E170: What led us to Living Wealth and Success with the Infinite Banking Concept?

E170: What led us to Living Wealth and Success with the Infinite Banking Concept?

In this episode, Nate and Holly sit down to discuss the journey that led them here to Living Wealth and to the Infinite Banking Concept as a whole.  

Topics Discussed:

• The Journey of what led them to learn about Infinite Banking
• This podcast has become a huge blessing in Living Wealth
• How to be practically and financially free
• The right financial perspectives to live by

Episode Resources:

• Gain access to our Beginner’s Course now FREE to listeners of the podcast here now
• What is Infinite Banking
• Who was Nelson Nash?
• CREDIT: Episode art background photo by Tobias Mrzyk

Podcast transcript for episode 170: Success with Infinite Banking Concept

Nate: In this episode, Holly and I sit down to discuss the journey that led each of us here, to Living Wealth and to the Infinite Banking Concept as a whole. She’s Holly and she helps people find financial freedom.

Holly: He’s Nate, he makes sense out of money. This is Dollars and Nonsense. If you follow the herd, you will be slaughtered.

Nate: All right, well it’s great to be here with you Holly. I’m excited to really describe to the world why we’re here, Holly. I think everyone has somewhat of a journey that they could detail of what led them to learning about Infinite Banking, which is what we teach. But I wanted to maybe even go deeper than that Holly, and what led us to working here with Living Wealth with the team here with Ray. Some of them would already know why you’re here. I’m sure they’ll find out more details if they didn’t, but really everyone has a journey that leads them to come to Infinite Banking as a whole. So I wanted to describe not only that, but then also just how we ended up here, where we’re at, doing what we’re doing as advisors for Living Wealth. Anything you wanted to bring up Holly, before we start telling the story?

Holly: Well, I’m kind of excited because in all honesty, I’ve never heard Nate’s story. I’ve heard bits and pieces of it, but I’ve never actually heard how it really all came to be, other than he asked for an internship and then he was working with Living Wealth.

Nate: Yeah, that’s a good point. I’ll go into the details today. How did I end up here? And Holly, on your side of things, I think people would know that you are Ray’s daughter, but I think there’s a huge story involved just to get you to work with your dad. We’re going to talk about that too. And what about Infinite Banking really compelled us as well. I guess I can get started then. I was the son of a pastor of a small church and a public school teacher. That’s kind of where the background comes in. Obviously when I say those two professions, no one joins those professions because they want to make a whole bunch of money. So we weren’t wealthy by any stretch of the means. We weren’t poor, we were just certainly not well off, I would tell you that. My parents sacrificed everything they could to make sure that our childhood was amazing and it really was, even though they didn’t have a whole bunch of money, they used every dollar that they could to make sure that their kids were having a wonderful time and they really did.

Nate: I’m so blessed by them. And so I grew up in this and for whatever reason, I was attracted to the financial world. Now of course, I didn’t know the word finance when I was a kid, but money was always attractive to me. I don’t have a sob story of, I never had it, so when I made a decision when I was a kid that I was going to go get some. It’s like actually, that wasn’t it. I was just interested in it. If you ask my parents, I was a saver. I liked to save money. I was interested in making money one day. I was interested in investments from a young age. I was interested in financial topics from a young age. I was interested in economics from a young age. So I was just interested in the world of money. So that kind of leads me to where I’m going with this.

My football coach in high school was a financial advisor, and I was looking at this guy growing up. He was a role model of mine to some degree. He’s your coach and you’re like, he’s doing pretty well for himself. He’s got enough time to coach this football team as just a side passion of his. I’m thinking this seems like a good career potentially. I’m already interested in money and finance and economics and banking and all sorts of things. And so that essentially compelled me to say I wanted to have something to do in the world of finance. So I went to university to study finance and the coincidences continue. While I was in high school I met the woman of my dreams, who is now my wife Ashley, and we started dating in high school and it was getting serious. I knew I was very interested, likely going to marry her as long as she said yes, which she did.

