Start at $50 | Jeff Panik | Growing Money with Sean Trace

I sat down with certified financial planner Jeffrey Panik - 26 years in the industry, former Army officer, and author, to talk about the personal finance education most of us never received and what to actually do about it. 

We get into why financial literacy is still missing from most school curriculums, why high earners can feel just as stressed about money as someone starting out, and why the advice you find online is usually trying to sell you something. Jeff breaks down why the first real step isn't investing or budgeting: it's taking a full inventory of what you actually have so you can make informed decisions instead of reactive ones. We also talk about what happens when couples merge finances with completely different money mindsets, how procrastination quietly destroys long-term wealth, and why starting small - even $50, beats waiting for the "right moment" every single time. 

The conversation gets personal too, touching on purpose, values, and what "enough" really means when you strip away the noise of what everyone else seems to be earning. If you've ever felt behind financially or overwhelmed every time you try to get your money in order, this episode is your starting point.

What's the one money habit you wish someone had taught you before you had to figure it out the hard way, and are you actually doing it now?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There was this interesting interview where they they asked different generations, uh, what do you think your salary should be for straight out of school? And it was interesting because uh Gen X was like 50,000, 100,000, whatever it might have been the number might have been. You know, millennials were at this same thing, but like Gen Z was like, I think that I should be making 200 or 300,000 a year. And they were like, where are you getting this frame of reference for? They're like, well, that's what creators are making. That's what I see YouTubers making. How do you help clients define enough? And that concept of enough instead of constantly chasing more, because it's a rabbit hole. You can go, go deep, you know?

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I think some of it, what you have to look at is, I mean, obviously you want to be comfortable with and you want to have enough to be uh, you know, comfortable in life. But at a certain point, you know, you really have to look at what your values are, you know, whether you look at benefiting charity, you know, what is what is what do you want to do in the future, you know, because we work so much, we kind of lose our identity in our work. You know, I really believe that. And in a lot of cases, you want to have things that you can pick up after the fact. And I think the younger generations are doing a better job because they don't necessarily have uh the loyalty that say our parents had their parents to companies as an example. You know, they're more qu they're they're inquisitive, like you mentioned. They're asking questions because they understand, you know, in a lot of ways, it's they're on their own. You know, they're not waiting there for the government to help them or anything else. And I think that for them could be a good value. The problem that I see is the education system getting back to that is doing a horrific job of training them for what they need. You know, what they can do to go out and be successful. You know, and the reality of it is there's only so many influencers, there's only so many people that are, you know, and that that is a good probably side hustle or something that you can do on the side. But that's not gonna, you know, that that isn't realistic to have as a creator for your life.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Welcome everybody back to the Growing Money with Sean Trace Podcast. Uh, today I have a really interesting guest. Can you tell me uh who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Uh yes. My name's Jeff Pannock. Uh, I'm a financial advisor, have been such for about 26 years. Uh I have families, business owners, uh, and individuals uh work through whatever their puzzle is, we'll say, most puzzles, and work back from there. Uh I'm a certified financial planner, uh, I have a master's in financial services. Uh, before coming into the financial services industry, I was in the Army. Part of the reason why I was in the Army was I had student loans. Uh, the Army paid the student loans off, uh, and it was kind of a wake-up call for me uh because I really didn't understand even basic finance. Uh, came from uh just a first person to go to college in my family. And it was, again, some of these things you learn life lessons. Uh, and what I try to do with people is try to help them regardless of where they are in life.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

