Podcast Transcription: How to Take Control of Your Financial Future: Strategies for Wealth, Security & Freedom with Chris Naugle
Ted Ryce: Chris Nauggle, welcome to the Legendary Live podcast. Super excited to talk to you today, man.  

Chris Naugle: Hey, thanks for having me on.  

Ted Ryce: Pumped to be here. Yeah. Now this is going to be a little bit of a different type of interview. This is a health and fitness show, but what I think a lot of people don't get is that their financial health is directly related to their physical health, and so. 

We had a little bit of back and forth before I pressed the record button, and you were right on the same page with that. But let's let things unfold naturally.  

And what I wanna start with is that, uh, you're called America's number one money mentor. What's the story behind that  

Chris Naugle: name? You know, I didn't come up with that. 

Uh, one of my mentors that I worked with, he's like, dude, you're number one. Uh, you know, America's number one money mentor. I'm like, all right. If you say I am, then well, that's just stuck. So it has, but I mean, I've got a over 20 plus year history in the finance and, and the wealth game on various different levels. 

Uh, you know, but that's, that's really not who I am, which is gonna kind of sound strange, you know, like at, at my core. You know, I'm no different than I was when I was a kid.  

Like I was a pro snowboarder, you know, in my teens and into my, you know, twenties and thirties. And, and I always like to think that that's who I am, because like, I operate every single day the same way I did when I was a, a pro rider. 

I use, I, I train the same. I still am very habit driven and very regimented, just like I was back when I was a rider. Uh, yes, I own 19 companies now worth a lot of money, and I have. You know, thousands and thousands of clients that we help on their financial journey, you know, by teaching 'em one simple thing, and that is how to take back control of their money by teaching 'em how to be the bank effectively take what a bank does every day, but you become the bank. 

I mean, so I, I do some really simple things, but when people change their lifestyle to stop being a slave to the financial system and start controlling it. Everything changes and it changes relatively quickly. But you know, like that's, that's why I got that name. I mean, we're the, for what we do, which, you know, some people would know it as the infinite banking concepts, that that's one company. 

We're the bi, we're the number one in the country. I mean, there's no one that does the volume. We do nobody that has the technology we do. And you know, it's always one of those things that I tell people, I say, you know. I didn't start this, I didn't create the infinite banking concept. R Nelson Nash pioneered it, but he didn't create it. 

It's been around for hundreds of years. You know, if you really wanna hang your hat on where it began, through all my research, I found it began with the, the Rockefellers, the Morgans and the Stanleys. And you, you could also say they're the rothchilds over, you know, in Europe they. They also adopted this, but those three families are the ones that really pioneered this and they pioneered it, which, you know, we're, we're going back well over a hundred years ago here, so you gotta kind of remember things were different then, but they were so much the same. 

And back then, these wealthy families and these bankers, they all were looking for an alternative place to store their wealth that was safer and put them in more control and also kept their, their. Finance is private back then, and it wasn't banks and it wasn't Wall Street. It was always the giant mutually owned life insurance companies. 

And you know, if any of your audience ever reads any of the books about these families, you will see that's exactly what they did. That's exactly how the Rockefellers have maintained their level of wealth and gotten bigger and bigger and bigger where families like the Vanderbilts three generations in. 

Squandered, like, you know, Vanderbilt's, were one of the wealthiest families in history. How do you go through that much money? Well, it's because you don't control it and you don't have the right provisions in place to make sure that your money will last and make it the long haul. And, and, uh, those are the things that, you know, I do. 

And that's how I got that silly name. America's number one money mentor. I, I used to hate it when people said that. I'm like, ah, stop. But now I'm just like, sure,  

Ted Ryce: let's do it. Might as well own it. And, and clearly you come across. This is outside my. Wheelhouse, if you will. So you, you come across as someone who not only understands the financial system differently than even many experts, but you understand like where it came from. 

However, before we get into that and the infinite making concept and Bureau Bank, I wanna talk a little bit about your earlier journey.  

So I was doing some research on you and. I, if I remember correctly, you became a pro snowboarder around 19, or was that correct? Nailed it. Yeah, exactly. 19 actually. Yeah. 

And then you went on to. You had a very interesting story because the way you just came across is someone who's an expert in money, and you talked about the millions of dollars that your business, your I think, 19 businesses do. But you didn't come from money. You said you came from a lower middle class family. 

You grew up with your mom. Both of your parents tried to talk you out of starting your first business, which was the fat. Clothing company, is that correct? Yep. PHAT. Yeah. P oh, red of on, on a show like this, you, it's, it's good. Good that you say that. 'cause some people might not get like, oh, this, 'cause I, I used to skate, right? 

I had a p Peralta board. But like, some people might not get, uh, the right like that. The skaters, the PHAT. So talk to us a little bit about the transition from growing up in that way to becoming who you are now, where again, you, you come across very different than if someone said, yeah, well this. The snowboarder dude was a pro and then started the fat clothing company, PHAT again. 

So talk to us a little bit about that.  

Chris Naugle: Yeah, so I definitely grew up in a lower middle class family. My mom raised me, uh, you know, my dad. Uh, thankfully both my parents are still alive. My dad was an alcoholic, most of my upbringing, so he really wasn't, I I, I wouldn't call him much of a part of my life, uh, during those early years, but my mom certainly was. 

