In this episode, we take a look at the seven pillars to grow your wealth.

Grant
Everybody, welcome to another episode of Financial investing radio. My name is Grant Larsen. And today I have in the house, one of those unique people that understands some of the fascinating ways to build and protect your wealth. I'm excited to have with me here today, Seth Hicks. Welcome, Seth.

Seth
Thank you so much Grant, glad to be here.

Grant
So when you reached out to me, and you started to say, hey, could we talk I started to look into what it was you're doing. I mean, I'm hearing words like private banking and asset protection expert, you hear some of that stuff? And you think, Oh, wow, do I have to have an advanced degree, right in financial management to understand this stuff. But what occurred to me is that I've seen some of these principles before, they don't seem to be well known by most. And so what I'm excited about is the opportunity through this channel here for you to continue to get your voice out there and say, here's a way that you can build and protect yourself. So first of all, how did you get into this?

Seth
Well, I practice law for about 25 years now, and have structured transactions, commercial real estate transactions, business, acquisitions, and sales. And kind of help people keep what they make, so to speak. And when I met my now partner, Vance Lowe, the principle of private banking strategies, it floored me to find how easy it was to make a few changes, and effectively do 100%. better job. And so what I mean by that is private banking strategies, we use whole life insurance policies that are structured in a way to have a high cash value, and in the appropriate structure and appropriate jurisdiction. They're statutorily exempted and protect it, much like a homestead in certain states and many of the same state. So, for example, in the southern states, you've got a post Civil War air legislation where...

Grant
It goes that far back post Civil War? All right, absolutely.

Seth
Yeah. So private banking goes back as far as Civil War era. And even before that precedes branch banking, it precedes the the type of current culture banking that we have. And the post Civil War era statutes protected their their citizens, the state citizens from Northern carpetbagging. So for example, yeah, for so for, like example, in Texas, and Oklahoma and Florida. And a lot of those states, south of the Mason Dixon Line, you have laws that protect homesteads. So in the event that there's a liability, and someone has a homestead that they've declared, it is 100% protected from being taken from them. And that was a product of the Civil War.

Grant
So let me ask you this, when you talk about how you know protection from having it taken, I'm assuming you're talking about scenarios like maybe bankruptcy scenario, or something else where you owe other people but you've got this protective layer that no one could actually come in and take that foundation from you. Is that right?

Seth
That's right. A lot of our clients, you know, higher net worth, some of some are ultra high net worth, and many are blue collar, but they have created strategies to keep what they make. I mean, no one wants to effectively work hard to earn money and then and then lose it. So those type of folks who gravitate towards structures where they're able to keep what they make, so for example, if you've got a homestead You're in Texas or in Florida, and you want to use it as a vault, and you don't have any debt on it and you're able to pay the property taxes, year after year, then it is 100% exempted from creditors or from outside taking.

Grant
So that's an important baseline is that it does need to be debt free, you have to have no mortgage on that or any liens against that. That'd be right.

Seth
Sure, yeah, you've got to if you've got a, you know, a loan with a traditional bank, they have a right to the mortgage payments or, and so they will effectively if not paid, foreclose on that, and those rights are obviously superior. But if you're if you're in a position where you're able to, for example, use your own private bank, through the cash value in your own policies, and purchase and acquire your home, or other assets through that entity, you would do the same structure, you mean, obviously, your bank and part of the cycle is getting the money back. And that's something that the Vance prides himself on his teaching people how to get the money back, you've probably heard some of that, and your private banking, that's one of the reasons that people do it, they effectively take the banking equation back into their own law into their own become the bank.

Grant
So as the flow is something like this, you get one of these Whole Life policies, it takes some time for you to build up some cash value, but then that cash value becomes something you can leverage and use for either purchasing other assets or leveraging it and other investments, so to speak. And that has some protection wrapped around it, is that what you're describing?

Seth
That's exactly what I'm describing. And like I said, a lot of our clients are higher net worth or even ultra high net worth. And when they capitalize their bank, they are, they're able to do a lot more with it right out of the gate. But for the blue collar guy, you're right, it's a, it's a steady increase that you use. A lot of folks use this as a retirement strategy, because the ins and outs are not a taxable event. And if any of the audience wants to dig on that it's internal revenue code 7702. And what that basically outlines is that your whole life policies, your your cash in and your cash out, are not taxable events. So compare that with like an IRA or a 401 K, that someone's been socking money into. When you take those distributions. Well, if you take them too soon, you're penalized you penalized if you take them too late, you're penalized. Yeah, and it would take them right in that the right time. You're still paying taxes, I'm still paying taxes on it. 

