Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership
"Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership" and "Frame of Reference - Coming together" are conversational style shows with local, national, and global experts about issues that affect all of us in some way. I’m, at heart, a “theatre person”. I was drawn to theatre in Junior High School and studied it long enough to get a Master of Fine Arts in Stage Direction. It’s the one thing that I’m REALLY passionate about it because as Shakespeare noted, “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”. Think about the universality of that line for just a moment. Think about the types of “theatre” that play out around us every day in today’s world. The dramatic, the comedic, the absurd, the existential, the gorilla theatre (it’s a thing, look it up) that is pumped into our Smart Phones, TV’s, Radios, and PC’s every minute of every day.
Think about the tremendous forces that “play” upon us - trying to first discover, then channel, feed, nurture, and finally harvest our will power and biases in order to move forward the agendas of leaders we will likely never meet. Think of all these forces (behind the scenes of course) and how they use the basic tools of theatre to work their “magic” on the course of humanity. Emotionally charged content matched to carefully measured and controlled presentations.
With that in mind (and to hopefully counter the more insidious agendas), I bring you the Frame of Reference "Family" of podcasts, where the voices of our local and global leadership can share their passion for why and how they are leaders in their community and in many cases, the world. Real players with real roles in a world of real problems. No special effects, no hidden agenda, just the facts and anecdotes that make a leader.
And at the risk of sounding trite, I sincerely thank my wife Ann and my two children Elisabeth and Josiah for continually teaching me what leadership SHOULD look like.
Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership
No, Not The Wrestler: The Other Ian Freeman Who Saves Futures
What if the most important part of your financial plan isn’t your portfolio, but your people? We sit down with Ian Freeman—longtime wealth advisor known for leading with compassion—to explore why protection should come first, how listening outperforms pitching, and what it really means to say, “You’re going to be okay.” Ian shares the moment a 9/11 loss reshaped his mission, the philosophy that guides his work, and the unexpected role that gratitude and humility play in building a plan that holds on the worst day.
Across this conversation, we unpack the gap between information and knowledge—and why neither matters without connection. Ian explains his “protect first, then invest” sequence, covering life insurance, disability coverage, and long-term care before chasing returns, so families can invest for everything that goes right. We talk about technology’s double-edged sword, from deepfakes to financial noise, and walk through simple guardrails that protect attention, decisions, and households. And we go beyond numbers: the influence of Atlas Shrugged as a call to productivity and agency, the wisdom of The Natural, and the grit of grandparents who led with service.
If you’ve ever wondered how to choose a financial advisor you can trust, Ian’s criteria are refreshingly human: find the person you’d want sitting with your family when you can’t. Look for outward arrows—empathy, clarity, and genuine care—backed by a plan that answers your definition of “being okay.” Along the way, Ian opens up about mental health, resilience, and his forthcoming book, Life Beneath The Suit: Madness, Mayhem, and the Meaning I Found in the Mess, a narrative look at the stories behind the work.
Press play for a candid, practical, and heart-forward guide to money, meaning, and legacy. If this conversation helps you breathe easier about your future, share it with someone you love, subscribe for more, and leave a review with the one question you still want answered.
Thanks for listening. Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about. In these times of intense polarization we all need to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.
Welcome to Frame of Reference, informed intelligent conversations about the issues and challenges facing everyone in today's world. In-depth interviews to help you expand and inform your frame of reference. Now here's your host, Raul Labresh.
SPEAKER_03:Well, welcome everyone. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. I could say another 60 times, I suppose, because I'm excited about welcoming you today. But I think if I did that, I would waste way too much time that I could be spending talking with my guests today. Um, so you have tuned in too, whether you knew it or not. And if you knew it, great. If you didn't know it, surprise, you're in for a treat. Um, my guest today is a man that I have just learned about, and that's the most exciting thing about this podcast, is I keep meeting these people that frankly I never knew existed. And then I start reading the background materials to get ready for an interview with them and think, oh my gosh, I wish I had known this person easier in my uh earlier in my life because I may have actually amounted to something. I, you know, you never know. Uh one can hope. I know I met my wife early on, and and she tried her best to turn me into something usable and uh you know acceptable to be around in public. Um, but you know, the poor woman can only do so much on her own. So um, but my guest today is uh a gentleman by the name of Ian Freeman. If you know him, you may know the wrestler version of that name. This is not that man. So if you're a wrestling you know person and you tuned in for this for that, uh, well, stay around, but you know, go away if that's all you want to think about as wrestling, because that ain't happening today. Um but uh Ian uh was in an article not too long ago. I was doing some research, uh I think it's uh virtue CIO or CEO, and they they introduced him as Ian Freeman, the compassionate wealth management advisor. And I thought, the compassionate wealth management advisor. Now, if there's anything the world and our nation in particular could use right now, it's a little bit more compassion, I think. You know, I that's uh that's never a bad thing to exercise, and yet it would seem anathema, uh anathema to uh multiple people from what I see and hear on the daily news. But Mr. Freeman, Mr. Ian Freeman, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to uh Profiles and Leadership and uh frame of reference.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. It's an honor to be here. I very much appreciate it, and I uh I couldn't concur more that we need a little more of that. And hopefully I qualify, but you'll have to determine that at the end of the interview.
