Protecting Your Wealth: Why Offshore Asset Protection Matters

On the latest episode of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, hosted by Darren Wurz, we explore the critical subject of protecting your hard-earned wealth through offshore asset protection. Joined by expert asset protection attorney Blake Harris, this episode offers a deep dive into why safeguarding your assets is not just for the ultra-wealthy but crucial for all law firm owners.

Beyond the Myths: Offshore Trusts for All

A common misconception about offshore asset protection is that it’s reserved for individuals with staggering net worths. Blake Harris sets the record straight, explaining that even law firm owners with assets ranging from $1 million to $10 million can greatly benefit from offshore trusts. This protection isn’t about hiding assets—it’s about preserving them against potential lawsuits and personal liabilities.

How Offshore Asset Protection Works

Offshore asset protection is about more than just setting up an account in a different jurisdiction; it’s about creating a robust legal structure that can withstand the tests of legal scrutiny. The Cook Islands, renowned for its protective trust laws, offers a viable haven for such assets. When paired with banking in countries like Switzerland, these structures provide an unparalleled level of security against creditors.

High-Risk Profession, High-Protection Needs

Law firm owners are particularly at risk due to their dual nature as business proprietors and professional license holders. With potential lawsuits looming from dissatisfied clients, vendors, or even internal disputes, the need for a solid protection plan is paramount. The strategy that Blake Harris identifies ensures you’re shielded, allowing you to focus on growing your firm without constant fear.

Real-Life Applications: Success and Strategy

Blake Harris shares real-world outcomes demonstrating the efficacy of offshore trusts. In one illustrative story, a client faced litigation shortly after the acquisition of his business, yet his offshore trust deterred the plaintiff from pursuing what could have been a devastating claim.

The Steps to Setting Up Your Trust

Setting up an offshore trust begins with understanding your specific needs and potential risks. Blake outlines a clear process—starting from an in-depth consultation to the establishment of the trust and ongoing maintenance. The key takeaway is clear: ensure your trust is well-structured from the outset, just as you would meticulously prepare a legal case.

Tax Neutral and Secure

There’s a common concern about the tax implications of offshore trusts. However, these structures are designed to be tax neutral, meaning they don’t increase your tax liability. Full compliance with IRS and FinCEN is a priority, ensuring the process remains transparent and legal.

Building the Future of Your Firm

The message is clear: offshore asset protection isn’t merely about safeguarding wealth—it’s about ensuring your firm’s longevity and success. With meticulous planning and expert guidance, law firm owners can navigate the complexities of asset protection, allowing them to focus on what truly matters: growing and maintaining a prosperous business.

Connect with Darren:

• Schedule a Call with Darren
• The Lawyer Millionaire Founders Network
• The Lawyer Millionaire: The Complete Guide for Attorneys on Maximizing Wealth, Minimizing Taxes, and Retiring with Confidence by Darren Wurz
• LinkedIn: Darren P. Wurz
• Join The Lawyer Millionaire Founders Network and Book Club for Free

Connect with Blake Harris:

• X: blakeharrislaw
• Instagram: blakeharrislaw
• Tiktok: blakeharrislaw
• Linkedin: Blake Harris
• Website: Blake Harris Law
• Book: Don’t Let a Lawsuit Take Away Everything: Strategies for Guarding Your Wealth Against Legal Threats

About our guest:

Blake Harris is the founding principal at Blake Harris Law, where he assists clients throughout the world with Offshore Asset Protection. Having traveled to over 40 countries, Blake has built an extensive global network by meeting with trust companies, protectors, and bankers worldwide.

An accomplished author and international speaker, Blake has educated countless professionals through his continuing legal education lectures on asset protection and offshore planning. He has been quoted in numerous national publications, including Forbes, The Epoch Times, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, and MarketWatch. Beyond these accolades, Blake boasts a significant social media presence with hundreds of thousands of followers, further solidifying his influence in the field.

With a seasoned background in wealth management, Blake Harris previously worked with one of America’s premier wealth management firms, advising high and ultra-high-net-worth clients on strategies to safeguard their assets. His passion for helping families cultivate and preserve their legacy inspired him to establish Blake Harris Law, a firm deeply committed to providing tailored solutions and peace of mind for its clients.

Blake’s commitment to the field doesn’t stop at his firm. He has consistently been recognized as a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers Magazine for the past 5 years and is an AV®️ Preeminent™️ Attorney.

