Edmund Chien: Where does most of your wealth lie of your future? Most of your wealth is in your head. It’s not actually in your bank account. So protect where your wealth is. So, I had this one client who was also a first-year associate, he got into a car accident. He couldn’t think anymore, he couldn’t concentrate, he couldn’t focus.

[00:00:15] And because of his brain injury, it snuffed that out as a second year associate and the next 4-5 years, of his life all that potential burning was gone, right? That’s a huge loss because most of his wealth is in his head. So think of it like an NFL player. So he gets drafted and he gets like a 4 million… Like a $14 million contract.

[00:00:32] Well, he hasn’t actually executed it yet. It’s in his future provided he can still play ball. If he gets into a car accident and he breaks his leg and he can’t play that’s gone. Right. So you got to protect where it’s at because it’s in your future, not in your bank. Yeah, I have had clients in their sixties and seventies …, well, you probably have more money in your bank account.

[00:00:52] Than you will in your investment accounts, than you do in your working future. The five years left, or maybe you’ve already retired. So you’re not going to be making… there’s no more inflow of money. So where is your money or where is your wealth? Your wealth is in your investment accounts, just in your investment accounts.

[00:01:06] That’s what you insure and you protect.

[00:01:10]

Intro: Welcome to the Share the Wealth Show where minority professionals can learn to escape the racial wealth gap and catapult themselves into abundance. Your host, Nicole Pendegrass grew her network from being negative to multiple six-figures. Join her on her investigative mission to expose secret strategies of the wealthy.

[00:01:28] So we can all have the tools needed to build the life and legacy we were created to possess. Now it’s time for the show.

[00:02:25]

Nicole Pendergrass: Hey guys So we’re back again. This is the second part of the episode with today’s guest. I need you, if you have not heard part one, go back to the previous episode and listen to that first and then come back and join us here today, but you’re not going to want to miss what they already said, because then you’ll be lost with what they’re about to say.

[00:02:44] But in any case, you don’t want to miss the whole, you need to hear the whole conversation it’s why we split it into two parts. There’s so many nuggets, it’s so juicy. Go back and listen to the first. So, I guess the next question really is within some of those like creating leverage for, from your W2 income.

[00:03:01] So yes, I highly believe work your W2, create that income or start your business, whatever it is that you’re doing, like you said, get really good at creating money on an active basis. And now looking at leveraging that money to grow it passively while you’re still working, you’re active and basically saving to invest, not saving to save kind of situation.

[00:03:21] But then what about. Passing that money on to your heirs. How about like, or protecting it? Because we know everyone wants to pay tax and you want to pay your fair share, but you also want to, there are legal loopholes because what I heard someone say before that I highly. You know, subscribe to is that the government gives tax breaks for things that they want to encourage people to do.

[00:03:45] So if they’re giving tax breaks and there’s certain loopholes is because they want you to do that. Like if there’s tax breaks for owning real estate or providing housing is because the government doesn’t provide housing and that’s not their primary responsibility. So they need private individuals or companies to go in and do that.

[00:04:00] And they give you tax incentives for that. There’s things like that and the other businesses and around because they want to create jobs. So you have to look at the tax code in a way that is giving you instructions on what the government would like you to do and how you can give back to the government and receive a tax break in return.

[00:04:16] So I don’t know if you have any insights. I know you’re not. Attorney or a tax advisor. So, you know, this is all, he’s not a tax advisor, so don’t take this

[00:04:24]

Edmund Chien: information, you know, so, okay. So I’m not a licensed CPA or accountant, but because I was managing a high net worth money and family office, I ended up becoming a tax specialist.

[00:04:36] So there’s a lot of people that mistaken me for CA because of the. The focus that I had a lot of my wealth planning. So yeah, I do, I did focus quite a bit on that. And one of the things is the terminology loophole. It’s kind of like a negative connotation in society. So that using that loophole term, and I like what you said about partnering with the federal government.

[00:04:56] And I like looking at tax incentives. So federal politics is essentially. Structuring tax in such a way that it sort of encourages a certain behaviors. And what they’re trying to do is there’s a concept in business that’s called PPP private, and it’s a formal kind of thing where you have a PPP, but tax incentives are a form of.