Grant
So every single cash transaction on the cash value, no tax, no taxation on that, right. That's, that's amazing. How blue collar person or someone that's not old truck, how do they get started then Is it is it I hate to say as simple as but Is it as simple as getting started with your whole life policy earlier in your life than later? So you can begin building out that cash value is is that the number one thing are what else would you do?

Seth
You know, I wouldn't say age is the number one determined to factor. In fact, we've got an article and a podcast that we've produced that says, you know, you're never too old to start private banking. And here's why. And we go through the outlines the benefits and values, which include asset protection, tax free growth, financial privacy, no taxation on the legacy value. So if you're leaving high value to heirs and benefits, beneficiaries, don't pay any taxes on that transaction, even if it's ultra high. So there's some value there, depending on what your primary motivations and focus are. And the age of course, if you start earlier, you're going to accrue a much greater and higher value as you you know, as you go year after year, but let me give you an example. We've got one of our favorite clients is as a woman in Texas, who was a single mom, and she started out with a $5,000 annual whole life policy and she made she made that contribution for a few years and and then use that cash value to as a downpayment into an investment property. Oh really? So she purchased this investment property as and then she also had third party financing of course, she began to develop cash flow from that and she paid her bank, her private bank back and as that cash value increased in a crate increased, she did The exact same thing, she rinsed and repeated the process with the second investment property. And now she has a million dollar equity portfolio in real estate from where she started at $5,000 leverage. Now, we've been, you know, she's had the benefit of an appreciating real estate market, she's had good investments, but it illustrates the principle that you can actually start in that small of an amount and and multiply that seed into something that really brings a large harvest.

Grant
That's fascinating. One of the things I noticed from you was, I think you call it the Seven Pillars of private banking strategies. Can you speak to that for a moment? What are those?

Seth
Sure, the first, the first pillar we've been talking about is asset protection. And the second pillar is tax free growth, which is we also referenced that compare that to a 401 K, or an IRA, you may have tax free growth inside, but you're going to pay taxes when it comes out. And we've got some illustrations that kind of compare those two things and show you you know, which comes out ahead, and it may look like a contributions from an employer and other matching proceeds will come out ahead. But in overtime, they really don't. So you've with inside the policy, you've got compounding growth, and you've got a tax free growth. And you've got a financial privacy. third pillar is financial privacy. Whereas compare that to a bank, for example, who has to KYC know their customer, know your customer, they want to understand, you know, every aspect of money in and money out, you going to try to take out or put in a large cash, for example, a 510 $1,000 Cash, I'm into your Wells Fargo or Bank of America account. And they want to, you know, cross examine you on 50 questions about why you're using cash, where, you know, that doesn't happen in a private contract with the life insurance companies, we use it, it's totally private, and they don't raise their hand and go, Hey, there's a large transaction in or out, and they're not required to by the IRS Code 7702

Grant
And it's just not part of their business model, right?

Seth
It's not part of their business model. No. And so it's interesting to point out this is kind of a little sidebar, but the largest players are the largest clients of the life insurance companies, or the centralized banks, like Wells Fargo and Bank of America. I think the last time I looked at Wells Fargo has a 20 plus billion dollar annual premium for life insurance policies that they hold on employees and, and others. So if, you know, gives you some insight.

Grant
That's huge. Okay, so right, so asset protection, tax free growth.

Seth
Tax free growth, financial privacy, privacy, the big one is velocity of money. And once philosophy of money, we describe that a little bit and in the the example that I gave our audience with the woman who started with a $5,000 premium, and then when she had enough to make a down payment on an investment property, she did so and so she she paid a premium dollar into the whole life policy, she borrowed that same dollar out to make a downpayment, she purchased a piece of real estate with that dollar, she got a rental dollar back from the tenant, and she paid her bank back on the note and deed of trust. And that's the velocity of money. It's the multiple touches within your own economy of the same dollar. And I mean, I'm simplifying it there with $1 but that's effectively the transaction.

