S2E24 – Eagle-star Bowen – 10% returns + 100% write off

key timecodes

• (01:05) – Background story
• (03:41) – His career as an ironworker
• (08:19) – The blue-collar career path 
• (12:18) – How he made his transition as an investor
• (17:53) – His business model
• (20:34) – What type of returns and tax advantages are expected
• (23:32) – Types of investments he prefers
• (25:32) – His tax protection approach and model
• (34:11) – What dollar amount does he recommend to start investing in that business model
• (36:30) – The model as a safe reserve to build long-term family wealth
• (42:39) – Don’t let your money stuck and idle at a bank
• (44:28) – Some thoughts about his model and philosophy
• (46:30) – Commercial Rating Request
• (53:26)  – Guest contacts

Transcription

[00:00:03.430] – Intro

Payback Time is a podcast about building businesses, wealth and financial freedom. We try to uncover the challenges our guests faced, the mistakes they made, and the steps they took to achieve their goals. The overall objective is to provide you with a roadmap that leads to your own success. Sean Tepper is your host. Are you ready? It’s payback time.

[00:00:33.030] – Sean

My next guest is a blue collar worker who is making a decent salary as an iron worker. But he wasn’t being wise with his investments. He made the decision to find a career where he no longer had to ask permission to spend time with his family. By networking with the right people, he was able to join a team of financial experts who help others generate consistent 10% returns in the market and 100% write off. Please welcome Eaglestar Bowen. Eaglestar, welcome to the show.

[00:01:02.160] – Eagle Star Bowen

All right. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

[00:01:05.100] – Sean

Glad to have you here. So why don’t you kick us off and tell us about your background.

[00:01:08.770] – Eagle Star Bowen

Well, a little bit about me. My name is Ego Star Bowen. Like you mentioned, I’m just a small town kid. I grew up in the foster care system from a broken home. Like so many people, I just had big dreams, big visions and wanted more. And I saw my foster father, who is my hero, work himself to death. Basically he’s still alive, but basically working himself to the bone and not really having anything to produce that he can now enjoy. Now he’s 72 years old and he’s beat cancer and he works extremely hard. He’s like the salt of the earth individual. He took a twelve year old out of the foster care system and gave him a father, gave him a home. And not just me, my sister, too. But I look back and I see what he has now that he can enjoy. And he can’t, he has to do whatever he can to make a buck, wherever he can get a buck. And he works extremely hard and he doesn’t have anything to show for it. So I started asking myself the question is the path that I’m on and what I know about money, is that going to get me the results that I want for my life?

[00:02:12.980] – Eagle Star Bowen

And the answer is a resounding no. And I spent many years working very hard in the field. I was a union iron worker for 16 years. And although I was making about six figures every year, very good at what I do and have a good reputation and things like that. So I was doing well financially, but what wasn’t doing well was my financial future. So I started looking at my annuity, my pension, where my money was going and what was happening in the market and things like that. And I just did the math and I was like, this isn’t going to get me where I want to go when I want to get there, and it’s definitely not going to get me there in time for me to actually enjoy it without my body stopping me from enjoying. Because you can only put yourself through so much for so long before something gives physically. And I wanted to put myself in a position to really enjoy the fruits of my labor in better ways. So I started looking around and asking questions and learning and getting financially educated, and that changed my life. So that’s a little bit about my background.

[00:03:17.030] – Eagle Star Bowen

Like I said, just a small town come from nothing. Kid wanted bigger, better things, pursued it, saw what was taught to me, knew it wasn’t going to be the future for me, wasn’t going to yield the results I wanted. And that started me on this path of growth and wanting to learn more and then ultimately changed my entire life because I don’t even do iron work anymore. Sure. Education.

[00:03:42.030] – Sean

I love your background there. Quick question here. Can you describe what is iron working? What is that?

[00:03:48.860] – Eagle Star Bowen

Okay, so that’s a great question. I always describe iron working as an umbrella, and it’s got all these other little sectors underneath it. But basically in a nutshell, when I describe people what ironwork is, I say you see the big skyscrapers being built, you see the big bridges being built, you see those tower cranes, which I say the big t in the sky that’s putting these buildings together and the rebar inside concrete. That’s all under the umbrella of iron working. From welding to rebar placement, to structural steel, to crane assembly and dismantle. It’s a very broad spectrum, but it’s blue collar work. That it’s truest form, in my opinion, yes.

[00:04:33.180] – Sean

And what was your specialty?

[00:04:34.610] – Eagle Star Bowen

I did everything in my 16 years being an ironworker. I spent my first eight years doing rebar, and then I got into the structural sector and started to hang an iron and doing all the things associated with building a skyscraper from the ground up. And then I got into what I was always in pursuit of, which was tower crane, erection, dismantle and things like that. And that’s what I truly love the most out of the ironworking trade.

[00:05:04.590] – Sean

That’s pretty cool. We’re going to transition to your financials and your half of financial independence and what you do, but I find it really fascinating. I’m a very curious person, so I like to learn what people do and what entails. Okay, that ironworking sounds like a career path that is probably in high demand, but it has my perception to be probably a lower volume of people joining that type of work. Is that true?

[00:05:32.730] – Eagle Star Bowen

It is definitely in high demand because construction is always going to be needed, and development and the evolution of cities and things like that is always going to be on our horizon. It attracts a certain type of individual. I wouldn’t say there’s a shortage because people are looking for ways where they can make good money, get some sort of retirement pensions and annuities and things like that. And the union is a very great place to do that. Now. Iron Working operates a little bit different than a lot of the other trades. Iron Working specifically recruits out of prison as some of the people that they like to give opportunities to, which I absolutely love, because what it does is it gives people a second opportunity past their mistakes, past what they’ve maybe been through in their life, and none of that will determine whether or not you have an opportunity. We like to give people that are ready for an opportunity, an opportunity. And one of the most underserved, I guess, groups of people in our society is people that have a past. And so we help those people. And I have many great friends, great iron workers that have been able to turn their whole lives around because of the opportunity they got from somebody that came into the prison system and says, hey, you should think about maybe doing this, and it fits right up their alley.

