Are you looking to protect your assets and build a secure financial future for your family? On this episode of About That Wallet, we’re joined by LLC Attorney John Feniak, an expert in LLC formation, estate planning, and business entities. We’ll dive into how creating an LLC can shield you from real estate risk, financial crises, and unexpected liabilities. John explains why an Operating Agreement is like a pre-nup for your business and how it ensures business compliance and financial success. If you’re part of the Sandwich Generation, balancing family care and entrepreneurship, this episode is packed with actionable legal advice to help you with risk management, wealth management, and business growth. Whether you’re starting a small business, managing a hedge fund, or simply navigating the complexities of corporate transparency, this conversation will help you secure your legacy. Don’t miss out—tune in to learn how to take control of your financial future!

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Episode 280

>> Jonathan Feniak: That's the real fear, right? You've built a, uh,

wealth over a lifetime

and you have one

bad thing that happens, right? The tragedies happen.

You own a real estate, you own 20,

30 real buildings and there's a fire,

right? And people die. It happens.

Do they get everything you've made up until that

point? Are they able to take everything you have, um,

up until that point, or you're well

insured and you've isolated that risk into

an llc that limits your

downside if something happens, Obviously we

don't want anything terrible to happen to people.

>> Anthony Weaver: Welcome back everybody, back to another exciting show, the

about that Wallet podcast, where we helped Samwich generation build

strong financial habits so they can not only make

money, but spend money and

actually enjoy their money with

confidence. And today I have an awesome opportunity to

bring on somebody who has been dealing, dealing

with, you know, helping people with

LLCs, uh, estate planning, business entities,

and so much more. And I really want to bring

in this particular topic because I know

a lot of you out there have kids and you want to get themalled

into businesses. And I figured why not

learn how to do it the right

way the first time and get it done.

So thank you so much, Jonath. Thank for coming through.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Hey, thank you so much for having man. I really

appreciate it. I'm a, I'm a sandwich generation.

I got kids, uh, they're out of college

now, but then aging parents and parents

passing away and dealing with their estates. Also

an entrepreneur. Uh,

so I definitely appreciate what it is

you're doing and I'm really excited to be here and

help, uh, your listeners with starting their

businesses and whatever it else it is we're going to talk about today.

>> Anthony Weaver: Yeah, uh, one of the things that I've noticed

listening to your journey is that you've been

running around all of this. So you didn't start off to be an

attorney. Like, what did you want to be when you wanted to grow up?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Yeah, uh, yeah, that was the question. Right?

Uh, so, yeah, it has been,

uh, quite a journey. Undergraduate degree

in English. Uh, I love to write, I

love to read, I love to closely examine,

uh, uh, uh, other people's work.

Uh, got out of college and

couldn't find a job with an English major, useless major

perhaps, uh, and went into transportational

logistics. And so I worked for

dhl, UPS and Airborne

Express, uh, and was an

operations manager for Manhattan. So huge

operations, lot of people,

uh, uh, dealing with

three different unions, uh, dealing with a lot

of managers that were working for me even at A young

age and um,

my journey there was

really about

uh being uh

generally unhappy with that line of work.

It was very challenging because of the hours

and um, I didn't see my path

to great financial success or a great

family life, work, life balance. Uh, I don't think I could achieve

that there. So I made a change and started getting my

mba was uh, doing it at

night and then at the same time made a transition into

uh, the sales side of those businesses being a national

account manager. And uh, when I graduated with

my mba uh I went to work for a hedge

fund and was sourcing

or finding companies for the hedge fund to invest

in and they were micro cap, usually publicly

traded but they were sometimes companies that were private

looking to do uh, uh, uh some sort of public

offering was very successful there, moved to

raising capital for the hedge fund raised a lot of

money for the hedge fund uh maybe got a little too big for my

britches but went out and started my own hedge fund. Uh

unfortunately my timing wasn't great. Uh I had

some partners and uh, we hit the financial

crisis and had uh, my life

was uh, financial life, uh

had some issues, uh pulled through

uh and at that time I was living on the east coast made a move

to Colorado and ended up being

a financial advisor with Wells Fargo advisor So I

was a uh securities license, uh, was

insurance, I was selling insurance products, uh

whole life policies and uh, annuities

and those sorts of things. Uh and then I

was unhappy again and maybe every 10 years I got

to change careers. Uh I decided

that uh, law school uh was

right for me and being a lawyer. So I stopped

working. I built some so I call it optionality in my

life I had enough resources where I could stop working

and still survive uh uh, things may have been a

little tight but still survive. Uh and then graduated

law school two and a half years was top 10%

of my class. I treated it very, I was one of the oldest

students, uh full time students uh but my

teachers appreciated me and then I passed the bar.

I was the last uh group uh to take the bar

before the pandemic. The so I have not been a lawyer uh that

long uh going on five years

here. Uh but during that period of time I

think what I bring for my clients is real

world business knowledge. Having invested in them,

having worked with folks who are high net worth individuals

who how did you make your money? You was a real estate, you

started company, you were the CEO youE just a hard worker,

your right place, right time, inherited wealth. So on and so forth.

