December 15, 2022 • 51 mins
Eunicia is an accomplished wealth strategist and business owner with over 15 years of experience in the financial services industry. Eunicia honed her expertise by delivering significant financial improvements to the bottom line of Fortune 500 companies and renowned global brands across multiple industries.
Her passion is to help multi 6 and 7 figure individuals optimize their wealth creation efforts by empowering them to leverage wealth creating strategies that go beyond 401(k)s, IRAs and other typical savings accounts in order to minimize taxes, maximize growth & increase income in retirement.
Based on serving hundreds of clients, Eunicia is a strong believer that those that don't have a personalized and holistic financial strategy, will only get a fraction of the results.
Eunicia’s Wealth Freedom Formula is a customized hands-on financial consulting program offering end-to-end wealth optimization strategies that have historically only been leveraged by the ultra-wealthy. The tried-and-true personalized approach has delivered significant bottom line improvements to hundreds of clients because it leverages a quarterback approach to ensure the clients’ financial team is working in unison to minimize financial leakage.
Eunicia is a huge believer in empowering her clients with the tips, tricks and know-how to grow and protect their money in a way that aligns with the client’s values and beliefs.
In addition to managing her own business, Eunicia serves as a strategic advisor to several business-oriented and female leader groups.
Link:
https://www.empoweredfinancialplanner.com/pitfalls
if you enjoyed the show be sure to check out my info:
https://app.wingcard.io/ROB3SA64
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Josh Bolton (00:01):
Welcome to the Josh Bolton show. Die interesting and
inspiring conversations. And nowyour host, Josh Bolton. Yeah,
that's that's true. But you'reSteve AI. It's crazy how fast
it's learning, especiallyknowledge it can have compared
(00:25):
to one human. It's daunting.
Unknown (00:28):
It is daunting in and it's it's one of those things
that I think it's it's bothfascinating, but also very scary
at the same time. And a lot ofindividuals out there that
obviously there are the polaropposite. And individuals that
are at either end of thespectrum, I think are going to
have a rude awakening, becauseeven those that are 100%, for AI
(00:49):
are going to come to realizethat hey, it's Yeah, well, it's
great. It really diminishes thathuman impact. And so fewer and
fewer or rather, more and morepeople are going to have a
harder and harder time holdingon to the things that they've
been the way that they've beenable to add value into the world
historically, because of what AIis, is going to be positioned to
(01:10):
do.
Josh Bolton (01:12):
Absolutely. I mean, in certain aspects, it's going
to be great, but I always jokewith people, like certain jobs,
like air conditioning, airconditioning repairman and
techs, and like janitors andstuff like that. Currently, I
don't see an AI smart enough toclean a toilet. It could figure
out like calculus level tradingstuff, but clean a toilet, I
(01:33):
don't see that happening, atleast in the next 10 years.
Unknown (01:35):
Probably not. And same thing with some of the other
trades jobs. So it'sfascinating, because then the
question becomes even with youngadults, what should they do
when, when it comes to thedecisions that they make, and
trade jobs, funny enough to justthe way that that you
articulated it, are probablygoing to be coming back in
(01:56):
vogue, as several industries getdisrupted by AI and robotics and
automation in general.
Josh Bolton (02:04):
But from your perspective, as a financial
planner, is AI very helpful toolfor you to help your clients.
Unknown (02:12):
For us, a lot of what we do were more on the wealth
strategy side, the company nameis fairly deseeding.
Unfortunately, it was where westarted. And our intention was
really to work with financialadvisors until it was actually
some of our clients whounderstand the industry from the
inside out, brought it to ourattention that financial
(02:33):
advisors that are perhaps notacting in the highest level of
integrity, as many individualswill blame the the industry,
unfortunately, are probably notgoing to be the people that
while they could benefit fromwhat we had to deliver, it's the
individual that ultimately endsup leaving so much money on the
table, because historically, theFinancial Services is not
(02:56):
incentivized to necessarilyoperate in the in the always in
the best interest of the client,even for those that deem
themselves to be fiduciaries. Sothen kind of coming back to AI.
I think AI definitely has itsplace when we're talking about
the lower end financialproducts, think of, you know, so
many platforms out there thatwill sell life insurance and
(03:17):
things like that, for a quick,cheap way to do certain things
that that are inexpensive. Yes.
But when it comes to truestrategy, and the ability to
look at not only what ishappening today, but more
importantly, what is the tryingthe client trying to achieve in
the long run, and being able towork backwards and forwards to
(03:38):
not only devise that plan, butthen make sure we take a boat
along the way. And coursecorrect. AI is probably going to
it's I don't I can't say that atsome point in time. It won't get
there. But it certainly I don'tsee it in the very, very near
future, just because it's so atleast what we do is so hyper
specialized.
Josh Bolton (03:59):
Yeah. And you have to know all the complexities of
the tax rules to this to that toand me like you said, AI if it
may eventually get there, but atleast not within the next 10
years.
Unknown (04:11):
Oh, my God. Josh, you do? You brought up a topic
yesterday, I had a conversationwith, frankly, multiple CPAs.
And it's just, it's just, I'm inawe, you're right. They you
would think that every singleCPA would understand the tax
code forwards and backwards.
Unfortunately, they know, mostindividuals know a sub sliver of
what really is available to theclient. And a great example for
(04:32):
people that are listening andare wondering what do you mean,
we were working with multipleCPAs for multiple of our clients
and a couple of the CPAs lastweek Thursday, asked them a
question of, Hey, are youfamiliar with this particular
tax code? It's a very specifictax code that has very specific
(04:54):
applications. And it's not we'renot approaching it from a tax
sale. savings, it's truly abusiness need. And not all
businesses need it. And not allbusinesses should implement it.
But for those that need it, itultimately also becomes a huge
tax advantage. And the responsefor both of them was No, keep in
mind, this was last Thursday,yesterday, which yesterday was
(05:17):
Wednesday. I'm on a call withSid CPA and a couple of other
tax experts. And the CPAs tryingto push back to say, well, I
don't think this is gonna work.
And I don't I can't stand behindit, because and he had all these
reasons. IRS doesn't like thesetransactions. And, and, you
(05:37):
know, it could potentially putthe client at risk for an audit
and this and that, and the othernight, just last week, you had
no idea that this tax codeactually existed. So how can we
go from it? We don't know thatyou don't know that it exists to
making such a hardcore statementas to it's not going to be
applicable? Because it said, Areyou afraid of something? Because
(06:00):
the reality is, the tax code waswritten to be implemented in
situations where it's applicablenot to be taken advantage of? So
if the client has the businessneed? Why would you direct him
away from it? Unless there'ssomething else that you've got
that maybe I should know about?
And he came back and he said,you know, you know, you're
(06:20):
right, you're right, thebusiness, he should be there.
I'm like, we're basically, theclients get shot in the foot
every single day. And sometimesthey're shooting themselves in
the foot because they don't workwith a team of experts that
actually know what's happening.
And well, we're talking abouthigh net worth and high income
individuals. Consequently, thetypes of individuals and clients
(06:42):
that we serve, I mean, we cantalk about potentially hundreds
of 1000s of dollars being leftto chance year over a year.
That's a lot of money, it addsup to big, big 10 bucks over a
long haul. So I'm sorry, yousaid CPA and, and I got
transport for the back to myconversations yesterday.
Josh Bolton (07:01):
It's very important, especially for the
financial planning. I've had alot of tax people come on and
threaten tax strategists. Andall of them say the same thing
like when in doubt, ask likethree CPAs? The same question to
like, you can ask them a simplequestion. They're not going to
like Bill you. And if you getthree different answers, then
you have a problem kind ofthing. But if you have to answer
(07:23):
the same, might want to go withthe two that said to correctly.
Unknown (07:26):
Correct. Correct.
Always ask questions. That'swhat I tell clients all the
time. If, when in doubt. Andeven if not in doubt, if you
have a question, ask it. Don'tassume don't just jump at the
conclusion and assume becauseyou saw something on Google or
someone some friend told yousomething at some dinner party,
please don't do that. It couldpotentially jeopardize certain
(07:46):
things in your financialoutlook.
Josh Bolton (07:51):
Yeah, most definitely. Especially like, if
you're, your business is pullingin hundreds of 1000s of dollars
a month, you would definitelyneed to call someone like you
can be like, Okay, what do I do?
Because I'm pulling handle a lotof money. Who do I call?
Exactly,
Unknown (08:04):
exactly. And that's the power part of what we do is to
make sure that we understandwhere the client's financial
team is, poke and pry and reallyhelp the client understand what
are the questions that theyshould even be asking, because
our job is not to say, hey, weneed to displace your team. Not
at all, we need to make surethat if they are coming with an
open mindset, then we we bringeverybody and we all work
(08:27):
together. If they don't, thenthe client needs to be in that
driver's seat to understandthat, hey, maybe they have
different options, but they havealso have to have the conviction
that, okay, we need to makechanges. And without that
conviction being there, it justcreates a lot of mess, as you
can probably imagine.
Josh Bolton (08:44):
Yeah, yeah, it does. So I'm just curious. You
mentioned earlier you like sitdown and ask questions to your
client, let's just sayhypothetically, I'm a new client
for you. What would be theonboarding process?
Unknown (08:57):
So the onboarding process for our clients is one
that is as everything we do verycustomized to them. First and
foremost, we understand what isit that the clients even trying
to achieve? We don't want totake clients on that we are not
a good fit for and vice versa.
So once we get past that, theone of the very first questions,
one of the very first sessionsthat we're going to have is
(09:18):
going to be a session to say it,where we're going to talk about,
okay, what is it that we'retrying to achieve? What is it
that they're trying to achieve,specifically for the short term
for the long term for, you know,an address any questions that
they might have? And then basedon that we, the approach that we
take is grounded into threepillars of, of the type of work
that we do, and sometimes theytranscend. So to give you an
(09:42):
example, the very first pillarwe talked a little bit about
CPAs and taxes. What we'refinding is that a lot of high
net worth and high income. Thinkof doctors think of executives
in corporate America, think ofsuccessful business owners,
pilots, you name it, they end upleaving a lot of money. Due to
taxes, or they perhaps pay morein taxes than they should? Why?
(10:03):
Because they don't have theright level of support from
their existing financial team.
So when we come in, we startunderstanding what are some of
the strategies that historicallyhas, they've been able to take
advantage of or they've beenable to implement for
themselves? And then we ask thequestion of okay, we try to
(10:23):
understand what does thatstrategy look like from a tax
perspective, and what we findwhen we're looking at Josh, is
that most individuals don'tactually have a tax strategy.
Funny enough, most of them, theymight think that they have a tax
strategy, but it's really just ameeting to say, Okay, here's
what we think is gonna happen,and we're going to file taxes.
