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039 | What 10 Years as a CFP Taught Me About You and Your Money · The Chiro Money Show

• Chris: Welcome back to the Cairo Money Show, where we're helping chiropractors make better financial decisions so they can build stability in their finances and a lifestyle that they love. We're your hosts Chris Scheel and Scott Campbell, financial planners with Align Wealth. Scott: How are we doing, Chris? Chris: Doing good man. Summer summer vacation is upon us. Scott: Dead. Yeah. Mosquito season. Chris: Yeah, mosquito season here in Alberta. Yep. No it's crazy. Scott: Never seen it so bad. Question for you, I'm sure other parents would appreciate this question. How much how much afterbite and or calamine lotion are you applying to your kids right now? Chris: ⁓ yeah, the the bite the bite stuff is like on the counter as soon as you walk into the house. There's a lot of complaining going on. Yep. Scott: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I feel like our kids are pr like intentionally like they're waking up earlier than they expect to wake up because of Vigibug bites, mosquito bites, and yeah. Fun times. Yeah. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Scott: Our daughter actually was ⁓ ver apparently feeling very compassionate and have has empathy towards the mosquitoes. Like they're she's almost feeling like it's okay that they bite me 'cause apparently she's on in the understanding that it's just gonna help the babies baby mosquitoes, so she's welcoming the mosquito bites. Encourage it. Yeah. I guess so. Very carried. ⁓ Doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt daddy. Chris: Mm. She's trying to she's trying to advance the mosquito population. Yeah. Ver very caring person. So s she doesn't kill any of them that land on her. Yeah. Just just swipe it off, maybe. Or maybe let it bite you. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yep. Yep. Scott: That's right. Yep. Summer's upon us. We're looking forward to it. Yeah, hopefully get some ⁓ more sun. It's meant so much rain here in Alberta. It's crazy. But yep. Chris: Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. Scott: So, what do we get into today? Chris: Yeah. We're gonna celebrate you. Well Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Scott: Without without talking about me. Just a fun a fun milestone today. Tomorrow. I guess it's today when this show comes out. It'll be July 1st, so as of Chris: Look that. Yeah, we're gonna talk about talk about your first ten years as a certified financial planner. Scott: That's right. Yeah, it wasn't long ago that I was looking I have my CFP certification behind me on the wall and noticed the other day that ⁓ yeah, July first, twenty twenty s twenty sixteen was ⁓ when I officially got my CFP marks and it's crazy that a decade has has flown by with ⁓ with that credential. It's wild. Chris: Yep. Yeah, man. It's gonna be fun. Talk about it. We'll see. ⁓ yeah. I got s we got some good questions here to ask you. Obviously. We're we're focusing on your your ten years of experience with this and ⁓ I think a lot of this will also be interesting for our listeners to hear of like how things may have changed over that period of time and like you know, what what's some of the common conversations you've had over that time or, you know, your learnings ⁓ over the years. Scott: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, of course, at the end of the day we want to make this conversation of value to to you, the end listeners. So how could we talk about what I've kind of learned here as a CFP of ten years now and what's what I knew back then, what I think differently maybe now, how how the industry has changed, how financial planning has changed over the last decade. I have my take on it. I'll let you weigh in a bit bit too for sure. So for sure. We'll get you in there. Chris: ⁓ I get to weigh in too. Cool. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Should we dive in? All right. I get first question for ya. What did you think it meant to be a financial planner back then versus what you think of it now? Scott: Yeah, let's do it. I'll go back first before I even got my CFP. So I got my CFP in 2016. I got into the industry in in part take thanks to my mom, who was in the financial services industry for 30 plus years. So I got in around 2000 or 2011, 20, 2012. And especially over those first four or five years before getting my CFP, I really thought that it was it was the products that really drove a financial plan, like the insurance that you needed and or the investment products that you needed. I thought that was the basis of a f a financial plan. Maybe there's some like projections in there in terms of like if you implement this product and have this return and project that over the course of 30 years, are you gonna hit some sort of goal with a few assumptions? Like that was kind of the basis of what I thought financial planning was way back then. But I have a different take on it now. Chris: Mm. Well that's kind of well, yeah, that's kind of what the industry told us it was. Wouldn't you agree? Scott: Yeah, for sure. I th and I I don't wanna fault where the industry was and I th I I think it's evolved so much over the last decade or two. It like it's come so far in in a lot of ways, but back then it was kind of like in order to access the markets and like get get your dollars invested, even if they weren't ideal, like you needed in a lot of cases to go through some form of financial advisor to get access to a product. So they were almost like a gatekeeper in a lot of ways in terms of like getting that access. So you needed an advisor to get the products that you needed to fulfill what whatever the goal was in terms of whether it be short term or long term, right? Insurance or investments. Chris: Mm-hmm. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, if we go back not not too long ago, like back in the stockbroker days, like you you literally needed somebody, you needed a broker in order to place a trade for you because there was no way to access it any differently. So if you wanted to get invested, you needed a broker and they one hundred percent were like a acted like a gatekeeper to access investing. And insurance was no different. Scott: Yeah. Chris: But now, as most of our listeners probably know, there's direct access, right? There's there is no no more gatekeeper. Like you can, if you wish to, access investments directly through self-directed investing. ⁓ there's even insurance where you can, you know, basically apply online directly without going through, you know, and and and working through that with someone. Scott: Yeah. Chris: Whether that's the right move for most people or not is a different story, but it's interesting how the the the industry has changed and evolved to ⁓ you know, basically give consumers direct access if they want it. Yeah. Scott: Yep, for sure. Yeah. So over the years it's it's it became it became more and more apparent that over the years that yeah, first and foremost, products were not the plan. Like In our perspective now, products are necessary to complement a more comprehensive plan. Like after the plan has been made and we understand what the needs are for certain things, like certain insurance products, for example, or finding the right investments. Like at the end of the day, you need some sort of investment product, be that a low-cost index fund or a low-cost mutual fund or whatever the case might be, you need those products to support the financial plan, right? But it's not the financial plan itself. Right. I think Chris: Yeah. Just like insurance. You need the insurance. The insurance is not the plan. Scott: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think my my biggest my biggest maybe change in terms of the value of a financial planner now versus what it was ten, fifteen years ago is I think at the time when I got my CFP in twenty sixteen, I truly thought like I would have been I would have been ⁓ twenty-nine years old when I got my CFP in July of twenty sixteen. I I honestly thought back then that like once you got your CFP marks, that like you had made it, like you had the technical expertise, you went through all the coursework, all the exams, you went through your experience to get the CFP. At that point it's like y you have the credentials, like you can do it all. But what I realize now is that you do need experience. You do need to have the reps, the hours and hours of conversations, of meetings that we've had over the last decade to really one, become a really great communicator, taking really complex ideas and data and information and bring that down to a simple, easy-to-understand levels of concepts for clients to then absorb and actually take that advice and those recommendations. and go implement it with our help, of course, right? So I think like especially with what we're say what you were saying earlier, like you don't need to go through an advisor to get access to investments or even insurance products these days. So if you're gonna if you're gonna make a choice to hire a good financial planner, I think, in my opinion, like those credentials are kind of like the table stakes, like having the technical the technical chops, the expertise there, like that's like the baseline. You need to have that because in a world of AI and technology these days, like you need to just have that as a good understanding, sure that you're committed to the profession, that you know your stuff. What I think the intent like the intangibles are is like, are you a good communicator? Can you explain things simply? Do you have empathy? Do you have compassion? Do you create do you do you give that dedication of time and attention to each of your your clients and truly care about their success? That's I think where the value is in terms of what financial planning is today. And where it's it's I think it's only gonna get more more and more in that area where that's what people hire an advisor for, with what's what you can do with technology and AI, the ⁓ Chris: Mm-hmm. Scott: Yeah. Chris: Yeah, I was just gonna mention that too. Like with in this AI era, like there's so much information that that's available and accessible and you know, for that matter there's even like DIY financial planning platforms and and you know s ⁓ software that that individuals can use. So as that continues to grow and get more popular I think it's on us as advisors to even leverage that tech, leverage that AI to give our our clients a better experience. Scott: Yep. Hundred percent. Chris: Yeah. Alright, so ten years is is quite some time, Scott. Like there's probably some common ⁓ trends or or ⁓ yeah, maybe things you've you you continually are talking about. Can you think of ⁓ conversations or like what types of conversations you've had the most most often? Scott: I think the conversation that I've had with pretty much anyone I've crossed paths with from a planning perspective all circles back to cash flow. Cash flow management, both in your business and on the personal side, is just it's just it's paramount to I think overall financial success. It starts there. You can have all the right investments and strategies and plans and you can have all those things in place, but if you don't have your cash flow under control, like it it gets it just gets messy, right? And that's something that I that's something that's kind of interesting is that going through the CFP studies and and doing all those exams, they don't really talk about cash flow management at all. Like it's not really part of the curriculum. Maybe it is today, I'm not sure. Chris: Yeah. It is more so, but I still don't