On this episode of The Passive Income Attorney, Seth talks to Garrett Sutton, a Rich Dad advisor who is on Robert Kiyosaki’s legal team. This podcast is a must if you have investments in real estate as Garrett explains protecting yourself against unnecessary lawsuits.

 

“The job market, especially lately, is certainly uncertain, and there are challenges ahead. To have that passive income is really a great way for professionals to shape their future.”

 

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 – Intro and background on Garrett
3:30 – Garrett tells you why you should create an entity to invest in real estate and talks about what the best entity is to set up
6:50 – Seth asks why you should do business in Wyoming over somewhere like Texas or California
9:08 – Seth asks if you can buy out of state with an LLC
12:14 – Garrett discusses whether it’s best to set up an LLC for each separate property
16:28 – Seth gives Garrett a scenario that would be common for listeners and asks Garrett to explain what asset protection and tax strategies would look like
21:42 – Garrett prefers to have to separate entities for holding properties and passive investments
24:16 – Garrett shares some of the biggest mistakes he’s seen people make
25:30 – Seth asks about how to deal with toxic clients and how to avoid them
28:37 – Seth asks how to deal with family and friends looking for free legal work
29:57 – Garrett offers one last golden nugget of advice to the listeners
32:29 – It’s time for the Freedom Four – In an Alternative universe when you weren’t involved in asset protection, what would you be doing?
32:57 – What’s the best thing you do to keep your body and mind healthy?
33:20 – Where were you 5 years ago and where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
33:57 – How has passive income made your life better?

 

FIND | GARRETT SUTTON:

Website: www.corporatedirect.com

 

FULL TRANSCRIPTION:

Seth: Law nation. Welcome. As always, I hope you’re having a fantastic day. I’d love to know, do any of you out there, own your own home? Do you own rental properties? Do you invest in commercial real estate? If not, are you considering any of those in the future? If you’ve answered yes to any of those questions, you must listen to this episode so that you can understand how to properly protect yourself from vexatious lawsuits. We live in the most litigious environment in the world, as you know, right here in the US and you know, that’s a double-edged sword for some of us. But if you haven’t heard of today’s guest, you may need to get out of the house more often. And if you haven’t heard of our guest, then perhaps you’ve heard of rich dad, poor dad. Our guest of honor is Garrett Sutton. He’s a rich dad advisor on the Robert Kiyosaki legal team and the best-selling author of count them, six rich dad advisor’s series books, the founder of corporate direct and Sutton law center. Personally, I’m a huge fan and based many of my asset protection strategies for myself and for my clients, from his teachings and recommendations. All right let’s go.

Seth: Garrett, welcome to the show. Really appreciate you coming on today.

Garrett: Thanks Seth. Pleasure to be with you.

Seth: Yeah, absolutely Man. I’m a big fan of yours. Your asset protection strategies and you know, rich dad poor dad and Oh man. Huge fan. So happy to have you on.

Garrett: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Seth: Cool. So, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your company and your business, and just feel free to, to brag a little bit.

Garrett: Well, I went to the university of California at Berkeley and then went across the Bay to San Francisco to Hastings college of the law and practiced in California, spent some time in Washington DC. And when I moved back, I just kind of got tired of the crowd. So, I moved up to Reno in the proximity to Lake Tahoe and I like to ski. And so, it’s been a good move and Nevada is a great state for setting up entities, which I like to do. And I became very fortunate to become associated with Robert Kiyosaki in the year 2000. And so, he’s had me write these books, including loopholes of real estate. You said I could shamelessly promote. So, hold the book up. So, I’ve written books in the rich dad series. I’ve traveled around with, around the world with Robert Kiyosaki preaching financial education and the rich dad poor dad message. And so, it’s just been great. I focused on setting up and maintaining corporations and LLCs and my son is attending the university of Wyoming Now. Wyoming’s a great state for asset protection as well. So, he may take over the business in a few years. So that’s kind of what I’m up to.

Seth: Nice, nice. Well, let’s dive right in, but let’s start with the basics so we don’t put anybody aside right now. Should you form an entity to invest in real estate?

