The Mark Perlberg CPA Podcast
The Mark Perlberg CPA Podcast
EP 82 - Leadership Insights & Tax Planning Along the way w/ Graham Youtsey
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Engaging conversations reveal the influence of vulnerability and connection in entrepreneurship. Mark and Graham explore strategies for personal and professional growth, emphasizing the importance of shared experiences in leadership.
• Importance of masterminds for elevating business owners
• Role of vulnerability in fostering team trust
• Balancing metrics and authentic connections
• Challenges of delegation and empowering teams
• Innovative tax strategies for entrepreneurs
• Practical tips for personal growth and discipline
• Overcoming isolation in the entrepreneurial journey
• Enhancing communication in virtual environments
• Encouragement to redefine success beyond numbers
Learn more about Graham and Legacy Leader at: https://www.legacy-leader.com/
Welcome everybody. We are doing a joint podcast today with the Mark Perlberg CPA Show and the Intentional Leadership Podcast with Graham Yatze. Awesome, and we're going to riff today and we're going to go back and forth talking about what we do and some of the things we're working on this year and new discoveries and things like that. Graham, I'll let you start for the audience. Tell everybody about who you are and what you do.
Speaker 2:Thanks, yeah, my wife and I have a legacy leader. It's a leadership development company and we have an impact mastermind, which is a faith-based mastermind, that we meet quarterly in person, as well as virtually every month, and we try to just elevate business owners and make their business better, their life better, so they can make a greater impact on the world.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and for those of you who've never heard of me before, I am a CPA. I specialize in advanced tax reduction strategies for entrepreneurs, real estate investors and high income earners. And I'm going to start off. I'm going to ask you the first question. We're going to go back and forth and ask each other questions and let's talk about some of the common themes that we have going on. Here is the tax code is. So we're both working on really complex stuff here and ever evolving and improving what we do, and we're talking about evolution and what we can achieve and give to the world and insight. And so, graham, let's talk about some of the things that you're doing in terms of the insight that you're providing this year, and maybe some of the new things that you're on the frontier of in giving to the world.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, we have our impact. Mastermind is probably on the forefront. It's different, you know. Often we go to these masterminds. We learn so much, but it's this deluge, it's this, you know fire hose of information that it's fly be free. And ours is really just about the deep connection stopping for two and a half days and just being present with like-minded individuals in an iron sharpens, iron environment.
Speaker 2:And last week we had our January mastermind in our Scottsdale home and there were tears shed, there was lots of laughter and we had exercise. We got exercise, we did yoga and hiking, and so we bring all the elements of our lives together to make ourselves better. And we didn't just talk about how we're gonna make more money. We also we helped an individual with some family issues, and the beauty of it is everybody was so vulnerable that they shared the stories that were unreal, that they were like oh wow, look at this, I'm not alone. And once some but one person shared, everybody shared and it just brought out a beauty and a compassion that was unmeasurable. Really. Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, we as entrepreneurs here, and you know it's easy to obsess about our tasks and get stuck in the grind. And then you know it's easy to obsess about our tasks and get stuck in the grind, right, and then you know, define success? You know, is success having good metrics and good income statements or connection, and then, or do you have to do one or the other? And you know we've been thinking about this as well, this as well, and there are. You know, we always like what I'm starting to do is, every year we have a focus on a particular area. That's like a theme for each year, and last year was elevation. I was elevating everybody to take on new roles and be leaders and step up to the plate, and that's what we really focused on. I mean, we off-boarded so many things that used to be just me, so it was no longer the Mark Pearlberg show. I mean, the podcast still is, but it's only come up with a better name. How does that make you feel? How does what make me feel?
Speaker 2:Well, sometimes it's hard, when you're used to wearing all the hats, to give them up, and so did that. How did that make Mark Pearlberg feel when you had to start sharing the hat?
Speaker 1:You know, I feel good about it because I love the people that work for me and I really trust them and I want them to share in the success and this experience. And I think that there's a miss, especially as knowledge workers. There's a misperception, and I see accountants say this all the time oh only I can do the tax planning. I don't want to offer tax planning and I got to do it all. It's like it's not like you're like this is the Excalibur sword that only you, as King Arthur, can pull out and deliver the tax planning. Like this is. Everything is teachable here and in fact, you have people who want to do it more than you. They're young and hungry and eager and excited and it's to me it's very gratifying to see that I got these folks bringing ideas and writing tax plans and sharing in this experience. That is really fun. So I'm all about it.
Speaker 2:So they're able to bring a passion for it, and then also probably a different perspective, a different creativity, if you want to say that's great.
