Episode 59: Protecting Your Investments for the Future with Toby Mathis

More on YouTube? Check the video version on Youtube

Who is the Guests?

Toby Mathis is a 25-year tax attorney and founding partner at Anderson Advisors, 

whose career has focused on how to save money and how to make money. As a result 

of Anderson’s tax work with tens of thousands of successful investors including 

preparing over 100,000 investor tax returns, Toby has pieced together their 

methods to building wealth and now educates on the surprisingly simple processes.

Toby Mathis has helped Anderson grow its practice from one of business and 

estate planning to include a thriving tax practice and registered agent service 

with tens of thousands of clients nationwide.

Toby also advances his client's interests by combining expert tax advice with his 

personal experiences investing in over 200 real estate projects in the United States. 

Visit Him at:  

Personal Website: tobymathis.com/podcast 

Website: https://andersonadvisors.com/

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/c/tobymathisesq

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndersonBusinessAdvisors/

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Transcript

Axel Meierhoefer: 0:02

You always hear people talk about, let's get bigger, let's grow more. Net, add more. And that's great. And it totally fits into our belief that we all should try as best we can. And hopefully you ask us to help you with it to build a residential real estate portfolio that generates passive income for you. But then how do you actually grow to a really, really large portfolio? And what implications are associated with that, and to talk about that we brought in Toby Mathis, from Anderson advisors, because what they do is, on the one hand, they provide tax strategies on how you can actually use your assets, and reduce the amount of taxes that you have to pay. But it goes beyond that. Because when you start growing, you really have an estate plan. And you want to protect your assets from any kind of negative impacts. And so those three things together, is what Toby is actually an expert in. So I invite you to listen in and see how you can take care of your assets and your taxes and protect everything together with that advice. Hello, and welcome to another episode of The IDEAL Investor Show today, we have a guest that will help us understand what are other things to protect what we have, and maybe even be able to hand it over to the next generation. And he is one of the founders of Anderson advisors. Toby Mathis is with us welcome, Toby. Thank you, doctor. Yeah, absolutely. And so Toby, I saw that you had a pretty illustrious career and helping tons and tons of people and doing really awesome stuff. Can you tell us a little bit how you got to where you are right now?

Toby Mathis: 1:59

Oh, boy, that's a good question. And thank you. First off, I've been at it for about 25 years, I'm an investor. First off, so I do what my clients do. And I love working with people that are trying to build wealth and create a legacy been really, really lucky. Over to Anderson, we've had about 500 employees, we've had a bunch of awards for our values and things that really matter, like best places to work, along with some other stuff. But I've just been really, really honored to work with the people that I work with and get to work with really cool investors who are making changes. I just, for whatever reason, that just brings me a ton of joy.

Axel Meierhoefer: 2:35

Yeah, that's really cool. And I mean, that's actually something that we have in common, even though I'm not so much on the tax and tax planning side or estate planning side, even though I can say lucky, or rightfully so I guess you would say Toby is to have an estate plan and get it all worked out. And I've actually had the first benefit from it. Because I wanted to know what I would have to do if I wanted to give one of my investments to my daughter. They said not really anything, it's already in your state. Yeah, so that was actually a pretty cool thing, where that being said, you said you do this things that you basically help your investors and your customers. That's the same thing that I do just more on the active investing side and more kind of narrow. You guys, I think from what I could see on the website, you support people pretty broadly. But I'm kind of wondering, especially in this time that we're in right now, right? Like everybody's talking about inflation, everybody's talking, some people talk about Social Security running out of money, massive national debt, that will lead to potentially increased taxes, which might make this whole notion that you do your 401 K, you put money aside, hoping that your tax burden will be less when you're finishing with your dependent work than it is right now. Can you put a little bit into perspective, what you see and where you would say people should focus on especially taking into consideration, I would say the change times that we're in this year compared to like maybe 2021 and 10 years before?

