Episode 135: How the Whole Wealth Journey Begins: Understanding Your Financial Security.

Gratitude is a big part of the Whole Wealth Journey and it’s the staple Jim and Matthew use to kick off each show. But this episode is a bit different. Yes, you'll hear gratitude for a family visit to New York and a bucket-list golf trip to Ireland, but the true purpose of sharing gratitude is revealed … hint … it has nothing to do with money yet everything to do with wealth!

As the conversation continues, Jim can't ignore a recent investment he made in something that left Matthew shocked and (almost) speechless.

Next the fellas dive into the first few elements of The Whole Wealth Journey through the lens of Jim and his wife, Beth, and Matthew and his wife, Amie. The guys reveal what financial security means to them, and what keeps them up at night about money. Their unique perspectives might really surprise you! 

Jim’s and Matthew’s unique stories serve as a gateway to a broader discussion on how childhood experiences shape financial habits and money dynamics within personal and professional partnerships. 

What does financial security look like for you? What keeps you up at night about money? 

To learn more about the Gebhardt Group, visit: https://gebhardtgroupinc.com/

Chapter Summaries
(00:00) Gratitude for Trips and Visits
Gratitude, family, and personal growth are discussed as we share our recent experiences and journeys, including a trip to Ireland and revisiting a ferry after 30 years.

(11:31) Exploring Autonomous Vehicles and Gratitude
Tesla ownership offers economic benefits, minimal maintenance, tax incentives, and potential for autonomous driving, with reflections on gratitude and staying present.

(22:49) Financial Security
Jim and Beth's differing views on financial security as business owners and how it evolves over time.

(36:45) Uncovering Money Histories for Financial Security
Financial security for business owners requires understanding personal relationships with money, influenced by childhood experiences and impacting couples' spending and decision-making.

(46:42) Financial Security Concerns
Understanding financial fears and obstacles can lead to effective solutions for achieving financial security and peace of mind.

You can learn more about The Whole Wealth Journey by visiting The Gebhardt Group. You can follow us on Instagram @thewholewealthjourney

Transcript

JIm Gebhardt: [00:00:00] What was money like for you as a kid? Ooh, what was the earliest memory you have about money? Right. And when we ask that question of clients, typically again, married couples, it is breathtaking to hear the differences.

Welcome to the whole wealth journey. Wealth with a 

Y. 

JIm Gebhardt: What does that mean? What does that mean? Are we spelling it funny? 

Uh, no, I think we're using the 

JIm Gebhardt: word Y. The 

word Y. Okay. Not the letter Y, the actual word Y. 

JIm Gebhardt: Well, I know why. Why? Because we want to help people get on their path, then the path is all about their why.

And it's about aligning your finances with the people, the experience, and the passions that give their 

JIm Gebhardt: lives true meaning. It's getting way beyond the bank statements, the brokerage statements, the trust documents, the life insurance, and taking a deeper dive [00:01:00] into your why. 

Well, admittedly, we're not for everyone.

This is different. We're for the bold ones who really want to dive deeper and seek a life that resonates with who they really are at their core. Who finds value and vulnerability? 

JIm Gebhardt: Well, 

you and I do. 

JIm Gebhardt: You and I do. And that's where we want to play, but not everybody is comfortable with that vulnerability.

Maybe we should introduce ourselves. What do you think? Oh, that's a good idea. Jim Gebhardt. And I'm Matthew Grishman. We are the co creators of the podcast, The Whole Wealth Journey. Ready to find your why? Then let's get started and get you one step closer to unlocking your inner wealth and well being 

JIm Gebhardt: So what are you grateful for today?

I'm grateful for getting my voice back a little bit. You kind of hear this little mess this little train wreck in my throat It's 

JIm Gebhardt: not quite the barry white I was hoping for. 

Yeah Well, hey, baby, I can I can do that I can I can really get into my my baritone here today if we If we need me to gotcha. [00:02:00] Yes, but I'm grateful to be able to talk a little bit today yesterday I wasn't so sure we were gonna be making it in the studio today.

So I'm grateful to be here I'm also really grateful. We just spent about 10 days back on the East Coast first time on the East Coast in almost a year and a half since my little adventure in cardiology began in April of 23. My last visit to the East Coast prior to this trip was for opening day at Yankee Stadium and the Giants played right.

The Yankees in New York, April 1st of 23. So and just for clarification purposes. Yeah. This was a trip. This was yes, this was no. Well, it was a trip. But it was really more of a visit, right? Yes. So just 

JIm Gebhardt: to clarify for our tribe is we see adventures like this in three different ways. There's a visit. Yes, generally is to family.

Yes, seeing people, but more specifically family. Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah 

JIm Gebhardt: a trip Which is probably a blend [00:03:00] of some family and maybe a site or two Let's when you just a little bit of relaxation, but you're going you just did a trip. You just did I just Barcelona that was a trip. Oh, yeah, I'll come back to that.

Absolutely. And then there's the vacation And the vacation, now, it's different for everybody, right? It's 

horizontal for me. It's 

JIm Gebhardt: horizontal by a body of water. Yes. Or a pretty mountain. Me, it's more of a beach and a body of water. But it's, it's much more of a do nothing. 

Yeah. 

JIm Gebhardt: Now I know tribe members that are listening that they can't do that.

Oh, they can't sit and 

do that for a week. Yeah, being a human being, even though that's what we are, is often tough to be. We're really human doings. 100%. Right. And, and to spend a week, a full week or, or better yet, two weeks playing the role of a human being on vacation. Oh, baby. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

JIm Gebhardt: So you [00:04:00] had a kind of a combination of a visit.

With a little trip. With 

a little trip and grateful to see my people and spend time with them, my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister in law, my Amy's entire family we got to spend time with. It was wonderful. I also have a little bit of gratitude because we braved the Long Island Sound from New London, Connecticut to Orion Point, New York for the first time.

Almost 30 years. Hmm. Amy and I to do it on like a Friday afternoon. We did it on a Thursday morning. Okay on my son on miles 24th birthday When Amy and I were oh gosh kids 23 years old We had a car our first car was stolen in Forest Hills, Queens and her sister Donna was kind enough to to give us her 1982 Mazda B2000 pickup truck.

We put it on the back of the ferry to bring it home and hit this winter storm, this [00:05:00] nor'easter, that put 20 foot seas in the Long Island Sound. It almost dumped our truck off the back of the ferry. Amy and I swore we will never, ever take this ferry ever again. 

JIm Gebhardt: Well, 

Never is a long time. It is. And after 30 years of doing the commute between our families up and down 95 through Connecticut, suffering for hours and hours and hours in traffic, we finally said, we're going to try the boat again.

And it was lovely. Oh, nice. Such a, that was the only part. That was vacation, because we actually just, we sat on the boat and just enjoyed the cruise. Yeah. It was lovely. Very nice. Very lovely. How about you, brother? 