Speaker 1:And also they share in some of the grunt work as well, which is good. After a while you got to have a life outside of work. So there were some challenging things that I've learned to challenge my thinking is when I say, oh, only I can do this, only I can quote services, only I can do that. No, like there's some. When you break it down, there's so much as entrepreneurs we do that is delegatable and teachable, but we're just stuck. We forget how much we could off board if we just took the time and initiative.
Speaker 2:So did you go through a specific process to say, hey, you can do the tax, you can do the estate planning, you do real estate? Or was there some natural divvying up of those skills?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good question and I think that it's a continuous process of evaluating. You know, what can I teach and off board. So you know I mean some people get stuck in their forever solopreneurs. They never have the courage to hire a team or hire even a VA, and they're just in it on their own and you can still be profitable doing that and you take on more risk when your team grows. But for me, every year, continuously, I'm challenging myself on what I can entrust my team with and also building my team to take on more and more of these roles and also building my team to take on more and more of these roles. So it's continually asking that question of what can I now teach out or delegate out? And occasionally we'll get like a tag.
Speaker 1:Now I'm not really the main point of contact for many of our new clients. I just don't have the time. Occasionally I will be because I just want to do the work. Like if we get an interesting case like you know, we're consulting over a $20 million cap gain I'll want to get involved in that, partially because I want to teach it and I can't teach it if I haven't done it. So we have an opportunity to do something that's really big and lucrative. You know, sometimes I jump in, but for the most part it's about always asking yourself sometimes I jump in, but for the most part it's about always asking yourself should I really be doing this right now? You know.
Speaker 2:That's a great question and you know it's funny you bring this up of all people because over the last few years that I've known you, your phone rings and you answer, and it doesn't matter what time zone you're in, what's going on, what day of the week it is, you're always there. So I'm excited to hear that you're doing that, even though I am your client. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and the thing is is eventually you compromise your quality when you take over all the work, and I know Corbett has helped you out on the tax returns as well and he does a fantastic job staying on top of you guys and collecting all the docs. So you know, luckily we have some wonderful people like him who I feel comfortable with offboarding because they have the capacity to who I can. You know, it's so good when you have someone like that where you can offboard the work and you feel you're like all right, this guy's got me taken care of. I know it's going to get done if I give it to that person, which is a great feeling right.
Speaker 2:So is there something that you've not been able to go? Oh, jeesh, I haven't quite. I don't have it grasped enough to teach it, to give it to somebody else yet that you need to learn more, or do you feel pretty comfortable where you're at?
Speaker 1:I mean, I think I'm always so. I have the mindset of learn, do teach. So, like there was a time now I'm teaching people to be leaders, because but first I had to be a leader and so now I'm teaching others to be leaders, and so there's always going to be a new as we elevate in our sophistication and size and complexity. I'm always going to have to learn something new as an owner, and then I'm going to have to do it and then teach it to the people around me. So I think that's going to always be the case. So last year I taught people how to write the deliverables, deliver the tax plans, the complexities and other things of that nature, and I also taught my second in command to oversee, do project management and assign the tax returns in a way that was going to be efficient as well.
Speaker 2:That's great. So you said last year was Elevate. I missed what this year was.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't even tell you, that's why. Oh, okay, I was like wait, I just was elevate, I missed what this year was oh, I didn't even tell you that's why oh okay, I was like wait, I just.
Speaker 1:But there's a reason why I mentioned that is because the we actually picked two concepts this year, which is, uh, discipline and connection. Very different words but incredibly important things to have. So, on the connection piece, you, you know, we've tried, we've realized that the most important thing because what we do is very, you know, it's a very relationship driven business I mean, people are trusting us to do some very, very big, incredibly important decisions that can have outcomes in the hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars, and they have to trust us that our recommendations are sound and that our filings are compliant. And so we're working to really strengthen our connection with our communities and our clients because, from an economic perspective, no one's ever going to sell you better than your clients. We have all these sexy ideas to build business with funnels and SEO and you can show up between cat videos on someone's.
Speaker 1:There's a million ways people are selling their services, but I don't think there's anything more effective than just having really strong connections to the people around you and them selling you to the people they know and them knowing who you serve. So we're really diving deep into just having really strong connections and superior services. And then the discipline comes in to make sure we're delivering incredible services and also we're getting stronger in our abilities to track everything, to follow really standardized procedures. This year we're over-communicating certain things that absolutely have to get done that may have slipped a little this year. We're over-communicating certain things that absolutely have to get done that may have slipped a little last year. So we can really have that tight system. We're aligned and we have the ability, through a disciplined strategy, to have stronger connections.
