 Ladies and gentlemen, we're back here live at the prison of investment coming to you guys and girls live all the way from the beautiful City of state of Denver, Colorado via Halalulu, Hawaii if you haven't done so already Please go ahead and make sure you hit that like subscribe Comment and share button But ladies and gentlemen as you guys the girls can see the topic we have today many people hear about it all the time You know, it's that dreadful topic of retirement retirement income. How can we retire? Will social security be there I get phone calls all the time emails inquiring about hey My dad is looking to retire. My mom is looking to retire. They don't know if they can retire in this episode We're going to talk about different retirement income strategies So yourself as we age and get a little bit older people are looking to exit the workforce Even if you're an entrepreneur you still one day are looking to exit the workforce But today we have a very special guest as you guys and girls can see from D square financial group We have mr. Demetrius Johnson Demetrius Johnson is been in the financial industry for a good time here He's joining us here from Tennessee. I don't want to push today I know he's I know it's outside of Knoxville, but it's what is it a Oak Ridge, Tennessee? Oak Ridge Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Oh, oh great Tennessee is in the building today. So, you know, let's get him a little round of applause So Demetrius, thank you for tuning in today We talk what first of all tell people a little bit about yourself I didn't really get to go too much into you about your your long history into the financial industry Then we'll jump into some other other topics that people want to hear. Yeah, you know I've kind of run the gambit of the financial services industry. I started out I'm 45 years old just turned 45 just this year and I started out in the industry back right out of high school I took a very non-traditional route to financial services got my security's licenses at a very early age You know got series 6 and series 7 and series 63 and all these investment licenses You know in my 19, you know my late teens and early 20s and so I learned a lot about Mutual fund trading and stocks and what have you I've had the opportunity to work at a number of fortune 500 companies And most recently I've helped with the state treasurer with a program that just launched this year the Colorado secured savings program and so the entirety of my career my working years has been in financial services in one capacity or another and so You know with that I've launched d-squared financial group And I've attempted to take a little bit from all of the companies that I've worked for and roll them into a Product or a level of service that I can offer to the people who I feel like needed the most Which is the middle-class families and small business owners So that's really my target group right now is dealing with those guys. So, you know, what kind of brought about d-squared financial group as company so that's really what I'm doing here in Tennessee is attempting to help underserve communities by Providing them with the same level of service and financial planning skills That wealthy folks have had access to so that's really you know my mission and kind of my goal is to help people to you know relieve themselves of what I kind of perceived to be something of a Predatory financial system it can be and so there's different ways that you can set yourself up for retirement And as you know Prince, there's investments. There's life insurance. There's real estate There's a number of different ways that you can put your money to work for you I so happen to have decided to spend the second half of my career focusing on the life insurance portion of You know creating generational wealth and creating You know retirement income strategies. So You know, I've used the latest technology to help use a logic-based approach to helping people to accumulate wealth and to Hopefully transfer and create generational wealth for others Okay, now when I ask you this question here you was on the Colorado you was on the board with on the Colorado State Treasurer Yeah, young you talk about yeah savings program. Yeah, what's that about and yeah People what was you know, I know we talked about this offline and you know, Dave Young's came on to the podcast I spoke about it. Yeah a little bit as well. So I would tell us about it You know and congratulations and big kudos for doing that definitely, you know big respect for that Yeah, that Colorado secure savings program. I'm very proud to have been a part of that It's you know, somewhat of a capstone of my career in that I was able to be a part of something that is slated to create a 10 to 15 billion dollar impact to the state of Colorado and it's by doing something very You know inexpensive something that is very logic-based and just offering something to small business employees That was previously not available to them readily So, you know, the secure savings program is something that is similar to what has been rolled out in states like California and Illinois and other places and I was on the board to help determine the feasibility and do the research For the plan and so the governor took our recommendation to implement it Dave Young the treasurer was on the the chair of that board and The implementation has started here in in 2023 and so small business owners will Help to facilitate Access to traditional and Roth IRAs to their employees So these are small business employees that are normally between, you know, maybe five and fifty employees and so We have found that historically When it comes to having access to retirement plans like a 401k plan Most small business owners It's cost prohibitive for them to do that and so by offering something that is already available Which is a traditional IRA or a Roth by simply creating a portal for these small business employers to offer this to their employees will encourage them to invest and You know, we found out that, you know, it's more likely That if you set up a plan like this on an auto enrollment type of way That people will be more likely to stay with the plan So this colorado secure savings program if you work for a small business and that small business Is part of your onboarding and your enrollment says hey, you know, we're participating in the colorado secure savings program They're able to make contributions to a Roth or traditional IRA And if they leave that employer, they're part of the gig economy a lot of the gen Xers and the Gen Z people They'll hop from job to job. It's a portable plan that they can You know, take with them and so they can, you know, make maximum contributions to their Roth or their traditional IRA and Have access to that and they're auto enrolled into it and so Um, we found that people are 15 times more likely to stay enrolled in a plan if they are auto enrolled in it So if we begin with the assumption that everybody wants the plan for retirement Um, you know, that's what kind of drove that auto enrollment Functionality so they can elect out of it if they want to but it's just assumed that You do want to participate and make some contribution to your retirement now Who's managing this? I'm a small business. I have employees. I'm like, okay. That sounds like a good idea What do I go? How do I sign up? Who manages this? I is this an independent manager? Government manage. How does that work? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so the state is helping to Uh facilitate and absorb any of the costs that may be incurred by um small business owners So far as any type of administration of the of the plan, um, You know or any and any of that is being absorbed by the state This is going to be cost neutral to the state the way that we've set this up We have hired, um, you know money managers that will be managing the the funds that will be offered within the plan and You know, like I said, the the cost for the state Is neutral over the period of time You know, like I said 10 to 15 years The state of colorado will see between a 10 to 15 billion dollar savings And that comes by way of having people more properly prepared for retirement and less dependent upon government programs And so this program is more about providing access To something that you know, people may not be aware is is available to them because the fact of the matter is most time When people invest their first experience with investing is what their 401k plan It's with something that is offered through their employer And then they go on and learn more about investing and do other things potentially And so but if you work in the gig economy, you work for uber or you work for, you know, this this small business or that small business Um, they may not offer a 401k plan But we still want to make sure that they have a clear portal and a clear way to have access and and put it in front of them Okay now When someone goes in they had a small business is the small business owner are they required to offer this? Yes So by state law if you're a small business and you have between five to 50 employees You must offer your employees A file a 401k plan And not a 401k plan. It's not a 401k plan. The security plan. Yes So yes, so you must you not offering them a retirement plan what you're doing as a small business owner Is that you're helping to be kind of a you're helping to offer the secure savings program to your employees So that they have to offer it to them They the employees can opt out of it if they want to But it's something that they have to offer to the employees So But it that it's mandated that they offer it to their employees. Okay, so so don't have to do any matching or anything like that They just have to say hey Will you hire someone you must at least offer them this saving plan and inside that savings plan Is it just like a traditional Roth? Yeah, one k type plan where you have an index is things like that Yeah, it's just like a um, you know, like a it's a normal Roth IRA Account that they can open or a traditional IRA account and they can actually use this account to roll over 401k assets from previous employers So if they've got a whole bunch of 401k is kind of lingering out there from old employers They can just roll it into you know a traditional IRA And you know Do other things with it pull it all together And have those assets work for them And use it part of as part of a plan because you don't want to have your retirement assets kind of lingering out there You know, you talked to Dave young and he also is in charge of another aspect of the treasury is that unclaimed property and so And so you don't want to have your 401k assets out there just lingering it So the secure savings program is a great vehicle to roll over assets into as well now That's the most um, you know, one of the more recent things that I've been focusing on Um, and there's another component that I'm looking to um to add to that program potentially and You know being on this podcast you guys are kind of the first ones that will be aware of this. Um, but you know there is um A system that my firm has set up um And it revolves around another portion of retirement income And that has to do with you know, everybody talks about investing But life insurance is also something that can be used to help Create retirement income and that can come in the form of you know permanent policies, whether that's um whole life or or index universal life And you know, there's always conversations out there. It seems like You know as to whether you should have investments or whether you should have life insurance Well, the answer is you should have both, right? So, um, you know, when you have proper coordination of your Assets whether that's your investment assets your real estate assets your life insurance and others And I throw life insurance in there as an asset because Whole life and universal life the cash value that is accumulated within those policies While not an investment in and of themselves Is an asset and is part of an asset class and it's part of a guaranteed asset class Okay, and so and the reason that it's called a guaranteed asset class is because the cash value within life insurance Is not subject to loss Okay, and so there are there are dividends um that are paid on both index universal life and on Is this going to be something like a iul? Yeah, so my policy Yeah, so there are iul's which are index universal life policies which track various indices And then there's also whole life And so whole life is a dividend based growth whereas index universal life is index based growth within a life insurance policy And so both of these tools Can be used especially in a high interest rate environment, which we are currently in To help rapidly accumulate well um and not be subject to any of the risk of the market And so again the question is not whether you should have investments or life insurance the question is You know, how do you properly coordinate the two together to generate the best outcome? Is is my opinion of with those two