New Way to Secure Your Wealth: Trusts vs. Wills I Matthew Schloss DSH #509

My dad's will was like 10 years old, so he gave me a car.

I mean, I didn't want anything anyways, but yeah, it was just like outdated.

Right.

That's usually the problem.

You know, we believe in working middle class that

all you need is a will.

But when you own a, the minute you own a property and you have kids that are under 18, you need a trust.

The trust is what protects everything.

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All right, guys, from Foster Care to Millionaire, we got Matt Schloss here today.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Welcome, or thanks for having me.

I'm happy to be here.

Yeah, what a story.

That's not a common one, man.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I started my life out really in poverty, just living downtown San Jose is where I was born and in California.

And, you know, my parents and I were kind of hopping around from hotel to hotel and living in different cars.

And, you know, my parents were at that time doing their best.

And from then on, you know, I went into foster care like around the age of four.

And then from then until about age of nine is when I was finally back with my parents.

And, you know, that, that little, that little span there kind of gave me a great view into what I don't want for my family.

So I use that now to inspire people rather than asking for pity or anything.

It's more of like, you know, your past doesn't define you.

It can actually make you and you can rise up from what people have gone through.

That's powerful.

So, age four to nine in foster care system, you're really young at that time.

Do you remember a lot of stuff?

I remember a good amount.

Most of the most of the bad stuff.

Foster care is not fun.

And it also feeds into what I do today, you know, helping people with trust and wills and making sure that less kids are going to foster care because it's very bad and it's only gotten worse.

Dang.

How packed was it when you were there?

Well, one family I lived with, they were taking care of like four kids.

And I was one of them.

And this was probably the worst family I was with.

And I remember sitting there at dinner, And if you misbehave, they would give you like cream of mushroom soup.

I don't have ever had cream of mushroom soup.

I've heard of it.

It's disgusting.

It's gross.

And so we would eat cream of mushroom soup and everyone else would get McDonald's.

And I remember sitting there and I like scratched my head and like lice and bugs fell on the table.

Holy crap.

And this lady looks at me and she's like, you're disgusting.

You'll take a bath.

And I'm like, I don't, I'm freaking five years old.

Like, I don't take my own baths, you know.

Dang.

So I remember those types of things.

And so that's a big passion for me is why, you know, I really want to make an impact in foster care and helping kids that age out.

That's usually the worst time is, you know, nobody wants them.

So now they're, they're all left to their own device and they got to figure out from there.

That's crazy.

And going back to your original family, I feel like that's pretty rare for the foster care system.

Which part?

Like you said, your family dropped you off at four and you reunited with them at nine?

I was taken away at four.

Oh, taken away?

Yeah, me and my sister, we were both taken away at four.

Because they couldn't afford having kids?

No, my parents had made some choices that were not good at that time.

And luckily, my parents, you you know, cleaned up and did what they needed to do.

And I'm grateful for them.

So then once they did what they needed to do, we went back to them at the age of nine.

When I was nine, my sister was four or five.

Got it.

And you were still in a pretty poverty like area when you got back?

By the time I got back, my parents had done pretty well.

They got back into like a nice place.

My dad and mom were both working.

So they've done pretty well for themselves at that point.

But no, nowhere near like upper class or anything.

We were still, you know, very middle class.

Okay.

And then from there, you went through school and then eventually got into real estate?

uh no actually so i went into school uh did a little bit i played football for a while went to jc um and then from there just kind of went into corporate america started working for home depot uh started working as like an operations manager for them for about four and a half five years uh then started working for another company called air gas and like their external sales and then from there got actually got into uh finance okay yep so working in um you know life insurance infinite banking uh wills family trusts that kind of stuff that's a whole nother game a lot of people don't get educated on that type of stuff.

No, they just basic money concepts, like these things we should be taught in school for sure.

And we're not, and it's really bad.

I know people that have passed away recently that don't have wills.

None.

And then the family scrambling and fighting.

Some people just don't want any part of it.

My dad's will was like 10 years old.

So he gave me a car.

I mean, I didn't want anything anyways, but yeah, it was just like outdated.

