Alt Investing Made Easy

Sarah Florer (00:09.324)
Welcome everyone to Alt Investing Made Easy. Today, Roland and I are going to have a casual conversation about what we've achieved so far with our webcast, Alt Investing Made Easy, and what we look forward to in the future, and more or less any other thing we feel like talking about today. So happy new year, happy 2025. We wish everyone the best this year, and we want to start it off with reflections and goals and hopes for the future. Roland?

Roland Wiederaenders (00:39.381)
Yeah, thanks, Sarah. That's a great introduction. And we had talked about just a little review of what we've done so far. We just started this in July of 2024. And I feel like we've just made massive progress and really achieved the goals that we set out for ourselves at the very beginning. And I really wanted to start off by saying thank you to a couple of people that

Sarah Florer (01:07.938)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:08.681)
helped us Anthony Kouranos, our marketing friend that has helped us and helped coach us and how to market this to a broader audience appeal. And we're going to be doing more marketing in 2025. hopefully more and more people will find out about our podcast. So thank you to Anthony.

Sarah Florer (01:26.552)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (01:34.414)
100%. Thank you, Anthony.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:37.973)
And then I also wanted to thank Mark Cadell, who's our videographer. And I guess we call him a, I don't know, a producer or director. I don't know how you describe.

Sarah Florer (01:48.206)
All of the above, coach, teacher.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:51.219)
We were, yeah, we served in all those roles, but we record these episodes on Riverside, which is not more complicated than recording a Zoom call or whatever. And then we send it to Mark and he puts it into the format that we've created for it. And he's given us a ton of advice about sound, video presentation, all sorts of things. There are some skills that are involved in this.

Sarah Florer (02:09.389)
Mm.

Roland Wiederaenders (02:19.465)
that we had to learn and we're learning them as we go on. We're getting better and better every day. tons of thanks to Mark. And I know you've made a good friendship with Mark too, sir.

Sarah Florer (02:31.03)
Yeah, Mark's a great guy and it's really grateful to have him in our lives and with this project and also he's just a really interesting person. So thank you, Mark.

Roland Wiederaenders (02:41.983)
Well, let me circle back to what I was saying before and how we've achieved goals here. In starting out, we wanted to do a couple things. First, we wanted to create a marketing tool for our law practice. You and I are both practicing attorneys. That's where we make most of our money is representing clients.

Sarah Florer (02:48.846)
Hmm

Sarah Florer (03:00.846)
Mm.

Roland Wiederaenders (03:03.061)
And primarily we represent clients who are issuers of private securities. And that's why we spent so much time at the very beginning talking about private securities, because private securities are essentially alternative assets, structure, hedge funds, private equity deals, our real estate equity investments in equity securities, but you're turning around and investing in commercial real estate. And so we wanted to create a

a podcast that focused on this topic, this area of law that we practice in. That's the first thing. And I think we've done a great job. Total them up, Sarah. We've featured six Grable Martin attorneys so far, six months. That includes you and me. Every episode we're featuring ourselves, of course, but...

Sarah Florer (03:47.713)
wow.

Sarah Florer (03:54.318)
But that's pretty good because we really got going, in September. So September, October, November, December, we've averaged one a month apart from ourselves.

Roland Wiederaenders (04:01.791)
Yeah.

And we want to continue to do that because we're attorneys and we have the law firm partners of ours and their practice areas touch on areas that are for sure relevant to alternative assets.

Sarah Florer (04:19.255)
Well, and also I think it's, you know, every person's specialty is an opportunity to learn when they talk and when they're an expert. So I really enjoyed with our attorney colleagues, not just learning about things that are relevant for alternative investments was definitely every single one of them has had something to offer there. But also, you know, the practice of law is vast. And so when you speak to people who are experts in other areas, it's always really interesting and intriguing and how

One thinks about problem solving in different kinds of scenarios. I always find it really rewarding to have lengthy discussions with attorneys who are experts in their fields. So I'm grateful that we have so many colleagues that are senior and experts.

Roland Wiederaenders (05:03.593)
Yeah, for sure. We'll give a shout out to Grayville Martin because they've been a huge supporter of us and we want to continue to help support them and promote all the Grayville Martin attorneys and other attorneys as well.

Sarah Florer (05:17.388)
That's right. David was another example, right? Who joined us. Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (05:22.559)
So, but the other thing that's really important to note, and this is kind of the bigger professional goal of mine in this is we've talked about this already, but this really is not a marketing tool. It is a marketing tool for the law practice, but it's also a marketing tool for our investment advisor, firm real advisors. I specifically registered that a couple of years ago.

Sarah Florer (05:46.392)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (05:50.857)
to take advantage of an exemption to the broker dealer rules that was created in the jobs act in 2013 that allows investment advisors to operate a platform to promote issuers of private securities and in private offerings of securities that are relying on regulation D rule 506, which allows you to use advertising in general solicitation. And so we've had

Sarah Florer (06:12.098)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (06:17.891)
Right.

Roland Wiederaenders (06:20.149)
It's been what? Let's put the episode list up like we had talked about. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. Hold on just one second. So here's the episode list. And so we had two clients on so far, Jane Rebecca Personius with their Marina investing deal and Matt Capital. And they do all sorts of things, but they had a specific

Sarah Florer (06:24.663)
Right.

Sarah Florer (06:43.214)
Right?

Roland Wiederaenders (06:48.519)
opportunity in Houston, a mixed-use investment opportunity. So these were two live deals that we were able to have those guests on and say, hey, we're interested in investing in these deals. This is how you go find out more about it. Tomorrow, we're going to be recording the third one, an episode with another client that's going to have a live 506C deal, commercial real estate, Chad.

Sarah Florer (06:52.312)
That's right, that was with Trevor.

Sarah Florer (06:59.021)
Mm.

Sarah Florer (07:14.176)
Right. Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (07:17.236)
of Titan capital. That'll be interesting, sir, because they're up in Tennessee. It's a client of ours. It's outside of Texas.

Sarah Florer (07:25.128)
Right. then we also, mean, Jace isn't a client, but he's a colleague in our industry. And he had not a specific deal, but he had a lot to say about the ongoing funds that he manages for his clients. Right?

Roland Wiederaenders (07:38.579)
Yeah, they've got open ended funds that are relying on 506C. So we were able to help him and that was just more for us to learn more about oil and gas and get to know Jace. And it's a conversation, an opportunity that we wouldn't have had otherwise. We can't just call up people as attorneys and say, hey, would you like to hire us as if you're a

Sarah Florer (07:45.496)
Right.

Sarah Florer (07:56.226)
Right.

Sarah Florer (08:00.91)
Tell us what you know and what you're doing.

Roland Wiederaenders (08:04.423)
Yeah, in this way, but through this podcast, it's been a way for us to meet new people and to help people tell their story. And that makes me feel really good because I feel like I'm not only helping them as a good and faithful legal secretary, but also helping them achieve their ultimate goals.

