TLI Member Spotlight: Tax-Free Wealth Accumulation with Ryan Thacker – EP 164

Interview with Ryan Thacker

TLI Member Spotlight: Tax-Free Wealth Accumulation with Ryan Thacker

Featured on This Episode: Ryan Thacker

✅ What he does: Ryan Thacker is the president of B.O.S.S. Retirement Solutions. His primary focus is in the field of retirement income planning and social security maximization and is passionate about helping clients achieve their financial goals during retirement using the B.O.S.S. Retirement Blueprint.

He has appeared on Fox Business News and has had his articles published by FoxBusiness.com. Ryan has trained over 3,000 financial service professionals on the topic of retirement income and wealth management. Ryan is the co-author of three books. He has worked in the banking, real estate development, and financial services industries since 1998, and he opened his own independent firm in 2008.

Ryan and his wife Jenny have been married since 1996 and have four children. The six of them enjoy spending time together as a family, riding ATVs at their cabin, and supporting each other in church and community events.

💬 Words of wisdom: “One of my core philosophies is I’m either winning or I’m learning.” – Ryan Thacker

🔎 Where to find Ryan Thacker: LinkedIn

Key Takeaways with Ryan Thacker

• Lifestyle Investor Mastermind
• The value of surrounding yourself with greatness
• Five retirement buckets you need to address
• Warren Buffet’s three money principles
• Understanding the limitations of 401(k) plans
• Maximizing returns on Social Security
• Tax-free vs. Tax-deferred
• You’re either winning or learning
• Life insurance as a tax-free investing tool
• The advantages of Roth IRA investments
• The exponential impact of joining a mastermind
• Making money matter

The Secret Tool the Rich Use to Build Tax-Free Wealth with Ryan Thacker

Free Strategy Session 

The Lifestyle Investor Insider

Ryan Thacker Tweetables

“Since joining the mastermind, not only have we met our goal of covering our lifestyle, but we’ve created a large amount of passive income outside of our business. And that is just tremendously freeing.” - Ryan Thacker Click To Tweet

Resources

• B.O.S.S. Retirement Solutions & Advisors
• Ryan Thacker on LinkedIn
• The B.O.S.S. Retirement Blueprint: Your Guide to a Secure and Independent Retirement by Ryan Thacker, Tyson Thacker
• Tyson Thacker
• Keith Cunningham
• The Road Less Stupid by Keith J. Cunningham
• Warren Buffett
• Earl Nightingale
• The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale
• Dan Sullivan
• Strategic Coach
• Regan Archibald
• East West Health
• Fraser Bullock
• Bain Capital
• Ed Slott
• David M. Walker
• McKinsey
• Peter Thiel
• Huntsman
• Barefoot to Billionaire: Reflections on a Life’s Work and a Promise to Cure Cancer by Jon Huntsman
• Naval Ravikant

Rate & Review The Lifestyle Investor Podcast

If you enjoyed today’s episode of The Lifestyle Investor, hit the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, iHeart Radio, or wherever you listen, so future episodes are automatically downloaded directly to your device.

You can also help by providing an honest rating & review over on Apple Podcasts. Reviews go a long way in helping us build awareness so that we can impact even more people. THANK YOU!

Connect with Justin Donald

• Facebook
• YouTube
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Podcast

Get the Lifestyle Investor Book!

To get access to The Lifestyle Investor: The 10 Commandments of Cashflow Investing for Passive Income and Financial Freedom visit JustinDonald.com/book

Disclaimer

Advisory services offered through B.O.S.S. Retirement Advisors, an SEC Registered Investment Advisory firm. Insurance products and services offered through B.O.S.S. Retirement Solutions. The information contained in this material is given for informational purposes only, and no statement contained herein shall constitute tax, legal or investment advice. The information is not intended to be used as the sole basis for financial decisions, nor should it be construed as advice designed to meet the particular needs of an individual’s situation. You should seek advice on legal and tax questions from an independent attorney or tax advisor. Our firm is not affiliated with the U.S. government or any governmental agency.Please note that we are unable to accept any trade requests via email, voice message or text.

Read the Full Transcript with Ryan Thacker

Justin Donald: What’s up, Ryan? So glad to have you on the show.

 

Ryan Thacker: Justin, great to spend some time with you today.

 

Justin Donald: Well, it was awesome getting a chance to hang with you and your brother when you were in town. You guys were in Austin a few weeks ago, so we got a chance to dine at my favorite little French bistro here down the road from me. And it’s just cool seeing all the stuff that you both are up to. You’ve got such a fun life with all kinds of success, but at the same time, helping others in your network and helping them kind of level up the way that you and your brother Tyson have.

 

Ryan Thacker: Well, I’ll tell you, Austin is an amazing city. It seems like everything in the world right now is revolving around Austin. Just so many great people, a great vibe, great city, and of course, spending time with you, Justin, just fantastic.

 

Justin Donald: Well, I’ve got to say, I had a blast and it was a privilege to really get to carve out some time. I know you guys were busy and I think you guys were out here helping run an event for a pretty big-name person. I don’t know if we’re able to say his name, but I have loved his education. And his last book was fantastic. So, you let me know if we can talk about that or not.

 

Ryan Thacker: Absolutely. It was Keith Cunningham, and we had the opportunity to share the stage with Keith, and he wrote a book called The Road Less Stupid. I recommend if you have not read that book, it is a must-read for anyone when it comes to whether they own a business or just running their own investments. Just so much knowledge in there. Amazing.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, that’s where I got the idea of think time. It’s something that I have in my weekly schedule. And by the way, I started doing this, learning from him before he ever wrote the book, before it was ever in the book. He talked about how that was his single greatest key to success was carving out technology free time. He basically interrupted his interruptions and spent time in his comfy chair. That chair is only for thinking. So, he created this routine and established this discipline. And pretty cool stuff has happened for him, and likewise, for me as well.

 

Ryan Thacker: Well, I’ll tell you what, we use the same thing. Think time, it is the key, that morning connection when you can really just journal, read. Warren Buffett, all of the great minds, they spend a lot of time reading. And we really magnify that as well from Keith and it’s really helped us in our businesses. We like to do two things. Number one is connect just not business knowledge, but then even more important than that, connect with God in the morning and just really be able to get that power up that you need for the day.

