Good question. I’m going to record your answer and then I’m going to include it on my podcast, which I’m trying to get launched this week. And I will let you listen to it first so that you are not embarrassed. You ready? What’s the question. What is money?
Welcome, BoomXers. Let’s throw out the old playbook. It’s time to tear down the traditional way of looking at your life and, and money and leverage the laws of money to our advantage. That’s right. There are laws of money and those who learn and leverage the laws of money win. And sometimes win big. Stay tuned as asset protection, attorney Darol Tuttle, educator, and leader of the Boom X Nation shows us how. Beginners ,investors, entrepreneurs, fellow attorneys.
Are you ready? Are you ready? Let’s arm this bomb. Now here’s the Boom X Show, The Laws of Money.
Welcome to episode four of the Boom X Show laws of money podcast. I’m your host Darol Tuttle. One of the objectives of this podcast is to offer tips, recommendations to warn you of traps regarding your wealth planning.
I’m on your side. However, The look and feel of the podcast is storytelling for sure. A little bit of humor. I will have guests on the show that I interview as is the case today. I am super excited to announce that Boom X Nation and Boom X Academy have launched and boomxnation.com is the site that is also the home of the Boom X Show, this podcast.
And you know me, I’m going to go overboard sometimes. If you want to know more about the topics that we discussed on this podcast, you can go to boomxshow.com and it will take you to a very unique, I will say this, it may sound a little bit arrogant, but it’s true. I have, of course studied the other podcast in the space about the finance. Financial interest in studies and investing in budgeting and all these things that are out there.
I can tell you, there is no podcasts, like this one. When I launched the Boom X Academy, the whole idea behind it was, hey, let’s let’s just have free and some tuition-based courses, because it does take a lot of effort putting materials and assignments and courses and lessons and all of that.
However, there are and will be free courses at Boom X Academy. And so when I built the website, it was a platform for membership. There’s free memberships. If you want to ask a question that about something that you heard on this podcast, go to Boom X Nation join as a free member. I call it a citizen.
That’s one of the levels citizen of Boom X Nation, it’s free. And I have made a special forum discuss the discussion group. So we don’t have to email and send smoke signals and do all this crazy stuff. Just to ask you a question. Just become a member, go to the form, ask the question, I check it every day, I’ll answer it.
And hopefully we will develop a community and you can share your stories of success and failure and, help other people. That’s the concept. The academy was also part of the chassis, the platform in which I could easily create courses that communicated ideas and concepts about the law. And so I just use that for the podcast.
And so you can go and listen to, re-listened to an episode of the boom at show laws of money podcast, but you can also go to the free to enroll, free to jump around and take what you want. In any order you want. You can jump from episode to episode five or four or whatever, and you will see additional content, my show notes, most of which never even makes it into the episode.
And just to be crazy, I developed this little mascot. Moniker by accident. I have been down in Puerto Rico in the Caribbean episode five, which is coming up. I will tell you the amazing fortune and misfortune, bad luck and blessing that I had while I was there. However, when you’re in Puerto Rico, there is like a field.
Of like pirates of the Caribbean, the parts of the movie was filmed right there. In fact, I was in San Juan at the Vanderbilt hotel. First time I’ve ever been into an infinity pool, like in the pool and you can look out to the Caribbean sea and it’s just, it was just beautiful and amazing. And I’m feeling like, man, I guess maybe this is a little fancy for the pirate theme I’ve been feeling I’ve had since I’ve.
And low and behold, I look out into the Caribbean sea and on the horizon is a wooden big sailing ship, like a pirate ship. I go see, those guys get to land in the minute and have a shore party start looting. But so if you really call every single episode of the Boom X Show has a law of money. I have a separate course.
So the free podcasts where I have content and then there’s each day, there’s a new law of money and we today will be law number three. And just for fun, I created this character, Jack Tar, which is an old, British sailing term for an old salt. And Jack Tar mean the same thing. It is a crusty experienced asset protection.