Sarah Florer (08:10.285)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (08:23.296)
Right. And you had mentioned that this was something you, when we had the first firm client on, or one of your long-time clients, which I think was Jay and Rebecca, right? It was really like a pivotal moment because you'd been wanting to do this for a long time. And that was finally what we built up to have a platform where they could join us. And we were able to do that. And that was, I think it was a really special moment for you and supporting you in all of this. It was special for me too, because I really...

You you've you had this initial vision for this webcast and like I've told you before, when you called me about it, I was like, that was the call I didn't know I was waiting for. And there it was. Right. So we may have a long way to go still, but we still, you know, nothing gets started without actually starting. And that's what we've done in twenty twenty four, I think, is we started we've learned so much. And I feel hugely enriched in terms of personally the people that we've met, the process of learning how to do all these things.

Realizing how much there is to still learn, which is motivating. And also just how many areas of alternative investments there are to learn about. it's a great situation to be in when you host something like this if you're a curious person because there's always more to learn. So I think that's one of my takeaways for 2024 is how we got started and there's so much more to look forward to.

Roland Wiederaenders (09:53.353)
Yeah, for sure, sir. I mean, it has been a great learning opportunity for us. And just getting to know people whose professional lives intersect with the world of alternative assets, we're working the process. We're becoming better advisors, both attorneys and investment perspective. So.

Sarah Florer (10:09.166)
Mm.

Sarah Florer (10:14.37)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (10:20.437)
Yeah, I'm really pleased with our progress and I think it's only going to get better. You know, we're only going to have more and more success in the future as we get better and better. I'm sorry I was playing around. I wasn't sure whether I was sharing the right screen so I may have been sharing some other screens. Hopefully I didn't share anything that was confidential but I think.

Sarah Florer (10:25.058)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (10:39.864)
I think it was just the other slide that you want to share, which we'll get to in a little bit, you know, about holistic wealth. Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (10:46.517)
So that's it. And I think going forward, what I think in 2025, some of the things that we want to focus on, that was something I was going to talk with us about on this episode. And then this win-win mentality that we talked about before.

Sarah Florer (11:10.136)
Mmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (11:14.165)
you know, and then going on and talking about, maybe it'd be a good time to move into that topic of sort of the philosophy behind this. We had that. Yeah. You know, before we started recording, I shared with you the I felt like sort of a turning point. I mean, I know it was just two episodes ago, but was.

Sarah Florer (11:25.012)
Mm-hmm. Well, because when when goes together with that, right? Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (11:43.455)
when we had the interview with our friend David Claflin with the qualitative estate planning and the thing he with us about is this idea behind qualitative estate planning where you're focusing not only on financial wealth but other types of capital that if you don't focus on the other types of capital then the financial wealth becomes meaningless. And so, you know, I want to make this about

Sarah Florer (11:48.876)
Mmm.

Sarah Florer (12:07.074)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (12:12.469)
this podcast about bringing us more clients and helping our clients sell their deals. And it sounds a lot like about making money, but, and that's for sure important. You know, we're doing this as a business, but you and I are friends for a reason. We share values. You know, we both have kids. Our families are very important to us.

Sarah Florer (12:31.427)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (12:37.589)
We try to make a difference in the world. We try to be conscientious human beings. And we want to encourage that in our investor clients and our law firm clients. And I think the episode with David, when he was talking about, and I'm going to go ahead and move over to these five capitals so I can start describing these. I think when we had that...

Sarah Florer (12:40.11)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (12:50.147)
Mm.

Sarah Florer (12:59.117)
Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (13:06.325)
presentation from David, it was so helpful because when he first told me about this idea that there's financial capital, but then these other types of capital as well, it was really eye opening to me because what I realized is that it's important to place an emphasis on developing all these types of capital. Let's go ahead and.

Sarah Florer (13:32.822)
Right.

Roland Wiederaenders (13:34.505)
Give credit where credit is due. This is a document that I just found in a Google search from the James E. Hughes Foundation. Five capitals, wealth is well-being. And there's a website down there at the bottom. But.

Sarah Florer (13:42.915)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (13:53.836)
And just to reiterate, our friend and colleague David, David Claflin, he is the one who introduced us to the work of Mr. Hughes and this concept of, I would call it a holistic capital or holistic wealth building. David, we have an episode with him. So when we go back and kind of have a, know, trip down memory lane through our episodes, we can shout him out again. But just to say that if you happen to be interested in this in more detail.

David is someone who can, he takes his clients through the process of estate planning using this framework.

Roland Wiederaenders (14:30.185)
And I look at these and, you know, I remember what David told us is, and you guys really connected on this. Something that you observed is this idea that the first generation does, you know, works hard or is innovative, creates a ton of wealth that they know will extend beyond their lifetime. And so they're able to provide for their children, their grandchildren.

Sarah Florer (14:39.31)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (15:00.329)
But the idea of short sleeves and three generations. So the second generation maybe has some degree of appreciation of all the hard work that went into creating all the wealth. But by the third generation, the third generation, it doesn't have the same awareness. And so it's not relevant for them. There's then no specific planning for how that third generation can take the wealth and continue to develop it.

Sarah Florer (15:04.748)
Right.

Sarah Florer (15:17.998)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (15:26.222)
Mm.

Roland Wiederaenders (15:28.438)
And what I love the most about what David said is, you know, I kept asking him for, well, can you give me an example in your practice? You know, I wanted some story about, you know, family, some specific things. And I liked the way that he responded because he just said, it's all about relationship. That you have, you know, as a wealthy person, if you want to avoid having the shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations, then you have to have a relationship.

Sarah Florer (15:37.229)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (15:44.738)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (15:58.205)
your children and you have to encourage them to have a relationship with their children and you know just keeps going on and on and that factor alone will be the the most determinative factor in whether whether you know you can really create this lasting wealth that goes beyond the third generation.

Sarah Florer (16:19.126)
And I think the idea is that in order to do that, of course, the financial capital or the money that you have, the wealth in that context, the financial wealth is part of what you're trying to extend down into future generations. But the way you achieve that holistic approach is through your human, intellectual, social and spiritual sides. I mean, arguably, those are important things for everybody's life to be balanced in the first place, right? And that, you know, any of us

Maybe it's part of thinking in win-win or thinking about abundance in general, which is when you have all of these different areas of your life where you're feeling like you have wealth, where you have energy, where you have positive things, then overall you have something that you share down into the future in terms of almost values and... Pardon me, my phone's ringing.

values and other kinds of not even spoken values, not like you're sitting there telling people lecturing, this is what it is, these are our values, but more just through the way that you live your life, then people remember that, your next generations remember that, right? So.

Roland Wiederaenders (17:32.149)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. you know, it just, um, what I hear you saying there is, is, um, you know, teaching by actions rather than words. How much is like, look at something like intellectual capital. Well, am I really doing everything that I can, can to develop my intellect? went to college, I went to graduate school, but am I continuing to

Sarah Florer (17:43.512)
Hmm. Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (17:57.417)
to engage in the world of ideas. That's something that all it takes is a library card.