A proud alumnus of the University of Florida, Blake obtained a degree in finance in 2007 and went on to earn his Juris Doctorate from the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 2010, a top-tier law school.

Blake is an active member of the American Bar Association, International Bar Association, the Florida Bar since 2010 (Florida Bar number: 86486), and the Colorado Bar since 2013 (Colorado Bar number: 45942). Blake resides in Miami Beach, in his limited free time, he enjoys traveling internationally, swimming in the ocean, and Muay Thai training.

Transcript:

Darren Wurz [00:00:00]:
One lawsuit, just one, could wipe out everything you’ve worked for. The question is, are you protected? Welcome to the Lawyer Millionaire, the podcast helping law firm owners scale profitably escape the daily grind and turn their firm into a wealth building asset. A single lawsuit, whether it’s a disgruntled client, an ex employee, or an unexpected legal battle, could devastate your personal and professional life. And if you have over a million dollars in asset, you’re an even bigger target. That’s why the smartest entrepreneurs aren’t just thinking about making money. They’re thinking about how to keep it. Today we’re joined by Blake Harris, a top asset protection attorney and founder of Blake Harris Law.

Intro [00:00:50]
We are on a mission to help lawyers and law firm owners maximize wealth and achieve financial independence. Welcome to the Lawyer Millionaire with Darren Wurz from Wurz Financial Services.

Darren Wurz [00:01:03]
All right, Blake, welcome to the show. Today, want to learn all about this mysterious world of offshore trusts? Let’s kick it off with a deep question. Let me ask you, is offshore asset protection just a tool for the ultra wealthy to hide money, or is it something that everyday business owners should take advantage of?

Blake Harris [00:01:26]:
Well, Darren, that’s a great question. Probably the biggest misconception the offshore industry, that offshore trusts are only appropriate for those with a very high net worth. And that’s not accurate. I’m going to explain why with a quick example. Let’s say that I have two clients. The first client is worth $2 million. The second client is worth 200 million. If both these clients are sued for $5 million, I’m going to be giving very different advice to each client.

Blake Harris [00:01:53]:
The client who has $200 million, I’m going to say don’t make any settlement offer. Go out, hire the best attorneys in the world. Fight this case as hard as you can. Let it be known that you don’t pay judgments. And if you end up losing, $5 million is not going to really have any effect on your standard of living. Now for the client with $2 million in assets, I’m going to tell them you need to talk settlement and you need to talk settlement fast. Because if they end up getting this judgment against you, this could be devastating. The majority of people who set up an offshore trust with my law firm have somewhere between about 1 and $10 million in assets.

Blake Harris [00:02:27]:
We do have quite a few clients whose net worth is a little bit under a million. And we do have clients whose net worth is tens of millions or a few who even have a net worth of 100 million plus. But the majority of people who set up an offshore trust have between about 1 and $10 million in assets. The majority of people who get sued actually have less than about 2 million dol million in assets. So that’s really the sweet spot of people who use offshore trust the most and really get the most value from creating an offshore plan. And to address the second part of the comment, there’s nothing that we do that’s hiding assets. The days of numbered accounts and hidden assets are long behind us. What we do is we protect assets.

Blake Harris [00:03:04]:
So pretty much everything we do could be, or really everything we do could be called into court and examined. However, the disclosure of the assets in no ways compromises the protection.

Darren Wurz [00:03:14]:
Good to know. So about a million million dollars is kind of the, the bottom threshold. Would it make sense under a million or is that kind of where the, where you want to be at least?

Blake Harris [00:03:26]:
So the majority of our clients have a little have over a million dollars, though we do have a client whose net worth is a little bit under a million. And it depends on several factors. Is a client in a high risk profession, Are they going to continue to see their income and assets grow? Do they have concerns about a potential divorce or other dispute that may come along their way? If so, they, they could be a good candidate for asset protection, even if their net worth is under a million. So it’s not just about wealth that is a factor, but it’s also about risk exposure, risk tolerance, and the overall optics of the situation. So generally, most clients do have above a million dollars in assets, but it’s definitely not a hard.

Darren Wurz [00:04:07]:
Sounds good. So tell us a little bit about the basics, like what is offshore asset protection at its most fundamental?

