Latest / Daily Influence / 516. Uncovering Hidden Costs and Cultivating Connections: Paul Sippil on 401(k) Transparency and the Power of Community Dining

Transcript

516. Uncovering Hidden Costs and Cultivating Connections: Paul Sippil on 401(k) Transparency and the Power of Community Dining · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the daily influence where our mission is to deliver a daily dose of positive influence that can uplift you personally or be shared within your sphere of influence.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: While not every episode may directly apply to your unique circumstances, we strive to provide insights and inspiration relevant to most people's daily, weekly, and monthly lives.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whether you are tuning in during the morning, noon or night, the daily influence is here for you.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Listen, share, and embrace the power of influence in your life.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Daily Influence.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Greg Collino.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today, our guest is Paul Sipple, a unique and passionate consultant known for pioneering work as a forensic for a one-k consultant and founder of Community Dining.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: A platform that connects people through meaningful, shared culinary experiences with a focus on regenerative farming and Jeffersonian dinners.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paul is a vocal advocate for transparency, fairness, and financial literacy in the four or one K industry.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he's on a mission to help businesses and individuals understand the true costs and opportunities hidden in the retirement plans.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: His work is rooted in service, education, and creating authentic connections, making him a great fit for our community of positive influencers.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paul, welcome to Daily Influence.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's great to be here.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, can you share a bit about your background and what led you to where you are today with our listeners?
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, absolutely.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: In terms of becoming a forensic for a one K consultant, sometimes I even described myself as a crime fighter.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: It actually all started as a result of a conversation that I had with a colleague of mine about twenty years ago who let me know that you could actually look up companies for a one K plan or four or three B or profit sharing plan tax forms online.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just couldn't believe
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: that that information was a matter of public record.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'd always had an investigative mind, so it was interesting to me, but I really didn't do anything with it until a few years later when I started calling business owners and letting them know about these eye-popping service charges that I was seeing showing up on their tax forms.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought they would be very grateful for the information and that would be that.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what actually happened was that they would tell me they weren't actually paying anything and or their friend handled it so everything was fine.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what I explained to them is I know you're not paying anything at the company level.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the participants, which is mainly used since you're probably the largest participant that are paying all these fees.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you're the largest participant, you're paying the largest share of the fees.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just kept getting those responses over
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And over again, and that led me to understand that this industry was completely non-transparent and had so much confusion that I could actually make a living becoming or being a consultant just for this one area and do this my whole career and still never reach everybody.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was amazing.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: What inspired you to create the community dining program and how do you see shared meals and meaningful conversations as forms of positive influence?
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I actually had an issue years ago, and I still struggle with a little bit sleeping through the night of all things.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the reasons why we have ailments can be your diet.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's lots of problems that we have that could potentially be solved through nutrition.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And even if we don't have any problems, it's always good to know where your food is coming from.
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that let me kind of
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: to start doing some research on all the different farms throughout the Midwest, the restaurants that would source from these regenerative farms and understanding how there are significant nutritional differences in meat, for example, coming from a regenerative farm where the animals get sunlight and exercise versus an industrialized farm where you literally can't set foot on the farm without a hazmat suit.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I've got this extensive spreadsheet of over two hundred regenerative farms throughout the Midwest.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: It actually color coded with a legend at the bottom based on which farms have which certifications and detailed information on each arm, not just whether they get exercise or get sunlight, but even the diet of the animals and even how many feet they have to roam, which is part of the definition of pasture when it comes to
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: chickens and eggs, and you want to make sure that the animals are pastured.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I thought with all this data, what can I do with it?
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought it'd be neat to get people together at various venues with different themes, sometimes different speakers and sponsors and different cuisines, over shared meals that are focused on helping us engage in the means by which we view ourselves.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought would it be cool to call it community dining, which really encapsulates what I'm doing, and sure enough community dining.com was available.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I did my first event ever about ten years ago, ten, a little over ten years ago at a restaurant.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in the last few years, I've become more of a snob.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I only have events at private venues and they're prepared.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: The meals are prepared by private chefs so we could have complete control over where the food comes from.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we have done various themes in different sponsors.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Some of them are what's called Jeopardsonian dinners, which are gatherings in the spirit of the
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: events that Thomas Jefferson used to host in his home in Manicelo where there's eight to fifteen guests, there's a host and moderator, there's a topic, a list of discussion questions with articles and videos, links to articles and videos, and you gather the photos and bios of all the guests and share ahead of all of that ahead of time to create a more meaningful personal experience and ideally the guests are
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: guests who have a background or interest in the topic and often nonprofits will use this Jeffersonian dinner format to raise money for their cause.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a whole TED talk given on these as well.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: They've been hosted by various organizations for years.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's so cool.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So in all the research that you've done on the different farms, when the common consumer is shopping at the store, what are things that we should look for?
