I Lost Everything Twice — Then I Became the Bank

You didn't buy a $50,000 car. You bought a $71,000 car — and quietly handed the bank the difference. Stretch the loan to 72 months and the payment drops, but the interest climbs. That's not a deal. That's the bank doing what it's designed to do.

In this episode, Josh breaks down why most people spend their whole life on the wrong side of the bank — and the system the wealthy use to sit on the other side of it. We get into what "becoming the banker" actually means (same system, different owner), the financial X-ray that finally gives you clarity and control, and why crypto and stock day-trading are Wall Street's best recent invention — because someone collects a fee every single time, and it's never you.

He also breaks the biggest myth in personal finance: that your income is fixed and your bills are set. Most people only ever learn to invest their money. The wealthy do the opposite — they engineer income up and expenses down. It's why a guy in Miami surrounded by Lambos and Ferraris still drives a hand-me-down car: there's a business to run, so why feed money to a depreciating asset?

And the part most people don't expect — the story underneath it all: dropping out of college, building a Philly cheesesteak business, losing everything in COVID and the riots, getting cancelled, and rebuilding from peanut-butter-and-jelly nights into the system taught here.

This isn't get-rich-quick. It's the part about money nobody sat you down and explained.

🔔 Subscribe for the full breakdown. Comment BANK and we'll send you where to start.

⏱ Chapters (approximate):
 0:00 You don't own it — they do
 0:55 The car loan trap: $50K, 8%, 72 months
 1:35 Clarity, control, liquidity — your financial X-ray
 3:26 Control over debt at every milestone
 4:11 What this is NOT: crypto, gambling, day trading
 5:00 Why day-trading is Wall Street's best invention
 6:15 Tax efficiency, valuation, and wealth structure
 8:00 Most people only learn to invest
 9:15 The myth of "fixed income, fixed bills"
 9:55 The wealthy do the opposite
 10:15 Lambos, Ferraris, and the hand-me-down car
 12:46 The origin story: cheesesteaks to collapse
 13:45 Rebuilding from PB&J nights
 14:30 Becoming an infinite banking practitioner

#InfiniteBanking #BecomeYourOwnBank #BeTheBank #WholeLifeInsurance #CashFlow #FinancialEducation #WealthBuilding #GrantCardone #JoshWaxman #MoneyMindset

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So you have to add back that 100 grand. You actually paid a million dollars for your home that you just bought for 500 grand. So you paid double for the home that you think you just bought. And if you don't make your payments at any time for the next 30 years, what do they do with your home? They take it. Even if you're 28 years and 10 months down, yeah, they just take it. I mean you can sell it, but they take it. So that's how much interest you pay. Is this more or less? The interest paid is more or less than the loan. So you end up paying more in interest, which is what? What's interest? It's just a fee to the bank. You pay more in fees than the actual loan that you just took for every death pledge that you take. Then you go buy a car, it's a $50,000 car, 72 months, because if we pay six years instead of four years, what's gonna go down? The payments are gonna go down. Yeah, the interest is actually gonna go up. So if we pay, so we buy a $50,000 car and we pay 8% interest for 72 months, which is the longest they usually offer you, sales tax, title registration, you end up paying $71,000 for the car. That extra $21,000 went to where? The bank. Where did they put it? In their pocket. And then what did they do with it? They lent it out, and then they make money on your money. Someone else controls every dollar that you deposit, every loan that you take, and the bank decides the terms, not you. What if you could become the banker? Same system but a different owner. So this weekend, what you're gonna receive is some clarity. Really understanding your financial picture with precision, like taking an x-ray and being able to see where your money's at, being able to see where it's going. You're gonna have control because we need to control our money. Otherwise, who controls our money? The banks do. We're gonna create liquidity because liquidity, does anybody want to define liquidity for me? Being able to use it. Yeah, access to capital, being able to have money you can use right now so that when opportunities come up, you can take it. So when that there's what in the streets? When there's blood in the streets, you can do what? Buy. Get the bank fund to go in the street. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

I need more liquidity first.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Oh hey, we're playing a game here. I I'm winning the game. I gotcha. I gotta do what I gotta do. I got a family and people to feed. Look at I'm feeding everybody today. I need to make money too. Legacy. We're gonna create legacy. You need to build wealth that outlasts me. So, in your workbook, in your in your notebook, the next one we're gonna have an actual workbook, but they just didn't come in time. So now you have a notebook. So, in your notebook, what would make this workshop absolutely life-changing for you? We've talked a lot about money and banks. If you could walk out of here with one thing that really would change your life about money, what would it be? And how much money would that need to put in your pocket? What would make this life-changing? Not cool, but actually life-changing. You would be like, wow, that would that was amazing.