And also seeing those difficulties that they had

when theyre part of that sandwich generation. Our clients tend

to look like uh, ourselves and theyve

got kids theyre worried about. Do I put money into a 529

plan? How do I manage, uh, the

ability to get financial aid? How much do I devote to my

own retirement? I may be inheriting money. What about

my estate plan? All of these things. And so I took

my real world experience, uh, in all of

those different areas and was able to apply

it in the law now. Uh,

but uh,

I'm a strange kind of

lawyer. I guess

we could talk about that another time. But

um, my practice is focused

exclusively on this. I'm not a

generalist. I focus on asset protection. I focus

on privacy, business formation and then

estate planning. Uh, in addition to that, they all become part of

this whole where. And

really so much of that is really asset

protection. You've got a business for asset protection. You've got an

estate plan to save yourself from est state taxes or save

yourself from additional costs. So all these things come

together. Um, and I have

the luxury of also uh, being

one of the owners of a company that

uh, company Sage, uh, company Sage is the

owner of Wyoming LLC Attorney as well

as LLC Attorney, uh, as well as a number of

other brands. And we have uh,

built those companies to help

entrepreneurs get what they need, not get

confused, really focus on the compliance

aspect and their business success

Platform is what we've really tried to build and I think we've done

an amazing job. That's part of what I do. But

the other part of what I do is I talk to people

about how we can come up with real

world solutions to their

entrepreneurial uh, problems or their entrepreneurial

goals.

>> Anthony Weaver: Yeah. And because of you've been doing this for so

long in this area of the

law when it comes to asset protection.

Just can you share why this area of law is so important

to you?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Because a single event could be

ruinous. That's the real fear.

>> Anthony Weaver: Right.

>> Jonathan Feniak: You've built a, uh, wealth over a

lifetime and you have

one bad thing that happens.

>> Anthony Weaver: Right.

>> Jonathan Feniak: The tragedies happen. You own a real

estate, you own uh, 20, 30, uh,

buildings and there's a fire. Right. And

people die. It happens.

Do they get everything you've made up until that

point? Are they able to take everything you have

up until that point? Or you're well

insured and you've isolated that risk into

an LLC that limits your

downside if something happens, obviously we

dont want anything terrible to happen. To people. But

there are the plaintiffs attorneys and there are people

who will come after you for every penny youve

made up until that point in your life. And so, uh,

avoiding that downside risk, when a

bad thing happens, I hope it never does. I want

you to be able to, and I want my clients to be able to

limit that risk into business

reality sized buckets of

assets that are at risk.

>> Anthony Weaver: Has like a friend or family ever been impacted so much

that kind of drive you for this? Or it just kind of like, you

know, I just see this need and

really want to go after it.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Uh, so it's sort of a sampling

bias. Right. When I talked to,

uh, and when I was a financial advisor, I talked to people

and they'd say they got lucky. You never

had any lawsuits over this period of time? No, nothing happened, man.

The people I don't get to talk to are the ones where they had the

ruinous event. Right. And so it's been

a bias there. Now I

get to talk to people who oftentimes

they come to me because something terrible has

already happened. It's difficult in those

situations. The horse has already left the barn.

But sometimes they're like, look, I realize I can't do

anything. I'm not going to advise anyone. You're not going to hide assets.

It's too late. What you can do is now

you're like, try to settle, try to get a settlement on this

thing. Um, but let's

help you plan for the future. So there are

plenty of people I speak to now where there is an

event that is ruinous because they had all their

eggs in one basket. Uh, but

they are, uh, I hope that people can

listen to this, uh, and realize

that it's pretty inexpensive

and it's pretty easy, especially with our platform,

to manage your LLCs and limit your

downside to what it is you feel comfortable

risking. The great

thing about, uh, America

is that the states want

to spur entrepreneurship. They want

you to take risks. They've

given you a vehicle, an LLC or a

corporation where you get to say how

much you want at risk. I, uh, may be a

millionaire. I'm only willing to risk

$100,000 on this restaurant. You put

$100,000 into the LLC.

That's what, as long as you're doing everything right, that's what you

have at risk. They want to spur entrepreneurship.

If you don't have an llc, all your chips

are on their table, every hand, right? Who wants to

operate that? You can't sleep at night when your downside is

Unlimited. Well, it's limited to everything you own.

>> Anthony Weaver: Yeah, that's a sad thing about it. Um, and especially if we

don't know what we re doing and sometimes we don't know how to

get there to extra funding. But this episode isn't about

how to get the funding. It's about protecting your asset.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Exactly.

>> Anthony Weaver: So have you noticed any trends

or challenges, Challenges that

um, that are in the asset protection

area that a lot of people are

coming across or like that you've come across, that

is actually shaping your work?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Yeah, uh, call it the

scourge of social media. Um,

you know, a lot of people, not attorneys, not

really. I don't think they know what they're talking about. A lot of cases, some

do, uh, but some don't. And recommend, uh,

strategies that are really, number

one, ultimately going to be ineffective.

Number two, are too

complicated for their current

situation. And you know, people come up and

I, I'm going to have a trust in

the Cook Islands and then I'm going to have a Nevis

llc and then I'm going to have a Wyoming Trust and then

I'm I to have this. And they're like, well, what's your net worth? They're like,

I got a dollar fifty cent in the bank. And well, what's your liability?

Is like, well, you know, I've got a W2 job like,

tap the brakes, man. Okay. Uh, and people,

the analogy I use is people will say, be like, I want the

absolute best in asset protection. And I say, okay, if I

were advising you on how to get the ab. Absol. Best in home

security, what I would say is we're going to build a

50 foot wall around the house. We're going to have a moat with

alligators, right? And we're going to have guys with

snipers, uh, and dogs that'll rip your throat out.

You're going to be absolutely protected. But it's going to be

tough to get the kids to school on time. You're probably going to get

sued because of those dogs. And your Amazon packages aren't

getting delivered. Instead, how about a ring

camera and a new lock? And they're like, oh, yeah,

okay, I get it now.

