Tax Strategies of the Wealthy: What the Wealthy Do Differently

0:00Welcome to the Be Wealthy Podcast, where we help entrepreneurs surge their income and do incredible things with their wealth to ultimately live the lives that they want. Today's guest is my CPA, tax strategist friend, counselor, and one of the smartest people I know, Brian Muia, who is going to break down five things you know out of the big beautiful bill. Lessons from entrepreneurship in just an allaround great podcast on everything you know about taxes and the mindset to thrive as an entrepreneur. Let's dig in. Brian, welcome to the podcast.
Glad to be here. Thanks for having us. Man, I am so excited. So, full disclosure, Brian is my CPA, tax strategist, counselor, listens to me on the craziest of ideas, and today we're going to get into a ton of different things related to being an entrepreneur, to taxes, and overall how to be wealthy. So, Brian, give us give us a little you had a massive background. You exited multiple companies. um kind of give us

1:04give us the your story kind of from where you came from and how you got to where you are right now.
Yeah. So, um you know, I was I grew up and didn't have a lot of money, but so we knew money would be important one day and my dad was a really he is a really really good person and he's he was very entrepreneurial in everything he did. He goes and he would always say he goes, "We don't have it yet, but we will." And he always said, "Hey, be entrepreneurial." That's what you're going to do in this life. Figure out a problem that people have and then try to solve it. And then you're going to get a lot of joy out of helping people, a lot of joy out of, uh, solving problems for people. And you'll there, you know, money will be a reward for sure. And so, um, I saw that early on. So, had great great family that worked really really hard and even though they didn't weren't instantly successful, um that was probably the best life lesson I've ever seen was my dad got knocked down plenty of times, but just kept on going and now

2:06he's very very very successful human being with that's going to do um great things, retire very very happy and you know he's full of joy. So, um if that if I can repeat that, I'll be in good shape. what age what age did he start sharing those entrepreneurial lessons that hey be an entrepreneur push through it make it happen solve a problem what age did he start sharing that with you
so when I was when I was about 9 or 10 years old I remember every Saturday we would paint his truck red with with the paint you would get from a Home Depot store or whatever was there at the time and that was just so he would look his truck would look better when he went to the wallpapering job he was going to that week uh at the local at the hotel. Um he usually did a lot of hotel jobs. So um and that's what so I saw it from 9 or 10 years old and then you know I moved out to college um you know when I was 18 years old and that's really kind of when he hit it big like when it all started being fruitful for

3:08him. Uh he he made the right relationships at the right times over all those years. people saw his work ethic and all that and um so I got to see it pay off before I even started my real my personal journey but I got to be a part of his journey for the last for about eight years really. So you got to see not having money, the entrepreneurial, the failings, the which are really just different ways to learn, right? Uh to learn what didn't work and you got to see all that. At what age did you start to see all Hey, my dad started to become successful cuz I had I had a similar experience. What age did you start to see it it turn a little? They'll I came home from I came home from college one time on the way to a football game and he had told me that what what he was building. He was building a giant hotel for a really really reputable name in a really reputable place and he did he told me he goes I hit it. He goes this is what I'm going to do the rest of my time. And he's been doing it ever since. He's starting to wind down now but he's built hotels for the Olympics. He's built

4:09hotels for the who's who. Like he's he's done really really well. But it was my I saw it my freshman year of college.
Okay. That's when you saw he's on the map now.
That's right. Oh, yeah. For sure.
So, the one I thing I think about, Brian, I think wealth shapes our story and I think it's when we're 10 years old around the dinner table and I always ask the guests the same four questions, which the first one is when money was talked about, not did you have any, was it scarce or abundant? You already said, man, it was abundant, right? I mean, I my story, same story with my dad. We didn't have any money, but man, he was abundant. It was all the money was out there. We just had to figure out how we were going to get it.
Sure.
So, it wasn't that. You know, the second question I always asked was money with your when you talked about it with your family and you heard about it 10 years old. Was it applauded or feared or criticized? Um, I'd say applauded. I mean, money is a I mean, we looked at money as a reward. I still look at money as a reward. It's just the way the world works. Um, it's not the only reward. It's not the reward I chase the most, but it's definitely a reward.

5:12
Absolutely. When you think about wealth today, because it's so much more things than money.
Oh yeah.
What does wealth mean to you today when you think about it?
So wealth to me is I get the freedom to do what I want to do. Now I wish I could expand that sentence to what I want to do when I want to do it. But with what I like doing, with what I want to do, when I want to do it is not going to be in the cards. And that's okay. That's my that's my thing. What I want to do far outweighs when I want to do it. So, um, but being able to do what you want to do is a really really I hope everybody gets that in life, you know, and it's so funny how those those early memories, right? I think for every person, maybe you had a positive experience with money, like you had a real positive experience watching it, be an entrepreneur, go solve problems, right? Money's out there. We got to figure it out. Some people had the opposite experience, right? Money was scarce. It was criticized. Those people that did something, they did something bad to get it. And for people listening, right, they got to reframe that story and take

6:15the positive, it was great, pack that in there and keep it forever. If it was scarce or negative of money, re they got to rework that. And so I want to go to some of your early entrepreneurial days, right? So give me the first investment. I've got some notes here, but I love this where you the lesson where you learned about leverage. So you're out there cleaning these you're cleaning bricks.
Yeah.
So walk us through that story. So, my first job I was a Waffle House chef. So, I don't know if y'all have Waffle Houses out there, but in the South, they're everywhere. And it the one thing I'll say about it's a great company to work for. And
when we say chef at Waffle House, then let's interrupt you. When you say chef
Mhm.
I mean, what what are we really cooking a waffle? Is it largely
putting a cake batter in a waffle?
You're just a shorter cook. Yeah. Waffle eggs. Like, I still I still cook eggs for my kids at home with the Waffle House recipe and they love it. They want anybody else's ex.
So,
so funny.
Uh, but it taught you, that job taught you to talk to strangers because that's what you did all day. You saw people and then they would come back when you saw

7:17people coming back and talking to you and say, "Hey, Brian, when you got a minute, come over here and talk to us. Tell us what you did last week." Yeah, that's a that's a really good life skill to I mean, the restaurant world is a tough world to work in, especially at Waffle House. It's not the not the I'm not saying it's the greatest place to work in terms of restaurants, but u it all restaurants can teach you a lot of good things. So, what it also taught me was is don't go be someone else's employee hopefully like go go solve a real problem like my dad was saying. Um so, when I was a a senior in high school or junior in high school going to my senior year, we said my dad goes, "Hey, look, you you can't do nothing all day. Let go. Let's go try to solve something. go be an entrepreneur this summer. See what happens. Well,
and what what age are you right now? What age is this?
So, I am 16 16 years old about to go be a senior in high school. So, uh he goes, you know, go do this. And so, unfortunately, he said that in May. So,
in May, me and my friend got together

