Episode 23 | Why Trusts are the Most Powerful Asset Protection Vehicle in the U.S. with Dohn Thornton

Dohn Thornton  00:00

I was faced with an existential crisis of after 20 years into this business. How do I make money

Voiceover  00:10

Welcome to the “Lead at the Top of Your Game” podcast, where we equip you to more effectively lead your seat at any employer, business, or industry in which you choose to play. Each week, we help you sharpen your leadership acumen by cracking open the playbooks of dynamic leaders who are doing big things in their professional endeavors. And now, your host, leadership tactics, and organizational development expert, Karan Ferrell-Rhodes.

Karan Rhodes  00:45

Hey there, superstarss is Karen and welcome to today’s episode. For those of us in the United States, the IRS tax man is constantly in our pockets every year would you agree? You know, we pray that we receive a tax refund. But if that’s not the case, we pray again and dread the final verdict of how much we owe to the federal, state and city governments in which we all live. You know, one of the rarely discussed but popular tax shelter tools of the ultra wealthy are various types of financial trust. And on today’s show, I am truly honored to have gone Gordon, who’s the CEO of HB funding Incorporated, which is a real estate investment firm. Dohn has had such an interesting experience during the pandemic, which actually caused him to pivot to his deep knowledge on trust and capital gains taxes, and use that knowledge to build a thriving consulting business. So be sure to listen as he gives us tips on how to keep more pennies in our pocket. And be sure to listen to my closing segment at the end called Karen’s take, where I share a tip on how to use the insights from today’s episode to further your leadership acumen. And now enjoy the show. Hello superstars. This is Karen and welcome to today’s episode of the leader the top of your game podcast. Now today we have an extremely interesting topic on helping you be a stronger leader in your personal finance realm, which is a little bit different than some of the other topics we’ve featured recently. But we are super honored and excited to have Dohn Thorton. As a guest on our today’s show. Dohn is the CEO of HP funding, which is a real estate investment firm. But he also had a very interesting experience during the pandemic, which he’s going to share with us where he was able to use his deep knowledge and another area of expertise to really radically pivot in his business. So welcome to the podcast. I’m so happy to have you.

Dohn Thornton  02:53

I’m so glad to be here. Thank you for the invitation. This is awesome.

Karan Rhodes  02:56

Awesome, awesome. Well, we can’t wait to open that leadership playbook of yours, specifically in the financial realm. But before we get started, would love for you to share as much as you feel comfortable, a little bit about your personal life and professional journey, like where you were born and grew up and then kind of highlights of your professional career.

Dohn Thornton  03:21

Sure. Well, I had quite a journey, I tell you, I would say that if you wanted to put my life to a movie script, it would be just constant change. And although I’m not a military brat, I feel like in some ways, I have the same attributes because we never had any stability in our home. I mean, in 12 years of high school, I went to 11 different high schools. So we were moving. My father was a he worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and he got transferred to Omaha. We were in we were in Arkansas, Texas a lot. We still have quite a while in Missouri. And then in the last two years of Omaha, which was enough for me to get out and escape from the corn as soon as I could. But going even after that I did I did a year in Idaho. Then I went to Finland for two years. And then I came back to Utah and then I went to Russia, which was supposed to just be a two year journey that could have been 20. The back and forth, not always there. But yeah, I mean, it’s been a situation where I have no roots, per se. And that’s but I mean, just I knew I don’t know what I always felt like I was just an odd duck. I was always marching to the beat. And I didn’t even understand the journey. But I knew I was on a journey somewhere. Okay. And there were certain things that stood out with me that drove me even though I had no idea why for one thing was I had a obsession, an obsession, to go to Russia and learn the language, no idea why. I mean, it was just one of the things I mean, literally when I was 10 years old, I knew I wanted to go to Russia and learn the language. Back then it was a Soviet Union who knew right? It was like an unattainable, unattainable dream and yet it has up, you know, so and then it was also my dear mother who passed away. I mean, she constantly was telling me get involved in real estate get involved in real estate, you will never be happy working for somebody real estate’s where you need to go. And you know, I did what most loving sons did I get this, okay, Mom, whatever, you know, I have my own path. You know, at the time, I was going to be gonna go to the State Department, diplomacy, government worker, and so forth. She says, You’re never be happy doing that. We’ll never be happy doing that. And God bless her. She was right. She was absolutely right. I went to the embassy for two years and 89 when it was still the Soviet Union. When I left, it was Russia, right. And then everything changed. And the first thing he changed is the fact that I discovered that Russia, women are very, very beautiful. And second of all, the embassy didn’t like you to date them. Because for security reasons. So you know, as I say, on Seinfeld, Yatta, Yatta, yatta, I ended up moving away from my career at the State Department and was dumped into an entrepreneurial situation, I got married, so any kind of government work and but that was over because I had no security clearance anymore. But there was so much opportunity in Russia. I just say, You know what, I’m gonna start a business. I had no idea how to do a business, much less Russia. But it started my journey in Russia. You know, I got divorced, got remarried. And I eventually led me to Orlando, real estate investing. And until COVID. And until the war started, I spent 20 years flying back and forth commuting to Moscow where my family is, it’s been an interesting journalist, let’s put it that way.