And, uh, we lived in a 700 square foot house. My mom literally still lives in the same house, 700 square foot, two bedroom, one bathhouse, and it was just me and mom. And, uh, the most common words outta mom's mouth was, uh, we're not heating the outside. And, you know, for some of you listening, that'll ring true. 

Here's how it all happened. I started working, you know, I, I got a job at 14 on my buddy Jack's farm. Jack was my best friend growing up. We rode dirt bikes, skateboarded, snowboarded, all the good stuff. But, uh. I got a big boy job at 16. You know, I had a car and I needed to pay for things. Mom couldn't afford to pay for anything, so I started working at restaurants. 

Now, at this time, you know, I'm 16, so I'm on my path to wanting to chase my dream, which is to be a pro snowboarder. Obviously at this point I'm just riding and competing and I don't even, I think I went AM at 17 and then 19 went pro. But, uh. Working in a restaurant, as many of you probably remember, required you to work weekends, required you to work nights. 

So if you're trying to be a pro snowboarder and you gotta practice, guess when all that practicing happens? After school. So in the evenings, and luckily I'm, I'm from Buffalo, New York, so we have night skiing here, and then on weekends is when all the competitions go. So that's, that's kind of, it's count, counter contradictory toward, if I'm saying that right, toward my goal. 

So I also got treated really badly at the first restaurant I worked at. The guy was awful, treated me like complete crap. I, I, I probably was mentally depressed, uh, because of this man. So one day. I had worked up this idea of how I was gonna quit my job. You know, 16, you know, ideas are different, but my, my days were spent figuring out how do I quit this job without upsetting my mom? 

So I came up with this idea with my art teacher. His name was Mr. Alki of printing shirts after school. And, 'cause that's what he did, he, he was the art teacher. But after school he would screen print the shirts for different schools throughout our area and, uh, I would help him. And I got this idea, Hey, Mr. 

Alki, could, could we print some of my own designs because I was an artistic kid? And he said, absolutely. And I said, okay, great. So that was this idea. So the night I quit that job, you know, he, he, the, the, the owner dom it got, came down to me really hard and I just, I just quit. But when I came home to mom, I told mom, mom, I quit my job. 

I thought she was gonna be really upset with me. And, but before she could even get upset, I said, but I have a plan. I'm gonna print shirts with Mr. Alki. I'm gonna sell 'em outta my backpack. I'm gonna have my friends help me sell 'em. I had this whole thing laid out in my mind, so I, I did. It's exactly how fat clothing started. 

It was 1992. If you want to get specifically, date myself a little bit and, uh, I. I literally started that company with a $500 loan from the credit union where me and mom banked, and that was, uh, cornerstone Credit Union, to which I still bank with them today. It's funny, they gave me 500 bucks and that's what I used to buy those shirts and those hats, and I did, and I just sold them. 

Then I, my friends wanted them and I said, okay, well if you sell a dozen or if you, I don't remember what I did. If you sell six hats, I'll give you one for free. And that was my sales team. And we did this, you know, and we had a lot of fun doing this. And we started making new lines. Now because I was snowboarding and traveling around, all the snowboard contests are always sponsored, usually by either a snowboard company or a shop. 

So what I would do is at these contests, I would get chummy with the shop owners and I would say, Hey, listen, I got a clothing line. I'm wearing some of it right now. Could I. On the way back from this contest, you think we could, I could stop by the shop, show you my line, and then either do a consignment deal or you guys could buy some of my stuff and, and just support me. 

And, and that worked and they did that. So I got my stores, I, it was wholesaling, my, my, uh, clothing and all these stores. Throughout, like there's a road called the 90, it's a throughway that pretty much goes from Buffalo, New York to Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, all those places. And I, I literally had that whole thing mapped out on an atlas. 

We didn't have GPS back then, all the shops. I had 'em all circled. And I literally made a point that as I traveled, I stopped and saw one, maybe two shops, and I would try to sell them my clothing and, and it worked. So I'm 16, I have money coming in from this clothing line. Remember, the business was never started, started. 

In my idea is something I was gonna become wealthy doing. It was just to get me to my goal, which was I needed time. So I bought my time back by creating my own company.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah. Amazing. And uh, what I love about that is it is so different than, so different from, I mean, I sold lemonade. Right. But my parents really pushed me. 

Go to school, study, get good grades, go to a good college study, same thing. And, and we're not here to talk about my path today, but it ended up taking a very different turn. However, um, what I love about this is I think. So many parents miss out on, right? They miss out on teaching these lessons or, or at least exposing kids to these lessons. 

And it's because they don't understand money, right? In other words, they don't encourage their kids to go and try something and, and push and perhaps start something, even if it fails. So I, I just love that story.  

Now, let's get into, I mean, in the background here, for those of you watching on video, the BYOB. 

You, you talked a little bit about that in the beginning. You talked about my, also my old BMX bike. Oh yeah. Nice. Is that what that is? Oh, very cool. Yeah, it's a old Skyway ta. Very cool. Very cool. Um, so. You talked a little bit about the history, where it came from. Uh, you, you studied these families, these wealthy families, but for someone who is just hearing that term for the first time, or maybe has heard it but doesn't really understand it, talk to, talk to us about, like, how do you explain it? 

In a way that someone can say, oh, oh, okay, I get that.  

Chris Naugle: Yeah.  

Very simply actually, uh, it's being your own bank is, is the exact same thing every single one of your listeners is doing today. But we've gotta change one thing and add one step. So basically, in order to become your own bank and to control your money, that's all it involves. 

