Birth to Net Worth with Natalia Ouellette Grice - Episode 10

Welcome to Birth to Net Worth, where we normalize the conversation, the emotional relationships and genesis of our attitudes surrounding money and wealth, and affect a change in the future generations and their relationship to money. Here is your host, Trystan Trenberth.

Hello and welcome to Birth to Net Worth. This is episode 10. We've got 9 huge amazing guests that we've had before now, and we're excited to welcome a real estate and planning attorney from Florida who is, is, is very prevalent within the industry in investment and otherwise. We met through a couple of different communities that we're part of, and it's my honor to introduce Natalia Willett-Grice. Natalia, welcome to the studio today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me, Trystan, and I appreciate that you're one of the few people that's been able to beautifully pronounce my name.

Thank you. So, um, it's always good to ask. So we had Sandhya Seshadri a couple of weeks ago, which is another— I had to read that one and just double-check that I had the pronunciation of that one, but I think with growing up in Europe and having a lot of different languages and international people, you know, that I worked with and saw and met. It's been useful in understanding pronunciation.

I would say it certainly has.

So fantastic. So, well, Natalia, please give us a little introduction. I know you work with— you're an attorney, work in the estate planning and entity planning area. Can you give us a little bit more background to, to what you do, please?

Certainly. So I started off, um, the 13 years ago practicing in, in business planning and estate planning. I owned a firm called Fresh Legal Perspective back then. It's still going strong, just with our other founding partner. We did a lot of, again, business formation, estate planning for certain kinds of business owners. And then I, I got this opportunity to go work for a Florida title company. That's actually how I got involved with the real estate investor community. It was It was a title company that was geared to and tailored to the real estate investors in Tampa Bay and North and Central Florida. Within a year of that, I became president of that title company and 6,000 closings later, I pretty much became an expert at managing and understanding the world of real estate investors here. You know, some of the risks you all took, some of the approaches, the opportunities that came by. Both in down and up markets. So that's where I've got my, my ties to the real estate investor community. Uh, this firm, LCLL, the one that I own now, I've had for 11 years. And, uh, for the past 2 years, we've been focusing more and more on the business planning and estate planning side, largely for the real estate investor community. Um, as I saw that there are, there's some gaps there in making sure that, you know, we encourage our clients to grow the right way and to also plan for when they weren't going to be in their business anymore. Right. With real estate investors, part of the beauty of it is you can think of it as you can retire early. And so there's that potential for them to learn how to truly create a business that is valuable and can be packaged and sold off to future investors and something that you don't have to wait until you're in your 70s or 80s to do. And a lot of them, as I saw them grow up, they had started families and all of that. And so, you know, we, we understood that to mean they really needed to take care of those families and loved ones if something happened to them. Because there's one thing we know, Trystan, is that none of us have any idea when it's our time to go back to the other parts of the universe to join it again. But what we do know is that the ones that get left behind, our loved ones, are the ones that we really do have to worry about. And so That's, that's why I decided to focus the firm more there, but largely still loving and, and protecting and caring for the real estate investor community.

Well, I appreciate that. Thank you so much for that overview. Yeah, I've worked with Ryley Steiner here in Arizona, PCS, all doing estate planning, entity planning, business planning. It's such an important part of the business that there's so many people that either buy properties in their own name and they're not getting the full tax benefits that they could do. They don't have trust, they don't have other things which, you know, assist in succession events, as I refer to them. I do a lot with probate attorneys and probate cases here, so got more of an idea of the process of how that generally works. But yeah, it's always the biggest failure. You're never concerned about the estate planning until you need it, and it's too late at that point. Yeah, just getting through a transaction in Albany, New York where I've been paying holding costs for a year. Um, lady had her mum put onto the deed in 2014, mother passed in 2018, never had her removed. Um, saved her from foreclosure last summer, uh, got the loan mod done, and we've only just now got the letters of, uh, the equivalent letters of representative done. So now we can actually finish the transaction, do this. But yeah, I totally understand how much of a benefit it is to be on top of that kind of thing.

Yeah, just the time saving in not having to, you know, wait for a judge to be like, okay, now it's proved, now we've approved this person, now the next stage and the next stage. You don't have to go through any of that. Um, it's much faster for, for your family and for your business.

Yeah, absolutely. And so, um, Birth to Net Worth, as I mentioned, we talk about the genesis of our relationships, our mindsets towards money, Can you give us a little bit of a background of, of, you know, your, your childhood and how you first remember money? Was it maybe somebody buying an ice cream or food? Or, you know, generally it's out of the house that we first experience money, even though it's our family's money. It's generally a relationship of, you know, candy store or the grocery store. How did you first become aware of money?