Karan Rhodes  06:44

I bet it does. I mean, of course, Russia is in the news a lot these days, a variety of reasons. But one of the things that I’ve learned, you mean, me personally, over the years, my eyes were awakened into how big a market real estate was for Russian nationals real estate in the US was, so I’m imagining someone like you who knew the language and has those connections would have been thriving in that industry.

Dohn Thornton  07:10

I wasn’t in the real estate side of it. It was more of helping European and American businesses get set up there and working with them. And

Karan Rhodes  07:20

interesting,

Dohn Thornton  07:22

but you know, my family, we do have, I mean, the real estate came from me later, once that was established as my real estate investing business. In America, I invested a lot of money in Russian real estate. So I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good decision now. But back then, back in the day, it seemed like it was a good thing. But now we have about nine, we have about nine apartments over there. We built two houses in Central Russia, on the banks of this BEAUTIFUL PRISTINE springfed river that that’s that’s my sanctuary, I would always go there and just been most of the summer there. And it was it’s just wonderful place, but obviously had been there for three years. So that’s that’s I don’t know what I’ll get back. But, you know, I, we made the decision, I was going to go to Russia and retire eventually, or at least run my business from there, as I got more into, you know, internet centered and not be of not having to be on site all the time. Of course, those those plans are temporarily on hold. Let’s put it that way. But yeah, that’s but yes, absolutely. 100%. And, you know, we saw a lot, I first watched a short sales. So we sold a lot of short sales to Russian investors over the years in Florida.

Karan Rhodes  08:27

And for the audience members who don’t know what a short sale is, tell them what that is.

Dohn Thornton  08:31

Well, that’s when a homeowner owes more than what the house is worth, and they can’t sell it with a full payoff. Otherwise, they would have to bring 10s of 1000s of dollars to the table to make sure the mortgage got paid off. So a short sale is when the mortgage company will allow a buyer like myself to negotiate with them. And, you know, get them to allow the property to be sold and an as is value. Anything on the mortgage just left over this not paid will be written off and forgiven by the mortgage company. The mortgage company pays all the closing costs and commissions for the homeowner, the profit is, as is value is kind of a you know, it’s an under they think it’s higher, I think is lower, and whoever wins that negotiations battle, but that really won. And so it made a lot of money in short sales. But yes, that’s what I did.

Karan Rhodes  09:20

Gotcha. And so what happened during the pandemic, tell us a little bit about the story of how you moved into a focus on trust, and then give our audience some information about how they can potentially save on their taxes and improve their financial situation.

