Why 99% Will Never Quit Their Job (Even If They Want To)

If you don't start being smart with your money and allocating your money towards investments and assets that can produce cash flow, then you're going to have to work forever.

People need to realize that if they're not willing to sacrifice today for their dream life tomorrow, that their dream life tomorrow will become the sacrifice today.

We only get one shot at this thing, and we can't worry about what other people think of us. We have to be worried about what is our legacy mean to us and how can we do things every day to better align to that North Star.

Guys, you guys are not going to believe this. I got two of the best minds in the business. Here's what I mean by that. Every. Everybody knows that I have recently exited a company in the last year and a half.

All right?

That's. That's no secret. We've talked about that. We've had other guests on the show about that. What we haven't talked about is all. Everything from CPA work to tax planning to cash flow to how to make all that happen. Well, here's the crazy thing. When you go to exit a business, one of the things that always happens is you end up spending a lot of this time and energy actually learning as much as you possibly can about financial literacy at that level, only to try to make the best decisions you can make in the moment for your future. So there's tax planning, there's cash flow planning, there's passive income planning, there's all these different types of levels. And here's the crazy thing. When these guys got brought on the show, I was super excited. Here's why I went back myself and studied their content over the last little bit. And we're gonna. We're gonna have a great show. But here's what you need to know. As someone who has paid tens of thousands of dollars to CPAs and financial planners around the world, they taught me stuff with their content. I was telling Carter that I was, like, literally jotting down notes. I'm like, I'm not doing that one. I'm not doing that one.

No.

Okay. I am doing that one. That one's good. Okay. At least I made some stuff. So, guys, I want to introduce you to Melon and Money. Carter. George, man. Welcome to the show, guys. I'm super stoked to have you guys.

We're glad to be here, man. Thank you for that gracious introduction.

Yeah, amazing introduction. Now we gotta. We gotta follow.

We gotta follow up after that.

Whatsoever. Not. Not at all. So, look, I want to. A lot of times Entrepreneurs and thought leaders and you know what I call achievers, right? These are people that are out there grinding. They're hustling. They're trying to, you know, trying to. Trying to make ends meet, actually. They do what I used to do, and I know you guys can share this a little bit. You go from making ends meet to making ends matter, right? And trying to kind of come kind of COVID the gap. And a lot of times it's either mindset shifts, limiting belief shifts, or just straight up knowledge. I'm curious to know, how did you guys, like, really lean into the area of, like, financial literacy, especially helping the black community? You guys are like the main leaders right now in helping break generational bondage, man. And you guys are doing amazing. So how'd you guys find your way into it?

I got back and I got into the financial services industry at this point probably over 13 years ago. When I joined the industry, they had me do this exercise called Project 200. And they're like, list out 200 of your friends, family members, cousins, colleagues, right? Who you'd want to essentially trade paychecks with and ultimately make clients, right? And there are certain criteria around, like, what you think their net worth might be, all that stuff. And when I was jotting down my list, I couldn't make it to 200. I could barely make it to two or three people. I didn't know a lot of people who came from where I came from that knew about building wealth, that knew about making money, investing, et cetera. And so immediately it clicked for me, very early in my. Early on in my career, it wasn't that we shouldn't know about this stuff. It's just that there wasn't a level of representation, there wasn't a level of access that was as prevalent at that time, right? And so I started to make it my personal mission to say, you know what? Somebody's got to do it, right? And that started out with me just at the time, I think blogging was the thing, right? I wrote a few blogs here and there, but you know how it is in the financial industry. There's compliance, and they're like, you know, you can't do that. And so I was kind of like, yeah, I was kind of forced into entrepreneurship of like, well, you won't let me do it here. You only want me to serve people who already have. Have it all figured out. This is not going to be fulfilling for me. But ultimately I decided to branch out and do my own thing. Maybe it was a little bit of stupidity because I was 23 years old, didn't have any responsibilities. But ultimately, that started the journey. And as a result, I said, hey, well, how can we have some impact? How can we make this happen? And at first, the goal was, let's help a thousand people. Or, excuse me, a hundred thousand people. Invest one. Was it like $1,000 or something like that? And then I looked up, you know, a couple years later, I was like, oh, shoot, we're getting close, right? We gotta. We gotta make the goal bigger. And I realized that there was an opportunity to have more impact. And then ultimately, me and Carter connected shortly thereafter. And I said, hey, we gotta. We gotta make this vision a lot bigger. And I want to help 100,000 people of color, but not just Chi. Invest $1,000, but invest their first million or have a million dollars in net worth. And that will ultimately decrease the wealth gap by, you know, over $100 billion. Right. Just last year, Al. Improve their collective net worth by north of $100 million in the first five months of the year. And so we're just every day chipping away at that milestone, and our goal is just to continue to have more impact and serve the people, dude.

And you guys are already killing it for sure. How about you, Carter? Yeah.

So I grew up, you know, in a. In a very poor environment, south side of Chicago. And.

Unfortunately, on top of, you know, growing up in that neighborhood, um, my mother ended up passing away at age 14, and my father ended up passing away age 16. So I was 17 years old with no parents. And so my guidance counselor asked me, like, what did I want to be when I grew up? Like, I just saw that I didn't have any parents, and I graduated during the 08 recession, so everybody's being laid off. So I literally Google what job has the lowest unemployment rate. And believe it or not, CPA was number one. The only thing that's guaranteed in life is death and taxes. But you only die once. But you got to file taxes every single year.

Ain't that the truth?

Yeah. So I decided to pursue a career in accounting, and I did that. But financial literacy really became important to me. When my father did pass away, he had life insurance with his job. And I remember the $25,000 life insurance policy was not enough money for three kids. But, you know, the funeral was about $10,000. And then me, my sister, and my brother had to split $5,000 each. Yeah, that was the most money I ever seen. And I had no idea what to do with it. And I was so Scared I was going to mess it up, I just decided to learn as much as I could. That's why I learned like, oh, emergency completion, like not spend this money. And that's what really jump started my career in, you know, learning about financial literacy as well as accounting. And I just had a goal of helping people not just make more money, but help them save more taxes. And that's what we've been able to do.