So I would have to say it dates back to my grandfather. So both of my grandfathers were business owners, and my mother's father, that grandfather in South America, would take me everywhere with him. My parents are both MDs. They would work long, long shifts, both at hospitals and at their own private practice. And so I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, and my grandfather was a joyful and delightful business kind of natural, I would say. So he'd take me to all sorts of different shopping plazas and venues where his stores were located. So he and his siblings owned different jean stores in Colombia. And so he'd introduce me to every single person along the row of, you know, the business shops, and they would talk family and they would talk business. And, and that was how I learned about money. So my, my grandfather, after every trip with him, he'd always, always like empty out his pockets. He'd give me whatever he had in his pockets, and he'd like send me on my merry way. Uh, and from this I developed some entrepreneurial skills. So I would buy like the little supplies, um, art supplies, and I would create face masks, and I would sell them around the neighborhood. Or I would create something— wands, anything you could think of— and sell those to the kids around the neighborhood. But But that's, that's my first introduction to money, my grandfather, which I'm very appreciative of because a lot of people don't get that experience with an entrepreneur in the family. And that kind of, you know, learning how to speak with other people in the community, learning to talk business, but also develop the long-term relationships. My parents on— it was a little different with my parents because they, physicians in Colombia don't make a lot of money. And so sometimes my parents would literally get paid with like pots of food or other things. And we relied a relied a lot on my— the goodwill of their siblings that would sometimes send money for them to be able to cover the payments of rent or things of the sort. We had periods of time when we had cars and periods of times where we didn't have cars, where we used a lot of public transportation. But the one thing that I would say is that my mother, who grew up with like the wealthy family and the businesses and all of that, she, she never had a scarcity mindset. So even though, you know, we live the way that we lived, there was ever— never out of her mouth, we don't have the money for that or anything like that. My father, on the other hand, I think he carried over the experiences of his childhood, which again, his father was a business owner too, but he lost all of his money in his businesses I see. When my father was in his teens. So my father is huge into DIY, right? Trying to do everything himself, uh, trying to save the money that way. And so there was like this little polar pulling between my parents growing up, um, and it was certainly something that they brought over to the States when we came to the States. It was, uh, you know, you, you had on the one hand my mother who was always like, oh, the money's there, you know, we can do this, we can do that. And my father who was always like, well, let me see if I can figure it out on my own. Yeah, which delayed a lot of things, including delayed the growth of his business for a while, of his medical practice.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's, that's wonderful. I mean, you, you grew up with it, you know, Grandpa hustling out there and, and really doing some great things. And, and again, those deep relationships and the continued relationships, nurturing them and visiting all of the businesses, you got to know them as you grew up, I'm sure. Until he moved. And I think that's wonderful. My dad was the kind of guy that would be always, always meeting people, always, you know, communicating, stay in touch, um, and showing them around town if they had visitors coming from out of town with the business that he worked for. We were the pick, you know, he was the one that would drive them around to visit the places that they, you know, the local business sites from their company. So, you know, not, not an entrepreneur, but, you know, very, very solid on relationship building. So, so how did that change from, from moving to the United States? What, what was the change of, um, business once you— once your father's business got going here? Did that kind of roll into more of the American dream style at that point, or was it, was it kind of based on his past still?

So, so there was a little bit of both, uh, so When, when my parents came, of course, you know, when you're a physician abroad, you have to pass all sorts of examinations again and do residency all over again, all those things. And they were in their late 30s when that took place, so they were about my age. Um, and so at first, you know, they were like, they both immediately started working in medical fields and whatever they could do. Meanwhile, you know, my dad passed all of the exams and he hopped right into residency, and then once he graduated from the specialization that he decided to do here in the United States, he worked for another physician and it took the point of getting him to be like exhausted working with a specific physician and the way that they were running things for him to go, I want to, I want to go back to having my own business because that's how it had always been in Colombia. You know, they, again, children of business owners don't make for very pleasant or happy, I would say, employees. Like there's always this drive to, to to be there and do it on your own. Um, and so my father opened up his medical practice and I want to say that was in 2000 and maybe 2006, 2007. Uh, so it's been quite a while now. Um, and at first it was like, it's just him and my mom and, and it took him a while to realize we need some help. So I was saying, I was in law school and I was like, okay, you guys need to hire, right? You need to do this thing. And, uh, and we got them to about 5 people. Now I think there's like 15 people that work in my father's practice. Yeah, it did take quite a while for them to, to understand, particularly my dad, that like you can't be doing everything yourself, right? Do what you really like to do. Focus on the, you know, the patient care, the patient interaction. That's the part that he loves. Um, and then let everybody else do the things that you don't like— the billing, the invoicing, you know, the regulatory compliance, all that other craziness that goes with being a physician. Um, and I, I appreciate seeing that aspect because I grew up also with the same mentality of entrepreneurialism. Like, I, I have worked in a title company for 10 years, but, you know, I didn't really have a boss above me. Yeah. Um, and And it gave me that opportunity to go, okay, what do I want to be doing? Do I want to be doing this or do I want to be doing it on my own, running my own business, seeing what my parents did, my grandparents did? Even my great-grandparents owned their own business. And that I pulled too. But it did take a while of seeing the back and forth between my parents. My parents divorced when I was in my mid-20s. And so that also had an impact of how they each behaved in relationship.