Garrett: You absolutely should. All right. And most of your audience knows that if you hold assets and your individual name and you’re sued they can reach whatever assets are in your individual name. So, to have a duplex in your individual name, a tenant sues over a problem with the property, of course, you’re going to have insurance. But if the claim exceeds the insurance, you’re personally responsible, all of your personal assets are exposed. So, we always recommend that people use an LLC for, you know, their first investment and future investments.

Seth: Gotcha. And so, you would say, LLC is your, is the best entity? Why is it the best entity?

Garrett: I mean, there’s some cases where you’ll use a limited partnership. But in a vast majority of the cases, the LLC is the way to go. It offers great asset protection in the right States, with the LP to do it right you have to set up two entities, the limited partnership, and then an LLC or corporation would be the general partner. With the LLC everyone’s protected within the one entity. You know, there is a tax in California on LLCs. So, in some cases people will use LPs. But you know, gosh, in 95% of the cases Seth we are setting up LLCs.

Seth: Gotcha. And that’s kind of changed over the years. A lot of people used to use partnerships a little bit more prevalently than nowadays, right. And what role do land trusts? I hear a lot about land trusts and people kind of promoting those and using those, especially in California. You know, what role do land trusts have in your asset protection strategies that you set up?

Garrett: Zero. We don’t set up land trusts. There’s no asset protection. There’s so much misinformation on the internet about land trusts. But when you look into them, they offer no asset protection. And you know, this idea that you want privacy and people say, Oh, the land trust offers privacy. But here’s the thing. If you get sued by a tenant, you want notice of that lawsuit. So, you can turn it over to your insurance agency. And these promoters would have you hide behind a land trust where no one can find you. That doesn’t do you well when someone suing you over an injury on the property, you want to get notice as soon as possible so that you can turn it over to your insurance company. So, there are a lot of fallacies with land trusts, so we don’t even set them up.

Seth: Gotcha. So that’s not even part of your asset protection strategy whatsoever or anonymity or anything like that.

Garrett: No.

Seth: Interesting, interesting. Does anonymity play a part in what you set up for your clients?

Garrett: We like using Wyoming LLCs and to hold the state title holding LLCs, and then Wyoming does not list your name on the state website. So, you do have some privacy there. But really when you’re getting sued over an injury on the property, you want to notice you’re going to have the LLC in place. You’re going to have the protection, but you do want to be notified of a claim so you can get it to your insurance company.

Seth: Gotcha. Yeah. That makes sense man. Tell us about, you know, why a Wyoming or Nevada entity rather than, you know, somewhere else like Texas or California.

Garrett: California, New York and Utah are the weakest States. And so if let’s say you have a duplex in a California LLC, on the inside attack where a tenant sues over a problem at the property, the law is the same in all 50 States, they can get what’s inside that LLC, which means you don’t put 20 properties inside one LLC, right? Because they could get the equity in all 20. The outside attack is when you get sued in a car wreck, it has nothing to do with the real estate, but they would, you know, the car wreck victim say the claim exceeds your insurance policy. So, the car wreck victim and their attorney on a contingency of course wants to get at assets because they have a judgment. With the outside attack in California the court says, sure Mr. Car wreck victim, you have a claim against the owner of the duplex. We’re going to let you go in and force the sale of the property. And that’s true in New York and Utah. Wyoming and Nevada, conversely say, no, no, you can’t go in and barge into the LLC and force the sale of the assets. You have to wait until the LLC in Wyoming, for example, makes distributions. And then you get to receive those distributions. So that remedy is called the charging order. The car wreck victim is charged with receiving the distributions that come through the Wyoming, LLC. You may not make any distributions, right? It may stay in the state title holding LLCs and you know, let’s face it. Contingency fee attorneys are economic animals, right? I mean, they’re not going to spend their time going after a charging order in Wyoming. It’s not a good use of their time. They’re better off taking the next case that has enough insurance. So, we recommend a combination of an umbrella policy, you know, personal umbrella policy for your home and autos and then a structure of Wyoming or Nevada LLCs is the best way to go.

Seth: Gotcha. Now, do you need an LLC? If you invest out of state, let’s say, let’s say you live in California and investing out of state in Texas or North Carolina or something like that. Do you need an LLC in those particular States as well?