SPEAKER_03:We'll see. Well, I honestly our listeners who are frankly, it's sort of humbling. The listeners are from all over the country. I think my second visit biggest audience is in Germany, for goodness gracious, you know. And I I finally hit all of the continents now, too. So I'm feeling good about that. South Africa or no, South America was holding out for quite a while and they finally caved in and and uh saw the light or heard the light. I I don't know how that works. Um, but anyways, Ian, um, I want to get right into it because we've got, I think, a lot to talk about. And in fact, if you are are as interested in talking after this is all done as I am, maybe we can even find another time to do this uh sometime in the future. But as you know from reading my information about the show, um, I like to start out with a thing called my favorite things. And if I had the money, I would get Julie Andrews to sing a special version just for this show. Um, but that ain't happening anytime soon, from what I can tell. So, and I don't know if I by the time I have the money, I don't know if she'll be able to still sing, but let's hope.
SPEAKER_01:Um I don't know if any young people know who she is and have to talk about that too.
SPEAKER_03:We we could, yeah. Sound of music. Uh does that ring a bell anyway? Sound of music? No, okay. Um, anyways, so five my favorite things. I'm I'm just this is very Roshaktian. You know, the first thing comes out, fine. Hopefully, it won't be an expletive, expletive, but uh boy, I gotta get my mouth going today. Um, but it if uh if there's something that you you really oh my gosh, I never should have said that. I can always go back and edit. Maybe. Okay. Uh so here we go. Uh we'll start easy. Favorite color?
unknown:Purple.
SPEAKER_03:Purple.
SPEAKER_01:Why purple? I don't know. I it just the the honest answer is whenever I wear something purple, people say, Well, that color looks good on you. And believe me, not much looks good at me. And I always tell people I I wear these nice ties, and people say, Why do you wear these nice ties? I said, if you had this face, you'd wear nice ties because nobody wants to look at the face. So people have told me purple looks good at me, so it became my favorite color.
SPEAKER_03:When I started doing this, I used to say all the time, I have a face for radio. So and that uh I saw we we can commensurate together on that. Yeah, I I am not a Matthew McConaughey, I will never be a Matthew McConaughey, but it's okay. I make up for it in character. Um, how about do you have a favorite quote?
SPEAKER_01:Um, you know, it's interesting to think about a favorite quote. There's obviously so many things that we could use, but uh especially in today's world, uh to me, someone once said to me, there's no neutral energy. There's either positive energy or negative energy from just a pure physics perspective. And I love that because you get to choose. And and I think I read somewhere in some sort of psychology books or things that it takes four times more energy to be negative than it does to be positive. At my age, I don't have the time to be that negative. So all we're trying to do is be as positive as we can, try to be a light in the world to the best ability that we can. Um and I I just think trying to make a difference to people really matters.
SPEAKER_03:Boy, isn't that the truth? I it it uh what isn't it there uh the um just physiological difference that it takes so many more muscles to frown and be grouchy than it does to smile. Um so just in terms of the way our our bodies are built, um, you know, that that would encourage us to be that way. Um, not to mention the fact that, oh my gosh, part of the exhaustion that I see so much in people around me and you know, hear on the news and see in groups. Um, so much of the exhaustion has got to be based in the negativity that's going on in the world. You know, they're just uh yeah, somebody that would come out and say, it can be better is almost like you idiot, no, it can't be better. You know, it's just like what it has to be able to be better, please.
SPEAKER_01:So we're just bombarded with endless negativity. And I I I guess the best way I try as best I can is I I don't want to participate. I I I have that choice when I get up in the morning to feel grateful or not. And I choose to feel grateful, doesn't mean I every day is great, but I choose to be grateful that I I get to do that and just want to keep trying to do that as as best as we can. And again, when you get to a certain place in life, you realize that you're on the back nine as a scolfer say. And when you're on the back nine, you tend to want to play a little better as you go to the episode.
SPEAKER_03:I like that. I'm on the back nine with you, although I am not a golf player. Sorry. So I'm more in the realm of George Carlin. I see it as a waste of a perfectly good walk. So, but uh, that's only because I'm horrible at it, not because there's anything wrong with the sport. So, how about a favorite book or movie or recording artist, anything of that nature? Sure.
SPEAKER_01:My my favorite book is actually a very, very old book, and it's more of a philosophical treatise, but I love the book because of uh what it kind of stood for. And you had to read, I thought you had to read it multiple times to do it. And that's called Atlas Shrugged. Oh, yeah. That's a wonderful book. Yeah, it's 1100 pages. Yep. And I've asked other people to read it, and I said, you gotta just trust me, you gotta get past the first 150 pages. Yeah. And because people would call me and they'd be like, man, do I have to see it's 1100 pages, a small print. Yeah, but pretty much everyone who's read it felt like they breeze through it after that. And everybody has a different conclusion. And I act actually like that, how how it's seen and why it is. So I I that's my favorite book, always has been. No, tremendous, it's just it was written in the 1940s, but it's more germane today than it probably was then. Yeah, very interesting.
