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“The book that inspired me and changed my life, written by R. Nelson Nash. He is a Mentor and Dear Friend with a lasting influence on my personal and professional life. Nelson's advice, encouragement and guidance have inspired me to make sharing what he's created with others, my own life's work.”
I'm sharing our Painted Picture with you in its original language, word for word.
Jayson Lowe, Ascendant's CEO
Welcome to our 2026 retreat. This is an evening that we’ve all been looking forward to. Our second painted picture vision, created and accomplished by all of us together. Give yourselves a round of applause. You are loving this retreat destination because we actually made it here this time. The Caribbean cruise, ocean breeze, the sights and sounds, delicious food, and sunshine are so relaxing. You’re feeling happy and a sense of achievement as you look around tonight’s Team dinner, sharing conversations, laughter, tears of joy, warm hugs, and richly deserved celebration.
Can you feel that?
You’re surrounded by Teammates and Family, reflecting on all the progress we’ve made together. The journey is still far from over … and the best parts that you’ll remember forever, happened because of all the AWESOME People seated around you.
Cheers to our Team, to our Clients, our Strategic Partners, and to our Families who support us!
We have grown from humble beginnings into a multi-brand MGA. We’re in pursuit of becoming Canada’s #1, most highly valued MGA. We now have more top producers in the Life Insurance industry than any other MGA, and we’re recognized as a visionary in the industry. We’ve more than doubled our business yet again! Our Clients, Advisors, AGA’s, Producer Groups, and Strategic Partners all recognize Ascendant as the Team to succeed on. As an MGA, we’ve turned competitors into customers. We love receiving comments regularly about how much People simply “love doing business with Ascendant.” All of our affiliate brands and platforms like our YouTube Channels, Wealth Without Bay Street, LifEVA, and Passive Income Mastermind are all thriving and attracting more of the Clients we most love to work with. The way you’ve treated Clients and the relationships we’ve all built keep our Clients coming back and referring. Being there for people when they need us the most, helping Clients and Advisors to build a peaceful, stress free way of life financially, is how we continue to grow and thrive. As you look around, you’re reflecting on all of the People you’ve served together and all that we’ve accomplished together as ONE Team. We never forget where we came from and we remain humble.
As Ascendant’s founder, my vision from day 1 was for Team members to eventually own Ascendant with me. And so, I created an employee stock purchase plan so that Ascendant Team members could formally have the opportunity to purchase shares of company stock. Now that Team members have shared ownership, they continue to take great care of our business, while working everyday to make it even better.
Today, I am beaming with pride and my heart is filled with joy because Team members across our organization are co-owners and you can see the real impact of our authentic ONE Team, ONE Vision environment. Team members in all roles know what we measure and why, know our goals, and our plans to achieve them. I love hearing your stories about being empowered and fully trusted to make day-to-day decisions that drive Ascendant forward to # 1 while always doing the right thing for Clients.
Our pledge of giving through profit sharing has grown every single quarter and the Nelson Nash Memorial Fund is having a real & meaningful impact. Tonight, we’re proud to celebrate that we’ve donated three hundred thousand dollars, along with our time, talents and energy to a variety of deserving charitable organizations. Giving is just one of many ways we continue to do good together. As you look around the room, you feel a deep sense of gratitude and pride for being a part of a Team who prioritize making other People’s lives better in the communities where we live and work.
Tonight, we raise our glasses and toast all of our Team members who’ve made this painted picture vision real. And to all who’ve been promoted from within, and to every Advisor on our Team who’ve grown into top producers, congratulations to you all.
As a Teammate, you are truly operating within your unique ability, the essence of what you love to do and what you do best. It’s your own set of natural talents that fuels you to contribute to the Team in the ways that most energize you. You’ve produced outstanding results with your talent. In fact it’s so natural to you, you can’t help but do your job extraordinarily well. Your Teammates all notice this skill, rely on it, and value it. You love your career, and using your Unique Ability gives you a boost of energy. Teammates around you get energy from you too, because it’s fun and exciting to be around someone who’s both passionate about and talented at what they’re doing. Likewise, because you surround yourself with other Unique Ability Teammates, your days are filled with positivity, creativity, and ambition.
