Hi, welcome back. My name is Alex Barron, I'm with financial freedom and Success Institute. And today I'm going to be sharing with you one more lesson of the financial freedom seminar. 

This one has to do with protecting your capital against loss. And we're gonna touch on a few different topics, but all around the same concept of not losing your money. You know, we all work really hard to earn our money, it takes a lot of effort to save. So we don't want to make we want to make sure we protect our money against loss. And one of the things that we want to do is to consider some principles from again, this book called The Richest Man in Babylon. And there's a lesson called, it talks about loaning money, right? It talks about the globe Lender of Babylon.

In the Bible, it says here that one of the promises from God to us is that we're going to lend money to many nations, but we're not going to borrow. So we have to make sure that a we get out of debt. And so we're gonna lend money that we are careful with who we lend money to. 

One of the key lessons that I got from this reading this chapter, the gold Lender of Babylon, is it says, before you land before you land or invest your money, consider the following points. 

Number one, realize that there's lots of people who don't have money, who are going to approach you, who do have money, to invest with them, right to invest in their ideas, or on these so called opportunities. Now, you have to wonder if this is such a great idea, why don't you have money, right? Be careful to invest in other people's idea who may have a lot of enthusiasm, but not the commitment to put their own hard earned capital behind their ideas. If you do consider investing, make sure that you run it by somebody who cares about you, to be your wife to be your husband could be your friends, somebody who's not interested in anything but your own well doing if they have a good feeling about it, and they understand it, and they encourage you to do it, then then that's a good sign. But if they tell you, Hey, be careful, you know, think about it, don't do it, maybe you ought to listen to that advice as well. 

By the same token, if somebody approaches you with a genuine need, and you think they'll be able to repay you quickly, then maybe don't close up your heart, you know, open up your heart to genuine needs or circumstances where maybe somebody's just gonna have the money within a few weeks just doesn't have it now, consider maybe lending to those people, but on the only under certain circumstances. 

Make sure it's not people who just want to share in your good fortune with them, right? If somebody asks you to vote to lend the money, ask them to write out exactly on a piece of paper, why they need it, what is exactly their plan to pay you back? When do they find to pay you back how much and when and ask them to sign it. If possible, ask them to give you some collateral, which simply means something they would lose in case they don't pay him back, it could be a wedding ring, it could be the title to their car, it could be something valuable to them. And if possible, I thought learn this from a friend long time ago, somebody is in need, they ask you for $1,000. And you don't really want to lend it to them. Maybe just give them something, give them $100 Something that's within your power when you say hey, you know what, I don't have everything you want. But I can help you out with this and just give it to them as a gift unexpected back. That might help you both to retain the relationship and your money. Otherwise, you might end up losing both your money and the friend. Right. 

So this is some of the advice that this chapter gives is make sure that if you're going to land, make sure it's for people who have experience. Make sure it's for a genuine need, or a good business idea, somebody who's got experience and to come execute. Make sure you don't give it to somebody who doesn't have experience because most likely they're going to end up losing your money. Right? Make sure it's not just for some something that is not an investment. It has to be something where they are able to make more money and give it back to you not just for their own expenses. 

And basically ask them, explain to me your business plan. Explain to me your level of experience. Explain to me how exactly you plan to return my money back to me safely with some profit with some interest if they can't do that. Or they just say well, trust me, well, that's not good enough. So don't lend them your money even if it's a relative So don't do that. 

Let's talk about another subject, which is insurance. We already talked about in the other series of videos that we did called the become your own bank seminar about life insurance. Here, we want to talk about other types of risks out there in the world, which we can cover through insurance. For example, if we believe that we might be in an accident, or somebody might steal our car, it's wise to have car insurance. In fact, it's required by law in many places. 

So if we're afraid that our house might begin burned down, or suffer some type of damage, like hail, it's good to have how home insurance if we are afraid to lose something like a valuable property, like a rain or something like that, it's good to have property insurance protects us against if you're afraid that you might get some type of an into a car accident or some disease that's expensive, like cancer, it's good to have health insurance, the purpose of insurance is simply to transfer risk, we are willing to pay an insurance company a small premium consistently every month in exchange for taking on a big risk from our hands, such that if free in the unfortunate circumstance, that we have to rely on that insurance, that insurance is going to be there to pay us off so we don't suffer a big loss. 

Now, let's talk about another subject, which is asset protection and estate planning. None of us knows which day is going to be your last day on this planet. But it's good to make sure that we take care of that last day today. What ends up happening many times is that many people wait too until it's too late to try to protect their assets. 

Many people are going to try to come after your money with get rich quick schemes or scams, investment opportunities, other people are going to try to sue you, especially if they think you have a money or a corporation, the worst type of thing that could happen to divorce in almost common and almost 50% of the people here in America, people end up losing a lot of money due to divorce. It's good to have an insurance policy because as I said, the money that you've put in there legitimately you're going to be protected. 

The key is to the timing, make sure you do it way ahead of time, not once you're already in trouble, right? Otherwise, the courts might dismiss that and make sure that the money doesn't sit in the bank today, as I said, a lot of banks have failed. So these are some of the things that you want to think about in terms of asset protection. In terms of estate planning, I'm not an attorney, I would refer you to an attorney who specializes in estate planning. But make sure that you have a will make sure that you have a trust something where you're able to put your properties ahead of you passing away. 

What ends up happening, unfortunately, is that even the people with the best intentions, say, well, I'll do it tomorrow. And what happens is if they pass away without a will, it's not gonna be them who decides what happens with their property, it's going to be a court, it's going to be a judge. And it may not always be what you wanted. So also, what ends up happening is your family members, those who you thought would get along and take care of your property, sometimes in the fighting with each other. So you don't want you want to avoid them. 

So the best way to avoid that is to make sure you take some time out to go see an attorney who is experienced in these matters, right out and spell out exactly what you want done with your properties. To make sure that your inheritance your your families doesn't end up fighting for those things that you want. I personally recommend that not only should you do a well, but that instead of splitting the money up into several people consider maybe putting it into something where that money is going to be invested, such that they live off of the interest from the investments, and not so much from splitting up the principal. 

So in other words, maybe your money goes into a trust or into an investment where the family gets to live from the income of that investment and not from the investment itself. Because most people who are not experienced in money matters are simply going to squander that money and go back to where they were before. The conclusion of this lesson is be a good stewards. Take care of the resources that God has entrusted into your hands. It takes a lot of work to earn the money so make sure you protect the money from loss.

Be careful how you invested where you invested who you lend it to. And make sure that you have in place goodwill in a good trust to take care of your money.

I like what John Wesley says do all you can, do only the good that you can, buy all the means that you can and all the way so that you can, in all the places that you can, at all the times that you can, to all the people that you can, for as long as you ever can, the main summary here is be a good steward because God someday you're going to have to give an account of all the money that went through your hands