Garrett: That’s how we set it up. So, let’s say your client is a California resident and we have to do a lot more planning for California than any other. But you know, that’s just the way it is. So, you have a property in North Carolina, we’re going to set up a North Carolina LLC for you, right? That’s going to be on title to the property in North Carolina, you’re collecting rents in North Carolina. You’re part of the state, their state tax system. And if there is a tax in North Carolina, the LLC will file a state tax return, then the North Carolina LLC is held by the Wyoming LLC, which gives us the outside protection on the car wreck case. Now in 49 States, you can hold that Wyoming LLC, without having to pay a state filing fee for your state, California though says, Hey, you’re Seth. You’re managing the Wyoming LLC from California. Ergo, the Wyoming LLC is doing business in the state of California, pay the $800 a year, qualify here. And you know, it’s money. You just have to do it. If they catch you and you haven’t paid the $800, the penalty is $12,000. So, you know, we just have our clients in California pay that $800. Now let’s look at one little wrinkle here. Let’s say you had two North Carolina LLCs, right. For two separate properties, North Carolina. And you didn’t have them owned by the Wyoming. California would say pay us $1600 a year because Seth you’re live in California. You’re managing the first North Carolina. So that has to qualify to do business in California. You’ve managing the second one. So, it’s $1600. So, we’d much rather have just that one Wyoming LLC pay the $800 for California and then all the LLCs above it in the various States, don’t have to pay that darn $800 fee for California. Now will the franchise tax board change the rules here. We can never make that guarantee, right. You never know, but this so far seems to work, just to have that one Wyoming holding LLC qualified to do business in California.

Seth: Gotcha. Yeah. That makes sense. California always makes things a little bit more difficult for you.

Garrett: Well, I mean, they are you know, between X and Y funded and unfunded on the pensions, they’re a trillion dollars in the hole. The state of California itself is a trillion dollars in the hole. So, they’re looking at every way possible to generate revenue, to pay those pensions. And you know, the entities are one way they’re doing that.

Seth: Yeah. I mean, they tend to spend more and more money though. So, I don’t know if they’re ever going to catch up.

Garrett: How do you tax enough to get a trillion dollars made up? I don’t how that [10:19 inaudible]. I think you may be state nationalized Google or something.

Seth: Yeah. I’ve got to do something extreme, that’s for sure. So, do you recommend getting a separate entity for every single property?

Garrett: You know, set that’s a judgment call. I have some clients who the best asset protection is one property per LLC. Now we’ll have some clients that are investing in mobile homes in North Dakota, right? For the [10:49 inaudible]. And those mobile homes are only worth $20,000 each. And so, they’ll put a couple into one LLC. You know, we explained that the risk is if a tenant sues over one property, they can get whatever’s inside that LLC, but you know, three mobile homes worth $20,000 each. Maybe you use one LLC, but it’s a judgment call. So, we explain that to our clients and let them make the decision. It’s their decision, how many properties per LLC.

Seth: Gotcha. So, it was more of kind of a risk tolerance thing. You just create a; each LLC is a bucket and you put however many properties you’re comfortable with putting in that bucket.

Garrett: Right.

Seth: Gotcha. Gotcha. So, I’ve heard that and you can tell me if this is wrong as well, 50% of the time LLCs corporate veils are pierced, if it ever gets to kind of a litigation phase, is that true?

Garrett: That’s true. And, you know, you have different surveys out there. Some say it’s more like 40%. Some say it’s up to 50%, but that’s a very high number, no matter which survey you look at. And it’s staggering to me that people are not following the corporate formalities of having a meeting once a year, you know, paying their annual fees. And so that’s my next book I’m working on is piercing the veil because it’s a very important issue in LLC and corporate law. And it’s the most litigated issue there is, and it’s happening. It’s successful in almost 50% of the cases.

Seth: Yeah. That number is really scary. You go through all these hoops to, you know, form your LLCs and you think you’re protected. And then it gets to a certain point in litigation and it’s like, Whoa, I didn’t do everything correctly. So, you know, what are some of those corporate formalities that will keep a court from doing that?

