Financial Discussions and Communication Strategies with Jon Vander Hoek

What if there was a surefire way to understand and handle difficult financial conversations with your spouse? This episode makes that reality as our esteemed guest, Jon Vander Hoek, a seasoned financial advisor, unravels the mysteries of such discussions. Jon brings over a decade of experience to our conversation, offering insights from his unique vantage point on building relationships and creating intentional connections in the world of finance.

This episode isn't just about tough talks at home, it's also a masterclass in networking. Jon unpacks his strategies of making others feel valued rather than used during networking interactions. Whether you're new to networking or an old hand dealing with 'takers' in the networking community, Jon has some golden nuggets of wisdom for you. The episode highlights the art of conducting financial conversations with your spouse, a sphere where Jon's expertise truly comes to the fore.

So, does discussing finances with your spouse feel like venturing into uncharted waters? This episode is here to banish those fears. Jon emphasizes the necessity of educating yourself and your partner about finances, painting a broader picture of financial independence. He also discusses the urgency of investing and saving now, providing a glance into his own financial discussions with his partner. Buckle up for an episode brimming with insights and tips to help you steer financial discussions and networking strategies! Take advantage of this opportunity to learn from an expert, tap into Jon's knowledge, and start making strides toward your financial independence.

NOTABLE QUOTES
"I just consistently let people know I care about them, stay in touch with them. Often I’m not talking about business but just really getting to know people professionally and on a personal level." – Jon
"I’m very intentional in the initial meeting of figuring out who would be a good partner for people." – Jon
"I work hard to really listen to people and then I’m able to make those connections because I’m really, really, genuinely engaged with them." – Jon
"The world, I would say, is full of takers. It’s rare to find givers. I think, most people are in it for themselves. I only have so many hours in a day so I have to eventually spend it with people who actually want to help us out too." – Jon
"The magic happens after you get the connection and when you stay in touch with people." – Jon
"People really do have to feel like there’s something in it for them if they’re going to take time away from their family or making money in their business or as a salesperson in order to come to your event." – Jon
"As spouses, working together to educate yourselves about finances and financial literacy is really the key." – Jon
"With [finances], you got to start where you’re at now. It’s gonna be uncomfortable, it’s gonna change up the way that you’re doing things. But if you can’t manage a little bit of money, you’re not gonna be able to manage when you have lots of money." – Jon
"We are a discipline-challenged society and when it’s not just automatically taken out of our paycheck, we end up not doing it." – Jon
"I would challenge people to find a way to get to financial independence." – Jon

RESOURCES
Jon
Website: https://www.primerica.com/jon-vanderhoek 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonvanderhoek 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonvanderhoek 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonvh 

Philip
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions

Transcript

Philip Sessions: 0:15

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the speaking sessions podcast. I've got my great friend John Vanderhoek here and he is a financial advisor, an amazing networker, a new father, long time husband and just an all around great guy and I've gotten to really enjoy getting to know him and some of the stuff we're going to talk about today. He's actually helped me be able to navigate through and that's really tough conversations, but more specifically around financial matters when you're talking with your spouse. But before we get into today's episode, I want to get to know you a little bit more, john, so tell the audience about you Awesome well, thank you, felt man.

Jon Vander Hoek: 0:58

I think I'll bring you around more often to introduce me. I like the way you do that, so you're good at that. So, yeah, little bit about me. So I actually started in this industry over over 10 years ago and I never wanted to be in this industry. I my dad was a pastor, my mom was a nurse and they didn't know anything about money. So I'm excited to have the conversations that that we're going to have today. And I know the reason I went to college was because I was a college basketball player and I ended up studying business and I had a friend who introduced me to who would be my future mentor, who had to chase me around For two years. But now we just absolutely fell in love with this industry and, like Philip said, yeah, I've got a, got a four month old baby, been married forever five years. We went to high school together and just really love in living in Greenville, south Carolina, because we moved here two years ago.

Philip Sessions: 1:54

And so just to get some of your personal background here and the way that you tick is, you can mention this whole. All this guy chased me around for two years, but I also know that you chased your wife for a little bit, if I'm not mistaken. So tell us a little bit about that, because I think that helps bring out your personality and what makes you such a great advisor and great at having these tough conversations.