Right.

That's usually the problem.

You know,

we believe in working middle class that

all you need is a will.

But when you own a, the menu own a property and you have kids that are under 18, you need a trust.

The trust is what protects everything.

And so

we work with a group of lawyers that will, you know, they work all across the U.S.

and they'll help put those trusts in place.

Power of attorneys and wills and everything that you need.

Because the other part about it is when someone's sick and they're in the hospital, well, your spouse can't always make those decisions for you.

So that's why you have a power of attorney.

So if you like, the doctors would decide if the plug needs to be pulled or not, and your spouse can't make that decision.

It has to be the doctors unless you have that power of attorney.

And so it's very, very vital to have that stuff.

A lot of famous people have died without trusts.

Bramps, Michael Jackson.

He didn't have them?

Nope.

Wow.

None of them did.

He didn't have the statement.

That's crazy.

None of them.

That's actually really surprising because most of those big artists, I feel like, have them.

You would think they do.

Some of them are starting to now.

They're starting to see their friends pass away without and what their families are having to go through.

So a lot of them are starting to get them.

But it's just, again, it comes down to education and the people we're listening to.

The trusts are also good to have for business too.

Yes.

Protect your assets.

Very important.

A lot of people get sued at a high level.

So to have it in a trust.

Yeah.

You just take everything off of yourself, put it into a trust, and then you don't like you, you own everything, but it's not on paper.

Yeah, yeah.

So when you get sued or if something like that happens, I don't own anything.

Yeah.

On paper, I'm broke.

If someone were to sue me right now, they would probably back out because they would see I have a thousand dollars in my bank.

And that's the way it should be.

That's the way it's supposed to be.

Yeah.

It makes me feel comfortable.

Good.

Because I used to keep everything in my personal name.

Yeah.

And that was just stupid.

Yep.

It's not stupid.

It's just, again, uneducated.

It's where are we getting our information from?

It's really what it breaks down to.

So walk me through your setup.

Like you have an LLC, which you put in a trust.

And then do you put all your companies and real estate and assets in that too?

Yep.

So as we build and we tie everything into our trust, my son's in our trust.

My business ownership is in our trust.

Everything is around that.

So again, like on paper, I look extremely broke.

But when you look into and dive into what we own and what we have, it's all tied into a trust

and broken down.

And you got the health insurance in there, too.

Yep, everything.

Health insurance, everything.

That's something people don't get educated on also.

Health and health and life.

You know, a lot of individuals, they build their estate, you know, when you get to a certain amount in your estate,

it still can be tax-free when you pass it on to the family.

But once you get to around 13, 14 million, if your estate is past that, everything past that threshold is going to be taxed.

So now what you can do is you can create something called an eyelet, an irrevocable life insurance trust.

And that islet holds a certain amount of insurance and it can be cash value or term or whole life or whatever you want.

And now if your estate grows to 20 million, that islet is removed from your estate.

And so now that can be paid out to pay for any taxes that are left or, you know, step up and basis on property or anything like that.

So now the family can retain everything and not have a bunch of taxes.

Yeah.

That's good to know because a lot of people can't even retire right now.

They don't have enough money or they don't know the right information.

Yeah.

A lot of people are retiring around 65 and have 200,000 sitting in a 401k.

That's not enough.

That's the meeting.

Nowhere near enough.

That'll last you a year or two.

Yeah, you probably need a few million, right?

Right now, they're saying it's around 1.4 to 1.6 million, depending on what article you're reading.

Some are even saying 3 million.

Jeez.

Because by the time, you know, I'm 35, by the time we get there, if you're in a deferred account, then you're going to need to wait for taxes to pay out.

Like, there's so much that goes into it.

Yeah.

So 1.4 to 3 million is what you need saved up by the time you retire now.

Crazy.

I just saw a crazy article

because of inflation.

So we're going to need to make about $30 million, like me and you to retire throughout our lifetime.

100%.

Isn't that crazy?

It's very crazy.

And that's a million.

So we're working our butts off so we can make that happen.

I know.

Like being a millionaire is not enough anymore.

It isn't.