Interesting. Yeah. Worse.

Yeah. So yeah, that's definitely taken an impact. And I would say probably the biggest negative factor money-wise for what I learned from my dad was that fear of hiring, delegating things. I could do it myself. That was definitely something that slowed me down. Thankfully now I have 3 full-time people working for me. Yeah. And I just look back and go, you should have just done it so much sooner. Um, but then on the other hand, I always had my mother's side of the family influence where they— every single one of them is a business owner. All of my aunts are business owners there. My grandfather passed away in 1994, so yeah, you could see that. But cousins, everything, uh, my, my family My family's all about my health care.

Yeah, well, that's incredible. So what did you notice around— obviously we see our, our own influences, but how did, how did you witness, like you said, your family's entrepreneurial way back when? What about the kids that you went to school with? How, how did their attitudes and mindsets vary with money? Did, did you pay— did you— you may not have paid attention to it, but were there observations that you look back on now and you think that, oh, you know, my hap family had it great, or our attitude towards money was strong because we were always abundant, but not necessarily having everything that we needed. Sometimes we see kids that seem to have everything, and there's other kids that sort of have nothing, but their attitudes towards money don't necessarily, um, convey the true situation that's behind, you know, their influences. Because very often when we grow up, we're comparing ourselves to others. Oh, this kid's got all of the new toys and I don't have this, or whatever the comparisons are, or doing the sports events or sports equipment, those kinds of things. Where did you sort of notice anything like that? What, what age were you when you changed from, you know, your country of residence?

So I was 9 years old, and it was, okay, it was a huge shift. Um, I would say the biggest thing that I noticed differently between the conversations I heard from my parents and my family and most kids' parents was they always like, their parents were always talking about like retirement, when I'm no longer working, da da da da da. Yeah, that was never a discussion in my family. Like the concept of retirement just does not exist, I would say, in the way that people perceive it, you know, like W-2 employee, da da da, 9 to 5 for 30 years, then you retire. Like that's just not the way that entrepreneurs think. We don't think about retiring, right? That was never discussed. And so it was like, you, you, you do whatever it is that you do that helps bring you income until you are no longer capable of doing it, or you've delegated it off to people that just keep doing it for you. And then you, you get to do more or less depending on how involved you want to be. That, that was a huge difference. So a lot of my, my friends, the parents were talking about, you know, when we retire, blah, blah, blah. It was always like, when we retire, we'll do this. Well, maybe we'll do that then. And in my family, it was like, so here's what we want to do and we're going to do it and we're going to do it now. There was no delay in that sense. As far as extracurriculars and things like that, I, I can only speak for myself, but I would say I, I didn't have the amount of extracurriculars that some other kids had. Because it was always like you were always just expected to be doing something for yourself in my house. And so like my parents were always busy with their work stuff. So if we had extra time, it was like, okay, we're going to hop in and help you with whatever the work stuff is that you're doing for the family business. Whereas, you know, some of my other friends, they had like the sports extracurriculars or dance or that kind of thing. Yeah, so I would say those are the two, two big differences when it came to that. Yeah. And I find myself doing that with my kids because if they have extra time, I'm like, okay, you're gonna help mommy fold envelopes and da da da, and you're gonna do all this other stuff. I'm already pulling them into the you're helping with the business, um, mindset.

