Latest / Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan / Wealth Strategist Behind $2 Billion Explains How Founders Should Think When Markets Get Emotional

Transcript

Wealth Strategist Behind $2 Billion Explains How Founders Should Think When Markets Get Emotional · Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan

• 0:00
  What do you see most successful founders or entrepreneurs
• 0:03
  getting wrong about wealth creation?
• 0:05
  Are too many of your resources tied to in your wealth, tied to
• 0:10
  your company? It's a phenomenal way at which
• 0:13
  to grow wealth. It's also plagued with a whole
• 0:15
  lot of risk. So I've got in my hand here one
• 0:18
  Bitcoin, crypto and blockchain. Do you think it's the future of
• 0:22
  finance or do you think it's a fad?
• 0:26
  As of December 16th, 2024, the firm manages $1.65 billion.
• 0:32
  It is. It is surreal, it's humbling.
• 0:35
  It's just that client first focused, doing the next best
• 0:40
  right thing, having a phenomenal team around us.
• 0:45
  I think this is you. Is that right?
• 0:48
  Many, many years ago. And who's that?
• 0:50
  That is my oldest. What would you say to this, Dan,
• 0:52
  if he was sitting here in my seat today?
• 0:55
  What, what career advice might you give him?
• 0:57
  And then what would you say from a father standpoint?
• 0:59
  I've got a lot wrong and, but the thing of it is when I get
• 1:01
  things wrong, I, I, I do a good job of leaning into it,
• 1:04
  realizing it and figuring it out.
• 1:06
  I think hopefully my girls would say if there's one thing I've
• 1:11
  gotten mostly right, it is it's that.
• 1:20
  Dan Tresmer, founder of On Path Financial, welcome to the show.
• 1:25
  Thank you. Thanks for having me.
• 1:26
  Excited to be here. Yeah.
• 1:27
  I'm excited to have this conversation and I actually, I
• 1:29
  don't know if you probably don't know this about me, but I nerd
• 1:30
  out on investing and that kind of stuff too.
• 1:32
  So I'm for the first time, I think this might be one of the
• 1:36
  few people we've had on that have the investment financial
• 1:39
  angle. So I'm really excited to talk
• 1:41
  today. So for the audience listening,
• 1:43
  could you give us maybe in one or two sentences what you guys
• 1:46
  do at On Path? You know, I think it's a great
• 1:50
  question and I think if you boil it down, we say a lot that we're
• 1:54
  in the Peace of Mind business, right?
• 1:56
  And how do we do that? We really do that by sitting in
• 1:59
  the middle of our clients financial life mostly and just
• 2:03
  making sure that everything is coordinated.
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  You know, the reality is along the way, you know, what do we do
• 2:09
  day in and day out? You know, we manage a billion
• 2:12
  dollars for clients all throughout the country.
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  We're experts in the financial planning and insurance realm,
• 2:19
  but that's just the commodity, right?
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  I think the essence of what we do, we're in the people business
• 2:24
  more than anything. And yeah, it's it's a exciting
• 2:28
  space to be. Yeah.
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  So we had, we were just talking before we went live.
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  We had a good solid 2025 certainly for most kind of
• 2:35
  assets and equities and things like that.
• 2:37
  How do you feel about 2026? Are you bullish or bearish on
• 2:40
  2026? So you're starting.
• 2:42
  Yeah, here we go. Right.
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  You want my opinion? Yes.
• 2:45
  So, so here, you know, the real answer is, you know, we always
• 2:49
  say our ability to react is a lot more important than our
• 2:52
  ability to predict. And we mean that 'cause I think
• 2:56
  I, you know, when, when we're sitting in the middle stewarding
• 2:59
  capital for clients, you know, as as much as we'll have a view
• 3:04
  on what's ahead, we have to be ready for anything, right?
• 3:07
  Like if you would ask me this question if we were sitting here
• 3:11
  in January of 2020, right? Jeez.
• 3:15
  The landscapes largely the same, right?
• 3:17
  You know, I mean, we, we, we look out throughout the year, we
• 3:20
  think we've got the basis for a pretty decent year.
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  You know, there's some news reports of some things
• 3:25
  throughout the world. People are getting sick.
• 3:28
  We got an eye on that. Not sure what that's about you.
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  Fast forward a couple months and our, our world changes, right?
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  So, God willing, we have nothing like that, you know, on, on the
• 3:40
  on the table here. But I but I do think that as as
• 3:44
  much as we'll have a view on what's ahead and I think it
• 3:47
  matters, our nimbleness is just as important.
• 3:53
  So is is the foundation set for continue growing economy and
• 3:58
  thus continued market uptrend? Sure.
• 4:02
  Does that always mean it's going to happen?
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  No. And I and.
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  And no matter the path, we'll be ready for it.
• 4:07
  What are some of the tailwinds that you're excited about for
• 4:09
  2026 in terms of investments and potential opportunities to grow
• 4:13
  your money? You know what, you know, I think
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  it's, it's, it's a, you know, it's, it's a really good
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  question. You know, I think that, you
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  know, a lot of it is just a lot of it is, is just the
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  demographics, right? I mean, I think, I think when
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  you, when you look at, you know, the advent of none of us have
• 4:33
  pensions anymore, right? This is the the four O 1K world.
• 4:37
  The employment picture is fairly solid for most.
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  You know, it's weird. Confidence levels are are
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  bifurcated a little bit. It's not, you know, some of the
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  some of the metrics, yeah, I mean some, some of the metrics,
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  you know, and you hear a lot, right.
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  You hear a lot about this, what they call this K economy, where
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  I think if you ask people on the street this question even last
• 5:07
  year, right. Yeah, even though it was
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  environment where the economy grew, inflation was pretty
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  moderated, the job market was decent.
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  Not everybody is going to answer that question with a resounding,
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  hey, things are going great. There's a certain part of the
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  population where that is very much true.
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  But there are others that that are hurting where, you know,
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  wages that have not kept up with inflation and, you know, their
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  their paycheck to paycheck or worse.
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  And and a really they're looking at 2026 with some concerning
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  eyes. So, yeah, it's a it's an
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  interesting place at which to to be.
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  I think that kind of speaks to, you know, some of the wealthy
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  inequality that as a nation we probably have to think about
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  addressing. But I think, you know, by and
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  large are we, are we optimistic about, you know, just people are
• 6:06
  employed for the most part, people are confident.
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  We're all programmed to to save money.
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  And you know, that tends to be good for markets, tends to be
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  good and, and away we go. But yeah, but just the same,
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  there's, there's always things to, there's always things to
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  watch out for, and that's part of our job as well.
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  Yeah, yeah, it did seem like 2025.
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  You're kind of on the tippy toes, like what's going to
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  happen here? A new president comes in,
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  there's some new policies, the tariffs hit.
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  It was like, you know, where the Fed, where the Fed going to cut
• 6:36
  rates or keep rates the same or there was just a lot of unknown
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  was the AI, you know, AI bubble going to pop if there is one.
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  And I think coming into 2026, it feels a little different.
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  It feels a little like we got past some of the hard things and
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  now it's kind of like, all right, we're all ready to take
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  off. I would, I wouldn't disagree.
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  I think, you know, it's, I think it's one of those things if you
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  want, whether you're, you know, investor or, or business owner
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  or you name it, if you especially in this day and age,
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  if you want to find something to worry about.
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  You definitely can. You can find it right?
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  And that and that can be dangerous too, especially when
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  it comes to things like financial markets, right?
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  If there is always something to worry about.
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  And some of those things manifest it as themselves in
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  things like down markets. But you know, most of the time
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  they end up being non issues and markets and economies and trends
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  get on the other side of them. And often times they get on the
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  other side of them pretty quickly.
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  So I think that that's, you know, one of the things as
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  business owners or investors that we, you know, there's
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  trouble being too pessimistic. There's also trouble being too
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  overconfident, right? So I think, you know, and most
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  of the time, I think we find ourselves helping clients
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  navigate the emotional aspects of markets more than the
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  financial aspects of markets because there are times where
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  you're probably feeling better than you should, and there's
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  certainly times where you think the world is coming to the end
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  financially. And the reality is, it's just
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  not. It's like the fear and greed
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  index, right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  But you know, there's a famous saying, right?
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  I think this might have been attributable to Buffett B be
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  fearful when people are greedy and greedy when people are
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  fearful, right. And I think there's a lot of
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  things that are a little bit counterintuitive and, and maybe
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  by and large, investing can be one of them.
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  So, yeah, it gives, gives me and my team a reason to get up, get
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  up every morning and, and get it, get after it because it's
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  not always easy. And, you know, thankfully
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  that's, that's sometimes where we come in.
• 8:48
  Yeah. Do you how does the, what the
• 8:50
  Fed does change in terms of investment strategies or does it
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  at all? You know, right now it seems
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  like we're going to be going through quantitative easing,
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  even though they won't say that. But they are starting to quote
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  print money, even though I'm not really printing.
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  But there's buying a lot of treasuries back and things like
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  that, adding to their balance sheet.
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  And then we're probably going to get a rate cut or two,
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  especially if Trump puts in a new person that's a little bit
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  more dovish. Does that impact how you guys
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  think about them? Because I think that's the stuff
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  that you guys probably see and notice and and work through that
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  the average person probably investing doesn't think as
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  deeply about. Yeah, certainly.