Blake Harris [00:04:16]:
So the concept of asset protection has been around for a very long time. As long as people have had money, they’ve been looking for ways to protect it. It wasn’t until the 1980s when an attorney from the Cook island and attorney from the United States came together and drafted up some legislation which allows for the use of what’s called a self settled spendthrift trust. This is a trust which you put your own money into it and you can remain the beneficiary taking distributions as you wish. But if you get sued, the assets remain protected. Since 1980, since the 1980s, there have been dozens of other offshore jurisdictions and there have been dozens of states. Here in the US There have been more than a dozen states in the US that allow for the use of an asset protection trust. The benefit of using an offshore trust is it’s much harder or impossible For a US Court to break an offshore trust, giving our clients much better protection than they would receive domestic trust.

Darren Wurz [00:05:12]:
And what kind of assets are we protecting? Are these retirement assets, non retirement assets, cash? What are the assets that we want to protect in this way?

Blake Harris [00:05:24]:
So the general rule is any asset can be protected, whether it comes to us protected or we have to put into the trust. That’s going to be something that we need to examine now. Retirement account up to a certain value. Generally the first million is going to be protected under state and or federal law. In some states you can have more than a million dollars that remains protected. But it’s most states you’re pretty well protected for that first million dollars of a qualified retirement account. Other assets that come with some level of protection, your home, your homestead, depending what state you live in, Florida and Texas, for example, your home’s a fully protected asset. Other states have small, maybe a few thousand tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars of homestead, homestead protection for the assets that are not protected.

Blake Harris [00:06:10]:
Those are the ones if you look to put into an offshore trust. So an investment portfolio, cash that’s not in a retirement account, cryptocurrency, all that can be held inside of an offshore trust. An important thing to note, Darren, about an offshore trust is the location of the bank and brokerage account does not need to be the same location where the trust is registered. So a common structure that we use for our clients is to register the trust in the Cook Islands, which is the oldest jurisdiction for asset protection. It is in my opinion the best jurisdiction for asset protection. And then have the trustee open a bank account in a different jurisdiction, usually Switzerland or Liechtenstein, which is in my opinion the best place for an American to bank. So it’s the combination of the best protective, most protective laws and the best banking system. And that combination is where we come together for our asset protection.

Darren Wurz [00:07:06]:
Very cool. So let’s talk about our clients who are law firm owners. Are they ones you would consider in a high risk profession? Why would this be important for them specifically?

Blake Harris [00:07:25]:
So two areas that are at an increased risk for being sued. One is business owners. You have employees, you have suppliers, you have clients, you’re an increased risk of being sued simply as a business owner. And then on top of that, professional, those with a license to practice, such as a cpa, a doctor or an attorney, are also at an increased risk. Yes, we work with quite a few attorneys, both as clients and as people who we partner with. When they have clients of their own that are looking for asset protection, we, my firm works in a very niche field. We only do offshore planning and there’s very few other attorneys who really focus in on this area. And I’d venture to say there’s not another law firm that has a global network or does the amount of offshore work that my law firm does.

Blake Harris [00:08:16]:
With this experience though, we’re able to help lots of clients by partnering with other attorneys who want to offer this service to their, to their clients or frequently co counseling with other attorneys. But we do represent quite a few attorneys directly themselves for their own personal assets protection.

Darren Wurz [00:08:33]:
Let’s, let’s talk about stories. Do you have any stories that demonstrate the impact that this has? Where it could be a good story or a bad story, examples of where this was very, very important.

Blake Harris [00:08:47]:
So I don’t have any bad stories that come to mind. That is, that, that, that is, that is good. I mean you do enough work, not everything’s going to work out perfectly. And being willing to take on some high risk and clients, there may be some situations where everything does not go exactly as hoped. But the reality is these are very protective structures. And when you do the planning before any litigation arises, the chances that you are going to end up in a better position than you’d be without the planning are extremely high. One example is a client of mine who he spent many years building and growing a business. A business will say that he was selling hats and he become a very successful, relatively successful in the hat selling business.

Blake Harris [00:09:41]:
As he got closer to retirement, he found somebody who he wanted to sell the company to. The new owner took over the company and then shortly after the new owner took over the company saw business start to decline. Well, the new owner blamed my client on, said my client failed to properly disclose some, some information. In reality, our belief was the new owner just didn’t know how to run the business as client built the business from scratch. Fortunately the client had set up an asset protection trust with my law firm. They were able to end up in this case actually having the plaintiff completely give up on pursuing the case. Usually what ends up happening is a client gets a settlement. Maybe the client’s being sued for $10 million.

