A hearty welcome to “Grandma’s Wealth Wisdom” with your neighborly hosts, Brandon and Amanda Neely. This is the only podcast that helps you take charge of your cash flow and leverage your assets, simply and sustainably, the way Grandma used to.
Brandon: Hey, I’m Brandon, and welcome to our Grandma's Wealth Wisdom, where we help you break through to a smart, stable financial future, with the tried and true wisdom that Grandma used.
Amanda: And, hey, I'm Amanda. This is Episode 82. We're interviewing our good friend, Marty Smith, and we'll get to his bio in just a second, but we've titled this episode, “Do Your Best and Leave the Rest.” That's one piece of wisdom that Marty's grandma passed on to him that he gets into what that means in our interview today.
But also before I share Marty's official bio, I should let, full disclosure, Brandon and I have a life insurance policy with the company that Marty works for. We're fans of theirs. We're not getting paid or anything like that to interview Marty. [01:11.8]
We just love his story and his personality. We think he’s a really great guy and we wanted to share his story and his wisdom with you, and so that's why we chose to interview him. I know you're going to really love how he tells stories, the awesome things that he has to share with us. I took lots of notes as we went and I think you’ll really enjoy it.
Brandon, anything else you want to add before I jump into the bio?
Brandon: Oh, just that he’s a wise person that has learned a lot from his family, and just listening to this interview, I know that you're going to take a lot from it and, again, see how money really works. If you can be educated, start this education process with listening to him maybe and then see where it leads. Do you want to read a little bit about who Marty is? [02:06.7]
Amanda: Yeah. Marty Smith is the regional vice president of the Security Mutual Life Insurance Company.
Brandon: They've been around for a while.
Amanda: Yeah, he'll share that in the interview. Marty is the champion of the Infinite Banking concept and Bank on Yourself, Circle of Wealth, and Wealth & Wisdom at his company at Security Mutual. Marty grew up in New Jersey. He attended Rutgers University and, in his words, has been a “prisoner” in New York City for the past four decades. Join me in welcoming Marty Smith.
…
Marty: The thing about being a prisoner in New York is that, at many times in the past four decades, I’ve had the opportunity to leave. It's not a financial thing. It's just a question of lifestyle. The thing about the Manhattan lifestyle with the wonderful spontaneity that it used to be just made it such a wonderful place, because you get up, roll out of bed and you're going to breakfast. There's a million places to go. [03:13.0]
You couldn't eat at every restaurant, diner, dive in Manhattan if you lived another 30 years. I mean, you’ll go into a different place every day. Manhattan was just such a treat for the senses in terms of art and culture, and music and intellectual stimulation that you could have at every turn. I mean, that was the draw certainly for my generation 30, 40 years ago to want to come into the city, to be into the city. Especially the people who ended up in the city were from the suburbs or were from New York. They were from anywhere but New York who wanted to come into the city and be part of that.
Amanda: Like you're from New Jersey. [04:01.3]
Marty: That’s right. Oh, yeah.
Brandon: I would bet your company, Security Mutual, has had a big part to play in the culture, setup, and infrastructure. I mean, they've been around for how long?
Marty: Since 1886, yeah.
Brandon: Yeah, so I'm sure they've had a little bit to play.
Marty: Security Mutual is around 180 miles northwest of New York City, again, because of all the people. I mean, again, there are 50 million people within 50 miles of the Empire State Building, as we like to say, and a lot of the business. There were all these New York City and the New York Metropolitan Area general agents in life insurance. New York City had its John Street Brokers. [04:56.7]
John Street is a few streets above Wall Street, so there used to be a place where lots of the major insurance brokers used to have their offices and then certainly the big life insurance companies that are here in Manhattan, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and New York Life, and even little ones, scattered all around at all different times. It's an exciting place. It's a very exciting place.
Amanda: Take us back to New Jersey. What was money like for you growing up there?