SPEAKER_03:And those those, how would you describe like to those people that have not read that uh Atlas Shrugged? And I confess I have not read it all the way through either. I got past that 150 pages, but then I think it was at a point in my life, like in graduate school or whatnot, where I was kind of reading it an off and on kind of thing, and then it it fell up by the wayside. But I I do know the gist of it and I understand what she was going after. So, but explain to people what what you uh you took out of it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, what I what I felt was important was that a lot of people, when they read it, were talking about that that she felt people were selfish. You know, being selfish was a good thing, but that's not really, in my opinion, what she was saying. And it was more like you have to make sure that you're productive in the world. And if you are productive in the world and believe in yourself, you can believe in others, you can help change others. And that's the way I read it. I read it multiple times and felt that um again, do we agree with everything? No, it's kind of like the way the world is today. We don't have to agree on everything, but we could still get along if we want.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And so I there was much of that I really felt because she talked about in her words at the time, it was the men of the mind. And it was interesting because one of the main protagonists of the book was a female. And this is back when females were not uh business people in athletes, and and there was a character, one of the main characters in the book was basically running a railroad. And if you look at railroads back then, railroads and steel were the main industries, things like that. And today we don't see them that way. But it was a fascinating way to look at all of the ways that she had felt people could be productive and what that actually meant in the world.
SPEAKER_03:I always thought that it was interesting too, because part of the reasons for the railroad, uh I believe it's been the ways that it allowed us to be interconnected with people that were very distant. You know, it was a connective mechanism for humanity uh to you know gain the benefits of things from different portions of the country, whatever, um, much like the internet does today, but in a you know, electronic and uh you know more mindless way sometimes it seems. But I I I always thought that was interesting that she had that kind of the baseline of what was going on was the connection of people, and yet the things that we were doing to disconnect from one another that were so um counterproductive. And you know, and by taking the people that were the movers and the shakers and the idea makers out of the equation and leaving what it is pretty much just the lawyers and the politicians that are left that are trying to figure out where did they all go. Um, that you know, that says something fundamentally as well, too, that we we need to somehow get those movers and shakers and whatnot to get enough critical mass, perhaps, that uh, you know, something really explosive and wonderful could occur. Um yeah, I I would agree with you. I I don't think, I mean, I think you can't uh have something better unless you expose what truly is. And that's maybe one of the best things that will come of today's age is that we are, I believe, you know, revealing the the ugly underbelly of our nation that's been there for a long time. And, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe finally now that we can recognize the illness, we can start really working on a cure. Um, and that that would be that would be a good thing.
SPEAKER_01:Anyways. One of her her really thoughts was that we want the people who are creative and productive to be the ones who are leading the charge, not the people who kind of live off the people who are creative and productive. And you could probably throw politicians in there at the top of the uh at the top of the heat there. Huh.
SPEAKER_03:Imagine that. Boy, people that actually could uh increase the betterment of humankind being at the forefront. Hmm. That's uh really that's crazy talk, Ian. So how about a favorite historic personality?
SPEAKER_01:You know, there's there's to me I would look at someone just because of I think his brilliance as a thought. But someone like Albert Einstein was a very interesting character because here he was, you know, at an intellectual level that most of us will never get to or understand. Yet he did his best to try to make us understand better in those things. But he also was he had a sense of humor and and a little down to earth. And to me, I love people who uh are humble. I I I'm I'm a huge believer in humility and gratitude. And when I, you know, someone like that can certainly have the biggest ego in the world and may actually have had that, but when you can connect with other people, I think that's uh that's what the world really thrives on, is how well you could connect. And you you were asking, you know, kind of about favorite movie. There's lots of movies, but there was a movie called The Natural for many.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god, I love that movie.
SPEAKER_01:And it and it had one of the greatest quotes ever, and you were asking about quotes earlier. And there was toward the end of the movie where Glenn Close, who was one of the main protagonists in the movie, also said she had a fantastic quote. It was, I believe we have two lives, the one you learn with and the one you live with after that. And I thought that had so much relevance just to life in general. Yeah. And uh that always that always stuck with me after all these years of watching that.
SPEAKER_03:That to me too, that that movie, uh, well, when when Redford passed away not too long ago, I I thought, you know, he's made so many wonderful contributions that way. Um, you know, that movie, and there's another one, um, the The Night of Our Souls, I think, that he did with uh Jane Fonda towards the very end of his career. He he always had a I mean, you know, he was a big enough star you could pick the shows he wanted to be in. But the natural uh my dad was a big baseball fan, so I was kind of drawn to it initially from that. But exactly the thing you were talking about to the heart, I think he has a line in there, something to the effect of some mistakes you never quite stop paying for. And I think that's her response to that then, you know, that he he's he has still carries along that that sense of grief over the things that he did to her, to his life, um, you know, and just is kind of beating himself over it. And, you know, she's like, no, no, you know, don't don't succumb to that. Um, and I wonder if some of the most uh you know difficult people that we have in our today's landscape of leadership aren't there because they had difficult lessons that they never learned from. Um, and it it's it's difficult to watch because I think we have a lot of wounded people that have never learned how to embrace that wound uh and and learn from it, go on from it. Um, so let's hope, let's hope, let's hope. Um, one last one, and this is my favorite question to ask. I I try to ask it all the time. Do you have a favorite memory from childhood? And is there something that you find in your life today that will just spur that memory? Because and I think sometimes the reason they are favorite memories or why they come back to us is because they just had such an imprint in our lives. Um they're, you know, kind of core to who we are. But I and I find that a lot of things remind me of them. But in my case, bread uh it reminds me of my grandmother. Um, and you know, it's just such a wonderful thing to think of my grandmother being a young kid around her and just her, you know, she was a quiet woman, but very well, we'll talk about grandmothers. I want to talk about your grandma. So, um, anyways, so there are things like that, you know, and an olfactory sense is one of the greatest ones for it. But is there one that you liked or you'd be willing to share that just kind of comes back and you just smile every time you think of it?