Jon Vander Hoek: 2:18

I guess we'll just put it out there right away that I'm not very good at salesman, just throwing me under the bus from the beginning. So yeah, I met my wife when I was a freshman in high school and we were always kind of seeing other people, but we're always close friends. So, yeah, we actually Were just friends for about 14 years. So I had to consistently check in with her call her different things like that. She went to Texas Christian and then went to Savannah school of the arts in Savannah, georgia, and I was going to college in Colorado. But we just really stayed in touch For a long time and then we had the most awkward three or four months where we were figuring out if we're going to get married or, you know, not be friends ever again type of conversation.

Jon Vander Hoek: 3:07

So I didn't really awkward three to four months, but then it we were, you know, quickly dated not that long, then got engaged and then got married quickly after that, just because we knew each other so well and that's really what I've had to do over my career to is just consistently let people know I care about them, stay in touch with them. Often I'm not talking about what I do or business, but just really Getting to know people professionally and on a personal level. And then that ends up a lot of times. Obviously people get it. Hey, john, at least I care about us more than just a dollar sign and our industry is not always that way, so that you shows people that. And then a lot of times they open up and want to have conversations, because I'm following up with them and staying in touch with them.

Philip Sessions: 3:53

Yeah, that's definitely how it worked with us. I know at the time I was working with what I thought was a financial advisor, later to find out it was not a financial advisor. We're gonna leave that alone. But I will say that you have to be a pretty good sales person because it took you 14 years but you got out of the friend zone. Most guys can't get out of the friend zone but I want to beat that dead horse there. But that's really how you did the follow up, how you're always just, you know, trying to connect and have the conversation.

Philip Sessions: 4:22

Get to know Lisa is exactly what you do with financial advising. And since we're got on the subject, I know we were gonna talk about networking a little bit as well. I want to go there first and then we're gonna circle back around to the conversation about having conversations around finances with your spouse, because to me it's a little bit better segue there. But when it comes to networking, you moved here it's been about a year and a half ago at this point to the Greenville, south Carolina area and it could be just because we're in the same circles and everything. But everybody I talked to knows you and, again, you've only been here for a year and a half and the people like, wow, john knows everybody, so tell us a little bit about how you go about networking to help us get better with that communication.

Jon Vander Hoek: 5:09

Thanks for yeah, and I think this applies to any Professional sales person or business owner. Doesn't matter if you're in my industry or not. I Always just focus on helping other people out and making connections and things like that. And I don't go into a meeting like, hey, what can I Squeeze out? A fill up in? This is meeting, how am I gonna close in or what benefit is he gonna give me? I'm always just Asking people good questions about their goals and dreams, of what they want to do, what they want to accomplish and who are good connections for them, and then just Making, being very intentional about thinking about who I know and making those connections via text or via email, so that way it's a warm introduction for people that they actually get together.

Jon Vander Hoek: 5:56

And my business is all about relationships and if people like and trust you, it's not about the fancy charts that you show people and different things like that. Often people don't care about that and people don't want to talk to me Until they know that we have a solid relationship and there's that like in, that trust and that credibility bill anyway. So I don't even bother bringing up the topics and things like that until we're to that point, because I know it's not gonna do any good, or their cousin might be their financial advisor or their brother or their sister, so it wouldn't matter how much better of a job I could do anyways, if that they have that strong of relationships alive and bring it up. So I really am intentional about, yeah, just connecting people. And I knew, hey, I don't know anyone because we moved here cold turkey, you know didn't know a single person and only come here once.

Jon Vander Hoek: 6:48

So I knew I had to get out there in the community. So that's all I did is I found people via social media. You know, I'm not, you know, big on social media. I just looked at the people on Facebook and LinkedIn who seem like they were great centers of influences and I asked them to have coffee and lunch and different things like that and let them know, hey, I'm new to the area, which was completely true. I really could use your help and I Share a little bit about us and what we did and things like that. But just really was asking people genuinely for help to connect me To other credible people who knew people, and that's that's all I did when I moved here.

