Transforming your financial life starts with clarity, faith, and the courage to make intentional decisions. In this episode, Wade Reed sits down with longtime client and entrepreneur Josh Mason to explore how faith and intentionality shaped his financial life. Josh shares how gaining clarity in his finances not only provided peace but also aligned his resources with his faith and purpose. From implementing systems to leveraging whole life insurance, Josh reveals the strategies that helped him build a financial life centered on service to his family, business, and community. Tune in for practical insights on combining faith, finances, and vision to create a lasting legacy.
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Aligning Faith And Finances: Building A Meaningful Financial Life
I have something very special for you. I have with me Josh Mason, who has been a client of mine since 2017. We crossed the seven-year mark since we first met and started working together. Josh, welcome.
Thank you for having me.
I’m curious, and I’m sure the audience reading is super curious about what your experience has been like over these years, how it’s played out long term because oftentimes you hear a strategy and you might not know somebody who’s doing it and thereby doesn’t have the context to what the real world ramifications are of doing certain things. That’s what I’m trying to get to the reader’s case study like real-life experience. Kick us off with a little bit of your background, your family life, your business, the things that we are, you were struggling with as you opened up the relationship.
The Power Of Faith And Stewardship In Business
I’m a chiropractor. It is the sole thing that I do, but I am an entrepreneur at heart. On top of being a chiropractor and owning a chiropractic office, we own a gym and a t-shirt printing business. I own some real estate, and my wife does some things outside of the family as well. We are very entrepreneur-minded, but with that success, I was confident that I was doing things efficiently or I had gaps in what we were doing or I didn’t want to have some success but then wasted on bad investments. When you start to make a little money, you start to get worried about whether I am paying too much in taxes or not.
Even though I felt I knew math and I knew numbers well, I had done some work with the financial guru who encourages you to pay off debt as quickly as possible, and that is the worst thing in the world. I knew there had to be a little bit more. That’s what initially started me looking to gain some confidence and into great stability and to know what my money was doing and make sure I was doing the right thing.
You wanted me to share more about my family too. I have been married 22 years, high school sweethearts. We have 4 kids ranging from ages of nearly 21 down to 13, and it’s been interesting to see them go through this process and I try to instill some of the principles. That’s the biggest thing that you started there. There are the principles that we learned through this process, so that’s a little bit more about me.
You are also a faithful man. You’ve got a strong belief that guides your decision-making in life. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that and how that’s applied to your financial and business life?
We were initially exposed to financial things through Dave Ramsey’s course, and our church was doing that, and we learned a lot there. What’s important to us is we know that we at least feel like we have been blessed, whether it’s, what we have been blessed with the craft that we do, the business that we are able to obtain and do, or the blessing of being able to employ the people and bless their families. The people that we interact with every day, whether it’s in our chiropractic practice in the gym or customers we serve. We see it all as an act of God and trying to shine the light of Jesus, for everyone, and so we know that and we feel that it is important for us to use our blessings.
Those blessings could be those gifts that we were given, but then also the financial resources that we obtain to be able to use those as blessings to support organizations or initiatives or groups that may need that financial support. It was important for us. We do believe in giving. To be able to give, we had to have our financial house in order so that we could do so. It was important for us to be able to get a grasp and get our confidence around the blessings we were receiving so we could utilize them the best for the Lord as well.
Is Debt A Tool Or Trap?
That’s amazing. The faithful approach to life. I don’t know if you remember this, but my early mentoring was under Dave Ramsey. I studied under him as a virtual mentor from 2005 to about 2008 and facilitated his classes. I had been through his training to become a certified counselor. I knew his stuff inside and out. There are some things about debt that are taught that train us to think that debt is wrong and bad, and I did an episode I released on this topic that I’m not a big believer in Something didn’t connect with me about how harsh the language was around debt.
What I have learned in my belief over the years. Even before working with you, I was working that system and we had paid off our first house, and it was interesting working with you. Irrational debt or debt that you are not in control of, or if you are overextending yourself, those debts can be bad, but when it’s part of a plan and part of a system and you are utilizing it as the tool that it is the partnership that it is this partnership between you and potentially the bank or whoever’s providing you the financing to get this project or this initiative done can be a great tool. You have got to use it in the right way and have a plan of attack.
