Latest / InvestBetter.™ Podcast / What is a Financial Plan, and what should it actually do?

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What is a Financial Plan, and what should it actually do? · InvestBetter.™ Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So what's wild to me is that most people think they have a financial plan, but they don't.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Most financial plans today are a collection of products that people have bought over.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: The finance industry incentivizes certain outcomes.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: That insurance company produces something.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then in their wisdom, they said, let's create a sales force to go sell our things.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just important to know like that dynamic exists and that's affecting your advisor who's giving you most of your guidance, most likely.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to show people what a true financial plan looks like.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm going to give you the seven categories of a financial plan.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what if we built a plan that if we just followed the plan, it would get us there with half the risk?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And what if I gave you something that even if I didn't see you for six months, you could pick it up and do it yourself.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: By the end of this episode, you will know, maybe for the first time in your life, what it takes to actually be able to say, I have a financial plan.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sten, so much fun, man.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be financial planning sexy.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Make financial planning sexy again.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Here.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so Sten, how did financial planning become something where it's like, wow, it's sort of complex.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you threw a lot at me.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: How did we get there?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a few sides to that.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think one, the system itself is complex.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: You think of like the tax code, and that, you know, could it be on in 10 pages?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: It probably could, but it just keeps changing.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually industries built around having a complex tax code.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: The financial advisory space is complex where a consumer may feel like, oh, financial advisor, financial advisor.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, no, not really.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this person sells this thing, this person sells this thing.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be great if you knew, like, oh, I actually need four advisors because this one does my insurance, this one does my investments.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: But most of the time, people don't want that.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, no, I just want one advisor that can help me quarterback the plan.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if we need to pull people in at times to execute a specific part of it, I'm open to that.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I but I think there's a piece within most consumers to where they they sense this, that they're like, is my advisor truly able to give me any kind of advice, or do they feel pulled towards a specific outcome?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Then you kind of go down that trail and you're like, oh, because the finance industry incentivizes certain outcomes.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: When I was young, I was an advisor that worked for a big insurance company.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, that insurance company produces something.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then in their wisdom, they said, let's create a sales force to go sell our things.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, that's what I am.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm a I'm an insurance salesperson.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be an advisor someday, but as of this moment, if I'm really honest with myself, my goal to win that trip or get some positive feedback is to sell more of this thing than anybody else in my office.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a tough realization.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think it's a tension a lot of advisors have to face.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of good ones are overcoming it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just important to know like that dynamic exists, and that's affecting your advisor who's giving you most of your guidance, most likely.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think the the financial system's complex with banking and lending and taxes, and then the people that you're going to get advice from, like their world is complex and compliance is tricky and it's hard to do certain things.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and all of that is true, but there is a way to overcome that if you're aware it's happening.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so for us, and what we'll get into really practically today is by the end of this episode, you will know, maybe for the first time in your life, what it takes to actually be able to say, Well, I have a financial plan.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not that I have money in a 401k, not that I have insurance I bought from my college roommate.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like those are important things and those are products you've bought, but I would I would say you do not have a true financial plan.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, growing up, I definitely didn't hear anything about a financial plan in our home.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and, you know, grateful for my parents for sure.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: But man, having these kinds of discussions wasn't something.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, um, do you think in high state they were thinking about it?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because they owned a business.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like they were that's right.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: They needed financial plans and advice.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: They were doing something financially.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: They were, they were.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think that they were pursuing the things that they knew.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: Got it.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: They were just basing it off of what they knew how to do.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: My my mom was um uh, you know, very much an academician and a curriculum designer and and developer and teacher.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so she was really good at creating curriculum.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: My dad was all about risk.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so he was self-proclaimed entrepreneur.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: My mom was the reluctant entrepreneur.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: So they were an interesting pair.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: So, but financial literacy, like that wasn't that wasn't a thing.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: We think it's just they didn't know what they didn't know, or they're like, this is working well enough, so we're just gonna keep doing it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was we're going to continue to chase after it when when the monies show up.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: And when the monies don't show up, we're gonna stop doing that thing.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's fair.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that kind of created this very interesting narrative for me where it's like, okay, so you just don't know.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Stuff just comes and goes.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: So how do you actually, you know, plan for this?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's a lot of stats on this, but 33% of Americans think they have a financial plan.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: And most of them do not.