Do you hate the thought of working past 55 or 60? Do you hate not being able to live the life you deserve today? Do you hate not knowing what your financial future looks like? It's time to stop doing what you hate, here's your host, Mr. Harold Green.
(00:20): A little. Hi everybody. This is Harold Green of Brightree financial group. Hopefully you're having a fantastic day and by the way, it is time to stop doing what you hate, man. It has been a very interesting week to say the least, and I'm happy as always to be sharing with you folks today's show, and we're going to do something a little different today and something that I want to have a little fun with. And it's a real simple exercise that we're going to get into and I'll share with you folks what it is in a moment, but, you know, I want to start off by saying that I think there's a lot of things going on in today's world that if you look at everything in totality, it just kind of makes you scratch your head. But I want to give you a piece of advice.
(01:08): Try not to think about that stuff too much, because it's gonna cost you some emotional capital. So if you can kind of stay away from that and focus on what you need to focus on, then everything is going to be all right. Well, I shouldn't say all right, I'm going to say great. If you, if you do what you need to do, everything is going to be is going to be great. Well, I made it to my spot and it's early on a Saturday morning and I'm sitting out here at Sandy beach and the car just watching the people on the beach and sun hasn't even come up yet. And I was up this morning at about four 30, even though I decided to start taking the weekends off so that I could just have two, two days in a row to, you know, just kind of badge out a little bit.
(01:48): The market is closed. And so I don't have to think about the market when it's closed. And so I said, you know what, I'm just going to take this time and try to relax a little bit and clear my head and then get back at it on Monday morning. But yeah. So let's talk about today's show and the title is invisible strings things that you can't see that are holding you back. So I want to get into this little exercise real quick. So if you would, for me please if you're driving, just kind of take a mental note of this, but if you're, you're sitting down somewhere to take out a pen and a piece of paper and, or you know, your note pad, and I want you to write something down, I want you to think about the things that you want right now that you can afford, but for some reason you won't pull the trigger on it.
(02:39): Okay? So on one side of the paper, write down what it is that you want, write down what it is that it's going to cost that, you know, you're gonna afford it right now. Like if you had to go to the store or the shop or wherever, and just make a purchase, you could just whip out your credit card, write a check and cover the whole entire thing and not even bat an eye, but for some reason you are not doing that. And I want you to write down on the right hand side of the paper, why you aren't doing that. If it's taken a trip and you know, you can afford it, and there's something that's preventing you from doing it. I want you to write down on the right side of the paper, why, and, and do this for a lot of different things that you're thinking about.
(03:18): Just don't do like one thing do like four or five things and just kind of write this list down. Like, man, you know, there's this watch I want to get. It's like 30 grand, write it down and then just say, why you won't go do it. And I want to talk about these invisible strings, the things that are holding us back that we can't see, and we're going to have to cut these strings if we want to fly higher. And I years ago I went to this event that was sponsored by an association that I'm a part of and they had this guest speaker and it's for the, some of the top guys in the country who do what I do. And they had this speaker and it was a small group, like a very intimate group of guys. And it's like maybe 30, 40 guys.
(03:57): And, you know, ladies as well who are just kinda like at the top of what we do. And so the guy was just kind of sharing and sharing and sharing what, whatnot in the sessions. And then, you know, we had lunch and then the lunch was onsite at the facility and the guy came to my table after kind of everybody was kind of gone or whatnot. And he sat down and we started having lunch and talking and he began to ask me questions about my life. He began to ask me questions about my upbringing. He began to pry a little bit more than I felt comfortable with, but just to sit down and talk with this guy in a regular business setting, if you want to engage in it's like 20, 30 grand or something stupid like that. But here he is like just kind of running through the gamut of these things that he does and his sessions with me one-on-one for free.
(04:48): And I don't know why he did it, but he said some things to me. And he said, based on what you're telling me, you have some strings attached as kind of like, you're this, you're this plane and you're trying to take off, but there's a thousand, 2000 pound or whatever, baby grand piano. That's like, you know, and all of these things that are just hanging from UIC at all, these things are hanging from you and they're hanging from you and you're trying to fly. But for some reason, you're not able to elevate and take off because of these things and you have to cut those strings. And when he said that to me, it was like, oh my God, I never thought about that before things from my past things, from my childhood, things just that have happened to me in my life. I was dragging all those things behind me.
