E10 - You Don't Really Own Anything - And Here's Why That's Not a Bad Thing

Most people spend their entire lives trying to “own” things — their home, their car, their business.
 But as Jaden explains in this episode, ownership is mostly an illusion… and that’s not a bad thing.
It’s actually the doorway to real financial freedom.

In Episode 10 of Before the Returns, Jaden recaps the huge response to the 50-year mortgage conversation and uses it to expose a deeper truth:
Freedom doesn’t come from paying things off — it comes from controlling the structure.

Jaden shares a personal story about his grandparents, who had their home paid off for decades yet still faced property taxes higher than their original mortgage payment.
 He also highlights a real-world case of a homeowner losing a fully paid-off property over just $588 in unpaid taxes — proving that title doesn’t equal control.

From there, the episode walks you through the blueprint of building a Family Banking system:
Clarity → Structure → Flow → Stewardship
and shows how generationally wealthy families, banks, and corporations use these same principles to create control, optionality, and resilience.

If you’ve ever wondered why the wealthy often control assets without owning them — or how to create a financial structure that keeps you in control regardless of who holds the paperwork — this episode gives you the framework.

💡 IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

• Why “ownership” isn’t what you think it is
• How banks, governments, and institutions maintain control even after you’ve paid something off
• Why property taxes make homeownership a form of “perpetual rent”
• The story of Jaden’s grandparents and the illusion of owning a home
• How the wealthy use structure instead of possession
• The 4-step blueprint of a Family Banking system
• Why stewardship determines whether wealth lasts or dies

🔑 KEY TAKEAWAYS

“Ownership is an illusion — control is what matters.”
 “You can hold the title and still lose the asset.”
 “The wealthy don’t need to own everything. They own the system that controls everything.”
 “Family Banking is about taking control of the flow, not chasing ownership.”
 “Wealth dies when purpose disappears — stewardship keeps both alive.”

Learn more at www.jadenzubal.com | Follow @jadenzubal | Join the *Before the Returns Weekly* newsletter