things and so you have one bucket of money where You know, you're doing your investment management and your portfolio management You got your 401k and you've got you know, all these stocks or or exchange traded funds or what have you But then you also are able to take advantage of a rule And I think it's tax code 70702. I think is what it is and it has to do with Modified endowment contracts and when you overfund a permanent policy when you pay more than the premium you are Increasing the amount of money that is going into the cash portion of the policy And is accumulating dividends. You're accumulating cash more rapidly because like right now Whole life is paying about five five point seven five percent maybe six percent Which is a good dividend rate, especially considering that none of that money subject to loss and it is liquid So throughout retirement if you overfund these life insurance policies or you structure them properly It can be another pool of money that you can draw from as income in retirement There are living benefits with life insurance and you know, there's many many living benefits But for the purposes of retirement income and wealth accumulation The ways that you can take advantage of cash growth within permanent policies can help supplement your retirement and kept can help provide stability To some of the risks that is inherent with your investment portfolio So, you know the fact that you're not gonna the fact that you're not going to lose money out of in the cash And your life insurance policy and it's providing a death benefit can help Um, you know protect you against the fact that some of your investments might be out there You know in a in a situation where you could actually lose someone Okay, now I got this question asked Just thinking about this earlier you said um You want to teach people? You know Common folks About the way to wealthy invest and strategies that they use. What are some of the ways that uh, the wealthy Um invest the strategies that they use versus oh man common people Well, I'm gonna tell you and and again, I don't want to be on my soapbox about life insurance um, but so far as creating generational wealth life insurance has been around for quite some time and um You know, I work in Primarily disadvantaged communities and life insurance has not always been available to to everyone and so I want people who are You know, especially disadvantaged when it comes to the amount of time that has been allotted to them to create Well, I want to use these wealth strategies like using cash value Life insurance policies to accumulate wealth and provide stability within their retirement portfolio How to coordinate your assets How to reorganize your your finances in such a way that you maximize the outcome and that that is what The software that I have had designed and the software that I use with my clients and make available to them that's what it It helps to do I've taken the software that I used as a financial advisor And I've talked to the the developers developers of those that software and had them create something that allows me to Apply exactly what you're talking about wealth based strategies to middle-class folks Um, you know and each situation is is so different. Um, you know How does this software work break down this software? What is this work? I'll tell you there's two. There's two primary components to the software One is, you know, the debt The debt free life portion of the software which Takes a look at Someone's entire debt situation And I don't know if you've heard of the various ways of paying down debt Whether that being the snowball or the avalanche method where you pay the highest interest rate or the biggest balance or what have you So this software looks at those ways of paying down debt And allows you to toggle between the two to determine which one is best for your situation. So it does that for one two it also Helps us to Structure cash value life insurance policies in such a way that you can use the Cash that accumulates within those policies to pay down debt more rapidly Okay, we're doing something that somewhat unique in the industry. I won't say unique in the industry, but has been reserved for Wealthy folks, I would say in the past in that, you know, as you build Cash value within these life insurance policies, you can take loans against those amounts as well And you don't have to qualify for those loans And they're very flexible loans and you can you know, what they call bank on yourself Or there's a concept that's known as infinite banking And so whatever you want to call it There is definitely a way a means by which that you can free yourself from financial burdens By accumulating life Accumulating cash value within life insurance policies and while doing that also Let me show I toggle this your software essentially Take someone's debt and you know Use a functionality to show hey, which you put in all your debt and tell you which which debt to pay off first to make you debt free Did I get that right? And that's correct. And but what it also does is It takes a look at What you're already doing because sometimes when people have mortgages or they have credit card debt or what have you They might be over, you know, they might pay more than the minimum. Hopefully they're paying more And so we take a look at all of that Where they might be paying more in their mortgage where they might be paying more? You know on this bill or that bill student loans and what have you And we do an analysis Let me say well, how do we restructure the dollars that are already available? in such a way That we do the two things that I was talking about which is pay down the debt and accumulate cash So it's a and in my the way that I like to Coin the system is to debt to wealth program You kind of want to flip things around in such a way because we're such a consumer driven society that the majority of us have a negative net worth You know, everybody looks at their house as an asset but and it is There are ways that Again using our software that you can free yourself from even your mortgage Most of our clients are seeing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt taken away in You know seven years or so simply by and it's simply by reorganizing their finances because most people that own a home Have the means by which to free themselves of debt simply by reorganizing their finances And and we help them to do that Okay, so essentially It's more like a financial planning tool Taking the financial picture and telling you the best approach