I mean, it used to be in like the 50s, 60s, 70s.

Nope.

Yeah, even then, like, I think people, you know,

people now making $100,000, depending on where you live, you're not, you're barely getting by.

Maybe a vacation a year.

Yeah.

And you're still stressed out.

Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, you know?

And so I used to make about $100,000 a year.

And now with the income we have, I look at that now and I go, dang, we still, we got to turn that up even more.

Yeah.

You know, so like our mentors and stuff, we talk about a million a month.

What can we do?

What can we build to get to a million a month passive income?

Yeah.

So you believe in passive income?

Because people, there's some people that say it doesn't exist, especially with real estate.

Yeah.

Well, real estate isn't passive.

It's very active because you got to manage the house.

You got to fix the things.

Like there's so much that goes into real estate.

It's very hard to make it passive.

Passive is something where it can run itself without you being involved and you still generate income right passive income so the you know we're building a business in the finance industry and we have almost a hundred licensed agents across the u.s so now that my my business partners are going out and helping families and then the agency is is delving out passive income for that got it right so i'm not necessarily sitting with someone while they're helping a family they're taking care of them and then the the company pays out you know overrides and and spreads for that part of the business so we want to grow to a thousand two thousand ten thousand license agents all across the u.s now that's a hundred percent passive income, right?

That's what PBD did, right?

And Ed Milette.

Yep, and Ed Milet.

Yeah, they crushed it.

I think PBD sold.

He did.

And Ed Milet, I don't know if Ed sold, but he has not.

Worth a lot of money.

He's working on walking away from the industries, but he's in and out again.

But that's pretty much what he did and PBD for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't plan on selling, though.

Really?

We're going to build it big.

Yeah.

You don't ever want to sell?

No, I want to pass it on to my kids.

Wow.

I want to give it to them.

I want to build something so big that it's for the next 10, 15 generations.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like that take.

I mean, it depends on the kid.

That too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hopefully.

The minute you're watching this, you better behave.

Yeah.

Because there's some generations where I don't know what happens, but they can't hang.

The mental toughness these days, it's not there.

Yeah.

Like I call it the snowflake generation.

And I want to get offensive on here, but it's just, you know, I always, I think about mental toughness and really what mental toughness is.

It's doing the things you need to do regardless of how you feel.

It's winning in spite of what you're going through in life.

And

most people now, when you look at like, go back 100 years, go back 200 years, you know, for us to eat and get water, like it wasn't as easy as it is now.

But like, if you have family, they're depending on you for two, three weeks going out there.

You got to go hunt.

You got to go get the meat.

You got to bring it back.

Right.

And when you bring it back, you put this

meat right in front of the fireplace and your family's jumping up and down.

They're excited.

And now you're prepping it.

And now you're cooking.

And the mental toughness of that is a whole nother level compared to what we're used to now.

Right.

Where now you can can just order food right to your room.

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Yeah, it's definitely gotten easier.

I feel like with every generation, it's gotten easier and easier to live.

Yeah.

And now we're overeating, doing what?

a bunch of stuff and we're getting unhealthy.

I don't know.

We'll see if it keeps getting softer.

Yeah, it's very soft right now.

It is.

It's hard to make, it's hard to build a business with that because now you're trying to find those that aren't snowflake soft.

And you don't,

you know what I mean?

Yeah, that mentality is getting tough to find.

It is.

It really is.

I don't know why I had it at a young age because my parents were both immigrants.

So maybe I just subconsciously picked up on their work ethic.

But I always had a pretty locked-in mindset.

Yeah.

You know, people come from different countries.

Like my wife is from Bosnia.

Her parents are from Bosnia.

They're born and raised there.

Their

mental capacity on working and getting things done is just, it's completely different than people that I know here that are born here.

Yeah, no, for real, because I just had a guest on yesterday and he grew up in a rich family.

He's doing well, but his brother's homeless.

Oh, my goodness.

So just because you're born in money doesn't mean

you're going to end up well.

Yep.

And I'll tell you this: my son doesn't know we're born.

He's born into money.

Oh, he doesn't?

He's not going to know he has money until I want him to know it.