Garrett: Well you know, there’s a list in California and there’s a list of 14 different factors a court to look at, and it’s not just one alone. You have to have a couple. And then there has to be some inherent wrong involved as well. You know, people hiding behind the corporation, so they don’t have to pay debts and all, but you know, the minutes every year, having that minute book with annual meeting minutes is important. I mean, you’ve got to pay the charter, the state fee every year. I mean, it’s hard to say I deserve corporate protection when you haven’t paid your fees every year. You need to have that separate tax return. You need to have anchor LLC on all of your documents. You need to provide corporate notice. Another big one is under capitalization, right? In Texas, it’s required when you start an entity, you have to start with at least a thousand dollars. Not many States have that rule, but under capitalization, getting involved in a business that is going to cost you $50,000 to get going and only putting $5,000 into the business. That’s another factor. So, there are a number of them, but you just have to pay attention to these corporate formalities. Because they’re not hard to follow, but if you don’t follow them, the results are pretty dramatic. You’re personally responsible.

Seth: Right. Right. Well, let’s walk through one of the most common scenarios for perhaps one of our listeners and we kind of touched on it already, but you know, I’d like to get just kind of a straight up answer. If we’ve got, you know, let’s say one of our listeners lives in California, they’re high income earning professional. They probably own their own home. Let’s say they have two rentals, you know, out-of-state more than likely. And they also invest passively in syndications. And then another quick little thing, you know, maybe they have a 401k and are thinking about rolling that over into an SD IRA or you know, a solo 401k, I don’t know where you would hold that sort of thing as well. What would your asset protection strategy and tax strategy really look like with something like that?

Garrett: Well, okay. So, we have a high-income person in California. They own their own home. The first way we look at protecting the home is with the homestead exemption, Texas and Florida, it’s unlimited, which is great. California is only a $100,000. So, I mean, that’s an outbuilding now in California.

Seth: Not going to get you very far.

Garrett: Not going to get you that far. So, some people will put their personal residence into an LLC. There’s a California court case saying that doesn’t work in bankruptcy. You can’t use an LLC to protect your house, but in a regular situation, you put title to the house is in an LLC. You would pay rent to the LLC. The LLC in turn would pay any mortgages or payments. So that would be one way to protect the house. Then the individual owns, let’s just say our North Carolina example, they’ve got the two properties, or let’s say that one’s in South Carolina, one’s in North Carolina. You have an entity in North Carolina for that property, a South Carolina LLC for the other property. And again, in our example, that is owned by one Wyoming LLC, which we have to qualify to do business in California. Now, if that professional is thinking of moving from California, and I hear all day long that people are, we see it in Marino. I mean every 10th plate is a California license plate now. If you’re going to move from California, we wouldn’t then say you moved to Texas. We wouldn’t have to qualify the Wyoming LLC to do business in California because you’ve left the state. So, we’ve set it up in a way that allows for people to keep the same structure when they leave the state. So, the California person has the two LLCs and the Carolinas owned by the Wyoming, LLC qualified in California when they moved to Texas and we don’t have to qualify back into California. You’re not living there. And then on the 401k, it means typically those assets are protected, but then when you buy real estate with one, you do need the LLC. Because if you take title to the real estate in the name of your 401k and a tenant sues, you’re letting them right inside your retirement account. We don’t want that. The other issue Seth, with having these retirement accounts by real estate is you lose the benefit of depreciation, right? That gets stuck in the retirement account. And it never really flows through to you as an investor. So, I would caution people to think twice about using their retirement monies for investing in real estate. Sometimes when you run the numbers, it’s almost better to pay the penalty and just pull the money out of your retirement account and then invest through an LLC so you can get the depreciation. And then what was the last question on that one?

Seth: The other piece was that they also invest passively in syndications. And that brings up that other question. Do you need to use an entity to invest in syndications or can you just invest as individual or what would you recommend?

