The Money Insights Podcast

What happens if you need long-term care? What happens if you never need it? And perhaps most importantly, what happens to the money you've set aside to pay for it?

Long-term care planning presents a difficult financial dilemma. Traditional insurance can help protect your assets, but premiums can increase, coverage has limitations, and you may spend years paying for benefits you never use. On the other hand, paying for care out of pocket could put a significant dent in the wealth you've spent a lifetime building.

In this episode of the Money Insights Podcast, Christian...

Is conventional financial wisdom always worth following? Or are some of the strategies we've been taught to value actually holding us back?

Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie return for Part 2 of their Overrated or Underrated series, challenging familiar assumptions about investing, business, money, and the decisions that shape our lives. From maxing out your 401k and dollar-cost averaging to business partnerships and taking on outside investors, they're separating popular advice from practical value.

The conversation also goes beyond building wealth to explore what wealth is actually for. Should you aim to die with zero or...

What if some of the financial advice you've followed for years isn't actually helping you build wealth? From diversification and financial advisors to debt freedom and passive income, conventional wisdom isn't always the whole story.

In this episode of the Money Insights Podcast, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie play Overrated or Underrated?—putting popular financial strategies, investments, and wealth-building philosophies to the test. Some answers might surprise you. Others reveal why the way you use a strategy matters just as much as the strategy itself.

They explore why traditional diversification may not provide the protection in...

What if the way you think about your life insurance premium is keeping you from seeing the bigger strategy?

In this episode of the Money Insights Podcast, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie revisit one of the most important principles behind a properly structured, high-cash-value life insurance policy: building the capital base. Instead of viewing every contribution as another insurance expense, they explain why max funding is designed to put more capital to work—and why that distinction matters over the long term.

Christian and Rod break down five reasons to max fund a policy, including bu...

What happens when you stop asking AI for answers—and ask it to challenge the way you think?

In this episode of the Money Insights Podcast, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie put some of their core wealth-building principles under pressure. They use AI to challenge their thinking on diversification, liquidity, cash flow, leverage, life insurance, taxes, financial control, and the role high income actually plays in building wealth.

Some of the questions reinforce what they already believe. Others expose the nuance that gets lost when financial principles are treated as absolutes. Should you diversify away fr...

Some financial rules sound so logical that we rarely stop to question them. Pay off the mortgage as fast as possible. Focus on investment returns. Save consistently, stay the course, and eventually everything will work out.

In this episode of the Money Insights Podcast, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie look back at financial beliefs they once held—and explain what caused them to rethink them. From “buy term and invest the difference” to doing everything yourself, eliminating debt at all costs, and assuming traditional investing alone is enough, they unpack the experiences that changed their perspective.

The...

Not every investment belongs in your portfolio—even if it happens to be a great investment for someone else.

In this episode of the Money Insights Podcast, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie turn the usual investing conversation upside down. Instead of talking about what they would invest in, they compare notes on the investments they probably wouldn’t touch—and, more importantly, why.

From penny stocks and speculative crypto to restaurants, personally managed rental properties, annuities, collectibles, precious metals, agriculture, and more, the conversation reveals something bigger than a list of investments to avoid. The real q...

Most people think wealth building starts with investing. But investing is only one piece of a much bigger picture.

In this episode of the Money Insights Podcast, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie break down the Five Phases of Wealth Building: Capital Creation, Capital Structure, Capital Growth, Capital Protection, and Capital Legacy. Together, these phases offer a framework for thinking beyond individual investments and looking at how the entire wealth-building system works together.

Christian and Rod explore why earning more and reducing unnecessary taxes can be just as important as investment returns, why capital structure may...

Money conversations inside a marriage aren’t always really about money. They’re often about trust, responsibility, autonomy, communication, and whether two people truly see the financial picture as something they’re building together.

In this episode of the Money Insights Podcast, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie are joined by Brenyn McConnell and Blake Brogan to pressure-test Christian’s money do’s and don’ts for marriage. They get into the practical realities behind treating money as “ours,” why earning more shouldn’t automatically give one spouse more financial power, and why every couple may need some spending that requ...

In Part 2 of Wealth Questions With No Easy Answers, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie work through seven questions that challenge some of the standard rules around money: Is diversification always better? Would you rather have a $10 million net worth or $1 million a year in dependable cash flow? When should you stop investing every available dollar and actually spend some of it?

The conversation also moves beyond investment decisions into what wealth is ultimately for. Christian and Rod wrestle with how much to leave your children, whether inheritance should be equal or fair, and how to weigh higher...