Dohn Thornton  09:39

It’s an interesting, interesting situation, because it’s one of these deals where if you get complacent in life, and you don’t have a plan B, life tends to kick you in the butt eventually.

Karan Rhodes  09:51

It does.

Dohn Thornton  09:51

I had a good run because you know, when everybody was suffering on during the Great Recession, I was making millions. So that was a great time for me. And even when The economy was back and the housing market got hot again, I was still doing amazingly well in short sales. And in fact, in February of 2020, before COVID Really bid, I got 25 houses in one month in short sale houses. And it was it was unbelievably good. I was like, everything’s wonderful. And then my main source of leads was the foreclosure filings in the courts all over Florida, shut down for almost two years, I was faced with an existential crisis of after 20 years into this business, how do I make money? How do I make money and, you know, I was able to, luckily, I had done really well setting up referral sources. And you know, you still had a pipeline. So for me COVID, the consequences of COVID did not bite hard until earlier this year. And but I saw it coming I knew it was going to have it was just a matter of time. And I had some pretty emotional arguments with my with my partner, who does all the negotiations on the short sale side, because she couldn’t see it. And I saw it, I said, this train is coming, we’re gonna get killed, if we don’t transition our transition to something else now. And you know, I hate to say it, but she’s really struggling. I’m not because she did not see the warning signs, or she just didn’t want to do it. She just said, I’m real estate person, I don’t want to do anything else. I said, Well, you better have some food storage, but you better have some money in the bank to ride this out, because you’re not going to make it. I know, I can’t I gotta get I have to have income. And so, you know, luckily, you know, it was it was fortunate that I had something to pivot to. Right. And that’s this trust of the non grantor irrevocable, complex discretionary spendthrift trust. It is been around for well over a century, and not longer than that, when the US tax code was implemented in the 1930s. And this trust was incorporated into the tax code. Okay. And so it is it is affiliated with IRS code 643. And the Trust has four major events. Number one, because of the spendthrift provision, the trust, any assets that are inside the trust are basically locked inside of titanium vault of asset protection. I mean, I’m not saying you can’t be sued, I’m saying that when it gets in front of the judge, the judge will toss it because they don’t have any jurisdiction over a spendthrift trust. Okay, so from that point, it is the most powerful asset protection vehicle there is in the country. Second of all, when you use this trust as the main vehicle for your business, or your personal investing, wherever you choose it for, if you have an asset, that provides passive income, when that money comes directly into the trust, it is not considered a taxable event, provided that you keep the money, you allocate the money to the corpus of the trust, and you don’t disperse to your beneficiaries. Okay? Well, from a real estate point of view, or from just a personal finance point of view, you got stocks, or bonds you have, you may have crypto, you may have Forex, any, you know, rents on on rental properties, whatever, that’s all passive income that’s coming to the trust, so therefore, you’re not going to be paying taxes on that. Second of all, if you have a trust asset, let’s say, investment properties could be crypto doesn’t matter. If it’s an asset and you sell it. Normally, that’s a capital gains tax event. Well, if it’s a trust asset, when you sell it, again, it comes into the trust you allocate to the corpus of the trust, you don’t disperse the beneficiaries. That is not considered a taxable event, a capital gains tax for the trust. And then finally, the other thing is, if you have a business and you are earning, you’re, you’re selling something, you’re selling a service, you’re making income as ordinary income, for the most part, you could be a 1099 contractor, you could be a commissioned salesperson, like really successful realtors, mortgage brokers, real estate brokers, whatever, they’re getting killed on taxes, because that’s considered ordinary income. If you’re above $165,000 a year, that’s taxed at 32%. So this trust has an amazing strategy with this. Whereas if you have an LLC, that when you’re running your business with a LLC, then what you want to do is you want to sell your assets, your business’s assets into the trust, you also want to make your trust a 90% limited partner in your LLC.