And you guys are killing a man. Like literally I was again jotting down my own notes for my own CPAs, man. You know, I was just having this, this thought too is, you know, because a lot of times the, a lot of times once we get to a certain level, right, we, we, we, we share our origin story, right? But, but we're not embodying the origin story anymore. Like we've now leveled up and we're now wiser than we were and we're making better decisions, we're surrounding ourselves with better people and stuff like that. And as you guys were talking, I was remembering this. I don't know if I've shared the small audience or not, but everybody knows that I started the construction company from a trash piles of a construction site in 98, right? So my audience knows that. What they don't know is two years prior to that, the same guy that gave me a second chance I didn't deserve started me in business for myself the first time. And the only difference is, is the first time he literally said, hey, I got an opportunity for you. I'm going to buy your trucks, your tools, your equipment. I'm going to help you hire people, I'm going to help you run your back office. Basically. I'm going to help, I'm going to help you do the business part and all you got to do is go do the tactical part part. And then over time, I'll teach you the strategical that goes with the tactical, right? And so it, I was 19 years old at the time and my father had never, has never been great with money even. I mean he's much better today than he was, but he's still not playing at the, at the A level, right? My mother never did well with money and my grandmother raised me. She passed away when I was 11. And then, then I kind of, then we kind of did the whole family swap thing where you're bouncing around a little bit. And I say that to say that one of the biggest lessons I learned in that moment because that's what led me to homelessness, was just being foolish and arrogant. Honestly, prideful, ignorant was this ability to not know what to do with resources. And I'll tell you why. Because when he put me in business myself the first time I had work ethic I could earn, right? But what I couldn't do is I couldn't compound. Instead, I would earn it and spend it, earn it and spend it, earn it and spend it constantly trying to impress people, like, trying to, like, make myself my insecurity somehow validated by having. Having a car with a sound system or like, those types of things. And one of the things I love so much about what you guys are doing is you guys are really helping people have the right perspective. Because Steve Myrick asked me this, the same guy, old man Meyrick, he said, stephen, do you want to learn to think like me or do you want to continue thinking like your father? Which means that the only difference between somebody who is wealthy and somebody who's operating at the poverty level is nothing more than really the way they think and compound. I'd like to hear each of you share, like, a little bit of why or passion behind the purpose of maybe even people that you've worked with. Because I know you work with a variety of different people at a variety of different levels. Like, what have you seen be the most powerful tool to reshape their mind, to gain their understanding.

Yeah, yeah, I'll. I'll go first. So I can't remember when I came by this quote, but it's something that really stuck with me. And I think about it often, and it's that this concept around the idea that the value of anything is the amount of life you're willing to trade for. And so I typically go through this exercise with my clients of like, hey, well, you know, you. How much money do you make per year? A hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, whatever it is, right? And you don't just wake up January 1st and somebody drops that money in your account, right? You have to ultimately trade some time for it. Right. Even if you're an entrepreneur, Right? And so we quantify what that is. Right? So let's just say, you know, you. You take two weeks vacation, you work about 40 hours a week. That's 2,000 hours in a year, right? So we then we divide how much money you made versus the hours that you worked. And now we know what the value of your time is, right? And so then I look at some of their biggest expenses. I say, okay, well, where do you eat? What do you drive? Where do you live? And then we kind of look up what it cost them for the year. And then from that equation, we're able to see how much of their life they're trading for those material possessions, right? And it really puts things in context, in perspective, because it's like the car doesn't cost me $800 a month, right? If I make $50,000 a year, it cost me 32 hours of my life, right? So it's a paradigm shift, because when you look at your online banking, when you look at how you're spending your money, you got to ask yourself that question, is this worth the amount of life I'm willing to trade for? Because at the end of the day, the purpose of investing isn't because it's the adult smart thing to do. It's because life is always going to cost you money in some way, shape, form, or fashion, and either you gotta produce it or something else has to produce it. And if you don't start being smart with your money and allocating your money towards investments and assets that can produce cashflow, then you're gonna have to work forever. You don't just get to wake up at 65 and say, hey, I put 40 years in the workforce. I get to sit on my butt. It's not how it works. And that's not the path that I would tell anybody to follow anyway. Because life, There's a lot more to life than that. But ultimately, just understanding that we only get one shot at this thing and we can't worry about what other people think of. Think of us. We have to be worried about what does our legacy mean to us and how can do things every day to better align to that North Star.

Yeah, man. Geez, that's so good. How about you, Carter?

Man, I don't know how I'm gonna top that, but. But yeah. So for me, like, and I talk about this a lot because I. When I got a degree in accounting, I thought that I was supposed to know everything about money, but I didn't know anything about investing. I didn't know what an IRA was. I didn't know what a 401k was. And there were some real imposter syndrome and shame around having a master's degree in the financial field but not knowing the basics of personal finance. So what changed everything for me was I heard Warren Buffett say this quote, and I live by it, is if you don't find ways to make money while you sleep, you'll work until you die. That is so profound, because I thought that just working hard for the money, that's. That's the solve. But if you don't find ways to make your have your money work harder for you, then you work for it. I don't care how hard you work, you cannot save yourself to wealth. So understanding that investing was not just something that we should do, something that we must do, we can't neglect the necessary. And that's what really opened my eyes to say, hey, I got this tax thing down pat, but let me learn more about investing and Guy George. And now, you know, I'm all good now. But. But yeah, so that was, that was big for me.