'if you are someone

who needs, if you're Jeff Bezos, you need those

things, right? You ain't Jeff Bezos, dude.

Right. So tap the brakes. Let's keep it

simple because actually is a case

that's going up before the Supreme Court right now. And it was

a company, it was actually a company that

uh, was large. It was in the real estate,

uh, business. And they had a, you

know, their parent company and they had all these

subsidiaries, but the parent

company was providing

services. Basically all the employees were lent

to the other companies. They were sharing

resources, they had accounting, they had separate bank accounts,

but they were sharing resources, sharing expenses across all of them.

And the court in that case said that there

is no real distinction between these. There were

two closely intertwined.

For us to respect the

separateness of these individual entities, we'll see what the

Supreme Court says. But it sent shock

waave, uh, because people think I'll set up

an LLC, I'll tell 10 LLCs. Each of them

does this. Is that the other thing? But they're not

really getting the separateness because they're not separate businesses. And I had a

call with someone today. They have three

LLCs already. They made S Corp elections

on all three of them. And one of them

was doing exactly the same thing as another

one, but they just wanted a different brand.

I was like, this makes no sense. You're sharing the same employees across. Yeah,

sharing the same employees. It should have been a trade name. It should have been a dba.

>> Anthony Weaver: J. Dba, Right.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Single company with multiple lines of business,

the same type of risks associated with it. Uh, do a

single company separate trade names.

Multiple S corps. Dude, multiple S corps. You

got to pay yourself a reasonable salary in each of them and you're

undermining um, uh, your fic

tax savings. And I'm hoping these sort of things I'm throwing out

here, your listeners are familiar with these things

and so don't have multiple S corps.

Sometimes it's unavoidable where you get different partnerships and so

on. But for people, do your S

corp and then have it as a management company

or have multiple then subsidiaries where it's

all flowing up. But then we have one reasonable salary and

we actually can deliver on the tax

saving promise of an S corp. So

don't make it too complicated to

start. You can change, you can adapt, you

can right size, uh, uh, your business as

things change.

>> Anthony Weaver: So say somebody that is

45, they have a child that is about

21 and their

child is looking to start a business. They themselves want to continue

to work their nine to five because they was like they don't want to deal with the

mess. What would you, from your

expertise and your experiences, what would you tell them to do? To

start with, say it's a, um,

let's say it's a lemonade company. You

just want to elimina.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Right. So put uh, together

a Business plan. Right. So and

that's one of the sort of extremes here. Uh,

maybe not as extreme as people who want to do a

uh, something related to NFTS or crypto, but

it's out there. Food service number one huge

failure rate in food service licensing. You got to get

your commerce, the commercial kitchen. You have to get those

space available. You have to get permitting. You're going to have to. I've

had clients. Well where are they going to sell the lemonade? They're going

to sell it in Whole Foods. Great. Whole Foods demands that you have

your million dollar plus liability policy.

Even getting a barcode. Do you know how complicated

it is to get a barcode for a product that you're going to put in

the shelves there? Do you know how difficult it is to get shelf

space? So having. If

my child wanted to start a business.

Right. Mhm. Let's do a business

plan and figure out what

barriers there are to entry for

it, what it's going to cost you to get there

and then let's just do a unit analysis in order

to overcome your initial

costs, the timing on this, all of that.

How many units do you need to sell now? Tell

me how you're going to sell that many units

without discouraging them. Make them do the

homework, make them get into the

details. Create the business plan and whether

it's a small business administration or local

organizations that offer services

on starting your business again, cities and states and the

like want to spur entrepreneurship. Make them

do that work. And then I would love to invest in your business.

I want nothing more than for you to be

successful. But in order to get there,

I'm going to treat you like I would if I investing in any other

business. Make your pitch to me. Here's what it's going to need to be

successful to make a successful pitch to dad.

Right?

>> Anthony Weaver: I like that. I like that.

So what was the pivotal moment in your success?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Um, you know it's funny, I

was. My sister was down for

Thanksgiving, uh, uh, and she brought a

box of stuff here. I'm not keeping this stuff anymore. My mom had passed away, she

had a whole bunch of stuff and I found uh,

I had started my first company when

I was 14 years old. Uh, it was called

Happy Dog Industrieseff.

And I made skateboards. I was a skateboarder and so I

would buy skateboard, they were called blanks. And then I

would go to friend work, to the skate shop. I'd go in and Id'trace

the shape of the hottest boards that were out. And I would cut

them out and sand them and, uh, put some

polyurethane on them and sell them for half the price of what

the boards were selling for at the shop. I loved

it. I loved it. Right. I didn't have an

llc. My liability was low, whatever else, but it

was. I'm going to invest, and I bought

20 or 30 of the blank boards,

but then I got all that money back, and then I bought more, and then I

bought a better saw, and then I bought this, and then I bought that,

and, uh, I think, um, I still. I've been chasing

that high for when I was 14 years old,

you see. All right, there's some risk here.

I got to put money out the door. But when the money starts coming

in, that feels so good. And I have to

say, my friends loved it. Right?

It was fantastic. For that, they're getting the boards, half

price. You know, I made up this

hat. Should, um, pull out the hat, uh, and

had stickers. And, uh, I made

a, uh. Uh, actually, I'm

thinking about this. I hired a friend of mine

to do a logo for the company. He was an artist,

and I had no agreement with him. I'm not sure I have the

right. The title, the intellectual property

might not. It's probably not mine. Right? There's the laws

about that. Uh, I did not know what I was doing, but

that was so fun.

