Money Hits Different | Drew Boyer | Growing Money with Sean Trace

In this episode, I sit down with Drew Boyer, CFP and founder of Boyer Financial Group, to talk about the powerful connection between music, money, fatherhood, and what real wealth actually means. 

We dive into how Drew went from being a drummer to becoming a financial advisor, why rhythm and repetition matter in personal finance, and how good habits shape everything from saving money to raising resilient kids. We also get into financial literacy for children, the responsibility that comes with parenthood, how to avoid raising entitled kids, and why generational wealth is about so much more than just passing down money. This conversation touches on college savings, Roth IRAs for kids, debt, long-term thinking, health, lifestyle, and the freedom that comes from building a life with intention. If you care about personal finance, being a better parent, creating options for your family, and redefining wealth in a more meaningful way, this episode is packed with practical insights and real perspective.

What is one money lesson you want your kids, or your future kids, to understand earlier than you did?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I think when you meet your significant other that, you know, one plus one is more convenient than adding on children. So the idea of putting on children and adding a layer of a of a new generation, it's not so much um not a I would never say burden, right? Financial burden, but I would say a financial responsibility. And knowing what I know and and being a financial advisor, I've had thousands of conversations about every life stage there is. So I can kind of look into the crystal ball of like, what should I be doing? Well, I'm gonna do what I tell other what I tell other people to do. And so there's a little bit more of a burden. Like I know that, you know, maybe 10 years ago, we were talking about at least in the US, each child you have is at least gonna cost you a quarter of a million dollars. That's probably doubled since then, I'm guessing. So there is that thought in your mind. So the overwhelming, it's a it's a responsibility, right? That's that's where I would equate it to, financially speaking.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Welcome to the podcast, everyone. I've got an awesome guest with me today, which like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Absolutely. Thanks for having me today, Sean. I'm Drew Boyer. I'm the president and founder of Boyer Financial Group. I'm a CFP, so a certified financial planner. And my major social platform that I work on is called Sound Returns, where music legends are teaching money lessons.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

That's rad, actually, by the way. Thank you. Um, I I I think that's awesome because I am a huge, huge fan of music, and I'm a huge fan of personal finance. And it did to be able to combine the two of those is super cool to me because it's like um one of the things too is like I I know a lot of financial advisors and they're cool ass people. But the thing is, is some of them talk and I don't necessarily relate to some of them. You know what I mean? It's like, but yet some rock star living the creative life, dude. Dude, I get that, you know, and like, or at least I like he's been through some stuff, man. So talk to me about how you started this platform and what was it that inspired you to do this.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah, I I totally agree with you. Sometimes in the business, there's so many acronyms, and you have to learn how to talk to people's heads, not over them. And so anybody that's a fan of music is is a friend of mine. So I'm glad we're able to get out here and do this. Uh, before I had to grow up and get a real job, I was a drummer. That's right. And my venture started with a spastic sixth grader, and somebody threw a couple drumsticks in my hands, and I could just sit down and play drum set. And so I can, I can't read music, but I can hear it and I can just play it. And so I try to, as I as I grew up and got older and had to get a real job, I tried just about everything in music. Uh, I switched over to being a financial advisor because with the beats and the timing, the math of money and everything else kind of it works in my brain. And so I was able to parallel that over. Uh, 20 years later, I get into this and I'm like, how could I marry these two ideas uh together? And so I went down this adventure of teaching, teaching all kinds of personal finance, using like music legends as inspiration. That's awesome, man.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

But like, you know, you said you had to get a real job, but what inspired you to go toward money? I mean, like, there's a lot of different types of jobs that you could be have been looking at. You know, what was it that that took you down this path?