[00:05:18] Partnering with the government in doing things and taking extra well. So you have to pay your taxes. And the government has full discretion on how that money is spent schools and roads, all these types of things. But when they have increased tax incentives, they want more so that what they’re trying to do is trying to.

[00:05:36] To dictate certain behavior encourage certain behaviors, like being able to create affordable housing. The federal government doesn’t have an ability because we don’t want to increase the size of government so large that it’s running pretty much everything, but they would like to, but they don’t have the money to create public housing and public housing is a component and a necessity of society

[00:05:54] so they create these tax incentives for the people that do have excess funds to be able to create these safe, affordable housing, and to be able to micromanage that property in a way that the federal government wouldn’t be able to do. That’s an example of a very simple private partnership using tax incentives.

[00:06:11] Okay.

[00:06:12]

Nicole Pendergrass: That’s great. Okay. I guess we’ve kind of touched on every piece of this journey from the beginning and mindset and work your W2 and differences with different private equity versus public equity and just all these different facets that people need to know. And I hope they’re getting so many jumps because I know I am, and I’m getting a deeper understanding of how this whole system works.

[00:06:34] Right. So on the tail end of it, I’m guessing, are there any. Kind of entity like inheritance or estate planning type of advice that you can give people as far as what they should actually be looking at when establishing an estate plan or maybe a trust, and if how life insurance could play into that to kind of help create a generational wealth where the capital and the wealth that you’ve built today, isn’t squandered in two to three generations.

[00:07:04] Are there any protections in place to help that?

[00:07:04]

Edmund Chien: Yeah, I think that’s a really great question when it comes to forming a legacy because that’s sort of like the third phase of, well, so the first phase is getting a great job, getting a W2, learning how to make money, be able to make money. And then the second phase is how to get money to work for you.

[00:07:21] And then the third phase is how to protect that and how to turn that into intergenerational legacy. Before I comment on that point, cause I have some really good points about that. I do want to pause for a second and go back and remind people that when you try to go to the next phase, that is a time to be very careful about the contacts that you have in sharing those points to somebody else.

[00:07:42] Because there’s this phenomenon in society that if you try to better yourself, especially better yourself from the people you’re surrounded with, the people that are around, you will try to drag you back down. So what do you, what makes you think you can do this? You know, why do you get. When I was literally in an army barracks trying to study for my stock worker license and can become better than us.

[00:08:03] Right. You think you’re actually going to be able to make it. And I just constantly heard that over and over and over again, and all that microaggression will start to weigh in on you. So start to curate your life and distance yourself from that and those negative beliefs. I remember when. I was talking to a newly accredited or almost accredited clients.

[00:08:20] And they were trying, I was trying to explain to this concept that we’re talking about, start to get your money to work for you. And at the time they’ve done all the traditional things. So there was an Asian couple, very similar to me and their parents sent some situation and their parents little, or no, you should put all your money away into the tax accounts like 401ks and IRAs, and then just keep working your job.

[00:08:38] And that was it. They felt that they had made it. And I was explaining this whole new concept. I’m getting money to work for you and the wife of the couple. She looked at her husband and she said, you know what? I don’t know what Ed’s saying is correct. I haven’t heard about this at all. It’s very confusing and I just don’t understand it.

[00:08:52] And I don’t think it’s right. And it just shocked me. And I realized it’s because everybody they’re listening to is either where they’re at or behind them. And when I give them the actual advice, they can’t realize that it’s the advice that they need because they’ve outgrown the people that’s around them. I think it was like, oh, I asked my mom and my mom just kept telling me, just put all your money in your 401k and just invest in, just keep going.

[00:09:15] I don’t know what Ed’s saying about you’ll retire early by creating passive cashflow. Nobody does this. Nobody does this because everyone you’re surrounded with doesn’t know how to do it. Who does it do it? And it was like trying to say until I was blue in the face. Like, you gotta change your contacts because if you stay with your contacts, you will never….