(10:45):
Next thing, you know, taxes getfired. And so we try to
understand from a taxperspective once again, and then
the other thing that those arethe taxes primarily for the
current year, right for thecurrent filing year, then we
start asking the question ofokay, when we look at building
wealth, consequently, this isalso also our second pillar.
(11:06):
What are different ways in whichpeople invest? And I know I've
noticed on your show, you'vegot, you know, a lot of
individuals that feel verypassionate about the specific
solutions that they individuallyoffer. So when we start
transcending all of thosedifferent things, right, from
all of those individuals thatthat someone can listen to
(11:27):
clients inherently will beconfused. Because then the
question is, okay, does thatstrategy apply to me? Well, what
about the other strategy? Whatabout the other strategy, and
there is no way to trulydecipher. So what we do with our
clients, we want to give themthe empowerment so that they
understand what are thedifferent options, whether it be
(11:47):
Securities and Investmentinvesting in the market, whether
it be life insurance, cash,accumulating life insurance
products, whether it be nontraditional investments, that
most financial even advisorsdon't touch? One A good example
is real estate. What if peoplewant to invest in real estate
dude, have you heard a financialperson ever seen? Absolutely,
(12:08):
let me count the ways as to howthat could be beneficial. It
doesn't happen. Right? So whatwe do is we understand what is
in what is in most alignment,what are the different
strategies that are most alignedto what the client is trying to
achieve. Because what that thengives us is an opportunity
through the fact that the clientunderstands what their options
(12:30):
are. Now, they can actually helpguide and steer their ultimately
financial goals and their wealthcreation efforts. It's funny
yesterday at the conference, MelAbraham actually said he said,
one of the things you shouldn'tdo is let somebody else drive
your financial car. So why is itthat so? I have passionate about
(12:52):
and let's say that it's it's thewe're dealing with the end of
the year, we're dealing with theplayoffs, and you have been
exceeding seat tickets. But youknow, you really would just
prefer for somebody else to, tojust do it for you to just enjoy
the experience for you. Wouldyou ever in a million years,
(13:13):
just give those tickets away tosomebody else? And just have the
expectation that somehowvicariously you're going to live
through the experience? What hadever happened?
Know?
Exactly. So I use that analogy,because people are like, Oh, my
God, I never thought about itthat way. So again, when that
pillar of understanding what arethe different options is
(13:33):
critical, because it ultimately,individuals end up not just
saving a lot of money, but alsomaking more money because the
way that they grow their wealthis in alignment to their goals.
It's in alignment, alignment towho they are. And then last but
not least, we're gonna come backaround. And we asked the
question of as part of our thirdpillar, what does what about the
(13:56):
exit strategy, whether it be anindividual that's looking at
retirement down the road, or itbe someone that is looking at
potentially divesting a businessowner looking at divesting
selling or possibly taking hishis or her company public? What
does that exit strategy looklike? And what are some of the
things that the considerationsthat we need to think about and
(14:17):
take into consideration fortoday, considering we're talking
about taxes? We're talking aboutways to manage capital invest,
build wealth, and are there anydiscrepancies that we need to
make sure that we address and soonce we kind of go through just
an understanding of where folksare, across those different
pillars, then what we know iswe're going to start looking at
(14:39):
a domino effect. It's near theinterior end. So a lot of
clients that have come on andand we onboard them in the last
couple of months. The biggestarea of focus for them was
taxes. They said we need tofocus on taxes. So we focused on
taxes. And then because this isvery flexible, our approach or
methodology is very flat.
Trouble, then we're going tocatch everything up on the back
(15:01):
end, when it comes to reallyafter we roll into the new year.
So I hope that gave you a littlebit of, of an understanding of
not just the onboarding, butalso our overall approach and
the different the differentpillars that we we implement in
our conversations and in ourwork with our clients.
Josh Bolton (15:21):
That was very well.
So wow, that was very well putin especially like the
complexities of the how toimplement the task to your
business. And a lot of I'verecently heard it with my
guests. But the exit strategy,I'm still realizing that's a big
gap. Entrepreneurs keep missing
Unknown (15:39):
100% Not only do they do they mess up on and they miss
out on when it actually comestime to exit. But a lot of
companies and a lot of businessowners suffer losses, Frank Klee
because they're not able todemand as much money for their
company, at the onset or atduring the sales process,
(16:00):
because they didn't know thingsthat they should have known
ahead of time, in terms of froman operations, perspective,
optimization, etc. But the otherthing is also on the tax side, I
cannot tell you how many clientshave come to us, asking us about
transactions that they've donein years past with companies to
say, hey, can we still, funnilyenough, go right back to cut
taxes? Can we still optimize ourour exit? From a tax standpoint?
(16:27):
Where was your team when youexit it 710 years ago,
unfortunately, that costsindividuals, in many cases,
millions of dollars. And thenthe other thing is, on the
personal note, especially whenwe're dealing with business
owners, many of them puteverything that they have into
the company. And if we'rerunning into a situation where a
(16:49):
COVID happens, or some sort ofnational international pandemic
takes place, and the world is inchaos, now we've put all of our
eggs in the basket of thebusiness, not to say that we
shouldn't invest in thebusiness. That's absolutely a
given. But we have to alsofigure out how do we pay
ourselves? How do we startseparating that those risk
(17:11):
compartments and the ways thatour business is structured, in
order to make sure that Godforbid, something happens, we
don't lose our minds over thefact that our businesses are not
structured in a way that offerus some protection that
ultimately will allow us to havea peaceful life and be able to
sleep at night with as muchpeace as we can. Because we know
(17:32):
that we're good. We've we've gotour ducks in a row.
Josh Bolton (17:36):
Now 100% Yeah, that's the biggest one I've
noticed. Well, I do martial artsout in Upland, California. And
there was a entrepreneurstarting the restaurant like no
franchising. He did it all onhis own. And he got a loan and
everything. And he started itearly 2019. And then, while
(17:56):
COVID Hit it, he did not surviveat all. Right? Good. No, go
ahead. Go ahead. All right, andHe put all his eggs in the
basket. So he's like, I'mruined, because he's like, I
don't know what to do. Now.
Unknown (18:11):
On the contrary, though, when we're working with
business business owners, whenwe're looking at things
strategically, growing yourbusiness always is always always
assumed and implies a lot ofrisk take taking, right. But
that's exactly why your yourexample is so critical. That's
it, it's a great example. And alot of our listeners may say,
(18:33):
Well, we're not going to seeanother COVID. It may not be
COVID, and he might be somethingelse. But the beautiful and the
reality is even if there'snothing else, the reality is
that having that peace, to knowthat worse comes to worse, we
should always be prepared forthat, that are our assets and
our liabilities and are riskierbusiness endeavors are protected
(18:58):
and vice versa, our safe assetsare protected from those risky
endeavors is huge, becauseultimately for most of us, it's
not just us, it's our families.
It's it's our neighbors, it'sour lifestyle. It's so there's
so much at stake that just,frankly, we shouldn't take it
for granted, and we shouldn'tplay with it. And people
shouldn't play with that.
Josh Bolton (19:17):
No, it's like playing with fire. You get like
touch it every so often, and Iget hurt. But if you keep doing
it too long enough, you're gonnaburn yourself.
Unknown (19:24):
Most likely.
Absolutely. Yeah.
That's awesome. Is thereanything in particular that I
might have missed? Getting up tothis point that you want to go
over?
I'm not really I just, I'm hereto answer your questions that
you have, you know, youraudience much better than I do.
I've listened I've lookedthrough some of your podcasts
(19:46):
and it seems like you have agood mix of, of information,
which is wonderful. But yeah,you know some of the needs that
your audience has, so let'slet's address them.
Josh Bolton (19:57):
I want to go over specifically the You touched on
the both the tax part and theexit strategy. How does the like
having certain vendors affectyou with the taxes and selling
your business?
Unknown (20:09):
When you say vendors, what specifically? Are you
referring to?
Josh Bolton (20:13):
I guess like suppliers, contracts with
certain companies that willproduce your material kind of
thing like that.
Unknown (20:21):
I mean, at that point, it's I think part of it is going
to be negotiations right,negotiating those terms. And
I'm, I'm a huge proponent forknow who your vendors are, know
what the possibilities are. Askquestions. A lot of people will
say no. And I know this doesn'tdirectly address your question.
But a lot of people will say,No, I just know my vendor,
(20:41):
they're not going to, they'renot going to give me a price
break. They're already giving methe best price break. And I'll
never forget years ago, I wasworking with in collaboration
with someone that was doing realestate investments in the
Atlanta area. And he had arelationship with a company with
a vendor company that wasproviding cabinets. And he came
(21:02):
to me and he said, exactly that,right, we have the best price,
they gave us the lowest price.
And my job was to intervene forone of our clients. So I went to
the supplier and I said, Hey, Iknow that you guys have a
wonderful relationship, you guysclearly have done an amazing
job. Just out of curiosity, whatwould it take for my client to
actually be able to get perhapseven just a little bit more in
(21:23):
terms of a discount, like a10 15%? I know you guys are
already strapped for margins,and all of that, is there any
way we could potentially makethat happen? And sure, long and
behold, we were able to give ourclients an additional to get
them at additional 10%. Andwhich was huge. That is that
right? Especially when you'redealing with multiple houses,
(21:45):
multiple rental units, multipleapartments, or men complexes,
it's huge, it really adds up.
And I'll never forget this, thishe was this particular gentleman
was actually a real estatementor in the area. And he said,
you know, most individuals thatI work with, if they ever get a
(22:07):
hold of my vendor list, they endup messing up relationships, and
immediately looked at a mess,what kind of people do you work
with? Right? You don't let meyou don't want to put people in
a situation where they're gonnamess up the relationship. So
vendors, first and foremost,know your terms, know the terms
of those agreements, be nice, benice, you won't be in a nice
(22:28):
individual, add value back tothem. And then you can always
revisit and ask questions on howcan you work better with them.
When it comes to taxes,obviously, it's going to be the
cost of materials, or the costof whatever it is that you're
purchasing from that vendor,then most likely is going to go
against your taxes. So workingwith one vendor or another, may
(22:49):
not necessarily make adifference, especially if it's
in the same industry. Now, ifyou're looking at different
industries, and you're thinkingnow, from the perspective of
hey, maybe I want to investmoney, and there's a question of
if I'm investing, we'reparticularly we're talking about
individuals that are investinghundreds and millions of
dollars, hundreds of 1000s ofdollars in millions. What would
(23:11):
that look like? Are there anytax advantages? Now we can have
a different conversation, wedon't want to start out by just
saying, Hey, we just want tomaximize minimize our taxes,
although there are somesituations where people
genuinely are leavingopportunities on the table. But
oftentimes there areopportunities to actually grow a
portfolio and see huge taxbenefits on the back end. What
(23:34):
are those opportunities? Thereare a ton of opportunities.
Unfortunately, some of thosestrategies are not necessarily
being spoken about out therebecause they are reserved for
some of the Uber wealthy.
