Early Retirement - Financial Freedom (Investing, Tax Planning, Retirement Strategy, Personal Finance)

This Is What Financial Planning Really Changes

• Ari Taublieb, CFP®, MBA • Episode 258

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What does it really mean to change someone’s life through financial advice? While we’re not saving lives like doctors, the impact we have on our clients’ futures can be just as meaningful. Often, it’s not about the numbers—it’s about helping someone move forward when fear is holding them back.

We’ve seen it firsthand. Like the dentist who had every detail in place to open her own practice but couldn’t take the final step. What helped wasn’t another spreadsheet—it was a mindset shift. Or the couple who had more than enough to retire but needed a gentle nudge to believe it was truly okay. These are the moments where great financial advice becomes personal and transformative.

At Root, we believe a solid financial plan is about more than projections. It’s about building a life you’re excited to live. That’s why we focus not only on technical guidance, but on walking with our clients through the real-life decisions that matter most.


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Viewing this video does not create an advisory relationship with Root Financial. We only provide advisory services to clients under a written agreement.

Investment strategies discussed may not be suitable for everyone. All investments involve risk, and past performance is not indicative of future results.

Any opinions expressed are as of the date of recording and are subject to change.

Comments left on this video reflect the views and opinions of the individual commenters and do not necessarily represent the views of Root Financial Partners, LLC. Comments should not be considered a testimonial or endorsement of our services and have not been solicited or compensated. Root does not verify the accuracy of comments and is not responsible for their content.

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Ari Taublieb, CFP ®, MBA is the Chief Growth Officer of Root Financial Partners and a Fiduciary Financial Planner specializing in helping clients retire early with confidence.


Speaker 1:

We have a really fun job as advisors. We change lives. We don't save lives, but we change them, and the reason I'm picking that word change lives is because I've been watching a TV show called the Studio on Apple James. Have you seen it by chance?

Speaker 2:

Never seen it.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So this is going to be extra fun because I think a lot of people listening, slash, watching have also not seen it. And so there's an episode where Seth Rogen he is the studio head and his role is to control what shows go out and the absolute media production and the quality. And that's his role. And he plays this figure of someone who goes I have the most important job in the world I save lives. And he starts to date a physician who legitimately saves lives, children who have cancer. And the funny part of the episode, which then makes it so real, is he starts talking about and it's comical he goes can't we just admit that we do the same thing? And the person he's dating goes. No, seth, that's not his name in the episode, I forget his name, but he goes. Seth, you do good work, yes, you inspire and you make movies, but I'm actually changing lives. And he goes what's in every single hospital room? A TV. I'm the one changing lives. And the funny part of it to us is here's someone who really believes this guy is changing lives. He's saving lives. He's not saving them, he is changing them in a big way.

Speaker 1:

When you've ever seen a movie or you've read a book that really changed your life. I know it has for me. It really makes me think about it, and there's one book called the Undoing Project that I think about, I want to say every day, but at least every single week, and it really hit me hard. But I am not saving a life. So what we're going to talk about today are what are some stories that really come to mind when we talk about changing our clients' lives?

Speaker 1:

James, I'm sure you have some good stories when you can think about. Well, I remember giving this client this advice and they really told me that it impacted them in a major way. I know I have a story that I'm excited to share, but what we are not going to do is we are not going to pretend that we are saving lives. We are not operating on a child who has cancer and saving their life, but we are changing lives. And it was comical because in the show these people are thinking oh my gosh, I'm as important as a doctor. And at the end of the episode which is the funniest part is he got hurt and he needed help and and the person he was dating was like I just need you to admit that what we do is the exact same thing equal importance and he decided to just sit in pain. So it was a very funny episode.

Speaker 2:

That is a very funny concept. I like that. Framing though the changing versus saving. Yeah, I think a lot of people get this sense of an overly inflated view of their own importance, of their own significance, and let's be very clear that we're not trying to do that. At the same time, let's be very clear that, hopefully, financial planning, when done right, is extremely impactful. I think there's a lot of stories we can share, one that this has happened recently, which is why it's top of mind for me.