Sarah Florer (18:03.424)
Yeah, or just even you don't even need a library card. It's there on your phone. You can ask CHIGBT anything now, right? Or, and I mean, you know what? think they call this an education now, at least in the schools that my kids have been in, they call it developing lifetime learners. Right? So, yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (18:20.243)
Yeah, that's it. So do that and continue to develop your intellectual, your intellect, and even outside of your professional field, just things that you're curious about. Share those things with your children. I love telling my kids about the things that I'm interested in from just an intellectual curiosity standpoint.

Sarah Florer (18:33.132)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (18:44.158)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. it's funny because I don't know about your kids, but for example, my kids, they sometimes use it as a reason to have extra screen time, but they'll do a lot of Google research and come back to me like, did you know this? Did you know this? Did you know this? And I'm like, no, I did not know those things. Now I know those things. Thank you. So and that, course, is a kind of abundance, right? It's also, you know, whether you want to call it abundance, energy, intellectual capital, intellectual wealth.

It's a wealth and growth attitude, right? A wealth and growth of your knowledge and then eventually as you progress in your life what you can sort of guide and offer to others in terms of mentoring and just support, you know, whether it's just quiet support or actually being able to keep up with really detailed conversations about whatever it is.

Roland Wiederaenders (19:37.759)
Well, so bringing up the kids, you know, like human capital, we were talking earlier about it's a family management company. Is that what you're setting up?

Sarah Florer (19:46.484)
Yeah, I'm setting up a family management company and my kids are now, I have a personal assistant and an IT and admin assistant, which I need actually. And so why not teach my kids to do that?

Roland Wiederaenders (20:00.785)
and they're performing valuable tasks, you're getting them engaged in your professional activities, they're learning from that, and then you're actually paying them real money and then they take that real money and they go off and pay for their dance class or their voice lessons, right?

Sarah Florer (20:16.066)
Right, and they can invest it too. That's the other part of the requirement. That's the parental side, right? Well, now you need to learn how to invest, right? But it's pretty good, you know? Nobody taught me that when I was a teenager. And honestly, it's funny, there's no resistance. Like, they want to know what I'm doing. And there's another self-esteem aspect to it, Roland, too, which is maybe what all of us need, not just our kids, which is me trusting them to take care of things that are important to me. And them knowing that makes them feel confident.

Roland Wiederaenders (20:27.797)
Thank

Sarah Florer (20:45.698)
that they can take care of themselves, right? So the more I think about it, the more I'm like, this is a major win-win. Which as you know, I love.

Roland Wiederaenders (20:56.181)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And then that's the beautiful thing. You know, people think about law being very confrontational, adversarial. We're in an area of the law where it's more, it really can be more win-win than, you know, one person wins and one person loses. It's a rare day that we go to court ever. And, most of the time we're putting together deals and the people are,

Sarah Florer (21:10.094)
Mm.

Sarah Florer (21:16.152)
Right.

Roland Wiederaenders (21:20.959)
there's an investment and then somebody trying to sell the investment, they're telling us, why isn't this done? They're just wanting to get it done rather than fight over little details. it's.

Sarah Florer (21:28.59)
Mm.

Sarah Florer (21:32.664)
Well, and there's also a natural sort of, there's an organic relationship, Sponsors need investors, investors need sponsors. So there's an extra motivation to not get confrontational or adversarial. And it is true. Like sometimes I think, wow, I am really grateful for having a specialty in my law practice that doesn't require constant confrontation because sometimes you need to be able to do that.

And some people are very, very good at that and actually embrace it and enjoy it. And I really like the win-win attitude. And I actually remember a long time ago reading a book by a senior lawyer who was a book about negotiation. And he talked about win-win a lot and about how when you come, there's this misperception that when you enter into big business relationships, whether it's investor sponsor, whether it's two commercial parties and a big deal, reality is nobody wants to have a fight.

And so if you come into it fighting over everything, it's not necessarily good for the relationship as a whole going forward for the long term. So it's a much more long term way of thinking even as attorneys representing parties, negotiating sometimes difficult relationships and high dollar relationships that you come into that without your ego, just looking to get both parties to somewhere above like 70, 80 % happy.

And that's a win-win, and that's probably going to be a really stable, long, fruitful relationship. So there are people who write about it. It's not just my idea.

Roland Wiederaenders (23:04.693)
Yeah, for sure. let's see, hold on. Well, what I was thinking of when you were saying that is, you know, this is another one of those types of capital that was on the page. I stopped screen sharing so we could, you know, people could see us rather than the page, but social capital. You know, what we're doing is helping people. It's not only, it's relationship building.

Sarah Florer (23:24.267)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (23:31.741)
You know, and you and I are friends. We've made it grown to be better friends as we've been working together. And so we've created our own little practice group. we talk about all sorts of things beyond the practice as well. So we have our little social deal, but we create social relationships with our clients and the.

Sarah Florer (23:39.331)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (23:54.818)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (23:55.881)
this has been a great tool. The podcast has been a great tool for, again, talking to people that we wouldn't have otherwise been able to talk to. And we're creating a little community around this podcast that, you know, and this is such a great opportunity for us to try to share some of our values and some of these ideas so that people can connect with this in an emotional way and, you know, also spiritual. I mean, that's the thing too, like,

Sarah Florer (24:06.574)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (24:13.176)
Right.

Sarah Florer (24:19.885)
Right.

Roland Wiederaenders (24:23.637)
I would love to get into more discussions about the spiritual component of wealth. And I think there are people that have really had great ideas that have been inspired through their internal struggles and their ideas that have come to them at moments of difficulty. And yet, maybe it was

Sarah Florer (24:29.198)
Mmm.

Sarah Florer (24:48.824)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (24:51.559)
only because of that difficulty that they had the idea. I I would say that this podcast came to me sort of, I really just, I was struggling and I have a meditation practice for sure. And the idea of registering the investment advisor came to me one morning during COVID in a meditation time. And so I registered that investment advisor and it turned out that it gave me this opportunity, gave us this opportunity to create this podcast.

Sarah Florer (25:04.206)
Mm.

Sarah Florer (25:10.222)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (25:16.408)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (25:20.977)
I... Yeah, go ahead.

Sarah Florer (25:21.262)
Well, good. No, mean, one's life, whether it's different people, some people are very public about their spiritual life and go to church and express themselves in groups and other people are very private about it or don't want to talk about it or prefer. And other people have views where that side of life is not something that they focus on. And in the end, I think it's all

part of what gives us whatever our vitality is. And so in the end you bring energy and that's part of the wealth, right? It's your spiritual or your of your internal wealth that comes through. And I do know, you know, in working with a number of our clients that people in different ways make mention of their personal practices, you know, whether it's...

more of a well-being, what's established as a well-being practice or like a biofeedback practice or this practice. But in the end, I think it's all about reflecting internally and connecting to something that's bigger than oneself. And again, I've lived in a part of the world where there are a of diverse religions. And so my observation is that that's kind of an essential quality of people who take the best from their religion and express it into the world is that internal...

with something bigger than themselves that then translates into a positive relationship with humanity as a whole. that's a kind of wealth and that's also a motivator for building financial wealth, right? Building social wealth, building knowledge, building everything. But building financial wealth is it gives you, as we've talked about, it gives you agency, it gives you freedom to make choices about how you get to make a positive contribution in the areas that matter to you, whatever that is.