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  I think you know, I, I think the, you know, the, the markets
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  in general are pretty efficient, meaning that if some of these
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  decisions no matter what they are, are orderly markets will
• 9:37
  digest that and price that in pretty quickly.
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  So I think, you know to your point in general, I think right
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  now with regard to the Fed, you know, you probably get one cut
• 9:50
  here in the first quarter. Think they'll cut in this month?
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  I don't know if it's this month, I think you know sometime this
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  quarter maybe maybe you get one more.
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  I mean, we're kind of sitting here in January of 26, we're 375
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  from a target standpoint. I mean, you know, when you, when
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  you look at the, when you look at their kind of their dot plot,
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  they, they call it where they think any of this stuff is
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  going. I think we're pretty range
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  bound. So I think we'll, you know, we
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  probably end the year, it probably ends the year with a
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  three. Is that 3.53 point 253?
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  Who knows? But I think that's a good
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  prediction. Yeah.
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  But I think that, you know, and when you when you think about
• 10:36
  the Fed specifically, you know, they are they've got this dual
• 10:39
  mandate we call it, right. So, so price stability and
• 10:43
  employment are two things that they have their eye on.
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  And you know, and price of stability, obviously inflation
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  is kind of come down. You know, tariffs have had an
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  impact. Some of that stuff is at the
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  courts. Yeah, we'll see if it gets
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  reversed. Right now, and I think the
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  administration has said, well, if if it if it gets reversed
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  based on that statute, that we probably, you know, we'll, we'll
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  just you know, we'll, we'll go back and and do something else.
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  But, but I think we as a as a market, as an economy that we've
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  kind of digested the impact of that.
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  And again, an unknown, you know that that was the, you know, the
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  thing about financial markets, financial markets on average
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  every year pull back 15%, right? There's just not sometimes you
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  never know what the trigger is, right?
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  So in 2025 tariffs and and not so what's the tariff itself, but
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  the unknown aspect of that is it off?
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  Is it on which country? Which Which product or
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  commodity? How does it affect our
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  relationships with different countries?
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  So I think that way, you know, it was, it was the unknown
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  around that. You know, now I think the
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  bandwidth of how that'll oscillate is a lot narrower.
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  So at the end of the day, the market, the market can digest
• 12:02
  that. But I think, you know, I, I
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  don't think much is going to happen on the inflation front as
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  I don't, I don't think we have a fear of inflation ratcheting
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  back up and we have an employment market which is,
• 12:17
  which is solid, but softening. It's definitely, it's my number
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  #1 concern would be the labor market, probably, yeah.
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  So again, when you if you're the Fed and you know, again,
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  they're, they're, you know, if they're, if they're prescribed,
• 12:32
  you know, they're probably in that range where inflation is
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  not down to their 2% target, but it's, it starts with it starts
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  with a 2. The employment market is OK, but
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  softening, you know, I don't think again, you know, they
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  would probably tell you their, their ability to react is a lot
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  more than important than their ability to predict.
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  And I think, you know, I don't think people mind kind of
• 12:57
  hanging out in, you know, I think we all yearn for a time
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  period where things are a little bit normalized, right?
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  You know, when, when you look in some of that stuff, you know, we
• 13:06
  can Monday morning quarterback it all all day long, but you
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  know that you, you do what you have to do.
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  But you know, in this environment where you know,
• 13:13
  rates are at zero and to your point and all of a sudden that's
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  not enough. So we have all this quantitative
• 13:18
  easing easing. I mean, that's, that can be
• 13:21
  problematic at times. And, and, and again, I think you
• 13:24
  know, when you look at the, the period of time that we've been
• 13:27
  through with rates where they were, to me at least, it shows
• 13:32
  how much excess that we've had in the system.
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  Because the fact of the matter, the fact that nothing is really
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  broken in the rate environment that we've been in for the most
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  part, it's pretty astonishing. But I think that's just excess
• 13:45
  that has been worked out. But I think a lot of us, whether
• 13:48
  you know, it's, it's a business owner or investor, we would love
• 13:52
  to be in a period of time where our things are kind of normal,
• 13:57
  Yeah. And we can focus on the things
• 13:59
  that matter the most. Yeah, Mark, it's like when it's
• 14:04
  calm, you know, they they tend to like that.
• 14:06
  So yeah, let me ask you this, Dan, there's been a lot of talks
• 14:09
  around 0% income tax. What are your thoughts on that
• 14:14
  now? I don't think that we're going
• 14:15
  to see 0% income tax. I think that's something people
• 14:18
  say and hope for and then maybe it'd be nice, but I, I just
• 14:22
  don't see that becoming a reality.
• 14:24
  I'm curious what your thoughts are.
• 14:25
  Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't know if I, if I have a, if I
• 14:28
  have a thought on that. I mean, you know the, I mean,
• 14:31
  here's the reality, right? Our, our receipts are less than
• 14:35
  our, our spend, right, Way less so.
• 14:39
  So it's, you know, all that stuff is all that stuff is all
• 14:43
  that stuff is nice. And I think they're.
• 14:46
  Saying the tariffs maybe can make up for some of that and
• 14:48
  would be in a position to not have income tax because of the
• 14:51
  tariffs would bring in so much revenue.
• 14:53
  I don't know if I buy that though.
• 14:54
  I mathematically, I don't know how you get there.
• 14:57
  Yeah, yeah. I don't have.
• 14:58
  Yeah, I don't know how you get there.
• 14:59
  So, you know, again, I in in, you know, 2026 is a midterm
• 15:04
  year, right? So well.
• 15:04
  That's the other. Yeah.
• 15:05
  So this. Is a tail one for markets
• 15:07
  honestly. Yeah.
• 15:08
  You know, so when you look at you, when you look at some of
• 15:10
  that stuff, right, I mean, how much of that is reality and how
• 15:13
  much of that is pumping is, is marketing, right.
• 15:16
  How much of that, Yeah, exactly how much of that is talking to
• 15:19
  your base or talking to who you hope is your base?
• 15:21
  Yeah, I think the reality is, is that, you know, I don't, I don't
• 15:25
  think there's any way that that we can or quite honestly that we
• 15:30
  probably should get there. You know, again, having an eye
• 15:35
  on both of here and now, but also out into the future.
• 15:39
  I mean, we've got a, you know, thank goodness we're the
• 15:42
  cleanest, dirtiest shirt in the hamper, right?
• 15:47
  Because things aren't great, but they're a lot better than, you
• 15:50
  know, I don't think anybody's there ready to take the baton.
• 15:54
  But I also think that we can't be so egotistical and cavalier
• 15:59
  to think that, you know, we, we, we can't, we shouldn't be
• 16:03
  getting our house in order a little more than we are at some
• 16:05
  point. But you know, some of those
• 16:07
  things are not popular, right? Some of those policies that that
• 16:10
  may be needed don't get people elected.
• 16:13
  And I think that's the, and that's not new, right?
• 16:15
  It's been going on for, for a long time.
• 16:18
  But you know some of the numbers now they're, you know they,
• 16:22
  they're getting, they're getting to the point where they're
• 16:25
  concerning or at least at long term they'll, they'll be
• 16:27
  concerning. Yeah, I think getting rid of
• 16:29
  property tax might be kind of nice.
• 16:31
  Just get rid of the property tax.
• 16:33
  Let somebody own a home and let them own it and let them not
• 16:36
  have to pay the government something that maybe could be
• 16:38
  nice. But yeah, we'll see.
• 16:40
  You know, especially sitting here in the good old state of.
• 16:43
  Illinois, yeah, where that's right we're.
• 16:44
  Not cheap where that's a big part of.
• 16:46
  Yeah, it's a lot of people that really that affects them too.
• 16:49
  I mean, in terms of people want to own a home, it's like the
• 16:51
  American dream. You have a good career, you have
• 16:53
  a home, family, whatever it is, although I think that's
• 16:54
  changing. But, you know, if somebody does
• 16:57
  want to own a home, just adds another layer of burden for
• 17:00
  them. You know, it's kind of
• 17:01
  unfortunate. And then you look at all the the
• 17:02
  fraud that's sighing and getting done this a rabbit hole, but you
• 17:05
  look at all the fraud and just across the board on both sides.
• 17:07
  I'm sure it's not like a one political thing or another, but
• 17:10
  just, man, could we eliminate a lot of that and maybe that wipes
• 17:12
  out the need to have to take so much from, you know, the people.
• 17:16
  It's interesting. Well, and I think too, I think,
• 17:18
  you know, it is, you know, I certainly think that there's,
• 17:22
  there's roles that regulation and government can, can play.
• 17:26
  I mean, I tend to, I tend to be a little more of a of a free
• 17:29
  market person. But you know, you know, to that
• 17:32
  point, the, the reality specific to housing, right?