 

And one of the things, Justin, that I love about Lifestyle Investor is many, many years ago when I was in college, I listened to an audio by Earl Nightingale. It’s an audio called The Strangest Secret. That would be a great little note there in the show notes for this, but he did a study. When you think about we live in an abundant time, richest land in the history of the world here in the United States, and he wrote this Strangest Secret and recorded it in 1957. And he says, if you take 100 people at age 25 and follow them for the next 40 years, you’re going to find something that’s really powerful.

 

And I think this relates to the great work that you’re doing. Justin, he says, at 25, they think they’re all going to be successful. They think they’re going to have the world by the tail. Everything’s going great. But fast forward those 40 years and what you’ll find at age 65 is one of those will be rich, four will be financially independent, and the rest are either going to be broke or just barely making it.

 

And Justin, I’m so grateful to you and the Lifestyle Investor Mastermind, your books, your masterclasses, and you’ve just made such an impact on me and my family. And so, this is an honor, Justin, to be able to spend time with you because what I found is when you look at the 1%, everyone talks about the 1% and the media oftentimes portrays that is just people are arrogant, greedy. I will tell you the Lifestyle Investor Mastermind, I found completely opposite of that.

 

And I think when you really sit down with some amazing people, you’ve collected, you’ve been able to collect this really tribe of just incredible people. So, kudos to you, Justin. And the other challenges, we’re in a retirement crisis in America and it’s just crystal clear. When you think, I mean, 1957, those numbers, that five basically you’re financially free, that’s tragic in the richest land in the history of the world.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah. And by the way, the richest land by a landslide, right? And not only that, we’ve got the largest wealth transfer that has ever happened in human history about to happen from passing $76 trillion, that’s trillion with a T, from baby boomers to millennials. So, this is about to happen. To give you perspective, that is greater than the 75 trillion that makes up China, the second most powerful or wealthiest country in the world. It is mind-boggling to me what is happening, like, what we’re on the precipice of. And I do believe that you’ve got to surround yourself with people that know how to play the game of life in business and health and wellness and relationships at a higher level than you. That intentionality pays dividends.

 

Ryan Thacker: Absolutely. And surrounding yourself with greatness, oftentimes, when I think about the members in the mastermind and the real results that happen from what you’ve created, you had this dream and this vision, first of all, to be able to free yourself, buy your own time back. And I love the story that you can read in the book of how you decided to free your wife up from being a schoolteacher and you bought your first mobile home park. That was inspiring to me when I read that and that whole concept of buy your time back. Justin, is it okay if we just tell the story of how I got connected to you? Is that okay?

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, let’s do it. This is fun because we’re kind of rolling out this new podcast that’s going to be a Member Spotlight from Lifestyle Investor Mastermind members. And this likely will be that first episode or this might go out on the main track. So, we’ll figure that out. So, I’m kind of giving everyone the behind the scenes as we do this, but this is our first formal Lifestyle Investor Mastermind Member Spotlight, regardless of which track this comes out on.

 

But we had this scheduled way long before we ever decided that we were going to do this because of people like you, because we wanted to highlight just the sheer awesomeness, the incredible success on many levels, not just financial, certainly financial, but across like even success being generous and being a good steward of your money, success in empowering others and building a team and building a business. So, I’m just excited to be able to get this time with you. So, yeah, the story of how we connect is fun. Yeah, share that, please.

 

Ryan Thacker: Oh, I love it. Well, during COVID, I own an RIA, and we really serve the other 4% of the top 5% in our IRA, which that sounds exciting, the top 5%. But when you really break the numbers down, it really ends up being families that have $300,000 to $3 million. I mean, that’s what the top group sounds like. And then you’d go the 1% and it gets bigger than that.

 

But Justin, I have a very successful business and I have always been focused on being able to help families retire with confidence. And oftentimes, the thing that they forget is they forget income. Where is their income going to come from when that paycheck goes away? And so, during COVID, everything gets shut down. And our business, a big part of our business is 40% of our revenue comes from public events.

 

Justin Donald: Wow.

 

Ryan Thacker: Well, when COVID, I still remember driving down the street listening to the governor say, “Officially, all restaurants, all public events are shut down.” And so, my brother and I were listening to that, and then we went to lunch. And I have the tremendous blessing to work with my brother. And so, we sat down and we asked ourselves this question. And one of our mentors, Dan Sullivan, Strategic Coach, during the same time, he said, “What if this is just one bad year in the beginning of 25 really bad years?”

 

And so, we started asking ourselves, what happens to the business? What’s this going to look like if we have 40% of our revenue shut down in the business? And we asked ourselves this really important question. And we said, “How much revenue do we have that comes outside of the business regularly?” And the answer to that question, Justin, was zero. It was zero.

 

So, like many entrepreneurs and business owners, you invest back into the business over and over again. And so, we played this game and we said, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to fix that and we’re going to go on a quest. And as we go on this quest, the goal is we are going to take what our lifestyle is.” So, we defined what our lifestyle was and we said, “We’re going to replace that with tax-free income outside of the business.” So, it doesn’t matter if they shut us down for 10 years, 15 years, or 25 years, we’re going to be in a good spot. We’re not going to be in this position again.

 

So, I actually heard you on a podcast, Justin, and that was in January 2021. And we’ve been looking from March of 2020 to January 2021, and it just resonated. It just resonated so powerfully, your story in the book. And I read the book. And then if you remember, we signed up, say, “Hey, we want Justin to personally mentor us,” and we got connected. And that’s where the journey started from there.

 

And if I look at what’s happened since that time frame, so I joined the mastermind in August of 2021. We believe that good information to good people, you can make great decisions. And Justin, you’ve helped us with that in the mastermind. Since joining the mastermind, not only have we met our goal of covering our lifestyle, but we’ve created passive income outside of our business. And that is just tremendously freeing.

 

And it’s because of you and the community and just the great people that are in there. And it’s not just the deal flow and looking at the deals. It’s more than that. It’s much deeper than that. It’s the connections that you have, that you make. And your mind is about the same size as it’s always been since your brain stopped growing, but Dan Sullivan says your mind is the multiplication of all the different connections that you have in your network. And Justin, you’ve expanded that network. And when I think of now income outside of our business, it just gives you confidence, well, regardless of what’s happening in the future, to be able to move forward and to be able to do the things that we’ve always dreamed of.

 

Justin Donald: Well, Ryan, that’s just incredible. I love hearing it. Thank you for the kind words and really thank you for being part of the community because not only have you received, but you have given so much and helped so many people in the community by sharing your story and sharing moves that you’ve made to grow your wealth, to grow your passive income.