unknown 3:05

More liquidity.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Huh? Yeah, does anyone want to share? What do you got? More liquidity without the debt with it. More liquidity without the debt associated with it. Well, what if more debt associated? We just went through this, so here we go. This is called a mental relapse. Okay, the debt is to myself, though. We're relapsing. It can, yeah, you want debt to you, but you could have debt, you need to control the debt.

unknown 3:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

You need to control the debt.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Um, what it means is that every single intention that I have in every single milestone in my life building, I have complete control. Because that's what intention is. Because anybody can do everything, you know, everybody has the same exact stages of life, but what intention do you have towards it?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Cool. Thank you. Anyone else? It's coming out of the weekend with um refined wisdom to take immediate action to build financial freedom for myself and generational wealth for my family. I love it. That's cool. Cool. Thank you guys for sharing. Clap it up for everyone that shared. Okay. So here's what we're not gonna be talking about. I'm gonna do the not first. We're not talking about crypto, we're not gonna talk about gambling, we're not gonna talk about get rich quick schemes. The first rule is what? Think long range. So I'm not trying to teach you how to get rich quick. That's a different type of seminar that I don't do. I'm not giving you financial hype. I don't want you to walk out of here jacked up and excited and not have the deep roots because the second that something happens, then they'll come take you away. The second that you go back to your spouse, to your business partner, to your friends, to your family, and you say, I just learned so much information. I'm gonna go become my own banker. They're gonna say, What the heck are you talking about? And you're like, Oh, never mind, never mind, never mind. I'm just gonna go back to doing my same thing. So this isn't about hyping you up or getting you jacked up about money. We're not gonna talk about day trading. That's like the next hot scheme. Crypto and stock day trading is literally the best invention of Wall Street recently. Because you know what they get every time you trade any transaction? Of commission. Of commission. And so how much does anyone have friends that like wake up at seven o'clock in the morning to trade options? Yeah, one night or each other. Yeah, right. All that they're doing is making billions and billions of dollars for Wall Street. Because every time that they trade, and now they have the algorithms that do what automatically? They trade for you. So that means you don't even have to watch it. So the second that something gets triggered, it trades, and then as soon as that trade happens, who makes money? They do. They make money. It's actually a genius. It's like getting credit card fees every time somebody buys from you. What we are gonna do is talk about infinite banking, which is the process of becoming your own banker. We are gonna talk about your cash flow strategy. What do we have every Sunday at 11:30 together?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Our money meeting.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Our money meeting every single week. We have a weekly money meeting. Every month on the 20th of the month, we have also a monthly finance meeting where we go over how we're gonna use what debt to do what with our business? Expand it. We're gonna talk about tax efficiency right after lunch. Actually, well, we have the business valuation guy Will, he's coming at 1. Then Nishey, who's one of my best friends, and my CPA is gonna come at 1.30. You guys knew Nishey. You're gonna meet him in person?

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Well, we fired him.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

You fired him? We did. Alright, well, I won't tell him. Just we'll just pretend. Then he doesn't. But he's great at what he does. Let's go. Okay. He's here walking into him. I've been using him for five years and I don't pay any taxes. So um then we're gonna talk about wealth structure later on today. I got a guy, uh Justin Colby. He's gonna come speak to you guys about how to what to do with your money, how to invest in multifamily real estate all over the country by being able to create more wealth for yourself. That he uses infinite banking himself. And then tomorrow is gonna be about generational wealth planning, about how to take all the stuff we learned today and implement it. So this morning was all about how the problem that we have, why I wanted to stress really heavily the problem that we have in America with banking, with money, with our financial situation, with our lack of financial education. This afternoon we're gonna share some solutions to how to create a better plan for yourself. And tomorrow is gonna be all about how to implement those things and then also create wealth not just for yourself but for your future generations. And so the next thing you guys can write down is what attracted you to come here in the first place? Which one of these things is mo are you mostly here for? Wealth structure. Wealth structure, cool. Taxi position, taxes, cash flow strategy, cash flow. Now I'm gonna teach you guys one last thing. This is Grant Cardone, his financial seniority rankings, the order in which you should handle your money. Now, most people all they care about doing with their money is they always want to learn about how to what it invest it. They always want to learn about how to invest it. When you walk into a seminar or workshop or something for investments for crypto, what do you got a lot of people of in the room? People with a lot of money or not a lot of money?

unknown 8:29

Not a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Not a lot of money that are looking for a what?