Marty: That's a good question. I thought about that and the first thing that came to mind was, every Friday, my father would go to work with a dime in his pocket. That's it. That's what he had left. He'd get paid on Fridays and, on Friday morning, he ended up going to work with a dime in his pocket. He'd have to wait till lunchtime to get his pay envelope, not a check, but a pay envelope with singles and fives, and tens and twenties entered there and change. [06:03.2]
At lunchtime, he'd open the envelope, take out the change and go buy himself lunch. He’d come home on Friday evening there. He’d give most of the money to my mother. My mother would write out a bank deposit slip, and then the four of us, myself and my brother and my father and mother, would hop in the car and drive up to the bank, and it used to have that drive-in service. There you put the money in there with the ticket. The pneumatic tube would suck it into the bank, and guess what? Hey, you had money for the week there.
Brandon: You get a dum dum or something, right, usually?
Marty: What’s that?
Brandon: You get candy if you're …
Marty: You had to walk into the bank for that.
Brandon: Oh, I got you.
Marty: But that was a good 50, 60 years ago now when I think about that. But, yeah, my father was an auto body repairman mechanic, worked with his brothers there. My father was the youngest of 11. He was a first-generation American. His mother and father died during the Depression during the 1930s and he was raised by his older brothers and sisters. [07:20.7]
When I say older, most of them were out of the house and married. He had a 19-year-old sister, a 17-year-old sister, a 15-year-old brother and a 13-year-old brother who were still in the house and they lived in the house. My grandparents on my father's side, I never met them, they died within six months of each other. So, that was it.
Considering that the 20th century, I always think of it as the century of the car, of the automobile. All my father's brothers, all my uncles who were married to my aunts were all mechanics or auto body repairmen, so it was the century of the car. I can't imagine how they do it now with all the crazy electronics there. It's pretty interesting. [08:09.0]
Half of them own their own businesses and the brothers normally worked or the brothers who didn't own a business were part of one of the shops that they had. It was very interesting, but--
Brandon: Fun fact, Amanda is the youngest of 11 as well.
Amanda: Oh, yeah. Let me see what kind of traits you have. My father, because of that, he dropped out of … He started high school and then dropped out, but then he went to work. Everybody worked. That's what you did. You had to bring in money to the house and he worked in some chemical factories that were in his hometown in New Jersey, and then ultimately he was a paratrooper in World War II, came back from that. [09:02.8]
Then, five years after that, he married my mother who grew up in New York City, or as we would say, grew up in Queens, because the city was Manhattan. Even if you lived in the outer boroughs and in New York City, you didn't live in the city. You commuted into the city to go to work normally. That wasn't like that.
Brandon: How did you end up doing what you do within life insurance going through your family is a car family to you doing this?
Marty: You mean, instead of using the tools of ignorance here or skillful hands of my ancestors to become or to use the intellectual skills of the brain? It's pretty interesting. If I could tell it quickly, my mother worked for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company at 1 Madison Avenue at the end of World War II. In fact, I would say that I started at Metropolitan Life as a fetus because my mother was pregnant at the time when I was born. [10:18.2]
What happened and the strangest thing about life is the only person when I was a boy, and I mean three, four, five, like that, and people used to come to the house, the doctor would come in his pink Caddy, but casually dressed when he came there, and everybody, any other workman or somebody would come to the house and do their business there. But there was only one person who came to our house who was dressed in a suit and that turned out to be the Metropolitan Life Insurance debit agent who would collect a quarter 40 cents from my mother to pay for the insurance policy that was on my father. [11:03.8]
So, the thing is, for some reason, the Metropolitan salesperson would always leave a promotional calendar, and on the calendar, there would be all the different dates and stuff like that, but that's what stuck out in my mind, and sure enough, if you can believe it, I started my career in Manhattan as a proofreader for a company called the American Management Association, which created all these management seminars and consultants and things like that.
But then I left there because I became a direct mail marketing wizard guru. I loved it and things like that and, sure enough, I needed more money, so I answered a blind box ad in The New York Times. That is a classified ad. Do they even have them anymore at the …? It didn't tell you what it was, so I wrote a sales letter to get an interview. Sure enough, the interview was from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company at 1 Madison Avenue. [12:00.0]
Once I found that out, I did all the tricks of the trade of direct mail marketing. I waited two weeks before I replied to it. I was the last person who sent in, but I didn't send in a résumé. I just picked up the different features that they wanted and, sure enough, I got the last interview and that was it.
