Purpose with Mark Bertrang

At the headwaters of the Mississippi River, you can literally dip your cup and take a drink of water; but, by the end of the same river - 2,350 miles later at the Gulf of Mexico, you probably wouldn't even want to eat a fish from it. Money works the same way. In the beginning it's pure. Yet, once it's flowed through government constructed retirement programs like 401(k)s and IRAs, taxes, fees and...

At the headwaters of the Mississippi River, you can literally dip your cup and take a drink of water; but, by the end of the same river - 2,350 miles later at the Gulf of Mexico, you probably wouldn't even want to eat a fish from it. Money works the same way. In the beginning it's pure. Yet, once it's flowed through government constructed retirement programs like 401(k)s and IRAs, taxes, fees and...

How do you love a population of offenders? Can God create something good out of people who are not seen as worthy due to incarceration? Ann Wales is the chaplain of the La Crosse Jail Ministry. Ann's story begins in northern Minnesota, serving as a missionary in Lebanon and losing her husband to cancer on Christmas Day. We have all experienced pain in our lives; but, it's what we do with that pain...

Herbert Freudenberger coined the term "burnout" forty years ago as he described a state of mental and physical exhaustion caused by one's professional life. Our guest, Richard Kyte is the director of the D.B Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University in La Crosse, WI. Together, we discuss job burnout, work/life balance and the stress and unhappiness many people struggle with...

Vicki Markussen takes us into her deep-dive by engaging us into a greater La Crosse, Wisconsin. Local media outlets may provide a few short column inches of print or perhaps ninety seconds of airtime on the radio or tv. Vicki uses her unique skill as a journalist with a servant leader heart to cut through the social media clutter creating a hub for those who are passionate about their community, w...

This is visit number two with Chris Crye, executive director of Next Chapter/La Crosse about its mission of building lasting relationships with people who have been impacted by crime, restoring them to God, family, and their community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Next Chapter provides safe, secure and stable housing - Transitional housing (Discipleship Home) integrated with Christian living pr...

A visit with Chris Crye, executive director of Next Chapter/La Crosse about its mission of building lasting relationships with people who have been impacted by crime, restoring them to God, family, and their community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Next Chapter provides safe, secure and stable housing - Transitional housing (Discipleship Home) integrated with Christian living programs for men re...

Mark Bertrang visits with Kim D.H. Butler about her eighth book – "Perpetual Wealth: How to use 'Family Financing' to build Prosperity and Leave a Legacy for Generations". Making the list of one of American's most influential financial advisors by Investopedia, Kim learned through the hard work of growing-up as a farm girl with her own dairy cow. She chose to make an impact by taking a non-typical...

Here's the complaint: "Life Insurance only works when I die" or "How will Life Insurance benefit me?" or "When I've built up my wealth, why would I want or need Life Insurance?" If maximized to it fullest, a Whole Life Insurance Policy can provide multiple uses while you're living. It can become the Swiss Army Knife of your financial castle with great flexibility, liquidity and safety. It allows y...

Permanent Life Insurance Policies come with an assortment of levers, which are controlled by the insurance companies. New and improved policies or "levers" sold to the public may actually give insurance companies even more control over you. These levers may control future internal costs, charges and fees based upon need for company shareholder profitability. By comparison, a whole life policy, iss...

What is the rate of return of a whole life insurance policy? There are actually three different rates of return to consider – Internal, External and Eternal rate of return. People often fixate upon the internal rate of return and do so incorrectly. To properly make a side-by-side comparison, you need to strip away the multiple benefits a whole life insurance policy, issued by a mutual life insuran...

Experience has taught me, that the more money people have, the more they are motivated in the 'return of that money' and less on the 'rate of return' of that money. This is why a portfolio of mutual insurance issued whole life policies fit so well into the foundation of one's financial life. The guarantees of regulated reserve requirements and not the potential future values are what provides cert...

