All right, welcome back to The Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And I'm excited today to be able to have a special guest with us, Chris Marino. And I want to give you a little background on this guy, because we're going to dig deep into wealth and into the wealth mindset and financial planning and things like that. But just to give you a little background, so Chris is a senior marketing director and partner at Turra Point. He's got 15 years experience as a wealth advisor, life insurance agent broker, but he's got an impressive background. One of the reasons I wanted to talk with him today is he's closed over a billion dollars in insurance deals. He specializes in high net worth individuals, and they primarily work with businesses, although they do have, and you could have the opportunity to work with them on an individual basis as well, but they just have a wealth of experience and knowledge. So Chris, welcome to the podcast, brother. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much, George, for having me on. It's a pleasure and an honor. Yeah. Listen, I know it's with guys like you guys like me, scheduling is a science, right? But we're together. We got it. I'm down in Scottsdale at our regenerative medicine clinic, doing some marketing down here and you're out. Where are you at today? Where are you at? So I'm in our Austin, Texas office. Okay. Austin, Texas office and a Orange County, California office, but I am in Austin. That's awesome, man. You got to love technology. And that's why I love doing this podcast, because we can share these ideas and concepts with individuals, no matter where they are in the world. And we've got quite a diverse podcast audience. So listen, today, guys, we're talking about wealth. We're talking about on the podcast, we talk about mindset, we talk about body, we talk about money and business. But today we're going to talk about wealth. And Chris, I want to jump right into it with you and ask you, your background has been almost entirely in financial planning and advising and insurance and things like this. Our audience is primarily business owners, high achievers, business owners, CEOs. What type of really, what kind of direction took you into this vein of wealth management and planning? And give us some of your mindset around how you view wealth as it pertains to business owners. Yeah, I got into the space, I backed in. So pre-2008, I got out of school in 06 and I started working for investment banks and they were buying insurance policies and bundling them up just like they were buying mortgages. Obviously, 2008 happens. A lot of the investment banks are obviously out of that space. But the group I was working with in Texas, it was a multi-generational wealth planning office. So at that point, I started working with them and helping them with their clients' high net worth insurance needs. Being in my early 20s, it was a little bit difficult for me to connect directly with a lot of these high net worth clients. But coming from the investment banks, I was already working with wealth planners, money managers, and insurance agents. So I just transitioned into, instead of trying to buy their existing policies, helping them get new ones. Having worked in the high net worth space my entire life, obviously those people do things differently. And they're normally very intelligent people on their own and they normally have good people in their ears. Obviously, sometimes you don't and that can be a problem. To your point, I do think wealth is a mindset. The way wealthy people look at things and the way middle class, some of these lower income people, it's totally different. A lot of people that don't have a lot of money, they're worried about saving money so that they can maybe pay the rent or buy a new car. What I've noticed with wealthy people is they for the most part, want to have their money working. They don't want to have a large balance sitting in their account doing nothing. They have learned that the best way once you have money to make money is to use that money. And that's been a big lesson for me. It's something I've tried to teach and impart to other people as well as implement in my own life. Yeah, it's crazy because one of the things I was just talking to some individuals the other day, and we did a podcast episode on money. And the idea is most people, even at a CEO business owner level, most people are working for money. They don't have money working for them. And in addition to that, they have this philosophy of, I need to make a lot of money. And then as I get that, I will start to plan for it. And what I've really found over time is successful people have a financial plan worked into their mindset, but also to their business and their day-to-day and things like this. How critical in your mind is it for people to have a financial plan and strategies in place while they're building and growing their wealth and while they're trying to earn and make money rather than waiting until they have assets to plan with? What's your philosophy and how critical is that for most people? Yeah I mean my personal opinion is every person should do it as they able to And I think what I noticed an entrepreneur myself and working with other entrepreneurs is a lot of those people they putting all their time and their money into their business because they're investing in themselves and it's their dream. You know, the reality is that a lot of those businesses fail. And if people don't have a plan B, they can go from being very wealthy, not so wealthy very quickly. So I think as early as possible, you would want to create a financial plan. And with business owners specifically, key man, buy, sell insurance is very important to have to have a part of that plan. Yeah, that's so true. Businesses come and go. And I think a lot of people get their whole identity and life wrapped up in the business they have. And they don't realize that when you take a step back, you're trying to create a life and you need to have a plan. That's why I've got a seven step formula. I generally take some of my high net worth CEOs through that bookends with mindset and financial planning. And in the middle, it's strategy and marketing and sales and business. But you always have these bookends of mindset and financial planning, tax savings, growing your assets, financial protection like insurance. So let's pivot for a second into insurance, because I think there's a lot of misconceptions people have about insurance. Some people just view it as a, like they would a health insurance or life insurance in general. And others, when they look at the areas of insurance where you can invest, where it's variable policies or universal policies, they've always had a bad rap in my opinion. Help us to understand why insurance is maybe a good tool for individuals that are doing their financial planning. And give me some, just for our listeners, some real tangible