Once that happened, I got in charge of the direct mail marketing of MetLife, their personable insurance marketing area. That's how I got started in insurance and, from there, I went to a variety of different life insurance companies.
Brandon: You understand a lot about business then of marketing, and so you're in with maybe these bigger corporations, but you have a thumb on kind of entrepreneurship and direct marketing, and marketing, in general, I would think. [13:00.0]
Marty: It's from working with agents in the field. That was always my claim to fame. I'd always want to be interviewing or out in the field, or speaking with agents in what they were doing, trying to try to tap into what they were doing and then bring it back in for the whole organization to try to use those ideas or those techniques in order to help people make more sales.
Brandon: Like videos and things like that.
Marty: Videos, you know? I'm talking to back in the 1980s here. We didn't even have cell phones. I'd have to go to a payphone, something like that. But it's all kind of interesting from a marketing perspective. Then, ultimately, being a direct marketer, I kept thinking, If I can get people to respond to words, letters, pamphlets, brochures, and to buy things without even having to be in person, how much better could I be if I actually sold people? [14:06.5]
Then it wasn't until I ultimately was, as I like to say, the almost president of a life insurance company, until guess what? I got fired. It was a family-owned business, whatever. I didn't hit it off with one of the members of the family there and they decided to relieve me of that. But guess what I did there? From there, I went into sales, and so I was a salesperson, a life insurance salesperson.
Then I realized, There's something still missing about money, how money really works, and that has kind of been my quest. I mean, the whole point about this is, when you're younger, you know there's a certain discontent and dissatisfaction. You don't know how things work, but life gets in the way. You have a family. You have your job. You have everything, so you’ve got to do what you have to do in order to survive and thrive, certainly, being on your own to do things. [15:08.7]
But what ultimately happened was that you knew you were missing something and that was something that was key for me. I always knew I was missing something until, of course, you find it.
Amanda: Yeah, I want to hear this story. It sounds like you were questioning, How does money really work? How can I make it work for me? And you had this turning point where you decided to dig into it. Was there any kind of trigger that made you decide this was the time or anything like that?
Marty: What ultimately happened was I was doing well as a salesperson, but I knew I wasn't doing well enough, right? Because I didn't have … I was missing something. Ultimately, what happened, I went back to work for one of my good friends who happened to be the senior vice president at Security Mutual. [16:09.4]
Literally, what happened then was I got involved. I was sent to this seminar, which was for what's called COW College, Circle of Wealth. I went down there to see Don Blanton and I walked in. I didn't really know what it was going to be. There was a football field of agents there and I kept thinking, Oh, my God, I’ve died and gone to heaven. This is incredible. Sure enough, nobody else from Security Mutual was there because there was an ice storm, because the meeting was in January and nobody else could get there except me.
I met one of my general agents who said, “Hey, Marty, there's this guy who really wants to meet somebody from Security Mutual,” and I said, “Oh, great. Take me to him.” Sure enough, who does he introduce me to? Nelson Nash, and that was it. [17:00.7]
Nelson and I, so I introduced myself and, of course, when I heard Nelson's accent, I said, “Oh, Nelson, I'm involved with the Civil War Round Table of New York,” and Nelson said, “Marty, you mean the war of northern aggression?” and I go, “Oh, yeah, that's right. You're right. You're from Georgia and Alabama. Yeah, I understand. Yeah.”
We had this wonderful conversation and then he said, “Marty, you really need to come to the IBC Think Tank in Birmingham, Ala., next month.
Brandon: Could you tell for our audience, if they don't know who Nelson Nash is, who is he and why was he so important to change?
Marty: Sure. Nelson Nash is the founder-creator-discoverer-chief propagator of the Infinite Banking Concept, IBC. IBC is based on Nelson's book, Becoming Your Own Banker, which I would say, Becoming Your Own Banker by Nelson Nash, is “the” most important book about money that you're ever going to read. [18:10.2]
If you're a business owner, you're going to do X amount more of a business once you read and understand that book. That book is “the” most important book about money that you're ever going to read, and I say that continually for all these years now after I’ve met Nelson and it's still true. It is the basis where everything comes back to becoming your own banker, which is unique to bank on yourself.