Karan Rhodes  14:19

So you’d have to re-file your articles to the new structure, giving the trust 90%

Dohn Thornton  14:24

Well, you would just add the trust as a limited partner. Yeah. 90% a limited partner. So then when you have your pre tax that income at the end of the year, that’s where an LLC is going to have its, you know, day of reckoning with the IRS as far as how much do you owe, if you have a million dollars, that’s 32% that’s, you know, $320,000 that you’re gonna have to cut a check for but with this strategy, by adding a lease of those assets that were sold to the Trust for the LLC, you’re leasing those back to the LLC for money, right, and the IRS will allow up to 70 percent of a business’s pre tax and income to be used as a lease payment. Oh, interesting. So if you saw on that, on the basis of that new expense that we put on there, as much as 700,000 of that $1 million of pre tax and income for your LLC can be moved over to the trust as a lease payment. Okay, so now we’ve just moved $700,000 of taxable income from your LLC over to the trust, which you’ve reduced that now to, to 300,000. And then over that, by making the trust a 90%, limited partner in your LLC, it needs to be paid for that equity position, right. So 90% of the remaining 300,000 is going to go over to the trust is a k one distribution, which means 270,000 goes over to the trust as a k one distribution. So now you have modified your pre tax and income by adding these two additional disbursements. So these two additional expenses from a million dollars down to $30,000. So most of your income is left in the LLC, we’re going to calculate your tax is going to be $30,000. Not a million, not $300,000. Okay, so meanwhile, the Trust has received $970,000. But it’s received it as passive income, because a lease agreement is passive income for the trust, a k one distribution is a passive income for the trust as well. And so because again, it’s all these proceeds are allocated to the corpus of the trust, they’re not dispersed to the beneficiaries, the trustee, which would be you, if you if you if it’s just it’s your business, and the trustee of the trust, according to IRS code 643, you can declare all the passive income that comes into your trust as an extra ordinary dividend, and it will not be a taxable event for the trust.

Karan Rhodes  16:45

So those are just so many nuggets, and so amazing. But why aren’t more people using it or know about it, ?

Dohn Thornton  16:51

They don’t know about it, and in fact that’s the biggest thing. For me, it’s a challenge, and it’s also a huge opportunity, because you have remember, who was using this strategy? Until recently, it was like the the Rockefellers, the ultra wealthy? I mean, I don’t know if you remember this or not. But Warren Buffett was one time quoted as saying that his secretary pays more taxes than he does.

Karan Rhodes  17:13

Yes, I do remember.

Dohn Thornton  17:15

Why is that because she’s getting paid a W-2, you can use the same strategy, right, that we just described. And it was always just assumed that the rich people have these pseudo-secret strategies that only the very rich can afford to do, you’re going to have these high powered lawyers pay a million dollars a year to find out these murky loopholes or whatever, when actually, it’s much more simple than that, just by this trust. And following these strategies. I mean, a heck of a lot more people can can use this than just the Ultra Rich, the challenge is that most CPAs most financial advisors is not on their radar, they still have starting to happen. I’ve noticed in the last three months, I mean, more and more financial advisors turning to me, they’ve seen my videos on social media alerts, your clients are saying, Hey, I saw this video, whatever, I’m actually doing something like this. It’s starting to penetrate their consciousness, but not yet. And it takes time, still not. I predict, I predict in a couple of years, this is going to be the go to strategy for most people who make four or $500,000 or more. I really believe that because it makes sense.

Karan Rhodes  18:23

And do you think it’s mostly for like this, like you and me or business owners? Or can this still be accomplished with those that are employees in the workforce?

Dohn Thornton  18:33

 You can’t…It doesn’t work with a W-2.