I love that because um I love the ability to like you can help anyone. And that, you know, there's so many people that need help, uh, so many people that need guidance. And, you know, at the end of the day, um, you know, I think that we need to be having more people who can share that and can reach out and kind of deliver that. Because one of the things that I was I hear all the time is that I don't hear about people getting the tools that they need from an early age, you know. And I was thinking, I may post about this today, that here we do geometry, we study algebra, we study all these things. But how does no one sit there and go, you know what might actually be useful? A basic accounting class or a basic balance the budget class. But no, we got geometry and all this other type of math, the math that no one ever touches again, you know? So I I it makes me crazy.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Yeah, you know, and really there's only about 22 states that have financial literacy requirements that are coming into place. And a lot of those have waivers. And, you know, even the classes that are set up, you know, they're more economics than actual what I would call consumer finance. You know, it's like simple things like how you open a bank account, you know, what type of car loan you should get if you need a car loan, you know, how you save to buy a house, you know, whether or not you should get maybe go to community college before you take out all these loans, you never really focus on. And, you know, a lot what I've seen more and more, you know, if you have mentors, if you have family that are financially savvy and they pass on that to you, you know, in a lot of cases you end up not having the mistakes of someone that really doesn't have any background. And, you know, with all the classes that are in high school, you know, middle school, you know, it's amazing that they can't find a little bit of time just to help uh, you know, really basic life lessons that you need when you become an adult that no one's really prepared for.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Right. It's it's it's amazing that, well, you know, one of the things too is that you hit on there, and my friends whose parents were financially savvy, it was such a huge head start for them. Um, you know, it they they were, you know, I remember playing games like, you know, Monopoly, which is literally the worst game in the world because everyone wants to kill each other at the end of the game. But one of the things with it, you know, it's like imagine that you start two characters and one person starts off with all of these skills, not just skills, but a knowledge about how to play the game. Like a knowledge about how to play the game, and the other person's just like, what's all this stuff? You know, it's it's night and day difference.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah, and I really compare it to almost like if you if you've ever ran a marathon, it's almost like a situation with your finances or a really a marathon throughout life. And, you know, there's some people that start at mile seven or eight, there's others that are just kind of standing around at the starting line. And, you know, the longer that it takes to figure it out, you know, just the further you get behind.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

I I 100% agree. And one of the things too is I think that um it's good that people are starting to talk about this and look at this because like I wanted to ask you this question. Like, if someone feels financially behind, what is the first thing that they should look at this week to change that?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Well, yeah. So I think the first thing they should do is take a step back and really not go on Google or go on uh, you know, ask their neighbor or friend because they're oftentimes the advice they get from people that are in their same circles, their situation is often very different. And so it's like most things, it's really an understanding of becoming educated. It doesn't happen overnight. You know, there's plenty of videos out there to learn. The thing about the videos are you have to learn what the person is, you know. Is it, is it, are they trying to sell you something? Because that's what happens a lot of times. You know, I've said, you know, 25 or 26 years ago when I started in the business, you had to pick up a telephone, didn't even really have cell phones back then. Now, you know, you get you can put in a financial topic and get three million hits on Google, but that doesn't really help you on an individual basis. And so, you know, really it comes down to a few factors. One is educating yourself, you know, and I believe that's the core cornerstone really in life, where some people, you know, the education system is set up where once you're done with college, it's like I see people graduating, it's great and everything, but that's not the end, really, that's the beginning. And really, in order to empower yourself, you have to really focus on lifelong learning and just continuing to educate yourself, you know, whether it's with all the tools that are available, uh, because you know, the tools are gonna at some point take you over if you don't learn them and learn how to work from them.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

I 100% agree. One of the things too is I think that um I love that you're talking about tools because it's like I I liken it to like if you want to learn to cook some food, you know, you have all of these different things that you need to figure out. You gotta figure out the stove, you gotta figure out a pan, you gotta figure out how heat can help you, you know, process the food. You gotta figure out how the knife works. And like, and we I think at times we'll overthink things, you know. But I think that like um, if you're not trying to figure out one of the things that I I like to point out to people is you have to figure out what you don't know. And I think that's one of the most dangerous things for especially personal finance, is that people don't know what they don't know. And, you know, and it's like, and then you you go and search and you're sitting there going, okay, well, Tom, and you're right. I was trying to, I've been trying to research. I wanted to do a um for my my full battery media podcast, which is about the creator economy, I wanted to do a a video about uh remote jobs because in the creator economy, there's a there's a lot of them. But as I was looking for experts in the creator economy or on remote jobs, everyone was selling something. Like every single person was selling something. There wasn't anyone who was like, and they're like, I can promise that you get a job in 12 weeks. And if they can, that's amazing. Like, that's absolutely amazing. But like the reality is, is it was like, I can have you get a job in 12 weeks for this, sign up for my course. And you know, great for them actually, if they actually can help people and the course helps people. But when you're looking at financial stuff, you know, and someone maybe they don't have the money to sign up for that course. Maybe they're in a place that they can't access that. It's really challenging to figure out and figure out which course is actually worth it. You know, it's like, I mean, we you talked about university. The I remember the joke when I was in school was the underwater basket weaving degree, you know. I I don't think anyone has underwater basket weaving degrees anymore, but like, you know, there are some degrees that have that low return, you know, but you got to figure out what information is actually good. And that's hard to do.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