One change and adding one step. So let me explain how to do that. So the first thing is, is this. This doesn't work for everybody. I wanna be very clear about that. This works for people that can save money if somebody's living paycheck to paycheck, I'm sorry. This, this isn't gonna work because in order to create your own banking system, you do have to be saving money because that savings becomes your capitalization for your banking structure. 

So let, let's get into this and, and whether or not any of you have any knowledge on money, I'm gonna make this super simple because it is simple. It's just too many people try to complicate this. Let's just say, and I, and, and I know some of you're listening, some of you're watching, but let's just say every month you save $100 and I'm just gonna use a hundred dollars for simple math, okay? 

It can be any dollar amount you want, but you save a hundred dollars, okay? And right now you save that in a traditional bank account that pays you 2% interest, and that's why you chose that bank account. What we would first do in order to take control of your money because you can't control money that you give to a bank. 

'cause they're in control of it. They can lend it out without asking you permission. So don't tell me you control the money in the bank. You do not in that little checking account or savings account, account application. You gave control to them. And I know many of you are gonna say No, no, read it. I promise you you did. 

So we're gonna take that a hundred dollars you used to put into their bank, and we're gonna change where that a hundred dollars goes first. Now, I'm not gonna tell you what the actual machine is, but I'm just gonna explain what it does and then we'll circle back and I'll explain what it is. Okay? 'cause that's not important. 

And if I tell you what it is. Too many of you, your mind, 'cause this is how you all work, you'll shut your mind off and you won't listen to what I'm saying. So we're gonna put this a hundred dollars that we used to give to their bank into a place that pays you a guaranteed interest rate. And for right now, let's just call that 3.25% guaranteed and it can't ever change. 

It will pay you 3.25% this year and it will pay you 3.25 every single year until the day you die. Now, the bank might pay you 3.25 today, but when the fed comes on like they did yesterday and drops rates again, guess what happens? Your bank account, your. Pays you less 'cause it's tied to the fed rates. This place is not tied to fed rates. 

So we got a guaranteed interest rate. But hold on. This place where I put my money isn't just getting a guaranteed interest rate, it's also earning it tax free. And this place where we're putting our money is gonna pay you a dividend every year. Now that is not guaranteed, but they have never not paid a dividend since the day they opened their doors. 

And that was hun, well over 140 years ago. So now let's just go over the baselines, right? Where your money was, you got paid an interest rate, but it's not guaranteed and you don't control it where you put your money, you control it. You're paid a guaranteed interest rate plus dividends in a tax free environment, and it's protected against judgments in liens in most states. 

So are we doing better or worse right now than the traditional bank? We're doing better, right? But let's make it even, let's make it even better. When you put money in your bank, it's usually for a purpose. You're saving for something. So let's just, uh, let's just use debt. That's a major problem in this country. 

We can pick anything, but let's just start with debt. Let's just say you've racked up some debts, not intentionally, but you know, you, you planned to pay it off and you just didn't, so you owe Visa. Let's just say you owe Visa a thousand dollars, okay? And Visa is charging you 20% interest and every single month you are paying Visa back $100. 

So I'm just trying to set the, the idea you've got a Visa. That's a debt. You're paying them 20% a year in interest and it, and you're trying to pay it down by giving them a hundred dollars per month. Okay? So that's the problem we're going to solve today. Now, over here in this account that you set up, we're gonna call this your private bank where you get the guaranteed interest to dividends in a tax-free environment. 

We've saved up a thousand dollars over there, so we've capitalized our banking system with $1,000. So now we owe a thousand to Visa and we have a thousand dollars. This happens every day. I meet people every day that have debt. Let's call it a thousand bucks, but yet they have a thousand dollars sitting in a bank account, but they ha they have not connected the dots. 

This is quite simple. So what we're going to do, we're gonna take $1,000 from the place where you saved that money, and we are gonna take that a thousand dollars and we're gonna pay off Visa, right? Simple to understand. You no longer owe Visa. Okay, but now what we're going to do is we're going to take the same $100 that you used to give to Visa, which was already built into your cashflow money you were already spending, but it was money you were giving away. 

Every single month, you are going to take that $100 and you're gonna change the name on the check. It's no longer gonna be Visa, it's gonna be your name. Okay. And every month you're gonna pay that $100 back to the place where you took the money. So now folks, if you're listening or watching, I just want you to think about what we did. 

We just created a circle. Your money started on the left side of the circle. And that place that I haven't told you what it is, we moved it to the right side of the circle to solve the problem. Pay off visa. We took what you were giving visa and we then just took it around the bottom part of the circle and it ended up in the exact same place where it came from. 

So now let me unpack some of that. 'cause you all understand the circle. Here's what really happened. You put your money that $100 a month that you saved up a thousand dollars over time into a specially designed and engineered whole life insurance policy with a mutually owned life insurance company that pays dividends. 

Okay? So now that's the vehicle. Now the question is, why in the world would we ever do that? Well, you heard whole life, but you probably missed the specially designed and engineered. So we built this whole life policy very different than any life insurance you've ever seen. We built it for high cash value so that it looks a lot and feels a lot like your bank account did. 

When you put money in it, that money's immediately available the second your check clears. So when we took that a thousand dollars out to pay Visa, we didn't take a withdrawal. We took a loan from the insurance company because they allow that. So we took a loan from the insurance company's general account, so the insurance company went in and subtracted $1,000 from the death benefit that they would've paid the day you die, which I know none of you're thinking about dying tomorrow. 