[00:09:32] it’s like a fish will never grow out of that bowl. You have gotten to the maximum of this bowl it’s time for you to point yourself down into a bigger bowl and change your contacts. And then you’ll start to be able to grow to that next phase. So it’s the same thing that when we get into this passive cashflow and going and making that transition for having your money work for you and then turning into intergenerational wealth is to make sure that you can create this legacy when we get to.

[00:09:56] I explained to my clients when I was managing money, I would say my main goal is to be able to get passive cashflow where it meets your daily expenses. Once that does, then you’re retired. You don’t have to stop working, but you can work. Not because you want to because you, don’t not because you have to, because you want.

[00:10:15] I’m giving you that passive cashflow. So you have a lot of opportunities, a lot of choice, but once we get to that phase and I’ve now created enough cashflow for you, that lives forever, that’s an engine that can continue on to send this cashflow that outlives you. And this now has the ability to start feeding future generations of your generation.

[00:10:33] That’s. Now we call that intergenerational wealth. I consider that the first phases of family office. So it depends on how big it gets. So if you’ve got more money than you’ll ever need in your lifetime, then essentially the excess now becomes for your legacy for the other family. So I explained to people, once you get to that phase, principle preservation becomes the main focus.

[00:10:54] So the priority is that the first phase is learn how to make a great W2, learn how to. Uh, increase in and get promoted to, I get this nice salary, like 200, 300 whatever, or whatever you get and that’s your main priority. And then after you’ve done that, and next is how do I take this lump sum of my investments and do the same thing and create cashflow.

[00:11:11] That’s the next phase. Then once you get to that final phase is how do I make sure that this engine that produces cashflow never diminishes and we don’t lose it. And it just keeps paying the family forever. Those are the three phases to have. And I think that. Communities don’t have the access to this kind of knowledge and information.

[00:11:30] I got it because I was mentored by a lot of people in finance and I was lucky to get that, but I wouldn’t be able to get that advice from my parents. My parents don’t eat today. Don’t even understand that. Right. So it’s making sure that you have the proper advice ahead of you to get you to the next. So that’s

[00:11:44]

Nicole Pendergrass: also because you were looking for that information, you were reaching out for it.

[00:11:48] So I just want to let people know too. It’s not going to automatically just come to you because you want to know more like you have to go out there and start doing the work to actually reach out and look for that information and then it will come for you. It’s not going to just fall in your lap. Sorry, just go ahead.

[00:12:01] It’s not just what’s next.

[00:12:03]

Edmund Chien: What’s next. What’s next. Pulling a thread on a sweater and just keep going, keep going and perpetually learning because no matter where you are in society, once again, people want to be where you are, but the same thing, there’s more that you can learn. You can never stop learning.

[00:12:17] And that’s my biggest encouragement if you’ve noticed anything in all three phases is be continuously learning and improving your understanding of things. And that’s where it got to where I am. So I just kept going, kept going, like, what’s next? What’s next? What’s next? Like after. Create enough passive cashflow, what comes next and people are telling me and all like, you know, all my contacts, which only will.

[00:12:36] Now you’ve got to preserve it. Now you’ve got to look after it. So you mentioned this concept about life insurance or utilizing life insurance. Now, interestingly enough, I was also licensed in lichen shoots as well.

[00:12:45]

Nicole Pendergrass: What have you not done?

[00:12:50]

Edmund Chien: So I work  more on top of being a part of the, from a brokerage. I spent the last part of my career working for one of the largest life insurance or the largest life insurer in Canada, it’s called Sun Life. So when I was at and learn it inside out, and one of the misnomers with life insurance is that there’s many different ways to use it.

[00:13:08] And there’s many different types of life insurance. That’s probably a little bit beyond what we’re going to do. But what the concept of utilizing life insurance when I explained to people is that our, so I had a lot of, uh, young lawyers as clients for life insurance, articling students, or first year associates.

[00:13:25] And I explained to them, this is that you’ve got an incredible journey and career ahead of you. Congratulations. You have been called to the bar you’re in your first year, right? Instantly, they go from very low income of working at the gap or whatever, organ at the mall. And they go to like the multi six figures for associates.