8:19and we said, hey, let's just go put all these flyers in this people's mailbox that we're going to cut their grass for them. So, something simple, right? And we get to be outside all day, smell the grass. It's good. Well, no one like I'm talking like we probably put out 1,000 2,000 flyers and we did not get one call about cutting someone's grass cuz everybody had already had their lawn maintenance, you know, already scheduled. So, we were too dumb to realize that on the front end. So, we had one guy call and he goes, "Hey, I don't have any lawn, but I got a job for you if y'all are willing to do it." And we said, "Okay." He goes, "I need you to come clean some bricks." We're like, "No problem. This would be great." So me and my friend, we pack up his he had a pickup truck. We packed up his pickup truck, two two pressure washers, and we headed over to this guy's business. And we get there, and he walks us to the back, and there's a what the best way to describe it is, think about a touch, think about a uh endzone of a football field and then probably at least 15 ft high of just piled up

9:22bricks just like someone had dumped them there. not organized any particular way, just dumped there. And one of these bridges get Russell. What are these concepts? So, this guy was doing a historical renovation, construction contractor doing a historical renovation in downtown and said, "Hey, I've got to you be able to use these bricks. I can't use them if they've got mortar on." And I go, "Well, how do we get this mortar off of them?" He goes, "Well, here's a hammer and a chisel, and I got four more if you need them." And I go, "Okay, so we just hammer out them away." Hey, you know, I was thinking about the old like, you know, the prisoners, you know, stamping out the license plates, things like that. It's kind of the same concept. And he goes, "Look, I'll give you a dollar brick." He goes, "If you can do it, I need it." Like, he goes, "I don't even know the number I need, but I need a lot of them. You won't be able to get through all of that um in the summer here." And so, just let me know what else you need. I'll give you a dollar brick. When you got them, stack them up neatly on this pallet over here so we can take them to the job site. And he said, "Just remember, it's got to be a good brick." He goes, "Sometimes you're going to be knocking the mortar off of these. You're going to spend 30 minutes

10:24with one brick." And he goes, "You're going to the last of mortar that comes off is going to crack the brick." And he goes, "I can't use it." So that's no dollar. So I said, "Okay." So we tried it. So we started doing it and we go, "Man, this is good. You know, we're making some money." We got two orange Home Depot buckets he had in the corner. We turned them upside down, just sat there and just hammering these bricks out. And pallet by pallet we were like, "Man, this is good." Uh, and then we said, "Man,
how many bricks are you doing a day? How many bricks are you think you're doing a day individually?"
Um, you could do about if you were if you had good ones where you weren't having to struggle with a lot of them at the same time.
They're all different than unique, but you could do about you could do about 250.
250. So you're I mean $250 a day.
Yeah.
For 17y old kid. I mean this is
Yeah. Way back then. This is business. I say that's today. I mean that's a lot of money today for a kid. But
okay,
but back then I mean this is you found your you're like this is this is a gold

11:27mine.
Yep. So then we said look you know we got some friends not doing anything. They're at the swimming pool all day long. They're they're just on the they're on the Nintendo at the time I guess. Uh all you know all day. Let's see if they want to help out. They'd come out and help. We paid them 50 cents a brick. So at the end of all of this, you know, a couple months, me and my friend who started it, we each had about 9,800 bucks and we said, "Man, this was great." So that was my very first entrepreneurial endeavor. And that actually was the seed money for my next entrepreneurial endeavor. So
you were paying the when you brought your friends in, you were paying them 50 cents a brick, right?
That's right. Yeah. I mean, you and nobody would ever really do that. I mean the margin on that was that was stupid but that's first- time entrepreneur.
Well I mean but what a great and your friends made it. So so the lesson you learned from that is that look leverage leverage is a real thing.
Oh yeah.
Right. I could do what I could do but if I could get some leverage there um you know I could have as many people as long

12:29as I it becomes a recruiting game. How many people could I recruit to go knock the mortar off the bricks and I can make a margin there. You also shared, you know, that you said that your philosophy was we will outwork you. We will be better than you because we work harder. Was that a lesson that you learned or was that your dad passed that along?
So my dad loved John Wooden, one of the greatest basketball coaches, maybe one of the greatest coaches of all time. So when he was teaching us life lessons, me, my sister, whoever would listen to him, he he would always quote John Wood and he always used to say, "Never mistake activity for achievement." I heard all all the time. I'd go up to him, I say, "Well, I worked for I I worked a long time today." He goes, "What's the result?" Never mistake activity for achievement. And so it taught me, you know, like, "Hey, go work hard. Go work the right way." Just because I work longer than somebody doesn't mean I'm going to do it better. Uh because I work harder in the right way will mean I do it better. Um it's

13:32and you know it's the philosophy of when you're a young entrepreneur I think you almost have to have the philosophy like I will outwork you like I'm not going to be out compete. I I'm not going to lose because you outwork me. So now if you figured out a secret where you don't have to work so hard that's fine. Do it. But that that doesn't usually happen. So, I came from the same school that your dad did and that you came from, which was hard work trumped everything. Okay?
You know, my dad my dad said, uh, you want to have more than others, you have to work harder than others. Just that simple. And I remember being a 16-year-old working at my dad's factory and seeing my friends drive up and down Main Street, right? They're dragging Maine. And I would ask my dad, why why can't I go out and drag Mane? He goes, oh, you can, but you won't be anything. Right? All right. Like not saying drag amazes in here is where we get the work done. Work harder than others, you can have more than others. And it was just hard work. And the other saying he had was you know how you get ahead in life, Brett? You start doing some of tomorrow's work today.

14:34
That's right.
That was his thing like, hey, we got to do those 100 bags tomorrow. We're just going to do those 100 bags today and then tomorrow there'll be another thing that we need to do. And he's like, you keep doing that over time. And that was just his method. Work hard. I mean, and in in wheat harvest and bean harvest, we'd work, oh my gosh, 14, 16 hours a day. You'd barely get home, get to bed, and just be covered in dust and crap. And it So, when I got in business, right, my secrets of business are like, "What what was your secret to success?" I said, "I just brought a farmer's work ethic to the business arena." You know, when I found out in real estate, I could pick up the phone and call people and make like a $6,000 commission. I was like, "Well, is there a limit to how many of these I could do? with me. Do I got to throw some bean bags somewhere? I mean, wait a minute. I just get to I get to use my phone in an air conditioned office and they're like, well, I'm like, how long should I call? They're like, well, if you really want to be successful, you should be talking to people 3 hours a day. And I'm thinking,
yeah,
3 hours a day. I was I was working 14 hours a day doing brutal thing. So, it's interesting how those lessons, like you

