Family, Mission, Vision & Values with Brett Swarts

We want truly passive income, meaning no shoes, no sugar problem, meaning what? 10, 20, 30, 40amonth, whatever it is for you and your family and your lifestyle. Like figuring out a laser, what is that number? And then reverse engineering and putting all of your time and your energy into that one thing.

Welcome to the Next Level Income show where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host, Chris Larsen. If you haven't yet, get a copy of our book for free at our website, Next Level Income.com. that's www.nextlevelincome.com. just click on the book link and I'll even send you a copy if you put your address in. On today's podcast, we welcome back Brett Swartz. Brett is the best selling author of Building a Capital Gains Tax Exit Plan. He's the host of the Build it to Billions in Capital Gains Tax Solutions podcast. His insights have been featured at the best ever real estate Conference, DLP Capital Conference, American Entrepreneur with Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank and also seen on Fox Business Network. As a real estate broker. His expertise is one of the few in the world who has closed Deferred Sales Trust, Delaware Statutory Trust and 1031 exchanges. And we're going to talk about the differences of those today. Brett is the founder of Capital Gains Tax Solutions where he teaches purpose driven entrepreneurs and investors to build their capital gains tax exit plan to multiply their freedom, wealth and most importantly, their impact. He's closed over half a billion in transactions and he was the first to help bitcoin owners exit millions in gains and defer their capital gains tax using a dst. We're going to talk about all those things today's podcast. Brett, welcome back to the show.

My friend Chris, So grateful to be here. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, absolutely. You, you, you, you are coming back on the show. I think this is your third time. So very esteemed group here as we cross over 250 episodes going into our seventh year of the podcast and we, we have you back on Brett because you always provide so much value and you provide so some expertise on some areas that a lot of investors aren't really aware of. So we're going to cover a lot of that today before we get started, share a little bit more about you, what you're doing with capital gains tax solutions. I get that right?

Yep. Yeah. But entrepreneur, real estate investor in a, you know, broker by trade and kind of like a lot of your listeners, you know, trying to find ways to multiply freedom and impact with wealth and with business and real estate and investing. So I'm on this journey with everyone, I think, or at least a lot of us probably listening to scale, you know, from, you know, zero to a million or millions to billions. We can give more. All of it away is kind of our focus right now and looking at things beyond just the, the building of, of wealth, but the building of impact. So we do that in a number of ways with capital gains tax deferral solutions. We do that with building passive income plans like what you guys do for clients. And so all of this kind of the ecosystem of what we're doing today.

Yeah, no, it's fantastic. And we just, we just had a podcast talking about generational wealth because, you know, a lot of our listeners, a lot of, you know, a lot of investors in today's world are, are coming into money. They've worked hard as, as doctors or entrepreneurs or professionals, whether that's, you know, a lawyer or some other type of professional. And you know, they've made this money, they've learned about alternative investments like the ultra wealthy. And, and one of the things that I love what you help investors do, Brett, is you help investors not only preserve their capital and multiply their capital, but also help teach the next generation about that. And today we're going to talk about your framework, talking about family mission, vision and values, which I know you personally live through. So let, you know, outline that for the audience.

Yeah, I mean, growing up and even when I started my real estate investing career and brokerage career, it was so focused on, you know, the financials and the underwriting and the cash on cash returns or even just the traditional rich dad, poor dad book. Right. Try to get on the right side of the quadrant, replace your, your, your, your, your time and your energy and the expense with passive income coming in. And that's all very, very important. But what we found as we've continued in this journey with clients with these big, massive, you know, huge capital gains tax exits that are happening with their businesses, real estate, Bitcoin, that, that they want more than and, or they're not quite sure where this ship is going if they don't first have a solid foundation of what we call a family, mission, vision, values. And, and that right there helps to, you know, kind of get the, the compass in a clear north, if you know what I mean, like kind of get you point where, and it helps clarify a lot of things that can maybe get in the way. And so, yeah, we're focused these days on Helping our clients to do that as a part of what we practical tax deferral and the. In the passive real estate typically income plans. And so, and honestly I didn't really have the awareness of it until I had a chance to spend some time with a gentleman named David Green, who's the founder of Hobby Lobby. And it has literally get given billions away to, to help the most vulnerable people and help, help, you know, the causes he believes in. And, and I spent time with David and you know, I just, it was interesting to see how he, he defined stewardship and how he defined giving and how he def. How he practically put these things together. And his attorney, his gentleman is named Bill High and they wrote a book together called Giving it All Away and I really recommend it. And at the center of that I spent some time with Bill as well at a couple day workshop. And the essence of it was we get so focused on the living trust like pass it probate free or so focused on even what we do, the deferred sales trust and deferred capital gains tax or the 1031 exchange or all these different vehicles. But the one that's most important, the core that Bill found and David found is the family mission, vision, values. And from there that is actually kind of the centerpiece to build the other things out on. And so we can, we can dive into, you know, what that looks our family and kind of give you some examples and maybe ask some thoughtful questions for the listeners to get them thinking too.