 

And passive income is no small achievement. And I know that you’re not just clipping over that, you guys have really done some laps there, and I’m just so proud, I’m so excited. I think it’s so incredible. And the biggest thing to me in having true passive income is that, if you’re a business owner, you make better decisions, well, first of all, if in life in general, you’re going to make better decisions.

 

As a business owner, you stop making decisions from the framework of can I afford it or can the business afford it, like that in times can serve you well, but in times it doesn’t serve you well because the focal point of whether you make a decision or not shouldn’t often be, can we afford it or not? It should be, is this what’s best for the business? Is this what’s best for our customers? Is this what’s best for our staff? Is this what’s best for scale and for differentiation or establishing our business as a best in class practice? And you guys have that. So, I love that you have the passive income because it opens up the playbook to all the things you can do to create a better life and create a better business that doesn’t operate from this scarcity mindset around money. So, congratulations.

 

Ryan Thacker: Oh, thank you. Justin. Can I just tell you an unexpected surprise from joining the mastermind? You talk about the cost or the investment. I don’t like looking at things as cost. As a business owner, I always like looking at things as an investment. For example, I look at my team as an investment and really being able to maximize what we’re doing as a business and that needs people. We need a team to be able to do what we’re doing.

 

And so, when I first looked at the mastermind, and I know that there’s a lot of people out there when they look at the investment into the mastermind, they think, well, that’s a lot of money. And it’s not lunch money, but I will tell you, what’s the value? The better question is instead of what’s the price, what is the value that we’re going to get out of the mastermind? And what I love is that investment has paid off many fold, obviously, from what we’re doing and what we’ve been able to accomplish during that time period.

 

But I think that you always have to do this price versus value and what’s that return going to look like. And I never look at anything. Any investment that I make, I ask myself, how am I going to get at least a 10 times return out of that investment? And if I can’t get a 10 times return, I’m not going to do it. The mastermind, I easily got that 10 times return. I mean, the value is just massive.

 

And then, the other thing, Justin, is the unexpected thing that I got out of the mastermind over the last two years is I had an offer to sell my business and I turned it down. And the reason I turned it down, I always thought, you’re going to build, you’re going to build your build, and you’re going to sell. And I’ve been fortunate enough to have multiple exits in different businesses, but I love what I do. This feels like a mission to me. B.O.S.S. Retirement Solutions & Advisors is my company. And B.O.S.S. stands for Build the Optimal System of Security for retirement.

 

And I can’t think of a better way to build a system of security than to know where your income is going to come from, in retirement. And I think it’s interesting, the AARP, Justin, just came out and they said, “We no longer have to have a certain age to be in the AARP association because people are retiring earlier and they’re having passive income and lifestyle income that’s helping them enjoy that.” I think we’re about ready to have a retirement revolution. We’re living longer, so we have longevity. Our bodies are not worn out because of health and because of progress in longevity. And it’s just an exciting time to be alive. And while you’re doing this, don’t wait till you’re 65. Start building the income right now so that you can live the lifestyle that you want to live.

 

Justin Donald: I love that. I just think it’s incredible. And part of even what we’re doing, next week, we’re going to be hanging out together in Park City. I’m excited about it. And a component of what we’re doing for Lifestyle Investor Mastermind members is a wellness and longevity and health hacking event with Regan Archibald and with East West Health and just doing all kinds of cool work on just really trying to optimize and maximize life, life today, life tomorrow, life in the future.

 

And so, I’m excited to hang with you there in person, but I’m also excited because, I mean, you’re right in this that people are living longer, that people are finding– there are a lot of people that are going to have much longer life spans. There are going to be a lot of people that live a lot more vibrantly today. Unfortunately, there are many that aren’t or don’t know yet some of these things that are out, and obviously, we want to discuss it. But you had mentioned earlier that there is a crisis underway on the retirement front. And I think it would be interesting to get into that because a lot of people are going to fall victim to this, I think.

 

Ryan Thacker: Justin, in my day job at B.O.S.S. Retirement Solutions & Advisors, I have a TV show, I have a radio show, and we have a call to action at the end which says, “If you’ve saved at least $200,000 for retirement, be one of the first 10 callers to receive some special report.” And when we say the words 200,000, the reason I say it’s a retirement crisis is because that eliminates seven out of ten Americans at retirement, 200,000. I mean, think about that.

 

So, 16% of Americans have a pension, which means the overwhelming majority don’t have a pension. They make mistakes on their Social Security. They make mistakes with their investments. And if I raise that number, Justin, to 300,000, from 200,000 to 300,000, we have one, one in ten Americans, that actually have $300,000 at retirement. So, what does this picture really look like? Well, first of all, we take a lot of criticism for having a filter. That $200,000 is a filter because if someone has $50,000 for retirement, you better put it in the bank, use that for your medical expenses, and hope you get as much out of Social Security and you’re probably going to be living in your kid’s basement. I mean, that’s the unfortunate reality of it.

 

And then we’re living longer. So, if you’re age 65 and you’re married and you don’t have any health challenges, there’s a 50% chance that you’re going to live to over the age of 90. And now, how many people do you know that are age 100? How many people do you know that are above age 100? And I was doing a service project last weekend in Utah. We had a record snowfall this year, 900 inches of snow at the ski resorts.

 

Justin Donald: It’s so crazy.

 

Ryan Thacker: And now, we’re worried about flooding. So, we go from the high mountain desert to worrying about flooding. And I was doing a service project, and Fraser Bullock, my neighbor, I was working along side by side, filling sandbags together to help some of the neighbors. Fraser Bullock is the Olympic Committee Chairman for Salt Lake City. And we were talking about longevity. And he said something to me. He’s like, “It’s interesting, with your business, what are people doing when they’re thinking about retirement because I really think that if you’re age 50 right now, it’s going to be with the health advances that we’re doing.”

 

He worked for Bain Capital. They did a lot of investment into the health sector. And he said, “We’re going to be living 100, 110, 120.” And so, that crisis, imagine, who wanted to be 85 years old, full life and flat broke in retirement? Nobody signed up for that, but yet, that 300,000, if you’re one of the ten Americans, it’s not going to last. It’s not going to last throughout retirement. So, we’ve got to do something different.

 

And I think it starts with understanding how to generate lifestyle income. And Justin, you’ve hit this right, hit the head on the nail. And unfortunately, you know what’s crazy? My TV shows and my radio show, the lowest rated shows are on income, retirement income. And it’s like people have forgotten when they retire and their paycheck goes away, what the heck are they going to do? Where is their income going to come from? And Social Security’s going to cover about a third of their expenses.