[00:13:42] I said, but you’re in your first year. And you probably have a good hard charge and maybe another 40 to 50 years of your life. So take an assessment and take a look at, you know, this is how much money I have right now, or this is how much income this is what my career looks like. But then look at where does most of your wealth line of your future?

[00:13:59] Where does most of your wealth lie of your future? Most of your wealth is in your head. It’s not actually in your bank account. So protect where your wealth is. So, I had this one client who was also a first-year associate, he got into a car accident. He couldn’t think anymore, he couldn’t concentrate, he couldn’t focus.

[00:14:15] And because of his brain injury, it snuffed that out as a second year associate and the next 4-5 years, of his life all that potential burning was gone, right? That’s a huge loss because most of his wealth is in his head. So think of it like an NFL player. So he gets drafted and he gets like a 4 million… Like a $14 million contract.

[00:14:32] Well, he hasn’t actually executed it yet. It’s in his future provided he can still play ball. If he gets into a car accident and he breaks his leg and he can’t play that’s gone. Right. So you got to protect where it’s at because it’s in your future, not in your bank. Yeah, I have had clients in their sixties and seventies …, well, you probably have more money in your bank account.

[00:14:51] Than you will in your investment accounts, than you do in your working future. The five years left, or maybe you’ve already retired. So you’re not going to be making… there’s no more inflow of money. So where is your money or where is your wealth? Your wealth is in your investment accounts, just in your investment accounts.

[00:15:06] That’s what you insure and you protect.

[00:15:10] When we have young people, what I would do is I’d still use life insurance for people that are relatively young. Now, if there’s two major types, we can get into a little bit of insurance, hopefully more bore people to death, but there’s two major components of insurance is what we call living.

[00:15:26] Living benefits and then life insurance living benefit, if you are the beneficiary. So something happened to you. We’d get into an accident if you get it to critical illness, anything like that, it pays as if you were continuing to work, right? That’s the living benefit. So if you’re young and you have a great W2 and most of your wealth is in your future, if you project your earning potential versus how much money is in your bank account.

[00:15:50] Then living benefits becomes more of an important discussion. Now, if you are a young couple and you’ve got a lot of debt, so you bought this great big house, you’ve got this huge mortgage on this house, but you can sustain it because you’ve got, you know, husband and wife, who’ve got great jobs and they can pay for that mortgage.

[00:16:06] That’s great. But you still got to protect. Because if you can only carry that mortgage with both incomes, if one of the individual that couple is gone explained to people in the life insurance world is we want to make sure that God forbid, if somebody, a wife ends up in at a funeral because their spouse passed away that the next day they don’t have to go home and put a for sale sign on that.

[00:16:27] We want to financially replace that individual. And that’s why life insurance is important component to protect that debt that, that a lot of young couples are covering. So that’s protecting that wealth and making sure that that financial basically it’s show me your financial picture or financial future.

[00:16:44] And as a life insurance advisor, my responsibility is to make sure that happens regardless of what happens to either one of you and make sure that financial getting to that legacy component. But then also when you get older, my focus is how do we make sure that we can use life insurance to make sure that we can maximize the transition of wealth that you guys have created to the next generation?

[00:17:06] Because the biggest loss, what will happen in intergenerational when you transfer that wealth is tax loss. That’s the biggest piece. Yeah.

[00:17:14]

 Nicole Pendergrass: I’ve heard about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because then that’s why they also, I guess what I’ve heard before is that when let’s say, especially if you have property or anything like that, and that’s inherited and passed over, or if someone has to pay inheritance tax and they don’t have that, now they have to liquidate some assets in order to be able to pay that tax, which is also robbing from the wealth of that next generation.

[00:17:39] So how does a trust play into that? Like, can you. Make the trust, the beneficiary of the life insurance company, or are you making the trust, the beneficiary of property? Like how do you do that? And what kind of rules have you seen? High net worth individuals or family offices put into play in order? So like the kids inherited all this stuff, but now they squandered it all before the grandkids can get it.

[00:18:02] You know what I mean? Like what kind of rules with distributions or whatever. Yeah.

