It’s fun to backtrack a seeming coincidence and discover how an exciting connection came to be. This one is no exception, and it is all strung together with cross-links.
On February 18, 2024, Mr. John Ward, a life insurance agent in Salem, New Hampshire, reached out to me because he specializes in guiding people on the Infinite Banking Concept. In R. Nelson Nash’s famous book, “Becoming Your Own Banker“, Nash describes in detail how life insurance can become the foundation of individual and family wealth using a method called “Infinite Banking”. Its purpose is to keep family money circulating within the family instead of leaking into the commercial banking system where it pays the bankers and penalizes the family. It can also pass money down to descendants with less tendency to get consumed in the glee of a major windfall, and then be gone. It is an excellent vehicle for generational wealth.
John Ward’s Mission
John helps people see the way to stop paying interest to others, when they could be paying it to themselves. He practices the teachings of Nash’s book, and noticed his lengthy quote from my Bicentennial journalism. He reached out to me because his mission is:
“‘To help free, through love and sharing, my fellow men from the thinking that has enslaved them.’ My clients need to hear a bigger-picture story, so they can rise up and evangelize the message to those they love.”
Hearing John wanted to team up with me in that mission, I was honored and ready to help.
You see, during 1976, I wrote the Bicentennial feature series for The Freeman magazine entitled “A New Message“. The Freeman was published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), which Leonard E. Read, an adherent to the Austrian Economic school of thought, had founded. The third article in that series, entitled “On the Constitution“, provided the text quoted in Nash’s book (pages 31-32) that inspired John to connect with me.
A cross-link here is the fact that Leonard Read was a mentor to Nash who, like Ward, was a life insurance producer and involved in promoting Infinite Banking. Leonard Read was the founder of FEE and, like Nash, a student of Austrian Economics. Nash held life insurance conventions and often invited Read to speak at them. Read had authored many books and articles on Austrian Economics, including his enlightening and famous essay “I, Pencil“, which demonstrates the fundamental ideas in that economic perspective.
Two Plots Converge
Another cross-link in this “coincidence” is that my fourth son had become the friend of Susan Bond, a business strategist, and yet another licensed insurance producer. While Ethan was describing his background to her he mentioned that my brother George and I had once owned the Utah franchise for the Napoleon Hill Academy and that we knew him personally. Even though he passed before she was born, Hill’s teachings so profoundly inspired Susan, that she considered him a personal mentor. She was anxious to know more, and to shake the hands of the men that had shaken the hand of Napoleon Hill. She was grateful and honored to spend a couple of hours with George just two weeks before his passing.
A New Message
Unbeknownst to me, Ethan had also shared his copy of A New Message with Susan in another cross-link. Her reaction to Ethan upon reading it was that she “could not wait to speak with Jackson and learn about the circumstances around the writing of his phenomenal Bicentennial feature series”. John Howard, President and founder of The Rockford College Institute said that A New Message was “some of the best writing to come out of our Bicentennial” and got my permission to republish it in booklet form. Susan emphatically agreed with John.
Less than two weeks later, on the occasion of another son’s remarkable wedding on the beach at Bellows Air Force Base, on Oahu, Hawaii, we all had the opportunity to gather: Ethan, Susan, Charlet, myself, and a third son Joe, who owns and operates Nauvoo Supply. Two days after the wedding, they set up their cameras and interviewed me and my wife Charlet for six hours. The topics at hand were Napoleon Hill, his Academy, how I came to write A New Message, and my views on current politics. This gathering was the fusion of many cross-links. It was during that interview that I learned about Susan’s growing teams and their initiatives. I wanted to be part of that!
Susan Learns about Becoming Your Own Banker
Susan first heard the term “Becoming Your Own Banker” when she read my email about John Ward’s inquiry. She reached out to me and scheduled a video chat the following morning. Later that same day, Ethan asked her what she knew about the book. She had looked it up on Amazon and was amazed to find that with almost 900 reviews, it had a solid 5-star rating.
That evening, she was in a business Zoom meeting with colleagues and clients. One of the clients asked if the cash value of the life insurance product she was offering could be used for loans to himself. To which a colleague responded, “Oh sure! There’s a book on that — Becoming Your Own Banker.” Shocked by this third reference to the book in less than 16 hours, she was very anxious to meet with me the following morning and learn more.
Where is This All Headed?
Susan Bond is very busy these days with her national life insurance business and building teams for at least two other initiatives designed to support individuals’ and families’ financial and emotional needs. Save, Build, Protect is dedicated to “educating families on money”. This is an initiative to deliver accurate and timely financial guidance to individuals and families.
We believe that money-making secrets of the rich should be available to people of all incomes. From basic budgeting, to retirement planning and advanced investing, Save, Build, Protect has solutions for all. Our advanced strategies can even help people build their own banking system so that loans and business startups are funded within their family. This keeps finance charges and interest circulating at home instead of building those huge brick structures of traditional banks.
International Reach
Susan is also developing an international trauma recovery and rehabilitation initiative that will soon appear at FaceYourStorm.org. The movement will include a consortium of professionals providing effective solutions to resolve life’s challenges, reigniting people’s faith to stay positive in an increasingly negative world. This project motivated me to write a recently published blog post entitled “Face it! It’s a Storm” because proactive people win.
Being a small part of these teams is an honor. Susan is an amazing woman. Divine providence constantly hands her the resources she needs. That sounds a bit much, I know, but when you see the stream of devoted expertise that is flowing into her projects you cannot deny that it must be so. She called me today to appraise me of the latest connection in her growing network of dedicated people. I mean that seriously – these are God-loving, truth-loving, humble but earnest professionals.
My Bit
My expertise is in the principles of freedom, free will, and natural rights. Understanding these fundamentals of human life provides profound insights into success, happiness, peace, and health. They illuminate a providential lifestyle that empowers people to act rather than be acted upon. The underlying mission is to help people find emotional, spiritual, physical, and financial freedom so that hearts may continue to seek Truth, regain peace, and find confidence in the virtues of life in a very noisy and often confusing world. This will make me an ambassador for Face Your Storm, an initiative to empower people to extract themselves from addiction and emotional trauma.
It will also make me a messenger for Austrian Economics’ Infinite Banking concept that bends life insurance to the service of the family in a way that enriches them instead of the banks. Following this path, I recently passed the examinations and received my life and health insurance license. I will be writing articles for general consumption on financial topics usually reserved for the experts: opportunity cost, present value, and similar concepts. The goal here is to educate and enlighten ordinary families in the art and craft of bank-free banking.
Despite a world hell-bent on self-destruction, we can grasp a paradigm that frees and empowers us, brings peace and prosperity, and makes leaders out of victims.