think it goes into the level of detail that ⁓ you know, is r is required, is necessary. Scott: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Back in back when I launched my fin financial planning practice back in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen or so, even at that point I recognized that early on that Working with small business owners, at that time it was kind of a lot of different types of business owners, is that your business is it's the engine that's going to fuel what you want to accomplish from like a financial goal standpoint to support the life that you want to live. So having a having clear cash flow management system in the business to to rely on, to lean on, to support your goals, to get you to where you want to go, so crucial. Yep. Definitely the conversation we've had the most times over years. Chris: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, I would make a bold statement to say if you're if you've worked with an advisor or planner and and you you haven't focused on personal cash flow, y you know, they're missing the boat. Like it's not acceptable. Anything you want in life, like, yeah, we can we can have these dreams and visions and goals and you know be thinking about what we're trying to achieve. The way that we're ultimately gonna get there is by Scott: Yep, for sure. Chris: Allocating our resources towards achieving those things. And simply put, that's what cash flow planning is in our eyes. It's an allocation of those financial resources towards achieving those goals. If you're not intentional with that, if you're not aware of where the money's going, how are you possibly going to achieve that goal? I mean, sometimes we can luck out and get there. Scott: Yeah. Chris: But do we want to leave life up to luck or do we want to actually do what we can you know, control what we can? Obviously there's a lot we can't control, but let's control what we can to try to achieve that goal. Cause we only get one life. We should go and live it. Scott: Yep. Cash flow is such a great way ultimately to kinda optimize and and prioritize. Chris: Totally. Yep. Alright, so do you find lately people are coming to you, coming to us more informed, like more aware of like the financial options available to them, or is it actually the opposite of that? Or or is there any noticeable change? Scott: I'll give you my take. This is definitely one that I'll love to hear what your thoughts are too, Chris. But I think overall people are coming to us more informed. I think they are better researched in terms of whether it's using Google or using some sort of AI model to ask questions to. I think people are more aware of of their options. Like I think generally speaking, more people are getting more aware that like paying really high fees on their mute on their on their investments is not ideal, for example. More people are aware that ⁓ I don't know that there's a lot of more tools and tools out there to help with like say budgeting, for example. If you if you like that that wasn't necessarily as around as much ten years ago as it is now. So I think people are Coming to us, maybe a bit more informed, if you want to say it like that, but I still think that what they are coming to us in from a When they meet us where they're at, they're still oftentimes very disorganized. Like they might be informed, but they still have a lot of different things going on in their financial life. I often use that that reference of like the financial juncture of just like stuff, like financial stuff that's going on in their life, and that's still like they don't know how to piece that all together. Even with more information and more ways to get answers, they still feel like I still don't know how to put this all together and make sense of it to actually apply it to me and help me move forward. That's what I that's what I feel like. have been experiencing. What about you? Chris: Yeah, yeah, I would agree. I I I would agree completely. The ⁓ the information is more readily available. More people have access to it, they're using tools like AI to to to go through some of these scenarios or or you know, consider their situation, but they don't have most in most cases they don't have the the ability or the means to synthesize and and analyze all of those different various things and and put that together in a cohesive like it's working together. A lot of the times it's so segmented, it's like, okay, well, I did this research, I've from an investing standpoint, I heard that investing in my TFSA is the best place to be. But then that's not tied to their compensation strategy from their corp, and they're maybe missing an opportunity by how they're compensating themselves, like if they're paying theirself salary versus dividends, and maybe they've done that analysis too and it's like, ⁓ well it makes more sense to pay dividends. ⁓ But then we're not including CPP and then we don't get that RSP room by paying ourselves salary. And then therefore if we're paying salary, RSP might make more sense over TFSA. So it's like we can see how a a segmented idea like that might seem optimal is actually not when we zoom out and consider the whole picture together. And I think we're we're seeing that often. Scott: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. For sure. And when you're when you're in that kind of disorganized state of like making these one off decisions, it's kind of like you're often going going through life, just making a series of hopefully like well informed like tr you're trying to make the best decision you can at the moment, but it's kind of yeah, it's more reactionary. Like I have a I have a problem or I think I have a problem. I research that problem and try and to apply it where what we're trying to do is bring in all the collective pieces with both what's going on in your practice and