[00:07:02.580] – Eagle Star Bowen

So, I mean, we definitely attract a certain mentality. We seek out people that are looking for opportunities, and not everybody is going to go to college and become a doctor or a lawyer or any kind of professional career path.

[00:07:18.470] – Sean

I’ve got comments on that or two.

[00:07:20.910] – Eagle Star Bowen

So it’s like you can’t define what a person is made of by where they’ve been or currently are, but what they want, and we focus on finding people like that.

[00:07:32.220] – Sean

Yeah, I love it. Thanks for the context there. And I’m a big fan of blue collar over white collar career paths. I find today, especially the path to go and get a college degree, a complete waste of time and money, opportunity costs. There are certain, you just said it blue collar job making six figures. There are a lot of people going to school for a white collar job, spending four years, and they’re making half that. It’s a joke.

[00:08:02.130] – Eagle Star Bowen

And they’re in debt with student loans.

[00:08:04.130] – Sean

And all this other guard 100% asinine. And I’ll say that it’s like, sure, there are certain careers, maybe go get a degree, but in most cases, don’t go get a collar job. 100%.

[00:08:18.650] – Eagle Star Bowen

Yeah, it’s a very noble way, honest way to make a living, and it can produce great results. Like I said, my friends that have been through the prison system and all kinds of stuff that came out the other side, some of them own companies now, and they employ other people like them, and they produce good incomes for those people and good opportunities. I always say it like this, I’m blue collar till I die, no matter what I said. I might change my threads, but I will never change my fabric. My fabric is blue collar.

[00:08:51.340] – Sean

I love that. I had a buddy of mine who get this. I graduated 2001 high school 2001, a bunch of us went to college. Unfortunately, college wasn’t as expensive, so I didn’t have student loans. But he immediately got a welding job. And while we’re all going to college, he was making 60 year at like age 1819. And he’s 40 now, and I think he’s done. He’s like financially independent because he spent a lot less than what he made. He bought a home that was nice but not extravagant. Drove the same truck for 1520 years. Had that baby paid off. It was probably a used truck in the first place. And I think he’s got like two or three kids and he’s like, yeah, I can just go to ball games at like 02:00 P.m.. I kind of do whatever I want now. It’s like, dude, dude, that’s great. They don’t teach that in school.

[00:09:46.830] – Eagle Star Bowen

That’s the golden ticket, man. I’ll tell you what, that’s why I harp on young people now. I’m 42 now, right? And I graduated 99. So it’s just a little bit ahead of me. But I always harp on young people. I say, look, the best thing you can do with your life right now is take whatever money you’re getting and putting it to work for you. I said, if you want to experience wealth and especially early, it takes time. And the thing that you have going for you is that you have time on your side. So it doesn’t take as much money over time to get the same results. Perfect. I always tell them the story about myself and Amazon, right? So when I was about 20, I was working in JCPenney’s Watch Repair in Bellevue, Washington. Fresh off the farm, first time in the city, never been around. And I’ll just tell it like it is. Never been around so many pretty girls in my life. Very distracting. But I was going to trade school. But the woman across me in the photo department said, hey, my sister, her husband is involved with this company called Amazon.

[00:10:54.970] – Eagle Star Bowen

This is when it was just kind of getting recognized. About 2000 or so, right? Probably 1920, right about that. She’s like, you should consider investing a little bit of money with this company called Amazon. That time they were just an online bookstore basically, right? And I was like, okay, yeah, whatever. But my thought process at that time was like, I want to get the cool clothes. I want to look cool. I want to get the girls. So I took my little bit of money that I was making and I’d go upstairs and use my employee discount and buy the cool clothes that was going to get the chick’s attention. And man, if I would have known then what I know now, she’s like, just a couple of grand. Take a couple of grand, put it in this company and leave it be, I would have been significantly farther ahead than I am currently. So I’m like, look, the best thing you can do is put your money to work for you, like your friend did. He get his money? He was putting his money to work for him when he was young, and now he’s in his early forty s, and he’s not stressing about money.

[00:12:02.400] – Sean

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He’s a good 2025 years ahead of the ball game because he went against the trend, which is all these people are forcing their kids, you got to get a four year degree. It’s stupid. What I want to hear now is, you made the transition to what you’re doing now. So what year was that and what are you doing now in the world of finance?

[00:12:28.350] – Eagle Star Bowen

Okay, so that was right around the year 2019 is when I started making the transition. So not too long ago. But it’s funny because I had a daughter and she was about one years old at the time, and I was just like, working. And I’m just like, I want to be the dad that’s like at my kids. Everything my kid does when they’re old enough to do it, when they’re in school and plays ballet or piano or sports or just whatever they want to get into. I want to be in a position where I can be financially free of my time and my money. And I want to be that father that I never had when I was growing up. Even with my foster father, he had to work, so he wasn’t always at my games. And he missed a lot of my big things that I really wanted him to be there for. Not because he wanted to, because he had to. And so I started saying this prayer. And every day when I’m in my car driving to Seattle, because I work in downtown Seattle a lot, I’d be saying this prayer, please Lord, give me an opportunity that will provide me financial freedom of my time and money so that way I can be the father that I want to be to my daughter.

[00:13:41.220] – Eagle Star Bowen

That way I can be present. That way I cannot have to ask another man’s permission to be there for my daughter or woman. Right. And I don’t ever want to have to choose between money or my daughter and have to go to work. This is like, honestly, a God shot. So I just got to tell you the story.

[00:14:02.330] – Sean

I hope you don’t mind. Please do.