Toby Mathis: 4:10

Yeah, and I'll put it this way. So by trade, I'm a tax attorney. So I spend most of my day digging into ways to make sure people are not on the road to overpay or pay the legal minimum. Right. But inflation is a tax. And if you don't prepare for it, it's absolutely going to annihilate you inflation is if we use the 1980 standards 1982 standards that everybody compares what we're going through right now, hey, it's the highest inflation since 40 years. No, it's much higher because if we use the methodology that they use, we're probably closer to 17% right that we've never experienced anything like this. They dumped close to four to $5 trillion into our society. The Fed is who I refer to as they they created more money during the pandemic and they act salutely devalued your dollars. And so what would I be investing in anything other than dollars. But I would be investing in assets that inflation and growth boost. You know, that's how the stock market goes up as inflation and growth. That's how the real estate market goes up its demand and inflation. So if inflation is going rampant, that's what I'd be running to, I wouldn't be going to growth stocks, I'd be focusing on bread and butter, cashflow companies that are profitable have been for 50 years plus that pay their shareholders reward you for being a shareholder, and I'd be focusing on cash flow real estate, I would not be messing around with hoping for appreciation on either of those two, where you find success in this type of market is having cash that comes in monthly or quarterly at a minimum consistently. And that goes up as inflation goes up.

Axel Meierhoefer: 5:57

Yeah, absolutely. I'm totally with you. And I mean, in a sense, I said to a lot of our clients, because as you probably know, we are basically working and helping people to do actually value investing with a really strong percentage, like in the 70% area on real estate. And we have always pointing out that it's kind of like the cherry on the icing on the cake that we have this pretty substantial appreciation in the last few years. But because of the investments that we are promoting, being basically selected based on the performance, meaning like the cash flow performance, and the positive cash flow from day one, it has always and I think it's an important thing, and has never been the focus the appreciation and has always been the cherry on the icing of the cake. And that obviously is something that we realized is probably not going to be there anymore. But you know, the cake is still great, even if the cherry on top of it all the time. Right. So that's definitely an interesting thing. One thing I wanted to come back to and really because you are the expert or one of the experts is and I call it the dance just to preface that people have heard me say this in other podcasts you said earlier, we're basically helping people to use the full playbook of tax preparation to get it down to as low as possible within the rules. Yes, in my words, you said probably a little better than that. But what I call the dance is the struggle of qualifying. And not just from owner occupied investments in real estate, but especially for investing in low performing cash flow real estate, because their question oftentimes, especially when we talk about accreditation, and we're not at a million dollar valuation yet, which just I want to reiterate this for people that might like so you might have 10 properties that you finance 80% Bank 20% on your own, that might be worth a million dollars, but only$200,000 of that maybe plus a little bit from the cherry counts the rest of the loans. And the value that the loans basically represent doesn't really count for accreditation. So for a lot of people who don't have 3040 50 properties yet, the income is basically the thing, and we will turn to you Toby and say, Hey, man, especially if I'm a business owner like me, I would say can you help me get it down to as low as possible, with the caveat that I've run into several times and our clients run into that. They say, well, but now your AGI your adjusted gross income is below 200 or below 300. And you don't have a million yet, so you're not really accredited. And all these cool things out there. Don't apply. So how do you dance on that dance floor?

Toby Mathis: 8:43

I see what you're saying is you're worried about what if my deal flow dries up? Because I'm not an accredited investor? And could I do tax strategies that caused me to lose my accreditation? And if I even had it, right, yeah, yeah, that and that's a valid concern. What I would say is not all syndications are for 100% accredited investors. A lot of them are 35 or so of the non accredited, but it is a consideration. Absolutely 100%. What we end up doing is I'll give you an example of what I went through. When I started our firm Anderson. We had a few years where we were making a million bucks, but we were writing everything off. We were accelerated depreciation. We had zero right. So we go into get a home loan and they're looking at you like you're a popper. We make no money. No, no, I made a million dollars. Oh, so you're No, no, no, no, it's like, he ended up talking to the bank and they have to be able to read a balance sheet and understand that maybe you accelerated depreciation, okay, they're going to add it back in depending on it. But if I don't want to deal with that report more income, right? If my level is, hey, I need to show that I'm making $200,000 a year if I'm single or $300,000 a year for married filing jointly, if I want to meet accredited investor status and want to and then I have to continue to Leaving that I'm going to continue down that path. Hopefully that gets you over the million dollar net worth side. But if that's what your plan is, then you're deliberately overpaying the taxes that you owe, instead of deferring them out, maybe you're paying them now. But you're doing it intentionally, not by accident. You're saying, Hey, this is what I want to hit. And if you would have had 500,000, we're not doing 500,000 Because it's not doing you any good. We're gonna get you down to that 300,000. Right. So if I need to meet accredited investor status, how do I do it? All right, let's target that number. Let's not overpay, let's not underpay? Let's make sure we're hitting what you want to be. So you have access to these deals. Or if you're somebody who doesn't want access to those deals, like I would say, hey, if I have to choose between paying 15 20% tax rate, so I could get a deal that's going to give me 8% or 9%, I might say, hey, let's do the numbers there, you're probably better off not paying the tax on it right now. And then accumulating wealth. As long as it's going into investments, you'll hit accredited investor status, it just might take you a couple of years.