📩 Questions or ideas? Email: jadenzubal.wealth@gmail.com

⚖️ Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice. Always consult with a qualified professional before making financial decisions.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Most people spend their entire lives trying to own things. Their home, their car, their business. But the truth is, even when you think you own it, someone else is still in control. On our last episode, we spoke about the 50-year mortgage. Right? I've seen things all over social media. I've seen it in news articles. Everywhere I look, people are talking about the 50-year mortgage today, and they're talking about this idea that you're basically just going to be renting from the bank for your entire life with this type of mortgage, right? Even if we have a 15-year or a 30-year mortgage, I think there are some things that people are missing in that conversation. So here's what most people don't realize. The wealthy have always known how to control things without directly owning them. They don't need the title to benefit, they hold the structure. Banks, corporations, and families who play the long game don't chase ownership of every asset. They build systems that let them control the cash flow and direct the outcomes. So today, I want to build on that because why most people are trying to own more, the people who win are building structures that let them control everything. Hello and welcome to another episode of Before the Returns. I'm your host, Jaden Zuball, and today we're going to talk specifically about the structure of owning versus having control. Like how do those two things intertwine and play together to give you the best outcome? I'm going to play a little bit on the 50-year mortgage that we spoke about in our last episode, tie that into family banking that we spoke about in the episode prior to that. But we'll really start by closing out the 50-year mortgage conversation. I have a little bit more I want to say on that, and I think it really applies to the overall approach that we're trying to take here. So then I'll show you how to design your own system where you hold the control no matter who holds the paperwork. All right, so the 50-year mortgage, like anything, is just a tool, right? We talked about that last time. It's just another tool that we have available in our toolbox. Just one more thing we can do. Used thoughtfully, it can be an asset. Used carelessly, it becomes a liability. What stood out from last week's feedback is how many people still equate ownership with freedom. In fact, I did a poll on social media a little over a week ago now. And when I did that poll, the results weren't necessarily surprising because 100% owning a home is a big part of the American dream, right? And I'm not necessarily trying to take that away from people and tell people that's a bad idea because it can be a great idea to own a home. And there's definitely an emotional benefit that comes with owning your home as well. But does owning your home outright really equate to freedom? And I don't know that it always does. So let me tell a quick story as to why I think that way. I personally think that we don't ever own our property outright. Here's an example. So if we go back to, like I'm going to speak to my grandparents specifically for a moment. My grandparents bought their house way back in the day for, I believe,$13,000. And they had a small mortgage on that, which at the time didn't feel like a small mortgage, right? Because we're talking about decades and decades ago. So they paid on their mortgage religiously. They were actually very good with their finances, did a great job, and they paid their home off. Well, by the time they paid their home off, the property taxes and insurance were a greater monthly payment or annual payment, however you decide to pay that. But in their case, they were a greater monthly payment than the original mortgage payment was by itself. Right. So sure, you you eliminate the mortgage payment, but guess what? If you don't pay your property taxes, you can still lose your home. And hopefully, not in all cases, but in some cases you can. In fact, I just read an article today that was posted on The Sun, just a news outlet that I read online, and it talked about a guy who had his home paid off, and it this was in Nebraska, and he lost his home over a$588 tax bill that went unpaid. Let me say that again. He had his home paid off, no mortgage, and he lost the home over a$588 tax bill, right? Because the county, when he didn't pay his taxes, put a lien on the home. Then they proceeded to foreclose on that property and they sold the property to an investor. Now, he did go through the reason this was posted is he went through a six-year court battle and he ended up finding a solution where he was able to get the home back from the investor that purchased it from the county. But the fact that it got to that point and it took him six years to get his home back tells the story that we need to understand here, right? Just because you don't have a mortgage payment does not mean you have full freedom. It does not mean that you are in complete control of that property. That's the reality of modern finance, right? You can hold the title, but someone else still has their finger on the ownership side. With mortgages, the bank controls the lien. With property taxes, the government controls the right to keep it. So true freedom doesn't come from eliminating every payment. It comes from building a system that lets you control the flow no matter who holds the paperwork. All right, so that's exactly where family banking comes in. It's about designing a structure where you control the capital even when someone else technically owns the asset. Alright, so what does owning the system actually mean? Owning your system means creating a structure where your dollars never sit idle. They flow, they compound, and they stay accessible. You become both the lender and the borrower in your own economy, the one directing cash flow instead of reacting to it. Because the wealthy don't just chase ownership, but they engineer control. The goal in many cases, in fact, I was thinking about this earlier today in a little bit different context, but the thought that I was having was look at what, say, Jeff Bezos has done with Amazon. Right? At this point, he owns a fraction of the company. He doesn't own the entire company, but he owns a fraction of the company and still has a significant amount of control and influence over that company. And I really don't think, and I could be wrong on this, but I really don't think he's super concerned about owning 100% of Amazon. That's not the goal. The goal isn't to own everything outright, it's the fact that he has control and still gets to earn a really good living off of it, but he doesn't need to own every piece of the company. And that's very common with companies, right? There's a lot of companies. I have part ownership in companies that the goal is not to own the entire company, it's just to have a little bit of control and influence over that business, right? We don't have to own everything to have control. The first step in building your family banking system isn't buying an insurance policy, right? We've talked about how family banking is structured around whole life insurance, but that's not even the first step. In order to make family banking work, you first have to have some clarity, right? What is the system meant to serve? What is it meant to do for you, for your business, for your real estate, for your family's future, and for your retirement? Family banking is a lot more encompassing than just let's put a life insurance policy in place and put money in it. The structure has to be built around purpose, not product. Right? Let's go back to that line I use on every single episode. I say it for a reason, but money is a tool and purpose is the goal, right? Money is a tool and purpose is the goal because the structure has to be built around purpose, not just products, not just the tools, not just all of the things that we use to fulfill the purpose. Your system is really only as strong as the purpose that it's built for. Now, once you know the purpose, the structure follows. A properly designed whole life policy, emphasis on properly designed. Right? The design matters. The way that you put this together will influence the outcome that you get. Period. It has to be done the right way. That is the foundation. You fund it like a savings type system, not speculation. We can show with contractual guarantees, and then we can also show what it looks like if you throw some dividends on there. But the value is in the guarantees in these systems, right? This is a financial foundation. This is not an investment. The goal isn't just to fund the policy, it's to make it part of your actual cash flow. It's to make it a normal, everyday part of what you're doing with your finances. We talked at the very beginning of my podcast. If you go back to some of the first couple of episodes here, I talked about having a cash flow system where money comes in and we do it in normal financial systems. For a lot of people who budget, I think we do it backwards sometimes, where money comes into your checking account, and then you allocate to all of your bills, and then you allocate a little bit to savings. What I would suggest doing is having the money come into a single account, but that account that it comes into is not the account that you use to pay your bills. So then you transfer the money from there to your expense account. And what stays in that account is your savings. So this is more of a savings first strategy, right? And now we can implement the whole life into that bucket. I can even keep a little bit extra in that bucket. But typically this enables people to save 20, 30, if not 40% more than they're used to saving because you're pushing money over for your expenses instead of just letting all of your expenses drag against your income automatically. So there's a lot of psychology that goes into how we use our money to better influence the outcomes that we get. Okay. Again, the goal isn't just to fund a policy, but it's to make it an actual part of your cash flow. Use it for business reserves, family expenses, and investments.Anywhere you'd normally let cash sit idle. Now, banks make billions on the flow of money. Family banking lets you capture that movement inside of your own world. So you're creating a system that operates similarly and lets you capture some of the benefits of money movement. And then finally, we have to spend just a brief minute here and talk about stewardship, right? I feel really strongly about this idea. I really believe in the idea of creating a better, a better legacy than just money. Legacy is not just about passing on money to somebody someday. Legacy is about ideas and concepts and values and the things that really matter in life. And then the money is just, again, the tool that supports those things. So it's really important to not only do this for ourselves, but to teach our family the same systems and concepts. The reason why the Rockefeller family up on the wall here, the reason why they've done so well is because this is a from what I can see, this is like a primary value in the family. It's we do things together and we have we have family meetings and we talk about money and we talk about what these things mean and how they work. Because how do you expect your family to be any good at managing their money if whatever you do is hidden from them, right? It's important to share that. So wealth dies when purpose disappears, but stewardship keeps both alive. All right. So if the 50-year mortgage conversation was about seeing how banks use time and control, this episode is about learning to do the same for yourself. All right, the wealthy control through design, not possession, and family banking is how you start doing the same. Next week, I'll get into a little bit more about directly funding your system, how to start, what to look for, and how to make sure it fits your goals. Money is the tool, and purpose is the goal. So if you enjoyed this episode, please give it a like, a share, a follow, pass it on to friends and family, people that you feel could get some value from this type of conversation, and please support the channel. Anything that you do there helps us grow immensely and is very much appreciated. With that, I look forward to catching you on the next episode.