SPEAKER_00 3:25

My parents would say that I always was into uh baseball cards, comic book trading. And before we came home from the store where we bought these all at, I had already out traded my brothers. So looking backwards, they knew that I had a uh what's the word, I had a preference towards dealing with finance, right? From a very early age. I'm the Capricorn, if that makes a difference. Uh I did an internship though in college, and that really opened my eyes up to this whole world of personal finance and that I like to help people. I can do math very well, and I was attracted to that side that everybody is usually when you first get a relationship with money, is you have more, you can buy more stuff. And so that really kind of zoomed me in, not having a whole lot in college, to try to work towards that and have the ambition to get ahead. That's how I started on this journey. I love that, man. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

One of the things too is I I love it because it's like there's a couple layers that are actually really cool. Uh first of all, that you gravitated towards something that you were good at too. And like I'm always a big fan. I'm a Capricorn as well. And to hear people that like I loved the when I was a kid, man, I loved trading baseball cards. And I love trading. I remember that we were able to trade enough of our old Nintendo games to trade up into a go-kart, and like that for me was a hustle, you know. I was just like, dude, I never played those games, and I was able to spin them for this go-kart. That's absolutely rad, you know, right. And it was interesting because the idea early on was like that something could have value that maybe other people didn't see, or maybe I didn't see, but it still maintained value, you know, like, and that was like the thing about games that was always really interesting to me. Like, you might like this game that you played out, like you played that a million times, and then you're like, I don't care about that game anymore. But like someone else is like, oh dude, that's a limited edition cold-plated, you know, Nintendo in our care. I'm like, yeah, man. And we took it on and we were able to get a lot of a lot of uh a lot in exchange for it. But like, you know, you you went from music to this, but like, what are some of the other you talked about the beats being comparable to music? Are there other things that cross over as well?

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah, just just in personal finance, if you're not if you're not doing something at a regular tempo and setting up good habit habits, you know, what's that song gonna sound like? It's gonna be all over the place. And it works for some jazz artists, but not for like pop songs or most rock songs. There's usually like a four-four tempo. So doing things in an orderly manner make a lot more sense. And if you if you can do that over and over again, do the repetition, that that's the key to getting ahead. Not many people can get away doing the personal finances jazz. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

That's super interesting, though, because like I never thought about that comparison, but like tonight, dude. For for everyone, I am gonna throw Riverside under the bus. I've used Riverside.fm for years, and they've been so focused on all these extra bells and whistles, I couldn't even log into the platform tonight. I got kicked off four times last night. You know, it's just kind of ridiculous. But like, here we are on a new, new, new, I'm not gonna plug this one because like I don't know if they're good or not. But one of the things that happened is like I had to pivot. Tonight we had to pivot. And the pivoting, why I bring that up is because in music, you have the structure from the beginning of the song to the end of the song, but throughout the song, you're still working your way through the song. You still have these things, but you have the tools to get you there. Whether it be as a drummer, you have the different beat patterns that you're doing as a guitarist, you have your chords and then your strumming pattern. I was watching this one video of like some famous band uh a month ago, and they were messing up. Like they absolutely messed up their their their pattern, and they were like, hey, well, they came back, but at least we fixed it, but just because they had practiced so many times and they had the tools to fix it.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

But you're paying a premium price for a premium product when you're going to a concert nowadays. They should probably lock that up.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

I think it was like Metallica or something, man. I think it was Metallica.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah. Oh. All right, well, then they just that's their preference. They can get away with that. They're good. It's like going to see the stones right now. What are you trying to see? What are you gonna get? You're gonna get a bunch of 80-year-olds, but you at least get to say you got to see them. Hey, they're still having the kids though, so they're still young. That's a lie on that, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:58

I saw though, we went to see um oh, what was it, man? Uh, Tom Jones last year. Dude's old as hell, but man can still sing, dude. Dude, he can still sing. It's amazing like that.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

But I want and and they're starting to work in the AI into the microphones to make it sound like their younger self, too. I didn't know that. That's wild, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Easier than a vocal cord surgery. Well, I wanted to ask you this because, like, before moving into personal finance, like we had something in common. Both of us are dads. And I wanted to ask you how becoming a dad changed the way you think about money.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah, so I've been a dad for almost I almost have a teenager, and it sounds weird to say that. I I think when you meet your significant other that, you know, one plus one is more convenient than adding on children. So the idea of putting on children and adding a layer of a of a new generation, it's not so much um not a, I would never say burden, right? Financial burden, but I would say a financial responsibility. And knowing what I know and and being a financial advisor, I've had thousands of conversations about every life stage there is. So I can kind of look into the crystal ball of like, what should I be doing? Well, I'm gonna do what I tell other what I tell other people to do. And so there's a little bit more of a burden. Like I know that you know, maybe 10 years ago, we were talking about at least in the US, each child you have is at least gonna cost you a quarter of a million dollars. That's probably doubled since then, I'm guessing. So there is that thought in your mind. So the overwhelming, it's a it's a responsibility, right? That's that's where I would equate it to, financially speaking.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