Speaker 2:And I think that they are intertwined. Like you say, if you're connecting better, more clearly, and you're disciplined about the interactions that you're having uh, both internally and externally, and your fault follow the you know with you. You have to be disciplined to go hand in hand. It's just understanding the tax law to use it to your advantage.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, and especially on the prep side. So we spent a lot of time thinking about how can we make this year more what you would say easy, lucrative and fun from our. It's a common phrase here, and one is we didn't want to stress about returns. So we're having a very disciplined, step-by-step procedure where we're you know, we moved up. We're like urging everybody to get us their docs and then we've already started extensions, so we're not chugging coffee the day before. We're like we create these protocols I got my camera there we create these protocols to like.
Speaker 1:It's going to be incredible the efficiency we're going to create here, because we identified a few just little things that were slipping, and one of them was to review the docs as soon as you get it. So you, you, you request, you get them back on time and you can follow up the client, get them to start working on your requests, and people weren't doing it on time. So I had an hour long conversation and the majority of it was you got to do the docs on time, like. This is why it's so important. This is why and everything goes to crap if you don't follow up on the docs and then they say why have you asked me about it and then they had a survey, and then they had a quiz to reinforce it and they, like, they really internalize this and we have this culture now that, like really understands and embraces the importance of these little things, that, like create dominoes in our efficiencies and our abilities.
Speaker 2:So the human that wants to procrastinate makes it really hard for that. How do you, how are you keeping you know? First, it's me on task.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so are you talking about staff or clients? Clients yeah, so you know, over-communication is really important, and same thing with staff. So you know, we have calendar, invites, we have emails, we have videos, we have incentives and all these good things. We've explained the importance of us getting you know, getting timely docs, and how that can help you and make your life more easy, and all those things, so that I think over communication has been our main strategy here and maybe we'll be better at it next year.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you do a great job. I love the portal that you have Awesome, and I find it very easy to use and there's plenty of information in there and the videos are helpful. Uh, no, I I actually find it very refreshing. You know the, you know from the old school, you know traditional systems of, of accounting, so, uh, kudos for you for bringing that in.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's well. That's fantastic to hear, because we also, you know, we have a lot of videos. We try to make this incredibly simplistic. So you know we'll re-say something several times, we'll communicate it via video, text and bullet points and paragraphs so you don't miss out on those key things. And you know, we try to make this as foolproof as possible and so easy. You're like all right, I get it. This is too easy. This is like okay, we want to have them feel that level, like there's value in redundancy because, at the end of the day, you're not going to miss out on your tax deductions and you're going to be compliant when you go through the process.
Speaker 2:Right and look at that Compliant while you go through the process and get the tax reductions. So I mean you're making it simple. Like you know, a five-year-old could do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, and that's really the game plan here. And tell me about you, graham. What are some things that you're working on this year and what are the new things that you're bringing out to everybody.
Speaker 2:One of the biggest things that we're bringing out this year is, on June 17th, janelle, my wife, janelle Bruland, is coming out with her second book, nice and it's your Way Back to Happy, and on June 17th it's being launched. The publish date's done, I think the cover is. I think it's done. I haven't seen the final version, but last I heard it was complete, so we can start getting that out there in the next few days even, and promoting the book, and so we're excited about that and what the next four months brings.
Speaker 1:What's the book about?
Speaker 2:You're way back to happy. What's the book about? You're way back to happy. As business owners and entrepreneurs driven leaders, we're often running to work and our solution, rather than fixing the trauma of our past, is just ignoring it and working harder and grinding harder and avoiding it. And so this is Janelle's journey of becoming a workaholic, becoming unhealthy, having a health issue and then having finally the time, the opportunity, the safe place and space to do it. Just stop and pause and go, wait. You know, I can't keep working like this, I can't keep taking care of everybody else. I need to start taking care of myself.
Speaker 2:And with that she then talks about all the different things that she did to do that, because it's great for some people. Talk counseling, talk therapy that works great for some, but that's not the only thing that can work. And if you without all these, there's a lot of different things. You can do Trey, you can do EMDR, you can do acupuncture, you can do even massage. There are different things you can do to augment and support the therapy of, say, a talk therapy. And so she brings some of these experiences that she tried to light so that others can say and try it and see if they might work, because so often we're just not, you know, we're not exposed to it and or it's, uh, some of them are a little bit odd. Well, you know you, you go, oh, wow, you do what. You sit there and shake, well, yeah, like a bird hits a window and then it shakes it off and it moves on. And you know, as humans we can do that. We are an open looped system.
Speaker 1:In certain cases, so what do you think? So you know, it's interesting, you know, I've heard, you know, our friend joe, I think, is the first person I say that workaholism is the socially acceptable addiction. Right, and sometimes I find I may be classified as a workaholic and um, the I don't remember ever not working hard and uh, and then this business can, especially and I'm sure the majority of cpa is listening to my, listening to the show right now, and we get a lot of them probably feel like workaholics as well. What do you think it is that makes us workaholics?
