How to Create Legacy-Driven Passive Income Without Burnout | Titan Impact Group

Okay, here we are. Do you see my screen?

Yep.

I love this. Okay, Very exciting. So today I'm super excited that all of you are here and you get to meet another amazing human being on the planet. This is Larry Pendleton, and we got introduced again through another other extraordinary human beings.

And.

And before we get started, Larry, you've got such an amazing background, and I would love to have everybody understand more of your background, but more importantly, your heart and why you do all the things that you do. And yes. You're a cpa, right?

Yes.

So here's the thing I love about it. I always told my kids, listen, nerds rule the world, so go be a nerd, right? And numbers are your world. And that's like my favorite spreadsheets. And numbers is like my love language. So you get to swim around in that world, which I love. So with that, yeah, I would love for you to share just a little bit about who you are and cpa. And then again, because we got talking about the philanthropy and all the things, so let's dive in. So share us with us.

Oh, thank you so much. Nice to meet everyone. Larry Pelleton, the investor, cpa. My mission is to help people build passive income and save on taxes. Been doing the CPA piece for nearly two decades now on the advisory side of things for the most part. And then been investing myself in real estate for, like I said, roughly about a decade now. And with a focus of building attainable home ownership for. For the working class and first responders and teachers and all that stuff, there's.

I love it.

So.

And we got talking more. We'll dive into all the things. So one of the things I love where you and I connected this financial literacy. Right. And playing the financial game. Wrong. And let's talk about, like, you and I had started talking about that there's a difference between, like a tax planner, a tax preparer, you know, And I always want to keep going back to that because I think that, first of all, that's a really important distinction. Talk about that for just a second.

Oh, yes. Like when I. When I present the people, I tell them up front, like, not all CPAs enrolled agents, accountants. Like, not everyone's built the same. You really have to kind of do a deeper dive to understand who you're working with, to see, like, are they really going to be a proper advisor to what you're doing. Nothing wrong about just being a tax preparer or just kind of knowing. Knowing the basic of the general. But at some point, as you grow, either your Your, the person that's working with you is growing with you or they're going to be holding you back. So you need to kind of have that assessment up front to know if this is the right person for you going forward.

So, okay, so for somebody who's never, who has never really interviewed, you know, somebody, like how, what are questions that they can ask that would be able to help them know if a CPA is helping them move forward or holding them back? Like, what are some of the parameters and questions that they could ask? So they're like, wait a second, like this, you know, so that they're in the driver's seat and understanding what the CPA needs to, the answers that need to be given and the expertise, I think more importantly in their experience, so that they are getting the right professional and team member that is actually helping them move forward.

First and foremost. It's more. So is the person that you're interviewing asking you questions like, are they getting. Because if they're not asking you questions, like, how are they even like knowing like what, like what you need from them? So before you even can get into like, hey, like, what do I need to ask that person? Like that person, that cpa, that ea needs to be asking them questions to get an understanding where you are in your investment, your business ventures. So we can determine whether or not like this is going to be a good fit. Like if you're not getting those questions or if you're not getting the feeling they're trying to get to know you or they're just trying to like tell you, just tell you stuff about or sell you stuff, then you should be a little bit concerned from there, from that, from that standpoint, there questions, just ask when you're going to ask, hey, like, ask me like, how are you helping your clients save on tag? Like, like, like, like can they give a brief example? They don't gotta go into all the particular terms and tax forms and IRS codes or anything like that. Because I mean the main thing is like, can they, like, can they at high level explain what they're doing and then how are they educating themselves ongoingly for that? Because I passed that test, like I said almost, almost 20 years ago, and nothing on that test really is what I talk to my clients about now because it's not like it's really kind of the basics of just accounting, taxes, audit, stuff like that.

