The Richest Man in Babylon Part 2: How to Take Control of Your Money and Build Financial Freedom
Wade Borth - Sage Wealth Strategy
Wade wraps up his review of The Richest Man in Babylon, covering chapters eight through the end. He pulls out lessons on taking responsibility for your circumstances, choosing a simple framework over more information or another product, and doing the work now so you're prepared when opportunity shows up. He closes with a reminder that you'll end up exactly where you're headed unless you change course. Key Takeaways Your circumstances don't decide who you become. Awareness, education, and action start with taking responsibility for your own choices. A product won't solve a mindset problem....
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The Richest Man in Babylon Part 1: Why Timeless Wealth Principles Still Work Today
Wade Borth - Sage Wealth Strategy
Wade opens a book study on The Richest Man in Babylon, a nearly hundred-year-old book his agency is reading together, and walks through the first half's core lessons on saving, protecting capital, and controlling your own banking function. He explains why high income rarely equals real financial control, why guarding against loss matters more than chasing returns, and how the ancient walls of Babylon still describe what it takes to build wealth that lasts. Key Takeaways Most people retain only about 5% of what they've earned over the last ten years, proof that high income alone doesn't build...
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This is a why I do what I do: The Farm Auction That Built My Mission
Wade Borth - Sage Wealth Strategy
Wade opens up about the real reason he's in the life insurance business: providing liquidity at the time of death, and every day before it. He traces that mission back to 1981, when his father died suddenly and a banker's advice to drop an "expensive" life insurance policy left the family with no death benefit and no liquidity. A farm auction, a sale bill a family friend recently rediscovered, and a mother who never had time to grieve are the backdrop for a conversation about why every family needs a real answer to one question: do I have enough death benefit? Key Takeaways A banker...
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200 Episodes In: The Money Lessons, Growth, and What Comes Next (With Mike Brevik
Wade Borth - Sage Wealth Strategy
Wade Borth marks the 200th episode of the podcast by bringing on Mike Brevik of Cyberdogz Marketing, the guest who first pushed him to hit record. Together they look back at what actually changed since episode one and look ahead to the next 100 episodes, where liquidity, preparedness, and adapting fast take center stage. Key Takeaways Stop waiting for the perfect version of anything. The episodes, and the decisions, you're most tempted to redo are often the ones that connect the most. Build consistency before you build an audience. Showing up week after week is what earns people's...
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The 4% Rule Is a Guess: Withdrawal Rates, the 401(k), and Becoming Your Own Fiduciary
Wade Borth - Sage Wealth Strategy
Executive Summary An article pitting Bill Bengen's revised 4.7% withdrawal rate against Suze Orman's 3% rule sent Wade Borth down a different road this episode. Rather than picking a side, he asks why anyone would build a retirement plan on a rule that only claims a 90% chance of success. His answer starts with rejecting scarcity thinking and becoming your own fiduciary. Key Takeaways Bill Bengen's updated 4.7% rule and Suze Orman's 3% rule are both opinions, not guarantees, and neither promises a 100% positive outcome. Withdrawal rate rules ask how little you can spend without running out...
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Replace the Banker With Yourself: Rethinking Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrant
Wade Borth - Sage Wealth Strategy
Executive Summary Wade Borth revisits Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrants and picks up a thread the book never finishes: every quadrant, employee, self-employed, business owner, or investor, still depends on a bank. Wade argues the real shift isn't earning more new money, it's taking permanent control of the old money already flowing through your life. He lays out how a properly structured whole life policy lets you step into the banking function yourself. Key Takeaways Every side of Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrant, employee, self-employed, business owner, or investor, still runs...
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Why You Need a Destination Before You Can Build Generational Wealth
Wade Borth - Sage Wealth Strategy
Summary Recorded from the lake, Wade Borth uses a fishing analogy to talk about goal-setting and purpose: you won't catch fish by dropping the boat in the water and drifting, you have to start the motor and steer toward a specific spot. The same is true for financial and professional success. Wade explains why so many agents and clients have never been asked to define success, encourages listeners to set specific, time-bound goals, and reminds them the path will shift along the way. He frames his own role as a "problem identifier" who empowers people once they know what they're aiming for, and...
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Is Your Money Sheltered or Exposed to the Weather?
Wade Borth - Sage Wealth Strategy
Summary Wade Borth is recording from the lake this week, and it gets him thinking about purpose, patience, and where people store their money. He shares a story about fishing with his son Josh and compares the pressure to fish once you’ve made the trip to the pressure people feel to invest cash the moment it’s sitting in a bank account. Wade introduces the “boat lift” analogy: money in a properly funded whole life policy is sheltered, growing, and protected, so you’re never forced to deploy it before the timing is right. He walks through the guaranteed death benefit, tax advantages,...
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The Fifth Quadrant: How Providing Liquidity Puts You in Control of the Money Game
Wade Borth - Sage Wealth Strategy
SUMMARY Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrant maps out four types of people in the money game: employees, self-employed workers, business owners, and investors. It's a powerful framework, but Wade Borth argues it's missing one critical player: the banker. In this episode, Wade breaks down who actually controls the money game. No matter which quadrant someone occupies, they all need access to liquidity. The person providing that liquidity, whether it's Wells Fargo or a private individual with a pool of capital, holds the real power. Wade explains how anyone can begin building their own banking...