Speaker 2:well, I I don't know if you know this, but I was raised to be a cpa. My dad was a cpa. I remember growing up uh one. On more than one occasion he came home from the, you know sunday night at nine o'clock, tucked me in at bed and said yeah, you know what? It was a great week. I worked 120 hours. It's like, yeah, dad, that was a great week. Glad I got to say goodnight to you tonight before I go to school tomorrow. So I was raised in the. I mean, as soon as tax season hit, I knew never see my dad. I knew that that was part of the process. I knew on April 15th there was going to be a party at the office and I can go get some free food and sneak in and maybe steal a plastic. You know you had these really cool erasers. So you know, I know that world, I know it intimately.
Speaker 2:I was supposed to be the heir apparent coming in to take over a successful practice and there was no way. First of all, I'm not wired that way, that's just not my. It's easy for me to become a workaholic, for sure, but sitting and doing tax was not my thing. And so why is it easy. I think for accountants it's easy to just get in behind that computer and just go to town. And then when you succeed at one tax return, it's like, oh cool, I did it, I'm gonna hit another one. And then you get in there and it's like this endorphin adrenaline fix. It just keeps building on itself. And pretty soon you're like, oh cool, I did it, I'm going to hit another one. And then you get in there and it's like this endorphin adrenaline fix. It just keeps building on itself. And pretty soon you're like well, maybe I can get in three today. And you just start going after it. So I think that that's a piece of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think a piece of it also is because there is like a little bit of a dopamine hit you get when you take on a new client or close a deal. Oh for sure, yeah. And also accountants oftentimes make for very I wouldn own. A lot of them are not prepared for the, the firm, to function as an organization and really manage their stuff. And we see this like in so many places here about.
Speaker 1:You know, I say that this, I've said this cause I've heard of people in our profession during this time of year I know I'm going to see it in our boards and this guy, someone in our network, will die of a heart attack during tax season. They have all sorts of health issues. I always hear about people driving home from their audits and crashing and falling asleep by the wheel because the standards for excellence is so high. And then our profession is a little messed up in that people are racing to see who can take on the most business and rack up the most, but they don't realize like we got to build a system around this before the business comes in. So it's. It can be a very dangerous environment for your own health and you can. We've seen people in our network literally die, really cut their lives short from the lack of structure and discipline on their businesses.
Speaker 2:Well, my dad didn't die, but he had a mental breakdown. Putting in, you know, on a good week in the middle of August he would work, you would work 60 hours. He didn't have a clue what off was, and so the only thing he did he took us camping two, three times a year, and every other year we got to go on a quote vacation because we could afford to do that. And that was it. And it got to him. You know, 55 years old, he wasn't sustainable any longer and he, he, he said no more and he walked away from everything.
Speaker 2:Everything massive clients, clients, highly, highly lucrative. He was the number one. I just drew a blank. But the person in court for the, the professional advisor in the courts and, and uh, for accounting any, anything accounting he was, he was the guy and he just finally couldn't take it anymore and his solution because he didn't deal with the trauma of his past was just to literally hop on the first train out of town and it's just not bothered to tell anybody, including the train conductor. Yeah, so it's a, it's a problem. So what do you do after that? It took about a year for him to resurface and he was a yard and lumber on a construction site.
Speaker 1:And he was yard and lumber on a construction site. So yeah, I mean and that's I mean I a big issue I have right now is I got to get more discipline back to discipline on tracking numbers and metrics here and it's all connected that you got to track your business, your numbers and your health and because, if you could, we see so many people have these health issues that accumulate year after year and all of a sudden they find out they have like terminal cancer and they didn't know what's coming. Like they're not tracking. Or for your diet, you're not tracking your macros and but you're not, you know you're not getting the results you want, like really having the discipline to understand what you you know how much sleep are you getting? And taking your social life seriously, your connection seriously, like planning for and scheduling in your vacation time and your fun time and your tennis and your golf and your fishing and your concerts or whatever you do, and taking that as seriously as you do your fun, as seriously you do your work.
Speaker 2:Right, and accountants historically haven't done that. I think they're doing a better job. I think the younger generation have said hey look, we're not going to do it that way, and so we're going to do it a little differently and hopefully there is a balance between willingness to put in the time when you need it and not doing that, versus just, oh, I am only working so many hours a week, no matter what, I don't care if it's tax season. I think that there's definitely a nice balance that can be had and, like you say, you need to schedule the fun and it doesn't need to be on April 15th or October 16th or whatever those days are. It can be and needs to be in between. I don't know if the best time to take a month-long vacation is like February or March, but you know.
