Growing Money with Sean Trace

Risk On Early | Hayden Ess | Growing Money with Sean Trace

Sean Trace

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0:00 | 32:38

I sat down with Hayden Ess, a wealth management expert with deep experience in annuities, advisor transitions, and financial planning, to unpack why so many of us feel lost when it comes to money. 

Hayden breaks down why financial advisors are becoming less like number-crunchers and more like life coaches, and why fee transparency should be the baseline, not the exception. 

We dig into why young people are more comfortable day trading than actually investing for the long haul, and why that's backwards.  We also talk about his work with Fiduciary Gives, a nonprofit helping future CFPs earn their certification through scholarships.

What's one money lesson you wish someone had taught you before you turned 18?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think the conversation is actually changing as AI helps out practices a lot. I know it's like kind of cliche to say, but you know, maybe 10, even five years ago, we could say a lot about money management. You know, a financial advisor is going to manage your money, manage your financial life, and that's about it. I think with a lot of commoditization of money management nowadays and with the efficiencies we're getting out of AI, you're you're basically becoming like a life coach, essentially, for people with their money and their financial situation at the center of every single conversation. I don't think there's really any type of conversation that doesn't involve money or finances in some way and relationships with people, right? So um I think that's where the industry is going now. And I I would say a life coach.

SPEAKER_00

Well, 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. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, my name's Hayden S. Um, I have lots of experience in um annuity product development, MA, um, advisor transitions, basically the whole slew of anything wealth management related. Um, I love to have my hand in, especially with uh a recent thing that we just launched is a 501c3 charity to help support the fee-only movement um with fee only financial advisor. So that's been something I've been uh very passionate about recently. So anything wealth management, love talking about, love talking shop and uh just happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00

That's awesome. Well, it it I want to ask you some questions because you you have a really cool perspective. But like if someone who didn't know anything about money, financial planning asked you, what does a financial planner actually do? How would you explain it?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think the conversation is actually changing as AI helps out practices a lot. I know it's like kind of cliche to say, but you know, maybe 10, even five years ago, we could say a lot about money management. You know, a financial advisor is going to manage your money, manage your financial life, and that's about it. I think with a lot of commoditization of um money management nowadays and with the efficiencies we're getting out of AI, you're you're basically becoming like a life coach, essentially, for people with their money and their financial situation at the center of every single conversation. I don't think there's really any type of conversation that doesn't involve money or finances in some way and relationships with people, right? So um I think that's where the industry is going now. And I I would say a life coach.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Well, you know, and it's a life coach that talks about money and how to how to how to win with it, how to succeed with it, how to have fun with it, you know? You know, you've worked with in risk management, annuities, and and a lot of other areas. What's the biggest money mistake you see normal people make over and over again?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you know, again, like talking with AI is like you you still have to assume that people aren't gonna do a lot of research about certain things that they're not necessarily interested in. I think that um people early on don't take on enough risk a lot of the time. You know, I hear a lot of conversations with people my age centered around like high-yield savings accounts when really the the conversation should be what are they doing to take on risk in their retirement accounts? You know, I understand that, you know, a lot of people are in different parts of their lives and may need like certain types of buffers for emergency cash and things like that. But I really think that people should be more interested in taking on risk earlier in their financial journey because again, that's when a lot of the compounding happens. When you're in your 20s, when you're in your early 30s, you're not going to be real, hopefully taking out a lot of this money until for like another 30 years, you know. So um I I think a risk-on appetite and be having people become more um more familiarized with the equity markets is kind of like still a big miss nowadays, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00