Financial Clarity And Peace: The Keys To Serving Others
All of you who are reading who are dealing with debt, if it’s consumer debt, that’s a completely different thing than asset-backed debt or even education debt that gives you knowledge and skills that you can apply to a higher earning ability in your lives. Those are legitimate reasons to utilize it. What I also want to talk about with the faith side of this is the giving, when we first met in 2017, you had stated in some of your original objectives that you wanted to find the confidence, get your financial life organized, get some systems in play that were nearly automated so you could live with what you called sole purpose.
You wrote the word SOLE as if it’s your only single purpose. We talked about SOUL purpose. They are pretty closely aligned, though. When we are on a mission in life, when we are clear on who we are as individuals, our relationship that we have with God generally turns into wanting to serve others. There’s nobody I have met who after getting some of the basics of their life handled, doesn’t want to do something good for the world and give back. How did getting your financial life in order help you give more and better in your life?
It takes off the pressure. Much like Jesus takes the pressure off of life because of grace and forgiveness. When you have your financial house in order and it’s no longer a stress because you know you have a plan and you have faith in that plan, and you have faith in the system, it frees you as a person. Your energy, what you are able to do, and what you are able to accomplish in the day can all be focused on what those blessings are and what those gifts are to be able to share with others, rather than trying to worry about the other aspects. It created peace, and that peace is susceptible to serving our employees, our customers, serve our patients. Having that in order created that peace to make that possible.
Peace is a big deal. I find they are very closely tied together. Peace and confidence come with having clarity in our lives, whether it’s our personal financial life, our relationship with our spouse, a relationship with a business that we are dealing with, a partnership, whatever it is. When we gain clarity, there’s confidence that comes. Action can be taken, decisions can be made that might otherwise be challenged because there’s not enough information. There were some gaps in your financial life that we recognized when we first started working together. Some of these were obvious, some were not so obvious. Talk to me about what those gaps were that you identified.
Whole Life Insurance: An Asset For Today And The Future
The biggest thing is that we wanted to address taxes. That was oddly enough the easier part of getting good bookkeeping in place, getting the systems around the bookkeeping, but then also taking advantage of different tax codes that might be available. This freed us up. Then we started thinking about a succession plan for us and our children, and what that would look like, making sure that we had the appropriate corporate structures in place, potential trusts, and what trusts own what and what corporation or is what corporation. Being able to go through that process and make sure that we have that and have the liability of that handled, and then review the insurance components, whether it’s personal liability and insurance, our malpractice insurance, our business insurance, our car insurance reviewing, like making sure we weren’t getting a cheap policy that was a policy that had the things that we wanted.
Having an umbrella policy over there that creates a lot of confidence that you are covered. It takes away the stress of the “what if” because we are covered. One of the largest components for me to grasp and get over was a whole life policy. Coming from being trained by Dave Ramsey the whole life plan is the worst thing ever that you can ever do, but like, it is one of those things with the overfunding component of it that you frequently talk about and we learned by working with you. It is the only asset that I have that cannot go away ever. It’s the only asset that I have been able to use as a true asset. The only cash I have been able to use as an asset, versus cash in a bank.
Dave Ramsey says always, buy terms and invest the difference. My 401(k) plan, my retirement plan, my investment plan, those stocks, whatever they are, cannot be used as an asset the way I have been able to use the cash inside of my whole life policy. I have been able to use it as a down payment or the collateral of it as a down payment on two real estate properties that I could have never used that cash value towards anything else.
That was a thing that I had that faith in. We built a relationship with it and I still didn’t see it. I feel like I’m throwing money away. I don’t see it, and then sure enough, 4, 5, 6, or 8 years later, I have this policy that I have been able to use, and again, I purchased two great real estate properties, some that are creating great cash flow with no money down because I had this policy that is not only good for when I was to die, but how I can use it right now. That’s probably a neat thing.
That’s one of the lesser-known strategies because when you talk about protection, all those things, the personal liability protection, what we call human life protection, health insurance, a disability insurance policy if you become sick or injured, a life insurance policy, all of those feel like expenses and we are trained to think of them as expenses and we don’t like to pay for things. We want what it has to offer. If money were not a part of the equation, we would all want the maximum protections available to us. Those “what if” scenarios are handled, but we don’t necessarily want to pay for it until we understand it. Whole life is one of those assets.