Some of the most important wealth-building decisions don’t come with a clean yes or no. They live in the gray areas—where taxes, risk, liquidity, leverage, opportunity, and personal circumstances all compete for attention.

In this episode of the Money Insights Podcast, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie tackle five wealth questions designed to challenge conventional thinking. They start with a fundamental question: As you get older and wealthier, should you change the strategy that got you there—or keep running the same plays? Christian compares it to the “prevent defense” in sports: sometimes becoming too conservative can create...

What happens when you ask ChatGPT to build a roadmap from a $5 million net worth to $30 million—and then put every recommendation under the microscope?

In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie take a 10-step AI-generated financial plan designed for a 40-year-old orthopedic surgeon earning $1 million per year and grade it recommendation by recommendation. From converting income into investable capital and maintaining liquidity to public markets, alternative investments, leverage, insurance, tax planning, and lifestyle inflation, nothing gets a free pass.

Some of the recommendations earn high marks. Others expose a bigger problem: financial advice th...

Success doesn't automatically lead to financial freedom. In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie count down the ten biggest financial mistakes they consistently see among successful professionals, business owners, and wealth builders.

From trapped equity and qualified money to liquidity, taxes, estate planning, and chasing returns, they explain why many common financial decisions create unintended consequences—even for people earning a great income. Along the way, they share personal stories, practical examples, and the thinking behind building a financial system instead of making isolated decisions.

The conversation builds toward what they believe is the si...

Most investors spend their time studying markets, opportunities, and returns. But the best investors also understand the economic principles that shape every financial decision they make.

In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie welcome a special guest: economist and educator Jodi Zabriskie. Together, Rod and Jodi explore five foundational economic principles that can help high-income earners become more thoughtful investors, better decision-makers, and more effective stewards of their resources.

From scarcity and incentives to pricing, risk, and trade-offs, this conversation goes beyond theory and into practical application. Along the way, they draw on the...

How should cash flow from your investments actually flow back into your Investment Optimizer strategy?

It's one of the most common questions Blake Brogan and Brenyn McConnell receive from clients, and in this special "Takeover Pod," they break down the practical mechanics behind keeping your capital working efficiently.

Rather than letting cash accumulate in a checking account while waiting for the next investment opportunity, they explain why many investors choose to continuously move capital back through their policy loan system, creating greater efficiency, flexibility, and liquidity along the way.

They also discuss how...

What if the biggest obstacle to building wealth isn't your investment strategy—but the taxes you pay every year?

In this episode, Christian Allen sits down with Wealth Advisor Brenyn McConnell and tax strategist Kyle Moore of Strategic Associates to explore tax mitigation strategies designed for high-income earners. They discuss why traditional tax planning often falls short for W-2 professionals and business owners, and how proactive planning can help redirect capital back into your own wealth-building system.

Kyle walks through two tax strategies currently available, explaining how they work, who they're designed for, and why ta...

Are Financial Advisors Becoming Obsolete?

Artificial intelligence is changing the way we learn, research, and make decisions—but does that mean financial advisors are becoming obsolete?

In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie explore how AI is transforming the financial landscape, from answering complex questions in seconds to helping consumers prepare for important financial conversations. They discuss where AI adds tremendous value, where it still falls short, and why human judgment, experience, and relationships remain essential.

Rather than resisting AI, Christian and Rod argue that the most successful advisors—and consumers—will learn...

or years, high-income earners have asked the same question: "How do I reduce my taxes?" But what if that's only half the conversation?

In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie explore a mindset shift that could change the way you think about wealth building. Rather than viewing tax mitigation as the finish line, they explain why it's actually the starting point—and how the capital you preserve today can become the fuel for building significantly more wealth tomorrow.

You'll learn why the most successful wealth builders think differently about cash flow, capital deployment, and lo...

Everyone wants to know the best investment. But what if the biggest drivers of wealth aren't investments at all?

In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie take a personal look at the decisions that had the greatest impact on their financial lives. From entrepreneurship and education to family, partnerships, and alternative investing, they share the choices that shaped their journey and helped create the opportunities they enjoy today.

Along the way, they explore why wealth-building is often less about finding the perfect investment and more about making the right long-term decisions. Some of the...

The Financial Media Has a Big Problem

Every day we're bombarded with headlines telling us what to fear, what to buy, what to sell, and what disaster is supposedly right around the corner. The louder the financial media gets, the harder it becomes to separate signal from noise.

In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie unpack the growing problem of financial hyperbole and why so much of today's media environment is designed to capture attention rather than help investors make better decisions. From market crash predictions to sensational investment claims, they explore how fear...