 

Now, we’re not talking lifestyle expenses. We’re talking about a third of their just basic expenses. And then you throw inflation on top of that. And inflation, we recently had inflation that was 9%. We all know it was bigger than that. If you take the rule of 72, 72 divided by 9, that says eight years, your expenses will double. If your lifestyle and expenses right now are $10,000 a month or $5,000 a month, whatever the number is, double it in eight years with inflation. And that’s not going to last.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, that is a huge problem. And by the way, I want to honor you in the holistic approach that you take because when I wrote my book, I was fairly confident that those working in financial services were going to feel like I was maybe bashing them or that I’m a competitor to them and maybe hostile towards me. And the interesting thing is I have had so many financial advisors, wealth managers that have reached out to learn more, to get involved, to apply for the mastermind, to join the mastermind. And I just love that you are showing up in a way where, I mean, you’ve got one of the biggest RIA practices out there. You guys are doing incredible work. And today, I want to get into some of that. I want to get into the nuts and bolts on how you started and scaled and got to where you are, where you could get a big offer and how well it must be going to say no to that offer.

 

But I really hats off to you to say, I think there are many ways to do this and we should look at things outside of the conventional investment system. It doesn’t mean that we ignore what kind of has been tried and true for all these years, but maybe it’s a little outdated. Maybe there needs to be something kind of alongside it. Maybe there are other options. And for most people, they have no utility in their investments. Most people don’t save or invest enough. And the ones that do have that money locked up until they retire, hoping that compound interest is going to come and save them, rudely awakened that they (a) haven’t saved enough come retirement and money even if they followed the plan and followed the schedule that (b) after everything is said and done, the compounding that they thought was going to happen, the average 10% per year didn’t actually happen that way. And so, yeah, there’s issues there.

 

So, how do we supplement and create more optionality for people where they can get utility today also, not have to wait till retirement, not have money sitting away that they can’t touch until then, but they can have life today just in case they don’t live as long, just in case their health gives out in the next five or ten years? And they can actually live life with their family, with their loved ones, and have great experiences and do great things today.

 

Ryan Thacker: Justin, this is why we wrote our latest book. It’s called The B.O.S.S. Retirement Blueprint: Your Guide to a Secure and Independent Retirement. And if you’re listening today, you can go to BossRetirement.com/freebook and download a digital copy, or you can get a hard copy at Amazon or anywhere books are sold.

 

But let me tell you why we wrote that book. I am a critic of the financial services industry and it’s been a journey throughout my life. I didn’t start in financial services. I started in the banking world. And my first financial plan, I was referred to somebody. And the reason why I got a financial plan is I recognized early on, when I heard Earl Nightingale and The Strangest Secret, I asked myself, do I want to be part of the 5% that are financially independent or do I want to be part of the 95%?

 

Here’s what the 95% are unfortunately, Robert Kiyosaki says it, “Go to school, get a good job, invest in your 401(k).” Well, early on in my career in the banking industry, it was the dot-com crash and I had my entire 401(k) invested in technology stocks and I lost 50%, 5-0. And this was a day that changed my life, Justin, is I went to some of the older executives two years out from retirement, 63 years old. And I’m like, oh, man, I’m not going to lose half my portfolio. I’m embarrassed. And I asked him, I said, “Hey, I’m really embarrassed because I always like to ask questions. The quality of your questions determines the quality of your life.”

 

And I said, “I’m sure you guys didn’t do this, but I had all my money in technology stocks. I just lost 50%.” And their eyes went right to their shoes. And I was like, “Wait a second.” They did the same thing. They’re 63 years old, two years out from retirement. And I asked a question that changed the course of my career. And that question was, “So you’re two years out for retirement, you just lost 50% of your 401(k) in technology stocks.” And I said, “Would you do that with the bank’s money?” And they said, “Well, of course not. That’s way too risky.” And then my follow-up question was, “Well, then why would you do with your own?”

 

And I think part of the retirement crisis is because of the financial services industry. It’s always about chasing the hottest stock, what’s out there. And the holistic side is way more important than that. It starts with, in fact, The B.O.S.S. Retirement Blueprint, five buckets of money, and the three most important buckets of that are income. It starts with income. The three most important words in real estate are location, location, location.

 

The whole point of your book, Justin, is the three most important words in lifestyle and you can retire when you have enough reliable income that pays for your lifestyle at whatever age is the three most important words of retirement are income, income, income. That’s it. That’s the most important bucket. When you walk away from work, you need to know where your income streams are going to come from. In the old days, we used to have pensions. Now, 16% of Americans have a pension. That’s a problem.

 

And then the next piece is risk. Don’t lose 50% of your portfolio. And today, here’s what I know. Everyone got fat and happy while the market was going up and up and up in this bull market, but the reality now, the wind was at your back if you retire during that time period. Now, we’ve had, in 2022, major market declines. I don’t think it’s over yet. And so, are you able to afford a 50% loss right before you retire? We call it the dangerous decade, the five years before you retire and the five years after you retire. Those 10-year period when you retire are super important to do one thing, don’t lose money.

 

And here are the Warren Buffett rules. Rule number one, don’t lose money. Rule number two, don’t violate rule number one. And then the needle mover, the needle mover is taxes. I just recently had on my show, I had Ed Slott, Wall Street Journal calls him America’s IRA tax expert. And this is what he said, “If you have an IRA, all you have is an IOU to Uncle Sam when it comes to taxes.” And if you have a million dollars in your 401(k), you really have about $500,000 in your 401(k) by the time you get taxes on your Social Security, taxes on the withdrawals from your IRAs and 401(k)s, and taxes on your investment income. All these other pieces, they come together. It’s going to be a third to a half depending on where you’re at, that you’re going to drop out of that savings. And so, now, you got that working against you.

 

And so, those three buckets, the income bucket, the risk and investment growth bucket, and the tax bucket, those are the things that help you build that structure. And I think, we saw back in 2001, hey, this 401(k) thing is not going to work. It’s not going to work because it’s tax deferred, which means you’re just kicking the tax can down the road. That started us on that journey. We’re fortunate, I believe that a lot of the problem is the financial advisors that are only focusing on the investment side. They’re not focusing on income, they’re not focusing on risks, and they’re not focusing on taxes. They’re just trying to grow, grow, grow, grow the investments. And that is not a holistic plan.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more and on so many levels. It’s interesting because gosh, we could really get into this, but you’ve got this pension program, which is a failed program. The reason only 16% used it is because it failed. It wasn’t sustainable. A lot of people suspect, a lot of very smart people suspect the same thing is going to be true of Social Security, that at some point, that is going to run out. And the newest estimates have it running out even before 2032, which is just fascinating to think about.

