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Finding Better Ways To Help People Achieve Their Dreams With Bryan Sweet

BYW 31 | Finding Better Ways

 

Are you often pleased but never satisfied? Are you constantly looking to improve on things so that they can end up better? Do you want people to succeed in their lifelong dreams, so you help them achieve them? If you said yes to all those things, then just like the guest today, Bryan Sweet, whose WHY is the WHY of better way. Bryan achieves his WHY by helping his clients find better ways to help them achieve their financial goals and dreams.

 

Bryan is a Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisor, wealth advisor at Sweet Financial Partners, and the creator of the Dream Architect, where he helps people live their ideal futures. Join Dr. Gary Sanchez as he talks with Bryan about Dream Architect and how to fulfill your dreams. Discover all the financial and mindset planning involved to make your goals a reality. Start envisioning your future today!

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Finding Better Ways To Help People Achieve Their Dreams With Bryan Sweet

In this episode, we’re going to be talking about the Why of a Better Way. If this is your why, then you are the ultimate innovator. You are constantly seeking better ways to do everything. You find yourself wanting to improve virtually anything by finding a way to make it better. You also desire to share your improvement with the world. You constantly ask yourself questions like, “What if we tried this differently? What if we did this another way? How can we make this better?”

 You contribute to the world with better processes and systems while operating under the motto, “I’m often pleased but never satisfied.” You are excellent at associating, which means that you are adept at taking ideas or systems from one industry or discipline and applying them to another, always with the ultimate goal of improving something.

I’ve got a great guest for you. His name is Bryan Sweet. As a Forbes’ Best-in-State Wealth Advisor for multiple years running, he has been on the mission to help people live their retirement dreams since the start of his career in financial services back in 1979. It is because of this that he created his proprietary, the Dream Architect, which not only helps his clients maximize their distribution, planning, and retirement but also helps them strive for and accomplish their biggest dreams.

With Bryan’s vast industry experience, he has also partnered with multiple entities, including Ultimate Advisor Coaching and the Elite Wealth Advisor Symposium, which support high-performing financial advisors across the United States in the growth and scaling of their businesses. He and his partners do this through teachings on team management, marketing and automation, best practices, and all that it takes to build a high-class and scalable advisory practice. The bottom line is that Bryan thrives on helping others experience the growth and freedom that he has created and building world-class financial services, all while living the life of his dreams. Bryan, welcome to the show.

It’s great to be here. Thank you.

This is going to be a lot of fun. I’ve been looking forward to this. Let’s go back to your life. Take us back to what were you like in high school.

My nickname used to be Hyper. That might give you a little background on how I might’ve been in school. I was always pretty active in everything I did. I couldn’t sit still very long. I think about myself and the things that I do. It applies now. I’m not willing to just keep the status quo. There are probably early people predicting what direction I might go.

Give us an example. What were you hyper about in high school? What are some of the things that you did while you were in high school to give us a sense of this?

Children have these big aspirations, whether it's to be an astronaut or a fireman, but then life happens. And these people just end up letting life happen to them instead of making it happen. Click To Tweet

I was like Eveready Bunny. I was always going somewhere or doing something. I never slept a lot, and I still don’t. By how I was acting and what I did all the time, that’s the nickname that my friends gave me.

Were you into sports or drama? What were the things that you liked to do in high school?

I wasn’t a great athlete, but I was a wrestler, and I was in football. One of the things I loved to do was weightlifting. I was the captain of the weightlifting team. For whatever reason, I happened to maybe excel at that. I liked that probably more than anything else. I was also pretty good in school. I had fun with my other buddies, but I always made sure I got my homework done. I got through school well.

Where did you grow up?

Where I went to high school, I still live now. It’s a little town in Minnesota called Fairmont, Minnesota. The population is a whopping 10,000. I always liked to tell people that if there are two people at the stop-and-go lights, that’s a traffic jam, but it’s been a great little community for myself and all my business people. We’re very fortunate with technology that we can work with clients in 35 different states and 4 different countries.

For those of us that didn’t have that opportunity and never will, what was it like to grow up in a town of 10,000 people? How many high schools? Have you felt like you knew everybody?

We had a close class. We had 1 high school and 1 elementary school. Everybody knew everybody. There was like a typical high school, the East side, West side, North and South where you can have little cliques. Fortunately, I’ve always seemed to be somebody that got along with everybody. That turned out to be helpful in relationship building later on. As I thought back to where it started, I thought that there was nobody better than anybody else. Everybody had some value to add. It’s good to get to know and be friends with as many people as you possibly can.

We have a great little town. There are five lakes right in the town. There are lots of activities. In the summer, we went swimming and did outside activities. Being from a small town, it’s helpful from a business standpoint because if you do good things, word travels fast and consequently, if you don’t do things well, the word travels fast. It was a great experience. I’m still friends and business acquaintances with a lot of my high school friends.

BYW 31 | Finding Better Ways
Finding Better Ways: If you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up, consider selling life insurance. It’ll be a great experience where you’ll learn all sorts of skills.

 

Where did you go to college?

I must get lost easily because I don’t travel very far. I went to a division of the University of Minnesota in a town called Mankato. Back then, they used to call it Mankato State. It was 50 miles away from Fairmont, but it was a great big state school and gave me some flexibility to come back to work in the summers without traveling very far. I took up Business and a Minor in Accounting when I was in college. One of the great things looking back at what get started is that my college advisor was in charge of the marketing department. He was voted the number one teacher for like three years in a row. He’s the one that got me in my career while I was still in college.

How did you do that?

I was taking all the Business classes and Finance. I loved Accounting and numbers. I was going to minor in Accounting. I couldn’t figure even with his help what I wanted to be when I graduated. Fortunately, looking at it now, my mom would have told you this was the worst decision ever when it happened, but he was also the division manager for a life insurance company.

He said, “As long as you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up, why don’t you consider selling life insurance? If nothing else, it’ll be great teaching and experience. You’ll learn lots of skills. Not knowing any better, I said, “Let’s give it a shot.” It was the first time I told my mom. Dick came down to tell my mom. I thought she was going to have a heart attack and pass out. Fortunately, it all turned out well.

What did she not like about it?

If you think of the standard stigma of a life insurance person, that’s the one guy where you see them at a party. There’s no one talking to him because they’re afraid you’re going to get sold something. That was her stigma, originally, but looking back, he was so instrumental in teaching me skills that I needed so much and still use now, even to the extent I learned how to tie my first tie with him. He gave me lots of introductions and spent a lot of time with me. Ultimately, it turned out his whole family are clients of mine now. It was like the reverse of the whole thing. He helped me and now I’m helping them.

You’re at college. Your advisor gets you moving in the direction of life insurance, you graduate, then what happens?

In life insurance, you don't work for insurance companies; you work for your clients. Click To Tweet

I stayed in the insurance business and there was an opportunity through some relationships that he had started where I opened an office in Mankato. I started while I was still in my senior year of college. Whoever would talk to you, your college buddies, family, and friends, I continued that for 1 year or 2 up there then I said, “Where do I want to spend my time? This is going pretty well.” I was doing pretty good. Ultimately, I said, “I know a lot more people in Fairmont. Maybe I should move back to my hometown because the opportunities are probably greater there just because of the people that I’ve known over the years.” I made the gradual transition back to Fairmont.