Yeah, man. You guys are like champion tag team partners. It's amazing. I was just thinking in my earlier days when I'm trying to. When I. Again back in the season where I. It's like I was given wisdom dropping off the beard left and right and I wasn't paying any attention to it. So that's, you know, so I paid the, I ultimately paid the price for that. You know, losing the business, homelessness, and then having a God touch my heart, restart it and kind of bring me back. Right. So that all that whole experience taught me a great deal. But one of the things that sticks, I'm literally seeing this right now is at the time I was in a single wide mobile home in a trailer park in Nito in Knightdale, North Carolina. Okay, I'm back. I'm actually in Charlotte now trying to get. I was telling Carter, grabbing a new property off of Lake Norman for a bit of a routine.

Okay, I, I'm, I just moved from Charlotte. I've lived there pretty much my whole life. So I'm very familiar with the area.

Figures. I get here, you take off. I see how it is. That's a.

But one of the things that's in back of my mind is I can't tell you how many mobile homes I would drive past that would be falling apart, but would have a Mercedes Benz Alexis. Like I actually saw a Maserati in front of one even recently. Like, and which is, which is crazy to me because, you know, my, the first thing that I bought when I was being a Fool was a 1998 brand new civil Camaro. The new body style had just come off the lot. They tagged me for 16 interest because I didn't know what the heck I was doing. So as before, I knew about buy rates and you know, you know, basically that they're buying a rate the bank and they mark it up and you get to pay the extra and the Delta and whatever. And they didn't obviously didn't care. But I was a 19 year old kid, I didn't know what I was doing. They took advantage of it, you know, but it took a while to go back to your point about an appreciating asset. You know, whether that's investing in op, you know, now it's investing in operating companies. It could be investing in property and real estate for me.

Yep.

But why do we get that so wrong? Why, why is it that we feel like intuitively that somehow we need to get a car before a house or, or before, before a duplex or some other thing that's going to generate cash flow rather than just take our cash?

Yeah, I think, I think. Well, it's two things to me, right? Fundamentally, it's. The system is designed, right? To make you think that you're supposed to work for an extended period of time. You trade your time for money and then ultimately you. The way that you make yourself feel better about all that time that you're trading for money is to buy these trophies and to buy these trinkets, right? Because that's the way the economy functions, right? If we don't keep buying new things, they can't convince us to keep spending our money, then none of this really works, works in their favor, right? But I think the bigger, more, more intrinsic piece to it is kind of the premise of why our clients have a lot of success and people will do more for recognition than they will for money, right? So what happens is the car is mobile, right? So you can, it's a status symbol. You can see it, right? The jewelry, the clothes, like these are things that people can see on a regular basis, right? And so as a result, people buy these things to create a sense of validation, to associate it with their identity, right? Because riches is measured in money, but wealth is measured in time. Wealth is an unexercised option, right? It's like you have it, but you're not using it, right? Like you're. Whereas riches is like, I want to show you, I want to show you what I have. But it's all, to me rooted in this idea that I want validation from other people, right? And so the reason why I said it's kind of the premise of our company's success is because when I realized that my marketing teacher told me in college about the recognition thing, I said, how can I trick people into building wealth? And so ultimately, when we have our big event every year, which this year is in July in Atlanta, Georgia, part of the event is an award show, right? A wealth award show. Where we're celebrating people for crossing net worth milestones. Right. Or you fully funded your ira or all these things that normally, because you can't see those things. Right. Aren't the things that get celebrated. And so what happens is me and Carter aren't psychologists. We can't change human psyche, but we can take that and leverage it for good. And because I think the more people go wrong is they just want to be seen. They want you to know that they have it. They want you to know they're not poor. And ultimately they end up spending all their money to look rich and actually never become wealthy.

Yeah, man. So true. What you, Carter.

Yeah, Very similar to what George said. It's like that the reason why people have to this, at least in my opinion, people buy things to put band aids on the trauma that they had as kids, right? So like, and I, I'm speaking from like, you know, personal experience. Like when you grow up without clothes and you have to wear the same thing over and over again. You get talked about in high school for having that. Like, if I see you with them pair of pants on one more time now as an adult, I'm going to buy as many pair of pants so that never happens to me again. And I think that one thing that, that I think all of us need to do, especially as men, is like, we need to treat that trauma to or it will cost us a lot of money, right? Because now like that girl from high school, she ain't even looking at you no more. But you still feel like you have to buy these things to overcome from what happens to you as a child. So I don't fault anybody for that. And I don't think it's anybody's fault that they went through that. But it is their responsibility to change that so it doesn't jeopardize their future.

Yeah, both points are spot on. You know, I'm having all these thoughts here because obviously I've had a really long journey in my life, you know, from homelessness to where I'm at today. And I'm gonna share, I'll share two concepts with elevator, just your two cents on it. And we'll jump into some tactical stuff. The first of all was I went to New Zealand for almost the entire month of February.

Right. Talk about time and freedom. While I was in New Zealand, I had a couple of my bank accounts adding dollars. So here I am a world away, enjoying this, this beautiful spiritual experience. Cause I went on a bit of a sabbatical, right. Myself in three weeks and went. You literally went out there and just got. Just go experience the world. And I remember thinking when I was in the, in the mobile home back in the late 90s in the early 2000s, that even seemed like it was even remotely close to potential. Like, I thought maybe going to Myrtle beach or maybe going to Wilmington for the weekend, although. And that's great too, right? But like, yeah, that, but that was going to be like the, the extent of my travel, Right?

Yeah.

And then I won a trip with some people I was buying materials from to go to Hawaii. This is 2005, 2006.

Yeah.

Literally, as I'm going, as I'm on this bus, I'm heading down towards the west end on literally going down the road to Maui or from the airport on Maui to the hotel, which is a pretty windy little path out right beside the ocean. Little mountains everywhere. I saw this whale breach out in the middle of the sunlight and like, land and like, almost like his tail waved at me. Right. And I knew that I. I just knew that in that moment I was like, I've got to figure this thing out. This is like. So here I am now. I'm able to travel and go do things. I'm able to hang out with amazing people like you guys, right. Because of delayed gratification and sacrifice. And I, I feel like that is one of the most major hurdles and roadblocks, people actually achieving financial independence and wealth.