the corporate side of things and all that stuff with personal and spouse and kids and lifestyle goals now with also balancing what you want out of life over the long haul. Like there's a lot of things to take into consideration, right? Yeah. Chris: Sure. You could just keep going down this list? Yep. Okay. Scott: Yep. Chris: Alright Scott, so what can you do for a client today that just wasn't possible ten years ago? Like what's what's changed with that? Scott: When I say what we can do for clients today that we can't do ten years ago, this is may not be every financial planner out there. we're very, very proudly in the camp of like leveraging and becoming ⁓ we'll just call it straight out nerds when it comes to leveraging AI and the abilities of what AI can do for us. Chris: That's fair. Scott: Man, it's crazy what what we couldn't do then, what we can do today. Even if we just start from a simple standpoint and think about having the ability like we love seeing clients face to face when possible, but a lot of our meetings now are of course online. That was really largely driven by by what happened in 2020 with COVID and kind of driving people to meet more online. We're more efficient, we have note takers in our meetings, that that summarizes meetings, that keeps everyone on track, on task. Like when we have you know, if we look into our our client what's called a CRM, a client relationship manager, we have all these all this meeting history. So it's easy for us to be like, what have we talked about with client so and so over the last year or so? And it can synthesize all that information that we've kind of discussed. Like, that's powerful to have that data versus just what you kinda scribble down on a notepad during a meeting and then trying to rely off of memory. That, man. That first of all, like that's and that's just kind of the basic level of like potentially utilizing AI to to help you deliver a better better client experience. But even more so today, like what we've what we're finding more and more is that we can take very complex ideas, we can take a lot of data and synthesize that very quickly in terms of analyzing it and then putting it into a deliverable for a client so that they really understand from a very simple standpoint of what we're trying to relay to them from a data or Chris: I suck at that. Scott: informational standpoint and then what the advice is that we would want to make or recommendations based on that analysis, right? Like the ability to do that very quickly and succinctly now. We just couldn't do that ten years ago. Chris: No, it's crazy. Like, you know, there's there's some templated calculators and things we can use and and that's been pretty commonplace in the industry over over the years for you know calculating, you know, whether that be an insurance need or something from a planning perspective of like accumulating assets, whatever that might be. It is im it is so impressive to me and like you you've done such a great job with this Scott with utilizing AI and and getting a clear visual that is just so like clients have such a hard time understanding all of this data and when we can boil it down to like here's one visual and we can drag something My goodness. Scott: Kids are home for summer. You were saying. When you're able to drag, yeah, whatever. Chris: I'm just gonna start that whole thing over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I just find it so impactful that like we can take all that data and turn it into a visual that a client can see and understand. Right? Like when we're just talking numbers, like not everybody is a numbers person where they can look at those numbers and understand and and like have it instantly click for them. But when it's a visual when it's visually represented and we can maybe like have some tools where we can drag, drag and drop like, hey, what if we looked at this over 10 years or 15 or 20 years? You know, that is so powerful to just get that instant instant visual, that instant feedback of here's the impact of making this decision. And yeah. Scott: Mm-hmm. Great example that you you did here for our latest round of spring meetings was doing a tax analysis for clients. Like If think from a client standpoint, take your your T1 general, like your tax return from the last two years. If you just take your two full T1 generals from the last two years and try and sit down and and analyze it, like your head's gonna spin, right? Like you're not gonna make any sense out of that data, like unless you're maybe a tax nerd, but most people aren't, right? When we could take that data and turn it into a one page visual of your 2025 taxes versus your twenty twenty four and just break that down very visually to be like, hey here's just a recap. of what's happened the last two years from a tax standpoint down to one single page with the key numbers, key visuals that you need to know. Man, that's like the the just the what we saw firsthand from clients being like, okay, awesome, cool. Even if it's simple, it's like, okay, there's no big surprises there, but like, thanks for explaining that to me. I get it. Cool. Great. Let's move on. Sometimes it's as simple as that. Chris: Yep. Yeah. So good. And there and there was no references to like line twenty three thousand five hundred or like line four thousand and one. Like we don't need any of that. Just what are the five line items that matter and what's the most easy way to communicate those that's understandable? Employment income. Dividend income. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good one. Scott: Yeah. That's right. Ha ha ha. For sure. All what do we got next? Chris: Alright, what's next? Scott: Probably put these to kind of two together in some ways. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think one thing, in my opinion, one thing that's that's always been and probably always will be part of of financial planning is that human as human beings, we tend to avoid things that, you know, are not as fun, maybe. And maybe financial planning can be lumped into that category for some people. I mean some of our clients just love it and they love meeting with us. They love, you know, being nerds and diving into all the details with us. But that's not everyone. So I think there's some some element of like avoidance or neglect that people, even smart people, do. But then there's also these common feelings that that people when they when they overcome that and they start to engage in real financial planning, that ⁓ they get a real sense of relief ⁓ and, you know, a lot of other positive emotions that come up when they go through that. Why do you think why do you think that people are continuing to neglect or avoid their finances in in most cases, Scott? Scott: Yeah, this one's interesting as this is probably one thing that hasn't changed at all. Like hasn't changed at all over the last decade or fifteen, twenty years. Like at the end of the day, money equals feelings. Like as simply put as that, money equals feelings. Like there's so much emotion driven behind money. Greed, fear. Stress, risk, like you name it all, right? Like a all these different feelings can get bundled up into money. And some again, in in some cases it could be like you could be doing a lot of things really well, but still freeze up when it comes to wanting to talk about it with anyone. Or even having a conversation with your spouse about money, like I think there's a a hurdle that you need to get over in terms of being like, it is what it is. Where I where I'm at is where I'm at when it comes to my money. Do I want to make an active decision to have a conversation with a third party and get kind of in some cases vulnerable about where I stand today with my money and being open to the idea of advice to then point out your blind spots and ideally optimize and help you implement the right ideas, strategies. systems to help you then, you know, that next stage of like when you finally do make that decision to sit down with someone and and start taking steps towards implementing the right things into your financial plan. Man, the relief, the the lower levels of stress. Like we just talked about this in our last episode around around kind of the health benefits of of financial planning and the r and the relief that can kind of sometimes bring to some households and some people, right? It's huge. It's huge. And that's just something that has not changed at all. Which I think is important to note here that we'll have this conversation in ten years from now, Chris, and it'll be the same thing. Chris: Yeah, for sure. I do think like it I I actually think it might be getting a little bit worse w as far as as human beings, I think we in a lot of cases are more resistant to feedback than ever. You know th I sure there's gonna be that segment of of the population that are very Aware self that that have a lot of self-awareness and are in that like continual growth mindset and want that feedback. But I think a lot of people in on the opposite side of that, more so the general population, are just have a hard time with feedback, right? Like even getting negative feedback from someone at work or from a spouse or a colleague or friend, like a lot of people don't know how to handle that. And when you open up your your numbers, your finances, your life, your emotions to a professional, you might get some constructive feedback that could be taken negatively. And I think that idea prevents a lot of people from reaching out and starting the process. Scott: I think this is something that just comes to mind too, kind of on the same train of thought in terms of what's maybe evolved over last ten years, is maybe the preconceived ideas of what success is based on what they see from their peers, primarily driven through social media and what you see in the story feeds and and all that stuff every day when you're when you're on the socials and seeing what other people d around you are doing. Chris: Mm-hmm. Totally. Scott: think you it's just it's natural, right? Like, ⁓ they I I see XYZ going on in their life, they're driving this car, their practice looks like this, like they're telling me they're doing this kind of numbers and volume and yada yada. You name the metric. And then we assume that like that's that's success. Like or that they are successful. And that's one thing that I can say that's that's a firsthand experience is that just because someone looks like they're successful, if you want to say it like in those terms of like they they look apart based on what you see on social, but when you actually peel back the cover and understand what's going on behind the scenes, it's not always the case. Sometimes they're it's truly the case. They're they're they're crushing it. They're doing great and they're on they're on track. But in a lot of cases it's it's almost unfortunately a bit of a facade. Like it's it's kind of a house of cards that's just waiting for one bad thing to happen and then the whole thing's gonna come toppling down, right? It's not being held up by like a base of real wealth that they've that they've built up. It's just kind of it's all on finance. It's all it's all on credit. It's all the for the appearance. Right? Chris: Yeah. Yeah, and that that can be said in so many different segments of life, not just in chiropractic and you know, building a building a clinic or practice like that's everywhere, unfortunately. This comparison and I think social media is just making has made that worse for all of us. But at the end of the day, if we Scott: Course. Chris: If we can get out of that kind of thought of comparison and looking at what others are doing and instead knowing what we want out of life