Speaker 1:I'm going to talk a little bit here about some tax opportunities here as well. Now. Oh good, so if you host a mastermind in your personal residence, you may be able to rent your home to your entity that hosts this event and write it off on your taxes by charging rent to it. Now that entity would have to be a partnership or an S-corp or C-corp, so if it's a sole prop it may not work. But if you have that opportunity you can charge your whole. Essentially, you don't have to recognize the rent revenue when you use your personal residence to rent it out to a third party or an S-corp or a partnership. So you can charge that entity rent to use your home. That entity that you own gets the tax deduction and you are now shifting money into your personal bank account and getting a tax deduction for it. So there's a few opportunities where you can actually get write-offs and reduce your taxes, but you're not really spending any more money, which is really cool. And then some of these other therapies.
Speaker 1:I'm wondering I might want to do some research If we could get to say that the doctor wrote a letter for these therapies.
Speaker 1:We can write it off on our taxes. So a lot of people may miss out on that, and then maybe we can potentially pay for it with our HSA, which might be a really interesting opportunity here. Another thing that we're exploring for some of our clients and this is the thing we're always trying to add new things for our clients. Obviously, we start with the big ticket items, but we're always trying to see and stay connected with our clients to see what other things can we add to the mix. Connected with our clients, to see what other things can we add to the mix. And one of the things we're exploring this year and as it pertains to the law here, is under how could we substantiate even a gym membership. If we get a doctor's letter to substantiate the gym membership for a certain medical need, we can write off our gym membership and that may give us some tax deductions here, especially if we itemize. It may not, but always looking for those little things that we can add into the mix.
Speaker 2:And that's what I appreciate about you is that you're looking at opportunity. You're not looking at opportunities to get audited, you're looking at opportunities to save taxes and you're making sure that it's going to be a clean set of books when you're done and it's going to be accurate and that, yeah, if that gym membership works, if that massage works, if whatever it is is a medical necessity, then great. But my favorite was the one you had just mentioned very first. There, though, that's the new one, that's the Augusta rule, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then another thing that we're exploring with our clients this year, which we're diving deeper into and recent legislation made this more lucrative for our clients is solar. So we have a lot of clients that have real estate rentals. So you buy the solar panels and this is another way where we're reducing our. This is actually not only is it not going to cost us anything, it may reduce our energy costs. So we get the depreciation write-off that reduces our taxes and we get the tax credits, the energy tax credits, typically up to around 40% of the purchase price of the solar. So we get the bonus depreciation, the cash credits and we're reducing our energy costs all at the same time. Really cool strategy to consider here for our clients who have rental properties, or even on your personal residence.
Speaker 2:So with that I'm going to go one step further, Ask this question because I don't know the answers. In Linden Washington, Our rental that we talked about, that you know I have, I put it on there they normally pay the local service provider, the power company. Would they then pay me instead? Would it be another revenue stream?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it could be a potential revenue stream as well, and you can maybe charge the energy at a markup. So if you're not paying for the energy now, you can charge it to the clients. In fact, we're doing a workshop on February 19th on that. In fact, if anybody is listening to this ahead of time and wants to join, you can just email one of us and you'll get the link. But we're exploring what are you legally allowed to do as a landlord when you charge for the energy as well? And then also if you have commercial space, industrial space, et cetera, et cetera, that also will give you the opportunities here. Or maybe you just auto draft from the clients who pay rent for the energy. So that's something we're diving deeper into and it's an area of opportunity that isn't really you don't see a lot of people talking about and exploring. So we're kind of charting out a new path for our clients to create these opportunities.
Speaker 2:I like that. That's pretty creative. I you know if you can get the, and every state's probably different, I would imagine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know you would assume that, like the sunny states are going to give you these opportunities, so, like you would think, just places like Arizona, florida, but actually what we're finding is, even in places as far as north, as it is, to leverage solar in your real estate, and that's just one of many, many, many things that we look at for our clients.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, what else is something creative you're doing this year?
Speaker 1:else is something creative you're doing this year. So I think that some of the things that we're looking at is so we do really advanced tax planning and we have some very sophisticated structures. We have something involving charitable structures where, essentially, you're using leverage and bank loans and insurance where you assign interest to the bank that allows you to offset 60% of your total income, and we can do it in a way that's airtight and you choose which charity collects some of the money, so you're actually giving to society. We're going to create literally tens of millions of dollars in charitable donations this year and anyone we do it for will eliminate 60% or more of their taxes with the strategy. So that's very exciting.
Speaker 2:That is yeah.
Speaker 1:Obviously, we're going to create structures where you can rent out solar panels to third parties, get the depreciation in the credits, and we're stacking them on top of each other where we're going to put maybe, if we do this, how much is left for this strategy? How does that impact that strategy in doing what we call holistic tax planning? And then what we're really excited about, though, is, on top of that, we're also going to help strengthen our clients' abilities to implement some just cool strategies. So we did a whole workshop on the Augusta rule, and I gave some creative examples.