[00:18:06]

Edmund Chien: The trust starts to come into play. Once you start to get to a certain threshold of wealth. And one of the things that you’ve got to try to beat when it comes to family office management or intergenerational wealth transfer, is this concept called shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves, which says that a wealth that somebody creates will be gone in three generations.

[00:18:25] So congratulations, you’ve made 10 million. So aside from what we talk about, protecting legacy aside from having it squandered or having it loss or losing it on a stock market, the most way that people lose that is in three generations, children will end up losing that. So good money manager, good family office managers know that they’re trying to beat that it’s like 90% of family offices fail with by the third generation.

[00:18:48] So what are some of the things we want to do? One of the things that you want to. That brings up the argument of creating a trust. So an operating company and a holding companies or a holding companies. So a trust or a holding company is a goal to sort of safeguard and protect it from future generations, but also be able it’s like creating its own entity.

[00:19:08] Now it also helps when you’ve got many different siblings, so you’ve got three or four different siblings because say you’ve got a million dollar portfolio or a $5 million portfolio, but then you’ve got five kids that $5 million portfolio. Paid by tax. And then every kid inherits a little component over one fifth of whatever’s leftover.

[00:19:26] And now they end up with, you know, 800,000 or 700,000 net. And it’s trying to recreate that again. But instead of that, instead of what we can do is if we use tax to try to preserve as much as that 5 million and we put it into a trust. Now that $5 million vehicle is still there producing. Well for 5 million that they pay the tax on the cashflow, not the lump sum.

[00:19:48] And so I can create more castle off of 5 million. Then I can create off of five portfolios at 750 because he got a smaller engine, the five small little engine versus one bigger engine. And I just send that cashflow to each family. So now you create a family legacy. That has five different families that are getting off of that legacy.

[00:20:07] And so it becomes more fair that way, right? Instead of having it breaks down, breaks down, breaks down, and it gets smaller and smaller and smaller. You just hopefully create this entity or this trust that continues to increase in size, but at the same time produces cashflow for the family.

[00:20:22]

Nicole Pendergrass: Okay. That’s great advice.

[00:20:23] Oh my goodness. There’s so much. I have to think. Cause I’m like right in the middle of this, I just finished my estate plan for, you know, my family. We have a trust and I still have to change beneficiaries and do all that paperwork. It’s a lot to get set up, but it’s just so crucial because you don’t know like, yes, I have plans for my daughters and what I want them to do in the future.

[00:20:41] What if something happens to me before that, you know, like what if it happens before I’m able to transfer the wealth of knowledge? That’s in my. To them so that they know why they have to do certain things or they start to learn because they’re still, they’re two and four, so they don’t really know yet.

[00:20:55] And they’re too young. So if something happens to me before I get to transfer that knowledge to them, I don’t want them to squander that wealth. And that’s why I’m trying to put these things in place, because that’s a concern for me. I want them to live abundantly and. Their kids to live abundantly, you know?

[00:21:10] And so the last question, I guess I have for you at this point is with a wealth builder, especially this is a long-term intergenerational type of situation that we’re looking at. Let’s say I’m not at the family office level yet, but I. To start building that advisory team, or I want a wealth manager or someone who is, something happens to me besides who I have designated as, because right now I have a default, like my brother, my husband’s sister, as default to be the executors of the, of the state and the trust.

[00:21:41] And they’ll go by my rules and, you know, whatever we put out. But as far as investing and helping to grow that in the future, how do you find a company that will be, that will have longevity or individuals or someone to help manage that or work with the executives of the state and give it good advice, like someone that you can trust and that you know is going to give you, you know, the right type of advice to help grow that.

[00:22:06] Further and not just stick you into the same bucket as everyone else. Like, oh, you have this much. Well, I’m just going to put you in this bucket because that’s where everybody else is at. You know, like someone who’s going to be very thoughtful about the type of investments they’re putting your family’s money in.

[00:22:20]

Edmund Chien: Yeah. Uh, one of the frustration, I guess this is why I became, that I had is that I realized in financial services, your wealth will dictate the quality of advice that you can obtain. So if you’ve got $50,000, You probably won’t be able to go into Morgan Stanley and get the best advisor that’s out there.