And and and really, I, you know, I view your finances really at most ages, really as a puzzle. And it's uh really everyone has the puzzle looks different for everyone. And really, you know, with with New Year's resolutions, with the way people often view things, it's oftentimes more of like a triage, you know, where there something comes up, whether they get a credit card notice or they have something that happens or they have a you know a life change, a death in the family, something that kind of wakes them up to life, you know, your finances, and they decide they're going to try to do it in a weekend or over over a Saturday or Sunday, you know, that doesn't work. Really, you know, it's a matter of coming up and developing a plan that is really, I would say, that you can work through that doesn't overwhelm you because it's very easy to get overwhelmed. But before you can make any decisions about anything, you really know you need to know what you have. You know, you need to know what you have. You need to take a financial, what I would call a financial life's inventory of what you have, because everyone's a little bit different. It's a matter of working from there. And then you can prioritize your savings or debt payments or whatever you're looking to try to do. But unless you have a good foothold on your expenses, your income, and your assets and liabilities, it's very difficult to make any informed decisions.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

I 100% agree. But I want to ask you then, because one of the things that I think about, this is something I have to actively do, is to be intentional. The greatest danger and problem in my life is when I go into autopilot. Like autopilot is a bad thing. And it is a default for a lot of people, you know. And I mean, I wish we all had wonderful autopilot like they have on planes, but you know, it's not. You know, you can't just sit there and just let it kind of passively happen because when you're passively letting it happen, um you will definitely uh have some problems, you know, because there is with personal finance, there are many ways to do it, but there are definitely wrong ways to do it, you know? And like, and I think that's one of the things too. But I wanted to ask you, too, for you, and when you work with people or coach people, um, what does intentional living actually mean when it comes to money for you?

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Well, I think the first thing you have to understand are what your goals are. Uh, that even getting back to that, you know, that there's a process, and really, you know, whether it's savings, you know, there's there's a everything is a really a habit. And, you know, you don't that's the important thing with finance, understanding consumer finance, you don't have to be an expert. Really, you have to have groups or individuals that you can trust. You have to understand what direction you're headed. Part of that is a process. You know, you just can't wake up one day and say, I'm gonna, you know, at 65, I'm gonna retire. That's what people think. You know, that's when I can get Medicare, you know, I'll take Social Security of this or that. You know, really you have to understand where you stand. And everyone's a little bit different, you know, and the big thing that I tell people, especially with a lot of people coming out with student loans, and really it really in a uh they're just in a bad position to begin with. You know, you can't control you can't control what happened in the past, but you most certainly can control your future. And I think it's really important, you know, to understand, you know, what your employer is offering, you know, what you can do on the side to further benefit, you know, understanding what your debt, you know, sometimes people say, I'm gonna save this. Well, do you have high interest cards? Do you have things that you need to focus on and prioritize? You know, usually it's a mix of things. And so, really, in order to get to the bottom of everything, you have to understand what the pieces are before you can even start building anything.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