[00:14:04.580] – Eagle Star Bowen

My friend sent me this podcast one morning. He’d get up about 04:00 in the morning to work out. I’d get up at 04:00 in the morning to go to work. And he sent me this podcast to a man that I’m sure a lot of your audience would be familiar with, named Andy Frasela. Very successful man. He’s also about 40, worth a few hundred million. Now this is actually his company right here. First form of wearing one of his shirts today just by chance. And I loved him because he’s raw he’s real. He’s a passionate Italian dude from Missouri. He’s from St. Louis. But he kept referencing this guy, and I started listening to his podcast, and so he kept referencing this guy named Ed Milet. Now, Ed Milet is significantly even more farther ahead than Andy Frasela in life. And he’s 50 now, and he’s like the top 50 under 50 entrepreneurs. He’s worth nowadays about 4500 million, and he’s just about 50. So he kept referencing Ed, my lead. So I’m like, I got to find out who this Edmilet guy is. I knew nothing about him. And so I did some research, found out he had a podcast.

[00:15:10.190] – Eagle Star Bowen

So I started listening to his podcast, and I’m like, man, this guy is phenomenal. He is like the greatest speaker ever. And the way he interacts with his guests on his show and stuff like that. But I was so impressed by him that I wrote him an email. I said, hey, Ed. My name is Eagle Star. I absolutely love your podcast. The people you bring on his show are incredible. You are the type of person I want to be around. It’s like, I love what you do, but more importantly, I like what you represent as your own man. And so I said, I will pay for my flight myself. I’ll fly to wherever you want in this country. I’ll pick up the tablet lunch, and I’ll put a $100 bill in your hand just so I can share 60 minutes of your time. And I want you to know that I appreciate it 100%. So I asked, and he didn’t respond to my email. So I wrote him an Instagram message two days later with my phone number on the same message. I said, hey, Ed. Same message. Here’s my number. I got a call the next day from this guy, and he says, I’m looking for Eagles Tarbon.

[00:16:16.510] – Eagle Star Bowen

I said, well, that’s me. He said, well, my name is Sam Depala. Ed Milette asked me to call you. So we started talking about Ed Milet and where he started, and he was from abusive home as a kid. His dad was an alcoholic. He ended up working because he was a baseball player that didn’t quite make the big leagues, but made it to college baseball, sure. And that didn’t work out. So he was trying to figure out what he was going to do with his life. He ended up working at a home for abused boys, basically. And that changed his life. And then he got into the financial services industry in his early 20s. So he goes into all this great description of Ed Milet, all the companies, enterprises he has now, his net worth and all that stuff. And I’m just like, awesome. Well, he’s like, well, where do you live? And I said, I live in Seattle. He says, Would you like to we actually have an office there. Would you like to sit down and learn about what we do as a company. So I said yes on my way home from work, why not?

[00:17:18.280] – Eagle Star Bowen

So I went and sat down and I learned about some things that blew my mind. And then Edmund himself brought me into the company himself and I was at that time and I’m not trying to brag or boast, but this is just for context when I say it’s a Godshot, it literally is answer to a prayer. I was the first person in 15 years that he recruited to bring into the industry because by this time he’s sitting on the board of Transamerica Financial Advisors. Yes, but he started where I was sitting. The guy looking for an opportunity to do something bigger and better with his life.

[00:17:53.290] – Sean

I love the background and the story leading up to it and what an opportunity here. So why don’t you break it down for us a little bit. What does this company do, especially knowing that my audience, I’ve got a lot of retail investors here, they’re going to be curious to know how they can get involved.

[00:18:09.950] – Eagle Star Bowen

That’s great. Yeah, absolutely. So our company, we do everything, everything on the security side you can think of and everything on the non securities side that you can think of, from basic term insurance to mutual funds, the all this stuff and then the bread and the butter is the infinite bank strategy. And the infinite bank strategy revolves around using a certain set of tax codes inside of an index, universal life insurance policy specifically. And what that is so powerful for is it gives everybody on earth the opportunity, whether you’re a big corporate business, let’s say, or a bank or an individual or somebody that’s wanting to change their financial future for their own family. It gives the opportunity to access and use the things that are out there that the wealthy have been using for generation after generation after generation. And we help you set these things up, structure them in a way that’s going to get you the results that you actually want for your family and not have to stress out about it or what’s going to happen in the market, in the stock market, like we’re currently experiencing craziness out there. Our clients don’t lose money, but our clients get the upside potential and the tax advantages through a series of tax codes.

[00:19:28.180] – Eagle Star Bowen

And so something that anybody can do and what we prioritize is educating you on how these things work, number one, before we do anything and then once it all makes sense and you can see how it can happen for you as long as you can pass some background checks because these companies are going to look at you, right? They’re going to look at you. So they want to know, can you pass background checks and health evaluations primarily? I mean lots of people have powerful paths and they can get these potentially. Now not everybody, right?

[00:20:04.540] – Sean

Right.

[00:20:05.280] – Eagle Star Bowen

But it’s the same things that the big banks use for their benefit. It’s called bank owned life insurance is what they call it for banks. And then Cole corporate owned life insurance, what they use it for is protection of money, growth of money, tax advantages on money, and the leverage ability of money for whatever.

[00:20:27.430] – Sean

So let’s go into each of those different categories with some real numbers. So why don’t you start at the top there?

[00:20:34.890] – Eagle Star Bowen

Okay.

[00:20:35.390] – Sean

Talk to me about the type of returns you can expect. You said your customers aren’t losing money, everything in the market right now is going down, so they’re not losing money. And then the tax advantages there as well.

[00:20:48.320] – Eagle Star Bowen

So let’s just say I’m 35 at $10,000 and I put it in an uninterrupted compound interest account. Getting the average is about 10%, to be honest with you, right, but sometimes more. But let’s just say it’s 10%. Let’s just say all I did was put it in there. I didn’t do anything else other than that. I just put it in there and I got 10% year over year over year, and by the time I’m about 72, I’m going to have a million dollars or more, and that’s retirement. So now I’ve taken $10,000 and turned it into a million dollars over time without any additional work, just getting a steady 10%. And that’s actually realistic. And the reason what makes that so powerful is that you’re never losing money. So I always say, okay, would you rather play the comeback game in the stock market or the stay ahead game in the uninterrupted compound interest account? And what that means is, let’s just say take 2008 where we lost about 40% of market value. So let’s just say you had $100,000 at that time and you lost 40%. How much do you have left?

