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The Measuring Post is a podcast about growth, not perfection.
It’s a place to pause, reflect, and measure what actually matters in your life, your work, and your personal development. Not by comparing yourself to others, but by comparing who you are today to who you were yesterday.
I'm Joe Massa, and I created this show because I believe growth isn't a solo journey. Each week, you’ll hear thoughtful interviews with incredible guests: entrepreneurs, leaders, creatives, and everyday people doing meaningful work, sharing real experiences, lessons learned, and practical insights you can apply right away. These conversations are designed to help you think differently, grow intentionally, and move forward with clarity.
Alongside the interviews, you’ll also find The Daily Measure, short, bite-sized solo episodes focused on simple words of wisdom and actionable ideas you can use in your daily life. Think of these as quick check-ins to help you stay grounded, focused, and consistent.
This isn’t about hype or shortcuts. It’s about honest conversations, small improvements, and growing together over time.
If you’re someone who values progress, reflection, and becoming a better version of yourself, you’re in the right place.
Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, join the conversation, and grow with us.
Joe Massa (00:00.056)
Block makes no sense.
Joe Massa (00:06.306)
Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Measuring Post, where we truly measure what matters and sticking with our recent trend. Today we're gonna focus on our finances once again. And today I'm bringing in another heavy hitter. He is a multi-time author, a financial educator who holds a master's degree from the University of Essex in the UK. He's now the CEO of Financial Literacy Group.
Please welcome Mr. Ron Harris to the Measuring Post. Ron, how are you today? I'm excited to learn from you. How are you, sir?
Ron Harris (00:35.573)
I am very good. Very good. How are you today?
Joe Massa (00:39.692)
Very good. Yes, lately we've been focusing on our money. I think it's an important topic that everybody is kind of terrified and intrigued about all at the same time. And we're just trying to find ways to make ends meet in a very tough economy, not only here in the United States, but globally. So figuring out ways where we can save money, stack it up, and be prepared, obviously is a is a major topic. So before we get too deep into your company, you're you're born in LA. How do you end up in the you know, University of Essex? You've been studying around the globe.
Ron Harris (00:54.719)
Yes.
Joe Massa (01:09.836)
disparity in the US in forty different countries or more about the income disparity. So give us a quick background on you and then we'll dive a little deeper into your your company and what you do.
Ron Harris (01:20.637)
Well, it's kinda how how I ended up at the University of Essex is kind of a kind of a long story. Kind of embarrassing actually as well. So, I played baseball in high school and I got a scholarship to
to Northern Arizona fact flag staff. And I was kinda small so my parents never did play football. So when I'm for the football team on my first play running back a kickoff, I broke my collarbone. And I had taken a trip to Europe before that and I decided to get away as far as I could from from you know Northern Arizona and so I we ended up in Unix and in Phoenix in in fact and why I ended up
At the University of Essex is where I ended up at. Yes. And so, yes, I've been traveling. I was actually graduated during the time when the the wall was coming down in East Europe. So I got to travel, of course, all over Europe when I was in school there. And then I went to different countries after the wall came down, from Berlin to Poland to Romania to Russia, of course, where I was actually gotten married to a Russian lady for a while.
while and yeah, so I've traveled a lot. Yes.
Joe Massa (02:36.504)
So you traded in one football for the European football, for lack of a better term. But what a cool thing to be able to witness something like the Berlin wall falling in the late eighties. and being able to just have that experience where you got to soak up so much culture and world travel, that's really awesome. But I bet you and and we're gonna dive into with your company and your experience, you learned a lot about finances, the way it's handled on a global scale, not just, you know, the mom and pops who run their little checkbook and and just try to make ends meet check to check.
Ron Harris (02:40.157)
Yes, that's right.
Ron Harris (02:52.819)
Yes.
Joe Massa (03:06.458)
That probably is plays a a very helpful role in what you've become as the CEO of financial literacy group.
And on top of that, you actually created your own method, the FHA, which is hybrid financial arbitrage. So I'm excited to learn a little bit more about that. but essentially your core mission is helping people on Main Street manage their money like people on Wall Street do it. So when you throw that term around there, what does that mean to you and and to the listeners?
Ron Harris (03:37.278)
Well, I think that you know people on Wall Street have more tools, more resources, and so
Bringing those recourse resources to middle class people is really what my goal is. That's what you know, help helping people on Main Street manage their money and their finances like people on Wall Street, what it means. There's a big difference in the way the government, the way the politics, the way retail works in different countries, you know, 'cause I visited them. So as you may know, you know, a few years back, you know, if you work for a company, you could go out and get a a
a a a loan from a a lender for payday, right? Which normally carried a very big interest rate. And so, you know, you couldn't do that in other countries, right? France, you couldn't go and get a payday loan. So that of course did end here in the United States, but you know, previously it was it was legal to do those kind of things. So when you kind of compare credit and and interests and and the way people pay their bills and
way they they're handle their credit in different countries is different. Much different than the United States. Yes.