SPEAKER_01:Or it's interesting because this is more of a a warmth smile from this perspective because I had a lot of memories from my childhood that aren't the ones that I want to remember. Um but I remember being in upstate New York on a lake with my one of my closest friends' fathers. He was he was one of the he was the leading pediatric surgeon in the world, saved I can't tell you how many kids, and became actually the uh um the chair of uh the Yale New Hagen Hospital in New Haven at one time. But he had a cabin up in the in kind of uh on the lake in upstate New York, which is a very quiet place. And I remember being up there, we went up for one week, and he and I went up with and his father was there, and it was six o'clock thirty in the morning. I'm an early riser, always have been. And he was out doing something, chopping a wood, doing anything, and they went out and just talked to him. And it was one of those memories that never went away because there was a compassion about him, there was a kindness about him, there was a warmth, a generosity about him, which I knew, but in that moment it was just me and him kind of at that younger age connecting to something that maybe I hadn't done well connected to before. And you know, when you have your tougher times and you think about those things, I think that those come back to you and they're a bit of an anchor when you have uh you're you're able to kind of draw on that and say, That's the way that person was. Can I be that person? And maybe not that good, but that probably never was anywhere that that good. But um just those things kind of hold on to you. And you would mention probably one other one mentioned my grandmother. My grandmother lived to a hundred. My mom's mom. And when she I remember when she was in her 90s, uh I sat down with her and I just started to talk to her about uh her life experiences. And one of my great regrets in my life was that I didn't record her because it was this generation of iron and grit that she came from. Uh and you think about living she she lived in the sewer systems in Poland because in World War I, because the the Russians were coming in and raping and killing the women, and she made her way to the docks and made her way to America. And she would tell me what her life was like. There, you know, eight of them living in one room. They ate bread six days a week, and one day a week they had more than bread, and she comes here. And she comes here with literally nothing. Goes to work in the sweatshops in New York City in one day, and is sending money home back, you know, back home, sorry, in a week. And you think of people like that and say she was she smiled every day. She had nothing. And she smiled every day. And so those are the memories I think you take with you as you try to navigate life and try to be better to people in ways when you think about what other people may have gone through. And uh, we we all have our our our things, but I I think I remember things like that because they propel me to be a better person, I believe.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you know, you talk about people like that. Um I I just get filled with a sense of hopefulness and inspiration. And um, I mean that that quality, and I don't know what that that fabric that people are made of that allows them to take those horrible, horrible situations and not turn them inward into a poor me syndrome, you know, that is very destructive ultimately, but turn it outward instead and say, How can I make things better? You know, that I don't want others to experience this. I don't want others to be in this place. What can I do to prevent that? So she comes in and starts sending money home. I mean, you think about that. I think of some of the people that I know right now with all the immigration things that are going on, and most of the people I know are here working and sending money back to their their family in Nicaragua or Ecuador or Mexico. Um, and I mean they're hardworking folks that have that same spirit of they're scraping by on, you know, whatever bread or beans or whatever and sending the rest of it home. That that's the fabric that I want to be around. Um, and it it's it's just so inspiring to know that somebody can come out of those circumstances. I mean, can you imagine? I can't imagine living in the sewers. I can't imagine my grandma, who my my grandfather died in 1931 in the height of the depression and left her alone with, I believe at that point she still had 11 kids at home. 11 kids alone, 1931 America as a woman. I mean, she had a tough life. And my grandma was, you know, one of the nicest, sweetest. She took care of her entire neighborhood. There's an article done on her in the early 70s that, you know, they talked about her being grandma for the entire neighborhood. Um, she cared about people. She she she baked bread every day up until her 94th birthday or something like that, as I recall. Um, you know, and that so that quality that says, you know, life, life is hard. Life is hard. I'm not denying it, but goodness gracious, it's also, as you were pointed out earlier, it's it's what we choose that matters. You know, the life we live with is the one that we're, you know, we hopefully are learning something that says that we can do better. Let's do better, please.
SPEAKER_01:I remember too, uh, that she told me that after a month, her and her sister would go knock on the doors of the men who had come over and weren't sending money back home. And they'd knock on the door and they say, You need to go. You know, she was pretty spongy. You go, girl. Yeah, so she was pretty sponky. So, you know, maybe my my mom was the same way.