It's interesting because um the being informed, you know, you're working as a coach, but like talking about people being informed, and like I think some people, A, first of all, don't know what they don't know. And B, I think a lot of people don't know where to turn for information because there's a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of people talking, there's a lot of people saying this is the right thing to believe. But not all of it's, you know, of it's beneficial to you. And, you know, I I want to ask you that too, because it leads me to the next question: like, why do so many people feel intimidated or confused when they hear financial terms? Like, you know, whatever there would be, annuities, taxes, investing. There's a lot of terminology that can leave people really confused.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I think this is where it helps to have that human being consultant is I know my context window for AI, like when I Google something, is relatively low. Like I'm gonna forget about whatever I just put into Chat GPT, probably, instead of me like doing some deep due diligence or talking about it with someone else. I think that it's it's intimidating for people to do all the research and due diligence themselves via um a chat bot. And I also think that sometimes financial advisors and financial planners over-jargonize things. So like you're you're coming at it at two negatives here, you know? Um, and it's all about the personality of the planner and who the person is really, uh, who the end client is involved with on a day-to-day basis. It's a mixed bag. But you know, if planners can help bridge that conversation of like, I've done this research myself, can you help me explain this in like, you know, easy terms? That that's the number one thing that I think would earn a lot of planners more business and gain trust with like the end clients instead of trying to overload them and scare them with all these scary informations. It's just come from a place of trust and education and just breaking things down bare bones is the best way to approach any conversation around finances.

SPEAKER_00

I like that. I like keeping things really basic and bare bones because when you overcomplicate things, um, you know, I make content for people. And one of the things that we find uh is that the most important thing is to try in the best way possible to keep things at the lowest common denominator. You know, there were some great influencers that are like create content at like a fifth grade level. Not because you want to assume that everyone's like at a fifth grade level, but you want to see um people don't want to have to overthink stuff. They want it to be really chill, they want it to be really easy to understand, and they want it to be accessible, you know, and I think that's one of the best things that you can do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's helpful. And again, um, like this is like my own personal mantra about keeping portfolio simple too, is like if you're having simple conversation, like the implementation of the financial plan should also be simple. You know, it's not necessarily we're breaking down a very complex plan necessarily into like easy bite-sized pieces for the end client. It's also being able to implement something coherent that the client's going to be able to walk with you throughout their time as a client with you as well. You know, like simple portfolios and very easy to understand, like estate planning and tax planning, you know, like we should keep it as simple as possible throughout the entire engagement.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. I love that. Well, you know, I have another question too, because a lot of people think investing is just gambling for rich people. What do you wish regular families understood instead?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so this contradicts a little bit what I said earlier. So, you know, I want to get people with um get comfortable with them investing in equity markets for the long term. But, you know, younger people in their 20s, late teens, maybe even 30s are like really interested in like gambling stock markets or day trading or things like that. And I think that's coming from a place of ignorance, honestly, a lot of the time, and thinking that, you know, we're better than the market and we're somehow smarter than, you know, the smartest hedge funds or computers on the planet that algorithmically change, you know. So it's it's always from an educational standpoint is like, how do we get someone who is relatively unsophisticated within equity markets that may be doing the worst thing possible is like day trading or doing a lot of short-term trading. And approaching the conversation again is the same for me if from someone who is scared of equity markets versus someone who's doing day trading. It's just come at it from an educational standpoint, talk about um academic-grounded papers and why, you know, what they're doing potentially is irrational. And um again, from a partnership and educational standpoint, you can basically have these two ends of the spectrum converge and be like, okay, if like, you know, this is probably a waste of my time if I'm day trading, or hey, I should probably um maybe not be wasting my time um looking into stocks, but I should, you know, talk to a trusted professional on how to have actually a stock portfolio.

SPEAKER_00

That's so interesting too, because um there's this interesting thing that I I try to think about this for when I was younger and someone mentioned stocks. I had these images of like Wall Street people like down there screaming and they're you know, like, oh, do this, buy, buy, sell, sell. And then, like, but then as I got older, I realized that there were people that I knew that were very normal everyday people that had stock portfolios, that they had a lot of their money in the stock market. And that was mind-blowing for me. I was like, hang on, you are a um, you know, just like this average guy, but you've got a stock portfolio. You know, it was wild for me. But when I think that what what happened at the end that was like the eye-opener for me was like, you can invest in different ways. Like, I I also didn't realize that. Like you don't have to have, there's not one right way to do it. And so I what you said is really interesting to me because um it got me thinking about risk, you know, and like if there's not one way to do it, there's more than one way to do it, is it simply about how people approach risk? Because I I am not a huge fan of risk, but you know, that's who I am. But you spend a lot of time thinking about risk. What are the risks people don't think about until it's too late?