Right? So you, the death benefit's great to have to protect your family, but like it's hopefully a long time away. But if I could use some of that death benefit while I'm living, that'd be great. You saved up a thousand bucks. So the insurance company will allow you to use $1,000 of the death benefit while you are living. 

'cause it's collateralized by your thousand. You saved. So the insurance company loans that money to you. Now they charge you simple interest on that. But we're earning compounding interest on the thousand dollars still. Because remember, we didn't use ours. Because if you had a thousand and we took a thousand out, how much is left in your policy? 

Well, if we didn't use your a thousand, your a thousand just was collateral. We still have $1,000 earning guaranteed interest plus dividends, which by today's numbers, and we're in 2025 right now, that is about 5.5 to 6.4%. That's what the insurance companies are paying. It's called the dividend crediting rate. 

If the insurance company charges you hypothetically, 'cause the numbers are different, each company, but 5%. If you are making six and you are paying five, are you not creating a spread? You would, right? Hypothetically, how does a bank make money? They pay you two and charge you four. They make a spread too. 

That's how banks work. So are we not doing what a bank does every single day? Ideally you're in, in hypothetically. Yes we are. So now we took the loan from the insurance company, the insurance company. 'cause I know you guys are all thinking this. The insurance company does not charge you monthly like a normal bank would on a loan. 

They charge you interest one time per year and they don't care if you ever pay the loan back 'cause they just gave you part of the death benefit early. So it's a loan that, well if you didn't pay it back, they just subtract it from what they promised to pay the day you die. But now we got a thousand dollars that we use to pay off Visa. 

Visa's gone. But because we took money from our bank, we gotta treat our money the same way we treated Visa's money. So we took the hundred dollars we used to give Visa, which was representative of 20% interest 'cause that's what they were charging. And now we repay that back to our policy as a loan repayment. 

We call it recycle and recapture. Every time you put that a hundred dollars into the policy, you have $100 to use the next day when the check clears. Plus you have the full thousand earning, uninterrupted compounding interest. And we're making a spread. But what we're now doing is we are making money twice on the same dollar. 

Now let's, let's talk through that. 'cause this is what people usually really like to hear. I already went over, you're making a spread on your money. 'cause the insurance company's paying you interest in dividends and charging you interest on the loan, but at a lower rate than what they're paying you. 

Spread. Number one, you're making money there. And, and over time, just so you know, because of how compounding works, you make more and more and more and more just by sheer mathematics. And on the other side, we paid off Visa, but we were honest bankers and we paid the a hundred dollars a month back to the policy that you were paying to Visa. 

So that's like your money earning 20%. 'cause that's what you were giving away. And if you're putting it, if you're paying it back to yourself, it's the same as recapturing 20%. You just made money twice. So if you could do that for paying off debts, what else can you do it for? Buying cars. Okay. You could use it for buying real estate, buying houses, investing in your companies. 

Lending or investing. You could do it for everything and the, the mathematics will play out the exact same way. But the nice thing, and then I'm gonna shut up, is you literally just learned how to be your own bank. You just learned how to earn uninterrupted compounding interest on your money for the rest of your life without working harder, longer, or taking on any risk. 

'cause there was no risk in what I just explained.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah. Wow. Um, a lot to unpack there.  

Uh, the first lesson, uh, because, because again, I want to bring it back to, you know, this, this is a health and fitness show, but the, I think one of the big issues, if that was. You, you broke it down very nicely and I'm, I'll, I'll share a personal story too that that's relevant to what we're talking about and what, what you teach. 

But if you're listening right now, um, just understand, like, hopefully that was more clear to you than to me. But understand there's three big areas in life, right? There's health, wealth, and relationships. And if that was way over your head, you've got some work to do in that area and. Part of the stress that you're feeling in your body, and probably what's keeping you stuck with your health can be from this area. 

Now, I don't know who's listening, so I can't say because everyone has, you know, a mixture of different stresses, but really understand that. If stress is coming from this area, there's no biohack, there's no shining red light or hopping in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber or perfect workout, or taking a supplement that's gonna make this stress go away. 

You've gotta step up and learn. So that's how I want to start, uh, with replying now. Now to go into what you're teaching, what's maybe interesting is like, that's what my dad did. He got a life insurance policy and he ended up borrowing against it. And I never understood what the hell he was doing, to be honest, but, and, and he's no no longer here. 

Uh, unfortunately, but he, um, you know, he not only set that up through right. He had a life insurance policy. I also have a life insurance policy in case anything happens to me. I don't have kids, but I have a business partner. And I'm, I would be hard to replace just like she would anyway, so that's what he did. 

However, what I wanna ask you about, one of the things that came up for me while you were talking, there needs to be a lot of trust involved because I was thinking like, I have a reference for what you're talking about, meaning my dad did it. However, it's like I put money in the bank. That's where money goes. 

Why do I think that? Because that's what my parents did. I haven't taken the time to really study all the details around banking and the financial world. So putting, I, not only do I have to take the money to do what you're talking about, Chris, and not only do I have to take the money and have, again, if you're not fully confident on this and if someone's just getting to know you, I, I, I think you can appreciate we're living in a world of, well, let's say it's hard to try, like, is this AI right now? 