JIm Gebhardt: What's your attitude to it? I could spend the whole show. I had the trip of a lifetime in July, a little serendipitous, that in June, I was reading an email from our golf club on last call for the trip to Ireland, and I was like, what trip to, what trip to, what trip to Ireland?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I open it up and I [00:06:00] start reading it and it's, you know, click here for the itinerary. And I'm having this little thought cause I've got a very specific list of courses that I would like to play in Southern Ireland. And I'm like, there's no way there's, it's just not going to be the holy smokes.

It's the entire list. All six sitting there on a platter just got to say yes. Yeah. And it's an incredibly self indulgent thing for me to go trotting off. For eight days and spend the money or as we like to say invest the money Yeah in a trip like that and God bless Beth. She was like you got to go. Yeah, you got to go You I mean, how do you know if or when you're ever gonna be able to do that trip let alone Get enough of your people together to commit to a big trip like that Um, and organize it and everything else heard.

Yeah. I mean, you, you T so you T this up that you were our last episode. You were going on the trip. Yes. And now you're back. I'm back. And it was 

JIm Gebhardt: how was the [00:07:00] investment? What was the, how was the ROI? 1 billion percent. Wow. Everything about it. I met a lot of new people, great new friends. Took some friendships that I had and, and kind of made them deeper and more meaningful.

The six courses were everything and then some, like just dream come true stuff for a freaky golfer like me. And one of the things I'm most excited about is all the fitness, all the emphasis on, you know, health and strength and all this good stuff that I've been on since November. So Oh, I'm really glad I did it because it was about 50 miles of walking in the sand dunes and That took a bit yeah, but as I may have said on the show before I think the Irish are some of the most Friendly kind sweet people that are on earth and we could stand a big dose of them wherever we go But, I mean, the little towns that we were hanging out in along Southern Ireland and kind of we made our way up the, uh, the West Coast.

And, you know, that, as that was wrapping up, [00:08:00] then it came to the realization, it's like, no, wait, I'm, I'm actually, I'm actually going on to Barcelona. 

Right. 

JIm Gebhardt: To hang out with Grace. Right. Your trip's going to a visit. My, my trip is going to a visit to visit our daughter, Grace, who is, who is doing an internship in Barcelona.

Right. And our son Jack, we gave him a, uh, an airline ticket for his 18th birthday to go spend some time with his sister in advance of my getting there. It wasn't intentional on my part, but I was so focused and fixated on the golf trip that I did next to nothing relative to other than, you know, booking an apartment.

Grace and Jack did the itinerary. So there was definitely vacation components to it, not necessarily lounge chair on the beach. But in terms of all the planning and all of the scheduling and the logistics and the It 

was a show up. I just I 

JIm Gebhardt: just kind of showed up. 

Yeah, 

JIm Gebhardt: and Barcelona put it on the list if you haven't been it is utterly utterly utterly magical It is on the list the vibrancy of of [00:09:00] that town and the people and I mean at at 11 12 o'clock at night Down these you know what we would consider to be these big boulevards.

They call them plazas There's not hundreds of people out, there are thousands of people out. Wow. Walking around, street vendors, cafes are open, I mean just, rooftops are a big thing there, so we went to a few rooftop bar restaurants and you're looking out over the city or you're looking at the Sagrada Familia or, I mean it is, it is just an absolutely magical place and the other thing that, as an American, that was pretty shocking is it's also not expensive.

Huh. Relative to here. Relative to Northern California. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So lodging, transportation, public transit was awesome. Restaurants, I mean a cappuccino was like 2 euro. Wow. We had some beautiful meals that were at least half the price of what they would be here, if not more. Wow. And then to just see Jack blossom with his independence and traveling independently to get there and kind [00:10:00] of being the leader of the pack because Grace had her internship during the day and so she was a little bit committed, which is understandable.

But it was just so much fun to spend time with Jack one on one like that and then Just to see Grace blossoming in her own way, having now done some, you know, solo travel on her own. It's just a wonderful growth edge. So 

that's awesome. 

JIm Gebhardt: The other thing I have to share in the way of gratitude is I have seen the future.

Oh, 

JIm Gebhardt: you have. And it's got me just like, my head is spinning. So in 10 days, we have bought a Tesla. Right. 

The probably the biggest shock. You have dropped on my lap in, in a minute or two. 

JIm Gebhardt: Well, 

I was, I was quite surprised when you delivered that news to me on Monday. How so? It just wasn't something I expected.

Okay, good. I like to keep you on your toes. Yeah, I just didn't, I didn't expect it. I expected you to 

JIm Gebhardt: always have something that grumbled. Oh, well, we will have a grumbler. And when you start to look at the economics of, [00:11:00] The electric vehicle, in particular the, the Tesla, relative to our, our solar plan, right?

Our, our solar panels. It becomes an unbelievably economical decision, but that's not, that's not where I've seen the future. The last two days I have used the temporarily free autopilot feature. Temporarily free. So I think for the first 30 or 60 days of owning the vehicle, They give you the software to be able to use the autopilot, the self driving autonomous capability.

Okay, of course it's a subscription. 

JIm Gebhardt: And I've done it twice. 

Oh. 

JIm Gebhardt: And most recently last night with both the boys in the car. Okay. Because I did it the night before with Grant in the car. And it is unbelievable. It is freaky, crazy, wild, mind boggling to be in a vehicle, in commuter traffic, stop and go, Periods where you accelerate, sometime you're on the freeway, sometime you're on surface streets.

It navigates stop signs, [00:12:00] it makes 90 degree turns. How relaxing of an experience was that for you? It's getting more relaxing. We were DEFCON 5 the first time I did it. I was gonna say. Where I literally had my hands next to the wheel, my foot hovering over the pedals to either go gas or brake depending on what was needed.

Right. And I started to relax a lot more yesterday. Yeah. It does prompt you to put your hands on the wheel periodically and give a very slight little, just, it's, it's, it's your acknowledge, you know, your acknowledgement to the computer that you're still there. 

Yeah. 

JIm Gebhardt: Wild. 

Well, I will throw out a shout, a shout out, a blast from the past to our old friend John Dreeby.

And, uh, say thank you. You might remember we had him in the studio about, 

JIm Gebhardt: um 14 years 

ago. Yeah, feels like it. I think he was here in 20 COVID times? 21, maybe? Like, around Valentine's Day, 21. We brought him in because we, you know, we just, it was car season, and you and I were getting lots of questions from clients on, you know, do I buy, do I [00:13:00] lease?

Do I get into the electric thing yet? And he was kind enough to tell us it was probably about three years away. Okay. Okay. You know, give it, give it like three more years, let more come to market. And I think part of what you explained to me on Monday about your decision to jump into the world of Mr.

Musk's automobiles was that when you look at the price point on these things now, it's almost irresponsible financially to not consider. The Tesla as an option based on where they price point it. 

JIm Gebhardt: That's exactly where we got to. I thought they were more expensive Yeah, certainly you can spend more. 

And that was John's prediction in our studio three years ago.

Give it three years Prices will come down Technology will be easier to use. 

