Wealth Building with Bryon Kibildis: Fiscal Success, Luxury Lifestyles & Investment Strategies

What's the real purpose of your money?

In this episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Bryon Kibildis, a seasoned financial advisor with Pacific Advisors. With 18 years under his belt, Bryon's an expert in helping business owners and individuals navigate the complex world of finance, particularly when it comes to selling assets in a tax-efficient way.

Join us as Bryon shares his personal journey of moving from California to Las Vegas, revealing how this change has positively impacted his business. He dives deep into the crucial need for business owners to have a solid exit plan and emphasizes the importance of comprehensive financial planning.

But Bryon isn't all about numbers and finance; he's got a passion for sailing and has recently indulged in a Japanese sports car. He brings a unique perspective on balancing life's pleasures with smart financial decisions. Bryon stresses the significance of understanding your risk profile and the necessity of constantly reassessing your investment strategies to align with your evolving goals.

Bryon Kibildis is not your average financial advisor. His early years were dedicated to serving military officers and dentists with basic financial planning. Today, he leads a team at Pacific Advisors focusing on Strategic, Effective, and Meaningful transitions for business owners. Bryon's approach is grounded in maximizing income, minimizing taxation, and leaving a lasting legacy.

With a philosophy mirroring his naval officer experience, Bryon believes in a "Crawl-Walk-Run" strategy. His holistic approach ensures well-grounded decisions, helping business owners alter their trajectories for the better.

Tune in for an insightful conversation with Bryon, where we explore the intersection of finance, life experiences, and making informed decisions for a prosperous future.

Key Takeaways:
Business owners often lack a written exit plan and need guidance on the taxation and legal implications of selling their businesses or real estate.
Las Vegas has a humble and generous business community, which makes it easier to connect and build relationships.
It is important for financial advisors to educate clients about the purpose of their money and help them create a meaningful financial strategy.
People should focus on creating experiences and cash flow rather than chasing material possessions.
Understanding one's risk profile is crucial when investing and reassessing investment strategies periodically is recommended.

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Transcript

[TRANSCRIPT]

0:00:00 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm impressed that you did the whole car buying process virtually, it sounds like. Right.

0:00:04 - (Bryon Kibildis): It's a little bit of a risk because you don't really know what you're.

0:00:06 - (Tawni Nguyen): Getting, but it shows up and there's no know.

0:00:08 - (Bryon Kibildis): Well, actually, it's funny. One of the guys that helped me with the import process here, he's an importer himself, and he knows of a guy who purchased one of these cars, I guess, in the past year or two. And somewhere, somehow in the process of going from Japan to Long beach, it had to be an inside job. He goes down to Long beach to pick up his car, and it's not up, it's gone. He's got a bill of lading from the shipper that it left Japan all accounted for.

0:00:34 - (Bryon Kibildis): But somebody showed up in Long beach or some other port, got that car, he never saw the car. And I look over my shoulder and OJ Simpson's right there having a drink. Oh, really? I went, we're good. I was kind of like, nice to see you. It's just funny. I think anyone coming into finance business, if they're not an extrovert or they can't learn to become one, don't even try. You need to get out there and meet people.

0:00:59 - (Tawni Nguyen): Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Fit and Frugal podcast. I am your host, Tawni Nguyen. You can find me on IG at Tawnisaurus today. I'm here with my friend Bryon, who's going to tell you what he does because I'm going to butcher it.

0:01:09 - (Bryon Kibildis): No problem. Thanks, Tawni, for having me. It was a pleasure meeting you here recently at the Stirling club, Las Vegas. Real excited to be here. So thank you. And I'm Bryon Kibildis. Been here in Vegas now just since August. I moved from California. I escaped, as I like to say. My firm, Pacific Advisors, has been a position up and on the west coast. We've got probably 250 advisors. We focus on helping closely held business owners or people that have highly appreciated real estate sell out of those businesses or those real estate in a tax efficient, meaningful way.

0:01:42 - (Bryon Kibildis): And why I think that's important in the community is maybe 80, 85% of all the business owners I've met in my career now for 18 years don't ever show up to the table with a written exit plan. They don't really know what to expect in terms of the taxation, the legal implications, the retirement planning, cash flow. So our role, I think, is to bring the best thinking to the table for the sake of that client, whether it's their CPA estate planning, attorney, business attorney, and just have a meaningful conversation about what it could look like. What are the implications if we do this?

0:02:16 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. It's funny that you brought up your California transplant because I think that's how we connected. Right. And when you said what? How is it different with your business here in Las Vegas versus when you were doing business in California?

0:02:30 - (Bryon Kibildis): That's really good. Gosh, I really think Vegas is night and day difference compared to a lot of other cities I've lived in. I've lived in San Diego for a long time. I lived in south Orange county, which I think. You're from Orange county too, right?

0:02:42 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:02:42 - (Bryon Kibildis): So I don't know. It's interesting, since I moved here just last year, I've gone to a lot of business events, chamber of commerce events, local business events. And I think that there's a humility, there's a humbleness here in the business community. Like, people remember where they came from. I've met people here who are literally billionaires who have built amazing businesses. They put their pants on the same way. They're open to talking and they're just very generous with their time.

0:03:09 - (Bryon Kibildis): And I just find it interesting because the vibe that I got when I was in Orange county for the past seven years or so, it wasn't really that. It was like, what kind of car did you show up in? What kind of watch is know? You had to present this certain aura, and it just may be in my mind, but it really seemed like I was out of place. I'm not trying to be that guy. I just want to do good work and live a good life.

0:03:31 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. I think that California aesthetic life, it is more about showing status quo versus being kind to one another. Right. It's always comparing with your neighbor, like you said, what kind of car, what kind of house do you like? What kind of watches and diamonds you're kind of dripped in? And how has that affected your business since you've moved here?