• 17:38
  We've had a supply and demand imbalance for a long, long time,
• 17:43
  which has made home ownership even more, even more
• 17:47
  challenging, right? And you know, when you look at,
• 17:50
  you know, some of the things that are just being, you know,
• 17:52
  talked about right now, one of the aspects again, you, you
• 17:55
  talk, you talk about 0 interest rates and cheap money and the
• 17:59
  ramifications of that. There's a lot less turnover
• 18:03
  right now with regard to homes because there's a lot of people
• 18:05
  that have mortgages in the, in the twos or the threes that are
• 18:11
  just saying, you know what, I'm not, I'm not giving that up,
• 18:13
  right? Yes, for a 6.5, no thanks I.
• 18:16
  Will I'll either, I'll either we'll, we'll suck it up and stay
• 18:20
  here or we'll put, we'll modify the home.
• 18:23
  That's right. Because the difference between
• 18:24
  3% mortgage and a 6 1/2 percent mortgage into it's, it's, it's
• 18:28
  massive, right? Well, you know, and that kind of
• 18:30
  compounds the problem because you just kind of you don't get
• 18:33
  necessarily this natural turnover.
• 18:35
  So, you know, there's some things out there of, you know,
• 18:38
  is there ability to assume a mortgage right in a sales
• 18:42
  transaction and there's some work being done on legislation
• 18:46
  to to think about that. You know, I think the
• 18:47
  administration just talked about, you know, there's been a
• 18:50
  lot of corporate ownership of institutional ownership of
• 18:54
  single family homes especially. So I think, you know, they're
• 18:58
  they're looking at that and you know, is that is that a policy?
• 19:02
  Is that some place where where, you know, the government should,
• 19:05
  should step in with some regulation to help kind of free
• 19:08
  up a little bit of that possibly?
• 19:10
  You know, I think so it's, you know, it's, it's a, it's
• 19:16
  interesting what, what you know, you know, any time the debt gets
• 19:20
  reshuffled, what, whatever that formula is of executive and, and
• 19:28
  congressional leadership, what they want to, what they want to
• 19:33
  focus on. And certainly over the last
• 19:36
  couple of years that that deck has been shuffled And, and, but
• 19:39
  I think it individuals, markets, corporations, small business, I
• 19:47
  think we're, we're pretty darn good at, at playing the, the,
• 19:50
  the hand that were dealt and just kind of figuring it out.
• 19:53
  And I, you know, no doubt, I think whatever 2026 brings, I
• 19:57
  think collectively this is a year where we can, we can all
• 20:00
  kind of. Figure it out.
• 20:01
  Let's do it. You heard it from Dan.
• 20:02
  It's going to be a great year. What did anything surprise you
• 20:05
  about 2025 from a financial or investment standpoint?
• 20:12
  No, I mean, it's it, it, it get. I've been doing this a long,
• 20:16
  long time. Right.
• 20:17
  Not even gold or silver. That was kind of wild, right?
• 20:20
  You know what I tend to, yeah. I mean, you get some of those
• 20:25
  asymmetrical moves and you look at it and you kind of.
• 20:29
  No one could have predicted and you.
• 20:30
  And you go back to the, to the yeah, yeah.
• 20:32
  I think it, it helps to think through, think about the why
• 20:36
  behind some of some of those things.
• 20:40
  But, you know, again, I think, you know, at the at the end of
• 20:44
  the day, I think if you try to find yourself too surprised, I
• 20:50
  think that could be, you know, if you're constantly surprised,
• 20:54
  then then that that maybe is an issue a little bit.
• 20:57
  So, you know, markets are going to they're going to ebb and
• 21:00
  flow. Every once in a while, you're
• 21:02
  going to get these asymmetrical moves that, that are head
• 21:05
  scratchers that don't seem to make sense.
• 21:08
  And you just, you know, I think, you know, it's if you find
• 21:10
  yourself missing that you should ask, you know, is that is that
• 21:17
  is there something that we should learn from it?
• 21:20
  But you know, there's also, you know, sometimes these, sometimes
• 21:24
  these trends really have nothing fundamental around it, right?
• 21:28
  That this is just, this is just, this is just a constant bid that
• 21:34
  may not last forever. So I think that's, you know,
• 21:36
  especially when it comes to investing, you know, there,
• 21:40
  there's a, there's a saying that the trend is your friend and
• 21:43
  things that go up, even if they, it doesn't make sense, doesn't
• 21:46
  mean that they won't continue to, to go up.
• 21:50
  But there are times where fundamentals matter.
• 21:52
  And I think it's, it's it's one of our jobs is to try to make
• 21:56
  sense of all that in a way that that in a very durable manner
• 22:02
  can, can create wealth and protect wealth over the long
• 22:05
  run. But yeah, it's, you know, some
• 22:08
  of those things are fun to talk about and fun to look at.
• 22:09
  Yeah, for sure. But but yeah, I, I, you know,
• 22:13
  there's, there's, there's not much that surprises me anymore.
• 22:17
  And I think that's probably just a, a function of, I think that's
• 22:21
  a function of just seeing a lot. It's also a function of really
• 22:24
  trying to, you know, I, I think we got to be careful whether
• 22:28
  we're, you know, talking about us as investors or business
• 22:31
  owners, you got to be real, real careful not making decisions
• 22:36
  emotionally, right. A lot of.
• 22:39
  People did that last year, I think.
• 22:41
  Yeah, and I think we're well, and I think we're in this
• 22:43
  environment where, you know what, social media, you know, I
• 22:47
  think as as good as it is in a lot of respects, right, it it,
• 22:54
  it preys on emotion for sure. It amplifies emotion one way or
• 22:59
  the other. So I think for those important
• 23:02
  decisions in life, no matter what it is, I think you really
• 23:06
  need to step back and have a level head and just not get
• 23:10
  caught up in that. And I think that's if, if
• 23:12
  there's, if there's one thing that we are built for as a firm
• 23:15
  and on path. And if there's one thing that we
• 23:17
  prescribe to, it's, it's really focus on the data.
• 23:22
  Take the emotion out of it. Because even us as
• 23:24
  professionals, you can't help but get emotional about things.
• 23:30
  So you really have to do everything in your power to put
• 23:32
  that aside and and just kind of focus on the data and and react
• 23:35
  to that. Yeah.
• 23:36
  Were you always into finance and investments and things like
• 23:39
  that? Or is there?
• 23:39
  Was there some kind of magical moment where it all clicked for
• 23:42
  you and you said this is my career path?
• 23:44
  Great question. So so in college I was my major
• 23:49
  is actually psychology. Really.
• 23:50
  Yeah, a lot of psychology and money.
• 23:52
  There's a book called The Psychology and Money, Yeah.
• 23:54
  I would never say it. It's everything.
• 23:57
  It's everything, right? So so I actually thought I was
• 23:59
  going to be a clinical psychologist really had a had a
• 24:03
  program offer in hand and then really just kind of started to
• 24:06
  think about it in in math was was another emphasis in college
• 24:11
  too, and that started kind of a pre engineering, which was
• 24:14
  physics, physics and math physics and adding didn't didn't
• 24:18
  have a great relationship. So kept the math and then found
• 24:21
  psychology. But at the end of the day, I
• 24:23
  think what I loved about psychology was the people aspect
• 24:27
  of it, right? And the the service and helping
• 24:31
  aspect of that. So I think, you know, just kind
• 24:33
  of, you know, thinking through more than anything.
• 24:35
  It was just, hey, I'm looking at four to six years of school and
• 24:38
  practicum. I'm 22 years old.
• 24:41
  So I thought, you know what, maybe I'll maybe I'll, I'll look
• 24:43
  and see what the job market has in store and, and really found
• 24:49
  finance, found wealth management.
• 24:53
  So this is all I've ever known and I'm really, really fortunate
• 24:58
  because I found something that kind of scratches that itch from
• 25:03
  from a people side. And then I I love the math, I
• 25:08
  love the numbers. So I'm really one of those
• 25:12
  unique characters that that this is all I've ever known.
• 25:15
  Six years as a, as a kind of a solo advisor and then found it
• 25:22
  on path with another gentleman back in 2003.
• 25:28
  So yeah, this is all I've ever known.
• 25:30
  And I pinch myself constantly that I found something that I I
• 25:35
  love and I'm better than average at.
• 25:40
  Well, I think that's the key I always tell people too, if
• 25:42
  they're asking for advice, if you can find something that you
• 25:44
  love, chances are you're going to stick with it #1 when it gets
• 25:48
  tough, and it will get tough, it will get challenging, you will
• 25:51
  be tested. Just no matter what that will
• 25:53
  happen. You will feel at your lowest.
• 25:54
  You will feel like you can't do it.
• 25:56
  You will feel like there's a big hurdle in front of you and
• 25:58
  you'll have to get past it. And if you love what you do, it
• 26:00
  helps you get through those moments.
• 26:02
  You're willing to fight for it because you do it.
• 26:04
  Even if it didn't make you any money.
• 26:05
  You just love it. And the second thing is I think
• 26:07
  you're just going to grow and learn faster because you are
• 26:10
  interested that you're probably going to study it outside of
• 26:12
  work hours or listen to podcast about it or talk about it, you
• 26:15
  know, with friends or whatever it is.
• 26:17
  So I think if you can find something that you truly, as
• 26:19
  cliche as it is, you truly love and are obsessed with, it'll
• 26:23
  serve you, but it'll also serve the people that you serve your
• 26:26
  clients because they'll feel that too.