JIm Gebhardt: The other thing I will say is it was the most millennial transaction I've ever experienced There was so little human interaction. Yeah, the the the The whole transaction was done on the app. Of course, in terms of ordering the vehicle, going through this, you know, kind of the [00:14:00] validation process, we leased it because it was so economical.

You get the 7, 500 incentive, you know, tax credit off of that. They just take that right off the price and then it drops into the lease. And now you start to go, okay, well, there's going to be next to no maintenance on this car for three years, other than a tire change. I mean, there's no oil, there's no oil filter, there's no transmission, there's no fluids, there's no.

And you start to go, and we have enough solar in our program to charge this thing. We have a battery. Yeah. Economically, it starts to, you know, it starts to make a heck of a lot of sense. Nice work. And, but I've seen the future because The autonomous drives. The autonomous thing is, is very real. And I think it's, I think it's going to be here a lot sooner than we think in terms of, you know, the, the majority.

I think we will get to that a lot faster. 

Come on, put the stake in the sand. Make the prediction. Four years with me. Well, you made it with me. What, what are our children of the last generation? Oh 

JIm Gebhardt: yeah. Cute little story. We have a, an old Jeep Wrangler, [00:15:00] 2011 Jeep Wrangler, and that's, we parked that on the street.

We don't have a big enough driveway for the fleet of cars that we're dealing with right now with four kids. And where are you going to put this helicopter? Right. This, this young couple. Is walking by with their three year old and I can hear him from a hundred yards away and I'm in the Jeep and The mom goes.

Oh, there's the man that owns the orange Jeep. Let's go say hi So they come over and I'm like, hey, buddy. You want to get in the Jeep? He's like no no, no, and I said well, you know to the mom I said someday he'll be probably driving something like this and she was very quick with her reply She's like I doubt my son will ever learn how to drive Whoa A three year old kid that's 12 years away, 12, 15, you know, 14, 13, 14 years away from, from a permit and a driver's license.

And she's like, I don't think he's going to learn how to drive. Because at that point, the autonomy, you know, the, the, the nature, not even going to be pushing buttons. That was the other thing. You're just programming the computer. That was the other [00:16:00] thing. Grant, the other day, I was trying to find something on the, on, on the screen.

It's like, dad, why, why are you pressing the buttons on the screen? Just hit the button on the on the steering wheel and speak. What do you want it to do? I was like, oh, well, oh, yeah. Okay, babe. That sounds like a good idea to me So anyway, like I said, I could go on and on and on about gratitude. 

Well, I appreciate that.

That's that's a fun conversation I love kind of thinking about where things are going I wonder, is, is the future going to be completely autonomous in cars, or are we going to kind of keep this quasi, hey, for the big hauls, yeah, we're going to push the autonomous button on the car, but at times we're going to need to hand fly this thing, right?

It's kind of almost how you and I talk about investing. I think in certain 

JIm Gebhardt: weather conditions, you, you would probably want hands on it. Yeah. But in stop and go, stop and go traffic and. Sure, long haul, like, you know, this wasn't a long haul, but when I come up here, it's about an hour and a half. Yeah. I did not do [00:17:00] that.

I did not use it today. I don't know why. It's probably because it's not front of mind for me. Yeah. I couldn't figure out how to set the cruise control. That was funny. I mean, I even, I even talked to the computer. I did. I said, Hey, function cruise control. Function's not available. Right. So I, you know, I'll, I'll figure that one out.

But anyway, I do think it's going to, I mean, I, I thought about it a lot for my parents. Yeah. Yeah. As they were aging, how nice it would have been for them to just be able to go sit in a vehicle and speak to, you know, please take me to the nearest Dunkin Donuts. Yeah, that'd be great. And the door would close, and off they would go, and they'd have a lovely time, and they could, you know, either take that vehicle or request another one from Uber or whoever.

Yeah. It's coming. It's absolutely coming. So, that's a wrap. 

Nice. Well done. Well, you know, this show just is one big riff on gratitude, isn't it? It really is at the end of the day. I mean, that's the, that's the center of it. That's one of the things I'm so grateful for, what we do around here is, is we get to sit in here and [00:18:00] allow on the outside a reflection of, of our core values on the inside.

And, and gratitude is A biggie. A centerpiece in that. It's It's just such a, uh, like a grounding exercise, such a get present exercise. It, it, it's amazing how much time I still, even on this journey that I've been on with you for years, how much time I can still catch myself in the past, in the future, outside of what's going on right now.

It doesn't happen as much as it used to. I'm getting really good at anchoring to the present moment. Gratitude, expressing gratitude, sharing what I'm grateful for, or what I'm looking forward to, there, there's a, a, a gratitude essence. When you and I talk about things that we're looking forward to on the calendar, there's just something about that that kind of flushes the decks and, replaces any kind of spilkus I'm feeling about what might have happened yesterday or any kind of spilkus I [00:19:00] might have over the uncertainty of, you know, two or three hours from now.

Right. It's incredible how it gets us focused and present. 

JIm Gebhardt: It's 

my anchor. 

JIm Gebhardt: When I somehow get away from it or I forget about it, or it's so easy to see how the scarcity and the negativity and the doubt and the worry and everybody, all my old friends, they come showing up. 

Yep. Well, on an uninvited. Yep. But they show up.

Oh your friends now I get where you're going your friends like 

JIm Gebhardt: scarcity worry fear anxiety fear Negativity anger. Yeah, all those guys. Yeah, although that mean they hang out together. 

Yeah. Well, they're a big gang that Has been created to protect you keep you safe. Sure Right? Sure. At least that's what they 

JIm Gebhardt: think their job is.

Sure. Now that I no longer live in a cave, and wild, you know, wild beasts aren't coming to eat me every 

day. Right. We can evolve. Well, yeah, you could kind of put that stuff aside and use what we call the pause button. That's a much better way to do it. I love our [00:20:00] tool of gratitude. It, it, it's kind of how we start our whole process.

And it's really a great way to kind of kick off How we're going to lay out the entire curriculum of the whole wealth journey. It really starts with gratitude and the reason why you and I, I think, are being very deliberate. And taking the time to express gratitude to one another is to show by example to the tribe today How we start the whole wealth journey every time we get together and get in it Yep, right and and you know here we are at the very beginning of the whole wealth journey where we're just gonna get started on the right path unpacking Somebody's story and and you know, we'll we'll model that with each other today and how we do that but it always starts with gratitude for the purpose of Getting incredibly present in the moment the biggest benefit To the whole wealth journey and being a participant in the journey is being present to the journey.[00:21:00] 

If your head is worried about what happened yesterday, or you and I get too caught up in what the future could hold for us, right? I look at our relationship, you and me, and I think about the times that you and I have had had struggle in our relationship. And it's quite often we get hung up on the past or we get consumed with what tomorrow might look like.

And the solution you and I have always had To flush the decks and get back to the essence of you loving me and me loving you is gratitude. 

JIm Gebhardt: Well, 

why is that? 

JIm Gebhardt: Why is that? How does that happen? It's the biochemical cascade that happens. Sure. When you drop into the gratitude. Yes, absolutely. It's literally a chemical chain reaction in the body.

