Bonus Episode 488: Creating Perpetual Wealth with Kim Butler and Steve Gordon

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors.

[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. It is always a joy to talk about perpetual wealth because any family can achieve it. And the cool thing about just getting that idea in your head is it really puts a very, very long-term perspective on your life. Welcome to the Unstoppable CEO Podcast. I’m your host, Steve Gordon, and today we have got a great interview for you. If you’re interested in creating perpetual wealth. So if you’re not interested in creating perpetual wealth, then go find another episode to listen to. But I’m going to guess I’ve still got everybody with me. So today I’m talking with Kim Butler, and Kim is an amazing entrepreneur. And really the heart of Kim’s vision and mission is to activate lifelong service

[01:05] for her clients. So what does that mean? It means that she really works to inspire them to live lives of purpose for their whole lives rather than retiring or taking themselves out of service, which as we all know here is the true definition of retirement. And she has just worked in all aspects of the financial industry. And now she helps her clients create long-term financial strategies to build sustainable wealth, to build perpetual wealth using whole life insurance. She’s got a new book out around the idea of perpetual wealth and a great new game. And this is, I think, a really good way of educating everyone in your family about how to build wealth and what those skills and tools are. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

[01:52] Kim Butler, welcome back to the Unstoppable CEO Podcast. Well, thank you, Steve. Always a joy to talk with you. And it is always a joy to talk about perpetual wealth because any family can achieve it. And we know that there is such a lack of financial education in our society. And when you look at the various places that you can get financial education, it’s usually from the banks and the Wall Street companies that certainly teach some valuable information. Yet the idea of passing on wealth from family to family, especially in just your normal family that let’s let’s say normal is net worth of under three million dollars. This is not a subject that is talked about passing on wealth. Perpetual wealth is talked about in three million and not all the time.

[02:48] But your normal family, the guy and the gal that own a business that create fabulous work out in the field, but are not going to ever have millions and millions and millions to pass on, want to pass on wealth and wealth is not just money. Wealth is our mindsets. Wealth is our ability to deal with adversity. Wealth is our value system. And yes, wealth can be a little bit of money. And the cool thing about just getting that idea in your head is it really puts a very, very long term perspective on your life. You know, there’s a saying you die twice the first time when you actually die physically and the second time when your name is last spoken. And so, yeah, isn’t that impactful? Think about, you know, the gentleman that’s maybe our age bracket, 50s, 60s,

[03:51] the gal that’s in her 80s that loves their life and loves what are probably children, grandchildren, and maybe even great grandchildren. And wouldn’t it be cool if they could perpetuate the speaking of their name because they put in place strategies and maybe products to enable perpetual wealth in that family? Wouldn’t that be cool? That’d be amazing. So you mentioned a number of different aspects of wealth. I think for some people, that’s going to catch them a little bit by surprise, because most of the time when we think wealth, we think either cold hard cash or whatever other assets that we’ve accumulated. Right. And there’s so much talked about about trying to acquire wealth, you know, with those vehicles.

[04:43] But my suspicion is that the other things that you talked about are actually predecessors. So how do all of these things fit together? You talked about mindset and you talked about, you know, intentions and all of this and values. How does that all fit together? Well, I believe that as people progress in their lives, they get clearer that success as a human being starts up here in our heads. And it is why our company is called Prosperity Thinkers. It is also something that is very easy to pass on because it’s just a thought. It’s an unlimited, literally perpetual thought process. And so whether you want to call it values, which are a certain set of maybe physiological tools or mindset, which is a certain set of thinking processes or behavior

[05:40] or character, you know, all of these terms are things that are so important to a human being, successful, and they tend to be very near and dear to our heart. And so when you open the door for people to think about that aspect of being part of their wealth, it opens the door for them to think about the financial aspect. I’ll give you a quick story. I had a probably 70 year old gentleman contact us recently. He wanted to put in place a way for his grandsons to get an extra couple hundred bucks a month from the time they were 18 to 22, which, as we know, is typically college age, because he, when he was at that age, did not have an extra dime to buy a Coke. And as we know, a Coke cost a dime back then.

[06:45] Or, you know, go to the bar and hang out with his buddies after the game that they played on their college field. Like he had nothing extra. And so there’s an actual product that you can buy where you put in X dollars and it guarantees like with a big capital G. And as we know, there’s not much in the financial world that you can actually use the guaranteed word with. It guarantees that this money would go to the child. Well, then we paired that with a system, which I’m going to have to get you this link later to include in the show notes because I’m blanking on it right now. But there’s an actual system where you can put some letters like physical letters in a vault and they will mail those

[07:30] to a certain person on certain dates. So so he’s got this guaranteed payment combined with a guaranteed card, you know, essentially a greeting card. And that’s going to go to his grandchildren, whether he’s alive or dead or wherever they’re living or anything else. So that’s the kind of idea. Once you get your mindset open, you’re thinking open to the idea that there can be perpetual wealth. This was like ten thousand dollars. You know, it was not a lot of money. And it enabled him to think about perpetual wealth. So now then he’s thinking even more like, well, you know, this character trait was really important as I was growing up. How can I pass that on? And so it just generated a whole bunch of awesome discussions.