Did you add the financial piece to it or how did that happen?

I was working for an insurance company. As I got more technical knowledge and understanding, started talking to clients, and learned a lot more about the industry, I quickly became familiar with that one company that didn’t have the best products and vehicles for every situation that I came across. I’m going, “Whom do I work for? Do I work for the insurance company or my clients?” I quickly and rightfully answer that question correctly. I said, “I work for my clients.”

Shortly thereafter, I said, “I have to become independent and be able to represent any company that’s in the best interest of my clients.” It was a natural progression. Clients were asking certain things. Way back when I started, the old investment industry was mutual funds. They used to charge 8.5% upfront commissions. It was a crazy thought back then.

People were asking questions, so I slowly got into that and then ultimately did a lot less insurance simply because I didn’t have a lot of control over the underwriting and who can get accepted, but I had all the control over all of the financial planning sides. We naturally gravitated to the areas where we could be the most helpful and we had the most control.

You’ve found a better way to help people with their finances and their planning. How many years ago that you make the switch from focusing on insurance to focusing more on financial planning?

I started in 1979. Maybe eight years into my career, I opened up my own individualized office. At the time, it was called Sweet Financial Services and later became Sweet Financial Partners. That would have been in 1987.

Tell us about the Dream Architect.

BYW 31 | Finding Better Ways
Finding Better Ways: If you want to live your ideal future, you have to first envision it. Then you have to create a blueprint. You got to build the process. And you got to maintain and review it.

 

I’m in a mastermind group called Strategic Coach. I have been in that for 23 years. If you’re an entrepreneur, you probably have heard of Dan Sullivan. He helps you create a better way of thinking as a business owner. Part of that class was, “How do you differentiate yourself? How do you show up differently with your clients?”

Many years ago, we were doing an exercise of trying to take what you did and create a process, name, steps, and whatnot. I’ve always been fascinated with dreams, motivational things, and talking to clients. One of the things I noticed is that when you’re a young kid, everybody wants to be an astronaut and a fireman. Everybody’s got these big aspirations, and it then seems like life happens.

A lot of times, people, for whatever reason, just let life happen to them instead of making it happen. I thought, “If we can make, as part of our process, something to help their dreams come true wouldn’t that be extra helpful and also be a differentiator?” We created the platform, which we’ve now trademarked and called Dream Architect. It’s all about all the financial planning concepts but also creating your vision for what you’d love your future to be and helping people think a lot more out of the box.

Give us an example. How do you define a dream? That sounds interesting. How do you help someone to find what we are talking about? Where do they want to be at the end of their life? Are you talking about where they want to be when they retire? What are we talking about?

It would be all of those things. It’s essentially a four-step process. The most important part of it is step one, which is called visioning, where you sit down and we have a conversation about, “If anything in life were possible, what would you like to see happens? What are the problems and issues that you’re dealing with now? What are your dangers? What are your opportunities?” Try to get as much information about pressures and concerns that they have, but also spend a lot of time on the what if or the bucket list of, “If anything were possible, what would you like to do?”

The first time we started asking those big picture, dreaming, and if anything were possible questions, people would glaze over because no one had ever asked them, but they’d never thought about it. They are going to go to work and raise a family. Whatever happened is what happened. I am a believer in it because I’ve had these things happen to me what you think about and what you put in your mind, things are going to pop up and help you get there.

I’m trying to get people to think about where they would like to be. I want to be a constant reminder and a source to help them get there because if they’re thinking about it and at our reviews, I’m thinking about it when I can bring the resources to them, or they’ll start seeing things that help bring those things to fruition. It’s learning as much as possible. It’s an ongoing thing because, for a lot of people, it’s a little woo-woo, to begin with, “What are you even talking about?”

Once we have a good idea of what would make their life utterly fantastic, then step two is we need to put a blueprint together on how we’re going to get there. These are all the different methodologies and steps. It could be anything from tax planning to introductions to different individuals that we collaborate with that might provide other services. Create the blueprint.

Experiences of any type are the things that people remember. Click To Tweet

Once we go through the blueprint with them and they’ve said, “That’s good. I’d love that. Let’s tweak this one a little bit.” It’s like building a house. You might change the design a little bit once you see the blueprint. We’ll finalize the blueprint and then we’ll go through the build process, which is making what they said they wanted on the blueprint come to life.

After we’ve made it come to life, then it’s constant ongoing maintenance. Otherwise, review it to make sure, “Are these the things that you still want to do? Are these still the timeframes? If anything has happened, what do we need to do to tweak it so you’re always on schedule? If something changed, what do I need to do to make sure I take that left turn instead of going straight so that I’m always on track for whatever’s important to me?”

Those are the four steps that we use, but it’s customized to them. We have a big emphasis on lots of questions about getting them to think about their ideal future, not only what’s the ideal future tomorrow, in retirement, or in any of those timeframes. Those are seemed to be things that people don’t normally get asked.

The four steps were you got to do the visioning. Once you envision it, you got to create the blueprint. The third step is you got to build the process. The fourth step is you got to maintain it and review it. I’m sure people are thinking this. What is the most fascinating vision you’ve heard that you’ve helped create?

We tried to collect these. When you walk into the office the first time, there’s a wall before you get to the office. It says, “It’s your dream, and we’ll help you get there.” It’s pictures of clients’ actual dream accomplishments that we’ve helped create over the years. It’s a constant reminder. We have a little story tour that goes with that when we get first introduced to people. That’s an integral part of introducing the Dream Architect process.

As far as the most outstanding one, the one that rings a bell is, I had some clients that were retiring and they’ve been disciples of what we do and been long-term clients. We took them through this process. We created a dream board for them. One of the things that they did is every time they went somewhere or did something on the dream board, they took the dream board with them when they traveled. They’d take a picture and they’d send it to us from wherever they were doing it.

That particular couple wanted to do a Route 66 trip with their grandkids. She wanted to write a book. There was a foundation that they wanted to create and all of which they got accomplished. The reason these people ring a bell is what happened is her health took a bad turn and she ended up with a brain disorder and things weren’t very good.

The rewarding thing for us and also for them is because they went through the process, they got everything done on their dream list prior to that happening. They could look back favorably. Now she’s fortunately recovered in doing much better, but not in the condition where they can go out and do lots of other things that might’ve been on the list that didn’t get accomplished. That’s probably the one that jumps out at me the most just because what happened after that forced them to, hopefully, continue to do well, but they wouldn’t have got anything else probably done on the list.

BYW 31 | Finding Better Ways
Finding Better Ways: Your brain doesn’t know the difference between any input you give. But the brain’s job is to go out and find resources for whatever you’re thinking about.

 

What are some typical dreams that you hear? Are there patterns to dreams? Are there similarities between what people say? I’m trying to think of myself from myself, and I’m sure readers are thinking in their own minds, “What would my dreams be? What is it that I haven’t done that I want to do?”