Blake Harris [00:10:27]:
They end up paying a $100,000 settlement because the plaintiff knows that if they push this case all the way to the Cook Islands, not only is this going to take a lot of time and resources, the chance of them actually succeeding are so small that it just makes more sense to take a settlement off.

Darren Wurz [00:10:42]:
What a great example. Because you know, one of the things that we’ve talked about a lot in this show. And one things we really help our clients with is that time where they’re selling their business. And that that could be a high risk time period where maybe you want to set up this kind of structure. So thank you for that, that’s really helpful. Let’s talk a little bit more about the specifics. Am I still able to invest in the same things like the S&P 500 or US stocks or Facebook or Bitcoin? Tell us about how that works.

Blake Harris [00:11:23]:
Anything you can invest in right now, you can invest in through your offshore trust. Plus, the offshore trust gives you access to additional investments that you don’t have as a US Individual. So the common setup is the clients register the trust in the Cook Islands and then they will open a bank or brokerage account in Switzerland or Liechtenstein or one of the other jurisdictions that we work with. And then from there they can build out a portfolio of investments, stocks, bonds, crypto, gold, silver. So yes, your money will continue to work for you once it’s inside the trust.

Darren Wurz [00:11:57]:
Very cool. So that’s great. I can still invest in the things that I want to invest in. Can you give us kind of a step by step like how this works? If I was going to set up a trust, what are like the step by step process that you would go through?

Blake Harris [00:12:12]:
So we always want to start by getting on a phone call with the clients to get an understanding of their current situation, their needs, and make sure that they have the right expectations for what the process is going to look like and what service they’re ultimately going to be provided with. Once that consultation is over, if we decide to work together, we’ll send the client a follow up email with all the information they need to get started. Once the clients have hired us, then we will help them with the onboarding process. We’ll request some information needed in order to prepare the trust document in order to complete the application to apply with the trust company. Assuming the client has a clean background, they will be approved by the trust company. Now does not need to be a perfect background, but we just need to present this to the trust company in a way that it does not look like we’re working with any unethical or dangerous persons. Once in most situations we’re able to get clients approved, not all situations, but most clients who hire us, the vast majority, we are able to get a trust established. Once the trust is established, we’ll then help with the process of opening a bank account under the trust as well as transferring assets into the trust.

Blake Harris [00:13:24]:
At that point, once the trust is established, the bank account’s open, money’s been wired into the bank, into the bank account, the other assets have been put into the trust, then we will serve as the ongoing advisor going forward. So if the client has a question about how to use the trust, the client needs advice on how to take a distribution, how to add more property to the trust, or the client ends up getting sued and they need advice on how to play their cards. That’s when we come in and advise them and their defense counsel on how best to use the trust to get the most favorable.

Darren Wurz [00:13:57]:
Yeah, that makes sense. And that, that leads into something else. I wanted to ask you, you know, let’s say your client is going to be sued. How does the legal system react when they know someone has this offshore trust set up?

Blake Harris [00:14:12]:
So, offshore trust, although we do quite a few of them and there are lots of offshore trust being set up, they’re still pretty unknown to most attorneys in most courts. Most attorneys have not encountered an offshore trust and really don’t know what to do with it. So it may take some time, educating, educating both the attorney for a client, but the attorney for the opposing party and explain to them exactly what has been set up, how it has been set up, and why it’s going to be so hard for someone to break into the trust. Ultimately, one or two things is going to happen. In some cases, the plaintiff would simply drop the case and say, we don’t want to spend the resources to go after an offshore trust. More likely, what’s going to happen is they’re going to be ready to talk settlement. And that is really the name of the game, getting our clients to an acceptable settlement.

Blake Harris [00:15:02]:
And the trust is doing just that, buying our clients settlement.

Darren Wurz [00:15:09]:
Are there strategies that plaintiffs might try to break through to into the trust?

Blake Harris [00:15:15]:
Sure. We’ve consulted with clients before on how to break through a trust. And if the trust is not properly set up, for example, if you create the trust and didn’t fund it, or you still left assets here in the United States, those assets are something that a plaintiff could get if the trust document is drafted poorly in a way that gives the client too much power. And the court could use that angle to leverage a way to get assets out of the trust. Yes, there are ways that offshore trust could be broken to if not set up properly, which is why you definitely want to work with an attorney or partner, with an attorney who specializes in this area. You’re going to make sure that all the ways throughout history that trust have been compromised. Those Issues have been addressed in the trust document, in the setup of the trust with the offshore partners. So, yes, there’s not all slices of pizza taste the same.