I love it. And one of the things too is, and I I I mentioned myself right there because I got my daughter in the background that is studying, uh, and she's 10. And it's wild because her mom's out doing some work right now and she's here with me. And one of the things that happened for me is that it was a wake-up call. Like before, I could go out and do whatever I wanted. Not really, but I mean, you know, so you mess up this, you do that. Well, you know, whatever, man. Yeah, he's got one life to live, you know. But like now, man, you know, I I love my dad, but my dad is kind of like a very conservative Christian guy. And he's got these end of the world things. Like he's always like, you know what, the end of the world is coming, everything's going away. We don't have to worry about this. You guys should move out to the countryside where you can start doing homesteading. Like, man, I can't think like we're not brothers, are we? We're not brothers, YouTube man, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, and what I had to turn, I had to have this conversation with my dad and go, you know what? I love you. I can't think that way because I've got this little person, I gotta figure out how to get her through college, I gotta figure out how to set things up so that I'm not a burden on her when she gets older. Because I don't want my retirement plan to be, hey, Ailani, time to be a doctor or a lawyer, and who knows if those are gonna be lucrative at that time because of AI, anyways, you know? Right. And so one of the things too, like it caused me to do this this inventory of awareness. And like one of the things that like someone said to me about debt once is that like when you borrow, when you get into debt, you're borrowing from your future self. I realized it wasn't just my future self that I was borrowing from, it was her too, you know. That woke me up in a big way.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Yes. Yeah, it's that that's why I went up, we set up. So I'm a girl dad twice over. So, fellow girl dad, it's great to meet you. Uh, it's it's a brand new world for me every day because I grew up with only brothers. And so uh it was almost a military compound at one point where I went credit for time served at the institute at some point. Uh, so so you're very much right that you're borrowing from the future. And and somebody you know told me a long time ago, you can either you can either save now and make interest or you can wait till later and pay the interest. And so I try to take my advice, and uh, you know, we're putting money in every month, very much predictable on the first of every month for college accounts. I have uh set them up through my business to do work here so that we can start getting Roth IRAs open. And maybe the dream is that they can go get a job eventually where I'm not a burden, like you said. They don't have to have any kind of college debt at all. And maybe they don't have to really have that big focus on trying to save for their retirement. So they can just get a job that fulfills them. That's really uh that's what I would love for them to be able to do. One of the things, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Right, I um I got lucky and I didn't realize I got lucky. My parents worked at a university and my dad hustled, and he might have had other faults of money, but he got my college education paid for. And then I went and did the stupid, stupid thing, got into student loan debt afterwards, feeling like I'm gonna get my master's. And because I didn't have that awareness of like how much of a blessing it was to have no college loan, uh student loan debt. But that motivation is something so heavy on me to like make sure that my daughter has things set aside for her, to make sure that that is prepped for and that there is that safety net. And you know, this is something that I think a lot of people don't talk about, but I love stoicism and I'm like that momentum worry, man. My daughter studies Muay Thai because I won't be here forever. And I will for I wasn't Dwayne Johnson has said, like, I'll protect you every single day that I'm around, you know, you can guarantee on that. But you gotta know that at some point in time, you have to be ready. And part of that being ready, now I think that parents will do all these things, but part of being ready is teaching your kids about financial literacy and so that they can move into a life, even if it's we're just talking about when they move out, you know, at 18. But you know, do you know how to balance a checkbook? Do you know how to take care of rent? Do you know these things? And I want to ask you this as a as a as a girl dad, what financial lessons feel especially important for you to teach your daughters?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