But all that to say, here I am wanting to be in the world of finance and I am getting serious in a relationship dating a girl whose family owns a financial firm. I’m thinking, wow, the stars have aligned. And I had no idea what the family did. I just knew her grandfather, Ray Poteet was very successful in the financial field and that he was doing something different. I did know that, I knew that he wasn’t out there doing Dave Ramsey mutual funds and he was known for it. I actually knew that too. And Ashley didn’t really know what was going on. I mean, she had some vague ideas, but she told me, I was like, “What does your grandfather do?” She would say things like, “I’m not totally sure, but I know that people seek after him from all over the country to learn about what it is he does.”

In Lawrence, Kansas, he’s getting sought out from nationwide to learn about whatever this concept is, this financial strategy thing is. And so I remember after my freshman year, I wanted to get an internship. That’s what you’re supposed to do. And so I come to Ray, my serious girlfriend’s grandfather and ask, “Can I intern with you over the summer?” And his initial response was, “No.” And I was quite disheartened and I was like, if I can’t get an internship with my girlfriend’s family’s financial business, this might be a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. By the way, I also, I even asked my coach, I said, “Can I intern with you?” And he said, “No.” And I was like, oh geez, I got two no’s in a row. This is not good. And as Ray will tell from his side of the story, it was that night that he got into a fight with the Holy Ghost pestering him, asking him questions, why did you say no?

He’s like, “Well we’ve never had an intern. We don’t need an intern.” Blah, blah, blah. Finally though, he was convinced that it was the Lord that wanted him to change his answer and bring me on board. So that was the summer of 2012. That was almost 11 years ago, whenever I came and spent essentially three months shadowing Ray, and that’s really all I did. I was by his side at almost every meeting. He would do webinars. I would sit in his office, I’d be listening, I’d be soaking it all in, I’d be asking him questions. Sometimes he’d get irritated about the questions, I’d keep asking. Sometimes we’d argue. But it was a huge growth moment in my life, a huge learning moment. And then I went back to school and I was continuing to study for a finance degree. I came back the next summer and hit the ground running with Ray again and would travel with him now, would help present, would do things.

And at the end of the summer, I was left with a decision, would I go back to university to complete my degree in finance or would I stay with Ray? And it was actually Ray that kind of stirred it. He says, “You know Nate, over the next year or two, I could teach you far more about the world of business than if you go back to university to get a degree.” And that was actually I think one of my first leaps of faith by the way, in this whole scenario. I knew that it was probably right, but there was no guarantee of success. And so I was trying to figure out, well, if I leave now and I work with Ray and I fail, then I don’t have much to fall back on. Now by the way, for everyone listening to this, I actually really enjoyed school.

I was a 4.0, I was doing great and I was enjoying it. So I wasn’t a kid who’s like, I hate school, get me out of here. I was having a great time, I doing well, but I had to make a business decision. It took some faith and I was like, you know what? I’m going to do it. I’m going to go. I’m going to stay. I’m going to work full-time with Ray and I’m going to commit to this thing. So that was the summer of 2013. I’ve been doing it full-time ever since. And God’s been gracious the entire time. And what I loved about Infinite Banking, first of all I loved it. It was the perfect fit for me in so many ways. It was a perfect fit. But not only that, just a career where I was able to teach it, played to my strengths.

I’m not a very good salesperson. I never really wanted to be in sales, and it’s not a natural strength of mine. I keep saying that and people are probably tired of hearing that. And by me saying I’m not a good salesperson, that’s not a sales strategy either. I’m just merely saying I’m not attracted to it the way some people are. But I love to teach. I love to explain concepts. I’m very good at it. It’s natural to me. I’ve been able to do it for a long time ever since I was a kid. My mind thinks in concepts, I think from point A all the way to point Z and everywhere in between. And that’s just the way my brain works. So having a career where it wasn’t just me selling mutual funds or just doing basic financial strategies, I’m just blessed to be able to do something that aligns with my strengths as far as what I’m able to do of teaching a concept and being able to… I’m very good at discerning where people’s hangups are and helping them overcome hangups and answering questions that maybe are unsaid.

And there’s things that I’m good at doing, and I found out that I was good at doing it, and I realized that me teaching this lets me operate in that. So I’m extremely blessed to be able to do this. And that leads us to Holly to say, well how did you start this podcast? This podcast has become a huge blessing in our lives. I did not believe it was going to work. We started this thing because our marketing guys said you should do it. That was like in 2015 he was bringing it up. I had never listened to a podcast ever. I’m like, “Who listens to podcasts?” I guess I’ll do it, but I do not think it’s going to do anything. And lo and behold, by the way, it has become a huge delight. I enjoy doing them. I’m good at doing them.