So credit investor and higher.
Exactly. So whyshould Why is it It baffles me
every day that individuals areputting themselves on this
little island or dollar islandwhere they'll say, Well, I'm not
(23:58):
an accredited investor. I'm notI have not I don't have
experience, maybe I'm notsitting on $3 million, or on a
million dollar million you justwhatever that some in their mind
is. And because of that don'tqualify when we tell clients is
if you already fit that highincome high, high higher net
worth individual look at whereyou're at in terms of the rest
(24:20):
of the population. Are you inthe top 1% Up 5% Beautiful thing
is Hello, you have a ton ofopportunities at your disposal
opportunities thatunfortunately, the industry
isn't speaking about. So it's amatter of again, finding the
right team, having the rightpeople in your quarter, having
the right quarterback team,right to make sure that you not
(24:40):
only have access to thoseopportunities, but somebody that
can help you decipher throughand figure out are they even the
right opportunities for you andthen be able to go from there.
Josh Bolton (24:52):
Yeah, that's very good point is especially as I've
like talked to different realestate investors. I won I I was
trying to book an art dealer,but he flaked out on me. But all
of them told me like when youmake that $200,000 a year for
like two years and consistently,they're like, you're technically
an accredited investor. And I'mlike, But what about taxes? Like
(25:14):
if they take off the 40k? Fortaxes, he's like, no, like, you
earn $2,000 $200,000. That'swhat the IRS sees. So you're an
accredited investor, and itmight, Oh, wow. And that's where
I was asking him like, then whatcan I do and he's like, really
just his imagination. At thatpoint, you want to invest in one
(25:34):
pot down the street, go for it,and one invests in the farm up
in Northern California, go forit, you want invest in my
apartment syndication, go forit. I was like, Oh, that kind of
sucks that I have to kind ofexclude from the big boys club.
He mentioned up handling thatdoes a good job for you. He
said, If you form an LLC, orlike a holding company, and have
(25:58):
people invest in it, then he cango out as an accredited
investor. Is that true?
Unknown (26:05):
I was just gonna say there are different ways. And
again, this is where a lot ofpeople have very big
limitations, because they're,again, they're putting
themselves sadly on an island.
And they don't do itintentionally. What I found is
that, Josh, when they're lookingat themselves, and they look at
themselves in the mirror,similar to what you said, right?
I'm not part of the big boysclub. Why would you say that?
(26:25):
Because if you were to thinkabout it, even with a syndicate,
for example, or other types of,of creative deal structures and
different investments, there canbe partnerships that can be
formed. And it's not just you orthe individual, it can be done
together. Now, I do have tocaution people, especially
syndicates and other types ofkind of creative ways to bring
(26:49):
people together have popped uplike mushrooms the last several
years. And while the while the,the industry was doing
wonderful, everybody was makingmoney. But one of the things
that I caution, and I urge myclients to be very vigilant
about is to make sure thatwhenever they choose to work
with someone, that that someoneor those companies that they
(27:12):
choose to work with, havetrajectory, have they gone
through 2008 2009? Have theygone through some sort of a
major financial bubble? Becausethe reality is there's not one
economist that I've heard to saythe next year, for example, is
going to be a bed of roses, ormaybe even the next two years.
So if we're dealing withindividuals who don't have the
right level of liquidity, whodon't have the right level of
(27:35):
experience, implementing andmanaging some of those projects,
I've already heard of many, manyindividuals that really just in
the last six year, sorry, sixmonths. They've lost all of the
investments that they've made,and some of those some of those
deals. So it's not to say thatthe deals are not right. But we
need to make sure that we haveonce again, it goes right back
(27:56):
to the team. Who is that team?
Do we trust them? Ultimately, ifif the there is a likelihood
that you're going to lose all oftheir money, don't just look at
the promise, you're potentiallygoing to lose all of their all
of your money? Are you okay withthat? And a lot of the time
people will say, Oh, yeah,absolutely. I know, I'm taking a
calculated risk. Okay. Thenlet's also think about, if let's
(28:20):
play devil's advocate, you get acall and all the money's gone?
What will that do to your life?
What will that do to your mentalpsyche? What will that do to
your family? Well, I don't knowthat I could bear it. Well, if
you don't think you could bearit. But at the onset, you said,
Absolutely, you know, becauseyou've taken calculated risks,
the answer is probably somewherein the middle. So we really need
to just make sure that whenwe're working, and we do it all
(28:43):
the time when we're working withclients, we approach it even
from just the the psychologicalperspective of how like, what
are those impacts? What howcould they potentially impact
life in an in an alternative wayother than what we're hoping to,
or perhaps having desired?
Josh Bolton (29:03):
Now, it's a very, very valid point, because the
only thing I even winced aboutthe properties failing is I, one
of my buddies, he got his wholeretirement life savings,
everything dumped into a, hisbest friend's project and he
just blew up. And, and he'sjust, he's like, sitting there,
like, I'm gonna have to worktill I die now.
Unknown (29:26):
We've had clients honestly, that we took on, I'll
never forget we have, we have acouple of CPAs. Actually, that
came to us years ago. And it wasthe same thing because of what
happened in 2008 2009. Some ofthem some individuals have also
experienced the adversity ofgoing through through divorces
and family situations thatfrankly robbed him of a ton of
(29:49):
their wealth, for one reason oranother. And they had that same
perspective. We're going to haveto work until really the last
days. So part of what we doremember I was telling you about
that working things backwards isWe have to people shouldn't have
to live with that feeling. Andthe reality is I tell people,
there's you shouldn'tprocrastinate they shouldn't
(30:09):
procrastinate. Like in general,it's better to start getting
your questions as there soonerrather than later. So that you
don't get so close to retirementare so close to the point where
you're starting to think abouthow will those those income
streams that perhaps you'veyou've geared up for? How are
they going to, to reward you,when the time comes for you to
(30:31):
start taking and reaping thosebenefits? The sooner we look at
those, and the sooner we look atwhat else can we do to optimize,
the better off clients are, thebetter off individuals are, but
sadly, number one, they risk itall, they put all of their eggs
in one basket. And the otherthing that happens is oftentimes
people will not really thinkabout it, because it's still
(30:53):
five or 10 or 15 years, somecases even 20 years away, I
mean, for somebody that's intheir 40s, very seldomly, that
is someone in their 40s reallythinking about, hey, oh, my
gosh, and 20 years, I'm gonnaretire, I just lost 30% of my
portfolio, but I think I'mhoping it'll come back and I'll
be fine. It'll recuperate bythen. Well, if we're looking at
(31:13):
what history tells us, the moneythat you've lost is the is the
money is the is the the worstmoney for you to have lost. And
the money that we haven't lostis the best money we've ever
made. Right. And so again, itkind of goes to to the risk
profile, when we're talkingalso, from a tax perspective, a
lot of high income individuals,particularly those that are
(31:34):
executives, or that have, forexample, 401 k Ira kind of
accounts or pension type ofaccount with their companies.
Many times they don't know thatthey can actually minimize their
taxes on the back end, bycontributing, for example, to
Roth accounts, becausehistorically in their mind, and
it's not like the the investmentcompany would have told them
(31:58):
this because they shouldn'thave. But in their mind, they
think that I'm making too muchmoney to qualify for that.
Josh Bolton (32:06):
So I want to say there is the the 160k a year, if
they are pulling in 200 Plus, Ithink I will correct me from for
when they get tapped out ifthey're making 200 a year.
Unknown (32:18):
It is if it's if they're over $200,000 and change
per year, for a family filingjointly married filing jointly,
they tap out if they were toinvest on the IRA site. But if
they have access to a 401 K,they can contribute towards that
(32:39):
in a Roth account, especiallythat Roth account was set up in
years past. Right. So a lot ofindividuals, I mean, I can't
tell you how many, one of theworst situations that I've seen
was with pilots, and make toomuch money. So you haven't put
anything you have nothing inwhat I call the text, never
(33:00):
bucket, because you had thisperception and you make too much
money. And then of course, wevalidated with the CPA that they
could have been they shouldhave, but they did it. And then
they go through and they want todo conversions and different
things like that. And it'scosting them a ton of money,
because now they make more moneythan they did before. And a lot
of people also have thismisconception that you know
(33:22):
what, by the time I retire, I'mgoing to actually be in a lower
tax bracket. But just being in alower tax bracket doesn't
necessarily mean that you'regoing to pay less in taxes. And
for people that want to rewindand listen to that, again, it's
a huge misconception, I'm goingto be paying I'm going to be in
a lower tax bracket. But again,that does not equate to, they're
(33:45):
going to be paying less intaxes. So then a big thing of
that strategy needs to be again,looking backwards and forwards
is we want to minimize our taxexposure today. But is that
going to potentially hurt us inthe future, especially if taxes
end up going higher, or as theygo continue to go higher? And so
it's very, very important forpeople to realize that it's not
(34:07):
just about that today. And it'snot just about the tomorrow.
It's about how do we make surethat whatever we do for today
does not counter intuitivelyimpact what it is that we're
trying to achieve for the futureand vice versa.
Josh Bolton (34:21):
Oh, 100% Yeah. So like for me, especially talking
to awesome people like you onthe show. I didn't realize like
I could have been optimizingback in when I was 20. But to be
honest, when I was 20 I was justpartying and going to college
and drinking. I wasn't thinkingabout saving for a Roth account.
Unknown (34:38):
Many people aren't right. Most people aren't in and
I have. We don't really workwith a whole lot of clients in
their 20s. As a matter of fact,I took one of the last clients
that I took that he's in his 20swas because I had worked with
his parents and he just, it's amindset. He came to us and he
said I know you work with momand dad. You do You what you did
(35:01):
for them. And the peace of mindthat you gave them is so amazing
to see. I know, I'm young, Iknow I don't make as much money
as most of your clients do. Butwould you please take me on as a
client? So we sat down, weanalyzed, we kind of went
through, here's like, here's thedeal. It's a mindset. So we're
gonna go through this, but youhave to really challenge
(35:21):
yourself to elevate your yourgame to take your game to the
next level as we work together,because you have access to all
this amazing insight, all theseamazing insights. Are you ready
to do that? And he was hesurprised us he he hunkered
down, he got it done. And, andhe's one of our super success
stories when it comes toindividuals in their 20s. But to
(35:43):
your point, most people in their20s, they just want to have fun.
They they finally had legallegal age. And, you know, it's
all about the friends and thebooze. And then when they get
they get into their 30s. It'slike, oh my gosh, if I could
have if I could just go back.
Josh Bolton (36:01):
Yeah, and that was a big one for me. Just talking
to people, but the big thingI've learned, especially like I
said, talking to us, and peoplelike you, it's never too late.
Now, you might not be able tooptimize as well, but you're
never too late for anything.