Yeah.

The other thing that has dawned on me outside of that is the principle of compounding seems really simple, but hardly anybody ever gets started. So how can we develop the principle of compounding and like, like early stage, right. Because we, our listeners, for the most, most part of the show, most of them are not just getting started, right. They're, they're either, they're either building a business or building a professional career. You know those $75,000 up to $3 million in, in personal net worth, right? That's. That's our, our ideal client, our ideal partner with the show. Now we do have a whole bunch of other folks are trying to learn about different things.

Yeah.

At the same time, like, I just shared, like, before we, as we were starting the show, like, here I am, I have a significant net worth. I've been very fortunate, very blessed to, to go and do that and then have some wise counsel to help me shift it. But even I'm still like learning notes and I want, I want the audience to really be taking notes on this stuff. There are some easy, easy wins, if you will. So maybe Maybe hit me up on the delayed gratification principle as well as compounding. And let's jump into some tactical stuff, if that's cool.

Yeah. Me and Carter can kind of just tag team a little bit. So from a delayed gratification standpoint, I think that people are really only motivated by two things. To avoid pain or to seek pleasure. Right. And the issue is people have a very hard time bringing the future pain into the present.

Right.

So when we think about retirement and allocating money for the future, it's like they feel so disconnected from that.

Right.

And so I think the. The way that people can. The way I. The way I like to articulate it to people is like I was at a speaking engagement early, early on in my career, and this young lady said that in 2011, a billion drill bits were sold.

Right?

We. I think we all know what drill bits are. Let's assume they use those to hang up artwork in, you know, homes and offices all across the country. She said nobody wanted the drill bits and nobody really wanted the artwork. What they wanted was the feeling that they got when they walked in the room where the artwork was hung. So I think there has to be a better job of conn. Connecting the dots on why you're doing what you're doing. Right. Like something as simple as renaming your bank accounts. Right. Instead of it being savings account ending in 0781. It's like future Freedom Fund.

Right.

Because it's a lot. It's a lot harder to transfer money from your Future Freedom Fund than it is the savings account 7084. Right. And so there's these little things that we can do to make these psychological shifts to remind us why we're doing the things that we do. Right. This is not just putting money away in the brokerage account or the IRA because it's a smart, adult thing to do. But I am buying my freedom. I'm buying back my time. I'm going to get to spend more money with my kids. I mean, more time with my kids. I'm going to get to spend more time with my wife. I think those things are in the back of our head somewhere. We're just working and grinding. But I think those things need to come to the forefront as the guiding light and the North Star for why we do what we do. And I think that's what makes delayed gratification easier because, you know, what it's attached to. It's not like, oh, my gosh, I'm depriving myself today because that's what Adults do like you're doing, doing it for a reason, and you know what the reason is. And you're constantly reminding yourself, because motivation is a lot like bathing, right? It doesn't last, so you got to do it.

I was also thinking too real fast. It also seems like it's, it's, it's wise to try to have a time horizon goal when delayed gratification can end a little bit. What do you guys think about that?

Yeah.

So, and I like to look at it from a few different standpoints. Number one, everything George said was spot on. But I believe that people need to realize that if they're not willing to sacrifice today for their dream life tomorrow, that their dream life tomorrow will become the sacrifice today. Right. And once we understand, like once you like, can feel the pain, then be able to move because people have lost aversion. You know, people are twice as they fear losing twice as much as they enjoy winning. So once you bring that loss into the forefront, I think it's fairly easy to address. But one of the things I like to do for myself, and I'm sure most of us have read the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, it has this concept about many retirements, Right. So Instead, because like 65 for some of us is further away than for others, so it's really hard to conceptualize that. But what I like to do is as much as I put money into my freedom fund for, you know, the retirement date, I've also put money into my mini retirement fund. Right. So I'm like, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. If I continue doing this path and I invest my X amount of dollars per month, next month I'll be able to go to Bali for the whole month because I earned it. So I think if you could put some mini retirements in the forefront on top of the ultimate financial freedom. Oh, then it'll, it'll help you see the importance of it.

Yeah, both, I mean, both of those. Yeah, that all makes total sense. And I think I actually, I personally even use some of those things. Not even realize I was doing some of those things now. Yeah, right. Which is really, I think it was really interesting. You know, I kind of alluded to the fact of kind of who our. What our, our demographic is really with, you know, achievers, entrepreneurs and professionals. Right.

I guess from, from both a wealth planning background and also tax planning background. What are some, like, really easy wins that reduce taxable income, increase wealth, that you see that the vast majorities of your entrepreneurs and professionals not doing like, what's, what's some really low hanging fruit. Because believe it or not, that's actually where I found out some of the things I needed to actually jot down in my own notebook. So that's why you're asking that particular question.

So I think some of the lowest hanging fruit is number one, if you can in some way operate a business. Because the tax code was created to benefit entrepreneurs and investors, not W2 employees. Unfortunately, I don't make the rules. The IRS does. Right. So if you can shift from making your money at a W2 job to making your money in your business or as a 1099 contractor, you can turn a lot of your personal expenses into business expenses. So that means build your already paying.

Yeah.