15:35said, can you do it smarter? Can you use technology? Can you use leverage? Can you use all those things? I think those things come later. I think hard work is the framework we need to get back to. And it became this bad language in in our world today, like where, oh, Brian, if you're working hard, you don't have any balance. It's like I don't I don't know that that's reality.
Yeah. Well, if you're doing something you like doing, then I mean, I want to work hard at it. I mean, and just what you were saying earlier, too, like if you have a 100 bags you're going to do tomorrow and you can do some today, but you're not going to do them because it's on your checklist for tomorrow. Like, that's the person I want to compete against because I mean, there was another John Wooden quote that my dad always used to say. He goes, "Look," he goes, "You know, you should give 100%." And if your 100% allows you to go do something else, that's fine. But, he goes, "You should give 100% because you can't give me 110% tomorrow to make up for your lack of effort today." You know, you've got to you only have 100% to give. You You don't have 110% tomorrow. You can't make you can't make up today's shortcomings with tomorrow's successes. Like it's just not a not a that's not a a good way to do it. Like

16:37you want to you definitely want to if you can do it today, let's do it today. And if you put it off, then that's the person I want to compete against cuz I'll do it.
Yeah. I uh I love that. So your second entrepreneurial journey, is that where you went to the landscaping business?
I did. So when I was in college?
Yeah. I was in college and had a friend that was going to be a landscape architect who couldn't find a job he wanted and I said, "Well, I'll we'll start a business together if you want to." So, um, we did that. Um, it still goes today. I while I own the most of it, I still own the majority share. I do not, um, do one thing with it. I mean, he makes all the decisions and I do I just get to hear all the good stories and everything like that. So, uh, but very very good business and, um, it's been lucrative. It's, you know, we started by cutting yards and things like that, but we only cut one person's yard now and that's because she was the first customer. But, um, everything else is like, think landscape design, like if you've got a retaining wall on the side

17:39of a highway, that could be this company. If you wanted to have a neighborhood development where you do, hey, we need 38 houses here, three culdesacs and things like that, then that's kind of what they do. So, it's not really a landscape company. It's what it started as, but it's kind of morphed,
but really good. Really,
more commercial design install big projects.
Oh, yeah.
And you've had that for how long now?
So, 20 years. 20 years. How much time do you spend on a monthly basis in that business? Ballpark.
Zero. Today, zero.
Wow. But now, uh, 12 years ago, no, 13 years ago, yeah, 13 years ago, I was still doing payroll for that company. So, you know, it took and that was the last thing I gave up. That was the very I remember processing my final payroll for that company. And I said I this is it. This

18:42is what it means to have a passive business. And so it took about 10 years to get to where it's just completely passive. So I want to spend a minute here because I think a lot of people we have business owners here that are so engulfed in their business, Brian, they can't even you talk about working on the business that I mean that's a dream, right? They're just so in the business grinding. If you were to give them a lesson, you were to speak to those people and say to get from where they are where they're just overly in it to getting to where it's totally passive, what would you say are some of the things they need to be thinking about or how should they walk through that you have to remember that you are very very veryable. So, and if you're not, you didn't do your job. Job one for me, no matter what business I start or who I'm starting it with, is be replaceable. And that's empowering people to do something. Like, you know, it's almost like, you know, I've got two kids that are 12 and 11. Like, I tell people all the time that

19:44like I would have never like my wife and I are completely different. My wife would never give them a shot to go do something that is probably they're going to fail at. And I go, what's the failure rate here? two, you know, 98% sure, let's go see if it happens. Like, go learn, right? And so, I'm okay with people failing if it's at the benefit of them growing and um you know, like um I I was just telling my son the other day, like my son had a bad day on the baseball field, and he never has a bad day on the baseball field. He's a really good baseball player. Um, and he was down on it. And you know, again, this is a quote from John Wooden that my dad passed on to me. He goes, "Look, success is never final. Failure is never fatal." I mean, one of the greatest quotes I think for business owners out there, like once we succeed, we're not done. And once we fail, we're not done. Like, it does not matter. Like, we got to keep going. But in order to become passive, you've got to you're

20:47you have to be humble enough to know that you're not the rocket scientist here, so to speak. You are the facilitator and hopefully you're replaced. The quicker you do it, the better job you did, the better leader you are, the better business owner you are. And you know what happens is is like when we're working, you know, we have to work on the business, we have to work in the business. And so if you're doing both of those, it's additive, right? So now your 40hour week is 70 hours because you have to have it.
If we can empower people, I'm not saying we're going to work less. We may not have to work 70, but we could work 60. I'm still going to be working on the business. I just have other things to do. I get to grow it in a different way. Um, so in all honesty, in in a way, for a business to succeed, you have to replace yourself so that you can go do better bigger and better things with that business. And to me, that energizes me the most because now I have people that count on. I have families that count on me. I have customers that count on me. I have customers that count on the people that they now talk to that I've replaced myself with. Like I get

21:51energized out of that because now I know like I'm not just it's not just for me. So, and you see it more when it's not just you in the business.
So, number one, you know, start thinking of your replacement plan. Get your time back. work on the to get get that time back. What else would you say were the keys to getting passive?
Um letting people So when my business partner in that business said hey you know like it was almost like training him like hey at some point you have to work on this business too. You're not just an employee. It's been that way. um empowering that person to do that, having the right systems and controls. And then like I told him, said, "Man, you're going to be a bad guy." Like I I every company I've ever been at, every every place I've been at, like I was the one that fired people. And I go, "I don't know why." I mean, I don't ever want to fire somebody and it be it's never a surprise to them. Like I want them to succeed. And I'm like, it's okay

22:54to be the bad guy, but be the bad guy when you've given it your all. Like, be proud that you have to be the be the bad guy. Um, and I think that's the worst thing. I don't think pe when people in order to leverage out, you're going to have to be the bad guy sometimes. And you're not going to have to be the fun person all the time. You don't get to be the fun person all the time. Um, you got to when you have systems and policies, you're counting on them. Like that's the reason I have systems and policies at any job I've ever had, right? because I'm relying on the teammate to be able to uphold their end there. Um, and if I'm relying on that, it doesn't get followed. I've got to have some sort of reaction. So, and I think that's a tough thing. I mean, and if you can't have that system in policy, then guess who's always there? You. You don't want that. You can't be the police officer. So,
anything else you share there?
Um, yeah. I mean, I I just think that it takes time to I mean, I think, you know, if someone goes, "Hey, I want to go have this passive business and I'm going to have it passive in 6 months." I'm like,

23:56"No, it's just not going to happen." Like, you can't understand your business in 6 months. I promise you, you can't. And you know, when I go teach entrepreneurial classes at various colleges, I write three words on the board and I say, "Effort, attitude, pivot." And effort and attitude. We talked like, "Hey, you got to have max effort. You got to have the best attitude." things I've just learned from my dad for sure. But then pivot like you're not going to be successful at what you think you're going to be. Like it is going to change. It's going to be the 18th iteration so to speak, right? It's going to be something like it's not going to be what you thought. And if you're willing if you're not willing to bend on that, you will not be it's just not you. Entrepreneurship is not you. And the crazy thing is is like in five years technology is such a crazy thing now um that in five years like my this is a good example my children are in seventh and sixth grade. I don't even think the job that they'll work at is created yet if they were going to be non- entrepreneurs and go be a job go be an employee. I it's just going to be crazy the what technology is doing. And so if you're not willing to evolve it

