Meet Alison: The Woman Behind He Said, She Said

I would say guys, get ready for a packed and eventful podcast, right? It's going to get juicy. >> Welcome to the Rich TV show with a very special podcast called He Said She Said. And I want to introduce my co-host, Allison Low. How you doing today, Allison? >> Amazing. Super excited for our show. It's a great day. >> Yeah, I'm very excited too. I'm excited to hear your story. And I want to introduce Allison now and let everybody kind of learn a little bit about her before she gets into her story. And in this podcast, the whole idea and reason why we started this podcast is that we feel like there's a huge gap between men and women. And we thought that we should >> let the two worlds collide and have a show where we can talk about topics that are very controversial between men and women. And but before we do that and we get into these episodes of the show that we're really excited to to talk about and debate about, I wanted to introduce Allison and and let her tell her story. So, let's just explain a little bit about Allison first. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce my brilliant co-host, the razor sharp mind and undeniable powerhouse of this show, Allison Low. Welcome to Allison. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. So much, Rich. >> Hey, my pleasure. And before entering the wealth space, Allison spent years mastering the human psyche. She earned master's in clinical psychology and crushed every single credit of her doctoral coursework, reaching that elite academic status known as ABD or all but dissertation. >> Because why spend another year writing a dissertation when you can rewrite the rules of wealth creation based right here in Vancouver. She runs her own independent planning practice while supporting a growing team of advisors across North America. It's very impressive, Allison. >> Yes, thank you so much. Yeah, it's been such a journey. >> Yeah, I can imagine. I'm excited to learn more about this journey and her signature mastery, infinite banking. And everyone who knows Rich TV knows that I love wealth creation. I love Bitcoin. I love finance. I love stocks. So, we're going to talk a lot about infinite banking, something that you specialize in, and elite wealth preservation architecture. I mean, I'm excited to dive into this. Allison dismantles how the traditional banking game is played, showing entrepreneurs, and I consider myself an entrepreneur since I was 21 years old, and families how to become their own source of financing. bypass institutional gatekeepers and engineer bulletproof generational legacies. Pairing that clinical behavioral edge with an irresistible mix of sharp intellect and undeniable charm, she can dissect a balance sheet, which I think is very sexy. uh read a boardroom in two seconds flat, which is a great tool to have, and tell you exactly where capital needs to flow, all without breaking a sweat. A lot of guys can't even do that. I promise you. And if you think that competitive edge clocks out at five, think again. Off the bike. Allison is an absolute shark on the pool table. an effortless, soulful musician and brings a golf swing lethal enough to put half of the country club to shame. We got to get on the golf course. We got firsthand. Excited to see that swing. She brings the brains, the unapologetic luxury, and the fearless female perspective this industry has been missing. And yeah, big time for a long time. Get ready because she does not hold back. Allison, we're here to hear your story. I'm excited to hear. >> What an introduction. Thank you so much, Rich. I'm super excited to be here. It's been quite the journey since I was doing my PhD program. So, super excited. >> Yeah. So, where like let's get started like, you know, where where where would we want to start? Let's let's talk about that. Um, obviously you've got a lot of experience in finance and you've got a a great education which I touched on. So, >> what was the biggest turning point in your life? Let's start with that. >> Well, a little bit of background about me. So, I it's no it's no surprise or it's no secret I always talk about this, but I come from a family of doctors and dentists. So, I was always raised with the idea of like be a doctor and that's the golden pave road to success. you'll be successful and all your problems are solved, right? So, I did that. I actually have a very extensive background in medicine and I grew up doing that. Took the MP pack etc. So, I actually kind of went away from that and actually did psychology because I said wow a lot of um medical issues is really paired with the psychological distress you know on cardiovascular issues etc. So, I went into clinical psychology. So, I went to I studied in the Bay Area. Um, and you know, I loved it. I I absolutely loved it. But then I realized I was like, you know what? Like, imagine this, Rich. If I said you and I are going to play a game and I didn't give you any of the rules to play, what are the chances that you're going to win? >> Not very good. >> Not very good. Right. And I realized I was like, wait a minute. If you want to get wealthy, what are the secrets to being wealthy? No one teaches that. And you could have a PhD level doctorate education and I knew nothing about money. I knew nothing about that. And I was like, "This doesn't make sense." I'm like, "I'm getting close to my 30s and I know nothing about money. That's got to change." So, um, some good friend of mine, some friends of mine that were in the financial industry, they were like, "Hey, do you want to learn about money and make money?" And I was like, "Absolutely." Cuz, you know, at heart, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a