Yeah, get into from point a to point b Exactly and people I they tell us their goals. They say hey, you know, this is where I want to be I want to have a million dollars. I want to have two million dollars by 65 And what we're able to do is press your test our plan within the second part of our um Planning software. There's a second component to it that allows us to run what's known as a Monte Carlo scenario And a Monte Carlo scenario runs an almost infinite number of possibilities of you know, your financial plan It it pressure tests it and runs a number of different random Outcomes and it will tell you the likelihood of success of your plan So if you say I want to have five million dollars by you know 65 and it looks at your plan and it says Well, if you follow this plan You will have a 95 chance The way that we programmed it is that we want to illustrate to people a 95 chance of achieving 100 of their goals And so we're able to use logic based planning to help them do that and that includes, you know, some estate planning analysis, it includes life insurance and it also includes Investment portion of things. So yeah, it's it's an excellent platform And i'm looking forward to uh to rolling it out here in its final form I'm actually in 2024 here. So we're looking for testers. So if you're watching the show We're definitely looking for testers of the final level of the of the platform Okay, now when you're looking at this um Is it be when this when this is rolled out would it just be rolled out to financial advisors financial planners? To republic a website. How would this go? No, this is going to go out to the general public. So i'm going to i want i'm going to roll this out to my clients These people will become my clients So people who buy life insurance from me will become clients and they will have access to this platform and You know, i'm in a situation to where You know, i'll be donating as a public benefit court Between 30 and 50 percent Of the commission that our my agency gets from the sale of life insurance Back to local communities and to focus on financial literacy and education. So, you know, we're paid by i'm paid by the insurance carriers i'm not paid by my clients and so When i sell life insurance when they pay me a commission and they pay my agents commissions We're gonna we're taking those amounts and putting them back into the communities that we serve that we serve And that's part of our commitment as a public benefit court Now is a public benefit court So that's what that is since you have one Yeah, you know people, you know, what is the public benefit court? Man, we are we want a profit. We're not a nonprofit. You know, we are cooperative cooperatively owned and we Are we want to make money? It's just a matter of what we're gonna do with that money We're kind of do-gooders. I guess you would say that and so, you know, we want to focus on reinvesting in the community and Helping people and educating them on how to get out of this, you know, financial debt trap That we are in a lot of ways born into if you're a middle-class person in a lot of ways you are born into debt You may be unaware of it, but You know, it's very difficult for most folks to get out out of that trap and so I've advocated for Getting rid of predatory payday loans and being an advocate for that and an agent against that and so You know Rolling out this platform is kind of doing the exact opposite of being a payday lender I want to help people get out of the debt trap and help them to get into A better financial situation and be financially free Okay, now a public benefit corp Um, why not just be a regular let's say llc or s corp c corp Well, I wanted to be public. Is there any benefits to get a public benefit corp? Um, you know for us it's more More of a statement of our mission than anything else. Um, you know as a as a public benefit corp You know, we operate as a as a conglomerate of sorts in that It's not just me in d squared financial group. Yes, I have a life insurance agency But I also work with estate planning attorneys real estate agents And other folks who are like minded We just have a holistic approach to financial planning and helping our clients and so The d squared financial group itself is is a group of specialized very diverse financial professionals and so Um, you know, that's kind of who we are as a public benefit court Okay Now If people want to follow you Get more from you hear more from you. What do you want to leave the audience out there? Um, let's catch this live that I catch the playback. Um, what do you want to say to the audience out there today? And also, what do you want to? um How can people find and get more and get more contact with you? Yeah, yeah, so just search up d squared financial group And um, you know, I've tried to make myself very reachable. Um, just go out there on google Hopefully my seo my search engine optimization is working But look up d squared financial group. Um, or just look me up. Uh, demetrius raiden johnson I think there's another demetrius johnson out there, but he's a mma fighter and I he looks better than I do but I don't do a lot of fighting Okay Okay, so that's how people can is anything else that you want to uh, leave it Yeah, I you know, I just want people to you know I do a lot of advocacy in the black community And so I talk to a lot of african-american folks and I talk a lot about financial freedom And in a capitalist society The only way to truly be free is to be financially free And so I want people when they think about life insurance I want people to get excited about life insurance And when people declare that their life matters I want them to put pen to paper when they say that and ensure the thing that they say that matters And so, you know, I don't want um folks in the black community to Um discount their lives by under ensuring themselves I want to help them and help us and those people That you know, again, we're previously maybe not able to buy life insurance take full advantage Okay Well to be sure definitely thank you for stopping by Um, definitely thank you for stopping by today Um, definitely was uh good to have you on and we definitely got a check back in with you again. Okay Oh, yeah, well, I'm definitely available. I love to further the conversation. It's been great talking to you And uh, you have a good one All right, ladies and gentlemen into the next video podcast cartoon or whatever else crazy you see me do around the globe This is the prince of investing. My name is prince dakes. Peace. Be safe. I'm out and thank you