Most investors spend their time searching for the next great investment opportunity. But according to Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie, the investors who consistently build wealth focus on something even more important: how their capital is structured before it’s ever deployed.

In this episode, Christian and Rod break down the difference between the traditional accumulation model and a cash flow-focused wealth strategy. They explain why liquidity, control, tax efficiency, and capital structure often have a greater impact on long-term results than simply chasing higher returns.

The conversation centers around the Accelerated Capital Strategy (ACS), a...

The 5 Most Dangerous Phrases in Wealth Building

Some of the biggest mistakes investors make don't start with bad investments—they start with the stories, assumptions, and sales messages they believe before investing.

In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie break down five common phrases that can quietly lead investors into poor decisions. While these phrases aren't always wrong, they can become dangerous when they replace sound process, careful due diligence, and disciplined thinking.

From urgency tactics and tax-driven decisions to exclusivity, guarantees, and the illusion of "no downside," Christian and Rod unpack wh...

Most people assume that if someone is wealthy, they must also be a great investor. But those are two very different skill sets.

In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie unpack why many high-income earners and successful professionals still make poor investment decisions — even after building significant wealth. From emotional decision-making and overconfidence to lack of due diligence and chasing “exclusive” opportunities, they break down the hidden traps that quietly derail smart people.

Christian and Rod also explore the difference between hype and process, why liquidity matters more than most investors realize, and how the be...

In this episode of the Money Insights Podcast, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie unpack a reality that many high-income earners quietly experience: you can look wealthy on paper and still not feel financially free.

They explore the growing gap between net worth and actual freedom — and why liquidity, cash flow, flexibility, and control matter far more than most traditional financial advice suggests. From business ownership and real estate equity to retirement accounts and market dependency, Christian and Rod break down the hidden pressures that often come with wealth accumulation.

This conversation challenges the idea that a...

In this episode of the Money Insights Podcast, Rod Zabriskie sits down with Blake Brogan to unpack one of the biggest financial transitions a person can make: stepping away from traditional employment and becoming a full-time investor. It’s not just about replacing income — it’s about redesigning how you think about work, cash flow, freedom, and control.

Rod shares insights from a recent conversation with a longtime client who made the leap after years of intentional planning using the Investment Optimizer strategy. Together, Rod and Blake break down the mindset shifts, financial preparation, and practical frameworks that h...

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, this episode takes a step back to examine the principles that have quietly shaped wealth-building opportunities for generations. Rod Zabriskie and Brenyn McConnell explore how foundational ideas—like ownership, freedom, and structured systems—still influence how high-income earners can build meaningful, lasting wealth today.

But this isn’t a history lesson—it’s a practical breakdown. From owning assets instead of just earning income, to using the tax code strategically, to creating consistent cash flow and reinvesting with intention, this episode connects timeless principles to real-world financial...

This episode is a little different—and a lot more revealing.

Instead of teaching from theory, Christian and Rod step into the investor’s seat and pressure-test real opportunities in real time. Think of it as a behind-the-scenes look at how experienced investors actually think—not when everything is polished, but in the moment when decisions are being made.

Using a “Deal or No Deal” format, they walk through a range of opportunities—from private credit and multifamily to creator businesses, oil & gas, short-term rentals, and private equity. The goal isn’t to fully underwrite each deal… it’...

What if the real advantage in investing isn’t the deal… but how you position your capital before the deal ever shows up?

In this episode, Christian and Rod unpack the mechanics behind the Investment Optimizer—and more importantly, the philosophy that drives it. This isn’t about chasing higher returns. It’s about creating a system where your capital stays in motion, even when it’s deployed elsewhere.

They break down the concept of “dual-purpose capital”—where your money continues compounding in one place while simultaneously being used to generate cash flow, appreciation, and tax advantages in...

This episode takes a different approach—one that blends strategy with a bit of competition. Inspired by sports drafts, Christian and Rod build their ideal “investment rosters” for 2026, selecting both foundational financial principles and specific investment types that they believe will drive long-term success.

Along the way, they reveal how they actually think about money: not as isolated decisions, but as a coordinated system. From cash flow and liquidity to leverage and capital structure, you’ll hear how each principle fits into a bigger picture—and why the order you prioritize them matters more than you might think.

Smart people make bad investment decisions all the time—and not because they lack intelligence. In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie unpack the real reasons good investors still get pulled into poor outcomes. This conversation goes beyond surface-level advice and gets into the pressure points that distort decision-making when money, timing, and opportunity collide.

They explore the difference between being smart and being principled. Because in investing, knowledge alone is not enough. Pressure to act quickly, limited liquidity, capital tied up in the wrong places, and the temptation to chase what has already worked for so...