Like when he, when he asked for something, he's like, dad, we can just buy this.

I said, no, son, I can buy it.

You have no money.

This is our money, right?

Yeah.

So he doesn't even know he has all the plans we have in place for him there's he has no clue right so um we're already working with him on a few things on how to understand money like he wanted to do chores for money i said you every chore you do son i'll give you one dollar every book you read i'll give you three nice so now it's more about him starting to read books and he actually likes to read yeah so now he'll make three bucks per book and so we're working on teaching him money and more about service for money instead of like hey do this job or do this thing as like an employee and we'll give you money more of like hey if you go over to grandma's and you help her and you give you give her some service then she'll give you some money right so now it's teaching him more about like um entrepreneur spirit instead of employee minded i like that yeah pbd does something similar yep yeah the books if you're reading at that age i mean you're gonna be next level yeah he's six he's holy we found out he could read we were in canada on a bit listen to this this blew my mind so we were in canada on a business trip and my wife's finishing getting ready and i'm standing by the door with my son and we have this wall with like a fire like hose on there right and my son starts reading in case of emergency break glass.

And at this time, he's like four and a half.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

So I tell my wife, come out here, he does it again.

And then he starts kindergarten a year later, and he's reading in kindergarten.

The teacher's like, Did you know your son could read at five?

And we're like, yes, we knew that.

So we've just been working with him and letting him, you know, watch things that have subtitles and all that stuff.

Yeah.

So he's just, he's just

impressive.

Because 90% of the brains form zero to six.

So he's going to be a genius.

Yeah.

That's cool.

I don't even know when I started reading, but yeah, five sons really young.

It's very young.

That's before kindergarten, right?

It is.

Yeah, I don't think I started till probably kindergarten first grade.

Yeah, I don't remember when I started reading.

I can still barely read.

What do you think about traditional retirement stuff like 401ks and IRAs?

Yeah, you know, this is one thing that I'm heavily fighting against because when you look up and you start looking at most or the majority of 401ks and IRAs and traditional plans, they're failing.

They're failing Americans.

You know, I look at my parents.

It wasn't for a lack of saving into the plan.

It's for the operation and how it works.

It makes money, it loses money.

It makes money, it loses money.

When you run the math of the S ⁇ P 500 over a 30, 40-year timeframe, you know, the average over the last 40 years from 1982 to 2023, probably 10.4%.

But when you break down the actual rate of return somebody's gotten inside that plan, it's not 10.4, right?

The money doesn't add up to what the markets have done because it can lose money.

So my main gripe with it is it's oversold, right?

It does not produce what people are telling you It's gonna produce It's heavily loaded in fees when you break down the fee structure of a 401k You're gonna be paying more just as much in tax and fees than than anything else.

Wow.

I didn't know they had fees.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah, the average in the industry is between one and a half to two percent a year.

Yeah, a year.

Damn.

And that comes directly out of your account value.

I didn't know that.

Now, if you're managing your own 401k, then there's no fee.

Okay.

But if you have someone else helping you with it, it can get up there.

There's a Forbes article that was written.

I'll send it to you.

You can add it, but there's a Forbes that was written that says

it can actually go up to 3.4 to 5% in fees if you're not actually managing it the right way.

Jeez.

And it can add up.

So you're talking 500 to 800,000 up to a million, depending on how much you're putting in there, just in fees during your working years.

And that comes directly out of the account value.

But you see, this is what most traditional advisors won't tell you because that's their income.

I get to charge you a percentage, whether you make money or lose money.

Then these people retire and they go, well, you can only live off about 4%, Sean.

That's it.

4% of your millions, what you're gonna be able to take out to make sure you don't run out of money that's called the four percent rule yeah that's 40 grand a year that's tough that's poverty almost not enough like think about when we're 65 years old do you want to live off 40 grand a year definitely not before tax by the way you still got to pay tax on that oh definitely not then so maybe 25 correct right who knows where tax will be in the future so my main gripe with it is is not that it's bad for people because it can work it can get people to retirement the problem with it is when you go to retire you you're gonna live off four percent you got to make sure your money isn't in the markets anymore because it can still lose.