Karan Rhodes  18:35

Okay, so only those who are business owners,

Dohn Thornton  18:37

But I will tell you that real estate investors, business owners, and 1099 people are by far, the ones that are coming to me, because they’re the ones getting killed on taxes. And, of course, this system works really well, you know, I mean, and again, look, you know, full disclaimer, I’m not a licensed tax authority, I’m not a legal, little licensed legal person, I’m telling you, this is informational purposes only have a trust, I use the strategies they work. Always, of course, get, you know, licensed professional advice before you enter into any transaction. Having said that, I’ve done this journey. I know a law firm has had this trust for almost 50 years creates the I work with the company I’m with we support it and we promote it and so forth. So I mean, it’s not like you know, someone is got a pin printing press, the printing press behind the outhouse, you know, printing out trust, you know, I mean, this is a reputable law firm. It’s been around for a long time. And it’s it’s already been vetted by the IRS. Okay, so I mean, we, one of the biggest things I like about this is that if someone says, Oh, that can’t be true, it’s like okay, let me email you what the IRS document called a private trust private ruling letter, and it goes in and shows you how they examine this 643 How that works with the extrordinary dividend and Describe totally legal, it’s just they don’t go out and say, Hey, here’s ways you can save money, they’re not going to do that.

Karan Rhodes  20:07

They don’t have commercials on it right? And what happens when the trust passes to the beneficiary?

Dohn Thornton  20:14

It never passes to the beneficiaries. That’s the thing. Okay. So the Trust has to be renewed every 21 years. Now, in my family strategy, my wife is a benefit as a beneficiary, my daughter, my son, and my grandson, now, my wife has been designated as a as a trustee, successor trustee, because if something happens to me, then she takes the reins, okay? Our daughter is her will be her successor trustee. Okay. And so eventually, I hope I won’t be here to see it. But I hope that eventually my grandson will become trustee. And we’ll keep going and going and going, because all this wealth that we can create, and we already have is inside the trust. So we never have to worry about estate taxes or inheritance taxes, or having a will, or anything like that everything is done with an operating agreement inside the trust about what who does what, remember, this is a thing people people get caught on this thinking that okay, well, the beneficiaries have to receive money, they don’t, but they receive value because the trust pays for almost all of their expenses as a trust expense. For example, if you have children that are 21 years or younger than 21, anything with education, it’s a trust expense and trust pays for it. Anything has to do with wellness, for anybody, any beneficiaries of trust, you can literally fly to Bora Bora, and go to a spa retreat. And that’s Well, that’s a trust expense. Okay. The only thing that the trust can’t pay for is what they call food, fashion and fun. Everything else interest can pretty much pay for. And then but here’s the brilliance of the strategy. There’s no taxable event ever in the strategy, because you might say, I know what you’re saying, and you’re thinking to yourself, Okay, well, what about food, passionate fun how I pay for that, right? Well, it’s simple. You sell your assets, when you set the trust up into the trust, and the trust is not paying you money, it’s gonna give you a note, like an IOU. Okay? So I saw my assets to trust, I’ve got like, $500,000 Note that the other trust owes me. So if I say, You know what, I need about $30,000 worth of food, fashion and fun for the next four months, trust cuts me a check, because it and then that reduces my demand know from 500,000 down to $470,000. And that’s not a taxable event is not a taxable event. Because it’s an was like a proceeds from a loan, just not you know, it’s not an event. So basically, nowhere in the strategy, are you having to disperse anybody or pay taxes on it. And it’s perfectly legal. Like I said, it’s perfectly legal. People just don’t know about it. Now listen, if you want to, you can disperse someone, it’s just to be dispersed, it’s going to be a 1099 be a

Karan Rhodes  22:48

Be a taxable event there, right?

Dohn Thornton  22:50

That’s all. No big deal, right? But it significantly lowers what you would pay on taxes. And some people say, Well, Dohn, I don’t want to move 97% of my my business and income because I pay myself salary, I want to get loans, I want to have good credit, fine, then only do it 70%.

