- IRAs and 401ks invested in the market
only score about 40 to 60% of what your score could be.
In this educational episode,
I'm going to address the question
how do your investments score
in relation to the four key elements
of a prudent investment?
Get ready!
You're gonna be shocked,
if you have money in IRAs or 401ks invested in the market,
you're only scoring about 18 to 22 points
out of a possible 40.
To me, that's unacceptable.
(bright music)
So I'm Doug Andrew,
and I've been helping thousands of Americans
optimize their assets, minimize taxes
and empower their authentic wealth now for five decades.
And if you've watched very many of my episodes
or read any of my 12 books,
you'll realize that my favorite financial vehicle
that scores the highest on a scorecard,
that a max funded indexed universal life insurance contract
that's structured correctly and funded properly
will score 33 to 35 out of possible 40
or even higher.
So I don't want you to miss out.
I've been teaching this for years
and so if your investments that you've been saving money in
and you think you're doing pretty good,
you need to have a wake up call.
So let's talk about how to score your investments.
If you've ever been to one of my educational events
or watched some of my videos,
I have a scorecard for the general public
where my educational firm
is called Three-Dimensional Wealth.
And so I have my audiences,
if they come to a two hour webinar or seminar
or six hour retired by design event
or even a three day clarity retreat,
I always pass out an 11 by 17 scorecard
that looks like this.
And during the process of that,
I am teaching them over a hundred principles
but there's 10 overwriting principles
that are game changers.
They will make the difference
between you may be running outta money
because of taxes, inflation and market volatility
before you're gone, okay?
You outlive your money
and being able to have income if you live to be 120.
It also is the difference between money
and what I call true or authentic wealth.
So, the three dimensions of authentic wealth involve
not only the financial dimension, the money,
but also what I call the legacy dimensions,
your foundational assets, that would be your family,
your health, your values, your beliefs and so forth
and also your intellectual assets
because wisdom is a product of knowledge times experiences.
It's your formal education, reputation,
methods, systems, traditions, alliances, ideas and skills.
So, what makes my approach unique is
I focus on all three dimensions.
It's like a three-legged stool.
Why?
Because I have found that there's a lot of people
that sometimes accumulate 10, 15, 20 million bucks,
and they always come to me at age 67 on their deathbed
and they always have unacceptable regrets.
They go, 'Doug, what was all this for?
I'm not gonna take any of this money with me
and I'm gonna die sooner than I thought.'
Why?
Well, because they were out of balance.
Maybe they were accumulating their wealth
at the expense of their health,
and later in life, they're spending all their wealth
trying to regain that health.
That's sort of stupid.
Many times people are accumulated their financial wealth
at the expense of relationships
with their spouse, their kids, their grandkids, their God,
whatever their belief is of a higher power.
And they always, at the end of the day, say,
'Doug, I have 20 million, but I'm bankrupt in my health.
I'm bankrupt in relationships.
My wife left me years ago.
My kids won't even come around.
And now my grandkids, what was all this for?'
And so they come to me to take the wobble out of their life
'cause this three-legged stool,
they've been wobbling on maybe one leg,
just the money, money, money.
Now there's other people that wobble just on the physique.
I have acquaintances that are body builders
and they just focus so much on the next medal
they're gonna win
and then their marriage goes down the drain
and all the relationships
'cause they're so focused on themselves and their physique.
You've gotta be balanced.
So that's why I focus on all three dimensions
of authentic wealth.
And so on the scorecard, these are 12,
excuse me, these are 10 principles.
And I like people to score where they are at
in all of these principles.
Now, the last five on here have to do
with the legacy dimensions I was talking about.
It's the difference between abundance
versus scarcity mindsets.
A three-dimensional approach, three-legged stool
versus just focusing on one dimension like money,
teaching responsibility and accountability
instead of blaming, justifying or operating in shame.
Equal opportunity living instead of equal distribution.
And if you have a trust,
you wanna set up equal opportunities,
but not equal distribution if it's just divided up
when you die and it dumps in their lap,
it ruins half of your kids.
When do I get my share, entitlement?
That's why I wrote the book, 'Entitlement Abolition'.
And values and vision document because if you have a trust,
I assure you your kids will never read that document
except one page that says how much they get.
But I can show you how to capture what's in here and here.
I can give you an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper.
And you pull out your smartphone and push record.
You read down the questions on this one sheet of paper
in order, and you answer those questions off the the cuff
in front of your smartphone.
And I assure you, your kids and grandkids for generations
will watch and re-watch, listen and re-listen,
read and re-read that.
They're not gonna read your trust.
So, these are examples of the last five principles here.
What I wanna focus on is the first five
which have directly to do with the financial dimension,
your money.
So when we look at it, the first four are the key elements
of a prudent investment.
Liquidity - the ability to access your money
when you need it.
Maybe with an electronic funds transfer phone call.
Many investments are not liquid.