Axel Meierhoefer: 11:09

I appreciate that. And that actually brings up two questions, and one of them being how close around that accreditation number of 200 or 300. Do you think it is even worth playing around with it? I mean, let's just say somebody had a single and had 180 If you do everything, but you could get two to one if you don't do everything? I know, you can say okay, why? What's the percentage on the return, but the return is only really known the year one, right? Like I mean, I want to play this out a little more. If we're looking at what's happening in the market, at least in our real estate market that we're looking in for well, performing cash flow and properties, we see yes, the properties have increased in value, and the money we need to pay for the money that we want to use for leverage has gotten more expensive. But when we go to our principals to say, a good property is only a well performing property. If it pays positive cash flow taking everything into account, then that is still true. Well, then the point is, okay, if I interpret the market correctly, there will be way more demand for renters or tenants than people who buy something other than for investment purposes. So yes, I could say my initial right now you might be right to say, Okay, well, you starting out with 8% 9% 11%. But if I'm looking of how much most likely will I could get in the next few years. And none of these investments are short term anyways. Right? So does it make sense to say, okay, at some point, if you're within 20 25,000, you might want to talk to your CPA or sign up with as an advisor. So?

Toby Mathis: 12:44

Yeah, it's doing it deliberately. And I'll say that if it really comes down to that's how close you are an accredited investor status, the whole idea with accredited investor status is that you can afford to lose that money and it's not going to change your lifestyle. If you lost your money, you'd probably have to change your lifestyle. So I would say, Hey, make sure that you're comfortably into that million dollar range, or that you're comfortably at the income threshold, because it's designed to kind of keep you from doing too many things that could harm yourself. So that would be my first comment. But yes, absolutely. Sit down with your accountant at that point and say, Is there anything that I'm not like that I can take that I'm absolutely not going to get a return on? So I am overpaying my taxes rather deliberately? Is this it? Are the returns going to justify it? And it really depends on the investment that you're in. I happen to agree with you, by the way, we are under build. So the joint Housing Center, the Harvard joint Housing Center, says what 3.8 million units behind depending on who y'all look at.

Axel Meierhoefer: 13:45

I personally think it's more than that. But it depends on what units you're counting.

Toby Mathis: 13:50

We have a housing issue. We don't have enough housing, and we're losing housing. And now the Fed decided to raise interest rates to break the economy to stop inflation, which they created by dumping the cash in but they're not pulling the cash out, which would be the obvious solution. But let's just say, Hey, we're gonna really hammer this thing. So now builders aren't building so now new builds are down historic levels, you have interest rates just jumped at the fastest rate we've ever seen for mortgages. I'm trying to think how far back you have to go to see this type of jump. I don't know if it's ever happened, where they doubled in

Axel Meierhoefer: 14:25

jump. Yeah, I agree that jump has probably never been this big. The rates have probably bought like early 2000s. Similar to that kind of

Toby Mathis: 14:33

it's crazy. Yeah. So what's gonna happen to the market, you're gonna have people that now can't afford so the affordability of real estate, I don't think it's ever been this bad. The median home and the median income, it would take what about 45% of the median income to pay for the mortgage on the median home? It's untenable. There's no way that that's going to continue. So something's gonna have to give you know, so you where people aren't going to be able to afford the house, which means they become renters, which then if you're a landlord, this is fantastic for you. Or you're going to have continued inflation, where we're going to have to see wages increase so that the median income can afford the median home, or you're going to see that median home get devalued, so that it's in line so people can actually afford it.