We are trying to create an even better list of questions to get people to even think deeper. It’s a lot of family-oriented things on how to help family members accomplish something. Vacations of some exotic form tend to pop up a great deal. What I found is that experiences of any type are the things that people remember. I remember one client. We had a review. I was chatting with her. I could tell she was usually this upbeat and happy-go-lucky person. She was a little down.

I stopped the conversation and said, “Is something going on? I can tell you’re not your normal self.” She says, “I got off the phone with my son.” She’s got three children. They were going to do this big family trip with all the grandkids. She said, “I had to tell him no because I didn’t feel comfortable affording that.” I went, “What do you mean? You never even brought this up.” I stopped the conversation and we use detailed financial planning software that plugs in all the numbers so we can quickly decide whether you can have this expense or that expense. I had all her updated information and I applied the cost of what this trip would be. I said, “You can do this.”

All of a sudden, her whole demeanor changed. While we were on the phone, we got her hooked up with the travel people, the airlines. This happened a few years ago. Her name’s Kathy. The first thing she says every time I talk to her is, “Thanks again for making sure I did that family trip because it’s an experience that I’ll never forget and never be able to repeat again because the kids get older and not everybody can get together.” It’s things like that. It’s gratifying to me, but also, I need to get better at drawing those things out of them. I’m finding that people can think bigger and better, but I’ve got to be somewhat of a better motivator to maybe make that happen.

Those are hard conversations, but they’re just things that we don’t ever think about. We’re doers and not thinkers so often. Have you seen that dreams have changed over the years? Have the things that people dreamt about changed or has it been pretty standard?

I saw four additional issues that continuously popped up after we’ve been doing the Dream Architect for a long time. They weren’t being solved in the regular Dream Architect process. We helped those four items with all the wealth and creating things for their kids, vacations, and whatnot, but several things popped up. The first one that I continually noticed was a dealt with purpose.

Where this applied was somebody that maybe was a business owner or a high-level executive and they’re retiring. Their whole persona is of this business owner, all the people they helped, and their clientele. All of a sudden, they are going from that to something different. In a lot of cases, they really didn’t know what they were going to do or hadn’t thought about it. That transition, in a lot of cases, didn’t go well. They didn’t know their why, which is applicable to this show. We wanted to be helpful with that.

The other thing that we noticed in the example I gave earlier, people ran into health and longevity issues. They had all this money and then something health-wise happened and/or their lifespan is going to be shortened. I said, “Which can we be doing or who can we be collaborating with to help them understand things that they can do to help with that?”

Half of the joy of being charitable is seeing the good for yourself. Click To Tweet

The third one would be legacy, which is helping maybe pass values down to the next generation or their grandkids or their kids. Part of that would also be that we ran into a lot of clients that wanted to be charitably inclined, but they were just nervous about doing it while they were living for fear they might run out of money. The problem with that is that if you do it after you die, you don’t get to see all the great benefits that you were able to deliver. Half of the joy of being charitable is to see the good in yourself. It’s to try and create better methodologies to get people to understand that maybe you can have your cake and eat it, too. What are some of the different methodologies?

The last one was experiencing. A lot of business people, or just people in general, work, go home, eat supper, go to bed, work, and never got to maybe do as many vacations or experiences as they would’ve liked. Even if they had the ability and understood, maybe they were such unique ones that they didn’t know how to go about, who do you find and who can help me with that?

They consequently never got done. Because of that, we’ve taken the Dream Architect process and we’re creating a new platform called The Dream Architect Life that has all five of those pillars, wealth, purpose, health, longevity, legacy, and experiences all together so that we can help control the concerns and other things that we didn’t see getting done. I’m not the one delivering the experiences and things, but we are collaborating with people like yourself and others that are experts in those areas and making people aware of, “If I’ve got this issue,” these are people that can help you overcome that to make that negative, turn it into a positive.

We’re going to be creating a three-day immersive where you can come to the event. We’ll talk about all five areas. We’ll do a deep dive into one particular topic. The first one we’re going to be doing is going to be health and longevity oriented. From my standpoint of, “How do I help propel and make more of these dreams come true?” it seems like that direction is going to be helpful and maybe make it more available to more people also.

What is it that you believe about dreams?

I’m very much a believer that dreams do come true, but you do have to have them in front of mind. What you think about is what happens. I’ve just personally experienced it so many times. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between any input that you give it, but its job is to go out and find resources for whatever you’re thinking about. If you’re thinking about positive things, dreams, and a better life, those things pop up because your brain is looking for that information.

When you’re looking for it and it shows up, if you’re receptive to it and then take the action steps, that’s where we’re helpful. If you’re not seeing it, we may have already known what that step is. If I know it, maybe we’ve already experienced it or had a client experience it. I can say, “This is the next step that you need to take to make that thought from a thought to a reality.”

We had talked about this one time before when I was at a gentleman’s house who is a billionaire in Palm Desert and he had this room. It was 360 degrees of glass. It was like you were standing in a glass room on top of this hill, overlooking Palm Desert. He had miniatures of the number one dream home in the world, the number one dream yacht, the best of the best that you could possibly have. I asked him, “Do you ever use this room?” He said, “ I only go in that room when I want to dream. Dreams are the most important thing that you have.”

BYW 31 | Finding Better Ways
Finding Better Ways: When something bad happens, don’t look at it as a negative; look at it as a learning experience. Those bad experiences just give clues on how to do it better next time.

 

That’s taking that concept to another level in that example.

He started as a newspaper salesman and built his way all the way up to owning a quarterly in Idaho and lots of different things. It all happened because of his ability to dream. Most of us throw dreams on the back burner. We don’t even consider how valuable a dream is.

The other point is if you think about it, a lot of times you may have a dream, but then you let somebody poo-poo it like, “What do you mean? Do you want to do that? That’s ridiculous.” It’s not ridiculous. You just don’t want to be hanging out with that person anymore because they’re going to be the Debbie Downer that makes it not happen. You and I know lots of successful people and the same story comes out, “Whatever you think can happen.” You can create your own possibilities. You can’t be around people that don’t have that same mentality.

You got to be conscious when you want something in life or you have a dream. If somebody is telling you, you can’t, not that you can permanently get rid of them because it might be a relative or something, but don’t spend a lot of time with them when you are trying to accomplish something bigger. That’s such a huge thing. There are so many naysayers in the world that can squelch that, but there are also a lot of people that want you to win. Those are the ones that are going to be the most helpful.

Do dreams have a timeframe on them or a deadline? How do you separate dreams from a wish?

To a certain extent, you can create your own timeframes with dreams, but obviously, you got to be realistic about it, “I want to be a multimillionaire tomorrow.” That’s not going to happen, but if you understand the actions you need to take and you’re willing to accept the input that will continually come when you have that as your framework, it will happen.

What also happens with people is they give up a little too soon, maybe the right time perspective. That filters away because they gave up and then they’re not it’s not front of mind anymore. I see that a fair amount. One of our roles is to be 1) The reminder. This is important to you. 2) The encourager and 3) Be the constant supplier of background information that helps them get to where they want to go.