and what how we're trying to achieve that, right, that's gonna bring that real that real freedom, that real sense of accomplishment, ⁓ you know, versus trying to look like or be like someone else. Yeah, yeah. So if someone can actually overcome this hurdle of like, you know, self-doubt and Scott: Yeah, for sure. Chris: you know, neglecting or avoidance of of their finances and finally take the time to sit down and look at things with with us. What's some of the common ⁓ emotions or outcomes that that you've seen Scott: Where to start, man, like we've seen it all. The You've already hit on some of the points. Like the sense of the sense of relief relief and and peace of mind that comes with think first of all, knowing that someone is now in your corner that is that truly cares about your success and what you're trying to accomplish is is first of all a really big step forward in feeling better about your finances 'cause you have someone on your team that cares. And this goes a long way with too. It's not just a financial planner. It's like having the right CPA, having the right bookkeeper, having this team built up around you that can support you and your goals. Man The relief of the relief of stress, the peace of mind, the certainty that you're on track to reach your goals, both in the short term and long term. The You can just feel the energy in our in our in our meetings from like the day one meetings, those early onboarding meetings when we're trying to, you know, sort through a lot of things and get things implemented versus a client that we're seeing, you know, two, three years later for like our ongoing follow-up meetings. It's like the energy that comes to those meetings, it's like they're crushing it. They're doing they're doing so great. They're living their best life. And we're not we're not like saying that we're the reason for all that, but we're playing a role in helping them in that journey. We're we're trust trying to be that. guide alongside them to help them make really great smart d financial decisions along the way so that they can live their best life. Comes down to that. Chris: Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah, like you said, we can't take the action for the clients. Like everyone needs to be in control and be the basically the decision maker and implementer directly of, you know, what they're doing. Like we can't we can't do what you do. We can't go into practice and and see see the clients like you do, ⁓ and run the practice. But we can encourage you, walk with you along the way and Man, it's impactful when ⁓ when we when you when we have the right team and you know just like succeeding, you know, in in whatever capacity, whether it is in like I always go back to sport, like whether you're in an in individual sport or a team sport, it's like having those people that support you along the way and and having that as part of the journey, like it makes it so much more rewarding. And Scott: Mm-hmm. Chris: That's why some of those best friendships and bonds we ever build are through team sport. Scott: Yeah, for sure. Chris: Yep. Alright, easy one for ya. What's the most common thing that people overthink or maybe overcomplicate? Scott: I would give you a different answer ten years ago. I don't I had to think of I had to truly think about what I would give from an answer ten years ago, but today I would say it's your investments. People often overthink what they should be doing when it comes to investing, how they should be invested. We we preach this and we say it kind of tongue in cheek, but investing has been solved, right? At ten years ago fifteen years ago, like I said, like we we have said, the industry has come a long way, but I think there's still a lot of room for us to grow as from a financial planner, an advice standpoint to to clients, is that you don't need to hire an advisor anymore Because of like some sort of value proper position that they're going to get you the best investments or get you the best return, and that's if that's their value prop, you know, they're living back in like the 2000s and 90s. Like that's just our take on it, right? If you're going to make a conscious decision to work with a financial planner, CFP ideally, that they are bringing value above and beyond. Like again, the investment component, that part's been solved. We've talked about it in in length here on the podcast. Diversify, globally diversified, get that, check that box off, and then focus on what you can't control. Tax planning, cash flow management, you know, all the different components that take your that that are truly in our control day-to-day, week to week, month to month, those are the things that are gonna move the needle. Chris: Yeah, couldn't agree more. I do think that it is ⁓ sometimes we're overcomplicating investments due to the the amount of information available as well. And you know there's a whole segment of news media, social media, whatever, that is dedicated to the financial industry. Right? And Scott: Yeah. Chris: They make it seem like there's information that we need out there. There's ways that we know that we need to be making active decisions daily, doing all these different things. And it's just not the case. Right? We've and it's not just our belief that investing is a problem that's been solved. It's what the statistics show. It's what the evidence shows. So we're not the only ones that believe it. There's a whole segment of great financial planners out there that also believe investing is a problem that's been solved. It's just such a stark contrast to going back twenty years ago where I think a lot of advisors led with come come work with me, I can get you XYZ return. Or my return last year was XYZ. Don't you want to move your money over and invest with me? And that's just not in our opinion, that's just not not something that should