That you the what the one thing that so for all kids, the one thing that I think that can be the number one worst thing is just to give them anything they want because then they're not learning value and then they feel entitled. And so we try to attach value to anything. And so uh my my wife, just to get some context, is from Berlin. And so we have this besides music culture, we have regular culture between two different ones, Germany and the United States. And so they get to see these wildly two different cultures where, you know, when they're 16 in Germany, they're gonna be able to have an alcoholic beverage. Here they have to wait till 21. That makes sense. Like they're seeing these stark differences between there. There was there was a moment when my youngest at one point, we went to the airport to travel over, and she said she was thinking that you just show up to an airport and pick where you want to go and then jump on a plane. Like it was for free. And so the the conversation of what is value and what you have to pay for it had to come in. And so we started doing that and we do chore money. Um, but I I want them to understand that when they're when they're working for something, what's the value behind it and what's their value so that they're paid their full value. That's that's what I'm trying to really install in them, especially as as young girls growing up in the world that we're in right now. Uh, and to get in where you fit in. And uh for instance, like in college too, I could bring up in in Germany, it's not been turned into a business, like in the US. You can go to a German school for like about 500 euros a quarter. They could also live with their own Manopa over there. So get creative with how you plan and think things out. We're obviously planning for something else if they if they want to be here, but if they have that option, that's great. Have options. That's what I'm trying to teach them.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

I love having options too. Um, one of the things that I think that people um don't realize or they feel like they are boxed in. I was in LA living and I couldn't find a job. This was 2013. I was looking everywhere. I sent out hundreds of applications and maybe even a thousand, uh, you know, and then finally I was just like, you know what? This ain't working. So I picked up and I moved back to Southeast Asia where I'd lived before. And one of the things that popped for me was like, I knew that it was a different way of looking at the world, it was a different box that I could be in, a different, like, you know, a different fish tank, you know. And one of the things that I think is is is I think that important to share that we have optionality, you know. Someone was like, Well, if you retire in the US, you're gonna need this much money. And I said, Who says I need to retire in the US? You know, and you know, why when it's healthcare so damn expensive? I was telling my mom the other day, she's like, Well, as I get older, we need to think about my care and things like that. I was like, if you move to Vietnam, I can get you a beautiful apartment with a live-in nurse and all of your healthcare done for uh, you know, uh 125th of what you're gonna pay in the US, man. It's nuts, you know. But yeah, why not just look at coming here and we can have you in the house here with us? And she's like, Well, I I I I said, it's a good option, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

A lot of people don't uh ever get outside of their comfort zone, right? And so that would be a massive move that would be totally different for her. And I I get that. I grew up in like small town Ohio, and um, when when my wife and I collided together, the cultures collided, and there's things like she would say it's not financial related, but you can go on TV and watch uh you know 50 people get shot up on a show, but you can't have nudity, like a regular human body, but you can see that. So there's things like they starkly contrast. I'm like, that's a good point. I never would have thought of because I'm stuck in my bubble here. If you simply look outside of that and look at alternatives, there's some really more affordable options, financially speaking, uh, if you're willing to take take that leap, get outside of your box. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

And I think that's one of the things too that I love, and I've been trying to teach my daughter is that, you know, but if you want to do that, you have to have a certain set of tools, you know. And and this is where I I think um we've been trying, because I love that you you had that made that example about you just go to the airport and they give you a ticket, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

We had that same kid and we had the same same conversation with my daughter, though, about the bank.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Uh, she was like, I want to get this app. And I was like, We're not getting that app. She's like, Well, we just go to the bank and get money. And I said, That's not how the bank works. Like, you have to have the money in the bank. And so it was super innocent and cute, but it was the first time I had to set a boundary with her and say, I love you, but that's not how the whole financial world works.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Yeah, and I I would I I would say the one the one thing that I've always done with my daughters being that they're almost 13 and 11, they'll go out and they they have this impulsiveness that I think a lot of people have when you start they have chore money. They go out and I'm like, just pause for a second. If you wait one week, so this is a good lesson I throw at them. Wait one week and see if you still quote unquote need it. Most of the time they forget. So just by by taking off that uh impulsiveness, I think that's a great lesson to install in young children.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