What I have found is that the more I talk about a dream, the easier it becomes to talk about, the more likely it is that it is on its way to happening, and the more that other people know about it and then want to be part of it. I remember the first time I thought about impacting 1 billion people, helping 1 billion people discover their why, how, and what so they can make decisions and live a life of passion.

When you want something in life or have a dream, don't be around people who are telling you, you can't. Click To Tweet

When I first said that, I see people looking at me like, “What?” The more I’ve talked about it, the more obvious it has become that it’s going to happen. The more people that have said, “I want to be part of that,” and introduced me to the right people to make it happen. If I stopped saying it and only kept it internal, it wouldn’t happen. I wouldn’t have the help to make it happen.

I will compliment you for what you do. The why of yourself and knowing it is hugely important. It ties in with purpose because if you don’t get that right, you’re never going to go in the right direction and never will be as happy as you could be. Kudos for all your efforts there. To take off on what you said, in building this Dream Architect life, you nailed everything I’m experiencing in building this new platform. It was a concept.

You started talking to people and they went, “That sounds pretty interesting. Have you thought about this? Let me introduce you here.” That went from one thing and pretty soon, Forbes, Barron’s, Private Wealth, and Bloomberg were right and about the concept. Pretty soon, you’re getting introduced to other people and the people want to help you do it. All of a sudden, it accelerates the growth because you had a good idea. They want to help to promote it because it’s going to do good in the world and it’s been crazy. I’ve never thought about that, but that’s 100% of what’s happening.

The key is to figure out your dream and then talk about it.

That’s a revelation for me. Thank you. The more you can talk about it, the more likely it’s to happen and others will help you.

If there are people reading and say, “I love what he’s doing. I want to connect with him. I want to figure out my dream. I want to plan my steps. I want to start talking about it. I want to be excited about something. I want to go in the right direction.” What’s the best way for people to get in touch with you?

I’ll give you several ways. If you just want to know a little bit more about Sweet Financial Partners, our website is www.SweetFinancial.com. If you have an individual question about the dream architect or what we’re creating in the dream architect life, you can email me personally Bryan@SweetFinancial. Our DreamArchitectLife.com platform is coming along. That’ll be rolled out in the first quarter of 2023. We haven’t got the final website, but it’ll be done shortly. That’ll be a little more to learn about the dream architect life, which is a separate platform.

Last question for you. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever given or that’s ever been given to you?

It is two points. First of all, don’t give up or people give up too quickly, but I would also say when something bad happens, don’t look at it as a negative. When things happen to me, I look at it as either I won or I had a learning experience. When something bad happens, it’s just giving you clues on how to do it better next time. It’s easy to get down on ourselves. If you had those two mantras where either you won or you learned something, then, whatever happens, it’s always good. That keeps you encouraged. I’ve personally found that if that’s my mindset, then I just keep my excitement for whatever I’m doing until it becomes a reality.

What if that’s a better way to think? That’s how I see it, too. I look at it as something better is going to come out of this, but I’m wondering if somebody was different, why would see it the same way? Thank you so much for being here. It has been a great conversation. I love what you’re doing. I love the direction you’re taking thickness because you’re adding the dream aspect to just the money-saving aspect of financial planning. We can all save and make money, but if we don’t have a reason for it, then that excites us, then why do it?

It’s been an absolute pleasure to be here. Keep up the great mission that you’re on and appreciate your time. I appreciate your time.

It’s time for our new segment, which is Guess The Why. This is where we bring a celebrity name or somebody that you’re familiar with. We try to guess what we think their why is. In this case, I want to use Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He’s been in so many movies that you guys have all seen. He’s got a new one coming out soon. The Rock was a football player, then got into wrestling and movies. Now he does everything. What do you think is why is?

I think The Rock’s why is Make Sense. It’s to make sense of the complex and challenging. He’s a great problem solver. He figures things out. He’s amazingly capable and high-capacity. I’m going to guess that his why is to make sense of the complex and challenging. Let me know what you guys think. Thank you so much for reading. If you’ve not yet discovered your why, then you can do it at WhyInstitute.com, use the code PODCAST50 and you can discover your why at half price. If you love the show, please don’t forget to subscribe below, leave us a review, and rating on whatever platform you’re using to read our show. Have a great weekend. I will see you in the next episode. Thank you.

 

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About Bryan Sweet

BYW 31 | Finding Better WaysAs a Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisor for multiple years running, Bryan has been on the mission to help people live their retirement dreams since the start of his career in financial services back in 1979. It is because of this that he created his proprietary The Dream Architect™, which not only helps his clients maximize their distribution planning in retirement, but also helps them strive for and accomplish their biggest dreams.

With Bryan’s vast industry experience, he is also partnered in multiple entities including Ultimate Advisor Coaching and the Elite Wealth Advisor Symposium, which both support high-performing financial advisors across the United States in the growth and scaling of their businesses. He and his partners do this through teachings on team engagement, marketing, automation, best practices, and all that it takes to build a high-class and scalable advisory practice. The bottom line is that Bryan thrives on helping others experience the growth and freedom that he has created in building a world-class financial services practice, all while living the life of his dreams.

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Ensure Your Financial Future With Whole Life Insurance With Sarry Ibrahim

BYW S4 20 Sarry | Whole Life Insurance

 

Are you looking for a more secure foundation for your financial future? Whole life insurance could be the solution you’ve been looking for. Today’s guest is Sarry Ibrahim, founder of Financial Asset Protection, a financial services firm that focuses on one sole concept; the Bank On Yourself concept, also known as the Infinite Banking Concept. He also hosts their official podcast, Thinking Like a Bank. Sarry helps real estate investors, business owners, and full-time employees grow safe and predictable wealth regardless of market conditions. How? Through whole life insurance. Tune in as he joins Dr. Gary Sanchez to break down the concept using his gift, the WHY of Simplify.

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Ensure Your Financial Future With Whole Life Insurance With Sarry Ibrahim

If you’re a regular reader, you know that every episode we talk about 1 of the 9 Whys and then bring on somebody with that Why so you can see how their Why has played out in their life. We’re going to be talking about the Why of Simplify, which is a very rare Why. If this is your Why then you are one of the fabulous people that make everyone else’s life better. You have the unique gift of reducing the number of steps required for almost any task. If most of us believe that a procedure requires 8 sequential actions, you see how to do it in 6.

You constantly look for ways of simplifying from recipes to business systems and how you organize your garage. You feel successful when you eliminate complexity and remove unnecessary elements in a process. You streamline things for the benefit of all and break things down into their simplest form. You like things direct to the point and don’t give me the fluff. I’ve got a great guest for you. His name is Sarry Ibrahim. He is a financial planner and member of the Bank On Yourself organization.

He helps real estate investors, business owners and full-time employees grow safe and predictable wealth regardless of market conditions using a financial strategy that has been around for over 160 years. Sarry started his journey when he was in grad school completing his MBA. He worked for companies like Allstate, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Cigna, HealthSpring and Humana before founding Financial Asset Protection, a financial services firm that focuses on one sole concept, the Bank On Yourself concept, also known as the Infinite Banking Concept. Sarry, welcome to the show.