Blake Harris [00:16:11]:
Not all trust, not all offshore trust are going to provide the same level of protection.

Darren Wurz [00:16:17]:
You really want to make sure that you set it up properly is the lesson here? Yeah.

Blake Harris [00:16:23]:
Correct. It’s like heart surgery. When done right, it can be an amazing thing, but when done wrong, it can be.

Darren Wurz [00:16:31]:
And so you’ve really talked about like, like two levels of protection almost. Right. You had. So you have your trust set up in the Cook Islands and then you have maybe your bank in Switzerland. Tell us maybe why? Like, because when most people think about, you know, Swiss bank accounts, that’s all they think about. Right? I’m going to move my money to Switzerland. Tell us why that doesn’t work. To fully protect why you need the trust on top of that.

Blake Harris [00:17:00]:
So you can open up a bank account in other countries, but if a court orders you to repatriate those funds, you’re going to have to do that. So simply putting into a Swiss bank account, but having it still held in your name, you’ve only done half the deal. You bought a car with only two wheels. You’re not getting very far with it. What you need to do is have the money offshore so the US Corp can’t freeze that bank account. But you also need to have the control offshore so the US Court can’t force you to hand over the assets. They would have to try to force a foreign trustee who by law is not able to recognize or follow the court orders of any jurisdiction in the world other than where the trust is based.

Darren Wurz [00:17:44]:
So then what is it about the Cook Islands? You know, I mean, you could set up a trust anywhere. Like, why is it better to do it there versus domestically or versus any other place like Belize or Switzerland?

Blake Harris [00:18:00]:
So, well, Switzerland doesn’t currently have an asset protection trust law in place, so Switzerland off the table. In terms of domestic versus offshore, the difference is simple. One of those trusts can be broken by the US Court. Another one cannot be broken by US Court. It’s a very simple decision whether to go offshore, state, domestic. What little savings that you get by setting up a domestic trust, you’re losing many times over in your settlement leverage. In terms of offshore jurisdictions, there’s more than a dozen different options. But of the various countries which allow you to set up an offshore trust, there are three countries which have good codified laws backed by case law, which regularly work with and welcome Americans.

Blake Harris [00:18:52]:
So if you want to fit into that category. The only options are the Cook Islands, Nevis and Belize. We do business in all three countries. I visited all of them many times, was just in all three last month. Belize is great in terms of how the law is written, but overall it’s not the most stable place to do business. Cook Islands and Nevis, their laws are essentially the same Cook Islands I prefer because it has an increased distance from the United States which deters people from wanting to go there to litigate. They’ve also been in the business longer and there are some trust companies we have closer relationships with there than we do in Nevis. Overall it’s just the more friendly jurisdiction and it’s one where we’ve seen the government is more committed towards guarding the industry.

Blake Harris [00:19:48]:
Now Nevis, and I was just meeting with the premier of Nevis when I was there a few weeks ago, has shown that they are interested in supporting and growing the industry. So it may become a closer competitor in the years to come. But Cook Islands does have the longest standing track record and serves as the gold standard for asset protection.

Darren Wurz [00:20:11]:
Yeah, one thing I’m curious about is how do taxes work within these offshore trusts?

Blake Harris [00:20:18]:
So the trust is a tax neutral vehicle. It does not increase the client’s taxes, it does not decrease the client’s taxes. The taxes do have to be reported to the IRS and FinCEN. And this is why we provide all of our clients with a detailed memorandum on how to complete complete the reporting requirements. But overall it’s not going to change client’s tax liability.

Darren Wurz [00:20:41]:
Sounds good. So Blake, how did you get involved in this very unique practice area? Tell us the story.

Blake Harris [00:20:50]:
So it is really just what called me Darren. I mean that’s kind of the short, short version of it. When I started in the practice of law, my law firm was located about three blocks away from another attorney named Barry Engel. Now Barry Engel is the attorney who I referenced at the beginning of today’s discussion that co wrote the asset protection law along with an attorney in the Cook Islands. And I learned a lot from Barry early in my career before he passed away about how to set up an offshore trust who to work within the industry. And from that relationship I then took it to the next step and traveled to the Cook Islands in Switzerland and dozens of different countries throughout the world and have built not just a global network but a global knowledge base of how best to structure an asset protection plan and how to do it quickly and efficiently and price effectively for our, for our clients. So it started out by Learning from the OG of asset asset protection. But then very much grew in time as I grew my network and then as I grew my client base.