I 100% agree. I tried for myself to have the 48-hour rule, you know, like you know, sit there and say, or 72, like, hey, do we need this right now? And if in 72 hours we are still sitting there going, yeah, this is a good good idea, then sure, let's look at it. But if you're sitting there, we did um, I am working on a book uh called The Zombie Apocalypse Guide to Personal Finance, and it's it's uh it's I'm reframing like like Walking Dead, like type stuff for personal finance and looking at it from the frame of like you're the zombie apocalypse, because it was the easiest we love zombie movies in my house. Love all zombie movies, you know, and so like you know, training Busan, that's a freaking glorious masterpiece. Um, Walking Dead, those zombies are not that scary, they walk so damn slow. But you know, there are some zombie movies that are terrifying. But one of the things that you think about, so I was talking to my daughter, like, you know, you're in the zombie apocalypse, you got a backpack, you can fit 10 things inside, only 10. What do you bring in? So she listed out all this stuff, and then all of a sudden I was like, Are you sure that's what you're gonna go for? She's like, Yep, but I got my Nintendo Switch in there. I was like, right, we're not even gonna discuss whether there's power in a post-apocalyptic world, but let's just look at this, you know, from a uh a perspective of what you got in there. We started going through the things, and then I was like, All right, cool. You sure? She's like, I'm sure. I was like, You don't have any clothes in your bag, you're gonna be fighting the zombies naked. No, I get on clothes, and so ah, there were a couple clearings like the needs versus wants, you know, but like you gotta figure out how to do it in a way that kids can grasp because otherwise it's tough, man.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

You really have to talk to them, not over them, and ways that they're gonna understand too. And that's I've uh I've always had to be creative in having a couple girls, they are um they almost look like twins. At the the whole time they've been growing up, they were the same size, and the older one's pulling away for right now. I think little sis is gonna get her long term, but uh they have two different ways of being talked to and two different ways of being understood. And I have an extrovert as an older daughter, introvert, younger daughter. And I'm already seeing right now, I I have to like change strategy on how they talk to them and what they're retaining. Yeah, it's it's it's uh it's totally different than than growing up with boys.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Oh, I'm with you, man. I have the same sense. And tonight we have the journey of um I had to teach my daughter how to get her contacts in. So we got these new types of contacts. They're called ortho K or something. They're not cheap. But they help prevent sheep between last year and this year had such a like increase in like prescription strength. Like they're like, you should try to do something to slow that down. Otherwise, she's gonna have pretty bad eyesight by the time she's older. And so what we did is we started looking at the different options. And they have this thing called, I think it's like orthocait. And it's a hard contact lens that you know what you got, this problem because it's shaped like this, and it kind of reshapes the con the cornea to the or to the the front of the eye to the right shape, right? I think it's the cornea. And then you take it off and it holds that shape the rest of the day. And so the cool part is it's still all day you see normal. Like you see like 2020 vision all day, and then the nighttime the contact goes on, keeps the shape, and the next day it's you see normal, and you keep that on until you're like 20 something. You wear those the whole time. You just wear them at night, you don't wear it during the day. You wake up and so she takes it out. And if you do that until you're 20s, then your vision shouldn't progress and get worse. It's like gonna just stay where it's at, which is awesome. And you get to have you know the 2020 vision during the day.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Now they they only I had to wear soft contacts for a long time, and then I couldn't, they irritated my eyes. So I went to the city.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

I'm looking forward to that day for my dog. But I was trying to protect her. Oh, dude, you have no idea how hard it is to get a hard contact into a 10-year-old kid's eye. Oh my god, you know, soft contacts. Rough, right? It's just like it's hard. You know, just like and I'm just sitting there and like how many tears were shed.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

How many tears were settled?