25:00will it will it will leave you. So
any I love the thought on it's the it's the 18th iteration or or some number, right? It's rarely do we go into something in even in the business, right? Like you're in the you're in the accounting business today, but I know from behind the scenes some things you're working on that likely will have huge paydays that relate to accounting, but they're not actually doing the tax prep work. Is that a fair assessment? like it it's this thing over here
that the idea came from solving a need for my core business,
but it was outside of my core business, right? Like my business is running a family office, trying to invest in real estate and companies and running our training businesses, but some of the best things we're working on today relate to them, but they're not inside of the core business. Right? The opportunity is somewhere over here, and I've got to fail and try and pivot, and does that work? Nope. That's that's crap. But I learned this new thing that I can apply over there. And then that's really what being an entrepreneur is,

26:01right? Testing stuff, learning, and moving forward no matter what.
Yep.
All right. Um, so now talk to me a little bit more when when we move forward here. You you've got this massive business. Um, tell me about your first big exit. So you where did you go from landscaping and then how did you get to from there to accountant? Yeah. So, landscaping was the landscaping business really did have a lot of cash flow that was able to be invested in other ventures. Not all of them have worked out, but some of them have been very successful. Um, one was, you know, I'm a big believer that if you're doing the same thing three times in a row, there is probably a better way, right? Like if we can streamline something. So back be and I'm a I'm really good in uh Excel. So we used Excel and created this audit and accounting software that uh a firm could use in order to go audit something. Um and

27:04it was a it was purchased and it was a great great exit and it solved a real problem and it solved a real problem in real time. Um, and you know, the problem there was once I sold it, I still had to have a contract that I had to go help it, um, and update it because no one, it happened so quickly, I didn't replace myself. Um, and it was not made in a sophisticated manner where it was easily transferable. So, it took some time after that just to make sure that all of that stuff happened. Um, so that was a good one. And then I met some
How long did it take you from design to exit? How long did
what was that time like? Ballpark
about four and a half years.
Okay. So,
but it was this giant experiment, right? Like because the first three years are just like, hey, that thing should have that thing should have kicked out that diagnostic or it should have it should have sounded that siren, right? And we didn't. So, how did we make it sound that siren? But, you know, I took a Excel class in college and I said I tell

28:06people every day it's the number one thing I've ever done because and it was funny. The guy, the professor was like, "No, I could launch a I could launch a rocket into outer space using Excel." He goes, "We don't have to. We have other things that can do it more efficiently, but we we could." And that's that's the power it has. And um if you are using a software, CRM, accounting, like all those things in the world, I I there's a high likelihood Excel's in the background somewhere. So, you know what's so funny you say that is, you know, I coach a lot of top entrepreneurs, right? Like right now, I mean, in the past, I've coached four of the top 10 agents in the entire country, right? And so, the one of the things I I'll have a newer client, not those folks, but someone that's wildly successful say, "Could you put to me together that Excel spreadsheet, send it over to me, you know, use a pivot table, send that to me." And they look at me glossy eyed and go, "Well, Brent, I don't I don't even know how to use Excel." And I said, "I'll tell you something. This is pretty aggressive. You'll never be rich if you don't know how to use Excel. Because my entire life is looking at Excel spreadsheets, not

29:10every minute of every day, but when we want to solve a problem from a math standpoint, which the language of business is math,
right?
We're typically looking at a spreadsheet sorting different column. Hey, some, you know, let's calculate this and that or, you know, from rat to everything. I mean, I mean, there's levels to the Excel game, right? Like you're a black belt, but the people that can't even use it. Um, I love that you you built a business that you exited from based off a college class in Excel.
Yeah. And you know, I tell people all the time, I go, "You don't have to use Excel, but you got to think like it." And I go, "If you're going to think like it, you might as well use it." It teaches you the right way to think, I think, through a project. It's like, there's a reason that all of the thing, all of the columns are the same width or they can be modified. There's it's rows and columns. You can think about a business in rows and columns. It's hard to think like that if you don't think it's possible, but it really is possible. So, um, so that was a that was a really good one. Um, and solved a real problem really quickly and in real time.

30:12And then that kind of rolled into I met a guy that he was very, very smart engineer and we did steel recycling and everybody goes, I don't know what steel recycling is. It's not like you put it in your recycling bin at your driveway and take it out to the thing for the recycling truck to pick it up. So, steel recycling, there's a lot of waste and metals and steel and things of that nature. So, you would go pick up truckloads of waste from steel uh manufacturers and things like that. And then think of a um a little shaker, right, that's got holes in it. Well, it goes to the first shaker. It's got big holes. All the big steel falls out. I mean all sorry small holes all the small stuff falls out then it's the gradually gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Well he had 93 patents to make this work. So big big thing.
Wow.
And you know some steel he got it to a point he was so sharp his he could get the

31:15steel to a point where it we couldn't even use it in the United States. It doesn't meet the the codes and processes of the United States. So he had to send that overseas to like China and things like that that would have another system in order to utilize it. Like no one had ever really done this before. So um we knew that would be a big deal. Um right
we got in we immediately for tax reasons converted it to a C corp and then it sold 5 years later.
Really?
So
second second big third big accident.
Yeah. That one was the big and they they all kind of gotten bigger for sure, but that one was really big.
Wow. And what did you know going into it about the steel recycling business?
Zero. But I bet on the I bet on the jockey. And he didn't he needed me and I needed him. I didn't know anything about that side of the business. He knew nothing about I mean you he I said, "Hey, what do you want to like?" He goes, "Bar, I need help with this. Like I I can't even get debt." I'm like, "Well, what did you

32:16show the lender?" He goes, "What do you mean?" I'm like, "Well, they probably want something, some sort of financials or, you know, they want to walk through and see what your processes policies are." Like, he wasn't paying people the right way. I mean, like nothing correct was happening, right? And I told him, I said, "Look, you don't need me. I'm going to help you, but we're going to hire a CFO. We're going to hire a CEO." And I will say this, if you're cuz we were looking to exit. We we and I knew this would be an exitable thing. And he that was his goal. So we converted that to a C corp so that we could exit in 5 years would have a um and have a good tax benefit there. But I told him I said look in the 5 years the least amount that we do the better because the multiple will be bigger because they're buying a real business at that point and not two people. And I think that's the real problem with a lot of entrepreneurs is that we're we are the business, right? Like is Brett Tanner the business? But that's not as good as Brett Tanner not being the business. Is Brian Muia the business? It's not as good as Brian Muia is not the business. And