You know, the IRS can step in and help you pay some of those bills and turn those personal expenses into tax deductions. So we're talking about your phone, your, your rent, your mortgage, your cars, your travel, your meals. These are basic things. But most people spend about 30 to $40,000 a year on basic expenses that could be written off at least a portion of it in your business. So I think that's like the lowest hanging fruit. But I think on top of that, okay, how do I invest and still shelter the money from the irs? Right. So what retirement accounts. And I don't like to use the word retirement accounts because people think that they can't touch that money until retirement. But me and George teach their strategies. They can actually access that money earlier. But like put. How can I leverage retirement accounts? So I could put money away today, save on taxes today, and increase my net worth at the same time. So this is back paying out your 401k, your HSA, your solo 401k, if you're a business owner, which allows you to put over $70,000 into the account per year in 2025. How can I leverage these investable vehicles? Because I need to invest anyway, so why not taxes today so I can invest on top of that. Now I think the third thing that everyone should do is to take advantage of real estate depreciation, which basically allows you to put money into a real estate property and get cash flow and but with depreciation, not have to pay taxes on that cash flow. And if you take it a step further, take advantage of something called accelerated depreciation. Not only will you not pay taxes on the cash flow that you make from the real estate property, but the losses from your real estate portfolio, the paper losses can also actually offset some of your Business gains. So now we're like have this whole trifecta going on where we're avoiding taxes through personal expenses, we're avoiding taxes through investing, and we're avoiding taxes through real estate depreciation.

I use all of those.

Great. As a smart man should. And so Carter touched on some really good, great points about leveraging these retirement accounts to tuck money away and save money on taxes. But the next person's natural question is, okay, well Carter, well what should I be investing in? Right? And so I think people over complicated and think that they have to be a world class investing guru. So I kind of like to simplify it so that anybody can understand it. Right. There are these investment vehicles called ETFs, exchange traded funds, which I like to articulate it. Like your, your favorite mall, right? Your favorite mall has hundreds of stores. And if 1, 2, 5 or 10 of those stores close down, is the whole mall going to close down? Obviously not. Right? Like we've all been to the mall and there's those little kiosks where they're selling you the lotions and potions and you get on your phone and put your head down hoping they don't bother you, right? Like if those close down or a few stores, the mall isn't going to close down. And an ETF functions the same way, right? It has, you know, 500, if not sometimes thousands of companies and all you have to do is press the buy button and you don't have to know every single individual company in order to build wealth, right? So when you're putting money in those retirement accounts, right, Those are investment vehicles that you can choose. Now you, in addition to retirement accounts, you can also select brokerage account which allows you to invest as much as you want without any retirement provisions. Now, while on the front end there isn't necessarily inherent tax benefit, the benefit is the flexibility associated with that account, number one. And number two, when you invest with the right institutions, you can actually borrow against the value of those accounts, right? And so, you know, everyone says they want to build generational wealth, but they don't hold assets for at least a generation. And so what better way to be able to invest money, right? Then say, okay, well my money's growing for me inside of my, my brokerage account, but I want to go buy that real estate property. What do I do? Do I take money out of my bank? Do I sell my investments that are performing really well, or do I borrow against those investments to then go buy that piece of real estate? Yeah, here's where it gets really interesting because now when you do that, you don't interrupt the growth, right. Of your portfolio because you didn't sell the investments. You don't have any capital gains associated with it, right? Then you can buy a piece of cash flow producing real estate, and then that cash flow you can reinvest back into the portfolio. So you can keep rinsing and repeating this strategy. And to Carter's point about bonus depreciation, right, if you run that, if you do that on the property that you bought now, you probably won't have to pay taxes on the cash flow that that property is generating and you didn't pay taxes on the money that you borrowed against the value report portfolio. And not to mention, ice on the cake, the IRS will allow you to deduct the loan interest that you use to buy the property in the first place. Oh. So these are just, you know, some things that, you know, we teach our clients. And I try to like, you know, cram it all in there in a few minutes, but these are very low hanging fruit that when you do it, your, your eyes open up. It's like, man, this is how I can get there faster. I don't have to just tuck all my money away and wait 30 years and hope that this, hope that this works, right? Because money is a tool. It's not a pool, right? It's not something we just look at, oh my gosh, look at all those zeros in the bank account, right? It's to be used and utilized. And so those are some of the things that we teach our clients to do.

Dude, I love hanging out with you guys. There's so, there's so. There's so many different directions we can go. Because obviously this is a very.

Very fruitful conversation of money in general. But one of the things that just dawned on me is like most I heard this, all right? This is the limiting belief I heard when I was a kid, okay? Essentially, if you're wealthy, you're evil. And I've learned that to be completely the polar opposite. I've actually seen the most generous people I've seen where people happen to be people of wealth. And what I've discovered is much like you're describing, they just have a different way of handling money. They understand how the game is played because the tax game itself is actually played for those who have liquidity in wealth, right? Because they're counting on those dollars coming back into the economy somehow, some way, some form on a routine basis, which I think is pretty interesting that I think A lot of us, especially me growing up, you know, I'm trying to think. Well, you know, I noticed that my father and I love my dad, right. He's again, he's 70s now, so he's. He's alive and kicking and doing well. So a lot of the stories I reference are back when I was a child. But one of the things I used to hear him say is, you know, basically, Scoggins don't get by, or Scoggins don't get ahead. They get by. Which I obviously wanted to break that family limiting belief. And I think those limiting beliefs are within family lines all over the place. And as a result, what I did was, is I realized that I was watching a man who was my. His. You know, Steve, Mark, this guy, old man Mark, constantly giving money away. It's nothing to see him drop a thousand dollars in a basket of hush puppies. We like barbecue here in the south, you know, this is North Carolina, South Carolina area, right. And walk out the door, never say a word, and a waitress come out and be wrecked to her knees because she had kids to feed and all kinds of stuff. And I knew I wanted to be that guy, right. Like, I wanted to create wealth, to create overflow. Right. And as a result, one of the things that I've been this, this I want to get your feedback on is there's always a con. I had this happen maybe 10 years, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, someone came to me, I'd made a bunch of money that year, and he said, hey, we gotta offload some cash. Like politely. He's like, we gotta offload some cash, politely. Yeah, yeah. So I don't have that CPA anymore, of course, but that's. But essentially that was his game plan. Go, why don't you go buy some stuff? Stuff, Right. Yeah. Now, in theory, we're buying stuff for the business. So it wasn't like blanket toys and whatever. But.