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: And most of them do not.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: When you are talking about it this way, Stephen, right?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: But they think that they have a plan.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: See, I think in a lot of ways, my parents did think they had a had a plan in that this is the next thing that we're going to do so that we don't run out.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's fair.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very reactive, which I think most people when I get people in a room and I can get them to explain their plan to me.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's maybe one of the first times they've actually said it out loud to somebody else.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as they're talking about it, they're like, that doesn't sound that good.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it sounds very reactive.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's kind of fear driving us in there.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's a sense of like we probably could be doing some things better, we just don't know where to start.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so when, and I can do a lot of this in under an hour with somebody, and they're just like, whoa, whoa.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, and you can't fix it all in an hour, but you can wake somebody up to like, well, imagine this.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what if in a world we actually met quarterly or twice a year and not reacting and surviving in the moment, but we actually said, What if what do we think is coming?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what if we built a plan that if we just followed the plan, it would get us there with half the risk.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think most people, when it comes to investing, starting a business, real estate, we work with a lot of people that love real estate, are open-minded to doing it a different way if they can get a similar outcome and have a lot less risk.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think most people just don't know who to ask, how to do it because it is complex.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think there's an element of like, it's okay to ask for help.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: We all need help, we all need a team around us.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think the thing that we will wake some people up to is like be really aware of who you're asking for help from.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh, that's so good.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is so good.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it's hindsight is always 2020.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much clarity there in the rear view mirror.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's so many folks, like I was reading this.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: 76% of individuals surveyed wish they had created a financial plan sooner.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: So they get to a certain point in their life.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was reading something else that folks are not even considering investing until after their 40s.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so there, but there's a reason for this because what I'm hearing you say is there isn't a process, there isn't a framework, there isn't some, there also isn't someone to go to to trust because provided what you were talking about earlier, uh they're salesmen.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think if you think that a financial plan or investing is like, I need to have enough discretionary income to afford to give somebody money to invest for me.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it makes sense why people don't have a plan until they're in their 40s.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: But everyone can have a plan like today.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because the plan is needed to free up the money in order to do those other things.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think there is an element of I'm not, I don't have enough money to have a financial advisor yet.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't make enough to invest, therefore nobody cares.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Our goal is partly to shift the industry in that case.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's like, don't, no matter where you are in your journey, you need a plan.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Dave Ramsey has a lot of content that it's like, hey, you don't need an advisor, just follow these steps.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's more things like that that most people can do.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so today it's like, I'm gonna give you the seven categories of a financial plan.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's six categories for all of us.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're listening and you own a business, there's a seventh category.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a visual we put up on the screen in my office.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this is what I hope for for you.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when I tell somebody like, whether you do this with us or somebody else, like this should be your goal.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I love giving advice to people that's universally true.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's enough stuff in our life to where it's like, ah, yeah, but you don't understand my story.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, there are some things that are just there's just true.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what's true is a financial plan has all of these categories covered and talked about.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: One of those is investing, and that's a fun thing to talk about, but there's other ones that are also just as important for you to talk about.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I have to credit you, Sten, uh, with this, and we're gonna we're gonna jump into this.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, financial plans that clients can actually understand.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, and so you know, you've you've built over the last few years several tools to allow that to happen.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: You've developed that so that you can use it in your practice with your clients.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: But then because I recognize there was a disconnect of like, hey, I know a bunch of stuff, you should just trust me with your money.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I think this is for most advisors, this is their sales pitch.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like I'd meet you randomly, I'd maybe cold call you or get referred from a friend and I'd say, hey Wendell, great to meet you.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I know you don't know me, but you should give me all of your money and let's hope this thing works out.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, And I did that for a long time until I realized like I probably wouldn't have received that well if I was on the other side of the table.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so my hope is an advisor is like if you meet with me, I'm gonna prove to you first that it's worth it.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm gonna remove what we call the trust gap to where it's like, hey, just take this leap of faith.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's also a lot of people listening that have had not good experiences.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: They got bad advice.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, true.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: The person said this and actually ended up being that.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: As an advisor, I recognize that like for for the experience with us to be different, we're gonna take complex things and make it simple because that's a gift.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Great quote.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would have written a shorter book, but I ran out of time.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not easy to do that.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: We spent years now, we built our own software, we have our own process to to get somebody in our room as opposed to leaving them more confused than they found us, for them to leave that room being like, when can we meet again?