And will that money be there for life?

Right.

That's the main thing that people are worried about when they get to retirement is how much money am I going to have for the rest of my life?

Right.

That's why, you know, building a business is so powerful because if my business continues to pay me into my 70s and 80s, I don't need to worry about anything.

Yeah.

So other than your business, what are you investing in right now?

Any real estate, stocks, crypto?

No, mainly right now, my wife and I and our family, we're heavily into Index Universal Life.

So we're putting, you know, close to $150,000, $160,000 a year into Index Universal Life.

I'm not making any move on real estate right now.

The way that I was kind of raised was,

you know, focus on one thing until successful.

Focus.

And so I'm focused on building this business until

it's passing us into a million dollars a month.

Then I'm going to start looking at those real estate things because at the end of the day, real estate's not going anywhere.

That's true.

It's going to be here for a long time.

So I'm not worried about real estate.

I'm not really getting into that.

I want to focus on one thing until successful.

With that, I also want to make sure I'm focusing on our business partners and getting them to a million dollars a year and helping them.

So, right now, no, no real estate for us.

We're focused on, you know, stuffing as much money into our IULs to let that grow tax-free.

And then

when the time comes, we can pull cash from that and go buy real estate or make moves or whatever we want.

Got it.

I do have some stocks that I dabble into.

So I have some Amazon stock, right?

And I do have

a Dynatech fund with inside of a mutual fund.

So I have some inside of the deferred markets, but most of my money is going into properly structured IULs.

Got it.

And that's basically a legal tax loophole, right?

It's a life insurance contract, pretty much.

So you're putting your money into a cash value life insurance.

It's growing tax-free.

You can borrow that money out at any age without tax, without penalty.

That's how I bought this Rolex.

Really?

Yeah.

So you took a loan out against your balance?

Yep.

And that 45 grand is still earning interest right now.

Really?

Yep.

What the heck?

So you're collateralizing against the life insurance contract and the death benefit becomes a collateral.

So knock on wood, if something were to happen to me right now, that would turn into a life insurance policy, pay out tax-free, and the loan would get paid off.

Got it.

Okay.

Yep.

So it's, these have been around for a long time, right?

So the tax codes around life insurance has been around since the 1800s.

Like it started with whole life and then evolved and got better.

And then the government saw how people were using it.

So then they kind of put these three guidelines around it, Tefra, Defra, Tamra, and all these other tax codes around it to make it not so someone can just shove 10 million into it and it's all tax-free now.

So they have guidelines and stipulations around it.

So there's limits.

Yeah, there is.

Yeah.

And it's all based on your income.

Oh, it's based off your income.

So like a percent.

Yep.

Okay.

So if you make 100K, you can only put in X amount.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Based on your age and how much you make,

it'll pretty much decide the amount of death benefit you can have.

Got it.

And that's what dictates how much can go in per year.

And is this infinite banking?

It's a form of it.

Yep.

Got it.

So infinite banking is a concept, not a product, right?

A lot of people get it confused.

A lot of whole lifers will go, oh, you can only do it with whole life, right?

And we do use whole life a lot.

We have a lot of clients that use whole life for infinite banking, but it has its purpose and IUL has its purpose.

IUL can do exactly what Whole Life does in the infinite banking space because now they have a lot of like fixed indexes you can use where you get three or 4%, just like you would in a whole life policy, right?

The difference is, is that an IUL can grow an average 8%, 10%, 15%.

I mean, we have clients who have gotten 61% returns in their IULs before.

Damn, in a year?

Yeah.

Holy crap.

In a year.

So that's something a whole life policy will never do.

And the other side of that is that 61 or 15 or 8% that person earned, now they have contractual guarantees to never lose money.

So even if the market went backwards the following year,

their gains and the money they put into it's guaranteed not to go backwards.

So, that's why we put a lot of money into them because we have the leverage.

We won't lose any of our principal.

We won't lose any of the value that's earned.

And if anything happens to me, my wife and son are more than taken care of.

Nice.

Are you using any debt right now, or you don't believe in debt?