I mean, pirate captain who has some serious game, but it’s direct and to the point. And so at the end of the episode, you’ll hear this kind of fun Jack Tar recitation of today’s law of money. Now the very first law of money episode one was you can’t take. And so the law of money related to that on the companion courses, do you know that the most generous provision in the entire law and at least in the entire tax code is called step up in basis?
It is a way to avoid capital gains tax. And it is effective at death because the asset of the asset owner must be left behind because Jack tar was right. You can’t take it with you. And if you do it correctly, you are going to get preferential tax treatment in a way that will blow your mind. We have to take a break.
We’ll be back right after this.
Hey, BoomXers. Have you heard about the new Boom X Academy? This online academy offers courses that are taught by Darol Tuttle, host of the Boom X Show and other educators, many courses included digital lesson book, video presentations, and illustrations to help you plan and live a successful retirement.
Welcome back to the Boom X Show laws of money podcast. I’m your host, Darol Tuttle. Have you already earned your money? You’ve already learned how to save and budget and set financial goals, but in the back of your mind, you’re wondering, is there something else I should be doing? The answer is yes, there is.
But where do you go to get the right answer without paying a lot of money to people who speak money management, mumbo jumbo, or worst of all legal ease by attorney. I am one when I can say that, but I’ve got good news. The Boom X Academy is now open for enrollment. We take anyone of any experience level is a willingness to learn about wealth, about the laws of money, about asset protection and legacy. Legacy to hold them protect money for generations, not just one lifetime.
Will we even take lawyers?
So you got to laugh, learn more, go to boomxacademy.com.
I have a special treat for you. When I first started practicing law 1996, I have always been the sort of person that really is not like a team player. Like I’m a lone Wolf. I set up my own law firm, sole practitioner have been on my own from the get go.
And when you graduate from law school, as I had indicated in the first episode that you were licensed to give advice and counsel and legal services and represent people in exchange for compensation. But really what do you know? You have no experience. I started my career and was a criminal defense public defender for about a year.
And at that time of my legal practice, it was very odd because I had two practice areas. A financial advisor had taken a liking to me before I even graduated from law school and said, Hey, I will refer estate planning cases to you. Of course. I said, what do I know about estate planning? I took the class trusts and estates and property and a few other things, but I was intimidated by that.
He said, don’t worry about it. I’ll teach you everything you need to know. I thought you’re a financial advisor. What do you know? It turns out he knew he, he knew quite a bit and of course he referred estate planning cases to me, and I just kept grinding at it and getting better and better until it became the sole focus of my career.
However, in the early days, therefore, just a while I was a criminal defense attorney and that experience exposed me to this term one percenter. I’d never heard that term before, or actually sent, but back then I learned what it was. And a one percenter is a reference to the type of motorcycle enthusiasts that you see out on the roads with their Harley and their logo kind of hell’s angels looking type demeanor. The culture that you see as being related to a criminal gang and the term 1% was back in that fifties, James Dean or somebody in reference to the new Cray fad of people, riding motorcycles, a police officer, somebody famous said 99% of motorcycle enthusiasts are law abiding citizens, the other 1% well in that world, a 1%, or is somebody as a moniker of respect or a moniker of fear that, stay clear that guy, he is 100% invested into supporting the motorcycle lifestyle by dedication to his craft, which is crime.
Now my special guests that I have today, I’m not sure he’s going to like by reference, but he’s the one percenter. There are all kinds of people with different skill sets and education and motivations in the financial world, the money world, both on the legal side and the financial advice side, however, in the law side, I admit I’ve developed a little bit of game as an attorney, but most of my clients have net worth below, but $10 million. In fact, most are below a million dollars. I represent real people, families, middle-class. I said on the first episode, I’ll say it again. If you have net worth of 2 million or above you’re in the top 2% wealth owners in this country.
So wealth and money in America is not what you think it is. Now the guests that I have on the show today works for one family. He spent his entire career in estate planning law. We went to law school together. He also is still an army JAG Corps, national guard officer. So we have that in common and we’ve been in the same community and the practice area since the covered wagon days.
