By his own admission, Chris Jarvis, CFP, has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, and he confesses he is not a model of patience. So it’s not surprising that in his new book, 6 Secrets to Leveraging Success, Jarvis exhorts readers to view “leveraging your time as integral to your success.
“Financial leverage can be accomplished by leveraging the two most important resources: time and money. When we talk about leveraging time, we are talking about limiting the amount of effort we must exert or patience we must have,’’ Jarvis writes.
Jarvis, author of 14 books and founder of JarvisTower, the Texas-based risk-pooling-management firm and insurance agency, aims this new book at “the 1 percent who earn more than $442,000 (yearly) and who want to become even more successful. Only one in 100 families is in the 1 percent that controls wealth in this country, and only one in 1,000 is in the top 0.1 percent earners.’’
He provides six steps or “secrets’’ to using time wisely and leveraging success: define success to suit your own needs; maximize your leverage by undertaking challenges that give you immediate and significant results; expect, prepare for and welcome failure; insure success; leverage people; and be a legend by leaving a legacy.
In unfussy, jargon-free language, Jarvis enumerates the various types of leverage. He says that success comes from leveraging other people’s money and intellectual property. Basic paths of the former are purchasing property and leasing it to others; borrowing money at a rate lower than the rate of return on the borrowed money; and receiving equity for property or a business that “will help fund the growth of family wealth.”
His intellectual property examples include Bill Gates of Microsoft and George Lucas of “Star Wars’’ fame, who became billionaires by leveraging the expertise of others—computer manufacturers and merchandise producers—to save time and money while making more money from others’ research, development and creativity.
In his chapter on failure, Jarvis reveals that he lost money in the lucrative Los Angeles and Austin real estate markets, didn’t have a best seller until his 13th book, came close to filing for bankruptcy and is on a second marriage. He admits leveraging requires taking risks.
“You are likely reading this book because you have beaten the odds and are already in the top 1 percent of earners in America. Now you want to get to the next level, but you don’t want to lose everything that you have worked so hard to accomplish,’’ Jarvis says.
Asset protection is essential—for individuals, families and businesses—and advice on it is not offered by many financial planning firms, Jarvis says.
A former owner of an insurance-management firm, Jarvis says money is to be made from the insurance industry—in 2015, more than $1.2 trillion was written in net premiums. In his Insure Success chapter, Jarvis writes that business owners can buy a captive insurance company (CIC) to cover excluded business liabilities such as wrongful termination, harassment or Americans with Disabilities Act violations; owners of a CIC receive its profits and sales commissions.
In the leveraging people section that is devoted to retirement plans, Jarvis will raise eyebrows: “Retirement plans are for socialists not entrepreneurs,’’ he says.