Yeah, that'd be great. Before we jump into that, I want to do a quick recap and I know there's been a lot of people that have, you know, a lot of listeners have probably seen you before and heard about the deferred sales trust. But our audience is always growing here. You mentioned a 1031 exchange. If you would talk about what a 1031 exchange is and how a deferred sales trust is different than a 1031.

Yes, a 1031 exchange is a continuity plan where you're selling investment real estate and you're rolling it or trading it into investment real estate. That's a simple way to think about it. And the reason you do that is to be able to defer the capital gains tax and compound your wealth. It's a great way to build your wealth and the deal you're buying makes, you know, makes sense like you would have bought it anyways and you happen to be selling something a, you know, hopefully a good, good price, you have a good gain and you, the tax flow Debt flow and cash flow work. So all of the, all of the stars line and they used to be I think much easier when, when even just you know, a decade ago. I think it's even more competitive these days to find deals that make a lot of sense with where interest rates are at. But if you can find it, they're great. So that's a 1031 exchange. It doesn't work for a business, doesn't work for bitcoin, doesn't work for stock or a primary home. And so where we, we come in, we, we offer something called a deferred sales trust which is not a 1031 exchange. And in fact it eliminates each. For the 1031 exchange you have none of the like kind replacement requirements. It works for any asset of any kind. So business, bitcoin, stock, real estate of any kind. And when you sell you also have no timing restrictions. So you can invest at any time, you can dollar cost average, you can put it into multiple investment classes, you can put it into debt. I think real estate price has been really attractive these days. Clients sold $13 million asset, put a lot of it into bitcoin and that had a big run up. So the cool thing is you can have flexibility with. So that's, that's the main difference between the deferred sales trust and the 10:30 exchange.

That's awesome. Give us, give us an example, you just mentioned your one client. Give us an example of the deferred sales trust in action.

Yeah, so I'll just talk about a recent deal. We said $8 million exit for a business owner out of Massachusetts. They bought a automotive business. They had about a hundred thousand of revenue when they bought it and then they made it into multi million dollars of revenue and they say sold a portion of it for about 8 million. They would have paid about 35% of the gain in tax. And not only that, yeah, big tax, but not only just that piece of it. They deferred all 8 million into the trust. And this is probably the best kept secret Chris that most people miss. Most people think oh it's just 20 or 30 or 40% which is substantial. That's the first ROI we get to defer. But then as we get to shelter the interest on the 8 million for a period of time. So this is known as income tax deferral, which is probably even more powerful especially if you live in a high tax state like a Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, New Illinois or really anywhere you have a high income. And so watch this math right right on 8 million wrote, I think we wrote the Note at like 10% on this one. And so that's 800,000 per year. Well, he's staying on for at least two to three years on this business. So meaning he's, he's sold a. But he's also working. They're paying him a salary. So he doesn't necessarily need income right now. And so what we're doing is we're delaying the income for at least two years. And so that first year made a hundred thousand. It's delayed. It means there's no income tax. The capital gains taxes deferred. That's multiple millions. And then they're doing that again for year two. And then, and then when he retires from the, and I think this, this career, this job, this business he sold, then he can turn it on in year three. So when his active income goes down. And so we call this tax engineering. And so that's a super, really cool way that we, we look at this. And the last one is if you're an entrepreneur, you can partner with the trust. And he will, and he'll probably start a business or buy real estate, and he can be actively running that deal. And so you're not like, tied to, to be a passive investor. You can be an active entrepreneur, which is what, you know, you and me, I imagine a number of your listeners, they want to be running their own deals. And the diversity is amazing for that because it gives you a new depreciation schedule. When you buy the new app, you get about 80% of it, the way we structure it. And then you can get additional upside. And the cool thing is, hopefully you're buying, buying low, right? You sold high. You divert. You waited around for the deals. Sometimes it takes a couple of years for this real estate market to shift and sellers to come to grips with what the prices are. And then you buy at a discount. It's the point. All tax deferred. This is why we're so, so, you know, dedicated to what we're doing. Because it's literally the Netflix of the old block way of doing things.