reasons why insurance might be something for them to consider and any other things that you highlight in your financial planning because you deal strictly with high net worth individuals? Yeah. And that's a great question. Thanks, George. So the first thing I would say to any business owner that has a business partner, you want to buy sell agreement in place. And that basically means each person has insurance on the other person. Because while we obviously nobody wants our business partner or friend to die, it does happen from time to time. And if you don't have that in place, all of a sudden now you're in business with that person's husband or wife and maybe even kids. The other thing is if you have a very high level employee putting some key man coverage on them, God forbid something happens. Obviously, you can't replace the person, but you will have money to address the situation and ultimately hopefully find a good candidate. But on the investment side of this thing, what we really specialize in is indexed universal life policies as well as variable and universal life. But what I like the most about an index universal life policy is it's a dual purpose vehicle. Whether you want to use it for your key man buy sell with your business partner or you want to use it for your family, it is life insurance. So God forbid something happens to you, your family would be covered. But both in the variable and in the index, you are investing a portion of the premium you pay every year to the markets. And the beautiful thing about this thing, and we normally represent or recommend a very broad brushstroke, S&P 500 point to point. Over time, that averaged 7-8%, and that's solid. But the beautiful thing about a life insurance policy is that money grows and can be withdrawn tax-free. So all of a sudden, your 7-8%, depending on your tax bracket in the state you live in, could be almost double. What I love most about the index universal life product as opposed to a variable is that it has a ceiling and a floor. So it'll have a floor of 0%. You will never lose on the investment side of this policy. It would be capped. But again, it's going to do on average 7% or 8%. If you want to be a little more aggressive, like we talked about, you could do the variable, which is the same idea, but without the ceiling and floor. So insurance, look, if you're listening to this podcast, insurance, like anything else, your situation, where you're at will make a difference. It's like tax planning. People think, I'm just going to plan my taxes. No, strategy around taxes is just as important as the actual tax bookkeeping. And insurance, I think, is no difference. But I really want to highlight what you just said. What people need to realize is insurance can be a multi-purpose strategy and tool. You can get the insurance benefits out of it. And if you haven't considered like this buy-sell agreement or key man insurance. It's important to do that if you have a business, but it could also be death benefit type deal, but you've got insurance. In addition, you may as well be investing a portion of those premiums and doing it in a tax-free, tax-deferred type of a scenario, depending on how you set things up. And so I think a lot of people don't really, it's like they grow up thinking of insurance as insurance. They don't think of it as a vehicle for growing wealth. And in my opinion, and you can speak to this because I'm no expert, But the insurance companies and people that have done this are among the most solid long forever wealth type of entities right And so individuals that have taken advantage of it these are kind of strategies that sort of secrets of the high net worth is the way I look at it wouldn you say Yeah, no, I couldn't agree with you more. And when you say insurance, it could be so many different things, right? You're home and auto. You might have business insurance. But what we really specialize in is these hybrid dual-purpose vehicles for the high net worth market, where to your point, you are covered, something happens, whether it's with your employee, business partner, or family, you have that coverage. But the investment component and being able to do that in a tax-advantaged situation, to me, is an incredible opportunity. I think a lot of things, to your point, there's a reason on Sunday Pacific Life adds every commercial. There's a reason there's an Allianz Arena and a MetLife Stadium in New York. These are very solid institutions. For the most part, we're only doing double A plus rated. These companies, when stuff hits the van like in 08, none of them went out of business. Now, there were some banks that went under, but no insurance companies did. And I'm sure some of them had some issues they had to address. But long story short, whenever you're doing business with a company like this and you have a policy, especially the dual purpose one, keep in mind you are dealing with a very large, very well versed and sound financial institution. And most of the companies we work with have all been doing this over 100 years. Yeah, that's a key factor. I think people need to understand that insurance is not just insurance. You have to change the way you look at things. And when you can understand that there's a possibility of having a very key pivotal financial strategy tool that you can put into your arsenal through policies, then you begin to view things a little differently. This is not just a retirement strategy. It's not just a death benefit, security, disability type thing. We're talking about a solid investment strategy. Can you, I don't know if I hate to ask you just on the fly here, but do you happen to have any case study examples or something that you can share with individuals of maybe a business owner or someone that, you know, I don't know if you have an example of something that can paint a picture for someone of what an insurance policy like this can do for you? yeah i think you made a great there and obviously this is the mindset podcast so you got to change your mindset around insurance a little bit and understand that it's a multi-purpose multi-faceted um tool that you can use backed by a great company now as far as you know what i've seen in my own life we had a split dollar key management policy in my old company on someone who was she was very vital to our business this is sad for me to even talk about she had an aneurysm at the age of 45 and died so not only was the company able to use some of those resources to replace her but probably even more importantly the family received i believe two million dollars and she was a single mother with three kids and all those kids are going to college now so that's obviously the death benefit side of this as far as the investment side i personally did one of these years ago and in my accounts have grown. We've done these plans with business owners where it's used as an executive benefit and key man. So God forbid something