be Scott: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Chris: you know, discussed or considered if if you're a client, like that's not what you should be looking for. Which is kind of counterintuitive, right? Because isn't the whole reason we're doing this to grow our wealth and give ourselves more flexibility and options? Yes, it is. But you can move the needle 10x more by focusing on tax planning, proper cash flow planning, understanding the whole big picture and how everything works together. And also Scott: Yep. Chris: implementing a more passive in nature, more simplified investment strategy compared to what those what I'd say advisors were previously selling. They're selling past returns. Those are no indication of future returns. Scott: For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What we were saying earlier about like your practices being the engine to like kind of fuel your financial life, there's a lot more that's going to help grow your overall wealth and give you more flexibility and options over the years if you can focus more on growing the revenue of your practice and implementing the right system to keep your overhead overhead under control and good tax planning is under control that can then pay you more from the practice so you can save and invest more than you were before, like increasing your savings rate from five percent to fifty. or twenty percent is gonna go a whole lot longer a whole lot further than increasing your investment return from seven percent to twelve percent. Like it's just it's that's what we can control. That's what we should focus on. Chris: Alright, last question to wrap it up. All right. So Scott, it's been ten years for you, well, more than that in the industry, but ten years as a CFP. What still gets you excited about sitting down with someone talking money? Scott: Yep, sure. Such a great question because I think the more I've learned over the years is that one thing I didn't recognize ten years ago that I do now is that the first time someone Truly wants to sit down and have a conversation with us, that's a big decision. It's a big decision for someone to say, All right, I'm open, I'm open to a conversation about my money, especially if they haven't worked with a financial planner before, or even if they're working with someone who hasn't really done real planning, to open up and start talking about their finances. What I get excited about is someone being open to the idea of of seeing what they can what the possibilities are essentially. Like when what we get excited about is like, ⁓ there there's so much opportunity here. We can usually within that first hour of that conversation with that client, they're sharing their story, they're sharing what they're doing, what they have been doing, what's going well, what's not going so well, our wheels start turning, right? Like we see the blind spots pretty quickly. We see the areas that we can start to dive into and find ways we can optimize. And then just thinking about all right, if we can if we can take action and implement and optimize and uncover these blind spots and help them move forward. Wow, they are going to be in such a different position, both in terms of how they feel about their finances, but also the outcome from a tangible like wealth building standpoint. In two, five years from now, like they're on a completely different path. And that just gets us fired up every time we're sitting down with a with a either a brand new prospective client or a client that we've been working with for five years. Like it's the same thing. We're continuously excited to show up and have that conversation. What about you? Chris: Sure. Yeah, I just get so excited about what this means. Like if we can optimize, if we can improve your financial outcome, get you more options and flexibility. Like I just get so excited about what that actually means for each individual. Cause we're all different, right? Like if if we all had five million dollars, we would spend it differently. We would do different things with it. And so, you know, seeing our clients go and take that trip and go and enjoy their holidays and and explore the world or save up and whether yeah, whatever it is. Like growing their practice so that they can serve more people in their community, giving back in their community, like whatever it is, being generous, like The thing that that lights up that lights our clients up as individuals, seeing that advanced is what gets me excited. It's like, yeah, the the money and the the numbers, like I love that, that's all fun. But meeting with a client and hearing them say like, yeah, we were we were able to do this and like it's been a dream. It's been on our list for three years and we did it. That's exciting. Yeah. Scott: True. Love it. I love it. Cool then. Well this has been a this has been a fun conversation. Again, crazy, it's been ten years. people still still take me for t a young a young guy. But if you if I shave my hair really really really narrow on the outsides, I I still have a fairly baby face, but man, I got a lot of grays coming in that weren't there in twenty sixteen. Chris: Cool. Good stuff. Mm. I was just gonna say, yeah, they they think that you're babyface until they see the grays. Scott: That's right. Yeah, I gotta make sure I keep the haircut going every yeah, you're you're looking a lot younger than me, Chris. Chris: Yeah. We're getting there. We're still good. Yeah, we should we should have a poll here. I mean, see if we get any feedback. But who who do we think is older here? Chris, Scott? Who looks older? No? Get some guesses going on? Scott: Yeah, we haven't said we haven't said how old we are, yeah, for sure. We'll see. Cool. All right. We'll leave it there. Thanks for for being here as always, and we'll see you all again next week. Take care. Chris: Yeah. Right on, okay.