitioner can follow, something more structured. And then once they develop their personalities and develop their, their strength and weak points and whatever, they can, expand it in whatever direction they want to go.

[00:43:37] So it's focused on something like that. Yeah.

[00:43:40] John Perrings: Cause a lot of times, a new authorized practitioner, sometimes a new agent, which was the case for me. You get these people who learn about IBC, and they make a whole career change like I did. And you come in and luckily I, John Montoya was generous enough with his time to help me [00:44:00] get started with contracting and all that stuff, but then also the Nelson National Institute, you just.

[00:44:06] Even as it is now, I learned so much from it. And I think just like life insurance, there's no better time to start than today. And we do have agents that listen to this podcast. So maybe you could talk a little bit about what's the process to get started and to become authorized.

[00:44:24] David Stearns: The process is simply reach out to me, reach out to us at the Institute, and start a dialogue, okay? The only prerequisite we have for somebody to apply for the practitioner program is to have an active life license in their state or residence in their province in Canada. And that serves as a background check, and also, the only people we want to be practitioners are individuals who can service their clients themselves.

[00:44:53] Okay, I don't want somebody out there promoting themselves, passing off leads that they generate from our [00:45:00] organization. And go to the website, InfiniteBanking.Org go to the practitioner program page of the training tab, read the process for applying. Submit your IBC Practitioner Agreement to me via email.

[00:45:15] We'll have a phone call to find out who you are, where you are in your professional life. And like you said, a lot of these people are new people. They're making a career change. Because they've done it as they've done it themselves. And they see that it, not only that it works, but it frees them and provides them a sense of peace and they want to take that out to the community.

[00:45:37] And so then we have the conversation and it's okay, we'll set up an interview for you as an applicant for the program. And Carlos and I interview via Zoom, typically takes an hour. And find out exactly why they want to be a practitioner. That's more important than who you are. It's like, why do you want to do this?

[00:45:57] Are you looking just because you want another lead [00:46:00] generator? We don't want you. Okay, are you going to, are you going to misrepresent the source? We don't want you. Are you going to sell the wrong products set? We don't want you. Okay, are you trying to just generate, to become a practitioner so you can, hang another certificate on your wall?

[00:46:18] We don't want you. Anyway, if there, if we accept them, then we notify them, okay, we've accepted you to the program. With the precondition that before you actually join as a full member, you gotta work with a mentor just like you work with John Montoya. And so you pass the test that, we have a course that's, a 14 module course online.

[00:46:43] Pass the test, and then you start working with that mentor. And I don't care who you are, if you're told that you have to work with a mentor, and that mentor has to approve you to become a full member, then... Then we listen to the mentor. That's the person that, that has the authority [00:47:00] to get you on board, okay?

[00:47:01] And then once you join, you pay an annual membership fee, okay? And we don't take overrides on your production because we're not an insurance company. We're not licensed agents. All we do is, we live on course enrollment fees and membership dues is what we live on. And of course we sell, I sell books also obviously.

[00:47:24] So that's what it's all about, and what we're trying to do is we're trying to build a community, okay, of like minded professionals that can rely upon each other and get, community support. So you alluded to the Think Tank we're talking Think Tank now for 2024. We're talking dates, we're talking locations, we're talking about format, and we're talking about what's our target audience, i.e., How many people are we looking at having there, and and how can, what's the general theme of the the think tank [00:48:00] going to be? Stuff like that. Stay tuned for that.

[00:48:06] John Perrings: A cool, quick story on my end. I was a... I don't know what you'd call it and maybe an amateur Austrian economist where, I was just, super into Austrian economics, spent a ton, a lot of years reading it.

[00:48:18] And that's how I learned about infinite banking through Bob Murphy and. Of course, then I spent years practicing IBC, thanks to John Montoya, who wrote my first policy, and, so then, of course, Nelson Nash was on my mind, and then I decided to get into this business, so my interview call with all of you, I got to, I was on a Zoom call with, like, all these people that, had really helped.

[00:48:44] Change my mind, Nelson Nash was on it, you were on it Carlos Lara was on it, Bob Murphy was on it, and so I had this really cool experience of doing this, it was a Zoom call at the time with all of you, and it was it was pretty awesome for those folks [00:49:00] who have been doing IBC and thinking about getting into it it's a pretty cool experience and good to make sure you're synced up with the principles of the Nelson Nash Institute.

[00:49:08] Thank you.

[00:49:10] Yeah. It's not non threatening, just a conversation, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're still doing that. We're probably going to, another initiative again is probably going to have some sort of portal created so somebody can go in the portal and they can provide all their information digitally up front.

[00:49:34] To enable us to get a better idea of who they are, even before we pick up the telephone and talk to them. Try to bring it into the 22nd century. But same process as what you went through. John was, John Montoya was pre-interview time, since interviewed a gal yesterday, or Wednesday, and she was just friggin amazing. And she wrote me a beautiful letter. If we accepted her and she said all the right things, I tell you [00:50:00] what and again, they're the more, the people that are applying for our program are convicted. Okay.

[00:50:07] That's the big thing. It's not okay, I need another sales system. I need, I need another credential. The people that are convicted to the movement, they're convicted. To the full, the concept, okay, the convicted to privatized banking and they want to get it right. So that's great.

[00:50:27] So anyway, that's that.

[00:50:31] John Montoya: David, thank you so much for being on the show with us. Your wisdom that you share with us.

[00:50:36] I can. Hear Nelson through you and that's just an incredible gift that Nelson was and the legacy that you carry on. And John and I we try to carry that, that legacy on and what we do in connecting with people and teaching IBC the right way. So it's just an incredible honor to have you here with us.

[00:50:58] John Perrings: Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate [00:51:00] it.

[00:51:02] David Stearns: Anytime. Let's get together again if you want to. Sounds good.

[00:51:08] John Perrings: All right, everybody. This has been a great talk. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with David Stearns, the president of the Nelson Nash Institute. And if you liked what you heard or any of this is resonating with you and you'd like to learn more about how it could apply in your life personally, just reach out to John and me.

[00:51:25] Go to TheFifthEdition.Com and you can schedule a 30 minute no obligation consultation with us and we can talk about you. So once again, thank you very much, David. Thank you, John. We'll we'll see you guys soon.