(05:39): And it was a, it was a wreck. I couldn't see it myself, but he could see it because that's what he does on a day in and day out basis. When people come in and sit down and talk to me now, I, I know I can see it. I can see it because I do it on a day in and day out basis. And I want to talk to you folks about some of the invisible strings that are holding you back from accomplishing everything that you ever wanted to do in your life. So are you ready? 1, 2, 3. Let's get it. So for me, once I began to cut those invisible strings, one by one by one, the first thing I ended up doing was opening up my own investment farm. One of the hardest things I ever had to do in my entire life, one of the hardest things I ever had to do, because there were so many people that were shooting bullets at me and requesting things and asking me to jump through hurdles that I never knew even existed.
(06:35): And I would complete one thing. And they said, oh yeah, it's not good enough. You've got to go back and get this up because you're new and you're starting out. We want this and we want this. And we want that. I'm like, why in the world are they asking me for all of these things? I'm only, you know, I'm only going to be managing like five, 10 million or something like that to start, but they're treating me like I'm going to be managing over a hundred million dollars in stuff. And, and what I found out was the potential to grow. My firm was so large and they knew that that all of these things will require because they wanted to make sure I had all of my ducks in a row that I was dotting my I's and I was crossing my T's, but I began to cut those invisible strings.
(07:12): And I want to talk to you about why I began to notice and starting started to cut these invisible strings because the primary reason was the feeling of being held back. Like I felt like I wanted to run. I wanted to run. I wanted to run, but something was holding me back and I wanted my finances to be better, but something was holding me back. I wanted to have more in life, but something was holding me back. And what it was was I had an unhealthy relationship with caring a little bit more about what others thought versus what others were doing for me. You know? And sometimes I looked up to people that, you know, that are doing great things and having massive success, but I shouldn't have looked up to them as much as I should have. I put too much faith or too much trust in them that just by being a part of their life, like it would rub off on me.
(08:07): And you know, it would take me to great places, but no, man, that wasn't. So not everybody that you hook your car to is going to take you where you need to go. That's not necessarily true, but I began to feel that I was being held back. So what are some of the things, if you look at your chart, you know, your little piece of paper, what are some of the things that are holding you back from being able to do everything you wanted to do? Write that stuff down. Now, here's a very interesting thing, because a lot of times we don't think about this. We don't think about why we're being held back, but it could be a thing. It could be a what, but it can also be a who. So if you have space in the margin on the right hand side of that piece of paper on the left-hand side, you say, okay, this is what I want to do.
(08:46): I know I can afford it. I can go do it right now, like right now. And then you dictate or you, you notate why you're not doing it. And then if there's a who on the right hand side of that piece of paper, you write their names down and you write down who is preventing you from doing what you know you can afford to do and write down why it could be a very good reason or maybe not. And then the question is, is what do they hold over you? What kind of power are they holding over you? Are they manipulating you in some kind of way? Or the other, you know, is it, if I do this, they're going to throw a, Tincher a temper tantrum and things are not going to be well. And the relationship is going to go bad. And then I'm just going to be, woe is me.
(09:28): Woe is me. Woe is me to hell with that. If it's a, who write their name down, and I want you to think about this because I deal with this here in Hawaii, more than I care to admit. And a lot of my clients know exactly what I'm talking about. You know, Rick James said, cocaine is a hell of a drug, but I'm going to say peer pressure. Peer pressure is a hell of a mountain to overcome. And I'm not going to get into all the stories about when I was growing up, how peer pressure shaped my life positively or negatively, but here in Hawaii, my clients face it all the time. Peer pressure was sharing a story about a family member, a client who, you know, came in and person came in, they became a client and they went back and told their family where they were doing.
(10:13): And they told them, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. That's so stupid. You're so stupid for doing that. And I'm like, yo, that's something you probably going to have to walk away from. Because if you want to get to where you need to be, what they're telling you is just stupid. What they're telling you is stupid. You're not stupid, but what they're telling you is stupid. Peer pressure, peer pressure, peer pressure, peer pressure, and then sometimes it's relationships. And you know, once I'm I had another client come in and a person come in and they were becoming a client. And you know, we were talking about their, their finances and we were talking about things or whatnot. And, and this has happened several times more than I care to admit. So if you're listened to the show and this has happened to you, I am not, you know, telling everybody your story, but this is something that's very common.
