Avoid this false belief pattern. In this episode, I'm going to address the question.
What causes most wealth to dissipate and disappear? Get ready, it's not what you think.
So, my name's Doug Andrew and I've been helping people optimize their financial
assets and minimize taxes now for more than 48 years and I've noticed that when people begin to
approach retirement they finally begin to focus on what they should be doing so that they can
get a posture to not outlive their money and many times they're shocked that they've been doing the
wrong things with their money. So I have to sort of correct or make some adjustments because they've
been thinking that they were going to be in a lower tax bracket when they retired and they're
not and so forth. So, let me share with you what causes most wealth to dissipate and disappear and
it's not necessarily always the dangers of taxes inflation and market volatility which I address on
this very channel. So, let me frame things in what I call the three-dimensional approach hence the name
of this channel is three-dimensional wealth. So, many times when people ask me, "Doug, what is it that
you do?", I tell them that I help people optimize assets and then if I have maybe 15 minutes or so
I will pull out even a napkin on an airplane and I will draw a great big A which stands for abundance.
Then I'll say let's just talk about what true wealth is or authentic wealth. Because when we
say the word assets, what kinds of things do most people think of first and they start telling
me and it's usually their house, their cash, their real estate, stocks and bonds, and so forth. I go yep,
and so these are just really material possessions though, aren't they? They're just things but we
categorize those under the financial dimension. That's one of the dimensions. If I ask you this,
what are the most important assets that you value, that you cherish, that you possess on this earth,
and then very predictably they will say, family, health, values, their well-being, spirituality, talent,
future heritage, charitable foundation, on and on. Yeah, I put these under the foundational assets
for abundant living. They are our core assets and they usually involve people so they're human
assets. There's another category that involves the wisdom that we gain throughout our life and that's
our intellectual assets. Now, wisdom is a product of knowledge times experiences equals our wisdom.
But it would include your education, reputation, systems, methods, traditions, alliances, ideas, and skills. So,
these are the three dimensions of authentic wealth and it's like a three-legged stool.
When I am teaching people about these three dimensions often there is a
fourth category that transcends all three and it's what we must contribute back to society
and this one for most intents and purposes people flat out give up choice and control
in America in particular and so most governmental systems have a method whereby we must give back
to society and that normally comes in the form of taxes. Now, I'm a red-blooded American, I think
we should all pay our fair share of tax. But in actuality, you can give your time and your talents
and it will have more impact than just writing out bigger and bigger checks and taxes
or even charitable contributions. For example, my wife and I mentor troubled youth at a crisis
center those who have attempted suicide these I'm on a board for teenage suicide prevention. My wife
also uh serves in the Christmas box homes for children who are taken out of abusive situations
and when we're there we have about 42 volunteers and some of them command over a hundred thousand
dollars an hour in corporate America. But rather than going and working or sometimes I've turned
down speaking opportunities even for Tony Robbins where I know I can make you know 200-300,000
speaking. But sometimes I will turn down something like that and I'm not trying to pat myself on the back.
I have many volunteers that do this to be with 12 teenagers who are suicidal.
Because giving time and talents to lift them up is more impactful than just writing out a check
and many of the counselors say that that we're able to do things that they can't even do
because we're non-judgmental and so forth and so, many of these people could write out checks for
a hundred thousand or a million dollars and say, "Hey, just have these government programs take care
of them." I'm not saying government programs aren't helpful but sometimes your time and talent is more
impactful. When we're talking about uh money civic and social most governmental systems use taxes and
so taxes are actually an asset. I mean, what do they buy? You know, the freeways and school teachers
and police protection. So, yeah taxes are actually an asset. Now, we may not agree with how
the government is a steward over certain public assets or taxes let's not go there right now. But
what a lot of CPAs and tax attorneys forget within about a year of graduating with and becoming a CPA
is that in the internal revenue code. If you take ownership you take pressure off of the government
to provide certain things for you. You can redirect otherwise payable taxes to causes you support.
This isn't a tax loophole, you're just redirecting tax because you're saving the government
from providing it for you. So let me use an example here, if you take ownership
in a home. You'll take better care of it than if you rent it. There's tax incentives to
allow you to be able to own a home. We have a higher standard of living when you own a home.
When was the last time you ever washed a rental car or changed the oil on a rental car?
We don't wash rental cars we wash our own cars. So, ownership is really the secret to American wealth.