Yes. That flushes the decks, and part of the reason we've always used that with clients when they come in or zoom, we don't know what their day's been like. Right. We don't, we have no idea. I had a zoom with a client last week where I could tell he was a little [00:22:00] edgy, little, 

not himself. 

JIm Gebhardt: Yeah. And it was just like, what's on the gratitude list.

He struggled, struggled. Sure. His wife did it effortlessly and he kind of just kind of went along with that. You don't have to do this. Like there's no perfect way to do this. No. And you could most certainly fake it sometimes too. It, our team calls, we've had a number of team calls somewhere in the four or 5, 000.

Where, you know, a, a, a team member or two might, might be struggling a little bit with finding something that they're grateful for. 

Yes. 

JIm Gebhardt: And sometimes it's just so obvious. It's like, I'm alive. 

Yeah. 

JIm Gebhardt: I can see. 

Yeah. 

JIm Gebhardt: I've seen some reels on Instagram lately of, it's been two women. They're paraplegic. They're in wheelchairs.

And yet the exercise routines they do are just like, you're what? You're, you're, you're what? So I've sent it to the family as kind of a, you know, let's not just take everything for granted that we can, you know, walk and walk. Yeah. [00:23:00] Right. I mean, keep it that simple if you're stuck. Right. Absolutely. And if you can't walk, maybe you can see.

Exactly. 

JIm Gebhardt: And if you can't see 

and walk, maybe you 

JIm Gebhardt: can smell 

or hear. Right. I mean, or maybe you're just alive experiencing life today. 

JIm Gebhardt: Yeah. 

Right. Somehow, whatever that is, what's that one thing? Because where this becomes. So, critically important is the very first question that you and I get to sit down and discuss with a prospective client, a friend, each other.

When we talk about unpacking your story and what are you grateful for, we have to get hyper present because the next question that comes out of your mouth or my mouth is, what does financial security look like to you? When we start the whole wealth journey. We can't start something if we don't know where we are, right?

I mean, where are we going? What are we trying to accomplish financially, relationally, experientially, professionally, [00:24:00] in life? I think sometimes people have an easier time knowing where they're going than knowing where they are. Sure. And yet we really can't get where we're going if we don't know where we are.

So you and I have designed the whole wealth journey. to create this starting point where we meet people exactly where they are and we start the conversation with just understanding a little bit about what financial security means to you. What does it look like in your life? Do you have it? Do you not have it?

What does financial security look like to you? What does that mean to you, Jim Gebhardt? What does financial security look like? That has evolved quite a bit for Beth and I over the years. Sure. Has it been the same for the two of you or is it generally different? 

JIm Gebhardt: Uh, it's generally different in concept.

Okay. 

Tell me more. 

JIm Gebhardt: I've been betting on myself since I was 26 years old. Sure. So, I [00:25:00] don't really, I've never really worried about, you know, the job market or my boss or the company or the culture of the company or any of these things, because I've been betting on myself for all these years. So financial security to me was, can I continue to perform and do my job?

Okay. So it wasn't necessarily how many dollars I had in the bank. It was about your ability to go make it. It was about my ability to keep making it. Okay. And our dear friend Glenn would, you know, kind of, uh, get in my ear every once in a while. He's like, you're like that old Doritos commercial, you know, you know, don't worry, we'll make more.

Right. I was always a top line focus guy. Right. Not so much focused on bottom line and scrimping and saving every last dollar or two, but just the belief in that I know I can make more. Right. You were a goes ins guy, not a goes outs guy. Totally. Yeah. Beth is a little bit different in the sense that the financial security from her.

For her has been having more cash in the bank. So now [00:26:00] we keep a level of cash in the bank. God bless through the success of the business. It's fine for me, but it really gives her peace of mind. And as a result of that, that security makes me feel good for her, right? Like if that, if that really gives her peace.

Yeah. Fabulous. Well, of course, there's going to be a little bit of an interdependency there, right? Yeah, totally. If she is feeling financially secure, that. That helps me a little bit feel financially secure. I get that. What, what do you think that is? Because your, your understanding of financial security, what it means to you is very much more conceptual.

Whereas, it sounds like Beth's is much more, what's the word I'm looking for? Tactical. Tactile. Yeah. Where it's almost like, you know, if she can touch the gold and it's liquid gold, not illiquid gold, then there's a certain piece that comes with that. 

JIm Gebhardt: So as business owners, you know, we own an S corp and we file quarterly estimated taxes.

[00:27:00] Oh, it's my favorite quarterly thing to do. So. So when those quarterly estimated tax payments get flown through Gebhardt Group into our personal bank account or checking account, I, I try to have some fun with Beth on this. It's not. And the reason I say try is I also, I don't want to try to belittle the fact that, you know, she gets a lot of security from seeing the money in the bank account, right?

But I do have to burst the bubble when she sees these rather sizable deposits come in like. And. That's there for like a day. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

JIm Gebhardt: So, I mean if you need to stare at it for 24 hours or take a couple screenshots Enjoy it. Yes, because it's going in and it's going out. Yes, right. It's going to Uncle Sam.

It's going to uncle What's our governor's name? I don't know. Yeah, whoever he is Yeah, and yet that starts to become a little bit of a goal because I know how much peace it gives her yeah, right and It is definitely more. I mean, she's she is definitely more You Boots on the ground, paying the [00:28:00] bills, you know, the, the, the tactical moves in the army on the front lines and paying this bill and that bill.

And there wasn't always times where there was money left at the end of the month to pay all the bills. Yeah. And that created a tremendous amount of stress and a tremendous amount of PTSD that, you know, I owe her lots of amends on that because it's, it's been my fault wanting to start a business. Sure.

I'm, I'm much more, like I said earlier, I'm much more of the top line guy. I'm much more of the net worth statement guy where I can look at the assets, I can look at the liabilities, I can look at the growth of the business that's provides recurring revenue to all of us in the business. And I get, I get a lot of peace from that.

Yep. It's amazing how. We talk to so many people and the definition of financial security and what it looks like in your life is just different for people. Oh, it's very different. It's, we could, we could tell the stories for weeks. And it changes. Yes, it does. Right? It, it, there were times for me When financial security was about the balance sheet and the big [00:29:00] picture and look how much money I've got in the retirement accounts Then there were times when you know back in the spendthrift days for me It was all about that big future right when I didn't quite have the healthiest relationship with money It was knowing that, okay, we've got, we've got some tomorrow money put away and I've got this great job and this great career that brings me tons of cash flow and it feels like all I've got to do is show up and, 

JIm Gebhardt: and I make money, right?

Right. And then when that whole house of cards came crumbling down and I kind of rolled over into the world of being a little more miserly with my money, it was all about having money in the checking account. It was all about having. A safety net. A safety net. Knowing that I had a couple of months worth of cash in the bank.

Where, where that's changed for me and where it's expanded a little bit. And what feels like my source of financial security now is seeing stability in my money barrels. In the different kind of, [00:30:00] Barrels that I've allocated my financial resources to the money that I have available to me now when I think about What Amy and I would like to do With our lives over the next couple of years and and the money that the financial resources available to that feeling good about that Right, we'd love to buy a travel trailer again a travel travel trailer.