It’s what I like to do is explain concepts. Lo and behold, podcasts is where people are doing this. And it has caught a big head of steam in general, and there’s a whole bunch of people. Everybody’s listening to podcasts now, and here we are. We started this podcast, I think it was 2016, Holly. We’re going on our seven year anniversary sometime this year. And it’s been a huge blessing to us and to our clients and to all the people who get to know us. Having this podcast has been a big deal. So I’m just blessed to be where I’m at with Ray, nearing the tail end of his career and passing a lot of the leadership responsibilities off of his plate. It’s been a fun ride to be here. And that’s where we are. Obviously, I didn’t get I guess too much into Infinite Banking.

But yeah, I was very compelled by Infinite Banking and I still am to this day. And as a lot of people would say, I’m more excited about it now than I was even when I first heard about it. I just think it is such a powerful thing for people to understand, especially for those who would be very compelled by it. And it adds so much value to people’s lives once implemented properly. So that’s it Holly. That’s where I’m coming from, that’s where I find myself. I’m married to Ray’s oldest granddaughter. That’s a roundabout way of where I got here.

Holly: I have one question for you Nate. When you said you weren’t going back to school, how did your parents take it?

Nate: The parents weren’t as excited about that decision. They were certainly concerned for my behalf. And so I remember talking to them saying, “I don’t think I’m going to go back. I think I’m going to do this.” And of course, they weren’t going to force me or really get too upset or uptight about anything, but you could definitely tell that they were a bit worried that was not the wise decision. And it was a decision that would only be wise in time would tell. And I knew that. I knew time would tell. It’s either I would make it or I wouldn’t. And obviously if you don’t make it and you didn’t finish out the degree, you wouldn’t have as much to fall back on. But I would not exchange it now. I would not trade it for anything. The two years of me being in business as opposed to sitting around in a classroom, taking humanities classes and paying them thousands of dollars for a humanities course, there was definitely going to be a lot of wasted time taking humanities classes. And so I said, no. My parents were like, “Well, I don’t know Nate.”

Holly: And the reason I asked that is because there are individuals that have the belief, I’ve got to go follow this four year plan or go to college or do that. And I just want to encourage you to follow your dreams, but also be smart about it. Just because you’re not in the mold of, oh I’ve got to go get a four year degree, doesn’t mean that what you’re doing’s wrong. And I think that that’s even part of our tag. You don’t have to follow the herd to be successful.

Nate: Yeah, you’re right. And college degrees are getting less and less valuable regarding how much they actually cost. And even Nelson Nash in his book describes that. Describing the actual value of a college degree is decreasing, and especially in this world of the information age, where you can become an entrepreneur and start businesses learning the skills you need without going to university, it’s becoming less and less important. But obviously there’s still many, many careers that require it to even be in it. So you can’t be a lawyer without a degree. You can’t be a doctor without a degree. You can’t be an accountant without a degree. There’s many different professional careers where you have to have the degree, and that’s fine. If you’re going to get into business and you’re going to own your own business, the degree’s going to not help you too much. The degree can be worth money. The actual learning you do inside of the degree is not worth very much. It’s just we are paying for the piece of paper and the opportunities that that piece of paper might provide.

Holly: Yeah.

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Holly: So I’m going to say my story is quite different than Nate’s. I grew up with Ray Poteet, founder of Living Wealth, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. She took care of us, she made sure the meals were on the table. She was at all of our events. And I saw my dad work really, really hard all of my life. Like work really hard, every day he traveled a lot. He drove or flew literally all over the country to do this business, to build it by himself to make it a success for what it was.

Nate: And by the way Holly, just real quick, he wasn’t doing IBC then either, right? By the time he learned IBC, that was after you were already grown and living as an adult.

Holly: Yeah, I was grown and I had just gotten married when all this came about.

Nate: When IBC even became a thing, that’s right. But he was in the financial business your entire life. That’s essentially what we’re trying to say.