Do you know what I mean? So you have to trust that putting your money into a whole life, especially designed. Whole life insurance policy is gonna be the best way to do that. And for me, again, I was thinking like someone hearing that, what are the risks involved? Versus, I know we're losing money every day. 

If you're right, inflation, your money's in the bank, in the savings account. It feels safe. But reality is, um, is that inflation is making the money. Right. Uh, I, I, I mean, you're the expert  

Chris Naugle: here. Correct. Yeah, you, you, you are inflation's a hidden tax. So in a bank account, I mean, you'd be hard pressed to find a bank account that over any period of time can beat inflation, inflation runs. 

I know we just came through almost a hyperinflation period, but if you just look at the average of 10 or 20 year, it's about 3.2 to 3.4%. That's what your money would have to earn to at least keep pace with the diminishing value of money because of inflation. Inside the policy, if all you did is put it in a policy, especially, especially designed one, your internal rate of return will probably be anywhere between three and 5% depending on what year we look at. 

So you are indeed at least pacing inflation. But I wanna be clear, like, you're never gonna get rich putting money in a whole life. Please, please don't look at, you know, putting the money in the whole life as the thing that makes you money or, or does anything special. It's not, it's just. Better than a bank account. 

Like I never glorify the, the whole life policy. It's just simply a better place than a bank account. Okay. And, and a lot of people are like, whoa, I invest in gold, or I invest in the stock market. Great. You could you not do it from the policy? Remember we just showed.  

Uh, do taking the loan to, uh, pay off debt, but could you take the loan to invest in something? 

Absolutely. You could use the money just like you do your bank account.  

So, so the negatives to this are a couple things. First off, when we create these policies, there's a negative draw on your money, typically in the first two years, and, and this varies by age and health, I assume your audience is very healthy, so we can kind of just assume you're all gonna get a good rating. 

Well, they wanna be. They wanna be, but you know, hopefully you're all gonna be able to qualify through underwriting for a good rating. But in the first two years, if you put in a hundred dollars, you will not have $100 to use. There is a cost of insurance, there's a policy service fee. You're not gonna, you're not gonna just put a hundred in and be able to take more out, because that's not how money works. 

Money has to take, it takes time for money to grow, okay? To compound, especially when you're talking guaranteed places. So for the first two years, if you've got a negative draw of, let's just call it 10 to 15%. On your money, that's bad, right?  

So there are literally, believe it or not, there are people out there that will put money into a bank account and then they will take all of that money out of the bank account. 

So it's a zero sum game. Those folks. I can't help. I just can't, I'm just being honest. Like, this system will never help you because you're, you're running a zero sum game. You're putting money in, taking it all out, putting it in, taking it all out. But that isn't, are  

Ted Ryce: you talking about people who are living month to month? 

You mean regardless of their paycheck?  

Chris Naugle: Paycheck to paycheck or just. People that save no money.  

You know, I'm just trying to, I'm just calling out the negatives. 'cause there's very few negatives, right? You could get denied for the policy 'cause you're not healthy. Uh, you, you could be that person that's living paycheck to paycheck and you, you just need access to 100% of all of your money at all times. 

'cause you're just. You have no reserves, it's just not gonna work for any of those folks. And the down other downside is the person that just for some reason thinks that, you know, having access to 100% of their money in those early years is more important than having your money working for you for the rest of your life without working hard or longer taking on any risk. 

I mean, those are the factors that play into this. So, outside of that, here's the thing, the other complicated thing, and, and I I, I kind of intentionally went into a lot of detail there because I wanted some of you to understand that. Well, there's some work there, isn't there? You know, like, I gotta keep track of that. 

I gotta do spreadsheets. I got, I don't know if I, I don't know if I could do that. And, and you even said, I, you know, you were kind of like, I hope you understood that better.  

I intentionally made that a bit confusing because back a long time ago, earlier, we were talking about me driving down the 90 to all these spots I mentioned in Atlas. 

Believe it or not, like back in the day, like that's how we got places. Triptychs from AA or atlas's or Maps, right? We had to learn how to do those and, and that was a skill that we had to develop. Now, when you become your own bank, you could do that manually. The equivalent of reading an As Atlas charting all this stuff out. 

But you know what? There was some guy or gal who was pretty smart that one day said, you know, why are we doing it this way? Why don't we just create a program technology? They literally, we just put a destination into this thing and we hit go, and it just drives us. It just directs us there. Turn right, turn left, go 1.2 miles. 

Get off on this exit, and if you just. Zone out and listen and follow those instructions. You make it to your destination in the absolute fastest amount of time. Mathematically and all is good, right? Somebody created that. It's called GPS today. We all use it. Nobody that I ever come across uses a map anymore. 

So when I talk about what I teach, the infinite banking concept, I know there's inherent risk. And the risk is not, the product is not, the concept not working. It works 100% of the time. The problem is. You folks, us humans, we are flawed. We make mistakes, we get lazy. We revert back to old ways. 'cause it's the comfort zone. 

Okay? Health is no different. You know, we might get off on a workout routine and everything's going good and we got a coach, but then all of a sudden we get off a coach, we go on a vacation, we come back, we just. Don't find our way back into that routine and things get a bit messy, and then it's a hard climb to get back to that routine. 

So what we've done as a company is we, are we, I sometimes I think we're more of a technology company.  

We have created the GPS for finance software. That's it. Software. You just put your destination, you wanna pay your debt off, great. The software mathematically shows you the absolute best way to pay it off. 