I love that. I love so I I you just said something to, and it just gave me an analogy, and I've never thought about it this way before. Um, Legos. Like, I'm just thinking Legos. I was a big Lego fan as a kid. I still love Legos. If if I if I had someone who was like, hey, Sean, uh, I'm gonna give this giant Lego set to you, I would be like, thank you. I know what I'm gonna be doing all weekend now. And I would just be happy to do it. I haven't bought any Legos in a while, but you know, when my daughter was younger, we would always put together Legos. And it wasn't the Millennium Falcon, it was little princess houses, but I was like, I don't care. It's still Legos, man. And so, but one of the things that is interesting with Legos is that, first of all, A, you need to look at the directions. You really have to take it step by step. And B, you have to set out the parts and organize the parts and know what you're working with. Because no two puzzles are the same. Um, no two pieces are the same. You know, you have to let's sit there and put it together um step by step. And like if you are not aware of what pieces you have, then you start freestyling it. And you're like, well, I know what I'm doing. Or God forbid that you go online and watch uh some influencer who tells you how to put together that same thing, it's gonna come out looking ridiculous, you know? So I don't know, man. I I think that there's so much to be said for having a plan, but also again, like you said, knowing what what pieces you're working with.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Um we were just talking about uh just you know, you you really have to you can't uh generalize advice and everyone is really circumstance, you know, what their goals are, everyone has different goals. And you know, what might be your uh co-worker or your um sibling's goal could be completely different than yours. And you know, sometimes people are so focused on, you know, the other thing that the other piece of it is is really merging families. You know, if you have a couple getting married, uh they say opposites attract, I always say, and that's great for romance, but isn't usually good for finances because you know they oftentimes have come at things completely different. So, you know, they're typically if you look at friction in a relationship, most times it comes from finances just because the people were raised so differently.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah, I I think that's spot on. But you know, I do think the other day I I've been building out this mental construct per se that there are these different pieces that people have to put into place. And um it was really interesting too, because we had been, I've been, I've been saying to people, and it's been something that I was like, it's kind of self-helpy, but it also applies to whether you're trying to change something in your life or whether you're trying to work with your finances. Like, you need a couple of things. Number one, you need to have a clear goal, a clear dream. Like, let's say that you want to become back in shape, get back in shape. Well, you got to have the goal, but you also need your values, like your why. Why do you want to get back in shape? You know, do you want to be healthy? Do you want to live longer? Do you want to be there for your kids when they're older? You know? Uh, then after that, you got to have your habits, you know, and those are the little things that like allow you like habit number one, show up at the gym, you know, go to bed on time, you know, those things that you need to do. But then I I was reading like yesterday I had a guest and we we we hit at a fourth point, like the structure. If you don't have any structure, you get really having a hard time as well. But I wanted to ask this of you because you know, I I'm fascinated by habits, but what's the first money habit you'd teach someone who didn't grow up around money?

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Yeah, I think the the first thing is I think to uh because it's it can be so overwhelming, uh just because you didn't grow up with money doesn't mean you can't learn. And so sometimes just because someone grew up with money, sometimes their habits are terrible. You know, that just because you grow up with money has nothing really to do with what the outcome is. It's really what you learn from it. And, you know, if the the worst thing you can do is sit there and constantly beat yourself up because you have a bunch of student loans, or you high have a bunch of credit card debt, or you have no idea where you stand. You know, the first thing is to kind of take a step back from it and then really understand what is realistic. I mean, because you know, you can say I had this vision that I want to, you know, I want to retire at 60, I want to have, you know, 150,000 a year to live off of, or whatever, you know, or I want to buy you know a home in five years, whatever wherever you stand in life, but it has to be realistic. You know, you just can't, it's it's good, you can stretch your goals, but you can't uh you know get to the point where that's completely unrealistic because then it it defeats the whole purpose of the whole uh process in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

One of the things that I've seen with myself of late is that um stress. There's this great quote from Taoism, uh Lao Tzu, the the ancient philosopher in China, and he's got this great quote. Uh there is a quote. If it's actually him or not, who knows? But it says, whether you go up the ladder or down the ladder, you're still unstable. Because if you're at the top, you're afraid that you will fall down to the bottom. If you're at the bottom, you have the challenges of not being on top. Whether at the bottom of the ladder, at the top, you're still unstable. There's still a degree of unstability, you know? And that leads me to a question of like, you know, if someone doesn't have a lot of money, obviously they're stressed because how do you afford certain things? But one of the things that I hear a lot of these days is stories about high earners who still feel stressed about money, like people that are making a lot of money and they're completely stressed out. And I wanted to ask you, what's going on there? Like, why does that happen?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