[00:22:38] You need like tens of millions of dollars. And that was very frustrating for me. I couldn’t get access to that kind of advice. So I ended up doing the different, which is why don’t I become it. So why don’t I work for the firm? That’s how I started in private equity. The person that I wanted to teach me and mentor me.

[00:22:53] He said to me, “It’s like, well, you need a million dollars in net worth before I can talk to you. And it would cost you $3,000 a year.” I was like, I didn’t have two pennies to rub together. And you’re like, I just saved $10,000. That’s it. And then I realized, what if I started working for you? I said, well, and then I realized if I started working for him, I like, and go out and meet his clients.

[00:23:12] It’s like, I have to teach you everything. Because you’re going to be representing me and you’re going to be talking to our clients. So you better be better than everybody else. You better be just as good as I am. It’s like, you know what, I’ll take it. And you’re going to pay me to do that and say how much money we can get.

[00:23:24] I’ll pay you X amount a year to learn everything I know is like, you know what? I love that idea. And that’s how I got started. And I spent 20 years doing that. What we’re now managing family offices and I’m teaching people. I guess my advice is for the individual to you would be learned like exactly what you’re doing now, which is learn and how to learn through books and material through mentors.

[00:23:44] But then the next phase is start to educate everyone around you until they don’t want to hear it anymore. Because I used to explain to my clients, my main job as your advisor is to teach you because the more I can teach you, the more that you can handle of me teaching you about making wise money, man, the better decisions you make.

[00:24:01] So when I pick an executor, my criteria would be is art teachable, can I spend time teaching you about good wise money management? It’s better every single year, because if I am out of the picture, I want to make sure that you will be making wise investment decisions for my children. So it isn’t that person teacher is that person will have that thirst to learn and become better.

[00:24:23] I think that’s really important. Perfect. Perfect.

[00:24:25] Great. Thank you so much. Oh my God. I hope there’s no way that the listeners did not get 5,000 gems from this conversation. This is just insane. I thank you so much for coming on to the show. And this is exactly why I started the show. I wanted just this insight for people who’ve had access to high net worth individuals and what kind of things they’re investing in their mindset and how they start the journey.

[00:24:50] And just basically how to. From from here to there, like, and how to close this gap and really make us be able to live abundant lives and have everyone who is looking for that next answer, kind of have a resource of information to go to and to dig from and know kind of what their next steps are and how they should move forward in their journey.

[00:25:12] So for anybody out there, how can people reach out to you? I know we have some links we’ll put in the show notes, but how should people reach out to you if they want to talk to you or, or use your services? What are your. You’re not wealth-building right now. So he can not be your financial advisor technically right now, but you know, how can people reach out to you?

[00:25:29] Right. So just so people understand I’ve left the industry. I hold any licenses. I’m not out here to, uh, to wealth clients. I don’t manage my, I kind of achieved what I was looking for. Right. Which is to learn how to invest my money. I kind of figured I learned it. I learned pretty much as much as I need from a license perspective, I continue to learn.

[00:25:46] So I just manage our own private wealth, but on the side, I’m a coach now. So I coach the capital raising folks or people in financial services. I coach them on how to raise capital and how to build a private equity firm, all those types of things that would interest people. I’m certainly available to chat and see if I can help you increase in your building your practice, and you can reach out to me on LinkedIn.

[00:26:06] And you just look for my name. It’s Edmund Chien. Just find me on LinkedIn and send me a message

[00:26:12]

Nicole Pendergrass: Okay. Perfect. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in today and we will see you next time. Thank you again,

[00:26:19]

Edmund Chien: it’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[00:26:25]

Outro: Did you love this episode of Share the Wealth Show? Be sure to connect with Nicole by following her on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. If you picked up any of the gems that were dropped by today’s guest, make sure you not only put them in your bag, but if you know of someone who would benefit from this information, don’t keep it to yourself, share the wealth and make sure to leave us a rating and review.

[00:26:45] We’ll see you for next week’s episode. Subscribe so you’ll be notified.