And really what I get to do now is

eavesdrop on other entrepreneurs.

I get to hear so many cool things that people are doing,

and I'mr an

empath, and I love to hear their stories

and hear their success and then help them

really focus on that business again. That

overcompication, if it's taking you

away from delivering product to a

customer, bringing in revenue, really think

about, do I need this at this point in time? And the Cook Islands

Trust and Nevis and all these other things, and multiple

entities. And so tap the brakes.

How are you going to be successful? And how can I help you be

successful?

>> Anthony Weaver: I like that I might be. The title of this show just called Tap the

Breaks. How can you be successful?

Love it.

Uh, so you work with many entrepreneurs and families,

setting up their LLCs, and so forth. Um,

but one concept that I've heard you

mentioned is that a business operation agreement is like a

prenup. Can you explain a little bit more

about what you mean by that?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Yeah. The operating agreement for an llc,

uh, is the document that

will, uh, direct the management and operations

of the company. And,

uh, you want to go in.

You hope for the best, but plan for the worst. At the

beginning of a marriage and at the beginning

of a business, everyone is in

Everyone'it's. Fantastic. Everyone's excited. Everyone's going

to participate. We're going to, we're going to share the expenses

in this way. We're going to divide up the profits in that way.

We're not thinking about the breakup. And

uh, an operating agreement lays

out the rules of the

game. What happens if someone wants

out? Do I have to buy them out? Can they just

leave what they do? They suppose they don't participate

anymore. What, what is the authority

of an individual? I a terrible, uh, story. There are two guys. One of

them is very well healed, right? One guy' wealthy. The guys not

so wealthy. They decided to invest in some real estate together.

Do their first deal. Everything's fine. The

wealthy guy goes and signs a

contract for the LLC to

purchase property. Right. Puts money

down on it. Right. Put some earnest money down

and then goes to his partners like, great news. I

found this great property. You need to put in

$50,000 into the LLC within a week.

I don't have it. Right. So that would be something that

would be covered in the operating agreement.

What is the authority of a member? What is the

authority of a manager?

Any individual member. A manager can spend up to

$1,000 without the consent of the other members or

managers. Anything above from

1,000 to 10,000 do you require?

Uh, uh, let's assume there's more than two

members. You require a majority consent.

Anything above 100,000. Unanimous consent required, something like

that. So you build that into the operating agreement

so that everyone understands what

they can and can't do. Failing to discuss it is one of

the problems. And so the operating

agreement is a point of discussion. We can

discuss it. Let's get all this stuff out here. And sometimes I

actually to call today, I'm not sure they're moving forward

with the business because there was something we came

up with and without getting into the details and giving up

attorney client, uh, disclosure here,

um, uh, I should say attorney client privilege.

They had not discussed a key

point. We raised the key point and

they started arguing with each other. So guys, our consultation

is done. You need to work it out. And if you can come up with the

terms, then lets then move forward with this thing.

But youre going to discuss it at the

beginning, get it memorialized in the

operating agreement. And if those bad things that

you hope arent going to happen, you have a roadmap

for how you're going to Handle them. That's what a prenup is,

right? We're going to be married, everything's going to be

great. As soon as we, if we have kids together or I saw

one, you know, if we're together 15 years and the prenup evaporates,

great, okay, great. What if that doesn't happen? Right.

Then what we brought to the marriage, we're going to leave with

or know whatever you come up with. So it is a

tough discussion that prenup, the operating

agreement can be a tough discussion as

well. Usually not as severe as the

company is not going to move forward. But you're getting it out in the

open and then there's not going to be a surprise where I need to come up with

a $50,000 check in a week.

>> Anthony Weaver: Right.

>> Jonathan Feniak: That kind. So that's why the operating agreement is

important. And one of the things that

people m. Miss the

operating agreement is a contract. And it's a

contract that's binding on the signatories.

Okay. You and I

enter into uh, AMAN llc. We

sign our operating agreement, somebody sues us.

Has no relevance. They're not a signatory to that agreement.

Right. All we're going to get

is if they're trying to

force the company to do something,

there may be provisions. And in our operating

agreements, the ones we provide to our uh, uh,

formation clients at Wyoming LLC or LLC

attorney, there's provisions in there about

what those parties, the people who are

suing can do. And so one of

the most important provisions is that, and

it's based on this idea of pick your partner. Right.

I can't have a new partner

forced on me. That is

critical to have in that operating agreement that you

can't go sell your interest to somebody else.

Somebody can't forclose on your interest. And now

I've got Wells Fargo as my new business partner.

Or you sell it to your brother in law and he's

my new business partner. No, I didn't sign up for that.

So um, uh, really important concepts

and I used to uh, do

custom operating agreement drafting for

people. A lot of work, thousands of

dollars I would have to charge for it. And

at the end of the day 90% of them needed the same

things. So working with uh,

the technology team that we have,

we went through and we created call it a

custom operating agreementments like mass customization, 30

or 40 questions that you answer. And then

at the end when you submit it, an

operating agreement comes out that contains all these

different provisions. Right. Uh,

its a great tool. Its available for The Wyoming companies, most

people, they have a Wyoming holding company, uh,

and thats where the ownership and the partnership is.

But uh, has been a fantastic,

uh, powerful tool for our

customers to have those discussions.

>> Anthony Weaver: Nice. Yeah, because I'm thinking now

because business and all the business is mostly

like a relationship at the end of the day really.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Um, it's a partnership. It's a marriage, man.