Obviously, Pamela Yellen is one of probably the most successful organizations and entities that helps promulgate and talk about the idea of becoming your own banker. The bank on yourself is really “the” concept that I believe everybody should … That's my calling. I went, “That’s it. Oh, please, I’ve got to be there.” [19:05.8]
Amanda: Yeah, so take us back. You meet Nelson. He invites you to the IBC Think Tank.
Marty: So, I meet Nelson. Now, normally, in this role that I'm in, I’m a wholesaler, so Nelson says, “Marty, let me take one of my books here.” He takes a book out, takes his pen there like he was Ralph Kramden. He writes in this beautiful statement there, “Nelson Nash, BYOB,” and he hands me the book and he says, “I'm looking forward to seeing you in Birmingham,” and he said, “And, by the way, that's $20. You can go pay my son-in-law for the book.” I was like, Wow, I love the sales techniques.
Sure enough, I go, pay my $20. I read that book before I leave COW College. Then I read that book again before I leave COW College, and then I read that book on the plane coming back. I get home to New York City. My wife says to me, “Oh, how was it?” and I said to her, “I finally found what I’ve been looking for,” and it was as simple as that, man. [20:07.8]
That was the day, that was the experience that changed my life, by reading that book and I'm ever grateful for Nelson and for his friendship over the years, for writing it and certainly for being such a supporter. Sure enough, what we did was we went down to the IBC Think Tank and things haven't stopped. Our foot has been on the gas pedal.
If I forgot to throw in a plug for Security Mutual Life, which I will, because I love working there, because I love what I'm doing, we believe in it. We support it. We want to do everything we can to make sure that agents in the field and clients who become their own banker have the support that they need to achieve their financial goals and understand how money works. It's really quite exciting there. But that was really the turning point there, meeting Nelson Nash. [21:06.2]
Amanda: How long ago was that?
Marty: That was probably a good, let me see, 14, 15 years ago, something like that.
Amanda: Okay, so over the last 14, 15 years, how has your life changed because you learned to think like a banker and to adopt some? If you don't mind sharing some personal details there, how your story has evolved.
Marty: That’s why I'm a millionaire. I'm a millionaire because I’ve become my own banker. It's as simple as that. Pamela Yellen has in her book, there's this wonderful story of this account and, certainly, it shows his net worth. His net worth is up. His net worth is down. His net worth is up. His net worth is down. Of course, that's the way it's going to be if you don't understand how money works.
Then, literally, just like the graph that's in that book in Pamela's book, there's the point where you become your own banker, you start funding those policies, and the next thing that line just goes straight up and it's like, Oh, my God, how is this possible? And so you never worry about things again. [22:17.6]
I mean, it's like, Oh, okay, all right, what's the market doing? I don't care what the market is doing. It's like I just know that my money is in a safe, protected place. It grows tax-deferred. I have access to 24 hours a day. It never goes down. It's always going to go up. I don't care what's taking place really outside. Obviously, I do care, but, unfortunately, there are people who are invested in the market. If the market is up, they're happy, and if the market is down, they're depressed, but I don't have that. I don't have that kind of reaction. It's just like, Oh, wait a second, honey, it's just going up. That's the way that it works.
Brandon: And crypto now. Crypto, everybody was in a crypto or is. [23:04.0]
Marty: Right.
Brandon: It must have something and it drops, and I'm like, Oh, man.
Marty: Right. Again, you want to be in control. I mean, the wonderful thing about becoming your own banker, banking on yourself, it puts you in control and it makes you feel good. Your money grows in a tax-deferred position. You're able to access the money tax-free. The wonderful thing is you're able to put the money back in, repeat the process again and again. That is a position of power demand.
Grandma always said, “Eat your vegetables. Look both ways before crossing the road. And never risk your financial future on elements of the market you can’t control.” That Grandma, always good for some tried-and-true advice. And although some of her wisdom seems to have skipped a generation, you don't have to be left behind.