Now, the difference between my practice and his is that he has reached the point where he works for one family in a private office. I can’t tell you the family’s name, but if I did, it was be a name that you recognized. And I call him a one percenter because the work that he does is intensely focused and it is at a level and an understanding of wealth of income and money that most people can really only imagined about. And the family that he helps their wealth would be equivalent or greater than 99% of the wealth owned by the would be greater than the wealth owned by 99% of the rest of us.
And so the question is, law and money have one characteristic in common. They are both made up that like human imagination. Like sure a dollar bill exists in the physical world. You can touch it as a piece of paper, but a hundred dollars bill. It costs the same amount of money to print a $100 bill as a $1 bill.
And, but for the picture of George Washington versus Benjamin Franklin, there’s no difference intrinsically between the two. But yet we associate an idea of value, a concept, an imaginary, an imagination of something else that one has a hundred times more value than the other. The law, like a trust is the bread and butter of estate planning.
Personal assets are held in a trusts. Business assets are held in an S-corporation or an LLC or another type of business entity. However, they do not exist in the physical world. A trust instrument and articles of incorporation are what we say, creates the trust but they’re both instances are pieces of paper with printed words on them and signatures on the back page, when the documents are signed.
They become to us affective, but yet I can’t go out and touch a trust or a corporation. And so exactly what is the value? The idea, the meaning of money. Now, when we come back from the break, I asked this question of my buddy, who is a 1% or a 1% attorney, and I didn’t tell him what I was going to ask him.
And you were here. I am going to play, dedicate the rest of this episode to the conversation that we had. And at the beginning don’t think that there’s a malfunction because there is a long pause as he noodles on the question.
Got to take a break. When we come back, I’ll ask the question to an elite attorney. What is money?
Hey, BoomXers, Darol Tuttle here. We all want to take care of our families. Being a hero to our families can sometimes be a little bit intimidating, conquering the paperwork, understanding the account statement. What is the first step? For years I would say you have to meet the laws requirements.
Must first start with legal documents. Well of course I would say that I’m a lawyer, but now in hindsight, I realize that meeting the laws requirements without the proper system in place to, in a sense, have a place for the legal documents to exist and reside along with your financial information, along with all of the important information about you and your plan to build family wealth is meaningless, but where to start?
Start by first organizing and conquering paperwork clutter. That’s why I put together the boom X Vaults and Everplans system. This online and completely secure digital portal allows you to upload all of your important information. Your financial information, your legal information, your legal documents on top of it, I’ve added the ability for you to add family members, decision-makers to the portal, the financial command post, shall we say so that when the time comes everyone has the right information at the right time.
Let me show you how the boom X vault Everplans system work. Go to boomxshow.online to learn more. I have added helpful step-by-step guides, checklists, and then online community. That’s boomxshow.online, boomxshow.online.
Good question. I’m going to record your answers. And then I’m going to include it on my podcast, which I’m trying to get launched this week. And I will let you listen to it first so that you are not embarrassed. You ready?
What is money?
I can give you a dry kind of technical definition about it being a medium of exchange between parties. I think that you spend a lot of time professionally talking about money, and I don’t think that when you use the concept of money, that’s what you’re referring to. No, I think I think I don’t spend a lot of time talking about money.
I think I spend more time thinking or talking about wealth than I do money specifically, but I do wealth as a broader concept. And in that regard it it can represent a lot of things to different people. It can be the freedom and flexibility to pursue something that you might be interested in and not otherwise be able to do.
So it, it can be the ability to pursue philanthropic interests that having some wealth available to you allows you to do whether it’s, because that allows you to sprinkle and spread that wealth to other people or to other organizations philanthropically or because the wealth allows you to support your lifestyle while you’re going out there.
And doing the philanthropic work, the labor itself so that’s one way of viewing it. You can also think of wealth as a form of security. Having the availability of wealth or money provides a certain amount of security. I think anybody correspondingly not having it provides a certain amount of insecurity to people.