As a life insurance agent from 2009 to about 2014, I didn’t fully grasp the value of a whole life insurance policy until I was in training for three days in Texas, and we looked at whole life as an asset, the only insurance product that is an asset where everything else is an expense. I started to see the light of the value of storing cash safely versus at risk in the stock market. I used to see it as an either/or scenario, but the reality is we need both.
We need things that can achieve growth in businesses, real estate, stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, and all those things that have some growth. That’s what we call asymmetrical. Like you can have exponential or steep growth. In our economy, we are seeing that happen in the stock market. A lot of the tech stocks Tesla and Nvidia, AI things are starting to explode in value. If you happen to be there, you are going to be able to take advantage of those. Whole life, on the other hand, will never do that. It will never explode in value. It will have a steady climb, and that brings certainty.
That creates that foundation so that you feel more comfortable. It allows you and affords you the comfort of going after the Nvidia stock because you know you have your base taken care of. It gives you confidence.
The Hierarchy Of Wealth: Balancing Risk And Control In Your Investments
You’re speaking my language, and we haven’t talked for years. The foundational things we do give us the confidence to go do the other things. I often share this in my current coaching life I’m not sure if you’ve come across this yet but I talk about a hierarchy of wealth, an equilateral triangle with four tiers, and they get narrower as you go up top. The wide base of cash and cash equivalents is not an investment tier. It’s a place where we store cash to give us the right to make investments in things we own and control, like real estate and businesses, or our skillset to become more valuable to our employers. That’s tier two. That creates the majority of our cash flow. Tier three is other people’s investments.
If you want to invest in a multi-family real estate deal, you can’t do that on your own. That’s $20 million you’ve got to come up with. You are only going to be an investor, but you’ve got confidence knowing you’ve got backup in case something happens, and you’ve got cash you can send to it, and then hopefully it comes back but tiers 3 and 4 are hopeful returns, where tier 2 is where you have all the control.
You guys reading may or may not be business owners. If you are not a business owner, I often teach this phrase, “You need to work harder on yourself than you do on your job.” You are not there to get a paycheck. You are there to add value to an organization that then pays you for that value. If you can find a way to be more valuable, you are going to have a higher income. That’s like the number one asset. Would you agree with that?
I’ve got a son who’s twenty years old, and he elected not to go to college. He’s doing a trade, he’s doing the heating and cooling trade. He is in an apprentice program. He doesn’t live with me, but he’ll come home for the weekend, and he’ll tell me about how horrible the workday was, how dumb his boss is, and how he’s underpaid, but he has a goal of owning his own business someday.
We get to talk through those conversations, and I talk about, “What can you do to generate more income for the business?” If you generate more income for the business, they will recognize that see that and reward you for that. Let’s play devil’s advocate. Maybe you do that, generate income for the business, but you are going to service the customer wonderfully, and you are going to learn how to do that so someday you can do that as well for yourself if it’s your own business. It’s been a great lesson to learn, and even in my business, when I talk to the employees, that’s where we have conversations. How can we add value to the customers, to the patients, or the business? If we can do those things, everyone wins, and there’s a way for everyone to win. Creating value is huge.
A great example of your son. Part of the reason why I’m doing this show is legacy for my kids, who are starting to come of age, like your son is, and starting to step into life. One of the real success principles that will bring financial resources which once we have covered our bases, there’s no more happiness that comes with money. Statistically, all the research says somewhere between $75,000 and $85,000 a year is about all it takes to meet our basic living expenses in the United States and feel happy. After that, there’s no additional emotional value to money. What is it that we do when we have surplus money?
I’m going to hark back to Dave Ramsey because one of the principles I loved about his teachings, is a biblical teaching of stewardship. All that this earth is raw materials that God’s given us, and we have the responsibility to take the raw materials and turn them into something useful. All that we have is not ours, according to my belief, and your belief. If it’s not ours, we need to take responsibility for it. Talk to me about stewardship for a minute. How do you view that aspect of money as it comes in a greater quantity than is needed for your day-to-day living?