Joe Massa (04:53.698)
Yeah, that makes sense. And that was gonna you've partially answered my next question of like what sort of patterns did you see overseas and you know, with the the differences in the way that they manage their money. So you kind of answered that, but do they have like a similar credit system to the way that we have the FICO system here in the US?
Ron Harris (05:10.073)
No, i it's it's quite different because the the FICO system that we have here is is really unforg you know, unforgiving. you if you have bad credit you you you pay high interest rates on on different items, different things which you're trying to buy or finance. And you know, in other countries is not s treated the same way. You're kind of on an equal footing. If you pay your bills, they're not really counting points or giving you points against your your FICO score or your credit.
where you're kinda penalized for maybe late payments or having things that are that are charging you fees or or or inter in financial institutions that are charging you fees because you know because the the the way credit is handled in different countries isn't totally different in the United States. The United States is very unique when it comes to that kind of thing.
Joe Massa (06:01.4)
Yeah, and I've spent a long time as a mortgage broker, an NMLS rated mortgage broker. So it is quite daunting credit in how things factor into it. And it can be a very overwhelming thing. And again, if life happens or an injury or you lose a job and you miss a payment, you are really penalized sometimes. And it can take years to dig yourself out of that hole. So, you know, being able to manage money s you know smartly and and efficiently is a skill set also that we don't we're not talking
Ron Harris (06:23.573)
Yeah.
Joe Massa (06:31.504)
Really, in high school, middle school. They should put way more effort and energy into our financial literacy, which I love, also plays into your name because it's something that we just don't receive. So you've also become this wonderful financial educator. Tell us a little bit about what you do to get this content into the hands of people who really need it.
Ron Harris (06:40.266)
Yeah.
Ron Harris (06:52.745)
Well, you know, it's it's very
difficult especially in United States because you know the financial institutions really control the media control they they have big budgets they can spend lots of lots of money and so advertising what we do is really it's it's kind of daunting because you have to change the way people think. People have been brainwashed here. They've been kind of you know you know told way the way life insurance works the way you know build
Work. In fact, we as people or middle class people didn't make up what the American dream is, right? It's really made up by the retailers, the financial institutions, the banks, they make up what is the American dream. So when people believe those things and they try to achieve the American dream, they really figure out that they have to finance those things. And so when you're financing those things, right, the banks make money. The financial institutions make money, right? That's the retailers make money in
And so people are brainwashed even even with generic products in in a grocery store, right? If you if you buy something that's a name brand because you think it's better, you're actually paying more money for that item. Rather you can buy it as a generic item, right?
Joe Massa (08:10.561)
The credit card conundrum. There's a reason everywhere you go offers you a credit card, and it's because it's got a 30% interest rate tagged on it. And what they know you're gonna do, you're gonna rack it up and you're gonna pay the minimum each, every month. That that that balance never not only goes down, it goes up. And, you know, that hundred dollar pair of shoes you bought ends up costing you a thousand because you you don't understand that the way that it works. We are the commodity for these big banks, you know. That's it's unfortunate, but definitely really true. So.
Ron Harris (08:14.781)
That's right.
Ron Harris (08:29.587)
That's right.
Ron Harris (08:38.049)
You you're you're exactly right. This is a a consumer based economy. Right? And so the c consumer is what pays for everything. Is is they get charged for everything, they define fees for everything, they get paid interest on everything, and so definitely the consumer, you know, supports the economy.
Joe Massa (08:58.101)
And it's sort of like the the social media phenomenon where all the you know the Facebook owners and Instagram and X, all these platforms are worth billions and billions of dollars, but we don't have to pay to be on it. Why? Because we are the product. The advertisers are putting stuff in our algorithm because they know that we're scrolling through our phones and I'm gonna buy that new cooking set or that new whatever I I was shopping for. So, you know, if if it's free for you to do, you're probably the product, my friend. So I love that you're sort of bringing
Ron Harris (09:10.186)
Yeah.
Ron Harris (09:20.799)
Yeah.
Ron Harris (09:24.499)
Yes. Okay.
Joe Massa (09:28.075)
This knowledge to the main street middle class families that really need this education. And you've written books on this, including what I mentioned earlier, the hybrid financial arbitrage. And for my understanding, it's like an algorithmic debt optimization technology that helps you with your cash structure. Can you give us sort of the layman's term or a breakdown of what this is and and sort of how it plays into people's finances?
Ron Harris (09:52.776)
Yes, i it is a very unique solution and it brings tools and resources that middle class people
working class people would normally not have what it does. And it looks at debt, it looks at retirement, and it looks at the structure of of you know getting to those places in a totally different way. So pr pr presenting these kind of resources to middle class people that they can use similar to the the rich, which they've been using for hundreds of years. The banks have been using this for hundreds of years. So we look at debt totally different. We look at retirement totally different. So
So the the technology that we offer, which is called Budify, what it does is it helps people start wherever they are. So if they own a house, if they have debt, if they have you know interest that they're paying, again, we can start wherever they are. And so the technology is a budgeting tool and it helps people look at their cash flow, their money, looks at the way they're going to market, and so they can see what subscriptions they have, they can see you know what they have, what they
Their bills are what their interest rates are, and they can see those things. The technology then, of course, also has a strategy or multiple strategies, besides a debt strategy, the interest-based strategy, and using life insurance as a strategy as well to pay off debt. So we look at debt as part of the retirement. So if you're investing, right, you're putting money in a few mutual fund or you're putting money in in an IRA or a 401k, you know, and you're making
You say you're doing it very well with those kind of things, you're making seven-eight percent interest, but your debt is twenty-two percent average interest, then really and truthfully, you're not making money, you're actually making money to pay for the debt, in other words, right? And so we look at debt as as part of the same project, same as retirement. We look at retirement as three big three different boxes. So you have your tax box, you have a tax deferred.
