Maximizing Your Financial Potential, with Scott McCright

Most people never maximize their full financial potential. That means they don’t accumulate the assets they could, and what they do save and invest isn’t protected and gets eroded too quickly. Then they take distributions in a way that shrinks their income, and they’re always trying to outrun the fear of running out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2qIGF_hwn4 Sound too close for comfort? This doesn’t have to be you.  We’re talking with another of our stellar advisors on The Money Advantage team, Scott McCright. You’ll hear the tenured experience he’s gained in over 27 years of working with clients, and his approach as an educator, strategist, and engineer. So, if one of your goals for the NEW YEAR is a fresh start financially, where you take ownership and lock in a plan you’re CONFIDENT will maximize your potential and do the most with your money… tune in below! Table of contentsIntroducing Scott McCrightDefining Financial FreedomStrategizing for Full Financial PotentialMindset MattersOpportunity CostReach Your Financial Potential with Privatized BankingBook A Strategy Call As we usher in this New Year, it’s time to think about your finances with fresh eyes. We recommend starting by zooming out: by looking at the big picture of your finances, you can maximize your lifestyle with efficiency. That means maximizing your income, your protection, your assets, and ultimately, realizing your full financial potential. To do that, you have to know how the pieces fit together.  Today, we’re sharing with you a way to think differently.  Introducing Scott McCright Scott is a member of the team here at The Money Advantage and offers a really valuable perspective to our clients. What we’ve seen time and time again is that he treats everyone as he would treat his friends. And that is so crucial to our mission here at The Money Advantage and treating finance like a team sport. After spending time in the Navy, Scott transitioned into the financial services world in 1993. He started first in insurance, and then moved to securities, when he had a realization. He was seeing time and time again that everyone was told to do exactly the same things. The advice wasn’t tailored for the individuals, and no one was really hitting it out of the park either. How could everyone expect to have different results when they were making the same mistakes? So he joined hands with other professionals, to see if there was a better way to help people.  [7:25] “I’m a big believer in, ‘There’s not one specific product that’s going to get you where you want to go.’ It’s more in the how and the why you do things than it is the where.” Defining Financial Freedom The financial landscape has gone through many changes over the last few decades, though people can more or less agree on one thing: they are looking for financial freedom. We think one of the best places to start, as highlighted by Scott’s quote above, is figuring out your “how” and “why.”  Get clear on what you want. What does financial freedom look like to you? What will you be able to do once you reach financial freedom, that you cannot do now? There are a few things that happen here when you get really clear on your vision. The first is, you can create a plan, or a strategy. If you’re working with a team of advisors, bringing your ideas to the table can be a great asset to the process. The next thing that happens is, you create a sort of discipline, because you’ve pinpointed the future that you want for yourself. You’re motivated, rather than defeated by what you don’t have.  This combination pulls you out of the narrow view and allows you to think about your big picture finances. It’s easier to create long-term strategies to reach your full financial potential when you’re working toward specific dreams. This is the time to make sure that all the pieces and parts of your financial life are going to work together to get you there.  Strategizing for Full Financial Potential [10:03] “I think everybody always says taxes, well—taxes are a big thing... I’m a big believer in thinking, well okay, if I’m going to climb the mountain, I’ve got to have a way to get back down. People don’t plan for that, they plan on going up, but they don’t plan on coming down. And that’s where people fail.” Strategy is an important part of your financial life. From income, to taxes, to acquiring assets—you must know where you’re going. Or to pull from Steve’s analogy, you have to know how to go up the mountain and how to come back down.  It’s easy, too, to put it all on paper and know what you’ll do over the next 30 years. Except life happens over that time, and you must be flexible. Scott says: [11:09] “I always tell people, you know, life gets in the way over those next 30 years, so don’t get discouraged if the plan has to change slightly. But you do have to have goals and aspirations and some discipline to get where you want to go. And that is why working with a financial professional is like the checkup, going to the doctor all the time.” Mindset Matters [16:19] “I think one of the problems I see more than anything else is, for some reason, people are taught to live in a scarcity mindset. So they’re making decisions based on reaction.” To reach your financial potential, it’s wise not to be reactionary in your approach. Often, those reactive decisions come from a place of fear or emotion, rather than logic. You can also call this a scarcity mindset—where you live in a state of “not enough,” which affects your financial decision making accordingly. Our goal is to help foster an abundance mindset, where you look for and see opportunities to reach greater prosperity.  Operating from a state of abundance, no matter your financial circumstance, allows you to slow down and think about the best next step for prosperity. So when the stock market crashes, you’re not jumping to move money around out of fear. Instead, you can take the time to move confidently in the best possible direction. Money is not a finite pie, though it may feel like it sometimes. Especially if you’re allocating every dollar to a place on your budget. Abundance thinking is about assessing what you have and asking yourself how you can maximize the use of it so that you can create more streams of income and more assets.  Opportunity Cost [21:17] “The one thing I think people miss is that every financial decision that they have to make—whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly, annually—has a direct impact on every other decision they have to make.” You'll have to make tough calls sometimes, like buying a new refrigerator, or fixing your car, where you must pull money out from somewhere. It’s important to remember that you finance everything you buy. In Scott’s words: [22:07] “We either spend cash and lose the earning ability on that cash, or we borrow people’s money and pay them interest for the use of it.”  So how do you use this principle of financing what you buy to make better decisions? You do what the wealthy do—you don’t relinquish control of your money. One way to do that is to create your own privatized banking system, using whole life insurance. Reach Your Financial Potential with Privatized Banking [25:04] “So what does life insurance do? It gives us tax favorable places to put our money that we can tap into today for other opportunities.” Other products make you relinquish control—a 401(k), traditional IRAs, the stock market—these are all designed with as little control for the consumer as possible. If someone asked you to play Monopoly with them, but reserved the right to change the rules whenever they wished, would you play? And yet the government designs qualified plans to change in their favor.  We’re not saying that it never makes sense to have a 401(k) or an IRA. However, whole life insurance is an ideal foundation because: You’re in control of your moneyYou’re not penalized for accessing itIt offers guaranteed growth and security Whole life insurance is one of the keys we use in our own finances at The Money Advantage. That's because it creates a bridge to all other assets, and helps you to reach your full financial potential. Book A Strategy Call Do you want to coordinate your finances so that everything works together to improve your life today, accelerate time and money freedom, and leave the greatest legacy? We can help!   Book an Introductory Call with our team today https://themoneyadvantage.com/calendar/, and find out how Privatized Banking, alternative investments, or cash flow strategies can help you accomplish your goals better and faster. That being said, if you want to find out more about how Privatized Banking gives you the most safety, liquidity, and growth  … plus boosts your investment returns, and guarantees a legacy, go to https://privatizedbankingsecrets.com/freeguide to learn more.