Latest / TaylorMade Retirement with Taylor Demars, CFP® / May the Force Be With Your Financial Plan

Transcript

May the Force Be With Your Financial Plan · TaylorMade Retirement with Taylor Demars, CFP®

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Outside of work, Star Wars may be one of my biggest passions.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, it's the single thing that made my wife's first date with me go from 30 minutes to three hours.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: So today we're going to unpack a few analogies that connect from Star Wars to the world of retirement planning.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Taylor Made Retirement, where we explore what it takes to build a retirement that works for your money and your life with third generation certified financial planner Taylor DeMars.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome into Taylor Made Retirement with Taylor DeMars, who just added himself as a Star Wars fan.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: And a really sweet there with the story about you and the wife's first date.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Some very good stuff.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome in everybody.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We appreciate your time.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We are going to talk about another themed show, if you will, and you know, lessons from a galaxy far, far away.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe uh May the Force be with your financial plan.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's a better title.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Either way.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to have a conversation about that this week.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you doing all right, my friend?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: You hanging in there?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, doing well, doing well.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I I I love the idea of kind of uh doing something more creative today and dive into the world of Star Wars.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many great lessons, I think life lessons there um that that make me love not just what we see on the screen, but kind of the what brought Star Wars to life.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so happy to unpack some of the lessons from uh Galaxy Far, Far Away into uh one of my other passions today.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, may the force be with you, then that's where we'll start, right?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe one of the most recognizable lines in all of movie history, love it or hate it.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, and obviously it's uh it's an energy, the force is an energy that connects and binds everything, and it's what they talk about, and there's a good and there's a bad, right?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh all that kind of stuff.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: How do you equate that to finances?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I mean, I guess in in our world that we've created societally, Taylor, certainly, you know, finance and money um does seem to bind us to everything there is, right?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we need it to live, basically.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's true.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's true.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: And as I think about kind of that that line specifically, as Master Yoda's sharing with Luke on Dagobah, you know, it's uh it's it's around us and it binds us and connects us.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: And and from that point on, you know, that's kind of the bulk of Luke's formal training.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: He it things really click for him because I feel like as he's you know trying to navigate adversaries and and blowing up the Death Star and so on, he doesn't try and come up with things from scratch.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: He's leaning on the force to help guide him.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like that's what a good retirement plan does, right?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: Rather than uh being able to say, hey, can we afford one more vacation?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Can we really afford that extra renovation?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Should we replace the car this year?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: Rather than a gut check or a glance at the bank account, a good retirement plan should be able to have the structure to answer that question for you, right?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that gives clients more confidence and certainty rather than just feeling like it's a it's a gut check or many other they they tell us many times their other advisor just says they're fine and yeah, they'll they'll they'll they'll wing it.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, um there should be a structure to be able to encapsulate the variety of topics that come in uh to retirement, just like the the force connects and binds all things.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, speaking of master Yoda, right?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, having a plan isn't enough on its own because as he says, you know, do or do not, there is no try, and I'm not gonna do a Yoda impersonation, but I think we all have one that we all try to do.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but it does take follow-through, right?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes sacrifice and sometimes, you know, putting the stuff together or even just some.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think for some people, Taylor just saying, you know what, I've had enough.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I need let's let's get on the calendar, let's go see somebody and see what they can do for us.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that's that's a big hurdle.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: It is, you know, and and you know, coming down to do it or not, there is no try.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I hear a lot of everyone has the best intentions.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: No one goes about their their financial retirement plan intending to overpay in taxes or to miss a deadline or to not meet their financial goals or overwork more years than they really needed to, right?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that's that's where we feel that everyone has the best intentions, but at the end of the day, the IRS doesn't care, right?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: Whether you pay your paid the right amount of taxes on time.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh your employer doesn't work and doesn't care whether you worked on a couple more years than you needed to, and you sacrificed your your mental or physical health for that.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a matter for us as of of of being that partner to help actually do and get things done and being that accountability uh strategist as well, because I can't tell you how many people have come to us in their 50s and 60s and never uh completed their estate planning documents.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Or if they'd have, they're they're still only applicable when their kids were, you know, minors.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: All of them are minors.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's where you know we were pushing things across the goal line to say let's let's let's let's not just try to get things done.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Let's let's actually get them completed.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're doing a good job there.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the movie cliche, the it's not it's not just Star Wars, it's pretty much any action movie I think ever.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: It might actually even be a requirement by the MPAA or the Screenwriters Guild or something.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm totally making that up, but it might be a requirement because every movie, I think it feels like they I have a bad feeling about this.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's the it's the I have a bad feeling cliche that ends up in so, so many movies.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and certainly you don't want to you don't want to feel that way about your finances.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think ideally you don't, but at the end of the day, uh we're human.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, if you go back to human psychology and so on, and we're we're hardwired to survive.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And the paranoid tend to survive.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're always, especially when the stakes are as high as you know, make a seven-figure decision on on a once-in-a-lifetime transition, people are just have that healthy skepticism to say, I have a bad feeling, whether this is all right, whether I've missed something, right?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, am I really prepared for the unknown?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's that's completely valid so long as we have a process to answer it, right?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: So answering questions about yes, what happens not if but when the market goes down, inflation spikes, interest rates shift, uh, tax legislation changes.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: The list goes on and on.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not here to keep anybody up at night, but those bad feelings uh are are inherently good to a certain degree, but I feel that a good plan helps uh help people sleep at night.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the idea anyway, right?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we'd like to see.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the hilarious thing, depending on how you know whether you're a big fan or you're a casual fan or you're not a fan at all, but the the Death Star's Fatal Flaw is one of the goofiest plot holes uh in, and I'm a big fan as well, in in movie history, and they repeated it not once, but twice.