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like for the first time, I actually understand what you're talking about.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be an element in there where you're like, Sten, don't tell me that much about it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's too much into the weeds.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: The way we manage investments and our algorithms, like you may say, no, but just explain the process enough so I can trust that it's not average.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like most of us want something better than average.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: We just don't know how to get it.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when we think about a financial plan, let's do it.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna walk you through these categories.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so every financial plan should cover these six or seven categories.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the first category is cash flow.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we'll impact this.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people think like, oh, Sten's gonna tell me I need a budget.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of, but it's a little more complicated than that.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: The next is tax strategy.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: We spend so much time with clients on this, and I love this category because there's so much low-hanging fruit.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Every one of you listening is probably overpaying on taxes and you don't know it.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Then it's investment planning.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: But when we talk about investment planning, younger advisor Sten thought investment planning meant you giving me money to invest in the market for you.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as a business owner, somebody that likes real estate too, I'm like, no, the investment planning encompasses a lot.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Starting a business, buying real estate.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, some in the market, but there's so much more to that conversation.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then it's estate planning.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Will your money go to the people you want it to while paying the least amount of taxes possible?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then it's risk management.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people get hung up on risk management as it's a uh like an insurance conversation.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not really.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, insurance is important, but we talk about covered and uncovered risk.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And covered risks are obvious, like, oh, I own home and auto insurance.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have an umbrella liability policy.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's usually the uncovered risks that get us.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if every restaurant would have had a COVID insurance policy, there'd be a lot more family-owned restaurants still open.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: We just didn't fathom that there would be something that happened that shut the economy down and we were unprepared.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: That on an uncovered risk, if you actually went through this category with an advisor, this conversation, there would have been something like, what's the thing we think will never happen?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like what's maybe less than 1%, but if it did, like we may not be able to survive it, but at least we're aware that it exists to some degree.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's retirement planning.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I talked to a lot of young entrepreneurs, investors, and even people in their 50s or 60s, they're like, I don't know.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I've never thought about it.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: A great advisor cannot do their job unless you at least have some starting line in mind, some finish line in mind.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, here's where we are, where are we going?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So then we can reverse engineer that for you.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I work with a lot of people who are like, I'll probably never retire.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's great.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: But retirement for us is you can stop working because you want to, but you could if you wanted to.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're no longer required to work, but you're doing it because you want to.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're retired.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Retirement is not like I've I've stockpiled enough money, buried it in my backyard, now I cannot do anything for the rest of my life.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's not really most people's goal at the end of the day.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, if you want a business, we have a category called business strength.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are enough financial decisions to be a great business owner that don't fall directly into the other categories.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So let's let's unpack them together.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is high level today.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we don't have hours to go through this, but if you're listening and I never get to see you again, I want you to have this framework.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: So when you think about cash flow, there's three subcategories that we teach people about.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So the first one is cash reserve.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in our software we built, we actually have scores for every one of these subcategories, one to five.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's some science behind the scenes on like why is somebody a four versus a three or a two.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: But we will rank you in each one of these categories and tell you, hey, here's where you are, here's where you want to go, and here's what's required to get you there.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think without a system like this, before we had this technology we built, I think I just talked to people and almost like overwhelmed them into submission with how much things they should be doing differently.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: But they left the office like, I believe him.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: We should probably do something, but I don't think they understood how it all worked together until we had this.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because you had you have the visual now to go with it.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: We do.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think I did not think we were gonna build software, but we got into that.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: We got into the software business, Ted.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think people want their advisors to have used technology.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think with AI, it's like our clients will never be like, I'm okay having an AI financial advisor that I don't ever, but it's like they need to know we're using it to be better at our job.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what we're working on.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the advisors that you work with, I mean, I've seen uh the lights go on, you know, for them, the wake-up of like, oh, for years I've been trying to accomplish this on a flow sheet or you know, with a lot of different notes and documents.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: But the it's another thing when you hand someone something that is comprehensive, that's cohesive.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's a way to really honor, I've heard you say this beautifully.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's a way to honor your clients, it's a way to honor the other person.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Simplicity, to quote Sten.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: Simplicity is a gift.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: It is, yeah.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: If I can accomplish the same thing in two meetings instead of taking six meetings, that's usually a good thing.