No, I do believe in debt.

I think, you know, because when I've loaned from a policy, it becomes debt technically.

And then it does keep earning interest, right?

Because if I pass, the debt gets paid off for my death benefit.

Got it.

So it is a form of debt in the policy.

I think using debt, if you do it the right way, like I think Robert Kiyosaki has it nailed down.

If you're you're using debt the right way, it's a solid way to really build a nest egg, really build your net worth.

So how did he build that billion dollar real estate portfolio?

Was it all debt?

All debt.

OPM, other people's money.

Interest.

Right.

And so he's just building it and building it with other people's money.

And it's a smart play.

I mean, if you can, if you rather, would you rather borrow the bank's money and pay them back, or would you rather borrow someone else's money, go into debt and pay them back?

I'd rather borrow someone else's money.

Why?

Because I can pay you back sooner and it's going to be less interest.

Oh, because the interest is lower?

Yeah.

We get to dictate the interest together.

Got it.

Right.

That's seller financing.

Right.

So the other part of it is like, I have a guy that uses his IUL.

Before he would help people start businesses and he would help them open a credit card, right?

So open a credit card, start your business, I'll help you pay it back down.

Well, now he started an IUL and two years in, because he's been funding it.

So now two years in, he'll pull money out and he'll go, here you go, Sean, here's your, here's your money to go start your business.

But now you got to pay me back with interest.

But do you want to do 5%, 6%?

He lets them pick because he knows that money is going to stay in his IUL and keep earning interest.

He's in debt, right?

Someone else is now in debt to him technically.

But now they're going to pay him back with interest.

They write it all out.

It's all in contractual writing.

It all goes back into his IUL, rinse and repeat.

That's cool.

What's the interest on an IUL typically?

On the loan?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it depends on the company because all carriers are different.

But on average, you're looking at 3% to 5% simple interest.

That's pretty low.

It's very low.

These days, especially.

I mean, at a bank, it's going to be compounding interest.

And they're going to tell you you got to pay it back in seven years.

And an IUL, if I take take out, let's just say 10 grand and my charge is 5%,

it's 500 bucks for the entire year that my charge is.

It's very low.

Yeah, that's super low.

Yeah, it's almost nothing.

Yeah, if you reinvest that in the right spot, I mean, exactly.

As long as you put it somewhere, you know, you're going to get more than 5% simple, which is pretty much anywhere, then you're good to go.

But the IUL also will pay on that loan too.

Wow.

Really cool, man.

Yeah.

You can really, the compound on this must be insane once you're in like year 10, year 20.

Yeah, if you're, especially if you're funding it a lot, like, you know, we're putting 150, 60,000 into ours a a year, you know, looking up five years from now, that thing's going to be in the millions.

Damn.

We started one for my, actually, we have three for my son.

So this is, he can't watch this part of the interview, but we have three for my son.

And we started one the minute he was born.

Uh, and then we have two more as he got older.

And now we pay him a thousand bucks a month and he helps with the business and

all that capacity.

So we get a write-off for him as well.

But all his money goes into IULs too.

So his projection is like three to four million by the time he's, you know, 18 to 20 years old.

You're breeding a trust fund, baby.

That's right.

He won't know about it, it but yes we are you know and again it's it comes from me being in foster care man like i don't i want to build something that my son can can take over the right way when he's of age and he'll understand money he'll understand business he'll understand all of that so that by the time comes um he'll be able to kind of take over a business pretty well yeah how do you think the foster care system can be improved

I mean, you got to think about the foster care system is a business.

Right.

Right.

If you want to take on foster kids, you want income for that.

So you get paid.

Oh, yeah.

The state pays Interesting.

Yep.

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

So the state pays you to be a foster parent.

You got to go through all these interviews and stuff.

And you got to qualify.

And once you do, they'll pay you to take on kids.

So the more kids they hold, the more money they make from the state.

Wow.

So the parents don't give a shit about the kids then, for the most part.

Most part.

I had a few good foster parents when I was with them,

but the majority of them, they do not give a shit.

And there's no contract on how long they have to have the kid?

They could just return it at any time?