I think that's really helpful just to keep kids occupied in this day and age because otherwise they're just sitting on phones and, you know, really not doing a lot useful. But You mentioned your grandparents, or, you know, the— not your grandparents, but when you came to the States and just saw people talking about when they get to that age and retire, they stop. One of my grandparents did literally stop and pretty much just sit down. He did some gardening and that was about it. He had terrible knees after a few years, you know, was overweight, either due to his knees being bad or vice versa, or just not being active. And then my other grandfather on my mum's side, he, he used to work for the British government in the Customs and Revenue, and he then went traveling with his— with my grandmother for a number of years until she passed, and still kept on traveling after that point. So it's quite an extreme opposite. And my, my maternal grandfather, he worked for the, the British government in a capacity which was, you know, like a a national— what do you call it— federal employee type role. And then my other grandfather was in the, in the military during the Second World War and just had his own business out of that. But I was too young to really know either of them very well or pick up on the nuances of what we're talking about here. But, you know, one was an entrepreneur in one sense, and the other block works, that he made things. But I still, I still determine those differences looking back, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And I think like it's, it's funny, the influence that, you know, you have when your parents come from a certain background, right? Like, it's a few of my friends, right? Their parents were in the military and they chose life partners that are in the military. It's kind of like that same path. I have friends that had, you know, both parents were like mid-level, like, professions and things like that. And they chose a very similar path, mid-level profession, so-and-so, you know, work until you retire, that kind of thing. And the things that they really want to do, like, I know one of them, like, really wants to write a book. They just won't touch because they're— all they know is working for somebody else, and they couldn't fathom, like, being the source of their own income. Um, but yeah, it's just, I'm at that point where it's like, okay, I, you know, both my children are 7 years old, both boys, and I'm like, I want them to not think the only way that they can make a source of income is by going to school and then going to college and then maybe graduate school. But like, just really thinking, you know, what can you do now? What can you do now to, to get yourself to a place where you can maybe start selling some of the things that you create now. Why not search? Yeah, you know, if you want that toy, okay, what can you do now to get to what you want to have, um, rather than it being a continued delayed gratification? Because I think that helps create a mindset of, um, it helps encourage that mindset of fear because you keep only pushing it as well in the future, well in the future. Which stops you from taking action now.

Yeah, I think there's a big distinction we can make here between delayed gratification and instant gratification and actually driving towards manifesting something, because there's so much of a, you know, in money in the States. I noticed there's just so much instant gratification with 0% financing and opportunities to take consumer debt to buy things. I know that's a little bit kind of beyond what you were mentioning, but I think it stands up with, you know, the fact that kids can get into debt very easily. The military as well, they're often got— they're often predatory opportunities for them to borrow money because they know the military will make them pay the money back. Um, but again, instant gratification versus delayed, but actually manifesting that difference of the side hustle to go and make sure whether you're at school in a side hustle, whether you're at in a day job and you want something extra, you go and do something over and on top of what your, what your 9 to 5 is, is giving you to go and, you know, achieve whatever it is that you're looking to, to accomplish.

Yeah, it's like, um, it's like the difference between having dreams and having goals, right? A dream is something you keep saying, well, you know, maybe sometimes that'll happen. And goals is, yeah, there's a delay in, in getting it, but you have to actually take action Yeah, get there. Yeah. And that's what we're trying to impart in our kids. Um, and also one of the things that, that we realized was like an influencing factor from our own childhood is, you know, when think— when kids ask for things, right, your first instinct is say no. And what's a kid's first instinct? To keep asking, right? Yeah. Just like that, there's a natural salesmanship when you're a child. It just gets crushed if people keep telling you no and no. And so we've changed it to, instead of just saying no, being like, okay, just tell us what you're gonna do to accomplish having, you know, X amount. That's what you need to get what you want. And, and trying to encourage their entrepreneurialism that way, um, because I think that also teaches a lesson about, you know, okay, in order for there to be a sale, right, sale of getting mom and dad to do something, What's your part as, as a kid, right?

Change of value of some, some level.

Yeah, that exchange of value. Yeah, what's the exchange of value? So, so I think, uh, I think that, uh, you know, studying about mindset and, uh, the influence of, of having that like lack of abundance versus abundance mindset, uh, really has changed a lot this year about how we approach our children with parenting. My son, on the other hand, is very much like mommy's kid. He doesn't ask for anything. And I didn't ask for anything growing up either, not because I thought it was harmful or because I was going to get shot down. It was just, I think, the way that my parents raised me and their parents raised them. There was never a feeling of lack. Yeah, there was just, you know, here's, here's what we have.

And acceptance.

And there was acceptance. Yes, acceptance. And kind of joy and delight in whatever you had. There was plenty of abundance. Like, what, my grandparents had multiple properties. My grandmother still owns many, many pieces of real estate. That's how she provides for her lifestyle in, quote, retirement. But she's always out and about. There's no such thing as retirement in the mind of my family. But I think that really influenced the approach that my parents had with me. Um, and, you know, instead of a 'we don't have that,' it would say, 'Yeah, sure, figure it out.' Yeah, that appears.