We haven't said those words on the show in a while We got to bring it back in case you haven't different than an RV It is it is a travel trailer is something you attach to the back of your truck You hook and go. You hook and go. Absolutely. We're, you know, we're looking to do that. We're looking to spend some time exploring the, the middle part of our country and, uh, and then when I think, you know, down the road later and potentially even never, uh, we were starting to develop some nice financial security in those barrels as well.

The biggest piece of financial security for me, I've gotten from hanging out with you and it's this belief in myself. It's this, [00:31:00] I know that if I show up as me, very clear on what my unique ability is, because of the time, energy, and financial resources you and I have given ourselves permission to invest within ourselves, to make ourselves the very best version of ourselves that we can become, I have found my greatest source of financial security is believing in me.

Right. 

JIm Gebhardt: Which is also part of the reason you're on such a health kick. Oh, absolutely. Right? Because if, if you are the franchise. Yes. Right? And there's a lot of people in our tribe listening right now that they are the franchise. Yes. Then you've got to continue to make that investment in yourself. Yes.

Right? If, if that's, if that's the single greatest risk, right? We talk about this a lot with clients in terms of looking at, looking at their universe and what is the single greatest threat to their money. 

Yeah. 

JIm Gebhardt: So, in a case like this where it's you and, you know, it's, it's you and [00:32:00] me and our ability to show up and keep doing it, then we have to put ourselves in the very best possible condition to be able to do it.

Yes. 

JIm Gebhardt: And that's a separate conversation, I realize. But I think it's, I think it's powerful if you're in a relationship to be able to sit and talk with your partner about what gives you financial security. 

Absolutely. In fact, I would suggest let's, let's invite the tribe to pause. If you haven't grabbed Any kind of writing utensil, instrument, journal, your iPad, whatever it is, you like to write down.

This is what we would do if you were sitting in the office with us on day one. I mean, we're here in a podcast studio doing identically what we would do if you were in a conference room in our Lafayette or Roseville office. Which is starting this conversation, unpacking your story. Getting an idea of what financial security looks like to you.

And we would be leading the conversation by sharing examples within our own families, our clients, our [00:33:00] friends, people who've given us permission to talk. So let's take a minute and make this interactive and spend a minute. What gives you financial security? What does that look like to you? 

JIm Gebhardt: What does it look like in your life?

And just let it go. I mean, if it's a writing exercise, just write. Yeah. Think less, feel more. Right? Drop into your heart. Don't get all heady. Don't get up in your head with, well, you know what my father told me. I mean, just, bah, bah, bah, bah. Stop. Get out of your head, and drop into your heart with what feels right.

What feels right? What is it? Is it cash in the bank? Is it no debt? Is it guaranteed lifetime income? Is it, you know, what is it? And 

just Is it keeping myself healthy so I can continue to show up every day? 

JIm Gebhardt: Exactly. 

Yeah. And 

JIm Gebhardt: just let it flow on what comes up. And you, you know, [00:34:00] you're not going to capture it all in this instance.

So keep this little notebook around because stuff's going to bubble. 

That's important. Stuff's going to bubble up. Dude, you just said something very, very important. We got to slow that down. You're not supposed to know the answer completely right now. Mm hmm. This is this is something that more will be revealed Because if you've never sat down and gone through the exercise Of making it real And what I mean by making it real is getting it out of your head as a random thought that comes in and out 

JIm Gebhardt: and On to and actually 

on to paper like bring it to life Bring your vision your dream of what financial security looks like to life By getting it out of your head out of your body onto paper and then You You gotta share it with someone.

If you have a partner in life who might also have a definition of financial security, what a great conversation starter. Hey, I was listening to this podcast. These two knucklehead [00:35:00] financial guys are trying to get me to think about things and get it on paper. And I decided to do this little writing exercise on what financial security looked like to me.

And, you know, I was curious what that looked like to you. And for a lot 

JIm Gebhardt: of business owners that have been blowing and going and, you know, got a hunch, bet a bunch on a business and a new direction and a new opportunity and a new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new. A lot of times that partner, that spouse.

It's just kind of riddled with the side effects of all that risk. Yes. And they covet. Yes. I use that word very intentionally. They covet financial security. Yes. They covet whatever lots of cash is to you, the listener. They covet that in cash. There's a lot of powerful conversations that happen in our conference rooms.

But one of, one of the ones that really kind of makes me smile is when. We asked a client that question, and because we, we bring it back up when we get to the money barrels conversation, which we won't get into that today, [00:36:00] in context of the now barrel and the money that's just going to set aside for today, when I asked that question to clients, so, you know, Martha, what would be a, I mean, like a, just a dreamy amount of cash to just have on hands at all times?

Well, I've never actually, I've never thought about that. I mean, you know, there are times when we have cash, but we don't, you know. There's not, there's always some new business thing or new investment, or I, I don't, I, you know, they're stuck. They can't answer the question. Sure. Right. Okay. You don't have to answer it today.

And then the next meeting, or they follow up with an email or something and, and, and they, they give a number that kind of often knocks my socks off. 

Sure. Well, some, because again, this is where more will be revealed. Sometimes an entrepreneur doesn't know That having two or three hundred grand sitting in cash at all times could give them the sense of financial security that they've never had, right?

And this is something with a partner that you and I have experienced firsthand and we've seen firsthand in the [00:37:00] office Which is your partner who's watching the melee of the entrepreneur that craves financial security Is going to be so much more in alignment with you if they know you value financial security.

Yes You And, and again, you and I had to learn that through the school of hard knocks. Yes. Of blowing and going. And as much as you and I have valued financial security, I'm not sure. You and I always did a great job of communicating what that looked like to Amy and to Beth. Uh, no, I've done a terrible job of that.

Right. 

JIm Gebhardt: Ditto. And I think what is, 'cause I would present the balance sheet. Sure. Right. I would present the net worth statement. And how great we are. Yeah, just try to try to demonstrate that we're fine financially, right? And she would show me that there's eight dollars and 72 cents in the in the check and be like, but we're fine over here Yeah, and she's like, uh huh, but the goes outs are cuckoo, right?

How do I buy milk today? Right. Yeah. And a lot of [00:38:00] that goes back to our 08 mess. Yes. Right? Our 08 near disaster, which still was one of the greatest things that's ever happened to me. Happened for you, maybe? Oh, it absolutely happened for me. In the long run. At a point. In the short run, it definitely happened to me.

Well it didn't because you said you were laying in bed asking God to take you every night. But yes. And he didn't. So nothing happened to you. True. Yeah. 

JIm Gebhardt: Well said. 

Thank you. 

JIm Gebhardt: So it's a powerful question. Yeah, the concept of financial security and we live in a day at an age where You know pensions are Realistically a thing of the past unless you're a public servant and there are there are tools and strategies that we use with clients all The time that we can manufacture That kind of a private pension Yeah But the onus is on you right and if you own the if you're a business owner The onus is on you to deliver and to get, you know, to create it, to create the cash, the investments, the liquidity, the cashflow, the assets, whatever you want to call it that are going to get you to the promised 

land.