0:03:54 - (Bryon Kibildis): The introductions I've gotten in the past few months have been really easy just to get into a groove with people and talk about what's important to them. Being in finance, sometimes people ask you what's the best investment, what's going on to the market? And I always like to kind of retort that, let's take a step back. If one doesn't have a, well, grounding for the purpose, for their money in their life, like, what is their money really for?

0:04:19 - (Bryon Kibildis): What causes or family charity, what have you, it doesn't really matter what investment they do because they're just going to be chasing their tail, trying to chase returns or buy the next hot thing. Right. So I like that here. People have given me the grace and opened up to me about what's important to them in their lives. And we've had some really interesting conversations with people who are just starting companies. They're not selling their companies, they're just getting started.

0:04:45 - (Bryon Kibildis): And they're so open to getting good legal help, getting good accounting help, and having us kind of quarterback those conversations has been fun.

0:04:52 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:04:53 - (Bryon Kibildis): We don't discriminate. It doesn't matter if someone has 50 million in their bank account or 50,000. If they want help, they deserve help.

0:04:59 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. So you actually help businesses from day one, too. Right? Like, let's just say if I was to start my business tomorrow, cradle to reach out to you, and if I plan to exit in three to five years, you can make all of those steps possible.

0:05:11 - (Bryon Kibildis): Exactly.

0:05:12 - (Tawni Nguyen): Which is kind of funny, too, because I believe in that, because that's what I did in my 20s, too. I was chasing numbers in my bank account. Right. And it wasn't really like a humbling experience because that's where the burnout and the status driven life came from. And it wasn't until I got here in the last couple of years when I kind of slowed down, reflected on my values and what's important to me. Why am I chasing, like, was I really ever happy? You know what I'm saying? So I think that lifestyle that came with the culture that I was immersed in, which is hospitality, events, being in Orange county, and everyone's always after money and knowing if you've made money, what's your net worth, like, how many things you own, what's your degrees and all of that external achievements. Right.

0:05:54 - (Tawni Nguyen): And moving here, I think it grounded me more as a human being now to. As an entrepreneur, which is hard, because financial instability is the core of something that you have to get used to, is because it's always, like, a thing that you're working towards is now I feel like I'm more fueled by fashion or passion and mission rather than just making a million dollars fast. Right. And that's incredible. How's your lifestyle changed since you moved? Because I saw you.

0:06:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): Let's talk about the car, which is, we have to talk about 33 and we have to talk about your trip to Lake Mead recently.

0:06:36 - (Bryon Kibildis): Tell me more about the lake mead one first.

0:06:38 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:06:39 - (Bryon Kibildis): I almost thought I was going to have to cancel this interview because I spent literally 24 hours in the sun over the past two or three days racing a sailboat in 20 to 25 miles an hour, winds or knots, rather, so that's a little faster. And I just feel really wiped out. I'm really tired today, but I just got here. I feel good now, but it's like this weekend has been intense, and I've been racing sailboats now for, shoot, the first time I got on a sailboat was in 1993.

0:07:06 - (Bryon Kibildis): I was in college and looking for something to do outside of soccer. I played soccer for a college in New York, and the sailing team says, hey, we got some really cool raceboats down here. You want to come out? And I was from Arizona. Yeah. Let me go take a look at his big 35, 40, 45 foot raceboats. I didn't know the bow from the stern. I didn't know what a mast was, a keel, a winch handle. I'm looking at these boats, they go, yeah, just come on out.

0:07:31 - (Bryon Kibildis): And kind of the same idea. We went out on Long Island Sound, and they say you sit in the back of the boat and you manage the running back stays, which are these cables that come off the stern up to the mast. And you can kind of tune the shape of the mast. And it gets very technical. But they said if you mess this job up, the whole mast is going to come down. People could get killed.

0:07:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:07:49 - (Bryon Kibildis): And I'm like, so you're making me do that as my first job on a sailboat. Cool. For whatever reason, nobody wants to do that job. But I did it. And I ended up sailing all through college on 42 foot boats. After I got out, I was in the Navy in San Diego for about twelve years. I was with a bomb disposal unit. So I used to go down and disarm ordnance either on land or under the water bottom moored mines, mines that could be placed on ships.

0:08:18 - (Bryon Kibildis): Our job was to disrupt, neutralize and remove those devices off of navy ships. Yeah. Holy ship, right? There's a lot of pucker factor in that. But when I moved to San Diego, I met one of the navy captains there, and he had a little sport boat. So I instantly got immersed in the San Diego racing lifestyle. And over the years, I just got better at sailing. Better at sailing. And I get calls, I get emails from owners up and down California coast like, hey, I've got a big race coming up. Can you come out and help me race? And so one of the boats I've been racing on now for the past probably four or five years, it's a very fast boat. It's a 44 foot, all carbon fiber, tricked out boat.

0:08:59 - (Bryon Kibildis): It lives in Oceanside harbor. The owner is actually taking it for the first time across the Pacific for a big race at the end of June called the Transpak or Trans Pacific race. And so I'm on that crew now. We'll have seven of us and we'll leave La harbor or not harbor, just south of. I forgot the name of the point. There's a point at the bottom of Calaverde's mountain there. Anyway, that's the start.

0:09:24 - (Bryon Kibildis): And then it's 2200 miles to Honolulu and there's going to be about 60 boats in this race. So this is going to be fun. This is like bucket list material.

0:09:32 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:09:33 - (Bryon Kibildis): Never done a race this big. So, safety gear.

0:09:37 - (Tawni Nguyen): How many days is that?

0:09:38 - (Bryon Kibildis): It's probably about ten days.

0:09:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): Ten days. And you guys pack your stuff just like you're camping, but you're on pretty much in the ocean.

0:09:44 - (Bryon Kibildis): In the ocean, yes. We'll have a water maker. Probably a lot of dry food. I haven't even really looked at the requirements for food yet, but it's going to be. Race boats need to be light, so you can't bring all your creature comforts. You've got to really plan on wearing a lot of the same clothes. You're going to smell like. You know what? When you pull into. Yeah, there's no drinking. It's very serious. People get hurt. And so I know that that first drink, when we pull into Honolulu and they put the layover our necks, when we pull in, they're going to start handing us drinks. I'll be like, drunk within ten minutes.