33:19some businesses, that's how it is. That's why there's the exit structure the way they are. But if you can be replaceable and be the reason something happens, um, instead of the only reason something happens, that's a good thing.
I would say this that most people, if you are the business, right, it's likely not sellable. I mean, there could be there could be um things that make that not true, but right like if I'm running a real estate business and it's the Brett Tanner team and I'm the only person out there and it's my brand when I'm no longer there, it's hard to have Brian Muia be the Brett Tanner team, right? That's a harder Now, if we're pick a thing, Arizona's best home buyer and it's built around systems, models, and people,
it's a different it's a totally different conversation. But I I think that's one of the greatest opportunities right now I see out there is that let's say you got and I talk about this guy all the time and he laughs and he'll laugh when I tell him I told him this story again. He's a roofer. He had one truck, two ladders and some day laborers when he wanted some help. And I said, "Hey, what are you going to do when you

34:22retire?" He goes, "What do you mean?" I go like, "What happens when you want to stop working?" He goes, "I'm not going to drive the truck to the job site the next day." And I go, "You know, you have a business. You've been doing this for 24 years." And I said, 'How many other people are like you? Cuz we all do the same thing. I go, why don't y'all 12 get together and now you have a real business that's not just one person? Because you're right. Like if it's just one person, we got a problem. But there's a lot of them out there and I think there's an opportunity for people to consolidate and then have a real asset to sell. I I you know, I was talking to someone the other day and I said, "What are you really successful guys? What are you telling your kids? What field are you telling them to go into?" But he had kids a little older than yours, about my kids' age, that 14 to 16 age. And his advice was, I I actually tell my kids to go into the trades today. Go build the biggest plumbing business in Arizona. Go build the biggest roofing business. Go because, you know, number one, AI will have an impact in plumbing, but until the robots are doing the I mean, we got a long runway uh of in the trades before

35:25that's going to just absolutely take over and then build a massive one that you could sell and exit. Okay,
you know, sell to a building without the private equity.
You're going to have to know plumbing to go be a plumber. You're going to have to know electricity to go be an electrician.
Then it's like, do you go get somebody to help you build the biggest business there is or do you have the knowledge? So, I agree with you, trades and business. And you know I I would tell you like you know accounting is a great field to at least make sure you understand a little bit because then you can go do a lot of things and then you know most big companies have a couple engineers that are in the sea suite that are there's a reason because they think a certain way in terms of processes systems that can be repeatable and therefore sellable. All right. So, Brian, when you're thinking about, you know, your kids's ages are a little younger than mine, but let's pretend because it's so hard to predict what will happen at, you know, ages 10 and 11. So, let's say your kid was um in high school today. They're getting ready to go to college or maybe not. Other

36:27than the trades, what other businesses do you think have the most growth potential today?
Um, subscription businesses, things like that. Like, so what I always tell people, somebody goes, "Hey, what should I do?" I go find out what private equity is buying cuz they got the biggest pockets for a reason. And they're not going to go spend money on bad things just so they can go spend money. So if you want to see and they are buying cash flow businesses, they're buying subscriptionbased businesses. They're buying something that's repeatable. And that's why building things the right way is important. Like um you know, I always tell people like take time to get it right as you're building it. Don't rush through things because I mean I'm pretty sure this is another John Wooden quote but he goes if you know it's it's what did he say? You know it's always something about like if you don't have enough time to do it right think about what's going to happen when you have to redo it. Like there's what time are you

37:29going to have to redo it right? So time is very precious. We all we all know that. So maximize your time doing the right things. But I agree back to your question. I know that kind of gone off base, but like what we're trying to do is like what's private equity buying? Cuz there's a reason they're buying it and cuz they don't want to make they don't want to manage it. They want to buy somebody that's already managing it. They just want the cash flow at the bottom. And that's a good thing to do. And a lot of trades, a lot of subscription based businesses, all that stuff.
What are some give me some subscription businesses that you see today that you like? What are some examples?
So I think it's great. I mean, let's just take what I do. Now, I don't I don't build it cuz I don't do exactly what this is. But there are people now that have accounting firms that are subscription based. They go, "Hey, we're just going to credit your we're just going to debit your account every month, right? That's a very very appealing thing for private equity to buy." And it's no mistake that private equity is buying a lot of accounting firms. Do I think it's the greatest thing for accounting firms? Not a chance in the

38:32world do I think that. But I think it's kind of getting away from the service based of it. But you're it's if you have something like I have this person right now that we're she's got a passion for college recruiting of swimming. She was a Olympic swimmer. So she goes, "Hey, we're going to do this." And I go, "Hey, how can you get someone to give you something every month instead of one time when they need you? And what what else?" So I go, "It's not that you're ripping someone off. Don't think of it that way. It's what can I what else can I provide that gives them some sort of monthly value, right? It's the whole thing of like somebody will give me $5 a month way before they're going to give me $150 for the year, right? And that's what people I mean that is a really appealing thing to buy.
Totally. Absolutely.
And there's people doing college recruiting right now, but are they doing it on a subscriptionbased? I I don't know. So, you take something that's non-subscription based and kind of figure out a way to make it subscription based. And I think that's a really good value ad.

39:35
I love the um I love turning the the tax accounting business into a subscription.
Yeah.
Uh and how many other businesses could add a subscription component to it with something
that that's the thing if you can figure that's a commu that's a huge value ad that you can do.
All right, let's go to So when did you get back how did we get back into the accounting thing? So you had these big exits. How did we get back to accounting? What what drove you back to I mean it's been kind of the background the whole time, right? You're using those same skills. What made you get back into it after or did you never get out of it? I
mean, I've really never been out of it. I have changed what I do in accounting that we are now tax strategy focused. Um, and we obviously do tax returns and things like that, but we we're trying to be more tax strategy. Um, and the returns can be done. We we've got a system to do the returns, but it's like, you know, why do we do it? It's cuz it's what we wanted. I say, when I get out of bed every morning, I love to go help people solve problems. And the biggest problem for most people is tax. And when

40:40I sold my first business, Uncle Sam got a lot of it. And when I sold my last business, he got none of it. So, there's everything in between. And to me, someone keeping their own tax dollars or a portion of them helps them grow their own wealth. That's a that is the I mean, and helps them be more entrepreneurial because they have more to reinvest and things like that. Beautiful. I mean, that's just a great great um passion, you know, that's just what I like doing. So, that's why I'm back to it. But, I'm hoping that I'm growing that passion with other people so that it's not just Brian Muia's thoughts. It's we're we're we have a good team here and so it's working pretty well.
I love Well, I want to transition to to tax strategy because that's what you do. I think I mean you do a million things that are brilliant. Uh but I think this is where you absolutely shine. You've added incredible value to my life. So what are the top and you could pick top five, top 10 uh are one big beautiful bill just came out. So when you are