What I've done and since then is if I need to offload, quote, unquote, cash or I need to reduce my taxable income is what we're actually saying. Rather than going and doing that, I essentially will invest in a business. It's. It's like investing in real estate in many cases, at least that's how it. My understand the mechanics of it. So I have a real estate little portfolio. I've got a operating company, a little bit portfolio to kind of understand, kind of like do that. Because it seems to me like my experience has been that I can actually off. I can write off even Temporary losses on the operating company while it's getting off the ground and then double my gains within three years. How do you guys. Do you guys see that working in your in Yalls world as well? Or is that something that's probably a little loosey goosey? I need to tighten up.

No, George talks about this all the time, so I'll leave the actual business investing piece to him. But I will talk about the tax piece. So the way I look at it is there are three levels to saving on taxes, right? There are. Level one, the base level is tax deductions. How do I spend money to minimize my taxes? The problem with level one is that you're spending a dollar to save 30 cents and you don't have to be great at math to understand it's not a good deal. Right. But that's the basis. Then level two is all right, what income shifting strategies can we implement to minimize our tax bill? So we're not spending money, we're just moving money off of our tax returning, putting it somewhere else. So this by paying your children, getting your that tax rate from your 37% tax bracket to their 0% tax bracket. Right. How do I, you know, move money to maybe a charitable foundation, whether a donor advised fund or a private family foundation. Get that money off of my books, put it somewhere else. Right. So how do we take advantage of income shifting strategies? We're just moving money off of our tax return, putting it somewhere else, but still actually having access to the cash or at least a portion of it. And the highest level is depreciation strategies. How do I invest money in assets that I can take advantage of depreciation to minimize my taxes? I think that's what you're alluding to. If you buy a business, depending on if it's asset based buy or an equity based buy, you can depreciate some of the assets in the business when you buy it, right?

Yeah.

So not only can you do that, but you can if the business has net operating losses of $100,000 because it's only its first year in business. As long as you're actively participating in that business, which is how you are, that thousand dollars in loss gets attracted from any other active income you have other businesses, other W2 income. But now we're taking the loss quote unquote in the short term. But because we built this business that hopefully exit 3, 4, 5x multiple in the long term, if we do that with something called a Q sub election, you can probably avoid taxes on the sale of that Business. But that's a conversation for a whole nother show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, I think, I think Carter hit, you know, hit the, hit the nail on the head. I don't, I don't have too much more to add to that, but to, to your point, that's exactly what you alluded to, right? And whether you do it in real estate or whether you do it in business, it's like, okay, well, our clients that prefer real estate, every year they're looking for a, that property they can do the cost segregation study on, right? And if you're doing it with, with the business, you know, hey, I'm gonna have some operating losses for the first couple years, but I know ultimately I'm gonna, you know, 3, 4x this business, right? It's like you keep doing that over time. Now you're compounding to your original point, right, These assets while still offsetting taxes as you do it. And it's just, you know, a win, win scenario. And not to mention, you're buying these businesses of people that you, you, you have to employ people, right? So going back to this idea of rich people aren't evil, I think I was on threads the other day and one of my friends was saying, you know, she was excited that she had her first, you know, $100,000 a month. I said, well, wait till, wait till you hear about million dollar months, right? And then, and then this guy, he was like, oh my gosh, I'll be sick to my stomach to have all that money and there's people starving, you know, all over the country. I said, well, no, you wouldn't. If you had a payroll like I, like we had, right? And you're, and you're providing for people's livelihood, you wouldn't feel that way, right? And so people, What I believe is that there is the, the gap between limiting beliefs, right? And oversimplification of success is context. Because what happens is people will see somebody who's winning at the highest level, and maybe that person isn't giving you every detail on how they did it, and they're making it look really easy. Like Jordan said, maybe it's my fault, maybe I've made it look too easy, right? And so you see that and you think, scam can't be real. That's impossible because it seems oversimplified, right? And then that creates limiting belief for the vast majority of people because they don't have the context to know why. I've been an entrepreneur for 13 years. I've taken A lot of losses. I haven't gotten everything right. Right. You know, and they don't have that context. So I think my side quest, as they say, is to bridge that gap. Right. So some of the things that me and Carter are doing now, you know, we don't want just people to think that we just woke up one day and it fell in our lap, right? There's a reason behind it. Here's the methodology behind it. Right? Here's how we did it the smart way. Because that way people can say, you know what? This is possible for me. The reason why I thought it wasn't possible for me is because I thought you were just born with the knowledge and insight to be this uber successful person. And they didn't realize we're just like them and we just did ordinary things. Extra. That's how you become extraordinary.

Hey, guys, I hope you're enjoying the show. Steven Scoggins here. I've got something that I think is absolutely going to blow your mind. Imagine taking your life and your business to the whole nother level. I'm talking about eight figure level and beyond. You see, you've been working your butt off to build your business to where it is now. But what if you could work smarter, free up more time, make more money and impact along the way? How much would that be worth to you? You see, I can prove that basic steps, basic mindset shifts and subtle changes can make the biggest difference. I want to introduce you to the eight figure Mindset Makeover. It's absolutely free and it's here for you. It's a powerful summary of my top strategies that help propel me from the streets, if you will, to upwards of nine figures in quote unquote success, as we like to chase it. This is more than just tips, though. It's a complete mindset overhaul with simple hacks that you can apply today to begin working on your unprecedented heights in your own business. I would like the honor to share these types of things with you that turn my dreams into reality so you can experience the same type of joy and freedom that I now get to live out in my own day. In other words, it's time for you to build your own unstoppable enterprise. And if you're really ready to take it to the next level and elevate your life and your business, this is an absolute game changer for you. So if you want to take advantage of this free resource, simply go to the Show Notes and click the link. Or you can go to stevenscoggins.com backslash8figure, that's Steven scoggins.com, backslash8figure. Until then, much love, God bless. Let's get back to the show. Take care. You know, I. It's got me thinking, the event you guys got coming up in the, in the summer. Yeah. Are we going to be teaching these, these methodologies, these strategies to the public? Are we, I mean, are you guys going to open kind of a playbook a little bit and like, walk them through it? And if so, how can people find out more about the, you know, kind of joining up and kind of going to the event?