 

But the pension plan, that’s a failed program. So, the 401(k) was supposed to take over for that. And that’s, in many cases, two parties contributing and with some match bonus incentive. But everyone kind of looks at that as like a sure thing. It’s still an experiment. I mean, this is like we’ve only been using this for a very small period of time and the jury is still out. And the people that I know that are retiring, it’s almost like they were caught off guard that half of it goes to the government, right? You look at the numbers and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, this looks good.” But remember, half is not yours.

 

Ryan Thacker: So, let’s quantify a holistic plan, Justin, and I think this applies to how the structure. The B.O.S.S. Retirement Blueprint gives you a structure. For example, when you start looking at all of these buckets, your cash bucket, what you’re going to have in reserves, your income bucket, your growth in investment bucket and the risk that you have there, your tax bucket, and your legacy bucket, most people focus on the growth bucket, which is the investment side. Well, a holistic plan says, well, what if I can? Forbes said 96% of Americans in their study leave an average of $111,000 on the table with their Social Security benefits. That’s a six-figure number.

 

So, a holistic plan says, okay, let’s figure out how we’re part of the 4% that doesn’t lose $111,000. So, let’s say it’s $100,000, just to give round numbers. And then you look at your risk side and you say, instead of just rolling the dice and hoping it’s going to work, let’s create an investment plan that’s going to protect me and not lose my wealth. And the thing that I love is I love contractual wealth. And I’ll talk about that a little bit more here in a second.

 

And let’s say you have a million dollars saved for retirement. And by having a risk adjusted plan instead of losing a third of your money, you protect it and you protect $250,000 of that. So, it doesn’t go down in the next market cycle that you can’t control. So, $100,000 in Social Security added, protect $250,000, and then you look at your million dollars and say, “Now, I’m going to have a tax plan.” Instead of just filing, preparing my taxes, say, I can’t do anything about it, have a tax strategy. And that million dollars 401(k), you save $500,000 by having a tax plan over your lifetime. Well, $100,000 extra in Social Security, $250,000 protected, that’s $350,000, plus $500,000 in minimize tax, there’s $850,000 that you keep inside of the family’s retirement plan. And all the pieces that we’re working on in the mastermind, Justin, they go right along with that.

 

Let me talk a little bit about contractual wealth. And I want to talk about how I think about the structure. When I first joined the mastermind, I didn’t do anything for six months. I didn’t make one investment. I didn’t do anything. I just sat back, learned, and looked at what I did. I’m a big proponent of contractual wealth.

 

When you look at high net worth families, so much of their wealth is around contracts, and it’s not what you think it is. For example, they own businesses. Businesses have contracts. They make money with contracts, high dollar amounts in the businesses, high amount of that worth. If you look at life insurance, massive amounts of wealthy families have huge cash value life insurance policies that’s contractual. Life insurance is a contract. They go out and create their own private pensions.

 

I just interviewed David Walker, the former Comptroller of the United States government. His own personal retirement plan had three annuities in it. That’s contractual income. It goes with that. And by the way, right now, because of interest rates being high, annuities right now are playing ridiculous returns because you can get a 20% bonus, you can get an 8% guaranteed roll-up every year. When you add that together over 10 years, that’s a contractual 10% guaranteed return out of an annuity contract. Smart people are lining that up with their wealth. That’s something that people just completely skip over and miss.

 

And then the tax side. Are you investing in a tax structure that is going to be tax-free forever? Ed Slott said, “Tax-free forever will always be tax deferred every single time.” And the opposite advice that you hear from a lot of CPAs that have good intentions say defer, defer, defer. And then they get to the end and they find out the half of it’s going to go to Uncle Sam because it was all deferred and some that was building and getting worse. So, when you look at that structure, what have I learned in the mastermind? Can we talk about that a little bit?

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, you bet. It’s funny that we’re talking about, and I don’t mean to jump in and change the subject. I love Ed Slott. And I couldn’t agree more that tax-free wealth is the way to go. It always trumps tax deferred. But it’s funny, you were talking about the mastermind. We just got done with a tax strategy session today with one of the foremost experts in the space that literally was, I mean, there were people during the session that were like, oh, my goodness, I totally have my mastermind membership paid for for years to come, just from a handful of single strategies. And so, most people, I feel like with tax, it’s like the unsung hero. It’s not very well understood. Most people don’t know about it. They don’t know that good strategy can save hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

 

But it’s one of the key areas we look at because there’s immediate ROI. And then you take the dollars that you then saved instead of going to Uncle Sam and you can compound it, right? Like, I feel horrible for people that their net worth halved. They lost half of their net worth a couple of years, a handful of years before they retire because they’ll never get that back. But think about all the compound growth that you can get by capturing that tax savings every single year for the rest of your life. And then, let’s throw 8%, 9%, 10% on it and inside of a tax-free growth vehicle where it really compounds.

 

Ryan Thacker: Well, and here’s my goal. I want to go through the tax gate one time, and I never want to go through it again. So, for example, life insurance, everyone historically said life insurance is a terrible place to put your money. No, it’s not. It’s a really good place. Pay the tax. For example, when I sat in the mastermind, one of the first things that we did is I’ve used cash value life insurance in my own personal plan for a long time, far before I joined the mastermind.

 

The first person that I met that had cash value life insurance, he beat me on a real estate deal. The business owner was selling his business because he was in a divorce and it was a commercial building worth $3 million and he was fire selling at a 50% discount for $1.5 million. My brother and I thought we had the first position on the contract. And because the environmental piece is on the commercial piece, we wanted to be able to do some due diligence. Well, we get a call from the agent and he said, “Oh, I’m sorry, someone came in and they bought it and closed on it in two days.” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?”

 

So, one of my core philosophies is I’m either winning or I’m learning. In this case, I’m learning. Okay, so I took this gentleman out to lunch and I said, “Hey, I couldn’t even pull a title report, let alone get my financing in place in two days. How did you do that?” And he said, “Well, my grandpa started something. My dad continued it. And now, I manage $40 million in cash value in our family’s life insurance contracts.”

 

Justin Donald: Wow. That’s incredible.

 

Ryan Thacker: And I was like, “You have what?” Because I had always heard buy term and invest the difference at that point, right?

 

Justin Donald: Right. That’s what the pundits say.