Ron Harris (11:59.674)
box and then you have a tax-free box. So the life insurance that we offer as part of financial a hybrid financial arbitrage is a different kind of life insurance. And that's one of the hardest things to get through to people because people think they know what life insurance is. They think they know how it works. They when you say things like you can borrow get your life insurance, they automatically think of things like infinite banking or banking yourself or family banking. But this is much different than that.
Because the life insurance that we're offering is a unique kind of life insurance and it carries that strategy of the buy, borrow, die strategy, which means you buy an asset, you borrow against that asset, and then you leave that asset tax free to your heirs.
The same as what normal people were buying. What we've hearing from the banks were hearing from life insurance agents normally. This kind of life insurance, actually, your debt, the money you're paying, your discreet income, becomes your collateral. Okay? So now borrowing gets a death benefit, your borrowing gets the life insurance or your cash value of life insurance. And what happened was during the appropriations, consolidated appropriations act of 2021.
It allowed for more middle middle class people to put more money into life insurance before it becomes a MEC. So when I'm creating a life insurance, I'm not creating it based on your death benefit. So what's gonna happen when you pass away and how much money is going to go to your family. I'm creating it based on the MEC, the modified endowment contract, so that you can fund the life insurance policy up to the MEC without in in in increasing your taxes. So you're sitting it still getting the benefit of a life insurance policy.
However, you're now not concentrating on the death benefit, if you understand that, right? So again, it's it's totally different because this is what the banks have been doing for years, what the rich have been doing for years. It's kind of the concept of
Ron Harris (14:10.621)
Elon Musk, right? We all know Elon Musk. But if he doesn't have money sitting around, right, to buy things, but he has assets, stocks, right? He owns companies. And so if you want him to buy something, or if he wants to buy something, he's gonna borrow against that asset, right? And then
Pay with the asset. So now he avoids capital gains, he also avoids paying taxes on those things because the loan against his assets is the same as borrowing from the bank, but he's borrowing from himself. So life insurance allows people to do the same thing. They can borrow against their own life insurance by putting the money that's going to be going to the debt in the life insurance, then borrow that money out of the life insurance and use it to pay the debt, and that money in the life insurance still earns interest. It's still indexing if we're using.
in IUL or what you call we call poly, which is kind of life insurance that we use because it is like BOLDI, which is the bank on life insurance, right? So it is totally different from what people know. And so when when I'm talking about it or when I'm introducing it to people and they've already you know experienced life insurance, it's it's tough to get past that to make them understand that this is totally different from what they're already doing.
Joe Massa (15:26.464)
No, it's it's a beautiful strategy and I've actually done a lot of research into it and I do have a bit of a financial background, but it is still confusing because again, like I have a term life insurance policy. Case I die early, I got kids, they they'll have their house paid off.
So I have a little bit of peace of mind. But again, there's so many ways you can strategize and utilize your life insurance policy to gain your wealth or in increase your wealth that I think is really sort of a lot of us are in the dark. You know, we kind of grew up with our parents and their parents, where you know, dad works the coal mine 40 hours a week and after 40 years he retires and we got this great pension and we can all survive. Those days are are long gone. You have to be smart with how you're accumulating and building wealth. So I I really like what
What you explain, but I I'm I'm just curious, do you guys actually offer or you know, one of your providers offers life insurance policies for like someone like me, if I called you, I'm looking to build my increase my wealth. You how does it work? It is there medical where we have to go through a full physical, is it whole life, or are those things completely irrelevant for what you're discussing?
Ron Harris (16:32.371)
Well, it's it's very similar to if you're getting life insurance. There's no difference really and truly. In fact, what you're saying about term policies is is true. What people think about term policies, I don't sell them anymore. Because if I sell a term policy, which as you probably know or maybe you don't know this, is that the in the carrier only pays out less than one percent of the time on
term policy really and truthfully is it's kind of morbid but they're betting that you're not gonna pass away during the term and you're betting that you are gonna pass away during the term. Right? And so you're looking to, you know, what happens when you pass away, you have a protection. You can have a legacy that you're giving to your family. So I can create life insurance, yes, based on
your in you know, the information you give me again you have to you have to have good health. So normal normal life insurance policy. But it's this kind with this kind of life insurance, it is I'm creating it based on the mech, right? Not based on the death benefit. So I'm creating an investment.
for you first, right? And then what I do, I I'm I'm saying minimum death benefit, maximum cash value, so you can put more and more money in life insurance. And then after I get to the point so the technology kind of funny, the technology
It gives me numbers. It tells me how fast you can pay off your debt. It tells me using any of the strategies that I want. I can use the size of debt strategy or I can use an interest-based strategy. And then tells me, hey, you have a 30-year mortgage, you have credit cards, you have loans, you have card notes, whatever you have, and it consolidates all that, looks at it, what the interest rates are, and then it takes the money that you have left over after you're paying your normal bills, and it tells me using your discretionary income, using the money that you have left over.