It can be an opportunity to pass along your values to to succeed in generations. So for example, you could use the availability of wealth as a means of educating your children about or your children, grandchildren for that matter about how to responsibly manage something that you’ve been blessed with.
And use it as a way to pass along your values. I’ll use philanthropic interests again as another example of if you’re particularly charitably inclined and you want to pass that value along to then you could use the availability of wealth as a means of establishing a philanthropic organization or making contribution to a charitable trust or something like that.
And then get the kids involved with the management of it and deciding how the wealth is going to be distributed to among charities that might be competing for the attention. So there’s a lot of different ways you could think about wealth and things that you can do with. Yeah, it’s definitely a medium of exchange in commerce, but that was an awesome answer.
I’m disappointed actually. What did you think I was going to say? You know, the Boom X Show, I took it off the radio and have been thinking about my law practice and have been coming close to walking away from it really seriously for five months. And like one of the questions I ask is what is the purpose of your money?
Your description was really great because it is something that allows you to implement your values and your judge, your morals in a sense, but people don’t think that way. And I cannot leak Doug. I’ve been struggling to give my client’s context, the point. And so when I launched the new podcast, I’ve been thinking I think I’m just going to do the topic is going to be money and people’s relationship to it.
And just have more of a kind of vague NPR style quest for the search for purpose. And now I’m going to have to wait until the season two, because your answer was some good. I can’t, I was hoping to ambush you like, Hey, I got this buddy who, if there’s anybody that knows what the answer is, and I thought that you would go through. But so thoughtful and and another thought to, to your question about what is money and some of the answers I was giving you, this kind of gets to the point I was making about.
But a little bit about security, but also passing along values. I guess this kind of goes to values. One of the things that I’ve thought about, a lot of people are trying to build up and save for their retirement because they want to live a certain lifestyle and, we all hear that.
That’s what you’re supposed to do. And I agree with that. I think that and income in excessive, your current consumption needs is great. And if you can save up and be able to live comfortably in retirement that’s wonderful. As it turns out my kids have some interests that may not be things that it would be very fulfilling and I think they would be worthwhile pursuits. But they may not provide for the kind of financial compensation and remuneration that would allow my kids to build up a significant retirement. And so one thought that I’ve had as well, if I can save more than I need for my own return.
Then I can make sure there’s something there to pass along to my kids because I would like them to be able to pursue the kinds of things that they want to, and that make them happy. And that I think are worthwhile pursuits, but they’re of a more artistic nature. And if I can help them live a lifestyle that is more comfortable than it would otherwise be and supplement their income with something that my wife and I can leave.
Well then great. I’m happy to do that because I value the things that they are interested in. I think those are worthwhile pursuits. I just don’t think they taste very well. My goal is to not spend my last nickel as I’m falling over dead. It’s to to be able to bless my children with being able to have the freedom to pursue the things they want to pursue without worrying about living paycheck to paycheck or something like that. Right. So it’s a question of giving them the security they want. Not so much me I’m doing okay. So I guess I’m trying to maybe roll out something on a smaller, individually in smaller state type cases.
That’s analogous to what you’re doing. Okay. You know, generational family trust. And too often, it’s like you have to pull, twist some arms and do some education and put some effort into what it means to just leave your estate outright to your kid versus a trust. And then the trust I draft or the same trust you’ve been drafting and seeing it’s just this template thing that doesn’t resonate with the client.
You’re lucky because you’ve got a mechanism. You’ve got your clients have a system in place. Normal people don’t have a system. That’s why they don’t have a relationship with money to them it’s just hard. It’s hard for them as hard for me too Doug because it’s I am putting out essential documents basically.
And when I read the essential documents, I’m bored and I know what they say, but I still don’t. It’s just ridiculous. So I’m trying to rethink some things. I used to tell people when I would put a trust in front of him and have him sign it this before I came here. And people have a different perspective, but people would look at it and they would look the length of it.