Axel Meierhoefer: 15:18

I agree with all of those. And I mean, I obviously have my prediction, one additional component. And that might be a little bit outside of the frame of our conversation today. But I think an important component in this is not just the sheer numbers, but the fact that the pandemic has basically shown that for anything that is not hands on kind of work, where you either participate in creating a product, or you have to be in a particular location, so that a service can be provided. I mean, I'm assuming you could do what you and I are doing now, as far as talking on a podcast for a tax advisory session justice, well, I don't have to come and sit with you in an office, right? And so this component of people saying, Okay, well, if I want to work in the tech industry, I have to be in Silicon Valley is no longer true. Right. So that gives a potential shift in where people actually even going to look for any real estate, whether it's to be rented or to be bought, I believe, is going to see accelerated shifts, because the circumstances are being created, whether it's the high cost of money, or the high cost of rent, for people to basically reconsider, okay, what do I really want? And what do I really need? You know, it used to be if you wanted to be in the bleeding edge of high tech, you needed to be either in someplace in North Carolina, or in Silicon Valley and a few other spots, and the rest of the country was basically out. By now the whole country and even outside the country is basically ready for those kinds of jobs. And so that I think it's a new layer that we didn't really have. And everybody was always arguing, at least as long as it has been working. That that wouldn't work. Well, two years of the plague have basically showed that it does.

Toby Mathis: 17:05

Yeah, the numbers are ridiculous used to be what 4% Of the people work from home. And now it's 30%. Yeah, it is,

Axel Meierhoefer: 17:11

And most of them, I think, would if given a choice from what I hear, and I work with very many people, especially in the life science and healthcare industry and stuff like that, when you ask them straight out, you know, one to one, without the employer listening, nobody wants to actually go back. That doesn't mean they don't like the community and don't like to go and have an event at the office, or maybe for some thing to come together as a team. But not every day spending two hours in a car to go and sit in a cubicle or anything like that. So I think that that creates a dynamic. Now one thing I want to come back to what you mentioned earlier, and that is you said, Okay, well, you either have 200,000 yourself as adjusted gross income, or 300, if you are filing together with your spouse, yeah. Now I know a lot of our people in the audience, either people who have a normal w two job, but make basically almost all the income or their business owner. So I want to really take advantage of the fact that we have you to be to say, how is this actually if like, take my example, right? I have two businesses, my wife obviously helps me but she's not an employee or anything like that. Is it really kind of smart to keep filing together or separate or under this, you know, different opportunities and circumstances for qualifying? It might be that I could if I were singly filing, be there. Easy. But if we file together, I'm $50,000.

Toby Mathis: 18:38

Better off, usually, you're better off if you're filing jointly, there are a few situations where you're better off filing separately. And the only way you're going to know is when you do your taxes. Have your tax guy run our tax gal run two scenarios. What if I filed jointly What if I file separately? And it varies? I've been kind of shocked. I'll be like, there's no way it's going to make that much of a difference. And you'll see occasionally, depending on what's going on that in you know, with those individuals, where it will make a big difference. If you're doing the whole real estate professional, if one spouse qualifies and one spouse doesn't. In you're going that route that might have a huge difference. If it's somebody who's just one person has a high w two job in the ER homemaker, the other spouse is staying home, then it might not make much of a difference at all. And so it's just again, I would say there's three rules in taxes, which is you Calculate, calculate and calculate. At the end of the day, don't guess just have your guy run two different scenarios. It's the same thing we do with businesses, well, would I be better off as an S corp, C Corp, sole proprietorship but let's run the numbers. And then you look at the other considerations.