41:44advising clients, let's assume they're business owners, maybe they own real estate. What are things, what are the top, you know, if you want to go to the top five, what are the top five things they should be thinking about? We're, as we're filming this, we're the last day of September, right?
Um, so it it's definitely if you're going to implement something in 2025, you got to get going relatively quickly here. What would you what are the top five things? Yeah. So the the new bill out's amazing for entrepreneurs and real estate people and the current administration loves those people and so that's good. So um things that were expiring have become permanent which some of the greatest things here is we have bonus depreciation back up to 100% and there's no ratcheting down of it anymore. So, you go and buy something that's bonus eligible and you're able to do this for um like let's just say you want to go buy a a car uh 6,000 lb plus car. Well, that car is now you can write it off in day one um as business use um for bonus depreciation. The other thing that's

42:50nice is, and a lot of people forget this, but because it's not really a real estate thing, it's more of a non-real estate depreciation, but section 179 is huge. So that went up from $1 million to $2.5 million. So somebody could go buy $2.5 million worth of equipment and it's all written off on day one now instead of being depreciated over five six years. And that's insane amount of capital preservation. So huge like it is rewarding you for investing in your own business.
What's the max on the equipment purchase?
Two and a half.
Two and a half million per year.
Per year.
Wow.
So that's section that's called section 179. So, um, qualified business income, the free 20% that they're giving us, that's permanent. Now, now it's unfortunate when I look at someone's tax return that's coming on to be a client. Usually, they have not maxed out qualified business income. And it's just the free deduction like we got to do the planning in order to do that. So, in your last quarter here in 2025, make sure that you're doing your planning for

43:53that. um R&D, so research and development is now immediately expensed. It was being advertised over 5 years and there's R&D credits that still exist out there. So you can have something where you're doing R&D type of work where you're trying to develop a system where you're trying to develop a product, a client service model. Lots of things will qualify. um especially if you're starting a new business or you purchased a new business and you're new newly operating it that R&D is now ex immediately expensed and gives you a credit. So you're actually leveraging your own invested dollar because you're going to get not only the tax deduction but you're going to get a credit as well. So um very interesting. The two big things I'll say from the big beautiful bill act that I think not everybody's talking about, but if we're starting a new business or we have a business that we can convert to a CC corp, we can do qualified small business stock. Qualified small business stock used to be hold a CC Corp stock for of

44:58your business, small business um for 5 years and get a $10 million tax-free exit. That's phenomenal, right? We can't argue with that. That's that's phenomenal savings. And when did that savings happen? 5 years ago. Cuz you you planned for it 5 years ago. So it's not one of those things you plan right as you start exiting. So what they did was they bumped that up from 10 to 15. And now let's say that Brett and I have a business and we've only had it for three years. We can still get a 50% exclusion at three. We can get 75% at four. We can get the full 100 at five just like it used to be. But we don't no longer have to hold it for an extra year and a half if we don't want to. If we have the offer on the table, we no longer have to plan so far in advance in order to get some benefit here, which is huge. Now, somebody goes, "Hey, we have a $90 million exit. So 10 million is not really that much." Well, 10 million is still real money. Like, I'm not going to step over that to, you know, not pick it up off the ground. But the other thing

46:00is is like you can develop trust and other taxpayers that are you so that you each get 10 million, each get 15 million. So you can really exit for a lot of money without paying tax. But it takes proper planning on the front end. So everybody's going to become an escort if we don't tell them not to become an escort. It's just because they've read it. They've some YouTube person told them to do it. You could be better off being a CC corp. And it takes planning that in the front end, not just guessing. Then we were talking about business strategies, what to do. I really do think this is going to be a tremendous opportunity, and it comes from a tax law that people may or may not care about, but Qoz's qualified opportunity zones have just been rebanned. They've been refreshed and now permanent. They were set to expire. Well, I was talking to a client the other day and we said, you know, what's the biggest thing about the Qoz, the new Qoz rules? And it's not so much

47:04that, you know, we're getting the same rules. We're getting them rebuffed up. It's been great. But now they're going to add this thing in there for rural opportunity zones, which get bigger tax benefits. That's great. But we don't have to own real estate inside of this to make it work. We don't have to be in a really bad area there. You know, when you go look at the opportunity zones and where the map is, you may find that like, man, there's some things here. We were just talking about it's like what's the one business that there's not enough of that like no matter where you go, there's not enough of and it's senior living. Like there's weight list in towns that will there's no way they'll ever get in, right? Well, those a lot of those are going to be in rural zones. I promise you. Cuz no matter where you live, you got to have a senior living facility. Um or multiple. And so you could go start these senior living centers in these rural opportunity zones and never pay tax. You could start it with a $100 capital gain from selling a

48:06stock and never pay tax on that exit. You don't need any other tax benefit at all. You'll pay tax during, but when you exit this and sell it, you will never pay a dollar of tax. And you know this is just an example but using the knowing what the tax rules out there are so that you know like hey this will be a very big thing to buy one day or this will be a good thing to start look and that starts those new rules for the opportunity zone start January 27 and I really do if someone could figure out what to do with those kind of businesses in those kind of zones you could really really make a lot of money taxree I mean tax you wouldn't need a tax strategist you're done you did it all on the front end
and that won't start till 202 27.
That's when that all those new rules kick into place. Yep.
Anything else we need to be thinking about from taxes? I'm going to come back to a few of these, but I'm got a list here. Anything else?
Um, I mean, I think those are the big ones. The good news here is is that we're entrepreneurial friendly, we're real estate friendly, so cost segregations, all the things that real estate people have loved that had started getting lower and lower because of the rules, they're all back up at

49:09full boat and there's they're permanent. Now, are they as permanent as permanent is? Probably not by your definition. the next administration may change them, but they are permanent. They're not set to expire. Um, and you know, lot of lot of good benefits. The one thing that went away during all of this, all of this big beautiful bill, the negotiations and everything is I tell people I go, you're you probably don't have any more energy credits that you've known to love if you were using like the green the green credits have pretty much gone. So, um, but there's going to be more opportunities with other things. So, but that was just one of the things that was a a casualty. So, let's go let's go back. I'm going to I'm going to take your list here and break it down a little bit for the listeners. So, bonus depreciation's back at 100% retroactive to January 1, 2025. Correct.
Inauguration day.
Oh, so January uh that's tricky, right?
Yeah. January 21st, I believe.
Yeah. I say so so you if he bought it you already

50:10
he didn't want he didn't want any credit going to the previous administration so it was all done on from inauguration day
got so what that means right for people that don't know if they buy a piece of real estate I'll use real estate if you want to come another example you buy a piece of real estate right if you buy a residential piece of real estate and we didn't say anything to you Brian or if they don't say to their CPA 80% of that purchase is going to go to the building 20% is going to go to the land
and that residential building's is going to be straight line depreciated. So you take that 80% divide it by 27 and a2 that's what you're going to get in depreciation every single year
right
now cost seg allows you to take that 27 1/2 years and take a lot of it up in the first year well let's call in well I mean what what percentage roughly are we thinking is it is it 40ish%
I would say about 25% gets into shorter live property or 1575 year
so of the 27 and a half years we're taking 25% of that and putting it in the you get in the first you get in the first year
that's right
so which creates a mass, in other words, it creates a massive