Ron Harris (18:25.323)
that's gonna go to the debt anyway.
Now we're paying that money toward the principal so that it reduces how long you're gonna pay the debt off, right? So then I take the numbers from the technology, I then put them into life insurance because the technology tells me this is how much money you're gonna need to pay off your debt. This is how much money is how long it's gonna take you. So I take those numbers, I put them into life insurance, I create the life insurance based on those numbers that come from the technology, right? And then I create so I'm creating a life insurance as an investment, saying you're gonna pay off your debt, you're gonna put the money.
Through the life insurance to pay off your debt, and then I then change it over to a face value life insurance policy, right? So that it meets all the regulations and the laws that a normal life insurance would reach, right? The corridor, seven-pay tests, all those kind of things are in involved in this as well. But the life insurance, because of the way I'm creating it properly structured, it takes care, it makes up all those numbers. So when some when a life insurance agent is creating a life insurance policy, he's facing
It on the face value. So if you say I want to have a hot half a million dollar policy, he's targeting the amount of money that's going to go to you to your family and to your beneficiaries after you pay off the life insurance. Where I'm not doing that, I'm creating it based on how much money you need to pass through the policy every year because the technology has told me how much, right? And now I create that I create the life insurance so you can put that money that's going to go through the debt in the life insurance, borrow it from yourself. So now you have.
a a technology or you have a life insurance policy that is an asset based life insurance so what actually happens is you get a balance sheet right which normal middle class people working class people don't have a balance sheet right really and true but only corporations banks have them but now because you're getting a life insurance policy that's similar to what the bank's policy is you now have a balance sheet on in in in your you know accounting and so now you can look at paying off your debt early
Ron Harris (20:28.595)
And then after you pay off your debt early, you can continue to put your discretionary income into life insurance and borrow that money out of your life insurance. So your social security can go in there. Your 401k can go into the life insurance. You can put in life insurance, borrow that money out, right? Your IRA can go into life insurance, right? all those things. And again, you know, some of the things that are out there, some of the tools that people have, like Roth IRS, right, which are tax-free or tax, you know, tax-free because it's is non-qualified, right?
But you paid that with your own money. So the only problem with is two things. It's limited how much money you can put in, right, with a rot off, and it doesn't have a death benefit. Life insurance still has a death benefit, right? Even though you're using an asset as an asset and using that money today, right, rather than waiting until someone passes away to use their life insurance, you can use it right now.
Joe Massa (21:24.233)
Yeah, no, this is this is amazing. I I love the just the idea of this. And and I I have a couple of questions. one, it's great because again, if you have a four or one K, a lot of you probably have one through your work where they match and you contribute.
You can't usually access that money. So when you put it in your life insurance, you can pull it out because you're you're basically becoming your own bank, where everything that you're going to be spending, anyways, you're just putting into a a safe vessel. And then if you need to pull 10 grand out because of whatever, instead of trying to do a, you know, terms of withdrawal from your 401k and jumping through a million hoops, you could just do it and then you just continue to pay it back because it's yours, anyways, which is a brilliant strategy. But you know, a lot of people are thinking.
Ron Harris (21:44.127)
Sure.
Right.
Ron Harris (22:05.216)
That's right.
Joe Massa (22:08.713)
Well, I get to a certain age, I get social security, which may or may not be there by the time, you know, I get there, let alone my children. And a lot of people don't understand that that that income is, you know, income is taxed anyways. You've been paying into it your whole life if you're W-2'd. But then that's taxed. So what are the tax implications from borrowing against your own assets from the health insurance or the life insurance?
Ron Harris (22:32.106)
So there is no tax, it's tax free. The money you borrow from the life insurance is tax-free. So if you have a 401k, yes. When you make withdrawals from the 401k, you have to pay tax on that money.
Right. And so i if you take the money that you borrow from the four one K that you that you withdrawing from the four one K, you put it in the life insurance and you borrow that money from yourself, now you're earning interest on that money, even though you have to pay tax on it, right? Because it's a four hundred one K. It's it's it's it's qualified money. You you you haven't you haven't paid any tax on it yet, came through your employer and maybe your employer is matching you, right? So again, what you'll find with these kind of life insurance policies, yes, you have to go through the normal
Joe Massa (22:45.237)
Slap your wrist.