Most people think wealth building comes down to one thing: getting the highest return possible. In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie challenge that idea head-on and unpack why that mindset can actually hold high-income earners back.

They explain that returns matter, but they are only one part of the equation. Real wealth is built through a system—one that accounts for taxes, liquidity, control, flexibility, and how each decision fits into a larger financial strategy. When you focus only on the published return, you risk missing the full value of an opportunity.

Christian an...

Most people think wealth building starts with picking the right investment. But in this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie make the case that real wealth is built in stages — and that understanding those stages can completely change how you approach money.

They walk through the five stages of investor evolution: from simply learning to save, to market investing, to stepping into alternative deals, and eventually into a more sophisticated role as a capital architect. Along the way, they unpack why so many people get stuck in the middle — especially high-income earners who are doing all the “right”...

Indexed Universal Life insurance (IUL) is one of the most talked-about — and misunderstood — financial tools in the wealth strategy world. Some people see it as powerful. Others see it as dangerous. In this episode, Christian Allen sits down with Brenyn McConnell and Blake Brogan to unpack the truth behind the headlines.

The conversation was sparked by a recent story involving NASCAR driver Kyle Busch, who reportedly lost millions after a poorly structured life insurance policy failed to perform as expected. That story raises an important question: Is IUL actually the problem — or is the real issue how polici...

There are financial “rules” almost everyone has heard: max out retirement accounts, avoid debt at all costs, buy a house as soon as you can, keep every dollar fully invested, and trust the stock market to carry you home. In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod Zabriskie pull those rules into the light and ask a better question: what if the rule isn’t wrong because it’s evil, but because it’s incomplete?

Christian and Rod walk through several of the most common pieces of financial advice they personally ignore, not because they are trying to be contrar...

Most people think “premium financing” is either for the ultra-wealthy… or it’s a risky black box. In this episode, Rod and I open up a strategy we’ve been refining behind the scenes for years—now rebranded as the Accelerated Capital Strategy (ACS).

We walk through why we moved away from the old “Capital Avalanche” name, and what the new name signals: this isn’t chaos. It’s precision—an intentionally engineered design built to create tax-free income and/or a larger legacy benefit over time.

We also draw a clear line between ACS and our Investment Opt...

Coming to you live from the Best Ever Conference 10 in Salt Lake City, Rod Zabriskie sits in the host seat with Brenyn “Babyface” McConnell for a field-report style episode: what we saw, what we learned, and what it means for everyday investors trying to build real freedom.

One of the biggest surprises? There are more quality deals out there than most people think—especially when you get out of your normal circles and into the rooms where operators, sponsors, and serious investors gather. This isn’t about chasing shiny objects. It’s about widening your lens and realizing...

A lot of high-income earners don’t feel wealthy. They feel… tight. Like the money shows up, but somehow it never sticks. In this episode, Rod and I break down why that happens—and why it’s more common (and more fixable) than most people think.

We walk through the five biggest “liquidity killers” that quietly drain cash flow even at $300k, $500k, and beyond—without turning this into a guilt trip about overspending. Because in many cases, it’s not reckless spending. It’s structural: taxes, locked-up retirement money, a personal residence that looks great on paper, and monthly...

If you’re a high-income earner and you’ve realized you make too much to contribute directly to a Roth IRA, you’ve probably hit what we call the “Roth wall.” And if you’ve been taught for years that the Roth is the holy grail… that wall can feel like the end of the road.

In this episode, Christian Allen and Rod “the Pod” Zabriskie zoom out and reframe the question. Because wealth builders aren’t just hunting for the best tax container—they’re building a system. A Roth can be a powerful tool inside that system, but for man...

Most bad financial advice doesn’t sound “bad” at first. It sounds normal. Familiar. Like something everyone repeats—so you stop questioning it.

In this episode, Rod and I walk through a simple framework for spotting advice that looks polished on paper but breaks down in real life. We talk about the “just do this” statements, the backyard-barbecue confidence, and the kind of guidance that quietly trains you to disengage.

We also hit the deeper issue underneath all of it: the real danger isn’t that bad advice exists—it’s that people outsource their thinking for 25 ye...

Private credit is hot right now — and for good reason. It can feel steady, cash-flow friendly, and simpler than other alternative investments. But when something feels “easy,” that’s exactly when investors start letting their guard down.

In this episode, Rod breaks down what private credit actually is (and how it’s different from bonds), then we walk through five common mistakes we see high-income investors make when they step into this space.

From liquidity blind spots, to yield-chasing, to misaligned incentives and over-concentration, the thread is the same: private credit can be powerful — if you use it i...