Philip Sessions: 7:23

Man that's really cool and for those of you that have listened to the fact that I started my or did my first event back in August of last year and had like 10 people I always kind of say a different number, it was somewhere around like seven to 10 people, whatever it was. There were not a lot of people there at all. John was one of those. One of those people and that was you were pretty new to the area at that point. You've only been here for a couple months at that point. Yeah, yeah. So John just decided to show up. I guess apparently you thought I was a center of influence or something because, yeah, we just had connected on Facebook and then I was doing this event and you decided you were going to come attend and everything, and it was really cool. And then John helped me out there with doing some videoing, which was a whole other live stream video thing, which is a whole other nightmare there. So clearly I wasn't quite ready for my event. Either. It was a lot of scrambling there, but needless to say, it was still a really cool opportunity to be able to get to know John more, especially when we hadn't even really built that relationship. But that's the kind of things that he does to be able to Dive in and build relationships with people and just to give more background on how we ended up getting around to working with each other.

Philip Sessions: 8:35

This guy we met and I was pretty much like I've already talked with several other financial advisors and got turned off by a lot of them like look, I'm already working with somebody, I've already got this, all these things. And he's like, okay, that's cool, and he just would go on and we talk about something else. We talk about my marriage. It's time. Yeah, I had a daughter at time too. So I'm like trying to make sure on the timeline there. Yes, I had a daughter, so he asked about her, he asked about my business. He would ask about all these things and of course we were going back and forth, getting to know each other and everything, but he wouldn't bring up finances. The only time he'd bring it up is if I asked a direct question like hey, how are things going? Or whatever may come up, then he might answer really quickly, but then he would move on to something else. He was always trying to make sure that I didn't feel like he was only getting to know me just to be able to do business with him, and so when you're doing networking, that's something that's very important to do.

Philip Sessions: 9:31

But I want you to dive in a little bit more, because the strategies that you use, besides getting to know people, you do some like connecting as well, and you talked about that a little bit over text or email. Why do you do that? And it's not like what I see a lot of times with people on the network like, oh, I know somebody to connect you with and it's like one connection and I don't know if it's just me, because you and I have gotten to know each other well but you seem to send me connections over time. It's not just one here and then done for six months and oh, by the way, here's another person. It's fairly consistent I wouldn't say it's on a schedule or anything, but it is fairly consistent that you seem to think of me and connect me with somebody. So how do you keep all that in your head and how do you go about that process of making sure to connect people?

Jon Vander Hoek: 10:18

Sure, yeah, we have a list. So we really have a list of kind of what people do and how they help people. And then I'm very intentional in that initial meeting of figuring out who would be a good partner for people. So whenever people ask me that question, I let them know. Hey, I would love to meet accountants, cpas and things like that.

Jon Vander Hoek: 10:39

And what I find, when people are new to networking, a tip tip for people is they don't actually know who their strategic referral partners would be that could refer the most business back and forth. So I'd say, start with figuring that out too, if you're new to networking, because when I ask people that question they can't think of anyone there, then there's no one for me to connect you with. And yeah, it's just all about really getting to know people, their business, their goals and who could be helpful. And then, as it comes up, when I'm having a lot of one on one coffees, lunches, happy hours or events or different things like that, then I'll listen. You got to listen well too. So that's another thing that I see people don't always do is they're not really listening. They're always thinking of the next thing that they need to say, and I work hard to really listen to people and then I'm able to make those connections because I'm really really genuinely engaged with them.

Philip Sessions: 11:36

Yeah, and I've seen it too many times with so many people that I've also done networking with, where they're just sitting there on their phone or they're halfway paying attention and they're basically just waiting until it's their turn to talk about them and ask for what they need, instead of trying to really pour into the other person, which goes back to the power that you have with your networking skills, because you start pouring into everybody and then it does end up coming back to you, but then we have the dark side of that. So with networking, obviously the more you pour in, typically it's the more you get out of it. So you're going to have more people liking you, you're going to have more people referring you or talking about you and things of that nature, and typically there's that law reciprocity. But we know that there are the people out there that are just takers. They're never going to give back.

Philip Sessions: 12:26

So how do you handle those relationships? Because the first go around, you obviously don't know that they're just the taker, and maybe you do, but rarely does that ever happen. So how do you go about, I guess, maybe removing these people that are takers? Or how do you handle those people that are just takers and aren't givers?