Speaker 2:

I remember this is actually a client I started working with maybe a decade plus ago. She actually started work. We did work together at my first firm that I joined out of college and she was a dentist and fast forward till today or maybe a year ago, working tons of hours, making good money, but working tons of hours. Three kids, not seeing her kids enough, not being able to prioritize herself, not being able to do some of the things that she wanted to do, lots of money but very little freedom is how I would categorize her life. And she came to me and she had these plans to open up her own practice. She had secured the financing, the office space, the lease, the business plan and she was a planner, she had it dialed in and this goes back to even what you just said. There's nothing I did to save anything. But as we started reviewing this, it was very clear to me that she had the planning. Work was done on the business side, the modeling, the projections, how she was going to run it, how she's going to get patients. What was holding her up was not the technical planning, the numbers, it was. It was fear and I walked her through. I sent her actually this resource.

Speaker 2:

Tim Ferriss talks about a lot. It's called fear setting. I want to say, if I'm getting that right, where he'll talk about what's a big, scary thing that you're thinking about doing but you can't bring yourself to do it and on the you know, maybe I'm probably not gonna describe this perfectly, but good piece of paper, divide it evenly. What are the risks of what happens if you move forward full steam ahead with this thing? Like what's the worst case scenario? In her case? It doesn't go according to plan. I don't get enough patients, miss out on some higher income years because I spent it doing this thing that didn't pay me. List all those risks on the left-hand side and on the right-hand side. List all the risks if you don't pursue that thing, and those risks were the sense of never feeling free, not being able to see my children as they grow up, always having to chase more hours of work for more dollars coming into the personal. And that might not be exactly. I want to make sure I'm not quoting something that's wrong.

Speaker 2:

The fear setting project that Tim Ferris talks about might be a little bit different, but just to the best of my recollection, it's something along those lines and we we had a very simple conversation where I encouraged her to go through that and she went through it and she said hey, this is great. And then I got an email from her. This was maybe a few months back now, but she said something along the lines and I actually pulled up the email. She said I just wanted to let you know that you've been such a positive and supportive blessing in my life and my family. You really helped me last year when I was deliberating whether to start my own practice. My office has been open for six weeks now and I love it. I don't know if I'll ever make as much money as I was before, but the fulfillment of knowing I have the control to do what is right is priceless. Plus, my children think it's the coolest thing ever. Thank you for everything and ever Thank you for everything. And my guess is she will end up making way more money from that.

Speaker 2:

And, by the way, just a disclosure, this is not a testimonial, to say any endorsement of us, it's just.

Speaker 2:

This was a story from a client where it wasn't a financial thing, it was just helping to be a guide on the journey, helping to understand when she was having these roadblocks.

Speaker 2:

It wasn't actually a financial thing, it was just this fear thing, and I think that's what has surprised me most about being in this business is the things that prevent people from living their best lives don't always tend to actually be the financial things, and it's just our ability to maintain some objectivity around what they're doing, have some perspective around what they're doing having done it with hundreds of people over the course of our careers that we get to have that very intimate seat across the table from them and help them understand, yes, what are the right financial things to do, but also, how can we remove the barriers, how can we help you illuminate the blind spots in your thinking so that you can see those and overcome those.

Speaker 2:

And it was that simple thing that I didn't save her life by any means. I just helped her to give herself permission to put things in proper perspective and ultimately make a decision that will absolutely have a pretty profound impact on her ability to spend time with children, to, in my guess, probably end up making more money than she was before. But, most importantly, just having that fulfillment and that confidence that I did something special and I wasn't held back from the fear that holds back too many people from doing those types of things.

Speaker 1:

When's the last time she felt cool from her kids, like I don't know. But that is powerful and you cannot quantify that and a lot of you will reach out going. Just tell me what's the Roth conversion? What bracket do I fill up? Help me optimize. How does someone know and this is a semi-plug James for Root Ready, which, if you're not listening now, root Ready is the podcast that James hosts solo, where he's going over what are the things that, if you want to be an amazing advisor, that you need to learn, that are not in a textbook? So I do think that this does relate to that. What is it about this Root Ready show that lights you up, because it's not your traditional? Hey, I'm going to record an episode talking about what bracket we fill up and here's how tax arbitrage is going to impact it. So, if you pass away, your spouse can inherit this. Why did you start Root Ready?