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think a client, me asking for more of your time unnecessarily is not helpful.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think some advisors think like, let's just talk about it more.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, what if I gave you something that even if I didn't see you for six months, you could pick it up and do it yourself.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think that's the gift we're trying to accomplish.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So cash reserve, that's really important.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea here is not just more cash is better because inflation is real.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if you just have a bunch of cash sitting somewhere and you don't know what it's doing, like it's actually losing money to inflation.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: There is an element of having some liquid reserves available to handle unexpected events, but if it goes too far, that actually negatively impacts your score on the reserve side.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, some people even say, Oh, I have a home equity line of credit on my house because my equity in my home is not being used for anything.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I use that as my emergency fund.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, that frees you up to actually put your other money to work because you do have some kind of reserve in place.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: It does not need to be a bunch of cash in the bank.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: So a term we use for clients in this is called the intentional cash plan, which means in a perfect world, you would know and decide I want to have$25,000 of cash in the bank.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: It just helps me sleep at night.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's a certain number of months of expenses.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if every dollar above that number, you already had a plan for it.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's intentional.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, as a family, like, oh, we looked at our savings, it's now$30,000.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not gonna get to$35,000 and 40, and then I'm gonna talk to you in six months, and you're like, oh, we have 60,000 in the bank, we don't know what to do with it.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you don't have a good plan.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like we should have already talked about whenever this account goes over this amount, we're funding your Roth.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're putting it back in your business, we're gonna pay down some debt.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: So as soon as it happens, we put it to work.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's the intentionality there.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Next is a spending plan.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is that word most people don't like budget.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm not gonna tell you to live out of an envelope, you know, and do cash.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: What I will tell you is though, you need to know the reality of your spending and your income.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: And for a lot of our clients that are busy or don't like this piece, they outsource it.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you can pay a bookkeeper a hundred bucks a month or less to link to your credit card and your bank account and say, Will you send me a report once a month that shows me what we spend?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't do this well, what happens is like a year goes by and you're like, where'd all of our money go?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think there's an extreme on this spectrum of like you have an envelope full of cash and once it's out, you eat beans.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, maybe that's easier for me to give you that advice as opposed to me live by it.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm like, can we just try to accomplish, like at any point in time, I can ask you how much money did you spend last month, and you can actually give me an answer.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's just responsible at that point.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Because it it seems to me that there's kind of a visibility problem for a lot of financial plans.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so what you're doing here is that you're giving them visibility, right?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: Into here's what you actually have to work with.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because we're I think a lot of times folks are trying to keep track of it in their head.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Or I think the first step is awareness.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like one, I'm gonna let you know that these categories exist.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then each category has these subcategories.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like now you know.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody listening, it's like you will know at the end of this episode like what a plan should look like.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: You probably have a lot of questions about it, and there's more to talk about.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: But can you even be aware that, like, oh, cash flow is a category, my cash plan matters.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: The income and the in flows and outflows, we have to be pretty aware of that.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And not to the penny, but if I'm like, what do you?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I ask this question a lot of successful people, and they're like, I don't know.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of working out.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, that's fine.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: But if we're on the team, we're gonna take you from a two to a four.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: We have some clients where the goal is never to get you to be a five because it's like our time is better spent doing other things than trying to get every one of these to a five.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: So after cash flow, or is there any something else on that?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Cash reserve, spending plan, and then debt.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so debt, big conversation.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: A five on debt is not that you have no debt.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: A five on debt is that you have no like high interest rate consumer debt.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: But you maybe are strategically using debt for real estate to grow your business.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there are some schools that thought that debt is always bad.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Most successful people in the world are using debt all the time.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: I do think if you don't know how to use it and you're reckless, like, yeah, stay away from it.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: But when we meet with clients, it's a strategy conversation around debt.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just, hey, you are you're five out of five if we can pay everything off.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you pay off a house with a three percent interest rate and you get to deduct that interest off your taxes when you can go put that money to work and start a business or buy some real estate and get a way better return.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: When you're 20, 30, 40, 50, your risk tolerance probably says, like, yeah, don't pay the 3% house off.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like the math would say don't do that.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: When you're 60, like there's a point where we're like, yeah, it's just pay the house off.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I think there, as opposed to saying, hey, there's one approach that fits everyone all the time, yeah.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: My hope is everybody feels like, no, my plan is custom.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like it feels strategic to me and what I'm trying to accomplish.