Unknown (36:18):
That is so true. That is true. But again, it goes back
to people need to understandthat it's a it's a give and
take, were in their 20s, settingaside 150 $200 a month, maybe a
little bit more would havegotten them to a really kind of
good place in retirement, ifthey stick with it. By the time
(36:38):
time during that their 30s, thatnumber is going to more than
double, in some cases triple.
And by the time they get intotheir 40s, it's definitely going
to at least triple if notquadruple. And so arguably a lot
of people will say yes, but I'mgoing to be making more money.
What many folks don't really sitdown to think about is that as
we make more money. So duringour expenses, so do are the
(37:01):
games that we like to buy, so dothe toys that we like to buy the
the the vacations that we take.
And so I call that the the thewealth pie or the income pie. As
that pie is kind of segmented,right about 50% of the income
that comes in goes to lifeexpenses, etc. About 25% goes to
(37:25):
taxes, plus or minus, obviously,these are very rough numbers.
And then the other stuff goes tothat for most people. And if
we're looking at the whole pie,very few individuals actually
lived a sliver, a tiny littlesliver to where they paid
themselves. And so they willsay, well, as my income grows,
I'm gonna pay myself more, whatends up happening is that that
(37:48):
sliver continues to stay low,because that half of the pie
that's focused on life expenseswill continue to grow, taxes
grow commensurate even more,obviously, there are income, and
that that the debt will continueto accumulate, if not at the
same perhaps in many cases evenfaster, right. So that tiny
little sliver of actuallysetting money aside in a way
(38:08):
that's truly meaningful,continues to be diminished and
be very small. And so one of thethings that because of the
strategy that we have is wefocus on how can we get more
savings coming from reducing ourtax exposure, based on what's
available on the tax code,figuring out what that looks
like? And then what are theareas in our personal stent that
(38:31):
we can not sacrifice, butredeploy in a way that's
meaningful to us and willactually continue to help us
truly build wealth.
Josh Bolton (38:40):
Now, it's a very good point. Yeah, that's,
especially for me, because I'malways just thinking how you're
saying like the percentage ofthe richest man in Babylon came
to mind where it's like you, youpay yourself 10% That's like the
minimum. And it's so funny,because people asked me to like,
what are two, five, we'rewilling to read two books, what
are the two books we should readhim, like, Think and Grow Rich
and richest man in Babylon? Youcan read those two, I'm like,
(39:04):
those two will give you thefoundation, if you want to read
more great. If not, that'senough. You'll figure it out
from there.
Unknown (39:10):
As long as it as you implement some of these items,
some of the ideas that are inthe books, both of them are
amazing books, for sure.
Definitely, highly recommendmyself, but you gotta get in
there and do some of this stuff.
And as you're implementing it,right, as you're setting aside
that 10% 15%, whatever thatlooks like, then the question
comes in, okay, where does thatmoney go? And that's exactly
(39:32):
that takes us back to some ofthose pillars we were talking
about previously, because itmakes a world of difference. How
the money grows, peace of mind,all of that so that we can,
people can focus on thinkinggrow rich, and how to continue
to change their mindset. Theyneed to have the backing they
need to have the support becausethey're seeing the money grow in
order for them to change themindset. It's going to be very
(39:54):
hard for people to do that. Ifthey put their money in next
thing you know, they've lost 50%Now the money Sit goes
backwards, right? So books aregreat, but we need to sometimes
I tell my clients and I tellindividuals, we need to be able
to read in between the lines.
And that's where your team ofexperts should come in to say,
Oh, you read that book. That'swonderful. What are let's figure
out what are the in between thelines for you specifically,
(40:16):
because those in between thelines are going to be very
different, very small nuancesthat are applicable in different
ways, based on the individualsituation.
Josh Bolton (40:26):
Yeah, yeah. It's, it is the biggest one I, I
chuckled to myself. It's notlike actually haha, funny, but
it's like the we talk in generalsense. But there's no sense.
There's general events, butthere's no general direction for
one person you have, you have tocater each path to the person,
(40:46):
my whatever you want to call itis like there's a million ways
to the top of the mountain,which one you're going to take
kind of thing 100% 100%?
Unknown (40:55):
Well, one of the, one of the one of those paths that I
I oftentimes will tell people toreally think about is this idea
of taxes, right? There are somany books out there that will
tell you just invest all of yourmoney in IRAs, and 401, Ks and
basically, in retirement type ofaccounts, that are traditional
(41:19):
accounts, because it helps youminimize your taxes and you're
going to your money is going togrow so much faster. And almost
in every single one of thosebooks, there's going to be the
sliver of discussion, or theinnuendos that will tell you and
if you get to a point where youwant to basically then convert
somehow your retirement so thatyou'll have a tax free
retirement, here's what you cando to to go through these
(41:41):
backdoor conversions and thingslike that? And if if those
people that are reading thosebooks that are just kind of just
absorbing it, because the booksays it, where to think about
it, Hey, was that book writtenfor me? Or was it written for
the individual that just isextra bump, that extra mindset
shift so that they can startsaving money? Which one, which
(42:03):
of those categories Am I in?
Because if we don't work thingsbackwards, and those conversions
end up costing us more down theroad? Because we're in higher
tax brackets, or we end uppaying more taxes? Have we truly
gotten more out of thatequation? Or are we ending up in
a situation where it's costingus? Oh, people go, Oh, my gosh,
I never thought about it thatway? Well, those books cannot
(42:26):
address every person situation100% customized from the get go,
can it can they
Josh Bolton (42:34):
know? And? No, it can't. It's more like generally
speaking, you could do this kindof thing without getting like a
like financial advisors, like wecan say, you can generally do
this, but like, if you know whatthey're talking about, like that
is a terrible idea. Don't dothat?
Unknown (42:52):
Well, and oftentimes we have to this is where
unfortunately, it comes fromindividuals that are in the
financial services industry,that are different sides. And
they will tell you that many ofthem are tired because they
focus again on what they focuson. So somebody will tell you,
that's a terrible idea. Andother person will tell you this
is a great idea. And when you'relooking at what is it that truly
(43:15):
they're representing theircompanies, oftentimes we're
going to be representing thoseideas that they're a huge
proponent of. And it takes usright back to the very first
part of our conversation. Whatis the right in between? Is
there an in between? Or is therea silver bullet for everyone?
And we know that silver bulletsreally don't exist? So if they
(43:37):
don't exist, then what are thethings that we need to do to
establish that solid baselineand then go from there?
Josh Bolton (43:44):
Definitely sounds like everyone needs to call you
on tech. Because I'm sittinghere just like, wow, this is so
much good stuff. I will say, Ilooks like our time is about to
go up. I got three going outquestions for you. Sure. So
other than work, what have youbeen doing to keep yourself busy
(44:04):
during these COVID times?
Unknown (44:08):
Oh, my goodness, that's a great question. personal
improvement is one of the thingsthat I focus on a lot, just on
different different fromdifferent aspects, whether it's
being part of masterminds withindividuals that even though we
were in a lockdown and COVIDsituation, we were still able to
interact and, and just continuethat mindset. And what I will
(44:29):
tell you is that thoseindividuals that that we did
that with those that wereserious about their businesses,
they actually ended up seeinghuge advancement and
advancements in their businessversus regression. So there was
it was a great, not a great timebut a great time to see them to
see those. Spending time withfamily was also huge. It was it
(44:51):
was very interesting at the veryvery onset. My daughter came to
me she said Mom, this wholelockdown situation is going to
either make make or breakfamilies? And I thought I mean,
she was very young. And I said,What do you mean? She said, I
can only imagine the familiesthat have a hard time handling
each other, right? They'reprobably at each other's throats
(45:13):
being stuck in the house forweeks and days and months on
end, versus the families thatwant more time together, it
gives them an opportunity toactually do that. So we got to
spend a lot of amazing time aspart of the family and just
really continuing on with, withlooking if not from a business
perspective. But what does lifetruly mean? And how do we
(45:35):
approach life in general from astance where, again, we live
with no regrets. But we havethat peace because we know that
we're doing what we're supposedto be doing, whether it's for
business or for job, or just inour personal life.
Josh Bolton (45:50):
Oh, 100% Yeah, I've just from the stories I've heard
offhandedly from co workers, howto COVID lockdowns during 2020
and 2021. Destroyed families,because they were already kind
of like tolerating each other,but they were gone for eight
hours out of the whole day. Sothey could just like, do the
thing. The amount of divorcesI've heard, I'm like, wow,
(46:14):
that's painful.
Unknown (46:16):
It is very painful. And those families, I see some of
them on the aftermath. And manyof them have left on bad terms.
Others have left on really goodterms. And I have all the
appreciation for the familiesthat even though they ended up
separating, and divorces endedup being there, at least or
focused on their children, forthose that do have children to
(46:38):
say, Listen, I mean, justbecause we're not no longer in
that relationship, we can stillbe human beings and just just
add positivity to the world,even though we're not. We're not
together anymore. Right? And Ijust have, I have a lot of
friends who have been in thatsituation, I have so much regard
for them.
Josh Bolton (46:55):
That's awesome. So second question, people inspired
by you want to take action wantto go down a similar path, what
are some tips, tricks or adviceyou'd give them to start down a
similar path you are on rightnow.
Unknown (47:10):
They have to have the right mentors. Number one,
mentors are very important. Andwhen I say they have to have the
right mentors is very good. I'vealways been blessed to have
amazing mentors, both in mycorporate career days, as well
as when I became a businessowner. But I can also tell you
that I've had to fire mentors,literally. And that leads me to
(47:32):
the second point, which is youhave to act from a place of
integrity. Don't think about themoney for me for many years. It
was not it was it was one ofthose things where I want I just
wanted to help people. And I wasdriven by by the joy and the
tears and the happiness and theovercoming the sadness of people
had done the wrong thing in thepast. And they finally had a
(47:54):
better, more clear, more definedpath forward. It was those
amazing emotions and devaluedthat I knew we were delivering
to clients that were driving meand we're driving our team. But
there are so many individuals,especially in financial
services, that it's all aboutthe bottom line. It's about the
numbers. It's about the metrics,it's about the everything else
in external that puts pressureon their ultimate success
(48:18):
factors and how it is that theyshow up in the world. And my
guidance would be if you dothat, sooner or later is going
to catch up. So find goodmentors, act from a place of
integrity, figure out your ownway of adding value without
adding cost to the clientsbottom line. And if you can do
that, then you're going to begenuine and the clients will
(48:40):
will see that that genuine sideof you and they will trust.
Josh Bolton (48:45):
That was really good. I have to say, the way you
summarize that and just put abow on it. Wow. Probably one of
the best ones I've gotten yet.
Unknown (48:53):
Thank you.
Josh Bolton (48:55):
You're welcome. So third question, final question,
the third. Where can everyonecontact you as
Unknown (49:03):
well, I think you're probably going to be including
some of those links in thesummary notes. But for
individuals that would like tolearn more, they can certainly
go to our website, www dotempowered financial planner.com.