Speaker 1:For instance, I visited my mom for Christmas, and she works for the firm, so I paid to rent her home to do business meetings. So now, instead of now, I'm not saying that this is a form of compensation for her work, but I can pay her a couple thousand dollars. I get the write-off. She pays no taxes on it. So, always coming up with ways that we can apply these and coach our clients to identify these opportunities, we have another workshop on turning hobbies into legitimate businesses with tax deductions, and challenging our clients to rethink and challenge their assumptions about the tax law and the opportunities to create write-offs so they can maximize their savings, but also be resourceful and maybe find ways that they're going to build more wealth and profit in their businesses at the same time.
Speaker 2:I love it. No, I love it. So take hobbies. So can we just go buy a bunch of boats and rent them out? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1:Oh that, I mean, that's an easy one. I mean, a boat rental business is absolutely a legitimate business. And there's this I want to clear a misperception here that they say, oh, you don't profit in three years the IRS is going to say it's a sham business. And that's absolutely false. There's nowhere in the law that says you have to be profitable to have a legitimate business, especially real estate investors. After you do those cost eggs, I mean, you have some real estate investors that are incredibly wealthy and rich and they have negative income statements their whole life. So I love the idea. If you love boats, you want to buy some boats and rent them out, and you love being on the docks and that's your part of your side gig, and now we get bonus depreciation on those boats, offsetting your income. I'm all for it.
Speaker 2:All right, well, I'll tell Janelle that you're all for a brand new boat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know your financial planner may not be as on board with it, but Okay, yeah, so. But like all of like we, we love embracing the idea of the tax-free lifestyle where you're always finding ways to get write-offs and you're incorporating your business into your passion, in your life and getting your family involved. And now you're not only are you writing off your family trips or meals, but you're also enriching, you know, the future of your business and your family and your family's finances, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:I love it, you know. What I love most, though, is your passion about tax and tax savings. I mean normally an accountant's kind of like, stoic and or ambivalent about. Well, this is what I do, and I try, I'll do my best, and we'll see what we can do and we might be able to. And you're, and you know, we'll see what we can do and we might be able to, and you're like man, we're going to go figure this out. We're going to go figure out tax savings. We're going to find what you do, what you need, and we're going to figure out a way to make it happen.
Speaker 1:I love it. Well, I appreciate that and I don't know why more people aren't. When you realize how much you can accomplish with tax planning and some of this stuff can be life-changing, a big refund check can change your life. We can create a plan that, year after year, saves you money and that money is reinvested and grows and compounds. That can help you retire early and to get you to not burn out at your job and have more time with your family, or hire more staff to support your operations so you can have more vacations and a more fulfilling life. So it's very connected to your health and your wealth, your happiness and your future when you have a control over this area of your life.
Speaker 2:Does that mean you're going to go on more vacations this year? I hope so. I am going to Thailand in May may. Oh, wow, okay yeah, man.
Speaker 1:So for you for how long? A month? Whoa, yeah, I'm going with my girlfriend from thailand, so, um, you know a new girlfriend from thailand. Yes, yes, patrick's from from Thailand and I know I'm going to have some challenges digesting the food because I love Thai food, but I pretty much get sick every time I leave the country. Charcoal pills yeah, we got to figure that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, take charcoal pills with you Activated charcoal.
Speaker 1:So tell me about some of the things, your latest, what are you most excited and some other things you're excited to share with people, with some of the stuff that you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think, with our mastermind, the group that we're curating is the most exciting thing that that we've been doing this year and see in the future.
Speaker 2:It is an amazing group of talented people, all successful business owners and, like I said earlier, the the, what they are sharing, what they're willing to be vulnerable with and what their their vulnerability is not just in what they're willing to share, but also I had two people sit in front of the group with an ask and those they were not easy asks and for them to sit there in front of them and say, specifically, this is my story, this is what I need and I don't know what to do. That is powerful, and people just poured into them and gave all sorts of great analogies and stories and personal experiences to try and help guide them in making a good decision. So that was the most exciting part for me is just how can we really just pick one person at a time and dump into them for whatever it is they need until it's fixed and or better, and then move forward and help another person. I I love that more than anything.
Speaker 1:That's really cool, now you have. Can you actually without naming names? Can you tell, would you be able to give us some examples of some of the stuff that you facilitate? Or if you want to give names, that's fine too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably probably not.
Speaker 1:It might be too personal.