No one wants to think about their own funeral. If you don't plan ahead, someone will need to make the decisions for you quickly during a difficult and emotional time. They will wonder if they were following your actual wishes, because there wasn't a plan in place to help with the guidance, they so desperately wish they had. Jake Kramar of Schumacher-Kish Funeral and Cremation Services provides ins...

Many "opportunities" require financing, whether it's a new business, a commercial property, investment real estate or perhaps for a quality-of-life change like a second home. Opportunities often require money or the access to money. The terms of that money are usually arranged and determined by a large lending institution such as a bank, a savings and loan or a credit union. Wouldn't you love to b...

You deserve to feel good about your finances after your divorce. Beth Kraszewski, CFP®, CDFA®, CLU® assists those going through a divorce to protect themselves. Beth is a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst who has studied in the field of pre-divorce financial planning and is an expert in personal vs. marital property, valuing and dividing property, retirement assets and pensions, spousal and chil...

A recent visit to a Farm & Fleet Store reminds us all of how easily life can end. This should be a story of newborn baby chicks and ducklings. At a time around Easter, when life is new and precious a story told like this by an employee of the store recently visited reminded me of the simply fragility of life and how all the planning, we do can be undermined by something as simple as a lost package...

Planning for the lifetime needs of a special needs child is a great undertaking. Grady Jennings of the Dignity Group shares the work he does to assist families navigating the planning for their special needs children. Dignity Group empowers families through seminars, workshops, support groups, community gatherings, and free online learning materials. This second part of Grady's story helps to expl...

Planning for the lifetime needs of a special needs child is a great undertaking. Grady Jennings of the Dignity Group shares his personal story of the unexpected birth of his son James, who was a downs syndrome child. James changed Grady's life and his career practice. Dignity Group empowers families through seminars, workshops, support groups, community gatherings, and free online learning materia...

Mark Bertrang shares a story of a client who approached him at the beginning of his career, asking him to complete an application for life insurance. After finishing the questionnaire, ordering the medical tests and receiving approval from the insurance company, Mark was ready to deliver the policy only to be told the client had changed their mind about the purchase. What happened next forever mad...

Through a year of the Covid-19 pandemic, racial unrest, of Black Lives Matter comes a message of individual responsibility. What choices do we make each and every day? We are all the role models – either good role models or poor role models; other people have their eyes on us to see how we handle choices in our own lives. We can either live our lives to be uplifting or downgrading. It's our choice...

Amplitude Modulation and Frequency Modulation are the scientific terms for AM or FM radio. What can we learn from the modulation of radio waves in the comparison of the waves that can ripple through our lives and the lives of our loved-ones through the use of life insurance portfolio? Are we planning for the "line of sight" like FM radio waves travel or can we bend the impact from our lives, simil...

Each spring we spring ahead and each fall we fall back. We adjust our clocks for the change of daylight savings time. Wouldn't it be great if we could make the same adjustments with the planning of our lives? If we could only spring ahead of unforeseen problems or fall back to correct previous mistakes we have made in our lives. Isn't it time to set our personal values clock today to endure no mat...

Many times, people become distracted by what a product is called and forget the need to focus upon what it might accomplish for them. Some may deny themselves the benefits of liquid safe accumulation of cash along with the protection of their families because of the regulatory names of products. The questions to ask is 'what are the benefits to you and your family?" or "how will this product sing...

Whole Life insurance has existed for well over a century; yet to many there is confusion as to how the accumulation of its Cash Values work. There's a Guaranteed-side to Whole Life insurance that's built-in contractually and there's a side which can accumulate through the use of dividends which may be declared by mutual insurance companies, which allows policyowners to participate in the profitabi...

Recently with wintery sub-zero temperatures outside, Mark found his house with a broken furnace. While the HVAC guys were tearing out the old and installing the new, Mark was calculating the actual 'lost opportunity cost' of a furnace, it's yearly maintenance, the ongoing expense of natural gas, the impact of inflation and what would that money might have provided for his family's future economy t...