Netflix versus the Blockbuster.

Yeah, yeah, we feel like we're in Netflix and Blockbuster the old way. And you could go to a, you know, get a movie on a Friday night and return it three days later. And maybe it's the DVD scratch and doesn't work or whatever. Right? There's a way dvd.

When you said Blockbuster, I was thinking vhs, man. I'll never, I'll never forget picking those out at the store. That's a great way. That's a great way to put it. And what I hear in all this, Brett, is you maintain flexibility and control of your choices, which are out there 100%.

You've got some controls because it's a third party, unrelated trustee. That's our role. So we have to say yes to the investments. Right? We have to. We're part of the team now. Like, we're very intimately together. But at the same time, if you've ever done a 1031, Chris, you give up control for 45 to 180. And if you ever work with the broker, you probably give up control for some decisions, too, negotiating some stuff. So we become an asset to the team. We're really experts at real estate investment advising, you know, in which we happen to use a really amazing tool to. To amplify our services. Right, but. But we also work with people like you, Chris. We bring in great groups to invest with and diversify. Like, have all the answers. No, we have all the expertise. We love mobile home park, industrial, multifamily. We love multifamily debt. We also like putting in, like, had a client, $17 million sale in Sacramento, billboard business, real estate business. And we put Into Nvidia stock 2 1/2 years ago, a lot of it. And guess where that stock went and went. It went really high. You know, this is the invest, diversify, and then buy real estate when it finally, you know, kind of hits bottom.

Yeah, no, I like that because, you know, if you look at the way the ultra wealthy do it, they invest in all these things. They've got, you know, quarter in real estate, quarter in stock market, quarter in debt, you know, fixed income, these sorts of things. And, you know, but the big thing that the wealthy do is they have proper legal entities set up so that they can optimize their tax strategy, which is. Which is what you're helping doing. And. And the other thing that the ultra wealthy do, you know, you learn about the Rockefellers versus I always use the example of the Vanderbilts here in Asheville. The Vanderbilts. Cornelius is one of the richest people in the country at one point, and now his great grandchildren there wasn't a millionaire among them when they met just a couple, 10 or 20 years ago here. Anderson Cooper is one of those. One of those errors. So they didn't learn the lessons. They didn't have the proper structure set up. Brett, you're a family man, you know, going from family to mission. Like, how do you. How do you work with people? Or how do you help people figure out their family mission because that's a big thing, you know, that we've done with our family, has helped, helped our boys kind of understand that. I know you just got back from really, really great trip in Uganda. I believe it was doing some work, some great work over there. We were just, we're just, we're wrapping up some stuff with our non profit here in Asheville due to, due to Helene. You know, it's, it's a big, it's a big thing. Walk us through, you know, family and mission.