>> Anthony Weaver: It's a marriage. Because people always

argue with me when I keep saying like, you know, marriage is a

business at the end of the day. Like if the government wasn't

involved, you know, how many divorces will happen

tomorrow. It's crazy.

Um, but one of the things about this collaboration

piece is that you

um, you had this permanent vacation to

Colorado. Uh, I just wanted to know what was that

conversation like, uh, when you decide to

settle in Colorado, what's your wife?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Yeah, well, I've resettled a number of times. I don't live in

Colorado anymore. So I'm a Wyoming and Colorado license as

attorney. I live in Puerto Rico.

>> Anthony Weaver: Sweet.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Yeah. Uh, so when the

financial crisis happened, um, uh,

I mean it was good timing, it was bad timing.

Uh, my wife's mother had been a

25 year survivor of cancer. But it came back

and over that the

2008, two, uh, thousand nine.

2008 or 2009, don't hold me to the year, uh, she

came out and saw her mom and her mom's health was really failing.

And so uh, said, she said

john, I need to be there with her. I didn't want to split up our family.

With the financial crisis, things were not going well.

And I said uh, well if I can find

work in uh, Colorado then let's move there.

And so wind up. We move for family. I mean that's the sandwich

generation. My kids were in first grade

kindergarten and then an aging mother

and mother in law, uh, I love

dearly. And we made the decision for

the good of our family for that sandwich

generation. Uh, then after

all that time in Colorado, uh, up

until 2022, uh, we were in

Colorado, so 14 or whatever. Count the number of

years. 13, 14 years. Uh, and then uh,

the business, the Wyoming LLC

attorney, uh, and the LLC attorney business,

uh, we saw a great opportunity in Puerto Rico

for uh, a whole host of reasons.

And because my kids were now gone,

they went to college. My wife and I, uh, we were actually

married in Puerto Rico, uh, and loved Puerto

Rico, loved Puerto Rican people, loved the

culture, uh, and had been visiting it for

periodically over the years. We said let's

change. Life is short man, living in paradise

is a good thing. Love the mountains, love Colorado. But I love

Puerto Rico too.

>> Anthony Weaver: So like are you'all going to move back

for the kids? So you're going to stay there? I like, you know what?

>> Jonathan Feniak: This is it. No, no, I love, I love Puero Rico. The kids are,

you know, uh, one's graduated already, one's got an next

semester. Uh, and they

are, you know, they got their own lives. They come.

Who doesn't love to come? And everybody loves to come and visit us.

Uh, come on down. You are welcome. Uh,

we, we uh, uh, we don't

envision leaving Puerto Rico. I

mean the weather is gorgeous again. People are wonderful. Going

the beach every week. And uh, it's also

super easy. So it's a US territory. We don't need

it. You don't need a passport. Have so you have a passport. But

easy flights to New York and Atlanta and

wherever the heck else we uh, want to go. So it

is a, it'a fantastic uh, place to live.

And I don't envision, uh, you never know what life's going

to throw at you. You know, there was, there was a study, uh,

that Harvard did and it's called uh, it was a

longitudinal study. I forget who did the study. I apologize

to, to the author of the study. But it was

like they asked people like, like what was your life like 10

years ago? And they're like, man, it was crazy.

It was so different from what my life is now. And then they ask them

what do you think life's going to be like in 10 years? They're like, yeah, it'll be exactly the

same. Do you think they were right? They were not right. Right. It is

a, uh, uh, and my 10 year

cycles, it was fine. It was operations

and then it was finance and then it was law

and we'll see where I am in 10 years. Go be a

chiropractor, you know, massage therapist, piloty

instructor. I don't know'be something.

>> Anthony Weaver: All right, uh, so what advice like do

you give people who are hesitant to take that first step

in secureing that financial future?

>> Jonathan Feniak: U, uh, no time like the president. Right. You

need to u, uh, you know, be

cautious. Um,

don'and.

Dip your toe in. There's people. We dive

all into it. Uh, 100% in. Burn

the boats at the beach of idea. When

it comes to starting a business, I think

it pays to step back, slow

down, don't overcomplicate.

And one of the key things I've said

is that let's assume

everything Goes right, you got a product you're going to

create, how are you going to sell it? Ultimately,

every business owner is in sales, whether they're selling

themselves, whether they're selling a physical product,

whether they're going to be selling a digital product, whatever it is they're

doing. You are in sales, how are you selling that product?

Forget about how you're going to get there, forget about how you're going to create it, what advice

you're going to get, what it is, how will you sell it?

That in this age is the most

difficult thing. That is the thing. I'm going to be,

uh, an influence.

I'm going to start a podcast. How are you going to get

followers? How are you going to get listeners? How are you going to get people who are

willing to pay for your services? Right. And so if you start

out with that mindset that I will be a

salesperson in this, uh,

that is a fantastic place to start.

>> Anthony Weaver: In your experience, what mindsets or actions just to

of help people move forward when they starting a

business or even just protecting their assets.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Right? Yeah. And so when it comes to starting the

business, I like to focus on,

assume everything goes right, you can actually create the product, you

can, you know, your business structure is going to be fine, all that stuff's going to work. How

are you going to sell the product? And you sort of, uh, realize as an

entrepreneur you are a salesperson, uh,

first and foremost you need to figure out how you're going to

sell the units. It's required to support

yourself, support the business. What are your unit

volumes going to be? Whatever your units are, uh, if

you're going to be an influencer, how are you going to get people to listen

to uh, your podcast or

subscribe to your feeds or if you're a consultant, how are you going to

get those clients? Uh, if you're selling

widgets or physical product, where are you going to sell it?