Deeds, titles, articles of incorporation allow us to own. Countries like North Korea that does not
allow their citizens to own they're starving they have to blackmail the world into helping them out
or else they'll make nuclear weapons or whatever because they're starving and then in South Korea
they're one of the most vibrant dynamic economies in the world with the number one selling
automobile in the world now Hyundai that overtook Toyota. Because they allow their citizens to own
in South Korea versus north korea that does not. So, ownership is the key. Now, as we look at these,
the stories that I tell in my various books and by the way, if this is resonating with you
I would recommend that you subscribe to this channel because I have over 500 educational videos
and many of them talk about these very topics. Share this, post a comment, click like. But when
you subscribe to this channel be sure and click the little bell then you'll be notified every time
I post a new video which I do almost on a daily basis and so at the end, I'm going to show you
how you can claim a free copy of two of my books that will help you become empowered with what I'm
talking about. So, let's talk about two families. I do not endorse these families by any
means but they illustrate my point. The Vanderbilt versus the Rothschilds. Cornelius Vanderbilt was
like the Bill Gates of his time. He was the richest man on earth when he died in 1877.
He was worth 105 million. Now, he wasn't very philanthropic. In fact, he only left behind
less than one percent of his wealth to charity a million dollars to central university which became
Vanderbilt University. Did you know it took 96 years until 120 of his descendants gathered
together at Vanderbilt University for their first family reunion and there wasn't a millionaire left
in the bunch, it was all gone. It was just dumped in their laps hence the same shirt sleeves shirt
sleeves in three generations. The third generation moving to the fourth generation the money was all
gone okay, and they were like, "What? It's all gone. You mean, we're not one of them. We have to work?",
"Yeah, it was unbelievable", and this isn't just in America. In Asia, it's rice paddy to rice paddy in
three generations in Europe, it clogs to clogs in three generations. So this is a universal problem.
If you just dump it in their laps they usually get an entitlement mentality. When do I get my share?
His grandson said, "It has left me with nothing to hope for, with nothing definite to seek or strive for.
Inherited wealth has been a real handicap to happiness", whoa, now I contrast that with
Mayer Amschel Rothschilds. Now, the Rothschilds, they built a banking dynasty in Europe he died in 1812
and he had five sons and assigned each one of them to European capitals and they would communicate
back and forth with homing pigeons. When to buy and when to sell. The point is this when he died he did
not leave behind an inheritance or an entitlement. He left behind a system. I call this a family bank
but this is not a chartered bank like down the street. This is a conceptual bank a repository
but there were three basic rules in the family bank. Rule number one, they loaned their heirs money
or entered into joint ventures and the loans had to be repaid. So if you needed help with a college
education let's say, you had to get good grade you applied if you got approved. You could borrow from
the family bank get your education. But when you graduated, you paid that loan back to the family
bank with a nominal interest rate so your kids and grandkids would have the same wherewithal. You had
to be responsible, accountable, it wasn't a handout, it was a hand up. That's why Sherry my wife and I
we have six children. We never led any of our children to believe that we would pay for their
college and we didn't. I worked my way through college at Kentucky fried chicken. My wife did
working at a bookstore. We had better study habits than a lot of our friends and we were working 30
hours a week in college and I got scholarships she did too. But we decided none of our children
would ever have their college just handed to them we give them equal opportunities. If they
got a scholarship or they saved toward a semester abroad or this or that of the other we might match
them dollar for dollar whatever or we might loan them money and they could pay it back with cash
or they could shampoo carpets, paint, mow lawns, but they took ownership and they appreciated it
better, okay. The second rule is the knowledge and experiences those heirs gained had to be
shared with other family members horizontally not just vertically. This wasn't parents to kids
to grandkids family secret this was aunt's uncle's niece's nephews sharing is having more. If you did
not share it you were out of the loop. The third is that the family gathered at least once a year
to reaffirm their virtues and intentions or they couldn't participate in the perpetual family fund
the family bank. So, you had to sort of reaffirm what is it that we believe in. They made sure
their values and visions stayed there and everybody in the family got to vote. Guess
what happened to the Rothschild's wealth? Yeah, it grew and went through the roof the Vanderbilt
fortune dissipated and disappeared. That's the contrast that I'm illustrating right now.