And for those that would like tounderstand more about what we
do, and just overall myphilosophy and and the things
(49:24):
that we've seen our big blindspots and pitfalls and
individuals approaches tobuilding wealth, they can do so
by going to www dot empoweredfinancial planner.com forward
slash pitfalls. It's a quickread, that folks can go through,
it'll give them some idea ofwhat maybe is playing against
(49:45):
what it is that they're tryingto achieve and the approach that
they're taking, and maybe someof the things that they can look
at doing things differently. Andthen of course, on social media,
either under the company name orunder yuneisia Paret
you Wonderful it's been anabsolute honor and a pleasure to
have you onlikewise Josh it was so much fun
being here with you today thankyou
Welcome to the Josh Bolton show. Die interesting and
inspiring conversations. And nowyour host, Josh Bolton. Yeah,
that's that's true. But you'reSteve AI. It's crazy how fast
it's learning, especiallyknowledge it can have compared
(00:25):
to one human. It's daunting.
Unknown (00:28):
It is daunting in and it's it's one of those things
that I think it's it's bothfascinating, but also very scary
at the same time. And a lot ofindividuals out there that
obviously there are the polaropposite. And individuals that
are at either end of thespectrum, I think are going to
have a rude awakening, becauseeven those that are 100%, for AI
(00:49):
are going to come to realizethat hey, it's Yeah, well, it's
great. It really diminishes thathuman impact. And so fewer and
fewer or rather, more and morepeople are going to have a
harder and harder time holdingon to the things that they've
been the way that they've beenable to add value into the world
historically, because of what AIis, is going to be positioned to
(01:10):
do.
Josh Bolton (01:12):
Absolutely. I mean, in certain aspects, it's going
to be great, but I always jokewith people, like certain jobs,
like air conditioning, airconditioning repairman and
techs, and like janitors andstuff like that. Currently, I
don't see an AI smart enough toclean a toilet. It could figure
out like calculus level tradingstuff, but clean a toilet, I
(01:33):
don't see that happening, atleast in the next 10 years.
Unknown (01:35):
Probably not. And same thing with some of the other
trades jobs. So it'sfascinating, because then the
question becomes even with youngadults, what should they do
when, when it comes to thedecisions that they make, and
trade jobs, funny enough to justthe way that that you
articulated it, are probablygoing to be coming back in
(01:56):
vogue, as several industries getdisrupted by AI and robotics and
automation in general.
Josh Bolton (02:04):
But from your perspective, as a financial
planner, is AI very helpful toolfor you to help your clients.
Unknown (02:12):
For us, a lot of what we do were more on the wealth
strategy side, the company nameis fairly deseeding.
Unfortunately, it was where westarted. And our intention was
really to work with financialadvisors until it was actually
some of our clients whounderstand the industry from the
inside out, brought it to ourattention that financial
(02:33):
advisors that are perhaps notacting in the highest level of
integrity, as many individualswill blame the the industry,
unfortunately, are probably notgoing to be the people that
while they could benefit fromwhat we had to deliver, it's the
individual that ultimately endsup leaving so much money on the
table, because historically, theFinancial Services is not
(02:56):
incentivized to necessarilyoperate in the in the always in
the best interest of the client,even for those that deem
themselves to be fiduciaries. Sothen kind of coming back to AI.
I think AI definitely has itsplace when we're talking about
the lower end financialproducts, think of, you know, so
many platforms out there thatwill sell life insurance and
(03:17):
things like that, for a quick,cheap way to do certain things
that that are inexpensive. Yes.
But when it comes to truestrategy, and the ability to
look at not only what ishappening today, but more
importantly, what is the tryingthe client trying to achieve in
the long run, and being able towork backwards and forwards to
(03:38):
not only devise that plan, butthen make sure we take a boat
along the way. And coursecorrect. AI is probably going to
it's I don't I can't say that atsome point in time. It won't get
there. But it certainly I don'tsee it in the very, very near
future, just because it's so atleast what we do is so hyper
specialized.
Josh Bolton (03:59):
Yeah. And you have to know all the complexities of
the tax rules to this to that toand me like you said, AI if it
may eventually get there, but atleast not within the next 10
years.
Unknown (04:11):
Oh, my God. Josh, you do? You brought up a topic
yesterday, I had a conversationwith, frankly, multiple CPAs.
And it's just, it's just, I'm inawe, you're right. They you
would think that every singleCPA would understand the tax
code forwards and backwards.
Unfortunately, they know, mostindividuals know a sub sliver of
what really is available to theclient. And a great example for
(04:32):
people that are listening andare wondering what do you mean,
we were working with multipleCPAs for multiple of our clients
and a couple of the CPAs lastweek Thursday, asked them a
question of, Hey, are youfamiliar with this particular
tax code? It's a very specifictax code that has very specific
(04:54):
applications. And it's not we'renot approaching it from a tax
sale. savings, it's truly abusiness need. And not all
businesses need it. And not allbusinesses should implement it.
But for those that need it, itultimately also becomes a huge
tax advantage. And the responsefor both of them was No, keep in
mind, this was last Thursday,yesterday, which yesterday was
(05:17):
Wednesday. I'm on a call withSid CPA and a couple of other
tax experts. And the CPAs tryingto push back to say, well, I
don't think this is gonna work.
And I don't I can't stand behindit, because and he had all these
reasons. IRS doesn't like thesetransactions. And, and, you
(05:37):
know, it could potentially putthe client at risk for an audit
and this and that, and the othernight, just last week, you had
no idea that this tax codeactually existed. So how can we
go from it? We don't know thatyou don't know that it exists to
making such a hardcore statementas to it's not going to be
applicable? Because it said, Areyou afraid of something? Because
(06:00):
the reality is, the tax code waswritten to be implemented in
situations where it's applicablenot to be taken advantage of? So
if the client has the businessneed? Why would you direct him
away from it? Unless there'ssomething else that you've got
that maybe I should know about?
And he came back and he said,you know, you know, you're
(06:20):
right, you're right, thebusiness, he should be there.
I'm like, we're basically, theclients get shot in the foot
every single day. And sometimesthey're shooting themselves in
the foot because they don't workwith a team of experts that
actually know what's happening.
And well, we're talking abouthigh net worth and high income
individuals. Consequently, thetypes of individuals and clients
(06:42):
that we serve, I mean, we cantalk about potentially hundreds
of 1000s of dollars being leftto chance year over a year.
That's a lot of money, it addsup to big, big 10 bucks over a
long haul. So I'm sorry, yousaid CPA and, and I got
transport for the back to myconversations yesterday.
Josh Bolton (07:01):
It's very important, especially for the
financial planning. I've had alot of tax people come on and
threaten tax strategists. Andall of them say the same thing
like when in doubt, ask likethree CPAs? The same question to
like, you can ask them a simplequestion. They're not going to
like Bill you. And if you getthree different answers, then
you have a problem kind ofthing. But if you have to answer
(07:23):
the same, might want to go withthe two that said to correctly.
Unknown (07:26):
Correct. Correct.
Always ask questions. That'swhat I tell clients all the
time. If, when in doubt. Andeven if not in doubt, if you
have a question, ask it. Don'tassume don't just jump at the
conclusion and assume becauseyou saw something on Google or
someone some friend told yousomething at some dinner party,
please don't do that. It couldpotentially jeopardize certain
(07:46):
things in your financialoutlook.
Josh Bolton (07:51):
Yeah, most definitely. Especially like, if
you're, your business is pullingin hundreds of 1000s of dollars
a month, you would definitelyneed to call someone like you
can be like, Okay, what do I do?
Because I'm pulling handle a lotof money. Who do I call?
Exactly,
Unknown (08:04):
exactly. And that's the power part of what we do is to
make sure that we understandwhere the client's financial
team is, poke and pry and reallyhelp the client understand what
are the questions that theyshould even be asking, because
our job is not to say, hey, weneed to displace your team. Not
at all, we need to make surethat if they are coming with an
open mindset, then we we bringeverybody and we all work
(08:27):
together. If they don't, thenthe client needs to be in that
driver's seat to understandthat, hey, maybe they have
different options, but they havealso have to have the conviction
that, okay, we need to makechanges. And without that
conviction being there, it justcreates a lot of mess, as you
can probably imagine.
Josh Bolton (08:44):
Yeah, yeah, it does. So I'm just curious. You
mentioned earlier you like sitdown and ask questions to your
client, let's just sayhypothetically, I'm a new client
for you. What would be theonboarding process?
Unknown (08:57):
So the onboarding process for our clients is one
that is as everything we do verycustomized to them. First and
foremost, we understand what isit that the clients even trying
to achieve? We don't want totake clients on that we are not
a good fit for and vice versa.
So once we get past that, theone of the very first questions,
one of the very first sessionsthat we're going to have is
(09:18):
going to be a session to say it,where we're going to talk about,
okay, what is it that we'retrying to achieve? What is it
that they're trying to achieve,specifically for the short term
for the long term for, you know,an address any questions that
they might have? And then basedon that we, the approach that we
take is grounded into threepillars of, of the type of work
that we do, and sometimes theytranscend. So to give you an
(09:42):
example, the very first pillarwe talked a little bit about
CPAs and taxes. What we'refinding is that a lot of high
net worth and high income. Thinkof doctors think of executives
in corporate America, think ofsuccessful business owners,
pilots, you name it, they end upleaving a lot of money. Due to
taxes, or they perhaps pay morein taxes than they should? Why?
(10:03):
Because they don't have theright level of support from
their existing financial team.
So when we come in, we startunderstanding what are some of
the strategies that historicallyhas, they've been able to take
advantage of or they've beenable to implement for
themselves? And then we ask thequestion of okay, we try to
(10:23):
understand what does thatstrategy look like from a tax
perspective, and what we findwhen we're looking at Josh, is
that most individuals don'tactually have a tax strategy.
Funny enough, most of them, theymight think that they have a tax
strategy, but it's really just ameeting to say, Okay, here's
what we think is gonna happen,and we're going to file taxes.
(10:45):
Next thing, you know, taxes getfired. And so we try to
understand from a taxperspective once again, and then
the other thing that those arethe taxes primarily for the
current year, right for thecurrent filing year, then we
start asking the question ofokay, when we look at building
wealth, consequently, this isalso also our second pillar.