Ron Harris (23:14.456)
normal you know whole life normal you know things that you go through the the medical information they look at your MIB and those kind of things but you'll find that the this kind of policy is is cheaper it's cheap more most cases I compare to what people have already and I'm sometimes a third of the price I'm the technology of the life insurance that we are creating is very close to the price of a turn policy right so I don't I wouldn't
I don't sell turban policy anymore because why would I do that when you can use life insurance as a tool, right? Even if you're young, you can use it as a tool. You can withdraw or borrow money from life insurance and still use that money, right? So I start people, you know, sometimes their family, their grandkids, or whatever, they put life insurance you know, in their grandkids' name and they still own it. They may use that life insurance to pay off their debt to to to put money through the life insurance. And so now because that life insurance is really
insuring a grandchild, right? All the money that person uses to put to the life insurance, now, right, when they pass away, they sub the life to the life insurance to their grandchild or give it to them. And now the grandchild gets to take advantage of all the money that's been put through the policy they paid off of debt.
Joe Massa (24:33.823)
Yeah, and and I was with my last question, you you nailed it. I was hoping you would say tax-free, 'cause that's that's everyone's favorite term here. But no, I love that because that's a strategy most people don't think of. You think life insurance, my life, my insurance, my.
Makes perfect sense, right? But as you get older and and closer to the end of times, for lack of a better term, it's much harder to get a whole life insurance policy because you just have things that are wrong with you, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, whatever the case is. So you might not even be eligible for a policy. But if you have a grandkid, a child that's younger, these are great tools because as I'm alive, I get to utilize it. But what I'm doing is building it up so it's a large piece of asset.
Ron Harris (24:52.138)
Yeah.
Ron Harris (25:04.134)
That's right.
Joe Massa (25:16.039)
That they will get handed when I'm gone, or at a certain age, I'm sure you can transfer it, I'm, I would imagine, considering they they get that. So that's actually a good question. If, for example, my daughter is 12, great health. If I were to, if I were to start a policy on her at 21, does that transfer to her, or is that I can use that until my death benefit? How does that work?
Ron Harris (25:23.306)
Yeah.
Ron Harris (25:28.491)
Yeah.
Ron Harris (25:36.651)
Yes. Both both you can either transfer it to her at twenty one, right? Or you can, you know, when you pass away, you can then give it to them. And now they have all the money that you put through it, right? The loans that you paid, the debt that you paid, your discrepancy income, your your social security, your nest eggs, right? That all went through that policy. And now that policy belongs to
the the your child or your grandchild, right? And so there's lots of things you can do with this that we you if you understand that right. So if you're if you are using the policy and you put in your your 401k that you withdraw money to the like policy to the life insurance, you put it in there, you're actually actually recuperating the taxes that you still have to pay on the 401k, right? If you're using it that way. And so this makes it different. This opens it up for you. So and if you're putting money away as you know you have
RMDs when you turn 73 years old, right? Those kind of become irrelevant because now your money you put it through the life insurance, right? And you don't have to you don't have to right you're not subject to what the RMD is, you don't have to take money out of the policy, you know, get paid on no matter what, if you need it or not, right? You can use life insurance in a lot of different ways. It becomes an asset for you. And another question, what other thing you were just
Joe Massa (26:51.743)
This is it seems so simple.
Ron Harris (26:54.324)
Yeah, you another thing you were just saying about, you know, when you get up in age and there there's a point when when you're just saying maybe you you're not healthy but you're still, you know, you're you're older. And so the life insurance at that point will cost you more money because of your age, right? So that's when you might want to look at maybe putting in a grandchild or putting in your child or or putting and st you still own the policy, right? You can still own the policy no matter who you put it in in long as you have insurable interest on them, right? So now
the premium becomes cheaper, right? Because you said you have a 12-year-old, right? And so now the policy is cheaper because that person's young, they have great health, and now you're using that policy for the same purpose. It's an asset for you. Right? And so you can do it that way as well as well. And I do it all the time.
Joe Massa (27:43.371)
Yeah, and that that's actually a brilliant strategy because it creates that generational wealth that a lot of us just don't understand, or maybe we come from humble backgrounds where, you know, again, like I said, mom and pop grew up working middle class jobs, they stalked away what they could. You can't you can't retire off
Putting money in your savings account anymore. It's just not gonna happen because the dollar is losing its value, everything's getting more expensive, and who knows the uncertainty of the economy in 10, 15, 20 years from now, we could be in a completely different world. So I know a lot of people they put their nest eggs in, you know, SP 500s, you know, stocks and bonds. Crypto obviously is a massive player in this. So that's another question. I do have a pretty big crypto audience.
Ron Harris (28:01.152)
Yeah.
Ron Harris (28:21.13)
Yes.
Joe Massa (28:24.454)
Is crypto something that can be put in your life insurance policy or is that still a you know, separate separate buckets?
Ron Harris (28:29.404)
Yeah, it's still it's still not, you know, something that we can use is crypto is right. I think it's becoming more more popular, more liberal, and it may turn to dip digital capital capital in the future and that you can use that for your life insurance. And I think some companies are using some of the the digital money like crypto in their four one Ks. I think you can invest some of those things, but not in life insurance yet. No.