They don't pass the liquidity test
because if you access money, it triggers a 10% penalty
if it's an IRA or 401k.
And it triggers tax
or maybe if it's real estate or something like that,
you have to wait until the perfect timing to sell it
because the market might be down, okay?
Safety of principle, whenever you set aside money,
you wanna make sure
that you do not lose the money that you set aside
and any year you make money
that you want that to become newly protected principle.
A lot of investments don't pass that.
Rate of return - you want a rate of return
that's linked to inflation.
Inflation, I don't like it probably any more than you do
but it doesn't hurt me
because I link my returns to the things that inflate.
Back in 1980,
when Jimmy Carter caused inflation to go double digit
and inflation at 10%,
I was earning 15 and a 5% on my universal life.
I've always earned at least 5% higher
than the inflation rate.
If you don't outpace inflation,
you're growing upstream at the rate of maybe four or five
or six miles an hour,
and the current inflation's coming down at eight or nine,
you're going backwards.
In COVID-19, when inflation hit 15%,
our clients with IUL Laser Funds
locked in gains of 25%, 61% and even 158%
because they learned how to link their returns
to the things that inflate.
And then you want to use tax advantages.
There's good ways, better ways, and best ways.
A good way maybe would've been an IRA 401k,
but now it's a poor way in my opinion.
Roth are better
if you think taxes are gonna be higher in the future.
I can prove to you the same amount of money
at the same rate of return in a Roth,
if taxes go up to the level
that General Accountability Office says they have to go to
to cover the deficit spending,
a Roth will give you 50% more income or last much longer
than the same amount of money in an IRA or 401k.
But 91% of Americans are duped
into putting money into a traditional IRAs or 401ks.
So let me use this as an example.
You go across this scorecard
and it's ranged from poor, fair, good, better to best.
And so I ask my attendees,
I want you to learn these principles
and then read across this scorecard,
let's lose tax advantages and whatever statement typifies
where you have most of your money,
you circle that and you look up, oh, that's only fair.
That's only a score of three or four.
That's money in traditional IRAs or 401ks.
Oh, a score of five or six is Roth's.
Oh, well what's a score of nine or 10?
It's totally tax-free accumulation and protecting yourself
from market downturns and everything.
That's a property structured
Max Funded Indexed Universal Life,
then esteemed a Laser Fund.
Laser's an acronym
that stands for Liquid Assets Safely Earning Returns, okay,
tax-free.
That's why it's called the Laser Fund.
So when I ask people to add up their scores
and let me give you an example.
I had a couple that came to the San Francisco Bay area
and they had saved 2.6 million in their IRAs or 401ks
and their wife had a schoolteacher pension
that was gonna generate about 40,000 a year.
The 2.6 million in IRAs of 401ks in the market,
they calculated at a 6% payout would generate about
160,000 a year
and then another 40,000 on top of that.
So they said, 'Hey, look at us.
We've got 200,000 a year of income, we're set.'
I go, 'Well, because of inflation,
you're gonna need about $400,000 in less than five years
to buy the same gallons of gas and loaves of bread
the 200,000 buys today.'
You may be watching this
and you don't live in California, you go 200,000, man,
I could get by really good.
You don't understand California.
The costs are through the roof, okay?
Five bedroom homes sell for 5 million bucks, okay?
A dozen eggs where in most of the country,
eggs went up due to the COVID 19 and the printing of money
and a dozen eggs started to go up
to where eggs are 30 to 50 cents a piece.
In the Bay Area, when eggs are 50 cents a piece,
they're a buck 50 a piece,
a dozen eggs is 18 bucks as I'm speaking right now
at a grocery store the Bay Area.
So it's all relative.
But see, this couple came and they thought,
'Oh! We're in good shape. We've got 2.6 million.'
until they learned better.
Because their IRAs are 401ks, they thought,
'Man, we're set.'
No, it's only about a three or four on a scale of one to 10.
And so when they learned that
they had to put down a three or four over here
on their score.
I'm just gonna focus on the first four.
So you add up your score on the first four:
liquidity, safety, rate of return, and tax advantages
and people end up going, 'Whoa', like this couple,
'Oh, we only have a score of 18 out of a possible 40 points.
Well, we're not even 50% of the way there.'
But they thought they were there
when they walked into the seminar.
So, we had to perform a strategic rollout
to get their money outta those IRAs or 401ks.
Now they just wanted to get,
60% of their income off of their 1040 tax return
because when they showed me, it only took about 30 seconds
and I went, 'Oh! I see one big problem here.
All 200,000 of this income you're expecting
is gonna show up on the front page of your 1040 tax return.
And they went, 'So there's another way?'
'Oh yeah, you'll learn about it here.
So, I would recommend
that maybe 120,000 of that 200,000
not even show up on your 1040 tax return,
you'll save 40,000 a year in tax the rest of your life
based upon yours and your wife's life expectancy.
