The Human Problems of Infinite Banking
My friend Shane Tiffany and his wife Morgan used Dave Ramsey’s approach to get out of debt. Then they hit the question I hear constantly: now what? The usual answer felt contradictory. Take control of your finances, then hand that control to a stranger to invest in things you don’t understand. For them, infinite banking was the bridge. It let them keep control of what God had entrusted to them.
But the technical side of infinite banking is the easy part. The hard part is us. In Becoming Your Own Banker, Nelson Nash names the human problems that sabotage any money system. Infinite banking doesn’t hide those problems. It exposes them.
1. The arrival syndrome
Nelson called this the most devastating problem of all: the moment you decide you already know everything. When it sets in, you stop learning and, in Nelson’s words, you begin to rot.
It doesn’t only hit beginners. Shane and Morgan started in 2020 and went in aggressively. Six years later, with their policies maturing, they’re asking whether they’ve arrived. I’ve felt that pull too. But a great banker is like a great pilot. You never reach the end of optimizing cash flow, risk and collateral. That’s why it’s called infinite banking. You don’t come to the end of an infinite game.
2. The golden rule: control means responsibility
He who has the gold makes the rules. Infinite banking puts the gold back in your hands. Shane still invests in land and cattle, but the money flows through his policies first, with no penalties, credit checks or begging a banker. Infinite banking isn’t an investment; it’s a different money supply.
Here’s the catch. Once you make the rules, you’re free to make bad decisions too. As Shane put it, when you take back control, you take back responsibility. That’s not a reason to avoid it. It’s a chance to grow.
3. Parkinson’s law: the discipline problem
Nelson draws three traps from C. Northcote Parkinson:
Groupthink. Infinite banking is an off-ramp from the freeway everyone else is on, and people will question you. Find your small group.
Work expands to fill the time. Pay back policy loans when you can, not when you must. Shane and Morgan decide ahead of time what they’ll do with a windfall, so there’s nothing to deliberate when it comes.
Expenses rise to meet income. Every raise gets swallowed by a new ‘necessity’. Nelson said that if you beat this one, you’ll be ahead of 97% of people and sit on a war chest when opportunity shows up.
And don’t overthink it. You won’t fully understand infinite banking until you start. As Ray used to say, nobody learns to swim until they get in the water.
4. Willie Sutton’s law: protect what you have
Asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton said, ‘Because that’s where the money is.’ Wherever there’s wealth, someone will try to take it. Keeping control lets you keep more of what you earn, and these policies are private property that works like a fortress.
5. Use it or lose it
Jesus warned that whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away (Mark 4:25). Nelson said it takes about twenty years to fully build your system, and people quit when training slips, doubt creeps in or they try to go too fast. By the last year of his life, my mentor Ray spent most of his time lending from his own system because it had become the most valuable thing he owned. As Shane put it, owning a policy is great. Operating your own banking system is exponentially greater.
It’s not the policy, it’s the pilot
When I started flying, my mentor told me to skip the fast plane and learn on a slow one. It’s not about the plane; it’s about the pilot. Ray said the same about infinite banking: it’s not about the policy; it’s about the person operating it.
The numbers matter, but the human problems are what kill wealth. So, take Ray’s example. He read Becoming Your Own Banker more than 500 times. Read it once a month, and keep moving forward.