SPEAKER_03:So uh that was interesting. So I referred to an art that article that I wrote, um, and I it it commented on uh an issue that happened to you that uh maybe is core to who you are today, even as an investment advisor, financial advisor. Um, but you had a a close friend that you grew up with who perished in the 9-11 dubacle, and you uh you ended up uh having um a situation where his wife was then uh looking to you. Um I I would imagine it was because of just perhaps you had to all be friends, right? Um, and what you learned through that and what she uh saw in you through that, that you were you know really taking care of her in a lot of very profound and meaningful ways, to the point where she was able to send what is it, her son to law school as a result of the way that that money was invested. And uh just a wonderful, wonderful story that seems to be just kind of another day in the life of Ian Freeman, from what I can tell. So which not to minimize it, but it's just like it is the fabric of who you are, I think, which is wonderful.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you try to be that way. Yeah, you know, I certainly trying to get better. I don't think I've ever succeeded at it. We'll continue to try to get better as we go through this aging process here. But I I think the bigger, you know, my primary role is protection. And the the really the part of that story I think that resonates with people most is what we try to tell when we speak, because there's a a little bit more cinematic way to say it uh when you're there. But you know, when you go to that uh memorial service and this friend was um my father and his father were best friends. And his birthday and my birthday were three days apart. Wow. So when this happened, I was in Dallas at 9-11. I'm starting to call all my clients and try to figure out what's going on because I actually was in those buildings a lot of Tuesdays, and 9-11 was a Tuesday. So I happened to be in Dallas and I'm watching this unfold on TV. And it's it's you know, I know where everything is, I know what's going on. I and my initial reaction was my god, 25,000 people are gone in what's happening here, and thank God it was horrible as it was, but it wasn't that. Um but you know, he was one of the calls and didn't respond. So I remember coming back that Friday because you couldn't get flight, there were no planes. Um, and I flew into Philly and I drove back, and I remember driving on the uh bridge and seeing it. And there's there's a place in your life sometimes where things are completely surreal. That was one of them. Seeing what was no longer there. The memorial service was, I think, just like two or three days later. And I went to pick up my dad, and he and I went together to the house, and there were, you know, we got a hundred people at the house. And the only person that had to go into the bedroom, and it was the kids in the bedroom, and sit with her was me. Close the door, she looked at me, and her only question was, Am I going to be okay? In my world, you better have the right answer. Because if you don't have the right answer, it cannot be fixed. So to me, and she and I still talk to this day. And what and every 9-11, I either text her or call her and just say, I'm thinking about you. Um but we talked about her her son, she has two sons. But her one son, you know, people ask me, you know, all the years I've been doing this, and you'll there's some why I mean, I have stories that I could tell you, I can tell you the stories if you want one day, and you'll say, That's not true. And the answer is it really is true. You can't believe the stuff that we've ended up seeing. But um I think the most gratifying and humbling part of the job at this point is if we have done anything well at all, we have uh three generations of the same families as clients now going on forward. That I'll tell you how old I really am. Um but that to me is humbling and gratifying. There's nothing about that that we should pat ourselves in the back door. That just means we've tried to build the relationships and we tried to treat people the right way. And in our world, you have to have the right answer because when something happens to someone, you can't go back and change it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So you talked about if if you don't have the right answer at that point, um you you can't fix it. So is there is there a lesson there for people that don't have the right answer right now? I mean, and I would assume the right answer is that you're invested or have put aside enough financial wealth to at least be able to, or you have the policies, whatever, to be able to um build it into something that is a survivable amount of money. Yeah. Um, so are there are are there things or warning flags or just uh you know precepts that people need to keep in their mind? You know, if you can't save, you know, a thousand dollars, save ten dollars, you know, whatever that that says uh, you know, don't don't just give up, don't throw on the towel, don't say I'll never earn enough money to do that, like I did for years and said, you know, we're a single family income, my wife can't work, goodness gracious, I just can't do a 401k right now. Um, you know, and now I look back and I go, what were you thinking?$20 a week would have been a good idea. So, but uh, anyways, anything along that line that you could pass on?
SPEAKER_01:Sure, but none of it's financial. And that's the fun part, which is look, I again, I'm in the protection world, I'm in the in the life insurance world, is a majority of you know of what I do, but none of what I would tell you is financials. You have to keep in mind that it's not about you, it's always about them. And if it's always about them, you will ask the questions about them for them. And sometimes folks don't quite know what to answer. So you will say, Can I help you? Can I lead you to toward that? But their answers are the ones that make the difference. And so much about what we do is about how well we actually listen. And one of the lines I use in my speaking all the time is most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply. And if we can learn, all of us to be better at that, I still want to be better at that today. If we can learn to be better at it, then we can make more of a, I would say, better decisions, but also more of a difference. And and life is really we'll I'm sure we'll say that more than once today, but that's what life is really about. Yeah, yeah. And my my dear friend Lee Brower, who's one of my mentors and coaches, he pointed out, he goes, the arrows have to point out.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:People where the arrows point in are not necessarily people we all want to kind of hang out with. None of us.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. And yet that's such a um a compelling or uh uh people want that that quality of look out for yourself. You know, it doesn't matter. Stomp on people, get ahead, get ahead, get ahead. And I think of how that's attractive to me. It's like the dark side of the force, though. You know, it's it's easier, more seductive perhaps, but not stronger. And you know, what does it take to get people to understand, you know, how the fact that well, harassment. I do anti-harassment training where I work. And one of the things I have to focus on immediately is it's not about doing onto others as you would have them do onto you. It's about doing onto others as they would have you do onto them. You know, that you have to somehow get beyond yourself and what you think would be offensive and try to see it from their shoes and try to do things, live your life, interact with them in ways that they will feel safe and you know that you really do care about them. Um, and so I think that all speaks to the same thing, right? That we we have to somehow get beyond ourselves and turn those arrows outward that have been focused on me because you poor me, I'm you know, been through all this horrible, you don't know, and I deserve better and all of that stuff. Is there a a secret sauce that you've learned as a leader that you think can help turn that around for people?
