Interview with Canvas Rebel Magazine
https://canvasrebel.com/meet-mike-and-katie-bargetto/
We recently connected with Mike and Katie Bargetto and have shared our conversation below.
Mike and Katie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
When it comes to financial planning, we do and teach the exact opposite of the industry standard. Typical financial advice in America goes something like this… go to college (even if it means racking up tons of student loan debt), get a high paying W2 job, climb the corporate ladder, pay down your house early, and save as much as you can in a 401(k); all so that one day you can retire and live life on your terms. The problem is this path is focused on deferring your dollars, time, and freedom to an unknown future date. We give up time freedom during our best years when we are young, healthy, and with kids at home. We tie up our capital inside “untouchable” retirement accounts that can’t be accessed for years, we subject the majority of our wealth to market volatility, and we give up control of our dollars to financial advisors we likely don’t even know. Furthermore, America’s retirement system is broken.
We teach the opposite of this financial path. We teach people to create their own family banks so they always have access and control of their capital. We teach people to ensure they are always paying the lowest tax possible. And we teach people to build multiple revenue streams rather than always relying on a single source of income.
Why do we teach this? Because typical financial advice is not setting people up for success now, or in retirement. And here’s the secret. The wealthy don’t follow the typical financial path. They implement financial tools and strategies that society doesn’t teach. They implement the tools and strategies that accelerate their path to freedom and prosperity so they can live life on their terms and no longer be slaves to their employer, paycheck, or even the stock market.
When we personally implemented this uncommon financial path, our entire trajectory shifted and in a few short years we made our first million, left our corporate jobs, and gained full control of how we spend our time. Understanding how money works and where to store and invest it can change everything for you and your family.
This is what led us to create Axiom Wealth Solutions. We completely veered off the typical financial path, and it did wonders for our lives. We wanted to share this message and proven strategy with others to help accelerate their path to financial freedom.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
In short, we provide a better path to financial planning. We help clients accelerate their path to financial freedom so that they can build and live the life of their dreams.
Typical financial advice is robbing people of their most sacred resource….their time. Ultimately, what most people want is more control of how they spend their time. They wish they could wake up each day and have the ability to choose how much time they dedicate to their family, which projects to work on, and how to spend their time in the most fulfilling way. Instead, most people are forced to work extra hours in a job they may not particularly love, just to prove their dedication in order to reach the next promotion or salary bump. Ultimately, most people are stuck in the rat race for decades, only to find out in retirement that even then they aren’t able to live the life they had envisioned. We solve that problem by accelerating their path to financial freedom so they can reach it in less than a decade.
At Axiom Wealth, we take clients through The Millionaire Model. A proven 3-step process to accelerate their path to financial freedom.
Step 1 of The Millionaire Model is to create your own family bank. Typical financial advice tells you to store money in accounts that keep capital tied up and segregated into various ‘buckets’ (i.e. a 401k, 529 college saving plans, checking and saving account, etc.). This advice creates inefficiencies in a financial economy since each ‘bucket’ typically has a single purpose (i.e. build a net worth for retirement, fund a child’s college, maintain a rainy day fund, etc.). However, many who are wealthy store their cash so that it is optimally positioned; positioned for them to take advantage of opportunities. They ultimately create their own banks using overfunded Whole Life insurance. It is a tool the wealthy have been using for over a century. When designed properly, Whole Life insurance provides instant liquidity, guaranteed growth, protection for your family, and a legacy that can last for generations. This tool allows you to consolidate your funds and then take advantage of investments, such as real estate, while ensuring all your wealth isn’t subject to the volatility of the stock market. This is why individuals like the Rockefellers, Ray Kroc, Walt Disney, and Robert Kiosayki all store(d) their wealth in Whole Life insurance policies.
Step 2 of the Millionaire Model is to pay the lowest tax possible. Typical financial advice tells us to pay what is owed. The more money you make, the more you will owe in taxes. For many, tax payments are their biggest household expense, yet so few people think twice about ways of decreasing their taxes. The wealthy have learned how to pay less or even no taxes. Yes, this is possible, legal, and sensible. The wealthy do this by owning real estate, operating businesses, and also utilizing the tax benefits within their Whole Life policies. Finding a solid CPA who will work with you to decrease this tax burden is key. Not all CPA’s are created equally and many aren’t actual tax strategists. At Axiom, we connect our clients with a tax strategist who will help ensure they are paying the lowest tax possible.
Step 3 of the Millionaire Model is to build multiple revenue streams. Typical financial advice tells us to go to college in order to get a high paying job and just focus on promoting your way up the corporate ladder. This path forces us to constantly trade our time for money and provides only a single source of income. The wealthy don’t rely on a single source of income; they generate multiple revenue streams early and often. Examples of multiple revenue streams can include: real estate rentals, syndications, business ownership, side hustles, and private money lending just to name a few. Additionally, many revenue streams can be passive in nature and continue to produce cash flow in perpetuity. Case in point would be a portfolio of real estate rentals. After a real estate acquisition, cash flow can continue for as long as you own the asset. When compared to a typical job, the moment you stop working, the income stream also stops.
This proven 3-step process allows you to stop deferring your money, time and freedom to an unknown future date; and allows you to live your best life today.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
We had to personally unlearn the lesson that many of our clients have to unlearn….that the typical path of financial advice will not get them to their best life now or in the future.
We used to be in the same situation as many new clients who come to us- feeling frustrated with our current financial plan. We were doing everything ‘right’ (i.e. climbing the corporate ladder, maxing out a 401k, paying down our house, etc.), but we began realizing there was a likelihood we’d have to work into our seventies in order to achieve a comfortable retirement. Once we personally implemented the financial tools and strategies we teach in our Millionaire Model, we drastically accelerated our path to financial freedom. In just five years we put ourselves in a place that would normally take someone 40 years with traditional financial advice. Today, we are passionate about showing others this path so that more people can build and live the most abundant life possible.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
The absolute best source of clients for us has been word of mouth. Our favorite clients are the ones who come to us through past clients. These are the most fun clients to work with because we share a mutual connection. We help foster word of mouth advertising by staying genuinely engaged and connected with all our clients. We check in with phone calls and texts, wish them happy birthday, and continue to be available for questions and guidance at any point in the future.
See the full article here: https://canvasrebel.com/meet-mike-and-katie-bargetto/
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