SPEAKER_02

I think under saving and underinvesting is like the number one risk that people um expose themselves to every single day. Like I said earlier, it's like get younger people more educated, involved, and investing in equities for the long run and not day trading and um sticking to a plan. That's probably the biggest risk that no one talks about. It's not like intraday volatility of the stock or you know, intra-year drawdowns necessarily. You know, we have war that happens, we have pandemics that happens, but our stock market's relatively resilient over time. And I believe in like American institutions and global um economic institutions that over the long run, like this is this is good. And there's also the alternative is like, what else are you going to do? You know, you you don't really have another choice from a savings perspective because if you're going to be mostly involved in like high-yield savings accounts or cash, like it's just gonna be eaten away by inflation. So um again, it's coming from an educational standpoint early on. And then the nice part is that, you know, Americans are so lucky that we have access to these great accounts like 401ks, is that a lot of people inadvertently don't know kind of what their um exposure to the stock market already is. So if they'd have a 401k, it's a great introduction to be like, hey, you know, I know you're worried about the stock market, but you may not know that half of your net worth or a quarter of your net worth outside of your home is within your company's 401k plan, which is invested in some QDIA target date fund that's mostly equities right now. So, like, like it or not, you know, maybe this is worth a conversation, but you're you have a lot of equities in your portfolio.

SPEAKER_00

Right. So interesting. Because to me, like, I still don't understand all of it. Like, there's a lot of information, and I get inundated uh because social media makes money and investing look easy. And when I sit there and I look at it, I'm like, am I doing something wrong right now? Like, you know, I don't feel like it's like so straightforward to me in my mind. But, you know, I I would love to ask you because like what's one, what's something people online almost never talk about, honestly, or they're just getting wrong?

SPEAKER_02

I do think the investing conversation is relatively easy. Like I said earlier, like the asset management part of people's financial lives is pretty much a commodity at this point, and especially with like financial advisors practice, you know, like they have model portfolios that they kind of put everyone into in like a different flavor, right? So that that part of it's not complex. I think really it's the amount of information of people saying what's easy. So they're coming over here, they're saying, uh, investing in emergency fund is easy, or investing in your 401k is easy, investing in your Roth IRA is easy, or like estate planning and uh like filing your taxes is easy. It's like all of these units are easy by themselves, but when you when you put them together, it becomes a very complex picture and overwhelming, essentially. It's easy to create a short form piece on investing in a Roth IRA, but that's only going to be like one-tenth of your financial life. And when you combine it all, it's like, ah, this is too hard.

SPEAKER_00

Right. I I feel you, man. And uh, you know, you're involved with helping future CFPs through scholarships. Why does having ethical financial advisors matter so much to you?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think so. This is interesting. A conversation I have with financial advisors all the time is like, what's the trust of a financial advisor versus the trust of a like CPA or a tax accountant? And oftentimes is the public has a lot more trust in their tax person than their financial advisor. And it's how do we change this conversation and this assumption of trust to kind of be at more of a parody with it with the tax planner? You know, so I'm talking with financial advisor. Like I actually lead with tax prep because people trust their CPA more than their financial advisor. I think that when you align the incentives with your client and you're upfront and transparent, I know that there's a financial advisor group I'm a part of, um, her name is Sarah Gorillo, and they talk about the transparency movement. It's just be up front with your client on what you're earning off of them. Usually that comes with like a fee-based basis, meaning that anything that you earn is only collected from the client. So you're not getting any kickbacks from mutual fund companies or insurance companies. It's just, hey, whatever is deducted from your account is how I earn my living. And there's no smoke and mirrors on maybe me putting you in a product that's not best for um for their financial life. So I think as long as clients and financial advisors are on the same page about fees, um, then it's gonna automatically come um with benefits on trust metrics that flow downstream.