[08:15] That’s amazing. And how old are his grandsons now? I think they were like 13, 14 right now. OK, so, you know, this guy’s healthy, but nobody’s guaranteed tomorrow. And so he knows now with absolute certainty, guaranteed that his grandsons are going to get these checks, whether he’s living or dead. That’s fantastic. And, you know, and I think that frames it in a really unique way because, you know, we open with the two words that I think you’ve chosen. So so wisely perpetual wealth. Right. When you think about that, like the first image that comes up in people’s minds, I think, is Scrooge McDuck swimming in his, you know, room full of gold coins. And what you’re talking about is a very practical way to do this.

[09:05] Now, it might mean having big sums of money, but it might not. Right. And I think that opens it up for a lot of people. Talk a little bit about the tell us about the book and what some of the concepts are in the book. And so people can begin to wrap their heads around the next steps to take towards creating perpetual wealth in their lives. Absolutely. So perpetual wealth is a book. It’s available on Amazon and it’s also available at our website. And if you do buy it at the website, which we’ll have the links for those in the show notes, then you get a free workbook that goes along with it. And it is the culmination of a couple years of work with my co-author, Kate Phillips and myself, and distilling over 30 years of me helping people

[09:52] with their personal finances around this area of perpetual wealth. And then very specifically, Chapter 14, our team created this family legacy game. So if you’re looking at the camera, the family legacy game is just a tiny, simple little card game. And like I said, our team created it like, you know, we help people with their personal finances. We are not game creators. This was such a fabulous idea. And it was a lot harder than I thought. Yet it’s done. It’s out. Right. So it is a beautiful set of cards. I love what the printers did with them. They look fabulous. They have lots of color. There are very specific instructions that come right in the box that make it very easy for people to play the game.

[10:45] There’s a video at familylegacygame.com, which enables people to understand the structure a little bit. And it is designed to make the ideas in the book come alive, because it’s a pretty heavy duty book. I think it’s less just under 300 pages. And like I said, there’s about I think there’s 16 or 17 chapters. But the game is Chapter 14, and it is somewhat the culmination of it because it enables people to really understand what legacy means to them. So perpetual wealth is a nice big concept. But when you boil it down, people are really leaving a family legacy. And so the game Family Legacy Game spells out L-E-G-A-C-Y, and it really helps people delve into that concept, get clear on what that concept is for them.

[11:43] And it drives conversation, because this is what I was hearing from my clients all across the country. How do I talk to my kids about this? Now, kids could be 40 year olds, right, that are parents. Kids could be those grandchildren that are 10, 11, 12 years old. It could be even great grandchildren that are 10, 11, 12 years old. And people just don’t really know. I mean, in America’s society, we don’t talk about money. And when people assume perpetual wealth is all about money, they have a hard time having the conversation or even starting the conversation. But if you back up and you make perpetual wealth be about legacy and you define what legacy is for you and you think about ideas and values and character traits

[12:30] and all of those types of things, which literally are free and unlimited, hence the word perpetual. It’s a lot easier to open the conversation. And then maybe you come back to money or maybe you even don’t. But you can start the conversation and the game helps start that conversation. Well, you know, the transference of that wisdom is actually a great vehicle to create perpetual wealth. You know, wealth, physical wealth, money generally comes from the application of wisdom in the world. And so, you know, one of the things that you’ll see with people who are very wealthy sometimes is they transfer the money, but not the wisdom to future generations. And then the money is depleted because the wisdom isn’t there

[13:12] to go along with it. So I think by pairing these two, by getting people focused on how to have those conversations, it actually enables them than to build the physical wealth side of it and have to pass on, or whether that’s to pass on to to children or to causes and things that they believe in, things that they want to change in the world. I think all of those are great. But I love that you started with what’s in your head, you know, with mindset and and getting clear on what legacy means to you. I often think that is one of the most difficult things for people to do, is figure out exactly what they want and not focus on just what they don’t want. Very difficult to do. And and once you get there, then it opens up

[13:58] the path to go achieve that. But without that clarity, you can’t do it. So I think the game is a great way to sort of stimulate those conversations and that thinking. Well, you know, the definition of decide is to kill. And you said it so well, if we don’t kill off ideas that we don’t want and by kill off, I mean, stop thinking about them, stop talking about them. Then we don’t allow for room in our lives to get clear on what we want. And it’s like starting a trip in California and not knowing where you’re going to go, you know, you’re going to go to Florida, you’re going to go to New York. Well, if you’re in a car, that’s a big difference. And if you are unclear on where you go, maybe the first little bit doesn’t matter,