SPEAKER_01 23:50

And I'm like, she's like, I'm not flinching. You know, I'm just like, ah, all right, it you know, one of the things that I I just want to go, and I want to just get angry and go at like, you know, we're not gonna do this anymore. Because I get in that protective mode, and like, why would they make me do this? But that protective mode can really sabotage things. And I wanted to ask you this, like, because I see it, my daughter has you know, is with uh my my wife's a celebrity here, so she already has a degree of entitlement, and I am going to war with that entitlement, man. Like, and like that's one mistake I think parents make when they're trying to what's one mistake parents make when trying to protect their kids financially? For me, I think it's giving them too much.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. I I look around and I see, and I people just caving to their kids, it's called what it is. There, it's the easy way. Uh putting an iPad in front of them from a baby on up. Good lord. Like we took our kids out and we made them sit through meals with us. And I I apologize to people around us, but like we're in training season right now. We stayed as long as we could. We always, even on airplane flights that when they weren't even watching movies yet, we have and I'll I'll be honest, I have my badge of honors, and neither one of my kids has a phone yet, and I don't want to give them one.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Jonathan Hay. Have you heard of Jonathan Hayde? H-A-I-D-T. Look him up. He has done crazy research and he stands by his stuff. It's amazing. It's called The Anxious Generation as his book. He stands by. No one under 18 or 16 should have a phone. No one under 16 should have a phone. The studies show it goes bad. 100% goes wrong, and they're not their brains are not ready for it, man. It's not ready for the addictive behavior, dude. YouTube shorts is like crack to kids, you know, and we're not even talking about TikTok. Yep. Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

All right. That's all they're doing. I mean, we do have an iPad, so they can't just travel right around and we limit like what they're looking at, but they're they're most likely to have a book in their hands and they're very creative. Like when they were young and they said, I'm bored, what do I do? I'm like, good, you're gonna be bored a lot of your life, go figure it out. And so they would go up to their room, and their mom was like, Nine, you will go to the room. Very strict German style. And she's like, Go draw or go listen to some music. So they're they're little artists and they draw amazing. And it's because we let them get bored. And I'm not lying to you, one time, don't stab me through the video. But I woke up on a Sunday morning and they were both in their room, and I hear this opera going on. I have people that want to stab me when I tell the story. And I open the door and they're probably six and five, and they're sitting in there and they're listening to like a Mozart opera drawing, and they're like, Good morning, Papa. Like, good morning. I'm like, carry on. I will be back. I'm going downstairs. And I close the door. I'm like, this never happened in my house. No way. This has to be like a girl-specific thing. But let them get bored, do not buy them anything that they want. Let them know what value is, let them earn things, like doing the chores, the basic. You gotta let them do that. Otherwise, they're gonna be entitled. And the people that that do that, I think, and I do it to a certain extent based off of my childhood where my parents were more of an extreme case of, you know, my dad wouldn't. I'm joking here a little bit, but you know, before we go play catch, I gotta earn the mitt and the ball, right? So you work all day and then we'll see if there's any time at the end of the day to play. Uh, there are some people that are just trying to provide stuff that their parents didn't do for them, but I don't think they're helping them out any by doing that. And it makes me a little bit, I was on a run over the weekend and went out, and these two little boys, their faces were in their palms, walking outside, following each other. Um, but wanted to say it's okay to look up.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

I'm gonna kids mad shit the other day. Uh we went to a Muay Thai class. I I take my daughter, she trains Muay Thai with us. Uh, I train Muay Thai with her every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. And like, dude, I I love martial arts, I'm a black belt and judo. I love Muay Thai. I love to throw down the it going to these classes helps me from wanting to kill people. And smell like it's it's like you know, the road rage and all of the things. I'm like, oh, I can release this punchy bag. I just envision all of the people that I want to slap the shit out of.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

And I'm just like, and that's that's drumming for me. I can I can be the shit out of drums, and I feel like, oh, my release is over. I feel good now.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

I'll go back to you, medicine, right? Go back to this peopling thing. And so, but when we got into the gym, there were these three kids, and they were, I'm not hating on the type, but like these boys were eating a little bit too much, loot moving a little bit too little. That's all we'll say. And they were just sitting there on their phones, and like 25 minutes before class, like 25 minutes solid. I see them. My daughter and I are warming up. Her net, my nephews come to the class, and I told him, I was like, if I see your phone here ever again, that stuff's getting taken away. And I I said, I'm not your mom and dad, I'm not giving it a bag, you know, it's gone, kid. Like, I'll just listen on the way home, you know. And so, like, and these kids, I was just like, Hey, oh damn, look at the freaking zombies right here. And I just like was just just throwing at them for about like 20 minutes, and finally they were like laughing, and they was like, You knew I was talking about them, but finally they looked up, I was like, Oh, they're freaking alive. I didn't know, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