SPEAKER_00

I like that too, because I think that um, you know, any business. I I had um someone who was asking them about their service, and I was like, what do you charge? And it was so hard to get them to give me any type of story, you know, and they were like, well, we could be doing this, we could be doing this, and it depends on this. And I was like, what do you charge? Like, if you can't give me a straight answer in like 10 minutes, then you either a it's too complicated, or B, you don't really want me to know. And I think that one of the things that I have been finding is that for myself, like I'm trying to be more aware of that transparency. And like I I I my financial advisor is very transparent about her fees. And when I came in and we talked for the first time, I knew exactly what I was getting. It was super straightforward, and that allowed me to trust more because I didn't feel like there was some agenda. And, you know, and it's like there weren't certain fees here or there, but like, well, hey, it's clear, it's transparent, and it was something that I was able to go, that's fair. That is super fair because you can see it right there, you know?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. Again, like, you know, there's the common saying is like if if anything is free, you're the product. So I think there's a lot of that to be said in the financial advisory business. I think that there's nothing bad about commissions either. It's just um clearly stating up front, like how you're gonna refer this out to like your commissioned insurance person or how you're gonna refer this out to like your estate attorney. Like everyone has a different fee model, you know, and it's I think up to the financial advisor to explain how their fees work as well as how the fees of the people they're referring their business to work as well, to make sure that the interests are aligned.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. I love that. The the aligning of interests is that's one of the things too. I say this like, there's a lot of financial advisors out there. Like, you it not every financial advisor is right for you. Not every doctor's right for you, not every mechanic's right for you. Find the person that you can like kind of, you know, um, I don't know how you say it, like just find that affinity with. Like, I had one doctor, and he was a great doctor, but I went to him and I was like, I don't want this guy to do anything with my health because I feel like I'm some type of piece of meat to him. And I had another guy that was just like made me feel at home. And I was just like, this is the person I want to come back to, you know? And, you know, I think that that finding that person that can be your teammate, be your mentor, be your coach, be your whatever you need them to be is such a powerful thing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I, you know, there's over like 400,000 financial advisors in the US, and there's always a conversation about niching down and specializing down. There's someone out there for you. You know, if you specialize in divorcees who live in Pennsylvania, like someone does that, I'm I'm sure of it. You know, there's so many great tools to be matched with financial advisors out there that that's gonna work for you. No, it doesn't need to be the advisor down the street. If you want a face-to-face encounter with a financial advisor, that's perfectly fine. But there's so many great advisors that run virtual practices or in other states that fit your actual story on what you're trying to accomplish. And again, like there's no shortage of tools or ways to find these advisors online. I think that people should just really go through like thorough, thorough due diligence. It's like interview a few advisors. I know it's it's a pain to hear like a soft sales pitch, you know, a few times, but this is someone, again, who's gonna be what I consider is your life coach and your your quarterback to your financial life for hopefully decades from now. Um, so you want to make sure it's a good engagement up front.

SPEAKER_00

You know, and if if someone is trying to find a financial advisor and trying to fight, figure out if someone's the right fit, how do you recommend people going about finding an advisor that works for them?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Um, again, it's I would determine whether or not first they want to work with someone in person or remotely. So if you if they're big on, you know, having face-to-face contact, if they only trust people that they can shake their hand, I feel like that's the the number one screener at first. Aside from that, um there's a lot of great directories out there. There's fee only, um, fee-only network, advice-only network. So if you want a financial advisor that only gives you advice and doesn't manage assets because you feel like you can do that yourself or there's a conflict of interest there. If you want to do a financial advisor that does flat fees, there's flat fee directories out there. If you want to look at financial advisories, um directories that are fee only and don't accept commission, there's some like fiduciary check out there. So there's a there's a lot of great resources out there. And again, if these directories are doing a good job, you should be able to interface with a lot of AI and chatbots to describe exactly what you're looking for. And uh the cream should rise to the top in terms of the results and the citations, too.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I love that. And you know, it's like I think that you have to know what to look for as well. You know, and I think that that's something that you know, I I recommend people start having conversations about money. As awkward as it can be, ask your friends, hey, what are you doing with your money? Do you have an advisor? Do you have someone you can trust? And sometimes people are like, yeah, I do. And sometimes they'll tell you, you know what, I've tried a couple people, but this was my experience, you know. And I think, but just getting informed and talking to people, I wish we could all talk about money a little bit more. That's one of the points of this podcast because I feel like people kind of handle their money stuff in a silo, you know? And I think that that is never a good thing. And you have to figure out how to talk to people about. About what it is that they are feeling about money and how they interact with it, you know? Because at the end of the day, if we're not having these conversations, you're not going to know anything, you know?