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: How do you assess whether or not you're upside down when it comes to when it comes to this category?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think low cash reserves is would be a flag for us.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's why our system can kind of trigger, like, hey, a conversation needs to be had.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a something's a four and it's green, we're like, great, let's talk about something else.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: The spending plan is important.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you are operating at a deficit every month, you have to know that as soon as possible.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's also important in this category where we work with clients to say, what are needs and what are wants?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because I need to know we can at least cover your needs.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then your wants, we can flex those whenever we want.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want you to have to sell your house, not buy food, not buy gas.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's a whole different conversation than hey, you're overspending on trips.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's cut that down a little bit.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's an easier conversation.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then with debt, I think the idea there is the analysis of like, are is there any high interest rate debt in here?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you're carrying any debt right now that's over probably eight percent, that's a flag.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because every dollar you pay off on that debt, you're getting an immediate eight plus percent rate of return.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Which depending on what you invest in the market or real estate is is decent at that point in time.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, all right, next category, ooh, tax strategy.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love this category.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we make so many friends when we help them save hundreds of thousands of dollars on taxes.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And what's wild is a lot of those clients have had CPAs before, they've had other advisors.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: But when they when I ask them, I'm like, okay, your CPA is really nice.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're just really busy.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when I when I ask a client, I'll I love to use humor in our business because it can be overly serious sometimes, is like, do you imagine when tax season comes that your CPA clears off their desk, you know, dims the lights, turns on some smooth jazz, and they sit there with your file and just dream about all that's possible.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like never.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I also don't blame them because there's just not enough CPAs out there and they're all overwhelmed.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And their whole goal in life is can I get your return out on time?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if not, I'm gonna file an extension and we'll get to it later.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's so much frustration around like just the tax situation for most people and business owners and really any client we've worked with.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: That it's like, okay, we're gonna let the CPA do their job well, but we're the strategy piece.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's not expect them to do more than they're capable of.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let us step in and work together.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: And most of the time, when we show up, CPAs are like, where have you been all my life?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of advisors will tell you, like, they can't give you tax advice.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a CFP, so we talk tax strategies all the time.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's really important that everybody knows what their effective and marginal tax rate is.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so your effective rate is your average rate.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the way our tax system works is like a certain amount of your income is taxed at a certain percentage, and then a next, next, next.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Your blended rate is your effective rate.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: So some people might say, like, oh, I'm in the highest bracket.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you might have a dollar in the highest bracket, but your effective rate is actually lower than you think.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: The reason the marginal bracket is important is because that tells you if I can get a dollar out of the highest number bracket, it saves me more money.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Where your effective rate is usually always gonna be lower than your marginal rate.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: The other piece in this category we talk about is the tax buckets.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like where's your money living right now?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there's three.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you own can fall into one of these three buckets: tax deferred, tax-free, or taxable.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Most people's financial plan has most of their money in their tax-deferred account because it's their 401k at work.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: The downside to that is that when you take money out, it's your tax rate is dictated by the current income tax rate.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And most people I talk to think tax rates are going to go up.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if all your money is in a tax-deferred bucket, you're kind of at the whim of the government, which most people prefer not to be that.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we spend a lot of time helping people know what bucket to put their money into.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So tax strategy, very important section.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: It should include your CPA, but I would caution you to say, oh, my CPA has this part handled.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's usually not true.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: All right, next investments.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Love this category.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: I love jamming out because again, we're more of like a financial strategy firm for clients versus like, hey, buy our mutual funds, buy our insurance policies.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone needs to know what their risk tolerance is.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's really no bad risk tolerance.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you just know about yourself that I'm a two out of five, because if anything happens in the world, I lose sleep at night.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, let's build your plan around that versus me trying to push you to be a four or five, and you're in a constant state of fear or discomfort.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so for folks listening right here, definitely go back to our first episode.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: And uh pay attention to the IDF you know, framework.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, to actually have a process and a framework for making investment decisions is mission critical.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so make sure that you stop right here if you haven't, you know, engaged with that, go back, listen to that, and then jump back in with us here.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, when we're with clients, I'll get up and teach them that at this section because it's so important.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the next is diversification, like what's your score there?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Most people, if you own like 10 or 15 mutual funds in your investment account or 401k, you're like, oh, I'm diversified because I own a lot of things.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: What most people don't know is if you've actually looked under the hood, probably 60 to 70 percent of what's in those funds is all the same.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Even though the fund name is different, there's really no diversification happening in there.