Speaker 2 (00:02.584)
Welcome to another episode of The Balanced Growth Show. I'm your host, Dr. Travis Parry. Today we have Blake Johnson. Blake teaches people how to structure their family bank for lasting generational wealth using the same strategies that made the Rockefellers one of the most enduring dynasties in history. Blake simplifies generational wealth building for families, empowering them to create a self-sustaining financial ecosystem that will provide security, independence, and long-term prosperity.

for generations. Blake, welcome to the show. Hey. Of course, brother. It's awesome to see you again and have you here to talk about what so many really don't know that they need. Let's just put it that way. I haven't formally talked about family banking as a concept on the show just yet. But before we get to that concept, which is a very unique way to help

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:01.002)
know, really structure giving and stewardship of wealth to the next generation. Let's talk a little bit about you. I know you're an attorney and you've had a route that brought you here to talk about family banking and built a business both in Vegas and in Utah, but talk to us. Tell us, how did you get to this situation? What was your background in? Tell us a little about your story.

Yeah, so interesting. I grew up in a family where my dad is an estate planning attorney. So got to see what that was like and wasn't initially going to go down that path. My undergrad background is in finance. And so I was looking into jobs in New York. And then I met my wife and knew that that lifestyle was not going to work for her. And so then I started

you know, trying to make a pivot and go, well, dad's lifestyle was pretty good. I liked his control of having his own schedule and all that stuff. And as far as attorneys go with state planning is a lot more laid back than a lot of other areas. And so that's why I went to law school and with the idea of practicing in a state planning and came out of law school and had two, two job offers lined up, driving across the country from Louisiana, where I went to law school back to Utah.

to stay for the summer before getting starting the job and in that time both those job offers were withdrawn and I had no no job prospects and so it took me three months to convince my dad to hire me and And so that's when I started in Las Vegas and and started working for him eventually became partners with him and That's when we started butting heads because you know, he was set in his ways. Hey this worked for me

It's also a different stage of life. He had a ton of clients coming in into his Utah office and didn't have to do much. And I'm like, well, there's not much coming in. Things have kind of changed. I need to do some marketing. I need to do some other stuff. I want to grow. And so we just started kind of button heads a little bit with that. And then he said, hey, why don't you just buy me out before this affects our relationship and gets really into a place we don't want to be.

Speaker 1 (03:18.422)
You can do your own thing. I'll keep doing mine and it will be good. And I said, that's great. It's two problems. One, I don't have money. And two, I don't think a bank's going to lend to me for this. So how am I supposed to buy you out? And he said, well, I'll be the bank. I'll lend you the money essentially to buy me out. And then you pay me back over time. And we set terms, signed a contract, did everything like that. And

That was my first exposure to what a family bank is. Is your family lending you money to make the situation work when you probably wouldn't be able to do it otherwise. And it turned out to be a really good situation. I was able to pay them off in five years. And then I had my own firm and opened up a second office and was able to just grow from there. So that's kind of how I got here. I didn't realize at the time that that was essentially the family bank. It was a cool concept. I had heard of people doing stuff like that before.

But as I practiced more and more and got introduced to a couple of key people, was shown that this is the family bank, is this process that I'd already gone through. And so then it became, well, this is really cool. How do we help others realize this? How do we formalize this to make it easier to implement and become this thing? And that's where my path came from. And then the last year and a half to two years really been focusing and niching down on helping people with that.

That's wonderful. So we're going to unpack what the family bank is here in just a minute. You know, it's a simple way to help business owners not be too complicated. But I love how you started out just talking about what the family bank was for you, how that helped you transition and as part of your story, which is beautiful. I see this helping so many families and they probably do it to some extent. They just don't formalize a lot of things, right?

can get to some informal problems which we'll also cover. maybe let's talk about the issue that probably most business owners have when they're building wealth. I know that most business owners reinvest right back into their business, right? That's where, it's their baby. It's what they enjoy, it's what they love and what they've built. But at some point, they're gonna have a successful exit or an unsuccessful exit.