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, but at the same time, you know, you've got something massive like this and you're kind of winging it.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And movie making then, I mean, obviously they were kind of winging a lot of things at that time to creating such innovative technology.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll forgive them a couple of lapses of things here and there.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: But you want to have a strong financial plan that doesn't have maybe a glaring weakness.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's true, that's true.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, it's funny.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, back in what 1977 when they made the movie, they were flying by the city of their pants many.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: 76, really, for a lot of it, right?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Since it didn't come until 76.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the movie came out in 77.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 76 was when they were putting it together.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and yeah, I just I think that's kind of the the fundamental reason they made Rogue One, right?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Was to give a reason for why they did, which kudos to them for that.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: Exhaust board had a fault in itself, but I digress.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: I digress.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: But the point I guess uh we're trying to bring in is is sometimes, yeah, there is a a potential single chink of armor and a retirement plan.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I I don't know if I would go that far to say that there is one single thing that can bring the whole thing down unless you know things are really poorly set up.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, life happens, and so sometimes something is simple but tragic as uh uh a spouse passing can throw the whole thing for a loop, right?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah for each.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe maybe they they were the one that elected a an annuity or a pension payout that was based on only their single life, and suddenly the that income source had the rug pulled out from underneath it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the social security, right?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: Only only one social security benefit is kept.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: And if that's not planned for in advance when uh when electing, that's that's a problem.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: And just the fact that when you know when there's one spouse around, it's not like their lifestyle is cut in half, but the the tax brackets get cut in half, right?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: The the the ruminum.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's just I mean, we could go on, but there are things out there that a single but but extreme thing could upend a plan if not planned for in advance.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, very true.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Good stuff.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you slightly are you a fan?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like you're a fan or anything, right?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: Funny, we went to Costco over the weekend and they had this uh encyclopedia Star Wars type book, and it was you know, it was like it was 45 bucks, it wasn't cheap, it wasn't expensive, but it was just like when am I gonna have the time to sit down and do this?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: But the the nerd in me wanted to take it home.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: You were pondering, weren't you?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: I was, yeah.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: You were thinking it over.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing wrong with that.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, look, every Jedi needs a mentor, right?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So sticking with this theme, right?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: They all get they all get educated uh by um you know by a by a mentor, and you know, you got the pad one there trying to learn stuff.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so there's nothing wrong with you know, maybe doing a really good job yourself to a certain point, but then being like, yeah, I I I kind of need a little help here.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's yeah, I mean it's true.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think anyone uh is out to do a crusade totally on their own.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: They're looking for resources and assistance.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to, you know, commit blasphemy here and consider myself a true Jedi master.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but I I I I've done a thing or two, right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've I've I've learned on my own, made several mistakes and and learned from them.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I've learned from my father, who's I would consider my own mentor and and and my grandfather who started this business.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so that that's the benefit we bring to the table, right, as retirement planners, is many people are conducting their retirement planning once for the first time.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and and we retire people every day, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: We we've seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and and how people do it right, how people do it wrong.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's yeah, our role is to be that sort of Jedi mentor, if you will, to help people be able to uh conduct their their journey and their adventure of retirement successfully.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, at the end of the day, right, it's it's all about having a strategy and a plan.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that is what you know the the movies were about, too.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: There, they're you know, you needed to kind of have a strategy to overcome what's going on.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: You needed to have a plan.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't, you know, Luke didn't become a Jedi overnight, and he didn't do it alone, right?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: He had the mentor, he had the plan, he had the patience.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so a good financial plan basically kind of works the same way.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: So may the force be with you and may you have a you know the retirement that you're looking for, and it's probably not gonna just fall out of the stars.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're probably gonna have to go find it, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not gonna just kind of fall on your lap, um, you know, kind of like the droid fellow on Hoth.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not gonna happen.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: So indeed.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm dropping some nerd moments myself.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you guys have some questions, you need some help, reach out to Taylor and have a conversation.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: He and the team are here to help you, and they will not, you know, drive you nuts with the Star Wars stuff.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: They will do you guys do like a fantasy dress update at work?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do you do you go to work as a Jedi or anything?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but you might have to.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we gotta do it now.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: You may have to for Halloween.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: You may have to consider that, yeah.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: I for a while ago, I in my YouTube videos I put a uh a replica like movie quality prop uh lightsaber in my YouTube studio background, but I only had like two people ever comment about it in the comments section.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if uh I don't have if I'm if I don't have enough fellow nerd viewers out there or if it was just too hard to see.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: But uh you might be surprised.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll I'll bring it up with the staff to do a uh a dress up day for sure.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: All right, folks.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for hanging out with us as always.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: We certainly appreciate your time.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you need some help, again, reach out to Taylor and the team.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Before you take any action, you should always check and see how it's going to relate to your specific financial situation.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you can find them online at demarsfinancial.com.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's demarsfinancial.com, and there's uh links in the show descriptions as well.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Check them out on YouTube for his YouTube channel, as well as again the audio version of our podcast.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: So with that, we will see you next time here on Taylor Made Retirement with Taylor Demars.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Mark.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: May the force be with you.