[00:22:00.610] – Sean

Right? You’re nearly cut in half. So 40% off the top. 60 grand left?

[00:22:05.720] – Eagle Star Bowen

Yes, 60 grand left. Now if you’re in an uninterrupted compound interest account where you can’t lose a floor is zero, you have $100,000, you didn’t lose any money. So when the market does come back up and people get all excited about this, we like that dopamine hit, let’s be honest, seeing things go up, right, okay, that’s great. But let’s just say you have 60,000 and the market comes back up 40%. Where are you at in comparison to your 100,000, right?

[00:22:36.150] – Sean

40 against the 60K. So you could almost use a nice round number and cut it in half, go 30, it’s going to add 60 plus the 30. It’s going to be a little less because it’s 40%, but right, so maybe 25 somewhere there. My math is a little off off the fly here, but you’re not going to be back up to your 100, I’ll tell you that.

[00:22:54.670] – Eagle Star Bowen

Correct. You gained 40% off whatever that bottom was. So that’s 6000 plus 40% then you’re still on the whole. Now let’s say I’m in uninterrupted compound interest. Number one, I didn’t lose anything, so I still have my $100,000. But then the market rebounded. I got 40% on top of that. Now, what’s my value?

[00:23:15.800] – Sean

Well, you go from 100 up to add 40%, you got 140, right?

[00:23:19.790] – Eagle Star Bowen

Correct. So would you rather be 40% up on 60,000, or we’re going to be about 80,000 probably, or would you rather have $140,000?

[00:23:31.350] – Sean

Easy answer. We’ll go with the 140. Now, I want to ask what you’re investing in. Is this a life insurance policy or there are individual securities you’re investing in here.

[00:23:42.840] – Eagle Star Bowen

It’s a life insurance policy. And then the life insurance company makes the decisions on how they’re moving that money and trading that money and things like that. Now, here’s a very interesting aspect. A lot of people don’t know in the Great Depression, there’s only one industry that made money. What do you think that industry was?

[00:24:02.410] – Sean

Knowing that we’re talking about insurance. I’m going to lean towards that, absolutely.

[00:24:08.430] – Eagle Star Bowen

And they created products that saved people from getting taxed. Now, also in the Great Depression, what a lot of people don’t know, and I keep touching back on this Great Depression because in my opinion, we’re heading towards our generation’s Great Depression personally. That’s just my opinion. I can’t factually guarantee that. But all signs point to a major thing happening now. That being said, individuals in the Great Depression that were making $200,000 or more a year, which is significant amount of money then, is still a lot of money today, right. For most people, they were getting taxed ready for this 94%.

[00:24:47.260] – Sean

Yes, I remember looking at that in that era. It’s hard to believe that above 90%, as you just said, 94% tax. That’s ridiculous.

[00:24:57.270] – Eagle Star Bowen

That’s ridiculous. I mean, what do you think helped pull the economy out? Taxation. Now, and all the people that didn’t play that game, but played what we do like and how we set people up, they didn’t have to pay those ridiculous amounts of taxes. As a matter of fact, the money was protected and growing right as the market was coming back. And they weren’t losing money. They were actually being able to leverage that money to bring back economy, to create industry, things like that, or just pass on generational wealth for their future families, much like the Rockefellers did and currently do eight generations later.

[00:25:32.480] – Sean

So let’s talk about the mechanics there on the money. That $10,000 you put that in, are you saying that’s written off? Is that fully tax protected?

[00:25:44.750] – Eagle Star Bowen

Yes.

[00:25:45.150] – Sean

Make any gains on it?

[00:25:46.950] – Eagle Star Bowen

Yes, that’s 100% tax free, anything that goes into these accounts. Because it gets taxed free going into the account. But kind of like Roth IRA correct.

[00:25:58.530] – Sean

Yes.

[00:25:59.000] – Eagle Star Bowen

However, I’m glad he touched on that. Roth IRAs are great for people that don’t know anything else, that there’s something else, right? So wealthy people don’t use Roth IRAs. They can’t use Roth IRAs. Any guesses on why?

[00:26:13.150] – Sean

Well, I will say this, I actually like a Roth, but it’s very limited to how much I can put in, correct? Yes.

[00:26:20.780] – Eagle Star Bowen

And you have to make under a certain amount of money to even qualify to use it. Now, what an industry term is for an indexed universal life is a rich man’s Roth because there’s no income limitations. You could be Jeff Bezos and use these vehicles. As long as it’s properly structured and properly funded, all the money that goes in, it’s already been taxed. So that’s already been taxed. We can’t tax it again. Now it’s inside of a vehicle, it’s protected against everything. It’s a bulletproof asset. But anything that goes in there and grows in there is now 100% tax free forever. You get rid of the 59 and a half rule, you get rid of the 72 rule, you get rid of all these other limitations and restrictions that you have in these other accounts, and you get rid of market volatility. Now, if you’re a business and you own one of these things, then you can own it as an individual. Let’s say I’m the president of my company, so Eaglestar Bowen have an index universal life insurance policy. My business pays for it. The business gets to write off the contributions and access and leverage the capital inside of it for business expansion or buyouts or whatever I might want.

[00:27:38.260] – Sean

You can take a loan against it.

[00:27:39.700] – Eagle Star Bowen

You can take a loan against it? Absolutely.

[00:27:41.800] – Sean

Okay, and is there any interest on that loan?