Garrett: So, I like using the LLC to invest in the syndications just because the, the attorney that’s going to go after that. I mean, they can get inside the, you know, if it’s a weak state, if we have the Wyoming LLC holding your syndications, and we probably only need one Wyoming LLC for holding all of your syndications you know, that one though would have to be qualified in California again, if you’re living in California. But I like that because let’s say you invest in a California LLC that has a syndication. You know, the creditor coming after you has, can step in your shoes on that one. So, having the Wyoming LLC in the charging order just makes it a little bit more difficult for that creditor. And again, I think having the umbrella policy of insurance, if you live in California, you probably need at least 2 million in umbrella, personal umbrella coverage. And, you know, it’s only $400 per year per a million. So, it’s pretty inexpensive insurance. And I just think if you have that insurance, the attorneys know how to get at the insurance monies and, you know, unless it’s a huge claim, they probably don’t want to mess with the you know, the charging order from a Wyoming LLC.

Seth: Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. And then just to be clear though, I mean that to have that Wyoming LLC is really for the outside protection, right? Not necessarily the quote unquote inside protection, because you’re going to be investing as a limited partner or, you know, a member that’s going to have limited liability.

Garrett: Correct. Exactly Right. And that’s true in all 50 States.

Seth: Gotcha. Gotcha. And then would that Wyoming entity be separate from the other Wyoming entity that’s holding the properties directly? Let’s say that in the example of the North Carolina and South Carolina property.

Garrett: Judgment call, I prefer to have two separate ones, one for the passive investments and one for the real estate holding investments, but it’s a judgment call it’s up to the client.

Seth: Gotcha. Okay. Cool. And then I’ve heard that some people recommend, especially for California investors to have a quote unquote, property management, California, LLC, that kind of manages all their rental properties out of state. Now, is that part of your recommendation or in any scenario or not?

Garrett: You know, in some scenarios we just have to be careful. In most States you don’t need a real estate license to manage your own properties. But just be careful what, you know, your friend says, geez, you’re doing a great job with your property management. Would you do it for me? In most States, you have to get a real estate license to do that. Also, the management company in California, if you’re actively managing a property in Texas these States may say you have to qualify to do business in Texas. So, just be aware of that. But, you know, we have some clients that will set up a management company as a C Corp and with a C Corp, you control the spigot, how much goes into the management company. But the C Corp we can pay for your healthcare premiums as an expense. So that’s a little wrinkle where we do see people set up management companies for that purpose.

Seth: Gotcha. And one more addition to this scenario, same scenario, but let’s say they live in a different state, a less regulated state, not California. Let’s just say Texas, for instance. Same scenario though. Would anything change with your asset protection strategy?

Garrett: For the Texas citizen, you know, I would think that you would still have a management company in Texas for the property management. I just, I think people need to be aware of the local rules with regard to property management.

Seth: But you would say I’m talking about, let’s say the Wyoming LLC structure that holds interest in the state-specific property holding LLC structures that stays the same.

Garrett: That’s true across the board, whether you’re a California resident, a New York resident, whatever that, that structure is what we provide for our clients nationwide.

Seth: Gotcha. Well, like there’s quite a few things you can you can screw up here, man. So, what are some of the most common asset protection mistakes you’ve seen people make well set?

Garrett: The big one is that they set up the LLC and they think they’re protected. You’ve got to take that next step of transferring title into the name of the LLC. All right. And you’re going to use a grant date or a warranty deed. You’re not going to use a quit claim deed because you sever the title insurance that you have. So that’s a big one. Another one and you, you touched on it earlier, Seth is the corporate formalities, you know, they just forget to do the annual minutes to follow the formalities that keep them protected.

Seth: Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that 40% to 50% number is really scary.

Garrett: And it’s so easy to avoid. Right.

Seth: Right. There’s just little things you have to do, but you have to make sure that you do them, correct. So, let’s switch gears a little bit, because I’ve heard you speak on this topic before. And I thought it would be really interesting to dive in, especially with, you know, many of our listeners are attorneys and doctors and other professionals that interact with clients pretty much on a daily basis. So, you know, what advice do have on, you know, identifying and dealing with toxic clients?