And then we literally call it a debt blast or GPS, where you just follow the instructions, do this. Then do this, then do this, then do this. No spreadsheets, no management. The software does everything I just explained for you. Oh, you don't want, don't have any debt. Great. What about cars? Let's buy a car using your own bank. 

Let's invest using your own bank. The software does it all aggregates everything. You just tell the software what you want and boom, it happens because. I've been doing this a long time, 22 years. So yes, to me this is easy. Matter of fact, I don't know anything else. So when I talk to people that don't do this, I get it. 

You are who I used to be. You're, you're confused. It's different. It's outside the norm, this whole life thing. Why whole life? If we just eliminate all that and we just say, I wanna put my money somewhere where it is 100% mathematically going to do the most for me. In any scenario of anything I want, I think we could all agree that, yeah, we all want that. 

'cause math is the one truth, okay? Math is the truth in everything. And if you just rely on mathematics, then that's, that's it. It's all you need. The software is mathematics, everything. Everything we do is mathematics. So that's all it, it, it doesn't have to be complicated, but I try to explain it so that everybody understands that's how it works. 

Wouldn't you just rather just punch in your destination? And just say habit, tell you where to go. Absolutely. So that's all we do.  

Ted Ryce: I wanna take a little bit of a different. Direction because, uh, I know if if someone's really interested in learning about you, they can find you. Um, very easy. The Money School, you, your YouTube channel, I mean Right. 

Your podcast, which I'm gonna be on really excited about that. And, um, I, I wanna. Tie this back into the why this is important because I feel like hearing all this, especially on this type of show, it could be like, oh man, like just talk to me about supplements or talk to me. I want, I want to hear like, let's go there. 

And well, uh, uh, um, if you want, we, let's see if we get there.  

But what I really want to talk about right now is here's some stories about people who ended up changing their life after, like, working with you right after. 'cause you said something interesting. This is about putting yourself in control, your money, because currently you're not. 

And not only does that require what you're talking about, using this whole different, you know, being your own bank, just to, you know, use that line and, and sum up that concept you teach, but also stepping up in. Your financial life. So what have you seen happen in terms of people's relationships, their health, their quality of life? 

Do you have some stories of people that really stood out to you that changed in a way where like, 'cause that's what this is really about, right? Um, it's the psychology of money that affects us the most. Uh, so, so do you have those  

Chris Naugle: stories? I mean, we have, you know, almost 8,000 clients, so I have too many of those stories. 

Uh, I, I guess I'll just try to just add off the top of my head. You know, Tess, Tess is somebody who's been one of our clients for a long time. I met her during COVID on a webinar, and, and she comes from my industry and she was bound and determined to prove to everybody that what I was teaching was a scam. 

Well, she never left. So I think you all know that. What she found was the opposite of what she thought she was gonna prove. But where Tess came to us is, and I'm gonna be able to, the reason I pick on Tess, and I'm not gonna give her last name, is because Tess also went through a very, very interesting health journey. 

Tess was very overweight and a lot of, uh, being overweight, you know, for her. And she'll tell the story herself. If you ever listen to my podcast or my YouTube channel. Because she was financially struggling and when she was struggling, she just, she just could not find her way. She was highly in debt. And she heard me come on and I talked about this situation and, you know, she got around the campfire, learned about it, and she started applying it in her life. 

And the first thing she tackled was she was, she was on this health journey, but the first thing she tackled was paying off debt. Now all we did is reorganized her debt and literally just changed in one thing and added one step. She was out of debt. And mathematically she was out of debt in less than half the time. 

It would've taken her if she just kept paying the debt the way she was. Now I wanna be clear the exact same dollars. She had no additional dollars when we met her to when she solved this problem. On this journey. When she saw her debt getting paid off, she got very excited. So she also got excited about life again. 

She got excited about getting back into the health side of things every single day, and I challenged her to do this. I said, I want you to challenge yourself to do something hard, but I need you to do it. Every single day. So what Tess first started doing is she started walking. It wasn't very far in the beginning, but she started walking every day. 

And she would document this every day. And she wasn't the the type of person that likes to go online. She hated like showing her face online. Um, 'cause she was unhappy with her, with her health and she was unhappy with her wealth. But she started doing this every day. Just so you know, folks, I met Tess in 2020. 

She has not stopped walking every day. She goes a long way now, but she, she has not stopped walking. She also then kept challenging herself on more and more things, challenging herself to invest in things. She never, you know, knew, like, and understood that she got to know, challenging herself to go live every single. 

So I'm not saying that Tessa's journey is a hundred percent back to what she learned from me. That would be, I'd be kidding you. But what Tess did is she realized that the debt was keeping her depressed. The debt was keeping her unhealthy mentally, which also resulted into her unhealthy physical state. 

When folks, the the two are so. Tied and I could give story after story after story.  

If you are hurting financially, if you're highly in debt, you are probably in a negative mindset, which also puts you in a negative mindset to watch you go out and do the hard things. And as we all know, and especially as you probably teach like fitness and health, those are the hard things. 

They really are until they become the easy things. I think it's important for everybody that's listening to this, changing your finances around. You view it as really hard, but I look at it and I say, it's so simple because I've been on both sides. I know what the other side looks like and I know how you get there. 

