12 Days of Giving Day 2: Finding Your Financial Safe Haven - A Conversation on Trust, Protection & Hope in Uncertain Times

In a world where personal choices are increasingly under scrutiny, how do you protect yourself financially and emotionally? Day 2 of our '12 Days of Giving' series tackles this head-on with Dr. Jay Zigmont, founder of Child Free Wealth (https://childfreewealth.com/), delivering crucial insights for anyone feeling vulnerable in today's challenging landscape.

This raw, unfiltered conversation dives deep into what it means to safeguard your future when your lifestyle choices don't match societal expectations. From creating financial safety nets to finding trusted advisors who truly understand your journey, this episode offers more than just financial advice—it's a roadmap for protecting your chosen path.

Dr. Zigmont, whose upcoming book 'The Child Free Guide to Life and Money' (https://childfreewealth.com/childfree-guide/) explores these themes in depth, shares practical strategies for:

• Building your financial fortress in uncertain times
• Identifying genuine allies in the financial planning world
• Creating contingency plans that respect your life choices
• Protecting your privacy while securing your future

Whether you're child-free, part of the LGBTQ+ community, or simply seeking advisors who understand your unique journey, this episode reminds you that you're not alone. Join us for an honest discussion about finding your financial safe haven in a world that doesn't always understand your choices.

Note: While this episode tackles sensitive topics, it provides hope and practical solutions for moving forward with confidence. Our conversation includes frank discussion of current events and their potential impact on personal financial planning.

As always we ask you to comment, DM, whatever it takes to have a conversation to help you take the next step in your journey, reach out on any platform!

Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram, Tiktok, Linkedin

DISCLOSURE: Awards and rankings by third parties are not indicative of future performance or client investment success. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All investment strategies carry profit/loss potential and cannot eliminate investment risks. Information discussed may not reflect current positions/recommendations. While believed accurate, Black Mammoth does not guarantee information accuracy. This broadcast is not a solicitation for securities transactions or personalized investment advice. Tax/estate planning information is general - consult professionals for specific situations. Full disclosures at www.blackmammoth.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Uncertainty: The Impact of Recent Events
• 5:55 The Importance of Community and Support
• 11:55 Empathy and Understanding in Financial Planning
• 17:58 Taking Action: Supporting Each Other
• 24:07 Conclusion: Together We Stand

Transcript

Stoy Hall, CFP® (00:00.562)
Happy holidays, everyone. We're back with another episode of 12 days of giving and this one's gonna get spicy and it's and it's designed in that way. We want you to be understanding you're not alone in the situation that you are living. There are resources and avenues through through this. Jay's been on before, you know him, you know about him, the whole child free financial planner guru expert of all. And here we are today with something that's going to be really relevant to majority of us that I work with.

from black man's perspective and that you work with as well, Jay. So welcome back on. I'm very happy to have you on. I'm not very happy we have to go through is what we're gonna go through, but I am glad that us as resources and us as colleagues can attack this side by side.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (00:47.138)
Thanks for having me. And it's interesting. Just kind of pull back the curtain. We literally had a meeting before it's going, are you okay talking about this? Are we all like, and we were both like, yep, let's go. And I love that we have a place that we can have some frank conversations.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (01:02.748)
Right? Absolutely. So let's bring the bullshit out. Let's bring it. What have you been working with and going through with clients and just the you know, from the election perspective and now into the holidays?

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (01:15.342)
So let's be real, we're recording this on beginning of November, just after election. I've spent most of the week working with my clients, my team members, others who frankly were in tears for most of it. Let's just call that out. We had actually as a team, we recorded a podcast in advance. I'm like, how to go to the holidays and have conversations with your family about being child free or not? Because it's always a controversial, like just how do you set boundaries?

