The Math of Enough | Colin Page | Growing Money with Sean Trace

In this episode of Growing Money with Sean Trace, I sit down with Colin Page, a CFP and flat-fee retirement planning advisor based in Charlottesville, Virginia, whose path into the financial world is anything but conventional. Colin brings a perspective on money that you genuinely do not hear anywhere else, and the insight he walked away with after years on the inside of professional investing completely changed how he advises clients today.

We get into why so many smart, high-achieving people still struggle with their finances, what it actually means to take risk versus avoid it, and how to build a financial plan that bends with real life instead of breaking under it. 

What is one thing you wish someone had taught you about money before you had to figure it out on your own, and how did not knowing it affect you?

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I think I would I would tell myself like the money doesn't matter as much as you thought it did. When I when I was in the kind of hedge fund world, it is so easy to get caught up in the money and you know what how how are we doing this year and what's my bonus gonna be? And and you get like these you get handcuffed to um this like you know false sense of like I I need more. Well, why do I need more? Because I can get more, um, you know, therefore I should. And like I I knew that like my heart wasn't in that for a long time before I actually left. Um, and it actually took the fun like shutting down for me to be like, okay, now it's time to go do something different. And so I think if I could talk to my younger self, I would say, like, I love what I do now. Like, I I feel that same like calling I did as a teacher to the to the work I'm doing now. And and so it's like both, you know, intellectually interesting. It's it's I love being a part of these families' lives and helping them, you know, think about how their life, how they want to live their life. So I, you know, I would tell my younger self, like, don't be afraid to like the money's not that important at the at the end of the day. Like it's it's about everything else.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

All right. Welcome everybody back to the Growing Money with Sean Trace Podcast. I'm your host, Sean Trace, and I have an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

I'm uh Colin Page. I'm a financial advisor, um CFP. I have a flat fee only uh retirement planning focused firm in Charlottesville, Virginia. And beyond that, and more importantly, I'm a husband and father of two boys. Uh and and yeah, um glad to be on the show with you.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

I'm glad to have you, man. It's great to have you. And I love uh that you know, I I love other people that identify as as parents, you know. It's like that's I I did a LinkedIn post today, and I know everyone's always on LinkedIn is posting their wins, this win, that win. And I was just like, I got to go to a movie last night with my family, and I rearranged my whole schedule, canceled a bunch of podcasts, moved other things around. Because it was awesome and it was a great my wife's like, I'd like to go see this movie, and she's like, Can you make this time work? And I looked at my calendar being completely full, and I was like, Yes, I can. Yes, I can.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

You know, it it's it's the kinds of things you have to say yes to. I mean, yeah, like you, I'm sure the the calendars, there's something booked every every other hour or or more, and you know, my kids had mountain bike practice I had to take them to yesterday, and I'm like rushing to get everything done ahead of that. And right, um, but like I gotta get there and you know, had an awesome time. Like, I get to bring my bike and go ride on these awesome trails that that that they get to ride on, and it's super fun. Uh, but like if if it were if yeah, it'd be so easy to let myself off the off the hook and say, like, ah, I got too much to do.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

I I'm with you 100%. It really is easy to like sit there and go, I got this to do, I got that to do. But you know, when you can make time for those things that are important, you know, it's awesome. Well, no, I wanted to ask you too, because you've got a really interesting story, you know, and I wanted to ask you about this right from the beginning because like you went from being a math teacher to helping people with their money. I how did that happen?