That are going to give you and [00:39:00] your partner and the people who depend upon you this sense of financial security. Yes. What we're really doing here and kicking off the whole wealth journey is, is going through what is. Kind of step one is all about and and in a traditional financial planning sense What what the tribe might be familiar with if you've ever gone through any version of financial planning is in the beginning There's always this kind of discovery process right this this get to know you get to know each other and Where you and I have found our industry has missed an incredible opportunity is they've made discovery predominantly you A financial conversation.

Oh, yeah, and and you and I start there, right question number one is Understanding the definition of financial security and whether or not you've successfully communicated that to your partner if you have a partner in life There's a lot more To the human side the human centered approach that you and I take to wealth management that comes out in a question [00:40:00] like What is financial security look like to you?

I feel that that tells me a lot about you as a human you as a person 

JIm Gebhardt: I think it is an opportunity to continue the curiosity around it. 

Yeah 

JIm Gebhardt: in the context of What we could consider an extra credit opportunity for our tribe today. Oh, tell me more. Uh, which is, what was money like for you as a kid? Ooh.

What was the earliest memory you have about money, right? And when we ask that question of clients, typically, again, married couples, it is breathtaking to hear the differences. I'm thinking of a couple right now who you know, the husband's passed away. He worked for a very large oil company. The wife, she was the youngest, is the youngest of five.

And everything she's ever owned in her entire childhood was a hand me down. Most of the clothes were made by her mother because they couldn't afford to buy clothes. And so they trickled down through the siblings until it got to Donna. Right. [00:41:00] And I was 

wondering what we were going to call her. 

JIm Gebhardt: And in Donna's case, she has had, and she still does, Has a challenging relationship with money from a scarcity, fear, I can't spend it.

It's not so much I can't spend it, but just there's, there's a, there's a lot of money baggages that has come as a result. And when we asked that question of she and her husband and her husband didn't come from a wealthy family or an affluent family, but there was always enough money wasn't an issue.

Right. Right. And I remember Donna telling us stories about, you know, when dinner was served, there was a little bit of a fight at the table on, you know, who got to the table first, cause there was a limited amount of food they had. They ate, but. You know, just a very different, you know, from on the other side of it being a very comfortable, you know, they went on nice family trips and they had a new car every once in a while and you know, their money wasn't a stressor.

Right. And it is vitally important for us to understand this. Yeah. Vitally [00:42:00] important. Oh, sure. Because it forms so many of the habits. Like we, we, we tell lighthearted jokes about our super senior clients, right? Our 95 year old clients. And you're working with one right now while he's not 95. We know when he dies, You gotta go through the house with a metal detector.

You gotta open up walls, open up, oh there's gonna be open up gold. You're gonna be looking for floorboards. There's gonna be golden cash 

buried all 

JIm Gebhardt: over that house. Everywhere. Yep. Everywhere. Yeah. And while we kind of joke about it, like it's from the movies or something, there's history to that. There's reasons.

One of our clients whose mom lived in Las Vegas the last few years of her life, and she was in her, I mean she was, she grew up during a depression. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

JIm Gebhardt: She's been gone for 15 years. And I suggested to the, to the daughter. I said you need to go through every can, every can in the, in the kitchen, every box, every shoe box, every purse, every pocket, you gotta look for loose floorboards.

Every Bible. She found books. I have a client who stashes cash in her Bibles. Found [00:43:00] over 10, 000 in the house. Nice. Yes. In 20s. Oh, my favorite denominations. Squirreled away all over the place, right? So this conversation and the question of Non sequential, I hope. Right. Yeah. Of your money history Yeah. Starts to give us clues as to perhaps some of the behaviors You're going to share with us.

And ultimately, when we start to get into the, the kind of the money remodeling part of the conversation, where you may have some hang up. I 

can't stop thinking about, and what am I going to call them? Let's call them Todd and Eleanor. That's not their real names. I remember when Todd and Eleanor came into the office.

They have a net worth north of five million dollars. She was angry with him because he never wanted to travel. All he wanted to do was putter around the house and play with his motorcycle. Every time she would [00:44:00] go spend any money shopping at Target, I seem to remember, I seem to remember Verizon Bill. A hundred and ten dollar Verizon Bill.

She just, he ripped her a new one in my presence. Ripped her a new one. And what was amazing was that the first couple of times we got together with them, watching how they would talk over each other, cut each other off, be very, very divisive, when any, any, any kind of money thing would come up. They would just disagree with each other.

And finally, okay, stop, stop, stop, stop. And this was long before you and I had formally introduced this conversation of kind of getting started on the right path, understanding your background, financial security, how money was treated in your family growing up. And I, and I stopped them and looked at both.

I go, okay, stop, stop, stop, please guys, we're not getting anywhere. Todd, what was money like for you as a kid growing up? And then I asked Eleanor the same exact question and to [00:45:00] watch these two Todd in particular Look at his wife and say what do you mean? What was money like growing up as a kid? We didn't have any I shared a bed with my three brothers.

I had to pin my pillow to my bed Bedsheets so I didn't lose it in the middle of the night Which I've only heard one other person ever described something like that before and that's my mother in law Who had to do the same thing as a kid growing up with 13 children in a house and all fighting? for the same attention from their parents and food and to watch Eleanor's face as Todd was telling the story about growing up as a kid Fighting for space in bed.

It was almost like You She had a new appreciation and understanding and a little bit of compassion for why he everything melts such a A pain in the butt sometimes over how she spends money all the money stress between them 

JIm Gebhardt: completely melted 

And if I recall 

JIm Gebhardt: didn't she say i'd never i've never heard you talk I mean, they've been married 30 years 

30 years.

I've never heard that story before 

JIm Gebhardt: right? [00:46:00] Hello. It's incredible. Hello how 

that 

JIm Gebhardt: talk about 

vital Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean I i'd like to think that you know You and I are just a couple of financial planners who like to do things different what i'm finding Is It seems like we're more relationship counselors disguised as financial planners because a lot of times, these questions we ask, it's not like you and I are doing anything.

We're just, we're asking questions that's getting people to talk about things they've never shared with one another before. And by sharing some of these things with your partner, you learn so much more about each other and it answers so many of the questions about where we maybe disagree on money. It's the number one reason why we don't charge by the hour.

JIm Gebhardt: Oh, there you go. That's pretty smart. If we charge by the hour, Oh, we'd be so wealthy. Everybody, everybody, well, yeah, but everybody, I mean, I hate being on the clock. I hate, I hate working with any kind of a professional that's by the hour because it doesn't invite, encourage, or facilitate [00:47:00] conversation. 

No, it makes every conversation an economic decision.

JIm Gebhardt: It's an economic decision. I'm trying to do this as fast as humanly possible and get in and get out. You know, because I know the clock's running, right? I mean, we have different attorneys that we work with in our business that it's six minutes, right? And Generally takes you and me 20 minutes to say hello, right?