In any role on our Team, you feel that coaching is helping you to become more confident, capable and successful. As an Advisor, you are selfless and always ensure that leads generated are handled by the best qualified Advisor because you know that every settled case benefits everyone on our Team, in every role. Nobody on our Advisor Team falls through the cracks or feels invisible. You respect the true meaning of accountability on our Team and you lean into it because it’s making you and everyone around you better. Every Advisor has set and achieved a concrete goal for a number of People served. And what a great feeling it is to hear about all the cases that were shared among Teammates. Our set / split / close model has more than tripled revenue.
Ego is our enemy. Nobody wins alone and no individual Advisor is ever bigger than the Team as a whole. What a feeling it is to see Advisors holding each other accountable, maintaining high people served expectations, honoring commitments to the Team, and executing daily standards. It feels pretty darn good to be SUCCEEDING and GROWING together doesn’t it?
Advisors, as you look around at your Teammates, you feel immense gratitude for everyone’s contributions and you’re excited to share the wins with each other tonight. Congratulations. I’m just so proud of you.
We’ve seen first hand that Clients provide us with the best intellectual shortcuts to what they want to see us build for them. We’ve taken those intellectual shortcuts seriously and have brought Clients in as part of our creative Teamwork. We ask Clients “What do you want to see us build for you”? And then we set out to deliver that as an intuitive product or service. Our Clients test drive every new innovation before it’s market ready.
Each Client has their own AscendantPLUS+ home page with anytime, anywhere access. Desired information and service is available, on any appropriate device, in context, at their moment of need. Clients love controlling their experience and share positive feedback with us regularly. Each Client can login to AscendantPLUS+, see all of their policies and data at a glance, plan and track insured retirement, see all of the meeting history with their Advisor, product(s) purchased, their entire history of interaction with us, and most importantly, be reminded of their WHY for implementing IBC. And they simply LOVE it !
The Family Banking model is thriving and our Clients are telling us how it’s bringing their Families closer together, giving them certainty and confidence. Advisors are sharing how it’s expanding their Client’s programs and referrals. Our events, resources, coaching programs and content are truly honoring Nelson’s golden rules.
We’re very proud of the direct digital relationships with our Clients and they love sharing testimonials about their experiences with the innovative tools we’ve built.
We’re proud of the content specific resources that are available 24 x 7 x 365. Content + Commerce is our formula. Whenever we create content, we are the producer and director of the film that’s all about them … our Prospects and Clients. Whether it’s an established entrepreneur, a real estate investor, a business owner, an individual, a Family … They all have direct ungated access to content specific videos, webinars and resources that help them by actually helping them.
We’ve become even more Client obsessed. The journey from prospect to client to family banking is as simple and smooth as ever. Our business is building on what Clients value first – products second. We always lead with “What’s in it for them” because what’s best for our Clients always turns out to be what’s best for our business.
Every encounter matters with Clients, Teammates, Prospects and Strategic Partners. On our Team, everyone leads. You not only understand what to do, but why. You don’t wait for direction from someone else, you lead. We’ve made bold decisions together that moved us all closer to our goals. Everyone’s attitude is no excuses, no explanations, no one else to blame. We own problems and the solutions to those problems. As a Leader on this Team, you feel humble, capable, and confident. You backup your Teammates 100% and perpetuate our culture of accountability. Nobody, including me, is exempt from accountability. You have high expectations of each other and never support any deviation from our standards, regardless of whether you are dealing with someone internally, externally.
To our Team Leaders, you’ve provided others with the opportunity to step into greater leadership roles which benefit the Team. You fulfill your responsibility to develop future leaders and you never forget that success is all about others. You and I work for our Teammates, not the other way around. And accountability isn’t a buzz word in our vocabulary. It’s a standard that starts with you.
Together, we simplify our mission by communicating clearly, and concisely. Every Team member has a precise understanding of what things mean. There is absolutely no room for sloppy communication.