Speaker 2:Let's hear probably probably won't be giving names out, but uh, well, we have. Uh, one of the one of the people is a head of a large non-profit organization and it is headed in you know, multiple directions because there are so many opportunities. Well, well, she needs to figure out what opportunity is truly the core value of that opportunity. You know, of that or of the nonprofit she can't take on. All of them are related, all of them are great causes, but in of itself, what one is the most important cause for that organization at this time? And she had four or five, like global opportunities or national, I guess national opportunities, and we were able to disseminate which ones and help her. Obviously it was her deciding, but with guidance of the group, list from order what we thought were the top five in order, and then she could go to the board and say this is how I feel. You know she might shuffle those when she goes home, but in the group she walked away with with why each opportunity, why it was ranked where it was and why it shouldn't be higher.
Speaker 2:Another one was going through a divorce. Nobody wants to do that. It's miserable, it's horrible, no good, no fun, and didn't know what to do. This is a business group. This is a group of business owners from across the United States and a couple people from outside of the United States and willing to vulnerably say look, I don't know what to do here. I just need could you tell me your stories? I just want to hear stories so that I can help use those stories to process for my own story and what might be best experiences. We didn't get any tax law. We didn't get any. You know it was all personal about what it's like in the divorce situation and what everybody's life story was, and so that was a real interesting conversation. Another one Well, she's asked me for it, so she's she. One of her asks is Dr Betty Uribe out of Columbia. You know Dr Betty, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, wonderful person.
Speaker 2:She's in California. We're at the National Prayer Breakfast right now with her as we are recording this. She wants to change the world, one global leader at a time. So if anybody knows a global leader, a prime minister?
Speaker 1:So if anybody knows a global leader, a prime minister, a president, a pastor of a massive organization, a leader? Betty's ask is I want to meet the most elite leaders in the world so I can help them be a better leader.
Speaker 2:So she helps them in leadership. She helps them in leadership and it her book, is called hashtag values. You know, because oftentimes when you get to that point of leadership, you forget that piece of values. You know what. What got you there, how did you get there, and you know what or what do you need to focus on while you're there. And so she has a specific way of extracting that from the person and helping them really grow. And, um, yeah, she's. She's met with an amazing group of people from all over the globe, from Jordan and India and the Ukraine and the UK and Columbia and Argentina and Brazil. They're just Colombia and Argentina and Brazil. They're just yeah.
Speaker 2:So any global leader if anybody out there has a, you know, reach out to me or Mark, and you know we can. We can make the connection to, to, you know, to make that happen. It's pretty special what she's doing too. So it's it's not just hey, you know what, I've got a $5 million business. I want to turn it to seven. We had a few of those conversations, but those weren't quite as impactful. Those aren't changing the world necessarily. Changing the world is one global leader at a time, or one more moderately, one more successful, rather non, rather nonprofit. Something like that has a bigger moving of the dial, I guess.
Speaker 1:I find when you become an entrepreneur, it becomes very. You don't realize how isolating it becomes very ice. You don't realize how isolating it becomes. And then you know that's something that a lot of people are not prepared for, right, and I, I I was surprised because I became an entrepreneur right when the. I really became an entrepreneur right when the pandemic started, which was like the loneliest time in that I'll ever experienced like in history, because everybody was isolated and I was like, wow, this is just, it is just empty. Like everybody was lonely but man it was. And I still realize coming out of the pandemic like this is a lonely journey. If you're not, if you don't take the initiative to connect, you could really find yourself just feeling isolated from the world, right For sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and, and we work with that, with our group. You know there are 18 of us in our, in our home, and isolation is a big piece of it. We're a group of faith-based business owners. So, as a business owner and a business leader, you're already alienating a number of people. Your family think you're crazy and your friends think you're nuts.
Speaker 1:and so we all came together when I started my practice and I said I told my mom that I wanted to help people reduce taxes, she said this sounds like a scam.
Speaker 2:I gotta meet your mom.
Speaker 1:She sounds awesome she's got her opinions. I'm sure is she up in where is she?
Speaker 2:New York, long Long Island. Okay, well, there you go.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you what do you think is the importance of, and the impact of, being vulnerable as a leader?
Speaker 2:I think that to be a successful leader, you need to be vulnerable, that to be a successful leader, you need to be vulnerable. You can't lead from a place of fear, and whether that's your fear of everything or your people are afraid of you. If you lead from a place of vulnerability, if you lead a place from home, you know some of you, when you're humble, people are going to follow you and they're going to die on that proverbial sword for you. When it comes down to we got to get this product out. This tax return has to get out. If you're a humble leader, they're going to do everything in their power to make it happen, because they love you and they know that you love them back as much.
Speaker 1:You know, I, one of our core values here is ownership. And I, I, you know, I've seen other firms where you know people mess up or the you know even the partners will make a poor recommendation or in you know they did the best they could but they blame it on the client, the client to give me. You know, sometimes, you know when things go wrong, I say damn it, I messed up or I put the wrong person on that assignment and they messed up, but it's my fault for not not fixing it sooner or identifying that that guy was going to delay, whatever. And and I find that at least I feel better about myself and my relationships when I own up and take responsibility for when things go wrong and even though we win as a team and we fail as a team, but when things go really well and we have something positive as a leader, what I believe and and I see other people say you give recognition to the people around you because I don't need them to shake my hand and you know, as long as you know, as long as we're profitable, I'm good.