0:10:12 - (Tawni Nguyen): You're going to be drunk in two minutes with a strawberry daiquiri. Yeah.

0:10:15 - (Bryon Kibildis): It's going to be even girlier, malnourished, dehydrated.

0:10:19 - (Tawni Nguyen): It's going to be something blue or pink in your hand. You're going to be drunk as hell.

0:10:23 - (Bryon Kibildis): But it's going to be a lot of fun. So I know Roy Disney is one of his boats is in this race. We'll be racing against him on a 65 foot Volvo ocean racer boat. He's got. It's a beautiful boat. He'll beat us, but we'll try to track on him.

0:10:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. Sounds like you've had really intense careers. I didn't even know about the bomb thing.

0:10:43 - (Bryon Kibildis): But wait, there's more.

0:10:44 - (Tawni Nguyen): But wait, there's more. How do you stay balanced with that kind of career?

0:10:50 - (Bryon Kibildis): That's a good question. In all honesty, I think one of the things that's helped me kind of develop my passions and really go after them is I'm not married. I don't have kids. Right? Nothing wrong with that. I just found myself after my divorce and trying to have kids for six years, and it never happening. I got to a point in my life where I'm like, do I really need or want to take that on right now?

0:11:12 - (Bryon Kibildis): In all honesty, maybe I might adopt someday. I don't know if I would want to have kids newly at this point, but it's been pretty exciting to focus on business and then get out and do these crazy trips on sailboats and car shows and racing events and stuff. It's been awesome.

0:11:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. Because if you were to have a kid now, I don't think that r 33 would be parked right there.

0:11:32 - (Bryon Kibildis): It has a baby seat in the back.

0:11:34 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like, I don't know how you're going to take your kid around in that car because it's a pretty tiny car.

0:11:39 - (Bryon Kibildis): It's interesting.

0:11:40 - (Tawni Nguyen): What was the siding factor behind that purchase? Is that something that's been on your list for a while?

0:11:44 - (Bryon Kibildis): Yeah. When I visited Japan for the first time in 1993, I saw a Acura NSX when it very first came out. Like, it was two years old at that point. And I had this epiphany. Like, Japan makes some really cool cars and they kind of keep them from us. They don't really export everything. And I hadn't even seen an NSX in the US yet. And I subsequently went back to do some scuba diving in Southeast Asia. And I was coming back through Tokyo, and I had a three day layover, and I discovered r 32, r 33, and the brand new r 34 skyline. That year was, like, 1998 when I did this trip, and I just said myself, my God, yeah, someday, somehow, I want to drive this car. And it was sad because I was actually going to rent one when I was there. I was so excited to do it, but I got ill from something I ate in Singapore, so I was, like, stuck in the hotel for three days. I couldn't go anywhere.

0:12:36 - (Bryon Kibildis): Meanwhile, I'm looking out my window, and I'm seeing all these cool four cars driving around Tokyo, and I'm just stuck. So I did go to the Nissan at the Nismo, one of the shops there, and bought a bunch of know shirts, shifter knobs, a VHS tape. I still have the VHS tape. Remember those?

0:12:53 - (Tawni Nguyen): You might be. No, I remember those. I had to hand rewind them, too, when I was a kid.

0:12:57 - (Bryon Kibildis): Okay, got it. Yeah.

0:12:58 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm not that young.

0:13:00 - (Bryon Kibildis): I want to convert it to dvd, but it highlighted the Skyline series from the beginning. All the way till 1998. And I was like, man, I just love that car. So one popped up recently for sale in Japan through a private dealer. He's got a really good following, very strong history. All the reviews are really good, and he only sells high end Skylines or Toyota Supras and stuff like that. And one popped up that no one seemed to want to buy, and it was just really well sorted out. And I messaged him. I go, I need video, I need audio.

0:13:37 - (Bryon Kibildis): I need to hear this thing be pushed through its paces because you just have a bunch of pictures on your website. Yeah, I don't know what I'm buying. And he revved it all the way to redline, and I heard everything sounded tight, paint and everything was in great shape. It's a 96 car, white with all the carbon fiber trim, the hood, the bonnet, trunk, spoiler, everything. It's just beautiful. And so I basically figured out a way to do the customs and all the paperwork that go with it and got it all set up. I literally flew down to Long beach last week, waited for the ship to come in.

0:14:09 - (Bryon Kibildis): I had to hire a guy that has a special license to get inside the port because they have to bring it out. The cars out to. You can't just go as you. And I couldn't go into the port.

0:14:17 - (Tawni Nguyen): And go pick up our car that's like regular.

0:14:19 - (Bryon Kibildis): Somebody that has a special DHS credential has to go in there and pull it out for you.

0:14:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:14:23 - (Bryon Kibildis): And so it was funny. I got the car. It was filthy, dust, crap all over it, just from the trip. And as I'm driving back from LA to Vegas on Friday night at like 10:30 p.m. Everyone just wanted to race. And I'm just like, I just want to make sure the car runs. People come up next to me, superbikes. I'm going about 75, just chilling out, and everyone wants to race. I'm like, it's going to be like this. Everyone's going to want to race.

0:14:47 - (Tawni Nguyen): Are they surprised when they pull up? It's not an asian dude, but it's a white dude.

0:14:51 - (Bryon Kibildis): I don't know what they think. I was actually expecting the police or the CHP to hit me, but knock on wood, because, you know, in fescuers.

0:14:59 - (Tawni Nguyen): It'S always like overnight parts from Japan, right? But you didn't even get parts.

0:15:02 - (Bryon Kibildis): You got car looked like it was stolen. It had no license plate. It had, like, paint pen on the windshield because they had to write on it. I guess it just looked like a mess. But I got it all cleaned up and I'm starting to drive it more.