Grant
Now that like you said earlier, it's the rinse and repeat principle right meaning absolutely cut it out. She's liquidated it used it acquired some capital back repaid herself and now she's she's reset to do again, right? That's absolutely. When every

Seth
When every dollar that she pays back into her bank, Grant, it increases the cash value, dollar for dollar. So you've got that that loan from your bank coming out. And when you recycle that rental cash flow back in or that business cash flow, or that cryptocurrency sell, or whatever your investment might be back into your bank, your cash value goes right back up to whatever you've put in. And so you and I both know that banks they make money by lending money. So Wells Fargo with and Bank of America orca Chase and these large centralized banks, they put their money to work by making good loans. They make loans that are secured, they make loans that are collateralized. And they, ultimately they want that cash flow with an interest rate. Well, it's the same principle with your own private bank. And you want to make a good loan to the borrower, whether it's your business, whether it's your brother, whether it's whatever a third party, you want to make a good loan, make sure it's collateralized and secure in the chief got an investment, cash flow, and an ROI on that loan coming back to your bank. And there's that cash flow increases again, you do the same thing. So you begin to think like a banker, you think like a banker?

Grant
Yeah. Because that's so liberating, right to people to be able to be on that side of the table. Right? making those choices. Alright, and then what's the fifth? So there were seven? So I was four. What's the fifth one?

Yeah, I'm looking at the seven pillars.

Seth
So guaranteed financing. Yeah, it financing. So let's say that you're that you've you've you've done like our our hypo example with a woman there. And she's gone through a number of years, but she only started with 5000. Remember, now let's say that she's got 100,000, in total cash value. And she's in a state like Texas, where you can buy an investment property for 100,000. Or she could lever into multiple properties on like an 8020, split, for example, you know, she could buy five properties with 20%, down and put 20,000 down on five properties that cost $100,000, financed the other 80%. And she's building cash flow on all five of those, and actually getting a much higher ROI. And in that example, what you what she would be doing was effectively using leverage to increase the ability to invest in multiple assets. And when her cash value stacks up high enough, she could take out the third party lenders, or she could continue to use that strategy of leverage. And that really depends on someone's their own risk tolerance, their own investment strategy, some folks, they you know, that they're going to eliminate those third party loans. And they're going to take that cash value and just totally take out the third party debt. And so the only debt that would remain on that particular real estate asset would be their, their own private bank. So the guaranteed financing part means you don't go to the bank, and you don't have to qualify, you don't have to go through any type of you know, yeah, because you're the bank. Yeah, you're the bank. Yeah. So you make sure you look that guy in the mirror, and you make sure that you're making a good loan on a good asset. And you do that. So but I described the principle of leverage, because a lot of times people get ahead on that concept of leverage, as opposed to just buying one property for $100,000. And let's say you're making 2000 a month, you got 24,000 in gross cash flow, versus, you know, if you spread that across five properties, and you got 24,000 times five life and cash flow, so you know, and you're able to just knock those debts out a lot faster. That's the velocity of money and guaranteed financing working together. Yeah.

Grant
And written replenishments faster. Okay. All right, number six, and seven, what are those on your seven pillars?

Seth
So guaranteed compounding it tax free growth is the part inside your policy that that cash value and your premium dollars, they are compounding inside the policy annually, and there's no taxable event. And so I think it was Einstein who said the, you know, the compounding interest is the eighth wonder of the world or something along that line. And if you're not, you're not getting compounding interest, then you're making a mistake. So you don't get compounding interest in your centralized banks. You don't get compounding interest in various other investments or formats. But in this these policies you do. So that's, that's something that is very distinguishable and it also takes out the market risk with your policies and the values in there, you're not subject to market risk. So this is not universal life. This is not indexed. Universal Life or any type of risk transfer. To the the owner of the policy or to us, you're not taking on market risk. But in those types of policies Universal Life or index, Universal Life, ual 

Grant
You, you are taking on market risk and one of the things? That's right, so being in control of the risk, right, that's absolutely mental aspect.

Seth
Absolutely, if you're going to use your cash value and put it to work and investment, you should be the one that's able to identify that risk and not have it subject to equity market risk. So it never goes backwards, you're going to only see a steady prodding forward with this compounding growth. And after a certain number of years, it starts to go more parabolic. And that's, that's really the beauty of this. And the magic of it. Some folks, they they locked this stuff up for retirement strategy. And you know, some are using it for the leverage.

