My early financial life was rocky, significantly shaped by the inevitable ups and downs of my dad's real estate business. This led me to the safer profession of law, where I learned several crucial principles. Law school contracts class planted the first seed, where I realized the importance of using contracts as a critical aspect of building wealth with intention and that our entire economic system operates in this way.
After law school, as I ventured into the working world, my uncle Jake, a seasoned advisor at Northwestern Mutual, educated me about the importance of having both a defense and an offense in financial planning. He pointed out that most people only focus on offense in their pursuit of money. At that time, I didn't buy into his recommendation of whole life insurance, opting instead for term insurance, focusing on offense. However, given my upbringing and influences, it was a natural progression for me to gravitate toward a protective career interest in estate planning, eventually starting my practice in Florida.
My uncle's early advice later became my mission, albeit with a different focus: to help people set up legal defenses to protect themselves proactively in a crisis. Over the years, I helped thousands of individuals protect and preserve their assets, securing their financial futures. I also witnessed many unfortunate fallouts during the 2007-2008 real estate collapse and the subsequent recession. My experience in helping so many clients with their assets gave me a growing appreciation for things like state asset protection, tax code advantages, and contractual guarantees.
When a colleague introduced me to Nelson Nash's infinite banking concept, something clicked for me. I learned that you could design whole life differently to reduce costs and provide enhanced cash value growth. This understanding corrected my earlier flawed perception of whole life insurance as expensive and strictly for long-term growth strategies.
It wasn't long before my understanding of the power of this asset evolved into a new mission: to help people understand the numerous advantages of this powerful financial tool, which include guaranteed growth, asset protection, tax advantages, liquidity, and flexibility. I launched Insuranceandestates.com to further this mission in collaboration with other like-minded professionals.
"The Intentional Wealth Effect" culminates this mission, harnessing the philosophical and practical lessons that took me many years to recognize. I hope it inspires you in your learning process.