0:15:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): Now that I'm here.

0:15:15 - (Bryon Kibildis): And it's a fun car.

0:15:17 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm impressed that you did the whole car buying process virtually, it sounds like. Right.

0:15:21 - (Bryon Kibildis): It's a little bit of a risk because you don't really know what you're getting.

0:15:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): But what if it shows up and there's no motor?

0:15:26 - (Bryon Kibildis): Well, actually, it's funny. One of the guys that helped me with the import process here, he's an importer himself, and he knows of a guy who purchased one of these cars, I guess, in the past year or two. And somewhere, somehow in the process of going from Japan to Long beach, it had to be an inside job. He goes down to Long beach to pick up his car and it's not on the ship, it's gone. He's got a bill of waiting from the shipper that it left.

0:15:49 - (Bryon Kibildis): Yeah, all accounted for. But somebody showed up in Long beach or some other port and got that car and stole. He never saw the car.

0:15:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): So what happens?

0:15:58 - (Bryon Kibildis): He had an insurance policy on it. He got indemnified for what he paid for it. It's just amazing that that happens.

0:16:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. How much does that purchase cost you?

0:16:07 - (Bryon Kibildis): I mean, the heartache and the pain of going through all that. You can buy the insurance policy, I guess, for about 1% of the value of the car. So if it's $100,000 car, $1,000 might give you a full coverage to get from Japan to the US. No Us insurer like Hagerty or any of these other companies will insure the car until it's docked in us.

0:16:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): So anything that has anything of the ocean.

0:16:30 - (Bryon Kibildis): Yeah. If you don't have a policy on it, you're going to eat it. So that was just the whole past month. I was just like, crossing my fingers, hoping nothing would go wrong.

0:16:40 - (Tawni Nguyen): That's what you went to pick up in Long Beach?

0:16:42 - (Bryon Kibildis): I wanted to get on there by myself and make sure that. Yeah, so I was taking tons of photos.

0:16:47 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. So is that your daily now or is that.

0:16:49 - (Bryon Kibildis): No, I've got a little Toyota Tacoma that I drive. That's kind of my fun little daily, but I want to put some miles on the skyline. It's such a fun car to drive. It's hard getting used to this configuration with left hand shifting. In fact, last night I was kind of pushing a little bit and I missed second gear. I grinded. I almost went into third and kind of embarrassing, but getting used to it and then the mirrors. It's a totally different situation.

0:17:16 - (Tawni Nguyen): First time driving a right hand and.

0:17:19 - (Bryon Kibildis): Driving out of LA on a Friday afternoon. And my first time driving this vehicle was somewhat interesting.

0:17:24 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, if you're going to learn that's probably the best playground. That's how you got your cabs workout, right?

0:17:28 - (Bryon Kibildis): It wasn't San Francisco going up those hills.

0:17:31 - (Tawni Nguyen): How are your calves today?

0:17:32 - (Bryon Kibildis): Yeah, actually it's a very smooth clutch, so it wasn't too bad.

0:17:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. That's so cool. I'm kind of glad that I saw.

0:17:39 - (Bryon Kibildis): That take you for a ride. We'll have to go do a little cruise around town.

0:17:42 - (Tawni Nguyen): Hey, can we do this podcast while it's moving? Like one of those.

0:17:46 - (Bryon Kibildis): Yeah, they have those suction cups you can put on the window so you can have your. So the camera can fly at my. Yeah. Cars have always been a thing I try to get involved with, like autocross or carding events. I do a fair amount of carding and then it's interesting. People think NASCAR is kind of basic, but I will share with you. Until you've actually driven a NASCAR, don't knock it. You can rent NASCARs on tracks around the country. One of them particulars in our old neighborhood, kind of, so to speak.

0:18:18 - (Bryon Kibildis): Irwindale. Irwindale speedway.

0:18:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): Okay.

0:18:20 - (Bryon Kibildis): Kind of west of LA, right?

0:18:22 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:18:22 - (Bryon Kibildis): They have a half mile track, and these are Winston Cup 500 hp cars, and they do like a 1 hour class. And then you're out on the track full speed, like going all out. And the level of skill and thought and technique with the brake and throttle and the wheel, it's very choreographed. If you don't get it right, you can go into the wall pretty easy.

0:18:44 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:18:45 - (Bryon Kibildis): So it's fascinating. It's good training for anyone that wants to learn how to become a better driver, especially coming into an off ramp or a situation where you're at high speed and you need to exit. The stuff that I learned on that NASCAR track was invaluable.

0:18:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. I'm just going to keep driving my hybrid past 100, and that's as fast as I'm going to go.

0:19:05 - (Bryon Kibildis): Your hybrid is probably pretty quick. Right? Electric. It just gets up, it's decent.

0:19:09 - (Tawni Nguyen): It gets places when I need to be.

0:19:11 - (Bryon Kibildis): That's good.

0:19:12 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. So I know that you manage a lot of accounts that are, I would say, like high net worth individuals. Right. Of those, do you see a lot of their assets being collectibles, like these types of cars, or how are they spending their money in that area?

0:19:28 - (Bryon Kibildis): That's a good question. Most of these business owners, high net worth, that I bump into are married that have family, and what I notice a lot of them do is they're trying to create experiences for their kids and their wife or their husband, what have you. They do have trips, maybe not a bunch a year, but they try to do one, two, three week where they just check out from the business. They got their executives managing it, and they just go.

0:19:53 - (Bryon Kibildis): And they built a level of autonomy in their business. They can do that. Solo entrepreneur may not be able to really do that initially, but it's funny, I don't have a lot of clients who buy really expensive things. They've been very frugal to kind of credit your name of your program here. Yeah, there's a few of them. How about boats? I kind of chuckle because I realized a lot of times people with money buy boats, but they don't really know how to manage them.

0:20:19 - (Tawni Nguyen): They don't know how to drive a boat.

0:20:19 - (Bryon Kibildis): They don't know how to drive them.