Speaker 2 (05:44.014)
depending on how things shake out. Hopefully a successful one. And when they get to that point and they've built up wealth or they sell the business or they're about to transition it, even you and your father's situation there is a great example. Why a family bank? What is it? Talk to us about how this can work. But maybe first off, let's talk about some of the problems, some of the problems why other

institutionalized investing and the problem with entitlement. Maybe let's start someplace further away from this solution of what might be the problems that led to the family bank being really brought to the spotlight.

Yeah, I think it comes back to first off of estate planning in general. No one wants to think about their own demise. And so that's usually the issue number one of why, you know, the people who are building their business and getting things going, they're not thinking about those things because, hey, I'm one, I'm focused, I'm grinding, I'm doing those things. But to them, hey, I don't I'm not going to die. That's that's forever away. I'm not going to worry about that at this point. I'm just trying to build. You know, I don't even have anything that I need to worry about giving away at this point.

And so we got to flip that mentality of like, you start with the end in mind, you start with that plan of what you're going to do and it'll help you carry it forward. There's a lot of things you can do if you set up things from the right way from the beginning with your exit, that'll make it a lot easier from a tax perspective, from a transition perspective, all those things. that is a key thing to start there, just purely from a business aspect. It doesn't even include the family bank. It's just...

your general principles of any type of estate planning and other planning. The main issue I see with business owners is they are so good at grinding it out, of getting through whatever struggles they have and making it work. And because of that, they've been successful, they wanna help their kids, they wanna help other people, but they just don't know how to do that without just giving away money.

Speaker 1 (07:55.886)
giving their kids what they didn't have. And that's where the real problem is, that's what creates that entitlement you brought up. So many people who come from wealthy families, they grow up with that entitlement mentality. It doesn't even have to be a wealthy family, just middle class. If you just give your kids everything and they don't have to work and struggle like you did, they're not gonna have the same value system that you have. It's just what it is. Your environment and your interactions

are what create that. So if you don't, if you aren't purposeful and intentional with how you go about raising your kids and making them work and those kind of things, then you're gonna have this problem of entitlement where they don't know what to do, they don't wanna take over your business, they just want the money that's from it. They don't want to really go into their own business, they don't wanna grow anything, they just want to collect.

off of what you're doing because they're having a good time. I've had a good time my whole life. Why does that have to change now? So I think that's where we start is making sure we have a plan, we're intentional about it so that way it doesn't become this big problem at the end. Cause it's a lot easier to take this step by step as opposed to trying to fix it all after the fact.

Yeah. Let's talk about entitlement. This is a buzzword, right? This past decade. Why, you know, I can talk about it from family perspective. Let's talk about it from a legal perspective or even from a family perspective. We can go back and forth on this. Um, let's talk about entitlement. We, you know, we're saying it's wrong. Um, but what, what is it? What does it look like? Um, and, and, and why, um, is that such a bad thing?

In my world, from a legal perspective and a state planning perspective, entitlement looks like, why are you not giving me all your money, mom and dad? Why are you giving it to these charities? Why are you including cousins so-and-so? Why are those things happening? Why is the money staying in the trust? Why can't I just get it all right now? Those are the things that I see that are the entitlement.

Speaker 1 (10:12.192)
I want it now, I want full control and I don't want to do anything for it. That kind of goes against everything that you've done, most clients have done when they've built their business. The question I get all the time from clients and the theme I saw over and over again which led me to the family bank was,

I don't want my kids to liquidate everything I've built because I built it to be this business that spits off cash flow and has this legacy and a place for them to work and take care of them and those kind of things. And I don't want my kids to be spoiled and just live off of the trust and not do anything. So those were the two main issues and that is entitlement. I'm entitled this, I should just get a paycheck, I should just have all the money and I shouldn't have to do anything for it just because by virtue of I won.

The lottery of being born into your fam.

Yeah. And that entitlement mentality, you know, I've spoken with literally thousands of business owners and talked about, what, what, what is at the end? you giving this away to a family member? Are you selling it? Are you hopefully trying to, you know, pull income out of it like, what's, what's the plan? And when we get to talking about that next generation, there's a big concern.