Speaker 1:I don't I feel like I could get recognition elsewhere, but giving recognition to the staff is just a wonderful thing and we're doing. You know we're virtual, so how do we, how we strengthen connection in virtual office? I mean, videos are nice, but you know what? Handwritten cards, care packages when they're sick, we send chicken soup to their homes. When their children are sick, we send their children's chicken soup to their homes, and all these little things, especially handwritten cards, such a nice touch to it. So we're really strengthening our connection by sending things to people in physical items to overcome the geographic difference in these virtual offices.
Speaker 2:That's a good one. I love it. Yeah, handwritten cards I've been a big fan of those since forever. Back when I was banking, I went to a Brian Buffini conference and he was always he's a real estate guy, but he always said, handwritten card, handwritten card, handwritten card. And I may have heard of it even before then, but he really beat it into me so I continued to buy, uh, his cards and then fill them out because I always had a positive connotation or a positive you know card and it was great. Yeah, I agree, I think it's a huge, huge win for you to do that.
Speaker 1:good for you so brian buffini has yeah, you're saying, this guy has custom handwritten cards to well.
Speaker 2:yeah, you got to go on his way. He's, he's a real estate coach, but uh, he's probably one of the largest in the world, but he, I'm able to buy his cards and and and they're, they're thematic and positive, and so this is what I do.
Speaker 1:When I hear a good idea to check out what I do, is I go. Hey, siri, remind me to look into Brian Buffini's cards for handwritten cards and now I got a.
Speaker 2:I got something to check out, there you go yeah, that's what are you most excited about for uh tax season getting over it or where you at what's going on you know there's not a whole lot.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that we're all excited just to see we put a. You know, through painful trial and error and experiences, we made a lot of adjustments, we've hired a lot of people and we're just excited to see how things play out. We're chomping at the bits to really deliver an amazing product this year and just to show people what we're made out of. We see a lot of people dread tax season, but us we're like, oh, I can't wait to see this system. We're using AI to help us out in the prep now and it'll read the docs and plug them into our software. So we're very excited to be world-class and really show the world what we're made out of.
Speaker 1:And then, obviously, with the planning, we're always exploring new ideas and really being on the forefront of what's possible. So it's all very exciting and also elevating my team to be leaders and move closer towards a vision of our firm which is to be easy, lucrative and fun and to create an environment in our profession where you can enjoy your life, have a good career, be profitable and not give away your life. So I'm really working towards that vision of a firm that allows our staff to thrive professionally and personally. So if I can achieve that, so my staff can have more time with their friends and family and have healthy and rewarding and fulfilling lives and careers, then that's that is a that is a noble cause, that is a worthy goal and vision to to work towards a worthy goal and vision to work towards.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I agree 100%. And with that we should probably just close, because I'm not sure you can say anything better than that. How do people get ahold of you so they can support that worthy cause?
Speaker 1:So we're always looking for talent, although we have a lot of talent right now. But just anyways, reach out. If this resonates with you and you're an accountant, we will be hiring. So you can go to prosperalcpacom slash recruiting if you're interested in joining the team. But if you're interested in our service, our services go to prosperalcpacom slash apply. That's P-R-O-S-P-E-R-L like prosper with an L prosperalcpacom slash apply to see if we're a good fit and apply anyways. If you're not sure, we'll send you tons of resources and YouTube videos based on your answers. And, graham, if people want to learn more about you and connect with you, what can they do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the easiest is just legacy-leadercom L-E-G-A-C-Y-L-E-A-D-E-Rcom, and you can learn more about Impact Mastermind. You can learn more about our coaching. You'll find a link to Janelle's new book here on the banner very shortly, as soon as we can get that all approved. So it's going to be an exciting 2025 fantastic.
Speaker 1:Well, by the way, her first book has one of the best titles I've seen at that conference, which was the success lie, yeah, and, and I it was. It was one of those things that like catches your eyes when you see it so yeah, that that one was a game changer right there, so that was fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're hoping to do that again and have another bestseller.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, well, and also, if you guys are clients or colleagues and you want to learn more, just reach out to me as well. You might get Graham to do a workshop with his wife and talk about some of these concepts about enriching your life as a leader, and obviously he hosts, he has his not only the book but the mastermind, and I would love to make some connections there as well. I think some of our guys could really use what you do. Yeah, no, I think likewise.
Speaker 1:And we've always appreciated everything you've done for us. Awesome, All right. Well, thank you for listening everyone.