And then the election went the way it went. And I'm like, shit, like, how do we have these conversations with people that don't believe the same things? And how do we protect ourselves from a safety standpoint? So we've been having a lot of conversations, this childless cat lady stuff, a lot of people, the targeting of the LGBTQ plus our clients that are undocumented, like what do you do? And like, let's be real, half, half the meeting.

is like almost like a grieving process. Like I thought I was safe. I thought I was comfortable. I know I'm a little different. I got something in my life that maybe isn't the quote unquote the norm. We'll ignore what that really means. But like, okay. Then it shifts to what happens if my way of life is being targeted. And I don't mean like targeted, like just like, people said stupid stuff for years, the judgments, all that.

But what happens if the government truly starts targeting me, changes the way my marriage works, changes the way my structure is? know, are child free clients reproductive rights and how, you know, do I have control of my own body? And you gotta pause and go, huh, am I catastrophizing? Like, am I like, the sky is falling? Or is this a planning opportunity? Like, what do we do to make sure we're safe? Do have to move? Do we have to move out of the country?

What do we have to do with our finances, our legal stuff? And I don't know. And I'm gonna ask you, what do you think? Are we catastrophizing by creating a plan for this or is like, that's just good planning.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (03:26.496)
very, very good question. Right? And I've been going through this week and off air, we're talking about the meetings I've been having as well. And I don't think I think it's good planning. I think it's good planning to a degree, right? I'm not telling clients to go move out of the country type of situation. But we need to be able to prepare for these things. Because not only is the rhetoric out there, but there's actual movement legally happening right now. That makes us do that, right? There's usually a lot of talk, we hear a lot of talk.

with any politician, right? We had also talked about, doesn't matter which side you're on, there's always fraud and they're corrupt, they're politicians. It's when the steps legally start to be being taken to remove some of those rights that we have an issue. And I believe that's why we're having this conversation and you're having conversations with the clients is we got to plan for it. And we need to plan for it now. The question is, how do you plan for this unknown? And where does it come from?

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (04:27.404)
Yeah, I'll start with my own story. So let's be fully transparent. I'm a straight, married, white male. I'm not the target of a lot of this stuff. yeah, but like I'm not the target. All right. But my friends, my family, my clients are. And I believe I have a responsibility to speak for those who can't. Where we're having the discussion saying, you know, some of the people, especially in the child free community, like they just need to go hide for a bit.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (04:35.068)
Bald 2.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (04:57.132)
Like, and I don't blame them. You know, and my staff said to me, hey, if you're going to speak, I do a lot of press and are you worried about your safety? I can like, kind of am, but somebody has to do it. So let's take a step back. morning of the lecture results come out about 5 a.m. I see what's going on. Just getting waking up, I can hear my wife in tears and I'm like, I know where the news went before I even looked at it. Well, yeah, let's go look and.

She works in public health specifically around food insecurity and a lot of those programs. Well, if you haven't followed the plans, those are programs that are probably going to get slashed. Let's just be real. And we had the discussion by eight o'clock that morning. We're like, OK, what do we need to change? We were actually looking at moving to be closer to family. But we had a discussion like, hey, her job might be at risk because you know, it's all

government-funded public health programs, we have to pause our plans and shift. And we're actually not going to move now. We're going to kind of batten down the hatches just a little bit, take a moment back, but to be safe. Now, we are in a privileged position for that. We have work. We're financially secure. Our personal safety, there's a worry, but it's not as worried as it is.

We were able to come up with solution before breakfast. I think there are others where, depending on your financial situation, your personal, what you're worried about at your target, it's not the same. So I met with clients that afternoon and quite a few in tears. of like, do I, one of the first questions, how do I talk to my family when the stuff they're saying is,

hate-filled or talking like and I I really I don't know if I have an answer. You know, kind of like setting boundaries. There's ways around it. But like how do I do that when they're OK with this? And one of my ah-has was if you have family or friends that are not worried at all about what's going to happen. They're probably not people you want to hang out with. Like I'm just calling it simple empathy like are you worried about other people?