Karan Rhodes  23:07

And it’s your personal choice, which you…

Dohn Thornton  23:10

just say you can go that far if you want. For me personally, I made that choice. Because if you looked at my tax rate, my personal tax return, I can easily qualify for food stamps, I don’t need credit, you know, we already have our real estate. I’m not I only buy things for cash. So you know, and who can I mean, you know, how attorneys are if it’s if there’s any kind of issues, that for whatever happens, they’re going to look at my Do I have any assets to go after? No, I don’t have anything. My position as trustee for the trust is I they can’t come after me for anything as trustee. They can’t get to the assets in the trust. So they know where to go. Exactly. The beneficiaries are all protected inside the halo of the trust. So it’s absolutely the most brilliant strategist I’ve ever heard of. But I’ll tell you what, I mean, getting back to the theme of your podcast here is I know that you asked me before about what leadership tactic was something that I like  Resonated with you? Yes.  Courageous agility. And I’ll tell you why. And I’m gonna, you know I’m throwing my partner under the bus here, I apologize.

Karan Rhodes  24:17

We’d love your partner, but this is for learning purposes.

Dohn Thornton  24:22

Right, if you don’t have confidence in yourself and your judgment, and and that so many people doubt themselves, but I have learned over the years that just to show you, I mean, when I was in Russia, and the last project I had, it died a natural death. And I knew at that time, that there was no more money in Russia for me that the Russians were Putin was in power or pushing all the expats out, trying to make it making it the Russians and everything I knew, I told my wife, I said, I can’t make it here anymore. We’re not gonna make any money here. You know, and so, I left him, you know, in, in Russia with her parents, and I went back in And I said I was gonna do real estate because I knew that that was in my mom’s voices in my head, right? And I didn’t want to work for you anymore. I was sick of it. So everything that happened from the time that we made the decision for me to leave Moscow and go back and go to Orlando and just basically start from scratch, and one of the arguments my wife and I, my mother in law had because you know, you’re gonna, you’re gonna find your wife, you’re gonna find your mother in law tech, right? We’re all saying that the things I did were failures, because it took me two years minimum, to get my first closing, okay, and I tried different things, and they didn’t work. Here’s the most important lesson I learned. And it gave me unshakable faith in myself in my in the path I was on is, when you turn around, look at the path that you went from the tiny made that decision until now, every single failure was crucial to get me to where I landed, if I had not gone through that, I wouldn’t have landed where I was. Okay, so I had that unshakeable faith in me, when I had to make a decision when my gut was telling me, I need to diversify now and start working now. Or I’m going to by the end of the year, it’s just scary how that worked. I knew that I had to pivot. And so I did. And so I did stuff that I had never done before I became a social media guy. I mean, believe it or not, I’m a horse on tick tock, you know, I mean, YouTube, I grew up there on YouTube, and I’m I did stuff that I did not know how to do. I’m sure I don’t do it correctly. But it doesn’t matter. I’m putting content out,

Karan Rhodes  26:34

It’s just gotta get out there. And it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Dohn Thornton  26:37

Exactly. Imperfect Action is the way to go. So I followed my gut, and I committed to it. And there was just no way I was not going to do it. And so and she didn’t, in the pipeline, eventually ran out, where our last closing in our short sale pipeline, and at the end of August, she has, she has not had a closing sense.

Karan Rhodes  26:56

As you know, this is an another important lesson listeners, especially those of you who you know, own your own businesses, and there are quite a few of you out there, you still have to be a very strong leader of your business, and you have to understand your industry, see where the trends are going connect those dots and try your best to have lets you set Plan B, C, and D to try something new to pivot for longevity. Otherwise, it’ll be like your partner, you know, and you get caught a little bit too late and find yourself, you know, without any revenue coming in.

Dohn Thornton  27:33

That’s right. And it’s it’s sad, and I’m throwing her under the bus. I mean, I’m helping her. Yeah, she’s working with me now on the trust, it’s just six months late, you know, and she’s where I was at six months ago. And that’s, she’s gonna have some lean time still, until she can start generating revenue, and the revenue will come and it will be great for her. But she’s six more months minimum before she hits that point,

Karan Rhodes  27:55

Right. But she’s got to stay consistent and do what you did and get her name out there in that area. I don’t want to leave out of here without you giving more information about your advisory service. And if people want to talk to you more about setting up trusts, so what kind of services do you provide?