How are you going to sell it? And think about the sales side

first and then all of those other things

fall into place. Those are the easier parts I think

in today's uh, in today's economy is how are

you going to get eyeballs on your product. And then

when it comes to asset protection, thinking

about that, thinking about where your risks are

and uh, do you have risks that you

can't cover with insurance? Insurance is

great, uh, hopefully not too expensive,

uh, for you to obtain, but that's the first line

of defense. Uh, when it comes to asset protection,

figure out how you can cover yourself when it Comes

to risks and then figure out what is

it you're willing to risk on the business.

That's where you get to, you're going to form that llc, you're going to limit

your downside risk by only putting

into that LLC the amount that you want to or willing

to potentially lose. And so you sort of start out with.

And I get, I don't know,

not invited to uh, uh, some

meetings. But I tend to be negative. Right. And

so and I talk to anyone and I need to hold myself

back to not be the most negative person in the room. But

thinking about um, those

negatives that are, if they're

complete, it's a one in a million chance the negative then not

worth thinking about most likely.

But there are things that are know

there's the known unknowns, uh, that

something bad could happen. If you own real

estate, there could be uh, an

accident. Right. Your tenants could get hurt, they could

sue. Having the insurance, having the LLC

protects you. In that case, if you'got you're selling a

food product, something like that, someone gets sick from it, uh,

you've got your product liability insurance

and then you've also got the LLC to protect you. So

thinking about those downsides but also you know, when you're

starting how am I going to sell this darn thing?

>> Anthony Weaver: Yeah. And the beauty for those of you who

are listening is that the reason why we want to,

we can't give specific answers is because

everybody's situation is going to be a little different.

So remember this is just hand waving

information uh, meaning we just touching

this but you still got to do your research.

Definitely talk to John and his team uh, so we

can get you a specific information that you

need.

So John, with that being said we're going to slide into the third

sement which is the features. Um, and

this one is where u,

um, a lot of the people who are okay, we're listening

about the asset protection but there'something that you've

mentioned about which is called the six steps to

asset protection. And how can we apply that

to um, our businesses as an

entrepreneurs or even just for all families.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Yeah. And so I, you know I'm going to push

back a little bit. Uh, you know,

and it's easy to digest and I think it's good, you know,

for, for podcasts perhaps. But, but what

are the steps to asset protection? We need

to assess what your risks

are. Right. We need to assess what assets

you have and then come up

with a plan that makes

sense. That really is the key here.

And I Think there's too much, you know, what does a lawyer

do? You know, a lawyer hears

about your situation and provides customized, uh,

advice for you. Um,

so I think it's hard to say,

you know, those six items.

Uh, and again, I don't

want to. You need these six things and I see videos and

you need these 10 things in your LLC operating agreement. You're an

idiot. That's not true, man. It's not true. That's not the

way really this works, right?

Size it for your needs. We've got a great

team. Uh, we've got great information

on our websites. You have the ability

to talk to attorneys, uh, if you

have I go the Occams razor approach.

Let's keep it simple, uh, at

the beginning and then we can scale later

on. But we make you have these amenities, I

call it, that you can uh, talk to,

educated our entity

formation team, uh, help you understand what the

choices are. Uh, we also, we

have uh, created inside of the

client portal the products that are there and

the things that are there. The services that are there are, uh,

ones you have a likelihood of needing. I find

a lot of folks, there's a thousand things and it's

so cluttered with potential options. You don't

know, do I need this thing? And so we've

tried to really provide those things that there's a

high likelihood that people will need. And then we've also

created packages or bundles and saying,

okay, you're just starting out. Keep it as simple as we

can. Okay, you're sort of thinking about the future and

this one is where maybe you're in a more advanced

stage. So, uh, I'm going to push

back on a one size

fits all approach, I think.

Figure out how you're going to sell your product, come up with a

business plan just like you said with the 21 year old. Uh,

let's get you to think about how we're going to make this, how you're going to

make this thing work, where the money is going to come from. Uh, and

then an LLC is really the most

basic thing. Protect yourself from

having all of your chips on the table.

Uh, that is a huge part. And then let's focus on

simplicity in most cases. Uh, not getting

too complicated. Uh, so I'm

sorry if I'm disappointing you, uh, on

the six things, uh, but I think

there's more to it to that and I don'to I don't

want to present a vision of uh, if you do these six

things, everything's going to be fine.

>> Anthony Weaver: No I appreciate it because it's the six steps

came from something you talked about like

four years ago which actually shows your growth

in over

years. And I love that you actually

uh, are pushing back on that now. Uh,

because the way of the Internet, everybody just

putting things out there and we just want to, want to make sure that

everybody's protected it properly.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Yeah, properly. Properly is the key and that um,

don't overcomplicate it. Uh, and you know,

example know people, they're going to

uh, they have an idea, it's going to be the next

Google. They haven't written a line of code,

they don't have any investors. Uh, it's just them

sitting in their basement. Okay. And so then they go and they

form a Delaware corporation, they hire a corporate

attorney, they do all these other things, they spend a whole lot of money doing

it. No investors ever come

know they never get the code actually written. So

for those people let's start a

simple Wyoming

LLCay. It's going to be a single member

LLC. We're not going to make a tax election on it. We're going to keep

it simple. Hey, then you know what happens

youe making somet traction, right? Youre going to bring in a

partner, right? Great. Lets turn it into a partnership.

Right. Then we say hey wait a minute, we'going to do friends

and family. We'going to have some friends and family who want to invest.