Grant
Yeah, you know, it's interesting, I've seen some financial people describe that risk control paradigm with a with a pyramid, right, and they'll describe it, you know, in the, in the manner that you want to have more control. So you start, you start, you should start these sorts of strategies first and get that established. And then and then over time, as you go up the pyramid, you have less control over it higher risk, potentially higher returns, but that might be where you're doing some you're, you know, trading or investing or self directed activities. And a lot of people invert that pyramid, right, that's a well, they'll start with that self directed trading or investing. It's, you know, high risk, low control, and then blow out what capital they have, when instead, turn that the other way around, start with these foundational approaches that you're describing, and then build on top of that. Does that make any sense?

Seth
Amen, absolutely does. Sometimes will, will describe that as, you know, Hare and tortoise paradigm. And some people go, Well, this isn't, you know, I can make this much here. And I make 12% Over here, I can make 15%. Well, no, you really can't over 30 years, and likely there's going to be a risk factor there that may blow you out. Totally.

Grant
Yeah. And the loss of control that absolutely, yeah. Now. Yeah.

Seth
I mean, you've got this third party risk, whenever you've got, you know, a transfer of your money to someone else. That's, you know, you've got that risk that counterparty risk, whereas this, these insurance companies, they don't fail. I mean, they've been paying dividends, since before the Civil War, year after year, through the Great Depression through the Civil War through every economic upturn and downturn that there is. And it's, it's just one of the reasons why grant is because there's a cash reserve requirement of one to one, as opposed to a cash reserve requirement at a Wells Fargo of maybe 10% or less. Yeah, so they take they take $1 In deposit, and they're able to lend out 10, or perhaps even 50, depending on what their total asset bases and that's, that's funny math. You just print money out of thin air, and then they're able to loan the printed money at an interest rate, and they're making money on something they never even received a receipt.

Grant
Fascinating, right? The before I ever heard about this approach of this technique, one, I have to tell you my origin story of learning about this for the first time, it was my wife was driving our minivan. It was when our kids were little. And she was backing out of the garage and kids were bouncing around everywhere. And you know, I would have made the same mistake, but she wasn't watching. And she was turning around and talking to the kids. Hey, kids sit down, she backs out and just wax the mirror off of the side of that house right on the minivan. And so you know, I come home from work. She's like, many of the mirrors hanging off the side. So I look at it go well, it was a really old minivan, really old minivan. And I was like, Well, okay, let me go get it fixed. And so I took it over to the dealer. And I had this thought goes through my mind. And the thought was wait, rather than because at the time, I think auto loans were going to like 4% or 5% or something like that. And at the time, our house had been paid off, but I decided to take out a home equity loan to do some fix ups on the home and it was running. The interest rate at that time was like half a percent on this home equity loan. And so I'm in there They're looking at getting the car fixed. And I'm going to dealer and all sudden I go, let me go look at the floor, showroom, and I walked over, you know, I pull out my home equity checkbook, and I just pay for it right there, boom, and I get this car course still today it's a joke if dad goes to fix the mirror comes home with the new car. So I come back with the, with this car. And oh, by the way, I'm driving back thinking, I'm a banker, man, I just, I'm a banker, I just, I just floated this thing myself, and got home. And of course, guy, you know, paid that off at a much less interest rate. A few years after that. I heard this principle you're talking about you've been discussing here. And it clicked, I went, wait, wait, that's kind of what I did. Right. But it wasn't using a whole life. But the whole principle is, let's put the people in charge. Right? Not not some other policy or program that larger organizations are bestowing upon you but rather put us the people in the driver's seat, so to speak, and be able to make those decisions themselves. And I think that that's really liberating. 

