Aug. 5, 2025

118: $20K+ monthly income from a $3M portfolio, here’s how…

118: $20K+ monthly income from a $3M portfolio, here’s how…

What if you could generate over $250,000 in annual income from a $3 million portfolio — without selling assets and paying less than $10,000 in taxes?

That’s exactly what I’ve structured through the Evergreen Income Framework, designed for people who feel stuck in the middle: too wealthy for typical advisors, but not quite large enough for traditional family offices. If you’re sitting on $1 million to $30 million in assets, you’ve likely felt this gap.

Most financial advice follows the outdated growth and drawdown model — work for decades, invest in index funds, then start selling pieces of your portfolio to fund retirement. The problem? You expose yourself to inflation, market volatility, and eventually asset depletion.

Instead, I focus on asset operation, not accumulation. The Evergreen model targets income-producing investments:

  • Private equity real estate like commercial buildings, self-storage, and mobile home parks
  • Private credit offering monthly cash flow
  • Energy infrastructure with special tax advantages

These assets generate strong cash-on-cash returns, typically in the 8–12% range. Combined with smart tax strategies — such as depreciation and depletion allowances — it’s possible to reduce your effective tax rate to as low as 3–5%.

I also walk through risk management, diversification across geography and asset types, and maintaining liquidity buffers for both safety and opportunity. With a clear operational cadence, including quarterly income reviews and annual rebalancing, the goal is to create a system that generates predictable income and long-term wealth.

This is exactly how ultra-wealthy families operate. The difference isn’t just the assets — it’s the system. They build family offices to manage investments, taxes, risk, and estate planning as one unified platform. But until now, those tools were only accessible to those with $50M+.

That’s why I created the Micro Family Office framework — bringing the same structure to professionals managing between $1M and $30M.

This includes:

  • Investment architecture to access private markets
  • A tax engine that integrates with your estate planning
  • Operational infrastructure for performance tracking and decision-making
  • A continuous improvement loop with quarterly reviews and market updates

If you’ve built a career mastering complex systems, this approach makes sense: treat your wealth like a business, with reliable income, strong risk management, and a structure that can be passed on for generations.

You’re not just creating a portfolio — you’re building a financial engine designed to grow, compound, and operate independently of public market swings.

Transcript
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[SPEAKER_00]: What if I told you that with a three million dollar portfolio, you could generate two hundred and forty thousand dollars in annual income and pay less than ten thousand dollars in taxes?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And you could also pass this on to future generation.

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[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a high earner with one million to thirty million dollars in assets, but feel stuck in the financial dead zone to wealthy for standard advisors and not wealthy enough for traditional family offices, this breakdown is specifically for you.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Christopher Nelson.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I've been through three IPOs and I manage a seven million dollar portfolio that covers all my family's essential expenses without touching the principle.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I've been both a GP, general partner, allocating capital, and a limited partner investor.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I've seen both sides of private equity.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Today, I'm showing you the exact income framework

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[SPEAKER_00]: I use in my own portfolio and funds.

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[SPEAKER_00]: These are the same strategies ultra wealthy families used to generate consistent returns without selling assets.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, my lawyer told me to tell you this is not advice.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is education on things that have worked for me and other high net worth individuals for information purposes only.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now that we have that out of the way, let's start by examining the conventional wisdom that most financial advisors push.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I call the growth and drawdown model.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Here's how it works.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, you work for thirty or forty years accumulating assets, building equity.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, you invest primarily in index funds and growth stocks.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Number three, you build a large portfolio balance.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Then number four, you retire and begin systematically withdrawing it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This model relies entirely on the four percent rule where you're withdrawing four percent annually and hoping that your money lasts twenty five to thirty years.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's run some actual numbers.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So if you have a three million dollar portfolio with a four percent withdrawal, that's going to give you a hundred twenty thousand dollars a year gross income.