• 26:27
  It's really, really well said. Yeah, We talked a lot about with
• 26:31
  our team at Onpath. We talked about continually
• 26:34
  making sure that we're giving them every opportunity to move
• 26:39
  along the path of the, the areas of highest competency and joy,
• 26:48
  right, yes. So it again, this is, this is
• 26:53
  work, right? These are careers.
• 26:54
  So you're always you're always going to have things that that
• 26:58
  you're you're good at that you don't love.
• 27:00
  And that's just it is what it is.
• 27:01
  But I think when you when you think about a, a career
• 27:05
  trajectory, especially one that that has some staying power, if
• 27:10
  you're to your point, if you're continually moving down the path
• 27:14
  of every job that you have, every role that you have, if
• 27:18
  it's further and further along that competency joy continuum, I
• 27:23
  think that has a recipe for for long term success.
• 27:29
  It's a good way to put it. Yeah, I agree 100%.
• 27:31
  What was We have a lot of founders, entrepreneurs,
• 27:34
  business owners. Listen to this podcast.
• 27:36
  What would you tell them if they maybe want to switch their
• 27:39
  current financial advisor or firm, or maybe they don't have a
• 27:42
  financial advisory firm and they're thinking about putting
• 27:45
  their money, you know, with potentially an on path or
• 27:47
  someone like that. How would you help them sort of
• 27:49
  decide who the right firm is? Maybe they're going to interview
• 27:52
  a couple different firms and say, I have no clue where should
• 27:54
  I put my money? Obviously it's the big decision
• 27:57
  and you work very hard for your money.
• 27:58
  You want to grow then at that point and keep as much of it as
• 28:01
  you possibly can. How would you help them work
• 28:03
  through that decision? What would be your advice?
• 28:06
  You know, that's a great question and I think, I think if
• 28:11
  it's OK, maybe I'll answer it a little bit differently.
• 28:14
  Please. That's.
• 28:15
  We're all about that here. So please.
• 28:17
  Yeah. So I think you know, it's, you
• 28:19
  know, we, we spend a lot of time at on path really dissecting how
• 28:24
  do people find us? Why do they stay?
• 28:31
  It's rare that we're blessed. It's, it's, it's rare that they
• 28:34
  leave, right? So we must be doing something.
• 28:37
  We must be doing something, right?
• 28:41
  And I think, and then we look at it from an industry standpoint,
• 28:44
  right? There's, there's good data,
• 28:45
  especially in, you know, wealth management, where there's a
• 28:49
  person doing what I do, what our team does on every corner,
• 28:53
  right? There's no shortage of that.
• 28:56
  So, so, and again, to your point, if you're somebody out
• 28:59
  there who's, who's looking at, you know, it can be, it can be
• 29:02
  daunting, right? Like how do you start?
• 29:04
  What questions do you ask? But but when we look at when we
• 29:07
  look at our firm and and what makes us successful, why do
• 29:11
  clients choose us? Why do they stay?
• 29:14
  What's happening in the industry?
• 29:16
  And this isn't, this probably isn't surprising, but at the end
• 29:20
  of the day, it has nothing to do with the commodity of what we
• 29:26
  do, right? Like when when you look at
• 29:28
  industry data as far as why do people change advisors from one
• 29:33
  to the next. And this has been the case for
• 29:36
  as long as I've been in the industry almost 30 years.
• 29:40
  Some of those things that maybe you would, you would intuitively
• 29:43
  think are the performance investment performance fees,
• 29:49
  product availability. I mean, those things are nowhere
• 29:53
  near the top of the list, right. What is, what is it?
• 29:58
  What's at the top of the list? Advisor didn't return my phone
• 30:02
  call or now, you know, now it's, it's e-mail.
• 30:07
  Yeah. I just don't feel, I feel like a
• 30:09
  number there. You know, it's again, it's,
• 30:12
  it's, it's all of that. It, it, it's all the
• 30:15
  relationship side of that. So that's why I say, you know,
• 30:20
  people ask me what we do. You know, it's a little tongue
• 30:23
  in cheek to say, you know, we're in the Peace of Mind business.
• 30:27
  We sit in the middle of our clients financial life in a very
• 30:30
  boutique, high touch way, help everything being coordinated,
• 30:34
  but in in an essence that that is that is crystallize what we
• 30:40
  do and what we do really, really well.
• 30:43
  The rest of that stuff in my opinion is table stakes.
• 30:46
  Clients expect us to have a world class managed money
• 30:51
  management portfolio. People expect us to be to be
• 30:58
  great financial planners. People expect us to be able to
• 31:00
  if we don't have the answer, go help, help find it.
• 31:03
  So I think to your question, at the end of the day, if you, if
• 31:07
  you're going to, if, if you're out there looking for any new
• 31:12
  relationship that is important in your life that you want to be
• 31:16
  long lasting, I would say probably focus on, do I think
• 31:20
  this team, do I trust them? Do I enjoy them?
• 31:25
  Right? Like like if, if, if, if, if I'm
• 31:29
  calling somebody and somebody's looking at the the caller ID and
• 31:31
  going, oh, no, it's Dan again. I mean, there's something broken
• 31:35
  about that relationship, right? Like you, you should have, you
• 31:38
  should enjoy relationships, you should trust them and, you know,
• 31:43
  and, and they should return your phone call.
• 31:45
  So I think that that, you know, if you're out, if anybody's out
• 31:48
  there assessing, I think those are the most important questions
• 31:54
  that are going to really help you discern where are you going
• 31:57
  to be the happiest rather than, you know, what's your fee
• 32:02
  structure? What's your rate of return?
• 32:03
  I mean, those things matter, but in this day and age, that's not
• 32:08
  the differentiating factor. And I think that's not the,
• 32:12
  that's not the core thing that anybody should really should be
• 32:14
  worried about. Yeah, well, that was the first
• 32:17
  thing that came to my mind was trust.
• 32:18
  I would just want to trust that where I'm putting my money, that
• 32:21
  these people are looking out for me, that I have a good
• 32:23
  relationship with them, that they're going to take care of
• 32:25
  me. And then past that, it would be
• 32:27
  like the proficiency, the fees, that kind of stuff.
• 32:29
  Yeah, that's kind of what you just hit on, right?
• 32:30
  Exactly. I'm not, you know.
• 32:31
  That stuff, that stuff absolutely matters.
• 32:35
  But anymore that's really not the differentiator, right?
• 32:38
  I mean, I think that's the one you know, with, with, with, you
• 32:41
  know, Internet and I mean the fee, fee dispersion is, is
• 32:48
  really, really tight. And and you know what,
• 32:50
  everybody, we're all very transparent with that.
• 32:53
  And that's not the differentiating factor from one
• 32:55
  to another. You can also just with regard to
• 32:57
  investing, you know, you rewind 2030 years, you know, there,
• 33:02
  there were different philosophies, different product
• 33:04
  availability at different firms. That's really not the case these
• 33:07
  days, right. Like we can, we can go find and
• 33:11
  use anything. Yeah, right.
• 33:13
  So we're pretty agnostic when it comes to when it comes to
• 33:16
  investment solution. And, and so from that
• 33:19
  standpoint, I think you, you just kind of, you should check
• 33:23
  those things, make sure that they're superior.
• 33:26
  But that is not the, you know, the if, if, if somebody went out
• 33:29
  and, and interviewed 3 firms and that's the only thing that they
• 33:33
  asked about. They, and they, they sit down at
• 33:35
  the table and try to discern the difference between the three.
• 33:38
  They're just as confused as when they started, right?
• 33:40
  Because at the end of the day, I, I don't think those are the
• 33:43
  things that really move the needle as much as some of those
• 33:47
  more relationship things. You know, do somebody that
• 33:50
  that's there for good times and bad that really can help you.
• 33:55
  Some of this, you know, team that can only talk.
• 33:57
  We talked emotion a little bit ago, right?
• 33:58
  You know, somebody that can help you effectively navigate, you
• 34:03
  know, whether it's whether it's tougher times in financial
• 34:05
  markets or in their own, their own economy, right?
• 34:09
  Loss of a job, death of a loved one or opportunities that they
• 34:14
  have and, and having somebody who knows them that can wrap
• 34:17
  A-Team around them to help them think through that.
• 34:22
  I mean, that's, that's all about the relationship.
• 34:24
  And at the end of the day, I think that's what we do really,
• 34:27
  really well. And that's our differentiator
• 34:29
  more than anything is the way we we, we wrap everything around
• 34:34
  that. The products and services.
• 34:37
  That's just the means to the end.
• 34:38
  That's it. That's the, that's the
• 34:40
  commodity. That's not the differentiation.
• 34:42
  What would you say to someone that says AI is going to replace
• 34:46
  financial advisors at some point?
• 34:49
  Never happened. So here, you know, AI is a
• 34:54
  fascinating AI is a fascinating conversation.
• 34:59
  You know, again, I think going back to going back to I love
• 35:04
  this topic. And I think, you know, as a
• 35:07
  business owner, as a business owner in the wealth management
• 35:13
  space, you know, I, we should be so cavalier to say that it, it,
• 35:19
  it never will. But at the end of the day, I
• 35:21
  think, you know, we're, we're what we do in essence when we're
• 35:27
  sitting there, you know, AI is tremendously powerful and we've
• 35:31
  just scratched the surface, right.