Is it a securities offering? We'think about those things. But we'going to do

a conversion to a corporation and you can

do that. You can make an llc, turn it into a corporation

and were going to change the tax status of the company with the IRs

to C Corp tax status. Fantastic. Wait a minute.

Things are going so well. Now weve got

venture capital investors who are coming in. You know what they want,

they want you to be in Delaware. We're going to do um, a domestication

of the company to Delaware, move it to

Delaware and then those investors are willing to

come in. They really like the laws in Delaware. They're like the Court of Chancery and

all that stuff. But what we've done in the meantime is that initial

stage, single member Wyoming llc.

Inexpensive, easy to administer.

Compliance is easy. They don't have any separate

tax filing to do. And then they've scaled up

and changed as the situation demands

it. Maybe then they do a ah, couple of

subsidiaries for different products or they've got an IP

portfolio without all these other things.

None of it is you set it and forget

it. You're going to be constantly reviewing,

adapting, changing as things progress.

But if you start out super complicated, you're

wasting money, you're wasting time and almost all

situations. So keep it simple and then let it

grow.

>> Anthony Weaver: That's the best way to go.

>> Jonathan Feniak: That's we can do, man.

>> Anthony Weaver: Right.

Uh, so this one is about you though. So

what areas are you focusing on and

improving your life or your career?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Yeah, um,

I love to do clee. Right. So

continuing legal education. It's a requirement

under the, you know, if you're a bar admitted

attorney. Um, I love to

hear people who are nerds on particular

subjects and diving

into the clee and you've got an

experienced practitioner telling you

all of these different things. What they've learned,

I love. So I'm about asset protection.

So what I love hearing though is I do

clee who are on the other side, the

plaintiff's attorneys, what do

they do when they're evaluating? Do they take a

case? Right. They will search you,

they will look into you, they will investigate your

llc, they'll see who the owner

is, they'll do a search through one of the Lexus

Nexus or Westlaw or something. They'll find out what

properties you own, what properties you have owned, how big a

mortgage you have, do you out. They make credit reports, let me do all of these

things. And so that

guides the advice Those types

of CLE's understanding other people who may be trying to

come after my clients. Right. What

those other folks are using and then we can adjust

our strategy in that same way. Listening

to clee, when uh, the

bankruptcy clele'that's a big

downside. How can you protect yourself

even in the event of uh, uh,

a bankruptcy? I listend to CLE's

on domestic relations. So

divorces, what happens, what do those cases look

like? And so I building this. And I'm not a

divorce attorney, I'm not a bankruptcy attorney,

I'm not a litigation attorney. But all of these

things inform my ability to help my

clients as I think about the worst case scenarios. The

sky is falling, there's a hole in the ozone layer, whatever the heck else it

is. So thinking about all of those things was

a. We had talked briefly before and at the

beginning here and we're talking about that corporate

transparency act, right. And uh,

there's a Texas court and I just did a

video, I put it on YouTube, uh, about this Texas

court, put a nationwide uh,

injunction on the enforcement of that

law. What happens now? And

I watched some videos on YouTube and on TikTok and other

places, you don't need to do it anymore. This doesn't

exist. That's not correct. Right. I

think ultimately, without getting what my prediction is

here, it's more nuanced than that. And

so digging into those details, reading the underlying cases,

doing the clee, uh, that's what I focus

on. Being better at what I do. It's

rare I get a novel sor of

question, but, man, I love those novel

questions. Love. I love them. And, uh,

luckily I make people tell me in advance what we want to talk about.

And oftentimes I find myself. I'm going to do

clele on this. I'm going to do contining legal education. I'm going to dig into

the details, look at the case law right now, look at all of these

things so that I can give my clients the most relevant,

timely advice.

>> Anthony Weaver: Yeah. And the beauty of having

somebody that's curious about the product or curious about

the industry, those are type people you really want to have on your

team, uh, regardless of your

business. Even if whatever business you're falling into,

or even if your family, like, hey,

family, we're going to start looking at how other families

are dealing with their issues. We'ren t go to, like you

said, like the family courts or whatever, because you can go to court

for free. So it just kind of show up and listen to people's

stories. It's much better than reality tv,

honestly. I, Yeah, I like it. So,

yeah.

>> Jonathan Feniak: And I, you know, it's, it's, it's. Sometimes I get to,

you know, uh, peer into other people's

problems and things and, but other people's successes as

well. Uh, and I learned from, I learned

from them, uh, maybe, uh, not as much as

they're learning from me, but I learned quite a bit, uh, from them.

>> Anthony Weaver: Awesome.

Is there anything that you want to leave, uh, the audience with

before we dive into the final four questions?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Uh, so.

No, no, let's dive into the question. I mean, so my team came

up with, uh, a code

that's going to give, uh, your listeners, if they do have a need for

an llc, uh, give you, give

them, uh, some discount. I. I don't know.

>> Anthony Weaver: Oh, I have it, I guess.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Okay. About that.

>> Anthony Weaver: Right?

>> Jonathan Feniak: You got the code. All right, good. Uh, I want to make sure we talked about

that. Um, you know, I didn't,

I don't know if I said it. I think I did about my own background.

Yeah, yeah, we're fine. Let's go.

>> Anthony Weaver: Let's run with it. All right.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Let's run with it man.

>> Anthony Weaver: All right,

number one, what does wealth mean to

you?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Um, wealth to me is

having optionality to do the

things that I want to do. Realizing that

10 year plan, what it looks like 10 years in the future. I

dont know what that's going to be. I may want to change.