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[SPEAKER_00]: However, if you take out twenty five percent for taxes, especially if you're living in California, New York, that's going to be a nine thousand dollars net income.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Plus, you're liquidating a hundred twenty thousand dollars of your portfolio annually.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So here are some real problems with this drawdown portfolio approach.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The sequence of return risks, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: If the market drops or doesn't grow, you're accelerating your drawdown.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There's also inflation erosion.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You're purchasing power decreases over time.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is more important to understand now in a high inflation environment, more than ever.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's asset depletion.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You're essentially consuming your own wealth with this model.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is tax inefficiency.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There is no optimization for any of your tax drag.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So think of this like building a massive water tank and slowly draining it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: If it doesn't rain again, if the markets don't perform, you're still consuming your reserves.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's examine how the ultra wealthy families actually structure their portfolios.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I call the Evergreen Income Framework.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of focusing on asset accumulation, this focus is on asset operation.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You're not building a pile of money, you're building an income generating system.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is based on four key pillars.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Pillar one, asset selections, target eight to twelve percent yields, cash on cash returns.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is going to include private equity real estate, think commercial real estate, industrial buildings, rent to own complexes, mobile home parks and self storage.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There's also private credit.

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[SPEAKER_00]: senior debt and specialized credit instruments that are financing investments and giving you cash flow month over month, cash flowing operating businesses that generate monthly incomes and also energy investments with special depreciation benefits.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Pillar II is a tax optimization strategy.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We use depreciation from real estate and other investments that writes off against your passive income.

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[SPEAKER_00]: These depreciation allowances from energy investments, those write off against your active income, carried interest treatment from certain investments where applicable, all of these creates strategic loss harvesting that offsets your gains.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Pillar III is risk management.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This means diversification across asset classes and sponsors.

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[SPEAKER_00]: She have graphic diversification, so you're not concentrated in a single market.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, vintage year diversification of your private investments to make sure you're clear on when summer coming free for more cash flow and always maintaining ten to fifteen percent liquidity buffer so that you can have safety and opportunities.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Pillar four, the most important is an operational cadence, conducting quarterly income distribution reviews and asset value reviews, annual portfolio rebalancing to maintain your target allocations and ongoing due diligence processes for any new investments.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then also making sure you're regularly tax planning with your team to reduce that burden as much as possible.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Let me give you a real allocation example of a three million dollar evergreen income portfolio structure.

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[SPEAKER_00]: One point two five million in private equity real estate where you're looking for a blended eight percent cash on cash return.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That would give you one hundred thousand dollars in annual income.

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[SPEAKER_00]: then you allocate one million dollars to private credit giving you a ten percent cash on cash return that would be another hundred thousand dollars in annual income.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Then you would allocate five hundred thousand dollars to energy infrastructure giving you a higher twelve percent yield and that would provide you a sixty thousand dollars annual income.

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[SPEAKER_00]: two hundred fifty thousand dollars is for liquidity and growth buffer.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This would give you a total annual income of two hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The great news is you've reduced your tax impact.

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[SPEAKER_00]: With your real estate depreciation is shielding seventy five thousand dollars.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Possibly higher with some of the new tax treatment today.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Energy Depletion allowances protecting additional

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[SPEAKER_00]: twenty five thousand dollars dropping your effective tax rate from twenty five percent to three or five percent.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This gives you after tax income of two hundred and fifty five thousand dollars and here's the key difference.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You haven't sold anything.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Your money is still deployed.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You still have your original capital value.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Your principal continues growing while generating this consistent income.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is like owning a portfolio of profitable SaaS businesses.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They generate predictable recurring revenue.

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[SPEAKER_00]: while the underlying value compounds.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Let me break these down for you side by side.

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[SPEAKER_00]: First, the traditional drawdown model.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Annual gross income, a hundred twenty thousand dollars, but this comes via asset sales.

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[SPEAKER_00]: After tax income, approximately ninety thousand dollars after you pay those taxes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Principal impact, your portfolio balance is declining annually.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's market risk, high risk,

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[SPEAKER_00]: due to a sequencing of return problems.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's tax efficiency.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Minimal optimization, you pay full rates.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's compare that to the Evergreen model.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Annual gross income.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Two hundred sixty thousand dollars from operational income.

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[SPEAKER_00]: After tax income is approximately two hundred fifty five thousand dollars.

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[SPEAKER_00]: After you get the tax benefits from depreciation, principal impact, your portfolio stays stable or keeps growing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Market risk.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a moderate risk due to the diversified income streams and the different asset classes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Tax efficiency is high.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You have an aggressive use of depreciation and depletion allowances.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The bottom line here is very clear.