• 35:34
  You know, somebody said the other day, you know, this is not
• 35:36
  like we're in the early innings of this.
• 35:37
  We're probably still in the dugout and this is going to be
• 35:40
  remarkable and probably scary, but it's going to change the
• 35:46
  face of things probably easily more than the Internet did over
• 35:50
  the last 2530 years for sure, right.
• 35:54
  But when you look at, you know, when you look at anything that's
• 35:56
  out there, you know, again, I think the, you know, just what
• 36:00
  some of the things I talked about, you know, like
• 36:02
  navigating, it's one thing to have the data, it's another
• 36:06
  thing to be able to do the thing right.
• 36:11
  And I think, you know, AI is, is, is wonderful at putting you
• 36:17
  on maybe what you even should do.
• 36:21
  But knowing what you should do and doing it sometimes are, are
• 36:25
  two different things. So when it comes to when it
• 36:28
  comes to financial markets, you know, you can go to AI right
• 36:33
  now, you can go to ChatGPT and put in some parameters and it'll
• 36:38
  spit out a portfolio and you go put that to work.
• 36:41
  And you know what? Over 20 years.
• 36:43
  Later, you'll be broke, yeah. Well, the opposite, right?
• 36:46
  It's probably fine, right. Like it's, it's, but when, when,
• 36:51
  when markets, when markets get funky, Yeah.
• 36:55
  Or when you have a change in situation and you don't know if
• 36:58
  that's what you, what you need to do.
• 37:01
  I mean, it's at least right now, right?
• 37:03
  It, it, it's only as good as spitting out what you prompted
• 37:07
  to put in. And when we, when I look at
• 37:10
  where do we move the needle? You know, where do we help
• 37:14
  clients look around corners? Where are we really good about
• 37:18
  identifying opportunity? You know, those are things that
• 37:22
  are really hard to to put into an AI model and have it spit out
• 37:29
  something that's pretty effective.
• 37:30
  So when I say to, you know, do I do I think, do I think AI is
• 37:35
  ever going to replace good quality advisor teams?
• 37:41
  No. Is AI going to make its way into
• 37:46
  our industry like it has anything else?
• 37:48
  It already is for sure. And and we're adopters.
• 37:50
  So, so, you know, I think we're, we're all in with some of those
• 37:54
  efficiencies and, and what it does well, but in a sense at our
• 37:57
  firm, at least right now with, you know, AI one point O you
• 38:03
  know, what are those things that, that it's, it's probably
• 38:06
  better than people at that are just, you know, some of those
• 38:09
  mindless tasks. So here in the first quarter,
• 38:11
  we're launching an AI note taker.
• 38:15
  So in, in the same thing that my doctor just asked me, you know,
• 38:19
  hey, can I, can I have this running?
• 38:22
  So I can, I can pay, I can be more present.
• 38:24
  That's right. Yeah, I.
• 38:25
  Don't have to worry about taking, taking a bunch of notes,
• 38:28
  you know, we're, we're launching.
• 38:29
  I mean, in those things, those things are, are great, right?
• 38:33
  They're probably better note takers than that I am.
• 38:37
  But the key is it allows me to be even more present than I
• 38:41
  already am. So I think for us at least all
• 38:46
  of those tasks that are so essential, especially those that
• 38:51
  some of those that can be kind of mind numbing, yeah and.
• 38:54
  Tedious. Tedious.
• 38:55
  And because of that they're they might be prone to human error.
• 38:59
  Yeah great. Let's let's let AI do.
• 39:02
  All that stuff then. And then, and then our team has
• 39:07
  more time to be there and present with, in our case, our
• 39:12
  clients. And that for, for now, that's a,
• 39:16
  that's a beautiful formula, right?
• 39:18
  Are there other industries and professions out there that
• 39:20
  probably should be a little more nervous because what they do is,
• 39:25
  is kind of just a little more, you know, tedious and there's
• 39:29
  yeah, I think, but but listen, at the end of the day, that's
• 39:32
  been the case throughout, throughout generations, right?
• 39:35
  I mean, we've always had advancements that, you know,
• 39:38
  some, some, some industries and professions find themselves
• 39:43
  going the way of the dinosaurs. Some of them find a way to lean
• 39:47
  in and, and transform themselves.
• 39:49
  And there's going to be things that are new that we can't even
• 39:52
  that we can't even see yet. So I think, you know, we're, I'm
• 39:56
  optimistic when it comes to AI in general, but there's
• 40:01
  certainly some questions that we're asking that.
• 40:05
  Ever did before? Yeah, right.
• 40:07
  It's changed the landscape for sure and I agree.
• 40:09
  I think you let the AI do what the AI is best at doing and
• 40:12
  hopefully allows the humans to do what they're best at doing
• 40:15
  and freeing them up. And I don't know about you and I
• 40:17
  think our listeners here, I don't think you guys would want
• 40:19
  to listen to a podcast with two AIS.
• 40:21
  I just don't like there's no story.
• 40:23
  There's no, you know what you've been through.
• 40:25
  There's no real life perspective because you're living and going
• 40:28
  through this world. It would just be two robots.
• 40:31
  Now, can a robot or an AI help you summarize things and draft
• 40:35
  some things or double check some things or analyze something?
• 40:37
  Of course. And I use the AI note taker
• 40:39
  today and have for a while. It's amazing.
• 40:42
  I mean, mine probably doesn't have the security stuff that
• 40:44
  your guys is going to need to have because you have she got
• 40:46
  financial records and things like that.
• 40:47
  But I mean, at the end of the at the end of the meeting, it sends
• 40:49
  a video recording. It says the summary, it sends
• 40:51
  action items. It's like, and it's basically a
• 40:53
  free software. And so that's incredible.
• 40:56
  You know, for the podcast, we have three cameras here
• 40:58
  recording right now. Once we're done, our editing
• 41:00
  team, they'll put in AAI software.
• 41:02
  It'll just edit automatically in a matter of 57 seconds or less.
• 41:06
  It'll chop up every camera angle.
• 41:08
  So when you're talking, it's on you and I'm talking it's on me
• 41:10
  for both. Kind of chiming in, it's on
• 41:11
  both. What I don't think is a good use
• 41:13
  of AI is trying to let it do the human parts, like substitute for
• 41:17
  this or come up with every strategy that you do because it
• 41:20
  doesn't understand things like a human does.
• 41:22
  Yeah, for sure. So I'm with you there.
• 41:24
  A question on, you know, what do you see most successful founders
• 41:28
  or entrepreneurs getting wrong about wealth creation?
• 41:33
  What do they think? Right now, that maybe is when.
• 41:35
  They come to you that maybe some little misaligned with how it
• 41:37
  actually works. You know, I think that I mean
• 41:41
  that's. A that's a, that's a great, it's
• 41:43
  a great question. And we spend, we spend a lot of
• 41:47
  time with entrepreneurs, you know, here, here's, I think
• 41:53
  here's the, here's good or bad, Here's the if, if this was 15
• 41:57
  years ago, I think, you know, my, my answer would be, you
• 42:03
  know, maybe lack of diversification, meaning that
• 42:09
  are, are too many of your resources tied to, in your
• 42:16
  wealth, tied to your company. And again, that's just as as
• 42:21
  business owners, as founders. Often times that just happens to
• 42:25
  be the case. Totally, absolutely.
• 42:26
  And it's a, and it's a phenomenal way at, at, at which
• 42:29
  to, to grow wealth. It's also plagued with a whole
• 42:33
  lot of risk, right. And, and I think by nature,
• 42:37
  you're over allocated in every aspect, right time, your, it's
• 42:43
  everything, your balance sheet, your energy, a lot of that stuff
• 42:47
  must go there. But as, as wonderful as that is
• 42:52
  that that can also be problematic to when it comes to
• 42:57
  when it comes to wealth creation, because you can find
• 42:59
  yourself, you can find yourself doing all the right things and
• 43:02
  there could be forces outside of your control that change the
• 43:08
  change the, the scope of your trajectory overnight.
• 43:12
  That's the case without any investment.
• 43:13
  And I think one of the things that, that when we, when we look
• 43:16
  at privately held, especially founder LED companies, you know,
• 43:22
  I think this, you know, this, this notion that things are
• 43:25
  always going to, you know, go up and, and this is so I, I, you
• 43:29
  know, and, and that's probably the trend that I've seen over
• 43:31
  the last 15 years where I think founders are, are starting to
• 43:37
  realize that, you know, at the end of the day, if this is going
• 43:41
  to be successful, they should take a lot of pride and put a
• 43:43
  lot of energy into the, into the creation and growing of that.
• 43:48
  But I think we're also seeing a trend where they're a little
• 43:50
  more realistic in what this means for their future after,
• 43:57
  when, when they're done, whatever, whatever that means.
• 44:00
  And I think particularly we, we, we see it a lot in just thinking
• 44:05
  through the sometimes the complexities of
• 44:08
  intergenerational transfer of, of business.
• 44:12
  And I think, you know, part of that is just the, the notion of
• 44:15
  or the nature of the fact that, you know, a lot of our kids
• 44:19
  don't necessarily after they're done with whatever, you know,
• 44:22
  their schooling, they don't always come back home
• 44:28
  throughout, throughout throughout the country, they're
• 44:29
  doing something else. So they, you know, part of that.