Yeah, I think a playbook couldn't, couldn't have been a better word.

Right.

So for our, our conference, we're doing something that, you know, we think has never really been done. And we know it's not typical of most conferences. What we've seen in the industry is sometimes there's a lot of conferences and there's some really great conferences we go to, but a lot of them are fluff, right? It's about, you know, the celebrity status and these, you know, esoteric panels of, you know, what people have been able to attain. And people kind of walk. Exactly right. And people kind of walk away like, oh, that was cool. But like, after all the smoke and mirrors and all the, you know, flair, I didn't really walk away with any tactics. And so our event is entitled Wealth Weekend and It's in Atlanta, Georgia, the weekend of July 18th through the 20th. And the ultimate goal is that by the end of the conference, people actually walk away with a financial plan. Right. So day one, we filled with, you know, experts with credentials and actual certifications and who are teaching you the tactics, the strategies on how to build wealth. And then day two, we're going to actually have workshops and breakout sessions to break down each component of the financial plan. Like, what is it? What is estate planning? What is cash flow management? What is investing in retirement like in people being able to fill in the blanks when they walk away? It's like, oh, I can't say that. I don't know. I have my plan. So we're really, really excited about that. There's some amazing people in town that weekend, some amazing speakers, and also, as I mentioned, we'll have our award show where we're not only celebrating our clients who have crossed, you know, various net worth milestones, but we'll also be celebrating industry peers, right? People who we feel like in their own right are doing, you know, their part to help close the wealth gap as well. So that's a really exciting weekend. Really. We're really stoked about it and can't wait for it.

Yeah, man. Well, obviously, make sure your team sends me the link because I want my audience. Absolutely, I'll do that. You know, and before I. I don't want to cut you off, Carter, but I'll tell you that one thing that I've learned, especially after the exit specifically, is how much time and energy goes into an estate plan. Like, because, you know, let's. Let's talk. Let's be honest. The, you know, you take someone like ourselves and spend our entire lives really getting after it, really working hard, trying to make a difference in the world, you know, earning a level of wealth, really kind of, you know, doing our best to steward it as best we possibly can, compound it, grow it, all this kind of stuff. And by the second or third generation, it's almost always gone. Yeah, like, you know, you get to the grandkids and the grandkids don't have any real reference or great grandkids on any real reference of the sacrifices that were paid, the financial nuances that were had to be learned, all this kind of stuff. So much so that when I did my trust and estate plan, all my stuff's going into a trust and appreciating trust. Right. So it'll be invested well and then it'll kick off seed cash to my heirs. But the principal never really state, never really goes away. It just grows and grows and grows. And that way I can actually feed five, six, seven, eight, ten generations. Right. But I'm also put a provision in mind that they've got to go through and pass financial literacy stuff like a test, exams, the basics, you know, everything from doing a budget to understanding how this, how the models and, and things that, you know, that will shift in time, of course, because tax law changes every so often, but like to help them better understand. So they became. They can actually become stewards of wealth. Right. And I think you guys are doing. You're, you're not only. You're doing that for the person here, meaning the person watching or listening right now, the people that are going to come to the conference as a result of the show, but you're also setting it up to help them understand that what you're playing is a much longer game. The Rothschilds and all these big names that you've heard to have bazillions of dollars before they technically had taxes even out there, and all this kind of stuff, all they did was put their money in large, massive Trust and that. And those trusts donate monies to different private equity and these different, you know, these. All these different funds and all this kind of. And so it's constantly growing, which is why it's never run out.

So I want people to really understand what you guys are really offering and the value you guys are really bringing. You know, I kept it, I tried it today to talk to the person I used to be. Right. I've been the entrepreneur that's, you know, lost it all. I've been the entrepreneur that was barely does hustling to get going. I've been the entrepreneur that's, you know, building and scaling and under stress, you know, not really thinking about where my money's going, all this kind of stuff. I've also been the entrepreneur. Now that's like, okay, no, wait a minute. I have an opportunity to build not gen, not just generational wealth, but legacy wealth.

Yeah.

And train my heirs to know what to do with it so they don't go and blow it.

All.

Right, so maybe maybe talk to entrepreneurs who are where I am at today on maybe some strategies or maybe some, some ideas or concepts we would look at as we invite them to the conference.

Yeah. So people who are a little bit further along in their journey, I think you hit the nail on the head, right. There has to be a level of, you know, forward thinking when it comes to, you know, estate planning and protecting your wealth.

Right.

And so we advise our clients the same thing, Right. Like to make sure you put all your assets in a trust. And one strategy that I think is somewhat adopted, you know, from the Rothschilds, right. In those families is kind of like the waterfall method. Right. Where it's like, okay, I have this trust set up and established, which is great. But then at some point I don't want to just give, right. All the money to the next generation. Maybe I'm giving them half and half of it is invested. Right. And then there are provisions on how they get access to that. Right. And then they have to also get a life insurance policies that feed back into the, the trust as well so that they can keep the cycle going. So it's like one or two things are going to happen. Either I'm going to give you a portion of this money, Right. And a portion of it's going to stay invested for the next generation and we can, we can keep this going or. Right. We are going to have cash value life insurance as a part of this and you can take out loans, right, from the trust. Right. You're essentially borrowing so now it's money that you receive. Well, because it's a loan, you're not going to get taxed on it. Right. And then ultimately, right through your endeavors, you can repay that back or through the life insurance policy that you get on yourself. Ultimately, we'll replenish it. And so those are some of like the higher level things that we're advising our clients to do. But really what sits above all of that goes back to the why it's like, okay, well, when you are no longer here, right. How do you want to be remembered?