Yeah, there's, there's, uh, 4 great salesmen in this house, and I'm not one of them. There's the dog, the cat, and then the 2 kids. So they're always trying to train me on, you know, the dog will sit by the pantry door expecting to get a treat, but he has to do a trick or something to get something. But yeah, yeah, I think that's lovely that there's that abundance mentality and the, you know, the exchange of value, because that's really what separates the 9-to-5 building somebody else's dream, exchanging time for money, versus, well, if I'm going to spend some, you know, go and buy something for you, what can you do to replenish whatever it is by taking a responsibility or a time to— a time-consuming activity away from me that's going to allow me to justify doing that. I think that's awesome.

Yep. And not, not just like chores, but, um, things that, for example, I value highly. So, um, for my son, my son, um, the one that's obsessed with dinosaurs, he, uh, he wants, you know, like these Jurassic World dinosaurs that come with little things and they kind of play into their video game. And I was like, okay, well You know, you've got this, this sheet that your teacher gives you every month, and you're only required to get like 5 in a row of the bingo things. But I'm like, if you finish this entire thing, all these books, right, all these 20-minute assignments for books, and you finish them before the end of the month, then you've earned it in my, you know, for me, you've earned that. Yeah. Because the value to me of you reading that much is, is I just know it's so much better for you. Yeah. And so he was like, done. So like, literally, he gets home, he'll grab a bunch of books, he will do as many readings as possible. He'll sit there and he reads to his brother. And with his brother, it's like as many chores as he can take on. He's like, I'll do this, I'll do that, I'll do— so it's nice to see the incentive. But also, like, I want them to not forget about, you know, the creating value aspect of very end. Create more value out of what you're doing. Yeah.

So yeah, yeah, I, I, I know The Go-Giver very well, the book. Um, amazing book. Have you, have you read that one? Yes. Yeah, I think it would be great. I don't know if there's a kids version of it. I don't think there is. It's a pretty simple book, but I think it's beyond what a lot of kids would read. But I think that's definitely a good, good book based on providing more value than you're receiving in monetary terms, you know. Um, but as far as, as far as educating your kids, what have you sort of done to— in, in addition to having that exchange of value to, to sort of buy things for them or have them work towards things, is there anything specifically done for budgeting? Because I know Mike Michalowicz did Profit First, has written a book called My Money Bunnies, and there's a few other books out there that are designed for kids that are based around you know, pots of money. There's the anytime money, the sometime money, and the one-time money in My Money Bunnies. So it's just, just a broken-down version of Profit First for a kid to put away something they really want to save up for and they spend it once. Maybe there's, you know, something they want to build, you know, buy on a regular basis like art materials, maybe, and, you know, maybe the odd candy or ice cream or something along those lines that they can start separating the money a little bit at a very early age and understand that just because all of the money comes in, it doesn't always have to go out to the toy store or whatever it is that they may have, you know, use instead of getting consumer debt, but just spend all of their money in one hit, you know.

So with the boys, there's different things that we do. We— so they each have like their little piggy banks and they'll like cash things that they've gotten over birthdays and just like spare change or extra chores that they do. And so we sit down with them, and part of it we've done just to train them to get used to money and the counting and the mathematics of it. So for that aspect, they're both very different in personalities. Like, one of my sons is, you know, he'll count his money, he'll never spend any of it, but he asks everybody else all the time for the things that he wants. Salesman. The other hand, one of them is like, okay, I have this much, and then he'll use about half of whatever's there to get something that he wants. It's never sweets, not a sweets-loving kid. It's always, you know, like a Lego or some other toy activity thing. And we started speaking with them recently about like what people do for a living in order to earn their income. So, you know, like Mommy's a business owner and here's what we do and da da da da, and you know, here's what Daddy does and, you know, having discussions about that to get them to understand that objects and activities and services are based on exchanges of value. Yeah. So we've had those higher-level, like, conversations with the children, but not so much of, you know, assets and liabilities and all that, because at 7 they're just, just starting to get, uh, the frontal cortex forming in a, in a more solid way. So they're just now entering the age age where they realize they're not the center of the universe. Yeah. Um, and so it's more about having those broader concept introductions, right? Like, here's how the economy functions, and some people are employees of business and some people are owners of businesses, and, and explaining a little bit about the history of their family. Um, and doing it that way. I, I do want them to eventually start doing a little bit more of like budgeting for what they want But I want to do that alongside encouraging them to figure it out. How are you going to raise the money that you want to put into those different buckets? Because I think private money lenders, but it's like, that's where a lot of it is missing, right? Like that, how do you create, how do you create the value where it's not them just being our own little like employees at home? It's like, what can you do to be entrepreneurial? So just like it was with my grandfather, you know, he'd give me the money. He knew that I always make more. I did I'd even just buy cake, uh, and it came with like little separate— 6 separate sections, and then I'd sell it by the slice for a profit. So things like that I'd like to have my children start doing. And around their age is when I started doing those activities.