51:13uh deduction that you could use against your ordinary income. Now, there's things you got to qualify. You got to be a professional real estate investor. There's some requirements there. What's another example or benefit of bonus depreciation being permanent 100%. What's something else they can depreciate? It's massive.
So, some of the So, qi qualified improvement property is 15-year property. If you read the tax code, which is interesting, car washes, gas stations, oil and lube stations, many, many, many, many of these qualify for 15-year property. That's what they're called in the they're called qualified improvement property in the code. Well, 15-year property is 100% bonus. So, let's take your example. We go and buy a million dollar car wash. Well, let's say 20% $200,000 is land. We don't need a cost. The remaining $800,000 is 15-year property and it's 100% bonus depreciation on day one of being placed in service. So huge huge benefit there in the real estate world to be able to do that. Um these So Brian, I want you

52:17see my Can you see my screen? Okay,
I can. So let's just break this down. If we took this deal right here, it's a car wash. I just pulled it up at random on on Cra. It's $6.1 million. So what you're saying is if I was to go buy this and we're going to assume it's 9010 90% building 10%'s land.
Mhm.
So I go 6164151 * 90% is 5.5 million. I would get a $5.5 million deduction.
Yes. Yes. And you don't have to car wash.
You can just be the you can it could be a triple net leaks. It doesn't have to be you managing the operations of the car wash.
Well, absolutely. That's what this is. This is a it's a low cap rate. So, this is they're in the car wash business on this particular deal. You and I if you and I bought it together.
Um we're just investors. We're not in the car wash business.
I mean, I I don't think people get So, it's a 5.5 million deduction if you're in the 37% tax bracket.

53:22Um, oh, hold on. I It's roughly a billion half dollars. I mean, this is a huge I don't think people or it's $2 million. $2 million tax savings on buying this building and and there's no um this isn't like a risky thing like, oh, what happens? What percentage of commercial real estate deals are using cost segregation and depreciation?
Oh, almost all of them, right? And this one you nearly even need the cost seg because it's it is what it is. Now this is this is what I find really interesting in this space. Let's say that me and you go buy that car wash. Me and you don't want to own a car wash. We don't really care about that. But we can get a lot of tax benefit right up front on a car wash. And let's just say well Brett and Brian really want to own this commercial property over here that's not a car wash. That's not a gas station. Well, we can 1031 this property into the next property that we want to own and all those tax benefits, we don't have to recapture

54:24them or anything. They just get rolled forward into our new property. So, we're using this IR, we're basically exploding our IRRa because of the tax savings on the front end of this, creating more wealth so that we can go reinvest it in something that we actually want to do. The car wash is just the hurdle we jumped over for the the two-year holding period. So, very interesting. What do you So when you think about that upfront depreciation, how do you think about the IRRa? So you've got the IRRa of the asset itself, right?
How do you think about the depreciation of cost? Like how do how does Brian think about calculating that into that?
Yeah. So, I'm sitting there going, "Okay, you know, if I'm able, listen, if I buy that all if I if I'm le able to leverage that with some debt and I get that huge depreciation up front, I have really I've created cash that I would not have had, right? Like I that is me creating cash. Now, what am I going to do with that cash? If I go put it underneath my So, the the IRRa on that is almost infinite because we're such a short time

55:26horizon, right? It's as quick as we file our tax return. Now, if I go put that underneath my bed and just let it sit in a box while I hold this asset, that's probably wrong. But what am I going to what can me and Brett go buy in addition to that with this now preserved capital. And that's how we our portfolio goes like this instead of just barely gets bigger each year. So, it it can explode. So, my IR is kind of like, what did I do with that capital? So you're taking all right the money I save that $2 million what did I then go create
in addition to the returns of of the investment y
all right you talked about section 179 so if you got equipment any business that needs massive equipment purchase they could go buy a million dollars worth of equipment between now and year end and expense the entire thing
and and the one thing I say about 179 as well is like let's say you go buy a car let's say you live in the state of Georgia doesn't doesn't conform to bonus Arizona does Georgia does not Meaning if you take bonus on an asset for federal reasons, you still have to depreciate it over 5 years for Georgia. Well, section 179 Georgia conforms with. So if I take

56:31section 179 instead of bonus, now I get the deduction on both federal and state returns, which I know the accounting software, most people is going to default to bonus. So, if someone doesn't do that extra bit of planning or that extra bit of effort to make sure that we're protecting our state liability as much as we are our federal liability, we'll miss that.
It's such a great I mean, it's such a great point that I think people are they miss the part you just said, which is there's the science of filing returns,
which is certain numbers going, but then there's an art to it.
Yep.
And I think what you do so well is the art part, right? It it could go in two different boxes, but if it goes in this box,
Yep. radically, you know, I get I get to I get to capture both state and federal. If I put in this box, I only get the federal side. I I think people miss that that you know, the true expert like you, the true genius lies in marrying the art and the science.
Yep.
All right. I want a couple more of these. So, we talked about a vehicle. You could buy a vehicle. You could write off the whole thing of over 6,000 by year end. Let's talk about QBI and we'll

57:33end with this one. I want to hit you with a couple questions and and we'll wrap. I think QBI, which qualified business income, is the most misunderstood part Uh, and I when I and you know in our events, our mastermind, my coaching clients, and I'm like, did you ask your your CPA or accountant, did you did you take advantage of QBI? And what do they all say? Oh, yeah.
I said, well, that's not the right question. The question is, did you maximize it? Because if you did not, odds are, especially the smaller the business, right? If it's if it's less employees, you may have had to increase your wages to be able to take advantage of the 20% net income. Could you give us a a short explanation of QBI, how it works, and what they should be looking at and how they should be thinking about it?
Yeah. So, your QBI, your your QBI is going to be 20% of your income. So, let's say you made $100,000 of net income from a business. You only get taxed on 80 because you get a 20% deduction if you preserved it. So, you're that's going to be the most the most likely thing is going to you're

58:36going to be capped at 50% of weight. You've got to have it goes, you've got to have 50% of wages as the threshold. So, let's say you only paid yourself $10,000 because you didn't want to pay payroll tax. Okay, that's shortsighted because you just stopped your QBI. Instead of at $20,000, you stopped at 50% of 10, which is $5,000 because you didn't want to pay yourself. The money's all going to you. We would have paid a little bit extra payroll tax and saved another $15,000 deduction. Big difference. and the payroll taxes are deductible. So, we're not like we're we're we're not we're not having to give away the farm here. Like we're it's still a good business decision. Um but additionally though, they may have another plan like they may have a cash balance plan or sub-defined benefit plan that's actually the contributions are based on payroll.
So, it may actually unlock there may be additional benefit outside of the tax side. There could be some additional wealth building things that like by increasing my payroll, I'm able to put more money away into another vehicle.
Yeah. the people that have an escort so they don't pay themselves is that's flaw