• 44:31
  It just might be the nature. Of of families these days, but
• 44:34
  I, I think we're, we're finding more and more that founders are,
• 44:39
  you know, looking at the wealth that they've that they've grown
• 44:42
  in their business less emotionally.
• 44:47
  You kind of keep on going back then, then maybe they once did.
• 44:51
  And I think that's that's probably what we're seeing.
• 44:53
  And that's probably ultimately at the end of the day, one of
• 44:55
  the things that founders need and business owners need to be
• 44:57
  weary of is, is just not get overextended with the resource
• 45:03
  that they put into into their own company.
• 45:06
  What was? What's one thing that you
• 45:07
  believe about? Wealth creation that maybe other
• 45:10
  financial advisory firms don't believe.
• 45:18
  I don't, you know, I don't know if I have anything unique.
• 45:21
  I mean, at the end of the day, the I, I come back to, you know,
• 45:27
  anything that is anything that is sustainable, anything that is
• 45:31
  durable, it's not, it's not a short term fix, right?
• 45:36
  It's just being disciplined, following long term principles.
• 45:41
  And you know, and, and so I, I don't think our, I don't think
• 45:46
  our, I'm not sure if we have necessarily a unique way to look
• 45:54
  at that, but we're all about long term multi generational
• 45:58
  engagements, right? So what it takes to grow wealth,
• 46:03
  what it takes to protect wealth, and what it takes to effectively
• 46:08
  transfer wealth should be very methodical, very well thought
• 46:14
  out. And you know, most, most people,
• 46:18
  most people that find themselves whatever their definition of
• 46:21
  wealthy is most of the time, that didn't happen overnight for
• 46:25
  sure. And to the extent that it did
• 46:26
  happen. Overnight.
• 46:28
  You know, you see this all the time, study after study.
• 46:30
  Sometimes that's the wealth that is not long lasting.
• 46:33
  That's true. You almost don't want that.
• 46:35
  You need a little challenge and you got to earn it a little bit,
• 46:38
  you know? So I think there's a lot that
• 46:40
  goes into that. But I think that, you know, slow
• 46:43
  and steady, tried and true is is, you know, that's that's good
• 46:48
  medicine often times for sure. So I've gotten.
• 46:51
  My hand here one Bitcoin now actually it's it's not actually
• 46:55
  obviously a real Bitcoin because there's no physical Bitcoin that
• 46:58
  would be on the blockchain. But I did want to ask you since
• 47:01
  we're here and it's a pretty it's I think it's a somewhat
• 47:04
  disruptive topic depending on who you talk to.
• 47:06
  But crypto and blockchain, do you think it's the future of
• 47:10
  finance or do you think it's a fad?
• 47:14
  I think it's. Here to stay I don't know if I
• 47:17
  don't know if I'll go so far as to say it's the future of
• 47:19
  finance, but certainly it's here to stay at least the at least
• 47:24
  the core blockchain technology like blockchain and even.
• 47:26
  Some of the you know. Even the bitcoins, you know.
• 47:30
  Ethereums of the. World, they're here to stay and
• 47:33
  you know, and, and do they have a, you know, do they have a
• 47:35
  place in, do they have a place in the, in the economy?
• 47:39
  Yes. Do they have a place in the in
• 47:41
  the investment realm? Yes, and but you know, are they
• 47:49
  are they going to be? Is it the end all be all?
• 47:52
  You know, again, I'm not I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm there, but
• 47:56
  certainly it's you know, you, you you talk about it's
• 48:00
  interesting. You just talk about the the why
• 48:01
  behind a lot of these things. You know, again, I think you
• 48:05
  know, when you look at, you know, some of that
• 48:10
  decentralization aspect of it, and when you look at like, you
• 48:15
  know, the, the, the US, which is the, which is the, the safety of
• 48:21
  the world's financial center and in the long term issues that we
• 48:24
  have, I mean, there's reasons that that some of these things
• 48:27
  have the attention that they do. And again, you know, to your
• 48:33
  point, there's a lot of fundamental aspects of that
• 48:36
  technology that are going to help, that are going to help,
• 48:40
  you know, change the world like a lot of different things.
• 48:41
  So yeah, it's not, it's not going anywhere.
• 48:45
  That's probably not a bad thing. Like with anything, there's I
• 48:48
  think there's things that, you know, hopefully we, we, we
• 48:51
  figure out, you know, any, any technology, whether it's Bitcoin
• 48:54
  or AI, you know, there's going to be any time there's
• 48:57
  opportunity like that, there's going to be bad actors and
• 48:59
  things that we have to worry about.
• 49:01
  How do we regulate them? What's the end result?
• 49:04
  But at the end of the day, is it a net positive that's going to
• 49:07
  be here for a long time? I think everything points to
• 49:11
  that being a resounding yes. Yeah.
• 49:13
  And you see what the stable coins you know, genius.
• 49:15
  ACT obviously got passed last year, 2025 ton of inflows for
• 49:19
  stable coins. Now JP Morgan Chase, you know,
• 49:21
  you got all these big companies trying to get into it now and
• 49:24
  then, yeah, I think you got the ETFs, you know, that are pretty
• 49:26
  heavily flowed in from 2025. And then you got just the
• 49:29
  tokenization of I think just about everything.
• 49:32
  I mean, it seems like stock market, you'll probably have
• 49:34
  gold and silver tokenized. You'll buy things in the future
• 49:37
  and instead of, you know, buying it on a Friday and if you try to
• 49:39
  buy something right now to Saturday or Friday night,
• 49:41
  Saturday at 10 AM, you're going to put in the order.
• 49:43
  It's not going to probably be done till Monday at some point
• 49:46
  on the blockchain. It's almost instantaneously
• 49:49
  it's, you know, faster, potentially cheaper.
• 49:51
  And so I think it's, I think it's I'm with you.
• 49:53
  I think it's an innovation. I think it's an upgrade to the
• 49:55
  current system. It's not it's not everything,
• 49:58
  but it's I think it'll be pretty exciting to see.
• 50:02
  Yeah, don't disagree. Yeah, yeah.
• 50:05
  Are there any other any cryptos that you're more bullish on like
• 50:07
  any any cryptocurrency specifically or no comment?
• 50:11
  I love it. I'll say it, I'll say it.
• 50:14
  I think Ethereum is is big time. Because it's the, it's, I think
• 50:17
  a lot of the ways, the, the rails that a lot of things are
• 50:19
  being built on. Solana, you could argue is right
• 50:21
  there, maybe even more bullish, faster, cheaper, things like
• 50:24
  that. I think XRP has a big
• 50:26
  opportunity this year with everything that Ripple's doing.
• 50:29
  And I think Bitcoin's just going to be that digital gold.
• 50:32
  I think you could argue, you could definitely argue like,
• 50:33
  what is it really worth? You know, you definitely, you
• 50:35
  definitely could hold a Bitcoin and say, why is this thing worth
• 50:38
  money again? But it's the first of its kind.
• 50:40
  It is kind of the digital gold. And so, but I'd actually, I'd
• 50:44
  actually, if I could put more money, and I'm not a financial
• 50:46
  advisor and this is not a financial advice, We'll just say
• 50:48
  that right there. But if I could put money into
• 50:50
  one cryptocurrency this year, I don't know, it wouldn't be
• 50:53
  Bitcoin. There'd be some of the other
• 50:55
  ones that have real use case and real world utility.
• 50:58
  I think that's going to be really powerful.
• 51:00
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 51:00
  Well, this is where regulation saves.
• 51:02
  Me right because I'm not going to comment on there you go you
• 51:04
  know individual companies or individual investment so I get
• 51:09
  AI, get AI, get a pass I love that I get a pass on that but
• 51:12
  yeah you know just like anything right what it is worth what
• 51:15
  somebody's willing to pay for it that's right so that's right
• 51:18
  you. Could you could question?
• 51:20
  All day long. Whether that price discovery is,
• 51:23
  is fundamental, but the reality is that's that's where the price
• 51:27
  is at. So it is what it is.
• 51:29
  Yeah, that's right. So I pulled up an article.
• 51:31
  And you guys won't be able to see it unless you're watching on
• 51:33
  the video. Maybe you can get us a quick
• 51:34
  snapshot, but it's from March 5th, 2025 and basically talks
• 51:39
  about some acquisitions you guys made and it says this is public
• 51:43
  knowledge. So as of December 16th, 2024,
• 51:46
  the firm manages On Path manages $1.65 billion and AUM which is
• 51:53
  assets under management in both brokerage and advisory assets
• 51:57
  with approximately 850 million by On Path Partner Advisors,
• 52:02
  demonstrating the success of its equity alignment strategy and
• 52:04
  commitment to providing dynamic resources to advisors.
• 52:08
  How does it feel when I read that off?
• 52:09
  Is that surreal? Completely.
• 52:12
  And I probably would use the word humbling more than
• 52:15
  anything. Yeah.
• 52:16
  Yeah, that's a big number. I mean you.
• 52:18
  Started this, you know, a couple decades ago, what, 23 years ago
• 52:21
  I think we said, is that wild? To kind of look back and say
• 52:24
  holy shit. We're here.