Holly: Yeah. He sold life insurance, pension plans, all of that, securities. I watched him work real hard. And I will say Nate, my biggest fear growing up, because he traveled so much, he was gone all the time. My biggest fear really was that when I got married, he’d miss my wedding day because a client would call and he’d have to go take care of it. And people can be like, that’s so crazy. But I could remember him being paged in an airport before when we were traveling somewhere. Because they didn’t have cell phones and all that. And I think a client had a question, there was no medical emergency or anything like that. I also saw he genuinely cared about his clients. So when he was doing stocks and stuff, when it was up and down, my dad was up and down. He would be really upset when money was lost, especially clients’ money as well as his own.

But he would really take that personally. So I saw the good and the bad, kind of the ugly, and I was like, I do not want that stress. Fast forward a bit, I went to college Nate, I got a master’s degree. I have a master’s degree in higher education. I was going to do anything but finance, money, insurance. I wanted nothing to do with the family business. Basically what happened is, my dad got diagnosed with leukemia and we didn’t know if he was going to live or if he was going to die. The doctors gave him about six months. I just knew every time I went home, I had to make the most of it. I had to make the most of it. By the way, at this point in time I’m in Athens, Greece. I’m recruiting Olympic volunteers for the Olympic Games. I’m working for a nonprofit organization.

And every time I went home, what’s going to happen? And while I was in Greece Nate, I met my husband and we ended up getting married. And right after we got married and came back from our honeymoon, my dad started talking to us about the Infinite Banking Concept, and do you want the business? Now I will say he asked my older sister first if she wanted the business. We totally ganged up on my dad, met him for lunch and said, “How about we all joined the business?” That was the start, it was an early 2005 that kind of started of joining the business. Now I unfortunately, not unfortunately, but I was living in England. Fast forward a little bit, he got a job in Texas and lo and behold, then we ended up in California. I went back using my degree, my master’s degree, and went to California and was working for a university out there.

I’ll just say that. That was what I was going to do. It put a roof over our head. We had two kids by then. I was pregnant with my third and we had a roof over our head. We didn’t have to pay rent. I got a paycheck and it all seemed okay. And then we decided basically, and I say the .com or the recession kind of Nate, you probably might not remember this. But in 2008 and nine across the US they had started cutting class time. So professors stopped teaching a third of their classes because they weren’t getting paid, and they literally would be penalized. They could not be in the office or on campus during those times. So I’m like, okay, I was the last one hired here in 2008, now we’re in 2009. Chances are if this keeps going the way it is, I’m going to lose my job, was my biggest concern.

We decided what is best for our family. So we actually moved back to Kansas late in 2009 for me to work in the family and join the business. And I really didn’t enjoy it at that time. It was not a lot of fun. I’m just going to say I was doing a lot of grunt work, probably like you. I didn’t get to sit in webinars. I didn’t get to talk to clients. I didn’t get to do any of that. I was taking applications, which I didn’t mind, and I was scanning papering of old client files. That’s what I did for nine months.

My old boss called and said, “I haven’t hired anybody for your job. Do you want it back?” And I was like, “Yes.” Because I just didn’t enjoy what I did. And probably like you, I’m not a salesperson, but I do not like menial tasks. I like to interact with people. I like to do stuff. I like to explain concepts and I like to make the plan and see it all work, but don’t ask me to scan paper. So we actually left and literally two years later I came back, but outside of the office is kind of my-

Nate: You were in California and you started to work with clients the second time around, and that’s when you hit this stride. That was way more fun than the first bout.

Holly: Yeah. Right off the bat, I was working with clients and doing webinars and sitting in with Ray. So I actually got to learn more of it. Now I will say, we started our first Infinite Banking policy in 2006. So this was right in 2012 Nate. So right after your internship, that fall literally is when I started doing it. We’d had a policy for six years and we had used it and I knew how it worked. I knew I could explain it to people. We’d been successful in using it for our family and starting other policies, so I knew I could do that. I just did not want to be in an office setting. And so that’s when I really jumped in with both feet. Then over about three years working with the marketing team. And I can remember Nate, I’d never heard a podcast.