Download “Grandma's Top Tips for an Independent Financial Future” absolutely free, when you visit Grandma’sWealthWisdom.com. Don't wait. Get Grandma's best tips today.
Brandon: But I think what you're saying, too, is you are good at making money sales and making lots of money probably through that. Keeping the money is a very different thing and most entrepreneurs and business owners - [24:22.0]
Amanda: And salespeople and employees, everybody.
Brandon: - they're really good at making it maybe, but keeping it, and to be honest, we're in a world where everything is bidding for our attention, right? If you don’t have a plan for your money, someone has a plan for your money.
Marty: Brandon, as I like to say, there are people out there who want the money in your pocket more than you want it and they’ll do what they have to or do what they have to do or say what they have to say to get it out of your pocket and put it into theirs. [25:01.0]
I think when I was thinking about Grandma and stuff like that, Grandma always stressed education. She was a seamstress. My mother's side of the family owned the fruit and vegetable store as immigrants tend to do.
She wanted everybody to get an education. Hard work was the way to go. No matter what you did, you would always want to save and then you'd save, that's it. You wanted more money, guess what you’d do? You trade your time for money. You get another job. That's the whole thing. If you're willing to work, you can make money. It's a good [lesson].
I think for myself, for my brothers and sisters, and for the people I’ve grown up with, everybody has been a hard worker. If you need something, you don't depend on anybody else. You just go to work and do it. If you have to work two jobs, you work two jobs. You're not afraid to do that in order to make money, but that may not be the most efficient way to do it because, as you said, holy macaroni, it'd be great to keep some of this as opposed to having to spend it all or on whatever thing comes up that it needs to be spent. [26:18.3]
Amanda: As you think about that, immigrant, seamstress, fruit and vegetable store owner, Grandma, if she were here today and able to share what she's proud of about where you're at right now, what would she say?
Marty: Oh, I think she’d be extremely proud that all of her grandchildren went to college, graduated. Some people became professionals. Other people have other skills. Everybody is independent financially, not dependent on anyone else. My grandmother and my mother used to repeat always, no matter what you did, do your best and leave the rest. Do your best and leave the rest. No matter what activity, what kind of job you have, always do your best. [27:13.7]
Frankly, at one point in my career, I had 70 employees reporting to me and I would have meetings with them, and I would say to them, “Hey, listen, this is the real story here. I expect everybody here who works for the company, you need to do your best every day. You need to be dedicated. You need to be hardworking. You need to just do whatever you can to succeed here,” and I said, “And I promise you this. By doing your best and leaving everything here, out on the floor, you're going to be rewarded for that. I know you're going to be rewarded because I’ve been rewarded for it.”
And I said, “Even more importantly, because when you work for a company, there are all these rules and restrictions about how much you could get, and if you don't get a promotion, how much money you can earn.” I said, “If you don't get it here, if you don't receive the recognition and money that you think you deserve, guess what? There's going to be another company out there who's willing to do that. That's what you'd have to do and that's why you always do your best because that's how you're going to succeed in life.” [28:20.6]
People would look at me like, What is he saying? If I'm not rewarded here, I should go somewhere else? I go, Yeah, of course. That's the whole point. You need to be paid for what you're worth. If I can't reward you for what you're doing, guess what? I'm happy. I'm so grateful that you've done that, because guess what? I'm never going to hold you back. You need to achieve what you need to achieve for yourself. Everybody is an individual here. That's the big thing.
Plus, the other thing about Grandma, which I was thinking about is Grandma would always say you don't have to be rich or have lots of money to be happy or enjoy life, and that was I think a gift that I had from both sides of my family, from my father's side and from my mother's side of the family. Family was what was important. Love was what was important. [29:12.2]
It's great to have money, but guess what? You can enjoy your life and have fun and do what you need to do, because happiness, just like making money, shouldn't be the goal in life. The goal of life is being yourself, but in order to be yourself, find something that you love to do, like to do, want to do, feel productive at doing, whatever that might be.