So, this false belief pattern that I alluded to at the beginning is that equal distribution is
the fairest way to treat those that you care about. I've seen thousands of trusts and most trust the
attorney sits down with usually a husband and wife and says, "Now, you want to be fair don't you?".
You want to divide this up equally when you die don't you and if you not up and down they'll go
hot diggity dog I got another one. because they take your kid's names and your assets
and they plug it into the trust and when you die chunk... is divided up equally and dumped
in their laps. Sometimes killing the goose laying the goal tonight. You have to sell the real estate.
You have to sell the business because you got to be fair. You got to divide it up equally.
It ruins half of the kids. They sit around, "When do I get my share mom and dad?", it's the entitlement
mentality and hence that's what motivated me to write the book entitlement abolition because
many of these people that come to me and share how they built their empire they'll say. When I
asked them, "How did you do this?", "Oh, I learned how to work when I was young. My parents went through
the great depression. I've worked so hard for this. My kids will never have to work as hard as I did",
and then about 20, 30, 40, years later they come back and I go, "What's up?", "I don't know what's going on.
Our kids, our grandkids, they don't even know how to work", and I would say, "Well, maybe you stole that
from them. Maybe in your effort to think you were helping them, you were hindering them. You thought
by dividing it up equally that that was the fairest way to do it." Now, I'm going to make a
statement here that regardless of its complexity traditional estate and financial planning has
become a process of four D's. Most attorneys they will divide it up, okay. That's the number one rule
if you want to destroy divide and conquer. Then they defer thinking by postponing their savings tax.
We dispel that in other episodes. It gets dumped on ill-prepared errors and then it dissipates.
Wealth is transferred without a system that fosters responsibility and accountability.
It encourages entitlement mindsets. So, Abraham Lincoln said, "The worst thing you can do for those
you love is the things they can do for themselves", Robert Frost said, "Every affluent father wishes
he knew how to give his sons the hardships that made him rich but we don't want to see our kids
suffer and we bail them out. We give them handouts instead of a hand up and even kids and grandkids
can understand this. My wife and I at our annual grandpa's camp we give them jars with caterpillars
five caterpillars in an each and they watch in awe as they make a cocoon or chrysalis. But two
weeks later when it begins to merge in the major full creation as a monarch butterfly. What are they
tempted to do? When they see it struggling help it out and if they do it dies. They remember grandpa's
lesson, when you're struggling in life we will be there to give you a hand up but never a handout.
We don't want to kill you when you're struggling we want to help you get strong as you overcome
that and that's the big difference. It's equal opportunities. There is nothing more unequal than
the equal distribution to unequals and when I say that people go, what? So, let me frame it. I do not
believe our creator gives all of us his children equal distribution of blessings regardless of how
some of us choose to let's say abuse our bodies. He doesn't give equal distribution of health
it's equal opportunities because he cannot give equal distribution of health to some of us who
choose to abuse our body with addictions or whatever and so, I want to give my kids
and grandkids equal opportunities instead of equal distribution and so many people set up their trust
to be able to have rules of governance that require skin in the game. Give all of your children
grandchildren equal opportunities but not equal distribution or you will probably ruin at least
half of them with an entitlement mentality. So, if this is resonating with you the secret is this.
You want to live this principle of equal opportunities. You need to identify your core values vision and
principles. You live by the governing principle of equal opportunities instead of equal distribution.
You've got to treat them that way and you can learn about it by getting a copy of
the entitlement abolition book or the laser fund book. So here's how you can claim your free copy.
If you go to entitlement abolition book.com or laserfund.com you contribute a nominal amount
towards the shipping and handling. There's an option there if you want to get both in a bundle
but you can get the books this is over 500 pages of information if this is resonating with you.
But also there's options there when we have virtual events one of my favorites
is called retire by design and you can get a discount tuition to attend one of those online.
It's extremely inexpensive and there's over six hours of information. This is just a taste of some
of the concepts we teach in that retire by design event. So, go to entitlementabolitionbook.com.
This concept I've been talking about in this episode is covered in section one of this book.
But also you will learn how to create a model, a manifesto, a slogan, and be able to leave behind
how to fish to your kids and grandkids instead of just dumping a bunch of fish in their lap.
So, claim your free copy of entitlement abolition
it's on pages 69 to 75 we'll show you how to do what I've just talked about and you
can get a free copy here or get laserfund.com and get laser fund for your brighter future