Absolutely. You know, it's interesting, you know, as we, as I studied this just, even, just the last six months and dove in with him with Bill Hynack and David Green, with, with Hobby Lobby. The first thing I think is just awareness, like, like having the awareness that what we're doing is multi generational, right? I think too often American cultures, we think the next five years, 10 years or to retirement or just to our kids, and it's, it shrinks the vision down to a smaller, smaller box, right? But when you think multi generational, the multi generational impact, this awareness of that is, is, is important. Second, if, if you are a Christian, you read the Bible and you believe in the Bible, the Bible actually says this. It's multiple, multi generational, right? And so you actually start seeing that and understand that concept. The next thing that has to do with, you know, core values, like we all have typically core values for our businesses or for, for, for our, you know, real estate companies or, you know, you know, if you work for somebody, they have core values. And so the concept of that, we understand that. So why not apply that same thing to our families, right? And so just actually sitting down and saying, what do we believe? You know, what, what is important to us? And what are some things that can you make sure that we're staying on track for what, what we're called to do and who we're called to be. And so just having a few core values, you know, set up, you know, four or five, and the next thing would have been a mission statement for your family and a vision statement for your family. These things actually don't take too long to put into place. In fact, I spent about a day and a half with my wife at a workshop with Bill High, working through the material, thinking it through, praying about it. And then that simple framework there, you take it and you start to actually teach the kids, right? And they share it with each other. And again it becomes like a compass to help you point you back into the right direction and you start talking about it, you know, rewarding and celebrating. As your family's doing this, you have what's called a family board meeting or just basically a weekly family meeting about these things. Just actually common sense stuff. But it can just pay huge dividends in a world that really, time is short, right. It's collapsing on with, especially with AI and technology and the speed of life that we've got to be ultra intentional about these things before the kids are out of the house. Especially if you have massive amount of wealth. Because the stewardship here is really on passing down the relational, the, the emotional, you know, the financial intelligence, the, the spiritual legacy. Right. You know, the wealth part of it is, it's important too. That's a part of it. The financial wealth part of it. And building wealth, entrepreneurial spirit, those all encapsulate the wealth, right? Not just taxes and cash flow and asset values. Right. That's, that's just one piece.

Those are the mechanics. I love that we've implemented our family board meeting. Our boys are 13 and 15. I only have two. Brett, you have, remind me again, you have four or five kids. Five. I was like, I love it, I love it. I feel like all my friends, I feel like I haven't met the buy in yet with the kids. I'm like, I gotta, I was sweet. We gotta, you know, up at a couple, a couple kids here and do this. But no, it's, it's been, it's been a big thing for us, you know, teaching our core family values and bringing back lessons. As my boys are in school and things happen and you teach them life lessons and then I bring it back and say, hey, remember when we talked about this? And if, if you followed this, then this wouldn't happen. And this is how you act as a teammate, as a classmate, as a leader in your, you know, your community at school and those sorts of things. Very important. And I think the challenge today, Brett, is that the financial world, I mean, let's, let's, let's give an example. I have this conversation with financial advisors all the time, like talking about something as simple as life insurance. You know, financial advisor will say, oh, you don't need permanent life insurance. You don't need whole life insurance. Like term is just fine. Because you're not going to need life insurance when you're 65 and you have enough assets. I said, so let me get this right. Your, your plan is for your client to build up enough assets, cancel their life insurance essentially, and then spend down their Assets until they die. Like, yeah, that's, that's a very short lived type of scenario. And you know, you can, you can do both. Like Warren Buffett has built all this wealth. He gives some of it to his, his children, he gives a lot of it away. He teaches them those values. But I think that's a very, I don't know if selfish is the right way, but it's a very short sighted way that gives up a lot of the utility of the wealth that we built. And if we just restructure things, we can have, as you said in the beginning, so much more of an impact not only during our lives, but during the lives of our future generations.

Yeah, I could agree with you more. We refer to this as stewardship of our ownership mindset. Right.

Stewardship over ownership. I'm writing that down. I like that. Yeah, yeah.

And so we have a podcast called Build to Billions and that's the whole thesis is how to have a stewardship over ownership mindset and practice billionaire principles and this idea back to multi generational and structuring and stewarding the wealth that we've been blessed with, that we've worked hard for all these things. And so ownership taken in the wrong way tends to lead to more of an entitlement type of mentality. Like, and it's more about me, you know, how quickly can I get to retirement and how quickly can I just live off of that? And it kind of stops there, you're right. Kind of just spend it till too long. Stewardship, I believe practice in the right way leads to a gratitude. Right. Like, wow, how blessed am I to be able to create and preserve wealth and be a blessing for mps most vulnerable people, blessing for my family, a blessing for the community, blessing for multiple generations. Right. And so when we take that mindset, stewardship over ownership, it's a, it's a, it's a privilege to look at and structure. And I think of it like an, a Rubik's cube. And each, each cube shows up and it's different colors on different sides. And you got to figure out, hey, what's what sides do you want, what colors on and how clear do you want it and what team can you help you move that cube in a way which delivers that freedom, that impact, that legacy. But it definitely starts with stewardship or ownership. And the other thing too is too many people, I think, focus on not unlocking truly passive income. And I think this is really big, Chris. Right. And in fact, I'm, I'm going through this right now. I've been in the industry really my whole life, building houses. My parents in the Bay Area and then Marcus and Melachap selling multi family properties before the crash, the crash happens, everything hits the fan and we learn about the, the deferred sales trust and we help people with that. But what I found with all of this and after, you know, about a half billion dollars of sales of real estate transactions and, and businesses with the DST and all of this, what I found is that most, most don't have a laser focus on their, what we call a TPI number. They're truly passive income number. And let me define this for you so that everyone is really clear on this.