Blake Harris [00:22:05]:
I’ve been very successful with the firm’s social media marketing. I have hundreds of thousands of followers across my various channels and with that we’ve grown a very large client base. I was told by the CEO of southpac just a few weeks ago that last year my law firm set the record for the most number of trusts ever registered in one year by a law firm with their company in their 40 year plus history. So started out as an interest of mine, I was a trust attorney and discovered the offshore offshore world and then was able to just meet with the best in the industry. And that’s really the standard that I’ve held myself my firm to that we only work with the most reputable providers, both domestically.

Darren Wurz [00:22:52]:
What a great story. I mean, how coincidental that you just happened to be close to this other attorney, Barry and. Yeah. And kind of come into this world.

Blake Harris [00:23:04]:
As I said, I really feel like it called me. I don’t know that I choose this profession. I think this profession chose me. I’m really excited to see how my firm will change the landscape in the years to come. It is a very hard industry to break into. I’ve been asked that before. How did I manage to get into this industry? It was a lot of cold calling and knocking and pushing until I got where I am. And it was taking on a bit of risk as well and going after a unique area of the law.

Blake Harris [00:23:38]:
It’s not like divorces or car accidents where there’s tons of attorneys who are there to train you and plenty of clients come your way. It’s a smaller client pool than some of the more generalized areas of law. But with that it’s been extremely rewarding and I really appreciate and love that I get to do business with people all over the world and that it takes me to travel all over the world. And I get to work with some people who are doing some really cool things in business and I’m able to help their business by removing fear. Because when you’re operating under fear, you’re not at your best capacity. But when you can run your business with confidence, knowing that if someone does come at you at the lawsuit, you’re still going to be able to protect what you’ve worked for. There’s a lot of joy that brings to me and our client base.

Darren Wurz [00:24:24]:
Well, Blake, here at the Lawyer Millionaire, we also have a book club where we’re reading some great books. In fact, right now we’re reading the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel and I want to ask you a question about that. But also I’m curious and I understand that you’ve written a book of your own as well, which is very exciting. We’ll make sure we put that in the show notes for everybody. Is there anything that you’re currently reading that you’re finding really fascinating?

Blake Harris [00:24:49]:
Is there anything that I’m currently reading that I’m finding really fascinating? You know, I just tore through a book recently. Oh, actually that was one more on spirituality. But I’ll talk about that for a moment. I’m not going to necessarily say which book it was, but two months ago, Thanksgiving week, I unplugged for an entire week from work. I realized that I’ve been running my law firm for over 10 years and never once have I taken a full day off work. There was always at least some emails that were being exchanged, a phone call or phone call or two. Not every single day was a full 12 plus hour day. But there was never a complete lockout of work in my 10 year history.

Blake Harris [00:25:32]:
Now that my firm is at the size it’s at, now that I’ve got a good team behind me where I feel like the firm can continue to not just operate but grow in my absence. I took an entire week off work and did a spiritual retreat where I really took some time to reset myself. And it was one of the best things that I have done in my career. Take some time to step back, take a, take a breath, realize what’s important my firm and what direction and the vision I have, I have, I have for the, I have, I have for the firm. But I’ll let you go ahead with your next question on.

Darren Wurz [00:26:10]:
Yeah, psychology. One of the things that Morgan Housel talks about is that wealth is what you don’t see. I think it’s such a very interesting concept. You’re very successful, obviously. But we were talking earlier about the simplicity of life and you know, traveling light. Right? You do so much traveling. You did a post about you don’t need to take 27 pieces of luggage with you. You can fit it all in a backpack.

Darren Wurz [00:26:38]:
You know, tell us a little bit about like what is your, your concept of wealth?

Blake Harris [00:26:44]:
So wealth is the result of making good decisions. It is not the goal. And I want to step back and give a quick examination on wealth. If wealth comes you in the right way, it is a good thing. If wealth comes to you in the wrong way, it is a bad thing. If you made all of your money from some meme, coin pump or some inheritance. That is not going to make you into a better human being. That’s not going to make you at your core a wealthier person.