People aren't going to be judging you by what you think. They're going to only be judging you by your actions. That's the only thing they can see. What are you going to do in your life? If I think about most life insurance practitioners, agents, it's like, What do we do? We tell people that they need to take care of their families and that's part of our goal. [30:09.0]
We teach people how money works, what a wonderful thing to do to help them achieve their goals and show them, guess what? There are people out there who want your money more than you do. You need to hang on to it, and this we believe is one of the best ways, one of the true ways, in order for you to become your own banker to protect your family, to do what you need to do to get the things you want in life. That's pretty cool stuff.
Brandon: I see it as protecting your family and most people see life insurance as just, oh, it's for them, but it's protecting them in case something happens to you.
Marty: Right.
Brandon: That's the essence of life insurance, but with the infinite banking concept, you can access that money to grow wealth in your lifetime now as opposed to waiting until right now I paid all this and my wife or kids get something, but you're able to have both things. [31:15.8]
Marty: Right.
Brandon: What would you say is the biggest, as you've been in this industry, misconceptions, things that people just totally get wrong? They are like, I’ve said this over and over again and how did people not get it that you're really seriously ...? Does that make sense?
Marty: Yeah. I mean, I did have this thought as much as we do, because obviously we're educators and, at the heart of it, we're trying to educate people on what's happening. There's a certain tendency now in our society to want to solve everybody's problems, right? Society has to solve this. [32:01.0]
What it ultimately comes down to, the only way that people do this is by, no matter how much we're part of a group or a tribe or a family and stuff like that, we're still individuals. We still go to bed at night by ourselves, ultimately, with our thoughts, and the idea behind that is that I believe, to say it out loud, people need to suffer. People need to feel discontent. People need to be in pain. People need to be unhappy because it's that unhappiness, that pain, that dissatisfaction, that is going to drive them to search for what needs to be found for them.
My whole life, I know I’ve suffered all during this time, and guess what? But guess what? I found what I was looking for and I know that that can work for other people, too, and especially since we deal with money that everybody has to deal with, people need to feel that displeasure that something is missing there, and we need to find those people. [33:12.0]
We need to find those people in our profession who are unhappy about what they're doing, and then be able to lead them ultimately and bring out of them what the solution is, and that’s I think what banking on yourself, becoming your own banker is really all about.
The wonderful thing that Nelson would always say is he never really struggled with trying to explain to people about what the concept was. He would say, Hey, I want you to read the book. If you read the book and you understand it, guess what's going to happen? You're going to understand it.
That has certainly been my experience over the past decade that when you give, when you sell the book and have them read it, and people come back to you and the next thing they say to you is, Marty, I’ve got $100,00. Can I start with that? I say, Yeah, you can start with that. Let's have a conversation. Let's talk about this. Let me find out. I want to make sure that you understand what you've read there. [34:19.4]
That's all part of the process of going through, for that person themselves to come to that realization, that conscious level of, Oh, wow, there's something really important here. That's something I’ve probably never … I might have thought about it, but now it's sort of on paper. It's concrete, and guess what? This is what I want to do. So, it's pretty exciting along those lines.
It's like Don Blanton from Circle of Wealth would always say, Hey, people ask me what do I do? I say I take people to the Grand Canyon. It’s like, what do you mean? He says, When I show them what I have to offer, ultimately about becoming your own banker, it's like showing them the Grand Canyon, and when people see it, it's like, Oh, my God, this is incredible. [35:12.8]
When you see people having that reaction, it's pretty amazing there and you know you've done what you were supposed to do to help them along the way, so that's pretty good stuff.
Amanda: I think we're getting short on time, but I want to make sure to talk about your future. Where do you see things going from here? What are you excited about?
Brandon: Or even in the industry, too.
Amanda: Yeah, wherever you want to go with that.
Marty: Yeah. I think it's going to be a crazy time. I think what we have to do as professionals, as bank-on-yourself practitioners, followers of the infinite banking concept, is to press on to the individuals that we come across. I think that's the most important thing. [36:05.5]
Brandon: Why do you think it's going to be a crazy time?