So I think, you know, personally when you, you know, the spiritual wealth is so important and everybody has it, whether you want to use the word spiritual or not, right?

Roland Wiederaenders (27:21.663)
Yeah, I mean, it's part of our makeup. And when you were talking, what I really thought about, Sarah, it was a conversation I was having with a friend yesterday about AI, of all things. AI won't be able to do is create meaning because the AI lacks experiences. And it's, I don't know, like it's something we have to reckon with in our professional life. But the idea of meaning, I think is

Sarah Florer (27:33.72)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (27:40.61)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (27:49.865)
That's all I could hear you when you were talking is how do we derive or create meaning for our lives? It's nice to have all this financial wealth, but if that's all you have, then after a point, I think all the nice things, all the material possessions will not fulfill a spiritual hunger inside that resides in the heart of every man, so to speak.

Sarah Florer (27:52.12)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (28:14.881)
Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (28:16.409)
We all have a hunger inside of us for some kind of significance that material possessions won't provide.

Sarah Florer (28:21.078)
Yeah.

Well, mean, some people they might provide. That might be what they hunger for. And if they get that, they might feel provided for. But I do agree with you. for the most part, like, especially maybe there's an age factor. Once you reach a certain age, you're like, oh, you know, want to, you know, so far it's been an uphill climb. Now it's more like, OK, what's the bigger picture here? What am I going to leave? What do I want to spend my time doing, too?

And it's funny when you reflect on that when you're in a profession like law, Where, as you say, some things can be adversarial, sometimes even colleagues, you can be in very adversarial relationships, some firms are very tough to be partners in. There's a lot of things that can happen and it's not confined to attorneys. It's, you know, business, corporate America is famous for this sort of tome of the everybody scrambling over everyone else to get to the top or whatever.

And after a while, maybe you're kind of like, I just don't really want to spend my time that way. Whether you're good at it or not, maybe you're great at that whole way of doing things, but it just wears you out. So, it's nice to bring meaning to one's professional work too. I wonder what category that's in. it intellectual knowledge, professional wealth? Maybe there's a professional wealth category, we could, a subcategory.

Roland Wiederaenders (29:46.847)
We'll go back, I'll open that page up, because I think it's just so wonderful. And let's put a link to this in the show notes.

Sarah Florer (29:55.04)
Yeah, we'll definitely include that. I think we've included it in another episode potentially. The one with David. Wasn't that 16? Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (29:59.059)
Yeah, with David's.

Yeah. But intellectual capital, you know, I mean, all these things, professional development. Sorry, if you remember, I kind of sidetracked you when I was bringing this up, but we were looking for a category for describing.

Sarah Florer (30:21.282)
Hmm.

What do you think? It's funny because we're sometimes I think encouraged to segregate our lives into your professional life versus your personal life versus your community versus. So all of these are almost like offset against each other when really it's all holistic, right? And they're all part of you. So your human, intellectual, and social capital are part of your work. For some people, spiritual capital is part of that too.

Or maybe for all of us, it's underlying everything. But some people are in fields such as ministries or outreach or social work that are, you know, education arguably, you know, that are purely, maybe even one could argue, lawyering is, you know, there's a spiritual element to enjoying helping people solve problems or fix problems in litigation, you know, these kinds of things. perhaps your professional life is part of all of this because it's part of being human.

Roland Wiederaenders (31:18.229)
Well, we've talked about this before and the way that I've really connected with us, practice and securities laws, I help or we help all these clients create value. And that value, you know, is measured for sure with dollars, but a successful business winds up employing a ton of people. So you've created a whole community there. And the value, you know, I feel like even with some multifamily deal that we help,

Sarah Florer (31:29.069)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (31:38.046)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (31:47.913)
somebody buy a multifamily property, they rehab it and they make it nicer. And of course rents go up, but it is a nicer place for people to live and that makes the world a better place. So, you I connect with that. I feel like, you know, there's a spiritual component to that as well.

Sarah Florer (31:52.322)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (31:55.991)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (32:05.004)
Yeah, for sure. And I think we've talked about, or I've mentioned before, like some people being mission driven, you know, and I do think that when you add a mission driven element to anything that you're doing, it takes on not just more meaning, but somehow it's got more energy, more positive energy, like you, and maybe more people will even be interested in it. Because in the end, you know, I think we humans are mostly social creatures. Maybe some of us are more introverted and we need our time alone, but...

At the same time, we're essentially connected to each other and there's something satisfying in participating in that human experience, right? Or that social experience.

Roland Wiederaenders (32:44.757)
Well, group workouts are perfect example because we get you. go to the yoga class and I get energy from the people around me, know, that we energy from each other. You and I have encouraged each other with this and we've been able to do more together than either one of us could have done by ourselves on this podcast.

Sarah Florer (32:48.386)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (32:53.73)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (32:59.213)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (33:05.71)
For sure. You know, it was funny at the pool this morning, I was so happy to be back and see like, they're the regulars there who are in like their set lanes, you kind of can't disturb them, but they're always there and they're sweet and you know, they say hi and it's kind of like, wow, they realized I was gone even though I don't even know their names, you know, because I'm there every day or so.

Roland Wiederaenders (33:25.289)
They get energy from you. They say, that lady's here again. I can do this. I can be here. Maybe it's a healthy competition thing, but you're encouraging each other to do the work.

Sarah Florer (33:31.253)
Yeah, exactly.

Sarah Florer (33:37.876)
Yeah, to turn up, you know, to turn up. You know, we were talking about physical health. guess physical health wasn't on that list, but that's obviously something too. Like your physical health can have all those other dimensions, but it also gives you the basis for not for focusing on these other things. So. Physical physical health, mean, physical wealth, like some people, you know, physical wealth. Yeah, why not have physical wealth?

Roland Wiederaenders (33:56.957)
It's human capital.

Sarah Florer (34:05.26)
being healthy, strong, and knowing that you can go through hard things and be fine, even if it's hard in the moment, right?

Roland Wiederaenders (34:05.354)
Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (34:14.665)
Yeah, for sure. Well, I was going to move on to something that we've talked about briefly, maybe talking in next week, we're going to have some goal setting time specifically. But for 2025, I think one of the things that I really want us to focus on is creating

Sarah Florer (34:30.424)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (34:41.757)
relationships and having on as guests, people like Keane, you know, and I've talked with him being a guest, but this is a private wealth manager that we make friends with and Real Advisors is going to be connecting with. But private wealth managers will all have a perspective on alternative assets. And so I've been on helping create an ad for them that will

Sarah Florer (34:46.957)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (35:02.382)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (35:07.903)
possibly attract more clients to them and they're going to manage their portfolio, the portion of their portfolio invested in public securities primarily, then we can be the advisors with respect to the private deals that somebody invests in. And these wealth managers can bring their clients, they want to have deal flow, they want to have exposure to the private deals, the types of things that our clients sponsor.