Jon Vander Hoek: 12:45

So I think that you can figure it out pretty quickly if they're not making connections back or if it's all about them when you're staying in touch with them and different things like that. So the world I would say the world is full of takers. It's rare to find givers, so I think most people are in it for themselves and you can figure that out pretty quickly. I definitely have discernment with people, so I'm able to figure it out normally quicker than most. But yeah, I just kind of. I only have so many hours in a day, so I have to eventually spend it with the time that also spend time with people who actually want to help us out too and want to help us grow our business too. So after that then I just I'm constantly revamping our list of vendors that we refer business back and forth with and also who we're spending our time with.

Philip Sessions: 13:45

Okay, and then one last question here with networking, because you, being having been new to the area, greenville, is very unique. It seems like we have a ton of networking opportunities, but for people that aren't in the Greenville area and I might make this a two-part question so one how do you, or did you go about finding networking events when you first started?

Jon Vander Hoek: 14:08

Sure, so there's so many, I think, nationwide. You just have to look them up, whether it's a LinkedIn, a Vet, bright, different types of social medias. You can go to your. There's chambers everywhere. You can go to your local chambers. There's lots of national networking groups and different things like that and, dependent on your industry, there could be associations also. I know there's an industrial association here.

Jon Vander Hoek: 14:39

Then that's not a great place for me to network, so I don't go there, but it's a great great place for other people to network.

Jon Vander Hoek: 14:47

I would just I would just find the centers of influences around town and look up the national networking groups and then the local events and figuring. But you need to figure out first who you're looking to connect with and get your message down so you can talk to Philip about about that first too. Otherwise it's not going to be that beneficial, but I would figure those things out and then I would just go to as many events as you can, as humanly possible, and then develop the solid relationships. After you've developed the solid relationships, then you need to stay in touch with people. So if you just go to a Vet, to a Vet, but you don't have coffee with people, you don't have lunches or happy hours or whatever you want to do. It's a waste of time. The magic happens after you get the connection and when you stay in touch with people. So don't overwhelm yourself. Be strategic about those events and then get with people as you can.

Philip Sessions: 16:33

So I yes, I went to a lot of stuff because I didn't know anyone, but then I was getting their contact information and then we were building the relationship after the fact, yeah, such a great point there and you're exactly right that you need to go have that coffee or go have that one-on-one conversation, and while that does feel like, oh man, I'm not getting to meet as many people, but you're getting to have a deeper relationship and conversation with somebody, and then they can then refer you to other people. And that's what's happened with us both ways. Where we have a conversation, oh, I know somebody that can connect you with, or I just met somebody recently. Let me connect them with you. But sometimes, even though we talk a lot of times, it's hard to keep each other top of mind because we have so many other things going on. So when we go back and have a coffee again, even though we know each other and we probably would be fine especially being guys not having another conversation again, like that, it's still good to get together because oh yeah, by the way here, talk to this person, let me connect you real quick, and stuff like that, and so these things come up.

Philip Sessions: 17:35

But I want to go to the other side real quick, to my my two part or second part of this question, because there's going to be a nice sayer out there. Well, hey, I just can't find any networking events. Nothing works out for me and I believe in the power and I feel like this is where I've created my local influence is creating your own event and I know you've created several yourself as well. So first, how do you go about creating that event? And then second, like what do you create like a strategic partner? So I'm kind of looking like overall like how do you go create the event, how do you promote that event and how do you make sure that you have a good turnout for that event?

Jon Vander Hoek: 18:13

And there's nice airs for everything.

Philip Sessions: 18:15

I know.

Jon Vander Hoek: 18:16

That's just people in general. That's a great point. Yeah, hosting your own events can be. If you're going to do them right, they can really be a lot of work. They require you promoting them often to get a good turnout. And people do go in back to the take or give your conversation. People really do have to feel like there's something in it for them If they're going to take time away from their family or making money in their business or as a salesperson in order to come to your event. Yeah, so I feel the message of what they're going to get out of it.

Jon Vander Hoek: 18:52

So a lot of times we host events and it's about connections. It's not about sales pitches. A lot of times people will make, will host events, but it's really a sales pitch about their products and services. And then the turnout often is not that great unless you're reaching the audience you want to reach, who needs your products and services directly. So I think it's really being strategic about who you want to get to the event, what kind of value they're going to get.

