Mastering Asset Protection & Estate Planning with Don Pendleton

Mastering Asset Protection & Estate Planning with Don Pendleton

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All right. Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind.

George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And I'm excited to be here today with a good friend, an expert, someone that's going to be able to teach you a lot. Don Pendleton, how are you doing today?

Great. So good.

I'm excited to have you here. Listen, if you don't know already, cause I've talked about his company a little bit over the years here, but Don Pendleton has trained thousands of people over the last 20, 25 years.

His company, Asset Protection, Estate Planning, Summits that he runs are some things that I've talked about, but Protect Wealth is a company that I believe has really helped people to not only grow their wealth, but protect their wealth.

And Don, as an individual, I've known him for, oh my gosh, I don’t know now, maybe it's 30 years. But he’s written books. He's an expert. He's contributed. He's an author. He's an in-demand speaker. And we'll get into it, but let's just put it this way—he is basically my go-to when it comes to asset, tax, and estate planning.

So, I want people to get to know you for just a quick second here. Tell me how you got into this whole arena in the first place. We're going back a little bit here, but what got you into this asset protection and estate planning arena?

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Don Pendleton’s Background and Journey

Yeah, and it had been a while, and we've known each other a long time. I’ve always respected your energy and motivation. So I got started this year.

It was actually after the Rodney King riots. I was running a recreation park down in Southern California, and the National Guard moved in, and the gangs moved out into our little valley. And I was running a small recreation park—miniature golf, batting cages, water slides. We started having gang members showing up.

So we added security, but then we had a drive-by shooting one night. I was the manager on duty. We had probably 2,000 people in the park. A bullet came in from the freeway—it was a drive-by shooting. A little 18-year-old girl got hit in the head. It couldn't have been anything other than a stray bullet.

She was behind a car. The bullet went through both sides of the car and hit her in the head. I got sued because I was the manager on duty at the time. I had four little kids at home, and I was scared to death. I had no idea what was going to happen. It was three years of hell.

Since then, I've been the vice president of multiple companies, vice president of legal, and I’ve written five textbooks. I've been surrounded by some of the best attorneys in the nation.

I’m not a CPA. I’m not an attorney. But I’ve learned the lawsuit game, and I think what we bring to the table at Protect Wealth is that attorneys are really good at what they do, but they’re not always good at explaining things to people—business owners, real estate investors, medical professionals.

We’re pretty good at that.

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The Importance of Asset Protection and Estate Planning

You guys have a knack for not only helping people navigate this whole topic of lawsuits, asset protection, and wealth, but you also help to individualize it, right?

So whether you're an attorney, a professional, a plumber, an entrepreneur, a business owner—it's not always the same, right? It's always a little bit different, and people don’t like to think about these things until it’s too late.

That’s interesting you say that because the basic concepts are the same, but doctors like to be treated like doctors, and medical professionals like it tailored to them.

There are definitely tweaks when it comes to estate planning. The way we do things in Florida and Texas is different from California. Pennsylvania has its own unique things. New York has different laws.

But the general ideas of taxes, estate planning, income tax reduction, and lawsuit protection—they’re very much the same.

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The Four Financial Tornadoes

You guys have a phrase—‘A lifetime to create and three days to protect.’ You do this three-day summit. I think that's really important because people don’t realize that they work their whole lives to create wealth, and it can all go away quickly with a lawsuit or something preventable.

This leads me to something you've talked about before—this idea of the four financial tornadoes. Explain to me what you mean by that.

Tornadoes are selective. They can miss your house, jump over five houses, and hit a schoolyard. But when they hit, they’re almost always devastating.

We consider the four financial tornadoes for most people to be:

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Why Estate Planning is Essential for Everyone

I have so many people tell me they don’t think about estate planning until they ‘have wealth.’ But you’ve always talked to me about starting with the foundation. At what point is estate planning critical?

Everyone over 18 needs a Last Will and Testament.

Everyone needs a Financial Power of Attorney and a Medical Power of Attorney.

Even a simple medical power of attorney—if you're incapacitated, who makes the decisions? Your wife? Your kids? What if they don’t agree? These are the wounds that never heal.

A trust is a powerful tool. Probate is costly, public, and time-consuming. Estate taxes are completely optional if you use the right tools in a timely fashion.

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Lawsuits and Asset Protection Strategies

And lawsuits are another thing—you might think you have everything covered, and then a lawsuit hits you out of nowhere. What are simple things people can do to protect their assets?

We teach five basic rules for avoiding lawsuits:

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The Value of Financial Education and Planning

So if someone is listening to this and thinking, ‘I don’t have this covered, where do I start?’ What’s the first step?

First, it’s not your fault.

America does a lousy job of teaching financial education. Most people don’t know how to read a tax return, fill out an earnest money agreement, or understand the difference between simple and compound interest.

But you have to be proactive. Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank—he doesn’t have to love his accountants, but he meets with them. The wealthy actively plan, they don’t just react.

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Invitation to the Three-Day Summit

One thing I love that you guys do is your three-day summit. What’s the goal of that event?

A lifetime to accumulate. Three days to protect.

We bring in the best of the best—former IRS trial attorneys, top real estate investors, asset protection experts. The event used to be $3,000, but now, thanks to Zoom, we can offer it for free.

It’s the best financial education event in America.

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Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Guys, listen—it's never too late to start living the life you're meant to live, but you’ve got to take action. Take responsibility. Learn. Implement.

Don, thanks for being here today!