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the diet of the animals makes a big difference.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a phrase you are what you eat, which I'm sure you've heard before.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: But to go deeper, you might also say you are what you eat.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: We hear this term grass bed, but that's not particularly meaningful unless we know how much exercise the animals are getting and how much sunlight they're getting.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's even different types of grass.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's different slaughtering practices and then there's something called grass finished because grass bed might just mean they started on grass but their cows are finished on grain or and that's not necessarily what they're supposed to be eating I guess that's debatable and there are I think nutritional differences somewhat argue they're not but depending on how you define nutritional differences there's actually differences when the animals are
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: eating grass, a hundred percent of the time.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then as for the chickens and the pigs, they can eat corn in soy because they're different types of animals.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: But those diets can vary based on the conditions of the farm and how much the farmers really care about feeding them right.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that affects the health of the animal and that affects the nutritional quality of the food.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's amazing.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when I go to the store, what should I look for?
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, I guess the best label, let's say for eggs, I did an egg video years ago, that where the animals are pastured.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you can even really look for any label with a store because there's more questions to ask, like, what did they eat?
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And are their beaks are the chicken's beaks trimmed?
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you wouldn't actually know that from the label.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the Cordacopia Institute, which has an organic egg scorecard, has all these different criteria, including big trimming,
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: that they use to rank all these different farms.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: But not all the farms are ranked.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: However, that those criteria, you could use those as questions to ask when you call the farm.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's really the only way to do it is to call the farm directly.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you can't call the farm unless you know which farm that they're coming from.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like the whole food's brand, or the trainer's Joe's brand, that doesn't mean that they're inherently good or bad quality eggs.
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: but they don't tell you which farm it comes from, so you can't ask those questions.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the label isn't going to tell you that.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's interesting.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So pivoting, you refer to yourself as a forensic forum on K Consultant, a powerful phrase.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you see as your role in creating positive change in the financial while being a businesses and their employees?
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I see this role as an advocate for asking the right questions and advocate for transparency and curiosity.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: The entire four or one K plan industry is premised on the idea that these financial service providers not only get paid from participants accounts, but also get paid based on how much money is in the account as opposed to a fee based on how much work they're doing and not sending a bill.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now you wouldn't think you would need to send a bill if the company isn't paying for it, but there should still be an invoice being sent to reflect the total dollars that are being deducted each month or each quarter from the participants accounts because without seeing those total dollar amounts, you would never know to fire anyone.
• 9:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: for fees that you don't even see, and you would never know how reasonable the fees are if all you're getting is quotes in terms of percentages.
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is exactly why you can't shop for a four or one kaplan as a business owner the way you would shop for a car.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're, you can't write a check with a percentage.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in many cases, it's actually better to write a check because the fees are not tax deductible to the participants.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it wouldn't matter because how can you deduct a fee that you didn't even knew existed in the first place?
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what if the financial advisor isn't actually performing any services, which they often don't?
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yet they're getting paid tens of thousands of dollars per year out of every once a counts.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you don't get a bill to reflect that because the company's not paying and you don't even get a bill to reflect the fees as I mentioned that the participants are paying.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So how would you ever know to reduce the fee or fire of an actual advisor when you didn't even know how much they were getting in the first place or that they were getting necessarily getting any fees in the first place.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: So without having that basic information and then basic understanding of how service providers get compensated
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's no way the industry could ever change for the better.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that includes all the regulations that have been passed, which have not only not helped but made things worse, because they've given people a false sense of security.
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I don't know the fees, but now I know everything has to be disclosed.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now I'll ask, well, did you read the disclosure?
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, but I know everything has to be disclosed, so I feel better about it.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that would make me feel better unless I see how much money someone's making off of me.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: That makes sense.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell us about a moment or experience where you felt you made a positive impact on someone's life, either through your consulting work or through the community dining?
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, you know, maybe in terms of both, well, the consulting work wasn't even a client.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a few examples where they didn't know that they could call their providers and either eliminate or reduce their fees.
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, they both told me, oh, thank you, Paul.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was paying a financial advisor all these years.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I never needed one.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had no idea that I could stop the payment.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's really that simple.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yet, something that's simple, not being known is
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: really, you know, just mind blowing to me.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: With the community dining, it's not necessarily any one experience, but just the overall value that people have gotten.