• 52:25
  It's. Oh, completely.
• 52:27
  Yeah. And it's.
• 52:28
  It's, you know, we, we, the current, largely the current
• 52:33
  structure that we, that we're in right now, we found it on path
• 52:41
  in 2003 kind of embedded in an insurance broker dealer
• 52:48
  relationship. Nobody's really going to
• 52:49
  understand that unless you're in the business.
• 52:52
  But, but a lot of, you know, environment where I cut my
• 52:56
  teeth, it was, it was great for what it was a little bit
• 52:58
  limiting from a product standpoint.
• 53:00
  So we started, so we, we kind of in 2007 made the jump to what we
• 53:06
  kind of now call the, the independent space.
• 53:10
  And I know the number. I mean, in 2007 we we brought
• 53:15
  over, we started with $19 million of assets under
• 53:19
  management. A lot of the, the old
• 53:23
  relationship was kind of some proprietary stuff that should
• 53:25
  have stayed there. Yeah.
• 53:27
  So yeah, it's, jeez, that's almost unbelievable reading
• 53:30
  that. I don't.
• 53:32
  Quite honestly, I don't. I don't know.
• 53:33
  How I, I don't know how we did it, right.
• 53:35
  I think it, it's well, sure you do it.
• 53:37
  It has been, it has been. So my, my Co founder retired
• 53:44
  last year and Kyle. Yeah.
• 53:46
  And it was A and it was a wonderful, it was a wonderful
• 53:51
  opportunity. You know, the, the, the big
• 53:52
  party to, to celebrate him. You know, we go to the archives
• 53:58
  and start pulling some of this out and and yeah, it is, it is
• 54:02
  surreal. It's humbling, but yeah, I
• 54:05
  think, you know, and, and I think it's, it's, but like
• 54:08
  anything else, it, it is, it's just that client first focused,
• 54:17
  doing the next best right thing, having a phenomenal team around
• 54:23
  us. And quite honestly to the, the,
• 54:27
  the, the credit crisis of 2007 eight was, was, was perfect for
• 54:35
  us, right? Because, you know, here's the
• 54:37
  other thing. I think as, as business owners
• 54:39
  in general, you know, when you have when you have something,
• 54:42
  when you have tough times, you have a choice to make, right.
• 54:46
  And during that time as, as advisors leading clients through
• 54:53
  through a point in time that really didn't have a road, we
• 54:56
  couldn't lean into history necessarily.
• 54:59
  But you know, we weren't, we weren't afraid of that.
• 55:01
  And if anything, when tough times come, our communication
• 55:06
  ramps up and it's like, hey, we, we don't know all the answers,
• 55:10
  but we're here and we're navigating this, you know,
• 55:13
  sometimes hour by hour. And like anything, we're going
• 55:17
  to get on the other side of that.
• 55:18
  So those are the times that really show as a team, as a
• 55:22
  person, as a firm, whatever, as a company, who you are and in,
• 55:29
  in, in our world, that's when that's when we call it.
• 55:32
  That's when money gets in motion, right?
• 55:34
  Often times if if you're sometimes if you're displeased
• 55:37
  with with anything in life, right, if you're displeased, but
• 55:42
  things are kind of going along, is that really the impetus to
• 55:45
  make the move? Sometimes not, but but I think
• 55:49
  when when tough times happen, that's a time when a lot of
• 55:53
  people re evaluate the relationship.
• 55:55
  So for us, it was kind of right place, right time.
• 56:01
  And and then, yeah, you know, late last year, we we clicked
• 56:04
  over the 2 billion mark. Yeah, because that was a year
• 56:08
  ago. I was going to say, it's got to
• 56:09
  be higher than that now, you know.
• 56:10
  And again, that could and that can change and and.
• 56:12
  We don't really get, we get excited about what that means.
• 56:16
  We don't really, but it's a, it's a, it's a number that, you
• 56:20
  know, we always say sometimes as business owners, we, we're so
• 56:24
  focused on tomorrow, right? We're so focused on the future.
• 56:27
  And at least for me and for our team, what we always say is, you
• 56:30
  know, we don't, we don't do probably a good enough job of
• 56:33
  stopping, turning around and just appreciating where we've
• 56:38
  been. And with Kyle's retirement, it
• 56:40
  was a it was a perfect opportunity to take, to take
• 56:43
  that pause. But you know, it's, it is, you
• 56:46
  know, when, when we look at, you know, where, where are we headed
• 56:53
  as a firm? The what, what I can tell you is
• 56:56
  has nothing to do with those numbers.
• 56:58
  It has, we don't even have a number goal that's out there.
• 57:01
  It is, you know, if we're going to get bigger, we want to get
• 57:06
  bigger with with with team members that that appreciate
• 57:12
  what we do and love what we do. We want to make sure that that
• 57:16
  client relationship as we get bigger doesn't change.
• 57:18
  So if we get to the point where our growth changes the
• 57:23
  relationship that we're able to have with clients, then that's
• 57:26
  time to shut the door because that is, that is everything to
• 57:30
  us. And, and plus that's the that's
• 57:32
  the reason we exist as a, as a firm.
• 57:35
  But through the years, we've been really, really blessed with
• 57:39
  long tenure with our team. We must be doing something right
• 57:44
  because not only do we retain, but we attract top notch talent,
• 57:49
  which has allowed us to continue to grow as as a as a company and
• 57:58
  continue to have more fun, more joy that's right along the way.
• 58:02
  Yeah. So, yeah, but it's a it's it's a
• 58:05
  pinch me moment for sure, for sure to look at it.
• 58:08
  It's cool at where we've where we've come.
• 58:10
  Should be proud of it too, because you've served.
• 58:12
  There's a lot of people, other people's money in there too that
• 58:14
  has grown over the years and a lot of impact that you've made
• 58:17
  outside of obviously just you guys.
• 58:18
  It's, it's everyone growing together.
• 58:20
  And so, yeah, I think it's, it's, it's, it's it's, yeah, you
• 58:22
  hit. The nail on the head.
• 58:23
  It's, it's, it's what that, it's what that number represents,
• 58:28
  right? It's the number of people that
• 58:30
  we get to impact in a meaningful way.
• 58:34
  That's right. And the, the, the numbers, just
• 58:37
  the number and, and to the extent that that the number
• 58:39
  grows, the, the, the byproduct of that is that probably means
• 58:45
  we're there for more people. That's right.
• 58:46
  And that's, and that's a, and have a, and have an expanded
• 58:50
  team that allows us to do that. And that's a good thing.
• 58:53
  That's a good thing. What was the toughest moment in
• 58:55
  your business? The darkest maybe hit the bottom
• 58:58
  kind of moment. Did you have one of those?
• 58:59
  I'm curious because you always look at successful businesses
• 59:01
  now and it's easy to say, oh, they're successful, they've got
• 59:03
  a team, they've got the clients they've got.
• 59:05
  But I imagine there had to be moments where you looked in the
• 59:07
  mirror and go, Dan, what are we doing here, man?
• 59:10
  Yeah, You know what? It it it.
• 59:14
  The probably the blessing is that nothing really, you know,
• 59:18
  nothing really comes to mind. I mean, I, I think, you know,
• 59:21
  you know, part of it is probably, you know, part of it
• 59:25
  probably some of the hardest things or some of those, some of
• 59:28
  those market economic moments that are like 2009, 2008, yeah,
• 59:35
  yeah. Or or for.
• 59:37
  Me going going back now, yeah, I didn't have the relationships
• 59:40
  that I have now, but but I started in 97.
• 59:43
  So I've seen, you know, tech bubble.
• 59:45
  Yeah, I've lived I've lived through that OO8O9 credit
• 59:49
  crisis. COVID would would be another
• 59:53
  one, you know, and again, that when you have the type of client
• 59:57
  relationships that that we have and when, when times like that,
• 1:00:03
  I mean, you know, it's our job to to be proactive and some of
• 1:00:09
  that stuff, we don't have all the answers, right?
• 1:00:11
  And you know, sometimes at least on paper, things are you can't
• 1:00:15
  help but get emotional from a client perspective, right?
• 1:00:18
  You can't help but get emotional about that.
• 1:00:21
  And our job is, is, is to be the steady.
• 1:00:26
  And make changes where necessary, but make sure that
• 1:00:30
  we're at the helm in a very data-driven, non emotional way,
• 1:00:34
  while at the same time being there for them emotionally
• 1:00:39
  because we we absolutely get those concerns.
• 1:00:43
  You know, I think you've got to have empathy when at least on
• 1:00:49
  paper, when somebody's wealth is, you know, down 1020 and some
• 1:00:54
  of those cases 30% and they're fearful about what tomorrow
• 1:00:59
  brings. Again, that's where that's where
• 1:01:01
  we do our best work. But it's also it, it, it's,
• 1:01:07
  it's, it's draining, especially when we, we don't have all the
• 1:01:10
  answers. So I, I don't know if it was the
• 1:01:12
  darkest, but those are probably the toughest when, you know, you
• 1:01:17
  just go week in, week out with getting your ass kicked with
• 1:01:21
  hard, with hard conversations. And then just trying to make
• 1:01:25
  sure that you're taking not only taking care of your clients, but
• 1:01:28
  you're taking care of your team because they're feeling that
• 1:01:31
  same thing that you're continuing to take care of
• 1:01:34
  yourself, which as business owners, you know, sometimes
• 1:01:39
  that's that, that in in tough times that can that can go by
• 1:01:42
  the the wayside. So, but here the you know, the
• 1:01:46
  reality is, is there's another one coming.