Stewardship And Service: The Freedom Of Financial Order
I feel a sense of responsibility when it comes to the blessings that we receive, and you mentioned everything on earth is a resource, including us. We are a resource to God to serve others and to be a blessing to others as well. It’s important for me to have the appropriate channels in place so that we can utilize the funds and the resources that we are given to serve the best we can.
Everything on earth is a resource, including us. We are a resource to God to serve others and be a blessing to others as well.
We want to be able to give in a smart way that protects us but also like being so free. Once we have covered our bases and then we work on ourselves and see, I have experienced the more I serve and the more we give, the more that comes back as well, and it does come back potentially financially, but it for sure comes back in energy and blessings of Thanksgiving. It has been a wonderful thing to see as we have been able to give more and be better stewards. Blessings are infinite. They are not finite. It isn’t like there’s a limited piece or a limited size of the pie. I’m not going to give away too much because it circulates and comes back.
It’s interesting to recognize that there is a cycle. I’m still learning that I can’t outgive God. Anytime I feel like I am doing something that feels like a bit of a stretch when I’m giving for my tithe to my church or some money to a friend who’s in need or a charitable organization outside of my normal giving, it seems like it always comes back in greater quantity.
A quick example is as a family, adopting a family for Christmas. We went as a family and purchased presents for an entire family. Maybe not everyone is able to do that, but you are able to do some level of that. Most of the people reading this show can do some level of that, and it feels so good to be able to use the blessings you’ve been given to share with someone else. To think that this entire family of six kids is going to be able to wake up and know that there’s a God out there that loves them enough to be able to have someone create a special day for them. It’s rewarding to be able to do those things.
To me, the greatest experience of life is to be able to take some of the surplus and share it with somebody else. There’s nothing better. You also mentioned freedom. It seems to have a sense of freedom as you’ve been organized and you are using your resources wisely. How is having a sense of freedom, because a lot of people think, “I want to be financially free,” and what that means to them generally is, “I can do anything I want, whenever I want, with whomever I want.” They think it has to be money that is all passive income. There’s this holy grail of being a business owner and having real estate as a passive income source. This is a practical show. I’m curious how you view financial freedom.
The greatest experience of life is to be able to take some of the surplus and share it with somebody else.
A goal that I’m working towards is that my passive income would exceed my active income, but having things in order and having systems of the basis is taking care of when flows of money are coming in and you have a system of moving from your emergency fund to your opportunity fund. When you have your opportunity fund, you can start to make little investments into things that are cash flow, which then replenishes and circulates back into those other funds.
Having that confidence that it’s starting to roll in and it does take some time. The patience first faith, you have faith that it’s going to work. As I mentioned, the faith of having that whole life policy is that it’s going to work, but then the confidence comes when you start to see it happen, and we start to see those accounts grow, and then you can move into the next one.
The freedom of having that and having the systems in place allows you to do what you do best, to go to your purpose, to go to your thing that you are the best at and perform better at that potentially could then generate more income to fill those things even more. That’s the freedom for me is that when I go to see a patient, I’m not thinking about how much this patient is worth anymore. I want to serve them and the rest can take care of itself.
Early in my career, I was thinking, “I need ten more patients this week so I can make payroll,” or whatever it is. Having the systems in place allows freedom and you become a better person at what you are doing. I was a better doctor because I wasn’t worried about that anymore. I was able to serve better, so that’s the freedom I believe when you get things in place you can be yourself much better because you are not worried about those other things.
What I’m hearing in that is the order of your financial life and checking a lot of those boxes of the protections that free up the what-if scenarios in your mind. It seems to me that it has allowed you to then use that freed-up mental space to focus more on the service side of your role as a business owner and as a doctor. Am I getting that right?
Yes. When you are not worried about those things, your mental space in your emotional space is so much better so that you can go whatever your trade is, you can serve much better.
That is a cycle that I consistently see as I work with clients, and I have been at this for several years now and so observed a lot of different circumstances and these principles. This is a principle. When you get your life in order, the what-if scenarios in your mind are diminished and now you can focus on things that are more interesting like creative endeavors, value-add endeavors, being more available in your community to do the service things you might want to do if you feel like you have to give in your heart and your life.