And as I’m walking them through it and explaining different points, I would say, there’s yeah, there’s 25 or 30 pages of paper here. Let’s talk about the four pages that matter to you. The rest of it is just attorneys and accountants talking to each other. That is brilliant. Why didn’t you tell me that five years ago?
Because I finally have said, cause my documents are this thick. They used to be this thick and now they’re that thick because I’m 55. So I made the font larger so I could read it font size 14, but I go look, don’t read these documents. You’re not the target market.
This is for lawyers and IRS agents. And that’s not very satisfying to people, I know they’re like most attorneys have their clients. The clients see the documents at signing for the first time that I don’t know what I’m doing wrong because we have three document review meetings.
And the reason I do. I’m sorry, go ahead. Well, like I started doing that because I didn’t want it to just be a transaction and having more meetings gave meaning to my law practice. Yeah, it gives the relationship more substance. I think that’s important. That’s something that I wrestled with when I was in private practice that people view their estate plan in a very transactional way.
And they do it and they stick it in the drawer or a safety deposit box or something like that. 1,520 years later, they might remember, oh, I should probably take a look at this. Or, maybe my life circumstance has changed enough that I should have somebody review this for me when it probably changed three or four years after you signed the thing.
And that was always a challenge for me because people establish those kinds of close, ongoing relationships with their financial advisors and with their CPAs. But that’s because their financial advisor. They have better reason to sit down and talk to the financial advisory because the market changes and the portfolio changes and things like that.
And they have better reason to talk to their CPA because they need their tax return done every year. But they don’t think they have a reason to sit down and talk to their attorney. And so it really as much to establish the ongoing relationship or to establish any kind of relationship and to not be viewed as somebody who’s just providing a transactional service that is a one and done kind of thing.
That was always one of the challenges for me in estate planning practice is that, you’re always out there on the marketing hustles. Whereas the CPAs and the financial advisors, you do it for 10 or 15 years. And yeah, you want more new clients, but get to a point where you’re comfortable and the work keeps on flowing and in estate planning, you may get follow on work down the road, but once you’ve done the initial transaction, you’re never going to make as much money.
The relationship isn’t as naturally, pneumatized as it is for a CPA and a financial advisor, they keep on making that money over and over again. Yeah. Estate planning attorney, you make a few thousand bucks at the outset and a few years later, somebody needs amendment. How much are you going to charge them for an amendment that takes you two hours to put together?
Yeah. And when it comes to advising on money, if my show is about money like we have super powers, you and I compared to a financial advisor for a few reasons. First our industry actually requires that we take a course. Before we can and it’s a three-year course, whereas a financial advisor the history behind the 1949 investment advisors act was there was so much fraud going on.
Congress said, okay, stop. We’re going to keep an eye on you guys. And the second reason we have superpowers is because, especially man, I’m getting cranky in my old age. I am on your, the clients’ side like you pay me by the hour. I want to know what the rate of return was. I want to tell you, ask you, do you even know what a benchmark is?
How far off the benchmark were you? And this is what these guys charged you. I don’t care if you continue to make the decision to stay where you are another year, but I at least think you should look me in the eye and give me the rationale behind being 10 points below benchmark and paying 6K for a guy that probably did three hours of work the entire year.
For example, the movement is towards everything’s commoditized now. So I can pull a dimensional fund off the shelf for almost free. And these guys are like buy and hold. Okay. Thank you. I would pay 400 bucks for some guy to tell me the correct mutual funds to buy. I don’t need to pay him AUM annually for him to say, good keep it up. Hold it.
Yeah. Yeah. And the some people speak of the robo-advising somewhat derisively, but the fact of matter is that some of the information you can get. I know through Vanguard they’ve got a lot of online tools and fidelity owns something called e-money. And the level of sophistication that you get out of those things, you may have to do some of your own work after that in terms of rebalancing your portfolio.
But but you’re getting the same advice that the financial advisor is going to give you. They’re going to say, oh yeah. Fill out this questionnaire. Give me some information about your age, your goals, your risk tolerance. Those things like that. And okay. Here’s the mix of investments that I recommend for you.