0:20:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): They probably have a guy that drive a boat, right? Yeah.

0:20:22 - (Bryon Kibildis): I could teach them how to charge them a fee for that, but that.

0:20:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): Could be a business. Totally.

0:20:27 - (Bryon Kibildis): Could be another business. But no, it's great. And to look into their world and see what they're concerned about. They're worried about taxation. They're worried about what's going to happen with the next administration. I like to just kind of remind them, doesn't really matter who's in the White House, the Congress, they write the laws. There's always going to be some bonehead rule or law that comes out that's going to impact your business.

0:20:49 - (Bryon Kibildis): For instance, one of my wealthiest clients in terms of revenue from his company, just two years ago, right after this new administration take over, one of his biggest clients was Excel pipeline, Keystone pipeline, oil, transportation. He was a construction guy that would work on all those pipelines. It was a big business for him. And when all that shut down, everything changed. So the past few years, he's been retooling his business, trying to figure out how to create smaller contracts, more opportunities, and they're more transactional, but he's just trying to keep his company going.

0:21:19 - (Bryon Kibildis): It's very difficult. So I always say, whatever you're doing with your money or your business, create flexibility and optionality. So when things change, you can pivot easy. You don't want to be locked into one single strategy and have nowhere to go if everything changes.

0:21:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): I've been hearing a lot about oil, too, especially that it kind of, like, integrates with a little bit of commercial real estate, too. I've been seeing those kind of pop up everywhere. I don't really know much about it. So I don't really know if it's, like, a profitable business just because it has such a bad reputation to it, like, neutral. And all of these guys that we meet at conferences from Texas, right. They're like, oh, we're in the oil industry.

0:22:01 - (Tawni Nguyen): But I don't really understand it. Right. So what have you seen from these oil companies? How are their finance structure versus a small business owner? What's the foundation of how they should set up their business?

0:22:16 - (Bryon Kibildis): That's a good question. I can speak to another. But wait, there's more. Before I came into this business, I actually operated as a third officer on big, huge oil tankers.

0:22:26 - (Tawni Nguyen): Okay.

0:22:27 - (Bryon Kibildis): Arco or Phillips Petroleum. I was driving thousand foot ships across the Pacific, bringing 2 million barrels of crude oil into a port like Long beach. And at that level, I never got to see the books. I never got to see what the company. I just knew they were making a lot of money. I just saw it from the regulatory perspective of how difficult it is, how hard we work with 22 people on 1000 foot ship to keep all the oil in the tanks because things break.

0:22:55 - (Bryon Kibildis): Pumps break, pipelines crack. You're on a ship that's going through the ocean that's twisting and bending as it's going through the ocean.

0:23:02 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:23:03 - (Bryon Kibildis): And things do happen. You have leaks, you have things that just go weird. And so the coast Guard is really fast to get in your business and bust you for having a leak or something, but they just sometimes don't see what goes involved in keeping these ships safe and with a minimal crew. Those 22 people are not all working on the deck. You got about four or five people working in the interim. Four or five people that do the navigation.

0:23:30 - (Bryon Kibildis): And then you have a couple of people that are sort of helpers, squirrels, if you will. And there might be three people in the kitchen in the galley that make food for everybody.

0:23:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:23:40 - (Bryon Kibildis): So you've only got maybe six, seven, maybe eight people that are in a position to really keep all the oil transportation part of the stuff together on 1000 foot ship.

0:23:51 - (Tawni Nguyen): Not as big as, like a cruise ship.

0:23:53 - (Bryon Kibildis): Bigger. Bigger, yeah.

0:23:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): Cruise ship is all I've been on.

0:23:57 - (Bryon Kibildis): Cruise ships are. No, they look big because they have a high center of gravity and they're almost all out of water.

0:24:02 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, right.

0:24:03 - (Bryon Kibildis): But an oil tanker, when it's loaded, is like you might deeper. It might be like from the floor to the ceiling here, maybe like ten or 12ft. That's all the ship that's out of water, 65ft is underwater and it's full of oil. So it's just an interesting business. I don't know where it's all going. I believe that we're going to need oil for a long time, but I'm also a proponent of clean energy. Yeah, I think we need to have all of it, but that's just my opinion.

0:24:32 - (Bryon Kibildis): I can't really speak on the business side for these oil companies, except they do make a lot of money. There's a lot of lobbying, as you can imagine. I have a friend here in Vegas who I met who is an oil import export guy for one of the kings in the Middle East, United Arab Emirates.

0:24:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, wow.

0:24:49 - (Bryon Kibildis): And he manages the import export of oil for that part of the world and it's a very profitable business for him.

0:24:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. So it sounds like you've been through a lot of different ventures as well, like in your own personal career, right?

0:25:04 - (Bryon Kibildis): Yeah.

0:25:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): Do you think anything has changed looking at finances since you were doing bombs, not doing bombs. From your bomb days to your oil day to now, where you're at, has anything changed or how have you grown?

0:25:17 - (Bryon Kibildis): Yeah, that's a good question. I would share this interesting thought. I came into the business for the wrong reasons. I think I stayed in the business for the right reasons. I came into it because I saw friends and people making a ton of money and kind of like what you're talking about, living in the California lifestyle is trying to prove that I could make it. And once I realized that I don't need to prove anything to anybody. I've gone through all this training. I have these designations behind my name, experience.

0:25:44 - (Bryon Kibildis): What am I trying to prove? Just be of service to people. If they're not a good fit, they're not a good fit. Move on. But I think one thing that's really changed that I've noticed since I started in 2005 is when I formally got licensed, products have become more complex. Whether they're investment products or insurance products. The way the market has messaged them or marketed them has confused the public now more than ever.

0:26:08 - (Bryon Kibildis): So I think it's important for advisors in our field to, before showing up with a proposed solution to someone's financial issues with products and illustrations, and really take time to uncover what's really going on for that client and educate them. What's the evolution of like a life insurance policy? What's happened over the past 200 years? How did we get to where we're at today? And what are these companies doing with clients money, investment companies, same thing. We need to know how they're managed, what's their investment philosophy?