happens, the company's covered. But in the meantime, the executive is receiving the funds, obviously invested into the policy, but they are growing their own net worth this way. Those are just a few of the ways. We did one that's about 15 years. So we had another one that I did. Actually, It's almost 20 now, but that's 17. So we had another one we did on a young business owner, and he had a company valued at $100 million. And he did this personally and was able to accumulate $3 or $4 million. That company went bankrupt. And he would have been out on the street had he not done this because obviously his home was very expensive. He had a certain lifestyle because he was smart enough that even though he loved his business and believed in it to do a backup plan, He was able to save his family's situation and ultimately went on to form another company and be highly successful. But the cash in that policy prevented him from having to sell his home and move his kids to different schools. So I think a big thing, and we talked about this, is having a plan B, having a plan C, and changing your mindset about how you think about something like insurance. It opens up a lot of doors. Yeah, there's very few tools. Listen, I'm not an insurance agent. I'm not on endorse any. but there are very few tools that give you so many multifaceted benefits, tax benefits, investment benefits, death benefits, financial benefits. Like there are so many reasons for someone to look at this. And on top of all that if you want to create any type of legacy whatsoever look we not working our butts off here to just to have the title Like we want to create something long term and there nothing more stable long term than insurance So let me ask you this as we finish up on our time. What where where does someone start with someone? Now, we're going to we're going to give them some ways to get in touch with you and get some resources. But where where does someone start? Is it get in touch with someone in order to get sort of a consultation and a lay of what your personal situation is, your business situation is? Where do they start if they want to learn more about insurance and try to figure out? Because it can be a little complicated, right? Variable, universal, indexed insurance, the death benefits, the policy amounts. Where do you start with all that? Yeah, you'd want to start. What I would recommend someone to do is you would want to spend a little bit of time, and thank God now we have the internet in Google, you'd want to understand some of the basics. If you have a general idea, and hopefully this podcast is helpful with that, you would want to be in touch with someone like us or someone that is an expert in this field. I also think it's very important to work with an independent advisor. Someone at Northwestern Mutual or New York Life can only sell you a couple products. I always recommend working with an independent group such as us. because we work with 25, 30 different insurance companies, and every client's situation is different. So I would recommend doing a little research, finding a high-level, reputable, independent insurance agency or agent, and then having a conversation. Now, there is a medical side of this. So depending on your health, you may want to get in a little bit better shape before you do this. But otherwise, you want to find a trusted advisor and partner. And another thing that I didn't mention earlier, as far as additional benefits, these policies also have long-term care riders. You get sick, there's accelerated benefits. There are so many different positives that come with these policies. But most importantly, I think it's important to establish some level of base knowledge on your own so that when you do go to someone trusted and reputable, you have some idea of what they're talking about. But a good agent or advisor, They're, you know, they're. Yeah. And there's no excuse nowadays, right? You can get this, you can get information. They've got to do some research, do a little due diligence. It's easy to do. It's this crazy tool called Google, right? But you work, so let's wrap it up with this. You work with businesses and you work with individuals. And so we're going to put some show links in here for both. But what you're saying, and I highly agree, is that people need to do a little bit of research, Find out what it is and learn a little bit of the background and the information on insurance, but then find an independent agent. Work with someone independent that doesn't have a vested interest in pushing you one direction or the other. And when you do that, those individuals can help you to craft a plan and put something together for your specific needs. And if you're a high net worth individual listening to this, we'll connect you with Chris and his organization. If you're a business, an agency, a brokerage, things like that, we can do that as well. where's the best place if individuals wanted to connect with you chris where's the best place they can contact you or see you online yeah we're available at www.toropoint.com a good email for me would be chris at toropoint.com feel free to check out our website we've got some blogs and articles that are educational as well as linkedin those would probably be the the best options i love it i love it and listen guys if you're listening i'm going to put all these links in the show notes will get his email address and the website, but also some links individually if you want to book a console. Yeah, bottom line is this, listen, the reason I bring on guests like Chris, they're experienced, they've got the background. He deals with all the time, high net worth individuals. He knows the scenarios that you're going to run into, the things you should be considering that you haven't thought of when you're trying to do it on your own. So I highly recommend you look into this. You look a little further because there's nothing that is going to help you create legacy like having a good financial solid financial plan and insurance is a part of that arsenal. So Chris, appreciate having you on today, man. I appreciate your knowledge and I look forward to maybe even bringing you back onto our academy, our private academy group. And so thank you for being here today. Yeah, George, thank you so much for having me on. Like I said, it was an honor and a privilege. So thank you. Awesome. Awesome. Listen, guys, if you haven't already hit subscribe on the podcast and do me a favor, share this show. There's somebody out there that needs this information and mean the world to us. I look forward to talking with you more tomorrow. And once again, like I said, it's never too late. You may be thinking it's a year later in your life or whatever, but it's never too late to start living the life that you're meant to live. And you've got to start taking action on these areas and these financial principles today. So have an amazing day and I'll talk with you soon.