Speaker 2:

A whole bunch of reasons. First and foremost, we at Root. Our vision is to how can our service offering be the gold standard of what excellent service looks like, what excellent advisors look like in the industry? And so that doesn't just mean you try to attract the best advisors. It means, yes, attract the best. And also, how do we have this place where we can develop the best?

Speaker 2:

Obviously, a big part of it, but I think that for an advisor to be a really effective advisor we say this so often that it almost goes beyond the technical skill set. Of course, yes, you need to know taxes and retirement and investments and insurance and estate, but that's just the basics. There's a whole bunch of advisors that know that stuff that I would never want to be my advisor. I think there's this importance of you. Leading your own life well is going to be the number one contributor to you being able to help, lead others and guide others, which is exactly what we're doing as advisors. How can we expect to not just impart financial guidance, but we talk about financial planning a lot that if all you're talking about is a technical, you're missing it. It's not about pursuing money for money's sake. It's about money being the catalyst to help you live a better, more fulfilling, more purposeful life. That ability to live a better, more purposeful, more fulfilled life. That's something that is only a learned experience that you as an individual, you as an advisor, need to be pursuing, that if you want to have the ability to be the best you possibly can sitting across from a client who is looking to do the same on their end.

Speaker 2:

So Root Ready is about yes, there's a technical side of it, there's the investment side of it, but it's also this maybe financial psychology side of it of how does money work, how do we think about money, how do our experiences as people shape our viewpoint on money? There's also this self-leadership aspect of it of how can you be excellent when it comes to building trust, when it comes to communicating, when it comes to the importance of all the little things and being the big things as an advisor, but just an overall commitment to excellence as a person. What does that look like? Because those are the types of people that we want and have at root, and that kind of lays out the standards for what is our standard here? How do we objectively define what it means to be an excellent financial advisor? And then just our internal approach to that being put into external format in the form of a podcast.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, here's the big risk I hear. Let's pretend that you did not start root ready and let's pretend we did not train our advisors on here's how to think beyond the technical aspect. And we're going to go back to the story of this woman that you helped start this business. And if she came and she said, hey, james, I need to run more numbers, and you went, my job is to be a financial advisor, I'm going to run more numbers Would. And you never brought up the fear-based test that you just mentioned there. If you never did that, did you do anything wrong? I would say no on paper, but the only thing that never occurred is she never took a second to look and ask herself what is the real risk? That was you giving life advice. And so that is you being you.

Speaker 1:

If we have people who are incredible with just technical advice and I'll take the example of my dad, who previously had a surgery the surgery was done very well, but if this person had gotten to know my dad in more detail, he would have known hey, this is someone that I need to be really clear when they get out of surgery. You are not working out, even though I know you want to, even though you are going to probably do it anyway. I'm going to give more education or I'm going to put extra stitches when I'm doing the surgery a additional knowledge going beyond the technical book answer. So I think that's the most powerful statement that I heard from this, because you doing this Root Ready podcast is allowing other advisors who are working at Root and want to work at root one day go wow, there's more to this and I need to kind of lead by example, because you didn't read a book that said if client has issue, ask them to do fear test. You just did it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the, the. The real financial planning begins where the textbook answer ends like the. That's called this client, sarah that's not her real name, but Sarah had done the numbers and we could have optimized and optimized and optimized in thought Okay, just a better projection, a better pro forma, better, whatever is going to be the answer to her finally taking the leap to doing this? And, by the way we do, how many times do we see that with clients? Oh, let's run one more projection. Hey, one more projection. What if I spend this instead of that? Hey, one more projection. What if we do this conversion strategy instead of that? Hey, one more projection. What if we have this investment?

Speaker 2:

What you start to realize is it's not an investment decision or a retirement decision or a tax decision that's holding that person back. It's a life decision. That's what we have to realize. We are using money to live better lives. Therefore, we have to have some really strong knowledge and what it looks like to lead a better life, which all of us can do better at.

Speaker 2:

That's always a journey for everyone, but if your sole focus is on being the technical master of this stuff, you're only getting one side of the equation.