Joe Massa (28:56.072)
Yeah, I cause I know of a couple of groups that I've worked with or talked to in the past where they were sort of pioneers and they found a way to incorporate crypto into their retirement platforms. But it's not life insurance. It's more like in their just retirement umbrella where you got your IRA, you got your four one K, you got your self-directed IRA, and you got your crypto. So there is ways to do it. You gotta you it's that's a bit over my head. But what you're explaining to me makes perfect sense. And it's really something that I'm actually gonna call you on because I do have
Ron Harris (29:06.4)
Yeah.
Ron Harris (29:20.277)
Yeah.
Joe Massa (29:25.996)
I got two healthy kids. One's one's almost 19, one's 12. You know, I've already got my term life insurance policy. You're right. I wouldn't do it again, but I got it when I was in my mid 20s when I had my, you know, my son who is almost 19 now. And it was more of just like, I was told this is what you do. You get your term life insurance policy because if I kick the bucket early, at least my kids and my wife, I know that they're going to be taken care of. The house can get paid off. I don't have to like have that stress hanging over me. Like, I just have to make it to a certain age where
either they're well off enough or I I'm old enough that if I die everyone's gonna be fine anyways. So or hopefully I've paid things off. But this is a great way to build wealth long term.
Ron Harris (30:02.282)
Yeah yeah
I agree. I think that term policies are for younger people, right? Just getting started, you know, you want to you want to have a legacy, you want to protect yourself, you know, you're just getting started in your life, and you a term policy in that case, it really works well. But let me say this, so I I had an uncle who got a tw a term policy when he was 27 years old, first time. He got a 20-year term policy. So when he was 47, right, he had to get he had to decide what he was gonna do. He ended up getting another term policy, right? So another 20-year term policy. So he
Had paid, you know, from 27 to 47, and now you got another 20 years. Now think about it, he's 67 years old. He's gonna life insurance is going to be very expensive for him, even though term policy at that at that age, it's gonna be very expensive. So now you spend 40 years of paying for life insurance, you have a term policy, and to get a whole life at that at that point, it's gonna be you're gonna be gonna pay an arm and leg for it at 67 years old. So, really and truthfully, so my own.
Joe Massa (30:59.914)
Forget about it.
Ron Harris (31:05.644)
Uncle, what he did is he opted again for another term policy, right? So it took him to 77 years old. So you know at 80, 80, so 80 years old around that is when it's kind of limp the limit. He ended up passing away at 85 years old, so he had no life insurance at that point. And he spent tons of money.
Joe Massa (31:24.802)
And he spent tons and tons of money for forty some years just to be protected. And at the end he didn't even get that. So that's that's a real concern. I think, you know, I'm the same way. I think minus twenty might be a twenty five year. I'm not sure if that's even a normal increment. But when I got it, you know, I still probably got ten years on it left, fifteen years max. I mean, I'm in my early forties now, so this is something that I definitely need to consider.
Ron Harris (31:38.56)
Yeah.
Ron Harris (31:45.653)
Yeah.
Ron Harris (31:51.87)
Yeah. You know
Joe Massa (31:52.05)
Because I'm gonna run up to the I'm gonna do exactly what your uncle did and I don't want that to be my story.
Ron Harris (31:57.217)
Yeah. You know, it's funny, so a lot of times when I am talking to a client and and they have a term policy, they normally end up ending that term policy, right? They move into this situation 'cause they now can be out of debt, they're getting ready for retirement, they can you know, they can save money, you can use the cash value and life insurance and then they st they just stop paying or or cancel the the term policy because now they have a policy that will cover them, give them a legacy, but also an asset that they can use right now. So thinking about your your
your ch your children. You said you have a twelve year old I think and so I also sometimes we have people who maybe put the policy in their child's name and own the policy and then the po and that policy becomes the policy that that child uses to pay for the college, right? And then to buy down put a down payment on the house and then pay the house off early and then use it in retirement. So this kind of asset can go along with you all of your life. So I don't know many people know this about
Like if w in the Kennedys or the Rockefellers, that's one of the first things they do when someone is born into that family is they get a life a whole life policy for them that carri that carries with them, follows them throughout their entire life.
Joe Massa (33:13.63)
And it's one of those things when you say it out loud like that, it just makes perfect sense. But people don't teach you this. Again, this is why it's so important to have these conversations with people that have spent lifetimes learning this very simple yet profound skill set or piece of knowledge that big people like those big families, they gatekeep this information and banks.
The wealthy stay wealthy, the poor stay poor. And the reason is is because we're not educated on these things. So I really love that you have come on and share this piece of wisdom. Because again, when you say it in two sentences like that, it's like, why didn't I think of this? Well, because no one ever told me about that. You know, I was too busy just being told put your money in the mattress or put your money in your Wells Fargo savings account and get 0.08 interest per year. I'm like, well, that's stupid. Why why why why is not everyone doing this?
Ron Harris (33:39.252)
Right.
Ron Harris (33:47.53)
Yeah. No big
Ron Harris (34:03.232)
You know, it's funny, it that's kinda kind of a question that I get a lot. I get a question, you know, when I talk to people, they they say a couple of things, hey though this sounds too good to be true. It's one of the things that they say. Or they say, Hey, you know, why isn't everybody doing this? And there's reasons why, you know. And in fact, the the book you were talking about, I just finished writing the my sixth book, and so I put all that information in there. So of course, you know, i and and I have nothing against other insurance agents or have anything against advice.