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have people write testimonials that I've published on communitydining.com and just seeing all those testimonials and hearing people say this and such a unique experience that I've never had before.
• 12:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I actually, I, one example comes to mind where
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: someone brought her significant other as like an anniversary gift.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I thought, oh, you know, this could be a unique gift as an anniversary because it represents an experience that a lot of people haven't had.
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even people who are very well-traveled and cultured and wealthy haven't necessarily had this unique type of an experience.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not just with the dinner, not just with a dinner prepared by a private chef and a unique venue, a private social club and
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: with the food source from regenerative farms, but the community feel and the connections that they made and the depth of the relationships that some people developed because of the environment that was created.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'll give an example from a book that I really liked called by Priya Parker, the Arctic gathering is what it's called.
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she talked about how making people feel as though they're being transported into another world is an important aspect of creating a meaningful event.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: all of that together, including the venue itself, which is a big part of it, but everything that I mentioned together really creates that feeling to an even greater degree.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's wonderful.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for sharing those examples.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Much of your work revolves around transparency, education, and fairness, values that resonate with responsible influence.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: What advice would you give to leaders who want to use their influence more ethically and effectively?
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'd say be willing to admit that you're wrong.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, in many conversations, because I make a lot of phone calls, if someone's, let's say, looked into the plan and the charges, and sometimes they really have, and there's not a whole lot of new I can tell them, but that's usually not the case, because I typically know a lot more than the people I'm calling.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not because I'm a genius, it's just because I've spent more time in the area, and there's a lot of defensiveness around any kind of suggestion for improvement, because someone may have spent a lot of time.
• 14:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's not to say that they should go switch everything again if they just made a major change, because change, making a big overall requires a lot of time and energy and it's not necessarily practical to dig into something that you've just dug into.
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But just a basic question, like, are you paying at the employer level or are you passing these fees on to the participants?
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's just a very basic question I had, I asked someone who just
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: had made a change and had solved a lot of the issues that I had brought up based on what I could see on his tax forums because the change was recent and I said great it might have been better.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what you did.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a stranger, but
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: what you might want to consider without changing anything is having the fees paid at the employer level, especially if you're the largest participant.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And his response was, I just made a change everything's fine.
• 15:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I wasn't suggesting everything wasn't fine.
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was just giving a very specific suggestion that wouldn't require changing anything again.
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was just how the fees were gotten paid, getting paid.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what's so important about that response is that's a response that you call a non-secretor.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: It has literally nothing to do with the question.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is a perfect example of someone's brain operating on autopilot.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the reason I think a lot of people's brains operate on autopilot is because when you're confronted with a question that you may not want to think about and it might threaten your sense of self ego in some way and I certainly
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, in very careful not to make threatening statements, just a very innocuous question is still to many people seen as a threat.
• 15:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I would say the qualities if you want to make things better that are really important to have and hey, I can work on these two are curiosity and humility.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's great advice.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paul, what message are words of encouragement?
• 16:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Would you like to share with our listeners who aspire to make a positive difference in the world?
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a really good question.
• 16:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's just how I did it.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just based on knowing myself and
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: my own strengths, weaknesses, abilities.
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's how I know how I can make a positive difference in the world.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Some people are just happy people and smile a lot.
• 16:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know that literally, I mean, if you believe in the butterfly effect, if you just smile at someone on the street and that can affect someone that affects someone else, it's not really that hard.
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, some people think that we're all like kind of isolated, powerless beings that can't really do anything effective and
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you don't have a lot of money or connections or cloud or whatever you can't really make much difference.
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: But if you really think about the power of cause and effect and understand that literally just smiling at someone can make a positive difference in the world because then that person's mood might change.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then I could probably do better as well in that area.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I guess anybody can make a difference.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: All thank you for joining us and sharing your unique insights from the hidden truths of the four one K fees to the transformative power of gathering around the dinner table.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your commitment to empowering others through both financial literacy and authentic connection is a beautiful example of what responsible influence can look like.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what is the best way to do so?
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: They can just go on either of my websites, PaulSipple.com.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's SIPPL or communitydining.com.
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And got email listed on each of those sites, P.Sipple at PaulSipple.com, or Paul at communitydining.com, and reach me that way.
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Perfect.
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paul, we'll add that information in the show notes.
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paul, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so grateful you're here with us.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for inviting me.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: To all our listeners, thanks for spending a few moments of your day with us on daily influence.
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Remember, positive influence often starts with asking better questions and creating space for meaningful conversations.
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: If something you heard move you, share it with someone who needs to hear it too.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Keep showing up, keeping curious and keep leading with intention.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have a great day.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bye.