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Yeah, I mean, I I don't there was never a master plan. Um I I so I I it just just a sequence of events. I I graduated from from college um into the financial crisis, and so I uh I was part of one of the I think the largest crew of of Teach for America um core members that they'd ever had in their history to that point because so many people who had jobs lined up consulting or Wall Street or whatever, you know, those just evaporated. And so um, yeah, I went in, I went into teaching. It was it was you know, out of a sense of you know service or wanting to help people, you know, probably also a little bit of youthful idealism. Um, and and yeah, I I I taught for two years, taught math in uh Baltimore City, um, geometry and algebra, and a little um a little uh little public school. And um yeah, how I got to you know managing money. Um you know, I married a rock star um wife who was a pre-med student, and she put med school on hold to follow me to do Teach for America, and she did it also. She taught science in Baltimore City, and we got married while we were there, and the plan was always for her to go back to med school. Um, and so I guess like any you know dual professional household, you make sacrifices, you make um, you know, you you follow each other for a little while, support each other. And so I followed her back to to Charlottesville, where she went to med school. And um, probably the strangest way to get a job in the in the financial world. So I ended up working for a hedge fund. Um and the the manager of it, you know, we had gone to the same church when I was in college, and um I had kept a garden at his house during college with a good friend of mine, a vegetable garden. And I guess he liked, you know, the way that I watered the tomatoes or you know, how diligent I was in keeping those things alive that he asked me if I, you know, would be interested in in working for him. And so I started making coffee and and um bringing the newspaper in and setting up, you know, setting the table for the day um for him and and ended up spending a whole decade there um before before I got into the the you know the personal financial side, um, you know, financial planning. Um so yeah, long of a long story, but um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

I I I I love it as well because I was a teacher as well. I taught kids for many years. Yeah. I when I I I have a media company now, but for 20 plus years, I taught English as a side hustle that became a main thing that is you know, something I was passionate about. And one of the things that I love the most is still is still inspiring people. I taught, you know, kids from 10 to 15 years old English. And yeah, it was interesting because one of the motivating factors for all of the content I make has been that I love teaching, but I just wanted to be able to teach at a larger scale, which is why I started podcasting and started doing content with my daughter, because I was like, I'm here, you know, working with these kids and helping them see like the possibilities in the world, you know. But when I started this podcast, it was because I felt like as a as an educator, as a as a parent, as a as a person who went through all of the school systems that I had in, I felt cheated a little bit, that I had never learned about personal finance, that no one ever, I mean, my daughter's downstairs and she's been drilling fractions for days, hand-rolling in fractions. And I was like, but yet no one talks about you know money. They just don't. And you know, and so I that was one of the reasons I was motivated to start this podcast was to to start talking to people because my daughter was like eight years old at the time when I started this podcast, and she's like, Dad, what's this? And I was just sitting there going, I don't know. I don't know. How does this work? You know, I don't know. And so I started trying to look that stuff up, but it became helpful. But in the beginning, you know, I I didn't have any idea. And so it became something that that was kind of the the labor, this became my labor of love to kind of help that. But you know, yeah, it's interesting to find someone else who's got a similar experience.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Yeah, and I I think it's it it scratches a lot of the same Mitches or the motivations I had, you know, going into teaching. Like I love educating and I love um exploring that the uh questions with people um and and like finding out what's the what's the deeper motivation. Because yeah, there's like the surface level technical stuff, you know, the the math, you know, making a spreadsheet work or or a financial model, you know, trying to interpret it. But really, like it's it's it's much it's so much more about like the individual person you're meeting with and what what is motivating them, what does um, you know, what what where they are now and where they want to be and and trying to bridge the gap. And so there's there's certain you know technical stuff that's part of that. But um like educating, I mean teaching math. Like I I went in thinking like, hey, I was a math major, like I know this stuff pretty well. Um and and that that almost worked against me. Like I I because it wasn't the way that I learned math, you know, it always came easy to me. And so I was not the best person to teach it um until I until I realized that like, hey, I've got to figure out what what's motivating each individual kid and and where are the particular like breakdowns or or gaps in their past that that you know has brought them to ninth grade, you know, doing you know math at a third grade level. Um, you know, where and and and that's not you know because they weren't taught the content. They were taught the content, they just weren't, you know, given the the you know, the deeper like why behind it.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

I love that. The deeper why behind it is something that I really love that concept as well. But I wanted to ask you, like, have you ever thought about like how managing money how is managing money kind of like teaching a c in a classroom, you know? Are there any similarities between teaching people about their finances to teaching kids about math?