So That doesn't really work in the hourly model. It's not that we require the conversations We just we love it and we encourage it because where else in life do you get to sit down and talk? So, for a block of time, we don't have TVs blaring with CNBC, Jim, what's his name, isn't barking at you over some stock idea.

Right. Right. We don't, there's not a lot of hubbub or chaos. It's a very quiet, your conference room, my conference room are quiet, tranquil, tranquil places where we are inviting the conversation. 

Yes. When you think about this question we've asked, and then you think about the question that follows up from, what does financial security look like?

What Transcription by CastingWords Was money like [00:48:00] growing up as a kid? We have to have That kind of environment because the next question is where we really really start to get closer to bone, right? We're getting below the surface and we're getting you know really down to stuff that that can tell us about who you are and where our work can begin together and and that is What keeps you up at night about money?

What do you worry about? with money. And if we start from a place of what financial security looks like, it allows us to really explore what these fears, worries, obstacles, right? What, what is it that we, I mean, this is really the triage, right? This is really the, when we identify what keeps us up at night about money, this is kind of where we start our work.

So what, you know, what's that for you? Is there anything at this point? That keeps you up at night about money or me or not necessarily keeps you up at night because for you and me I don't think anything with money keeps us up at night anymore. What do you worry about with money Beth's 

JIm Gebhardt: worry? [00:49:00] It's not my worry.

Her worry is I die and sure there's life insurance But there's probably not a lot and I've got some things health wise that are gonna make it challenging for health insurance, right? Or life insurance right now. So it her worry is my worry. I honestly I don't I don't worry about money I, I mean, as I've said to you and I think I've said on the show, the scarcity that I've had around money my entire life, which, you know, no offense to my parents, but it comes from my parents.

Sure. And we weren't poor. We weren't rich. We were perfectly middle class, but there was always scarcity talk around money. Sure. And if it wasn't spoken, it was unspoken. And, or there was comparison, comparison to the Joneses that had, you know. That had this or they had that or they had the fancy lake house or you know We don't 

let me steal all the joy from the moment and compare us to our neighbor 

JIm Gebhardt: Sure, I had been riddled with that my entire life and in the last I don't know I wish I could put a defining moment on it like in the last [00:50:00] Three years.

Yeah four years probably somewhere slightly post covid Two three years. Yeah, it's gone. Yeah, and beth even asked me the other day. She's like so you I mean You She still worries about money a lot. Sure. And this isn't a comparison either. It's like, I, I honored that. I respect that. I mean, that's why I'm saying my worry is her worry.

Like I desperately would like to rid her of the, the scarcity and the fear around money, but I can't, right. That's her own journey. And I can't do that, but the freeing, the freedom that comes from not worrying about money. Hoof. Hoof. I would say at times in my life it was unimaginable. Sure. And now I would just say how, I don't even, I can't even put it into words, how unbelievably good it feels to not worry about money.

Now, am I independently wealthy? No. Do I need to go to [00:51:00] work? Yes. But I know what the business that we have That, that's going to provide a certain amount of income, as long as we do our job and show up and take care of our people. Sure. And, in honor of my mother, that's ample. 

Yes. And you also have shared with me, you and I are on the same page with this.

That if all of that went away tomorrow, because of some legislative stroke of the pen. We can restart it. 

JIm Gebhardt: Would it be 

fun? There'd 

JIm Gebhardt: be parts of it that would be fun. There might be like 2 percent fun. There'd 

be 

JIm Gebhardt: a lot of shoveling. 

Well, and whether we started the business again doing what we do now, or we decided to pivot and do something completely different.

Life 3. 0. Which I can see you and me at some point saying, you know, this has been fun. We'd like to pivot and do something else in our old age. But, you know, because that's the entrepreneurial mind, right? The creative, building something, having impact kind of mind. 

JIm Gebhardt: Yeah. 

Yeah. And Sustainers we are not. No. No.

We're builders. We're creators. We hire people on the team to do the [00:52:00] sustaining part for us. Because that's their unique ability. Exactly. What you're sharing about your lack of financial fear. This. Freedom you have. Again, not financial independence. No. But financial freedom. Freedom from money. Mm hmm. This money freedom that you have.

What I want the tribe to be really clear on is that this is what the whole wealth journey is about. Has delivered for you. Oh, yeah. This is the product what what's so challenging great point What's so challenging about the podcast platform? Is that it's really really hard when we're talking To actually model the behavior that we're trying to talk about and that to me I like to make my decisions, and I like to follow leadership based on what I see people doing, not on what I hear them saying.

Oh, hello. Right, because there's so much bullshit in the world today, right? Are 

JIm Gebhardt: we, are we, are we going down an off ramp of politics [00:53:00] right now? No, no, we're not gonna, I promise, I promise, 

we're staying out of the 24 election right now. We're not going, we're not going there. Okay, back to Switzerland, here we are.

But it's a leadership conversation, and I'm, I'm so attracted. to watching and seeing the behaviors of others and watching them walk the walk. And, and I think one of the things we're, we're trying to do here on the podcast is even though this is a talking platform, we're trying to express and show through example, how we live our lives, how our clients have chosen to live our lives based on the principles of the whole wealth journey.

So back to the regularly scheduled program. You are a product. Of living the whole wealth journey and what I think we've done a decent job of, we're doing a better job of now is taking it and making it real, taking it out of concepts from our heads, observing what we've been through personally, writing it down and realizing there's, there's a method to this madness.

[00:54:00] And it really starts with getting clear. Excellent point, brother. 

JIm Gebhardt: Excellent point. 

I mean, you, you are it. This is, I hope our tribe, thank you. I hope our tribe, realizes the work, the time, the commitment, what you've had to do to get to a place where you have this freedom from money. Now the promise I think you and I can make, we don't, you and I don't make a lot of promises to people unless we know we can keep them.

And one of the promises you and I love making to people when they come see us is if you do what we do and you follow. The modules of the whole wealth journey Despite being incredibly uncomfortable at times This is what we predict your outcome to be now. Let me be impossible to misunderstand I am not promising that your 401k is going to grow by a certain percentage every year.

We don't do that around here, right? We can't promise returns or specific dollar [00:55:00] amounts. There's a feeling Of being wealthy. There's a feeling You Of having freedom from money of Achieving financial independence one day. 

JIm Gebhardt: Yeah. I also as you're saying all this the other word that's coming into my head is a level of confidence Yes Oh, absolutely.

It's a it's a as we've said many times on the show and we'll say many more is there's a level of clarity that comes through all these conversations. Yes. That leads to a greater sense of confidence in your financial future. Yes. Your current situation as well as your financial future. 

Yes. 

JIm Gebhardt: Because of that clarity and ultimately you end up with a whole new tool bag of skills, which is a higher, greater level of capability.

Yes. Not just in yourself, but in kind of the personal advisory board that you start to assemble when you have an advisor. And the proper CPA and the proper estate planning attorney and, you know, whoever else mortgage broker, whoever else you need on that personal advisory board. That freedom is a byproduct of all 

[00:56:00] of that.