But advisors, the way they operate, if you work for Merrill Lynn, you sell normally Merrill Lynch stuff, and and again you get paid by fees, and the fees are on the amount of money you have under management. So if you're putting money in 401k or a mutual fund or an IRA, that money is under management with that advisor. And so
Advisors, you know, again, they're they want to get commissions and so they want to get paid, and sometimes they don't know that this exists too, right? This is comp sometimes it can feel like it's complicated, but it's not that complicated, really and truthfully. And so advisors will not teach this because the money is not under management. Life insurance agents, if they have a big book of business already and they've gotten paid in advance, because the way life insurance agents get paid, they get paid in advance for selling a life insurance policy. And the average life
Ron Harris (35:31.004)
a face value of t two hundred and sixty six thousand dollars. Right? And so if they have a big book b book of business of people they sold life insurance to, they're probably not gonna go back to those people and tell them, hey, there's a better way to do this or or right or learn because this takes some some learning, right? You get to understand how debt works, how interest rates work, right? And then how you can use life insurance in that entire corporated project or that in and that entire solution.
And that's what's different. That you talk about the education, and that's what the education is. So not only do I educate myself, educate my clients, but I educate my other insurance agents, right? So that they can understand how to offer this to a client. And I all the time I have people who think in the beginning, you know, they maybe they have conceptions, they have they've learned about myths, they've learned myths about life insurance. And sometimes I have people, in fact, just let two weeks ago, I had a guy.
That I hadn't talked to for a couple years came back and said, Hey, I want to get life insurance from you. He realized the difference because he had been through it, he had talked to insurance agents, he had talked to other people out there. And so when you realize how different this is, you know, and you understand how it works, then you then you realize that this is a great deal for a a person, right? This is something that a person in a normal middle class person is not getting. The banks have been using it for a hundred years.
Years. The rich have been using it for 100 years, right? Corporations. And so, you know, you think about it. there would be no JCPennies without life insurance. There would be no Disneyland without life insurance, right? Right? There are different things, and there are people who who still have bad experiences because they're not doing it right.
And so you have to have a properly structured life insurance and you have to be able and there's not many companies or carriers in the country that will allow a middle class person to do the same thing as the banks or the rich to. Right? And so you're limited.
Joe Massa (37:37.492)
Yeah. Yeah, and I love, you know, you you talk about the Merrill Lynches, you know, going to a place like that. They're going to advise you into one of their products because that's how they make money. They're not going to say, hey, go over here and call my guy Ron because he's going to hook you up. They're not going to do that. but you know, even when you were talking earlier about Elon Musk's and, you know, he's recently been in the headlines because he's the first trillionaire, and people get this misconception like he's got a trillion dollars in his checkbook.
That's not how it works. And I like how you explained it. He has these assets. Essentially, what we're becoming is little elons where we're building our own little asset that we can pull from. And it seems so rudimentary on paper, but it's it's profound in its actual execution because people simply don't understand this. So I love that your company not only is educating, because I think
Ron Harris (38:11.242)
That's right.
Joe Massa (38:23.645)
That's one thing that a lot of companies don't do. They gatekeep the information. They don't want you to know it because if you know it, you could do it yourself, right? So they want to sort of funnel you to them to get the payday and the commission. But you not only do this, obviously you're educating people. And you've created a technology that helps them accomplish this. And obviously the goal for you is to not do this for free. You have to make a living as well. But I love that your mentality is education first. So with that in mind, where can we find your books? How can we connect with you online?
How can we get involved with what you're doing?
Ron Harris (38:56.17)
Sure. So of course my my books are on Amazon and the first five books I kind of self-published. I signed with a publisher about two weeks ago for this latest book, Hybrid Financial Arbitrage, which I'm also thinking about changing the name because I want it to be a book that people will see it on the shelf and pick it up and and right and and use it. Maybe may people don't know what hybrid financial arbitrage is, right? So you can go to our website which is financial.
Literacy.group is the name of the company, of course, but it's also the website, and you can book an appointment there. You can see different advisors there. You get a list of all the different agents that are out there. We kind of have an education for all of our agents. It is called a financial literacy group professional educator. And so N FLGPE. And so you can reach you know us there. We are on social media, of course. You can look up the
company financial literacy group on on Facebook you can look us up on Instagram you can look us up on LinkedIn as well and you can book meetings with us as well there and one one thing about it and I want I want to make sure that people understand we it's very simple we we do an assessment right you give us your numbers what your debts are what your income is you give us those information we can then put them into our technology that technology we can import that information in and then give us numbers so even
We haven't even talked about that. So you can save 200,000, 300,000, half a million dollars just on using the technology itself, right? Before you even use the life insurance, right? Before you know, even if you were just want to use interest-based strategy to pay off your debt, you can save tons of money. But if you can use the life insurance, and now that money that you're using to pay the debt off anyway becomes collateral that you can borrow against, it's huge. It's huge, it's game-changing, right? And so a lot of the research that I did.