(10:59): And so, you know, we got down to brass tacks and whatnot, and we're going through everything and we're looking at all the numbers and they were trying to send their kids off to college or whatnot. And I said, who's your financial planner? I said, have you talked to them about this stuff? And they said, no, we haven't. We haven't brought the subject up. And I said, are they blind? And they said, no, he can see. I said, so if he can see you have kids and he knows that kids, you know, have a tendency to go to college because they need to get educated. Why have they not brought this up to you? When they said, ah, that's a very good question. That's probably something that they don't do. And they, you know, they do this other stuff with us, but, but we, you know, we never thought to ask him that.
(11:42): I said, you know, as soon as a client gets pregnant with me, we're already, I mean, even before they get pregnant, we're talking about education. We're talking about all these things that they can't see because that's my job. And I said, well, I want you to go back and talk to them and tell them, Hey, look, you know, I, I, I think we've had a good relationship, but we're going to have to go our separate ways. And I said, is that going to be a problem? And they said, probably not. I mean, it might because they're a friend from church or wherever and we have to see them all the time. I said, well, that might be a little hard, especially if you go to church and you see them and you're like, yo, I mean, we got to leave. And that's it. Nah. I mean, I mean, what you're saying makes total sense to us because here we are trying to send kids to college and, and nobody's helping us and nobody's putting us in the right direction.
(12:28): The people we're working with, they're not helping. And in other cases, I've seen people come to me and look in the overview, their portfolios, and look at all their stuff and tell them, man, this stuff is underperforming. Why are you still dealing with this? Well it's my cousin, my auntie's son. And we're close or it's my friend from high school and we've been friends for 30 years and you know, I, I trust them and, or whatnot. And I said, but your stuff is not working. Right. So what you, what are you going to do about that? Well, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll see. And a lot of times they never come back and I'm like, okay, that's fine. But those are some invisible screens that are going to cost them a lot of money that, that have already costed them a lot of money.
(13:08): Recently, I was talking to someone and found out that they're getting free financial advice because the family member is in the financial services industry and supposedly they're not charging them. So they have a problem with me charging fees because their family member is giving them free advice. And when I looked at everything and it's like that free advice sucks because they're not as successful as they could be because they're getting free advice because of those strings that are attached, man, that stuff all sucks. And it sucks bad. I want to talk about the feeling of being controlled and that's something you're going to have to look at and see, are you being controlled? Are you being manipulated in some kind of way? Because that's a very real thing. Some spouses will be like, oh, you know, you're spending too much money. And then they get mad at you.
(13:56): Or, you know, they have their own way of thinking about things. And so, because you don't do it their way, they get all mad and have problems with what you do. If you got people in your life like that, you're going to have to make some adjustments, either fix that relationship or terminate it or whatever it might be. But the feeling of being controlled, you go sit down and talk to your planner and they're giving you a hard time about stuff. And you're like, you know, and it's just emotionally draining because they're trying to control you to go a certain way that they want you to go. That's not a healthy relationship, but it's very important to understand that feeling of being controlled and to figure out how to eliminate that. Because maybe the place they're taking to you is not a good place. I want to get into another thing where some people use their money to control their kids or their spouses.
(14:42): You do this, I'll buy you. That money was never meant to be used that way to, to rule over people, to, to Lord over people, to make people serve you. Money is money is a tool that can be used to serve others, not to be used for you to be served, but to serve others. Now there's nothing wrong with getting great service, right? But to control people and to manipulate people with your money is a very evil and dangerous thing. And I see people using it to control their kids all the time. Like if you go to this college to save me money, you know, I'll buy you a car because the savings is so great. And I'm, I'll get you a car, like go here and then I'll buy you a car. Like what if that's not the best thing for that kid's future.
(15:25): But I see people doing that all the time. It's just dumb, but a lot of people do a lot of dumb stuff, right? And I'm not accusing you if you've ever done any dumb stuff, because I've done a lot of dumb stuff too, that I'm not proud of. But you know, doing better than I ever was before. And I want to continue to that. I want to continue on with that if I possibly can. That's my goal. So it leads me to this thing that I want to talk about, because if you're one of my clients and you're listening right now, you've already seen the projections of where you are going to be. You already know where you are now based on the financial planning that we've done. And a lot of my clients are successful and they have quite a bit of money, money that they're never going to be able to use at all, unless they lose it or blow it or something crazy.