Garrett: Well, I wrote a book about it, right and as attorneys and doctors, we’ve all had our share of toxic clients. And you know, when you first start out in business, you want everybody, you want every client, right? And so, we just let everybody in the door and as you get more experienced in business, you realize that not every client is a good client. And so, you need to develop that Spidey sense that you’re not going to take every client. And it’s gotten to the point in our practice where, I mean, we deal with great people, but you know, one out of a hundred you know, I mean one out of a hundred people in our society has mental illness issues, you know, but one out of a hundred just create more problems than they’re worth. And so, our staff has free reign to say, I’m sorry, I just don’t think we can help you. If that person is demanding and wanting discounts and, you know, taking up the incorporating specialist time you know, we, I give them permission to say, you know, I just don’t think that we will be able to help you. And I suggest you look elsewhere. And once you get to that point, your practice becomes much better because it’s the old 80/20 rule. I mean, you know, when you get started out,  you know, 20% of your clients are 80% of your problems and you, you want to reverse that or not have problems at all. But you know, as professionals, we all have to deal with the toxic clients and we need to have some, some standards once we get into business and realize that not every client is a good client, we need standards to assert and, and let them go, let them go somewhere else.

Seth: Yeah. So how do you avoid those toxic clients? Is it more of a kind of an experience thing? I mean, at first, you know, you pretty much got accept, whatever comes your way and then, you know, over time that that changes. So how do you, how do you avoid that? You know, as early as possible?

Garrett: That’s a good question. I mean, I think it’s a variance, right? I mean, do you have a unique practice and people are going to be coming to you for certain issues and you just have to develop that, that knowing sense that this person is not going to be right for your firm. And it’s, you know, a lot of times people don’t listen to their gut. I mean, your, your instincts. I mean, they’ve been with us for millennia and they’re there for a reason. And so, you, you know, you should listen to your, your instincts, that little voice that tells you something is wrong. That’s worth listening to, and having people just go their Merry way so that they don’t ruin your practice.

Seth: Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. Haven’t happened before, still happening. Still have it, still have it. So, one question, I think that all, at least the attorneys on that are listening have dealt with. I mean, how do you deal with, with freeloaders? How do you deal with Cousin Todd asking you for free legal advice all the time?

Garrett: Yeah, the cousin issue. That’s a tough one. I mean, but you know, at the cocktail party I I’ll give him a little bit of advice, but not too much, you know, you just have to you know, learn to switch to football or something else. But people who call in, you know, people will call our office, we offer a free 15-minute consultation with one of our incorporating specialists. And if that person is calling and asking question after question after question, I mean, it’s, we give them free 15 minutes to see if we can help them. But if they’re sending back emails with more and more questions you know, we tell them, I’m sorry, you know, if you want to set up an entity, you can, but we’re not here to answer your questions because you know what happens, Seth is those guys get as much information as they can. And then they go to legal zoom. Well, that didn’t help us. So, you know, we’re not there to be a resource for legal zoom.

Seth: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s a fine line there between being helpful. You want to help people out, but at the same time, you’ve got to, you’ve got to value your time as well. And you know, you’ve got to draw a line. Yep. Yeah. So, what, what’s one last golden nugget you have for our listeners with asset protection or with, you know, with, with the, you know, valuing your time, anything.

Garrett: Well, in terms of asset protection, I just think you have a lot of attorneys and doctors listening. And, you know, we know that as professionals our society paints a big red bullseye on our back, right? I mean, throughout society, if you’ve been wronged, if you’ve been in a car wreck of a doctor has treated you poorly, you get to Sue, right. And so, we’re not going to change that, that’s the system, right. But we need, the system does allow us to protect ourselves. And so, you need to take advantage of the system of LLCs and corporations and insurance to protect yourself and just, you know, these people, my dad’s generation, there wasn’t as much litigation then. And they, and my dad and his friends said, I’ll never get sued. You know, people don’t sue, and society has changed. People do Sue and you’ve got to be protected right from the start. And I wish they had courses where they taught doctors asset protection. You know, my wife is a doctor and they, you know, they get out of med school with the God complex and they don’t realize that there are issues that they need to protect themselves on that they weren’t taught in med school or any other professional school. They don’t even teach asset protection in law school unfortunately.

Seth: Yeah. Financial education, just as a general, it’s just a huge void in our education throughout grade school and college and everything else.

Garrett: Absolutely. And when I travel around the world, rather with Robert Kiyosaki, it’s true all over the world. People come to our events in Chile and Australia all over because they’re not taught financial education anywhere in schools. So this is a huge gap that at some point, hopefully we overcome because kids getting out of school today you know, they don’t know how to deal with banks and mortgages, and there’s so much fraud out there. I mean, we just really need to teach our young kids how to be better you know, financial stewards of their own future.