 

Ryan Thacker: Yes. He ended up buying that for $1.7 million and he turned around a year and a day later and sold it for $3.4 million. And that started my journey on understanding, well, it can’t be trash value life. There’s got to be some value there. And it’s contractual. If you take life insurance from the cash value side and you think about it from a structure, what you’re doing is you’re taking after-tax income, you’re putting it into an environment that then becomes tax-free forever as long as that’s managed correctly. And that’s a powerful, powerful step.

 

I added more. In the mastermind, I added more from what we’ve learned. I’m adding more. You look at Bain Capital, you look at McKinsey and some of these people that are using private placement life insurance to just grow and get bigger. These are areas that are very, very powerful.

 

Now, imagine, your income stream coming out of those contracts later on 100% tax-free because of the structure that you can pull out of. Now, there’s no tax on Social Security. Now, there’s not any tax because you’ve transferred it over from the structure collector, getting it out of your 401(k)s and IRAs and getting that into the life insurance or doing Roth conversions, whichever way. Powerful, powerful strategies that add up to multipliers of wealth that are far more important than just the rate of return that you’re getting.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, no doubt. I mean, you mentioned private placement life insurance. There is no single greater wealth building tax mitigating tool that exists than private placement life insurance, often abbreviated PPLI. That is the single greatest tool that the wealthy use to grow wealth to using insurance products. Life insurance products have these really special capabilities and characteristics where you have tax-free growth, tax-free death benefit, and tax-free distribution. And it’s really the only thing out there that can do that.

 

So, it’s a tax mitigation play that compounds wealth quickly, but it does so in a pretty rapid rate. So, you’re basically buying the cheapest amount of insurance or the least amount that you have to be able to buy for it to count as an insurance product to get all the IRS laws that favor it, right? And then your money grows tax-free inside of a vacuum. It’s just an incredible strategy.

 

Ryan Thacker: Well, and then add to that, Justin, I’m going to go back to that example where we lost out on that commercial deal. People oftentimes, like in traditional whole life or indexed universal life, they’ll say things like, “Well, yeah, but the rate of return is so low. I can go out and I can invest it in X investment.” Well, think about the rate of return, I call it the internal rate of return. That’s going to be from 4% to 6% inside a whole life policy. But the external rate of return being able to double use the asset, that investment return from 1.7 that he ended up paying for that and turning around and selling it a year later at $3.4 million, then being able to do a 1031 exchange and continue to build his real estate portfolio as well that creates passive income that flows through that now is not earned income, it’s the greatest wealth generator that you can have out there, yet so many people completely missed it because they’re part of the 95%.

 

Justin Donald: That’s right.

 

Ryan Thacker: They go to college, get a good job, invest in a 401(k). Folks, in 2023, that’s not going to make it. If you’re looking at a longevity in healthy, abundant retirement, it’s not going to happen.

 

Justin Donald: It’s not. And you look at over the last 100 years, most of these 401(k)s are going to be based on a 60% stock, 40% bond portfolio split. And 2022 is the worst performance in however many decades, top three worst performance in the last century, right? So, that strategy isn’t like is fail proof. That’s supposed to be the safest strategy out there. And I feel so bad for people that got taken on that strategy or that people kind of misinforming what it looks like in real life, in real practice, and using averages instead of actuals.

 

But let’s go back to your example real quick on that $1.7 million because what I want to make sure, you mentioned this, but you said it so quickly and so covertly that I think some listeners and some watching may not have caught it. The $1.7 million that this other person took out of their policy, they didn’t take the money out. They borrowed $1.7 million against the policy, meaning the $1.7 million is still in the policy earning 6% tax-free. But the same $1.7 million is earning over 100% on that real estate deal that he turned around and sold for double, right? So, that’s a 100% return on the outside. But then on the inside, you’re still getting that dividend, let’s call it approximately 6% tax-free.

 

Ryan Thacker: Yes. Well, then pair two concepts here. You got number one inside the life insurance growing and compounding tax-free, 1031 exchange growing tax-free because you’re exchanging that into another property. And that’s when you start lining things up, what have I done since joining the mastermind? Mobile home parks, right? Because I was introduced to those by you and I’ve used my life insurance to go buy mobile home park investments. Very, very powerful strategy.

 

And same thing, being able to use the money for multiple purposes, been able to have incredible access to just picking up invisible deals. My first deal that I did, Justin, after joining the mastermind was simply connecting two dots of something that was sitting right in front of my face that ended up being a multiple six-figure invisible deal in annual passive income by simply, I was like, why don’t I just do this and I connected the dots? Incredible. I didn’t even think about it.

 

Dan Sullivan, Strategic Coach, says, “You need to think about your thinking.” Earl Nightingale says, “The problem with most people is they don’t think,” Well, here I am, successful, scaled multiple businesses, and I’m sitting in the mastermind, and all of a sudden, because I’m in the mastermind, these two ideas connect, completely unrelated to the mastermind, but that light lit up. I picked up the phone and I said, “Hey, I just had this idea. What do you think about this?” And they said, “Well, yeah, let’s do it.”

 

Justin Donald: That is awesome.

 

Ryan Thacker: It took me about 10 minutes. So, I did that. And then mobile home parks, debt, debt deals, there’s not a better way. And this goes back to contractual. Debt deals are contractual. Hard money loans, you have a note, you have a security interest in a piece of property. And if you invest that from the right tax structure, that interest can be tax-free.

 

For example, if you invested in a self-directed Roth IRA and you invested into a hard money deal that now you get tax-free interest because it’s inside, the money’s in the investments inside of the Roth, ask Peter Thiel what he thinks about Roth IRAs, and he takes a lot of heat for turning his company stock into a multibillion dollar asset inside of a Roth. But this is where the thinking comes. One of my favorite quotes, Justin, I can’t think of the Nobel Prize winner who said this, but the quote says, “The art of discovery is seeing what others have seen, yet thinking what no one else has thought.” And that’s the type of thing that happens when you get around great people.

 

Justin, you’ve created a revolution with the Lifestyle Investor book, podcast, masterclasses because you’ve taken a lot of these common things and you have seen something that other people haven’t seen and then you’ve been so generous to share. One thing I love, Justin, about the group is everyone points fingers at the 1%, they’re terrible people, they’re jerks, they are just greedy. Completely opposite. I’ve never seen a group of more abundance. Low key, not arrogant, completely take the facade and the mask off, share real results. Hey, what we’re doing, hey, I’m embarrassed, I don’t really know. I’m not familiar with it. Okay. Someone in the group knows how to do this. Awesome.