There are straight up digital slaves being trained right now. And it's so sad. You even when my my older's youngest, they're like, What was this? Is too old in times for me. Like, they'll that's what they'll say, like, what did you do growing up before the internet? I'm like, I don't know. We went outside and played, and then we came back to eat, and that was okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

I don't know what you do if you are me and my brother and my friends, we were feral, like we were true gin, gin ex millennial crossovers, and like my mom, I don't know, I we grew up in the countryside and the city, but we moved after the countryside boss boss, bows, and arrows and pv cans, and we were just uh lawn darts. Yeah, I think we yeah, we lawn darts, man. Okay, go wrong, lawn darts, but like I remember we were just walking around like terrorizing like the local like lizard population. I have a lot of pet lizards now. Part of it is the guilt that I carry for all the poor lizards. That's sort of so but you know, like we dude, you know, and the thing is, is like but we learn I learned certain things doing that. And one of the things that I learned was like I fall down, and there was no one out to pick me up but me. And I think that that's where that protective nature comes in, and it can be did you know what? How many kids these days do you see with broken arms? You don't see it, you don't see it, you don't see broken arms, broken hands, you don't see it because they're not out playing, they're not out doing it, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

And I think that's dangerous. It it is. I I would say between my my daughter's personalities, one is way more, the older one is way more reserved, and even when we've gone skiing before, she's like a little bit more cautious. And the youngest one's like, how fast can I go? They have three different personalities, but you're right. They they would they they're complaining about the boys that they're into video games, and that's all they talk about. Boys, of course, that'll change here in a couple years, but I I just don't know how much social skills are being built either, asides from just not that's what play is all about. And I have I have two brothers that homeschool their kids, one to varying degrees of success. My older brother's doing a great job, they get together with other people and they socialize, and the other one they're not, and it is vital. You can see the difference, and it's it's shocking, shockingly different.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

I agree, man. And what it makes me think about something too, because like I heard about you know, and it it leads me to this place where I just have to think about a lot of things. And one of the things I have to think about is that generational wealth, you know, because I would love to work hard and set that up for my my daughter, and you know, if I have other kids in the future, that that as well. But there is one caveat, like that being, I also want her to struggle a little bit because I want her to learn resilience, learn to be tough, and learn to get out there and and and how to do something, you know what I mean? So I I want to ask you like, what does generational wealth mean to you? And and and how do you want to work with your kids to be able to handle that by the time it comes?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

And so my my quote as we go off is that the struggle gives you purpose. And that might be that might be my dad talking, but uh that's what gave me purpose is if you don't if you can do anything you want, what is your life at that point? And I've got friends that are pretty well off and and they're in therapy a lot, I think, because they're trying to find the meaning of what they're supposed to be doing, because they can do whatever they want. And then once you do that, what do you do next and next and next? And you're not getting fulfilled. The the question of generational wealth from like a CFP standpoint and uh just personal, a lot of people think of wealth as how much money you have. I am of the the perspective that wealth is really like an all-encompassing thing of money is a tool. What are you doing to provide something that you can pass down? And and you can pass down assets, you can pass down money. But I really want to focus on passing down memories and good habits, like uh going to travel to see families. I would rather invest in that with my kids and taking there to spend time to have a well-balanced life. If you're just throwing a bunch of money at a kid and that's all they've got from you, that's why you hear all these stories of like the Vanderbilt, they lost all their money within three generations. I'm trying to pass down a little bit of struggle, but I don't my wife and I both agree. It sounds like you as well, that you know, if you can get out of school with no debt, that's a great news not to have around your neck. You can go get into a job and afford to be able to do a job that you love. And if I can provide a little bit of something later on that they don't have to focus on on saving a ton, I really feel like they can have purpose. That's what I want to hand down to them. And that's that's what I try to offer up to clients as well, as far as generational wealth. It's not just assets, it's it's lifestyle, it's how you spend the money, how do you spend your time and what fulfills you. That's real wealth.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

There, man. I love that. And one that it's one of the things that I um I had to change my belief about money, but I also had to change my belief about wealth as well. Money, I I, you know, I grew up with that conservative background, money's the root of all evil and all that BS, you know. But one of the things that was interesting for me was as I started shifting the game, right? I realized a couple things. The first thing that I realized was this, that wealth also wasn't what I had been shown. That wealth was freedom, the freedom to be able to travel to see grandma, the freedom to be able to go to Maui, the freedom to be able to, you know, get a house that that that feels safe, you know, you know, or that a house, or to be able to go and see what is how many kids have seen what Mount Fuji looks like? My daughter has, and that's pretty rad. You know, it was as we were flying into Tokyo, heading back to California, but she looked out the mint window, it's like that's Mount Fuji. How cool is that, you know?

