As you’re planning your life, you just assume, you just think, you just feel, you just know that your plans are finished. All the planning is always finished; you can just be done. I’m sorry to say, but life does not work that way. Last year at this very same time our street in front of our home on a very quiet area of my community, everything was torn up. For the first time in probably 50, 60, 70 years they took out the pavement. They dug everything up. In fact, they replaced all of the water mains, the sewer, the pipes, everything was replaced. So, literally, from spring until fall what was happening is that basically we were living with a mud bog in front of our homes. There were times that we couldn’t even park on our street because it was simply filled with machinery, concrete pipes, plastic pipes, and metal pipes. It was a mud bog. You couldn’t get in. You couldn’t get out. In fact, there was some question as to whether the garbage was even going to be collected from our home.
We were told at the end of the year after all the brand-new sod had taken root from the seed that they had planted that we didn’t have to worry about anything because they wouldn’t have to make any repairs to this street for over 100 years. It’s safe to say that I was thinking we were home free and that we would never have to worry about a disruption ever again.
You can tell (from behind me) that there is a disruption, and it’s only been one year. This year, they decided to put in fiber optics throughout our entire community so we can have higher speed internet. So here we are again. They’re drilling holes. They’re laying pipe and again we have machinery on our street that was supposed to remain untouched for the next 100 years.
What does this have to do with your life? Oftentimes, we feel like it’s going to be one and done. When I was in my 20s and I bought my very first life insurance policy with my wife, I felt great. I had done the responsible thing. I’m one and I’m done. Then we had children, and I realized the amount of coverage that we had was not adequate. So, my one and done was now incorrect. Now, I needed to think about my human life value. I needed to think about the real amount of insurance that I should have.
Then, I was a little bit older, and I realized if I utilize a whole life insurance policy in such a way, I can build an emergency fund. I can build a fund that if an opportunity comes my way, I can take advantage of it because I can borrow against my life insurance, and I can do all of these really crazy and wonderful things to be able to build more wealth. I wasn’t one and done.
Then, we purchased additional properties. More risk to us in the event of our deaths because of the debt that we held. So again, it was no longer one and done. Additional coverage needed to be acquired. And then there were new opportunities. New opportunities so I needed to have ways that I could save money for now and in the future in case of an emergency, but also in case of business opportunities. I wasn’t one and done.
I needed to keep on growing my portfolio and growing my cash value. In fact, in meetings today I actually spend quite a bit of time speaking with people who are retired and they still are making changes to their life insurance portfolio. They’re realizing with the market going crazy; up and down, they needed some sort of security, knowing that they could get a reasonable rate of return. A place to store their safe money. Where they could do better than the bank. Where they don’t have to pay taxes along the way. Where they could build an estate either for themselves to be able to enjoy today, or to be able to pass on to their loved ones in a very efficient manner.
It wasn’t one and done. So, we’re looking at ways of building additional cash reserves. These are people in their late 60s, 70s, and 80s that thought that they were one and done in their 20s, and again in their 30s and again in their 40s and 50s and 60s. But when the opportunity arises where you can build extra cash for your here and now and for your future and for way in to the future that can affect multiple generations after you are long and gone, it’s not simply a one and done.
But here’s the problem, everyone wants a one and done. They don’t want to think about it any longer. Well, you know what, life happens. You think you’ve got smooth sailing where the road of your life will not need to be changed for the next 100 years, but then new opportunities come your way. If you had a one and done mentality during the 1980s, you would’ve never been able to have a cell phone. You would have never been able to have the internet. You would never have been able to have an email address. Don’t freeze where you are because look at where we have come from and where we are today and dream ahead as far as what the possibilities might be in the future.
Don’t be a one and done because that will freeze you where you are. Instead, think of the possibilities. Think of the road in your life as one that needs ongoing maintenance, ongoing changes, ongoing ways to improve your street, your life, and your money in to the future. It will get messy along the way. Don’t be a one and done.
If you’d like to learn more about the life insurance asset, we work country-wide. You can contact our office and arrange a time that we can visit. If you’d like to know more about my book, Investment’s Don’t Hug: Embracing the Life Insurance Asset, which is available at Barnes & Nobles, Amazon, iTunes, or Audible, you can simply go to my website to dig in, and get stoked for your future. Explore my website, investmentsdonthug.com and lets you and I visit and let’s no longer be a one and done.