You don’t have to be a firm believer in the way we are to still have that sense of wanting to give back and go help the homeless and your neighbor who needs their leaves raked. There’s also this interesting cycle. We talk a lot about the give-and-receive cycle. This is what’s sometimes referred to as the law of reciprocity. When we invoke the law of reciprocity, it’s like we have given something of value to somebody so they can’t help but want to return that. It’s part of humanity. This also occurs in the investment world.
Investing Wisely: Applying A Proven Framework For Decision-Making
When we have some surplus cash, we start to have thoughts come to us about what could be done, but what’s more interesting to me is oftentimes opportunities come to us. When we are in a position of cash, opportunities tend to come to us. I’m curious how you’ve utilized the investment policy that we developed back in 2018. About a year into our process, we developed an investment policy that you wrote in your own words. I’m super curious because we haven’t talked since then. If you’ve applied those principles deliberately or maybe they have been in the back of your mind and how you’ve handled saying no to investments versus yes to so many things that have probably come across your desk.
I don’t know if anyone else has experienced it, but as an entrepreneur, I see opportunities all the time, and opportunities do come to me all the time. I said no. We had an opportunity for a second clinic that came to me. They wanted to sell to us and I had to go through the process, the cash flow process, the energy process. I was evaluating not only the Xs and Os of the business, but I was evaluating what energy capacity, mental capacity, this was going to require of me to make it successful. In the end, the net was not worth the energy and emotional component that it would steal away from what we are already doing to justify doing it.
Going through a checklist and having a way of evaluating different things can save you from a lot of heartache. Previous to working with you, that’s probably why I accumulated so many businesses. I was like, “I can do it. Let’s do it.” It’s good and it’s freedom. Even though we didn’t go after this opportunity, it’s going to open an opportunity for potentially the next deal or opportunity that’ll come across our table, and so we have preserved that energy and that emotion to be able to go do that and the funds to do so as well. Having that process has helped a lot to not get into deals.
Going through a checklist and having a way of evaluating different things can save you from a lot of heartache.
It’s amazing that you’ve applied those principles. The principle probably in a nutshell is this. When you say yes to something, you automatically say no to at least one other thing in your life. When you have some criteria that are available, a checklist that’s personalized to you, that you know what your life’s purpose is, you know what being on mission in your life is about, what financial things you are interested in, what types of service things you want to be able to do, what type of return you are looking for on your money, what time and energy commitment you are willing to offer something. When you have those sorts of filters, you can say no quicker, which means you can stay in alignment with what matters to you and avoid distractions. Many times things come up as a distraction versus a true opportunity. Have you found that to be true as well?
It’s true. Early on, whether it was even adding services to my business, before working with you, if it looked like it could add some revenue to the top line, we would jump on it, and it would distract us from the core purpose of the business. It’s been refreshing to be able to have that filter and do what’s important. You have a place to do and a place to be, a place to go, and that’s how you roll.
I want this to be super practical. Those reading, some of the decision-making, you might be early enough on in life, like my daughter who’s 19, your son who’s 20, they are like not even in the game yet of money. They are barely starting to work and start to see what it’s like to be in a business, and sometimes you do have to get in the game. You are learning a card game for the first time. You have to play the game to get familiar with it. Unfortunately, some mistakes will be made.
You learn from the mistakes way more than the wins and being able to do it early when the dollars are much smaller. That’s with my son. That’s what I’m encouraging him. “Your sole focus right now is to learn your craft and to learn good or bad what’s going on around you. As you observe the things that you potentially don’t like about the way the company’s running. What would you do differently and how would it be different? Be able to observe those things, but you have to be in the game, and you have to think with that mind. You have to start to think with the mind of looking for those things and developing yourself.”
You learn from the mistakes way more than the wins. Do it early when the dollars are much smaller.
I liked your statement about making some mistakes when the dollars are smaller. Oftentimes, I have noticed people think about an all-or-nothing decision. Like when you go back to the decision on whole life insurance, sometimes people are like, “I have the option to put my money in life insurance or hold it in the bank or put it in the stock market.”