Axel Meierhoefer: 19:52

That's good advice to actually run it as if it is two scenarios. I mean, one of the things that you said earlier I think It's an important nugget. And I really appreciate that you pointed it out and that, in my words, I would call it to do things with awareness consciously basically making the decision, right, like in my case, because we knew that I'm most likely going to be the one who is generating the revenue generating ultimately the profits in the business. So for all the investment loans, my name is basically the one that is on the title as in the mortgage and stuff like that. And we have never really pulled that trigger. But we've always been saying, Okay, well, if I were to be the one was basically the only one filing then every piece of documentation both on the income side, as well as on the quote, unquote, expense side is in my name. So I can actually use all of it, right. And we then made sure in the state plan that my wife still gets everything if I get run over by a bus, you know. So

Toby Mathis: 20:54

Can I touch on that just real quick, because I think that I literally just went to a funeral this weekend of a client that was involved, they were a syndicator. And they were, they had construction business. And they had just gotten married, they literally, it was 104 days, from their marriage to when the individual passed away, he was hit on a motorcycle, by a drunk driver, actually, a drunk driver pulled out in front of him on the freeway like literally, that was all she wrote, please have an estate plan in place, if you think it's never going to happen to you, you got to understand that that's simple documentation avoided all the consternation for the surviving spouse, everything was already documented, thank goodness, they knew because we had been chirping on him. As soon as you get married, we're fixing that thing. He had already had an estate planning, he was getting married, we updated it. Thank goodness, we did, because the ramifications of that event would have been potentially catastrophic. It depends on the state you're in. He had children from a previous marriage, there's business interest, there's stuff that pre existed, the marriage, all this stuff is handled. When you do an estate plan. And I'm not talking about a will. I'm talking about an actual estate plan, usually in the form of living trust with the all the ancillary documents, which is the power of attorneys and the financial power of attorneys, healthcare power of attorneys, HIPPA releases all that, you want to make sure that is dialed in, so that you're not leaving your loved one in parallel. All the investing in the world can get done in a heartbeat. If you're not looking at what am I creating? What is the legacy I want, because it'll get undone by your relatives and your heirs. If you're not very specific, they literally won't know what to do with it in you're creating an issue for them to have to solve. And they don't have your expertise. And so if you're leaving things to your kids, if you're leaving things to spouse, and like you said, they may not even be on the documentation, they may not know what's going on, they may not be working in the business, please make sure that you're having some format of how that resolves. So because if it ends up in a courtroom, or worst case, if it's a lot of obscurity, like we don't know. And eventually you end up in a courtroom, it's usually the death knell for whatever plan you put in place, if you want to create a legacy.

Axel Meierhoefer: 23:17

yeah, I really appreciate Toby that you make that really sincere point, and I'm harping on this myself, especially when as it has happened and keeps happening. Some of our clients don't just use our help to ACD get in the groove and get their first and maybe their second investment, might have kind of like a lifelong relationship. And they keep building their portfolio, we call that working or being on the path towards the time freedom point where you no longer have to exchange time for money and can live on your cash flow. But with that, obviously comes the accumulation of assets. And not just equities, but assets. And so we basically using and suggesting series LLC type structure in the FDA plan. So that basically, like you just said, everything is organized. And if you make it to that point, right, then you become dependent on that passive income, and you don't want to have any doubts, you know, because you haven't organized it and you don't have it in the estate plan, how exactly the funds flowing. And also, I mean, the nice thing and I want to use that a little bit as a bridge to your five point system, that you have to have somebody whether it's an as an advisor, or some organization similar to it, that is aware and every year creates basically a summary of how does the structure look and how much is it still relevant to any additional investments you have made this year or any things that have changed or maybe the allocation needs to change? That's basically what I and you said in the beginning, right, like doing the things that you want to tell other people, so it's not just doing the investments. I'm also basically what we're saying if you Want to hear what I have and how I have structured my estate plan I can tell you, and then you can take that copy that do something similar, you know, and even to address things like I know people always ask me Oh, so if I do this thing with estate plan, we'll all make mortgages be called mine. And so I tell them, Well, I'm not an advisor, I'm not anywhere near at your level. But if you put your property in a land trust, and the land trust is owned by the LLC in that row, it's up to your operations company, it's all good, and there's nothing to be caught. And so those kinds of things, I think, are really helpful. And so I hope, and I don't know if this is something putting you on the spot to explain that in relatively just a little bit of time. I have this elf in the background called Nadine, who makes things that you and I can talk and be on a podcast possible, and organizing and stuff. And she always sends me a few notes. And she said, Toby worked through all of this and did other days and hundreds of millions and 1000s, and millions and millions. But overall, what he came up with is a surprisingly easy five part plan. I'm like, oh, that sounds good. I have to ask him about it. How is this secret? Surprisingly easy for him to claim? What is it and how does it work?