There's a big concern that, my goodness, I've been so successful now. Now, now what? How do I not mess up my children? How do I not screw them up? Because darned if you do and darned if you don't, if you give them, you know, money and too soon and too much, and, if you don't and it creates problems, there's all sorts of family problems that derive from, from inheritance issues. so enter family bank, right? So talk to us about how, how does this, how does this family bank.

Speaker 2 (12:04.334)
idea help solve this problem and you know talk to us a little bit about the steps to you building out this thing.

So, since most of your listeners are business owners, we'll start there with, you have employees, and if they need help with something, what do you do? Do you just give them the answer every time? If you do, they're gonna keep coming back and asking you the same questions and you're the linchpin. If they need money or they're in a struggle situation, do you just give them the money in that situation? Sometimes you might if you're feeling generous.

But the reality is most the time, if you have an employee that needs help financially, it's, hey, I can give you a loan, I can advance your pay, but you're still gonna have to work and you're gonna have to pay me back, right? That is the family bank concept, essentially. Now we're taking it to your family. Instead of just giving them what they ask for, let me work with you, come up with a solution, help you work through this, come up with a plan, and then if you still need finances, okay, great, I will give them to you, but...

you have to pay it back and this is a contract. And so that's the family bank at its core, is just that simple process. I've got a 13 year old son and he wants to make money, so he mows lawns. Well, for the lawn mower, do I just let him use the lawn mower we have? No, he's either gotta pay rent or he's financing it through me to purchase that so then he has it for his own business.

Because now he understands not only what a business expense is, know, hey, have to, know, nothing's just free, right? I have to pay for this lawnmower so I can go do my job. There's maintenance, there's gas involved with it and that stuff. But it's also, oh, okay, I've got to be aware of this. Now I can learn how to pay back a loan, how I'm going to be responsible. If I don't work a week, well then now, the next one, I don't make any profit because it all has to go to pay back.

Speaker 1 (14:09.656)
the loan and the gas and all that stuff, so he's gotta be consistent. you don't have to start, people think, well, Family Bingo, it's this big structure, super organized, lots of paperwork, only for the uber wealthy. It can get to that point, and hopefully it does. That's what we help out, really help out with is the trust structure and getting that as a formalized thing. But it's as basic as lending to your kids, making them pay for things on their own, teaching them that work ethic.

instead of just giving them everything they want.

Yeah, I absolutely relate to this. This is a, know, if we flip this around, really the opposite of entitlement is stewardship, right? And I think a lot of business owners really get this and a lot of Christian, you know, couples that I work with, like they understand this concept of, what God has given us is something that we're going to be responsible for. But at the end of the day, it's not really ours to keep. And, you know, so how do we perpetuate this?

success. do we grow this? Um, and I know that we're, we're both chatting today because of John Nebaker's book, the family bank and his work that he's done on it and our, our contacts related to that and how I've got, uh, you know, connected with you guys about this. I, I absolutely, I absolutely love the concept of, well, let's give them responsibility. Let's give them a chance to prove themselves. So, you know, my, kids, we're in little neighborhood and

There's lots of people who are generous and like to stop and give and whatever. They've sold rocks, sold necklaces and, and there's been times they've said really great things. Like they've baked their own cookies and made homemade lemonade and they've done that thing. but what I, what I absolutely have from the very beginning is, okay, both mom and I are on the same page of, all right, this has cost us. We've had to buy cups and.

Speaker 2 (16:11.982)
And you know, the, the materials. so this is what we're going to take from, you know, your profit and they learn, they learn business, but they also learn, learn stewardship. So, you know, um, we could talk a lot about how we're doing this for our own kids. And that's probably where it starts right here at home, right? Or in your own business. Um, but, but then there's the flip side of, well, you know, so many people say loaning from other people is bad.

And maybe talk to that component of why this actually solves that problem of loaning from family members.