hustler. Um, and so then I got into this money seminar. They're talking about compound interest, like compound interest, stocks, uh, rule of 72, how to invest, etc. And I was, my mind was blown. I was like, man, this is amazing. Um, and then I when I started going to more of those seminars, we started learning about um, probate, tax, corporate tax, etc. And so I came home and I asked my parents, I was like, "Hey, like did you guys know that there's a lot of tax when you die?" Right? and be being the only child, I was like, "Well, everything's going to come to me, right?" But I was like, "How much tax um is are we paying here?" And so they're like, "No, no, no, no. You get everything. Don't worry about it." And I was like, "That's not what I've been hearing. Who do I talk to about this?" And they're like, "Okay, talk to your uncle." And so I went in to talk to my uncle and I said, "Okay, if my parents were to die today, how much tax would we pay? They have corporations, etc." Right? And when he gave me this number, I literally looked at my mom and I was like, "Mom, you might as well write a check to Trudeau. You know, vote NDP. You might as well because you're going to be giving your money away, right?" >> And it's and it's crazy because like, you know, um >> you know, obviously they've always taught me about like, you know, fiscal responsibility, like taxes, and like here this is a big part where like in in generational like wealth transfer, they're missing it, right? and and they did not have the proper pieces and and protection in place at all. Okay. And so when I asked my uncle, I'm like, "How come how come you didn't do that?" Well, he was like, "First of all, it's not my job." Which he's right. It's not an accountant's job. So many people rely on accountants to do their financial planning when they're not licensed to be financial planners. Okay. So I was like, "Whose job is it?" He was like, "Well, a financial planner." I was like, "Okay, well that's the license I'm going to get." And um and there was a lot of things that was going on with my PhD at the same time. Like the professor I was studying under actually died of cancer um pancreatic cancer. And when you're in a PhD, you do all your research under professor um and I and I literally went to that school for him. So he died. They ended up putting me into a different research thing. I was like, "Okay, this is not what I wanted to do my PhD in. This is not starting to make sense." Um, and also if you look at all the clients that I had, one of the biggest stressors, what do you think it is? One of them is money, right? And >> of course, >> so I I was seeing all these signs and I yeah, I made the leap. So I I um in my last year right before doing my dissertation because my professor died, I just um I I pivoted. I came home and I said, "I'm going to I'm going to get the license in financial planning." Very much to my parents dismay, they were not happy with that. Um >> why why were they not happy with that? They thought that that wasn't a good use of your education. >> Well, when you're spending a hundred grand a year for a school in the States, I was going to Ivy League school. So, uh yeah, they were not they were not happy, right? like my mom had this whole uh vision of me being a speaker and a psychologist etc. already I was already you know stepping away from being a doctor right so it's PhD clinical psychologist was like all right you know at least you're that um and yeah I I remember I I because we would argue so much I would literally eat dinner in the car so I didn't have to hear you know the BS all the time right but I'm going to tell you something right everything happens for a reason I'm a big believer everything happens for a reason um I'm a big believer in God and like God led me to where I needed to be. And you know, if it wasn't for this business, if it wasn't for me learning about life insurance and critical illness insurance, I would have never protected myself. And you know, a big thing in my in my life happened in 2020. And yeah, it's I was it was perfect that I was in this business and protected myself. So you not only are in an industry where you can protect others, but you're in an industry where you can protect yourself. And because you did have insurance, critical illness insurance, you were able to benefit from that. So when you're talking to customers and potential clients about critical illness, you can give them a real life >> example of yourself and say, "Hey, by the way, >> this is what happened to me and I was able to receive this type of compensation." So you're not just speaking >> on behalf of a company, you're speaking on behalf of yourself because you have your own personal real life experiences that you can go off of as far as uh >> education and experience and credibility when you're talking to customers. >> Of course. >> I think that's great. I think that's great. And does your mom does your mom feel like does your mom feel better now? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean that's why >> Okay, good. >> Yeah. Absolutely. Um, I mean I we she was actually the one who told me not to get critical illness insurance and it's not because it's her, you know, but um she doesn't know, right? But she was a doctor and and she's like, "But Alison, you're young. You're healthy. Like, go put your money towards paying your, you know, mortgage down, right?" And um and so, you know, again, if it wasn't for this business, I didn't think I needed I didn't think I needed uh insurance, but because I was in the industry, I was like, well, I I can't sell, you know, shoes barefoot, right? So, I got to actually, you know, um practice what I preach. Um and I was my own first claim in 2020, you know, in my business. And I also tell my clients, look, like I'm not coming to you as a financial planner or salesperson. I'm coming to you as your next generation. And if you don't get this stuff in place, your next generation and your estate is going to suffer for it. Right? Just like I found out in my family, we didn't have the proper things in place. And you know, as a result, um my inheritance would have had a big um tax gouging out of it. So, >> so when you talk about that, like most people think that when they're going to get an inheritance that they're going to just get a lump sum of money. My dad leaves me 2 million, I'm going to get 2 million. What type of tax are you talking like how much would they be taxed? Is there like like a rough number like an estimate you can give us? >> I would say probably half >> 50%. >> 50 to 60%. In a corporation, it's going to be 60%. Um, and then yeah, so if you and it really depends where your assets are. So primary residence, I always give an example of this like a primary residence, let's say about two 2.5 million, right? That's going to go through probate taxes with 1.5%. So let's say let's say a $2 million home, that's like a 30% tax. Okay, not so bad. TFSA taxfree, right? But of course, our TFSA um or for people in the states, your Roth is limited, right? Um you're not going to be a multi multi multi multi-millionaire with just your TFSA because of course the government doesn't want you to invest in all tax-free entities. They need to collect that tax. So the other thing is that a lot of people put money into their RRSPs, right? or for the states, your guys' 401k, which in my opinion is the biggest tax scam that you can put money in. Why does the government love it so much? It's because they know that when you hit age, when you retire, they're also going to be collecting. Why? Because an RRSP is 100% taxable when you want to, you know, withdraw from that, right? 100% taxable as income. Now, at death, 100% taxable the entire thing. So, if you have a million dollars in your RRSP, think about that. That's like a million dollar income. What is a million dollar income as an employee? Well, you're at the highest tax bracket. Say to buy to at least 53.5% of that. >> Obviously, there's tears, but you know, it's practically half of that, right? So, thank you so much, guys, for your contribution to our society. When you invest in RSPs, you die with that. It gets automatically um automatically uh taxed. Then you have anything else which is your non your brokerage account uh any other real estate you're going to have capital gains right which is 50% t inclusion right so let's say if you have $2 million of appreciation whether it's you know non-registered account or or real estate then a million dollar is taxable income at that point right 50% of that okay so now you're going to add you know 500k of your R of no sorry a million dollars of your RRSP If you die with a million dollars, then you have a million dollars of capital gains, right? And and so that now your income for that year is like 2 million, right? What is that going to look like? It's it's then you go on your marginal tax rate, which is very very high. >> So let me ask you just a simple question. So for someone that wants to get into uh your industry and wants your services, what kind of savings would they be looking to get? So, you're saying that without your services, they're going to be paying like 50% of what they receive, you know, essentially, uh, when someone passes away. >> It could be. Yeah. >> What would they get if they were working with you? What would be the difference? >> Good question. Well, it depends. It Well, it depends on the strategy, of course. Um, but let me put it Let me put it this way. I wouldn't be able to put a number on that. You'd be saving a lot in tax for sure. So maybe instead of paying 50% maybe you're going to say you're going to pay 20 to 25%. Right? But let me just put it this way. When it comes to working with someone with someone like me, I do three things. This is what I call the wealth formula. Rich, okay? Number one, we teach people about how to save and grow their money. Okay? You also come in with that, right? So whatever asset it is, it is to grow your money. Awesome. Now, it's not just important about how much money you're growing, but how much money you're keeping in your pocket from tax. So, this is where it comes to like what's the difference between a TFSA and RRSP. Okay, so it's about allocating more properly to okay, let's fill up the most taxfree vehicles. Okay, a lot of people ignore a big the one of the biggest vehicles, which is life insurance. They just think, "Okay, life insurance is you die, somebody else gets money." Well, it's actually taxfree money, right? And if you could take a 100 grand and make that into a million tax-free versus if you had 100 grand, you made it a million in a non-registered account, then you're going to look at that 900k of capital gains and then half of that, which is 50% of that, which um is 4 450k of capital gains, then is added to your tax bracket. then you take 50% of that, right? So essentially I'd be I would be, you know, saving you on all that tax which uh probably about 200k of that and you would actually have that full million dollars tax-free in your in your kids' hands or the next generation's hands, right? Um then you also have to think about okay retirement, right? If you're going to draw a hundred grand each year, which I think is a little bit small considering 20 30 years from now, conflation, right? But let's say 100 grand from your RRSP. Well, tax bracket is already, let's just round it up to 30% in Canada. You're going to give 30 grand to the to the government each