Gary, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it.

This is going to be interesting. We’re going to dive back into your life. You told me already you’re in Chicago. It’s a little bit chilly there. You grew up there. Tell us about that. Where did you grow up in Chicago? What were you like in high school? What would your friends say about you?

I grew up in a Southwest suburb of Chicago. It’s Palos Hills for those familiar with the Chicago area. It’s about 30 minutes or 40 minutes South of Downtown Chicago. I was always very curious growing up. I always wanted to learn more about how the world worked more than I could handle and beyond my scope. For example, in class, I would look out the window and think about how things work outside of the classroom rather than inside the classroom. I was always a visionary.

I learned that visionaries think far ahead of steps. That could be problematic because if you’re not focused on the moment, you can miss certain things. That was also part of my life. I would make mistakes because I wasn’t present. I was thinking way too far ahead but I still enjoyed imagining different things that I still do as an entrepreneur. One of the reasons why I’m an entrepreneur is because I can’t settle for normal day-to-day things. I have to always think far ahead.

When I was a senior in high school, I took a class called Consumer Economics. It was how to write a check, how to look at a bank statement, what is a mortgage, what is interest and all these things. I liked it a lot. I understood those things back then. I wanted to make that into a career where that’s what you do for a living. You help people with financial things like that. I was still new to it. I was still young.

I didn’t know that was called financial consultant or financial planner. I got a bachelor’s degree, went to college and got an MBA with a concentration in project management. I started working for the insurance companies and seeing how they would think and evaluated risks. That led me into financial planning and helping people with financial strategies and accomplishing financial goals.

 

You’ll never know your passion before you actually do something. How are you going to be passionate about a career that you’ve never done before? Click To Tweet

 

I’m thankful that it was exactly what I’ve always wanted to do. It’s to solve financial problems. It’s not so much of, “If you have money, you can work with me.” It’s more of, “What is it? What’s going on in your life? What are some of your financial problems? Either too little money too much money or whatever the case is, what do you need help with?” That’s what I do. I help clients in all 50 states accomplish their financial goals. That’s who I am and some of my background.

What made you go into insurance? How did you get from college into working for different insurance companies? It sounds like you worked for a couple of them as well.

Typically, the average person who works for an insurance organization is 59 years old. It’s usually an old-school industry to be in. It’s not so much with my friends. I was the only one in my social group that went into insurance. I don’t know what it was. I came across an opportunity to work at Allstate. That was the first company. I told myself, “I don’t know what to expect. I have no idea what’s on the other side of that door until I go through that door and see.” That’s what happened. It was a lesson in life. You will never know your passion before you do something.

It’s almost impossible to say, “I’m going to do this career because I like it,” when you haven’t even done that career yet. That’s how high school and college are trained. It’s like, “Choose something you’re passionate about. Stick to it.” How are you going to be passionate about a career that you’ve never done before? The same is true that I would have never chosen insurance or financial services. It doesn’t sound transparent and appealing but once I got involved in it and understood it, I liked it. It made sense. There was a lot of logic behind it. Speaking of simplifying things, there were a lot of things that you could simplify in that world.

You got your MBA. You’re done. There are many directions you could have gone. Why Allstate?

First of all, I liked the name, the brand and how it was marketed. I worked there. While I was working there, I found that a lot of clients also liked working with the brand. More importantly, they liked working with people. One of the selling points of working in insurance is working with people, not just the companies or the brands. I enjoyed working with people and then owning the process of dealing with problems, claims and things like that. It was also a self-employable field to be in. That means that you could branch off and start your business either with Allstate or other companies.

I then went from Allstate to being an independent consultant/broker so I could represent different companies. That was something attractive to me. I thought about it. I was like, “How would the future look? The future could be that I have contracts with 30 different insurance companies and financial organizations. I have thousands of clients. I can work anywhere in the world. I just need a computer and a phone.” That was the kind of industry it is.

If I was, for example, working as a mechanical engineer for a Fortune 500 company, that’s not a self-employable field. I can’t branch off, start my mechanical engineering company and do that. With insurance, you could. You have that opportunity. It’s people-to-people and small business-to-small business. It was the lifestyle that got me attracted to it. I work entirely from home. Everything is done on Zoom or over the phone. All my podcasting as a guest and as a host is done on Zoom. My wife and I have a son. We could travel and go somewhere. I’m not restricted to 9:00 to 5:00 anywhere.

It seemed like there were not too many steps to get you to where you wanted to go.

 

BYW S4 20 Sarry | Whole Life Insurance
Whole Life Insurance: The people who made it through the great depression were ones who had reserves and life insurance, because the way that insurance companies operate is not directly correlated or affected by the stock market.

 

It’s hard work still. I had to build up the book of business. The independent insurance route has about a 95% turnover rate. For every 100 people, 95 quit and go do something else because it’s very difficult. It’s hard to attract people, work with people and keep them as clients. I positioned more into financial planning, not just insurance. Insurance is one of the tools that we have. There’s also the financial planning aspect of building out financial plans for people, saving for retirement, getting out of debt, negotiating and things like that. We do more of that too.

You got into insurance, transitioned over to financial planning, got out and started your own. You used a 160-year-old process. Tell us about that.

It’s called the Infinite Banking Concept. It was invented by Nelson Nash years ago. One of the primary routes of the Infinite Banking Concept is the use of cash value whole life insurance. For how not sexy it sounds, it’s one of the most significant things in the world. These insurance companies have been in business for over 160 years. They have been implementing these. It’s the same with companies. A lot of organizations that have been around for a long time, their backbones or reserves are in cash value life insurance. Banks have most of their reserves in cash value life insurance.

A lot of the things that happen in the world, financially speaking, revolve around life insurance companies. There are about 2,000 life insurance companies in the United States alone. If you were to take all their reserves and money and pool it together, it would be greater than all of the cash from all the banks and oil companies in the world combined. It gives you a visual of what’s happening. If a high-rise building in Switzerland is being built, a US life insurance company probably has something to do with it. They have loaned money to it and invested in that deal. A lot of things in the world are happening from the backbones of life insurance companies.

Should that make me feel good or bad?

That should make you feel good because there’s certainty and security. The people, families and corporations that made it to the Great Depression were ones who had reserves and life insurance because the way that insurance companies operate is not directly correlated or affected by the stock market and other things. In March 2020 when COVID first happened, life insurance companies’ cash reserves weren’t affected by COVID whereas the stock market was. The stock market went up since COVID happened. Initially, there was a hit to it.

From the perspective of certainty and safety, you want your money sitting somewhere or at least one place. If everything goes down and shuts down, you have one account somewhere that’s protected. It’s going to earn compound interest and growth. This is exactly what we do. We use the Infinite Banking Concept to help clients, small business owners and individuals have at least some certainty for the future and something they could predict and look onto.