Marty: Just because of all the outward political things that are taking place. There's a real conflict in society. This is another whole story for another whole hour, speaking of, since I’ve been a big civil war person for the past more than 20 years. Economic Liberty versus economic security, what is the country going to ultimately choose? What will millennials choose down the line here? And I think that's going to be something that's going to affect all our industries and all financial services. Do we want individual freedom, liberty, individual rights, along those lines? Is that going to still be the founding principle of the United States of America? [37:02.5]
I think that question is in dispute right now of what the country should be. We have a lot of discontented people here. I don't want to get political about this, at least too much, but I see this as economic liberty versus economic security, the rights of the individual being more important than ultimately the rights of the group.
I’ll come back to this to say it again. No matter what you do during the day, no matter what you're unhappy or discontented about, you're still going to have to face this as an individual. We are all individuals. Even though we're married and even though we have children, everybody has their own individual identity, their own individual destiny, and goals, and you have to do that. Society can't do that for you. [38:03.7]
Society can make it easier financially to give you different things, but ultimately you're going to have to go to bed at night and fall asleep with yourself and have your own dreams. You're not going to have dreams of others. You're going to have your own. What do you want to achieve? What's important to you? What would be the guiding principles?
Brandon: Do you think that there's … I’ve had a lot of clients have conversations with people who say that there's a lot of, what do you call it? Black Swan events coming, meaning a barge gets stuck and it's going to affect things or we lose gas in North Carolina. That was us a while back.
Marty: Right, sure.
Brandon: And I think more of those things are going to happen. One of the questions that our clients tend to ask a lot is, okay, things are so shaky, there's so much happening. What would you say to a person that says, What about your company? Security Mutual, are they going to survive it? [39:07.6]
Marty: Right.
Brandon: What would you tell people about that kind of thing?
Marty: I would say, although history is no predictor of the future, here's not only Security Mutual, but other companies. They've been around for over 100 years. They've weathered all different types of political and economic stresses and depressions, wars, downturns, things like that.
I think from the perspective of Security Mutual, the life insurance industry is considered a dinosaur industry, but guess what? That dinosaur carries a lot of weight. It has trillions of dollars of assets in it. It’s regulated probably even more than it should be, but guess what? It's in the safer places where you store your money and, ultimately, again, I don't know if there is a better money storage system that has ever been created than the dividend-paying cash-value whole life insurance, which may be the best financial product that has ever been created because of all the features that it allows you to have. [40:18.8]
Certainly, during this time it's pretty good to be in a place where your money is under the control of a contract, as opposed to being at the mercy of the market and the market forces, and that goes around it there. You will be here long after I'm gone and if there's a way to communicate somehow in the future to those who have passed on, I'd love you to tell me how this is all going to turn out. But I feel very confident about the life insurance industry and what we do and what we're trying to tell people and educate them about. [41:02.0]
Brandon: I want to just say, going back to Grandma, Security Mutual itself wasn’t around when Grandma was there. Not even born, right?
Marty: Great grandma, yeah.
Brandon: Yeah, and I think that's one of the things I wanted to land on and make sure that our listeners knew that, hey, this company that you work for specifically has been around since the beyond greatest generation.
Marty: Yeah, definitely, definitely. It's having that faith in the future there and I think there are certainly definitely people who have that outlook. I think most of us have that outlook because we love our families. We want the best for them. We’ll all realize we're all related in some way, much closer than we all imagined, whatever. Perhaps we'll start treating each other with a little more respect, kindness, and compassion that we all deserve, but we shall see. We shall see. But you know what? Love what you do. It’s going to carry you a long way. [42:08.6]
Brandon: We love it. What we do here and the lives changed, I never would have thought we had gone from coffee to this and Grandma's Wealth Wisdom. I'm like, What the heck? But the lives we've changed are in the short amount of being in this business. It’s amazing and we want to help more people do that. Of course, we love that you're a part of our team as we have challenging cases or any of that, that you're there to help us.
Marty: I'm proud and happy, and always look forward to working with you guys. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.
Brandon: More Amanda than me, I'm sure.
Marty: No, Brandon, I wouldn't say that now. No, no, it's 50/50 here. That's the way it is in life.