[00:27:44.240] – Eagle Star Bowen

There is small interest. So what ultimately happens is you’re going to take the insurance company’s money and you’re going to use it for your benefit. And there’s going to be initially some interest, usually 2%. And a lot of times you get credited back that interest. So it’s a wash loan, right. So you’ll get to write off the interest. You pay yourself back into your own account, you write off the interest, and then the company credits you back the interest as well. So you’re just ultimately getting a free loan from yourself to yourself to increase your asset values or replace things that you might need as a company or for expansion or bonuses. A lot of times they give bonuses with it.

[00:28:31.380] – Sean

To achieve the wash, do you have to return the money by a certain time period? Is there like a time limit a lot of times?

[00:28:37.650] – Eagle Star Bowen

No, but it depends on the company. So each company operates just slightly different. But the most powerful ones that most companies will use, it’s just they credit you back in the first year, usually.

[00:28:50.290] – Sean

Got you. Okay, let’s take a quick commercial break. Do you feel like stock investing is too confusing, too time consuming, too risky? It doesn’t have to be. If you ever considered investing on your own but don’t know where to start, Tykr is your solution. Tykr safely guides you through your investment journey by finding great stocks and showing you why. Those stocks are on sale, giving you the confidence that you’re making a wise investment. I created Tykr because, number one, I wanted to remove emotions from investing. In other words, I wanted a software to make buying and selling decisions for me so I don’t have to. Number two, I wanted to save time. Analyzing stocks can take hours, if not days. And I never want to spend all day looking at a computer. I have other hobbies in life I’d rather be enjoying. I’ve been using Tykr the last five years to generate average returns ranging between 15% and 50% per year. Seeing that I was generating consistent high returns multiple years in a row motivated me to turn this software into a tool to share with others. If you’re interested, you can get started with a free trial.

[00:29:57.310] – Sean

Visit Tykr.com. That’s Tykr.com. Again, Tykr.com. And to kind of rephrase this back, especially for those listening, I’ve talked to a lot of people that work in life insurance, and I have been exposed to similar products. So to just summarize a real life scenario, let’s say you’ve got 100 grand, you put it into this product, you can immediately take that 100 grand back out. But it’s like a phantom building process. It’s going to keep building that 10% year over year, even though you took the money right back out. And let’s say you used it to go fund a business you’re working on. Or I know actually somebody who did that to go buy a Tesla. I wouldn’t have done that, but I would have put it into an asset that’s producing, of course, returns. But it’s cool because it’s locked in and it’s building. Of course you’ll get that interest rate, but you can pay it back over time or do a big lump sum and pay it all back, but the 10% is locked in over time. Correct.

[00:31:04.060] – Eagle Star Bowen

That’s using dollar in two places at the same time. Participation loan, right where you’re loaning the money out. So it’s over here doing hopefully something positive for you. Hopefully you’re being smart with it and you’re using it to make yourself more money. But either way, it’s still growing like it’s over here in this account, like it’s never been taken out. Now, you can pay that back over time, which we encourage you to do, because then everything stays on track. But also, people don’t people just take the loan and they let it ride. Right. Unless you say you took $100,000 loan out of it and you never paid it back. What happens at the end of the day is that when you pass away, the company will take that $100,000 loan back and give your family everything else.

[00:31:51.310] – Sean

Yes. So you can pay back plus the interest.

[00:31:54.640] – Eagle Star Bowen

Yes. So it’s everything minus $100,000. That’s it. Right.

[00:31:58.160] – Sean

Okay. Now, with this product, I know let’s say you were to sign up for it, you put your money in, and then you’re like, you know what? I no longer want to use this product anymore. In that case, there’s a severe penalty. Is that the same case in your situation?

[00:32:13.620] – Eagle Star Bowen

It depends. Do you mean use it like just get rid of it altogether?

[00:32:18.610] – Sean

Yeah, they’re like, after six months, you’re like, you know what? I’m unhappy with the product. I put in 100 grand. I like to get all my money back. They’re not going to get all their money back.

[00:32:29.320] – Eagle Star Bowen

No, there’s surrender charges. There’s surrender charges. And even if you the dumbest thing you could do is ever get rid of this policy, number one, because it’s number one feature is that it’s a permanent life insurance policy for your whole life. People have and do stop funding it. You don’t have to fund it until the day you die. You fund it for a period of time, and then you can just let it be on autopilot and it’ll pay for itself. Right now, people do do that. We always recommend against that, but people are going to do what they’re going to do. So you will take on some surrender charges if you cancel it. And tax ramifications here’s. The biggest feature is that as long as you don’t access more than 90% at one time of the cash value of this policy, so I should say you have $100,000, you could access $90,000. No taxes, no penalties, no questions. As long as you leave that 10% in there, nothing will ever be taxable, and it’s still going to grow on that 10%. So you don’t ever want to do that. If that’s where you’re thinking and looking and you’re not looking long term, then this isn’t the thing for you.

[00:33:37.400] – Eagle Star Bowen

Sure.

[00:33:38.730] – Sean

And that’s what my next comment was going to be, especially to the audience. If you’re looking to commit to a product like this, you want to commit to the long haul. I mean, this is not only for you, but you’re thinking about your family because the life insurance aspect and then the other factor is the tax write off aspect as well, correct?

[00:33:57.320] – Eagle Star Bowen

Absolutely.

[00:33:58.770] – Sean

You’ve got one direction. Once you’re in, you’re not getting out.

[00:34:03.330] – Eagle Star Bowen

You don’t want to get out. Yeah, you don’t want to get out. You have the ability, but just be prepared for the consequences.

[00:34:10.410] – Sean

Of course, that makes sense. And can you give us an idea what the customers you work with? Let’s say it’s somebody who’s got a business that’s making between 100 and 250 a year. They are able to pay themselves a salary that could range between 50 and 75 kwh a year. I’m just thinking of like because we’ve got a lot of entrepreneurs in our audience and they’re just starting out with those kind of numbers. What kind of dollar amount would you recommend they be sending to an account like this every month?