Yeah, it's interesting. There's a lot of wealthy people who've been super successful. One of them comes to mind is Jesse Itzler. And he's always said, if someone asked me for money, I just give it to them. I don't do it as a loan. And it's a one-time thing. And they know they can't come ask me again because I just don't want to worry about it. I don't want it to to worry about collecting. I don't want to hang over our friendship or a relationship. And that's a valid concern. But I also think it's a cop out because

you don't want to do the work of helping that individual learn how to either follow through with the plan, keep their commitment, and really grow from that situation as well. I think there's also different situations where you know, hey, this isn't something I want to be involved with. It's going to be a messy thing if I do make it alone. So sure, you can take it situation by situation. But I the vast majority of it is it's more of

I don't want to do the work associated with it because it is gonna be work to follow through. That's the hard part. You see your kids struggle and my kids have a caramel apple business that they do every October. And it would be a lot easier for me just to pay someone else to figure it all out and do that, right? Or go buy a bunch of caramel apples from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and then we'd sell those. But that's not.

Speaker 1 (18:14.53)
The point is to help them. So I'm out there, we do it during fall break. We're dipping 300 apples, caramel, chocolate, our fridges are completely empty because that's where they all have to go to cool off. And it's exhausting. But I'm also working side by side with my kids. They learn, they see me working hard, they're working hard. And then we go through the financials like you talked about and do that thing because that is where the real growth happens.

If you aren't willing to go through those situations and help someone along the way, then it's really just a disservice. If you give them that money, is that gonna solve their problem? In most situations, probably not, because if they're coming to you asking for money, they haven't been resourceful enough to figure it out on their own. And so, if you want to really make the impact and make the change and help someone, it's like the adage of teaching a man to fish.

If you just give them the fish, okay, that helps them for that moment, but they don't know what to do the next time. It's teaching them and giving them the resources, additional comment, additional resources, so they can go and figure it out. Because knowing how isn't the same as if they don't have a fishing pole to make it happen, right? So I think that's my argument against that is you need to be willing to do the work. if, I just want to give it to them and be done, it's most likely being lazy at that point.

You know, it's a good, it's a good point. We've talked about some, some issues. think some of the, the, the big ones that come up when I have had these conversations with others like, I don't want to entitle them. I don't want to spoil them. I want to create, create problems. And some, know, they've done a good job. Like they've done an estate plan. They have an estate plan where they've begun as a estate plan and they think they have some things figured out, but they don't think about the family side.

So let's talk about how we set this thing up right and why would it benefit a business owner or anyone who's been successful to really be able to keep the money and the family away from taxation, away from the entitlement problems or even this idea of like, we're going to loan and not give any recourse, right?

Speaker 2 (20:36.952)
keep people held accountable for that loan and whatnot. So let's talk about what a family bank actually is. Maybe walk us through what you've seen on your end and how you do it, how you set these things up, kind of the basic steps.

Yeah, it's really funny to me, you know, talk with clients about, what they want to do for their estate plan. And they say, yeah, just give it to them outright. Like, okay, if you're here today, you know, are you going to do that during your lifetime? Are you going to give it all to them right now? Well, no, that would be bad. Why would that be bad? Well, one, I need money. Okay, that aside, what else would it be? Well, you know, it would just give them a reason to stop working and, you know, those kind of things.

And I say, okay, if you wouldn't do it while you're alive, why on earth would you do it after you're gone? Your values shouldn't change just because you're deceased. So a lot of times in estate planning, we get so focused on the tax savings and how much we can pass on to the next generation and let the numbers and the taxes give our strategy. But we forget that like it should start with what is important to the client. What are your values? Is education important? Okay, let's build the trust.

or the estate plan around funding education and focusing and incentivizing that? Is it experiential? Go see the world, go visit these places, do this art, go to this concert, those kinds of things. Okay, great, let's build the trust in the estate plan around that. Is it about helping family or family gatherings so that the family stays close knit and has a lot of interactions? Cool, we can do that too. So it needs to take a step back and start with.

Is your estate plan just purely a distribution method of like, okay, they get a third at 25, third at 30, third at 35, good luck, I hope you do well. Or is it, here's the things that are important to me, and I'm gonna make sure that that's perpetuated because I built this legacy. And so I want to make sure that this legacy continues because this is where I feel like the most impact can be added on what's gonna make a difference in my kids and grandkids and great grandkids lives.