Yes, absolutely. So I'm going to suggest we push pause again and ask yourself that question and get it out of your head. Let it ripple down through that right arm or left arm of yours onto a piece of paper. What keeps you up at night about money? What do you worry about with money? And after you write that down, spend some time with it.

Sharing that with your partner. Sharing it with someone. Make it real. Get it out there. Because you can't make progress if you don't know who the enemy is. Oh, 100%. That's the enemy. 

JIm Gebhardt: Yeah. That's the enemy. And if you're brave, like I suspect you are, dig into the why. Why is that a fear? Why are you worried about that?

And 

have no judgment around it. Tell me more. Like what the effect of that fear is coming true? Yeah, like why Like if that happens, what happens? 

JIm Gebhardt: Yeah, a little bit of cause and effect. But I, I, no, no different than, [00:57:00] you know, with a lot of gratitude. It's, you know, why, why are you grateful for that? Right? I think when you look at something as dark and challenging as your fears around money, like what's keeping you up at night?

And, you know, one of the smartest trainers that we've ever met years ago suggested that, you know, if you want a better night's sleep, dump all the crapola up in your head on a piece of paper in a journal before you go to bed to empty it out. But with, with that concept of, you know, what's the, what, what is the financial fear or fears that are keeping you up at night?

Why? And I will share that when we've had, when Beth and I have had that conversation and her fear is my dying, and I then started to think it wasn't a fluid conversation. This happened in fits and starts over the course of about a week was I started going, okay, well there's, there's this in liquid assets, there's this in home equity, there's this, this in life insurance, and.

Gebhardt group is still worth something. And when you put all that [00:58:00] together, how does that make you feel? And she was like, oh wow, I'll be fine. She's like, I don't want you to die. I said, well, I don't want to die either. But I'm, you know, we don't get to, we don't get, we don't get that choice, right? And that getting, getting into that and getting messy with it, and it's, I mean, it's hard to stay neutral emotionally on this stuff.

Sure. Cause no, no amount of my coaching or cajoling or force feeding or any, I mean, fear is fear. Fear is 

irrational. Yeah. Right? Well, you, you left something out. In that conversation with Beth that you shared with me, and I've watched you do this a thousand times, and it's just who you are, it's part of your unique ability, and that's why you sometimes forget to, like, mention it and share it, because it's just part of who you are.

You can't show Beth the whole tomato, and how much it's worth, and get her to feel better. Before you do what you do better than anyone else in the whole wide world, which is validate or fear. [00:59:00] Ah You do that better than anyone else in the whole wide world and again when we Right now we're just at the beginning of talking about some of these really really important assets that make up Our whole wealth, one of which is money.

Right. And we're just scratching the surface here on money. That's the subject in which we're qualified and licensed to talk about. Licensed, licensed. I'm going to say we are very qualified to talk about the other assets. We just don't hold any licenses there. We're going to get into some other very, very meaningful assets that make up our whole wealth.

One of which is our relationship with our people and how some of the skills that. You were born with have become aware of and therefore have worked on and become world class at are things we're going to talk about one of which is how you express empathy to people and validate Beth's feelings of fear because when you validate that and help her not feel less than [01:00:00] Because of that fear, at times, I probably have you have your human.

Yes, I am. No way. I still am ace. I'm done. Get me a new partner. I can't have a I can't sit here and kibitz with a guy who's human. I know you need a bot. I need a bot. Give me a gym bot. We need to create a gym bot AI. Where are you? You have done such an incredible job of that, that she's able to hear that we're okay.

You don't validate her fear first. She's never gonna hear that you're okay. Doesn't matter well said because you're spot on. 

JIm Gebhardt: Yeah, 

I mean no good on you can't force it. No, right? No, you absolutely can't so so here look let let we got lots of that We got so much we could sit here and will and will for days and days and days until ace kicks us out because he's got Somebody else probably that needs the mics, but for now, we're gonna we're gonna push pause This this is we're right now just getting started We talked a little in the last episode about what the whole wealth journey is and recognize if if you haven't figured this out already We're a couple of guys [01:01:00] who see money different.

We see wealth different We don't see it through. Thank you. Jill. We don't see it the same way that Wall Street trained us to see it We see wealth management as a human centered thing, it's not a money centered thing. We can still see it the way our Wall Street friends 

JIm Gebhardt: taught us to see it. We don't prefer to see it that way.

Correct. Yeah, we can. We can. We were trained that way. We still have those chips and stuff up in the hard drive. 

Yes, 

JIm Gebhardt: but 

when you and I sit down and talk about the assets It's different. It's a different conversation. Right. You and I see that there are three primary assets that make up most people's true wealth.

Correct. Money is a big one, right? But you're going to hear us talk about money in a way that's maybe a bit different. We are today showing you that a little bit. The second big asset is people. The third big asset is self. And those are the three assets that we're going to spend time [01:02:00] diving into through this curriculum.

We call the whole wealth journey. Today, we got started with money. We got started on the right path by unpacking your story. We're going to continue the unpacking your story module until we're fully unpacked. Correct. Because what we have to do now, now that we have an idea of what financial security looks like, what keeps you up at night about money now, We need to take a little inventory on where you stand.

What is your true wealth? What does it look like? Where are you with it? And I promise this is going to be a much bigger conversation than brokerage statements bank statements and how much money you make It's going to get deep, it's going to get fun, and you're probably going to learn something about yourself you didn't know.

I would actually guarantee that. Oh, well I love guarantees, especially in our world. So with that brother, let's push pause and I will say, that's a wrap. Thanks for joining us today on the Whole Wealth Journey. Whatever your path may look like, our purpose is to make [01:03:00] sure that your way forward aligns with your core values and intentions.

Are you ready to start planning for a future that's rich in wealth and well being? Then click like and subscribe and make sure you don't miss a single episode of the whole wealth journey. So if we've struck a nerve with you today, 

JIm Gebhardt: where do people 

go? You can find us at Gebhardt whole wealth. com. That's G E B H A R D T whole wealth.

com. And once you get there, make sure you connect with us so you can take the first steps to finding your why. We'll see you next time. Jim Gebhardt is a registered representative of and securities offered through Brokers International Financial Services LLC, member SIPC. Jim Gebhardt and Matthew Grishman are investment advisor representatives of Gebhardt Group Incorporated, a registered investment advisor.

Brokers International Financial Services LLC and Gebhardt Group Incorporated are not [01:04:00] affiliated. The opinions in this podcast are for informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or investment recommendations. To determine which investments or financial advice may be appropriate for you, consult a financial advisor prior to investing.

Any reference to market performance is based on historical information and there is no expressed or implied guarantee of future performance. Opinions expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect those of Brokers International Financial Services, LLC. The topics discussed and opinions given are not intended to address the specific needs of any listener.

Gebhardt Group Incorporated does not offer legal or tax advice. Listeners are encouraged to discuss their financial needs with the appropriate professional regarding your individual circumstance.