Seth
That's absolutely, yeah, that's absolutely right. And that that's exactly the same principle is you're you're taking back the banking equation, you're becoming you're operating a private family bank that has generational value, and and has you where you are able to touch the same dollars that you make multiple times like we described in one of our examples and and you're that velocity, really accelerate your wealth curve. And without the taxation issues. And without the the asset protection risk, you're able to transfer assets generation to generation and take a whole nother opens up a whole nother doorway. So that brings us to our seventh pillar, which is legacy value, and the tax free transfer of these policies and the death benefits to the next generation or Asian officials. Wow. Yeah, tax free. So think about this, for example, there's a guy who most people know named Prince, and the or the artist, formerly known as Prince, he was a pop rock, yeah, seeing are pretty pretty well known. And he died not too long ago with an estate value of about $200 million. And he was a resident of Minnesota, ironically, and he had no private banking structure in place, he had really no estate tax planning structures in place. And between the federal government and the state of Minnesota, they took over $100 million of that 200 million, and in taxation and estate taxes, and his beneficiaries and heirs, you know, are left holding the short end of the stick, that none of that would have occurred with proper planning, or that same money in a private banking situation. And then, I've heard, I was reading some articles on Suze Orman who's a supposedly financial guru. And she talks about private banking on occasion, and she, she really has no concept of what it really does. And in this interview article with the guy from New York Times, she says, You know, I'm so worried or concerned about my, my partner, being left with less than half of my estate. And I think at the time of the article, she worked about 65 million. And so her partner, she said, is going to, you know, have have to, you know, take 30 million or whatever, instead of 35. And she didn't know how to overcome that problem. And I thought, this is really unbelievable, in the sense that it's such an easy solution. And we kind of we talked about this kind of off off recording about it's literally the stroke of a pen that you can accomplish these values and these benefits the Seven Pillars without having to be, you know, a black belt. And in any particular one one realm.

Grant
Financial genius, you just have to know that that's available that it's there. Absolutely.

Seth
Yeah. So you enter the policies, you fund your policies, you keep funding your policies, and you enjoy the these benefits. It's really not rocket science. It's more just of learning that it's there. And it it it blew my mind. It was an epiphany to me. Yeah, having practice law for decades and then and then seeing this was available. I thought it can be that easy. It can't be that easy to with the stroke of a pen to protect assets, but it is I mean, it's it's codified law and these contracts grant or it's worth mentioning that there they are regulated state by state. So each state has their own statutes that govern the the law, the protection, you're gonna need to protect it right. 

Grant
So some states better than others are worse, right?

Seth
Absolutely. And it's, it's kind of like the post Civil War era statutes in southern states. They protect their citizens, life insurance policies, they protect their citizens homesteads many times in comparison to other northern states or western states. So it is,

Grant
wow, that's huge. Okay, so, all right, I've really enjoyed the conversation, if you were to point people to a place to go to learn more about this, Seth, where you're going to point him to?

Seth
It's really easy, you go to our website, https://privatebankingstrategies.com, that's https://privatebankingstrategies.com. And there in you're going to find a an offer. And you can read a book that we wrote that that tells you about secrets that banks don't want you to know, effectively. And I like to call it a red pill book. And it spots issues that people may or may not be aware of. And it's it's amazes me, how many folks don't really understand what the banking folks are doing to them. You know, and with regards to mortgage rates, with regards to all sorts of issues, you just so this red pill book is something that pops up there for you. And you've put your contact information, your name and your email, and, and you can listen to the book on audio, or you can take it in a written form. And that's really the where we start. On our website, Grant, we've got a pretty wide volume of resources from podcasts that dive into particular pillars, or how to how the banking operates, to blog articles, and then our emails that will come to you also address certain issues like the Dodd Frank Act, and what how why does that matter to you?

Are, are your are your, you know, is your cash safe? And and it's centralized bank, why or why not? You know, our, there's simple things that you can do to protect yourself. So we try to add value. And those emails that come out to folks, we try to help them make a decision that this is, you know, for them or not for them. And it's really that simple. So you just hit the website, private banking strategies.com. You can have the book for free, all the podcast, all the emails for free. And if those things resonate with you, then you can schedule an exploratory call with Vance and start to get into the nitty gritty of it into what it means. 

Grant
Wow, Seth, thank you so much for taking the time here today with us and with our audience here. Very enlightening. It feels like we're popping out of the matrix right with with red pill. I love the analogy. Thanks again for joining and for going over this today. Everyone. Take a look at what it is that Seth is talking about https://privatebankingstrategies.com

Thanks again for joining in everybody and until next time, become your own private banker.

Seth
Thank you, Grant.

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