Speaker 2 (22:48.874)
Yes. Love it. I mean, that's, that's the real reason, right? That's why we do this. I guess if you didn't care about the family and you didn't care about the legacy, none of this would even be making any sense. Like it just, it's not a, definitely not a hot topic. so if somebody wants to look into a family bank, what are, what are some of the reasons why, they should do this now versus.

You know 15 years down the road and how to have where do the the steps to get it going?

So you start now with the simple things like I talked about earlier. When your kids want to buy something, okay, how are you gonna earn that? I can buy it for you now because it's on sale, but you're gonna pay me back. So how are you gonna earn that and you're gonna pay me a little bit of interest? So you learn that way they don't go into credit card debt when as soon as they can apply for a credit card. That's where it starts. It has to start young. When the kids are impressionable,

because that sets the tone for the rest their life. So the earlier you start, the better. Now, if you want a formalized family bank, because you have a little bit more money, I'm going to put this in a separate trust. It's usually clients say, hey, I have X amount of dollars. I want to put it in this trust, and I want to start lending to my kids now for purchasing their first car, for their education, for their first home, those kind of things. OK, great. We can do that. We set up the formalized structure for that. Typically, what that looks like is you have a family board.

Typically at the beginning that is mom and dad and they kind of oversee and make the decisions about what loans are made and so on. And then you have a third party trustee, typically an independent trust company or a financial institution who will administer the trust. That way if someone's not paying the loan, mom and dad aren't the bad guys, it's the trustee that's saying, you need to make sure that you're paying the loan. Here's the late charges that are associated with it and so on.

Speaker 1 (24:49.614)
So we still want the family element so that there's some discretion so they can take into account whatever their family situation is. Hey, we can defer this loan for two years because they're in a medical situation or whatever it is. But at end of the day, the trustee is the one who's acting and following through with what the trust says and what the loan documents say and so on. So there's the formalized structure, which is great. That's the goal is to get there.

But you can start as simple as, you know, very young with your kids on, you know, they want to buy a bike. Cool. Here, how are you going to work for it? How are you going to do it? And then you write your own simple contract. Hey, you will pay me X amount of dollars at this interest rate every month until this date. It's that simple. So you just start building that habit. It's the consistency over and over again. And then as you become more successful, you have the liquid liquidation event or you have some extra cash that you're ready to start doing that.

That's when we formalize it a little bit.

Love it. Talk to us about that formalized process now. think we kind of understand the reasons why and how this might work, but I know, you know, this is for some people like, man, I don't want to know about all the details. You don't have to know about all the little details, but I think you've explained really well kind of the generalized idea, but if they're sitting down with you, what do we do next?

So yeah, we have a lengthy questionnaire that we kind of go through and talk about all the details as far as what you want to include in there, what's not included, who's going to be a beneficiary, all those things. Get that ironed out. Once we have that, there's a couple of back and forth discussions looking at the actual structure. You're going to come up with some general guidelines for the board, kind of a mission statement or governing

Speaker 1 (26:43.48)
type value system, here's what's gonna really be our driving force. then once that's all ironed out, then we would have you sign the document and then it's official at that point. And then you transfer the money into an account under that trust name. Now the trustee takes over and their only job is to administer it the way the trust has been set up and under the direction of the family board. So.

you know, all in process, you're probably about a month and a half to two months, depending on how quick you make decisions. And, and that's what the formalized version looks like.

Now I know you're not a life insurance agent or anything of that nature, but sometimes these are funded with the use of whole life insurance. What's the pros and cons to that as you've seen as an attorney on your end?

So the life insurance helps ensure that there's always gonna be something there to pay back the loan. Because the worst thing would happen is someone takes a loan, they pass away and now you're going after their spouse to make sure they pay back the note that's still there and so on. Like that's not the situation we wanna create. So you typically do a whole life for a permanent life insurance policy. So that way if they do pass, okay, that should be enough to cover what their loan is.

is the first reason to do life insurance. And you have that on every error that could possibly borrow from the trust. So it keeps this thing going and going and going. The second reason is you can kind of cap what they can borrow from based on the cash value in the policy. You can borrow up to this amount because that's what's in there. So we know for sure we have that cash available to borrow from and that the life insurance will cover it. So it makes it just, it works that much more.