Toby Mathis: 26:14

It's we call it the Anderson system. And it's basically you're taking inventory of all your assets. And you're putting together a blueprint. So you're trying to see where things fit in, like you just said, you use a series LLC, or you're using a land trust to hold the real estate, you're just putting things and names that are not your personal name. Because if you die personally, where if you're sued personally, that asset is right there to be taken. So you want to have it in some sort of entity structure. And that's usually what you're doing. First off is you're you're putting together an inventory, you're doing a blueprint, you're putting together a tax structure. On top of that, you're looking at saying Is there a tax advantage way you just do step step step. Then, annually, you're looking at the compliance and you're just making sure you're doing your tax returns, you're filing things with the state, and then you look for advanced strategies as you grow. So if your business takes off, and you say, Hey, here's an ESOP available to me, or defined benefit plans, what type of retirement should I be using Indexed Universal Life or variable universal life or any of these other things that are available? And you're just looking at those on an annual basis? If you just did that every year, just walked through those simple steps, inventory, blueprint tax, compliance, advanced strategies, you just do that every year? It's actually fairly simple. You actually it's not rocket science.

Axel Meierhoefer: 27:35

Right? Yeah. Well, I think it's fairly simple. When you build trusting relationships. I think, in my opinion, this is what it ultimately comes down to, right? I mean, the guy that I have my estate plan from said the same words to me that you use, he said, it's actually fairly simple. I said, Well, I looked at it, I saw these 200 pages of stuff and go into the notary twice for all these documents for the different counties that says in what have you, that doesn't look like fairly simple to me. But we have this trusting relationship with each other that has grown over time. And like you said, if you do the review, year, over year over year, the trust is ultimately, that makes me sleep? Well, because I know the Toby's of the word, make sure that I know what I need to know or do what I need to do to keep building in the direction that I want to build. And as you mentioned, the compliance making sure that I'm doing it within the rules and within the frame that the government gives us. So can you touch a little bit on how you build that trusting relationship with your clients?

Toby Mathis: 28:37

You want to have somebody that does what you do, I would say the number one thing that you need to be able to have is open communication and somebody who understands what you're doing. It's really tough to understand a business owner or an investor unless you're a business owner or investor, it's exceedingly difficult. So when you go to professionals and you say to your attorney, Hey, I've invested in a syndication I'm doing multifamily. I'm doing single family. I'm doing manufactured homes, I'm, you know, hey, I invested in this syndication or I'm doing this one over here, I have a series LLC, Holding, holding my investments, and they're looking at you like I read about that. That's about their that's about the scope of their knowledge of it, right. They have no they don't know the nuances. They don't know how hard it is. They don't understand depreciation, they don't understand those things. They may have read about it somewhere, but that's not what they do. You want to work with people that do what you do. If that's all you did is found, hey, I want to find a lawyer and accountant that doing the same type of investing I do that are in the same waters, they understand where I'm coming from, they probably do it for their return, so I don't have to pay them to learn it. They're doing it so they can just give me all the nuggets and they'll tell me how to do it. So when they you know, for example, your counsel put together your plan. He said it's simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. A B, C, D E, F, right 200 pages, but it's systematic, and it's very simple. From an attorney standpoint, you're looking at it going That makes perfect sense. We don't have to go to the court, we can do this. We have a trustee, we have a successor, this thing's gonna live for at least 300 years. We don't have to worry about all this nonsense. We don't have to go to court and argue and fight and it's a lot less expensive. And they're looking at going, Wow, this is great. And you're looking at it going, you just handed me 200 pages.

