Living in Florida mandates that you either root for the Gators, Hurricanes, or Seminoles. If you
were not a Gator you couldn’t stand Tebow. All we heard was National titles, Heisman
Trophies, blah, blah, blah. The Jaguars, his home town city, didn’t want to draft him because
they didn’t like his throwing motion nor the style offense he ran in Gainesville at the University
of Florida. He may not be able to learn “our” system said the brain surgeons who make these
decisions for the Jags. Being a resident of Jacksonville, I concluded that their system was to
have 20,000 empty seats at each home game and ongoing TV blackouts. Tim would fill the
place up, and the fans would have been a buzzing with excitement. Instead they drafted a
lineman from the University of Hawaii as their first round pick, and he may still be with the
team. All three native Hawaiians living in Jacksonville bought season tickets. A brilliant move
by management!

So Tebow goes to Denver and stands on the sidelines for two years perfecting the art of
“Tebowing.” Finally in 2011 they hand him the ball. He still has a terrible throwing motion,
gets intercepted a bit too often, and can’t read defenses well. All he does is win games with a
miracle finish, sell #15 Bronco jerseys as if he was already a legend, turn the city of Denver into
a frenzy of believers, and get them into the playoffs.

Ah, but aging Payton Manning is available. Why keep Tebow, who the fans love, when they can
sign Manning, pay him 90 million dollars over a 5 year period, and pray his neck holds up.
Tebow must go. Ironically, where he will be traded to gets more press and media attention, all
day, every day so it seemed, than Manning landing with Denver.
The Jaguars now have another chance at redemption by bringing the home town legend back to
where he belongs. They now have even more empty seats, and those who do attend have
discovered that their no-Tebow offense is a cure for insomnia. But they pass on him, one more
time. His career may be over. He still has a bad throwing motion and all the other baggage that
the media and naysayers have saddled him with. But lo and behold, one team has seen the light.
The loudmouth and dysfunctional New York Jets want to recruit him to play in the Big Apple.
They already have a former Heisman trophy QB with a contract extension in place till 2016. So
why recruit Timmy? What did they see in him?

They were looking for the same intangibles that the Alliance Group and other visionary
organizations are seeking:

 A strong work ethic
 A burning passion to succeed
 A positive attitude
 An inborn talent that is almost immeasurable
 A leader with the heart of a winner

In other words, attributes which may be transferable to teammates. If you are recruiting to build
your organization I suggest you would do well to find a few Tebow’s.

Written by Rick Drazien, Alliance Group, Living Edge April/May 2012

Be sure to watch our latest testimonial video!

But times change and new “variable” financial engines, seemingly more exciting, were built.  The original perfect engine, perhaps now a bit boring, had to be improved to keep pace. But alas, as things continued to change (technology, expectations, and the economy) the “new” ones ran into problems.  Our original engine remained perfect, but still boring.

As people stopped embracing the new ones, even newer, more exciting, and riskier engines are built. The original is again forced to adjust with some updated and risk-free features of its own if it wants to retain the description of “still perfect.”

After a few more repetitions of this cycle, and more challenging issues to be dealt with such as changing tax laws, de-regulation, new regulations, and an economic meltdown that ultimately brings the risk-reward “benefits” of the newer more exotic engines into question, the enlightened begin to go back and examine the original (and still perfect) Tax-Free Retirement Engine which has retained all its benefits with no negative impact from the new regulatory rules, tax laws, and benefit distribution changes. 

1. With all the issues that caused problems for other financial engines, and their consumer passengers, the original Tax-Free Engine didn’t breakdown.  It didn’t go “backwards.” It didn’t care which elected chief engineer or officials were in charge.  There will be no impact on our engine if income taxes go up, or estate tax laws change. The NEW Tax-Free Engine is not influenced by negative change or risky decisions. It is impervious to recessions.  You will never loose money no matter what the market does, not ever!  You participate in the gain if the market goes up, but you will never loose the, even in down market years.  The money will grow tax-deferred and can be withdrawn tax-free.  You are always in control.

The Tax-Free Engine was called permanent cash value life insurance. It was great back then, but with the NEW  no risk “indexed” engine and “living benefit” feature in the event of critical, chronic or terminal illness, it is even better now.  It is still the perfect tax-free retirement engine…only more so!

Written by Richard Drazien for the exclusive use of the Alliance Group

April 2012

Steve Jobs was not a computer software programmer. He dropped out of Reed College after one semester and cofounded Apple in 1976. I suspect he quickly realized that everyone in the personal computer industry was designing a product that looked similar and pretty much did the same thing in the same way. All PC’s worked on the same operating system with similar keyboards and “buttons. Perhaps the consumer wants something different, he thought; something more attractive to look at; something more user friendly and simpler to work; something faster and lighter. In other word something different that reflected what the buyer really desired. He was a visionary.

He may have concluded that if everyone is doing and creating the exact same thing, Apple is going to think differently. I imagine him thinking we’ll develop product that the consumer really wants, give it a cool name (Mac) and promote it with an advertising campaign that speaks to their imagination and dreams. That is how we will distinguish ourselves from all the others.

When asked “what” business Apple was in, I suspect he did not merely say “we make computers with some interesting features.” I’m sure he turned the question from “what they did” to WHY they did it. He just sensed that the customer wanted something special, something that was new. He just thought differently. Jobs knew what their customer desired, and why they would stand on line for hours to be the first to buy one.

I believe that there are similarities to how Alliance has approached the life insurance industry, the products people really want, and the peace of mind they are seeking. There are hundreds of companies marketing products that are in many ways the same. The primary and sometimes only benefit is delivered when the customer dies. Most consumers see “life” insurance, especially Term Life, as simply providing a death benefit. It’s death insurance allowing you to leave a legacy after you’re gone. There is nothing wrong with that. But Steve Jobs might have concluded that if you are going to call it LIFE insurance you might want to include actual LIVING BENEFITS that reflect what occurs when life actually happens such as prolonged chronic and critical illness; that access to the “death benefit” may be more urgently needed NOW to possibly extend or save the insured’s life and the family’s well-being.

We all know such things happen, so Alliance always thinks differently when designing proprietary solutions that provide the peace of mind and ability to survive many of the financial and emotional challenges faced on life’s journey. Like Apple, it is the WHY we do what we do that distinguishes us from the others.

At the Alliance Group “living benefits” and thinking differently are a way of life.