(11:06):
What are different ways in whichpeople invest? And I know I've
noticed on your show, you'vegot, you know, a lot of
individuals that feel verypassionate about the specific
solutions that they individuallyoffer. So when we start
transcending all of thosedifferent things, right, from
all of those individuals thatthat someone can listen to
(11:27):
clients inherently will beconfused. Because then the
question is, okay, does thatstrategy apply to me? Well, what
about the other strategy? Whatabout the other strategy, and
there is no way to trulydecipher. So what we do with our
clients, we want to give themthe empowerment so that they
understand what are thedifferent options, whether it be
(11:47):
Securities and Investmentinvesting in the market, whether
it be life insurance, cash,accumulating life insurance
products, whether it be nontraditional investments, that
most financial even advisorsdon't touch? One A good example
is real estate. What if peoplewant to invest in real estate
dude, have you heard a financialperson ever seen? Absolutely,
(12:08):
let me count the ways as to howthat could be beneficial. It
doesn't happen. Right? So whatwe do is we understand what is
in what is in most alignment,what are the different
strategies that are most alignedto what the client is trying to
achieve. Because what that thengives us is an opportunity
through the fact that the clientunderstands what their options
(12:30):
are. Now, they can actually helpguide and steer their ultimately
financial goals and their wealthcreation efforts. It's funny
yesterday at the conference, MelAbraham actually said he said,
one of the things you shouldn'tdo is let somebody else drive
your financial car. So why is itthat so? I have passionate about
(12:52):
and let's say that it's it's thewe're dealing with the end of
the year, we're dealing with theplayoffs, and you have been
exceeding seat tickets. But youknow, you really would just
prefer for somebody else to, tojust do it for you to just enjoy
the experience for you. Wouldyou ever in a million years,
(13:13):
just give those tickets away tosomebody else? And just have the
expectation that somehowvicariously you're going to live
through the experience? What hadever happened?
Know?
Exactly. So I use that analogy,because people are like, Oh, my
God, I never thought about itthat way. So again, when that
pillar of understanding what arethe different options is
(13:33):
critical, because it ultimately,individuals end up not just
saving a lot of money, but alsomaking more money because the
way that they grow their wealthis in alignment to their goals.
It's in alignment, alignment towho they are. And then last but
not least, we're gonna come backaround. And we asked the
question of as part of our thirdpillar, what does what about the
(13:56):
exit strategy, whether it be anindividual that's looking at
retirement down the road, or itbe someone that is looking at
potentially divesting a businessowner looking at divesting
selling or possibly taking hishis or her company public? What
does that exit strategy looklike? And what are some of the
things that the considerationsthat we need to think about and
(14:17):
take into consideration fortoday, considering we're talking
about taxes? We're talking aboutways to manage capital invest,
build wealth, and are there anydiscrepancies that we need to
make sure that we address and soonce we kind of go through just
an understanding of where folksare, across those different
pillars, then what we know iswe're going to start looking at
(14:39):
a domino effect. It's near theinterior end. So a lot of
clients that have come on andand we onboard them in the last
couple of months. The biggestarea of focus for them was
taxes. They said we need tofocus on taxes. So we focused on
taxes. And then because this isvery flexible, our approach or
methodology is very flat.
Trouble, then we're going tocatch everything up on the back
(15:01):
end, when it comes to reallyafter we roll into the new year.
So I hope that gave you a littlebit of, of an understanding of
not just the onboarding, butalso our overall approach and
the different the differentpillars that we we implement in
our conversations and in ourwork with our clients.
Josh Bolton (15:21):
That was very well.
So wow, that was very well putin especially like the
complexities of the how toimplement the task to your
business. And a lot of I'verecently heard it with my
guests. But the exit strategy,I'm still realizing that's a big
gap. Entrepreneurs keep missing
Unknown (15:39):
100% Not only do they do they mess up on and they miss
out on when it actually comestime to exit. But a lot of
companies and a lot of businessowners suffer losses, Frank Klee
because they're not able todemand as much money for their
company, at the onset or atduring the sales process,
(16:00):
because they didn't know thingsthat they should have known
ahead of time, in terms of froman operations, perspective,
optimization, etc. But the otherthing is also on the tax side, I
cannot tell you how many clientshave come to us, asking us about
transactions that they've donein years past with companies to
say, hey, can we still, funnilyenough, go right back to cut
taxes? Can we still optimize ourour exit? From a tax standpoint?
(16:27):
Where was your team when youexit it 710 years ago,
unfortunately, that costsindividuals, in many cases,
millions of dollars. And thenthe other thing is, on the
personal note, especially whenwe're dealing with business
owners, many of them puteverything that they have into
the company. And if we'rerunning into a situation where a
(16:49):
COVID happens, or some sort ofnational international pandemic
takes place, and the world is inchaos, now we've put all of our
eggs in the basket of thebusiness, not to say that we
shouldn't invest in thebusiness. That's absolutely a
given. But we have to alsofigure out how do we pay
ourselves? How do we startseparating that those risk
(17:11):
compartments and the ways thatour business is structured, in
order to make sure that Godforbid, something happens, we
don't lose our minds over thefact that our businesses are not
structured in a way that offerus some protection that
ultimately will allow us to havea peaceful life and be able to
sleep at night with as muchpeace as we can. Because we know
(17:32):
that we're good. We've we've gotour ducks in a row.
Josh Bolton (17:36):
Now 100% Yeah, that's the biggest one I've
noticed. Well, I do martial artsout in Upland, California. And
there was a entrepreneurstarting the restaurant like no
franchising. He did it all onhis own. And he got a loan and
everything. And he started itearly 2019. And then, while
(17:56):
COVID Hit it, he did not surviveat all. Right? Good. No, go
ahead. Go ahead. All right, andHe put all his eggs in the
basket. So he's like, I'mruined, because he's like, I
don't know what to do. Now.
Unknown (18:11):
On the contrary, though, when we're working with
business business owners, whenwe're looking at things
strategically, growing yourbusiness always is always always
assumed and implies a lot ofrisk take taking, right. But
that's exactly why your yourexample is so critical. That's
it, it's a great example. And alot of our listeners may say,
(18:33):
Well, we're not going to seeanother COVID. It may not be
COVID, and he might be somethingelse. But the beautiful and the
reality is even if there'snothing else, the reality is
that having that peace, to knowthat worse comes to worse, we
should always be prepared forthat, that are our assets and
our liabilities and are riskierbusiness endeavors are protected
(18:58):
and vice versa, our safe assetsare protected from those risky
endeavors is huge, becauseultimately for most of us, it's
not just us, it's our families.
It's it's our neighbors, it'sour lifestyle. It's so there's
so much at stake that just,frankly, we shouldn't take it
for granted, and we shouldn'tplay with it. And people
shouldn't play with that.
Josh Bolton (19:17):
No, it's like playing with fire. You get like
touch it every so often, and Iget hurt. But if you keep doing
it too long enough, you're gonnaburn yourself.
Unknown (19:24):
Most likely.
Absolutely. Yeah.
That's awesome. Is thereanything in particular that I
might have missed? Getting up tothis point that you want to go
over?
I'm not really I just, I'm hereto answer your questions that
you have, you know, youraudience much better than I do.
I've listened I've lookedthrough some of your podcasts
(19:46):
and it seems like you have agood mix of, of information,
which is wonderful. But yeah,you know some of the needs that
your audience has, so let'slet's address them.
Josh Bolton (19:57):
I want to go over specifically the You touched on
the both the tax part and theexit strategy. How does the like
having certain vendors affectyou with the taxes and selling
your business?
Unknown (20:09):
When you say vendors, what specifically? Are you
referring to?
Josh Bolton (20:13):
I guess like suppliers, contracts with
certain companies that willproduce your material kind of
thing like that.
Unknown (20:21):
I mean, at that point, it's I think part of it is going
to be negotiations right,negotiating those terms. And
I'm, I'm a huge proponent forknow who your vendors are, know
what the possibilities are. Askquestions. A lot of people will
say no. And I know this doesn'tdirectly address your question.
But a lot of people will say,No, I just know my vendor,
(20:41):
they're not going to, they'renot going to give me a price
break. They're already giving methe best price break. And I'll
never forget years ago, I wasworking with in collaboration
with someone that was doing realestate investments in the
Atlanta area. And he had arelationship with a company with
a vendor company that wasproviding cabinets. And he came
(21:02):
to me and he said, exactly that,right, we have the best price,
they gave us the lowest price.
And my job was to intervene forone of our clients. So I went to
the supplier and I said, Hey, Iknow that you guys have a
wonderful relationship, you guysclearly have done an amazing
job. Just out of curiosity, whatwould it take for my client to
actually be able to get perhapseven just a little bit more in
(21:23):
terms of a discount, like a10 15%? I know you guys are
already strapped for margins,and all of that, is there any
way we could potentially makethat happen? And sure, long and
behold, we were able to give ourclients an additional to get
them at additional 10%. Andwhich was huge. That is that
right? Especially when you'redealing with multiple houses,
(21:45):
multiple rental units, multipleapartments, or men complexes,
it's huge, it really adds up.
And I'll never forget this, thishe was this particular gentleman
was actually a real estatementor in the area. And he said,
you know, most individuals thatI work with, if they ever get a
(22:07):
hold of my vendor list, they endup messing up relationships, and
immediately looked at a mess,what kind of people do you work
with? Right? You don't let meyou don't want to put people in
a situation where they're gonnamess up the relationship. So
vendors, first and foremost,know your terms, know the terms
of those agreements, be nice, benice, you won't be in a nice
(22:28):
individual, add value back tothem. And then you can always
revisit and ask questions on howcan you work better with them.
When it comes to taxes,obviously, it's going to be the
cost of materials, or the costof whatever it is that you're
purchasing from that vendor,then most likely is going to go
against your taxes. So workingwith one vendor or another, may
(22:49):
not necessarily make adifference, especially if it's
in the same industry. Now, ifyou're looking at different
industries, and you're thinkingnow, from the perspective of
hey, maybe I want to investmoney, and there's a question of
if I'm investing, we'reparticularly we're talking about
individuals that are investinghundreds and millions of
dollars, hundreds of 1000s ofdollars in millions. What would
(23:11):
that look like? Are there anytax advantages? Now we can have
a different conversation, wedon't want to start out by just
saying, Hey, we just want tomaximize minimize our taxes,
although there are somesituations where people
genuinely are leavingopportunities on the table. But
oftentimes there areopportunities to actually grow a
portfolio and see huge taxbenefits on the back end. What
(23:34):
are those opportunities? Thereare a ton of opportunities.
Unfortunately, some of thosestrategies are not necessarily
being spoken about out therebecause they are reserved for
some of the Uber wealthy.
So credit investor and higher.
Exactly. So whyshould Why is it It baffles me
every day that individuals areputting themselves on this
little island or dollar islandwhere they'll say, Well, I'm not
(23:58):
an accredited investor. I'm notI have not I don't have
experience, maybe I'm notsitting on $3 million, or on a
million dollar million you justwhatever that some in their mind
is. And because of that don'tqualify when we tell clients is
if you already fit that highincome high, high higher net
worth individual look at whereyou're at in terms of the rest
(24:20):
of the population. Are you inthe top 1% Up 5% Beautiful thing
is Hello, you have a ton ofopportunities at your disposal
opportunities thatunfortunately, the industry
isn't speaking about. So it's amatter of again, finding the
right team, having the rightpeople in your quarter, having
the right quarterback team,right to make sure that you not
(24:40):
only have access to thoseopportunities, but somebody that
can help you decipher throughand figure out are they even the
right opportunities for you andthen be able to go from there.