We have a podcast called Thinking Like a Bank. We launched Episode 51. Check out Episode 51. We talk about what happens when there’s chaos. There’s this Ukraine-Russia situation. How does that impact us? We don’t know. Nobody knows how long that war is going to last and the magnitude of it. As business owners and individuals here, we need some certainty of how do we take our cash with us into the future, grow it into the future and no risk at all.

What is a cash value whole life insurance?

 

We use the infinite banking concept to help clients, small business owners, individuals have at least some sort of certainty for the future. Something they could predict and look onto. Click To Tweet

 

There are typically three types of life insurance out there. There’s a term, whole life and universal. The term has a set period. It’s usually 10 years, 20 years or 30 years. There is no cash value to it. It’s simple life insurance only. Use it for that certain period. There’s a start date and end date. The whole life has a start date. It’s life insurance. There’s also a savings account portion to it that grows and earns interest and dividends. Dividends are not guaranteed but there are dividends involved with whole life insurance. The cash value grows over time.

Universal life is very similar to both the term and whole life. It’s a little bit complicated to explain but it’s pretty much another form of permanent cash value life insurance. We’re focused on the middle one or cash value whole life insurance. It’s a special design. It’s not just from any company or agent but a special design cash value whole life insurance policy that allows you to build up cash in it to protect from market conditions. There are a ton of tax advantages with whole life insurance to give you the ability to always have access to that money.

Here’s one problem in 2008. For the real estate investors reading this, you know what happened in 2008. A lot of people had properties. A lot of real estate investors, contractors and construction companies had money in real estate. A couple of compounding problems happened. One problem that happened was the real estate market crashed. All the values dropped significantly. After that happened, banks stopped loaning out money because the collateral went down. It became too risky.

Plus, unemployment went up. A lot of companies shut down. The stock market took a hit. That means that it wasn’t a lendable society. A lot of people weren’t lendable anymore. That changed the way banks started lending money. What happened if you owned twenty real estate properties that were all paid off? You’re stuck because you don’t want to sell them at such a low rate if you might have to. You can’t borrow against them because there’s no bank available to loan you the money.

Even if there was a bank to loan you the money, they’re going to loan you an amount that’s much less than that because the values went down and banks loan according to the value of it. It had this spiraling effect like, “If this then that,” all spiraling together. With whole life insurance, that won’t happen because it’s not correlated with the stock market. When the stock market or the real estate market goes down, the account values don’t go down.

That’s one aspect of it. You always have the value of it increasing no matter what happens in the market. The other side to it is you have guaranteed access to the funding or the money either through loans or withdrawals regardless of how the economy does. It’s not based on credit nor is it based on economical or financial external conditions. Banks loan out money according to the person’s credit, the economy and the community we’re in.

How does your money grow in a whole life plan?

Let’s say, for example, one of the companies we work with is Lafayette Insurance Company. Lafayette Insurance Company is a private for-profit life insurance company. They have investments. They invest in the bond market, give out loans to banks, invest in real estate properties and earn profits from every year. Part of their profits every year get distributed back to the policy owners because it’s a mutually-owned life insurance company and because how they have structured their policies is to give dividends back to the policy owners. That’s one way. The second way is they guarantee you an interest rate.

It’s a very small interest rate. It’s nothing crazy. It was 4% up until 2022. Some regulations changed. They dropped down to 3% guaranteed gross. There are also the dividends. We’re expecting the dividends are going to go up because dividends are positively correlated with interest rates. As interest rates go up, it’s projected that dividend rates will go up as well. That’s how somebody could have a cash value whole life insurance policy and have the cash in it grow over time, not just from the money they’re putting into it but also from the insurance company growing and then providing dividends and interest back to the accounts.

 

BYW S4 20 Sarry | Whole Life Insurance
Whole Life Insurance: If the stock market goes down, whole life insurance is still there. You want some foundations in your financial plan.

 

Let’s say you took $100 and put it into a whole life plan. You took $100 and put it into the stock market or the S&P 500. What happens? Take us through the scenarios.

A lot of people will project that. They will project, “What if I put $100 a month into a whole life policy versus the S&P 500 fund?” Number one is that the whole life policy is not meant to be an investment. It’s meant to be a savings account. It’s meant to be used for investments. What you could do is fund the whole life policy, borrow against that and then put it in the stock market, which a lot of people do. A lot of our clients do it. We help them structure things like that. It’s a matter of both and it’s not meant to replace either one.

There are so many different ways to give financial advice and so many rules to follow. One thing I would recommend is the whole life part is just one of the legs in your financial portfolio. It’s not the whole financial portfolio. It shouldn’t be either whole life insurance or the stock market. I believe that people should be truly diversified. They should have some money in the stock market, whole life insurance, real estate, their business and different places. I use the word truly diversified. We talked about this in Episode 51 of our show.

Some people might have money in the stock market in low risk, medium risk and aggressive. They might say that they’re diversified but all their money is in the stock market. That’s not truly diversified. Truly diversified is some money in the stock market, bonds, different markets, different areas and even places that are not correlated or connected to each other. It’s an example of whole life insurance. If the stock market goes down, whole life insurance is still there. If the real estate market goes down, you want some foundations in your financial plan.

If you put $100 into a whole life, you would get a 3% return. If you put it in the stock market, you could get a 20% return or a 20% loss. It’s not much of a gamble but it’s not much of a return.

Nobody gets rich off of whole life insurance. It’s meant to preserve capital. It’s meant to keep your wealth and have it outpace inflation and a savings account because savings accounts nowadays give 1/10 of 1% if you don’t have a percentage. At least with the whole life policy, you can at least outpace that. Plus, you get the tax advantages and you have it sitting somewhere that’s not going to be impacted by market conditions. Plus, there are no credit qualifications for the loan when you borrow against it.

Plus, there are some legal things too with litigation. In most states, it’s protected from predators and people trying to sue you. There are a lot of aspects other than the rate of return that people should consider. You mentioned a good point on the rate of return aspect. A lot of people come in and say, “What’s the rate of return on it?” We tell them, “It’s 3%.” They say, “No, thank you.” They go somewhere else and potentially earn 12% or 10% in the stock market.

I see what they’re thinking. They’re thinking they want the most value out of their money but there are still other aspects like the taxes, protection, economical conditions and other things that go into play other than the rate of return. Plus, you could use the policy for higher rates of return. We have clients who fund whole life policies. From the funds in the policy, they borrow against those and then do private money lending where they’re investing to real estate investors.

It inflates your overall return when you have a whole life with other lending and investments because what happens is you get both. You get the growth from whole life insurance and the private money you’re lending out or the other investments you have. Those together give you a much higher rate of return when it’s together rather than using one or the other. When you integrate them together, it gives you a compounding or a much higher return than choosing one without the other.

 

One rule of financial planning is it’s never one solution for everybody. There are different situations. Click To Tweet

 

Is it an interest-free loan that you give yourself?

You would borrow the money from the insurance company and pay interest to the insurance company. It’s typically a simple interest rate that’s compounded in arrears. At the end of the year, the interest is due and it doesn’t compound on it. When you earn on your policy, you’re earning compound interest. What happens is that there’s arbitrage. Arbitrage is the growth of your money even when you’re using the money. A lot of real estate investors do this.