We continue building something much bigger and better than any one of us can build alone. At Ascendant, we will always take pride in being a hero to our Clients, in winning, accountability, thinking abundantly, and collaboration.
What a feeling it is to be dominating. We are climbing rapidly to becoming the # 1 MGA in Canada, measured by quantity of top producers and case persistency. We remain intentional about asking every new and existing Client for specific feedback about their experience doing business with us. Five (5) star Google reviews continue to pour in.
Collaboration was just one pillar in our first painted picture vision. We’ve added a second. Ownership. Collaboration opportunities continue to appear everywhere. We focus our energies on expanding our limits and continuing to collaborate with other like-minded individuals and companies to create value far greater than what anyone involved would be able to create on their own.
The Strategic Partners that we work with repeatedly tell us “we admire the way you do business. It truly is top notch. Everyone that we interact with on the Ascendant Team is professional, kind, and really good at what they do.” We are an admired organization, recognized not only for what we do, but for how we do it. People first.
We continue to lead because while other organizations spend a lot of time trying to find the recipe to being #1. For us, it’s not something to be found … we create it. We innovate and help People by actually helping them. Strategic Coach remains woven into our company. We're 100X thinking, seeing the possible and committing to make it happen.
We get things done with great Focus, Faith and Effort. You authentically feel that being a part of our Team is Easy, Lucrative and Fun.
Our Client experience is better than ever. Clients are loving the Family Banking model. They’re sharing success stories and we celebrate their stories every quarter.
We have developed a deeper understanding of what the Clients we have, and the Clients we want to have truly value. And we’ve delivered on that.
We connect with People who want to connect with us, and understand that People want to learn from someone they like. And so we are likeable.
We care about our brands and the engagement we create with others. People want companies they do business with to align with their values and purpose. It’s one of the reasons why Ascendant has been growing at the fastest pace in our industry.
We’ve posted to social media a minimum of three hundred (300) times weekly and our Social Media Coordinator is directly responsible for every single post.
We funnel our influence into qualified leads, and we turn those leads into Clients. Whenever someone hears the words “Infinite Banking Concept, Becoming Your Own Banker”, they immediately think of Ascendant.
The English, Chinese and French versions of Nelson’s book are selling very well and the distribution function is seamless. Thirteen (13) quarterly books now make up the Wealth Without Bay Street Series.
Everyone on our Team knows our painted picture vision, our purpose, our goals, and how we plan to achieve them.
In our marketplace, we respond to People quickly and offer to help them. We follow up A LOT!
On our platform, we use hyper personalized automation to initiate conversations, and a Team member to start and finish conversations. We never delegate relationships.
We remain relentless in our pursuit to find the right People, to train them well enough to leave, but treat them well enough so they don’t want to. We hire slow and fire fast.
You feel empowered, engaged and supported in your role. When you look around, you’re proud of the People you work with, not because they’re the right fit, but because they’re the right addition.
We feel a deeper sense of trust and alignment on our Team. We remain results driven. And everything begins with People served. We love goals, the annual goal setting process and have the ambition to exceed them. We recognize the example that sets for our Clients. We recognize there is no such thing as unrealistic goals, only unrealistic timelines. We never set realistic goals or reduce them. We only increase our actions.
The Clients we have and the Clients we want to have know exactly what we do. At a glance online, they know all of the products and services that we provide.
We often examine every factor in our Client journey and at each step we ask “How can we make each step better”?
We are omnipresent on all social media platforms where our prospects are paying attention. Our Facebook community is now actually a community. We have Clients who’ve emerged into local leaders to assist People in our Facebook Group, host local meetups, and advocate Nelson’s message.
Our reporting dashboards are fit to the Team members who will look at them. Crucial information is digestible in 10 seconds or less.
When People see our marketing and educational content they tell us, “I felt like you were talking to me!” Our marketing style and authentic approach has generated a real positive buzz in the marketplace. As we continue to expand, everyone notices our focus on education, honoring Nelson’s message, our results and our great People.