Josh Bolton (24:52):
Yeah, that's very good point is especially as I've
like talked to different realestate investors. I won I I was
trying to book an art dealer,but he flaked out on me. But all
of them told me like when youmake that $200,000 a year for
like two years and consistently,they're like, you're technically
an accredited investor. And I'mlike, But what about taxes? Like
(25:14):
if they take off the 40k? Fortaxes, he's like, no, like, you
earn $2,000 $200,000. That'swhat the IRS sees. So you're an
accredited investor, and itmight, Oh, wow. And that's where
I was asking him like, then whatcan I do and he's like, really
just his imagination. At thatpoint, you want to invest in one
(25:34):
pot down the street, go for it,and one invests in the farm up
in Northern California, go forit, you want invest in my
apartment syndication, go forit. I was like, Oh, that kind of
sucks that I have to kind ofexclude from the big boys club.
He mentioned up handling thatdoes a good job for you. He
said, If you form an LLC, orlike a holding company, and have
(25:58):
people invest in it, then he cango out as an accredited
investor. Is that true?
Unknown (26:05):
I was just gonna say there are different ways. And
again, this is where a lot ofpeople have very big
limitations, because they're,again, they're putting
themselves sadly on an island.
And they don't do itintentionally. What I found is
that, Josh, when they're lookingat themselves, and they look at
themselves in the mirror,similar to what you said, right?
I'm not part of the big boysclub. Why would you say that?
(26:25):
Because if you were to thinkabout it, even with a syndicate,
for example, or other types of,of creative deal structures and
different investments, there canbe partnerships that can be
formed. And it's not just you orthe individual, it can be done
together. Now, I do have tocaution people, especially
syndicates and other types ofkind of creative ways to bring
(26:49):
people together have popped uplike mushrooms the last several
years. And while the while the,the industry was doing
wonderful, everybody was makingmoney. But one of the things
that I caution, and I urge myclients to be very vigilant
about is to make sure thatwhenever they choose to work
with someone, that that someoneor those companies that they
(27:12):
choose to work with, havetrajectory, have they gone
through 2008 2009? Have theygone through some sort of a
major financial bubble? Becausethe reality is there's not one
economist that I've heard to saythe next year, for example, is
going to be a bed of roses, ormaybe even the next two years.
So if we're dealing withindividuals who don't have the
right level of liquidity, whodon't have the right level of
(27:35):
experience, implementing andmanaging some of those projects,
I've already heard of many, manyindividuals that really just in
the last six year, sorry, sixmonths. They've lost all of the
investments that they've made,and some of those some of those
deals. So it's not to say thatthe deals are not right. But we
need to make sure that we haveonce again, it goes right back
(27:56):
to the team. Who is that team?
Do we trust them? Ultimately, ifif the there is a likelihood
that you're going to lose all oftheir money, don't just look at
the promise, you're potentiallygoing to lose all of their all
of your money? Are you okay withthat? And a lot of the time
people will say, Oh, yeah,absolutely. I know, I'm taking a
calculated risk. Okay. Thenlet's also think about, if let's
(28:20):
play devil's advocate, you get acall and all the money's gone?
What will that do to your life?
What will that do to your mentalpsyche? What will that do to
your family? Well, I don't knowthat I could bear it. Well, if
you don't think you could bearit. But at the onset, you said,
Absolutely, you know, becauseyou've taken calculated risks,
the answer is probably somewherein the middle. So we really need
to just make sure that whenwe're working, and we do it all
(28:43):
the time when we're working withclients, we approach it even
from just the the psychologicalperspective of how like, what
are those impacts? What howcould they potentially impact
life in an in an alternative wayother than what we're hoping to,
or perhaps having desired?
Josh Bolton (29:03):
Now, it's a very, very valid point, because the
only thing I even winced aboutthe properties failing is I, one
of my buddies, he got his wholeretirement life savings,
everything dumped into a, hisbest friend's project and he
just blew up. And, and he'sjust, he's like, sitting there,
like, I'm gonna have to worktill I die now.
Unknown (29:26):
We've had clients honestly, that we took on, I'll
never forget we have, we have acouple of CPAs. Actually, that
came to us years ago. And it wasthe same thing because of what
happened in 2008 2009. Some ofthem some individuals have also
experienced the adversity ofgoing through through divorces
and family situations thatfrankly robbed him of a ton of
(29:49):
their wealth, for one reason oranother. And they had that same
perspective. We're going to haveto work until really the last
days. So part of what we doremember I was telling you about
that working things backwards isWe have to people shouldn't have
to live with that feeling. Andthe reality is I tell people,
there's you shouldn'tprocrastinate they shouldn't
(30:09):
procrastinate. Like in general,it's better to start getting
your questions as there soonerrather than later. So that you
don't get so close to retirementare so close to the point where
you're starting to think abouthow will those those income
streams that perhaps you'veyou've geared up for? How are
they going to, to reward you,when the time comes for you to
(30:31):
start taking and reaping thosebenefits? The sooner we look at
those, and the sooner we look atwhat else can we do to optimize,
the better off clients are, thebetter off individuals are, but
sadly, number one, they risk itall, they put all of their eggs
in one basket. And the otherthing that happens is oftentimes
people will not really thinkabout it, because it's still
(30:53):
five or 10 or 15 years, somecases even 20 years away, I
mean, for somebody that's intheir 40s, very seldomly, that
is someone in their 40s reallythinking about, hey, oh, my
gosh, and 20 years, I'm gonnaretire, I just lost 30% of my
portfolio, but I think I'mhoping it'll come back and I'll
be fine. It'll recuperate bythen. Well, if we're looking at
(31:13):
what history tells us, the moneythat you've lost is the is the
money is the is the the worstmoney for you to have lost. And
the money that we haven't lostis the best money we've ever
made. Right. And so again, itkind of goes to to the risk
profile, when we're talkingalso, from a tax perspective, a
lot of high income individuals,particularly those that are
(31:34):
executives, or that have, forexample, 401 k Ira kind of
accounts or pension type ofaccount with their companies.
Many times they don't know thatthey can actually minimize their
taxes on the back end, bycontributing, for example, to
Roth accounts, becausehistorically in their mind, and
it's not like the the investmentcompany would have told them
(31:58):
this because they shouldn'thave. But in their mind, they
think that I'm making too muchmoney to qualify for that.
Josh Bolton (32:06):
So I want to say there is the the 160k a year, if
they are pulling in 200 Plus, Ithink I will correct me from for
when they get tapped out ifthey're making 200 a year.
Unknown (32:18):
It is if it's if they're over $200,000 and change
per year, for a family filingjointly married filing jointly,
they tap out if they were toinvest on the IRA site. But if
they have access to a 401 K,they can contribute towards that
(32:39):
in a Roth account, especiallythat Roth account was set up in
years past. Right. So a lot ofindividuals, I mean, I can't
tell you how many, one of theworst situations that I've seen
was with pilots, and make toomuch money. So you haven't put
anything you have nothing inwhat I call the text, never
(33:00):
bucket, because you had thisperception and you make too much
money. And then of course, wevalidated with the CPA that they
could have been they shouldhave, but they did it. And then
they go through and they want todo conversions and different
things like that. And it'scosting them a ton of money,
because now they make more moneythan they did before. And a lot
of people also have thismisconception that you know
(33:22):
what, by the time I retire, I'mgoing to actually be in a lower
tax bracket. But just being in alower tax bracket doesn't
necessarily mean that you'regoing to pay less in taxes. And
for people that want to rewindand listen to that, again, it's
a huge misconception, I'm goingto be paying I'm going to be in
a lower tax bracket. But again,that does not equate to, they're
(33:45):
going to be paying less intaxes. So then a big thing of
that strategy needs to be again,looking backwards and forwards
is we want to minimize our taxexposure today. But is that
going to potentially hurt us inthe future, especially if taxes
end up going higher, or as theygo continue to go higher? And so
it's very, very important forpeople to realize that it's not
(34:07):
just about that today. And it'snot just about the tomorrow.
It's about how do we make surethat whatever we do for today
does not counter intuitivelyimpact what it is that we're
trying to achieve for the futureand vice versa.
Josh Bolton (34:21):
Oh, 100% Yeah. So like for me, especially talking
to awesome people like you onthe show. I didn't realize like
I could have been optimizingback in when I was 20. But to be
honest, when I was 20 I was justpartying and going to college
and drinking. I wasn't thinkingabout saving for a Roth account.
Unknown (34:38):
Many people aren't right. Most people aren't in and
I have. We don't really workwith a whole lot of clients in
their 20s. As a matter of fact,I took one of the last clients
that I took that he's in his 20swas because I had worked with
his parents and he just, it's amindset. He came to us and he
said I know you work with momand dad. You do You what you did
(35:01):
for them. And the peace of mindthat you gave them is so amazing
to see. I know, I'm young, Iknow I don't make as much money
as most of your clients do. Butwould you please take me on as a
client? So we sat down, weanalyzed, we kind of went
through, here's like, here's thedeal. It's a mindset. So we're
gonna go through this, but youhave to really challenge
(35:21):
yourself to elevate your yourgame to take your game to the
next level as we work together,because you have access to all
this amazing insight, all theseamazing insights. Are you ready
to do that? And he was hesurprised us he he hunkered
down, he got it done. And, andhe's one of our super success
stories when it comes toindividuals in their 20s. But to
(35:43):
your point, most people in their20s, they just want to have fun.
They they finally had legallegal age. And, you know, it's
all about the friends and thebooze. And then when they get
they get into their 30s. It'slike, oh my gosh, if I could
have if I could just go back.
Josh Bolton (36:01):
Yeah, and that was a big one for me. Just talking
to people, but the big thingI've learned, especially like I
said, talking to us, and peoplelike you, it's never too late.
Now, you might not be able tooptimize as well, but you're
never too late for anything.
Unknown (36:18):
That is so true. That is true. But again, it goes back
to people need to understandthat it's a it's a give and
take, were in their 20s, settingaside 150 $200 a month, maybe a
little bit more would havegotten them to a really kind of
good place in retirement, ifthey stick with it. By the time
(36:38):
time during that their 30s, thatnumber is going to more than
double, in some cases triple.
And by the time they get intotheir 40s, it's definitely going
to at least triple if notquadruple. And so arguably a lot
of people will say yes, but I'mgoing to be making more money.
What many folks don't really sitdown to think about is that as
we make more money. So duringour expenses, so do are the
(37:01):
games that we like to buy, so dothe toys that we like to buy the
the the vacations that we take.