0:26:37 - (Bryon Kibildis): Right. And oftentimes I'll find clients who, they're in a particular product. They don't know how it works. They haven't had the education or time with the advisor to really understand it. And then they try to get out of it and they're stuck. It's tough. Sometimes I have to show up and fix things. But education is key. Markets changing, regulation is changing. And I think advisors just need to slow down and talk with the public and really get a sense of how do they think about money? Why is it important to them?

0:27:08 - (Bryon Kibildis): What's their legacy with it? What are they really trying to produce in this lifetime? And only when that's clear can we think about meaningful solutions to money problems.

0:27:17 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, because when you said, it confuses the public whether or not they're marketing their products in a certain way, what do you think they're trying to tap into the psychology of money and understanding the consumer side of how people want their money. Right. What do you think they're promising? Is it financial independence? Is it financial freedom? Because I know those words are used interchangeably, too, because that's pretty popular in the last decade or so.

0:27:43 - (Bryon Kibildis): I think that's what it all ultimately goes to. And there's auto companies, beautifully wonderful auto companies, who've had messaging over the past 20 years like, you deserve this. Well, somebody making 28,000 a year trying to pay off student loans, just struggling to pay the rent, maybe they don't deserve $140,000 BMW right now. But that's kind of the messaging that goes out there. And I think it's tough. People don't know what to really listen to.

0:28:13 - (Bryon Kibildis): We like to say worry in order. So, like initially before, what's really at stake or what's available to you? Let's look at your whole financial world. Let's have a balance sheet or an MRI, if you will, and see where everything's at and stress test it. Where are the threats you face? Do you have credit cards you need to pay off? Our student loans are going to reset, or is there a sunset provision on your mortgage where you're going to have a higher rate? Now, we need to know all these things as they're going to show up.

0:28:39 - (Bryon Kibildis): And then once we have that mapped out, it's easy to kind of help the client. See, how did we get here? Is this what you envisioned? Where do you really want to go? And sometimes there's no new products needed. It's just a conversation. It's about being more efficient with savings. Sometimes they need products. Right. I try to charge fees more often than not because sometimes people aren't looking for a product necessarily, but they want an engagement or a partnership with somewhere. They can just have, like, a subscription fee.

0:29:08 - (Bryon Kibildis): I'll pay you so much per month. You guide me. You be with me. We have quarterly meetings or monthly meetings. We'll take a look at everything. And as we go through time, it's just unlike on a retainer, if you will. If they want to cancel it, that's fine, but at least we've got this connection, and it seems to be a really good model for a lot of people because we have to operate from what we call the fiduciary standard to help people. We can't be just showing up on. Yeah.

0:29:30 - (Bryon Kibildis): Here's your investment. Here's your insurance. You need to buy this. No, it's much more mapped out, thought out. Consultative.

0:29:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:29:42 - (Bryon Kibildis): The question you had before about how has it changed? Or what's the messaging? I think there's two things that people promise out there in the space. And can they do it? Usually, yeah. But I think it's so heavy, it gives people false expectations, if you will, or high hopes. Like, living in a zero tax world kind of doesn't really exist.

0:30:06 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:30:06 - (Bryon Kibildis): Can you help people more tax efficient? Yeah. But to say that, yeah, I'm going to help you convert to a completely zero tax world. I'm going to go live on Mars. Like, how are you going to do that?

0:30:17 - (Tawni Nguyen): Right.

0:30:17 - (Bryon Kibildis): The United States is kind of tough. Or rate of return. It becomes a question about rate of return, like points in a scoreboard. And I like to think of it not as points in a scoreboard or how many zeros do you have in your bank account? It's how much predictable, meaningful cash flow can you produce off your strategy to therefore go on those family trips, do those charitable things you want to do? Like, it's about cash flow. People live in cash flow. They don't live in numbers.

0:30:43 - (Tawni Nguyen): Right. Yeah.

0:30:44 - (Bryon Kibildis): Have you ever met somebody who got a Social Security check and sent it back to the government, says, you know, I really don't need it this month? I'm still waiting.

0:30:53 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, that's another topic we should talk about.

0:30:57 - (Bryon Kibildis): People want cash flow. We call it mailbox Mike. And if the planning doesn't address that, I don't think it's planning. I think they just got sold. A shiny thing.

0:31:06 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. So.

0:31:08 - (Bryon Kibildis): Hope that answered your question.

0:31:09 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. I think that's the glossy american dream that people are sold. And it's a little underrated, too, how little financial education there is out there before people start investing. It's just like the five, I think, pillars that I kind of manage my world around. It's like how you earn, how you save, how you consume, how you spend, and then how you grow it.

0:31:30 - (Bryon Kibildis): Right?

0:31:30 - (Tawni Nguyen): And then lately, in the last couple of years, what I've been learning, talking to people like yourself, is how to protect your money. Because I wasn't really about asset protection, was more about making money. Making money, spending money, accumulating, accumulating. I was like, I need to make more money. I need to make more money. And then I got into growing my money, and then once I grew my money, I'm like, okay, what do I do with it? How do I protect my money?

0:31:50 - (Bryon Kibildis): You became a target, right?

0:31:53 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. And in the IRS.

0:31:55 - (Bryon Kibildis): Why are these people so nice to me now?

0:31:56 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. Why am I paying so much more in taxes? What's happening? I want to be as invisible as possible, right? Because that's ultimately the dream. It's like, how do you tell the bank you make enough money so that you can acquire assets, but how do you tell the IRs you make zero money so you don't pay any taxes?

0:32:13 - (Bryon Kibildis): That's the fine line.

0:32:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): That's the stress test of how I'm living my life. How do you plan for tax strategies like that? Is there, like, a package that you can offer?

0:32:24 - (Bryon Kibildis): We can talk offline.