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Yeah, I mean, I think the big the big difference is like the the when you're talking to somebody about their finances, like they are personally engaged. Like that you were talking about their life, where their struggles are, where the rubber meets the road, what you know, what they're fighting about with their spouse, um or the disagreements they're having and and career issues. Like so they're they're they're engaged. Um, I think that the what I had difficulty in the classroom was with like how do I make this matter to somebody, um, especially when you're growing up in inner city Baltimore, like math seems like the farthest thing from what is what really matters. You know, they were worried about what's coming, what's going on at home, what's um, you know, what's happened on the street corner outside. And so I think um, yeah, what's what's the same is like it is is getting that um is that like aha moment that like we're searching for as like an educator and I think as an advisor. It's like when you can connect the motivations and their desires with like the technical side of things, and and they get that like aha, oh, this is why I should be doing this. Like it's easy to tell somebody like you need to save 15% of your income. Um, but to actually connect that to like, oh, well, you want to do all these things, and and and like that's why you have to do and you need a savings rate of 15% or whatever it is. Um, that that that's I think the like that's what I live for anyway, is that like aha moment where they make that connection um and feel like okay, they can exhale, like we've got a plan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

I like that the ability to sit there and go, we gotta I remember as a kid I played sports. I got into sports early on, and I love sports, but yet I remember playing in some games, like I was playing in the like the lower level leagues, and suddenly one day they're like, This kid's not doing too bad. Let's bump him up the league, you know. And I was just like, Yay, I get to play. And then I bumped up league, and I was like, Oh my god, oh my god, this is way harder. You know, this is like not just a bunch of kids having fun, this is like serious, you know, and it's the ball's coming a lot faster. And I got freaked out until the coach pulled me aside and he's like, Sean, it's still you hitting the ball, it's still you running around the bases, it's just a little bit faster. And there's some people that throw a little bit better, but it's the same thing, just go out there and still have fun. And I was just like, wow, and I I thought about it and I, you know, it got me placed, but having that calm and influence was really powerful because I think a lot of times we don't have that, you know, and it leads me to think because even smart people deal with anxiety, you know, and even smart people have the challenges, you know, if people go, well, I'm a smart person, but I don't know why I'm feeling overwhelmed is you know, and I want to ask you that question like, why do so many smart people still struggle with money decisions?

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yeah. Um I mean, I think part of it is like it's not taught, like you already mentioned, like it's it's not taught in school. Like nobody, and unless your parents are having conversations around the dinner table. Like, I realize my family is probably an odd, we're we're an oddity in that realm because just because it's what I do all day, we do talk stuff around the dinner table. But for most people, like if you're not getting it in school, you probably may not be getting it at home. So you you just may not be familiar with this. Um and and I think you know, the the reason why smart people still struggle, um, you know, I think it's because personal finance is more personal than it is finance. Like a smart person may understand like what I'm supposed to do. Um, the difficulty or the disconnect is like the is all is more on the personal side. Like, um, I still have anxieties about you know when the market drops, like, oh shoot, like uh should I sell? Like, should I stop the bleeding? You know, I I can't sleep. I still feel that, like, even though I know better. Like, I know, like, yes, the the market goes up, it goes down, like we're invested for the long run. I, you know, we should just the best thing to do is to do nothing most of the time. But I still feel that like in in my chest or whatever when when we're going through it. And so, like, I think that's why it's you know, it's it's because it's not for lack of not knowing sometimes, it's like the the more like emotional behavioral side of things um than anything.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

One of my last flights with my wife. We were um flying from San Francisco to Vietnam, and we were somewhere somewhere over Japan. That plane started bouncing. Actually, it was the beginning of the flight. It was some of the heaviest turbulence I have ever been in. It was bouncing like nothing else. I know planes are built to sustain turbulence. I know this is a normal thing. I know that every single day uh flight attendants are dealing with it, and they're no reason to be scared. But when the pilot came on and he's like, flight attendants, you have one minute to sit down. And I was just like, ooh, seriously. You have one minute to sit down. That's fun sounding, and then it started shaking. But like my brain is like singing, I'm like in my head, I see wings falling off, I see all types of things, bad things happening. But like, that's where the anxiety comes in, and like you just gotta find ways to sit there and be calm in the midst of that. And honestly, I don't think people can do it alone. I think that um people get overwhelmed, and I think that that's why you know having someone uh to help is so important. And I want to ask you this too, because if someone feels overwhelmed with their finances, where should they even start?