SPEAKER_00 35:37

You know, and I think and I'd I'd add on to like health as well, right? Like you were talking about at the beginning. Like, how do you take health is so we have a sick care system here, and you really so my wife and the German culture coming in is you need to focus on your health, and that's what you're putting into your body, because you can either pay for it up front, just like saving for for future time, or you can pay it out later on when you can't even enjoy any money that you might have. So that's all part of living a healthy, balanced life.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

Because the reality is is that um yeah, we the US does have a sick culture, you know, it is a reactive culture, it it depends on where, but there's a lot of reactivity in health and wellness, you know? And you see it with like I every time I come back to the States, man, and we have to sit there and eat. Like, I I'm vegetarian by just because of health reasons, and I wasn't always, but when I come back, and like we were just recently in Virginia and it was a lovely place, beautiful people, but dude, it was we were trying to find anything that was in any way healthy, and it was like hamburger this, fries, this, steak, this, you know, fried this. And it was just like it was really hard to find restaurants near us that could give us a healthier option, you know. And I'm not talking vegetarian, I'm just talking anything that wasn't fried and heavy, you know, and it was like teaching kids about these things, and it's like one thing that I think that I know we were talking about personal finance here, but I think that we're looking at the idea of like true wealth, and true wealth is all of these things, you know. True wealth is self-respect for especially for daughters, you know, teaching them that they have this inherent intrinsic value, you know, and that's one of the things, too, that I try to help my daughter understand is like this inner value, like I am worth more than that, so that some dumbass boy comes along and tries to belittle her, and she's gonna go, No, I'm not putting up with that bullshit, you know, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

And it going back to like like when you're coming here and eating, we're in this uh instinct culture, right? Like IG, and if you're hungry, go to the drive-thru. And if you want to go trade stocks, go trade stocks, make money really quickly. There's no long-term perspective, there's a lot of short-termism in the US, and I don't think it was that way, but it's turned into that way. So being a financial advisor and trying to talk to clients about this, about looking long-term, everything else is like instant now. That's not how things are built up. It takes time. It's usually doing the boring things over and over and over again that work, just like good habits, and so yeah, all of it plays together. And I I couldn't agree with it.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

The idea of having like good habits that you build consistently over time, and that means that's the foundation of a good life, man. You know, whether it be exercise, whether that be learning, whether that be uh finances, if you can teach people that the little things compound over time, and if you you know, how do you, you know, how did Michael Jordan become one of the greatest basketball players of all time, if not the greatest? By showing up on the court every single day, by taking shots every single day. How did you know someone become the greatest Stevie Ray Von? How did he become one of the greatest guitar players of all time? By playing every single day, you know, and uh being obsessive about it, you know? Fingers bleed, probably, right? Fingers with the graphite and like in the super glue, you would super glue graphite and then skin, he'd like graft his own skin on.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

I was like, oh man. Good lord. I I just know from Red Hot Chili Peppers where you got Flea, who we he was saying he was dumping the super glue on his fingers to keep playing. I'm like, that's dedication, but if that's the passion, it takes it ahead.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

If you could go back in time and give yourself some financial advice, what advice would you give yourself, man?

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Oh god. I wouldn't change anything. I would say that it's gonna work out. It would it's gonna work out. And even though you were pretty naive at times and just hope is not a strategy, uh doing the hard work and doing the repetition, you needed to make those mistakes. And uh, I wouldn't change anything. Not much at least. It's gonna work out. Where can people go to find out more about you and what you do? And so if you want to go on and learn about music and money, you can go on the handle sound returns. It's also a website of the same name. I'm on LinkedIn, like everybody else. You can look me up, Drew Boyer, CFP, uh, and follow me on there, and it gives you links to everywhere to follow.