[14:47] because as long as you’re heading east, you’re going to be in the right direction. But after a period of time, it matters a lot, whether you’re going southeast or northeast. And so these ideas, when we can get clarity around them, just really free up so much potential and opportunity and enable our minds and our attention. Use that word earlier to get focused and then we can get better results. And we focus on what we want and drive our attention towards the good things in our lives that we’re going for instead of letting all the news and negative things that so easily float to the top take our attention. Well, and I think, you know, one of the reasons I wanted to bring you in and talk about this topic is that I think entrepreneurs

[15:41] are positioned perfectly to begin to have these conversations in our society. Can you mention that we don’t, you know, in Western culture, we tend not to talk about any of these ideas that at least at certain income levels, except within the entrepreneurial community, because I think the nature of it, you’re forced to confront your mindset in so many other areas that this is just yet another. It’s just an extension. And so I think starting here and using this as a way to spread it is I think it’s well placed. And I know you’re in touch with a lot of entrepreneurs through the work that you do as well. What are some of the things that you have seen change in people? And we talked about the one example with the gentleman

[16:27] and giving the money to his grandchildren. But, you know, for someone who is, you know, in their 40s or 50s and trying to figure everything out, maybe they’re building a business. How does this begin to impact their behaviors? Well, I love that question because it’s a critical change and it’s basically about time preference. Because when you’re in your 20s and 30s, you tend to just be so focused on the present, which is fabulous. But you can’t get your chin up and see the future very well when you tend to get into your 40s and 50s. And especially if you’ve established a business and you’re starting to see some financial success, which is what a business is designed to do because of the entrepreneurial mindset,

[17:11] like you said, that drives into your lives in so many ways. I find that having that longer term vision that starts to play a role when we get into our 40s and 50s is so valuable to start to apply monetarily. Because in the early years, we’re just trying to save some money and, you know, maybe build a quote retirement plan, which we could talk about, but we’ll save that for another podcast, the efficiency or lack thereof there. Nevertheless, we do start and, you know, when we have children, we do start to think a little bit more long term. And this idea of long term thinking, of course, is what perpetual wealth is built on this idea of doing something about the generational environment. When you have a business, many people want to pass that business

[18:03] on to the next generation. You know, it’s too early to tell at this stage whether that will or will not work. But that time preference becomes so critical because there are financial products that support the time preference. And you mentioned when you introduced me the idea of whole life insurance. That is a very, very long term product. Yeah, it can benefit us in the short term. But I have found that for that 40 to 50 year old entrepreneur, when they, especially if they have children, when they start to confront the fact that I want to live a long, long, long time and statistics show that I will probably live a long, long, long time. Yet I also want to make sure certain things happen with my business and with my family.

[18:56] And so the product, whole life insurance, paired with the concepts in the perpetual wealth book and the work that we do enable people to benefit themselves and their family in the short run, primarily by building emergency opportunity money, which, again, can be a business asset on the business balance sheet or personal asset or both and have that longer term play guaranteed. And it’s amazing what you can do in the short run when you have the longer term guaranteed. It’s literally like if you were guaranteed to win the lottery at age 80, you would act different from age 40 or 50 to age 80. If you knew for sure that at age 80, you were guaranteed to win the lottery while owning the whole life product,

[19:50] utilizing the presence of the death benefit in your life while you’re living. It’s called whole life. It’s not called whole death. It’s not called death insurance. So utilizing the presence of the death benefit is like operating with that guarantee lottery payout at age 80, except it’s not a lottery. It’s a guarantee. Yeah, it’s so interesting. We work with a lot of folks in your business, and you and I have these conversations and and the amount of misinformation and misunderstanding about how to use that product and the things that it can do. And we don’t I mean, that’s a whole nother podcast. But for everybody listening, if you haven’t asked the question of somebody who knows what they’re doing with it,

[20:36] it’s worth asking the question, particularly if you own a business, because there are some things that that you can do that that are very advantageous and and not everyone that you talk to out there in the business is educated on them and knows how to use them properly. So, yeah, it can be a huge, huge benefit. Correct. So you’ve got the game, you’ve got the book, they’re both out and and available now. People can get them from your website and and on Amazon. And I want to make sure we get those URLs for everyone once again. And I would I would love to to get one more sort of success story out of you. And I know you have to sort of be careful with those. You can’t identify anybody, but because I think those are the things that inspire people to take action.