But I also know that health. In, in getting in shape is really hard. Lemme give you a quick story. I'm gonna use my example. So I've always been, you know, into athletics and, and training 'cause of snowboarding, but I did fall off the wagon a little bit as well. I got busy with work. I put on some weight. I was sitting around a buck 59, which is the heaviest I'd ever been in my life. 

I just wasn't super happy with how I looked in the mirror. It wasn't bad, but I, I had a little belly, so I just started. Every day I would go for a run and I would run, we live in a neighborhood with a, a rock quarry lake in the middle of it, and I'd run to the lake and I'd look at the lake. One day I ran around the lake and I was sweating my butt off, and I'm like, I'm gonna swim the lake. 

So I swam the lake. I fell in love. So then from that moment, every day I started swimming the lake. I'd ride my bike down there, or I'd run, I'd swim the lake. Now let me, let me tell you how this went. I'm not a swimmer. The first day I tried swimming across the lake. I thought I was gonna die. I stopped like quarter of the way in, and I had to turn around the next day. 

Maybe I made it halfway. I got scared. I turned around and a little further each time, but I was doing the hard work. Then I made it to the other side. I'm like, I did it. Now I had to make it back, so I made it back on my back, but every day I swam it got a little bit easier. The soreness wasn't quite so great. 

The next day, the, the challenge or the hard part of it became enjoyable, and I was just really focused on the enjoyment of it. I haven't stopped swimming every day. I, I don't swim the lake 'cause it's almost winter here now. So I swim the pool.  

But like, all I wanna say is that that is no different than your financial journey in the beginning. 

It's going to be hard. It's gonna feel foreign. You're gonna get scared. Just like when I swam, just like any of your workout routines in the beginning it's kind of scary, right? It's a little hard. You're super sore. Like, oh, did I tear something? But then every time you do it, it's a little bit easier. So. I meet people where they're at and people are all at different places. 

But you gotta realize, you gotta rip the bandaid off. You gotta start doing the hard work, and the faster you get, the hard work out of the way, the easier the rest of your life will be. Now, I'm not saying that money's everything. Matter of fact from somebody that's worth a lot. I will tell you money has a, a tremendous, uh, diminishing value. 

When you get to a certain point, I don't know how many millions it is, but money just isn't important anymore. It's a tool and it's doesn't make you happy. It makes you happy when you have none and you get a little bit, and then when you get a little bit more, you get happy. But there does come a point where it no longer makes you happy. 

So then at that point, what I had to start doing is I, I, and, and I did this.  

Um, I'm not gonna lie, I did this a bit on the selfish side, but I found giving. And I found giving because if I found out if I put money in a private foundation or a charitable remainder trust or any of those, I got a tax deduction for that. 

So I was paying too much in taxes and I didn't wanna pay as much. So I started doing that. But then the rule is when you put money in your private foundation, you get the donation, but then you gotta give it. So me and my wife started giving, and what we found is we found, I can't explain this folks, many of you probably know, I found a joy. 

But I'd never found anything else I ever did in giving, this is a long time ago that we started this, but I give a lot, millions and millions of dollars a year now, and people are like, well that's 'cause you have a lot. Yeah, but you know what? You know when it started, when I had nothing, it had it. You must start the hard things when you think you can't do them. 

I started giving when I had no money because I knew the ultimate universal laws. If you give, you get, I started doing that. And they started giving me back and again and again. You see, if you don't give, when you don't have, you won't give when you have. Does that make sense folks? If you don't give, when you don't have, you won't give when you have, right? 

If you don't start working out. You know when it's hard, you won't do it. When it's easy, your circumstances will never change. It's your mindset. It's all mine. Money is just a mindset, and if you think you're gonna be broke, guess what? You're gonna be broke. If you think you're in your situation, 'cause you were born into it, or because, oh, this is what my family did, that must be what I'm gonna do, welcome to the rest of your life because you are what you believe. 

It doesn't matter whether you learn how money works for me or from somebody else. Every single thing that will happen in your life starts with your belief in, in faith, in the fact that you can do it. And if you believe you can, then guess what you can and that it is. That simple. Love that.  

Ted Ryce: And, uh, just a fun story. 

I have a client who is in the best financial situation he's ever been in his life. He's in his early fifties and he never had time to get in shape and he sold his company. He's hardly works. But now he still has, he is, the guy's lost, uh, over 20 pounds with me, but he's not getting as fast a progress as we could get. 

And part of it is like he's still running the same sort of program and he was saying, man, you know, the story was always that I'd never had enough time 'cause I had to work. Now I'm not like hardly working. And it's still, you run the same program. It's a habit. It is not. About the story that you're telling yourself. 

It's as you said, uh, and that's a pretty, I mean, you know, we're, we're talking to each other for the first time today, but it's a very common story of clients who come to me and we deal with executives, entrepreneurs, high performing professionals like attorneys, doctors, et cetera. And it's very common for people to say, well, I don't have the time right now. 

It's like, no, no. You have to build that habit, and if you can't do that, you're telling yourself the situation has to be perfect for me to get in shape. But Chris, you look like you're in solid shape and certainly you've been in. Competitive shape in your life as a pro snowboarder. It's like you show up no matter what. 

That is how you get in and maintain your shape. So love that. Love that coming from a different industry, but it's the same sort of concept. It's exactly the same. Yeah.  

And, and talk to us a little bit more, like, uh, where does health fit for you right now?  

Chris Naugle: Health is everything, so let me just, I mean, I'm a very routine based human being. 