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Yeah, um, I mean, to go back to what you were saying, I think uh, you know, one more reason why it's hard for smart people or like high-achieving people to make good money decisions is because like you get into your career and you've got these blinders on, um, and like you know your subject matter really well, maybe. Uh, you may be one of the best in your field, or you're at the cutting edge, or or um you're in the flow. Like it's just easy to like focus on that and and what's the next step to further that um you know, that part of your life, your career, and lose sight of like everything else. Um, and I think uh particularly, you know, the higher achieving people are are more susceptible to like the blinders. Um and and then you like look up and and gosh, you you're it's easy to get overwhelmed um when you take those blinders off. Um and and so I think like you said, it's it's helpful to have somebody guide through it. Like I'm a uh guide you through it. I'm I'm a huge advocate and beneficiary of like therapy, just like for dealing with personal things and and you know, family things. And um it's so helpful to have somebody uh talk to and through things with. You know, maybe they don't even give you the answers, but just give you like the framework to kind of unpack those things. Um but like where I start with clients, um it just starts with understanding where you are now um and where you want to go. Um, and so and maybe even starting with where you want to go first. Like our first meeting is always just you know, talking about what's the bigger picture, what matters to you most? Um, what is what do you want, you know, your your life to be about, um, or you know, as as I guess David Brooks put it, like what are your eulogy virtues? Like, not the stuff that's like career accolades and um, you know, recognition or or the numbers in your bank account, but like what do you want people to say about you when you're gone? Um you know, what are the things that really matter? So that's the like that's the goal that we're heading towards. And then then, you know, where are we now? Um, what does life actually look like? On the technical side, maybe it's understanding your cash flow. And like, you know, there's a very simple equation. Your your income should equal your savings plus your debt plus taxes plus spending. If you're spending more than your income, obviously that's a bad thing. Um those should always balance out, you know, the those four buckets, savings, debt, taxes, spending, um, should equal your income. Those are the only four places your money can possibly be going. Um, and just like understanding like the the dynamics between those things and and trying to connect, like, okay, your goal is to retire at 50 so you can do this project you've always wanted to do. Um, okay, well then you know that's gonna require a little more savings um and trying to help people break it down to like the concrete level of the that what they need to do to get to where they want to be.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

I love that. And I'm a huge, huge fan of therapy as well. My mom's a therapist, and I think everyone should be getting therapy like every day, like honestly. And just like getting that help with how to approach challenging situations. Like, how do you approach navigating? One of the things that I think is interesting is like we try to figure out how to handle situations that we've never been in. And you know, it's like when I first moved to Southeast Asia, I lived part-time in the US and part-time in Southeast Asia. When I first moved here and I was trying to drive a motorcycle in a whole different world where I was used to driving cars, and I'm trying to apply the rules that would work in California, in Vietnam, it wasn't working. It just doesn't work. Like, you don't turn left the same way here that you turn left in California. And my wife was like, I'm gonna take some driving classes here so I can learn to drive in California. I was like, No, they did that. Those things don't equate, man. Like, it is not the same. And when you don't realize that things aren't the same, it gets really challenging. Now, one of the things that I want to ask you, like, because it's like you don't know what you know, no, which leads a lot of people to make mistakes, you know. And what's a mistake you see families make when life throws something unexpected at them or just in general?