Stoy Hall, CFP® (07:17.512)
You're right. Yep.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (07:22.318)
or not. And I don't know, like, it's kind of a litmus test. And I don't even care which party you support, who you vote for, whatever. But are you worried about other people in this? You know, we had to, you know, this election has been the discussion about the childless cat ladies and all, you know, I was like, boy, we're going down that path and fine. Okay. You know, Elon Musk, before this even started, said, childless folks should not have a vote. Like that's the stuff that's been out there.

That's why I'm not on Twitter or X or whatever he calls it now. You choose who you support. But the question is, first, are you safe? Second, are the people you care about safe? And third is, okay, and who do you care about beyond that? Does that make sense?

Stoy Hall, CFP® (08:11.197)
it does.

That's the fundamentals of human rights and like community, right? Like I want to make sure humans us were taken care of if someone's threatened naturally as a human you want to protect animals want to do that they want to protect sometimes right? And that's where specifically this election it came down to for me personally was just I want to help and protect people it's what I do for a living. Why wouldn't I do that with my vote? Now how afterwards?

How do we address that with these people? For me, since 2020 when we went through and not COVID, I don't know if anyone remembers the civil rights attack in 2020. I feel like it was muddled out because of COVID, but that happened a lot and I cut a lot of people out, family, friends, because if you're not there to support me as a human, a black human,

then why even give you energy? And now I think we're going back through that whole process again of if you don't care for people that are like me or even my friends or family, then why should I give you any energy from myself? What is the point? Don't care if you're family or friends because it comes down to just humanity as a baseline, if you will.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (09:35.246)
It does. how do you attack it is the first question. And the way I look at it is the first thing is you got to make sure your own home is OK. You know, whatever that means to you, know, your finances, your job. have a lot of folks that are federal jobs that go, I might not have a job in 90 days. OK, we need a plan for that. And one of the challenges of Fed jobs like you're used to like I'm going to have this job for 25 years and I'm going retire and I'm never going to like you haven't been on the job market in 15 years. Like it's a different way of thinking.

We got to look at that from a financial standpoint. Got to look at where you're staying. You so we are in the South. There's some interesting dynamics of being in the South and being child free. Is that safe for you? We started actually looking at it from our clients. We're like, OK, what states in the United States are safe? And right now, my only answer is probably kind of New Hampshire, because they don't really care about like the live free or die state.

and maybe some areas of Colorado, some of the big cities. I don't really even like California as a place to go because they're to get targeted. Like there's going to be these battles. I'm like, but what's safe to you? Do you have to move for your own physical safety, your own sociological, know, social, psychological safety? And then what do you need to do to get that plan in place?

We do have some clients that are now starting to look at, moving either country, states, other things. And part of what we're finding is just having a safety plan that allows you to pull the trigger and move is probably the best thing can do. I got people looking at other countries or whatever and I'm like, okay, let's go get you visas. Let's go get citizenship or whatever we need to do. Let's figure out the steps you need.

They may never move and they may not have to. But having that plan is that like warm comfy blanket to say, I'm okay personally. And this is that old school of, know, put your oxygen mask on first before helping others. You gotta do that step first. And I worry about kind of caregiver fatigue. You know, if you're out worried about everybody else and you haven't taken care of your own stuff, you're gonna burn out. So I think...

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (11:55.51)
I sent out letter out to my clients and I said, hey, here's a whole bunch of questions. What's going to happen to healthcare? What's going happen to student loans? What's going to happen to jobs? The stock market, I'm less worried about. Okay, like what your portfolio is. It'll be fine. It'll work itself out. Terrors are very regressive in tax. So if you're on the lower income standpoint, might hurt you. But we don't have any answers. But what are the questions you need to answer for yourself first?

then we can get to help another. Does that make sense?