[00:34:42.930] – Eagle Star Bowen

I think that kind of depends on what their goals are, how fast they want the money to accumulate, what they want to use it for and when and what kind of write offs they need or want.

[00:34:55.420] – Sean

Sure.

[00:34:56.040] – Eagle Star Bowen

So let’s say on a business that’s doing 250,000 a year, a lot of them are going to do around 5000 a month. Okay? Sure. Anywhere from, I’ll say 2000, 5000 a month. And they’re going to be putting it inside of a plan like this with the intention of, I’m going to let this build for a little while. I’m going to write off my contributions as a business, and I’m going to build the cash value for future business expansion or equipment replacement. So let’s just say you have a construction company, you need a new forklift. So then you can just say, hey, I’m going to take a loan from my own bank over here, my cash value, life insurance policy, I’m going to go buy a forklift outright and I’m going to pay myself back. And now I’m going to pay myself back. So I would be paying a bank anyway, so I’m going to pay myself back plus the interest that I would be paying a bank. I’m going to write off the interest. So I’m going to get the equipment that I need to. And now I have a positive asset that I own free and clear in my company.

[00:36:00.930] – Eagle Star Bowen

And I’m writing off interest, I’m writing off contributions. It’s helping me as a business. It’s something that I can now rely on and not have to depend on. Business credits and approval and all these.

[00:36:14.060] – Sean

Other background red tape.

[00:36:16.690] – Eagle Star Bowen

Get rid of the red tape, get what you want when you need it.

[00:36:19.330] – Sean

Yes, you are your own bank. In that case, you have a meeting with yourself and the decision is made within seconds. Set of months, potentially.

[00:36:29.910] – Eagle Star Bowen

Correct.

[00:36:30.890] – Sean

All right. I had another question teed up here. Let’s say you’re in a situation where you’re selling a business, or you’re selling like, let’s say you are a real estate investor. You sell a property and you make a profit. You make that sale and you have between one and 5 million. Can you put the full amount between one and 5 million into this product and get 100% right off?

[00:36:57.280] – Eagle Star Bowen

Yes, and let me go a little deeper on that.

[00:37:00.480] – Sean

Okay.

[00:37:00.840] – Eagle Star Bowen

I’m actually working with a client right now that they had a family farm and ranch for the last 105 years. I think they’re at the end of the rope with a farm. Nobody’s going to take it over. So they have quite a bit of land, and a developer came to them and offering them $9 million for this land. So they’re making that deal now. Luckily, we talked to them right before they signed paperwork, and we were able to set them up inside of Charitable remainder Trust with Irrevocable Life Insurance trust. And before they sell this land, we put all those things inside of the trust. And then when they sell this land for $9 million, they are now 100% capital gains exempt.

[00:37:46.620] – Sean

Yes, avoid that in the US. Capital gains, isn’t it like 42% or something?

[00:37:53.180] – Eagle Star Bowen

It’s a real high number, and they’re talking about raising it.

[00:37:56.560] – Sean

Oh, gosh.

[00:37:58.170] – Eagle Star Bowen

So they’re so well protected. Thank the Lord. And I love I mean, personally, that’s my pride and joy that I got to help a family like mine, a farming family, ranching family, black collar, American family. And so, yes, you can put all of this inside of those things and keep all the money for your family future generations. So I say we’re just taking the family from the old way that they built what they have, and we’re transitioning it into the modern society. So whatever the future generations of this family do moving forward, they’re going to be able to start businesses. They’re going to be able to protect that family wealth and all the hours, endless hours of back breaking work and things to produce these types of results for the last 105 years, we’re going to protect it. They’re not going to pay capital gains taxes. They’re going to eliminate or greatly reduce all other taxes associated. They’re going to be able to transition this fruits of their labors to the future generations where it will stay in the family and not all go in Uncle Sam’s pockets.

[00:39:10.730] – Sean

Yes, that’s the trick. When you start dealing with some bigger numbers, that becomes the real risk is how much do you have to give to Uncle Sam when you start dealing with some big numbers with that? I love that scenario because you’re helping a farm family there, and my fiance grew up in a farm family, and parents have a lot of acreage as well. And I work well, and I enjoy being around the farming community. The blue collar. Yes. I tend to relate a little more with that. Not saying I don’t relate with other folks, but that’s near and dear to my heart. But with this scenario, let’s say $9 million goes right into that account. What I’m seeing is you don’t have the liquidity to say, hey, I want to go buy some nice things. You’d have to borrow from your bank to go buy, let’s say, a new car or boat or some things. Correct. It’s not like a liquid thing or funding you just take out.

[00:40:14.080] – Eagle Star Bowen

A lot of it will be liquid because your cash value is your cash value, right? So let’s say 5 million of the 9 million. We’ll just say that just for numbers is your actual accessible cash value. You can just say, hey, I’m going to take a loan. I’m going to take it, and I’m going to go over here and do this. Now, you’re still going to get the participation loan, right? So you’re going to be like, you’re just going to use it, and it’s still going to be there. It’s going to be growing just like it’s there. So you can definitely have access. It’s not locked up for sure. It’s accessible. And that’s why I stress, properly structured and properly funded, it will be the most powerful thing you’ll ever have. If it is not set up right, then it will not be the most powerful thing you’ll ever have. It will be great potentially, but not as good as it could be. That’s why it’s so important that when we go through a process like we are with that family, you bring the right people a table. We have trust lawyers that we work directly with.

[00:41:14.360]

Sure.

[00:41:14.750] – Eagle Star Bowen

We sit down with the accountants, we look at all the financial records of everything, and we really go in depth and be like, okay, so if you want this to work the best for you, then this is the way we have to set it up. And then we go into detail on why and how and make sure it’s something that, in layman’s terms, that the family can understand. Because let’s be honest, most people aren’t like financial gurus that know all the terminology and stuff like that. Right. And in my opinion, it’s a real disservice to people trying to razzle and dazzle them by using big words that nobody understands but you. And they’re just like starstruck in making decisions on, well, he sounds good.