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Uh yeah, I mean, I think we we can err in two ways. I mean, uh when when when the unexpected comes, um, you know, sometimes there's like the feeling we need to do something, like the market crash and feeling like we need to make a change. Like that I've got all this anxiety, like we can't stand to lose anymore. We need to make a change. Um and and and so there's that feeling of of like we got to do something. And then the error on on the other side is like feeling um paralyzed by uh by a change in the situation. Maybe it's like, you know, I I work primarily with retirees and and maybe it's like a spouse who's who's you know starting to need more help or or need um you know, has cognitive impairment or decline dementia. Um and and like you know there they're the easy thing is sometimes to to do nothing or at least um you feel like the safe thing is to like put off um you know getting help um and and you know maybe because it's expensive or because you think you can manage um or or just just because it's there's like a a stigma there and and you don't want to talk about it. And and so I think the mistake can be either doing nothing or when when really you should should be making it a change or or doing it change because you just feel like you need to do something. And both both can be you know costly mistakes financially and also like personally on a burden on a family. And um yeah those are the kinds of things that like I feel like half my job is being a therapist sometimes like because a lot of those situations don't have easy answers or the technical answer isn't isn't going to cut it. Like it's it's more about um processing those um emotions and and you know instincts and and unpacking you know the the the feelings behind it before you can look at a situation and make like an objective decision or make the best decision you can given the information that you actually have.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

I want to ask you this because how do you help someone planning living their life now and planning for the future like how do how do people balance that? Because I mean it's easy to focus on one at the expense of the other you know so easy.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

And I have it's it's pretty funny. I have cli uh working with retirees and working with like more affluent people I think I generally see more of of the mentality of like well I need to save um and and restrict you know the enjoying at the present just to protect against some unknown future. And so like I'm constantly having the discussion with my clients about like you know you could you could spend a little more you could take that trip you've always wanted to take um you can afford to like hire some help you know um because it's getting harder for you to mow the lawn. But I I also you know so so there's there's that um which I I tend to deal with more often I think is maybe more common among people of a certain affluence level but then but but then there are plenty of folks who are like gosh I don't know what the future holds like let's just enjoy today um and there can be you know like some you know I've heard uh particularly I mean younger folks that they're like doom spending or or like you know hey like what does it all matter anyways like I might as well the future doesn't look great let's just you know let's live for today and and I I totally sympathize with that that um as well because it's not it's not easy uh today's um you know job market and economy to like feel like uh you you've got a pathway like maybe your parents did um so it's a it's hard it's it's it's a it's hard to balance those two. I mean it's something my wife and I struggle with um you know do we do we what are we saving up for like retirement seems so far away like what are we only got our kids you know and Alice our oldest is 11 so we've got you know what seven more years with with him uh you know around all the time and so like how that time's precious and how do we you know make the make the most of it um you know maybe it's you know not worrying so much about um retiring a a couple years earlier maybe it's you know um we want to go ahead and take that cross country road trip that we've we've always talked about doing um so I think you know what I what I do as a financial advisor is try to help people understand the tradeoffs between the two and and like so if it's a if it's a retirement question like or you know say like for instance like we want to take this this sabbatical we want to take a road trip to take some time off work um you know so income's gonna drop for a little while well let's put that in the context of like okay well what does that mean for your retirement we can you know do some simple math and say okay well you know if you take this six months off of your income like that might cost you uh you you might have to work one year longer uh at you know at your current income trajectory whatnot you know we we can make assumptions about all that and then and put the put the trade off to to people in those terms like okay well this six months tobacco is going to cost you one year more working maybe maybe we don't know like maybe the market goes great and and it it doesn't matter or or you get a big raise later on and you can bank that and and make up for it completely. But like let's let's try to put it in some concrete terms like that like this this trip's gonna cost you maybe working one more year and then let people make that decision and and you know a lot of clients would say hey like this once in a lifetime trip with my kids while they're young going across the country like that's worth working another year. When am I gonna get to do that again?

SPEAKER_01 27:52

And so um yeah I don't know if that answers that completely answers it. No it's awesome because it's like one of the things that I I um I feel like life is a puzzle where the pieces are constantly changing. And like you think you get the pieces figured out you're like wow look we almost like oh my goodness the puzzle changed you know and it's like you're constantly having to update the way you look at things the way you change things you know it's like you got life figured out and then you have a kid it's like oh my goodness okay and then you start figuring out like those early years and then just like that they're a teenager and you're like okay now I've got to figure other things out. And this is where like whenever people talk to me about a good financial plan like one of the things like I think is that it's not rigid. It's adaptable and it's something that you can work with.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