Stoy Hall, CFP® (12:28.016)
does because it should ground you. Like right, if you can ask one, just asking yourself those questions, let alone answering them, having a plan, it'll ground you to being okay. Hey, you know, I go to therapy and my therapist always says when you're starting to spin, spiral and have all the anxiety, get both feet on the ground, push down as hard as you can because it's just physically grinding, ground, grounding you. Good Lord. Grounding you to make sure that, I'm stable. I'm okay. And then you can breathe and take that step.

And that's exactly what that is. And I believe everyone right now needs to do that. One, get away from social media for a while. Stop digging so deep into those rabbit holes and then take this step to answer those questions for you and really for you, not for your family or your friends around you, but for your core. Like, are we good? And if you can say that, then you can open back up, take a next step, help others. So I agree 100%.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (13:26.254)
And let's be real, you know, I'm a financial planner and I do business. I charge people money. This might sound a little self-serving, but go with me. I think if you're going to create that plan and be grounded, you need somebody helping you. Like a third party to just go, you know, am I crazy? like is this, you know, what we actually offer, we do something called, we call it the child free checkup. We charge $250 for it, but it goes through all of your finances and looks through a child free lens.

which that's really what we're talking about here. Okay, through that lens, what's gonna change? And I said to everybody that's on Instagram, like, hey, grab it. Yeah, it's gonna cost you a little money, but we can walk through it with you and ask you good questions and answer questions and go, okay, that was a little far fetched. You've been on social media for too long. This one's realistic. Like, we need it. You know, we need somebody we can bounce off of that we trust to do it.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (14:18.504)
You

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (14:26.124)
And let's be real, you need somebody that understands you. So what I tell people whenever they're looking at financial planners, for my folks, I tell them, you ask them how your plan is different because you're child free. If they say, well, it's not different, well, then just walk away. If they say you'll change your mind, walk away. If they say, hey, I don't know, I'm actually okay with that, like that's at least working on it. But I think at this time of life,

finding somebody that serves people like you, that understands the issues of you, that you can cry on their shoulder with, literally, I mean, I'm not talking figurative, I'm like, literally, and go, it sucks, here's how we're gonna get past it, that matters. And I know that's how you have your business up too, but like, we are designed, there's now financial planning firms that serve everybody. Like one of my colleagues runs a firm called The Wealthy Parent, and that's all she does.

I send my parents there. Like she sends her child for me. Like there's different ones, but they have to understand you, the specific concerns. Because if I'm just stuck in my mind, I can catastrophize forever. And next you know, like I'm trying to buy a missile silo and bury myself. you know, like although right now the missile silo sound pretty good to me, but like, you know, like, having somebody that understands that you can talk to.

And the first chapter of my new book, the question is, am I weird? Am I weird? Am I just off base here or not? And that's that grounding you're talking about of just people like me understanding my issues and looking at this world as it is and going, I'm freely committed. I don't have the answers, but I have questions that we can answer together to work through it. Does that make sense of that connection needed?

Stoy Hall, CFP® (16:22.246)
that's the that's financial planning. That's the future of financial planning or the current financial plan. I don't like using financial planning much anymore, because I feel like it's connotated with investment stuff only. I posted on threads the other day about how coaches, consultants, advisors that call themselves financial planners aren't they shouldn't, right? Right now we have the CFP. God forbid, it needs to be better. I have already said that. But that is our standard, right?

financial planning is minimal to do with the actual money and investments in itself. It has everything to do with you just said. Do they have my back? Can I trust them? Can I cry on their shoulder? Are they going to help me through my situations? That's true financial planning or whatever you want to call it nowadays, because that's what humans need. Right? That's what we need. Some might say, well, you're trying to be a therapist. No, no, no, no, no, no.

there's clinical things that I know I can't touch and I'll bring in experts right? Ashley qualms part of this series, she comes in and takes care of the therapy side. But there's a lot of avenue before that, that they just want to hear someone listen to their concerns and what they're going through and help ground them. That is it. Let alone of like it has nothing to with the numbers or dollars or anything, nothing. It's just