0:32:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): We can talk offline. Thank you, Brian.

0:32:26 - (Bryon Kibildis): This is supposed to be a general.

0:32:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): Production, not specific advice, not my serious life issues.

0:32:31 - (Bryon Kibildis): You'll get me in trouble if we start talking about specific.

0:32:35 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, no, that's really funny that you brought that up, too. Like, coming from California. What was your, I guess that light bulb moment of saying, I need to get out of here?

0:32:47 - (Bryon Kibildis): Gosh, that's such a good one. I typed up a list of ten reasons to leave California for me.

0:32:54 - (Tawni Nguyen): No way.

0:32:54 - (Bryon Kibildis): And I know three or four of them off top of my head, but the one that really stuck out to me didn't happen until after. I can't. I don't know if this happened to you, but after I moved here and I started meeting business people like you and other people in finance and real estate and whatnot, and when I found how easy it was to connect in the city and how much fun and vibe is here in the business community, it dawned on me, like, two or three months after I came here.

0:33:18 - (Bryon Kibildis): I wasn't really experiencing that kind of vibe in SoCal. I mean, I have good clients there. I have good connections, but here it's just popping. It's like popcorn. There's these events going on almost every week, and I just love getting out, meeting people.

0:33:34 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:33:34 - (Bryon Kibildis): I think anyone coming into finance business, if they're not an extrovert or they can't learn to become one, don't even try. You need to get out there and meet been. It's been eye opening. This whole vibe here has been something else. I'll share a funny little story, and I didn't go there. I didn't talk to the gentleman, but it was funny. I was at a little lounge in Summerlin, like, first week. I moved here last fall, and I'm having my favorite drink, my Moscow mule there at the bar and just hanging out, and I look over my shoulder and OJ Simpson's right there having a drink.

0:34:09 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, really?

0:34:09 - (Bryon Kibildis): I went, we're good. I was kind of like, nice to see you. It's just funny.

0:34:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): Are you guys friends now? Is that one of your.

0:34:17 - (Bryon Kibildis): No, I didn't talk to. I didn't know what to say.

0:34:19 - (Tawni Nguyen): What?

0:34:22 - (Bryon Kibildis): I was kind of starstruck, but I was kind of like, you know what? I think I'm good. No, it's funny who you bump into in the city.

0:34:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, it's funny that you said that because I think I noticed the same thing, too here is that the bubble is kind of real because there it's like, unless you're drinking or you're going to happy hours, you're going to specific networking events, you don't really make any friends here. It's like if someone's aware of what you do or something, and if you pass a vibe check, they're like, oh, I'd love to introduce you to this person and this person, and they automatically connect you while you're not even there.

0:34:55 - (Bryon Kibildis): That's a really good point.

0:34:56 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:34:56 - (Bryon Kibildis): The spirit of giving here is pretty strong.

0:34:59 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like, everyone's a go giver here. Everyone's opportunistic, and if they know this is what you need help with in your business, I've been pointed, and you've gotten good help.

0:35:08 - (Bryon Kibildis): We wouldn't be sitting here if you didn't get good help along the way. Your team here, everyone I've met. Yeah, I'm pretty clear that you didn't try to be the Lone ranger doing all this. You've been getting good help.

0:35:17 - (Tawni Nguyen): And that's what I suffered with, is a solopreneurship in California, because I was doing everything by myself. I was struggling by myself. Like, everything like, every failure, every setback, it was me, me. And me. When I looked at the common dumb, it. I'm like, okay, I got to fix something. And it was me. Right. It's not being abundant to receiving help and opening up, to just asking for help in general, because I just didn't feel like California was very receptive to that kind of energy, because they're all about, like, you got to work hard, the hustle, the grind culture, but no one wants to help.

0:35:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like, they actually probably like it that we were failing and struggling a little bit, because that probably makes them feel a little bit better. Right?

0:35:55 - (Bryon Kibildis): I think my experience of Orange county, it's a beautiful spot. Don't get me wrong. I love it there. But I think we had a similar interpretation of trying to do business in that environment, and I've met some great people down there. I'm still good friends with a lot of people down there, other business people, but funny, one of my best friends from Orange county, his business is in Newport beach. Like, two months after I moved here, he came up to visit, and he just moved here. He's right down the street from me. Yeah. So he still has his company, but he's just like, yeah, I'm out. This is great.

0:36:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): He moved the taxes out of California, right?

0:36:25 - (Bryon Kibildis): Well, his company is domiciled in Vegas, so everything stays here. But he's a neat guy, so I'm drawing more people in from my world.

0:36:33 - (Tawni Nguyen): Good. Okay.

0:36:34 - (Bryon Kibildis): I'm sorry if anyone's from Vegas watching this. Pissed off about all the Californians. Sorry.

0:36:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): No. I have a lot of transplants on the podcast because I love the lifestyle here. I love what we're able to build and connect through here. It's not even just, like, the pains and the growing pains or whatever, but it's because everyone still has the same vision of what they want to achieve here. And there's a lot of philanthropy that's available here. There's a lot of willingness to just share the community here.

0:37:01 - (Tawni Nguyen): In the last year that I've been in real estate changed my life. You know what I'm saying? I've met the greatest people. I've really just attracted to the right kind of frequency. All the conversations I've had, it's just about helping each other grow their business and on more of, like, a human level, too. It just made me better as a human being, just be willing to make more friends. I didn't really have friends when I moved here, so I was by myself for, like, a year, year and a half, and I'm like, I don't know if I'm doing this right until I start making some friends. I'm like, all right, it's not so bad.

0:37:33 - (Bryon Kibildis): You asked that serious question of yourself and things started changing.

0:37:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): Right, exactly.

0:37:37 - (Bryon Kibildis): That's really cool. Yeah, it's got the small town vibe. You look at the pictures of Vegas and it's a big city, it's all this stuff going up, but it really has a small town feel. It kind of feels to me like San Diego did 20 years ago.

0:37:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, I love San Diego.