No, they got to keep the child until either the child gets removed for a cause or that that the kid goes back with their parents oh wow the foster parents can say hey this kid's a problem i don't want him anymore and the state will go well you got to figure that out okay so that's where my parents came in because you when you know when you have when you're in foster care you have supervised visits so i get to be with my parents in a room with a social worker watching taking notes oh got it it's very awkward that is awkward yeah it's like a like a prison almost lightweight

so they're sitting there watching and you know i would tell my parents like hey this family is just they're being bad mom they're not like they're not taking care of me they're not showering me.

I'd show her like my hair because they cut my hair.

They buzzed it.

And so then they would report back to the social worker.

And then, if more keeps coming up, then they'll remove them from the house.

But got it.

Yeah, they're working for income.

They're doing this for pay.

So sometimes they don't really give a about the kids, and sometimes they do.

Interesting.

But the biggest problem with it is not that.

I get it.

If you're taking someone else's kid in, you should get compensated for that.

But at the end of the day,

you should be helping that child's life get better, not worse.

They're already going through so much.

So the problem with it is I don't think there's enough checks and balances on those families as the kids are there.

Because I don't remember any surprise visits while I was there from the state coming to check in and to see the quality of the house, see the quality of the kids.

Like, I don't remember any of that.

Yeah.

They should do that once a month.

At least.

And it should be surprised.

You don't know when they're going to show up.

Right.

Right.

And then if they see that, you know, things are going bad, because that's neglect.

That's abuse.

Right.

So you're going from one home where they want to protect you into another home where you're just getting neglected and abused again.

Right.

At least in my experience, right?

I can't say it for all of them, but that was my experience.

Were you and your sister together?

No, we were together at first with one family.

I don't remember the name, but we were with one family together first.

And then my mom went to an all-ladies facility.

And then my sister was able to go back to my mom.

Oh, got it.

So she was there before you got back with them.

Yeah, my sister was with my mom the whole time.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, my dad was in an all-men's facility as well, getting rehab and everything.

Yeah.

And then once they were better and they did everything they needed to do to prove to the state that they were better we we were put back with them nice man it's cool to see you break the cycle and you know get into wealth now yeah really cool i love that uh you have a quote your why should make you cry so i'm assuming it relates to this story yeah you know it really it's it's it comes down to a few things um one is my son and my wife you know everything i do is for them and

It used to be, you know, I want to take care of my parents.

I want to take care of my family.

And that's still part of it.

But once you have a child and you have someone like a spouse that has your back 100%,

like we've been, my wife and I have been through so much within business, with outside of business, and the whole time she's just been there.

And the foster care side of it is a part of that why too.

I want to make a huge impact in the system to where it doesn't need to be so stressful for these parents because I know they get underpaid by the state.

So there's things that could be done for these foster parents.

But the biggest part of my why really at the end of the day, is making my son and my wife's life better.

What my wife went through when she lived in Bosnia,

and I'm grateful that she was able to make it over here.

Like, I can't not do something in my life that's going to improve her life and improve my son's life, improve her parents' life and my parents' life and for generations to come.

And so when you're really diving into why do you want to get into real estate?

Why do you want to start a podcast?

Why do you want to get into finance?

It's got to be bigger than just money.

It has to be.

Because if it's just money, once you reach that pinnacle of the money you wanted, you're no longer going to wanna do this anymore.

And then everything you built, all the value you brought to other people is just going to go away.

Right.

So you have to have a why that's ever evolving.

Once you reach a goal, you got to have that why that's there to where it can push you past that to build another goal.

So yeah, your why's, they've got to be bigger than just money.

It's got to be bigger than objects and things because that, that fades.

100%.

You reach a certain level of wealth and doesn't even matter anymore how much more you make.

Yep, 100%.

Yeah.

So it's got to be way bigger than money and fame and all that other stuff.

Absolutely.

You view business competition very interesting.

I'd love to hear you explain it.

Yeah.

I'm a competitive person at heart.

We actually had a business meeting right before I came over here.

And the last thing we do is we talk about who's going to be the MVP of the group,

who's going to take over and who's going to win.

