Latest / Wisdom For What's Next / Planning for the Moments That Change Everything
Transcript
- Craft & Sage: There are moments in life when everything changes. Retirement, a career move, an inheritance, a growing family, the loss of someone you love. Or simply reaching the point where you start asking, what's next? And while those moments are deeply personal, they often come with important financial decisions too. Welcome to Wisdom for What's Next, hosted by Craft and Sage wealth co-founder and financial advisor Megan Jewitt. Each episode brings thoughtful conversations about money, life, and the decisions that shape what comes next. Helping you think more intentionally about your financial life and make the most of what you've built. Hi, welcome to the first episode of Wisdom for What's Next. I'm Megan Jewitt, co-founder and wealth advisor with Craft and Sage Wealth. Craft and Sage Wealth is an independent financial planning firm located in downtown Kansas City. We also have a presence in Topeka, Kansas as well. John Christie and I created Craft and Sage Wealth. To be able to serve the unique needs of our financial planning clients. My specialty is working with women and families. A lot of the women that I work with have gone through some sort of life experience with the loss of a partner or spouse, whether that be death, divorce, or disability. Ironically, I have experience in all three of these things from a personal standpoint. I feel like those experiences have added to the depth of who I am as an advisor. The reason we wanted to start this podcast was to have a platform to be able to work with clients and individuals who are looking for help in processing and navigating their life experiences. Throughout the podcast, I'll be bringing on several guests who will speak to very unique situations that many of you may face. I got my start in the wealth management role in 2013 when I was the part-time assistant for John Christie. My passion really evolved over time. And I knew within the first few years of being in this industry that I wanted to do more. ⁓ most of who I am today was formed by personal experiences. In 2019, my dad had a massive stroke at the age of 58. During that time, we had to navigate the next couple of years, not only with COVID, but with also managing and preparing for what was next, which was his ultimate ⁓ pass. And during that time, I was in the middle of my CFP course exam study. If any of you have ever gone through a professional designation exam, you know how grueling that can be, especially when you're not a conventional student anymore. I had two small children I was raising and I was working full time. So studying at night and on weekends was really what I had to do. And during that time, I remember thinking to myself, I am in the middle of one of the worst experiences of my life and losing my very best friend. And Why am I putting myself through this? I can do my job just fine without having this extra knowledge at my fingertips. And what I found was in the silver lining in my dad's passing was that it made me better at what I do. It made me more of a value add to the people that I work with. During that time, my mom was having to take on a lot of different roles, most of which Due to a conventional household, she's never had to do on her own before. She was managing finances and bills and caring for my dad, managing our family farm and just trying to keep up the household while navigating this new world for her. And because of my experience and my knowledge in this area, I was able to take a lot of the financial components from my mom's responsibility and allow her to do what she needed to do most, which was be there for my dad. and truly process what this was going to look like for her going forward. She lost what she thought she was going to have in retirement at the blink of an eye, which can happen to all of us. And so I just remember being able to be there for her because of the background that I do have and the experience that I have working with clients. It made me a better daughter for my mom. Ironically, as I mentioned earlier, most of my clients I work with through some of the most challenging experiences of their life, ⁓ whether that be death, divorce, or disability. I again have experienced all three. I have been divorced. I've been a single mom. I have a special needs daughter. And I've helped my mom process the loss of my dad. And so through that, I truly feel like that has shaped who I am, not only as an individual, but also as an advisor and the experience and value I can provide for the people that I work with or come across. So really the whole purpose of this platform was to utilize this space and share the voices that need to be heard and provide value for those that are listening and know that you can make it no matter what happens. Life gets you. We all know it does. But we're here to help. And this is why we started this podcast. We chose to name this podcast Wisdom for What's Next because we wanted to utilize this as a space to talk through. Those next steps in your life, whether that be retirement, the sale of a business, your kids going to college, caring for aging parents, how to navigate, ⁓ turning on an income stream and because you're no longer working, what that looks like when you are processing and handling a challenge that may come about in your life. We wanted this to be a space that we can talk about those real life experiences. Lucky for you on this podcast, you won't be hearing from just me. ⁓ we're going to be bringing on a variety of experts in various spaces to help you navigate these chapters of your life. We have an estate planning attorney that's going to talk about a multitude of estate planning concepts and why it's important to have your estate planning in place. We have people that are going to be talking to you from a tax planning perspective, what you need to be thinking of as a business owner, how to utilize deductions to gain maximum potential within your tax situation. We're going to be bringing on my partner, John Christie, and he's going to talk about the unique needs that real estate owners may face, as well as business owners, and especially in regards to transitioning that business once you're ready to sell and move into retirement. We also want to utilize this platform to be a resource to you. We want to make sure that we're here to answer your questions, obviously, working with clients. Day in, day out, they have questions come about of whether that may be how to purchase a car, navigating the purchase of a second home. They're trying to think through long-term care decisions because they experienced that challenging process with their parents and they don't want the same for their kids within that care. So we want this to be a space where you can feel free to submit questions and get those answers from a 24-7 basis. This is not something you have to have specific questions about, but maybe just a topic in general that you want to know more on. Feel free to send those questions in and we will get them answered. We also want to make sure this is a place that is thought-provoking. We want you to be thinking through these next steps and the what-ifs and know that you have a firm here ready to help. Be sure to join us for episode two, where I'm going to be bringing my focus to light, women and wealth. In that podcast, we'll be talking about the three major areas that women typically face through death, divorce, and disability. Thank you so much for joining me for this first episode of our podcast. Please make sure if you enjoyed this and think this is going to be helpful for you in the future to share it with your friends and family and follow and subscribe. You can also submit questions for the podcast by filling out the contact form on our website, craftandsage.com. Thanks for listening to Wisdom for What's Next. We hope today's conversation gave you something useful to think about as you consider your own financial life and what may be ahead. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to follow or subscribe so you don't miss future conversations. Until next time, from all of us at Craft <unk> Sage Wealth, thanks for joining us.