(16:12): And so they're going to be leaving quite a bit of money to their kids. And one of the saddest and sickest things that I see is when I see people fighting over inheritance money, sometimes the parents are not even dead yet. And, and the people are fighting over the money. I've seen it time and time again. Well, this person is getting this, you know, and I don't like it because mom is paying for all their bills and mom is paying for their kid's college, but mom's never paid for my kids to go to college. And you know, and so, and it's hard when you see stuff like that, it's, it's unfair. Yes, it's unfair. But you know, if you're a successful and you're doing well, and if your mom has blown all her money on, you know, siblings, I mean, that's, that's their prerogative. It can cause a lot of family, stress, intention and stuff like that.
(17:00): I mean, I've seen it, I've seen it a lot, but when it comes to my client's assets and what they have, my primary goal is to help them maximize their estate. And a lot of my clients have great kids. I mean, you just really good kids. I've met a lot of my clients' kids. We've helped put them through college. A lot of the kids have come back and said, uncle Harold, now I'm making 80 grand a year. What do I do with this money? All right, here we go. Let's go. Let's get started. And it's amazing because some of these kids, when the parents die are going to be getting 10, 15, 30, $40 million based on the projections and based on where they are right now, ask a lot of money. So how do we maximize their estate? That's my goal. And I won't get into that in today's show, but my goal is to maximize the estate.
(17:48): Sometimes people come in, they may have three, $400,000 and they may have a house or two or three, you know, two to $3 million or whatnot. And sometimes it's better to sell the house and put that in an investment fund versus leaving it in the form of a house for several different reasons. So if I know a house is worth a million dollars now, and now's the time to sell it, the question is, is why would they not sell it? Now invest the money. Instead of waiting till 10, 15 years down the road, when it's going to cost them a lot of repairs, a lot of maintenance and a lot of different things like that. Why would they not sell that house now and get rid of it? If now's the time to sell, maybe they can rent it out. Maybe they can do different things with the house, but if we can maximize the value that they leave behind in their estate, if I can take $500,000 and over the next 15 years, turn it into 3 million, right?
(18:36): Why would we not do that? Now again, investments do carry risk of loss. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. I don't want you acting on anything that I say in this show because it's for informational purposes. Only other than I want to say, write down a chart and write things down and take notes and then go do your due diligence on this stuff. But it's important that we, we maximize your estate and it's very important. And a lot of times I'll look at these relationships and I see manipulation. I see manipulation on all different sides when it comes to money and inheritance and stuff like that. You start to see this out of people that you never knew existed. I mean, you can kind of tell that they're they're jackasses and stuff, but man, but when it gets down to the numbers, I mean, boy, you can start to see stuff because people start back calculating and you know, game planning on the side, you know, like, okay, so, you know, I'm assuming my parents have this and I might get this and I might get that.
(19:33): And people don't say that stuff, but I see, I see the gears turning in their mind and it's, it's a dirty thing depending on how they come at it. And I see spouses trying to manipulate their other spouse to try to, you know, make the parents do a certain thing so that they end up with more. I mean, it's just a nasty thing. And I hate seeing that. So what can we do to cancel this thing out, to make sure that our kids are not going to fight over what we leave behind. This is why so many wealthy people would just give all their stuff to the animal shelters instead of giving it to their kids. Because like I said before, money is a magnifier. If you're kind it magnifies kindness, if you're a, it, it magnifies. Or if there is such a word, you know, if you're a giver, it, it magnifies giving money is a magnifier of what's inside of you.
(20:24): So be careful of what's inside of you, but there's three things you can do to avoid or cancel this issue. And I'm going to talk to you guys about my trust agreement. We actually have two separate trusts. I'm looking at getting a third trust here for a particular reason. Well, we wrote in our trust that our kids are the beneficiaries of our trust and the way our trust are designed, they're designed to pour over into trust for my kids only. So whatever assets are in my trust gets split in half and put into two separate trusts for my kids, whatever assets are in my wife's trust. If she dies, I'm the beneficiary. It goes to me first. And then if I die, it splits and goes to my kids. And, and the same with my trust. If I die, it goes to my wife's trust.
(21:16): And then it gets split when she dies and goes to the kids. So basically our assets get shifted down. So our kids through trust that are in other trust, the kids don't take the money out of the trust. And we told them, we said, look straight up. If something happens to us, leave everything inside your trust. Now you can take funds out of the trust. You can take income out of the trust to help your spouse and do things for your family. I said, but if you ever take assets out of that trust, then they become joint property with you and your spouse. So it would be who of you. I know you love them and you trust them and everything like that, but you can use the income off the trust to do things with your spouse and buy a house and all these different things.