But I I want to ask you like according to your perspective what does a good financial plan actually look like in real life you know yeah um like you said I think it has to be flexible um I think it has to it has to clearly show where we want to go you know or or at least our idea of where we want to go because even that can change you know as life throws curveballs or as you mature maybe you maybe you do end up wanting different things where the things you thought you wanted before aren't as important as as maybe they once were. So those goals can change as well. That's why you need a flexible plan. So the all the plan is is like what what is gonna what are the actions that are going to give us the best chance of hitting those goals that we think we want. And so like it it has to be able to change it's not a math problem that you can just you know two plus two equals four uh you're good to go.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Like the plan's only as good as as like what you can do right now to get you closer to those goals and and then like let's talk in six months let's talk in a year like have those goals change like what else has changed um we we can adapt um I love that I I like it too because you know it things constantly evolve like as people are growing as people are changing as life is growing like your goal goals might change your your values might change but I think that one of the things that's important is to like sit there and have the introspection of the people that you can sit there and talk to about what it is that is the thing that is really your core focus. You know I mean for a long time it was me me me and then again like I say I had my daughter and then suddenly I had to sit there and go wow this little person has completely changed the way I look at the world and I mean I know when she grows up and when we get I grandkids and all that it's gonna change again. But you know I think that as long as you can kind of have that North star, um it's important. But you know I know that the money side can be scary at times, you know, like for investing how should someone think about risk without being too scared to invest because you know I think that that's something that I've heard people talk to that are coming up with you getting their finances in order is how do you balance risk with the reward you know I think it starts with expanding your definition of what risk is yeah um I think we all understand that like there's a risk if I invest in in a stock like it could go down it could go to zero.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

I might lose all of it that's a risk. And if you we don't want to put money in that kind of invest that kind of risky investment that you can't afford to lose. And so if that's money you need to save up for a house down payment in a couple years like you probably shouldn't be putting that in the stock market. That's risky over that timeline. Not only like not growing but actually shrinking because of inflation or you know and so when you expand the definition of like what is risk um and especially like for retirees like a lot of a lot of retirees think okay like I've made it to retirement I've got I've got my my savings like I don't I can't take any more risks with this like we're we've we've done we've grown it um the plan says it works like let's dial the risk way back but still like most people's retirements like it's could be 30 years. That's a lot of you know inflation that can happen over that time period like by not investing you may be you're exposing yourself to other risks. And so I think it starts with like looking at the bigger picture of what's the risk um and then you know uh matching the risk to the timeline um that that you have the level of risk that you're taking to the timeline and and what those goals actually are. You know that's the that's like the the math answer the behavioral answer is also like you have to be able to sleep at night and so you can't um if you know that like I'm the kind of person that when the market takes a a dive like I'm gonna want to sell and it's gonna be the wrong time um to sell but then you know the that's the wrong time to be having that discussion about risk. Like you you're you're already in the midst of it. And it's it can be hard to like put your brain in that perspective um ahead of time like when times are good. But you know try to as as much as possible like think about like what did you do the last time the markets tanked? Like were you able to like be content and keep putting money in and you know let let the time work for you and catch the recovery or were you somebody that that had to panic and sell and and maybe maybe that argues for taking a little bit less risk or getting somebody to to help help you you know manage your own impulses uh or or give you that bigger perspective I like both of those I I think that you know like you said you you have to sit there and and and kind of figure that out like what is it that you're aiming for and what is your risk tolerance?

SPEAKER_01 34:51

But it it's interesting that you gotta you have to start knowing what are the questions to ask. I I loved it when I joined uh and signed on with my CFB. She sent me this questionnaire and I was like what are all these questions? And I was starting to look at this and was like oh this is talking about how much risk I like to take in life and I realized I was like there's some things that I take a lot of risk but there's other things that I'm quite conservative. And it was an interesting I never realized that it was something that was completely a foreign concept to me. But when I started looking at that it you know I I started to get a better idea of who I was and by answering those questions we were able to kind of craft what worked for me and and my situation. And I think that that's the beauty the beautiful part of it is that you can figure those things out if you're you're willing to ask the right questions.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