Axel Meierhoefer: 30:20

Yeah, exactly. Although I have to say he knows me well enough. When we started working together, he sent me the 200 pages, and every so many pages that was a little sticky that said sign here. Right. And so I started reading the first like two or three pages that no way. And that sounds like Chinese to me and stuff. And so I basically signed for the stickies where you could.

Toby Mathis: 30:43

here's the rub with an estate plan. It's got to be simple. And it's not whether you understand it, it's whether your surviving spouse or kids or your heirs understand it.

Axel Meierhoefer: 30:53

Yeah, if I translate what you just said, Toby, into my words is understanding in my words means I have expressed to somebody, what do I want to achieve what it is, what is it supposed to accomplish? Right? If I say, Okay, it's supposed to make sure that legally, nobody can say just because you run this business, we basically taking your house away, right and break the corporate veil or stuff like that. So I want that protected, I want to make sure that there is not a ton of paperwork or quotes to actually go after each one of the properties, or after each one of the stock investments or goldcoin investment or whatever it may be. That is all that I basically want to have to express the ins and outs on how you put that in the right forms in the right papers and file it with the right authorities. That's where I'm coming from with a trusting relationship, right. So that's why I'm also saying, you know, like we doing the podcast, and we're inviting great guests like you to give people options to say, Okay, I am at the point where I need Toby, I'm at the point where I need oxygen, I'm at the point where I need Frank or Charlie or whoever it might be. Because ultimately, I think, and I hope you would agree, what we ended up doing in the process of building all of this is not just building the assets, but also building a network of relationships, where we have a certain contribution and all the other partners in the relationship, have their expertise to contribute. And ultimately, everybody succeeds. And everybody can have their success within it. So if we can realize that when you said earlier, you know, we need to be aware to make conscious decisions. I think that's actually what makes the journey also interesting, right? Like to know

Toby Mathis: 32:37

what I like to do when I sit down with a client a lot of times as I say, what do you see your state looking like? 200 years? Yeah, exactly. Because it removes them from the scenario now they're long gone. And they're saying, oh, you know, you know, I would really like it if my family was able to get the benefit. I'm like, what benefit and why? Because I want them to be to travel, I want them to be financially free. I want to create, towards what and you want them just to be able to not have to work ever, or do you want to inspire like what's the point. And you usually get down to something where they're transferring their values, maybe they want to be able to do mission work, maybe they want to be able to do more charitable giving, maybe they you want them to be able to go to school, maybe you want them to travel outside the United States so that they get a little more worldly. All of that starts to come out. And then you can put together a plan. I see people go to lawyers all the time in the lawyer just automatically says you want your kids to get into what ages?

Axel Meierhoefer: 33:34

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And I think he put that very nicely for anybody in the audience and to actually catch that. So I'm sure Nadine told you, but one of the things that don't have anything to do with tax preparation or things like that is one of the questions I always asked. And that is if you had a time machine, Toby, you could go forward or backwards. You know what, you know, you can come back, but you're not allowed to change the time space continuum. Where would you go and why?

Toby Mathis: 34:01

It's interesting, really good question. Honestly, I love right now. I wouldn't get in the Time Machine. Right? Right. If I had to go back, if I had to go back, I'd probably go back to when I was a real young man. So I could see my grandparents and my family again, knowing that I was able to go back, but I wouldn't go there and try to invest or anything. And you know, that wouldn't be right. I'd be cheating. I'd have insider knowledge because I'd already lived it.

Axel Meierhoefer: 34:27

Exactly. I agree with you. The one thing that I found and I don't know if you will say yay or nay to that is that the older I have gotten, the more of those kind of one liner statements I remember, like one maybe applicable to our current times my grandpa used to say is never trust a statistic that you didn't manipulate yourself. So, you know, and there were many, many of those and I'm the first to admit when I was younger, I probably had them somewhere in the very deep dark. crevasses have what I call a brain. But they didn't really come forward. And the older I got, they kind of started coming forward or somebody said something that reminded me of them. And now I'm not really trying to say I'm becoming my elders. But I'm realizing how many of those statements in those one liners that they dropped here. And there probably was some intention that I didn't get at the time, how profound they actually were. And so, similar to what you said, I would love to go back to some of those times and just get the whole context. Because sometimes I really only remember what this statement was, and it makes total sense, but I have no recollection. What was the circumstance? Like, what statistic that we look at when he said, No, you gotta be kidding me. There's never going to be true.