Sarah Florer (35:18.135)
Right.

Sarah Florer (35:36.398)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (35:37.173)
Creating more of these relationships, think will really help us achieve that goal of helping our law firm clients fund their deals.

Sarah Florer (35:46.318)
I think that's a great plan and it's so, once you start talking to people who are specialized in any field really, especially in the private wealth management and start to learn the terminology and everything, there's a lot of intellect and energy goes into being good at managing the public equities, managing all of that.

You know, we have, again, stereotypes from movies and things like that about what these people do, wealth managers or, you know, brokers or whatever. But in the end, you know, there's it's, you know, it takes discipline and it takes a lot of quick thinking to be really good at that. So I'm excited about Keane. can't wait to interview him. And I hope that he also becomes a friend. But.

It'll be great to speak to other people. I just spoke to a private wealth manager today in a different capacity and what just struck me is that he's like on the younger side and just very articulate about his strategies and you know his successes and what he does and I thought you know this guy invoked he inspired confidence and I thought you know and it wasn't artificial comp, you know wasn't blustering. It wasn't like, you know that kind of confidence that you're like, okay, you know

So I thought, you know, I'm really looking forward to diving more into this and meeting more people. So I'm really glad you had that idea.

Roland Wiederaenders (37:17.557)
You know, I just, really like the wealth managers and I think that they're, you know, the good ones will be really similar to David Claflin and thinking about these qualitative aspects of different types of wealth that we've been talking about. And that's what really inspires me. I sure want to help people make more money, but in the end, if there's not meaning associated with that money, then it'll be gone in three generations. That's it.

Sarah Florer (37:30.688)
Right.

Sarah Florer (37:45.886)
Right. Right. And exactly, no. And also, there's another aspect too, right? Like the gone part is part of it, but there's also the psychology of what you're passing down. why don't you want to, wouldn't you want to pass down a growth mindset of like, what can you contribute? What can you do? You have all these gifts and skills and you've got financial security. Now, what are you going to do with that? You're not going to, you know, it's not just, you know, a free ride to sit there and play Minecraft or video games all day, right?

You need to get out there in the world and do something. that probably is something that is part of that holistic wealth that we've been talking about, is passing on that mentality.

Roland Wiederaenders (38:33.172)
What's the relationships that you were talking about with your kids? It's such a brilliant idea. You have highly intelligent children. got to them. I admire both of them. But you're getting them in your own way.

Sarah Florer (38:39.63)
I'm blessed. They're hard to keep up with. I need new projects all the time. If anybody has any recommendations.

Roland Wiederaenders (38:50.357)
You're getting them involved in your professional life and maybe they don't grow up to become attorneys or wealth advisors or whatever, but they see that mom is out there and I know Hari as well. Hari does the same thing. They're out there in a professional life and you try to communicate these ideas to your kids and they are blessed by that and you have a genuine relationship with them and you're...

Sarah Florer (39:07.512)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (39:12.28)
Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (39:15.529)
You're doing that not only just the normal way, but this idea of the family company, I think is just brilliant.

Sarah Florer (39:23.148)
Well, I can't even remember where we learned about it, but we watched some YouTube videos about it. People are out there talking about it. It is a tax planning tool, but I think all the other benefits are far richer, actually, because, you know, if we want to get philosophical, we, you know, we don't know what the future of work really will be. There's been so much change between us and our parents generation, right? That's rapidly, exponentially changing for this next generation, because I have a gen, I have gen alphas.

And so they're still little right now and they've been raised digitally, right? Much to maybe, you know, we all probably try and control that, but there's a limit to what you can do when it's literally everything is on a screen and they have to adapt because that's the life that they're living. And so then you think about, well, how do you prepare them for the future? And I kind of think of it as like a series of life skills, right?

not just financial knowledge, which I don't know that we grew up with in our Gen X upbringing with like detailed financial knowledge, you know, investing wealth building knowledge. This to me is, you know, has the potential to be a life skill. I mean, here's my list of life skills. You need to know how to cook some basic food. You need to know how to swim. That's a life skill because you need to be able to save your life and the life of another if ever necessary. You know, you need to know how to

Eventually drive. This is a life skill you have to have pretty much anywhere in the world and then you need to know how to not just manage your money but earn it and Invest it and build your wealth for that because in the end like we talked about and you came up with this phrase Roland What do you buy with wealth you buy agency and what is agency is the freedom to decide what you want to do when? You know once you're an adult Kids don't get to buy agency they get to look forward to it

Roland Wiederaenders (41:12.745)
No.

Roland Wiederaenders (41:16.821)
Oh, and then, you know, the agency, you know, the ability to do what you want. And this is, this was part of the conversation with that I had with Jim yesterday is really looking at what it is that you want. And do you want this wealth to be sustained generation after generation, or do you want it to just disappear? And, you know, if, like you said, you can.

Sarah Florer (41:28.206)
Mmm.

Sarah Florer (41:37.891)
Right.

Roland Wiederaenders (41:42.803)
I mean, I've had exposure to enough luxury things in my life to know that they're very nice. It's, you know, it's pleasurable. staying at the nice hotel or whatever, or being at that cool resort or driving the nice car. Those are wonderful things, but, and those are, you know, the experiences are better than possessions, but in the end, for sure, the possessions don't provide you with this meaning. You know, they may become empty at some point, or you kind of

Sarah Florer (41:53.896)
Mm. Mm.

Sarah Florer (42:07.758)
Right.

Roland Wiederaenders (42:12.839)
you know, can only have so many fast cars, I guess, I'd like to experience.

Sarah Florer (42:16.718)
Right, well, I was just in Dubai and it seems like some people can't have enough luxury cars.

Roland Wiederaenders (42:24.032)
They have access to endless dollars and so they just think well I'll just buy that that new one and that'll give me satisfaction or I just need to buy the next car the next

Sarah Florer (42:32.62)
Yeah. Yeah, or I need that Ferrari in Colors of the Rainbow.

Roland Wiederaenders (42:38.229)
Yeah, that'll give me ultimate satisfaction and maybe some people will, but if that's all they're focused on, maybe they have enough to where it will sustain to the third generation. What's the outcome? What are the characters of that third generation? Are they productive members?

Sarah Florer (42:42.222)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (43:02.606)
Are they producers or they?

Roland Wiederaenders (43:04.337)
Are they part of social society? Are they creating value? Or are they just playing video games?

Sarah Florer (43:06.37)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (43:11.072)
Right, it's a fair question. And I think it's something that, you know, I remember a long time ago I watched a documentary about the heirs of certain of the gigantic, you know, American industrial moguls of the time, like the Rockefellers and the Christie's and the JP Morgan family and whatnot. I wish I remember the name of that documentary. It was in the days that Netflix mailed you CDs, Or DVDs.