Right.

What do you want your legacy to look like? And then that helps define some of the tactics that we do when it comes to the estate plan and the legacy itself.

Golden. Golden Carter.

I couldn't say any better myself. That was, it's not a cake right there.

Yeah.

Well, man, you know, you guys are, you guys are doing amazing things.

You know who's, who technically is your ideal client nowadays? Who, who, who tends to partner with you guys more often? Because I really want to encourage, it's, it's rare.

That I vibe with, with every guest that I have on the show. I mean, I mean I like everybody, we all get along, we, you know, stuff like that. But there's, there are certain people that I just feel like are doing such impactful work that the, the work itself is somehow changing the generational gaps in general. And you guys are feel for, you guys are absolutely fulfilling one of those gaps. So if there's a, if there's people watching and listening right now that could utilize all services, I would like for them to reach out to you guys because honestly, everything I've seen on social media, every, every content platform I've looked at, it's always a hardest service. You're always giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and rarely asking for anything other than to come and like learn. So maybe tell give me a little insight into who your audio client is.

Yeah, for sure. And so and we can actually give you the link as well. You can put in the show notes if they want to hop on the call and see if we're a good fit for them. But we target entrepreneurs making about $200,000 or more. And the reason is because that's how we know we can give them every bit of the service that we have to offer. Because again, if W2 employee, there's nothing wrong with that, but the tax code wasn't created for you to win and we want our clients to be able to double or triple their investment. Working with us. Right. So at that $200,000 or more mark, as an entrepreneur, we know that we can help them save and earn double the money they would pay us for our services. We don't want to be a fee to anybody. Work. Yeah, we should be working free. You should be making a profit off of working with us. So that is our target demographic, and we just continue to serve those people.

Awesome. We'll definitely put that stuff in the show notes for sure. Absolutely.

Awesome. We appreciate it.

Yeah, man. Well, I'd love having you guys. You guys are welcome back on the show anytime you want. You guys are amazing, and if there's anything I could do to help you guys be of service, we're. We're here for you. I got one final question for you guys as we wrap up here.

Sure.

If there's one question that you guys have yet to be asked on a podcast that, you know needs to be answered, like, there's a calling in it, what would that question be? And what would your answer be?

Wow. Now that might be the best question we've been asked on the podcast.

Hey, that might be right there.

If there's one question that you haven't been asked.

That, you know, man, that's good.

That, you know, needs an answer.

Like, it.

Like, this is a calling thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man, that's great.

Yeah.

I think asking successful people what their biggest regret is can be helpful because it helps them, you know, get the lesson and avoid the scar. So. And I just started talking about this openly, but my biggest regret is not getting wealth and wealthy fast enough to enjoy with the people I love the most. Right. My. My mom's gone, my dad is gone, my brother's gone. I have the money now. But when you look at who you want to enjoy it with, like, they might not all be here. And you really, especially people you grew up where you really want to show them, like, yo, we made it out, but, like, they're not there anymore. So for me, it's just, like, we have an obligation and duty to get wealthy as fast as possible so we can enjoy the money and the experiences with the people that we love the most.

Dude.

Yeah. Now that's. That's good. If it were me, I would say that.

It'S so important to keep your lows high and your highs low. Right. And what I mean by that is, you know, this journey of entrepreneurship, you experience a lot of ebbs and flows, a lot of ups and downs. Right. I remember in the very early days, you know, There would be a day where I had, like, a night at the time with so much money, like a $19,000 a month, I was like, oh, my gosh, like, I've made it. I never need to make a dollar more than this. Another month, I might make $19. Right?

Yeah.

And so staying even keel on, like, okay. And truly treating your business like a business. Right. And, like, understanding the business's money versus your money, I think is paradigm.

Right.

And I would say definitely keeping your. Your family first.

Yeah, right.

Like, keeping your family first in all that you do. Because to Carter's point, I think it makes it full circle. It's like, if you get all the money and build all the wealth, but you lose your family in the process, then what. What have you done? Right.

Yeah. So I'm gonna piggyback on that because this is a more of a personal experience. So, in fact, I'm gonna start putting this on social media real soon. I. I actually think that hustle culture should die and wisdom and alignment should take off. And I say that as someone who worked my entire life to generate wealth. I got the wealth, I got the freedom, I got the time, I got the things. And then it wasn't that long ago where I'm sitting in a nice, beautiful home, Crickets. Kids are grown, they're having. They're, you know, they're doing their own things now with their own families. And here I am in this beautiful location, beautiful house, have to have some toys, have to have the freedom to travel. And I was probably my most unhappiest I've ever been.

Because.

There'S truth to what you just. You guys just articulated specifically where the wealth is only valuable if it can be shared through the. I think through the power of experiences. And you have to have the passive flows to make sure you have continued experiences. Right. So you can, you know, how many. How many times we've seen people go and win the lottery and blow the money, and next thing you know, it's all. It's all gone, you know, and it's basically the same mindset that was keeping the. Keeping people in poverty, created poverty in the long run because you wouldn't pay attention, you know? Well, guys, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show. You guys are awesome. Again, you guys are more than welcome to show anytime. This is what we can serve you. Just let me know.

We appreciate it. We had a great time, amazing questions, and we look forward to coming back.

Sounds good. See you guys soon. Take care. Peace. I hope you liked that video. And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here. Jesus, during the three years of public ministry, had 307 questions that he asked, and he only answered three. Isn't that awesome? In three years.