Dohn Thornton  28:15

Well, I give free strategy sessions for anybody who wants one just have to reach out to me and we’ll talk about what your situation is. And I can go through and show you how this trust will help you legally reduce your taxes, give the asset protection you need and so forth. You know, people ask me, Well, how much does it cost? I said, Honestly, depends on what your situation is. I mean, because there’s a basic trust and you I have other things that have to work with, the more sophisticated your business is, however, there’s always a solution because this is the I mean, if the ultra ultra rich use it, I mean, surely you know that that you can we can find them at work for you. And I do apologize for calling you surely. So listen, I have no pretension. I’m not a pretentious person. I don’t care if you have my phone number I’ll use my phone number is 407-902-7827 Text me text me and we can set up a time. I mean, literally, I’ve had that same number people foreclosure call me, people to the trust, call me and text me, it’s fine. You know, it’s that’s what it’s there for. I’m not hiding. I’m not hiding from creditors or whatever, you know. So reach out to me, send me a text and we can definitely talk blow you away. If you are open to something that is not where the herd is, the herd goes one way, you know, the real opportunity goes this way. So, you know, in my job, my responsibility to you is to show you that this isn’t is absolutely legal and what the advantages are and why. And then at that point in time, you have you have a choice. You can go left, you can go right and there’s no wrong choice, per se. A lot of people do really well and they pay lots of taxes and they’re covered that this is another way it’s more profitable for you because listen at the end of the day, it’s not what you make is what you keep. That’s right. If you look at your business as a bucket when you’re pouring income I’m into it, the leaks are mostly in taxes, and for a lot of people lately is health insurance. Yes, you’re so right. So I can show you not only how you can lower your taxes to amazingly low numbers, but also how you can save as much as 70% on your insurance if you have a business owner. So lots of plugging of leaks that I can show you.

Karan Rhodes  30:21

I love the plugging of leaks. And I would be remiss if my didn’t follow my legal team’s recommendation, I must say, I’m not a tax expert. Myself, we don’t neither Dohn nor I guarantee anything, but it is an avenue a legal avenues that you can pursue and factor into your full financial picture. So we will have all information about Dohn and how to reach him, definitely in the show notes as well. And so Dohn, I can’t let you leave here without our final segment, which is called a full disclosure. We will not put you on the spot. But it just wanted you to share just a few fun facts about yourself. And so my first question for you is, how do you like to decompress when you’re not making your millions.

Dohn Thornton  31:12

For me, it used to be tennis. And unfortunately, as I gotten older, I played sports my entire life. I was a full ride scholarship for baseball, I played football. All I mean, my arm is a noodle from all the tennis I used to play splay tournaments in Russia, I play for I play for money, which was fun, really imagine putting down $1,000 as an entry fee and the winner gets 70%. And you’re over in Russia as an American plane about how that was like that was fun. But anyway, I played so much that I can my body shot as far as that stuff goes. So I pivoted to travel. Travel is travel is where I decompress. And in fact, you know, I’m planning a trip right now to go to Ireland. I mean, I’ve been all over Europe, I speak Finnish, I speak Russian. I speak German, you know, I love to go to Europe. And that’s really what how I decompress.

Karan Rhodes  32:03

Love that. Love that. I think you and I have that in common. I kind of call myself a citizen of the world, although, you know, based in Atlanta that we have traveled to probably over 30 Something countries and just love, you know. You got me beat I believe but ah, it’s wonderful. Well, let me ask you this. What is something that people sometimes get wrong about you? If they don’t know you?