And so I call that the the thewealth pie or the income pie. As
that pie is kind of segmented,right about 50% of the income
that comes in goes to lifeexpenses, etc. About 25% goes to
(37:25):
taxes, plus or minus, obviously,these are very rough numbers.
And then the other stuff goes tothat for most people. And if
we're looking at the whole pie,very few individuals actually
lived a sliver, a tiny littlesliver to where they paid
themselves. And so they willsay, well, as my income grows,
I'm gonna pay myself more, whatends up happening is that that
(37:48):
sliver continues to stay low,because that half of the pie
that's focused on life expenseswill continue to grow, taxes
grow commensurate even more,obviously, there are income, and
that that the debt will continueto accumulate, if not at the
same perhaps in many cases evenfaster, right. So that tiny
little sliver of actuallysetting money aside in a way
(38:08):
that's truly meaningful,continues to be diminished and
be very small. And so one of thethings that because of the
strategy that we have is wefocus on how can we get more
savings coming from reducing ourtax exposure, based on what's
available on the tax code,figuring out what that looks
like? And then what are theareas in our personal stent that
(38:31):
we can not sacrifice, butredeploy in a way that's
meaningful to us and willactually continue to help us
truly build wealth.
Josh Bolton (38:40):
Now, it's a very good point. Yeah, that's,
especially for me, because I'malways just thinking how you're
saying like the percentage ofthe richest man in Babylon came
to mind where it's like you, youpay yourself 10% That's like the
minimum. And it's so funny,because people asked me to like,
what are two, five, we'rewilling to read two books, what
are the two books we should readhim, like, Think and Grow Rich
and richest man in Babylon? Youcan read those two, I'm like,
(39:04):
those two will give you thefoundation, if you want to read
more great. If not, that'senough. You'll figure it out
from there.
Unknown (39:10):
As long as it as you implement some of these items,
some of the ideas that are inthe books, both of them are
amazing books, for sure.
Definitely, highly recommendmyself, but you gotta get in
there and do some of this stuff.
And as you're implementing it,right, as you're setting aside
that 10% 15%, whatever thatlooks like, then the question
comes in, okay, where does thatmoney go? And that's exactly
(39:32):
that takes us back to some ofthose pillars we were talking
about previously, because itmakes a world of difference. How
the money grows, peace of mind,all of that so that we can,
people can focus on thinkinggrow rich, and how to continue
to change their mindset. Theyneed to have the backing they
need to have the support becausethey're seeing the money grow in
order for them to change themindset. It's going to be very
(39:54):
hard for people to do that. Ifthey put their money in next
thing you know, they've lost 50%Now the money Sit goes
backwards, right? So books aregreat, but we need to sometimes
I tell my clients and I tellindividuals, we need to be able
to read in between the lines.
And that's where your team ofexperts should come in to say,
Oh, you read that book. That'swonderful. What are let's figure
out what are the in between thelines for you specifically,
(40:16):
because those in between thelines are going to be very
different, very small nuancesthat are applicable in different
ways, based on the individualsituation.
Josh Bolton (40:26):
Yeah, yeah. It's, it is the biggest one I, I
chuckled to myself. It's notlike actually haha, funny, but
it's like the we talk in generalsense. But there's no sense.
There's general events, butthere's no general direction for
one person you have, you have tocater each path to the person,
(40:46):
my whatever you want to call itis like there's a million ways
to the top of the mountain,which one you're going to take
kind of thing 100% 100%?
Unknown (40:55):
Well, one of the, one of the one of those paths that I
I oftentimes will tell people toreally think about is this idea
of taxes, right? There are somany books out there that will
tell you just invest all of yourmoney in IRAs, and 401, Ks and
basically, in retirement type ofaccounts, that are traditional
(41:19):
accounts, because it helps youminimize your taxes and you're
going to your money is going togrow so much faster. And almost
in every single one of thosebooks, there's going to be the
sliver of discussion, or theinnuendos that will tell you and
if you get to a point where youwant to basically then convert
somehow your retirement so thatyou'll have a tax free
retirement, here's what you cando to to go through these
(41:41):
backdoor conversions and thingslike that? And if if those
people that are reading thosebooks that are just kind of just
absorbing it, because the booksays it, where to think about
it, Hey, was that book writtenfor me? Or was it written for
the individual that just isextra bump, that extra mindset
shift so that they can startsaving money? Which one, which
(42:03):
of those categories Am I in?
Because if we don't work thingsbackwards, and those conversions
end up costing us more down theroad? Because we're in higher
tax brackets, or we end uppaying more taxes? Have we truly
gotten more out of thatequation? Or are we ending up in
a situation where it's costingus? Oh, people go, Oh, my gosh,
I never thought about it thatway? Well, those books cannot
(42:26):
address every person situation100% customized from the get go,
can it can they
Josh Bolton (42:34):
know? And? No, it can't. It's more like generally
speaking, you could do this kindof thing without getting like a
like financial advisors, like wecan say, you can generally do
this, but like, if you know whatthey're talking about, like that
is a terrible idea. Don't dothat?
Unknown (42:52):
Well, and oftentimes we have to this is where
unfortunately, it comes fromindividuals that are in the
financial services industry,that are different sides. And
they will tell you that many ofthem are tired because they
focus again on what they focuson. So somebody will tell you,
that's a terrible idea. Andother person will tell you this
is a great idea. And when you'relooking at what is it that truly
(43:15):
they're representing theircompanies, oftentimes we're
going to be representing thoseideas that they're a huge
proponent of. And it takes usright back to the very first
part of our conversation. Whatis the right in between? Is
there an in between? Or is therea silver bullet for everyone?
And we know that silver bulletsreally don't exist? So if they
(43:37):
don't exist, then what are thethings that we need to do to
establish that solid baselineand then go from there?
Josh Bolton (43:44):
Definitely sounds like everyone needs to call you
on tech. Because I'm sittinghere just like, wow, this is so
much good stuff. I will say, Ilooks like our time is about to
go up. I got three going outquestions for you. Sure. So
other than work, what have youbeen doing to keep yourself busy
(44:04):
during these COVID times?
Unknown (44:08):
Oh, my goodness, that's a great question. personal
improvement is one of the thingsthat I focus on a lot, just on
different different fromdifferent aspects, whether it's
being part of masterminds withindividuals that even though we
were in a lockdown and COVIDsituation, we were still able to
interact and, and just continuethat mindset. And what I will
(44:29):
tell you is that thoseindividuals that that we did
that with those that wereserious about their businesses,
they actually ended up seeinghuge advancement and
advancements in their businessversus regression. So there was
it was a great, not a great timebut a great time to see them to
see those. Spending time withfamily was also huge. It was it
(44:51):
was very interesting at the veryvery onset. My daughter came to
me she said Mom, this wholelockdown situation is going to
either make make or breakfamilies? And I thought I mean,
she was very young. And I said,What do you mean? She said, I
can only imagine the familiesthat have a hard time handling
each other, right? They'reprobably at each other's throats
(45:13):
being stuck in the house forweeks and days and months on
end, versus the families thatwant more time together, it
gives them an opportunity toactually do that. So we got to
spend a lot of amazing time aspart of the family and just
really continuing on with, withlooking if not from a business
perspective. But what does lifetruly mean? And how do we
(45:35):
approach life in general from astance where, again, we live
with no regrets. But we havethat peace because we know that
we're doing what we're supposedto be doing, whether it's for
business or for job, or just inour personal life.
Josh Bolton (45:50):
Oh, 100% Yeah, I've just from the stories I've heard
offhandedly from co workers, howto COVID lockdowns during 2020
and 2021. Destroyed families,because they were already kind
of like tolerating each other,but they were gone for eight
hours out of the whole day. Sothey could just like, do the
thing. The amount of divorcesI've heard, I'm like, wow,
(46:14):
that's painful.
Unknown (46:16):
It is very painful. And those families, I see some of
them on the aftermath. And manyof them have left on bad terms.
Others have left on really goodterms. And I have all the
appreciation for the familiesthat even though they ended up
separating, and divorces endedup being there, at least or
focused on their children, forthose that do have children to
(46:38):
say, Listen, I mean, justbecause we're not no longer in
that relationship, we can stillbe human beings and just just
add positivity to the world,even though we're not. We're not
together anymore. Right? And Ijust have, I have a lot of
friends who have been in thatsituation, I have so much regard
for them.
Josh Bolton (46:55):
That's awesome. So second question, people inspired
by you want to take action wantto go down a similar path, what
are some tips, tricks or adviceyou'd give them to start down a
similar path you are on rightnow.
Unknown (47:10):
They have to have the right mentors. Number one,
mentors are very important. Andwhen I say they have to have the
right mentors is very good. I'vealways been blessed to have
amazing mentors, both in mycorporate career days, as well
as when I became a businessowner. But I can also tell you
that I've had to fire mentors,literally. And that leads me to
(47:32):
the second point, which is youhave to act from a place of
integrity. Don't think about themoney for me for many years. It
was not it was it was one ofthose things where I want I just
wanted to help people. And I wasdriven by by the joy and the
tears and the happiness and theovercoming the sadness of people
had done the wrong thing in thepast. And they finally had a
(47:54):
better, more clear, more definedpath forward. It was those
amazing emotions and devaluedthat I knew we were delivering
to clients that were driving meand we're driving our team. But
there are so many individuals,especially in financial
services, that it's all aboutthe bottom line. It's about the
numbers. It's about the metrics,it's about the everything else
in external that puts pressureon their ultimate success
(48:18):
factors and how it is that theyshow up in the world. And my
guidance would be if you dothat, sooner or later is going
to catch up. So find goodmentors, act from a place of
integrity, figure out your ownway of adding value without
adding cost to the clientsbottom line. And if you can do
that, then you're going to begenuine and the clients will
(48:40):
will see that that genuine sideof you and they will trust.
Josh Bolton (48:45):
That was really good. I have to say, the way you
summarize that and just put abow on it. Wow. Probably one of
the best ones I've gotten yet.
Unknown (48:53):
Thank you.
Josh Bolton (48:55):
You're welcome. So third question, final question,
the third. Where can everyonecontact you as
Unknown (49:03):
well, I think you're probably going to be including
some of those links in thesummary notes. But for
individuals that would like tolearn more, they can certainly
go to our website, www dotempowered financial planner.com.
And for those that would like tounderstand more about what we
do, and just overall myphilosophy and and the things
(49:24):
that we've seen our big blindspots and pitfalls and
individuals approaches tobuilding wealth, they can do so
by going to www dot empoweredfinancial planner.com forward
slash pitfalls. It's a quickread, that folks can go through,
it'll give them some idea ofwhat maybe is playing against
(49:45):
what it is that they're tryingto achieve and the approach that
they're taking, and maybe someof the things that they can look
at doing things differently. Andthen of course, on social media,
either under the company name orunder yuneisia Paret
you Wonderful it's been anabsolute honor and a pleasure to
have you onlikewise Josh it was so much fun
being here with you today thankyou
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