Yeah, yeah, it's funny because, um, I've asked my kids to help me with a couple of different things, and I said, look, you can hire your friends to come and do it for you. Or with you, and then if you can get them to do it for you for less than I'm going to pay you for it, you can keep the difference. I want you to understand that outsourcing these things, which is, you know, a key skill, um, as we talked about a little earlier— if you can find somebody to do it for a lower price, you can negotiate that with them and explain how to do it. But I want you to know how to do it so you can train somebody else. It's not going to be you bring somebody over and then I'm training them how to do it, because I may as well have just got somebody else to do it myself.. But I want them to understand that principle of, you know, you need to know enough to teach and then you can step away and have somebody else take over and do that.

Yep, yep, definitely the, the delegation aspect. Um, and right now with, with my two boys, they know how to delegate tasks between each other when they're doing, uh, certain things around the house because, you know, one's taller and a little bit stronger and so, yeah, which has to take. The other one, you know, can fit into like smaller crawl spaces and deal with those kind of chores. But yeah, I mean, I want to introduce them to that, like, because I know, for example, my stronger, taller kid, he'd be great at teaching some kids like how to throw. And I'm like, you could do that, but you could do that for money. You could charge for the service, the lesson that you're doing. The same thing with my son that really, you know, excellent in terms of like the the educational aspects. Like, you can make money tutoring, why not? Yeah. So those are, those are a few of the, of the projects that are in mind. But that's also why in, in the business we are creating courses for the kids of our business owner clients, because, um, you know, these are the people that our clients want often to succeed them in the business. And it's like, okay, well, what kind of kind of like economics and money mindset training have you done for your kids? And they're like, oh my God, none. Yeah. So it's, it's better for them to have, uh, children that are ready, set to go as business owners that understand, you know, marketing and sales and, um, understanding financial statements and, and all of that. And, and we're doing it in a simpler way that is, is not going to be, you know, devastatingly boring or overwhelming. Yeah, for kids. But I think we, we underestimate the power and the intelligence of children.

Yeah. Um, yeah.

So, yeah.

So what, what did you notice in, in legacy from your parents to you? Um, and how are you thinking about your estate planning for your kids? You know, I think Rylas is going to come on in, in the next few weeks and speak to us as well. About his perspective, because I think it's important to, you know, identify— there's a lot of people that, particularly in real estate, said, yeah, I want to build a legacy for my kids, which means that they're going to do something for the kids and not do it with the kids, which is great if they inherit something. But if they're waiting till 70, 80, 90 years old to inherit something and they're in their 50s, 60s, 70s before they inherit it and don't know necessarily how it works I'm, I'm really very much advocating for building legacy with children. Part of the purpose for this is to bring the financial literacy to the kids at a young age so that by the time they're 18, 19, they already understand what depreciation is and charitable donations, that type of thing. So that we can actually, uh, what I'd like to do with, with a couple of partners that I'm talking to is provide self-directed IRAs for children, which apparently is legally possible. So why not start them early? Whole life policies other products that they can self-direct with their parents, even if it's $10, $20 a month that they're putting into these things. They're starting at 8, 9, 10 years old. Imagine how much that might be worth at 18 years old, let alone 25, 30, 50, 70, when, you know, we traditionally retire. And why not allow the parents to convert their 401s into self-directed products so they can invest with their children in products or in assets So they can actually build the assets list with the children so they understand, oh, we're going to buy a house today. In fact, we're not going to buy a house. We're going to put some money into a real estate fund with another 20 or 30 other people, or maybe 100 or 200 other people. We're going to buy, help buy a, you know, 100-unit multifamily property. They get the economics of, right, we're buying something really big with a small amount of money, leveraging our money with other people's money to get a short-term return and a long-term return. And to get depreciation on the asset as well. So when they're 16, they work at Walmart or, you know, Home Depot, wherever it is, they've already got a tax write-off. They don't have to pay tax that first year. Then they understand the next year they don't have to pay tax either. They're earning more money. And what I'd like them to do— I'm starting a charity called 40 for Teens to provide free mental health coverage for teenagers and also awareness for parents as well. So I'd like them to donate 20 or 30% of the return to the charity so they get depreciation as a, as a write-off as well as charitable donation. So by the time they get to 18, 20 years old, they may have got an exit on maybe one or two properties at that point where them and their parents can actually go and buy an asset with their self-directed IRAs that they own and control together. And that way they've got their own standalone property now which could be the dorm house that they buy at the university. And that way they're renting the rooms out and making a profit from a building that they live in with their friends. Their friends are paying for the cost of the house and, and giving them some income as well and helping offset education if they choose to go to university. But even if they don't, they can still buy a house near a university or a duplex or a quadplex to rent out. So I'm trying to promote where we can actually build in that legacy building with the children instead of for the children, so that by the time the parent gets to 40, 50, 60 years old, they already know that they can trust the child with handling those assets and they can have more fun together. They've hopefully outsourced a lot of this management and they can grow, grow the portfolio however quickly or slowly they want to. And guess what? When grandpa's there, the son or daughter has their own children. So they're already bringing them into the family trust or whatever the, you know, the, the entity is that they have. And they're all learning about this cash flow. They know that this house is effectively paying for their vacation twice a year. This large asset is paying for X, Y, and Z. So they're already in the mindset of, I don't have to work for somebody else now. I'm just trying to see how we can encourage, you know, over a generation or two to change mindset towards money, attitudes towards money, and really bring an abundance mindset and not have family members that have to wait till a death in the family to then realize some assets that they don't know what to do with.