Yeah. So the other thing that I know for me, when I'm asking, like when I was interviewing and finding, you know, my legal counsel, CPA like tax, like all the planners, preparers, like all that. My number one question is what are they personally investing in? Are they investing in the same or similar investments that I'm investing in personally? Because I think for me, like, there's nothing more important than actual experience versus theory. Right? Like, there's a, like, well, I think it works this way versus, hold on. This is how it works and this is how I'm doing it for myself personally. Right. That's a very different conversation. So that's one of the things I love about, you know, you and your experience is you are an investor, right?

Yes, that's a, it's a pretty, in the, in the tax advisory space. It's, it's a, it's a touchy subject because not all, like, actually I know really good tax advisors who don't invest, but they know, they know how it, how it all works. It's just whatever reason. And I was like that a while ago, like a, like I said, probably half a decade, like probably about a decade ago where like I had a limiting mindset of being an investor myself, but I knew the benefits of the tax code. But I, but to your point, once I started investing myself, then it's like, okay, all of the non tax lingo that investors talk to each other about, I can now dissect that and then wrap that into, okay, how this actually applies to a tax strategy. So, so instead of me sitting across from my clients, I'm actually sitting on the same side of the table because I may want to get in the deal myself.

Well, and that's exactly it. Like, it's a very different conversation when you're shoulder to shoulder with them instead of face to face.

Exactly. Yeah. Good way to put it. Yeah.

No, this is a really big deal. And again, this is for me, when I'm working with professionals, I want to know they're doing the same thing I am because again, you know, experience Trump's theory, like, that's a really important thing to understand. So let's talk about this. So why real estate and tax strategy for your wealth engine? So you had talked about how you, you hadn't invested. So what actually got you to invest?

My business partner, Teriann Colliers, who's now a class A contractor. So he was already in the real estate space when we started to kind of build the taxes together. Just kind of gave him the kick in the butt. Like, hey, you know the numbers, you know how this works. You've seen it. Like, like stop being scared.

Right?

You got the team and all of that. So sometimes it's the people that you're around that, that kind of get you on the right track at that point. So yeah, so that really kind of got me into it. And then as I try to tell people, the tax code itself like really is a mechanism by the government to get people to do, to move a certain way. So. Right. They want people to run businesses. They want, they like the tax code is made for business owners and investors.

Yes.

From the investment standpoint, like hey, they people need housing. Like we already know where public housing has typically gone to. So they prefer to be done by the private sector. And to incentivize people to do that, they, they do things like income from rental properties is not subject to self employment taxes just for a high level example. So it's more tax advantageous income depending on the type of investing that you're getting into. And if you're actually owning properties and all that and being a landlord or just kind of overseeing a portfolio, okay, you get depreciation and stuff like that. So you get additional deductions that other, other business ventures and investment ventures don't really get at that point.

I love what you're saying. Which led me, you know, to my story for people who understand how I became an investor and became an investor literally was out of, you know, because I talk about the 5D's death, divorce, diagnosis, downsized, being dumped. And we had not set ourselves up to have multiple streams of passive income and had experienced a significant diagnosis of my husband which caused us to be downsized. I mean just it was one thing after another. And because we weren't, we didn't have those streams of income. It was like that's what forced me to get into this and realizing that this country, it's one of the things I love about this country. Yes, I'm an immigrant and that I love that like you just said, the tax code, the legal system is all set up for investors and entrepreneurs. Like that's the thing they want you to be. And other countries are not set up this way. Like that's what you people, I really want you to understand is this country is amazing. So you know, for myself, really taking advantage of that. And again, if for those of you who haven't heard me say this, go get the book who not how by Dan Sullivan. Because he talks about like, I don't have to be the smartest person on the team. I just need to have the smartest people on my team. So I knew what I wanted to do and I Went and got surrounded myself with people like Larry and like, okay, this is what I want to do. How do I do this? Like, I went and found who knows how and they're the ones that get it done right. So I can stay focused on my brilliance. So again, one of the things that's so incredibly important is inside of taking care of our families and you know, making sure that we are set up to win. So let's talk about like the tax isn't the enemy. It really is the map. I really love this.