I dont want to have anybody who can tell

me hold me hostage effectively in

my own life. And part of that is

managing your expenses as your income rises.

There'that tendency to let your expenses

rise in line with them. But keeping it where you've got the

comfortable lifestyle you want and

if something terrible happens, it's really

not going to affect you. And I think that's what wealth is. Where

people uh, and your lifestyle is not holding your

hostage or your boss isn't holding you hostage or

other people in your life are't forcing you to do things that you

don't want to do. That's wealth.

Nice.

>> Anthony Weaver: Number two, what was your worst money

mistake?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Uh, doing that. So the

2008 financial crisis, you know, I got too

far out over my skis and

uh, was doing very well financially

and let my expenses grow in line

with my uh, income. And then

financial crisis hit and you see a

70% drop in income.

You've got problems. And so not letting that happen

again, that was in my youth. I wasnt that youthful as my

30s. But uh, uh, it is

something I would, I would never and have not let happen again

was just not having that

optionality, not having the reserves. If your

income dries up, how long could you

survive without that income or with a significant

decrease in income?

>> Anthony Weaver: All right, number three, is

there a book that inspired your journey or changed your

perspective?

>> Jonathan Feniak: I love uh, uh, A Conman.

He is the writer of Tipping Point

and, and other books. Uh,

his approach to thinking about how

group dynamics and how things happen, how big

things happen has

been really important for me

to think about how I interact with others. He's got this

concept of the maven. Those are the people

who can be counted on to sort of spread the

word about something. If you can get mavens

to be fans of your uh, podcast of this

podcast. If we can get mavens who love

our products, sometimes they're called apostles,

uh, those ideas when the

small things make a

big difference and you don't need to please everybody.

But are you pleasing the right people? Right. Do you have those apostles? Do you

have those mavens out there who are trusted by

many?

>> Anthony Weaver: All right, number four, what is your

favorite dish to make?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Oh, paella for sure. So I

got a paella pan, uh,

15 plus years ago. I got it uh,

at a, uh, Goodwill Massive.

>> Anthony Weaver: Like I didn't know they was like a specific pan

for.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's a big circular pan. It's shallow.

And I cook my paella on the grill.

And uh, u. That's like the traditional way. I

use orange wood, charcoal.

Uh, very traditional. Uh, it

is, it's about, you know, it's about uh, an hour of

prep and then over the grill for an hour

and it's a showstopper. It's, you know, if I have

a dinner party, I make the paella. It's a showstopper

and people are just absolutely forward with man.

>> Anthony Weaver: Okay, tell me something new it

know about it. That's pretty

cool.

Uh, so we got the last question of the show, which is where could

people find out more about you?

>> Jonathan Feniak: Yeah, ah, uh,

our company is company Sage. Uh, company

Sage owns llc Attorney

Wyoming LLC Attorney and some other, uh,

brands, some other entity formation, uh,

business success platforms, entity

compliance platforms. We have

designed this thing. The attorneys have been driving force

and designing this to really meet the

needs of entrepreneurs. Our Wyoming website has

fantastic articles, uh, the overall majority

written by a attorneys about niche topics.

Um, I think there's a lack of. A lot of the stuff on

the Internet is written by AI now. And so we attempt to

be a source of truth. Uh, you check out our

YouTube videos. I've done a bunch of videos

there. Um, so on my other side

I've got finiac, uh, uh, dot

com. So that's my law firm website where

you can schedule consultations with me to

talk about, uh, instead of those six easy things, let's

talk about some of the hard things. So between

those two, if you really know what you want and know what you want to do,

the LLC attorney or Wyoming LLC attorney brand

websites are fantastic. If you're not so sure, I

recommend calling in. We've got great teams who

actually answer the calls. They're teams that they're either in

Puerto Rico or they're up in, uh, Scottsdale, Arizona and

Wyoming. They're all over, but they know

these things inside and out. Talk to them,

see if they can help. And then if they can'they'll say

you need an attorney. I'm not the only attorney associated with the

brands. You need someone to do his IP does ip. You

need someone who can help with international tax. You need

all these other things. We have attorneys that you

can, uh, call upon without doing a

retainer, without doing something Complicated. Keep

it simple and speak to people who are subject

matter experts. So a, uh, lot of different ways

to get in touch with us. Uh, it'not a one man

show here. Very large organization with

amazing, talented, knowledgeable people.

And uh, I recommend you start with those resources.

>> Anthony Weaver: Awesome.

And for those of you who made it this far, at the very

end of the show, I mean LLC

attorney.com has blessed

everybody who is listening to this is

100% off your

uh, your formation fee for the initial

filing. So to redeem it, all you have to do is

enter the code. Wallet Pod

100. It's W A L

L T mean W A L L E

T p o d

100. Uh, put that

in under the partnership code

and like one of the final checkout page. You

all good to go. So go ahead on and start your filing today. There's

no reason why you can't start that process. So let's go on and

get you started. You know, shout out to John if

you want to say like, hey, John, I signed up. Hit me up

when I'm ready. So let's make it happen.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much, uh, for

letting me babyna here. Uh,

it was great meeting you the first time and it's absolutely, it's

fantastic to meet you again and

uh, we are absolutely here to help.

>> Anthony Weaver: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, John, and thank

you. Many blessings to you and your family. I'll take care.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Thank you.

>> Anthony Weaver: Welcome. Right, one,

one handle

right.

>> Jonathan Feniak: What? You're on. You're on speaker

and it's coming through in here, honey.

>> Anthony Weaver: Okay.

>> Jonathan Feniak: Gosh darn it. Hold.