[00:41:57.340] – Sean

He must be good.

[00:41:58.610] – Eagle Star Bowen

Yeah, right. Well, do you want someone that sounds good or do you want someone that can explain in a way that you can understand and benefit from? That’s what I’m about. And I won’t operate in any other way because I was a kid, I didn’t know anything for a long time, and neither did anybody I know. So you would start all this stuff off and we’re just like, that’s intimidating.

[00:42:21.450] – Sean

It’s like Greek to me. Yeah. And for most people growing up, this is all another rabbit hole, if you will. But we’re not taught finance and economics and investing all the way through high school, even college, most college, right, makes that a requirement.

[00:42:40.170] – Eagle Star Bowen

We’re taught how to dissect frogs, take a cake and maybe balance a checkbook. And then we’re told by our parents, put your money in the bank and put it in a savings. Right. Well, you’re not getting anything. You’re not earning any money. There the banks taking your money and using it for their advantage, giving you your own money back to you and charging you interest, like come off. None of that stuff gets taught.

[00:43:02.490] – Sean

The root is we’re taught to. And there’s nothing wrong with this because we all have to do it for some point in our life. But we’re taught to work for money and not flip the equation to make money work for you.

[00:43:12.260] – Eagle Star Bowen

You’re so right. I’m an example, right? So you’re a proven example, right?

[00:43:19.640] – Sean

Yeah.

[00:43:21.330] – Eagle Star Bowen

I love talking to blue collar people. And the reason why I said, look, you are working very hard for your money. The sweat of your brow, the aches in your back are producing one sided income that you get to benefit from. Now, would you rather spend your whole life breaking your back for your money or spend your whole life having your money break its back for your benefit?

[00:43:47.880] – Sean

There you go.

[00:43:48.780] – Eagle Star Bowen

Yeah, of course I want my money to work for me, I said. Right, exactly.

[00:43:59.230] – Sean

Money doesn’t have emotions or feelings.

[00:44:01.930] – Eagle Star Bowen

No, the money will just frank work. It’ll just work if you put it in the right places and do the right things with it, or it’ll be dead and it won’t do anything for you. And then when you stop working, the money stops coming. Yeah.

[00:44:15.550] – Sean

What I’d like to do is just give context here to the listeners and my thoughts on the product. I’ll start doing this more within the podcast before we jump into the Rapid Fire Round to learn a little bit more about Eaglestar here. But do I invest in a product like this at the moment? No, but I do like it. The one thing that I was apprehensive about is I love having full control over my finances and my broker account. The maximum liquidity in your case, you did allude to, you do have the liquidity, but if you do take the money out, there’s still the loan against you and of course, your life insurance amount, if, heaven forbid, you were to pass away at a younger age or whatever age, you don’t get that full payout or not you but your family doesn’t get that full payout. There are little negatives, there not big negative, little things I was thinking about. But still, I think your product to get the 100% right off, especially for those with a big liquidity event, I do like your product in that regard.

[00:45:14.690] – Eagle Star Bowen

It is great. And I’m going to clarify on the life insurance aspect. You don’t necessarily so your face value is your face value. That’s your life insurance value. So it’s a million dollars face value. Now, when I say your death benefit, the way we structure these is your family is going to get all the accumulation plus that million dollars. So let’s say you pass away, you had $100,000 loan out, you had $500,000 in cash value, you have a million dollars in space value. You have $1.5 million that your family would get. Now, they’ll take that 100,000 out of that $500. So your family is going to get 1.4 million.

[00:45:54.550] – Sean

Yes.

[00:45:55.000] – Eagle Star Bowen

So it doesn’t take away from your actual death benefit face amounts. It’ll just take it out of the cash value that your family would get.

[00:46:04.380] – Sean

On top cash, like you mentioned, the 500 there, you took 100 out just to use to spend on whatever you like. Yeah. And you never pay that back. That subtraction occurs right there and your family gets that 400K as opposed to that correct.

[00:46:21.190] – Eagle Star Bowen

You’d get that 1.4 million in that scenario. So just a little clarification, I think.

[00:46:26.450] – Sean

Yeah, I appreciate that. I’m that does make sense. Let’s take a quick commercial break. Hey, this is Sean. I just want to say thanks a lot for checking out this podcast. I know there’s a lot of other podcasts you could be listening to, so thanks for checking out this one. Could you do me a quick favor? If you haven’t done so already, could you leave us a five star rating on either Spotify, Apple, Podcasts, Google, or any other platform you used to listen to podcasts? What this will do is help us rank higher in the podcast search engines, you could say. So that would be much appreciated. Also, if there are any questions you want me to ask the guests for a specific topic you want me to address, please go to our Tykr Facebook group. You can leave a comment there, and I’d love to hear what you have to say. All right, back to the show. This is the part of the episode where we get to find out who Eaglestar really is. Yeah, right. If you can try to answer each question in 15 seconds or less, these are fun questions. Don’t worry.

[00:47:28.960] – Eagle Star Bowen

Okay, I’m not worried.

[00:47:30.260] – Sean

All right, first question. What is your favorite podcast that you listen to?

[00:47:34.750] – Eagle Star Bowen

My favorite podcast I listen to is probably Ed Milette. The Ed Milet show. I absolutely love that podcast just because of how successful he is, his mindset, his guests, and how they are and how humble he still is being in the position he is in life and how similar, like, our childhoods and experiences have even been with him. So I love listening to him. He’s one of my favorites.

[00:48:00.190] – Sean

Check them out. What is a recent book you read and would recommend?