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's another one of those moments where I show that to people, they're like, How would I have known that?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I didn't even know that that was a thing.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can also be over-diversified.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like Warren Buffett used to talk about this.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you own a thousand things, if one or two of those things go to the moon, you're barely gonna feel it.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so, one thing when we manage a lot of money for people is like you won't see 50 positions in your account.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's too many.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: It might be 15 to 20.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because you should have so much conviction of those things that actually when one does really well, it actually matters.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's good.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so investment planning, really important.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot we can go in there.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, retirement, important.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's really important to know what money do you need to retire on.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you can even say in today's dollars.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like if in today's dollars I had a hundred grand a year, I could pay all my bills, and maybe let's assume all your debts paid off because that's part of our plan.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you don't even need that much.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then a good advisor with the right technology can go and say, okay, I'm gonna reverse engineer in 20 years what we have to do specifically year by year, in order to hit that goal.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And not even hopefully overestimating the assumptions, like be a little pessimistic.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is something I see all the time.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've ever gotten like a retirement calculation from a bank or an advisor, most of the time those softwares, and even if you do it online for free, will assume a constant rate of return in the market.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it might assume like a five or six percent rate of return, but what has never happened in the market is that it goes up every single year, compounding on itself.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's wild.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you went right now and you said, I have a million dollars in my 401k and I want to retire in 15 years and I want to make six percent a year, that number's gonna be huge.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: But again, that's never happened.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: So something we do with clients is we stress test that plan, which means we put some bad years in there because the market is going to fall.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: On average, one out of every four years in the market is a negative year.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: You should plan that those negative years are gonna come.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: So retirement, that's important.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we do have a scoring mechanism in our software, it's called retirement readiness.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, how on track are you for your goals?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we can score that.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, next is estate planning.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a big conversation here, and depending on the client, some people call this legacy planning, others just call it estate planning.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is what level of intentionality have you put behind this plan?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you went and got like a free will that just says, hey, if I pass away, my spouse gets everything, and if we pass away, our kids get everything.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good step one.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: But most people we talk to have a little bit more vision than that.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: They would say, I don't know if my kids should get everything at 22.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, let's put a plan together in your state plan because it can be as creative as you want, to where they get the money at 25, 30, and 35.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's a little bit better, a little more specific.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: We'll do plans for clients where it's like, well, what if instead they become their own trustee at some point?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of you just giving them money because you don't know what's going on in their life, you say, Okay, at 27, I will give you uh$25,000 to start your own business.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: At 30, I'll give you another$25,000 to if reinvest in your business.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're you're you're not trying to negatively impact their life by saying, Hey, here's a bunch of money, good luck.
• 29:33
  unknown: Yeah.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're actually saying, okay, I'm gonna exercise some wisdom here and say, I don't want to change your life because I might rob you of some lessons.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna stage this out so it's beneficial to you and maybe your future kids, but I'm I'm not gonna be so unintentional that it might have consequences I don't want.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a deep topic.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: We'll hang with your clients.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then risk management.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is really that covered versus uncovered risk conversation.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: And when I look at most people's financial plans, when they think about risk, they're like, I bought insurance.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, insurance is fine, but I also see a lot of plans that are so insurance heavy.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Usually when that happens, I could probably tell you where your advisor works, unfortunately.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um is probably for an insurance company.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like the solution to every problem is more insurance, or the advisor where it's like the solution to every problem.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been both of these.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: The solution to every problem is just more investments in the market.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, after experiencing all those types of the industry, I'm like, I think there's a better way where it doesn't have to be product focused, but it's more strategy focused.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then those products are still important.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so risk awareness is a score we have to where it's like if I interview you and I'm sitting with you, I could tell you from a one to a five what level of awareness are you living in with the risk in your life.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is really fascinating with business owners because most of us are pretty opt.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: We like to assume the best outcomes, you know.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say that.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're about to say optimistic, but a little bit.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh because some are not, you know, I have some kind of bummed out business owners, but typically there's like this, it's all gonna work out feeling.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and when you get into this conversation, it makes them uncomfortable.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, as an advisor, I'm gonna take you there every once in a while because it's a wise thing to do.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: But then, hey, let's go live in you know optimism as much as possible.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's good.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right, and then the final category, this one, this is you know, if you own a business, we would have this category and we walk through it with you.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's called business strength.