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (17:40.974)
I'm with ya.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (17:46.224)
Hey, I've got this concern. I'm not feeling like, help me and we step in and we can help ground them or at least find an avenue for

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (17:54.862)
And yeah, and 80 % of what I do is on the life or behavioral side. know, 5 % is investing, another 5 % is like your job, your career. Like, the number of stuff is less than 20 % of what I do. And people just don't get that. They'll come to me for investing. I just had a meeting yesterday. Somebody came to me, what about this? And how do I have this? I'm like, your money's fine. Like, I can tweak things. There's some things I would do to optimize. Let's spend this hour talking about what do you want to do with your life and what matters to you and how do we make you safe?

Stoy Hall, CFP® (17:58.31)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (18:25.134)
They walked out of the meeting, like I said at end, like, how was it? They go, not what I expected. I go, okay. They said, it was better. I was like, okay. Like people just aren't used to that, you know, and I think they also don't think about a lot of questions. So we actually, as a firm started working on a lot of these issues when Roe was overturned. lot of issues with privacy for our clients. And at the time I was in Mississippi and our governor publicly came out and said,

Hey, I'm not tapping your phones or reading your mail, but, and unfortunately with financial planning firms, there's not a great way to protect your stuff from the state level. You know, they can come in and read our files at any time. And when I say files, mean, every email, every message, every like, I mean, we have to keep it forever. And the worry was, does that make our clients targets? I mean, I my firm Child Free Wealth. It does, like, I'm just, like, I can't hide it. So we actually had to move our firm to being under the SEC.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (19:19.462)
Yeah.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (19:25.07)
Because at the federal level, least historically right now, they don't care. But I think it's one of those things people don't think about, like privacy concerns. This is going to be a big topic now. It's one of those things like you got to stop and say, hey, can I comfortably have this conversation and not worry about the government getting in or whatever. And that might sound a little tinfoil hat, but it's not.

You know, the discussion we were having was, state registries, you register with each state, and I had to register with Texas. At the time, Texas had just done that $10,000 bounty on abortion. And I'm like, and somebody had, one of the articles was like, hey, are people moving out of the state for reproductive rights? And I was like, they are, but you can't quote me on that because I don't know if that's part of that bounty or whatever, but states were looking for data. We help with your healthcare plans. That's just.

part of what we do, like whether it's end of life or whatever, like that's part of what we do. And how do you protect people and how do you that? we've been doing a lot of work, you know, kind of, I moved from a kind of what I have to worry about to kind of what my clients have to worry about. Like how do we protect their privacy? How do we protect them from, I guess the government, which really doesn't sound right, but that's part of what we have to do.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (20:52.174)
do people listening today, following you following me? How do the hell do they know who to trust? Right? They could trust us to right? And people maybe we know. But a lot of that privacy and everything they're going right now they don't know who to trust. Their neighbors and whatnot. So what do you say to them? Like, how can they move forward with I don't even know who the hell to trust anymore?

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (21:10.722)
So I had to.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (21:17.646)
Yeah, and it's a huge issue. I had a prospect, I always tell them ask, know, how your plan is different to the child free. They asked another financial planner, the one they were with, and that person's answer was, well, I have other child free clients. And to me, that's like a race of saying, well, I have blank friends, you know, like, yeah, like, I was like, okay, time out, know, flag in the play, we're not doing that. And I think we need to figure that out. I think...

Stoy Hall, CFP® (21:36.008)
I got a black friend. It's fine. We're good.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (21:47.368)
One of the litmus tests for me right now is, do you show any empathy for other people? If the answer is no, why are gonna show it for me?

You know, like that's part of that trust of like, do you have my best interest? Now, by the way, CFPs and RIAs have to do fiduciary standard and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But.