And here’s what you got. Well, hell I mean, they’re getting that information from a computer program. It’s not like they’re sitting there pulling it out of thin air. Yeah the robo-advising is really, I think there’s a lot to be said for it for people who in a range where it makes sense to get some kind of advice, but having an ongoing expensive AUM kind of relationship doesn’t make any sense.
It does not. And those guys only look at retirement as I’m here to help you pay for golf and cruises and Disneyland. They just muck it up when it comes to last phase of life. Dying unreimbursed medical expenses. That’s where the game, that’s where the game is. And I get frustrated. So, thank you.
I’m going to stop the recording so we can, you can feel like you can swear now.
From years of hosting the Boom X Show, I know that often listeners feel like they’re sipping water from a fighter hydrant. You might have a question. You might have a suggestion, but how to reach us. At one point we considered using 20 express, carry a pitcher with another idea.
Also, we looked briefly at smoke signals, but in the end we decided that a free online community would be far easier. That’s why we created a community of BoomXers, a nation. I know we’ll call it BoomX Nation. The free online BoomXnation.com is a perfect way to ask questions about the laws of money, about upcoming events, about financial wealth, building an asset protection without cleaning up after pigeons and feeding horses and sending letters through the mail membership is now open and free at Boom X Nation.
All you have to do is BoomXnation.com. Once again, that’s BoomXnation.com
I recorded that interview with my friend, the one percenter. Let’s see about seven months ago and putting the episode together and listening to our conversation again. I really realized the legal secrets that were unveiled in that conversation. Talk about lifting up the hood and letting everyone, even clients of mine and prospective clients to see what’s underneath.
And what the thought process is to me was liberating. I hope to the clients, I mean, people are not fools. There are monetary interests at stake in the industry. I believe that the duty to the client of the legal services industry is helpful, but candidly, one disappointment I have in my chosen profession is that sometimes essential documents, for example, At prices that are just too high, it keeps people away.
Keep people out of moving forward. The conversation about a transaction candidly has really worn me down as a professional. And I, it’s a major motivation for this podcast in which on a national level we can communicate concepts and even offer tools and solutions at a price that is reasonable.
That is the goal. The concept of money is really the concept of value as human beings. What is the thing that is the most valuable to you? What is the most important thing? I doubt that you’re that different than I am. Then my buddy, the one percenter, I have represented so many people. And at the end of your life, I don’t care what your net worth is.
I don’t care what your education, your occupation, what you did for a living. It does not matter at the end of your life. I know because I’ve witnessed it hundreds of times in my, even my own personal life but amongst my clients is that at the end of your life. Who you will have left around you, is your family and very few or no friends.
I know that’s bleak. It’s an observation. The most important thing is money. When we use the term of family wealth, we do not mean, financial wealth supports family, our values, our objectives, what we stand for as a family, but family wealth is the sense of security that we feel and that we give family members. Adequate clothing, adequate housing, making sure their medical care, making sure that everyone feels supporting at least, or trying to empower as best we can.
Family members to have fulfilling careers. To be geographically locally diversified. We look at family as an entity, as an organization, the strength, not as a collection of individuals, the better the individual does. The stronger the organization is Rockefeller family. The Kennedy think about these generational families and the family that my buddy represents.
It’s a system that is moral and money empowers the financial vision generationally because of the method. Family wealth gives us also the feeling that we’re understood. No one understands this like our family because of the tight bond about we have, a shared financial vision for generations, forget about retirement planning so you can play golf for the first phase of three of your retirement. Looks like we get to listen to Jack Tar as it gives us two days, law of money. This is Darol Tuttle, your host. Episode five coming up, we’ll take us back to the Caribbean.
The third law of money.
Each member of your crew is free to follow their own stock
Each member of the crew must know this ship. The crew knows that together, the ship is strong and a strong ship reaches its destination. Each member receiving a share of the loop guided by its captain. Other captains may consider the treasure to be the loop, but we know different. We know the third law of money. Wealth is not the loop wealth is your crew.