Jon Vander Hoek: 19:21

And then we often bring in sponsors to help with the cost of events and then also invite their, their sphere of influences and different things like that. So then it's not just Lisa and I inviting people, it's a bunch of different people inviting people. We help host a cocktail event and we call it cocktails and connections with, with the people that own and run and lease out the offices that we have, and I think we had over a hundred people and it was just a casual get together, and now people are asking us to do it again. So you know, we didn't know how many people were going to show and everything like that, but people knew there was going to be value, there was going to be giveaways, they were going to be able to connect with, with great people, so then they ended up coming Nice.

Philip Sessions: 20:09

That's real cool and it's funny. You mentioned about like and making sure you don't pitch and everything. I just did a workshop yesterday as of this recording, but it was supposed to be on elevator pitches, so we call it a pitch fest, nice. So that was. That was a decent turnout. We had 16 people signed up. Unfortunately, only six showed up, but it was also two hours, from like three to five.

Philip Sessions: 20:32

So timing there's all these things that are factors within all of that that you got to work with and make sure you're marketing right. And what I found as well you probably found that's the same way is really sending out a personal invite. You can't just post on social media and you can't just put it into Facebook groups. You really have to start inviting people personally and say, hey, we'd love to have you here at the event, make sure you sign up, stuff like that, and so that's just so. But let's move on Now.

Philip Sessions: 21:00

We've been talking tons about networking. I'm sure you're like I'm tired of this because, believe it or not, john didn't tell you, but John actually doesn't like going to networking events. He's actually more of an introverted person and so really drains him of energy. Yet he still goes out there and does that. So if you have an excuse for why you're not networking because you don't know people, you're new to the area, you're shy or introverted John had a lot of those same excuses that he could have used, but he didn't, and he's been doing pretty well for himself and made a name for himself here in the local area. So get rid of those excuses and just go start networking today.

Philip Sessions: 21:41

But let's move on into this fun conversation of talking about the thing that we love to talk about most with our spouse, and that is finances. Some of y'all probably think it's sex over there. Get out of the gutter. We're talking about finances, guys. But John, tell us and I know this is super open or super broad, but can you give us some advice of how we can approach a spouse, especially one that's really not on board with talking about numbers and money how we can approach them to get them on board to be able to talk about finances, because that's an important thing in the household, which it's like what number one or number two reason why people get a divorce in the first place. So why is it not the number one or number two thing that we talk about most often? So how do we go about that conversation?

Jon Vander Hoek: 22:32

Yeah, that can be tough conversations and cause a lot of issues, like you said. I'm pretty sure it's number one and I remember one where I come from. So I think, as spouses, you also need to remember you both come from completely different families and backgrounds and education, and the key is to get on the same page, and that would be through working together to educate yourselves about finances and financial literacy. That is really the key and then selling your spouse the bigger picture of what it's going to lead to, cause there's so many things out there.

Jon Vander Hoek: 23:19

People think budgeting is bad, it's a bad word, right, it's naughty, so we ought to call it a spending plan because that sounds better. But what once you do the things that you, you're scared of because you haven't done it before, or you saw your parents fight about money, so now you just think let's just not talk about it is a solution. There's so much empowerment once you actually educate yourself and take the steps and you went with my wife and I also in her business together and our mentors taught us that you, you want to grow together. If one of you is doing self development and the other you're growing a park, so you need to really focus on growing together and doing learning that stuff together and doing self development together, so you can grow and you can be on the same page.

Philip Sessions: 24:16

Yeah, it's definitely a tough thing if you're you're both growing at different rates. Essentially, we're all growing in some way, but it's at different rates for sure. Yeah, that gap gets wider and wider and wider. I think we see that a lot of times with entrepreneurs or when you have one person that's a business owner in the relationship and the other ones not. It's definitely a tough thing because you're over here trying to build this thing and all these stresses and whatnot.

Philip Sessions: 24:43

But going back to the finances, so it let's, let's go with the scenario here. So my, let's say, I'm the one that's kind of taking care of finances, but my wife is not, and I feel, being a guy, I feel like guys have to struggle with this a little bit more than than women. But it could be, the roles could be flipped here. But it seems like, ok, I want to look at the numbers, I want to start trying to budget, maybe not like super hardcore. We know exactly where every dollar is going to do Dave Ramsey style, where you get this much money and this is all you get and you can't spend anymore.