Blake Harris [00:27:21]:
And if you’re given money, it’s easily, it’s going to be lost easily. The biggest mistakes mistake wealthy families make. It’s not in neglecting asset protection, though that is a common issue. It is in neglecting raising the children properly. I can create, hypothetically I could create the best asset protection structure in the world. Well, in reality I think I could create the best asset protection structure in the world. But if the next generation doesn’t know how to properly manage that and be responsible, there’s nothing that can be done to preserve that family’s wealth for generations to come. And it’s not my position to install, instill the proper values into the next generation.

Blake Harris [00:28:09]:
Now there are family offices which try to do that, but really it very much comes down to the parents and how they parent their child and making sure that the children do their chores. When I go out to dinner with a client, the client hands their three year old an iPad instead of what I want to say is how about we put down the iPad and socialize the kids that they can go on and be successful in business. But it’s not really my position to say these kind of things. Well, is what you get from making the right decisions, it is a result of that. It’s not the wealth that’s going to drive you to do the good things. It’s not even the goals of the wealth. The person that you become along the way as you grow that successful business, that’s the real value. And if you focus on not the outputs but the inputs, then the outputs will come to you and you will be as wealthy as you ever want.

Darren Wurz [00:29:06]:
It is a pattern that we so often see in the wealth management industry that by the third generation the money is gone. The first generation works really hard to build the money. They may have come from nothing. So they know the grind, the sweat. They’re very scared almost of spending money, they’re very thrifty. The second generation, they haven’t known that. And so they’re a lot more carefree with the money and they usually deplete it. So it really is critical to get that education for your children and really teach them about the meaning of wealth.

Darren Wurz [00:29:53]:
And it’s a challenge. It’s really hard.

Blake Harris [00:29:57]:
It is a challenge, but it’s also the most important duty that any of us have and I’ve seen it time and again where friend I know parents were immigrants, barely spoke English, but worked very hard and they were there to support their child along the way. And the child’s gone on to be very wealthy and paid it back to the parents, paid it forward to his, to his children in the best way possible. So America has its good and bad. No doubt about it. Part of the reason I like traveling is there’s other countries that are good in ways that America is not. But America is still very much a land of opportunity where if you work hard, you’re disciplined, you’re creative, you’re willing to take on some risk, you can grow from very little to very wealth.

Darren Wurz [00:30:44]:
Yeah. Well, Blake, it’s been really a joy to chat with you. We’ve covered a lot of really great ground. It’s been a great episode. I’m sure people will really be interested in hearing about this. Can you, in closing, share with our audience where they can go to learn more about you?

Blake Harris [00:31:04]:
Very easy. Blake Harris Law that’s BlakeHarrisLaw.com that’s Blake Harris Law on Instagram. That’s Blake Harris Law on TikTok. Blake Harris Law on X Blake Harris law on LinkedIn, all the social media platforms Blake Harris Law or just Visit our website blakeharrislaw.com Happy to chat with you more. If you’re an attorney and you would like to offer asset protection to your clients, talk about how we can partner. Or if you’re looking for asset protection for yourself, more than happy to be of help.

Darren Wurz [00:31:36]:
Well, thank you so much Blake.

Blake Harris [00:31:38:)
Thanks my pleasure.

Darren Wurz [00:31:39]:
If you want to learn more about Blake and how he helps law firm owners and professionals safeguard their wealth, visit blakeharrislaw.com be sure to check the show notes for links to his resources and contact information. Offshore asset protection isn’t about hiding wealth, it’s about securing it. This is especially critical when you’re thinking about selling your business. And just like tax planning and business strategy, asset protection should be part of every law firm owner’s financial plan. Here at the Lawyer Millionaire Founders Network, we help our members create a comprehensive financial plan that integrates both personal and business planning. And we bring together a team of folks like Blake to make sure you have all your bases covered through our private Wealth Advisor program. If you want to learn more about our programs and membership benefits, schedule an intro call with me. The link is in the Show Notes.

Darren Wurz [00:32:3]:
Well, that’s a wrap for this episode of the Lawyer Millionaire. Remember, your law firm should be an asset, not just a job take control, build wealth, and create the future you deserve. See you next time.

Outro [32:53]
Thank you for listening to the Lawyer Millionaire. Click the Follow button below to be notified when new episodes become available. This content has been made available for informational and educational purposes. Purposes only this content is not intended to represent investing or tax advice. Always seek the advice of a qualified investment or tax advisor with any questions you may have regarding your own financial circumstances.