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's things about a business owner that you just have to be true.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And there's three subcategories here.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is documentation.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Of everything that needs to be in writing, have you put it in writing?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a partner?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have even an operating agreement?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a buy-sell agreement?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Most business owners are so excited about their idea.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: The things that end up causing those most problems are the fact they didn't get things in writing.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're handshaking, hey, we'll worry about it later.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am happy to be the person in the room that's like, hey, I love that idea.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let's write it down.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, that's a great agreement.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let's make sure that we understand it.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, what if this goes bad?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: What agreement's in place that helps us make that transition better?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: And most business owners don't do that well.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Next is data.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: I like to know as an advisor, does my business owner client have clean, up-to-date, accurate data to make decisions?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Most don't.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, I'm just going to put my head down and work really hard.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's money in the bank, I guess it's working.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then once a year in December, we'll have a strategic planning meeting and we'll talk about it.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, not if you're our client.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you're our client, we're going to talk about at least twice a year, even up to quarterly, to say, like, are we living in reality based on data or are we kind of making things up?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, we have a focus score on here for business owners.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is something I have to focus on as well.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because I love ideas, I love businesses, I love helping people.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: But like your level of focus is directly connected to the outcome you're going to have.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when I have clients that have 10 businesses, and I'm like, how much time are you spending on that one?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on there?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's only so much any of us can handle.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: We all have limitations that I want to know as a business owner, if I'm speaking into your financial strategy, is that as a team, we have a level of focus that it's like, no, we know what we're trying to accomplish, we know who's necessary to help, and we know how long it's gonna take us to get there.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And most business owners, when I explain this to them, they're like, that's all I want.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I want everything you're saying.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't know where to start and I don't know who to ask for help.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: So in our system, after we go through all those categories, what kicks out is then our recommendations, what we call an action plan.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And an action plan is not like, hey, here's the 50 things you can do.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, that's not a gift.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like I could overwhelm you with to-gos.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is, hey, there's 50 things we could probably do, but here are the four that we need to spend our time on.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's good.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm gonna convince you that those are the four we should spend the most time on because they're gonna have the best rate of return for you.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: So in a perfect world, as we work with clients, and it's like that is the framework.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like your financial plan, everyone's plan should look like that to some degree.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is that I help you, and this is part of invest better, is that whether it's your time, your talents, your money, I want to help those those clients put those to work in the best possible way.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes return is not I'm making more money, it's well, I have more time with my family.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: I feel more useful and impactful in what I'm doing.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: But it does require a level of intentionality and a framework in order for us to all do that.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: If any of us are trying to do it on the fly in our head, I would argue that's just not a good plan.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: There's freedom on the other side of discipline.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so you've walked us through something that I hope every person that is watching, listening goes back through this.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you do a replay and you just line it out.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so you know what what would be a good just next step for our listeners here, Sten, they've engaged with this.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, what what just is a word to them?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, hey, today, or you know, go get a go for a walk, have a have a tea, call someone you care about, and start talking about this or start thinking this way.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: What would you say?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think in uh kind of in small increments.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think if it's like, well, I have to reinvent my whole plan tomorrow, that feels a little daunting.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's if you can live in awareness of these six categories, and if you own a business, seventh category, and just sit in each one for a moment and say, Do I feel like I've talked about this recently?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Has this been addressed?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's, you know, if it was a one to ten, what's my level of confidence?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: And be honest.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, man, if it's a two, like you might not have to address it today, but like, okay, that's one I need to try to level up.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you will not take all seven categories and turn them from twos to fives overnight.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: But let's find the one that you're like, no, I think I can move the needle on that the quickest and set a goal for that.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll have an assessment we'll send out.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if somebody's like, hey, I'm I don't know if I'm even equipped to evaluate it.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, we have a tool that you can go through that's actually going to give you a score for each category on preparedness.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: It can only go so deep it doesn't have all your personal data in it, but at least it's a good step of saying, what's a first run at increasing my awareness of how my plan looks?
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And my hope is from this day forward, if you own mutual funds, great.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you've bought insurance, awesome.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: But but you wouldn't say from this day forward that, like, oh, I have a complete financial plan because now you know what one is.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you would say, I don't have one yet, but I'm moving towards it.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's okay.