 

And then, the charity and the philanthropy that happens inside of the group is inspiring. And it’s just so powerful to watch. Not only you are people generating lifestyle income just to go and have a great life. Of course, that’s a good thing. I love traveling with my wife and I love traveling with my family and doing those things that the freedom allows me to do. But what I love even more is making a difference in the communities, giving back. I’ve been the beneficiary of so many great things that people have done for me in the past and being able to give back and helping causes that you believe in. I know, Justin, that you are very passionate about helping those who have been victims of sex trafficking. And I love participating in some of the local community.

 

I served for two years. I served a mission inside of the inner city. And everyone always thinks it sounds really good to go to Africa or somewhere like that and give money. I love donating money right here in the United States. There are families in the inner city that literally cannot see past the block that they live in because no one’s out there inspiring them to see a bigger, better, brighter future because it’s about the drugs that are happening on the corner of the illegal activity that’s happening, the sex trafficking that’s happening. And we can make a difference, not just freeing up our time in our lifestyle, but freeing up other people. Literally, right now, we have the power to do that. And I’ve never met a group of more generous people, Justin.

 

Justin Donald: Well, I couldn’t agree with you more, and I’m just so flattered that they all want to hang out and be part of this community that I have the privilege of helping curate and helping facilitate it. It really is an honor and a privilege. And what’s great is, a lot of people see the top 1% and there are groups out there that they villainize this group. What I see is a bunch of people that want to create wealth not for consumption, but to direct it to the things that they’re inspired by, that they want to participate in.

 

So, using tax strategies to legally do what we have the right to do, which is pay, really pay what we owe in taxes, but use the tax code to our benefit. But then you compound that wealth that gives you the ability, it gives you the resources and the influence to then be able to go do some great things with those dollars. So, for me, it’s not that I want to. My goal is not to not pay what I owe. My goal is to, under the tax code, pay the least amount. I’m not trying to tip here. I want to pay the least amount that I owe. And then I want to keep as much as I can to have it compound to go to the causes where I actually feel like that money is going to be used appropriately.

 

I can’t say that I have the utmost confidence in the way that our government, in the way that just how I see our taxpayer dollars being spent really is disheartening and alarming. So, I will contribute what I need to that system because I do utilize some of those things. I use the roads, the hospitals, the school district. Well, technically, we don’t really use the school district, but I’m happy to support that. I am a product of the public school system, right?

 

But at the end of the day, I know groups that are putting 100% of those dollars out into the field and they have a separate account for their overhead. So, it’s not even like most charities where 40%, 50%, 60% is being used for overhead and the rest is being used for the actual endeavor. There are groups out there that use it all. So, I just want to be able to direct that money to the places that I think do the most good.

 

And I had a friend say, “Hey, if you really want to be generous, find the thing that breaks your heart the most and support that.” And so, that has kind of been the mantra for me. And so, that’s why for me, it’s human trafficking that breaks my heart the most. I’ve got a daughter, that’s the most precious thing in the world to me. And the thought that I just can’t even fathom what that would be. And I want to fight that as best I can.

 

And by the way, I know you and your brother, Tyson, are so charitable. You guys have giving goals, which I love. You set these numbers. By the way, what’s cool is, and I want to make sure that I’m saying this correctly, you guys give more in a year than most top one percenters make in income in a year, which is just mind-boggling. And I love it. And I’m curious if that’s something that you’re going to continue to grow and scale as you guys continue to see more financial success.

 

Ryan Thacker: It is, like I say, I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. And in the New Testament, my favorite scripture is Matthew 6:33, Seek ye first the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. And when I think about that, and I think about the abundance, one of the things that I think is a real challenge in our society today is the word scarcity. I don’t believe in a god of scarcity. I believe in a God with abundance, a God that creates a world without numbers. And you just look up in the heavens and you think of we can’t even wrap our head around how big that is.

 

The Earth is 93 million miles away from the sun, but that light only takes eight minutes to travel 93 million miles. The North Star Polaris is 600 light years away. In other words, if it blew up today, we wouldn’t know for 600 years. And then, you look at some of these things that we’re able to measure now in the billions of light years, Justin, we are nothing. We are absolutely nothing.

 

And here’s what I love is I believe making God your partner is the best decision that you can make in all areas of your life. It’s not just about financial wealth, but it’s about helping your neighbor. Love God, love your neighbor. And that’s the core of what our giving is.

 

And we do a lot of different giving to a lot of different organizations. I love there’s drug rehab centers right here in our own community that you think, okay, this doesn’t exist, right? Well, it’s pretty close. And they transition out and no one will give them a job. No one will give them a place to live. I love donating to that. I love donating to libraries and knowledge.

 

I think one of the disservices that we have right now is you think about all the gifts that go to universities. That’s awesome if that’s where you want to give it, but in this day and age, there’s a lot of different ways to learn. I love mentoring. I’ve got four sons, I love mentoring them and taking the same concept of we have been blessed with so much we need to give back.

 

There’s so many examples we could go into. We don’t have enough time for that today, but here’s what I found. It’s impossible to outgive God. It’s just impossible. The more you give, the more you receive. And so, it’s easy to give away.

 

One of my favorite stories and examples is Jon Huntsman. He’s the founder of Huntsman Chemical. He passed away a few years ago. But I read an article about him. When he was in the military, his monthly salary was $330 and he’d tithe $50 of that. So, that was 16%. Now, fast forward that, he’s a billionaire. Everyone hears about Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. He’s given away over $1.5 billion. He wanted to give it in his lifetime. And he wants to get rid of it all.

 

I mean, that’s the stories that you don’t hear about. You hear about the greed and you hear about his book, it’s an autobiography, Barefoot to Billionaire. It’s incredible. It’s incredible, and we can make a difference with what we’re doing. So, not only is it just lifestyle, but life impact is what we want to make as well.

 

Justin Donald: I feel like that could have been the perfect ending point of the podcast that had such a nice bow tied on it. The only thing though, that I feel like we got to dive into this and we can wrap right after this is, you have had so much success, but I think a large part of the reason that you’ve had so much success is because your first business, you experienced failure, you experienced pain, you experienced basically everything that could go wrong. And I’d love for you to share that story to kind of round things out today.

 

Ryan Thacker: Yeah, absolutely. So, I’ve been fortunate enough to scale three businesses. The first one I did not own, but it was in the mortgage side. We grew from one office to 22 offices and sold out nationally. I didn’t own that and that was the first time that I said, “I need to own a piece of the rock.” And so, that was my learning from that one. And we did.