Seth: Yeah, that’s an interesting perspective. So, you haven’t seen, even in other countries outside of the U S that do it better?

Garrett: The events that we have are crowded with people who are looking for the same information that people don’t get in the United States. So, it’s a worldwide phenomenon.

Seth: Wow. That’s interesting. Well, let’s dive into the freedom four. So, feel free to get creative with this, but in an alternative universe where you weren’t involved in real estate or asset protection, what would you be doing?

Garrett: Well, if I could hit a curveball, I’d be playing major league baseball. So that would be more enjoyable than being a lawyer. Sorry. But you know, that would be great.

Seth: Nice. I love it. I love it. What’s the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy?

Garrett: You know, Seth, I exercise every morning, you know, I just got to get the blood flowing. I tend to get up early at about 4.30 and right. And then, you know, by about seven, I’m ready to exercise. And that just for me, makes the day.

Seth: Yup. It’s good to get the juices flown in the morning so you can ride that wave throughout the day. So where were you at five years ago? And where do you see yourself five years from now?

Garrett: Well, five years ago, I was kind of in the same spot, you know doing the rich dad teaching you know, I’m on the phone with people from around the country, around the world. You know, a lot of people from other countries are investing in US real estate. Our doors are open, they’re free to set up LLCs as well. Five years from now, I think I’m going to be coaching my son on how to take over the business. So that’ll be fun.

Seth: Nice. Something to look forward to for sure. So, I know you invest in real estate and obviously you’ve written many books, so, you know, how has passive income made your life better?

Garrett: You know, Seth it really has made my life better. When I first started working with Robert Kiyosaki, I was not really a real estate investor. And he pretty much said, look, if you’re going to do this, you’ve got to invest in real estate. And I look back 20 years later, it’s the best thing I ever did besides having kids, you know, I mean, investing in real estate, it’s just been a terrific thing for my wife and my family. And I have plenty of clients in the same boat, Seth, and they look back even 10 years and go, thank God I invested in real estate. Because as we know, the job market, especially lately is certainly uncertain. And you know, there are challenges ahead. To have that passive income is really a great way for professionals to you know, shape their future. As professionals, we’re really, you know, we’re kind of high-paid manual labor. I mean, you’re only good for the hours you can put in, right? At some point like that painter or a plumber, you can’t keep doing this every hour. And so, you need to have that passive income as you retire so that you can enjoy the lifestyle you’ve come to become used to.

Seth: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, we might get paid a little bit more per hour, but we’re still, you know, we only have 24 hours in a day, so we’re still trading time for money.

Garrett: Exactly. And you got it. That money is, as it comes in, you’ve got to allocate it to assets that are going to work for you in later years.

Seth: Yup, absolutely agree. Man, this has been awesome, Garrett. I really appreciate you coming on today. Where can our listeners learn more about you?

Garrett: Well, our main website is www.corporatedirect.com. And from there you can, if you want to get a free 15-minute consult to see how we could help you, our fees are very affordable. We do not, I mean, when you compare apples to oranges, apples to apples, we’re the same as many of the online providers, but we do a much more thorough job or there to answer the phone. Some of those providers know that when you’ve paid the money, they don’t have to answer the phone anymore. So, we continue to answer the phone but so they can go to corporate direct.com and set up a free 15-minute console with one of our incorporating specialists to see how we can help you.

Seth: That’s great, man. Thanks, Garrett. Really appreciate it.

Garrett: Thanks for having me Seth.

Seth: There it is folks. Wow. Garrett is an absolute legend in the asset protection space. You know, it’s not that complicated and it’s not that time-consuming, but there are certain hoops that you must jump through in order to get protection under the law that you need to build and preserve your wealth. It doesn’t matter if it goes through Garrett or myself or another asset protection attorney, but you just need to be proactive. Get your structure in place as early as possible. And CYA. If you’re interested in learning more about asset protection, schedule a call with me at www.bradleylawlimited.com or to learn more about passive investing in alternative assets. Go to passive income attorney.com and download my free guide. Catch you on the next one. Enjoy the journey.