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Inaction Has a Price: The Sequence and Habits Separating Wealth Builders from Everyone Else
Wade Borth - Sage Wealth Strategy
Summary Wade Borth takes listeners inside a recent Tough Money live event, using real data to show what financial life actually looks like for a top 10% household earning $150,000 per year. The numbers may surprise you, starting with the size of the average family's liquidity bucket. The episode builds to a direct challenge: if you are already aware of the problem, if you have been educated on solutions, what is holding you back from taking action? Wade argues that inaction is not neutral. It carries a real cost, one that your family, your business, and your legacy will ultimately pay. Key...
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This is part 3 of our series. What if your quarterly tax bill could become a retirement engine? In this episode, Wade sits down with Rohit Punyani, founder of The Owner's Asset, to unpack the pension strategy most business owners and their advisors overlook. The conversation covers the sequence of financial planning, the psychology of guaranteed income, and how to combine IBC with a defined benefit pension to fund whole life insurance and annuities at wholesale pricing through tax deductions.
Ro and Wade also break down who qualifies, what the first conversation looks like, and how a $1.8 million deduction can create an $11 million estate planning shield. The message is clear: structure your capital in the right order, and the numbers take care of themselves.
In our previous episodes, we dive in into lots of other topics:
In part 1 Wade Borth and Rohit Punyani explore how small business owners can use a cash balance plan to capture six-figure tax deductions while building a seven-figure guaranteed retirement. Rohit walks through the two schools of retirement thought, the mechanics of a pension compared to a 401(k), and the compelling opportunity to purchase whole life insurance inside a pension using pre-tax dollars. If you have been writing painful tax checks without a clear strategy, this conversation shows you where that money could go instead. Check part 1 of this conversation in here
In Part 2 of this conversation, Wade and Rohit Punyani go deep on who a cash balance plan actually works for, why older business owners carry the biggest advantage, and how a seasoned whole life policy can transform required minimum distributions from a tax event into a source of non-taxable cash flow. Rohit explains how the IRS has written a secondary retirement system specifically for the business owner who took risk, and how that system can help make up for every year spent building a company instead of a retirement account. If your business has been funding the IRS for years, this episode shows you how to redirect that money. Check part 2 of this conversation in here
Key Takeaways
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Sequence matters more than the total amount of capital. IBC is the foundation, a pension adds whole life and annuities with pre-tax dollars, and markets or real estate come after.
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Guaranteed income removes the scarcity mindset in retirement. People with income live abundantly; people drawing down assets tend to pull back every time the market dips.
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If your liquidity does not scale with your wealth and income, your financial plan is fragile.
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Business owners paying $20,000 to $30,000 or more in quarterly estimated taxes may qualify for a defined benefit pension that turns a tax liability into a retirement asset.
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Life insurance and estate planning can be layered inside a pension structure, allowing business owners to manufacture significant liquidity at a fraction of the out-of-pocket cost.
Links and Resources
- Part 2: Your Business Owes You a Pension
Keywords
pension strategy for business owners, defined benefit pension, tax arbitrage, infinite banking concept, IBC, whole life insurance, annuities, guaranteed income retirement, cash value life insurance, Wade Borth, Rohit Punyani, The Owner's Asset, business owner retirement planning, 1099 retirement strategy, self-employed pension, estate planning life insurance, family banking, financial liquidity, cash flow retirement, scarcity mindset retirement
Episode Highlights
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[00:01:45 - 00:02:25] Ro explains why capital structure matters as much as total capital, and how starting a $40,000 annual policy in your forties generates six-figure cash flow by your seventies.
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[00:03:05 - 00:04:06] Wade and Ro align on the need for a process that wins every time, and Wade introduces the sequence framework: how you pack your bags going up the hill determines how you come back down.
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[00:05:27 - 00:06:24] The 2016 LIMRA annual report and the 2005 Wall Street Journal article 'Friends, Neighbors, and Annuities' show that people with annuities live longer and carry less financial stress.
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[00:06:25 - 00:07:10] Wade references Tom Hegna's principle: people with income are happy, people with assets are miserable. A real client story about a market dip derailing a boat purchase brings it to life.
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[00:10:25 - 00:11:25] Ro shares his epiphany as a former chief investment officer and credits Wade with the principle: if your liquidity does not scale with your wealth, your plan is fragile.
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[00:13:26 - 00:15:02] Ro walks through who qualifies for a pension, what the first conversation looks like, and why roughly 30 percent of inquiries are not yet in the model's sweet spot.
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[00:17:28 - 00:18:15] Ro describes how a pension structure enabled estate planning for a 70 and 68-year-old couple: $1.8 million in deductions created an $11 million estate planning shield.
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[00:18:34 - 00:19:23] Wade and Ro clarify who should reach out: self-employed individuals on 1099, K-1, or W-2 from their own S corp, making quarterly estimated tax payments of $20,000 or more.