They will borrow, for example, $100,000 from their policy and then use it for real estate. Let’s say they paid $5,000 back to their policy. They may have earned that year $10,000 from their policy. There was an arbitrage or a net gain of $5,000. They bought money at $105,000 and earned $110,000. Their split is $5,000 in that situation. There is a lot more that goes into it but it gets to the point where the money outpaces, which brings it into a whole other topic of opportunity costs. Imagine if you paid cash for everything, bought real estate or cars with cash and invested in your business with only cash.

The downside to that is you would never earn interest on your money. You would lose the opportunity cost you could have earned on that interest. You spent that money. Had you invested that money or saved it somewhere, borrowed against it and then paid it back, you would never skip a beat on your interest. You would always keep earning interest even when you are buying real estate and cars, investing in your business or whatever else you’re doing.

Are there different times in your life when a whole life makes sense and times when it doesn’t make sense? Does it always make sense?

One rule of financial planning is there’s never one solution for everybody. There are different situations. This is why you need to work with somebody who’s unbiased and who’s going to take a step back and look at your financial situation. There are some times when whole life insurance doesn’t make sense for the people who, for example, don’t have much in reserves or income. In my opinion, it wouldn’t make sense to tie up that money into a life insurance policy because there’s a capitalization period. There’s a period where you’re funding the policy.

Your cash value is not going to match directly with your premiums going into it. There’s going to be a dip. When you start a business, you’re not going to be profitable in year one. There’s going to be a slight dip in your business. Maybe a couple of years later, you would come out profitable. It’s the same thing with whole life insurance. You might do a policy. For example, in year one, you put $10,000 and your cash value in year one is $6,000. There was a cost to that insurance but it’s not about year one. If somebody is only focused on year one then I would not recommend it to them.

If somebody is focused on the next 10 or 20 years, I would recommend it to them. Those are the costs. Eventually, the cash value exceeds the premiums paid to it. You end up coming out ahead. You get more out of the policy than you put into it in the later years, not in the first year. I don’t know of any investments without taking any risks when in year one, you could come out ahead. Maybe there are some bonds and things like that you could do where you could come out ahead but for the most part, it’s a long-term play when you passively invest.

What is your goal as a financial planner?

 

BYW S4 20 Sarry | Whole Life Insurance

Whole Life Insurance: When you integrate them together, it gives you a compounding return, a much higher return than just choosing one without the other.

 

My goal is I want to help people solve their problems. That’s how I stay in business. How I can get satisfaction out of what I do is by solving problems for people. If somebody has debt that they want to pay off efficiently and they want to get out of debt, I can help them with that. If they want to save for retirement, I can figure that out. We can go through a solution for them. If they want to transition from a full-time employee to running a business and they need help with the financial aspects of that, we can help with that. That’s what I want. I want to be able to solve problems for people and concrete problems, not just sell a mutual fund and say that it’s the solution. It’s more concrete where the client says, “This helped me a lot. This helped me out this way.” They see the benefits of it.

Who has been your biggest mentor that has taught you the most? You’re competing out there in the marketplace with guys that are 60 and have been doing this for 30 years. Why should somebody choose you over somebody that has been in the field for 30 years?

Here’s full disclosure. Thankfully, I’ve been in a situation where it was me or another advisor who has been in the industry for 30 years. I’ve been thankfully chosen over them. There are a couple of things. Number one, I’m part of an awesome team. I’m part of the Bank On Yourself group. We’re a group of 300 advisors in North America. We have weekly training calls. We had to go through a credentialing program to get accepted and be able to provide these types of policies and solutions for clients.

That had a huge impact on my success. Number two, I have a mentor too. I’ve been working with them for years. His name is Mark Willis. You could check out his podcast called Not Your Average Financial Podcast. He has helped me out a lot. He’s a big reason for my success. He is the top Bank On Yourself professional out of 300 advisors in North America. He is number one since he started with this program. I have a lot of support from the top advisors in the country. I’m thankful for that.

I like to simplify things. I’ve worked with clients before who said they have read books, listened to podcasts and still haven’t figured out this concept. After twenty minutes on the phone with me, they did. Not to brag but that has been practiced on my end. I’ve been practicing the skill, not just this skill particularly but also the skill of conveying subjects and concepts to people and breaking them down into smaller and more manageable pieces. I’m very good at that.

I’m taking complex things and situations and then breaking them down to the point where somebody who is ten years old can understand exactly what’s going on. It’s like Albert Einstein’s quote, “If you can’t explain something in very simple terms then you don’t understand it properly.” I’m a big advocate of that. Thankfully, a lot of clients have seen that in me. They have been wanting to work with me because I don’t start the conversation by talking about bond rates, the S&P 500 and all these things that are irrelevant to them.

It’s not about the company, percentage or rate of return. It’s about working with individuals who can listen to you and implement things that truly matter to you. If a client says, “I want 10% on my money,” and then you say, “I’ll find something for 10% of your money,” that’s not an adequate solution. What is it about the 10% that you want to accomplish and going further into that? That’s the advantage that I have over people who have been in this industry for a long time.

Why is it important for you? What do you see as the benefit of simplifying things for people? Why is simplicity important?

People need to understand what’s going on. They need to understand, learn and remember what you’re saying and how things work. It’s a huge factor in how they live. The way you live has a lot to do with what you know about the world. That has a huge impact on the way you live. People need to understand those things. Plus, there’s a lot of chaos and confusion out there. A lot of people don’t know the details of things.

It's not about the percentage is not about the rate of return. It's about working with individuals who can listen to you and who could implement things that truly matter to you. Click To Tweet

If you could break it down, it’s very satisfying to take something hard or complex, break it down and then make it simple to understand. It creates momentum. In my shoes, it’s good to know that I can work with a client. They’re all over the place financially and we can solve a problem. It’s important. If you’re working with a professional, they need to make sure that they’re making things very simple for you and not making things more complex or confusing.

What did it feel like to you when you took the WHY Discovery, it came up with Simplify and you started to read about it? How did that feel for you?

I was surprised but not really. There were 10 or 20 questions. I was going through each one. When I got the result, I was like, “Is that who I am?” When I thought about it further after that, I was like, “That does make sense.” I’ve done many podcasts where we finished recording. For example, we will be talking about Infinite Banking like how we were talking about it and the host will say, “It makes a lot of sense. You broke it down. I remembered everything you said. It’s very clear.” It does align with making things simple. It is what I expected.

You have one of the rarest Whys. Simplify is one of the rarest. It’s fascinating to me because people with your Why get stuff done. They’re so efficient, results-oriented and super valuable to be around. What’s the difference to you in simplifying something simple versus something complex?

It gets stuff done for sure. When you simplify things, you see a clear side of it. One problem I used to have when I couldn’t get things done is because it was too complicated to do. You weren’t even going to do it anymore. When you break it down into simpler terms, you get more things done. That’s very important. It’s getting things done especially in entrepreneurship. You can get a lot of things done efficiently because there’s a lot of work in running a business.