Roland Wiederaenders (43:33.685)
What are those ancient wood streets,

Sarah Florer (43:36.782)
Yeah, but it was funny because there was like one of the heirs, I don't know if it was Rockefeller or Christie, he's like, he's in his 20s. He's like, I didn't know until I was 25 that everybody's grandpa didn't have a statue in the park in central Manhattan. You know, and but also more importantly, like some of them talked about some of these people that was more like 20s, 30s, I think age that were being interviewed about how

they had lot of personal struggles with actually having been given such wealth because perhaps in American society this is considered like you didn't earn it so you don't deserve it kind of a thing, which is unfair because if somebody in your family earned that, then you do deserve it. It came to you because whoever earned it. But then I guess the point was like this lack of meaning, like what do I do with myself? I can do anything I want. It's like having so many choices that I don't know.

how to direct and that again comes down to how the family relationships cultivate these values. You know, what was just on our slide about different kinds of capitals. So, and I thought that was really interesting because some of the other, I remember this very clearly, some of the other heirs I guess were like, I don't care, I'm just glad I have so much money. I do this, this, this, this, this and you know, wild lifestyles and super luxurious and.

And that made them happy. But then others were like, I don't feel happy. I need depression medication because I'm depressed even though I have everything. And then imagine the self-dialogue like you shouldn't be depressed because you have so much privilege and yet you are, right? And this cycle of internal sort of beating yourself up. not that I, you know, when it comes down to it, having wealth and being depressed is probably a better position than having extreme poverty, which would also be very depressing.

But at the same time, to look at things from another person's point of view, even if they're the heir to the Rockefeller, I don't know, one of the heirs of one of these big fortunes, it's also, I don't know, an interesting exercise.

Roland Wiederaenders (45:27.428)
yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (45:43.125)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And what I love is that, you know, this podcast has brought you and I together to have this, you know, we're doing a kind of reflection, but we're kind of charting our own personal journeys as well are, you know, these different types of capital. And then we want to help other people do that as well, you know, and I think that we can, and even if we're getting started,

Sarah Florer (45:53.39)
Mm.

Sarah Florer (45:57.71)
Mmm.

Sarah Florer (46:06.072)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (46:11.893)
uh, you know, as a kind of a second career as investment advisors, that's okay. Cause we had to go through everything that we learned so far to get us to this point.

Sarah Florer (46:16.174)
Thank

Sarah Florer (46:20.858)
Yeah, I think that's brilliant. Like, how fun is that to get to have done one thing for a while and then get to supplement and build other things? just personally, that's what I always wanted. So to me, it's completely normal. But I know there are people out there who are like, I am an attorney and I've done all this work to become an attorney and be an attorney and become a senior attorney. And I will stay an attorney. And I want this, this, this. I'll be honest, like, I wouldn't have minded all that. And I did do a lot of work to be I did all the same stuff. But I'm glad to have.

law plus plus because it keeps things interesting.

Roland Wiederaenders (46:55.689)
Honestly, sir, I mean, we touched on it it before, you know, we're being a legal secretary is going to be one of the first professions that's threatened deeply by AI. already is. And so what do we need to do as attorneys to make ourselves relevant for our clients? The legal secretary, that's going to be given, you know, what is it on top of that? Are we going to be able to help them sell their deals? Are we going to be able

Sarah Florer (47:09.047)
Right.

Sarah Florer (47:15.34)
Right.

Sarah Florer (47:18.67)
Mmm.

Sarah Florer (47:24.034)
Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (47:24.775)
of them really be genuine attorneys and counselors at law. We're counselors.

Sarah Florer (47:29.644)
Right, right, exactly. And I think that's, I mean, like you've said about AI and its experiences, in the end, you know, we've observed this with clients even just recently, sometimes really a legal problem, the legal problem is often solvable. There's a lot of wound up emotions and stress and other problems surrounding that legal problem that also one helps with just...

Either it's assuaging, you know, saying, don't be anxious about this. Like, I know you want to be anxious, but really there's a way forward. Here's the steps. duck, duck, duck, duck, duck. It's going to take some time, but you don't need to, you know, so that's more like a counselor role. Sometimes I feel like, you know, the bartender is everybody's favorite sort of therapist or whatever. It's like, you know, and it's all good because again, that's, I don't, you know, tracing to the origins of the word attorney or Esquire or.

counselor or whatever perhaps one would find that there's an element of it that's just simply we humans need counsel from others and Attorneys have experiences in certain ways that can really provide that so and now we're expanding that to all these to You know alternative investments generally and specifically what we'll do with our investment advisory work because yeah, I'm excited I guess one of my goals for 2025 is to complete my

Roland Wiederaenders (48:33.983)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (48:48.788)
my exams, which are in progress, to become a registered investment advisor myself so that we'll be able to work together in compliance with all the necessary regulations for that.

Roland Wiederaenders (49:02.562)
Yeah, for sure. That's great. I wish you all the best of luck with that.

Sarah Florer (49:06.848)
Yeah, it's funny. There have been so many exams in life, know, because I have my obviously we have our bar exams and everything that you go through to get to that point when you're even taking the bar exam, which is a lot of stressful exams in law school. But then I did my solicitor's qualifications, which then involved more exams. So by the end, then, yeah, I did my master's degree when my LLA.

So there were some more exams. It seems like I couldn't just let go of exams in my legal career. I kept doing them. Oh well.

Roland Wiederaenders (49:38.919)
I think that's what it's reflective of.

Sarah Florer (49:41.614)
Yeah, it's mostly an opportunity to learn. It holds you a bit accountable, doesn't it? You need to actually learn by a certain deadline instead of just think you want to think about it and ponder. So do you want to quickly do like a review of our 17 episodes that have been published and in 20? Was it 17 or 18? Including this week, I think it's 18.

Roland Wiederaenders (50:02.854)
I.

Yeah, we through Jason. Jason will be Jason Gorman, who's our law partner. He'll be next week and that'll be so I'm sharing my screen now. think I'm yeah. Okay. So let's should we start at the beginning? Okay, well, so we did these first five kind of or four episodes when we published the fifth one later on, but sort of as a introduction, right?

Sarah Florer (50:14.347)
Next week,

Sarah Florer (50:22.796)
Yeah, why not?

Sarah Florer (50:32.928)
Right, and that was it was funny because in the end, not only I think we did a pretty good job in introducing generally alternative investments and you know, we're going to deep dive into all of these in 2025 and to in into specific topics in each one of these categories. And I think that'll be really useful to people and we'll try and do a shorter format so it's a bit more digestible. But also we were finding our feet right. It wasn't just us presenting information. It was us.

presenting the lessons in presenting and learning, know, even how to, you know, use our tech and use our camera. Now we have better mics and cameras and everything, right? So that was looking back at that. I was like, oh, that's pretty funny. I mean, we did a pretty good job, I thought, but we also had Mark there counseling us, know, coaching, coaching.