Yeah, and I think that's, that's a brilliant approach to it. Uh, it's, it's kind of how we do the succession planning, right? Because yeah, for us it's about, okay, bringing in people now that, like, the people that you perceive as the ones that you want to leave the business to, you need to bring them in now. They need to learn how the business is working. The ins and outs, how to interact with clients, how to market for the business, right? What are the important financial transactions that impact the business? Who are the biggest vendors? All of those things. And so when we do business succession, that's why, like, for us, you know, as a firm, we wanted to be different and not just creating, well, here's your buy-sell agreement, go on your merry way and maybe fund your life insurance. No, it's like, let's, let's work on making sure everybody involved that you want to be involved understands the process and maybe slowly, right, start giving them ownership of the entity as they, as they go along, as they've demonstrated their ability to, to get things going in the business, their capacity and their willingness to be involved too, right? You might realize at that point, this child Maybe he's not so very interested in it, but this other one loves it, adores it. And so it really allows you that opportunity to see it. Yeah, hands are in it. They're working through it. And the younger that you get them in, the more influence it has. Like my grandparents, every single one of my aunts, my uncle, they all worked in the shops owned by my grandparents and my great uncle and things like that. Like it was just always da da da da da. Yeah, a child care center in Bogotá in Colombia, and there's, I don't know, I'd say like 20 employees and, you know, different stages. My cousins work there, a couple of my aunts work there, and like every single person that, you know, she wants involved in her succession has gotten to know and understand the business. It's just, just really important.

Yeah.

And there's not enough of that here. There's too much of a belief in, well, I want my kids to, again, go to college and then do that thing. And it's like, but wait, you have this huge opportunity right here, this business. And not only does it teach them how to run that business, but it really will teach them how to run any business, right? How to make money whenever you want to make money. By learning how to sell and to market, which are the two big things, the two big ways.

Yeah, absolutely.

And for you, it's like, here's how to do it in a passive way while you're figuring out what are the things that you really enjoy doing.

So yeah, because my eldest wanted to go traveling for some time, um, they wanted to do more music side of things right now. But my idea was that if I can get a couple of assets that pay for them to go and travel a year or two after finishing high school, they can just go and find themselves, find out about the rest of the world a little bit and travel, and then come back. And if they choose to go to college, they can go and study something they're passionate about instead of being just in the grind and— or not the grind really, just the 9-to-5 natural progression of high school to college to then wonder why you went to college or not find the job that you're passionate about and end up working for somebody else for 30 or 40 years. So I think there's a lot to be said for bringing that freedom of choice at a younger age where you can understand what's going on. You can go and travel a bit because travel is so important for kids to understand the world outside of your own country. I mean, you and I are a little different from a lot of people as, as we're immigrants, um, and they've probably traveled outside the country quite extensively versus a lot of Americans haven't even left their own borders. 'But it's the best country in the world.' And, but how do you measure the rest against the best if you've never left?

Yeah, if you've never left.

I think that's really important for people to do at an early age, and it brings back a different perspective of their own country and their own culture.