[00:48:05.050] – Eagle Star Bowen

Recent book I just finished is The Edmund. And I’m not trying to promote, but it just happens to be the book I just finished, edmund let’s new book, The Power of One. It’s so incredible, and it’s things you can apply into your direct life just as a human being or things that you can apply in the business and mentality and things like that. So I’m actually just finished that one. And then, of course, one of my favorite books is my own book called The Bottom Dollar. Right. I love this book.

[00:48:36.450] – Sean

We’ll promote that, especially when we syndicate this on social media, but we got to keep going here. We’re not done. Next question here. This is a tough one. What is your favorite movie?

[00:48:47.610] – Eagle Star Bowen

My favorite movie, one of my all time favorite movies is called The Tears of the sun.

[00:48:52.480] – Sean

Yes. Bruce Willis. Yeah.

[00:48:54.870] – Eagle Star Bowen

And what I love about that movie is the humanity in that movie, right? So he’s got a stone cold, just straight up soldier, right? Bruce Willis, the leader of the Special Teams Force, and he does not budge. It’s mission, completion of mission. That is it. No questions, no emotions, no anything. He goes and defies everything about as you know him in that movie to save a village and do what’s right for humanity. That just makes me pretty much makes me cry every time I see it. Just such an inspiring movie. At the same time, it’s atrocious what goes on out there in the world. And that’s not a made up scenario. These things happen in parts of the world that you see in that movie. And so it’s really good for perspective for me of just how great we have it here in this country, how safe and opportunistic it is here and what we can produce, and then how severe things are in other parts of the world. I always say, like, the worst parts of our country, the worst neighborhoods you could go into, and experiences that you’ll have in America are like living in Beverly Hills compared to some of the best places in other parts of the world.

[00:50:12.100] – Sean

Yeah.

[00:50:13.450] – Eagle Star Bowen

I just love that movie.

[00:50:15.430] – Sean

Good call, the movie. I will say great writing, great action. It is a good story. Heart, touching. It’s not one of those I can keep watching like Step Brothers or Ghostbusters, right?

[00:50:28.140] – Eagle Star Bowen

Yeah.

[00:50:28.780] – Sean

But it’s a good film. And you’re 100% right. I have to say, United States is we’ve got listeners all over the world. We’re very fortunate here. We do have a very safe place to live, very easy place to start a business, and the freedoms you get in a lot of people here in the States do take that for granted, unfortunately.

[00:50:47.850] – Eagle Star Bowen

I agree.

[00:50:49.050] – Sean

Yeah. They worry about things on social media or things out of their control and it’s like, just take a step back and realize what you do have. Let’s keep going here. We’ll make it quick. What is the best business advice you ever received?

[00:51:06.290] – Eagle Star Bowen

The best business advice I ever received is look at the long game. Be consistent, be disciplined. Make calculated decisions that are going to get you where you want to go. And understand that to build a sustainable and substantial business, you have to go through feast in the famine aspect of it because you’re starting from nothing and don’t give up. You have the average for a business to truly turn the corner is ten years. It can happen before that, of course, sometimes longer. But ten years is what successful people talk about when they talk about when their business truly became its own machine.

[00:51:54.410] – Sean

Yes. Good expectations. I love that. There’s a lot of people thinking it’s going to happen year one or most definitely within year two.

[00:52:03.120] – Eagle Star Bowen

Now you’re living in Lala land. That’s not how it works. It’s not how wealth works. It’s not how anything substantial works. Even your personal relationship with your significant other is not built on rock solid foundations in the first two years of your marriage or your relationship. It takes years of evolution and effort and trials and tribulations to build anything substantial.

[00:52:29.810] – Sean

100%. Let’s flip that equation. What is the worst business advice you.

[00:52:35.340] – Eagle Star Bowen

Ever received make money today, spend it.

[00:52:39.340] – Sean

Tomorrow before the audience. Of course, there’s a lot of audio on this. He was smirking when I asked the question, like, oh, brace yourself for a good one here. Good call.

[00:52:51.540] – Eagle Star Bowen

Live in the moment, live short term. Think this blinders. Don’t do that.

[00:52:56.760] – Sean

Exactly. And last question here is the Time Machine question. If you could go back in time to give your younger self advice, what age would you visit and what would you say?

[00:53:06.890] – Eagle Star Bowen

I’d go back to the story we were talking about earlier when someone said, invest in Amazon when I was 20. I’d say forget the girls, forget the clothes. Take this advice and do it.

[00:53:21.260] – Sean

Yes.

[00:53:21.720] – Eagle Star Bowen

Execute whatever it takes. I don’t care what. You got to do it.

[00:53:25.230] – Sean

Yeah, great advice. All right. And where can audience reach you?

[00:53:29.460] – Eagle Star Bowen

Well, you can reach me directly. I’ll give you my personal phone number so you can call me from wherever. That’s how serious I am about helping people that want to be helped. So here’s my phone number. It’s 425-318-2400. You can go to my website. Ordermybook at www dot. Bottom dollarmethod.com. My phone number is on the back of the book as well. You can go to my Facebook. You can just look me up. Eagle, eagle, L-E-N send me a DM, write me a message there. Can go to Instagram. So that one is going to be Bottom Dollar 2020, and those are the most accessible places you can find me. And I can service all of the US. Puerto Rico and Canada.

[00:54:23.310] – Sean

Well, this was great. I really enjoyed the conversation with you. And thanks for the context on this life insurance product. We’ll see ya.

[00:54:30.470] – Eagle Star Bowen

Absolute pleasure. Bye.

[00:54:38.050] – Sean

Hey, I just want to say thanks for checking out this podcast. I know your time is valuable and there’s a lot of other podcasts out there you could be listening to. So thanks for taking the time to listen to my guest story. If you did enjoy this podcast episode, could you head over to itunes and leave a five star review? That would be much appreciated. Thank you. And last but not least on this podcast, some episodes we do talk about stocks. And please keep in mind, this podcast is for entertainment purposes only. So if you did hear any buy or sell recommendations, please don’t make those decisions based solely on what you hear. All right, thanks a lot. See ya.