Across North America, we continue to share Nelson’s message the way he intended, and we stay away from all the noise.
We deliver what we promise because we’re committed to our Clients. It shows in the ever increasing % of our new business coming from existing Client introductions. It feels effortless. In Team meetings, we keep hearing “Referrals are coming in daily.”
People served and unique ability Teamwork are what drives the top and bottom line of our business.
It’s all about our attitude and mindset. We expect everyone on our Team to do what they’re best at and be confident in doing it. The accountability is huge from the coaches to the Advisors, and from the Advisors to the Advisors. Contributions are recognized because we are intentional about catching our Teammates doing things right. We see change as a business necessity to remain collaborative and successful.
We’ve created a culture of inclusion and belonging at our company, valuing diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Everyone, regardless of role, has a voice on our Team.
The work of improving our Client’s journey, our systems and processes is never over. We are building an empire based around this discipline. We have a very healthy attitude about business goals and financial results. For us, results are a useful diagnostic and learning tool. And we’ve grown to appreciate that inspecting what we expect goes a long way toward contributing to the speed of our success.
Our resources are optimized. Documenting systems and best practices across every part of our organization is now routine. We have “zero tolerance for wrong fit” in our organization. We hire slow to our values and we fire fast to our values. Everyone is empowered to guard our culture.
Speed is good. Prospects want immediate gratification, but faster. We answer questions faster than anyone in the marketplace. We get offers in front of People faster than anyone in the marketplace. And when we do that on the platform of their choice, we make money faster than anyone in the marketplace.
The “best fit” model we created classifies every role on our Team as either Office, Hybrid, or Virtual based on the nature of the work. We have ensured that everyone has more work location flexibility than ever before. Our Team loves this way of getting business done, and shares that it encourages meaningful connections among Teams, and offices across Canada and the United States. At the same time, it continues to give us all opportunities to maintain a practice that we believe remains unmatched: gathering periodically to work together, in person, toward the achievement of our painted picture vision. By implementing this best fit model, we are an even better, and more-connected Team, building this bigger exciting future together.
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© 2023 Ascendant Financial Inc. All rights reserved.
The supporting material, audio and video recordings and all information related to Introduction to Becoming Your Own Banker, The Infinite Banking Concept (IBC) posted on www.ascendantfinancial.ca and all other Ascendant Financial Inc. websites are designed to educate and provide general information regarding The Infinite Banking Concept (IBC) and all other subject matter covered. It is marketed and distributed with the understanding that the authors and the publishers are not engaged in rendering legal, financial, or other professional advice. It is also understood that laws and practices may vary from province to province and are subject to change. All illustrations provided in these materials are for educational purposes only and individual results will vary. Each illustration provided is unique to that individual and your personal results may vary. Because each factual situation is different, specific advice should be tailored to each individual’s particular circumstances. For this reason, the reader is advised to consult with qualified licensed professionals of their choosing, regarding that individual’s specific situation.
The authors have taken reasonable precautions in the preparation of all materials and believe the facts presented are accurate as of the date it was written. However, neither the author nor the publishers assume any responsibility for any errors or omissions. The authors and publisher specifically disclaim any liability resulting from the use or application of the information contained in all materials, and the information is neither intended nor should be relied upon as legal, financial or any other advice related to individual situations.
Family Banking System (FBS)™ is a trademark of Ascendant Financial Inc. © Ascendant Financial Inc., 2024. All rights reserved. The phrase “Live the Lifestyle, Love the Process, Infinite Banking” is a registered copyright (Registration No. 1209863) with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. Unauthorized use, reproduction, distribution, or copying of this phrase, in whole or in part, without express written permission from Ascendant Financial Inc. is strictly prohibited. This copyright is protected under Canadian intellectual property laws and regulations. Any unauthorized use is subject to legal action and enforcement under Canadian law. For inquiries or requests for permission to use this copyright, please contact Ascendant Financial Inc.
The Infinite Banking Concept® is a registered trademark of Infinite Banking Concepts, LLC. Ascendant Financial is independent of and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Infinite Banking Concepts, LLC.”
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