Yeah. So if you understand like what the government is really trying to accomplish, you can really use the tax code itself to, to once again reduce your tax liability significantly and like help build wealth for you at the same time.

Right.

So I mean, I know a lot of people get into the oil and gas space because there's special exemptions on, on losses, even though you're not, may not be actively involved. And you use the losses from oil and gas investments because the government was like, has been for the long running on oil and gas. So they, they want, they want a plush of cash. They. Or capital going into that, into the industry to keep the com. To keep the country moving. At that point, the government just wants money cycling. That's the main thing. Once you want, they want money cycling. And then now you're instead of just taking large, large sums of income, you're actually just building cash flow along the way. And as I, I tell people, like, cash flow is, is king. But in order to have that coming in, you need an asset which is your queen. So you gotta have both investing into your assets. That's going to help produce passive cash flow. That's not tax as harsh as having a job or being a flipper. Nothing wrong with those things at all. People got to do what they got to do to pay bills and all that stuff. But you need to be, start kind of like playing that stuff out and how you're going to invest into your future as well.

I love that. Okay, so you skipped over and you said it really fast and I want you to slow down and just explain that, that philosophy with people because I think it's genius that cash flow is king.

And assets are queen.

So explain that to people so they understand because I think that's brilliant.

Yeah. So the aspect of queens produce kings, like, like the yin and yang of it. Men, women, all that stuff. Like you need something that's producing the cash flow. All right. So the castle doesn't come out anywhere. It comes from your rental properties, your, your Your, your note investing of you're buying land and you're renting that out, so forth and so forth. So it's coming from that asset there. And then you're producing your, your kings with your cash flow and then you'll let your cash flow built up, which would be your pawns and your cash just sitting there as pawns and you use that to reinvest to buy more queens. Similar if you, anyone that plays chess, once your pawn advances to the very end, it promotes to a queen, that's your cash. But you have to have your cash flow coming in to build that up as well as once again paying off bad debt, stuff like that, managing your expenses properly to, to, to, to roll that punt. So if you look at it from that, that flow from that perspective, you can start to kind of make sense. Okay, like, and when, like, hey, like, here's how you're able to save taxes if you're investing in this type of asset here versus in that type of asset or in that type of company there.

That's brilliant. I love that so much. So again, however, whatever the analogy you're going to use, if it's like a king and a queen or monopoly going around, you buy, you know, four green houses and you get a hotel, a red lake, whatever the analogy is, you know, I like to use a balance sheet and again, seven streams of passive income generally for the most part, if they're done right, get you to be able to get out of the rat race, like whatever it is, set up that analogy for yourself and keep moving forward with it. Like I love the whole, you know, cash flow, you buy more queens, like you just keep growing. Like it's brilliant. I love that analogy. So what are three things that people should ask the cpa?

Yeah, so I mean I think we talked about like, do they invest themselves? That, that does help with the terminology. Like hey, if you're into short term rentals, whatever, or are you buying mortgage notes or do you just understand real estate in general or you're in crypto, so you kind of know that. Hey there, they can, they can speak the language not just in tax code, but in investment code as well.

Right.