And

when you can put competition into business, but you got to do it the right way because there's a wrong way to do competition and there's a right way to do competition.

The wrong way is like, I'm going to take your firstborn, I'm going to burn your house down, and I'm going to beat you to whatever the goal is, right?

That's the wrong way of doing it.

The right way of doing it is, let's collaborate.

I'm still going to beat you.

What are your goals?

What do you want to accomplish?

What do you want to get done?

Let's run it together, but I'm going to beat you.

And it's being communicative with somebody that you're competing with, right?

It's like, hey, we just made 10 grand this, we just made 10 grand today.

What did you make?

And they go, we made three.

Gotcha.

Beat you, right?

But I'm going to beat you next month or whatever it may be.

So competition in business is more about collaborating with somebody to where you push them to get to their goals, but at that same time, you're pushing yourself to beat them still, Right.

So competition in business nowadays,

it's just evolved so much.

And we use it in our business a lot around, you know, just having stupid qualifications.

Like, you know, if you, if you get XYZ done in your business this month, you qualify to go on a small trip.

You get XYZ done in this business,

you qualify to go do this with somebody or a one-on-one mentorship with me, something like that.

Yeah.

And now you have a group competing for it.

And those that didn't make it, now you have the bragging rights to go, I beat you.

I got you.

Right.

And usually it's on a football field or a soccer field or some type of sports arena.

But when you can bring that same type of competitive spirit into business, it'll either help you excel or it won't.

And those that aren't competitive, it comes down to a few things.

One, they don't believe in their abilities or themselves enough that they can actually go compete and beat other people, right?

That's usually the biggest one is self-belief.

Or two, self-doubt.

You just doubt yourself way too much that you can't even compete.

You just don't think you're going to be able to do it.

And so when you can kind of get past the self-belief, the self-doubt and start competing vocally and verbally and publicly, that's when you can start to have a different form of business and it can, it can actually create a business explosion.

I love that.

Dude, I'm so competitive.

I think I get it from sports.

Yeah.

It's probably the best thing I took away from sports, but it helps so much in business.

It does.

Instead of viewing people as like enemies, I just view it as friendly competition.

Yep.

Yep.

And you want to smoke them.

Yeah, I want to smoke every single podcast.

Exactly.

But in a good way, I don't want them to like fail.

No.

I just want to beat them.

That's exactly the point.

Right.

If you, if you're competing with someone so much and you're like, i want to smoke you but i still want you to go win let me know what i can do to help you and what i can do to support you if you need any if there's any tips or tricks i can give you let me know right and when you help that person without anything like not expecting anything back but in your mind you still go i'm gonna still smoke this person i'm still gonna beat you because i know they're not gonna take my advice i know they're not gonna do anything with this um that's when the competition starts to change and it starts to elevate and separate you from everybody else yeah because nobody else wants to help anybody that's true they just compete in silence and and they don't want to help anybody but when you compete out loud and you say hey i'm i'm here to help you though whatever you need let me know because i want you to go win i want you to do great for your family i still want you to go have a great podcast i'm just going to beat you though

i love that dude it's it's just it just makes it so much more fun more collaborative uh and then if they go win too great if they beat you to the goal great they they beat you but guess what you're right behind them still so did did you really lose right no you're still chasing them right you still you still hit your goal it's like this if my goal this year is to go make a million dollars a year and your goal goal is to go make a million dollars a year and i finished at 900 and you finished at a million did i did i lose no no i made 900 grand this year still who cares you still win major million but now next year it's on let's do it again right now i'm gonna go beat you to two million this year right so it's just it's really about being collaborative and that that competitive spirit makes business so much fun absolutely perspective matt it's been fun where can people learn more about the insurance stuff and get your help yeah so i i have uh i'm the money myth buster uh on instagram and tick tock and on facebook so it's money.myth.buster and uh that's where you you can find a lot of my content.

You can share it out there with anybody.

Um, you guys can reach out to me there as well.

But those three main platforms are where I'm at right now.

Perfect.

Link below.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Appreciate you.

Yeah, thanks for watching, guys.

See you next time.