Amanda: Thank you so much for your time today, Marty. Any final words of wisdom to pass on? Or if people are like, I need to talk to Marty, how would you like for them to reach out, if at all? [43:07.0]
Marty: I mean, obviously, they can always contact me directly or I could give you my number there. It's 347-443-2178 and my work email is msmith@smlny.com. But, certainly, if they contact you, I'm happy to speak with you and them together. That would be my preference because I trust you to do the best for them and I can't do things directly. I can talk, but I need to work like that.
It’s just, hey, listen, you need to work hard in life. You need to educate yourself. You need to work hard. You need to save your money. I don't know if there's anything other than that.
Amanda: Love it.
Marty: Love your family. That's the way that … That's probably the most important thing. [44:02.3]
Brandon: Awesome.
Marty: Very good.
Amanda: Thank you.
Marty: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate this.
Brandon: Awesome.
Amanda: Brandon, what's your reaction to that interview with Marty? What are some of your big takeaways?
Brandon: I really like, one, his being in. He started in life insurance when he was in his mom's stomach, really, right?
Amanda: In the womb?
Brandon: In the womb, yeah, not in her stomach. I think that that is pretty interesting, to see that his whole thing of how money really works, and how he met Nelson Nash and how that was a big transition for him. We've never had the opportunity to meet him, but I had a similar experience when we watched -
Amanda: To meet Nelson, yeah.
Brandon: - when we watched a movie on how money works and that's what drew us. If this helps you guys kind of have a light bulb moment because of his story, I think that was the biggest thing for me. [45:06.6]
Amanda: Yeah, there were some really cool things that were a part of his story. By way of kind of recap, but also adding some additional details, if you do go pick up a copy of Become Your Own Banker by Nelson Nash, it's a really great book. We recommend it, but you have to remember the context of Nelson and when he wrote it. There are some things in there that in 2021 might be considered offensive or a little too old school, right? He wrote it a long time ago. He was just of a different place, so keep that in mind.
Brandon: Right, right. From the greatest generation.
Amanda: Yeah. This whole idea of do your best and leave the rest, if you read that book, take the best of it and leave the rest. Maybe there are some analogies in there that you're like, I can't relate to this and I don't really get what he's talking about. Reach out to us. We've been playing around with how to update those analogies for the 21st century as well and would love to talk to you about some of those things. [46:06.6]
Brandon: And reading Pamela's book, too, alongside that.
Amanda: The Bank on Yourself Revolution would be a great book to read as well. Then I also love this, that you don't have to have lots of money to be happy, but when you prioritize, you know what will make you happy and then you align your money with that. That can be no matter how much or how little you have, and I love that we get to do that and that's a big part of what bank on yourself helps people do.
Then this phrase I'm totally going to steal and use again. Do you want to be in control of the contract or at the mercy of the market? I love that phrase and want to dig into that more? And this whole idea that we're all individuals. One of the things I love about the types of policies that we use is that they're uniquely designed. Yeah, there are formulas and things we use, but they all need to work for the individual and they’re individualized to help that individual the best that they can't. No two policies are alike. [47:05.2]
Brandon: That's why doing a full financial analysis is so important and not just saying, Oh, yeah, this is what you should do and this is how it's going to work, without even knowing context goals and things like that.
Amanda: Correct, yeah. Some of those kinds of things were good reminders from Marty's wisdom that he was sharing.
Okay. Brandon, I know our next episode or continuing with interviews. Fun fact today: Marty shared that he was a direct marketer, that he’s a big fan of that and that's where he first started after doing just proofreading kind of things after college. Our next interviewer is also a big fan of direct marketing, so we might get into that. We haven't actually interviewed or done the interview yet, so we'll see what happens. Be sure that you hit subscribe and look for that next episode that'll come out.
Brandon: While you're subscribing, don't forget to leave a review. Reviews really help in letting other people know that we exist or that you liked the show. Subscribe, like, review, share, all those fun things. [48:09.5]
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Until next time, keep building your wealth, simply and sustainably, so you can break through to a smart, stable financial future.
The topics presented in this podcast are for general information only and not for the purposes of providing legal, accounting or investment advice. On such matters, please consult a professional who knows your specific situation.
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