Are they willing to meet multiple times during the year? A lot of CPs, they, they typically shut it down after tax season because like I said, they're just making their money filing taxes. Nothing wrong with that. But tax, tax planning is year round. Something may come up in, in August or August 19th and you need to schedule a meeting. It may not be the exact same day, but you can probably, you should be able to get in your advisor's calendar within, within two weeks of you reaching out to them like hey, we need to book something soon right there. And then also keep in mind and when you're asking these questions like hey can, can we, can we put the tax plan in place that's going to fit me holistically? Not just hey, I save on taxes. Because yes, I could just tell you just to buy a whole bunch of business stuff and save on taxes. And then you're not. Now you're not showing the incoming. Now you can't get a business loan. So I was like hey, like how does this, how does this strategy like can you, can you put strategy in place that kind of fit to where you are now and then apply them, go apply new strategies going forward. Because not every strategy is meant to be just throwing your face now. There's have to be kind of piecemeal along the way as you grow, as you build entity structures and all of that. Like all that is a time and place because what you don't want is to for life to suck because you saved on taxes or right. Or you bought this G wagon. Yeah, you say taxes this year but now you gotta pay this business personally press parts, personal property taxes year after year your insurance gone gone up. Those are additional costs where in, in year three, year five you forgot about those tax savings in year one. Because the of the, of this headache that you have or if it's just right, right investment to get into like everybody shouldn't be getting into short term rows. They don't if they don't have the time to, to really get to get into them. So like there's popular stuff that goes up but I think those kind of the three things of like hey are they invest, are they meeting people throughout the year and then are they planning stuff from a holistic standpoint? Not just hey, this is going to help you save on taxes. Like no, here's going to help you save on taxes. Plus it's going to do this, this and this. If you're not cautious of the whole aspect of the investment, the bigger picture.

That and that is so so important to cover like the holistic view of it. Not just one little sliver. And one thing that my CPA said to me is there's different ways of doing taxes and there's taxes so that you can pay the least amount of taxes or there's taxes that have your. That are done in a way that have you be able to get Bigger loans. There's also taxes you have to take into account for later on in life. Social Security. So like self employment. So there's, there's just. It's like what if you keep the end in mind there's multiple ways for those taxes to be done like that. And that's the. Like what is your keeping your end in mind. It's not a one size fits all. So having a CPA that understands and has your back and looks and asks you better questions so that you can actually come up with better answers of where you are going. Like such an important, important piece. So one of the things that we're going to do is we're going to have a Q and A so you can actually come and ask Larry questions.

Yay.

On Thursday. And here's why I love this because I always say in all our presentations and everything like look, I'm not a cpa. I'm not legal counsel. You need to ask those professionals, not me. So people get to come and ask you questions which I love. Really quick on that. Do you have any books that you tend to tell people to go read.

Who not how is probably like my favorite book.

Oh yeah. I didn't know that. That's awesome.

All of them. Like the fact that you brought it up is, is, is hilarious to me because like yeah, I'm constantly reading that book book over over and over again because it's definitely a good reminder of just right how you, how you build your life and everything. Stories that Stick is another one where it's like it's four advisors. But I think it applies to everyone of, of like how to really like explain something while like sharing a story. Because I think, I think we kind of built.

So say that one again. I don't know that one story.

Stories that Stick.

Stories that stick. Okay, I'm gonna go get that one. So everybody go get that one. Stories that stick. Because if I love it I'm probably going to be recommending it to all of you and giving to his homework. Awesome. Any other ones that you love?

Let me see. Let me make sure. Go go through my top five here. Which ones worth bringing up. Stories that stick. And then I mean 10. I mean 10x is easier than 2x. That's another book by Dan Sullivan. Like I, I don't think you can go wrong with any of, any of his books there and that so. And the power of positive thinking about Norman. Norman Norman appeal. So especially nowadays things get so negative. I think just kind of reflecting back on the, the good things that's going on around us. Helps, helps you, helps you. Helps me keep push, pushing forward.

Yeah, no, that's, I forgot about that one. That one's beautiful. There's just so many books. I love it. And thank God for audible. I can listen them on speed like one and a half, two times.

Yep. I do the same thing.

I love it so much. So let's. I love this and it's a lot of what you've already been talking about so. Well, should feel aligned, not anxious. So when you're working with clients, what are the things, some of the things that you do that have, that bring down their anxiety level and like those aha moments that you've experienced with your clients. Like oh my goodness, I didn't think about that. Thank you.