Dohn Thornton  32:32

Well, they don’t know me very. First of all, I have a very dry sense of humor. Sometimes people take me seriously when I I’m a big Monty Python fan growing up. And so the British humor just speaks to me. And so one of my favorite things, is to start off saying something completely natural and logical and then slowly get more and more absurd. And so they they tend to say, wait a minute, wait a minute, because there is so serious is that what makes it fun? You know, but yeah, they tend to think they didn’t get my humor very often sometimes. And so when my wife is constantly on you don’t say, don’t say jokes. Don’t tell jokes. I said, I can’t I’m not in control of it. It’s just sometimes comes out. Another reason why I shouldn’t be my own boss and not work for someone because I get myself in trouble sometimes.

Karan Rhodes  33:24

Sometimes it’s good trouble as John Lewis likes to say. You have a lot of fun with the trouble. All right, Dohn, I literally blanked him time has passed so quickly. But there were a ton of nuggets of information. For our listeners. I thank you once again for your gift of time. And thank you for being on the lead at the top of your game podcast.

Dohn Thornton  33:47

Thank you for having me. This has been a blast.

Karan Rhodes  33:49

Awesome. And listeners we look forward to having you again, join our next episode. So make sure you subscribe, like and share with friends so that we can all have a great discussion on the next half of the conversation. And we’ll check you out next episode. Take care. Bye bye. Well, I hope you enjoyed our conversation today with Dohn Thornton, CEO of HB funding incorporated links to his via his entry into our leadership playbook. And additional resources can be found in the show notes on your favorite podcast platform right choice, or at lead your game podcast.com. And now for carrying steak on today’s topic of spin thrift trust. Well, first of all, I just want to make sure I direct you all to IRS code 643. If you look in your search engines and go to that they will give all the real details and updates based on the current task. But I wanted to remind you that one of the main objectives of estate planning is the protection and preservation of your legacy. By Placing mechanisms in place in order to keep your property and assets and tax, you’re making sure that you can pass on as much as your assets as you can to your loved ones. Just now that trust serve as a powerful tool that can protect your loved ones from the temptation of spending too much, you know, after you unfortunately passed away, and it also helps them to avoid poor financial decisions. Now, I must reiterate this disclaimer that I am not a financial planner of any kind, and you should always consult your own personal CPA, tax accountant and lawyer before making any big financial decisions. However, I do recommend that you learn more about this tax shelter, and just know that some of the common benefits of trusts can be number one protecting their estate from made legit spending habits. Also, number two, they can help distribute assets incrementally instead of all at once to those who you are being the benefactor to bird trust can help protect assets from your beneficiaries, creditors. And then fourth, trust can bypass probate altogether if they’re established during your lifetime. And just remember that a spin through of trust can be revocable or revocable, a revocable trusts can be modified whereas an irrevocable trust cannot. And although some grantors might prefer the flexibility of a revocable trust, irrevocable trusts offer more protection against taxes and probate and spent through trusts can it be managed by a trustee, the grantor can appoint themselves as the trustee, if they establish the trucker their lifetime, but they also must make sure that they appoint a trustee to take over upon their passing. So I will include a few additional resources in the shownotes to jumpstart your research. But I encourage you to start with your professional advisors to get all the details before you make such an important decision. And if you’d like a beneficiary, you know what you can always consider me. Just kidding, just kidding. But anyway, thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you next week. Take care. And that’s our show for today. Thank you for listening to the lead at the top of your game podcast, where we help you lead your seat at any employer, business or industry in which you choose to play. You can check out the show notes, additional episodes, bonus resources, and also submit guest recommendations on our website at leisure game podcast.com. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn by searching for the name Karan Rhodes with Karan being spelled k r a n. And if you like the show, the greatest gift you can give would be to subscribe and leave a rating on your podcast platform of choice. This podcast has been a production of shockingly different leadership, a global consultancy which helps organizations execute their people talent development and organizational effectiveness initiatives on an on demand project or contract basis. Huge thanks to our production and editing team for a job well done. Bye for now.