Speaker 1 (28:33.356)
when you had the life insurance involved. You don't have to have life insurance to make it work. You probably need to fund it with a little bit more to make sure it's actually gonna be an ongoing perpetual thing.

Yeah. great. This is awesome information. You know, I'm thinking about like, what do do to get started? We kind of already talked about that. We've talked about kind of beginning young, starting with your kids. but the other thing that really hit me was, Hey, you know, building this, this board is family board of directors or trustees or however you want to call this is very similar to how businesses operate.

It's very similar to, let's protect the legacy of the business. Let's protect the legacy and help each other kind of work together towards that aim. So I can see, you know, business owners out there who are thinking, okay, yes, I want to grow, grow, grow, but yeah, but what's the end? know, as Covey said, begin at the end in mind. What is the end? Let's make some action towards how are we exiting this? How are we getting out with that legacy intact?

So many focus on just maybe the sell of the business, passing it to the next generation without really understanding how this could impact. Something that John brought up in his book, The Family Bake, he talked about how there are many who are without education or without privilege to really make a large wealth in this country.

And a lot of times that's due to just lack of resources. Right. So I love how this perpetuates that. Can you talk to any, know, can you talk to that a little bit? How you've maybe seen how the family bank can help perpetuate this idea of, of a opportunity in, in, the U S.

Speaker 1 (30:32.31)
Yeah, the more people that get on board and do this, then they're going to teach their kids, their kids are going to teach it to their kids. And so it grows a lot wider, just purely by virtue of the law numbers of having kids and so on. So it really helps to start to bring that in because they're now teaching their spouses that they're bringing into the picture.

Okay, so now we've just doubled it from that one kid that you had to them and their spouse. And so maybe that spouse that starts teaching it to their parents or to their siblings and so on. So you have that multiplying effect that just by having you teaching your one or two kids, it's gonna affect now three, four, five people plus everybody below them. If you set up the system right, so it keeps going and you set those education requirements and so on. So it's really cool that it can amplify that way.

And that's why, you know, John and I are so passionate about sharing this message with as many people as possible. Yeah, we want to be able to provide for our families, for our businesses, but it starts as simple as the things we've talked about. That's what we're trying to get out there, start educating and then give access to resources to those that you care about. And then you're going to have a better legacy because they're going to remember you for this. know, we talk about it. John says this all the time. Like, how many things can you do today?

that will have an impact and still be important a thousand years from now. That's real long-term planning. Is there anything you can do? Well, the family bank can because it can be set up to be perpetual or at least a thousand years in the state of Utah is how long a trust can be around. 365 in Nevada, indefinitely in South Dakota. So like there's a way to make this really have a long-term impact. And the longer it goes on, the more people are gonna be touched from it. Just from you, you one person, you one couple setting up this family bank.

Yeah, the name that comes to mind is the Rockefellers, right? We've got, you know, those books on the Rockefellers, what they've done. And, um, you know, there's other authors out there talking about this concept. Can you speak to, to how, you know, talk, let's talk about them as an example of, of this legacy.

Speaker 1 (32:45.634)
Yeah, John D. Rockefeller was way ahead of his time when he thought of this concept of, through trust, keeping everything on centrally instead of giving it up to his kids and hoping that they would do the best. He brought all of his kids into his business and the business actually grew after he passed away. The wealth has grown and there's still trust out there that they can borrow from and get access to all the resources to be successful.

he's had that impact 200, it's been 200 years now, and it's really cool to see that that kind of planning can have that big of impact. Yeah. You contrast that to the Vanderbilt at the same time. At one point he was more wealthy than the Rockefellers, but all he did, he didn't really do a whole lot of planning. It just all went to one son or a couple of his kids. And within two generations, they had spent all the family money and there was nothing left just because they didn't.

they just lived extravagant lifestyles, because that's what they were used to as opposed to working as hard as the commander did, Commander Vanderbilt, and building his business. He didn't bring his kids into it as much. They didn't learn. They didn't get those responsibilities. was just, hey, here's money, lavish lifestyles, and off they went.