Yeah.

Called no shoes, no shirt, no problem. I want you to keep about Kenny Chesney with a guitar on the beat, with his hat, his glasses on, no shirt on, no shoes, no shirt, no problem. And he's, he's got the sand and he's playing his guitar and he just knows every month his royalty checks are showing up from his, is his summertime songs, right? His summertime blues. And it's just showing up passive. He no longer has to play, play another concert, no longer sell another record. He knows that every month he has a, he has a certainty of conviction that money is showing up and it's going to be able to pay for his lifestyle, his expenses. But he doesn't stop there because once he unlocks truly passive income, he can unlock maximum impact, okay, even multiple impact. But too often we're, I think where we get it wrong. Some of the, some of the mistakes we make is we look for too many sources of income too quickly. So we get diluted focus, diluted results. Okay? We two, we, we, we look for too much. We don't take the gains when we should, right? Like we just hold on bitcoin, we hold on to the real estate, we hold on to the business and it just keeps going and we settle for you know, minimal cash flows or ROEs of 3 to 5%.

Yeah, yeah. So take, keep going and then we'll come back to that.

Yeah, yeah. And so, and so instead of like saying like what do we want? Well I can tell after, you know, in my opinion what we want. We want truly passive income, meaning no shoes, no shit, no problem. Meaning what? 10, 20, 30, 40,000amonth, whatever it is for you and your family and your lifestyle, like figuring out a laser, what is that number and then reverse engineering and putting all of your time and your energy into that one thing, right? Like build the truly passive income Machine. And by that I mean don't, don't be the person who has to own all the real estate or own all the businesses. That's your active income. That's not truly passive. Find a place where it can pay you double digit returns, consistent durable cash flow and it's going to pay you what you need per month. So I can tell you ours, ours is about a 30,000 per month number. Okay. So we set a goal for two years and we have found and we work with some private debt groups that are paying, you know, 16 to 18 type of returns. And after vetting and looking through all this, where we put like a laser and we're going, okay, if we only put 500 in every year for the next two years, basically that'll be 2 million. That'll basically it pays about quarterly, but it'll basically pay about 30,000 per month, 25 to 30,000 per month. And I said if all we did was just that focus like a laser and take all the other blinds off, everything else that can be a distraction, that kind of here and there. And once that hits, that's the big domino that opens up the flood for I think freedom, flexibility, peace of mind, and then the Kenny Chesney. I'm gonna get my guitar. In fact, I'm gonna get my guitar, I'm gonna have a hat, my glasses on. And the day that it happens, I'm gonna play, I'm gonna play. Maybe I'll come back on the.

There you go. Yeah, next time I want you, I want you in there with me with your, with your guitar.

But I'll just plain, real fast. A lot of people are stuck in their businesses, their real estate and they have massive gains but they haven't unlocked it because of the capital gains tax. And so we solve that and we accelerate this truly passive income opportunity. We'll give you a quick story. Warren and Catherine $2.5 million sale in Sacramento. The property just about free and clear. Their NOI was about 120,000. We showed this concept to them where we can unlock 190,000. But it was truly passive versus the active ownership of real estate and the liability. So we got them out of, and a little bit of debt. So we've got them out of debt. We got them diversified, we, we increased their cash by 60 plus percent. They were truly passive. The biggest part is they could spend time with their twin daughters which was they were 10 years old and they didn't want to waste the time working. They can be spending time with their kids right now at least working as much as they wanted to. Right. And that's the point. Right. And when the kids are 18, they can go back and do more work, but.