year in tax. Well, what if you could just grow you can take that out taxfree? that I'm saving you 30 grand times what? 20 years in tax. >> So I mean to give you a number would be very difficult. But um I've been able to show my clients between literally like okay strategy a if you don't if you don't do what I put like the strategy I put in place and you just keep going with what you're doing, you're at least looking at at the end of life 60% tax for sure. If you do mine, then you save a lot more. But I couldn't give you the exact number. >> Yeah. I know. I just wanted to get a better feel for like the type of advantages that you provide versus >> how most people are already set up and structured >> and and it leads me to the next question which I asked earlier but I want you to get into now is what was the biggest turning point in your life? >> I'd say the biggest turning point was uh me switching um me uh quit quitting my PhD because I had all all only known healthcare my entire life. Um and and then going into this jumping into this industry um leaving like literally my old life behind and starting from scratch, right? So that was very scary. Um no really support, no moral support. Um and just kind of like well I'm going to do this like just trusting and having faith. So, that was one of the biggest turning points. Um, but that also led into 2020 when I got sick. Um, and so for those of you who don't know my story, back in 2020, I got COVID and unbeknownst to me, I had a large tumor in my chest and um, it's called a thyoma. So, it was massive. And so, because it was an underlying um, medical condition, I was in a coma. So, I was put on life support. I was on a ventilator for almost 3 weeks. >> Um and then I was in the hospital for two months. Yeah, you could probably look me up. Um CTV did a story on me. >> And uh yeah, coma for two months and then I took about a year off of work. Now any other person, right, especially if you had kids, especially if you are, you know, having a regular job, that could devastate someone financially, right? Oh, yeah. >> Um but because Right. And because I had critical illness insurance, that was a massive payout that allowed me to keep paying down my mortgage. That allowed me to not have to worry about money. I mean, added stress and cortisol is not great for recovery. We know that. Um, and it was allow it allowed me back in 2020, and you know this, to invest my money, right? Imagine lump sum back in 2020. And with what you and I can do with that money, it just I was able to double, triple it, right? And then that allowed me to buy property, allowed me to just really set my financial future forward. Um, and what I love about this is that, okay, you know, I'm in this industry, we talk about insurance, we talk about the payouts, but then going through it, getting that payout, seeing what it did for me financially. Now I become literally the poster child for what I do and I can speak to it, right? So that also was a turning point where I was like, "All right, this is not just talking insurance, but you can also see the value of what it of what it can do, right?" Um, and then I just imagine people who don't have that. Like there's so many cases in my indust during my time where clients have said no to me and they're like, "No, we don't need this." And they end up dying or they end up getting cancer. or there's clients that I've literally like kicked down their door to to make them buy insurance because I was like you are getting this you're my friend you're getting this and then this year they're diagnosed with cancer and then they're getting their payouts right so that's where for me it becomes more than just something that you read on paper and it becomes an actual true like lived experience and so that was very eye openening and very like wow this is my crusade this is why I'm so passionate about what I And I got the I got the beauty scars to prove it. So >> yeah, it actually it changed your life. It it it helped you and and it and it saved you financially when you needed it. >> And like you said, a lot of people don't have it. >> And imagine if that happened to them and they were a year without work. What would they do? And I think like most Canadians are like >> like they have I don't know 60 days worth of savings like the average Canadian something like that >> if Yeah. >> Right. So if you don't have any savings and something devastating happens to you not having that type of critical illness insurance or life insurance or >> any type of protection is going to make things a lot more difficult for you. I have a question for you. Sure. >> What made you decide to want to do this show with me? Why don't I want to you know what it's number one getting financial literacy out there right um you you handle one side which is the growth right stocks crypto amazing but then there's this other side of okay like tax like what we talked about tax efficiency protection of those assets the estate planning right and then what vehicles to use so yeah you can have stocks and mutual funds but is it better to have it in an RRSP a non-registered a brokerage account or a TFSA, right? Like talking about some of those things. Also, infinite banking, life insurance. That's that's actually the initial reason why I came and spoke to you, right? Is that this is a huge asset that people are not knowing about. They're they're not learning about it and they're they're leaving a ton of money on the table um because they just they just don't know about it, right? And so it's something that changed my life and my families. Um and and then going back to what you said is like instead of people just getting by like I think if you ask a lot of people if you couldn't work