Most definitely. And that's— I mean, I've had conversations with prospective clients, and you can, you can tell the people that have traveled, that have, you know, experienced just the different ways that people do things, right? Because it's not— it doesn't always have to be the way that it's done here, or the way that it's done in your state, or even in your city or your small town. Um, that is the, the beauty of travel, or if you have the opportunity of living abroad, right? You, you get to understand that there are so many ways to approach different problems. And I think for entrepreneurialism, that's key, right? Like, I think if you're an entrepreneur that's lived in other countries, or you just had kind of like that broader experience, you are probably more willing and more open to listen to employees if they have an idea about something, right? Because that openness about potential ways to solve problems. And I think that also gives you as a child, right, as a child, that opportunity to go, well, you know, there's more than one way to skin a cat. How do we approach this? How do we approach that? Travel is so essential. And I, my son has traveled to Colombia several times and he's renewed his passport. But yeah, it's just, it's eye-opening to see how other people live and how other people get by and how other people figure things out and how other people clean up their countries. And how other people make some mistakes. Yeah, um, it's essential. It's essential for growing up in a balanced way and for valuing, uh, resources differently.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think there's a huge variance in value of resources and time and just, just attitudes to each other as well. I mean, I think, you know, there's obviously very capitalist here, is very, you know, a very socialist— and I don't say that in socialism, but more a less capitalist approach in many other countries. And there's a balance of all of those things that work. But in some countries, when you're so ingrained in one way, it's not going to suddenly change to something completely different. But there's ways that we can bring in ideas from other countries to be helpful in, in, in our own, and vice versa. Again, it's just that openness to, to look at things a different way. And it's interesting how, you know, opinions and mindsets around money are genetic or hereditary, same as political beliefs and other things that— and religious beliefs. We just take them on, but we don't necessarily have the opinion that, oh, this might not be the only way to do it. Maybe we can look at it another way, you know.

So yeah, and it's— I mean, as, as parents, right, it's, it's part of our responsibility to make sure that our children are seeing those windows and opening those windows and opening those doors into the different worlds that exist out there. Not just to go with, you know, the traditional, like, appreciate what you have, but to also go look at the opportunity out there, what you could be doing, right? Because there's no reason to be stuck in this particular way of doing things.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's another behavior we learn is being stubborn or, you know, stuck in ways. Because our parents and our other family are that we don't always see that there is that other opportunity, that other perspective. So I think it's incredible to just talk to other people and be open and accept that nothing's right, nothing's wrong, it's just different.

That's right.

So with your experience of estate planning, just looking at the other end of things, what are the important things that parents should be looking at you know, the key things you firstly is having kids understand maybe what is within the estate and what, what parents are working on. What other considerations would you suggest would be helpful to parents to, um, you know, impress on their children earlier on in life rather than later on in life?

So as far as, you know, if we're talking finances, definitely you need to get comfortable. There's just talking with your children about what you have what your— not budget, but what your lifestyle requires in terms of, you know, money and time and opportunities and finding those opportunities. Certainly when it comes to your children, I mean, there's that aspect of learning to encourage your kids to be open about expressing their opinions and their emotions because it will give you guidance as far as, you know, guardians that are involved, trustees that are involved, people that are going to be the ones helping them make those financial and personal decisions, um, later in life. And so, you know, when you're, when you're picking, when you're picking guardians for your kids, just even picking guardians for your kids, I mean, you think, yeah, you need to think about like what's that guardian's perception of money, right, of, of management of time, of how resources are used, how they're leveraged. Because if you want your kid to— especially with my clients, they're business owners, right— if you want your child to be influenced and continue to be influenced if something happens to you with that entrepreneurial mindset, you need to think about matching them up with people that are similar to that as potential guardians. They're going to continue that lesson going forward. Um, and so it's that, but if you don't teach your children to be open with you about their fears and perceptions and dreams, then they're not going to tell you about whether they're comfortable with that person or not, because that's another big important thing, right? So, um, when it comes to parents and helping them make their decisions about estate plans, that's part of the discussion that we have, you know. Your values need to be reflected in the person that you choose. Yeah, that you choose needs to have real solid relationships with your kids, and you need to teach your kids to be open so that they can have those kinds of discussions with those successor guardians if something happens.

Yeah, perfect. Wonderful. Well, I really appreciate you joining us today, Natalia. It's been wonderful to converse with you and learn more about how, you know, you you found your way through to where you are now. And, you know, really looking, looking forward. And that, that Cardian conversation, matching them with people and their financial perspectives, etc., I hadn't thought of that. So really, really appreciate you coming on with us today. Thank you so much.

Well, thank you, Tristan. I appreciate it very much, and I love this conversation.

Thank you again. I appreciate you.