Certainty: Your Most Powerful Investment
Why Financial Security, Not Risk, is the Real Driver of Growth
TL;DR
Conventional financial wisdom emphasizes risk-taking as necessary for high returns, but this ignores the true definition of risk—potential loss. Genuine financial growth requires certainty through guarantees, liquidity, and control.
Typical strategies like maxing out 401(k)s lack real certainty and lock money away for decades, often forcing people into debt when they need access to it. Whether you're a W2 employee or business owner, creating a guaranteed financial foundation provides stability and strategic advantage, enabling true financial freedom and opportunity.
Certainty is the Backbone of Financial Growth
The typical financial planning advice that's handed out focuses almost exclusively on risk, promoting the idea that you must “take high risk to get high returns.” This mindset is pervasive, especially among younger generations, but in reality, there’s zero correlation between high risk and high return. In fact, “risk,” by definition, is the probability of loss—not gain.
This conventional advice often uses “newspeak”-type language, like needing "exposure to the stock market," in a way that frames “exposure” as a positive and subtly encourages people to overlook the true nature of risk. But, as I learned early in my sales career, "hope is not a strategy," and it shouldn't be your financial strategy either.
Why Certainty Matters
Having financial certainty means creating a stable foundation that lets you accelerate your growth confidently without betting your entire future. This certainty gives you room to fail without disastrous consequences and allows you to smooth out life's inevitable bumps.
Consider what typically happens when you prioritize putting your money into locked-up accounts like a 401(k) or IRA. Sure, you're saving, but because your funds aren’t accessible, when unexpected expenses (or opportunities!) arise, you're forced into debt—credit cards, car loans, home loans—and pay interest to financial institutions instead of earning it yourself.
When you have liquid assets under your control, you gain a "permission slip" to take calculated risks elsewhere without jeopardizing everything. Certainty, guarantees, liquidity, and control form the essential foundation for genuine financial growth and security.
The Problem with Typical Retirement Plans
For most people, the financial journey begins right after college, where the advice is clear: max out your qualified retirement plans like the 401(k). But these "plans" lack certainty on multiple fronts. You don't know how much you'll end up with, what it'll be worth when you need it, how long it will last, or what the tax rate will be when it's time to use it. Ironically, this approach defers taxes today—when they're historically low—to an unknown future, potentially at higher rates.
What exactly is it about “retirement planning” that is a plan at all?
Risk Isn't Just Market Volatility
Most financial advisors' risk assessments are one-dimensional and focus only on risk vs. expected return. Yet the real risks are the unknown variables: future tax rates, actual retirement costs, future income needs, and longevity. Ignoring these unknowns is a massive gamble.
Tech Employees: Double the Risk
I spent two decades in Silicon Valley and witnessed firsthand the risks tech employees unknowingly take. Young tech professionals are often told they can "afford" to take significant investment risks. Fueled by fear of missing out, they lock their money away in speculative investments or retirement accounts, often neglecting basic liquidity and savings.
Additionally, tech employees often gamble heavily on stock options or equity compensation, hoping for a big payday from a liquidity event like an IPO or acquisition. But the reality is that most startups don't achieve massive payouts. Even worse, during downturns, tech employees are usually the first to be laid off, compounding their financial vulnerability.
Business Owners: All Eggs in One Basket
Business owners also tend to underestimate their financial risks. While business investment can offer high returns, successful entrepreneurs frequently reinvest every dollar back into their enterprise. As a result, their business becomes their sole retirement plan, liquidity source, and financial safety net. Yet relying on the sale of an illiquid asset like a business is inherently risky, subject to timing, market conditions, health, and personal circumstances.
To manage this, business owners need liquidity outside their business to make strategic, not desperate, decisions. A strong personal balance sheet, independent of the business, allows owners to seize opportunities and handle setbacks effectively.
It’s About Growth, Too
Many people don’t want to take certainty seriously because the conversation about protection is, frankly, boring.
But it’s not just about protecting yourself. It’s every bit as much about growth, too.
Something not many regular folks like you and me are taught is that when you have control over high-quality assets (meaning assets with little-to-no risk), you can create multiple rates of return off of every dollar.
If you’ve ever had a mortgage, you've seen this in action. After closing on your house, you may have received a letter six months later letting you know that another financial institution now owns your mortgage. While you pay twice for your house (once for the home and a second time for the interest you pay for the loan), the bank earns twice. Once for the loan and again when they sell the loan. This is the power of high-quality “paper.”
The 401(k) investor can only hope his money gets a “high” rate of return. The certainty investor creates multiple rates of return with control and guarantees.
An Answer: Infinite Banking & Whole Life Insurance
Certainty means control over your money—assets you can access when needed without compromising future growth. Traditional methods fail this test, as evidenced by a recent Federal Reserve study: only 10% of retirees had over a million dollars saved. That million isn't even enough, considering inflation and longevity risks.
This shortfall happens because locked-away funds frequently get raided for emergencies or opportunities (or even opportunities), stunting growth and compounding financial insecurity.
The Infinite Banking Concept (IBC) addresses these problems head-on by using dividend-paying whole life insurance as a guaranteed asset class. Whole life policies provide guaranteed growth, liquidity via policy loans, and uninterrupted compound growth, even when the money is used via policy loans.
Infinite Banking allows you full control, enabling you to take advantage of change rather than react to it. When you have cash, opportunities find their way to you, providing a true foundation for sustainable financial growth.
Certainty isn't just security—it's the essential foundation for accelerated financial success.
StackedLife Podcast
Episode 12: The Math on Whole Life Insurance Returns
In this myth-busting episode, I'll translate the complex math behind whole life insurance returns into language everyone can understand.
Using real numbers and my favorite financial calculator, I'll show you why comparing whole life insurance to other investments without accounting for taxes, fees, and death benefits is like comparing apples to oranges—and why this misunderstood financial tool might deserve a second look in your wealth-building strategy.
I’m John Perrings, an Authorized Infinite Banking Practitioner and founder of StackedLife. Instead of taking high risk to get a high return, we help our clients implement strategies that create multiple safe returns with the same money repeatedly. It’s geometric compounding that we call Stacked Interest Acceleration, and IBC is the first step.
I’ve implemented IBC for hundreds of clients and educated thousands more via my podcast, articles, and courses at StackedLife.com.
Want to work with me? Schedule a free consultation here.