unknown 8:32

Get rich quick scheme.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Yeah, get rich quick scheme. So most people are looking to invest. And then the other thing that they want to do, they want to invest as much money and pay as little in taxes as possible. So what most people that don't have any money think is that they need to invest better and pay less taxes. But they're not willing to do this next part, which is to spend less on their expenses. And the last thing that they're ever thinking about, because they have a what? They have a job, and then they don't control their what? Their income, their time, their anything, is they don't think that they control their income. So you say, okay, well, I make 70 grand a year, that's my income, that's set. My bills are fixed. Right? Most of our bills are fixed, right? Your car payment is your car payment. Your insurance payment is your insurance payment. Your you know, your rent is your rent. Bills are your bills. I got, you know, I gotta deal with stuff. What do you what do you mean to do? I gotta pay my stuff. How am I supposed to do anything? So we don't think about these two things because we think that they're set. And so with what's left over, that little bit, we make a hundred, we spend ninety, we have ten, we spend our entire time in and out of work thinking about how to invest and save money on taxes with the leftover money. But the reality is, this is what most people do. But what the wealthy do is the complete opposite. They figure out how I can increase my income as much as possible. Then, how do I live off of as little as possible? I mean, we live in Miami. How many Lambos and Ferraris can you see?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Tons.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Tons. Most of the people driving those cars are what?

unknown 10:24

Broke.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Broke. I drive a hand-me-down car from one of my mentors that passed away, that his wife gave me his car to 2016 Chevy Equinox. That's air conditioning breaks every couple months that Eurita hates. But I don't really care. Anybody ever see the video of Jeff Bezos driving in his Honda Accord getting interviewed by ABC 60 Minutes? And they ask him why are you a billionaire driving your cars? I got I got a business to run. Why would I spend money on my car? The second you drive a car off the lot, it's but everybody still does what? Buy device. I mean, like, what are you talking about? Luckily, my dad taught me how to buy used cars really well. We bought my wife's Mercedes, she she cares about it more than I do, right? I drive my 2016 Chevro Equinox. She drives a nice Mercedes SUV, but we still only paid $30,000 for it. I would never ever ever ever buy a new car. Period. Unless it's over, who knows? How many pounds? 6,000 pounds. 6,000 pounds, and then I can write off all of it. But I don't need to do that. I had a choice. Do we buy you know the G-Wagon for 200 grand or just pay the 30 grand? Like, she'll be okay. For now. We were walking the dog the other night and she saw one. She was like, babe, I want one of those. Okay, but we cut our expenses down as much as possible. I mean, we're making good money right now, right? So we go out to dinner all the time. Right or right? Wrong. We never go out. When was the last time we went out? Out for real? Not often. We don't really go out at all. We don't really do anything. We went to Italy, I was telling you about it, it was awesome. Our insurance carrier took us there for free. We've never gone on a vacation. Ever. That we paid for. Not once. We extended a couple days in Italy and spent five to ten grand, but whatever. But I never go on vacation. I never go out. I never do anything. I work. I want my expenses to be as low as possible at all times. When I dropped out of university in Miami after my second year in college, I moved back up to Philly and I opened up my own Philly cheesesteak restaurants. So all I ate was what?

unknown 12:47

Philly cheesesteaks.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Philly cheesesteaks. Alright? And then in the middle of COVID, all of my stores got closed down because of Philadelphia, right? We got COVID closed down, you're only allowed 50% capacity. Then we had the riots and the protests in Philly. Then my store got looted in Center City. And then I posted on social media that we should all live in love and peace and stop rioting and stop protesting and learn to come together and live in the solution instead of the problem. And then I woke up the next day getting canceled. You're white privileged, you don't know what you're talking about, you're an asshole. How could you even think that? Of course you think that way. Your dad owns a business. Again, we just went through yet, my dad does own a business, but he doesn't have any money. And here we are. And then two days later, I get a letter from the franchise company that my stores, my franchise agreements are terminated and I'm not allowed to operate my business anymore. So I moved back down to Miami because when you're depressed, you should at least be around palm trees. Yeah. Right? And then I just ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and frosted mini wheats for like a year, and eventually I started making a lot more money. My reason for telling you that is I've lived off of nothing. I've eaten all of the food. I've stole I've l lived off of stealing from my own grocery store my first 25 years of my life. Alright. Then I lived off of nothing when I lost everything. I built everything up. I was 23 years old. I owned two restaurants, lived in a nice apartment overlooking the city of Philadelphia. We were doing about a million, 1.2 million in revenue. Lost everything, came back here, built up again, lost everything again, got out of one industry, got into insurance, and then built everything up, and here we are. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. I get asked all the time, what do you actually walk out with at the end of the private wealth workshop? Here's exactly what. Day one and day two are not just lectures, they're working sessions. And by the time you leave, you have an actionable, customized wealth plan tailored to your business and financial goals. A free strategy session with an infinite banking practitioner. And if you're a VIP, you also get a free tax consultation with our CPA, a free estate planning consultation with our trust and estate attorney, and a free business valuation with our MA advisor. Plus, the actual policy designs and strategies that Euritza and I have used over $10 million in net worth in under two years.