SPEAKER_02

And that's the best part is like a most financial advisors earn their clients on a referral basis. So people are talking about money with their friends and family and they're referring them to their financial advisors. You know, the great part is that, you know, you might be referred to someone, which is fantastic. But again, go into the meeting with like a fact-finding mission of see how this financial advisor is. You already know that they work with one of your friends or family, which is great. But go else and go out there and see what else is out there too. You know, you're going to learn a little snippet from interviewing each financial advisor. You're going to go home to your homework and research what he or she said in that particular instance and then come up with like an educated guess at the end on where you think the best the best move is with your money. Or, you know, if you only want to engage with an advisor on like a one-time basis, too, just to check in, you know, it doesn't necessarily need to be like an ongoing relationship or engagement. There's every single flavor of fee model of engagement time out there.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Well, I want to ask you another question too, because if someone listening only has a little bit of money saved and feels behind in life, where should they actually start?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think, you know, from like an emotional standpoint, it's like step back and be thankful first. You know, like we live in like an extremely prosperous country if you're living in the US already, you know. So like in terms of behind, I think we're we're really lucky to be born and living in a great economy like the United States. Um, so there's that at first, just some gratitude and appreciation on where you're at in life. Second, secondly, is again, um, talking with people about money is is great. See where other your peers are around and what they're doing, who their trusted advisors are. And then again, start it, get investing. You know, like it starts with a budget and it starts with a plan, but later downstream comes like the actual implementation of the investing aspect and um taking on some of that risk relative to your age and um comfort level. Um, the sooner the better.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. I I want to ask you this too, because AI is becoming a huge thing in finance right now. What excites you about it and what worries you?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think um it's exciting for financial advisors because they're going to be able to offer more to their clients. Um, my my personal perspective is that financial advisors are going to build out a lot of capacity within their practice that potentially they can help more people, but no financial advisor wants to meet with someone five days a week for eight hours a day, right? Like that's exhausting. Um, and they they wouldn't be able to keep track from a mental standpoint, in my opinion, all of those relationships. But um, as they build capacity in their practice, they can add better services and more services to their existing client book, you know. So where you may have had to gone go here for tax, here for estate planning, here for insurance, a lot of this can be unified within one conversation with your financial advisor as the quarterback, um, which I think is is becoming more and more popular now. Whereas maybe 20 years ago, your financial advisor just checked in with you on your accounts and how your your investments were doing. It wasn't anything more than that. So I'm super excited about that, is that clients are just gonna get a heightened experience with the human advisor right now. From an AI perspective, for just clients out in the ether and like doing research, I think it's helpful that they can double check what their advisor is saying and um keep up with any questions that they have m may have on an ad hoc basis. I'm not saying that, you know, AI is going to replace financial advisors at all. I think people want, again, that life coach um aspect of the engagement as well as the accountability. I think accountability is huge, is like I can't hold ChatGPT or Claude accountable for why my investments are down or why my insurance didn't work out the way I thought it was going to. Um, like we we still need this person to um to really we're paying this person money, right? So there's that accountability factor.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. And I think that one of the things that I I am I'm really tied to is like people still want to talk to people, you know, and I think that there's gonna be a space for AI to just help us supercharge some of our information and such. But like at the end of the day, I want someone that can make me feel safe. And, you know, that safety is something that I generally find from another person, you know, a person who's been there, person who's been through that experience, a person who's had the ups and downs, who's done the best they can and then hit a wall. And how did they move beyond that wall? You know, I those are the types of things that I think of as, you know, part of the direction that's that I still think is gonna be important for the human side, you know?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I agree too. And especially the fact that, like, I think advisors have been saying this for a long time, but it hasn't really come to fruition, is that there's there's gonna be a little bit of fee compression in the industry, which is good for society because now more people can have access to financial advisors. And you can just choose the chan the financial advisor that you like the most. You know, if you just like hanging out with this guy or gal, great. You know, like that's that's a huge part of the relationship, is like you enjoy having conversations and talking with this person. You know, they could be uh the best portfolio manager or know that have the best connections to the best attorneys in the state, but you just don't like them as a person. Well, guess what? There's there's someone else out there who, you know, probably has a really competitive rate that you really just like hanging out with, you know. Lots of financial advisors, you know, do client appreciation or like hang out um with their clients, you know, because they're spending a significant part of their life and having this really intimate relationship with them, you know. So that's that's a part that's like a great part that I'm gonna see with AI is that fees will come down. We're gonna be able to work with our ideal persona client as well, and more people are gonna have access to the service.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. You know, and it's like, I think there's something to be said for um being able to serve more people and also being able to serve the people that are a right fit for you, you know? And I think if AI can help with that, that's a great thing. Uh, you know, if you were to like tell people, someone listening is like, what's one money lesson you think everyone should learn before they become an adult? Every kid should learn before they become an adult. Is there anything that you think that everyone should learn, but maybe people haven't?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think the time value of money compounding is definitely the most important part. Um, you know, it it touches every single part of your financial life from debt, you know, like how does this debt compound? But again, on the other side of the balance, she's like, how do my savings and how do my investing compound? And, you know, like there's there's all these other ancillary things that are gonna um funnel into that is like, well, if I pay more in taxes, then I have less of a base for compounding for my, you know, my future well-being, right? So it's like, let's try to minimize taxes in a legal way so I have more money to compound over time. You know, it always comes back to like the fundamental equation of just time value, money, and and compounding.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. You know, I think it's something that people just don't always understand. And like, again, coming back to finding a great quarterback, finding a great person who can help you learn about this stuff and ask the right questions. Because if you're not asking the right questions, you're not getting the right information, you're not gonna know how to continue growing, you know. So uh I want to ask you this like, if you could go back in time and give your advice to your younger self, what advice would you give yourself?