0:37:50 - (Bryon Kibildis): Yeah, I was there. You know how it is. It's great. So this has been really just a beautiful time here, getting to know you and hearing your story and just really grateful that you were able to bring me on and share mine.

0:38:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): Is there any last advice you would give investors specifically in this?

0:38:09 - (Bryon Kibildis): Okay, general advice?

0:38:10 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, general advice. Volatility of market.

0:38:13 - (Bryon Kibildis): Volatility market. So here we go. It's never a bad idea to reassess one's position in the market, whether it's stock portfolio or bonds or any other form of security. But I find oftentimes people are in a product or in a vehicle, which its level of risk is not in alignment with that investor's personal risk profile. Everyone has a threshold for pain, right?

0:38:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:38:40 - (Bryon Kibildis): And if you're not clear what that is, you shouldn't be buying any financial products. You need to know how that thing could fail, how it's been stress tested, what is it expected to do, what's the standard deviation, if you will, of that vehicle? And so I find a lot of times, people haven't really done that exercise. So whether you go back to your advisor, your agent, and go through a risk profile, make sure that what you invested in is that's your long term strategy, that's what you really want, and you can stomach the expected variation that that could present.

0:39:10 - (Bryon Kibildis): Now, generally speaking, as people get older, their risk profile tends to kind of tailor off. And sometimes you have people who haven't talked to their advisor or their agent, what have you, in years, and they're in a very high risk portfolio, and all of a sudden they get to retirement and things are just going crazy. They haven't really addressed it.

0:39:26 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:39:26 - (Bryon Kibildis): And then there's the tax side of planning and family. You don't know how many times people bring a trust, a family trust in for review, and our legal team might look at that, and meanwhile, they've had two more kids or there's been a divorce or like, yeah, you really got to stay on top of this stuff. So it's never a bad idea to do a review, just have a conversation. We're not trying to sell everybody. We're just trying to get good information out there, help people. And there's been times where people have come to my team to look at their stuff, and I'm like, this is really good work.

0:39:56 - (Bryon Kibildis): Why are you coming to us?

0:39:58 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:39:58 - (Bryon Kibildis): I have no intention of disrupting this individual's relationship with you. And sometimes people would say, I just want to get a second opinion.

0:40:05 - (Tawni Nguyen): Okay.

0:40:05 - (Bryon Kibildis): And if you think it's good work, that's great, and that's cool, that's fine. And I might ask somebody that's not willing to have their stuff reviewed. Are you confident enough in your advisor to get a second opinion?

0:40:19 - (Tawni Nguyen): Wow.

0:40:20 - (Bryon Kibildis): And I'll let them think about that for a minute.

0:40:22 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:40:23 - (Bryon Kibildis): If they're not confident enough, then maybe if they're confident enough, they should still get a second opinion. You never know. Not everyone's an expert in everything, and sometimes things get missed. That's my message. Just stay on top of your game.

0:40:37 - (Tawni Nguyen): I agree. I really like that transparency as a fiduciary responsibility. It's just not always about getting clients, but making sure that they're on the right path to whatever wealth they're creating. Right. Yeah.

0:40:49 - (Bryon Kibildis): That confidence is a huge factor, and that's part of our messaging, in our corporate marketing, is path of confidence. I'm glad you said that. If we can give you confidence in your life to do what you want to do, that's more valuable than a rate of return.

0:41:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): Right.

0:41:05 - (Bryon Kibildis): So that's great. Good question.

0:41:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. I just want to acknowledge you for being here with me, like, just being open with your life and how it's changed. We're both California transplants. We came here, we're hoping to make an impact in the community and just grow our business as well as our social circle. And it's nice to have other friends here.

0:41:24 - (Bryon Kibildis): Can't do this, so. Yeah, absolute pleasure.

0:41:26 - (Tawni Nguyen): Of course.

0:41:27 - (Bryon Kibildis): Nice to see you.

0:41:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): That was so gangster. Yeah. So where can we find you social media? Is there Facebook? Your phone number, please.

0:41:36 - (Bryon Kibildis): Yeah, no phone numbers. My name is a mouthful. It's tagged onto my corporate website.

0:41:43 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'll make sure.

0:41:44 - (Bryon Kibildis): My corporate website is pacificadvisors.com. It's sort of the general one with my name on the back. Bryon Kibildis.

0:41:50 - (Tawni Nguyen): Nice.

0:41:51 - (Bryon Kibildis): You can put the link in the podcast.

0:41:53 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'll make sure I plug everything proper.

0:41:55 - (Bryon Kibildis): Yeah. So it's great. Thank you.

0:41:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): Cool. Well, thanks for tuning in to the Fit and Frugal Podcast I am Tawni Nguyen, your host. You can find me on IG at Tawnisaurus. Bye.

0:42:05 - (C): This podcast is intended for general public use. By providing this content, Park Avenue Securities, LLC and your financial representative are not undertaking to provide investment advice or make a recommendation for a specific individual or situation or to otherwise act in a fiduciary capacity. Fit and Frugal, LLC is not affiliated with or endorsed by Park Avenue, Guardian or Pacific advisors and opinions stated are their own.

0:42:29 - (C): Bryon is a registered representative and financial advisor of Park Avenue Securities, LLC, OSJ 2875 Michelle Dr. #110, Irvine CA 92606. Securities Products and advisory services offered through Park Avenue securities member FINRA SIPC, financial representative of the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, New York, New York. Park Avenue securities is the wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian Pacific Advisors is not an affiliate or subsidiary of Park Avenue or Guardian.

0:42:56 - (C): Pacific Advisors is not registered in any state or with the US securities and Exchange Commission as a registered investment advisor. Insurance products offered through one Pacific Financial and Insurance solutions, LLC DBA of Pacific Advisors, LLC. Pacific Advisors, LLC is not registered in any state or with the US securities and Exchange Commission as a registered investment advisor. California Insurance License number Low 1825 202-315-5247 Expiry 525.