OakTree Strategic Leverage
Building Wealth by First Eliminating What Destroys It
Most financial strategies begin with one question: “How much can I earn?”
After 35 years as an investment advisor, I learned a more effective question is the inverse: “What quietly destroys wealth over time?”
Market losses. Interrupted compounding. Taxes. Poor timing. Emotional decisions. Leverage done wrong.
I built and led Jim Barlow Advisors for over three decades (now Plan 4 Wealth), immersing myself in investment research, due diligence, and advanced education. Even in retirement, I remain active as a FINRA Dispute Resolution Arbitrator and serve on the advisory board of a private equity fund. That experience taught me something critical:
Most financial outcomes are not determined by brilliance —they are determined by structure and discipline.
When I later revisited life insurance strategies through this inversion lens, I discovered Kai-Zen — not as a product, but as a strategic leverage framework. Kai-Zen is designed to remove failure points first, then allow growth to occur inside a controlled structure. It institutionalizes discipline, eliminates personal guarantees, protects compounding, and uses leverage conservatively — the same way large institutions do. This is why OakTree Strategic Leverage exists.
Our focus is not on speculation or forecasts. It is on engineering certainty, improving outcomes conservatively, and helping clients deploy capital with intention — whether the goal is:
- Supplemental retirement income
- Executive and employee retention
- Generational wealth transfer
- Business succession planning
- Tax diversification and risk management
In my judgment, Kai-Zen represents not just a better strategy — but the most disciplined use of leverage available for those who qualify.
If you’re interested in understanding how inversion thinking and strategic leverage work together in practice, I invite you to learn more.
Our Vision at OakTree Strategic Leverage
At OakTree Strategic Leverage, we believe better financial outcomes come not from prediction—but from structure.
After 35 years as an investment advisor, I learned that most wealth plans don’t fail because markets are unpredictable.They fail because of avoidable failure points: losses, taxes, emotional decisions, poor timing, and leverage applied incorrectly.
Retirement didn’t end that learning—it sharpened it.
Our vision is built on inversion thinking: before asking how to grow wealth, we eliminate what quietly destroys it.That philosophy led us to Kai-Zen—not as a product, but as a disciplined leverage framework developed and administered by NIW Companies. Kai-Zen uses a carefully structured, maximum-funded indexed universal life insurance design combined with institutional-grade lending to create a conservative 3-to-1 funding structure—without personal guarantees or speculative risk.
The objective isn’t complexity.It’s efficien
Through this approach, Kai-Zen helps qualified individuals and businesses:
- Preserve compounding by eliminating market losses
- Reduce tax drag through tax-advantaged structure
- Use leverage conservatively and intentionally
- Create flexible retirement income
- Transfer wealth with greater efficiency
- Strengthen executive and employee benefit plans
- Support long-term business succession planning
At OakTree Strategic Leverage, we do not offer dozens of financial products. We focus on one strategy, deeply understood and precisely applied.
Our role is education—challenging conventional thinking and helping clients see how disciplined leverage, when designed correctly, can improve outcomes while reducing risk.
Looking ahead, our vision extends beyond individual clients. We are committed to training and empowering like-minded professionals who share our philosophy of structure-first planning—replicating a proven, compliant approach that expands access to strategic leverage without sacrificing discipline or integrity.
Our goal is simple and enduring:to help individuals, families, and businesses achieve stronger financial outcomes by first eliminating what causes failure—smarter, safer, and built to last.