Yeah, two great, opposing stories here. you know, talking about legacy, the fact that now we're comparing the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers and, and what they've done, is, quite, quite the story. So love that. think that's a good, I think it's a good way to kind of end that backdrop of, know, choose your, choose your ending. which, which way do you want to go? What's your direction? How you want to live it now, if you're out there and you're like, Hey,

I'm still growing. I'm in this growth phase. Blake, it, is it still worth talking about? Is it still worth setting up? what, are some of the first things I know we've already talked about with kids, like what we can do with the kids and like maybe a shoe box and starting some basics, but what about if you're not at that point yet, but you want to get on track? what would be the first couple of things you would suggest?

Speaker 1 (35:00.588)
Yeah, I would start with making a plan of what that's going to look like. You know, for our kids, they know they have to pay for their first car. And so they need to know that as early as possible so they can start saving up and doing that. Right. And then we have a life insurance policy for each of our kids that they can borrow from to purchase that first car if they don't have enough so they can make up the difference. And then they have to they can pay it back that loan. So there's there's stuff there. But it took us starting that when they were five years old.

So that way there would be enough resources there to do that when they get to that age. you know, start with that stuff. Now, I think it also helps to start to meet with an estate planning attorney. So that way, if the worst case scenario, something happens to you before you have the exit, before you have the cashflow to do the big things, you have something that will still step in in place, life insurance to...

you know, to cover the business debts or your home debt or whatever, and then fund this family bank on the side as well. So, you know, it doesn't hurt to start early, at least think about talking about it, see what you can do now. Because the sooner you start that plan in place, then you can say, all right, by this day, I'm going to have this and then this date, I'll have this and then I'll have the structure in place. So that way, when you know that exit comes, all right, now I know that's just the next step is to do this other thing.

Yeah, I love it. Thanks for your time today. think this is, this has been, you know, what are these conversations we don't talk a whole lot about on this show. Like, Hey, what happens at the end? Um, and what are we doing yet? That's exactly what I teach my clients all the time. Like let's begin with the end. What, what are your true desires, your goals and let's, let's help grow this in a balanced way. Um, I appreciate you being here. Anything else that we left out that you want to mention?

about this. I know you've got a show. I know that you're starting to really plug the Family Bank on that show. Anything you want to add as far as connecting some of these dots.

Speaker 1 (37:08.674)
Yeah, I think the main thing that people sometimes get overwhelmed with like, well, I don't want to just have everything loaned to my kids. I'd like to give them something or I'd like to give something to charity or, you know, have other things. This isn't the only answer. It's not you have to do this solely 100 percent in. Like you can say be as creative as you want. Hey, X amount of dollars goes to my kid. Whatever above that is then put in the family bank or X amount to charity, X percentage to my kid.

The rest does this family bank concept or, I'm just going to fund it. This one family bank with this X amount of dollars. Everything else is still going to go to my kids when I pass away. And so you can hybrid and make any sort of make sure you want. This isn't a one size fits all. The only answer, you know, sometimes we we get so focused on what we do. We kind of send that message. So I want to say that that it's this isn't the only answer. This isn't the end all be all. We can use it as a part of your estate plan.

And so use it as a tool. It doesn't mean you have to use it all the time. The hammer is not the only tool in your tool belt. So just use it as one thing.

Yeah. Well said. like the comprehensive view, right. And what's happening in life. people want to learn more about the fan family bank or estate planning. How do they get ahold of you? How do they listen to your show? And, and yeah, send it, send us where you would like to send people.

Yeah, so my website is yourfb.com is in your family bank. And then you can find me on LinkedIn, Blake B Johnson. And yeah, happy to connect with you there. And my podcast will most likely be called your family bank as well. It was originally the trusted podcast. So you might find it under under that search as well.

Speaker 2 (38:55.786)

​Awesome. Thanks for being here. Thanks for your time and for sharing with us a little bit about what you've been doing with Family Bank and how this can help others. you this useful, please connect with Blake, reach out and follow his journey. And until next time, remember, live life on purpose together.