SPEAKER_01:I I don't know, you know, I don't know if there's a secret sauce. I I'm gonna say this because every everything that I do, I learn from somebody else. And one of the things I I often say is listen, if you steal one thing from one person, it's plagiarism. But if you steal a hundred things from a hundred people, it's research. So I've tried to do a lot of research in my day. And you know, when you think about it, it it's I think it's it's about empathy. I think it's about you know, with the arrows out, I think it's about trying to make sure that other people feel valued and valuable. Um you know, confidence which comes very hard for me, but confidence isn't attracting if you can have it. But arrogance is a deterrent. And there's a there's a big difference between that and what we see today is this kind of arrogance and condescension, or if you don't believe me and you're wrong, and it's yeah, you know, there's a lot of ways to see things, a lot of different ways to look at things, and you don't know what's going on. And I think one of the other parts of it that that is maybe I would call the the secret sauce is um and I try to tell this everybody's got a story. Everybody's got a story. You don't know their story, and what people tend to do is almost in unintentionally, sometimes intentionally in the first two minutes you're with someone, they're judging you. They they think XYZ, you have this, you don't have this, you thought this, you don't everybody's got a story, and that's when to me, if you are willing to hear the story, it gives you the ability to be much more, I hope, valuable to those people, and maybe in ways you did not expect when you started the conversation.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah, you know, I think fundamentally that's part of what this podcast has been all about for me for the past five years, is being able to let people tell their stories and becoming enriched by it. And and I'm gonna remember that euphemism that, you know, if I'm uh stealing things from the hundreds of guests I've had, it's not plagiarism. It's just research. It's not a lot of research, which which is important in my line of work, especially. I I'm trying to find ways to connect people, not uh not make them just uh carry on in their ongoing efforts to destroy themselves. So um have you what what today do you think is the the major issue or the major challenges that that you face in your protect in your profession? Because you are primarily in wealth management and helping people to uh develop a secure future, uh future, right? Uh protecting them from whatever may happen with the economy or whatever that they they at least can still have a a life that you know everyone hopes to have, especially in retirement. I'm getting close. So um, you know, that that kind of thing. What are the challenges that you think people you are aware of and are trying to combat and that they need to be thinking about as well?
SPEAKER_01:Wow, we could do that for an hour, but I'll I'll synthesize it as best I can.
SPEAKER_03:Well, another reason to talk again, so right?
SPEAKER_01:So what is the internet is an interesting thing. There's you know a megabytes, millions and gazillions of megabytes of information, but very little knowledge. There's a huge gap between information and knowledge, and in my particular world, knowledge becomes important, I think. And I also am philosophically different than many people that do what we do, and I'm okay with that because here's how I talk about uh things philosophically, and having been a partial philosophy major, I like to talk about things philosophically. And I always say to people, if we are gonna do the planning the way that we do it, and if you want to work with us, and it's okay if you don't, we're going to protect you for the things that can go wrong so we can invest for all the things that will go right. We're going to do it in that order because if we don't, it's like building a pyramid on its point. If we do all the investing and all the other wealth management things and all the things that we're talking about, and we're concentrating on that, and something goes wrong, somebody dies, somebody gets disabled, somebody needs a long has a long-term care, any of the above, it doesn't matter what else we did. And especially if it happens, we'll call it untimely. So, you know, when we do that, it also evokes something different in people, right? Because there's fear in talking about this. There's there's anxiety in talking about this, there's uncertainty in talking about this. So I think we need to navigate those things to make people feel more at ease or feel like that part of their life maybe we can help take over. So they once we get through this, they can take a breath. And that's been probably one of the more gratifying parts of having done this as long as we've done it, whereby people say, I know I'm okay if something happens. And that's the real world we try to play.