[21:27] When they see here’s someone like me that made this commitment, made these decisions and they got this outcome that I want. It just makes it so much easier. So I would love to hear that story and then we’ll come back and do the URLs. And and but tell us about an entrepreneur who’s used these ideas and had good success. Well, I do have a fun one. And it is a gentleman that owns a data business, basically technology business. And he bought life early, early on when he really didn’t have a lot of money. But he was young. And that’s the cool thing about life. You can when you’re in your 20s and 30s, you know, 100 a month, a thousand a month can actually get you a policy. And then he bought another policy for his business

[22:11] so that he would have the asset on his personal balance sheet, as well as that liquid asset on his business balance sheet to use for emergencies and opportunities. And he did all throughout his late 20s, 30s and 40s. He borrowed against the cash value of his business owned policy, paid it back when the business was good, borrowed against it. So we talk about lean years and green years. He borrowed against it when he had lean years. He paid it back when he had green years over and over and over again. And just recently, he reached out to me asking about the capability of borrowing a fairly substantial sum in order to purchase a farm in Argentina that he and his family have been looking at for quite some time.

[22:58] And so here’s this kid that bought a whole life policy, not really even maybe I think he would met this fully understanding it. And over time, as he became a grown man, it did the job that it was supposed to do for his business, supporting his business, solving emergencies and helping him take advantage of opportunities. Because in green years, we want a place to put our cash, a place that is not taxed, a place that it will grow and remain liquid so that we can utilize it. And then now here in his 50s or might even be early 60s, I can’t remember, he’s purchasing this farm, which will be talk about family legacy, a part of his family all along. And there’s one additional aspect. This gentleman has a military background, so he’s clearly seen death in his life.

[24:00] And I think that always lends a different perspective than the normal human being walking the streets. And so he, as his children got into their early adulthood, he really wanted to make sure that they were prepared should they die, which, you know, you think, that’s kind of morbid. No, it’s not. You have an adult, literally anybody over 18. And if they don’t have some certain things lined out, if they get in a car accident, you as their parent, you can’t do a thing. The hospital, it’s like you’re out of the picture, even though you’re their parent. And of course, if death occurs, there’s all kinds of issues there. And so this guy so wisely said, I am going to stop worrying about this. I’m going to take care of all the problems that would exist

[24:51] if my 22 year old kid died. And then I can cross it off my list. So he bought life insurance on them. So he owns the asset. But the death benefit is there on that child, adult child. He had them get a will. He had them get a medical power of attorney listing him and his wife, their mother, so that the parents could come in and be involved if a car accident occurred. And it seems like there was maybe a couple other things. Oh, I know they dealt with their digital footprint. So this is something that is a huge like newsflash. If you’re not aware of this, your average 80 year old grandmother has over 20 online accounts, 20, right. And most of us probably have close to 100 on death. Those have to be dealt with.

[25:44] And if you don’t have the proper system in place, then that can be a one or two year process. And it is a hassle. But it just takes a little bit of paperwork, a little bit of clicks on the platform, whatever the platform is to get that solved. And so this man did that for his young adult children. And now he doesn’t have to worry about it anymore. That’s great. That’s amazing. You know, and I think that’s the value of going through this thinking, going back to sort of where we started. I know your goal in the book is to get people to wake up and think differently. And the goal of the game is to give them a way to practice that and have those conversations. And that’s that’s why I wanted to bring you here

[26:31] to our audience today to share these ideas. I encourage everybody who is listening to go get the book, get the game, have these conversations with your family. If you own a business, you’ve got an asset there that you have a responsibility to take care of. And you have the opportunity to really do some special things through that for your family. And so I think it’s important to to bring these topics. So, Kim, where can people find the book again on your website? Let’s give the URL one more time. So there is a dedicated website that’s the easiest, which is Family Legacy Game Dotcom. And that will take them through to the Prosperity Thinker site, where if they purchase the game there, they can buy the book there and get a free workbook.

[27:17] There’s about an 80 page workbook that goes with the two hundred and ninety page physical copy of the Perpetual Wealth book. Or they can just buy the game. The game is a standalone little game, card game, you know, comes in the box. Instructions are there, extra video on the site. And if that’s all they want, that’s available there at Family Legacy Card Game, sorry, Family Legacy Game Dotcom. Well, and folks don’t just buy the game, get the book, get the workbook, get the game and begin having these conversations. This is one of the most valuable things you can pass down to your to your children and to future generations. So please, please do that. Kim Butler, thanks for sharing your wisdom with us today.

[28:03] This has been amazing, and I appreciate you investing some time with me. Always a joy, Steve. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you. Visit Prosperity Thinkers Dotcom. We managed to manage everything from back end to front end and make online sales without complications. If Shopify was a cycling equipment, I would say it would be the bike itself. It’s what allows us to get where we want. It is in Shopify that we manage our business. Start your free evaluation at Shopify.com.