You need to be able to get a lot of small little things done in a day. I don’t know why but time flies by as an entrepreneur because there are so many things that need to be done and broken down. This is something that I do. Not to brag but I’m very good at doing a lot of different things, keeping track of clients, business plans, retirement accounts and taking care of my immediate family, my parents and things like that. There’s a lot going on.

I have to be able to do a lot of things in a day. One thing I do is I have systems. I have everything on a calendar. Every morning, I go into the calendar and write out each task one by one. After I complete it, I highlight it. That way, I could see what’s done. It also creates momentum to get more things done. It’s a task as simple as sending an email to this person all the way to finalizing an analysis for a client.

It varies and there are different degrees. I typically put the easier ones on top. That way, I can go through them quicker. I’ve got pushback from this. Some people will say it’s better to put the harder ones on top like the saying, “Swallow the frog first.” Test out different things. It’s going to be different for you. Those are some of the things that have worked for me. I like making things simpler. Life is already complicated as it is.

It’s great for the readers to get to experience somebody that has the Why of Simplify because there’s only 4% of the population that has your Why. People with your Why are super valuable to have on a team. People that overcomplicate things are not as valuable to have on a team because they make it so complex that the only person that can do anything with it is them. If you were to start to build your messaging, marketing and branding, do you think it would be valuable for your clients to know that your Why is to Simplify?

 

BYW S4 20 Sarry | Whole Life Insurance
Whole Life Insurance: It’s very hard to predict sales because you never know what’s going on in the customer’s mind. You can’t control that, but you can control things that lead up to that. There are predictable things that you could do that will give you the results you’re looking for.

 

It’s important because one thing that I do and I’ve seen success with through working with clients is that I constantly reiterate both of our Whys. It’s why I’m helping them and why they are implementing too. Along the line, it’s very easy for people to forget, “What are we doing here? Why are we having this financial?” That happens a lot. People need reassurance. It’s providing them the reassurance of what’s going on and why. I’ve noticed that when you start with Why like Simon Sinek’s Start With Why, it lays out the foundation for the following things.

I’ve noticed too that even subconsciously, I’ve chosen titles of videos and podcasts to listen to and watch based on the titles. Instead of me saying why I became a financial planner, it’s going to be more appealing than how I became a financial planner or what financial planners do. It’s the most powerful word in English or any language with the word why. It’s the reason why you do things. From a marketing perspective, it’s the most intriguing part of the marketing message.

It’s especially if you take it and apply it to, “Why should I choose you?” As a prospect, I’m sitting here and I meet you for the first time. What’s going through my mind is, “Why should I choose Sarry?” There are a lot of financial advisors right there. They’re everywhere just like anything. They’re trying to figure out why should they choose you. If you don’t tell them then they won’t know.

The better able you are to articulate why you do what you do and what it is you believe, the more you will be able to attract those people that believe what you believe. Your ideal client is somebody who wants it simple and easy to understand and doesn’t want all the fluff and the extra. They just want simple and easy-to-follow instructions on, “What do I need to do? I want to make sure it’s getting done. I want to know what’s going to get me the results that I want.”

There are people who think like you. You’re most likely to attract those people.

They believe what you believe. If you’re able to articulate it, say it and use it in your messaging, marketing, podcast and when you sit down with your prospect, it instantly cuts to the chase to why they should choose you. You sat down and said, “I believe that success happens when we make things simple and easy to understand, don’t overcomplicate it and go directly to the point. Let’s figure out what you want, how to get there and what you need to get there. That’s when we’re going to have success. That’s what you can get from me.”

“I’m not going to give you all the fluff, try to sell you stuff you don’t need and try to get you to buy whatever. It’s going to be simple and easy to understand.” We have a completely different conversation than, “I wonder what this guy is going to try to sell me. He’s going to throw me into insurance because he makes the most money or whatever the story is.” We create a narrative. It’s your ability to cut to the chase and tell me what it is you believe.

We didn’t get to do your How and What yet but I’m going to take a stab at what your How and What is based on our conversation. Your Why, which we already know is to make things simple and easy to understand. How you do that is by making sense of complex and challenging concepts. Do you feel more successful when you’re able to show somebody a path or when you’re able to help them in whatever way they need help?

It’s the path for sure.

 

When you break it down into more simple terms, you get more things done. Click To Tweet

 

Ultimately, what you bring is the right way to get predictable and consistent results. Your Why is to make things simple and easy to understand so that everybody can do it. How you go about doing that is by making sense of the complex challenges that they’re facing and solving their problems. Ultimately, what you bring is the right way to get consistent and predictable results. You bring them the path and the map to get where they want to go. How does that feel to you?

I feel like I know more about myself now from hearing those things.

Does that feel right though?

It does. I do agree that it does make sense. I noticed it too. I’m laying out the path and solution. It creates more reassurance for everybody, for myself and for other people that I work with. I’ve thought about it. For example, what if I were to be a consultant for a company or a sales organization? It’s very hard to predict sales because you never know what’s going on in the customer’s mind. You can’t control that but you can control things that lead up to that. It’s the number of times you reach out to somebody and the length of time you speak to people. There are predictable things that you could do that will give you the results you’re looking for.

I have one last question for you. What has been the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten or the best piece of advice you’ve ever given?

The best piece of advice I’ve gotten was from my mentor, Mark Willis. He says, “Never take anything personally.” There are a lot of emotions out there in the world and a lot of people could take things. I do sometimes take things personally but having the ability to not take things personally will put you ahead, especially in an entrepreneurial mindset. Getting ahead is never taking anything personally. There are so many other things going on in the world and other people’s minds that for the majority of the time, it’s not intended for you or at you. It’s having that mindset of never taking anything personally.

If there are people reading and they want to get ahold of you, contact you, work with you or listen to your podcast, what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you?

If you’re looking to take a different approach financially and you have an open mind, you can go to ThinkingLikeABank.com. You can download a free eBook there, schedule an appointment with me and check out our podcast called Thinking Like a Bank. All that is from the website.

Sarry, thank you so much for being here. I enjoyed getting to know you and meeting another Simplify.

Me too. Thanks, Gary. Thanks for having me on.

Thank you so much for reading. If you have not yet discovered your Why, you can do so at WHYInstitute.com with the code Podcast50. If you love the show, please don’t forget to subscribe below and leave us a review and rating so that you can be part of bringing the Why and the WHY.os to the world. Thank you.

 

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About Sarry Ibrahim

BYW S4 20 Sarry | Whole Life InsuranceSarry Ibrahim is financial planner and member of the Bank On Yourself Organization. He helps real estate investors, business owners, and full time employees grow safe and predictable wealth regardless of market conditions using a financial strategy that has been around for over 160 years. Sarry started this journey when he was in grad school completing his MBA. He worked for companies like Allstate, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Healthspring, and Humana before founding Financial Asset Protection, a financial services firm that focuses on one sole concept; the Bank On Yourself Concept, also known as the Infinite Banking Concept.