I I think one of the issues is that uh to think that you're you're there's a there's a thought process that you're always at some point, you're just gonna be comfortable with everything and you just don't have anything to worry about. You know, that that I think and oftentimes is kind of unrealistic. You know, if you look at the world we're in, people's family situations, you know, you're you're always gonna, I mean, you you there's a certain benefit to being a little bit uncomfortable because it makes you think and focus a bit, as opposed to just kind of checking out and saying everything's gonna be great. You know, and I think part of it is, you know, everyone is you you mentioned the ladder, no matter where you are in the ladder, you want to keep going higher, but you hit certain caps at certain points, and it's really hard to define the next step or the next, you know, the next step up. And I think if you look at just the way the media and the news, oftentimes things can be sensationalized and it it there's a lot of stress out there. And uh I think the, you know, the the the internet technology productivity, you know, I've said the cell phone is the best thing and the worst thing at the same time, you know, really in terms of what effect it's had on our society. And I believe that is especially true for fine consumer finance and really looking at uh financial stress uh because it's just right there, right in right in your face constantly.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Now I'm I'm gonna throw a little bit of shade at the internet and phones and AI in general as well. I before I watched this, it was a funny video that someone posted, not funny because of the video, but funny because what what the comment was it was a uh this guy is sleeping. It's a fake CCTV footage, you know, that this guy is sleeping, and then a cat runs in, starts playing a guitar, wakes him up, but runs out. And the comment across the top was this is why our RAM is$900 a piece. And like, you know, but one of the things that I've I I think is like, I think we've entered into this period of of a lot of spam, of a lot of spammed content, of a lot of spammed information. Because it's really hard for people to um filter out the noise. And I mean, and even advisors like I'm gonna throw some advisors under the bus are spamming people with kind of AI content. You know, you know, it's like there's a lot of people that sit there and go, I'm gonna tell you this. But at the same time, I feel like if you can be authentic and pull from experience, I will say that I hope that the that the financial advisor profession, as AI gets more and more involved in the profession, can say, hey, we're gonna pull back into the humanity. I've been there. I have had a hard time inputting these habits. And these are the things that I think that you can do because I think that we need more guidance. I mean, we all think that we're these are grown-up adults, but we're tiny, we're we're just giant kids running around in insecurity suits, you know? And it's it's not easy.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

No, I and you know, I mean, I think the one hope I have for AI and technology really in my business, especially on the investment side, you know, in some ways I believe that's going to be really commoditized. And, you know, at some point everybody's gonna kind of have the same offering there. You know, where I think the value needs to come from and where the time needs to go, more time spent, is really in the interface between between you know the client and the advisor, uh, because I think that's the most important spot. And you know, I think if you can redirect that, uh I think everybody kind of wins in that situation.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

I 100% agree. I think that that's where you know, I I was a children's teacher for almost 20 years before I switched more into content. I always did content and I did video. I had the media that I made, but you know, my side hustle, which was a pretty core side hustle, was teaching kids English. And one of the things that I found was that um it's easy to tell people what to do, but it's way um better if you can walk them through it, you know, and like that project-based learning for kids is huge. And yet we don't have project-based learning for adults, you know, or I'm gonna try to get my finance in order. Like this is a giant project. And, you know, having a coach on your side, a real quarterback who can guide you and lead you is such a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

It is. And I mean, I think oftentimes what I see, especially with the high earners and people that are approaching retirement or trying to figure out where they stand, a lot of times they worry because they just don't know. You know, once they start digging in and once they have a better understanding of where they stand, I think they get a certain level of comfort. But like I said, you know, comfort is relative. You have to be careful with that because that can be dangerous as well. Just like, you know, as dangerous as being uncomfortable, being too comfortable means that you become, in some ways, I think, lackadaisical about how you, you know, where you stand in your approach.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

I 100% agree. There's all of these different questions people have, you know, and you know, I I put together a series of questions, but it's like interesting because the questions, you could have a million different questions, like, you know, debt versus, you know, investing, you know, how to look at spending versus saving. But I I think that you hit the nail on the head earlier when you talk about it's different for everyone. And I wanted to shift up one of the questions is how do you think people can figure out what is important to them?