No. It’s not an all-or-nothing decision. There’s an integration that has to happen. We need some cash in the bank as reserves. We need some cash in whole life insurance as a stable place to grow it tax-free and have accessibility for future opportunities and the death benefit that’s permanent there in case of early death as well as long life and legacy planning. There are so many cool things that happen with that, and we need some opportunity money to be in the investment world.
Maybe a little bit of stocks or ETFs. Touch it. A little bit of cryptocurrency so you get familiar with it. Maybe you participate in a small business activity so you get familiar with what it takes to run a business. Maybe you do something like an eBay store temporarily, and you learn how to sell stuff online to gain some skills. I don’t know if you did something like this, but I was a lawn boy when I was a kid. You learn how to deal with customers.
My kids have done lawn care, and they have done detailing cars. We have made some products, very small on that part, but we have made some products and sold them at craft shows. Those different things.
For you parents out there, we are in our 40s, you guys might be in your 30s to 50s reading this who have children, you can teach them while they are little a lot of these principles, particularly as they start to get into their late teens, early twenties, some of the life lessons of money can start to be learned. These are principles that are timeless that we are talking about. They can apply at all stages of life in different capacities based on the readiness of the learner.
You guys are becoming students of money. I often share that phrase with all my readers. “When you become a student of money, the teacher will show up.” This show is part of that teacher. We are virtual mentors for you, whoever’s reading like others in our lives has been a virtual mentor for us through audiobooks, seminars, through other things where we haven’t necessarily worked one-on-one, but there is a time and a place to hire a one-on-one coach, a mentor that can support you in the actual accountability of accomplishing things that you may not be ready to do on your own. There are things you don’t know you don’t know, and having somebody by your side can greatly help. Let’s wrap it up with that type of thing. I know you’ve worked with many coaches in your life. Talk to me about the value of having coaches and mentors.
The Value Of Having Coaches And Mentors
It’s interesting the concept that people don’t either feel like they need a coach or anyone who is succeeding as a coach. Whether it’s an athlete who is trying to achieve something great, they have a coach. If you are achieving anything worthwhile, you have a coach. I have been in business for many years now. I have had a coach the entire time, and I have had coaches in business, I have had financial coaches. I have had health and fitness coaches.
If you are achieving anything worthwhile, you should have a coach.
To achieve anything above what you are doing, having accountability and having someone who’s been there before who knows a path and can get you there faster is hugely beneficial. There is some cost upfront for a coach, but it pays dividends in the future because of efficiency. The things that you could have gotten wrong that didn’t get wrong, or the steps you could have taken or took the wrong steps. In my experience, coaching has been a huge part of our overall success in every other area.
Thanks so much for joining me.
I have enjoyed our time together. It’s been a while since we got this chance to talk, so this has been fun.
Thank you for reading this discussion. I hope you are enjoying this. Please drop a review in iTunes, and jump over into the comments on the YouTube page. I can’t share this with thousands of people without you guys sharing it with your peers. Please share it. I’m grateful for anyone willing to step in and support me that way because by doing that, you are supporting so many other people and getting good content that will help them make good decisions in their financial lives. Guys, I love you and we’ll see you in the next episode.
Episode Resources
About Josh Mason
Dr. Mason earned his bachelor’s degree and his Doctorate of Chiropractic from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. He has always had a passionate belief in the value of leading an active and healthy lifestyle, which he enthusiastically conveys to his patients, leading by example, of course.
Dr. Mason combines the experience he’s gained from his own athletic background with his expertise in chiropractic to help athletes at all levels overcome sports injuries and improve their performance. He works with athletes at collegiate, high school, and recreational levels. Dr. Mason also acts as an onsite company doctor for several companies who recognize the benefits of providing high-quality services to their employees.
His commitment to providing exceptional, effective, and efficient care for his patients has led Dr. Mason to become an elite provider in a treatment technique called active release technique (ART). Although chiropractic has many benefits and can be used in a wide variety of musculoskeletal conditions, it can’t address every type of soft tissue injury. Using his expertise in ART enables Dr. Mason to provide comprehensive care for a far more extensive range of conditions.
Dr. Mason is a valued member of the local community, and he’s served on a variety of boards in Fort Dodge, Iowa. He is a member of the Greater Growth Alliance. He is also an active member of the First Presbyterian Church in Fort Dodge, Iowa.