• 1:01:50
  Oh yeah, right. I mean, it's too shall pass.
• 1:01:52
  You know, it's it's, I think any of us would, you know, I mean,
• 1:01:56
  who knows the variety it's going to take.
• 1:01:58
  But, but that stuff is just, you know, that that's, that's part
• 1:02:02
  of it, which is one of the reasons that that is a firm we
• 1:02:04
  exist And and we're we're, we'll lean into those moments as as
• 1:02:08
  hard as they are. But yeah, that's, you know, when
• 1:02:11
  when that happens, no matter what business you're in, you've
• 1:02:13
  got a choice to make, right? You can put your head in the
• 1:02:16
  sand and you can, and you could ignore it, or you can be a
• 1:02:22
  leader to your team, to your clients, customers, and, you
• 1:02:28
  know, help the lead lead the way on the other side of it.
• 1:02:30
  The good news is that's right, right?
• 1:02:34
  And I think that's the and. That's the thing.
• 1:02:36
  If there's. Something that we can learn from
• 1:02:38
  history, even the ones that that surprise us and haven't been
• 1:02:42
  around forever or ages. The reality is, you know, we
• 1:02:46
  always get on the other side. And I don't think anything is,
• 1:02:48
  you know, going to come that that doesn't hold true to that.
• 1:02:52
  It doesn't mean that that the that storm isn't can be could be
• 1:02:57
  taxing. Oh, yeah.
• 1:02:59
  So that, that, that's probably that that's probably been, you
• 1:03:01
  know, some of the, yeah, some of the the, the tougher times, but
• 1:03:07
  keep fighting, keep getting better, keep serving.
• 1:03:09
  Your people and this too shall pass.
• 1:03:11
  Absolutely. That's it, man.
• 1:03:12
  Yeah. I got a picture here to close
• 1:03:13
  things up. I think this is you.
• 1:03:15
  Is that right? Many, many years.
• 1:03:17
  Ago. And who's that?
• 1:03:19
  That is my oldest. Your oldest daughter.
• 1:03:20
  You have two daughters. I have two daughters.
• 1:03:22
  Too. Yeah, wonderful. 12:00 and 9:00,
• 1:03:23
  it's an awesome. It's the best thing you get to
• 1:03:25
  do the greatest. Yeah, I am evolved.
• 1:03:28
  You look like a baby there. I am.
• 1:03:30
  I was. A baby there.
• 1:03:32
  Wow. Yeah.
• 1:03:33
  So she'll turn, she'll turn 21 in a couple months.
• 1:03:35
  So yeah, that's probably, that's probably 20 plus years ago.
• 1:03:40
  Wow. So yeah, they say it goes fast
• 1:03:42
  and then you're like, yeah. OK, whatever.
• 1:03:44
  And then it just does. It just freaking does.
• 1:03:47
  What would you say to this, Dan? If he was sitting here in my
• 1:03:50
  seat today? What what career advice might
• 1:03:53
  you give him? And then what would you say from
• 1:03:54
  a father standpoint? Oh man.
• 1:03:57
  This this is emotional, right? Yeah, for sure.
• 1:04:02
  Yeah, the, you know, it's one of those things that I think if,
• 1:04:11
  if, if I've gotten a lot wrong. And, but the thing of it is when
• 1:04:17
  I get things wrong, I, I, I do a good job of, of leaning into it,
• 1:04:22
  realizing it and figuring it out.
• 1:04:24
  I think hopefully my girls would say if there's one thing I've
• 1:04:28
  gotten mostly right, it is, it's that.
• 1:04:35
  So, you know, it's, it's, you know, just, I would tell, tell
• 1:04:40
  him, just keep it up. Like like, like, you know, just
• 1:04:43
  and and and you know, this like, yeah, sometimes we
• 1:04:46
  overcomplicate parenting, right? Yes, yes it is.
• 1:04:51
  The. 8090, you know, 99% is just showing up totally and loving
• 1:04:59
  them and showing up and doing. Your best?
• 1:05:01
  Yeah, absolutely. And not crushing yourself when
• 1:05:02
  you don't have your best day. Exactly.
• 1:05:04
  Yeah. And and.
• 1:05:07
  But it's one of those things. And again, I think is, you know,
• 1:05:09
  it's, it's it's it's the hardest.
• 1:05:12
  It is the best thing I get to do.
• 1:05:13
  It's also the hardest thing, yeah, that you, you, you get to
• 1:05:16
  do, right. And, and, and I, I am so proud
• 1:05:21
  of them. But I think as you know, any
• 1:05:26
  opportunity, you know, especially, you know, you got,
• 1:05:28
  you got a lot of business owners, founders, sometimes that
• 1:05:33
  is the that's the toughest thing, right?
• 1:05:35
  Is, is, is you got you got a business that needs you.
• 1:05:40
  You got team members that need you.
• 1:05:42
  You've got significant other spouses that need you, you've
• 1:05:46
  got kids that need you. You really have to focus on
• 1:05:50
  getting that priority right. And when it comes to your
• 1:05:54
  family, that's one of those things, you know, it, it is I,
• 1:05:59
  you know, by nature I have long hours, but I also have the
• 1:06:04
  opportunity that if there's something important, I figured
• 1:06:07
  that out. And I and I and I don't miss it
• 1:06:10
  and it and it and it and it goes.
• 1:06:12
  So fast. And it is and, and, and I've got
• 1:06:15
  an incredible wife too. So that's the other thing that
• 1:06:18
  I'm blessed with is my ability to be what I hope my kids would
• 1:06:25
  say, a great father is the fact that that's a team sport.
• 1:06:29
  And she does an incredible job as well.
• 1:06:32
  So yeah, it is. You know, it's one of those
• 1:06:35
  things you talk about time and, and, and we talk about Kyle, a
• 1:06:38
  great Kyle story with regard to kids.
• 1:06:41
  So I remember distinctly, we used to do breakfast every
• 1:06:45
  Monday morning and Nora, my oldest was, she must have been,
• 1:06:50
  let's call it 9, right? And, and, and we're having
• 1:06:54
  breakfast. And I'm, I'm kind of talking
• 1:06:56
  about the fact that, you know, the, the fact that half of the
• 1:07:03
  time that she's going to kind of be under my roof full, full time
• 1:07:10
  is already gone. And how fast that goes.
• 1:07:13
  And, and Kyle's 17 years older than I am.
• 1:07:18
  So that was one of the blessings that, you know, lean into these
• 1:07:21
  people that you really trust that have been there, done that.
• 1:07:23
  And it's funny, he, he looked me dead in the eye.
• 1:07:25
  And he goes, oh, buddy, you're way past half.
• 1:07:28
  Like, like, what do you mean? Last time I checked, 18 / 2 is
• 1:07:33
  9. And, and he goes, yeah, but you
• 1:07:34
  know, it's just, they are, they're busier and, and it's all
• 1:07:39
  good stuff. But, and holy smokes, is that
• 1:07:43
  has that been been true, right. And now my wife and I, she's a
• 1:07:48
  junior in college. My youngest is a senior in high
• 1:07:52
  school. So you're, we're going to like
• 1:07:55
  go into this empty nest at least at least empty nest nine months
• 1:07:59
  out of the year period. And it seems like yesterday that
• 1:08:04
  that that picture was taken. So, boy, soak it all in.
• 1:08:10
  Yeah, don't, don't, don't worry about being perfect.
• 1:08:15
  Show up with love. Set a good example.
• 1:08:20
  And yeah, it, it, it of all the things I do, that is that's my
• 1:08:25
  most important job. And I love it more than
• 1:08:28
  anything. I love that.
• 1:08:29
  It's great advice too. Well, Dan?
• 1:08:31
  I appreciate you being on the show, man.
• 1:08:32
  This is my honor to have you on, which has been great.
• 1:08:34
  Yeah, this has been a great conversation, right?
• 1:08:36
  Yeah, I. Appreciate you sharing your
• 1:08:37
  story and your journey and some insights with us.
• 1:08:39
  I really do where can people go to find you connect with you
• 1:08:42
  learn more about what you guys do at on path too yeah so I
• 1:08:45
  website is always. Kind of the best route to, you
• 1:08:48
  know, find phone numbers and everything on pathfinancial.com
• 1:08:51
  and then you can find us on, on all the, all the, all the
• 1:08:55
  social, so to speak. So as a firm, we've got a
• 1:08:57
  LinkedIn presence, Facebook, even Instagram, even Instagram
• 1:09:02
  now. But it's this has been great.
• 1:09:05
  Really appreciate the conversation.
• 1:09:06
  Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it.
• 1:09:07
  We'll link everything up in the show.
• 1:09:08
  Notes too, so everyone can contact to you.
• 1:09:10
  But thanks again for coming on the show.
• 1:09:11
  Oh, you're welcome. Thank you.
• 1:09:12
  My pleasure.