Roland Wiederaenders (51:21.605)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, and those were good. You know, I really think that we did a good job setting the stage. And I like what you said about we're going to be fleshing it out in 2025, know, discussing some of these topics in more detail.

Sarah Florer (51:33.666)
Mm-hmm.

Well, it's never not true in any area that you are either working or participating in that revisiting the basics and picking them apart a little more is always, always a rewarding experience, I think.

Roland Wiederaenders (51:51.445)
Okay, so we've got this next set. We did an in-studio filming day and we did several episodes with our colleagues, our law partners, Eddie Martin and Mary Elizabeth Herd. Eddie practices in the area of securities law, but he does a lot with public companies and has a lot more experience with public companies than me. And so it was absolutely essential kind of understanding some of these investment deals that we work on.

Sarah Florer (52:11.789)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (52:15.447)
Mm.

Roland Wiederaenders (52:21.641)
They maybe start out as a private company, they grow up and then they think about becoming a public company. Mary Elizabeth told us about some of the things to think about in a bankruptcy context.

Sarah Florer (52:33.452)
Right. Yeah, and you know, I still think what she said and what we discussed was bankruptcy is always on the table when you're entering into investments and commercial relationships with others. It's an important area of the law. It's your safety net to a certain extent if you are an investor. And it's really important to never forget, you know, I think for anyone who is wealth building and especially as you develop significant wealth,

Bankruptcy is something to understand as much as you can. Hopefully you don't need to use it, but to understand it is, again, to me that's like a life skill.

Roland Wiederaenders (53:14.293)
Yeah, for sure. You have some basic knowledge about what bankruptcy means and what it doesn't mean because there's a lot of misconceptions about it.

Sarah Florer (53:21.43)
I just want to make an observation roll and you know, really just looking back at this, we just really dove in to not just interviewing two of us interviewing one person in person in a studio from from just filming together from, you know, Riverside's from our home offices. And then we went straight into not just interviewing one person together, which is a skill set in itself because we have to work together, right? But also, yeah, also.

Roland Wiederaenders (53:47.337)
Yeah, exactly. I was going to say, we could be watching, look at this.

Sarah Florer (53:52.076)
Yeah, but also interviewing two people like we did a whole panel discussion like that was in our first 10 episodes.

Roland Wiederaenders (53:58.983)
Yeah, we've done a great job, sir. We should really be proud of ourselves.

Sarah Florer (54:03.624)
I think so. What we also learned about the studio is that there's a lot of setup, a lot of time that takes, a lot of coordination, and so it's more efficient for us to film from our desks. And once in a while maybe we'll head back to the studio.

Roland Wiederaenders (54:19.797)
Well, going forward, this episode 10, nine was that fifth one, you where we were introduction about who can sell. so, but 10 was really, this was our first client, Jane Rebecca Personius with South Silver Group. And they had an investment opportunity with respect to investing in private marinas, lakes and rivers, I guess, here in the United States. But I thought that was really interesting, you know, and just thinking about that where people.

Sarah Florer (54:24.322)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (54:39.182)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (54:48.637)
spend their discretionary spending on things like boats and great investment idea that is.

Sarah Florer (54:54.894)
Mmm.

You know, it's funny because we live here in Austin, right? And Austin's famous for its outdoor activities, including boating on certain lakes. And so now whenever I think about boating or, you know, I'm like, hmm, I wonder who owns that marina over there. Is that profitable? I'm sure, you know, I'm sure the ones on Lake Travis are pretty, pretty solid businesses because of the interest that everyone in Austin and the area has and having, I don't know if you can even get spaces. I heard that.

Roland Wiederaenders (55:13.013)
Yeah, I do.

Sarah Florer (55:26.604)
getting a boat slip in some popular lakes is more difficult than getting a parking space in Manhattan.

Roland Wiederaenders (55:36.053)
Well, doesn't that suggest that demand and then if there's demand then gosh if you set up something that's reasonably well run you're going to have great success.

Sarah Florer (55:39.235)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (55:45.258)
Yeah, and I think it's a very stable kind of investment too. So what else do we have up there? Who did we talk to next? Mitch. Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (55:53.081)
Yeah, Mitch and he's a friend, a new friend. He's a chartered alternative investment analyst. And so he really specializes. He's an investment advisor. He's one of these types of people that that we focus on in 2025. We had a great conversation with him.

Sarah Florer (56:05.794)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (56:10.646)
Yeah, and you know what I remember about the episode with him is he had some alternative 1031 structures that he talked about that he promotes to his clients and he invests in himself. I thought, you know, it really opened my mind up to thinking more deeply about 1031 structures and how there's, you know, different people are doing different things with them.

Roland Wiederaenders (56:31.317)
Well, yeah. And the specific thing that I remember Mitch saying is while 1031 can sometimes become like, you know, when you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. You sometimes it may be best just to sell the deal and pay the taxes. I've heard other people say this before. You can invest in other types of deals. And I thought that was an interesting perspective. He said he almost, you know, hates the fact that the 10...

Sarah Florer (56:43.213)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (56:49.581)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (56:58.936)
You

Roland Wiederaenders (57:00.45)
I mean, he was kind of exaggerating a little bit, but I think that that's an important consideration for.

Sarah Florer (57:05.022)
Yeah, you're right. you know, I remember another thing I didn't think about that I thought was just an interesting kernel of information, which is for 1031 deals, especially deals that are only 1031 monies that being taken, you have to have a close look at the pricing. Because maybe if you think of things differently and a bit longer term, the pricing you get from that deal versus taking the tax hit and doing other stuff, you might come out ahead taking the tax hit and doing other stuff. That's what you were just referring to before, I think.

Never thought about how that translated into the actual returns and commercial terms and investor terms in individual deals, like commercial real estate deals, how that actually might be able to spot. And for some people, 1031 is solid and that's what they're comfortable with and that completely works fine for them. I guess the takeaway really was like, think through the 1031 more than just assuming it's the holy grail of everything.

Roland Wiederaenders (58:01.109)
And then that's, yeah, for sure. Well, let's move forward. Massive Capital was episode 12, Massive Capital, they've got tons of things going on. Their law firm clients, they had a specific 506C deal that we talked about on that episode. Trevor is really practiced, he's an investor relations guy, he talks to investors all the time. that was.

Sarah Florer (58:07.042)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (58:14.606)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (58:19.768)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (58:26.74)
He was, I really liked the way he was able to speak. Trevor, if anybody wants to learn more, contact Trevor Thompson. He is focused on education. He really enjoys helping people understand. And the way he could speak about things was so accessible, wasn't it?

Roland Wiederaenders (58:42.313)
Yeah, for sure. He just has a long history in sales, generally knows how to connect with people and address what is really at the heart of your concern, whoever you are. OK, so next we did an episode where we're talking about, we work on a lot of single asset syndications, but we always get asked, what about the open-ended funds? So that was a really useful little.

Sarah Florer (58:47.47)
Mm.