Toby Mathis: 35:49

I always think of it. It's like, what was it Talladega Nights when he's confronting his dad on the road? And you thing you always said that if you're not first you're you've lost or something along those lines. And he goes, I said, that that's what I always assumed that I'd be going back and say, remember, when you said this? That's not what I said. But a huge impact on my life, you know, so it's your interpretation of what they said quite often.

Axel Meierhoefer: 36:13

When we were starting today, and you said, you know, like, if you'd look at inflation, the true inflation is probably more like 17%. That immediately reminded me of that my grandpa saying, because literally, you won't believe it. But Germany last month is where I'm coming from serves to connect your family, it's reported that their inflation is something like 6.8%. And I'm like, okay, so you're buying more expensive gas, more expensive, or more expensive electricity, or the other raw materials have just increased for you as much as anybody else in the world. And your inflation is lower than everybody's in the world. And immediately like, grandpa, only for the news media. You know, so yeah, so no, that's cool to go and kind of see the context. That will be really cool. All right. So, Toby, I think you did wonderful telling us the five steps and how important it is to recognize them get advice, and then repeat them every year. So if somebody said, Well, that's that end doesn't advise this guy that sounded interesting. How do they get in touch? What do they need to do two

Toby Mathis: 37:19

easiest thing is, you just type in Toby Mathis and the Internet, you'll find me I'm all over the place, my firm but Anderson advisors.com, as a simple route, I say that generically, because you really do want to do your homework, and you want to start taking in what our values are, because we are very specific about who we are and who we work with, and why we do what we do, and see if it's aligns with yours, because I'm the first one to tell you that we're not everybody's cup of tea. But if you're an investor, and you want to protect your assets, you want to create a legacy where a really good fit.

Axel Meierhoefer: 37:55

Yeah, absolutely. I also subscribe to the it has to fit right, it has to be kind of like the lid on a pot. And if it doesn't quite fit, and you might want to keep looking. The other part. And you were maybe too modest to say, but I'm gonna say it and that is, if you see yourself, at least to some extent, as an investor, then working with Toby and organizations like his or similar organizations, sooner rather than later, I would say this is my advice to our audience today on this show, do it sooner, because rolling it all up when you have 1015 properties, and all kinds of different asset classes and all kinds of retirement plans and stuff like that is doable. And I'm sure Toby you and your team can do it. But if you make it as an iterative thing over time, it is so much easier and you become so much more familiar with it. And I believe in helps to build these trusting relationships when you creating and planning for the grace of the future, rather than to say, Okay, now I have a $3 million portfolio with 27 different things and nothing is properly organized, right? And then you go nightmare for six months before it's organized. And you can go forward. So I hope that you don't mind me giving that on top of just finding the right partners.

Toby Mathis: 39:13

It's easier to do it right from the beginning than it is to fix something that wasn't done right? mid level midstream. It's kind of it's a little bit disruptive, but it can be done. But I would say it's so much simpler if you just did it right from the beginning.

Axel Meierhoefer: 39:26

Exactly. You said it's so much more concise. I wish I could anyway, Toby. Awesome that you were here that you spend time with us and to you and your 500 other employees, we wish you all the best and anybody who is listening to us and says hey, I mean that really makes sense to me. And maybe I'm at the point where I should get started. Then we will put all the links and stuff in the show notes so people can easily find it and get in touch.

Toby Mathis: 39:49

Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.

Axel Meierhoefer: 39:51

Absolutely. Thank you so much. And maybe we do it again at some point.

Toby Mathis: 39:56

Absolutely.

Axel Meierhoefer: 39:58

Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy On today's episode of the The IDEAL Investor Show more info and the links we mentioned during the show in the show notes or you can go to our website at idea where to go.com and sign up for the Apple podcast link. And if you'd like to talk to me sign up for a strategy call. Hopefully you want to share what you learned with your network and bring more people in. We are really eager to hear your comments and until next time, be well stay safe and ciao.