Philip Sessions: 25:19

Things like that, no credit, whatever. How do you go about having that conversation? Because what I've seen from other friends and was my own personal experience was OK, I'm going to create this budget based around kind of what we're already doing Nothing's really changed but trying to create that plan. And then I try and present this plan to my wife and of course, if I'm like, hey, here's the allowance that you get and we both have the same allowance, and then this spending thing it's like allowance, like that's another dirty word, like you can't tell me what I'm going to get. I'm not a child, so how do we go bring this whole budget Spending plan into the relationship when it's just from one side?

Jon Vander Hoek: 26:00

Yeah, that's tough. I do think, actually, if we did the stats, though, most women run the finances, yeah, in the relationship, so it's normal.

Philip Sessions: 26:11

So that's why I say like I think it's a little tougher, because at the end of the day, yeah, a lot of times it's like the women. The woman kind of makes the decision. Even if the guy is kind of organizing it, it's still based on what the woman wants more than the guy wants, kind of thing.

Jon Vander Hoek: 26:25

But anyways, I think it all comes down to selling the bigger picture. So one of the things that we do for our clients is we are always starting with the end in mind and we're often running what's called a financial independence number for people and we show them how much per month. We show them how much per month they need to actually be putting away in order to hit their goals and dreams. So I've ran into that scenario so many times and I'll probably run in it later today when I have conversations with people. So no, to don't beat yourself up, if you're in that situation, that's normal and it's a really tough conversation. So no, you're not alone. And I think once, whichever spouse is more, whether it's the husband or the wife, no matter who it is, whether you're, you're the one who's more financially savvy or not. It's whoever is really needs to sit down with them and you need to do things together versus separately. And then you need to really sell the bigger picture like, hey, if we put away, if we're disciplined here and we put away, let's say, a couple hundred bucks a month, and then it's worth, you know, millions of dollars by the time we retire. That that would get them to see the end of the value of actually doing it.

Jon Vander Hoek: 27:45

I think a lot of times people they don't understand the value of if they do it and if they stick to the plan, similar to working out what's going to happen at the end. And, yes, you're not going to see results right away and, yes, you're going to have fights, yes, you're not going to want to go work out and you're not going to want to stick to the plan. But if you do, this is this is what can actually happen for your family. And often when people especially when people have kids or grandkids, when those are involved, and you show the value of what can be done for the kids or the grandkids and future generations.

Jon Vander Hoek: 28:22

And I don't come from a financial background, if I didn't do a good job of explaining that earlier for those of you that I don't know my dad is a pastor, mom's a nurse, my sister is a social worker mother. Sister's a stay at home mom of six kids. No one in my family Cousins and uncles run, run businesses. They don't have that entrepreneurial mindset either. So talking to them about stuff often on this spectrum, they're on another and they don't see things from my perspective and I'll see things from their perspective. But we really focus on finding common ground. That is the key and finding out what's important. So if you're, if something's important to your spouse, you'll probably have a different priority than maybe you're really excited about investing and they're really excited about buying a new home. So it's really figuring out together what's important to each other and then including that and coming up with with plans together and getting on the same page.

Philip Sessions: 29:23

OK, yeah, I think that vision is such an important thing that we really need to paint, because then you'll find out Maybe either you're completely not aligned or maybe you are more aligned than you think and then figuring out from there what steps to take and everything. And so let's say that the spouses they obviously want to have like a nice comfortable retirement. They, they want to have a few things that need some cars or house and a good savings account, but they also want to invest. How would you tell them to navigate those conversations? Or I don't want us to go into like how you would advise somebody is obviously everybody's different, so it's kind of hard to say this fits for them. But how, how would you tell somebody to kind of navigate that conversation and maybe kind of come up to some agreements and Compromises with each other to help each other hit their Vision of what their financial plan would look like? Great question.

Jon Vander Hoek: 30:24

I think that putting putting a plan together is always the first step. Always start with a plan, not products, and List out your priorities in order of importance and then compare them. I would I would highly recommend that's what we do with people once we're done doing the console. Is we actually have them? List their top priorities? Water what are the things you want to take care of now? What are the things that you want to take care of later or later on?