I run, I run 19 companies, lots of people working with me, so I, I don't have time, but you know what I did because I, I could, I could play that same program. That the, that other, uh, gentleman did, I could say, I have no time and, and that would be very justifiable by any account. So what I started doing is I started getting up earlier and earlier. 

First it was six, now it's five o'clock, and now it's four 20 I four 20. Don't associate that with anything. It just, I that when I'm in the west coast, okay. Which I'm often in the West Coast on business, I'm, I live in the East coast. My daughter goes to school at seven 30. So four 20 is the Pacific Coast time that I have to get up to be able to catch my daughter before she goes to school. 

And I'm telling you, there's nothing, nothing that will prevent that from happening. So that's how I built my routines. So when I get up in the morning at 5:00 AM I do the same thing. I go down and I have black coffee. Why black coffee? Well, because every day I fast, and that was hard. Okay. It's intermittent fasting. 

I stop eating around seven and I don't start eating till noon sometimes. I mean, it's now 1250 here. I haven't eaten and I'm not hungry. You know why? Because it's a habit. It's a program. I taught myself that I run every single day, so that fasting plays in. Then I go, I ride my bike, or if it's raining or freezing, I drive my car to the pool now 'cause it's too cold to swim in the lake and I swim 20 laps in a pool. 

So that's 50 yards, 20 times. I don't even know how far that is. It doesn't matter. It's just the program I run. And it's not easy, but it gets easier. Then I go back home. I get my daughter on the bus, and I go to the office. Now again, eliminating food from that whole thing. No big deal. I drink water and I drink coffee until noon, but I'm not hungry at noon anymore, so I eat. 

But normally I'm very intentional about how I eat too. I, I, I have a protein shake. I eat walnuts, pecans, and things like that. Why all of those? I don't know. I just started eating 'em. They made my body feel good, and that's why I did it. But I had some other health problems because I travel so much. I, I, I kept getting sick. 

Last year. I was chronically sick, which somebody in the shape that I'm in shouldn't be chronically sick, and we couldn't figure out why. So I started going to a different doctor. I unplugged from the regular. Doctors. Okay. In pharmaceutical bullshit, excuse my language. And I plugged into an osteopath and he ran blood tests, gut checks, all those things on me. 

And we found that my body was a mess, a, a pure mess. So I, I didn't take a bunch of medications. I went on a bunch of supplements. Each of these supplements were tied to a root problem I had, and we ran three month. Tests and every three months we'd pull the blood work and we'd see improvements in each one of those. 

And if we didn't, we'd change things and adjust them. And then I started just on my own. I read, I was reading the Bible and I was, I was just listening to fasting. There's a lot in the Bible about fasting, so I'm like, you know what? I gotta fast for this blood test. I need 24 hour fast. So I'm just gonna, I'm just not gonna eat. 

So I, I, I'm sorry, 12 hours, uh, before you got the blood work. So I'm like, I'm gonna do a three day fast. 'cause I heard somewhere, didn't do any research, but I heard that your body after a three day fast. Produces a tremendous amount of stem cells. You can call it what you will, but they're stem cells that then go and repair your body. 

And I'm like, you know what? My body aches from all the broken bones, torn ligaments from snowboarding. So I'm like, what the heck? So then I started fasting on a regular basis. I fast every day, intermittent, but then I do regular three day fast once a. And I don't do that because I like it. I do that because I know it creates stem cells, which then fixes my body and I priced out. 

If I went and I got stem cell injections in Mexico, it's a few thousand bucks. Call me cheap. I don't wanna spend a few thousand bucks if I can make those darn things in my own body. And all I gotta do is suffer a little bit for three days. But I think that suffering is actually good for us. So. When you talk about health, it's so much more to me than just going to a gym, swimming in a pool, or going for a run. 

It's an entire program. And you know what? Every single thing I just explained was super fricking hard when I started doing it, and everything that I just explained is super freaking easy. Every day. I don't even need to think about it because my body has adopted a program. It just runs it each and every. 

It is that simple, but it was that hard in the beginning.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, Chris. I think, uh, you know, hearing your story as a pro athlete, um, and then seeing you now you look quite fit. So it's like, oh, you had that moment where you got outta shape, got low belly. I also had had a moment like that in my mid thirties. 

Yeah, so really powerful. Um, I love it, man. Really appreciate this conversation.  

I know we're, uh, running outta time, but if you're, if you were inspired today by this conversation and you want to hear more about what Chris teaches, he's got the Money School podcast, you can go to his website. Chris Nagel, C-H-R-I-S-N-A-U-G-L e.com, and it's all there. 

You can, uh, find his resources, the podcast, everything is contact. Is there anywhere else, uh, you'd  

Chris Naugle: like them to go? YouTube is my favorite platform and I put a video up every day. I have 1300 videos on there and we make 'em super fun. So if any of you really wanna just kinda learn a little bit more about this or anything with wealth, 'cause that's my, my YouTube channel's, the place and it's at the Chris Noggle. 

So enjoy and.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah, and we'll have all those links on the show notes for the, for the episode here. But Chris, really appreciate your time, your wisdom, and, and to do something a little bit different today to come on a show that you know. But again, one of my goals is I'm trying to tie everything together to help people understand these parts of their life that they think are not affecting their health are. 

So thanks so much today and, uh, man, looking forward to being on your show as well. Very much. It'll be a lot of fun.