SPEAKER_03:Do you find that with the um acceleration of technology, um, I mean, when we talk about the things that you try to protect people from that can go wrong, is the landscape of that changing? Um, do you find that there are new threats that you need to be, you know, keep kind of being aware of, get retuned to? Or is it just different, you know, shades of the same colors that you just have to say, oh, now there's a I mean, I work in IT a lot too. We have to always be looking at, oh, here's the next zero-day exploit, or you know, here's the a new vector now that deep fakes are being used in order to, you know, get Ian to apparently call one of his associates and say, I need you to wire me$10,000 for such and such, you know, her policies, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Right. Um are there things like that that you you look at the world around you and think, oh gosh, I there's another thing we need to be concerned about, need to protect against. And do you anticipate there'll be others?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, I think we're all in in constant evolution. As things change, we have to be in tune to what's happening. Having said that, do I think there are some core principles that we all have to be part of in my words. And that that answer I think is yes. There have and part of the fundamentals of that, listen, one one of the ways that we could say what has changed in one sense. People do lots of Zoom meetings now, like we're doing, right? Yeah. Um but that isn't necessarily always the best way. So I mentioned earlier there's information, tons of it, but not a lot of knowledge. Knowledge isn't as valuable though if you cannot communicate it. So now we've narrowed that down from a very wide swath to a very narrow swath. But if I think in our world we do our job correctly, we don't play in any of those spaces. It's not in information, knowledge, or communication, it's connection. If we can play in the space of connection, and my own opinion is people crave connection much more than they crave it on doing a text or crave it on social media or anything like that. And when you get to our world, then it's a very, very different thing because now we're talking about something that is an intangible in many ways. But that intangible involves your heart as much or more than your head. And now that's something that becomes a different skill set. Am I good at it? I don't know. I you know, okay. Um, but I'm still trying to get better.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it? AA Milne, the uh author of Winnie the Pooh, once was quoted as saying, how we educate a child's heart is at least as important as how we educate their mind. And I thought, boy, there there is something, Mr. Milne, that we are sorely lacking, because I fear that our our internet, our interconnectivity through that is educating people's hearts in ways that boy, we gotta we gotta figure that one out because it it's not it's not looking to me like we're not gonna have a heart attack if we don't start you know chucking ourselves full of cholesterol and all kinds of, you know, I don't know. Um so are there things that people can educate themselves against to kind of avoid the hype of what's going on in insurance and in retirement planning and whatnot? Um are there I mean you talk about education or you know, that there's there is a lot of information and knowledge is lacking. I I think even more what comes with knowledge is the wisdom, you know, of having you know that education and that knowledge and then being able to put it together in ways that are wise and thoughtful and you know beneficial to all parties. Uh are there ways, would you say maybe it's ways to look for a financial advisor? You know, you're you're in Florida. I don't know if you want people from Wisconsin, you know, coming down and saying, I'd like you to take on my, you know, uh, you know, that and the thousands of people that listen to the website uh webcast all of a sudden calling you, that would probably overwhelm anybody. But are there things you would say they should look for in a advisor, or is this uh uh the philosophy you're teaching? Is that something that other places are adopting and individuals are adopting?
SPEAKER_01:I think there's many ways to do it the right way. Uh I happen to be I it's kind of a crazy business. I'm licensed in 41 states, so it's kind of kind of the lunacy. And before Zoom, I did a lot of trafficking over a lot of points. Um, which is crazy. It's I still am, but nothing like I used to be. But I think you need to to, if you're someone looking for a financial advisor, find someone who you're compatible with just in terms of you, you have you know, if you're sitting here, especially in my role, you have to be somewhere in your mind saying, if I'm not here, do I want this person coming to sit with my family? That's a really important question. You know, is this person gonna really look out for us? And in my philosophy about how we do it may not match others, and you know what, that's okay. That's that's why there's chocolate and vanilla, right? I mean, because there's a lot of different ways to do this. Um, but I think obviously if you can get a recommendation from someone you know, it's it's a warm introduction is always gonna be a heck of a lot easier if you could do that. But I think a lot of it is trusting your gut. Is this person someone who's gonna look after me? Is this person, you know, what are what is what they're saying, does it resonate with me? Does it resonate with my family? If you're uh a spouse, a partner, whatever it happens to be, are they comfortable? Because remember, if you're the one who's doing the finance, they're the one who's left behind.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so we always need to talk about those things. But for us, uh like I said, it's incredibly humbling when people send their kids to you. And then when they send their grandkids to you. And that to me is that's the nature. It's there's nothing to do with anything else because there's there's we could talk about legacy at another time or something on the road, but legacy means different things to different people. And to me, uh legacy for us has nothing to do with money. It's it's have we impacted uh lives, families, and communities in a way that they may not have been able to do themselves simply because we uh know a little something about this one area. And to me, I think about that daily.
SPEAKER_03:So speaking of legacy, yeah, um, I I like to wrap things up with this question, and it it is uh it's simply and profoundly important. Is i at the point at which you succumb to the same thing that is not an if but is a win, uh it happens. Is there is there a thing or is there a a word, um a thought, a an action, uh some something that you would like to come to people's minds and hearts when they think about Ian Freeman? You know, what would be that legacy, that lasting legacy that says, you know, here lies a good person who tried to do his best, whatever. You know that what would that be?
SPEAKER_01:It's always a little difficult because I I don't really think that much of myself, to be perfectly honest. I wish I was so much better, you know, throughout my life. And I I I I laugh at people. I said, you know, I'm at that age now where I started my career around the time they invented fire. You know, it feels like I've been around a really long time.