(22:01): But if you dissolve this trust and put everything in you and your spouse's name, then that could be very problematic. And that's how we wrote our trust. And so if our kids end up getting divorced and all that, their spouses have nothing to do with the assets that are inside the trust that are left behind for them, that's the way to protect the assets a lot, because you don't know. I mean, I've seen these spouses try to manipulate their families and try to manipulate their way in and try to like, because it's, it's things that they, they have the spouse's ear. And sometimes they say things that are not right. And it's just a very complicated thing that I've seen. So number one have a well executed trust agreement. Number two, communicate to your heirs properly, talk to your kids. And one of the things I talk about is when people say, well, we're going to leave the house to this person.
(22:50): We're going to leave the house. We're going to leave the assets to this person. We're going to leave the house to this kid. And we're going to leave all the IRA money to this kid over here. And I'm like, wait a minute. That's not a fair agreement or a fair arrangement. Here's why if the step-up in basis still exist on the house, the kid who gets the house, they're not going to pay any taxes on it, but the kids who get the IRAs, those IRAs have not been taxed. So when you look at the value and the distributions coming out of that, it's probably not going to be equal. So we do something neat. We have life insurance inside of the trust as the great equalizer. And so if you want to be fair with your kids, you're going to have to look at maybe do I have the right amount of life insurance in there to help offset the taxes that one kids are going to pay versus the other kid is not going to pay any taxes.
(23:36): All of these things need to be thought about and communicated properly. And the third thing you can do is don't tip your hand too early. Don't tell your kid's too early. What you got in, what you got going on, right? Unless they're a part of your charitable foundation and they understand what's going on. They are good with finances. They're not, they're successful in their own, right. And you're good with our spouses. You're good with the family's good. Then you can begin to communicate and share bits and bits and bits at a time. And it would also be a good idea to have them sit in the meetings with the attorney, if it's okay. And if they're mature enough to handle, and they understand the purpose of your wealth, and they're not just going to go off and do some Jack legs, stupid bull crap stuff that you know, just would make your stomach churn, have them in the meetings with the attorneys, the estate planning attorneys and the financial advisors, but don't do it too early.
(24:33): And here's why this stuff is so important. Once you make someone trustee of your trust and you have been deemed in competent that trustee can only be removed. If they get sued by one of the other beneficiaries or whatever for mismanaging the trust. And that's a hard thing to prove unless they're stealing money and stuff like that. So you're going to have to make all these decisions before you get too old and be deemed incompetent because 300 PI five people go into a long-term care situation. Dementia is a very role thing, and I've seen my clients and I've seen their, their parents get dementia and things like that and be deemed incompetent. And then if the parents put the wrong trustee and you know, in power and giving the wrong person, that poverty tourney, that's really hard to overturn. So these things are going to have to be thought out.
(25:24): And a lot of people say, well, how are there's two more, but I don't want to talk about dying. Well, I understand all that, but it's a, it's a part of our lives. It's, it's a part of life. And so the thing you, how to deal with it as you deal with it and you move on, you don't dwell on it and you deal with it and move on. Like, okay, if this happens, then this is what we like to see happen. This is what should happen in the event we go or something like that. We want to make sure we don't start a world war three with our kids, by putting something in there and our trust. And we didn't think about that. No one told us about that. We didn't think about that. I hear that phrase all the time. Well, we need to think about that.
(25:58): Well, didn't the attorney bring that up? Well, no, they didn't. They didn't talk about that. Well, a great attorney, a fiduciary attorney will think about every single thing under the sun, because that's what they're supposed to be doing. So there you have it, these invisible strings, and we're going to have to make sure we cut them so that they don't exist in our financial plan. One of the first things you can do to look at my show notes, get on my calendar. Let's talk, let's see what you got going on to see if there's any invisible strings that are holding you back. And if you major chart, you can bring that with you. Your notepad, you can bring that with you. And we can kind of talk about that too. That's free one hour. It's free. Now, if you want me to evaluate your overall financial plan, that's going to cost you 3 75 an hour. I can package that into two hours and give you two hours for the price of one and just review your overall situation and give you an analysis. I can do that for you as well, but got to make sure there are no strings attached. Thanks for listening to the show, everybody. And until next time, 1, 2, 3, let's get it.
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