59:40one, right? We can't be like that. Why are we not paying ourselves? That's what we have to ask. Why are we not paying ourselves? Are we okay with that? Or should we be paying ourselves? Why or why not? And then, you know, it's the other side, too, right? So, we have people at QBI that will do all the things like Brett Taylor come. He'll go, "Hey, we've got we've got $100,000 of of income. I'm gonna pay myself $40,000 so I can make sure I maximize my my QBI. Well, Brett's done other things. His taxable income's not even that high because he's done some things like, you know, outside of that business. Well, we get capped at 20% of our taxable income as well. So, now you just paid yourself for no reason if that was the reason you were paying yourself. So, it takes full planning. And my thing is this. I always tell people, I go, "You work with your CPA, you work with your accountant, you work with your tax preparer, you work with yourself, whatever it is, if you can tell me why you have maximized your QBI or how you've maximized your QBI by the time you sit down and eat turkey

1:00:42from Thanksgiving, then I'll believe you."
But if we're guessing, I guarantee you we'll have a surprise in April. I almost can almost guarantee it because it's not an easy calculation. Like we have I mean if we're doing tax plan and it take the tax plan takes five hours QBI probably takes an hour just because there's so many moving parts every lever impacts the other lever. So so QBI so if you're listening to this and you you need to go to your CPA right now or reach out to Brian and ask not did I use QBI but did I maximize it? What was left? What could I have done? So before we go to the final Brian what are the top f you you file thousands of returns. you filed probably tens of thousands in your career or more. What are the top five mistakes or the top mistakes you see business owners make? Um, not having timely accounting because if you don't have timely accounting, you will miss the deductions. Like it's hard to make a decision on something you don't know. If you know it's happening, even if it's not, you're saying, "Hey, it may or may not be deductible." At

1:01:44least you were able to decide at that point and put it in a different bucket. But if you're giving me financials, like I have people right now that still haven't given me financials for 24. Okay, it's September 25. So from a business operating point of view, terrible taxes even worse because we're probably giving money away. The second thing is people are afraid of deductions. I say that all the time. I go in this day and age where social media is such a big thing, where real estate is so like you are the brand, right? Almost everything you do could be argued to be a deduct be a deduction because you're growing your brand. You're growing your business. Just because it's cheaper to advertise now because we can do it on social media doesn't mean that what I'm doing to put on social media is not deductible. So I think people sometimes are afraid of deductions. Um people that are not proactive are going to fail. They are going to pay too much tax. So being proactive, making sure you know what each decision

1:02:48you have um and what that tax impact is is very important. And then like to me right now things are changing so quickly like a tax strategy I had a week ago it's morphed into maybe something different at this point like just because the time of year the uh big beautiful bill act and all those things you know keeping you need to be in touch with your tax advisor periodically through the year not just once times a year and if all you're doing is having a tax prepare that's fine but know that that you're leaving something on the You need a tax strategist as well or you need to do tax strategy yourself so that you know, hey, this is what's out there right now. This can help me save on taxes. And the last thing I say, and I tell people this all the time, I go, you can pay zero tax. I can make it where you pay zero tax. You just do these six things, you pay zero tax. Now, everybody's six things are different, but I go, hey, we'll pay zero times. This is what we got to do. If that's not goal congruent with your investment goals, life goals, wealth goals, then I just gave you the worst advice in the

1:03:51world. You pay zero tax, I win. You don't because it's not goal congruent. And
meaning when you go to your bank and you try to get a loan.
That's right.
Yeah. You're not banking.
Maybe you needed some tax, right? And I also want to say too, once we get down to the 24% tax bracket, the juice is not worth the same squeeze as all the other things. If we're in the 37 and a half bracket, that's that's a lot of money that we're having to shell out. and then it goes down. But once we get to 24 22% tax bracket, we kind of like that because we don't have to pay zero to feel like we've done it. Like we have people that made millions of dollars that are having an effective tax rate of 11%. We'll take that, right? That's good. Um and offset, just remember offsetting the last $50,000 of tax, you're offsetting no tax. That the last $50,000 of income you're not paying tax on. So, it's like, you know, like we're doing a lot of work for no benefit. So, but let's just say somebody gets a cost sag and all that.

1:04:54Let's say you go down to zero. That's fine. I'm not saying don't. I'm just saying don't. Just realize like we're offsetting less tax at the bottom brackets. So, well, and I want to go back to your thing of being proactive. My definition of being proactive is how many times are you meeting with your tax strategist outside of tax season and filing the returns, right? We got to meet with them whatever it takes to file the return. How often are you meeting with them outside?
Right. I love meet, you know, you I talk to you probably more often than you would like. Um, but we meet in like January. I want to meet in like July. Hey man, here's a recap my first half of the year. Here's likely where I'm going to land financially. What's new? Here's some big moves I made. Right? Because you don't know everything I'm doing every day in the business, but hey, I bought this big thing or I bought this car or I bought this business or or I you know, I I sold this. Right? So being able to convey that to you gives you perspective and you can give me better advice. Starts with recordkeeping. It starts with being proactive, having great financials.
So critical. All right, I want to switch gears as we're wrapping up here. I know you're a big reader. Everyone everyone

1:05:57is. What are your top books you recommend to people or what are you reading right now that you really like?
So I like almost anything leadership. I almost like everything John Wooden or Elite Athlete just because of the way they think about something. to be that good at one thing is amazing to hear them talk about it. So, but right now I'm into really like I'm into microlearning where I do a podcast on the way home. I'll do a uh some sort of YouTube video or something like it is a very the the ability to microlearn is unbelievable right now and it's not a commitment of a book or anything like that. But, you know, I tend to go to like well why wouldn't I want to know how Michael Jordan thought? He was the best, right? Like why not? like what part of he that was his business and he was the best at it. Why not why not know how he thought about it? So
that's I love it. Um as we're wrapping up here, what would you say to your 21-year-old self going back? If you gave one piece of advice, what would it be?

1:06:58
Um well, I got lucky. I think my my dad did give me a lot of advice, my parents and family and everything. But I mean, I think the thing that I've learned over the years with my own failures is be able to pivot. Like, and that's why this is such an important word to me. Like, it is going to be the nth iteration. It is not going to be example one. It just won't happen. And so, um, and it takes a lot to say, man, my idea is not that good. I got to change it. especially when there's other people involved and all that. But um after you see it work a few times, you feel a lot less embarrassed to change your idea.
I love that. Brian, if if people want to reach out to you, what's the best place they should go? We'll include in the show notes, but where should we send them to?
Yeah, so I've got a Calendarly that you link that you can share and then I've got a uh email and we got a website with a contact button. So um all those things are good.

1:08:00
Cool. We'll include all that in our show notes. Brian, you were incredible. Thank you so much. Thanks for all you do for me and all the clients we send your way. We appreciate you and uh I'll look forward to chatting with you soon as we get uh pretty much session soon.
All right. All right. Bye-bye. Thanks Bride.