That’s not something I would’ve picked up on. And basically nobody else on the team volunteered other than Nate and I, that’s really how it happened. I knew him the less, so I didn’t think it was going to work at all. We’re going to have no chemistry. What are we going to talk about? I don’t know Nate. I mean, I know his wife. I don’t know Nate. And I’m just going to say it’s been a blessing, a huge, huge blessing to be doing Dollars and Nonsense. I don’t do the majority of the work. I get in front of a microphone maybe and talk, and that’s because of Nate. And Nate really, like he said, not just explaining concept, but he is creative on how do we take this and explain this to somebody and what do we need to be talking about?

And I think that’s why I’m still at Living Wealth, is because I believe wholeheartedly in our mission and our goal. And I really came in because I was told I could help families and I can help individuals be financially free. Literally learning how to work, and I’m not in a box type person. So it’s very outside the box thinking. So it was very much what I enjoyed doing. And I think the only reason I’m still in it is because I never got put into, you have to do this. I got to do what I loved the second time around coming in, and what I enjoy.

So I will say my story’s a little different, but I also love working with my dad and knowing that every time I see him, there’s wisdom to gain, knowledge to learn. It’s amazing how much you learn just by listening to what other people are saying or what they’re doing and taking some new concept or some new idea to a different level. So that’s why I’m still here, not just because it’s a family business. It’s a legacy for me to leave to not just my kids, Nate’s kids. For me, it’s generational. It’s something that we’re building to leave for generations to come, not just me.

Nate: Yeah. And I think one of the things that I can glean from that too is really, neither of us were attracted to the insurance business. We were attracted to Infinite Banking. We didn’t have financial backgrounds or weeds to pull up from being in the financial industry and then transitioning to IBC. I’m not a believer in insurance, I’m a believer in the Infinite Banking Concept, I’ve seen what it can do, I’ve lived it out. Just like you said, I had my first policy in 2012 and have been using it for almost 11 years now. My parents were my first clients as well, as is pretty common. My first test case of, can I get someone interested? Was my parents. And they’ve been doing it for a long time as well, 10, 11 years. They got theirs right around the time I got mine. They’ve been very happy with it.

But I think it was fun Holly, I think it’s important to hear a little bit of where we’re coming from. We’re not just here trying to sell the next best thing. I mean, we are committed to the mission of Living Wealth and Infinite Banking is a huge part of that, of what we feel can be something that really helps people grow and really helps people get to the point where they’re financially free, offers the right perspectives to live by. All of this is wound up in this message.

Holly: I think too, one of the main things, even the reason you’re still in it, and I’m in it, is we’re not just selling a policy. It’s not just a policy that we’re offering. We really do a lot of other stuff. You have to get the policy and utilize it, really. And I think that that’s one of the things is why we’re still even with Living Wealth, is because it’s not just I’m selling a policy and that’s all I’m doing. And I think if it was just selling a life insurance policy to have Infinite Banking, it’s taking it that step farther and now I have this policy, how do I use it? How do I utilize it? And that’s one of the things we get to do.

And we both are big Infinite Banking Kool-Aid drinkers. It sounds too good to be true, but it’s the principles to live by really and how to really manage money, or own your own money and control your money versus somebody else. That is what brought us to this point of being able to explain concepts and being able to do the podcast, is to bring a message of hope to people.

Nate: Yeah. And selling insurance is different than helping people implement a process, which is way more down my alley and probably way more down your alley. And there’s a lot of people in the Infinite Banking world as agents who are really just using IBC, the education of IBC as a way to sell policies. There’s very little they can offer after that because their focus is not implementing a system. The system will use policies, but we are passionate about what the system does when it’s implemented. The idea, the philosophy, the perspectives, the practicality of infinite banking when implemented is what we’re after for people. Not just owning life insurance. But with that being said Holly, I think it’s about time for us to wrap it up.

Holly: Yeah.

Nate: Thank you all so much for joining us. This has been Dollars and Nonsense. If you follow the herd, you will be slaughtered.

Holly: For free transcripts and resources, please visit livingwealth.com/e170.

Announcer: One last thing, before you go. Start your journey towards financial security and wealth today, visit livingwealth.com/beatinflation. You’ll gain instant free access to the beginner’s course Ray, Nate, and Holly made just for you. Again, that’s livingwealth.com/beatinflation.