Speaker 2:

It has to connect to something much bigger, and the only way we can learn to lead better lives so that we can then, in turn, help our clients do the same is that's something that you can't learn in a textbook. You have to be pursuing that on your own. That's a big part of our hiring process and the things that we're looking for for people. It's a big part of what we try to promote internally. How do we lead better lives so we can be better spouses, better parents, better friends, better children, better people, better everything? One we just want to do that because of a principle of like. That's one of the core reasons we exist. But number two I do strongly believe that makes us better advisors because our clients are parents, children, siblings, friends, coworkers, people, and so there's that ability to communicate beyond just the financials. That's going to be way more impactful than if our advice was limited to whatever the certain financial curriculum might teach.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we really do change lives. I believe that wholeheartedly. I think we have the best job in the world. We are not saving lives in the traditional sense on the operating room, and I want to be very clear about that, because we see what doctors do who reach out to work with us, and it is something that we will never say hey, yeah, we're doing that same level of planning, but in a different way, without it being too ego-y, whatever you want to call it. Like we are giving someone the green light to say, hey, you never have to work again and that is something. You don't want to retire again. That is something we take very seriously.

Speaker 1:

The story that comes to mind when I talk about changing lives is I had a couple lovely couple. They were really worried to retire early, solely because of health insurance, and they had done a really good job saving and so they were really hesitant to become a spender. It's something a lot of you tell me that you struggle with. I know I have enough, but I still struggle to spend. When I was a child, money wasn't around. I just it's weird. I know I've done a good job, but I feel like it's going to be hard for me to spend. So one of the things I used to do and, james, you might be aware of this, but I used to when I was speaking to a nice couple, I'd say what's your favorite restaurant? And they would tell me what it is and I'd say great. And the next time we met I'd say you are actually scheduled for a reservation the following week for you and two friends that you want to retire with. Because if you guys retire alone, even if I'm sure you guys love each other, you're going to want to still hang out with people. So if you don't want to go to that reservation, that's fine, but you have to cancel it. You have to take action. You told me you wanted to spend more. You're in a good spot, it's time to do it, and they would go and they would go.

Speaker 1:

It just felt different, turns out. I just needed permission to do it and then, all of a sudden, they started going. We now have friends that we can retire early with and hang out with, and so if we just retired, yeah, it would have been fine. Yeah, it's nice redating my spouse because it's been a while, but the truth is it feels different. Now there's a community we feel like we prepared for it. All I did was book a dinner reservation that they could have done. They just didn't feel, hey, do we have permission to go do that? So it's not a surgery, but in our world, it's giving someone the confidence to go out. No surgery, but in our world it's giving someone the confidence to go out. No, I'm in a good spot, and what I wouldn't have done is book them a Nobu reservation if I didn't think they were in a spot to afford that.

Speaker 1:

So these stories that we talk about, they are powerful. I do believe we change lives. You can't exactly quantify the financial advice when working with an advisor. There's a lot of different ways of looking into it, and so I wanted to highlight that I think what we do is special. I think we do change lives. I don't think we necessarily save them like a doctor does.

Speaker 2:

The sign of a good financial plan is life well lived, something we say quite a bit. I think that sums that up. So good stuff. Thank you, Ari. Anything else would be good to touch upon before we wrap up this episode today.

Speaker 1:

Next week we're going to be talking actually in two weeks, because these are bi-weekly now. Most of you know that by now. But we're going to be talking about how do you actually quit your job. Like it's one thing to go retire, but like do you just tell HR what if you've been there for 30 years? And what's the stress around that? We've had a lot of people tell us hey, I know I'm in a good spot, but the thought of having to break up with my employer is the sole reason I don't want to retire. It can sound a little odd, because there's things that you might want to go do. I'm ready to travel, I want to go hiking. But one more project. Maybe it's not a big deal, just six more months. I get a bonus anyways. Five years later your spouse goes. Can we hang out? So that's what's coming in two weeks.

Speaker 1:

Right now, james, you have your Ready for Retirement podcast and you have your Root Ready podcast. I have the Early Retirement podcast. We have our YouTube channels. We both work together and do everything in conjunction at Root. So for those of you who found James now digest my content Awesome, if you found me now digest James's content Awesome, we do all of this together and then we encourage all of you, at the very minimum, if you are listening to this podcast or watching this going hey, this does feel different. This is what we help clients do here at Root, so we encourage you to reach out. Go to rootfinancialcom In the upper right. You'll see a apply to see if you're a good fit and we'll talk to you then.

Speaker 2:

Great teaser for next time. We'll see you all then.