Sarah Florer (58:52.824)
Mmm.

Sarah Florer (59:06.946)
And that was another model we tried, right? We did a role play and I remember too, this was our, this particular episode, we had to re-film multiple times and that was the first time we'd had to do that. And after that, I felt like now I feel seasoned. Of course I'm not seasoned. Like filming 15 episodes, I don't think counts as seasoned, but it felt that way just from having to, you know, wanting to give up on filming that episode and finally putting down something that we were happy with, right?

Roland Wiederaenders (59:10.325)
Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (59:19.925)
Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (59:33.407)
And then organizing an asset management company for these syndications. That was an important topic that comes up all the time.

Sarah Florer (59:40.958)
It's important, yeah. And I guess, you know what I remember, did we talk about it then? But I do talk about this with other clients sometimes. Like it's okay if you pick the wrong state or whatever, you can fix it later. You can migrate, you can do conversions, you can do different things. So nothing's set in stone, but it is good to try to think through in advance how you kind of figure the next few years are going to go when you pick your entities and set them up.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:00:11.493)
The next one, we featured another Grayville Martin attorney, Julia Helgeson. And she has a practice that focuses on nonprofits and tax-exempt entities. And so that was really good.

Sarah Florer (01:00:14.668)
Yeah, Julian.

Sarah Florer (01:00:23.918)
Well, Julia is a lovely person and a lovely friend and she's dedicated. She took the conscious decision to move into working in a social services organization as opposed to continuing her law practice in a firm or I think maybe she was in-house because she worked in some capacity as a practicing attorney and she dedicated her...

her career to developing that kind of a specialty when bringing her legal practice along. So we were able to speak succinctly about tax implications and different things you can use, tax strategies you could use through your charitable giving. But the thing I admire about Julia is that she made that kind of a shift and it's an important organization, the Joyful Child Foundation.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:01:10.677)
Yeah, of developing the capital, like the meaning, spiritual, all of that. Julia is a great example for us, for really exactly what we were talking about. OK, so then after her was David Claflin. He's a long time. He's a mentor to me. He would say, I'm just your friend, Roland. I'm not a mentor. But he really is. He's in his 80s, but still actively practicing.

Sarah Florer (01:01:15.468)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (01:01:24.13)
Mmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:01:38.737)
attorney in the area of qualitative estate planning. And I really think that he gave us sort of a framework that'll continue to be an underlying theme for what we're trying to do here.

Sarah Florer (01:01:52.462)
Actually, I want to dedicate this episode to David because he's the one who gave us the information about Jaihues and we had a long talk about it and it was just delightful. The other thing I want to say about David is that he's not just still practicing law, he's also practicing, is it Bikram Yoga or hot yoga four times a week or something? I don't think I could do that four times a week, so go for it, David.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:02:17.205)
So yeah, he's my role model. That's who I want to be when I'm 80 in 30 years.

Sarah Florer (01:02:24.502)
Yeah, in 40 years, right, Roland?

Roland Wiederaenders (01:02:28.683)
yeah, right. And then finally, with Jace Graham, we did an episode about oil and gas alternative investments. And that was really great to learn more about that. And Jace seems like a great guy and hope to get to know him better in the future.

Sarah Florer (01:02:47.766)
Yeah, it was actually delightful to meet Jace and I'm really grateful that we got to have a conversation with him. you know, just as a note, he talked about their personal, he and his wife and their family's personal planning process, which touches on what we've talked about here. It's like holistic planning, holistic wealth management, guess you could say, life management even. also, know, Roland, you remember how we were talking earlier about how

I just learned today that when you write a plan down, has a five times more chance of actually coming to be. And I think he and his wife were writing down their plans every year. I think, yeah, I'm really looking forward to getting to work together or at least getting to have further discussions with Jace.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:03:38.441)
Well, sir, we've been going for about an hour now and I think that's great. I was thinking I've been listening to some longer form podcasts. I listened to a four hour podcast the other day and I'll tell you what topic it was, but I know you can probably guess.

Sarah Florer (01:03:41.164)
Yep.

Sarah Florer (01:03:48.163)
wow.

Sarah Florer (01:03:53.536)
We'll talk about that stuff another time.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:03:55.733)
Yeah, but in any event, maybe we should wind this

Sarah Florer (01:03:59.35)
Nothing inappropriate, okay.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:04:02.281)
I'll just tell her a fascination of mine is the UAP topic. UAP is unidentified aerial phenomenon, which is the new term for UFO. And there's a lot of interesting information that's come out very recently about that. So that was what the four hour podcast was.

Sarah Florer (01:04:20.696)
Well, I get to watch at most 20 minute podcasts and mine are usually on topics that are good for children and we're sort of in our family obsessed with geography. So if you have any questions about geography, maps and some science stuff, know, science and engineering stuff, then I'm your go-to person. Maybe one day when the kids are, you know, in university, I'll get to watch four hour podcasts. I'd be happy just to have a Netflix binge.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:04:49.001)
Well, somebody can binge on this for a full hour. We'll give them much as we can fit. I guess before we wind up too much, I forgot about one thank you, And that thank you is to thank you, Sarah Forer, for all the help and partnering with me on this, because I never would have done it by myself. And I thought about for a long time doing it by myself.

Sarah Florer (01:04:52.072)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (01:05:06.67)
Mm.

Sarah Florer (01:05:15.82)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:05:16.821)
along and said, well, yeah, I'd be interested in doing that. And you enabled this. I wouldn't have ever gotten to 18, 19 episodes in the way that we've done and the successes that we've had. I really thank you as my friend, my law partner. I thank your family, how they've gotten involved. Husband Hari has been a great friend to us. So thank you so much for being my friend and law partner and my partner on Alt Investing Made Easy.

Sarah Florer (01:05:20.386)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (01:05:36.397)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (01:05:43.572)
Likewise Roland, I I wanted to say thank you to you. Thank you for this opportunity and and also the work we do together in our law practice thank you for all your guidance and mentorship and just you know trusting that you know the process of getting a close partner and moving forward into the next stage because you know sometimes it's easy for us to do a lot of things on our own and it's harder to do things with others but actually strengthen numbers and all of that and so

I'm so excited about 2025 and all the different things we are toying around with and planning and writing down on a paper next week. And I mean, I don't know if I really have words to express. Thank you so much. But I hope you understand, you know, all the things you just said are completely back at you. And I'm really excited about the future.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:06:19.558)
Thank you.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:06:33.887)
Thanks, Sarah. I'm looking forward to it too. Okay, well, think you're... Yeah. Standard close.

Sarah Florer (01:06:42.024)
How are we ending this thing? Should we do our standard? Okay, go. This is a good place to end. So thanks everyone for watching this episode of Alt Investing Made Easy. If you like this episode, please like and subscribe to our channel.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:06:59.573)
And remember everybody, let me try that again. Remember, take aim with your alternative investing strategies.

Sarah Florer (01:07:03.992)
Okay.

Sarah Florer (01:07:08.93)
See you next time.