SPEAKER_03:Um but but I I was when they invented the wheel, so I'm a I you're right, I am a little younger than you. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So so I that means I was before you probably. But anyway, um I I you know I kid about it, but I look like I said, what at the end of the day, you know, did you make a difference? Did you make a difference to at least one person? Did did you know I get up every day and there's two things. It's is what am I grateful for? Just gonna always think of something. And can I make a difference in one person's life? That's how my day starts. And that might be holding the door for an elderly person, which by the way, something should probably do for me now that I'm an elderly person. I didn't expect I did, you know, I keep asking how I got this all. What happened? How did I get here? Yeah, listen, I'm glad I got here. So yeah, yeah. Um, but you know, I don't know what that's gonna be. And then not knowing what that's gonna be, that means you have to conduct yourself with everyone you see. So I walk in the mornings and I take pretty long walks, and there's not a single person I pass that I don't say good morning to. It is uncanny to watch their faces. The fact that you took a second to smile at them and say good morning. You don't know what happens when you do little things like I send out these quotes to people in my particular agency. Then I see something I think it may resonate or something. And I just had someone send me something the other day said that quote you said allowed me to do X, Y, and Z. And you look around and go, I I what? I didn't do anything, I just sent out a quote because I thought it was interesting. But when those things happen, that's what legacy is. That's when you want to make sure that if you had an impact on someone's life that may not have happened, that's all I care about. The rest of it is fluff.
SPEAKER_03:Well, there you have it. So um you are absolutely right. I I I do need to find another time. I hope we can to talk some more. Um, because there there are uh layers upon layers. And I I I feel a lot of kindred spirit-ness because when you talk about I don't think very much of myself, I I I tend to run the same way and people, oh, you shouldn't talk that way about yourself. I'm like, hey, you don't know me like I know me. Okay. So, but uh anyways, Ian, you have a book coming out too, don't you, or that you're working on?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, sir. It's actually it'll be out in about four weeks. It'll be available. Um it's a it's a combination of things, which I hope is in the genre of making a difference. One is it's a bunch of stories from my career, and they're there's some wild stories. I'll tell you the title of the book, and you'll understand a little bit. I wrote the book with a gentleman named Daniel Simone, who's a fairly famous author, and I told the stories, but he wrote it. So he wrote it in a genre called narrative nonfiction. So all the stories are true, they're just written like a novel. Okay, which I could never do, he could do. And the book is called Life Beneath the Suit. The suit is what what you know what I wore every day. But the subtitle is Madness Mayhem and the Meaning I Found in the Mess. The answer is the mess was me. And so not just telling the stories of the Korea, which did shape and mold me to a great extent, but it's also that I had tremendous, tremendous, you know, mental struggles, mental illness struggles. And um, you know, I I I felt that telling those stories, you know, hopefully there's something about resilience a bit in there, but telling those stories about what it was like uh to live in that head, um, and still do it to some extent, um was you know, was challenging to say the least. And I hope that's if if someone who reads it gets something out of and builds something from that, that'll be that'll be really the reason to do it. I've done it.
SPEAKER_03:So well, I'm on the list. I I'll I'll have to put that into my Kindle list of things to watch for. So it sounds like my kind of book. So yeah, especially when you start talking about mental health, and like, oh, we got stories, buddy. We could tell stories.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I'll give away one thing real quickly, and this isn't exactly in the book, but you know, I was so screwed up. That's a technical term, by the way. Screwed up.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's a medical term, actually. It's in the DHFD.
SPEAKER_01:I was so screwed up that I was told that if I didn't get help, I wouldn't see my 50th birthday. Um, and I and here's the interesting part I didn't drink. I didn't mind having to drink, but I didn't really drink. Never did a drug in my life, didn't smoke, didn't gamble, had none of the other vices people tend to have when they get that screwed up. So I made me really hard to treat. And when someone tells you when you're 42 that you're not gonna see your 50th birthday, you know, your window of opportunity seems relatively small. Um, so I I don't mind revealing this, but you know, I'm 67 today. Uh every day's a good day. I'm 17 days past my uh I'm 17 years past my um maybe my ex possible expiration date. So we're doing pretty well.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you only beat me by two years, because I'm 65, okay? So we are contemporaries at least. So uh folks, my guest today has been Ian Freeman. He is uh I I'm gonna know him forever as the compassionate wealth management advisor. Has a new book coming out. Um, how else can people get a hold of you, Ian, if they want to just look you up or talk with you about advice?
SPEAKER_01:Well, my my site for the book is because I I fortunately do a lot of speaking too, which I love, which is by the way interesting in and of itself because I'm a total introvert and I'm painfully shy, but I do public speaking. So we'll talk about that another day. Um, but the site is Ian Impacts.com, and that's where you can buy the book.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And um other than that, um I could, you know, I have a regular site, which is uh nm.com. So it's like an LOE voice. You can actually go under IanFreman.com, but not the MMA five.
SPEAKER_03:Ian, thank you so much for your time, your energy, your stories, your openness. Um it's been wonderful. Uh and uh I I look forward, I do look forward to the next time we can press talk. That would be fantastic because uh I sense I would walk away with at least as much inspiration and hope as I'm walking away with today. So I'm gonna help others listening today, uh listening to Frame of Reference uh Profiles and Leadership have learned something and will take something away as well. Do some good, right? Do some good. Look outside. So I'm a pleasure. Thank you. Take care. You too.