Do they truly understand and appreciate you and others? I lost a couple of friends after this rogue had overturned because I was publicly talking about how do you protect privacy of clients? And I had another planner say, well, if they tell me they're going across the border for abortion, I'm going to rat them out. I was like, no, I have a problem. This is a public forum, they're posting this. And I'm like, boy.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (22:37.894)
Yeah.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (22:45.036)
I had to exit that discussion. just couldn't even like respond. Like I got nothing. So that question of who you trust is really important. This is the old, I hate to go, but you know, this is the old trust but verify. You have to get there. And I think part of this is we all need to have some humility around this, some vulnerability around this. We need to be able to share, hey, here's where I'm struggling. I get where you're struggling.

I might not understand your life completely. Okay. I'm a straight white guy. I may not understand the life you're living. I do work, child free clients, LGBTQ plus single folks. I understand at least that group as a client base. And I've done things to protect their privacy, to figure out systems. It's so not perfect. And that's where you start, need to have those questions of like, who do I trust?

And I really don't want you to have to like second guess everybody around you, but...

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (23:50.798)
I, you know, we're talking about the holiday season. There's some family members. I'm just not going to talk about any of stuff. Like, that's it. Like just I might even not. I'm going to try not to even meet, see you at the holiday events if I can, because I don't trust you. You know, we might be blood related, but you know, I mean, unless you have an answer on how do you find people to trust, you really have to trust. You have to trust that what people are saying is what they really are. And so.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (24:07.144)
That's it. That's all we got.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (24:20.61)
In the financial world, I got an email the other day and there's like content companies that tell us how to write our emails and all that. I'm sure you've got the spam. And they sent, here's the letter about the politics. And it was like, don't worry, your portfolio will be fine. You the stock market tends to do okay. None of these issues were talked about. I had already sent my letter to my clients by 10 a.m. that morning of like, here's what we're doing. Here's how we're to do it. And I'm like, it just shows kind of where their priorities, if they're

saying it'll all be fine because your stocks will go up. I can't trust that.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (24:54.898)
flag. Right? No. To answer your question of like, who can we trust within our industry? And I would love this movement to take over is us, right? And there's more than just me and you. Let's be real. We have a lot of colleagues that we can trust that I would give my entire book to tomorrow, right? We collectively need to be supporting each other more and helping our prospective clients find the ones that they trust even more so.

I know I do and I'm sure and I know you do it. But as an industry, our job should be connecting people to those that they connect with and trust and vetting others out for them because they don't know and can't see what we can see and know. And so like when prospective client comes to me and their child free, you know, my conversation is same, but then I'm going to go, you know what, let's have another meeting real quick. I'm gonna get Jay in because he is your guy. Like he is the one who fits this.

right? Would love to be your client, your amazing people, but you need to know the avenue and I trust him wholeheartedly with everything. That's the conversations. That's what our industry needs to change as opposed to Jay's my competition and I don't really do child free. I'll just learn from his contents, kind of steal it and I can fit it into my routine. That's different. We should not be doing that. There's no need for that. What it needs to be is we

as our industry coming together and say, you know what, we're going to stand up and get people to who and where they need to be trusted. Because a lot of people don't understand as planners, we don't just do investments in your insurance and stuff. are connected to attorneys, accountants, therapists, every professional. And so we can vet them out and have them readily available for you. So you don't have to go

Who the hell is Joe blow over there? And why do they keep emailing me or calling me or spamming me? I can go to James Stoyne be like, Hey, do know Joe? We're gonna be like, Yeah, don't trust him. Here's Ashley. Here's Scott, whatever. That's where I believe can change and people can start trusting but that's a long, it's a big deal.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (26:59.342)
Well, and I think that's the second part of this discussion, which is you get yourself safe. How do you help others? You know, so one of things I've been doing as a company, we're actually collecting child free estate attorneys in all 50 states. It's actually been really hard to find, but like people that understand us, they understand the differences. They're not going to be over there going, you should do a generation skipping trust or, you know, you know, questioning, you know, we got, we got clients that are