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[SPEAKER_00]: One model might fund a basic retirement.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The other funds true independence today and builds generational wealth for your family.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't theoretical.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We have hard data on how families with twenty million plus in assets actually allocate their wealth.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Here is Tiger twenty one data from Q three twenty twenty three.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Thirty percent was invested in private equity twenty five percent in real estate.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Fifteen percent in private credit and only twenty percent in public equities.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They're not hoping the S&P performs.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They're building diversified income systems that operate like businesses.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But here's what most people miss.

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[SPEAKER_00]: These families are just picking different investments.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They're operating completely different systems.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is what we call a family office.

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[SPEAKER_00]: A family office is essentially the operating system for significant wealth.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It includes an investment committee process, tax optimization strategies, risk management protocols, performance measurement systems, and then also integrating that with a state planning.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's the challenge.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Most of these family office systems have been locked away behind massive minimum requirements.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where most high word net worth professionals get stuck.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know you need something more sophisticated than basic wealth management.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But traditional family offices require fifty or a hundred million dollar minimums.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So this is why we developed the micro family office framework bringing together institutional level wealth management practices to professionals with one million to thirty million dollar portfolios.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This system includes four key components.

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[SPEAKER_00]: First, investment architecture.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This gives you private market access and due diligence processes, portfolio construction methodologies that actually work, and then also proven risk management framework.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Second, there's the tax optimization engine.

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[SPEAKER_00]: entity structuring strategies to minimize your tax burden, depreciation maximization techniques we talked about earlier and then also full estate planning integration so that you're not just giving your children a collection of assets but you're giving them a fully functioning business.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The third is operational infrastructure.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is a performance tracking system, so you know exactly how you're doing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then also an investment committee process for helping make smart decisions.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then also including professional teams and coordinate with them to keep everything running smoothly.

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[SPEAKER_00]: In fourth, there is a continuous improvement loop, quarterly performance reviews to stay on track.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Annual strategy adjustments based on market changes and ongoing market opportunity evaluation.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Think of this like building your own internal platform team for wealth management.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same systematic approach you'd use for any critical business function.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I know what some of you are thinking.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What about liquidity?

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[SPEAKER_00]: The framework maintains ten to fifteen percent in liquid assets.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Plus, most private credit investments have quarterly liquidity options after a curing period.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What about complexity?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, this requires more sophistication than index fund investing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But you don't build your career by taking the simple path.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You build it by mastering complex systems.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What about risk?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the investment risk is the same.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You need to find quality investments wherever you're investing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Risk to your retirement in capital is less as you get paid and are diversified across asset classes in income sources.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You're not dependent on market timing or sequence of returns to make your paycheck.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This sounds different from what everybody else does.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Most people follow conventional wisdom and get conventional results.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The family's building generational wealth operate differently.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There's also the implementation framework.

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[SPEAKER_00]: If this approach resonates with you, here's how to evaluate whether it fits your portfolio situation.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Step one, portfolio audit, calculate your current after tax yield from your existing investments.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Identify which assets are growth-focused versus income-producing and assess the tax efficiency of your current structure.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Step two, access evaluation, determine your total investable asset level, assess your risk tolerance and investment time horizon, and evaluate your current professional relationships and team.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Step three, systems design,

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[SPEAKER_00]: create your targeted allocation framework based on your goals, establish your operational process and decision-making structure, and build your professional team of advisors and specialists.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Step four, implementation planning, develop a realistic transition timeline that works for your schedule and identify your first investments to get started and establish measurement and adjustment protocols to track your progress.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't something you implement overnight, but once you have a framework in place, it becomes your wealth operating system for life.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the fundamental question, every sophisticated investor faces.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Are you building a portfolio you'll eventually consume?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Or are you building a wealth system that generates income indefinitely?

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[SPEAKER_00]: One approach might fund your retirement.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The other funds your independence in your family's future.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The ultra wealthy chose long ago.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They build systems, not just portfolios.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Look, if you have one million to thirty million dollars in net worth and you're tired of hoping your money will last, I've created a complete breakdown of the evergreen income framework.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm walking through the specific asset classes, tax strategies and implementation timeline.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I use with my own portfolio in a free training session.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Head to wealthobst.io or click the link below this video to dive in.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You'll see exactly how to build your own microfamily office and start generating consistent monthly income from your portfolio.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to learn more about how to operate your wealth as a business, check out this video on starting your own microfamily office.