 

Justin Donald: By the way, Naval Ravikant says, “You are not going to build real wealth unless you have equity ownership.” To really become wealthy, you need some form of equity. And so, I love that you learn that on business number one. And you didn’t follow the same playbook for business number two.

 

Ryan Thacker: So, business number two was incredibly successful as well. And we exited. We exited. So, here’s what it was. We took all of our knowledge from the mortgage industry and we took it and put it into real estate development. And we did over 300 million in development from 2001 to 2006, and we cashed out in 2006, which was awesome. Perfect timing right before the crash.

 

Here’s what wasn’t awesome is we gave it all back. We gave it all back. For one reason, Justin, it’s pure greed. The point I want people to take out of the story is it’s not all about growth, people, it’s about income. And here’s what we did. And I remember as we were talking with different people after we exited, a gentleman came to us and said, “Well, now that you’ve made it, why don’t we just preserve it and create income streams out of it? The amount was $500,000 a year in perpetual income. Use an annuity.” And we’re like, “What’s the percentage? What’s the rate of return?” “Well, the rate of return is 5%.” We’re like, “Well, that’s terrible.”

 

And so, we said, “All we’re going to do is we’re going to four times this. We’re just going to grow it,” because we were young. I was 32, my brother was 34. “We’re going to four times this, and then we’ll stop.” Okay, there’s the greed part of it, right?

 

Justin Donald: Yep, totally.

 

Ryan Thacker: It wasn’t bad. We wanted to grow, but I watched people make this mistake all the time. How many times do you see fortunes made, businesses exited, and then they blow it because they were successful in one business, they think they’ll be successful in another business? Big mistake.

 

Justin Donald: Totally.

 

Ryan Thacker: We didn’t know what we were doing. So, our business that we created was we wanted to help the 30 and 40-year-olds retire. And guess what we learned, Justin?

 

Justin Donald: What? What did you learn?

 

Ryan Thacker: Only 1% of 30 and 40-year-olds care about retirement. They’re more interested in buying a bigger house, taking the kids to Disneyland, getting a nicer car, and retirement is three and a half decades away. So, our marketing mistake was to market to the 30 and 40-year-olds, and there’s only 1% of them that really care.

 

Justin, I think you’ve corralled the largest number of 30 and 40-year-olds in America that are thinking about retirement, which is incredible. But for the vast majority, we’ve learned you can’t build a business on somebody. You’ve got to have two needs. You got to have a want and you have to have a need. And everybody needed what we have, but no one wanted it. And so, our business that we’ve skilled here is focused on the 55 to 70-year-olds. They want it and they need it because they realize they wake up one day at 55 and they’re like, oh my gosh.

 

So, back to the story. What happened? I took all of the wealth from our exit. We went all in on that business, went nationwide, and it didn’t work. It didn’t work. We spent, we grew, we built out a platform to go nationwide. And we were going to solve and conquer the world and we were going to solve the retirement problems for the 30 and 40-year-olds, it didn’t work. We were so committed to it because we felt like this is what we’re supposed to do, this was our mission. This is what we were supposed to work on. And it failed. And it was devastating.

 

And I will never forget when we shut that business down, there was zero revenue and $3.1 million in debt, Justin. And we went to our attorneys and we were like, “Well, what should you do?” And attorney goes, “Well, Ryan and Tyson, you’re in a hell of a mess.” And we’re like, “I think we know that.” And he said, “It’s simple. You declare bankruptcy.”

 

Okay, now thinking time’s important. Now, it made logical all the sense in the world, we should declare bankruptcy, right? $3.1 million in debt, no revenue. But in our thinking time, we said, “Okay, we’re going to declare bankruptcy. That seems like the only way out.” We took it to the author of all things that knows everything, which is God, and we said, “We’re going to declare bankruptcy.” And his answer was, “Nope, I want you to pay it all back.”

 

And I started laughing. He said literally, “It’s by will, you pay all this debt back.” And I’m like, “I can’t. How am I supposed to do that?” And he gave me a formula. Diligence, humility, and the prayer of faith. Diligence, humility, and prayer of faith. We did not declare bankruptcy, Justin. We’ve paid all that debt back, and we’ve now built so much greater than where we are today.

 

And here’s what I want people to take out of that. Number one is if you exit, don’t make my mistake. Don’t make it in your business and lose it in somebody else’s business. Don’t do it. Take control and ownership of your wealth. Be the steward over that. Number two, build it contractually. Build income streams that make a difference. And number three, when you build that back and you not only provide for you and your family and the lifestyle and all the things that we want to do, give it away. Give it away and make an impact.

 

Justin Donald: I love that. We talk a lot in our mastermind about how there are a lot of people that know how to make money. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of people that don’t know how to make money, but there are a lot of people that know how to make money. You have much less that know how to manage money. You have even fewer that know how to multiply money, but what’s most important is making money matter.

 

And so, finding the impact that you can have, both on the education side and on the giving side is powerful. And you guys are just, you’re living life in such an admirable way. You’re great role models. You’re great businesspeople, entrepreneurs. What great role models. Thank you so much for your time.

 

Ryan Thacker: Thank you, Justin.

 

Justin Donald: For your inspiration, for your wisdom. Where can people learn more about you guys?

 

Ryan Thacker: So, BossRetirement.com, and as I said earlier, for those of you who are on this, please, we love good information to good people so that you can make good decisions. Let us be the ones that have made the mistake. You can go to BossRetirement.com/freebook. Get a copy of my latest book. It was an Amazon number one bestseller, but we’re giving it away because we just want you to be able to use that knowledge, and I hope that blesses your life and that you can make an impact for you and your family.

 

Justin Donald: I love it. Well, this has just been so much fun. Thank you for just being a wealth of knowledge and a resource and being open and vulnerable and honest and talking about the dirty secrets of the financial industry of kind of the industry that you’re a part of, that you’re making a much better place, that you’re finding better options and strategies. So, truly an honor to have you on the show. This has been really fun. Thank you, thank you.

 

Ryan Thacker: Thank you, Justin. Have a great day.

 

Justin Donald: And I’d love to wrap things up with the audience with one question, and this question that I really want you to reflect on, whether you’re watching this, whether you’re listening to this. Here’s the question for you today. What is one thing holding you back from financial freedom that you learned in this episode today that you can use to conquer this milestone in your life? I would love to hear about it. Shoot me an email. We’d love to support you any way that we can. Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll catch you next week.