Right.

That's where you got to get crystal clear on your family mission values so that it's so simple to be like, yep, sell the thing, defer the tax, unlock truly passive income, man. Does it compound the impact for your family.

I love that. And that's one of the big things that, that roe, that return on equity that I noticed when I bought my first property in 1999, 21 years old in college, I watched my properties increase in value. And what I realized was on my equity, I was getting like 7% after tax. It was 4%. It was right in the middle of that 3 to 5% you mentioned, Brett. And by selling those, moving that money into more passive investments, multifamily, in our case, this was over 10 years ago. It allowed us to do those things. That was the first big domino for us. And I love that example. Let's wrap up with how, how old are your kids, Brett? What are the ranges?

Yeah, the youngest is 14. We have four daughters and we have a boy and he is six. So between six and 14.

Six and 14. So when would you recommend. We've been to our kids. We've even on our website, you can go to nextlevelincome.com forward/kids. We got five tips on how to teach your kids how to be money pros. So if you haven't seen that yet, check it out@nextlevel income.com forward slash kids. But we, we started talking about our, with our kids real early. You know, you know, different concepts about money. Paying them a salary, that's their allowance. Right. They get a dollar a day, but then they work for our businesses. What are some tips that you have for our listeners today to. To 1. What age to start teaching your kids about this and just some tools that they can use to start teaching their families, your, their families about mission, vision and values.

Yeah. Okay, so mission, vision values today. Right. So as soon as you can. Right. Like literally, like, if I could say the urgency of this is now like time is collapsing on us. The time that we have with our children before, you know, 85% of the habits the kids form is before the age of 16. Okay. So like the habits, the details, the, the, the building in and speaking life into them is, is every single day. Right. And so I would say start now. Now, are the younger ones that are 6 and 9, are they as focused as the older ones. No, that's okay. Right?

Yeah.

Do they still pick up more than you would, you would expect? They absolutely do. Right. And in fact, will they, will they know it better? Yeah, they will because they'll have more years with it. Right. We just started this just, you know, six, seven, eight months ago. So I would say that the second thing, I would say as if you're a Christian, a believer and, or you know, wherever you're at, like pray with your kids and, and speak life into them as you feel their strengths and their gifts that they've been given. Right. And so we, I have a series of questions that I ask my kids, I try to ask them every day a series of questions that get them thinking about this and they answer it and, and that becomes drained into their hearts, into their minds. So that's what I would say are some of the tips that I would encourage people for the family, mission, vision, values.

I love it. And Brett, this is, I love having you back on. You are, are teaching these things in your own family. You're teaching these things with your client. You're helping make an impact all over the world. I know you are. I know some of the partners that you work with as well. They're doing tremendous things. I have tremendous amount of gratitude for a lot of that stuff that's out there. It's personally impacted our community here with some of our mutual friends we were talking about before the show. If our listeners want to get to know more about you, your business, maybe they say, hey, I'm looking to sell a business. What's the best way to get in touch with you?

Yeah, if you're looking to sell a business or bitcoin or real estate and you have at least a million dollar, million dollar net proceeds, you want to go to capitalgainstaxsolutions.com right now to book a one on one time with myself or one of my team members. You can also check out the book Building a Capital Gains Tax Exit Plan on Amazon. We have Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank. We have Tony Robbins, CPA in the book. We have a lot of really smart, cool people in there. And then I have some chapters on my journey to that. And then if you want to just catch on social media and check out our best 1031 exit plan that we also just released, you can go to Brett swartz.com that's B R E T T S W A R T S Com to connect with you there.

Awesome. And I'm going to put your website here in the show notes. And just for you listeners, if you go to that, you can get access to everything that Brett mentioned. That's the easiest way@brett swartz.com it's here, it's in the show notes, it's in the show title, and it's right there on your screen on the COVID of Brett's book. Brett, thank you so much for joining us today. Always enjoy catching up with you, my friend. You're looking great.

Thanks, Chris.

Hey Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now I have one more thing to give to you. We have a page for my coaching clients where you can get a free copy of my book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevelincome.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to the podcast. Also, please like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.