But I want to ask you this something this other question like what's something you learned from your own life that changed how you advise clients um you know maybe like this this may be getting to the wheeze a little bit but I you know going back so I worked at a hedge fund for a decade um with some super smart guys you know Ivy League MBAs and and you know technically very gifted and and in the know you know in terms of like what's what's what's going on in the investing world and um the crazy thing was or or or the interesting insight um was that that these guys all had their retirement accounts and their personal investments most of them were in index funds um and and here we are like doing you know these uh making these really risky investments um complicated you know really getting into the weeds and reading you know the company's uh financial statements and and talking to um analysts about it and and and making you know complicated bets um and here these guys are when when they're managing their own money it's pretty passive like they've got their there it's in the S ⁇ P 500 it's in the it's in the rest of the world index um and they're just you know adding money to it month after month on autopilot and letting it grow and it was just so it was such an interesting like dichotomy between like uh what they did in their day job and what they did with their own money. Um so I I think that totally changed how I think about advising clients on what to invest in and how like we should invest my job is like not to be a hedge fund. I you know you don't want me sitting in Charlottesville telling you I think we should buy Apple today because you know XYZ like there's a million people looking at that that have more information than I do. And and the crazy thing is those people in their personal retirement accounts a lot of them are are just doing a totally passive indexed approach. And so that that just changes how I talk to clients. Some clients want like they want me to tell them what to buy what to sell um you know what's hot right now you know should I be in more into crypto or should I be more you know I think I think AI is getting a little overvalued should we should we be getting out of some of this stuff um and like I I think having had that experience on the inside of like a a more actively managed fund um gives me the confidence to say like no I think you know I think we've got a we've got our strategy we've got our approach like I think this is the right you know the tons of papers uh academic papers have shown this is the best approach over the long run you know most advisor don't beat the market over you know a 10 year period or or even shorter um and so like that that give me gave me kind of the confidence to to recommend that to to clients um unabashedly um I love that if you could sit down with a younger version of yourself and we might be a similar answer but like kind of different what money advice would you give your younger self um I think I would I would tell myself like the money doesn't matter as much as you thought it did. I think when I when I was in the kind of hedge fund world it is so easy to get caught up in the money and you know what how how are we doing this year and what's my bonus going to be and and you get like these you get handcuffed to um this like you know false sense of like I I need more well why do I need more because I can get more um you know therefore I should uh and like I I knew that like my heart wasn't in that for a long time before I actually left um and it actually took the fun like shutting down for me to be like okay now it's time to go do something different and so I think if I could talk to my younger self I would say like I love what I do now like I I feel that same like calling I did as a teacher um to the to the work I'm doing now and and so it's like both you know intellectually interesting it's it's I love being a part of these families lives and helping them you know think about how their life how they want to live their life so I you know I would tell my younger self like don't be afraid to like the money's not that important at the at the end of the day like it's it's about everything else.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

I would go back in time and tell my younger self to learn about the concept of enough and to really find out what enough is and why I need that enough like what's that all about and also put the principles in there. I wish I could have taught my younger self about like financial freedom like what that looks like just having enough but making smart moves.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

I want to ask you this go ahead go ahead you were going to say something yeah I was just saying yeah financial freedom is not about it it's not always about increasing the revenue side the income no it's it's about like how do I live with what I have um and and and not feel that temptation to constantly be increasing the lifestyle you know it's getting the it's the it's on the cost side that gives you freedom a lot of the time you know yeah I don't need to spend everything I make I don't need to make more to be happy. Right?

SPEAKER_01 42:05

100% man question for you where can people go to find out more about you and what you do um good question.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

I have a website oakleywealth.com um I do a little podcast with uh a friend Taylor Stewart called uh the make the most of your money podcast um where we we walk through you know both technical issues for in in financial planning you know how do you understand you know what a Roth conversion is or what are taxes all about but also you know dig deeper into the behavioral and and and more spiritual questions of like what is it all for um you know so we've had like a a an episcopal minister on our podcast you were we talking about um theology and philosophy and and and so it's really wide ranging but I would say yeah check those out um yeah it's another newsletter to find on my website but yeah thanks for thanks for asking that