Making gains versus merely avoiding losses

You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

— Obi-Wan Kenobi

Having options isn’t just a good idea. 

It’s the only way for you to grow stronger in life (provided you know how to objectively assess those options to make the correct choices for yourself in every situation). 

Now… I don’t take a “moderate” stance on how much whole life insurance people should buy (like many other insurance agents do, out of fear of looking like they are “biased”) or… recommend hybrid products like indexed universal life insurance (which has no explicit guarantees on cash values or death benefits). 

I know this has cost me some business (because some people have basically come out and said so), but… it matters not. 

I don’t cater to speculators who take irrational and stupid risks with their money. 

In my weird way of thinking, if you’ve decided whole life insurance makes sense for you, then the best, most logical, approach after that is to jump in with both feet and buy as much as the life insurance company will sell you. 

The proposition is quite simple:

If you give the life insurance company $1000 today, and they turn around and give you a $500,000 death benefit tomorrow, that’s a 50,000% return on that premium.

If you can find a better option than that, go for it Mojumbo.

More:

Since most people buy whole life insurance in large part because of its cash value, the deal there is a totally tax-free asset for as long as you own your policy (provided it never becomes a modified endowment contract) and a return on cash value that handily beats any savings account, nearly any bank certificate of deposit, and most tax free (and taxable) bonds, and… doesn’t carry any of the risks of any of those other options. 

Again, if you can find a better option, go for it.

Theres nothing magical or mystical about owning whole life insurance. The product works because of some very sophisticated mathematics, but as an end user, policyholders have a very simple product on their hands. They put money in, they get guaranteed cash values and death benefits out. 

A lot of the success or failure they experience is in their own mindset. 

With the wrong mindset, you’ll still lose, even with a large whole life policy.

Whole life insurance, combined with the right mindset (which includes the follow up actions that go along with that mindset) however, guarantees you’ll win. 

With the right mindset, and subsequent action, on net, no matter what happens to you, you win. 

That’s part of “playing to win” as opposed to playing to not lose. 

It’s that “playing to not lose” mindset that gets you into trouble.

By playing to not lose, everything you do is defensive in nature, and you’ll eventually be overtaken by something that’s more aggressive than your defensive posture. 

Plus, defense only works against someone attacking you. 

And, there are many ways to be defeated in life that don’t involve someone else attacking you. 

But, by playing to win, you will automatically outflank and checkmate everything that stands in your way, even against bigger, more powerful adversaries or “impossible” Kobayashi Maru situations.

Those impossibilities will melt away into a “nothing can stop me now” positioning. 

I mean that. It is possible to arrange things such that, even if you are literally killed, you will become more powerful than anyone could ever imagine. 

And, thus eventually, you too may become as powerful as the metaphorical Jedi, and nothing — not even death — will stop your long-term financial plans, goals, dreams, and aspirations.

It’s power no one can take away from you. 

No one.

Anyway, I don’t know if that helps or not, but hopefully, it does. And, if you want me to beam more of my thoughts and ideas straight into your brain, go sign up to my email list and I’ll send them to you, pronto.

David Lewis, AKA The Rogue Agent, has been a life insurance agent since 2004, and has worked with some of the oldest and most respected mutual life insurance companies in the U.S. during that time. To learn more about him and his business, go here.