Jon Vander Hoek: 30:53

You know, as we stay in touch and I would say that you and your spouse can do the same thing you could really figure out what are your top priorities, what are the things that you you're able to take care of today and what are some things that are gonna have to be pushed, push to the future, and that that's okay. That's normally when people start, as they're increasing their income is they're often not able to take care of all the things they want to take care of and all their goals, and then they can work on that. That's where the plan comes in and a roadmap of what they can do today and what they're gonna have to do later on. But we Won't know that unless we know what your top priorities are yeah, okay.

Philip Sessions: 31:36

And then you made me think of this like with income increasing. Again, I'm gonna throw the caveat out there for you that this is just a general. This is not specific to anybody. But when it comes to increase in pay or a year over year, I know that I've seen it with the 401k plan that I have that they have the option of, like, adding 1% each year. So, like you, instead of you contributed 6% this year and the next year at 7%. So it's it's slowly, more and more, but you don't notice it because it's only 1% at a time. Is that a while was contributing 6%. Now I'm doing 25% and you're like, oh crap, I've got no money. So how would you tell people to to navigate both just trying to increase the amount they contribute to any kind of savings, investment whatever, and then also, when they get like an income increase what they? You know some general things maybe they could do to help make sure that they don't just start blowing that money and Never really saving or investing any money?

Jon Vander Hoek: 32:39

Yeah, with that. Those are great points and questions. With that, I it's, it's. You got to start where you're at now would be the first thing, and it's gonna be uncomfortable, it's gonna change up the way that you're doing things. But if you can't manage a little bit of money, you're not gonna be able to manage it.

Jon Vander Hoek: 33:02

When you have lots of money, people think that, oh, I'll get to it when I'm making X amount. No, that's not what actually happens. Then you're 50 or 60 and then you're calling me and you're freaking out because you haven't saved any money and it's really hard to make up those years. It's actually not possible to really make it up unless you're like a business owner. We've been able to do miracles for business owners, but with that those auto escalate. You got to start with something. So even if it's small, a small amount with saving and investing can make a huge difference for you and your family. So I'd say start small and then do those auto increases.

Jon Vander Hoek: 33:45

Most people actually don't even don't even notice them. Why are a lot of states now mandating that businesses have a 401k plan? Because it's the easiest way to save and are a disciplined challenge society and when it's not just automatically taken out of our paycheck. We end up not doing it. And those, those have been proven. If you don't believe me, you can. You can do your own research. There's many large accounting firms and auditing firms and different things like that that have done studies on that. So, yeah, that's a good thing. Great, great tip from you, phillip, of putting in those little auto, auto increases on your, your investments and savings. Most people don't notice if it's just automatic out of their out of their bank account or automatically out of out of their paycheck.

Philip Sessions: 34:32

If you do that, yeah, and then one last question, kind of based on what you said there and you probably know the actual statistic or number because you're obviously in that space, but I've heard something about was it some guy getting a thing his name? Famous sciences talks about like the compound interest is like the seventh wonder of the world or whatever additional wonder of the world, and I saw somewhere one time is like if you invest from 20 to 30 only and you put, say, $100,000 in, or if you start at 30 and invest that same amount of money, or maybe it's like $300 a month or something like that, there's a certain age point where, like you just can't make up for that compound interest versus that person that put $300 a month, let's say from 20 to 30 versus 300 a month from 30 to 65, when they were tired, is that? Is that kind of true? I mean just to kind of put emphasis on like start now, don't start when you're ready.

Jon Vander Hoek: 35:30

Yeah, I believe it was Albert Einstein who said that, so that's the name and they got it.

Jon Vander Hoek: 35:36

Yeah, that's a great concept to cover. I can happy to cover that. So the rule of 72 if you take 72 into the interest rate you expect to receive, it tells you the approximate number of years that it's going to take for your monies to double. And what Phillips kind of point now is, you lose those years the longer that you wait. And that's why it's really key to start now.

Jon Vander Hoek: 36:01

Obviously, we can't go back in time, but you know, starting wherever you're at and just start, even if it's with a small amount, it makes. It makes a huge difference because you have those years for your money to double. I know, with having a four month old daughter, that was one of my priorities. But once you got so scared you know I'm like, hey, we need to, we need to start saving and investing for her future, because a small amount could just go so far for her in her future. We're probably won't tell her about it, I tell she's much older, but that it just makes such a difference.