Yeah, it's just a reminder that for them like part of it is our school system is like, hey, you just sit at this by yourself, do your homework, you're not allowed to get any help. Whereas like, like that's not how the real world works. Like no one is doing this. Like there's no self made anyone. Like there's a team in place. There may be one person that's being, getting all the highlights but like there's like I think people feel more comfortable knowing that hey, they got somebody in their corner they can like reach out and call or send an email to from there. So just, just making sure that this understanding, like you can bring that down knowing that you're not doing it, doing it, doing it by yourself. Like it is about partnering with, with the right people per se. And that's where like having those interviews kind of the whole like higher, higher, slow fire, quick type of thing. Like hey, get, get opportunity to kind of learn who you're working with. I've seen a lot of people get into these quick partnerships and joint ventures and then regret it three months later. Like there's nothing wrong about kind of pacing. Like, like who are you working with? Who's going to bring the same carry energy that you're looking to do in whatever venture that you're, that you're in at this point. And like you're never, that you're never too late to get started. So you don't have to rush into the, the first deal that kind of comes through. Like proper due diligence is always going to be needed. So. And there's always going to be another deal opportunity around the corner. So if something doesn't feel right or the number doesn't make sense, like don't just start, just to get started, like, get started the right way and make sure it's aligned with, with your goals and the legacy you're looking to build.

Yeah, that's really important. I love that. And do background checks on people. So I know for all my deals we always do background checks. And it's just, it's an important piece that has saved me and I could share all sorts of interesting stories about that. So that's really amazing. I am again, as you all know, one of the most important people is to have a cpa. And one of the things we did, you and I did talk about again, money is like oxygen. The more you have, the easier it is to breathe. And the more you have, the easier you can breathe, the bigger the difference in the world you can make. So let's talk about the difference in the world that you're making.

Yes. So we've been about a decade in investing. We've done the flips, rentals, short term rentals, syndications. We're now focused on new construction as, as well as buying mortgage notes. But we're, you start to kind of see that you're part of the trend of the market. It just kind of gotten out of whack. And like at some point something has to change because our first responders and our teachers like can't even afford to live in the cities that they're, that they're, that they're serving and they're working in or they, or they're not in position to even like buy a home per se. So what we're looking to do is kind of like change the narrative a bit. Like how can we bring more attainable home ownership opportunities in the areas that we serve or for first responders or teachers, police officers, so forth and so forth. So we've got certain models built up. We're talking to different localities on the land that's needed to build these homes and how to really structure that with the right lenders to actually put a full program together so that, hey, when, before we break ground, this home is for so and so, so and so teacher. And then they can bring in there, maybe they have a mother in law and someone to kind of help bring in, bring in from there so that they walk into a new, brand new home with equity of like 40, $50,000 so they can kind of start that path of potential investment as well and using the equity from their homes. But like I said, they're no, they gotta step up from being just a renter to actually living nearby the school, possibly the school that they work at.

Right. I love that so much. So again, I love, like being a cpa, being an investor yourself and making impact, like all the cool things, all based on your version of the American dream. Right. I love that you've created that for your family. So this is super exciting for me. So, everybody, you can, if you want to have more conversations, you want to schedule a call with me, you can go to Katherine Bell AI and have a conversation with my clone, which, by the way, I got double booked today and my clone ended up going and literally doing an interview on somebody else's podcast for me. It was amazing. So we're actually going to air that and show everybody. It was unbelievable. And then, of course, you can schedule calls with me atmeet Kathryn Bell.com, larry, where can they find you?

Find me at the investor cpa.com we can learn more about what we're doing, book a call consultation or just an intro to kind of see what we got going. Going. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, all the social platforms. So looking forward to connecting and adding.

Value where I can love that so much. You're amazing. So, okay, super excited to have you all come back on Thursday, bring your questions, and we get to ask Larry all the fun questions and learn more just about his heart and all of who he is. So, Larry, thank you for coming on and thank you for who you are and for bringing your big beautiful brains and your big beautiful heart and making the impact that you're making in the world. You're amazing. So I appreciate you. Awesome. I love it. Have an amazing day and I look forward to seeing all of you on Thursday. Okay, everyone, bye for now.