SPEAKER_02

I, you know, it it's it's difficult because you know, you want to live your in you know, your 20s um to the fullest of your like physical capabilities, right? You wanna you wanna go on that hike, you want to go rock climbing, you wanna go surfing when do you may not be able to do that within like your 30s because you might have a family. Um honestly, I think that saving is great, but also understand that it's not everything. You should still enjoy your life. Um, a lot of the time earlier I was just really gung-ho on saving certain things when I just when I probably should have spent it to go do an experience. I'm not gonna go um, you know, be too mad at myself because I've done a lot of great things and been super lucky over the over the years, but um any any early person who has, you know, that that good foundation, good basis with a good job that's really worried about saving is like take a step back, enjoy where you are today because the time and your relationships aren't going to come back. You know, you can always earn the money later, but like really enjoy the moment at as it is right now. And I think honestly, from the life coast perspective of financial advisors is like to help, you know, retirees mostly spend more of their money and um to help guide that conversation. And I think there's a lot of things to be said about transparency with financial advisors is that um some financial advisors might be incentivized to have their clients not spend their money, you know, but it's you know, to find someone you trust that's going to incentivize you to live your best life, spend the money you weight the way you want to spend it.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Um, where can people go to find out more about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. Right now we're we're really excited about Fiduciary Gives. So it's fiduciarygives.org. If you're any type of person, it doesn't even need to be in the U.S. We had some candidates from Canada. If you're interested in earning the CFP marks, go to fiduciarygives.org and apply for the scholarship. It's non-discriminatory, so anyone can apply for it. And we've had two great people that we've already funded this year to earn their CFP marks that we've been really excited about and proud of a lot of our donors to help support. And again, if you're a donor, we would love that um people can align with um what we're trying to do for like the financial world and financial advisory is let's create more and compound more um fiduciary financial advisors that are going to do right by their client over time. So check out fiduciarygifts.org.