Jon Vander Hoek: 36:35

Yeah, I would challenge all the listeners to research the rule of 72. It's a simple concept but it really shows you the value of starting now and starting your investments and savings and the difference it can make for those years that your money can double, and it's really important to that. You'll notice the difference in interest rates make a huge difference on how many years it takes your money to double, which is another important thing to be looking at Hmm, okay, well, good deal, and I think that there could help with casting that vision as well to your spouse.

Philip Sessions: 37:10

If they're not on board, hey, we need to start doing this because, look, if we wait another five years until we're in a more comfortable financial spot, look how much less money we're going to have at retirement or maybe it's not retired, maybe it's just like 10 years from now. How much less money will we have saved up if we don't start now? So we need to figure out ways to be able to start now, because and you can tell us to your spouse, I don't know about you, but I definitely don't want to work until I'm dead. I want to be able to stop at some point and everything. So I had that conversation that's actually came up with my personal relationship when we started the financial planning. Well, we talked about oh, until 65? And my wife's like I don't work till I'm 65. I'm fine with working, at least for now. I say I'll be fine, work until 65.

Philip Sessions: 37:57

Maybe 10 years from now might be different, but she already was like no, I don't want to do that. And so that changed the financial plan right then and there. And, of course, if anything else happens. So make sure you're having these tough conversations with your spouse and, of course, you can get with John if you need more help with that, because he's my personal financial advisor and he's just an all around great guy and, like I said, I want to bring him on to be able to talk about networking, talk about having these tough conversations and everything. But, john, let's go ahead and get to our last question, and that question is if you could only share one message for the rest of your life, what would that be? Financial independence, of course, anything more specific that you can get into with that.

Jon Vander Hoek: 38:41

Sure Happy to do that.

Jon Vander Hoek: 38:42

So I just think that I would just challenge people to find a way that, no matter if you're a W2 employee, no matter if you're a business owner, I would challenge the people on the call today to find a way to get to financial independence, whether that takes you a long amount of time or a little bit of time, because I just know so many people that are financially independent, that have done our business or have done other things, that just how much has changed their life and with that, inflation.

Jon Vander Hoek: 39:17

Inflation continues to go up, go up, go up, but people's wages are not keeping up. So I love what people like you are doing, phillip, which is you got your job, but then you also have had a side business. So I would tell people, find some ways if you need to some people don't need to to increase your income so you can get to financial independence quicker, whether that's real estate or business, doing another business or something like that. I would just tell people to do that and get a plan to get there as quickly as you want to do that and what's your definition of financial independence?

Philip Sessions: 39:57

Because I mean I get, okay financial independence, but what exactly does that mean? Yeah, great question.

Jon Vander Hoek: 40:03

It is not having to worry about money at all and if you choose that, hey, I don't have to do my business anymore, I don't have to do my job anymore. We have enough invested and saved and we have an amazing distribution plan that we know with confidence we're never going to outlive our money and it just keeps, keeps coming in. So it's really. The financial independence is when people I feel like are living off of their businesses and their investments and everything like that without a concern.

Philip Sessions: 40:37

Oh, okay, awesome. I appreciate you elaborating on that definition and, yes, you definitely do talk a lot about financial independence. It's awesome to see. But, john, if people want to connect with you and just get to know you more or maybe even have a conversation with you about business, where's the best place for them to reach out to you?

Jon Vander Hoek: 40:56

Yeah, so I don't. I don't know if the, if the QR code will work when it's recording. You can tell me you're more techie than I am.

Philip Sessions: 41:03

I don't know if that worked, but I do have the yeah, I think it should on YouTube. So if people are watching on YouTube, but if they're not and they're listening on the podcast, obviously the QR code won't be there, got it?

Jon Vander Hoek: 41:15

So I. If you type me in on Facebook or LinkedIn, john Vanderhoek, you'll find me. I'll come up pretty quickly. If you're watching, you can scan the QR code. If not, my phone number is 720-341-9787. That's our our office number. So, yeah, if you want to get a hold of me or anybody else on our team, we'd love to have conversations with you.

Philip Sessions: 41:39

Awesome. Well, john, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing this awesome value and helping us talk a little bit about finances, which is a tough conversation to have, but hopefully that will give the audience some ideas of what they can do to have that tough conversation a little bit easier.

Jon Vander Hoek: 41:56

Awesome, thank you so much for having me, phillip, appreciate you, man.