SPEAKER_00 25:32

How can they get that clarity? I think and it gets back into shared goals as well. You know, so if you're a couple, you really you want to have, you know, everyone has the, you know, individuals have their goals, but you want to have shared goals because the other thing I see a lot, everyone is working. You know, you have two, you have uh if you have a two-household family, you know, two working uh, you know, parents or two working people in the family, you know, what ends up happening is they're working, working, working with the kids, all things going on 100 miles an hour. And then they're approaching retirement and they're like, well, the kids are gone, we're retiring. What do we do? You know, we have to start talking to one another again, and there's no one else around. And really, you know, I view wherever you are in life, you know, you want to understand what you're you you want to take a step back, understand where your health stands. I think that's important. That often gets lost from the standpoint of, you know, if you haven't had a physical, you need to get one. You know, there's things that aren't necessarily consumer finance oriented, but if you don't take care of yourself, it's definitely gonna affect your finances down the road. You know, another is just exercise, how you're eating, things that often we take for granted when we're younger, you know, as you get older, they become more and more important. And I, you know, the way I view things really uh it's just not one thing, it's a little bit of everything. And uh it really isn't gonna something that's gonna happen overnight or over a weekend. It's really over six to 12 months where you have to work through whatever your puzzle is and try to put it together so it works for you as opposed to against you.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

I love that though. You know, one of the things when I was a kid, my great aunt would buy us these puzzles and they were challenging. But she she was one of the most cool individuals I can remember. She got me into books. She bought me so many books and she would have me read. When we go to her house, she would help me read, and she would sit there with me and guide me through reading. She would sit there with me uh while I was doing these puzzles. And you know, it's not every day an adult just sits there with a kid and does puzzles with them, but she would. And what was profound about that was that I learned how to do a puzzle and something that was very challenging for me, uh, for any kid, and we we did extremely difficult puzzles because she taught me that the structure always starts from the outside, always start from where the part of the puzzle that is easier to see. You know, don't if it's got the ocean in it, don't do the waves first. You know, you stay away from the waves. If it's got, you know, this or that design, focus on that. If there's floral print, stay away from that. And she gave me the set of rules that, you know, I can still remember them. But I I, you know, faces were a big deal and and trying to find specific things like that. Now, why I bring it up is because first of all, those puzzles we never finished in one night. We would go to her house and we would set the puzzle out and then we would work on it. And then we'd come back a week later, we'd work on the puzzle more. And she taught me a couple things. Uh, first of all, uh, the idea of, you know, patience was a big deal. And then playing the long game. And I think that's something that children especially are not taught. And as we become adults, so many of us think that we have our heads together, but we still haven't learned one of the most fundamental lessons of life, being able to play the long game.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Mm-hmm. No, I mean, I completely agree. You know, part of it is, you know, persistence and patience. Uh, if if you can have both of those in the technology environment we're in now, uh and and you know, I would say, and be on time, you know, that's the one other thing that it seems to be a lost art. You know, if somebody calls you, you return their call in a timely manner. That's something that we used to take for granted. Now it's like people, people are, you know, if you call them within an hour or two, it's like they can't imagine it because no one even gets back to them in a day or two, usually.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Right. It is wild. I I think that I do see one thing that I'm I'm happy about. And it's with my daughter's generation. And one of the things that I'm seeing is that they're inquisitive and they're asking questions. But again, it comes back to um, I love you too. My daughter's down here. I've uh she's in the background here. Her mom's traveling, and so she's in the back, and she just came up and I said, My daughter, and she gave me a nice little heart. They're inquisitive. Um, but one of the things that I think that, you know, we have to start looking at is how to help them understand where to start. One of the things, too, is that I I really hope that we can start getting more of it, and I'm I'm fascinated by this one thing. Um, Mr. Beast is starting out some financial planning like stuff. He's he's starting to create an app. I'm so curious what's gonna happen as we start to find people who want to educate Gen Z in that because, you know, the sky's the limit. But there is something that I worry about this generation for. And that's something that I'm gonna put out there now. And that is this. There was this interesting interview where they they asked different generations, uh, what do you think your salary should be for straight out of school? And it was interesting because uh Gin X was like 50,000, 100,000, whatever it might have been the number might have been. You know, millennials were at this same thing, but like Gen Z was like, I think that I should be making 200 or 300,000 a year. And they were like, where are you getting this frame of reference for? They're like, well, that's what creators are making. That's what I see YouTubers making. And it's creating this situation where I'm having to work with my daughter on this topic, and I mean, adults are the same though. Um, what how do you help clients define enough? And that concept of enough instead of constantly chasing more, because it's a rabbit hole. You can go go deep, you know?