I can save you a million bucks.
Would that interest you?'
'Absolutely.'
So they performed a strategic rollout.
In five years, they still had 200,000 of income.
Actually we increased it to 240,000
because I was able to increase their rate of return
but just let's just go down to 200.
They still had 200,000 of income
but they were only paying tax the rest of their life
on 80,000 of that.
The other 120,000 was tax free in a 33% bracket.
We saved them 40 grand a year, the rest of their life.
Based on their life expectancies,
it's at least a million dollars,
especially as it transfers down to their kids.
So, that's what a scorecard does.
So when I ask you to sort of analyze
how do your investment score,
well, this is why I wrote the book, 'The Laser Fund.'
So this book that I want to gift you a copy of here
and I'll pay for the book,
but on the front you'll see these four bars, L-S-R-T
that stands for liquidity, safety, rate of return
because those are the key elements of a prudent investment:
liquidity, safety, rate of return and tax benefits
in that order.
So many financial advisors put this first,
oh, let's go out and try to earn
the greatest rate of return
and then it gets gobbled up with taxes or it's not liquid
or you can lose money in the market
when you're trying to go for pie in the sky rates of return.
The higher return you want,
the more risk you're gonna incur and is not safe.
So you wanna put this first, this second, this third
and this fourth, that is accomplished best
by using a Max Funded Index Universal Life.
I have averaged since 1997, 11.17%
netting 10.07% after all costs.
Every million dollars can generate
a hundred thousand dollars a year of income.
People who have money in the market,
their score is only like 18 or 22 and every million,
they only want you to pull out 40,000 a year.
That's called the 4% rule.
And so I want to have the highest score with liquidity,
with safety, with rate of return and tax benefits.
The highest score on a scale of one to 10 would be 40
with those four criteria.
Most people have their money
and yet to be taxed IRAs or 401ks invested in the market,
your score is only gonna be be about 18 to 22.
How many of you would like a higher score
on your serious cash, especially as you approach retirement?
Then I would suggest you raise your score
up to 33, 35 or higher by repositioning your assets.
Do a strategic rollout, get your money outta the market,
out of those IRAs of 401ks,
get the taxes over and done with sooner than later
and convert to tax free,
eliminate the dangers of taxes, inflation
and market volatility.
When you see your financial score go up to 35 out of 40
and I don't know of any investment
in the scores a perfect 40, but you'll see a huge difference
and you will not outlive your money.
If you live to be 120,
every million bucks will generate a hundred thousand a year
of tax-free income without depleting principle.
Every million in the market in IRAs of 401ks,
this is gonna slowly deplete, hopefully not before you do.
But with inflation,
you're gonna have to pull out twice as much money.
With Indexed Universal Life,
inflation actually helps me instead of hinders me.
I don't like it anymore than anybody
but I outpace inflation.
So if you wanna learn how you can do this,
I would recommend that you study this book
that I've been talking about.
So you can go to Amazon and it's 20 bucks,
it's a 300 page book.
It's actually two books in one
and you'll probably pay another nine or 10 bucks
shipping and handling.
If you do, thank you but I'll gift you a copy.
So let me share how you can claim your free copy
but I said it's two books in one.
This side is about 200 pages.
This is the white side.
This is for you left brain learners
who learn by charts and graphs and percentages.
But if you learn more by stories and examples,
you flip it over to this one, the orange one.
This is about a hundred pages, 12 chapters
with 62 actual client stories of how a Max Funded IUL
is like a financial Swiss army knife.
It's a dream solution not only for retirement
but college funding, business working capital,
real estate management, emergency funds,
maximizing your income
if you're a schoolteacher, police officer, a firefighter.
You'll be blown away when you read the stories in here.
If you wanna use both your left brain and right brain,
I would recommend reading both books.
But you claim you're free copy by going to laserfund.com,
L-A-S-E-R Fund.com, or click on the link below.
You contribute a nominal amount
towards the shipping and handling.
I expect a little bit of skin in the game
but I'll pay for the book
and I'll immediately fire out a hard copy to you
via priority mail.
But while you're in there claiming your copy of the book,
if you also like to listen and learn or watch and learn,
there's audio and video options there too.
There's also a masterclass that you can also invest in,
but if you want to attend an educational webinar
that we teach on a regular basis, you can do that.
They're free, no charge.
There's also an opportunity you can fill in your name
in a blank in a calendar to meet with a IUL specialist
over go-to meeting or zoom, over the phone if you want
and they can design IUL correctly
to accommodate what you wanna have in the future.
And it will be done correctly, I oversee them.
You wanna make sure that you connect
with an IUL professional who knows how to do it right?
That's why I have a coalition of IUL insiders
that I have trained that do it correctly.
This is not about me,
this is about you and your brighter future.
So claim your free copy of the book
and we'll see you on the other side of a brighter future
where you will not outlive your money,
where your investments will have a higher score.
(bright music)