Unmarried couples are not like, got to get married or like, there's a bunch of that. And I think the hard part of that is, okay, I'm good. How do I help others? Because I think we're all going to have help each other. But how do I do that safely? And that's a great question. I got a lot of my clients kind of like, they're like, yep, I'm getting off social media, which by the way, 100 % support, like do it. If I could get off social media, I would. I have the business stuff and I'm stuck. I joke.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (27:49.99)
Yeah.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (27:57.23)
The first two jobs I hired out were somebody to clean my house and somebody that does my social media. Because I don't want to do to my toilets or social media because they're both dirty jobs. Okay. But how do you support and how do you do it safely? You know, I'm I have chosen. I'm going to be doing a hell of a lot more press, a hell of a lot more talking about this. I'm going to be out on some places that really don't want me there talking about this. And I'm going to talk about these issues because I have to give a voice to my

people into the child free community and to that. That's not my comfort zone. Okay. I don't really want to do that, but I have to because if I don't somebody else you'd hope would do it, but might not because for others, it might be truly a safety issue. Like, Hey, if you're out there publicly talking about it, you know, you're coming home to stalkers and other things. mean, let's be real on that. So the question is then, okay, can you find other ways to support family, friends, community that may not

all of sudden makes sense. So for example, and this is a little bit self-serving, but go with it. I've got a new book coming out at the end of the year, The Child-Free Guide Life and Money. Well, one of things we found out, there's never been a book on the bestseller list that said child-free the title. It's about being seen. Well, you know what you can do? You can call your local library or your independent bookstore and say, hey, how about you carry that book? And you can do that safely. Or, you know, I've...

I used to say you could lobby Congress, all that. I'm sorry, I'm ignoring all that now. But like, how can you very quietly reach out to your friends, family and say, hey, you need a safe place. You need a little extra money, maybe you need a little support. Call them. How do you support the people in your community that are out taking bullets for you? And that might sound like I'm going to a shooting spot. No, like.

That's kind of where we're at. And how do you make sure they feel supported? know, we're actually as our team and our social media, we're like, okay, what are we going to do with the haters? What are we going to do with it? I'm actually doing some work on, know, how do we hide some of people's, our own company? Like, how do we hide our address from mailing standpoint? Like, are there things like, just so, you know, like there's different things. And I think what we need to do when I wrote my letter to my clients, my first answer was just take a deep breath.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (29:55.912)
Yeah.

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (30:23.918)
We got a few months to work through this. Let's be real, this is airing closer to like we're running out of time. But the second step is, okay, how do we give each other a hug and be there for each other and also accept support from others? I'm not good at accepting support. I'm just calling that out. I'm always there to try to help each other. But how do I reach out and go, Stoy, I'm having a bad day, Like, and he could just be there to listen and go, yup.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (30:43.346)
you

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® (30:52.908)
I had that last week. I'll call you next week when I have it. you know, it's one of those things where we need to build that structure. And yeah, financially we need some support, but I think the life, the emotion, those things are the things that

Stoy Hall, CFP® (31:10.606)
That's perfect way to end this too. It really is. We could keep going. But that is it. We really need to figure that out. But also, I end all my episodes this way. I want you to like, share, comment, subscribe and retweet all those damn things. Not because algorithm I don't give two shits about them. But what we care about is the ability to for others to see it for the communication to happen. None of this. You're not you're not in this world alone. And there's experts and professionals out

there that are here for you. just want to be able to hear you. So you need to DM us you need to email us you need to reach out so we can be there to help you. Don't think you're in it alone. Reach out. Jay, I appreciate you. Literally appreciate everything that you do your you are out there attacking a different demographic than I am. And I love that fact that I can look over

and say, hey, he's in the same battle I am. And we're all taking shots at it. And so thank you for doubling down and tripling down, being louder going forward. I'm going to be doing the same with you. And for those that are listening, honestly, we're here for you. And we have others that are here for you. So do not be afraid to just take the step and reach out to us.