it would devastate them or they'll be like you know what I survived. I did okay. That's not the goal. We don't want to just get by. We want to thrive. We want to financially be thriving. Right? And so I find that, you know, part of being a part of the show is giving that awareness of my story, but also giving a voice to women out there um and having more of that the the the female side of financial literacy and being financially um successful, right? And having and it's knowledge, right? Right. And I think something that you said to me, Rich, was that you have a lot of male clients, right, and male audience, but not so much female. Um, >> that's 100% true, >> right? And I think >> I like our I looked at looked at our stats on YouTube and I think we've got like 13 million views and 400,000 likes. And I was looking at it like this is like overall. And then I was looking at it and I was like, "Wow, the uh the male to female I think that was 77% of our audience is male and 23% is female." >> And I was like, I really would like it to be more like 50/50. >> I'd love to see it. Yeah. >> I think now we can do that, you know, and that's why >> I thought it would be a good idea to do this show. And because you're in finance and I'm in finance, >> we're different types of finance, but we still kind of are like crossing paths. >> Absolutely. >> Because I know you do some overlap. >> You do invest in crypto and stocks yourself, right? A little bit. >> I do. I do. >> So you It's like you do have some knowledge of crypto and a lot of people still, believe it or not, don't have a lot of knowledge of crypto. And you know, to tell you guys a little bit about myself, unless you guys, you know, you might know me, maybe don't know me, but I've been in crypto since 2017 when Bitcoin was >> uh less than >> I wish I was in crypto back in 2017. Gez. >> Yeah. Bitcoin was less than $1,000 when I got into Bitcoin and today it's at 78,000 US. >> So, it's done 78 times >> in essentially less than 10 years. >> So, in 9 years, we're about to go to 10 years in 2027 here. So, it's going to be 10 years I've been in the crypto game. So, I've watched it evolve into uh 78 times in 10 years your money just on Bitcoin alone. And other assets have done even better. You know, Nvidia's done, I think, 14,000% in the last few years. Tesla's done extremely well. So, it's not just Bitcoin. I like investing and talking about stocks, uh companies that are undervalued, underappreciated, underexposed. We interview CEOs to help give them exposure of companies that are undervalued, underappreciated, underexposed. And we look for opportunities, diamonds in the rough. And I think with you, it's more safety and protection. With me, it's a lot of like more risky and and and I tell that like my own son just turned 19. He's now investing. He's buying stocks. He's buying crypto. And I'm trying to teach him, you know, be patient. Buy the dips. Sell the rips. There's there's a method to the madness and you have to have very good habits if you want to be successful as an investor. Same thing goes if you want to be protected as as as a citizen, as a person who's learning how to protect their family. You need to have insurance, life insurance to protect your family if something happens to you. Critical illness insurance if you get some type of, you know, illness like what happened to Allison. So I think it's very useful information but I also think it's important that we talk about the difference between men and women because I think that there's a huge gap and you know there's those books like men are from Mars and women are from Venus these types of comparisons and debates have been going on for years and I thought what better way of dealing with these issues than dealing with it headon and having an opportunity for us to discuss these topics. topics and do it every single week on He Said, She Said. And I think it's great that we were able to start off telling your story, explaining a little bit about your background as we go on to future episodes and start, you know, having fun and debating some of these topics that we're excited to talk about. And we've got, you know, just about 30 seconds left in the episode. So, is there anything else you want to say to the audience that's watching before we say goodbye today? I would say guys, get ready for a packed and eventful podcast, right? It's going to get juicy. We're going to get into the nitty-gritty. We're going to get into some topics of heavy debate between the men and women, between finance, between just money in general, money and dating, money and life, money and I mean there's a lot of stuff that money is involved in that impacts our day-to-day life, you know, such as love and family and relationships. So, super excited to get into all those topics >> and I want you guys to give us feedback as well. >> Yeah. And we're excited. Exactly. to get your feedback and get your comments. And if there's a topic you want us to discuss, we want to be able to look at all the topics that everyone brings to the table and the ones that we're interested in and bring the ones that are the most interesting, entertaining, potentially viral, trending topics so that we can talk about it and hopefully bring you guys lots of entertainment that uh you can enjoy with your friends and your family. >> And Allison, thank you for joining us here today. excited to do the show with you and thank you for sharing your story today. >> Yeah, amazing time, Rich. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to all our future episodes. >> Yeah, me too. Thank you guys for watching. I'm your host, Richard Duza from He Said She Said with Alice >> and we're going to see you guys next week. Thank you for watching.