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Yeah, and I think I think some of it, what you have to look at is, I mean, obviously you want to be comfortable with and you want to have enough to be uh you know comfortable in life. But at a certain point, you know, you really have to look at what your values are, you know, whether you look at benefiting charity, you know, what is what is what do you want to do in the future, you know, because we work so much, we kind of lose our identity in our work. You know, I really believe that. And in a lot of cases, you want to have things that you can pick up after the fact. And I think the younger generations are doing a better job because they don't necessarily have uh the loyalty that say our parents had their parents to companies as an example. You know, they're more qu they're they're inquisitive, like you mentioned. They're asking questions because they understand, you know, in a lot of ways, it's they're on their own. You know, they're not waiting there for the government to help them or anything else. And I think that for them could be a good value. The problem that I see is the education system getting back to that is doing a horrific job of training them for what they need. You know, what they can do to go out and be successful. You know, and the reality of it is there's only so many influencers, there's only so many people that are, you know, and that that is a good probably side hustle or something that you can do on the side, but that's not gonna, you know, that that isn't realistic to have as a career for your life.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

100%. One of the things, too, is I think that we have to help people get back to their values. And I mean, and values I'm not using in a religious way. I mean more of a what's important to you? You know, what is it that really is meaningful to you? Are you chasing the bottom line? Are we all looking to just maximize profits or are we valuing relationships? Are we looking at the importance of? I had a uh uh someone who was advising me at my company. Uh, she's an HR person who works with us, and she's really lovely, really good at what she does. But she was like, all right, so you've got this senior person who I think that they're overpaid, but I think that you should go ahead and try to train the junior person and move them out. And I sat there and I said, This person has been with me since before you know my business got going. She was my our our my my team's first hire, and she shows up, she knows our systems, and she is a person who will not complain. You know, and I to me, my values were it's not all about the basic line. It's about having people that I believe in, I trust, and that we've been in the we've been in the mud together. And, you know, and I think that's for me, that is the uh there's an enough number for me. You know, I I was sitting there looking at the direction of my company, and I've been going this way, and I I am really right now realizing that there was a shift that came up, and I want to make a hard pivot this way. That is more stuff that I believe in. I I make content and I really want to be making content that I feel is important or has an impact. And, you know, I want to be working with people that are really, really powerful in what they believe. And that's that's enough for me. Like, but what is enough for you? Is it's different for everyone, you know?