It's funny. I use AI a lot, right? And so I use the AI to research a lot of the stuff that that you know I put into this book that talked about about the solution, and I created a thesis. So the thesis is is anyone can can download the thesis and use it. And I can again if you just contact us, you can call us, you know, at 3103-419-1600 is our phone number. But you can call us there and you can you know get the
Ron Harris (41:25.88)
And get the thesis and all those kind of things. But this is kind of funny is that I had created the thesis back last year, but I had to keep continuing to update it because I myself was learning more and more things about what we're doing. And so I used you know Chat GPT and I used a product called Agent Zero. I used Claude as well or Anthropic. And so I don't know if you know this, but two weeks ago, three weeks ago, I think it was.
Was Claude put out a new version of the right of the AI that they're using. And so it was disagreeable with me. It made me reprove everything. It made me upload illustrations. It made me look at the technology. And I was I spent maybe seven or eight hours of that day because hey, I don't want to sell something or offer something to anyone that is not going to be beneficial for them. So it gave me
Joe Massa (42:02.396)
Mythos and Fable.
Ron Harris (42:25.516)
me a headaches and was looking at it it made me prove it all over again. So I had to prove this entire solution all over again through AI. To AI. It's funny. It was adversarial. It was really crazy. Yes.
Joe Massa (42:34.301)
Yeah.
No, and hey, that brings me to a very unrelated point. I'll make it a short topic, but if you're using AI, it will usually agree with you. So make it give it instructions like, hey, don't just agree and pat me on the back. Make sure you're checking things that I might have missed. Don't just tell me I'm awesome. So that's an unrelated thing. But no, it is funny when you actually get one that actually performs the way it's supposed to, and you're like, I I spent hours or weeks or years writing this, and you basically just told me it was garbage and restart. You're like, what?
Ron Harris (42:52.33)
That's right. That's right.
Ron Harris (43:03.702)
Yes, yes, yeah.
Joe Massa (43:06.384)
No, but you know, I that's one thing I really admire about what you've said throughout this conversation is that you're not just educating me and the listeners, you educate yourself, which then makes you understand it better so that you can explain it simply the way you did. You know, that's sort of one of the running things in this show and in life. And w you smart people will tell you if you can't explain it like you you're a five year old, then you don't know it well enough yourself. And I think you did that today. You really sort of broke it down in a way that like the light bulb clicked and the little hamster wheels are turning in my brain. So I really appreciate that and got
Ron Harris (43:32.906)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Joe Massa (43:36.251)
Guys, again, check out financial literacy.group. Hop on Amazon. Just search up Ron Harris. Make sure you're getting your hands on these books. And also, I don't remember the number, but I'll when I post this video, I will make sure to include that so you can get that free thesis report. These are things we need to do, you know, right now. Do it while you are able.
Ron Harris (43:55.382)
Yes.
Joe Massa (43:58.383)
physically, financially, healthy enough, young enough, start looking at your long term. Don't count on Social Security, don't count on the government, don't count on savings accounts. Those things will not cross you over the finish line the way you want. Look at something like this sort of platform where you can
Pass an asset down also, which is like again, we talk about the Rockefellers, the Walt Disneys. It's not just one guy who's made Facebook and made five hundred billion and everyone's good forever. The odds of that happening are slim to none. Let's be very real. I mean, none is closer than to accurate than slim to none. It's just not gonna happen unless you're just this profound genius that did something amazing. Instead, be smart with your money and put it in a place that protects your long-term assets and wealth.
Ron Harris (44:33.845)
Yes.
Joe Massa (44:44.746)
that you can borrow from. It's such a simple concept. So Ron, I I have nothing else to say, but man, you're you're a wizard. I I'm glad you were on the show today. So for for someone that's just listening and tuning in, if you had one final piece of advice, how do I protect my long-term financial wealth? What do you tell them?
Ron Harris (44:53.408)
Yeah.
Ron Harris (45:02.378)
So how you do how you do it is you turn your debt, your liabilities, into income and wealth forever.
Right. That's kind of the way we go to market. That's what we're thinking is that you're actually, you know, turning your debt, things that you're paying already into income. So you want to move everything that you can when you retire from the taxable box, tax-deferred box, and a tax-free box. You want to move as many things to tax-free box as you can. That's what this does.
Joe Massa (45:35.228)
Love it. Absolutely. Again, check out financial literacy dot group. I'll make sure to put that link when we post this video. Been very informative. I learned a lot. And honestly, I am absolutely going to be reaching out to you after this because we're getting these kids on life insurance and I'm going to build some long-term wealth for myself. I highly recommend you do the same. So again, thank you, Ron, for coming on the measuring post. It's been wonderful learning from you. Can't wait to get involved and also share this on a bigger platform on our social media channels and everything else. Really, really profound stuff.
And explained like a pro. So Ron, thank you for coming on the measuring post, my friend.
Ron Harris (46:08.916)
Hey, thank you for having me. It was great. Thank you, Joe.
Joe Massa (46:12.957)
Yes, sir. All right. So don't