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Yeah, well, I think it's important to really find your purpose. You know, that gets back into the purplet word. I think if you can find your purpose and do something that you enjoy and you can make a living at, I think that is really what the ideal outcome is for anyone. And I think your purpose changes over time. Uh but if you focus on money only, you're you're typically going to be unhappy. I mean, that's what the reality is. And you know, you have to focus on your life, your family. You know, it's it's life is like I always say, it's like a blink of an eye. And you really have to focus on the time that you have and spending it with your family, because if you don't have your family, you know, everything else is kind of relative, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

A hundred percent. I had a family friend that saved he was a doctor, and he had some infidelity in his life, and uh wife left him, kids uh parted ways with him, and he retired with this huge amount of money, and then he had a stroke, and then he was all alone. And I'm not gonna throw judgment on anyone for the choices they make or what they've done, but it was really sad to see he was convinced that the money was enough, that there was it was all about the money, but like in those times when he got on, you know, had his his health challenges, he voiced and stated that he didn't care about all the money. What he really, really wanted was to be able to reconnect with family. But at that point in time, the damage was done, you know, and it's it's challenging to have people who get to a point where they can't repair it. But like I tried to make sure, like right now, my daughter's over there playing games. And after we're done with podcasts, we're gonna sit down and have some fun together, read some books together. Because for me, at the end of the day, that's what's most important. You know, it is you know what is important to you, but it comes back to those values. And I think that people have to figure out what what that is for them. Ever see the there's a book, great book called The One Thing or the like something, and it references do you remember City Slickers way back in the day? You know? Uh yeah, and it like curly is like this is the secret of life. And like the guy had to figure out what this one thing was, but the end of the day, it was different for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

No, I mean I mean, I completely, you know, there's some overlap, but in general, everyone wants something a little bit different, and usually it's a combination of things. And it's like anything else. If it if if you everyone wants enough money to be comfortable and to be able to do what they want and have freedom, you know, that's that's really the thing that money can bring if you handle it the right way. But at the same time, you know, you have to counterbalance that and say it's not the only thing.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Yeah. One of the things, too, that I um I wanted to ask you, because um, you know, as someone's coming to see you, um, or just if someone's coming in and they want to make one meaningful financial improvement today, what should they really shift today? And is it a mindset? Whether they're wealthy or not, what's something that people can really shift today to start getting a a better place financially or a better relationship with money?

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Yeah, I think and part of that is a relationship. You know, if you're dealing with a couple, I think that's one of the big important areas where you you kind of open things up and you really look at each other and you try to, you know, and one typically you're gonna have one person that handles things more than the other. But you want them to be kind of on the same page. And that's what I try to do with two and you know, two people that are together. You try to help them, you know, where they don't have to know everything, but make sure that they're both kind of clued in, if you will. Because if you have one person that's handling everything and something happens to them, oftentimes you find a pretty big disaster, you know, afterwards. And so, you know, you don't have to be an expert. You don't even have to really fully understand everything and get in the weeds. What you need to do is just have a general idea of kind of the direction of things and what I would call like the glide path of what you're trying to do. And I think that's an area to focus on. The other uh that I suggest that I see constantly are people saying, well, I'll get around to it, you know, the procrastination. You know, I'll get around to saving when I have this, or I'm gonna get around to paying this when I get my bonus in six months. You know, the there's never a better time to start than now. And that's really the way I view saving, especially with the way you can automate. You know, I would argue if you say, well, I'm gonna wait till I get$500, well, just start with$50. Because if you do that and you see the growth over time and you can take advantage of compounding uh and just having that, you know, the longer the money is there, the more it's gonna be in the long run, you know, the more beneficial it will be for you down the road.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

I love that. Where can people go to find out more about you and what you're doing?

unknown 40:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

So so you can go to my website, jeffreypanic.com. I also have a YouTube channel, which with a lot of helpful videos. I have a couple of books that are on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, everywhere. And really, I try to provide with all my content really more education, as well as just hitting topics that sometimes you may hear about that may not understand, and really to try to provide a reference. You know, the books are designed to provide a reference so that, you know, no one does everything all at one time. You know, if someone's younger, they're not sitting there trying to figure out, well, how do I pay off a high interest card? How do I, how do I buy the house and find a loan for that? How do I figure out whether I buy or lease a car? You know, how much do I put in my 401k? Typically that's not all at one time. As that comes, the benefit of the book is there's a there's QR codes, there's calculators built in to try to help whoever's reading it really to not be a one and done read, but try to help as you go throughout life to be a reference.